ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. — Action News Jax now has a letter sent from the Florida Department of Commerce late last week to the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners, rejecting the county’s “2050 comprehensive plan.”
The plan is St. Johns County’s roadmap for development and growth over the next 25 years. It covers everything from managing new developments to improving the roads and planning sites for new schools to go up.
Commissioner Ann Taylor has only been in office for less than a year, but tells Action News Jax that years of work went into creating the more than 200-page plan.
“It’s an insult to every resident in this county,” Taylor said, “to just have it come back and be denied is really devastating.”
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Action News Jax reached out to the Florida Department of Commerce to learn more about its decision to turn down the plan, but the department referred us to its letter instead of providing an interview.
The letter references a certain land development regulation included in the plan that the department calls too “restrictive and burdensome” to approve. The department referenced a law signed earlier this year that blocks local governments from passing “restrictive and burdensome” regulations for land development within a year after a hurricane makes landfall, allowing for streamlined construction of homes and other properties damaged in storms.
Some St. Johns County commissioners claim the rejection is a move by the state to open the door for more development across the entire state. Part of the reason is that the part of the comprehensive plan the state took issue with would require any development in St. Johns County 40 acres or larger to have 10% of the land remain untouched. Right now, commissioners tell Action News Jax only 5% of that land would be protected from development.
“Frankly, they’re taking away control from the voter and the people that want what they want for their county,” St. Johns County Commissioner Chair Krista Joseph said in response to the rejection of the plan, “we’ll need to figure out how we can work the system and get it to be okay for Tallahassee to work with us instead of against us.”
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There are now more than two dozen cities and towns in Florida that have joined together in a lawsuit against the state because of the law they claim could take away their powers of controlling development and growth in their communities. St. Johns County is not one of them.
Action News Jax reached out to some of the other St. Johns County commissioners for their response to the rejection of the comprehensive plan, but none were able to speak with us.
Commissioners Joseph and Taylor told Action News Jax they are unsure how long the county has to rework and resubmit the plan, but there is a conversation expected to come up during the board of county commissioners’ meeting scheduled for next Tuesday.
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