T.R. Hainline can drive down the Butler Boulevard corridor and see how his efforts have helped the area boom with neighborhoods and businesses.
He can do the same on the Northside along Max Leggett Parkway, one of the newer and busier stretches of an area where more and more homeowners are moving.
Atlantic Beach, Baymeadows, Bartram Park, Julington Creek, Southside, even developments in Clay and St. Johns counties. Hainline’s work has led to projects rising in those areas and more.
He hasn’t lifted a hammer or driven a skid steer to make them spring from the ground.
Instead, the Rogers Towers local government attorney for more than 30 years has been in City Hall, community groups and homeowners associations to help see projects come to fruition.
How many exactly? He offers a small chuckle when trying to think of a number.
“Many,” he said. “I couldn’t even put a number on it, really.”
Much of his work is on behalf of developers, which doesn’t always make him the most popular guy in the room.
Some residents or business owners worry about extra traffic or the environmental impact to their area. Others just don’t want a new development, period.
Hainline understands those concerns.
“Their house is really important to them,” he said. “They get worked up over it. … I would, you would, too.”
When people get angry — and they sometimes do get angry — Hainline never takes it personally. Instead, he listens to understand their concerns and tries to work out any issues.
Most times it’s a matter of education. There are worries about stormwater impacts and flooding, but those are among the easier concerns to allay — there are many regulations in place that prevent such negative impacts.
Traffic would be more of a “middle-range” issue, he said. People don’t always realize the amount of improvements developers end up paying for on the traffic side, so it’s a matter of explaining.
Listening is the key — ignoring is not.
“You get a quicker and more efficient result when you work with neighbors and neighborhood groups rather than stonewalling them,” he said.
Sometimes, though, trying to compromise with a group doesn’t work. Every veteran land-use attorney has one of those stories they can recall right off the top of their head.
“Oh, yes,” said Hainline.
For him, it was the early 1990s when Hainline represented American Environmental Services, a company that sought to build a hazardous waste transfer site off New Berlin Road in North Jacksonville.
It was a need for the area and was more than safe, he said, but people were having none of it.
“People heard the word ‘hazardous waste’ and they went nuts,” said Hainline.
Opposition was strong and the facility was never built, but years later a ruling by a U.S. district judge forced the city to pay more than $1 million in damages to the company after determining its constitutional rights were violated.
It doesn’t always go the way developers want it to, but Hainline tends to be on the prevailing side.
That was especially true pre-recession when Hainline spent 90 percent of his time working with national homebuilders on developments. Pulte Homes, D.R. Horton and Beazer Homes were mainstay clients during those booming years.
“I worked more hours in those years than any other time in my career,” Hainline said of 2004-07. “Developments were everywhere.”
Those years of massive growth weren’t destined to last, though. Shortly after, the bottom fell out of the economy and homebuilding greatly suffered.
“I should have known something was going on,” he said, with a laugh.
Laughing is something he enjoys and tries to bring others, too.
When not in the office, City Hall or neighborhoods, one might find Hainline entertaining on stage.
He’s taken part in several community theater productions and for the past couple of years has been a fixture with Awkward Silence Jax, a sketch comedy group.
Hainline, 58, is the oldest among the group of 20- and 30-somethings, but he greatly enjoys the atmosphere and camaraderie that comes with performing. He plays a variety of roles, but gets a lot of reaction for his portrayal of CNN political host Wolf Blitzer.
And despite what some impacted residents might believe, Hainline is an environmental advocate.
He served for more than a decade on the Timucuan Parks Foundation, formerly called the Preservation Project, which acquired land across Duval County for protection from development.
“We have a pretty good focus in Northeast Florida in preservation,” he said.
His ideal scene is away from it all, spending time in one of the country’s national parks. He often goes on excursions with his wife or three grown children, especially his youngest son, Brendan.
It’s a pretty big difference from the roads he travels in town, seeing firsthand how his behind-the-scenes work has helped Northeast Florida grow.