Legislation that would create criteria and a process to establish customized zoning regulations and make it more difficult for the Jacksonville City Council to override those regulations could be forthcoming after a July 18 meeting at City Hall.
Council member Matt Carlucci called the meeting to discuss a bill he introduced in May 2024 on zoning overlays, which have been adopted in several areas of Jacksonville to create exceptions to the citywide zoning regulations.
Carlucci’s bill would require 13 votes on Council to approve projects not complying with zoning overlays, as opposed to the current simple majority.
He introduced the measure, Ordinance 2024-0373, weeks after Council action on The Lofts at Southbank, a proposed mixed-use development in San Marco that drew heavy opposition from nearby residents for including four floors of self-storage along with apartments and retail space.
The 10-story project at Prudential Drive and Hendricks Avenue is in the Downtown Zoning Overlay, and self-storage is not a permitted use of property.
In an 11-8 vote on April 23, Council approved a rezoning for the project to Planned Unit Development, overriding the overlay and allowing the self-storage project to be built there. Carlucci was among the members who voted no.
In the July 18 meeting, Carlucci said overlays are created by residents and subject-matter experts to protect the character of neighborhoods.
For example, he said, San Marco’s zoning overlay stemmed from community opposition to developers demolishing bungalow-style homes and replacing them with “McMansions” that were out of step with the smaller, older homes around them.
Regulations in overlays can include limitations on building heights, setbacks and land uses.
In the case of The Lofts at Southbank, Carlucci said the objective of opponents wasn’t to keep self-storage out of their neighborhood but rather to encourage residential use of the property to help spur retail activity.
“My main mission today was to explain that when overlays are broken by the Council it breaks the will, it breaks the bonds of the communities they bubble up from,” he said.
Council member Michael Boylan, who along with member Rahman Johnson attended the July 18 meeting, said he supported the 13-vote threshold for overriding overlays but was concerned it could lead to a proliferation of customized regulations.
Responding to a question from Boylan, city Planning and Development R. Brett James said the city had not established a formal process or guidelines for creating zoning overlays.
That prompted concern from Boylan and Johnson that a patchwork overlays could spread across Duval County, including in individual homeowners associations and small neighborhoods.
Boylan offered to work with James to establish criteria for overlays, perhaps including a minimum geographic area, and a process that could include noticed public meetings to gain input from residents on overlay guidelines.
Without rules in place, Boylan said, he was concerned that Council members would be vulnerable to pressure by vocal individuals to establish overlays in their neighborhoods.
“I just want to make certain that we don’t make it inviting and encourage overlays just because a neighborhood doesn’t want to have a church, a school or whatever in their backyard,” he said.
Boylan said that having eligibility requirements and an approval structure in place would create “a checklist that I, as a Council member who’s looking to introduce legislation, can say, ‘We’ve punched all these buttons in order to warrant this.’”
Carlucci asked James to suggest a framework and said he would support incorporating the overlay criteria and process into a substitute form of his legislation. The Jacksonville Planning Commission has voted in favor of Carlucci’s ordinance, which Carlucci will defer as it is modified.
Meanwhile, the Lofts at Southbank took another step forward on July 11 when the Downtown Development Review gave it conceptual design approval on a 5-2 vote.