A bid to create a new board to review land development matters in Northeast Jacksonville died March 25 when the Jacksonville City Council voted 10-7 against it.
Council member Mike Gay sought to establish the Northeast Jacksonville Development Review Board, which would have supplanted the city Planning Commission in reviewing requests for rezonings and land use changes in an area roughly bordered by the St. Johns River to the south, Main Street to the west, the Duval County line to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Gay’s District 2 includes Northeast Jacksonville.
Yes votes came from Gay and Council members Michael Boylan, Tyrona Clark-Murray, Rory Diamond, Terrance Freeman, Will Lahnen and Ron Salem. Voting no were Council President Randy White, Vice President Kevin Carrico and members Ken Amaro, Raul Arias, Joe Carlucci, Ju’Coby Pittman, Nick Howland, Matt Carlucci, Rahman Johnson and Chris Miller.
In rejecting Ordinance 2024-0851, which contained Gay’s proposal, Council members commended him for acting on his constituents’ interests but raised concerns that creating the new board would prompt other areas to adopt their own special review boards and lead to a spread of government.
Another concern was it would undermine uniform planning across the city, resulting in patchwork zoning.
Gay, who introduced the ordinance in December 2024, said the specially designated review board would give residents of Northeast Jacksonville more influence in determining whether development in their vicinity fit the unique character of the area.
He described the area as being like no other in the region due to its mix of heavy industry, suburban neighborhoods, parks, preserves, beaches and 15 islands.
The board would have been similar to the Downtown Development Review Board, which was established on the idea that Downtown is different from other areas of Jacksonville and therefore deserves a specialized board to consider development within its boundaries.
The DDRB reviews all development and redevelopment projects Downtown in accordance with special zoning regulations and design guidelines that apply to Downtown. Its members are required to be a mix of professions and interests, such as architects, contractors, planners and Downtown property owners.
“This is not a new process, because the DDRB is already there and this is formatted just like that is,” Gay said. “It’s not like I’m reinventing the wheel. It’s working Downtown, and my thought was we coud take a quadrant of the city and do it in this quadrant.”
As was the case during other public meetings about Gay’s ordinance, several residents spoke in support of the proposal. More than a dozen attended, several of whom told Council members that the area was suffering from overdevelopment, particularly with multifamily projects. The surge of new construction has overtaxed roads, drainage and other infrastructure, they said, and they urged Council to allow them more control over future projects.
Among Council opponents of the ordinance, a theme was that the solution for the issues raised by Gay was to reform or improve the Planning Commission as opposed to creating new boards with similar duties. Ideas included restructuring the board to include representatives from all 14 Council districts and moving its meetings to evenings instead of their current start at 1 p.m. on every other Thursday.
Johnson said establishing review boards in different areas would result in a “hodgepodge” of zoning that would “deconsolidate the work we’re doing to try to put our city together.”
“We need to fix the root of the problem, and what that means is fixing the Planning Commission,” he said. “Let’s start there. Let’s not start by circumventing the process.”
Like the Planning Commission, the review board would not have had final authority on rezonings and land-use amendments but rather would have provided recommendations on them to Council.
With Gay’s assent, his ordinance came to the final Council vote March 25 with several compromise amendments.
Among them, the board would have included five members who live in the boundary and four members of the Planning Commission, with the chair of the Planning Commission also leading the northeast board. That amendment was in response to criticism that creation of the northeast board would disrupt attempts to impose uniform planning across Duval County.
The development board also would have included parts of Council District 8, which Gay said was aimed at nurturing “harmony of he community, to be able to bring people together.”
Other amendments called for the board to be established on a one-year trial basis, during which time no similar boards could be created, and required it be meet in the same room as the Planning Commission to save staff time by not having to travel to meetings.
Some Council members, including Lahnen, said they were willing to see how the pilot program performed and then take further action based on the results.
Lahen said he was concerned that the Northeast development board would spawn 13 other similar boards, would duplicate the efforts of the Planning Commission and overlap with the area’s Citizen Planning Advisory Committee. However, he said he would support the pilot and looked forward to seeing how it would be evaluated.