Bid to guard industrial land from housing moving forward - Jacksonville Business Journal:

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"We're looking closely at the boundaries, workinvg with the stakeholders," said Sean Kelly, the city'sd zoning administrator. "There are so many properties we want to carefully evaluatre land that has future potential forindustriapl use." City Council member Lad Daniels said he expect to present the map overlay along with a zonin code rewrite to the council by March. He pland to propose legislation to designatew certain landfor industrial-only growth so that residentia l developers could not request zoning allowancesw to convert it for multi-use projects.
"We need to look down the road 20, 30, even 50 yearse out, and make sure to set asidde lands forjob creation," said Daniels, who is also presideny of the , a regional trad group representing more than 300 manufacturing companies. "Wherde they ought to be is in mostcasea obvious, for example around the marine port and the airport and Dames Point, around Cecil Field, aroundr Talleyrand." Daniels said he would also like to see industrialo areas around the Mathews Bridge, the shipyardx being built for Asia shippe r Mitsui OSK Lines and Naval Station Mayporft preserved.
He is considering speciapl industrial designations for parts of Edgewood Avenus onthe Westside, as well as the Butlef and Baymeadows areas on the Southside, wher substantial amounts of office and light-industrial land have been convertef to residential. Daniels' industrial sanctuary the culmination of work by a city task force called the IndustriaklPreservation Committee, is based on a report by Orlando-basex planning consultants called the Industrial Demand The task force was created a year ago with a senss of urgency because the housing boom was encroaching on land long assumef to be where businesses would locate.
Since the housinh slowdown, the task force continues with amore long-term "The recent drop in the housing market has probablyh slowed the issue down in the shor t term as some housing developments in the proces of converting office and industrial to residential may said Jerry Mallot, executive director of the 'as . "If the housing boom hadn't slowedx and if Cecil Fielxd hadn't remained private, we would be facing an immediatr shortage of industrial Cornerstone officials support the task force recommendations asa public-sector aid in recruiting businessea to locate in Jacksonville, which has been challenging becausde of a scarcity of large tracts of industrial Mallot said.
The Industrial Demans Study recommends that the numberfof industrial-zoned land areas be increased and realigned to group or "bubble" industrial zones. Heavy industrial uses require a minimum of15 acres, while mega sitesw need about 1,000 contiguoues acres to be competitive in the marketplace. Only two mega sitesz remain in Duval County that have correcgt zoning and proximity to utilitiesand transportation. is trying to sell a 1,365-acrer parcel off Interstate 95 at PecajPark Road. And about 1,000 acres of light industrial land is still availabl at Westlake Industrial Business parks for corporate headquarters generally need about50 acres.
Only five such sitesx exist inDuval County, according to the study. On the where land is still there are wetlands and environmental protectiohn andmitigation issues. On the Westside, there are concurrency issueas withresidential developments. As an the study mentions OakLeaf Plantation, a 6,400-acre mixed-use projecrt with 11,000 homes beinvg developed near Cecil Commerce Inrecent years, land valuews have skewed in favor of residential developerzs who have been willing to pay top dollar for tracts of light industrial land.
It has been relativelgy easy to get them rezone forresidential uses, said Howard Fleming, presidenty of He expects approval at his next meetinyg with the city's planning department for Burnsedx Station, a mixed-use project between Faye and Eastporf roads near State Road 9A. It is within the zoninbg allowances for him to buildthe project's 75 townhomew and 25,000-square-foot retail center on land designated light "The law says I can do it, and untill they make a change in the law and say I can'tg do it, the planning department has to OK Fleming said. "They can't say, 'We're we don't like the direction this is heading.
' That would be the city takingv myproperty rights." Malloft agreed that property rightds must be taken into account. He said therse needs to be a solution thatcombines politics, law, privatew business leadership and community action.