A Lesson for the Outer Beltway dreamers

[jandar]

There is a lot of right of way already owned by the state.
The FDOT owns right of way from I-10 to Blanding Blvd, enough for a 4 lane highway and service road.

http://www.fdotfirstcoastouterbeltway.com/forum_docs/Handout%206%20-%20Right%20of%20Way.pdf

Shows current and needed right of way. They need the part from Blanding to Green Cove (but once again, its developers who own a lot of the land there).

So even if you kill the entire expressway, the part from I10 to Blanding would likely be completed.
199 Million needed for the Clay County part, 170 million for the Duval part. The rest of that part has already been built out.

[north miami]

Alternative transportation-
If not by now-when??
After years of involvement and insight with Clay county matters,I sold the family place on Black Creek and moved to Avondale.
I am aware of many 'fleeing' from Clay or making concerted decision to avert Clay location.

[jandar]

We need commuter rail to Fleming Island, that would alleviate a ton of traffic up 17 and from middleburg area.

While some flee into Duval, many are still moving ouot from Duval to St Johns and Clay.
Many of us are screwed either way.
My wife teaches in Clay County. If I moved close to work off of 9A, she would commute.

We need other transportation for all of NE Florida other than more roads.

[Ocklawaha]

When we go rail, remember JTA must be up to the job of redeployment of that large bus fleet so people in places like Flemming Island and Middleburg, will be able to catch a bus in front of their neighborhood that will reliably put them at the train station on time, every time. This is where they should be attending to the proposed BRT routes. I would scrap most of the BRT trunk lines they have drawn, and replace it with rail, BRT then becomes the "secondary mainlines", collectors to heavy population centers, and heavily traveled routes to rail. We must not build any more "Blanding type" bus lanes, until JTA is ready to assume 10-20 minute headways. You just don't build expressways for one bus per hour.

OCKLAWAHA

[CS Foltz]

Ock I agree! Bus Rapid Transit is a contradiction in terms and no bus can run at train speeds or with the passanger loads that a train can haul! Bus versus train is not a contest from either hauling capacity or efficiency!

[thelakelander]

Or economic development.  There's nothing wrong with BRT, when developed to do what it is supposed to do.  The critical flaw occurs when proponents attempt parade it around as an equal alternative to rail.  Instead of being either/or, try complementing by using BRT to funnel riders into rail trunk lines (as Ock stated above).  This solution is superior in terms of transit and economic development.

[stjr]

"Bus" and "rapid" would seem to be impossible to use in a sentence together.  "BRT" is just another marketing term to over promise results we will never see.  Just like the futuristic sounding "$ky-high-way" that has delivered a dud of inefficient, unreliable, useless technology, not the space age advancement in travel it's name would imply.

[buckethead]

"Bus" and "rapid" would seem to be impossible to use in a sentence together.  "BRT" is just another marketing term to over promise results we will never see.  Just like the futuristic sounding "$ky-high-way" that has delivered the depths of dispair, not the crsytal blue sky days it's name would imply.

Lest we forget: Greenland was another such misnomer.

[north miami]

In the late 1970's/early 80's Clay County Planning Director Dick Post warned that we were 'buying the farm' .....through unwise land use decisions on the local level,which would compromise transportation and a host of regional interests.

[CS Foltz]

In case no one has ever notice........History has a habit of repeating itself!

[north miami]

OK-so it's a given.....many should reconsider their move to Clay County.

I have been steering folk away for a long time.

This is a needed service- to 'predict the future' via knowledge of obscure "planning" process- letting people know the details of the fact that what they see...and are sold....will not be what you get.

Bumper sticker:  Welcome to the First Coast-where Miami begins!!

[north miami]

The reason the southern route has staying power is simple: Jack Myers/Reinhold Corp.
We had to work mightily to keep the alignment out of the Ravines Conservation area,including brazen bid to WMD by Myers to swap lands for Ravines,which we fought back and that is why the original gentle arc one depicted has become gerrymandered but a southerly route is retained.

All one has to do is track key Reinhold land holdings and events.
Florida Trend pronounced Jack Myers "the man to watch" as he transitioned from Disney and focused on the Clay land holdings.

Also interesting to track speculative land purchases in anticipation of the extension of Kingsley Avenue to B/C- this did not happen but the two separate parcels with boundary on the proposed Kingsley centerline are still a part of Clay public records.Official Record Book & page 557-539 and 574-27

For the truly inquisitive- follow land title and learn what happened to parcels along the Brannon/Chaffee;OR Book & Page 270-214,695-285,63-83.
Many blind trusts-hard to reveal the direct players without other narratives revealed.
Or consider the fact that the Trust For Public Lands held option on 1800 acres- for a short time.

This is just for starters.

[stephendare]

This Jack Myers?
http://jacksonville.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/stories/2005/04/11/story7.html

CLAY COUNTY -- Seven years ago, residents and community leaders in the Lake Asbury area decided to take the future of development into their own hands.

"Residents were becoming concerned about a lot of subdivisions popping up," said Thad Crowe, Clay County planning director. "Lake Asbury proper had been 2- to 5-acre lots, but the new [subdivisions] were 50- to 60-foot lots, which is a higher density. People were getting really concerned."

The plan that is the result of concern over how the rolling hills and natural creeks would be affected by continued residential and commercial development is expected to be approved by late June, when Clay County commissioners sign off on the Lake Asbury Master Plan's final version.

A document that will guide growth for years to come, the plan encompasses 30,923 acres bounded by Black Creek to the north, Peters Creek on the east, State Road 16 to the south and Black Creek South Fork on the west. About 18,000 acres within its boundaries are undeveloped.

The plan's approval isn't coming too soon, proponents say.

With 162,779 residents last year, Clay County grew by 53.6 percent from 1990 to 2004 as development in its northern suburb of Orange Park pushed south to the Branan Field and Lake Asbury areas.

While the county completed its sector plan for Branan Field to the north, its focus on Lake Asbury was suspended for about 18 months, Crowe said.

In the meantime, county planning staff determined a master plan for its next targeted growth area would be more flexible than the sector approach, which is guided by statute.

"Master planning has allowed us to look at this in a detailed way that includes the whole spectrum of public facilities," Crowe said. "We can be as broad as [road] carrying capacities and as detailed as evaluating wetlands and soil types. ... We wanted to look out as far as we could to shape our community and control growth.

"We could either be reactive or proactive. We chose proactive."

The county's "pro-active" ideas include promoting neighborhood links between greenway trails, landscaping rather than fencing around subdivisions and low, rectangular "monument-style" business signs.

Houses will be built using different styles and sit on lots of varying sizes, while streets will feature on-street parking in retail areas. Office buildings will be designed as smaller structures within a neighborhood and trees will line the streets.

The area has an estimated 3,000 residential units on its horizon, in addition to Jacksonville-based LandMar Group LLC's recently announced Saratoga Springs, a planned 2,444-acre mixed-use development that would sit partially within Lake Asbury boundaries and would include more than 4,000 houses, two schools and a hospital in its 15-year build-out plan.

The focus on Lake Asbury isn't expected to subside, Crowe said, particularly since the proposed construction of an outer beltway, which will connect Clay and St. Johns counties to Intertstate 95 to alleviate traffic congestion, is getting closer to a reality and land north of Black Creek is "filling up rapidly."

Reinhold Corp. CEO Jack Myers agreed.

As head of a Clay County-based company whose 29,000-acre property includes 8,000 acres inside the Lake Asbury boundaries, Myers has been involved in the planning process since its beginning.

Rather than worrying it might hinder the potential development of his family's land, Myers said he supports the master plan as assurance that environmental corridors, roads and schools will be incorporated into upcoming development plans.

Myers declined to comment on development plans for his company's land, which includes about 18,000 acres of timberland, a 400-acre nursery business and 10,600 acres of vacant uplands and wetlands and roadways, but said his family would remain committed to "responsible growth" in the area.

"My family has owned this property for 75 years," said Myers, a former vice president of international marketing and product development at Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS). "We have always felt we've been very responsible, good stewards of the land. We feel this is the next step as growth comes."

[north miami]

Yes.

Note too the mantra of "Inevitable Growth" that 'must come".

Beyond that Biz Jornals and the like of very little comprehensive reporting involvement or value.

We assume that the public's government must grant('vest') additional development rights in the face of "inevitable" parade of growth.

Jack Myers & Co. have been key drivers behind the beltway.He made brazen attempt to force the alignment through the Ravines.The more he speaks of his honor the more we take cover and assume the worst.

[north miami]

By the way- the highly touted master plans 'adopted by the county' in fact were sector plans authorized bty the state DCA and subject to DCA review,observations,comments and recs.
Brannon/Chaffe and Lake Asbury.
State had to excercise keen oversight- Florida Wildlife Federation lodged key objections.Had it not been for this involvement the county's face value version would have proven of even more impact.

and- Lake Asbury Sector Plan # 1,after months of activity and contentious public hearings which threatened the predetermined ravines route outcome,including a 'time out' for review by the 'planning pros' at regional Planning Council....was deemed NEVER AUTHORIZED BY DCA.FTU was great in reporting the opening of Sector Plan events...but lagged later.FTU Binyamin Applebaum was frank with me as to the column inches cut and left on the floor at the FTU.
Clay's county Planning director Thad Crowe during all of this had come from Prosser Hallock Planners and Consultants (Nocatee).Prosser Hallock was retained by the county for Lake Assbury #1,with Thad at the helm of the county post.Earlier Brannon/Chaffee Sector Plan saw Genesis Group selected by the county.Genesis group did interject in Assbury on behalf of.....??