What the Mobility Fee can do for Downtown Jacksonville

3. The Mobility Fee attempts to level and playing field between market rate suburban and urban development



There is a reason it tends to be cheaper for private development to operate in areas outside of downtown.  It is because we have subsidies development in these areas for several decades by bearing the brunt of the costs associated with constructing new infrastructure, such as highways.  Prime examples of these subsidies are currently coming in the form of the First Coast Outer Beltway and State Road 9B. This creates an uneven playing field when evaluating the redevelopment of previously occupied sites. The mobility fee somewhat levels this playing field by passing the cost of infrastructure needed to support new development to the new development that generates the need.

Coupled with incentives for infill and redevelopment, along with investments in multimodal projects that enhance livability in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, it stimulates a downtown business environment where private investment makes fiscal sense because of the higher quality-of-life offered.




A three year moratorium on collecting mobility fees not only stymies economic development and job creation in the suburbs, it also negatively impacts efforts on the revitalization of downtown Jacksonville.  Clark's moratorium hurts downtown by preserving a system that subsidizes bad growth patterns on the city's fringes at the expense of the city's heart, leaving taxpayers to pick up the pieces.  Let's put this bad idea to rest and let Jacksonville finally proceed with an economic move into the 21st century.

Article by Ennis Davis