by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
The various components of City Council’s Historic Preservation and Downtown Revitalization Task Force are beginning to materialize, which, as the name implies, are designed to help inject life into Jacksonville’s core city while staying mindful of existing historic buildings.
At the task force’s monthly meeting Friday, the hard work of its various committees was revealed, discussed and eventually recommended for consideration by the full Council. Over the next few months, the parts and pieces of City Council president Matt Carlucci’s pet project are expected to make the transition from committee room banter to city law. All are geared toward making downtown an attractive option for people and businesses alike.
After months of wading through codes and studying maps, City Council vice president Suzanne Jenkins unveiled a breakthrough in downtown zoning which would discard the current fragmented plan in favor of a new overlay that would provide continuity and encourage retail establishments to move back to the core city. Called a downtown zoning overlay, it would change the restrictive downtown zoning to a retail-friendly profile. Currently, downtown is dotted with pockets of land zoned CRO (Commercial Residential Office). The zoning overlay would change those pockets to a blanket CCBD (Commercial Central Business District).
“It’s going to allow the mixed use that we want to have downtown,” said Jenkins.
Currently, retail business owners looking to build on land zoned CRO must navigate bureaucracy and trim red tape to get zoning exceptions. In CCBD, the hassle is removed.
“It incentivizes people to come downtown,” added Jenkins. “It removes the regulations, the permits, the time and the money people have to spend by seeking exceptions. All that adds between six and eight months to a project.”
CCBD would also increase the percentage of land a structure may occupy on a plot. CRO requires certain setbacks from the property line, which works fine in a suburban setting but limits urban density downtown.
The overlay would encompass an area south of Union Street from the Mathews Bridge to I-95, north of the Fuller Warren Bridge and across a peninsula on the Southbank roughly north of I-95.
While retail-friendly CCBD would prevail throughout, certain pockets would remain zoned as they are to protect existing and future entities like hospitals, Planned Unit Developments and parks. Jenkins assured there would be no reduction in land use rights.
“We’re not taking anything away,” she said. “If anything, we’re adding uses.”
The zoning overlay would also curb surface parking lots in the central downtown area bordered by Ashley, Ocean, Pearl and Water streets. No new surface parking lots would be permitted within that square. Current lots would be allowed to stay, but would eventually be required to add landscaping to enhance downtown’s aesthetic appeal.
New surface parking lots built in other areas would be required to adhere to the proposed landscape requirements as well, which encourage a range of landscaping and visual enhancements like fences and facades. Pedestrian corridors would be required for large lots.
“This is one of the most important steps to revise the zoning code that has come down the pike in a while,” said Jerry Spinks, former head of the Riverside/Avondale Preservation Society.
Jenkins’ committee also developed an alternative to the rigid fire safety code to encourage developers to restore older buildings. Often, developers play a trade-off game of either taking the expensive route of preserving the historic aspects of a building to bring it within current fire codes or ignoring historic nuances by replacing them with cheaper, modern construction methods that fall easily within fire codes.
Instead, Council would move to adopt Chapter 34 of the 2000 International Building Code, which was written specifically for older buildings. While the adopted code is historically-friendly, it does not compromise safety.
Another component of the task force was introduced that could save older buildings from the wrecking ball. Proposed by Spinks, a revolving fund managed by a non-profit entity would be established to purchase and resell endangered older buildings. Case in point: the City recently saved three downtown buildings from an owner who wanted to demolish them. The City purchased them with the idea of reselling them to a historically-friendly buyer. The proposed revolving fund would be used for future like-scenarios — possibly without public money.
Spinks suggested that private companies may be convinced to give private grants to jump start the fund.
“The key is that it’s not an idea that would put another financial burden on the City,” he said. “If we have professional management of the fund, we could attract some private donors.”