There was a large crowd at the St. Augustine/St. Johns County Board of REALTORS® first meeting of the year to hear Teresa Bishop, planning director of the St. Johns Growth Management Services Department, speak about her division.
Bishop said CR 210, which is currently undergoing a road widening to handle the increased traffic, and the Julington Creek area are two of the fastest growing areas in St. Johns County.
Through the Comprehensive Plan and future land use map, St. Johns County is identifying the growing areas in their county and planning for the future.
“We struggle with infrastructure needs,” said Bishop. “The Board of County Commissioners struggles with this quite a bit. We need to figure out how to get the funding in to get the infrastructure that we need without relying so much on development to do it, like what is happening on CR 210.
“A lot of the issues in St. Johns County go with the rapid growth that is occurring. Growth is not bad. Growth in my opinion is progressing and that’s what we should be doing. But, it’s how we are progressing and the form that we need to take. It is an education process and an evolving process to get us to think beyond what we want and think of what our grandchildren might want.”
Bishop said the mission of the Planning Division is to manage growth and development within the county through the implementation of the Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Code in order to protect the natural environment and provide economic stability, residential diversity and recreational opportunities to ensure a sound quality of life for all the residents of St. Johns County.
“We work very hard to try and implement this goal,” said Bishop. “We are trying to do very great things and trying to get as much done as we can as quickly as possible to provide the best customer service we can to the real estate community, citizens and business partners.”
She said her department deals primarily with site development and land development including infrastructure and horizontal development, rather than vertical development.
The planning division is divided into five different sections: Current Planning, Long Range, Special Projects, Environmental and Transportation and Concurrency.
The Current Planning section deals with their day-to-day activities including customer service, front counter service and reviewing all the plan applications that come in.
The Long Range section handles ongoing long-term projects including the A1A Scenic Highway program and William Bartram Scenic Highway program.
The Special Projects section handles special projects including Waterfront’s Community Redevelopment Project at Vilano Beach.
The Environmental section works very closely with the current planning section because they review all of the permits that come forth for environmental purposes and for environmental regulations.
Transportation and Concurrency section works closely with Current Planning reviewing all applications for transportation and concurrency purposes.