by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
By splitting a pair of mayor’s office requests for money to buy and improve park land, the City Council could impede public access to boat ramps and beaches, the mayor’s Council liaison said Friday.
Paul Crawford said both the land and improvements are critical parts of the mayor’s plan to create a diverse, accessible park system. The mayor’s office originally sent the Council an all-inclusive $4.6 million request. The Finance Committee separated the funding into individual bills. Each will now need separate Council approval.
Crawford said he was concerned that the land buys might have a tougher time getting past the Council. The Finance Committee is a particular concern. Chair Warren Alvarez has said he doesn’t like the City buying land.
“The City has a tendency to buy high and sell low,” he said at a committee meeting late last year. Alvarez recommended the Council consider the funds separately at last Monday’s Finance Committee meeting.
Alvarez has said he prefers land be kept in private hands where it generates tax revenue for the City. That’s a policy the mayor’s office usually supports. But in this case, Crawford said the land is necessary to connect other tracts of land already owned by the City. Without these purchases, Crawford said the City’s parks system would be interrupted by a series of gaps that could prevent the use of boat ramps, canoe launches and trail systems.
Even if the Council approves about $2 million to build improvements, Crawford said many of those improvements would be rendered useless without the land. For instance, he said a boat ramp planned for Cedar Point would be off limits unless the City buys a strip of land separating City land from the waterfront.
“We could face a situation where we have a boat ramp, but we can’t access it,” he said. “The purpose of this bill to begin with was to improve the land. By adding improvements, but also by fixing access issues.”
“I understand Councilman Alvarez’ position: he doesn’t want the City to buy land. But given the importance of the land to creating an accessible park system and the fact that the purchases will be reimbursed by the state, we just want to communicate to the Council what we’re trying to do.”
Crawford said the City would be reimbursed half the $2.6 million cost to buy the land. The money for both bills would come from Preservation Project funds, said Crawford.
If both bills are approved, the City will have raised about half the total budget for phase one of the Preservation Project’s park accessibility plan. Phase one envisions the development of nine parks stretched across Duval County. The parks range from waterfront to Civil War sites. The City expects the state to pay for just over half of the first phase.
Phase two, scheduled for late fall, would cost $2.7 million to further develop the park system. The City expects Florida Communities Trust Grants to pay about 82 percent of that cost.