by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
Is there something about your neighborhood you think should be changed? Would you like to be involved in the planning of City projects or private developments that could affect your neighborhood?
If you need the City’s help to make any of those things happen, there’s a way you can be heard.
In 1995, then-Mayor Ed Austin signed into law the “City of Jacksonville Neighborhood Bill of Rights.” It mandates that every “organized, officially recognized” neighborhood has the right to expect and receive a certain level of service and performance from the City’s officials, employees and agencies.
Some of the criteria specifically mentioned in the legislation include:
• Prompt, courteous, informed responses to all questions regarding City business.
• Advance notification of any City-related public works or utility project taking place within or adjacent to a neighborhood.
• Notification of the submission of any application for zoning, rezoning or land use variance or exception, Development of Regional Impact (DRI), or PLanned Unit Development (PUD) application or other significant land use action.
• The opportunity to participate in the design of publicly-funded projects within or adjacent to the neighborhood including the opportunity early in the planning process to express neighborhood preferences.
• Opportunity for formal input into the annual budget process, including the opportunity to express preferred City government priorities, suggested capital improvement projects and other statements that fairly represent the opinion of a majority of a neighborhood’s residents.
Toward those ends, there are six Citizen Planning Advisory Committees (CPAC) to promote communication between the City and the constituents it serves. The district boundaries of each CPAC correspond to the six planning districts as established by the City’s 2010 Comprehensive Plan: Urban Core, Greater Arlington and the Beaches, Southeast, Southwest, Northeast and North.
Each CPAC holds 10 meetings per year at a location within the district, each month except July and December, and the groups are empowered to make recommendations regarding any topic of concern in their district or the city at large.
Members of each CPAC are appointed by the mayor and volunteer their time, but residents of any neighborhood are welcome to attend the meetings and offer their input, which becomes part of the public record.
Last week the incoming chair of the 2010 Urban Core CPAC, Doug Vanderlaan, had a meeting with Marilyn Fenton-Harmer, a neighborhood coordinator with the City’s Housing and Neighborhoods Department who is the CPAC’s liaison. A City planner is also assigned to each CPAC.
The Urban Core CPAC encompasses Downtown including the Southbank, Springfield, Brooklyn, Eastside and Northside up to the Golfair Boulevard area.
The purpose of the meeting was to plan the group’s agenda for next year in terms of objectives and to suggest guest speaker options from various City departments who will attend the CPAC’s meetings to give presentations and answer questions.
“I work with the CPAC members to help make their time more effective,” said Fenton-Harmer, who also records and publishes the minutes of the meetings and delivers the CPAC’s input to the mayor’s office.
She also said while each CPAC “has its own flavor,” every CPAC has “an environment where people will talk and share ideas.”
Vanderlaan, who lives in Springfield, said one item of interest he thinks will be a hot topic in the urban core next year is home weatherization programs to insulate houses and reduce energy consumption.
“The money is there, the need is there and it’s an environmental issue,” he said.
Other things Vanderlaan mentioned as possible Urban Core CPAC objectives for 2010 were vacant properties, garbage and trash control and two issues involving youth and education, particularly underperforming public schools.
“It’s a complicated issue because many students who live in the urban core go to D and F schools that are outside the boundaries of the CPAC,” he said. “And childhood obesity as well. Those would be good issues to work on with the School Board.”
Fenton-Harmer said the number of members among the six CPACs can vary from a few dozen to as many as 100 and residence within a particular CPAC is not a requirement to participate.
“As long as you live, work or have a vested interest in a CPAC, you can be a member,” she said.
To learn about CPAC boundaries, meeting dates, times and locations visit www.coj.net, click on “Boards and Commissions” then select “Citizens Planning and Advisory Committees” or call 255-8200.
356-2466