Staff Writer
The City of Jacksonville is charged by the State with the responsibility of developing a new plan to ensure the necessary public facilities are available to meet the needs of its growing city by July, 2011.
Senate Bill 360, passed in July, 2009, states, local municipalities “shall within 2 years after the designated area becomes exempt, adopt into its local comprehensive plan land use and transportation strategies to support and fund mobility within the exception area, including alternative modes of transportation. The same bill removed state-mandated transportation concurrency in areas designated as “Transportation Concurrency Exception Areas (TCEAs),” a term which Jacksonville was listed as. Concurrency is a growth management concept intended to ensure that the necessary public facilities are available concurrent with the impacts of development, according to the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida.
The City’s plan for compliance with this State mandate was discussed at the first meeting of the City Council’s Seaport-Airport Special Committee Tuesday. Bill Killingsworth, director of the City’s Planning and Development Department gave an outline of the City’s proposed 2030 Mobility Plan and explained that the next step in the process was to create a Mobility Planning Committee to review the plan and present it to City Council.
“I have suggested to the mayor that committee be similar to the model used for school concurrency. Four members selected by the mayor, four members selected by the City Council and one chosen jointly by both parties to serve as chair,” said Killingsworth. “The creation of this committee could be done by resolution or executive order by the mayor.”
The committee would tap the talents of the community to help the City meet the 2011 deadline for compliance.
“To get the best product available (the plan) needs to be vetted by a great many people who have different interests and different eyes,” said Bill Killingsworth, City Planning Department Director. “I’ve read this thing so many times, and it’s been through so many changes, I can’t remember what has been taken out and put in at some places.”
Under the 2030 Mobility Plan, Jacksonville would be broken down into development areas, Urban Priority Area, Urban Area, Suburban Area and Rural Area. These areas would be used in the equation to assess a mobility fee on new development. The equation would multiply cost per vehicle mile traveled (VMT) by the VMT per zone by average daily trips.
The plan also includes a five-year schedule of improvements and would differ from how the
Fair Share program utilizes the money.
“We would not collect a little money and spread it out to a lot of projects,” said Killingsworth. “We would collect a pocket of money and use that for a priority project and get that project finished before moving on to the next project.”
Killingsworth was limited on time for his presentation because a “shade” meeting was schedule for the City Council meeting on Tuesday, but Committee Chair Daniel Davis felt it wouldn’t be the last time the director would be called to speak.
“We are going to have a lot of discussion about this on all levels coming up,” said Davis.
The Committee also received a brief report from Bob Simpson, senior director of Cecil Field, regarding the status of Alenia, North America.
“Great trip to meet with the CEO of Alenia North America,” said Simpson. “If they get funding from the government, they committed that they would be located in Jacksonville.”
This was in response to Davis’ comments that there had been rumors that a North Carolina site had “gotten its foot in the door.”
“One of the last questions we asked was, ‘Are you committed to Jacksonville,’” said Davis. “They looked us in the eye and told us that they were committed to Jacksonville and that was pretty strong.”
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