Plans to build a 250-unit student housing community near the University of North Florida campus are headed to the Jacksonville City Council for final approval after clearing a Council committee April 15.
The Council Land Use and Zoning Committee voted 6-0 to recommend approval of a request to rezone about 17 acres along First Coast Tech Parkway between Glen Kernan Parkway and Butler Boulevard for the project.
Kevin Carrico, chair of the LUZ Committee, was not present for the vote.
The approval came on Ordinance 2025-0178, which contained the rezoning, and on condition that the applicant provide a traffic study at civil site plan review.
If approved by the full Council, the ordinance would rezone the property from Industrial Business Park to Planned Unit Development.
Documents accompanying the ordinance list the property owner as University of North Florida Foundation Inc. The complex would be sandwiched between UNF’s Hicks Hall, which is across First Coast Tech Parkway to the west, and a single-family neighborhood to the east. That neighborhood stretches from Glen Kernan Parkway south along Hunterston Lane.
Steve Diebenow, a land use attorney for Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow PLLC, is the applicant.
Diebenow told LUZ committee members that the proposed development would help facilitate plans by UNF to increase enrollment to 25,000 by 2028. Current enrollment is about 16,000.
In consideration of the nearby single-family property owners, Diebenow said, the project is set back 185 feet from the nearest home, with all buildings oriented so that outdoor activities within the complex will be shielded from the neighborhood.
The buildings will be set back 60 feet further from neighboring structures than an adjacent complex to the north, The Flats at UNF.
“We feel like we’ve been sensitive to everyone around” the property, Diebenow said.
Council member Will Lahnen, whose District 3 includes the site, said he supported the project thanks to a layout and design that would limit its intrusiveness on the adjacent single-family neighborhood.
In addition to being set back by a significant distance, he said, the buildings’ height is lower than that of The Flats. The housing will not have balconies facing the residential area and the buildings will be separated from the neighborhood by a 50-foot berm.
No one spoke in opposition to the rezoning.
City Planning and Development Department staff recommended approval of the ordinance with the condition of a traffic study. The Jacksonville Planning Commission voted unanimously in support of the rezoning April 3.