A proposed 110-unit development along Old Kings Road South advanced through the Jacksonville Planning Commission July 23, earning a recommended approval on a unanimous vote despite pushback from an adjacent neighborhood association.
After hearing requests from the San Jose Neighborhood Association to restrict the development’s access to a public road and create a barrier between the development and existing homes, commissioners voted 8-0, with commissioner Sean Hall absent, to advance the application without those restrictions.
Those votes came on Ordinances 2026-0477, which would change the land use to medium density residential, and 2026-0478, which would change the zoning to a Planned Unit Development. A PUD allows uses, regulations and standards tailored to a property.
The proposed development would take place at 7401 Old Kings Road S., the 12.41-acre site of the former Kings Trail Elementary School. The project would stretch from Old Kings Road to another development bordering Powers Avenue.
Dream Finders Homes is the developer, with Live Oak Contracting serving as engineer and architect, according to the Planning Department staff report.
The neighborhood association presented five requests to the commission for consideration in the project, none of which received commission endorsement. They were:
• Requiring all vehicular access to the neighborhood to go through Powers Avenue, using a roadway that would be developed next to the nearby Samuel W. Wolfson High School and through the adjacent YMCA property. Neighbors asked for a deferral for the YMCA to consider the proposal.
• Including a 35-foot buffer between Old Kings Road South and the project, created by reusing bricks from the former elementary school, along with trees and landscaping.
• Capping building height at 10 feet along Old Kings Road S. and 20 feet closer to Powers Avenue.
• Making provisions for wetlands restoration.
• Ensuring that at least one person aged 55 or older live in each unit, in accordance with the federal Housing for Older Persons Act. One of the permitted uses in the developer’s application would be housing for the elderly.
Attorney Paul Harden, representing the developer, spoke against each of the requests.
“You look at (the requests), none of them are reasonable,” Harden told the commission. “Now, that being said, some of them we may end up doing anyway.”
Harden noted that the 30-foot height restriction placed on the property was already lower than the 35-foot restriction on the houses across Old Kings Road South. He also said the developer was obtaining its wetlands permit, and that his development did not require a buffer.
The general claim of the neighbors was that the development did not serve a public purpose as Powers Avenue had already seen substantial development in the last three years.
“The true change in circumstances for this property is the recent housing boom itself, which has fundamentally altered the planning baseline, and demonstrates that additional (medium density residential development) is not a public necessity, specifically in this node,” said Chrissy Kinne, the government relations representative for the neighborhood association.
The commission did not agree with Kinne’s sentiment.
“We have people moving here. They’re moving here regardless. A lot of people don’t want us to build these sprawling neighborhoods throughout the suburbs and keep going further and further out,” commissioner Michael McGowan said. “We have people that want to build here, so there certainly should be demand if somebody’s willing to risk many millions of dollars to build it.”
With the commission vote, the matter will progress to the City Council Land Use and Zoning Committee, which is set to take the issue up August 4.
Leaving the July 23 meeting, Kinne told the Daily Record that the “San Jose Neighborhood Association is ready for litigation.”