Please attend and speak your mind on longer extension for Madeira PUD, until 2027! Minimal modification to prior extension proposal. Whaere is the public interest in this misbegotten project? Golf course should be restored. Affordable workforce housing should be constructed. Otherwise, this annexation/PUD extension ain't nothin' but an interminable turkey of a travesty, presenting still-unsolved environmental contamination issues involving arsenic, violating the Fifteenth Amendment by diluting minority voting strength, destroying the historic 1916 Ponce de Leon Golf Course designed by Donald Ross. What do you reckon?
Madeira headed to third hearing before St. Augustine City Commission
Posted: February 19, 2016 - 11:15pm | Updated: February 20, 2016 - 7:22am
By SHELDON GARDNER
sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com
Extensions for the Madeira PUD will get another chance before the St. Augustine City Commission on Monday, but the proposal has undergone some changes.
For one, the developer’s new request adds more years to the extension time frame.
In January, city commissioners first turned down a request for more time to complete the development, which has 74 of 749 proposed houses completed.
The property contains 21 acres of commercial land on U.S. 1 North, a 10-acre public park and about 583 acres of protected wetlands, according to the city.
The project broke ground more than 10 years ago. At more than 1,000 acres, Madeira once included the Ponce de Leon Golf Resort and Convention Center. The city annexed the property in 2001, and the Madeira Planned Unit Development was approved in 2004.
When the request for more time was first turned down in January, the developer was asking for five more years from Jan. 1, 2016, to complete Phases I and III and five years from Jan. 1, 2018, to complete Phase II.
The request now is that all phases of the development would have to be completed by Jan. 1, 2027, instead of the former separate phasing request — which would have extended to 2023.
Ellen Avery-Smith, attorney for the applicant, said the request for additional years is “just to make sure that the whole project can be completed in a timely manner and no further extensions are required,” she said.
Also, rolling the phases into one is in response to confusion about phasing that came up at a commission meeting, she said.
“Completion” is defined in the application as including a few qualifications: city approval of construction plans for horizontal infrastructure; installing the horizontal infrastructure or posting a bond with the city for 110 percent of the estimated cost; and the completion of common area, public land and conservation easement dedication obligations or posting a bond to the city for 110 percent of the estimated cost, according to the city.
Other additions to the PUD include requiring the owner/developer to build a sidewalk along with reconstruction of Ponce Island Drive. The sidewalk would lead to the public park.
Also, the park would be dedicated to the city after meeting requirements such as reconstructing Ponce Island Drive and making sure any arsenic remediation is finished and approved for the park area.
Arsenic was used on the golf course part of the property years ago, and Avery-Smith said her client is in the midst of the remediation of the property required by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The cleanup process has been in the works for years.
On Monday, commissioners will also rehear an ordinance to assign city land use designations to the property.
In other business
■ Susan Pourciau, director of homeless training and technical assistance at the Florida Housing Coalition, will give a presentation.
Mayor Nancy Shaver said she heard Pourciau talk in Orlando on homelessness and invited her to present at the meeting. Shaver said she believes “we can ... make homelessness history,” and part of that effort is education.
“I’m hoping this is the start of just a broader understanding [of] what contributes to homelessness,” Shaver said.
■ The city will present to the St. Augustine Garrison the Adelaide Sanchez Award, which honors historic preservation efforts in the city.
Created in 1984 by nonprofit group the Historic Florida Militia, the St. Augustine Garrison “is a group of re-enactors who portray the life and times of the Spanish soldiers and their families in 1740s Colonial Spanish Saint Augustine,” according to the group’s webpage. Garrison president Robert Alvarez and Historic Florida Militia board member Maria Alvarez will accept the award on the Garrison’s behalf, according to the city.
“The Saint Augustine Garrison has been bringing the city’s history to life for millions of people for more than three decades,” according to the city. “The organization’s unwavering commitment and unique role in the interpretation of St. Augustine’s history will be recognized by the City Commission.”
Recipients of the award get a miniature statuette in the style of the lions at the west end of the Bridge of Lions, according to the city.
COMMENTS
Peta B. 02/20/16 - 07:48 am 00Generation-skipping "deadlines"
"The request now is that all phases of the development would have to be completed by Jan. 1, 2027"
2027. And it was approved in 2004. So that's 23 years all together, from approval to completion. Nearly a quarter of a century. Children who were not yet even a twinkle in their parents' eyes when this project was first approved will have graduated college.
This is a project which will have literally taken a generation to complete.
"Ellen Avery-Smith, attorney for the applicant, said the request for additional years is “just to make sure that the whole project can be completed in a timely manner"
In no one's estimation is taking nearly a quarter of a century, an entire generation, to complete a project, considered completing it "in a timely manner."
sponger2 02/20/16 - 09:24 am 20And they will keep coming back...
Until they get what they want. That's because the spineless jellyfish that call themselves the commission have proved to the developers that they will bend over on our behalf if they just keep asking.
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After all the commission approved 7 more years for the Sunset Point PUD in 2015 which was originally approved in 2002. Twenty years to build 82 homes. You have to be kidding me. By the way the PUD had actually expired in 2014 after the state's extentions for PUDs had expired, but the city called it a PUD modification. Guess who notified the city that the PUD expired? A resident who lived in Sunset Point. It is very disappointing to see that a developer's agreement in getting their PUD approved is not worth the paper it s written on.
ReplyDeleteAfter all the commission approved 7 more years for the Sunset Point PUD in 2015 which was originally approved in 2002. Twenty years to build 82 homes. You have to be kidding me. By the way the PUD had actually expired in 2014 after the state's extentions for PUDs had expired, but the city called it a PUD modification. Guess who notified the city that the PUD expired? A resident who lived in Sunset Point. It is very disappointing to see that a developer's agreement in getting their PUD approved is not worth the paper it is written on.
ReplyDelete