Developer Demands Nocatee Land Concessions

This stinks. Is other-directed St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR, funded by the Davis family and the PARC group, supporting this outrage?




Changes might be ahead for Nocatee
Posted: April 6, 2016 - 11:38pm | Updated: April 7, 2016 - 5:02am
By SHELDON GARDNER
sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com


Several changes could be coming to Nocatee and its development agreements with St. Johns County, such as a change in affordable housing requirements.

St. Johns County’s Planning and Zoning Agency is expected to make a recommendation on three Nocatee items that affect the Nocatee Planned Unit Development, development agreement and the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

The board also plans to make appointment recommendations for vacancies on the board. The final step for the Nocatee changes is expected at the May 17 County Commission hearing.

The PARC Group — Nocatee’s master developer — is requesting changes to affordable housing requirements and other changes such as reducing the percentage of multifamily residential buildings required. Backup materials also say an educational institution could locate there, and a land donation is being requested as part of that initiative.

Nocatee’s first house sold in 2007 after years of work that included lawsuits and settlements, according to a Florida Times-Union report. Sixty homes were sold in the following year, but sales began to increase and in 2015 the community was again ranked as the “third best-selling master planned community in the nation.”

As it stands, the Nocatee developer is required to donate 50 acres to the county for affordable housing over time and pay $800,000 in installments to go toward affordable housing. Of that, $150,000 has been paid.

The backup materials indicate the developer wants to get back 10 acres already donated to the county and eliminate the requirement for providing 50 acres total. In exchange, the developer would pay the remaining $650,000 in a lump sum.

But county officials and the developer have been negotiating, and that request is expected to change, officials said.

“We’ve been meeting with the county staff and [have] been trying to come up with a way to make it better, and we think we’ve done that,” said Greg Barbour, chief operating officer of the PARC Group.

If a lump sum is part of the agreement and approved, it would bring “a big benefit to the county’s affordable housing development,” said Joy Andrews, assistant county administrator for community services.

Fifty acres of land in Nocatee is valuable, but the land is subject to fees from a Community Development District established to pay for infrastructure, she said. That could make it difficult to attract an affordable housing developer. Andrews said the county doesn’t have the financial resources to develop affordable housing on its own.

A post-secondary educational institution could also be coming to Nocatee, officials said.

“The applicant is working with a post-secondary educational institution to potentially locate within Nocatee,” according to a county document. “This educational facility would provide significant economic benefit to St. Johns County and the region. The applicant proposes to donate approximately 20 acres within the Town Center either to the county or a private entity for the educational facility.”

If that doesn’t work out by the end of 2020, the developer has offered to pay the county to keep the 20 acres, according to backup materials.

Barbour cited real estate market changes as part of the reason for altering Nocatee’s plans — changes include the anticipated development of Durbin Creek National, which is expected to be a regional retail center, he said.

The developer is also asking to reduce from 20 to 5 percent the minimum requirement for multifamily residential buildings, to reduce from 30 percent to 10 percent the minimum requirement for multifamily residential in the Town Center Village, and to reduce from 40 to 10 percent the requirement for office space in the village.

“The applicant contends that the Nocatee DRI has constructed and will continue to construct a variety of residential housing styles and types throughout Nocatee,” according to the county document. “The reductions in the minimum percentages allow for flexibility in the continual development of Nocatee.”


COMMENTS
Morris1 04/07/16 - 01:58 am 70I don't understand.
"The backup materials indicate the developer wants to get back 10 acres already donated to the county and eliminate the requirement for providing 50 acres total. In exchange, the developer would pay the remaining $650,000 in a lump sum."
____

So, the developer has donated 10 acres so far and has pledged an additional 50 acres... and owes us 650 grand.

The developer is requesting that if we give him back the 10 acres and extinguish his obligation for the remaining 50 acres he has pledged, his offer is to pay the $650K debt he already owes us anyway as a lump sum instead of in installments?

So we're basically trading 60 acres of valuable lands in Nocatee (the open market value of which is still going to be pretty high irrespective of the underlying CDD obligations) for nothing more than the satisfaction of a relatively small debt we're already owed?

This is why people vote Donald Trump. Unless there are huge details being omitted from this story, this is an asinine deal so utterly absurd and cartoonishly lopsided, it hardly bears considering for a second.

I don't understand what is being "negotiated" here. Is someone seriously considering abandoning 60 acres of land in Nocatee to accelerate a debt payment that itself represents a small fraction of the value of those same lands? Like, seriously?

sponger2 04/07/16 - 03:47 am 70That's right Morris.
It sounds like a snake oil sales pitch to me. I would counter that that they have to tackle the affordable housing obligations themselves right now (do it and pay for it), pay the $650 large right now (the price of about two of the homes they sell), donate more land and infrastructure to support the primary or secondary school that THEY are now going to build. If we're "negotiating" that's where I would start...

What a bunch of meat heads. If it were legal, I'd have them flogged in their town center.

martystaug 04/07/16 - 07:45 am 00Post Secondary?
What do they mean by post secondary education institution? Are we talking about a college or a yoga class? Why are they not discussing primary, middle and secondary schools? This talk about renegotiating the obligation sounds like a flim-flam artist trying to pull a fast one. Hold their feet to the fire, keep the $800 grand and keep the land, and they can build their Nocatee School of Massage, or whatever they plan to build on their own land.