Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter-News Analyst
The Fernandina Beach Community Redevelopment Advisory Board (CRAAB) assembled at City Hall the afternoon of May 6, 2013 to plan and strategize for the June visit of Carol Westmoreland, Executive Director of the Florida Redevelopment Association. Westmoreland, will spend most of June 13 in Fernandina Beach, touring the community redevelopment area (CRA) and in a public workshop with Fernandina Beach City Commissioners (FBCC), CRAAB members and city staff. She accepted the city’s invitation, initiated by the CRAAB, to help foster a better understanding of CRAs and their potential value among city decision makers. Two city commissioners—Mayor Sarah Pelican and Commissioner Pat Gass—are also scheduled to attend Westmoreland’s overview training session on CRAs in Jacksonville on June 12.
CRAAB members identified several key questions for Westmoreland to address, including:
• How have CRAs benefitted other Florida communities?
• Where did Fernandina Beach get off track with its CRA and how can that be reversed?
• Does the current Fernandina Beach CRA Plan need changes or tweaking?
CRAAB members asked Kelly Gibson, the senior city planner who staffs the CRAAB, to invite a wide audience through public notice and notifications to CRA property owners, downtown business owners and Historic District residents. There was also consensus that the entire citizenry would benefit from improved communications to help them understand that an improved CRA can benefit all parts of the city, not just the downtown area.
CRAAB discussion encompassed items that needed clarification or further explanation during the workshop and beyond to help both the FBCC and the public understand the nature of the CRA, it potential benefits and its future direction. Audience member Steve Rieck, Executive Director of the Nassau County Economic Development Board, emphasized that the CRA needs to restore economic activity areas that have been lost over the years.
City Commissioner Arlene Filkoff, the FBCC liaison to the CRAAB, spoke to the need for the CRAAB to clearly articulate CRA goals and to be able to determine when those goals will have been met. Scott Moore, president of the Historic Fernandina Business Association and CRAAB member, said that decision makers and the public need to better understand that the city is in competition with other places in Florida for investment, tourism and new residents. Benefits from CRA development, he said, will be felt throughout all areas of the city, not just downtown.
CRAAB member Lou Goldman reiterated that CRA money will not be spent to improve private property, but will be spent primarily in three public areas: the waterfront park, the city marina, and the park across 2nd Street from City Hall. He said that although the CRAAB recommendation is to extend the life of the CRA 40 years, if the benchmarks for those projects can be achieved earlier, the CRA could be closed out earlier. CRAAB Chair Mike Zaffaroni said that he wants the CRA to become a job center. He also expressed concerns that too much discussion could lead to renewed focus on planning, which would push action further down the road.
Other points made during discussion included: the need to better engage the public in both understanding and supporting the CRA; making the CRA real to the FBCC by boiling down the mountains of detail to basics; revisiting earlier efforts to obtain support from private property owners for a boardwalk over their submerged lands to the north of the city marina; outlining a “bare bones” goal for the CRA; better defining the term “development” in the CRA context.
CRAAB members also received a report from member Andy Curtin on the April 16, 2013 joint FBCC—Ocean Highway and Port Authority workshop that covered port needs for security (including need for improved lighting and signage), parking, rights-of-way, and long range planning (reported previously in the Fernandina Observer). Board members also briefly discussed the recent email exchange between City Manager Joe Gerrity and would-be CRA developer Dick Goodsell, also reported previously in the Fernandina Observer.
Absent any expressed need to meet again in May, the CRAAB determined that its next meeting will be held on June 3, 2013.
May 8, 2013 9:28 a.m.