Submitted by Suanne Z. Thamm
Reporter – News Analyst
December 19, 2019
Members of the Fernandina Beach Planning Advisory Board (PAB) joined the Fernandina Beach City Commissioners (FBCC) for a summary report on community and staff input to the recently initiated review of the City’s Comprehensive Plan. City Planning Manager Kelly Gibson and Margo Moehring, Managing Director for Policy and Planning for the Northeast Florida Regional Council (NEFRC), walked both boards through the findings and asked for guidance in moving forward with actions.
Commonly called the EAR process (Evaluation And Review), this review of each city’s Comprehensive Plan occurs every seven years. Comprehensive planning is a process that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The result both expresses and regulates public policies on transportation, utilities, land use, recreation, and housing. The State Comprehensive Plan is reviewed annually, and
local plans are updated every five to seven years through the Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) process. Through that process, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has the formal opportunity to evaluate proposed amendments to the comprehensive plan, which are based upon the evaluation and appraisal report, to ensure that they are consistent with DEP’s rules and policies.
Through a series of slides, Gibson and Moehring highlighted the major areas identified during a series of public meetings held in April designed to solicit input. The complete file including meeting agendas, notes and suggestions may be found at http://regcominstitute.homestead.com/~local/~Preview/Fernandina-Beach-EAR-.html?_=1555091844791.
The report provides a snapshot of where the city is today and how external factors influence planning for the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Growth management is an overriding theme.
Existing land use is represented in the pie chart below.
The most important local issues identified by the public are presented below.
Discussion at the workshop identified three looming tasks:
1. Adding the three legally mandated areas of state concern to the city’s plan by September 2020: the impact of seasonal population on the Future Land Use Map; a water supply facility work plan; and high risk flood areas.
2. Rewriting the existing Comprehensive Plan into a more realistic and achievable plan
3. Rewriting the Land Development Code (LDC) to align with the Comprehensive Plan and to eliminate inconsistencies or conflicts
The City Commissioners expressed a desire to accomplish all three tasks, but recognized that the most immediate need was to address the three areas mandated by the state.
How to get it done
It became clear throughout discussion that accomplishing all three tasks would require extensive staff time, perhaps as much as 5 years to complete, and/or adding an outside consultant to work with a designated project manager. Gibson indicated that it would cost $350K to engage consultants to draft a new or revised Comprehensive Plan and to revise the LDC.
The consensus among the meeting participants appeared to be to separate preparing revisions needed to meet statutory requirements from what everyone acknowledged was a pressing need to rewrite the Comprehensive Plan and the LDC. Consensus also seemed to support engaging consultants and a project manager with an implementation plan to rewrite the Comprehensive Plan and the LDC as opposed to assigning these tasks to existing planning staff.
PAB members Richard Clark and Genece Minshew indicated support for bringing in consultants, with the proviso that they work under the direction of a city staffer who would be available at all times to provide history and background regarding the need for various changes or local requirements. They also stressed the importance of having the consultants work on site in the City. PAB member Victoria Robas also expressed concerns that current planning work would suffer if the Comprehensive Plan and LDC rewrites were assigned to existing staff.
Breaking down public input
While the report is too extensive to include in this article, overall themes of the major elements as identified during public input meetings are provided below:
- Future Land Use Element: The policy context that encourages development needs to be replaced by a policy of growth management.
- Multi-Modal Transportation: Congestion issues on all major roads
- Housing: Review and modernize concurrency for housing reflecting current conditions and capacities
- Public Facilities: Need to collaborate with the County on all aspects of capacity of systems on Amelia Island
- Conservation and Coastal Management & Recreation & Open Space: Much consensus on the importance of these policies
- Intergovernmental Coordination: Modernize the element to reflect current and desired collaboration on issues beyond the control of just the City
- Capital Improvements: Consensus on 4 issues:
• Need for a 20 year Capital Improvement Plan, recognized as a plan and not a budget
• More emphasis on maintenance and operating funding
• Consider capital projects with longevity, life cycle and maintenance costs in mind
• The need for information sharing and coordination with the military is critical (airport is an example)
- Port Facilities: The port should not increase its current footprint and should use its assets to the benefit of the port and the city
- Public School Facilities: Schools require intergovernmental coordination between city, School District and County
- Historic Preservation: Very important element for the city. Several concepts were supported including expanding the Historic District, effects of climate change on historic buildings, guidelines for new construction.
- Economic Development: The environment should be considered whenever economic development is considered
The expanded presentation is available as a PDF file via Public Records Request from the City Clerk’s Office.
Group discussion
City Commissioner Chip Ross suggested that the city first deal with those statutorily mandated elements which need to be added to the existing Comprehensive Plan by September 2020 and then move on to a separate process to deal with the recommended changes and considerations raised via the EAR public meetings. Ross said that in light of existing and anticipated workloads, he would suggest that a consultant be brought on for the revision of the Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Plan.
Vice Mayor Len Kreger agreed with the need for the rewrites of the Comprehensive Plan to produce a product that is “realistic and achievable.”
In response to a question from City Commissioner Mike Lednovich, Gibson estimated that the cost for a consultant to rewrite the Comprehensive Plan and make the required changes to the Land Development Code would be around $350K. If these tasks were to be handled in house, Gibson estimated it would take about 5 years to complete the work, with the elements being tackled on a priority basis as identified by the FBCC. She said that each topic would require 6-8 months of work, with some more controversial ones possibly taking a year.
Gibson said that since the last EAR was done in 2009 the workload of the planners has increased significantly with the uptick in the economy. In 2010 development was at a virtual standstill, so all planners could concentrate on the Comprehensive Plan review and changes. Today there are many more cases coming before the various boards and more counter visits that require planners’ attention and focus.
PAB Member Richard Clark said that he was impressed with the quality of the input provided during the April EAR public meetings and that he did not want to see the city lose that momentum. He suggested that based upon his experience, Gibson’s estimate that the total review and revamp of the Comprehensive Plan could take 5 years if done in house was optimistic. “If you do the work in a piecemeal fashion,” he said, “it ends up taking a lot longer. It’s a very inefficient way to go about it.”
“I think the idea of using a consultant is real important here,” Clark said. “If we don’t do so, we are missing a real opportunity.” He went on to suggest that the process of using a consultant is extremely important. It would be a mistake, he opined, to give the job to a consultant who would work offsite in isolation. He believed that there must be constant interaction and feedback between the consultant and staff, the FBCC, the Planning Advisory Board and the general public. “If it’s done properly, hopefully there is a big group of people who understand exactly what has been done and the FBCC is ready to move forward to adopt the recommendations.”
Kreger agreed with Clark, adding that there would be a need for a city liaison to be working with the consultant as part of the revision team. “Philosophically, we need to decide if we just want an award winning plan or do we want one that works — an effective plan with no contradictions? We need to be extremely careful how we do this,” Kreger said.
PAB Member Genece Minshew agreed that there should be two separate processes. She also said that in contracting out such work, the city would need a full time project manager, who would be pulled out of their regular job, to interface between the city and the consultant. “You need a stakeholder group with whom you regularly interact,” she said. “You also need to give serious consideration to collocating the consultants with city staff, so that they can get answers quickly and become part of the process.”
In response to a question from City Attorney Tammi Bach, Gibson said that she also believes the Land Development Code needs to be rewritten. She said the current code has become cumbersome and needs to be streamlined and simplified.
Breaking it down
City Manager Dale Martin reminded the FBCC that there are only 3 items that need to be addressed by September 2020 to meet the state mandate. He felt that could be done within weeks or months. “Why don’t we just do the minimal amount required to address the EAR Statute — and then address the entire rewrite process?” Martin asked. He said that such an approach would preclude investing significant time and effort on these three topics that might change again as part of the rewrite of the entire plan.
Moehring suggested that other communities have done work on some of these mandated changes to a greater or lesser degree. Bach said that State law requires that goals and policies must be stated in the Comprehensive Plan by September 2020, but all the studies do not need to be completed by then.
Gibson said that the city could take a minimalist approach, but in her experience, such an approach is not readily accepted by the community. Lednovich asked if there were a middle ground. Gibson replied, “It’s really a question of community values. Are you comfortable leaving the Comprehensive Plan pretty much as is or are you building on the energy created earlier this year [through the public meetings] and responding in a way that is meaningful to the community? That’s pretty much the middle road.”
Lednovich asked for three options at the next FBCC meeting on ways to address the EAR comments.
Ross stressed that he supports the need to do all the recommended rewrites. But he wanted to make sure that “we don’t get lost in the forest when the current problem is dealing with 3 trees [the statutory requirements].”
Kreger agreed with Ross. “Let’s get the easy part done before moving on with the hard part,” Kreger said.
Bach reminded commissioners that Fernandina Beach has a very engaged community that will spend time analyzing proposed policies and specific language. “If we were doing this in a vacuum, we could have it done like that [snap of fingers]. But to satisfy the concerns of the community, this is a longer process,” she said.
Currently, there are no funds budgeted for a consultant.
Editor’s Note: Suanne Z. Thamm is a native of Chautauqua County, NY, who moved to Fernandina Beach from Alexandria,VA, in 1994. As a long time city resident and city watcher, she provides interesting insight into the many issues that impact our city. We are grateful for Suanne’s many contributions to the Fernandina Observer.