Jacksonville mayoral candidates differ on best path for city's growth and development

Jacksonville’s next mayor will have many policy issues to tackle, and tweaking the overall vision for how, when and where the city is developed is on most candidate’s agendas in one way or another.

For a long time, politicians have spoken about the importance of downtown development and offered incentives to businesses to get them to the area. The city has even had a years-long goal of adding 10,000 more residents to the downtown landscape.

Yet, no matter what happens downtown, people seem to agree Jacksonville is always on the cusp of its potential there. This mayoral cycle’s candidates have their own thoughts on the most common proposals to improve Jacksonville’s development plans.

Residential and businesses downtown

Donna Deegan said she is “tired of seeing renderings come and go.”

“It comes with having a strategic plan that we can come back to,” she said. “We need a strategic plan that allows a variety of folks to live downtown in all sizes. We need to bring more arts and entertainment, educational centers [and] medical education. There’s all sorts of things that we could put together that makes sense for a vision.”

Omega Allen said the four elements of downtown that need to be addressed most are retail, residential, transportation and entertainment.

“Downtown is the heart of every city, and we have heart trouble,” she said. “Downtown development is definitely a must.”

Allen said most people in Jacksonville travel to the St. Johns Town Center to go shopping when the downtown area used to have a vibrancy of restaurants and retail that attracted people. Her goal is to bring that back to the city and “make it accessible to everybody.” This is a goal for Gibson, too, who said "small neighborhood business development helps neighborhoods thrive."

In a September interview with News4Jax, Daniel Davis, the only mayoral candidate who declined to meet with Times-Union for an interview, said the city has to "continue focusing on residential growth downtown and across the city."

A big part of improving the city is in supporting local businesses, Gibson said, especially those that already exist here and may want to be featured in a more prominent location, like downtown.

LeAnna Cumber said infill and downtown development are being done “completely backwards” in Jacksonville.

“The most difficult place to develop is downtown,” she said. “Every day that goes by, not only are you burning money, and it matters, but markets change. We’ve created all of these layers of bureaucracy downtown where at any layer you can be told no or change something.”

Cumber said developers can have an easier time in building their products elsewhere as a result of this. She also said she sees a lot of potential with the city but that enough isn’t being done to advance the presence of biotech, defense and health care industry presences.

Green space and parks

Frank Keasler said urban sprawl and deforestation is something we should aim to avoid.

Gibson said something she would like to see as mayor is more of an emphasized focus on river access. She said every time she visits Tampa, she thinks of Jacksonville and how the two cities could be more alike with some effort.

Cumber also brought up a goal of being more like Tampa when it comes to public spaces, particularly with the riverfront, saying there is “so much [to do] with it.”

“There is absolutely no reason why our downtown shouldn’t be amazing,” she said. “People should be stopping here, but they’re going to St. Augustine or Savannah instead.”

Deegan said she wants to put a much greater emphasis on maintaining and protecting parks and green spaces, particularly those downtown, when it comes to development.

“Resiliency is an economic and business issue for us,” she said. “I like road diets more than I like road expansions. I think that especially when it comes to downtown, we really have to create block-by-block walkable, rideable communities with amenities that people can utilize. I don’t think you can create a downtown that can be sustainable with just high-rise buildings that most people can’t afford or business centers.”

Surround neighborhood improvements

Al Ferarro said “every place in our city was the place to live at one time or another,” and a lack of both vision and commitment to follow a vision has compounded the problems with city development.

Different areas of the city became “run down,” he said, as the next spot became a more desirable option for developers, leaving behind parts of the city.

Deegan said focusing on urban core neighborhoods is a priority for her.

“If you live in a community in this city that is more than 15 years old, you are not getting your tax dollar's worth,” Deegan said. “We have to focus on those communities with our infrastructure dollars. We have to focus on those communities and [getting them what they need].”

Davis said on his campaign website that he will be a champion for better roads and improved infrastructure and drainage to "meet the needs of our growing city."

In addition to focusing on downtown, Allen said she wants to see improvements to nearby neighborhoods, such as Springfield, Murray Hill and Arlington. She said she is tired of hearing about Jacksonville’s potential and wants to know when that potential will be reached.

“Beautification is lacking, grocery stores are lacking,” she said. “All the development [you see] downtown and apartments going up, that’s not happening across the Main Street Bridge.”

Keasler said he wants to look at "every blighted area from the Trout River back to State Street, between [I-95] and the St. Johns [River]" and focus on urban neighborhoods before the suburbs or developing further into more rural areas.

Urban sprawl

As the City Council approves land parcels farther from downtown to be zoned and developed for residential or retail purposes, Ferraro said he isn’t opposed to developing more outside downtown. The issue, he said, is not following through on promises in Jacksonville.

“One of the things I don’t like to hear on council is ‘We’re doing all the required minimums,’” he said. “The thing that I have noticed, especially in my district, is that there are communities that have been around for generations that are not affected by flooding, traffic or massive trees that have fallen down. We come out there with the city and developers, and we make promises. We put them in writing saying things will look at least as nice as they were.”

It doesn’t happen that way, though, Ferraro said, adding that voting to rezone and change a community forever isn’t responsible or beneficial. He said there are places to do this where it will work out well, where there are transportation hubs and infrastructure, but Cedar Point Road isn’t one of them. Ferraro voted “no” on developing a subdivision in that area.

“The planning department is guided by what the mayor will tolerate or not tolerate,” he said. “We’re not looking for the minimum. We’re spot-zoning our city, and it’s not working.”

Cumber said she doesn’t want to see development going into green spaces, especially those owned by the local government. She said in areas like Cedar Point Road, the space is “easier” to develop because of the bureaucracy associated with developing downtown, and people start building into those green spaces instead. Cumber also voted “no” on that subdivision development — one of nine negative votes to 10 affirmative.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Mayoral candidates discuss solutions for Jacksonville's growth