Subdivision by Jacksonville nature preserve faces new hurdle in neighbors' legal challenge
Neighbors who opposed the Jacksonville City Council’s decision to rezone land for a subdivision surrounded by state parkland have asked an administrative judge in Tallahassee to review a land-use change that made the rezoning possible.
The request could mean plans to develop the proposed Terrapin Creek subdivision at 6131 Cedar Point Road will be delayed until a judge in the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings decides arguments in a petition for a formal hearing from a lawyer representing about 20 landowners along Cedar Point and Sawpit roads.
The 49-acre property is surrounded on three sides by Pumpkin Hill Creek Preserve State Park and sits near other parkland in the 7 Creeks Recreation Area, an area that critics of the rezoning said should remain rural and largely untouched.
The 38-page petition raises multiple objections to the council’s Jan. 24 decision to change a land-use map in Jacksonville’s growth plan to treat the subdivision site as “rural residential” land instead of agricultural.
Those range from arguments that a published notice the issue was going to the council didn’t include a required property map to detailed arguments that the change the council approved was inconsistent with policies in the city’s growth management plan.
The council approved the rezoning by a 10-9 vote Feb. 14.
Any argument that’s successful might undo the rezoning, because the subdivision with 60-foot-wide lots the council approved couldn’t be permitted on agricultural property.
Administrative Law Judge E. Gary Early on Friday told lawyers for the neighbors and the city to talk and get back to him within a week about possible hearing dates, but he didn’t otherwise take any action.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: To fight Jacksonville rezoning, neighbors ask judge to undo other change
