The two developments<\/p>\n
Commissioners gave the OK for two projects called Heritage East and Heritage West.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two chunks of land, 615 acres and 550 acres respectively, sit near the busy intersection of Interstate 95 and State Road 207 in southwest St. Johns County.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The proposals, from companies connected to homebuilders MasterCraft Builder Group, could result in as many as 13 homes per acre, or nearly 15,000 homes, built on either side of the highway.<\/p>\n
Under the new law, the county had to rule whether the land fit the definition of an agricultural enclave in order for the developers to move forward with submitting development plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Members of the County Commission made it clear that they were looking for any possible reason to deny the applications even if the eventual vote was in the developer\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look at these agricultural enclaves as a preemption from the state, and I\u2019m not happy. I\u2019m not happy with them at all,\u201d\u00a0 commission Chair Clay Murphy said. \u201cBut what I discovered is that when you get into this position is, whether I\u2019m happy or not is not the deciding issue. The deciding issue is \u2018What does the law say?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Heritage-East-and-Heritage-West.webp\")
The boundaries of the proposed Heritage East and Heritage West development areas, highlighted in yellow | St. Johns County Property Appraiser<\/p>\n
The approvals for Heritage East and Heritage West passed by 3-2 votes, with Murphy, Whitehurst and Commissioner Sarah Arnold in support. Commissioners Joseph and Ann Taylor voted in opposition.<\/p>\n
4,000-plus acres near Nocatee<\/p>\n
The County Commission delayed making a decision on one of the enclave applications: a more-than-4,000-acre development north of Nocatee and right up against the intracoastal waterway and Duval County line.<\/p>\n
That proposal comes from the Davis family<\/a>, the founders of Winn-Dixie and PARC Group, the developer behind the sprawling Nocatee community.\u00a0<\/p>\n The County Commission delayed making a decision on whether the 4,462 acres fit the definition of an agricultural enclave to allow county staff time to confirm the shape and size of the land\u2019s northernmost boundary.\u00a0<\/p>\n The commission is scheduled to make a final decision on whether to move the proposal along during a meeting at 9 a.m. Sept. 1. If it moves forward, representatives for the developer say the plan is to build one home per acre, or 4,462 homes.<\/p>\n The development plans will go through all of the existing checks and balances for developments with the county\u2019s staff, like checking for school concurrency and the load on the area\u2019s natural resources. Neither project, however, would come back before the County Commission \u2014 or the public \u2014 for approvals.<\/p>\n Amid complaints from members of the public and the County Commission about where all of those new cars would go, Attorney Ellen Avery Smith, representing the Davis family and PARC Group, said the board must follow the letter of the law, however new and unpopular it may be.<\/p>\n \u201cI know you\u2019re in a bad spot,\u201d she said, \u201cbut \u2026 it is the law of the state of Florida and we would respectfully request that you follow the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Potential legal challenges?<\/p>\n Ahead of the hearings for the agricultural enclave applications on Wednesday, the County Commission discussed potential legal challenges<\/a> to the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite calls from County Commissioners Krista Joseph and Ann Taylor to sue the state over the new law, the county\u2019s legal counsel, led by attorney Richard Komando, said Tuesday that the county would be on better footing to defend a challenge from a developer than to challenge the state outright.\u00a0<\/p>\n At this time, the County Commission decided not to move forward with suing the state, but the makeup of the board is about to change.\u00a0<\/p>\n After Tuesday night\u2019s primary election<\/a>, another growth skeptic is set to join the Board of County Commissioners in December. Martin Pyszczymuka, who is vocally opposed to the current pace of the county\u2019s growth, is slated to take over the seat currently occupied by Sarah Arnold.\u00a0<\/p>\n But she could be removed sooner. Arnold is one of two members of the County Commission under criminal investigation for involvement in distributing a fraudulent voter guide<\/a> during the 2024 election cycle. The county has called on Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/a> to remove her sooner than December.<\/p>\n Coming soon<\/p>\n In addition to the three agricultural enclave applications heard by commissioners Wednesday, St. Johns County Growth Management Director Mike Roberson confirmed that the county has received three more applications:<\/p>\n 379 acres south of County Road 210<\/p>\n 310 acres north of County Road 208<\/p>\n 51 acres northeast of the I-95\/State Road 207 intersection <\/p>\n The county so far has received nine applications under the state law, but three were turned away by county staff for not meeting the proper qualifications.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s note: This story was updated with additional information about the county\u2019s latest agricultural enclave applications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 1,000 acres of land, and as many as 15,000 homes spanning two projects, got the green…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[558,2152,43323,88005,116,118,117,115,5902],"class_list":["post-378710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-business","tag-development","tag-distribute","tag-government-politics","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-news","tag-st-johns-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}