Who helped write SB 686? Inside the law reshaping development in St. Johns County<\/a><\/p>\nJacob Smith, speaking for county staff, said, \u201cWe did analyze it as our development area boundary as the stand-in for that terminology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Anne Taylor disagreed, saying the development area boundary did not meet the state\u2019s definition of an urban service area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe development area boundary is a very general growth management line whereas an urban service area is a very specific designation that the statute specifically defines. So then we cannot treat them the same. They are not the same,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
Taylor said the state definition requires an area to be identified in the comprehensive plan, with public facilities and services already in place or identified in the capital improvements element. She questioned where the county had identified and funded specific road, water and sewer projects for the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cClearly we don\u2019t have that. We don\u2019t have that,\u201d Taylor said.<\/p>\n
The applicants\u2019 attorney, Robert Walters, argued that the properties met the requirements. He said the parcels were undeveloped, owned and controlled by Heritage Development, and had agricultural classifications for at least 10 years. He also said the application met the perimeter requirements and that the applicant had asserted it would negotiate with the county to provide public services.<\/p>\n
Walters argued that county staff reached the same conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cStaff went through the application and determined that the two parcels met the requirements of the law and thus demonstrated through competent substantial evidence that all the requirements were met,\u201d Walters said.<\/p>\n
He also questioned whether the commission had authority to reconsider the applications and asked the board to uphold the previous approvals.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those reasons we go request that the county take no action today and uphold the prior approvals that occurred on August 19 of this year,\u201d Walters said.<\/p>\n
Residents raised concerns about water supply, traffic, stormwater, roads, schools, emergency services and continued development.<\/p>\n
Whitehurst said the board should base its decision on evidence rather than political pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy remarks in summary were let\u2019s make our decision based on the evidence, not on politics,\u201d Whitehurst said.<\/p>\n
He later thanked Taylor for bringing forward additional research.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate you doing the work of bringing something of substance that I can actually consider,\u201d Whitehurst said.<\/p>\n
Taylor responded, \u201cI cannot thank you enough because it took time to look into this even further. And if we did not have that time, we would not be here today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission then voted to deny both applications, 3-2.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 The St. Johns County Commission voted 3-2 to deny two agricultural enclave applications…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2152,116,118,117,5902],"class_list":["post-413076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-development","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-st-johns-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413076","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=413076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}