OFFICE OF THE CITY COUNCIL

 

CHERYL L. BROWN                                                                                                                     117 WEST DUVAL STREET, SUITE 425

            DIRECTOR                                                                                                                                                                                                 4TH FLOOR, CITY HALL

   OFFICE (904) 630-1452                                                                                                                                                                                  JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA  32202

     FAX (904) 630-2906                                                                                                                                                                                                               

  E-MAIL: CLBROWN@coj.net

 

JOINT RULES/TEU/FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING

ON ORDINANCE 2013-94

MEETING MINUTES

 

March 12, 2013

4:00 p.m.

 

Location:  City Council Chamber, 1st floor, City Hall – St. James Building; 117 West Duval Street

    

In attendance: 

Rules Committee: Council Members Clay Yarborough (Chair), Ray Holt, Lori Boyer, John Crescimbeni, Jim Love and Robin Lumb

TEU Committee: Council Members Greg Anderson (Chair), Jim Love, Ray Holt, Robin Lumb and Matt Schellenberg    

Finance Committee: Council Members John Crescimbeni (Chair), Greg Anderson, Lori Boyer, Bill Gulliford, and Clay Yarborough     Excused: Johnny Gaffney, Stephen Joost

Also: Council Members Bill Bishop and Richard Clark; Cindy Laquidara, Peggy Sidman, Jason Gabriel and Dylan Reingold – General Counsel’s office; Chris Hand – Mayor’s Office; Jeff Clements – City Council Research Division, Marilyn Allen – Legislative Services Division; Kirk Sherman, Janice Billy and Heather Reber – Council Auditor’s Office; Jim Robinson – Public Works Department; Paul Crawford – Office of Economic Development; Calvin Burney – Planning and Development Department; Steve Patterson and Ron Littlepage – Florida Times-Union; Kevin Meerschaert – WJCT; Joe Wilhelm – Financial News and Daily Record

 

Meeting Convened: 4:05 p.m.

 

Chairman Yarborough convened the meeting and announced that the meeting would begin with presentations by the Planning and Development Department, proponent and opponents of the bill, each having 10 minutes to make their presentation.  The bill having had its required public hearing at the City Council meeting the previous week, there would be no public hearing tonight, although attendees were urged to sign the attendance sheet.

 

Calvin Burney, Director of the Planning and Development, gave an overview of the history of the mobility fee and how it replaced the fair share system.  The mobility fee system has 4 strategies: 1) connect land use and transportation; 2) provide a multi-modal plan; 3) fund mobility; and 4) incentivize quality growth and development.  The city is divided into 5 development areas: 1) Central Business District; 2) urban priority area (pre-consolidation City of Jacksonville); 3) urban area; 4) suburban area; 5) rural area.  There are 10 mobility zones where dollars will be collected and spent.  The first mobility fee waiver waived $5,056,625 out of $27,447,896 in fees calculated.  He noted that St. Johns County has never waived its development fees and continues to grow at a strong rate.

 

Wyman Duggan and Curtis Hart made presentations in support of the moratorium proposal.  Mr. Duggan said that the mobility fee is not General Fund revenue so waiving the fee doesn’t impact funding for police, fire, parks, libraries, etc.  Only a small portion of mobility fees goes to bike and pedestrian facilities, so the loss won’t mean much to development of those facilities because it was not enough to fund those projects without  considerable additional funding. The $3.5 million of waived mobility fees generated building that produced over $1 million in property taxes.  He also noted that City Council frequently waives the collection of tax revenue for economic development purposes (i.e. recapture enhanced value grants).

 

Curtis Hart said that the mobility fee absolutely makes a difference in whether potential projects get constructed or not – a $135,000 mobility fee can make or break a multi-million dollar project.  Vehicle trip counts are down in recent years because of the economic downturn, so there is more roadway capacity available for new development.  He distributed copies of letters from the 7-11 Corporation saying they will not develop any more stores in Jacksonville if the mobility fee is in effect.

 

Doug Skiles representing opponents of the moratorium proposal said that fair share expenditures for the last few years it was in existence were $16.5 million or an average of $3.3 million per year over 5 years, which represented 41% of what the city spends on its CIP each year for road purposes.  Ad valorem taxes already don’t cover the cost of even police and fire service, and we can’t afford to forego any more revenue. State law requires that minimum levels of service must be maintained, and how are we going to fund that?  Jacksonville’s office vacancy rate is 20%;  more new development of empty buildings will drive lease rates down even further.  The city has 20,582 currently permitted, platted lots that could be built on right now without any mobility fees.  Realtors are worried about the impact of creating even more housing inventory that could cause the fragile housing market to collapse again.  Despite the first fee moratorium we’re still trailing St. Johns County in development activity because their quality of life is better and citizens are showing what they prefer by their location decisions – more quality, not less cost.  We will never know how well the mobility fee might work if we keep waiving it.  We need to let it operate and adjust later once we see what happens.  The economy is finally beginning to turn around and stimulus is no longer needed.

 

Council Member Clark said that a large part of the building slowdown in Jacksonville is the winding down of the Better Jacksonville Plan projects and spending.  The economy is very fragile and anything can push it back into recession.  The argument that downtown will benefit from the mobility fee being imposed elsewhere is faulty; downtown has many other problems preventing its redevelopment that won’t be solved by anything we do with the mobility fee.  The City needs to do everything it can to incentivize new development and grow jobs.

 

The committee asked questions of Dylan Reingold, Curtis Hart, Jim Robinson and Calvin Burney about the structure and amount of the mobility fee, development patterns in Jacksonville and surrounding counties, the finances of new development and in-fill development, the amount of currently permitted development capacity in Jacksonville, and the City’s funding for road construction and maintenance.  Suggestions were made that a 3-year moratorium is too long, but perhaps a 1-year moratorium with renewal options should be considered.  It was suggested that development metrics be a part of the moratorium so that it can be determined what exactly the City is getting for its foregone mobility fee revenues in the form of job creation and payroll and enhanced tax base and property tax collections.  Several council members talked about the equity issues involved in shifting costs for needed public services from one group of taxpayers to another through increases or decreases in the amount of mobility fees and property taxes levied and collected.

 

Council Member Boyer noted that several developers had made up-front investments in providing infrastructure through the vehicle of Transportation Management Areas (TMAs) to make their particular projects viable (i.e. St. Johns Town Center, JIA area) and those investments have paid off handsomely in the form of considerable growth in development.  In response to a question about why there is considerable permitted capacity, both residential and commercial, that has not yet been developed, Curtis Hart said that a major reason is location – the permitted capacity isn’t in places where the market wants to go.  Several council members advocated for economic stimulus of some kind to jump-start the economy and keep it from slipping back into recession.

 

Council President Bishop announced his intention to re-convene a mobility fee committee or task force with a combination of council member and citizen participants to review implementation of the mobility fee to date and to consider potential improvements.  Council Member Crescimbeni volunteered to convene a meeting of moratorium proponents and opponents in the next week to attempt to craft an interim proposal to amend 2013-94 and enact some form of moratorium until such time as President Bishop’s new task force can complete its work.

 

Meeting adjourned:  6:36 p.m.

 

Minutes:           Jeff Clements, Council Research Division

             3.12.13     Posted: 2:00 p.m.

 

Tape:               Rules/TEU/Finance Joint Committee on 2013-94   3.11.13

                        Legislative Services Division