St. Augustine steering committee backs revisions to West City CRA plan, asks city to convert $100,000 loan to grant

The West City Development Area Steering Committee on Thursday reviewed a revised community redevelopment plan, heard a city presentation on recent land acquisitions in the West City area and voted to ask city staff to request that a $100,000 loan used to pay consultants be converted into a grant for the Community Redevelopment Area.

Jamie D. Perkins, Neighborhood Services and Community Redevelopment Agency manager for the City of St. Augustine, led a page-by-page review of the plan’s action items and recommended edits that the steering committee generally embraced. Perkins told the committee the document is intended to provide “action items” that staff and the steering committee can use to implement projects, while noting that not everything in the plan will be funded or implemented immediately.

The draft plan’s key revisions adopted by consensus or majority direction include expanding the lead goal on community stabilization so it reads “community stabilization through housing policy and other relative stabilization efforts,” adding the word “acquisition” to locally oriented business development (to allow the CRA to consider business acquisition or incubator strategies), and explicitly adding “infrastructure improvements” to the mobility and connectivity goal.

Perkins said the plan also will reference several specific streets for possible streetscape projects — Evergreen Avenue, Chapin Street, Anderson Street and Christopher Street — and will note when streets are county-owned, as in portions of West King Street and Palmer Street. The draft…