Baker County approves large-scale land-use change and rezoning for Cruz property

The Baker County Board of County Commissioners voted to adopt two companion ordinances altering land-use and zoning for a large rural parcel owned by parties named in the ordinance text.

Staff described Ordinance 2025-29 as a large-scale land-use amendment reclassifying roughly 113.61 acres from Agricultural A to Agricultural B and Ordinance 2025-30 as a rezoning reclassifying about 183 acres from Ag-10/Ag-7.5 to Ag-5. Staff said the difference in acreage is because only part of the parcel is included in the land-use change while the rezoning request covered the larger property.

Presenters noted portions of the parcel lie in a FEMA flood zone along Bill Davis; staff said the applicant intends to sell a 5-acre homestead parcel and later consolidate remaining small parcels through the property-appraiser process, but that any future subdivisions would require a formal subdivision review before lots would be considered buildable.

Public works requested additional right-of-way for future routing (staff identified a possible 10-foot right-of-way on Reed Stafford and 20-foot on Bill Davis); staff said the right-of-way requests were not mandatory for the current land-use/zoning decisions but would be required for future development.

After motions to read and adopt the ordinances, the chair called for votes and announced the motions carried on both ordinances; the transcript records "Motion carries" but does not show a roll-call tally or individual votes. The ordinance text read into the record named property owners; the transcript contains inconsistent readings of the owners' names (see audit), which should be checked against the clerk's official ordinance text for the precise legal owner names.

The ordinances will be recorded per the adopted language and any future development of the parcel will be subject to floodplain requirements and applicable subdivision review.