Committee approves PUD rezoning for Beach Boulevard shopping-center expansion amid neighborhood opposition

Jacksonville's Land Use & Zoning Committee voted 5-2 on Feb. 3 to approve a companion land-use amendment (Ordinance 2025-487) and a PUD rezoning (Ordinance 2025-488) that will allow a multitenant shopping-center expansion along Beach Boulevard north toward Cortez Road.

Planning staff told the committee the amended land-use request reduces the site's split designation and is consistent with commercial uses along Beach Boulevard, citing centralized water and sewer, JTA bus-rapid-transit access and contiguous CGC designation. "For these reasons and those in the staff report, the planning department recommends approval," Planning Department staff said.

Applicant attorney Cindy Trimmer described the PUD as an effort to "unify this parcel under commercial land use" and said the application had been made more restrictive since earlier hearings. Trimmer read a revised written description onto the record that explicitly prohibits slaughterhouses and removes a list of intense uses, and she said the PUD includes a 25-foot buffer adjacent to residential zoning and a 35-foot height limit within the first 30 feet near homes.

Residents and nearby officials urged the committee to reject the measures. "Please vote down or withdraw this ordinance," said Kathleen Pereira, who told the committee that converting LDR to CGC would erode residential buffers and leave neighbors vulnerable to piecemeal encroachment. Atlantic Beach Commissioner Jessica Ring said she opposed permitting butchering or live-animal processing near homes and asked where animals would be held and how carcasses would leave the site.

Several neighbors emphasized traffic and safety concerns on Cortez Road, a narrow two-lane street. David Wesley said photos show it is "absolutely impossible for a tractor trailer to make that turn" without occupying other lanes, and warned the expansion's delivery traffic would push trucks into residential streets. Shannon Blair told the committee the land-use amendment acknowledges roughly 1,400 additional daily vehicle trips and that the ordinance does not require traffic improvements prior to approval.

Other speakers raised environmental and water-supply issues. George Cheshire asked that dewatering pumps not be allowed to lower the water table without separate approval, citing the risk to private wells and sinkholes. Lisa Ellen Durenberger and others said the staff report identifies wetlands that could be eliminated and asked for environmental permitting and mitigation to be tied to any approval.

City attorneys and planning staff repeatedly told the committee the applicant had revised the written description to remove butchering and live-animal processing. "The slaughterhouse component as proposed today in the written description site plan has been removed," Mr. Rheingold, the city's counsel on the record, said.

Committee members were split. Council President Kariko said removing the slaughterhouse addressed the largest initial concern but that safety on Beach Boulevard and Cortez Road remained troubling; he announced he would vote no. Councilmember Morgan Diamond said she would support the amendment removing animal-processing language but planned to vote no on the ordinance itself. Several other members said the revised PUD adds protections unseen in standard CCG 2 zoning, including use limitations and a stepped height transition.

Planning staff and the applicant said traffic, drainage and other technical issues would be reviewed at permitting and by city transportation and engineering staff. Therese Bannister, acting chief of the transportation division, told the committee that a detailed traffic study had not yet been done and would be part of subsequent review.

After debate, the committee approved the land-use amendment and the PUD rezoning, both as amended. The PUD's revisions include a list of prohibited uses, size limits for certain operations and a commitment to signage and design measures intended to limit truck traffic onto Cortez Road. The committee recorded the land-use vote as 5 yeas, 2 nays and the PUD rezoning as 5 yeas, 2 nays.

The approvals advance the applicant's plan to expand an existing shopping center along Beach Boulevard, but opponents said they intend to monitor permitting and enforcement steps closely. Next procedural steps include civil and permitting reviews, potential driveway/access work with FDOT, and any required environmental compliance tied to development permits.