JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A year's long battle over a proposed downtown storage facility is over.
Jacksonville City Council passed the mixed-use proposal 11-to-8, ruling against neighbors who have been fighting the project.
The facility includes about 100 apartments, including affordable housing, retail space and storage.
“I feel actually very sorry for the residents who they are going to plop on top of storage," neighbor Pam Sorenson said. "Storage that's going to operate 16 hours a day, every single day. And that is no sense of dignity. That is just demeaning and it's an embarrassment for Jacksonville."
It's the third time the proposal has come back to the City Council. Last year, the council's vote ended in a tie effectively denying the proposal.
This time the proposal changed as the developer applied recommendations from the city to add additional housing and retail space to the development.
The changes were enough to flip Councilmember Michael Boylan's vote.
“Mixed use is now far more balanced with roughly 30 percent of self-storage," Boylan said.
But, in voting for the proposal, councilmembers went against a key zoning rule, the Southbank overlay which states self-storage is not allowed.
City council created the overlay a few years ago to ensure development is consistent in the area.
“This could have been a great mixed-use project if it didn’t have one of the elements the overlay specifically says it should not have," said Councilmember Jimmy Peluso.
“It [the overlay] was put together through private and public cooperation and this is just making that nil," Sorenson said.
District Councilmember Joe Carlucci said if the proposal is appealed the city could lose in court.
"The fact of the matter is all of the individual uses have to be consistent with the comp [comprehensive] plan. All of them. Allowing a PUD does not change that. Our staff report said two out of the three are, not three out of three,"
City Attorney Jason Teal confirmed Carlucci's statement based on previous case law in Jacksonville.
"A single use in a PUD was deemed to be inconsistent with the comprehensive plan and the court invalidated the entire PUD as being inconsistent with the Comprehensive Plan," Teal said.
Councilmembers who voted for the proposal include Randy White, Michael Boylan, Kevin Carrico, Rory Diamond, Terrance Freeman, Ju'Coby Pittman, Nick Howland, Reggie Gaffney Jr., Chris Miller, Rahman Johnson and Mike Gay.
Councilmembers who voted against the proposal include Ron Salem, Ken Amaro, Raul Arias, Joe Carlucci, Matt Carlucci, Tyrona Clark-Murray, Will Lahnen and Jimmy Peluso.