Residents, merchants weigh Love’s moratorium, ordinance
By Steve DiMattia
Love letters typically evoke a lot of emotion and one recently addressed to city Planning and Development Director Calvin Burney is no exception.
This one, written by Jim Love, city councilman for Riverside/Avondale District 14, proposed a six-month moratorium on any new commercial development requiring Planned Unit Development (PUD), deviations or variance exceptions in several key Riverside /Avondale retail corridors. Those include St. Johns Avenue between Talbot and Van Wert avenues and King Street between Herschel and College streets.
The moratorium – along with Love’s separately proposed ordinance that would increase parking requirements within the Riverside/Avondale Overlay – have residents, merchants, developers, preservationists and restaurant owners either hailing the councilman for his vision and initiative or criticizing him for forcing government into the free market and stymieing growth in a down economy.
“My purpose with both the moratorium and the ordinance is to address parking and development issues with what I hope will be long term solutions. I’m not trying to stop growth in the area. I just want us to go about it in a smart way,” Love said. “If nothing else, I hope to start committed, goal-oriented conversations that involve all stakeholders.”
Mark Rubin, president of Accubuild Companies, agrees that there should be discussions, but questions the wisdom of a moratorium.
“Councilman Love is doing his job as a legislator by echoing the voices of his constituents and addressing their issues,” Rubin said. “But a moratorium could have serious consequences, particularly in these economic times. Before any moratorium is put into effect, I would hope there would be in depth public discussion about its impact.”
According to his letter, Love sees the moratorium as a way to provide time for a study “to identify the best ways to address and mitigate issues related to public safety, parking, traffic and the appropriate scale and mix of commercial development.” The letter, however, is not enforceable by law. “It was meant to be a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between builders and me,” Love noted.
Burney verified that his office could not enforce a moratorium unless Love chose to pursue it as a city ordinance. As for the suggested study, Burney said that he would first have to know the study’s scope of services before he could speculate on the city’s involvement.
“The planning department is willing to assist in every way possible, but a framework for the study has to be worked out by all parties,” Burney said. “Funding will be a concern.”
A more immediate concern for some stakeholders is Ordinance 2012-339, which would amend the Riverside/Avondale Overlay to require any new nightclubs, bars or restaurants larger than 100 seats and 2,500 square feet to provide 50 percent of the standard Zoning Code parking requirement. The Overlay currently requires 50 percent parking for non-contributing structures but allows for zero parking for historically contributing structures that are not expanded. Ordinance 2012-339 would also require developers to bring street parking landscaping up to compliance.
The originally filed ordinance did not have a size stipulation, but Love felt it was unfair to smaller restaurants. He met with Riverside Avondale Preservation Board Chairman Jonathan Oliff, General Council Dylan Reingold and the planning department’s Sean Kelly to arrive at the 100-seat/2,500 square feet limit.
Love said the impetus for the ordinance came from three recent cases that some feel have created a tipping point in terms of parking and/or scale: Mojo4 and Mellow Mushroom in the Shoppes of Avondale and Goozlepipe & Guttyworks at King and Park streets. Mellow Mushroom and Goozlepipe & Guttyworks are in development and each is projected to have a capacity of about 250; neither would be impacted by the ordinance (or moratorium). Mellow Mushroom is still working through the application process and Goozlepipe has secured a lot to meet its parking requirements.
Mojo4 co-owner Todd Ward said that if the ordinance had been in place in April 2011 when he opened his 160-seat restaurant he would have had to carefully weigh all options.
“We love the area and definitely would have tried to make it work, but where would we have come up with parking?” Ward asked. “That’s the problem: the more pressure to find parking options without any real solutions, the less people will want to open businesses in the area.”
Stephen Dare, co-founder of online forum Metro Jacksonville, sees that scenario as contributing to a less inviting and economically viable neighborhood.
“Everyone wants a ‘walkable’ neighborhood, but you have to have businesses to walk to,” Dare said. “It means a neighborhood that is fully employed by local businesses. The residents that are complaining about parking and are behind Love’s ordinance have to realize that they are taking potential jobs away from their neighbors. We don’t have a parking problem; we have a circulation problem that can be solved with shuttles.”
Some merchants in the area have mixed feelings.
“I don’t want to stop business growth, but the parking issues have to be addressed,” said Dianne Garcia, co-owner of J. Ashley Boutique and president of the Shoppes of Avondale Merchants Association. “We need to find a balance.”
About 20 residents and business owners who spoke in support of Love’s ordinance at a recent city council meeting echoed the call for “balance.”
Karin Tucker and Barbara Bredehoeft, co-owners of Biscottis Restaurant in Avondale for the past 19 years, were among them.
“The businesses need to reflect the diverse needs of the neighborhood through mixed usage,” said Tucker, who resides in Avondale. “We also need to consider the quality of life of the residents. Unbridled free market can put things out of balance. We need to think about the scale of the area and work within that.”
For Councilman Love, it is a matter of slowing things down long enough to get a good plan in place.
“The great thing about this process is that everyone has a chance to voice their opinion, then, in the end, we hopefully come out with something great,” Love said.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
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