St. Johns County will investigate the possibility of going to court to challenge a law that could lead to the development of local agricultural land.
The new law eases the process landowners must follow to build single-family residential development on agricultural land adjacent to already-developed land — areas known as “agricultural enclaves.”
In the days after the law took effect last month, the county received applications for the development of more than 6,000 acres of agricultural land.
The Board of County Commissioners is currently scheduled Aug. 19 to hear applications for six proposed developments enabled by the law. Ahead of that meeting, county commissioners said Tuesday that they want to determine whether a legal challenge against the law would be worth the time, effort and cash.
St. Johns is at a “critical point,” County Commission Chair Clay Murphy said, but if the county is unlikely to win an injunction against the law, he wants to fight it in other ways.
“We need to have some kind of response to this,” Murphy said.
The agricultural enclave bill
The bill, Senate Bill 686, passed the Legislature overwhelmingly. All of St. Johns County’s representatives in Tallahassee voted in favor.
St. Johns County commissioners unanimously agreed to instruct their staff to look into fighting the law, but Commissioners Sarah Arnold and Christian Whitehurst questioned the county’s legal standing.
Whitehurst acknowledged that the county is involved in several other lawsuits from developers who challenged the denial of development applications.
“Nobody’s happy about being preempted up here,” he said. “I am just concerned that … it’s not a good strategy to run headlong into a brick wall again and again and again.”
He called out one of St. Johns County’s representatives in Tallahassee, Rep. Kim Kendall, R-St. Augustine, who voted in favor of SB 686.
“I think perhaps a better use of our time would be to encourage Kim Kendall to read bills before she votes on them,” Whitehurst said.
Kendall, who is running to keep her seat in the upcoming primary election, did not immediately respond to Jacksonville Today’s request for comment about Whitehurst’s remark or her vote on the bill.
The County Commission is expected to hear back from its legal counsel about the idea of challenging the law at the next meeting, on Aug. 18.
That meeting will be at 9 a.m. in the County Auditorium at 500 San Sebastian View and broadcast live on the county’s website.
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