10/3/12

Esteemed City Council Representatives,

After two years of deliberative study, Jacksonville replaced the city’s flawed “Fair Share Assessment” process with a well-crafted “Mobility Fee”, part of the award-winning 2030 Mobility Plan. The Plan incorporates the various visioning plans of Jacksonville’s communities, and is designed to incentivize in-town development projects, capitalizing on the city’s existing infrastructure and lessening the burden on taxpayers to subsidize development in far-flung corners of the county.

Yet, despite the diligent work completed by scores of community groups, developers, city staffers and public officials, the Jacksonville City Council put a moratorium on the newly-initiated plan in October 2011. This moratorium did nothing to solve the city’s commercial vacancy crisis and instead further complicated the problem by subsidizing new - and unneeded - space.  Due to this moratorium, instead of developers paying their fair share of infrastructure impact on our community, that financial burden has been shifted to the Jacksonville tax payer.

The 2030 Mobility Plan and its mobility fee was thoughtfully designed to ensure Jacksonville is a city where planned and smart growth is a reality, and careless and costly sprawl becomes less desirable. As the organization representing Jacksonville’s oldest and most storied neighborhood, Springfield Preservation and Revitalization supports the end of the mobility fee moratorium, and enthusiastically endorses the implementation of the 2030 Mobility Plan.

Respectfully,

The Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Board of Directors 
1321 N. Main Street Jacksonville, FL. 32206 (904) 353-7727 www.sparcouncil.org