One of the most unpopular proposals City Council has heard lately will go before a committee Tuesday Nov. 18 and it doesn’t seem to have much support.
A company proposes to build a slaughterhouse in an urban corridor, next to someone’s home.
It will cause no problems, lawyers for the applicant have said.
But hundreds of people who attended various community meetings and a Planning Commission meeting do not agree.
Council President Kevin Carrico said it was the most attention he’s ever seen to a rezoning application, and he headed the council’s rezoning committee for three years.
Carrico told Eye on Jacksonville that almost 200 people attended a community meeting on Sept. 18, and virtually all were against the plan. The facility would be in the district Carrico represents.
Two members of the Duval Legislative Delegation also have voiced opposition, Carrico said.
One odd feature: Carrico asked the mayor’s office to send someone from the Planning Department to the September meeting to answer questions about the plan and the mayor’s office declined. They didn’t want to subject their people to the abuse they expected from opponents.
The Planning Commission split 3-3 on the rezoning sought by Apna Bazar, a halal grocer at 11153 Beach Blvd. But it can go through council without a recommendation from the commission, which is an advisory body.
Halal foods are foods that are permitted and encouraged by the Muslim scripture – the Qur’an. Two aspects that typically affect whether or not a food is halal are:
● Foods that have been processed, created, or stored using equipment that has been cleansed under Islamic law.
● Foods that do not contain any “haram” components – haram is an Arabic term that means unlawful and unpermitted.
According to the Daily Record, Apna Bazar wants to build a 30,000 square-foot addition and a 23,000 square-foot structure east of the existing store. Animals would be killed inside the smaller structure.
Lawyers for the application claim the facility would not generate contamination, pollution or excessive noise, the Record said.
The commission hearing grew so heated that a speaker was removed, and another man was removed for protesting the first man’s removal.
Other unpopular zoning decisions in recent times include placing a bar and a morgue in a residential area near a school.
One might wonder whether government planners buy homes near bars, morgues and slaughterhouses themselves or they just think other people want to live in such surroundings.
