The line item in Mayor Deegan’s first budget provides for $21.72 million to be allocated to better the city’s permitting and inspection processes, improve technology, and hire four new staffers.

We send a hearty Wink to Mayor Deegan for listening well to those who do business in Jacksonville. She heard their concerns and she is doing something about this mess of a process called “Permitting.”

As a reminder to our readers and our city leaders, a city exists to provide essential services, promote the well-being of its residents, and create a thriving community. Adopting a people-centric approach means prioritizing the needs and interests of the residents and working towards their betterment. One way the city can serve is to…

“Be helpful to those who want to build economic opportunities and create jobs.”

For some reason, Jacksonville’s last mayoral administration changed the business culture and sought to impose more stringent requirements than the Zoning Code requires. Their overlord personality made it difficult to do business in Jacksonville and created negative impressions of our city to outsiders thinking of moving here and setting up shop. We are known for high fees and difficulty in working together. We are glad to see a new day and a new attitude of service in the new administration and wanted to send Mayor Deegan some thoughts on her budget for permitting. Here are a few items to consider:

Permitting occurs under two Divisions of the Planning and Development Department. But before we delve into actual permitting, let’s talk about the first steps, entitlements. One cannot get a permit if the property is not entitled for the proposed use or occupancy. Entitlements include things like Zoning, Rezonings, Exceptions and Variances.

Here are a few examples of how the former administration’s outrageous requirements outside the Zoning Code impacted business growth:

Outdoor seating associated with fast food restaurants – The regulations state that the sale and service of food outside requires the grant of a Zoning Exception. However, if a person takes their food from a counter or window, and sits down outside at a table, with no service being offered to such outdoor seats, the activity used to be exempt as clearly no sale or service was occurring outside. Mayor Curry’s administration changed that and now a Zoning Exception is required, costing the business owner about $3-$5 Thousand Dollars and up to 3 months of time. What is the substantial public purpose in regulating these simple outdoor tables? Be reminded that the City Council did a special bill to promote this very thing during the pandemic, and the Curry Administration agreed.

Similarly, where a homeowner wants to build a detached accessory garage, the regulations permit them to construct it as long as it is 15 feet or less and sits back from adjacent properties a minimum of 5 feet. Mayor Curry’s administration required a Zoning Variance if the building is more than 900 square feet or more than 50% of the size of their home. What is the substantial public purpose in mandating that your house has to be larger than your garage?

The process of filing for entitlements has moved to an online portal where applicants “file” their requests, and do not hear back for months at a time! An applicant is required to put all the required information into the Zoning Portal, where the staff is supposed to review the application submittal, make sure the request is complete and that all required information and attachments are provided. However, once submitted there is no reply from the staff as to who at the department is working on it, and or when they will get back to you. It is common for the staff to take months before advising you where the application is, and then they request additional information that is not included in the required filing of the application. With the department being so slow to process these applications, why would they want to require applications for things that the Zoning Code does not even require? Like the two items above.

We the People stopped the unlawful attempt to sell JEA and now we need to Stop JEA from gouging new businesses coming to Jacksonville. The JEA produces their own “guidelines” which are effectively the rules in order to obtain any of the services they provide (electric, water, or sewer). These guidelines are not adopted as ordinances or laws, and are made up by the employees of the agency, serving only the benefit of the operator, with no consideration for the users. It would seem that the procedures for the creation of new systems should have input from the private sector designers, who know the development process and understand the actual operations on large commercial or industrial properties.

Rather, the JEA staff regularly update their guidelines, and tell the customer that they should have looked up the newest guidelines on their website. No notice of proposed changes are provided, and no input from the stakeholders is considered. The staff makes the changes as they see fit. Sadly, many times the regulations flip and flop, meaning what you built last time as approved, is not acceptable the next time. Why is that?

We would propose that the JEA implement a TRAP (Technical Review Advisory Panel), effectively being a committee of stakeholders who can provide input as to how modifications to the guidelines would affect the industry and the design and function of the development.

Similarly, JEA has implemented a series of Capacity Fees, presumably to assist in making sure that development pays its fair share of the costs associated with supplying service to the users. This principle is legal and appropriate under State Statutes. However, last October under Mayor Curry’s authority, JEA worked along with the Planning Department to make changes to the City’s Comprehensive Plan. Specifically, the Capital Improvements Element of the Plan, which was modified to incorporate language from the Florida Administrative Code (FAC). The language that was borrowed from the FAC was intended to provide direction for the Department of Health (DoH), related to on-site septic systems (septic tanks). By imposing this new language all food service facilities and multi-family dwellings are not able to utilize actual flow data and are subject to the flows prescribed by the JEA.

The prescribed flows are two to four times what the actual flows of these users are averaging. We are seeing these impact fees range from about $125,000 to $378,000. Those sums of money are far more than a mom and pop restaurant can absorb and even causing new franchises to reconsider the Jacksonville market. Recently, a new restaurant opened their second store in Florida, one in the Tampa market and the newest one in Jacksonville. While they had anticipated opening several stores in Jacksonville, after receiving a fee of $238,000.00, they have elected to open stores outside of the JEA service area.

Again, this is all due to the improper adoption of language for an unrelated matter (DoH), permitting the JEA to effectively gouge small and medium sized businesses and restaurants. This action is unnecessary and is not founded on actual JEA costs.

Mayor Deegan, we have more to share with you but this is enough for the first blush at fixing permitting.

We are hopeful you and your staff will take a look at what we are pointing out and will not be swayed by naysayers who might tell you… “But, but, that’s how we do things here.”

It’s time to change how we run the city of Jacksonville. Your vision to make Jacksonville the Small Business City of the South will happen if we make it easy to do business here.