Growth

Speaking of a plethora of comments, it would seem that a couple of people spent some time rambling through their minds to come up with some fairly inane subjects for blogs.

Looked more like an effort to get the 5+2 discussions off the front page but then I'm just a suspicious and pessimistic type of guy. Just an observation.

But one did catch my eye for all of that. I found the School Impact Fee blog somewhat interesting (I know, slow day in the news) so I read some of the report in the attached link.

The comment that I found interesting is the one that said the impact fee may have to be raised to $9100 from $7400. One of the factors in this is population growth.

Bloggers,

I'm interested in your opinions regarding the decision the BCC may or may not make regarding Road Impact Fees on Tuesday. Per the MCS report in today's paper:

1) Fees would range from $4,341 for a single-family home in the southwest part of the county to $5,814 for a single-family home in the northeast part of the county. This would be in addition to $7, 034 educational impact fee. Total impact fees could be $11,375-$12,848 per home.

2) Impact fees would be charged on all new development: residential and non-residential.

3) The BCC could delay implementation until 2009 or later.

This morning in the online edition of First Coast News I read an article titled the same as this blog.  Officials from Alabama, Georgia and Florida have all signed a "confidentiality agreement" regarding ongoing negotiations over water rights.  It also noted that our Federal Goverment is involved in this as well.

I don't care what their intentions are, the water doesn't belong to local, state, or federal goverment to control and manipulate behind closed doors.  When it comes to life sustaining water they need to just deal with the aggravation of the people knowing what they're doing.

GCS has now officially joined the band wagon against draining the St.Johns River.  The article says most all communities in the NE region are against it.  It's the entity of the SJRMD that is supporting it. 

Lets not come in after the decision has been made and rail against it.  Contact your legislators and support your local goverment on this issue if you feel draining the River may bring on consequences that no one is truly qualified to fathom decades on down the line.  There are so many variables in the eco system there is no expert that can really know.  They just guess based upon their best information and experience.

DISCLAIMER:  Just FYI stuff - not an attempt to hodge in on Mike's excellent BCC meeting reviews.

The Highlands DRI Comprehensive Plan Amendment request was heard at last night's Zoning Meeting.  As a long time resident of Clay Hill and an active member of our Community Association, I am very interested in how this progresses.  Just to get it out of the way, it's no secret I pay my bills by building homes.  It would be naive to think people will not be suspect of my motives, but I've lived in Clay Hill for nearly 25 years, and the good Lord willing, I'll be here another 25 (at least).  My heart is with my community - just like the people who cried for Creighton Road.  I'll be able to build houses all over Northeast Florida, and it would not bother me one bit if not one of them is in Clay Hill.  On to the facts.

Everyone wants a Better Clay County, especially politicians. Just once, though, I'd like to hear one get a little more specific and define "Better Clay County." Judging by the actions of local politicians in power, I think their definition differs considerbly from mine.

A Better Clay County for me, since I'm neither rich nor wealthy, includes not having local government ask me and folks like me to keep expecting lower and lower quality of services because our tax dollars are being used to provide more and more services for the next rounds of subdivisions and condos.

To grow or not to grow? That is the question.

With apologies to Shakespeare, that question seems an appropriate one for the Board of County Commissioners to answer.  If you log onto the Clay County web site (www.claycountygov.com) four words scroll across the top of the page - "Growth, Prosperity, Opportunity, Community".  Without any further investigation, one would think Clay County government likes, even encourages growth.  But growth is a contentious subject among people who live in Clay County.

The population in 1980 was 67,000.  Twenty-five years later, 2005, the population had ballooned to 179,000.  In 2015, 8 years from now, the population is projected to be 267,000.  That's 4 times the number of people in 1980.  All I can say is WOW!!!

I am certain to get a lot in interest on those topics.  Having seen Clay county grow from, grass to gridlock, how do some of you feel about the growth around here?

How about describing it as insane?  How many of you are stuck in the Clay County Municipal Parking lot in OP daily?  How about the NASCAR races on Fleming Island every day.  How bout some russian roulette taking the short cut from Walmart to Target on 220?  Oh, I almost forgot, how about the boulevard that has a traffic light every block or so for its entire length, AKA, Blanding?  How many houses can be built on an acre? How about the demolition derby at the entrance to Eagle Harbor?  Where are we going to put all those kids that show up at the front door of our schools each year?  Portables, oh excuse me, relocatables.  How about the county dumps filled with everything and the county commissioners calling us irresponsible. Because we don't take out our trash they make us pay for their and our garbage cleanup?  PS guys, I always made it to the dump with all my refuse. How about all those new county roads that don't exist?  Is it too late to set aside some land for commercial growth, without tearing down an existing development?