Published by former Mayor George Gardner March 18 2015
The Report is an independent publication serving our community
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Hot buttons - PUDs and events venues
Plan Board skirts idea
of a PUD moratorium
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If a new ordinance is needed, let's create one instead of trying to jam it into a PUD.
Planning and Zoning Board Chair Sue Agresta
PUDs can be beneficial.
Planning and Zoning Board Member Matt Shaffer
 Mixed emotions at a Planning and Zoning Board (PZB) town hall meeting last Thursday at City Hall.
Board Chair Sue Agresta opened the session with a checklist of concerns and finished a one-hour section of the meeting with what she called a spreadsheet rating system for the much maligned Planned Unit Development (PUD) zoning. The other meeting section focused on creating a special events venue zoning category as the board sought public input on sensitive issues.
"The intent section needs to be clarified to be more beneficial to our neighborhoods and city environs," Agresta said of PUD zoning applications, and such applications should require at least two PZB hearings "in order to be fully vetted by the public and the board."
Lively input from residents and professionals included Architect Steve Schuyler: "PUDs are spot zoning, fed by a zoning code that hasn't been updated in years;" resident Pat Reilly: "Zoning should be predictable, and very onerous to change. Why would we throw away the whole zoning code and rewrite it for (one) particular property?" and land law Attorney Ellen Avery-Smith: "No matter how hard we try, there's no such thing as a one size fits all zoning."
The board skirted the idea of a moratorium on PUDs, but agreed with one resident, "A PUD should be an exception to the rule, not the rule. The sheer number of PUDs that we have suggests that something's wrong." |
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Spring Equinox
Community Dance
The Spring or Vernal Equinox - the first day of Spring - is Friday. Good timing and reason to dance.
Dick Bozung and Phil Baldwin invite all to a Spring Equinox Community Dance at the Galimore Center Friday, 8 - 11.
"We started doing these several times a year about three years ago with a volunteer DJ. Tickets are $3 to cover rental, and any proceeds go to various local non-profits," says Bozung.
"We just wanted to see all ages get together in a non-smoking/drinking environment and to strengthen community ties," he says.
The equinox occurs twice a year, in March and September, when day and night are of approximately equal duration (from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night).
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Special events venues
'not in neighborhoods'
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Residents at a portion of a Planning and Zoning Board (PZB) town hall meeting last Thursday on creation of a special events venue ordinance made one thing clear - not in my neighborhood.
Planning and Building Director David Birchim told the board weddings have become "quite an industry that's been created locally. It's time for us to get a handle on its locations.
"The White Room and bank building are relatively new," Birchim said, "and unless these businesses (weddings, receptions, parties) reach the saturation point, businesses will continue to try to open up in St. Augustine to take advantage of this wedding industry."
Resident Pat Reilly said, "Where there's wedding parties, we have to think very carefully about where those abut residential properties," but former Mayor Len Weeks cautioned, "It sounds like you're trying to make all these special events adhere to the same rules that a fulltime business would have to do. That may be overkill."
Residents and board members seemed to agree with Birchim that, "Maybe the code (should) not apply to a family having an event in their home, as opposed to a business."
Board Member Matt Shaffer said, "I'm very concerned about protecting our residential neighborhoods. They're being eroded. I would favor not allowing except where it is grandfathered in."
Birchim filled a notepad to compile ideas and bring them to the board for later action.
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Neighborhood meeting
on plans for Dow houses
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The Old City South Neighborhood Association meets tonight with Mark Knight, representing the Historic St. Augustine Inn Planned Unit Development (PUD) for the former Dow Museum of Houses property, to continue discussions of its plan. The session is 5 to 7 pm in the Alcazar Room at City Hall.
"It is our hope that we will be able to address some of the concerns of the neighbors and have a successful and meaningful dialogue" said Knight.
Dow PUD - a counter view
Those structures could be preserved through residential uses already allowed by HP-1 zoning
Judith Fox-Fliesser and Lee Geanuleas
One thing all seem to agree on is preserving the historic enclave which is the former Dow Museum of Houses. Former Commissioner Don Crichlow, architect for Old Island Hotels' plan, says their preservation is paramount. Former Planning and Zoning Chair John Valdes says that preservation can most effectively succeed through a commercial venture to support the restoration and maintenance of the properties.
Dow property neighbors Judith Fox-Fliesser and Lee Geanuleas suggest, "A charming and highly desirable residential home enclave, similar to the one already existing on St. Andrews Court," is best.
It "could be created and easily marketed," they write in a rebuttal to Valdes' commentary. "It would return these homes to the property tax rolls and, most importantly, avoid the dangerous precedent for commercial zoning within HP-1 that this PUD (Planned Unit Development) would set."
Valdes' commentary can be found here and the rebuttal here.
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Fort Mose - the beginning Saturday
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In March 1738, the Royal Governor of Florida established the fortified village with the reading of a proclamation to the people of the city and future residents of Fort Mose.
Saturday at Fort Mose Historic State Park, Florida Living History will reenact that important date in American history with depictions of Fort Mose's daily life and its establishment, a lecture on The African Diaspora (relocation) in Florida, and a Middle Passage Remembrance Ceremony.
All events are free, beginning at 10 am with cannon and musket drills and period activities. At 1 pm Spanish Governor Manuel Montiano proclaims the founding and appoints Captain Francisco Menendez its commander.
At 2, Dr. Anthony E. Dixon, President of Archival and Historical Research Associates, Field Director for the Florida African American Heritage Preservation Network, and Adjunct Professor of History at Florida A&M University, will discuss The African Diaspora in Florida. And at 3, Ann Chin of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project will conduct a Middle Passage Remembrance Ceremony.
One Spark for Fort Mose
Freebooters Producer Derek Boyd Hankerson has entered The Fort Mose Story
into the One Spark Festival April 7-12.
One Spark is the World's Largest Crowdfunding Festival, designed to connect creators with the resources they need to bring their ideas to life.
Artists, entrepreneurs and innovators in a variety of disciplines will display projects in a 20-square-block, multi-venue gallery in downtown Jacksonville.
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Fort Mose - 1st Free Black Settlement
182 days to St. Augustine's 450th anniversary
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More than a century before the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves from the British colonies followed the original underground railroad south - not north - to the Spanish colony of La Florida.
Word came aboard ships plying the east coast from Florida through the Carolinas: the governor of Spanish Florida promised freedom to all who would swear allegiance to the Spanish Crown and Catholic faith.
 The flight to freedom began - through the thickets of the Carolinas, and swamps of Georgia, pursued by overseers and hired bounty men - an underground railroad to their promised land, the Spanish garrison of St. Augustine.
A leader awaited them: Francisco Menendez, brought to the Americas in chains from his native Mandingo, Africa, in the early 1700s, escaped to St. Augustine in 1724, now a captain in the St. Augustine militia, soon to be commander of the first free black settlement in today's America, Fort Mose.
Responding to this surge of escaped slaves, Spanish Florida's Governor Manuel Montiano established, in 1738, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose - Fort Mose (Mo-SAY). It would serve as a northern outpost for the garrison two miles to the south. For Montiano, it would be manned by a fighting force fierce to hold its freedom; for its inhabitants, it would be a new, unshackled life.
Fort Mose became home for more than a hundred freed or fugitive slaves from the British colonies, forming more than 20 households. Together they created a frontier community which drew on a range of African backgrounds blended with Spanish, Native American and English cultural traditions.
Echoing its host city, it became both a defensive garrison and civilian settlement.
This first free black settlement was a matter of both religious pressure and military expediency. The powerful Spanish Church had long dictated moral, religious, and social conditions. For slaves, it meant legal rights to full Christian communion, marriage, and parenthood, and to personal security, ownership of private property, and the purchase of their own freedom.
Militarily, Spanish Florida's cedula of freedom would weaken the economy of the British colonies, shifting its labor force from plantation slaves to Spanish soldados.
The night of June 26, 1740, this Spanish policy proved its worth, as a force of 300 Spanish regulars, Black militia and Yamasee Indians routed an occupying British force during a siege in the Battle of Bloody Mose.
Image: Artist's rendering of Fort Mose
Excerpts from Fort Mose in St. Augustine Bedtime Stories. Click for further information on this fascinating historic series.
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The St. Augustine Report is published weekly, with additional Reports previewing City Commission meetings as well as Special Reports. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com or gardnerstaug@yahoo.com
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