COURTESY : First Coast Community - The Beaches Shorelines
BY Drew Dixon 
Published February 28, 2004 

Northern St. Johns County commissioners and citizen activists have blasted officials with the planned Nocatee subdivision, saying they didn't adequately advertise or explain their intentions to have future residents pay for roads, sewers and other expenses that the developers said they would handle.

Officials with PARC Group, the Nocatee developers, asked a state judge during public hearings last week to recommend state permission to set up community development districts on the Nocatee land. If the districts are approved, quasi-governmental boards could decide to have future landowners pay for infrastructure after they move into the 15,000-acre development that will straddle the Duval-St. Johns County line west of Ponte Vedra Beach.

Two commissioners and other critics said advertisements for the hearings didn't mention the word "Nocatee" and that no one showed up to oppose the proposal for community development districts (CDDs), which are similar to special taxing districts.

"This is all new. We will for sure point out that this was not made really public," said St. Augustine resident Jan Bergemann, president and founder of the Cyber Citizens For Justice, a statewide property rights advocacy group.

"The public hearing wasn't correct. We will ask Tallahassee to look into it and not issue approval under these circumstances. We would definitely like to see hearings that were properly noted and we'd like to make a point to add disclosure into this, especially considering what's happening in Nocatee, because consumer protection was left out," Bergemann said.

The Florida Land and Water Adjudicatory Commission is expected to decide on the CDD application within a month after receiving a recommendation from state Administrative Law Judge J. Lawrence Johnston, who presided over the hearings. 

'Geographic reference'

Bergemann said the Nocatee districts, which were referred to in the hearing ads as "Split Pine" for the 2,000-acre Duval County portion and "Tolomato" for the rest of the development, in St. Johns County, would favor the developer over future residents.

"It was a geographic reference," PARC Group President Gregory Barbour said after the hearings. "The village in Duval County is going to be called Split Pine and the Tolomato is obviously the Tolomato River," the St. Johns County portion of Nocatee. "We couldn't call them Nocatee because you've got two of them and it would create confusion."

Barbour defended the CDDs as an efficient way to pay for a new community.

"We believe community development districts are the best way to provide long-term stability needed for the construction and maintenance of the major infrastructure," Barbour testified. 

Barbour said after the hearings that private property owners wouldn't be able to handle the start-up costs for building the infrastructure, and that a community development district would provide the opportunity to get 30-year bonds.

"These transportation projects are so significant and so large that financing through the CDD provides the ability to finance that multimillion-dollar improvement," Barbour said.

But eventually, landowners moving into the area will pay for infrastructure, said Richard Ray, president of PARC Group Development, a subsidiary of the Nocatee developer. He said the CDDs would allow assessments, not taxes.

But Bergemann said: "It's taxation without representation. Why don't you call a spade a spade? Very clearly you can call it anything. Whatever it is or whatever you call it, the homeowner is going to have to pay for it. In my mind it is a tax."

Ellen Whitmer, a Fruit Cove activist who has been at odds with Nocatee developers for years and unsuccessfully sued to stop the development, complained that the developers promised they'd pick up the infrastructure tab when the St. Johns County Commission approved their transportation master plan last fall. The CDD proposal contradicts the promises, she said.

'Not as open'

"Boy, is this interesting," Whitmer said. "In my opinion, it's typical misrepresentation of the facts. They touted that they were going to be a self-sustaining community and that it was going to be a win-win for the county and the developers would pay more than their fair share. This thing is not self-sustaining." 

Whitmer complained that Nocatee officials want to enforce something on residents who don't even live there yet.

"There's nobody there to object right now. This is like giving the developer a blank check and there's no one to question them, there's no oversight. And the county is just completely out of that part of it," Whitmer said.

County Commissioner Bruce Maguire, who represents the Ponte Vedra Beach area, said he likes CDDs because they ease the tax burden on people who don't live in the districts. However, he doesn't like how the Nocatee CDD hearings were handled.

"I don't remember knowing anything about it," Maguire said. "On the surface, it does look like they didn't take the steps to really get maximum coverage and thereby get maximum participation in the hearings. But why would they make things worse? It doesn't look like this is quite as open as it was before. Previous to this, everything they did was out in the public." 

Hearings notice questioned

Commissioner Nicholas Meiszer, who represent the Nocatee area, questions virtually everything about the way Nocatee officials handled publication of the hearings. 

"It's part of the misconception they've created and their excuse is part of it is in St. Johns County and part of it is in Duval County; that makes no difference," Meiszer said. "That's the problem. If you don't have an interest in it or are not an affected party, sometimes your opinion is disregarded. 

"I think that they only comply with the minimum legal requirements and cross their fingers and hope no one shows up. They hope it's quiet as possible," Meiszer said, adding he wants more hearings before the state decides on the Nocatee CDDs.

"I would like to see it, but I don't know if it's legally required or not. As a goodwill measure for something on this magnitude, there should be two or more public hearings," Meiszer said. "I was not aware of these hearings, and if I'm not aware of it, how could the average citizen be informed? It needs more public input.

"I, as a county commissioner or as a citizen, don't like the way they [CDDs] are used," Meiszer said.

Maguire wants more debate on the Nocatee CDD proposal. If the hearings had been properly handled, Maguire said, opponents could have raised concerns rather than no discussion at all.

"Had there been 50 people there, somebody may have asked a question that we could have picked up on and maybe we could have found something," Maguire said.

Bergemann said his group would have had someone attend the hearings if they had been advertised as "Nocatee" and not "Split Pine" and "Tolomato" CDD hearings. Cyber Citizens for Justice has a committee to serve as watchdogs on CDDs, and their Internet site cautions about the districts.

"We have people who are watching what they are doing and we all missed it. We're looking for 'Nocatee,' not these other fancy names someone comes up with," Bergemann said. "No one would know what this is about; even people who have been dealing with it for two years didn't know the names."