Growth
Development, zoning, traffic, and who pays for it.
Agricultural enclaves
The applicant says it filed a petition for writ of certiorari on Oct. 19 asking the Seventh Judicial Circuit Court to review the county's Sept. 15 refusal to certify approximately 4,462 acres north of Nocatee Parkway as an agricultural enclave. The motion that denied the application, carried 3 to 2, also directed the County Attorney to prepare the final written order with findings of fact and conclusions of law. Section 163.3162(4)(d) of the Florida Statutes runs the 30-day window for a petition from the date the local government renders its decision. No written order appears on the Oct. 6 or Oct. 20 board agendas, and the Clerk's index of board records links no minutes for either meeting.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 24, 2026
Agricultural enclaves
Four agricultural enclave certifications covering about 906 acres were set for public hearing on Tuesday, along with the Grand Oaks major modification and the $20,000,000 development agreement that goes with it. Section 163.3162(4)(c) of the Florida Statutes says that if a local government neither approves nor denies a certification within 90 days of receiving the application, the land must be certified. Three of the four applications have a receipt date on the record, and the clocks on those three run out in the last two days of November. The county has published no minutes and no recording of Tuesday's meeting.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 21, 2026
Rooftops
The county board holds the second of two required hearings Tuesday on a development agreement that drops the 2018 requirement to four-lane roughly three miles of State Road 16 and replaces it with a $20,000,000 payment covering 512 homes. County staff put the required proportionate share at $12,850,449. The agreement itself states $2,471,306. The same agreement asks for a road impact fee credit that staff calculates at $19,396,839.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 19, 2026
Rooftops
The county board takes up ENCERT 2026-10, 2026-11, 2026-12 and 2026-13 on Oct. 20, roughly 906 acres between them by this paper's addition. Two staff reports say the applications appear to satisfy the statute and two say they do not. The backup also prints the thing the county publishes nowhere else, which is the date each application arrived, and three of the four give it. The same packet carries the Sept. 28 minutes, which record a failed motion to censure a commissioner and a written order the board ordered and the agenda does not mention.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 17, 2026
Growth
St. Johns County Utilities cut the ribbon Thursday on the State Road 207 Water Reclamation Facility, which has been running since May 11. The county calls it the largest capital improvement project in its history. The county gives the plant's capacity in gallons and does not say how much of it is already committed.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 16, 2026
Growth
A minor modification filed against the Pope Site PUD at the Shoppes of Valley Ridge and a pre-application a mile north at 11600 U.S. 1 North are both open, neither has a completion date, and both say on their face that the church is big enough to be a Large Place of Assembly. The county's project data screen, which has fields for acreage, square footage and peak hour trips, is blank on all three for both.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 13, 2026
Rooftops
Three agricultural enclave applications went to the board on Sept. 15, and the approved minutes, posted this week, settle all three. The 4,462 acres on North Palm Valley Road were denied 3 to 2. Sandy Creek's 379 acres were withdrawn by the applicant. The AFI Property was certified 3 to 2, at a density its own lawyer put on the record, and under section 163.3162(4) the county may not require a public hearing on the development plans that follow.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 9, 2026
County government
On April 6, 2023, Clay Murphy's campaign recorded eight separate $1,000 contributions. Six list 200 Business Park Circle, St. Augustine, which is the address of the applicant on the 1,166 acres this board certified in August and denied on Sept. 28. Murphy says he knew they were all associated with Chris Shee, that he asked the county's legal team whether that was a conflict, and that he was told it was not.
By Roy Alden Teague
· October 6, 2026
growth
Item 9 on the regular agenda is two sentences long. It names no duration, no boundary and no definition of a data center. The thing that produced it was a consensus in commissioners' reports on Sept. 1, not a motion and not a vote.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 5, 2026
Rooftops
The county says eastbound traffic shifts onto newly built lanes along about a quarter mile between the AutoZone driveway and the 7-Eleven, beginning around Oct. 1. Drivers turning right from International Golf Parkway will have to stop first, because westbound traffic moves into the right lane, and that stop stays after the job is done. The widening is about 70 percent complete and is adding two lanes from the parkway to just past County Road 2209.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· October 1, 2026
County government
The board denied ENCERT 2026-01 on Sept. 15 and ENCERT 2026-05 and 2026-06 on Sept. 28. The statute says a denial must be issued in writing with detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and the applicant has 30 days from rendition to take it to circuit court. The Oct. 6 agenda carries no written order, no enclave item, and not the Sept. 28 minutes this paper told readers it would carry.
By Roy Alden Teague
· October 1, 2026
Rooftops
Chapter 2026-34 took effect July 1. It gives a county 30 days to write a report on an agricultural enclave application, 30 more to hold a hearing, and 90 in all before the parcel is certified whether the board votes or not. The county publishes no list of which applications are pending or when it received them.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 29, 2026
City hall
Resolution 2026-33 went through in about two minutes with no debate. It confirms that the only city properties ever on the list are not suitable, that the one parcel since removed was traded away for the site of the Dignity Pavilion, and that everything the city has bought since 2023 was bought as conservation land. The deadline in the statute is Thursday.
By Roy Alden Teague
· September 29, 2026
County government
Deputy County Attorney Healy West told the board that staff had looked at the comprehensive plan and believed the application fit the statutory definition. Commissioner Ann Taylor moved to deny regardless. Commissioner Krista Joseph seconded and said she did not think there was a third vote in the room. There was, and it came from Commissioner Sarah Arnold, who did not say why.
By Roy Alden Teague
· September 29, 2026
Reader story
On April 6, 2023, Clay Murphy’s campaign reported eight separate donations of $1,000 each. That is $8,000 in one day from eight companies. Six of the companies used the same address: at Business Park Circle in St. Augustine.
By Frank Basset Collee Cove
· September 29, 2026
Reader story
One vote on Monday changed what could happen to about 1,166 acres on sides of Interstate 95, along with the possibility of as many as 15,000 homes.
By Frank Basset St. Augustine Beach
· September 29, 2026
Rooftops
A special meeting at 9 a.m. on both Heritage Development enclaves, ENCERT 2026-05 and 2026-06, each carried 3 to 2 on Aug. 19. Commissioner Whitehurst, who voted to certify, moved on Sept. 15 to bring them back. This paper reported two weeks ago that a certification is not a decision a later board revisits.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 25, 2026
growth
The Shoppes at Mill Creek Forest would end up with a cap of 440,500 square feet of commercial and retail space. The exchange is justified by equivalent vehicle trips, and the trip numbers are not in the agenda the county posted. Six other items are on the same list, including 250,000 square feet of flex warehousing on Inman Road and 9.16 acres off County Road 210 West.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 25, 2026
Rooftops
The hospital is five stories and about 220,000 square feet, with six operating rooms, two endoscopy suites and a 24-hour emergency department. The 72,000-square-foot medical office building beside it has not opened to patients yet. Every figure here comes from UF Health's own release and its own location page.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 23, 2026
growth
The application on Little Florence Cove wants Residential-A changed to Rural Commercial, a special use permit for a fish camp and on-site alcohol, and a variance for docks. The county's own plan already lists fish camps as a Rural Commercial use. The community meeting is Oct. 1 and no staff report exists yet.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 20, 2026
growth
Eighteen applications on one agenda, three of them asking to cut the off-street parking a use would otherwise owe. The code provision that sends conservation zone work to this board defines the zones by pointing at a section number that is not in the published code.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 19, 2026
Rooftops
LDCA26-05 adds hours of 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., ten feet between trucks, a hundred feet from any house, three seats and one trash can per truck, and puts both terms in the code's definitions article. The board added an hour at each end of the trading day in July after public comment. The Clerk has posted no minutes and no video of Tuesday's meeting.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 18, 2026
Rooftops
News4JAX and Jacksonville Today each report a 3-2 vote Tuesday to deny ENCERT 2026-01. The Clerk has posted no minutes and no video for Sept. 15. If the board denied, the 90-day certification period the county put at Sept. 29 is satisfied, and the clock that replaces it runs 30 days from a written order that does not exist yet.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 16, 2026
Rooftops
Item 6, Thursday at 1:30 p.m. in the County Auditorium. Ordinance 2018-40 requires the developer to widen three miles of State Road 16 to four lanes, and the agreement under it caps nothing. The agenda entry carries no dollar figure, and the county publishes no staff report before a Planning and Zoning hearing.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 16, 2026
Rooftops
Application SUPMAJ 2026-000016 comes to a public meeting Sept. 30. Two more northwest sector applications come first, and one of the three notices does not say where the property is.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 15, 2026
Rooftops
Six items go to the Planning and Zoning Agency Thursday at 1:30. Four turn on how vehicles reach a place. The county publishes two pages on all of it.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 13, 2026
Rooftops
Item 6 on the commission's agenda converts part of Durbin Park from multi-family to single-family and says external traffic does not go up. The table that decides it prices an apartment at 0.354 evening trips and a house at 0.799, and it runs in both directions.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 12, 2026
Rooftops
St. Johns County says the 90-day certification period on ENCERT 2026-01 ends Sept. 29. The commission takes it up Tuesday, and the board's published meeting calendar does not schedule it back in the room before that date. Staff's written conclusion is that the application satisfies the statute, and the same 84.53 percent perimeter figure appears under both of the statute's 75 percent tests.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 11, 2026
Rooftops
The county commission takes up three agricultural enclave certifications on Sept. 15. One of them is 4,462 acres, which is 18 acres under the ceiling the statute allows. Certification is not a rezoning. Under the law rewritten this year, it is better than one.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 11, 2026
Rooftops
Two northwest-sector applications get their public participation meetings 30 minutes apart on the same Monday night. Here is what each notice actually says, and what it leaves out.
By Ivey Sutter Malone
· September 8, 2026