St. Augustine Kicks Off Vision Update
It’s been 10 years since St. Augustine updated its vision plan, and city officials are asking residents if things look better, worse or about the same.
At a recent City Commission meeting, Amy Skinner, director of the city’s planning and building department, said the city is working with the Northeast Florida Regional Council to create a new plan.
“We are looking forward,” she said. “Over the next several months we will be hosting several workshops scattered around the city (and) we hope people will come and give us their feedback.”
Monica Dominguez, program manager with the Regional Council, said the organization is a resource for local governments.
“We are not really here to tell anyone what to do,” she said. “We are interested in helping smaller cities with their planning needs, their visioning needs. We recognize that the city of St. Augustine has changed so we will be coming up with a community vision statement after our public engagement.”
A series of community meetings are scheduled beginning Sept. 12 through Oct. 13.
“That first meeting will serve for us to confirm things and perhaps get a sense of what new ideas may be coming from the community,” Dominguez said. “One of the topics we want to explore is resiliency and what it means to St. Augustine.”
The schedule of community meetings is as follows:
- Sept. 12: 5-7 p.m. at the St. Johns County Main Library
- Sept 16: 6-8 p.m. at the St. Augustine Yacht Club
- Oct. 2: 6-8 p.m. at the Willie Galimore Community Center
- Oct. 16: 6-8 p.m. at the Waterworks Building
- Oct. 29: 6-8 p.m. at Shiloh Baptist Church, West King Street
- Nov. 13: 6-8 p.m. in the Alcazar Room at St. Augustine City Hall
After the conclusion of the public engagement process, future community meetings will be held beginning with a presentation of findings at a joint meeting of the city’s citizen boards. A draft report will be presented to the Planning and Zoning Board, the Historic Architecture Review Board and Corridor Review Board before the final report is unveiled at a City Commission meeting in January.
Commissioner Barbara Blonder asked about the logistics of the process.
“You will have a vision narrative based on all the public input we received,” Dominguez said. “You will receive everything that we gathered through the public engagement process.”
Skinner said city staff took its Regional Council colleagues on a tour of the city to begin the visioning process.
“When we were on our tour we went to the four corners of the city,” she said. “We want to make sure we are all inclusive in all areas.”
Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline said the city’s current vision statement has served St. Augustine but can be tweaked.
“I wanted to mention that I love our vision statement,” she said. “We worked really hard on it. I still think it can be improved upon, so I hope that is part of the process.”
