The Nassau County Board of County Commissioners and Intact Construction Management has responded to a writ filed by three county residents objecting to plans to build an RV park on Sadler Road, saying the plan for the park met development guidelines and should not be stopped.
Last month, the BOCC approved the final development plan for Breakers RV Resort, filed by Intact Construction, engineers Gillette and Associates and the property owner, Ben Buchanan, and his representative, Jon Lasserre. The property, located on the southwest corner of Sadler and Ryan roads, was rezoned in February 2022 from single family to Commercial General, or CG. Travel trailer parks and campgrounds are a permitted use in CG.
The city of Fernandina Beach had declined to put the park on its sewer system, and so plans changed to build a septic system for it. The county's Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously not to approve the project, based on traffic safety issues and concerns about installing a septic system. The county's planning staff, however, recommended approval of the development plan. Public outcry against the park was evident at the meeting where the development plan was approved.
Three residents of the Pirates Bay subdivision, Michael Shirk, Christina O'Brien and Lea-Ellen Scott, petitioned the Fourth Judicial Circuit Court to void the development order. The reasons the petitioners say the development order should be "quashed" are: A travel trailer park and campground are not an allowed use on the proposed site of the Development under the county's LDR; There is no vested right in the development application; The application was not processed as a planned unit development.; The park would discharge traffic into a residential district; RVs cannot maneuver on Ryan Road, which would border the park.
"The County departed from the essential requirements of the law required by the Land Development Regulations, and failed to support its determination that the Development Order met all the requirements of the LDRs by competent substantial evidence," the writ read.
The response to the writ can be found here:
https://www.fbnewsleader.com/sites/fbnewsleader.etypegoogle7.com/files/2023-03/docketimage.pdf
The response to the writ filed last week said the petitioners’ arguments were mostly legal arguments and lay opinion” that are the same information brought forth at the public comment period of the quasi-judicial hearing at which the development order was approved.
“Petitioners do not offer an analysis of record facts that point to, much less discuss, whether the BOCC’s approval of a final develop plan … was without competent substantial evident in support. This type of challenge is not susceptible to certiorari review.”
BOCC’s response said that while citizen testimony at quasi-judicial hearings is permissible and can constitute evidence as long is it is fact-based, the type of comments made at the hearing were “statements of lay opinions by, for example, a development applicant’s neighbors … do not provide commenting substantial evident that would support the denial of a development application.”
The response says that some of the testimony made against the development in fact support it, including statements that RVs already use Sadler Road, that people use the intersection of Ryan and Sadler as a transit to go to the beach and that there is a camping area nearby in Ft. Clinch State Park.
“To be clear, the nature of the fact-based citizen objections to the application … was ‘I do not want strangers’ travel-trailers or RVs near my neighborhood,’ rather than ‘part of the character of my neighborhood is that travel trailers and RVs are excluded and this nearby development will threaten that character,” the response said. “The BOCC’s order approving the final development plan for the travel-trailer campground on the commercial thoroughfare Sadler Road did not depart from the essential requirements of law.”
jroberts@fbnewsleader.com