The City of St. Augustine Community Redevelopment Agency on an unanimous vote authorized staff to forward the draft West City Community Redevelopment Area plan to the local planning agency (planning and zoning board) for review, with modest language revisions requested by commissioners.

The vote authorizes Jamie D. Perkins, Neighborhood Services and CRA Manager for the City of St. Augustine, to present the 72‑page draft plan — including its six strategic action areas, tax increment projections and an implementation schedule — to the planning and zoning board. The motion passed with Commissioners John DePrater, Nancy Sykes Klein, Cynthia Garris, Jim Springfield and Barbara Blonder all voting yes.

Why it matters: the West City CRA plan sets program goals and a funding framework for targeted capital improvements and programs in a long‑established neighborhood that commissioners and residents said faces needs including housing stabilization, business development, connectivity and historic preservation.

Perkins told the board the plan’s core items are in sections 5, 7 and 8 and asked the board to focus review on the action items, TIF (tax increment financing) projections and the implementation schedule. She said staff prepared the TIF projections using a conservative 2.5% growth rate from a 2024 base year and a proposed CRA sunset date listed in the draft as 02/1954, yielding an approximate total TIF projection of $39,500,000 over the life of the CRA and a first‑year projected amount of about $66,000. Perkins noted the city incurred consultant and study costs of about $120,000 to date and seeded a conversation about repaying those costs over time rather than in a single lump sum.

Residents and steering‑committee members spoke during public comment in favor of the plan. Arthur Colbert, a resident and former steering committee chair, said the steering committee accomplished “a lot” and urged adoption “as written.” Resident BJ Kaledi expressed concerns about possible uses of TIF dollars, asking whether funds would go to “feel good projects” such as parking garages rather than addressing basic needs like septic removal and code enforcement in the neighborhood. Commissioner and staff exchanges during the meeting noted that statutory limits constrain what TIF funds can be used for and that funds are predominantly for capital improvements; the City Attorney warned the CRA is “very limited” under state statute on intervening in the private sector.

Board discussion and requested edits focused on organization and clarity. Commissioners asked staff to move language about delivery zones and truck wear‑and‑tear from the historic‑preservation section into the mobility and connectivity section, to explicitly add “initiatives and alternatives for preserving historic assets and infrastructure,” and to restore a broadly worded reference to working with private property owners and partnerships (described in the meeting as public‑private collaboration, not necessarily a formal statutory P3). Perkins agreed to update the table of contents to clearly mark section numbers and to rework the historic preservation and signage language per the board’s direction.

Perkins described the plan’s six strategic elements as: 1) community stabilization and housing policy (including possible rehabilitation grants similar to the city’s Fix It Up program and assistance with title/heirs‑property issues), 2) public space enhancement and beautification, 3) locally oriented business development (incubator space, technical assistance, permitting support), 4) mobility and connectivity (streetscape and ADA improvements, interlocal coordination where streets are not city‑owned), 5) branding and wayfinding signage, and 6) historic preservation (including a potential institutional‑rehab model analogous to Lincolnville). The implementation schedule in the draft groups projects into three phases (years 1–10, 11–20, 21–30) and identifies priority projects such as West King Street streetscape, wayfinding, green‑space improvements (Orchard Creek, Rollins), and possible circulator/transit coordination.

Next steps: the board’s authorization permits staff to place the West City CRA draft before the planning and zoning board (local planning agency) for consistency review; Perkins indicated the planning board date would be May 6 as a tentative meeting date. She also said the implementation schedule and funding levels in the draft are proposed and subject to modification based on public feedback and actual TIF receipts.

Ending: Commissioners and staff thanked steering committee volunteers and residents for their engagement. The board’s action does not adopt the plan; it authorizes the consistency review required for next steps in the statutory process.