Attn city council: revise the code and lift restrictions on downtown!

[Anti redneck]

Mayor Brown wants to revitalize downtown. I'm sure other people besides myself feel downtown would start booming if a lot of restrictions were removed. Let's get our message out and get through to them: they need to stop telling people and businesses what they can and cannot do. I bet if they revised code and lifted restrictions, we would see immediate results with downtown. How can we as MJ get through to them?

[Noone]

Attach an amendment to 2012-212 that would keep the Historic Promised 680' Downtown Public Pier outside the control of this yet to be voted on DIA and thus insuring that our Regional partners would have an equal opportunity to Promote, Access, Celebrate, and Preserve our St. Johns River our American Heritage River a Federal Initiative. Its an Epoch opportunity to reclaim our working Waterfront. NOW!

Can't wait to share this with the Governor and the commissioners of FIND.

2010-604, 2011-560, The Barton memo.

I am Downtown and why you aren't.

[duvaldude08]

Mayor Brown wants to revitalize downtown. I'm sure other people besides myself feel downtown would start booming if a lot of restrictions were removed. Let's get our message out and get through to them: they need to stop telling people and businesses what they can and cannot do. I bet if they revised code and lifted restrictions, we would see immediate results with downtown. How can we as MJ get through to them?

I am waiting to see what happens. I remember him saying that any code or restriction that is hendering downtown growth or preventing it from being business friendly he vowed to change. Of course we are not even a year into his term. And he would definately need the city council on board with the changes. We will see what happens eventually.

[Anti redneck]

Maybe less restrictions on downtown and more restrictions on excessive demolition. Who is talking to Brown for bike share? Anyone?

[Timkin]

Maybe less restrictions on downtown and more restrictions on excessive demolition. Who is talking to Brown for bike share? Anyone?

ALOT less restrictions on Downtown and  STOP any unnecessary demolition. It serves no purpose. Taxpayer money basically thrown out a window (and into a landfill)  If a building is NOT in imminent danger of collapse, we do not need to spend money , particularly at this juncture on taking them out just because some deem them "eyesores" or  public nuisances.

If we have money to bulldoze and make the demolition groups rich, the money is better spent investing in our building stock and not taking them out.

[kells904]

Of course we are not even a year into his term. And he would definately need the city council on board with the changes. We will see what happens eventually.

He also needs a few new City Council members.

[AbelH]

My suggestion would be to detail the restrictions you would like to see eased or lifted. What specifically do you see in the code that's holding downtown back? If you can spell that out, it makes it much easier to have a conversation about what could be done to change it.

[marksjax]

Abel, one thing I run up against is if I want to do a street party similar to Five Points. The question seems to be a lack of definition/communication between the city and state division of alcoholic beverages. Re: I can't do an extension of premise without city approval. City not used to these kind of questions so it then becomes an office of special events deal and it goes round and round. Not sure how the folks in 5 Points do theirs ( guessing it is a charity license), but you almost need an attorney to fill out all the paperwork to apply for a street closure permit. Then you have to get the event insurance, hire police and do the staging, hire entertainment, etc.
It is just too much for one little bar to accomplish.
That is one example of why it is tougher Downtown, much more oversight and looking over your shoulder as all the supervisors of city depts as well as JSO are down there. Mucho scrutiny.
Solution: have a law passed that allows for Downtown bars to do these things easier, cheaper and without going through so many hoops with both the city and the state Div of alcohol. Could have been done many years ago. No foresight or planning is my take.
Care to know my feelings on the bagging of parking meters and vehicular traffic flow on East Bay St??

[Anti redneck]

Abel, one thing I run up against is if I want to do a street party similar to Five Points. The question seems to be a lack of definition/communication between the city and state division of alcoholic beverages. Re: I can't do an extension of premise without city approval. City not used to these kind of questions so it then becomes an office of special events deal and it goes round and round. Not sure how the folks in 5 Points do theirs ( guessing it is a charity license), but you almost need an attorney to fill out all the paperwork to apply for a street closure permit. Then you have to get the event insurance, hire police and do the staging, hire entertainment, etc.
It is just too much for one little bar to accomplish.
That is one example of why it is tougher Downtown, much more oversight and looking over your shoulder as all the supervisors of city depts as well as JSO are down there. Mucho scrutiny.
Solution: have a law passed that allows for Downtown bars to do these things easier, cheaper and without going through so many hoops with both the city and the state Div of alcohol. Could have been done many years ago. No foresight or planning is my take.
Care to know my feelings on the bagging of parking meters and vehicular traffic flow on East Bay St??

Let's hear it anyway. I'm wanting this to go as far as possible so that city leaders get wind of this and finally decide to let off on overregulations in downtown.

[marksjax]

re: Bagging of the parking meters and traffic flow on East Bay Street. This has been one of the ongoing issues that make it harder to operate a business Downtown than in the suburbs.

I want to first say that the JSO have been receptive to some of my suggestions over the years which have resulted in a few 'wins' for retail business on East Bay Street. My beef is not actually with the JSO, however, as they are the policy enforcement arm of gov't they get dragged into my argument.

Essentially, any large attendance event at the stadium, ball park, metro park, arena, jags game, fla/ga game, gator bowl, etc has a direct effect on East Bay St in that the meters are bagged (often times 24-48 hours in advance of the event day which scare people away at night), traffic patterns are manipulated each way (in/out), cones are put out, JSO at each corner whistling folks quickly through the area (in/out), side streets are closed off, parking in this area is virtually nonexistent unless you know your way around (most visitors do not).

So, you have thousands of visitors and we try to get them in and out of downtown as quickly as possible. That is the rub.

Why have it structured like that when other cities seem to get by without a lot of this drama? It is a source of pride that the JSO clears out the Jags games to be in the top 5 or 10 cities to get that job accomplished the fastest (a competition for fastest exit of an event?) really?
Oh no, you are going to have to wait in traffic for a little while, man up for crying out loud!

What about the 16 huge directional signals erected because (allegedly) Jeremy Foley's girlfriend got stuck in traffic at a Fla Ga game and bitched him out about it. Then Mr. Foley let's Mayor Peyton know of his displeasure with the traffic situation (one day out of 365!) and next thing ya know we are ripping up Bay Street to make it look like a frigging freeway at a cost of $3.5 million! So much for a 'pedestrian friendly environment', lol. The argument we heard was it 'will save us money on renting cones and JSO manpower'. Three years later the cones and the JSO are still in place. Funny.

Anyway, I know they (JSO) say they need Bay Street for access to I-95. But where there is a will there is a way. Certainly there is a better solution than this. Just my $.02.

[JFman00]

I had no idea that's why things are set up that way. What a ridiculous setup.

[Anti redneck]

Well that does sound like downtown Jacksonville. Why they want it cleared out as quickly as possible after big events baffles me. To make downtown a better place means to not make people feel unwelcome. Let's not forget the nice St. Johns River that no one is allowed to access or the most recent food truck ban.

We can keep talking about all the other ridiculous crap that they do all we want on here. What I'd like to know is, how can we as a group present this to city leaders? Preferably the mayor, since he has continuously talked about revitalizing downtown.

[marksjax]

The problem, in my opinion, comes down to preservation of the 'status quo'.
Unless you can get past that, and the entrenched (and petty) 'territory and ego' issues that pervade government office  and management I don't think you will have meaningful change.
They (anyone in office or city government) don't much want to change. Even though they may give you a polite 'listen', that's about all you will get.

[Tacachale]

So, you have thousands of visitors and we try to get them in and out of downtown as quickly as possible. That is the rub.

Why have it structured like that when other cities seem to get by without a lot of this drama? It is a source of pride that the JSO clears out the Jags games to be in the top 5 or 10 cities to get that job accomplished the fastest (a competition for fastest exit of an event?) really?
Oh no, you are going to have to wait in traffic for a little while, man up for crying out loud!

That touches on one of my various pet peeves with modern big time football. The modern football stadium is designed at every step to move suburban fans in and out by car. For reasons that are beyond me, cities put a higher priority on getting folks out of downtown than on capitalizing on the economic benefit of a game drawing tens of thousands of people downtown.

[tufsu1]

Maybe less restrictions on downtown and more restrictions on excessive demolition. Who is talking to Brown for bike share? Anyone?

yes...several people...and in the pro-bike vein, the Mayor will be presented with a custom bike at the May Art Walk