Green Cove Annexation of Three More Hall Parcels Entered as Evidence

Pegasus Trial (Part 1)

The land behind the sign is one of three Virginia Hall family parcels annexed by the City of Green Cove Springs in March, as seen from the intersection of Highway 17 (off at right) and County Road 209 South, also known as the J.P. Hall Jr. Memorial Highway. (Photo by Peter Swanson.)

First in a series of articles about the trial

In the end, the Pegasus Technologies lawsuit was not about the definition of “airport.” And, even though they were on the witness list, no one on the Green Cove Cove City Council was called to testify.

The trial, held July 6 and 7, pitted Pegasus and Reynolds Industrial Park against the City of Green Cove Springs and the Virginia Hall family as co-defendants. Released by the court earlier this week, the 671-page transcript chronicles a trial that focused on primarily two issues:

• Whether the city’s rezoning of a parcel aligned with an airport runway was contrary to Green Cove’s Comprehensive Development plan;

• And whether the city council’s annexation and rezoning of a 14-acre parcel belonging to Virginia Hall had created a zoning “donut hole.” That is, a spot zone.¹

Florida Circuit Court Judge Don Lester is expected to hand down a verdict by the end of this month.

For context, read earlier stories about the lawsuit.

In March, while the case was still pre-trial, discovery stage, Green Cove went ahead and annexed three more Hall family parcels from the county, a total 71 acres adjacent to the first parcel, and rezoned them from county-designated Industrial to Mixed Use/Commercial.²

City Development Director Michael Daniels testified that those Mixed Use/Commercial parcels—and others nearby—show that the parcel in dispute does not resemble a donut hole. Even though the 14 acres were dedicated entirely to residential apartments, Daniels said, the Mixed-Use zoning designation has been balanced by the adjency of other Mixed-Use parcels, albeit designated primarily commercial.

The Hall parcels are all a little more than a half mile from the intersection of Highway 17 and the First Coast Expressway, which is expected to span the St. Johns River by 2029. Witnesses referred to Highways 16 and 17 through Green Cove as “corridors.”

“The idea of creating the Mixed-Use designation was to allow for the flexibility to have commercial districts, predominantly along those corridors…but also provide the ability to have residential development,” Daniels said.

These reddish shapes are the three Hall parcels annexed by Green Cove in March. The one at left, which includes a circled portion where the photo atop this story was taken, is 29 acres and had been zoned Industrial by the county. In the middle, the parcel is 3.44 acres zoned Light Industrial by the county. At right, the parcel is 39 acres zoned Industrial by the county. All were rezoned by the city to Mixed Use/Commercial. The future First Coast Highway interchange at Highway 17 is at lower left.

Attorney Scott Thomas, representing Pegasus, objected to the introduction of the subsequent annexations into evidence, arguing that they lacked relevance. Judge Lester overruled the objection, possibly creating grounds for appeal should the defendants win the trial.

Thomas argued that once the city rezoned the 14-acre Hall parcel to Mixed Use for apartments, it indeed had become a hole in an Industrial-zone donut. He questioned Daniels to see whether the March 2023 annexation of the three parcels had been part of the plan all along.

Thomas: I just want to be clear. In 2022, when the annexation Future Land Use amendment and zoning and (the subject of this case) was adopted, you gave no consideration to the annexation, future land-use change, or zoning of these parcels?

Daniels: No.

Thomas: Was it relevant at all?

Daniels: Again, I think it's relevant in the sense that we were, you know, we did evaluate the impact of the First Coast Expressway… you know, predominantly changing the potential for future land uses within the area, but specifically related to that 71 acres, no.

Susan Fraser is a former Clay County planning director and, after several private sector jobs, is now an independent planning consultant. She works for the Hall family in connection with the annexed parcels close to the Highway 17 corridor and testified extensively as an expert witness for the defense.

Her position is that a Mixed-Use designation does not preclude individual parcels from having a single use—residential in the case of the 14-acre parcel. She said Mixed Use can be applied “in the aggregate.” That is, to a series of parcels along a corridor.

Fraser said the Halls’ decision to seek annexation of three additional properties—and the city rezoning them—bolstered that opinion.

She also testified that spot zoning, which modern-day planners tend to frown upon, is not an absolute taboo. She said consideration should be given of the “intensity” of the conflicting adjacent uses and ways to buffer against conflicts.

“It doesn't always have to be a negative,” Fraser testified. “And I think that's what the city intended when it said (in its Comprensive Plan), ‘spot zoning shall be avoided.’ They're trying to say, be aware of a change in use and understand that you need to give that scrutiny.”

1. From Wikipedia: Spot zoning is the application of zoning to a specific parcel or parcels of land within a larger zoned area when the rezoning is usually at odds with a city's master plan and current zoning restrictions. Spot zoning may be ruled invalid as an "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable treatment" of a limited parcel of land by a local zoning ordinance. While zoning regulates the land use in whole districts, spot zoning makes unjustified exceptions for a parcel or parcels within a district.

2. Clay Today, the weekly newspaper that has not covered the lawsuit, actually managed to make two errors in the headline over the March 9 story about the subsequent annexations: “Reynolds Park property owner asks Green Cove Springs to annex 41.5 acres.” It wasn’t a “Reynolds Park property owner” and it wasn’t “41.5 acres.”