Green Cove Strikes Back, Kicks Reynolds in the Pocketbook

Dispute Over Runway-Aligned Apartment Plan Spills Over Into Tax Territory

Virtually the only elements secretive Pegasus Technologies posts on its website are a logo and this rendering of a new $5 million facility built by the company.

Ed Gaw is really, really angry. Just ask him.

The Green Cove Springs city councilor says he is angry because the city is being forced to defend against a lawsuit that he insists has no merit. He insists the suit is a hardball tactic to bleed Green Cove financially for standing up to a well-connected local aviation business.

Pegasus Technologies and its landlord, Reynolds Industrial Park, are suing Green Cove to quash the city’s approval for an apartment complex. The four-story complex would line up with the runway used by Pegasus at Reynolds Air Park. Pegasus and Reynolds say the apartments would risk public safety and subject tenants to nuisance levels of aircraft noise.

Nonsense, Gaw says. Researching ways to fight back, Gaw discovered what he insists is a related injustice. He says he found evidence that Clay County has substantially undervalued the Reynolds property for tax purposes.

Responding to Gaw, Clay County officials have commissioned a review of how they have been calculating Reynolds’ market value.

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Thomas Marcy, Clay County director of appraisal services, says a consultant has been hired to examine the validity of Reynold’s $15 million assessment, which Gaw views as too low for a property of 1,700 acres, 90 buildings and riverfront.

Gaw is suspicious of the agricultural tax exemption for about 650 of those acres, and he doubts its “working waterfront” tax breaks are justified, even though there are two marinas, a boatyard, marine businesses and more than a dozen ships docked alongside its 13 piers.

Marcy says all aspects of the valuation are being studied by the county’s hired consultants, who are expected to submit a bill for $15-$20,000 in July after they hand in their report.

Pollution

Marcy says many factors affect market value. In the case of Reynolds Industrial Park, which is on the grounds of an old Navy base, 29 pollution sites have been identified, 10 of which have remediated, leaving 19 still waiting for federal clean-up funds.

The required clean-up of these designated “Superfund sites” and an indequate electrical grid have both had an effect on the property’s fair market value, Marcy says. He notes that the Reynolds property has been for sale for years.

“We’ve heard everything from the people in the city from this property should be $40 million or it should be $50 million. Somebody said it should be $400 million,” Marcy says. “If the property is in such high demand, why are there no offers?”

Marcy says that Reynolds has paid $255,000 in local taxes for 2022. If it were determined that the taxable value was substantially larger, the tax increases for the city and county portions could only be applied in annual10 percent increments under state law.

However, the school district’s increased portion of the tax bill would be applied immediately, which Gaw says could result in a substantial windfall for local education.

Still, it is difficult find anything, except Ed Gaw himself, that connects the aviation safety controversy to any failure to correctly assess market value for the Reynolds complex, except for maybe one thing…

Marcy admits that his office dropped the ball when it failed to notice that a new, $5 million facility had been built at Reynolds, which presumably should have increased the property’s value.

The facility in question happens to have been built by Pegasus.

Depicted by the rendering at the top of this story, the structure is situated alongside the air park’s main runway. Marcy says he’s been out to inspect the facility—at least those portions not off limits to anyone without a security clearance. He does not remember if the visit happened before or after the Pegasus lawsuit against the city.

Retribution?

“There’s no conspiracy going on with the value of the Reynolds property,” Marcy says. “We want to be fair to everyone involved, including the property owner.”

Gaw’s skepticism toward Reynold’s valuation will be confirmed by the consultant’s report, or not. However, one thing is almost certain: None of this would be happening if Pegasus and Reynolds had not sued Green Cove Springs.

So, is the Reynolds scrutiny legitimate or merely political retaliation? Depends on whom you ask, Tallahassee or Disney.

The author is a career newspaper reporter and editor, who covered federal and state courts. He was former editor of New Hampshire Sunday News. Nowadays, he spends most of his time writing about issues affecting boats and boating.