We have had a few comments and emails about the Future Land Use Plan and Comprehensive Plan so we went into the City of Pensacola’s archives and found these documents.
The Future Land Use Plan amendment that identified the Old Pickens School site as Medium Density Residential and the amendment to the Comprehensive Plan that confirmed that the Long Hollow Conservation District were both approved by the City Planning Board at its Sept. 14, 2010 meeting.
Rusty Wells, currently an assistant city attorney, and Sherry Morris, the planning services administrator, attended the meeting. The minutes showed that Morris explained the issues of non-conformity and rezoning. She presented the amendments to the Board.
See Planning Board 91410.
The City held a public hearing on the amendments in November 2010, and the council approved in December 2010 sending them to the Department of Community Affairs. The two staff contacts for the public and council were Thaddeus Cohen and Sherry Morris. See Council Memo 111510.
After the DCA review, the council passed the amendments in June 2011.
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One other point: Some have claimed that Manna, Veronica Fountain and the public could have clearly found the Pickens school area was not zoned Commercial if they had checked the city’s online maps.
The online maps weren’t accurate and didn’t reflect the Future Land Use Plan amendment for the site. The Planning Services Department failed to update the zoning maps after the amendment was passed in 2011. The Property Appraiser Chris Jones still had it classified as commercial on his rolls.