News Articles

Jacksonville News - June 11, 2008
Former rec center to be park
by Jennifer Bacchus
News Staff Writer

The site of the former Jacksonville Recreation Center is set to become a small park for residents and visitors to enjoy. "We're trying to utilize that piece of property to the max," said Councilman Truman Norred, Linda Schiff, a member of the ACE committee and the Jacksonville Garden Club has been working on a grant from Alabama Power to pay for the plants and trees to fill the park. The grant is nearly ready for submission and, if awarded, will give the club about $2,000.

Norred, Schiff and Tammy Shipp, the current Garden Club president, would like to see the park created as a winter garden.

"In other words, everything be evergreens, stuff that blooms in the winter time," Norred said.

Additional parking is being worked into the plans, but Norred says the park should take up a 90-foot by 40-foot area. Plans are also being discussed to use the park as a farmer's market on Saturdays.

The committee is nearly ready to present their final ordinance recommendation to the council. Since the last committee meeting on April 28, the members have pored over and made recommendations on what to change in the proposed ordinance written by City Attorney Grant Paris.

Scott Beckett presented a list of such changes to the rest of the committee at Monday’s meeting, including a recommendation to include a "reach back" provision in the ordinance.

Beckett's proposal would require large landowners to perform a tree survey and file it with the city four weeks before any proposed grading. He feels this measure would decrease the amount of speculative grading, or clear cutting, done in Jacksonville.

"For example, what happened with the Greenleaf property where an owner will come in and clear a large tract of land of everything without it even being subdivided and then sell it. Many other ordinances have what's called a reach back provision, which means it's triggered if the owner applied for a land disturbance permit or a subdivision permit the owner has to do a tree survey so there is a public record of what trees are there and how big they are," said Beckett.

Following the meeting, David Glass, the committee chairman, gave the proposed ordinance and the committee's suggested changes to Mayor Johnny Smith with a request that Paris make the changes he saw fit and resubmit the ordinance to the committee.

Once the ordinance achieves consensus within the committee, it will be presented to the mayor and council.

Klaus Duncan recommended the ordnance include a provision creating a covenant throughout the city for new residential areas.

It was decided that, for funding reasons, the committee would not immediately recommend the hiring of a city arborist. Several committee members recommended beginning with a tree board, which would name one of its own as a town forester, and work on getting additional funding to eventually hire, on either a contract or full-time basis, an arborist.