Argyle Area Civic Council

Letters to the Times Union Editor - Argyle Opinions & Comments

Traffic Problems and Public Housing

4-4-2001 http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/040401/opl_5818878.html

ARGYLE FOREST: Traffic problems will be exacerbated

Support for a new public housing apartment complex near the front entrance of the Argyle area by City Council President Alberta Hipps is a knife in the back of all homeowners of the Argyle Forest/Chimney Lakes community.

Building an apartment complex next to one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the city will make an already terrible traffic situation much worse. Other better sites with less traffic impact were available.

The basic argument against the project remains valid. A developer could build 350 Epping Forest-type townhouses and the traffic problems would still be awful.

Hipps did not even try to stop the project. Instead, she simply blamed the federal government.

As an Argyle Forest resident and a former councilman who represented the Argyle area between 1991 and 1995, I know that the project could have been stopped.

In 1992, I refused to support a similar proposal to build apartments on that site because of traffic concerns.

At about the same time, I asked the city planning director, Ray Newton, to impose the construction moratorium in the Argyle Forest/Chimney Lakes area because the developers in Argyle were unwilling to widen Argyle Forest Boulevard. Newton agreed, and that, of course, upset several area developers.

Fast forward to 1998. Hipps was then in a strong position to negotiate changes with the landowners/developers who were anxious to end the construction moratorium.

Hipps could have stopped the building of the apartments on that site through negotiations with the landowner prior to the 1999 city elections, but she quietly allowed the project to get started.

Hipps' first town meeting about the apartments was held in the spring of 2000. By that time, all the construction approvals for the apartment complex had been obtained by the Vestcor Corp.

Like a betrayed spouse, the Argyle Forest/Chimney Lakes residents were the last to find out the truth.

JOHN DRAPER
Jacksonville


4-4-2001 http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/040401/opl_5818898.html

ARGYLE FOREST
Boulevard must be widened

Last May, the board of directors of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority approved the plan to widen Argyle Forest Boulevard, with a projected completion date in the summer of 2002.

Recently, it has come to my attention that the completion date has been put off for two years, meaning that it would be the summer of 2004.

Argyle Forest Boulevard services 21,000 cars a day and is rated at service level F (the worst rating that a roadway can have). The recent approval of the affordable housing apartment complex at 400 Youngerman Circle will bring additional traffic.

The owners of the undeveloped land in the Argyle Forest planned unit development are four-laning Argyle Forest Boulevard west of Shindler Drive and connecting it to Branan Field-Chaffee Road. This will be finished within the next 12-16 months. The owners of the undeveloped land have started construction of more homes in this area.

By the time Argyle Forest Boulevard is four-laned, it will be servicing 30,000 cars a day on a two-lane road.

Why can't the JTA put Argyle Forest Boulevard on the fast track and live up to the original promise to complete the project by the summer of 2002?

RICHARD A. DARBY,
firefighter/paramedic, Jacksonville


6-15-2001
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/061501/opl_6439432.html

HOUSING
Income dictates lifestyle
This is in response to the June 11 front-page story about public housing in Argyle Forest.

Ronnie Ferguson stated that low-income people have a right to live anywhere in the city. As president of the Jacksonville Housing Authority, funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and thus under pressure of federal demands, one can almost understand how Ferguson could muster the nerve to proffer such a detached and grievously erroneous notion.

No one person or family has any particular right to live in any particular part of Jacksonville or any other community. Rather, any free member, or group of members, of a free society has the right to live anywhere that his own freely accumulated wealth may purchase for him.

My family doesn't have a right to live in a beautiful oceanfront home in Jacksonville Beach just because that's where we would like to be. I do have the right, however, to make the choices and do the work that will bring money to me to buy my family's way into our choice of home and lifestyle.

All free-voting citizens of the United States have more than ample opportunity and ability to accumulate wealth and develop lifestyles of their choosing.

The point is this: The only right that any free-standing U.S. citizen has to live anywhere is the right to generate one's own ability to purchase the right to live in a place.

JAMES CROW,
taxi driver, Jacksonville


6-17-2001
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/061701/opl_6449719.html

ARGYLE FOREST
Road widening is vital

I read with great interest the complaints some of the residents of Argyle Forest have with the introduction of low-income housing to their area.

Though I can sympathize with their traffic woes, these problems have existed for years. Traffic will continue to be a problem until some serious road widening is done.

When some of these residents moved to the area, noting the "quietness" as a reason to move there, didn't they wonder what would become of the hundreds of acres still unused that were zoned for commercial and industrial use, as well as residential?

The owners of these properties have every right to develop them as long as they meet the city of Jacksonville's criteria, which apparently they did.

I think the residents' complaints, though somewhat legitimate, are with the city and others, not the developer.

JOHN REINHEIMER,
business owner, Orange Park


6-24-2001 http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/062401/opl_6508839.html

ARGYLE FOREST: Traffic congestion is biggest problem

This is in response to a recent letter about Argyle Forest.

Our complaints are with the city, not the developer. I am astounded that non-Argyle residents think our primary objection is to the low-income housing that is being built at the entrance to Argyle. That is so wrong.

We object to the location of this housing. Currently, there are four or five subdivisions going up in Argyle and more are to come. These will add thousands of vehicles to Argyle Boulevard, dumping them into that hopeless mess called Blanding Boulevard. The new apartments will add to the congestion right at the point it all converges.

A huge concern is schools. We will be busing children all over the place, thus adding to traffic gridlock. Then, we must consider fire, rescue and police problems. These people now struggle with the traffic and sometimes cannot get to a call. Manpower for these services is woefully inadequate already, and we have heard of no plans to increase our protection.

Argyle Boulevard is positively deadly. A number of people have been killed on this road. Day and night, we hear the sirens of emergency vehicles. We are accustomed to the sound of Life Flight helicopters coming to someone's assistance.

Jacksonville's growth has been unbelievable. I don't think anyone saw this coming in such sheer numbers. Right now, we must change our attitude from "build the homes and the roads will come" to "build the roads and the homes will come." If it takes a moratorium on building, so be it.

Clay County shares much of the blame for the Blanding Boulevard problems, too, with all of its construction. All of that traffic merges with Duval traffic to gain access to Interstate 295.

What is the solution to that problem short of putting a fence across Blanding at the Duval and Clay line? Lack of vision and poor planning years ago has resulted in only two north-south traffic corridors in this area. It appears to be time to somehow take to the air and build roads over roads.

Meanwhile, we will continue to live in fear and dread of getting on our roads. The occupants of the new apartments will be forced to live and raise their children in a concrete jungle surrounded by nightmare traffic congestion.

MARGARET PETERSEN
Jacksonville


10-13-2001 http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/101301/opl_7539597.html

ARGYLE FOREST
Expand boulevard
I think that Argyle Forest Boulevard should be extended to four lanes from Blanding Boulevard to Branan Field-Chaffee road.

This area is growing so fast with new development it would make no sense to create a bottleneck. I have heard rumors to the effect this will be part two-lane, part four-lane.

What a bottleneck this is going to cause. Keep in mind the Chimney Lakes School traffic, as well as the traffic coming from Clay County. Argyle Forest Boulevard is the only way out for the residents.

Please count the traffic and have spotters check the traffic in the mornings from around 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and then from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The traffic is horrible. If an emergency vehicle would attempt to go from Blanding Boulevard it could result in someone losing his or her life. We had a couple of automobile accidents that resulted in the death of individuals the last few months.

There are survey stakes up and down Argyle Forest Boulevard. They have been there for many months. If you live on the west side of Town Road, sewer improvements have little or no priority. The other side of the city gets immediate attention for road and sewer improvements.

Rapid turnaround time from start to finish of improvements east of the St. Johns River is completed with little delay.

We have a huge development going on now that will really do a number on traffic on Youngerman Circle and Argyle Forest Boulevard. We need relief now.

Argyle Forest Boulevard improvements should start now. There is no reason to start this project next year. We have had review after review. Let's build now.

GENE BLACKMAN,
senior systems analyst, Jacksonville

Transportation and Tree Law

12-13-2001 http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/121301/opl_8075412.html
PUBLIC SCHOOLS
Trees trump students?
As our schools are about to take a $14 million hit, there are some alternatives that should be discussed.

Recent articles have outlined $4 million to $6 million that the Florida Department of Transportation declined to pay into the city's tree mitigation fund, run by the mayor, for the Florida 9A/Interstate 295/Interstate 95 South interchange. If proportionate amounts are available for the 9A work leading up to this interchange and several other road projects FDOT has ongoing in Duval, then the mayor, who wants to improve our schools, would have funds to make up the shortfall directly at his disposal in the tree mitigation fund.

Why is it that we want to plant trees along highways? I discovered that 8,000-plus people die nationally each year from hitting roadside trees and telephone poles, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. I remembered that Virginia and the Carolinas plant flowers and shrubs and began to look deeper for reasons we plant trees.

The School of Forestry at the University of Florida tells me that growing trees are better carbon sinks than mature trees, but that trees don't suck up carbon monoxide. They say carbon monoxide actually kills trees. At best, they say, trees have a negligible effect on carbon absorption.

So, then, if roadside trees are a known roadside safety hazard, have negligible effect on reduction of carbon monoxide, and cost more money than flowers and shrubs, why are we so bent on planting trees along roadsides? In the Nov. 28 papers, the Florida Cabinet approved $20-plus million to attach to City Council's $25 million to purchase preservation lands. Hmmmmm ... For years I've heard and then said that children are our future. Hmmmmm ... The entire purpose of our organization is to get our elected officials and the non-elected bureaucrats to govern in ways that are sane and sensible. This letter is our attempt to cause a reality check.

DAVID HODGES,
President, Argyle Area Civic Council, Jacksonville


10-1-2001
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/100101/opl_7411966.html

TRANSPORTATION
Tree law is costly
Recently, the district (Northeast Florida) secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation explained how desired road projects must compete on a state-wide basis for funds.

In his explanation, he stated that a new interchange at Interstate 95 South, Interstate 295 South and Florida 9A South would cost about $100 million and would be multilevel so as to move traffic efficiently. He also stated that more than $7 million of this cost would be in tree mitigation costs to comply with the city of Jacksonville's tree ordinance.

From my view, $7 million would fund a lot of road improvements or drain a lot of flooded streets. We cannot allow correctable errors to stifle infrastructure improvements such that the only options are to not do the improvements or to raise taxes.

If the Jacksonville tree ordinance is sucking $7 million from roadway improvements, then that ordinance needs to be amended as to its application to roadway improvements of this nature. We are smarter than this, and the City Council needs to take the corrective action.

Instances of government spending gone amuck rile the least of us. Someone better be asking how much more infrastructure money is being spent on tree mitigation and other projects.

Maybe we don't need a property tax increase as much as we need some sanity from those who tax and spend.

DAVID HODGES,
private investigator, Jacksonville

City Coucil Redistricting

7-19-2001
http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/071901/opl_6717240.html

CITY COUNCIL
Districts are unfair
The City Council members say they worked long and hard on the new districts. The districts are now reasonable and fair for everyone. Fair for who? That's what I want to know.

All we heard about was that the poor people at the Beaches might have their district split. The poor people in Mandarin are losing part of their district. I have nothing against anyone who lives in these districts, but that was all we ever heard on TV. I am happy that the beach communities were able to stay together. That is only right.

I live in District 11. Have we heard anything about these people?

My hat is off to Ron Littlepage for his column that brought this to light.

How can one district span from Argyle Forest to Mayport and be fair and logical? What about the handful of people who live on Collins Road beside Interstate 295? How did they get pulled out and put in District 11? Who cares about those people on the Westside?

How can we be fairly represented with such a diversity of problems throughout the district? It seems the City Council was trying to make the important people happy. The rest of us will just have to be happy with what we get.

Is this fair and right? I don't think so.

MIKE WESTPHAL
Jacksonville

Email us
ArgyleACC@joimail.com

Links to Editorials in the Florida Times Union

ARGYLE FOREST: Traffic problems - John Draper 4-4-2001
ARGYLE FOREST: Boulevard must be widened -Richard Darby 4-4-2001
HOUSING Income dictates lifestyle: James Crow 6-15-2001
ARGYLE FOREST:Road widening is vital-Margaret Petersen 6-24-2001
ARGYLE FOREST: Expand Boulevard - GENE BLACKMAN 10-13-2001