Studer Community Institute

Putting probation offices in their place

October 15, 2014
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ government

The fight over where probation offices can locate in the City of Pensacola will get clarity next week. Pensacola City Council will be asked to schedule public hearings to adopt changes to the land development code that would restrict where probation and parole offices can be located in the city. That issue stirred a furor among neighbors in North Hill earlier this year when the owner of the former Coca-Cola bottling plant at 1625 N. Palafox St. leased the space to the Florida Department of Corrections for use as a probation office. North Hillers cited concerns about public safety, adverse effects on property values, as well as the building’s proximity to parks, recreation centers and homes in their opposition to the probation office. Gov. Rick Scott ultimately told the Department of Corrections to find another location for the probation office. The state is paying rent to the owner of 1625 N. Palafox, but the building remains empty, as it has been for years after it fell into disrepair. [caption id="attachment_6683" align="alignright" width="300"]

The current probation and parole office at 3101 N. Davis Highway.[/caption] The Palafox office would have replaced the current probation office at 3101 N. Davis Highway. While that office is in an area zoned M-1, it abuts a residential area zoned R-1AAA, the same designation that stirred concerns in North Hill. The probation office on North Davis Highway is 0.4 of a mile north of Magee Field, a city park and recreational area where hundreds of neighborhood children play youth football. Councilman Charles Bare has pursued changes to the land development code that restrict parole and probation offices to areas zoned M-1, light industrial, and create a conditional use for such facilities.

“It’s long overdue. We should have done it a long time ago, but we had to wait for Planning Board to bless it,” Bare said. “My goal is not to have any correctional facilities — residential or non-residential — within the City of Pensacola at all."

Under the new language, the office at the current location is grandfathered in as long as they maintain the lease — "If it’s vacant for a year, they couldn’t come back.”

The Department of Corrections is leasing the building on a month-to-month basis.

The clarifying language in the code for M-1 zoning now reads:

“Residential and non-residential community correction centers, probation offices and parole offices provided that no such site shall be located any closer than one-quarter mile, 1,320 feet, from a school for children in grade 12 or lower, licensed day care facility, park, playground, nursing home, convalescent center, hospital, association for disabled population or youth, or other place where children or a population especially vulnerable to crime due to age or physical or mental disability regularly congregates.”

“Because of the conditional use language, there’s effectively nowhere in city limits where a new facility could be located,” Bare said. “With all the parks and schools we have in the city, I don’t think there’s any safe place to have people congregate who have committed crimes.” The change must go through two public hearings before it can be adopted. Corrine Jones stormwater project Council also will be asked to sign off on the city purchase of two tracts of vacant land near Corrine Jones Park as part of the construction of a stormwater treatment project there. The two privately owned parcels will cost the city $108,850.59, including Realtor fees, closing costs and 2014 property taxes due for both properties. [sidebar] Want to go? WHAT: The Pensacola City Council agenda conference meeting. WHEN: Monday, Oct. 20, at 3:30 p.m. WHERE: Hagler Mason conference room, second floor of City Hall, 222 W. Main St. DETAILS: Agenda is available here. [/sidebar] A $2,106,500 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will put a stormwater pond on West Government Street in part of Corrine Jones Park. It will be improve water quality in Pensacola Bay and helped alleviate flooding in the neighborhood. It will be landscaped and designed in a fashion similar to the pond at Admiral Mason Park on Bayfront Parkway, with walking trails, benches, fountains, aquatic plants, bicycle rack, lighting and other amenities. Gaberonne Swamp project Also on the agenda is approval of a contract for $893,381 to repair and reinforce a stormwater pond at Gaberonne Swamp. The pond was overwhelmed and damaged in the April flooding. Eighty percent of the funding ($820,814.32) comes from Federal Emergency Management Agency funds; 12.5 percent ($136,802.39) comes from the State of Florida; 12.5 percent ($136,802.39) comes from the city’s hurricane damage fund. The contract is with Chavers Construction Inc. Gaberonne Swamp also will be the site of another mitigation project. At $1.8 million in state funding, with $1.2 million in local match. It will include work on a pond near Langley Avenue and Scenic Highway intersection, a new pond off Spanish Trail and an education kiosk at Pensacola Bay Bluffs Park. The ponds will divert stormwater into Gaberonne swamp to help nutrients settle out of it before it flows ultimately into Escambia Bay. That improve water quality and reduces the nutrients that feed algae blooms and damage marine life.

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Putting probation offices in their place

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