A comprehensive plan is a communitys plan and guideline for development over time and the City of St. Marks is going through and updating theirs.
WATCH FULL REPORT BELOW:
St Marks neighbors participating in the Comprehensive Plan update workshop
The city held a public workshop and first hearing for the plan change Thursday evening, with many neighbors giving their thoughts.
According to the report by the Apalachee Regional Planning Council, the city doesnt have a growth issue, however, theres aging infrastructure, flooding vulnerability, among other things
In accordance with Florida Statutes 163.3191, local governments evaluate their comprehensive plans every 7 years to determine if plan amendments are necessary. The city is making this change due to changes in state planning requirements, an evolving community, and the need for an update to the citys data
“And it’s been a number of years since the City of St. Marks has done that, and there are several things that need to be added in addition to the time horizon that these plans are good for. And so what we’re doing is a compliance update to bring the comprehensive plan into compliance with state law,” said William Garner, St. Marks city attorney.
The Apalachee Regional Planning Council met with the city to review its existing comprehensive plan. According to the draft comp plan, the citys comp plan was out of compliance and needed to add private property rights and monitoring and evaluation sections
“It happens, it happens more often than people think, and that simply means that we need to do a statutory update to bring it back into compliance,” Caroline Smith, the Deputy Director of Operations and Economic Development for ARPC.
The report shows population estimates for St. Marks based on census data. In 2025, there was a population of about 335 people in the city, and its projected to grow to 400 by 2050, only an increase of 65 people.
Their findings show that updates to the future land use map should help maintain the citys existing development pattern.
In their recommendations, they say priorities should be given to directing development toward existing serviced areas.
Such as maintaining and improving aging facilities, improving flood and coastal resilience, and implementing planned capital improvements rather than major capacity expansion.
Apalachee Regional Planning Council had been working with the city on this change; they also hosted this public workshop. Neighbors shared their thoughts on changes they feel theres a need for in the city. One of the biggest suggestions talked about at the meeting was parking.
“We don’t have a lot of city property where we can just develop it, so it’s always a consideration and things that we have to think about how we’re going to provide adequate parking, whether it be with new development or just for people to use the amenities that come from outside the city, like the boat ramp and the marina and things like that,” said Garner.
ARPC plans to take these suggestions said at the workshop and on their survey to make a comprehensive plan update that doesnt just bring it into compliance but also what neighbors want to see
“Our next step is to take the input we received during the public workshop, as well as from the survey, and from commissioner comments, and incorporate all of those comments into the draft comprehensive plan,” said Smith.
The second hearing will be the December 10th meeting. If you wish to share your input click HERE for a link to the survey.
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