The Rookery passed the first hurdle of its plan to create a Community Development District when the City Council passed the first reading of its request to set up a taxing district to provide infrastructure services for a projected 1,919-home community.

The Rookery will be completed in six phases between the railroad tracks near U.S. Highway 17 – north of the First Coast Expressway, east of Green Cove Avenue and east of County Road 15A south of the city. It will include an amenity center and three parks.

“It complies with the statutory criteria, essentially, that it’s true and correct and it’s comprehensive, interrelated, which we would say ours is because it’s more than that, a minimal separate government, which we are because we provide consent from the landowner and a better alternative than perhaps an HOA because we are a governmental entity,” said Katie Buchanan, an attorney representing the developer D.R. Horton and the initial CDD Board of Directors.

The infrastructure plan would call for the Rookery to be responsible for roadways, water and wastewater structures, stormwater management, landscaping, recreation, building electric service, boulevard and local street lighting. To accomplish this, it would be allowed to tax its residents separately from the city.

The city would still own and maintain the roads, electric grid and boulevard lighting, while Clay County Utility Authority would provide water and wastewater services. As such, both entities would be paid by the CDD.

In other business, the council agreed to annex the abandoned Truemont Property at the corner of U.S. 17 and State Road 16 and to rezone it to Industrial.

The city council meets at City Hall on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.