GREEN COVE SPRINGS – With a 4-2 vote, the Planning Commission recommended a proposed text amendment to the Lake Asbury Rural Community zoning district to add “RV and Boat Storage” as a conditional use.

The applicant Janis Fleet, of Fleet and Associates, said in the application her client wants to develop a recreational vehicle and boat storage business on property they own. The conditional use triggered a debate about lot sizes and potential impacts on Lake Asbury.

On Aug. 12, the Lake Asbury Citizens Advisory Committee voted 6-1 to recommend approval of the change. The committee suggested that the parcel size must be a minimum of 10 acres and the RV or boat parking storage area not be greater than 50% of the site.

Fleet said the request has gone through multiple government bodies and forms. She said the impact was limited and adding another collector road to the area is unrealistic.

“We determined this was the best route to go,” she said.

Fleet said all new development in the district has to meet five acres. Homeowners with fewer than 10 acres wouldn’t pursue adding RV and boat storage, she said, because of the county’s current laws.

A county staff report said a storage area cannot be added unless the parcel is split, and those split parcels are still subject to county code, which allows “one principle building on a lot.”

For example, the report continued, the minimum parcel size in Lake Asbury is five acres, so any person with a parcel that has a residential structure but wants to add RV/Boat Storage use would have to be a minimum of 10 acres in size. Then it could be split into two lots of five acres each.

“They would basically have to give up their house,” Fleet said. “ … I think it’s really limited on where you can go.”

County Chief Planner Beth Carson relayed to Planning Commission members the county’s current RV storage rules countywide. RV storage conditional uses require a minimum of 3 acres, a 300-foot landscape buffer, direct access to a major roadway, and fence and wall specifications.

“These are not things that can just pop up overnight,” she said. “We do look at the lighting standards, the buffer standards. We look at the pavement, to make sure everything is meeting these conditions.”

The change generally affects homeowners off of County Road 218, Russell Road and a smattering of land near the First Coast Expressway and State Road 16.

A county staff report disagreed with adding the extra provisions proposed by the committee due to repetition in the county’s Land Development Code.

“Rural community (zoning) already has a minimum lot size of five acres,” Carson said.

The recommendation will go before the Board of County Commissioners at the Sept. 13 and Sept. 27 meetings.