JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 For decades, the plot of land on Owen Avenue, right across the street from Jean Ribault High School, has sat vacant. However, now, the city of Jacksonville\u2019s Land, Use, and Zoning Committee has approved plans that would allow the development of 84 apartment units on that site.<\/p>\n
Many in the Ribault area are not happy about the plans, with Reverend Aaron Flagg one of many leading the charge in the fight against this project.<\/p>\n
Reverend Flagg and other neighbors told Action News Jax on Sunday that the development would add unnecessary extra rental properties to the area, while putting the surrounding area and its residents\u2019 health at risk, due to the project being built, they say, on contaminated land.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis property right here used to be a dump,\u201d Reverend Flagg told Action News Jax on Sunday. \u201cAnd we got in there what is called forever chemicals. When you come to that, uncovering that would put the two daycares within 2,000 feet of this spot, three elementary, a junior, and a middle high school, all of those students, and the church and this community at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Reverend Flagg is calling on the city of Jacksonville to officially recognize his petition with 90 community signatures, that\u2019s seeking to put an end to these development plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, look like a duck, imma call you a duck,\u201d Reverend Flagg said. \u201cWe need to leave this alone. Let that be. It\u2019s not killing anything. We got trees there helping with the air. We don\u2019t need to expose the children to what\u2019s underneath there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plans are now set to go in front of the full Jacksonville city council on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Community leaders, including Jacksonville city council member Ju\u2019coby Pittman, are also planning a press conference Monday night at 5:30 p.m. to speak out against the plans.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 For decades, the plot of land on Owen Avenue, right across the street from Jean…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":297875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[7320,5229,7323,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,7325,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-297874","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-cbs47","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-fox30","14":"tag-jacksonville","15":"tag-jacksonville-fl","16":"tag-northeast-florida","17":"tag-southeast-georgia","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa","24":"tag-wfox","25":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}