{"id":925528,"date":"2026-07-10T13:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/925528\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T13:09:18","slug":"fruit-cove-residents-oppose-dailys-gas-station-for-third-time-planning-and-zoning-board-unanimously-denies-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/925528\/","title":{"rendered":"Fruit Cove residents oppose Daily\u2019s gas station for third time; planning and Zoning board unanimously denies proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Neighbors packed the county complex in St. Augustine on Thursday, wearing red and urging officials to reject a proposed Daily\u2019s Gas Station and car wash to be built beside the Fruit Cove Estates neighborhood along State Road 13.<\/p>\n

After nearly an hour of discussion, the St. Johns County Planning and Zoning board voted unanimously to deny the proposal, dealing another setback to First Coast Energy\u2019s decade-long effort to develop the property as a gas station.<\/p>\n

Residents said the project would dramatically increase traffic and pose safety risks to the community. First Coast Energy purchased the property in 2016 and has made repeated attempts to develop it. A previous Daily\u2019s proposal for the site was rejected by county commissioners in 2019.<\/p>\n

The board\u2019s consideration of the item was complicated further when First Coast Energy failed to submit a complete traffic study ahead of the meeting, a point that drew sharp criticism from residents and board members alike.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe plans project nearly 5,500 daily trips of traffic in and out of this gas station,\u201d said Michael Dunlop, Fruit Cove Estates HOA president, drawing applause from the packed room. Neighbors say the only community entrance, Otoe\u2019s Place, and a nearby school bus stop would be endangered by the additional traffic.<\/p>\n

All 44 homes in Fruit Cove Estates oppose the current proposal.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Daily\u2019s, this is a pattern,\u201d Dunlop said. \u201cThey\u2019ve had seven months to prepare for this. I implore you to not fall for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbor Keith Dube echoed that sentiment. \u201cThird time isn\u2019t a charm. It\u2019s already been ruled twice and denied twice that this is not an appropriate spot for a 24-pump gas station.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another resident, Chris Hewitt, pointed to an increase in crashes near the intersection over the past two years. \u201cIf you look at traffic over the last two years, it\u2019s significantly increased \u2014 accidents here at the same intersection. To believe that there\u2019s not a safety risk from Daily\u2019s coming in, adding all of that traffic, large trucks \u2014 it\u2019s nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

When reached previously, First Coast Energy declined to provide a public statement. Company representatives did not address questions at Thursday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. \u2013 Neighbors packed the county complex in St. Augustine on Thursday, wearing red and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":925529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,373408,7310,14638,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-925528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-fruit-cove-estates","tag-jacksonville","tag-st-johns-county","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925528","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=925528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/925528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/925529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=925528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=925528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=925528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}