As is now apparent from the previous Spoonbill Courier report detailing overwhelming community opposition to the Hawkins Island development, there is greater wonderment why this project was ever launched in the first place.

One Marsh Creek resident has done some stellar research and produced the PDF below. It is worth looking at.

The collection of slides again depicts aerial views of the neighborhoods in Marsh Creek that would be most adversely affected by the project. They also illustrate the yawning gap to get to Hawkins Island through a vacant lot on Heron’s Nest Lane currently owned by a Marsh Creek resident. The environmental risks would seem to be huge.

St. Johns County, according to this research, currently values Hawkins Island at $12,482. This spit of barren wetland would be overrun by graders and tractors (as would neighboring Marsh Creek) to become the site for 10 to 12 new homes. Each lot would have a price tag between $1.7 and $2 million, turning a tidy profit for the attorney/developer, Scott Patrou. The homes would be worth twice that.

But what is most striking, on page 32, is a clause in St. John County’s Comprehensive Plan for Conservation, that restricts residential development in a conservation area to one unit per 100 acres. The developer wants to build 10-12 homes on a mere 14 acres. Therefore, in order to be successful, the developer will need to go before the St. Johns County Commission to seek rezoning under a planned unit development, or a PUD.

As has been pointed out before, to reach Hawkins Island will require constructing some combination of road, bridge and causeway. But that land, zoned conservation, is owned by the State of Florida. Alongside it is a federal waterway. And so there are an abundance of expensive regulatory hurdles facing this project. But none of these concerns was addressed, and in fact were dismissed as mere details, when Mr. Patrou held his first public meeting attended by the Spoonbill Courier.

As reported on November 10th, “Patrou said he “came across the property”, and in his research spotted the vacant lot on Fiddlers (actually on Herons Nest Lane)….Mr. Patrou does not own the island nor the vacant lot on Herons Nest Lane, but said he has contractual options on both and 18 months to back out.”

Is this, and was it ever, a serious project?

You really have to wonder.