(ESCAMBIA COUNTY) --- The Escambia County Planning Board approved every item on the July 7 agenda, each time over objections from nearly every resident who testified.
After over seven hours of public comment warning of flooding, traffic, and broken planning promises, the board voted to opt out and rezone 160 acres on Jack Branch Road and voted to advance sweeping changes to the 540-acre OLF-8 site in Beluah.
No motion to deny gained traction. No item failed. The OpGov.News platform summary picked up the tone of the entire planning board meeting perfectly.
"The board addressed an opt-out request and corresponding rezoning for a 160-acre parcel on Jack Branch Road, which was ultimately approved," according to the platform. "However, the most significant portion of the meeting revolved around a large-scale Future Land Use (FLU) amendment for the 538-acre OLF8 property."
Jack’s Branch rezoning approved despite “no” from adjacent landowners, farmers, and environmental warnings.
The board voted to rezone the 1700 block of Jack Branch Road from Agricultural, 1 home per 20 acres, to Rural Residential, 1 home per 4 acres. The move completes an opt-out of the Midwest Sector Plan, the long-range land-use plan for a specific area.
Public testimony was almost completely opposed.
John Presley, who owns 900 feet on the same creek, called the land “30% wet” and warned of “40 septic tanks on a slope leading to the creek.”
“When they bought the property, there were certain restrictions; they took tax advantages from them," Presley said.
Stephanie Robinson said Schiff Cove Road is already a “heavily used shortcut with speeding traffic” and opposed the loss of conservation zoning. Sarah Blankenship said her community wants to “protect the land” and fears an “AI data center.”
Resident Bonnie Exner, who is also a farmer, opposed it.
(Photo: Resident and farmer Bonnie Exner at the Escambia County Planning Board meeting July 7)
“They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot; Infrastructure has been neglected," Exner said.
Will Dunaway, representing sector-plan landowners with 1,000 units planned, urged commissioners to deny the application.
“Planning was a bargain," Dunaway said. "It’s the ordinance and law of the county."
Dunaway ended by telling commissioners not to "abandon long-range planning.”
Fred Hamer said his group agreed to donate land for Woodlands Parkway and Quintet Parkway, which would be future hurricane evacuation routes to Interstate 10.
The only ones to approve the application were the property owner, Jerry Long, and the attorney, Meredith Bush.
(Photo: Attorney Meredith Bush speaking on behalf of her client Jerry Long at the Escambia County Planning Board meeting)
“It is truly a fundamental right to be free to use your property to the best and highest use, again, allowed by law," Bush said.
Board member Ben Nelson moved for zoning approval, and the application passed 4-1 with no board debate.
The Outlying Field (OLF) Large-Scale Amendment (LSA) also passed despite resounding requests from residents to vote no on the matter regarding the former Navy helicopter site off of Nine Mile Road in Beluah.
A motion to deny the LSA died for lack of a second vote, allowing the conversion of the 540 acres to Mixed-Use Urban (MUU) by a 3-2 vote.
A second ordinance that rewrites the MUU and Commercial Use rules for OLF-8 passed 4-1 despite overwhelming resident protest.
(Photo: Resident Theresa Blackwell at the Escambia County Planning Board meeting July 7)
“I am asking you to vote no on the developer’s request to change the future land use on OLF-8 to all mixed-use urban," Theresea Blackwell said. "They say they need more flexibility; basically, they need to be able to do what they want to do.”
Blackwell contends the change “opens the door to all residential” and adds that the large-scale amendment is “completely inconsistent with the DPZ design code," which is the firm that wrote the original OLF-8 plan that was agreed upon by the community.
“It was said that the DPZ plan lacked marketing," Blackwell said. "That is not the case; they had a marketing expert, Peter Bozzelli, out of New York, and he did a 288-page report."
Blackwell said, "In that report, he said that 100 acres, optimistically, would be what you could get in light industrial only if you heavily marketed that."
Blackwell also flagged the new language.
“In the ordinance, distribution warehouses are added," Blackwell said. "The planner, when I talked with her, didn’t know anything about that.”
Blackwell said the March 2026 contract requires Tri-W, the developer, to be “generally consistent with the DPZ design code.”
“Instead, they made up their own," Blackwell said. "That was our prenup, and they signed on the dotted line.”
John Moore said the public was misled.
“A resident reads MUU to MUU and assumes nothing much is changing," Moore said. "But the change erases Commercial, raises floor-area ratio (FAR) from 2.5 to 4.0, and adds warehouses."
“You are being asked to redraw the map now and receive the plan that justifies it later," Moore said. "That’s the cart before the horse.”
Other speakers asked for “no” votes, including Dr. Gloria Horning, Janis Devaney, Joe Vinson, Kristy Rosen, and Theresa Blackwell. Not one resident voted to support the change.
Many fear the change could lead to a data center, even though county staff at the meeting stated data centers “are not permitted unless explicitly listed as a principal use.” But the new MUU-OLF8 code lists “institutional commercial data centers up to 40% of a building’s floor area,” according to speakers.
Casey Harris warned that Senate Bill 484 exempts small data centers from state oversight. Despite that, both OLF-8 items passed.
Lastly, the OLF-8 Comp Plan Ordinance was also rejected by 12 public speakers but was approved by commissioners in a 4-1 vote.
Residents flagged the process itself after Development Services Director Horace Jones said only those who testified at the Planning Board Meeting could speak at the Board of County Commissioners at the end of the month.
According to the county, public comments must meet five legal criteria in the Land Development Code (LDC), which require speaking to the Planning Board first.
Jason Weidlich adopted “all the views of all of the speakers” just to preserve his right to speak later.
Resident Declan McGurk called it a “massive power imbalance” where developers “create these ‘changing conditions,’ setting a precedent for future opt-outs.”
(Photo: Resident Declan McGurk at the Escambia County Planning Board meeting July 7)
The OpGov.News platform summary ends noting, "despite overwhelming public outcries concerning lack of transparency, broken public trust, potential for unchecked development (including data centers), and inadequate infrastructure planning, the board approved the OLF8 FLU amendment by a narrow margin."
All items go to the Board of County Commissioners Meeting on July 23. If commissioners approve, then state agencies review all changes before final adoption. Traffic, stormwater, and schools are reviewed later by the Development Review Committee.
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