Photo: Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal
“Urban planning expert Jeff Speck told the Pensacola City Council on Thursday that creating and executing the right master plan for Community Maritime Park could ‘turn the corner’ on the revitalization of downtown Pensacola.
The City Council tapped Quint Studer and his company Studer Properties to develop a master plan for the remaining seven undeveloped parcels of the park. The master plan would also tie into the development of the former Emerald Coast Utilities Authority site that Studer owns, and connect that site and the park to the public water access at Bruce Beach…
Speck said the biggest challenge to developing any good plan to create a vibrant and walkable urban environment is how it conflicts with city codes that were written for a more suburban community.
‘It’s legally impossible almost everywhere in America to do that because the zoning ordinances and subdivision ordinances that most cities have are imported from suburbia,’ Speck said. ‘They’re auto-centric. They’re organized around an automobile, and they don’t let you build the kind of places we love…'”
— Jim Little, Pensacola News Journal