Escambia County planning board approves multiple future-land-use changes to preserve public sites including fire stations

The Escambia County Planning Board voted April 7 to approve several small-scale future land use changes that reclassify county-owned sites for public uses, including properties housing or supporting fire stations.

Staff planner Caleb McCertie presented maps and photographs for each case and said the applications convert existing Mixed-Use or Recreational future land use designations to Public to align official land-use maps with existing county operations. "This is a future land use map change from mixed-use urban to public," McCertie said during the hearing on 7209 Lilian Highway. County architect David Cordley described the Lilian Highway property as an existing (and previously active) fire station and said the county plans to reuse portions of the structure and restore operations. "It's already a fire station," Cordley said. "We're really just trying to reclassify these properties as what they should have been intended to, you know, from the beginning."

Why it matters: Reclassifying these parcels to Public removes ambiguity about allowable uses and streamlines later design and permitting steps for county projects. Cordley said the changes also protect sites from commercial or residential development that would be inconsistent with emergency-service use.

Case outcomes and next steps: With no public speakers signed up for the county-initiated cases, the board moved and approved the small-scale future land use amendments for 7209 Lilian Highway (SSA 2026-04), 551 West Kingsfield Road (SSA 2026-05) and 9350 Gulf Beach Highway (SSA 2026-06), and related rezoning items tied to those properties. The board accepted staff findings into the record and carried the motions. Staff told the board that site-specific engineering, wetland avoidance and development-review steps remain, and that further design approvals would be addressed during subsequent reviews.

Public comment and technical notes: One adjoining property owner, Kurt Berg, asked whether an expanded retention pond would affect his pond near the Gulf Beach site; staff and Cordley advised that stormwater design and the county’s development-review process will address pond configuration and that development plans will be publicly available during the DRC process.

The board recorded each approval and will forward recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners where final action is taken.