GREEN COVE SPRINGS – The city council started the process Tuesday night to swap 21 acres of land south of the city with a developer who wants to build a 2,100-home subdivision.

If approved after a second reading, the deal would allow developers for The Rookery (formerly planned as Ayrshire) to build an entrance and road at U.S. Highway 17 without dividing an undeveloped Ed Gustafson Regional Park that originally was supposed to be completed.

The council voted 5-0 to change the zoning of 21.3 acres of city-owned land from recreational to neighborhood and 21.89 acres owned by The Rookery from neighborhood to recreational.

Tuesday’s vote was the first step in the process. The proposed change in zoning still must face scrutiny from the public and a second vote by the council before being approved.

The state may have a say in the matter since portions of the park acreage include wetlands.

“Now what the application provided here is facilities to provide for regional park overlay because obviously much of this property is probably very wet,” said city zoning director Mike Daniels. “So, we want to make sure while we want to create recreational facility at the same time, we want to ensure that we're very cognizant of uses the environment and we're not impacted negatively. Now as part of the approval of this project, we said the area to the south, which is the first level, to be added to construct 10 sports facilities as well as bathroom facilities as part of that first phase.”

Officials representing The Rookery also said they were willing to increase a regional park fee of $400 for each house to $800 – with $400 going to Gustafson Park and $400 is earmarked for Spring Park and Francis Vera Park.

The land for The Rookery is owned by Gustafson’s Cattle Inc. to be developed by DR Horton. Future Land Use and Zoning for The Rookery was approved in August and, if the land swap is approved, it would direct traffic from the subdivision to U.S. 17 near the future exit for the First Coast Expressway. The Rookery will be built between U.S. 17 and County Road 15A south of State Road 16.

The city obtained a large swath of land from the state in 2011 for a regional park, and despite being years past the original completion date, the project hasn’t moved any further than the preliminary planning stage. The park eventually will have football, soccer, softball and baseball fields, as well as picnic areas, wildlife trails and tennis courts

Councilman Van Royal appeared to be frustrated by the delays and the lack of a long-range plan to pay for and maintain the park.

“We agreed to our half (of the park) to be completed by 2020,” Royal said. “We didn't do that. So they’re very anxious to see us push forward. You know I think the way we always looked at this development back, you have the additional types of desperate buying the ability to provide work in that area. But at the same time, like you said, we are very cognizant of the fact that we do want to make sure that we're able to maintain that part not just to be able to come up with capital costs. Are we going to be able to maintain it, and that's why we've been pushing that timeline back.”

The new timeline for the park is still two years away.

Nonetheless, the change in zoning for both land tracts was quickly approved.

In other business, the council recognized city employees ahead of Public Service Recognition Week and the police department recognized its communication staff for National Public Safety Telecommunications Week.

The next city council meeting is scheduled for May 3 at 7 p.m. at City Hall.