St. Johns County commissioners spent more than four hours on September 1, 2026 hearing an application to certify roughly 4,462 acres north of Nocatee as an agricultural enclave under Florida Senate Bill 686. They then voted twice, once on a motion to deny and once on a motion to certify, and neither motion passed. County staff recorded the result as no action. Under the statute, no action within 90 days of filing means the land is certified automatically, and that clock runs out in late September.
What happened at the vote
The application, ENCERT 2026-01, was filed July 1, 2026 by BR-4700 on land that comes from the Davis family, founders of Winn-Dixie and of The PARC Group, the developer behind Nocatee. It seeks certification for residential development at up to one unit per gross acre, or up to 4,462 homes, on a tract bordered by the Intracoastal Waterway to the east, Nocatee to the south and the Duval County line to the west. Our August 19 coverage explains how the board continued this application to September 1 while certifying two smaller ones.
Per the St. Johns Citizen and the Jacksonville Daily Record, the sequence on September 1 was:
- Commissioner Krista Joseph moved to deny certification. The motion failed 3 to 2, with Joseph and Commissioner Ann Taylor in favor and Commissioners Clay Murphy, Christian Whitehurst and Sarah Arnold opposed.
- Commissioner Whitehurst later moved to certify the property. That motion also failed 3 to 2, with Whitehurst and Arnold in favor and Murphy, Joseph and Taylor opposed.
Chair Clay Murphy was the deciding vote both times, and he voted against both motions. The St. Johns Citizen reports he told the board he believed the property clearly qualified under the law and that commissioners were bound to follow the statute despite their objections to the project, and that he wanted the county to challenge the law directly rather than deny an application he believed met its requirements.
The chamber was full. The St. Johns Citizen reports a parade of residents urged commissioners to deny or delay, and commissioners said they had received hundreds of emails. News4JAX reports the debate stretched more than four hours.
The deadline the county is now running against
SB 686 requires a county to certify a qualifying agricultural enclave if it takes no affirmative action within 90 days of the application's filing. Because this application was submitted July 1, the St. Johns Citizen puts the deadline at around September 29; News4JAX and the Jacksonville Daily Record report it as September 28. Either way, unless commissioners revisit the application and formally deny it, or a court intervenes before then, certification happens by default.
County staff confirmed at the meeting that without a formal approval or denial the property will be certified when the 90 day period expires. Certification is a determination that the land meets a statutory definition. It is not a site plan, a permit, or an approved unit count, and no homes are approved as a result of it. What it does is remove the step at which the County Commission, and the public, would otherwise weigh in on whether the development should happen.
The county voted to challenge the law instead
Separately, and at Murphy's request, commissioners voted 3 to 2 to direct county attorneys to retain outside counsel and explore an injunction or other legal action against SB 686 itself. News4JAX reports Arnold and Whitehurst voted against pursuing legal action. The Jacksonville Daily Record reports County Attorney Rich Komando had contacted four law firms specializing in local government and land use litigation, two of which expressed interest but said further research was needed to establish the county's standing to sue.
County attorneys also cautioned the board, per the St. Johns Citizen, that there is no guarantee a court would issue an injunction, and no guarantee that any order would apply retroactively to an application already certified. That caveat matters because the automatic certification date arrives before any lawsuit is likely to produce a ruling. The county had discussed a challenge to the law in August and, as our earlier coverage noted, decided not to sue at that time.
What opponents argued
Residents raised two kinds of objections. The first was about capacity: that as many as 4,462 homes would add load to roads, water supply and other public infrastructure, and that the tract is one of northern St. Johns County's largest remaining undeveloped parcels, including forest and wetland along the Intracoastal. The second was about whether the application qualifies at all. Some speakers argued that the full parcels exceed the statute's acreage limit and that the applicant should not be allowed to draw new boundaries through them. News4JAX quotes resident Chelsea Santeomo saying the record lacks a parcel by parcel analysis needed to meet the law's threshold. Those arguments were made at the hearing; they have not been tested in court.
Where the reports disagree
The three reports we read agree on the outcome: no action, an automatic certification deadline at the end of September, and a 3 to 2 vote to pursue a legal challenge. They do not agree on the first vote. The St. Johns Citizen and the Jacksonville Daily Record both report that the motion to deny failed 3 to 2. News4JAX reports that commissioners voted 3 to 2 to deny the proposal, with Arnold and Whitehurst voting to approve. Because a passing denial motion would have been an affirmative action and would not have produced the no action result every outlet reports, we have followed the Citizen and Daily Record accounts above. The official record is the county's, and the minutes will settle it.
The deadline is reported as September 28 by News4JAX and the Daily Record and as around September 29 by the Citizen. We are carrying both.
What this means for buyers and sellers near Nocatee
Nothing changes on the ground this month. Certification does not add a single listing, and a tract of this size is developed over many years, through development plans that county staff review for road, utility and concurrency requirements.
What has changed is that the largest development question in northern St. Johns County is now close to being settled by a deadline rather than by a vote. If you are buying between Nocatee and the Duval line, the county's own file on ENCERT 2026-01 is public and it now includes the September 1 record. The specific things to ask about are the density the applicant has stated, the timing of the first development plan, and whether the county's legal challenge is still active.
For sellers in the same area, this is a disclosure question. Buyers who read this reporting later will ask what was known at the time of sale, and the answer, as of September 4, is that the application was headed for automatic certification. Our roundup of Florida housing laws for 2026 covers SB 686 alongside the other changes that took effect this year, and the St. Johns County real estate page and the Jacksonville housing market page carry the current inventory and price picture.
People also ask
What happened to the 4,462 acre Davis enclave application in St. Johns County?
On September 1, 2026 the St. Johns County Commission voted on two motions, one to deny certification and one to certify, and both failed 3 to 2, per the St. Johns Citizen and the Jacksonville Daily Record. County staff recorded the result as no action. Under Senate Bill 686, an agricultural enclave application must be certified if the county takes no affirmative action within 90 days of filing, so the tract is on track to be certified automatically in late September unless the county formally acts or a court intervenes first.
When does the St. Johns County enclave get certified automatically?
The application was filed July 1, 2026, which puts the 90 day deadline at the end of September. News4JAX and the Jacksonville Daily Record report the date as September 28, 2026, and the St. Johns Citizen reports it as around September 29. Certification means the land meets the statutory definition of an agricultural enclave; it is not approval of any specific homes, and development plans would still go through county staff review.
Is St. Johns County suing over Florida's agricultural enclave law?
Not yet. On September 1, 2026 commissioners voted 3 to 2 to direct county attorneys to retain outside counsel and explore an injunction or other legal action against Senate Bill 686. County attorneys warned there is no guarantee a court would grant an injunction or that any order would apply retroactively to an application already certified. The Jacksonville Daily Record reports two of four firms contacted expressed interest but said further research was needed on the county's standing.
The takeaway
The County Commission did not certify the Davis enclave and did not deny it, and under SB 686 that is the same as certifying it. The one path left to the county runs through a courtroom, on a timeline that is unlikely to beat the deadline. Anyone buying or selling between Nocatee and the Duval line should treat the late September date as the one to watch, and should read the county's minutes rather than any single news account for the vote record.
Sources
- St. Johns Citizen, "4,462-acre Palm Valley enclave on track for automatic approval after split commission votes", by Selim Algar, published September 1, 2026: sjcitizen.com
- News4JAX, "St. Johns County in legal limbo over 4K+ acre Nocatee development as state law deadline looms", by Scott Johnson, published September 1, 2026: news4jax.com
- Jacksonville Daily Record, "St. Johns County deadlocks on Davis enclave application, votes to challenge state law", published September 1, 2026: jaxdailyrecord.com
How this article was prepared: every vote count, acreage, application number, date and quotation above is taken from the three named reports and is attributed to the outlet that published it. The St. Johns Citizen and News4JAX reports were read in full; the Jacksonville Daily Record report is behind a paywall and is cited from its published summary. Where the reports disagree, both versions are given. This summary was drafted with the assistance of an AI system and reviewed before publication. It is a summary of third party reporting on a public meeting, not legal advice and not a statement of the county's official record; the official record is the county's. All information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Equal Housing Opportunity.