Article: Discord over Harmony; 'new urbanist' towns across Florida are putting regulators, planners and environmentalists in a quandary: are they the antidote to sprawl -- or sprawl itself? (Development).

In St. Johns County this past year, environmentalists and some residents have tried to block a 15,000-acre town called Nocatee that's proposed for a rural area between St. Augustine and Jacksonville. They charge that Nocatee will gobble thousands of acres of wildlife habitat, clog county roads and create a template for the urban sprawl that has overrun so much of Florida.

In the most recent ruling on the matter, State Administrative Law Judge Charles Stampelos acknowledged that many Nocatee residents will work in Jacksonville, 30 miles away. But he allowed the town to proceed, saying its self-contained mix of homes, offices, schools, churches, stores and parks ...

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