Neighborhoods across the country are valued for their walkability, and Jacksonville's are no exception.

Avondale, Riverside and San Marco are three that have become increasingly attractive over the past decade as homebuyers and renters alike place greater value on the ability to walk to services, shopping areas and restaurants.

But living in a walkable neighborhood in a still car-centric culture has its challenges - noise, traffic and parking - especially as businesses move closer to residents.

"You do have to be concerned about things like that," said Beth King, a local real estate agent, "because you can't be a mixed-use neighborhood and then try to ignore the largest mix, which would be the residential."

Residents often voice concerns of increased crime, physical damage to their homes or declines in property values. Sometimes they create organizations to negotiate with real-estate developers to strike compromises. These talks can be contentious.

Whatever the outcome, UNF Associate Professor of Sociology Krista Paulsen said, each new development is a step closer to finding the right balance for America's new mixed-use neighborhoods.

"I think things do get worked out, and I think that as there are more instances like this we learn from each one," said Paulsen. "It's important to take residents' concerns seriously, but also think about how these projects can be made successful and respectful."

In Jacksonville, five recent controversies over new businesses in and near residential areas demonstrate that here at least, organized opposition, respectful or not, is successful in making commercial projects more palatable to concerned neighbors. As for the concerns expressed by residents, some were realized, but plenty are not.

RIVERSIDE PUBLIX: GUIDEPOST FOR DEVELOPMENT

The Publix Supermarket on Riverside Avenue influenced the entire look of retail in Five Points, and residents influenced the layout of the supermarket's plaza. Trip Stanly, who represented Riverside Avondale Preservation during the project's negotiations, said that the community group and surrounding residents were successful in convincing the developer in replacing the corner drugstore with the two buildings of street-front retail on the plaza today. When it was built in 2003, Stanly said, that retail development around Publix mimicked the plaza's retail along the street, which also influenced future development farther into Five Points.

"If that had been a free-standing drugstore, there would be no Black Sheep rooftop bar today. It would have never happened," said Stanly. "Because of the successes we had in getting street-front retail, it set up the success for the second, third and fourth development, and now Margaret Street from Five Points to Memorial Park is an active retail corridor."

Residential homes around the supermarket also benefited from the change. Between 2003 and 2005, property values increased by 32.2 percent. In that same time period, the number of noise complaints to police remained the same.

King said that the entire plaza brought more people and a wider variety of people to Memorial Park, and influenced the addition and improvements of residential buildings surrounding the plaza. She said it also encouraged younger people to live in Riverside, which brought more retail and restaurants to Five Points.

"That was the one thing we were really missing. We had some small grocery stores that were in the neighborhood, but they're very, very small," said King. "So the Publix has really made it to where people can stay more in the neighborhood."

MELLOW MUSHROOM: LESS IMPACT THAN EXPECTED

Mellow Mushroom Avondale is also a testament to the power of neighborhood negotiations. The announcement of a new Mellow Mushroom location in 2012 united Riverside Avondale Preservation and the residents of Avondale.

As the We Love Avondale group, residents expressed deep concerns with the lack of parking, outdoor seating and late hours in the restaurant's original layout. Through a year of negotiations, residents and RAP were able to alter the restaurant's plans to include a parking lot in the back of the building, demolishing the service station and moving the new building up to the street, bringing down the number of seats to 204 and enclosing outdoor seating.

"It was a painful process, but I think between the neighbor group We Love Avondale, RAP and the developer, it's turned out in a more positive way than a lot of people expected," said Nancy Powell, member of We Love Avondale during Mellow Mushroom negotiations and current chair of RAP Zoning Board. She said that changes through negotiations made the restaurant blend with the Shoppes of Avondale along St. Johns Avenue.

The impact of a business as big as Mellow Mushroom on the surrounding neighborhood has been a minimal one since it opened in 2014. Jacksonville Sheriff's Office reports indicate that the number of reported crimes since 2012 at Mellow Mushroom's location have gone down by 11 percent, although the number has only gone down by one from 2014 to 2015. There have also been 23 fewer traffic crashes within a quarter-mile of Mellow Mushroom, with police reporting four fewer crashes in 2015. The number of noise complaints around Mellow Mushroom to police have gone down by 19 percent since 2012, with the number decreasing by four calls from 2014 to 2015.

For the residences around the restaurant, property vales continue to rise. From 2014 to 2015, property vales rose 7.7 percent more than the increase of Avondale overall during that same period.

KICKBACKS GASTROPUB: GOOD TIMES, BAD TIMES

Another area of Riverside proves that business can be too much of a good thing.

Since 2008, development along King Street from College Street to Park Street exploded as a new restaurant, bar or both opened every year. Those business, many with little surrounding parking, brought more people driving from other areas of Jacksonville late at night, parking along residential streets, loudly walking back to their cars in the early morning and sometimes leaving litter in residents' cars the next day.

When Kickbacks Gastropub decided to expand in 2012, surrounding residents said they had enough. Andy Beh started a parking study to address parking, traffic and noise problems that had escalated in the year he and his wife lived just off King Street, a block away from the restaurant.

The study helped convince the owner to find more parking with the expansion and share additional parking with a restaurant just down the street.

Beh also said that the designated parallel spaces have helped with parking. However, people visiting the restaurant and surrounding bars still take up spaces in front of houses, and residents sometimes wake up in the morning with their side-view mirror hit by a car the night before.

"When you take the totality of it, where you end up is a place that no one really intended to be, which is one of the prime entertainment districts of Jacksonville being right in the middle of a residential area," said Beh. "Which is unfortunate. It's a great area, but sort of in the wrong location."

Sheriff's Office reports illustrate the growing problems restaurants, nightclubs and bars along King Street bring to residents. The area around Kickbacks Gastropub reports an average of 200 crime incidents every year, with a peak of 218 incidents in 2014. In 2015, incidents dropped slightly to 190. While property values jumped 11 percent more than the area's property value increase overall in 2015, the number of noise complaints to police climbed to 57 in 2012 and steadied out at 40 through 2014. Only 16 noise complaints were received in 2015.

MANDARIN CHICK-FIL-A: MORE CHICKEN MEANS MORE CARS

In Mandarin, residents ran into similar issues after a Chick-fil-A was built on a corner lot and tree-lined retention pond in front of subdivisions.

Opened in 2015, the Chick-fil-A at San Jose Boulevard and Oak Bluff Lane was approved through the City Council despite the collective opposition of surrounding residents. For residents who lived farther down Oak Bluff Lane, the land and pond served as a buffer between the shopping center next to the pond and the retail and food businesses lining San Jose Boulevard.

Mandarin resident Sharon Copeland, who was involved in negotiations with the developer at the time, said traffic was the community's top concern. Part of the layout of the chain restaurant included an entrance and exit on Oak Bluff Lane, and residents said that adding an entrance and exit for cars on a two-lane side road would increase the amount of traffic and accidents on Oak Bluff Lane.

"We were trying to keep the right-in on Oak Bluff from happening, because our concern was that people would use that," said Copeland. "They would still come down Oak Bluff and cross over that traffic on Oak Bluff, backing up traffic on San Jose as well, to turn left into Chick-fil-A, which is exactly what's happening."

She said that now traffic backs up on San Jose to Oak Bluff Lane so cars can turn into the Chick-fil-A on the corner, and has seen some cars make U-turns in front yards across the street or at the retention pond behind the restaurant to get to it. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office reports that crashes at the intersection of San Jose Boulevard and Oak Bluff Lane spiked from 14 crashes in 2014 to 35 crashes in 2015. Property values of residential homes a quarter-mile around the restaurant also suffered in 2015, as they only went up 5.1 percent, lower than Mandarin's 6.9 percent overall property value increase that same year.

Paulsen said areas similar to Mandarin - developed for people to drive from their homes to nearby businesses - are experiencing the same problems as they transition to more walkable communities. As more retail and businesses are built closer to residential areas, infrastructure isn't taken into consideration. Roads that were originally designed for residents to enter and leave subdivisions now hold a larger volume of cars than they can handle.

"When these changes occur more piecemeal, one business at a time, sometimes that comprehensive transportation planning has not occurred, and there hasn't necessarily been an opportunity to consider the impacts on all types of uses, whether pedestrians, cyclists or automobiles," said Paulsen.

ARLINGTON GATE STATION: VALUES UP, CRASHES NOT

In Arlington, plans for a new Gate gas station set off similar alarms with residents surrounding the site. The station's location is between a public park and a church, with residential homes across the street and behind it. However, thanks to the involvement of several community and area groups, surrounding neighborhoods have seen a more positive impact.

In 2012, Gate Petroleum announced plans to build a new gas station at McCormick and Fort Caroline roads. In talks with developers, residents requested a buffer from noise and light, limited entry to the gas station from the subdivision behind and limited hours of operation. Residents worried that a gas station so close to their homes would bring unnecessary traffic, more opportunity for crime and ruin the quiet of the area.

However, the gas station has become more of a benefit to residents. Since it opened, property values of surrounding residential homes increased 14.7 percent more than the percentage of property value increase in the overall Fort Caroline area. While the reported number of incidents reported to police climbed to 54 in 2014, that same number dropped to 39 in 2015. Traffic has not been severely impacted, as the number of crashes every year has stayed between 15 and 16.

STRIKING A BALANCE

This emerging trend for more close-knit, walkable neighborhoods gives more options to the kinds of areas people can live in. Paulsen said she doesn't see a complete reversal of mixed-use, but that lasting elements of that neighborhood layout may be seen in the future. Each challenge a new business brings puts cities one step closer in finding a balance between commercial and residential living.

"Right now we're seeing more of a variety," said Paulsen. "It doesn't mean that we no longer have auto-dependent sprawling suburbs. We have those, too. Now there are more options available to people, whether it's emphasizing the qualities of existing neighborhoods that are walkable or if it's constructing suburbs that have a component of commercial development that might facilitate walkability in a new residential area."

Tiffanie Reynolds: (904) 359-4450