Last month the Palm Coast planning board tabled until Wednesday a developer’s request to build an 80-foot apartment tower and add 432 apartments and housing units at the Harborside marina, next to Palm Coast Resort’s existing 72-apartment tower. (See: “Plan for a Massive Apartment Tower at Harborside Draws Opposition, Accusations and Delay.”)
The city administration had recommended against approval. It determined that the requested number of housing units would double the permitted amount. The developer disputed the conclusion, saying the increased density is more modest. The board asked the two sides to go back to the negotiating table and bring back the item to Wednesday’s meeting. They have. But the essential difference remains unresolved.
The city is agreeing to some increase in density, from what was proposed last month, and doing so only because it has had the time to crunch numbers it had not completed when the item went before the board last month. (A developer can request that an item be heard even before the administration’s review is completed.) But a big gap remains between what city planners are willing to recommend and what the developer wants.
Whether the planning board votes to recommend the project or to reject it, it’s heading to the Palm Coast City Council either way. The council will have the final say. But the planning board’s decision on Wednesday will carry considerable weight, as has what so far has been heavy public opposition to the developer’s plan. And it may not be the customary up or down vote to recommend or to reject, because this is a negotiated development deal between th city and the developer. So the planning board could well vote to approve the city administration’s version, even if it goes against the developer’s request. If it does, it’ll be an approving vote with a big caveat: the developer will be in the opposition.
It’ll still leave it to the council to sort out. When it does, the council will have the same choices. It can go with the developer’s request, it can stick with the city’s recommendations, or it can craft a new agreement. The bottom line is that the developer and the city are still at odds.
The public opposition to the developer’s plan has continued, including a four-page letter from a Palm Coast Resort resident that the city received only Friday, but was dated Sept. 19. The letter reads almost like a legal brief, if more lucidly and without jargon. One of the concerns it raised had not been voiced in that detail at the September meeting.
“With this increased density, residents, guests, patrons, visitors, employees and contractors of Legacy Vacation Resorts (72 units), the planned hotel (125 keys), the existing Marina (80 slips) the planned townhouses (30 units) the rental complex (200 units) and 146 Palm Coast Resort Blvd. (72 units) must all pass through single entrance at Palm Harbor Parkway and Club-House Drive,” John Mueller wrote. “(That is a total of 579 units, keys and slips.) That entrance has a concrete wall and deep water retention pond on one side and a dead-end marina entrance (and canal) on the other. In the event of a natural disaster or serious emergency drivers have no choice but to exit through that single entrance. No other vehicular entrance or exits are available today. That may well be a safety issue, as you would know.”
The proposal before the planning board is to rezone 18 acres from a planned unit development to a master planned development. The proposed development would include a U-shaped apartment tower, a marina, townhouses and possibly a restaurant and a hotel. The developer’s representatives were hesitant to commit to a hotel when they discussed the project before the planning board last month. They’re not sure it’ll make money.
Whichever approach the developer takes would result in densities of between 25.5 (with a hotel) and 29 (without a hotel) housing units per acre. The developer wants the option of choosing one or the other. The developer–Jim Jacoby’s JDI Palm Coast–is not budging from that request. The city says that exceeds density rules. The city is willing to go a little more than 18 unites per acre (up from 15 when the city administration opposed the development in September), allowing for a total of either 310 or 273 housing units–122 to 159 fewer than what the developer wants.
But the city’s proposal is contingent on the developer accepting eight conditions, or “standards,” that would make the project compatible with its surroundings. “In staff’s professional opinion the applicant’s proposal of 25.5 to 28.9 units per acre is not compatible with neighboring properties, as required by several sections in the LDC,” the administration’s memo to the planning board states. LDC is the city’s Land Development Code.
The city’s approach is not winning over the developer.
The city’s eight conditions include building a sit-down restaurant of a minimum of 4,000 square feet and capacity for 75 patrons, a new ship’s store, keeping the marina open and within environmentally clean standards while reserving at least 25 percent of harborside-planning-board-221019
its boat slips for non-residents of the resort, maintain an existing public boat ramp, and building a sidewalk in certain areas and a Palm Coast entryway sign on the Intracoastal.
JDI’s response is largely a restatement of its request, making the city’s conditions conditional on its own interpretation of the numbers it is seeking. By doing so, it is negating the city’s approach and merely restating its own. Yes, its eight conditions say, we’ll do all you ask, but only if you approve our version of the number of units requested. The developer sees itself as merely adding 50 residential units, not more. It disputes the city’s larger numbers, because it calculates them differently. It is tying that number or its derivatives to the eight conditions.
The planning board last month was hoping that further negotiations at the administrative level would spare it a repeat of a lengthy and contentious meeting where, though civil, the public opposition to the plan was sharp and at times disbelieving, while the planning board’s own impressions of the developer’s request were not far off from those of the public. The four weeks since, and the supplemental material in the planning board’s already voluminous package of 135 pages, have not changed the premise.
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John says
The developer’s proposal is horrendous. Just say “no”. No more negotiations needed.
Celia Pugliese says
We, the city should buy the property with a government loan and keep the marina, as the city marina like Halifax is owned by Daytona Beach….build just a hotel and bar and restaurant and create jobs and give us back the Flagler bar for meets and community gatherings that back then was like “Cheers” for the community were on arrival “everybody new our names” specially the bar tenders and waiters/tress. So many fundraisers and community events organized there then. If city buys out the marina and parcel left from JDI LLC will be a money maker and job creator for the city. Best investment ever. Lets forget benefitting developers and benefit us all first. Imagine the only Palm Coast Marina with Bar and Restaurant and hotel to crash on for all those cruising the Intracoastal on their way to south Florida will big a boom tourist destination! Also city can keep there a nice size vessel to give tours of our coastal waters to tourist…another money maker out of the same sight! We. the city can allege a very important historical preservation site as was the original in the 70’s destination for potential buyers of Palm Coast lots sold by ITT that crossed them by boat the intracoastal in the 70’s to the sales office tower to spot the lot sites and is still today the marine entrance to Palm Coast should be bought with a historical preservation grant….C’mon Lucy Alves our financial boss, give ourselves a temporary loan from our reserves to buy the parcel while we search for a grant and maybe a one cent tax to us city residents to help fund it.. A loan that will be paid in no time with the hotel, restaurant bar and marina and boat tours revenue. Palm Coast will become a new tourist destination that will create over 500 jobs…(originally the Sheraton hotel had 300 jobs lost to its demolition) Lets recoup with pride what we had, the beautiful (Sheraton) hotel for golfers and other sports tournaments and visiting relatives, etc. coming here nation wide, our public launching ramp for Palmcoasters with parking rules, all the 500 jobs to be created and a revenue bond to pay for the purchase of the parcel and marina. This should be integrated to any Palm Coast Vision, Mayor Alfin and Council. Put the one cent tax to the voters referendum for November. One cent from us to benefit us and create at least back the 300 to 500 jobs we lost with the Sheraton demolition. Back in the early 2,000 I asked Netts and the others in control of the city to buy out the Matanzas Golf Course in foreclosure for mere $200,000 the 279 acres…they decline. Can we imagine any bigger goof up and who benefited and who is suffering now? This time we need to try and undue the wrong done then. NO ZONE CHANGE FOR HARBORSIDE! Lets buy them out for a very important “Palm Coast Historical Site”.
Celia Pugliese says
Also adding to my advised vision of the importance of the Palm Coast Marina and its vacant parcel owned now by Jacoby and his JDI LLC being in reality a City of Palm Coast Historical Site were if we buy it out even our City of Palm Coast Historical Museum can be also installed there as well. Simply because our beginnings with ITT was one of the greatest projects and developments of its time : https://palmcoasthistory.org/palm-coast-history/, This is the main historical reason why our Palm Coast Marina needs to be come a formal historical site because Palm Coast was to become “the largest planned unit development in Florida’s History!” “Originally, visitors came from A1A to a small dock on the east side of the Intracoastal Waterway and proceeded by boat to the Welcome Center on the main canal (the marina today) . Prospective buyers were taken by elevator to the top of the tower” (a beautiful tower that we allowed to be demolished without notice). We all Palmcoasters need to buy it out to become the best investment the city will ever made and a job creator for us all.
Celia Pugliese says
Forgot to add this to my post above: https://cornerstonecenterfl.com/history-of-palm-coast/
Mischa Gee says
I wonder if the city is also insisting that a development that large would have the developer pay for it’s own sewage plant or the expansion of an existing one in Palm Coast.
Also, what about water? I have practically zero water pressure now. How will adding almost 500 additional units drawing on our water supply work for the city? Would another processing plant be needed for that part of town? What would happen to the already trickling water we are now enduring? Would our pipes suck air, or would we be told not to do laundry or dishes between certain hours?
Who’s going to pay for another processing plant. We already pay outlandishly high rates for water and sewer now. My water bill in heavily settled Passaic County NJ was only $200 every three months. I pay about $140 monthly here and I don’t have a well, so watering my garden goes on the bill.
Regarding ingress and egress, why are there not enough through roads in any development in Palm Coast now? Adding 300-500 more units with 1-2 cars per unit, possibly totaling another 1000 vehicles on
a one road with one way in and out would create nightmarish grid lock, worse than NYC. Didn’t many of us leave city life to avoid this type of traffic nightmare. There should always be multiple ways to get in an out of heavily developed areas. What if there’s a fire or flood or serious vehicle accident?
The leaders of the city need to start thinking critically about how what they approve now will affect the lives of it’s citizens down the road.
What this developer wants to do is take in a huge profits without caring what nightmare he creates for the city while doing so.
Come on Palm Coast planning board and commissioners, get the stars out of your eyes and start thinking critically about how our infrastructure and our ecosystem will be taxed before approving this development and others like it.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Who,s getting a kick-back from this stupit idea? I know somebody got his hand in this cookie jar. I call for an investgation, to stop this nonesence!
MITCH says
Have you ever noticed that traffic is doubled or tripled in neighborhoods of non-(City Council Members). Favoritism? New version “I’ll do unto to your family what I’ll not do unto my family”.