In January a split Bunnell City Commission rejected a request by Hard Rock Materials to rezone 1.4 acres at the end of Hibiscus Avenue for a concrete batch plant. Neighborhood residents had objected, fearing noise and raising safety concerns.
On Monday, the commission unanimously reversed itself, saying the conditions Hard Rock is willing to abide by are sufficient to warrant a change of heart.
Hard Rock is also seeking to rezone acreage on Hargrove Grade in Palm Coast to build a batch plant there, but is facing resistance. It is unclear, now that the Hibiscus Avenue rezoning is headed for second reading, and with it the clearance to a batch plant there, whether Hard Rock will continue to seek the Palm Coast rezoning for a second batch plant.
Normally, when a local government rejects a measure, one of the board’s members who voted in opposition must motion and win a majority to bring the matter back up. There was no such step. The proposed rezoning reappeared on the city’s planning board’s agenda in August despite the city commission’s vote and the planning board recommended approval, based on the set of conditions Hard Rock attached to it.
Some commissioners had talked to company representatives, the city manager or city staff as well, before the matter was reconsidered Monday. It would be the first concrete batch plant in the county.
The Palm Coast City Council in August rejected a rezoning that would have opened the way for a different company’s batch plant on Hargrove Lane, SRM Concrete. Earlier this month, the Palm Coast Planning Board declined to recommend the rezoning sought by Hard Rock Materials, postponing the decision to February.
Hard Rock Materials Inc. was founded 20 years ago in Green Cove Springs, operates four plants in the state. Bunnell’s would be its fifth. It would build the plant on the land to be rezoned from residential to light industrial, and on an adjacent, much larger parcel already zoned industrial. It would do so with a special exception.
“You may recall, when this first was brought to the commission previously, there was concern about safety for children that live in the apartment complex,” Joe Parsons, Bunnell’s community development director, told the commission, referring to the Pine View Apartments on Hibiscus. “Part of the rehearing at the Planning and Zoning and Appeals Board was to place additional conditions on the special exception that the applicant will make safety improvements to Hibiscus.”
The conditions include a 100-foot buffer between the Hard Rock land and its western buffer with a residential area, no connection to the city’s water system (water usage would be restricted to a well on the site), a required improvement plan for Hibiscus Avenue itself in accordance with Department of Transportation standards, including pavement, width of the road, sidewalks, drainage and signage, with all those improvements to be completed before the plant begins to operate. The special exception will run with the land, as long as the property continues to be used for the same purpose. If Hard Rock sells the property to an owner with different designs on the land, the special exception will be nullified.
The sidewalk on the north side of Hibiscus was not part of the conditions the planning board approved. Hard Rock’s attorney, Michael Chiumento, added that proposal when he addressed the commission on Monday. Hard Rock would “also provide additional pedestrian safety constraints, such as a raised curb and also hand railing along portions of it,” Ciumento said, “so that the children that walk from the apartment complex out to US1 where there’s a bus stop” are protected. There would be appropriate crosswalks for the children’s safety.
In January, the proposal drew substantial public opposition. On Monday, there was none. The commission voted 5-0 to approve the rezoning on first reading.
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