Flagler Beach Ends Debate on Annexation with Final Approval of Measure Scrapping 5% Rule

The Flagler Beach City Commission approved on a 4-1 vote and on final reading the repeal of a decades-old rule that required the city to hold a referendum any time it would annex more than 5 percent of its geographic area in a given year.

The repeal was precipitated last year by the city’s interest in annexing Veranda Bay, the huge development along John Anderson Highway that would more than double the city’s population when built out. The commission had repealed the rule in January 2024. It went through the process again when John Tanner, an attorney who represents a non-profit opposed to annexation of Veranda Bay, challenged the original repeal as improper.




The new version of the city’s annexation rules amends the 2024 version as well. To approve any single annexation exceeding 5 percent of the city’s geographic area, the commission will have to muster a super-majority of at least four votes. That provision was not in the 2024 version. But a referendum will at no point be required.

The commission’s vote on March 27, with Commissioner John Cunningham opposed, would appear to clear the way for Veranda Bay to annex. But that annexation is hung up on another threat by the non-profit, Preserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek, which raised the prospect of a lawsuit if the annexation created an enclave of county properties. As then designed, the annexation would have done just that. Veranda Bay and the city paused. The developer is expected to return to the city with a proposal that would make the enclave moot for now, by proceeding with annexation only on the west side of John Anderson.

Imminent or not, the prospect of the Veranda Bay development, which continues to add new houses within the 435-house entitlement it won from county regulators in 2019, framed the debate around the new annexation rules last Thursday as Preserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek attempted one last time to halt the ordinance. A reversal was unlikely.




Commissioner Scott Spradley tried to separate the repeal from Veranda Bay, while acknowledging that Veranda Bay precipitated the issue–as did the seeming “certainty” that it would annex into Palm Coast if it didn’t annex into Flagler Beach. That may no longer be the case now that Palm Coast “is not as builder-friendly as we’ve seen before,” he said, eventually casting his vote for repeal  based on the small proportion of voters who cast ballots in city elections–an ironic decision for the commissioner who drew the highest proportion of votes in recent memory when he ran two years ago. That election drew 31 percent of registered voters, not 15, as Spradley claimed, based on a figure from a member of the public.

Commissioner Eric Cooley saw the repeal as giving the commission more control over its borders. The referendum “handcuffed” the city for years. Rejecting the Veranda Bay land means in the future, other jurisdictions will control the land. “You are also opening the door wide open for another municipality to get a free tax base to control that land that we have to service with water and sewer,” he said.

To Cunningham, the repeal is “taking the vote away from the people,” while Veranda Bay will “dramatically change the city of Flagler Beach.” Mayor Patti King agreed with the sentiment, but also put the responsibility on commissioners to represent voters.

One of the rationales commissioners relied on the most was that even if the city did not annex Veranda Bay, it was still responsible for providing it water and sewer service. Commissioners did not want to have that responsibility while enabling another government to control the development.




By then commissioners had heard from the public, and most of what they heard was against repeal.

“It should be left to the people. It’s that big,” Steve Daley told the commission, opening a 40-minute segment of public comment. No one seemed particularly to care about the super-majority proviso. R.J. Santore dismissed the claim, repeated by commissioners, that Veranda Bay will improve the city’s budget. The claim is based on the theory that growth not only pays for itself (which has been proven to be inaccurate, with The Villages centered in Sumter County a notable example of what the Orlando Sentinel called “the big Florida lie”), but that it will be a cash windfall for the city. “Has annexation worked for Palm Coast or another city facing our issues?” he asked.

Rich Smith, the builder, did not speak against the repeal, but he managed to talk down to the entire city commission, the city attorney (Drew Smith) and most of those attending when he told them they didn’t understand what they were dealing with. “I made a recommendation that you’ll hire somebody to represent you that could pitch the deal to these people,” Smith told the commissioners. “I understand what’s going on. These people don’t. But they know y’all don’t understand either, it’s not your expertise.”

It didn’t go over well. “I take a little bit of umbrage when somebody says that this is not your area of expertise,” Paul Ike, a former candidate for the commission, said right after Smith. “I’ve been living in this city. I believe in a representative type of government, which is what the people sitting up there represent, and I believe that you’ll make the best decision for the city as far as a referendum goes.” A few others, notably another builder, spoke about the development as future tax revenue, and as inevitable (as did Commissioner Rick Belhumeur).




Opponents then returned to the mic. Irwin Connelly had no disagreement with Ike on the commissioners’ responsibilities, but the annexation in plan–Veranda Bay–“is such a huge decision, and it’s so impactful to the city that the citizens, I think this is the type of thing that the original ordinance was designed for,” he said. “It’s so important and so widespread and so permanent that the citizens as a whole should have a say, then ultimately you make your decision.”

Tanner spoke of course, as did members of the Preserve group, explicitly opposing the end game of the repeal–the annexation of Veranda Bay. And Barbara Revels, the former county commissioner and a current member of the city’s planning board who played a large role in the Preserve group, argued against Veranda Bay as a revenue “panacea” as every department in the city “will double in size.”

“I beg of you, for citizens who have been here through it all, don’t take our vote away,” Revels said. “Allow us to have a vote.” She said if Veranda Bay was back to the original 453 houses approved by the county, or even 800, there would have been no opposition.

Then Brian Ford told the commission that only 15 percent of the city’s population votes–a ratio close enough to reality: in the last election, 21 percent of registered voters cast a ballot. When all eligible voters are considered, the ratio is closer to Ford’s. He said he’d rather have commissioners vote–and be voted out if residents don’t like their decisions.

Commission Chair James Sherman, as had his colleagues, had last year supported moving toward annexation of Veranda Bay because they feared Palm Coast would annex first. Palm Coast has denied that any such move was afoot, and that was reported. (See: “Contrary to Flagler Beach’s Impressions, Palm Coast Is Not Pursuing Veranda Bay for Annexation.”)

Sherman said that wasn’t true. “Palm Coast can deny it,” Sherman said, “but we literally, I have paperwork. The city manager has emails. I think everybody up here on this board can attest to that, that that was factual. So I can’t speak to why everyone voted the way they voted the first go around, but that there is truth and fact that there was an application to annex into Palm Coast.”