Imagine an interactive site where every housing development in Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, Bunnell and Flagler County, past, present, and future, is mapped out and available at a click. Every development’s details–number of homes, apartment units, commercial or industrial square footage–is listed, often with illustrations and links. Developers are listed. So are construction dates or projected buildouts.
That map is now public and free to use, if not quite as free to its creator, who’s paying for it.
“It will become kind of a universal reference tool for the area,” Don Tobin says, “and of course, it’s a highly targeted audience, right? So that makes it very valuable.”
Since starting his GoToby.com website 20 years ago as the local bible for all things real estate in Flagler County, Tobin (Toby to everyone who knows him) has been data-driven, collecting and filling spreadsheets to document his reporting on the local housing industry.
Four years ago, he started mapping some of that data to ease his own access to the numbers and have a clearer geographic idea of where everything is.
“I’ve got literally hundreds of spreadsheets developed over the years, number of building permits, multi-family, duplex, single family,” Tonin said, “all of this data and trying to relate it down to the community level turned out to be pretty useful, often, so that’s why I developed a map for my own use. Then I realized how powerful it was, and I thought, I need to push this out.”
After some trial and error with a couple of platforms, he settled on Atlist, which interfaces with Google Maps, makes it easy to populate with data and allows for embedding on different sites (as you can see below). Try it:
Tobin published the map at GoToby on Sept. 8 with a straightforward introduction: “Questions often arise, such as the location of new communities like Veranda Bay, the number of homes in established neighborhoods such as Grand Haven, and where apartments or other housing options can be found. The Flagler County Residential Development Map is the answer.”
None of the local governments have a map like it. Nor do associations like the home builders or the realtors.
Ever wondered what major developments have been approved for Palm Coast’s so-called “westward expansion”? A couple of them were a decade and a half ago: Neoga Lakes, 7,000 homes, more than 2 million square feet of commercial, civic and office space. Or Old Brick Township, 5,000 homes, over a million square feet of commercial and industrial space. Both are easy to find on the map, with those details.
Also on the map: The Reserve at Haw Creek, the colossal, 6,100-home development the Bunnell City Commission, after first killing it in the face of staunch public opposition then undergoing a remarkable metamorphosis, just approved for west and south of the city. The Resrve appears with an illustration of its geographic boundaries, though the item has yet to be updated to indicate “approval” as opposed to pending approval. (The developer is hunting for a central location in Bunnell to put up a welcome center in the style of ITT’s old welcome center in the nascent days of Palm Coast.)
Developments with as few as 10 homes are included. But infill, single-lot developments such as ITT’s in Palm Coast are not.
Tobin broke down the markers according to “established developments” like Grand Haven, Park Place, Grand Landings and so on, projects “under active development,” planned or entitled developments, and proposed developments that have not yet been entitled.
It’s a work in progress, intended–like development in the county–to be continuously in progress. At 82, Tobin continues to put in the hours: the map took hundreds of hours of work in addition to his other commitments.
But updates are part of the map’s value. The map’s icon for Veranda Bay, for example, the development along John Anderson Highway, includes a map of the ongoing, 122-home phase, but will likely be updated this month as Veranda Bay appears before the city’s planning board and city commission for approval of its next steps as it inches its way toward a 2,400-unit development over the next decades.
It’s not cheap for Tobin to host it. Atlist charges a base fee for a certain number of views, then each additional view costs a fraction of a penny. It sounds small, but it can add up quickly. “My intention is really to go to builders realtors, developers, people that are proud of the industry to support the map internally.
Annamaria Long, executive officer of the Flagler Home Builders Association–who’s often worked with Tobin on his “Real Estate Matters” radio show on WNZF–joked that all that knowledge that had accumulated in Tobin was finally extracted and put on a map.
“While this map is especially useful for those in certain professions, I think it is also really helpful to the general public,” Long said. “We often see signs pop up around town or hear about a development at a municipal meeting. This map allows a user to click on the name they heard or saw and get background information. Some of the developments have been approved since the early 2000s and dirt still hasn’t been moved, others were approved and got dirt moving rather quickly. The map provides not only information but perspective that one otherwise couldn’t find without hundreds of hours of research.”
It’s not inconceivable–if not desirable–that over time local elected officials will bookmark the map on their laptops for the kind of quick, comprehensive and cross-county reference they can look up during their meetings, for information not even their own staffs could produce as readily, or as comprehensively, across municipal boundaries.
In the near future, Tobin is exploring adding features, such as a search feature that would show current homes for sale in the local market.
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