Calling Plan ‘Garbage,’ Theresa Pontieri Vows to Block Westward Development Unless Rayonier Pays More for Infrastructure

In a blistering rebuke of Rayonier, the majority landowner of 20,000 acres slated for Palm Coast’s westward expansion, City Council member Theresa Pontieri called a new proposed development document for that area “garbage” and said she will not approve it if the developer does not shoulder more of the cost for roads and parks, as the developer had agreed to do in previous documents. (See the full text of the statement here.) 

Those documents were the two Developments of Regional Impact orders, or DRIs, the City Council approved in 2010 when the western expansion was originally conceived through two enormous developments: Old Brick Township and Neoga Lakes. (See summary analysis of each development order here and here.) 

Together, the two orders called on the developer to assume close to $100 million in road costs (in 2010 dollars; that’s close to $150 million in today’s dollars), including the Palm Coast Parkway extension now known as the “Loop Road,” improvements to Hargrove Grade and Otis Stone Hunter Road, and the building of public parks and a sports complex, including a junior Olympic swimming pool, ballfields and a public beach (yes, the developer was planning a public beach). 

Pontieri’s lengthy statement at the end of last Tuesday’s City Council meeting echoed a similar statement she made from the dais in September 2024 when the Old Brick Township and Neoga Lakes DRIs were about to be replaced by a single so-called Master Planned Development order–and when she realized to what extent the legislature had subsidized the road costs Rayonier was supposed to have paid. 

In 2024, Pontieri urged the developer to revisit its plans. “When you come back to me,” she told Rayonier, none of whose representatives were in the council room–though they got wind of Pontieri’s statement– “I don’t expect a $105 million check to the residents of Florida, but I do expect quite a bit in infrastructure improvements.”

They have now gotten back to her and the rest of the council with the new proposed order. Pontieri read it. She was even more upset than she was in 2024. 

“What they gave to us is 117 pages of absolute garbage,” Pontieri said. “I can’t–I’m sorry–I can’t, I can’t hold back anymore on this. Not only do they add 10,000 dwelling units to what was previously in place, but they don’t pay for the sports complex. They don’t pay for any fire stations or police stations or schools.” 

What had triggered her this time was a reference to the Matanzas Woods Parkway-Palm Coast Parkway “Loop Road” in a city presentation on future capital improvement appropriations. The slide had referred to the $126 million appropriated for the Loop Road. 

“ I literally got sick to my stomach when I saw on one of the slides today, $126 million for the Loop Road in the form of appropriations, which is just a fancy word for taxpayer dollars,” she said. 

She was also troubled by the elimination of a requirement that the developer build commercial spaces in the western expansion before a certain amount of housing was in place. “That requirement does not exist in the new MPD. There are phases, but there’s no teeth to those phases. There are more suggestions than anything else,” Pontieri said. 

“It’s been two years and you haven’t fixed it,” she told Rayonier (whose representatives she would end up meeting with later that week.) “I feel like I’ve been talking to a wall for the past two years, and I feel this whole entire council and our residents have been disrespected because there is a known issue that we have a problem with–a lack of jobs, a lack of industry, a lack of infrastructure. And in exchange for an opportunity to help us flourish, we get 10,000 extra dwelling units and minimal infrastructure contributions.”

At the end of her statement–which was delivered at the end of a nearly eight-hour session of the council–her colleagues did not react, except for Mayor Norris. “This is that this is the most serious issue facing the city,” he said. 

Pontieri will be off the council by November–she is running for a County Commission seat–as will be Dave Sullivan, who is not running for his seat, and Charles Gambaro, who is running for the congressional seat held by Randy Fine. The MPD, however, is due before the council for approval, well before the election. 

“I am going to ask this landowner one more time, please, as a representative of this city who refuses to mortgage the future of our city on this MPD that I will not accept, please make it right,” Pontieri said. “Please fix it. You can and you have the ability to fix it. I know that there’s a good product that can come out of the westward expansion. I’m confident we can get it done. But I cannot be more clear about this. I will not accept this as it is. And if this doesn’t go through before I am off this council, I ask you members of the council that will be here, please do not allow this to be acceptable to the future of our city.”