The Bunnell City Commission on Monday approved the final plat for the final phase of Grand Reserve, the 847-home golf community subdivision that will have increased the city’s population by more than half by the time it is built out and is already changing the city’s politics. The sixth phase of Grand Reserve consists of 141 houses on 100 acres.
Grand Reserve, at the northeast of the city, abutting Palm Coast’s E Section (notably without any points of entry into Palm Coast) is one of Flagler County’s largest ongoing developments and the largest in Bunnell’s history.
The Bunnell commission embraced the development on assumptions that it would help the city bulk up its tax base and finance needed infrastructure improvements in the city. But revenue has not met expectations, not least because a large proportion of the new houses have partial or full exemptions from the property tax, beyond the homestead exemption that applies universally. That disproportion affects the entire city. Based on the 2024 tax roll, only 51 percent of Bunnell properties pay taxes, according to Property Appraiser Jay Gardner.
Final plat approval is the step at which a local government ratifies the mapping and addressing of individual lots as they will be recorded at the clerk’s office.
Commissioner Pete Young alone raised concerns about the latest platting, addressing Grand Reserve as a whole: for all its size and mass of houses, it still has only two entry and exit points, one on U.S. 1, one on State Road 100. “This seems like a lot of houses for just having two ways in and two ways in, two ways out,” Young said.
“I worked a lot of accidents, fatalities, in neighborhoods and in Palm Coast,” Young, a retired traffic homicide investigator with the Florida Highway Patrol, said. “When we closed down the road, we closed it down for hours and hours. But most of those roads there in Palm Coast, there’s another way out of the neighborhood. In this case, there wouldn’t be another way out of the neighborhood for the residents, and the road would be closed for hours. That’s my that was my concern.”
In essence, when the Bunnell city administrations and commission approved the development order of the Planned Unit Development years ago, they did so carelessly and with short-sighted horizons.
Joe Parsons, Bunnell’s community development director, explained it in diplomatic terms: “Although it would possibly make sense to have an additional access, unfortunately it wasn’t approved that way,” Parsons said of the Grand Reserve PUD.
Parsons then took advantage of the case to press the point with a remarkable caution to a generally hands-off, if not irresponsibly uninvolved, commission when it comes to planning concerns: “I think it’s important to note, that is why it’s incredibly important that we make sure we look at everything with future PUDs that may be under review currently, or that come up in the future,” Parsons said. “That way we can hopefully have the foresight to figure out, hey, this is important now, that we look at it and that it will impact the future as badly. But at this point our hands are somewhat tied on that, so there’s nothing we can do to have another access.”
Everyone in the room knew what Parsons was referring to: the Bunnell commission is currently reviewing the planned unit development agreement for a mammoth development called the Reserve at Haw Creek, a proposed 8,000-house development that would dwarf Grand Reserve and would be the largest single development since Palm Coast began construction in the late 1960s. The Reserve would sprawl west and south of the city. The city’s planning board has analyzed the planning document rigorously. The City Commission, with occasional exceptions, has not. The state raised objections in the planning document, which is moving toward regulatory approval, though with further work by the administration.
Bunnell originally approved Grand Reserve in 2000 when it was called Oak Branch. Back then it was a planned unit development of 157 houses. It never got past a few houses. The housing crash stopped construction. Jacksonville-based D.R. Horton, the home builder, bought the subdivision in 2017, turned it into a master planned development, and won approval for 686 houses in six phases, increasing the total to 847 since through subsequent amendments, on nearly 700 acres.
Bunnell’s population before Grand Reserve began in 2010 had a population of 2,676, according to the Census. Today, the city’s population is at 3,500, a 31 percent increase almost entirely attributable to Grand Reserve. The subdivision has been changing the city’s politics, too.
The City Commission, previously stocked with residents of Saw Mill Estates, is now seeing an increasing number of representatives elected from Grand Reserve. Both new members of the commission elected in the March election, David Atkinson and Dean Sechrist, were elected from Grand Reserve. They are neighbors on Birdie Way.
The subdivision has shifted the political center of gravity to such an extent as to all but negate the power of South Bunnell, the predominantly Black section of town, to win representation on the commission. Before Grand Reserve, a South Bunnell representatives was almost always on the commission.
The development agreement called for houses of 1,200 square feet at a minimum, on 4,000 square foot lots, or 40 feet wide and 115 feet deep. All road construction, including striping, stop bars (or speed bumps) were built by the developer, along with conservation easements, retention ponds, subdivision entry walls, and passive and active recreational areas. The subdivision is administered by a homeowner association responsible for operation, maintenance, and control of all common areas and common facilities, including signage, landscaping, stormwater management and private roads, with association levies. All homeowners are required to be members of the association. In 2018, the plan called for substantial completion of the subdivision within 15 years, or by 2033.
NativeGirl says
How ironic is it that the two gentlemen who won the latest City Commission seats both live in Grande Reserve and ran their joint campaign on the platform of absolutely NO further development. Yet here we are, expanding the very neighborhood they live in.
Allen says
How does a property owner obtain full exemption from property taxes as discussed in the article? That is insanity.
Informed says
In Florida, homeowners may qualify for a 100% exemption from real estate taxes under specific circumstances, such as:
Homestead Exemption for Surviving Spouses of First Responders:
A surviving spouse of a first responder who died in the line of duty may qualify for a total exemption on their homestead property.
Exemption for Permanently and Totally Disabled Veterans:
Veterans who are permanently and totally disabled due to service-connected conditions, as well as their surviving spouses, may be eligible for a full exemption.
Exemption for Quadriplegics and Certain Disabled Individuals:
Quadriplegics, as well as individuals who are paraplegic, hemiplegic, or legally blind and meet specific income requirements, may qualify for a 100% exemption
Barry K says
Flagler Live is misleading when it tells about property taxes. In their articles they use the figure of an average price house of $175,000.00 to $200,000.00 to comment on property taxes a homeowner will pay. The average price of a house in Palm Coast is well over $300,ooo.oo. Double the figure that Flagler Live uses. This makes the taxes that Palm Coast homeowner will pay appear to be half of what they actually will pay. They must be in cahoots with local government to mislead readers. This is deceptive and is very poor journalism.
Jane Gentile-Youd says
I would appreciate learning about these ‘tax exemptions’ – I never heard of them other than homestead, widow/er..disabled or senior. What else ? Owned by Elon Musk???
FLF says
Where doe’s Grand Reserve get their water and sewer from? Lessons learned from the Palm Coast debacle, will the 8000 home Haw Creek cluster f”@%k be providing a brand new builder paid water and sewage treatment plant, not paid by taxpayers or will Bunnell just kick that can down the road?
FlaglerLive says
We do not use averages, we use median figures. When estimating property taxes we do not use prices, but taxable values, the actual figures on which owners pay taxes. That median is nowhere near $300,000.
Ray W, says
I would not word this comment the way I do had BarryK not launched a baseless accusation against Mr. Tristam. Alleging that Mr. Tristam is in cahoots with local government as an entity or as individuals is a serious allegation of unethical behavior, as is alleging that Mr. Tristam is engaging in “very poor” journalistic practices. Exposing oneself as an ignorant commenter as BarryK does to himself is no less serious a matter.
What makes BarryK comes across as an ignorant commenter is his gross misunderstanding of the subject matter.
Does every FlaglerLive reader understand that BarryK presents by his comment as an innumerate commenter?
Innumerate means one who does not understand numbers in the context of their use, just as illiterate means one who does not understand language in the context of its use. Innumerate does not mean that a person cannot add or subtract or multiply or divide. A person can do all of these concrete mathematical computations with proficiency and still be innumerate in more abstract mathematical contexts.
It means in this instance that BarryK reveals to everyone that he does not know enough to know that if a homeowner buys a home in Florida some 10 or 20 or 30 years ago, the taxable value of the home is reset at the time of the purchase. It means that he does not know that annual property tax increases on the home are limited by statute to a certain percentage of increase per year, and no more. It also means that he does not know that if the homeowner has one or more additional tax exemptions based on age or military service, even if the homeowner was not of senior age or of military status at the time of purchase, then the taxable value of the home might be far less after 10 or 20 or 30 years of happy homeownership than the actual market value of the home.
As an aside, I, too, am innumerate in many ways. I cannot comprehend the enormity of a national debt of $37 trillion, nor can I comprehend the enormity of adding of $8 trillion to the national debt during the first Trump administration, nor can I comprehend the enormity of another $8 trillion being added to the debt during the Biden administration. I can read the numbers, and I can add and subtract them, but $37 trillion is so vast a sum as to become abstract in my mind. But the innumeracy demonstrated by BarryK is on another level altogether. It is as if he simply had read something that he barely understood and then he thought that what he barely understood applied to a completely different mathematical situation.
Again, far too many people like BarryK comment without knowing what they are commenting about, yet they excoriate Mr. Tristam, who takes whatever time is necessary for him to know what he is commenting about. Mr. Tristam’s effort is called the exercise of reason based upon the application of intellectual rigor to a specific issue. BarryK’s effort is called wandering through life fooling himself.
There is a reason why I don’t comment on Flagler County politics. I do not wish to expend the time necessary for me to understand all the relevant issues. I consider myself illiterate on these limited subject matters, so why should I comment?
But there is an exception. When a Flagler County Republican politician takes to the radio waves to ask just when will it be time to begin beheading Democrats, I will oppose him. I am not illiterate about wishful murderous thinking. I spent decades dealing with the issue, both as a prosecutor and a defense attorney. I understand that wishful murderers walk free among us. The Cato Institute found that the Trump administration had released over 300 convicted murderers from immigration custody during his first administration, so today some of those murderers may still be walking among us. I understand how dangerous they are to us all, just as I understand how dangerous is a wishfully murderous Republican politician who still walks among us.
It has been four years since the wishfully murderous Republican politician said what he said to the public, and I have yet to read anything on the FlaglerLive site from any other member of the Republican leadership in Flagler County saying that it is inexcusable for the vengeful and hateful politician to have said what he said. Why this is so is unfathomable, but here we are!