I don’t know what Palm Coast and Flagler County governments were thinking when they imagined it a fabulous idea to plant a mini-Meadowlands in the middle of sprawlingly residential U.S. 1 and obstinately suburban Palm Coast.
Let’s not play into the focus-group-tested euphemism and call it a “fuel farm,” as if it were some bucolic scene out of Christina’s World. The fuel dump would have massed the equivalent of 17 Palm Coast water towers filled with 12.6 million gallons of diesel and gas. It would have required a new rail yard, terminus for 125-car trains filled to capacity and riding the at-times rickety lines of the Florida East Coast Railroad, whose 2008 derailment of hazardous chemicals in Favoretta should not be white noise.
It would have been the in-and-out traffic of 35,000 fuel tanker trucks a year, or 70,000 trips rumbling along Christina’s actual world of picket fences and chrome-addled SUVs in fuming distance of subdivisions like Sawmill Branch and Somerset, the latter cleared for construction just last week.
It would have required a leap of faith to believe that Belvedere Terminals, a start-up company with zero experience in the field and a CEO with two bankruptcies under his belt and a worrisome history in South Florida, could pull off a fossil-fuel miracle. With Palm Coast as guinea pig. And to do it just as we’re getting away from dirty fuels. It’s as if Manhattan had converted Central Park to a horse-and-buggy barnyard just as Henry Ford’s Model T’s were rolling off assembly lines.
This is what projects subsidized by fossil-fueled Florida gets you. The state was putting up $10 million for the county to buy the land. Since Jeb Bush’s go-go years in the 2000s the state hasn’t seen a development regulation it couldn’t scrap and an “economic development” gamble it couldn’t ram down past home rule and environmental legacies. The state is so blinded by its hatred for electric cars and green energy that it can’t see past the diesel fumes of its losing battle. Even if the fuel dump were built, it would have been a monument to stupidity when it would be an oily white elephant struggling to survive not too many years from now.
So who in local government imagined that a county that approves environmentally sensitive land referendums by 3-to-1 margins would embrace a fuel monument to oil’s gushier days?
Maybe you can’t blame lawmakers and Belvedere’s brass for knowing zilch about Palm Coast. To them U.S. 1 here was what U.S. 1 is for most of its 2,400 miles up and down the East Coast–the country’s single-greatest exuberance of commercial chaos and aesthetic antimatter. Maybe previous city councils infatuated with residential development and the myth that it pays for itself shouldn’t have rezoned those long stretches of U.S. 1 to more houses. But that’s history.
And in retrospect, to accuse previous councils of poor planning is like accusing past Flagler Beach city commissions for forbidding high-rises along State Road A1A. Surely the high rises would have rained taxdollars on the city’s tiny treasury. But who among you will cast a stone against a decision that has carved out a rare sanctuary of oceanfront sights and public access on the East Coast? U.S. 1 isn’t oceanfront. But it doesn’t have to be Newark, either.
The push for the dump was also tied to another myth: that somehow Palm Coast’s overwhelmingly residential tax base is unsustainable. That its tax burden is lopsidedly on residential homes. That commercial and industrial development lowers property taxes. The premises are taken as gospel in this county and never tested. Not one of them is true.
First, Palm Coast is already among the least-taxed cities in the state despite the large residential tax base. The problem here is too low a tax rate and zero municipal and franchise taxes on utilities. That’s what’s unsustainable. Look around at your crumbling infrastructure and overburdened parks. We can’t even pave our streets with more than cheap sealants or give our local sports leagues enough space to play on.
Second, Duval/Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Melbourne, Daytona Beach all have higher tax rates than Palm Coast–and proportionately more commercial and industrial properties. The split has nothing to do with it. The more you urbanize, the higher the cost of keeping things civilized. Incidentally, St. Johns County has a lopsided residential housing tax base and a tax rate 42 percent higher than Palm Coast’s. It also has the best schools in the state and one of its lowest unemployment rates (even though county taxes are independent of schools). What has our lower tax base gotten us?
Third, the problem with property taxes is structural. The Save our Homes cap of 3 percent on property tax increases and the homestead exemption and its “portability” schemes have created a monster of unfairness, with renters and commercial properties subsidizing the homesteaded, whose taxes have fallen sharply in inflation-adjusted terms: the property appraiser valued my house at $153,000 in 2010, a couple of years after we bought it. We paid $2,150 in taxes. It is now valued at $323,000, a 111 percent increase. Our tax bill: $2,154. If our bill had just kept up with inflation, it would have been $3,173. So in real terms, we have benefited from a 32 percent decrease in taxes, while robbing local government of that 32 percent in purchasing power.
We don’t have high taxes. We have a perverse tax system that lawmakers want to pervert further, with the governor pandering to the homesteaded with a $1,000 rebate they don’t need and the speaker of the house looking to rob the treasury and local governments of a combined $6 billion by cutting the sales tax to 5.25 percent.
That’s why, aside from that spate of Covid-era newcomers shocked that their tax bill was higher than the previous owners of their own house, you rarely see homeowners clamoring to the City Council or the County Commission for a property tax break. You never see them bitching about the industrial-residential split, about which they simply don’t care. The only people who do, and only when they’re trying to ram a dubious “economic development” plan down our throats, are chamber of commerce types who stand to make a buck off the scheme, along with whatever bunch of government saps they’ve convinced to sell the plan on their behalf. That’s why it’s called a dump.
There are smarter ways to grow, starting with reading the room. Most people don’t move to Palm Coast to work here but to retire or live in a quiet, green bedroom community and work elsewhere. Data centers might fit in. Fuel dumps don’t. Palm Coast residents quickly saw through the scheme. The City Council thankfully did read the room and stopped it. But there’ll be more. Selling the city’s soul to make a buck is always one vote away. Cue the $110 million sports complex.
Pierre Tristam is the editor of FlaglerLive. A version of this piece airs on WNZF.
James says
The biggest lesson is question everything Mayor Mike Norris brings forward! Don’t forget, he was the one originally claiming leadership on bringing this project here. He originally touted the fuel dump’s “strategic significance.” He was the one who pushed back against the Council when they asked if it could be located elsewhere. Norris said in the open meeting he met with the developer and company. Now he’s trying to turn his poor judgment and utter failure of an idea into “I’m listening to the people.” Pffffff….
Duane says
Just because John Q. Public gets elected does not make them any smarter than they were the day they take office.
Nephew Of Uncle Sam says
As they say…You get what YOU Vote for.
On a side note of “riding the at-times rickety lines of the Florida East Coast Railroad,…”
A lot has changed since 2008 on the FEC, yet I guess that wording looks good for a story.
NO LEAD OVER OUR HEADS! says
You forgot the county just gave the aiport $10 million for a terminal John Q. Public can’t use. THAT’S $10 MILLION!!! Since Biden’s ‘go-go years’ of cheap foreign labor, they’re replacing older airline pilots with glorified orange pickers. These flight schools have doubled under OBiden and the people of Palm Coast (and Central Florida) have to breathe LEAD fumes from AVGAS (720 POUNDS A YEAR in Palm Coast alone) and get hammered with constant noise. Leaded gas has been banned from vehicles for over 25 years! Why is it okay to have these nasty planes over our heads, but everyone goes nuts on fuel storage?
Purveyor of Truth says
Referencing the first sentence of your editorial, I was gobsmacked when I read the initial reports that it was even being considered. I couldn’t believe the city thought it would fly. So glad the people prevailed…this time.
Using Common Ssnse says
I give Mayor Norris credit. He listened to the concerns of the citizens and had the guts to admit he was wrong. The developers do a great dog and pony show lipsticking their pig to look enticing even to the most devout skeptic. Now, to continue on the path of protecting the safety, health, and welfare of the residents of Palm Coast & Bunnell and lower the risk of harmful environmental impacts, let’s finally eliminate the excessive training aircraft over our City, before the next aviation tragedy or environmental disaster occurs in right here in Flagler County.
Deborah Coffey says
The article is spot on! The new question: Will any lesson be learned by this crew?
jean says
This is great, every bit true and eloquently worded. We’d be sunk without Pierre.
score one for the home team says
I actually think the Mayor and city councils judgements were just skewed by the industry propaganda. And I applaud them for recognizing their voters lack of appetite and siding with us in the end.
It is commendable for someone to change their mind when challenged with new facts. And telling these corporations sonething they don’t want to heae actually is a scary place to be in. When I worked in conservation having corporations of these types come at you in illegal ways, blackmailing and threatening family members, slandering and smear campaigns, strong arm and espionage tactics, even in this country this is still par for the course. In the USA people may not end up in wells for challenging these types of development projects like they do in Mexico, but none the less lives have been upended and careers destroyed for less.
Say what you want but in the end what the represantatives did, killing this project, was not an easy decision even if it was the right one. They made a hard decission saying no to the developers. And I am thankful they stood by their constituents on this.
JimboXYZ says
Pierre (author) seems to have forgotten that the other concept is that property taxes would be abolished in the State of FL. Let’s face it, the last 4 years of the inflation of Bidenomics, every city named that has higher tax rates is experiencing a relative FL Exit (“Duval/Jacksonville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Melbourne, Daytona Beach all have higher tax rates than Palm Coast”). Let’s face it too, the unaffordable housing situation has doubled prices of homes everywhere in FL. Taxation is about ability to pay (take a Business Administration-Tax Accounting course offered at DSC if you don’t believe me.), the gains of any real estate assessments that have increased are on paper only, none of it realized as cold hard cash to actually pay. Every property that ever hit the market for sale/resale has to be closed on & then the relative HUD settlement tool determines Buyer/Seller obligations for taxes & fees as a reconciliation of the final transaction amounts based upon a closing date sale. Fabricating higher assessments without actually having the sales or even in the cases where homes haven’t even been built yet and calling it some type of “core” inflation is Bidenomics at it’s best. Is it any wonder that someone wants to see $ 3-5K property taxes, just because Alfin thought that’s what he’d like to see the property valuations & therefore property taxes become as the Vision/Imagine of 2050 ? The smarter way to grow, is to grow elsewhere, not here. I don’t know of too many that were on board with Biden’s “Build Back Better” failure, the grossly underfunded projects to grow. I’m on record that if infrastructure wasn’t paid for rather than grossly underfunded there was no reason for Flagler County to grow. The impact fees were inadequate for the volume of heavy equipment ruining what roads got paved in April 2020. How is that 4 lane widen on Royal Palms Parkway coming along ? Or even 4 lanes on Old Kings Road ? Those that stand to make the money on those residential & infrastructure projects need to pay for the gridlock they’re creating with every Alfin’s Vision/Imagine of 2050 that is a legacy that has Palm Coast with an increase for the water & utilities for the next 5 years. Nobody asked for this growth, fought it tooth & nail at every council meeting and then it was still approved. The one’s that protested for growth, showed up at city hall in strength with their heavy equipment, lawyers threatening to sue because the developers weren’t going to make their profits. Probably more cost effective to pay them their profits, rescind the Alfin & other city approvals & call it a day, no more growth. Give back those grossly underfunded & cut state grants and call it a day. Knowing Flagler County as a whole won’t have to deal with a flawed Vision of 2050 that requires the existing tax base to pay for the growth that never was going to pay for itself.
Nobody wants the “Field of Dreams” for a sports complex. I want to know the numbers for the recent Tennis Center Tournament for revenues. How that offset any of the Tennis Center expansion or anything else that the local government transfers from fund account to fund account ? It’s April 2025, they already should have a good idea of what the economic impact of the Tennis tournament was for January 2025.
End of the day here, the model is obviously too complex for the one’s that somehow had enough money to put together a campaign to become elected every 4 years. I don’t think there are many, if any, in the Palm Coast government that are truly experts at the budgeting aspect of local City government. I don’t care what their credentials indicate for continuing education on the job, the facts of the approvals indicate they aren’t the self proclaimed experts they purport themselves to be. Every council meeting it’s just the next cram down our throats of the next extortion for more money. Norris (the poor & unfortunate, sand bagged bastard that he became Nov 2024) inherited that from Aflin. And it’s not just City of Palm Coast, every township has shown they are fiscally irresponsible. It’s also the county, the State & even our Federal Government. Every Government needs a DOGE that truly pulls back the the fantasies to reality of what revenue was collected vs what was spent when the systems were operationally new vs used & over capacity. when we see the City Manager position turnover as often as it has, the revolving door of that high turnover rate position. Should any township be growing in a era of hyper inflation for approved new residential construction ?
https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/desantis-eliminate-property-taxes-florida/
D W Ferguson says
“Most people don’t move to Palm Coast to work here but to retire or live in a quiet, green bedroom community and work elsewhere. “. This quote is Still the axiom of ITT ‘s visionary inception for Palm Coast since early 70’s !!! Today’s challenge is to build an economy beyond assisted living facilities and storage unit buildings where a younger demographic with specialized (tech based ) workforce skills have employment opportunities beyond serving the needs of the ” retirement senior demographic.” That is the optimum balance that leaders need to find a solution. The reference to Christina’s World was cleverly apropos Flagler Live
Pig Farmer says
“with a $1,000 rebate they don’t need” Really??? Did you suddenly forget that Palm Coast is a retirement community? You know, fixed income? My homeowners insurance went up $2,000 in one year. DOGE wants to cut Social Security. You want our taxes to go up too? Want to buy a house?
Why this?! says
What is it about the sports stadium that’s so attractive to our county council? Do they see something that the rest of us miss? Pierre is right. You all are tone deaf. You go from one hare brain idea to the next. I’m expecting more from our new county council. If it’s really a great idea, explain it to the rest of us, because I’m not seeing it. Yes we need more sports fields for our youth. But really? We need this?
Jimmy Breslin says
“Aesthetic antimatter.” Nice turn of phrase!
Pierre Tristam says
Thank you Jimmy. And what a coincidence: the Library of America just sent me notice that I’ll be receiving your Essential Writings in the mail in the next few days. Can’t wait.