When is a viewshed on a former golf course protected from development? When may a developer exercise property rights, override the protections and build there? The question has bedeviled residents around the old Matanzas Golf Course in Palm Coast’s L-Section since 2021. The Palm Coast City Council tried to settle it today, but a legal question remains.
Two months ago some 120 people filled the cafeteria at Indian Trails Middle School largely in opposition of a plan by the developer of the 268-home golf course property to shift 39 houses from one tract to another.
The proposal was to build the 39 houses on a tract along the west side of Lakeview Boulevard that serves as a viewshed for current residents. The City Council had stopped just such a plan in 2021, and came close to rejecting the entire development if that viewshed was not protected. The developer backed down–only to re-apply for that development plan this year. The proposal was to go before the Planning Board last month. It didn’t. The developer pulled it, possibly because of the unhappy response it got at the Indian Trails neighborhood meeting.
“It could come back. It likely will,” Palm Coast City Council member Theresa Pontieri said during a workshop on the city’s Land Development Code today. Pontieri was at the neighborhood meeting in April, as was County Commission Chair Leann Pennington. Both had concerns about residents losing the viewshed.
They also heard conflicting statements about whether the viewshed could be built on. Residents said it couldn’t. But city planners said a master-planned development order could override the restriction–if the council approved it.
Today, Pontieri sought to clarify the issue through the LDC, whose language she found vague. The language states: Existing golf course views from existing platted lots located within any residentially zoned area located across a right of way or a water body from the site shall be maintained to the maximum extent possible.”
“I have an issue with this language,” Pontieri said. She referred to the pending development. “Are they asking for an override of this portion of the LDC?” she asked Planner Michael Hanson. “And do we need to make a change here to prevent those view protection zones from being affected?”
The language, Hanson said, was put in place specifically to address the Matanzas Golf Course. “There was no definition as far as the depth of these view protection zones, and that was loosely interpreted even in the original MPD development agreement that was created,” Hanson said.
“View protection zones are vested.” Pontieri said. “I think that’s a vested interest that a homeowner, when they purchase their home, it should not ever be affected. It should be into perpetuity.”
That may run into developers’ property rights issues, Hanson said, “if it doesn’t allow someone due process to even go ahead and ask for potential changes,” as happens to be the case with the Matanzas Woods developer. That might open the city up to a legal challenge, he said.
Senior Planner Phong T. Nguyen said it’s the council’s call. To specify the language, he said, “We would add that if an existing golf course has basically a view protection zone, it must remain so, basically,” he said.
But in that case, would the owner of that view protection zone be responsible for maintaining the land, to mow it, and not develop it, Hanson asked.
“I don’t think the intent is that it needs to be maintained as a clean fairway, just a natural view,” Council member Ty Miller said. “I support this completely, as long as legally we’re not in some way fouling ourselves up with the entitlements that they have. Because a lot of these golf courses technically have entitlements to be other uses within them. I just want to make sure we’re not getting sued, because we’ve somehow basically prevented that other development with the view protection zone.” Existing homeowners have their own property values to protect–values built on the assumption that they would have that view.
Pontieri proposed a single line: “If a pre-existing golf course had view protection zones, those shall be maintained.”
The council agreed “as long as it’s legal,” Council member Charles Gambaro said. That will be up to City Attorney Marcus Duffy to confirm.
If he does, the council’s action today, in a matter of minutes, may have made moot any attempt by the developer, Alexander Ustilovsky, to seek to build those 39 homes on what all residents around that golf course know as Tract 3. On the other hand, it may also prompt him to challenge the council’s action–or pre-empt it before it is written and approved: all changes to the LDC must win council approval by vote.
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