The Palm Coast City Council Tuesday approved the first phase of a multi-phase plan for a U-Haul storage facility at the west end of Whiteview Parkway on U.S. 1. The proposal has been in the works with the city’s administration for a year.
The council also approved the purchase of a 200-foot-wide right-of-way through the U-Haul property to accommodate the future westward extension of Whiteview Parkway.
The parcel the city bought was appraised at $700,000. The city is paying $280,000 in cash and providing $220,000 in transportation impact fee credits to U-Haul. The company agreed not to seek the balance of the appraised amount either in impact fee credits or in cash. (Impact fees are the one-time levy on new development to defray the “impact” of new residents and businesses on roads, parks, fire and so on.)
The first phase at the U-Haul facility will consist of a three-story, 120,000-square-foot building with 950 storage units and a 14,000-square-foot warehouse that will be taller than the larger building. The site is adjacent to another storage facility to its north. The U-Haul site will accommodate RVs. Future phases will include garages, bu that’s only conceptual for now.
Jimmy Jones, an engineer with JBPro, the engineering firm retained by U-Haul, said the 30-acre site will accommodate tree-preservation requirements since U-Haul will not be developing large portions.
Traffic impacts are not expected to be significant. “Self storage facilities are typically one of the lesser traffic generators,” City Planner Michael Hanson said. “A lot of us have storage units that we might only go to maybe once every couple of weeks, if we’re lucky at that. Otherwise, a lot of times we might not go for a month.”
The city’s planning board unanimously recommended approval of the U-Haul application in a March hearing that drew no public participation. The council approved the development unanimously.
celia says
How many more half millions city taxpayers will have to fork to buy the rest of the land between now the U=Haul facility and the existing Whiteview Parkway? Is hard for me to believe that the land between the current existing Whiteview Parkway all the way to Rte 1 was NOT sold with the perpetual proper right of way for the future extension of the Whiteview parkway! And now we, city taxpayers have to buy those lands to be able to extend the Whitheview Parkway? Only in Florida, OMG! Someone expert Land Use and Development Attorney (but not the city attorney as is not his expertise) explain this to Palmcoasters please? Can we imagine how many more millions in parcels Palmcoasters will have to pay for all the east west and north south roads to be built that we desperately need asap given this huge growth? We just forked 126 millions for the westward Matanzas Pkwy extension to benefit Rayioner. Meanwhile our existing Palm Coast roads are deteriorated many by growth transit and in need of repaving with very minimal funding assigned.
DP says
The land you’re talking about is owned privately. If the city wants, or any municipality wants to have a future road right away, then they have to purchase that strip of land. You can’t force a private property owner into what you call a “perpetual proper right of way” to forgo a portion of their property without proper and just compensation. If U -haul would have said no, then what? The city would have to look either south, or north of U-Haul’s property to see if that landowner is willing to sell. That’s how things work, under the law.
Now under review and plating of any property, the landowner has to have a plat indicting any and all roads and future roads, along with anything else on the plat. Can the city ask then? Sure. Property owners have rights, city’s and counties, and the state have statues, ordinances, and such that they have to follow.
Dennis C Rathsam says
PALM COAST!!!!! The land of storage units….People time to throw away your junk!
S says
Tim to stop adding homes and change your money hungry politicians…..all they see is dollar signs….shoulda NVR vote that place to be a city….that was the beginning of the end….
Rip me off says
So let’s state the fact.
Taxpayer dollars to extend a road which will give the seller more road frontage to take advantage of.
Why do we pay to improve the sellers property?
Maybe this could have been donated in return for the additional property value road frontage provides ?
I don’t think this was a very fair deal for taxpayer
Mark says
Storage units are an easy way for business owners to get in the door. They stay open for a few decades, are then converted/demolished and replaced with viable businesses when the time is right. Additionally, storage units provide a place for owners of small businesses, or people with side jobs, a place to store their supplies. Commercial leases are astronomically expensive. As a small business owner, would you pay 10 times the price for the same amount of space?
Regarding the right of way, how long has the westward expansion been planned and when did U-Haul purchase the property? If the expansion was planned before U-Haul purchased the property, then it is lack of foresight. If it was the other way around and the planned expansion happened after U-Haul’s purchase, then it just becomes part of the plan. Based on the other decisions made in the past, I’d say it’s lack of foresight.
The reason the infrastructure has failed is because our elected officials keep uttering the phrases no new taxes. The continual roll back of the millage rate to keep taxes at the same dollar amount. There is no foresight when doing this. Prices only increase over time, not decrease. The same service or product purchased 10, 20, 30 years ago is more expensive now than it was then. For taxes to not be increased proportionally over that time, that is why things are failing. The only exception I’m aware of is technology. Technology becomes cheaper over time.
Now because of kicking the can down the road, residents are hit with a 30% increase all at once rather than hit with a 3% increase over the course of time.
We need elected officials who can look past their next reelection campaign and are actually focused on doing what’s best for the community.
Rob says
Looking more like Jacksonville every day!
Using Common Sense says
The game plan seems to be: Market Palm Coast as a beautiful, peaceful, coastal city.
Build as many homes as possible, then flip the script. Change the rules of the game, remove the few industrial and commercial properties with zone changes, special exceptions, land annexations, and parcels swaps to build more even larger apartments buildings and other incompatible development in places never planned for this density or intensity. Place nearly all of the tax burden on the tax paying residents.
Do nothing as infrastructure, wastewater capacity, traffic, and flooding issues degrade, quality of life diminishes, utility bills become unaffordable, and folks are forced to live with excessive noise, environmental damage, and toxic lead emissions.
Folks are forced from their homes due to excessive cost of utilities, increasing taxes, constant nuisance noise, environmental pollution, illness, or the death of a loved one.
Homes are bought up by global conglomerates and rental corporations.
A formally beautiful city becomes a very unpleasant place to live, safety and quality of life are diminished, home values plummet.
Is the city in which you chose to live worth fighting for? I think it is. Save Palm Coast! Vote for candidates that care about YOU, the safety health and welfare of OUR communities and families, and will take a stand for the quality of life of ALL residents of Palm Coast and Flagler County.
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