Reversing Planning Board’s Decision, Bunnell Commission Clears the Way for ‘Historic’ 28-Unit Affordable Housing Project

Reversing a recommendation by its planning board and significant public opposition neighboring the proposed development, the Bunnell City Commission unanimously approved the final site plan for Phoenix Crossings, a planned 28-unit affordable-housing apartment complex for people with disabilities and other difficulties, and for the elderly. None like it exists in Palm Coast or Flagler County. 

The 5-year-old proposal is the work of Sandra Shank and her Abundant Life Ministries, a non-profit. Next for Phoenix Crossings is groundbreaking on what Shank today called a “historic” project. “We are hoping no later than August. Everything is moving along, we jumped over that hurdle, so we’re moving along nicely,” she said. 

The Bunnell Planning Board on April 1 had recommended denial of the site plan on a 3-2 vote. It did so after throngs of residents and business owners immediately adjacent to the 8-acre site east of North Bay Street and a few blocks south of Deen Road opposed Phoenix Crossings. They claimed the project would flood them out in severe storm events, and that its residents would pose a danger to their security. 

In contrast with the April 1 hearing before the planning board, when more than a dozen people addressed the panel, just three opponents spoke to the commission last Monday, while three, including Phoenix Crossings attorney Denis Bayer, spoke in favor. The City Commission asked no questions. Its mind seemed made up before it voted. 

“What I don’t think the people sitting in this room realize is who’s going to be able to live there,” Catherine Gable, who’s been involved with the project, told commissioners. “These are people with disabilities, these are foster kids aging out of foster homes. Legally, nobody has to take them in after 18. Sandra is providing a home, a place for them to go to college, to get a good job, become a good citizen. She’s also going to allow people with disabilities, so people with autism, Down syndrome: are these people that you’re really afraid of, or are you happy to see them have an opportunity to get housing and have somewhere to go and create a life for themselves? This is what Abundant Life Ministries, Phoenix Crossings is going to do.” 

Bayer has been involved with Shank since 2020 to raise the funding and shepherd the plan to completion. “This is the last piece of the puzzle,” he said. All the permits have been issued. The St. Johns River Water Management District is awaiting resolution on a “small technical issue,”  bringing the matter to the final site plan stage. 

Bayer gave the commission the legal arguments and grounding to reject the planning board’s recommendation. “The standard of review tonight is very limited for the commission,” Bayer said. “We’re at whether or not there’s competent, substantial evidence to support the decision that was made by your planning board, and I respectfully submit that there was not.”

The city’s staff, including its technical review committee, reviewed the plans in accordance with the city’s land development code, comprehensive plan and other applicable regulations. They all signed off. The plan is consistent with the city’s 2035 comprehensive plan. 

“The decision that was reached by your planning board members basically stated that there are water retention concerns,” he said. The question is whether that judgment was “competent.” Evidence shows it was not. “We’re consistent with what’s required by your land development code, as well as St Johns River Water Management District,” Bayer said, with a project designed for a 100-year storm event, increasing costs, not just the required 25-year event. All stormwater would be retained on the property’s own areage and in a stormwater pond, including an extra foot of storage in those ponds. 

“Obviously there are concerns of the neighbors,” Bayer said, “but we’ve met all the criteria and exceeded the criteria, and I just submit that there is no competent, substantial evidence that would support the planning board’s decision.” 

Of course the commission could have upheld the planning board’s decision. But that would have made the city vulnerable to an almost certain lawsuit from Abundant Life, handled by Bayer, who has a strong and repeat record winning similar suits in Circuit Court.  

City Attorney Paul Waters strongly cautioned the commission, telling its members that the court will want to know wjhether due process was followed (it was), whether the planning board applied the correct law to reach its recommendation (it did: it was the Land Development Code), and whether it did so with substantial, competent evidence. That’s what it came down to. 

Kim Buck, the engineer on the project, told commissioners that the planning board members’ claims were not substantiated, whether it was the claim that the pond would not be sufficient to retain the stormwater or that water would not be retained on the property. A third planning board member was concerned about the lack of transparency in the process. Neighboring residents were unhappy with a lack of notice. Waters himself rejected that claim, if only because residents showed up at the hearing. Notices or letters were not sent to surrounding neighbors, but the hearing was advertised in the local press, Joseph Parons, the city’s community development director, said. 

“Legally, I say you are within your right to find in favor of the application,” Waters told the commissioners. As members of the public go ready to address the commission, Waters essentially said that none of the comments were valid in so far as the commission’s role–approving or not approiving the application–was concerned: “I warn you that this is outside of the materials that was reviewed by the planning and zoning board, so anything you hear tonight is just an exercise of First Amendment freedom of expression,” Waters said. 

Waters was exaggerating: “competent, substantial evidence” is not without some subjectivity, and the evidence Bayer and the project engineer submitted–at least the evidence submitted before the commission and voiced at the meeting–did not go much beyond the because we say so standard. But the commission was clearly not interested in ratifying the planning board’s decision, or looking as if it were rejecting a rare and humane affordable-housing proposal that at least some residents seem to oppose out of fear, with flooding as a pretext. 

Three residents who spoke were opposed to the project outright. “We as a community feel that the project would be better off somewhere else, obviously, because of all this flooding,” Pat Needham said. Penny Buckles, a Bunnell property owner, was fully aware that the commission was about to approve the project when she spoke. “ I’m here for the compassion of the 55 and over community that lives there,” she said of the mobile home park south of the Abundant Life property. “These residents here were concerned about not only the flooding, but possible thefts, you know, that kind of thing,” she said. 

Mary Nobles, who also spoke on behalf of Pine Court Circle residents, recalled the floodwaters of Hurricane Milton to describe a “disastrous” time. “I get the idea that there is retention ponds, but also mother nature plays a big role,” she said. “We’re in the waiting room to heaven. So there’s nowhere else for us to go. So taking a second look at this would be a concern for us, if you would be so kind to, because we have nowhere else to go. To sell our places and try to move somewhere else, it’s a little late.” 

She was applauded. But it was a smattering, and she was the last opponent to address the commission, in contrast with the throngs who addressed the planning board in April. Two other people spoke in favor, before the commission voted. 

 “I am hesitant to overturn the Planning and Zoning Board,” Commissioner Dean Sechrist said. “However, in this case, I feel that with the conditions that have been added and the statement of the engineer, that this is probably one of those times that I’m willing to do that.”

The approval included seven conditions, including future approval of the development agreement by the commission, permitting from the St. Johns River Water Management District before any building permit is issued, the provision of an easement, and some other minor steps.