Until a few days ago, a 35-acre hexagonal parcel east of Ponce De Leon Drive and north of Point Pleasant Drive was the P-Section’s last expanse of undisturbed land which, to the dozens of homeowners and residents on its rim, looked like a preserve that would be there forever. But it was never zoned as such.
Last week, feller bunchers leveled the majority of the acreage to make room for a 74-home gated subdivision to be called, ironically, Ponce Preserve, though hardly any of it as its neighbors knew it is being preserved.
The city requires neighbors of the development to be informed by mail of the proposed development, and to be given the opportunity to hear from the developer at a neighborhood meeting. One such meeting was held last June at the Palm Coast Community Center, drawing about two dozen residents. They were concerned about whether the development would preserve natural buffers and what the traffic impact would be, and were surprised that its regulatory steps were limited to a neighborhood meeting. The rest of the regulatory part was conducted administratively within the city’s planning division.
Joe Schofield the civil engineer with Seagate who led the neighborhood meeting at the time, said the homes will be built on 80-foot width lots of 12,000 square feet, placing them on the larger side of homes and lots than the last few years’ trend has been in Palm Coast, where, outside of ITT’s old lots along the city’s streets, 50- and 40-foot-wide lots have almost become a norm in freshly platted subdivisions. (Seagate is no longer involved. The company sold the property to Richmond America earlier this month.)
Ponce Preserve will not be age-restricted. It will be a single-phase project, meaning that it’ll be built in one go. The gated subdivision will have private streets and its own stormwater system, so residents will not pay the city’s monthly stormwater fee. The subdivision will discharge its stormwater runoff into nearby canals, but only after treatment. It will have one entrances on Ponce De Leon (at Number 85), with a gated emergency exit on Point Pleasant.
“I live on Ponce de Leon,” one resident told Schofield. “Right now, when I look down the driveway, it looks gorgeous. We have a lot of trees right up over there. Are those all going to be taken down?”
“No,” Schofield said. “The city gives credit for tree preservation for some distance from the property line or the right of way to incentivize builders to try to preserve some of those trees and have some natural screenings in between the walls, the gates, some of that existing buffer, some new planet buffer, some wetland preservation. I think you’ll still have kind of a nice appearance along Ponce.”
Another resident had just moved to Point Pleasant, had what was then only a preserve to look at in front of her home, and has the same question about that side of the project.
In fact, while a few trees are still standing, the lush thickness of pines and greens and of course the entire canopy are gone along Ponce de Leon and Point Pleasant, where home lots are expected to butt up very close to the road. Along parts of Point Pleasant, all trees have been felled, leaving no natural tree barrier, while in other parts, only a thin line of single-file trees remain, some of them angled toward the road as if their roots had already been weakened, and they may not survive the next strong storm. The trees in the preserve had typically risen 40 and 50 feet. (On the plus side, the elimination of the preserve reduces the risk of neighboring homes burning in a wildfire.)
Plans in June called for two small conservation easements, each about the size of a couple of lots–one adjacent to Point Pleasant, the other at the intersection of Ponce de Leon and Point Pleasant. The northwest corner will be devoted to a recreation area, where trees with trunks of diameters of 6 inches or more will be left standing. There may be a trail there, maybe a gazebo, some benches.
The broadest buffer will be on the west side of the project along Pony Express Drive, along a canal. “It’ll be 50 feet of wooded preservation between the waterline and where we’re going to start to clear to build up the pads and build the homes,” Schofield said. There will be no fences on the east or west sides of the overall property, but “there’ll be a wall and gates along the Point Pleasant side, the frontage,” he said. “On the sides, east or west, they’ll just be sort of retained vegetation that we’ll keep there but no fences. So the individual landowners, the buyers, will decide if they want to install a vinyl fence at that time later on. But that’s not the developer’s intention.”
There was concern about traffic in and out of the subdivision, and speeding along Ponce de Leon. Estelle Lens, a city planner, said a traffic study estimated roughly 100 additional vehicle trips at peak afternoon hours.
The controversy about old ITT lots getting built up with new homes at significantly higher elevations than their neighbors’ had not yet drawn the City Council’s attention, but there were concerns about that very issue from residents at the neighborhood meeting, even though the subdivision’s homes would not be that close to surrounding homes. “There’ll be some additional elevation to get those finished floors up, nice and high and dry and things like that,” Schofield said. “I wouldn’t say be from your vantage, it’s going to tower or anything. The average person wouldn’t even notice a really big difference in the in the change in elevation.”
Because the development is under 100 homes, it did not go before the Palm Coast planning board or the City Council, Lens said. “So you’re telling me a developer can come in here and if it’s less than 100 lots, they can pretty much do whatever they want?” a resident asked.
“They can do whatever the Land Development Code allows,” Lens said.
Jane says
Looks like there won’t be ANY trees left in Palm Coast!! Incredibly sad!
T says
People are leaving now because it is not what it was official’s have ruined this town not city
SMH says
This is heartbreaking!! Think of the wildlife!! No heart at all Seagate! Pathetic greed and lack of care for the environment…
JimboXYZ says
Since they won’t be on the City Stormwater System beyond their own treatment facility to dump that water into the canals. Can City of Palm Coast trust them as a HOA to do that without at least some oversight ? As a gated community who is responsible for repair & repaving those residential streets when that needs to be done ? I guess it’s a good thing these are on true 1/4 acre 80×125 lots & not Alfin era 50×125 lots. More effectively limiting the closer proximity lifestyle of packing new residents tighter.
Brandon Jacobs says
SeaGate Homes does not own this parcel. It was sold to a different builder.
The Geode says
I wonder how much of this “righteous indignation” and anger was expressed when they mowed down trees to build THEIR houses? Unless you live in a tent or the woods behind the library – STFU!
HayRide says
But you have a home and trees were leveled to occomadate where you live how about the wildlife at that point, where did they go once displaced?
Sign me up says
A gated community in the P section?? Is that so the drug dealers can keep the cops out?? lol.
SMH says
It was a small plot about 25 years ago. Not 35 acres in one area.
John Stove says
Read the article again…..”private streets and stormwater”……City has no responsibility for repair and or maintenance of private streets or storm water infrastructure
Jersey Girl says
It’s owned by Portofino LLC, which is still Seagate.
Possibly an LLC established just for development of this parcel. You are not going to stop the growth in Palm Coast…the city was planned to grow to 250,000 residents, give or take, and we’re about half way there. For those of you who complain about our rapid growth, were we supposed to stop all that after you moved here? Maybe build a wall?
You should be grateful it’s Seagate. They still build a good, concrete block house and they are only building 100 homes there on standard sized lots.
Protect our Lands says
New name for Palm Coast will be……PALM TOAST
No trees left to protect us from Hurricane winds and Flood damage . Each acre cleared for building houses we become less protected against increasing powerful Tropical Storms and Tornadoes.
Stevieb says
More tax $’s, it’s all the ones in charge care about.
Dave says
Nothing but progress folks, nothing to see here. It’s the doom of all Fla in the years to come. There is no stopping it, concrete rules, trees and basically nature is just an afterthought when County and City blindness sets in as these representatives only see $$$$$ and a huge boast of their ego’s. No political party can stop it, as the more people that occupy these concrete structures means more income in taxes and spending and heck with nature..
Joe says
This town is no longer a green city . Greed has taken over .
Deez Nutz says
Who’s going to pay for repairs to Point Pleasant Drive and Ponce Deleon Drive after all the thousands of construction vehicles tear up the roads around there. The city needs to make the development company and builders pay to pave them, not just put sealer down. If they can build nice new streets in the gated community, then they should be held responsible to fix what damage they create!
Surfgod says
You have a point, but when does it stop? When all of the trees and wildlife are gone and you are living in your concreate paradise?
Lisa Robinson says
I live right there. For the nine years I’ve lived there I had a beautiful woods in my backyard. One day last week I woke up and they were gone. A damn shame. I moved here from NYC, a concrete jungle where you could not find any 🌲 trees. Palm Coast was a beautiful change. Recently it’s become a lot more congested. This is sad, really sad!🤨🤨
Charles says
Bet ya Alfin had something to do with another development in the City of PC this is all he has done since being elected. He has destroyed this town with over building and you can see why more and more for sales signs are going up. People want out of now and we can all thank Alfin for only caring about making real estates transaction for himself and his buddies.
Tj says
Way to go. I too remember what it was like before palm coast ever existed.
HayRide says
You mean the wildlife lived on smaller lots then
Laurel says
Palm Coast residents are getting so ripped! This city is going rapidly down the tubes.
As for stormwater fees, the private system should be maintained by the HOA, as should be the streets, but tell me this: are the Ponce residents never leaving their subdivision? They will never use public streets? If they do, they should pay stormwater fees like everyone else. I can tell you other private subs in other cities do.
Laurel says
They don’t care. Just more houses to turn over.
Mike says
Yes, that’s called externalizing costs.
Mike says
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.” Edward Abbey
jeffery cortland seib says
Even though many of the commenters are correct that when it gets to the city approval process it’s a done deal and no number of residents speaking out except for a packed house will influence anybody to do anything. The way I see it it’s a city planning department problem. They have no desire to do anything against the wishes of the builder/developer. With all the problems we are experiencing right now at 125,000 residents how can anyone think we will not have more than twice the problems at 250,000. This is a slap in the face at all who call this home. The Planning Department and their rubber stamp the Planning and land Development Review Board (PLDRB) essentially wrecked the city’s Land Development Codes (LDC) in 2016 at the order of the developers at that time, even though residents were opposed. If the people that want some trace of nature, like I do, in Palm Coast, if we had the votes on the city council, we could do it. Think about it as the election nears.
Mischa Gee says
I have been in the same home I bought new 21 yrs ago in the “P” section, off Pritchard. There are two gated communities in the area. The first is American Homes at the end of Pritchard, heading toward it’s merge with WhiteView Pkwy. The homes down there have had to deal with people tanks being overloaded after heavy rains, septic trucks pumping them out for days and raw sewerage in their swales, a long with the smell.
The next one, Park Place is a Seagate mini-gated community off of Pine Grove. I am not sure what the impact has been to the surrounding neighborhood, but I can say the outside view is not very attractive.
I also must say, our storm water swales don’t include any sort of treatment system, they run freely into increasingly larger canals, no treatment systems anywhere.
So, what are they actually talking about when they say, they will have their own storm water treatment facility before they dump the water into an existing canal? Are they actually going to be treating sewer water from those homes and then dumping that water into the canals? Where will this treatment plant/building be located on that 38 acre plot. Where is a copy of what this planned gated community is going to look like? What are the regulations for any size ” gated community” in this city.
It seems very little forethought has gone into the building of these pocket communities within a community. When will our representatives wake up, educate themselves and actually think before they approve this type of thing. They are overpaid for what they do, for sure.
Mary says
It is incredible and disgusting WHAT THESE POLITICIANS HAVE DONE TO OUR TOWN. Those poor wild having no homes because these corrupt people are destroying Palm coast
Crystal Lang says
Jersey Girl beat me to it. Portofino has the same address as Seagate. Seagate owns that building they do not rent to other builders trust me I know cause Seagate built my house and trust me they are not all that, and they have the same information on Sun Biz so it is OWNED by Seagate don’t let them try to fool you. And another thing with these builders people do not know they are bringing in sub contractors from other Cities (Jacksonville, Orlando just to name a few) and they are bringing in other trades from these Cities which puts Palm Coast trades out of work!!!!!!!
Jenn says
Isn’t Alfin a realtor????
Dennis C Rathsam says
TREE CITY MY ASS!
Endangered species says
It’s almost as if the 6th mass extinction hasn’t already started..
Deez says
So it was ok when you came but if another person wants to retire in Florida it’s too late we are all out of lord haha
Brandon Jacobs says
It’s not SeaGate, I promise. Check the permit. SeaGate sold this parcel to another builder earlier in the month. The Property Appraiser site has not been updated yet.
Crystal Lang says
No one is saying you can’t come to Florida to retire I did 3 years ago, I built my house on the land that I owned. The greedy builders and their leader Alfin are building houses on top of houses in communities on every corner they can get their greedy little hands on, and that is the problem with the building. And besides that there are plenty homes for sale for the folks that want to move here so it’s not too late.
Mona says
Yes, he is.
Mona says
How about sending the city planner to Hilton Head in North Carolina to learn a thing or two. The houses over there are hidden in the trees, same as businesses and stores. People live there like in the parks. Disrespect for the nature in this town is astonishing. When I came to Palm Coast, certain number of trees had to be left on the parcel, not anymore. Pine trees for this climate are not practical, they explode, when burn, but they can be and should be replaced with beautiful magnolias, or even messy oaks. How about cider trees? I have a neighbor, who can’t stand a single leaf on his grass, so, you think he cares about the trees? But , if the city didn’t allow to clear the lots completely, he would have to leave with a one or two mature trees in his backyard.
Billy says
What a crap hole palm coast has become!
Steve says
Sure enough Mother Nature will take care of if sometime down the road
bill says
all the builders are whores , building crap homes , tearing woods down, more road kills are showing up. 20 years here and this city has gone the way as the cities where we came from , GREED, POLITICS. Soon if not already you will not be able to walk between your house and your neighbor’s house
Celia Pugliese says
My question is since when a 100 subdivision that allows to raze all trees and vegetation that as Ms. Lens from Planning stated in the council meeting regarding the flooded houses (“given higher back fill in infill lots” ) she stated that contributes to floods if residents are uprooting trees in their properties like maybe one or two, as is very expensive to take down a mature tree? Now those hundreds of water sucking trees were not important for Palm Coast planning, Mr. Tyner and assistant Ms. Lens? Then since when a 100 units subdivision does not required public meetings for approval, when was that changed in the original ITT city zoning or comp plan, if so? Where the storm water of that subdivision will drain, in the surrounding existing homes? There would be more sewage flooding the streets from the overflowed pep tanks in storms for those residents? What about traffic in those narrow winding residential asphalt crumbling roads?
Also when city approves CDD’s with their own storm water and sewage systems when all that affluent goes? Please anyone here killing the messenger please at least use your name and no aliases. TY
Jeff says
I live within earshot of all the commotion going on over there (literally – hear it inside with closed windows). The canal they’ll be dumping their stormwater in is a stone’s throw away. This is no ordinary build – its a massive project and until one happens I don’t think any of us will totally relax until a serious storm goes by (and we’re OK). That 35 acres of woodlands soaked up a lot of water. Now its gone and there’ll be 74 homes that add more drainage demands to the existing canals. The developer may have a plan to make sure it doesn’t impact those of use who built on our own lots here and there, but we just don’t know yet. Fingers crossed. Oh, and I know all of use who moved here cleared lots and slowly put demands on the city. I’m aware of that and I’m not one of those “Shut the door, I’m in already” types that many communities have screaming against any development. Its just the scope of this one.
Richard says
I hope the put up a signal light at Point Pleasant and Belle Terre Pkwy.