Ponce Preserve, 74-House Gated Development in Palm Coast’s P-Section, Gets Final Approval Amid Truck Traffic Strains

The Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday approved the final plat for Ponce Preserve, a gated development of 74 single-family homes on 35 acres between Point Pleasant Drive and Ponde de Leon Drive, the last such contiguous expanse of open space in the P-Section. Truck traffic in and ou of the construction zone has drawn complaints.

The development had gotten little public attention because its regulatory steps were carried out administratively, due to its size, which meant it needn’t have gone either before the city’s planning board or its city council–except for final plat approval, a formality. A final plat is when, as is the case here, a subdivision is divided into precisely delineated boundaries between lots, which can then be officially recorded. (See: “Palm Coast P-Section’s Last 35 Acres of Trees Leveled to Make Room for 74-Home ‘Ponce Preserve’ Gated Community.”)




Final plat takes place when the development’s infrastructure is well advanced–trees cleared, fill leveled, underground piping installed, streets laid out–but just short of building structures. Though it is not preserving much (a couple of clusters of trees here and there have been spared scythe and bulldozers), Ponce Preserve has already transformed the landscape on its pentagon-shaped tract between Point Pleasant, Port Royal, Pony Express, Ponce de Leon and the canal to its north. But the transformation is no different that effected decades ago when the streets around it were laid out, and homes built up more gradually.

The difference will be in the gated nature of the development, though it’s not unique in the P-Section: Park Place off of nearby Pine Grove and American Village off of Pritchard Drive are similar subdivisions.

Nevertheless, the development did draw neighborhood complaints due to the heavy truck traffic. That traffic was compounded by truck traffic along Royal Palms Parkway for the future subdivision Sabal Preserve subdivision of 333 homes on 200 acres as both projects generated an inordinate amount of truck banging, clanking, rumbling and roaring, with both projects needing an immense amount of fill, and both excavating large ponds.

Those complaints were expressed to the City Council on Tuesday. “My understanding is they were getting close to getting done. But I don’t have the exact date that they should have all the fill bought into the site,” a city official told the council.




“Seventy trucks up and down Point Pleasant can’t be good,” City Council member Theresa Pontieri said, though for now Point Pleasant still isn’t as shredded as Royal Palms Parkway from Point Pleasant to Town Center Boulevard, one of the most battered stretches of collector road in the city. The stretch’s battering began when the city replaced a weir along the canal that parallels the road, a project that generated its own share of truck traffic.

Ponce Preserve will have a couple of streets. Ponce Preserve Drive will loop from an intersection at Point Pleasant Drive just west of Port Royal Drive, to an intersection at Ponce De Leon Drive, Portofino Lane will link the loop internally, without connecting with collector roads outside the subdivision. Lots will be built along the two internal streets, with a central drainage pond providing additional aesthetics. Lots will be mostly in the 1,200 to 1,300 square foot range, with a few larger onces. The acreage includes two small tree preservation tracts and one tract reserved for recreation. The development is not expect to significantly affect traffic on surrounding streets.