Two weeks ago a split and uneasy Palm Coast City Council overrode its planning board’s recommendation and near-unanimous opposition from the floor to approve in a 3-2 vote the rezoning of 37 acres at the edge of Hargrove Lane to heavy industrial. The vote, on first reading, was to enable a concrete batch plant to rise there and its trucks to rumble down Hargrove Grade and U.S. 1 every seven to 10 minutes.
A more decisive council today in a unanimous vote rejected the rezoning outright largely after a withering eight-minute argument by Council member Theresa Pontieri. She combined a legal analysis of the city’s land use rules, an examination of shallow or nonexistent traffic and environmental data, and a recognition of Hargrove Grade’s thriving small-business community to conclude that the rezoning would change the face of the light-industrial park at the expense of existing and future shops for short-sighted gains.
“I think it’s lazy to do this. I think it’s short sighted,” Pontieri said. “Yes, we need more commercial. But we don’t need to sacrifice the future growth of this park in exchange for this one plant. I don’t think that that accomplishes a legitimate public purpose. So based on the criteria analysis and based on where we are right now, I would say that we need to not approve this application.”
The council wasn’t there just yet, and Pontieri knew it. At that point in the discussion Council member Dave Sullivan had sought to table the proposed rezoning for a month so a traffic study could be produced. Pontieri was worried about any rezoning from light industrial to heavy industrial because of the precedent it would set.
The rezoning request is from SRM Concrete, whose representative, Brian Hercules, stressed that the “batch plant” operation would not be like a “concrete plant” but a mixing operation that fanned out trucks to construction sites in the region, that used 10,000 to 14,000 gallons of water from an on-site well (if a well in some proximity to municipal wells), and that would employ about two dozen people.
“It’s not legal for us to say yes to these guys just because they may run a clean operation, and then say no to any other applicants, because they may, in fact have a more intense use,” Pojntieri said. An asphalt plant could be located there under heavy industrial. So could a fuel depot. “This is not about just this company. Is about the zoning. And based on the rezoning for any of the industrial 2 use [meaning heavy industrial zoning] is that could go in any pieces of these properties surrounding this area.”
Pontieri was willing to work with the proposal as long as a deed restriction was part of the approval.
She then heard Council member Charles Gambaro, who had been part of the 3-2 majority two weeks ago, walk back his support. He’d researched Hargrove Grade/Hargrove Lane area and its future potential for jobs. He’d visited businesses there. “If we’re talking raw job numbers, their plans dwarf the potential employment that SRM could bring to us,” he said. “These are folks that have been in my house, repaired my AC units. These are folks that have been here for a long time, and started from nothing, and are expanding it to a place where they’re creating more jobs.”
Sullivan had also been part of the 3-2 majority, and had pulled back. That left Mayor Mike Norris alone in pushing for the rezoning. “We are growing community, and this is an industrial zone,” he said, pressing as he has in the past for the city to not foreclose on the few heavy industrial enclaves it may have. “we have very little industrial,” he said. “So we’re in a tight spot as far as industrial development.”
Another request for heavy industrial rezoning is going before the city’s planning board on Wednesday, regarding a 10.4-acre parcel at 56 Hargrove Grade, for Hard Rock Materials Inc., and for another concrete batch plant, though this one would generate 15 truck trips a day. (Palm Coast has never had such batch plants.) The previous property owner was going to develop the property as a 150,000-square-foot recreational vehicle and boat storage facility.
Council member Ty Miller had no issue with SRM. “The concern is that the approving of the zoning change is opening up the box to any business, necessarily, that is allowed by industrial 2,” Miller said. “Things change, there could be an offer made on that property tomorrow after the zoning change, that changes the nature of what potential business could be there, and so we would have no recourse in that regard.”
SRM Concrete’s Brian Hercules could see where the council was leaning. He said he would accept any deed restriction. Pontieri motioned to table the matter until Oct. 7, when there will have been time for a traffic study and a deed restriction written into the documents. Then came a long stream of public comments, again mostly from businesses along Hargrove Lane (which would be flanked by the batch plant acreage) and Hargrove Lane.
The comments included one by the owner of a dump truck business who has worked with SRM Concrete. “What you see now is because they clean it up when they’re doing these things,” she said, identifying herself only as Hope. “I’ve been doing this for seven years. I come in and out. I know what the concrete does. It’s not just their trucks. It’s everybody’s dump trucks. It’s all trucks coming in and out. If this gets put in Palm Coast, there’s going to be trucks coming from the now, Palm Coast, St Augustine, all surrounding areas, the traffic is a huge concern. The road is a huge concern, where it’s coming in, on the roundabout, it’s going to ruin all of the businesses in that area.”
“Hargrove as busy as it is, it’s crazy to even approve this,” John Santos, the owner of Major Auto Repair on Hargrove Lane. “A concrete truck weighs 67,000 pounds when it’s loaded. If it’s traveling at 30 miles an hour, which is the speed for that road there, it will use about 150 to 200 feet to make a complete stop.” He imagined the consequences of a crash, of Hargrove Lane closing, of a rollover. “I used to work in construction, and I can tell you there’s nothing clean about concrete, nothing.”
A city planner said the heaviest of the city’s firetrucks is 75,000 pounds, so roads are designed to support that. “Not with the same intensity and repetitiveness that we’d be looking at Hargrove,” Pontieri corrected. Most of the city’s fire trucks weigh considerably less.
More people addressed the council today than did two weeks ago. Pontieri rethought her initial motion, concluding that even with the deed restriction, the use would be incompatible with the light industrial park. She withdrew her motion, and made a motion to deny the rezoning application. Miller seconded.
It passed unanimously. The audience applauded. The vote likely sent a blunt message to the planning board as it takes on that similar rezoning request for 56 Hargrove Grade.
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