Reversing Planning Board’s Decision, Palm Coast Council Approves 100,000-Sq.-Ft. Storage Facility on Pine Lakes Pkwy

Overriding a decision by its Planning Board, the Palm Coast City Council today granted a special zoning exception to allow construction of a 100,000-square-foot storage facility on 6.8 acres off Pine Lakes Parkway, halfway between Belle Terre and Palm Coast Parkway.  

The Planning board, in an unusual decision, voted 4-2 to deny the special exception, saying there were enough self-storage facilities as it is: social media pages are rife with screeds about a surfeit of storage facilities. 

The developer appealed to the City Council. Council members found the planning board’s decision to have been based on personal opinions rather than “competent, substantial evidence,” as required by law, and reversed in a 4-0 vote. Mayor Mile Norris was on vacation. The meeting was chaired by Vice Mayor Theresa Pontieri. 

The conceptual plan for Hillpointe Way Self-Storage would be a two-level facility with 850 storage units and space for 26 recreational vehicles or boats. It is adjacent to the Pointe Grand and Pine Lakes apartment complexes. 

It has been marketed for commercial use since 2003, according to land use attorney Michael Chiumento, who represents the land owner but not the self-storage developer. Cobb Cole attorney Robert Merrell represents the developer, Johnson Development Associates of Spartanburg, S.C., a privately-held company that builds apartments, hotels and 80 self-storage facilities in Florida and other states. 

With the council’s reversal, the developer will next move to a more detailed site plan, which must be approved by the planning board. (The facility is actually just shy of 100,000 square feet, so it doesn’t trip the threshold for City Council review outside of an appeal.) 

The planning board focused on a part of the land development code that calls for commercial zoning to reflect a mix of retail, service, business, and employment opportunities. It found the storage facility to add not so much to a mix of uses as to a pile-up of storage facilities. 

“There’s no criteria that we have in our land development code that allows us to make a recommendation based on the existence of other self-storage sites,” City Planner Michael Hanson said. 

The planning board was also skeptical of the need for yet one more storage facility, questioning whether the applicant had conducted a market analysis. 

Johnson Development emailed its own estimate–based on the number of homes and an industry formula that projects the need for storage per house–that the facility is in an area that is providing only half the needed capacity for storage facilities. 

The validity of the formula was not verified. “Without seeing a full report where I could independently read through the entire report and see the scientific data,” Hanson said, “I can’t make a determination whether or not that report or the statement is accurate or not.”

But nor is it a requirement for applicants to submit market analyses. For example, BJ’s did not submit a market analysis to the county when it was proposing to build its store on State Road 100. 

Other than a map showing the various locations of existing self-storage facilities in town, there was no evidence the planning board provided or could rely on to validate its claim that there are enough storage facilities already, Hanson said. 

Natalie Smith, a senior real estate manager in the self-storage division of Johnson Development Associates, determined the market need for the facility. “We use proprietary databases that are solely focused on storage supply in a variety of markets across the country,” she told the council. “Our trade areas are three to five mile radiuses. Here we’ve determined it’s a three-mile radius around the site. The square footage per person is 3.9 square feet. The national average is eight square feet per person. It’s an industry standard that’s considered market equilibrium. So that’s where we feel that we’re at 50 percent  capacity, so to speak, for market equilibrium.” 

Council member Theresa Pontieri asked why use the three-mile radius rather than five (since five would of course encompass several more storage facilities, and change Smith’s “equilibrium”). “It’s based on population density in the area and just how we feel that customers will travel within a given area and market,” Smith said. At 5 miles, the ratio falls to 3.4 square feet per person, she said. 

Facilities in the area are operating at 90 percent occupancy, Smith said. 

Merrell said the property tax revenue the facility will generate is “ somewhere between 130 and $200,000 a year.” The newly built climate-controlled storage facility on South Old Kings Road, a 90,000-square-foot facility, generated $129,000 in property taxes in 2024, $28,400 of it for Palm Coast. 

The city’s planning staff found the proposal in compliance with all city regulations and land development criteria, including serving the public interest. “We noted that there’s existing multi-family on two fronts,” Hanson said, using planners’ term for apartments. “There’s already an existing self-storage site a third of a mile from this particular project, and it’s located on a collector road with Pine Lakes Parkway.”

Self-storage facilities generate much less traffic than, say, strip malls. Hill Pointe storage would generate 144 daily trips, 15 of them at peak hours. A shopping center filling the 100,000 square feet would generate 5,400 daily trips, according to the city’s calculations, “which would significantly inundate the area as far as traffic concerns,” Hanson said. The business would also add significantly less demand on the city’s water and sewer infrastructure–about 611 gallons a day against nearly 10,000 gallons a day if it were a shopping center. 

A special exception is a land use “evaluated to be compatible with that zoning district, but subject to additional conditions to make it fit in that particular area,” Hanson said. Hanson’s phrasing made it sound as if a local government is required to approve a special exception. That is not necessarily the case. A special exception is by definition an exception to a use that would be prohibited absent certain conditions that make the use compatible with its surroundings. The local government is not required to grant it. 

“Take it case by case,” City Attorney Marcus Duffy said. “Not everyone that asks for a special exception is automatically [granted] that special exception.” 

The developer and the city planners agreed to nine conditions, including an eight-foot decorative wall with visual screening “to soften and break up the appearance of the wall on the street side adjacent to Pine Lakes Parkway,” and to screen the RV and boat-storage area from view from beyond the property. Hours of operation will be limited to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Larger vehicles from dump trucks to buses or containers will not be allowed. On-site repair or maintenance is limited to minor functions like washing, tire changing and the like. 

The staff report:

250520(1)