Though it typically expresses sharp antipathy toward single-family home development, the Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday approved converting the next phase of the Sawmill development cluster along U.S. 1 from townhomes to single-family houses. The 4-1 vote was a first-reading approval, with the second and final reading next month.
The dissenting vote was over the damage to the historic site that gives the clusters their name–the unique, Revolutionary Era Hewitt Sawmill site that the development appears to have severely altered beyond recognition, corrupting the site’s authenticity. That damage, not previously disclosed to the extent that it was on Tuesday, dominated the discussion on the development proposal.
The project is part of the Palm Coast Park “development of regional impact,” or DRI, approved in 2004, where the Sawmill Branch, Sawmill Creek and Freedom at Sawmill subdivisions have been (and continue to be) developed.
The tract subject to the development amendment is on the west side of U.S. 1, just under a mile from Old Kings Road. It had been approved for 320 townhouses on 18-foot-wide lots. The council approved a conversion to 244 single-family houses on 30-foot-wide lots that would at minimum be 2,550 square feet. The townhomes were to have a minimum living area of 650 square feet. The houses will have a minimum of 1,000 square feet.
“It is a distance away from ITT-platted lots,” Palm Coast Planning Manager Phong Nguyen said, describing the proposal as “providing diversification of housing type.” The typical ITT lot is just under 11,000 square feet. The houses in the new subdivision are to be built by DR Horton. The developer, Robert Porter, described the future houses as “detached” apartments or townhomes, with the same floor plans as apartments, with two to three bedrooms.
“This is just a stab at a new type of housing product to Palm Coast,” Michael Chiumento, the land use attorney representing the developer, said. “That does not mean it’s not new to DR Horton or their other communities around the country.” DR Horton is the builder of Bunnell’s Grand Reserve, the subdivision of nearly 900 houses.
“The goal is to allow a variety of lot sizes and housing types to meet the needs of the citizenry. Citizenry through all stages of life,” City Planner Estelle Lens said. “The city has an overabundance of quarter-acre platted single-family lots, and there is a need for different size lots and different types of housing that’s in the comp plan.” The ITT-era lots are also responsible for the sprawling suburbs James Howard Kunstler called “the geography of nowhere.”
As she was presenting the proposal to the council, Lens provided a brief history of the development, noting along the way that the developer had met the “public benefit requirements,” among them preserving over 1,800 acres of wetland and nearly 116 acres of gopher tortoise habitat, the donation of a 30-acre tract to the school district, a 74-acre site for a linear park along U.S. 1 and 30 acres for the city’s sewer plant in that area. She also mentioned the donation of the Revolutionary-era Hewitt Sawmill historic site to the Florida Agricultural Museum. She did not mention the damage to the site.
According to Bill Ryan, the local historian, “John Hewitt was an expert builder and contractor who arrived in St. Augustine before the American Revolution in 1768. He obtained a 1,000-acre property near Pellicer Creek in what is now Flagler County and shortly thereafter built a sophisticated water-powered sawmill. Many homes in old St. Augustine may have been constructed with his lumber. He did much construction during the British period including the steeple for St. Peter’s Church and the State House. The mill was a hydraulic type, highly advanced for the period.” (Ryan’s history of Hewitt Sawmill was reproduced by the Flagler County Historical Society.)
Hewitt Sawmill is often referred to–as it was by Palm Coast officials–as Hewlett’s Mill. Lens’s reference to the mill–which lent its name to the various subdivisions–prompted Council member Dave Sullivan to explain in sharp terms why he would vote against the proposal.
“Essentially what the developer has done, if you’ve been out to where Hewlett’s Mill is,” Sullivan said, “which I have done since they clear-cut the area right up to the edge of Hewlett’s Mill. They put in a retention pond there with a sluice. The sluice dumps water directly on top of Hewlett’s Mill. It’s been ruined. There’s no way to save it now. So I’m kind of anti this whole everything going on here, just because of that.”
He said the site had been preserved and worked on by a lot of volunteer organizations over time. “It’s gone. That’s the only revolutionary site we have in the county,” Sullivan said. The sawmill ceased operations in 1813.
“Mr. Sullivan,” Chiumento, the developer’s attorney, said, “your comment surprised me. I’ve worked for the initial developer, which was Allete or one of their subsidiaries, since 2006 and then been very integrated with the present developer since 2017, and your issue is the first that I’ve heard of that. So I don’t have any response.”
“Maybe you should have been aware of it,” Sullivan said. “It was brought to the lawyers who were involved.”
Pontieri referred to a January 2023 email she wrote then-City Manager Denise Bevan relaying the Florida Agricultural Museum’s concerns about the site. (The Ag Museum is in charge of the historic site.) Pontieri read the detailed damage described in the email.
“I don’t know if the communication never made it to your folks,” Pontieri told Chiumento. “That’s tragic if it didn’t, because this has been an issue for over three years now. So I don’t know if there’s anything that can be done now, but this is certainly not a novel issue.” Pontieri asked the developer to incorporate potentially repairing the damage into the future public benefit of the development’s regulatory commitments.
Porter, the developer, said he had not been personally aware of the issue. He and Chiumento said they would look into it before the second reading of the ordinance.
Fun in Flagler says
Historical preservation……HAHAHAHAH in Flagler County ?
Jan says
Good for Mr. Sullivan! Happy someone is looking at the bigger picture when it comes to development. Glad Mr. Sullivan voted against the proposal.
Really Annoyed says
These homes should be townhomes from the poor design it gives as a private home concept. The other joke is only 30 foot wide lots! Lots of luck if one home goes up in flames, there goes the domino effect! I wonder if that lawyer would love to live in one!
Capt Bill Hanagan says
Same as it ever was .. except when old Mr Hewlett was developing out ‘west of town’ he would have been killing off panthers & wolves & who knows what else, creatures long since gone.
People aren’t going to stop moving here. It’s paradise, what’s left of it anyway. Said as a native and somebody who knows how to slip through the palmetto.. so to bastardize a phrase if they’re coming you gotta build it. But here greed and narrow mindedness strikes again and now instead of 320 homes on the footprint we’ll only have 244. So 76 families will need to move into new builds elsewhere. Even on little bitty lots that’s a couple more acres of trees coming down someplace else.
As for the developer and lawyers – “that’s just business” – they know worst they’ll get is a hand slap. Site is destroyed and everybody is quite sorry and nobody knows how it happened but since it’s already gone .. oh well.. better luck next time. Bulldoze first and ask questions later. Nothing about a quarter inch thick envelope full of bills with another revolutionary era historical figure on the front won’t fix… same as it ever was
Maybe in 200 years there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth about some other developer trying to build a spaceport on the site of this county’s first Publix
Taxpayer says
Everywhere you look developers have taken over Palm Coast and the City of Palm Coast continues to approve all this building on every piece of land that is empty.
The sewer system wasn’t built for all this growth nor was the road built for all this traffic we witness every day.
When is it going to stop??????????????????????
celia says
This is very sad and tragic to read….there is not even care for our historical preservation when it comes to greedy growth!
I agree that given the landowner damage to the historical mill , even after notified of the needed preservation years ago, this request should not have been approved.
Using Common Sense says
This historic site must be protected, preserved, and maintained. The history is still there, and if physically damaged, MUST be restored and made whole by those responsible for its demise. FIX IT and STOP destroying everything that makes Flagler County a beautiful, historic, and desirable place to live! Now that this development of tiny homes has been approved, STOP infiltrating our Palm Coast communities under the guise of affordable housing!!! We have the right to protect our quality of life, maintain our home values, ensure compatible development, and have a peaceful, safe, and healthy place to call home! Greed, ignoring the voices of the residents, and back door deals that even city council members do not seem to have been made aware of is DISGRACEFUL. The Usual Suspects and their cronies having been raping the land, the city, the county , and the tax paying residents for too long, destroying the environment and the very essence of our communities. It is time to end this cycle of destruction and vote for leadership that will represent We the People, the residents of Palm Coast and Flagler County. We DO NOT want any more stress on our infrastructure, unrealistic demands on our limited resources and water supplies, more overdevelopment, toxic chemicals, nuisance noise and air pollution, or the continued destruction of our environment and fragile wetlands. STOP the madness.
Pogo says
People living on a sandbar at low tide holding forth about the past, and the spaceports a dying world will never see.
Whatever.
John Bloomfield says
I can’t think of anything more pathetic than leaders using the phrase I wasn’t aware, as if it insulates them from the wake they leave behind.
Gina Weiss says
BEST COMMENT ON HERE from John Bloomfield besides the comment from using common sense!
The “I wasn’t aware” to voters should mean “you have to be voted out”! If you are not part of the
solution then you are part of the problem. I recently made current city/county seated officials
aware of a piece of conservation land that a developer wants to make a roadway for more
over development housing and the response was , “I wasn’t aware”, it is in the ACOE permit phase
at this point so we shall see how this goes now that city/county are made aware.