You may now park your commercial vehicle in your Palm Coast driveway.
The Palm Coast City Council voted 3-2 today to approve on second reading the ordinance that now makes it legal to park certain commercial vehicles–or vehicles with large advertising or other markings on their exterior–in residential driveways without covering them with tarps.
The allowance extends to typical work trucks and pick-up trucks up to 20 feet long and 9 feet high. Only one truck per driveway is allowed. Markings will not be regulated. They may be advertising, polemical, artistic or gibberish. Larger commercial vehicles, boats, box trucks, dump trucks and the like are still prohibited from long-term parking.
Duplexes are only allowed one commercial vehicle per unit. So if an electrician lives in Unit A and a plumber lives in Unit B, one of them will not be allowed to park her/his/their work truck there.
Palm Coast has tried to relax its parking rules on behalf of working-class residents since 2010, failing at every step until now. In six months, Code Enforcement Manager Barbara Grossman will report to the council on whether, and to what extent, residents may be abusing the new allowance.
Opponents of the looser rules, including Council members Charles Gambaro and Dave Sullivan, say the city’s character will suffer, neighborhoods will look shabbier, and swales will be damaged from commercial vehicles parking on them, though the city forbids overnight parking on swales. “This is a slippery slope, if there ever was one,” Sullivan said.
Supporters of the measure–Mayor Mike Norris, Council members Theresa Pontieri and Ty Miller voted for it–say working people should not have to spend time and money every day parking their commercial vehicles in storage zones. They dispute the claim that it would have a negative effect on the city’s character or on property values.
“For me, ultimately, it comes down to, you know, supporting trades and skilled labor and our local economy,” Miller said. “Are we here to say that because you’re the trades, you’re not welcome here? I don’t want to say that. I don’t think that’s fair at all. I think it’s an undue burden to have to take your work truck to a parking lot behind a storage unit that everybody says, We don’t want any more storage. That’s the reason why there are so many storage units, because people have to park their vehicles there. And it’s not cheap, so, you know, I don’t think it’s going to change the character of Palm Coast in any way.”
“If this does end up being a slippery slope, and we are starting to see more abuse, I may reverse course on this,” Pontieri said. “I don’t think we’ll see that. I think that we’ll see reasonable people that are violating the rules now, their vehicle may be now in compliance.”
“I definitely don’t want work vehicles being parked in the swale as a place of storage when people are at home,” Miller said. “Use your driveway. Put it in the driveway where it’s appropriate.”
Most cities don’t forbid work trucks from parking in driveways. Palm Coast is behind the times, even in comparison with state legislation, which in 2024 relaxed similar rules regarding homeowner associations, or HOAs. Last year, the Florida legislature approved a bill that, among many provisions protecting the rights of homeowners, prohibits HOAs from banning commercial truck parking in driveways.
Pontieri said Palm Coast’s rules are still tougher than state rules. “It would be remiss of us to punish hard workers, many business owners, likely small business owners, because some people want to take advantage of a reasonable ordinance,” she said. “And in my mind, this is a reasonable ordinance, so I look forward to the six month check in.”
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