Flagler County government still doesn’t think the owners of the ruin known as the Old Dixie motel are admirable people by any stretch. But the Flagler County Planning Board on Tuesday finally approved on a 6-1 vote the owners’ site plan for a refurbished “Henry Hotel.” The vote does not end the county’s three-year-old legal dispute with the owners nor does it scrap the county’s pending order to demolish the motel–unless construction begins swiftly and proceeds earnestly.
Assistant County Attorney Sean Moylan asked the board to evaluate the site plan only as a site plan–not as a special exception where the board could impose conditions (it imposed one anyway: a fence), and not as an application open to “extraneous” issues related to the owners’ poor history with the county. He also told them to ignore Circuit Judge Chris France’s recent order to the owners to produce reams of financial information as the county continues to pressure them to pay a $250,000 performance bond they have refused to pay for three years.
None of that matters as far as the site plan is concerned, Moylan said.
“I understand the comments of the board at that last meeting, because the behavior of this group has been, well, let’s just say, not good,” Moyland said. “They’ve brazenly defied the court’s order. They immediately breached their contract with the county as soon as they had an opportunity to do so. There’s nothing admirable of their behavior. But that has nothing to do with a site plan. They have every right to come before you and to ask for a site plan to be approved, and if you are to muddy the waters with those extraneous items, it will be very difficult for me to defend that decision in court, and it will potentially have implications on the pending lawsuit already in court.”
Once board members established that they would be hindering rather than helping the county’s case against the owners if they caused more delays or raised more objections, they went ahead with the approval. They did so with a few more assurances from the owners’ representatives, tying up loose ends from when the site plan was first before the board last month.
The hotel owners’ representatives are pledging that light from the property will not be projected onto adjoining properties. (The owners themselves, as always, were invisible at the Planning Board meeting.) They added parking for the disabled. Two utility access easements were in question last month. The easements near the entrance to the Holiday Travel Park had not been recorded. That has since been done. “If you approve it, we’re intending to hold them to the plan that’s been submitted,” Adam Mengel, the county’s planning director, said.
Dennis Bayer, the Flagler Beach attorney who is representing the hotel owners in some respects, disputed some of Moylan’s characterizations. “What you’re going to determine tonight is actually the end of the agreement that my clients reached with the county way back before they took possession of the property.” Three years ago the owners had agreed to produce construction plans and complete some site clean-ups within 90 days, or pay that $250,000 performance bond. That deadline was impossible to meet, Bayer said. But the site plan before the Planning Board was “the end product” that should put the matter of deadlines and performance bonds to rest, since they would be made moot.
“I would just like confirmation from Mr. Mengle that, in fact, the plan, with the revisions that have been done since the last meeting, do meet the technical requirements from the county,” Bayer said. “Is that correct?”
“That is correct, sir,” Mengel said.
Bayer asked the board–as Moylan had–to focus only on the site plan. “Hopefully this eyesore will finally start the renovation process<' he said. "We can get the restaurant, we can get the hotel in there. There's been a lot of interest from both restaurants and hotel companies in this property, so we're looking forward to finish in the last step in getting this project underway."
Several local residents spoke, especially with concerns about the kind of hotel it will be. Residents are worried that it will be an extended-stay hotel, which they do not favor, alleging, in the words of Jeff Lowcher, “increased crime, drugs and prostitution.” Lowcher did not cite evidence, and attributed the claim to unnamed “law enforcement clients that I have in various Florida communities.” (The web is rife with general articles making similar claims, with similarly unsourced evidence, thus creating an echo chamber of unverified information similar to the largely inaccurate claim that apartment complexes are more crime-prone than subdivisions of single-family homes.)
Lowcher continued with generalities: “The business model of this project doesn’t make any sense. As some of the board members said at the last meeting, full occupancy is not guaranteed unless they enter into a contract with the state, which would eventually house welfare families homeless, and even then, that barely that business models is barely going to be viable.” He made his point explicit: “Does the board really want to put these kind of people in an area where you have upscale communities? I wouldn’t think that’s good planning. I don’t think that would be your intent.”
It was not, however, in the Planning Board’s purview to decide what sort of business model the hotel owners may or may not apply to their property. Others similarly questioned the plan, likening it to an apartment layout again to make the point that it would be an extended-say hotel. The county may interfere only once stays extend beyond 30 days. At that point it’s a zoning violation, which could escalate to serious legal action.
Harriet Castle, another resident, brought up a different issue: the hotel and Holiday Travel Park have an “encroachment easement” that’s not been made part of the record. “It’s about 20 feet by 370 feet that’s encroaching onto this property,” she said. “It could impact the future stormwater pond, which I’d also like to mention that they have not requested a permit [for]. I called yesterday. There’s still no permit after three years for this site.”
Bayer acknowledged the encroachment easement. “We found that portions of the units at holiday travel encroached on the property, it is shown on the plans, so we’re not hiding anything,” he said. “Quid pro quo, we’ll give you the easement. We give them an encroachment agreement, and that’s on the part of the property that’s not being developed as part of this proposal, that is on the vacant piece of property.” Kim Buck, the owners’ engineer, said the permit has been applied for through the St. Johns River Water Management District.
Mark Langello, the Planning Board’s chair, raised questions about the encroachment, wondering if it violated trailer park rules. “Because in effect we’re allowing that operation on this property, right?” he asked Moylan. Moylan had not seen the easement, only that it did not “appear to be interfering with this site plan.” Bayer told the board there would be no permanent structures allowed there.
The Planning Board approved the site plan with the caveat of putting an eight-foot privacy fence that would run from the southwest corner to the northern part of the parking lot, along the west property line. The fence is to weave around trees wherever possible to avoid taking trees down.
For all that, Moylan cautioned that the disputes are nowhere near over absent clear evidence of movement toward reconstruction on the owners’ part. “The judge issued another order that compels them, within 45 days to turn over a lot of intrusive information that they’re not going to want to give us,” he told the board, “cancelled checks, tax information, minutes from their boards meetings if there are any, statements from all their banks, all their financial information they have to cough it up because they refuse to honor the contract or the court’s order. And this is far from over, despite what was stated earlier. This is yet another step along the way. They are under a demolition order. If they do not get this approval from you and get permits and refurbish this building, they need to refurbish it or knock it down. But they’ve got to get off of center and do something.”
Delay, Moylan said, “has been a strategy.”
We shall see says
It is hard to believe they approved a site plan for an extended stay that does not have the zoning for. Why not request they will approve without it being an extended stay? When you look at the hotel they are only planning to repair, I can understand why some people might be concerned about who would stay in a run down hotel.
Oh My says
How about that unrecorded Encroachment lien that was not given to the Planning Board? It seems the Planning Board approved an extension of a Travel Park that is not up to code to operate on this property complete with utilities and septic. Then the hotel has a septic from the BP gas station that does not have a current easement on the other side of the property. What a mess. Why not ask for a new performance bond?
Jane Gentile Youd says
Sick to my stomach with, in my unprofessional opinion, is total corruption on the part of the County Attorney and his pals. Three years later we are out over $40,000 in outside legal fees; the dump remains now sharing space with an illegal trailer park . Now attorney warns Planning Board they have to allow them to proceed with an ‘Extended Stay’ – which means a hotel guest after 30 days becomes a ‘tenant’ which now changes the zoning illegally to multi-family. But who cares – besides the welfare tenants of the extended stay can change rooms every 29 days and live there forever. Rats, suicide attempts, drug deals, garbage piled up for over 3 years .
Al Hadeed tells one of the commissioners last year ( which commissioner called me and told me) that the hotel’s unpaid 2022 property taxes in June 2023 are ‘nothing to worry about’ because ‘they have a lot of money’. This is third party hearsay of course but I have my ears cleaned out regularly.
As I opened my comment: Absolutely sickening
Backslapping Commission says
Jane Gerntile Youd: WOW! Their UNPAID TAXES are NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT is
beyond unthinkable a county attorney would even say this if so!
So lets all it not pay our taxes and see what happens to the average resident.
And Hadeeds next comment, if so, to follow ,Because they have alot of money!
Well, l guess you really can’t fix stupid, what a public kick in the butt to allow
rich scammers to take advantage of the taxpayers who work very hard to pay
and keep up with their daily needs and taxes, to do the right thing. If you translate
what Hadeed IF SO said : Screw the average Joe but it’s ok if you are rich and have
lots of money you don’t have to obey and go by the rules, just shows how BOUGHT
AND SOLD HADEED REALLY IS AND IF SO HADEED NEEDS TO GO!
Show me the money says
Jane, which commissioner gave you the “secret” information ? And why have you waited so long to reveal this ? Or is this another baseless accusation? You keep insinuating that there is some sinister motive behind the owners intentions with your unsubstantiated accusations, then as usual you pivot back to the 1 year unpaid county tax issue. There are thousands of homeowners and businesses that haven’t paid their taxes as of yet in Flagler County, I don’t see you rallying the “torch and pitchfork” masses against them.
Jane, unless you name the commissioner that provided you with this damming motive on why the county hasn’t demolished the hotel I think you should keep your accusations to yourself.
Celia Pugliese says
City of Palm Coast and County administration are plagued with carpetbaggers that come here with supposedly (lost of money) that sometimes is illusionary, getting their support and unthinkable special exceptions for disastrous plans that affect, takes away, cost in taxes dearly and denied the quality of life of the existing, specially, adjacent residents, that attend city and council meetings begging in the 3 minutes to do what is right for them and ignored! This is been happening since I moved here in 91 and worst now.
For administrators and most elected ones, except councilwoman Pontieri in our city, for them the only ones that have rights are the vacant land owners our current residents rights do not count and if we use our first amendment rights like a FB resident Mr. Ken Bryant former St Johns and FB commissioner, gets sued by Veranda Bay developer! Lets show up our support for him September 20th at our Moody Blvd Court House at 10,30 am. so judge see us all for him! Otherwise a win for the developer will shut our first amendment to us all. We are to shut up while forced to let our wildlife and tree canopies destroyed, share our old insufficient infrastructure; water, sewer, storm water, roads and services meanwhile the $15,000 impact fees just in utilities, plus county parks and recs. fire, police : https://docs.palmcoastgov.com/departments/building/appimpactfeesummary.pdf, where does it go…well lately some went to the Expansion West to match the 80 millions assigned to benefit the developer there. Our infrastructure then is not serving us for the taxes and utility bills fees increased on us, to fund growth! We need change now across this greed contaminated line in city and county!