A restive neighborhood meeting that drew 120 people to the Indian Trails Middle School cafeteria Tuesday evening was a preview of the mobilizing opposition the Palm Coast Planning Board and the City Council will face later this year as the developer of the 268-home Matanzas golf course property in the L-Section again seeks to build 39 homes on a tract neighboring residents thought was to remain a natural viewshed in perpetuity.
After at times bitterly contentious meetings before the Planning Board and the City Council in 2021, developer Alexander Ustilovsky and his attorney, Michael Chiumento, won approval of a Master Planned Development on the 280-acre golf course, but with numerous restrictions.
The course is broken up into 10 tracts that snake through and around the L Section, including Lakeview Boulevard, London Drive, and Londonderry Drive. Lakeview Estates has built some 200 houses on some of the tracts. The most contentious tract in 2021–after city planners won a reduction of planned homes from 300 to 268– was Tract 3. It is a narrow band that stretches on the west side of Lakeview Boulevard, parallel to residential properties on Lee Drive and Lee Place. Ustilovsky wanted to build there.
The City Council, following its planning department’s recommendation, opposed the plan. After almost rejecting the whole MPD, it approved the development but declared Tract 3 off limits, saying any construction there would violate existing residents’ view of the fairway.
Ustilovsky is now back for another bite at Tract 3. He wants to build 39 houses there, shifting them from Tract 8.
As the developer, Ustilovsky was required by city code to hold an informational neighborhood meeting, informing residents potentially impacted by the proposal. Unlike the neighborhood meeting he held ahead of the 2021 steps before local boards, Ustilovsky did not speak on Tuesday. He sat in the back. He left the presentation to Chiumento, who had no microphone, no visuals, no way to amplify his voice.
Much of the audience did not hear him when he spoke, or when someone asked a question. It was a chaotic, disorganized meeting. Chiumento at no point mentioned either that the city’s planning department had recommended against building on Tract 3 in 2021, that public opposition to building on Tract 3 had been loud and clear, and that the City Council had held firm on that score. It was likely because of that condition that the Master Planned Development squeaked by with a 3-2 vote. But the ordinance was unequivocal: “Tract 3 is designated as VPZ and natural buffers.” VPZ is “view protection zone.”
On Tuesday, Chiumento portrayed the new proposal as if it were initiated by the city.
“What the city has proposed, or what we’ve discussed–I shouldn’t say the city, because it hasn’t gotten to City Council–is staff says that the community needed a park,” Chiumento said, “and they would like the park to be there at Tract 8.”
Tract 8 is at the southwest end of the development, south of London Drive and west of Londonderry Drive. It is entitled for up to 51 apartment units in three-story buildings.
As Chiumento presented the proposal to the crowd at the Indian Trails cafeteria, the MPD amendment application is merely for a switch: move units from Tract 8 to Tract 3.
The proposal would shift 39 “estate lots” to Tract 3. The lots would be a minimum of 60 feet wide and 300 feet deep. For access, there would be one drive at the north end of Lakeview Boulevard and one drive at the south end of Lakeview.
Palm Coast Communications Director Brittany Kershaw confirmed, referring to Chiumento and his client, that “yes, they did work with staff to develop a plan that would allow them to present this plan to City Council for approval.” City planner Michael Hanson is working on the application on the city’s side. “Staff has helped to find a plan that would work, but at the end of the day it would be up to the Planning Board and City Council to decide whether they want these changes to go through.”
Chiumento’s description of the plan for Tract 3 drew the first of three loud protests from Michael Martin, an L-Section resident, an elected member of the county’s mosquito board and a former member of the city’s Charter Review Committee: “You can’t build on a fairway or over abutting property owners. That’s the case on Tract 3. You can’t build behind anyone. Our rear view shall be maintained. That’s the Land Development Code,” Martin yelled out.
Chiumento did not respond. “The proposal is to change Tract 8 from 51 multi-family units to a community park,” he said. “There’s no more growth and density and intensity on this proposed change. It’s just moving things around. It’s a proposal.” When a resident asked about infrastructure, Chiumento said “All the water, sewer, roads, traffic, bugs, Bunny, arsenic, all that stuff was resolved, and everything’s fine.”
That drew another protest from Martin, this one almost belligerently loud even for Martin, whose normal speaking voice is louder than any local elected official: “You never tested the rest of the tracts. You have no idea where there’s arsenic there. You only tested on Tract 1.”
Chiumento did respond: “There’s a requirement for a view-shed protection on the rear of those lots to preserve the planted trees and all that buffer there, and to add to it,” Chiumento said. “So there will be a vegetative natural buffer along there. They call it the view-shed protection.” When County Commissioner Leann Pennington asked him what the buffer would be, he said it would be 100 feet, not 150 feet.
On Tract 9, a narrow north-to-south strip at the western edge of the neighborhood, there is permitted development of institutional uses on 8 acres and for 280,000 square feet of commercial development. That will not change.
“Are you willing to put all the rest of the land in conservation so you can’t come back again?” a resident asked.
“A thousand percent,” Chiumento said.
That had been the assumption when the City Council voted to protect Tract 3 in 2021, based on the interpretation of the so-called “view protection zone” by then-Development Director Jason DeLorenzo. “We have been consistent that we’re not willing to negotiate our interpretation,” DeLorenzo had said at the time. Nothing stopped the council from applying a different interpretation. It did not. What that made clear was that neither the city staff nor the council was interested in construction on Tract 3. But planning staffs change, so do council members: the 2021 decision is not written in stone.
Much of the 40-minute neighborhood meeting devolved into generalized complaints and statements, from asking about who will pay for the additional teachers and school space required to infrastructure such as water and sewer utilities costing more, and so on.
“Your answers are whitewashing everything,” one resident told Chiumento, albeit unfairly. “You know as well as I do. Everyone here knows that the prices are going to go through the roof for us because they pass the bill onto us. To us.” They, he specified, meaning the City Council.
When Chiumento said that park impact fees will pay for the park (impact fees are the one-time fees builders and developers pay for parks, fire, water, sewer and other infrastructure to defray the cost of new development’s impact on that infrastructure), a resident said: “We’ll be paying for the park, that’s what will happen. We’ll be paying for the park.”
“Well I think you should bring that up to your council,” Chiumento said. Council member Theresa Pontieri was sitting a few feet away from him. She did not appreciate hearing the council getting thrown under the bus that way.
Toward the end of the 40 minutes, Martin spoke up for the third time. “This is an educational meeting for the developer to present what they want to do,” he said. “This is not the place to argue or fight this. The place to fight this is at the Planning Board meeting. Keep in mind that the Land Development Code protects everybody’s home on a fairway. Your rear view shall be maintained. That means they cannot build directly behind you. That’s what the Land Development Code says. That’s what protects us, and that’s what we have to fight to maintain. If the Land Development Code is followed, they can’t build on Tract 3. Period, end of discussion.”
Not quite. A Master Planned Development, or MPD, like a Planned Unit Development, may supersede the Land Development Code. That’s why Ustilovsky filed the application for an amendment to the MPD. But it’s not an entitlement. It’s entirely at the discretion of the City Council.
The hearing before the planning board is scheduled for May 20.
celia says
Since when the city taxpayers have to pay city staff their high rate payroll to work with developers as describe by Kershaw? :” Palm Coast Communications Director Brittany Kershaw confirmed, referring to Chiumento and his client, that “yes, they did work with staff to develop a plan that would allow them to present this plan to City Council for approval.” Specially as usual to increase density or build in prior preserved parcels?
Using Common Sense says
This is more Growth at Any Cost, Greed, and Bait and Switch that we are sick and tired of seeing in Palm Coast! Chimento needs to go the way of Jason DeLorenzo, Ex mayor Alfin and his cronies, and all of the builders and developers that put profits above everything else! The people of Palm Coast have HAD ENOUGH of having our property rights, home values, and safety, health, and welfare IGNORED by elected officials!!! Friends and Neighbors, DO NOT vote for more of the same! We need to stand up and SAY NO to incompatible development that harms the quality of life of local residents, burdens the limited infrastructure, and threatens the value of our homes!!!