There was something faintly historic, if not equally absurd, about the Flagler County Commission’s approval Monday of the final plat for 124 single-family house lots at Veranda Bay near Flagler Beach.
The historic part is that the hearing could be one of the last of its kind before local governments. A bill that would eliminate local governments’ role in final-plat approval is awaiting the governor’s signature.
A final plat is the last regulatory step in a development. By then the roads have been laid out and the infrastructure built. Final platting ratifies the lot boundaries and physical addresses of those lots for recording at the clerk’s office, allowing for the construction of houses to proceed with geographic precision down to the inch. If the governor signs the bill–which fast-tracks and weakens other parts of the regulatory process on developers’ behalf–final platting will be done only administratively. Elected boards preserve their preliminary platting authority.
Local county or city governments have never rejected a final plat in recent memory, though Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris, in his monomaniacal opposition to development, has taken to voting against them. He can afford to, knowing his colleagues will vote for them. Rejecting a final plat could expose a local government to litigation, a prospect that appears not to faze Norris, who is currently suing the city he represents.
The slightly absurd part of Monday’s County Commission approval of Veranda Bay’s final plat is that what would have ordinarily taken a few minutes turned into a contested 90 minutes as commissioners and members of the public re-litigated issues resolved five years ago. It was not a surprise. Ken Belshe, who represents the development, was in the audience with his land-use attorney, Michael Chiumento, prepared for battle even as they downplayed the step. “We do not have a presentation. This is fairly administerial,” Chiumento told the commission.
The Veranda Bay development on the two sides of John Anderson Highway has been dogged by controversy since well before the commission approved it for 453 units in November 2020. It was originally proposed by developer Bobby Ginn in 2005. Veranda Bay’s parent company acquired the land after the Great Recession. At the time it was known as The Gardens.
The development has faced court battles since–and instigated a few of its own on dubious defamation grounds–and fueled new controversy when it sought annexation into Flagler Beach in hopes of expanding the project to some 2,735 housing units, later lowered to 2,400. The threat of litigation against the city caused the Flagler Beach City Commission and the developer to pause further annexation proceedings.
Meanwhile, construction has proceeded on the original six phases, totaling 335 single-family houses, that the County Commission approved in November 2020, as part of a planned unit development allowing for a total of 453 units. Monday’s final platting was for the last two phases–65 lots on 22 acres, and 59 lots on 17 acres, with lots between 7,500 and 8,500 square feet, except for larger corner lots.
The balance of the allowable housing units (118 of them) could be developed as apartments or multi-family units like town homes–or as single family homes. “Certainly that’s still potentially possible on the remainder here on the east side, or something for the west,” Flagler County Growth Management Director Adam Mengel said.
The PUD agreement still requires the construction of an internal spine road from State Road 100 to Colbert Lane and a golf course, but not before the 453-unit threshold is hit. Commissioner Kim Carney and some residents are doubtful the golf course will ever be built. An intersection is to be built with John Anderson Highway, at grade, meaning no crossover under or over John Anderson.
“I’m not convinced that the applicant has solved the water management problem,” Commissioner Greg Hansen said. “I’ve been out there, watched heavy rainfall, and it’s going to leave the property, and they’ve assured me that it’s not going to leave the property, but it’s going to leave the property and affect their neighbors.”
A resident who lives south of the property on John Anderson Highway said she got water on her property coming from the east side, for the first time in 18 years, “and the ditches remained full for months,” she said.
John Tanner, a John Anderson Highway resident and the attorney representing Preserve Flagler Beach and Bulow Creek, the non-profit that has opposed Veranda Bay’s expansion, had hoped the item was tabled, since only three of the commission’s five members were present, a bare quorum. Commissioners Dave Sullivan and Pam Richardson were ill and did not join by phone.
“When the early PUD with Bobby Ginn in ‘05 and ‘06 was being debated for quite a while,” Tanner said, “and then we had the, gosh, three years of seem like hearings, before the county finally and the developer finally came to an agreement as to what they would do, we thought we were through. Now we’re looking at the potential for perhaps what, another couple hundred houses being put in there on these other phases. There’s no guarantee as to what they’re doing.”
In fact the total number of allowable units has not changed. But Tanner premised his comments to the commission on that nonexistent “vagueness.”
“If this type of development continues at this level, in this area, I fear they’re going to be faced with the prospect of being compelled, or perhaps even forced, to four-lane John Anderson Highway,” Tanner said, “which would totally ruin the scenic aspect of John Anderson. It would require the, I guess, confiscation or condemnation of private properties up and down John Anderson.”
Chiumento summarized the history of the development and the commission’s approvals in 2020, and the $20 million the developer spent to build infrastructure since. “All this is just saying that you all constructed it according to the plans that have been approved by this community, by this commission, after 20 hours of hearings and four commission meetings,” Chiumento said. “So that’s where we’re at today.”
As for the remaining allowable units, those would have to come back before the commission for a preliminary plat. “All the land on the west, we will come back to you in the future,” he said, citing 118 future residential units to be built, a marina and 456,000 square feet of commercial property and a golf course. As for the spine road, it is “not a commitment, it is a requirement,” Chiumento said. “It is a legal requirement to be constructed into the future.” If the property is annexed into Flagler Beach, those requirements are not erased.
“But if the people that are living there say or experience it, how do we protect their property?” Carney asked about potential flooding. “When do we decide if there is flooding or not?”
Chiumento said state and federal law prohibit any development to cause water to escape the development’s boundaries and flood adjoining properties. “Now, are those people experiencing flooding?” Chiumento asked. “I don’t know. Obviously, during the hurricane, there was flooding, but I think that happened all along, and I don’t know that there’s any indication or studies that even suggest that this project floods those people.”
Flagler Beach City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur, a supporter of the development, said he took a helicopter ride after Hurricane Milton–in the East Mosquito Control District’s helicopter. “Where have the changes been after this storm, or after this large rainfall?” Belhumeur said. The explanation he got was his: “The water from Palm Drive in the north side, where Flagler Beach is,” he said, referring to the street along the Intracoastal that notoriously floods in severe rain events, “their water used to go on to the Gardens property. So once they built their berm to stop that water from going south, now they have more water than they had before the developer started. But it’s not runoff from the developer’s property. It’s because they don’t have the relief of getting rid of their water on somebody else’s property.”
The commission approved both final plats in 3-0 votes.
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