The developer of Veranda Bay is willing to lower the number of housing units to be built, from 2,735 to 2,400. It’s still a distance from where two Flagler Beach city commissioners want the number: from 1,800 to the “lower end of 2,000.” But it’s not an unbridgeable divide between the city and the developer, who is also willing to increase commercial acreage to 600,000 square feet.
“The more rooftops you have, the more successful your commercial can ultimately be, because there’s more people, and when there’s more people, you attract more commercial,” Ken Belshe, the developer with Sunbelt Land Management, said. “I understand that there is an outcry from the people living south down there. I do get that, and I know that it would help ease everybody’s concerns if we were to reduce it down a little bit.”
Veranda Bay is proposed housing and commercial project on John Anderson Highway that Flagler Beach is considering annexing, and that would double the city’s size by the time it’s built out in a few decades. Annexation is contingent on both sides agreeing to a substantial number of conditions that would be part of the “master-planned development”–a development that may diverge from city code, giving the city authority to impose conditions and the developer to build at higher densities.
Veranda Bay has navigated between controversies since it was revived as a county development in 2019 as The Gardens, after it had been planned under Bobby Ginn before the housing crash, in 2005, as a development of 453 housing units and a golf community. The golf courses are gone. The county vested the 453 units. But Flagler Beach has been eager to annex the property for fear that Palm Coast would do so, and allow more dense development on Flagler Beach’s rim. Belshe had until last week consistently projected a project at 2,735 houses, town homes and apartment units.
Belshe and Flagler Beach have been negotiating the details of the proposed annexation for months. Last Thursday, the two sides came down to negotiating housing units, because a majority of commissioners were uneasy with Belshe’s number, reflecting the same discomfort among residents who have repeatedly addressed the commission on the matter.
Commissioner James Sherman’s “ideal” figure is 1,800, split between 900 single-family homes and 900 higher-density homes such as town houses and apartments. Commissioner Eric Cooley has consistently been pushing for lower housing totals and higher commercial space. But he did not provide a number more precise than “the lower end of 2000.”
“If you are going to potentially double the size of the city, then you need to double the size of the quality life amenities,” Cooley said. “I would not want to bring in a subdivision the size of the city that I consider to be on the low side of commercial or quality life amenities–features, benefits, things that you know are going to benefit the city.” He wants the end result to balance out commercial amenities between the island and Veranda Bay, giving residents from either side equal reason to cross the bridge in both directions.
Commissioner Jane Mealy did not have a number. Commissioner Rick Belhumeur supports Belshe’s original figure. “Clipping their wings too much, I don’t know that that’s going to help us in the end,” he said. He’s attracted to Veranda Bay as a source of immense tax revenue. “Here we finally get a really good source of revenue,” he said. “They just had an open house in one of their houses over there. It’s probably $1.4 million house or so. So that’s just one house. So start adding them up. It’s it’s going to help the people that live here now that are paying taxes now, and minimize these perpetual tax increases that we’ve had.”
Cooley was quick to correct Belhumeur: “The old adage of growth pays for itself has been debunked so many times over in the last 20 years,” he said. “So saying that future developments going to save the citizens money on their taxes, I would categorically disagree with. I would also disagree with the statement that we’re clipping anybody’s Wings.” As did Commission Chair Scott Spradley. This was a negotiation, he said, and this was the time to ask the developer for what would best benefit the city. He was “still developing a level of comfort” with the numbers.
By lowering his housing total to 2,400 and raising the commercial square footage, Belshe made it more difficult for commissioners to oppose him or paint him as intransigeant, especially with Cooley’s and Sherman’s insistence on more commercial space. Cooley called it “a good first step.”
“I’m really thrilled that we’re heading in the direction we’re heading,” Mayor Patti King said.
The other major dividing line is the so-called “spine road” that will cut through Veranda Bay to State Road 100, alleviating traffic on John Anderson. The commission wants the spine road built sooner than later. They proposed starting the spine road starting as a sub-standard road as long as it can carry construction traffic away from John Anderson Highway, to State Road 1000, without requiring the developer to have it all built to standard by the time the 600th house is occupied.
The development would dedicate small acreage for three parks, but the city is not committed to building the parks. “Why is the city building the parks?” Coley said. “2,700 homes, shouldn’t you build a couple of parks?” But the developer will be paying park impact fees for just that purpose. If the developer were to build the parks, the city would have to credit him the park impact fees.
Commissioners are also want to ensure that flooding will not be an issue, or at least “find a way to limit the flooding,” as Commissioner Jane Mealy put it, and got into the details of what type of construction may be necessary to prevent in-house flooding. Belshe said federal and state regulators “will not let us do what they used to allow developers to do, which is develop in a flood plain without compensatory storage,” meaning that every “cup” of displaced water must have storage built on site. Home designs are such for the development that they will reduce the need for compensatory storage.
Mealy isn’t confident in whatever regulations may be issued by the St. Johns Rover Water Management District. “if we could just put some language about flooding, then I think we’d be happy,” she said. Belshe had no objection.
King wanted hardwoods in general not just oaks, protected to the extent possible (a “non-committal verbiage” that didn’t work for Cooley), though the proposed diameter for trees that would be protected is a large 36 inches. “Maybe we can discuss the number coming down a bit,” Spradley said, while firming up language on protection. Commissioners were also taken aback by the size of signs marking entry points into Veranda Bay. With one exception, the signs will shrink in size.
The development had committed to a minimum of 25-foot buffers along its boundaries: the word “voluntary” will be removed from the agreement. There are also discrepancies between lot sizes and setbacks in the proposed development as opposed to the city’s code. For example, minimum setbacks in the city code is 25 feet, but Veranda Bay’s would be 15. Minimum lot sizes in the city is 5,000 square feet. In Veranda Bay, it’s 4,000. And so on. “It’s like we’re squeezing a whole lot of houses into smaller” spaces, Mealy said.
“Allowing clustering development, that really is what allows more open space,” City Planner Lupita McClenning said. As a master-planned development, Veranda Bay may diverge from city code in such regards. “The expectation is you will see planned developments that deviate from your traditional lot standards,” City Attorney Drews Smith said. “It does not mean that that every developer that comes in the door, you have to agree how they want to with how they want to do it. That’s what this process is for.”
Steve Dalley, a resident, took issue with the master-planned approach: “We’re not we’re not growing Flagler Beach. We’re building a town that’s going to be part of Flagler Beach,” he told the commission. “So all these things, whether it’s the trees and all the other stuff, it’s going to look way different. It’s going to feel way different. It’s not going to be Flagler Beach anymore. So in essence, you want to double the size. I’ve been to places where they quadrupled the size. The cost went up, services went down. Quality of life sucked.” Another resident spoke likewise.
Irwin Connelly had a more targeted suggestion: “Open space is not necessarily parks. It’s not necessarily conservation lands,” he said. “It sounds like an open space, but that that includes every thing that doesn’t have a building on it. So if there’s going to be a negotiation and the number of residential units are lowered, somewhere in that trade off should be an expansion of true open spaces, true green spaces, either parks, conservation or whatever, not just moving buildings around the different buildings. That’s, I think, the biggest problem everybody has about the density and numbers, is how much true open space.”
veranda-bay-workshop-nov-14-2024
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Joe says
We don’t need more rooftops to be pushed down our throats!
It’s time for these developers to start paying for much needed infrastructure, before any more residential is approved.
Stretchem says
Coupla hundred grand for a lot, then half a mil plus to put a house on it. As of last week there were only a few lots left. To me it seems unfathomable that there are thousands of folks out there willing and able to afford living in a swamp, but to each their own I suppose. Say an average of a million a home, and the income required to afford that, then yeah that’s quite an influx of money into Flagler.
JimboXYZ says
Sounds like John Anderson annex doubles up Flagler Beach where existing population drives across the bridge to shop for groceries at Publix. The growth over on Colbert Lane is stressng the capacity enough on the infrastructure. They will need to add commercial on John Anderson to pace the residential. As it stands, Colbert Lane, depending upon which is closer, those folks are either driving to SR 100 or Palm Coast Parkway for groceries. And then there’s Seminole Woods Parkway/Town Center Parkway growth development. Same thing there, residential driving to John Anderson (for a Publix), BJ’s or the Publix off Belle Terre. There is a Winn Dixie on the eastside of I-95 & SR 100. Before you know it, SR 100 going to be as congested as Palm Coast Parkway is around I-95. That westawrd US-1 expansion, instead of the sports complex, they need to be looking at a split of commercial & residential there that has a fighting chance of being successful to support growth. But some of these aren’t Flagler Beach’s annexation problems.
I think Flagler Beach took Alfin’s growth Vision of 2050 and like that growth, finally realizing that growth didn’t pay for itself, quality of life suffered for it, costs still went up. Saddling taxpayers with funding grossly underfunded growth projects. It’s like anyone with a finance degree forgot everything they learned to earn their degree(s). That’s if any of them have finance degrees. Real Estate types that are great at listing properties, they know that mortgage financing exists but obviously had no clue that doubling the price of the same home sizes & increasing interest rates is counter to affordable housing & responsible growth. The grant money the State came up with the wants vs actuals for funding was just non existent for actual funding of the Sewage Treatment Facility upgrades alone without the State threatening litigation for the $ 240+ million STF that wasn’t even sought after for grant money. It’s like the electeds sat in their commission meetings wanting to buy Mar-A-Lago on their sub 40 hour work week, hourly, no benefits compensation of a fast food restaurant paycheck. Sober up from the booze, put down the Fentanyl long enough to realize the money was never going to be there. Instead, the next increase in budget/taxation gets approved & that’s still not enough. At some point competence questions have to arise as to whether or not the real estate gurus are even qualified to be selling real estate. Whether the budget experts over in City Hall are competent & qualified to be doing their jobs ? Just because one does the budgeting cycles doesn’t make them anything more than spreadsheet experts for the process of updating. Anyone can apply a 10% increase for a projection to a spreadsheet formula, underlying it all the harsh realities of, is the Revenue there, are there any reserves sufficiently built up to cover the what if of Bidenomics failures. Biden’s big push before he’s gone, pass as much inherited & legacy underfunding to steer the next 4 years for even Trump to fail at cleaning up Biden-Harris messes. Take Biden authorizing deeper strikes into Russia, that guarantees that funding a war still happens in the Ukraine alone. But that money isn’t to make anything in America any better for growth. That’s where our Governments have failed miserably. The fantasies of wants vs the realities of cold hard cash in hand to make it happen. And that’s why the inflationary economy is just a miserable mess for unaffordable across the board. The individual has to succeed to pay for the Government’s lavish overspending. Otherwise bankruptcy & bailouts of financial ruin are the reality of those financial hardships created by the fiscally irresponsible. The good news is that there is only so much time left that the Governments of the last 4 years can do to us before the transfer of power to a hopefully better team happens. Unfortunate they inherit Bidenomics though. The cost of Biden-Harris isn’t worth it, wasn’t after 2021, 2022, 2023 & now 2024. 4 years for the next crew to fix it all.
Billy says
Why is it Flagler County’s goal to become overpopulated and totally ruined like Orlando and Jacksonville?