With Grave Concerns About Traffic, Palm Coast Approves Shopping Rezoning That’ll Add 1,000s of Cars to SR100

With grave concerns about its traffic impacts on already-congested State Road 100, the Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday approved on first reading the rezoning to commercial uses of a 39-acre parcel just west of the BJ’s Wholesale shopping center. 

The rezoning is ahead of the development of that tract into a companion shopping center called Flagler Landing, with a “170,000 square foot big-box discount superstore,” in the description of the developer’s attorney–that is, very likely Walmart–and a half dozen satellite businesses. 

Flagler Landing will add further traffic to State Road 100–and to worries about congestion–worries council members voiced on Tuesday–though the proposed development includes measures to ease traffic’s impacts. The city’s planning board recommended approval of the rezoning last month. (See: “Despite Rezoning for New Commercial Strip Near BJ’s, Live Local Act Could Still Bring Apartments There.”)

“A lot of people talk about diversifying the tax base. I think this is a great opportunity for us to do this for our city,” Council member Charles Gambaro said. 

The undeveloped property paid $17,700 in total property taxes in 2023, and $25,700 in 2024. Now that it has been developed, the BJ’s Warehouse property alone, without the satellite businesses, is expected to generate about $200,000 in property taxes this year. Flagler Landing is expected to generate well above that. 

“My one concern about this project is the traffic that it will create,” Council member Theresa Pontieri said. “We’re right here on 100 we already know this is a severe pain point.”

The parcel is half a mile west of Seminole Woods Boulevard on State Road 100, and is part of a trio of parcels that Flagler Pines Properties–a company owned by Jay Gardner, the property appraiser–has been selling to commercial developers over the last several years. The Airport Commons shopping strip nearer Belle Terre Parkway was first to develop. The BJ’s Wholesale strip was second. The property the Council approved for rezoning Tuesday is third. 

All three properties were on Flagler County land, and have been gradually annexed into the city. In February, the council approved on first reading the annexation into Palm Coast of the 39 acres, but delayed a vote on second and final reading. That second reading will be concurrent with the final reading of the measures approved on Tuesday. (An amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan, the long-term blueprint of the city’s development vision, is a companion measure.) 

The current zoning designation of Flagler Landing is about 10 and a half acres of commercial zoning and 28.3 acres of residential high-density, or apartments. The change would eliminate what could have been a 255-unit apartment complex. 

“Back at the county,” Council member Dave Sullivan, a former county commissioner, said, “the original idea for this area was to put in a combination commercial, residential, kind of like the Promenade, where you have people being able to live and work, walk to work, things like that.” The Promenade is the six-building, 233,000-square-ft. Project under construction in Town Center, with shops on the ground floor and 204 apartments above them. (See “Promenade at Town Center’ Will Add 204 Apartments Atop Shops in First Development of Its Kind There.”)

“It made a lot of sense to me at that time,” Sullivan continued, “kind of maybe a vision of what we would like the city to be in the future. I think what happened is that the people who are going to invest in this decided that it just wasn’t going to work, and that the only way to make this land profitable was to essentially go commercial, which is okay with me.” 

Pontieri said that the traffic counts will go “way up” with the commercial development. She wanted measures now to ease that. 

“The concern relating traffic can be addressed,” Senior Planner Phong Nguyen told the council. “The applicant is aware of the impact to the roadway system. But part of the state statute allows developments to move forward and to mitigate for their impact.” In simpler terms: state law tells developers: plan to build first. Worry about traffic later, as long as money is paid toward traffic improvements. Flagler Landing is expected to generate $4.2 million in development impact fees that will help the city “mitigate” for its impacts on traffic. 

The payments are concurrent with the plans. The construction of the improvements may not be. Pontieri wants to use the leverage of annexation to move up that worry to now, especially with Exhibit A in front of her (and Palm Coast residents): the BJ’s Wholesale property was developed and some turning lanes added, but the state’s plan to widen SR100 to three lanes in each direction still lags. 

Based on the city’s calculations, traffic generated by Flagler Landing would exceed a “cap” by 201 trips in a single peak hour. (The new development would generate an overall increase of between 2,400 and 3,100 daily trips, depending on where you look in documents.) To ease that issue, the development will have a parallel traffic corridor south of SR100 from Airport Commons to Seminole Woods, Nguyen said. But there’s a risk that the corridor will be held hostage to a 200-feet portion by the RaceTrac property, which has resisted allowing a continuous secondary corridor to cross its property. 

“If this council does not look out for the safety of 100 and the traffic of 100 we are going to be in even more dire streets than we are now,” Pontieri said. She is asking for more precise plans from the developer addressing those concerns. Jay Livingston, the land-use attorney representing the developer, did not necessarily reassure Pointieri when he said that traffic analyses show that portion of State Road 100 failing traffic standards, whether or not the project is built. 

“I would be remiss if I did not express my very grave concerns about what this development will do to 100,” Pontieri said. 

“I share this concern,” Livingston said. “I think everybody, even the people working on the project and trying to sell the project, share those concerns, because everybody has to drive on 100, which obviously has gotten congested.” The discussion veered onto turn lanes as a potential help, but the state Department of Transportation would have to approve. “Theer are problems obviously on 100 that need to be addressed. We will do our part,” Livingston assured the council. 

The council had also worried that he developer would invoke the Live Local Act and build affordable housing tracts there. Live Local’s intentions are less onerous than its execution. The law is intended to ease the housing crunch and spur the development of affordable housing. But it allows developers to bypass local oversight, including public participation and transparency before local boards, hampering local governments’ abilities to regulate the developments as they would projects built outside Live Local. 

Live Local was barely an issue during the council discussion as it had been at the planning board last month, based both on the developer’s stated assurance that there would be no residential housing, and on the airport’s proximity, where a new zoning overlay makes residential construction nearby problematic to impossible. 

Second and final reading of the annexation and the rezoning are scheduled for Nov. 4.