A year and a half ago, a brief exchange between a Flagler Beach Planning Board member and Roderick Palmer, the pastor of Coastal Family Church, all but anticipated the lawsuit Palmer has been battling since January.
The board member had asked Palmer explicitly, twice, if he had permission from the shopping center’s property association to run a church at Flagler Square. Roderick was non-committal, saying neither yes or no, even as the board member suggested that such permission would be required. It wasn’t enough that the city was granting a special exception to its zoning rules to allow the church to operate there. Property associations may and do set their own rules, as they had at Flagler Square.
The board member was right, though the Planning Board let the unanswered question slide: it ultimately wasn’t its problem. It became Palmer’s.
On Jan. 22, Flagler County Circuit Judge Sandra Upchurch granted a temporary injunction to Flagler Square Jax, the company that owns two of the three units at the Flagler Beach shopping center at the western foot of the bridge, halting services there by Coastal Family Church, which has about 400 members. Palmer appealed to the Fifth District Court of Appeal.
The church says its First Amendment rights to assembly and religious expression are being infringed. Flagler Square says it has nothing to do with that but with restrictive covenants that run with the property. One of those restrictions prohibits public assemblies.
On Friday, Palmer’s attorneys, the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, filed their latest brief with the Fifth District, again arguing for the court to vacate the temporary injunction order on First Amendment grounds.
It is not uncommon for malls to have covenants that prohibit religious organizations–churches, mosques, temples–from holding services there as religious organizations can both significantly diminish customer traffic when not in session and jam parking lots the few times during the week when they are in session.
Coastal Family Church occupies an 18,000-square-foot space, the largest in the shopping center, with a capacity for 2,401 people, according to the Flagler Beach Fire Department. It used to be Badcock Furniture store, and before that–and many years when it stood empty–a Food Lion.
In pleadings to the trial court in Flagler County and to the Fifth District, Palmer has referred to the fact that “Prior to this lawsuit, the Flagler Beach City Commission approved a special exception allowing Coastal Family Church to operate as a church” at the unit, which is numbered 2501-A Moody Boulevard.
That is true. At the Dec. 12, 2024 City Commission meeting, Lupita McClenning, the city’s planning director, made the presentation about the church’s request and listed the conditions for the special exception. The commissioners had no discussion, no questions, no public comment. The vote was unanimous to approve.
The pleadings don’t mention the exchange that took place between Palmer and a Planning and Architecture Review Board member less than two weeks earlier, where the special exception had first sought approval in the regulatory process. The planning board granted it, also with unanimity. But unlike the City Commission, the Planning Board was more probing.
Brenda Wotherspoon, one of the board members at the time—she has since stepped down–repeatedly complimented the church as one of its favorite buildings on the barrier island, calling it “impeccably maintained.” But she had pointed questions for Palmer that now appear prescient, at least for Flagler Square’s case.
“The Flagler County Property Appraiser website shows that as a condo, the 2501A space,” Wotherspoon said. “Have you cleared that, has the church cleared [it] to be a meeting space in that condo association?”
At first Palmer thought Wotherspoon was referring to the church’s existing building on the island. Wotherspoon clarified and again asked: “Yes, the new one is in a condo association. I was just wondering if it’s been cleared, that the church as a meeting space is available or able to be within the condo, the shopping plaza.”
Palmer did not say it had. He had not checked. “I’m just presuming that the mailers and the–that it would draw attention to them to make comment,” he said. “And so I’ve leaned on that, that the mailer and the newspaper adverts is what I’ve kind of leant towards getting, giving them the information in that area, that we intend to go there.”
There had been no direct contact with Flagler Square. The minutes of the meeting said: “no contact with condo association at proposed new location.” (The meeting is incorrectly marked as a Dec. 14 meeting on the city’s YouTube channel. It took place on Dec. 3.) The church had not yet bought the Flagler Square property. It did so on July 25, 2025, though it held events there before that. A Dollar Tree Store leases and occupies Unit 2. Smaller businesses, including a Tax Collector branch, occupy the rest.
Wotherspoon’s questions dovetailed with arguments David Black, an attorney representing Flagler Square Jax, made to Upchurch, the judge, at the trial court hearing in January: “There exists a recorded declaration, which applies to the entirety of the property,” Black told the judge. All occupants of the units are bound by the declaration. “The declaration provides for a covenant that runs with the land, which we all know from going back to law school, that controls, and that controls regardless of who’s in possession, whether there’s a tenant, a subsequent tenant, et cetera. And the reason you have that is because you have an integrated use of these commercial properties that have certain restrictions within it. And it’s a binding document upon everybody, the entire association.”
One of those restrictions is a prohibition on public assemblies.
The church argues that the restriction was applied capriciously and discriminatorily, while the terms “public assemblies” were vague or poorly defined. Court documents nevertheless detail to what extent the church had been made aware of the restrictions before it bought the unit.
“We have a LOI with a local Church that is interested in buying the location,” Jason Pate wrote a real estate broker in late November 2024, days before Palmer’s appearance before the Planning Board. An LOI is a letter of intent. “Chuck wanted me to reach out and see what we needed to do from the association standpoint to facilitate that and make sure there were no issues if we move forward.”
“While we desire to have the financial obligation you guys have regarding the Flagler Square store removed from your portfolio,” Donald Rosenthal, the broker, replied, “unfortunately the documents that govern the center strictly prohibit the space to be used for a church or any type of public assembly.”
As Coastal Church started using the property before buying it in the spring of 2025, Black, who would end up appearing before Judge Upchurch, wrote the firm involved in the sale to Coastal: “Demand is hereby made that you immediately take all steps to have whoever you are allowing to use the Property, whether you have sold the Property to them, or allow them to use the Property under some sort of license or lease agreement, cease-and-desist from what they are doing. Not only is this a direct violation of the Declaration, but it also has serious consequences on the remainder of Flagler Square (the ‘Shopping Center’) and the future planned development of the adjacent [outparcel].”
The letter continues: “What is particularly disturbing to our client is the circumstances and deceit which has led to this situation. Specifically, your broker contacted our client on November 18, 2024 indicating that a church was interested in buying the property specifically stating we want ‘to make sure there were no issues if we move forward’. Our client specifically responded and advised your broker on November 20, 2024, that a church or place of public assembly was not permitted by the Declaration. That should have been the end of your attempt to allow the church to use Property.”
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