- April 18, 2024
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The Flagler County Board of County Commissioners voted at its regular Monday evening meeting to approve new construction in Hunter’s Ridge despite the opposition of dozens of homeowners from the area who showed up to oppose it.
The measures, supported by county staff, would allow for the construction of townhomes residents said could affect their property value. Residents said they had not been made aware of proposed changes, and asked the board to delay their decision.
The planned population density of the area would not actually change, because the amendments increase the number of detached homes at Huntington Lakes but reduce the number of units at Huntington Townhomes.
But Hunter’s Ridge residents called the proposed construction “high density housing” that would be out of character for the neighborhood, and there were groans from the audience when Scott Simpson, an attorney representing TP Investments, said prices for the homes would start at about $300,000.
Mengel said the planned construction involves two homes or less per acre and is not high density.
The proposed plan for Hunter’s Ridge would also leave the Hunters Ridge Homeowners Association responsible, at least temporarily, for road maintenance costs in the community, a situation some residents said was unfair because the community isn’t gated and they do not control over who enters.
“We have no control over the use of roads, and we should not be forced to own them,” homeowners association member Peggy Farmer said. “An 18-wheeler just came by my house today. You just don’t have control.”
Mengel said the residents’ concerns were understandable, but didn’t meet the evidence threshold that would be required for the board to delay a vote or oppose the amendments to the development agreements.
“While I certainly empathize with the comments that have been made, much of them are of the nature of, ‘I don’t like it, and because of that I‘m opposed to it,’” he said. “That doesn’t rise sufficiently to the level, unfortunately, of what you have to determine as part of a quasi-judicial proceeding.”
