- April 26, 2024
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A developer will have more time to develop a gated subdivision of up to 110 homes on a wooded 48.83-acre parcel at the intersection of Mayberry Road and South Old Dixie Highway in southern Flagler County.
The Flagler County Commission on Feb. 15 granted the developer, RJN Design and Development, a five-year-extension to submit a platting request for the first 30 homes f the development, called Paradise Village. But the vote was divided 4-1, with Commissioner Andy Dance dissenting — and both Dance and Commissioner Greg Hansen warned the developer to address area residents' concerns before the project returns to the commission in the future for final approval.
The project, based on a planned unit development first approved in 2011, is on its second 5-year extension.
The developer sought the first in 2016 because of complications with extending utilities to the project: The nearest utility plant, the Plantation Bay utility, had for years drawn resident complaints over water quality problems and had only recently been transferred to the county government, which hoped to fix it.
Now, the county has handed the utility off to the quasi-governmental Florida Governmental Utility Authority, which has improved the water quality, and the developer is interested in moving forward.
There have been some bureaucratic hangups between the developer and the FGUA, county Growth Management Director Adam Mengel said at the meeting, but those will likely be resolved.
As was the case in a Jan. 12 planning board meeting discussion of the proposal — which ultimately ended with the planning board opting to recommend that the County Commission approve the extension — the concerns centered around flooding: Some neighbors fear that the proposed project's impervious surfaces would contribute to drainage problems on their own land.
Resident John Wachter's land abuts the RJN Design property.
"There is an issue with flooding," he said at the Feb. 15 meeting. "There's two retaining ponds on my parcel that fluctuate anywhere from 2 to 4 feet during the rainy season. ... I agree, there's a shortage of housing. I see it in construction; Flagler's booming. ... So I’m not here to stand in the way of progress, but I have legitimate concerns about the flooding of my property."
Attorney Robert Merrell, representing the developer, said the developer will have to meet the St. Johns Water Management District drainage standards.
"The standard essentially says you can’t do anything that has water going off your property any more than it does now," Merrell said.
Dance asked about the size of the project's buffers, including the one adjoining Wachter's land.
Those had not been written into the Planned Unit Development.
Merrell said that the buffers would have to comply with the county's development code.
"Regardless of what it says in [the PUD], I think it kicks to the code, and even better, it's going to kick to me giving him a commitment that we're going to provide a little buffer when we come forward with the plat," Merrell said.
But Dance noted that if the property is sold, the new owner wouldn't be bound by the current owner's unwritten promises.
"If there's discrepancies on the buffer ... it's going to default back to the standard code," Dance said.
The county's required buffer size between two residential parcels is minimal, Mengel said.
Dance proposed making the commission's approval contingent on an enhanced buffer, and on the developer adding to the planned unit development agreement an option for a secondary emergency access road onto Old Dixie Highway.
Other commissioners acknowledged Dance's concerns, but said those issues could be dealt with when the proposal returns to the commission for final site plan approval.
