- April 25, 2024
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Could Flagler Beach, one day, end up with a strip club next to a church? Maybe, if the City Commission approves zoning ordinance changes commissioners asked staff to draw up at Thursday’s commission meeting.
The issue revolves around one church — Calvary Chapel — that has outgrown its location at 204 State Road 100.
Pastor Mark Conroy wants to move into Flagler Plaza, but that’s zoned highway commercial, the zoning area that permits bars and adult establishments, and — under Flagler Beach’s current zoning ordinance — not churches and nonprofits.
Conroy asked the commission to remove that restriction or grant an exception.
Commission Chairwoman Kim Carney asked him if he’d mind a strip club or a bar moving in next to his proposed new church. “I’m not hoping that we get a strip club or a bar,” she said, to laughter from the audience, “but we have to legally allow them. So I just wanted to clarify that.”
“With regard to the strip clubs we would consider it a wonderful, welcome mission field,” Conroy said. A bar wouldn’t be a problem either, he said.
The commission directed staff to draft revisions to the zoning ordinance that remove the restriction on religious and nonreligious nonprofits in both commercial and highway commercial zones.
In the case of Calvary Chapel, if the church moves into Flagler Plaza, it might actually space out adult establishments that could otherwise move there.
The city requires buffer zones between churches and businesses like bars, and in Flagler Plaza, the remaining room would be “kind of over in that pond with the alligators,” Commissioner Marshall Shupe said.
Florida law requires municipalities to zone some land to permit adult entertainment establishments, but cities don’t have to actually provide space for them if other businesses or organizations get there first.
Staff will draft the changes to the zoning ordinance and present them at a city PAR board meeting.
The ordinance will be returned to the City Commission for a vote sometime in May.
