- April 25, 2024
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Despite opposition from frustrated neighbors, Flagler County's Land Development Regulation Board voted in favor of a proposed storage facility near Hunter's Ridge at an April 12 meeting.
"We don't have the ability just to say, 'You can't do it,' just because we don't like it."
— MARK LANGELLO, planning board member
The board's decision in favor of the storage facility's site development plan isn't binding: It's a recommendation to the County Commission, which will hear the proposal next.
The planning board's members said they found no legal grounds on which to vote against the proposed storage facility, which would have 64 outdoor parking spots for boats or recreational vehicles, plus an air conditioned, three-story building with 102,000 square feet of indoor storage, south of Airport Road and north of Ashford Lakes Drive.
The land on which it will be constructed is already zoned for light industrial use, and a storage facility is a permitted use in industrial zoning.
Hunters Ridge residents had attended the meeting to tell the board that they believed the storage facility would bring traffic and crime that would lower their quality of life and endanger their children.
"When my husband and I moved to Flagler County, we moved here in hopes of a safe and nurturing environment," said Ormond Beach resident Mallory Cone. "And I think you can all agree with me when I say a three-story storage unit is not a nurturing environment. I hope that you guys can see that this is not what we need in our community."
She added that she had two young children who play outside.
But board members and county staff pointed out that the area does have a sidewalk, and, under its current zoning, could be used for things that would generate much more traffic than would a storage facility.
"What a lot of people are asking us to do ... is to, in effect, ignore the zoning," board member Mark Langello said. "Let's say in some world we do not pass this. There may be something industrial put on here that is even more traffic, more noise. It isn't ... we deny it and then it's going to be birds and frogs."
Langello suggested some ways the county could push the developer to make the storage facility less intrusive for the neighborhood — for instance, by adding a high fence and vegetated buffers.
"Is there any other element of this application does not meet our Land Development Code?" he asked County Growth Management Director Adam Mengel.
"Quick answer: No," Mengel said.
Mengel noted that there is a buffering conservation area present, and that, as Langello had said, there is "a range of potentially more noxious uses" under the current light industrial zoning.
The county, he added, could add requirements limiting the facility's hours of operation and setting restrictions on the lighting.
Assistant county attorney Sean Moylan said that locals who'd asked the county to deny the storage facility's site development plan misunderstood the board's role.
"The planning board here tonight is making a recommendation; it's not a final approval," he said.
He added that the developer has rights to the land.
"This is something that is vested," Moylan said. "... It's already on the books, and they're just coming in now to actually build. ... If we were to deny it, the landowner would then have a claim against the county for denying them due process of developing their own land."
