Developer Lowers Total to 2,400 Houses as Flagler Beach Ponders
The developer of Veranda Bay is willing to lower the number of housing units to be built, from 2,735 to 2,400. It's still a distance from where two Flagler Beach city commissioners want the number: from 1,800 to the "lower end of 2,000." But it's not an unbridgeable divide between the city and the developer, who is also willing to increase commercial acreage to 600,000 square feet. "The more rooftops you have, the more successful your commercial can ultimately be, because there's more people, and when there's more people, you attract more commercial," Ken Belshe, the developer with Sunbelt Land Management, said. "I understand that there is an outcry from the people living south down there. I do get that, and I know that it would help ease everybody's concerns if we were to reduce it down a little bit."
Veranda Bay is proposed housing and commercial project on John Anderson Highway that Flagler Beach is considering annexing, and that would double the city's size by the time it's built out in a few decades. Annexation is contingent on both sides agreeing to a substantial number of conditions that would be part of the "master-planned development"–a development that may diverge from city code, giving the city authority to impose conditions and the developer to build at higher densities.
Veranda Bay has navigated between controversies since it was revived as a county development in 2019 as The Gardens, after it had been planned under Bobby Ginn before the housing crash, in 2005, as a development of 453 housing units and a golf community. The golf courses are gone. The county vested the 453 units. But Flagler Beach has been eager to annex the property for fear that Palm Coast would do so, and allow more dense development on Flagler Beach's rim. Belshe had until last week consistently projected a project at 2,735 houses, town homes and apartment units. Belshe and Flagler Beach have been negotiating the details of the proposed annexation for months. Last Thursday, the two sides came down to negotiating housing units, because a majority of commissioners were uneasy with Belshe's number, reflecting the same discomfort among residents who have repeatedly addressed the commission on the matter.
Commissioner James Sherman's "ideal" figure is 1,800, split between 900 single-family homes and 900 higher-density homes such as town houses and apartments. Commissioner Eric Cooley has consistently been pushing for lower housing totals and higher commercial space. But he did not provide a number more precise than "the lower end of 2000."
"If you are going to potentially double the size of the city, then you need to double the size of the quality life amenities," Cooley said. "I would not want to bring in a subdivision the size of the city that I consider to be on the low side of commercial or quality life amenities–features, benefits, things that you know are going to benefit the city." He wants the end result to balance out commercial amenities between the island and Veranda Bay, giving residents from either side equal reason to cross the bridge in both directions. Commissioner Jane Mealy did not have a number. Commissioner Rick Belhumeur supports Belshe's original figure. "Clipping their wings too much, I don't know that that's going to help us in the end," he said. He's attracted to Veranda Bay as a source of immense tax revenue. "Here we finally get a really good source of revenue," he said. "They just had an open house in one of their houses over there. It's probably $1.4 million house or so. So that's just one house. So start adding them up. It's it's going to help the people that live here now that are paying taxes now, and minimize these perpetual tax increases that we've had."
Cooley was quick to correct Belhumeur: "The old adage of growth pays for itself has been debunked so many times over in the last 20 years," he said. "So saying that future developments going to save the citizens money on their taxes, I would categorically disagree with. I would also disagree with the statement that we're clipping anybody's Wings." As did Commission Chair Scott Spradley. This was a negotiation, he said, and this was the time to ask the developer for what would best benefit the city. He was "still developing a level of comfort" with the numbers.
By lowering his housing total to 2,400 and raising the commercial square footage, Belshe made it more difficult for commissioners to oppose him or paint him as intransigeant, especially with Cooley's and Sherman's insistence on more commercial space. Cooley called it "a good first step."
"I'm really thrilled that we're heading in the direction we're heading," Mayor Patti King said. The other major dividing line is the so-called "spine road" that will cut through Veranda Bay to State Road 100, alleviating traffic on John Anderson. The commission wants the spine road built sooner than later. They proposed starting the spine road starting as a sub-standard road as long as it can carry construction traffic away from John Anderson Highway, to State Road 1000, without requiring the developer to have it all built to standard by the time the 600th house is occupied.
The development would dedicate small acreage for three parks, but the city is not committed to building the parks. "Why is the city building the parks?" Coley said. "2,700 homes, shouldn't you build a couple of parks?" But the developer will be paying park impact fees for just that purpose. If the developer were to build the parks, the city would have to credit him the park impact fees.
Commissioners are also want to ensure that flooding will not be an issue, or at least "find a way to limit the flooding," as Commissioner Jane Mealy put it, and got into the details of what type of construction may be necessary to prevent in-house flooding. Belshe said federal and state regulators "will not let us do what they used to allow developers to do, which is develop in a flood plain without compensatory storage," meaning that every "cup" of displaced water must have storage built on site. Home designs are such for the development that they will reduce the need for compensatory storage.
Mealy isn't confident in whatever regulations may be issued by the St. Johns Rover Water Management District. "if we could just put some language about flooding, then I think we'd be happy," she said. Belshe had no objection. King wanted hardwoods in general not just oaks, protected to the extent possible (a "non-committal verbiage" that didn't work for Cooley), though the proposed diameter for trees that would be protected is a large 36 inches. "Maybe we can discuss the number coming down a bit," Spradley said, while firming up language on protection. Commissioners were also taken aback by the size of signs marking entry points into Veranda Bay. With one exception, the signs will shrink in size.
The development had committed to a minimum of 25-foot buffers along its boundaries: the word "voluntary" will be removed from the agreement. There are also discrepancies between lot sizes and setbacks in the proposed development as opposed to the city's code. For example, minimum setbacks in the city code is 25 feet, but Veranda Bay's would be 15. Minimum lot sizes in the city is 5,000 square feet. In Veranda Bay, it's 4,000. And so on. "It's like we're squeezing a whole lot of houses into smaller" spaces, Mealy said.
"Allowing clustering development, that really is what allows more open space," City Planner Lupita McClenning said. As a master-planned development, Veranda Bay may diverge from city code in such regards. "The expectation is you will see planned developments that deviate from your traditional lot standards," City Attorney Drews Smith said. "It does not mean that that every developer that comes in the door, you have to agree how they want to with how they want to do it. That's what this process is for." Steve Dalley, a resident, took issue with the master-planned approach: "We're not we're not growing Flagler Beach. We're building a town that's going to be part of Flagler Beach," he told the commission. "So all these things, whether it's the trees and all the other stuff, it's going to look way different. It's going to feel way different. It's not going to be Flagler Beach anymore. So in essence, you want to double the size. I've been to places where they quadrupled the size. The cost went up, services went down. Quality of life sucked." Another resident spoke likewise.
Irwin Connelly had a more targeted suggestion: "Open space is not necessarily parks. It's not necessarily conservation lands," he said. "It sounds like an open space, but that that includes every thing that doesn't have a building on it. So if there's going to be a negotiation and the number of residential units are lowered, somewhere in that trade off should be an expansion of true open spaces, true green spaces, either parks, conservation or whatever, not just moving buildings around the different buildings. That's, I think, the biggest problem everybody has about the density and numbers, is how much true open space."
