- November 19, 2024
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The language of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection proposal is enticing: Imagine, it says, coming to Flagler County and staying in a cottage on the banks of a river, where you can “grill by the water’s edge or try your luck fishing” or “sit in a remarkable coastal oak hammock … and let the deer, birds, and other wildlife welcome you to a new level of serenity.”
The Flagler County Commission can imagine it, and in a Monday workshop authorized County Administrator Craig Coffey to move forward with researching a plan to add small, environmentally friendly cottages at Princess Place Preserve and the River to Sea Park.
The project would start small, with three cottages at Princess Place constructed in part to house researchers from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which would contribute $330,000 in grant money for the Princess Place cottages and receive reduced rates on rentals for up to 140 days per year.
Another $60,000 of the estimated $390,000 required for the first three cabins would come from passive park funds the county has set aside from developer contributions and conservation easements.
If the three two-bedroom cottages were successful, more could be added at Princess Place — up to nine — and also at the River to the Sea Park, serving visiting scientists from universities and research institutes as well as tourists.
“We don’t have the Daytona 500, we don’t have the Super Bowl, and we aren’t Las Vegas,” County Administrator Craig Coffey said. “So this kind of looks at what we could do.”
The cottages, renting out at an average rate of $85 to non-FDEP employees, would be simple, but not rustic: they’d have cable, high-speed Internet and kitchenettes with dishwashers.
They would be based loosely on the eco-friendly mass-produced “Katrina Cottages” developed for people who lost homes after Hurricane Katrina, but the design and construction would be completed locally.
“I think we can take the concept, take it to a local architect, and have them come up with several models,” Coffey said.
Promotional material in the cottages would direct visitors to local guides for fishing, horseback riding, canoeing and other outings.
Commission Vice Chairman Frank Meeker said he wants to make sure the county maximizes the cabins’ potential to bring in tourists, and not just Florida DEP researchers coming in with reduced rates.
“My concern is that we retain, as much as possible, the peak periods — spring break, Speed Week and all that — so you can maximize your rentals coming in,” he said. “I’m a little concerned that we might be giving away too many of those days.”
Matanzas Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon said that kind of tourism can help spur interest in the environment in people who wouldn’t otherwise care about it.
“I think it’s hard for people to care about resources if they don’t know them, so this is a way for people to learn about something, and care about it,” he said at the workshop. “The Matanzas is one of the greatest estuaries on this planet, and the Matanzas River is one of the cleanest, the healthiest in this state.”
Researchers from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, the University of Florida, Florida Atlantic University, and the University of North Florida have all expressed interest in using the cottages as a base for environmental field research.
“We’ve been promoting nature-based tourism for 20 years here, and this is in line with what we want to do,” Commission Chairman George Hanns said. “If we’re playing poker here, I’m in.”
