- November 16, 2024
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Two of Flagler County’s most pristine natural locations will house a small collection of cottages built to give researchers a place to work and vacationers a place to play.
The Flagler County Commission voted 4-0 at a special meeting held after a County Commission workshop June 15 to approve proposals to build 10 cottages at the River-to-Sea Preserve and three at Princess Place, with an additional six Princess Place cottages on the table for later consideration.
“Our goal is research second to none happening in the Pellicer,” said Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve Director Mike Shirely said at the workshop before the vote. “It’s going to be a very well-studied area if we have our goal.”
Both sites are valuable to researchers seeking good-condition estuary environments to study, County Administrator Craig Coffey said.
“Very rarely do they get an estuary that’s intact,” he said. “This has some manmade stuff, but in the scope of things it’s still a good environment that’s close to the coast … they probably feel that’s a good environment to study over a longer period of time.”
Several people showed up for the meeting’s public comment period, expressing concern about the proximity of the Princess Place cottages, which will require septic tanks, to the water.
Volusia Flagler Sierra Club member Linda Carlton said she was “not totally against” the proposed Princess Place cabins, but worried about their environmental impact.
“I just went there last week for the first time, and it was beautiful, I love it,” she said. “Why do they have to be built so close to the water?”
Three other commenters also suggested the board look at other locations within the preserve that were further from water. Commissioner Frank Meeker, addressing their concerns at the close of the meeting, said the environmental impact of the cabins was no greater at their proposed waterfront spots than at other places in the preserve, and the waterfront spots offered “a prettier view.”
The cottages, designed by Flagler Beach architect Joseph Pozzuoli, would provide quarters for visiting researchers from the GTMNERR, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the University of Florida Whitney Lab, with a certain number of rental days set aside yearly for researchers at preferred rates, and the rest available to the public.
Money for the cottages will come from grant money, donations and cottage adoptions and a loan from the county’s passive park fund, Coffey said, and will not come from ad valorem taxes.
