- November 14, 2024
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Captain's BBQ, at Bings Landing on Oceanshore Boulevard, will get 800 more feet of outdoor seating, and the county will consider ways to improve the parking lot.
"What it’s going do is eliminate some of the overcrowding on the interior," Flagler County General Services Director Heidi Petito said at a County Commission meeting June 6. "We don’t anticipate any increases to parking or anything of that nature, because, essentially, seating capacity is not changing."
The Flagler County Commission at the June 6 meeting approved the restaurant's request for a lease amendment to allow for a larger porch on the county-owned land.
The porch expansion is expected to cost about $20,000, and the restaurant has planned an additional $60,000 in seating and flooring improvements. The restaurant is paying for those changes.
The porch proposal wasn't without opposition. Lorene Schober, representing the Hammock Community Association, said the association did not agree with the expansion.
"This is a public park," she said. "It’s unfair to the people who can’t find parking spaces."
Very often, Schober said, "There’s traffic parked all the way up and down A1A. It's a hazard. ... It's an accident waiting to happen." She asked the commission to table the matter until a future meeting, saying the HCA hadn't had an opportunity to study it.
Commissioner Barbara Revels said she didn't object to delaying the vote until parking issues could be worked out.
But parking is a separate issue from the restaurant's proposal, County Administrator Craig Coffey said, because the construction on the restaurant won't affect its capacity. And studying parking, he said, could take county staff several months.
Several people, including Flagler Chamber President Rebecca DeLorenzo, spoke in favor of the restaurant.
"The fact that we have a successsful business that's willing to upgrade and expand is good news," DeLorenzo said. She asked the commission to approve the proposed changes.
Resident George Mayo agreed.
"It doesn’t really seem like an expansion; they’re just shifting their tables around," he said. "Yes, there is a problem with parking. … That’s probably the county’s problem, and I don’t think that (the restaurant) should suffer."
County Commissioner Frank Meeker agreed that Bings has a parking problem.
"I don’t think we have an effective utilization of space out there, particularly the center aisle," he said.
Meeker said the space could probably support three, not two, rows of parking, if the space were more strategically used. As things are, he said, it's "really hard to park on the south side and get back out."
Petito said she agreed with Meeker about parking. One improvement, she said, might come from moving a bicycle maintenance station from Bings to another nearby location, opening up some space.
Meeker proposed approving the Captain's BBQ porch expansion request, while simultaneously asking county staff to return to the commission with a new parking plan within three months.
Schober objected. "If you agree on this now, they’re going to come back later and want more," she said.
But the commission agreed with Meeker, and his motion passed unanimously.
Captain's BBQ pays $7,920 a year in rent to the county (or $660 per month plus state sales tax), with scheduled increases of $480 per year, according to county documents. The porch expansion proposal wouldn't affect the rent.
