- November 25, 2024
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The developer who had proposed to build 120 condo units at the Palm Harbor Golf Club has changed the plan to 50 town homes, after listening to residents’ concerns, according to the city of Palm Coast’s chief development officer, Jason DeLorenzo.
At least one member of Protect Palm Coast, Lou Vitale, is still not satisfied.
“It’s not good to have the golf course rezoned and have any residential property on it,” he said. He believes this is the first step to developing on the golf course itself — a claim that Mayor Milissa Holland said isn’t true.
In fact, Holland said on “Free For All Friday” on Dec. 6 that she hasn’t heard any conversations even hinting at developing the golf course and, on the contrary, she is interested in preserving the city’s amenities, including the golf course.
Another announcement was made on the radio show: The Palm Harbor development will not be discussed at the city’s Dec. 18 Planning and Land Development Regulation Board meeting, as was previously planned. Instead, it will be delayed till the agenda in February, City Manager Matt Morton said.
The proposed rezoning would result in the golf course becoming a master planned development, or MPD. The land comprises 165 acres, 17 of which are owned by JDI, the city of Palm Coast owning the rest.
Each acre has an entitlement to build one home, DeLorenzo said. Therefore, JDI is only entitled to build 17 homes as of today. But, those homes could be built right on the driving range, and the city wants to preserve the driving range for the sake of the overall health of the golf course, which hosts as many as 50,000 rounds of golf per year.
In exchange for ownership of the driving range, the city of Palm Coast is in negotiations to give up some of its entitlements to build homes. That’s not a great sacrifice, because the city isn’t interested in seeing homes on the golf course land anyway, DeLorenzo said.
With the 17 entitlements it already owns on its 17 acres, JDI, if it acquires an additional 33 entitlements from the city, could build the proposed 50 town homes on the same 17-acre property.
Could the city then sell the golf course to a developer, as Vitale and others at Protect Palm Coast fear? Yes, DeLorenzo said, but it’s no more likely to happen after the rezoning than it was before the rezoning. Technically, the city always could have sold the golf course land to someone wanting to build with the entitlements, unless the City Council were to vote to extinguish its own entitlements. But, as Holland stated, the city wants to preserve the golf course, not sell it to a developer.
JDI’s plan of 50 town homes would be built in clusters of three or four. That means there could be 12 to 15 smaller clusters, rather than five larger buildings, allowing more flexibility for fitting them in the property and avoiding historic and specimen trees.
Town homes were also chosen because they are “more compatible” with the single-family neighborhood, DeLorenzo said.
When asked why JDI chose to change the proposal, DeLorenzo said that, generally, “If there’s a lot of community pushback for something, and you don’t think you can get it past the elected officials, you make a new plan.”
The current plan, submitted just before Thanksgiving, would still deliver the golf course driving range from JDI to city ownership. That benefits both JDI and the city, DeLorenzo said. The city won’t have to live in fear that the developer will take the driving range away and build something on it; and the developer no longer is liable for an injury or other accident on the driving range property.
Vitale, who has lived in Palm Coast for one year, wants none of it. After seeing the unrelated proposal by another developer to build homes on another golf course — Matanzas Woods — he feels that it’s even more important to send a message to the City Council that many residents aren’t interested in seeing this land developed.
Residents over 60 years old “do not like what’s happening,” Vitale said, adding that those who are negotiating the changes are “not at all respectful to the older crowd.”
He continued: “Protect Palm Coast is initially about Palm Harbor, but I’m now seeing that I need to organize all of Palm Coast.”
