- January 20, 2025
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To alleviate heavy traffic that's prompted resident complaints on residential Florida Park Drive, the Palm Coast City Council voted late last year to ban certain types of heavy trucks from the street. That has been enforced by the Sheriff's Office since Feb. 21, according to a city presentation.
"We're going to look at all options, see if something should be done to make it safer and better for users of that roadway."
— CARL COTE, Palm Coast city construction manager
But the city is also now looking at other options, including a landscaping grant program to help residents create a vegetative noise buffer on their own properties, as well as additional city landscaping on the street, city staff said during a City Council workshop March 10.
"We're going to look at all options, see if something should be done to make it safer and better for users of that roadway," said Carl Cote, the city's construction manager.
The city hopes to have the resident landscape grant program ready for applications in summer and for construction next winter, Cote said, and to prepare design options for potential city landscaping projects this year.
"Our landscape architect is working very hard on getting those ideas together," City Manager Matt Morton said.
The city is now starting to see the effects of its efforts to reroute truck traffic away from the street and to notify mapping app companies not to direct traffic onto the street as a cut-through, Morton said.
Mayor Milissa Holland said she'd like staff to create a timeline for the work, so that it continues moving forward.
Traffic on the street has been a subject of City Council concern for years, and a city government-led community meeting about traffic issues there brought out more than 70 people from 58 households on Jan. 29.
Residents at the meeting expressed concerns about the location of a stop bar at Palm Harbor Parkway and Palm Coast Parkway, and about a poor asphalt patch at 141 Florida Park Drive. Some also requested a flashing light at the entrance to Holland Park.
Cote addressed those concerns during the March 10 workshop, saying that the city will adjust the stop bar and inspect the asphalt patch to determine if changes are needed, and will look into the feasibility and cost of adding a flashing light for Holland Park.
