- October 28, 2024
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The zoning and existing special exceptions for a 0.9-acre parcel along State Road A1A in northern Flagler County, called the Hammock Business Park LLC, allows professional offices for architects, attorneys, financial planners, engineers and various medical and dental offices. Those uses were approved in 2017.
But the owners had to come before the county's Planning and Development Board on Feb. 9 for permission to expand the permitted uses to include a pharmacy, retail boutique, travel agency, art gallery, barber shop, or classes for pottery, martial arts or dance, and the fact that such a minor change required planning board approval prompted discussion of whether the county's Land Development Code is due for an update.
The property is in residential-commercial, or RC, zoning district, in which any uses other than single-family homes require a special exception application.
"The RC zoning district has this zoning control with the individual special exception uses, which makes sense when you're building a new facility or expanding beyond the existing parking lot, septic tank," attorney Jay Livingston said at the meeting, representing the applicant. "But what the property owners run into is, you have tenants and then you lose one, and then if the next tenant that you can get in doesn't match up with what's already approved by the special exception, it becomes very difficult to place tenants."
For the parcel on A1A, the owners were seeking permission only for uses that wouldn't require expanding the site's parking or septic capacity, Livingston said.
Planning Board member Michael Goodman sat out the vote on the matter because he's a co-owner of the land.
Board member Mark Langello asked if future development on the site would need to come back before the planning board if it did require additional parking. Mengel answered that it would.
"Anticipating an eventual rewrite of the Land Development Code," Livingston said, "I think the more likely scenario would be, once the Land Development Code is updated … there's going to be probably a lot more thought into the Hammock portion of the code than in other areas, because there are so many different issues that have to be dealt with. It’s possible at that point that entire area might be consolidated into a single zoning district and redeveloped."
Langello said that there are benefits to allowing a number of uses on one parcel.
"Every time someone wants to tear down trees and put a new business in, the neighbors get in an uproar. Well, this one is developed, and it would be good to encourage its use for this purpose."
— MARK LANGELLO, planning board member
"I kind of look at this as a prime example of a lot that probably needs more uses on it," Langello said. "The trees have already been taken down for the most part, it's already got the curb cut, it's established as a business. Every time someone wants to tear down trees and put a new business in, the neighbors get in an uproar. Well, this one is developed, and it would be good to encourage its use for this purpose."
Chairman Anthony Lombardo asked why all of the uses considered for the property hadn't been approved in the earlier, 2017 process.
Mengel said the county had been encouraging applicants to be conservative in their applications, but is rethinking that approach.
Goodman noted that the planning board has had to deal with three or four of these kinds of applications in recent years.
"Wouldn’t it be better to make the code that these items are allowed, and it’s restricted by parking requirements and septic requirements, like everything else?" he said. "It doesn't seem fair to put more burden on developers or business people to come for a special exception. The is something that should be right in the code: These are the things that are allowed as long as you meet these requirements for parking ... for septic."
Mengel said that requiring a special exception application for commercial uses in the residential-commercial zoning district, bu broadening the special exception to include more uses, might be a workable approach.
