- December 25, 2024
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A 240-unit apartment complex could be coming to the State Road 100 and Seminole Woods Boulevard intersection.
The Flagler County Commission unanimously approved two applications May 15 for Future Land Use Map and zoning amendments for a 28.32-acre parcel just east of the intersection.
The lot is next to the airport on its south side and a proposed BJ’s Wholesale Club on its east side.
The County Commission approved the applications even though the county’s Planning and Development Board, at its April 11 meeting, recommended that the commission deny them.
Only four planning board members attended the April 11 meeting, but they voted 3-1 against the applications, citing a lack of compatibility with the surrounding area, said Adam Mengel, Flagler County’s growth management director.
“They felt that this wasn’t appropriate,” Mengel said.
The developer — Flagler Pines Properties, LLC — had applied to rezone the lot at 5615 E. State Road 100 from a combined general commercial and shopping center zoning designation to a multifamily residential zoning designation and change the Future Land Use Map designation to residential high density.
The surrounding parcels have a combined land use designation of commercial high density and industrial.
Putting an apartment house there, to me, is not that big a deal as long as it's safe. — David Sullivan, Flagler County Commissioner
Commissioner David Sullivan said at the May 15 meeting that the Planning Board’s recommendation for denial didn’t mean that approving the requests was against the county’s Comprehensive Plan.
He said that people are against spread-out growth, and that the only way to avoid that is to build up.
“This would be an example of that. And it is in a commercial area anyway,” Sullivan said. “So, putting an apartment house there, to me, is not that big a deal as long as it’s safe.”
Flagler Pines Properties is proposing a 240-unit apartment complex.
The units would be divided between eight three-story buildings.
A preliminary design sets the buildings around a large retention pond in the middle of the parcel.
The lot is set back from the south side of S.R. 100, with a run of commercial-zoned parcels separating it from the roadway.
Mengel said that although the applicant is planning for 240 units and has agreed to a density cap of 255 units, county staff members conducts their traffic analyses based on the worst-case scenario of the highest possible density.
For this parcel, that would be a maximum density of 283 units — 10 units per acre on the 28.32 acres — which could house a maximum of 679 people, generating an estimated 1,800 daily trips, according to the staff members’ calculations.
But Jay Livingston, an attorney representing the applicant, said the apartments would be a good fit in the traffic-heavy area because residential areas — even multifamily ones — actually generate less traffic than commercial or industrial areas.
“This is a perfect example of good infill development planning,” he said. “It’s not an appropriate place for single-family houses, but it is a very appropriate place for multifamily.”
Mengel said that the county needs multifamily housing, but most communities do not want apartment complexes across the street from single-family homes.
Livingston said the applicant performed its own traffic impact analyses as well as sound tests to en-sure that the airport is not too loud for a residential area.
The applicant’s traffic impact research compared the proposal to a similar shopping center being built at the BJ’s corner lot, Livingston said.
If the land was developed as retail, he said, the area would see almost 12,800 daily trips, compared to the 1,800 expected from the multifamily residential use.
As for sound, Livingston said, the applicant’s noise study of the area showed that the decibels were under the FAA’s 65-decibel criteria.
Commission Vice Chair Andy Dance had concerns about wetlands on the lot.
The tentative site plan showed the applicant clearing approximately 4 acres of wetlands, Dance said, instead of working with and around the wetlands.
“The one thing that just concerns me is the massive, clear-cutting of this parcel,” Dance said.
While Livingston and his team said the plan is to maintain and preserve wetlands surrounding the lot, Dance noted that early designs do not show an attempt to work with the wetlands, beyond using them as buffers between the neighboring parcels.
Ultimately, Dance said, there is no requirement that his concerns are addressed at this stage in the planning process.
But the proposal’s wetland mitigation plans, he said, will have to meet the standards of the St. Johns River Water Management District’s standards for permitting.
The final development plans for the proposal will also come to the county’s Planning Board and commission for approval.
I think we’re greedy. This just shows greed and I wish we were more sensitive. — Andy Dance, Flagler County Commission Vice Chair
Dance said the concept design is a missed opportunity to create a walkable, interconnected community.
“I think we’re greedy. This just shows greed, and I wish we were more sensitive,” Dance said. “... This is an opportunity that should not go wasted to show Flagler County and Palm Coast what an interconnected, walkable community should look like.”
