- October 10, 2024
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The Palm Coast City Council will allow a development in the recently annexed 62 acres along south Old Kings Road to have a maximum of 210 homes, down from the 232 units Flagler County approved in 2005.
The land was annexed into Palm Coast from Flagler County at a Sept. 19 council meeting, and the developer, Geosam Capital Florida, LLC, submitted an application to amend the property’s zoning and land use for a proposed residential development called Old Kings Village. The council voted 5-0 to approve the land use amendment and 4-1 to approve the zoning application, with council member Theresa Carli Pontieri dissenting, at an Oct. 17 City Council meeting.
The amendments will limit the housing units to 210 single-family homes and 30,000 square feet of general commercial use.
Because the property was annexed into Palm Coast, both the zoning and the land use must be adjusted from the county's land use and zoning designations to the city's compatible land use and zoning designations.
The council must vote on the amendments once more after the land use changes are approved by the state, city planner Bill Hoover said.
Residents of the Flagler Beach Polo Club West, which borders the development’s east side, expressed concern about an apparent lack of appropriate fencing buffer to protect their privacy and security.
“We have two children, so we are very concerned,” Polo Club resident Bonnie Spillers said.
Hoover said Geosam has apparently allowed for a 20- to 35-foot-wide buffer of a mixed landscape and swale along Secretariat Lane.
Polo Club residents said that buffer was not enough. They requested a wall or trees to separate the property from Secretariat Lane.
The details of landscaping and buffers, however, will not be finalized until later on in the approval process, Deputy Chief Development Officer Ray Tyner said.
Attorney Michael Chiumento, representing the Geosam, said he is working with a lawyer hired by Polo Club residents to review the buffer and other concerns Polo Club West residents have.
Pontieri said she disagreed with using a zoning designation of Commercial-2 for the 2 acres of commercial use on the property, saying that would be too intense for what is essentially a neighborhood.
“I do think that [Commercial-1] would be much more appropriate for this specific area in this specific development,” she said. “[Commercial-2] is going to create more trips, it's going to create more traffic … than [Commercial-1].”
Tyner said the Commercial-1 designation is the least-intensive commercial use, calling it more of a “neighborhood use.” Geosam, however, applied for a Commercial-2 zoning, Tyner said, and when city staff analyzed the usage, they found that was also compatible with the area.
In the Flagler County zoning for commercial use, the county built in restrictions against certain types of commercial businesses being built on that lot. Tyner said that since the zoning is changing to a city zoning designation, those built-in restrictions are going away, and any new restrictions must be worked out between the applicant's and the residents' lawyers.
Pontieri asked the applicant to work with staff to consider changing to the Commercial-1 designation before the proposals returned to the council for a second vote.
While all of the other council members voted yes on both proposals, council members Cathy Heighter and Nick Klufas said that the applicant should continue working with the Polo Club residents and their lawyer to resolve any concerns.
“I do have to say that sometimes we have to put ourselves in the other people's position,” Heighter said. “I think that the applicant should maybe try to work with them a little bit closer and a little bit more.”
