- November 20, 2024
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Volusia County Council recently approved agreements with a developer to extend Hand Avenue west from Ormond Beach, with a bridge construction over eight lanes of Interstate 95 and a second new bridge over the Tomoka River. The road and bridges will lead to Avalon Park in Daytona Beach, 7,878 planned homes with one million square feet of commercial space. With no cost estimate, the council approved funding for a project that could exceed $100 million, an educated guess based on recently announced estimates for other I-95 road projects.
The county engineer reported, after two years of talks with the developer, “Our one obligation is the funding the bridges.” Additional financial support will be requested from the state of Florida, the federal government, and the developer. The county funding obligation includes acquisition of a missing segment of right of way between I-95 and the Tomoka River.
After the fact, Volusia County will now add the Hand Avenue extension and the two costly bridges to its (1) comprehensive plan, (2) capital improvement plan, and (3) 5-year road plan, while (4) trying to get the approved project back on the Transportation Planning Organization list. (Dropped in May 2018) A road project that was not a priority suddenly became a priority.
Elected officials continue to perpetuate the urban myth that the Hand Avenue extension is needed to reduce Granada Boulevard/State Road 40 traffic. But the proposed alternate route will not divert or relieve traffic accessing Walmart, Publix, Towne Square, Lowes, Aldi’s, dozens of restaurants, the library, City Hall, The Casements, and the beach. East of Nova Road, Hand Avenue is a two-lane residential street with a 25 mph speed limit.
Constructing a highway bridge over the Tomoka River will permanently damage the environment. In 1995, the St. Johns River Water Management District designated the Tomoka River a Florida Outstanding Waterway, to protect upland buffers from deforestation and development. The Tomoka drains 100 square miles as it flows north to the Intracoastal Waterway. Bridge construction would destroy the river’s buffers, ecosystems, and water quality.
In 2001, the Consolidated Tomoka Land Company asked Ormond Beach to annex 3,000 acres of low-lying land west of I-95, conditional on the commission weakening the city’s wetland protection rules. (Wetland rules removed in 2010 without discussion or public comment)
After Ormond rejected the Consolidated proposal, Daytona Beach annexed the 3,000 acres in 2002, in direct violation of a service boundary agreement between the two cities. In 2006, a judge ruled Daytona could annex the acreage but awarded the water and sewer service rights to Ormond Beach. Now, in 2024, the two cities still cannot agree on a dollar amount to reimburse Ormond Beach for additional water and sewer infrastructure to provide the services.
In 2016, Consolidated Tomoka was sanctioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 10 years of illegally dredging and filling 163 acres of wetlands adjacent to tributaries of the Tomoka River, violating the federal Clean Water Act. The company paid $187,500 in fines, was ordered to restore 150 acres of wetlands at a cost of nearly $2 million, and donate 665 acres of land to the Tiger Bay State Forest four miles west. The company agreed to accept the ordered penalties not as an admission of wrongdoing, but to move ahead with a planned sale of 3,000 acres to Minto, a company that later sold the land to the current Avalon Park developer.
The Hand Avenue extension will open up undeveloped property, much of it wetlands, between I-95 and the Tomoka River. An Avalon Park Development site plan shows a dotted line for a future road extending south from Interchange Boulevard in Ormond Beach to connection with the Tomoka Farms Road-LPGA intersection in Daytona. The new road would parallel I-95 and provide the county with prime locations for commercial development.
For more than 25 years, the Ormond Beach City Commission, business interests, and the Ormond Chamber of Commerce have advocated for the Hand Avenue extension. The widely distributed 2021 chamber map of the city shows the proposed future extension as a dotted line crossing I-95.
The Hand Avenue extension to Avalon Park won’t be used by Ormond Beach residents. Instead, the costly road and bridges will allow Daytona Beach Avalon Park residents to travel to and through Ormond Beach and return home. During the current two-year term, the Ormond Beach City Commission, with three new members, has not heard reports on the proposed Hand Avenue extension or updates on the Avalon Park water and sewer service impasse with Daytona Beach.
The 3,000 acres west of I-95 have a troubled history, and now the Avalon Park mega development will construct 7,878 homes, on lots engineered with truckloads of legal fill and excavations of massive retention ponds.
Funding a $100 million Hand Avenue east-west access for the Avalon Park Daytona homes is now a Volusia County obligation. The county agreements were approved with no estimated project cost, no defined funding from four levels of government, no citizen mandate, and no public input from the Ormond Beach City Commission. Meanwhile, long-neglected streets in unincorporated areas of the county remain in desperate need of repaving.
The $100 million Hand Avenue extension and bridges will waste taxpayer dollars to accommodate growth that will never pay for itself.
Jeff Boyle is a former Ormond Beach City Commissioner. He served from 1996 to 2005.
