- February 6, 2025
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The city of Ormond Beach grew by 18% from 2010 to 2024.
According to U.S. Census data, Ormond Beach's population totaled 45,140 last year. Population projections presented to the Ormond Beach City Commission during a workshop on Tuesday, Feb. 4, predicted the city's population will increase to 63,562 people by 2045.
How should the city plan for that growth?
The commission's workshop surrounded an overview prepared by staff regarding the city's 2045 Comprehensive Plan Update, which is a state-required policy plan directing officials on future growth, preservation and public infrastructure.
"Basically, it's a vision of a blueprint of what the city desires to become in the future," Planning Director Steven Spraker said.
At least every seven years, Florida Statutes require local governments consider amending their comprehensive plans. The last comprehensive plan update in Ormond Beach was completed in 2010 and planned for improvements through 2025. In 2017, the city determined an update was not needed.
The city began gathering input for its 20 up45date last summer, with the Planning Board reviewing different elements at its meetings.
Some notable updates to be included in the new plan are:
Flooding and housing needs were two topics that generated conversations at the workshop by commissioners.
City Commissioner Lori Tolland mentioned the recent county discussions on maintaining canals and ditches, and asked staff about looking at the city's existing stormwater management policies to see which areas could be improved upon to prevent future flooding.
Commissioner Harold Briley said he and Assistant City Manager Sean Finley recently looked at some ditches that used to be under county jurisdiction and but are now the city's responsibility.
"Our Public Works staff is always working," Briley said. "They're working on different things and sometimes you don't have enough personnel to be able to go out and clean the ditches. But I think what we can do — especially what we can do as a city — is identify those areas that need attention."
Part of the problem, he added, are retention ponds owned by homeowner's associations. The city keeps its retention ponds clean and dredged, Briley said, but HOAs often don't, either because of financial situations or they are an "afterthought."
"A lot of the stormwater facilities within those subdivisions flow into those ponds, and if it can't take the water, is that the city's fault? It's really not," Briley said.
Within Ormond Beach city limits, the city maintains 27.3 miles of ditches, Finley said. The Florida Department of Transportation maintains 12.5 miles, the Florida East Coast Railway maintains 1 mile and Volusia County maintains 12 miles. About 4.5 miles of ditches are privately owned, and for about 12.5 miles, it's unknown who is supposed to maintain them. Finley said some of those belong to HOAs.
"That's just ditches," he said. "That's not retention areas."
On the housing element, Spraker reported that much of the comprehensive plan update involves reorganizing existing goals and making them consistent with existing state statutes.
Most of the growth coming to the city of Ormond Beach will be from the new Plantation Oaks subdivisions, such as Archer's Mill, as well as Ormond Crossings, Spraker said.
"We see development coming through there and we expect those to continue," he said.
Ormond Beach ranks ninth among Volusia's 16 municipalities and the unincorporated county areas regarding the number of new residential construction building permits issued between Quarter 1, 2020 and Quarter 3, 2024. Over the four-year period, the city issued 380 permits.
In contrast, Daytona Beach issued 3,937 permits, with the unincorporated county areas and the city of DeLand trailing behind with 2,273 and 2,227 permits issued.
"That's why we feel the pressures on Granada Boulevard and some of our north-south corridors such as Williamson and Clyde Morris," Briley said. "Why we have so much pressure on those roads is because a lot of those folks, if they want to go east, they want to go to the peninsula, they come on Granada."
The Planning Board will discuss the comprehensive plan update at its next meeting on Feb. 13. The amendments will come before the board for final recommendations on March 13, and arrive to the City Commission on first reading on April 15.
