- February 11, 2025
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Low impact development practices will remain voluntary in Volusia County, but officials are hoping developers implement them as they now come with incentives — more density, flexible lot sizes and increased maximum building heights, to name a few.
During a special meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 11, the Volusia County Council approved two ordinances surrounding LID and green stormwater infrastructure by way of a 6-1 vote. According to the county, the ordinances aim to eliminate barriers to LID and green stormwater infrastructure practices and "develop alternative and voluntary processes, standards, development regulations, and incentives" for implementation during a project's design phase.
The council's decision doesn't line up with what the county's Environmental and Natural Resources Advisory Committee recommended. Back in June 2023, ENRAC — an advisory board that was on the chopping block last year, but was saved due to a tied vote — recommended county revise its Land Development Code to implement a "hybrid use" of LID and green stormwater infrastructure to mitigate flooding and nutrient pollution. The hybrid approach would include both mandatory and voluntary practices.
Councilman Jeff Brower was the lone vote against a voluntary ordinance, saying he wanted the council to take "bold action."
"It's not a magic bullet," Brower said. "It's not a silver bullet, but it will go a long way to solving our long term flooding issues."
Initially, some council members voiced wanting to take a hybrid approach to LID, but pivoted once others pushed for keeping LID voluntary.
"We all want to see low impact development tested out and try to see if it works, but the mandate — all we may do with mandates is drive developers out of the county," Councilman Don Dempsey said. "They may just pack up and say, 'Heck with this, we're going to go to Lake County and do a subdivision.'"
Dempsey said the county doesn't want to scare developers away, but he does want to incentivize they use ENRAC's recommended LID practices.
ENRAC Committee Chair Melissa Lammers said the board advocated for a hybrid approach because members recognized that, while development can't be 100% LID, all projects can employ some techniques.
"We believed collectively that that had the greatest chance of success and of being that beta test," she said. "And we thought it was fair. You had some requirements of LID and then you could choose to do more and have incentives with it."
Additionally, when the board was first working on recommendations for LID, they were working under the constraints of Senate Bill 250, which the county no longer needs to abide by. The bill banned local governments located within 100 miles of anywhere Hurricane Ian or Nicole made landfall from proposing or adopting “more restrictive or burdensome amendments to its comprehensive plan or land development regulations," before Oct. 1, 2024.
Without the constraint, ENRAC members advised the council to take hybrid approach.
ENRAC board member Wendy Anderson, an environmental science professor, said she has been teaching LID principles in her university courses for 15 years. She questioned the value of putting in place a voluntary ordinance, especially in the wake of the significant flooding experienced by the county impacting thousands of residents. The ordinance, she said, was presented as a solution to implement in future building to mitigate flooding risks.
"And not just voluntary, but actually gives away incentives like increased density or discounts on fees just for choosing to do the right," Anderson said.
Forward thinking leadership, Dream Green Volusia founder Suzanne Scheiber said, doesn't need incentives. Scheiber previously served on ENRAC.
"Volusia County cannot claim forward thinking, pioneering, or innovation by offering incentives of such magnitude," she said. "We support low impact development as required. We do not support incentives to do the right thing. Just do the right thing."
According to county staff's example, a developer would be eligible for certain incentives if he or she:
This project would then be eligible to be more dense, include taller buildings, have flexibility on lot sizes, building setbacks and off-street parking, reduced tree placement requirement and permit and application fees. Variances and waivers would not be required either.
"Not every project is going to need or want all of these incentives," said Ginger Adair, county director of environmental management.
If the county had implemented LID a year ago, Councilman David Santiago said homes would have still flooded in the last storm.
"There's statements that are being made that this would prevent the flooding that happened," Santiago said. "I don't want those people to leave this room thinking that, if we done this, because some have accused us of failing, if we had done this a year or two ago, it's probably safe to say — it's unfortunate — but we'd be in the same position with the homes that were were affected."
He initially was leaning toward the hybrid option, but after hearing comments from Dempsey and Councilmen Jake Johansson and Danny Robins, who expressed apprehension at imposing more restrictions on developers, Santiago said he would support a voluntary approach.
"Seven out of seven of us ran on less government ... and making government larger by adopting mandatory regulations that still no one has been able to provide no measurable data to say that it will stop or prevent flooding to the people that we hear about — that's the pickle I'm in," Robins said.
Brower said he was sorry to hear council members still debating if LID practices work to mitigate flooding. It works, he said, and it would have helped had they been implemented five years ago. Brower said one of the causes of flooding are "the big, ugly retention ponds where water leaks through the sides, where spillway systems purposely dump water into the neighboring properties."
"We've recommended [LID] for four years that I've been here," Brower said. "The comp plan has always said we recommend this, but it's optional. Nobody does it."
