- January 10, 2025
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Three years ago, developers Chad Grimm and John Latshaw, of Northeast Florida Developers, LLC, approached the Bunnell City Commission with a proposal that could quadruple the size of the city.
They were conscious of that. Their proposed development, known as Reserve at Haw Creek, could be composed of between 6,000 and 8,000 homes at build-out. Located between State Road 100 West and State Road 11, the over 2,700-acre parcel, the development proposes to be an integrated master planned community with residential, commercial and light industrial uses.
Grimm and Latshaw came before the Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 7, regarding rezoning the property to a Planned Unit Development District from its current agricultural and single-family residential zoning. This came after the City Commission held a joint workshop with the board on the PUD on Jan. 2, and the Dec. 23, 2024, City Commission meeting where the commission upheld the decision made by the board to deny the developers' application to reduce the open space minimum requirements from 60% to 50%.
Grimm said he and his team have been actively planning for the past two years with the city to avoid challenges faced by other developments — making sure streets are wide enough for first responders and garbage trucks, planning for buffers and trying to avoid on-street parking issues.
"We came in with doing this the right way," Grimm said. "If you're going to grow a city this big, do it smart."
City staff recommended approval for the proposed rezoning. The planning board did as well on Jan. 7 — but with conditions.
A public meeting. Comply with new stormwater management standards. Protect historic trees. Reduce the height and square footage of signs. Include the most current traffic impact study. Reduce the total unit count to 5,500 homes.
These were among the conditions the planning board included in its recommendation for approval. The conditions were a result of the concerns brought up by citizens at the meeting.
Reducing the unit count to 5,500 was proposed by Bunnell resident Barbara Maloney, who said building 8,000 units on the property didn't seem feasible to her.
"The developers, city manager and planning department, along with others, have worked diligently over the past two years in an attempt to negotiate what we all believe would be the best interest of both parties," Maloney said. "Well, nothing of this magnitude has occurred in Flagler County, other than perhaps the original Palm Coast development. There isn't any previous experience to guide any of us. However, the overwhelming outreach and involvement of the community to be a part of that future is very obvious. We are all concerned this project is simply too large to impose all at once on a small town city governance."
The recommendation to reduce the maximum unit count passed 3-2, with vice chair Gary Masten and alternate board member Cory Romaniuk voting against (Board Chair Carl Lilavois was absent).
In response to the conditions, Grimm told the board that 8,000 units doesn't happen overnight. Reserve at Haw Creek, he said, is a 15-year project.
"We've given in concessions considerably, and we are funding this entire project," Grimm said. "That starts to be a dangerous path that we go down, and that starts to impact the business side of not only what we do ... every one of these utilities and services is dedicated to the city, and so is there enough, or are we maximizing, reaching that optimal capacity, to maximize the future of Bunnell?"
Some of the conditions, such as a traffic study and stormwater standards, are "beyond the PUD," Grimm said. They can include them, but they would have been included at a later step in the development process anyway.
After hearing from Grimm, an attempt was made at the end of the board meeting to remove that recommendation by one of the board members, but it failed due to a lack of a second.
Masten said he and the board looked at the Reserve at Haw Creek PUD application very seriously. The Jan. 7 meeting wasn't the first time it had come before the board; It was first reviewed on Nov. 5, 2024 — the meeting in which the board denied the developers' variance request to reduce the minimum open space requirements. Then, it was continued to a Dec. 3, 2024 meeting, and then to Jan. 7.
Masten toured the site with city staff members, and said he later returned a couple more times on his own.
"I was on one of the roads and I stopped and turned off my car, and I opened the window, and you know what I heard?" Masten said. "Nothing. And that made me think. Development is inevitable — we all know that, but I think our goal is to do it in a thoughtful, controlled environment, because Bunnell will never look the same."
In a conversation with the Observer prior to the board meeting, Grimm said that, by land use alone, over 12,000 units could be built on the land. That's without any stormwater or engineering needs factored in.
"With the wetlands and the environmental that we have, it's going to be somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000," Grimm said. "It may not even get up to that, but we felt like, even regardless, that felt like the right number to blend in with the community."
The developers have held two community meetings since last summer. The top three concerns raised by residents were traffic, schools and flooding, especially regarding to Black Point Road, which is prone to flooding today, and will be one of the development's internal roads.
Grimm said they have tried to allay residents' fears that they will improve existing conditions in the area through drainage and other stormwater projects. They have to, he said, if they want to proceed with the project.
"We're not going to be sell lots if we're selling lots that keep flooding, or we flood the surrounding property," he said.
Bunnell was impacted by the recent hurricane, he added, and so flooding concerns were highlighted by that. When they see plans for more rooftops, they "only just see more problems."
"It's just hard for them to believe it," Grimm said. "Seeing is believing and right now, they're still seeing flooding."
If approved by the City Commission and built, Reserve at Haw Creek would include a town center with restaurants, grocery store and other retail uses. Its parks and recreational amenities would be open to all Bunnell residents. Residential units would vary from single-family, to townhomes and apartment units. A portion of the development will be dedicated to industrial uses.
The developers tried to design a community that they believe will not fail, Latshaw said. They've incorporated modern elements that have been implemented in other master plan communities. Though some may be surprised by the population it will bring to Bunnell, which currently has a population of about 4,000, Latshaw said the significant acreage allows for better planning.
"We think that if the city wants to grow, that this is as good an opportunity as might've come their way," Latshaw said. "It just so happened the land was available at the time. On another day, it might not have been and it gave us an opportunity to work for a couple of years to design something that we're pretty happy with."
Grimm said he believes this PUD is the best zoning document he's ever been involved with — thanks to working with staff and going slow through the process.
"By doing a large-scale, master plan community like this, there are a lot of advantages," Grimm said. "Even though it's so much bigger and scarier to the general public, t's a much better design, better plan. ... There's so many more eyes on it."
