- January 14, 2025
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For much of its history, the City of Palm Coast has wrestled with the question of whether commercial vehicles should be allowed to be parked overnight in residential driveways. Is the city more like a homeowners association, or is it more like a working class community?
Past City Councils have discussed the issue multiple times over the past 15 years, with minor changes. The current City Council, which has four new members, agreed on Jan. 7 to reopen the discussion once again at a future workshop.
The decision came after Emily Fields spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting. She said her husband works for a garage door company, and, to comply with Palm Coast regulations, has to cover his work van every night with a tarp.
The family has six young children, Fields said, and her husband is taking extra time away from the family because he has to cover and uncover his work van every night “with a very tacky looking ‘vehicle cover.’”
“Meanwhile,” she continued, “our one family car of the same make and model (a Ford Transit) sits right beside it in the driveway.”
The Fieldses are complying with the city’s rules.
The city defines a commercial vehicle as one “upon which advertising markings have been affixed which occupy in excess of three square feet per side; any motor vehicle having a carrying capacity of more than one ton” and other characteristics.
But to Fields, the rules are unfriendly to blue collar workers in the city.
“We rely on this vehicle,” she told the City Council. Moreover, “we live on a back street with both vans parked neatly in front of our well-kept home. It in no way obstructs views or causes a disturbance to the community.”
The restrictions on commercial vehicle parking “send the wrong message about our beautiful city to the working class.”
Rather than the commercial vehicles being eyesores in neighborhoods, “the required ‘vehicle covers,’ which are just gloried tarps, are the eye sores,” she said.
READDRESS, RECONSIDER
City Council member Theresa Pontieri said she believes it’s time to “readdress” the commercial vehicle rules in a future workshop.
“I would wholeheartedly agree with you,” Mayor Mike Norris said. “I’ve had the same issue. […] My neighbor across the street works for an overhead door company, and he did have an oversized van, and someone in the neighborhood did call on him. Those tarps are horrible, and I think we need to reconsider it.”
After one request by a former City Council, in 2021, city staff conducted a survey, asking 16,491 residents if they wanted to see a change in the ordinance, and the result was a 49% to 49% split.
STATE CHANGES HOA LAWS
Fields pointed out in her comment that the state passed a law in 2024 regarding commercial vehicles that could be relevant for the city.
The law states that homeowners associations “may not prohibit, regardless of any official insignia or visible designation, a property owner or a tenant, a guest, or an invitee of the property owner from parking his or her work vehicle, which is not a commercial motor vehicle as defined in s. 320.01(25), in the property owner’s driveway.”
The City of Palm Coast is not a homeowners association, so the law doesn’t apply to city codes. But typically, homeowners associations are more restrictive than cities, not less.
Also, the city’s definition of a commercial vehicle includes common pickup trucks with large markings on the doors; the state, on the other hand, defines a commercial motor vehicle in 320.01(25) as: “any vehicle which is not owned or operated by a governmental entity, which uses special fuel or motor fuel on the public highways, and which has a gross vehicle weight of 26,001 pounds or more, or has three or more axles regardless of weight, or is used in combination when the weight of such combination exceeds 26,001 pounds gross vehicle weight.”
In other words, homeowners associations must allow even bigger commercial vehicles in driveways than the City of Palm Coast currently allows.
The workshop on commercial vehicles has not yet been scheduled.
