- December 15, 2025
The planning board recommends allowing home-based food businesses, but city staff is opposed.
City officials have brought the debate over home-based food businesses to a boil after another discussion at its Tuesday workshop. Officials agreed that, for the first time, the cottage food industry in Palm Coast will appear on a regular meeting agenda for a vote sometime in June or July.
At Tuesday’s workshop, the City Council also agreed the public should have input.
“I still have my reservations because we are totally dependent on the good intentions of the producers of these foods,” Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts said Tuesday. “We have a whole list of what is permitted and what is not permitted, but that’s a slippery slope.”
Netts said residents haven’t had a chance to discuss it and suggested it goes on an upcoming agenda.
City Councilman Frank Meeker, who has been in favor of allowing home-based food businesses, agreed.
“It’s not a compromise, it’s the way we’re supposed to work,” Meeker said in regard to giving the public a chance to speak out.
City staff has recommended that the City Council deny the proposed changes to the Unified Land Development Code that would allow cottage foods as a home occupation.
The city’s Planning and Land Development Regulation Board, however, recommended allowing cottage food production as a home occupation, “subject to compliance with city home occupation requirements,” according to Tuesday’s presentation.
Allowing home-based food businesses in the city first came up in February when the City Council requested staff to provide information about the 2011 legislative changes. Then in April, the City Council decided to delay aligning its regulation on the cottage food industry with the new state regulation. However, City Councilman Jason DeLorenzo asked the City Council to allow a presentation by residents who wish to operate home-based food businesses.
Palm Coast residents Rick de Yampert and Cheryl Sheppard gave a presentation at its May 8 workshop. After their presentation, de Yampert and Sheppard sent a follow-up email to the City Council.
“Except for the matter of public health — which the state of Florida has thoroughly addressed in its cottage food law — making cupcakes and pastries in a home and selling them at festivals and markets, as a Class 2 home occupation, is no different than the wood carver, candlemaker, quilter or widget maker who currently are operating such home businesses in Palm Coast,” the email states.
City Councilman Bill Lewis has consistently been against allowing home-based food businesses. Earlier this month, he said allowing them could “hinder the city’s vision and overcrowd neighborhoods.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, Lewis stood his ground. He said the city doesn’t have the manpower to regulate home-based food businesses. City Manager Jim Landon has repeatedly said the city knows it can’t regulate them.
Sara Lockhart, senior planner, confirmed during Tuesday’s meeting that there will be no local regulation.
Lewis is wary of the state doing the job: “I’m not confident the state, from that distance, can do the job,” he said.
Cottage food won’t be on the June 5 meeting agenda, according to Landon. It might have to go back to the city’s planning board, which could push it back into July.
“The cupcakes can wait another day,” Netts quipped as the discussion ended.
