- April 26, 2024
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Flagler Beach resident and city planning review board vice chairwoman Roseanne Stocker already smells the styrene when she’s out jogging or cycling on Oceanshore Boulevard. “Sometimes I ask my running friends, ‘Do you smell that?’ And they say, ‘No — Oh, yeah. What is that?’ And I say, ‘That’s styrene. I know what it smells like.’ … It’s on A1A when the wind blows out of the west,” Stocker said to Flagler Beach City Commissioners at a commission meeting Feb. 12.
The source of the stench is even closer to home: The Sea Ray Boats production facility sitting on unincorporated county land about a quarter mile northwest of Stocker’s Lambert Avenue, Flagler Beach home.
Now Stocker and other Lambert residents are concerned things will get worse: Sea Ray is asking the county to amend the future land use map and change the zoning of a 24.4-acre property to its south from residential low-density and conservation to commercial high-density and conservation — the kind of zoning typically used for shopping centers — in what Sea Ray says is a step needed to build a 16-acre employee parking lot, but residents fear is an underhanded attempt to increase production by freeing up areas of Sea Ray's property that are now used for parking for additional industrial use.
The county’s planning board, rejecting the formal recommendation of county planner Adam Mengel, voted against the application 7-0 in a Feb. 10 hearing, but the matter will still appear before the County Commission — which has the final say — in March.
Flagler Beach fears
About a dozen residents spoke at the Flagler Beach City Commissioner meeting Feb. 12, most asking the commission to pass a resolution submitted by Commissioner Jane Mealy — a Lambert Avenue resident — urging the county not to approve Sea Ray’s proposal.
A few, including the Flagler County Chamber’s Gretchen Smith, asked the commission to delay its decision. Charles Faulkner, a Palmetto Avenue resident, warned the commission against taking any steps that would appear anti-business.
“Get the whole story," he said. "Talk directly to the guys who want to build a parking lot, and don’t send a message that we’re not open to business. … Don’t send that signal out. It’ll take us back 10 years.”
Don Deal — a Lambert resident, long-term member of Flagler Beach’s Planning and Architectural Review board and former member of Flagler County's Long Range Planning Board — said the Sea Ray proposal isn’t consistent with the county’s comprehensive plan.
“Don’t tell me that they were not prepared and this is only a parking lot,” he said at the meeting. “That (planning) board heard this same argument, that this is just a parking lot. … This is an expansion to 16 acres.”
Flagler Beach City Planner Larry Torino also sent the Flagler Beach City Commission a report noting the Sea Ray proposal’s conflicts with the county’s comprehensive plan.
But Commissioner Joy McGrew thought commissioners should meet with Sea Ray representatives before making a decision.
“I went to the (planning board) meeting and I listened to Sea Ray on Monday, and they did a terrible job. Terrible,” she said at the meeting. “Let’s at least give Sea Ray a chance to shoot themselves in the other foot.”
McGrew said residents like Stocker and Deal, who also spoke at the planning board meeting, had gone over Sea Ray's plan and found numerous problems.
“As far as the comp plan, (Sea Ray) missed it on every mark,” she said. “Roseanne (Stocker) did a phenomenal job, Don (Deal) always does a phenomenal job on poking holes in it. And they poked so many that a rain bucket couldn’t hold it.”
As to the 7-0 county planning board vote against the Sea Ray plan, “I think that’s great,” she said. “That means Sea Ray ... has to go and come clean and shake about all the cobwebs and all the hidden plans and agendas.”
But she worried that Sea Ray, unable to do what it wants with the property, could move elsewhere. "Do we not want Sea Ray to expand? Do we not want businesses in our community to be successful?" she said. “If you think it’s not an economic impact for Sea Ray to shut down, think again."
Stinky beaches and busy back streets?
Lambert residents notified of Sea Ray’s plans dug up a July, 2013 Sea Ray permit application to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to increase volatile organic compound emissions up to 978,000 pounds. Sea Ray’s 2013 emissions level was about 119,000 pounds, most of it styrene.
Residents submitted a copy of the permit application to the Flagler Beach city commission, marking a part of its text which reads, “The purpose of this construction permit is to authorize the construction associated with additional boat manufacturing operations from other Brunswick Corporation facilities to the Palm Coast facility.” The DEP granted the permit.
That alarmed Commissioner Steve Settle.
“The fact that they’ve applied for a permit for that extra volume of chemicals, it scared the heck out of me,” he said.
Residents pointed out that styrene is classified by the National Toxicology Program as “reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen,” although the evidence that the chemical causes cancers like leukemia and lymphoma has been limited and comes from workers exposed to the chemical directly, according to a National Toxicology Program report submitted with backup documents for the Flagler Beach meeting.
“Don’t say you want to wait … and give Sea Ray a chance to change their story and make it all pretty and make it sound nice,” Stocker said. “If you don’t take a stand, people are going to be wondering how it happened in Flagler Beach that our beautiful little town turned into the town that smells.”
There were other problems with the proposed change. Lambert Avenue residents bought their homes knowing the property that bordered them — the property Sea Ray now wants to rezone to high-intensity commercial — was zoned low-density residential.
“Yes, the people on Lambert Avenue and that area did move in after Sea Ray was already there, but to me this is not like, ‘You built by the airport, you’ve got to live with the noise,’” Mealy said. “The people who lived here did their due diligence. They looked at what the zoning was behind them. It was low-density residential.”
Residents said that even if Sea Ray gets its zoning change and builds only a parking lot — and the company suggested at the planning board meeting that the county could add measures restricting it to just a parking lot — if Sea Ray moves, other businesses could later come in and use the commercial-zoned land for more disruptive uses.
And even adding just a parking lot, they said, would lead to increased noise from traffic and from vehicles with backup alarms.
‘Should have grabbed it’
Carney said the county seemed to be pushing for the Sea Ray application, despite clear problems, to increase revenue.
“We need to tell them how we feel,” she said at the meeting. “I think the county — I’m going to be honest with you — I think they’re looking for a way to make some money off that land. And I’m going to put out the A-word. Why don’t we annex?”
Flagler Beach once had the chance to annexing land south of Sea Ray, but did not.
“Boy, we should have grabbed it,” Carney said after the Feb. 12 meeting.
According to meeting minutes from the time, in 2004, residents opposed annexation for that property and others, fearing that adding land to the west would change the character of the seaside town. McGrew said after the meeting that by the time the land south of Sea Ray came up for consideration, “This town was poisoned by previous annexation attempts.” Some commissioners at the time had run for office on no-annexation platforms.
“This was before the boom. This town was much smaller then,” Mayor Linda Provencher said after the meeting. “I think (residents) thought that by not annexing it, we would remain a smaller community.”
Commissioners did not discuss Carney’s annexation suggestion at the meeting. But they voted 4-1, with McGrew dissenting, to urge the county commission not to approve Sea Ray’s proposal.
Putting the plant on trial
County Administrator Craig Coffey said in an interview after the meeting that the Flagler Beach City Commission voted without hearing all the facts.
“We weren’t invited or asked to participate, nor was Sea Ray — just the residents,” he said. “A lot of people are trying to put the plant on trial.”
Coffey said county staff is working to clarify exactly what it is that Sea Ray has proposed — a parking lot, he said, and perhaps an office building — before the County Commission hears the issue March 16.
“We’re working on trying to address some of the concern of the residents,” he said. “The reality is, from the back of some of those (Lambert area) houses, you can only see the top of the Sea Ray building. Many of those folks won’t even be able to see a car in a parking lot.”
Sending a message
The Flagler Beach City Commission meeting followed a rebuke to the county delivered by the Flagler County Planning and Development Board in a unanimous 7-0 vote against the Sea Ray proposal.
Board Chairman Russ Reinke said he could see both sides of the Sea Ray issue and suggested the board might try to enact measures to limit Sea Ray to just a parking lot, but he was not confident that the County Commission would listen.
“I realize that no matter what we do, it goes to the County Commission, and they change their minds anyhow.”
He backtracked: “I didn’t mean that derogatorily, but the County Commission is the ultimate deciding body in Flagler County on land use changes and things like that. … Our recommendation is, for the most part, is taken in to consideration very heavily by each one of those commissioners, and then from there, they make their decision.” But he said, “I don’t know that we can lock this up.”
The 7-0 vote was the second time in less than six months that the planning board contravened Mengel’s advice on a controversial land use issue. The last time that happened, the board had voted against Salamander Resort’s proposal for a 198-room hotel at Hammock Beach — recommended for approval by Mengel — only to have the County Commission, after a marathon 8-hour hearing, approve it anyway in the early morning hours of Feb. 3.
Planning Board member Thad Crowe said the board should make sure the County Commission knows its opinion.
“Regarding your remarks about the County Commission,” he said to Reinke, “I think given their tendency to, I guess, sometimes go in a different direction, I feel it’s important to send a message to them if we do feel that way. And for that reason, I would like to make a motion to deny application 2972,” the Sea Ray future land use map amendment proposal.
Crowe said the proposal conflicted with the county’s comprehensive plan.
After the unanimous vote against the future land use map amendment request, the board voted unanimously to postpone indefinitely Sea Ray’s accompanying zoning change application.
'Seems a little berserk'
The votes came after presentations by Mengel and by attorney Sidney Ansbacher, who represented Sea Ray.
Mengel pushed for approval.
“(Sea Ray’s) value as an economic entity and engine cannot be discounted,” he said.
He noted that Sea Ray was willing to agree to restrictions on the 24-acre parcel it wants rezoned commercial, and that even on the Sea Ray land zoned industrial — part of which is now being used for parking and boat mold storage — there are limits to what Sea Ray can do.
“Some commentators have come back and said, ‘Well, there would be an overall expansion of the plant that would be intended here.’ And that could be a likely possibility, and that is Sea Ray’s intent with this,” he said.
But, he said, the county’s comprehensive plan restricts industrial development on an industrial future land use area like Sea Ray’s current facility to a maximum impervious area of 70% and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.45, and those limits can’t be waived.
“This is not an attempt to backdoor industrial operations, industrial expansion, to this property,” he said.
Ansbacher said the decision to request high-intensity commercial zoning was made “after long consultation with Mr. Coffey” and with Mengel, and is “the closest category to an on-site parking facility that you all would have.”
He said the current zoning on the site, owned by The Carter Trust, would allow for up to 49 homes and the associated traffic.
But residents said Mengel’s recommendation would amount to “spot-zoning” for Sea Ray.
Stocker, speaking during public comment, said high-intensity commercial zoning is listed in the county comprehensive plan as intended for “major arterial streets” along the Interstate 95 corridor an that the Sea Ray proposal clearly violated the comprehensive plan. Roberts Road, the road the land in question borders, is a small two-way street.
The change to high-intensity commercial would also hurt neighbors’ property values, she said.
“Think about your own backyards and what would happen. This is our life savings that you’re talking about,” she said. “We neighbors are not anti-Sea Ray. They have a right to operate as they do on their current site. However, we also have the right to expect that our county will honor the principles of proper zoning, and not bend the rules to accommodate one company.”
Deal told the board that the county’s approval would amount to favoritism.
“This is strictly what I would consider accommodation zoning: a spot-zoning, if you will, for Sea Ray Boats, and Sea Ray Boats only,” he said at the meeting.
In comments sent to The Palm Coast Observer after the meeting, he questioned why Mengel hadn’t addressed compatibility issues in his recommendation.
“How can the Flagler County Planning and Development Board, made up of two certified planners and five other very astute individuals along with the city of Flagler Beach's planner, recognize these comprehensive plan issues, and Flagler County's planner fail to mention them in his staff report?” he said. “You cannot show favoritism in any fashion. Everyone must be treated the same. Me, you or Sea Ray Boats. If not, this is the first thing attorneys look at.”
But developer Mark Langello said at the planning board meeting that residents’ complaints stemmed from a “not in my backyard” attitude. “I think that you should respect their concerns, but I think there’s a happy medium versus just saying no,” he told board members.
Faulkner called residents’ concerns “sensationalized.” “The applicant has already agreed to major limitations. What they want is a parking lot,” he said. “I would ask that you try to understand the real problems as opposed to the make-believe problems. Make-believe problems, oftentimes, do not have a solution, because they’re not real.”
But planning board members questioned the need for high-intensity commercial zoning.
“My issues lie primarily with the compatibility as such a high intensity land use change,” said board member Laureen Kornel. “I see some inconsistencies with the comprehensive plan. … I’m having a hard time supporting it based on compatibility.”
Board member Michael Duggins said the land use was inappropriate. “The east side of this property needs to be a buffer; it doesn’t need to be a parking lot,” he said. “If Sea Ray doesn’t have enough land that’s left to build a parking lot and accommodate their trucks, then they should go across the street and get some more.”
Board member Pam Richardson said she wished she knew what Sea Ray’s “end game” was. “My thoughts are pretty simple: I just feel like we’re accelerating from zero to 60, and I don’t know which direction we’re going,” she said. “It seems a little berserk.”
The Flagler County Commission will hear Sea Ray’s proposal at its 5 p.m., March 16 meeting at the Government Services Building at 1769 State Road 100 in Bunnell.
