- May 18, 2024
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Dear Editor:
Regarding the Jaffe Corporation's proposed plan to build a three-story, ten-building, 300-unit apartment complex on Tymber Creek Road in the middle of a great community of one-story single family homes, one has to ask why? To bulldoze all those pesky trees and cram as many people as possible onto the property to maximize developer profit? This project will be a nightmare for those of us who live in and/or travel the area everyday. The nightmare will be worse for neighbors who live on properties adjacent to the proposed "luxury apartments" as they will have three story monstrosity buildings in their backyard.
We will all have to deal with the negative impact of a 300-unit apartment complex, its high density which is incompatible with existing neighborhoods, increased traffic and environmental issues. We who choose to live here care about the area and hope the City Commission will continue to protect our neighborhood community standards against the developer's proposed "best use of the property," which will trample the existing rights of adjacent property owners. Developer property rights are not absolute and must conform to zoning and land development codes. The proposed apartment complex is over-development at its worst.
Mindy McLarnan
Ormond Beach
Dear Editor,
The principles of Low Impact Development are clearly spelled out in the Ormond Beach Comprehensive Land Use Plan, which was adopted by the city in 2010. The city's land development code contains specific recommendations to apply low impact development principles to all land development in the city.
In summary, the recommendations call for the elimination or use of smaller retention ponds and an end to wholesale clear-cutting of trees and the use of significant fill to raise property grade levels. Low Impact Development attempts to "mimic the inherent nature of a site's hydrology."
Sadly, these principles have been ignored by the city of Ormond Beach in developments on Clyde Morris Boulevard, at Granada Pointe, in the Sterthaus area, and in the massive Plantation Oaks development recently annexed by the city, with no public input in the decision. Plantation Oaks has now submitted application for amendments to the development order first approved by Volusia County for land adjacent to the Loop on Old Dixie Highway.
Why does our city government continue to ignore science and its own land development codes while approving waivers for developers to create these clear-cut sites and high stormwater runoff developments?
Tom Verna
Ormond Beach
Editor's note: To view the city's LID manual, visit https://bit.ly/3qTV4h3. To view the city's conservation element of its 2025 comprehensive plan, visit https://bit.ly/3qY030j
