- April 17, 2024
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After more than two hours of review, the Palm Coast planning and zoning board voted 6-0 on Oct. 19 to deny a request to alter a planned unit development for Harborside Inn and Marina.
The development is located at the intersection of Palm Harbor Parkway and Clubhouse Drive on 17.64 mixed-use acres, and initially appeared before the city’s Planning and Development Regulation Board on Sept. 20. That meeting ended in a continuance for the applicant and city staffers to work out the issues preventing the request from moving forward to the Palm Coast City Council with the board’s recommendation.
Oct. 19’s meeting still found the applicant in non-compliance with the city’s Comprehensive Plan policies and land use requirements, according to the meeting’s documents.
The main issue, in both meetings, was the proposed density for the lot. The request originally featured two options, where the applicant could take either one.
The Harborside owners, JDI Palm Coast, LLC and Palm Coast Resort Community Association, Inc., originally requested several updates to the development's 2005-approved design, via a rezoning. The concept for a new master site plan would keep the current parking garage, ship store and existing condominium units, add a stand-alone restaurant and residential space and potentially a hotel, according to meeting documents.
The first option features just apartments and townhomes and would add a total of 432 residential units. Option two has residential units and a condominium hotel; it adds 402 units.
Both options include the existing 72 units in their calculations and would bring the density to 25- or 26-unit-per-acre, respectively. That's more than 10 units above the mixed-use density cap of 15 units/acre, according to the city's planning staff. The limit should be 254 units, according to Senior Planner Bill Hoover.
“The applicant responded back and basically sort of made it an a la carte a menu that you would get certain bonus units for doing it.” — Senior Planner Bill Hoover
Hoover said city staff added in eight standards to be met by the applicant in order to justify and receive a 22% density increase of 18.3 units/acre; that would allow the applicant 310 units on 16.94 residential-use acres or 273 units on 14.94 residential-use acres, based on the two plan options, according to planning and zoning documents.
The standards listed in the documentation essentially ensure public benefits like building the sit-down restaurant, to seat at least 75 patrons; maintaining a “clean marina” designation from the Department of Environmental Protections; keeping the marina available for public use.
Hoover said the applicant responded by saying they would meet “one or more” of the standards in return for more units, calling them “density bonus incentive conditions." The "bonus" units would cap at 432, the original maximum amount requested in option one of the concept plan.
“The applicant responded back and basically sort of made it an a la carte menu that you would get certain bonus units for doing it,” Hoover said.
The crowd who showed up for public comment even began to laugh at the number of concessions staff claimed the applicant requested for the eight standards. They had had to be reminded by Chairman Clinton Smith to refrain from any form of comment on the presentation outside of public comment.
Attorney Jay Livingston, representing JDI Palm Coast, LLC., defended the owners’ position. They had to ensure economic viability to maintain the marina, parking garage and other amenities at the location, Livingston said, or nothing could be done at all.
“We have to achieve a certain economy of scale,” Livingston said, “and the number that we came up with …is what we have determined to achieve that.”
Though the meeting mainly focused on the issue of the standards, local residents once again showed up in force to voice their concerns to the board on how the density would affect their quality of life.
Residents were very concerned about the influx of traffic, available parking, strain on the sewage system and, in a post-Hurricane Ian Florida, evacuation speeds. Paul Bailey who lives in the Palm Coast Resort already on the lot said that if a hurricane hit that area it would cause a major disaster due to traffic problems.
“When it comes to the traffic in that area,” Bailey said, “that is an emergency egress and you're compounding the problem.”