- April 23, 2024
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The Ormond Beach City Commission on Jan. 24 approved plans to replace a home with a parking lot for an office space on West Granada Boulevard.
Though the first-reading vote at the meeting was unanimous, the commission approved the request with the stipulation that the applicant include an eight-foot fence behind the office property and a masonry wall around the parking to ensure privacy for residents.
The site plan for the lot must address resident concerns like landscaping, fences and walls and lighting before the second-reading vote.
The empty home is located at 101 Fiesta Drive, a corner lot on Fiesta and Granada.
The lot is owned by John Hamlin, who also owns the professional office building next door.
Hamlin wants to either build out or lease out the empty second floor of his office building, said Paul Holub, representing the applicant.
But, Holub said, Hamlin can’t do that without first ensuring that future employees would have a place to park.
While Hamlin’s request is to change the property’s future land use map designation to residential, office and retail use, residents were concerned about the next steps — lighting that may bother residents at night, landscaping for privacy, walls or fences and additional traffic flow.
Resident Terry Whimpey said he is concerned that future employees will use the residential streets to access the lot.
“We’re already trying to get a [speed deterrent] in there,” Whimpey said.
Right now, the office building has just one entrance and exit, and the project will keep it that way, Holub said. The lot will add about 17 new spaces, Holub said, and have landscaping on three sides.
“[The parking lot] will be heavily landscaped and totally enclosed,” he said. “There will still be only one driveway.”
The representative for the controversial Tymber Creek apartment project received a two-week continuance from the commission on Tuesday.
Mark Watts, an attorney with Cobb Cole, representing the applicant, spoke to the commission during public comment at the beginning of the Jan. 24 Ormond Beach City Commission meeting.
He told the commissioners that the developer has been talking with surrounding landowners about the Tymber Creek development.
Watts said that they would rather present in two weeks, once they had finished those discussions.
Commissioner Travis Sargent and other commissioners were glad to hear the developer was communicating with neighboring property owners.
“I think that is a very good idea,” Sargent said.
The commission granted the request and will hear the Tymber Creek apartment project at the Feb. 7 commission meeting instead.
VCP Ormond Beach II, LLC — the property owner and applicant — is applying for two things: a rezoning of the 19.62-acre property as a Planned Business Development, and, secondly, a development order.
VCP Ormond Beach II hopes to build a 300-unit apartment project on the site. Local codes, however, only allow 164 units.
The project came before the City Commission on Tuesday with a denial recommendation from the city’s Planning Board meeting in December.
The Planning Board had voted against the requests unanimously, concerned about the density and future traffic problems that a development of that size would bring to the area.
