More housing won't lead to more affordability, she says.
If the City of Palm Coast is poised to expand west of the railroad tracks, Vice Mayor Theresa Pontieri is happy that this particular City Council is in charge.
“I think this council is very focused on economic development and commercial growth,” she said in a recent Facebook Live interview with the Observer. “This council is not afraid to say no to developers who want to pump in more residential. I have seen this council really take some bold moves and show the residents that we hear you, we're listening, we understand the concerns. We're all taxpayers here, too.”
Pontieri spoke about the city’s infrastructure progress and needs, as well as the “real work” of being a City Council member. What follows is a transcript of the conversion, edited for clarity and length.
ARE YOU PRO-AFFORDABILITY, WHEN IT COMES TO HOUSING?
I think that there has to be the proper mix of different types of housing in order to accommodate different types of families and individuals, particularly when we're looking at our workforce, our first responders, our teachers, our young people that come back from college. But, I think that there's a false sense that we need to pump in more housing in order to get there. And I think that's the problem.
HOW DO YOU MAKE THINGS MORE AFFORDABLE WITHOUT INCREASING THE SUPPLY?
Right now, single family homes, pursuant to our Land Development Code, aren’t allowed to have single-car garages. But if we can build homes with single-car garages, it makes it cheaper to build. Therefore you can pass on that cost savings to your residents or your future buyers.
But if we look at this at a higher level, the way to make Palm Coast more affordable is to bring in more industry, more economic development, so that we're not so reliant on our taxpayers to pay for the city's operations.
THE CITY HAS APPROVED ENTITLEMENTS TO BUILD ABOUT 19,000 MORE HOMES. IF THOSE WERE BUILT, WOULD THAT IMPROVE AFFORDABILITY?
I don't think so. And I actually think that it will have a negative effect on the home values of current residents, which we don’t want.
We don't want to pump in more homes in the hopes that it'll drive down the pricing.
And I think it's really important to understand that those 19,000 homes can't be built tomorrow. Those are entitlements only. Think of it as kind of a certificate, a piece of paper that says I can build this home eventually, but not tomorrow.
DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF ANTI-RESIDENTIAL GROWTH?
I am anti-residential growth to the extent we do not have the infrastructure for it. We don't have the jobs for it. So, we have to make sure we're going down the track together at the right pace, and I think what we've seen over the past several years is a pumping of dwelling units — and we should call them dwelling units because that encompasses multi-family and single family — without ensuring infrastructure is in place. We need to make sure impact fees are where they need to be, and that we've got the jobs, so that we're not a net exporter of workers, which is what we are right now.
WHAT IS THE INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE WOULD NEED TO CATCH UP TO?
We've really improved our stormwater in the last year. So I really have to commend staff and City Council for taking some real steps forward.
But we've struggled with keeping up with our roads. Our roads have been traditionally funded by the gas tax, and up until about 10 years ago, there was also a sales tax that was going towards that road infrastructure, and we got rid of that extra sales tax.
So now we're only funded by the gas tax, and it's just not keeping pace with the cost of improving roads, which is why we decided to do micro surfacing. That allows us to improve roads at a much cheaper rate and cover for a lot more areas. For instance, last year, we were able to do 32 roads for a million dollars. The year before that, we were able to do 28 roads. And that was an initiative that I brought to council and that fortunately they've agreed to fund.
DOES THE CITY HAVE ENOUGH WATER AND WASTEWATER CAPACITY?
On a normal everyday, yes. It's your really rare storm events where we get a lot of rain, where we struggle with wastewater capacity. And then what's ironic about that is, when we go through these dry spells, we struggle with a need for water. So, it's this weird back and forth that we have to be careful about when we're looking at the system.
But it's not just capacity, it's also technology. We've got some outdated technology that we have to invest in. We did get state grant money for advanced water treatment.
WITH THE IMPROVEMENTS THAT ARE SCHEDULED IN THE NEXT YEARS, WE SHOULD HAVE CAPACITY TO TREAT OVER 14 MILLION GALLONS PER DAY. SO, EVEN AFTER ALL THE 19,000 HOMES ARE BUILT, WE WOULD STILL HAVE OVER 3.5 MILLION GALLONS PER DAY OF CAPACITY AVAILABLE. SO IT SEEMS LIKE WE’RE ON TOP OF IT?
We are. People need to keep in mind, too, and it's really important not to forget that we're not just talking about residents that need wastewater. Our restaurants and other commercial businesses use a lot more than a neighborhood or a multi-family complex. And I know our residents are very invested in seeing more commercial development.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT? THE CITY COUNCIL VOTED NO CONFIDENCE IN MAYOR MIKE NORRIS. WHAT WOULD GIVE YOU CONFIDENCE IN THE MAYOR AGAIN?
My primary objective every week is to do my job. And doing the job does not happen just on the dais. As a matter of fact, I would say that 90% of the job is done during the week prior to the Tuesday meeting. It's when you have staff meetings, it's when you're reading the packet, it's when you're doing research, it's when you're talking to the residents, it's when you're talking to the stakeholders, it's all of those things. I’ll use a sports analogy: The work that you see on the football field, that's not the work. That's game time. All the work happens in the preparation.
When you come to the meeting, it's incumbent upon you to be ready to ask staff very good questions and be ready to give analysis and not to just a vote but to explain why you're voting. We are under a lot of legal requirements when we vote on certain things, so I think a lot of people don't really realize that we can't just say no to certain things that we may want to say no to, because there are legal implications.
So, you know it's incumbent upon us to be prepared and to make decisions and to ask questions and to inquire on behalf of our residents in a very thoughtful and deliberate way. I want to see that from all of my colleagues. So, it's not this is not looking at just Mayor Norris, but to see that come out of him on a regular basis would be fantastic.
What really bothered me was when I heard the statement, "Well, I'm just going to do the work from the district and not meeting with staff." Staff has invaluable, institutional knowledge. Just this week I was meeting with staff about wastewater and, you know, what can we do to not have to raise the rates to the extent that we have said we may have to raise them to?
It takes work. It takes brainstorming, it takes conversation. And if that's not occurring, I think that that's a real problem because you're not doing the real work. You're not doing the real job. Sitting on the dais is the easy part.
YOU’VE HAD TO STEP IN TO DO SOME OF THE CEREMONIAL ROLES OF THE MAYOR, SUCH AS GIVING SPEECHES. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT?
I don't want anybody to think that I'm complaining about having to do those, because I feel very honored to represent our city at those events. But I think it is important that people see their mayor. A lot of people did vote for Mayor Norris, obviously.
When people are looking at investing in our community, they want to know that our mayor is leading the way and is proud of our community. If you don't have a mayor that's proud of your
WHAT’S YOUR PLAN IN 2026? ARE YOU RUNNING FOR CONGRESS? ARE YOU RUNNING FOR RE-ELECTION ON THE CITY COUNCIL?
I haven't decided yet. I'm not going to run for Congress. I'm going to remain in local politics. Where that is yet, I'm not sure.
WHAT ABOUT THE WESTWARD EXPANSION? WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST CONCERN?
That it's not done the right way. We have an opportunity to take 21,000 acres and make economic development the catalyst and build around that. So, when we talk about the infrastructure for the loop road — the Matanzas Woods Parkway extension (and I think many of us are not thrilled with the way that it was paid for, using tax dollars) — we want to make sure that those tax dollars are not being spent in vain.
I don't want it to be a road built to houses. I want a road built to economic vitality.
Right now in this city, we have limited space for any more commercial development. And right now, our residential and commercial split is 93% to 7%. That's not sustainable. It's particularly not sustainable when we have a lot of folks on fixed incomes, a lot of older retired folks, and they can't do anything else to make more money. So, we need to to lessen the burden on them. And the only way to really do that is to increase our industry to bring in more economic development, to bring in more tourism.
OUR RELIANCE ON RESIDENTIAL TAXES HAS BEEN AN ISSUE SINCE I MOVED HERE IN 2010. AND YET, OUR TAX RATE IS STILL AMONG THE LOWEST IN THE STATE. SO ARE WE OVERLY ALARMED ABOUT IT?
I attribute that to two things. One, we have a fantastic staff that's worked with City Council and been very fiscally conservative, as far as, we don't have a whole lot of pet projects. And when you think about how beautiful our parks are, how safe our community is, we really have done a fantastic job.
Yes, we have one of the lowest millage rates there is. I would like to see it go lower. I'm pushing right now for it to go 1/10 of a mill lower. I'm a big believer in having zero property taxes but having consumer fees. So, if you choose as a consumer to spend more money, then you pay more taxes on certain things.
With that low tax rate there, we also have to think about the fact we have high utility rates. We have high school and water rates. We can't just look at that in a vacuum.
WHAT’S THE CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS CITY COUNCIL THAT MAKES YOU FEEL IT’S A GOOD ONE TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE WESTWARD EXPANSION?
I think this council is very focused on economic development and commercial growth. This council is not afraid to say no to developers who want to pump in more residential. I have seen this council really take some bold moves and show the residents that we hear you, we're listening, we understand the concerns. We're all taxpayers here, too.
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