- June 21, 2025
The Palm Coast City Council has reversed a denial from the city’s planning board, making way for a 850-unit storage facility on Pine Lakes Parkway, north of Palm Coast Parkway.
The council reversed the decision in a 4-0 vote, with Palm Coast Mayor Mike Norris absent from the June 20 meeting. When the application went before the Planning and Land Development Review Board on May 6, city staff said the application met all the technical requirements for approval.
The planning board ultimately voted against the application, though, 4-2, citing that the proposed project did not meet the criteria to "not be in conflict with or contrary to the public interest," according to meeting documents. The board felt the project would contribute to "an oversaturation" of storage units in the area, and that the project did not fit with the area's current walkability and mixed-use potential.
The facility - called Hill Pointe Way Self Storage - is 99,500 square feet in size and located near the north intersection of Pine Lakes Parkway and Belle Terre Parkway. In addition to the 850 climate-controlled units, the site will also have 26 RV and boat storage spaces.
The 6.83-acre lot is located near several residential neighborhoods. Because it is zoned Commercial 2, which allows for only limited types of commercial development, the applicant filed a special exception application to build the storage unit.
City planner Michael Hanson said staff determined the project did meet all the criteria for the special exception, including being compatible with public interest. Storage units are generally very low-impact, he said, and generate much less traffic than other commercial businesses as well as use much less water, he said.
Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri asked what proof the planning board had to say that the facility would contribute to an oversaturation in the area. Hanson said there was none, to his knowledge, but said the planning board had asked him to pull up a map showing how many other storage units were in the area. But, Hanson said, he reminded the board that the map didn't qualify as evidence towards the criteria.
“There's an existing self-storage facility already, a third of a mile just to the south of this particular project, that's been there for a number of years," Hanson said. "It shows that a self-storage facility can exist within this neighborhood."
Natalie Smith, representing the Johnson Development, said that after the PLDRB meeting the applicant conducted a market analysis study based on a 3-mile radius around the location and found that the market was actually at 50% for climate-controlled units, based on the population in the area.
Deputy Chief Development Officer Ray Tyner told the council that there is a need for boat and RV storage in the city, since the city code does not allow residents to keep them at their homes.
"We're a little bit unique in that way, where our citizens need a place to store their boats or their RV for outside storage," Tyner said. "So as we continue to grow, the need is here."
