- April 20, 2026
Theresa Pontieri is vice mayor of the City of Palm Coast and a candidate for Flagler County Commission, District Two.
For too long, the state of Florida has treated local communities like Palm Coast as mere extensions of Tallahassee’s central-planning apparatus. Under the banner of “affordable housing,” state lawmakers and bureaucrats have pushed top-down mandates, zoning overrides, and regulatory schemes that supersede our city and county governments. The result? Distorted markets, slower growth, and the very shortages they claim to fix.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
The solution isn’t more state interference — it’s less. Let capitalism and the free market do what they do best: respond to what Palm Coast residents actually need and can afford. Builders, developers, and local buyers know our market better than any distant bureaucrat. When government steps back, supply rises, prices stabilize, and families win. History proves it. Heavy-handed state “solutions” — rent controls, forced density rules, or one-size-fits-all affordability quotas — only drive up costs, discourage new construction, and punish the very working families they’re meant to help.
That’s why we must return decision-making power where it belongs: to local governance. Palm Coast and Flagler County officials live here. They hear from residents every day. They understand our unique coastal challenges, our growth patterns, and our desire for balanced, responsible development. Local control means faster permitting for projects that make sense here, smarter zoning that protects neighborhoods, and policies shaped by the people who will actually live with the results.
This is the Reagan form of government — the philosophy that built America’s postwar prosperity. Ronald Reagan reminded us that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” He believed in getting Washington — and by extension, any distant capital — out of the way so that free people, free markets, and local leaders could solve problems closest to them. Reagan trusted communities, not centralized power. Tallahassee should do the same.
Palm Coast doesn’t need the state dictating how many units to build and what they must cost, while at the same time, passing legislations that handcuff our ability to meet the needs of our city like capping impact fees we can collect from builders and developers.
Leaders in Tallahassee may as well tell us they don’t trust us to understand our own need for a work force: young teachers, first responders, nurses, and other frontline workers. We do understand — intimately — for the benefit of our own community. We need Tallahassee to step aside and let free enterprise and local common-sense work. Our City Council, our county commission, and our voters are perfectly capable of charting our own housing future.
