- January 14, 2026
Flagler County has come to a tentative settlement agreement in the federal court case with Hammock Harbour, LLC.
At the Flagler County Commission’s Jan. 12 meeting, County Attorney Michael Rodriguez said the county’s and the Hammock Harbour attorneys met on Jan. 7 in mediation. Rodriguez said that the settlement agreement, pending the approval of the Flagler County Commission, would avoid “what would have been very timely and very costly federal litigation.”
“Based on just the course that this litigation was going to take and the amount of time, I believe that we probably got the best deal we could get out on the part of the county,” Rodriguez said.
The details of the settlement will not be publicly available until after the court judge closes out the case. The court case follows a six-year dispute between the county and the property owner.
The case began when, in 2019, property owner Bob Million applied to build a 240-boat storage facility on the property, alongside a restaurant and retail space. The property is under 5 acres in size and located in the northern lot next to Hammock Hardware on State Road A1A.
The lot had been used as a small boat-building operation for close to 40 years, which closed in 2018.
Million’s proposal went back and forth between Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee, Planning Board and Commission. The Flagler County Commission did approve the dry boat storage facility, but that decision was reversed by a Flagler County judge after the Hammock Community Association appealed it in court.
Since then, the application for the dry boat storage has gone through more appeals on Million’s behalf,
HCA member Dennis Clark told the Observer the issue was that the county's land development code doesn't say anything about dry boat storage. The county's LDC does explicitly ban warehouses in the A1A Scenic Overlay district, which includes the Hammock Harbour property, according to previous Observer reporting and Flagler County documents.
Million called the project was called a marina, which has allowed uses in the county’s LDC, but Hammock residents at the time argued it was essentially a warehouse. County staff did, in 2021, propose amending the LDC to include dry boat storage in the Scenic A1A Corridor, but that was denied by the Commission.
Clark said that the previous boat-building operation was small-scale, instead of the more industrial use proposed by Million.
“Our position all along is that it's a warehouse, it's more of an industrial use, and therefore has no place in the hammock in this area," Clark said.
Million filed a federal lawsuit against the county in February 2025, arguing that the county had placed an unfair burden on the property, according to federal court documents. The court case is being heard by Judge Timothy J. Corrigan with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Jacksonville.
Million’s filing requested the damages for all “costs, attorneys’ fees, pre-judgment and post-judgment interest, and that the Court grant such other relief as is appropriate.” The demand is listed as $9,999,000 on the U.S. Federal Judiciary’s case management website.
Rodriguez told the Commission he hopes to bring the settlement to the February meeting. He will meet with the commissioners individually to discuss the settlement’s details.
Rodriguez said it was an all day mediation.
”We actually got him [the plaintiff] to agree to a settlement of the case,” he said. “So, I think it was a very worthwhile endeavor.”
