Tuesday December 12th, 2023, the City held their public workshop meeting where many items were discussed including the Matanzas Woods Parkway Updates, the annual citizens survey, cell tower strategy and rentals.
The city council heard a presentation update regarding the Matanzas Woods Parkway expansion into the western side of the county. Staff anticipates be allocated a grant at the end of this month near Christmas. The City is also working with FPL with the design of the road, and the power poles height adjustments. According to staff, the railroad is the most detailed and tedious portion of this project as it requires working with FDOT, the Railroad, the City of Bunnell, and the City of Palm Coast and Flagler County. Design is 90% complete, and the right of way is partially obtained. The conservation easement release is currently underway.
The City’s staff gave a presentation on the National Citizen Survey. This survey is a benchmarking survey and it is compared with cities across the country. This survey is sent out every other year, and it is used to improve services. The survey will go out in February and the results will be available in April. This survey is also being used by Flagler County Government for the first time, and this will be along the same timeline as the city’s survey. There are three custom questions on the survey; one will focus on city streets; medians and traffic; and countywide projects like beaches, storm drainage, parks and trails.
City Council heard a presentation on the cell tower strategy next. The city owns multiple parcels of land throughout the city that are already approved for cellular towers. The presentation involved talking about next steps, as the wireless masterplan was adopted in 2017. There are multiple options to get towers on the land; the city can construct towers themselves, they can come to an exclusive agreement with a tower company, or they can allow any company to come in and build towers. City council gave consensus that staff should pursue the open access option.
City staff gave a presentation on rentals; more properly known as Airbnb’s or vacation rentals. All rentals, both vacation and long term rentals must be registered with the city. There are actively over 8,000 currently in Palm Coast. State and County regulations include: the State of Florida requires registration with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation; a Florida Department of Revenue requires a certificate of registration to collect and remit tourist development, sales and transient rental taxes; Flagler County requires a short-term vacation rental certificate, affidavit and business tax receipt; and Flagler County also charges $400 for an initial application fee; $200 renewal, $50.00 transfer and a $50 modification. The city does not implement any of the county requirements. The county does take care of the sales tax, transient rental tax and tourist development. Pontieri stated that if short term rentals in the city are not paying the fees listed by the county, then she would like to see the city raise their prices. Pontieri also stated that she would like to see the city regulate the number of occupants per short term rental.
The city also brought up the overview of the legal services request that will be sent out to look for new legal services for the city. With Neysa Brokert leaving, the city is looking for new representation. Staff will bring back bids and other information for council to review in February of 2024.
