The Palm Coast City Council meeting on Tuesday December 12th, 2023, opened with public comments about the height of new builds and flooding, the apartments near Hidden Lakes and Toscana, the state of the city’s roads, a forensic audit, and cell phone towers.
The City Council heard a presentation regarding infill lot drainage updates by Stormwater and Engineering Director Carl Cote. Director Cote stated that staff is reviewing and proposing changes in the technical manual, developed a category in Palm Coast Connect for infill lot drainage issues, created workflow procedures, and created an infill lot task force. Deputy Director of Stormwater stated that they are currently filling about 100 routine inspections, which are inspections that are based on permits. This means they are not able to handle as many other calls as they would like. Both Director Cote and his deputy director stated that each new lot is researched on a case by case basis. Some issues brought up by the department staff were that older homes were built to drain onto vacant lots, the ground becomes compacted over time, re-sodding, road elevations, and the ground water table which has changed in areas according to staff. Currently, stormwater requires that finished floor elevation must be a minimum 12 inches above the crown of the road; lots that don’t back up to a canal or ditch must be graded to drain to the front of the lot, to the swales’ the front property line next to the swale must be the same elevation as the crown of the road; and grades must be 4 inches below finished floor for block homes and 6 inches below for wood structures (Florida Building Code). Stormwater is proposing to set a maximum height for builds, currently Palm Coast requires that no slope on property can be more than 4:1. Staff’s next steps are finalizing the technical manual, conducting a legal review of property rights, contacting insurance companies for input, and setting up stakeholder meetings.
Mayor Alfin questioned the budget, and if that would be impacted due to all of this. City Manager Denise Bevin stated that there are funds allotted for issues like this, and this will just require balance and pace while meeting the demand of the residents. Danko stated his gratitude that the task force was working to amend the codes to ensure this doesn’t happen in the future. Danko also asked staff to come back with a process to help alleviate the issues they are facing currently, he suggested the council start setting aside money to assist current homeowners with the issues they are facing. Director Cote stated they have yet to find a case where the new home is draining onto an existing lot, and that currently existing homes are retaining their own storm water. Pontieri took her time to exercise caution regarding providing funding from city funds, because tax money comes from 100,000 residents and the council is required to be good stewards of all the residents tax money. She did state that she wants to see priorities change in regards to inspections. She stated that she would rather see infill lots that are potentially causing flooding to be inspected over a driveway inspection. Klufas stated that council and staff needs to ensure residents who have spoken out about issues are being acknowledged and heard.
City Attorney Neysa Brokert stated that due to state statutes, she advises against shifting focuses on inspections because there are legal timing requirements on inspections. She also stated that public funds cannot be used for private gain; this limits what can be done as far as helping residents with flooding issues. The city would need to look into potentially grant programs, or something similar to it, with parameters set up, in order to potentially set something like this up. Mayor Alfin clarified that the city could use public funds to help fix this issue, if the project was in regards to updating each neighborhoods stormwater system.
