Town Center 1 townhomes, Dalton Drive retail get Planning Commission nod, thumbs down for Leisure Lake Road abandonment

 

By DOTTY NIST 

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South Walton Annex – Walton County  –  Six development proposals and other requests have cleared the Walton County Planning Commission with favorable votes, while the county board voted unanimously against one proposal, a road abandonment, moving forward.
The decisions took place at the planning commission’s Sept. 8 regular meeting at the South Walton Annex.

Miller’s Crossing

Miller’s Crossing, a proposal for 72 multi-family townhome units on the east side of J.D. Miller Road, was introduced by Mac Carpenter, Walton County planning manager.
Carpenter told the board members that this was the first residential development proposed for the Walton County Town Center 1 (TC-1) Future Land Use area since TC-1 was created in 1996.
Resulting from the planning work of the South Walton Conservation and Development Trust, TC-1 was created for property north of the U.S. 98/U.S. 331 intersection with the goal of providing a new compact, pedestrian-oriented town center offering services aimed at south Walton County residents. Planned elements for TC-1, many of which have since come to pass, included a public square, government services buildings, a high school complex, a public library, a community park, mixed use components, multiple housing types, a transit stop, workplace allocation, and a community college site.
Scott Jenkins, representative for project applicant Joel Coleman, told the planning commissioners that the Miller’s Crossing site is slightly under 20 acres in size and about one mile north of the U.S. 98/J.D. Miller Road intersection. Density is to be 3.8 units per acre.
The site contains almost 10 acres of wetlands, according to the staff report presented at the meeting.
Jenkins said wetlands would remain intact with 25-foot wetland buffer requirements met. The project is to include two wet retention ponds on opposite sides of the site.
Jenkins indicated that there would be substantial buffers from adjoining properties, ranging from 140 to 200 feet in width.
A one-acre public park is to be provided as part of the townhome development.
In keeping with TC-1 goals, a transit stop is also planned, and there is to be interconnectivity with South Walton High School campus to the south.
“Sounds like a great development,” said Planning Commission Chairman Teddy Stewart.
There were no public comments, and a motion for approval carried with all aye votes.

Dalton Place Commercial
 
Triggering comments from several citizens and attendance and planning commission discussion was Dalton Place Commercial, a 7,076-square-foot commercial building proposed for the southeast corner of the Dalton Drive/CR-30A intersection in Seagrove on a parcel designated as Village Mixed Use (VMU). Nick and Simone Afuta are the applicants.
Neill O’Connell, engineer of record for the project, told the planning commissioners that the half-acre project site is approximately 900 feet west of Eastern Lake. While the land use classification of parcel to the east of the site is Residential Preservation, the properties to the north, south, and west are all VMU, he continued.
Artists’ renderings for the building were displayed, showing a white stucco structure with several towers, two of which O’Connell stated would be 35 feet high and the other 50 feet high. He added that a 20-foot landscape buffer and six-foot privacy fence would be provided on the site next to residential lots to the east. Parking is proposed for the rear of the site.
Currently Dalton Drive is unpaved. The road section adjacent to the property is to be graded and paved.
O’Connell said that a compatibility analysis was not required due to the land use classification of the property but that the applicant had agreed to provide one, which does indicate that the proposal is compatible with uses in the area.
Tom Anthony, the first citizen to comment, was critical of the proposed building’s white stucco exterior.
“I think 30-A deserves better than to look like Panama City Beach,” he said. He also cautioned of traffic congestion and potential accidents on the corner in question during the summer months.
Local architect and Seagrove resident Richard Fouquet charged that the proposal “doesn’t seem to meet the intent,” of VMU, due to only a single use being proposed. He also found the height of the building to be “excessive” and therefore incompatible with the neighborhood.
Dalton Drive resident Clara Kuhn said that residents had understood that Dalton Drive would not be opened to through traffic. Opening the narrow road up with the project would have a detrimental effect on the neighborhood, and the spirit of VMU calls for neighborhoods not to be “disrupted,” she said.
Lois La Seur, the planner who conducted the compatibility study, testified that the project area has been designated as VMU for 20 years. She added that small VMU parcels such as this one are not required to have mixed uses.
The building is proposed to house the 30A Trading Company, a retail store that, according to the compatibility analysis, “will cater to customers desiring high-end resort wear, beachwear, and gifts, including a selection of locally-produced artisanal products.”
“This is a small, relatively low-impact development,” La Seur stated.
Carpenter said of Dalton Drive, “We believe it to be a county right-of-way and can be opened at any time.”
Planning Commissioner Nina Horn commented that she did not think the proposal was compatible with the south side of CR-30A with its some 300 single-family homes. She also expressed concern about watershed impacts of the development on Eastern Lake.
“I’m not favoring it at all,” she said of the proposal.
Observing that “30-A is a different area,” and that there is a need for a great many things to be addressed by the county in connection with the county road, Stewart emphasized that the planning commission’s role is to evaluate proposals based on the requirements of the Walton County Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code.
O’Connell commented that stormwater design would meet industry standards and that he believed the applicants had gone well beyond the county’s requirements. The intent, he said, was to “put forth a good development in good faith.”
O’Connell told the board members that the applicants had suggested that the artist’s renderings for the development be part of a conditional approval by the county. He also commented that a website, www.oconnellengineers.com/30atradingcompany, had been created with information on the project.
Horn moved to deny the proposal and ask for more evidence of compatibility with the surrounding residential area, but her motion was not seconded.
After some additional discussion, Stewart relinquished the gavel to motion for approval based on the proposal meeting code requirements, with a recommendation to the BCC to examine how the project would fit, along with the traffic situation on CR-30A and applicable code provisions. The county’s review of CR-30A and its land use categories need to be expedited, he said.
Stewart’s motion for approval carried, with Horn voting no and Planning Commissioner John Roberts abstaining from voting due to a conflict.

Leisure Lake Road Abandonment

A number of residents of the Leisure Lake community near Mossy Head were present to comment on a proposal by the county to abandon the portion of Leisure Lake Road across the privately-owned Leisure Lake Dam. After falling into disrepair, the dam had been reconstructed by means of a Municipal Service Benefit Unit (MSBU) paid into by subdivision residents.
The abandonment of the road section would relinquish its maintenance to the Leisure Lake Homeowners Association.
The road section in question has been closed for about five years, according to testimony at the hearing. The proposal by Walton County was in accordance with a March 24, 2015 vote of the Walton County Board of County Commissioners (BCC) not to reconstruct the road across the dam—and to abandon the road section so that the county would not have maintenance responsibility for the top of the dam. The dam top is currently just dirt and grass, according to Buddy Wright of Walton County Public Works. The county does maintain the road on both sides of the dam, Wright told the planning commissioners.
Several community residents stated their opposition to the abandonment proposal, saying that they had been told that the road across the dam would be “put back” after the dam repair. They argued that the road was badly needed as an alternate ingress and egress to the community.
Bobby Settles, a 22-year resident of the area, said there had been instances when emergency traffic had been required to be routed across the dam road when it was still open. He said the dam road is also needed for school buses to service the community without having to back up.
Settles was one of a number of individual residents whose opinions differed with those of the Leisure Lake Homeowners Association, which apparently does not favor the dam road being constructed.
Horn asked Wright why the county does not want to pave the road section.
He responded that the neighborhood association has the responsibility to maintain the pipes and other features of the dam—and that the county would not want to be responsible for the dam road with someone else in control of the dam.
Walton County Attorney Mark Davis commented that if the dam pipes fail, “we have a road that we can’t fix.”
John Murphy, president of the Leisure Lake Homeowners Association, said $105,000 had been paid by residents to fix the dam. The damage had been caused by failure of the pipe going through the dam, he explained. The owners now bear responsibility to maintain the dam, Murphy said.
Before the dam reconstruction and closing of the dam road, all kinds of traffic had traversed the dam, including 18 wheelers, Murphy noted. He said the association’s position was that if the county put the road back and that traffic started again, the county should assume the cost to maintain the dam and fix any damage to its structure resulting from traffic across the dam.
Stewart said he understood the financial picture but still had concern that some residents might have no way in and out without the dam road in some emergency situations.
Horn motioned for denial of the abandonment and requested that the county be asked to consider maintaining the dam. The motion was approved with all aye votes.

Piper’s Place
 
The board members voted to approve Piper’s Place, a development of six single-family homes on a 1.125-acre site on Driftwood Road , just south of Sandprints Drive and north of Scenic Gulf Drive in Miramar Beach.
Several neighboring residents spoke of severe flooding problems in the area.
Driftwood Road resident Arthur Summers warned that the site for the proposed development “catches” water from several of the condominiums in that neighborhood. He requested no fill on the site and that the homes be built on stilts. If not, he cautioned, “we’ll have all that water on top of us.”
Brian Clark, president of the homeowners’ association for the neighboring Port of Call condominiums, argued that it was not fair for another development to come in and “keep our water from running off.”
Chris O’Shea, an engineering representative for the applicant, Gulf Beach Rentals, told the planning commissioners all requirements for the site had been met for a 100-year storm event and that the applicant should not be required to maintain stormwater for neighboring properties. “We’re not raising the site that much,” he said. Drainage would be by means of sheet flow to the back of the site, O’Shea explained.
He said five-foot sidewalks were being provided across the property and that the utility easement would remain undisturbed.
There was discussion that the county was pursuing measures to improve stormwater management for the area in question as a whole.
There was a motion to approve, resulting in all aye votes.

Other requests

In other action, the board members voted to recommend approval of the following requests: YOLO Board Distribution, a 14,065-square-foot distribution building proposed for a 0.9-acre site on the west side of Veterans Road in Santa Rosa Beach, 4/10 mile north of U.S. 98; the Robert O’Brian Lot Split, consisting of the reconfiguration of a 0.19-acre parcel on the northeast corner of the Orange Avenue/Carson Lane intersection in Inlet Beach into two parcels; and the Church Street Landing 1st Amendment, consisting of a reduction in density to 17 single-family lots from 24 previously approved in 2006 for a 10.36-acre parcel on the west side of Church Street in Santa Rosa Beach, approximately 500 feet north of U.S. 98.
Continued to the Oct. 13 planning commission meeting were the Costa Blanca and Pando Small Scale Amendment proposals.
Planning commission decisions are provided as recommendations to the BCC, which bears responsibility for final determinations on these requests in public session.