Retail-office project wins OK

January 18, 2008

VOLUSIA COUNTY - The Volusia County Council approved a 70-acre retail and office project Thursday in an area adjacent to DeLand, Deltona and Orange City.

Deltona supersizes its vote, backing 3,000 housing units

Denise-Marie Balona | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted April 18, 2007

DELTONA -- City leaders voted early Tuesday morning to allow 3,000 apartments or condominiums in an industrial and commercial area, just an hour after those same leaders rejected a developer's request for 96 apartments just a quarter of a mile away.

The preliminary vote sets the stage for an enormous increase in the city's multifamily housing inventory, if the change survives a second public hearing on May 7.

But the vote left city Commissioner David Santiago befuddled.

"It was mind-boggling to me to see some of my peers be hypocrites," said Santiago, who couldn't vote on the 96-unit apartment proposal because he is the real-estate agent representing the sellers of the property.

A standing-room-only crowd packed the commission's expansive chambers to protest the smaller of the two projects, saying apartments were not appropriate for the area along Howland Boulevard near Deltona High School.

But most left after the commission's vote just before midnight, missing its subsequent approval of a change in the industrial park's master plan that would allow 30 times more multifamily units than the project commissioners earlier rejected.

Santiago, the only city commissioner to vote against the bigger project, noted that his colleagues turned down the smaller apartment complex because of traffic, school crowding and other issues.

Other commissioners and city officials argued Tuesday that the two projects are very different.

The first called for a small apartment complex and commercial center fronting a major road. The second, larger project is needed to jump-start the activity center, a swath of land along Interstate 4 that the city wants to develop as a new commercial core.

City Manager Steve Thompson said if the city builds as many as 3,000 multifamily units there -- apartments, condos, town homes or a combination -- it would provide a steady stream of shoppers and business.

He said that while the new homes would dump more traffic onto Howland, one of the city's main thoroughfares, the activity center would be configured so some traffic could be directed toward other roadways.

Also, some residents will work, live and shop at the activity center, so they won't need to use Howland as much.

The multifamily housing will replace about 3 million square feet of space previously earmarked for warehouses and light industry, Thompson said.

"It's going to help make the larger retail development everyone wants at the activity center possible," he said.

Although school-district officials had concerns about both developments, the bigger one clearly would have a bigger impact on already-crowded public schools.

Saralee Morrissey, the Volusia school district's director of site acquisition, said she wants the city or a developer to provide land for a school at the activity center or nearby.

"If they're going to have as much residential as was indicated in that report, yes, I want a school," she said.

Some residents who crammed into the commission chambers Monday night to oppose the smaller project were alarmed to learn Tuesday that elected leaders were willing to allow possibly 3,000 apartments on other land nearby.

Resident Ray Hosterman didn't wait for the outcome of the activity-center vote, taken at 12:45 a.m.

"I should have stayed," he said.

Karen Hollensbe, who helped lead opposition against the 96-unit proposal, said she was worried.

"Holy cow," she said. "That's a tremendous amount of traffic."

City officials said the apartments, condos and town homes would come in phases, the first 500 opening within several years.

Mayor Dennis Mulder said the city had to decide on a maximum number of homes to allow at the activity center, but he predicted fewer than half ultimately will get built.

The work is not expected to be complete for another 20-plus years, city officials said, which allows time to work out the details of the plan.

"When it comes right down to it," said Commissioner Janet Deyette, "we will see it again and then we will decide what we want or don't want."

Denise-Marie Balona can be reached at dbalona@orlandosentinel.com or 386-851-7916.

May 08, 2007

Residents demand answers on Deltona land-use change

By SARA KIESLER
Staff Writer

DELTONA -- Dave Schwartz stood outside City Hall with signs and petitions warning of the 3,000 homes that might be coming to a neighborhood near him.

"If you don't want more houses, you don't want more traffic, sign your name and address," said Schwartz, standing behind a card table with about 50 signatures gathered.

A vote to change industrial land use in the planned economic engine known as the Activity Center to multi-use residential was tabled Monday night until May 24 at 7 p.m. to allow public input from upset homeowners in Deltona.

The residents at Monday's meeting demanded to know why a City Commission vote slipped through after midnight April 16 to approve the change in a section of the city's 900-acre property at Graves Avenue and Howland Boulevard.

"They don't even know about transportation yet and they're going to push this to second and final reading?" said Ann Hylton, referring to unfinished studies about the traffic impact to the area.

But Mayor Dennis Mulder said residents don't have all the facts yet, though he added that he takes the blame for not educating the public about the process.

"I stood outside and only heard one or two things that were accurate," he said. "If they're provided with all the facts and they still hate it, we'll work through that."

City Manager Steve Thompson said without the housing in the Activity Center, the high traffic impact may slow down the process of getting approval for the upscale office jobs and retail opportunities planned for the development, which has been 10 years in the making.

With more housing, he said, more people will walk to shop and go to work instead of driving the well-worn roads.

"You can't have big scale development without apartments--they're critically fundamental. You look behind Heathrow, there are 900 apartments in clusters," he said, referring to an upscale community in nearby Seminole County.

Still, argued Diane Smith, Volusia County School Board representative for the area, the schools are too crowded for the amount of housing.

"The proposed change to the original development is considered nonsubstantial deviation," Smith said. "It may meet standards on transportation, but I beg to differ on schools."

Other commissioners agreed that the city needs more public input sessions about the proposal.

"Every resident impacted should have input," said Commissioner Mike Carmolingo. "You are the taxpayers of the city."

sara.kiesler@news-jrnl.com

"Cities across the country are facing similar challenges and it is important that we come together to raise the issues in one voice to get the attention of the federal government," said Mayor Douglas H. Palmer, President of The USCM.

During the meeting, the mayors will also release a climate protection survey that highlights what over 130 cities large and small are doing NOW to reduce global warming, especially in the absence of federal support.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are 1,139 such cities in the country today, each represented in the Conference by its chief elected official,

Mayor Mulder was born in Washington , N.C. on July 8, 1978 and is a graduate of Deltona High School .
Gee I guess that explains his lack of civic understanding and forward thinking,

to strip the Volusia Growth Management Commission of the power to override joint planning agreements

The entire governmental structure of this state, from the governor to the mayor of the tiniest hamlet, is primed to facilitate development. It has been this way since Henry Flagler and Henry Plant looked south and saw the prospect of profits from wrecking the landscape. The Volusia Growth Management Commission was an attempt by the voters to have a say in how this environmental destruction was to be contained.