HMO 09 19 19

THE HAMMOCK

Observer YOU. YOUR NEIGHBORS. YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD.

WHAT’S SELLING? PAGE 7 SEPTEMBER 2019

VOLUME 4, NO. 3

County votes 3-2 to OK Beachwalk’s 50 homes Despite opposition, Hammock development approved. PAGE 5

HCA to appeal proposal Hammock Community Association opposes boat storage facility.

PAGE 2

Hurricane Dorian didn’t hit Flagler County hard — thanks to the dunes.

Photo by Brian McMillan

LESSONS FROM DORIAN County engineer takes the Observer on a tour of the dunes. PAGE 3

NOW MONTHLY Beginning this month, The Hammock Observer publishes each month, rather than every other month.

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WHY’D THE ROOSTER CROSS A1A? While Hammock residents were scurrying around to prepare for Hurricane Dorian, another resident seemed lost: A rooster was walking around the Publix parking lot.

Despite the stress of Dorian prep, “People were in surprisingly good moods, chatty and playful,” said one resident, Becky Pourchot. “Several people talked about making soup of him, while another said she wouldn’t sleep well unless she knew he was OK.” Another resident said he lived across A1A.

Photo by Becky Pourchot

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HAMMOCK OBSERVER

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PalmCoastObserver.com

SEPTEMBER 2019

Hammock Community Association plans appeal to block proposal for boat storage facility How ‘intense’ is the use of the property on A1A? JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR

In an affirmation of the judgment of the county’s planning director, Adam Mengel — but a blow to the hopes of many Hammock area residents — the county’s Planning and Development Board on Sept. 10 rejected the Hammock Community Association’s appeal of Mengel’s determination that a proposed boat storage facility would be a permitted use on a parcel of land that the County Commission had already approved for boat manufacturing.

The vote was 4-1, with board member Laureen Kornel dissenting. Board members Timothy Conner and Mike Goodman were absent.

The HCA is already planning to appeal the Planning Board’s decision to the Flagler County Commission.

“A lot of the discussion revolves around the intensity, that this is a less intense use: That was why Adam made the decision that he did,” said Dennis Clark, of

the Hammock Community Association. “But it’s obvious that this is not a less intense use; it’s a much more intense use. So I think the decision they made was incorrect, so that’s why we’re going to go to the county commissioners.”

The county’s codes don’t specify a zoning district for boat storage.

The use of the land for boat manufacturing had been approved by the County Commission in 2000 as part of a rezoning process, according to county documents. Mengel determined that the proposed storage facility was a related but less intense use than the already-approved boat manufacturing use — boat building would presumably include some degree of boat storage, because builders need a place to keep their boats, he said — meaning that the land usage aspect of the proposal would not have to appear before the Planning Board for approval, as the use would already be permitted.

It landed before the board anyway because the Hammock Com-

“It’s a major commercial intrusion in an existing residential neighborhood.”

DENNIS BAYER, attorney representing the Hammock Community Association

munity Association filed a formal appeal of Mengel’s determination, and HCA members attended the Sept. 10 hearing wearing green shirts to show their opposition to the proposal.

The matter before the planning board, as board attorney Kate Stangle saw it, could be divided into two questions, she said: Had Mengel had the right, without the board’s input, to determine whether the proposed use constituted a “similar use” to the existing one? And, if he did have that right, had he made the correct determination?

From the HCA’s perspective, the proposed Hammock Harbour facility — which would include large indoor boat storage facility, plus a restaurant and 120 parking spaces, on land currently occupied by much smaller manufacturing, storage, and office buildings — represents an increase in intensity, not a decrease.

The former boat building facility on the site hadn’t operated for about four years, and, back when it had, it had been limited to the construction of a single boat at a time, said attorney Dennis Bayer, representing the HCA. It also had just 12 parking spaces, he said. The new proposed facility would attract much more traffic and have a forklift running regularly, he said.

“This is not a continuation of an existing nonconforming use. ... We think that the process was wrong and the decision was

Photo by Jonathan Simmons

Planning Board Chairman Michael Boyd speaks at a Sept. 10 meeting.

wrong, because we think this is a much more intense use,” Bayer said. “So our position is it’s not just intensity: It’s the type of use, it’s the nature of the use, and it’s the massive expansion of what was there, and it’s not continuous in nature.”

Board member Mark Langello said his understanding was that the decision Mengel had made fell under Mengel’s purview.

As to the concerns that the proposed facility would draw increased traffic, Langello said, that could happen with other things that could be approved for that location under the current commercial zoning, too. And, he added, the law doesn’t allow counties and cities to de-facto prohibit legal businesses from operating by denying them zon-

ing to do so.

A boat storage facility, by definition, would need to be along the water, and there aren’t any in the area currently, he said.

“It has to be allowed somewhere,” Langello said. “If something is legal, you can’t make it illegal by not having a zoning district for it. ... By default, this is one of the few parcels that could even be considered.”

But Kornel said that many cities and counties prohibit boat storage in residential areas.

“Typically it is discouraged up against residential,” she said. If she’d been in Mengel’s position, she added, she might have taken the matter to the board for consideration, “because it is very grey, and they are very different uses.”

Hammock resident Jan Sullivan, speaking during the meeting’s public comment period, said the proposed use was “certainly not less intense,” and added that the proposed restaurant would be very near one neighboring home.

Clark noted that commercial warehousing is explicitly prohibited in the zoning district, and boat storage would be even more disruptive, he said.

“Instead of a few trucks a day going in and out of a warehouse, what we have is 100 cars going in and out, and a forklift going all day,” he said. “I think this is not the same use as boat manufacturing.”

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SEPTEMBER 2019

3

Faith in the dunes A tour of Flagler County’s sand after Hurricane Dorian

The white sand in the distance is part of a dune formed by Flagler County staff. The owner of the lot in the foreground declined to have the dune extended to his property.

BRIAN MCMILLAN EXECUTIVE EDITOR

WASHING AWAY The dunes are “sacrificial,” according to Richard Gordon, assistant county engineer.

They are not meant to be permanent but only a short-term solution.

Flagler County still needs to figure out a funding mechanism for a long-term solution, according to County Engineer Faith Alkhatib.

COUNTING SAND

11.5 miles

Length of Flagler County’s completed dune renourishment project in the northern two-thirds of the county.

.5 million

Cubic yards of sand used to shore up the dunes in that portion of the project, or 4-10 cubic yards per linear foot.

5.6 miles

Length of the next phase of the dune renourishment, set to begin in 2020.

2 million

Cubic yards of sand to be used to shore up the southern dunes, or 40-60 cubic yards per foot, about 10 times as much sand per foot as the northern portion.

T

he prevailing assessment of Hurricane Dorian on Sept. 4 was that we had been spared. That was certainly true in Palm Coast neighborhoods, but I asked Flagler County for a tour to see the area that was most vulnerable to the wind and waves: the recently rebuilt dunes.

I arrived at the Emergency Operations Center at 3 p.m.

Wednesday, Sept. 4, and I was met by the county’s public information officer, Julie Murphy, who once again worked long hours behind the scenes to keep the media and the community informed during the storm. She joked that she was glad I had asked for at tour because that gave her a reason to finally leave the EOC for a few minutes.

Our driver was Richard Gordon, assistant county engineer; he has worked for Flagler County for 31 years.

In the front passenger seat was Faith Alkhatib, county engineer, the face of the dune restoration project in the county. I asked her what went through her mind when she learned that Dorian was heading our way.

“I was very worried,” she said, wearing a black ball cap and a rain jacket. She joked that she wanted to go out and protect the new dunes herself.

AN UNPRECEDENTED EFFORT

Many other coastal communities in Florida are on renourishment schedules, having sand added to the shore on a regular basis. But in the past century, very little has been done to improve the health of the dunes in Flagler County, Alkhatib said.

Then, three years ago, the dunes took a fatal hit. Hurricane Matthew gobbled them up and then

Faith Alkhatib pushes away the top layer of coquina sand to show the white sand, which was added by the county to renourish dunes in the past year. Future sand to renourish dunes will also be white, dredged 7 miles from shore.

flooded a dozen streets in north Flagler County. After Matthew, the coastline was unprotected: Without a dune, any strong storm could flood the homes on those streets — it wouldn’t take another hurricane.

The county administration responded by coming up with a plan to restore the dunes. But when the bids for the project came back, they were double the expected cost. The county staff discussed it and, with the County Commission’s blessing, decided that they could move sand on their own for a fraction of the cost.

Led by Alkhatib, they made it happen, at a pace of a mile a month. In March 2019, the last of the sand loads was put in place.

It was such a success that, since then, other communities have inquired about how it was done.

The Florida Department of Transportation has also been hard at work, creating a one-mile seawall to strengthen State Road A1A. Concrete poles — 1,800 of them — were punched into the sand at alternating intervals of 18 and 36 feet deep to create a seawall, and then 85,000 tons of sand were piled on top to create dunes.

You can tell where the project was completed by the sight of neatly planted vegetation along the side of the road beginning at 18th Road North in Flagler Beach and extending north toward Beverly Beach.

That project was finished even more recently.

“Believe it or not, we sent the

Faith Alkhatib, county engineer

final invoice to DEP last week,” Alkhatib said as we drove on the tour.

TALE OF TWO DUNES

Although the lack of a dune caused anxiety for many, not everyone was worried enough to accept the county’s help. In fact, 11 property owners declined to have a dune in front of their lots.

Alkhatib brought me to one such lot, which featured beautiful rock formations at the shoreline.

The lot was empty: No house had been built there yet. And, unlike at the neighboring lots, there was no dune here.

Alkhatib showed me a video of this very lot earlier in the day, with water rushing across it.

She had no ill will toward the property owner, but seeing that video was evidence to her that the dune project was doing its job elsewhere in the county: See what can happen without a dune?

Wherever there was a dune, she

reported, there were no breaches.

On the way back from north Flagler County, we stopped at a second dune. This one was at 18th Road North, the southern edge of FDOT’s project, with the Flagler Beach Pier in the distance to the south. And although this seawall-and-dune combo had done its job and had protected A1A, I was surprised by how much sand had been carved out by Dorian.

With Alkhatib’s permission (normally, of course, we “Dodge the Dunes”), I walked up the dune and was faced with a 10-foot drop to the beach below. Before Dorian, she said, this had sloped about 20 feet farther out.

Would they be adding more sand to replace what was lost?

She didn’t think FDOT would be adding more sand. Rather, the remaining sand would be reshaped.

It was sobering to think what one storm can do, even with a dune to block the waves.

The FDOT project cost a staggering $40 million. The next phase, which is currently being designed and will begin next spring, will cost another staggering $35 million, as the remaining 5.6 miles south to the Volusia County line are strengthened.

Fortunately, the vast majority of that $75 million is paid for with federal and state grants. And 2.6 miles of the remaining 5.6 will be done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

But the tour made it clear that this is not the end but only the beginning of the conversation about what we are willing to do — and pay — to protect our roads and beaches in the long term.

OCEAN VIEWS Will the renourished dunes in the southern 5.6 miles of Flagler County block the views of the ocean from A1A? When I asked County Engineer Faith Alkhatib that question, she laughed nervously, knowing it was a sensitive question for many residents.

She said, “I hope not.”

Photos by Brian McMillan

This vegetation was planted to help stop erosion on the Florida Department of Transportation’s seawall, which is underneath a dune formed by 85,000 tons of sand that were hauled in by truck.

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HAMMOCK OBSERVER

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PalmCoastObserver.com

SEPTEMBER 2019

BUSINESS OBSERVER

Ice cream parlors serve up before storm Two businesses found community support in preparing for losses from Hurricane Dorian.

JOEY PELLEGRINO STAFF WRITER

Courtesy photo

Ethan, Karla and Allen Goodman at the new Benjamin Moore paint store in Palm Coast.

CHAMBER CHAIRMAN OPENS PAINT STORE After more than 30 years in the hospitality industry, Allen Goodman, who also serves as chairman of the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce, is bringing Benjamin Moore paints back to Palm Coast with the opening of a new store at 5 Utility Drive, Unit 1, according to a news release.

“Benjamin Moore was looking for someone to come back in and reestablish themselves back in this market,” Goodman said in the release, “and I saw this as an opportunity.”

Goodman said with Palm Coast and Flagler County seeing an increase in population and the housing market gaining momentum, the timing is right to open a Benjamin Moore store.

The new store will be a family business, with his wife, Karla, and youngest son, Ethan, already at work. The family plans to include their two sons currently serving in the U.S. Marine Corps: Sgt. Drake Goodman and Cpl. Carter Goodman.

Customers will find a wide variety

of paint products, with several different collections including specialty paints, historical paints and Benjamin Moore’s Infinity Collection, where customers can take any three paint colors in the collection and find they all go together. In addition, for those customers unsure of exactly what color they want, Goodman said that is no problem.

“If you come in and are not sure what kind of paint you want to put on your walls, we can mix them as far as the paint is concerned,” he said.

Goodman doesn’t want to stop at one store.

“We plan to grow,” he said. “We don’t want to stop with one store as we are hopefully successful with this one.”

The store had a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Flagler Chamber this summer.

Store hours are 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays. More information is available by calling 597-7283 or by visiting https:// tinyurl.com/y6fssl5z or Facebook page at https://www.facebook. com/goodpeoplepaint.

When the weather maps showed Hurricane Dorian making its tightrope walk along the Atlantic coast toward Flagler County, did you stop to think about ice cream?

John Maldonado of Purdees Tropical Flavored Ice and Mike and Holly Wehde of the Waffle Cone had to, because every delicious tub that could have melted if Dorian took out their electricity would have been a tub of cash blown away by the palm-bending winds.

The proprietors of both shops landed on similar pre-storm solutions.

Purdees, on 1070 Palm Coast Parkway Northwest, gave away its sweets — soft-serve ice cream, Dole whip, Italian ices — for $5 per customer from last Friday through Saturday, Aug. 30-31.

The Waffle Cone, closer to the danger of the storm surge at 102 South Fourth St., Flagler Beach, sold its ice cream for 50% off Sunday through Monday, Sept. 1-2.

Neither set of owners had been in place for very long when they saw a Category 3 threat to their livelihoods on the horizon.

“We’re brand new,” Maldonado said of Purdees, “only open over a month.”

He decided early Friday afternoon to do his $5 deal (provided customers ate in the store) and announce it on social media.

“We had been open all week” after the hurricane’s Floridian trajectory was announced, Maldonado said, “and saw business crawl to a standstill.” But the sale saw Purdees have two steadily busy days.

At the Waffle Cone, the Wehdes also thought of their sale salvation at the last second.

“Are you kidding me?” was their shared thought as Dorian bore down on their fledgling business.

Having only owned the Cone for two months, they had let their employees leave to evacuate and were prepared to count over 100 tubs of ice cream as a loss when they caught the attention of the Channel 9 News crew filming the beach.

The news broadcast of their mission to “save the ice cream” helped, but Holly Wehde says it

Photo by Paola Rodriguez

Sydney Barksdale Natalia Kurdziel at The Waffle Cone.

was just as much their widelyshared Facebook announcement, snowballing across the local web, which led to Monday night’s flood of cream-seekers.

No sooner had the last of their employees left on Monday than customers started flooding in.

One patron, Natasha Glover, jumped over the counter to offer a scooping hand.

By the time the Wehdes closed on Tuesday to make their own home preparations, over 100 customers had helped them reduce over 100 tubs of ice cream to 20.

“It made a beautiful day out of what we expected to be an awful day,” she said. “It was the people in this community coming together to show us love and support.”

Both Purdees and the Waffle Cone will try to reflect the support shown by their communities.

“We did love the response,” Maldonado said, “love the fact that families came out.”

While he only did the sale because he lacked generators to keep his freezers running, and hopes to have the means to do so for future storms, Maldonado says such all-you-can-eat sales may happen again.

“We appreciated the community’s support, so it was something we discussed doing periodically, as a thank you,” he said.

“It was super sweet that so

“It made a beautiful day out of what we expected to be an awful day. It was the people in this community coming together to show us love and support.”

HOLLY WEHDE

many people came out,” Wehde said of the Waffle Cone’s success.

The Wehdes ordered more ice cream, and 10% of their proceeds through Sunday, Sept. 8, was planned to go to disaster relief for the Bahamas.

Both Purdees and the Waffle Cone were scheduled to reopen Thursday, Sept. 5.

Email Joey Pellegrino at joey@ palmcoastobserver.com.

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5

SEPTEMBER 2019

Despite resident opposition, commission OKs Beachwalk 3-2 The Hammock Community Association has opposed the proposed Beachwalk development, saying it’s out of character with the area.

JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR

The board chambers of the county’s Government Services Building filled up with shades of mint and grass green as dozens of Hammock Community Association members filled the audience wearing green shirts to show their opposition to a proposed 50-home development off State Road A1A. Still, a divided County Commission approved the proposal.

Commissioner Greg Hansen, whose district includes the Hammock, made known his opposition to the proposal — saying he had “a lot of problems with this” — early in the board’s discussion.

“The plan that they have is a good plan, except it has 50 houses in it,” Hansen said. “Take that same plan … and put 36 houses in it, and I’ll vote for it.”

As it is, he said, “It’s just going to ruin that part of the Hammock, so I’m just strongly against this; I think it’s the wrong thing to do.”

COMMISSIONER GREG HANSEN APPOINTED TO CANVASSING BOARD County Commissioner Greg Hansen has been appointed to serve on the Flagler County Canvassing Board for the 2020 elections.

The seat is traditionally assigned to the chairman of the Flagler County Commission — currently Donald O’Brien — but O’Brien is up for re-election and therefore ineligible to sit on the Canvassing Board.

Hansen, speaking during the commission’s Sept. 16 meeting, volunteered for the seat.

Commissioner Charlie Ericsken, whose seat is up for re-election but who is not

running, will serve as Hansen’s alternate.

Elections Supervisor Kaiti Lenhart’s seat is also up for re-election, although Lenhart is so far the only one to register for the race.

The County Commission approved the appointment of Nicole Williams, the public affairs director for the Flagler County Association of Realtors, to take Lenhart’s place on the Canvassing Board if someone contests Lenhart in the Supervisor of Elections race.

— JONATHAN SIMMONS

The commission has seen proposals for the development, called Beachwalk, in the past, and had previously rejected it.

Jacksonville-based developer Ken Atlee told commissioners during the Sept. 16 meeting that his firm has now adapted Beachwalk based on community input.

“We gave up on many of the requested changes to work with the community in good faith,” Atlee said.

Atlee’s firm is under contract on the land.

He noted that the Beachwalk proposal involves extending a sewer line to the development, rather than using septic systems, and that if his proposal does not move forward, some other developer could put in septic systems on that land under the current zoning.

Many coastal areas are trying to move away from septic systems because of their tendency to leak into the soil, and, from there, into nearby water bodies.

About a dozen community

“I’m very concerned about septic tanks; I don’t want to see them out there at all. I think they’re destroying our environment. ... The septic tank thing is a very serious thing.”

members spoke during the meeting’s public comment period to voice their opposition to the proposal. Several said it would set a precedent for high-density development in the Hammock and that it doesn’t meet the requirements of a Planned Unit Development, the designation to which Atlee wants to have the land rezoned, because it doesn’t meet the PUD requirement of being “creative.”

“There’s nothing innovative about this; this is a housing development,” said resident Lynn Rosewater. “The requirement for a PUD has not been met, and if it’s not been met, you can not vote for it. ... They asked you for a PUD simply to get greater density.”

One resident, Pam Hathaway, said she’d moved to the Hammock from South Florida 17 years ago, and does not want to see Flagler County become as overdeveloped as the counties in the south of the state.

But the Flagler Chamber submitted a letter to the County Commission supporting the pro-

JOE MULLINS, commissioner, explaining one reason he voted for Beachwalk

posal, as did the Flagler Home Builders Association.

Commissioner Joe Mullins said the potential for the area to be developed by another developer using septic tanks if the Beachwalk proposal falls through worried him.

“I’m very concerned about septic tanks; I don’t want to see them out there at all,” he said. “I think they’re destroying our environment. ... The septic tank thing is a very serious thing.”

Hansen proposed a motion to deny the Beachwalk application, but he and Commissioner Charlie Ericksen were the only ones in favor of the motion to deny.

A motion to approve the proposal passed 3-2, with Hansen and Ericksen dissenting.

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SEPTEMBER 2019

2 0 1 9 / 2 0 2 0

County OKs tentative millage rate and budget

S E A S O N

JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR

The Flagler County Commission in a meeting Sept. 5 approved the county’s 2020 tentative millage rate: 8.2547 mills, or $8.2547 per $1,000 of taxable value. The meeting was the first of two on the millage, special assessments and budget. The second and final vote will be held at 5:30 p.m.

Thursday, Sept. 19.

The millage rate is an increase of 4.41% from the rollback rate — the rate that would have brought in the same overall dollar amount of tax money as last year — of 7.9059 mills, Financial Services Director John Brower said, and includes 0.1250 mills in voter-approved environmentally sensitive land funding. But it is a reduction in the actual aggregate millage rate, which has been 8.7247 for fiscal year 2019.

Before the commission unanimously approved the millage rate and tentative budget, Commissioner David Sullivan noted how fortunate the county had been

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with Dorian.

“I would say that we were extremely lucky at this point after what could have happened with the hurricane that just passed, Dorian, given it was just a few miles off the coast,” he said. “If it had been what Matthew did, I think I’d be standing here saying we need to re-look at the budget, because if we had those kind of expenses we had for Matthew, we’d have to probably take a different look at where we have to go.

So again, I think we’re extremely lucky that we can be here tonight and be able to go forward with this slight millage decrease.”

He also noted, before commissioners unanimously approved the county’s special assessment rolls, that it was special assessment money that had been used to add seawall protection in the Painters Hill area. That work, along with dune restoration work, helped protect the land during the storm.

“I think they’ve proved their worth in the last week,” he said.

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Flagler County’s animals are getting additional legal protection — but not as much as Flagler Humane Society Executive Director Amy Carotenuto had hoped.

The County Commission on Sept. 16 approved an ordinance that bans animal cruelty and restricts the conditions under which people can tether their dogs outside unattended.

But the ordinance does allow unattended tethering, and was a revision of an earlier proposed ordinance that had largely banned unattended dog tethering. The commission had been scheduled to vote on the earlier version on Aug. 19, but decided to delay its vote after American Kennel Club Government Relations Regional Manager Patty Van Sicklen emailed commissioners stating the AKC’s opposition to the tethering ordinance, which, she wrote, did not “consider humane and necessary use of tethers.”

An issue paper attached to Van Sicklen’s email gives examples of what the AKC considers humane tethering: for instance, using a tether to confine an “escape-artist” dog to a fenced yard; using a tether to tie out a dog in neighborhoods where fences are prohibited; using a tether to confine a dog during a camping trip; or tethering “hunting dogs, field trial dogs, and dogs properly conditioned to be humanely tethered outdoors in conjunction with training, hunting, and events.”

The AKC has opposed similar anti-tethering ordinances elsewhere.

County Administrator Jerry Cameron told board members during the Sept. 16 meeting that he had spoken with an AKC rep-

resentative by phone and reached consent on the proposed ordinance, which was then revised to allow unattended dog tethering if the dog has access to shade and water and the tether isn’t a heavy chain or of a length that would cause the dog to be hanged by the tether if it jumped a fence.

But Carotenuto said cases in which dogs are tethered humanely aren’t the sort that come to the attention of the county’s Animal Control officers.

Speaking at the board meeting Sept. 16, she urged commissioners to reject the amended wording about tethering in the ordinance and instead use the original wording that had been presented at the August meeting.

“Dogs are very social creatures, just like you and I,” she said. “Life on the end of a chain is lonely, boring, frustrating torture.”

In addition, she said, chained dogs are three times more likely than unchained dogs to bite, as they can become territorial about their little patch of land, and, because of the chain, feel they can’t escape if threatened.

“Very often, chaining the dog is just a portion of the neglect,” she said. “They suffer from inadequate feedings; they suffer from overturned water bowls.”

In one case, she said, the Flagler Humane Society weighed a chain that a dog had around its neck: It was 17 pounds, about half the weight of the dog. Dogs chained in a yard can become an afterthought for their owners, she said.

Four residents spoke to encourage commissioners to support the more restrictive wording in the original ordinance.

The commission approved the revised ordinance unanimously.

HAMMOCK OBSERVER

REAL ESTATE

PalmCoastObserver.com

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WAYNE GRANT REAL ESTATE EDITOR

HAMMOCK BEACH Frank Petruno sold 20 Hammock Beach Parkway to Joseph and Sandra Guckian, of New York, for $865,000.

Built in 2015, the house has four bedrooms, four baths, a swimming pool and 3,467 square feet. It sold in 2016 for $790,000. Following is a partial list of other sales for the week.

HAMMOCK DUNES Donna Grainger, individually and as trustee, sold 85 Avenue de la Mer, Unit 202, to Lloyd and Tammy Rock, as trustees, for $667,000. Built in 2006, the condo has three bedrooms, two baths and 2,110 square feet. It sold in 2006 for $970,000.

Avenue de la Mer to Kevin and Julie Silva, of Wading River, New York, for $610,000. Built in 2006, the condo has three bedrooms, 2.5 baths and 2,110 square feet. It sold in 2006 for $980,000.

Thomas and Nancy Moran, of Deer Park, Illinois, sold 7 Avenue de la Mer, Unit 302, to Brent and Carole Helmandollar, as trustees, for $590,000.

Built in 2003, the house has three bedrooms, three baths and 1,944 square feet. It sold in 2003 for $575,000.

Victoria Leonhardt and Sheryl Cook, individually and as trustees, sold 15 Madeira Court to Mark and Catherine Wilson, of Palm Coast, for $345,000. Built in 1993, the house has three bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a fireplace, swimming pool and 2,881 square feet. It sold in 1993 for $275,300.

Robert and Carey Benson, of Ardmore, Oklahoma, sold 85

SEPTEMBER 2019

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Will county get reimbursed for $425,000 Dorian bill?

Top transaction: $999,000 house in Hammock Beach was the top real estate transaction in the Hammock from July 4 to Aug 14. Robert and Tamora Rusnak, of Palm Coast, sold 88 Ocean Oaks Lane to Joyce Swanner, of Palm Coast, for $999,000. Built in 2006, the house has four bedrooms, five baths, a fireplace, swimming pool and 4,283 square feet. It sold in 2015 for $980,000. Following is a partial list of other sales.

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Because the storm did not lead to a disaster declaration, FEMA may not reimbursement.

JONATHAN SIMMONS NEWS EDITOR Courtesy photo

The top seller has four bedrooms, five baths and a fireplace.

OCEAN HAMMOCK Joseph Revelli Jr. and Dorothy Lutz, of Lake Frederick, Virginia, sold 900 Cinnamon Beach Way, Unit 833, to John Yeager III, of Lawrence, Kansas, for $400,000. Built in 2003, the condo has three bedrooms, two baths and 1,344 square feet. It sold in 2015 for $365,000.

YACHT HARBOR VILLAGE Stephen Gallagher, of Palm Coast, sold 102 Yacht Harbor Drive, Unit 174, to Teton Sales Inc., of Ownings, Maryland, for $243,000. Built in 2006, the condo has two bedrooms, two baths and 1,351 square feet. It sold in 2007 for $489,000.

Toby Tobin, of gotoby.com, contributed to this report.

Photo by Brian McMillan

Flagler County spent approximately $425,000 on expenses related to Hurricane Dorian, including the manpower costs associated with keeping the county’s Emergency Operations Center staffed around the clock for several days.

When the county dealt with Hurricanes Matthew and Irma, it was able to apply for federal reimbursement for such expenses through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA. But this time, it may not be able to do that because unlike the previous two storms, Dorian did not lead to a formal disaster declaration. The situation has left many Florida counties, including Flagler, unsure of whether they’ll get that emergency preparation money back.

County Commission Chairman Donald O’Brien said he expected that Flagler County will be pursuing all available avenues to seek reimbursement. If the county can’t get reimbursed, though, the money will be drawn from the county’s general fund or reserves.

“If we have to rearrange some spending to accommodate this,

Flagler Beach City Manager Larry Newsome speaks during a press conference about Dorian.

then that’s what we need to do,” O’Brien said.

The situation has led Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to write to President Donald Trump requesting assistance for the state.

DeSantis’ letter, dated Sept.

4, noted that Trump had already issued an emergency declaration and authorized Department of Homeland Security and FEMA assistance, and that the declaration had also allowed for additional designations to be made in the future.

“Given the very real threat that Hurricane Dorian posed to Florida, I submit this request for financial assistance for eligible Category B expenses under FEMA’s Public Assistance program for the State of Florida and twenty-four counties,” DeSantis wrote. The 24 include Flagler.

The state, DeSantis wrote, had incurred approximately $157.6 million in Category B emergency protective measures, while counties had incurred approximately $39.7 million.

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HAMMOCK OBSERVER

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PalmCoastObserver.com

SEPTEMBER 2019

You Are Invited!

Fashion Show October 8, 2019

Hosted by Take Action Properties and Chez Jacqueline to Benefit The Flagler Free Clinic

Mari Parks

Owner - Broker - REALTOR®

(386) 569-6947

mari@takeactionproperties.com

Scott Parks REALTOR®

Visit Take Action Properties on Facebook for information about tickets, location and more for this limited seating special event.

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COMING SOON!

Newly Listed!

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