Flagler County government has devised a plan to generate $8.2 million a year in local dollars to rebuild and maintain the 11.6 miles of beach north of Beverly Beach to the border of Marineland. The County Commission intends to vote on that plan, which includes a new tax for portions of the barrier island, on Nov. 4.
The plan combines four sources of money: $2 million from tourist tax revenue, which spares local taxpayers; $3 million from the local half-cent sales surtax; $1.5 million from the county’s general fund; and $1.71 million from all property owners of the barrier island, outside of its cities. The Commission’s five members are unanimously supportive, if still with some questions about the details.
The plan results from months of work by County Administrator Heidi Petito, her deputy, Jorge Salinas, and the county administration. It revives an ill-fated initiative that, presented in vastly different form earlier this year by a consultant, had been badly received across the county. The new initiative mostly leave the cities out of the calculations but for the property taxes those cities contribute to the county, and from which pot some of the money will finance the plan.
“It doesn’t include the city of Flagler Beach, town of Beverly Beach, town of Marineland,” Petito said. “It’s not the people in Plantation Bay that are going to be paying. It’s not the people in Palm Coast that are going to be paying.”
Petito outlined the plan in significant detail to the commission at a workshop Monday afternoon. The plan seems intricate at first but is lucid and straightforward when broken down into its component parts, translating immense complexity into a pragmatic and affordable approach, if still with numerous questions to be answered. For example, that$3 million from sales tax revenue and $1.5 million from existing property tax revenue will be taken away from other commitments, but it’s not clear what those current commitments are. And the barrier island’s property owners who will pay additional taxes ranging from a few hundred dollars a year to close to $1,000 (for the richest properties) have not yet weighed in on the plan.
Nevertheless, Petito’s plan took commissioners aback in a positive sense. “It’s a remarkable, remarkable presentation,” Commissioner Greg Hansen said. “if we don’t do it, we’re going to lose the beach. So this is a critical, critical thing for us.”
“I didn’t think you could do it, but I think the compromise that you’ve come up with is as good a shot at taking care of this as possible,” Commissioner Dave Sullivan told her. “Where we are now is a reasonable decision. It’s not perfect, but it’s a compromise.” Commissioner Donald O’Brien echoed Sullivan.
“Whether I agree with every single one of the points, really isn’t the point. It’s trying to get some consensus,” Commissioner Andy Dance said. He still has questions–about the money being reallocated, for instance, the sustainability of the funding plan, and the inclusion of the cities in the plan, but overall, he is supportive. “We’re we’re really allocating a significant portion of money, and I just want to get a better grasp of that moving forward,” he said. He expects to have those answers before the Nov. 4 vote.
Understanding the County’s Shoreline
The county has divided its 18 miles of beach into four not quite equally divided “reaches,” or segments, with Reach 1 at the south end of the county, Reach 4 at the north end. Reach 1 was just renourished by the federal Army Corps of Engineers project, and is to be maintained by Flagler Beach.
There are 18.8 miles of coast. The unincorporated, northern end is 11.6 miles. That stretch is from the northern border of Beverly Beach to the southern border of Marineland.
According to the county’s latest estimate, the cost of renourishing all four reaches, or all 18 miles, is $105 million. Subtracting the $25 million that went into the recently finished federal project leaves $80 million. The state is picking up $51 million of that, leaving Flagler County responsible for $37.5 million. “That’s just for the initial construction. That does not include the ongoing maintenance requirements,” Petito said. By construction, she means renourishment of the beach–the dredging and dumping of sand and the reformation of dunes.
The county is confident it may defray some of that cost with $15 million in state grants. The county is itself setting aside $5 million from its budget and from the Tourist Development Council’s dollars. That allocation started this year. That leaves $17.5 million. The county’s plan is to accumulate that sum over the next few years.
Those costs are also for just one renourishment. Further renourishments will be necessary as the beach routinely erodes. Petito is estimating that a full renourishment will be necessary every six years. (The timeline for federal projects is 11 years, but federal projects dump much more sand than would the county, supposedly reducing the need for more frequent renourishments. Recent hurricanes suggest otherwise.)
That brings the annual cost of maintenance to $8.2 million, or $10.8 million when including the federal portion the beach, whose maintenance between major renourishments is entirely a local responsibility. But the county and Flagler Beach are experiencing some tensions over whose responsibility it is, between the two governments.
Local Costs
“They’re going to have to start setting money aside for ongoing maintenance,” Petito said of the cities. She’s focused on the $8.2 million needed for the northern 11.6 miles of beach–first for renourishment, then for maintenance. As the county calculates it, the $8.2 million would be raised this way: $2 million from the tourist, tax, $3 million from the county’s half-cent sales tax, $1.5 million from property tax revenue, and $1.7 million from the special taxing district.
The $1.5 million property tax allocation would obviously have to be drawn out from another allocation. It is also the county’s way of telling the cities: since you didn’t want to pay a special assessment, we’ll make you pay it a different way, since all city property owners pay a county tax as well. (See: “In Sharp Retreat, Flagler Rejects Countywide Beach Tax to Focus on Barrier Island Only, and on Informing Public.”)
That leaves $1.7 million to be raised through a special levy on 6,700 parcels privately owned in the unincorporated portion of the barrier island. That would be a taxing district, and non-incorporated barrier island property owners will have to shoulder that burden.
Half the bill of a property owner would be abase rate that everyone would pay. Half would be weighted based on the property’s value. More valuable properties will pay more. So a property with a $407,000 assessed value would pay $247 a year. That’s the average cost on the barrier island. The costs range from $162 a year to $973 a year. Here’s how it would break down:
Collection would start in November 2025.
Petito said the county held some 10 community meetings that drew 415 residents between Aug. 20 and Oct. 8. It conducted a survey among property owners between Sept. 27 and Oct. 13 as the county studied the creation of the taxing district. for the north portion of the barrier island. Just over 800 people participated in the survey.
Ninety percent of respondents consider beach preservation very or somewhat important, and 93 percent consider the need for a management plan urgent.
There was much less unanimity on how to pay for it. While 63 percent said they favored contributing financially, 87 percent wanted tourism tax revenue to shoulder the burden: residents don’t pay the tourism tax. That 5 percent sales surtax is paid by people who rent hotel rooms or short-term vacation properties or who stay in resorts and RV parks. That revenue generates some dollars for beach protection, but it cannot shoulder the burden by itself.
Among those surveyed, 76 percent favored using money from the county’s half-cent sales surtax which, like the tourism tax, could generate some funds, but the county has been using those for a long list of capital needs elsewhere. Only 27 percent of respondents favor an increase in the property tax, and even fewer–20 percent–favor a special taxing district.
On the other hand, the county found that among those surveyed, 75 percent thought it was fair for households to make an annual contribution, with ranges of support depending on whether it’s $100 to $150 a year or more than $500 a year. Only 25 percent did not support such contributions. But as Richard Hamilton, a resident, noted to the County Commission, those responses were based on a “misleading question” that did not ask respondents whether they were willing to spend that money on a special taxing district.
The Response
Only a few members of the public addressed the commission on the new plan. “There are other people who have a whole lot of problems from flooding, which has nothing to do with the beach,” or with beach erosion, Hamilton told the commission.
To which a commissioner had a response: “What happens if there’s no barrier island, and there’s no properties, and there’s no higher valuation out there?” Commissioner Leann Pennington said. “How do we make up for that?” A representative and resident of western Flagler County, far from the beach, she said she doesn’t benefit from beach protection directly, but if the barrier island’s tax base were to collapse, then taxes on the mainland would rise
“My biggest concern right now is the other municipalities,” Kim Carney, the county commissioner-elect and a Flagler Beach resident, said. “There’s no consideration for the other two municipalities who are intimately involved in this decision. Haven’t even met with you yet. You’ve had no meetings with Flagler Beach. There’s been no communication with Flagler Beach. I’ve read the inter-local agreement with Flagler Beach. I don’t agree with the inter-local agreement, and I don’t think you’re interpreting it the same way we do.” She didn’t see how the county planned to meet with the city before voting on the plan, but urged some administrative contact between the two governments.
Dance asked for that contact with the cities before Nov. 4 as well.
beach-management-october-2024
