Almost since it opened several years ago, Bronx House Pizza in the Hammock has been the victim of its success: its popularity has grown in proportion to neighborhood parking headaches as rights-of-way became de-facto parking zones.
On Tuesday, Bronx House Pizza goes before Flagler County’s Planning Board, seeking approval of an overflow parking lot it would build south of the restaurant, bot not contiguous to it, on four lots totaling 20,000 square feet south of 17th Road.
The proposal is drawing sharp opposition from the Scenic A1A Committee, which is among the principal stakeholders in regulatory discussions about developments in the Hammock. The restaurant is in the Scenic Overlay zone that triggers regulatory restrictions to preserve the Hammock’s unique character and what’s left of its canopy.
The restaurant’s owner bought the four lots at the end of May from a West Virginia car wash company in May, for $430,000. The owner is Michael Goodman, co-owner of Captain’s BBQ at Bings Landing, not far from Bronx House. Goodman happens to be a member of the Planning Board. He will, of course, recuse himself from voting, though maybe not from crowing that he is sparing the Hammock the suds and foams of a car wash.
That’s not what A1A and Hammock advocates are focused on.
The planning board approved a special exception for the restaurant in 2016. Among other elements, the approval ratified maximum capacity for 160 people, with a quarter of that capacity as outdoor seating as long as it was not visible from the road. No commercial access was allowed off 17th Road to the north. The parking area could be leavened with crushed stone, gravel or shell.
The additional parking lot would be for valet parking only, not for in-and-out access to restaurant patrons. “With the exception of valet attendants moving to and from the restaurant and parking area there will be no pedestrian activity generated from the proposed use,” Bronx House told county regulators. The restaurant is represented by Jay Livingston, the land-use attorney. “Vehicles will enter the restaurant parking lot before being moved to the valet parking area by a valet attendant. Valet attendants will be equipped with safety vests or other reflective clothing to ensure their safety when moving back and forth from the restaurant and the valet parking lot.”
Livingston underscores that the new parking area is not designed to expand the restaurant’s seating capacity, nor will it sprout signs, as “we do not want to attract the general public and patrons of the restaurant to park in the lot.” The area will not be lit. It will be buffered from A1A and nearby Sanchez Avenue.
But Livingston, citing discussions with Adam Mengel, the county’s planning director, said he was not required to provide parking space numbers or dimensions to the county, at least not for that overflow-valet area. And since no one but valet attendants may access the area, “a depiction of internal vehicular circulation is unnecessary,” he wrote the county. The valet area would operate between 5 and 9 p.m.
The Scenic A1A Pride Committee is not as glib about it. “We realize that a solution is needed, but the root cause is that the seating was doubled at Bronx House without a commensurate increase in parking,” Committee Chair Dennis Clark wrote in a summary of the committee’s analysis to the county. “If the seating is reduced to the approved 750 square feet until the sewer is available, the problem can be solved by adding parking spaces to the area where the septic field is vacated.”
To the Scenic committee, the valet area will create safety hazards, with traffic in and out of already-speedy A1A (it’s a 55 mph zone where traffic generally flies at higher speeds), it will “set a bad precedent for the Scenic Corridor Overlay,” and not least, a stand-alone parking lot is not a permitted use in the overlay: a parking zone must be contiguous to the business using it. The proposed lots are not.
Takeout customers, who account for more than 50 trips a day on weekends according to the Scenic committee, will not want valet parking, and a driveway into the valez zone, approved by the Florida Department of Transportation, will be required.
The proposal goes before the Flagler County Planning Board as part of an agenda heavy with other, unrelated items, starting at 5:30 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
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