After blowing three deadlines, the Flagler County Commission on Monday approved the $3 million purchase of 307 acres for environmental protection of land west of U.S. 1. The land is part of what’s known as Pringle Creek Forest.
The parcels the county is acquiring stretch in an east-west sliver from the northern boundary of the Sawmill Estates subdivision, west of U.S. 1, across the railroad tracks, to a pair of unevenly shaped squares with a huge cavity between them, to where the county’s western boundary just a bit north into St. Johns. The land abuts conservation acreage to the north acquired by the St. Johns Rover Water Management District. The county is hoping to acquire additional parcels. (See the map below.)
The forest is about 8,400 acres and has been on a state-acquisition priority list since 2012, as outlined by a plan by Florida Forever, the state environmental-land program.
“The Pringle Creek Forest project will enhance the landscape mosaic of conservation lands that provides protection of the Pellicer Creek watershed and its tributaries,” a Florida Forever document states. “Acquisition of the project would contribute to surface water protection of Pringle and Pellicer creeks as well as the Matanzas River. [The] Acquisition will retain functioning natural systems that reduce the possibility of flood damage and water supply shortages and ensure and improve upon the ecosystem services the property provides for capturing, storing, filtering and slowly releasing clean water to Pellicer Creek and its significant downstream estuary. The project will protect numerous native, rare and imperiled plant and animal species and imperiled natural communities.”
The money is drawn from a 2023 state appropriation. It’s not in Flagler County’s hands. It was appropriated to Flagler County, but will be paid by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Last year, Flagler County got a $10 million appropriation to do likewise. Those lands have yet to be bought.
The county is buying the land from Raydient, the real estate subsidiary of Rayonier, the Jacksonville-based company that owns most of the land west of U.S. 1. “We’re under a time constraint with this. We have to acknowledge that from the outset,” Adam Mengel, the county’s growth management director, said.
The state’s original deadline was the end of the last fiscal year, meaning June 2024. The state extended the deadline to December. It then extended it again to March 1. “Now we’re at March 17 to complete a closing,” Mengel said. The county tried to buy land from four other land owners. Those attempts failed, delaying the purchase.
“One of the things that’s that’s problematic with this,” Mengel said, referring to the 136 westernmost acres, “is part of the Old Brick Township DRI.” Old Brick Township, approved as a DRI by Palm Coast government a decade and a half ago, was to be a 5,000-home development with 100,000 square feet of retail and a million square feet of industrial development. It is still permitted for all that. Though the bulk of the DRI is further south and west, its northeast quadrant overlaps parts of Pringle Forest. (See the Old Brick Township plan here.)
That quadrant, according to a map Mengel showed county commissioners, “would be set aside and developed as neighborhoods with retail and preserved wetlands. At one point, Radiant had planned to build a road that would have cut through that area to U.S. 1, if Matanzas Woods Parkway was not extended west. That would have been called the Northern Optional Route. “We’ve got the legislative appropriation for the flyover” to extend Matanzas Woods Parkway, Mengel said. “That northern optional route is not something that that we, any of us, believe will ever happen.”
Raydient had originally requested to reserve a 120-foot right of way for a road. The county found that excessive, reducing that to 80 feet. Raydient will retain all frontage land along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks, and the potential Community Development District associated with Old Brick Township will remain, which could also affect use of the land. The purchase does not stop Palm Coast and Radiant from exploring well sites located in unincorporated Flagler County. In all, the purchase is not without strings.
“So some of those things are still going to exist out there in this deal if we ultimately go through with it,” Mengel said, “and we would attempt at some later point to pull ourselves out of the DRI and the CDD, if that’s at least possible. Good news about the CDD: It couldn’t be formed without our consent.”
“Thank you to the legislature for the funding. I think it’s important to continue to buffer Pellicer Creek,” County Chair Andy Dance said. The commission vote was 4-0, drawing no discussion from commissioners, who had glimpsed the item at a previous meeting.
