Shortly after Dale Martin became Flagler Beach’s city manager last year, City Commissioner Rick Belhumeur took him on a “field trip” to point out a lot of different things that might need attention. One of them was a spot under the Flagler Beach Bridge, on the west side of the Intracoastal near Lambert Avenue. Belhumeur thought it could be transformed into an inviting spot, a sort of mini park for picnics, fishing, lounging.
“We already have a contract with the state to maintain the property so maybe we could get that place cleaned up and let people utilize it, the same that the county does on the opposite side,” Belhumeur said. “Nothing fancy, just a very passive park so people on the other side of the bridge can go down there in the shade, go fishing, have a picnic.”
The City Commission this evening is expected to approve a $15,000 plan to get there. The plan includes an application for a $7,500 grant from the Florida Inland Navigation District, with an equal, matching amount from the city’s general fund. The district is the tax-supported government agency responsible for maintaining the Intracoastal Waterway in good order and to make it as accessible as possible for leisure.
It does that through the kind of grants that have helped transform Palm Coast’s Waterfront Park and helped pay for similar improvements at Bing’s Landing, the county park, at the Long Creek Nature Preserve inside Palm Coast, in Marineland and under that very bridge with the Moody Boat Ramp–in all, some $7.5 million in grants benefiting Flagler County projects since 1986, with another $316,000 in this year’s pot. ($14.7 million in grants were awarded districtwide among the 12 counties in the district in 2019-20.) All property owners pay into the district’s fund, though not much: a $300,000 house with a $50,000 exemption pays just $7.20 a year.
Unlike its neighbor on the east side of the bridge, where the county maintains Betty Steflik Park with a boat ramp, a pavilion, and a boardwalk through marshland, the site on the west side is overgrown with Brazilian peppers, the invasive plant. Access is “informal,” as the grant application describes it. The navigation district puts a premium on grant applications that improve public access to the Intracoastal. The estimated use of the site today is between five and 10 visitors per day. The park would double that, according to the grant application.
“The site is currently overgrown with heavy invasive vegetation,” the application states. “The proposed project will professional clear the site of inappropriate vegetation, enhancing the visibility and accessibility of the site. Shore-based fishing, quiet contemplation, and boat-watching will be the primary activities to occur on the site.”
The city’s Parks Committee and District Commissioner Randy Stapleford, who represents Flagler County, have signed off on the project. No permits would be required since the entirety of the project is land-based and there are no plans to build structures. The city expects the passive park could be created in three months at most. The plan includes the addition of four or five parking spaces.
There’s one “hiccup,” as Dana English, the transportation department’s district property management administrator, described it in a March 15 email. The site is owned by the Florida Department of Transportation but an obscure state agency known by its acronym, TIIFT–the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of the State of Florida–also owns a portion of the land.
“We only have an easement over their portion. We wouldn’t be able to lease TIIFT’s ownership area, but we can’t determine where that property line is without survey work,” English said. Otherwise, she said the project would be similar to one in Port Orange, under the Dunlawton bridge, where the city and the state agency have a “public purpose lease agreement” in place.
It isn’t clear at this point where the matter of state transportation department approval stands, given the hiccup, but the grant application is due at the inland navigation district by April 1. “The project will likely be submitted on a conditional basis,” Martin says in a memo to the commission.
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