By Robert Burns

NEW SMYRNA BEACH – The New Smyrna Beach Planning & Zoning Board gave a look at streamlining the process – when it comes to the potential development of the 180-acre Florida East Coast parcel in the heart of NSB.  Monday night, chief planner Gail Henrikson presented the board with a list of options designed to facilitate the best possible development of the large parcel of land pinned between the railroad tracks and Myrtle Street.
Before discussing the FEC property, the Planning & Zoning Board wrestled with another remarkably important issue in this beachside community – the creation of an “hospitality designation’ within the City’s comprehensive plan.  NSB chief planner Chad Lingenfelter likened the ‘hospitality designation’ to a new and improved ‘commercial’ designation, on a case-by-case basis, giving the City the ability to grant developers a much longer leash – when it comes to unit density.  Presently codes allow a unit density of 24, but the proposed ‘hospitality’ designation would allow a unit density up to 75, taking into account the different needs of hotels, motels and other specifically hospitality related businesses.  
This would make the hospitality designation a part of the city’s comprehensive plan – rather than having to go through the lengthy zoning process and would be only applied to specifically hospitality related property uses.  The Board asked Mr. Lingenfelter how long it currently takes a potential hospitality developer to move on a project.  He said, potentially as quickly as 6 months – but more likely two to three years.
The members agreed, that seemed an awfully long time. 
Private planner and Hospitality Designation advocate, Mark Rakowski said, “This would give property owners in critical locations – more options.” He went on to say, “Without the change – we’re not going to be able to get any of the hotels, we might be able to invite to the table.”
Another topic before the Board was the re-designation of many of New Smyrna Beach’s neighborhoods.  Presently, the city has 14 recognized individual communities – under the new plan, the city would almost double that, subdividing the city into a total of 23 separate neighborhoods.  This would allow each neighborhood to outline its future design goals.
Then the P&Z Board dissected some of the issues involved in encouraging the best development of the Florida East Coast property. 
Last year, under the purview of a different City Commission, a potential developer backed away from the opportunity to develop the 180-acre parcel, when the Commission gave developers a conditional ‘green-light’, with a 3-to-2 vote. 
Ms. Henrikson outlined several approaches to facilitate the future mixed-use development of the property – citing the possibility of Florida’s proposed Amendment 4 being approved this fall, as an incentive toward ‘defining’ goals now.  The Board seemed in agreement as to the importance of expediting good development there.  The point of contention was – how much specific regulation of percentages would be allowed – without ‘spooking’ potential developers.
Initially, caps of 25% residential, 25% commercial and 50% office space seemed like an allowable percentage – but after internal debate the vast majority of the Board said they believed that might be too restrictive.  After weighing the different options, rather than writing anything in stone - the Board elected to discuss these matters with the NSB City Commission when the P&Z Board and Commission meet in a joint-workshop May 26.