Building boom: New Smyrna Beach to get 250 new homes

NEW SMYRNA BEACH — City commissioners have approved nearly 250 new homes, including 196 in an area where more new development is coming and residents are lamenting what they say is a change in culture.

Rolling Hills, designed for $300,000-and-up homes on 109 acres between Turnbull Bay Road and Sugar Mill Drive, generated the most heat at a City Commission meeting last week, passing by a 3-2 margin with Jake Sachs and Jason McGuirk dissenting.

Another development, Reserve at Lake Waterford, will add 50 homes off Old Mission Road. No one objected to that plan.

By contrast, developer Sugar Mills Partners Inc.'s plan to build Rolling Hills drew Sandra Chancey from her one-acre home on Mooneyham Drive, a single-lane, part-dirt, dead-end road that ends at the Sugar Mill Country Club Golf Course.

She bought her home there last April because of the area's quiet and beauty, unaware of plans to build nearly 200 homes right around her.

The plans also involve extending Sugar Mill Drive to Mooneyham, creating an additional route for motorists linking Pioneer Trail and Williams Road, which leads to Turnbull Bay Road.

“Its just too gorgeous to destroy," Chancey said the City Commission. “There’s a point where growth stops and destruction sets in.”

Her neighbor across the street, Karl Gratz, said he suddenly feels like he's living a nightmare.

“I live right across the street from this secondary access. … I’m going from a dead-end, quiet street to having 196 homes directly across the street from me,” Gratz said. “I can't (believe) that any of you would agree to this monstrosity going in across the street from you. None of you."

Glenn Storch, attorney for Sugar Mill Partners, defended the project and its planning.

“They act as though this will destroy their homes. It will not," Storch said to city leaders, eliciting a low grumble from the gallery. "It will have no impact on their homes or their lots or anything else."

Commissioner Judy Reiker encouraged Storch to work with Chancey to make sure her home would not be affected by stormwater runoff and Storch said the developer will look at adding opacity requirements to the 20-foot buffer.

“I think what they're trying to say is that there is a real cultural feel there," Reiker said to Storch. “You really don’t want to destroy that.”

In response, Storch said the developers intend to be good neighbors, and added: "This is the ideal site for this project. This is the last, best piece around Sugar Mill. If you don’t continue to grow and invest in an area, the area tends to deteriorate.”

For 20 years, Sugar Mill Partners has been assembling the land, and through the years, the number of lots has grown from 96 in 2009, eventually to 196.

Planning Director Amye King said the developer made at least eight changes to the agreement since the first reading, including an additional access lane into the subdivision, underground utilities, space on each lot to accommodate four vehicles so roads would not allow on-street parking, and the use an “air curtain incinerator" to clear any land.

Storch said at least three-fifths of the lots will be over 7,000-square-feet and 60 percent of the property will be “preserved as open and green space.”

“The goal is to avoid cookie-cutter lots,” Storch said. “This is an upscale community. These homes will be fairly expensive."

Sugar Mill Partners President Chuck Newman said homes will start at $300,000, with some on the golf course in the $400,000 range.