Deltona moratorium on single-family home development requests begins Friday

In an effort to help the city find its bearings amid a steady stream of residential development, a moratorium on rezoning requests for single-family home developments in Deltona goes into effect Friday.

The moratorium, which sunsets on Jan. 1, 2023, also includes amendments to the city's future land use map, which shows the intended use and development intensity for a particular area.

In the coming months, the city plans to host multiple scoping sessions during which officials and residents will review policies and regulations pertaining to development to determine if there are any changes worth making.

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"I think the commission needs to look at our land development code and adjust what we require from developers," Mayor Heidi Herzberg said. "For me, it’s a combination of having more city control over things we can have control over, meaning green space, buffers, the amount and size of lots, those are the things that we can control and can adjust."

Topics for the sessions may include but aren't limited to: promoting more sustainable development patterns; promoting more functional residential development forms; encouraging greater land use compatibility; enhancing environmental safeguards; improving general knowledge of the application of residential densities and addressing general growth management and laws and policies.

Herzberg said she hopes the sessions will also address the legal rights of a property owner versus the rights of the city.

"People seem to think we rubber-stamp every single thing and that we have no requirements on developers and that we don’t take a lot into consideration," Herzberg said. "You have a list of criteria to deny a rezoning and if you cannot legitimately cite why the criteria are wrong, you risk litigation."

Pat Northey, chair of the city's Planning and Zoning Board, which voted in support of the proposed ordinance, said she'd like to see Deltona raise its design standards, request more neighborhood amenities and not allow such extensive clear-cutting of land, or at least require new trees have a greater trunk diameter.

"You take a drive through some of the developments that are going up and they’re really poor quality; they’re meeting minimum standards," Northey said. "There is no sense of place, it's just one track house after another."

Acting City Manager John Peters III said he expects to choose a consultant to lead the scoping sessions sometime in August.

Peters pointed to the city's R-1 zoning classification, which came from Volusia County, as just one example of a part of the code that could stand to be amended.

Allowing for up to six homes per acre, R-1 "is way too broad," Peters said in a phone interview Tuesday.

"Traditionally, you would have that in three different zoning classifications," Peters said. "If a property is R-1, then a developer’s going to want to do six units per acre, which is not always the best thing."

In addition to R-1, other single-family zoning classifications include R-1AAA (two homes per acre); R-1AA (three homes per acre); and R-1A (four homes per acre). The dimensional requirements vary for each classification.

Ron Paradise, director of planning and development services, said there may be some exceptions "for small-scale projects that are 20 units or less that don't involve environmentally sensitive areas, or if the residential element is part of a bona fide mixed-use development."

The smaller-scale residential projects, if proposed, will still be put before the City Commission.

Another exception is if at least 30% of the units qualify as affordable or workforce housing, according to the ordinance.

The moratorium received unanimous support from the commission during its first and second hearings this month.

'Long time coming'

Though absent during the first hearing on June 6, Commissioner Dana McCool provided a recorded statement.

McCool said the future public scoping sessions will give city officials an opportunity to engage with residents "and build a development platform that we can all be proud of."

"We must be good stewards of the little precious land that we have left in Deltona to build on," McCool said. "We must build sustainable communities for the children to come, and we must continue to hold builders responsible for their part in stretching the infrastructure past its true capacity."

Peters estimated about 30-35% of the total land in Deltona could be impacted by the moratorium.

Resident Elbert Bryan said he wants to see more residents involved in the process, as well as an outside attorney with expertise in land use.

"This has been a long time coming," Bryan said. "I hope and I pray that this is not just fluff and puff, because if it is fluff and puff, it’ll be said in November what we think about it."

Like McCool, Northey said the city needs to take stock of what undeveloped land it has left.

She said she'd like to see some protections or overlays put on special places, such as the River of Lakes Heritage Corridor, a National Scenic Byway as of 2021.

"We ought to put some protections on that, otherwise we’re going to have another Ormond Beach loop," Northey said.

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The commission considered placing a moratorium on residential development last year but tabled it at Peters' recommendation in light of an Osteen resident's lawsuit, which is pending.

Kelli Chambers' complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed May 14, 2021, in response to the commission's 4-3 vote on April 19, 2021, supporting a developer's request to rezone a 110-acre parcel in rural Osteen, allowing for 189 single-family homes.