Growing pains for a city can be...well...a pain.
Prime beachfront property is being snapped up, up and down State Road A1A in Flagler Beach.
But what will go in that empty lot? A house? A business?
John Lulgjuraj and his brother Tony own one of the more popular restaurants in town, the Oceanside Grill.
To keep up, the brothers started building an upstairs dining area, like a number of neighboring eateries already have.
One problem: more customers means more parking spaces are needed.
“We have a parking issue in Flagler Beach and we found a solution. But we can't use that solution yet, again, without jumping through all the hoops,” John Lulgjuraj said.
That solution was using an empty lot behind the restaurant. But that lot is zoned “residential.”
The Lulgjuraj's have reached out to neighbors along Central Avenue.
Most are like Shirley Wilson. "If they use it just for parking and no exit for commercial onto Central, which is illegal.”
The last thing anyone wants to see is spot zoning, where you have one lot of commercial business among a neighborhood of homes.
Such zoning would likely not hold up in court.
Instead, a special exception for the lot can come from the City Commission, allowing the residential lot be used only for parking.
Back to Shirley Wilson, who has lived in Flagler Beach for close to 25 years.
She recognizes there is a limited amount of usable land on this barrier island. “It does lead to problems but then, try to work the problems out," Wilson said. "Because everything grows and it's growth here in Flagler.”
Any plan would go to the city's planning board so an ordinance can be re-written, and then go back to the city commission for two separate readings before being approved.