The DeLand City Commission will discuss a number of items at its next meeting Wednesday, Sept. 7, including the city’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year and a committee to oversee the redevelopment of the former Southridge Golf Course into a housing development.

The first item on the City Commission’s agenda is its tentative millage rate and budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Last month, the commission settled on a preliminary proposed millage rate of 6.5841 mills to pay for its $41,031,866 budget. 

A millage rate of 6.5841 would mean property owners will pay approximately $6.58 in City of DeLand taxes for every $1,000 of taxable property value. The owner of a home with a taxable value of $200,000 after any exemptions, for example, would pay $1,316 in city property taxes, along with property taxes imposed by the county, School Board, Hospital Authority, etc.

That’s down from last year’s millage rate of 6.7841, but not quite the rolled-back rate of 6.1520 mills. The rolled-back rate is the millage rate that would get the city to the same dollar amount it received from ad valorem property taxes the previous year.

Another item on the City Commission’s agenda is the formation of a Brownfield Advisory Committee specific to the Beresford Reserve housing development that will be built on the former Southridge Golf Course.

By law, the City of DeLand must have a Brownfield Advisory Committee to look over developments planned to be built on fixed-up brownfields, or parcels that require significant environmental remediation due to pollutants from past development or use. In the past, the city’s Economic Development Committee filled this role, but the contentious development on a former golf course spurred the city into forming project-specific committees. 

The Beresford Reserve Brownfield Advisory Committee will be the first of its kind, and, if the ordinance to create it Sept. 7 is passed by the City Commission, the city is expected to accept applications for the five-member committee. Committee members will likely be sworn in at the City Commission’s second meeting in October.

The agenda also includes the second reading of an ordinance that would prohibit developers from practicing open burning, or burning trees cut down during the process of developing land. And the lot rent for the DeLand Municipal Mobile Home Park at 140 W. Walts Ave. would be increased by $25.

The City Commission typically meets on the first and third Monday of every month, but, this month, the first meeting was rescheduled to Wednesday, Sept. 7, due to the Labor Day Holiday on Sept. 5. The City Commission will convene at 7 p.m. Sept. 7 in the City Commission Chambers, 120 S. Florida Ave.

City meetings are open to the public, and will be broadcast live online at the city’s website, HERE.

To view the full agenda for the Sept. 7 meeting, click HERE.