POINTE GRANDE — Pictured is the concept plan for the Pointe Grande apartments planned for Northwest DeLand.
Watts to commission: ‘Please reconsider’
The DeLand City Commission will reconsider Pointe Grand, a proposed apartment complex whose rezoning application the City Commission denied last month. The change of mind came after developer Hillpointe’s attorney Mark Watts requested a reconsideration commission.
“In the case of the Pointe Grand Apartments PD, I urge you to consider a motion to reconsider your prior vote for several reasons,” Watts said in a letter to the City Commission. “First, the property’s existing zoning is multifamily, and the proposed rezoning only proposed a modest increase of approximately 30 additional units. Second, the applicant went to great lengths to ensure that the proposed development was adequately designed and buffered to limit any potential impacts to the adjacent Cascades neighborhood.”
Watts also argued that adding additional multifamily units to the city’s housing inventory would help drive down the cost of housing overall.
Pointe Grand, as it was proposed to the City Commission in August, would see the construction of nine three-story apartment buildings on a 14-acre parcel along North Spring Garden Avenue between West Plymouth Avenue and International Speedway Boulevard. The project would be built just south of The Cascades residential neighborhood.
Citing density concerns, the DeLand City Commission denied the developer’s rezoning application for the project by a 3-2 vote, with City Commissioners Jessica Davis, Charles Paiva and Kevin Reid shooting down the project and City Commissioner Chris Cloudman and Mayor Bob Apgar voting in its favor.
Previously, the City Commission had raised concerns about the lack of elevators in the three-story buildings. Watts, however, pointed out that elevators are not required — per the city’s building code — unless a building is at least four stories high.
Addressing the City Commission at its Sept. 7 meeting — the first meeting since the denial — Watts requested the reconsideration, pointing out that, legally, the city had to determine if it would reconsider the project at the first meeting after it voted against the apartment project.
Per guidelines followed by the City Commission, the motion for reconsideration could only be made by one of the commissioners who previously voted against the project. While he voted against it last month, Paiva said he would be willing to see what the developer brought back.
“I’m confident the developer and the attorney are smart enough to know we voted no for a particular reason, and I’ll leave it at that,” he said.
The City Commission unanimously agreed to reconsider the Pointe Grand apartments, effectively turning the board’s August no-vote into a retroactive continuation.
Pointe Grand missed the deadline to return to the City Commission this month, but the project is expected to return to the commission soon.
