Despite some heartburn over possible traffic woes — and harsh words — on Deltona’s north side, the City Commission has approved the latest refinement of a mixed-use development that is becoming a reality.

Based on tentative action taken at City Hall Jan. 16, the long-awaited and now-in-progress Deltona Village will expand from 140 acres to 166 acres, and it promises to become the downtown the city has lacked. Amid some angst over growing development around the Deltona Village spread and tension between the landowner and city officials, the commission passed on first reading an ordinance amending the project, known as a Business Planned Unit Development (BPUD). 

Landowner Frank DeMarsh was elated.

“I’m very pleased that the city voted the way they did. We just want to continue,” DeMarsh said as he left City Hall.

The second and final public hearing and vote on the amended plan will be Feb. 19. 

The acreage in question is on the north side of Graves Avenue, and it almost fully surrounds a concrete plant. The property also fronts on Howland Boulevard.

A key issue in the latest debate over Deltona Village was whether DeMarsh should pay for a new traffic study, one that would be up to date and consistent with the existing traffic volumes and patterns. 

The past is a prologue

The prior traffic study, done in 2009, before anything was built on the property, was based on traffic counts then current and a projected build-out date of 2013. Between those years, a deep recession brought development to a near-halt, locally and nationally. Except for the opening of DeMarsh’s multi-screen Epic Theatres in 2011, the dream of Deltona Village languished.

Things have changed markedly in the past decade, as businesses such as a RaceTrac convenience store with gas pumps, and Burger King and Starbucks, have located along Howland Boulevard. A Panda Express Chinese restaurant is also about to go vertical west of Starbucks, and a confectionery known as The Nutty Bavarian is now taking shape just north of the Amazon fulfillment center.

DeMarsh, by the way, says he and his firm, Deltona Retail Holdings LLC, are the owners of the land and not the developers. Rather, he says he is working to sell parcels to commercial developers. In any event, the city and DeMarsh signed the development agreement in 2010. Despite the passage of time, the changed economic conditions and the development trends, that development agreement — a contract between DeMarsh and the City of Deltona — remains in force.

That agreement provides for a maximum of 900,000 square feet of retail-commercial space within Deltona Village. An amendment of the development agreement last year raised the cap, or limit, of apartments in Deltona Village from the old 414 to the new 652 — a gain of 238 rental dwellings.

More cash needed for more cars?

City Commissioner Dana McCool said DeMarsh had not paid enough in road-impact fees to offset the problems created by the burgeoning traffic now and the traffic likely to result from Deltona Village.

“Could you, Jessica, please tell me also the exact amount of proportionate fair share or impact fees that have been paid, or could you differentiate what has been done in construction, as well as what we passed off to Amazon to pay in that area, as well, as it is related to this particular development?” McCool asked Deltona Planning Director Jessica Entwistle.

“The applicant has an agreement with the county in 2010 for $1.9 million to do upgrades on Howland and Graves,” Entwistle replied.

“Have all those upgrades been done?” McCool asked.

“One-point-9 million dollars [unintelligible],” Entwistle responded.

McCool said the actual “proportionate fair share” of cash needed for transportation improvements is actually closer to $10 million. Unless DeMarsh is willing to obtain a new traffic study and to pay more for the commercial development already underway, McCool opposed the new amendment of the Deltona Village development agreement.

“What is being said here is we need to collect our money,” McCool said.

A tangled tale becomes a sideshow

McCool also accused DeMarsh’s attorney, Kim Booker, of lying about a report that Volusia County officials intended to rescind or withdraw a letter supporting the need for a more up-to-date traffic study for Deltona Village.

That prompted Booker to accuse McCool of having “a personal vendetta against me that shouldn’t be taken out on Frank DeMarsh. I don’t know if I’m too tall or blond — I don’t know.”

“First of all — I’ve never lied,” Booker told McCool.

As for her client’s request “to join 25.96 acres into the Deltona Village BPUD,” Booker said the additional property would “lessen the density and the intensity” of Deltona Village.

“It lessens the impact of the development,” she added.

McCool subsequently said her remarks were “not a personal vendetta.” 

“I’m trying to get a fair share so that our taxpayers do not have to make up for it,” she said.

From the county’s perspective, a new traffic study would yield more accurate data for calculating the cost of road upgrades and the amounts of proportionate fair-share payments due now and later.

“The County’s concern is that the Build Out date … was off by a large margin,” County Engineer Tadd Kasbeer wrote in a June 28, 2023, letter to Deltona’s then-Development Services Director Joseph Ruiz. “The TIA [traffic-impact analysis, or traffic study] projected a 2023 Build Out date that has been surpassed and a majority of the site still has not been developed. … The significance of that study, on which the PFS [proportionate fair-share] payment was based, is no longer valid due to assumptions that were found to be incorrect. The study should be updated based on an updated Build Out date and the PFS payment revised accordingly.”

      What changed?

A discrepancy that came to light as the debate continued was the city planning staff’s apparent change of mind about the Deltona Village amendment. Entwistle and the Planning and Development Services Department had endorsed the addition of the nearly 26 acres to the 140-acre Deltona Village spread when the city’s Planning and Zoning Board voted 6-1 last month to recommend the expansion. However, when the City Commission was set to act on the matter, Entwistle showed a PowerPoint with a concluding message: “At this time staff cannot [Emphasis theirs] recommend approval of Ordinance No. 02-2024, due to needing more time to review the history of the Deltona Village BPUD Development Agreements and working with the applicant regarding their Proportionate Fairshare [sic] and Traffic Impact Analysis based on the information received from Volusia County.”

That change of positions upset Planning and Zoning Board Chair Eric Alexander, who rose to address the City Commission.

“This is absolutely absurd,” he said. “We designated this as a commercial area.”

“You’re making this guy jump through hoops,” Alexander added, referring to DeMarsh. “He has already paid millions of dollars.”

City Commissioner Tom Burbank argued Deltona should honor its commitment.

“We did make an agreement with these people. To break it now is bad faith,” he told his colleagues.

Time to decide on Deltona’s future

About an hour-and-a-half after the matter came to the fore, City Commissioner Maritza Avila-Vazquez moved for approval of the ordinance to add the north 26 acres to the Deltona Village BPUD. Vice Mayor Jody Lee Storozuk seconded.

When the elected body voted, Avila-Vazquez, Burbank, Storozuk and City Commissioner Stephen Colwell formed the majority. McCool was the sole dissenter.

Regarding the future retail composition of Deltona Village, Storozuk singled out one type of business he does not want to see there.

“We have enough dollar stores,” Storozuk said, referring to the small-box discount stores, such as Dollar Tree. 

Mayor Santiago Avila Jr. was absent from the meeting. The commission will decide Jan. 29 who will replace now-former City Commissioner Anita Bradford, who resigned because of health reasons.

Contacted afterward, Kasbeer said the county’s July 23 letter has not and will not be rescinded.

“At the time we wrote the letter, the City of Deltona was reviewing a request from the developer to modify the existing development agreement. As part of that, they contacted us about the traffic situation and the county’s position on the traffic as it relates to that development,” Kasbeer told The Beacon. “Consistent with the county’s position on the development either in the county or in a city, the traffic study prepared for the development is based on the anticipated traffic conditions at the time the development is anticipated to be built out. It was anticipated to be complete in 2013. That actual growth may cause roads to fail.”

Kasbeer concluded the city is making its own decisions about development.

A key county thoroughfare in the big city

Howland Boulevard is a four-lane county thoroughfare that extends from Interstate 4 on the city’s north side to State Road 415 on Deltona’s southeast end. Howland has become a sort of partial semicircular beltway around Deltona.

The segment of Howland Boulevard directly affecting Deltona Village, the 0.40-mile portion between I-4 and Wolf Pack Run, has an average daily count of 30,040 vehicles, according to the county Traffic Engineering’s figures from 2021, the most recent year available. That portion of the road has a level of service, or a grade of E, in terms of being able to move vehicles safely and efficiently. The county grades its roads A through F, with F being a failing road and in need of improvement, such as perhaps additional lanes.