It became a teach-in on how government works.

Amid the saga of ongoing building, a population surge and rampant flooding, Volusia County’s elected leaders learn anew that they may not halt or freeze new settlements as they approach completion.

The question has come up before, and it came up again Feb. 4, as the County Council was advised it could not withhold final approval of the final layout of a new residential development. The lesson, or seminar, which may be titled Local Government and Development 101, followed.

“Its nice to go over what actually happens there, because it’s not really clear to the public,” County Chair Jeff Brower said.

The matter before the council was the request for final approval of the Waterstone Subdivision, a planned neighborhood of 144 single-family homes on 64.12 acres located along the west side of Old Dixie Highway, in the unincorporated area near Ormond Beach. Waterstone has been about three years in the making, and the final plat of the development awaited the blessing of the County Council. 

Because of its proximity to the Ormond Scenic Loop, Suzanne Scheiber, of Dream Green Volusia, urged the council to delay action on Waterstone.

“We are the lucky ones who not only have a local treasure and a national one that comes with responsibilities,” she told the council. “Residents have been trying to save, preserve and defend The Loop for decades. So here are my concerns today. There’s flooding at the development to the north. The trees in the buffer are sitting in water all the time. Water runs across the road when it rains.”

Brower, who had called attention to the Waterstone plat and singled it out for discussion, noted that the county had bought 13 acres close by for a park and a trail, and that county officials intend to make both a reality.

“We are on track for that,” he said. “The trail is moving forward. The staff is committed to building that trail.”

“What is the purpose of a final plat?” asked Council Member David Santiago.

“By the time of the plat approval, a lot of things have happened,” Senior Assistant County Attorney Paolo Soria replied. “There is road infrastructure. There are utilities in place. The stormwater [system] has been constructed. The entire subdivision, except for the vertical houses, is there. In fact, for this particular plat, Waterstone, you can drive the roads. You know, if you are over there, everything is there.”

“What does the staff do before you put it on the agenda?” Santiago followed up.

County Growth and Resource Management Director Clay Ervin answered, noting the professional planners watch the progress of developments as they take shape.

“Your staff looks at development regulations, as well as concurrency — roads, water, sewer, parks, schools, all of the infrastructure that are required or have option to require for the comp plan,” he said. 

The “comp plan” refers to the comprehensive plan, meaning the state-mandated growth-management plan approved by the county in 1990.

“If the preliminary plat is approved, then you move forward to construction,” Ervin added, “and you have inspections during the construction phase, and then prior to scheduling, you would ensure that final improvements are in place and that everything is functioning, and you’re willing to accept it. Roads are transferred, utilities are transferred, etc. … We would be out there inspecting it to verify that it’s in compliance with your code.”

Soria concluded the lesson on final plat.

“It doesn’t create entitlements; it doesn’t create density. Those are done in your rezoning comp-plan stages. So, if you want to buy a piece of property, usually — and you say, ‘I want to buy Lot 56,’ and you look at the plat map and you point out the lot and you say, ‘I want to buy that.’ And the reason you can do that is because it’s a platted piece of land. If you buy in reference to the plat, you know what’s around you. You know how many lots there are and what roads there are. You know what the tracks are. You know what the open space is. You know where the parks are. So it is a consumer-protection development order. So, otherwise, individual home buyers and lot owners would have to receive a metes-and-bounds legal description … and they would have to get a surveyor,  and they would have to determine their property and what they are buying. The plat is just for the buying and selling of property and knowing what you’ve bought.”

“The approval of plats is very strict. We say that it’s ministerial in nature, because there’s a line of case law that says, ‘OK, what you’re looking at are just the technical requirements — have they put all the money in place? Have they dedicated all the tracks properly? Does it have the appropriate dedication and approvals from all of the owners? And the courts have said, if they have met all of that, local government  — even though you are the approval entity, your discretion has disappeared once they meet all of that criteria. So you must approve.”

Soria described the council’s action to sign off on plats as “ministerial in nature, because they come usually at the end of the development process.”

The request to approve the Waterstone plat appeared in the consent agenda. The consent agenda is that portion of the meeting’s order of business that usually consists of housekeeping or routine items, generally considered noncontroversial. The matters listed on the consent agenda may be approved on a single motion, unless a council member, county staffer or even someone in the audience requests that an item be “pulled” or removed for discussion or a separate vote.

True to form, in the case of the Waterstone plat, the council approved the consent agenda as presented, and then moved to handle other matters that required more attention and information.