Flagler County Still Growing Despite Florida Mortgage, Affordable Housing Concerns
Flagler County’s claim to fame used to be Exit 284 - where I-95 runs closer to the Atlantic Ocean than at any other exit from Maine to Miami.
That’s all changed. Flagler County has a new national title, courtesy of the Census Bureau: America’s fastest-growing county.
During this decade, the once rural and sleepy Old Florida enclave, tucked between St. Augustine and Daytona Beach, has doubled in population.
Driving a chunk of Flagler’s growth: a couple thousand refugees from the more expensive, crowded and urban South Florida housing market.
The long and short of it: They left to escape congested roads, the high Florida home mortgage costs, the cookie-cutter developments and home prices.
“We call them the ‘Hiccup People,’” said Carl Laundrie, a spokesman for Flagler County. “Lots of them originally came from the North, went down to South Florida and now they’ve hiccuped and landed back up here.”
The Hiccup People, along with thousands from across the U.S., have frustrated longtime Flagler residents, who see signs their community is becoming a lot like South Florida.
Former potato and cabbage fields have given way to subdivisions, shopping malls, hotels and gas stations. Bungalows in the city of Flagler Beach have been torn down to make way for McMansions.
One-time open-space, seaside lots of palmetto pines are now Hammock Beach, a massive resort development of Mediterranean-style, million-dollar condo towers and single-family homes.
Much of western Flagler County - particularly the county seat of Bunnell - remains Old Florida and would like to stay that way.
Think Davie in Broward County and the Redland in Miami-Dade County, complete with a grassy land bridge over I-95.
It’s not just rising Florida mortgage costs causing consternation. The old-time locals and the new urbanites don’t often see things the same way.
“As the demographics change, so do the desires,” said Jim Darby, a Hialeah High School graduate who is chairman of the Flagler County Commission.
“We just put in a skateboard park. And they want to put a Starbucks inside the Flagler County Library.”
The challenge: Maintain growth without losing charm.
“We’re not so interested in being No. 1 in the nation,” Darby, 68, says as he drives his low-slung 2002 Camaro through Princess Preserve, 2,500 acres of slash pine forest, dirt roads and a newly built hiking trail that county residents voted to purchase to stockpile and protect open space.
“We’re more interested in getting the quality of life and ambience part right. I don’t bad-mouth the South Florida life at all,” he says.
“Plenty enjoy it. But there are others out there who enjoy a different type of life. A slower pace in a more pristine place.”
Another headache is the lack of affordable housing.
The hot real estate market and Flagler’s allure as one of the state’s last coastal undeveloped communities - 70 percent of the county remains untouched - has driven prices out of the range of many working folks.
Six years ago, a vacant lot in Palm Coast cost $5,000. Now it’s up to $100,000. A beachfront lot on A1A went for less than $100,000 in 2000. Now, it’s $400,000 - an absurd sum for even well-heeled seekers of Florida mortgage loans.
“We’re a small-town county with that big urban area issue now,”said Linda Provencher, manager of the Golden Lion restaurant and a Flagler Beach city councilwoman.
“The median income here is around $40,000; I don’t think even a $200,000 house is affordable for the workforce. But nobody is really dealing with the issue here.”
She fears it will worsen once the Florida housing market rebounds.
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