Residents used the public-comment portion of the Palm Coast City Council’s special meeting Thursday to press elected officials on drainage problems, recent approvals for infill development and the city’s capacity to support new housing.

A resident who said an approved infill home next to her property had been built 30 inches higher and without drainage mitigation told the council she measured the canal outfall and found a 36-inch pipe where the city had said upgrades were to 42 inches. “That means the upgrade is incomplete and the system is still bottlenecked at the most important point,” she said, urging the council to fix the outfall and the permit and approval process that allowed the elevation difference.

Other speakers voiced support for the mayor’s previously announced moratorium on new building permits. Cindy Spain, a Seminole Woods resident, said: “We need to slow down the home building…infrastructure does not support all this building.” Several speakers expressed frustration with city responsiveness to calls for infrastructure repairs and the timeliness of field service responses.

At least one commenter cited figures discussed publicly in recent sessions about utilities: a $620,000,000 bond figure and an estimate of about 19,000 units in the development queue, which a speaker said equated to roughly $34,000 per unit and, in testimony he attributed to utility staff, would not fully resolve capacity shortfalls. The council did not take any formal vote on utilities or moratorium at Thursday’s meeting; those issues came up during public comment and separate council discussion.

Council members acknowledged ongoing concerns about utilities during the session. Several speakers urged the council to require developers to fund upgrades, to fix swales and drainage features and to prioritize infrastructure over additional housing approvals. The city manager and staff were present and heard comments; no new policy was adopted during the special meeting.

The public comments tied into the broader meeting agenda only insofar as some speakers used the platform created for the investigator’s report to press the council on long-standing infrastructure and development questions. The council directed staff to place items on the next agenda where appropriate and heard repeated requests from residents to follow through on stormwater inspections, drainage maintenance and accountability for prior approvals.

The council did not take formal action on the moratorium or utilities at the special meeting; residents and council members signaled those items would remain topics for future meetings and potential agenda items.