Planning board denies rezoning for proposed Dollar General on Blue Angel Parkway

The Escambia County Planning Board voted 4–1 on Jan. 7, 2025, to deny a rezoning request (case Z2025-01) for about 6.6 acres on North Blue Angel Parkway that the applicant said would host a 2.5-acre Dollar General Market and leave the rear acreage as green space.

The denial follows staff findings that the proposed HDMU zoning (which allows higher density residential and neighborhood retail) did not meet the county’s five rezoning criteria in the Escambia County Land Development Code, particularly compatibility with surrounding low-density residential uses and conformity with the comprehensive plan.

Applicant and developer presentations, staff analysis, public testimony and board deliberations centered on compatibility, access and drainage. The applicant’s representative, certified land-use planner Alara Mills Gutter, told the board the company had initially sought commercial zoning but revised the application to HDMU at staff’s request and planned to develop only the 2.5 acres fronting Blue Angel Parkway while preserving roughly 4 acres behind the site as green buffer. Developer Josh Helfstetler, president of Terramore Development, described design upgrades for a Dollar General Market-format store, said the company had offered to deed the rear acreage for public use or deed-restrict it as permanent green space, and said the project would include additional buffering and architectural upgrades compared with a standard store.

County staff and the planning board raised contrary findings. Urban Planner Lisonbee Lindsey presented maps and photographs and staff’s written report, explaining that staff found the request inconsistent with the comprehensive plan and with the HDMU district location and compatibility criteria. Staff cited the absence of adjacent HDR/HDMU or commercial zoning, and treated the neighboring convenience store as a legal nonconforming use that could not be considered equivalent to a compliant commercial parcel when evaluating compatibility. Staff recommended denial based on criteria A–E in section 2‑7.2 of the Escambia County Land Development Code.

More than a dozen residents spoke in opposition during the public comment period. Speakers who live immediately behind or adjacent to the site said they bought their homes because they backed to woods and low-density residential uses and expressed concerns about traffic, property values, increased noise and potential flooding. Several speakers, including David Cohen (5780 Scotland Court) and Sandra Gold (5780 Scotland Court), said existing traffic on Blue Angel Parkway and Pine Forest Road was already hazardous and that the proposed change would intensify congestion. Other speakers raised drainage and flood concerns for nearby streets and backyards.

During deliberations board members noted the legal standards that govern rezoning decisions and the need to evaluate all permitted uses under an HDMU designation — not only the applicant’s proposed Dollar General. Some board members referenced an earlier case with similar factual issues and said that because the site is surrounded on multiple sides by single-family homes, approving HDMU would constitute spot zoning and would not meet the county’s compatibility tests. One board member described the staff report as carefully prepared and said staff could not find that the application met the rezoning criteria. Another board member emphasized that an MDR zoning designation already permits residential development and that rezoning should not be undertaken lightly where the map shows a predominantly residential area.

A motion “to follow staff’s findings and deny the request for upzoning” was made on the record by a planning board member and seconded; the motion passed 4–1. The planning board’s recommendation to deny will be forwarded to the Board of County Commissioners, which will make the final decision at its public meeting. The board recorded the matter for the BCC hearing on Jan. 22, 2025.

The record shows the applicant and developer told the board they were willing to continue outreach to neighbors and to explore deed restrictions. The board, staff and members of the public repeatedly stressed that any future development will be subject to separate permitting and (if approved) to the Board of Adjustment’s review if a project exceeds zoning size limits (the applicant acknowledged a store larger than 6,000 square feet would require a conditional use before the Board of Adjustment).