St. Augustine planning board backs new lot-grading and flood-resilience rules, asks staff to set garage-size allowance

The St. Augustine Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously Wednesday to recommend a package of zoning changes and conservation overlay amendments intended to create clearer, tiered review for lot grading and to reduce neighborhood flooding impacts from single-family and duplex development.

City staff presented proposed amendments to Chapter 28 (zoning supplementary regulations) and Chapter 11 (environmental/conservation overlay) that add a formal “lot grading” review process for one- and two-family residences, clarify when staff may approve bulkheads and retaining walls, and set numerical limits for fill and wall dimensions.

Sarah Dougherty, senior planner, told the board the changes create a hierarchy of review intended to encourage pier/piling foundations and other low-impact designs so homeowners can avoid more intensive civil review. “If you’re on piers or pilings or a crawlspace with less than 6 inches of fill, you would not need a lot-grading plan review,” Dougherty said. She added that the package references DEP best-management practices for erosion control and uses FEMA flood maps to determine base flood elevation when applying fill limits.

Why it matters: board members said the rules are intended to give staff clearer standards to prevent situations where new development worsens flooding on neighboring lots — a problem the board cited in neighborhoods such as Coquina, Davis Shores and portions of Pelican Reef.

What the code would do: under the proposed language shared with the board, residential projects would follow a flowchart of review that generally does the following: - Category 1:…