Developers present Riverpointe subdivision pre-application; county staff flag floodplain, density and infrastructure requirements

Riverpointe Subdivision representatives presented a pre-application for a proposed residential development that would include approximately 150 housing units and a mix of lot sizes to the Nassau County Development Review Committee on June 17.

The pre-application meeting provided preliminary, nonbinding comments from county departments about floodplain data, required street cross-sections, park and transect requirements from the William Burgess blueprint, stormwater and low-impact-design standards, and utility and sidewalk specifications. Committee Chair Tabitha Bostic with Development Services opened the item and invited the project team to present.

The developer’s civil engineer, Adam Ostman of Alliance Engineering, described the project as a residential subdivision with townhomes at the north end, a spine road connecting to Mentoria Road and roughly 150 residential units with amenity areas and ponds. Paul Sachs of Drees Homes clarified the expectation that a county park would be included on one parcel and asked about inconsistencies among multiple transect district maps.

Constance Lake of the Building Department said the site lies in an unnumbered flood hazard zone and that base flood elevations will need to be established and shown on engineering plans in accordance with the Nassau County Code of Ordinances. Lake offered to facilitate contact with the firm performing nearby floodplain modeling.

Stephanie Kaiser from Planning flagged several blueprint and comp-plan issues. She said the applicant appears to have added townhomes to an area previously identified as parkland (Parcel 2B) and increased density in a coastal high-hazard area, which the comp plan policy CHZ0502 prohibits. Kaiser noted the approved transect for that parcel was a less intense 2.5 transect and reminded the team that neighborhood parks should meet a guideline of four acres per 1,000 people and be located within a walk shed of roughly a half mile.

Caleb Hurst of Development Services summarized technical blueprint standards the project must meet. He emphasized that the spine road is classified as Main Street Type C on figure 4.6/4.7 of the William Burgess blueprint and ‘‘shall not be gated’’ under section 4.9.0.4; the blueprint also requires multimodal cross-access to adjacent properties, low-impact-design stormwater measures (section 4.12), multiuse trails (4.9.0.2.h), 6-foot sidewalks (4.5.2.0.6), underground utilities (4.5.2.0.8), lighting standards (4.14.4), furnishing zones and street cross-sections consistent with the Main Street Type C standard, and a traffic study for developments generating more than 250 trips per day (4.9.0.5.b).

Fire-rescue comments supplied by the fire marshal and read into the record required a Knox key switch for any gated entries or emergency-access gates; roads with a minimum unobstructed clear width of 20 feet should prohibit street parking. Ryan Nestor of the Health Department noted the department uses a separate state application and fee schedule and asked for letters of availability for water and sewer.

County staff offered to provide a comprehensive written set of comments upon formal plan submittal and invited the applicant team to meet after the DRC meeting to discuss mapping inconsistencies and other follow-up items. The committee reiterated that the DRC is an advisory body that provides recommendations to department heads, who make final approvals.

The project team and staff agreed to a follow-up meeting to resolve transect-map discrepancies and to confirm where the spine road must remain open to comply with the blueprint.