The City of St. Augustine Planning and Zoning Board on Tuesday, Jan. 7 approved prior meeting minutes, voted to approve a city seawall rehabilitation project and took multiple continuances and one project approval. The board front‑loaded a request for additional technical materials on several waterfront dock and waterfront wall applications and continued several items to the board’s Feb. 4 meeting for supplemental studies or corrected documentation.

Why it matters: Several of the continued items involve docks and conservation overlay development on narrow creeks and the board asked for bathymetry, oyster‑bed mapping, corrected riparian/property line surveys and sealed engineer drawings before final decisions. The board also approved a larger, grant‑funded seawall rehabilitation project the city says is intended to raise a low section of seawall and reduce nuisance flooding near the municipal marina.

Summary of formal actions
- Minutes: The board approved the Nov. 5 and Dec. 3, 2024 meeting minutes (motions made and seconded; roll call votes recorded as unanimous for those items).
- Agenda modifications: Staff announced continuances and a withdrawal for three items at the start of the meeting; the board approved the modified agenda.
- Continued to Feb. 4, 2025: Item 5a (173 Inlet Drive) and Item 6a (3 South Street) — applicants requested continuances to Feb. 4; the board approved the continuances.
- Continued to Feb. 4, 2025: Item 5b (67 Water Street / PCB‑2024‑0092). The board voted to continue this Conservation Overlay Zone dock application and amended the motion to require that the applicant provide a professional assessment that maps oyster beds (if any) and confirms the absence or presence of biologically sensitive benthic habitat before the board reconsiders the application.
- Approved (with conditions): Item 5c (89 Dolphin Drive, application 2024‑0095). The board approved rehabilitation of an existing bulkhead and construction of a dock, with conditions requiring (a) a revised engineered drawing showing no fill behind the bulkhead cap and the finished elevation, (b) the bulkhead cap be raised 18 inches and (c) administrative submittal of the sealed engineer’s (EOR) letter/specs; the board also recommended use of composite (non‑corroding) rebar and asked staff to modify a boilerplate filter‑cloth note so the permit does not require excavation “below mean high water.” The vote was recorded by roll call as unanimous approval.
- Continued to Feb. 4, 2025: Item 5d (415 S. Ponce De Leon Blvd., application 2024‑0094). The board asked for clearer drawings and an aerial overlay and continued the matter.
- Approved: Item 5e (111 Avenida Menendez, application 2024‑0111). The board approved the city’s Conservation Overlay Zone application to rehabilitate 380 linear feet of seawall, elevate roughly 180 linear feet to match surrounding elevations, add riprap toe protection and install two tide check valves. The city said the project is federally funded through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) with supplemental funding from the Florida Inland Navigation District. The board’s roll‑call vote was unanimous.
- Continued to Feb. 4, 2025: Item 6b (4 Locust Street — variance & use‑by‑exception; applications 2024‑0102 and 2024‑0116). Staff reported the parcel is zoned CL but the city’s future‑land‑use map shows a residential designation; Planning staff advised that a land‑use correction or amendment is required before a development approval can be granted. The applicant agreed to continue to Feb. 4.
- Continued to Feb. 4, 2025: Item 6d (33 Palmer Street, variance to side/rear setbacks — application 2024‑0107). The board requested details: historic record of the structure, stamped site and floor plans, calculations of lot coverage and impervious area, and photos to clarify what was built inside an existing garage before it will consider the variance.
- Discussed but no final action recorded in the transcript: Item 6e (Lewis Boulevard lot‑coverage variance, 1395 U.S. 1 South). Staff recommended denial because no specific singular disadvantage had been documented; several board members said they supported the applicant’s concept (an off‑grade/crawl‑space house that reduces runoff), but the item required additional information and policy context.

Board direction, requests to applicants and staff
- For waterfront dock applications the board repeatedly requested: accurate, stamped boundary surveys and corrected riparian lines; verified bathymetry; documentation and professional mapping of oyster beds or other benthic habitat; and clearer, sealed engineering cross sections that show mean high/low water elevations and float clearance.
- For seawall/bulkhead projects the board asked for sealed engineer drawings showing the finished elevations, explicit notes that no fill will be placed behind bulkheads and, where appropriate, non‑corroding reinforcement (composite rebar) and modified filter‑cloth excavation notes.

Meeting context
The board worked through a full agenda with extensive public turnout for multiple waterfront items. Several public commenters urged clearer notice and earlier circulation of materials; staff and board members encouraged neighbors to use code enforcement and police dispatch when encountering noise or parking violations tied to downtown nightlife.

Roll calls and vote totals: All recorded roll‑call votes for the approved items in the transcript were unanimous among the listed members present (Christina Tucker, Ashley Barnes, Charles Pappas, Mike Davis, Karl Blow, Matthew Schaeffer, Susan Johns), as shown in the transcript for each recorded motion.