A divided Vero Beach City Council has decided the “old nursery site” – a 14-acre parcel along the Florida East Coast Railway tracks and adjacent to Crestlawn Cemetery – shouldn’t be used to build affordable housing under the state’s Live Local Act.
It was a wise choice.
Not only does the city need the property to store storm debris in the event of a hurricane, but, as Councilman Aaron Vos warned, there are potential environmental concerns that make the site poorly suited for residential development.
Besides, Vero Beach voters – only 13 months ago – rejected the city’s pitch to address the affordable-housing crisis in our community when 65 percent of them opposed a referendum to more than double residential density in the downtown core.
That referendum, it turns out, was the city’s last best chance to put a noticeable dent in the shortage of workforce housing in our community.
If it had passed, the referendum might’ve enticed enough developers to build some of the much-needed housing in a section of the city where higher-density apartment buildings could have become part of the downtown ambiance and not disturbed the neighborhood’s charm.
But the voters said no.
And if developing the nursery site property – which is protected in the City Charter – had been put to a referendum, there’s little reason to believe the outcome would be significantly different.
In fact, Councilwoman Linda Moore – a strong proponent of using the nursery site for affordable housing – conceded that any such referendum on the property was dead on arrival.
“It will fail because the of the NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) in our community that don’t want anything like this,” Moore said during the council’s regular meeting on Dec. 9.
Yet, Moore continued her fierce campaign to sway council members to use the property for affordable housing, making sure the public knew where each of them stood on the issue.
At one point, Moore verbally manipulated Vice Mayor Taylor Dingle into aligning with her position, if the city could find an alternative debris-storage site in the county.
When he agreed, Moore punched the air in triumph. Two days later, however, when the council discussed the matter again at a special-call meeting to address its goals and objectives for the coming year, Moore’s frustration grew.
She could see she was in the minority – along with Mayor John Cotugno, who sits on the County Commission’s Affordable Housing Advisory Committee – and eventually surrendered.
“This is making me crazy, that we’re not going to do affordable housing because of hurricane debris,” she said.
Moore clearly underestimated the need for a place to store storm debris.
Fact is, we got lucky this year, as Atlantic hurricanes veered north and away from the Florida peninsula. But that could easily change in 2026.
If it does – and to what degree – the city likely will need the nursery property, which is its only storm-debris storage site on the mainland. The island site is at Riverside Park.
“We had four sites a few years ago; now we have two,” City Manager Monte Falls told the council, explaining that one former debris site became the Vero Beach Dog Park and the other was the former Dodgertown Golf Club property that was sold to the county.
To now lose the nursery site would’ve been reckless.
As Falls said: “The most important things in a disaster event is getting the debris off the road, so that people can go about their lives, and get to the properties and do repairs, and get to work.
“It’s the very first thing we do when the wind stops blowing.”
Yes, Falls conceded, it’s possible the city might’ve been able to negotiate an inter-local agreement with the county to store storm debris. But what if a future County Commission wants to change the terms?
Then there’s the additional cost of trucking the debris to a site outside the city limits.
Vos, who ultimately was joined by Dingle and Councilman John Carroll in opposing Moore’s push to use the nursery site for affordable housing, was adamant that the city continue to use the property for storm-debris storage.
“This site is a required city resource,” Vos said. “It’s just like a fire truck. We might not need a fire truck every day, but when you need it, you need it.
“We, as a city, need to stay independent and not shift our reliance over to the county,” he added.
It was Vos who raised potential environmental concerns about designating the nursery site for residential development, citing the industrial zoning of that property and those nearby – particularly a cement business.
He said the city would need to investigate possible health hazards from the concrete dust particles produced at that plant, as well as the diesel exhaust from trucks transporting materials.
He also mentioned noise and vibrations from the abutting railroad tracks, siren noise from an adjacent Fire-Rescue station, and even exposure to a radio frequency field from a nearby transmission tower.
“I think we have a good site for debris removal,” Vos said. “I don’t believe it’s appropriate for housing at this time, unless we’re truly desperate. And I don’t think we are.”
Carroll, an engineer by trade, expressed doubt that a developer could build truly affordable housing on the site at a time when construction costs remain high.
Referring to the three responses to the city’s Request for Information two years ago, Carroll shrugged off claims the site could be developed with rents as low as $900 per month as unrealistic, saying, “I find that impossible.”
But even if it were possible, the Live Local Act requires that only 40 percent of the development be designated for affordable housing.
Would adding a relatively small number of apartments on a less-than-appealing site be worth the risk of the city being overwhelmed by storm debris when the next hurricane arrives on our shores?
“We need to keep the burden of getting affordable housing on the county,” Vos said.
He’s 100-percent correct.
Now, if the county has some ideas …
Photos by Joshua Kodis
