Vickie Conklin made an outstanding presentation to the Titusville Board of Adjustment and Appeals (BAA) against the Apollo Gardens proposal submitted by Carrfour Supportive Housing. Carrfour Supportive Housing plans to build an 84-unit supportive housing community called Apollo Gardens on a multi-family property off Demaret Drive. Vickie’s presentation was clear and easily understandable by the BAA. It was based upon the following facts.
- The comprehensive Plan does not allow multifamily developments to be accessed by a local road.
- Demaret Road is a local road.
- Cities are required to follow the Comprehensive Plan.
- Therefore, allowing Carrfour to build a multifamily structure on Demaret Road violates the Comprehensive Plan and is not legal.
Our motion was for the BAA to accept our appeal and refuse to allow this project to move forward. Unfortunately the board did not approve our motion last night. However, in the words of John Paul Jones, a Revolutionary War hero, “We have just begun to fight.”
We cannot understand why they didn’t do the right things and support our request. Are they afraid of being sued by Carrfour? Are developers supporting some members of our board so they will vote in their favor? The reason, Al Taylor, the chair of the BAA Board gave for his refusal to vote against this project is that the city council is the one that makes the rules. Al Taylor, Chair of the BAA specifically said, “If you feel that things are wrong in the code, I would suggest that you have city council adjust the code.” He also said, “We are not elected here. But to have us come up and set precedent and make rules that will account, I think that is the city council’s job”. There is a major issue with his statement: That being the appeal WAS NOT asking the city to make new rules, but asking only that they follow the rules already in place. The ‘precedent’ that the BAA did in fact set was that of ignoring an obvious violation by the city, of the rule of law. The BAA failed to uphold the law, and abrogated their responsibility to do so. We are following his advice and will again ask the City Council to rule on this development.
Some people have asked why we didn’t ask the city council before to rule on this? We actually did but were told they did not want to undermine the BAA. People also asked why didn’t we hire a lawyer for this appeal and the short answer is we cannot afford to do so. It would have cost us over $4,000. That money would have come from the fund to prevent the Kolter proposal. However, Vickie did consult with two attorneys in preparing the presentation. I suspect that even if we had a lawyer at the meeting, we would have the same outcome but less money available to address all the other issues in Royal Oak.
We thank Vickie Conklin for all the time she put into this fight, and we are so fortunate for her service to all of us. We also thank BAA Member Greene who listened to the people and voted in favor of our appeal. The video above demonstrates the difficulty in getting the city representatives to do what they should do, and protect the citizens of Titusville. As always, we rely on your donations to allow us to protect the Royal Oak Community.
Fighting developers is not free.
We have done a tremendous job for over one year as a grassroots group, but need professionals to get us over the line. Therefore, we’re moving to the fundraising stage since Kolter and Carrfour are actually moving forward and we know the threats are real. The total estimate is between $15-20,000. Please contribute what you can to save our neighborhood. We can’t guarantee we will win, but we can guarantee if we do NOTHING, the developments will happen, and we’ll be stuck with it forever.
You can contriubute online or by check:
Mail check to:
Royal Oak Neighbors LLC
P.O. Box 702
Titusville FL 32781
(Contact any of the core group members via this email; they will pick up your donation and provide a receipt.)
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Apollo Gardens Very Important Notice
On January 29th, we will have an our best opportunity
ROYAL OAK NEIGHBORS MEETING APRIL 28, 2025
PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ATTEND THIS IMPORTANT MEETING! The next