300 Apartments + Commercial in Freeport at 331 and 3280

Mindboggling what is happening in this county - thousands of new aprtments, houses and townhouses being built or planned. Maybe tens of thousands?

EMF Freeport was the other major development project taken up at the July 19 meeting. This is a request on behalf of Encore Multi-Family, L.L.C., for 300 multi-family units on 82.19 acres at the southwest corner of the U.S. 331/CR-3280 intersection, south of Freeport. Of the units, 20 percent are being proposed as income restricted (affordable) units.

The property had previously been proposed for a conceptual planned unit development (PUD) but the current proposal is for a development order application.

The property consists of Commercial and Rural Residential land use area portions and is in General Commercial and Rural Village zoning districts.

According to conditions of approval in the project staff report: “A right-turn lane was provided at the entrance on CR-3280; however, a traffic study was not provided to determine whether a left-turn lane on CR-3280 and a right-turn lane on U.S. 331 at the proposed connections are warranted. The turn lane analysis will be provided as part of the connection permit to FDOT [the Florida Department of Transportation] and will be submitted to the county [with] the detailed site design and development order application.”

Stephen Schoen of Walton County Planning and Development Services introduced the project. He noted that floodplain reviewer comments remained to be addressed by the applicants and said the county floodplain manager would like to meet with the applicants to discuss her concerns.

Mac Carpenter, TRC chairman and Walton County planning and development services director, confirmed that BCC-adopted policy expedites projects that include affordable housing.

The committee members approved a motion to advance the project to the next review stage (planning commission) on the condition of any outstanding reviewer comments being resolved.

Approved by BCC:

Request on behalf of Encore Multi-Family, L.L.C., for EMF Freeport, consisting of 300 multi-family units on 82.19 acres at the southwest corner of the U.S. 331/CR-3280 intersection, south of Freeport. Of the units, 20 percent were proposed as income restricted (affordable) units.

The property had previously been proposed for a conceptual planned unit development (PUD) but the current proposal was for a development order application.

The property consists of Commercial and Rural Residential land use area portions and is in General Commercial and Rural Village zoning districts.

The project came forward with 29.19 acres proposed to be left in conservation as a perpetual open space easement.

There was a motion for approval by McCormick.

The motion was approved unanimously.