Daytona Beach Planning Board Wants To Limit Salvage Locations

Defining what salvage and recycling businesses are is OK, but allowing them in redevelopment areas is not.

That's the message the Daytona Beach Planning Board members said as it voted 10-0 to send to the City Commission this month.

The vote has targeted a number of scrap yards operating in these several areas of the city, and could result in a significant amount of acrimony on the part of the private recycling industry.

Two salvage and recycling facilities are located in the Westside Redevelopment Area, one of the areas being targeted by the change in zoning issues.

Redevelopment boards for the Westside, Downtown and South Atlantic Avenue areas have voted to recommend prohibiting salvage and recycling businesses in redevelopment areas.

The city's redevelopment areas have industrial zoning districts close to residential areas. This is the result of the city's historic settlement in the late 19th and early 20th century that placed most industry along waterfronts and railroad tracks, according to a city staff report by Mark Karet, Daytona Beach’s planning manager.

Karet notes that the new zoning policy would affect several scrap yards, one near the water and one near railroad tracks.

While the companies presently operating in these locations can continue to operate, if the board vote is approved by the City Council they will be prohibited from expanding their existing locations.

Housing was built next to industrial areas before development of inexpensive public transportation and the automobile. The original zoning for the city reflects that historic trend and continues to this day.

Prohibiting salvage and recycling activities would make the two existing salvage businesses nonconforming. They would be allowed to continue operating and even be sold, but could not expand or relocate elsewhere in the city's redevelopment areas.

If the commission ultimately prohibits salvage yards in redevelopment areas, those businesses could still be located in areas zoned industrial, mainly at the western city limits.

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While the city stipulates that the affected businesses could not expand, there are some questions of what exactly expansion would mean. For Halifax Wrecking, one of the companies that would be affected by the local legislation, there is concern that the repair or construction of a building at the location would be deemed an expansion project and would be prohibited.