P&Z Recap: Board Recommends Emerald Lakes East Phase 1, Wawa Third Sign After 2-2 Tie

PALM BAY, FL (The Palm Bayer) — The Planning and Zoning Board voted Wednesday night to recommend City Council approval of the final development plan for Emerald Lakes East Phase 1, 652 multifamily units and more than 1.1 million square feet of non-residential development on 328 acres east of I-95. Earlier in the evening, a Wawa sign variance deadlocked 2-2 before the city attorney stepped in and the board recommended approval on a later motion. A proposed bylaws amendment was tabled again.

Present: Chair David Karaffa, Vice Chair Rainer Warner, Tony Catalano, and Peter Filiberto. Higgins and Norris were excused, and McNally’s voting seat is vacant following his resignation. Deborah Bracoloni, the non-voting school board appointee, did not answer the roll call.

Wawa’s third sign: a 2-2 tie, then the attorney

Item one was V26-00006, a variance request from Diaz Treasures, LLC for a Wawa at the southwest corner of St. John’s Heritage Parkway NW and West Malabar Road. The applicant wanted a third wall sign, 51.32 square feet, on the west elevation facing an internal driveway. The applicant’s representative described the code as generally allowing one wall sign per roadway frontage.

Staff recommended denial. Growth Management Director Althea Jefferson told the board there was no hardship under the review criteria. But in the same presentation, she disclosed that staff is considering pursuing a change to the code to allow additional wall signage outside street frontage areas, after a run of similar requests in recent months and one or two more expected.

The only public speaker, Bill Batten, was mixed. He warned of precedent, calling it the broken glass syndrome: “Once you give one, you break every window until they’re gone.” He asked how the McDonald’s at the same intersection got signs on all four sides, and suggested the board just modify the ordinance to avoid going through this process on every request.

Catalano first moved to approve, but no vote was taken. Filiberto then moved to deny, seconded by Warner. The vote tied 2-2, and the motion failed. Chief Deputy City Attorney Tanya Early then intervened, encouraging more discussion and a new motion, noting that “there’s been no ruling on the variance that’s before you.”

After another round of debate, Catalano moved to approve, then amended the motion to include the staff’s conditions, keeping the sign at the proposed size, no additional wall signs, and posting the address on that side, after the city attorney’s office asked for clarification. The chair called for ayes and no opposition was audible; Warner said he was on board “as long as we’re clear on all the conditions.”

The debate was the most quotable of the night. Karaffa: “It’s a Wawa. I think the sign isn’t way up in the air. It’s not in anybody’s face.” Catalano: “I don’t want to be known as a town that doesn’t cooperate with business.” Warner, the skeptic: “Eventually you’re going to have Las Vegas over on St. John’s Heritage Parkway.” And Karaffa, on homeowners along Malabar Road: “buy a different house.”

Watch this space: the code change staff disclosed is now the real story.

Emerald Lakes East Phase 1: recommended, with the schools question hanging

Item two was FD26-00001, the final development plan for Emerald Lakes East Phase 1, from Excess Land Investment, LLC. Paul Paluzzi, who described himself as a principal of Zones Development, gave the board a twenty-year history of the project, from the 2006 purchase of ranch land in Palm Bay through the interchange effort, the COVID-era utility deal, and the current push.

The numbers: 328 acres east of I-95. 652 multifamily units at about two per acre. More than 1.1 million square feet of non-residential, including 906,000 square feet of commercial, office, and research plus a 200,000-square-foot hotel or motel with about 400 beds. 112 acres of resource-based open space, within about 115 acres of open space overall. Buildout in phases 1A through 1D, beginning in 2027 and running through the first quarter of 2031. The applicant’s project manager, Pete Van Warner, put this phase at about $11.3 million in impact fees and the full project at about $82 million; the applicant’s planner, Brenda Yates, cited different figures in her presentation.

Paluzzi said three anchor users are ready to move forward: more than 800,000 square feet of retail and corporate headquarters, roughly 1,000 jobs, “hundreds of millions of dollars” in investment. The anchors were not named; Karaffa said he understood the applicant couldn’t say who they are, adding, “now you’ve got me wondering.”

The most detailed exchange on the project was on schools. Filiberto pressed the applicant on the school concurrency report, which says Sunrise Elementary, Southwest Middle, and Bayside High are not projected to have enough capacity. Karen Black of Brevard Public Schools facilities planning said the phase generates 118 students, 72 elementary, 13 middle, 33 high, and that a new state law now requires the district to credit charter school participation in the Sunrise boundary before holding the developer accountable.

The catch: Wise said one of the charter operators the developer is working with applied this week, and the developer gets no capacity credit until a charter is approved; Black said the application is under review and not counted toward capacity. Paluzzi said the developer turned down a publicly traded school operator three times to hold the site for a local operator on a turnkey lease.

Batten spoke against the project as he has since the beginning, but he gave the developer a rare compliment: by his standard, Emerald Lakes is the only developer that “contributed up front” and did what it said ahead of schedule. He flagged two things anyway: none of the current phases connect to Micco Road, which Batten called the primary transportation route in, and the developer’s offer of land for a fire station does not help if the city cannot afford to build the station. Paluzzi said the parkway extension east to Micco is integral, that other developers need to share the cost, and that a turnkey lease for the fire site is on the table.

Filiberto moved to approve. It passed with no opposition.

One more detail worth noting: Karaffa asked staff why the architectural design guide, approved by council on September 3, was back for amendment a month later. Jefferson said the original approval lacked the architectural standards for the big-box and headquarters uses now anticipated east of I-95, and the amendment was at staff’s recommendation. A development agreement is still being negotiated and goes to council with two readings.

Bylaws: tabled again

The proposed amendment to the Planning and Zoning Board bylaws was tabled to the November meeting. Karaffa noted it had possibly been tabled twice already.

Sources: the voice-mapped meeting transcript; the October 7, 2026 P&Z agenda packet. The board’s votes are recommendations to the City Council, which makes the final determination.