New 928-square-foot rental villas slated for Wynnehaven Beach area. Here are the plans.
SHALIMAR — A multi-family development of 53 small rental villas in the southwest corner of Okaloosa County received the County Commission’s unanimous approval Tuesday.
The Forest Shores Villas planned unit development is slated to stand on 10 acres south of U.S. Highway 98 and east of the north-south portion of Forest Shores Drive in the unincorporated Wynnehaven Beach area. The site also is across the highway from the county’s Russell Stephenson Water Reclamation Facility and just east of the Santa Rosa County line.
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The development site is owned by Forest Shores Villas LLC, of Niceville. Each villa will be a single-story, 928-square-foot building.
The project will be under the control of a single entity while allowing the development to have the same characteristics as a traditional single-family residential subdivision, according to county Growth Management Director Elliot Kampert.
About 71% of the project site will be open space consisting of landscaped areas, stormwater retention facilities and wetland preservation areas, much higher than the county’s 20% minimum open space requirement.
Before the commission approval, Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel noted that many local residents are “concerned about our area growing by leaps and bounds.” She said traffic has become a “nightmare” and that many locals view the county as “paradise lost.”
That said, “We’re big up here (behind the dais) on private property rights,” Ketchel said.
While the villas will be accessed from an internal road connected to U.S. 98, the development will not connect to existing roads in the adjacent Emerald Pointe subdivision, according to Kampert.
According to county information, the existing Emerald Pointe homes are more than 56 feet wide and have a total of more than 2,600 square feet. In comparison, each 928-square-foot villa will be 16 feet wide by 58 feet deep.
Also, the homes at Emerald Pointe are predominately single-story, with some two-story homes up to 30 feet tall. Each single-story villa will stand 20 feet tall.
To address the discrepancy in size between the existing homes and the villas, project officials plan to increase the side setbacks of the villas from 5 feet to 20 feet and the rear setbacks from 10 feet to 20 feet.
They also plan to maintain the 20-foot front setback along U.S. 98 and install a 22-foot-wide buffer, which is more typically required between commercial and residential uses, along the project site’s southern boundary, according to the county.
This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Okaloosa County approves small rental villas in Wynnehaven Beach
