Plans for a potential 191-home development in Crawfordville are one step closer to becoming a reality, despite a challenge to get the project blocked.
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Wakulla County commissioners uphold staff decision to reject appeal of a Development Permit Application for a 191-home project
The lot off Shadeville Road is a new, potentially 191-home subdivision in Crawfordville. A neighbor whose home is almost surrounded by the property challenged its most recent permit application.
At the Wakulla County commissioners’ special meeting Wednesday afternoon, commissioners voted with staff that Richard Blake’s appeal of the development was untimely.
“I’m not asking for them to necessarily stop the development. I’m asking for them to make common sense, or take common sense steps to protect the community,” Blake said.
Blake’s property is surrounded on 3 sides by where the proposed 191-home development is. When looking into the permits for this property, he became concerned about the process that led to the development permit application, or DPA, approval and filed an appeal.
In his first appeal, he cited concerns of stale utility capacity, outdated stormwater analysis, outdated geotechnical evaluation, construction before permits, and incomplete current review.
“I just want to say, look, like most homeowners, my home is my single largest investment. You know, I have equity in my home, and I think I have a responsibility to protect that equity,” Blake said.
That appeal was filed on September 18th. County staff said that his appeal was untimely, as he had 30 days from when it was submitted on August 6th to file that appeal, and it was rejected by the department.
“This appeal was determined to be untimely. Again, the plans for the subdivision were previously approved in 2006. That was the preliminary plat. With the development plans being approved in June of 2025, this DPA did not grant any additional approvals. Again, it acted as a notice of commencement. Therefore, I determined the appeal to be untimely,” Brandon Geiger said.
Blake then appealed that decision because he cited that in the Land Development Code Sec. 3-23(3) that appeals go before the board and are not rejected by the department. Once that second appeal was also denied, he brought it before commissioners at the October 5th meeting. This special meeting was then scheduled shortly after.
In an over two-hour meeting, Blake explained his reasoning for challenging the DPA for various reasons. He noted that the utility and school letters showing there is capacity for those homes are from the early 2000s.
County staff argued that the letters do not need to be updated until vertical development happens, meaning that the developer will have to get them just before building the homes, not when the infrastructure would go in.
Commissioner Fred Nichols noted during the meeting that having outdated letters is an issue that should be addressed once Senate Bill 180 times out in October 2027.
“I really feel like in the future, we should look at trying to bring those letters up to date, maybe within a five year period. So we have a good concurrency and a good idea of what we’re doing in the county. If you go, some of that stuff, in my opinion, is out of date,” Nichols said.
According to Geiger, the director of planning and community development, the DPA, which is what was initially challenged, is not a development permit itself.
“The DPA is based on prior approvals of the preliminary plat and development plans. The DPA acts as again sort of a notice of commencement in this phase, allowing them to construct the site based on the previously approved plans,” Geiger said.
In the end, county commissioners voted to uphold the planning director’s determination that Blake’s appeals were untimely.
So what happens next? Blake says he intends to bring this before a judge.
“I think it’s pretty straightforward that the commissioners decided to deny my appeal based off of the opinions of staff, and they give a lot of weight to staff. And I think they chose to ignore the very plain language in the law. And so, obviously, I’m not happy. But my plan at this point is just to take it to the next level, which I think at the next level there’s a lot less opinion, and it’s just looking at fact and law, where I’ll be more likely to succeed,” Blake said.
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