Judge Deciding Whether Yorktowne Permit was a Mistake

Port Orange, FL - The Yorktowne Extension has been a heavily contested subject in Port Orange and currently an administrative law judge is deciding whether the extension will be allowed. 

The judge, Francine Ffolkes, will rule, within the next month, whether the St. Johns River Water Management District made a mistake when they granted a permit to the city to build the 1,500-foot road, estimated at $2.5 million.

The extension has been worked on for over a year by the city, but plans to connect Yorktowne directly to Willow Run have been in the works since 2006. The reason the city wants to build the full extension is to relieve Dunlawton Avenue/Interstate 95 interchange’s traffic congestion.

Local residents have created the Sweetwater Coalition of Volusia County in order to fight the extension because they believe it would cause flooding and negatively impact their community. They’re worried it will negatively affect the Spruce Creek water basin by further stressing it.

A legal challenge was filed with the state by the Sweetwater Coalition to stop the project. Derek LaMontagne, a Port Orange Environmental Advisory Board member, is a member of the Sweetwater Coalition and he said, “I think we have a decent chance.” To read more about what the Sweetwater Coalition and residents are doing to reach a compromise with the city click here.

City officials have addressed the challenge but said that engineers have already addressed the concerns and issues with the extension.

The ruling won’t be for another month but residents are awaiting the decision to see if the extension permit will be revoked or not.