ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The St. Augustine Shipyard projects has been years in the making.
On Monday, the city commission considered a proposed neighborhood on the site. The land used to be a cattle ranch a hundred years ago.
Decades later, it was home to DESCO, a company that built boats, especially shrimp boats.
Now, this St. Augustine land on the Sebastian River is vacant. The Windward Shipyard Land Holding – the developers and landowners -- have plans to turn the southern part of the property into 55 single family homes.
It’s just off US 1, behind the Target store.
Already The Shipyard project has a dry boat storage and some commercial space. Developers plan to extend it to the southern 14 acres of the land along the river.
The project would require rezoning land and annexing some of the property from St. Johns County.
The Sebastian River has flooded properties along its banks over the years, but the developer says he and his team have a plan to safeguard these new proposed homes.
Stefan Johansson is the founder and CEO of Windward Marina Group.
"Every single structure in this development is not just out of the 100 year flood plain but out of the 500 year flood plain," said Johansson.
However, longtime residents such as the Pellicer family, who live close-by, say the project is being built on contaminated land from when it was the boat building business.
"I grew up here. DESCO used to dump paint, fiberglass, and tar when it was used to build boats. I’d like to know if the soil has been tested," said Matt Pellicer.
The developer of The Shipyard projects says there was an extensive clean-up of the property.
Still, some locals are concerned the project will make flooding worse along the river.
"We're across the water from them. Every hurricane, we have water in the front yard. If they have a seawall, where that’s water going to go? It’s going to go across to us. I'm concerned," said Pellicer.
However, the developers say this project will respect the environment and improve the land.