The Palm Coast City Council on Tuesday approved imposing a 0.5 percent fee on all commercial projects in the city with a value of $1 million or more. The city will use parts of the money to fund its long-standing cultural arts grants, but it’s unclear how else it will use the money. It would largely be the purview of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, with a more specific policy to come to set out spending and installation criteria.
There were 26 commercial projects exceeding $1 million each between October 2023 and October 2024, ranging from a $1 million project to a $47 million project. Those would have generated $235,000 for the public art fund. In the last two years, projects totaled $138 million, which would have yielded $693,000. The fee will be required of developments and re-developments of commercial projects only.
In the proposal Parks and Recreation Director James Hirst submitted to the council, the revenue generated from any single project would be capped at $250,000. In other words, if a project exceeds $50 million, it would not pay more than the $250,000 that $50 million generates. The Palm Coast administration followed the Sarasota arts-in-public-places program…