Palm Coast Gets Sued
It’s November 4th, 2025. We’re at a meeting of the Palm Coast City Council, and they’re deliberating on whether or not to annex a piece of land out by BJ’s.
To the mic steps Kent Saffert, representing Palm Coast Holdings and Florida Landmark Communities.
This company built Palm Coast. They spent $35 million building Town Center — the roads, the lights, the infrastructure — and they still own quite a bit of it.
They had a potential buyer interested in a couple parcels in Town Center. The potential buyer went to the city as part of their due diligence, and were told by the city they would not have water and sewer.
The potential buyer walked away. Palm Coast Holdings sued the city.
This lawsuit is why the Palm Coast City Council is holding a special meeting on August 19th.
We laid out the full story behind this — the city telling a developer, a camera, and now a court that there isn’t enough water, while the approvals keep coming anyway — in If we’re out of water, why are we approving new developments? Read it before Wednesday.
And if you want to know how we got here in the first place — how the bill in your mailbox connects to all of this — start with Why Are Our Water Bills So High? the story where this series began.
Filed: October 23, 2025. Breach of contract — the city allegedly failed to guarantee water and sewer capacity for Town Center, costing Palm Coast Holdings two prospective land sales.
Motion to dismiss: denied by Judge Upchurch, March 2026. Case proceeds.
Trial: two weeks, set to begin November 16, 2026. Docket sounding — the last pretrial step — November 3, 2026.
Discovery: extensive. Allete produced 8,267 files and 48,922 pages to the city in June and July 2026.
Mediation: closed-door session held July 31, 2026. Outcome not public.
Delay motion: the city asked to push the trial to March 2027, citing the volume of discovery. Hearing held August 14, 2026, before Judge Upchurch. As of this writing, undecided.
Depositions: scheduled over a week in late August 2026, including Michael Chiumento, Jeff and Walker Douglas, Town Center CDD officials Jake Miller and Julie Padilla, and Jason DeLorenzo, the city’s former chief of staff.
Next public step: a Special Business Meeting of the Palm Coast City Council, Wednesday, August 19, 2026, 9 AM, called specifically to address this case.