DEBARY — Imagine living within walking distance of the trails and parks at Gemini Springs, retail, restaurants, offices and a SunRail station.

Developer Steve Costa is closer to bringing that vision to life as he's now gotten unanimous support from the City Council on a development agreement for DeBary Town Center, LLC. The council agreed to allow some waivers to the city's development code while providing several incentives.

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Costa hopes to break ground on the project, which he estimates will take $180 million, during the second quarter of 2019.

"I'm thankful the market has finally started to realize what a great place DeBary is to live in and work," Costa said Friday.

The project presented last Wednesday is contiguous to Integra 289, a multi-family development in the city's Transit Oriented Development area, which was approved by the council last October.

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Matt Boerger, the city's growth management director, said the project would be built in phases on a little more than 50 acres at the southeast corner of Dirksen Drive and U.S. 17-92.

The plans include 149 single-family detached homes, 71 multi-family residential units located above office/retail space, active and passive recreational amenities and green spaces.

The single-family homes, which would be two stories and on smaller lot sizes, would use alleyways with garages at the rear so the architecture of the homes is more visible, said Sharon Hauber Fowler of Hauber Fowler and Associates, LLC, a Longwood-based firm that does development design, land planning, site design and landscape architecture.

The plans also call for 118,300 square feet of retail space, 18,000 square feet of restaurant space and 16,000 square feet of office space.

Costa requested 20 waivers to items in the city's land development code to be able to build the project as designed with Fowler.

One of the waivers requested would allow a change in trail sizes.

Code requires a bike trail along U.S. 17-92 to be 14 feet wide, Boerger said.

Costa's proposed project, instead of one trail along the front of the property, would have a 12-foot-wide internal trail and an 8-foot-wide trail along U.S. 17-92.

"That allows for cyclists to either maintain their route along 17-92 if they were leaving the SunRail station and had no desire to go into this project," Boerger told the council.

One of the other waivers would allow for an automobile rental business so long as it takes up less than 1 acre.

Mayor Bob Garcia said he wasn't a fan of putting that kind of business in this development, but he was "just glad that finally after all these years we got something going on in that property."

"To see it develop to this stage is really shocking," Garcia said.

Fowler said the goal is to use as many native trees and plants as possible.

City Manager Ron McLemore said they should be especially cognizant of what they put on the curb strips because of the problems large roots can create.

"It's got to be the right kind of tree or 10 years later you're trying to figure out a way to fix the roads," McLemore said.

The ordinance does not specify a dollar amount on the incentives, but lists several, including: a 25-percent discount on the final site plan application fees and a reduction in impact fees as coordinated with Volusia County to reflect the multi-modal transportation available.