After months of back and forth, the St. Augustine Planning and Zoning Board finally approved an Anastasia Island home raffled away as a sweepstakes prize by HGTV.
The contest for the home and various other prizes ended in February, but the board held things in limbo after learning that modifications had been made to the home without the board’s approval.
Representatives for builder Akerman LLP explained that the modifications were made to shore up the property’s stormwater runoff from affecting nearby sensitive waterways.
The board on Tuesday ultimately approved the changes to the home despite the city’s planning staff recommending delaying the decision by another month due to the developer’s late submission of the project’s plans.
“It sounds like everything is fine,” planning staffer Jacob Fredriksson told the city’s Planning and Zoning Board, but the planning department would have preferred more time to look at the plans.
The approval by the board clears the way for the home to be raffled off to a lucky winner in the HGTV Dream Home contest. In addition to the fully furnished three-bedroom, four-bathroom, 3,300-square-foot home on Pelican Reef Drive, the winner gets a new Mercedes-Benz car and $100,000 in cash.
The contest ended Feb. 15, but a winner has not been announced.