MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. \u2013 A growing Brevard County community hasn\u2019t built a new apartment complex in decades, and it might stay like that near Courtenay Parkway and State Road 528 if some neighbors fed up with traffic get their way.<\/p>\n
The proposal of 222 units in eight buildings would be one of Merritt Island\u2019s first new apartment projects in 35 years, but locals already have concerns about the current state of traffic around Courtenay and Pioneer Road.<\/p>\n
Ben Adams told your Merritt Island Community Correspondent, James Sparvero, why he said neighbors don\u2019t want to trade woods and wetlands for an apartment complex.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want it,\u201d the resident of the Raintree by the Lake neighborhood said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want all these people, and I know that sounds bad, but this area\u2019s not built to be overcrowded.\u201d<\/p>\n
[COVERING MERRITT ISLAND: Gas plan proposal sparks concerns]<\/p>\n
Last week, before Brevard County\u2019s planning and zoning board, the developer, RangeWater Real Estate, said to compromise with neighbors like Adams, the apartment buildings would only be three stories tall, and the apartments would be 100 feet away from the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
That way, there would still be trees in neighbors\u2019 backyards.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo accommodate and to be the best neighbor that we can possibly be,\u201d said Michael Oliver, RangeWater\u2019s director of development in Florida.<\/p>\n
RangeWater also wants to extend the right turning lane from Pioneer onto Courtenay to help with traffic, and it said it will preserve about an acre of wetlands.<\/p>\n
[WATCH: Brevard County community members clash over vegetation trimming]<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll bring new apartments,\u201d the developer\u2019s attorney, Kim Rezanka said. \u201cThey\u2019ll be new opportunities for people to move into the area, to work in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final say comes down to a county commission meeting on Feb. 5.<\/p>\n
If rezoning is approved, the apartments could be built within the next two years. <\/p>\n
Stick with News 6 and ClickOrlando.com for updates on the commission\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n
Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. \u2013 A growing Brevard County community hasn\u2019t built a new apartment complex in decades, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,34722,4779,15207,451,34080,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-417948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-brevard-county","tag-development","tag-growth","tag-headlines","tag-merritt-island","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}