Minto West representatives presented their revised plans to develop the 3,800-acre former Callery-Judge property with less residential development but increased commercial uses at the Indian Trail Improvement District Board of Supervisors meeting Wednesday, July 9.
Meanwhile, ITID consultants hired by the district to address development projects in the area also gave reports.
In late June, Minto West submitted a new plan to Palm Beach County that reduces the number of homes from about 6,500 to 4,549, but increases the non-residential space from 1.4 million to 2 million square feet. The developer currently has approval for 2,966 homes and 235,000 square feet of commercial space.
ITID supervisors have registered deep concern about the impact of such a large development on the surrounding community, mainly due to its traffic increases.
Minto West planner Donaldson Hearing of Cotleur & Hearing said his goal was to invite discussion with ITID to reach agreement in some areas.
“I truly believe that while we have differences, if we could enter into an open dialogue, we can achieve our goals much more effectively, your goals as well as our goals,” he said, pointing out that they had offered to make any members of the Minto staff available to ITID staff to discuss issues and impacts.
Hearing said the changes Minto West has made so far are based on what the developers have heard from the community. “I’m sure that it doesn’t satisfy everybody, but we’ve made very significant changes,” he said.
The original plan submitted by Minto West had smaller buffers around the edges and less recreational space than what is now proposed.
“The existing plan had a 100-foot buffer,” Hearing said. “We are now proposing a minimum of a 400-foot buffer around the perimeter boundaries of our site. In many cases, our boundary far exceeds 400 feet, sometimes more than 1,000 feet. We’ve done that in response to what we’ve heard.”
Hearing said that he believes that the revised plan would provide significant benefits to the area.
“The most significant change in our plan has been on the east end of the site, as well as the west end of the site, of about 500 acres that we would leave in continued agricultural operation,” he said. “On the east end of the site, we have a substantial increase in open space and green area. On the east end, the setback from 140th [Avenue] is at a minimum about 1,200 feet, and on the west end, you have close to a mile before you come to any development area.”
He noted that the current proposal has 55 percent green space or water, whereas the initial plan had 30 percent. “We have really put all the density in the center of the property to be consistent with what the county has been asking,” Hearing said, explaining that the design complies with New Urbanism concepts required for agricultural enclaves, of which the Minto West property is presently the only one in the state.
The developments on the south end of the property would be 2.6 units per acre, and the developments on the north side would be about 2.7 units per acre. The project would have about 242 acres of public recreation space operated by the Seminole Improvement District, including a 100-acre regional park and a 67-acre park by the elementary school.
The developers are also providing a 50-acre site to the county for a district park that would be an extension of Seminole Ridge High School. They would also provide sites for a fire station and a 25,000-square-foot Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office substation, as well as a 12-acre site for an elementary school.
“We’ve listened and we’ve made some very substantial changes,” Hearing said. “We hope to continue in the dialogue of providing the drainage improvements, the additional one-inch discharge that would be available to the area to the north.”
Regarding the non-residential space, Hearing said 1.5 million square feet would be designated for economic development centers.
“It’s intended for us to try to find the opportunity to bring jobs to the western communities,” he said. “We’re talking jobs that would find meaningful employment and reduce the number of people traveling to the east. The county actually encouraged us to provide additional non-residential square footage.”
He added that the proposed connection to Orange Grove Blvd. at the southeast corner of the property had been eliminated at the request of residents.
ITID President Carol Jacobs said she would like Minto to stop the mass mailing of fliers to residents, which received a round of applause from those attending the meeting.
“I would love you to stop and give that money to charity,” she said. “I can’t imagine what you’ve spent on those fliers.”
After the Minto West presentation, ITID consultants gave their report.
Lead attorney Martin Perry said his team had submitted a detailed report to county staff and had listened with interest to the Minto presentation that evening.
“We have not had an opportunity to review Minto’s revised plan as it was submitted tonight,” he said, adding that he thought the reduction in residences and the elimination of the Orange Grove Blvd. connection were significant, but not enough.
“We’re still concerned about the traffic that will be coming out of the project to the east through the neighborhoods,” Perry said. “We, as a consultant to your board, which is responsible primarily for roads, drainage and recreation, are concerned about the impact of those trips coming directly east.”
Perry said there are numerous projects of that size and scope throughout Palm Beach County, and the county never allows that type of encroachment through neighborhoods.
“They always require that this type of development use the arterial roads and the collector roads,” he said. “That’s not the case being presented here by the applicant. If the applicant is sincere, it’s something that can be discussed with them, but it continues to be a problem.”
Attorney Frank Palin said the county has the process on a fast track but is not changing its schedule, and that they had submitted a detailed report to the county before a presentation the previous night at Seminole Ridge High School.
“We felt that as a group, it was important to get information to the county as quickly as possible,” Palin said. “We had to take advantage of the opportunity to get it in before the meeting last night so that we would have some kind of opportunity to hopefully influence the thinking of the county.”
Palin said the county and the developer have made several assumptions about the carrying capacity of ITID’s infrastructure to support the kind of use, particularly for roads, that will be generated by Minto West.
“They also made some assumptions about the availability of the works of the district for outside landowners,” he said. “The works of the district were designed to serve and benefit Acreage landowners, not the general public. The works were built and are maintained by special benefit assessments on the landowners in the district, not the county taxpayers, or outside property owners such as Minto, GL Homes or any of the other properties that are looking at development in this area.”
Palin asserted that the project is urban sprawl, but that the county has been forced to deal with it due to Florida’s agricultural enclave law. “It wouldn’t have been approved by the county any time in the past,” he said. “It was a legislative action.”
Palin added that the county had promised that the impacts of the ag enclave, such as traffic, would be addressed in the future. “They have not done so, in our opinion,” he said.
Palin said a regional approach to managing the impacts of developments in the western communities is needed.
“There are other projects lined up behind Minto,” he said. “GL Homes is already having discussions with the county. Cumulatively, all of those projects are going to have an enormous impact on this part of the county.”
ITID has encouraged municipalities in the area to join with the district and the county in coming up with a regional solution, Palin said.
“The county is going to do what the county is going to do, and they have a process,” he said. “They’ve started it. It’s going to culminate on Oct. 29 one way or the other for Minto.”
ABOVE: The revised conceptual plan for Minto West.
