The Palm Beach County Commission conducted a public hearing last week with a “full house” of neighborhood residents packed into an auditorium at the County Governmental Center. The purpose of the hearing was to listen to the pros and cons and vote on the proposed second increase in zoning density to the property formerly known as Callery-Judge Grove, a 3,800-acre parcel of land completely surrounded by the community of The Acreage. When The Acreage was developed, this undisturbed natural habitat was zoned for one home per 10 acres, or a maximum of 380 future home sites; that was the number of homes the purchasers in The Acreage expected to see as their neighbors.
However, in 2008, the then owners, Callery-Judge, used their political influence to persuade the legislators to increase the zoning from the 380 to 2,996 home sites, plus an additional 235,000 square feet of commercial use, an increase in the home sites alone of 2,616 homes — a windfall profit for the property owner!
It turned out, even that increase in density wasn’t enough for Minto, a Canadian corporation that purchased the property in 2013 for $51 million and promptly renamed it “Minto West.”
Minto’s new rezoning proposal to the board requested that the number of homes to be further increased from 2,996 to the outrageous number of 4,549, and increase the commercial space from 235,000 square feet to an unbelievable 2.1 million square feet of commercial/industrial buildings!
Over and over again, speakers from The Acreage, Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee, Wellington and the rest of the surrounding communities came to the microphone and pleaded with the commissioners to consider the ruinous effect this enormous increase in density would have on their communities and lifestyle.
Despite the outrage of the residents from The Acreage and other surrounding communities in the audience, the county commissioners chose to approve Minto’s new plan in a 5-2 vote, with Commissioner Jess Santamaria and Vice Mayor Paulette Burdick the only dissenting board members.
Just imagine buying a home in a suburban community near a wooded parcel, expecting the property to be developed into a suburban residential community, and instead, your governmental representatives voted to put your family across from “downtown Broward County congestion.”
This former orange grove, surrounded by suburbia with an adjacent neighborhood shopping center, will now become a congested downtown urban city center.
Commissioner Santamaria was one of only two commissioners to speak on behalf of the public. In addition to the potential increase in crime, he emphasized that the increase in density will undoubtedly cause untold problems in extreme traffic congestion, air pollution, water and electric resource shortages, not to mention the increase in taxes required to pay for the widened roads, utility expansions, schools, police and fire, etc. The opposing arguments by the other five Commissioners bordered on the ridiculous:
In rebuttal, Mayor Priscilla Taylor said, “We have to expect change. Increased population in the western communities is a product of the movement of habitation farther west since the beginning of time.”
Commissioner Shelley Vana followed with, “The Seminoles weren’t happy when the first settlers in The Acreage moved in.”
The commissioners, in a vote of two to five, chose to ignore the will of the people. Just who are those other five commissioners working for?
Toby M. Siegel, Royal Palm Beach
What do the directors and members of Indian Trail Improvement District, Village of Royal Palm Beach, Acreage Landowners Association, Loxahatchee Groves, CityWatch, Riverwalk, Iron Horse, Fox Trail, the county planning commission, professionals hired by Indian Trail Improvement District, and thousands of Acreage residents all have in common? They are all able to look at data and come to an informed, logical conclusion that Minto getting anything more than the already approved 2996 homes / 235K commercial will negatively impact the infrastructure and quality of life for the residents of the Acreage and surrounding communities!
Actually it’s a great day for the County as well as the residents of the
Western Communities as we finally have something that is going to be built that we can be proud of.
Thanks to the Commissioners that voted in favor of the project.
New jobs, New well planned out and designed growth
Our children and their children will benefit greatly from this project.
Thumbs way up BCC!!!!!
Better then a haphazardly built out Ag Enclave plan
or a incorporated city as would be another option build
out plan.
Looking forward to the nice town center and new parks and amenities
that will be used by all residents.
No walls, large buffers zones, thank God the Commissioners are not
swayed by the illogical, but loud few.