The Royal Palm Beach Planning & Zoning Commission met Tuesday, March 27 and granted approval for Lennar Homes to create a phased development plan for the company’s new 385-home residential project along Crestwood Blvd. at the site of the village’s old wastewater treatment plant.
Lennar Homes, represented by the Wantman Group, requested a major site plan modification to the single-family home development to create two phases in which to divide the overall project.
Phase one will include lots 1 through 29, 79 through 282 and 338 through 385, as well as all of the lake tracts and the onsite recreation parcel.
Phase two will comprise the northwest portion of the property, including lots 29 through 78 and 283 through 337. That land will be removed from the current plat and be resubmitted in the future through a separate plat application.
After selling its water utility to the county approximately 10 years ago, the village debated for years what to do with the vacant 154-acre wastewater treatment plant site on the village’s north end. It was eventually approved for a residential development, with Lennar chosen as the buyer and developer.
The village previously approved the development on Jan. 16, 2014. The site plan for 385 single-family units was approved on Nov. 19, 2015. An on-site recreation site plan was approved March 16, 2017.
Development Review Coordinator Kevin Erwin said that the village supports the change, with conditions.
“Staff has included a condition that all of the perimeter landscape buffers shall be required to be completed prior to the certificate of occupancy within phase one, with the exception of the landscape buffer along the north of the property adjacent to the water treatment plant,” he said. “The western buffer along Saratoga Pines will be put in as a part of phase one, even though a part of that area is within phase two.”
Erwin said that the change does not modify the overall development in the long term.
“They are simply putting in a phasing time, which allows them to build in areas when they are ready to do so,” he explained.
The commissioners approved Lennar’s application. It next heads to the Royal Palm Beach Village Council on April 19.
In other business, the commissioners also granted architectural approval for a new building paint color at the Academy of Child Enrichment on Camellia Drive, as well as a new wall sign at Athena Nail Spa on Okeechobee Blvd.
At the meeting, longtime Commissioner Jackie Larson told her fellow board members that she has asked not to be reappointed after her current three-year term is up this year. She will cap her service on the Planning & Zoning Commission at 24 years. Board members and staff said that she will be missed and thanked her for her many years of service.
