The Loxahatchee Groves Town Council gave final approval Tuesday, June 15 to an ordinance that prohibits private ingress/egress of vehicles from outside the town limits.
The council initially approved the preliminary reading of the ordinance on May 18, which prohibits these unapproved connections, with an exception for specific connections to Okeechobee and Southern boulevards.
Town Attorney Elizabeth Lenihan said the ordinance amending the unified land development code (ULDC) will limit parking and loading by prohibiting private ingress/egress from outside the town.
Councilwoman Phillis Maniglia said she would like to add a separate section into the comprehensive plan and town charter regarding the town’s borders, and Lenihan asked that the council talk about that after they enact the ordinance under discussion. “Those will have to be separate,” Lenihan said.
Mayor Robert Shorr commented on a section of the ULDC describing road base and paving that he thought was inappropriate. “How does it fit in with this?” he asked
Lenihan explained that the language exists in the current ULDC.
“What this ordinance does, it shows the two current sections of your ULDC, then it shows strikethroughs and changes to the current languages of those sections. If the language is not struck through or underlined, it is not intended to change by this ordinance,” she said. “It can be changed. We’re on second reading, so you can approve it or deny it tonight. If you have additional changes that you want to see made to these sections, we can do another ordinance to bring those forward. But if you want to move forward with the access question that amends these two sections, that’s why it’s here tonight showing those changes.”
Shorr said the council will be talking a great deal about roadway construction in the future. Town Manager Jamie Titcomb said the roadway construction section is language that already exists in the ULDC.
Lenihan said the entire sections were displayed to show continuity.
“Showing the entire section is often helpful so you see what else is involved with that section, and it’s not just a random sentence thrown in on a blank page,” she said. “This is a new ordinance, but it amends existing code.”
Shorr said the council had asked for an ordinance that would stop the possibility of someone encroaching on the town’s borders. “That’s what this does,” he said.
Maniglia made a motion to approve final reading of the ordinance, which carried 5-0.
