Royal Palm Beach’s Planning & Zoning Commission met Tuesday, Sept. 27 and voted in favor of a text amendment to the village code that will allow Royal Palm Beach High School to finally begin the process of getting a new permanent sign.
The commissioners heard the request meeting as the Local Planning Agency.
The School District of Palm Beach County applied for the text amendment, adding the term “School Board Informational Sign.”
This would allow for RPBHS to install a permanent digital sign.
Senior Planner Michael Owens was present on behalf of the school district. The sign would be used to provide school-related information only, with no commercial messaging permitted.
Commission Chair David Leland and Commissioner Philip Marquis questioned why there was still a temporary, canvas sign in place at the main entrance to the campus.
“The original sign was in a state of disrepair. Until we could get the money together, we put up a canvas sign. It has been up there several years,” Owens explained. “As we go through the county, we try to update to digital signs. We wanted to ensure the village that we will work within the parameters. If this goes through, we can work toward getting a budget for the sign, which will be upward of $55 to $60 thousand. Then we can place it, and there won’t be any code enforcement violations.”
It was also made clear the revision would not give permission for private schools to install similar signs. The motion passed unanimously.
In other business:
• Meeting as the Planning & Zoning Commission, the board reviewed several sign applications and business approvals.
They unanimously approved the request for updated signage at 1402 Royal Palm Beach Blvd. for Soma Medical Center Pediatrics. In Buckingham Square, the new Skechers store at 310 S. State Road 7 can move forward with a request to update the wall, window and monument signage at the former Tuesday Morning store, with both staff and commission approval.
Enterprise Rent-A-Car received approval to move its bay used for operations at 10381 Southern Blvd. to 10231 Southern Blvd. The facility is moving to elsewhere within the Village Shoppes Plaza.
• The village continues to progress toward building the new Crestwood Park at 900 Crestwood Blvd., near the BellaSera neighborhood. The park includes facilities for basketball, pickleball, tennis and volleyball, in addition to four outdoor pavilions, a restroom facility and a playground.
“We’ve purposefully located the courts the farthest away from the residents to the greatest extent possible. Parking will be provided on the south side of the multipurpose field,” Planning & Zoning Director Bradford O’Brien said.
The project was carefully designed to keep existing trees and utilize the path along the M-1 Canal for both pedestrian and emergency access for fire-rescue.
“I’m here on behalf of the Village of Royal Palm Beach, and we are really excited to share the new plans for the proposed park,” said Donaldson Hearing of the architectural landscaping firm Cotleur & Hearing. “It’s a great little park and a great location. The site is 5.77 acres. This site was dedicated to the village as part of the BellaSera approval that satisfied the recreation requirement. A lot of thought went into this with your entire engineering, planning and recreation staff. We looked at a lot of different plans and concepts, and this one was really intended to provide a multipurpose field that is contiguous to the residential area, and then the more active sports that are adjacent to the M-1 Canal.”
The motion for site plan and architectural approval passed unanimously.
• Two items related to a new telecommunication tower at 10719 Southern Blvd. were postponed at the request of Towercom due to the coming storm on the west coast of Florida creating issue for client travel. These applications will be on the agenda at board’s next meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 25.
