Members of the Westlake City Council sent a loud and clear message Tuesday, April 2 that Palm Beach County’s fastest-growing municipality is eager to support business investment within its boundaries, according to Mayor JohnPaul O’Connor.
“We welcome with open arms any businesses that have the willingness and foresight to invest in our city,” O’Connor told council members and the public gathered for the regular monthly meeting at the Westlake Adventure Park lodge. “Westlake is open for business.”
The remarks came after the council approved two items — a master plan amendment and a site plan modification — that will allow a building that was planned as a TD Bank with a drive-through to be converted to a restaurant with drive-through in the Westlake Landings commercial plaza on Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
“I don’t want to blindly approve master site plan amendments,” said Councilman Gary Werner, who cast the only dissenting vote.
The requests passed 4-1 and 5-0.
A Chipotle restaurant is currently planned for that spot, according to Westlake staff.
In a third instance, the applicant requested site plan modification approval in the same plaza for a proposed Taco Bell restaurant with a drive-through. That request also passed 5-0.
The votes came a month after developers suffered a rare setback when Werner, the council’s newest member, and Councilman Julian Martinez refused to go along with the site plan changes that were approved Tuesday.
With Councilwoman Charlotte Leonard absent, the earlier request failed on a 2-2 vote. The council later voted 4-0 to table until April the requests by the site’s developer Konover South and the city’s largest developer and landowner, Minto Communities USA.
Minto Senior Vice President John Carter, who is in charge of the Westlake project, warned of dire consequences if the March requests were not immediately approved.
“It will put a wet blanket on the development community’s interest to come to this community,” he said then.
Werner said that although he voted yes Tuesday night on two of the three change requests, he believes that developers have used excessive site plan changes to their advantage while often keeping council members in the dark as to prospective lessees.
“My mind hasn’t been changed,” said Werner, who is a retired city planner. “I feel like I have blindfolds on.”
In other business:
- The council unanimously chose Councilman Greg Langowski to continue serving as vice mayor.
Langowski, who joined the council in 2022, was also recently recognized by the Florida League of Cities with a 2024 Home Rule Hero Award.
“Langowski worked tirelessly throughout [the 2024 legislative session] to promote local voices making local choices, protect the Home Rule powers of Florida’s municipalities and advance the league’s legislative agenda,” noted the Florida League of Cities in a press release.
The FLC defines “Home Rule” as the ability for municipalities to address local problems with local solutions with minimal state interference.
- City Manager Kenneth Cassel said that the much-anticipated multi-model path through the Pines Phase II development should be completed by the Aug. 12 start of Palm Beach County schools for the 2024-25 school year.
Located near the northeast corner of the community, the path will give Westlake parents secure golf cart, bicycle or foot access to Golden Grove Elementary School and Western Pines Middle School.
Presently, Westlake parents must drive miles out of their way to drop students off at those schools due to the lack of east-west road access.
- During public comments, some residents expressed concerns over excessive noise from a proposed two-mile extension of 60th Street North across the northern edge of Westlake from 140th Avenue North to Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
Asked how much input the city will have in designing a berm or landscaping for what could be a two-, three- or five-lane road, City Attorney Donald Doody said the answer is very little.
While the city can make suggestions, he said, 60th Street is a county road. “The county will build what the county will build,” Doody said.
Minto currently is negotiating with the county concerning possible construction of the road by the developer to help mitigate the $18 million it may owe as part of a proportional share agreement regarding a promised east-west connection for Westlake.
Despite the challenges, Werner said that construction of 60th Street is “absolutely imperative. That would be a very important route.”
Werner said the current lack of an east-west connection for Westlake is one reason that more substantial retail development is not happening as quickly as expected.
Cassel encouraged residents eager to see more diverse restaurants and retail shopping in the area to organize letter-writing campaigns to attract businesses such as Costco to Westlake.
In 2020, in an effort to create an east-west link, Minto and the Seminole Improvement District, which provides most of the infrastructure for Westlake, filed suit against the neighboring Indian Trail Improvement District seeking to connect to its roads across a narrow canal. ITID countersued. Circuit Court Judge Richard Oftedal issued a preliminary judgment in October rejecting the Minto/SID request.
The final hearing was held Monday, April 1. A ruling is expected soon with the losing party likely to appeal. Currently, the only major access to Westlake is north-south via Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
