The Westlake City Council unanimously approved a $135,840 contract Tuesday, April 1 with Chen Moore Associates of Jupiter to develop a new comprehensive plan for the fast-growing municipality.
“A comp plan is your vision of what the city is going be over the next 10 to 20 years put together in a way that can be understood,” Westlake City Manager Kenneth Cassel explained.
Councilman Gary Werner, who has been pushing for a comp plan review, said Wednesday that he was pleased to see the effort moving forward.
“It’s something we need to do,” he said. “I hope to see some policies coming out of it that will give the city council more say in what can be developed… As it is, our hands are tied.”
The date of Feb. 27, 2026, has been set as the deadline for the plan’s completion and submittal to the state for review.
The comp plan sessions, which will include public hearings and community input, will be held in conjunction with an already approved two-day strategic planning workshop through the International Institute for Leadership Development.
A community engagement meeting tied to the strategic planning process is set for Saturday, May 24 at the Westlake Adventure Park Lodge (5490 Kingfisher Blvd.).
The workshop, which is designed to allow council members to openly discuss issues facing the city and how to address them while remaining within the state’s strict Sunshine Law, will be held June 20 and 21 at a location to be determined.
The sessions will be open to the public, but public input will be allowed only on the second day.
While the strategic planning sessions costing $9,775 may seem superfluous in view of the comp plan decision, Cassel said that’s not the case.
“They go hand-in-hand,” Cassel explained. “They feed off each other.”
Among the elements the comp plan will update are: administration, future land use, population projection, transportation, infrastructure, conservation, recreation and open space, capital improvements and intergovernmental coordination.
The Seminole Improvement District, which provides most of the infrastructure for Westlake, will provide data as needed for the update.
Comp plans are typically reviewed every seven to 10 years. Chen Moore produced the current 109-page plan soon after Westlake was incorporated in 2016.
Werner and Cassel said they trust that the professionalism of Chen Moore will allow the firm to look at the current comp plan with fresh eyes.
“That was a concern,” Werner said, but after meeting with firm representatives, he added, “I feel they’ll do what is right for the community.”
Werner said that the original plan was weighted heavily in favor of Westlake’s major landowner and developer, Minto Communities USA, and approved by a council handpicked by Minto. While perhaps appropriate then, time has passed, things have changed and the comp plan needs to reflect a more broad-based community, he said.
“I’m not against Minto,” Werner said. “I want to work in collaboration with Minto and use some of the tools available to the city to bring in businesses… of the sort residents expected.”
In other business:
- At the April 1 meeting, Greg Langowski was appointed unanimously to a fourth one-year term as vice mayor. Langowski will be hosting a public engagement session for residents from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 12 at the Westlake Starbucks at 4801 Seminole Pratt Whitney Road.
Meanwhile, Councilman Eric Gleason, who was appointed in February, noted that he held his first public engagement session and plans more in the future on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. Residents can also make an appointment for a 30-minute conversation by e-mailing him at egleason@westlakegov.com.
- At the council’s March 20 meeting, the plat for 712 acres mostly west of the M-2 Canal and wrapping around Florida Power & Light’s Hibiscus Solar Energy Center was approved 4-0.
Cassel said the new plat was mostly just clean-up, pulling together several earlier plats into one overall document.
The development of that part of Westlake is not imminent as far as he knows. “I don’t know of anything in the pipeline,” Cassell said.
- Also at the March 20 meeting, Gleason suggested that enhanced lighting standards for public places and future businesses may be something the council should consider.
“I want to be forward thinking,” he said after a discussion with city staff. “A higher lighting standard will allow us to ensure high-quality lighting in commercial businesses and public spaces.”
Beyond the aesthetics, Gleason, a commander with the Miami Gardens Police Department, said the higher standard would improve safety within the community.
“Dark areas are incubators for crime,” he said. “Lighting deters crime.”
