After a decade of control by developers, property owners in the Arden community have chosen their first residents-only homeowners’ association board of directors.
Voting was finalized at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 30 with the results announced later that evening.
The five residents chosen from a field of 15 were: Raymond Penuela, president, by virtue of receiving the most votes; followed by David Zita, vice president; Ben Brown, secretary; Sam Young, treasurer; and Scott Weikel, director.
As the top three vote-getters, Penuela, Zita and Brown earned two-year terms. Young and Weikel are currently in for one year.
Zita was the lone resident representative on the previous five-person board dominated by developer Lennar Homes.
“I’m happy to be on the new board,” Zita said. “I’ve been fighting an uphill battle with Lennar. But we’ve got a great team now, and we’re already looking to get the ball rolling.”
Penuela, who grew up in Broward County, said, “There’s something special about Arden… [it’s] a beautiful place. I’ve been living here for three years and felt I should have a voice in the community.”
A married father of two, Penuela said he has heard loud voices of frustration rise within Arden over the last couple of years and wants to be “a voice that’s a little softer, a little more neutral.”
The first order of business will be to establish committees for transition to full property-owner control, finance, security concerns and more, he said. “Some committees will be purely advisory, some will be led by board members,” Penuela said. “We want to get a lot more people involved.”
The board’s first full-fledged meeting was held Tuesday, Jan. 6.
Board members also were scheduled to meet privately with Arden’s attorneys on a variety of issues, including Project Tango — a proposed 1.8-million-square-foot hyperscale artificial intelligence (AI) data center within 1,500 feet of some homes and nearby Saddle View Elementary School.
Arden residents, led by Brown and others, filled the Palm Beach County Commission chambers Dec. 10 to speak against the proposal. The commissioners voted 7-0 to postpone a decision until April 23 to allow the developers time to complete a noise study and share further information with the community.
Palm Beach County Mayor Sara Baxter has scheduled a Project Tango Town Hall meeting for Wednesday, Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. at the Royal Palm Beach Cultural Center. Baxter also represents District 6, where Arden and the proposed site for the AI data center are located.
Brown said he is not sure if the new HOA will take a formal position on the data center, “But I’d like to form a committee to see how we can be involved.”
Penuela agreed that Project Tango currently is the “biggest elephant in the room. We don’t like it, and we don’t want it. It would set a precedent across all the western communities.”
Located off Southern Blvd. near 20-Mile Bend in an unincorporated part of the county, Arden has approximately 2,000 homes with some 2,400 scheduled at build out. The development has an estimated population of 5,500.
For the time being, Zita said it’s likely that Community & Council Management Corporation (CCMC), which has overseen the development for Lennar, will continue in that role.
Zita said he expects that the board will look at management options, but with no immediate change. “I’m not sure that would be feasible right now,” he said.
Meanwhile, only hours before voting ended, a multi-vehicle crash on Southern Blvd. near the only Arden gate offered a sad, fiery and frustrating reminder of why many in the neighborhood see a secondary entrance/exit as critical priority, Zita and Brown said.
The wrong-way crash at approximately 11 p.m. on Dec. 28 killed three and forced the closure of all or part of Southern Blvd. — the area’s only east-west thoroughfare — for several hours.
In a Nov. 21, 2024, incident, three Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies were killed when an SUV veered into them on the roadside. Southern Blvd. was closed for some 10 hours during that investigation.
“Once again, we were trapped on both sides — inside and outside” of the development, Brown said of the most recent crash.
Arden residents have long believed they were promised an entrance/exit on the north side of the community.
The issue has simmered for years, but the 2024 accident and a decision by county commissioners to take a serious look at an extension of Okeechobee Blvd. to Arden, or past it to connect with Southern, have put it on the front burner.
A secondary entrance/exit “is not a matter of convenience,” Penuela said. “It’s a matter of safety.”
