Florida losing more of its agriculture land to developers in the Agricultural Reserve

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"More of old Florida has gone to developers as some 10,000 homes — many selling for $1 million or more — soon could stand in a vast stretch of once-rural Palm Beach County. About 7,000 of those have already been built, and the rest are in the pipeline on the 21,000 acres known as the Agricultural Reserve," says the Sun Sentinel.

The purpose of the Agricultural Reserve is to preserve unique farmland and wetlands in order to enhance agricultural activity, environmental and water resources, and open space, by limiting uses to agriculture, conservation, low density residential development, and non-residential uses which serve the needs of farmworkers and residents of the Ag Reserve Tier.

"The Reserve, a territory with special development rules, stretches between Florida's Turnpike and the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, spanning unincorporated areas west of Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach and Lake Worth."   A 60/40 rule was adopted by PB County in October 2015 (every four acres of development, six acres had to be set aside for preservation) but small owners of land there wanted the 60-40 rule set aside.-

Many of these owners showed up at the County Commission meeting and after some debate, the Commission voted in favor of dropping the preservation requirement for those who own less than 16 acres. The Palm Beach County Commission voted to allow more commercialization with Burdick and Valeche dissenting.

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