Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Over-reaching developers nearly grabbed waterfront property for a 25 story high rise

A proposed 25 story office tower went down in flames last night when the West Palm Beach city commissioners voted 3/2 to defeat the project.

West Palm Beach wanted to create an overlay district to encourage development of high rises along Okeechobee Boulevard. Related Group wanted the waterfront at Okeechobee and Flagler for their One Flagler proposal. That property is zoned  no higher than five stories.

When reading the article this morning it reminded me of what Lake Worth Commissioners did when they changed the zoning and the land use east of Federal to accommodate the owners of The Gulfstream Hotel. They created a Hotel District and allowed six stories to be developed and told the voters literally to "go to hell" who voted in a low-rise downtown Lake Worth of no more than four stories

Lake Worth's Planning & Zoning department voted to change our comprehensive plan and the land-development regulations and gave their recommendations to their "develop at all costs" leaders, Maxwell, Triolo and Amoroso, on the Lake Worth commission. The only ones who spoke out against it were ordinary citizens who were totally ignored as well as former Commissioner Christopher McVoy. Citizens formed a political action committee, Respectful Planning PAC. They rallied the voters and won by Referendum on March 13, 2013, five months before the city changed the Land Development Regulations on August 6, 2013 on a vote from the dais.

I congratulate West Palm Beach Commissioner Shanon Materio for voting this down thus preserving the waterfront on Flagler from an obnoxiously high development and to honor their voters (something all elected officials should be doing) who told them in 1996 that they did not want high rises on the waterfront.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You said something nice about Shannon Materio? Finally.

Lynn Anderson said...

She did the right thing with her vote. Why shouldn't that be stated if I agree with her? I call out the good, the bad and the ugly, anonymous.

Anonymous said...

haven't visited your b.s. blog for a long time but I see you're still beating that dead horse

Lynn Anderson said...

LOL. Well, you still did what you did--screwed the voters for a developer. Now that's what I call BULL CHIT!

Peggy said...

A developer?

A con who pulled the wool over the Commissions' eyes.

Have you seen all the progress he's made in 2 years?

Anonymous said...

The sins of her father!!!!! Lol! That was a classic..... haha....

Anonymous said...

"progress" my ass. You ignored a legal vote of the people. Wonder what the three stooges will do if this goes natl. -as one more thing Gov Ric Scott allowed.
Stupid Mayor of West Palm has the nerve to tell her citizens that they will "have to get out of their cars and walk" to alleviate the mess that she and the rest of the Palm Beach County Electeds created so they could get contributions in order to get re-elected.
Why do we even need a planning and zoning dept??? They do not plan and zoning is whatever a developer wants it to be. See if Materio changes her vote in the future. maybe the offer to pass this mess wasn't sweet enough yet.