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The Palm Beach City Council approves the draft Comprehensive Plan

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The Palm Beach City Council approves the draft Comprehensive Plan

With approval from the City of Palm Beach, everything is set for a final review in November, before being sent to the state for review.

Palm Beach is nearing the end of the Comprehensive Plan process, after the City Council approved a handful of changes to the most recent draft during its Oct. 15 meeting.

The Council’s 5-1 vote, with Julie Araskog opposed, sets the stage for final review of the document during its Nov. 13 review in its capacity as the Local Planning Agency and Development Review Board of the city Once approved, the state will review the plan for 60 days. The council will vote on it one last time after the state approves it.

The city’s approval came after a spirited two-hour discussion, during which some council members balked at eliminating policies that have remained unchanged for decades, including a 23-year-old policy that limits the site coverage of commercial and public projects to 75% and 40%, respectively.

Although the policy has been in the Comprehensive Plan since 2003, City Planner Jennifer Hofmeister-Drew said the city has rarely followed it.

This has created a system where the city has unknowingly allowed companies to violate the plan for years, as it was common practice to allow developers to exceed lot coverage limits by applying for a zoning code variance.

The developers should have “had to change the text of the compensation plan,” Hofmeister-Drew said.

To address this issue, city staff recommended removing the policy from the draft plan while keeping the limits in its zoning code. In this way, the municipality could continue to practice its current process without violating its plan.

“We can’t treat them all the same, because there are lots that are deficient by the very nature of when the city was developed over 100 years ago,” he said.

Araskog said she wasn’t comfortable abandoning a policy that’s been on the books since 2003. She also argued that the limits could serve to protect the city during the zoning code review.

However, none of her colleagues agreed with her, regardless of the emphasis she placed on her 23 years as part of the plan.

His opposition to its withdrawal fueled his vote against passage of the draft.

‘City service state square meter thresholds to return to final draft

Tuesday’s discussion also saw the longtime “serving the city” threshold for larger businesses restored in governing documents, per city staff recommendations.

During the council’s September 11 meeting, municipal staff proposed removing from the plan the square meter thresholds that determine which businesses must certify that they are “at the service of the city. They argued that by addressing the thresholds through the zoning code, the city would have more flexibility in setting specific square footage limits based on each district and type of business.

However, some council members during the Oct. 15 review expressed support for keeping the current plan’s threshold of requiring businesses larger than 3,000 square feet in most zoning districts and larger than 4,000 squares in the Worth Avenue district as a demonstration that they are “at the service of the city.” .”

“I’m a little bitter about changing things that have been on the books forever,” said President Bobbie Lindsay.

Araskog said the thresholds “absolutely need to be there” and argued they would provide critical protection while the city undergoes zoning code review.

Support was not unanimous, however, with members Lew Crampton and Bridget Moran preferring the 9/11 recommendation from city staff.

“The point is we don’t have to decide the thresholds now and go through the regulatory process and see what actually fits,” Crampton said.

Even if it’s a mistake, Crampton said, he would still vote for the plan.

Council members debate the level of service in the transportation section of the plan

Under the state’s Community Planning Act, a new comprehensive plan is required every seven years to ensure local government compliance with state law.

The plan includes 12 focus areas:

  • Future land use
  • Transportation
  • housing
  • Historic conservation
  • Public safety
  • Infrastructure
  • Free space and recreation
  • Management of the coast.
  • conservation
  • Property rights.
  • Capital improvements.
  • Intergovernmental organization.

Each element has its own goals, objectives and policies, which after ratification will serve as the basis for future regulations and legislative decisions.

Another policy that sparked debate during the Oct. 15 meeting was the village’s road service standards level.

Under Florida law, a municipality cannot reject development because of its impact on traffic, Hofmeister-Drew said. However, if a development project is expected to reduce a road’s service level below the plan’s standard service level, developers must “pay” for a public-private traffic mitigation effort, he said.

That could take the form of an equity investment fund that a company would pay into, Hofmeister-Drew said.

However, these do not exist. Planning, Zoning and Building Director Wayne Bergman said his department and Public Works will come up with a list of transportation projects that a potential developer could pay for.

Araskog said the plan should not set any level of service below a “D” rating.

“I’d rather see D, which really helps us figure out how to get to a (LOS) D, but again … we can force them under state law, to give us money to mitigate (traffic),” Araskog. he said

While city staff did not disagree with Araskog’s assessment, they did point out that the city does not have such capital investment projects underway.

During public comment, land use attorney James Crowley warned the council that changing the level of service does not mitigate the road’s current deficiency. In addition, the state has strict guidelines for the project cost sharing process.

“You take a look at the peak trips at peak times” and their impact on traffic flow, “and then you just pay that percentage,” he said.

Crowley warned that if the city sets a high level of service, it could end up pricing out small local businesses looking for a location in Palm Beach.

“You’re pricing out people who are more familiar. Domestic developers can afford to have someone like me go and negotiate” a deal to share the project, he said.

Bergman suggested that the level of service standards reflect their current conditions. That would mean setting a handful of city roads with an E or F rating, the two lowest ratings.

This led to a rejection by Araskog and Moran. They argued that the municipality should not set a service level of “F”, even if that is the reality.

“I don’t want to say my goal is F,” Moran said.

Hofmeister-Drew noted that the low rating would not remain the standard, as the plan also contains a policy requiring the city to improve the service level of roads that are rated an “F.”

Additionally, the city can reexamine and modify the plan’s standards once staff has developed a capital fund for traffic mitigation and traffic improvement projects, Bergman said.

The City Council agreed, though they chose to reword the policy to require the city to upgrade a road’s level of service if it is in an “E” or “F” rating.

Diego Díaz Lasa is a journalist from the Palm Beach Daily Newspart of the USA TODAY Florida network. You can contact him at [email protected].

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