Anne GeggisThey say the rush to get the Downtown Master Plan Ok’d excludes them. Mayor: They’ve had lots of opportunities to weigh in.
Resident furor was enough to kill the specter of 25-story buildings rising along West Palm Beach’s downtown waterfront, but a wider war over the city’s continued downtown growth is just beginning.
That was the message from residents as an update that will shape downtown West Palm Beach’s skyline for decades to come advanced past its first decision point. It earned a recommendation from the Downtown Action Committee Wednesday at a five-hour meeting that at times threatened to deteriorate into chaos and confusion.
It will advance to the city Planning Board on Tuesday.
City staff members were thanked for yanking new rules in the initial plan that would have allowed high-rises along Flagler Drive as well as clarifying that moving downtown’s storied waterfront thoroughfare, never part of the plan, remains off the table.
Still, residents said, they have not had near enough time to respond to all the ramifications on downtown parking, traffic and city services that this updated Downtown Master Plan represents.
Mayor Keith James had promised residents a pause in the planning schedule and even said on July 7 there was “no rush.”
But in a Palm Beach Post commentary Thursday, James said the city has been listening but must continue to move ahead. “West Palm Beach should welcome input, improve proposals when warranted, and continue moving forward,” he wrote.
45% increase in potential development space
The plan would add a maximum of about 6 million square feet of development to the 13.2 million square feet of potential development left under the current plan, the city’s development services director told the panel.
That would be a 45% increase. With other changes, such as reducing the required parking that developers must provide, the proposal sounds like it packs in too much for the city to withstand while maintaining its quality of life, most of the speakers at Wednesday’s meeting said.
New parking rules mean developers could reduce parking by a quarter of the spaces now required for residential developments.
“We are appreciative of the removal of the 25 stories from the Flagler waterfront, and also … that the Flagler Drive will not be relocated,” said Megan Wegerif, an attorney living in the Historic Northwest neighborhood and representing Esplanade Grande, a downtown condo. “And now to the bad.
“Although our client is not anti-development, we are still in opposition due to the rank intensity (of the plan) and the questions that we still do not have answered. This is moving too quickly.”
A pause coming to an end
Staff presented the committee with a list of more than 50 meetings for gathering resident comments over the past year. Still, members of the panel said they were surprised to hear that James had just recently started meeting with a panel of residents representing the neighborhood associations after announcing a “pause” in development in July.
The pause came after residents organized into groups to push back against the city’s increased growth as the city has earned the moniker “Wall Street South” with the arrival of prominent players such as Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo’s wealth and investment management division. The city also is expecting Vanderbilt University and Cleveland Clinic to build in the city, bringing more construction cranes.
Panel members said they were confused about why, 65 days after James announced the pause, the plan came before the committee for a recommendation.
“This neighborhood partnership had some whole timeline with the mayor, but now this is happening today,” said Mike Bakst, a member of the panel. “This group is saying it’s happening too fast. And it’s his (the mayor’s) group.”
Ana Maria Aponte, the city’s development director, said she believed the partnership meetings with the mayor were to address “issues beyond the downtown.”
“This group was created for those big-picture discussions,” she said.
Earlier, during the presentation, she said this new plan will better address the growth the city is now experiencing.
“The downtown plan is not a dead document, it is intended to be updated and modified as conditions change,”Aponte said.
In his Palm Beach Post opinion piece, James said he had heard enough about the downtown plan from residents.
“Some have characterized my recent engagement with neighborhood associations and my decision to move forward with the Downtown Master Plan Update as a sudden turnabout,” James wrote. “The public record tells a different story. Community engagement on the future of downtown began well before the Neighborhood Partnership Network was created.”
Partnership members, however, say that nitty-gritty details are yet to be addressed.
What’s next?
The downtown panel voted 3-1 to advance the plan with the condition that the neighborhood partnership have a chance to present its views at the plan’s final consideration at the City Commission level.
Before that happens, the city Planning Board will consider the plan and forward its feedback to the City Commission, which is scheduled to hear the plan on Oct. 26. If the commission agrees and a state agency signs off on the proposed changes, the update is expected to come back for final City Commission approval Jan. 18.
James leaves office because of term limits after the March city elections.
Jessica Swift, chair of the West Palm Beach Residents Coalition, who has been meeting with the mayor, said her group intends to keep working on a white paper to publish in January. She expects it to raise questions that will need to be answered.
“We intend to press forward with our resident outreach to help people understand the important changes being proposed in the Downtown Master Plan Update and how those changes may affect them,” Swift said, after reading the mayor’s opinion piece. “Whether our timeline ultimately aligns with the city’s remains to be seen, but from our perspective, this work is far from finished.”
The panel also heard from representatives of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, who indicated the removal of the 25-story building potential from the church’s Flagler waterfront parcel would present a wrinkle in their plans for new growth at the church, nestled next to Phillips Point.
The church, now marking its 130th year, was planning to build residential units to support the church’s mission, the Rev. R-J Heijmen, the church’s rector, said.
“To hear now that our parcel is going to be limited to five stories is a little frustrating, especially when you look where we are,” Heijmen said. “We are surrounded by 20- to 30-story buildings on every side.”
Potential 25 stories added elsewhere
The panel also approved plans to add a Jaguar dealership on Okeechobee Boulevard at Dixie Highway into the downtown planning area, giving the owners the potential to construct a 25-story building.
Harvey Oyer, representing the owners of the dealership at 915 S. Dixie Highway, said the new designation will subject the property to more regulations — and potentially create a nicer-looking building than something like a strip mall that current zoning allows. No specific plans have been laid, but the update of the downtown plan makes the change timely, he said.
“It (general commercial zoning) should have been done away with a long time ago here because it has no design standards, no public open space requirement … you don’t have to conceal your garage, you can surface park it. … You get the idea,” Oyer said. “It fit with West Palm Beach 50 years ago. It doesn’t fit with West Palm Beach today. So, I would submit to you that it is in everyone’s best interest that this property be placed in the downtown.”
Oyer said his client is willing to put up $1.5 million that would extend Quadrille Boulevard past the car dealership and east to Dixie Highway, allowing motorists to bypass a corner that Oyer described as “in the crosshairs of the busiest intersection” downtown.
Expanding the downtown to include the dealership, a proposal that will also go to the Planning Board and the City Commission, drew protests from some residents who said it would amount to spot zoning.
Residents press on
But residents who have organized to raise questions about West Palm Beach’s unprecedented growth, and its decision at this crossroads, said they were glad they weren’t totally shut out. They took some solace in the panel’s recommendation that the resident partnership be heard by the City Commission.
Still, Fatima Sanandaji, who lives downtown and co-founded Save West Palm Beach, has no such illusions. Her group, which showed up two dozen strong wearing light blue T-shirts, their group’s name with white lettering emblazoned on them, has not been part of the mayor’s neighborhood partnership.
“I was so proud to see a packed room and so many residents speaking thoughtfully about the future of the city,” Sanandaji said. “But I was disappointed that the (panel) voted to recommend moving the (plan) forward while there’s still fundamental questions that remain unanswered, particularly about the cumulative traffic, infrastructure capacity, height and density, and frankly, the protection of Flagler Drive and the waterfront setting.”
