Everglades continues to see investment and interest

Everglades continues to see investment and interest

2022-07-13T09:17:32-04:00January 28th, 2022|Economy, Palm Beach, Tourism|

Writer: Caty Hirst 

Everglades restoration2 min read January 2022 Over $1 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill will be dedicated to the restoration of Florida’s Everglades, the Biden administration announced last week

The $1.2 billion earmarked for the Everglades marks the largest investment ever made to the national park. The money will be used to capture and restore excess surface water runoff, reduce excess water releases to water conservation areas and minimize seepage losses during dry periods, according to the White House, as the Everglades faces challenges posed by climate change. The funds will be drawn from over $14 billion in funding dedicated to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to increase climate resilience and make improvements at ports and waterways throughout the United States for fiscal year 2022. 

Even as the area sees record investment, however, pushback from developers lacking space to build new — and much needed — housing in the area is edging into the Everglades’ boundary lines. 

Ramsay Bulkeley, executive director of the Palm Beach County Planning Zoning & Building Department, said that Palm Beach County is seeing a huge push for new projects with greater density, as the area continues to attract new residents. A need for affordable housing is also driving new investments. 

“Over the past three to five years, we’ve been seeing projects coming in along those major roadway corridors.  The request for density is higher than we’ve seen before to the tune of 25 to 27 units per acre, which for a municipality like Boca or West Palm might not be a radically high figure, but it’s new for us,” Bulkeley said to Invest:. “We used to have these 2,000-acre planned-unit developments with golf course communities. We’re now seeing those in increasingly small sizes and higher densities. We’ve been working on our codes and our comprehensive plan to respond to those kinds of changes in the industry.”

According to an analysis of county documents by the Sun Sentinel, the region is down to just 1% of vacant land zoned for housing, even as the area faces a severe shortage of housing. The analysis showed just 20 square miles of land zoned for residential use remains vacant. 

The lack of available space has developers eying the Ag Reserve. 

This week, for example, developer GL Homes was denied a land-swap by the Palm Beach County Planning Commission to build a housing development, which would include affordable housing options, on what is currently the Palm Beach County Agricultural Reserve. The reserve was established by the county to preserve farmland and wetlands in an effort to enhance agricultural activity and water resources. 

The county’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Acquisition Program began in 1984 in an effort to preserve land that was rapidly being lost to development. The county subsequently ran a bond referendum on providing $150 million towards land acquisition, creating the 22,000-acre Ag Reserve known today.

GL Homes is requesting a 683-acre site west of Boca Raton in the Ag Reserve be rezoned, an issue that will now head to the County Commissioners for a final vote. 

“The pressures on the agricultural reserve remain as strong as last year,” Bulkeley said. “We’ve seen many applications along Boynton and Atlantic Avenue asking for more density than what is allowed, with more non-residential development requests for industrial. We’re still holding fast to the county policies to preserve areas and to keep that density low, although we anticipate more applications will be presented to the board over the next year.”

In a balancing act, a key focus of county officials moving forward will be the development of additional affordable housing. 

“Housing is a big priority for us, as is transportation. But we will remain laser-focused on getting good quality affordable residences so people can afford to live and work here,” he said. 

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