Conservation zone buyback lauded
Environmentalists see county move as brake on development push.
Preservationists and environmentalists are on the verge of another victory in their quest to limit building in Palm Beach County’s Agricultural Reserve, a 22,000-acre farming and land conservation zone west of Boynton Get the latest Palm Beach County news at the Eye on Palm Beach County blog. of a 571-acre tract the county bought with public bond money in 2000.
The South Florida Water Management District purchased a 61 percent stake in the land in 2006 for $13.7 million to help with its Lake Okeechobee and Everglades cleanup plan. But when the district’s plan to build a reservoir on the land changed, the district approached the county about a joint sale.
That angered environmentalists and preservationists who feared that private ownership of the land would open the door to its eventual development, even if the buyer was the Pero farming family, which currently leases it for agriculture.
They urged the county to reacquire full ownership of the land to ensure its continued availability for agriculture, preservation or environmental protection.
Two commissioners — Hal Valeche and Steven Abrams — pushed for the sale of the land, arguing that failing to do so would deprive the county of revenue and offer less protection than environmentalists and preservationists sought.
“The choice would be spending $9 million over three years or obtaining $9 million,” said Abrams, adding that anti-development restrictions called conservation easements could be made a part of a deal to sell the land.
Abrams’ colleagues, however, did not direct county staff to strip out money to reacquire the land, underscoring the commission’s shift from a more pro-development posture before last November’s elections brought in two new commissioners, Dave Kerner and Mack Bernard, who have been less willing to back development projects than their predecessors.
The first big indication of the commission’s shift came in April when the commission rejected a request by a developer to build the Iota Carol project of 1,030 homes on 1,288 acres west of The Acreage, whose residents have long expressed concerns about overdevelopment.
This rejection followed recent commission approvals in previous years of several large-scale developments in the western part of the north-central county, including Minto Community’s Westlake and GL Homes’ Indian Trails Grove.
The commission’s new posture will get a more rigorous test later this year when GL Homes is expected to formally present its plan to change rules in the Ag Reserve that have limited development there.
It’s one thing to move to reacquire full ownership of land in the Agricultural Reserve or even to reject the Iota Carol proposal. It will be something altogether different for the county to rebuff GL Homes, a savvy, well-connected developer whose upscale projects already dot portions of the Ag Reserve.
GL has been a major sponsor of the Mayor’s Ball, a glitzy county effort aimed at raising money to combat homelessness. The builder was also a sponsor of last month’s affordable housing summit.
GL has enlisted former Commissioner Burt Aaronson to lobby for changes to Agricultural Reserve rules that would allow it to build more on land it owns in the Ag Reserve. The commissioner for the district encompassing the Ag Reserve, Mary Lou Berger, who worked for Aaronson for 18 years before succeeding him, has not taken a position on the Ag Reserve rule changes despite pleas from constituents that she join them in opposition.
Aaronson has lobbied Berger on the issue, but Berger said her former boss’ push has not had an impact on her thinking.
County rules require builders to set aside 60 acres in the reserve for every 40 they develop there. Land outside of the reserve cannot be set aside to unlock development within it.
With its Indian Trails Grove project, GL Homes has already received permission to build 3,900 homes on 4,900 acres it owns in The Acreage/Loxahatchee area but it has offered to give up some of that project and preserve some of those 4,900 acres in exchange for permission to build more on land it owns farther south in the Agricultural Reserve. Ag Reserve homes fetch more, and GL notes that the road system in the Delray Beach/ Boynton Beach area is more extensive than the road system in the Acreage/Loxahatchee area.
Some Acreage/Loxahatchee area residents, pleased by the prospect of less building in their midst, have backed GL’s plan.
But the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations, a vocal, politically active group, is gearing up to oppose the rule changes, which hold the potential to pit north county residents against south county residents and pro-development commissioners against colleagues more wary of development.
For now, though, environmentalists and preservationists are hoping commissioners follow through on plans to reacquire full ownership of that 571-acre tract in the Agricultural Reserve.
“We support that,” said Drew Martin, conservation chair of the Loxahatchee Group of the Sierra Club. “If the taxpayers gave them the money to own that land outright, why should they be entitled to sell that? It can only be protected by ownership of the county.”
That argument flabbergasts Abrams, who said opponents of the sale are, on the one hand, distrustful of the county’s commitment to keep the land from development while also insisting that the county reacquire full ownership of the land.
The county has a conser-