250-unit housing project near Juno Beach up for vote
JUNO BEACH — Neighbors, planning officials and Juno Beach officials are unrelenting in their opposition to a plan to build 250 apartments and rental town houses on U.S. 1 just south of the town, in an unincorporated pocket of the county.
The project, Lenox North Beach, will come before Palm Beach County commissioners during a meeting next Wednesday. Developer Fairway Investments LLC plans to convert a mostly vacant shopping center a half-mile north of PGA Boulevard into apartments and town houses.
The developer will include 63 workforce housing units as a condition of approval, said planner Ken Tuma, who is a managing principal with Urban Design Kilday Studios. Workforce housing rents will range from $810 for a one-bedroom to $2,600 for a three-bedroom, depending on the person’s income level, Tuma said.
The 11-acre property on the west side of U.S. 1 includes a ladies apparel store, nail salon, pizza shop, tobacco shop and liquor store.
Residents of three neighboring communities — Pleasant Ridge, Captains Key and Juno Terrace — oppose the new housing. They cite increased traffic, noise and other quality-of-life issues.
“I feel like our neighborhood is under attack,” said Nancy Silvio Lodise, president of the Pleasant Ridge Property Owners Association. “We’re very worried.”
After neighbors voiced their objections last year, the developers shaved the number of apartments and town houses from 300 to 250. Current standards allow them to build 211. The developers say they need to build at least 250 units for the project to be viable, according to county planning documents.
“I questioned, ‘Why is their viability more important than our quality of life and sweat equity into our neighborhood?’ ” Lodise said.
In addition to reducing the number of apartments and townhouses, the developer limited housing around the perimeter to two stories, replaced surface parking with IF YOU GO Comprehensive Plan Public Hearing
9:30 a.m., May 2 Governmental Center County Commission Chambers, sixth floor 301 N. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach an internal parking garage, added parks and pledged to replace buffer walls to the north and west, Tuma said.
The Palm Beach County Planning Commission voted 10-2 to recommend county commissioners deny the developer’s request to increase the number of apartments or town houses allowed per acre.
Twenty-two members of the public and Juno Beach town representatives spoke in opposition at the April 13 meeting, saying the development would worsen traffic, be incompatible with the area and cause problems for hurricane evacuation, according to county records.
Juno Beach gets to register its support or objections because the property is in an area the town could annex in the future.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Hal Valeche, whose district includes the property, said he didn’t want to share his position on the plans before hearing the proposal but that he shares neighbors’ concerns.
Traffic is already congested on Ellison Wilson Road and PGA Boulevard, residents wrote in emails to a county planner. That’s especially true when the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway is up and when Florida Power & Light employees are arriving at and leaving work, they said.
When condos take the place of the former Panama Hattie’s, it will only add to the traffic, they wrote.
“It can take upwards of 20 to 25 minutes to travel 2.5 miles during peak hours on my way to my place of work due to a glut of traffic and lights that are already in place,” Harold D’Souza wrote. “Adding 250 apartments is going to overburden our streets and our peaceful way of life.”