Wellington will vote on Bellissimo’s plan to build in equestrian preserve
WELLINGTON – The grandest and riskiest of Mark Bellissimo’s three attempts to build in the village’s 9,000-acre equestrian preserve goes before the Wellington Village Council this week, one that is likely to have ripple effects throughout Wellington whether it is approved or denied.
Wellington Lifestyle Partners wants to build two luxury housing developments along South Shore Boulevard, an area where hotels, motels, condominiums
and apartments are forbidden and commercial buildings are limited.
One of the developments, known as The Wellington North, would rise from the 96 acres where Equestrian Village and White Birch Polo Club stand and require Wellington to do something it has never done before – remove that land from the equestrian preserve, which voters created in 2000 to protect the area from development.
Village planners insist the move would not set a precedent for development within the preserve. Others disagree, with one group saying the move would lead to “death by a thousand paper cuts” if other landowners follow Bellissimo’s lead and try to develop their properties.
The first of three Village Council meetings on the project is set for 6 p.m. Tuesday. A week before the meeting, Wellington Lifestyle Partners has scaled back the number of residences it is seeking – and cast its plans in all or nothing-at-all terms.
In exchange for permission to build these communities, whose densities would be greater than the equestrian preserve now allows, Bellissimo’s team says it will help pay for a new equestrian center just west of The Wellington South luxury community on land along 40th Street South. A hotel with stores and restaurants would someday follow on land along the South Shore.
But if the village says no, Wellington Lifestyle Partners said Friday it will eventually close Equestrian Village, and its dressage Winter Equestrian Festival dates with it.
“Equestrian Village at Global is no longer a suitable venue,” said Paige Bellissimo, Bellissimo’s daughter and a principal of Wellington Lifestyle Partners. “It can’t grow there.”
Groups affiliated with Wellington Lifestyle Partners last week submitted a proposal for the new equestrian center, which would feature an arena that could seat up to 10,000 people and stand as tall as 65 feet, or six stories.
The absence of that proposal in part led the village’s Equestrian Preserve Committee to reject the project outright in June and its Planning and Zoning Board in August to recommend Wellington South and for Wellington North tabled or rejected until it could vote on a proposal for showgrounds.
“Voting something out of the EPA (Equestrian Preserve Area) without that information is questionable,” said John Bowers, the planning board’s vice-chair during the August meeting. “If it was truly for housing, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. No one would vote to take it out of EPA.”
The Wellington marks Bellissimo’s third attempt to build in the Equestrian Preserve, following failed efforts in 2012 and 2016.
He has said the area has grown outdated and that his plans will help it to stay competitive with other communities that cater to equestrians, using phrases such as making it “the equestrian capital of the world.”
The luxury housing also would attract “both equestrian and non-equestrian, from the burgeoning West Palm Beach professional community,” Wellington Lifestyle Partners has said.
Wellington Lifestyle Partners has substantially revised its plans since they were first proposed. The most recent came Oct. 2, when it scaled back the number of homes in both sections of the development.
Originally, Wellington North sought 277 condominiums, 22 single-family homes and a private club with a lagoon. Now it is proposing 48 townhomes, 48 single-family homes and a private club with tennis courts, a racket center, swimming pools and a short-range golf facility.
To make it happen, Wellington Lifestyle Partners needs the village to:
Remove the 96 acres from the equestrian preserve and move the preserve’s boundary south of Pierson Road.
Change the permitted use of the area to residential from equestrian commercial.
Approve the construction of the townhomes, single-family homes and club.
Wellington South would rise along South Shore south of Wellington Community Park. Wellington Lifestyle Partners is seeking approval to build 109 half-acre luxury villas and five 5-acre farms over undeveloped land owned by Bellissimo in the preserve where only homes on lots of at least 2 acres are allowed.
The company is also requesting to change the land use of 114 acres at the northeast corner of 40th Street and Gene Mische Way to equestrian commercial from residential to be the site for the showgrounds that would replace the dressage facilities at Equestrian Village.
To make that happen, the village
hhhmust:
Change the land use of the 114 acres – which currently don’t have any development permits – to equestrian commercial from future residential
Approval to build 114 residences, 109 would be 0.5-acre homes where lots have to be over 2 acres.
The Village Council would consider the proposed expansion of the Wellington International competition area separately, after it acts on the proposed luxury developments. As of Friday, no one had submitted formal plans to build the hotel-retail-restaurant area discussed for South Shore Boulevard.
hhWould removing acres from the equestrian preserve set a precedent?
There is disagreement over whether removing the 96 acres from the preserve would set a precedent for other landowners in the area.
The village staff says no. It said the decision to remove the 96 acres is legislative, and that any similar requests would also have to go through Wellington boards and earn the approval of the council.
However, 1000 Friends of Florida, one of the state’s leading nonprofit advocates for growth management, paints a darker picture. 1000 Friends of Florida said approving The Wellington North would set a precedent for development in the area and equaled “death by a thousand paper cuts,” in a letter sent to the council and published in a full-page ad in The Palm Beach Post.
Paul Owens, the nonprofit’s president, said Wellington’s equestrian preserve is one of the few in the country with such strong development regulations and has become a defining factor of the village that would otherwise be encroached by what he called high-density, high-rise developments.
Owens said that if the projects were approved, it could ultimately spark urban sprawl that has the potential of stripping the preserve of its characteristic quiet, low-rise, low-density development that mostly benefits horses.
“Every time you make an exception to a promise made for preservation, even if it’s a small exception, it weakens that promise,” Owens said. “At some point, the designation of the preservation could collapse.”
Is Wellington’s equestrian industry at stake?
Belissimo’s team has said Wellington faces competition for equestrian events and the money they bring to Palm Beach County from other sites in Florida, namely those near Ocala and Sarasota.
He told village planners last year the showgrounds where he stages the annual Winter Equestrian Festival had outgrown their venues. He said major investments in a new horse megacenter and residential properties would be crucial.
If the village grants the land use changes to build residences, Wellington Lifestyle Partners is agreeing to double the showgrounds of Wellington International and consolidate all horse sports in one location. It offered last week to put up as much as $25 million toward the cost of the new showground.
“At the moment we can’t get major companies, and a lot of them are coming to Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, big banks, big hedge funds, big corporations,” Michael Stone, Wellington International’s director, told village officials this summer. “They don’t really want to bring their guests to attend a venue that is a bit rough around the edges, rather than come to a proper corporate hospitality venue, so we can drive that business significantly.”
Paige Bellissimo said the facilities at Equestrian Village are no longer viable because they could barely sustain themselves with the profits of dressage.
Wellington Lifestyle Partners says the residences will bring in the families that will support the new showgrounds year-round, she said. In exchange for the approval to replace Equestrian Village with a residential club community, the company would pay for the first phase of the expansion.
“We’re not selling the land. We’re investing in the new showgrounds,” Paige Bellissimo said. “That has to come from somewhere.”
Not everyone agrees with her assessment. Members of the village’s Equestrian Preserve Committee told Wellington Lifestyle Partners this summer they felt the developers were holding the showground expansion as a bargaining chip to build the luxury residences, all while failing to make upgrades to their privately owned venues.
“I don’t see any reason to give up equestrian land for houses that have nothing to do with the horse show,” said Jane Cleveland, the committee’s chairperson during the comitte’s June meeting.
Maureen Brennan, a village resident and a polo player, sent a letter to the council saying Wellington’s equestrian industry is not going through a crisis that requires the creation of a luxury community.
She added Equestrian Village will be home to seven Winter Equestrian Festival dressage competitions scheduled in Florida this year, making it the busiest dressage year in the village since 2012.
“This is happening without a housing development being dropped right onto the location they are hosting these incredibly high-profile events,” Brennan wrote. “Whatever financial and personal difficulties they are having internally are not related to Wellington or the lack of an adjacent golf development.”
Can the equestrian industry grow in a way that’s fair to everyone?
Wellington Lifestyle Partners says the combined projects, especially the expanded horse showgrounds, would not only help Wellington’s equestrian industry grow but also pump millions of dollars into the village’s economy.
University of Florida professor Alan Hodges helped to craft a 2019 study that found that each group that competes in the village’s equestrian season spends an average of $25,000 between travel, farriers and housing.
He said doubling the size of horse showgrounds could potentially double the revenue of Wellington’s equestrian industry – but it could also deepen existing income, housing and social inequalities in and near the village.
“It’s an issue of equity,” Hodges said, noting that “a huge income inequality” runs across South Florida.
Hodges said luxury horse developments tend to raise surrounding property values and increase the cost of living. So while the project is poised to bring in jobs and big spenders, businesses can also expect to see an increase in housing prices that would result in employees living farther away and paying higher costs to commute to work.
“That’s always an issue when you have high-end development coming in,” Hodges said. “What is that going to do to housing affordability in the community?”
The issue is especially alarming in the county, Hodges said, where affordable housing and land availability are limited, and more so in Wellington where affordably priced homes are scarce and less than 1% of the land is vacant.
Will there be flooding? Wellington South site sits among wetlands
Wellington Lifestyle Partners is proposing to build Wellington South on 18 acres of undeveloped land owned by Bellissimo on the northwest corner of South Shore Boulevard and Lake Worth Road.
The properties are considered wetlands, according to the National Wetlands Inventory, and environmentalists say the land plays a crucial role in flooding prevention for the area.
The South Florida Everglades Association said in a letter to the council that the land functions as a natural drainage basin or “bowl” and can likely hold at least 140 million gallons of water.
“If developed, the “bowl” that is Wellington South will no longer hold the same quantity of water as it does now and that displaced water will have to move somewhere,” stated the report. “Local canals can only convey so much.”
Is the village doing this backward? Some want showground OK’d first
A coalition of families in the equestrian preserve want the village to deny or at least table Bellissimo’s proposals for The Wellington until planners, elected officials and equestrians can evaluate plans to expand Wellington International, where the new showgrounds would go.
Approving the luxury developments before acting on the showgrounds makes the proposal look like a quid pro quo, they said: The developers would make the improvements only if they first receive millions of dollars in landuse changes and development rights.
“Right now they can’t build it and sell it as homes,” said attorney Leonard Feiwus, who represents residents of Equestrian Club Estates. “By making this conversion, they are giving an extraordinary amount of value to the developer and what are they getting in return?”
Bellissimo’s proposal has garnered stark opposition from some of the most influential names in the preserve, such as Victoria McCullough and Jeremy Jacobs, whose lawyers argue the projects would destroy protections set for the preserve and its equestrian lifestyle.
A petition opposing the rezonings requested for the projects had garnered 6,750 signatures as of Monday.
“We saw this happen in Boca,” Feiwus said. “Once you start to change the land use, you allow cluster developments to come in, then you set a precedent.”
What’s in this for the non-equestrian parts of Wellington?
Some have questioned how Wellington as a whole will benefit if The Wellington wins approval.
As of Friday, neither part had any amenities for the public, such as parks, pathways or public buildings, a point that some residents raised when the Equestrian Preserve Committee and Planning and Zoning Board considered the plans.
There are differences of opinion about how much The Wellington will affect traffic along the Equestrian Preserve’s narrow roads. Wellington Lifestyle Partners has said the developments won’t add to traffic and should make them safer. A study by one resident group suggests the preserve’s narrow roads will grow more congested.
Bellissimo himself has said Wellington won’t include workforce housing or residences for those who work in the equestrian industry.
Jill Hoag, a Wellington resident, said during a village equestrian preserve committee that Wellington needs both better showgrounds and affordable housing for the people who take care of the horses.
Hodges said the projects would allow Wellington to compete with amenities offered near Ocala and Sarasota, but pointed out that Wellington and Palm Beach County already have more robust economies than those areas.
Jay Schleifer, a village resident who doesn’t ride horses, says the equestrian preserve is what makes Wellington stand out among other South Florida communities and that residents voted to strengthen its protections in recordbreaking participation elections in 2016.
“We drew the line,” said Schleifer. “Another big key private community for rich people. What does that say to the rest of us? This is not your town anymore. It belongs to somebody else who bought it.”
Valentina Palm covers Royal Palm Beach, Wellington, Loxahatchee and other western communities in Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post. Email her at vpalm@pbpost.com and follow her on Twitter at @ValenPalmB. Support local journalism: Subscribe today .