Monday, May 5, 2014

Editorial: City will benefit from massive waterfront village... | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

The Palm Beach Post editorial board is finally seeing the light. If you do not want 6,000 plus new residential on the outside of the urbanized area in former orange groves, you need to direct growth east. They also note that doing so takes advantage of existing infrastructure and helps make mass transit more viable. I am not saying that we need 25 story towers in Lake Worth, but we do have to do a better job at promoting Lake Worth as an "in-fill" redevelopment area. Click title for link. Here are some of their conclusions:
But developers’ urge to put tall buildings along the city’s waterfront is not a bad one. The areas in and around coastal West Palm Beach are arguably the best places in Palm Beach County for intense development. They create the critical mass that allows for walkable neighborhoods and make mass transit more viable. They are vastly preferable to the sprawled bedroom communities endlessly being planned in the county’s undeveloped western reaches. In the case of this village, the draw of waterfront restaurants and shops should attract people and money from across the area while opening up a large stretch of waterfront currently off-limits to the public.
As the county continues growing, the demand for residences in West Palm Beach will increase. The city needs to keep up with demand by permitting well-planned projects to move forward. Otherwise, the limited supply of homes and condos will grow more expensive, making the city’s most attractive areas exclusively the domain of the wealthy. To do so in a way that doesn’t compromise its own growth rules, it may need to consider liberalizing those rules.