We're in deep kimchi...

The city of Lake Worth, that is.  I've finally cooled down enough to share some words about the meeting on Monday held at 3 p.m. with the City Commission and the Planning Board.  This relates to the Master Plan process.  I expect this will be a rather long post on the topic.

Way back in 2003, the City Commission was convinced of the Master Plan idea from aone parrticular resident at the time who liked to burn up the phone lines.  That resident no longer lives in the city.  The basic premise was that the city needed to re-vamp it's Comprehensive Plan anyway and everyone had trouble with the zoning code or land development regulations (LDRs). It was thought that both had been amended time after time and really didn't reflect the "vision" of the residents as to what Lake Worth should look like.   To accomplish the process, a massive never before seen effort to solicit public input was taken on by a group of consultants.  The total cost for this process - up to and including the delivery of the final documents - was to cost the city almost $1 million.  It was seen as a two to maybe three year process.  At the end, the city would have two solid contemporary planning and zoning documents that would reflect the residents' vision, eliminate many controversies and confusions and be easier to use than the existing documents.

Personally, I remember talking to the consultants - some before they were hired - that one of the biggest issues we would have to deal with is allowable height and transitions from commercial to residential properties.  

The project got underway with multiple visioning sessions, the creation of the Stakeholders Advisory Committee - which I sat on as then-Chair of the Planning and Zoning Board.  Cara Jennings was also on that Committee, along with Jo Ann Golden and Dave Vespo - all before they were elected as Commissioners.  The Committee consisted of many others representative of various groups within the city.  This process wrapped up in the middle of 2006 with the following report issued by the consultants:

E-mail me if you want a copy of the report.  It summarizes the visioning process and identifies specific areas of the city that served as the basic study areas.

Key dates:  Commissioner Jennings was elected in March 2006. I resigned from the Planning and Zoning Board in December of 2006.  At the time, P & Z was meeting every week - pretty much the last half of 2006 working on the Evaluation and Appraisal Report (EAR) - which is part of the requirements on the way to updating the Comprehensive Plan.  It takes a look at the existing Comp Plan and makes recommendations based on changed conditions.  A lot of Lake Worth's changed conditions related to the findings of the master plan and the visioning sessions.

The EAR went through the Planning Board and City Commission in 2007, with some hiccups, but it did eventually  make it to the Department of Community Affairs - DCA.  From then on, it was on to creating a new Comp Plan.  All along there were opportunities for changes and refinements to the findings of the master plan.  

The Planning and Zoning Board continued to have meetings reviewing the changes and revising the Comp Plan through 2007 and 2008.  In September 2008, our Comp Plan went "out of compliance" with the Department of Community Affairs.  This was due to the fact that the city hadn't adopted a new one by DCA's long established statewide deadline.  First reading on the new Comp Plan was held in October and was sent up.  Here is an excerpt from the City Commission meeting of October 7, 2008 - note Commissioner Jennings' limited comments:

This first reading is many times called the "transmittal hearing."  After voting to "transmit" - including Commissioner Jennings, DCA reviews the Comp Plan - and ships it out to other agencies that do the same - and then issues an "Objections, Recommendations and Comments" (ORC) report.  Usually, this letter asks the city for additional back-up material in the form of data and analysis that arrive at the various conclusions included in the Comp Plan.

Right now, staff has responded to this ORC report and is ready for the Comp Plan to have it's second reading.  DCA would then receive the Comp Plan and response to the ORC report and likely find our Comp Plan in compliance.

Right now, as I said, our Comp Plan is "not" in compliance.  Among many at the meeting on Monday, this was waved off as an unimportant matter.  These are some of the consequences of not having a Comp Plan in compliance with the Department of Community Affairs:

• No processing of any land use plan changes.  For example, if a good project that everyone wants is looking at a Lake Worth location and the current future land use designation doesn't allow it - the project must wait until the plan is found to be "in" compliance.
• Questionable eligibility for grant monies.  With federal stimulus money programs and non-profit grant program applications, one of the first requirements is submitting or certifying that your Comp Plan is "in" compliance.
• Questionable legal authority.  The changes that are in the new version of the Comp Plan can't go into effect until it is adopted.  You can encourage people to follow the new plan - but in reality, you are left with the regulations in the old version until the new is adopted.  If any legal claim arises during this period, it could prove difficult to enforce Comp Plan provisions in either plan.

So, Monday, staff had everything prepared to address issues raised at the last joint City Commission/ Planning and Zoning Board workshop and all the ORC responses.  They were ready for the adoption hearing (second reading) to take place on May 5th.

But NO!  What we heard from Commissioner Jennings - who has been involved in this Master Plan process from the beginning, who has been an elected representative of the city for three years, who approved the Comp Plan on first reading with little comment and when the issue of height was addressed, who talks about the importance of public involvement in the process - uses a workshop meeting scheduled at 3 p.m. to announce reductions in allowable height - pretty much across the board and that these limitations should be included in the Comp Plan.  She didn't care if it meant longer being "out" of compliance, she wanted it "right" saying that it's what the people wanted from the workshops.

How many meetings has Commissioner Jennings been involved with related to the Master Plan, Comp Plan and Land Development Regulations?  You would think that she would have injected these thoughts into the process at some point over the six year history of the process.  Rachel Bach rightly pointed out that if there are significant changes between first and second readings, DCA may issue another ORC report asking for supporting data and analysis for such changes - thus re-setting the approval time clock all over again.  This is where Susan Stanton, our new city manager, stepped in and suggested a meeting with her, Rachel Bach and Commissioner Jennings in an effort to itemize the number of later changes.  Oh, and these last minute changes supposedly came after an eight hour marathon review of the Comp Plan by Commission Jennings over the weekend.  How long has this been going on?

So, that's the first negative consequence - that this delay prevents being "in" compliance with the State of Florida.  There are other consequences related to the expectations of property owners - some who have owned property for a long time - who will now have limited redevelopment potential.  If you're going to do this, why this late in the game and why do it the wrong way?  There could be severe ramifications in terms of taxable value of property in the city and individual legal claims on the part of property owners that feel that this amounts to a "taking."

Monday we heard that a building of over 45 ft. is "over" development.  Has anyone looked at West Palm Beach or Boynton Beach recently? Why have we spent six years and one million dollars or more to get to a point where the initial goal of doing the Master Plan is still at issue - right before adoption of a completed document?

This is nothing but shameful - and the nightmare continues.