Tales from the City Commission meeting...

Temple Development/Boutwell Road - The Commission ended up turning them away, a good thing - turns out that the County already pledged the $200,000 they were looking for from the city - so their application was moot. However, it brought up up a lot of discussion about what the City Commission wanted at this corner and the ultimate make-up of the Park of Commerce. I didn't time this one, but it went on way too long with little concrete information being dispensed by anyone.

This is an e-mail I sent this morning to the Mayor, City Commissioners and the City Manager:

You all ended up with the right answer for the senior housing project last night. However, I was frustrated by the lack of confidence in what the land use and zoning were on the property. I am sure the property owner will be more than frustrated when he gets a report back from the gentleman that appeared before you last night.

If my recollection is correct, the property has a high density multiple family future land use designation and MF40 zoning, with a Residential Planned Unit development. Without combing through the City Commission archives, it is my belief that this all went up to DCA for the future land use assignment when the property was annexed. During that review, we met with the County many times regarding the issue about how much residential we could have along the perimeter of the Park of Commerce. Ultimately, they agreed that it was o.k. to have residential/mixed use along Lake Worth Road - particularly for this property along Boutwell. The thinking being that people who eventually work in the Park of Commerce might live there and could walk to work - something that would be much less likely with an uninspired senior housing project.

So, the bottom line is that the land use and zoning for residential is in place and o.k. with the County. To go back and say that we're rezoning this now to commercial or industrial would be backtracking. But has that stopped us before? I'll leave that up to you all.

I had a card up to speak on this item and could have shed light on the issue and history last night - but, for whatever reason, the Mayor chose not to call upon me.

Let me know if I can be of help in the future. Parenthetically, I am concerned about the vague answers coming from the planning and zoning staff on this issue and others.

Wes Blackman
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