West Palm Beach mulls raising cap on old city hall site to 12... | www.mypalmbeachpost.com

The tale of West Palm Beach's City Hall site continues and this time the discussion is about height. There is a limit of five stories on the books, but people keep seeking to push that limit higher to 10 and now 12 stories. I used to have an office on the second floor of that building for about four years as a planner in the city's planning department. That was 25 years ago and the building had issues then. City operations moved to the new City Hall on Clematis Street which, if you haven't been, is gorgeous! And so is their Library. Click title for link. From the article:

The head of West Palm Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency, saying he wants to make the old city hall site more attractive to developers, is recommending the city commission, sitting as the CRA board, agree to bump up the allowable height from five stories to 12, a figure at least one developer already has proposed.
CRA Executive Director Jon Ward also wants the city to issue a new “requests for proposals,” incorporating the taller height allowance.
Because a law passed in 2013 forbids referenda on zoning changes, “the CRA Board is asked to make a determination on a maximum building height to be allowed on this site,” Ward wrote in a memo for last week’s CRA board meeting.

Notice the reference to the 2013 state law that forbids referenda on zoning changes. That is the same law that made our vote in Lake Worth moot on the issue of height. Null and void, they said. Like it never happened...