From the City of Lake Worth

Lake Worth Tri-Rail Station

On October 31st at 3:30 p.m. in the City Hall Commission Chambers there will be a presentation to the community concerning the results of a workshop on the Lake Worth Tri-Rail Station. As part of the 13th annual Rail-Volution conference, urban designers, transportation planners, real-estate economist and developers representing various parts of the United States will meet to create a concept plan for a livable community adjacent to the Lake Worth Tri-Rail Station.

The City of Lake Worth has requested that the charrette participants present their findings and concept plan to the Lake Worth community. Please come and hear their recommendations concerning balancing parking, development pedestrian amenities and density around the Lake Worth Tri-Rail Station.


Click here for link to a recent article from the Seattle area regarding the reduction of one's carbon footprint through use of mass transit. I have downloaded a copy of the report that is referenced here. Let me know if you would like me to forward a copy to you.

Below is an outtake from the article:

"The study found that taking public transportation can be more than ten times as effective in reducing a household’s carbon dioxide emissions than other household actions. One commuter who normally drives alone can reduce their carbon footprint by 10 percent by simply switching to public transportation. If one person in a two-car household gives up using the second car entirely, he or she can reduce the household’s carbon footprint by 30 percent. Science Applications International Corporation prepared the study, titled Public Transportation’s Contribution to U.S. Greenhouse Gas Reduction, for The American Public Transportation Association (APTA)."

and later on in the article:

In light of the new study, APTA is calling on Congress to incorporate public transportation into a national climate change strategy that includes providing additional funding levels for more public transportation investment. Specific policy goals include providing tax credits to major employers who spend resources to support mass transit ridership programs, and tax credits to developers for mixed development residential, commercial and transportation sites that encourage greater use of public transportation.

and from the APTA report:

Are there favorable land use impacts that public transportation contributes to that result in positive environmental and social benefits?

Answer: Public transportation provides many benefits that go beyond energy and CO2 savings – as transit assets are being used to accomplish these important functions.

Investments in public transportation have the benefit of supporting higher density land uses that allow for fewer vehicle miles of travel. While it is difficult to precisely measure this impact, a number of studies have attempted to estimate the relationship between
transit passenger miles and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reduction as a proxy for this effect. The results range from a reduction in VMT of between 1.4 miles and 9 miles for every transit passenger mile traveled. The outcome would be more efficient use of roadways, reduced road maintenance, shorter highway commute times and reduced need for street and off- street parking.

Reminder - Ethics Workshop

Links inoperable above. Please contact me at wesblackman@gmail.com for a copy of the original .pdf file. Click images for more detail.

Fun with Electronic Devices!

I am having fun with electronics! As you know if you have been reading this blog, there is a national conference next week in Miami called "Rail-Volution" and it deals with creating more mass transit opportunities and encouraging unique development opportunities around them. They named me "Tour Coordinator" which I consider an honor. These are professionals from around the country (world?) that are focused on converting the way we get around to more environmentally sensitive methods - that is finding ways of getting people out of their single passenger fossil fuel burning automobile and into other environmentally sensitive means of transportation.

What is going to happen is that a group is coming up to Lake Worth on a bus next Wednesday morning. I volunteered to give an overall orientation and introduction to Lake Worth to the people who signed up for the day trip as part of the conference. We are going to spend the day looking at and dissecting the area around the Tri-Rail station. This is all consistent with what the City has done in its master plan to encourage transit related development around the station. This will include the area around the Community College to the west too.

Anyway, I've started working on my presentation. Initially I thought of doing a Powerpoint on the bus and narrate it while in motion. I've decided against that now - too many moving parts. What I have done is download some video editing software and I plan to either do a powerpoint that I can pre-record with a voice over courtesy of the new software or create a video through the same program. Whatever size of file will be too large to post here, but let me know if you'd like a final copy.

As part of the learning curve, I have already realized that my camcorder is not up to the task. That piece of electronics was purchased about 2 1/2 years ago. Figured out that I needed some software and immediately assumed (you know what happens when you assume - if you don't, e-mail me and I will tell you!) that I could get the software that came with the camcorder (which has long since disappeared) from the JVC website, the manufacturer of the camcorder. Well, no such luck. My call to customer service (those wonderful 800 numbers) eventually told me that the software had long since been discontinued and was not available on line. Planned obsolescence for sure. Then, a light bulb went off and I remembered that I wa susing another laptop at the time and it did have the software installed. Eureka! It worked. But only after spending about two hours yesterday getting video and then realized, after buying two cords from Radio Shack (total $60) that it only could send images to the computer that were about the size of a postage stamp. Not good to see on a bus with screens equally as small. Back to the drawing board.

So, I went out again today and used my digital camera's video function to see how that would work. Got back, downloaded the miscellaneous video pieces on my laptop and found out they were all .mov files that my new editing program doesn't recognize. Then I did a Google search for "convert mov to avi" (avi is what the program recognizes) and downloaded a freeware program to convert that. No problem. Files converted.

I experimented with a small video with titles and transitions that I am currently uploading to my blog while I am writing this. The whole "embedding" thing didn't work too well (not at all). So I am trying this. Still have yet to have success. The Blogger limit is 100 mb and the upload is 90 mb. Now it keeps re-setting for some reason.

And after a long wait, it is up and you can witness its tremendous content - hardly. But that's life on the learning curve.

Update: After getting up this morning, I found an error message saying that the upload was not successful. More attempts will be made today. The Blogger people are working on the problem. This is now officially a personal quest!

A couple of notes and reminders...

Check out the new poll to the upper right of the blog. It's going to run to the end of the month, so make sure you indicate your feelings regarding public comment during Commission meetings from now until then. I will withhold comment on my feelings until after the poll closes, and then will summarize the poll results in a new post. I am also preparing a critique of the Mayor's performance - six months into his administration - that will be posted shortly. NOT TO MISS!

We're also on for a new Truth Matters show this coming Tuesday, 10/23 at 8 to 9 p.m. Lots of stuff to go over and don't forget your comments and questions are welcome. I'll be posting an announcement on the new Lake Worth Talk discussion board as a reminder too.

An observation: I've bumped into a lot of people recently that are more concerned than ever about the direction the City is headed. From the amount of properties for sale, a perceived increase in crime, bureaucratic tales that test the bounds of horrific and seeming lack of direction from those vested with that task, a more negative view of our City is emerging in the minds of many (if this is even possible) and it has me gravely concerned. It's something that I am feeling as well, but do not want to admit. There are positive things that we can accomplish and, if not entirely turn the tide, we can slow its progress. Keep your mind open for ideas on how we can turn this ship around and make this a better place for everyone to live, work and visit.

DRAFT Zoning Map based upon Master Plan

This is a preliminary and rough draft of the revised Zoning Map based upon the information gathered during the Master Plan process. That effort has spanned three years and cost the City upwards of $1,000,000. The Planning and Zoning Board is in the process of wrapping up review of the changes to the Comprehensive Plan. At their November 14th workshop, they will be looking at the Future Land Use map (which is part of the Comprehensive Plan) and checking with the existing version, along with a similar analysis of the current and proposed Zoning Maps.

I hesitated posting these here due to their preliminary nature and some glaring (at least I think so) errors. But there are some themes here that are important to get to know and how these will reflect the City's development pattern in the future. The new Land Development Regulations (LDRs) will replace the City's current Zoning Code. Those new regulations are under review by staff and the consultants are providing code language to support the new provisions that are reflected in the Zoning Map. Remember, you can click on these images to see more detail and you can also save them on your computer by selecting "File" in your browser. Select "Save as..." and select a place on your hard drive to store them.

As future versions of this Zoning Map emerge, I will do my best to post them. Remember, if you have questions, you can post them under this entry by clicking on "Comments".

To make things a little more readable, I cut the original image into five segments. Above is the legend which shows the various zoning districts.

Here's the northeast part of the City, along with part of the downtown area. One of the most obvious errors here is that the Courtyards property is still shown as Commercial when it is zoned MF 30. The Arbor Plaza area across the street, by the canal, really should be the MU (Mixed-use) district that the other areas of Dixie Hwy. are. It would make an ideal mixed-use location for a redevelopment project. The mixed-use district will be more permissive than the current High Intensity Commercial in the provision of residential and office uses. Also, per the Master Plan process, more sensitivity is given for the areas surrounding the commercial areas and their transitions to adjacent residentially zoned areas.

Also note the Downtown East (red) and the Downtown Central areas - both are roughly based on our existing Central Area Commercial districts - done to better reflect the uniqueness of each area and their own and adjacent land use characteristics.

Finally, conservation zoning is being designed and will be applied to the Snook Islands which are the newly placed mangrove islands in the Lake Worth Lagoon.

Above is the southeast part of the City. One item that is being explored is the establishment of vesting procedures for property owners in the area north and south of the downtown - in roughly the same areas that were covered by the Zoning-in-Progress (ZIP). The ZIP was done to prevent the speculative accumulation of our historic cottage housing stock - part of our thumbprint that makes Lake Worth, Lake Worth. It may be possible, using this process, to actually return the density to better reflect the built environment there than the current density - yes, down-zoning. Stay tuned for this. Another glaring omission, and this is on our current zoning map as well, is the area in the extreme southeastern part of the City where we have built mulitfamily structures along the Intracoastal - but both the land use and zoning show a single family designation. Also note that the Federal Hwy corridor will be getting its own mixed use district (similar on the north side of town as well).


This the northwest part of the City. Not too many changes here other than accounting for recent annexations. Note that the Gateway area is reflected on the draft proposed Zoning Map, where it has not been reflected yet on an official map. That is another important point. The City, no surprise, has done a poor job at keeping and maintaining its official zoning map. The current version that is being distributed as the official Zoning Map has a date of 1990! So, it is hoped that since we are in a digital age, we will have a way to easily maintain an accurate copy of the future land use and zoning maps of the City.


Finally, the southwest part of the City. The most important changes here are the addition and creation of the Transit Oriented Development (TOD) zones - both an east and west version. The west version coincides with the area around the Tri-Rail tracks where the current station is and west of there. Treasure Coast Regional Planning Congress' suggestion is to extend that area as a "transit corridor" all the way to the Palm Beach Community College - which is right in tune with what I have been saying all along. Remember, this area will be the subject of a charrette to be held on 10/31 as part of the national Rail-Volution conference that will be held in Miami, but will make a special trip to Lake Worth. The eastern TOD area will be the likely home of the future transit passenger station on the FEC tracks. Its area extends south from Lake Avenue along H street and the idea there is to introduce more of an arts and entertainment focus there. More on that later.

We also need to update this area in relation to recent annexations - dare I remind anyone of Sunset Drive?

Hispanic Fest - 2007

Great time this afternoon and it's still going on. Maybe the rain will either stay light or diminish as we go into the evening. Things were picking up when I left around 3 p.m. from volunteering. Guess where? The beer tent! Great food there too if you want to go there and pick up something for dinner.

More Beach Pictures - "The Nocturne Series"

With the coming of the Halloween season, I thought that taking some nighttime pictures at the beach and posting them here would be appropriate. It turns out that they spookier than expected. While there are no mysterious "orbs" in the pictures, it wouldn't surprise me if future visits with the camera at night would reveal some. There are more examples here of the structure's numerous wrinkles and cracks. A history of repairs that makes one think that there may be more glue than structure left to this building.

These pictures were taken at 9 p.m. on a Thursday night. There were no families clamoring to get a choice parking space by the beach. There were no more than a half a dozen people there - some skateboarders (is that allowed?) No one seemed to mind. That is no one. It just came to me - what a missed opportunity to enjoy the beach environment when the sun isn't out. We do have a 24 hour clock and shouldn't we be using this gem of the City to the fullest extent - through all hours of the day and night (we can shut things down after 2 a.m ., of course). And, when the pier is finished, there will be more traffic than represented here, to be sure.

Now, think about a nice restaurant that serves an evening meal. Think about someone having their Quinceanera in the ballroom. There is room for that here, at this time of night, that would not interfere with the regular day traffic.

And anything that is built there would have to abide by turtle lighting standards enforced through the State of Florida, what is wrong with this picture. Why not have John G's stay open and serve dinner in the new casino building?

No storefronts open at 9 p.m. - not even NYPD Pizza.

Granted. This is an unflattering view of the building, but it was hard to find a flattering one.

Hmmm. And the City comes down hard on electrical inspections?

A repair made years ago to one of the columns supporting the second floor above the public walkway.

What can you say? This will be sure to be included in the new report the City is having prepared on the condition of the building.

Darkness - Lord Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gathered round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;--a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful--was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge--
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon their mistress had expir'd before;
The winds were withered in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.

Lake Worth Beach in the darkness.

A ghostly looking scaffold - home to our lifeguards during the day.

I wonder what Mr. Lockhart's spirit thinks about all this?

Rusty tears from a tired building.

For a more inspiring set of nocturnal pictures, visit the gallery of nighttime pictures by clicking here.

Look who dropped by...

None other than the "Daytime" Citizen Observer Patrol and capable volunteers Walter Baker and Mary Lindsey. Jim Stafford and I will be going out tomorrow night for a while. Nice to see you guys and thanks for dropping off my key!

We Love Lake Worth PAC Used Paid Petitioners

See the We Love Lake Worth PAC 3rd quarter report which shows out-of-town paid petitioners were used in their signature gathering efforts. Sarasota?? See third page - click to see larger image.


Remember, this PAC was formed for the purpose of overturning the future land use and zoning change at the beach. The City has sued for a declaratory judgment to determine whether or not putting the items on the ballot would violate State law. No word on the status of that lawsuit, or the other one filed by McNamara and McCauley related to the length of the lease to Greater Bay.

Victory Fund Friend

You might remember that I went to Houston last year for a Victory Fund campaign training session. When we split into groups, one of the people that I was fortunate to get to know a little better was Lynn Schulman. She was kind enough to send me a copy of an invitation to her fund raiser coming up in early November. I'll share it with you here. There are a couple of interesting items on it that we really should consider including in our disclosure forms, as it turns out.

She's running for a seat on the New York City Council:



Note the disclaimer on the return receipt: "I understand that state law requires that a contribution be in my name and be from my own funds. I hereby affirm that this contribution is being made from my personal funds, is not being reimbursed in any manner, and is not being made as a loan."

Hmmmm. Sounds like a good idea to me! It's also apparent they have some sort of public money being leveraged by private donations.

Something you might enjoy...

This is something that Google has come out with recently. It's a player that allows you to witness all of the various images, in somewhat real time, that are being uploaded from around the world on blogs like this. It's fun to visit there and just watch the large variety of images go by. How long you sit and watch is your decision. In someways I think of it as collective world consciousness as it represents what is on a large number of minds at any one time.

Nothing mandatory by any means, but something that might amuse at the least. You might even see some of my images go by. I wonder what other people think of Lake Worth City Commission agendas and such flickering on their screens?

Click here to see. You can adjust the speed of the images (I find it too fast to absorb when I first open it up) and click on the "More Info" link and that will show you more information regarding the individual blogs.

Visits from Around the World 9/1 to 10/13

Just an update on the geographic coverage of this website. This is from my Google tracking software which, for some reason, has been under-counting recently as compared to another tracking device I have installed. But, it is able to create this nifty map. In the actual version (the above is a screen shot), you can "mouse over" the dots for the name of the city and the number of visits from each.

Thanks for visiting!

Lest We Forget...

...about the contrasts between the built environment of Lake Worth and that of other urban areas in Palm Beach County, I thought it would be helpful to post these pictures here. Many times we lose the frame of reference and can get carried away with distorted notions of what real estate development is and how cities are created and defined.

So, the next time you hear about over-development in Lake Worth, refer back to these pictures:

West Palm Beach

Singer Island

Lake Worth

This is looking east, from the walkway under the bridge. You can see the crane used for pier repairs at the beach on the right side of the picture.

This is looking west, south of the bridge, with the southern edge of the bridge just out of
the picture to the right.

This is the view west from "Ye Olde Bridge Park", the north edge of the bridge is
just out of the picture to the left.

Taken at the West Edge of Old Bridge Park Today

This is the back of a sign at the northwestern end of Old Bridge Park. People have been telling me about it for a while and I happened to have my camera with me today as I was going by. Any idea who this "Larry" is and why would he be living here?

Other side of sign.

Last Night's Planning and Zoning Board Workshop

The P&Z Board held a workshop in the City Hall conference room last night regarding revisions to the Comprehensive Plan, based upon our Master Plan exercise. Those in attendance got to hear Kim Delaney of Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council talk about transit oriented developments (TODs) and how to make our Comprehensive Plan more attractive for the establishment of a transit station at the FEC (eastern) railroad tracks.

Below is an image from the South Florida East Coast Corridor study related to station suitability. For a link to the site for more information (and there is a lot of it!) click here.
Soon I will be able to post portions of Kim's Powerpoint presentation. It was interesting hearing someone at the regional planning council and talk about how density is used as an issue to create conflict in communities, but that it really comes down to the individual design of a project. There are some lower density projects that are much less attractive than more dense residential properties. This was needed information for some of those in attendance at the meeting and it was great to hear it said with authority.

More on this later.