West Palm Beach Gives Initial Approval to a Downtown Master Plan With More Growth, but No Tall Waterfront Towers

West Palm Beach city commissioners have given initial approval to a new downtown master plan that opens the city center to more development and taller buildings in some neighborhoods, saying it will lead to a more walkable downtown with more open space and middle-class housing. The unanimous Oct. 26 vote, in a packed City Hall chamber, came over protests from dozens of residents who worried the city's infrastructure is not prepared for more intense development.

City planners have said the updated master plan would permit 6 million square feet more development than the downtown's current rules allow. To unlock the greater density, developers would have to agree to include more rent-controlled workforce housing. The plan also reduces parking requirements by 25 percent for future downtown developments and calls instead for more open space, landscaping and wider sidewalks. Those trade-offs were contested at the hearing: the city's traffic engineer testified that Okeechobee Boulevard, the main gateway into downtown, is already at 98 percent of capacity, and Grandview Heights resident Vanessa Nedvins told commissioners the city's strategies were unproven - "hope is not a strategy," she said, as reported by The Palm Beach Post.

What commissioners would not do, for now, is open the waterfront. Neighborhood groups had already won the removal of a provision allowing buildings up to 25 stories along the Flagler Drive corridor, and commissioners rejected a plea from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church to reinstate it for the 25-story housing tower the church wants to build. The approved plan caps waterfront growth at 15 stories, and a related set of zoning rules - to be voted on in February - could restrict the waterfront further, to five stories; the city's director of development services, Ana Maria Aponte, told the Post that planners will recommend keeping the five-story limit, though commissioners could choose 15. A developer working with the church warned the project could instead be built through Florida's Live Local Act, which lets residential developers bypass many local height and density limits when 40 percent of units are workforce housing.

The plan also extends the downtown boundary to take in the 2.5-acre property at Okeechobee Boulevard and South Dixie Highway that currently holds Jaguar and McLaren dealerships, where a building of up to 25 stories would be allowed. The comprehensive-plan changes now go to state officials for review; commissioners are expected to vote on final approval in February and to take an initial vote on the related zoning changes at the same time.