Thursday, May 13, 2010

What's holding up our Comprehensive Plan?

Comment Up
You must fix it in order to proceed

I was talking to my good friend, Ron Exline ( former everything here in the City and now currently Chair of the Financial Advisory Board) the other day and he gave the following analogy on our Comp Plan: If you have a flat tire, you can't drive your car until you fix it. Right now, we can't annex property, change zoning, etc. until our comprehensive Plan is in compliance.

What is holding up our Plan? Is this all a political move until the November election because some don't like height restrictions? Our last Plan was adopted on January 20, 1998 when Tom Ramiccio was Mayor and Retha Lowe was a Commissioner.

So, who/what is the biggest culprit in holding up our Comprehensive Plan?

SUNSET HOLDINGS, LLC
Right now we have Sunset Holdings that still insists that its development rights were taken away from them. They were annexed into the City with a promise of a land-use change that never happened. Although it was a political decision to change the zoning on the 4.02 parcel on Sunset in favor of the owner of the property, 1,000 other residents were never considered even those who showed up during public commentary. A new Commission reversed the political decision of a prior Commission. You never buy a property with the hope that elected officials will change a zoning for you.

The politics at the time attempted to CHANGE our Comprehensive Plan. At that time, Staff submitted it to the DCA as a small scale amendment to our Comp Plan that required NO review by the DCA and would have taken affect within 31 days of Lake Worth’s adoption unless challenged.. Staff, for whatever reason, determined to get it passed with no fuss and submitted it as a small scale amendment.

The DCA, after careful review, finally got back and said, “no,” this is a LARGE SCALE amendment. This is a process that goes under close scrutiny and a longer process to acquire approval. See FLOW CHART

If a local government adopts a comprehensive plan amendment without first transmitting it to the Department as a proposed amendment, it will be returned to the local government and it will not receive final compliance review. This is what occurred in the Sunset parcel. What does that mean? It means that the land-use and zoning was NEVER changed on the Sunset parcel. Once it was determined that it was a LARGE SCALE AMENDMENT, the process died on someone’s desk.

Sunset Holdings wants an entire residential neighborhood up-zoned for its own development interests.

LA SONNA HAYES
Ms. Hayes has a grievance. She lives in a single family neighborhood. Our Code describes a Single Family as: The "single-family residential district, 7 du/net acre" is intended primarily to permit development of one (1) single-family structure per lot. Single-family structures are designed for occupancy by one (1) family or household. Single-family structures do not include accessory apartments or other facilities which permit occupancy by more than one (1) family or household. Provision is made for a limited number of nonresidential uses for the convenience of residents.

These nonresidential uses are compatible by reason of their nature and limited frequency of occurrence with an overall single-family residential character. The "single-family residential district" implements the "single-family residential" land use category of the Lake Worth Comprehensive Plan.

So, Ms. Hayes wants to build higher than what our Code and what our Comprehensive Plan allows. She wants to change a single family neighborhood and up-zone it. She wants what she thinks she deserves just because she owns this property. Ms Hayes wants the zoning and land-use changed for her development interests.

Personal greed wouldn't enter into any of this for either of the above, would it?

This is why it is so important to have Florida Hometown Democracy. The above hold-ups would never happen and any land use changes such as these would be voted on by the people in the community at the general election.

VOTE YES on November 2, 2010. We desperately need change that makes sense.

1 comment:

kkss21 said...

The only things making money in this economy are food and sex.I want to put a chicken wing/adults only club on my property. I live in a single family neighborhood. I own my property.Who cares how this will affect my neighbors ? I have rights! I am ENTITLED to make as much money on my property as I can !Screw my neighbors ! Signed, LaBlahblah Hates