Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Supermajority vote in Palm Beach

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Letters to the Editor

Palm Beach Daily News
January 17, 2015

Supermajority rule will help prevent over-development

By LESLEY BLACKNER

Kudos to the Town Council for passing a supermajority requirement for comprehensive plan and zoning changes. One more vote will now be required to obtain a zoning or a comprehensive plan change.

Here’s why the supermajority is beneficial to the future of Palm Beach: An applicant seeking a zoning or a comprehensive plan change doesn’t want to abide by the existing rules on the books. These rules are established after much time and effort, and are designed to protect the well-being of the entire community. But the applicant for a change says: Give me a special deal. Such “deals” should be hard to get, and requiring that one extra vote will make it a little harder. That one more vote will also ensure that any change granted truly reflects the best interest of the community.

The supermajority is a vital tool to prevent overdevelopment in Palm Beach. It will aid the struggle to preserve the Palm Beach we all love, and help to pass on a decent town to our children and grandchildren.

LESLEY BLACKNER

4 comments:

Weetha Peebull said...

In LW it's called Community Benefit.
It's really pay to play! You jump thru these hoops for us and we'll grant you more than the average builder! It's in the agenda's most recently in the POC/POR (Park of Rentals).

Mike Callahan said...

Visionary!

The Palm Beach Council understands that after asking citizens to spend countless hours and about a million dollars od their money to develop a Comprehensive Plan, changing it should be rare and require more than just a simple majority to do so.
Lake Worth had a chance to create this insurancebut the developer stooges and Chamber of Commerce hired outside operatives to defeat it.

Anonymous said...

Too many in office and ties to the Developers, realtors addicted to $$$. Result is they do whatever it takes to ignore the Majority thus screwing the Voters. Thank goodness Lake Worth has citizens that won't give up to these scaliwags!

Anonymous said...

Once the pieces of lying trash that call themselves ?commissioners " are replaced, we can place our own Supermajority back on the ballot. We can even take 50,000 to "educate" the people of Lake Worth about it !!!!!