With little more than two weeks left before Palm Beach County commissioners cast a final vote on a land swap proposal from one of the largest developers in the state, members from the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations, or COBWRA, are putting forth efforts to halt the plan.
Nearly 50 people gathered at the Irish Acres of Florida in Delray Beach on Friday morning to hear remarks against the plan, framed on how it could threaten the future of the Ag Reserve.
The plan proposes to take land GL Homes owns in its Indian Trails Grove property and exchange it for land in the county’s Agricultural Reserve to then offer, among other things, 1,000 single-family, age-restricted homes, workforce-housing units, a water reservoir, parks and a Chabad synagogue.
COBWRA, which represents 106 homeowner and condominium associations and more than 140,000 residents, has been fighting against this plan since 2016.
Christopher McVoy, a soil scientist and the Lake Worth Beach vice mayor, spoke about his concerns with GL Homes’ water project.
According to the project description, the water project would “store and clean water that could go to Indian Trail Improvement District, Grassy Waters Preserve, the City of West Palm Beach Water Supply System, the Cypress Grove Community Development District, the Northwest Fork of the Loxahatchee River and Lake Worth Lagoon.”
It would also reduce discharge and improve the water quality of remaining water still being discharged into the Lake Work Lagoon and Grassy Waters Preserve. But McVoy said he questions to what extent the water quality would be improved as well as by what percentage discharge would be reduced.
“I acknowledge that benefits could accrue to Palm Beach County and West Palm Beach in particular if the reservoir is ultimately constructed and it functions as intended,” said 1000 Friends of Florida President Paul Owens, who also spoke during the event. “But there is no question that the Ag Reserve will bear the costs of this development deal without realizing any of the reserve’s purported environmental benefits, transferring development rights into the Ag Reserve to allow construction of a luxury subdivision makes a mockery of the reserve’s priorities of agriculture, conservation and open space.”
In a statement emailed to the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday afternoon, GL Homes President Misha Ezratti wrote the county faces “an array of challenges, including water quality and a lack of available workforce housing,” both of which are issues the developer is trying to address through the water resource project and workforce housing units.
“Through our proposal, approximately 725 acres would remain in agricultural production, which means there would be no net loss in ag land,” Ezratti wrote. “Plus, the county would own this full-leased land and can use the revenue to pay for the water project maintenance. Overall, the public benefits to our proposal are significant and will positively impact Palm Beach County for decades to come.”
County Commissioner Marci Woodward, who voted against the land swap during a comprehensive plan public hearing in May, also attended COBWRA’s event Friday and spoke about why she is opposed to the plan.
“What it boils down to is we are fundamentally breaking our comprehensive plan,” she said. “To me, it’s rotten from the core.”
Land swaps have occurred within the Ag Reserve before because development, while restricted, is allowed, but a contentious aspect of GL Homes’ plan is the swapping of land from inside the Ag Reserve with land outside of it, which has never occurred before.
“What happens when we run out of acres that still have development rights? So you can’t transfer those to another parcel,” Woodward said. “And I was told, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. And I said, ‘We can see the bridge, we’re coming up on it.'”
County Commissioners who voted for the project in May could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.
The commission will determine the land swap’s fate on Oct. 24 during a final vote.
