An influential West Palm Beach neighborhood group is pushing back against the mayor’s surprise decision to resume plans to allow denser neighborhoods in the city’s downtown.
The West Palm Beach Downtown Neighborhood Association says in a letter to Mayor Keith James that it objects to him restarting the plan’s approval process two months after he agreed to pause it to allow greater resident input.
“We are asking the City to pause the (downtown master plan) approval process until the residents’ work is substantially complete, our recommendations have been submitted, and the City has had an opportunity to respond,” Sitima Fowler, the group’s president, wrote in a Sept. 4 letter.
The downtown group and another residents’ group, the West Palm Beach
Residents Coalition, have been working with city leaders to analyze the proposal to rewrite the city’s downtown master plan, which lays out development rules for the growing urban center.
James in July met with the two groups and announced that he was pausing the approval process to allow public input, vowing that “the process of the downtown master plan is not going to be rushed.”
The two groups began what they described as an in-depth analysis of the plan, one expected to take several months.
But now the city has scheduled a Sept. 9 hearing for the plan, where it will be considered by the city’s Downtown Action Committee.
Though the approval process is resuming, the city appears to have made a significant change to the plan.
The proposal initially had allowed buildings of up to 25 stories along Flagler Drive downtown, a provision that drew widespread pushback.
But the city last week told the resident groups that it has dropped that provision, meaning that building height limits along the waterfront would remain at their current levels.
“South of Datura Street, the limit would remain five stories with no additional height incentive,” the downtown group told its members. “North of Banyan Boulevard, the existing incentive would remain, allowing up to eight stories.”
While some residents celebrated that change, the groups insisted that their work to analyze the proposal was far from over.
In her letter to James, Fowler questioned whether the mayor’s promise of public input had been merely a “cosmetic exercise.”
“Our group takes this responsibility seriously and (it’s) beginning to feel as if (it’s) being treated as a cosmetic exercise, too late in the game to be relevant,” she wrote. “If our work is relevant, then the (Sept. 9 meeting) should be postponed.”
Fowler said in the letter that she had been assured previously by James that there was “no deadline for submitting our recommendations.”
“If there is a deadline now, then let’s discuss,” she wrote. “Our group is nowhere near finished as we are still talking to city supplied experts, and we have not yet submitted our written recommendations to the City.”
“We understood that we would complete our work, provide written recommendations, and that the City would provide written responses,” she continued.
A city spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment but told The Palm Beach Post last week that the city had already provided ample time for public feedback.
Andrew Marra is a reporter at The Palm Beach Post. Reach him at amarra@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: West Palm group cries foul over mayor’s resumption of downtown plan
