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Sprawl mediation ends in draw
By John Shannon, Staff writer
PALM BEACH GARDENS
- After an all-day meeting last Monday, staffers from Palm Beach County, three
cities and Callery Judge Grove, a 50-year-old citrus grower that wants to turn
its 4,000 acres of citrus trees into a small town, decided they need more time
to hash things out.
In their first
mediation, which is an informal solution-seeking process that, in this case, is
required before potential lawsuits are filed, representatives from Royal Palm
Beach, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens met at Gardens' City Hall to reach
some kind of accord.
The aforementioned
city officials objected to Callery's proposed development in May.
The only person
allowed to comment on the private meeting was mediator Tom Taylor of the Florida
Conflict Resolution Consortium in Tallahassee.
"Ideally, there
will be a recommendation from this group," Mr. Taylor said, adding that it would
then be on the public record and presented to the Palm Beach County Commission.
"They don't have to agree to anything, but by having parties participate in a
less adversarial setting than a court- room, there's the opportunity to listen
to each other, generate options and reach solutions that have never been thought
of."
If Callery's
proposal is approved, the county would have to change its comprehensive plan to
make way for traffic and environmental impact, as a result of building 10,000
additional homes and 3-million- square-feet of retail and office space in
Loxahatchee.
Last year, the
Florida Department of Community Affairs in Tallahassee cited numerous objections
to the proposal, which county officials could choose to ignore.
At the beginning
of the month, after a meeting of municipalities that comprised the district of
Palm Beach County Commissioner Karen Marcus, Palm Beach Gardens Mayor Joseph
Russo said he desired a solution vs. a flat rejection of the Callery Judge
proposal.
But Callery Judge,
after a feast of other potential development, is just one piece of the
land-amendment pie that affected residents might reluctantly have to choke down.
Mecca Farms, a few
miles to the east of Callery, which the county bought four years ago to locate
the Florida Scripps Research Institute, already has approval for an additional
9,400 traffic trips per day.
If Sunrise-based
G.L. Homes and Boca Raton-based E.B. Developers, both of which also want to
build thousands of homes in the western tier, are approved, county traffic
engineers said that Northlake Boulevard would be overloaded. And this equation
doesn't take into account what the owners of the neighboring Vavrus property
want to eventually do in the future.
Furthermore,
Everglades restoration requirements would lose out on the help that converting
those areas into wetlands could bring.
In previous
interviews, Commissioner Karen Marcus said that the solution rests with her
fellow commissioners focusing on the environmental and traffic concerns of her
northern district, and not blind desire for high taxpayer returns. But that's
the problem with single-member districts, she said.
http://www.cjgrove.com/index.htm
Shannon@hometownnewsol.com
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