By Drew Martin
On Wednesday, February 2, 2022, the Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners will be asked to change the Comprehensive Plan for the Agricultural Reserve and vote to proceed with a dangerous and unprecedented developer text amendment. This amendment will begin the process of transferring development rights in the Indian Trail Improvement District area into the Agricultural Reserve. If the county moves forward with this amendment, it will permit aggressive development that will violate the purpose of the Agriculture Reserve as an area of open space, agriculture, and wetlands.
Residents voted to spend 100 million to purchase land to be preserved for agriculture. GL Homes wants to swap already protected areas of the Ag Reserve for areas of lesser value and use it to open up development of areas that are currently in Agriculture West of State Road 7. The land in the Indian Trails Improvement District is not as valuable and the right to develop on it has many conditions. The county hopes that it might use the land that it gains for environmental purposes. However, as an environmental organization, we at Sierra Club believe that sacrificing the valuable lands in the Ag Reserve that are in active agriculture and would remain in agriculture forever for land that is mostly already protected gives taxpayers very little and sacrifices years of planning. Also, it would sidetrack many other valuable projects, as the staff would be asked to set aside most of their work for the year to work on this single proposal for one developer.
How has the county preserved agriculture and open space in the Agricultural Reserve? This has been done by requiring a portion of the Agricultural Reserve to be set aside through the establishment of Conservation Easements. In order to build on the remaining land, a developer must purchase or own preserve land or the preservation rights on existing preserved land. This prevents more than the allotted 40 percent of development. These proposals seek to undermine the existing preservation components by either reducing or eliminating land protection requirements. The Agricultural Reserve is ideally suited for agriculture and should not be constantly developed, violating its intended purpose.
Take Action
Please contact your Palm Beach County Commissioners and ask them to vote down this developer-initiated text amendment. This proposal would defeat the current comp and zoning protections by changing the restriction that the land can only be developed in the Ag Reserve for land concurrently protected in the Ag Reserve.