Delray Beach planning board OKs Midtown Delray project

in before Delravian

Da Truth is fast!!!!

Not much to say on this other than whoever buys these units will have instant equity. This is a prime flipping opportunity for anyone earning $60K. Oh, and by the way, affordable workforce housing is really more defined as affordable rental housing.

Who are these people? Why would they vote on something when they publicly acknowledge they did not have all the information?

I guess if you are a volunteer you have a license to be dumb... "Hey, we are all volunteers!" And, so much for city staffing of this board.

Here is the cast of characters:

Chair, Mark Krall
First Vice-Chair, Paul Zacks Second Vice-Chair,Deborah Dowd
Francisco Perez-Azua
Joseph Pike
Cary Glickstein

The packed room was HOT, the mics weren't on for the public standing outside the packed room to hear & I cldn't believe the P&Z meeting didn't get done until 10:30 PM! A bone of contention not mentioned in the article: substandard architecture even with the 5 Mil (the grant deadline is the real pressure here!) & weakish landscaping. Michael Weiner sure didn't make any friends last nite especially with the cross examination of a regular person that spoke at the public meeting (he apologized for his earlier veiled threat,'cld easily be another ugly strip mall'-which by the way is true. Anyway, the community is concerned with the traffic back up on Germantown Road which was likened to Atlantic High by one of the P&Z board members. It seemed to me that the P&Z board was quick to pass bucks to both SPRAB and the City Comsn. By the way, Joe Gray with the CLT didn't do such a good job last nite.

The meeting last night was offensive! The concerned citizens living on Old Germantown Road were treated as if we had no ability to think for ourselves. The objection to the Midtown Delray development is traffic and height of buildings, not workforce housing! The Executive Director from the Community Land Trust office was apparently trying to use the race card to push this development, using his in-laws as an example by stating they "didn't fit in" on Old Germantown Road and this development would allow for more minorities to live on Old Germantown Road. I guess he has never taken a walk down the road, because there are people of all races living on this road. Another person on the planning and zoning board stated he had been to New Mexico and he got stuck in traffic, therefore he realized Florida's traffic "wasn't that bad."
Yet another member said he had been to Blood's Groves and the parking lot was full, therefore Old Germantown Road could handle the traffic. Yes, these were reasons given to allow the Midtown Delray development!
When it came time to vote on the development, several of the members admitted the design plans were ugly and they didn't know if the plan exceeded the legal amount of homes allowed to be built on the property, yet they voted for the development.
Finally, the development does not match the housing and other buildings along Old Germantown, it will stick out like a sore thumb. It seems that the board was only concerned with getting their names attached to passing workforce housing, which if you check out the north side of Old Germantown Road, there are a minimum of three large developments with homes that sell in the 200's.

My condo has been for sale and affordable, less than 200,000 for 6 months. We do not need any more development in this area at this time. Everybody knows it's out of control here.

I can't believe what is happening here. Why is the city bending the rules because a developer got a 5 million grant to subsidize the cost of 30 apartments. That translate into a subside of $166,666 per apartment. There are plenty of low income homes in Delray that you buy for this price. So, it is not an affordable housing issue.
What trouble me the most is the fact that the 94-acre parcel was zoned for 680 homes in 1995. Nobody in the meeting could tell how many units are there already. No Problem, I went there and counted them. There are 273 homes at Hammock Reserve and 404 homes in Citation. That makes a total of 677 homes.
Yes! There are already 677 homes on the original 94-acre parcel!!
That means that only 3 more units can be built on this parcel!! And the builder wants to build additional 116 homes!!
And quite frankly, this project doesn't fit on Germantown road. It completely destroys the character of the area. It would overload the already busy traffic. Why are we protecting the interest of the builder in detriment of so many residents and taxpayers of this area.

There is a website with information and links regarding Midtown Delray http://www.midtowndelray.com

There seems to be a mass of misformed individuals, who have volunteered to be the voice of confusion. The area in question which many have stated is all single story and there are no multilevel residential units in the vicinity does infact have developemtns consisting of Three and even five story dwellings just to the east. The traffic concern is an issue within itself that should have been addressed long before the talk of ANY development came. No matter what is placed on that land there will be an impact on traffic. The development has already received waves of support from the surrounding 'opposing' communities for developing workforce units, and this by no means is an issue. Not to mention that just a few miles north lies a workforce initiated development consisting of over 400 plus units that sits on the same street with a school, and I have never experienced any traffic congestion within the communtiy...We should all know by now that there is no 680 threshold and even with the 116 units the development is well below the allowable size...Please know the facts before spreading something only because your neighbor told you.
This is a golden opportunity to provide residences to this communities essential workforce. We (Delray Beach) have been given a sizable and extremely competitive grant that makes it possible. We can not afford to not use this or any other oppportuntiy such as this, to provide homes for those we as a community need to reside here....and if you truly support work force housing as you say you do, then there are things that you the opposing community can do and not just the developer to assist in calming the traffic, which if you think about it you could have done long ago... Please know the facts.