The Town-Crier
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February 3 - February 9, 2017
Page 3
NEWS
Indian Trail Discusses Ways Of Resolving 60th Street Woes
By Ron Bukley Town-Crier Staff Report The Indian Trail Improvement District Board of Supervisors heard updated reports last week on the status of 60th Street North and berms that have been placed by the City of West Palm Beach, closing off intersections along the road, especially Mandarin Blvd., which had been used by parents to access schools in the area. The City of West Palm Beach is planning improvements to the M Canal, which is owned by the city and feeds into its water supply at the Grassy Waters Preserve. The closures are part of an overall canal improvement project that includes culvert improvements at bridges over the canal, although a
crossing of the M Canal at 180th Avenue North, which was requested by residents, has not been included and leads to a backup at Tangerine Blvd. by parents waiting for school pickup and drop-off at Frontier Elementary School and Osceola Creek Middle School. The closures are part of a settlement reached by property owners in 2007 with the City of West Palm Beach, according to staff reports, but residents along 60th Street North have since complained about the resulting street closures. At the Jan. 24 meeting, ITID Engineer Jay Foy said that the district’s law firm, Caldwell & Pacetti, had provided a detailed report on the settlement’s background.
“There is a lot of detail in there, and there was misrepresentation,” Foy said. “Essentially, it was settled in 2007, and negotiations that occurred before that were rolled into the settlement, so it makes whatever was said settled. So even if somebody didn’t get what they wanted, it was settled.” Foy added that he and his staff had met with Palm Beach County School District representatives about access to the schools on 180th Avenue North. “They said they have money in their existing budget, not the new half-cent sales tax, that they get to address such issues,” he said. “They were going to look at internal circulation issues.” He mentioned the possibility of
Help Wellington Win By Logging ‘Let’s Move’ Minutes In March
By Julie Unger Town-Crier Staff Report Ultima Fitness & Wellness — arm-in-arm with the Village of Wellington — is working to help make Wellington residents healthier. The Palm Healthcare Foundation’s fifth annual “Let’s Move: Commit to Change Physical Activity Challenge” starts March 1 and will continue throughout the month. “The reason that the Palm Healthcare Foundation is doing it is because we exist to improve health in Palm Beach County,” said Marge Sullivan, the foundation’s vice president for communication. “One of our priority areas is preventing diabetes and helping people who have it manage it. We
know that physical activity is key. When people are active, and they keep moving, they can sometimes prevent Type 2 diabetes.” Last year, the Ultima/Wellington team made it to the county’s top 10, coming in fifth. At the end of the challenge, winning teams will be announced and honored. The program, modeled after a national campaign that former First Lady Michelle Obama started for people to get more active and eat more nutritious food, has grown tremendously, Sullivan said. Ten teams participated the first year, logging 100,000 minutes. In 2016, 48 teams competed in the challenge, where they were asked to log their minutes of physical activity. More than 10 million
Wellington TownDiLallo, Crier Senior ad_Layout 1 11/23/16 PMWilliams Page 1 Dr. Matthew Jessica and Jill Merrell, 8:22 Shelly
and Scott Campbell at last year’s “Let’s Move” kickoff.
minutes were logged last year, up from the 2015 total of 2.8 million minutes. The challenge is free to join, and teams can be entire communities, after-school programs, banks, corporate partners, soccer teams, neighborhoods or even families. Teams can sign up now, Sullivan said, but won’t be able to log their minutes until March 1. “The whole goal of it is to get as many people logging their minutes as possible,” Sullivan said. The Palm Healthcare Foundation challenges participants to be active at least 30 minutes a day. Any type of sustained physical activity, such as gardening, dancing, running or any other activity, counts toward the challenge’s goal of promoting physical activity, nutrition and healthy behaviors. Special events, such as those that will be coordinated by Wellington and Ultima, will be loaded onto the Let’s Move web site over the next few weeks. WPECChannel 12 and ESPN are also partners and will be broadcasting updates about the initiative. In Wellington, Jill Merrell of Ultima Fitness is looking forward to being the fitness provider for Wellington and continuing to participate in this initiative. Ultima became involved in the Let’s Move initiative early, liked the program and partnered with the village. “Ultima’s goal is to see how we See FITNESS, page 17
tying the two loops together, since the adjacent schools convene and let out at different times, which could triple the stacking distance. “They are going to look at it and get back to us,” Foy said. “They might be able to solve the problems internally with zero cost to us, and traffic would not back up on Tangerine.” Supervisor Carol Jacobs said part of the issue is that parents park their cars on Tangerine waiting for their children, which contributes to the congestion there. “When school is letting out,
they take their cars and park their cars right in a row and the police officers do nothing,” Jacobs said. She asked if a grassy strip along Tangerine could be converted into a holding lane so parents don’t park on the road. “They should not be allowed to totally shut their car off in the middle of the road,” she said. Jacobs asked staff whether the negotiations with the school district seemed likely to produce results. “I hope you spoke to somebody who can make decisions,” she said. “I don’t want this to go
on for a year.” Jacobs added that she wondered about the billable legal fees that the district incurred during the process of the settlement on 60th Street, which she said is not really resolved. “There is no solution there, and that is a mess,” she said, explaining that many of the residents have created their own makeshift solutions to get in and out of their homes. “You have a bunch of homes that are on dead ends since you closed 60th [Street] going to the north.”
Palm Beach County Commission Postpones Iota Carol Decision
By Ron Bukley Town-Crier Staff Report The Palm Beach County Commission postponed a final decision on the Iota Carol/Delray Linton Groves development, along with the project’s proportional share agreement, at a transmittal hearing held Monday. The approval would allow a density increase from rural residential one unit per 10 acres to up to 0.8 units per acre for a total of 1,030 housing units, 112,000 square feet of commercial space and up to 112,123 square feet of community uses on the 1,288-acre site west of 190th Avenue North off 60th Street North, west of The Acreage. The commissioners transmitted the project to the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity in November by a 4-2 vote with Mayor Paulette Burdick and Vice Mayor Melissa McKinlay opposed. Included was a new designation of “western communities residential” that allowed the density increase. The site is almost completely surrounded by GL Homes’ 4,872acre Indian Trail Groves project, which was approved in September for a similar density, allowing the development of up to 3,997 homes and 350,000 square feet of commercial use. To the south is Minto’s 3,800-acre Westlake project. Other major residential projects nearby include the Highland Dunes/Arden development, approved in 2005 but just now getting underway, and the Avenir project along Northlake Blvd.,
approved recently by the City of Palm Beach Gardens. Ken Tuma with Urban Design Kilday Studios, representing Delray Linton Groves, said that over the past week, they had had several requests regarding transportation numbers and how it affects the surrounding off-site roadway network. “We’ve met with several of the commissioners asking specific questions. Our transportation engineer has spent a considerable amount of time going through those numbers,” Tuma said. “We have got to the bottom of those numbers, but we have not had the opportunity to have those vetted by the county engineer, so I’m not comfortable presenting those until he has been given that opportunity.” After several members of the public expressed opposition to the postponement, McKinlay made a motion not to postpone transmittal, which was seconded by Burdick for discussion. Commissioner Steve Abrams made an alternative motion to postpone the hearing to the April 26 hearing, which was seconded by Commissioner Mary Lou Berger. Commissioner Mack Bernard asked County Engineer George Webb how long it would take for him to review the traffic numbers. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I have no idea what they’re doing,” Webb said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take because I don’t know what they’re going to present me.” Berger said the letter from
the developer simply said they had asked for a postponement to April 26. Tuma said the April 26 secondround meeting is the most appropriate time to which the amendment can be postponed. “This has been transmitted to the [Department of Economic Opportunity], and they came back with comments,” McKinlay said. “It’s gone through the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. They came back not supporting this project. It has been vetted before us upon transmittal. I have grave concerns about adding additional large-scale developments in this part of the county at this time, and I think we need to hold off moving this project forward. I would request that we deny the postponement and take a vote on this today.” Burdick noted that Department of Economic Opportunity, which rarely has provided comments on projects, has significant concerns. “When Treasure Coast nearly unanimously opposes a project for a variety of reasons, I think we need to go back and take a look at it, and we need to bring a different project back, given the transportation and given the services that will be needed in the area,” Burdick said. The motion to deny the postponement failed 4-2, with Abrams, Berger, Bernard and Commissioner Dave Kerner opposed, and Commissioner Hal Valeche absent. Abrams’ motion to postpone carried 4-2, with Burdick and McKinlay opposed.
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