A hotel, hundreds of homes and retail in the Ag Reserve? A proposal is in the pipeline

Another mixed-use development may be coming to part of Palm Beach County’s Agricultural Reserve, one of the few swaths of relatively open land left in all of South Florida.

The proposal, which calls for hundreds of homes, retail and a hotel in West Delray, was formerly known as Tenderly Reserve, but has since rebranded and is now called Park West. While supporters applaud the possible arrival of the project’s workforce housing, opponents call out potential traffic concerns and opening the door for other developers to mimic the changes called for by the proposal, effectively altering the Ag Reserve in irreversible ways, they argue.

So far, the Palm Beach County’s Planning Commission voted to recommend denial on the project on April 12. The County Commissioners will consider the recommendation, but they do not have to vote the same way.

As proposed at the planning commission meeting, the project comprises two sites: a 50-acre plot of land wedged at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Florida’s Turnpike, east of Starkey Road, and a 10-acre plot east of Persimmon Avenue and directly south of Atlantic Avenue. Delray Marketplace, the West Atlantic Business Plaza and Delray Lake Estates are all nearby developments.

If approved as is, more than 700 multifamily units a 150-room hotel and hundreds of thousands of square feet of storage, commercial retail and office space would rise on the site. The project may also include an “indoor adventure rec and workspace,” a neighborhood grocery, workforce housing, a main street, town center and a public preserve.

“Park West is a true mixed-use sustainable development,” said Jennifer Morton, the agent behind the application, during the planning commission meeting. “Park West will bring balance to the Ag Reserve as it provides housing alternatives and creates a sense of place for those that live and work in West Delray.”

Morton cited examples of other mixed-use developments in the county, including Mizner Park in Boca Raton, PGA Commons in Palm Beach Gardens and Rosemary Square in West Palm Beach.

“Many of the iconic developments that you see in Palm Beach County are mixed-use,” she said. “Where do people want to be? Where do they want to live? They want to live in mixed-use projects.”

Paul Okean, the applicant behind the proposal, built Morningstar Nursery, Inc. on the site. He said he acquired the land more than 40 years ago when the nursery industry was thriving but has since switched gears.

“There is a housing crisis right now,” he said during the meeting. “We’re trying to address it with our essential housing. We are embracing the workforce housing.”

‘Wrong on so many levels’

County officials and members of the public who came forward to speak against the project largely took issue with the location of the proposal and its requests for county policy exemptions regarding development.

One of those exemptions involves density, which in this context is how many units can be built per acre. Right now, the current land use allows for one unit per 5 acres, which, on a bigger scale, could mean 10 units for every 50 acres. The proposal seeks to bring that density allowance up to 12 units per acre.

The proposal is also seeking to be exempt from a county traffic policy that determines the significance of traffic brought in by development through studies.

Another requested exemption that invoked anger from the commission was a request to allot only 20% of the total project to preserve land, a little more than 16 of the 60 acres, and allow water management to count as part of that preservation.

Normally, development proposals in the Ag Reserve adhere to the 60/40 rule, which states 60% of land must be preserved — not necessarily all in the same place — to allow for 40% to be used for development.

“This is just so wrong on so many levels,” Dagmar Brahs, a planning commission member, said during the meeting. “I’m abhorred. I can’t believe it.”

She equated a 2022 approval called the Essential Housing Future Land Use Designation, which permits residential development in the Ag Reserve up to eight units per acre, to bad sex — an excusable offense. But for Park West to have up to 12 units per acre, it would be “absolutely ridiculous.”

“How do you even come up with requests like that?” she asked during the meeting.

The traffic-inducing aspect of the plan was a major sticking point for critics, who said the area is already plagued with congestion.

“The traffic over there is already a little nutty,” Planning Commissioner David Serle said during the meeting. “(This proposal) doesn’t seem consistent with what’s over there.”

Joseph O’Donnell, who, along with his wife, owns Irish Acres, a horse farm on Starkey Road north of where Park West would be, told the Sun Sentinel the project would put the survival of their business in jeopardy.

Drivers might try to take shortcuts through a private dirt road the O’Donnell’s own, a problem they already face, but it could be amplified by the people who would move into or visit Park West.

Robert Hartsell represents groups against the project as it is proposed, including Irish Acres, Sierra Club and 1,000 Friends of Florida.

“It’s too much, way too much,” he told the Sun Sentinel.

But others are rooting for the project, and even some of the planning commissioners lamented the potential loss of new workforce housing by recommending denial.

Melissa McKeown, who previously owned land in the Ag Reserve and advocated for landowners like herself and Okean to have opportunities to develop their land, said the project is in a prime location, especially for a hotel, and she asked the planning commission to consider letting the “conversation continue” about Park West.

Other groups, such as the Alliance of Delray Residential Associations, the Delray Medical Center and the Delray Lakes Estates president sent in letters expressing support for the project.

The project’s fate will ultimately be decided by the County Commission, which is set to hear it during an initial public hearing on May 1.