SCHMIDT'S ADVOCACY REPORT for May 2025 Newsletter
May 12, 2025 City Commission Meeting:
This commission meeting was excruciatingly long (4 hours), due to an extensive presentation about "Flagler House", a proposed condo tower at 3705 S. Flagler, just a few hundred yards north of Southern Blvd. It will be 18 stories, 39 units, with a concealed garage on 1.4 acres. In order to garner neighborhood support, the project proposes a public path between Washington Road and Flagler Drive along the south side of the property so that pedestrians and dog-walkers can more easily access the waterfront. A crosswalk on Flagler Drive will also be installed, along with a dog & human water fountain. In order to mitigate king-tide incursions on Flagler Drive, the developer (Kolter & Perko) will also install weirs in the storm sewers in that area. Many nearby residents spoke with passion about the project, with approval vs. disapproval evenly split. The motion to approve a rezoning of the 1.4 acres to accommodate Flagler House passed unanimously.

But both sides raised key issues relevant to downtown development: 1) fear among some that an 18 story building will set an unattractive precedent in a neighborhood with much lower buildings, and 2) comments from the developers that old condo buildings (50+ years old) are rapidly becoming uneconomic, because of new state laws that require them to fix structural problems and modern-code non-compliance immediately---whether they have the money or not. This means that older condo buildings are getting socked with higher insurance rates and skyrocketing special assessments---essentially throwing good money after bad. Instead of refurbishing an old condo building, there's increasing financial incentive to tear it down and build anew.

Prior to the Flagler House brouhaha, the Marine Industry Association of Palm Beach County, sponsors of the annual Boat Show, read a glowing report of their attendance figures. They did not do an economic impact study this year, but said they'd try to do one next year.

Assorted city officials also discussed the change in state law that allows them to wrest more money from the county for road improvements downtown. Currently, the County collects two fees from developers: the first is a "road impact fee" to be used for widening roads, adding turn lanes, signal lights, etc. The other is a "mobility fee" used for sidewalks, bus stops, bike lanes, & streetscape. The city believes it lost $25m-$30m of mobility fees over the past 15 years that should have been spent downtown, since that's where most of the development fees are
collected. The commission unanimously approved a resolution allowing the downtown to keep more of that "mobility fee" money.

May 27 City Commission meeting:

There were two items of particular interest to downtowners:

Item 9.2: The owners of Rosemary Square want to change their name back to "City Place"---in keeping with conversational reality. Nobody ever really accepted the old name-change, probably because "Rosemary Square" sounds like a prude from a lame 1950's sit-com. The owners also want to expand the jurisdiction of City Place to include Hibiscus parking garage B, which borders the Brightline tracks. Their purpose is to build an additional 2 floors of parking on top of Hibiscus Garage because the new parking garage across the street will be insufficient to accommodate the 1,000 spaces demanded from the two new office towers. The Commission approved it unanimously. Item 9.1: Yet more debate about "Flagler House," the 18-story condo proposed at 3705 S. Flagler Drive. Just like last commission meeting, several neighbors spoke with vehemence, evenly divided between supporters and opponents. The Commission approved Flagler House unanimously. Most interesting was Commissioner Ward's comment that there must be a more efficient way to weigh and consider all of the inevitable projects that will arise around 3705 S. Flagler---and in her own neighborhood from Currie Park to the Manatee Lagoon. She suggested that instead of having to inefficiently grapple with zoning changes to each parcel individually, the commission should schedule a work session where they change the zoning for select waterfront districts that seem destined for the wrecking ball...such as the block of aged, out-dated condos along Flagler between Southern Blvd. and Monroe. No motion was proposed, but Ward floated the idea, at least.

----Schmidt