News

By Mary Hladky

    After months of effort, Boca Raton now has a stopgap policy intended to make its downtown more visually appealing.
    But a final policy won’t come for at least four more months as a city subcommittee studies the issue and makes additional recommendations on how developers should include open space in projects they submit to the city for approval.
    The City Council, sitting as the Community Redevelopment Agency board, approved the open space policy by a 5-0 vote on July 25.
    It pushes developers to include open space that can be easily seen by the public, usually at the front of buildings. But it is more flexible than an earlier proposal that would have required open space to be at the front of buildings.
    Local architects at a May meeting opposed the idea, complaining that it would limit their design creativity and would not let them count as open space attractive features such as interior courtyards.
    “It should be predominantly visible [to the public] and connect to the public realm,” CRA Chairman Scott Singer said of the policy’s open-space intentions.
    Commissioner Robert Weinroth sought and received assurances that the city was not opening privately owned open space, such as a condo swimming pool and deck, to the public.
    The intent of the policy is to improve the appearance of downtown by requiring that building projects have open space that residents and visitors can see as they walk or drive downtown, even if they don’t have access to it.
    The matter now goes to a subcommittee of the Downtown Boca Raton Advisory Committee, which will conduct a thorough review and recommend further refinements.
    Committee members asked to be allowed to conduct the review and wanted six to nine months to complete it, but the CRA board limited them to four months.
    The board’s action is the result of the most recent controversy to erupt over downtown development.
    City officials in December discovered a 2003 memo of which they were unaware that had been used as a guide by planning staff evaluating proposed projects for their adherence to open-space requirements. They said the memo was partially erroneous and could have allowed developers to skimp on providing open space.
    Downtown activists were outraged that a potential mistake could have gone undetected for 13 years, and brandished accusations of “corruption” and “conspiracy.”
    That prompted an exhaustive four-month review of downtown projects approved since 1988. But rather than include too little open space, the review found that developers had delivered 26.3 percent more than required under city ordinance.
    Even so, city officials wanted to make sure the city’s open-space requirements are clear and unambiguous. That led to the recommendations to which the architects objected.
    The open-space issue is sensitive because downtown construction is booming, and many activists don’t like the appearance of new buildings they say are too massive and are changing the character of their city.
    These include the Mark at CityScape, a mixed-use project at the southeast corner of Federal Highway and Palmetto Park Road; the Palmetto Promenade, a mixed-use project across the street; and the huge Via Mizner development at the corner of East Camino Real and Federal.