By Anne Geggis
Add Manalapan to the list of coastal municipalities in South Palm Beach County where officials are hearing about larger-sized homes that don’t blend into their existing neighborhoods.
Delray Beach in March passed new limitations for how much square footage can be built based on lot size for homes east of the Intracoastal Waterway. It was a response to complaints about multistory homes with sheer walls that loom over their neighbors’ homes, with every story just as close to the property line as the ground floor. Recent discussions in other coastal communities suggest there’s wider concern with this building trend.
The Gulf Stream Town Commission impaneled a committee in March that could recommend guidelines with a similar impact. An Ocean Ridge commissioner said exploring how to regulate buildings’ mass is one of her goals. And, at an April 24 Manalapan meeting, commissioners heard from upset neighbors about a Point Manalapan home that doesn’t seem to fit there.
“Something has to be done because we are going to lose what we tried to create here in Manalapan,” said Bob Kirkland, who has lived in town since 2003 and works in the real estate business. He described coming out of his door in the morning and describing what he used to see and what he sees now.
“You’d open the door in the morning and the sun would be rising in the East — beautiful,” he said. “Now it’s … an office building-type structure and two blank walls.”
Manalapan Mayor John Deese spoke on behalf of a neighbor who couldn’t be there and suggested that commissioners take a ride by the home on Spoonbill Road to see what they thought.
Commissioner David Knobel said it might be a topic that needs more discussion.
“These properties are worth a lot more money and people are willing to put a lot more money in, right?” Knobel said.
Ocean Blue Custom Homes, based in Delray Beach, is building the home on spec. The company’s principal, Josh Khoury, said it was inspired by another he built not far from there that was featured in Florida Design.
“We feel confident that this will be a beautiful home consistent with other modern contemporary homes in Point Manalapan and the town of Manalapan as a whole,” he said.
At the Ocean Ridge Town Commission’s goal-setting meeting, Commissioner Carolyn Cassidy said she wants more discussion about the stark style she sees emerging.
“They are out of context with the neighborhood,” she said of new construction that has replaced older homes. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
Her view got some validation from the public at the meeting.
“People are getting sick and tired of looking at these things — metal roofs, concrete and stucco with some windows,” said resident Terry Brown. “All of it is no imagination.”
But Mayor Geoff Pugh, contacted after the meeting, said that Ocean Ridge is ahead of the curve in curbing oversized masses of square footage from taking shape in town.
Ocean Ridge already has greater setbacks than most of its neighbors and sheer, multistory walls can’t be erected because town codes already require that a second story have 25% less square footage than the first.
“We tackled that many, many years ago,” Pugh said, dating that effort to the time of Digby Bridges, a former commissioner and mayor, who served from 1993 to 2002.
Pugh cautioned against further restraining investment that people want to make in their homes, or trying to legislate style. It could scare away investment, he said.
“When you can attract people to invest in a town … knocking down an old home and building a new one … that’s a win-win,” he said. “The cost of goods and services that we provide to our residents doesn’t go down … you have to have an influx of new money to keep pace with the costs of goods and services.”
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