News

By Steve Plunkett
    
    The much-anticipated list of vacant, undeveloped properties on Boca Raton’s beachfront is a short one.
    “There’s essentially three,” said Briann Harms, assistant executive director of the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District, which undertook the census at Mayor Susan Haynie’s request.
    The idea is for the district to explore buying the properties to protect them from development and set them aside for public use.
    Realistically, the list likely is shorter.
    One of the three parcels, 2500 N. Ocean Blvd., is set to become the site of a four-story, 10,432-square-foot home after winning reluctant approval from the City Council in December. A second property, 2425 N. Ocean, is across State Road A1A from 2500 and is not directly on the beach.
    The third property is two parcels north of 2500 and slightly larger, .4 acres as opposed to .3.
    “It would only be those small pieces as far as we can determine along the entirety of the beachfront,” Arthur Koski, the district’s executive director, told his board of commissioners Feb. 16.
    Koski said he and Harms looked only for parcels that are privately owned and excluded public parks and land owned by condo associations.
    “There is a lot of private property that is under the ownership of the various condominiums,” he said.
    City Council members on Dec. 8 reversed a Zoning Board of Adjustment decision that prohibited construction of the house at 2500 N. Ocean Blvd. The zoning board had refused to grant variances for property width and front yard setbacks.
    City Council members said if the variances were not approved, the city would likely face litigation because similar variances had been approved before. But residents said the four-story house would change the face of the beach, disorient sea turtles and set an unwelcome precedent for development.
    Beach and Park District commissioners told Koski to contact the owners of the three properties to see whether they would be interested in selling them to the district for public use.
    Commissioner Dennis Frisch also asked that the owners of the parcels between the district-owned Ocean Strand property and the two beachside properties be contacted about their willingness to sell.
    “I’d like it to be contiguous to Ocean Strand so somebody can park at Ocean Strand and walk up the beach and not get kicked out by the condominium folks,” Frisch said.
    Those parcels include a duplex property, a walkway owned by the residents of nearby Northeast 24th Street and another owned by the Ocean Club of Boca Raton condo association.
    Save Our Beaches, a group opposed to the four-story home, plans a rally from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 6 on the Ocean Club property, at 2400 North Ocean.
    The parcel west of A1A might be useful for access to the beach if the other properties are bought, Frisch said. “If that’s available that would be a nice parking spot for people to go across,” he said.
    Frisch also asked that a query be sent to the Lago Mar Association, which owns land on the Intracoastal Waterway at the northwest corner of Ocean Strand and the western end of Lago Mar Lane.