Mayor-elect Cary Glickstein’s family friend, retired Judge William Gladstone (center), shares a story before administering the oath of office in the Delray Beach City Commission chambers March 28. Pictured: Commissioner Al Jacquet, Commissioner-elect Shelly Petrolia’s sons, Scott, 10, Alex, 13, Zachary, 13, Anthony, 9, Petrolia, Gladstone, Glickstein and his youngest children Jack, 12, and Lily, 14. Kurtis Boggs/The Coastal Star
By Tim Pallesen
Delray Beach’s newly elected mayor and city commissioner say density incentives are no longer necessary to attract developers to much of the downtown.
“Our focus needs to be on quality, not quantity now,” Cary Glickstein said after winning the March 12 mayoral race.
“The days are long gone when we need to incentivize development in many parts of our downtown,” Glickstein said. “Waterfront development adjacent to Atlantic Avenue is not an area that requires development incentives for economic viability.”
Glickstein defeated Tom Carney in the mayor’s race while another newcomer, Shelley Petrolia, easily beat two opponents for an open commission seat.
“I don’t think there’s a need for incentives any longer. We’re a popular destination,” Petrolia said. “We need to make sure development conforms to the feeling that we’re a little village by the sea.”
Density incentives became a campaign issue after residents fought the Atlantic Crossing project on Atlantic Avenue east of Federal Highway last year.
“I definitely was not in support of what passed,” Petrolia said. “It’s too intense for that corner.”
The Beach Property Owners Association called for the city to review its downtown master plan to identify where incentives are no longer necessary.
“Incentives were needed 20 years ago,” association president Andy Katz said. “Those incentives have worked. We don’t need incentives on East Atlantic Avenue anymore, although they still make sense on West Atlantic Avenue.”
Glickstein and Petrolia both say they support a downtown master plan review.
“Good planning is a proactive, forward-thinking process,” Glickstein said. “Lately, we have had far too much reacting and too little community dialog, which explains why our town is lurching from one controversial project to the next.”
On another issue of concern to coastal residents, Glickstein wants more code enforcement and community policing officers to get tough with sober-house owners who cause problems.
“A significant portion of nonviolent crime in our town relates to transient housing,” the new mayor said. “We need far more feet on the street to enforce our landlord-tenant regulations and Building Department violations, to make it harder for opportunists to survive the economic burden of complying with our codes.”
Glickstein narrowly beat Carney by a 254-vote margin to win the mayor’s job. Petrolia got 56 percent of the vote in a three-way race against Kurt Lehmann and Alexander Christopher.
Voters also approved charter changes on the March 12 ballot.
Commissioners who previously served two-year terms now will serve for three years. Unchanged is the maximum of six years that a commissioner can serve. The time served will no longer count against a commissioner who is elected mayor for another six years.
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