By Steve Plunkett
A new wave of building will be coming soon to Bluewater Cove — site plans for four more houses in the 14-lot Gulf Stream subdivision were reviewed by the planning advisory board last month.
Boca Raton-based Courchene Development Corp. wants to build on the four lots just east of three that are already under construction. Each one will have a different style.
The projects are:
• 2915 Bluewater Cove, a 5,461-square-foot Gulf Stream Bermuda style residence
• 2917 Bluewater Cove, a 5,462-square-foot Anglo-Caribbean style residence
• 2914 Bluewater Cove, a 5,464-square-foot Georgian style residence
• 2916 Bluewater Cove, a 5,461-square-foot West Indies style residence
All four are one-story, single-family dwellings, each including a two-car garage and swimming pool on its 16,560-square-foot lot. The projects will return to the planning board on Oct. 26.
Additionally, town officials made progress in September in bringing up to code the long-abandoned home at 2900 Avenue Au Soleil, located just south of Bluewater Cove and fronting the Intracoastal Waterway.
At an Aug. 30 hearing, Special Magistrate Kevin M. Wagner gave the property owner, AAS LLC, 14 days to get a building permit and 14 more days to repair “so as not to leak” the roofs of both the main house and an accessory garage. The roofs also needed to be cleaned and painted.
Contractor John Carew had already covered the swimming pool with plywood and installed a pump to make sure stagnant water would no longer accumulate. He also had the grounds trimmed, mowed and cleaned of debris.
Wagner scheduled a fine assessment hearing for Oct. 4 in case the code violations were not remedied. The home’s previous owners racked up $200,000 in code enforcement fines that the Town Commission reduced in 2019 to $20,000 in an effort to get new owners for the property. The property has changed hands at least once since then, according to property appraiser records.
In other business, the Town Commission was scheduled to give final approval on Oct. 4 to an $18.8 million budget for the year beginning Oct. 1.
Commissioners were originally set to approve the budget Sept. 27 but their vote was delayed for lack of a quorum. Two of the five commissioners had already said they would miss the meeting; two more had “unforeseen circumstances.”
“We went from barely meeting our quorum of three to having only one,” Town Attorney Trey Nazzaro said. Property owners will pay the same rate for town taxes as the previous year, $3.67 per $1,000 of taxable value, or $3,672 for a home valued at $1 million.
The town’s tax base grew roughly 16%, to $1.65 billion.
Notable expenses planned for the new fiscal year include $6.5 million for road and drainage improvements in the Core District. That work will start in January.
Gulf Stream will also buy a $53,000 police cruiser and a $39,000 water valve exercise machine to automate maintenance on the water mains. Town employees will receive a 5% cost-of-living increase in salaries.
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