News

Work crews contracted by FPL were unloading wooden power poles at a temporary storage site at the Gulf Stream Golf Club. More than 15 poles had been removed by March 22. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Steve Plunkett

Folks who 10 years ago paid special assessments to have the town’s electric, phone and cable TV lines buried underground are visually about to get their money’s worth.
Crews from Florida Power & Light Co. started removing the unsightly power poles in Gulf Stream in early March, Town Manager Greg Dunham told town commissioners at their March 11 meeting.
“In fact, I saw one of the trucks go by during (this) meeting,” Dunham said.
He also reported that Gulf Stream was set to make its last payment in March on the $2.43 million loan it took out in 2012 to fund the project while it collected the property owners’ assessments. Owners of single-family homes paid $11,907 on average, while owners of condominiums paid $7,057 on average, either upfront or in annual installments.
“It’s kind of poetic,” Commissioner Paul Lyons said of the coincidental timing of electric pole removal and debt repayment.
The entire project cost $6.5 million.
Removing the poles will take six to eight weeks, Dunham estimated. The FPL crews started on Golfview Drive and will work their way north through the Core district.
Dunham said they took out three roadside poles on March 10, but said those were easier to remove than poles in easements behind homes, such as those on Polo Drive.
The last poles to go will be those along State Road A1A.
The underground project began in earnest south of Golfview in 2012. That phase finished in 2018. Work on the second phase, from Golfview north, started in late 2016.

In other business:
• Commissioners passed ordinances on first reading to regulate trash collection and outdoor lighting. When approved, the trash ordinance will prohibit residents from putting bulk waste or vegetative debris out for collection more than 24 hours before pickup. Lawn maintenance companies will have to take vegetative debris with them the same day it is created or accumulated.
The outdoor lighting measure will update the town code to refer to the measurement of brightness “using lumens instead of the outdated standard of watts.”
• Heard from Police Chief Edward Allen that a Porsche stolen in 2020 from the 4000 block of North Ocean Boulevard was recovered in Houston, Texas, in February with changed VIN numbers and a black vinyl wrap disguising its original color. Even with the new VIN numbers authorities were able to track the vehicle’s ownership. “There’s hidden VIN plates on all your cars,” Allen said.
• Approved 3-0, with Commissioner Donna White absent and Lyons recusing himself, the site plan for a new home at 4225 N. County Road for Lyons’ daughter, Olivia, and her husband, David Endres.
Lyons and Endres are building a two-story, 2,498-square-foot Gulf Stream Bermuda style dwelling. The house needed four special exceptions: for a 25-foot front setback; for 10-foot side setbacks and a 17-foot-8-inch rear setback; for a 10-foot rear setback for the swimming pool; and to allow for a home of up to 2,500 square feet on a lot of less than 7,576 square feet.
“It’s a nice looking house. Special exceptions are deserved,” Commissioner Joan Orthwein said.
Mayor Scott Morgan said the proposal was in direct contrast to a request in February for a special exception at 588 Banyan Road, which he alone on the commission opposed.
“Last month we debated large homes on large lots and special exceptions; interestingly this month we have a small lot and … the interest of the town in developing, particularly on North County Road, small lots. We don’t want too small a home, but there’s an interest for the town in maintaining a certain architectural integrity,” Morgan said.
“And I think that is what you are attempting to do, that is, put a more spacious home on what is a compromised, small lot. And so it justifies the need for the special exceptions that you have requested,” he said.
“We are trying to balance the need for attractive homes, contemporary homes on small lots by allowing special exceptions whereas on the other hand,” he said, “with large homes on larger lots we may not be quite as forgiving.”