By Steve Plunkett
A lushly landscaped triplex and duplex will replace the giant mound of dirt across from the 4001 condo project being built on State Road A1A in Gulf Stream.
Town commissioners approved the multifamily development Aug. 10 after noting the project was a compromise between the four units town code would permit and the seven units the county allowed before Gulf Stream annexed the wedge-shaped parcel in March 2011.
One of developer OK Seahorse LLP’s buildings will be Georgian architecture, the other Anglo-Caribbean. Its original proposal put the two-story villas in one long structure.
“It’s a far better plan than the rowhouses,” Mayor Joan Orthwein said.
In the two weeks between approval by the Architectural Review and Planning Board and the commission meeting, OK Seahorse made further concessions: trimming 236 square feet from the structures to reduce the footprint from 36 percent of the parcel to 35 percent, moving the swimming pools to 10 feet from the rear property line instead of 8 feet, and making the two buildings 30 feet apart instead of 25 feet.
Residents in Polo Ridge just south of the site opposed the plan.
“The consequence of the five-unit proposal will literally eliminate the privacy of our four northern residents,” wrote Ron Pedersen, president of the Polo Ridge Homeowners Association, urging the town to limit the site to only four townhomes.
“I can assure you from the second floor you can clearly see over there,” Polo Ridge resident Robert Grover complained at the meeting.
The developer will plant Australian pines along the roadway to mimic A1A’s scenic appeal farther south and to help conceal the multifamily buildings.
“In the matter of a year or so this project pretty much is not going to be very visible from the road at all,” OK Seahorse architect Benjamin Schreier said.
Earlier in the meeting Town Clerk Rita Taylor swore in Bob Ganger and Tom Stanley as commissioners to fill the vacancies created by the death of Mayor William Koch Jr. and the departure of Vice Mayor Fred Devitt III.
Right after taking his seat, Stanley had to recuse himself while his wife, Kirsten, pled their case to expand their historic Polo Cottage and enlarge the garage a total of 1,492 square feet.
Right now the kitchen ceiling is too low for her 6-foot-4-inch husband to comfortably enter and she counts on him to do the cooking, she said.
Commissioners approved the renovation 4-0.
Praise for Stanley and Ganger came at the end of the meeting. “Congratulations to our two new commissioners,” Orthwein said.
“We just decimated the ARPB,” Commissioner Garrett Dering added. “Do we need to do something quickly here?”
Orthwein said she hoped residents would volunteer for the open architectural review spots.
She also said she asked the town manager to investigate launching an official town website.
Gulf Stream
Current tax rate: $2.93 per $1,000 of taxable property
Proposed tax rate: $3.10
Public hearings: 5:01 p.m. Sept. 14 and 25
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