News

By Dan Moffett

    A Lantana resident and a Manalapan homeowners group have joined forces and filed suit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court to block construction of a Publix at Plaza del Mar.
    The suit claims the town acted illegally in July when commissioners approved a site plan for the plaza’s renovation and new supermarket. A specific complaint is that the town did not require an adequate traffic study before advancing the plan.
    The owners of the plaza, MSKP Plaza Del Mar LLC, are joining with the town to defend against the suit, filed by Barbara Federico and residents of La Coquille Club Villas.
    “Do La Coquille residents really understand that they are the defendant and the plaintiff in this case?” Mayor David Cheifetz wondered during the Sept. 14 commission meeting.
    Former Manalapan Vice Mayor Robert Evans, a homeowner at La Coquille behind the plaza, has made repeated appeals to the commission to rein in plans for bulldozing much of the plaza to accommodate the 26,000-square-foot Publix. Evans and other La Coquille residents said they favored a smaller grocery store, such as the one that operated on the property years ago.
    “We would have preferred a market in the old space,” Evans said in one of his appeals.
    Federico has lived on Beach Curve Road on Hypoluxo Island for 14 years in a home that’s 500 feet from the plaza. She says the proposed store is too large for the neighborhood and sure to cause traffic problems.
    “My main motivation is the size of the store,” she said of filing suit. “It is inappropriate for the community and incompatible with the area.”
    Town Attorney Keith Davis said the plaza owners intend to move forward with construction as they fight the lawsuit. He said the town’s legal fees “will be greatly reduced” because the owners are providing for most of the defense.
    In other business:
    • Many Manalapan homeowners will enjoy a reduction in their next tax bills as the town’s budget grows fatter from strong building fee revenues and higher property values.
    Commissioners unanimously approved a final tax rate of $2.79 per $1,000 of taxable value for the new budget, roughly 0.7 percent below the rollback rate of $2.81 that holds tax revenues flat.
    “This is the lowest it’s been since 2011-2012,” Cheifetz said, “and unassigned revenue is the highest it’s been since 2011.”
    Property values in the town continue to rise faster than those elsewhere in Palm Beach County — up 9.9 percent over last year, compared with the county average of about 6 percent. The town has an assessed value of $1.1 billion, according to the Property Appraiser’s Office, with an average market price of $4.2 million, the county’s highest.
    The new budget benefits from the impending completion of the Audubon Causeway bridge project, which drained close to $1 million from capital accounts. The town also has resolved several nagging legal matters and expects to have lower legal expenses.
    • Commissioners are waiting on the results of another consultant’s study to decide how to go about negotiating a new water contract with Hypoluxo.
    Town Manager Linda Stumpf said Kevin O’Donnell of Nova Energy Consultants of Cary, N.C., is doing a rate analysis of Hypoluxo customers, and also analyzing the potential impact on Manalapan’s system if Hypoluxo decides to go elsewhere for service. Stumpf said Boynton Beach’s water utility could offer Hypoluxo residents a deal with “very, very low rates.”
    • Vice Mayor Peter Isaac said reconstruction of the Audubon Causeway bridge is on schedule to be completed by the end of November. “There will still be a lot of tidying up to do” through the end of the year, he said.