Avenir Archives - OnGardens

No speedway here: Residents win fight to block eight-laning of Northlake

Palm Beach County drops road widening options for western section of Northlake Boulevard despite anticipated rise in traffic from large new communities.

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, the original story published Feb. 3, 2023, incorrectly attributed to Palm Beach Gardens City Attorney Max Lohman comments from the audience at the Jan. 13, 2023, Planning Commission meeting. The comments were made by Avenir attorney Brian Seymour, not Mr. Lohman. The story has been updated as of Feb. 5, 2023, to remove the incorrect information.

Palm Beach County planners and engineers, girding for construction of thousands of homes, are certain that sometime in the next 10 years traffic will dictate the eight-laning of parts of Northlake Boulevard.

Residents of the western gated communities in Palm Beach Gardens and West Palm Beach are equally certain an eight-lane road outside their neighborhoods would be a disaster, eliminating slow-down lanes, decorative entryways and lush landscaping to make way for a dangerous speedway.

On Wednesday, the residents won.

Northlake widening study pits county vs city. Again.

Palm Beach Gardens City Manager tells council that Palm Beach County engineer abruptly backed out of a meeting to share information about county’s $400,000 study of eight-laning Northlake Boulevard east of the Beeline.

Palm Beach County wants to spend $400,000 to study eight-laning Northlake Boulevard from Military Trail to Beeline Highway.

Palm Beach Gardens and its many homeowners associations along the six-lane roadway want no such thing.

But the potential to talk out their differences blew up publicly last week when County Engineer David Ricks refused to attend a meeting with Palm Beach Gardens City Manager Ron Ferris.

“I got a phone call from David Ricks, who said he was advised from higher ups at the administration level he is not to meet with the city of Palm Beach Gardens,” Ferris told City Council members Thursday night.

Sharp rise in tax base for Palm Beach Gardens

After two slow years, Palm Beach Gardens property values rises 13.9 percent, most in north county. It remains to be seen if that translates into rising tax bills.

Palm Beach Gardens property values rose 13.9 percent, the highest gain since the run up to the 2008 housing crash, preliminary figures released May 27 by the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser’s Office show.

It’s the first double-digit increase in taxable values for the city since 2006, when values rose a housing boom-fueled 29 percent after four straight years of double-digit increases. It puts the city tax base at $15.4 billion, about double what it was 10 years ago.

Who will represent Palm Beach Gardens? Are two state House members better than one?

Is it better to have two state House members and two state senators answering to the same community? Or does that water down representation? Gardens will soon find out.

Some of the biggest western communities in Palm Beach Gardens, including PGA National, Mirasol and Avenir, would be severed from the city and lumped into a sprawling state House district spanning the Glades and The Acreage, under a House map approved Feb. 3.

Those same communities, plus Old Palm and Ballenisles, would be separated from the city in a Senate map change that would replace the city’s lone state senator, Bobby Powell, with two.

No flyover? No problem. FDOT says U-turn solution better

Residents fear nearly complete design at Northlake-Beeline intersection could become a chokepoint to The Acreage, Avenir, other western communities.

U-turns and a newfangled left-turn lane at the Northlake-Beeline intersection will do a better job of moving traffic smoothly and safely than a flyover, FDOT officials said Wednesday during a community Zoom meeting.

Not everyone at the meeting was convinced.

State plans U-turns, crossover lane at Beeline-Northlake

With flyover out, planners propose ways to avoid left turns at critical western intersection.

Years after local politicians scrapped plans for a Northlake Boulevard flyover at the Beeline Highway, the state has called for U-turns and an unusual lane configuration to smooth traffic flow at the major western intersection.

With construction expected to start in summer, the biggest change is how cars would turn without gumming up the intersection that funnels traffic in and out of The Acreage and nearby communities and handles truck traffic feeding the Port of Palm Beach.