places, Boca Raton and the state can rise to the challenge of rising seas.
Delray city attorney candidate off to Coconut Creek?
Terrell Pyburn, the interim city attorney for Delray Beach, has announced her resignation according to a city spokeswoman. Sources tell us that Pyburn is expected to accept an offer to become city attorney in Coconut Creek.
Wednesday night, the city commission in Coconut Creek—a northwest Broward County city of about 55,000—voted unanimously to offer Pyburn the job, though there is not yet a contract.
Pyburn was one of four candidates for the permanent job in Delray Beach. She had been the interim attorney since January, when Brian Shutt resigned to work for a private firm in West Palm Beach (Pyburn was assistant city attorney under Shutt). The Delray Beach commission will interview city attorney candidates June 3-4 and probably decide immediately after the interviews are done.
I will have much more on this issue in next Tuesday’s post.
Everglades restoration hung out to dry
One key part of South Florida’s water/climate change strategy is Everglades restoration, the $10-billion plus effort that seeks, among other things, to redirect excess rainfall inland from the coast, rather than have that water just flow into the ocean.
So it was beyond disappointing to hear this week that the U.S. House approved a water projects bill that does not include the Central Everglades Planning Project, a key part of Everglades restoration. The Army Corps of Engineers, which must review all such projects, said there was not enough time to do so and get the project into the House bill. Though the Corps may bless the project as early as Friday, the Senate is set to vote on the water bill today, and it is unlikely that there would be any changes.
An official with Audubon of Florida notes, correctly, the Everglades still is “the largest environmental beneficiary” of the bill, which authorizes projects. Spending approval must come later. But it has been seven years since the last water bill, which came seven years after the preceding one. If Congress can return to its historic pattern of passing water bills every two years, the delay for this Everglades project will not be terrible. That’s another reason to wish for a less dysfunctional Congress.
If you build it…?
A decade ago, during the real estate boom, then-West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel—now U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel—touted all the condo towers rising in the city’s downtown. Just imagine, Frankel and other city leaders said, all the economic benefits from those new residents.
But a lot of those condos were bought to flip, not live in. Then the real estate market went bust. Now private investors are buying up many of those condos. All of which makes it hard to tell whether West Palm Beach will get all those new downtown residents merchants were hoping for.
Which brings us to Boca Raton, and its own approval of residential projects to create a busier downtown. Approval of those projects—notably Archstone, on East Palmetto Park Road—supposedly persuaded Trader Joe’s last summer to commit to the company’s store that will anchor the East City Center complex rising on South Federal Highway at Eighth Avenue.
How, though, can Boca Raton avoid becoming like West Palm, where there are many new towers but not enough new, actual residents?
Mayor Susan Haynie says things will be different in Boca because the type of housing is different. Of the three big downtown projects—Camden, Tower One Fifty Five and Archstone—only Tower One Fifty Five is condos. Camden and Archstone are luxury rentals. You don’t flip a rental.
For sure, rental projects have driven much of the post-bust residential building because that’s where the financing has been. It’s why Atlantic Crossing in Delray has so many housing units. One hopes Haynie is right. Boca Raton has bet a lot on the idea that if you build it, they will come.
The Scott Wilson case
One of the saddest—that’s just one possible description—cases ever in Palm Beach County staggers on, as of Wednesday.
The 4th District Court of Appeal ruled 