Should Deerfield Beach rethink beachside development rules? The city is taking a fresh look

Deerfield Beach voters may get a say on the issue of development along the city’s beach, more than 20 years after setting rules in place.

Beachside development currently is enforced by two amendments in the city’s charter, both of which are the result of residents’ efforts for a referendum that appeared during the Nov. 5, 2002, election. A group called the Original Save Our Beach banded together and gathered signatures needed to get the issue on the ballot, and 75% of voters approved the change.

“The voters confirmed what previous polls by the city stated, that our residents do not want high-rise buildings near the beach, they want parking, but not in massive soaring garages, they want an open space feeling around all buildings,” a resident wrote in a letter to the editor to the South Florida Sun Sentinel in November 2002.

Those two amendments are titled “Protection of beach area from excessive development” and “Protection of main beach parking areas.” They identify specific restrictions on beachside development and beachside parking, such as maximum building height, zoning and the floor-area ratio, or the ratio of a building’s total floor area to the size of the land it sits on.

“The city of Deerfield Beach recognized that its ‘beach area’ (defined as the area between the Intracoastal Waterway and the Atlantic Ocean) is a unique area where the citizens desire to preserve the ‘village’ feel and have protections from the excessive development so as to not exacerbate traffic congestion,” the amendment states.

Now, nearly 24 years later, Deerfield Beach’s entire charter is being reviewed, including the two beachside development amendments. The charter is due for a cleanup, City Commissioner Daniel Shanetzky said.

The city intends to bring amendments for the entire charter to a referendum in November, the city’s Deputy City Manager Eric Power wrote in an email.

In the meantime, the city’s Charter Review Board will continue reviewing the charter, including the beachside development provision, with the goal of making recommendations to the City Commission. The commissioners will then have the final say on any referendums that go before residents.

To help inform decision-making on the beachside development amendments, the city recently hosted a two-day community forum for residents to ask questions, convey concerns and hear insight from an independent group of volunteers made up of planning, construction, development and legal experts who generated recommendations on how to proceed with the beachside development amendments.

“The reason why we’re here today is to hear from you, the public, on what you feel is good, bad and ugly,” Power said during the first meeting. “What you like about it, what you don’t like about it and what we can do for the future.”

Staying the same vs. building an identity

Two opposing viewpoints became clear during the community forum. Some residents want the amendments to stay exactly the same, concerned that modifications will bring unwanted development. But others fear that by refusing to change, growth in Deerfield Beach will remain stagnant.

No time limit on public comment existed the way it does during City Commission meetings.

Some residents made the most of it, veering off into unrelated topics and protesting when Power attempted to move the meeting along by giving the microphone to someone else.

The group was diverse, by civic engagement standards: Retirees, teachers, lawyers, environmentalists, real estate agents and business folks all came forward to share their thoughts.

Finding beauty in Deerfield

Ira Wechterman, who founded the nonprofit Friends of Deerfield Island Park, said during the meeting that he moved to the city because it’s not like its neighbors.

“It’s not overhyped, it’s not oversold. It’s not like Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and now Pompano Beach,” Wechterman said during the first community meeting. “When you drive down Hillsboro toward the beach, you’re not looking at a wall of monstrous hotels and condominiums. … We don’t need tall shadows covering the beach area.”

Kim Cornelius, another resident, said during the meeting there’s no reason to make any “great changes” to the charter.

“What do I envision for the future? I would like it to pretty much remain the same,” she said at the meeting.

But those in the business community wouldn’t mind seeing the beach development amendments altered for the sake of economic growth.

Claude Dubois, the general manager for Wyndham Deerfield Beach Resort, said during the meeting that the hotel’s owner would like to grow business on the beach but aren’t convinced it would be worth it.

“There are multiple properties for sale on the property that are no interest to the investors due to the height of those buildings,” Dubois said. “We want to respect the family feel that Deerfield Beach offers. We don’t want the high towers that Pompano Beach, Miami has, but we would like to be able to increase the height of potential new acquisitions, to eight, 10, maybe 12 floors, nothing crazy.”

Joe Chancy, who works in real estate, said during the meeting he’s experienced several businesses pass up on the opportunity to operate in Deerfield Beach because it has “nothing to offer.”

“I know a lot of us are more of, ‘Hey, keep things the same,’” Chancy said at the meeting. “I’m not for 20, 30, 50 stories, but at the same token, we need to be competitive. … We have to have our own identity.”

Rethinking the charter provision

After the initial feedback session, the independent panel presented findings and recommendations. Their primary conclusion?

“It’s very atypical for you to find very strict zoning and land-use regulations in a city charter. It’s not in the right place,” Nelson Stabile said in an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel after the second community forum meeting. Stabile is the chair of mission advancement for the Urban Land Institute, which is a nonprofit aimed at helping communities and governments with sustainable development and growth.

Stabile explained how the specific rules set forth in the city’s charter amendments — such as the maximum height for a multi-family property being 55 feet — should belong in the city’s land development code.

“We’re not saying increase the height, that we need to be very clear. We’re not saying increase floor area ratios, increase lot coverage, increase basically anything,” Stabile said. “Modify it to a typical regulatory framework and then put all of those criteria of height, specifics, in place at that point, and whether they want to change or not, they could keep it exactly the same way as it is currently in the charter but just in the right place.”

The beachside development rules’ existence in the charter — which can only be amended through an election — creates a very restrictive environment for the city, “to the point where it’s detrimental to property values,” Stabile said.

A land development code, on the other hand, can be amended by the City Commission with an ordinance. Most Florida cities have a land development code, according to the city.

“We all appreciate (the charter’s) purpose, its intended purpose, and what it has achieved,” said Michael Marshall, a land-use attorney with Nelson Mullins. “Over the course of two decades though, as we can see, it’s led to some undesirable consequences at least when you look at it objectively from purposes of economic development, for maintaining quality of construction and for inviting or incentivizing the private sector to reinvest and to keep investing into the community rather than to disinvest.

“We really, really strongly recommend you need to rethink that charter provision,” Marshall said. “And then it may be that you go through a visioning process, develop something that works for you.”