Credit U.S. Rep. Lois Frankel for the breakthrough that could allow Delray Beach, Boca Raton and other Florida cities finally to regulate sober homes.
Last week, the departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development released an updated joint statement on group homes as the Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act apply to them. The previous statement, in 1999, undercut any attempt at local regulation of sober homes, as Boca Raton discovered in its unsuccessful lawsuit.
Last spring, at Frankel’s urging, HUD officials traveled to Delray Beach and saw what the city is dealing with. Unregulated sober homes have proliferated, harming traditional residential neighborhoods and allowing bad operators to exploit those in recovery. Frankel hoped for a new statement by August, but Washington moves slowly.
Delay, however, does not diminish the potential result. Delray Beach Mayor Cary Glickstein called the statement “significant, based on our reading of it.” Interim City Attorney Max Lohman has been dealing with the problem in Palm Beach Gardens, another Lohman client.
Option, Glickstein said, could be for Delray Beach to declare a “zoning in progress” on group homes, meaning that the city would process no new applications. Governments take such action while drawing up rules for a certain type of business. Delray Beach did that while crafting rules for tattoo parlors that are on tonight’s city commission agenda. Almost any action, Glickstein believes, would lead to litigation. He’s probably right. There’s big money in the sober home business.
Frankel’s newly drawn district includes just Boca Raton and Highland Beach in Palm Beach County. The rest is in Broward County. In January, Ted Deutch becomes Delray Beach’s representative in Congress. If the statement as is important as Glickstein believes, however, all Floridians will owe Frankel thanks for forcing this issue.
Development of Uptown Atlantic
Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency Director Jeff Costello told me Monday that he has “no concern” about the developer of Uptown Atlantic being able to close on the property by Dec. 1. Yet there is concern in Delray about the project.
Recently, City Commissioner Jordana Jarjura asked John Flynn for “updates.” Flynn is president of Equity Enterprises of Palm Beach Gardens. Equity Delray, the developer of Uptown Atlantic, is a subsidiary of Equity Enterprises. The request prompted an exchange involving Flynn, Jarjura and other Delray Beach residents who support redevelopment of the three blocks on West Atlantic Avenue that are east of the Fairfield Inn & Suites.
The CRA assembled the roughly 6-acre property, which Equity Delray would buy for $1.2 million. The project would have 112 residential units, a restaurant, plus office and retail space that is supposed to include a grocery store. Uptown Atlantic is envisioned as the long-awaited stimulus for wider redevelopment of West Atlantic. Continuing questions about the project have worried not only Jarjura but also members of the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition.
Five months ago, the city commission approved the plat and waivers. But Equity Delray must satisfy other conditions before being able to close. Costello said Flynn is scheduled to appear at Thursday’s CRA meeting — to provide “updates.” Yet when I spoke with Flynn on Monday, he said, “I don’t really know” what the CRA board members want to hear.
From reading the emails and Flynn’s Oct. 31 letter to Jarjura, the main questions surround Uptown Atlantic’s financing and its contractor. Important as financing is, let’s deal more with the contractor.
When the CRA chose Equity Delray from along three applicants in October 2013, the company was the staff’s second choice. The staff preferred Jones New Urban Delray and its “Atlantic Village.”
Equity Delray, however, won over the CRA board with its commitment to local hiring. Equity Delray stated that its general contractor would be Randolph & Dewdney, “an African American-owned, Delray Beach-based organization with more than 65 years of collective experience. . .Our team will employ local people throughout the project, from architects and engineers to construction supervisors and laborers.” Dwayne Randolph is the son of a former city commissioner.
Now, however, Dewdney and Randolph isn’t the contractor. Flynn said the company “can’t get bonded” for the $40 million project. “We tried everything to help them.” If the company could get bonded “we’d be happy to use them.”
Flynn said he is in “advanced-stage negotiations” with two contractors that he would not name. Will he know by Thursday’s CRA meeting? “Possibly.”
One theory I am hearing is that Equity Delray knew from the start that the company wouldn’t be able to get adequate bonding, but used the company’s local reputation to get the CRA’s approval. Flynn denied that. “If we’re guilty of anything,” he said, “it’s naivety.”
A related suspicion is that Flynn intends to flip the project once he closes on the land. With those actions in April, the city commission is done with Uptown Atlantic unless there’s a change to the site plan and couldn’t intervene if Flynn did try to flip, which Flynn said he has “no intention of doing.”
That issue arises because a sale would nullify the much-touted Community Benefits Agreement between Equity Delray and the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition. Either way, however, the agreement is not binding. It’s known in the legal world as “aspirational,” and it doesn’t involve the city or the CRA.
Flynn also would not say which grocery store he is negotiating with. Supporters consider the store a key part of the project. There is no chain grocer between Swinton Avenue and Interstate 95.
Other recent Delray Beach development projects may have been bigger than Uptown Atlantic, but none has been more symbolic. As Jarjura stated in an email to Flynn: “Done correctly, this project is a gateway and catalyst for West Atlantic and the local economy. Done poorly, this project has long-lasting negative consequences and impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods, the local businesses and our city. . .
“Any attempt by Equity to evade your obligations under our code, your entitlements and the pertinent agreements Equity entered into is a matter that is of grave concern to this Commission, and (I) am assuming to the CRA as the property owner of record. . .There are few larger policy and development issues for this commission as significant as Uptown Atlantic.”
Delray to go with interim city manager
As the city did after the departure in 2014 of Louie Chapman, Delray Beach will go with an interim city manager until choosing a successor to Don Cooper.
Fortunately, the circumstances are different. The commission at the time ran off Chapman, for good reason. Cooper is resigning after two years because of a family medical issue.
Mayor Glickstein had hoped that one of the two assistant city managers, Francine Ramaglia or Dale Sugerman, would take over until the new commission could pick a successor. City elections are in March. But neither Ramaglia nor Sugerman wanted the job, so a headhunting firm will offer candidates for the interim post. Cooper leaves at the end of the year.
The time has come
Delray Beach will learn tonight who fills out the roughly four months of former Commissioner Al Jacquet’s term. The city has received 10 applications. Two applicants have said they would run in March if chosen.
Body cameras for Delray Beach police?
Also on tonight’s agenda in Delray Beach is the purchase of 125 more policy body cameras. The trial program has been with 20 cameras. This purchase would outfit the whole department.
A recreation-rich waterfront?
I commented last week on what might happen with the Wildflower property after Boca Raton voters approved the restrictive amendment for city-owned waterfront property. I wondered if Councilman Scott Singer, who opposed the plan for a Hillstone restaurant, now would ask city staff to examine ideas from his “visioning session” for combining the Wildflower and Silver Palm Park.
I asked Singer for his thoughts, but he didn’t respond in time for the Thursday post. Here is Singer’s response: “I look forward to continuing my work in engaging the residents and planning with staff for a more vibrant waterfront with greater recreation opportunities.”
More on the proposed student-centric district for FAU
Speaking of “visioning,” a city spokeswoman tells me that staff members of the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council have completed their interviews regarding the plan for a student-centric district in Boca Raton on and along 20th Street east of Florida Atlantic University.
The interviews were to collect ideas that the planning council will discuss at a “visioning summit” that the spokeswoman said would be scheduled for next month. After that, the planning council hopes to make a presentation to the city council in January.
Almost time to play
Remember how the Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District incumbents claimed during their unsuccessful campaigns that the big playground at Sugar Sand Park would reopen in November? It won’t.
Art Koski, the district’s interim director, told me last week that the new date is December. He’s “hopeful” that the playground, which has had a major makeover, would reopen before the end of the year.
Boca Regional gets closer to urgent care center
Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s proposal for a downtown urgent care center is tentatively scheduled for the Nov. 21 meeting of the city council acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency. The Planning and Zoning Board recommended approval.
Mourning the loss of Irving Gutin
One of the hospital’s major patrons died last week.
Irving Gutin moved to Boca Raton in 1998 with Tyco International, of which he was CEO. A decade later, Mr. Gutin and his wife, Barbara, made the donation that led to creation of Boca Regional’s Comprehensive Stroke Center, one of just 20 in the state certified by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. Such centers offer specialized care that gives stroke victims a much better chance for recovery. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 800,000 Americans suffer a stroke year, and about 130,000 die from it.
In addition, a donation from the Gutins helped to establish Boca Raton Regional Hospital’s Center for Robotic Surgery that is named for the couple. They got involved after Barbara Gutin needed such an operation and the hospital didn’t offer it.
According to a hospital news release, the center’s Intuitive da Vinci Si Surgical System was developed for use in combat zones and outer space. Patients “minimally invasive surgical options for even the most complex of cases.” Smaller incisions mean quicker recovery. Boca Regional says the Irving & Barbara C. Gutin Center for Robotic Surgery is the busiest in Palm Beach County.
Correction: In Thursday’s post, I said that a Tallahassee political action committee had financed – through BocaWatch PAC – a mailer on behalf of Greater Boca Raton Beach & Park District incumbents Dennis Frisch and Earl Starkoff. The committee is based in West Palm Beach.
Fantastic! More regulation which won’t do anything as lawyers find loopholes for shady doctors. Sorry, but substance abuse is not a disability, rather a result of disabilities which are addressed with medication leading to such “disability.” I give no credit to Ms. Frankel, and I hope her and Deutch are gone when term limits are imposed on these career politicians. It makes you think why they’re all pushing for these promises after years of being in office for gerrymandered districts, along with predecessors Klein and Wexler.