“You can put lipstick on a pig… it is still a pig”: Palm Beach County rejects bid by GL Homes to build 1,277 homes in Ag Reserve

The Palm Beach County Commission narrowly rejected a swap proposal by GL Homes that would have allowed it to build 1,277 homes in the county-designated Agricultural Reserve west of Boca Raton.

Sunrise-based GL Homes unsuccessfully proposed preserving 1,600 vacant acres that the homebuilder owns at Indian Trails Grove in northwest Palm Beach County, in exchange for the county’s permission to develop 653 acres in the Agricultural Reserve, which spans about 22,000 acres on the county’s southwest side.

“There are too many loose ends in what’s being proposed to us, too many unanswered questions,” Palm Beach County Mayor Gregg K. Weiss said Wednesday night before voting with a slim majority of county commissioners to reject the proposal by GL Homes.

The commission voted 4-3 to deny the proposed swap and a change to the county’s comprehensive plan that would allow GL Homes to build in the Ag Reserve unencumbered by its so-called 60/40 rule.

The county rule limits density by requiring developers to preserve as open space 60 acres of Ag Reserve land for every 40 acres they develop.

GL Homes proposed the preserved land swap to win county approval of its plan to build 1,000 adult aged-restricted homes and 277 workforce housing units as well as a synagogue and Torah Academy school campus on a parcel in the Ag Reserve known as Hyder West.

GL Homes had sweetened its preservation swap proposal by offering to build a water resource project on its land at Indian Trails Grove.

“When we asked questions about this water resource project, we did not get answers. GL never responded,” said commissioner Mack Bernard. “You can put lipstick on a pig — call it a land swap, add sweeteners, add a water project, add workforce housing, and so on. Folks, it is still a pig.”

He also said GL Homes did not develop its 1,600 acres at Indian Trails Grove, despite approval to build nearly 3,900 homes there, as part of a long-term plan to swap preservation of that land for county approval to build in the Ag Reserve.

“The commission granted GL [permission] in 2016 to build 3,897 units, and since 2016, they have done nothing with it,” said Bernard, who has served on the county commission for seven years. “They sat around and sat around until they could find the right board [of county commissioners] to do this swap.”

GL Homes and other builders have been active in the Agricultural Reserve, where housing development has surged in recent years.

“Yeah, it’s not perfect. We’ve made tweaks along the way,” said commissioner Marci Woodward, who voted against the Hyder West project proposed by GL Homes. “This is not a tweak. This is a death knell.”

Mayor Weiss said proposals to develop land in the Agricultural Reserve are likely to persist. 

“The Ag Reserve is an area with specific planning principles, and for the most part, it’s this 60/40 split we talk about and the limit on commercial areas. But it’s not static,” he said. “We’ve made changes.”