SFWM IS A LAND BROKER NOW!!!

Developer seeks deal with water managers
By Robert P. King

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 10, 2006

KEY LARGO — For the second time since 2004, South Florida water managers want to earn millions of dollars by helping GL Homes develop land in Palm Beach County's Agricultural Reserve.

Once again, environmentalists say the South Florida Water Management District is undermining efforts to preserve open space in the 21,000-acre Ag Reserve.

This time, GL Homes is offering $10 million for unused development rights that the district owns on 1,244 acres of conservation land in the reserve, a dwindling swath of farms and nurseries in south county.

GL Homes would use those rights to boost the amount of building it can do on the company's tracts in the reserve. Meanwhile, the district might use the $10 million to help clean Lake Okeechobee.

Water managers and the company made a similar bargain in 2004, when GL Homes paid $20 million for the ability to use the same district-owned land to meet a county "open space" requirement. The district spent that money to help the Loxahatchee River.

The district's board approved the latest deal 9-0 Thursday in Key Largo, but GL Homes' use of the development rights still needs the county's OK. The item was a last-minute addition to the district's monthly board meeting.

Water managers called both deals a boon to taxpayers, noting that the district will have generated a total of $30 million while keeping its 1,244 acres intact.

"When we bought those lands, we paid prices that included the development rights," said Ruth Clements, the district's land acquisition director. "This just allows us to maximize that asset."

But environmentalists - who learned of the vote after the fact - said the deals go against efforts to limit development of the reserve, including about $100 million in bond money that county taxpayers have spent on land purchases since 1999.

"It's underhanded," said Joanne Davis of the growth-management group 1000 Friends of Florida. "It's a game being played to assist development in exchange for money."

Lisa Interlandi, an attorney with the Everglades Law Center, was puzzled that the district and GL Homes are making yet another deal with the same 1,244 acres.

"How many ways can they sell the same piece of property?" she asked.

Clements said the district isn't selling the land, merely the development rights. Those rights weren't part of the 2004 agreement, she said.

In the 2004 deal, GL Homes wanted to build one-acre estates on 745 acres in the reserve. County rules normally would have required the company to preserve 60 percent of the land, but instead the district's tracts counted toward that requirement.

Clements said she doesn't know where GL Homes intends to use the rights from the new agreement. The company did not return a phone call seeking comment.

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IS IT ANY WONDER THAT THERE PROJECTS GO NOWHERE!!!!!

This is a classic example of a deal that should never happen on the tax payers dime regardless of the obvious tax gains. SFWM is no better than any developer/ builder ,these people are responsible for the loss of rural land in Palm Beach county Its time that this kind of crap ends before they run every atv riding , buggy drivin, outdoor lovin person out of here. I dont know about the rest of you but I dont want to leave the only place I know as home.