A letter to the editor by William Vale in the Sun-Sentinel recently challenged District 4 commissioner Steve Abrams and the rest of the Palm Beach County Commission to use their considerable authority to change the codes so that the Mizner Trail owners are held to higher standards of maintenance.
The neglected middle of the fairways outside of the 25-foot-wide buffers abutting homeowners’ properties are overgrown. The buffers must be mowed down to no higher than 7 inches, but apparently the rest of the former golf course is allowed to grow wilder and look neglected. Some UnitedPBC supporters wrote to Commissioner Abrams, citing Vale’s letter.
Here is how Abrams has replied to Vales and to others who wrote to him. Not surprisingly, Abrams concludes that the only way to solve all this is to get new construction underway and the sooner the better.
Commissioner Steve Abrams’ reply:
Thank you for your email. Please be assured I share your frustration regarding the maintenance of the Mizner Trail property. After all, I am the one who gets all the calls and emails, so I have every incentive to attempt to remedy the situation.
At my request, our code enforcement staff has not been standing idly by. They have been on site dozens of times just this year alone to seek to obtain code compliance. See list below.
The unfortunate fact is there are limitations as to what can be done under current law. Property owners are only obligated to maintain their properties to minimum code standards―in this case, cut the grass to seven inches around the perimeter. These standards, of course, do not approach the conditions residents previously enjoyed when the golf course was in business.
So why not change the code? In the past, as your leadership well knows, I have looked into imposing more stringent standards. Unfortunately, the county attorney’s office has opined that the law does not allow the county to impose much higher standards. Constitutionally, government can only impose minimal standards of upkeep on private property. Government is different from a homeowners association, where residents can voluntarily impose higher standards on themselves.
So why not change the code anyway? William “Billy” Vale wrote in a recent letter to the Sun-Sentinel, “If the county can amend Boca Del Mar’s 43-year old master plan . . . I’m sure they could simply amend the code and require Mizner’s owners to follow the same standards the rest of us do. What say you Commissioner Abrams?”
I say this: While Mr. Vale’s rhetoric is alluring, the actual logic is the exact reverse. Yes, it would take precisely four votes of the County Commission to change the code. But as Billy points out, you would be asking the same people who did not stand with you in the first place (except for myself and one other commissioner who is no longer in office) to approve your code changes—and do so over the strong caution of the county attorney (due to the legal consequences).
Let’s say the code was somehow able to be changed. There is obviously no guarantee a property owner would comply, especially one who has such a poor relationship with your neighborhood. The property owner would have no incentive to comply with more onerous and costly requirements, and the property would probably end up looking worse. The property owner could just drag out the lengthy code enforcement process and maybe just pay the fines, which by the way, cannot be increased by the county because code enforcement is governed by state statute.
The ultimate solution, as I told the Sun-Sentinel, is to get the new construction project underway. The project requires a county-approved landscape plan to be installed.
As an aside, some of the emails sent to me bemoan the fact that Compson Development is trying to sell its property. It seems to me that the neighborhood would want a new owner to step in, who does not have all the history and hostility toward the neighborhood (and vice versa), and can deal with BDMIA, the neighborhood, and the district county commissioner with a clean slate. Any new owner would have to build according to the approved plan or go through the entire process again, so that would not be an issue.
I continue to monitor the situation on a regular basis and assure you that Mizner Trail has been and will continue to be a matter of concern to me.
Commissioner Steven L. Abrams
Palm Beach County Board of County Commissioners
Governmental Center – 12th Floor
301 North Olive Avenue
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401
561-355-2204 Fax – 561-355-4422
[email protected]