'Your Hands Are Tied': D.R. Horton Tells City It Will Build Apartments If 268-Home Project Is Rejected

Local residents celebrated last month when the Riviera Beach City Council rejected a zoning change that would have allowed 286 housing units to be built on a 64-acre former golf course.

More than two dozen people spoke out against the project at the council meeting on June 21 where it was voted down by a 4-1 vote. Less than two weeks later, Florida’s Live Local Act — which allows developers to supersede local land use decisions if they build a certain number of income-restricted homes — went into effect.

A representative for D.R. Horton, the Texas-based homebuilder and developer on the Palm Beach County project, submitted a letter informing Riviera Beach officials that the Fortune 500 company would leverage the provisions of the new law to circumvent local approval unless the council reconsidered the development.

Last week, the city council reversed course and voted 3-2 to consider the project for a second time. 

"This just gives us an opportunity to have more discussion and try to limit some of the impact that's going to come with this Live Local legislation that none of us, obviously, have too much information about," council Chairman Douglas Lawson said at the meeting where he brought the proposal up for reconsideration, The Palm Beach Post reported.

In addition to tax incentives and increased funding for state development loans, the Live Local Act includes new rules that compel local governments to approve proposals for affordable housing developments under certain conditions and, in some cases, allows affordable housing developments to be built at a higher density than a parcel’s zoning permits. 

In its letter to the city, D.R. Horton and its engineering consultant on the project, Palm Beach-based WGI, made it clear that the developer would move forward with new plans that would allow it to proceed by-right under Live Local — unless Riviera Beach reconsiders its proposal to build 162 townhomes and 124 single-family homes at the Lone Pine Golf Course on North Military Trail.

"The other alternative, though it is not the desired course of action, is to present a plan to the city staff in accordance with the provisions of the Live Local Act as adopted by Senate Bill 102 in the last legislative session," WGI wrote, the PBP reported.

The letter noted that any plan submitted under Live Local's provisions would have to include multifamily units. Wayne Richards, an attorney representing D.R. Horton, told the council that the law would allow the developer to build “hundreds and hundreds of affordable units” at the golf course, which closed in April after the owners said it had become unprofitable.

The decision from Riviera Beach officials to once again take up the proposal sets the stage for a standoff between D.R. Horton, the city council and local residents. 

Residents who spoke at the June meeting where the proposal was rejected told local officials that they paid a premium for homes adjacent to a golf course and said they were concerned about increased traffic and the potential for dust and noise from the project’s construction. 

Residents of Lone Pine Estates, a housing development surrounding the now-closed golf course, signed a petition objecting to the original zoning changes that would have cleared the way for the development. The petition triggered a clause in the local zoning ordinances that required four of the city’s five council members to approve the variance.

Richards said it was not D.R. Horton’s goal to move forward on a project based on the provisions of the Live Local Act, but the developer had already invested significant resources and was determined to build on the site, the PBP reported. 

"Our applicant has spent years, considerable time, money and energy in an effort to reach an agreement with the residents and the council. It did not work out. The council had discretion. You used your discretion, and you voted no," Richards told the council last week, according to the PBP.

Richards said that if the project was again rejected, D.R. Horton would move forward with a proposal that fit within the Live Local legislation. 

"If you vote no today, it's dead," he said of reconsidering the Lone Pine proposal. "Live Local is not dead. Live Local is here, and your hands are tied."