Homeowners' group, town council at odds

By Stephanie Smith, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 8, 2003

Buying a house in Abacoa doesn't necessarily mean embracing the New Urbanism concept of living, playing, shopping and working in the same 2,000-acre community, especially if the shopping and working are going to happen nearby.

Just ask some of the residents of New Haven who are trying to get the Town Council to rescind its approval in May of a 14-acre live-work complex along Military Trail called Greenwich.

Unhappy with the New Haven Homeowners' Association board that represents the 505 homes and agreed to back the Greenwich project after developers' concessions, the dissidents have formed a splinter group named Neighbors for New Haven, headed by Calvin Fox and Jeff Burnett.

"I am two houses down from this development," said Fox, who bought his house at 217 Marlberry Circle in July and has since taken on the HOA and Town Hall.

Fox said the group, which formed in Burnett's living room in August, has collected 266 signatures objecting to the Greenwich project and is asking the Town Council to reconsider its approval.

While Fox concedes that Military Trail is a commercial stretch, he said the group objects to building a road that connects Military Trail through New Haven. The proposed road is not in Abacoa's master plan and is illegal, Fox said.

In a Sept. 23 letter to Mayor Karen Golonka, the group also protested two 63-foot observation towers that will be part of the project because of their height, as well as their possible use to transmit mobile telephone or microwave signals.

Town Planning and Zoning Director John Sickler said the towers are architectural features the developer, Delray Beach-based New Urban Communities, wanted to help draw attention to Greenwich, particularly since the town is requiring a 50-foot landscaping buffer on Military Trail.

A key reason cited for Abacoa Town Center's failure to draw shoppers is because it is tucked into the heart of the massive community and not visible from major roadways.

Sickler said town officials have no plans to revisit the project.

Greenwich will be on the east side of Military Trail, about 400 feet south of University Boulevard, and west of Marlberry Circle. Plans call for townhouses in the rear of the development as a transition to the New Haven neighborhood, live-work units, and first-floor commercial units with condos above them.

Having the townhouses face New Haven resulted from negotiations with the HOA, which also received concessions from developers to traffic calm the road connecting Military Trail to the neighborhood, a $10,000 contribution to the neighborhood playground and annual playground maintenance payments of $1,000 and donations of landscaping.

Fox's group has questioned the validity of the HOA's board elections, demanded it withdraw its support of the Greenwich project and questioned whether the town gave proper notice to affected property owners. "We've got battles going on," Fox said.

How the project takes shape is important, Fox said, because it will set the tone for other commercial projects to follow. "This is the first major step toward development of Abacoa's commercial sections," Fox said.

Robert Sendler, president of New Haven's HOA, said the Greenwich project fits with Abacoa's theme, but residents' concerns about the introduction of commercial traffic into the neighborhood has merit.

Beacon Cove Intermediate School is in the neighborhood and children play in front of their homes, as Abacoa's founders hoped, Sendler said.

"The concept of Abacoa is to live, shop and theoretically work within a short distance. This project, in theory, accomplishes some of that. But you can have that without having the road go through, you can loop it off. It doesn't stop or bar traffic," Sendler said.

In a four-page letter dated Sept. 18 sent to New Haven residents, Sendler tried to quell the controversy.

In explaining how the HOA came to support the project, Sendler wrote it was a given that the town would approve a connecting road into the neighborhood because that is the fundamental concept of Abacoa, that it is the exact opposite of a gated community.

The town's concession to address concerns about commercial traffic was to narrow and calm the connector road, Sendler wrote.

He wrote that there are a number of commercial parcels that abut the community and the neighborhood needs to be united.

"At the end of the day, if we are unable to convince the elected officials that we can act and vote as a singular body, our issues, concerns and suggestions carry no weight," Sendler wrote.

stephanie_smith@pbpost.com

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