A recent letter by a former Town Council president ["We don't need a steering committee to help put together the zoning code," by Richard Kleid, June 9, 2024] demonstrates why we must have an independent, talented planning body, divorced from politics, and why, if we go ahead with zoning code reform with an outside consultant, we must establish a steering committee to guide the consultant.
The Planning and Zoning Commission is not the body to provide such guidance. It will likely vet the work product; it should not formulate it.
Last month, Council Member [Julie] Araskog scratched the surface when she talked about what’s been paid to the outside consultant. What should concern our residents is what’s been committed to the outside consultants. A former council president told me that when the town can’t decide how to handle a problem, it hires an outside consultant and throws money at the problem. That pattern continues.
We are blessed with an amazing mayor, but saying the council refused to accept her code reform suggestions isn’t the answer to why we are spending so much time, money and resources on a project that shows little promise and lacks serious guidance. We have the most professional, dedicated staff in the country, including Wayne Bergman, James Murphy, Jennifer Hoffmeister-Drew and others. Why do we need to hire an outside consultant from Ohio who knows little about our town and to whom we paid a fortune of money to learn our history and traditions?
What about increasing the PZB staff and then dedicating additional staff to code reform? I have no doubt that Bergman and his team could do a better job on zoning code reform. Another council president told me that after all is said and done, not much will change. If so, why are we pursuing this tack?
The council should also have inquired how we reached our present position. From code simplification we’ve traversed to full-blown zoning code reform that no one seems to like and that’s cost us a fortune. Whereas former director Josh Martin had code changes down to a simplified few pages at a cost of $250,000, now we are at hundreds of pages and millions of dollars. Why?
Bergman was absolutely correct: If we move forward with code reform, there needs to be daily guidance from a steering committee, not from the Planning and Zoning Commission.
Our mayor did a spectacular job with the Strategic Planning Commission. Do the same for zoning reform. Appoint a representative committee, including an architect, a land-use attorney, someone with history — perhaps a representative from planning and zoning — and whomever you need to achieve a cross-section of our community’s interests. Then you will get the guidance you need. We’ve had a steering committee for most issues, including recently the PUD-5.
When she was mayor, Gail Coniglio always cautioned us to take baby steps. Let’s do that now. I am all for code simplification, just not the full-blown reform that’s being proposed. Our system has protected us for decades. We often hear about the wonderful job ARCOM does. Simplify the code. Simplify zoning districts. Let ARCOM do its work and let us reevaluate when appropriate.
Martin Klein, Palm Beach
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