OK this kind of growth just cannot be ignored. For years we have seen Western Dade and Broward counties expand and produce well to do cities such as Kendall, Doral, Weston and Pembroke Pines. Finally, it seems like Palm Beach County’s time has come. What exactly are we talking about and where will it be taking place? The place is Loxahatchee and the players are Minto West and GL Homes. What we are talking about is wholesale development of this entire area which starts with Minto West. They have already been approved for the development of 4,500 homes, along with 2 million square feet of retail, office and industrial space. That in in itself is a small /medium sized city. It will be built on land that had old citrus groves on it. Now GL Homes has proposed building 4,000 homes next to this on the Indian Trails Grove tract which is almost 5,000 acres of land. They have owned the land for 10 years and almost developed it before the recession. Originally they envisioned building 12,000 homes here. Along with the homes retail, office and industrial space will be built. Here is the problem with all of this new development: there is no major roadway to connect these new residents to major highways. In Broward you have the Sawgrass Expressway and I – 75 and in Dade you have the Dolphin and the Palmetto but Palm Beach doesn’t have anything like that. The closest thing to it is State Rd. 7, AKA 441, which is not yet connected fully all the way through the county. This traffic is going to be a tremendous problem and will further deteriorate the quality of life in this once quiet place. But when change comes it is usually driven by money, and there is a lot of it to be made here. And lots of jobs created and lots of tax dollars added to the tax rolls. And so this is going to happen and then we will try to figure out how to live with it. Is it too much growth too quickly? That is exactly what we are about to find out. I sure am glad I live in South Palm Beach County because things are about to get a lot more crowded to the North and fast. As always thanks for reading and have a great day.
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