Planning panel approves comprehensive plan amendment to expand farmworker housing in Glades tier

The Palm Beach County Planning Commission unanimously approved a staff-initiated amendment to the county comprehensive plan to expand opportunities for farmworker housing in the county's Glades tier, a change that removes a longstanding 25-acre minimum outside the Agricultural Reserve and allows the use as a principal use in most future land-use designations in the tier.

Staff said the amendment was initiated to implement Board of County Commissioners direction and to clear a path for concurrent changes to the Unified Land Development Code (ULDC). "This proposed comprehensive plan amendment before you today is the farmworker revisions farmworker housing revisions," Senior Planner Bryce Van Horn said during the presentation.

The amendment relocates farmworker-housing language into a single policy, adds a new definition for off-site farmworker housing, and would allow the use in the Glades tier in any future land-use designation except conservation, transportation and utilities, and park. Jerome Monte of the zoning division told commissioners the ULDC will set numeric caps and development standards: "Right now, we have in the ULDC for the farmworker quarters, we have 4 beds per 25 acres. So it's like 1 farmworker quarters may be allowed for each 25 acres, and that is being removed." Monte said staff is still "fine tuning" a multiplier for principal-use sites outside farms.

Commissioners asked how conversions and scale would be controlled. Commissioner Rafael Clemente said, "I support this, but I just have a question about, verification that it is used for the intended purpose." Staff responded that the ULDC will add a class A conditional-use process, require a special permit (likely renewable annually) and include monitoring language, and that future conversion to other residential uses would have to meet comprehensive-plan density rules.

The commission discussed building type and safety oversight. Staff said barracks-style, dormitory, manufactured and mobile homes may be allowed but not temporary structures, and that sites would be subject to health-department permitting and annual inspections. The Planning Commission voted to approve the amendment as staff recommended; the motion passed unanimously.

The amendment applies only to the Glades tier; the 25-acre minimum remains in the Agricultural Reserve (AGR) future land-use designation. The commission record indicates further zoning-level detail, including the exact per-acre multiplier and property-development regulations, will be resolved in the ULDC amendments that follow this plan change.