Panel approves amendment to expand farmworker housing opportunities in Glades tier

Palm Beach County planning staff secured unanimous approval Friday for a county-initiated comprehensive plan amendment to expand opportunities for farmworker housing in the Glades tier.

The proposal, presented by Bryce Van Horn, senior planner with the county planning division, would remove the comprehensive-plan restriction that confined farmworker housing to sites accessory to bona fide agriculture and to certain agricultural future land use designations. The amendment would allow farmworker housing as a principal use in the Glades tier on any future land use except conservation, transportation/utilities, and park; it would retain the 25-acre minimum only for the county’s Agricultural Reserve (AGR) designation.

Van Horn told the panel: "This proposed comprehensive plan amendment before you today is the farmworker revisions, farmworker housing revisions. This is a county initiated proposed text amendment to revise several elements in the comprehensive plan in order to allow for additional opportunities for farmworker housing in the Glades tier." Staff recommended approval.

Most substantive details remain to be set in the Unified Land Development Code (ULDC). Zoning-division staff said the plan-level change intentionally removes plan-level land-use hurdles and leaves technical limits — including how many beds or units are allowed per acre and development standards — to the ULDC. "Right now, we have in the ULDC for the farmworker quarters, we have 4 beds per 25 acres," the zoning staff member said, and added that staff is "still finalizing" the appropriate cap and a multiplier to apply when housing is proposed off-site from farms.

The amendment would also (1) consolidate existing farmworker-housing language into a single housing-element policy, (2) add a new definition for farmworker housing to allow an off-site principal use while retaining the existing farmworker-quarters accessory definition, and (3) revise future-land-use policies for the Glades tier to permit the use broadly within the tier (with the exceptions noted above). Van Horn said the change is intended to "remove the hurdles for the ULDC amendments that were initiated to move forward."

Commissioners asked how the county will prevent large, inappropriate conversions or unregulated development. Planning staff said the ULDC will include property-development regulations, a special-permit process (described as a Class A conditional use during the discussion) and monitoring provisions; staff mentioned the possibility of annual special-permit renewals and health-department permitting and inspections. Van Horn said proposed policy language also would require that any conversion of farmworker housing to other housing types meet comprehensive-plan density requirements so such conversions are consistent with the plan.

On design and durability, zoning staff and planners said the code will clarify acceptable housing types and that temporary structures would not be allowed. Planning staff told commissioners that dormitory-style, manufactured homes and mobile…