Palm Beach County planning staff and Westgate Community Redevelopment Agency officials asked the Planning Commission to transmit a text amendment to increase the bonus density pool for the Westgate CRA overlay by 3,000 units, raising the pool from 1,300 to 4,300 units to support a 20‑year redevelopment forecast.

Denise Pennell, director of planning and development for the Westgate CRA, and Elaise (Elize) Michel, the CRA executive director, said the increase is intended to accelerate redevelopment in the Westgate overlay and support transit‑oriented, mixed‑use redevelopment on underutilized parcels — notably a proposed redevelopment of about 42 acres at the Palm Beach Kennel Club site. "The request to amend the policy to increase the number of units in the pool by 3,000 units from the current assignment of 1,300 units for a total of 4,300 supports the goals and objectives of the CRA redevelopment plan," Pennell told the commission.

Staff and CRA presenters described methodology: a 20‑year build‑out projection, cluster analysis identifying roughly 185 acres in the CRA district with redevelopment potential, and projections of 3,970 bonus units across cluster areas plus the 930 units remaining in the pool (those numbers were presented as a long‑range forecast). Commissioners asked about Tax Increment Financing (TIF), transportation capacity and stormwater. The CRA said it is funded in part by ad valorem taxes with a TIF mechanism that can provide incentives to developers; staff said projects using the bonus program must demonstrate concurrency and address traffic and drainage through established ULDC and statutory processes. The CRA explained ongoing stormwater storage improvements including a central retention lake and a potential compensating storage mitigation bank with the South Florida Water Management District to support redevelopment.

Alex Holiday of Frisbee Group/Terra Group, which is proposing redevelopment of the Kennel Club site, spoke in support of the CRA’s proposal and said the site is appropriate for additional housing near transit, the airport and downtown West Palm Beach.

Commission discussion addressed potential impacts to existing mobile home parks in the CRA district; CRA staff said the amendment makes units available but does not itself require acquisition or redevelopment of specific parcels and that relocation, if needed, would be the responsibility of any purchasing developer. Staff recommended approval; the commission voted to recommend approval unanimously.

Why it matters: Increasing the bonus density pool is intended to provide a policy mechanism to enable higher residential density in the CRA overlay, incentivize redevelopment of underutilized parcels, and support housing production in a central urban corridor. The change would not itself rezone properties; site‑specific zoning and concurrency requirements apply when projects are proposed.

What’s next: The Planning Commission’s recommendation will be transmitted to the Board of County Commissioners for further consideration; individual projects will be evaluated separately through zoning, concurrency and technical review processes.