Palm Beach Gardens council approves citywide mobility plan and first-reading of citywide mobility fee

Palm Beach Gardens — The City Council on April 3 approved on first reading an updated citywide mobility plan and a citywide mobility fee, and adopted findings of "extraordinary circumstances" that allow the city to set the fee at the fully calculated rate effective Aug. 5, 2025.

The mobility plan, which expands the city's 2019 plan to include lands west of the Beeline Highway, lists multimodal projects — sidewalks, shared-use paths, on-street bicycle lanes, transit studies and roadway improvements — that the city says will guide how new-development fees are invested. The council voted 5-0 on first reading of the ordinances after a presentation from city planning staff and the plan consultant.

The ordinance matters because it replaces the county-administered road impact process inside Palm Beach Gardens with a single city-administered mobility fee tied to an adopted list of improvements. City staff and the consultant said that change would allow mobility funds paid by new development to be spent primarily inside Palm Beach Gardens and on projects identified in the mobility plan, while still allowing partnerships with the county or state for county facilities.

Assistant Director of Planning and Zoning Joanne Scribe outlined the outreach and data-collection process used to assemble the updated plan, and consultant Jonathan Paul of New Urban Concepts summarized the fee methodology. "A mobility fee...is a fee paid by new development only, not existing residents, not existing businesses. It's not a tax," Paul told the council during his presentation. He said the plan covers roadway, bicycle, pedestrian and transit projects and that the technical report and extraordinary-circumstances study support the fee calculation.

Under the technical report presented to council, the proposed citywide mobility fee is assessed by square footage. The consultant presented example amounts used for council discussion: under the new schedule, a 3,500-square-foot single-family house would be charged roughly $10,000 in mobility fees; the consultant said the previous east-side fee (under older schedules) was about $6,600 and combined city/county totals on the west side could reach roughly $7,700 under prior systems. For multifamily and nonresidential uses the consultant presented per-1,000-square-foot rates used in the technical report.

Council members asked procedural and implementation questions. Staff clarified that the new fee, if adopted at final reading, would apply at the time a building permit is issued and would not be retroactive to permits already issued. The council also heard that the Avenir and Alton planned community districts (PCDs) will remain under their existing proportionate-share agreements and are excluded from the citywide fee assessment.

The council voted to make the statutory finding of "extraordinary circumstances" required by state law for assessing fees above statutory thresholds; the council briefed members on the growth, inflation and project-cost justifications the report uses to support that finding. Staff noted the state legislative environment remains fluid and that the extraordinary-circumstances process now explicit in state law was a key reason to complete the study ahead of further statutory changes.

Next steps noted in the presentation and by staff include a second (final) reading scheduled under the city's ordinance timetable, an effective date planned for Aug. 5, 2025, and follow-up negotiations with Palm Beach County to address county facilities that will still require improvements paid in part from mobility funds. Staff said it will return with additional details before final adoption and that additional public information materials and one-on-one briefings for developers are available.

The council passed the first reading vote 5-0. Because the mobility fee and the extraordinary-circumstances finding are legally technical, staff and the consultant told the council they are available to answer questions before the second reading.