Boca Raton Council approves 8-story residential building at Boca Raton Resort with conditions after neighborhood concerns

The Boca Raton City Council on March 24 approved a package of development orders that will allow the Boca Raton Resort & Club to build an eight-story, 76-unit residential building on a 5.224-acre portion of its Harborside campus. The council adopted a future land use map amendment, a rezoning, a master-plan amendment and a site plan — each by separate vote — with conditions spelling out construction-management requirements and pedestrian protections.

City planning staff told the council the project complies with the city's comprehensive plan and code, noting previous master-plan approvals and a planning-board recommendation to approve. "The application, as designed, supports goals, objectives and policies in the comprehensive plan related to housing, infrastructure, and land use," senior planner Owen Devlin said, adding staff recommended approval subject to conditions and a corrected advertised acreage.

Residents and nearby condominium associations urged the council to tighten conditions after reviewing materials showing the project's proposed realignment of an internal service road. Margie Alloy, a neighboring resident, told the council the project's limit-of-work line appears to place major construction inside the canopies of mature trees and urged the city to require shifting the road roughly 10 yards to preserve significant specimens. "Once these trees are gone, they are gone for good," Alloy said.

Other speakers pressed the council to restrict the use of the Meisner Boulevard entrance for construction traffic, citing pedestrian and bicycle safety at heavily used crossings. "It looks like a beautiful project, and I am not here to oppose it. But I want to talk about access, specifically the access from Meisner Boulevard," Judith Kaye told the council.

Applicant counsel Bonnie Miskell and the design team said the plan minimizes tree loss, replaces removed trees with new landscaping and would improve pedestrian connections between the resort and downtown. "We are protecting the majority of all healthy living plant material that's on there," landscape architect Michael Gayheart said, adding the project proposes mitigation and replanting.

After a detailed back-and-forth on whether to include construction-sequencing specifics in the development order or to leave those logistics for the building-permit stage, the applicant offered two firm concessions: to design and construct ADA ramps across the Meisner Boulevard entrance (on the applicant's property) and to work with city staff through the permitting and MOT (maintenance-of-traffic) process to develop a construction-sequencing plan that prioritizes pedestrian and bicycle safety. "We will agree to work with staff during the PWR process with a focus on pedestrian and bike safety in developing and approving our construction sequencing plan," Miskell said in summation.

Council members said they preferred staff oversight and the later MOT process for detailed logistics, but they also sought explicit protections for pedestrians and nearby residents. With the agreed edits and the applicant's concessions, the council voted to adopt the four development orders by roll call. Ordinances and resolutions related to the master plan, rezoning and site plan were adopted with corrected Scrivener's errors; roll calls recorded unanimous approval on each item.

The approval includes the amendments and the site plan as approved by the council; city staff will work with the applicant on the MOT, tree protection/mitigation, and the detailed sequencing plan required before building permits are issued. The council's action does not change the maximum permitted unit totals for the overall master plan, staff said. The applicant said the new sidewalks and landscaping will increase pedestrian connections between the resort grounds and the downtown.

The council then moved on to other business. The applicant and staff were directed to finalize the precise language of the construction-sequencing conditions with staff during the permitting process; the development orders will be implemented under the conditions the council adopted tonight.