Riviera Beach planning board recommends ordinance to extend city planning horizon, updates housing and demolition policies

The Riviera Beach Planning and Zoning Board on Thursday voted unanimously to recommend Ordinance 4312, an amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan intended to implement the city’s evaluation and appraisal report (EER) and align the plan with state requirements.

Principal Planner Sinead Simon described the proposal as administrative, saying the changes are intended to ensure statutory compliance and update planning horizons. “This is all administrative in nature. We will not be changing any land use designation tonight,” Simon said.

The amendment replaces the short-term and long-term planning horizons in the future land use element, moving references from five and ten years to ten and twenty years so the city will plan out to about 2050. Simon told the board the change is required in part by Florida Statute 163.3191 and the Florida Community Planning Act, chapter 163, part II, which call for periodic evaluation and appraisal of local comprehensive plans.

The proposed changes also remove outdated target dates throughout the plan and update several housing policies. Simon said the housing element language would be updated to reference use of the city’s vacant land acquisition program together with the single-family infill housing program and retain a focus on improving opportunities for very low-, low- and moderate-income persons. The amendment keeps the city’s unsafe-building abatement and community response team activities as tools to reduce substandard housing and noted numeric demolition goals: under one cited policy the city would continue demolition of “25 unsafe units” annually and a stated long-range target of “50 to 100 unsafe units by 2046.”

Board members asked how demolition decisions are made and whether the city retains ownership after demolition. City staff explained the building department’s unsafe-structures program and inspection process determines whether a property is condemned and eligible for demolition; the demolition program provides funding for removal but does not, by itself, transfer property ownership to the city.

Chair William Wiley moved the motion to recommend approval, which was seconded, and the board recorded a unanimous vote in favor. Voting members on the motion were Chandra Stringer (yes), Anthony Brown (yes), Joseph (yes), Vice Chair Frank Fernandez (yes) and Chair William Wiley (yes). The board’s recommendation sends Ordinance 4312 to the City Council for final action.

Simon said staff will provide the board with follow-up material: documentation of the unsafe building abatement program and a review of prior housing-related funds used in the city, in response to board questions about past funding and trust-fund balances.

Ordinance 4312 is administrative in scope, and by staff account it does not change zoning designations, densities or development entitlements; it adjusts the plan’s time horizons, edits dated references, and updates select housing policies so future land-use decisions are anchored to a 10/20-year planning frame. The board’s recommendation advances the ordinance to the next step in the local adoption process.

Next steps: Ordinance 4312 will be transmitted to the Riviera Beach City Council for its consideration; staff said they will circulate the requested background materials to board members before the council hearing.