Palm Beach County has been buying this undeveloped land, piece by piece, for preservation
A plan has been in the works to buy and preserve land in Palm Beach County’s uppermost areas.
County commissioners voted 6-0 to buy more land for conservation during a meeting on Tuesday afternoon. It is the most recent effort to expand land preservation through the acquisition of parcels bought by the county from an area known as Palm Beach Heights, which is part of the Pal-Mar Ecosite, a region between Palm Beach and Martin County.
“It’s a part of a large ecological greenway that stretches from just west of the Atlantic Ocean to just east of Lake Okeechobee and provides a nice wetland and upland habitat for a wide variety of native plants and animals,” said Deborah Drum, the Palm Beach County Environmental Resource Management Department director.
The portion of land belonging to Palm Beach County is 715 acres. So far, the county has acquired about 280 of those 715, Drum said.
On Nov. 2, 2021, the commission approved American Rescue Plan Act funds, including an allocation of $4 million for the acquisition of “environmentally sensitive lands,” which accelerated efforts to preserve as much land as possible.
“This has been an ongoing effort on the part of the state of Florida and PBC for many years now,” Mayor Gregg Weiss said.
There are no buildable rights in Pal-Mar, he said. “The end goal is to buy it all up, if we can, and put it all up into preservation,” he said.
Weiss said wetlands, which are a primary feature of the Pal-Mar area, are important to “recharge the aquifer,” or replenish groundwater, making it a hydrologically significant area.
“Wetlands are really great for recharging groundwater levels and just basically protecting your water interest, water supplies, water quality over the long term as areas get built up,” Drum said. “That ensures sufficient quantities of water will be available to meet the current and future needs of both natural systems and citizens of the state. So that aquifer recharge function and the flow to the Loxahatchee River, those are some specific ways that this area is special.”
The county wouldn’t use the land for developing anything other than hiking trails and small parking lots for public use, Drum said.
One barrier the commission and the Environmental Resource Management Department face in gaining more of the land is some of the owners may have died, passed it onto members of their family or forgotten they owned the land entirely. “It’s kind of like a patchwork quilt of individual owners,” Drum said.
The commission may only buy land from willing sellers.
“We have a set price that we’re paying. And so we’ve been able to have several takers in the last couple of months,” Commissioner Maria Marino said. “We’re actively pursuing willing sellers so that we can just have a better control of the area.”
Some people may have bought the property a long time ago thinking they might one day develop on it, Marino said, but are now realizing that isn’t possible and are willing to sell.
The parcels of land are small, and some buyers are unwilling to sell, all of which prolongs the acquisition process, so the commission has yet to empty its ARPA money.
“We still have a lot of dollars to go,” Marino said.
During the Tuesday meeting, the County Commission approved the purchase of two 1.3-acre lots of vacant land north of Indiantown Road and east of Bee Line Highway for $20,150 each, plus closing, title insurance and recording costs, estimated at $525 each. These approvals require a supermajority vote.
The Environmental Resource Management Department has been acquiring properties from Palm Beach Heights for a couple of decades, Drum said. But acquisition was not consistent because funding was not always available.
“It is our aspirational goal to own all of the properties there or, very minimally, get some contiguous ownership so we can go in and manage the property for conservation and preservation purposes,” she said.