Local residents of Boca Raton succeed again in thwarting a construction plan on the Mizner Golf Course
The local community at the Boca Raton was successfully able to put a 390-home residential construction project on hold after the Palm Beach County commission, on Thursday, refused the developers to proceed with their multi-million dollar plan.
The Siemens Group, the major stake holder in the construction plan, have now decided to reduce the count to 290 homes after their plea was dismissed by the commission. The group announced that it would leave more open space between the houses and would reduce
the total covered area of the residential complex which was earlier marked as 130 acres.
The new plan will be brought before the commission in September this year for approval. The residents, however, remain firm to their demand of zero-construction on the designated golf course.
"These are all tactics, strategies to confuse, delay and upset people," resident Rosemary Nixon said about developers changing their plans. "The people are very clear. There should be no development on the golf course."
The Mizner Trail Golf Course was shut down by its owner Dutch Bliss in 2005 and since then, the residents of the Boca Del Mar have been fighting to maintain the status quo of the course. The community has been at loggerheads with the giant construction mafia,
who has been planning to turn the course into a residential complex for the last six years.
The course along with the small neighborhood of Boca Del Mar stretches to some 2,000 acres. The 2006 commission also passed out a similar ruling when it turned down the developers' plan to build 202 homes on the trail.
Although stiff resistance by the residents of the town does not show any signs of melting away in the near future, the developers will eventually find a way to get their proposal accepted by the commission, as the commissioner Jess Santamaria signaled of
"finding, maybe, some common ground".
The residents, however, are not ready to give up. Felipe Martinez, one of the locals, has the opinion that building more homes is hardly the solution to tackle the problem of overgrown land.
"The remedy is worse than the disease," Martinez said, "Let's again not forget why [the golf course] looks the way it does,"
Brian Coleman thinks that the open space should be left out for the better interest of the community. "Leave all this space open for the best interest of the community," Coleman said. "They have been re-filing [development plans] for six years."
The group of 100 plus local residents who have been vociferously opposing the construction plan also think that the club was intentionally degenerated and closed down to acquire the land for building purposes. Others also support a move by the group to acquire
a prospective buyer who would renovate and put the course back to its former glory.
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