David Schulson believes GL Homes should take a break.
But the Valencia Reserve delegate for the Coalition of Boynton West Residential Associations also admits the statewide housing developer has every right to propose new construction on land it owns whenever it wants.
The problem is, Schulson thinks this might result in too many of GL’s Valencia-branded communities for the county to handle. Valencia Reserve, where Schulson lives, is wedged between U.S. 441 and Lyons Road in west Boynton, and is one of 11 Valencia “active adult” 55-plus developments in Palm Beach County.
And hundreds more Valencia homes may be in the works as GL Homes forges ahead with more residences in a post-rejected land swap era.
Even though the plan has a few months before it will likely go before the Palm Beach County Commission in October, residents in the existing Valencia communities are already decrying the creation of another one. GL Homes says it is quenching a “tremendous demand” from the active adult, 55-plus community.
The proposal pitches 481 homes on a plot of land known as Whitworth South, named after the vegetable-growing Whitworth family. The land sits directly east of Lyons Road and south of Whitworth North, where GL Homes’ 659-unit Valencia Grand community is currently under construction. GL Homes president Misha Ezratti said Valencia Grand is 95% sold, and he expects the project to wrap up around the end of the year.
If approved by the county commission, the new 481-unit Whitworth South project, which does not yet have an official name, would break ground on “land development and infrastructure” — meaning water, sewer, paving and drainage — in the first part of 2025, with the first homes likely closing in the first part of 2026.
For Schulson, who is also on COBWRA’s growth management committee, the county’s infrastructure is the limiting factor. He believes it’s too weak to handle more Valencia homes. For example, traffic jams already clog the area, he said, and according to GL Homes’ traffic study, the proposed 12th Valencia community would generate more than 2,000 additional daily trips.
“Here we have GL with a new Valencia, and they don’t really care that the county is really behind on the infrastructure,” he said. “The question is, why can’t GL hit the pause button?”
Ezratti pointed out that the county is responsible for road projects between Atlantic Avenue and Boynton Beach Boulevard, and GL pays its “proportionate share for any impacts we make to the roads,” he said.
“We have traffic studies, and we have to get certified by the county, and we have to go through the approval, and as far as I know, there’s capacity on the roads,” he said.
Valencia rising
GL Homes built its first Valencia in Palm Beach County in 1996, addressing a niche that not many other builders had yet begun to experiment with: older adults with propensities for active and more high-end hobbies. The name “Valencia,” which is also a city in Spain, embodies “old Florida appeal,” Ezratti said, by pulling from state symbols such as Valencia oranges.
Buyers “just want it to be sort of like an adult cruise,” Ezratti said. “And what we’ve been known for is programming that lifestyle.”
There are currently more than 8,000 Valencia homes in the county.
Along Lyons Road alone, three Valencia communities already exist: Valencia Bay, Valencia Cove and Valencia Sound. They feature amenities such as pickleball courts and resistance pools. Costs for the homes are often in the $1 million range.
Because of the already-approved, already-rising Valencia Grand, along with other residential communities in the area, such as Valencia Reserve, Canyon Lakes and Canyon Springs, the 481-unit expansion “is a logical progression for the development within the area,” according to GL Homes in county documents.
The proposal’s location would follow the Agricultural Reserve’s 60/40 rule, which permits development if at least 60% of the project’s total land is dedicated to preservation, leaving up to 40% of the land to build on.
In the case of the two new Valencia communities, the 60/40 breakdown could work like this:
— GL Homes has 1,140 acres of land to work with. 1,140 residences would be built on 455 acres of land.
— The 1,140 residences would be divided between two communities — the 481 proposed residences of the Whitworth South project and the 659 currently approved residences of Valencia Grand.
— GL Homes is proposing the required preserve acres constitute fragmented land preserve parcels totaling 682 acres.
— The preserved land would exist on 37 different plots in the county, some with as much as about 148 acres and others with fewer than three acres.
— The 682-preserve acres and 455-development acres split would thus satisfy the county’s preserve requirement.
No part of this process breaks any rules, nor is it out of the ordinary. But as more communities have risen and more people have crammed into what used to primarily be farmland, county operations have struggled to adequately keep up.
‘A serious pause’
In the last few years, the county has made progress on projects to alleviate traffic troubles in and around the western suburbs, where Valencia and other developments have emerged. This has including widening the stretch of Lyons Road between Boynton Beach Boulevard and Clint Moore Road from two to four lanes, and extending Flavor Pict Road, the long-awaited artery between Lyons Road and U.S. 441.
The Flavor Pict Road connector project, which allows drivers an option between Atlantic Avenue and Boynton Beach Boulevard, finished on July 4. The Lyons Road project, which has been rife with delays, is set to finish later this month, according to Joanne Keller, the county’s deputy engineer for the Engineering and Public Works Department.
County Mayor Maria Sachs, who represents the district where that project is and where the 12th Valencia project could rise, said she “wants to put a serious pause on any new development east or west” of U.S. 441 because, like Schulson, she said the infrastructure needs a chance to get “up and running.”
“I’m not just talking about roads, I’m talking about firefighter stations, EMS, police departments, water, schools,” she said. “All this infrastructure has to be put in place, then we can look at housing, if it is necessary.”
Sachs said she would like to see more redevelopment east of Lyons Road to address the county’s rapid growth rather than throwing asphalt or cement over agrarian land.
COBWRA president Barbara Roth said the association plans to meet with GL Homes, likely sometime in early fall, to learn more about the developer’s time frame and vision for the new Valencia. Until then, Roth said COBWRA remains happy to work with and hear out GL or any other developer for that matter, so long as they follow the Ag Reserve rules, which GL is.
“We are always, first and foremost, concerned about the safety, security and quality of life of people in the COBWRA area,” Roth said. “They don’t have a municipality, so we are it for them.”
A vocal minority
So, the question remains: Is it really GL Homes’ responsibility to ensure the county and its infrastructure is up to speed before building?
Schulson, who lives in a GL-created community, wishes the developer would be a “good neighbor.” But he also stressed that what they are doing is not “improper” — just perhaps not ideal.
The more people and cars cluster in the west Boynton pocket, the more Valencia opponents may object, but Ezratti said a vocal minority of concerned residents exists in every community.
“There’s always a few that kind of make the most noise, but for the most part, our residents seem to be extremely happy,” he said.
