Tequesta Notes
notes for a village
Sunday, November 2, 2025
A Review of the Staff LSV Proposal
The Council will discuss Monday, November 3, a code change recommendation from village planning staff ostensibly directed to "expanding low-speed vehicle use in the village." Yet the real effect of the proposal would actually be to enable the next wave of developers to build bigger buildings by reducing the code parking requirement. It would do nothing to assist low speed vehicle use in the village or to make village roadways safer for low speed vehicles. The Council should reject the proposal.
The staff proposal is to change the village code to allow for smaller parking spaces dedicated to low speed vehicles (LSVs):
"One of the easiest ways to encourage LSV usage is to start allowing LSV parking to count towards parking requirements in commercial and mixed-use developments." Staff Memo for November 3, 2025.
This will do nothing "to encourage LSV usage." If an LSV fits in a smaller parking space it certainly also fits in a bigger one. There is no benefit from this proposal to LSVs at all. In addition to enabling bigger buildings however the proposal would aggravate congestion in parking lots. It makes no sense from the perspective of residents.
The proposed change would benefit developers though. It would allow future developments to allocate less space to the code parking requirement and therefore to build bigger buildings. This is totally contrary to a key priority of residents.
The staff proposal claims to be based in a recent mobility study and plan adopted by Council last month. But this claim is not correct as we will show in a review below of the study and plan. In fact literally no resident asked for this proposal in the mobility study and actually this proposal is also contrary to key goals and priorities that residents did ask for in that study.
The village and residents paid for and spent time on this mobility study. The Council should not pursue a proposal that is totally inconsistent with the express preferences of residents from that study.
In the current state of development, the code parking requirements constitute important constraints against over-sized building footprints and traffic congestion. For these reasons the Council should reject this staff recommendation.
We will discuss below 1) what residents actually prioritized in the recent mobility study and 2) the additional recommendations in the staff LSV proposal.
The Recent Mobility Study And Plan
No resident actually asked for this proposal at the mobility study. On March 7, 2025, the village's consultants had a prominent booth at the village Friday Food Trucks event. The consultants reported that nearly 100 people spoke with them about the planning process. Residents were invited to identify priorities and preferences by placing green stickers on posters featuring potential changes for the village. The image below shows the poster with LSV parking (it is called multi-modal parking) and the fact that not a single resident viewed this as a priority. In contrast you can see that "side walk seating" and "parks and open space" were unanimous priorities for residents.
A poster at the village Mobility Study showing that not a single resident prioritized low speed vehicle parking. The green sticker near the top right corner is for "public art." Not LSV parking. This proposal is not for residents.
It is also worth noticing that whereas no one asked for this proposal at the Food Trucks event, many of the people at that event arrived there in LSVs. The people being polled included lots of LSV owners.
The mobility study and plan actually explicitly identify the following as priorities and preferences for residents:
- Street trees
- Sidewalk seating
- Pedestrian priority
- Parks and open space
- Protected intersections
See the Mobility Plan.
Residents expressly stated they disfavored the following:
- New ways to get around
- Golf cart paths
- Golf cart amenities
- Roundabouts
- E-bikes
Improved roadway safety, especially for pedestrians and bikes, is a key priority for residents in the mobility study. And the mobility consultant noted that trees along roads help improve roadway safety by slowing traffic.
In fact it is clear that the best way for the village to make the village roads safer for LSV drivers and passengers is to lower speed limits.
When you consider the staff proposal with public works proposal to clear cut the rights-of-way which will mean that people will drive faster, that is actually going to increase danger for everyone on the roads. (See the Review of the Public Works ROWs Code Proposal.)
The only way that this staff recommendation to allow for a smaller parking space requirement would be acceptable is if it were accompanied by a clear and unwaivable requirement for all of the space saved from the existing parking requirement to be only additional open space or green space and in no way admissible as additional built space.
Otherwise the staff proposal is just a pure give-away to developers to make bigger buildings and it does not serve any resident preferences or priorities at this critical developmental juncture for the village.
This staff proposal also would not fix any parking problem. LSVs fit in bigger parking spaces but normal cars don't fit in LSV parking. Because the effect of the proposal would be to reduce parking available to conventional vehicles, the proposal will only aggravate parking congestion.
And if people can't find a parking space near local shops, the local shops will lose business in favor of delivery services from big retailers. This is absolutely contrary to the village imperative to support local business.
In view of the fact that no residents asked for this proposal and also the fact that there are ten other resident-favored priority projects it is very strange that planning staff would lead with a proposal like this.
The focus of village planning, if it wants to serve the priorities of residents (which it should) must instead prioritize more open space and pedestrian friendly design.
The "Additional Recommendations"
In addition to recommending lowering the code parking requirement for future developments, the staff memo also adds four other recommendations:
Add LSV parking at village facilities, especially parks
Public awareness campaigns explaining where LSVs may operate
Install street signage indicating permitted LSV routes
Use LSVs in municipal operations (e.g., parks, public works, code enforcement)
Re More signage. This is a terrible suggestion. The administrative signage across the village are already a visual clutter at this point. At least some of the current signs are useless and the village definitely does not need to add to the excessive signage currently deployed. These signs diminish the "small village feel," charm, and aesthetics. Additionally, the enthusiam with which the village staff are sticking signs everywhere is disconcerting because it indicates a total indifference to intent of the village code requirements that prevent residents from placing signs along roads. But the same aesthetic concerns that motivate those code provisions should also be important for the village administration generally.
Re LSVs for municipal operations. For the safety of village staff this is a bad idea. Also the village would have to consider the effect of this practice on village insurance costs and liability.
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