Prioritize Beautiful Outdoor Spaces—Not the Proposed Code

In a prior note we discussed how code proposed to the Council on September 29, 2025 by the Directors of Public Works and Utilities should be rejected by the Council because 1) the proposed code is a massive and unnecessary change to existing code—not a mere streamlining, 2) existing code is much better, and 3) the proposed code would be harmful even to its own concerns, for example, by aggravating flood risk in the village. We pointed out that there are many other important village priorities that would also be harmed by the proposed code. See Review of Proposed Code. It is important for the well-being of the village that the Council reject completely the proposed code.

Here we will discuss the impact that the proposed code would have on the property values, health, and safety of the village community.

Beautiful Outdoor Spaces are the Greatest Value of the Village

The greatest value (and also potential value) that exists in the village is beautiful, healthy outdoor spaces. This is the greatest value of our region: beautiful, clean, healthy beaches, coastal waters, rivers, and natural Florida. For this to exist, beautiful trees and plants—especially native trees and plants—are essential in our communities. The proposed code would devastate this potential by enabling the administration to clear cut the rights-of-way. Review of Proposed Code, pp. 3–5, 7–9.

It should be a village goal and priority—per Comprehensive Plan policies and numerous meetings and charrette events—to create beautiful outdoor spaces in the village. There are two main components for this. First, we need more beautiful parks and green spaces in the village that are inviting meeting and gathering places: beautiful destinations. Second, we need more beautiful streets and paths that are inviting for residents to walk and ride through the village connecting residents easily with great destinations in the village including the beach. The more spaces we create like that, the better for the village.

Beautiful trees are a critical feature in this for both the destination spaces and the streets and paths connecting them. The more trees along streets the better. For one thing, a path or sidewalk with no tree shade is useless, ugly, and uninviting in Florida. But also, streets lined with trees are much safer for pedestrians and bikes because they slow down traffic. One of the experts that the village commissioned for this year's mobility study made this point on how streets with trees are safer for pedestrians. This is also what residents have consistently asked for. The great treasure of Florida is natural beauty outside.

The Rights-of-Way are Essential for Beautiful Outdoor Spaces in the Village

The rights-of-way constitute a substantial space along the village roadways. They are also the most visible perspective of the village for people walking or driving in the village. They thus present a great opportunity to create beautiful outdoor spaces that make it fun and interesting and safe for residents to walk and ride in the village. It would be a huge mistake to replace good and creative spaces provided by the individual landscaping efforts and expenses of residents—all of which benefit the village community at no cost to taxpayers—by forcing the installation of sod in all the rights-of-way, which is what the proposed code would do.

The Proposed Code Would Destroy Beautiful Outdoor Spaces by Replacing Them with Sod

The proposed code, by forcing sod into the rights-of-way for no good reason, would destroy immense value in the village. It would also render impossible the goal of creating in the village a network of beautiful places connected by beautiful, walkable, and safe streets and paths. This is one reason why the proposed code makes no sense and the Council should reject it completely. For a detailed discussion on how the proposed code works, please see the Review of Proposed Code.

The individualized landscaping of residents in the rights-of-way adds substantial value to the community at no cost to taxpayers. This value flows from how the individualized landscaping of residents, in stark contrast to homogenized sod, brings to village streets interest, variety, a sense of community and of life, better aesthetic qualities, and especially in the case of native trees and plants (which are explicitly favored by current village code promoting Florida friendly landscaping) also substantial environmental and ecological benefits (better water absorption, filtration, and retention). These latter benefits are extremely important for the river and coastal water ecosystems that the vast majority of residents value immensely.

It is also long-standing village practice for residents to landscape the rights-of-way and there is no good reason to change this long-standing practice. There are many beautiful hedges and trees that have been nurtured in the village under this practice. New constructions now often rely on the rights-of-way to meet landscaping requirements under the code. In this way the village benefits from the individual creativity of residents in landscaping—many with excellent and valuable expert guidance from professional landscapers. The proposed code would destroy this value by forcing inferior landscaping options onto residents and thereby prevent residents from enhancing the value of the village in one of the most important ways possible—in the streetscapes—the most visible space for people coming into the village. This would be harmful to individual properties and harmful to the value of the whole village. No good reason has been offered to change this long-standing practice and there is none. The proposed code is pure destruction of value.

The economic value of native trees and plants to the village is reflected in neighborhood and street names by the way. While the village features names like Tequesta Oaks, Tequesta Pines, Riverside Pines, notice there is no neighborhood with the name Tequesta Sod and no Sod Street—and for good reason. No one wants to live in Tequesta Sod because it is ugly and boring and has no "small village feel." Yet the proposed code would turn the village into Tequesta Sod and also impose on residents the maintenance costs of that poor choice including additional harms to the community quality of life like the pollution and noise from the maintenance equipment, fertilizer, and excess irrigation required for sod based spaces.

A related harm flowing from the proposed code will be the destruction of the “small village feel” which the administration claims to prioritize. Yet the heavy-handed provisions and prescriptions of the proposed code would replace the great opportunity in the current code favoring community engagement from residents to create a beautiful and healthy home and instead impose on the village administratively-mandated homogenizing sod. This would be the imposition of a terrible policy and it is not a good way to encourage residents to be invested in this community and actively to direct the physical well-being and improvements of their community. The Council should favor an administrative approach that encourages residents to view this community as a home and to participate in creating that home and to be committed to its well-being for the long term. The proposed code instead will promote ugly homogenization, not a sense of home.

The proposed code would destroy value with its administrative heavy-handedness. The heavy-handed enforcement approach featured in the proposed code would also destroy value because this kind of administration is a deterrent for prospective residents. Tequesta recently annexed a property into the village and the reason given by the property owners for seeking this voluntary annexation was that they were tired of having to deal with the overbearing bureaucracy at Palm Beach County.

Unreasonable administrations are very costly to communities and this proposed code is totally unreasonable. The Council should not trash the village with regulations that force residents into bad practices. The value of a village where residents are treated reasonably is huge and people recognize that value. In this respect also the existing code is far superior to the proposed code.

Explicit Policy Guidance Set Out in the Comprehensive Plan and Many Other Forums Direct the Administration to Promote Beautiful Outdoor Spaces

The proposed code is contrary to Comprehensive Plan policy and incompatible with the priorities and preferences of residents. Please see a detailed discussion in the Review of Proposed Code.

The Proposed Code is Totally Unnecessary

The Council should reject the proposed code completely because it is totally unnecessary. What the administration should have done instead of wasting time on the proposed code (which embodies bad science, bad engineering, and bad policy) is to have prepared guidance for residents on how to plant a swale well—that is, consistently with Florida friendly practices. And then, as was done in the charrettes, the administration could have produced the best practices and plants for our area. This probably would have taken less time to make than the proposed code and it would have been far more useful. It could feature examples of outstanding landscaping designs.

Obviously there is not a one-size-fits-all solution for the swales and the rights-of-way in the manner that the proposed code would impose. This is a matter that calls for thoughtful case by case analyses of specific local features. Actually, in the vast majority of cases beautiful native plants and trees improve the swale and storm water management function of swales because these plants absorb, retain, and filter a lot of water and also prevent the loss of water absorption capability that occurs with sodded swales. We have never seen a situation to the contrary. (See the Review of Proposed Code for more detailed discussion.) The existing code affords the administration all the authority it needs to service utilities. It would be a huge mistake to replace the existing code with the blanket rule to clear cut the rights-of-way provided in the proposed code. The administration would be degrading the storm water drainage capabilities of the village dramatically and depriving the village of numerous other significant benefits of native trees and plants. That makes no sense.

Residents, Please Read the Proposed Code To See How Bad It Is

It is important for residents to read the proposed code so that there is no room subsequently for after-the-fact rationalization of the proposal. It is a terrible proposal and it should not have been put into code text to present to Council. See Proposed Code.

Code text should not be presented if the code text is not what the administration “intends” or it is not what the administration would consistently do. This latter scenario would pose a huge and unacceptable risk of arbitrary enforcement. The proposed code is especially bad because it would replace existing code that was based on a good framework where the default position recognizes the benefits of native trees and plants as good for the village (consistent with resident preferences and the Comprehensive Plan). The proposed code would change that framework to the opposite perspective where the administration could remove, with no rational basis, trees and plants that are good for the village. Certainly the Council should never go along with proposed code text that is anything like this.

Three Attachments

Review of Proposed Code

Ordinance 26-19 (2019) (The current law from 2019 with the current policy that the proposed code destroys (along with many other changes): "Low-impact design principals such as bio-swales and other creative stormwater management techniques are encouraged.")

Proposed Code (The proposed code presented to Council 29 September 2025)

Additional Attachments
March 8, 2026

Current Code and an Alternative (A note to Council (24 February 2026) clarifying the effect of current code and also proposing an alternative to the second proposed code from the Director of Public Works)

Copy of Email Review of Second Proposed Code (Copy of an email to Council 1 February 2026 reviewing the second proposed code from the Director of Public Works)

Second Proposed Code (The second proposed code presented to Council 2 February 2026)