Tequesta Notes
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Saturday, October 2, 2021
The Proposed Planning Process for
Parks in Tequesta
Why the Council should oppose it.
At the workshop Monday, October 4, the village Council will discuss a parks planning proposal. The context of this proposal is that the mayor wants to ask the state of Florida for $10,000,000 to build a sports tourism complex at Tequesta Park, which the village leases from the state through 2055. But since July 15, when the mayor first floated his sports tourism concept, it has received no support at all from any resident in any Council meeting addressing the issue. In contrast, many residents have voiced their opposition to his concept. Faced with the challenge of demonstrating support for his terrible concept, the mayor is now pitching a terrible planning process which actually obfuscates critical issues by dragnetting all the village parks into an already ill-conceived initiative.
There are numerous problems with the proposed process on the table for Monday's discussion. It is based on bad assumptions, in particular:
→ in its failure to distinguish clearly between the properties that the village actually owns and properties that the village does not own;
→ the timeline is unnecessarily compressed and does not serve the interest of careful consideration of all the parks that the proposal seeks to review;
→ the proposed survey is tendentious and would not produce a credible result;
→ it is a mere cover for the imposition of the mayor's predetermined concept; and
→ the process inappropriately accords too much consideration of outside special interests and too little consideration to what residents want.
In short, the proposed process is badly conceived, it would not produce a good result directed to the long term health of the village and the Council should oppose it. The village can conduct an authentic review of the parks in a different context. But the framing of this proposal is guaranteed to produce bad results.
The discussion below is in three parts:
Part I presents a better alternative framework for thinking about the parks.
Part II enumerates some of the fatal defects of the proposed process that the Council will consider on Monday.
Part III sets out some recommendations.
I. A Better Framework For Thinking About Our Parks
Far and away the most valuable asset that we have, and the most valuable recreational asset in particular, is our water. The river, the estuary, the intra-coastal, and the ocean.
These water resources are literally the life blood of our region and they are the reason why this is a great place to live. The health of our water resources should always be the foremost priority in our planning decisions. Our goal is to build a community that is a healthy home. For this we need healthy water, which depends on healthy land.
This priority is especially important today because the health of our water is grievously threatened. It is dying under our routine development, landscaping, and agricultural practices. These circumstances make crystal clear what our development planning priority must be. Not only must we stop the development and land use practices that result in harm to the water, we must prioritize practices that tend to improve the quality of our water.
You've heard this before: Tequesta is all built out. So let's not pretend we are dividing up a pie in equitable portions for all essential interests. Rather, development has already taken the whole pie. A few crumbs remain. All we are asking is that the Council devote these few remnants of land to natural parks because of all the benefits that natural parks offer to a community. And they are less expensive.
Another important fact to note is that the village of Tequesta already has a substantial recreational infrastructure. The village recently invested millions of dollars in a new rec center and that cost is apt to continue to increase because the staffing needs for the new rec center were not adequately identified up front prior to construction. There are numerous structured recreational facilities all over the place. What we have a critical shortage of, however, is natural space, in particular smaller scale natural spaces in neighborhoods. This is vital to the health of the land, the water, and so also to the life of this community.
At this point, it does not make sense to spend more money on more structured rec programs. Instead we should prioritize putting natural parks in the land that remains.
→ Natural parks are versatile for a diverse range of recreational uses.
→ Natural parks provide for water infiltration that cleans the water flowing into the river and the ocean. In contrast, sports tourism complexes require chemicals that are harmful to the water and to the land and to humans.
→ Natural parks improve storm water retention and so mitigate the flood risk.
→ Natural parks are far less expensive to build than complex rec structures.
→ Natural parks are far less expensive to maintain and to staff than complex rec structures.
→ Natural parks do not require the chemical treatments that are necessary for tournament-standard sports tourism fields.
→ Natural parks are more socially equitable than the structured rec programs. Natural parks are freely available to the whole public at no extra fees and no sign up required.
→ In contrast to the very limited utility of a specialized sports field, natural parks provide valuable ecological services and other environmental benefits twenty four hours a day, 365 days of the year to the whole community far beyond the boundaries of the parks. High intensity sports fields on the other hand are completely empty most of their lives. Especially during the summer months.
→ More neighborhood parks would enhance neighborhood safety and community by concentrating community life and activity in the neighborhoods.
→ More natural parks would also serve an important health prerogative in a time when the incidence of disease caused by environmental factors such as exposure to toxic chemicals is increasing.
Tequesta has been desirable as a home because of its location close to beautiful water. This water is seriously threatened and in fact the quality of the water has declined substantially because of our land use and development.
II. The Fatal Deficiencies in the Proposal that the Council Will Consider
Here are some of the salient problems in the proposed plan for the parks (see: the parks proposal 4 October 2021). These render the planning proposal unacceptable.
→ The proposal does not adequately prioritize Tequesta residents. On strategic questions like municipal parks, only Tequesta residents should be polled because these questions go to the heart of whether the village will be a safe and healthy home for residents or rather will be exploded to the benefit of all kinds of external special interests.
→ The proposal fails to spotlight the essential difference between land that the village actually owns and land that the village does not own. This is an important consideration in thinking about how to prioritize the investment of taxpayer dollars. We should prioritize land that the village owns.
→ The proposal overstates the amount of neighborhood and community park space that the village is providing by alluding to space that is either privately owned or space that the village does not own but rather merely leases. Most of the land referenced in the proposal is a distraction and is not owned by the village and should not be credited to the village in our assessment of the village's compliance with the Code's parks requirements. The village can only guarantee the land that the village owns. In the present development circumstances, it is imprudent and inconsiderate to the future of the village to count land that the village does not own.
→ For example, the village does not own Linear Park along Old Dixie north of Tequesta Drive but rather leases it from FEC RR. If the railroad decides to build a structure there, then the village will lose that space. Linear Park should not be considered a village park for the purpose of the Code requirement.
→ Likewise for most of the other park space in the proposal's list. Tequesta Park does not belong to the village. It isn't even in Palm Beach county.
→ When you assess the village park space candidly, Tequesta is far below what it should be providing to residents under the Code. The main village park asset at the moment, Constitution Park, is less than four acres. Under the Code, the village is required to provide more than 24 acres of neighborhood and community parks for a population of 6,500.
→ If we include the additional 10,000 residents of the 33469 zip code then you should also add an additional 40 acres of park space for a total of more than 64 acres that the village should be providing. If planners are counting land that the village doesn't even own, then all the more should they also include the extra 40 acres for the overall population. In fact there is more reason to do this anyway because as a practical matter, these extra residents also use these parks and so under the intention of the Code the village should be providing more than 64 acres of parks.
→ The bottom line is that the village is far below what it should be providing under the guidance of the Code, which stipulates 2 acres of neighborhood parks and 2 acres of community parks per 1,000 residents. The proposal completely misrepresents the current status of parks in the village.
→ It is actually even worse because the proposal's accounting relies on Tequesta Park. In addition to the fact that this land does not belong to the village, Tequesta Park is 41 acres on the outskirts of town. By lumping this much of the required parks area into a space on the outskirts of town, planners defeat the whole point of the Code's neighborhood parks requirement. Neighborhood parks are supposed to be in the neighborhoods because that is where they would be readily accessible and where they would provide innumerable benefits to the health of the community from a human and environmental perspective.
→ To see this, imagine, from a bird's eye view of the 33469 zip code, 64 acres of green space parks actually distributed across the village's neighborhoods. It is easy to imagine how, in addition to being much healthier for residents, for the land, and for water, this configuration of parks would also make these communities immensely more valuable. This fact is another reason why not to waste money on maintaining, at huge expense, a sports tourism facility in the leased property of Tequesta Park. Use that money instead over the years to enable the village to purchase properties for more neighborhood parks.
→ The proposal map should not suggest, as it does, that a golf course counts towards village park space. That is totally misleading. The golf course is private. And in many crucial respects a golf course is an anti-park because of all the connected environmental harms and wasteful irrigation requirements involved.
→ The proposal map erroneously identifies the village-owned property between the railroad track and Cypress Drive. That one acre property is in fact much longer than is indicated on the map. This is important because this is a crucial property of strategic value in the center of the village but the mayor and Mr Prince had previously sought to sell this property by downplaying its value. Fortunately Mr Stone, Ms Brandon, and Ms Young prevented that sale. This one acre village property should not be sold but rather should be planted with trees. It has strategic value to ensure that the village has a say in the future on how that district will be developed as the railroad activity heats up. It is an asset of increasing value so that from a financial perspective it would be foolish for the village to sell it. If it is planted with beautiful trees then it will greatly enhance the aesthetics of the district and in particular the perspective from Tequesta Drive for those entering the village from the east and also for passengers on the Brightline train. It would provide a screen separating the railroad from the village on the other side. This one acre parcel is a valuable municipal asset and it should be turned into a beautiful natural park. Yet it wasn't even mentioned in the proposal.
→ In view of the failure to notice this one acre property off of Cypress, it is worth pointing out that it would not be possible for the Council (or anyone) to make good decisions on how to use the village lands without a complete and accurate accounting of what the village actually owns. The village should prioritize what the village actually owns.
→ The proposal sets up a perspective that is too utilitarian and too focused on an overly-narrow understanding of recreation.
→ Because of this overly-narrow focus, the proposal entirely neglects land that the village actually does own and that should be enhanced. Namely the parcels that the village owns for water retention can be aesthetically enhanced with native plants and paths and benches. These improvements would benefit the water retention characteristics of these spaces (they don't have to be just bare sod basins or ditches). This would also improve the aesthetics of the neighborhoods and so property values, ecological services, and provide versatile recreation with additional walking or running paths. This is a very cost-effective way to enhance recreational options close to residents while also providing numerous other environmental and community benefits. All this was totally neglected in the proposal.
→ The proposal is framed in a perspective that tends to neglect the need this community has to restore more natural habitat for essential reasons like the health of the land, the water, and the residents who live here.
→ The proposal framework and the proposed survey create a structure that will not lead the Council to make decisions directed to the vital priorities: the long term health of the village and making this community a healthy home.
→ Let's also not forget the resolution that was recently voted three against two limiting the scope of review for the mayor's Tequesta Park concept. That resolution locks in his sports tourism concept notwithstanding all the opposition from residents to that concept. In this way, in fact, under the proposed process there would be no meaningful public review of the mayor's concept. This process has been designed simply to railroad the village with the mayor's sports tourism concept.
→ The proposed timeline is unnecessarily compressed. The plan is not conceived to enable good decisions on the parks but rather to develop a cover for bad decisions and in particular for the mayor's proposed sports tourism concept for Tequesta Park.
→ The proposed survey. To see the insincerity of surveys like the one that has been proposed, consider the pickle ball courts question that was put to residents in 2018 for the new rec center.
A 2018 survey question for Tequesta residents re pickle ball.
(click here for a bigger image)
Notice the results: 151 residents said "No" to pickle ball courts, 46 said "Yes", and 52 ignored the question altogether. Even though there is no way you could reasonably conclude a consensus for pickle ball courts, nevertheless the administration has since installed pickle ball courts in the rec center and in Constitution park and is now building pickle ball courts in the space that used to be two tennis courts at Tequesta Park. This shows how surveys like this are a gimmick used to justify anything.
→ Surveys for strategic questions are prone to abuse. They restrict the scope of meaningful debate with leading questions; respondents often lack complete information; multiple choice questions often miss what really matters. They direct decisions to a preconceived plan. This survey is not the right tool for reaching a good result on these questions.
→ Also the village cannot authenticate that survey results are actually from residents of Tequesta. The voters and taxpayers. Yet this survey implicates strategic questions where the residents' interest in building a healthy home is in conflict with outside pecuniary interests.
Recommendations
→ Prioritize village owned land.
→ Do not sell any village owned land.
→ In the few remnants of land still available to the village, prioritize natural parks!
→ Do not pursue projects that increase transience like making a sports tourism destination. This will undermine the best qualities of the village and diminish the value of this village as a community that is a home.
→ In every project, prioritize not merely not causing harm to the land and water, for example, with poisons, but instead require that every project actually improve the quality of water going into aquifers or the river or the ocean.
→ Begin the discussion of village parks with the Environmental Advisory Committee. The EAC is comprised of residents who are very knowledgeable, with great depth of relevant expertise and who represent a good cross-section of this community.
→ Set up a fund to enable the purchase of properties to increase the number of pocket parks in village neighborhoods.
→ If the EAC is not already doing this, have them set up a tree management plan. There are plenty of spaces, even in Constitution Park, where we should plant the next generation of trees and understory to provide adequately for the future.
→ Draw on the expertise in the community and engage the community directly in action in the stewardship of the public spaces in the village. This approach offers numerous benefits to the residents and to the community.
→ Score design options based on vital village priorities. One way to see how natural parks are a far superior option to more cost and labor intensive rec program structures is to set up a scoring metric. For example you could rate options on 1) recreation value; 2) ecological services; 3) flood mitigation services; 4) value to human health; 5) community value; 6) construction cost; 7) staffing and maintenance costs. Under any reasonable metric or analysis like this, natural parks will be the far superior option. Especially given our present circumstances.
→ An obvious and easy way to get resident feedback is through Council or formal resident committee meetings that are properly noticed and genuinely motivated to hear citizen comments. Residents who care about the questions will attend the meetings or send you an email.
→ Don't bury important items in the agenda. Don't rush strategic questions putting cart before horse like what has happened with the Tequesta Park sports tourism concept. Provide proper notice. Don't suppress citizen comments or citizen follow up questions when there is no need to.
→ Encourage people to come to the Council meetings or committee meetings dedicated to strategic issues and present the best information they have so that the Council can make the best decisions directed to the long-term health and safety of the village.
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