A PASSING BRINY BREEZE
Briny Breeze.
What a nice name for a nice community filled with nice people. 
Several weeks ago, while driving along South Florida's A1A, I happened upon a 43 acre, 488 unit, community, where the residents greeted me with waves and smiles as they sat on their front porches or sauntered the area.
It seems that everyone I encountered was smiling. No, they looked elated.
Why?
Was it the prime location, with access both to the Atlantic Ocean and South Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway?
Maybe.
Was it that some of these people paid as little as $15,000 for these homes?
Maybe.
Or, is it because these folks have sold their trailer homes to Ocean Land Investments -- a developer -- for an average price of over one million dollars?
While the trailer park was aesthetically questionable, it was clean, quiet, and had reported no crime. It generated little traffic on the road which bisected the town, was low density, and, of course, low rise. (After all, how high can a trailer be?)
But, unfortunately, that is all going to change.
Ocean Land paid well over 500 million dollars for the town’s acquisition. And with this huge payout, the purchasing consortium is going to expect and demand significant changes to this humble town.
They are proposing 900 condos, a 300 room hotel, retail space, and, of course, time shares.
These new buildings, which are expected to be too tall and much too dense for the existing space, are going to place a huge burden on the neighboring infrastructure (roadways, sewers and drain systems), will increase traffic congestion, and will negatively impact the beach and already fragile ecosystem.
Working with unscrupulous public officials -- such as Palm Beach County Commissioner Bert Abramson, who has reportedly received significant “donations” from developers -- and local politicians who seems clueless or indifferent to environmental issues, this development will set a dangerous precedent for Palm Beach County Real Estate Hell.
COME ON IN!
We welcome your comments and encourage you to share your experiences. [Not everyone need spend their life in (real estate) hell.]
