East Stuart property owners may soon have less say over how they develop their property
STUART — East Stuart property owners could lose some of their rights Thursday at a special City Commission meeting in their neighborhood.
Those rights include the ability to build what they want without the approval of the City Commission. By taking the rights, some commissioners hope to prevent gentrification of East Stuart, a predominantly Black community.
“The East Stuart community doesn’t want their residential neighborhood zoned for three-, four-story Abacoa-style mixed use,” Vice Mayor Christopher Collins said Monday, referring to the upscale 2,055-acre community in Jupiter with its mix of homes and businesses.
City commissioners instead would require property owners to come before them for permission to build anything but single-family homes, two-story duplexes and accessory dwelling units.
Property owners would need City Commission approval to build apartments and buildings with a mix of residential and commercial uses.
What East Stuart wants
The community may be OK with that, at least according to one resident who has been talking to his neighbors.
“This is a residential community and that’s what we want it to stay,” said Albert Brinkley, who has been upset about the noise one new East Stuart business makes.
Resident Albert Brinkley gives his perspective about the upcoming vote on development, property rights in East Stuart to Mayor Campbell Rich at the 10th Street Community Center on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. Monday’s meeting on regulations impacting the city’s predominantly Black community could force property owners to get permission from commissioners to do anything with their land, Rich said. Vice Mayor Christopher Collins said Tuesday in a Facebook Live discussion, he wants to restore the single-family nature of East Stuart. Collins added developers want the land for “a little City Place, a little downtown, really for Brightline,” referring to the proposed Brightline station in downtown Stuart near the Martin County Courthouse.
A business that makes gutters was allowed to open because the land was zoned commercial, Collins said. If the City Commission passes the proposed changes for East Stuart, that could be avoided.
But the proposed changes also could be used to deny the construction of apartments, which are more affordable to most people.
Are the changes racist?
The changes proposed are racist, Mayor Campbell Rich has said.
Nowhere else in Stuart will property owners be faced with the same restrictions as in East Stuart, Rich said.
“It’s a difficult and expensive process,” Rich said of the proposed requirements. East Stuart property owners will likely have to hire a planner and an attorney and have plans drawn up, he said. And, he added, there’s no guarantee their plans will get approved.
East Stuart could then be limited to single-family homes, duplexes and accessory dwelling units. Single-family homes are the most expensive type of housing, Rich said.
Exclusionary zoning
The proposed changes would be exclusionary zoning, Rich said. Exclusionary zoning comprises “regulations that restrict the amount and type of housing that property owners are allowed to construct on their land,” according to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
The most significant type of exclusionary zoning “restricts housing construction in an area to homes that house only one family,” according to the Cato Institute.
Commissioner Sean Reed disagrees the proposed changes are racist. He favors single-family homes, accessory dwelling units and building generational wealth. Living in an apartment builds no generational wealth, he said.
Commissioner Laura Giobbi declined to comment. Collins, Reed and Giobbi make up a majority of the commission and typically vote in unison.
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What East Stuart needs
Construction of three- and four-story buildings in East Stuart is unwanted and unneeded, Brinkley said.
East Stuart needs low-income housing, Brinkley said, and the city can get grant money to provide that.
Keith Burbank is TCPalm’s watchdog reporter covering Martin County. He can be reached at keith.burbank@tcpalm.com and at 720-288-6882.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: City Commission may soon get more say over development in East Stuart
