What's at stake
Not the beach. The sand is not in any of the nine questions. What is at stake is a 1998 dollar figure, a 2002 floor-area formula, and the legal minimum size of a parking space.
Why keep it all in the Charter?
Our sign says
So it can never be quietly weakened
Codes are designed to be flexible. We say that as an accusation. A rule in the Charter cannot be adjusted for inflation, a new seawall standard, a stormwater retrofit, or a land swap the city would win. Every fix is a citywide election. That isn't rigidity. It's heritage.
What stays and what goes
- Stays in the Charter: 45-foot and 55-foot height caps. Lot-coverage limits. The ban on rezoning to commercial.
- Goes, if voters say so: floor area ratio caps, mixed-use and accessory-use limits (G); three operating rules for the main beach lot (H); the referendum trigger for land deals over $750,000 (E).
- The original campaign's site lists height caps among what would be lost. Question G keeps them.
Sources: Boca Post; City ballot language; original campaign.
The overdevelopment risks, in character
Our sign says
Traffic
If nobody can build near the beach, nobody will drive to the beach. They will live out west and drive here instead, through your neighborhood, but that is a different slide.
Our sign says
Flooding
Every acre of greenspace lost to concrete sends water into your street. This is why we have spent 28 years defending 4.3 acres of pavement.
Our sign says
Loss of heritage
Once irreplaceable places are gone they cannot be recreated. For what that looks like, see the image on our history page, which was generated.
What the questions do about any of that
- Nothing on the ballot converts greenspace, raises a height limit, or changes lot coverage.
- G changes what can go inside the building envelope the Charter already allows east of the Intracoastal.
- Whether that is good planning is a fair argument. It is a smaller argument than the one on the yard signs.
Sources: Boca Post; The Real Deal.
Where the other side has a point
Out of character for a minute.
Question D gives the mayor and every sitting commissioner about 20 more months than voters elected them for, and two of them would otherwise be term-limited out in March 2027. A commission asking for extra time should expect suspicion, and it is getting some. If that is a dealbreaker for you, vote no on D. You will be in decent company.
Question E moves real authority. If it passes, the next proposal to lease a piece of valuable city land, the beach lot included, is decided by five elected people at a public meeting instead of by referendum. You can think that is fine, because those five can be fired, and under D they would face a November electorate. You can think it is not. Either way it is an argument about who signs leases. It is not the end of the beach.
The original campaign bundles a scheduling objection, a real estate threshold, a floor-area formula and parking-space geometry into a single apocalypse, because four separate arguments don't fit on a yard sign. Each question stands or falls alone. Ballots have more than one line.