Trading ‘air rights’ to save history
They used to call them air rights: the concept that, if you owned a property, for development purposes, you also owned the air above it, just as you owned mining rights to the ground below.
But in acronym-happy
“city planner-speak,” they now call them TDRs, for Transfer of Development Rights.
And that’s the modern concept being used to save one of West Palm’s landmark buildings from the 1920s, Payne Chapel AME Church, from the ravages of time.
The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency this week voted to buy the development rights for the three or four stories above the sanctuary at 801 Ninth St. in the city’s Historic Northwest neighborhood, to a company that owns a downtown site at 303 Banyan Blvd., across from the old city hall.
According to Jon Ward, CRA executive director, 303 Banyan Street LLC told the city it wants to build apartments on the land, currently the site of the old Wells Fargo Bank building at the corner of Banyan and Second Street. By buying the rights, the owner will be allowed to build 43,626 square feet more than he otherwise could.
State corporate records indicate the company is controlled by developer Glenn Straub, president of the Palm Beach Polo Golf & Country Club. Straub could not be reached for comment.
The CRA voted Monday to buy the TDRs for $612,000 and plans to resell them to 303 Banyan for the same amount. The agency, charged with spurring downtown redevelopment, chose to sell the rights for their market value, not to make a profit on them, Ward said.
The CRA doesn’t ordinarily get involved with deals with buildings that don’t pay taxes, such as churches, unless, for example, the city gains the rights to use a church parking lot for public purposes, Ward said. But in this case, the city recognized that it had a half-dozen landmark churches that needed preservation and that contribute to the character of their neighborhoods.
The TDR program lets them turn their development rights into money for long-deferred maintenance and renovation. The CRA controls the purse strings by helping select architects and contractors for the renovations and distributing money directly to them as work is done.
The amount of rights to be sold is not finite; it’s defined in city zoning rules. Similarly, the site that gets the transfer of development rights has to be designated by the city as a receiving site and can only build within limits allowed by the city, Ward said.
The Payne Chapel work will involve a new elevator and other features to improve access for people with disabilities. Stained glass windows will be uncovered and other improvements made.
A message left Friday for comment at Payne Chapel was not returned. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Payne Chapel AME Church, one of Palm Beach County’s oldest churches. It started in 1893 in the Styx, the black neighborhood on Palm Beach, and later moved to West Palm Beach.
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