Photo Credit: @pbcerm, Ann Mathews
What do we mean by sustainable development? What is smart growth for PBC?
Sustainable Palm Beach County defines sustainability as a balance of environmental protections and economic development that allows PBC residents to continue to enjoy the quality of life that keeps us here — and ensures that we don’t destroy that quality of life for the next generation.
More and more people are moving to the area; the median price of real estate has risen over 20 percent from 2020 to 2021 alone; land is being converted from agriculture to real estate at a rapid pace; changes happening around us highlight the need for sustainable intervention to avoid overexploitation. Thus, when “sustainability” is a reference to life-sustaining best practices, it must ultimately be a reference to the sustainable use of land. If land is to be used sustainably, we cannot be on a course toward bankruptcy – the point when too much land has been consumed, and too little is left to maintain a sustainable supply of water, air, and food for a given population.
Sustainability is a balance of environmental protections and economic development that allows PBC residents to continue to enjoy the quality of life that keeps us here.
We seek smart growth policies to slow the consumption of land by removing, or reducing, the impact of the automobile. In neighboring counties to our South, residents spend their days gridlocked in traffic. That is not a future that we want for PBC.
Sustainable Palm Beach County focuses on land use, water stewardship, compact building design and green space preservation.
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