Editor’s Note: Readers have sent multiple letters in response to Susannah Bryan’s news article, Next up for Pier 66: Four new luxury condo towers and more dining, shops, July 24.
The historic Pier 66 tower has long stood as a beacon for Fort Lauderdale, but the proposed Phase II expansion is a direct assault on the city’s quality of life, safety, and regulatory integrity. While the developer seeks a Planned Development District (PDD) rezoning to greenlight four massive towers, residents of the Harbour Inlet neighborhood and commuters on the 17th Street corridor would be left to bear the burden of a project fundamentally at odds with the city’s Comprehensive Plan.
The scale is massive. The developer requests a maximum building height of 270 feet, more than double the 120-foot limit permitted under current B-1 zoning east of the Intracoastal Waterway. This is not innovative design. it’s an imposition of building mass on an adjacent lower-density residential area. Four 270-foot towers do not transition into a single-family neighborhood. They loom over it, disrupting the scenic quality and tranquility of the waterways. The city’s own Development Review Committee (DRC) isn’t convinced, requiring a “build mass graphic” to illustrate how these towers will impact the RS-8 district to the south.
Christine Vinkelvoss is a resident near the proposed major expansion of Pier 66.
The traffic impact is equally troubling. A proposed Harbour Inlet Drive roundabout is framed as an improvement, but it funnels traffic from 339 new luxury units directly into a quiet residential pocket, contradicting the city’s Comprehensive Plan, which seeks to protect neighborhoods from “impacts created by more intense adjacent uses.” Anyone living near Harbour Inlet Drive knows this is not a quiet side street that can absorb hundreds of additional daily trips.
Public safety is on the line. The project sits in a Coastal High Hazard area, yet the developer has not documented that Broward County has cleared the project regarding hurricane evacuation clearance times. The project creates a perilous intersection of traffic congestion and safety that violates core city principles — a critical fire safety issue. The developer must prove that emergency vehicles can navigate the site’s complex internal circulation and loading zones without being hindered by the gridlock its project creates.
We are told this development is necessary to provide “significant community benefits,” such as a waterfront promenade. However, as the sources reveal, this “public” space remains private property subject to the developer’s rules, restricted hours, and closures for “special functions.” A limited-use 1.43-mile sidewalk is a poor trade-off for the degradation of our skyline and the saturation of our roads.
City commissioners have discretionary power to deny this PDD rezoning, and they should not be convinced of this “innovative design.” If the city allows this to proceed at this scale, they are abandoning the Comprehensive Plan designed to protect the neighborhoods and sense of place that make Fort Lauderdale home. It’s time to tell the developer that 270 feet is a bridge too far.
— Christine Winkelvoss, Fort Lauderdale
Totally incompatible
If neighborhood compatibility were important to this developer, three 270-foot high buildings would not be proposed on top of a residential neighborhood. They could be built on the north side of Pier 66, but the developer chose to build them next to Harbour Inlet. In no other development in Broward has a municipality allowed a developer to build three 270-foot buildings atop a single-family neighborhood.
You can’t even see half of Harbour Inlet in the photo with your article because of the size of the buildings. The project is simply, unavoidably incompatible with the area. Designation as a planned development district requires “substantial, significant, and recognizable improvements to the neighboring community and city in general” and “compatibility with the neighboring properties.” The project fails in both regards.
Final approval requires a supermajority of the City Commission. The developers are watching. If the city allows this on top of a single-family neighborhood, you can expect a PDD proposed in every neighborhood in Fort Lauderdale. Inexplicably, a 270-foot building will be deemed compatible with a one-story home.
— Joseph M. Maus, Fort Lauderdale
The writer is president of the Harbour Inlet Association, a single-family home neighborhood adjacent to Pier 66.
Beach access will be gone
Considering that traffic on SE 17th Street currently moves as fast a tortoise on Propofol, they might as well start designing the second deck over the current roadway now, or wait until costs double after the towers are built, when they will realize that beach access is gone.
— Gerard J. Shivy, Fort Lauderdale
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