Broward County, Florida: Trouble on the Rise?

Broward County, Florida is in the center of what we currently call South Florida. It has a population somewhere around 1.8Million... and is forecasted to rise to 2.2Million by 2020.

The issue standing with Broward County, Florida Real Estate these days is where to put all these people. Obviously Scarcity is a HUGE market force in this county - which is almost completely built out.

Neighboring Palm Beach County, Florida has plenty of room to grow North and West, and Miami-Dade still has some growth potential to the West as well.

Broward County, Florida is having to consider growing UP...as in changing density per acre to increase the ability to add available units.

Under consideration are several municipalities' Mixed Use plans. Under these plans, viable areas for a city to grow UP are charted and land is acquired for rezoning. The specific goal of this process is to increase the density of a parcel to accomodate more units per acre.

The Trouble that is brewing is that with already near capacity utilities including fragile power grids, lack of reliable mass transportation, congested streets and highways... not to mention the water supply and waste management systems that are extremely over utilized with the current population and are in a Phase III Water Restriction due to drought... How will the county and cities handle the infrastructure needs of 400,000 more citizens?

Just water consumption alone is currently at 500 million gallons a day and is expected to rise to 900 million gallons by 2025!!

Local legislators AND property owners need to realize that growth is something that can't just be halted on a dime... and that is why the property tax issue is so integral to local communities who will need tax revenues over the next years to add the services, police, hospitals, firefighters, schools, sewer lifts and water reclamation systems needed to support growth over the next decades.

2 cents on the dollar in sales tax just won't come near what Broward County, Florida will need.

Palm Beach County, Florida is perhaps lucky in the respect that having some elbow room to grow allows developers the ability to funnel traffic to alternate routes and build new utilities without disrupting existing systems.

Boynton Beach, Florida alone has two current mixed use projects in construction... Boynton Town Center and Canyon Town Center. These two developments will add much needed commercial and office support to the residential growth seen in the area. Boynton Beach, Florida also has plans for affordable housing just East of Boynton Town Center. There are quite a number of affordable options already in construction in West Boynton Beach Florida, near Canyon Town Center including Greystone and Green Cay.

Now Broward County, Florida must figure out how to gain popular support for its growth plans while creating the infrastructure to support such mass growth plans.

To the Right there are three renderings of mixed use developments in Broward County, Florida:

1. Top - Sheridan Stationside Village - Hollywood Florida, $500,000, 40 acres consisting of 1,050 residential units, a 150-room hotel, 340,000 square feet of stores, 299,000 square feet of offices and a parking garage.
2. Middle - Davie, Florida - 2200 acres surrounding Nova Southeastern University - a state of the art research center with 22,000 housing units, 11.7 million square feet of office, industrial, university and town development
3. Bottom - Wilton Station - Wilton Manors Florida, 10 acres of old beer distributorship now containing lofts, boutiques, art galleries and a spa. 60 units in this development and 145 more in an adjacent parcel.