PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Voters in five separate zones of northern Palm Beach County all resoundingly said Tuesday they did not want to become a part of Palm Beach Gardens.
The vote came after Palm Beach Gardens City Council approved five annexation plans in December, which would have brought about 3,500 pieces of property into the city limits. Each zone voted in a separate election where a 50% plus one majority was required to join the city.
According to Tuesday's election results, more than 90% of voters in all five areas rejected annexation.
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Palm Beach Gardens
Voters in Palm Beach County to decide on joining city of Palm Beach Gardens
City staff said the plan would allow the town to increase its tax base, which could potentially allow it to lower the city's millage rate while being able to maintain services for the town. The city has also argued it would lower taxes if a person's home had an assessed value at or lower than $411,250, which it estimates is 70% of properties.
WPTV received the city's data from a records request and found the percentage differs based on the zone. Specifically, a higher percentage of properties seeing their taxes increase are within zones 2 and 3.
Celeste Colliton, who lives in Zone 1, said she is excited for a verdict after campaigning against the issue for months. She said those efforts included holding sings and a lawsuit people from her neighborhood filed to stop the vote.
"We all started to work hard in different ways. They got the coalition going, we got the lawsuit from Hidden Key going," Colliton said. "Now we're going to at least find out the main results."
According to data WPTV requested from the Palm Beach County supervisor of elections, most voters and properties are in Zone 1. It also has the biggest difference between the number of registered voters compared to the number of properties in each zone.
Before voting to move the plan forward, dozens of people spoke out against the plan to annex Zone 1 at the city's regularly scheduled council meeting.
Colliton said she didn't feel like council understood the public’s opinion about the annexation attempt
"They didn't listen to us," she said. "We would go and you just felt like they let you say anything and they would do what they want. That was the frustrating part."
Opposition against the annexation organized into a political action committee called the Coalition Against Annexation. The group argues property taxes would increase if people joined the city and homeowners would lose rights due to Palm Beach Gardens code enforcement.
Peter Banting, who lives in Zone 5, said in October he supports the project because Palm Beach Gardens completely encloses his neighborhood. He said he's looking forward to receiving assistance to fix roads, which his neighborhood is currently performing rather than a local government.
Banting said he expected the measure to lose. He said he struggled to counter the organized political action committee.
