Apartments Can Take More Residents

More people will be allowed to live in the Palm Garden Apartments after the City Council agreed to let the complex increase the number of residents per unit.

In 1997, the city entered into an agreement with the county to issue tax-exempt bonds for the rehabilitation of the 224-unit apartment complex. As part of the agreement, the building’s owner, Bertram Development Partners, was required to limit occupancy to two people per bedroom.

Bertram’s spokesman Mark Goodman this week told the council that the restriction was penalizing families. He said parents who live with two children in two-bedroom apartments had to be evicted if they had a third child.

The majority of the council agreed to allow up to five people live in the two-bedroom apartments and up to three people in the one-bedroom apartments. Council members Chris Norby and Jan Flory voted against the new occupancy limit.

“Five people in a two-bedroom apartment is way too many,” Flory said.

Norby, who opposed the project from the beginning, said he disapproved of the new agreement because it might set a precedent.

“This will signal to other developers in the future that they can engage in a bait and switch,” he said.

In other action this week, the council approved a $125,000 expenditure on expansion plans for the Main Library’s children’s section.