INDIANTOWN — The Indiantown Village Council unanimously approved a comprehensive plan amendment clearing the way for Florida Power & Light to move forward with plans on more than 5,700 newly annexed acres.
The property, totaling 5,722.30 acres, was annexed into the village earlier this year through a voluntary request by the utility, greatly expanding the village's borders.
“Florida Power and Light annexed the 5,722.30 acres as a voluntary annexation. That was approved on Jan. 22 of this year. This is 5,722.30 acres that is located north and south of Southwest Canada Highway and west of Southwest Warfield Boulevard and immediately south of the existing boundaries,” said Deanna Freeman, Indiantown’s community development director.
With the land now inside village limits, officials were required to update its future land use designation to align with the village’s comprehensive plan.
“A requirement of state statute is that with an annexation that they have to change the future land use because they're now part of the village and so they have to look at the catalog of comprehensive plan policies with the land use designations that are in the comprehensive plan and pick a comprehensive plan land use designation because they're now in the village physically,” Freeman said.
Village staff proposed shifting the designation to allow light industrial activity.
“We have agricultural institutional development with conservation and public utilities major power generation facilities. The land use amendment is a future land use designation to light industrial,” she said.
Freeman said the amendment required review by multiple state and regional agencies before returning to the council for final consideration.
“Where staff have to transmit to Florida Commerce, South Florida Water Management District, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the historic trust which is called Florida Department of State, Treasure Coast Regional Planning and the Florida Department of Transportation. So that's why there was a 30-day break period in between from the first public hearing until now. We received all of the consultations within the 30-day timeline. Everybody responded. There were no objections to the large-scale comprehensive plan amendment,” she said.
The village received comments from reviewing agencies aimed at improving how the amendment would be carried out. If adopted locally, the proposal will return to the state for final approval.
Several residents and business leaders voiced support for the change, citing potential economic gains.
Kevin Powers, an Indiantown businessman, framed the issue as one of jobs and opportunity.
“My point is very simple. When it comes to economic development and your largest economic partner wants to expand in Indiantown, I think you owe it to the working folks that say ‘that's important to us. That's a job,’” he said.
Donna Carman, who has served on the Indiantown Chamber of Commerce, said the utility’s presence would strengthen the village’s finances.
“That we have that asset to increase the tax base in Indiantown and so that funding can be utilized to fix the roads, to fix the water, to fix all of the problems that we address as well as our parks,” she said.
Council members voted unanimously to approve the comprehensive plan change, advancing the next phase of the project.