Today's CRA presentation at the Paradise Gardens (PG) III Club House

I attended the CRA presentation at the Paradise Gardens (PG) III Club House today. Diane Colonna, Executive Director, did a good job with her presentation what the CRA is about. I got the chance to talk to several residents of PG after the meeting and the overwhelming majority had no idea what the CRA is or that it even existed. During and Q&A time one of the PG residents brought up an issue in regards to the Margate Downtown City Center, which I have not even thought about yet. She referred to the Delray Downtown Area and the adjacent areas west of it. I personally have not been there for a long time, but she said a friend of hers is trying to sell the property west of downtown Delray and because of the focus on the downtown area the rest has been neglected to the point that it is almost impossible for her friend to sell her house for a decent price. Other residents of PG shared this concern. After the CRA built 968 more apartments, while we still have about 800 empty between Toscana and Celebration Point, what is going to happen to the adjacent neighborhoods in Margate? Another PG resident was concerned about the infrastructure in Margate. Plenty of malfunctioning sewage and some sinkholes in the area of PG and south of PG and yet we are spending money on 968 more apartments. If at least the Margate residents would get what they want... Though I appreciate the effort to reach out to the community, I still don't see any signs on part of the CRA to change their plans to accommodate the needs and wishes of Margate's residents. The Amphitheater is still a fix point from what I heard out of this presentation though CRA Chair Peerman said she never called it Amphitheater but rather a "Band Shelter" it makes no difference. It doesn't matter what you call a dog, it is still a dog. Another issue that could once again not be answered is traffic. How is the city going to handle the traffic at the intersection of Margate Blvd./SR 7 - 441 generated by approximately 1,600 to 1,800 new residents? I also pointed out the high crime at Toscana and what the City Commission or CRA have planned to prevent the same to happen in the downtown area. Unfortunately, I did not get a clear answer. Chair Peerman argued simply "This is different than Toscana" [paraphrased] but is it really? Chair Peerman, in what way is it different? Chair Peerman argued that the people moving into these apartments are mostly people who work from home (possibly implying they don't have cars). These people don't commute to work because they work from home and never leave the apartment everything is going to be just fine. But is that really so? When challenged Chair Peerman's statement that most of the resident are going to be working from home I mentioned that less than 10% of the American workforce currently works from home. GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com did some research and found that as of their latest report from January 2016 the total percentage of teleworkers (people working from home) is 2.8% - and that includes any employee who works at home for at least half the time. So that means the other half of the time they are still commuting... So using the 2.8% that would mean that out of the 968 apartments at our downtown city center only 27 people are working from home assuming that each apartment has only 1 tenant. So you see that I am correct when I am saying that the traffic is still a problem and I have not received a satisfying answer yet. This is all for today and I hope to have another update on this issue soon for your.