PALM BAY, FL (The Palm Bayer) — One development takes two hearings on two straight nights this week. On Wednesday, November 4, the Planning and Zoning Board hears Three Forks, the 664-home mixed-use project planned for the southeast quadrant of Malabar Road and the St. Johns Heritage Parkway. On Thursday, November 5, City Council takes the same project twice in one meeting. Both hearings happen after this article publishes, so what follows is a preview built from the packets themselves, and the standard for judging both nights is the record already on file in our Three Forks preview.
Wednesday: the recommendation
The board’s docket holds exactly one development case, FD23-00013. The plan covers about 124.56 acres: 376 detached single-family homes, 288 multifamily units, a 119-space RV park, and about 50,000 square feet of commercial space. City staff recommend approval with conditions. The full Planning and Zoning packet is posted for anyone who wants to read the case the way the board will. The board’s second item is an amendment to its own by-laws, covering March officer elections, one-year officer terms, and a change in who notifies Council when a member forfeits a seat by missing meetings. Residents who want to be heard at either hearing can use the standing routes in our public comment guide.
Thursday: the decision, and the blank page inside it
At Thursday’s Council meeting, Three Forks takes Public Hearings 3 and 4. Hearing 3 is the final development plan. Hearing 4 is the first hearing on the development agreement, DA24-00002, and our Council preview walks through that agreement section by section. Two facts frame the night.
First, the agreement’s conditions exhibit, Exhibit D, still reads in full: “Conditions (To be determined at first public hearing.)” Whatever conditions this project lives under will be written Thursday night, in public, or not at all.
Second, the draft does tie the later homes to the road. Section 10.5 requires the developer to permit, build, and convey the parkway extension south of Malabar Road, about 200 feet wide and 1,276 feet long, before the first single-family building permit for Phase 1C, and Section 10.3 bars the multifamily component until that corridor piece is permitted. But Phase IA’s 238 homes and the Phase IB RV park may be built before the extension exists, and nothing in the plan conditions or the agreement ever requires the commercial component to be built. The posted Council agenda and packet carry no dollar figure for Three Forks, and the legislative memo’s fiscal impact field is blank.
Keep one distinction straight on Thursday: Public Hearing 2 is a different project. It is the final hearing on the First Amendment to the Emerald Lakes development agreement with Excess Land Investment, LLC. The fire provisions in that packet, the battalion chief vehicle, Station 9, and the hotel apparatus, belong to Emerald Lakes. They are not Three Forks provisions. The Emerald Lakes anchor remains a waiting game: Walmart closed on its land for $10,075,500, recorded October 19, and still gives no construction timeline. Hearing 1, for completeness, is the final reading of Ordinance 2026-42, an easement vacation.
The consent agenda’s quiet millions
Consent item 4 is Ordinance 2026-43, the fifth amendment to the fiscal 2025-2026 budget, total impact $3,531,590 with revenues equal to expenditures. Its largest move transfers $3,274,165 in fire apparatus funding from the General Fund to the Fleet Replacement Fund, booked as contingency for pre-paid fire apparatus. The exhibit names no apparatus and no station. The amendment also recognizes a $47,079 Brevard County PSAP grant, reallocates year-end savings including $89,405 for augmented procurement staffing and $210,346 to the Fleet Replacement Fund, corrects an ERP conversion error in the GO Bond Fund at net zero, and removes $2,293,286 of non-project funding tied to the Edge Switch Upgrade.
Consent item 5 awards Task Order 2026-1-KH to Kimley Horn and Associates Inc., $398,800, for engineering design of the Septic to Sewer Conversion, Zone A project: about 99 residences moving from septic to sanitary sewer, about 1.5 miles of low-pressure force main, laterals stubbed to the 99 properties, and replacement and relocation of Lift Station 56. The city will receive $3,721,422 in FDEP cost-share grant funding, $2,747,373 of it designated for preconstruction and construction, with construction complete by October 31, 2030. Utilities Director Gabriel Bowden opens the same meeting with a presentation on the South Regional Reclamation Facility.
Consent item 6 raises the city’s fuel supplier authority with Mansfield Oil from $120,000 to $950,000. The staff memo states the lower cap was brought before Council inadvertently and did not reflect actual annual fuel usage.
Under Unfinished and Old Business, Council fills the Infrastructure Advisory and Oversight Board at-large seat vacated by Jimmy Backus, term expiring December 21, 2029, after interviewing both applicants earlier in the meeting. William Aaron Rhodes is a City of Orlando firefighter and Assistant Chief of Logistics who owns Rhodes Construction and Property Services Inc. and currently sits on the Community Development Advisory Board; he has been a Palm Bay resident for 44 years. Wilkena Luma is the owner and CEO of Simply KE Financial, a 20-year Palm Bay resident with no prior city board service. Two vacancies remain open after Thursday: a Community Development Advisory Board seat and the Planning and Zoning Board at-large seat, whose appointment is set for November 19. Applications run through City Clerk Terese Jones.
The Aquatic Center answer, and three new chiefs
The Aquatic Center workshop carried in earlier coverage for November 4 does not exist in any posted record: no notice in the meeting portal, nothing in the Planning and Zoning packet, nothing on Thursday’s agenda. What the city did instead is on the record. On October 29 it issued a Request for Qualifications for Aquatic Center Operations, Solicitation No. 01-RFQ-27, seeking a qualified operator to assume responsibility for the center. The center still closes to the public on November 30, 2026.
City Hall also filled three senior seats in about a month, as we reported in our new-hires coverage: Roy Johnston as Chief Building Official, announced October 28; Chris Smith as Chief Procurement Officer, started September 28; and Bill Schmidt as Chief Financial Officer, started in mid-October, succeeding Larry Wojciechowski. Permits, purchasing, and the checkbook all changed hands during the heaviest filing pace of the fall.
Two status lines from last week: Fall Fest ran Saturday night at Fred Poppe Regional Park and is complete for the year, and the St. Johns River Water Management District took public input on recreation lands in Palm Bay on October 27. The Brevard school board met the same day in Viera.
The development pulse
The city’s permit system recorded 597 net new filings from October 24 to 30: 534 permits, 11 approvals, 26 business tax receipts, and 26 contractor and business registrations. Monday’s sweep alone carried 161, the heaviest night of the week, driven by subdivision batches. Builders started 62 new single-family homes, led by 16 Stellar Development Services homes in Stellar Havens and 12 Lennar homes in the Timbers. Forty certificates of occupancy were issued, 39 for homes and one commercial completion, the JPMC Cypress Bay building at 4625 St Johns Heritage Pkwy SE.
Of the 26 business tax receipt filings, 20 moved to Active. A license is a step, not an opening bell, but the names form the Now Open pipeline: Youngs Buffet, a Chinese buffet at 4700 Babcock St NE Unit 27; Vina Nails at 9179 Babcock St SE Unit 103; Hooks Family Practice, a medical office at 4640 Lipscomb St NE; Access One Tax Service at 1900 Palm Bay Rd NE Unit C; and The Imagination Express, a children’s art and play studio on Palm Bay Road, filed and pending payment. One filing is a watch item: S.T.E.P. Group Home II filed a group home license on October 26 for 2561 Galiano Ave SW, the same address where one of the Our Journey Foundation group home filings was denied on October 21.
On the commercial watch list, one project genuinely advanced: Fire House Subs, at 130 St Johns Heritage Pkwy NW, had its fire alarm permit issued on October 28, the suite’s last named life-safety step in this record. Health First Palm Bay Hospital filed maintenance-scale work only. The completed 7-Eleven on the parkway shows one backward portal step on a record the sweep itself marks as a regression. ALDI, the Aqua Market and Aqua Food Hall, the Foundation Commerce Center, the Chipotle signs, and 2350 Commerce Park Dr NE did not move.
Public safety, in aggregate
The sheriff’s booking sweeps dated October 24 to 30 counted 51 bookings with a Palm Bay connection, up from 46 the week before. The tier mix: 8, 7, 19, and 17 across Tiers 1 through 4, with Tier 3, covering domestic incidents, battery, and traffic matters, the largest for the second straight week. The biggest charge families by charge line are warrant, probation violation, and failure to appear at 18; DUI at 18 lines, of which 11 are substantive charges and 7 are refusal companions; and battery at 17, with domestic battery a subset of 8. Eight of the 17 Tier 4 bookings fall in the single October 29 to 30 window, which makes the week’s spike administrative. Bookings are not crime totals.
Health status: the dengue advisory from October 16 stands unchanged, with one locally acquired case confirmed in Brevard and coordinated mosquito spraying; drain standing water and use repellent at dawn and dusk. The Palm Bay rabies alert expired on October 10, and a Melbourne area alert was in effect in late October. No FPL outage or rate notice for Palm Bay appeared this week.
The calendar
Wednesday brings a celebration before the hearings: the city cuts the ribbon on the Driskell Memorial Park improvements at 11:00 AM, at 2155 Monroe St NE. Saturday, November 7 is the Veterans Day Parade, stepping off at 10:00 AM from the Tony Rosa Community Center and rolling down Port Malabar Boulevard to Veterans Memorial Park; the boulevard closes from 9:00 AM. The 2026 Holiday Guide carries the parade details alongside the season’s closures, including the Veterans Day trash change: no collection on Wednesday, November 11, and that week’s Wednesday recycling is serviced on the next scheduled service day.
The Greater Palm Bay Senior Activity Center starts November on election duty: no activities in the Main Hall or Annex on Monday, November 2, and the whole center closed Tuesday, November 3, because the center is a polling place. Its November newsletter fills the rest of the month: Wednesday afternoon and Friday night bingo, a poker tournament on November 7, a dance on November 8 at a new time, Tai Chi on November 5 and 19, and a retirement party on November 6 for Don LaFortune, a 40-year member who led the bridge groups.
Both Palm Bay libraries run full November programs on the county library calendar. Palm Bay Public offers Monday playdates for babies and toddlers, a three-session Dungeons and Dragons introduction on November 4, a creative writing workshop on November 5, robotics on November 9, a jigsaw puzzle competition on November 18, and sourdough basics on November 19. The Franklin T. DeGroodt Memorial Library offers SHINE Medicare counseling on Monday and Thursday mornings, family story time on Mondays, a teen crochet club on November 5, and chair yoga on November 20. Neither branch lists programs on Veterans Day.
Chamber items inside Palm Bay: the Brevard Prosperity Initiative year-end meeting and workforce panel on Thursday, November 12 at the CareerSource Palm Bay Career Center on Babcock Street; the Excellence in Business Awards and Board Installation Gala on Friday, November 13 at Dragonfly Farms; and a ribbon cutting Tuesday, November 10 for Back Nine Palm Bay, a new indoor golf facility. The city itself has 19 job postings open, including continuous postings for Police Officer and Non-Certified Recruit. One correction to last week’s episode: no firefighter posting appears on the city’s live list, and the closing date carried earlier is withdrawn.
Traffic: northbound I-95 closes lanes in rotation nightly through Thursday, November 5, 7:00 PM to 6:00 AM, from Palm Bay Road past Fiske Boulevard, for the resurfacing project running into next spring. In town, lane closures for FPL utility work continue on five street segments around DeGroodt Road, Jupiter Boulevard, Pace Drive, Glendale Avenue, and Wake Forest Road, inside a window running to November 23. The southbound I-95 closure at the Citrus Boulevard bridge remains in effect until further notice.
The hurricane desk is quiet: no active Atlantic system, and the season runs through November 30. Giving season is open: Senior Santa ornaments are available in the police department lobby at 130 Malabar Rd SE on weekdays, with unwrapped gifts due back by Friday, December 4, and the Reindeer Run donation window for the Shop With a Cop program closed on October 31.
One block of voter mechanics, as a service: polls are open Tuesday, November 3, from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM at assigned precincts. A voted mail ballot must be received by the Supervisor of Elections by 7:00 PM on Election Day; a postmark does not count. A defective mail ballot can be cured until Thursday, November 5 at 5:00 PM. The Supervisor of Elections election page carries precinct and ballot status lookups.
The docket ahead: the Infrastructure Advisory and Oversight Board meets Monday, November 9; the Community Development Advisory Board meets Wednesday, November 18; and Council meets again Thursday, November 19, when the Planning and Zoning at-large appointment and Council’s review of the board by-laws amendment are both set. Everything in this article, and the hearing recaps when Wednesday and Thursday are done, lives at palmbayer.com.
Show notes
Kept on the record, not promoted on air under the Palm Bay-only promotion rule: the Chamber’s November Luncheon and Nonprofit Expo in Melbourne on November 4, with a panel from United Way Space Coast, the Brevard Humane Society, and Ritchey Automotive Group, moderated by the CEO of Aging Matters; the SCATI AI Business Lab in Melbourne the same morning; Florida Tech Innovation Week, November 3 to 6 in Melbourne; the Space Coast State Fair, running through November 15 in Melbourne; the Paychecks for Patriots job fair on November 10 in Melbourne, with the Palm Bay Career Center at 5275 Babcock St NE as the in-town resource; the regional Veterans Day week events around the county, including the Melbourne dinner on November 7 with seats to be reserved by November 3; and the pet events, Bark in the Park in Titusville and Woof, Wag and Wiggle in Melbourne, both on November 7. Also noted: the denied business tax receipt for Hurricane Bingo on Dixie Highway, the only denial in the week’s 451 status changes; the November 5 ceremonial items, a Business Spotlight proclamation for Shapes Precision Manufacturing and a National Native American Heritage Month proclamation; the Malabar Road median closures, which remain in place during FDOT’s safety evaluation into next spring; and McGriff Skate Park, closed since October 5 for rehabilitation, with reopening anticipated in December.
