PALM BAY, FL (The Palm Bayer) — Palm Bay’s Planning and Zoning Board meets Wednesday, November 4, at 6:00 PM in the City Hall Council Chambers with a single new business item on its docket: Case FD23-00013, the Three Forks Mixed Use final development plan for approximately 124.56 acres at the southeast quadrant of Malabar Road and the St. Johns Heritage Parkway. The plan packs 664 homes, a 119-space RV park, and about 50,000 square feet of commercial space onto the corner, along with a southern extension of the Heritage Parkway. Staff recommend approval with conditions, but the packet leaves key questions unresolved, including which phase actually builds the parkway, why a required condition stops mid-sentence, and what fire coverage serves four-story buildings.
What Three Forks is
The vacant site is owned by West 80 Acres, LLC and Parkside Commons Center, LLC, represented by Tony Masone, engineer Jake Wise, P.E. (Construction Engineering Group, LLC), and attorney Kim Rezanka (Lacey Rezanka). Palm Bay annexed the land in 2022, and City Council approved the preliminary development plan on October 20, 2022 (cited as Ordinance No. 2022-101 in the staff report’s background and as Resolution No. 2022-101 in its analysis), setting the permitted uses, intensities, and design standards this final plan must follow. Because the application was filed before the city’s updated Land Development Code took effect, it is reviewed under the former code.
The development program calls for 376 detached single-family homes, 288 apartments (664 residential units in all), a 119-space recreational vehicle park, and about 50,000 square feet of neighborhood-serving commercial space across three commercial tracts. Planned amenities and infrastructure include clubhouses, pools, playgrounds, pickleball courts, dog parks, a new lift station, stormwater ponds, and an interconnected network of sidewalks and public walking trails with pedestrian connections to Fred Poppe Regional Park.
Construction is divided into five phases from December 2026 through 2029, all marked subject to market conditions: - Phase IA (December 2026 to December 2027): First 238 single-family lots. - Phase IB (December 2026 to December 2027): The 119-space RV park. - Phase IC (December 2027 to December 2028): Remaining 138 single-family homes and 3.02 acres of commercial development on one lot. - Phase ID (December 2027 to 2028): Another 2.6 acres of commercial development. - Phase II (September 2028 to December 2029): All 288 apartments.
The parkway is the thread to watch
Readers who have followed this fall’s toll study fight know the St. Johns Heritage Parkway corridor is the road western Palm Bay’s growth hangs on. Three Forks plugs straight into it. The applicant has committed to build the parkway extension south from Malabar Road to the project’s full-access driveway. Malabar Road itself gets two full-access driveways and one right-in, right-out driveway.
A traffic memorandum in the file, dated July 28, 2026, estimates the revised project will generate about 8,116 average daily vehicle trips, including 467 trips in the morning peak hour and 563 in the evening peak. Staff report that the memorandum found fewer trips than the previously approved Traffic Impact Analysis and concluded it does not alter the project’s previously identified off-site road improvements or proportionate-share obligations.
One conflict in the file goes straight to when that road gets built. The staff report’s roadway narrative places the applicant’s parkway extension commitment in Phase 2 (the final apartment phase running from September 2028 through December 2029). Yet Recommended Condition 2(f)(i) directs the applicant to revise FDP Drawing 3F-1 to move the parkway extension up to Phase IC (December 2027 to December 2028), “or provide a provisional phasing schedule.” While the condition moves the road earlier, the narrative still ties the commitment to Phase 2, Phase IC itself is marked subject to market conditions, and the “provisional phasing schedule” clause leaves an open back door. Anyone driving Malabar Road needs to know whether 376 homes and 119 RV spaces can open before the parkway extension exists, and the board should lock down one enforceable trigger in the Condition 1 development agreement before voting.
Schools, open space, and what the packet does not price
The School Board of Brevard County has already weighed in. Its School Capacity Availability Determination Letter (SCADL No. 2026-11) estimates the project will generate about 214 students (122 elementary, 32 middle school, and 60 high school) and finds that school concurrency is satisfied, with adequate capacity in the adopted Financially Feasible Plan for the 2025-26 through 2030-31 school years.
On open space, the plan provides 31.99 acres of recreation where the former code required 37.37 acres. Staff report that the city agreed to the reduction because of the expansive public trail system the project builds, including the connection to Fred Poppe Regional Park. Recent surveys for protected species (wood stork, crested caracara, and gopher tortoise) will be required at the site work permit stage, and a final gopher tortoise survey dated within 90 days of submittal is required before construction starts.
The staff report also prints two different sizes for the commercial component. Its summary table lists Commercial Tracts A, B, and C at about 5.86 acres, while its phasing narrative puts the three commercial lots at about 5.62 acres (3.02 acres in Phase IC and 2.6 acres in Phase ID). While the 50,000-square-foot commercial cap stays the same, the report states both acreage totals without reconciling the 0.24-acre difference.
The staff report also contains no fire protection analysis. Even though the plan allows four-story, 70-foot apartment and commercial buildings alongside 664 homes and 119 RV spaces, the packet’s cover memorandum and staff report include no Fire Rescue review, no mention of ladder-truck reach or station response times, and zero occurrences of the word “fire.” By contrast, when City Council approved the much larger Emerald Lakes final development plan (FD26-00001) on October 15, that approval carried explicit fire conditions: an aerial ladder truck in service before the hotel’s certificate of occupancy, a battalion chief in place at the 200th dwelling, a permanent Station 9 built before occupancy passes 200 units, and an early-occupancy cap of 200 units subject to written Fire Rescue approval. Three Forks is smaller than Emerald Lakes, but four-story buildings at Malabar Road and the Parkway still require fire apparatus and station coverage that the staff report never discusses.
What the packet leaves unpriced is just as notable. No impact fee figures appear anywhere in the staff report, and no dollar amounts are attached to the off-site road improvements or the proportionate-share obligations. The obligations are named, but they are not priced.
The recommendation, and how to be heard
Staff recommend approval subject to two conditions. First, the applicant must enter into a development agreement with the city covering development phasing, permitted uses, and off-site transportation improvements. Second, the applicant must revise the final development plan drawings uploaded on August 27, 2026 to: - Update the drawing revision tables (Conditions 2(a) and 2(b)); - Cap building heights on Drawing 3F-1 at four stories / 70 feet for multifamily and commercial buildings and 35 feet for single-family homes; - Add Land Development Code architectural and design standards for single-family and commercial uses on Drawing 3F-8, plus a note on Drawing 3F-8 requiring the RV park to meet or exceed Section 174.045 standards; - Remove a note under the legend on Drawing 3F-7 and revise Drawing 3F-1 to move the Heritage Parkway extension from Phase II to Phase IC (or provide a provisional phasing schedule).
One of those items, Condition 2(b), stops mid-sentence in the published staff report (“All FDP drawings: the review/date/revision table must be updated to reflect”), reading like an unfinished duplicate of Condition 2(a). Staff should either supply the missing words on the record or strike Condition 2(b) before the board votes.
Because this is a quasi-judicial hearing, the board sits more like a court than a legislature, and its decision must rest on competent substantial evidence in the record. Under Section 59.03 of the Palm Bay Code of Ordinances and the agenda, any aggrieved or adversely affected person seeking formal party status had to file written notice with the City Clerk by 5:00 PM at least five business days before the hearing (Wednesday, October 28). That window has already closed, leaving regular public comment at Wednesday’s hearing.
Also on the docket: the board’s own rulebook
The night’s other business item is a proposed amendment to the board’s by-laws, continued from the August, September, and October meetings. Prepared at the board’s June 3 request, the changes update the election and terms of the Chair and Vice Chair (setting one-year officer terms and limiting the Chair to one additional consecutive term), while keeping officer elections in March because board terms expire on February 28 every three years. The amendments also shift the job of notifying City Council from the Chair to the board Secretary when a member forfeits a seat by missing two of three successive meetings without cause and without the Chair’s prior approval, matching current practice. Finally, they replace the fixed 2:00 PM meeting-day deadline for members of the public to submit electronic presentations with a cross-reference to City Council’s policy (Subsection 7.8.6), which currently requires submission at least 48 hours before the meeting for staff screening. Board action is required to adopt the amended by-laws, and City Council is scheduled to review them on November 19.
Before sending Three Forks forward on Wednesday night, the board has a simple checklist: lock down whether the Heritage Parkway extension gets built in Phase IC or Phase 2, clean up the unfinished condition and conflicting commercial acreage, and ask staff what fire station covers a four-story building at Malabar and the Parkway.
