Boca Raton is popularly known for its luxurious neighborhoods: The Bridges, Seven Bridges, and Valencia, to name a few.  These modernized homes include a variety of amenities consisting of swimming pools, fitness centers, and community clubhouses. The aforementioned developments all have been created by G.L. Homes. Since 1976, G.L. Homes has grown from a small, local builder to one of Florida’s largest. For over 45 years, G.L. Homes has created exceptional communities and built quality residences in Florida’s most desirable locations. More than 100,000 people live in a G.L. home throughout Florida, according to their website.

With so much building from Boca Raton to Naples, South Florida is a personal playground for G.L. Homes.  While G.L. Homes does bring excitement to our area and boosts the local economy, it also affects our neighborhoods negatively, which begs the question: Is the G.L. expansion worth it?

As new developments are being built, our area is losing precious land that was originally zoned for agriculture.  In September 2024, G.L. Homes announced plans to develop the Agricultural Reserve located on Lyons Road just south of Boynton Beach Boulevard; approval is imminent, according to the Palm Beach County Zoning Commission staff.  This wreaks havoc on our environment, displacing animals, cutting down trees, polluting our area, not to mention the excess wear and tear to infrastructure such as roads, schools, airports, and public transportation.  Furthermore, our precious water supply has to bear the weight of higher use and more demand.  Just south of Olympic Heights’ campus on Lyons Road, Lotus Edge is G.L. Homes’ newest neighborhood, with prices of newly constructed homes ranging from $1.5M – $3M.  While this area was not a designated preserve, it was previously used as a farm and was relatively untouched for decades.  Can Boca Raton still operate successfully and thrive as we become more populated with the large influx to our area? 

It is true that new G.L. Homes undoubtedly bolsters our local economy.  “More communities brings more property tax revenue to the area and helps bring more revenue to local restaurants and businesses,” Nicole Rosenblum, a local realtor, stated.  “Builders like G.L. see a niche in the market as more and more people are heading south to call Florida home,” Rosenblum continued. She agrees that many South Florida residents might see all the construction as negative because of the increased traffic and the inconvenience of debris around construction sites; however, these new homes benefit the real estate business and have kept her quite busy as more and more people are searching for home options. In her opinion, G.L. Homes is adding value that outweighs the negatives, and the new construction evokes a positive change for our community. 

On the other hand, many opponents voiced concerns about safety, overcrowding, and road congestion for our school.  Laura Zerbo, a teacher at Olympic Heights High School, shared an experience she recently had since construction began on Lotus Edge located next door to Olympic Heights. Her father’s two passenger tires blew out, his rims were shredded from dropped nails in the road after driving past the construction site, and he was hospitalized for wounds that occurred from this, Zerbo expressed. The construction site is off a main road for Olympic Heights students, potentially causing safety concerns for the hundreds of students and parents traveling past the site daily. 

With several hundreds of homes being built in West Boca, it is natural to ponder: Where are the new families sending their kids to school?  Olympic Heights currently has over 2,600 students enrolled, and West Boca Community High School’s enrollment is just over 2,200. Our local schools are at capacity and are already dealing with overcrowded classrooms. As the new communities are being built, how can the added revenue help maintain and improve the local schools and the students involved? Larry Portnoy, a former G.L. Homes vice president, told The Torch, “Every residential project must obtain concurrency from the county, and G.L. Homes does give [financial donations] to local schools and to the Palm Beach County School Board.”  This helps schools upgrade their stadiums, gymnasiums, and landscaping, as well as donating land to the district to be used to build new schools. Portnoy believes that G.L. Homes works hard to minimize the impact that new developments create. Specifically regarding Olympic Heights, G.L. Homes has built a wall between the OH campus and the Lotus Edge development, enhancing the safety of our school’s perimeter.

G.L. Homes’ massive infrastructure has its positives and negatives on our local community, therefore leaving it up to the residents to decide which is more important to their families.  Tell us Torch readers: Do the positives outweigh the inconveniences construction causes?