Delray Beach’s planning and zoning board rejected a proposal to allow an indoor gun range in an industrial district, but the proposal will still head to the city commission.
Wallace Drive LLC, the owner of a 18,400-square-foot flex office warehouse built in 1983 at 1215 Wallace Drive, sought approval for a proposed ordinance that would allow indoor gun ranges in the Wallace Drive Overlay District. The 1.8-acre site is next to a senior housing community and a church and about 1,000 feet from an elementary school.
Four out of seven planning and zoning board members voted against the proposal at a meeting on Monday evening.
The property owner wants to build an indoor gun range that will allow private members and Delray Beach police officers to train with firearms, said Neil Schiller, Wallace Drive’s attorney.
The legislation would also allow the owners of 12 other parcels within the same district (bounded by Southwest Tenth Street, Georgia Street, Southwest Ninth Avenue and Wallace Drive) to pursue plans for a gun range as well. Right now, the light industrial-zoned district includes a CubeSmart self-storage space, two additional warehouses, two single-family homes, and five vacant parcels (three of which are owned by the city).
Schiller said under the proposed regulations, those property owners would have to submit their own plans to the city commission for final approval. All gun ranges in the district would be required to have 24-hour security, submit to the National Rifle Association’s safety regulations, comply with noise regulations, and ban the sale of alcohol on the premises, he added.
The overlay district is adjacent to Groves of Delray II, an apartment community for people over the age of 62, and Calvary Bible Alliance Church. The district is also within 700 feet of Pine Grove Elementary School, board member Mitch Katz said.
Nevertheless, minimum distance requirements from homes and schools were absent from the proposed regulations pushed by Schiller and planning consultant Jeff Costello. Schiller said such details can be worked out during the conditional use process, but city planning staff pointed out that most other municipalities in Palm Beach County had distance requirements for gun ranges.
Katz noted that they just had discussions about distance requirements for vape shops. “But gun ranges? Well, we can just put them across the street from a school,” he remarked.
Schiller replied that his client’s building is at least 1,000 feet away from the school.
That didn’t make board member Dedrick Straghn feel any less apprehensive about allowing a private gun range near a church and a senior residential community. Straghn also pointed out that gun ranges were already permitted in the city’s mixed industrial and commercial district, where the Delray Shooting Center already operates just a quarter mile away.
“This doesn’t smell right to me,” Straghn said.
Mark Grafton, another attorney representing the developer, insisted that the range would be a state-of-the art facility that will meet the police department’s needs, including training how to shoot in low-light conditions as well as how to breach doors.
Chairman Gregory Snyder proposed adding regulations that would require a future gun range to be 500 feet from a school, park, or church and that no noise louder than 60 decibels emit past the property line. But when the vote was called just Snyder, Katz and Roger Cope voted yes while board members Straghn, Price Patton, James Chard and Judy Mollica voted no.
Wallace Drive LLC, managed by Delia Lalchan, acquired 1215 Wallace Drive for $5.8 million in March from Aram LLC.
The property is about 1.5 miles away from where Kolter Group intends to build Alton Delray, a 386-unit apartment complex that will include 154 workforce apartments, under the state’s Live Local Act. It’s also less than two miles from Aura Delray Beach, a 292-unit apartment community that an affiliate of New York-based Related Companies acquired for nearly $117 million in August.
