Palm Beach Gardens, FL Accessory Structures: ADU Impact Fees (2026)

Sec. 78-59(e) creates several incentives for workforce and affordable housing, and subsection (e)(5) extends them specifically to accessory dwelling units built under the ADU standards of Sec. 78-159. Unlike a standard workforce housing project, an ADU used this way is not subject to the eligibility criteria in subsection (e)(1), meaning it does not have to be part of a ten-or-more-unit project or hit the ten-percent set-aside threshold that governs larger developments; a single ADU on a single-family lot can qualify on its own. To actually receive a waiver, the growth management director must recommend it and the city council must approve it, and the city ties that approval to the same purpose-and-intent findings that anchor the whole workforce housing program under Sec.

78-59(a): providing workforce and affordable housing options while maintaining the city's character. The available incentives mirror what larger projects get under Sec. 78-59(e)(2) and (e)(3): a partial or full waiver of impact fees attributable to the unit, and a partial or full waiver of building permit application fees, including expedited-review fees, up to the $100,000 per-project cap set for building permit fee waivers generally. Any waiver granted comes with a deed restriction, prepared in a form the city attorney accepts and recorded in the Official Records of Palm Beach County, preserving the unit's workforce or affordable status and warning that noncompliance can result in a lien for the amount of fees waived.

Expedited review, when granted, follows the targeted expedited permitting program's timelines under Sec. 78-57, including development review committee comments within ten business days for workforce and affordable housing submissions.