Vacant Property

Palm Bay has a huge number of vacant lots distributed throughout the city’s neighborhoods. This image, taken in the middle of Palm Bay, outlines all vacant properties in red. 16 percent of the city’s land, or 13.4 square miles, is vacant. But it gets worse: only slightly more—21 percent—is residential and actually has a home built on it.

With homes spread so thinly, the amount—and cost—of roads, pipes and other infrastructure soars above what is necessary.

Why is there so much vacancy in Palm Bay? This does not occur in a typical suburban neighborhood. To answer this, we need a brief history lesson.

General Development Corporation

In the 50’s and 60’s, a development company named General Development Corporation (GDC) established communities across Florida. Their strategy was to buy and subdivide huge tracts of land, pave a grid of streets, then sell cheap lots to people up North, promising they would gain value. GDC’s real-estate strategy was successful, oftentimes selling lots to customers who never even saw the property. Some built a house on their purchased land, but many did not.

GDC used this approach in Malabar Point, a subdivision of Palm Bay. They purchased and platted what would become the new community in 1959, just before the City of Palm Bay incorporated in January of 1960. GDC was behind the development of Palm Bay from then forward, and the city was built as a gigantic expanse of residential subdivisions, with no downtown and no mixture of commercial land uses within its neighborhoods that might have reduced residents’ need to drive. Because of the way the lots were divided and sold, homes were built seemingly at random, instead of being clustered around a downtown core.

GDC sold its customers promises of vibrant new cities with modern amenities that, in many cases, never emerged. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that GDC leadership was accused of fraudulent home sales. In 1991, GDC filed for bankruptcy but, unfortunately, the damage was already done in Palm Bay.