There are approximately 80 new or substantial single-family projects in permitting on the island of Palm Beach at any given time. Of those, fewer than half will be delivered on the owner's original timeline. The reason is almost never construction. It is ARCOM — the Town's Architectural Review Commission — and the owner's understanding of what the commission actually evaluates.

This is a working guide for principals who are about to start a new-build, major renovation, or addition inside the corporate limits of the Town of Palm Beach. The goal is not to summarize the Code of Ordinances; you have a lawyer for that. The goal is to explain how a commission of five volunteer citizens, supported by town staff, actually decides whether your residence gets built in 24 months or 42.

What ARCOM is — and is not

ARCOM is the Town's Architectural Review Commission, established under the Town Code to review and approve the exterior design of new construction and substantial alterations. It is not a building department; permits flow through the Town's Building Division after ARCOM approval. It is not a planning commission; zoning questions go to ZAPB (the Zoning, Planning, Permitting, and Development Division).

ARCOM's remit is narrow but decisive: massing, scale, proportion, exterior materials, compatibility with the streetscape, and — inside the historic districts — conformance with the period character the overlay is meant to protect. The commission meets monthly. Submittals are due weeks in advance. Presentations are made in person by the architect, typically with the owner and GC present.

The historic-district overlays

Much of Midtown, the Sea Street area, and the El Brillo corridor in the South End sit inside a historic district. The North End contains pockets of overlay protection as well. If your parcel is inside one, you are not only subject to ARCOM — you are subject to the historic preservation standards codified in Chapter 54 of the Town Code.

In practice this means:

• Demolition of a contributing structure is not routine — it requires its own Landmarks Preservation Commission review, and denial is common for buildings that pre-date 1965 in the overlay.
• Additions to contributing structures must be subordinate in scale and differentiated in detail — you cannot simply "match" the original if the original is historically significant.
• Exterior materials (stucco finish, roof tile profile, window muntin width) are reviewed to a specificity most builders outside Palm Beach have never encountered.
• Fences, walls, and landscape elements that would be unreviewed in most municipalities come into scope inside the overlay.

A builder who has not worked inside a Palm Beach historic overlay will underestimate the elaboration level required on construction documents. The deltas compound — every vague spec becomes a resubmission.

The review cycle, step by step

Here is the sequence a typical new-construction mandate follows from signed architect contract to groundbreaking. Numbers are medians, not guarantees.

Months 1–4: Schematic and massing

Architect develops schematic design, including site plan, massing model, and material-palette studies. Pre-application meeting with ARCOM staff is scheduled early in this phase — this is a working session, not a vote. The staff preview surfaces objections before they become formal findings, which is how experienced architects avoid losing the first ARCOM hearing.

Months 4–6: ARCOM preliminary review

First formal ARCOM hearing. Commission votes on preliminary approval or remand. A well-presented project with pre-work typically clears preliminary on first or second hearing. Projects rushed without staff consultation often remand repeatedly.

Months 6–9: Design development and ARCOM final

Architect develops the scheme to the level of detail ARCOM's final review requires — elevations at 1/4 scale or tighter, material samples, window-detail drawings. Second or third ARCOM hearing for final architectural approval.

Months 9–12: Construction documents and building permit

Full CD set prepared and submitted to the Town's Building Division. Permit review for a new single-family in Palm Beach runs 12–20 weeks depending on the backlog. Waterfront parcels trigger the Florida Coastal Construction Control Line process in parallel.

Months 12+: Construction

Groundbreaking on the schedule the GC set at CD finalization. A 6,000–10,000 sq ft custom residence typically runs 16–22 months from excavation to certificate of occupancy on the island, assuming no substantial change orders.

Where timelines break

The mandate that takes 36 months instead of 24 usually fails at one of three pressure points:

• ARCOM preliminary is presented before the scheme is resolved — the commission remands, and the owner loses a 4–6 week cycle each remand.
• Historic-district overlay implications are discovered late — the scheme has to be revisited to preserve a contributing element the owner intended to remove.
• CCCL applications on oceanfront parcels run in series with ARCOM instead of parallel — adding 3–5 months of idle time on the permit track.

None of these are hidden risks. They are managed risks, visible to any builder who has delivered through the Town's review process. They become hidden only when the team running your project is doing this for the first time.

Submarkets within the island

Not all of the Town of Palm Beach is the same review environment. The North End is looser than Midtown but has its own massing issues on smaller lots. The El Brillo corridor and the Everglades Club area carry the heaviest historic overlay scrutiny. Billionaire's Row and the waterfront on South Ocean Boulevard add CCCL and shoreline protection to an already-dense review stack.

For a closer look at the island itself and the submarkets within it, see our Town of Palm Beach neighborhood page. For the adjacent barrier-island towns — Manalapan, Gulf Stream, Highland Beach — each operates its own design-review process; the Palm Beach County hub covers the distinctions.

The bottom line

You cannot shorten ARCOM. You can only present schemes it approves on first or second pass, in the right sequence, with the level of documentation the commission expects. That requires either an architect with multiple prior ARCOM approvals or a GC who has been through the process often enough to steward the architect. Owners who understand this from month zero almost always deliver on their original budget and within 90 days of their original schedule. Owners who learn it in month 18 almost never do.