Port Malabar — Palm Bay, Florida

Port Malabar is the subdivision name General Development Corporation gave to the numbered units of lots it platted across Palm Bay, and those unit numbers still identify lots in city legal descriptions.

Port Malabar is not a separate town: the City of Palm Bay places its Port Malabar subdivisions inside the city (City of Palm Bay, Scrub Jay Lots). The name survives in the legal description of a lot (Lot, Block, Port Malabar Unit) and in the name of Port Malabar Boulevard, and the city's GO Roads page lists Port Malabar among the areas where road improvements were completed (City of Palm Bay, GO Bond page). The City of Palm Bay describes the southwest Compound as Port Malabar Units #51, 52 and 53 and says the area was pre-platted by General Development Corporation before the City of Palm Bay incorporated (City of Palm Bay, Compound Update).

Palm Bay itself incorporated as a city in 1960 with 2,808 residents under Mayor Harry Pollak, and by 1990 it was the most populous city in Brevard County with 62,632 residents (City of Palm Bay, History). The city timeline does not name General Development Corporation, but Port Malabar unit names turn up in Palm Bay zoning cases, Public Service Commission utility orders and a federal wildlife notice, from Unit 2 near Cabot Drive NE to the Compound in southwest Palm Bay.

A Palm Bay lot is normally described as a lot and block inside a numbered Port Malabar Unit, followed by the survey section, township and range, all in Brevard County.

The Palm Bay Planning and Zoning Board minutes show the pattern in plain text. A September 1, 2021 case on a lot in Port Malabar Unit 16 gives the location as Section 16, Township 29, Range 37 (P&Z minutes, page 4). In the same meeting, Palm Bay Utilities sought a conditional use for a lift station on a Port Malabar Unit 2 lot south of Cabot Drive NE, east of Bianca Drive NE (P&Z minutes, page 14), a reminder that city infrastructure also sits on GDC-platted lots.

The April 7, 2021 Palm Bay board minutes record two more: a lot in Port Malabar Unit 8 in Section 32, Township 28, and lots in Port Malabar Unit 24 in Section 32, Township 29 (P&Z minutes, page 2). Both units sit in a Section 32, yet the Port Malabar Unit 24 lots lie in Township 29 and the Port Malabar Unit 8 lot in Township 28, so a unit number alone says little about where in Palm Bay a lot sits.

Port Malabar's water and sewer were run by General Development Utilities, a GDC subsidiary regulated by the Florida Public Service Commission as its Port Malabar Division, until Palm Bay bought the system in December 1992.

The Florida Public Service Commission's February 19, 1990 order states that GDU was wholly owned by General Development Corporation and received Certificates 25-W and 22-S in Brevard County in 1971, when the Commission gained jurisdiction there (Florida PSC Order 22576, page 2). As of that 1990 order, Port Malabar served approximately 10,917 water customers and approximately 5,677 sewer customers. The same order let GDU extend Port Malabar sewer territory and charge the Port Malabar Division's approved rates there.

On January 3, 1992, GDU filed for a rate increase for the Port Malabar and West Coast divisions (Florida PSC Order PSC-93-0193-FOF-WS, page 1). A final hearing on the rates was not held before the sale of the division (Florida PSC Order PSC-93-0193-FOF-WS, page 1). GDU signed agreements in October 1992 under which the cities of North Port and Palm Bay would buy their local systems under circuit court orders, then withdrew the rate cases and agreed to refund interim rates (Florida PSC Order PSC-93-0193-FOF-WS, page 2). The PSC order records the sale of the Port Malabar Division as completed on December 16, 1992, and the Commission cancelled GDU's certificate for the system (Florida PSC Order PSC-93-0193-FOF-WS, page 1).

Port Malabar Boulevard is a northeast Palm Bay road carrying the subdivision's name, where the city's first library opened in 1984 and whose side neighborhoods, the Country Club Units 1 to 10, were repaved under the GO Roads bond.

The Palm Bay timeline records that in 1984 the first city library opened on Port Malabar Boulevard (City of Palm Bay, History). The city parks list includes the Boundary Canal Trail at 1938 Port Malabar Blvd NE, listed with benches and bike, hike and jogging trails (City of Palm Bay, City Parks).

The GO Bond page also describes the Country Club Units 1 to 10 as the neighborhoods off Port Malabar Blvd. between Palm Bay Road and Babcock Street, put the cost there close to $9M and named the work a mix of full-depth reclamation, mill and pave, and thin lift (City of Palm Bay, GO Bond page). The page's status table and its narrative differ, so the estimate in the table and the close to $9M figure in the text are both shown as the city states them.

The City of Palm Bay maps Florida scrub-jay habitat polygons over Port Malabar subdivisions in the southeast part of the city, using a unit map with polygons supplied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Scrub Jay Lots page says permits for property in scrub jay areas are charged an additional $125 per quarter acre and that clearing is restricted between March 1st and June 30th (City of Palm Bay, Scrub Jay Lots). The unit-level history shows in older federal notices. A 2004 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service notice placed two lots of Block 329, Port Malabar Unit 9, in Section 5, Township 29 South, Range 37 East, within 438 feet of locations where scrub-jays were sighted during 2001-2002 surveys (Federal Register notice, 2004 (Wayback capture, February 15, 2025)). The notice covers residential construction on those two Port Malabar Unit 9 lots, which fell within the 438-foot buffer the Service drew around known scrub-jay territories in Palm Bay.

Port Malabar Units 51, 52 and 53 in southwest Palm Bay, known as the Compound, stalled when General Development Corporation went bankrupt in 1991 and remain largely vacant.

The City of Palm Bay says GDC development in the Compound began in the 1980s and stalled after the 1991 bankruptcy, when the land was liquidated (Compound Update). The three units hold 4,978 parcels and about 200 miles of GDC roads, but no water, sewer or electric lines. The lots belong to 2,755 unique private property owners across the world, and the City of Palm Bay owns the paved roadways.

Outside the Compound, Palm Bay Public Works paving tables list work by numbered unit, from Unit 1 in Phase 2 to Unit 57 in Phase 3, including Unit 2 and Unit 24, numbers that also appear as Port Malabar units in the zoning minutes (GO Bond page).