Community Development Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. This meeting of Community Development Board is called to order at 1PM. Today is the November 18. Let's first order of business today is an invocation.

I'm gonna

ask Mike mister Sario to provide to do the invocation today.

Heavenly father, thank you for the opportunity to speak, to say your name. Lord, we thank you for the discernment that you give each and every one of us as we serve the citizens in the city. Help us to follow your ways, Lord. We ask the blessing upon this city, especially in this time of holidays coming up with thanksgiving and Christmas, Lord. Let us be kind and generous to people that aren't as well off as we are. Lord, we thank you for all your blessings. In these things, we ask in your son, Jesus' name. Amen. Alright.

Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. This board consists of seven members and one alternate who are appointed by the city council and served voluntarily. I am Michael Boutzikas, and I'll ask the other members and the staff to introduce themselves beginning on my left.

Andy Park. O'Brite Hodra Court. Mike Mastrocerio.

Jay Danio, attorney for the board.

Rosemary Call, City Clerk.

Matt Minich, assistant city attorney.

Ted Kozak, planning and development.

Lauren Matzky, planning and development. Diane Aginelli.

Kurt Heinrichs.

Michelle Chenault.

Andrew Huff. Please remember to turn off your cell phones so it does not become a distraction during the meeting. Please also refrain from having conversations in this room so that we might hear all the testimony given today. To ensure a complete record of this board's actions, we ask that each individual wishing to speak, including the applicant speaking to the microphone at the podium in front of us, state your name and spell your last name for the clerk. Now I'll ask all those in attendance that you plan to speak to please rise and be sworn by the clerk.

Thank you. Thank

you. Agenda of today's meeting are on the podium to your left near the entry door. Also on this podium are a roster of community development board, the list of city staff experts in their resumes, the board's rules of procedure, and the annual schedule of this board. Our first order of business today is to review and approve the minutes from last month's meeting. May I have a motion for approval of the minutes?

I motion to approve the minutes of the last meeting. Second.

Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Is there any person here today wishing to address the board concerning any matter that does not appear on today's agenda? Seeing none, this board has adopted a consent agenda format and the consent items are identified as such on the agenda. Consent agenda items are those items for which the Planning and Development Department recommends approval and the applicant is in agreement with any proposed conditions. Please note that written comments to the case that have been received to date do not result in any item being removed from the consent agenda.

It may be removed from the consent agenda today by a member of the board, a member of the staff, or any person in the audience for questions or I'll read each item on the consent agenda and if any person wish to remove this item from the consent agenda, please state or raise your hand and we will remove it from the consent agenda items removed from the consent agenda will be heard in the regular order of the meeting items that remain in the consent agenda will be approved with a single vote as to each type of hearing. Today's agenda items there are two one is TA T zero. 2,025,090 and two amendments to community development code to update the city's planning process and to address statutory changes pursuant to Senate Bill seven eighty four. Does anybody wish to have this matter removed from the agenda? I see that one will be removed.

The next item on the agenda is TA twenty twenty five-nine thousand and three, amends to the community development code to update certain development review processes and timeframes, reflect current processes, and address statutory changes pursued to Senate Bill ten eighty. Does anybody wish to have this item removed from the consent agenda? Seeing none, may I have a motion on item 4.2?

I motion to approve the item TA 20,250,903 amendments to the Community Development Board code update. It's pursuant to the staff report and its recommendations.

If I may, it's a level three.

It's level three, so you're going on the back of that page. A motion for recommend we're recommending approval to the City Council.

And recommend sorry. And recommend the rec the staff report recommendations to the City Council.

Is that right? I'm fine with that. Okay. Do I have a second on that motion?

Second.

Motion made and second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. That takes us back to the regular agenda. It's a level three item. And I will read the procedures for our level three cases. All level three cases is our plan amendment rezoning or development agreement are considered legislative hearings. The development board reviews the application, the staff report correspondence and all evidence presented today and makes a recommendation to the city council. For level three applications, city council makes the final decision. The procedure for a level three cases is as follows. Presentation by planning staff, ten minutes maximum. Presentation by applicant, ten minutes at maximum.

Comments by the public, three minutes per person. Closing remarks by the planning and development staff, three minutes maximum. And closing remarks by the applicant, three minutes maximum. We then close the public hearing and discussion and vote by the board. Our first level three case today is TA twenty twenty 2. Ms. Matsky.

Good afternoon. Lauren Matsky, Planning and Development. So this past legislative session brought forth several statutory changes that then necessitated amendments to the Community Development Code. Ordinance ninety eight fifty six dash 25 specifically addresses the city's plotting process. And Senate Bill seven eighty four requires that final plotting be an administrative process or under administrative review.

The bill also addresses some basic parameters to what would need to be included in any notices that would go out for both preliminary plats and final plats, including that we must send written written acknowledgment of receipt of such application within seven business days. Any response must identify missing pieces, if applicable. I would just say this aligns with staff review for completeness upon intake of any of our applications. So it's not a change for us. We're just codifying the statutory requirements.

And additionally, the notice must include information regarding the approval process. So we would be outlining to an applicant what that process would be. So for context, preliminary plats have been and will continue to be reviewed by the development review committee. However, when a preliminary plat is accompanied by an application that would require community development board approval, the planning application would be brought forward to you while the preliminary plat would be held. So if the community development board approves the planning application, then we could issue a development order for preliminary plat.

So instead of seeing both concurrently, you would just see the request for flexibility. Planning and development staff. So we've been working with the city surveyor then on on developing a process for final plat. The current process is that it's submitted to the city surveyor and they go back and forth with the applicant. And then when everything's ready, it is presented to city council for approval and the city manager signs on behalf of council.

Since this now must be an administrative process, we'll be routing it to the applicable people in the development review committee to continue to review against what was approved as a preliminary plat and the city surveyor will continue to review against the statutory requirements for final plats when everything is resolved, then the community development coordinator, which is the planning and development director, would sign on behalf of the city and the city surveyor would continue to sign under his authority granted by the state. So the ordinance though also does include some minor changes proposed by staff to offer some clarity for minor lot line adjustments. We found it wasn't written as clearly as it could be. Even staff sometimes had to read it a couple of times just to make sure we were following it for as many times as we've read it. If it still requires that, it warrants some re looking while we're in that section of code.

That's something that we'd like to do if we're amending or proposing amendments to a section of the code. If there's anything that's ever come up, we try to address it at the same time. So, this was presented at work session to city council because our goal was to get this done this calendar year and City Council only has one more meeting in December. So while atypical, it was, you know, just at least presented at a high level City Council and I reported to them that I would bring back the Community Development Board's recommendation for their first reading on Thursday night. And I can answer specific questions as necessary.

I a couple. Thank you, Warren. And first of all, I talked to a couple of developers, and I agree with you 100%, I think. And I did my research on the bill. It came in, I think, Miami Dade County, I believe is what it started with or whatever. And it was all the it was a 100% vote on everybody. Both sides of the aisle was a 100% to zero. So it was it was a good declaration. But I have questions, and that's the reason I asked to pull it off the agenda. And they're very minor questions as far as that goes.

One of them, I was reading here, it says, whereas do we note a public meeting of Clearwater Development Board or no. Think the back was further down. It was talked about it was a meeting where this has been discussed before. Public meeting? Has there been one? Has there been a public meeting when this is brought up before that I wasn't aware of?

Because the ordinance is ultimately approved by city council, these are our standard recitals that that cover the fact that before it goes to city council, we would have brought it forward to you. So, this is capturing the fact that we're presenting it to the community development board. If for some reason, the recommendation changes, we would modify these for the city council meeting. But these are our standard. Some of most of them are standard recitals that we've used for ordinances for amendments to the community development On

that point, since it gets approved by city council, not us, we're just making a recommendation. That's actually talking about today's hearing. Okay. That way the actual ordinance text is consistent with the council looks at it next next week or whenever they review it.

I just did it's I was just found it ironic that there wasn't any discussion among the public. But the other reason for my I'm okay with that. You know, get by that. That's easy. My other question was, how does this apply at all to what's going on on on Garden Street, or will it have any effect at all what is going on there? Because there there's over 6,500 registered voters who are in favor of making sure that doesn't go as it was to go. And will plotting have anything to do with that?

That is not a plotting process. That is through the vacation of right of way. Their request was to vacate right of way. That's a separate process.

That's okay.

Not governed by this ordinance.

And right now, we don't even have a pending application for that. There is nothing

going on. We can't Correct. So they can't replat that to serve somebody's needs?

No, because it's city right of way.

Okay. Thank you for answering my question.

You're welcome.

I have a question. Who is the community development coordinator?

That is the code's term for the planning and development director. Okay. So regardless of department names over all the years, because they've certainly shifted over time, the code likes to use community development board, community development coordinator, community development code.

Okay.

So, yes, that's me for now.

I was going to say, yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Do you

think your process will be longer now with this new statute?

No. The we don't anticipate changing any of the process. I spoke with the city surveyor, you know, again, who had directed it. And actually, I guess it should be shorter because once he's finished with any of back and forth necessitating that it matches it, he can sign it as long as everything met the code, I can sign it and we don't have to get in the queue for a public hearing. So it should shorten it by a month or more.

What's your typical timeframe for getting a plat done?

We were talking about that because the notice needs to include that and for now, we're estimating ninety days because it would be and and it's just it it gives us something to shoot for. It's it may be quicker. It may not. You know, it just kind of depends. Our goal is to keep things moving. You know, we don't we don't have any intention of not signing it when it's ready. If everything comes through perfect, we sign it and move on. So what we've talked about is using that because that tends to be about how long it lasts. If we find that, you know, we're going to measure and if we find that we're getting it done faster, we would update our notices accordingly. There's nothing codified specifically for that because I think there's various nuances in terms of Of course. The quality, but

I have two at fourteen months, so I was wondering what your time frames are.

Okay.

And they're still not done.

With us? No. Okay. I was like, I checked to see, and we don't have any we don't have any pending right now. If

it's if you say

they're pending with us, then I need to go back and find them. Oh, no.

She turned white there for a moment there. Small cities.

I sometimes I try to read the faces, and I'm not sure if that was a good or a bad answer for me.

No, it

was good. Okay. Any other questions?

So when we get a project then, and it does have a plat that's holding because of the until the project's approved or not approved or whatever. Will we know that? I mean, will that be as part of the documentation that tells us that

Yes. Would still let you know that there is a preliminary plat that's part of it. It just wouldn't be read into the record that you were approving a preliminary So we would modify our request to reflect that difference. That

raises an interesting comment I want to throw out there just from past experience and it may fade into memories where people drop off the board over time, but there are lot of times when people come to us and they're making an issue of something that's not before us, and since the Platte's not before us now, that's something that we're, I don't want say we have to be on guard for, but I don't, some of the things that delays or lengthens, some of the hearings that we've had in the past have been discussing issues that have nothing to do with what we can and cannot And so now the Platts kind of out of that domain, and we just need to be weary of that so that way when that comes up, we can say yes, we understand your question, see if it impacts anything else we're considering, but not, we can't really do anything about the Platt.

I guess if we knew ahead of time, could we then basically make that type of

I think we could always make comments. There's always questions that can be raised. It's a matter of whether that it it can't weigh into our motion to it can't weigh into how we vote to approve or deny an application that's in front of us. But it is something that things get lost in the we get lost in those weaves often enough where it's worth bringing up just to be have it in the back of our minds. I thought it was. Anybody else have any other comments?

Thank you.

It's a level three application. Do I have a motion for anyone to approve this one to recommend someone else do Someone do Someone else do it. Okay.

I'll read

it. It's

right here.

As I spill my coffee There

would be the rest of the hearing.

Pardon me?

That was just my question.

That's true.

And also the applicant.

Thank you for reminding me. Since there are so few people in the room, is there any you are on the planning staff and the applicant, so that kind of covers that size of it. Is there any comments from the public? That's the important part. There's not appear to be any. There's one person in the audience, and they're shaking their heads. Thank you, Ms. Jones. Are there any closing remarks by development staff or the app?

No, thank you.

Okay. And now I'll go ahead and close the public hearing. And now I can take a motion. Thank you for correcting the other procedure there. Unless you do it right.

I move to recommend approval of case number TA2025-nine and two based on the evidence and testimony presented in application, the staff report, and at today's hearing, and hereby adopt the findings of fact conclusion of law stated in the staff report.

Second. I'll second. Start out recommending approval, right? Yeah. I know the little difference, so I want make sure I had it covered differently. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Director's report.

The only thing I have is I'd like to introduce our new Assistant Director for Planning and Development, Rebecca Mulder. She started this week as our Assistant Director, but she's actually been in our department for several years. She was previously our code compliance manager, but before joining the city in the code compliance division, she was in Colorado and had many years of experience on the permitting side. So she brings a wealth of knowledge from that background as well, which is of course a major part of what our department does.

Congratulations. Welcome. Congratulations. Welcome. Anything else?

I don't have anything else right now.

Thank

you. Any Board members wishing to be heard on any topic?

I guess I would say, sorry, I interrupted. Happy Thanksgiving to you.

I was going say that as well. Was supposed to wish happy holidays, happy Thanksgiving to everybody and that adjourns our meeting for today. Thank you.