Planning & Development - Regular Meeting

We had some agendas and notebooks with attachments to it and everything for you all, but the person bringing it is missing.

They said that they'd have

iPads here.

Weren't they supposed to have iPads? Have I have it on my phone.

I have what was in the mail out? This is a standard agenda?

Yeah, that's the procedure. So here are the things that you all need to roll over today. Well, first off is approving the minutes from last

Jay's doing the first one.

You want an agenda, Mr. Chairman?

He just handed me on if Kevin did. You want to take a picture of it?

I had it in my phone, but I'll just take a a picture. Picture. It doesn't really matter if you're running this room.

Now

we should be up. Does anyone have an agenda? Do you all have agendas? We

have an agenda?

Yes, sir.

Okay, I didn't see that.

You ready?

I'm ready if you are.

Are you expecting Vicki

or?

Ready? Give the call to order for the meeting of the, this is the Building Flood Board of Adjustments and Appeals, dates 03/04/2025. And, what we first item on the agenda is approval of the meeting of the previous meeting minutes, 02/07/2021.

I was here.

I was here.

Yeah, you don't need to have Meniere to either move to second or to vote on the approval of the minutes. You just need to recognize that they are the actual minutes. Those will be fine. We have some new members. So we will need a motion and a second to approve those minutes.

Okay. Here comes Vicky. She's got the stuff.

I'm sorry.

So we'll take a temporary pause. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi. Hi, how are you?

Why not? Thanks. So,

we'll mark those as approved, so we don't need to vote on

the Did we have a motion and a second to vote? I didn't hear it.

No, I thought you said we didn't need to. You didn't hear We do, okay, we need a motion to approve the minutes. I'll motion.

And a second? Second.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Disposed of that. Do we have any citizens to be heard regarding the items not on the agenda? Seeing none, we'll move on to the new business. And the first order of business is review the Sunshine Law and the Building Flood Board of Adjustments and Appeals Board Rules by Jay.

All right, thank you Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all of you for being here. I owe you four Merry Christmases, Happy Thanksgivings, a couple of Happy New Years and a partridge in a Parachute. We haven't been here in a while, so it is appropriate at this time to very briefly, and I will be brief, to cover partway by refresher and partway by new information for those of you new to the Board, the fact that you are now, as a result of your membership on this Board, subject to three chapters of the Florida statutes that you were not subject to before you had the privilege of signing up for and serving on this Board. And because those statutory constructions come with penalties for you, both civil and criminal, it is important that you be very acutely aware of their existence.

I am always available to you if you have questions about their application. You all have my number. Please feel free to use it as appropriate. For the purposes of this instruction, again, I'll be brief. I'm going to start with Chapter 119.

Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes is the Florida Public Records Law, which as a result of your membership on this board, you are now subject to. So, the documents that you come into possession of as a result of your membership on the Board are considered public records under Chapter 119. That has a broad and expansive definition. But functionally, it means is anything that memorializes knowledge, formalizes knowledge of this Board is going to be considered public record. What you really don't want to do as a member of the Board is become the sole custodian of public records.

So, you're emailing back and forth with city staff, those emails are going to reside on city servers. And so, you are not their custodian. But if you're emailing, communicating text messages some other way with somebody else, some other member of the public, and the city does not have access to that communication, then you are its custodian and you have a custodial requirement to keep and preserve that public record. Okay? I suggest that if that is the case, you take those records, you turn them over to the city clerk's office and say, they were once mine, but now they are yours.

You are its custodian now, and then you are done. The public records law is expansive. There are a number of exemptions and exceptions to what is disclosable as a public record upon request. But Florida has very much the most open public records laws in the country. So you should presume that the things everything that you have is a public record.

I suggest to you that you make a folder either on your computer, a hard copy, a repository of some sort to collect and keep the things related to this Board in the event that we receive a public records request for it. If you receive a public records request for it, I've been representing this board for more than a dozen years. It's never happened to my knowledge. If it does though, call me and I'll walk you through it in conjunction with the city attorney's office. Okay?

The second body of law that you are subject to is Chapter two eighty six of the Florida statutes, which is usually called the Sunshine Law. And functionally, it means for you folks on this board is that you may not discuss issues that reasonably, foreseeably may come before this board outside of a publicly noticed meeting, okay, with other members of your board. So, you all can see each other at the grocery store, at church, at the Tampa Bay Rays games, any of those things, and you can discuss anything under the sun except for the things that might come before you for discussion and decision by this Board. It is a very easy law to comply with. It can be, if you are careless, a very easy law to break.

If you have questions about its application, again, I encourage you to please call me, and I will walk you through it. But functionally, in a nutshell, it's very quick. We do four hour trainings on this three or four times a year. That's what it means for you. The public has a right to see and hear your deliberations in your consideration of the applications that come before the Board.

And so you may not make those decisions behind closed doors or in some other forum that is not open to the public. Okay? The final one is Chapter 112, Part three of the Florida Statutes, which is the Florida Ethics for Public Employees and Public Serving Law. What it means for you folks and basically, it's an ethics code. It's a codified set of ethics rules that set forth a number of restrictions on your service on the Board.

But in sum, what it means is that your public office, the office that you hold, is a public trust. And you hold that office in service, not of yourself, not of your wife or your kids or your friends or your family, but you hold it in service, in trust for the people of Florida and for the more particularly the residents of the city of Clearwater, residents and business of the city of Clearwater. So, sometimes what can happen is you can have what's called a conflict of interest. A conflict of interest arises when your concern for a private interest conflicts with your public interest. Okay?

So, if you have an application come before you that is going to benefit you monetarily or harm you monetarily, you likely have a conflict of interest, which means that you cannot vote on it. Unless you have a conflict of interest, you are required to vote on anything that comes before you. Also, unless you have a bias against, one of the people or the parties who come before you. Again, we can walk through those. By way of example, I've had folks call me and say, hey, this person's coming before the board next month, but I was involved in a lawsuit with them twelve years ago.

Well, lawsuits come in all shapes and sizes. It could have been just been a business dispute that was resolved very amicably, and you may not have a bias or a prejudice towards that person. It may have been something more personal that has harbored animus over the years, okay? Those things need to be taken on a case by case basis. Likewise, with voting conflicts under Chapter one hundred twelve point three one point three four. If you see an application come before you and your service on the Board that says, I work with that company. That's my company that's the applicant. This happens from time to time on our Community Development Board. I'm the engineer of record. I'm the realtor for the project.

Whatever the case may be, I may benefit. My company may benefit. My family may benefit or be harmed depending upon the Board's action on that item. Let's talk about that. Let's not talk about it the dais because those some of those factual scenarios are a little hard to work through in a sort of a free flowing meeting like this.

I'd prefer that you call me directly before the meeting so that we can I can fully understand the facts of your situation so that I can advise you as to whether you, in fact, have a conflict of interest or you don't? But in terms of Chapter 112, what I can tell you is, please execute your service on behalf of the residents and citizens and businesses of the people of Clearwater. And if you do that, you won't have any problem legally serving on the board. Do y'all have any questions for me? I don't want to intrude on the regular business of the Board, but I'm always available to answer these questions for you as to these three bodies of law and how they operate on your your service.

Okay? Very good. Mhmm. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Do you wanna

mention the financial disclosure also?

If you yeah. If you have a conflict, you mean a form form one. I don't get involved in your Form 1s. You should be hearing from the city clerk, if you haven't already, about filing an annual financial disclosure on a Form one. Have you all done that already? Yeah. So I'm happy to answer your questions about it. It's typically handled by the clerk's office, but I'm always here for your inquiries of those. There was a period of time a year or two ago, don't recall when it was, that the Florida Legislature was going to require an enhanced level of financial disclosure called the Form six that is presently being litigated in the courts. It's been stayed while that litigation unfolds in the state court system.

I don't think my memory is that it wouldn't affect this Board anyway. I believe it's for elected members of boards and commissions, But it's out there, so be aware of it. All right.

Anybody else? Anybody? We haven't filled out Form one. It's a basic form.

Yeah. Otherwise,

thank you for your service on the Board. It is appreciated.

Thank you. Absolutely.

Ready to move on? Please.

Thank you. Do we need to elect new officers?

You need to elect new officers. This is required to be done at our meetings in April, but I don't believe we're going to meet in April. We may not meet again until '29. So let's

go ahead

and do it. Now, the way that this process would work is that we'd first take the president or the chairmanship rather, and we would accept nominations from you guys. You can nominate yourself. A nomination doesn't need to be seconded. When the nominations are over, meaning there are no more nominations to be made, we'll take the first of the nominations and we can take a motion and a second. Being very candid with you, you have a Board here that hadn't met a lot, and it's kind of new. I would suggest that you stick with the present chairman and vice chairman, Mr. Cooper and Ms. Helmis, just because it can be a little tricky at times. And I didn't just volunteer you, Mr. Cooper, but I hope I A lot

of people do.

And then you'll do the same process for the vice chairmanship, So I would suggest that you take the chairmanship first. Let's take nominations. I nominate Mr. Cooper, so to speak. That's that's I have no power here, but, that's what I would do.

Any nominations?

I would nominate my good friend, mister Cooper, here. Are there other nominations?

May we have a motion to appoint Mr. Cooper as Chair?

We nominate.

So move. Move. Move to nominate.

All right. We have a motion to appoint Mr. Cooper as Chair. Do we have a second to that motion? Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Passes unanimously. All right. The Vice Chairperson. Let's take nominations. Anybody? I nominate Katherine.

Thank you.

Are there additional nominations? Alright. Let's hear a motion.

Motion to nominate Katherine.

Motion to appoint Katherine as vice chair. Is that correct? We have a second? Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? Seeing none, passes four zero. Thank you, folks. Okay. Thank you. Absolutely. You're on.

Moving right along. This will be, third item now we're up to. Approve the request for a variance as part of the Beach Marina Replacement Project for construction and installation of floating docks complete with Marina utilities, a fueling system, and walled attendant structure. These would replace the existing fixed timber docks and related utilities and structures. And then we should have a presentation by the city staff since there's no applicant. Well, guess the city staff and the applicant are the same person.

Well, yes and no. It's all the city of Clearwater, but yeah, the engineering department and the marine department are the applicants on this. And it is due to the fact that they are redoing the entire marina down there docks everything and this is and you'll see through their presentation that this is a request to have new floating docks with fuel service out on the dock itself. The vessels out there can refuel. Why we're bringing it to you?

Why they are bringing it to you is because the construction is seaward of the mean high waterline which violates the building code requirements and our flood ordinance and so we work carefully with VMA folks, the DEP folks, folks from the state. We have our floodplain administrator there at the front table, Gene Enre. And he has spent a lot of time in the research on how best for marina to do this, and through a variance meeting a long list of criteria that is outlined in a letter from the division of emergency management that's in your packet is what they propose to present to you all today to see if all of that has been met and a variance would be appropriate.

Kevin, can you point us to that document?

Yeah, it should be, looks like this. Division of Emergency Management on the top and it's to Warren Massey, who is our interim director. Gene, if there's anything that you want to enhance what I briefly summarized.

Before you get too far down the line here, mister chairman interrupt, so to make sure we appreciate the introduction to the application. But before we start taking testimony from folks, I wanna ask ask anyone who's gonna speak today to be sworn in, if you wouldn't mind. I'm asking you to raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you'll give in this hearing is the entire truth?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Well, good afternoon. I'm Gene Henry, floodplain administrators. Get by the mic. Yes. No, I used to get that. Floodplain administrator. Let me just pop this down here. So this went through plan review and it was reviewed and such. It it is a, a request to deviate from the minimum standards under our code as well as Florida Building Code and 44 CFR 60.3. And, but there is a request in it, and we did coordinate with the state's office because of the sensitivity of this with our compliance under, you know, our flood prevention, ordinance, as well as, just the, National Flood Insurance Program in general.

So when it's against the minimum standards, we come before you. You do have in chapter 51 a series of items that you need to look at as well and we're here to help you go through that if you need additional information. But I'm going to do a summary level at this point in order to allow for the presentation to continue. But the it is a it's a request for the minimum needed to go past the line as Kevin was identifying. And that is to and again, I want to stress the minimum needed for the facility to operate and work for the city of Clearwater and the residents and the tenants that will be there helping our customers.

So that's I was just going to go over a couple of extra items just quickly. So there is a staff report. So I'm going to bring that to your attention because your the applicants are going go over or the department is going to go over their report and request. But as you see, there is a background of analysis and it goes over the items that are brought to the attention and that we reviewed and coordinated with State of Florida as well as FEMA. Chapter 51, sections fifty fifty one point zero or six zero one through 51.608 provides the opportunity to request a variance where the following are required: limitations on authority, considerations, certain conditions, and, you know, of course, maintaining the documentation.

On the next page, it talks about the proposed buildings are seaward of the reach of the mean high tide, which is contrary to the Chapter 51, Section 51.401, Paragraph four, and it also speaks of the Florida Building Code and ASCE, which is adopted as reference within the Building Code itself. And the third bullet down, it brings out the discussions that we had with the Florida Division of Emergency Management. That is to ensure our compliance and move forward. They did recommend or not even recommend, they did say if the city wants to continue forward, that this would be the best consideration to move forward with and requesting if we were going to request a variance, this would be the way to go. The fourth bullet down is the state floodplain manager's office.

Again, that's at the state level. They initially said the request did not meet the requirements under those codes. And this, again, this would be a way to move forward if the city wanted to pursue such. And then conclusions of law are the next items down. And then I just wanted to put your eyes on the recommendation to the board.

The process and approve will sustain the city's participation with this level of participation with the National Flood Insurance Program. The request and the design of the construction is following input from the Florida State the Florida State Floodplain Managers, Office of Floodplain Management and the Federal Emergency Management Office. And therefore, staff supports the request. And this would be if the variance is, if you do approve the variance request, this would be only for this particular request and wouldn't be it wouldn't go towards any other request. All right. That's unless you have any other questions, I'm here, and I can follow-up with anything afterwards as well. Thank you.

Where is the writing of that? Is it in this emergency management document or the city's opinion to go forward?

Yes, it's in the in that state letter.

Staff report?

Yes, on the not the staff report, the one that has the or Division Yes. Of Emergency So if you go down to the third paragraph, and it speaks to provides applicants the opportunity to they identify and extract the parts of the federal, Florida building code that allows for a variance to be, requested and, in the floodplain management regulations. And then the second sentence says, if the city considers a variance request, it must do so with particular attention to limitations on authority. And that's our code section 51 or decimal six zero three considerations section 51.607 and conditions section 51.608. Those are mirrored in the states or in the 44 CFR as well.

The city must the third paragraph. The city must maintain documentation related to its appeals and variances. We will have to let them know if you do approve this that we have done so. And including justification for the issuance or denial, and that's 51.209. Again, we will have to give soon whatever the decision is, we will move that forward.

Of a particular note, any variance must be the minimum necessary considering the flood hazard to afford relief, and that's 51.608, paragraph two, paragraph c. And then the next paragraph talks about the rest of it. So, yes, so the first paragraph is there and then that's correct, thank you. So on the very back page is, about the kiosk as well. Today is not regarding the kiosk. Today is about the floating dock.

So today's subject is just the floating dock? Yes. Not the all the

The kiosk and such, The

and the fuel transfer and all that?

Well, is with the the floating docks will maintain the services to the boaters, which includes the fuel. And I believe they have in here a request for, at least a wall, building for the attendant to be out of the elements and such. Chair, may I ask a question? Yes.

Mr. Henry, in the recommendation, it does read this process and approval will sustain the city's participation with this level of participation with the National Flood Insurance Program. So I'm interpreting that that if this is approved and moved forward that the city will not lose any CRS points.

Correct. We understand, yes. And it's and again, that's why I stress this for this situation only and the minimum need. So, and that's why the state also stressed the minimum needed to move forward and for the variance to be for the mean high tide.

You, I just want to confirm that those CRS points were

Yes, yes, very important.

Thank you.

And if I can just add on that too, that that is the main thing that we wanted to preserve is the CRS rating. The city of Clearwater saves millions of dollars, the residents of the city of Clearwater, every year on flood insurance. Right now the discount level is at 25

We're at rate of five

every So single it truly is worth millions of dollars throughout the community. So, that was important to us to do it in a way, do whatever we do in a way that would not lose any points on the rating system.

Thank you very much. I have

one more question, if I could ask. Is there any, what do they refer to as four zero four qualifications, or Corps of Engineers, or Department of Environmental, the Florida Department of Environmental, whatever the last name of it is.

You mean for the four zero four permitting Yeah. And such? Well, I'm gonna leave that to the engineer that the city has.

Yes. To answer that question, we did receive the Army Corps permit recently for the project, and that includes the four zero four review. So they have gone through that and reviewed the full project, including the floating fuel system.

All right.

I'm going

ask you, I'll come to the mic. Also introduce yourself with your name so everyone knows. Yes. And we can make a record and the Board members know.

Yeah. I'll be speaking shortly.

You have any questions? Any questions?

Any negatives to this? That would be the only thing that I would. Any more questions? Are they continuing to more lengthy, I'm gonna go ahead of

them. Continue

with the presentation.

Mr. Chairman, I'm gonna ask you to take a short break.

Can't tell any jokes right now. I'm not funny.

All right. So I've just been discussing with the city attorney's office or rather the city planning staff as to the order that we're going in because there's some, at least in my, feeble mind, some confused distinction is between the applicant and the city staff. So we have an applicant here to make a presentation, and it might assist your understanding of the application to hear that presentation first and then move on to the city staff's observations and recommendations. So if we can do

that? Yeah.

So is that what you're planning on doing now?

Yes.

All right. So some of the stuff you've heard, it might be Yes. Technically out of But it all goes

together. Good afternoon, Board. I'm Mike McDonald, and I'm the Marine and Aviation Director for the City of Clearwater. I have been with the department and I've been operating the marina the better part of the last decade. The marina was built in the 1940s and was expanded until 1965 as it essentially looked until the start of the reconstruction project late last year.

The Marina was in serious disrepair and needed to be rebuilt. Over the last five years, the fueling facility at the Marina pumps between 800,900 gallons of fuel annually to the commercial fleet as well as Pinellas County residents and visitors passing through the area from all over North And South America. The fueling facility also has a capacity to pump out wastewater from vessels holding tanks. The facility pumps up between one hundred and one hundred and fifty gallons of wastewater per day. The facility was also designed to store a fuel spill emergency kit and can be deployed moments after any type of spill.

The facility also distributes motor oil and other lubricants. The fueling facility was designed with emergency fuel shutoffs and all fueling and wastewater are meticulously monitored by a certified underground storage tank operator within the facility in accordance with state of Florida regulations. Fueling facility operators are required to monitor every fueling event. The fuel facility is strategically located on the Southeast side of the marina for the safety of the surrounding businesses and tourist locations that would minimize any type of emergency. The facility is located down current from the rest of the marina as well as the marina neighbors in the event of a fuel spill, fire or wastewater spill.

The fueling facility is also designed with many redundant features including a leak detection system, which automatically shuts off fuel valves as well as a manual push valves. The fueling operators inspect the fuel pumps, sump pumps and fueling components daily. I am here today with others that will go into a deeper dive into the importance of this facility and how this facility will satisfy the flood requirements to continue its current operational readiness and provide products to our guests safely and effectively. At this time, I'd like to introduce Marcus Williamson, our Public Works Director. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Board members. Appreciate your time hearing today. So both the engineering side and the environmental who oversees the CRS report up through the public works. So we definitely have a lot of appreciation for all the complexities involved in this situation. So a little bit about my background.

So before joining the city about a year and a half ago, I had spent twenty eight years in the military primarily as a civil engineer for the the Navy. And as we went through our career, we learned you run into these scenarios. So a code may not consider a particular application. You may get conflicting codes that are out there where one's telling you you can do something, another can't. We were trained as we went through.

You start to look at what was the intent of the code. So it the scenario you're looking at, well addressed within the code, what was the, intent in it. As you progress through your career, you move it up in the ranks, you start getting involved more with, okay, now you have to help write codes, regulations, policies, and you get a deeper appreciation for how do you balance that concise nature of your your writing of the codes and regulations with trying to capture everything that's out there. And they really do try to help train you, okay, look at what are you giving clear intent and guidance, that's out there. So I would offer is, the engineer of record gets up here.

I think, they've, done a really good job and we've talked through and we've hashed out a lot of we've got multiple codes out here. Do they truly consider this exact type of scenario that we're putting in it? And you know, it's it's a floating dock system that's gonna be out there. So are we trying to apply land based criteria to a floating dock? So Nicole, our engineer of record, will talk a little bit more into it, but I would just offer, I think what we've discovered is one of those situations where it's not clearly spelled out in all of the codes.

So we're having to do some interpretation. We're bringing forward what we believe, complies, meets the intent of of what's out there and is actually giving the the residents the proper operational need that they've got. So I'll

put in that for Nicole. So

I'm Nicole Shaw. I'm with Moffett and Nickel, the design leads and engineer of record for replacement project. So the project scope as they've described is to replace the existing Marina. It's a 165 slip Marina. It's a fixed dock system.

It flooded during Hurricane Helene. We are looking to replace this system maintaining the same slip count but modernizing the system some maintaining the same use and the same balance of end users. As part as part of that, yeah, we would like to replace the existing fixed over water fuel office with a new floating fuel office. And the official request is listed here. Have you guys read the request specifically?

Okay. Then I won't go through that. So the little orange block on the screen here under these two figures, the left one that shows the proposed location of the Floating Fuel Building. The FEMA firm to the left shows that the area is in a v zone with a base flood elevation of 11 NAVD. And the right diagram shows the Pinellas County vulnerability assessment from 2021 and the site specific base flood elevation for the building is in plus 12.8, but we've actually gone for the most, conservative, value for the whole property, which is on the Far West Side with the storms coming in from the water.

And so that's plus 13.6. And so we are using a per the city's criteria, a base flood elevation of 13.6 for the site and the design flood elevation is two feet above that for a DFE of plus 15.6 for all elements of the project. The existing structures that we are proposing to demolish and replace are shown in red at the right side of the page. That is the existing fixed dock with the fuel system and the building shown in blue. One other thing I wanted to note is that during part of this project we're not just looking to demolish and replace that but we're actually removing seven other fixed building type structures over water that are not being replaced as the system.

One of them being an over water office. So we are reducing the total number of over water structures. This just shows some images of the existing building and the uses of the fuel office mechanical room and restroom which currently exist. The proposed floating fuel building is located a little bit further south as we modernize the marina. It wasn't possible to keep it in its exact location.

So it's a little further south, but you can see in red that's the new configuration of the floating fuel dock, with the same quantity of dispensers as there currently are. Same general use of everything and the proposed building same general use of existing. This shows a floor plan of it where we've minimized the space for each of the elements and a couple of renderings showing the overall building intent. Now, if you're not familiar with floating systems in general, the building is is anchored to a float system as a platform float for a floating dock, and that is restrained by guide piles that allow it to move up and down with the tides. So this figure here shows on the left side this is at you know a mean tide level at zero foot NAVD and then on the right side this is what the system looks like when you're at the design flood elevation of plus 15.6.

So we have designed the guide piles here. They're steel pipe piles to be up to plus 17 to have a little bit of additional freeboard. So should that dock go up to the design flood elevation, it will not float off the top. That keeps it restrained and anchored and those piles are driven deep into the ground into the limestone. The the dock system itself has a two foot freeboard and the building is located.

The finished floor elevation is another three quarters of an inch above that. So the finished floor elevation during the design flood level is two foot three quarters of an inch above the DFE. Any questions on that so far? Okay. So the proposed floating building is comparable in size and scale to the existing and there's no changes from the proposed use.

For the project, there's an overall reduction in overwater buildings. We're removing approximately 2,680 square feet of overwater buildings. It's seven total structures, and we're putting back one at seven ninety square feet. Chose design team in the city chose to move from a fixed to a floating system here to improve resiliency because floating structures rise and fall with the waters and are inherently blood proofed. They're also adaptable to sea level rise and they're an ideal situation for areas that are subject to storm surge.

In addition to the Army Corps permit we have received, included the floating building on it, we've also received the Pinellas County Water Navigation Permit. As part of that, we had to request an administrative variance for the floating building to have an overwater structure. And this is the permit number listed there for reference. The federal codes, the NFPA and the international fire code require an attendant to be present on when there is marine fueling. The 2024 Florida Fire Prevention Code specifically references NFPA 30 a and that's shown at the bottom left of the screen where the attendant needs to be within 15 feet of the dispensing controls and direct visual sight of the dispensing operations and the emergency shutoff.

This is a very high capacity fuel dock. It's very popular. It serves both the commercial fleet and the public using, you know, regional public. And so really an attendant needs to be out there full time given the the high usage of the dock system. And given the hot Florida climate we feel that proper shelter from the extreme Florida climate is essential.

The building itself has been designed in accordance with ASCE seven sixteen for a basic wind speed of 145 miles per hour in accordance with the Florida Building Code. The dock and system has the the dock and building system have been designed for both operational and extreme wind waveloads that are calculated from site specific numerical modeling with a significant wave height of 3.9 feet. Focusing on the building itself, it's designed in general accordance with ASCE 24 and the Florida Building Code as a flood design class two structure. The building is anchored to resist flotation collapse and lateral movement due to the effect of wind and flood loads acting simultaneously on all building components and other load requirements. As I mentioned, the building is anchored to the dock, which is restrained by the steel guide piles that are driven into the ground.

They are high enough up at plus 17 to keep the dock system restrained by the piles at all designed water levels. For the lowest supporting horizontal member of a floating dock that is the floating dock itself, which remains above water at all times. And the floating dock has a free board of two feet and a finished floor elevation of three quarters. So it is more than two feet above the water level at all design water level cases, including at the DFE. For utilities, the attendant utilities route within the floating system and above water, and the building has been designed with flood damage resistant materials in accordance with ASCE 24 and FEMA.

Some of the materials for the damage resistance, we're using aluminum framing, stainless steel fasteners, pressure treated plywood, sealed concrete floors. Everything is intended to be able to get wet out there. And the attendant utilities as I mentioned with the floating dock you know they always float above the DFE and there's a figure at the bottom left there that shows an example of what this looks like with the utility chase and the utility sleeves located at the top of the dock system at least a foot above water. When it comes to how the utilities route from the land side to the water side there's an articulating aluminum gangway that allows with flexible connections for the utilities at the shore side and at the dock side. And those there's slack in those systems that allow you to for the full range of water levels and the shutoffs are located upland at the the upland utility connections.

I have a question on that.

Perfect. I'm done. So

When like in the this past, fall, summer storms, how does that, device where the fuel lines are in the ramp? How high can it articulate up versus the land based part of it?

You mean if the if the water side goes higher than the Yeah. So if you're in an unfortunate situation where your shore is lower and your walls have not been raised then yes, you have a situation where that inverts under regular conditions. So there's no operational challenge for that except that the gangway has a toe plate that starts to invert and look like this. If you're in a storm event and that occurs, then the there's multiple sets of wheels under the gangway. So the gangway would be technically hanging on the right.

You're coming up like this, you would have a situation where you would not be able to access the gangway down to the dock if you were in a significant storm surge. But we have raised the walls and the bulkheads surrounding this site to plus 5.2. It would take a pretty significant storm event to significantly invert the gangway. But the utilities are they flex both directions. So there is slack in the system to go all the way to the plus 15.

So if the fuel that's in that system that's going out to the boats, where does it go?

That goes So towards the fuel the fuel comes through the bulkhead and it routes with slack at the top and bottom of that system and it goes into the dock. The two yellow sleeves on the right represent the fuel in this case because it runs in sleeves and not in an open chase like some of the other types of utilities.

Chair, I have a question if I'm in for the initial record.

So the dock that's being put in has replaced the existing dock that was damaged by a previous storm event. That previous storm event, what was the what was that identified as? Was that a five hundred year storm event or what was it classified as?

So it was not specifically damaged in a storm. It's been it's well past its service life. So we've actually been planning for this replacement for three years now with the city, but environmental permitting takes a long time. So the what I was mentioning was hurricane Helene, the water levels got up to about plus seven in that case. The the existing building flooded because

What was the elevation that rose

to It was around plus seven, I believe. Don't quote me on specifically, but that's the ballpark.

Gene Metairie, the stillbetter elevation is, was seven feet.

Okay. Yeah.

So I have a question. The materials that you're using, what's the lifespan of of the corrosion and the rust and I mean, I live on the beach and stainless steel, I'm replacing hinges every year.

High quality stainless steel does have a service life of thirty plus years, but that is typically on the waterfront. Your design life spans from thirty to fifty years depending on the structures and the component. Floating docks, in this case, concrete floating docks typically have a service life about thirty years with proper maintenance. They should last that.

And that would go into a maintenance program. So we obviously would have to inspect that. So once it's it's built and they're gone, you know, ourselves and marine and aviation, you know, we would be, doing regular inspections and there's a number of pre storm, functions and activities they, would take on also before any major hurricanes or storm surges. Like Nicole had said, there's automatic shutoff valves, breakaway valves that are designed into this.

Yeah, and the fuel systems shut off every night unless there's an attendant there, then the fueling system itself is shut down.

And the electrical system is shut down for the storm events as well. So at the main breakers on the upland, you shut off everything before the storm event.

In the event of another hurricane, is there a purge system that backflows the fuel back into the tank from this run out from the tank to the fueling station?

No. No, there's not any kind of system that draws the fuel back into

the tank. So the fuel stays in the slack?

Sure. Yeah.

Okay. And just to confirm the the Pinellas County five hundred year storm event, is that 17 elevation for that location? The five hundred year storm event from Pinellas County, is that 17 at that location?

So the Pinellas County elevation was plus 13.6, for the for the BFE, but we added two feet for kind of city's DFE because that's their criteria. So it was 15.6 total. The top of pile was 17 for additional three board.

So if if by chance we were to go beyond that 17, I mean, it'd be a serious event. But if that happened, it would just there's no top containment of that. It would just come up and

It would theoretically go on. Off the top. Yeah. Trying to

At that point, we would probably lose a lot of the beach.

Yeah. Sure.

Be a new pastor. Yeah.

I know, normally, when you the the DFEs are intended to bring a structure up, especially in a v zone, you wanna be above the the the first horizontal member, you know, the structure wants to be above that elevation. This is floating on that elevation with the wind with the wave impact. Right? So has there been additional consideration from the wave action structural impact? Because now you're you're synonymous with the wave action, you're not getting above the wave action where normally you try to put that DFE.

Yes. So it has been designed. We did site specific numerical modeling for the project. Our coastal team To

take the initials.

Looked at this as some. So this marina is fairly protected from a wave standpoint because the waves have to come over the beach to really develop into the the water level and the size of what's occurring. Okay. Yeah. We looked at it also from the interior side and the control and wave is actually coming from the interior side and that's where we got the 3.9.

Okay.

Go ahead and continue.

No, that's it. Just I added those last two slides to show this is really the summary slide here, and I added the last two just to give a little bit more detail if you wanted it. I wasn't sure if you were going to get this before the presentation or not, so I tried to add some extra detail.

That's good.

I was trying to look online at what happened to these in the recent hurricanes. There's a couple of them is up and down the coast and I couldn't see where any of them had had any damage at least they're not reported. That's I could see on the Internet. Floating structures and reasonably

protected locations have been performing very well in storms. If you have high exposure, you know, there's or really long fetches like your Harbor Marina, which has a lot much longer direct fetches to it, you know, they were seeing more damage. But Naples Naples and Marathon both have floating facilities that weathered multiple hurricanes in the last few years and are doing really well. One of them is a V zone, one of them is an A zone, but they're both similar exposure.

And these fuel systems are really redundant. I lost my fuel system with this past one on the fixed dock but we lost zero fuel so but the pumps were all underwater we lost the Vita Roo, lost the operating system.

And no SSOs from the wastewater containment either?

Mm-mm. Nope.

So and the gap in the code, I guess, to clarify is that, you know, ASCE 24 does not address floating structures. FEMA does not directly address floating structures. It's intended to be fixed structures. I even talked to the committee working on the new ASCE 24 and their response was oh yeah, we should address that in the next version. But it's getting implemented right now so we can't at the moment. But you know this you know floating structures and floating buildings are increasing in popularity around the world right now And it's a way to address, you know, buildings in the coastal high hazard area by keeping them above the base flood elevation when the base flood elevation occurs.

Any further questions?

No, sir. No. No?

Okay, is there a presentation by the city?

Not anything further than what we had already introduced to This design that they have come up with seems to meet all the intent of the code. If it were a structure on land in a V Zone, it would be stationary and it would be fixed at two feet above the base of the design flood elevation, it would be to the bottom of the structural supports. This will enable that to happen with a floating dock. This is by far better than what's there now, which is, what did they say, 40 years old or so. I Is it still there?

It's still there, yeah. And so, Gene, did you have anything further you want to add?

Gene Henry, Floodplain Administrator. Just that we're supposed to tell you and per the code, no flood insurance would be available for this structure over the water and possibly not disaster assistance as well. But yes, just like Kevin had mentioned, and that really concludes staff's presentation, which includes what we said earlier too.

So the current dock has insurance?

It wouldn't be covered either.

Is the city currently Yes. Self

What's there now is not insured as well.

Just under the city. Just under

the city.

Jay, so being no cross exam.

I don't know. I doubt that the city wants to cross examine itself, but they're welcome to if they like.

So we move on to comments from the public. There's no public here.

Is that correct? I don't see anybody.

Any closing remarks by the applicant?

Any closing remarks by anybody? I

just reiterate again, I mean there's a lot of effort that went into this overall. So it was not decisions that were taken lightly. We worked, back and forth, a lot within the internal city staff, within the engineer of record, really digging into the codes, trying to understand what's the intent, you know, and as Nicole highlighted, some of it's just they can't think of everything. They're they're writing concise codes. So we really do feel like, we're bringing forward the best possible solution given all the factors.

I have one more question just for the group there. I'm on three bridge projects right now, and the common situation is trying to find the authority who has the final jurisdiction who signs off on this. Do you know who the final jurisdiction is?

For,

the For a permit.

Well, so we've got multiple.

Yeah. There's multiple.

Yeah.

So But usually there's one person, there's one, one organization or department that has the final say, and that's the

It's the city building department, technically, but it's the army corps. We have the army corps permit from the federal side. We have the DEP permit from the state side and the Pinellas County permit from the local side. So, they go altogether. There's no one jurisdiction that oversees it, but we have authorizations for all three. The final thing we need is a building department.

The building official has no objections?

No. The building official has

no objections.

Have you

run this by the Coast Guard?

Again, Gene Henry, just to add to that, under the flood damage prevention ordinance, if none of the other permits are in place, then we can't continue with the, you know, approval of the flood damage prevention code. So that would be your overall statement if nothing if other items are left undone.

Have you contacted the coast

With the coast guard, it's since the system's all connected, it wouldn't be considered a vessel. We did actually explore that as an option, but it would have to be dis the system would have to be disconnected from the dock, it's not as structurally sound. And if we didn't have aids to navigation or anything, that would have required an Army Corps permit. There's the coast

guard The coast guard permit. Because I know in many cases these, nobody wants to take the final say or responsibility.

Think that's why

it gets pushed off.

Right, and I think that's part of it, know, everyone's got their section of the the codes and addressing individual. So, you know, as Nicole said, there's quite a few codes that they're they're referencing.

Yeah. It gets to be, I'll sign it if they sign it.

Exactly. Yeah. And we're down to the last

step. Hopefully.

Any closing comments, Kevin?

No, no.

Thanks.

So we close the public hearing? Yep. So the public hearing is hereby closed, and then we'll have a discussion and vote by the board.

Let me suggest to the board briefly that you have a series of motions in your binders to approve, approve with conditions, deny certain types of applications. Those are examples, and they come with code sections here, typically 40 seven-thirty five-two, etcetera. But here, and I'm sure that city staff or the applicant will correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you want to motion, if this is your finding, that the criteria set forth in code fifty one point six zero six and fifty one point six zero eight are satisfied, if that is your finding. Would you agree? Yes. Standing in this one.

Here it is for the first page. First tab. Does anyone on the board have any conditions that they'd like to add to this?

No conditions, no objectives.

So we'll take a vote?

All those who

What?

Need a motion first.

Yeah.

So let's have someone motion.

That'd be the first motion here.

Motion to grant request. Move to find the action on the request to be within the board's authority and to grant the request based on the evidence, testimony presented in the application, staff report at today's hearing and after due consideration, the criteria set forth in code of ordinance is section 51.11.

I'm gonna ask you to amend the motion to include sections fifty one point six zero six and fifty one point six zero eight. Agreed. Okay. Is there a second?

I'll second.

All right. You are teed up, Mr. Chairman. You have a motion to second. You can take discussion or a vote as you see appropriate.

Any more discussion? So, good. Move the item to vote. All those in favor of the motion as presented and amended, please say

aye. Aye.

So that's four. Favor? None against. On to the next item, is there any old business?

None here. I think Member Helmus is probably the only one with who might have old business, but

I see

that happening.

Director's report, I don't believe there's the Director's report, is it?

I don't

know if anyone from city staff wishes to make a report. That's where we ordinarily do that.

No, usually in past what we've done is just kind of give you what's going on in our office. So, just FYI, we've issued about 16 or taken in about 1,600 permit applications for damage repair. Many of those already issued, many of them already done. We've got a handful of things that properties that are substantially damaged that are doing either demolition or replacement of some kind. So, we've been very busy with that.

That along with our normal load of permits, that has not stopped, that has continued on, so we've had a lot of plans going over our desks lately, And we are looking at the possibility of maybe another board meeting, this board meeting, maybe next month or the month after. So just kind of put that in the back of your calendars to, and we'll keep you posted on that.

Okay. Thank you.

Very good. So,

we need a motion to adjourn? Yes.

We'll You can close the meeting.

The meeting closed and adjourned.

I'm afraid the motion.