Planning Board - Regular Meeting

meeting and start with the pledge stand [Music] 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. Turn this. The roll call. Roll call. Yes. Lisa here. Here. Uh Warren Burger here. John has an excused absence. Alexa is Alexander B, sorry, absent. Margaret Schneider here. Okay.

Mike Miller here. And Loy McKinley is also excused. Absence. Okay. Um, do we have an motion to approve the agenda? We approve the agenda. We have a second. Second it. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say I I I. So it's approved. Margaret vote passed. I move to approve the meeting minutes as written. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve the minutes. All in favor? I.

Okay. Approval, unanimous approval of the minutes. We have no, we only have a discussion items today. So, I don't think we have any disclosure of conflicts that we need to talk about. I don't think we have any unfinished business, right? No. So, new business. Um, we want to welcome our new member, Warren Ber. And I was wondering if you could I know you kind of introduced yourself when you walk in, but for the people who might be watching or whatever, a little talk a little bit about yourself. Yeah, sure. Introduce yourself. If you press the button there is

Oh, I think I'm on already. Okay. Um my name is Warren Burgerer. I am uh a re fairly recent transplant to Cocoa Beach permanently in the last six years. Uh both of my daughters have gone to uh Cocoa Beach High School. My younger one is a senior. Uh I own a uh a financial planning firm here in Cocoa Beach and um my background uh is in New York. I had uh worked on I ran uh trading desks on Wall Street for 27 years. Uh decided to slow that down a little bit, make my way south. Um, and you know, I was just saying that, uh, you know, we've had a really good experience, both my wife and I, uh, in Cocoa Beach and my daughters going to school here, and this town's been very good to us, and we really, uh, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to be here and and help out as best I can.

Thank you. Um, okay. And the next order of business is to get a nomination and vote on a vice chair. I move that we defer election of a chair until a future meeting. Do we have a second? I'll second that motion. So we will take that on when we have I guess we should sure that we're okay with it. We have a motion and a second. We have I'll approve. Say I I Did you excuse you? Did you approve? Yes. Yes. Okay. So, it's unanimous approval

to defer that item till the next time. And then um I guess we have the main topics or the board discussion topics and I think those are provided attached here. I don't know if we have them. Do we show them for people who might be watching? I don't know if anybody's watching. Um I don't have a computer system here but there will be available posted on the website. Okay. Um did you want to introduce this at all or do you want to just get moving on? Well, I can start it and then I'll let you guys talk about it. But

okay. Um the comprehensive uh the first one is a comprehensive plan. Um that's required by the Florida statute chapter 163. The city's comprehensive plan uh must be updated every seven years. And per this schedule, the next update must be completed by January 2028. This process is known as the evaluation and appraisal report, the ER, and will kick off in late 2026. Uh the goal of the AR process is to determine if any updates are needed to the plan since it was last updated in 2021. Updates can be associated with the changes in state law, local conditions, or to re reflect evolving uh community aspirations. A planning consultant will be engaged to assist the city with this data gathering, public engagement/workshops, and drafting a new plan policy language. The planning board will be involved in an advisory capacity and will ultimately make the recommendations to the city commission on possible plan amendments.

Okay. Can I I just wanted a lot a lot of what these topics are are things that we've talked about in the planning board over the last I don't know several years or that um we just kind of collected into one discussion topic that these topics didn't really get closed out I guess or closed the loop on them. So, this is just sort of how we came up with this kind of list. And thank you for you guys, you and David for putting it all together into an agenda agenda. And yeah, madam chairman,

talk through it. And I think a lot of the items that are underneath this comp plan may end up being inputs or initiate conversations that may lead to a comp plan change, which is kind of what we were thinking when we were talking about. Okay. Go ahead. Definitely. Thank you. Um, yeah, I'd just like to add to kind of the umbrella statement about what we're doing here this evening.

As some of you know, I know Warren is new. This is more maybe for his benefit than than than the other board members, but the planning board is definitely an advisory board to the city commission. And, um, it's really a sounding board, if you will. um that there's there's topics and issues that are that will bubble up from the community and as staff becomes aware of them or as board members bring them to our attention, we we have these conversations about policy issues and that's really what we're here doing this evening is just to kick it off. We're not obviously this is just the beginning. Um, these are just this is just an opportunity for staff to start to hear feedback from the board. And as board members, you represent the community. You are the voice of the community. Um, you're all late lay members. Um, you do this out of your love for the community and your interest in the community. And and we're here to work as a team, the board and the staff and the city attorney's office. We're here to work as a team to hear these issues, to work through them, to massage them. if you will, and then present a recommendation, if it gets that far, to the city commission, who will then take these recommendations and either do nothing with them, which happens sometimes, or they will um um typically it's through ordinance changes. They'll implement these recommendations into city policies, whether it's the comp plan or the land development regulations or other things. and staff. We use those those policy statements in in the comp plan and in the uh land development regulations. That's what we use as staff as we're dealing with the public when we're building the community. When a developer comes in, wants to do something or a homeowner wants to do something with the property. That's what we use. We use our land development regulations. So, it's really this is where it all starts here

this evening and it'll it'll go through a process and ultimately it'll end up in our policy books if if it gets that far. So, um, and Mike is a past city commissioner, so he's he's been on both ends of it. So, he he understands very well how how it works. Um, so anyways, I just wanted to say that. But yes, you're you're exactly right, Madam Chairman. This is a the comp plan, the valuation and appraisal report is this boards and the community's opportunity to say, "Hey, this this hasn't been working in the last seven years or we didn't think about this seven years ago and we're going to we we want to we want to address that now." And so we'll make those changes in our comp plan every seven years. So we'll we'll really get into it next year.

Yeah, that was I had a couple questions. When is the staff aware of any serious deficiencies in the plan based on recent laws? Um I wouldn't say serious deficiencies. I mean be our city attorney's office is very very good about alerting staff when when when um the legislature does something up there during session and they they pass something that oo we need to jump on that and make changes. Typically, we don't have to go into our comp plan. Typically, it's changes to our land development regulations.

Yeah, we can still change the development regulations. I have to I'm fairly familiar with the plan. I don't know of any deficiencies really. I think it's still pretty solid. I would support it still where it is. The question I have is, is this a budget? Do we need to budget for the planning consultant for next year? We pro. Yes. The answer is we will be budgeting for a consultant. It will it will be in the 20 not this coming year's budget which starts in a couple of weeks but it'll be in the following year's budget. Uh we'll we'll be starting that process with our consultant in about a year from now. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So yes,

I think it's pretty solid. We did a pretty thorough in review in 2014 was went months at a time and I think we made some pretty good adjustments at that time and yeah I' I'd say in general the plan is is weather aged very very well. Yes. Unlike some of us. Thank you Dave. Are there any other Do you have any comments on this? I'm right I'm kind of listening and and learning right now so bear with me. Margaret.

Um, one of the things I would like to put on our discussion topics and then I spoke to Corey about this is that in the past three years that I've been on the planning board, I think we've had eight, correct me if I'm wrong, Lisa, developments that came through that we have provided a recommendation about and they all seem to have disappeared. And I think it's important for us to know what the status is because, for example, I have seen three of them on various sites for sale. So I'm, you know, and I understand I understand that some people will will get propose a development, get the approvals and sell it because that that just enhances their ability to get more money. But it's I think it's important for us to know where these things are.

If there's a timetable to put a shovel in the ground, I have an update for you tonight. It didn't make the this, but after uh we get through this, I'll give you all a update on the current projects and what information we have. No. So, this is good. I had the same question Mike did. Is it a budgeted item for the consultant? And then we probably should just recommend putting that topic I don't know fourth quarter of 2026 or something towards the end on what the more detailed plan will be on how you're going to um roll it out and get input from the community or whatever however the our consultant will be or do that

will be coming to the board and picking your brain and then they they'll be specifically tasked with conducting uh neighborhood meetings. Um, I'm sure there's going to be some type of an online um um presence um a um a survey if you will gathering information from the community. That's really the significant part of this is what is the what are the community's wishes? It's not just what Cory and I think is best or the board. It's just the group effort.

I I believe we could make spot amendments or adjustments that come at any time. Right. This is just a top tobottom review. It's maybe not warranted at this time. Yeah. Back when I was a very young planner back way back a long time ago, uh it was known as the Department of Community Affairs up in Tallahassee, they regulated all of the comp plan and what we could and couldn't do. And that was we were allowed two a year. Um but I think that that standard may have been removed from statute, I think. But you're right. we can as as needed we can make those changes. Yes sir. Sorry.

I'm also glad to see affordable housing because as you know that's been my thing best to the next one. And what I'd really like to to I'd like to elaborate on the on your points here of what we need to cover. I think we need to cover what we need to do as a city to implement affordable housing and whether that be assessing uh developments that come in 5% of the units be affordable whatever or put money goes into a fund before and I'm afraid that's right around the corner before the state or the county tells us how many units that we're going to have and that's that's going to happen because I saw what happened where I came from. Sure.

Everybody, you know, they were laxidasical about it and then all of a sudden the state and county said, "Okay, you're doing 20 houses. You're doing 70 houses or 70 affordable units." Um, and it's very hard. You you can't People think you can fight that. It's very hard to fight that. So, I hope we're we're thinking in terms of what we're going to do to implement a a really solid affordable housing program in in Cocoa Beach. You know, I I did a little research before coming in here, and the the medium house in Cocoa Beach on average is $467,000. Um, it's it's amazing. I mean, downtown it's anywhere from 174,000 to over a million. And down south, Cocoa Beach is 600,000 plus. What's the median income? That's what's critical here.

89,000. So, it's 30% 30% of the median income, which somebody here is much smarter than I am about math, but that's got to be just under 30,000. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and Bard County is 75,000. 75800. I mean, so we're higher on average, but still the the housing is [Music] so it's going that's going to be a challenge for us, I'm sure.

I had a question on that. Uh the mandates that you discussed that you've seen elsewhere um when they state or county comes in, have we seen that happening in Bvard County where the the county has come in and mandated certain affordable housing in certain areas? I haven't seen it, but I'm sure it's happening. It's going it's right now. The whole concept of providing affordable housing in this area is in its infancy stages. And what I'm trying what I'm saying is we have to think about getting ahead of the curve.

In other words, we have to say Cocoa Beach has has committed to do 20 units of affordable housing, five units of afford, whatever it is. Um, and I understand there's a big discrepancy between the market value of the homes in because where I come from the market the market average was I think it was $989,000. So, I understand that, but it's I I I just am very happy we have this on the agenda and I don't want to belabor it now, but I I that's my goal. My goal is to come up with a plan that everybody can live with.

Okay. So I guess I and I get from what you were saying it's really re it's really looked at from a county probably or state level. It's not a citywide. It's not but we certainly aren't contributing and we aren't helping the situation. That's for sure. So affordable. Am I Am I right about that? It's really kept at a county or higher level and not a city tracking.

Yes, that's that's partially correct. the the county really hasn't it doesn't really have much authority to preempt the city with respect to um land use regulation. It's mainly the state state of Florida, state of Florida, the state legislature has been on a major preeemption kick the last decade or so. And uh we've seen that recently with the live local act um with the recently passed um SB80, emergency management um uh legislation that um you know, cities and counties across the state are dealing with right now and how it it's impacting their land development regulations and the undoing of what you have to do. even you know ordinances that were passed over a year ago in some instances. So um there's significant preeemption. I would say that's a main challenge right now uh for our office in trying to help the city uh achieve some of its goals. I know you all are very familiar with that with respect to vacation rentals,

the preeemption that we've seen from the state uh in the last few years. But um you know and that's constantly changing. You never know what bill is going to pop up in session. And usually if someone comes up with an idea in year one, uh, you know, if it survives year two, it means we're probably going to have to deal with it. And, uh, that's what we've seen recently. You, you know, some legislature comes up with an idea one year and the next year they pass it, uh, without much thought. And, you know, that we're holding this bucket of of new law that we don't know what it means. We don't know how it's going to affect us. We don't even know if it's legal. Um, but it's a serious issue right now for for cities.

Feel like this is one we're going to need. openly illegal and like some ideas. I know you're putting together some some or you're thinking about it, but I was thinking about it too is, you know, even if there was a way to um from a lower level, from a city view, from our land development code almost looking at it, is there a way to even maybe create a new affordable housing category and and give some relief to that category if they're willing to renovate an old units into making them in making them have meet smaller uh max minimum sizes or maximum, you know, lot sizes and things like that. So that if they if we can do our part to at least incentivize them to not have to follow the same standards that we have for residential, if they can if they're willing to make it more compatible with the medium income and the 30% of the median income against that maybe we could incentivize that by relieving some of the more restrictive um standards. We definitely have a big challenge here in this particular area. And what I read about was ski towns and beach towns

to have the people live here that work here kind of thing. And the affordable housing is is a big challenge. Yeah. I mean, it's really motherhood and apple pie. People, it's not section 8 housing. It's housing for your firemen, for your policemen, for your teachers. And you can the law at least the law in New York permits you to make those those um categories. Yeah.

Uh depending on what the necessity is in your own individual community. So they will allow you to do that. Um and I think we'll find that in in in the beach towns than in Cocoa Beach particularly because that's where we live that our median income for those groups is a lot higher than 30,000. So um it's just a question of of space. I mean, any developer will say, you know, I'm building 140 units and and and and 135 of them are going to be 2200 square feet and five of them are going to be 1,600 square f feet, two bed and that's that's all it is. It's just a matter of part of the development agreement.

Or alternatively, if you're like a a COA and you don't want to have the affordable units in your in your building, then you put money into a fund so the municipality can find a piece of property and and build something, you know, but but it's critical. It's it's critical. Would any of these issues fall under the purview of the review of the comprehensive plan or is this would this be outside of that?

Yeah, the comprehensive plan is made up of I think eight or nine elements or chapters. One of the chapters we have a housing chapter in there and so it would be very appropriate for the for the comp plan to to include some affordable housing policy. Now, it it all comes down to the political will and support of the of the elected officials in Cocoa Beach. And so, that's that I don't have a sense of that. You you folks probably have a better sense of that than I do. Um, but that's ultimately where the rubber's going to meet the road. Um, but I I will just one quick comment. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

There is Garrett mentioned Senate Bill 180. That's a major major issue for us. Um and if for those of you who don't know about Senate Bill 180, basically the state has said locals you cannot adapt adopt rules that is more ownorous or more difficult to to um for developers or homeowners or property owners to to work with. We're we're our hands are tied for two years. I think it's two years. Um, so we're going to that doesn't mean we can't be working on anything, but we're going to we're going to have to keep that in mind as we as we move all of this forward. Mike,

I've looked into this. I'm not prepared to make a proposal tonight, but I really have looked into it in detail, but let me put a few thoughts out there for you to start to be thinking about. The obstacle to affordable housing in Cocoa Beach is the land cost. Most houses in Cocoa Beach, I'd say at least 2/3 to 3/4 of the value of the house is in the land. Yeah.

I did some research and determined that overall I think the land cost of in Cocoa Beach is something like about $2 million an acre. So, and we're only allowed 10 units per acre. So that adds 200,000 to the cost of the house immediately regardless of what it cost to build. I think we should need to be think about a plan that gets around that issue and the live local act would do that. And what the live local act says is a municipality cannot they have to approve a project from a zoning standpoint if it has at least 40% of the units are affordable. that would spread the land cost over a larger number of units and possibly get into a doable [Music]

that's where I think we need to head. That's what I've been looking into. Yeah, it may cause like you might have to get creative almost like you said sometimes maybe it's some of the bigger you developments get contribute to a fee you know or and it starts building up or I don't know maybe you maybe we ask if there's anybody who would donate a piece of land or an old unit that you know they're getting rid of. I mean we probably don't do that very often. I don't know, might be pretty optimistic that think somebody might do it, but you never know. You know, maybe I think a road the road to making affordable housing an attractive option for developers is to get the land cost down.

Yeah, that and that's the objective. I just don't want to like give up. That's all like I feel like there's we got to try something.

We're not reinventing the wheel. I mean, this is happening across the country. So, we just have to be creative as it applies to this little strip of of land that we have. And you're 100% right. We don't have a lot of land. Um, but again, you know, when it my experience is is is is when you come when it comes to the state, they don't think about that. They think about this is what every this is your share. Go figure it out. And I think what I'm trying what I'm saying is I'm delighted that it's on the agenda on the on the plans for discussion topics in the future because it gives us an opportunity to take the first steps so that we're prepared when the bullet gets fired and it will get fired.

I'd be curious to know if there are any sort of templates that are out there of other communities that have explored this option and done it successfully. I wonder if there's any any other communities in Florida that where we've seen this happen. You you might you might or might not have. Well, I'm sure we'll get into the depths of that. I mean, Cocoa Beach is pretty unique.

Um there's just not a lot of similar communities in the state. I mean, there's a lot of beach towns obviously, but um we because of our size and the amount of development area that's left, which is very little. I think we're 96 97% built out.

So, um but there the the the quick answer is yes. There's there's there's a lot of there's a lot of programs out there that we can look at and tailor to our needs. So, uh, yeah, I don't think it's insurmountable. I mean, communities used I mean, we're either going to we got city of Cocoa Beach has two ability to really influence things. One is the regulations and the other is monetary issues. Um, it's probably easier to deal with the regulation side of it, but um, anyways, it's a lot we got we got a lot of work ahead of us on this issue. You know, I was looking at the bigger issue of why aren't people investing building any kind of housing. Very little has gotten built. And I've been in this position for 10 years and not a whole lot's gotten built despite the changes that we made. And so I was asking the question, why aren't people investing? And the answer is, well, the land costs are very high. Why are the land costs very high? Well, there's very little land available. We're 96% built out, so there very little land available.

It's attractive because we're beach town and we're not vertical and we're limited to 10 units per acre. So, those are the obstacles we need to get beyond to make this happen in my opinion. And not just us, but the commission has to have the political will to want to support this. Right.

I have a very good friend of mine who works for one of the largest affordable housing developers in the state, Pinnacle Development throughout in South Florida. If the board would like, I could see if I could get Tim to come up here and speak to the group to the board about affordable housing really throughout the state. Yes, I do.

And and how how we in here in Cocoa Beach could could what what options are available for us? How could we how could we incentivize or attract these developers here? These are private sector. This he's he's a private sector company. His company deals mostly with low-income housing tax credits, which is a great program. Um but uh um I if if the board would like that next time we schedule this this topic to come up I'll see if I can get Tim to come up here and just give like a 15 20 minute presentation to the board. I think that that could be really helpful. Great.

Thank you. The next topic was green space. This is one that's come up several times. Um, yeah. And that that one seems like we're ahead of the the curve on that one according to standards anyway. Yep. Do you count the um like are Thousand Islands counted in any of that? Because that's a lot of land. I mean, they're not really That's a great question. It's it's it's green space and it's not going to be developed and it's tourist. I mean, you can use it. you can go to some of the islands and all. Is that part of it or I don't know. You don't know? I'll have to find out. It's a great question.

Um well, I just looking on the uh website for the county about size of parcels and adding it up. Yeah, I think that 239 acre number is low. And I'll tell you why. I think there's there is actually here's a 229 acres on the parcel that the golf course is on alone. Now part of that land is used for the wastewater treatment plant and I just eyeballed it and said well that might be 30 acres. So I think you got 200 acres in golf course the tennis courts and the pool. That's just my eyeball of it was

the other thing that I may not be included is we've had a lot of leisure facilities on the schoolboard property. Sure. The high school and the uh elementary school that's a 90 acre parcel. Again, I just eyeballed it. Looked like about half of that, the back part,

which would be half would be 45 acres, is four ball fields and uh you know, soccer fields and everything that are lend themselves to leisure. And the other one I was a thousand islands, you know, are available there. Green space. And here's my rule, curveball. I got a huge park in that beach that's out there. It's six miles long. a beach that people use for leisure and recreational activities. So, I think we're in real good shape on leisure services. Yeah, I have to agree with you. No, that's good to know because it sort of comes up and we're like, I don't know what what are we shooting for? What are we supposed to have? And, you know,

have there been people that have raised uh the idea of wanting more green space than we currently have? comes up sometimes in the public meetings and mo mainly when um when a developer came in some of the bigger developments and they're supposed to have certain amount of green space within their development and it kind of comes up then and um you know but I'll definitely check on the thousand island to see if that's part of it or not.

Yeah, because it almost the thousand islands and I think is it just Is it all the stuff that's impermeable? Like I guess the tennis courts maybe not considered that, but any of the fields and and I don't know. I didn't know how it was counted. That's kind of like how do you I advertise how much green space we actually have to know if you have enough or there's hundreds of acres in the thousand islands. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, I mean it's a big chunk of Maybe I can find the definition of that. See how what it including what it doesn't. Yeah. to like counter the But this property is legitimate because we pour a huge amount of money into the

maintenance and operation of those ball fields, the lighting for the we have a joint venture with school board for those facilities. Yes, indeed. Okay, the next one is the hospital. Track down some we are hearing rumor mill only stuff. So make that official. Sounds like that's going to stay open. They're going to try to keep that as a emergency areas somewhere down the future. Oh, really? Probably until somebody throws money at them or something.

Do we? I mean, they're they're talking about keeping it open until they get their other facility open, but then I heard I heard rumors that it was going to be kind of like emergency only kind of thing for a while or like medical services, labs and stuff, I guess, cuz but no liveins or, you know, staying there. That sounds like the hospital's perspective, but do we know if the state is interested in all doing anything with that property or maintaining it or no? I don't I don't know if the state's interested.

I don't think you've described this accurately. The fact is it's just the state has a a trust which owns the land. They just allow the hospital to use it. I used to have people complain to me because the land is owned by a trust. It's a nonprofit and they don't pay taxes, but it's a commercial venture that's actually using them things. Shouldn't they pay taxes? And I said, that's beyond my pay grade. Really? Some other somebody attorney needs to take on that issue.

And one of the rumors was that one of the reasons they were moving out, the building's old, whatever, but that it was sinking. So I don't know if it was something that even would be I haven't heard that usable at some point you know like is it because of it's you know it's built on that and it has been like I I don't know if that's true but well the hospital's really not sharing with us what their plans are forward and and that kind of puts this on the real long range until they get their other building I imagine we won't know the real plan

and I I also think a major key here is to yes talk to the hospital but even more importantly talk to our state representatives What does the state have in mind? It's it's going to revert to them as according to what I'm reading here. As soon as the new facility is is built, it's going to revert to the state. What do they have in mind? I mean, they would like to see it become a tax generating piece of property. I mean, or not. I I think they'll defer to hospital. What does the hospital want to do with and not to Koko Beach? That's very interesting.

It's just one of those big items. I know it feels a long ways away, but if we're ever going to do anything with it, it's probably going to be when it's a turnover like this when, you know, shutting down or moving out because that opportunity comes what every decades decades ahead. You know, you if it needs if we need to have like thoughts about what the plan would be if the state if the state's can you guys use it? Yeah. Or we want to propose a chance. Do we want to propose any kind of alternative to that? And maybe not. Maybe the medical, I don't know, center or whatever they're going to keep it is the best thing for the community. Maybe. I don't know.

We spoke with a couple of the hospital executives and they were very they were not forthcoming with what their long-term plans are. I I don't think they are looking for uh partnership opportunities with global on what to do with that property long term. I think they're That's still an asset of theirs and I think they're they're exploring what they can do with it versus what the county or the city do with it. That's just my personal opinion. Sure. Based on two two conversations with and they lease that from the state. I don't know if it's a lease lease holder. I don't I don't know that. Oh, I'm just curious.

But the difference is is they're for profit and we're not for profit. They were saying that it was too expensive renovated. I'm not sure. A bigger issue may have just been having to vacate in the case of a hurricane. Yeah, that was a big expense. I think so. The answer is we don't have we don't know. They probably don't know. They may not. Yeah, you may have point there. Okay. Um, next one's the signage. This is one that we just talked about.

Yeah, we talked about a little bit, you know, be nice to have in here. So, you have signage that directs you to downtown or to the library and stuff like that.

I know that there's a lot there's a pretty big section in the LDC on signage. It's a lot of stuff on signage. I don't think there's anything in there that really addresses the city's sign signage. It's all about, you know, the private property and commercial businesses, but the city signage is not really I didn't see anything in there that addresses like a consistent um you know, design and what's appropriate if you have a marquee and you know those kinds of things. And

what's what's your logo going to be on the signs and all that? kind of the general signs I'm telling I don't know like other than traffic signs you know they um I see a lot of people and even sometimes ask if they're coming from the north or south actually they don't know that there's a parking garage they're going around in circles looking for parking and there's a garage you don't see the garage sign until you're on the garage basically you know what I mean like if it said parking garage ahead or behind I mean other cities when you walk into them or drive into them. They're a little bit more, hey, you want to go to the post office, you want to go to the library, you want to go to the park. I think we're I think I agree with you. I think Cocoa Beach is a little bit behind.

Also know a lot of people are googling that, but there's a lot who don't. Yeah. Also, yeah,

Main Street is doing Main Street has a design committee and I know that they're working right now for the downtown area on planter ideas for planters and facades and a lot of things. I don't know if that includes any kind of you know decorative signage, artsy signage for for you know here's the here's the um [Music] here's the the parking structure. Here's that kind of exactly what you were talking about. So you may want to talk to Kenny Wells. I I'm don't know who's on that committee. I think Pam Durkin from Coconut Properties might chair it. I think she might be the chair.

Okay. Well, the signs in the city are very visible, first of all. So, they can be a very important part of a community's branding. Yeah. Campaign. And if it's not consistent, if it's it's just it can look it can be a good thing or it can be a bad thing, frankly.

Um, and uh I was up in Cape Canaveral for a few years. We really kicked off a campaign to to come up with a a themed signage program for the city. And kicking that this two communities are very similar as far as the linear nature of the community and the the public interest points along the way. So I think there's some I think there's opportunities there. It's just a matter of it would probably be a good CRA project. That's probably where the funding would come from. Um, I would think or it could I should I shouldn't say it will. It could come from that. It makes sense, but uh it's a um it can make a real visual statement for the community. We have so many tourists coming through.

Cape Canaveral's area has gotten so much easier and it's it's somewhat of a traffic and sea issue, especially when you're going down the port and stuff. when they started adding real signs and not just everyone knowing, you know, we kind of knew where everything was, but they put real signs up with, you know, what was at the port and all that, it helped the traffic a lot. I I I will say too that one of the challenges we faced up there was DOT because most of the signs had to be in the DOT rightway, right? And they're not always the most flexible folks to work with. So, so

the the sign for city hall is nice and there's a new one that they just put in Shephard Park, I guess. And that kind of looks similar. Has a little turtle and intentionally. Yeah, it looks pretty common. You know, there's common with, but the one when you come in from the south on A1A, that little wooden, you ride by and even know it. And there's nothing from 520, I don't think, left anymore since the park is ripped up. There's nothing that when you come in from 520. I'm not sure coming in from the north. But this directional signage was a line item on our agenda every month in 2013.

To do this right is not a simple task. It's really difficult. And I would recommend to have some flexibility cuz things change and you have to have a way to change out the sign and do it. And this takes a design professional to do this. And nobody was willing to commit the funds to really get this done was my impression. But it's not it's not an easy task. Where are you going to locate them? How many they're going to be? Which things do you identify? And yeah, what's the design and the theme? I think it needs a professional because you're going to spend some money.

Hey, Mike, we got through the where to put the city goal and how to design it so we can get through signs. Yes. Okay. Think we had enough on the signs. Um, flood protection item.

What was the next one? Yeah, flood protection I think is something that's coming especially for the new houses that are being constructed and a limitation of 25 ft. And if you want flow through underneath to get 25 ft, you can only have one more floor on top. So I think that's something that's that we got to push a little bit. We've got a couple well a couple houses that um they're looking at doing some changes. I mean walls and raising the house up, raising the land up next to people that they're lower. And so we we really need to look at how go forward.

Yeah. I mean, it's just it's really a policy question. We want to make this city more resilient, more future ready. And um right now our regulatory scheme is throws hurdles up for people who want to to build out of the box, if you will. Um and our, you know, our codes were drafted from the 60s to the 80s. Probably most of our codes are were drafted, frankly. and um these these issues that we're facing today were not not considered during that time period. So if as a city we want to give property owners the ability to future ready their homes and it's not just residents, it's it's commercial as well.

Um we're going to have to make some changes to our codes if if and it's not only the resident the residences that are against the ocean or against the river. I mean, if you go down um Coconut Isles Boulevard, they those streets and some streets there flood all the time and they're not even near a canal.

I think kind of like you were saying that it's gotten like a mixed bag of what's going on because all the newer buildings, like you said, they're all up high and the probably just washes down to their neighbors on both sides, you know, and it's making it worse. And I think this came up mainly when this be building was just all redesigned to allow for it. And I'm like, well, I guess the city hall kind of set the example that this is probably a good thing to do, but no one else really can do it. But I thought

I mean they can, but you can do it now, but you just have to stay within the 25 ft, which is I didn't think about the land. I thought you just could go up up a little higher if you did a wash through. In other words, but your land stayed you you can, but you are measured by the code off the um the high point of the road, the center of the road. So that's where your base is. So if you put a say your driveway or garage is down below for the wash through, your maximum is from that center of the road 25 ft high. So if your garage is 10t tall, you can only go up 15 more feet.

Yeah, that's that's what has to be resolved. So you only have one one floor and some people want to have two floors if you're going to go up. That's what has to be resolved. And right now you can build two floors if you go off the curvature of the road or the height of the road, right, without the wash through. But I think that's something that we have to start looking at because what Randy used to say was you're we're building ourselves one house at a time out of the the bowl. Yeah.

Yeah. I have mixed feelings about this to be honest and this has been my mantra that we become a safer, more resilient city. You'll hear me say that a million times. So in that I the idea I support but I'm also sort of about the scale of the community and the height and I would not support just raising the height. To me you ought to only be able to raise the height if you use the additional floor for a wash through for a limited amount of height. Right. And there may be some other things on that at all but I wouldn't just give push the height up. I'd be against that. Well, I think you'd have to look at storm wall so it doesn't wash into the neighbor's yards.

You'd have to control your own storm water, that kind of stuff. So, there's like you say you're allowed to put in that wash through area, you know, very minimal. It's exactly. Yeah. How how it looks. So, we talked about at one of a couple of the meetings and I'm not sure we ever made a decision on do we need to do something or not. There are some communities around that are very are very progressive when it comes to this topic and we could get some people to come speak to us. I I'd like to personally I like having what I'll call subject matter experts coming in and kind of giving us their experiences, what works, what doesn't work. So if the board would like we'll be constantly looking for people to come in and provide us with

Yeah, that'd be that'd be great. So right now the washthroughs are allowed in which districts which zoning districts is it just the mixed use and redevelopment basically do it in any neighborhood, but you can meet the height limit. You have to meet that height limit, right? Is there any sense of how much additional height would be needed in order, you know, from a regulatory perspective? You know, what would you need? As Corey said, you're probably going to want 10 to 12, probably 12 feet for your wash for your parking area. Typically, it'll be used for parking. It's non-livable area. So, it's going to be like air conditioning, water heaters, you know, that type of stuff.

Two two floors on top of that's going to be another 20 ft. So, that's going to be 30 32 feet or so. Right now, it's 25. Not in all of our districts, right? RS1, which is the most restrictive single family. So you're looking really an additional seven feet would be necessary in order to

Well, I mean, it gets back to the economics again. I mean, do do we expect people to buy a property, bold, you know, take the house out, rebuild for one floor? Um, that's that's going to be tough. I mean, they're probably going to want to have at least two floors to get that extra square footage to make it make it sensible. I do like the idea of having it be specifically for that purpose, right? Rather than a blanket only that only if you're doing a wash.

I'd be more inclined to support this in a uh multif family district where you might have a group of homes which are all built of the same but suddenly stick one of these in one district. I'm choking a little bit. Uh well, there's a lot of RS on the ocean. Yeah. harvest bones along the ocean. So that's I mean if I had that kind of money to have a house over there, I'd want it up high. Well, there's some there's some businesses over there, you know, uh I I go to the co the CrossFit in Cocoa Beach and every time we get a big rain, there's two feet two feet of water in there. They can't use it, you know.

Um you know, so there's some some serious implications for those businesses there sort of right in the center of town. [Music] for sure. So, I think it would be good, Dave, if you could bring somebody in who has some good experience on All right. I'll work on that. Okay. Next. Okay. Next is town center district.

Yeah. This this topic is really just about what's the board's sense of how the downtown is developing? Are we happy with what's going on in the in the town center area? Um the from the uses, the scale, the mix of uses between residential and commercial, the pedestrian nature of it. Are we are we happy with all of that? Is there something that we as a city need to tweak to get the results that we're not seeing right now? Um so this is just more of a you know, this is truly a discussion item. I I from a staff perspective, I'm not sure we see any glaring problems downtown at the moment. Um,

no, not really. I I would personally like to see some more some more mixed use. I you know, kind of like the the what's this project in the beach called? COA. Yes, that that surf. So, when you talk about town center, you're talking about downtown Koko Beach. Downtown. Okay. More downtown. in the new unfortunately when you when you have that restriction of four stories developers are not interested because particularly let's say for example Heides when Heidi was for sale you have to go up five or six stories for the top units to get a view of the of the ocean you just have to

but it wasn't allowed because I I knew people were prepared to come in when Heidi was for sale prepared to come in and buy it and build a really nice but they wanted six stories. They couldn't get it. There are a few like the ice cream place that looks like it has units above it. I don't know what that building. Wave Haven. Yeah, wave. Whatever. Wave Haven above. It looks like it has a couple apartments. There's a couple places right on A1A that has have apartments above their and project. There's one on 99 North Lake. I'll go through the projects after we're done here and give you guys a little update. Some that we don't know are like the new ones like that you don't see a lot of progress. Yeah,

that marcado sign has been up. The one on 520 that sign has been, you know, coming and there and there's a while. Glass bank one hasn't, you know, I'm not sure. Would you like me to go through the projects now? So we since we're on that subject could if you want. Um the wave haven was one of the projects. I've got a list of probably 10 or 10 or 12 projects that were redevelopment projects for 2025. Wave Haven like you talked about with the ice cream underneath and it's got multiuse. It's got condominiums over and um rentals at the top. That's near the club, the health club, two stories. Correct.

It's retail on the bottom and one floor of residential. Correct. And then it's got two condominiums in the back. Um, the city hall was another one that was finished. The surf right at the end, everybody knows where the the big swimming pool is. Destination downtown is the other one on the corner. That was completed this year. Um, the Weston Hotel, I'm sure you guys have all heard fun of that. You know, everybody loves that pounding that's finally done. Everybody loves that. Yeah, everybody loves that one. Um, I'm being told that that should be completed 2027, probably first quarter.

Yeah, they're moving. I mean, for Florida, they're moving really fast. You see changes week to week. The Westgate Pier. Yes. Um, that one um the father passed away and the sons contacted me and they're looking at putting this thing back on the map. Um, they're going to go back through a different site plan. I don't know if you saw the original design. It was a Polynesian Disney style. They want to change that. They want to change the access roads to the beach to make that more accessible to everybody. So, that's in the works, but they're pretty excited to get that going. But, do they have to deal with the county on the roads and then us with the site plan for the for the actual

anything for um Well, no. Those roads are ours. Are you sure? Those are city. Well, the beach road I think is I thought the county was involved in the county was involved with the with the a access for control. Yeah. For the sand. Rididgewood is is the county. It's not It's not local, right? It's complicated. Yeah, it's complic. But that was all approved. But sounds like they want to make it even better. Well, I don't know that it was approved. program essentially the same parking deck hotel and they're just going to change architecture. Yeah, they're going to change the access routes and I think they're going to have two buildings. I don't think it was approved. I came and

I thought it was they had to have a traffic study to No, I think it was all the site plan. The original site plan was all approved. Now they're going to redo it. So, it'll have to go through the process again. The original site plan. What? Pardon me? Who who approved the original site plan? The city. probably a city and this board has to approve the site plan and then it goes to the city. Yeah. Did we did we refer it to the city commission? I thought they just made a presentation and there was no action. They had um there were a couple things like the size of their garage and also the traffic study on how they were coming in because that that Ridgewood Road is a lot different. You know, it's pedestrian friendly with the separation and all. different than unloading and

they're they're going to change it so it'll all come out on A1A is different but because that back road is not necessarily equipped for handling a lot of traffic. You're right. I don't I think the planning since it's a smaller site it just comes to the u the plan board. Yeah, they they they came and made a whole presentation. We had some questions and then we never saw them again. That was you know that's part of my issue with you. These people have like disappeared. So now we know. Okay. Yep. the Marcato um that's in site plan right now. Site plan review. They have come back to change theirs as well. Now, is that on a staff level? I'm sorry.

That'll be on a staff level, not a planning board. Yes, that'll be staff. Um so, we got 99 uh North Atlantic. I haven't heard from those guys in a while, but that was um the parking underneath and I think two or three floors. Is that just south of Cosmic Tiki? Yes. Okay. They're trying to wrap up. They're they're they're trying to get permits from D. Once they get that, they're going to start that one right next to the Point Church where that is like Yes. It's across the street from that church thing. Yeah. Uh the drift 520.

They're back in action. Um they're running through their site plan right now. We're actually doing some of the reviews as well. Um, looks like that's going to be a um a phased project. Um, the two restaurants that were down by the water will come in after the fact after they get the first phase. That's 220 or 21 units. Non vacation rental, not short-term. Right. Right. That's all long-term rentals. This is five on 520 on 520. That's called the drift. Yes. So now they're working with staff because they were here also. Yep. You know that the diner's moving. You know that, right?

I didn't know that was moving yet, but I figured Yeah, the diner's moving to the Moon Hut up in Cape Canaveral. Yeah. I think they let them stay there like rentree or something. Yeah. But now they're moving. Yeah. Well, that means that they're going to start digging probably. Yep. They can't start digging till they get their permit though. We got to get through the site plan. Okay. Um and the other one is Stina. That's the glass bank. Um, that one's kind of been sitting out there. I've asked the the sisters and I haven't heard much from them other than they were looking at getting the money together. It last month it was on the market. I don't know if it's still on the market and they may have thrown it out. Yeah, I saw it on on Zillow or one of the one of the real estate sites.

Okay. I'll have to follow up with them again and see what's going on. Yeah, ownership didn't change hands. They must have just had an option. Yeah, maybe. Throw it out there. See what's happening. Um, and of course we have houses going up here and there for rebuild and stuff. There were two other pretty big proposals. One was um, God, his name started with a B. He was the developer and it was right next to the um, Hampton Inn and the Marriott residence in there. You know, those two big buildings on the He came in. Remember him? But was it Bog Bogner but what was his name? Surf Drive. Can't remember.

It's it's right next to those two hotels. I don't know what the name of the street is. Surf Drive. Surf Drive. I think you're right. Yeah. So, they came and they made a proposal also and it had a site plan. The whole thing. I'll check. And the other one was the piece of property just between Manatee Lane and uh the church behind the church. Now there's a there's a for sale sign there. Now they came they also made a whole whole presentation on a site plan talking on the south end here Methodist church first the Methodist church and and Manatee Lane and 7-Eleven

that piece. [Music] I will do some research and see what's shaken. Well, I know there's a for sale sign on there. Okay. Well, that's things have changed apparently. Yeah. Would you say the property value is what? Too expensive. Yeah. Remember anything else? Hard to make a dollar when you can't go over 45 ft. I guess that's what I have for um redevelopment projects. Okay. Thanks. Any questions with them? All over the city. That was much Town Center, right? That's throughout the city that you were.

Yeah, that's throughout the city. Those were the major ones that were happening. That's what we were kind of following. And dirt Dirty Birds will be opening probably in two to three weeks. Oh, yeah. Development of 142. Yeah, I ran into D. He said they'll probably open around first week in October. Yeah, they're getting close.

I think the obstacle to development downtown again gets around the ownership of land. Gus Hedber laid this out to be single family homes across the board and so you still have a lot of small individual owned properties. We may want to think about providing some relief and incentives to people to consolidate those properties so that they can actually build a a project. That's something that I've been thinking about.

Yeah. I I know communities use their CRAAS for assemblage projects. Um, that can be a very expensive endeavor though, but that's not that's a possibility. All right. [Music] So, uh, the next item is beach shuttle service. Don't we already have the trolley? There is a Is that enough for the weekend? [Music]

I think since that since that since we talked about that even is um a lot of things have kind of been added like we have golf cart and golf cart rentals and those little three-wheeler rentals and scooters and ebikes and all that. So that probably helps um get people around to certain places without having to drive a car. So you haven't heard anything out there the streets?

The only the only thing that you see really and it it may not be an issue. So, I don't know how well I don't know with the usage of the parking garage on the weekends. it seems busy and I think that's the only thing that I see people struggling to bring all their beach stuff and partly maybe because the elevator I don't know the elevator hasn't been working or I don't know if it is now but to get them from the garage which we want to incentivize people to use it but getting there to the beach is kind of a haul for some people you know to take a bunch of stuff to the beach. Yeah. And that's to me that's the only like one.

You have options though. There there's a bunch of places that you can pay to park behind the Zion church. You can Yeah. Yeah. Only if you want. I mean kind of I think the city wants them to use the parking garage as much as we want it to be full since we built it. But it's not always easy. It's easier to park everywhere else really if you can. I think too when they get the pier done that may relieve some of the pressure down here. Yeah. because then they'll be what's the word? Not trapped there, but um they go to the hotel and they're captive to that place right there that they don't have to drive. Yeah, it's like one stop. Does the pier still run their shuttle on Ocean Beach Boulevard to go from the hotel to the to the pier?

I don't know. Well, they have trolley now that that I think they use for that. They also have a Do you know that they have what's called a shopping shuttle that goes to Ron John's? I know. And here I know it's Ron John's in Flohana and I'm not sure where else, but then it goes over to Merit Island and it goes to uh Walmart and it goes to Ross. Wow. And it it it's a it's I guess it's paid for by the people who are involved in this and and it's really for the peer people. It's for the It was I called them the boat people. It comes goes to the pier, ticks them up and takes them around shopping.

I've never heard of that. That's a great idea though. I mean for the realators, the real estate. Yeah, you should talk to uh Jake from Fhana. He's involved in it. Okay, that's another good thing. I don't think many people even know it exists. So like, you know, how do you you might just happen upon knowing that, you know, but I think there's a lot of people who don't know. I was recently approached by a private group who wanted to buy a fleet of street legal golf carts to do exactly what we're talking about to provide

um shuttle service around the city and up and down the beach between the port and beach. So, I know there used to be one woman who had that double two or three seat wide one that ran up and down Boulevard Avenue to the places and and all you could call she had a big sign. I don't think it's there anymore. She had a sign on both sides. This is years ago. Um she doesn't do it anymore, but it's something like that where it's just that's what's missing. Yeah. the late night keeping them off of the roads at those bar stops and you know you know whatever running to the hotels and stuff like that that keeps them in Brooklyn they have the drunk bus the drunk bus

legitimate it's legitimate you get on the bus and it takes you goes from from bar to bar to bar to bar to bar to bar to bar all around Brooklyn but we had her she had that tiki remember golf cart yeah but that's what we're missing if you if you ask something that we're missing as far as transportation and moving people around it's late at night because The trolley stops, the bus stops, and this the bus is on a route, too. Yeah, you need that. I call it that last mile option. Yeah. Yeah. This was just you call up the number on the side of the thing and they'll come anywhere around that certain area and drive you home or whatever. I like the golf cart idea. Yeah, it's a good idea. Some I'm kind of

I just worry a little bit about the safety of it. the traffic here. It just, you know, people aren't paying attention to golf carts as much. You're from New York and you're worried about traffic. Hey, that's why I moved here. No, I to be honest, the one that That's why I moved here. You get away from all that stuff. My suggestion is just throw that out on Wake Up Coco Beach and see the kind of feedback you get. To be honest, most of the most of the people who were using that were not on A1A. They were on Bvard or just cutting across the street. That's it. They weren't driving up and down A1A. They were on worry about is the A1A. It's just Well, you can't go. There's certain places you can't go with the golf course, right? You can't go up and down.

If it's street legal, you can't. No, they changed that, too. Has to have a license plate and go 35 miles an hour at least. Seat belts, headlights, turn off. [Music] You haven't seen really dangerous little Remember those little carts? They used to brand the little Well, now they have the slingshot area. Oh, yeah. I don't know. You see those slingshots that they have all over the city? Oh, I see. Yeah. Okay. So, I think maybe we don't have as big of an issue. I don't know. It' be interesting to see if a private company would really follow up on doing it. you know, have them see how it goes. Pier is a big especially, you know, yeah,

you could right now you're either going downtown or you're going to the other one and that's it. And and especially as there's going to be more the hotel's going up, the business that's, you know, you think about the ice cream place, the Publix parking lot over there, and you know, there there's Yeah, you could connect a lot of different things that way. Well, we have two downtowns. We have a downtown downtown and uptown downtown. Yeah, you're right about that. Okay, next is the uh vacation rental. Everybody's size.

Yeah, I'll start this out. I mean, we've had our vacation rental up and running program up and running for a sake in earnest for four or five months and it has been very very successful. Um, you know, depending on what metrics you want to use, but the ones that we are using, it's been super successful. that a lot of lot of new um folks registered for the program. Um our revenues really skyrocketed. I think I think this last year we budgeted revenues of $40,000. We ended up bringing in this year $400,000 something like that. Crazy. Good. Good. So people are actually registering. That's good.

Yeah. So, um, and this is anecdotal completely, but I've really heard I've not heard a lot of the level of complaints, the amount of complaints we had six months ago on on vacation rentals. Um, you got, you may have a different reality than I do, but I think things are are settling down there. And and what we're really focusing on now is we I'll call them all the good actors are playing by the rules and doing everything. There's this group out there though that are under the radar and we're slowly kind of getting them into the corral but uh but things are a lot better.

The only complaint quite frankly that I'm hearing is people who have been residents here for a long time, much longer than me are saying to me, I don't have a neighborhood anymore. Yeah, I I I used to have a neighborhood and I would go outside and I knew the people across the street and I knew my next door neighbor there and I knew my next door neighbor here and we and we had a neighborhood. She said, "That is a vacation rental. That is a vacation rental. They're building a new house next to me. That's going to be a vacation rental. That one's going to be a vacation rent." And I was like, "What?" And and I understand now they they have lost their neighborhoods and unfortunately there's really nothing that the city can do about that?

Very little. I I think some of it's changing and this is something that I'm seeing in some of the renewals that are happening. People are going to longterm. It's still a rental, but they're going to long term, which is fine,

which is a lot better than a weekend stay and tearing it up. Um there's something like 700 right now that are registered that are playing by the rules and as we try to renew them they're saying look I don't want to do the vacation rental anymore whether it's the money because it's it costs more to do vacation rental than it does for long term longterm it's a lot cheaper but we're seeing pretty good turnout on at least being registered and our Next step would be like today I got a phone call. This lady turned in the president of the condo association. He's got four units. None of them are registered. She goes,

"Good for her." Yeah. So I said, "Well, let's see if I can help you something done about that." So, but I I think I think it's gotten way better. It seems like it's calmed down and kind of got it coraled and you understand it. It's a little more controlled and well we have the people so all the money that we collected we were able to get some more code enforcement people that keep them on kind of keep them in line not so like you know random popup things here and there

the only the thing that I think is the same as like some there's a certain part of the residence that it's kind of blurred the line between residential section and uh vacation rental. It's blurred the line. I don't we don't I don't know in the the land like in the permitted use table all the different categories where a vacation rental is allowed. It's not even everywhere in Florida. It's not even listed unless it's controlled by the condo association or the homeowner association.

Yeah. I'm just surprised it's not even in there. like vacation rentals can be in any one of those category any anywhere. They can't control the decisions they make in Dallas. Right. Right. That's the sad. And also I I tell people who complain to me the city's not doing anything. Well, you know, you know that that's a vacation rental. Do you think the city does? Maybe they don't. It's up to you. You're supposed to be calling. They can look right online and I give them your number all the time. They can look on the website on the city website and see if they're registered. Yeah. They don't even have to call us. they can look themselves. So where do we end up on the fees? Do they have to register every year?

They have to register every So the BTR basically renewal TR is around $35 and that's business tax receipt. How much? About 35 somewhere in that on average renewal. Um the vacation rental registration is another part of that and that's anywhere from 250 per person or $149 per person. Okay. So, you advertise two people, you're not going to pay as much as somebody that advertises, I can hold eight people. But if somebody hasn't registered, isn't there a penalty fee that they have to pay? Oh, yeah.

How much is that? That gets like 250 a day for the first $500 the first day, 250 a day after that. I mean, it adds up quick. And then they have to go to the magistrate. And I mean it it can get pretty bad. Normally when you let the person know that, hey, this is what could happen. Let me pay. Let me pay. So we've got a little bit of leverage now to help get them closed out. That's a good thing. [Music] Is there any kind of incentivization for longerterm rentals versus shorter term rentals? Yeah, long-term rentals you don't have to get vacation rental registration. to do anything. It's all tied to the BTR.

You don't pay the hotel tax. So, yeah, we had Warren is a lot of the a very great number of the owners were from out of town. They were from out of state and this is a business. Yeah. Now it's becoming a business that they actually have to pay for because they have to get somebody hire somebody to be here and and before it they didn't have to worry about wild wild west for a while. That's a big difference. about onethird of the vacation rentals are owned by people who live in the city. Yeah. Makes sense to me. I mean, you would think,

and I hear a lot of them whine a little bit about, well, I can't rent it. I'm not getting the rentals. You know, this is high. I can't afford to pay this. Then you look at and they say they only have four units that they're renting. Uh, yeah, you poor person. But yeah, good. Okay. Yeah, sounds like that's making progress. It's definitely moving along in the right direction. Yep. And then is this the new one? The vehicle sales and rentals. Is that the one that you just added?

Oh, the last one is equal sales and rentals. Um, this wasn't on the original. I we added it on to discuss. Everybody has it on their paper there, but basically um we've been receiving questions and inquiries about can I put up a a rental company here or I can can I put in a car sales lot here? And our code doesn't allow for those kind of situations everywhere. There's one zone that they're allowed to basically have a car rental and that's really to support a building or hotel that you say I've got 500 rooms and I want to have some car rentals for the people that are staying at the hotel and they can run that kind of business out of there. But it's certain it's it's really tied um 50 units or more. Uh a complex of 50 units or more. It has to be in the RM2 zone. Um accessory use within a transient lodging facility. So it's like

right now our code says across the board no yeah pretty much but rentals

but rentals are allowed in association with a hotel or a big multif family project of 50 units or more. So the question is is that are we as a community are we good with that? Are we good with the sales issue prohibiting it? Are we good with um allowing rentals, automobile rentals in strictly associated with hotels and multif family, larger multif family projects? Do we want to loosen that up at all? We want to tighten that up. Do we want to I mean it's just we we've been getting the market seems to be, you know, if if we can consider three or four people coming in and talk to talking to us in the last few months, is that reflective of something? I don't know. But

do they say where like again the land is so expensive like where are they thinking? No, they were just the Hilton has feeling this out. We didn't get that far. The Hilton has just they have those slingshots that you were talking about. I I don't have a problem with like the Hilton or the new Weston coming or Beachside has some things at the couple of slingshots, but I'm not sure about about condominiums. Is this just for hotels? Pardon? Is this for hotels? Um, right now the code says you can do it with with hotels of 50 units or more. So that's all all of our hotels. Okay. Or multif family like um yeah condo buildings

like Xanadoo or or Beach Wind. They can do it. They could if somebody wanted to. Are they limited to only renting to the residents or they could rent to anyone? Rent to anybody of there. Most of those places are not. Yeah. For example, I'm thinking of some larger like um Cape Royal building. Yeah. Yeah. That's a Would would would some would a rental place in that on that property be acceptable? I don't know. That's that's right now you can't do it. But where's the close one? Is there one in C Cape Canaveral still? I'm sorry. Where's the closest car rental place? Is it Is there one in Cape Canaveral? It' be Cape Canaveral. Except

Canaveral about 5 years ago basically kicked them out of the city. They're saying that you can only the ones that were there you their grandfather did. You can stay but any new ones have to go in the industrial districts of the city which is way up on the north end of the city by the port. They don't have road act great road access. So for all intents and purposes there's like three of them on in Merit Island on 520 across from um Walmart. There's a whole bunch of them there. Are there some in there? Yeah, because most of the um I found out because my car was in an accident. Most of the insurance companies use the for for this area use the ones in the one in Mid near Lake Tesla like

Yeah. Yeah. Right there. They've got Enterprise and and I think Avis and another one. Yeah. So we we've got you know like like the three-wheel the what are they somebody mentioned the name of the slingshot. Yeah. I mean, those are for my understanding is Florida statute considers those an automobile. Um, so would that be appropriate with a slingshot renting at a I'm just I'm going to use the Royal the Cape Royal if you had 10 or 15 of them out there in front in the parking lot somewhere renting. Is that appropriate? Um, I don't know. It's a land use decision. Right now we say no, but um is that something that would be uh

where are they now again? I know you can run on because they have the big parking lot. Hilton has section section. There's maybe about Hilton's the only one I've seen. Yeah. And Beachside has used in the back kind of at what was the old comfort in? I don't know what it's called now. Next to Ron Jones. There's a few in the parking lot there. Yeah, but it's beachside now. Is that was it Beachside? Yeah. It's up there. They have a few. I've seen a few. They have I know they have a golf cart or two and I've seen a few of the slingshots in the back. But you're the request you're getting are not for something like that. They're ask like a real car rental place like an Avis. Car sales as well. You were saying as part of this they're asking about car sales as well. Well, sales is pretty much a no for the city.

Yeah. They don't want to do that. But running them out, you know, little niche marks just like that, you know, where maybe you have exotic cars, maybe you have stuff like that. Those multif family buildings are zoned residential, and I think they should residential. Let me ask a question. You said you've been approached on this issue. You have been approached by the hotelers or the rental cars. Rental car, not the hotelers. What's that? Yeah. Not the hotel people. So, it's been the rental car people. Yeah. And they would probably approach a hotel if they could get it done, you know. And

right now, they haven't done that because it's not permitted. They're asking that. I mean, I think, you know, from my perspective, you have the rental places in Canaveral. Uh there's plenty of access there for rentals. I'm not really seeing where the upside would be, unless it was a tax revenue kind of thing for the for the for the city. I'm not really seeing where the residents of of Cocoa Beach would be looking for increased access, you know. [Music] Also feel like we got to put a lid on it up to a certain number of cars. I don't want to Yeah,

I'm not sure I want the rental car to arrive and be part on the hotel site. If they have a couple spaces, that's fine, but yeah, it's a nice little amenity for a car hotel, but I don't think we should go any further than that. [Music] Seems like it's reasonable kind of where you are. So, are rental car [Music] agencies prohibited right now in the city? If no, if if if you are a rental a rental car agency could go at a hotel, they could they could today, but they'd have to apply and then we have any limits on how big that will be.

There's nothing as far as I as far as I know, there are no restrictions to what could go there. Right. When we when we put the new codes in in place in Canaveral, we added a lot of stuff, a lot of conditions, number of cars that had to be accessed by a signalized intersection. Mhm. Because one of the problems we were having with these little Avis and budget stripping up and down A1A is on boat days with the buses coming in and out of the to drop people off and pick them up. It was creating these horrible traffic jams and our the sheriff's department up there had to get involved all the time and it was just a nightmare.

So we we added a lot of conditions to to to try to limit all of that stuff. Um they weren't allowed to do service vehicles. We didn't want we didn't want basically people working on cars, repairing cars. So that was all prohibited. They had to take those offsite somewhere else and do them. So there was things that we added to the code to to allow for smaller operations to meet a need but not growing into this huge behemoth that became a a land use problem conflict. So, [Music]

so you could direct them to a hotel. They could contract with a hotel, I guess, to get in effect some service, but it wouldn't be their own, you know. Yeah. If if if they could find a willing hotel. Yeah. I mean, who was interested, yes, they could do that. They could do that now. They do that now. They're not going to want to staff this, right? You can pick up the car there, but the key has to be left somewhere so you can get in the car and they're not going to put a staff person at a hotel. I don't think are they? No, they'd have to have some type of an agreement with the hotel, right? Oh, yes. That's what I'm saying. They could contract directly with the hotel and

like they bring the car over and they leave the kids at the front desk and then you could go pick it up. Is that the way it work? Yeah. That or they just have a they have almost like a self-contained operation. They have a little shack, a little kiosk or something where they picture like the airport where there's a little little thing in there. Yes. But again, I'm sorry. No, no, I've seen that in hotels. A hotel when hotels get their approvals, they get their approvals of their room count. They get their approval for the the site plan to have so many parking spots in commen. So, it has to be either the Hilton or the um the other one, the Hilton Garden, because I can't think of anybody else who has that size parking lot.

Yeah. And and that's a good point. That's one of the conditions that we added up up there up north of here is you cannot dedicate the number of spaces to your automobile rental facility to create a deficit in the required parking for the hotel. Right. So, that was that's that was

those are the only two I can think of that that have parking lots big enough. Yeah. And and that's why I mean again right now it's fairly fairly restrictive and and that's that's a community policy decision. I'm not saying that's good or bad. I'm just saying that due to the requirements there's really limited on the number of auto rental facilities that can come come to the city. That may be a good thing for the community. That's that's that's a decision that the planning board and the council or comm commission will have to make. I'm just saying that we are we are being approached by folks saying, "Hey, let's loosen these up a little bit so we can there's there's more sites that would be potentially worth."

Thanks, but no thanks. [Music] All right. I think we'll hear there's a consensus on the board that that's not I I don't think I'd be in favor. Yeah. It doesn't sound like it's a resounding yes. Sounds like we're kind of agreeing. It's probably places where hotels now don't have front desk. You just rent a place and you go there and there's a lock box that you have the combination to. You get the key out and you go in. That's it. Is there a way they can do that with the cars, too? Is that what you're saying?

Well, no. The ones I've seen literally almost like a a you car rental place in the hotel. They have like a little their own little person that you go to. Yeah. next to the next to the check-in area of the next year would be AI, so don't worry about it. I think that's probably it. [Music] All right. Well, it sounds like um we have some items that we'll for research research and come back and maybe get some experts and things and kind of keep it going. Say we'd entertain this on a very limited basis. What are you proposing as far as the the car? Yeah, the car rentals. Yeah. I mean,

they know what they can do. We don't. Right. I mean,

okay. I think that concludes our list for today. I know we have a lot of homework and then when I say we, I mean me and Dave. You didn't have did you have any other board reports other than the report that you got? No, since we've already gone through that. No, I'm good. Thank you. And do any of the committee members have any reports? [Music] Okay. Thank you. I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting. We have a second. All in favor? Yes. I We're