Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

Uh-huh. We'd like to go ahead and get started. Calling to order the 05/13/2026 planning and zoning board meeting. Moving on to agenda item number two, the overview of Florida sunshine law, public records law, ethics laws, and Coconut Creek lobbyist registration requirements. Deputy City Attorney Kathy Mahaffy will now be making a presentation. Thank you.

So good evening. Thank you everybody for being here, and we appreciate your service. The year ahead should be a lot of exciting things going on, hopefully. And I appreciate you being here tonight, especially planning the Parks and Rec board. I know you also have a meeting next week.

We're gonna go over and and go through these basic ethics, public records, sunshine law, social media hot topics, and then we'll let you guys get out before we hook the planning and zoning board up for some additional labor. Talk briefly about your role as a board member. You all, as board members, work for the city residents and for their benefit without any personal economic or financial benefit for yourselves. You've gotta act just like city employees do in a manner that promotes public trust, builds confidence in government, and is transparent and honest. And that also helps avoid the perception of any impropriety.

Because even the perception can be devastating, not just to your reputation, but to the processes and the attacks on the city and the boards as a whole. The public ethics, we'll talk briefly about misuse of physician, and I will tell you, please don't hesitate to interrupt me as we go through. I will, I do talk hopefully fairly fast, so if you want me to slow down or if you want to ask a question, please don't hesitate to interrupt me. You did receive a memo which covers all of this in detail and has references to a lot of extensive backup material. If you have any questions about any of that material, we have that available upon request.

So regarding misuse of position, this is where we ask that you don't use your position as a board member to secure any special privileges for yourself or anyone else. That includes board, family members or business associates. Any use of, your position as a public official by yourself or a spouse or a minor child, that can result in an ethics violation and can cause long term impacts to you and to any actions that the city commission takes. You can't use any information that you gain as a board member if it's not available for public use or public information. So generally, you won't receive information that isn't available to the public, but if you were to, you would not be able to share that information.

If you receive information that is not publicly available, we will be sure to let you know, but I don't think you'll run into that situation. The main thing is to ask ask yourself. Anytime that you are out in the public and or or with staff or you ask for something from city staff, ask yourself, can anyone else make the same request? And if they could, would they get the same answer? So if my answer to is if I'm given a yes, but my next door neighbor would be given a no, We gotta remember not to ask the question.

An example is you're out in this is for this example is Public Works, and you're you see a great new tool, and you say to one of the Public Works employees, oh my gosh, that would make doing that work in my backyard so much easier. What happens? What happened in that discussion? What was your intent? The reality is it doesn't matter what your intent was because now we've put that employee in a difficult situation and yourself in a difficult situation.

The employee doesn't know if you were asking them to do something or if you weren't asking them to do something. They could be afraid that if they don't do it and they were asked being asked to do it, are they gonna get in trouble? Or if they do it, are they going to get in trouble for doing it? So be cognizant of that. It's really easy just to observe something and not realize that you're actually putting a staff member in a difficult position.

Voting conflicts. This all rise more for planning and zoning board. You cannot vote on any item that would provide you or someone connected to you a special private gain or loss. A private gain or loss is set out in statute and there's ways to evaluate those in detail based on the specifics of the situation. But it would be any type of gain or loss which would endure to that special private gain of loss, not just of yourself, but any principal by whom you've been retained, any relative, and that's in your immediate family, and it goes as far as in laws, and a business associate.

Whether or not that special gain or loss is a problem depends on the very specific facts of the situation. So it might be that in case a, it applies, there's a conflict. In case b, there's not a conflict with similar situations. So we always ask to look at those in detail. Size of class is a specific type that often comes up, and that is how much of the class that is impacted does the voter take up.

So in, one commission of an ethics opinion, the commission the city council member was found to be, one of 385 affected property owners. Well, one of 385 was not enough of an impact that that impact was really shared broadly, and that because it was not of an enough of an individual impact, there was no voting conflict and they could vote. Move on down the road, and we've got an airport authority commissioner with who was one of 19 property owners. In that situation, they decide determined that it was a conflict. So it really depends on the individual situation.

Anytime you run into a situation where you think there might be a connection between that company and your company, or you think that that project might be just close enough that it impacts your home, just give us a call. That's what we're there for is to analyze those facts. And if we can analyze those facts ahead of time at the meeting, we protect you and we protect this the board, and we protect the city commission's final decision. But if we don't figure out ahead of time that there is a conflict, raise your hand in the middle of the meeting. Say, I might I'd like to talk to you for just a minute.

You don't even have to say, yet I might have a conflict. However you want to say, you need to talk to me. And we can take a short break, talk about it, figure out if there's a conflict, figure out how to address it. If there is a conflict, there are things that we need to do to address it. You've gotta publicly state on the record that you have a conflict and what that conflict is.

After you announce that conflict, you need to leave the dais and leave the room. You're not allowed to participate in that hearing at all. After the meeting, we'll provide you a form eight b, which is a memorandum of voting conflict, and that is filled out and provided back to the board clerk within fifteen minutes so that it can be added to the official board meeting minutes. Hopefully this is going to not work. Nope. And there's one click. Nope. It's gone. Okay. So it is a video.

It was gonna be a video. It's not gonna be a video though. But so voting conflicts, we'll go on and talk about lobbying. So lobbying is basically any natural person who compensation or for not maybe not for compensation seeks or sought well, to influence the governmental decision making of a reporting individual procurement employee or his or her agency or seeks or sought during the preceding twelve months to encourage the passage defeat or modification of any proposal or recommendation by the reporting individual. So a lobbyist is somebody who is retained specifically to lobby.

It doesn't matter if they're being paid. It's they could be principally employed to lobby on behalf of their employee. A lobbyist is not a public official who's acting in their official capacity, an individual communicating on their own behalf. It's not somebody communicating on behalf of their employer unless they were hired specifically to lobby. It is not an HOA member who is representing their HOA, and it does not include nonprofit public interest members representing their nonprofit.

The city does have requirements that lobbyists register with the city, and then it is on the lobbyists head to record and log any meetings that they have with any board members. We would advise you not to meet with with anybody. If you do have somebody reach out to you to talk to you about any city business that will come before the board, please let us know or reach out to the city clerk's office. We can verify that that person is registered and work with you in terms of whether or not you want to meet with them and how to go about doing that in a way that best protects you. Talking a little bit about contributions, the Planning and Zoning Board is a form one filer.

The thing to remember is that you cannot accept anything that would be given to you with an anticipation of impacting how you would vote on any subject matter. In Broward County Commission on Ethics opinion twenty five five, the question was whether or not a commissioner had to file a form nine, which is the quarterly gift disclosure if they use discretionary funds to buy tickets to a charity event. And the answer was yes, they did have to. The main thing that we have is the butterfly festival and those are reportable. And a form one, there are certain circumstances when a form nine needs to be filled out.

For that type of situation, we always try to let you know about that. The following are not considered gifts, and this is compensation that you receive in your employment, campaign contributions, awards or plaques, use of public facilities or for public purposes, transportation to government approved business, certain trainings, and honorary and related expenses. They are this is an example, a city manager, Rick Fernandez from Tallahassee. He solicited skybox tickets. He took a significant discount on his wedding catering, and he did a lot of other things.

And public records were requested. He's denied having any of those public records. He denied ever having asked for or solicited soliciting the Skybox tickets tickets. The the fact is those communications all have two people involved, sometimes more. There's always somebody on the other end of that text. You can say it's not there. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It doesn't mean it can't be subpoenaed from a telecommunications provider. It doesn't mean that somebody on the other on the other end isn't going to provide it, and that's exactly what happened. The fact that he tried to cover it up worsened everything.

In the end, he had over 20 violations filed against him, and basically his entire career collapsed once all of that information became public. There are some exceptions to the Broward County's gift rules, but they are still subject to the state rules and reporting requirements. Gifts given to elected officials and and this would include yourselves as board members for your in in your own government by this by your own government. So by the city. If the city gives you something, that's still classified as a gift.

Expenses that's I'm sorry. I'm totally turning that around. Gifts given to to the elected officials or you guys from your own governmental entity are an exception to the and that's customary condolences or sympathy gifts, expenses for public service training, non alcoholic beverages, participation in public service announcement, and certain tickets to charitable events. But they still have to be disclosed. No gifts or foods or food or alcoholic beverage over $25 from a lobbyist or or a vendor or political committee, and you can't solicit these gifts.

Gifts up to a $100 can be accepted, and they don't require reporting. Gifts under over a $100 may be accepted as long as they're not from a lobbyist vendor or political committee, but they do have to be reported on the quarterly form nine unless they're from a relative. So we've talked about the form one, the form eight b, and the form nine. And if you have any questions as we're going through the year or now, you're welcome to ask. We generally try to keep you on track track of when you need to touch base with and get involved with those forms.

There are violations, penalties for the violations of this code of ethics, impeachment, suspension, public censure and reprimand, civil penalties not to exceed $20,000, restitution, and attorney's fees. All elected and appointed officials are subject to the Broward OIG. I'm gonna go through this part pretty fast because basically everything that we've just talked about, the Broward OIG is going to look at also. They have jurisdiction over all board members, commissioners, employees, and entities that are vending and contracting with the cities as well. And they investigate misconduct and gross mismanagement.

If they investigate something, they may find a de minimis issue and not an issue at all, or they may find that there's probable cause. And then they can take and file information in with the civil criminal or administrative agency that's charged with enforcement. And if nobody's involved, then they can do their own referral to a hearing officer for quasi judicial enforcement proceedings. More than one agency can investigate, so they can do a referral to the state attorney, Florida Commission on Ethics, and the Florida Elections Commission, all or none as deemed appropriate. They can impose fines up to $5,000, order restitution, finding of disgorgement, and refer for public reprimand or censure.

And the interesting part is you can get investigations going by both the Broward OIG and the State Ethics Commission, and you can end up with civil and criminal charges and cases running at the same time. So when in doubt, ask. The city attorney represents the city of Coconut Creek as a municipal corporation. They represent the city commission as a corporate body and the boards as a whole. We also represent the commissioners, management, board members, and staff when they are acting in their official capacity within the scope of their official duties.

But our office does not represent the individuals in their individual capacity or related to their individual interest in those boards or commissions or employment. But we are here to ask and to help you figure out where we can and can't help you and when a referral would be advisable. Public information, public records laws. Public records are anything that is related to your board business and you as a board member. It is any communication or document that is made or received in connection with this official city business that is intended to communicate, perpetuate, or formalize knowledge.

It's your capacity as a board member and the subject matter as board business or city business that makes it a public record. Where it is located is irrelevant. So if it is a grocery list on a city device, it's not a public record unless it were a grocery list for a city event. But if it is a program recommendation from your neighbor and it is on your personal computer and your email, it is still a public record. And it has to be made available to the public.

It has to be searchable. We have to know about it, and if asked, we have to be able to produce it. Emails, texts, anonymous letters, calendars related to city business, anything run to communicate, formalize, and perpetuate knowledge. The only exception to that are called basically aids to memory. Your little notes that you might make.

Say you get an agenda and you make some notes and you wanna talk about those. As long as you don't share those notes, they're not public records. So if if you make notes on something and you take it you bring it to the meeting and you take it home with you, fine. It's not a public record. If you share them with your neighbor, it becomes a public record.

So just keep that into mind in mind. Social media, we'll talk more about that in in detail in a minute, but almost all social media posts related to city business are public records. That includes Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snap Chat, TikTok, and all of the stuff that I don't even have any knowledge about. It's all public record if it's related to city business, especially if you're posting it as a board member. Those public records must be retained and they must be made available to the public.

On a posting, it's not just the post that's a public record, it's all the responses to the post that are public records. We have to know about those, we have to have access to them and be able to search them and provide them if asked. How long those records are kept is based on a state directed schedule, and it is based not on the type of matter or the type of material. It's based on the content of the material. So not all Facebook messages are treated the same.

They're based on the content of the material. You know, something's related to a contract, that might be have to be saved until five years after that contract dies. If something is related to an event, it might disappear in thirty days, and that would be okay. But it's based on the content, not the place where it's located. So we have to know about it. And how do we figure out if it's public record? Again, it's related to whether you as a board member and the content, if it's related to what will come before you as a board. There are violations. Well, before that, I'll tell you there are exemptions and there's times when we don't have to disclose them. There's a lot of those exemptions.

They're set out in statute. They're very complicated and very lengthy. Anytime you get a request for information or anybody does, that comes into the city clerk at Coconut Creek public records at coconutcreek.gov, and we process that. And we have to get that stuff turned around and provided in a very timely fashion. We review all of that information to determine if there's exceptions that say we don't have to or that we can't release it, and we evaluate each of those records under that light before releasing it.

Failure to provide those records, that means not just failure to provide, it means deleting them or losing them. All of those come with with repercussions. A knowing violation can include suspension, removal, or impeachment, and criminal can include up to one year in prison and up to a $1,000 fine. A non knowing violation still has a fine of up to $500 That doesn't even get us started on the attorney's fees and costs that the city must pay or an individual might have to pay. The city would also have to pay fees and costs for the requester even if we've reproduced the record if they had to file a suit before we did it.

So literally, we could provide it on day 11, but they filed suit on day 10, and we could have to pay their attorney's fees. So it's very when anytime that records are requested, it's very important that we re respond timely. So couple of examples, Radiant versus Nassau County, the court found that they had broken the public records law when they failed to provide text messages between the county officials and county employees in a reasonable and timely manner. And it turned out that you know what happens on our phones? Our phones, many of them come with a preset auto delete.

Everything clears out in thirty days. Texts are automatically deleted in thirty days, and that does not relieve us of the responsibility of providing those records. So it's very important if you get texts, forward them to the city@textsatcoconutcreek.gov or publicrecords@coconutcreek.gov. Then they're on the city file. We can search them, provide them upon request.

Sunny Isles Beach versus Gato. This one actually touches on kind of a visual thing, and it's related to text messages. Gato was not Gato. The city commissioner was texting during a city commission meeting, and Gato solicited a public records request for those text messages. The city commissioner basically refused to provide them and said they were private texts.

Eventually, two sets of texts were provided to the court, one between the commissioner and a friend who was also a city resident, and one set of messages between Gato and her husband. Well, that's that's a typo, sorry. Set between the commissioner and the city resident, and then a commissioner and her husband. So the sit the court ruled that the commissioner's text to the friend who was also a city resident were public records because that citizen that friend was a city resident. So it was city business.

And the subject matter was about fellow commissioner. That was city business. So the text between the commissioner and her husband were not city business because that was a personal relationship. Problem is we all know what those text messages say. We all know that she sat up there and disparaged her colleague on the dais in text messages to her husband and to her best friend.

So we always ask you not to text or whisper or do anything on the dais. There's a reason. You don't wanna be talked about in the next public ethics training. So the same way that we talk about text, we ask you not to point or or pass notes. All of those things, if if we point, that can get us into sunshine law violations, which we'll talk about next.

If we pass a message then I pass a message to Justin over here, and it says, can you pick my kids up from soccer? It's not a we know it's not a a public record. Dan doesn't know it's a public record, not a public record, so he requests it. So Justin threw it away. Now we gotta prove that it wasn't a public record, or we have to provide it. But either way, we have to go through that process. So we just ask, don't do it. And it might be a public record, and then you have to disclose it. You might not have wanted this to have that public. So we ask you not to share past past notes in between the meeting in between each other during the meeting.

So Sunshine Law is also based on on Florida statutes two eighty six zero one one. And basically, this is saying that any action that a city takes as a board or as a commission needs to be done in the public eye. And that has the ability that what that does is it promotes confidence in the government. It helps prevent governmental abuses. It also allows the public to understand the decisions that are being made and how they'll impact them and their community.

It it it's a basic level of awareness. What's hard about sunshine is it's not just about when we're sitting in a meeting. Because under the sunshine law, a meeting can be any time that two or more people from the same board or commission are talking about business that will come before that board or commission. It doesn't matter where it is. Where it is is what will help make it legal.

If it doesn't help in a place that doesn't happen in the right place, then it's illegal. It's not in the sunshine. It applies to all advisory boards, the commission, and even certain situations with staff decision making teams. The location and formality of that meeting doesn't matter. It can be a passing conversation in the kitchen.

It can be an inaudible discussion up on the dais. Because if you're whispering to somebody on the dais, the perception is that you're talking about the meeting and the information that's going on in the meeting. And if they can't hear you, then it is a private meeting, and the public perceives it as an illegal meeting. It does not apply to conversations with city staff. So you can call us at any time and ask questions.

We're more than happy to answer them. And that's not doesn't fall under the sunshine. It doesn't happen it's not triggered if you have an individual discussion with a commissioner or with private entities or personal discussions among yourselves. So you can talk to any of your fellow board members as long as it's not about board business. You can attend a commission meeting with other board members, just don't talk about board business.

If we do have a formal legal in the sunshine meeting, there's three things, primary things that need to happen. We need to have notice. We have to post those notices. The minimum in Broward County is forty eight hours. The city practice is seven days, and there are certain types of situations where more extensive notice is required.

The place that that meeting is held has to be open and reasonably accessible to the public and minutes are required. Recording is optional. Recording doesn't replace the need to take minutes, but we have to have those minutes made of that meeting. Violations can cause the invalidation of the action taken, and that can be at any level. So if there's a violation at the staff level or the board level, the city commission action can be overturned.

There's imprisonment fines, removal from office, attorney's fees, civil actions, harsher penalties if the violation occurs outside of the city. Florida city's Florida Citizens Alliance versus Collier County Schools. The school board had a policy and they created two textbook committees of staff that reviewed and made recommendations on the textbooks for the district schools. Following the policy, committees met. They sent the recommendations to the board.

The board held two properly noticed meetings and discussed those recommendations, and in the end, approved all but one of the books. However, the what they found what the court found was that those textbook committee meetings helped crystallize the decision to be made by the school board. And because they had not been noticed, there was a sunshine violation. And the fact that the board talked about it in in very great detail at those two meetings didn't cure the underlying textbook committee meeting. So it's really important that we have all of those components in that Open Sunshine Law at Sunshine Compliance at each level of a decision making process.

So we'll talk a little bit about social media. Before I lose my voice. So social media, it's important that we don't have two or more board members posting about the same government business. It's very easy to get caught up in replying or even the courts have found that liking a post if it's about board business is communicating a position. And so that is a violation of the sunshine law.

The other aspect that we've already talked about too is once you start posting on social media about board business, you have a public record. Every response to that is a public record. They have to be maintained. They've gotta be searchable. We've gotta be able to find them and know about them.

And there are cases out there that specifically fall on Facebook postings of boards that shattered entire development approvals. So be very, very cautious in social media, and I'd advise you not to ever, in social media, express an opinion about some of the board's actions. Keep those opinions to your formal board meeting. That's especially true in planning and zoning board decisions and quasi judicial applications, your site plans and that type of thing. Even more important at that point because you've got your role as judge and jury and your responsibility to make those decisions based on the hearing testimony.

A couple of attorney general's opinions that and I'm going through these pretty fast. You will be provided this whole presentation later for your reading and enjoyment in detail. They recommend that you don't engage in in discussion of matters that will foreseeably come before the commission for official action. There is the ability to post a position statement, singular post position statement. You could do it.

So I'm telling you, you could do it. I'm gonna advise you not to because it's so easy for somebody just to inadvertently not think about it and say, oh, man, that's so true. And boom, we've got a problem because we don't really think about it. When we get out on social media, we forget about the board we sit on once a month or every other month. We forget about it. It's just not right there. So try not to engage with social media about board business. And it's hard. And the city uses social media extensively as I'm sure you're all aware. It's an asset.

It helps us build a city brand. It lets us communicate with the residents and let them know what's going on. So the hard part is it also creates a lot of legal issues. We can get into first amendment implications, open meetings and sunshine law like we've talked about, public records, accessibility, copyright, bad behavior. And the government has a lot of additional restrictions on social media and that private individuals don't have.

And that reaches out to board members and commissioners when they are posting on social media as a board member or a commissioner. They are subject to those same city limitations that the the city itself is. Starting with copyright, that is basically any images, text, videos, audio. Music is a big problem right now. Photos are a big problem right now.

The use of any of those on social media sites can violate copyright law, and there are no sovereign immunity caps for those. The penalties can be pretty high, and there are companies out there who are going after that stuff left and right. And the city is an easy target, so be very careful on those issues because it's very easy. There's kind of the fair you fair, you know, the concept that it's fair I just lost the term. Just slipped right out of my mind.

Yes. Who said it? Fair use? Fair yes. And I'm not saying it. But the basically the concept that it's out there in public and everybody has the right to use it. And that is actually not as easily proven as it sounds like it is. Related to the first amendment, generally, the local there are three types of forums, traditional, limited, and nonpublic. The governmental forum forum is generally considered a limited public forum. That is what we are subject to generally in our social media cases.

And and we can't impose the only thing we can impose is reasonable content neutral restrictions on speech, but we cannot discriminate in any way against speech based on viewpoint. That means the only thing we can impose are time, place, and manner restrictions and that's very very limited. Basically regular citizens can block people, they can delete texts or delete information from social media. The the government can't. When we speak as in a government employee, a government board member, or a government commissioner, we cannot delete people.

We cannot block people. There are very limited circumstances if there are very defined rules against off topic comments and it specifically says that off topic comments will be deleted. In certain circumstances that might be okay. But it's very, very limited. Which means that if someone comes out and you post if you post something related to city business and someone comes out and attacks you, you don't have the ability to hide it.

You don't have the ability to delete it. So just be very, very cautious of that. The case law very is is very, very strong that you cannot block or block people or delete delete messages. Escambia County versus Underhill or David Bear versus Escambia County. Basically, was Douglas Underhill who was the county commissioner who used social media.

He had a personal page and a commissioner page, and he'd been posting information. The court found Baer basically posted something on his personal page. He was blocked. That comment was deleted and he was blocked. And the court found that because the commissioner had made the personal page very private and had made a point of not engaging in city business on that page, he was okay to delete him.

However, had that happened on the person on the commissioner page, it would not have been the same outcome. The other thing is that in all of that information, even though he had maintained his personal page as a private page, he had posted public records on that page. He didn't provide those records. This case happened in 2023. The case for his attorney's fees because he didn't produce those public records timely just finished Two weeks ago?

Two weeks ago. So lot of money, a lot of work, a lot of heartache, and he had to pay those attorneys fees. Let's see. Tell you some of the interesting ones. Davison versus Randall and Loudoun County.

Chair Phyllis j Randall's Facebook page. She had a lovely commenter, Brian Davison, who complained about corruption, and so she banned him for twelve hours and then let him back on. Well, he filed suit, and I'll just shortcut, he won. Basically, looked and they evaluated whether or not chair Randall was acting under color of state law, and they considered numerous factors. But on her web page, on her Facebook page, she said she gave her official title.

She had her county emails and address. Everything on there was focused on her as a government official and, was used to further her duties in her role. So they found that she was acting under color of state law, and she had illegally banned him. Then we have a case from the Supreme Court, Lindke versus Freed. This is where you see how fact specific the cases are.

Lindke had criticized the city's COVID nineteen response on the city manager's personal web page a personal Facebook Facebook page. He did use that Facebook page to post both personal and city business. What the court found was in that specific situation, because he had not been authorized to communicate that information and was not authorized in in that and had not in that official capacity blocked Lindke, he didn't violate Lindke's First Amendment rights. That case could go a different way with different circumstances, so just be really, really careful. Even with your personal accounts.

An Ohio school board president was criticized for republishing a picture on her personal Facebook page visible only to friends. Her friend copied that, pulled it out, published it, and boom. If you post something on your Facebook page or anywhere, if you would not be comfortable reading about it in a blog or on the front page of the paper, don't post it. You don't know who your friends are. You don't know who's lurking, and you don't know what could happen with something when you least expect it.

Best practices I would always say just don't use social media for board business. Always if you do make a clear distinction between official accounts and campaign accounts and personal accounts. Your personal and campaign accounts should not be used for city related business. On your personal accounts, make sure you understand and use your privacy settings for friends only and establish a clear set of rules and follow them. Because if you have the rules that say, you know, off topic will be deleted and everything else, that's great.

But if you don't follow them and enforce them routinely, and then all of a sudden you do, we still have a problem. On public accounts, don't block anyone and don't delete any text or comments. Couple of hot topics. These are just I'm gonna run through these real quick. Things that have happened in recently, they stolen valor was a section created in Florida statutes which penalizes false claims of military service, honors, qualifications by candidates, public officers, or public employees.

When twelve three seventeen was expanded to allow the expanded the to authority to seek wage garnishments for unpaid fines stemming from judgments on ethics complaints. They we've talked about the changes and the investigation by the Broward OIG regarding payment of guest fees a little bit already. The final thing, just overall remember, if it feels wrong, probably is. Don't get yourself into situations that kind of tempt fate, so to speak. People are not giving gifts, especially big gifts for free.

And gifts, of course, includes discounts or credits and things like that. If something's giving you something surprising, ask why. No table talk or text messaging once a meeting has started. One speaker at a time and that helps us keep the record straight and make sure that the recording is clear for when they're taking the minutes. Decisions are a function of the board as a whole and we carry out the will of the majority, but we preserve the rights of the minority throughout our process.

We always maintain respect for our individual commissioners, our board members, staff, the public, and the city as a whole. We have a beautiful system and a very collegial environment throughout our city governmental structure, and we're so so grateful from that on a staff level all the way through to our commissioners. So we've always appreciated that. I greatly appreciate your time and your patience. Do you have any questions?

Okay. So Parks and Rec, I believe you all have your first formal meeting next week. They will cover a little they'll get you started, that should be a lot of fun. You guys are done for tonight. I appreciate your time again and don't hesitate to give us a call if you have any questions.

Planning and zoning board members, you are welcome to find your seat and we'll move on with the next step. Thank you. No. I don't think it's a problem as long as No, it's not a problem. We'll talk more about it later.

The USB is still in. And this is the wrong thing. That's Dan's. Can do that as long as my clicker still works. I'm next before you guys.

It works.

You can sit over here or you can sit here. But if you want to do this, you want to there. Stand here.

Good evening. Will the board clerk please call the roll? Mr. Jeffrey Barker?

Here.

Mr. Alex Esquiriaza?

Here.

Ms. Colleen LePlante? Here. Mr. Jeffrey Light? Here. Mr. Troy Gross?

Here.

Ms. Deputy City Attorney Kathy Mahaffy? Here. Resilient Design and Development Assistant Director Lizette Aguirre? Here. And also just for the record, do want to provide notice that Mr. Solomon Bricks did provide advance notice that he'd be unable to attend tonight's meeting.

Thank you. This meeting is being conducted live with a quorum physically present. The material for today's meeting is available online at www.coconutcreek.gov. Anyone wishing to appeal any decision made will need a record of the proceedings and for such purpose may need to ensure that a verbatim recording of the proceedings is made, including the testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be heard upon which the appeal is to be based. The archive of this meeting may be requested from the city clerk and may be heard online at www.coconutcreek.gov. If you haven't already, please silence your cell phones. If you must take a phone call, please excuse yourself and step outside.

Thank you. Welcome, board members. I ask that you each please do a brief self introduction. Starting here.

My name is Troy Gross. This is my first day on the board. So very excited to be here with you all. I am from Coconut Creek, went to Whistler Park, Lyons Creek, Monarch. Further and further away now, I work for State Senator Lori Berman. And that's about it.

Thank you.

My name's Jeff Light. I am retired. Was a long time as an attorney, and I was a trial court judge in New Jersey. I've been here about nine years. And I live in Windmoor. And this is my fourth year on the board.

Good afternoon. I'm Colleen COLLIN LePlante, a very longtime resident of the city of Coconut Creek, and I'm very honored to be reelected by Commissioner Joshua Riddell. I am a government administrator at a law firm downtown in Fort Lauderdale, and last week was my fortieth anniversary at the firm, Cinco de Mayo. I've been on many, many boards, including the Vision two thousand thirty Committee, which was very interesting, Planning and Zoning, Charter Review, the School Board Advisory Committee, just to name a few. But I'm very honored to be here amongst you all, and thank you very much.

Hello. My name is Alex ALEX Descorriasos. This is my third year on the Planning and Zoning Board. I lived in Coconut Creek not as long as these other citizens. But I like it. Proud Creakin. Served on the redistricting, or currently serving on the redistricting board, and served on the Charter Review Board. I run a data and analytics consulting company. That's my day job. So that's me.

Evening, everybody. Jeffrey Barker. It's nice to be on the board again. Thank you, Commissioner Welch, for reappointing me. Think this is my sixth year, maybe six or seven, I don't remember on the board. Also was on Charter Review Board. Did we have that again recently? It was like in 2020, COVID year, remember? I don't remember when the next one's supposed to be.

No, was 2025.

There was, okay. So yeah, that's good. I wasn't on that one, was on the 2020. But it's great to be back on the board. My background is in planning and real estate and construction, currently doing some land use law work all over the state. So, good to be back. Welcome to the new board member.

Thank you. Welcome back to our returning board members, and welcome to the new ones. I'm Liz Aguirre. I'm the assistant director of the Resilient Design and Development Department. Behind me is Justin Proffitt, who is the director of the Resilient Design and Development Department, and Dan Nelson, who's our grants administrator. He will be making a brief presentation to you in just a few moments. But I'd like for the rest of staff to also introduce themselves.

I'm Kathy Mahaffy, Deputy City Attorney. I work with Terrell Piborne, our city attorney. We have Laura Vargas Gallardo in the back, who's our newest city assistant city attorney. We have Cassie Harvey and Jeanette, Camacho also in our office, well as Kathleen Hiddle and our paralegal. And all available to help if you have any questions.

Good evening. Mary Ann Bowers, deputy city clerk. I am your board clerk, can help with all things agenda, public notice, any filings for Form 8Bs, voting conflict, or any other forms that you have to file, Form 1s. You will be receiving agenda packages in conjunction with our Resilient Design and Development staff. And you'll typically see emails from Danielle Novak in our office. If you have any questions or need anything from the clerk's office, we're happy to help.

Thank you, Mary Anne. Now I'd like to turn the floor back to the board clerk to administer the oath of office.

Just wanted to come down here so I can look at everyone directly face on. So just on behalf of our city commission, our city manager's office, the city clerk department, we just congratulate you all on your appointments to the board. We thank you very much for your service. We know it is a big time commitment going through your agenda packages, making decisions that really impact our city in a positive way. So we thank you for your service and your dedication to the city.

So in front of you, you do have your oath of office. Once we finish your oath, if you can sign those, you can leave them on the dais, and I'll collect them after the meeting. But if everyone now can please stand and raise your right hand. And then you'll repeat after me. I do solemnly swear

I do solemnly swear

that I will support, protect, and defend

I will support, protect, and defend

the Constitution

constitution.

And government of the United States

The government of the United States

and the state of Florida

And the state of Florida.

And the ordinances

The ordinances.

Of the city of Coconut Creek

The city of Coconut Creek.

That I am duly qualified

That I am duly qualified

to hold office

hold

office the constitution of the state

the constitution of

and that I will

I will

well and faithfully

well and faithfully

perform the duties of planning and zoning board member for the city of Coconut Creek on which I'm now about to

enter.

Congratulations.

Thank you, Mary Anne. Moving on to agenda item number six, the overview of board mission, guidelines, and objectives. As part of the backup that you received, several documents were provided to you, including the planning and zoning board guidelines 2026 that I would like to highlight some specific items on. First, responsibilities. What is the board's mission and its role?

The planning and zoning board is responsible for the city's comprehensive planning program and serves as the city's designated local planning agency. In this role, the board has the power to conduct investigations, hold public meetings, take testimony, review documentary evidence, issue orders, and make recommendations to the city commission on all matters related to land planning and implementation. Some specific functions. Beyond the comprehensive plan, when development applications come before you, your role is to also review the materials provided and make recommendations to the city commission. Those recommendations generally are an approval of the item or request before you, an approval with conditions and the identification of what those conditions are, or to deny the application.

Some key application types that you will see. First, comprehensive plan amendments. These could include text amendments. Those can change policy, add policy in the comprehensive plan. You may also see land use plan amendments or LUPAs.

Those change property future land use designation, and ultimately, potential long term development of that property. You may also see chapter 13, our land development code amendments. We may see updates to city regulations, changes in uses, permitted uses, special end uses, development standards that would all come before the board for your review and recommendation to the city commission. Rezonings are another application that you may see. This could be new zoning districts, amendments to existing zoning districts, etcetera.

Main Street is a perfect example of that. Before Main Street was Main Street, it was all zoned for agricultural uses. The only way that Main Street was able to move forward with site plans for the development that is proposed today, commercial, residential, multifamily, is to rezone it. So we took it from a one, which was agricultural, to planned Main Street Development District. That was all done through the rezoning process.

Another application that could come before you are plots. Plots are the division of land into lots, typically for development or for sale. Going back to Main Street, we when look at the vacant land, raw land out there, all agricultural, tomato fields. The developer processed a plot through the through the county in conjunction with the city, developed it into parcels that became blocks, and those plots were turned into site plans, part of the process. Excuse me.

Other applications that could come before the board are variances. Variances can be a little tricky. They we should you should only consider them when strict application of code is difficult due to unique property characteristics. So they're not in variances are not intended to bypass or circumvent code. They cannot be something that is financial or self imposed hardship.

It can be a little tricky, but there's criteria for variances, and of course those that criteria would be presented as part of the backup to the board. Special land uses are another tricky application. If you've worked in other cities, you may have heard them referred to as conditional uses, special exceptions. Here in Coconut Creek, they're known as special land uses. It is for uses that are not outright permitted in the city, but are allowed through additional review.

It puts the obligation on the applicant to demonstrate that that use, that they are proposing, that special land use meets specific criteria and is compatible with the surrounding area. Special end uses are also may be also subject to special conditions with respect to location, number, intensity, design, etcetera. And site plans. Site plans are the most common application that this board will see. Site plans, of course, we know is a detailed drawing.

It shows where buildings are, landscaping, parking, access, preliminary engineering, and you will definitely be seeing a few site plans coming your way here in the next few months. We have received several new applications, just a little teaser there, not gonna tell you exactly who it is, but you will be seeing some new applications coming before you very soon. So except for the comp plan, these are really the most common applications that the board will be seeing. There are others, vacations of easements, etcetera, but these are really the more common ones, and I just wanted to touch base on them just briefly. So what are the expectations from the board?

To attend regular and special meetings, to review agenda materials in advance of that meeting, and to be prepared to ask questions and participate in the discussion and make recommendations to the city commission. Our meeting schedules, as you know, are held every second Wednesday of each month at 7PM right here in Commission chambers, and special meetings, although very rare, they may be scheduled if we need it, if it's needed for any time sensitive items. Resources that are available at your disposal to support your considerations of item of items could include the city code of ordinance, specifically chapter 13, the land development code, the city's comprehensive plan, the Main Street design standards. You heard me talk about Main Street just a moment ago. The Main Street area has its own specific Main Street design standards that are kind of layered on top of our our code of ordinances.

These documents can be emailed to you upon request. We could certainly provide them to you in hard copy if you if you prefer. And the one final resource, arguably the most important resource, is staff. We're here to answer any questions that you may have. At the bottom of your summary packet, you have my name, you have my phone number, you have my email address. Call me. Email me with any questions related to any of the applications that's that come before you. I will call you back. If I'm not at my desk, leave me a message. I will call you back.

That concludes my portion of agenda item number six. Let me just move on.

So then I'll pick up and add to the information that she provided and talk a little bit about the types of decisions that you as a board make, the legislative decisions, quasi judicial decisions, and then a little bit about ex parte communications. Legislative decisions are the things that she talked about in terms of amending or adopting the comprehensive plan or adopting or amending land development regulations. And these decisions, you have one tonight where we are adopting a new code section that is a legislative decision. They are basically setting policy for the city. They don't relate to a specific project.

They are a global policy decision. And those meetings require notice of public hearing and the presentation of evidence. Once you make those decisions, you have to make them based on basically a fairly debatable standard. And what that means is that there has to be a reasonable basis to support the action. It's a very deferential standard, meaning the court gives a lot of deference to the city and why they made the decision.

They don't actually get to second guess the local government's decision and action. They have to affirm if there's any reasonable basis on the record for the decision, and there are no constitutional violations, which means it's really important that sometimes the basis for the decision is on the is on the record. You'll see that we build that. If we're adopting an ordinance, you'll see that we build that into the whereas clauses, the background, and the why it's important. All of that is part of your legislative record that we follow.

That's the legislative decisions as opposed to quasi judicial decisions. Quasi judicial decisions relate to the items that she described, the rezoning site plan specific land use special land uses, special exceptions, variances. Those are all related to a specific property. In that those decision those types of actions, the board is responsible for making a recommendation to the city commission, and you're implementing and and evaluating how the city's policies and their rules, meaning the comprehensive plan particularly in the land development regulations, apply to specific properties. So we take those and we we because the board is acting as judge and jury, the courts have found that we have to follow some different procedures.

They're a little bit more formal. It's still informally implemented, but there have to be some very specific guidelines. We have to provide notice, and it's set out in statute how we have to provide that notice in in addition to provisions in our code that set out how to how we have to additional notice requirements. We have to have a hearing before a neutral decision maker, and that is you as a board and the city commission as a commission. And that's important that you're neutral.

When I spoke earlier, I talked about setting up a legislative history by posting on the Internet. And we that's where we don't wanna do it because you've gotta be able to we've gotta be able to say that that as board members, you came in here and you made your decision based on the hearing and testimony presented at the hearing. Testimony in these hearings is sworn. We have questioning of witnesses. Are that both the city and the applicant are allowed to call and examine witnesses.

They introduce exhibits, and they can cross examine opposing witnesses on any relevant matter. And they can rebut evidence. It's it's much more closer to a hearing process. You will see a lot of times that it goes along very, very quickly and smoothly, but in any type of contentious atmosphere, that process gets much more strictly followed and closely implemented. One of the things that comes into play here is a concept called ex parte communication.

And that is any communication or the receipt of information related to an application which occurs outside of the public hearing, And it's one-sided, and it doesn't allow the other side to respond. So everybody that's part of this hearing has to be able to know everything that you're making a decision on, and they have to be able to address it, to rebut the evidence, and to to question it. So that means that if I've had a conversation say I was a board member and I had a conversation with my neighbor about an application, well, the applicant doesn't have any idea about that. They need and they have a right to know about that communication and to counter it, to address it. So the courts have said that, okay, ex parte communication is a problem because somebody is is jeopardized.

They don't have the ability to have that full picture. The courts have said you can solve that if we disclose our ex parte communication. And basically what that means is, and I that we announce the communication that we had. So I would say, I spoke to my neighbor who was opposed to the application. Or it may just be, I spoke to my neighbor who had who had questions about the application.

It puts the party and we do that at the beginning of the hearing related to that item. It puts the applicant on notice that that issue has been raised. If I received a letter, I would read that letter into the record, or I would provide that letter to the applicant. So if you ever do receive correspondence or any type of communication regarding an application, if you could send that to the clerk's office right away, then we can fold it into our application materials and address that ahead of time. But as I said, I will, at the beginning of a quasi judicial matter, ask if there's been any ex parte communications.

Now one of the things that I haven't mentioned yet is that it can be any form, written, verbal. It can be electronic. It can be, I've said in the slide, visual. But what I mean is site visits. If we have an application at the corner of Copen's and Lyon's and you drove through it just to see how that might look, that's a site visit.

And so when I say ask if there's been an ex parte communication, I'd expect you to disclose, I visited the site. That's all you need to say. Or if you did something else at the site, you know, I visited the site and I toured inside the building, Whatever it is, we go ahead and and disclose those just so that way the applicant is fully aware of those. Now it might be that you had a conversation with the applicant, and that would be disclosed as well. I had a conversation with the applicant.

Any communications you've received or had or site visits related to the application, you just announce it, and then we move on with the hearing. And that cures the ex parte communication or violation. If it's not cured, it is technically a violation. Quasi judicial decisions have a slightly different standard. They are subject to review and or appeal by a different mechanism.

They go through what's called a writ of certiorari. It is still a narrow and limited review process. The circuit court only looks at whether procedural due process was accorded and the essential requirements of the law were observed, and whether the decision was supported by competent substantial evidence on the record again. That evidence has to be on the record. And generally, we like if there are specific pieces of information that are relevant to you, particularly relevant to your decision, it's great if you can voice that in your final discussions or motion regarding to an item.

Competence substantial evidence is an interesting subject. It is an evidence that a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. It includes your official city records, your expert testimony. That'd be your charter, your code, your ordinances. A lot of times, an applicant will have a traffic expert or a an engineer here, any type of expert testimony that's presented, or the city may have any of those experts.

It might include city it would include city staff in staff reports and application materials submitted by the applicant. Actions taken by other reviewing boards, sometimes in a variance that's not true at all, then then we don't have, you know, in a variance, a previous variance is not any is not considered evidence in a new variance. Pictures, photographs, fact based citizen testimony. Subjective preferences are not fact based and don't constitute competent substantial evidence. Do you have any questions about competent substantial evidence?

Okay. That is kind of a quick summary on quasi judicial procedures and legislative procedures. Again, our hearing tonight is legislative, and we'll get to that in a in a minute. But first, we're gonna go on to the next item of business. Thank you, Kathy.

Moving on to agenda item number seven, the election of chair and vice chair. Nominations are now in order for the position of board chairperson. Do I hear any nominations?

I nominate Colleen LePlante for chair.

I'll second that.

Any further nominations? Since there is only one nominee, I congratulate Colleen LaPlante as the new chairperson

Thank you very much.

For the planning and zoning board.

Thank you.

I will now Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it

so much. Pass. Thank you.

The gavel. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay,

so

now we are moving on to nomination of the vice chair. Do I have a nomination for the vice chair?

Nominate Jeffrey Barker.

Is there a second? I can vote, right? I don't have to pass the gowel. You could vote. Okay. I'll second.

Any further nominations for vice chair? Seeing none, Jeffrey Barker is our new vice chair for the Planning and Zoning Board.

Thank you. Thanks, Liz. Okay. Okay, great. So we are going to now move on to the agenda. Are there any corrections or revisions to the minutes from the 03/13/2026 meeting? So, you want me to go back so I can start from the beginning? All right, let me just do this because that's not in here. Let's move on to item number eight. All right, do I have a motion approving the minutes from the previous Planning and Board meeting held?

So moved.

Second.

All right, motion made by Jeff Barker, seconded by Jeffrey Light. All in favor of item number eight, please say aye.

Aye. And Do we have to call the roll

for that? Call the roll, yes. Just I

going say that.

Mr. Gross?

Yes.

Mr. Light? Yes. Mr. Escoriasa?

Yes.

Ms.

LePlante? Yes. And Mr. Barker?

Yes.

Thank you. All right. So now we're going to move on to item number nine, which is the Land Development Code Amendment, Workforce Home Buyer Program. Amendments to the Land Development Code to create Section thirteen-forty three. And city staff will make the presentation, please.

Thank you, madam chair. Agenda item number nine, land development code amendment. Here to present this item is Dan Nelson, the grant's administrator. Thank you.

Good evening. Congrats on your appointment. Thank you for your service. My name is Dan Nelson. I'm the grants administrator with the city.

I've been administering providing administration for the city's affordable housing programs for the past decade. Tonight, I'll be providing you with an overview of the city's new workforce housing program and the associated workforce housing ordinance. And this program is designed to expand homeownership opportunities for workforce households. In South Florida, in Coconut Creek, rising housing costs have drastically reduced affordable housing stock. In Coconut Creek, affordable housing has been a priority for many years.

In two thousand and eight, the city became what's called an entitlement community, entitlement communities. And at any point during this presentation, feel free to stop me. I've been doing this for quite some time. There are more acronyms than I can count, so feel free to stop me. 2008, the city became an entitlement community.

Entitlement communities have about 50,000, have a population of above 50,000, and you're entitled to certain funds. One of those funds being the Community Development Block Grant, that's referred to as CDBG, that's provided by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Another one that we use is the SHIP program, and that is provided through the Florida Housing Finance Coalition. Both of these funds, federal and state, have designated uses. They come with very strict regulations on what we can spend the money on, what type of activity, and what dollar amount of the community we're able to help with that.

In addition to those programs, we've had workforce housing programs that have been paid for with the city's affordable housing trust fund and developer contributions. And to date, those federal programs that I was discussing have assisted 88 households purchase homes. The workforce housing, we've done about 21 purchase assistance programs. We've done over one hundred minuteor home repair projects and six infrastructure projects. Those being improvements or rehabilitation to certain public facilities in certain areas of the city.

Now these all of these efforts have helped maintain a balanced and diverse community, and this ordinance will build upon that. Again, the primary purpose of this program is to increase workforce housing for qualified workforce households. This program promotes homeownership opportunities. It helps maintain economic and workforce retention in Coconut Creek. The ordinance allows flexibility for the city to implement programs directly or in partnership with developers.

Now this next section outlines who would be eligible to participate. Eligibility is limited. What's wrong with my graphics? Eligibility is limited to workforce households earning less than 140% of Broward County's area median income. Now, less than 140 is kind of a sweet spot.

So those programs, the federal programs that I talked about, the state programs that I talked about, all have caps at 80% area median income. What's referred to in the world is the missing middle. So people that are just above that 80%, that low to moderate income, are still struggling with affordable housing, but are not eligible to receive those low to moderate income facilities. So this program really helps with that. And you're talking nurses, policemen, firemen, teachers.

Thank you. Of course, the income limits are adjusted by household size, and an applicant must purchase a home located in the city of Coconut Creek. And the goal is to assist working families and residents who otherwise may struggle with upfront homeownership costs. I'll now discuss how these programs are funded. Funding is provided through the city's affordable housing trust fund.

And the ordinance allows for a developer contribution and eligible housing linkage fees. Now, these combined funding sources create an available pool for down payment assistance, and this structure helps ensure long term sustainability for the program. The ordinance establishes how programs are created and administered. Programs are created by resolution or by an agreement with the developer. Programs may apply specific developments or designated geographic areas.

This provides flexibility and tailors assistance programs based on community needs and development opportunities. The ordinance also includes a lottery system for transparency throughout the application process. All programs will require a publicly advertised lottery process. The application period must remain open for thirty days. The applicants are randomly selected and ranked to ensure fairness and transparency.

Records must be maintained for a minimum of five years for compliance purposes. Applicants selected through the lottery must then complete a prequalification process. Applicants must obtain preapproval from a lender, and a complete application package must be submitted within three months of notification. These requirements will help ensure that applicants are financially prepared for homeownership. Once qualified, the applicants will move into the award phase.

Qualified purchasers have six months to close on the home after the preapproval. One additional three months extension may be granted if necessary. Awards are issued on a first come, first served basis among qualified applicants. And this helps keep the process moving efficiently while maintaining fairness. The assistance itself is structured as a deferred loan.

Assistance is provided as a no interest loan, purchasers execute a promissory note and second mortgage, and the funds are disbursed at closing to the title company. And this structure protects the public protects the public funds while supporting homeownership. The ordinance also establishes long term affordability requirements. The term of the loan is ten years. My title is grant administrator, but I don't really like to tell people that this is a grant program until you meet that ten year affordability term.

Then it turns into a grant. So I try to be straight up from get go that it's a loan until you meet your recapture terms. If the home is sold, no longer used as a homestead property within those ten years, the loan must be repaid. And certain family and marriage transfers are permitted. If the purchaser remains in the home for the ten years, the loan is fully forgiven and the mortgage is released.

Use of repaid funds. Any repaid funds return to the affordable housing trust fund. So they can be used for future affordable housing projects. Developer participation. Developers may partner with the city through a written agreement.

Developers may provide may administer the lotteries, the prequalification, the record retention, and the city audit has the right to audit that process. Developer participation. Program oversight and compliance. The city retains full regulatory authority over the program. All applicable federal, state, and local laws must be followed.

The ordinance includes safeguards to prevent conflict of interest. City officials and administrative officers are not eligible to participate. In summary in summary, this ordinance establishes a structured workforce housing assistance framework, promotes affordability, attainable homeownership opportunities, supports long term community stability, and creates a sustainable funding mechanism for future housing initiatives. Staff believes that this ordinance provides an important tool to help address workforce housing needs within Coconut Creek while maintaining transparency, accountability, and flexibility for future programs. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you very, very much, Dan. So, like Dan said, do any members of the Board have any questions for city staff? Let's start with Tori. Are

there any restrictions

on who can apply? Do you currently need to be a city resident, Broward County resident, state resident, anything like that?

That's a great question. No. You do not need to be a current City Of Coconut Creek resident to apply for the program.

I get

a different question? Sorry, wonderful. How does this compare to the other the requirements, how does it compare to the other programs the city currently has to help with homeownership?

Yeah. So, a lot of it was based off of our existing purchase assistance program. The loan amount down payment assistance associated with that program is 80,000. The term is a little bit longer. You have to maintain the property as your primary residence for fifteen years in the original term. In this program, it will be ten. The one of the main differences between the existing program and this program is the first time homebuyer component. In this program, you will not need to be a first time homebuyer. In the other program, you do need to be a first time homebuyer.

Is there any expectations? I assume, you know, as you go along, you'll be figuring it out on a program by program basis. But do you have any assumption or idea of what the maximum or minimum amount of assistance could be?

I think right now the term is 80,000. This ordinance permits for 80,000. Up to. But I don't think that's the maximum term. So this is kind of setting a bar for future individual programs that can be proposed by through developer agreements or by city resolution.

And then, I'm sure you guys are, but being with the state, I have to ask. You guys have capacity for this, right?

The city does? To administer this? Yes. Oh, we wouldn't be here if we Right.

Wonderful. Good.

So let me answer this. So you're funding the down payment. Is that correct? Is that what you're funding, the down payment?

Correct.

Okay. And I'm a little unclear on how the note and mortgage are going to work. There's a note that's going to say what?

There's a note that's going to say, the city provided you with $80,000 to purchase this property, and if you maintain that property as your primary residence for ten years, the loan is completely forgiven. Now, I kind of think about it as you're buying down, like, you're saying down payment assistance, right? Perfect. That's the concept of it. But essentially, it's buying down your primary mortgage. If you're borrowing $680,000 from Bank of America for this property, now you're really only having to borrow $600,000 because the city one: is going

to buy down in down payment for the down payment.

Is

there any IRS problem with imputed interest? Does that come up at all? That no interest loans are the IRS looks at it saying where there should be interest, they impute interest.

Since the inception of this, and this is done all over, that has not been ever brought up to my attention, no.

Okay. So, and this is a second mortgage that will be given, not a you'll be behind the lender.

So, only in very rare occasions has this even been a this will be a second mortgage. Let me say it like, this will be a second mortgage, yes.

Okay. Now, does the project fund condominium anything but is it just single family homes? Is it townhouses, condominiums?

This doesn't specify that. So, this isn't there will be a specific program specific that these rules will apply to. But right now there isn't a program that we're funding with this. This is kind of setting the stage for a future program. This is giving the city the ability to enter into a future program or initiate a future program through a developer agreement or through a resolution.

Is it contemplated it will be for any kind of housing? I mean, ownership housing?

Yes.

Okay.

Now you mentioned something about repaid funds. How are

Great question.

There you aren't mentioned the use of repaid funds, but I don't

Yeah, absolutely. This is a great question. Is something that comes up every single day. In fact, I just sent a satisfaction of mortgage to the city attorney's office today because in 2021, we gave a property $40,000 to purchase a home through the community development block grant. They could not fulfill the fifteen year term. They had to sell the property. They're moving out of state. So they cut us the check for $40,000 and we draft a satisfaction of mortgage. That money goes back into the pot, and then we can spend it on somebody else that wants to do a down payment assistance program that would meet the CDBG requirements.

All right, so that if they have to repay it within the ten years, that the principal amount comes back to the city?

Correct, and will go back into the fund and get reused in a future program.

Okay, thank you.

I'll move on to, and then come back to me. Alex, do you have any questions or comments, or questions?

Don't have any questions.

Thank Chair

LePlante, real quick, just a couple questions, thanks for coming out. So just to clarify, obviously this whole code section that we're looking at that's new, the entire thing's underlined, which means it's an entirely new section. So you're doing something sort of similar, but not exactly this. And so this is going to be an entirely new program.

Correct.

Okay. Just wanted to sort of make sure that was understood. And then can you explain the one the only other question I had was explain the difference between the city initiated city resolution one versus the partnership development. What are the two things you guys are envisioning and how that's gonna look in practice?

So, I'm going give you an example of a past project that we've done. There was a townhome community called Paloma Lakes. If anybody is familiar with Paloma Lakes, it's on the corner of it's on the Northwest Corner of Wiles And Lyons. When that community was built, the city entered into a public private partnership with Lennar. So we were able to help 21 households, workforce households, with down payment assistance.

Dollars 20,000 was provided by Lennar. 20,000 was provided by the city. So that was like the developer agreement avenue. Now, there could be another avenue where we don't have developer participation, and that would go through resolution. And it would be city funded with the affordable housing trust fund.

So that wouldn't be tied to a specific development. That just would be like money's available, you found a house in that neighborhood right there, and you'd, right? In other words, as opposed to the developer partner, you're actually buying one of the developer's homes, versus the city initiated one is sort of like where you just found something anywhere.

Yes.

Okay, that's what I was trying to understand. That's all the question I had. Thanks.

I get what you're saying. So the AMI right now, is it about like 107,000? Or 80?

I have

a whole

sheet. I thought this question was coming because it's a good question. And I'm like, man, if I didn't know a lot about affordable housing, what is AMI? What are these AMI numbers that you're talking about? This is very give me a second because I used to be a

lot better.

It's scary

in me.

My eyes used to be a lot better. But for Broward County, give me a household size that you'd like to hear. You want to just do one?

Well, I think it's up to four, isn't it?

I have up to 10.

Oh, wow.

Let's do four.

All right. So a household size of four. For a family size of four, for the CDBG SHIP, the 80% AMI is $92,000

Okay.

Now, workforce enables that house to be able to make $138,000

Oh, it's that much?

Yeah. Oh. But household size of four, you're looking at three bedrooms, at minimum three bedrooms. Know, most of our programs, especially with the federal and state programs, it's two That's good, though. You know? There are very young families that come in like, oh, well, we just want a one bedroom. And I'm like, are you sure? Right. You know, we don't do a lot of one bedrooms. It's two and three. And this kind of really opens the door for three bedroom families, you know. And

then also, for the lottery, so there was only eight workforce finances or financing in the last, what, since 2008? It was, right?

Workforce, 21.

Yeah, 21? Okay. So, I was hoping that there'll be more than that. How is this lottery advertised? Like, how are people going to know that it's out there? How do we do it? Do we just do it on our Is it on a co program? Or how do people know to They just would approach the city and say, Do you have any of this type of funding, I you think?

Thought it said in the ordinance, but I'm pretty sure it was advertised in the Sun Sentinel.

Oh, I guess they didn't go down that far.

On the website?

Yeah. That's why I'm

asking And it's done in conjunction with the developer, and they have to establish an entire marketing program.

Right. Right. For the developer. So we're probably more talking

about I down the mean, if it were just the city, I'm sure we would publish notice, and it would be on the website. Right, okay. The goal is always to get as many applicants as you can.

Right, absolutely. Absolutely, I'm a big fan of workforce, for sure. All right. So, is there any other questions at this time for staff? Sure. So,

why would a developer want to do this? I mean, aside from wanting to be good citizens. Is there some financial benefit or some other benefit to a developer to say, I want to do workforce housing as part of my project?

I think it brings in publicity. It addresses a community need. And if it is a multiuse development project, so mixed use, residential and commercial, they would be having to pay money towards the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for the commercial component.

All right. Thank you.

Great. Well, sure,

of course. What defines workforce housing? Does it have to be a new build, or can it be current housing that exists? What's different, I guess, between the housing and the grant program?

It's what defines workforce housing. We're defining it as below 140 AMI.

So, it's the person living there

is Yeah. The income definition. Yeah. The gross total income for the household has to be less than 140 AMI.

So, then existing housing for workforce housing, existing units would qualify for workforce housing as long as the applicant qualified for workforce housing? Okay, thank you.

Question. Okay. So, thank you. I'm going to open the public hearing. It's open. Is there any members of the public that would like to speak on Agenda Item nine?

All right.

All

right. Thank you. The public hearing is now closed.

Thank you.

All

right. Are there any additional comments or questions from the Board? No? Okay. So if not, I'll take a motion and a second, please, on item number nine.

I'll make a motion to approve as submitted, item number nine, the Workforce Housing Initiative.

Second. Seconded.

Great. All right. For item number nine, motion made by Jeff Barfer and seconded by Alex Can the clerk, can you please read the call call the roll? Mr. Grass?

Yes.

Mr. Light? Yes. Mr. Escoriasa?

Yes.

Vice Chair Barker?

Yes.

And Chair LePlante?

Yes. Thank you. Okay, so we're moving on to item number 10. Are there any board members or staff that have correspondence or reports to share for the good of the board? I just want to say that Arbor Day was like amazing.

I know I missed it this year.

I know. I kept track of everyone that was there.

You noticed I wasn't there?

Had to pass me.

Everybody had a wonderful time.

It was a great turnout. Very organized. Lots of nice plants and trees. And people were super happy. All the feedback was amazing. Great job. Thank Thank you. You.

I did go to touch a truck a couple weeks before that. So that counts.

Okay.

All right.

So is that good? All right. So I am going to adjourn the meeting. I guess I'll take a motion to adjourn.

So moved. All in favor.

All right. Meeting adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you.