Historic Preservation Board - Regular Meeting

Like to call to order this meeting of the historic preservation board of the city of Delray Beach, 11/05/2025. May we please call the roll?

Benjamin Baffer is absent. Peter Dwyer?

Here.

Carol Perez? Here. Chris Cabezas? Here. Vlad Dumitrescu? Here. Richard Kasser? Here. John Miller?

Here.

Okay. Any changes to the agenda tonight?

No. Okay.

We get a Oh. Oh. Mistake. Yes. The legal training for the city attorney's office is not on the agenda tonight.

Okay. But we are having the other one?

Yes. Okay.

Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed?

Who seconded?

I seconded. Sorry. Jumped the gun there. My bad. Thanks. We have the minutes. Item four, 10/15/2025. Anybody have any comments or would like to make a motion? I'll make the motion. Second. Motion to approve and a second. Any comments? All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. If any, right now, we're gonna swear in any members of the public who may wanna speak tonight on any of the items or the quasi judicial items. George?

By the authority vested me as the notary of the state of Florida, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to get is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

K. At this point, any members of the public who wanna speak on anything that is not on the agenda the agenda tonight, now is your opportunity. Seeing none, we're gonna move on to quasi judicial items. For that, I'm gonna read the rules. This hearing shall be conducted in accordance with the city of Delray Beach's quasi judicial rules.

The applicant and the city shall be permitted to present their case. The public shall be allowed to speak for three minutes each or for a maximum of six minutes if the person represents an organization or group of people who are present but agree not to speak. The city commission, board members, staff, and the applicant may be allowed to cross examine a witness. The city or the applicant will be allowed to offer rebuttal testimony. The decision to approve or deny an application or appeal may not legally be made upon the personal views as to whether a project is a good project or not, nor may a decision be based on the number of citizens who support or oppose a particular project.

Law requires that all decisions must be made on the basis of whether the project meets the requirements of law, comprehensive plan, and the land development regulations. Regulations. Moving to item a, COA HP one sixty eight twenty twenty five. Is there any ex parte communication on this item? None. No. None? No. K.

I I I went to the site.

Okay. Cool.

Thank you. Michelle Hewitt, senior planner, and I'm reading into the record HP168Dash2025 and HP257Dash2025 for a certificate appropriateness and waiver for the property located at 170 To 176 Southeast 1st Avenue. The applicant is here to present on behalf of the owner.

Mister chair and board members my name is Gary Eliopoulos with GE architecture. Our address is 1045 East Atlantic Avenue. I'm here representing Seaside development and with me today is also mister Tom Lidowney of Seaside should you have any questions for him. You know, one of the things is when you start one of these projects, a lot of times people are assuming that it's just going to be flipped. Know, Liddani told staff all throughout the process we were going to do this project.

We started in '23 designing it, and here we are. You're going to see during the presentation, not only are they almost all done, two are actually ready to be closed out. So we're we're happy that we got to see this through. A little history quick on Tom and I. We we got together in 2000. We did a project called Marina Bay over in the Marina District. He still hasn't changed, and the fact is when we're doing that project, as the shell came up, he kept on saying, I wanna add some more details. I wanna do a little bit more. Back then it was Pat Casey who was our historic preservationist. We brought her up.

She says, I love all the details you're adding. Let's keep going. That's what we're here for today. He's been pushing his shell guys, his trim guys, everything to make these look as close as we can to what we wanna do on the exterior. Now what he's looking at is saying, hey, just wanna add one more little feature. And that's what we're here for today is the signage. The we we we like to think that when you're dealing with let's see here. I'm gonna have to wing it here. Okay. So the site, I heard somebody did drive by the site.

So we are actually in the Southeast corner of the historic district. You know, when you start looking at it, we're looking at this as being almost like framing this entrance. When you see the signage and you're coming along this area, it's a sense of that you're coming into a special place in the downtown historic district of Delray. We also like as far as how this layout is working out. For those who aren't familiar with the project, what happened was we did have five duplexes.

Now to be honest with you, I've never done a duplex in my life. Traditionally, a duplex is four parking spaces and they're front loading. You got to walk by one to get to the next one. This one we thought we tried to create something a little different in that you have all the houses along Southeast first having frontage, and then we took the alley and we actually made those all the frontages. So it's a different way of looking at an alley.

I realize most people like to think of alleys as trash and deliveries. With the sidewalks, the lampposts, everything in the frontages, we'd like to think there's a whole another way of looking at an alley as being a street. One of the things is now you're seeing as far as where our site is, and then you have 143 South Swinton Avenue. It's an architectural firm. Again, we think that when we add our site here, those two kind of balance this whole block.

Granted that is one story structure, ours is two, and although it's not part of the district, across the street are five story condos, but we think these two actually complement the end of the block. Another thing about it is when you look at the signage, I think it's key for part of your criteria is does it change the architecture? Even the architects, you know, they have signage right there in that corner, but down the road if they were to remove it, the architecture doesn't change. What we're talking about today is putting it on a wall. Again, nothing will change the architecture should for some reason this signage change.

Here's a straight on look at it. This is what we call Lot 1. This is Unit a and b. What you're dealing with is a straight on elevation. So we took out the trees so that you'd have a more clear vision of not only the signage but the building. The goal is that the signage should be complementary of the architecture. I think part of your criteria that you look at, it talks about it being garish, it talks about all the things of it being lit. None of those things are here today. We are not lighting this sign up. This is a flat sign pretty much going on the wall.

One of the other things would be is how visible is to be. The fact is we actually put two parking spaces in, so now you're actually seeing a shot taken yesterday. Here's where the signage would be. So a lot of times you're going be dealing with cars there and everything, so this is again not a sign that's in your face. We feel it's being tastefully done and it would actually just be a complementary element to this project.

Well, one thing that did occur, and staff did pick it out when we started coming with the signs, was the wall. That is a wall that has been constructed. What simply happened was this is a partial of our civil I blew up the actual numbers. When you're on the East Side, is 1st Avenue, and then you go to the alley, we have a foot and a half difference in elevation. What the shell contractor did when he was doing the wall, was measuring from the inside and that's where he was going four feet.

Well, in reality, you got to be measuring undisturbedly and it has to be on that outside. The outside as you went across the the site east to west, you have this difference. And it's a it's not a unique difference in the sense or I should say that it is unique in that we're five foot one and five five. Normally, we would probably go to six feet if they're actually trying to make this wall higher, which is typically what you do have. Here's you're looking at this, I'll blow up those elevation marks again.

One of the things that is important is when you're dealing with that wall and or the signage is obviously part of your criteria is safety. There is a little balance here that we basically have splash pools on the right and the left, and those have open fences that go around. One of the criteria you look at is site triangles. We meet all the site triangles, there's clearance, so safety is not an issue. Again, we felt the signage being centered on this building gave it some balance and symmetry. This is just a blow up of these signs. They're very simple letters. Like I said, these are flat. One of the criteria is you can't have your signs project beyond the property line. Ours are literally within the property line, so that will not be an issue.

This is just a little area of our courtyards. You know, one of the things that we are talking to staff about is we realize we are in the downtown area. There is a lot of, I should say, vehicle traffic around this area. There's a lot of pedestrians when, you know, people are going back and forth throughout the night in the downtown area. So in a sense, this wall does help provide a little privacy for these pool areas.

I'm showing these two units because they are at the north end, but it's just these were the original renderings that we presented to the board. I'm showing those because these actually are getting their COs, if you will. They're pretty much done. That's actually a live photo of it, actually representing what we said we were going to do. Here's some of the stuff that we need to talk about.

The LDR section of four point six point seven signs. LDR section 4.67 d two, aesthetic qualifications and findings. You basically start looking at the aesthetics, the qualities of the building, of the entire neighborhood, the material affected by achieving the visual harmony of the sign on or above the structure as it relates to the architecture or buildings or the adjacent surrounding. In addition to the limitations of the signage imposed on the subject E and K, the following aesthetic considerations must be met. So we're talking about the garishness of this, the effect of the lettering, configuration of color and signs shall not be garnished.

The garish signs are those that they're too bright, they're gaudy, they're showy, they're glaring, and they're cheaply brilliant and or involved in excessive ornamentation. The Gersheids are not in harmony with or are not compatible with the buildings or the adjacent surroundings. We believe that what we are proposing are when you're dealing with the scale, design, and location. The signs shall be appropriate in size, scale, and design for the neighborhood or streetscape where it is to be located. Signs placed on the structure shall be proportionate in size and scale to the building, facade, design consistent with the building architecture and positioning in harmony with building features.

Architectural features shall not be provided solely the purpose of accommodating signage, but shall relate to the building location function and use. The quality, all the signs shall have professional appearance and enhance the visual aesthetics of the area. We feel the proposed signs can be considered appropriate in size, scale, design, and for the neighborhood and streetscape, we feel that this is the perfect proposed location for it and it fits within the area. Next is the this would be our wall where you're dealing with the waiver findings. Positive findings can be made with LDR section four point five point one e a one c.

Fences and walls over four feet shall not be allowed in front or in side street setbacks. The findings. A, shall not adversely affect the neighborhood area. B, shall not significantly diminish the provisions of the public facility. C, shall not create an unsafe situation.

D, does not result in the granting of special privilege in the same waiver would be granted under similar circumstances on other properties, other applicants or owners. This project is definitely considered a low scale residential use and the wall should not have any anticipated negative effects on the neighborhood area as O'Shea is a mixed use of zoning district. No impact on historic significant structures within the historic square district or even the public facilities, it's just a wall. The proposed privacy wall is out of the required site triangles and with the vehicle traffic running parallel to the wall, that would not be an issue. As stated before, Oshed is a mixed use of zoning districts and compared to the surrounding areas is considered residential use that actually has grade changes that I've described that actually kind of made it why it is what it is today.

Throughout the project, the low side is on Southeast 1st Avenue and the high side being the site along the West Side Alley. We're hoping that you guys agree with what our presentation is stating. I am happy to answer any questions for you. That concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you.

Once again, Michelle Hewitt, senior planner and this is for a certificate of appropriateness and waiver for 170 To 176 Southeast 1st Avenue. Here on the screen is an aerial with the overall Magnolia Place project outlined in blue and then the subject area where the sign and waiver requests are proposed outlined in red. Some brief history, the subject property was previously known as Lot 1 within the proposed Downtown Duller Villas project, which was a new five lot subdivision plat for the construction of duplexes now known as Magnolia Place and this particular lot has been firmly addressed as 170 To 176 SE 1st Avenue. The subject property has been plotted as Magnolia Place, Delray Lot 1 and is zoned Old School Square Historic Arts District and is located within the locally designated Old School Square Historic District. The subject request is for an after the fact waiver and for a freestanding sign at a non contributing duplex structure.

So I'm gonna go through some photos here. So here we have currently in construction the existing site with a view from the Southeast And then on the left there you can see the subject wall for the waiver and signage outlined in red. Here we have another image here. This is now facing South second and then that existing wall again outlined in red. This is from the front, so you can kind of see it in construction, the east side, the space is 1st Avenue. And then again, small behind that little machinery there is the where the wall is located. And then another fuller image of the the size of the wall, relative to the building in the street.

Here

is measured from the sidewalk, the dimensions of the wall. So here's a rendering that includes the proposed signage on the installed wall. And here are the specs for the signage, including the proposed material and color, which is to be Kendall Charcoal. So in analyzing the requests, we used the EWB Historic Preservation Design Guidelines, specifically the signage section. Within that section, elements such as placing signage so significant architectural details are not obscured and using material that is compatible with the construction of materials of the building were utilized.

Overall, the proposed materials for the signage can be considered compatible with the architectural style and construction materials utilized on the building and wall. Looking at the Secretary of Interior Standards, here is a staff report excerpt. Overall, the duplex structure where the proposed signage is located was designed and approved for residential use in the Anglo Caribbean style inspired by French colonial. Thus the appearance of the signage should utilize characteristics of the historic appearance of the not only of not only the architectural style but represent the residential nature scale of these properties. Again, the proposed signage can be considered appropriate through its design, appearance and material.

Here we have a staff report excerpt for the visual compatibility standards. Along with the scale and appearance of the signage, the proposed color can also be considered compatible as it contains a similar appearance, as the duplexes with the neutral base and contrasting detailing. The architectural style in general utilizes clean detailing and lightweight materials which are reflected in the signage and could be seen as appropriate and compatible. Here we have another staff report excerpt regarding our sign regulations. Again as previously mentioned, the signs can be considered appropriate in size, scale and design for the neighborhood and or streetscape where it is to be located.

So with the overall request, there was a there is a waiver request, to allow the requirement, the four foot maximum height, to be exceeded in this situation. In this particular case, for a range of five foot one to five foot five along the, the wall. So here are the findings for the waiver. Looking at the waiver request, there is no anticipated effect on the neighboring area as this is a mixed use zoning district. The wall could be seen as providing privacy for the low risk of residential uses that are situated at the corner of a fairly busy intersection within close proximity to the downtown.

The proposal also does not impede in the required site visibility triangles as there are fences with higher visibility, proposed within those areas. And then the proposed waiver does not create concern with regard to visual compatibility standards as well as the Secretary of Interior Standards as it is a ground level improvement. Here we have the Secretary of the Interior Standards for Rehabilitation that we use for analysis. And the visual compatibility standards where we specifically used the relationship of materials, textures, colors, and architectural style to analyze the request. And then our certificate of appropriateness findings. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you. Any members of the public wanna comment on this item?

George Law, 46 North Swinton. From my point of view, just looking at it, it seems like it's appropriate to the to the context. It's it's definitely not garish and I could see why you'd like to have a wall maybe a tad higher if you have a pool and stuff like that. But you guys are into all the details here, I'm just saying from a public point of view, if I was driving by, it would look pretty good. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay. Public discussion is closed. Applicant, any cross? No. Okay. Any rebuttal? Cross?

None from staff. Okay. Alright.

We're gonna move into board discussion. Anybody have any thoughts, concerns, comments?

I have some questions for the applicant. Sure. Okay. So I'm just gonna run run through them here. For the sign, and I guess this goes for the wall too, who is since those are fee simple lots, who is going to be tasked with maintaining it?

There'll be an HOA

Okay.

Association for it. Okay.

Is there any in the rendering, it kinda showed loose clusia or, you know, some type of a hedge. Is there is there a landscape plan that shows what's gonna be behind the wall?

Yeah. The I mean, it's already been approved. It's actually being installed. Okay. I that you know, we did our best to just take what was approved Yeah. And then eliminate the trees just for the visibility. Gotcha.

Gotcha. Yeah. Because I I you you know, you pointed out that this is really a gateway into the historic district, and this is the the southern boundary of it. So it's important to, you know, keep it maintained well and, you know, have it look really nice since that's as as more and more development happens south of downtown. Right. And we, you know, encourage walkability through there. Touching on walkability, the lettering, so it's gonna be pretty much flush onto the wall. Is there any sharp edges on the letters knowing that it's right at the sidewalk?

I mean, it is literally gonna be a quarter inch thick.

Okay.

They will literally have it as smooth as possible. But, yeah, I don't I'm not I'm not that's not a concern, I'm glad you're asking it. Yeah. Because we're we're approximately two inches off of the sidewalk property line

Yeah.

And that's where the letters would be. But you'd have to I mean, I guess if somebody really rubbed against it

Yeah.

You know, the kids, know, running their hand along the walls.

I gotcha.

Yep.

And then how is it going to be attached? Is it gonna be screwed in with pins? Is it gonna glued?

It's actually gonna have both. It's gonna be screwed in, but they're from the back. They get screwed in, then they got these receivers, if you will, on those letters. And then he also has a mastic that goes on that, so it's double insulated. Our sign guy is Mark Gregory who a lot of people do know. He's been in Delray and does he was actually I think on this board. He's he's good. Okay. That

that answers my questions. Thank you.

Thank you

very much. Alright. Excuse me.

Since you're here, can I ask Don't

go to

I was just

I'm stretching?

On the It's okay. What's what fund? What what fund do you use?

Oh, you know what? I I I don't know. That would have to go to our graphics department, which was one of my guys in my office. I know. I just think I wish I wish I could just rattle it off, but I'd be lying. Thanks.

That just don't make a modified font that Yeah. A standard font that was modified to remove the

Oh, yeah. No. No. It actually is a font.

Yeah.

A font.

Yeah. Thank you. Yep.

I noticed on one of the slides it was a different font. In your presentation, you had there was a different font when you showed something. The first slide. The first slide. So I just wanna confirm this is what it's gonna

This is it. Yeah. It is definitely the one that's being installed if approved. Let me clarify that.

I have no issue with it. I think it's actually, think it's nice to create a sense of place with names like this. When you're driving, you're like, you know, let's let's go around the corner from Magnolia Place or, you know, it just creates a sense of of place and community. So I I like I like what this is doing. I have no problem with it. I think the placement is fine. The wall height issue, I don't have an issue with that, I think. It still looks like it's, you know, four foot or five foot. You still can sort of see over it at height at at eye level. So I don't think it's that much of a difference. So overall, I'm in support.

Anything? So is this the first time that the projects come with a sign idea? Yes. Yeah. I I really don't have any issues with it. I I think with the the wall height, seeing that it's residential, these residences will need some privacy. Plus you could put a hedge behind it even taller than four foot high anyway. So I I don't I don't feel that that's a bad thing. So I'm in favor.

Thank you.

Pete? Yes. I did have a question about the attachment of the letters and that's been answered. The concern would be vandalism or theft of the letters. It looks like they're gonna be solid. And as far as the wall height, I'm in support. There's a pool over there, two pools. So I'm in support. It looks like it meets the LDRs. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Overall, I I find this much more appropriate than the overall project, which if you were on this board, this board board voted this down, and they got appealed to commission, and then it was approved by commission. So I voted

for approval, though.

Yeah. Alright. So noted.

So But but but, John, if I may, I do want you to know. John brought up a great comment, and we actually heard him and it was he wanted more changes to the designs and everything and we've gone through planning and zoning. I do want you to know at that point, Tom had me redesign them. We did go to the city attorney. We said we're gonna do this and she says you are not going to the commission with that. You have to go back all the way through the process. So I do want you to know we did take note of it but to go through the whole process again it just wasn't

gonna happen.

I get it. Want you

to know.

Yeah. No. My issue with the project itself was the overall size and massing. But for this, I'm in support of it. So anybody has any wants to make a motion?

I I I just have one question for staff. So since this is going to be an HOA and once the project gets turned over to the HOA, let's say future board wants to change the lettering or put a bigger sign or a new sign or do something, that would have to come through you and through staff or it would have to come to staff and then pretty much come in front of us for any modifications to the sign.

Yeah. These are kind of like the sign parameters that are being set for us. So if they modify it we do have some administrative approval authority. But I don't know, Michelle, if you want to add anything. But for the most part, yeah, if they make modifications and if it exceeds the code requirements, what was approved, then they'll have to come back before.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. I'd like to make a motion to approve certificate of appropriateness and waiver HP Dash168Dash2025 and HP Dash257Dash2025 for the property located at 170 Dash 176 Southeast 1st Avenue Old School Square Historic District by finding that the request and approval thereof is consistent with the comprehensive plan and meets the criteria set forth in the land development regulations.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Please call the roll.

Benjamin Baffer is absent. Peter Dwyer? Yes. Carol Perez? Yes. Chris Cabezas? Yes. Vlad Dimitrescu? Yes. Richard Kasser?

Yes. John Miller?

Yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Luck. Alright. We are moving on to legislative items. Anything? No legislative items. K. We do have flood adaption training. And I'm gonna excuse myself. I have

a previous engagement. I just wanted to be here for the vote. And but I will watch Okay. When it comes out on video. Thank you.

Thank you Carol.

We'll test you.

I'm gonna test you.

Let the record note Carol Perez has left the meeting.

Can get with you on the test later.

Only a 100 questions.

Okay. Michelle Hoyland, principal planner for the record. Good evening. Thank you. Hopefully, I can get through this in thirty, forty minutes is my plan. So you'll remember last month we did standard historic preservation training. I'm just going to refresh a few of those items in the beginning of this. But this is the flood adaptation standards training. So we're going to start here by looking at the National Park Services website. Which you can visit or visit our website as well, and we will follow-up after this meeting with an an email with links where you can access this information.

But from the National Park Service, we have the document you can see on the left, which is the secretary of the interiors standards for the treatment of historic properties along with the guidelines for rehabilitation is the one that we use in our code. The city code does require compliance with those standards. The picture in the middle here is the flood adaptation standards. And I'm going to show you what that is, how do we use it. I was joking.

There is no test. Kind of. But we don't expect that you have these memorized. It's more so giving you an introduction of what these are and understanding that this is what staff has to use when we're analyzing and reviewing projects that are in flood prone areas. Also on the National Park services website are other guidelines as well.

So if we had a cultural landscape, there's guidelines for how that's treated. There's sustainability guidelines and and other documents there that help supplements the property owner and the their design professionals. In addition to us as staff and you as a board. And this again is the book that we use all the time. Some former board members called this the Bible.

So just quick refresher. Every project regardless of being in a flood zone or not must be compliant with the standards for rehabilitation which is what you see in blue here. There are 10 standards. Rehabilitation is defined as the after process of making possible compatible use for property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving portions features that convey historical, cultural, or architectural values. And in the book we're gonna have screenshots like this from the flood adaptation adaptation standards, but these next series of screenshots are taken from the this book here.

Okay? So we've discussed before guidelines. Are they really required? They're Well if we think of it in the context of the guidelines are put in place to guide the applicant or the design professional with how to be in compliance with these 10 standards. So this is what you see when you open that book.

You can go through and have sections on windows, metals, siding, wood siding, all different types of materials, and then also approaches. This is a picture, an image, most of my images are taken right from the book, documenting that historic windows can be repaired. Particularly folks say, well, don't they have to be hurricane compliance? And technically we want to see that buildings are built in a way that they're resilient against hurricanes, but there are some exceptions allowed for historic properties per the Florida building code. This is a screenshot showing structural systems.

So the picture in the bottom here is a restoration project taken from the book showing how the corner element was brought back. So partial restoration in addition to rehabilitation. But you can see the recommended not recommended approach. It's not recommended to upgrade a building structure in a manner that diminishes the historic character of the exterior or that damages interior features or spaces. We are not reviewing interiors for historic compliance. We review interiors in relation to zoning use. So is it a residence? Is it commercial? Things like that. The guidelines also cover building sites.

And this is used often. So you'll see this in our staff reports and presentations that we make to you. We're showing you the standards that we may see as a problem. Typically we're showing you the standards that are a problem. There's far too many to say it complies with all of the others.

So we tend to highlight where there could be a problem such as removing a historic building in a complex of buildings or removing a building feature or landscape feature which is important in defining the historic character of the site. That's a not recommended approach. And if it was something that we were concerned with, we would show you this screenshot. This is an example of an incompatible improvement. The picture on the top is the original structure and it's outlined in blue over here or filled in in blue on that site plan.

This is again taken from the secretary of the interior book. The picture on the bottom are structures that were built in front of and around that had a negative effect on that structure's historic aesthetic. Its compatibility with its site, its architecture. The setting and district or the neighborhood is also covered in the big book. And here, another element that we do review are access ramps for handicapped accessibility.

And you can see zoomed in on there, have this picture. The approach can be different for every site. In this instance, the ramp goes down the side of the building rather than coming across the front entrance, which is a really good approach because the front tends to be kind of the holy grail of the structure. It's harder for corner properties to come into compliance. So now this is a screenshot from the National Park Services website specifically for the flood adaptation guidelines.

You'll get a link to this. I don't expect, you know, that you have to go through sifting through the whole site and read everything. What's really helpful on this site is there's an introductory webinar that can help supplement this, the National Park Service did when they introduced these guidelines. So you'll get a link to that. There you can see this image on the right.

There's gonna be a slider. And what this is illustrating is vertical elevation of that structure that occurred following the floods that were happening for this structure. And this is from New York. This is what the website will look like further down the page. You're going to see this, here where you can play this.

We've asked previous boards to also go watch that video. So now we're gonna dive to the Secretary of the Interior Standards on flood adaptation. So the book really talks about specifically flooding. And flooding doesn't just have to be a result of a hurricane. It can be from sea level rise, king tide events, continuing development in flood plain areas.

You know, you think a property exists, then the neighboring properties come in and they elevate making the one in the middle prone to flood. So the goal of the guidelines is to provide information how to adapt buildings to be more resilient to flooding risk. Resilience in this publication means the capacity of historic property withstand and recover from a flooding event. And those guidelines are to be used in conjunction with the big book. So it's a supplemental document.

This is what the table of contents looks like and we 're going to zoom in on this here. The treatment guidelines and flood adaptation. So the different types of flood adaptation that can be utilized for property. In some instances it's a combination of some of these approaches. So we're going to touch on few of these, or all of these. Does anyone know where this is? In Delray? No. This is at the intersection of what Britney?

It's by the intercoastal.

Yes. It's at the intersection of Southeast 7th Avenue

Oh, I recognize that.

And Atlantic. Mhmm. This is post Real

estate office, I think.

Yep. There has been. Yep.

What year was that?

I could not. I was looking for that Probably

fifties. Right? '57. '7.

It was post hurricane according to the title of the photograph. I don't

know '47.

Can see remnants of a car. We'll go

with forties. So this building really looks a lot like this today. It it's shape, form, character is in its existing pattern. And, you know, we and tonight, actually, we are having the hunter full moon, and this is a king tide happening event. And it's going to be the highest we're gonna be the closest to the moon in until 2034. Tonight is a supermoon and a high tide and a king tide. It's gonna be rough for the areas that are really prone to flooding. But flooding in Delray Beach has been ongoing for many decades. This is not a brand new thing. What's brand new is the severity of the flooding.

So these images are from Marine Way. I think I show this last meeting in preparation for tonight. This is an example of a home on Palm Square. Roger did. He's in the audience. This house was vertically elevated. You can see by the brick skirt pattern around the base in response to the FEMA maps. The FEMA maps changed and increased the finish floor elevation requirements for structures to seven feet back in 2017. This past December, so almost a year ago, the maps changed again. So in a matter of it we knew it was was coming.

There were lawsuits pending with the county and FEMA and different things. But the map changed again. So in this area, this home is now required a nine foot finish floor floor elevation. And that is eight feet for the FEMA and one foot for the Florida building code. So nine feet where these homes typically sit around four four feet.

Just a reminder, this area wasn't removed in response to flood adaptation, but I put it here because it's a reminder that our historic district for Marina used to be much larger, and the South end of the district was removed in the late two thousand eight time period, for the incompatible construction that happened, mostly these larger, mansion style homes along the Intracoastal. So there's all kinds of threats that come for historic preservation. Flood risk is one, but something we should be cautious with. Does anyone know what this is?

Yes. Mhmm. Yeah? Rudolph?

Yep. So this is our only Paul Rudolph home in Delray Beach. If you're interested, Paul Rudolph Foundation has a really neat website with a lot of his work. This home went through some alteration. You'll remember John's kind of remembering this, I think.

He's treating it lately.

I'm trying to be respectful. Yes. There were alterations that happened to this home, not because this home was at risk for flood, right, because it's sitting up so high, but the rehabilitation that the board approved allowed for the Ground Floor to be utilized for habitable floor space, and the home ended up being elevated where it was approved for a variance not to be. But this is in a flood prone area. I do think the finished product we have toward inside of it, it's pretty nice.

It is different than what he had originally designed. But this there was some challenges for this site as well. There was an ask to fill the site. There's limitations on how much fill you can bring into a site. So that's one of our important properties. Paul Rudolph, notable architect. He's not just a Delray, Florida architect. He's a world renowned architect. So we're pretty proud to have one of his structures. Here you can see a home that obviously has had some damage to its, you know, foundation around the exterior of the home.

Wood is is taking a a hit here. This is, I think, also from the Paul Rudolph house maybe. But again, you can see deterioration happening as a result of flood events. So in the city code, when a project is in a flood flood prone area, we are aware immediately, and educate our property owners and explain to them how height is measured. So this is from our code here.

The height of the all structures in the city that aren't in a special flood hazard area utilize the image on the left. The city amended its code several years ago to allow some level of free boarding. And I'll explain what free boarding is in a in a moment here, but the city allows a 12 inch max additional free boarding. The homes that are in the flood zone, the special flood hazard area, have to utilize the image on the right. So they aren't measuring their finished floor elevation to be 18 inches above crown of road.

That's everything else. In the flood hazard area, the base flood elevation is really essentially the starting point. Then you go 12 inches above that for the Florida building code. Then you can have 12 more inches of freeboard. And that's where your lowest horizontal structural member occurs or your your finished floor elevation. And then you start measuring height from that point. So that was a bit of a shift that, you know, it's had to be navigated for homeowners and their designers. Pardon me.

What's that little piece that comes up like a little chimney?

So if the home was a flat roof structure or the building was a flat roof structure, that's illustrating where the measurement for height would go. So you measure to the top below the because for a pitched roof, the mean height is taken from the peak down to the edge about where your fascia is. You take those two numbers, divide by two, and whatever is the mean is what your max roof height is. But if you're a flat deck house, which you know we've had a lot of those coming in lately or mission style structure with a flat roof, we measure to the top of the flat roof, not to the parapet.

So you're saying the parapet could extend higher?

Yes. Okay. Yeah. So these are some definitions should you have, you know, had questions. But another important change that happened in 2017 was we used to measure by NGVD, North Geodetic Vertical Datum, and that was from 1929.

Now we measure North American vertical datum, 1988, which is a slightly different. It's about, I think, one and three quarters foot difference between those two. But the now across the nation is is NAVD. These are nuance things that not all of you are going to know, but it's something we have to know in how we're, you know, reviewing a project. But this is why there are so many drawings sometimes that come before you with section drawings and, you know, architectural elevations because we're making sure and we're studying that that structure is being placed in in the correct location so that it can be resilient to flood.

So why is FEMA using that change with NABD and it's more accurate for surveying practicing practices and GPS. What's freeboard? The allowance for additional height in the base building elevation is essentially what freeboard is. Some people, and you have seen projects where they have a lot more freeboard, and essentially that can affect the overall height of the building. So the more you freeboard, the shorter the building gets.

But it's can be a benefit to some property owners because you can get an increase in your insurance premium if you go higher than the minimum requirement. This is a photograph taken from the the flood adaptation guidelines. This is not local. This is Virginia. But this is a problem occurring across the country, especially with our historic properties because of the time frame that they were built. Requirements were a lot different. We weren't looking at base flood elevations one

hundred and

fifty, two hundred years ago. So it's just a little Venn diagram for you. You can see here there's a lot to a lot of challenges and a lot to manage. The priority is reducing that flood risk. And how do you do that while you're maintaining historic character and also keeping something feasible and affordable?

So an important note I took here from the book, treatments that might not be considered in other rehabilitation contexts can be considered for flood prone property. And that's because you want to adapt that building for long term viability. We definitely this is not again local. We definitely see this though. Where flooding can affect an interior and interior finishes.

That doesn't necessarily mean an interior has to be gutted and thrown away. Wood can be dried out, especially if it's character defining features that might be important to the interior. But, again, we aren't reviewing interiors. That's something we've thought about doing. It's just not required in our code.

Alright, so now we're gonna jump in here. The first step is always planning an assessment. Who can tell me what street this is?

Marine Way.

It's Marine Way. This is an old postcard. The bridge has evolved over time and the bridge, the Atlantic Avenue Bridge, actually is designated as a historic site. I meant to put an older picture in black and white that where it was a wood frame bridge. But it's increased in its size over the years. So the planning and assessment for flood risk reduction is in the book and it should be completed for all projects. The applicant really should be coming forward and and identifying what is their plan for flood risk. A lot of times they they say, we're in a flood zone. We wanna elevate. Well, not every house has to elevate.

So there are things that need to be looked at. How frequently is the flooding happening? We know Marine Way is flooding all the time, and that's a high risk street. But perhaps a street away or two streets away may not be as high of a risk. And do they actually need to elevate structure?

There are variances allowed per the FEMA requirements. And there's other approaches that can be taken to ensure that a historic structure maintains its historic integrity. Planning and flood risk and assessments, there's a checklist obviously here that has to be looked at by the applicants. But we advise to always select the adaptive treatment that minimizes the impact to the historic character and appearance of that character on the district. So if you opened up the book, and I do have it and wanna show this to you here.

If you open this book and scrolled, some of these pictures you're going to see, and you get into each section, here's again where we have the recommended and not recommended approach. So the format is the same as the bible. And you can go for every approach here and look at what's recommended and what's not recommended. So these are great guides, for our design professionals and property owners to utilize. And here, we have temporary protective measures.

Right now on Marine Way, there's a large project planned capital improvement project. But in the interim, there's other methods that are being utilized, including, like, giant bladders that get put out to kind of keep the seawater away. Sandbags in this instance, the Paramount theater in Cedar Rapids here has some sandbagging and other things that they're doing for temporary waterproofing of the the building of their interior and exterior. Again, I don't know if anybody saw was it during the North Carolina floods? Maybe there was somewhere in Central US where somebody created, like you remember seeing this?

They It's a so cased there. They encased, yeah, with flood I don't know what they're called either. And everything around the property flooded, but the property itself stayed dry. So there's all types of measures, flood gates and trenches, exfiltration trenches, and different approaches that can be taken around a property. This again is looking at Marine Way from the east.

This is an older picture, I believe, from the fifties or sixties where the seawall was lower than. Now we have the project coming in, and it's in progress to make that street more resilient to flood flood events. So this is more about site and landscape adaptation. So you can do it for city owned properties, rights of way, and individually owned properties. You can see here they have flood walls.

That's the name flood wall. There are some pumps and berms, and all of this is guided to not damaging the home or even the landscape, which is historically important. Utilities. So when a renovation project comes through, rehabilitation, and say they're elevating that structure and they've got to go to a nine foot finish floor elevation, well, the AC units can't stay on the ground. They have to come up to generators, hot water heaters, any kind of utility that might occur, your FPL meter on the side of the house, all of that needs to be brought up and out of that flood zone.

Is that for if your house is at, let's say, four feet and you wanna bring a generator, can you can it be at the same level as a house or now it has to raise for all new projects?

If your FEMA finished floor elevation, FEMA and Florida building code elevation is nine and you're sitting at four, you're really supposed to put those elements at nine. I don't know if the only thing you're doing is replacing your air conditioning that they're going to require that. There's a substantial improvement to building code in FEMA that triggers that for the whole house. If somebody was coming in and renovating and not really doing a whole lot, but their renovation bottom line contract that they submit with their GC to the city is more than 50% of the value of the house, the house has to be elevated. Brought up the code.

Yes. Or if it's historic, they can come to this board and seek relief. Go ahead.

Yeah. I had a recent issue with the generator on a new house where the finished floor on the house, I think was at eight. It was permitted before the latest change. And the generator permit to get a final, they came out and wanted the generator a foot and a half higher than we had set the generator. It was actually at the finish floor. They wanted it up. You would see it in the window of the kitchen, I mean from the side window. So we fought and fought and fought and we got them to accept

it the way it was. At eight. Yeah.

But it was a challenge. It didn't seem to make sense because the generator was actually at the finished floor level. Was this Delray or Well, it's through the county permitting, but it's a Delray pocket off of federal.

We definitely like unincorporated.

Yeah. It's a Tradewinds neighborhood near Walmart.

We definitely have seen that from our perspective in talking colleagues from other jurisdictions, not everybody is interpreting the code exactly the same way. So there are some differences happening amongst jurisdictions. And we are trying to communicate with our neighbors and partners on how they're doing things so there can be consistency for people like yourself.

Yeah. It was we thought we were gonna have to bring a crane in, modify the pad for the generator. It would have been worth just And 5,000 to modify then

they sit on stands.

Yeah. We had a a huge concrete pad. We were gonna build a metal stand to go on top of that. And then we'd have to engage the electrician, the gas company.

And all of that has to meet hurricane wind load requirements as

Yes. Yes.

Yeah. So So it's it's a lot of coordination. It it's interesting. I think our team along with Madison Brown, who is an employee at a at in the department, we see the most of this. So we've got a quick education on this over the last five or six years.

So there's also dry flood proofing. There it's important that, let's say, a project along Marine Way, I'm not going to call out any particular project, but let's say they want to keep their garage down at grade level. They can do that because the garage is non habitable space. You don't live in the garage. But they have to have flood vents in the garage. So should it flood, the water can flow out. Again, some more screenshots of recommended and not recommended approaches. There's also wet flood proofing. We see this less, and the dry flood proofing, we're not seeing these. They're not the most common approaches that we're seeing here.

But again, you know, should you wish to utilize that approach, you can. We really don't have many structures with basements. I don't wanna say none because I know of some. In fact, there is a structure on Swinton I know that has a basement, not Sunday Village's garage, but a little house. It's a very small storage room.

So in some instances, the approach may be more in the Midwest or the Northeast might be to fill the basement. That can be important because a lot of times your utilities are in the basement. Alright. So here the images on the bottom. So I've got a series of these where I'm going to ask you, tell me, is this thumbs up or thumbs down?

And

this is not it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. It's just like looking at it. Quick look. The pictures on the bottom. You can see the image on the right. The house has been elevated. You can tell that by its steps. There's some terracing and landscaping around it. And the picture on the left is where it originally sat. Would you think this is an appropriate alteration? I think so. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. Thumbs up.

Here's another example of what happens when a house is being lifted. Here you can see, okay, it's done. Well how did that happen? How did the vertical relocation happen? And here you can see where sometimes it's a jacking system that's involved. Masonry houses are much, much harder to move than wood frame houses. I'll talk a little bit about what we've been seeing with the masonry houses. You've had a few projects. But on the left you can see the top picture is it's existing. The middle picture is a four foot increase, and the bottom picture is an eight foot increase.

So you can see just how much that can impact a historic structure. Structure. What do you guys think about this? Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Down. Love it.

It's actually a thumbs up. The main reason why it's a thumbs up, well, it probably would have a lot less of a visual impact if there were plants planted in front. Right? But technically, what's important here is those vertical columns are still in their historic place. Mhmm. The use of brick is appropriate regionally for this home in Louisiana. And then they've used, like, a trellis type feature around the bottom. Are those garage doors? No. They're they're just like a trellis.

Okay. That's what I thought. Lattice. Yeah. Should that have been a garage, that really would have been a concern where you wouldn't want that on the front elevation if it was never there.

That's what I thought.

Yeah. That one stumped me too because I immediately thought, no. But you can see here the prop this property in Mandeville, Louisiana is an area of high flood risk and was elevated by an additional six feet. This necessitated new stair and piers. In this case, original tapered porch columns were retained and new brick piers were installed below.

The new stairs are in their original location orientation. The new porch balustrade emphasizes this porch level, while dark colored lattice encloses the utility area below and helps to visually tie the building to the ground without it appearing like an additional story has been added to this one story building. It could go a long way to put some hedging in front of there. This is the when you go to that website, remember I showed you that slider bar in the very beginning of the presentation? This is that house. What do you think? Thumbs up or thumbs down?

I think it was a thumbs up.

Yeah. That's a thumbs up. There were obviously, they've used some landscape treatments as well in this case, but the increase was fairly minimal. The stairs are in the same general location. The doors and windows are in the same location. So, yeah, that's a thumbs up. What about this?

Was the garage added?

Yeah. I would say it.

No. Somebody need to see it before? No. This is the after.

The steps look excessive from the driveway. I'd say thumbs down.

This is thumbs up. Really?

Yeah. Get your exercise.

What's interesting with this is they left the garage at its existing finish floor elevation. The floor above the garage meets the requirements for for the the flood zone. But the main part of the house had to come up. So it was a partial raise that happened here. And they utilized terrace and planters to make that happen. Mhmm. What do you think about all these? And the one on the left top is the house on the bottom.

Oh, I see.

And the one on the top right is part of the house on the bottom.

And I'm feeling like a thumbs down.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is thumbs down. The big concern with the house on the left is there is now a parking area under the house. Visual visible from the street where it never existed before. That doesn't mean you can't necessarily have parking under the house. It's just you don't want to see that parking on the front elevation. So you want to do what you can to obscure that in some way. The one on the right, I'm sorry, those are two different. But the top right did not have that entire porch in the front, and really detracts from the front of that house. That should have been a different approach. The one on the bottom right looks like an entire story has been added under the house.

So that really they weren't mitigating the impact on the historic structures. What do you think here?

That's a thumbs Yeah.

Because they

changed the windows.

It's completely different.

It's a thumbs down. This one has been altered to the extent where it's lost its historic character integrity. So another thing, this is what we've been seeing some of is elevating the interior structure. In Florida, our historic structures tend to have lower ceiling heights. They don't have your big sky in ten, eleven foot ceiling heights where you could mitigate some of that, you know, to bring your ceiling height to eight feet. And predominantly residential, you know, not necessarily so much commercial. We don't see it that much. But a limitation is that floor to ceiling height. That is a struggle. So what we've seen in some of these structures is where they're taking the roof off.

You remember we've had a lot of discussion about stabilizing walls so that buildings don't fall in on themselves. And then there's also a shifting of windows up on the structure because the foundation is being poured higher inside. This is where we see masonry structures really come in. But there's very specific considerations that should be done. So this is a storefront here where you can see on this is the same picture, but on the left, you can kinda see an increase in height on the interior. What do you think? Thumbs up or thumbs down? So it's a thumbs up.

Other than the safety,

it's a thumbs up. Yeah.

It's a thumbs up because they're mitigating the change to the elevation of the building on the interior and not having an effect on it on the exterior. In this case it's a commercial space with high ceilings and that was able to be done. In some instances, if you have multistory buildings, you can completely abandon the 1st Floor. And what typically happens with that might be parking. So here we can see the historic picture of this building upper left, the after bottom right. You can see on the left here, there's openings with some parking spaces. What do you think?

I think that's good. And they could add interior drainage and all kinds of things to

Thumbs up.

Work. Thumbs up.

Yeah. The main consideration why this is a thumbs up isn't just because of the practical application, but they retained openings. So while those openings might have had windows and doors in them at one point in time and they don't now, they're still there. The evidence of what that building looked like are is still there. This is what we see the most.

And when you read through the regulations, the moving is is more thought about in this way. Mhmm. Moving a structure across the city. But what we are seeing is vertical elevation and shifting on-site a little bit. So we aren't really seeing buildings moving across town. We're seeing them elevating in place. But you can see this picture on the right. It's kinda funny. Right?

What's happening there?

Is that the new home or the old home from the building?

That is the old home that's been elevated.

It's been elevated since from the bottom.

It's an extreme example. That is Advertised as the greatest house moving feet ever accomplished. But we've seen both of these images on the left that happening happening here. We've had houses moved up and down the Intracoastal, not necessarily for flood resilience, but just that homes have been moved and across town. We talked to people on occasion about wanting to save homes. We had a home a homeowner hey, Ben. Let the record show Ben is here.

Just for the training.

Yeah. We've had a homeowner or property owner who has a lot and they're looking for a historic structure, and they had one picked out on the East side of the Intracoastal. And we were kinda talking with them how that would happen. And they thought they were gonna bring the house across the bridge. And I said, I doubt that's gonna be feasible.

You're probably gonna have to find an entrance spot to put the house in the water from the east side of the intercoastal and float it over to the park, Knowles Park down on 10th And Federal's where we tend to see them come in. I don't think they were able to get that figured out. Considerations that have to be thought about in the move are features that could fall apart or be at risk, such as in this case, a chimney. Later additions, sometimes buildings get pulled apart then put back together. We we do see that.

So here's another thumbs up, thumbs down. Any anyone? What do you guys think? Was this good? Or you can see it the lighthouse and the two structures were all

moved. Yeah.

It's a thumbs up. Yeah. Mainly because they The

batteries that kept the configuration.

Yes. That's right. Because they kept the proportion of those structures in the distance from the old site to the new site. I thought Katharina would love this because she's a huge lighthouse fan.

Mhmm. That's the second

one I know that I moved.

Yeah. The other one

is in Fall Beach.

Where? Rhode Island?

Mhmm. And it's on the National Register.

Yeah. Mhmm. It's amazing to think a structure like that could be moved.

Yeah.

To the airport. It's the missile launcher. Moved it twice, I think.

That's interesting. That's cool. For those of you who don't know, George has archaeology backgrounds.

And Well, did a survey

at the actual cave. Oh, that's

cool. Sixties. Piece.

It's pretty cool, I think. This is Miles Vanderhoe home that they've been studying. I've been to a presentation that included an expanded look at what they're trying to do here with this structure. But they're looking at all kinds of approaches. These are other treatments that are kind of like in study. Right? They're I don't think they've actually done this, but this structure always flooding. And it this was introduction of a hydraulic lift system. So they've had all kinds of really cool ideas coming up with what can they do. Can they float it?

Which is on this next slide. Unconventional adaptations can include some buoyant foundations. So it's I think really interesting part of the architectural engineering field. If that kind of stuff geeks you out, you can research a lot of this online.

So the house floats when it floods?

Yep. An approach that's being studied. Wow. Amphibious architecture. These are some other site based improvements where you can see the image on the upper left had like a series of retention areas to allow flood control to be handled underneath the street.

And then was incorporated into a kind of creek waterway where overflow could happen. And here locally, this is you've seen this image before. This is what's happening on Marine Way where we're increasing the height of the seawall. We have generators down there and lift stations to pump water. Everyone seems to think that we flood when it rains really hard, but we are experiencing dry flooding in Delray Beach, on the east and west side of the Intracoastal.

And it's I think it's really very interesting to go see how these work. There's a pump station just Sea Breeze. This is where the Paul Rudolph home is. So just south of that home, there's an East West Street that dead ends into a pump station. And you can see it from the east side of the intercoastal when the water's pumping out. If you were to go and drive one of those streets and look down in the drains, you can see the water actually rising, and the pump is pulling it out, and it's it's low. It's just really very interesting to me what the city is doing to try to protect property owners from flooding.

Are those automatic? Like, They're so certain level in the sewage in the storm water drains, and then it turns on and pumps it out?

That is how they're supposed to operate. Yeah. And I don't say that because they don't operate that way. But this has been the investment by the city to ensure they operate that way. This is the least desirable approach, demolition.

If a structure has really gotten to the point where it needs concerns to be looked at as well. Because homeowners really should be reacting. Property owners shouldn't be leaving property to continually decay. And the worst case scenario, I think, would be trying to move a structure, not moving towards demolition. So this is I think I have two of these. Maybe one or two of these. This is a case study. So this was a Hurricane Katrina damaged home. And what you can see on the upper left and bottom left are post storm. The wraparound porch that existed is completely gone in those images.

And so the image on the right incorporated vertical elevation and bringing back that that really large front porch, I think wraps around the side. Alright. That was my only example. So as a reminder, we have 45 listings on the local register in Delray Beach. Five of those are historic districts.

40 of them are sites and structures that encompasses about 600 properties in in whether they're in the district, historic, non historic, or non contributing. We have a national register of historic places to our districts. This is pretty big deal. And we're constantly trying to encourage property owners to utilize the federal tax incentive program that exists for income producing properties. It's quite, can be quite lucrative.

20% tax deduction over the course of five years off of your income taxes for what you've spent on a qualified project. So we have seven listings, two are districts. Just a reminder, I know I covered this last time. The comprehensive plan elements for those who haven't gone and looked at it provides a really nice framework on long term goals, goals, the requirements for this board to continue to ensure compatible design through your decisions. And then there's also a great history in there that was put together by the Zion Study Circle in 2004.

That history I feel feel is very important because it was a history that brought together the black and white communities and incorporated histories that were somewhat different for each of those groups. So the secretary of the interior standards that we've covered, the bible, the big book, this is is Department of Interior regulation. So if you wanted to go look this up, I I thought you might want that code, and you could. Also, as a reminder for certified local government, which we are as a city, it's really important that the board be making defensible decisions on projects that they are in compliance with our code, secretary of the interior, the local historic preservation design guidelines. We do provide a report.

Michelle Hewitt just completed that report and sent it off to the state of Florida of all actions that have occurred in the year, who our board members are, what your qualifications are, your resumes, your backgrounds, all kinds of data we're sharing with the state. It's really important that we continue to maintain that CLG status because it does qualify us apply for grants. We could apply for a total of a 100,000 per year non match required. And also my almost parting thought is that preservation is sustainability. Carl Elefante is referenced in our comp plan who stated that the building that already exists is the greenest building.

And that consideration is the materials old old growth wood. Right? That we don't see that anymore. Those are in our historic buildings. The man hours that went into constructing that structure.

Demolition doesn't get rid of a building. It essentially moves that material from this site to a landfill. So we really try to inspire and encourage property owners to preserve as a method or means of sustainability, which eventually is going to have a good goal for the planet to reduce our overall heat, and in effect full circle. Maybe we can try to do something better with what we're doing and reduce our sea level rise, our impact on that. Delrybeachfl.gov/historic.

You can go to our website navigation panes on the left and where my mouse is hovering here is where you would click to get to all of these documents. HP regulations and maps. So there's icons here, the top four what we use daily, and the one with the little raindrops here, that's the flood adaptation guidelines. Should you wanna go look at those, and you can go back and watch this video if you wanna recover what we've talked about. And like I stopped our last meeting, this is Saint Patrick's Day parade back when it was okay to dye pigs green.

The Powers family always hosted grand marshaled our parade. So thank you. Thank you for your commitment to our board and for listening to my presentation. If you have questions, I'm

Thank you. Very well done.

Available. Thank you. Yeah.

That was great.

Thanks. Any questions?

There was a test.

I said a little bit. Thumbs up, thumbs down.

That's fine.

Yeah. I have

a question. I'm curious about

Go ahead. Yeah. Could you use your mic?

I walk I walk in the morning at the beach, you know, the

public beach.

Yeah. And

I what they build there is beach. I'm not sure if familiar with that.

That's like a retaining wall?

It's like a retaining wall. I'm assuming it's part of a seawall system. But my question is how you close the gaps between the system in place, the sandbags,

or what

was what was the idea? If it is a seagull.

The North Of Atlantic.

Mhmm. Yeah. Like the Yeah.

That's been their

Republic Beach.

Yeah. They have They raised it a little bit when

they did Yeah. They added they added another don't think

it's water retention.

No. Just for for feature Well, to sit on

interesting too.

It's long. It's all along the that's all almost the whole portion of it.

Yeah. It's definitely north. The entire area north of Yeah, the public beach. Almost all North Of Atlantic. But interesting because we've had some projects on the Barrier Island.

They're high over there. So their challenges are somewhat different when it comes to construction. So they're most of the homes that are on the ridge and things like that, buildings on the ridge, aren't really They're dealing with other issues, but that doesn't mean that they won't flood during, you know, high tide hurricane events happening. But they're much higher. Now our folks that are sitting right behind who happen to live on Nassau Street, as they know, the ridge drops off pretty quickly.

And the west, almost all of the West side of Nassau Street floods. And they're they're in You'll remember Roy Simon came in with the Denkler project, and they had to elevate that structure. But I don't think those retaining walls were put in place to prevent storm surge or something like that.

I have a picture of my dad sitting on that seawall fishing.

He used to be able

to sit on that seawall and fish right into the water because the beach had been so eroded. It almost went straight down.

On the sidewalk.

Yeah. Yeah. Straight on the sidewalk. Yeah. It was the beach was literally right there in the early seventies.

Well, they did it in San Agustin. They did a whole enormous raising of the walls or huge portion of the story.

So I I got a question of so Marina, for example, we know it's an issue. They raised it to seven feet. Now they raised it to eight feet, and it's nine feet, I guess, in some areas over there. What is the long term strategy of the city? To abandon that area, to raise the in like, not raise, but elevate the entire if you elevate all the houses, then you got the streets. Are you gonna elevate the streets? You Are gonna elevate the infrastructure? There's gotta be some type of fifty, seventy five year plan for that area, I would assume.

So I think that's more a question for public works. I don't know the answer to that.

It's a good question.

We have been to some conferences and hearing other cities like Savannah and Miami talking about what they wanna do. There's been discussion about raising roads. But when you raise roads and you don't raise buildings, then the buildings

are It's all gonna go together.

Susceptible. So you can't force property owners to raise.

Or is it abandoned at some point?

Right. If you go back, if you you know, there's a section in the book is where I'm going with this that you can read about that because there can be instances where properties are purchased. And, you know, I'm not suggesting that that's happening. But that can be an approach where Well, it's happened plenty

of places like along the Mississippi where people built in flood plains and Mhmm. They flood two, three, four times and finally, it's the municipalities buy them out of the state or

whatever.

It can happen. Yeah. I don't know what Delray's plan is or the long term look on that. I think the hope from a historic preservation perspective is to see all of the homes vertically elevated so that they are gonna be there for longer. Now the the FEMA nine foot, that's supposed to take us pretty far.

I don't think these homes are flooding to where they're, you know, having a high water mark of seven feet on their house. But Saint Augustine, you know, has they had requested a grant from the state of Florida to study. And they had some storms and they had started doing high water marks. I didn't put a picture of that in here, but in this book there are some pictures of that, where it puts the mark, the year, what the event was on buildings. And Saint Augustine has been very susceptible.

So they're they've worked to create a plan, like what John is saying. We have a long term project that we would really love to do that studied that here. What is our high watermark? Can we start having poles in place that we mark our our highest of highs and then come up with a resiliency plan and a way to support property owners?

Well, if if you ever have and hopefully, it'll never happen, but the an unholy trinity of a storm to the south of us that creates a hard onshore flow, a high tide, and a king tie and a, you know

King tide.

King tide in October, November.

Full moon.

I mean, you know, there's dry street flooding over here or, Clearwater. It's flooding now

Mhmm.

All the time. And Boynton, my brother lives in Boynton on the Intercoastal, and it comes up half his road. That's normal. Yeah. And so if you ever have three, four, or five feet on top of that, it's, you know

It's devastating.

It's this this area is gonna be hurting.

I have a the last storm where I live, the first year we moved in, hurricane Irene came through. I don't even think we had all our boxes unpacked yet when we moved in. So this is 1999. And that is the last time we saw the water as high as it was, and that was truly deemed a 100 storm. My neighbors to the east of me got water in the house.

The water came up to, like, my driveway within a foot of my fireplace on the front of the front elevation. Never really came in the house. We never had any wet seep or anything like that, but I've not seen it like that since. And right where our house is, there's, like, a natural swale through the neighborhood, and that's why there's three flood vents, you know, flood gates right around our drain drain gates. But we haven't seen it as bad as that. And that was, you know, we're almost thirty years ago, twenty five years ago. So I don't know for all of you, are you in where you live, are you close to water bodies where you might have

I'm out west.

Yeah. There's a there's a house in the basement. We're in the higher portion of Seacrest. Mhmm. You know, I guess it's Coral Ridge.

You're on the ridge.

Just bring this up. You know, there's an x zone. Right? Yes. But I was told that that actually doesn't mean much. It means that they don't have information about it. You know? It it happens to be elevated. I agree. That, I can tell.

I haven't heard that.

Yeah. I don't know if that's true or not. Like, when they call it x

Means there's it's not in a flood zone.

Yeah. Well, yeah. But that's also mean

that there's no We do not we don't need flood insurance.

So that's an interesting topic. Yeah. Just changed for us. We're with Citizens for our windstorm. And as of January 2025, if your home replacement is more than $400,000, Citizens is requiring flood insurance. So we weren't in a flood zone, but after the ninety nine years nineteen ninety nine storm, we got flood, had it for years. The maps changed in '17. We were not even close to the flood zone. So we dropped the flood insurance and now we just got the notice and I had to purchase flood insurance. Citizens required it.

Yeah. I buy it because it's it's affordable. I mean, it's less than a thousand dollars for the whole year, and I'm not in a flood zone. So I recommend that Yeah. It's a good thing to have.

Yeah. Michelle? Watch your policy.

Was gonna say that Pete can relate to this, but right now, we're in king tide.

That we just talked about that. Yeah.

So this morning when I left for work, I will tell you the water was coming out of the storm drains.

Right. Oh, on Seagate? On Seagate Drive.

Because at that point in time, the elevation of Seagate Drive is lower than the elevation that it across the waterway.

So I don't know if you were here. You might have walked in right after that, but I had said this full moon, this hunter moon that's happening tonight, today and tonight, is the moon is the closest to Earth that it's going to be until 2034. So they're expecting severe dry flooding events to happen. And if it rains anywhere, it's going to be even worse.

Yeah. I mean, we've got check valves in the storm drains that they're not supposed to flow back, but you get, like, some leaves or sticks or something like that get in the

The drain.

In the drains, and then the water's coming from and, you know, it's coming from the intercoastal because everyone's soils the grass dives because it's brackish water

and salt water. Do you

call the city?

The city's city knows about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Look at look

what happened to Boca Hotel a couple weeks ago.

Oh my goodness.

Those pictures were amazing.

Yeah. It's crazy. Crazy.

Anything else?

No. I don't think so. Any other reports or

So our next meeting is scheduled for December. Okay. We don't have anything right yet. So if something comes in in the next few weeks that's minor, it will go on, but it's possible we may not have that meeting. But if we do end up having one item and possibly the legal training, it would probably be around the same time frame as tonight.

Any board member comments? Oh, I know what I wanted to say

too before we you almost adjourned. Before you adjourn.

It's close. We

went to Pompeii Park a couple of weeks ago? Two weeks ago Two weeks ago. Week week ago and participated in burning conversations with deputy vice mayor Burns, I think, and talked about the Frog Alley project. So that that's we're working. It's getting close to the point where we would be coming forward, but we're starting to have community meetings first given the nature of the project.

For those who don't know, Frog Alley is in the Southwest neighborhood, so South Of Atlantic, West Of Swinton, predominantly black neighborhood, four square block area that was settled by Bahamians. So we had a nice opportunity and appreciated her inviting us out to talk with members of the community. Great. Yeah. Great.

And I see the golf course is starting soon, so that's great. Yeah. Alright. If nobody has anything else, meeting adjourned. Thank

you. Thank you. Thank you.