City Council - Regular Meeting

Shit.

That's up to you, mister mayor.

Alright. Whatever

you decide. Okay. Call to order? I call to order this city council meeting of 03/02/2026. Roll call.

Mayor DePue? Present.

Councilwoman Gillis? Here. Councilwoman Thomas? Here. Councilwoman Dalbo? Here. Councilman Rainbird?

Here.

City city manager Mahoney? Present. City attorney

Rollins. Rollins.

I'm so sorry.

No worries. Yeah. There's a couple of us.

To the city clerk Tupin present.

Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence. Okay. Item two, approval, changes or modifications to the agenda. Mister Manager, is there any at this time?

There is not, mister mayor.

Item three, approval of the minutes, seeing none at this time. Item four, presentation of proclamation plaque certificates and or donations for a proclamation Irish heritage month. Whereas by 1776, nearly 300,000 Irish nationals had immigrated to The United States American colonies and played a crucial role in America's war for independence, and five singers of the Declaration of Independence were Irish. Disset and three singers were Irish born. Irish Americans helped to fascinate a system of government for our young nation.

22 presidents have proudly proclaimed their Irish American heritage. Whereas in '19 in 1792, Irish born James Rueben by architectural plans for the White House and served as one of the supervising architects for the construction of the capital. An Irish born Commodore John Barry was recognized by the United States Congress of September 2002 as the first flag officer of the United States Navy, whereas Commodore John Barry fought in the last sea battle of the American Revolution off the coast of Florida. And in 1813, captain Oliver Petty, an Irish American, achieved a major naval victory in the Battle of Lake Erie. Whereas in 1942, the five Sullivan's brothers had made ultimate sacrifice for democracy and freedom during the naval battle of Goddard Danner Canal and later destroyer of USS civilian commissioned in their memory.

And whereas the Irish first came to Spanish in Florida in the fifteen hundreds, first missionaries and soldiers, and then as planters, traders, businessmen, doctors, and administrators. And three of the Spanish governors of Florida were actually Irish military officers. And whereas FR Richard Arthur, an Irish born priest from Lemurich, was appointed parish priest for Saint Augustine in 1597. An escalated judge of Florida established the first public school in America and opened it to both boys and girls of all races. Whereas Andrew Jackson, whose family came from a county in Reno, served as Florida military governor following its acquittal by The United States and Irish Americans since Americans' intersection, have proven and continued to provide leadership and service to the nation's political business and religious establishments.

And it's fitting and proper to celebrate its rich cultural heritage and many valuable contributions of Irish Americans. Now, therefore, I deems it to be by the virtue authority vested me, mayor of the city of Edgewater, to hereby proclaim March 26 as Irish Heritage Month. Alright. Is anybody here to accept?

And you have to actually read that twice lee for legal purposes. I'm joking.

That's tough. Very tough. I think that's the hardest one I ever had to do. Item five, city manager report.

Good evening, mayor and council. I have a brief report this evening. I know I have a very busy agenda. Just want to let you and the public know the city hall deed restriction topic is not included on this agenda. Staff is currently developing options for your consideration so we can make an informed decision on the best path forward. They can make it very clear the property is not for sale. So that'll be on the April agenda. I'm proud to announce we have a new economic development manager coming on board on March 9.

I hope to introduce him soon to

you at an upcoming council meeting. Also proud to announce that Menard and A Park Pier construction has begun. Later in the agenda, you see that we have an item for Veterans Park. If that item is approved, immediately following Menards construction, we're gonna start on Veterans Park Pier replacement. And then I'm proud to announce the team member of the month is Dicey Hall. He's our fleet superintendent. He's a great individual. He, unfortunately, is not here tonight. I'd like to read a quick insert about his achievements. Dicey began his career at the city in 2008 as a vehicle mechanic.

Through years of hard work, technical expertise, and a consistent willingness to take on additional responsibility, he advanced through the ranks of fleet maintenance to his current role as fleet superintendent. His progression reflects not only his mechanical skill, but also his leadership ability, institutional knowledge, and commitment to excellence. Over the past several months, Dicey has faced significant operational challenges while continuing to maintain a positive and solution oriented attitude. The city recently implemented upgraded fueling software to improve auditing and accountability. While this upgrade is beneficial long term, it created substantially combat compatibility challenges with our older fuel pumps.

Dicey worked diligently to troubleshoot and resolve these issues, ensuring fueling operations remain functional and compliant despite the obstacles. At the same time, Fleet Division has experienced an unusually high volume of heavy equipment repairs under normal circumstances. This workload would be shared with a heavy equipment mechanic. However, this funny position has remained vacant for over two years due to ongoing recruitment challenges. As a result, Dicey has stepped in to personally perform heavy equipment repairs in addition to fill fulfilling his full responsibilities as superintendent.

He has been serving in dual roles overseeing personnel, budgets, procurement, and fleet operations while also performing complex heavy equipment repairs. His hands on work has been critical in keeping essential city assets operational, including fire engines and heavy duty machinery used by stormwater and other departments. So congratulations to mister Dice Hall.

Congratulations. Appreciate everything he does and everybody in that department does. It's a great great fleet that we have in the city of Edgewater. Item six, citizen's comments. This is time for the public to come forward with any comments they may have. Citizens comments related to any agenda matter may be made the time the matter is before the council. Please state your name and address, and please limit your comments to three minutes or less.

You can show the pictures if you want.

Mhmm.

That's fine. I know. Yeah. There we go. All right. My name is Laura London, 2632 Woodland Drive. Before I begin, I want to be clear. I know that many of you were elected after the decisions were made. So when I say you, the city, or the council, I'm referring to the broader leadership and the past decision makers, including the previous attorney, whose choices brought us here today, not the five or seven of you sitting here tonight. I live in the neighborhood affected by the wild hog damage.

As you can see, there's one of the four spots. This problem was preventable. When the two housing developments on Air Park Road were built, the developer clear cut the land and destroyed the hogs' natural habitat. The hogs didn't wander into our neighborhood. They were displaced directly into it.

Residents reported hog sightings and damage during the construction, but the developer and the city ignored the root cause the wild hogs losing their habitat. The responsible action would have been to relocate the herd during the clear cutting process, but, well, here we are. With their habitat gone, the hogs moved into the remaining wooded lots throughout Florida shores, including the one behind my home, where they hide during the day and come out at night to destroy private property. Our yard has been hit the hardest because we live well, they live right behind us, and we avoid pesticides to protect the soil, the river, the ocean, and wildlife. Birds can safely eat the insects in our yard, but but those same insects are the part of the hogs' food source.

We are being punished for choosing environmentally responsible practices. No homeowner should have to choose between protecting the environment and protecting property value. Over time, the hogs multiplied, grew larger, and caused increasing damage. Many residents, especially older neighbors on fixed incomes, simply cannot repair this level of destruction. These repairs require specialized knowledge, money, time, and physical strength.

And we all need to count our blessings that these hogs did not attack a child, a pet, or a resident. These animals can be aggressive, and the risk is real. If someone had been injured, the legal and financial consequences for the city would have been far greater than the cost of addressing this problem. Trapping the hawk has cost roughly about a thousand bucks, $1,000. How much money has the city made from those two housing developments?

Thousand bucks. How much money has the city's inaction cost we, the homeowners, in Florida shores? The citizen should not bear any financial responsibility for this damage. This situation was created by the development decisions and compounded by the city's failure to act when these first reports came in. But here's the good news.

This council, you guys, have the opportunity to close this chapter by making the residents whole, by reimbursing the citizen who paid for the trapping and the funding and restoration of damage to the properties. You can be the council remembered for stepping in, taking responsibility, and protecting the residents who have built this community. You can be the ones to fix what the others have left behind. We're all counting on you. You, ma'am. Thank you.

Note public participation throughout this council meeting one bit until you're up for public comment. Thank you for your comments, and we'll get that dealt with.

My name is Tim London, 2632 Whittlein Drive. I wanna speak about something very straightforward. This damage was preventable. If action had been taken when residents first reported hog activity, the impact would have been minimal. Instead, because of the issue, it was ignored for months, the damages multiplied, and homeowners are now facing thousands of dollars in repairs.

To my surprise, the current area affected around my house is minimized to 26 the through through the twenty six and twenty eight hundred blocks of Woodland Drive. I drove from 22nd To 30th Street on every road from Silver Palm to Willow Oak, and the only visible damage was a nine residence on Woodland Drive. Note, there are reports more. However, they were not visible from the street. Also, one neighbor used dogs and chased the hogs back to the West Side of Silver Prom, only to have them return the next night.

So tonight, I want to offer solutions, not just concerns. We want to move forward with a plan that prevents this from happening again to use to us or any other one in the neighborhood. First, the city must adopt a stop allowing large scale clear cutting, period. When developers scrape the land down to the dirt, wildlife has no place to go. This is not responsible growth.

This is not sustainable planning. Future developments must be required to preserve habitat buffers and trees to cover for wildlife displacement and to be minimized. Second, wild animal relocation must be mandatory part of the development agreement, not optional, not if needed, but required. If a project destroys habitat, the developer must fund and coordinate wildlife mitigation before construction begins, not after the homeowners are suffering damage. Third, the should and should hold developers responsible by bonds or escrowed until wildlife related impacts are uncovered and resolved.

In our current case, the hogs relocated to our neighborhood after all the open lots on Air Park Road were developed last fall. These are reasonable practical steps that protect homeowners, the neighborhood, and the city from dealing with preventable issues. We're not here to point fingers. We're here to assist on responsible development, timely response, and fair treatment. We're asking the city to acknowledge that the preventable nature of these damages and to adopt policies and procedures to ensure the neighborhood to ensure no neighborhood has to put up with this position again.

Finally, the resident at 2827 Woodland found a trapper. The trapper started on February 17. As of the day, the traps are being removed. They trapped eight hogs. If done last fall when the issue started, the issue would have been greatly reduced, and only one or two per residents would have been affected. I thank you.

Thank you, sir, for your comments. I appreciate it. Absolutely. I'm gonna remind it again, no public participation until you come up for citizens' comments.

Good evening. Jim Lovgren, 182 Jones Fish Camp Road, Riverfront Estates. You should have received my email last week. They're concerning construction issues that we it's an ongoing issue, and it's larger than just our development. That's what I wanted to get across there.

It's on everywhere when every one of these cookie cutter houses are building. The issues beyond that, the observation deck, I understand the contractor is gonna come back and put a Band Aid on it. But my my my questions concerning that observation deck really haven't been answered. I wanna know is the stretch of 55 inches between support beams up to a code, a building code? Because that's I mean, these these boards bow when you walk on them.

And I got no answer out of that. I've asked for plans for it. It seems the plans that Taylor Morrison showed the buyers prospective buyers showed a gazebo and a much longer and bigger observation deck on the river. That did not happen. What we got is pretty disappointing to every resident there on on top of the faulty construction.

I wouldn't let that guy build my doghouse. There's there's another issue there. Everybody's confused about Lennar owned this property. Taylor Morrison swapped some property for with them. But somehow, even though Taylor Morrison was in control of all the construction and so forth, Lennar still owns the common areas.

So we have to deal with two builders here, and we just don't understand how that's possible. And they could actually control that until 2029, according to the documents we have. Well the observation deck that's a little bit of bait and switch there that they've done because they also did that with our HOA fees. One of the major selling points to us was low HOA fees because we don't get any amenities here. We get our lawn sprinkled and common areas cut.

Within less than a year those rates have been raised 43%. 43% and there are people in fixed incomes who were just making it by in particular to townhouses here where they're looking at a $50.60 dollars increase in their HOA fees. And people on fixed incomes, that's not easy to come up with every month. So it just seems like there's a lot of dishonesty going on on this part here. On on top of that, they don't wanna relinquish the HOA to us. They had we we should have one board member in August, and we should have full control of the board in the end of the year in December, and we have nothing. This is this is what we're dealing with.

Thank you. Thank you, sir, for your comments. I got your email. Mister manager, if you could please reach out to him. I remind you for the third time, there is no public participation.

Hi. Suzanne Schibert, Dream Green Volusia, 548 Sandy Oaks Boulevard, Ormond Beach. There's been discussion at the Volusia County Council meetings about Volusia forever, specifically concerning perpetuity and why we have partners. In 2020, 75.6% of voters strongly supported the land conservation program, surpassing the approval ratings of any current or past county council officials. In 2000, the initiative had a strong 61.6% approval.

This suggests that many of you in this chamber and online supported taxing yourself for land conservation. The title Volusia Forever suggests it represents forever or permanent. It is worth noting that this is a willing sellers program providing landowners with options. There is a twenty five year precedent in Volusia County of never selling land acquired through the program, coupled with a proven track record of establishing strong partnerships, always with county attorneys participating in these discussions. The benefits of land conservation are many water quality improvement, flooding prevention, biodiversity, recreational opportunities, cultural preservation, agricultural, and more.

Volusia County has been a leader twenty five years in land conservation. The discussions could jeopardize our future partnerships and achievements. Thank you to the council tonight for the letter expressing unwavering support support for perpetuity and partnerships, the twenty five year Volusia forever tradition. To all the residents, organizations, and businesses of Edgewater listening right now, we need your email sent to the Volusia County Council in support as well. The county address can be found on the dreamgreenvolusia.com website.

We have all their emails on there. We are going to every city and spreading the word. We can lead this movement, but fellow Volutions, you are the movement. Stand up for what you voted for. Thank you all for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Well, my name is Paul Romanosky, and I live at 1872 Umbrella Tree Drive. And on nextdoor.com, I have seen a lot about the hogs. At my house, we don't have any hog problems. And I corresponded with some of the people because I have a solution that's potential. And maybe you should consider something like this. But I'm a bow hunter, And you may not think that somebody could safely hunt within Florida shores. But with a bow from an elevated position, it would be very safe if you get people that are trained properly and know the, you know, the the way to do this safely. And it could eradicate it. Hogs are smart animals. If you take a few of them out, the other ones are gonna skedaddle over by Volco Road or back into the woods.

They're not gonna be coming out. So, you know, I could use one or two myself, but there's also a good program called Hunters for the Hungry, where I could donate or whoever hunted to the landowner that's having the problem so at least they can have a barbecue or something after all the damage has been done. But, you know, Hunters for the Hungry distributes this to families in need, just like, you know, Habitat for Humanity does for housing. So I'd like to put my name out there. If anybody wants to look into that and have a work session on it or something, I would like to volunteer.

If it's upon me. I'd be glad to come. And, like, you know, I'm very experienced with it. Over my sixty seven years, I probably harvested 50 deer with a bow, and I've only lost one. So it's very lethal if done properly, and it's quiet. It would probably happen at night. You could put corn out to bring them in. And after a couple are taken out, they're going to move out. They just follow them. So anyway, call upon me if there's any discussion that's that's desired.

Desired or, you know I I tried to find out a little bit about in Florida, there are rules on firearms, but there's no rule on boat discharge. So I don't think there's a problem with that, and I wouldn't do it until I was really sure that I would consult with the city attorney in Florida Fish and Wildlife. But anyway, it's a potential solution. And, when we're done, we'll have a big barbecue or something. But anyway

Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.

This is America. Could I ask a question on that?

Of course.

Mike, councilor It's on.

Your thing's not on time.

Safely, no.

Do what? If you

do so safely. You know, hogs are are nuisance animals, clearly. They're brought here by the Spanish in, like, the 15. So all wild hogs is not new to Florida. It's a problem in all 67 counties. Right. I think the the latest census for hogs was over half a million in the state. I'm very familiar. Know you are. I know you are familiar.

But Oh. I was just wondering, is it against the law to just start a bow in the city limits?

Safely so, I I would I would say no. But I'd hate to hate to put that out to the public. If if I could, let me have the police department and animal control do some research. We're aware that the hogs are an issue, and we might be able put some remedies. I could not do them off the off the cuff tonight here.

Well, that's how I got from familiar with Florida Shores was when I was a game warden, I mean, they would get on the hood of their car, and one one guy would drive, and one guy would sit on the hood with a shotgun, and they'd ride down the road and shoot whatever cross, the deer Sure. Hog or turkey or whatever. So Sure. You know, that's been a a problem forever. But I I would I would just wonder the legality of him discharging a bow on his own property.

I think safely so. Okay?

But I I I

understand. We'll definitely both. We'll research it and talk about it and have a discussion on that.

Thank you, sir. 16. Excuse me, mister mayor.

Okay. Mhmm. I didn't wanna interrupt. I'm sorry if I came up here too soon. My name is Renee Richards. I live at 136 Jones Fish Camp Road in the Taylor Morrison project there. First off, I want to talk about how I feel so lied to when I bought my home there. Certainly by the sales staff with Taylor Morrison, he said that Jones Fish Camp Road was not going to be the only access for the marina project that's gonna be down at the end of the street there. I'm praying that that just takes its time and keeps going for about another ten years. Maybe I'll be gone by then.

But the sales staff, like I said, just totally misled us. He they said it was gonna be on the other side of the kinda like behind the Dollar General there, guess, between the storage. That's sort of how I understood it. But then they said, well, the property owner won't let us have access. He won't sell it.

So anyway, it's still just all been a nightmare, actually. Then I found out that HOA transitioned to another group, and they didn't even have record that I was a resident. So they've been equally as bad all the way through. They're raising our rates by 43%. And, anyone on a fixed budget, that's gonna really be hard, really hard.

And the townhomes are going, like, to almost $300 from, you know it's a big big jump, big jump. But luckily, I have a home, and they're not being assessed that much. But, it's still gonna be difficult, and it's just a bait and switch. Because one of the things that they stated when we were looking at the home was that, oh, you have low HOA fees here. Yeah. Well, that was real enticing. You know, it was. But, the the HOA has just, like I said, been a nightmare. The accounting isn't even correct. We've got all kind of missing money.

They haven't given us the reports, the audits, the monthly expenses. We're missing about a year's worth. And so there's line items on there that, you know, who knows? What we have seen are line items that we can't explain that is seems like a slush fund for our money, and it's pretty crazy. I mean, I just can't believe it's going on these days, you know, that we can't get the reports we're supposed to have.

And, some people there's, like, six people that have their house up for sale now there. So it's really being mismanaged, and I would please encourage you to not grant Taylor Morrison any more developments because this is the nightmare it turns into for everyone. And they're long gone. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it.

Hello. I'm Sandra Snodgrass. I am a Port Orange resident, 980 Canal View Boulevard, considering moving to Edgewater because of the attentive council and the mayor's knowledge and being proactive in trying to keep the

city

of Edgewater a good place to live. My concerns I'm here with Volute. Keep hearing about the development. We know the development is the cause of, one, the flooding, two, displaced wildlife. The flooding, trees get destroyed, they absorb the water.

Concrete does not. The animals have no place to live. So, of course, they're gonna come in your front yard. But one of the biggest problems is it's affecting the water quality. The black water that is planned to be injected, that is treated sewage into the aquifer, is going to cause our water quality to plummet.

Why? Because of the overdevelopment. The cup ratio is dropping to a say unsafe level, and you really need to be proactive and be the city that starts the other municipalities around to stop it. You can change your city charter. Ban it. Watch the developments. Unfortunately, Port Orange, we were told if we didn't want fluoride in the water, get a water treatment system. You don't want sewage in your water, get a water treatment system. Why? The mirror sells them.

So please, please, I'm begging you, be proactive. Help your citizens, and hopefully me, but I'm getting scared hearing all these HOA fees and such. So being the toilet to tap the black water, be mindful of the developers because you have to put a cap on it. You really do have to put a cap on it. There's plenty of properties that are sitting there with structures that can be utilized and refurbished. Personally, I would purchase an older home.

I like

older architecture. And you know it's going to withstand hurricanes if you know what the hurricane history of Florida is. So I'm asking each one of you. You've done a good job for your citizens. Please continue. Monitor and control the development. Therefore, we're gonna have water that is safe to drink so we don't get the autoimmune diseases, the colon cancers, and the other ailments that is related to black water treated sewage in our aquifer. Thank you very much.

Thank you, miss Nagrass. You're appreciated. Thank you for your comments.

Good evening. Cheryl Davis, 356 Riverfront Way in the Riverfront Estates, the Taylor Morrison build. Just real quick, want to say that there have been so many problems in so many of the homes and the townhouses sinks leaking, water coming through people's lights in their bedrooms, pipes in the bathroom not connected properly, washer pipes not connected properly. And there are some people that have been there less than a year, and they still have warranty issues. And Taylor Morrison, at this point, is kind of ignoring them.

They're not getting back to some people. This has been reported to me. So I suggest for future builds by anyone, but specifically Taylor Morrison, that we do not use our contracted or third party building inspectors. I suggest we do it ourselves, even if we have to make them wait or stop construction. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. We appreciate them. Please, one more reminder as well, no clapping, no public participation, you're at the podium. Thank you.

I'd like to thank the council for the update on the deed. At your last council meeting, I believe all of you were in agreement

your name and address. I'm so sorry.

Kim Long. 3312 Mango Tree. At your last council meeting, I believe all of you were in agreement that forever means forever. That is exactly how this property was given to the city in perpetuity, never to be sold. I recently was given a copy of the second visioning book that our city directed to be researched and paid for.

The city statement reads in part, Edgewater will continue to be a waterfront oriented community with a strong sense of pride in our amenities and community facilities. I think this is exactly what our founders wanted when they donated this property and put the restrictions restrictions on on the the deed. Deed. I'm heartbroken that a former council thought that they should go before a judge and ask for it to be changed so it could be sold in the future, maybe another council. I realize it's not for sale now.

Preservation of natural resources and local culture is mentioned in our city vision. It states that we are known for scenic waterfront views and access to outdoor activities like boating and kayaking. This makes it imperative that we keep this land where we are meeting tonight forever as it was intended. Our park system here in Edgewater is phenomenal. We have our only boat ramp right across the street at Kennedy Park and just down the road Menard Park, which was also a gift to the city.

Veterans Memorial Park is a favorite place for fishing, and just down the road is Rotary Park, which links our wonderful trail system. As Edgewater has grown, so has its parks. And because this deed was apparently very easy to change, I would like to ask that this property and all of Edgewater's parks be put into our charter. Other cities have preserved land with charter amendments. As you all know, a charter amendment is voted in by the citizens.

It becomes law unless or until the citizens voted out. No council in the future would be able to sell our parks to a hungry developer with a five person vote. I have no doubt that this council has no such thoughts. However, we have elections every two years, and councils come and councils go. You have the power now to make sure that our wonderful park system stays forever as it was intended. Half of this town wants to vote you out because you haven't waved a magic wand and fixed all of our problems. The other half of our town sees you as being proactive and available, which you have been to all of us. I see the hard work that you're doing. This is your opportunity to put our parks into the charter, and don't tell me that they don't belong there. It's been done.

Let the citizens vote on whether or not they would like our parks protected forever in a charter amendment. Once it's in the charter, if it must ever be sold, the citizens would have to vote on it, not just a five person council. Thank you for your all your hard work. I appreciate everything that you have done. Let's get the deed done. Forever means forever, have you as you all said at the last council meeting.

Thank you, ma'am, for your I appreciate it. Let's hope 50 plus one person likes us.

There. Cora Steinkamp, 339 Riverfront Way in the Taylor Morrison development. I'm helping lead the transition of the HOA from a Taylor Morrison directed and controlled homeowner and handed over to the homeowner's direction. I'm here to say, don't let Taylor Morrison build another community until they have finished ours. And they haven't finished ours.

They've given us a defective irrigation system that we spent almost $10,000 repairing out of HOA fees last year and have ignored our calls for help. As a consequence of that irrigation system not working, we have probably 40% of our area is dead grass. We have residents who have dead yards. And actually, the HOA turned around and tried to fine them because they weren't taking care of their yards not fine them, because they don't have a fine structure. The management of the HOA has just been atrocious.

We have one resident that has received 76 violations, lived there for a year and three months, and got 76 notices that they have problems wrong. Now I say, Okay, if you get that many notices, fix it. But what the heck? What is this HOA management doing? I mean, if you don't have a fine structure and you're sending somebody 76 notices, fix the fine structure, and it's a renter.

Start finding that landlord. My gosh, that's borderline harassment for those people. So anyway, it's just been and as the other people have mentioned, I have sent two requests, both certified letter to Taylor Morrison requesting financials and turnover. The first one, they sent six months of financials. We should have four years.

The second one, they cherry picked and sent some financials, but not all the financials. We are down to $27,000 in reserves for 88 townhomes and 50 houses. If we have a catastrophic event, we have a $400,000 deductible. So I ask I tell them to come and finish our neighborhood and fund our reserves like they were supposed to. When we take in $30,000 a month for three years and we're down to $27,000 that's a problem.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. I appreciate it.

Bob Chu, 208, Virginia Street, Edgewater, Florida. Could everybody just turn around for one second and look at the wall? That's why I moved here. I moved here from Rhode Island. I'm a fisherman. I'm a naturalist. And that's what I moved here for. And you have the ability to do something to protect what's left of the lagoon. The lagoon is currently in a crisis situation with the development on North Ridgeway or South Ridgeway, whatever it is. Protect the living shoreline.

I'm hearing you're going to save six trees. I think you can do better than that. I was a builder for thirty two years, and I had to get well over 100 variances. I would say, giving them a height, the developer the ability to build the houses at 35 feet, I disagree with that. I wrote a book in after the 2018 algal bloom, and I saw the ecology of the lagoon collapse. I wrote a book. I learned all about it. If you wanna protect the lagoon, you protect the land. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Chu, for your comments. I believe the city manager is in contact with you and would love to have the book.

No stories about frogs or hogs or places so crowded though I had to park in a river. I'm glad to hear from

Please state your name and address

for Oh, the Ken Gardasano, retired comedian from Edgewater. I live on Mango Tree Drive. I'm glad to hear that you have no intention of selling the property that we're all sitting in right now. Not sure I believe you. Don't really know you.

I looked at all of the information, all the documents. I didn't procure them all, but I looked at them. And basically, some defunct organization gave this property to the city back in 1938. And the actual text is pretty specific. And it says that they wouldn't transfer the deed until the city was incorporated.

They also wanted use of the property. So they valued it when they gave it away. They wanted to continue using it. And basically, they were pretty specific about it not being bartered or sold. Nevertheless, a previous city manager and his legal adviser decided to do it anyway.

None of these people are here now. I don't know who they are. I'm not it's got nothing to do with you guys. But this agreement stood for seventy five years. It was made eighty five years ago.

And the agreement between the city and the people and this defunct organization lasted a long time. And it appears as though the previous city manager and attorney took it to a judge. The judge made what I think was a bizarre decision. She concurred and removed every restriction. She ruled against the people of Edgewater and in favor of the city.

Now, what the city thinks it's doing is acquiring the right to sell something they already owned and expressed the purpose of selling it to the highest bidder. If this kind of reasoning was carried to the national level, we would lose our national parks. This is not about a building or a structure. This is about the sanctity of creating and preserving land or a park specifically dedicated to and for the people. The trouble is that the city manager had no business suing the Village Improvement Association.

They didn't exist. Exist. My conclusion is that this errant ruling must be countered with every tool the council has. You, sir. Clear.

Comments are truly appreciated and taken into consideration.

You don't want me to finish?

You out of remaining time, there are citizens' comments at the end of the meeting if you wish to Thank you.

Hello. My name is Michael Don Johnson. And for the record, I'm not campaign tonight, but I am running for congress and Republican primary. What I like to bring to the citizens of this little town here is something about political ethics and morality that's going on in our district here. Just a week and a half ago, a politician was giving a federal restraining order by a federal judge to not touch any of his assets, transfer them, remove them, or anything like that.

It was a page and a half restraining order. This is because this politician was sued for fraud for not delivering ammo to a NGO in Europe. And a settlement agreement was made, an $8,000,000 consent agreement was made, and the person didn't pay back a dime of it at the beginning of the consent agreement. On top of it, this politician has a foreclosure in the amount of $66,000,000, $34,000,000 of that money is interest not paid. And that court case is up in Taylor County, Florida.

Also, this politician defaulted several times on an SBA loan, and the SBA did a two year investigation on him and his wife and determined that he got CARE Act funds, PPP loan fund, illegally, and they demanded the money back. And instead of giving the money back, he tried to sue the SBA, and he lost in the circuit court and federal district court in Virginia, and they also lost in an appeals court up in the DC area. This same, politician has tens of thousands of dollars of IRS liens under his belt and a couple $100,000 liens that he actually were filed against him in Virginia while he was running down here in Florida in this district here. In addition, this politician has used his office in congress to get his legal his staff, government employee employees to forge a general's signature. This general admitted that he never saw the stories that these politicians claimed he made, and the soldiers that he said he rescued said he's a damn liar.

He was never there. I think everyone in this audience and this city knows, this council knows who I'm talking about already. We also know and heard in the news about the 14 page restraining order in Columbia County, Florida for sex distortion by this politician. We also know and there's a warrant still outstanding right now with the Department of Justice. It's still out there, by the way, even though people think it's not, it's there, for assaulting his mistress.

And his wife just filed a divorce just this past July and was delivered to a lawyer up in Reston, Virginia. I think everyone knows who I'm talking about. And what I'm trying to tell everyone here today is that we have to vet our politicians to make sure they have ethics and morality and that they link our community

Thank you, and they

do things for us.

You, man. Your comments. We appreciate it.

And and I think we all know it's Lee Corey Lee Mills, the current incumbent congressman in this Thank you for

your comments, sir. We appreciate it. And just anybody in the audience, we just ask, please keep it, the Edgewater issues. Alright. Are there any other citizens' comments? Okay. Item seven, council reports. Councilwoman Gillis.

Alright. My first thing I did wanna say are we good? Alright. Mister Romanovsky, would you leave your phone number? Because you gave your name and address, but that way we could follow-up with you on that as well. I know a lot of the other people from over off of Jones Fish Camp Road. I've got your contact info already, but I wanted to follow-up.

I I have it. I believe you sent me an email, and I I think I forwarded it to the city manager. So I'll make sure to get the contact to Joe or the city clerk to get it out to the rest

of Perfect. I just wanted to throw that out there. Okay. Thank you. All right. So I attended the Upward Trend Academy fundraiser. They are a great local school helping special needs children that do a lot for the community. I attended a roundtable about emergency response. I attended ribbon coding for the Magnolia. I appreciate the work that Curtis Hodges did to restore a historic building and give it a new life.

I attended Friends of the Edgewater Library board meeting. I attended the locally held ethics training with staff and counsel from all across the county. I met with our representatives in Tallahassee and discussed issues facing Edgewater and Volusia County. And then I told Chase Trimont I would wear this pin that he was passing out for in support of autism awareness. Keep going. I attended a workshop given by Lisa Lewis. I appreciate her for all she does for the county. I met with quite a few residents and discussed their concerns about local developments. I attended the state of the county. I attended the East Central Florida Regional Planning Council Resilience Collaborative Jeffersonian Roundtable with all the members from across our region.

I attended an Edgewater Rotary meeting where they honored all the guys from Parks and Rec. Thank you guys for all you do if you are watching this and for those who couldn't come to that meeting. I attend an opening day for baseball season for the newly branded Indian River Lagoon Athletics. They're a nonprofit that services kids from Edgewater and Oak Hill. I want to thank Alberto's Pizza for donating pizzas to the club. I met with representatives from Habitat for Humanity. I wanted to thank Kim Long and Linda Arnell publicly. A teacher reached out about a field trip they were raising money to cover. And within an hour, Kim and Linda covered the cost of the field trip for the Indian River children to go see a musical. And that's what I love about our community.

Thanks. Yes. Thank you, guys. I did pop by the Princess Bowl. And I want to thank Parks and Rec again for all they do, especially Jason, Andrea, and Chris. I attended the Smyrna Cares ceremony, where several people were honored locally for their work. It was Curtis Hodges, Angela Herman, and Sally Gillespie. And all of that had to do with conservation and preserving stuff locally. And that event also was serviced by Lobsters Catering and New Smyrna Bar Catering, which are both Edgewater small businesses I wanted to highlight. I attended the Indian River Elementary School guest readers event this morning, Ms.

Kay held a great gift of kids. And then I'm also wearing the little bookmark that the kids passed out for everyone today, just as a shout out to the lovely library ladies at Indian River. A couple more things, not too crazy. Gadda's Deli celebrated their one year anniversary. Just want to support them as a small business. And then this one's going to go a little random with it. I also wanted to spotlight another born and raised local. So a young man named Dylan Dresser published a book called Facing Your Fears and Chasing Big Dreams and Turning Disability into Ability. He's overcome so much. And if you want to support a local author, that would be available on Amazon.

And my last two things, So Jeff Leracy, I wanted to see if you could give any kind of, like, light update. I know I asked you about it the other day about what kind of stuff that's going on with the G2G11 project, because I've gotten a lot more I got more calls today about work being done in the neighborhoods over that way. Over off of Palmetto, I got quite a few. But then I got I got a call from over by Pearl and over off Old County. So if we could get an update about that. Anything?

If that project

Or if you

could Yeah. Miss miss Gail said

So I know we had talked about getting door knockers and put it out there. Just some of I'm getting good calls from residents that just aren't quite sure what's going on and just trying to update them as to what's going on.

So that's a major stormwater infrastructure project underway. If I could have Mr. Laracy provide some more detail at future meetings, there are

That'll be fine for the next There's

Of course.

Just But at least I'm addressing the fact that that is what's going on in those neighborhoods because some of those people don't realize that that project is what's starting now because it started so long ago,

Mr. If that makes

Manager, correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that information is on our website as well.

It is on the website. And we're working, like previously stated, at other meetings, working on a dashboard that is going to incorporate all our capital projects, all our grants, all the future developments. It's going to be very simple to get to. It's just not ready yet.

And then my only last thing, wanted I did touch base with Jason, but I wanted to bring this up. I wanted to see about looking into what it would take to get scoreboards for the fields. And I don't know what the cost was just kind of do some fact finding on that information just as far as grants. Or I know there would be local donors that would be helpful in raising money for it. And so that's just something I want to throw out there, because I know ours were fairly damaged by the storms before. And that's why they weren't out there from what I was told. But so that's another thing I wanted to bring up if we could look into. Course. We're looking into that, just getting our fields back up to the way they were before. Course. And then I'm done, promise.

Councilman Thomas.

Do the anticipated length of this meeting off half.

Councilwoman Davo. Thank you.

I was going to pass also. Sorry, I'll make it really quick. I want to give a shout out to the Edgewater Animal Shelter. I helped and was part of their Edgewater Animal Shelter Love Your event. That was two weeks ago on a Saturday. They gave away 160 hot dogs, lots of fun giveaways for the residents and their pets. They had a canine officer that was there instructing how the dog works. And the kids got a lot of fun out of that. They gave shelter tours to see what a day of a life in the shelter is. And things they need well, Olive, the dog that was found that was close to death.

She's gained 13 pounds. She's eating solid food. She still has a long way to go. I got to meet her. And once she knows you, she loves to give love and kisses.

She's a bit spoiled and would rather eat out of your hand. It was so warm to hear how the community came together to support the shelter, the volunteers, and the employees as they gather around Olive, as they do every animal that comes in there with the great needs that they can help. And always, they're in need of cat litter and an Oban Dan Band disinfectant. It's a natural disinfectant that they use for the animals because it's less harmful for them for cleaning. I to or had a meeting with the representatives for the project that's coming up, so I wanted to disclose that, Cobb's Cole.

I met with Mr. Watson and Associates, and I thank you for your time, and I'm looking forward to having that discussion later. There's something else I wanted to bring about a noise ordinance, but I'm going to wait till next month because we've a lot on the table tonight. So that'll be all.

Thank you, Councilman Dabo. Councilman Rainbird. Good evening, Edgewater. I'm going to

try to be quick also on the animal shelter thing. I was in a CVS. I saw that a detergent was buy one, get two. So I bought two, got six. They do an unbelievable amount of laundry. And they can use blankets, sheets. But they do so much laundry. If you guys can get over there with some detergent, they blow through it like crazy. I was invited to the meeting for these residents that have all been complaining here. I went to their town hall and listened to their concerns.

And while it's late in the process, there's not much the city of Edgewater can do for some of these issues. I do agree with maybe the city inspectors getting involved a little more and not the third party inspectors. And when you guys do move into a development, be on top of these people because what disturbed me was their complaints weren't going to be heard until they formed an HOA. And then they said, have your HOA lawyer call our lawyer. Sorry, lawyers, but it shouldn't have gotten to the point where your lawyer has to call my lawyer, because then money just flies out the window on legal letters.

I was also at the Rotary Club for this salute to the Parks and Rec for everything that they've done. Everything that we have getting done here our entire city staff does an amazing job. I don't want them to go unnoticed. And it was great that the rotary saluted them for their efforts. I was at the opening day of our baseball program, and that was truly amazing because the hogs and the flooding and all that other stuff, we can all as a community can figure that out.

But we can't forget our kids. And from what I understand, those baseball fields have gone unused for a very long time. And with the partnership between Oak Hill and here, we got these kids. There were 202 kids, I think. They were outside in this thing called Fresh Air. Oh my god. They weren't on social media. They weren't on their Xbox. They weren't on their PlayStation. It was awesome.

And the kids, they got introduced, they ran around the diamond. This little kid was six feet tall. It was the greatest thing to watch. And on that line, we also had our princess ball over here at the Y. These cute little girls got to dress up in their tiaras. Some girl made me wear one all night. But I did, because she said so. But these little girls and then they met up with their friends from their classes. And they all got in circles, and they just had a great time. And it was Parks and Rec again. You should have seen that building's what? Jason, that building's what? 60 feet high? They had bunting hanging down and lights and a DJ with lights, and these girls just owned the night. And it was it was just awesome.

And I also met with the Cobb Call people, talking about some of the projected things at the Haven Sound development. And other than that, it's been my pleasure to serve you people. Let's make this quick.

Thank you. I was going to bring out the HOA as well, but I believe you're in contact with several residents at that development. So glad to hear that. Just wanna say I enjoyed the upward trend. Gala in New Smyrna Beach, they're a tremendous school that helps special needs individuals. That's always a great organization to get involved with. I was blessed to go to Tallahassee twice this month. We're advancing very well in the house for our appropriation this well this year. Very, very happy to hear that. I enjoyed an East Coast Regional Council meeting.

I was a little late because I met with several residents in town. Thank you to the Rotary Club for always spotlighting the people in our community that matter, always being there in our community and sponsoring events like the baseball ceremony, which we were us three were at this weekend. So they're a tremendous organization. They meet every Thursday at 6PM in the Belmont Plaza on North Riverside Drive. Enjoyed going to the state of the county as well, along with the opening of the Magnolia Village, or Magnolia Building in New Smyrna Beach, the old woman's club.

Thank you, Curtis Hodges, for all that you've done to restore that building for the immediate area. Mister Mainenger, mister Attorney, just wanted to give a SB, see if we could get an update at the next city council meeting on the SB one eighty lawsuit. If we could just bring that up, see where we are in that process.

Yeah. Of course.

Thank you. Okay. Item eight, consent agenda. All matters listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine by the city council and will be acted upon by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless discussion is desired by a member of the council, in which case the mayor will remove that item from the consent agenda, such items will be considered separately. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second. Roll call.

Mayor DePue? Yes. Councilwoman Gillis? Yes. Councilman Thomas? Yes. Councilwoman Dalbo? Yes. Councilman Rainbird?

Yes. Item nine, public hearing ordinances and resolutions. Item nine a. First reading, orders twenty twenty six zero one twenty twenty six dash zero dash o one, request for a small scale comprehensive plan amendment from Volusia County urban medium intensity to the city of Edgewater low density residential for the property located at 4401 South Ridgewood Avenue. Please read into the record.

Staff report.

Thank you, mister mayor. The request before you tonight is a small scale comprehensive plan amendment to amend the future land use map from Volusia County urban median intensity, which allows for four to eight dwelling units per acre to City Of Edgewater low density residential, which allows for a maximum of four dwelling units per acre. City staff, they reviewed the application against the comprehensive plan and found that it is consistent with the adjacent land uses. The land to the north is Volusia County urban median density with the property to the south. City of Edgewater are recommending approval for the conversion to low density residential, as this is a net reduction in residential density on the future land use.

Thank you. Applicant presentation or comments.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For the record, Mark Watts with the law firm of Cobb Cole, 231 North Woodland Boulevard, DeLand. I appreciate the opportunity to be here with you this evening. I'm going to limit my initial comments to just the land use case, because I know we probably have more discussion and comments on the following item. So first of all, thank you to your staff. Ryan, I think, covered, you know, the majority of it. Do you have one slide? I don't know if you have the the first one here that just kinda gives you the summary.

Next one. Okay. There you go.

So we're here for two things this evening. Two two applications that are pending before you. The property in question has been annexed into the city of Edgewater for more than a decade now. But on annexation, there wasn't an amendment to change the land use classification that currently exists on the property from the county's comprehensive plan classification, that urban urban medium intensity classification to the cities and incorporated into the city comprehensive plan. Now the statute sections of the statute that deal with annexation say when you annex property and you should incorporate it into your comprehensive plan for the jurisdiction that's annexing it in.

It just doesn't provide a timeline. So it's not uncommon that something like this happens, but you know best practice is always to bring it into ultimately your comprehensive plan put it under your land use classification. So the first item here this evening is simply that. It's the request to amend this the the existing county urban medium intensity classification that's on the property and bring it into the city's comprehensive plan under the low density residential classification. The net result of that, just to quantify what what you heard from staff, under the current land use intensity that that urban medium, you could have a maximum of 335 dwelling units constructed on the property in a number of different configurations, single family homes, townhomes, low rise apartments, things of that nature.

What's being requested would actually reduce that maximum density intensity to a 167. I'll stop there. Not speak any further to the land use. I've got a whole lot more to say on the other items. But we're here for any questions. We have our team here with LevelUp Consulting who's done all of the engineering and analysis. I think your staff report sets forth a very good analysis as part of the record, but sets forth a very good analysis of the consistency with your comprehensive plan with regard to this particular request.

Mr. Mayor, if I could just jump in real quick. I think several already did, but if you guys did meet with applicants or if you want to go ahead and disclose that for the record, then that way, it can be for both items on this particular one.

Just the applicants? Or I met with a bunch of residents as well, but I did go to some of their town halls and spoke with them there.

Yeah, basically, anyone, because of both we'll take them both together, but because they're two separate items, but you can go ahead and just disclose for both items because they're similar. Because it's quasi judicial, you're supposed to disclose conversations you've had outside of this forum, because they're considered ex parte. They're not illegal. They just need to be disclosed on the record. Just

I've gotten at least 25 calls from residents well, emails from residents of probably one to two calls, one that I answered via text message. She's here tonight. She's going to speak for a lengthy amount of time. Just that was the main resident I had communication with.

Same. I think I know you both already disclosed. Appreciate that. Just wanted to I

did not meet with the applicant, though.

Because I didn't meet with them privately, but I did speak with them several times at the town hall.

Attorney, which of these can I ask them about the gopher tortoises? Under A, B, or C? I mean, either one is fine. Comprehensive plan is less specific, but I think the applicant would probably take questions on that at any time.

If the counsel prefers, I'd be happy to go into the presentation of other. I didn't know procedurally if you wanted to handle the address the question of the land use amendment first before talking about the PUD. I'd be happy to do the presentation on the PUD as well. But I wanted to leave that to your

if that's Okay, council member. Ahead and move forward with this agenda item and then have the PED questioned on the next agenda.

Okay. Thank you very

Thank you. We're going to open it up to citizens' comments for exactly comprehensive plan amendment from Volusia County to the City Of Edgewater, not the PUD as a whole.

Renee Richards, 136 Jones Fish Camp Road. I just would like you to please consider not moving forward with this project, period. There is plenty of people that are very unhappy about it. I think most all the residents in Terremar, most of the property owners that are gonna be on the other side of this project, the South side, let alone what it's gonna add to the roads, to the quality of water there, and what it does to nature. It's one of the last spots, as you know, right along our coast here for this development.

It's pristine land. Can't we save some trees, please? Please. We've already got a tax base. The city has a very good tax base, and we need to please take care of our taxpayers that are suffering because of the overdevelopment. Truly, please, please just table this, put it on hold, put a moratorium on developers and developments, please. We had one for a while, didn't we? Can we do it again? Nope. We can't.

Nope. Okay. SB one eighty.

SB one eighty. So thanks to DeSantis then. That's who I need to be talking to. Right?

Necessarily his fault. It's all the state legislators as well.

Okay. Well, so we can't do anything about it? Is that the case? The city can't stop any of this?

We didn't say that. We said we could I'm telling you that they're we're getting off conversation now, but we can't have a moratorium due to SB one eighty.

Okay. All right. Well, sorry to get off the track.

No problem.

That's all Anyway, please please think about saving some trees.

I know.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments.

Could I interject something? Yes. Of course.

We're not doing public participation during any of this, so this has been the fourth warning.

I mean, all I'm all for conservation and preservation, but who is gonna come up with a 6 mil to buy this piece of property and just let it sit there? I mean, that's the big question. I talked to the city manager. We don't have $6,000,000 to go down there and buy this piece of property. I mean, that would be my dream to do that. But it is it's undreamable because we don't have six males to do it.

So Thank you, mister Thomas, for your comments.

Kim Long, 3312 Mango Tree Edgewater. It's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, it's zoned mobile home now. And what was proposed under the mobile home, now this is the information that I got, they would preserve 35% of the 42 acres. That means 15 acres would preserve of upland forest. If you keep the zoning what it is now and it's mobile home over 55, you're gonna probably have two people living per residence.

If you allow this to go forward, you're gonna have so many more humans on that property. You're gonna have families that have children. You're gonna have instead of one or two cars, you're gonna have three, maybe four cars. If it stays the way it's been for the last twenty four years, twenty five years, I think it was proposed that they would save all of the mature oak trees, which I believe is seven, and six stands of the smaller trees. Now I know we don't have anybody that's come forward that says they're gonna put mobile homes on there.

And, originally, before I found out all this information, I was for putting the homes on it. But when I found out how much concrete was gonna be there, I just don't think you should change the zoning. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. It's appreciated.

Hi. Cheryl Davis, 356 Riverfront Way. Can we get some money from the builder, for the new school that we're probably gonna have to build? Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello. My name is Paul Romanosky, 1872 Umbrella Tree Drive. I don't know a lot about

Probably just raise that if you wouldn't mind.

What's that?

Probably just raise it up a little bit if you wouldn't mind. Thank you, sir.

Is that better?

Yes. Thank you.

Okay. Should I repeat that or just keep going?

You can you can go ahead.

Go higher? I'll lean towards it. How's that? Is that better? Okay. You got a stiff neck. Anyway,

my

name is Paul Romanoski. Eighteen seventy two Umbrella Tree Drive here in Edge Water. I don't know a lot about this project, and I'm not against development. I think we all have to partner with developers and make sure that the development we have is done right and that it's smart. We learned a lot of hard lessons with the flooding and everything else. I don't know what this is, and I don't know how this works. I know this says the first ordinance or the first reading. Is there, like, another section where we can look at the plan? Because what Kim said something about all conversation with her before this. And I am an outdoorsman, as I I mentioned before.

And the reason I picked Edgewater, I searched for ten years to find my forever home. And when I came here, it just hit all the check marks. And I bought our place in 2013, and I plan to spend the rest of my life here. One of the reasons I picked here is we're a waterfront community and the wonderful resource of the lagoon. And I'm a fisherman, and I really enjoy the outdoors. And one of the things that doesn't get talked about a lot is freshwater intrusion. You talk about flooding. I know that's gonna be covered. I know everybody's familiar with fertilizers and the nitrogen and phosphorus that causes the algae blooms that then dies, uses up all the oxygen, and then we have fish kills, and it's killing the lagoon. It's choking out all the seagrass.

But something that doesn't get talked about a lot is freshwater intrusion. And the big problem in the lagoon that was helped by eating the coal, because it kinda flushed it out, is the salinity is dropping in the lagoon. And all the the life that's there that makes the lagoon what it is is dying because it can't survive in freshwater. So the water handling is really important, and I don't know what we do. I know there's different rules on it.

I know on my property in Florida shores, I I think I can only cover 25% of it with impervious surfaces. And I know there's different zoning and different rules. But this is pretty close to the river, so I'd like to find out more about that. And then if there's problems with it, you know, in discussion with Kim, it it she had said something that most of it is impervious, and there's 20% that's not. But then that's a pond, like a a containment pond. So that sounds like a recipe for disaster with fresh water and probably flooding too. It can go right into the river, so that's disposal of the water. What's the impact of that? You know, I I think we need to find out more about this and and mitigate it somehow.

Well, thank you, sir, for your comments. I think that that's more directed towards a PED item, which is the next conversation. We're just voting on this being in Volusia County or the city of Edgewater right now.

Kim spoke to that, and I I didn't know what was up next.

Yes, sir. Thank you.

I won't get up again because you guys got the gist of what I was gonna say.

No worries. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate you. Thanks for your comments.

Back to council comments.

Got one more coming, mayor.

In Cartesano, Mango Tree Drive. I was at the economic development board or planning and zoning board when this project was discussed. A lot of residents were against it. The representatives of the developer were not prepared. There were numerous errors in their presentation which were pointed out by members of the audience as well as members of the board.

It was not a project that was ready to be approved by the city council. It wasn't even ready to be approved by the board it was in front of. I don't know why it was, but I'm telling you I would be very cautious in going forward with this development. They haven't even shown us a picture of what they're doing. And you can still find it if you look, and it ain't much to look at. That's all I'm gonna say.

Thank you, sir, for your comments. We appreciate it. On the council comments, who would like to go?

Can if if this rezoning is approved, can it still fall back onto a trailer park? Or is it going to be houses only?

So right now, you have two things before you: the comp plan, which obviously is the overall overarching goals, essentially, and broad planning considerations. And right now, there's no language it's out of conformity with the comp plan, because it was annexed in, and at some point, you'll need to create conformity. That's step one. Then step two is the zoning. So then, in step two, with the zoning, they currently do have a zoning category that was there based on when they were annexed in.

And they could, if the city rejects whatever proposal, they could move forward. I don't know if they plan to. I have no knowledge of that one way or the other. But they do have, I believe, is a development order already, which is pretty far in the process. So in theory, they could start putting mobile homes on there.

They could start clearing that land tomorrow morning if they wanted to.

I mean, not exactly. Could order, pretty,

apply for the building permits. Pretty quickly,

yeah.

Yeah, pretty quickly start building within, say, six weeks.

Now, I want to be clear. I don't have any knowledge one way or the other if they plan to do that. I'm just saying that they have the legal ability to do that.

So, Mr. Rollins, this ordinance that we're reading and that we're going to vote on right now for the average resident, listen, this is not just a normal annexation. I know what I'm voting on, but this

is Yeah. Yeah. So the obviously, the comprehensive plan is the overall goals. It's more broad. If you look at a reverse pyramid is the way I explain it, comp plans, the overall broad goals, and then it narrows in focus. The next thing under the comp plan, this more narrow, will be the specific zoning.

Thank

you. But you have to have conformity of the overall comp plan, and so that goes first, and then the next step will because be the

talking with the residents in that area, they think that this ordinance is a simple annexation. So thank you for the clarification.

It's already been annexed in. But when you're annexing in, there's oftentimes, there's times where stuff's annexed in and it doesn't even have a zoning category. In this case, it does. But that has to be brought into conformity with the place that it has been annexed into.

Thank you, sir. Are there any further comments?

So pretty much this is but to explain it to people watching, this is just housekeeping to make sure everything aligns properly and then we're going to move on to the next thing, is the actual development we want to talk about itself?

Correct. You could approve the comprehensive plan and then deny the zoning. I'm not suggesting one way or the other to do one thing or the other. I'm saying they're two separate votes, Is just to be

there anything that would change? Is there something how do I say this? If we were to deny the comprehensive plan amendment, is there anything that that could stop from happening there?

It would make depending on what you did with the zoning, you if you changed the zoning and the comp plan wasn't changed, then you'd have out of conformity. If you denied everything, then they would move forward under the existing as one of my property law professors once stated, you know, property is like a bundle of sticks. If you're a tenant, you have certain rights in property. If you're a landowner, and they have certain already vested rights with development order that gives them and it's a very unique not super unique, but it's different than a lot of zoning situations because they are so far along and already having development order. Typically, there's a zoning that allows them to do stuff, but they still have quite a few steps.

In this case, they're already pretty far along the sense, as Joe was saying, they could apply for permits tomorrow and ultimately start building based on what the current zoning that they have.

You.

Can I ask a question, Mr? Watts? Yes, sir. Realistically, if somebody was to come along and find the funding, is this property available for purchase?

So our client is currently a contract purchaser for the property. There's another owner of the property. We're under our client is under contract to purchase that property. So right now, there's a contract on the property. So

But aren't you guys only wanting to purchase it if this goes through?

That we are under contract to purchase the property. I don't know the specific terms of the contract.

You don't know the terms of the contract?

Yeah. Again, I'm not working on that transactional side of things. What we're working toward is proposal that they've put together, which is the the next item that we'll get to. To the question that was just asked about if, you know, this, you know, what's the effect of approving or not approving this particular? You had a couple questions that were raised by residents about things like traffic congestion and school impacts and everything else.

When we're looking at a comprehensive plan amendment, you look at it in terms of theoretical maximums. And so you look at what's the maximum potential traffic, you know, student generation, things of that nature under the current land use classification, and then what is it under the proposed land use classification. Here, when you do that analysis and the information is put together in your in your your staff report based on the information that's been provided. But when you do that analysis, everything is a reduction here because we're reducing that maximum with this particular item a. It's reducing those theoretical maximums by half.

And so that's the effect of the first item that's under consideration this evening is to take that maximum development potential and reduce it by half. Interestingly, under the current county land use, there's also a minimum density requirement. So in other words, instead of being able to come in, like, when you have, you know, your, you know, low density residential classification, you can be anywhere from, you know, zero to four units an acre. Under the county's medium density land use classification, you have to be between four and eight. And so what is up is the maximum under what we're proposing to do is the minimum under what the current end use is.

And so, again, going back to why I kind of talked about these things separately, there's two distinct differences here. First question is, should this be brought into Edgewater's comprehensive plan and assigned one of your land use classifications that's within the range of what's adjacent to it on, actually, both sides? We think that makes a lot of sense. And then that sets the stage for the conversation on what the zoning remains.

Basically, it's would this property be worth it to these buyers if we just kept the trailer parks?

That's the second question. That doesn't have to do with this part.

Mr. Manager, how would the utilities work on this agreement? If we don't it is annexed into the city of Edgewater. Correct. So if it

The details of the project, you're welcome to comment, Mr. Watts.

Oh, I was just saying, it has been annexed. So it already It's was already just never got the land use classification change.

It would be our water

I just about to say this several times.

It'd be our utilities.

Okay.

Yes.

Thank you. I

just want say, think it just makes sense to move forward with this. It's a net reduction half of the land use. Instead of four to eight, the net maximum is four. And it does need to come into conformity with the properties to the north and the south. So for this particular line item, I think it needs to go through. It needs to be conforming to the rest of the US One corridor. It's already annexed to the city, so it's already part of the city. This is just housekeeping, like Councilwoman Gillis said.

I just want to be clear. I am aware of that. I wanted that explained as far as this goes. Because I want everybody to know that if this goes through, that that is not the development. And we'll get to the development next. This is just some housekeeping and some paperwork that would actually lower the current density. And then the development's next. So voting on this does not approve the project. And that's just I want clear to everybody listening and watching.

As you've characterized, it's very much a housekeeping matter to bring it into conformity with the city's comprehensive plan.

Is there a motion to approve?

I make a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance number two zero two six dash zero dash zero one.

Second. Roll call.

Mayor DePue? Yes. Councilwoman Gillis? Yes. Councilman Thomas? Yes. Councilwoman Dalbo? Yes. Councilman Rainbird?

Yes. Item nine b, first reading, ordinance number twenty twenty six dash zero dash o two, request for rezoning from Volusia County MH 1, Public Home Park to the City of Edgewater Residential Plan Development, RPD for the property at 4401 South Ridgewood Avenue. Please read into the record. Staff report.

Thank you, mister mayor.

Yeah.

Now for the record for the audience, this is now to the PUD development itself. You have my PowerPoint? That's theirs.

Thank you. Apologies, counsel. Thank you, mister mayor. The request before you tonight is to rezone the property from Volusia County M H 1 to residential planned unit development agreement within the city of Edgewater. Before you, tonight is the development is whether you want Tamarac 3, which is that approved mobile home park or the Haven Sound development.

So Tamarac 3 here was approved back in 2023 by the city council. This was a mobile home park reviewed by city staff, an administrative review as a major site plan, and it was reviewed against the county's land development code since since this had county zoning of the MH 1. The development is a 55 plus community with a 165 lots that were 50 feet in width by a 100 feet in-depth with 30 feet of open space within that 100 feet for preservation. The applicant first submitted to city staff on October 2024. This is a image of the first concept plan, and it had a 135 single family lots.

They're on 50 by 115 foot deep lots. And in this proposal, they had a south landscape buffer of 20 feet and a north landscape buffer of 15 feet. By the third submittal, the applicant based upon the community meetings had revised the conceptual plan in the PUD to include one story restrictions, on the south lots and increased the landscape buffer from 20 feet to 25 feet abutting the state lots on William Street to the south. Here is the current concept plan before you, and this is our eighth submittal by the applicant, and it incorporated most of the comments from the community meetings. This included a change to wider and deeper lots on the south side with inclusion of 60 foot wide and 75 foot wide lots, also the inclusion of 40 foot wide lots to make room in this product.

The landscape buffer on the south had been increased from 25 feet to 40 feet, a substantial improvement of the original concept plan. City staff believe that the proposed RPUD is a better project than the Tamarac III proposed site. And the reason for that is that the Tamarac 3 site was only developed to a 25 storm for water quality and attenuation. The proposed RPUD for Haven Sound is meeting the 100 storm requirement that's now in the city code, outstanding Florida water requirements, which requires an additional 50% of treatment volume. They're planting littoral plants in the storm water pond, and city staff required that 50% of every yard be native vegetation.

The project is proposing to plant native species to meet the open space requirement within Chapter 50 of Article III, Division III of the Indian Lagoon Water Improvements Management Zone. And with that, city staff will be happy to answer any questions regarding the project.

Thank you. We'll hear from the applicant now.

Thank you, mister mayor. Again, for the record, I'm Mark Watts with the law firm of Cobb Cole, 231 North Woodland Boulevard, DeLand. I appreciate the opportunity to to be here again with you this evening. I wanna start out by just saying thank you to to your staff. We'll say that what we are here presenting to you tonight looks a lot different than what we originally came in and applied for. That has been a result of both your staff's efforts and several meetings with residents in the area. I'll always love to be able to stand up and say, and we came to an agreement and everybody is, you know, happy with what we're proposing. That's not, you know, the case here. But I think we have made the project better through the process that we've engaged in over the past several months. So I'm gonna walk through and give you a little bit of rundown.

But this is one of those unique situations where, you know, we've I've seen a lot of the chatter on on social media and other places about, you know, the last piece of conservation land or or things of that nature with regard to this property. I just wanna be clear. It it it's not conservation. The property has current zoning entitlements under that MH one classification that's mentioned in your staff report. And so we're really here looking at which option is preferable with regard to moving forward with the overall development of the site.

So as mentioned, the county still retains that existing m h one classification. In 2023, there was a site plan review. So fully engineered plans have been completed for under that existing m h one classification. And the the plan that we'll show you here in a minute for Tamarac 3 is the approved site plan that can be constructed. I think as as staff mentioned mentioned a few moments ago, within the next month or six weeks, you know, after they come in and do their preconstruction meetings and things of that nature.

So we've tried to set this up to really kind of just walk through the differences because it's been brought up in a lot of the discussions both at the planning board and some of the neighborhood meetings about what are you gaining through a PUD. PUD is there to negotiate some different standards so that there's a net benefit, you know, to using a PUD as the vehicle for the property. So I'm just gonna run through this this chart real quick. We tried to go through and hit some of the highlights of what we see as the improvements over what's approved currently for construction. We talked about the comp plan density, 335 units as the maximum that's allowed under the current comp plan and current zoning.

You know, we're we're looking at a 167 total. So that's the the maximum that could be built on the site. With regard to the approved site plan, the Tamarac 3 has a 165 units, and we're proposing to reduce that to a 137 units. Garage space. Right now under the current approved plan, there's no requirement for the mobile home units to have garages.

We've got a requirement for a minimum of two car garage garages for each of the units and three car garages on the units that are on larger lots. Both have access off of off of Ridgewood. Stories under the the mobile home MH one classification really doesn't have a maximum height limitation, but typical mobile homes are one story. So one story is the the standard that you see under the existing approvals. We're proposing two stories.

We've got listed in the development agreement a maximum height of 35 feet, but that's limited two stories. And just for reference, that's the same standard that applies on all the property to the south that's under the county's R3 zoning classification. In fact, that was one of the reasons why we looked at that standard. We wanted to keep it consistent with the two story height that's in place on the R3 zoning to the south. The big issues we think here are storm water related.

And so when you look at that existing, you know, plan that's on the gray on the top, that was designed under your old rules. It was designed under the St. John's Water Management District's older rules. So both from a quantity standpoint and from a water quality standpoint what the existing project is approved at is a lower both from a volume standpoint and water quality. And I'll talk a little bit about water quality as we move through this.

So as we work with your staff, we we have incorporated in the hundred year storm event as the base standard for the proposed PUD that is the standard that's written into the development agreement for the project as well. To quantify that for you, I've got a slide that'll show you a little bit more about that in a minute. It's the difference between having a million gallons of storage or 1,400,000 gallons of storage with regard to the storm water system. Minimum open space both projects meet that 35% open space that's under the Indian River overlay. And just to kind of talk for a second about the basis for that overlay.

It's a county and minimum environmental standard. It is for water protection for the Indian River Lagoon. It focuses on both storm water and vegetation. And the specific requirement under that overlay is that 35% of the site has to have existing retained native vegetation or planted native vegetation. So we've gone through and compared what we're proposing with everything that's in the Tamarac 3 site plan.

And we are confident that we meet that standard. You get to confirm that when it comes back through for preliminary plat review as the next step in your in your review process. But we're confident we meet that. And that doesn't include one of the things that staff asked us to incorporate into the development agreement which we did is a requirement that each and every one of the units have 50% native vegetation in the front yards as well. So that's adding to that native vegetation requirement.

Preservation equivalent 1.23 and this is mostly shoreline area that's being preserved we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a second as well. We went through and compared the proposed now again we don't have full construction plans yet but we've looked at what is designed and had tried to compare that to what Tamarac has and they're both right about 49% on the overall impervious area for this for the site. Tree preservation is one of the areas where we we don't exceed that standard that is in Amarac. They've got approximately 30% of the existing trees that would be preserved under that site plan, that approved site plan. And we're at about 25%.

The trade off there came in increasing the storm water volume by about 35% over the prior plan. So because we had that additional area for storm water, it created pressure for us with regard to being able to preserve the same amount of trees. But keeping in mind, the minimum tree preservation requirement is 15%. Both of those exceed that. We're exceeding it by about 10% over that minimum standard.

And again doing it with a lot of native stands that are in tracks versus on individual lots. Historic trees. This is another one where some of the pressures that we were dealing with on the overall design we are proposing to remove two his two of the seven historic trees that are on the site as part of the process but because of the amount of time we've spent talking about that we incorporated a requirement in the development agreement that requires us to evaluate whether or not those can be relocated on-site to a different part of the property and preserved in the new location. That's not a requirement of your code. It's just something that we felt you know based on the amount of time we talked about that particular issue, we would incorporate that.

We have to demonstrate the inability to relocate them to your staff, whether it's from a survivability standpoint or any other number of factors. So we're going to be required to provide that report to staff before it moves forward. We spent an awful lot of time talking about buffers. So the primary focus ended up looking at how we were buffering in the transition on the southern portion of the property. Under the existing plan that you see on the top, there's a 30 foot buffer.

A significant portion of that is actually on the rear of those lots. And we can show you some more of the detail on that. What we've ended up with in this plan is a 40 foot buffer that is completely separate and remains unclear versus what's in the existing approved plans. We reduced the total number of lots along that southern boundary. Right now you've got forty three fifty foot lots with the mobile home plan. We've reduced that down to 35. Setbacks from the southern boundary to the to the principal structures. Current plan is 37.5 feet. We've expanded that to 55 feet. In that buffer area, and I'm gonna show you a little bit more detail on a couple of these points in a second.

In that southern buffer area, the existing plan saves a 165 trees. We've identified 302 that are saved in that southern buffer area. There's a boardwalk that goes along the mangroves in the existing approved plan. We've removed that. We've placed that in a preserve that whole area, the existing mangroves in a preservation track that would be maintained by the HOA.

Boat slips, right now there's an allocation to the existing site plan for 10 slips out of the out of the city's pool. As we evaluated what can be constructed there, we've realized we can't use all of those. So in the development agreement, there's a provision that we return two of those back to the city. The rest of them would be used on-site. So we are returning those excess slips.

We've also and this was a request that came from the neighbors, added a requirement that exterior lighting fixtures have dark sky shielding and be dark sky compliant. That's not a feature of the current approved site plan, but it is something that's a requirement in the development agreement in front of you. And finally, I mentioned this one already, but we have a a front yard planting requirement that again is not part of that existing approval. But 50% of the front yard has to be something other than sod and has to be planted with native trees and vegetation. So just to quantify a couple of those things.

First of all, we know there's been just massive amounts of discussion with regard to flooding. So we wanted to show you just kind of the physical separation of this area from the Florida Shores drainage basin. You can see Florida Shores on the left hand side. The Haven Sound project is at the extreme southern end of the city. It has no interaction with the Florida Shores drainage basin.

Looking on the right hand side, you can kind of see our attempt to quantify that a little bit better, you know, the difference between the standards that we've been asked to incorporate on top. That's kind of a representative of what the current standard that's been approved, you know, has the capacity to handle both from a volume standpoint. On the bottom, you've got the volume that is covered with the hundred year storm event, but we're also proceeding under the water management districts updated nutrient pools as well. And so in addition to that additional volume, you have a higher treatment threshold before that that water can discharge into the lagoon. Again, tying into that 35% open space requirement in the Indian River overlay, all of those things are focused on improving water quality.

This is just to give you an idea of the existing draining drainage conditions. Right now, a substantial portion of the drains to the south. It actually drains to the areas that are south of the property. We have essentially proposed that the design of this would be to create a bathtub. Everything drains internally, doesn't drain off the site, drains internally to the storm water pond, and then discharge out through the canal as it does currently. There is one feature that came up and this is something that was raised in some of our meetings with the residents. There's a drainage swale on the southern boundary. We're not proposing to to do anything to modify that or take it away. There's some residents down there whose properties rely on that. But right now, there's no easement that exists for it.

And so we've committed to providing the city with an easement to allow that to continue to be as a swale and allow it to be maintained as needed by the city or by the the residents in that area, working with residents in the area. Southern boundary, again, lot of area of focus. Current plan, 50 foot wide lots. There's 43 of them. There's a 30 foot open space and a seven and a half foot 30 foot open space area and a seven and a half foot building setback.

In the plan that we're proposing, we have changed that. And this is one of those areas where not only did the residents push us, but your staff pushed us to do better and and make some improvements with regard to kind of that transition from these lots to the the lots to the south. In particular, we went from all 50 foot wide lots there in the current plan or under our new original proposed plan. We incorporated majority of those lots to be 60 or 75 foot lots. And as you see the ones that are a little bit more gray there, we also incorporated specific standards on those lots that would limit them to one story.

And so we tried to locate each of those larger lots and the limited height lots next to where there were adjacent homes on the properties to the south. Those standards are incorporated into the development agreement. That was one of the comments we received at planning board was to make that more clear and make it more distinct that this is the plan and those are the commitments, and we've done that. I just talked about this. There's the the mix of different lot types. Talked about the the single story homes. You can see those a little bit better here with the kind of cross hatched grading or or shading on them. So those are those specific ones. And you can see on the aerial how those are located next to existing homes to the south. So we tried to kind of offset those impacts.

I talked about the boundary condition from a few minutes ago. Here is on the on the left hand side, you've got a picture of the standard lot under the approved Tamarac plan. You've got that open space area. You've got that reserved, you know, kind of preservation area, but it's actually in the lot footprint. What we've done with the way that we redesigned it, we increased that from 30 to 40 feet.

And we put it in a separate tract so that it's not owned by that lot owner. It's owned by an association subject dedicated to the city and set aside as a wildlife corridor. Those were all requests that were made of us. We incorporated all of those standards into the development agreement, into the exhibits to the development agreement. Free preservation, I mentioned that by changing that buffer on the southern end from what it is currently to what we're proposing, we we increased substantially the number of trees that existing vegetation that's in that southern buffer.

This is just an illustration of it. What you see in the dark green on the right hand side are the additional trees that are saved under this plan to provide a continuing buffer on the on the southern boundary. And then finally I think this is finally. Next to last. So one of the things that stood out to us as we were looking at kind of how the lots are designed and how the projects are designed. This is from the existing construction drawings for the Tamarac plant. As you can see, when you get into the detail of things like lot drainage, these lots drain to the back. And so they drain to the river, they drain down to the mangrove areas. There's grading that's occurring in some of those buffer areas. This is true also along that southern boundary.

What we've tried to focus on is keeping the drainage in internal. And so the overall design, the whole design of how the project is intended to move forward would have the drainage rather than going off the lots into the river directly or off-site is focused on going into the catch basin and the storm water pond that's in the center of the project. Let's see. I go past let me just see one thing real quick. Okay.

I'm gonna pause there. I've got a couple other things in case specific questions come up. But I did wanna address, you know, obviously, you heard from a lot of different residents in public comments about, you know, the River's Edge project and some of the issues with the HOA and things of that nature and some of the construction issues. I can't speak to the HOA issues. I haven't been involved with that.

It's something that Mark Rogers, who's here from Taylor Morrison, and I talked about as we heard those comments. He assured me that they're aware of them. They're continuing to try and work on on those issues. I'm aware that, you know, generally, a lot of times when you're going through that transition, it can be messy. I know from speaking with Mark, he's going to make sure that the comments that were raised here this evening are listened to by all of his staff back at their office to make sure that they are doing everything they can to address those questions and concerns.

I will say that statutorily there's a right for any builder, any person that's building a home or a structure in the state of Florida to to pull in a third party inspector. Your staff asked us to change that. And so we added language to the development agreement. And this goes to some of the comments that you heard about using city inspectors. And so we added language in the development agreement that commits us to using city inspectors unless there's not a sufficient staffing to to handle what, you know, the volume and that's that's required.

So we did add that in. We're confident that we can work with your staff to make sure city inspectors are there and that we can, you know, make sure that you're comfortable with the inspections that are being done. So with that, I'll pause. I have a number of folks here from our engineering team, our planning team with LevelUp. We've got our traffic consultants here as well. And we'll stop here and see if you have any questions. Mister mayor, I'd like to reserve some time for rebuttal luck after we hear citizen comments as well.

Thank you. We'll open it to citizen's comments.

Put your batteries together.

Do I need to be sworn in before I begin?

Yeah, I mean, we can do that. I know I guess it's similar to what you shared at the PNZ, but we can go ahead and just raise your right hand. And anyone who wants to speak, just raise your right hand and say that you solemnly swear that you'll tell the truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Okay. And because it's a quasi judicial, generally it's a good idea to have everyone sworn in.

You're speaking on behalf of residents, is that correct?

Yes. I'll outline them in my testimony, and I've asked them to raise their

just need to make sure we have their consent for you to speak on their behalf. Thank you.

And they're all present as well, Mr. Attorney.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. For the record, my name is Janet Shira, 148 Williams Street, Edgewater, Florida. I am here tonight as an expert witness representing the following affected parties. Amy Matt, 139 William Street. Michael and Jennifer Vasquez, 145 William Street.

Harry Fowler, 4490 And Steve Wilson, 4004 And 85 Myrtle Street. I also represent Ben and Pam Davis at 151 William Street. They couldn't be here this evening. These seven individuals all own property and reside on property directly abutting this proposed development. Since I am providing expert testimony, I need to put my credentials on the record.

I have a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northeastern University and a master's in public administration from the University of Central Florida. I have twenty years of experience working for local governments in Central Florida in both the planning and city manager's offices. I passed my AICP planners exam in 1997 and held that certification for twenty two years until retired. I also co owned a planning and engineering consulting firm for twelve years where our clients were cities and towns in Central Florida. I had continuing contracts for planning services with three cities in Lake County, one in Orange County and one here in Volusia County.

As it relates to the comp plan amendment and rezoning applications before you tonight in both my local government and consulting positions, I have a great deal of experience in reviewing plan amendments, rezoning applications and negotiating PUD's with developers. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have on my credentials. First, I want to go on record that we believe the recommendation in the staff report for the rezoning is stated incorrectly. It says that at the February 11 P and Z board meeting that the board sent a favorable recommendation to the city council. But what it doesn't say is that the favorable recommendation was conditioned on the developer addressing all of the objections that were raised on the plan and the development agreement that night, and specifically that the City Council should get a detailed list of what all these objections were.

We received a copy of the agenda packet items for tonight's public hearings, and there was no such list included, and all the objections have not been addressed. I don't have time to address all these details again tonight in my presentation, but it is important to note that it appears this board did not receive what the P and Z board asked you to receive. Tonight we are here to discuss two applications, One that asks for a comp plan amendment and one that asks to rezone the property. Their application for the comp plan amendment asks to reduce the density from four to eight units per acre to one to four units per acre. On the surface, this would appear to be a good change to make for the land use.

And we do not generally have an issue with the land use change. But to change the land use, the city would also need to change the zoning. And we are here tonight to oppose the RPUD zoning based on two main factors. First, the amount of impervious surface they are asking for. And second and for those who may not be familiar with impervious surface, that means covering the land with buildings or other hard surfaces where rainwater runs off the property rather than being absorbed into the ground.

And secondly, this plan does not preserve adequate land to be left in its natural state, which includes saving existing trees and other native vegetation. Both of these things are mentioned in both the city's comp plan and land development code. So there is documentation as to their importance in reviewing rezonings. I will provide factual information in my testimony to show that as it is being presented tonight, the RPUD is not favorable to the city or the neighboring properties, and especially not to the natural environment. One of the most important things to understand about this property is that it has an overlay included on its zoning.

This means that there are special rules above and beyond the requirements of the RPUD zoning. The Indian River Lagoon overlay zone was implemented by Volusia County. The overlay zone covers property along the Indian River basically from Edgewater all the way to the Brevard County line. The purpose of the overlay is to protect and improve the water quality of the Indian River Lagoon. These specific waters are the only waters in Volusia County designated for special protection by the state.

These waters have also been designated as an estuary of national significance by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The overlay rules primarily have to do with how storm water is handled and the amount of land required to be left undeveloped, preserving native vegetation. The objective of the overlay, again, is to reduce the negative impacts of development adjacent to the Indian River. Part of the regulations in the overlay ordinance includes quote all development shall contain a minimum of 35% open space within property boundaries landscaped with existing native vegetation. The reason I am raising this issue is so you will understand that normally an RPUD would have to incorporate a minimum of 25% open space.

But this overlay requires 35%. More than a third of the property is to remain natural. Because of this, even though the current land use allows four to eight units per acre, the Tamarac Mobile Home Park was only able to achieve four units per acre. So when the developer is stressing that they are doing you a favor by reducing the number of possible units and telling you that you should do this because a mobile home park could be developed without up to eight units per acre, you need to look at this site constraint and specifically the fact that more than a third of the property can't be developed. So it would be extremely difficult to achieve that density on this particular piece of property.

And again, the Tamarac Plan proves that. Their land use allowed up to eight units per acre, but they ended up just shy of four units per acre. Two significant differences between the Tamarac Mobile Home Park development and this proposed development are the intensity of development on each lot and the overall open space left for tree and wildlife preservation areas. Let me explain what is meant by intensity. Where density looks at the number of lots on the property, intensity looks at how much of each lot can be covered with impervious surfaces, again hard surfaces, buildings, driveways, etcetera.

The Tamarac site plan shows that they have a total of 12 acres of impervious surfaces for the entire site that includes the hard surfaces on the lots the roads the amenity buildings and parking lots 12 acres. So Tamarac is covering less than 30% of the entire 42 acres with hard surfaces. The hard surfaces allowed on this proposed plan are 14.5 acres just for the lots themselves. That doesn't count the roads or the boat trailer parking area. So where the Tamarac plan covers less than 30% of the overall property with hard surfaces, this proposed development would be at more than 46%.

How can this development cover so much more? Because with a PUD, the developer can ask for whatever they want. Where Tamarac has 35% of the lot that can be covered with buildings, this developer is asking for 60%. And where Tamarac can cover a total of 60% of each lot with hard surfaces, this developer is asking for 80%. It's just too much hard surface.

Where is all this water to go in a hurricane or other significant rain event? The developer will tell you that the stormwater pond has been designed to handle most rain events, but we have all seen what can happen. Reducing the amount of hard surface allowed on these lots will not only make it more consistent with normal residential coverage, it will help to prevent flash flooding when the bad rains come, and we know they will. The other major difference between these two developments is the amount of tree preservation and natural open space. The approved Tamarac plan has eight different areas on the property where they have preserved not only all seven historic trees, but 128 specimen trees and three ninety one other trees for a total of five twenty six.

That is 30% of the existing trees on the site. They did this without needing to ask for a comp plan amendment or a rezoning. They did this on their own. Their approved site plan shows that they have provided 14.7 acres of preserved open space. And this preservation of land and trees is not only important for wild life protection, it is critical for storm water management.

Trees are known to play an important role in helping to prevent flash flooding and erosion, and the natural land together with the tree cover helps replenish groundwater supply. This developer has yet to show us how they are meeting the open space requirement. They provide no data on the acreage that their concept plan has for open space. The development agreement says they will meet the open space requirement, but it also says they will count their pond acreage to meet that 35%. What does that mean?

Well, if their pond ends up being eight acres, then they will only have to provide 6.7 acres of actual natural area. Again, the Tamarac Plan gives the full 14.7 acres as preserved natural area. Therefore ponds as shown on their approved construction plans total almost nine acres, but they didn't include that in their open space. The developer continues to insist that they can't say what trees and how many will be saved because they have yet to design their subdivision. At the February, the developer's representative, Mark Watts, said, We're not at the construction plan level of detail.

So as I said to you, and I'll say it again, we can't make that commitment because we haven't designed the site yet. But if that's the case, then how do they know they need approval to remove at least two historic trees? In two different sections of the developer agreement they reserve the right to remove these two historic trees. There is also language in there that would allow them to remove additional historic trees if quote, any remaining historic trees are unavoidably impacted, unquote. Again, if they haven't designed the site yet, then they should be able to keep all the historic trees.

They have the tree survey in their computer system. How do I know this? Because in May, about six months after they applied for the comp plan amendment and the rezoning changes, they submitted full construction drawings to the city. Cave and Sound construction plans. This set of construction drawings includes a sheet where the tree survey is overlaid on the plans.

So they can take that data and overlay it on this concept plan. They have the ability to provide you and the public with the number of trees that would be saved based on this concept plan, where those trees are, and where the total open space is showing how they meet the 35%. Meaning how much of the open space is the pond and how much is actual upland. They are choosing not to do so saying they don't have a design yet. This concept plan is the design.

Make no mistake about it. They may not have finalized the engineering on this latest concept plan, but they have all the detail to tell us how many trees will be preserved and where and how much upland is included in the open space. Sure that number may change slightly during construction plan review, but to tell us they can't provide any details on how many trees they are saving and where they are saving them is hogwash. I will say in closing that there are still a lot of problems with both the concept plan and the development agreement. I have pointed these out in detail at the two public hearings in front of the Public Planning and Zoning Board.

Board. And tonight, I have provided fact based information on one, the amount of impervious surface they are asking for two, the fact that we do not have the needed information from the applicant on the estimated upland area that will be preserved in its natural state. And three, the fact that we do not have the needed information from the applicant on the estimated number of trees that will be saved to include the estimated number of specimen and historic trees. It is my professional opinion that the applicant has the ability to provide this data. This would be as a simple exercise for them to do.

We need this information so the City Council can make a more informed decision on the rezoning and so that appropriate language can be added to the developer agreement to ensure how much upland will be preserved in its natural state and how many existing trees will be saved. There are more than 1,700 trees on this property. The overlay language in your comp plan and your land development code all point to the critical importance of saving trees and preserving natural land. We owe it to all the animals and birds that look to this property and our neighborhood and the Indian River for shelter, food, and their way of life. And if the applicant insists that they can't provide the information you need to make the right decision, then we respectfully request that the two applications be denied.

I thank you for your time, and I respectfully ask for time to rebut if any party makes any comments regarding my testimony.

Thank

you.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. Sir, appreciate it. Thank you. Kim

Long, thirty three twelve Mango Tree

Drive. Does she need to be sworn in, mister Rollins?

Everyone was sworn in simultaneously. We did. Anyone who was speaking.

So Well, I'm certainly not an expert on anything. I was at planning and zoning board meeting, and I come in before you tonight to request that you deny the zoning change on this property. I was at the meeting, and when this was discussed, I want to say that it's not a plan that I want my city to approve. Taylor and Morrison presented a plan that would pave over much of these 42 acres. You'd be hard pressed to find a place for your dog to pee.

And if you think I'm not telling the truth about that, pull up again your site design on the southern boundary. It looks like there's seven and a half feet between the houses. Also, the fact that they're telling you they're cutting this in half compared to what it would be for mobile homes, as was just said, their proposal was a 165 mobile homes, and Taylor and Morris is proposing a 137 homes. That's hardly cutting it in half. So somebody's not telling the truth here.

The required green space the plan has is five or six of the acres are gonna be underwater. You're gonna have green space. Does it count if it's under a pond? I don't think it should. In my opinion, this is just a bad design all the way around.

You're taking what would have been a small lot with a mobile home on it, and I don't know if anybody's even waiting in the wings to build a mobile home park. You got somebody here that doesn't even hasn't purchased the land yet, if that's my understanding from tonight's meeting, and they want to build something that's gonna have much more paved surface to put a house on and then three car garages on some of them, two cars on the other, and then driveways and roads. That's a lot of payment. It's just a bad design, in my opinion. You're not even gonna have room for an Amazon delivery truck to make a turnaround the way the streets are designed.

I was shocked that the planning and zoning board sent it to the council because I don't think it was ready. That's just my opinion. As I said, I'm not an expert. I had the pleasure of walking this acreage yesterday, and I have to say that it would be a shame to allow it to be bulldozed down. It's our last remaining land on the water. It serves as home to many diverse species. I saw the biggest gopher tortoise that I've ever seen, and I understand there are 63 burrows on the property. The birds, the bald eagles, the ospreys, the red shouldered hawks, they all call this place home. As we walk through this property, which has no past I mean, we basically were, cutting our way through almost because it's so thick, all you could hear was birdsong. I mean, this property is just loaded.

The sand tracks that we came were full of animal tracks. It's just loaded with wildlife. And as was said before, there's 1,500 or more trees on the property. Seven of them are historic oaks. And I wonder if this council knows that just one just one mature oak can hold a 100 gallons of rainwater in one day, just in one day. So over the course of a year, a single tree can hold 40,000 gallons of rain.

And in this proposal Thank you, miss Long. We appreciate your comments. Thank you. Boarder. Vote no. Point of order. Not recognized. Only the council can do that. Thank you.

My name is Jim McGinnis. I live at 2607 Willow Oak Drive, Edgewater. I'm here tonight to talk about the Taylor Morrison Haversound project for the tree preservation since that has been an issue with the heavily forested property since this application was submitted. And according to our building codes, article five twenty one dash fifty five dash o one and twenty one fifty five DashO2, it is supposed to be a provider haven for the wildlife to use. Tree protection is specifically outlined both in the comp plan and land development code sections that regulate RPUDS.

The Indian River protection overlay calls for a minimum of 35% of the property to be native trees and other plants. The southern buffer and the two parks currently showing on their plan represents less than 10% of the property. The developer is asking for much smaller lots than are allowed under the city's other residential zoning districts. They are also asking to be able to cover each of those lots with twice the amount of building coverage than is allowed under other single family zoning districts, and they are asking to be allowed to cover each lot with 80% of buildings and hard surface. The shoreline needs to be protected under 21 dash fifty three zero seven that no more than 20% or 25 feet within the property boundaries can be altered

for

access. We need to balance all those hard surfaces with some natural areas. We need to stop clear cutting of the forest land. We need to start thinking of trees and natural infrastructure. They play as much a vital role as man made infrastructure such as roads, storm waters, and ponds.

Protecting trees should be a critical to the design of setback and stabilizing the soil. I, for one, do not want this proposal to go through. You're talking about the trees. There's six pages of trees on this property that's numbered and located on each one so they can pull up and see where each of these trees are and to be protected. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Jim McGinnis, for your comments. They're appreciated.

Good evening. My name is Dwight Cunningham. I live at 3044 Travelers Pound Drive Edgewater, Florida. I have two concerns regarding the plans for the developer of the Haven Sound project requesting an ore plant development agreement. My first concern is preservation of historic trees and wildlife. The developer is proposing to build 137 homes that will consume most of the property that was originally planned for the Tamarac Plan. This property has a significant number of historic and specimen trees. Developer has proposed for possibly relocating or removing one of the seven trees that were listed in the approved Tamarac Plan just so they could add one more house. That's absurd. Okay?

Neighbors have indicated that the property property is habituated with several species of wildlife, which we've heard several times tonight here. Clear cutting leads to habitat loss by removing trees, vegetation, and an area, instantly destroying food sources, shelter, and breeding sites for the wildlife. This practice destroys ecosystems, creates impassable barriers for species movement, and increases predation, and causes severe soil erosion and water quality degradation, making it difficult for the forest to regenerate. To summarize, local government should consider the long view when making development decisions. My second concern is over development.

The current land use problem is not only Edgewater, but also the state of Florida, as well as over development of land uses, where specific types of development exceeds the capacity of local infrastructure and or community needs. It's a proven fact that over development diminishes the quality of life by building over green spaces to increase residential capacity that decreases the overall quality of life, including infrastructure strain, and also cause an increased public opposition, which is exactly what's happening here tonight. The bottom line is this. This, there is no question the developers request for an armpit agreement for the Haversound project as an overdevelopment issue. Also, and I want to make this very clear, it is not the city's job to make it easier to maximize profits for the developer.

It's the city's job to protect, save, and enhance the quality of life for their current citizens. So with that said, I do not support this proposed Haven Sound project request. And I hope that council agrees with me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir, for your comments. I appreciate it.

Hello. Cora Steinkem, 339 Riverfront Way in the current Taylor Morrison development. The gentleman came up and said turnover can be messy. Florida statutes are devised, so turnover isn't messy. Taylor Morrison's community area manager made this messy by not keeping records and not communicating with the citizens. I'm asking there again that we don't let them build another community till they finish the community they have. Next, I want to talk about our construction issues in our community. No playground for children.

This is just related to this PUD at this time.

Yep, this is. But I'm saying this plan doesn't have a playground for children in it. So we're looking at how much playground equipment costs, because we have lots of people with kids in our neighborhood asking for a playground. It's thousands of dollars. We barely have enough for reserves, let alone that. Garage spaces how many cars fit in those garages? Because only one car fits in our garage, and only one car fits in our driveway. Thus, how wide are the streets? Our streets are not wide enough to have overnight parking in them. We have like seven, eight, nine, ten overflow parking spaces.

This looks like it has no overflow parking spaces. Where are these people going to park? That's next one. Parking native vegetation. Native vegetation in our area resulted in live oak trees being planted over sewers sewer lines. In five to seven years, our lines will our sewer the trees will be huge, too huge in the front yard and be growing into our sewer systems. So again, that's just little things like that. No common area. For us homeowners to meet, we have no building or common area to meet in. It's perfect.

If you don't talk to each other, we can get away with anything. And that's what they tried to do. They signed a unanimous consent that said, we don't need to meet. We can just sign things off. Again, I'm just asking for Taylor Morrison to take responsibility for our community and do the right thing for

this one. Thank you for your comment. I appreciate it.

Jim Lester in 18182 Jones Fish Camp Road. And what Corey didn't add is that the HOA is so bad that the state is o they they haven't signed an investigator Again. To it. Okay. Water retention. Okay? These are concept plans. We don't know what's gonna happen until you actually build it. Marilyn Jones Bennett, her house is still flooding, and nobody's done anything about it. And that was caused by the Taylor Morrison development that's flooding her property because the irrigation was changed.

So these are things that you guys gotta consider, the impact on the neighboring homes. I I attended the the zoning board meeting here, and I can say that I'm watching the argument, and all all of the zoning board members are asking all these questions. It sounded like, they really don't like this plan. Only one vote against it, though, when it came time. And what did they use?

They used scare tactics. Well, they could build a trailer park there if we don't do this. And that's exactly what you're doing to the riverfront estates people there because they can build two fourteen story apartment buildings or condos in the riverfront in the Indian River condo or the marina area. Okay? Scare tactics. Scare the people. Now you know how the citizenry feels about all this overdevelopment. You have the ability to say no. You did vote for a moratorium, and you you you held your ground on that. You have the ability to say no.

So who here is brave enough to say no? The citizens are watching. I don't know this thought there, but it left my mind.

It's a beautiful day.

Yes. Yeah. All right. I got a brain for it, so excuse me.

If you think of it, you have another minute remaining.

All right.

Thank you, sir, for

your I appreciate it.

Cheryl Davis, 356 Riverfront Way. If you're not sure what to do about this, if nothing else, table this until you get the information that, from what I'm hearing, you haven't gotten.

Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am, for your comments.

Renee Richards, 136 Jones Fish Camp Road. I just want to say again that I'm hoping that you folks will please consider all of the entities here. The developer, of course, they have their side. Citizens have their side as taxpayers. We don't want to keep funding over development because we are the ones that pay in the long run.

And the developer's long gone. They're onto their next 15 projects, probably on the other side of the county. But please, just please, let's take care of the problems we have here already. Enough is enough. Please, please think about your taxpayers. Thank you, ma'am. And a couple trees.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am, for your comments. They're appreciated. On the council comments.

Mister mayor, I'd just like to say that I see three of our planning and zoning board members here. Two of them spoke. The other one's a little shy. But I think that's awesome here, and I just wanna say that the planning and zoning board has been doing a great job of, like, paying attention and digging and looking at some of these factors, the pluses and the minuses. And thank you for volunteering, and you're here on your time again tonight. Thank you for what you guys do.

Are there any comments related to this?

Yes. If if this is approved, the road system I guess, you're gonna build a road system. And is that gonna revert to Edgewater? Is Edgewater gonna be there to maintain it?

No. Actually

No. Public participation. Yeah. Just On the final time.

For the record, Mark Watts with Cobb Cole here on behalf of the applicant. No, sir. Actually, this is designed as a gated neighborhood. This is designed as a gated neighborhood.

Oh, okay.

So the roads would be private and privately maintained. Okay. It would not become the city of Edgewater's responsibility.

Okay. And the gopher tortoises, if this is approved, there's excellent gopher habitat.

Yes, And

and I understand there's over 50 homes out there. Does your permit or have you applied for the permit yet?

We have not applied for the permit yet because those permits and those studies that those permits are based on are only good for ninety days. Okay. And so what we'll have to do is do a preliminary application with a current study. And then we have to, before construction under under the existing plan or the proposed plan, there has to be an updated study done and any gopher tortoises on-site would have to be relocated.

Well, there's two different ways you can go. You can you can get a permit to take

Correct.

Or you can get a permit to relocate. Correct. And if you get a permit to take, I'm not gonna support it.

Yeah. This would be

So that's when they just go in there and bulldoze, you know, and and gopher tortoises, I don't know if you know, but, I mean, they're one of my favorite species. And it take about forty years for a a gopher tortoise to get old enough to, you know, breed and have little ones in. They're such susceptible to predators, but the biggest predator is man because where are you gonna build a house? Are you gonna build it on a sand hill or are gonna build it in a swamp? And that's a sand hill. So I want you to know right now if your permit says to take, I will not support it.

These will be to relocate and that'll be done as we get into the construction process.

Okay.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

They're queued.

Mr. Mayor? I'd reserved a couple of minutes to rebut. Do you want me to do that now, or do you want me to wait until after council?

I guess. Go ahead.

Okay. I appreciate everybody's comments. I appreciate I will say miss Shira has been involved with each of our meetings, and she has constantly provided us with great feedback. Like I said, we we haven't always agreed. And this is one of those instances.

I think the specific section we agree. The Indian River overlay under chapter 50 of the county code is a county wide environmental minimum standard and it applies to the property. But I do want to read the rest of the provision that she read on landscaping. Notwithstanding any other provision of this article to the contrary, all development shall contain a minimum 35% open space within the property boundaries, landscaped with existing vegetation or planted native species. And that's the part that she didn't read when she gave her testimony testimony before.

That's the provision in the county's code. And that's the provision we're confident that this project will meet. Now, when I look at I'll give you a couple slides. We we have a good deal of tree information. We do not have a completely designed project. There were construction plans submitted last July based on a prior version of the concept plan that has since changed probably at least a half dozen or more times. So it has to be redesigned. And those plans have to be done so that we can see which the final total of trees are that are being saved or being impacted. That's what I said to the PNC and that's what I said here tonight. We don't know the specific number because we don't have those plants.

Now, I can give you a very, very close estimate based on the fact that we've received those comments and received that feedback. And I included it in the initial materials that I put in front of you this evening. I can Good question. It's not. Alright. There it is. Is that you or me? There we go. Okay. So going back to this chart, if you look at the tree preservation, I said in the beginning, 30% is what is of the existing trees are what is preserved under the tamarack plant.

And I said, that's one where they did better. Although, one of the major contributors to our lower number is the fact that we have a large pond area. But we're still at 25%. Now let me put that in numbers. Miss Shire testified to you that 526 of the existing 1,730 trees on the site were being preserved under the Tamarac Plan.

We're estimating we're at about 441. That's that 25% versus 30% that's included in the summary that I put in for in in front of you earlier today. Now one of the other things that I think has been represented is that that area is preservation. This is one of the open space sections of the approved Tamarac plant. Constructed dry pond, swale dug into the buffer area, a cul de sac, the center of a cul de sac that's in the middle of a street.

This is not, you know, all existing retained vegetation. These are areas that can qualify under the code because the code says existing native vegetation or planted native species. So we are meeting that standard. And I can go a step further because the question has been raised about whether or not we're counting the pond area. And I can stipulate, and if you look back at our summary that we provided you with, The first asterisk down on the bottom, which is the asterisk that's next to our 30 our minimum open space.

So it's not including pond acreage to, you know, to normal water volume or water level. So we are confident and we're happy to write this in here however you'd like to see it, that we can meet that 35% existing preserved native vegetation or planted native vegetation without counting the water area of the pond. Now one of the great things that I think your staff did was they put very specific planting requirements around that pond as well. And those are standards that are included in this development agreement. So I think they've done a good job of making sure that we will meet that standard.

And we're happy to stipulate that it doesn't include the wet portions of the pond area, because that is another concern that was raised this evening. The other thing I want to touch on briefly is the issue of the impervious area on the on the lots. One of the things that I think you've heard, and I think one of the things that your staff has heard quite a bit, is people having to come in to get variances, to do pools, to do other things on some of their homes in in different subdivisions within the city. And so one of the reasons why we went to a higher standard was to prevent that from happening as this moves forward. So while we have a a lot coverage area for the building, we we had a higher total impervious area for the lot to account for things like driveways, sheds, pools, decks, things of that that nature in addition to the homes.

So we've tried to work with your staff to make sure that this doesn't become a problem subdivision for you down the road with those variants requests coming forward. I wanted to show one other thing, and that is the comparison of the overall impervious. Give me just a second. These are just some examples of the buffer areas, by the way. These show the existing vegetation that's retained in those areas, and that gives you some of the idea of the boundary and also the grading.

So, again, I mentioned before, sloping away from the boundaries, tying into existing grade, preserving the existing vegetation in those buffers. Give me just a second. Did I pass it? Okay. Where am I going, Steven?

Okay. Okay. So one of the things, because this concern had been raised, we went back and looked at our plans conceptual form and then compared that to what we see in the approved Tamarac plan. And when we look at the total impervious surface ratio of the overall development and the the roads, the the building that's occurring on the lots and everything else, Point four nine impervious surface ratio on Tamarac, point four eight impervious surface ratio for Haven Sound. So again, very similar.

And I think we had on our summary page that we were the same. We were at 49% on the overall impervious. So we disagree on the on some of the matters of interpretation. We agree on the purpose and intent of those regulations to protect water quality and protect the lagoon. And we are happy to add the provision in there that we don't include the wet portion of the pond in that calculation. If that helps to make make you sure that your staff has the tools necessary to make sure that our plan meets that standard. And by the way, that does not count the native planning that your staff has required us to put on the lots themselves on the front front of the lots themselves. I think that was everything. Did I miss anything else? I think those were the key points that I just wanted to spell out.

So again, we're here and happy to answer any questions. We do think that the PUD gives you the best vehicle to to manage the development of this property moving forward. Management kind of being an interesting term. One of the things we went back and looked at is some of the history of the property. Because we heard a lot of conversation about, you know, the fact that it mean, it is definitely heavily treated. It is definitely, you know, very wooded property. But these are some of the the images that we found of the history of the property where it was cleared. It was, you know, canals were cut through it. And it's been revegetated since that time. But it's certainly not always been pristine property.

I think there's a great way to preserve it. I think there's a great way to protect the environment with the development of the property. I think the development agreement gives you the keys to do that.

Thank you. We appreciate it. I'm sorry, but we're past Citizens Comments. I didn't recognize that, but go ahead.

I mean, it's up to the discretion of the chair, and it sounds like he's giving you the discretion to.

Three minutes, please.

I just if we could get that slide back that shows the Tamarac and the Haven Sound plan that was just up here that shows the impervious right there, right there. I have the approved Tamarac site plan. It was approved by the city of Edgewater. It says on the approved site plan that the total impervious areas for the lots, the roads, the sidewalks, the amenity buildings, the parking area is 12 acres. That amounts to 0.3, not 0.49.

So I don't know where they got that information. This is the first time I've seen this slide. It's interesting, though. It's also the first time we've seen that theirs is 0.48 because they've been withholding some information from us. So again, you're looking at impervious under the current approved plan of 0.3, 30%.

And theirs is closer to 48%. The other thing that's important that they keep going back to is that they're going to plant native species. Has anybody seen what happens when they clear cut, build the house, and then get they landscape the yard with a native tree that looks like a stick that might be this tall. We don't want that. We want to keep the trees already there, and this plan does a much better job of that.

Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate it. Who would like to go first? I'm not afraid of it being a trailer park, mobile home park at all. I thought that the plan that was brought before us to begin with, as the residents have stated, was a much stronger plan. I think that trailers and mobile homes to begin with are less density than single family homes. I think that there's going to be less concrete. There's not going to be necessarily garages either, I believe. I think most of them are going to be carports.

Twenty five year storm plan, that's the only thing that concerns me, but I'm very familiar with every stretch of the city. That area does not have a flooding concern. And there's mobile home already next to it. But my question is, we've already approved this. If it was already profitable, they would have done it a year ago.

So that's what I think. I think that this is a good project. I think that it's all on the line for us to decide. I I just like the the first project that we've already voted on and approved stronger than this. I think that there's going to be less density, as several residents have described, along with the people I've talked to at a professional level on the first project.

Okay. I'll go next. I want to point out some things, and I have some concerns as well. I'm going point out the pros and then the cons. As far as the Indian River Lagoon worrying about its future, the Have And Sound project seems like it's going above and beyond one hundred year storm versus a twenty five year storm water.

The soil package, the Florida water quality requirements that it's requiring, the Tamarack is not. No boardwalk for the Hammond Sound. Putting a boardwalk through those mangroves at the beach will not be beneficial to the Indian River Lagoon, so I think that's another plus, keeping mangroves, keeping them pristine, eliminating any invasive species we have right now, and no boardwalk. 50% native vegetation, think that's great. Keeping it more native, eight slips instead of 10 boat slips.

And with the way the contours, the two projects, the Hammond Sound is grading, so it's going back into the project. The tamarack is going by the Indian River Lagoon. The yards are flowing into the lagoon with nothing stopping it. All the fertilizer, all the oils, gases, whatever it might be, is not going back into the pond. It's graded down to the Indian River Lagoon.

Again, that's not best for our lagoon, so I do have concerns about that. I do know that this is not plugged into our stormwater master plan yet because engineering is not done, so I cannot ask that question. Then conservation, on the south part of the property, they're preserving a 40 foot buffer. And it's going be an easement given back to the city of Edgewater to maintain. And they're also keeping the swale for the neighbors to the south so that they can use that swale as far as their storm water, which I think they're considering, again, their neighbors to the south.

And I did ask Mr. Watts about the seven trees that I would like to see preserved. There's one in the top left corner, and I asked him about possibly removing two of those lots to preserve that tree. And although he said they were running into an issue not being able to accommodate that, they may be able to create those lots of 40 feet and create a pocket around the tree to preserve that tree. So that's one less tree, so it would go to six trees preserved and possibly seven.

The seventh one could be preserved if it's inspected and it's able to be moved, so that's unknown at this time. Some of my concerns are no playground, which I didn't think about until tonight. Single family homes, the kids aren't going to have a place to play we need to talk about that. No overflow parking was a great point. As we see with Jones Fish Camp, they have a nightmare down there.

The Taylor Morris issues really has me concerned as far as how they're not standing behind their product for the residents on Junet Fish Hemp who are there now. And gives me pause to think that they're not owning their problems. They're not taking care of the problems. And they are now going to do another project. To me, I would like to see them taking care of the problems, listening to their concerns of their residents, and fixing them.

It's the residents were a product. And until tonight, all the things I was hearing about, the Taylor Morris, I'm thinking, wow, there is a lot going on there. And I just would like to see them step up and do the right things for that project. It would give us a lot better warm, fuzzy feeling with the Have and Sound. But with the two projects side by side, I just think the Have and Sound, in the long run, besides the issues that has to be dealt with with Taylor Morris, it's better for the Indian River Lagoon.

It's more green space in the back end, and they really went to a lot of detail to try to accommodate and listen to the residents about their concerns, and I really appreciate that. That's it. And So the one hundred year storm border master plan, the one hundred year storm is an important project, an important thing we have in our codes now. And to dismiss that, twenty five year will be Okay. I'm not comfortable with that because twenty five year is not Okay.

Even though it did not flood in the past, you don't know if it's going flood in the future. So why are we going to be Okay with a twenty five year plan for the Tamarack but no, no, no, everything else has to be one hundred year? So that really concerns me. Another problem I have with the Tamarack besides the concern at the Indian River Lagoon, I see nothing in Tamarack that's worrying about the Indian River Lagoon, and that's something that we focus so hard on as a community. So for those reasons right now, that's where I stand.

Thank you.

Sure.

I don't like either of them. They look like five pounds of crap in a three pound bag.

GREGORY No public participation.

GREGORY DELL: For real. I mean, good points about, like, my son lives behind me in Woodbridge Lakes. And when they have a party of just, like, five people, you can't park. Somebody parks, and God forbid, a fire truck has to come around. That fire truck's going to just have to move that car to the side. The roads are so narrow, it's crazy. My son can barely have a party without asking his neighbor's permission to park. And if you see how they park sorry I'm going use this word, but nothing looks more ghetto than parking your car this way on a two car driveway, and you've got another car at the end. I'm coming through like, wow, look at nice houses. And they're parked on it just doesn't look comfortable.

There's got to be a better way for both of them. That's just my thoughts. It's pretty packed. But that's the norm. Get every property you can on a piece of property.

I agree with council

Ryan, great work. Great work with but I mean, still, this is really tight, both of them.

I agree with councilman Madaba also that the Taylor Morrison issue should be dealt with as well. That's a huge major factor as well.

I mean, I feel like my face shows a lot of things while I'm sitting here. Just some of the comments, I'm going to, like Mark, when you're saying that both of you guys care about the Indian River Lagoon, the first and I'm going to sound biased when I say it out loud, I don't care. My first thought is, if you cared about the Indian River Lagoon, we wouldn't be trying to build these homes in the first place. Because right now, you guys have the like, your project there, you're selling something that the people haven't even fully bought it yet. They want to do this.

But they haven't bought it yet because they haven't been approved for it. So if we don't approve it, we don't get it. But right now, the other one, the same thing. They've been sitting on that entitlement, nobody's built it. So I feel more comfortable with holding out to see if nothing gets built, because I'd rather not see anything there at this point or see I mean, we put that $6,000,000 number out there. Please, anybody who's watching that wants to raise something or throw something at it. Mean, people did it with Marineland and other things, so just throwing that out there. But it's and then other things I want to bring up. I mean, you showed about the flooding maps, and you've pulled up the Florida Shores drainage basin. But that's not the neighbors that are worried about the flooding.

You've got neighbors on Williams and Teramar and everyone in that area. So yes, I mean, we're worried about flooding in Florida Shores, that's but not the residents that are reaching out mostly about this project. It's all the people that are around it. So it was just kind of like, why are you guys showing us the Florida Shores Drainage basin? Because that's what we are concerned about flooding there, but that's not who was coming and calling about this project specifically. But I just I don't like that we're sitting here trying to move forward and again with the scare tactics. I've been bullied into that in the past. And it's right now, I do think that I don't think that you guys have a better project. I don't like the two story homes and all of these things. I mean, I'm not like the mayor said, I'm not scared of it being a trailer park.

The whole like, trailer park is a boogeyman. I don't have a and I don't think it would technically be a trailer park. It would be manufactured homes. It would be like a 55 and up and something nicer. So I would rather so I don't want to thank anybody I'm knocking a trailer park. But I don't know. I just I'm not scared of it being manufactured homes. And the amount of time and I wanted to actually clap for you, Janet, for all the time and effort I know you've put into this and the research you've done for all of this. But going back, I mean, the amount of time that the neighbors over that way met with the Tamarac people to set up that agreement. They went back and forth, isn't it correct me, wasn't it for several years that you guys went back and forth with the the first time?

I thought it was going back and forth a little bit longer with the Tamarac, the first project. I mean, they went I mean, you guys had four meetings with Haven Sound, but the original project worked hand in hand with the surrounding neighbors for quite a while. And, I mean, so I'm more comfortable going letting it fall back to a project that more of the surrounding homes approved of versus one that I mean, I have only had one neighbor from that area make any type of positive comment about said project. All of the people that I've spoken to, it's been overwhelming concern.

And I will say that there are several conservation groups that I believe this land is on their priority list if it doesn't pass, just for the record.

Well, that would be great.

Well, and like I said, my lay whole thing is, I mean, we're it seems like the fear is approve this because it looks like better than something that might be built. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. Do we have anybody right there? I mean, said they've got the permits and they've got some papers that are out there. But do you have somebody with money right now that's sitting there trying to say, oh, we're gonna build this tomorrow? Do they have funding?

Well, no.

For the but does Taylor Morrison wanna build trailers?

We're here with a specific proposal before you this evening. I just would say it's probably not and I'll defer to your city attorney to correct you on this. But talking about the acquisition of the property as a factor in denying or considering the zoning of the property, I don't think is a legally permissible thing.

Were you done?

Okay. Gavin, is that true? So what you

want to generally focus on with zoning is compatibility with comprehensive plan, concerns of residents that are specific to issues with traffic, issues with the way it's laid out, compatibility, those types of things. Generally, past practice can't be factored into a specific zoning decision, but you can certainly handle some of those concerns in another format through the city manager and that type of thing. But I would what I would do is I would say this is separate from who the applicant is, focus on what it is you like or dislike about the project as a whole from a zoning standpoint and comprehensive plan, what you feel like is in the best interest of the community.

Well, that degree, you shouldn't be threatening us and putting this project in front of us. Just saying. All right, let's move forward. I

think they're just getting us to They're just

getting just getting us participation at this time.

It's getting us to was

Let me say multiple times what it was zoned for.

Well, I know, but you're saying, why do it? Why are they putting us in front of us? Because they need to. I would say shame on them if they didn't show us both projects side by side. Mean, that's

Good for

you. We need to I'm see

glad you feel that one.

I'm sorry if you don't, but I would No. I would like to see

As I said, the zoning

If I have a project in front of me and I have another project that could be, I would like to see both projects side by side so I can make a decision

That's great.

With

I

mean, it is pretty great diesel. It is.

I see both projects, though. Mean, my biggest thing is, I mean, this first project met with the neighbors. We met with the neighbors for a long period of time, and they worked it out to where they were happy moving forward. I mean, they weren't happy something was getting built. But, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.

I mean, the general consensus from all the neighbors I talked to over in that way is, you they spent a lot of time and a lot of meetings meeting with the first group working out that project till everybody was happy. And all I'm hearing about this project is because if something's gonna get built there, you gotta try to work with the people who are around you. And the overwhelming thing that I am hearing from the residents there is there's a lot of things that aren't happening that were supposed to happen.

Is it my turn yet?

Sure. Sorry, Mike.

I'm like councilor Rain Bird. It's it's just too crowded. Everybody in this room knows that I I won't say the word hate, but I very, very dislike 50 foot lots. And what you're doing, you're just cramming them in there. I like to see more green space. I'd like to see bigger lots. I think they're doing well on the the water, keeping the water on their property. But I I Give me some room, man. Leave me leave me some trees, you know. Make it make it a place that you want to go home, you know.

And and just I I'd like to send send it back to the drawing board and, you know, come up with a little bit better plan than what they got right there. That's my opinion.

I echo that. Are there any further comments? Is there a motion to approve? Seeing no motion to approve.

Well, hold on.

Do you need a motion to disapprove?

You have basically three options. You can move to approve and then vote on that. You can make a motion to deny, or you can make a motion to table or continue, but you can't do so indefinitely because that functions as a denial, essentially, if you did it indefinitely. So you'd have

How long can we put it off for?

There's no specific timeline, but you wouldn't want to do it indefinitely because that then functions as a denial and you have to give some level of certainty. So if it's a couple months, if you have a very specific reason you want to continue, you're allowed to But do you can't just function you can't just deny it or table it indefinitely and never have any plan to bring it up in the future. In that case, you would want to just deny it, because then that allows an appeal if the applicant seeks that.

Are you hearing what we're saying? Are you willing to make some compromises?

Again, for the record, Mark Watts.

No public participation.

Yeah. You know, there's always input in this process. And I think that, you know, what I say to people about, you know, kind of the rezoning process is it's messy. And, you know, what we start with is often very different than what we end with. Are there groundbreaking changes? Can we take it and reduce the density by 20 or 30%? I don't think so. Are we able to sit down and try and figure out, can we save the additional tree? Can we make sure that you're seeing overflow parking or the parking or the playgrounds and where those are and that there are solid commitments in there for that? Absolutely. Can we look at some of the layout and the lot sizes? I think that's absolutely possible. But we're working within constraints with regard to the density as well.