Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

CALL TO ORDER, PLANNING BOARD REGULAR MEETING MONDAY, APRIL 13, 2026. IF YOU ALL WOULD 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, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Friendly reminder, please silence all wireless devices. We will begin. Alicia, would you please call the roll?

Ms. Carter? Present. Ms. Story? Ms. Clemmons? Present. Mr. Whiting?

Present.

Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson.

Present.

Chair Kreisel.

Present. Our new board member is not here today.

Correct. She has a reasonable excuse for not attending today.

Noted. Thank you. We will have to have our introductions officially next month. All right. Moving on to item five, approval of minutes from the February 9th, 2026 meeting. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion.

I move to approve the minutes.

Second. We have a motion to approve by Ms. Clemmons with a second, but I'm going to give it to Mr. Whiting. Got to be fast. Please call the roll.

Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Ms. Clemmons? Yes. Chair Kreisel?

YES. ALL RIGHT. LET'S MOVE ON TO NEW BUSINESS, ITEM 6A, FINAL PLAN DEVELOPMENT. MR. GILLMORE HAS THE PRESENTATION.

NEW BUSINESS, ITEM 6A, FINAL PLAN DEVELOPMENT. Chair, Planning Board members, my name is Dennis Gilmore, Historic Preservation Officer and Senior Planner for the City of Fort Pierce Planning Department. Before you, we have a final development plan for the Pulte Cornerstone Plant Development Zone. located at 2721 south jenkins road parcel id 2324-413-0000-000-9 and 2324-431-0001-000-2 the applicant leslie olsen of district planning group owner cassie mccrane cornerstone fort pierce development llc The applicant is requesting approval of the final plan development of the Pulte Cornerstone Plan Development PD Zoning District. The application proposes a 239-unit fee-simple single-family residential plan development community with a range of home sizes, a range of designs, amenities such as a linear park, connecting the recreational area to a pocket park, providing additional buffers for the new neighborhood from 95. A LITTLE HISTORY, ON NOVEMBER 10, 2025, THE PLANNING BOARD UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMENDED APPROVAL OF THE MASTER PLANT DEVELOPMENT FOR THE PULTY CORNERSTONE PLANT DEVELOPMENT ZONE WITH 14 CONDITIONS. ON FEBRUARY 2, 2026, THE CITY COMMISSION APPROVED THE MASTER PLANT DEVELOPMENT FOR THE PULTY CORNERSTONE PLANT DEVELOPMENT ZONE WITH 14 CONDITIONS AS WELL. THE SUBJECT PROPERTY IS APPROXIMATELY 49.92 ACRES PLUS OR MINUS. and is located at the southwest corner of South Jenkins Road and Okeechobee Road. Future land use is currently RM, medium density residential, with a zoning of plant development PD. For you is the final site plan, which shows the 239 units proposed. For you is an illustrative site plan, which you have seen previously as well during the master plan development. This is site data of the proposed development. The applicant is proposing two lot types, lot type A, 55 units, and lot type B, 184 units, with a gross density of 4.79 dwelling units per acre. Here are some site calculations such as open space. The applicant has submitted approximately 20% open space, 28% open space, I'm sorry, over the minimum required of 20%. The impervious area will be 39%, impervious 10. This is the final phasing plan and bus route, which was recommended by the planning board on November 10th, 2025, and presented to the city commission. PD benefits to Lanier Park leverages a creative use of the stormwater facilities by transforming them into bioswales and rain gardens through which a meandering one-third mile long walking path with resting stops overlooking the naturalized and lake vistas and at the southwest corner of the property the terminus of the linear park lies a pocket park where a sculptural art installation is proposed the art installation will be visible to traveling public on i-95 and is intended to create a beautiful and unique sense of arrival in the city of fort pierce the site is designed with a grid network of streets which has been designed to minimize lots adjacent to i-95 The greatest peak direction anticipated with the project is 147 PM entry trips based on the City of Fort Pierce Code of Ordinance, Section 105-5F2B. The analysis considers the project to be a minimum scale impact. Some typical road tracks, roadway tracks for the Plant development, 40 foot typical residential roadway tract, 70 foot main entrance roadway tract, 60 secondary entrance roadway tract, and a 40 foot commercial access roadway tract. Here's a section distance rendering, which shows you a lot type B. The distance of the linear park and landscape buffer to the proposed trail, the proposed wall, the perimeter landscaping, and then the I-95 interstate. Okay, before you is the proposed landscape plan, which includes tree-lined streets. The landscape data includes 59 trees provided in the west and the east perimeter buffer, 36 trees in the north and west perimeter buffer, in the south buffer 50 trees, and trees along internal roadways 310 trees. Tree mitigation data, total of 1,888.5 inches. Tree schedule, the applicant is proposing silver bismarck palm, shady lake black olive, Brazilian beauty leaf, pigeon plums, green buttonwoods, silver buttonwoods, crepe myrtles, slash pines, and cabbage palms. This is the design review color board. There's one of four Florida Mediterranean exterior color schemes.

This is the first one.

This is the second color board. The third color board with coastal exterior color schemes. And this is the fourth color board with coastal exterior color schemes. The architecture of the single family development reflects current Florida vernacular homes and a variety of single and two-story options that will create a varied streetscape. This is a rendering of the proposed amenity center and the adjacent to it is the proposed floor plan. The applicant is supplying, a generator will be supplied for the amenity center. It includes the woman's restroom, man's restroom, the hurricane ready room, and a covered area. This proposed identity feature, which will be visible from I-95, the applicant has provided these two renderings. So now I will show you renderings of different proposed models. This is the Dalen single story home models, option one and option two. The Candlewood single story home models, option one and option two. The Marlin two-story home models, option one and option two. The Mill Run two-story home models, option one and option two. The Pinecrest two-story home models, option one and option two. in the Talon two-story home models, option one and option two. Environmental report, the subject site is comprised predominantly of disturbed lands that were previously improved of agricultural use and are now dominated by non-native invasive Brazilian pepper with scattered native trees, including lower Oaks, cabbage, palms, and wax Myrtle field observations conducted in June and July of 2024 confirmed that the property does not contain any native upland habitat. Um, there's also an area in the Western portion of the site that contains wetland characteristics in may upon review by the South Florida water management district be considered a jurisdictional wetland. Field observations conducted in June and July of 2024 include a variety of common avian species present within the property, including the morning dove, American crow, the boat-tailed grackle, northern mockingbird, and cattle egret. Reptile species observed include a Cuban anole and a black racer snake. Indicators of the occurrence of mammals SCAD tracks or other physical indicators include raccoon, armadillo, coyote, feral hog, and rodents. All avian species present are protected habitats on site. Storm drainage calculations indicate that the project site can fully accommodate the required water quality treatment value. and the five-year, one-day storm event on site. The proposed project is for the development of the single-family residential community, including the buildings, roadways, roads, driveways, sidewalks, and recreational amenities. The proposed stormwater management system will consist of catch basins and culverts that will direct stormwater runoff into the proposed detention systems. The proposed detention systems will provide water quality, treatment, and stormwater attenuation prior to discharging in the North St. Lucie Water Control District Canal, number 39, through a control structure regulating the volume of discharge. The proposed stormwater management system has been designed to meet the requirements of South Florida Water Management District, the North St. Lucie Water Management District, and the City of Fort Pierce. A FULL STORMWATER ANALYSIS HAS BEEN COMPLETED. ALL AFFECTED DEPARTMENTS HAVE REVIEWED THE PROPOSED FINAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE PLAN DEVELOPMENT ZONE DISTRICT WITH REGARDS TO CONSISTENCY WITH ESTABLISHED ORDINANCES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THE CITY CODE AND COMPREHENSIVE PLAN. Conditions of approval include one, the final development plan shall conform to the requirements of the city code of ordinances unless alternate standards are approved through the plan development agreement. Two, a gopher tortoise service shall be completed within 90 days of land clearing. Three, after approval of the final PD site plan a detail storm water and drainage plan and statement shall be submitted at the time of building permit for the final development. The final plan development site plan shall be in unified control and ownership all and intended to be included in the plan development shall be under the legal control of the applicant. 5 the property may not be subdivided into single family lots unless the applicant obtains a subdivision plat approval in accordance with all applicable city code requirements. SIX PRIOR TO PLAT APPROVAL, THE DEVELOPER SHALL OBTAIN A SOUND STUDY TO DETERMINE IF THE NOISE WITHIN THE PROPERTY FROM I-95 OFF-REP ACES THE F-DOT NOISE ABATEMENT CRITERIA FOR RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES, WHICH IS 66 DBA AS SET FORTH IN FIGURE 18-1 OF PART 2, CHAPTER 18, HIGHWAY NOISE, TRAFFIC NOISE FROM THE F-DOT P, D, AND E MANUAL, AND SHALL DELIVER A COPY OF THE STUDY TO THE CITY. If the foregoing FDOT noise abatement criteria is exceeded at the location of any of the proposed homes within development, the developer shall commit to implement noise reduction measures for such homes calculated to meet the HUD interior noise goal set 4th and 24 CFR subpart B 51.101A9. An example, not to exceed a day-night average sound of 45 dBA. Such noise reduction measures may include the measures set forth in the FDOT PD&E Manual Part 2, Chapter 18, Figure 18-3 Building Noise Reduction Factors in the City, will accept FDOT's calculations of noise reduction as set forth in Figure 18-3 prior to PLAC approval. The City shall review the sound study and the developer's proposed noise reduction measures. If such measures are required to conform to this condition, perform this condition has been satisfied. Continued 6 the attached is the F dot PD&E a manual chapter 18 part 2 highway traffic noise from figure 18-1 noise abatement criteria as you can see and From figure 18-3 nor a building noise reduction factors It's listed listed as you can see And attached is the HUD 24 CFR Part 51, subpart B, noise abatement and control from 24 CFR, subpart B, 51.101A9, interior noise goals. And condition seven, the project site is party to inaccess easement recorded. in favor of the owner of the 1.51 acre parcel located at 2627 South Jenkins Road, immediately adjacent to the north at the time of the final plot application submittal for any phase contemplated under the final development plan, the applicant shall provide staff with a copy of recorded easement negotiated between the applicant and the adjacent owner for their mutual benefit, preserving the adjacent owner's right of access to the project site. As you can see, you've seen some of these conditions in the previous master site plan. The applicant has addressed some of those, and these are the remaining for the final PD. Staff recommends that the planning board recommend approval of the zoning atlas map amendment final plan development with these seven conditions of approval. CONSISTENT WITH SECTION 125-136 OF THE CITY CODE AND COMPREHENSIVE PLAN DOES NOT ADVERSELY AFFECT THE PUBLIC HEALTH, SAFETY, CONVENIENCE AND GENERAL WELFARE. ALTERNATIVE ACTIONS OF THE PLANNING BOARD ARE RECOMMENDED APPROVAL OF THE PROPOSED FINAL PLAN DEVELOPMENT WITH THE ASSOCIATED DEVELOPMENT PLAN WITH CHANGES OR ALTERNATIVE CONDITIONS OR RECOMMEND DENIAL OF THE PROPOSED FINAL PLAN DEVELOPMENT WITH ASSOCIATED DEVELOPMENT PLAN. THANK YOU.

Mr. Chair, if I could add. Venice, could you go through to reverse to your project benefits slide, please? Number two states that the southwest corner of the property and the terminus of the linear park lies a pocket park where a sculptural art installation is proposed. And this was discussed right the way through the project with the applicant. The art installation will be visible to the traveling public on I-95, and it's intended to create a beautiful and unique sense of arrival in the city of Fort Pierce. Now, Venice, can you move forward to the actual rendering of that art? So this is what I want the planning board to really look at here. This, in my opinion, is not art. It's a project identification monument. And when we take this to the city commission, I don't think staff will be recommending approval of this feature as described. It doesn't meet the intent of the public benefits that were set to create a identification piece. in a sense of art that may be from what we were trying to achieve is an identity feature that may and could be replicated through other projects when in gateway situations within the city. So I don't think this is what the city commission were expecting. They wanted to be involved in the design of this. I'm not sure if, We've seen that. So I'd like that to be taken into account as the planning board consider this application. I take it there's no objection to the specific location or the... No, the actual, I think the issue is the design and the concept of the art. When we talk about art, we're not normally talking about a project identification monument or sign.

Yeah. would you be amenable to an additional condition for further creative exploration of the final product of... That would be a way to move this forward, yes. We'll work on the language of that as we go. I share your sentiment. There are artistic elements of it, and I appreciate the city branding. I think we're I don't think we're exactly nailing it, what the commission had in mind.

No, that would be my concern that this, if it was presented to a commission like this, would not be rendered acceptable.

Perhaps you might be able to prepare some examples for the applicant to kind of steer them in the right direction just so they're not shooting in the dark.

We have, Chair. We've forwarded a number of... concepts which are used in other locations around the country to start to set up an identification for the city of its character and maybe its history or something going on with that. I don't think this has achieved that.

All right. going to proceed with a couple questions for staff so mr. Gilmore you touched on this I'm reading through the conditions that were set forth by the Commission in the February meeting it would appear that all of the conditions that can be met at this phase in the project have been based on my review of the application the remaining seven and now 8 conditions would be just any remaining work that would be done at a later phase in the development plan anyway? Correct. In reviewing the TRC comments, there seemed to be I think there were actually two separate comments regarding the sidewalks and whether or not there would be sidewalks on both sides of the street. Have those comments and I saw the comments were responded by the applicant is that is the Planning Department satisfied with those responses yes okay yes and my other question for staff was in regards to the comment about the hurricane hardened building which the applicant intends to utilize the cabana at the pool, there's language in the ordinance or the requirement that just indicates it a building of appropriate size. It doesn't give occupancy or dimensions. Is the planning department satisfied with the size of the building that they're utilizing for this purpose?

Yes, because at the... At the time that we realized that that was even in the comp plan, because it was hidden in there, I think it's under the... I forget which section. It doesn't really even correlate. Because it doesn't state a specific size, we're willing to accept this one for now.

This isn't intended to be a building that's going to house people, just a place where they can recharge cell phones and it's connected to a generator.

And we also took into account that all the buildings that are being constructed on site are built to the latest building code standards. So it's likely that it would need to be an extreme storm event to take those buildings out. And in the same storm event, the emergency shelter would probably also be taken out.

Right. All right. Any other questions for staff? Send it out to the board here.

Let me go back to what Kevin brought up. Is it your suggestion back to this board that maybe we add an eighth condition, talking about the location and the incorporation of the location as well as what the makeup of the sign is?

The intent of staff is to get a gateway feature. I think we've established a location. We just need some input on what the commission and what the planning board would want to see there. What we're trying to do throughout the city is look at major routes into the city and out of the city and create an identity. And if I can use the example of tradition, you know you're in or around tradition because they have a number of signs, or not signs, but identification features that you can see from 95.

You're talking about coordination of branding, as it were. Branding, yes. That's the correct word for it.

Yes.

I had a question. I had a question about the that shared space, is that the only communal space where that pool is that has the restrooms and a covering?

No, there's the Lanier Park.

Well, in that area by the pool, that's the only one by the pool, I guess, is my question.

There's a little park area, I think. A little park area also in the front.

Control and plus. If you go to the map and press control and plus.

There's a playground area.

It does seem small. When I first saw it, I said, this is a very small communal space for all these residents that will live there. Is there any chance that we can ask them to enlarge them as far as the general well-being of the residents that will live here in the future?

Well, they do have the linear park, which is like one third of a mile to the north. this long, all the way along the property.

All right, but that's the only communal building.

Yes, that's the only communal building.

For the entire, all the residents. There's no community center.

No community center.

My second comment was about the gopher tortoise survey. So my understanding is that That survey list was to be done before land clearing, but after land clearing?

Correct.

And what is the correct rule? Is it before the land is cleared?

Yes. Yes.

Okay. It said after, 90 days after the land is cleared. Am I misunderstanding the wording here? So they're saying after land is cleared, they'll submit the gopher tortoise survey. Am I misunderstanding that?

Yeah, but then 90 days around.

Did you just say before?

Yeah. A gopher tortoise site survey shall be carried out prior to land clearing or within 90 days of land clearing prior to.

It's the wording. Yeah. It's the wording.

Yeah.

Are we going to officially edit that condition? That's condition two? That's condition two. Any other questions for staff? Or any other discussion for the board before we hear from the applicant?

I have one question back to the signage. I guess this was more directed to Kev. For me, when I looked at it, I was concerned about just the overall height. It looks small based on the rendering. There's no actual measurements. That doesn't signify... If I'm coming from 95, I don't think that that's going to be large enough for me to say, hey, look over here. It's not even high as you would see a billboard on the side of the road.

That's one of our concerns is the visual nature of it and that visual nature being recognized as an entry point.

I guess then what does that have in mind then as far as what it should be?

I think we're looking more for a... more of a tower type installation with Fort Pierce theme, whatever the Fort Pierce theme is. Something that is, can be recognized before people get to the property. And then that sort of identity, it's an opportunity here to set an identity for other tower-like features that could be incorporated into other developments as we process them around town, if they're closer to the entrance points. We've got a number of areas that come into the town that one of our challenges, and we've been given this challenge, is create a gateway features. So we create identities for Fort Pierce. Those could be different. Those could reflect history, they could reflect industry, commerce, or whatever that is in certain areas. So to give the true nature of Fort Pierce is we are this majorly diverse community. We have many different uses, activities, industries around and this concept should be one that is flexible to deal with all these different parts and I think we have very little apart from the two big towers right in the middle of town that people can see on their way into the area of Fort Pierce and that's the port. You know, people can see the bridges, the port, a nuclear power plant. Is that what we want to be seen as?

So what do you want the mechanism to be for proceeding forward with this? Because obviously I don't want this, this is important, but I also don't want this to unnecessarily derail the rest of the process for the applicant.

Yeah, I agree with that, and I think a condition could settle that, yeah.

Yeah, so, you know, and I'm just trying to sketch out the additional condition here. Do we want to... reserve final approval of the monument signed by the city commission directly? Does it need to come back here first? How do you envision that going forward?

Those parameters, where does it need to go to get approval? I think we will allow the planning board to set those. So if it wants to go back to the planning board and then to city commission, city commission may welcome a discussion at planning board regarding that design. Because they always ask staff, what did the planning board say about this? So that might be a good move to do that. But ultimately, I think it's a separate approval some point and where that point happens is maybe prior to final CEO of maybe phase one or whatever that is yeah what phase is the monument sign intended in phase one like that

And would that then be submitted as like a major site plan amendment or?

We just have it as a detail. It's in phase one. Phase one. Yeah. You know, that would be a compliance with condition number, whatever it is on the site plan. And we would just process that with the provision that it comes back to planning board and city commission final approval.

Is the board comfortable with that timeline of establishing the final design approval before CEO of phase one? Okay What I have is applicant shall provide final monument design approval by the Planning Board and City Commission prior to final CEO of phase one condition eight All right Anything else for discussion?

I have one more thing. It's just in regards to like the clear cutting of the land. There were a number of native plants, native trees that were mentioned on site. Are those meant to be retained?

That was the reasoning for the mitigation plan. So the city does allow you to remove trees, but you have to replace them. And that was included in the staff report.

Are we able to retain some of the trees? Will it inhibit the movement forward of the plans? Are some able to be retained, a minimum amount at all? Because they provide a lot of habitats for our environment.

Correct. So Chair, if I may, what we usually find and are finding is that existing levels of property are below what is required when developments come in to raise them to a acceptable level for floodplain. So unfortunately, a lot of property within the city specifically if it has been used for agriculture in the past is it a level which is requires some fill or other action to take place and I can let the applicant confirm this or not what we find is that there's no option to retain trees because if Phil goes in it's one or two feet of Phil then the trees not going to survive anyway understood I know on some properties we have usually smaller ones but yeah We always, it is one of our questions when we're dealing with the initial site plan is to, can we save any of these trees? It's our priority. Thank you.

If there's nothing else from the board at this time, I would invite the applicant to come forward.

GOOD AFTERNOON. GOOD AFTERNOON. CHAIRMAN KREISEL, MEMBERS OF GOOD AFTERNOON. CHAIRMAN KREISEL, MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING BOARD. CHAIRMAN KREISEL, MEMBERS OF THE PLANNING BOARD. MY NAME IS LESLIE OLSEN. THE PLANNING BOARD. MY NAME IS LESLIE OLSEN. I'M WITH DISTRICT PLANNING GROUP MY NAME IS LESLIE OLSEN. I'M WITH DISTRICT PLANNING GROUP REPRESENTING THE APPLICANT I'M WITH DISTRICT PLANNING GROUP REPRESENTING THE APPLICANT PULTY.

REPRESENTING THE APPLICANT PULTY.

VENICE, WOULD YOU MIND PULLING PULTY. VENICE, WOULD YOU MIND PULLING UP? VENICE, WOULD

All right. I will skim over the high points because staff did a great job laying out all of the basics, but we are located really close to the access points for I-95 and the Turnpike. We are close to commercial goods and services, existing and future jobs hubs, which makes this an ideal location for the development of new communities. So whether you are working here in Fort Pierce or you're working say in South Florida and you're commuting, this creates an excellent opportunity. We are aligned to the east with Independence Classical Academy. We are within walking distance of Gaines Elementary and have churches nearby as well. So we have goods, we have services, we have access to the state's intermodal system and also civic and church uses as well. So it's a great location. where we've been and where we are. So this board recommended approval of the future land use map amendment from general commercial to medium density residential about a year and a half ago now, December, 2024. The city commission adopted that future land use map amendment on February 2nd, 2026. We were rezoned through the master PD process Where the Planning Board recommended approval on November 10th 2025 and City Commission adopted it on February 2nd 2026 today We are Requesting approval of the final plan development. This is the final regulatory step staff recommends approval And your recommendation will advance to the City Commission For a final decision So we have lower density and traffic than what was permitted previously. The RM future land use, which we now operate under, allows for up to 12 units per acre, and we are proposing 4.79 units per acre. This generates 88% less traffic than the prior future land use category. So much less impact on Jenkins, which is strained. It's walkable, it's green, and it's connected. That three and a half acre linear park with a meandering one third mile walking trail has pocket parks overlooking the lakes. So we activate those lakes with lake vistas and walking trails, places to sit, meet up with neighbors, a number of different, we'll get into that a little bit. We have the pool, the cabana and the playground, that community hub, which is the start and end point of the trail, but we also have other access points at that point. That custom identity feature, we'll talk about that some more, visible from I-95. This was specifically designed to minimize noise impacts, and you guys probably remember that conversation from before. Our designer really worked hard to lay this out so that the sides of the homes face I-95, which have the least number of windows and doors on it, so you'll have the least impact from any noise from I-95. and a tree-lined street network. Our goal is to deliver attainable housing at one of Fort Pierce's most strategic locations. And again, here's that rendered plan. And you'll see that there is no provision, there is no utilization of your basic stormwater dry retention, where you just get a grassy, ditch, essentially. Every single stormwater amenity is a real amenity. So each one of those dry detention areas will be landscaped and creating habitat for our natural ecosystem. In the plan development code, it calls for plan developments to go above and beyond in exchange for the flexibility inherent that is adopted at the master plan portion. So you get your development standards adopted at master plan, and then you apply those standards now at final. So some of the benefits that the code calls for, those are in bold, and how we have responded to those with this site plan are called out on this page. Resilient living and working, close to I-95, the Turnpike jobs, schools, goods, services, imaginative community planning, that identity feature at I-95 is intended to do that. The stormwater innovation, as I mentioned, the rain gardens, the bioswales, stormwater cleaning, creation of habitat, and providing a welcoming aesthetic to the community. Property design excellence, that's that grid streets, thinking about what you have around you, what you have to mitigate for, making sure we got that school bus stop right, and putting the playground, we located the school bus stop near the playground, near the mail kiosk, near parking, all of those things combined to help people spend more time together with their kids and with each other. Natural features in scenic areas, as I mentioned, including the street trees every 50 feet on both sides of the street, efficient land use, Again, trying to locate all of these complimentary services near each other, housing, jobs, goods and services, civic uses, improved amenities, the 3.5 linear walking trail, lake vistas, pool with cabana, pocket parks, integrated picnic areas, orderly development and economic development and economic benefit. We're consistent with both Avalon Crossings to the east and Viva West to the south and builds on this area's residential momentum close to the state's intermodal system and consistent with adjacent uses. We have a commercial access road that we will build for the commercial property to the north and the south entrance is aligned with Independence Classical Academy. You'll notice as we go through where these PD benefits come in will be shown on the slide up in the upper right-hand corner so that you can see what is what. You can see where the identity feature is planned here on the southwest corner, the linear meandering walking trail between the berm and the rain gardens. You'll see we have picnic areas interspersed in very specific areas to take advantage of those vistas across the lakes. And you'll see that no matter what street you're on, you can get connected to this trail, either an on or an off ramp close to home. We have seven bioswale and rain garden areas for stormwater treatment, wildlife habitat, and natural aesthetics. This is that community hub area where we have the bus stop just past the playground, the mail kiosks, the cabana and pool, and parking. A lot of parents like to sit with their kids while they're waiting for the bus. The kids can ride their bikes up here. We do have a bike rack so they could ride their bikes up to the bus stop. Their parents could drive them. You could have kids playing at the playground while they wait for the bus, being active, interacting with each other, getting off their phones. So we really like the way that this pulls everybody together here. That linear park that Venice showed you before, just want to bring a little bit more attention to that. You see those single family homes, and then as you move west, We have 45 feet of bioswales and enhanced landscaping before you get to your 15-foot wide area for the linear walking trail that will be shaded by all the trees that we're planting. And then you have a 28-foot wide landscaped bermed area with a four-foot high berm and then an eight-foot high wall on top of that. So that's a total of 95 feet. between your first single family house and the property line. And then looking farther out, if you wanna know how far it is to the pavement for that off ramp, from your closest house to the pavement, that's 186 feet. So it's set back quite a bit. This is what a rain garden looks like. So whereas normally your dry detention areas are just flora tam and That's it, just looks like a depression. These rain gardens will not only clean the water, but be habitat as well, and a community amenity for vistas. This is the identity feature. We submitted this identity feature last month with our resubmittal. We didn't get comments on this particular thing until Friday, so that's why we don't have it resolved yet. We always like to bring you stuff that's fully resolved, but we got that comment late. So we have no problem working with staff to identify something that the City Commission feels comfortable with. At the approval of the master PD, Mayor Hudson asked if she could be a part of the design. So we did go and brief her on that. We showed her this and she was happy with it, but we were happy to keep working on it, so. We would ask though that you consider leaving the design to like give us guidance on what you think we should do. But if we could go from here and get approval at the city commission, we would greatly appreciate that as we have seen you so many times for this project. We would greatly appreciate this being the last time. The development standards. This is what was approved at master. So all of these development standards, you can see by the green checks here that all of the development standards that were adopted with the PD are either met or exceeded. And on the question of sidewalks, Yes, engineering did raise the question of interior sidewalks on both sides of the street, but the city commission had already adopted these standards for one side of the street. So we are meeting our conditions that the city commission adopted. So thank you for asking that question. Access and transportation. Our north access is our main entrance, and that's where that commercial access point is. that we will be building for them. Then the south access, and it's a boulevard, tree-lined streets, divided, it will be a really nice entrance. And then the south entrance aligns, as I mentioned before, with Independence Classical Academy. Again, this is a reduction of 88% from the previous future land use allowance for traffic. This is the letter of support from the commercial property owner to the north, supporting the project and the location of this roadway tract for him. And an agreement on that easement. The easement has been signed. There was an easement that ran through this in a different way. It has been relocated. Both parties have signed it. Comp plan consistency. Again, 4.79 dwelling units, well below the 12 units that could be allowed in the RM future land use. Reduction in traffic, open space is above the standard and really creative, nicely done. utilizing a community benefit as a buffer to I-95, really creative. Stormwater, environmental, native rain gardens, bioswales, onsite stormwater treatment while creating wildlife habitat. And someone asked about or actually Venice you mentioned in the environmental report that there may be a wetland that it mentioned there may be a wetland that jurisdictional boundary Determination has been made and there it has been found to not be a wetland We have our noise attenuation condition of approval really clearly step sets out what needs to be done. And it is compatible and it reflects orderly development with Avalon Crossings and Viva West. It is consistent with all applicable comprehensive plan goals, objectives, and policies. Planning has reviewed and cleared with conditions. Engineering reviewed and cleared with conditions. Fire reviewed and approved. Stormwater reviewed and cleared with conditions. We are fine with all conditions of approval listed by planning staff. So, as I mentioned before, our future land use map amendment was recommended for approval by this planning board in December, 2024. The master plan development was recommended for approval by this planning board, November 10th, 2025. The future land use map amendment approved unanimously by city commission in February as well as the rezoning and master plan development which set the standards by which you are reviewing this approved unanimously on the same hearing this is the final PD it meets or exceeds all adopted MPD development standards and staff recommends approval and we request that this planning board recommend approval based on whatever Condition we we work out today.

I'm going to ask Lee Dobbins to come forward right now and talk a little bit about process Good afternoon So just to wrap up a little bit on process and procedure so under under the city's code We're following a two-step process, as you know, master plan development approval and then final plan development approval. The master approval that came before you and then was approved by the city commission, that is primarily conceptual and design, and then the final PD includes fully designed site plan and associated documents. Under that process, according to the code, the approval of the master PD includes authorizes the applicant to submit the associated final PD in accordance with the terms and conditions of the master PD. What are those terms and conditions? Well, there were two documents that were approved through the master PD process. That was the master PD ordinance, which approved the master PD zoning, or the PD zoning. And then there's the plan development agreement. And those two documents went forward together, approved by city commission unanimously. Those documents address a number of items in exhibits. The master site plan, conditions of development, there's originally 14 conditions which are now down to 7, maybe 8 after today. PD development standards, public facilities, landscaping and tree mitigation. So The developer's obligations for final PD approval is to submit an application that is consistent with the master PD approval and that meets requirements of the city code for final PD. City standard of review is to confirm that those master PD requirements have been met and that the requirements of city code for final PD have been met. And so, again, city staff is finding that those conditions have been met, recommending them for approval. Your job as the board is to also look at that and give your recommendations. With that, our team is here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. I'll start I just have one question regarding the lift station shown on the site plan now is that is that city owned and operated or is that belonging to the development all right so my assumption is the lift station would be provided with a Emergency power inlet to keep the lift station functioning under a prolonged power outage. I think they all are Okay, good and then I Guess so coming back to this condition eight and I just want to make sure we're dialing this in and not creating any issues There was a in the TRC comment number five Let me see if I can bring it up here. They described this differently. So the comment was, sorry, not number five. Where is it? This is in regards to the monuments or the art feature. So it says include language that the feature monument artwork needs to be in phase two on the site plan. And then in parentheses, 200 house trigger makes phase two. I'm not really sure exactly what that means in the comment. Or change the number trigger to bring it to phase one. So currently the phasing plan shows the monument in phase one, right? Okay.

The process is you get a PD agreement as part of master, and then there's an amendment to the PD agreement as a part of final. So we were proposing that that monument sign be in place in phase one. as a part of that first amendment to be the agreement.

Okay. So we wouldn't be creating any conflict with that amendment by requiring the final design approval prior to CO of phase one, because it would be probably under construction at that point before you're going to complete phase one.

We would like to get it nailed down as soon as possible. Right. like to have as much time as possible to do that so that it doesn't slow down the other elements of moving forward with the project but the applicant would like to get the design of the nail down as soon as possible which is why they went ahead with the mayor and starting those conversations understood but if you could give us as much flexibility as possible in terms of time that would make it easier and we'd also like to not have to come back through the entire process again just for just for that element. In the PD agreement, it simply provided that one would be provided have it approved by the city some language like that that's more general that doesn't require us to come back for more public hearings that would make it easier for the applicant we would need to work with staff on it obviously and we would need to make sure that the city commission is agreeable to it but again we would like to not have to come back through multiple hearings for it that's understandable

I'm trying to weigh the benefit and need of that. I think the nature of importance that we're all kind of zeroing in on this feature is something that the public may compel us to go through the full process of. But I intend to discuss this again with the board before we wrap on this issue today. Any other questions for the applicant? Hearing none, I thank you very much for your time. At this time, I would open up to the public. Any member who is here would like to speak on this application, please come forward at this time. Seeing none, I will send it back to the board for final discussion. Are there any other concerns other than our eighth condition that we need to discuss?

My only other concern is what you have brought up I think in the beginning as far as the size of the communal covered space. It seems to me insufficient for 239 lots to have such a small communal space as far as for that community, for that size community.

Yeah, I'm not very happy with the wording of the regulation. I run into this kind of stuff professionally all the time. But, you know, developments in excess of 100 dwelling units provide a community clubhouse, recreation center, or similar communal building of an appropriate size that is hurricane-hardened. There's a lot of gray area in that description. I mean, I just don't think we can compel the applicant to... really do anything and I guess the question is could that be changed in the future that would certainly be my recommendation is that we you know figure out a way to you know tie it to the size of community or dial in specifically with the function of the occupancy of that building would be but I think that's a discussion for another time okay and

Another discussion probably from another time as well, but I did want to bring up, and I can bring it at the end, but since we're discussing it, is the landscaping plan as far as when we remove trees and replace them with things like palm trees, they're not really sufficient or equivalent as far as providing the correct habitats for our Florida native wildlife. And I would like to discuss that in the future as well, as far as making sure that we are being conscious of our environment and our habitat that makes, what makes Florida, Florida, in my opinion.

we have a landscaping professional on the board so maybe we could discuss it i'd love to hear discussions they actually mandate a certain amount of native that has to go back on the project depending upon the amount of hardscape homes things of that nature so they have things such as the bismarcks but the majority of the list is native items and trees you're okay with it i'm On what they're removing, they're putting in a lot more. They're actually going to be salvaging cabbage palms and things of that nature on their mitigation chart. So you're getting a lot more bang for what they're removing because a lot of the things that are coming out are things such as laurel oaks. They're having more issues than anything now.

Thank you.

So my question to the board here is do we feel that it is necessary for final approval of the monument design come back before this board or are we confident in our planning staff to develop a design that is going to be what the city is happy with and to go directly for approval to the commission.

First, yes, I am comfortable with staff. However, I think that the public should have opportunity to have input. This is going to be a gateway to our city is going to represent our city. I feel like we should have that opportunity presented to the city. My other concern was is that it should be a art feature. And I think this is more just a signage. I'm seeing a lot less art than I am signage. I see the sign that says City of Fort Pierce. I see the notation that it's going to be the Cornerstone property. But that Sailfish is probably one-third the size of the name that's listed for the title of the property. That's not really an art feature. So for me, it does not hit the mark on that.

I'm going to ask each of you to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

And I get the point of public input on it. And this has come up before. There's been a lot of changes really in the last two years, but in the last six, nine months. And it appears that a lot of these issues have been addressed. We're down to seven, and I think we're going to add an eighth. related to this feature, the sign feature, however that falls. And I'm not sure how to frame that other than I think I am comfortable with staff if this thing is really, really tied to what we've been seeing in the city as it relates to the branding of the city. I think the size of what was presented to us you have two organizations here. One's the city, like to have a large presence, and the other one is the developer having these properties, and they'd like their name out there. So right now we've got the developer's name, I'm agreeing, is bigger than the city's name, and so the city kind of falls back in this thing. So I'd like the, I think the staff probably is, maybe more professional in the design or the art feature or the branding feature than possibly this board is, maybe not. But I think I'm comfortable with them as long as they can work through this thing. And somehow we have to have it bound that this feature can't get kicked down the road either, that it takes... I mean, this whole plan could be completed in... There is no signage. Signage could come down the road also. So I think there's a time element with something that's appropriate. I think the size, obviously the Fort Pierce with the billfish, the sailfish, I mean, it looks like the city. Is that it? Is that what we want? Should it be reading welcome? But again, I don't wanna be the one making that decision. So I'm still back to if there's qualified people on the planning side that have that branding.

I have every amount of faith in our planning staff to make the right decisions as it pertains to the creative development of this. And I, you know, I'll take the applicant at their word that they want to resolve this as quickly as possible. I believe they're motivated to do so. The only benefit that I really see coming back here is that it gives an opportunity to submit to an agenda with an image like this of what the next version that they're going to throw up will be. And it gives the public an opportunity to look at it and then come here and tell us how much they hate it or how much they love it or to stay home and, you know, vote with their absence. But then that also gives the applicant opportunity if there's negative reaction to it to pivot or shift before it goes to the commission. I just don't want to back the commission into a. know and having them make a snap decision so um i i understand the applicant's uh desire to to keep things moving but i'm i'm leaning towards asking them to come back to this board with that final design how about you mr edwards um i think public comment is

vital to what we do. So I'm kind of leaning toward more toward coming back maybe and having that public input. And like you said, or not, but at least given another chance for us to look at it.

Mr. Johnson, I think you're the swing vote here.

I'm going to ask Ms. Carter.

Did you already say. So we'll we'll get you next Mister Johnson.

I don't mind if you want input from the public or dealings with it, but I don't think that should be to potentially hold up them to go in front with their PD. would potentially leave it to her if it was only for the sign to get approved itself because they have to use it to trigger into phase two regardless this way they can at least get the process of the master going all right miss Carter you feel like it needs to come back here

I do, just because this is like, the way staff is in it, this was as branding for the city of Fort Pierce. And that's to me really important as far as having public comment on how we want our city to be, our image to be. To have public comment on it, to have it in front of us to help, you know, shape the way that this is proceeding forward, so. Without that visibility, I'm not comfortable not having the visibility and not having the public being able to provide some kind of feedback. It's being described as a tower that's pretty large, pretty large, sizable monument versus just a small sign.

All right. Well, with the absence of Ms. Story, We are split 3-3 on whether or not it needs to come back to this board. Not really sure what to do about that.

You're the deciding factor when it's split.

Thank you for reminding me that. I'm going to go ahead and say we should bring it back to the planning board and the city commission. So condition eight will read as applicant shall provide final monument design approval by, sorry, Applicant shall receive final monument design approval by the Planning Board and City Commission prior to final co of phase one Director are you satisfied with that that would work? Yes All right if there's no further discussion I think we can Proceed with a motion reminder to the board we have seven conditions one of them was edited and and an eighth condition added by the board as stated. Do we have a motion?

I move for approval with the eight conditions, including the one that was stated previously.

Second. All right. We have a motion to recommend approval with the eight conditions by Ms. Clemmons, second by Mr. Edwards. Please call the roll.

Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Ms. Clemmons? Yes. Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Chair Kreisel?

Yes. All right. Thank you, everyone. Moving on to Item 6B, Conditional Use, Legacy Future Scholars Academy.

Good evening, Planning Chair, Planning Board. Before you, we have Legacy Future Scholars Academy, conditionally used with no new construction. Parcel ID 2410-606-0004-0003, located at 510 Orange Avenue. The applicant is Michael Menard of Architectonic Incorporated, owner of Bunwin Incorporated, Site area is approximately 0.53 acres plus or minus. The applicant is seeking approval for condition used to operate a private school serving pre-K through eighth grade with a capacity of up to 200 students. IN ACCORDANCE WITH SECTIONS 125-187 AND 237 OF THE CITY CODE, THE APPLICANT IS REQUESTING APPROVAL FOR THE PRIVATE SCHOOL. THE SCHOOL IS APPROXIMATELY 18,428 SQUARE FEET ON THE FIRST AND SECOND FLOOR OF TOTALING OF THE TOTAL 20,195 SQUARE FEET COMMERCIAL BUILDING. THE PROPERTY IS ZONED C3 GENERAL COMMERCIAL WITH THE FUTURE LAND USE OF GC GENERAL COMMERCIAL. The academy will consist of eight classrooms with an administrative space, a multi-purpose room, and a designated play area. In addition to these core spaces, the school has secured strategic community partnerships to ensure the safety and effective operations. There's a shared playground and shared parking with the United Methodist Church, which has agreed to the parking agreement. For the arrival and dismissal plan, the schedules will be staggered, as you can see. Preschool starting at 8, kindergarten, first grade, 8.30, 2nd through 5th, 8 a.m., 6th through 8th will be 8.45 a.m., and dismissal times will also be staggered to ensure smooth traffic management, and it limits the overlap between groups and reduces the impact on the local roads during peak hours. The hours of operation for the facility will be from 8.30 to 3.30 p.m. Monday through Friday. There will be a total of 26 staff members. This location will accommodate the approximately up to 200 students on average. This is the code section of the conditional use procedure, which we follow, 125-237. IT'S AN AREAL OF THE SUBJECT PROPERTY, WHICH IS LOCATED JUST TO THE WEST OF THE 500 ORANGE AVENUE EVENT CENTER AND NORTH OF THE FORT PIERCE HOUSING AUTHORITY IN WELLS FARGO BANK. THE FUTURE LAND USE MAP SHOWS THAT THE PROPERTY, AS I STATED, HAS A FUTURE LAND USE OF GC GENERAL COMMERCIAL ZONING, C3 GENERAL COMMERCIAL. For you is the site plan of the proposed school. As you can see, to the north is the location of the shared parking with the United Methodist Church. This will be the arrival and dismissal area. You can see the entrance of the vehicles to the east, and the exit will be to the west driveway. The property has 18 parking spaces on site. Required is 15. And the location of the dumpster is still needed to be approved by Public Works, which would be in the northeast corner. A floor plan includes a reception area, the nurse office, storage rooms, the classrooms, kitchen, teacher lounge, student cafeteria, indoor gym, playground. There will also be an outdoor playground, which will be in adult restrooms, boys and girls restrooms. Second floor will just consist of storage area and additional restrooms. These are proposed design elevations that the applicant will be adding to the existing building. They'll be adding a mural on the side of the building and repaving the parking lot. The applicant will install a total of six live oak trees within the outlining landscape buffer of the parking lot. The landscape buffer will include continuous liquefied strum hudge, Okay, the applicant has stated that for safety, the school will assign trained crossing guards at all the primary student crossing points along Avenue A and surrounding intersections. They will coordinate with local authorities as needed to review the traffic patterns and ensure appropriate safety measures are in place. There will be clearly visible signage to be installed in and around the school. including schools on reduced speed, truck route awareness, and pedestrian crossing signs. The school will also implement a parent and student orientation program focused on safety expectations and procedures for walking and biking. This will include guidance on designated routes, crossing protocols, helmet use for bicycles, and the importance of adhering to staff's directions. Ongoing communication will be provided through handbooks, meetings, and digital platforms to reinforce safety practices. School leadership will regularly review safety procedures, observe arrival and dismissal operations, and adjust as needed. Feedback from parents, staff, and local partners will be used to strengthen the plan and ensure continuous improvement. So traffic analysis submitted by the applicant, which shows the average arrivals during the staggered times, approximately 80 during the 800 time slot, 36 during 8.30, 66 during 8.45, and 18 during the 9 a.m. arrivals. The dismissals, 18 during the 12.30, 1.50 p.m., 36, 3 p.m., 80, and 3.30 around 66. The conditions of approval include, one, A landscape maintenance agreement will be required and approved by the planning department prior to final certificate of occupancy to a landscape inspection will be required and approved by the planning department prior to final certificate of occupancy three coordinate with the city of Fort Pierce Public Works solid waste division to ensure that your proposed dumpster location meets the city requirements and except is accessible by the city garbage trucks for should the vehicle staggering encroach into the Avenue a right-of-way the operator of the school shall provide an alternative transportation solution to alleviate any roadway impacts 5. Any impacts to Avenue A, such as signage, crosswalks, temporary lane closures, etc., require a City of Fort Pierce right-of-way permit approved by the City engineer. 6. The conditional use approval is based on the maximum capacity of up to 200 students. Staff is recommending that the Planning Board Move the proposed conditional use with no new construction to the City Commission for approval with the recommended six conditions. Alternative recommendation, recommend modified approval or recommend disapproval. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gilmore. So this conditional use would require establishing a school zone of both. Orange Avenue and Avenue A, I understand correctly? Correct. Okay. And that would include all of the additional signage? Correct. On both sides of the building? Did you have the – I think it was in the – I believe it was in the materials here. The shared parking agreement? Yes. Did the shared parking agreement indicate a time period?

Yes. I believe there was a continuation clause.

unless terminated so item six I think it says this agreement shall commence on August 1st 2025 and shall remain in effect unless terminated by either party with 90 days written notice So if I'm understanding this correctly, the agreement would stay in place unless actively terminated by one party or the other. All right. To the board, any questions for staff?

I have a quick question. The hours of operations list is 830 to 330, but the students arrive at 8?

Yeah, that should be corrected. I'm sorry. So technically we should be through 8 to 3.30.

Okay.

Yeah. The school starts at 8.30, so I'm sorry.

Right. But the operation, yeah, the students get there. Yeah.

Any other questions for staff?

Are there... Will students be bused to this location or just parents drop off?

Parents.

Any other questions for staff? All right. Hearing none, if the applicant is here, I would invite you to come forward. Please come to the podium, state your name, and sign in. Do you have any additional presentation that you'd like to share with us beyond the staff presentation?

I think the planning department did a good job. I just wanted to share on, I think it was condition number three, coordinate with the public works. reach out with them and they gave us three locations of the dumpster and we picked one of them. I guess they didn't get a chance to review the submittal that we had termed in before today.

Thank you. Can you tell us which one you picked? Where's the location?

Where it's shown on the side panel.

So it was correct on there? Yes. Oh, okay. Thank you.

All right. Do we have questions for the applicant? I have some concerns about your location. I don't like the fact that you don't have control over your queuing property. It makes me a little uneasy. I'm assuming your partnership agreement with the property owner is as good as it can be. But, you know, it is something that could be terminated at any time by the property owner. I'm curious to know, you know, what would the plan be if we approve this conditional use, the school goes into operation and at some point in the future that use agreement dissolves? You know, how are you going to be able to accommodate picking up and dropping off 200 students every day without access to that property.

This is actually our second go around with the planning and engineering department. We originally had a shared parking agreement with the 500 building, which is currently an event center and had a, where the dumpster is currently located, had a drive turning one way loop. So we could actually have a, That re-engaged and put in for a one-way loop drive for dropping off. But engineering and the planning department had concerns with it. Orange Avenue being only a two lane street, that the staging may back up too much onto Orange Avenue. So therefore, we went to Avenue A and talked to United Methodist and got their approval. to come up with the plan that we currently have.

And I think that's a much better plan than what you described previously. You know, my concern still persists. You know, we have to approach this conditional use with the assumption we're approving this conditional use basically with the parking lease agreement that you have in place. And so I'm looking at a scenario where if that agreement is dissolved, your conditional use is no longer valid and you can't operate. And I want to avoid that at all costs. I don't want to put you in that position. I don't want to put the city in that position. Because then it becomes an enforcement issue. So I'm very hesitant to to recommend approval on this without knowing that there is some sort of backup plan that's gonna allow you guys to keep operating. I mean, just as far as I'm aware of what this conditional use process is going to be, because this is a legally binding thing that the commission is gonna go through, this conditional use is gonna be tied to you having this, having use of this parking lot. And so if that goes away, that causes all kinds of problems. The other concern I have is, and I like what you guys have done with the staggered drop off and pick up time schedule. I think that's probably the best thing that you guys can go about doing it. Let's assume the parking lot was your property, it was part of your property and the whole use agreement wasn't an issue. Being able to cue, I think you had in some of the materials here, you were showing that you had enough physical space to cue the entire pickup or drop-off volume at any given point in time on property. And I think that's vital. To me, that's bare minimum. because having vehicles queuing onto Avenue A or Orange Avenue would just not really be acceptable, even a little bit. So my primary concern is that even if you could fit 80 cars in that parking lot by lining them up in multiple rows and queuing them in that thing, you still have another 120 cars that are going to be coming up in 30 minutes or an hour. If we were over on Melody Lane about an hour ago, you could see how most parents handle that situation. If they don't have work and they want to be the first in line, they'll get there as early as they want to. without somebody skirting them out. And if they can't enter your property, they're gonna park on the side of the street or they'll park in the street until somebody tells them to move. This is not gonna show on your parking calculations, but this is observable human nature. So I just, I wanna make sure that assuming we get a conditional use and assuming we get some sort of satisfaction that you have a backup plan if this use agreement ever goes away, It needs to be very clearly understood by all of the parents that are going to be attending this school that they know the traffic regulations and that they agreed to not violate them because, you know, if this is, you know, these are pretty readily used roads all the time. Orange Avenue is single lane, two way. Avenue A might be a little less of a concern, but the idea of having 100 plus cars kind of clicking around in that neighborhood, looking for a place to park until their 30 minute window opens up, I think is gonna be a persistent problem for that neighborhood. So I would... I think my second point is something that is out of your control and out of mine. I mean, when you operate a private school, you can't control your parents' behavior when they're not on your property. But to my point one with this use agreement, I think this is kind of a deal breaker for me. And I would like to see some sort of, alternate plan in place should there ever become a need for an alternate solution for your pickup and drop off.

Could we go to the slide that has the hours of operation? Do you have staggered times when the kids are coming and going? Yeah. And how is that broken? I see we've got Arrivals, so the big number is 80 at one time.

Yeah, at 8 a.m. and then at 3 p.m. That's the number of students, you know, that's... that may be cars, that may be walking, that might be riding their bicycles. I mean, you know, there's a lot of different scenarios here that, you know, we really don't know for a fact at this point because we don't have school, we don't have any registration, so we don't know how many are within walking distance, bicycling distance, how many are going to be actually driven and dropped off, how many are walking, you know, so it's, you know, this is our best GUESS BASED ON TRAFFIC STUDY, TRAFFIC ANALYSIS.

I THINK IT'S SAFE TO ASSUME THAT MAJORITY OF KIDS WILL COME, BE DROPPED OFF, MAYBE THAT'S NOT A FAIR ASSUMPTION BUT THAT'S WHAT I WOULD ASSUME THAT MOST OF THE KIDS ARE GOING TO parents are going to drop them off and pick them up. So the concern is, I think that number two point with getting off is the intent to have 100% of the use of A, Avenue A only, and not use Orange Avenue. I'm asking.

Well, Orange Avenue was... The parking lot that's actually on the property isn't intended for the staff, for the teachers and everything. And then the drop-off and pick-up is strictly from Avenue A. Yeah.

I'm very familiar. I'm a member of that church, and I'm actually on the church council. So they're very, very supportive of that. of this going forward if it's capable. And I think the biggest concern is just safety of being able to, as our chair said, you know, is there an alternative if you find that you're starting to back up on the street? And I think that's your point. What are you gonna do with that?

Exactly. I mean, it's, you know, I think if you came here asking for conditional use, for a school of up to 200 students without that use agreement, it would be a hard no because the logistics of it don't work. Since the applicant doesn't own and singularly control the property that they're relying on for this element that is really crucial in convincing us that this conditional use is appropriate, then it puts us into a tough spot unless there is some sort of backup plan. I don't think that this is a bad idea, and I don't want to reject it outright. I just need to know that there is some sort of option B in case that use agreement ever goes away. And I think that's something that I would like to see the applicant develop and come back to us with.

Mr. Chair. Yes. If I could jump in for just a second. I had a question as you all have been talking because there are two agreements that are attached. One is labeled playground agreement. One is labeled shared parking agreement. If you look in the playground agreement, it also discusses student drop-off and parking. So I'm a little confused which agreement applies to which areas. So maybe the applicant can clarify to us which agreement is applicable to where these students are going to be picked up and dropped off from?

That would be the Avenue A.

Can you please speak in the microphone, Mr. Menard?

That would be from Avenue A, which is the parking of Buddingly Playground.

Right, but is that controlled by the shared parking agreement, the playground agreement, or both?

Both.

And those are owned by two, those are... the lessor on those are two different entities, right?

I don't recall.

So it looks like shared parking is with Legacy Consortium and 4616 Investment. And then the playground agreement is between Legacy and First United Methodist.

Okay, Legacy is my client. United Methodist, obviously it's United Methodist. I'm not sure what that other one is with the playground and if United Methodist has a different parcel there or what, I'm not sure about that.

Me neither, that's why I'm asking. Just want to make sure we... So the... THE RENTAL AGREEMENT THAT IS TITLED ON THE ATTACHMENTS FOR THE MEETING AS SHARED PARKING AGREEMENT IS WITH AN ENTITY CALLED 4616 INVESTMENT LLC DOING BUSINESS AS 500 ORANGE EVENT CENTER.

THAT WOULD BE WHAT I WAS MENTIONING. I'M SORRY. SOMEHOW THAT GOT PUT INTO THIS. THAT'S THE 500 PARKING AGREEMENT. OKAY. which was what I was explaining to you. That was the previous plan. The previous agreement we had for utilizing Orange Avenue as our access for a loading and unloading and cross parking.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, that attachment, the shared parking agreement, is not applicable to this current application? So the entirety of your agreement with the parking lot and the playground is tied to this rental agreement, which as a stated term, beginning March 1st, 2026, and continuing for a period of five years, ending February 28th, 2031, unless terminated earlier pursuant to the terms herein, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it does, Mr. Chair, have an automatic renewal for successive five-year terms. So that essentially means they have the first term and unless they terminate it or say they don't want to renew, it'll keep renewing automatically for five-year terms.

I would like to see you have a little more power in the negotiation over the terms of that lease. Because you can't, I don't see how you can operate this school without it. And I don't see how we can justify a conditional use for this operation at that facility without it. So it just, it makes me nervous for you.

If I may, my name is Steve Char, for the record. I'm the building owner. for this project. The issue you bring up is a good one, and we discussed it. This has been going on for about a year, our discussions with the planning department, and it's come up several times, and the way it was resolved in our last meeting was the applicant, who unfortunately, I guess I'm the applicant, but the school owner couldn't be here today, but the way it was addressed was if in the unlikely event the church were to terminate that agreement for some reason, they would provide personal transportation, whether it be some type of bus or some type of vans or whatever. They're not going to close the school down five years from now or three years from now after they've been operating, and if for some reason, hopefully that doesn't happen, the church terminates it, then they would come up with, you know, we would have to abandon that plan. We still have, again, the backup plan off Orange Avenue, which could work through the agreement with Stan next door at the post office, but we also, they also are and have discussed this already with planning to provide their own transportation to their students. And it wouldn't have to be every single student, but it'd be enough of that as a backup plan so that they wouldn't infringe on any of the roadways.

I think you can put something like that together into a comprehensive presentation to attach to this application. I think having that plan in place and a means to execute it is necessary for us to proceed with the conditional use. Everything you just described is totally doable. It just needs to be here in the application.

And you can just add that to the condition and then before we go to commission, we can have that in there.

potentially, but, you know, like, you know, understand that, you know, there were reasons why the shared use agreement on Orange Avenue for queuing of cars, dropping off and picking up students was rejected initially. That's not a good plan either. So some hybrid plan that is going to allow us to effectively not have bogging down of traffic on Orange Avenue or Avenue A due to your pickup and drop-off operations. This is what's necessary to get on paper and be part of this application, in my opinion. I don't know. Board, am I making too big of a deal of this?

The lease agreement that they have as far as the time constraint of the five years is not a big concern for me. Turnover for private schools in this area is not really that high. Not a big issue. But the stacking of the cars throughout the day, that is a concern for me. I paid a quick note of the time constraints early on. I was like, how is that going to happen? in the downtown area. There's constant traffic there. We have a big case over at the courthouse. All of that is kind of blocked off because they closed off Orange and then Avenue A is the alternative. I guess that's kind of where I lie with that is do you have an alternative plan for that? Because if it becomes an issue, your doors could potentially be closed and that's going to be hard for the students.

Again, I think we have the alternative plan in that event that happens, but I would also want to bring up is, you know, it's a 20,000 square foot building and it's zoned retail or commercial and there's a lot of more uses that could go in this building that would be significantly more trips than a school which will only have pretty much trips to it for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. So, you know, I think this is a relatively low-intensive use traffic-wise versus a business that would have or could have traffic all day long as well as in the evening and not even deal with Avenue A at all. So, again, you know, Cab and Venice, this is a year and a half of getting to this point and ironing this out. It was pretty much the drop-off issue was the issue for the last year.

By that same token, because you do have such a small window of when those cars are going to be coming and going, it compacts them within that time frame. Whereas if they were spread out throughout the day, those 200 trips, or say 400, say if a parent dropped off his child, they would be spread out throughout the day, but they're not. They're compacted within an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon. So it kind of defeats kind of against your statement about the traffic and the trips, because they are in that timeframe, they're going to be stacked. Simply, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about that. It's just like you said about human nature, the parents coming out, they're picking up their kids, they're going to be stacked out there. And you're talking about parents that are picking up and dropping off, inclement weather, anything. they're going to be there for their kids. They're going to be there waiting. Nine times out of ten, if they're in private school, they probably are not working parents, so they're not trying to be there with them 15 minutes, pick them up, drop them off. They're sitting there waiting for their kids to come out. So they're literally creating this issue that you're going to have to deal with.

Yeah, I think that, again, those issues came up also, but I think the operator of the school will deal with that issue as they come up, if they come up. I mean, you can speculate that, but I mean, they have every intention to want the safety of their students to be their priority. I mean, they're in the business. This is a for-profit school. They're not going to skimp, and they're not. They're as well going to put almost a million dollars into this building, which has now sat vacant for almost 25 and 30 years to help revitalize a part of downtown that has been neglected now for 25 or 30 years. So I think that we have addressed or they have addressed the drop off significantly we're basing it on a contingency if the church one day decides they should choose not to extend that but as the gentleman spoke he's with the church we've met with them many many times and we work together well in trying to make things happen so

Church councils do change. Church councils do change.

So, Mr. Chair, before we go forward, I just, I think it was Mr. Whiting, right, that was the church member?

I am.

Okay. So I have a little bit of a conflict of interest concern. Right. So I don't know if you want to pause and we can have a conversation ourselves or if you'd like to do it on the record, but I got a little concern that you might have a conflict of interest, so I have some questions for you. So would you like me to ask them on the record or do we want to take a brief recess and have a conversation out in the hallway?

We'll take a brief recess. Thank you, Ms. Hedges. We will recess. We'll be back in five minutes. We will reconvene the Fort Pierce Planning Board meeting Monday, April 13th after our brief recess. I see Mr. Whiting is still here.

With the possible appearance of a conflict of interest, I'm gonna step down and at the point you all vote, I will not be voting. Understood. Thank you, Mr. Whiting.

All right, we were, let's get back to where we were here. We have the applicant before us discussing item 6B, which is the conditional use application at Legacy Future Scholars Academy. Where we were in the conversation was regarding the specific lease agreement. Ms. Hedges, do you see what you need to see in this lease agreement to understand that this is applying to all of the property that is being discussed here?

Mr.. Chair the I was confused on the two different agreements Because they were both posted on there So I want to make sure we're all looking at the same one and all operating under the same terms of what it means I would love for this lease to have been written a little bit better it doesn't Explain exactly where this is parking lot wise Usually when you're talking about leasing property, you'll have like a picture of the property to show you what it is that you're doing So when we say located at 515 Avenue a it's mainly talking about in your recitals the playground area and It then, when you get into the agreement portion, there's kind of a throwaway about the parking for the student arrival drop off and pick up, but it doesn't have much detail when you read through this lease agreement as to what that is and what it means. So to your point, there's not a lot of control in this agreement because it doesn't outline much related to the parking. It's very heavy on the playground, but very light on the parking. So you could fashion conditions to try and protect against that related to having to follow The my understanding is it's going to be a double stack I think I was told maybe 10 cars could fit in the stack I'm not sure all of those specifics But there's not a lot in the lease agreement that controls how this parking is going to happen or the the drop-off so I think they're providing it mainly to show you they have some sort of control over that area. If you all are uncomfortable with the plan of how the dropping off is going to be, effectuated for lack of a better word you all could create conditions on your approval to do that to your point of if this agreement goes away I think you could create a condition that says if the agreement goes away they have to have a another plan in place but that then goes to your point that we don't know what that plan is so I don't have great answers for you and I apologize for that but If you all are not happy with what exists currently, you could table this and ask them to come back with better plans for you to include how to handle if your parking starts backing up, if your lease agreement goes away, what are their secondary plans? Because it doesn't seem like much is hammered out by way of that, so you don't have an answer to that.

If we were to table this item and give them a directive to come back with stronger language in a lease agreement, is there language that you could recommend or provide recommendations to the applicant for ways that they could revise this lease agreement to be more in line with what we're looking for?

I cannot advise them because I cannot give them legal advice. But what I can advise you is what you all would want to be looking for is related to actual areas that are being covered by this lease agreement. So right here it just says the parking area. I don't know what that means just from this lease agreement without you attaching some sort of image. to see what we're talking about. This lease agreement doesn't discuss flow, where they're going to flow. So I think you would want to be looking for specifics of what are they actually authorizing you to do because it just says student pick up and drop off. It says student arrival and dismissal including drop off and pick up subject to the terms and conditions of this agreement. But as I read through this, there were no terms and conditions of the agreement for pick up and drop off. It's mainly related to your playground area usage. So there's not timeframes in here, days of the week, what time can they begin dropping off, end dropping off, now. I say this, but that may not be important to you all because you can fashion those conditions in your approval. So then if this lease agreement doesn't allow them to do that, then they can't operate. But if it's already hammered out in their lease agreement, you all have no question.

Understood. I would say to the applicant, this lease agreement should at minimum clearly define boundaries of the parking lot itself it's it's its location it's you know you know with some sort of image or site plan similar to what you have here in the application and to miss edges point I think the specific language of how it's going to be used and what times it's going to be used so for example If the church had an event during the week that overlapped with school hours and they had vehicles parked in those spaces that you intended to use for queuing, you've lost your queuing space. So you guys need to effectively own the entirety of the parking lot that you intend to use during those times, and that really should be baked into your lease agreement. Otherwise, you could create a problem with no ill intention but it's their property, they should be able to park their cars on it unless you have something written down in agreement that says that they can't during those times. And I really feel like we need something structured with your option B plan of how you're gonna be able to operate this school should this lease agreement ever go away, documented so that we can you know, proceed with approval of this conditional use with confidence.

Okay, well, we can work on that. We can rework the lease. But, you know, I do want to bring this up. You know, this is the Peacocks Arts District. This building's been vacant for over 30 years. It's 20,000 square feet, has 18 parking spaces. Tell me one business that you can put in there that will meet any of this city's requirements. Not one. Parking required for that building for a business office is 67 spaces. For retail, it's 100 spaces. Who can we rent this to? What can we do to revitalize this without tearing it down? What are we gonna do with half of the downtown area over there by Orange and 10th and 7th where there is no parking? The commission already reduced the parking by 50% trying to get redevelopment. And how long has that been? It's been several years. Nothing's being redeveloped. We have somebody coming in here trying to do something nice that we worked with planning. We worked with engineering. We finally got engineering on board and staff on board. We have the safety plan from the school. We have a backup transportation plan from the school. We can get more information to help with that, but we would like to keep this progressing. because it has been vacant for over 25 years that I know of. Just throwing that out there that there's a problem with parking regardless of what type of use is going there. There's gonna be problems on Orange Avenue. So we looped it around to Avenue A and how did the post office become a banquet facility with that little bit of minimum parking? Where was the give and take on that that we're not seeing here?

things up I understand you have a you know you you have you have a conditional use we need to approve a conditional use the evaluation of whether or not this application is suitable for a conditional use is based on the specific conditions that you're bringing forward and I think you have most of what you need to convince me at least me I can speak for myself that we should approve this conditional use I think you have a great plan here I think there's a lot of things that could go wrong with it And I don't want to not have a plan for it. If there's no other questions for the applicant at this time, I think we can excuse you and thank you for your time. I do need to open this up to public comment.

Mr. Chair, before he steps away, the only thing I would say is you are an advisory board, so you recommend approval or disapproval to the city commission. So if the applicant does not want to come back with an updated plan to provide to you all and wants a vote today, I do think it would be appropriate for you all to make a vote to either approve or recommend denial of the conditional use application. But I do think we would need his input on whether he would like to move forward with a vote today on approve or deny as a recommendation, or if they would like to, based on the board's comments, come back at a later date for reconsideration.

Well, I guess the question would be is if we get disapproved, we have to start all over, right?

So this board is advisory. So if they recommend to the city commission that they do not approve your conditional use, theoretically the city commission could disagree with them and still approve it. I don't know how much of a gambling man you are, so that would kind of be up to you, but technically they are advisory, so the decision ultimately lies with the city commission.

Okay then my next question would be can we approve with conditions for the backup transportation and the updated lease which we can have done hopefully prior to commission.

That's a discussion I think I need to have with the board at this time, but I'm going to open it up to public comment before we do that. So at this time open this up to public comment if there's any members of the public wants to speak on this application please come forward at this time.

Good afternoon, Chairman Kreisel, members of the board. I am not representing this item. I am before you. Can you please state your name? Leslie Olson. And so business address 130 South Indian River Drive, downtown Fort Pierce. So I have some degree of expertise in historic preservation in downtown Fort Pierce. I used to serve as the city's historic preservation officer. And I care deeply about this neighborhood and about downtown Fort Pierce and about its revitalization and its redevelopment and the things that make it special. And part of what makes our downtown area special is that there's not enough parking. If there was enough parking, it wouldn't be special because it would be all parking. And so if we want to revitalize and improve and encourage redevelopment and the purchase of these old buildings by people like Mr. Tarr, who are trying to revitalize them and get new businesses in there, We have to be flexible. We've got to look at other options. And I'm not saying that there's not a better way to do this, although it's hard to think of a better way to do this in this particular location. But you have on-street parking on Avenue A. You have on-street parking on Orange Avenue. These streets were designed to be pedestrian-oriented, to allow on-street parking, as well as within parking lots. If there is an acceptable lease agreement reached with First Church, this really provides a great opportunity to get something in that building. I remember the last time this building was occupied, it was like a used furniture place. I don't know if you guys remember that. Great stuff in there. But it has been years since. since Mr. Tarr has been able to put anyone in here. And I would just ask this board to consider that this is not a greenfield development and none of our old stuff is going to meet code. So finding the best way to work around it while encouraging the redevelopment of our special places, I just encourage you to do so. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Olson. Anyone else who would like to speak on this application, please come forward at this time. Seeing none, I will send it back to the board. So first of all, are there just any additional points of discussion that you want to bring up about this application?

I'm wondering if there's a time constraint for this approval in order for the school to move forward? Like, is it by a certain point in time that we have to decide this in order for the school to be in place for the upcoming school year, for instance? And I guess that's an apparent question, but I was just thinking that when I was hearing the discussion. So that could also, I think, for me, play a part in a decision being made as far as how to move forward with

applicant so to me the question right now is do we do we table this and ask the applicant to come back with you know maybe a a stronger position in their lease agreement and a defined backup plan in writing as part of their application or do we trust it to conditions and recommend moving forward i you know my position is i want to recommend approval of this conditional use i agree with miss olsen sentiment um it's hard to imagine a lot of other things that could go in the school or go into this building um with the constraints of parking downtown downtown in this part of fort pierce but Again, we're tying the conditional use to this lease agreement, and my understanding is that if this lease agreement goes away, that it would become a conflict for the conditional use. And if it didn't, then that would just be a huge oversight. if if an applicant comes forward and says well I'm gonna have this and that's why I can do this conditional use and then that thing goes away if that doesn't affect the function of the conditional use then what's the point of the ordinance so I need your I need your input are we are we comfortable moving forward with you know CONDITIONS OR DO WE WANT THEM TO PREPARE MORE AND COME BACK TO US?

WHAT TYPE OF CONDITIONS AND HOW WILL WE WORD IT TO INCLUDE THEM GETTING A NEW LEASE AGREEMENT AS WELL AS A BACKUP PLAN? WHAT TYPE OF WORDING WILL WE USE THAT WE CAN HOLD THEM TO? I GUESS THAT'S MY BIGGEST CONCERN. How much can we put in details in our conditions that will make it legal?

That's a good question, Mr. Freeman.

We're asking for a lot to be in the conditional use if we are adjusting our lease agreement, because that's a legal document. And if we're putting all those different conditions in there and requiring it, how much can we actually put in there?

a condition the question I think the issue is what do City Commission get to see what is presented to City Commission is it this application as it stands right now or is it this application with the recommendations that the applicant provide those additional pieces of information as it's presented to City Commission I don't believe that asking for those things as conditions prior to co or whatever that is is where you're going those things need to be seen and addressed by city commission so my thought would be your recommendation would be hinged on those outstanding pieces of information as been described by the city attorney and yourselves being included in the application that when it's presented to city commission that way it can continue through and staff will be the gatekeepers of that until those pieces of information are provided TO BE SUBMITTED TO THE CITY COMMISSION.

IS IT NECESSARY TO ADD TO OUR RECOMMENDATION FOR APPROVAL THE CONDITION THAT THIS CONDITIONAL USE APPROVAL IS INTRINSICALLY BOUND TO THIS LEASE AGREEMENT BEING ACTIVE? Is it necessary for us to state that or is it implied in the conditional use?

Yes, that is the conditional use. That is what's presented. And as you've stated, if that goes away at any time, then the conditional use as approved is not valid. However, if there are alternatives presented that City Commission can see as alternative solutions, if that at the moment, those solutions, that agreement with the church to use that goes away. There's multiple things that happen if that lease agreement goes away. There's the loss of the playground, essentially, I think, and the loss of the parking, the two essential elements, or the drop-off, the two essential elements of what the school requires to function.

I mean, as the application stands now, assuming it went through approval all the way through the city commission, If the lease agreement was dissolved, would they be able to continue to operate as this conditional use?

No. Unless they had a backup solution that had already been discussed and approved.

Would they have to come back here to re-establish that conditional use?

Not necessarily. If that backup agreement was approved by City Commission to be attached to the conditional use, And they approve that backup agreement, whatever that is. Right. And it enabled that score to function, then that conditional use would be conditioned on that being in place.

OK. So I'm leaning towards two conditions here. One is, and we've got to figure out the wording here, but I want better protections for the applicant in that lease agreement, clearly defining the boundaries and the time of use, the function of use, and also to establish that they have a backup plan in writing that's part of this application so that if that lease agreement ever does get dissolved, they don't have to come back here. They have a plan in place. It's stated. they can execute it and they can continue to operate without any sort of lapse or interruption of their operation. It takes a long time to get on one of these agendas. So you don't want them to not be able to operate their school while they're waiting for that to figure out. Does everybody on the board feel?

So how do we stop that from going? How do we prevent this from going to the commissioners without those things being?

Condition your approval based on these things being attached prior to you.

That would be another condition?

Yeah, well, the two conditions would be worded such that prior to presentation to city commission, this, whatever it is, information is provided.

I have a suggestion.

Yes, Mr. Gilmer.

Because I actually don't see what would be a second option because I'm very familiar with this area. What if there was a condition that stated that if the lease so seizes that the applicant would have to provide transportation for all students?

I think that's what the applicant was stating. I mean, in the description, there was some viability to what the applicant had in mind. it's just not part of this application. And I think that's the, you know, that's kind of the sticking point. It's not that they haven't thought of it. It's just, you know, we need to clearly define how many buses will you need? You know, where will those vehicles come from? You know, those details should be fleshed out, at least to some level of development that, you know, the commission can be confident moving forward that this is a real plan, that it's executable, and that it's not going to cause issues with their operation should something happen with the lease agreement. I'm going to try to take a stab at some condition language. Condition one prior to presentation of this application to the city commission the lease agreement will be revised to clearly define the location boundaries of the parking lot use and time of operation and signed by both parties. Condition to that prior to presenting for the city commission this application will include a backup plan plan b for uh drop off and pick up should the lease agreement be dissolved and The more detail you can provide them, I think the better the chances that they'll be feeling good about moving forward with this. Would you make any suggestions to that language?

None for that language, I don't think, unless the city attorney has any other concerns with those.

No, sir. And I think the commission will... be equally as discerning as you all have been. So if there's any of those conditions, they can also alter them on their conditions of approval when they see it. So if they want additional, they can put those in place as well.

Thank you. Chair? Yes. There are other conditions already attached to this approval.

Sorry, that is correct. So this would be conditions seven and eight?

Yeah, I'm just looking at condition four.

might not be required if they provide that alternative I'm not sure the alternative he's requesting is for if the lease is dissolved and that is for the day-to-day operation and right away yeah we'll let those six stand and add the other two yep no you know condition four is important you know because

It's a great plan, but then you got to hand it over to the users and they might not execute it well. And, you know, you could have complaints from neighboring properties or other motorists and stuff. So number four is important to have in there as well. All right. Any further discussion? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion at this time.

I move for approval with the eight conditions.

Second. We have a motion to recommend approval with eight conditions by Ms. Clemens, second by Mr. Edwards. Please call the roll.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Ms. Clemens? Yes. Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Chair Kreisel?

Yes. All right. Moving on. Mr. Johnson pointed out that As it comes to time, we might be making up for the fact that we didn't have a meeting last month. Looks like it. We have item 6C, major site plan amendment, John Carroll High School.

All right, good afternoon, chairman and board members. On behalf of the Planning Department, I bring before you a major site plan amendment for John Carroll High School. The applicant is McCarty & Associates Land Planning, represented by Mike McCarty. Property owners is Bishop of Diocese, Palm Beach. Parcel ID is 2408-324-0002-0007, or address 407 South 33rd Street. In summary, a major site plan amendment application has been submitted to add an additional building of 45,159 square feet to an existing site. John Carroll High School is seeking approval to add said building for academic and administrative use. Here's the site location. The overall site location, site area is 17.49 acres, give or take. And I've highlighted, outline I would say in yellow, the proposed area for the new additional building. Future land use of the property is RM, residential medium. Zoning is R4, medium density residential. Site plan details, again, the building overall will be 45,159 square feet with three floors plus a terrace being proposed. The building footprint is 16,735. Building height 44. Parking will, overall parking will be 255 for ADA and four bus spaces and two retention ponds. Here is a photo of the proposed building design with some of the color renderings. Additional photos up close and some additional details. Landscape details overall with the proposed building an additional 182 trees will be proposed to be added to the site in additional two trees there will be 2207 shrubs added to landscape in detail Staff recommendation is approval of the site plan amendment with the following six conditions a One, prior to the issuance of a finance certificate of occupancy, a landscape maintenance agreement must be notarized and submitted. Two, a site development permit from the Public Works Department. Three, a land clearing permit must be submitted and approved prior to the submissions of the development permit with City of Fort Pierce. for a tree removal permit with mitigation is required prior to the development permit. 5 all signed permits shall be filed separately of development permit in 6 demolition permits are required prior to the submission of site development permits. Alternate recommendations will be to one work and recommend approval with additional or modify conditions or to recommend disapproval. Thank you.

All right, questions for staff? Welcome back, Mr. Whiting. Actually, I don't have any questions for staff on this one. All right, hearing none, we can proceed with the applicant presentation. Please sign in and state your name and begin when you're ready.

Good afternoon. How are you today? I'm Mike McCarty, McCarty & Associates Land Planning and Design. Nice to see you all. Appreciate your time. Really excited to present this project to you. You can see here, this is the John Carroll High School. I want to first introduce the team. REG Architects, they're here with us today. Phenomenal job on this project. Also want to introduce Velcon Engineering here in the back and surveying. Jacqueline and Sons been great in helping us through the process. Also want to introduce Corey Hero, president of John Carroll High School. Really excited because this is where I graduated, so it's really special to kind of give back and be a part of something. that's going to make a lasting impression in our community. I know that John Carroll was very impactful in my life, and I look forward for my children to attend there. My daughter will be a freshman next year. So it's kind of neat to be able to play this forward. However, I'll jump into the details here. Hopefully we can make this short and sweet and get on down the road. This one? Nope. That one? Wrong one. Sorry. Excuse me. Okay, here we go. So before you is an amendment to the major site plan and conditional use. The project proposes a new three-story 45,159 square foot academic and administrative building, replacing outdated classrooms and portables. The redevelopment modernizes the facilities, enhances safety and improvements. and improves campus functionality. Approximately 12,000 square feet of building will be demolished to accommodate the new building and removal of the portable classrooms will occur once construction is complete. Site improvements include stormwater treatment systems, paved parking, improved circulation, new landscaping, sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, and improved ADA accessibility. Here before you is a rendered graphic of of what that site will look like once completed constructed and all the trees are installed and reach maturity you'll see here this is an existing condition slide so i just want to kind of help you if you look on the right where this aerial shows a red outline box these are three different buildings okay these buildings were put in place over 50 years ago and they are old i mean i can remember going into that gym and it still smells like dirty feet today okay it's time for that baby to come down and be replaced so we're going to replace these three structures here you'll see on the left hand side of your screen the configuration of some of the parking and and the loop and then the entry it's just inadequate and that entry is um Not accommodating to larger vehicles. So we're going to widen that. We're going to relocate it. We're going to delete one of our points of access along the frontage there, reducing it to two only. And we're going to do a whole new parking field. We're going to update and bring up to compliance the stormwater for this side as well. So here's the site plan. You can see how we've improved the circulation in comparison to what you just saw. Circulation patterns, the actual defined travel lanes, we're actually gonna have improved paved surfaces where over the last 40, 50 years, people have been parking underneath trees, unimproved areas on top of tree roots. It's kind of a disaster, but we're gonna clean that up. We're also improving some of the circulation patterns along the frontage of the site, and we're doing some preservation of these clusters of trees that were worth keeping. Some of the trees on site were diseased, old, impacted, hat-racked, vehicles parking on them have damaged some of those roots. We've had arborists and our landscape architects on site to evaluate those, and these were the clusters that were of most value to keep. This is the landscape plan. Some of our landscape details. This is our tree mitigation table. You can have fun reading that. And then at this point, I'll turn this over to our architect. Let him talk about the architecture for this project. Did a fantastic job. Rick Gonzalez with REG.

Thank you. Do we have more slides or just one?

THIS ONE AND MAYBE TWO OR THREE. THIS ONE AND MAYBE TWO OR THREE. OKAY. OKAY. YES, SIR. YES, SIR.

MR. CHAIRMAN AND BOARD MR. CHAIRMAN AND BOARD MEMBERS, GOOD AFTERNOON. MEMBERS, GOOD AFTERNOON. RICK GONZALEZ, PRESIDENT REG RICK GONZALEZ, PRESIDENT REG ARCHITECTS. ARCHITECTS. 120 SOUTH OLIVE AVENUE, 120 SOUTH OLIVE AVENUE, DOWNTOWN WEST POUND BEACH. DOWNTOWN WEST POUND BEACH. AND CHRISTINE MERRILL IS HERE AND CHRISTINE MERRILL IS HERE WITH ME, TOO, WHO'S THE SENIOR WITH ME, TOO, WHO'S THE SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER. PROJECT MANAGER. WE'RE HAPPY TO BE HERE WORKING at the parish and also here at the high school and presenting a design that was informed, a design party that had five design principles that we wanted to incorporate on that site. This site, we do a lot of historic preservation in our office and the site has some beautiful weathered mid-century modern buildings that we're hoping to use as inspiration for our project and based on that, we looked at ways of bringing that in. If you look at the bottom rendering on this photo over here, the rhythm of the building, the 15 feet on center rhythm of the structure was incorporated into the new design of the building to continue with a good organization of the space. Also a strong base. If you look at the upper rendering, very strong brickwork and soft clayish and sand colors to match the historic building on the other side. were incorporated. We added a strong roof line, as you can see on both renderings, to create some shade on the elevations of the buildings. And for the special spaces within the school, the areas of social and learning areas, a lot of transparency, a lot of glass to differentiate that from the actual classrooms. And then finally, the fifth design item was to have the chapel be like an anchor that goes up in the sky. So you'll see the round element, which is on the middle of the building, more or less. And it's a little bit taller than the rest of the building. That's to allow for a high ceiling inside of the chapel. Okay, so let me see if I can run with this. Is it this button over here?

Just that one there?

Right click?

Okay.

Here's another. This is a close-up as you're approaching the entry. As a matter of fact, the chapel lines up above the entry, so it's a nice way to define entryway, easy way to find the new entry. The old entry will still be there, but this will become the primary entry. The bottom rendering is a picture from the existing courtyard that will be incorporated in with the common areas that are all the glass areas on the second and third floor overlooking that courtyard. And then on these two renderings over here, additional views. The upper rendering on the left is the addition. On the right is the existing school. When you do historic preservation and new buildings, it's nice to have a notch. So we did a notch there between the historic building and the new building. So it's clearly defined which is the original and which is the new building. And you can see that on that upper rendering where the two buildings meet. And then the bottom rendering is from the playgrounds, from the playfields, showing you the new building, the three-story portion. Oops, let me go back for a second.

Go ahead and go back over here, previous.

just wanted to close that with the state of florida making it more appealing to have a variety of different ways to go to school private schools christian schools and public schools with the voucher program there's a lot of growth we do a lot of work for the diocese of palm beach we have several schools that we're doing right now And we're doing a Baptist school too that's growing, you know, and private schools too. You know, it's great to have more opportunity for the children in South Florida. And we're happy to be a part of this team. If you have any questions, I'll be sitting back over here and let Michael finish this presentation.

Thank you. Thank you, Rick. So... We respectfully request a recommendation of approval of this application to the City Council, which has demonstrated compliance with the City of Fort Pierce land development regulations and the comprehensive plan. City staff has recommended approval of this application. Before we take any of your questions, I'd also like to invite Koi Haro, John Carroll's president, to share her words with you.

Good afternoon, as Mike said, I'm Cori Hero. I'm the president at John Carroll High School. I just wanted to add just a couple of details or comments. This year, John Carroll celebrates our 60th anniversary in this location on Delaware Avenue. So for 60 years, we faithfully served the city of Fort Pierce and generations of families. We have many students who are third generation students at John Carroll High School. And our goal with this project is to really secure the foundation of our school for generations to come. I am a proud John Carroll graduate, as is several people on our team, and I know that we're thinking about our own children and their children and the impact that this school has on Fort Pierce and that it will continue to have in the future, so we appreciate your consideration. Thank you.

Appreciate your time. If you have any questions, I'll answer them. If not, a recommendation of approval would be appreciated. Thank you.

all right questions for the applicant hearing none my only general question was just in regards to the TRC comments we didn't see any response documents in the staff presentation so I guess maybe this is more of a question for staff were there any TRC comments yet resolved that are any sticking points at this at this stage

No chairman, all comments have been resolved. Any comments that were not resolved are listed in the condition for approval.

Thank you. All right. If there's no other questions for the applicant, I would open it up to public comment. If there are any members of the public here today wishing to speak on this item 6C, please come forward at this time. Seeing none, I will send it back to the board. Any final discussion? Hearing none, I would entertain a motion at this time.

Move to approve with the six conditions.

Second. We have a motion for approval with six conditions by Ms. Carter, second by Mr. Johnson. Please call the roll.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Ms. Clements? Yes. Mr. Whiting? Yes. Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Chair Kreisel?

Yes. Thank you. All right. Thank you for being here. We will move on to item 6D, Major Site Plan Amendment, Amazon Distribution Center. Mr. Sensen has the presentation.

Can you all hear me all right? Yes. Perfect. I got to tell you, before we get started, this has been a long meeting, but it's been an exciting meeting. Not really, because you guys just approved a 250-unit housing development, an expansion of a school, and possibly another school downtown. Yeah. That's growth. That's exciting. And I'm glad we talk about growth because all those new families moving into Fort Pierce are going to need somewhere to work. Today I bring you PZSite 2026-001, Major Site Plan Amendment for Amazon Distribution Center located at 2300 South Kings Highway. The owner applicant is Scannell Properties 553, represented by Jeff Irvani, Inc., Parcel number is 2324-210-0000-000-6. The applicant is requesting review and approval of an application for a major site plan to construct a 1.1 million square foot refrigerator warehouse and office building with associated site improvements on a 69.19 acre ON 69.19 ACRES, LOCATED AT 2300 SOUTH KINGS HIGHWAY. ACCORDING TO APPLICANT DOCUMENTS, THE PROJECT IS ANTICIPATED TO CREATE 740 NEW PERMANENT JOBS. THE SUBJECT PROPERTY IS LOCATED, IS CURRENTLY VACANT AND IS BOUND BY SOUTH KINGS HIGHWAY ON THE WEST, WHITE ROAD ON THE NORTH AND PETERS ROAD ON THE EAST. The project contains 69.9 acres of a larger 107.69 acre tract. The project site was recently subdivided into three parcels administratively under a separate application PZ Sub 2025-00005. There are a lot of zeros today. CURRENT FUTURE LAND USE DESIGNATION AND ZONING FOR FUTURE LAND USE THIS PARCEL HAS A GENERAL COMMERCIAL GC DESIGNATION AND IT IS ZONED CP1 COMMERCIAL PARKWAY ZONE. THE PROPERTY WAS PREVIOUSLY REZONED IN AUGUST 2021 UNDER ORDINANCE 21-025 TO ITS CURRENT CP1 DESIGNATION AND THEN LATER THAT YEAR IN SEPTEMBER Major site plan was approved to construct two buildings totaling 485,000 square feet of warehouse, office and warehouse distribution space. Prior to 21, August 21, there were several parcels that were combined to make this larger parcel and those were all previously zoned C3 and E2, just for some history on the property. the project is proposing up when we get into future land use the future land use has a general commercial under comprehensive plan policy one point one point six B there is an allowance of a floor to area ratio so building to land area of one point zero the proposal is well below this at zero point three six you can see the surrounding Land use categories, both county and city, are generally commercial in nature with a few residential tracks. The Fort Pierce zoning code is CP1, commercial parkway zone. Warehouse and freight are allowed by right in the zoning district, and office is accessory to the main use. As I mentioned, The applicant is proposing to build 1,070,080 square feet of building. Of that 1,010,080 will be, there's a lot of zeros in it too, a refrigerator warehouse, warehousing space with 60,000 square feet of office. Overall, the paving and parking on the site is going to represent 24.17 acres. But that comes along with 20.36 acres of open space, which consists of detention ponds and bioswales, lakes out front of the property, as well as landscape, mostly consisting around the border and the boundary of the site, as well as internally in the parking lot. I wanted to mention that traffic is a little nutso on this project, but I'm going to try to walk you through it. So there's two main types of traffic that are going to occur on this site. First is going to be big truck traffic, semis. And so semis will enter from the south access point between Lakes 2 and 3 and then circulate counterclockwise and one way around the site to exit out onto White Road. I'm trying to get that to work right. White Road. There is signalization proposed that is currently under review. for the intersection of Kings and White Road so that, you know, that becomes a little more easily for the trucks to go either north or south on Kings Highway. Employees will... and visitors will actually circulate into this driveway between Lakes 1 and 2 into the internal parking lot. So there is, and I will get this a little bit better for you, but there is actually a median along Kings Highway along this area of the So you're not going to have any southbound in traffic. It will all be controlled north into the site and then north out of the site on the east side of Kings Highway. The building design represents, I believe, what we call the Modern masonry, is that the one? Is that the category? I'll go for that. Okay. Modern masonry architectural type in the architectural design standards that the city has. In front of you are north, south, east, and west elevations. So just to get an idea, the west elevation will be facing onto Kings Highway. So this is the one to the bottom of the screen. The one in the middle will actually face onto Peters Road. The north elevation, which will be the longer section of the building, will face onto White Road. And then a similarly situated south elevation will be internal to the site. And just some images. This is looking southeast from Kings Highway and White Road intersection. You can see White Road improvements that are planned as part of a county roadway permit, as well as the front entry and parking lot. This will be like one in the site plan. This is looking northeast from the southern lake and access drive. So this will be like, I think this is like three. This will be that southern truck entry into the site, which they'll have to kind of jimmy jock around. You can't see the trucks for all the landscaping on this plan. That's what's so great. I mean, it'll take a while for that to fill in, but still. And then this is the main entrance for employees and visitors looking east from Kings Highway at the northern driveway and the western facade. You can kind of see their main entry here, as well as a large parking that was shown in the site plan. As for landscape, there is a lot of it. The applicant, in addition and around the lakes, are gonna have littoral plantings as well as large live oaks. Around all three, these ponds will be aerated so that they'll have a fountain in them to keep the water fresh. To the north, Along the north side of the site will be dry retention. And then along the south side of the site will be additional retention, but that will take the form of a bioswale. And again, along the perimeter, you'll have our typical buffer that will take into account some screening. So a lot of landscape that's going into this project. This has been coordinated with all departments through our technical review committee. They have reviewed the major site plan amendment with regards to consistency with established ordinances and requirements of the code and comprehensive plan. All departments have supported the major site plan, not the annexation, given the subject property conditions of approval. So staff is recommending that the board recommend approval. of the major site plan amount with the following conditions. A review of the tree survey and tree mitigation calculations will be performed at the time of development permit compliance review. Per the submitted environmental report, evidence of consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife will be required prior, I'm sorry, during development permit compliance review. All signage will be permitted separately through building permits. All required state and federal agency permits shall be required at the time of development permit compliance review. And a St. Lucie County right-of-way permit will be required prior to development permit compliance review. alternately the board can make recommend approval with alternate conditions or additional conditions or they could recommend denial that is my presentation this the applicant is here and present and will provide a presentation but as of right now I am available for any questions that you all may have questions for staff of a traffic question I'm gonna try and answer it

The lighting's going to be at White Road, but everyone's coming in between Lake potentially 1 and 2 for the employees, correct?

That is correct, yes, sir.

Does that mean that potentially there's going to be over 200 U-turns a day to try to come from the northbound to get into that area? Because the median would be breaking south of that area.

I am going to defer to the applicant on how many U-turns there are. There is a traffic study attached to the application, but that specific term room I don't have memorized, so I would have to call that up.

Oh, just like one-third of the total number of employees, so just guessing if they're coming from the north.

I'm just going to tell you, with the addition of this and any other developments out there, Kings Highway is going to be busy. signalization is is probably more than warranted mmm forget about the truck traffic just because of the parking generation you had both of them together you definitely need a signal there I would note that there is as you mentioned that break in the site or a little peanut there so that trucks would be able to turn you know come in southbound and enter the site but there is no such break for the employees

So there's it looks like there's a number of Kind of roadway elements deceleration lanes turn in lanes. Is there a continuous sidewalk? Proposed for the entire frontage of the property as part of this development. It looked like there was sidewalk in the rendering and

It is a little hard to see, but there is a sidewalk path that starts down here, just South of the lakes. Uh, three goes through, there'll be some striping there for, um, crosswalk. And then it kind of meanders back and forth. You see it kind of going along the entirety and then going around and back and around.

And do you have any information on the county's roadway improvement project at White Road there, like where they are in the stages of planning and execution?

I'm going to defer to the applicant because he has been working hand in glove with the county to make sure that those improvements, whatever they are being required, are part of this site plan. All right.

Any other questions for staff? Hearing none, we'll continue with the applicant presentation.

Mr. Chairman, board members, good afternoon. Jeff Erovani with JHIN Consulting Engineers on behalf of the applicant. We have a brief presentation. I know you guys heard enough today. Very similar to staff. As far as the walkways or sidewalk goes, we have a sidewalk that comes in from Kings Highway on employees, on associates, as Amazon calls them. So they do have a sidewalk access on employees. On a truck portion, we don't want any sidewalk because we don't want traffic. And that's one of the reason that, okay, what a good looking site plan, right? the access for uh associate is a right turn in and out uh there would be there is a left-hand lane that d.o.t is already built at uh white and kings highway so there will be opportunity for them to make a u-turn uh the uh all of these entries they're going to have a right-hand lane As far as improvement goes, this project previously was approved for about 1.6 million. This is the new and improved site plan. The applicants already contributed about $400,000 toward Peters Road construction. We got that reconstructed about a year or so ago with Lazy Day RV at that time, General RV now. So we did that. We also going to be constructing White Road. White Road is not much of a road right now, you know. I have a Bronco Raptor I can get on it, but I don't think anybody else can be driving on it. So we are going to be making it a wide two-lane paved road with sidewalk. We're also going to improve the entry at the intersection with Kings Highway with the right hand and the left hand. So it's going to be a three lane in there. And we are right now in the process of getting county's approval for those. We also obligated for the signal whenever DOT seems, deems proper for us to build that thing. We have permits for DOT for the signal and the improvements that you see in here. I also want to add that as, by the way, I want to thank staff for a great presentation, so I don't have to do much here. The Amazon is, as a phase one, is they're taking the 69 acre that you see in here. There is a possibility for a phase two, which is a 69 acre in there. They are very interested to purchasing that. And they believe they are going to, but we have to come in front of you for that one. And that will be an additional 500 employees. So potentially, we can have 1,200 employees. But right now in phase one, there are somewhere around 700 plus employees in there.

All right. Any questions for the applicant? See Mr. Whiting's writing something down. So Mr. Johnson pointed out that an employee approaching from the north would not be able to make the left-hand turn off of Kings Highway into the employee parking lot. That's correct. There... alternative would be to, based on what I think I'm seeing, would they have to drive all the way down to Okeechobee and make a U-turn?

Unless there's a non-U-turn sign.

There is one on Crossroad. They would have to go to the next U-turn. This is, I believe, a Class 5 road for DOT. DOT only allows you certain basically median cut. We do have a left turn in median cut at the truck access down here, but there would be no median access between White Road and this truck access. So we won't be able to get that. Employees would have to go south, make a U-turn. And DOT has provided sufficient left turn storage lane for people to make a U-turn. There was a traffic report done and all the lift and storages and et cetera was found sufficient for our traffic. I'm just trying to see what street that would end up being.

Is there an employee parking in a gated parking lot?

It's not. It's not gated. If they decide to gate it, they would have to make improvement, including U-turn and so forth. So this plan does not have any gate for employees.

Just as a safety standpoint, could they potentially come in where the trucks are coming in as well to enter their parking lot so that you're not making U-turns?

They would not be able to get anywhere from it. They are separated, actually. The truck area, there is no connection between the parking and the truck area. And employees are not allowed to get in a truck because we don't want to have a conflict of the traffic between employees and a truck. It's a safety issue. Most of the distribution facilities don't want truck and employees traffic to get mixed up. Any other questions for the applicant? Traffic report was submitted to DOT and they've approved that.

There's no options to improve part of the road for Peters Road for

employees back entrance employees parking entrance right they uh the unfortunately that whole area is designated for truck traffic so the employees you know they want to have a designated exclusive entry and exit for employees that all off the king's highway up the south when they go home at least the same problem they can only go I think employees on a note can also go on White Road and go on. They can actually go on Peters Road and come on across and get in that way to the trucks or employees or employees. Employees. Yes.

So basically, you're saying that they can make a left turn on White, go down Peters and then come back all the way around to Was that Kings? Yes. If they didn't want to make a U-turn.

Right. The exiting employees would make a U-turn at White and Kings if they want to go southbound. That's correct.

So those finishing their shift that came from the south would have to go out, go north, U-turn also?

That's correct. Make a U-turn and go south. So it's coming and going, basically. Right. You've got half the folks. Now, these employees for the entire day, they all come in shifts. So it's not going to be all 700, you know, going to be... Will this warehouse also have...

distribution vehicles such as like Amazon vans that are going out throughout the day?

No, this is not a fulfillment center. This is going to be mainly for refrigerated and cold distribution food and so forth for whole foods. So the traffic is going to be less than your typical Amazon distribution. There will be no small van distribution or traffic in there.

All right. Any other questions for the applicant? Hearing none, I thank you very much for your time. At this time, I would open it up to public comment. If there are any members of the public here wishing to speak on this application, item 6D, please come forward at this time. Seeing none, I will send it back to the board for any further discussion. I would just like to point out that geographically this part of Fort Pierce just seems custom built for this type of facility. The access to both 95 and the Turnpike and where it's located geographically from the rest of the city's commercial and residential neighborhoods I think is a very good choice of development of this scale to be going in exactly where it's going in. All right. So if there's no other further discussion.

My only discussion, again, is that traffic for employees, is there no chance for a secondary entry or exit that's more amenable besides U-turns?

Yeah, I think, so, you know, and I see this on a lot of things, a lot of these development plans where, you know, you're you know the applicants bound by what the DOT regulations are and you know there they can only have so many median crossings within a certain distance I'm looking at the map here so directly to this so the next cross street south from White Road would be crossroads I'm not sure if that's that's probably I mean you could turn left there so you must be able to make a u-turn I would assume Also, if you're approaching from the north, you could just take Okeechobee instead of taking Orange. I think the employees will probably figure that out eventually. Maybe.

They're coming from 95. If they're coming from inland, they can't do that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I share that same concern with the traffic. I'm not sure what the answer is, if there's an answer for it.

Yeah, if the next available crossroad to make a U-turn at was all the way down at Okeechobee, I think that could be a disaster. That is a disaster. Because that intersection is, because that's where the turn onto the turnpike is.

They can count on the trucks, but that's it.

I was going to say, there's no median there.

With your design and your improvements that you're doing on, You said White Road or Peters Road?

We have already done improvement on Peters Road. It was done a year or two ago, about 400,000. White Road is about $2.5 million. We're going to be improving the entire White Road from Kings Highway to Peters Road. I also have our traffic engineer, Luke Lambert, be glad to explain to you. THE TURNING MOVEMENTS IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE AS FAR AS THE TRAFFIC REPORT AND ANALYSIS WAS IT'S NOT AN ISSUE WITH THE TRAFFIC WITH THE EMPLOYEES TRAFFIC MAKING THE TURNS PLEASE YEAH COME FORWARD LUKE LAMBERT TRAFFIC MOBILITY CONSULTANTS SO WITH REGARD TO THE U-TURN MOVEMENT FOR NORTHBOUND SO SAY EMPLOYEES EXITING

So there are figures in the report that detail the number of employees that we're expecting to make that movement. And so then as part of that, we do an intersection analysis to show the delay. And it shows essentially how many people could be able to make that U-turn movement. So the report's under review with the Florida Department of Transportation as well as St. Lucie County. And so they're taking a look at those and everything looks good. There's also the option to make a right turn on Peters, or on Waite, I'm sorry, which we are improving to get to Peters to go southbound to cross roads essentially where there's a signalized intersection at Okeechobee as well. So there's definitely a number of options in the area. There's also a Bennett Road to the north. So employees, no matter where they're coming from, they would definitely have options. If they choose to do the U-turn movement, they could do that as well. As Jeff mentioned, there is a signal proposed as well, which is being reviewed by the county and the state. So there's definitely multitude of options in there. And as part of this, we also separated single occupancy vehicle traffic, you know, just employee traffic from truck traffic. So those figures are separated so you could see those exact numbers. So for right now, for passenger vehicles, we're projecting 50 U-turn movements.

Being that there will be signalization at White, is there any capacity for, I can't tell if the trucking is going all the way around the building, but is there capacity for the parking lot to have from the north area to White Road to where there could be inflow there or a flow of traffic because it goes to that point.

And access from the employee parking lot to White.

Yes. This is actually Amazon would like to have a single access for their employees. And we do not want to... And they do not want the employees go through the white road because that, again, conflicts with the truck traffic. So they do not want, as you can see, the white road, the entire white road in there is a truck traffic. And they want to have a single traffic coming in. Sometimes in the future, they may want to put a gate on that. employees access so that's another reason they want to have a single access for employees of course again we have to come back for that if that happens yeah because if it wasn't for a gated use then they could have something to go some different flow of traffic They are talking about that, but this is not part of this plan. If they decide to do that, the Amazon plan is fluid. They're making changes on their program. So right now, there is no gate in there. They're thinking about putting it on their center, and once that happens, it would have to come in front of you. But they do want a single entry and exit for their employees. And between the employees coming from the north or from south, between Peters, White, and Kings Highway, I mean, they have plenty of way to get in and out. But we can't get the left turn out out of DOT. That's just not gonna happen because of the classification and the restriction they got on median opening.

Any further discussion on this?

The comment that the second gentleman made relating to Florida Department of Transportation and quote, things look good. Give us a little bit more insight. What looks good? Is that incorporated in the fourth consideration conditions that we have? Would you consider it in there as maybe it's another condition? I don't know. I don't know if that's a lot of U-turns or not. It feels like a lot, like 700 current employees. And if you got three shifts, it's a couple hundred every shift.

And that's where Amazon's very, with their shifts, we talked about that. So this traffic report takes into a case or like worst case. Amazon's shifts, they break up their shifts. They're not at the peak hours. So the numbers in the report are really worst case on normal nine to five, like peak hour traffic. So some of you may know Amazon shifts are odd hours, right? There are people coming in at 4 a.m. or whatnot. So they have three different shifts. And so they do that to not coincide with peak hour traffic.

And that's what most issues are on a peak hour traffic. I don't think there is any issue like 10 o'clock at night or four o'clock in the morning. And the traffic report has been submitted to DOT and they approved it. So we are good with the results on the report.

I'll go back to when I hear the words, it looks good with the FDOT study. Again, what does that mean?

That means they agreed with his numbers. I don't know what are the numbers. Well, that means that we got left-hand storage lanes and a right-hand storage lane, and that basically said what's on the road right now for a left-hand storage lane or U-turns, those lengths is sufficient for a number of trips from this traffic as well as other trips generated in an area to make a U-turn safely or a left-hands.

Anything else? All right. Thank you. I think we're ready. Any further discussion here? All right. At this time, I would entertain a motion. We have five conditions on this.

Move to approve with the five conditions listed. Second.

We have a motion for approval with five conditions by Ms. Carter, second by Ms. Clemmons. Please call the roll.

Ms. Clemmons? Yes. Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Chair Kreisel?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. That concludes our new business. We can move on to Item 7, Election of Chair and Vice Chair. So let's start with Vice Chair. And this has kind of been traditionally a reverse competition. So why don't we begin with, if there's not gonna be any discussion, which I don't expect there will be, does anybody have a nomination for Vice Chair? I would like to point out, by the way, that Ms. Clemmons, who is an at-large member is approved on this board through summer of 27. Wow. We have a nomination for vice chair?

Yeah, since this is an annual deal, I'd like to nominate Ms. Clemmons as vice chair. Second.

All right, we have a nomination by Mr. Whiting and a second by Mr. Edwards to nominate Ms. Clemmons as Vice Chair. Alicia, please call the roll.

Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Ms. Clemmons?

No.

Ms. Clemmons? No. Chair Kreisel?

Yes. and now moving on to a nomination for chair I will also point out for the record that I am as well an at-large member I am up for reapplication this August and I do intend to reapply

I would nominate you.

Second. Okay. We have a nomination by Mr. Johnson and a second by Ms. Clemons to elect me as chair of the planning board. Please call the roll.

Mr. Edwards?

Yes.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Carter? Yes. Ms. Clemons? Yes. Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Chair Kreisel? Yes.

Okay. We must be doing something right. All right. Now that we have that out of the way, we have item eight, comments from the public. If there are any members of the public here who wish to speak on general issues of planning in the city, please come forward at this time. Seeing none, we will move on to the director's report. Mr. Freeman.

Congratulations, Chair and Vice Chair. Thank you. Great to see you back. My updates really revolve around state legislation. We've had a number of bills come through, which will, I think, most of them come into effect next January. So we've got a bit of work to do behind the scenes. I think the bills relate mainly, well, I know the bills relate to fees, processing times, Yeah, alternative ways of doing pre-apps through external agencies, so forth. We're working our way through those. There's more than that. So a lot of our time, I think, is going to be taken this year in engaging the city attorney in reviewing ordinances to deal with state... ISSUES. WE HAVE HAD A RESPONSE FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE REGARDING THE EAR COMPRESSIVE PLAN. THEY THREW IT BACK AT US. THEY FOUND three issues relating primarily to State Bill 180 in that the thought is that the comprehensive plan has become more restrictive with the almost non-amendments that we've made to it. We're meeting on a Zoom meeting tomorrow with them to discuss their findings with the my objective there is to ensure that we remove whatever they think is non-compliant with state bill 180 if justified It's very minor comments, and we'll give you an update on that once, probably at the next planning board meeting, once we've had that meeting with the State Department. In the background here, what I am moving forward with is something that actually came up with the school. on Orange is looking at an ordinance to look at how do we reuse existing properties in the city, particularly in the CRA. We've had a lot of issues recently with applicants not able to get approvals. not even getting to you or anywhere else because of the city's code relating to what's required when folks come in and want to set up a new business, especially in an existing building. It's caused a lot of chatter in the community. It's caused other groups to get involved. The underlying issue is the city code doesn't allow it. And unless we break city code, which we're not willing to do, folks can't get in without doing significant amount of work on their property. And what we find is more than usual, more than likely that they've signed a lease to go into an existing property that may have already been used for the similar type of use that they want to do. But now when they find they come in and it zings over into substantial improvements of that property, they're needing to bring up everything to new city code, which is not the same as it was 10, 20 years ago. So we've got all these vacant buildings or underutilized buildings, especially on Orange, segments of US 1. Most of the entranceways into the city are affected by trying to get people to reuse existing property. So we're going to bring forward something that's going to address that. and slim down some of the code issues that we really think are obstructing this. So we would want some, obviously bringing it back, would we want some input from planning board. So I'm going out talking to developers and agents and whatever as far as I can to get their input on what they find difficult. getting through on a simple reuse of an existing building especially if most of the work that they're intending to do is internal to that building it can quite easily trigger site plan landscaping architectural all the stuff that's on the outside we do want to see those improved but not at the expense of maintaining that building's vacancy for another 10 years. So it's also helping create a different image of the city in terms of use on the streets, active, and creating more jobs where we can. And so that's what we're aiming to do. And I want to do that quite quickly.

So that's something I'll be bringing back.

And that's my update at the moment. Thank you.

Mr. Freeman.

Yeah, it's a very challenging issue to deal with. And, you know, vacant buildings, they paint a picture of, you know, degradation and lack of interest and crime or just declining communities. And when in a lot of cases, it's just an accessibility that people want to develop, but they can't because there's hurdles. And we don't do a good enough job of creating those incentives to streamline that process for potential applicants. I'm very curious to see your creative solutions to this and we'll support you as we move forward.

Thank you.

All right, if there's nothing else, oh, any board comments?

My only comment is the one I made earlier about attaching some additional requirements for size of the community and the community.

Yes. Where does that, what governing document does that statute come from?

That's the comprehensive plan. That's the policy in the comprehensive plan. We cannot essentially amend that policy unless we remove it in its entirety. The enabling regulations really should be incorporated into the code of ordinances. So that's one thing that we should be looking at is how do we regulate those sizes. And again, that's something that needs to come forward from staff to the city commission. Once we've got the comprehensive plan approved by the state, then we'll come back with these amendments. The plan was to address the comprehensive plan in a way that didn't engage the state to throw it out because of State Bill 180. they still managed to find a way to do that. And then come back with various amendments to that so we could really consider them comprehensively in their impact. And one of the things about State Bill 180 is you can't make anything more restrictive. So even looking at code to implement that comprehensive plan policy, we've got to be careful on, are we making things more restrictive? And there are landscaping, you mentioned landscaping, Ms. Carter, that, you know, you want to see better landscaping requirements. In the background, we've been working on landscaping and then they introduced State Bill 118. Our ideas were to change things around, make it more plain. But with that, make it more defined in terms of the type of landscaping that we would want. We can't be certain that that's not more restrictive. So we're just on hold at the moment. And that piece of legislation is in place until October 2027. unless we're subject to a hurricane or a state of emergency that's issued by the governor. And then that extends the deadline for that piece of legislation. And it doesn't have to be a direct hit on the city of Fort Pierce. I think it's a hundred mile radius or something like that, or maybe even more than that. But it's very unlikely. that there's gonna be a year that we don't have a hurricane somewhere in the vicinity or a notification of a disaster area somewhere in the vicinity that re-engages this piece of legislation. But as soon as there is that gap, we'll be running at it.

Yes, yes. All right. Well, I thank everyone for their time. Sorry it was such a long meeting. Let's get home. Meeting adjourned.