Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Regular meeting of Monday, July 13th, 2026. Would you all 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. BEFORE WE BEGIN, A FRIENDLY REMINDER TO ALL PLEASE SILENCE YOUR MOBILE DEVICES.

It's me. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Apologies. Speaking with the planning director, we suspect that most audience members may be here for 6D, and we wanted to propose to the board, did you want to move that item up so that it maybe could be addressed first and maybe clear the chambers a little bit?

Possibly. Board, do we have, well, let's call the roll. and get through three and four before we take on that item. Alicia, would you please call the roll?

Ms. Storey? I'm here. Mr. Johnson?

Present.

Mr. Edwards? Ms. Clemmons? Present. Mr. Whiting?

Present.

Chair Kreisel?

Present. We did have notification from Mr. Edwards that he would be attending today, but is running a little late.

Yes, that's correct.

We will EXPECT HIM TO ARRIVE SHORTLY. BEFORE WE GET ON TO THE ORDER OF THE AGENDA, LET'S GO AHEAD AND GET THROUGH ITEM 5. HAS EVERYBODY HAD A CHANCE TO REVIEW THE MINUTES FROM OUR LAST PLANNING WARD MEETING? YES. IS THERE ANY DISCUSSION?

I HAVE A COUPLE CORRECTIONS, MINOR THINGS. within the minutes on item it's item 7a the voluntary annexation within that second paragraph there is a reference to LoS it says loss of service and that's actually should be I believe level of service deficiencies which is I think what LoS stands for think that's that's the context of it and then the other thing in under board member comments on the last page it indicate that I had said that editorial comments on the new state statutes are being made I'm maybe I use that term but I the context there was that changes were being made to state statutes without being with without actually actually asking the people who actually do the work. So I think, and if I said a different word, but I think that's the context of that. And I'd appreciate it if we could edit that accordingly.

Alicia, you have those edits? Yes. Thank you. All right. If there's no other discussion, I would entertain a motion at this time.

I move for approval with the correction. I'll second it.

All right, we have a motion for approval with corrections by Ms. Clements, second by Ms. Story. Please call the roll. Ms. Clements?

Yes. Mr. Whiting? Yes. Ms. Story? Yes. Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Chair Kreisel?

Yes. All right. Moving on, before we get into new business, let's discuss the suggestion before us from planning staff. We have a fairly crowded room today. That's not normal for us. So in the interest of everybody's time, we would consider moving item 6D up to the top of the agenda.

I'm fine with that.

Okay. Let's do an official motion.

I'LL MAKE A MOTION TO ADJUST THE AGENDA ACCORDINGLY TO MOVE UP THE ITEM, I GUESS, 3D?

6D.

6D, SORRY.

SECOND? ANYONE? SECOND. ALL RIGHT. WE HAVE A MOTION TO EDIT THE AGENDA BY MS. STORY, SECOND BY MR. JOHNSON. PLEASE CALL THE ROLL. MR. JOHNSON?

YES.

MS. CLEMENTS? NO. MR. WHITING?

Yes.

Ms. Storey? Yes. Chair Kreisel?

Yes. All right. So we're going to reorder 6D to the top of the program here. Mr. Freeman, this is a very special presentation. Yes, you could say. I would say an unprecedented presentation for our city.

First of its kind in the city.

So I would like you to go through the details specifically of what this presentation is and also isn't for the information of informative purposes of the public here.

I will thank you, Chair, Planning Board, Kev Freeman, Planning Director. As you can see from the screen, this presentation.

Madam Clerk, if we can switch the screen.

Thank you. Okay, as you can see from the screen, this presentation update is in relation to Causeway Cove. It was applied under the live local application process and that's covered by state statute and the section is 166.04151. That section and the following verbiage mandates that public hearings are not part of the process. This is administratively reviewed by agencies, the technical review committee and staff. It's reviewed against city code and providing those agencies, city staff, find that it meets the requirements of the city code then we have no option but to approve it excuse me excuse me excuse me we're we're not taking any comment from the public at this time

Is this somebody with the city? Not of my knowledge, no. Okay, so we're having a presentation from the planning director at this time. We're not taking any public comment at this time. Please remain silent in the audience as we continue with this presentation.

So the location of the property in question is?

Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry, can I just ask a question before Mr. Freeman gets to the substance of the matter? Certainly. Okay. So the context for the planning board today is i have reviewed it and i understand that the staff has recommended i think 31 conditions of approval so what is the function the role of the planning board today other and i know that the item is considered an update but is there will there be a motion by the planning board will there we There's an opportunity for some comments, but it's not any, because as you've indicated, it's not a public hearing and it's an administrative process. This is more informational. Is that from the legal perspective as well?

For the legal perspective, this is not a public hearing. This is staff updating the planning board about what's going on in the city as far as we can. The state mandates that there are no public hearings held either by the planning board or the city commission on this type of application. Staff has followed those requirements and together with other agencies have created those 31 conditions, either developed in-house or by external agencies. And I'm particularly talking about the Florida Department of Transportation who controlled a roadway in this location. So there are conditions which relate to improvements to that roadway which Florida Department of Transportation have requested. The applicant has gone to the Florida Department of Transportation, had a pre-application, discussion and those conditions uh and conditions relating to that and other matters have been incorporated in to the final development order so this is entirely and purely informational there's nothing that this planning board have a vote to cast neither do the city commission this is entirely controlled by the state statute legislation around the Live Local Act.

So we will not be having a vote today. We will not be voting to recommend approval or disapproval of anything. You have a number of conditions. Are we permitted under the state statute in this forum to issue any comment on those conditions as the members of the planning board? Can we give you suggestions? Can we give you notes? Or are we supposed to just sit here and listen?

I would not recommend that you turn this into a public hearing. You can receive comments from public. You can make comments yourself. Staff cannot take action based on your feedback.

That is an element that is controlled tightly by the Florida state statute that applies here.

It states that we can't have and we should not have public hearings.

So I just want to make very clear to everybody on the board and everybody here in attendance today, the state of Florida is incredibly serious about this law. And I do not want to be putting our staff, our city, this board in a position of violating any Florida state statutes. So we will be complying with the law to the letter of the law in this meeting. I appreciate Kev Freeman and his team in putting together this presentation and making it available for public witness. But as he stated, this is not a public hearing. We will not have public comments specifically for this agenda item. We're here to listen. And at this point, that is all we can do.

Mr. Chairman, could you just indulge me one more And part of this is my effort to try to help or have the public understand better, and I hope you've taken these questions that way. And also, I guess I'd also like to have some input from the city attorney as well, because so I trust your judgment. You're not the legal counsel. And I respect you. And so the other thing is, though, also the city commission would be in the same posture as just informational once certain code technical requirements are complied with, correct? Yes. Okay. And Ms. Hodges, that's your perspective as well?

Mr. Chair, members of the board, that is correct. Unfortunately, based on the legislation that was passed, not by this city, this comes from the state legislature, the city's hands, this applies to counties as well. So it's not just the city, it is also the county. When someone submits an application under the Live Local Act, as we all know it, staff reviews this for the minimum code requirements. What we see normally in a public hearing where there's a discussion, if something is, liked, not liked, if there are ways to improve it or not improve it, concerns, that is not what happens under the Live Local Act. Staff is tied by the state law, they are tied by the city's code and they review that application based on only what is in the code and only what is in the state statute. The Live Local Act does not allow public hearings as we normally understand them to where this board or the city commission could make changes to the application, request or negotiate difference DIFFERENCES IN THE APPLICATION. SO WHAT WE NORMALLY SEE IN A PUBLIC HEARING IS NOT ALLOWED TO HAPPEN UNDER THE LIVE LOCAL ACT. AND I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT FOR THE PUBLIC TO UNDERSTAND THAT THAT IS NOT WHAT THE CITY IS DOING. THE CITY STRICTLY HAS TO FOLLOW THE LAW AND WHEN THE LEGISLATURE CREATES THAT LAW WE ARE ALL STUCK FOLLOWING THAT LAW. SO WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO SEE FROM PLANNING STAFF IS an update on the application that's been received, and where this stands based on the state law that the city must follow. The public hearings that we are used to seeing where staff will present, the other side can present, and then the board will open it up for comments, will not occur. There is a public comment period at the very end of the meeting that generally people could speak on, but it is not specific to this project as a normal public hearing would be.

Thank you, Ms. Hedges. But this board may speak.

Certainly, but please do not be offended if Mr. Freeman does not act on your speaking. And that is not a slight to you.

Anything else before we continue?

Thank you.

Mr. Freeman, you have the floor.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, City Attorney. And thank you, members, for your questions. So the site is located south of Seaway Drive. The roadway itself is under the jurisdiction of the Florida Department of Transportation. And so part of this... Part of the analysis was significantly under the umbrella of the Florida Department of Transportation. I know a lot of concern has been raised. Staff had similar issues regarding how the traffic would flow around this development in terms of its impact on that roadway. The determination arrived through traffic consultants negotiating with the Florida Department of Transportation, the St. Lucie TPO were also transportation planning organization were also in flow with that and we had an independent consultant look at that through a different scope so it was particularly reviewed in depth. So that's how we developed a lot of the conditions that were attached to this application. So in general, I'll just go through this because it shows you the restrictions or the allowances that staff have to take into account when we get an application of this type coming through the door. is state mandated. And it looks at entitlements for eligible, affordable housing developments. And those can include zoning within commercial, industrial and mixed use. They have to meet eligibility and they must set aside at least 40% of total units at set affordability rates and those are also set by the state. These are not set locally, they're set by the state and included in a separate part of the state statutes. That has to be maintained for a period of at least 30 years. From a staff point of view, there's no instruction or no methodology included in the state statute of how that is done or how that is measured or whatever. So conditions within the approval actually call out the methodology that we're expecting the applicant to undertake with that. We are required to allow multifamily and mixed use residential as allowable uses in any areas zoned for commercial, industrial or mixed use. There's also on top of all of that, so there's more than just allowing developments to come in on those zoning districts, which might have entirely different requirements under that particular zoning area. The state also mandates parameters regarding density, height, floor area ratio, administrative approval, so that takes out the requirement for public hearings and also looks at parking and that the municipality and the review has to incorporate parking reductions if the applicant requests those. So when something comes in, it can be multifamily or mixed use in those zoning districts. The density of a project is set at the highest density allowed on any land in the city or county where residential development is allowed. In this case, it's the highest density in the city. we look at our comprehensive plan and there are certain future land uses which allow a density of 30 units per acre. So an applicant can claim a density of up to 30 units per acre. The state statute also mentions that density bonuses are not allowed. So there are instances where if things are done differently under straight code, that density bonuses may be applied, but not in respect of a live local application. And of course, if it's not a live local application, then those density bonuses would be reviewed by the planning board and the city commission. The height is determined by the highest currently allowed height for commercial or residential development within one mile of the proposed development. or three stores, whichever is the higher. Again, within our code, if we apply the one mile radii, then we can see that the height in the high density and downtown locations which are captured by that one mile, within that one mile, does allow up to 200 feet. We usually control height to a large extent by the floor area ratio. Now that determines the amount of built floor space a development can occur, can actually use on a property. And that together with parking is a significant way of how developments find it very difficult to reach that height limit because of the constraints that that puts on a site plan and the constraints of how they arrange that floor area ratio. However, both parking and floor area ratio are considered by the state and either reduced or exceeded the existing limitation by 150% of the floor area ratio. And again, The floor area ratio is the highest that we allow in the comprehensive plan, which is 3.0. A way of looking at floor area ratio is that it's calculated by the area of the property and that's multiplied by that number, so if it's three, You multiply the area of the site by three to get the maximum floor space you can accommodate on that property. The state has said that that should be raised by 150%, which means that the floor area ratio for the city, if it's in a... applicable zoning district is 150% is multiplied under the code than what is allowed under the code. The approval procedure is very well set out in the state statute and it is required that the application is administratively approved It needs to satisfy land development regulation that we have and is otherwise consistent with the comprehensive plan, accepting those limitations on density, FAR, height, use, and in certain respects, parking. The state statute mandates that there are no public hearings involved with the process. Therefore, today, staff are presenting an update on the application, what it consists of, and just how it is. So when we received the application we did run the one mile radii to ascertain the other zoning districts within that radii and apply the state statute requirements of the height, density, floor air ratio and all the other stuff that is regulated under the one mile radii. The development consists of 913 units, 365, 366 residential affordable housing units. The floor area is over a million. Commercial floor area is almost 300,000. The total floor area is 1.3 million. The density is worked out by the gross area of the property and works out at 22 units per acre. There's a hotel included or two hotels included, one of 204 rooms, one of 203 rooms. There's a retailing component included of just over 72,000 square feet. Marina is also included at 218 slips. So we looked at the affordable housing requirement under the live local and found a number of requirements in compliance with that regulation. Now I'm gonna go on to the specific transportation mitigation. This was really through negotiation with the Florida Department of Transportation, the city's external consultant, which was run through the St. Lucie County, the applicant's own traffic engineer, and then a review by the Florida Department of Transportation through their process. They required that a westbound right turn overlap phase at the intersection of US 1 and Seaway Drive is to be constructed during the development of this project. That is to address potential queuing at that intersection and that will need to be finally approved by the Florida Department of Transportation. In association, the actual access management for the driveway to the Causeway Cove application will also require final access management approval from the Florida Department of Transportation. That includes a potential traffic signal at the site driveway, and that needs to be or not approved by Florida Department of Transportation. If that traffic light is not approved, then there will be an alternative directional access plan, and that would restrict outbound left turn movements. The applicant is also required to coordinate with Florida Department of Transportation and the St. Lucie Transportation Planning Organization regarding other corridor and access improvements. They're also agreed and required to complete or financially secure transportation and multimodal improvements identified in the approved traffic impact assessment analysis before the first certificate of occupancy for the applicable phase. Now, those multimodal commitments include implementing a water taxi connection between the site and downtown Fort Pierce, implementing a transit stop installation to support future public transit connectivity, provide a shuttle service between the property and the beach, and include a workforce housing component, which with its location and potential use by employees at the marina is calculated to reduce the employee commute traffic and consolidate it around that development. So we went through the application and the following findings of fact, the proposed Causeway Cove development satisfies the threshold eligibility requirements of the Florida statutes. The project provides a residential floor area share of approximately 77.9%, which exceeds the minimum mixed use residential threshold established by state law. The project is located on properties designated HIMU and Zone C5, making the site eligible for administrative approval under the Live Local Act framework. The traffic impact analysis demonstrates that the project satisfies transportation concurrency requirements with implementation of the identified mitigation measures and access approvals. The project can comply with the applicable fire district standards subject to construction plan review and permitting. The project is consistent with the city's comprehensive plan and otherwise applicable development code requirements as we have conditioned. There are no 3D glasses available for this presentation. So that's the, we have the development, the applicant's rendition of some graphics attached to the application. There are, in essence, five, you can see the five buildings. There are various heights, and I'll go through those in a moment, various uses, and I'll also go through those in a moment. There's 43 acres, five buildings, two hotels, commercial area, which includes restaurants and retail and other amenities around the site. There are also a marina attached to the development. I can go through the buildings. various heights, building A is 17 stories. Let me have a look. So that's the central building is 17 stories. Building B is 15 stories. Building C is 14 stories. Building E is proposed at 11 stories and building D at 14 stories. that breaks down the various uses in each building. Building A has a hotel and some commercial. The other hotel, I think, is in building E. We have mainly then another hotel in E, we have commercial in D together with residential. So we have mixed use around the property. And I'm gonna end the presentation with some renditions again that came in from the applicant. And that ends the update, Chair.

I have some questions.

If there's anyone on the board that has questions, please ask them.

I'm going to start with just, actually, do you have a slide that shows your conditions? Did you include that in your presentation?

I didn't, but I can go to them, I think.

So I'll get to that in a minute. But just going through the presentation, is there currently a transit stop within a quarter mile of the subject property?

No, it is the applicant's intent to put one in.

Add a transit stop. Yes. I would assume the end goal there is to reduce the parking?

There's different methodologies. Actually, yes, we did allow a reduction in parking, but there is a section of city code where they used the calculation to reduce the parking. They didn't essentially use the Live Local Act to do that. There is a part of the city code that if you run it, because it's multiple use,

shared parking there is a calculation that's available to do that understood you made mention the presentation one of the elements in design was a workforce housing component that is intended to be on the subject site correct correct now in reviewing your conditions, you get to kind of outline the methodology of review for compliance with the affordable housing component. So your, could you maybe just speak on that condition a little bit so that everybody can understand what we're doing there?

I write me to the number that, yeah.

Yeah. I can't remember which one it was. Number eight? Eight.

Okay, yeah. So the developer, this is a condition, and the developer shall maintain records in a compliance monitoring system or platform acceptable to the city. Now we're aware there are three or four platforms which are used to monitor how the units are leased, the number of units leased, and the amount of those in terms of the rental or whatever lease is on those units. software the applicant has told us they are going to put something in place and they do have an idea of what they're going to use we've not seen that or accepted that yet but that is a condition that we do that does come to the city um and then that's reported annually to the city on or before January 31st of each year. Or if it fits in better with the timetable of development, they can request a different annual monitoring date from the city. But the most important thing with that is that it needs to be a system acceptable not only to the city, and the city will be consulting the state in that. And it's one of the areas of the state requirements that is not fully fleshed out by the state. So it doesn't give us any methodology to do that. So that's why it is a condition and it will be required of the applicant to do that.

So they provide a report every year. by the 31st of January, and that's reviewed by your staff?

It will be reviewed by staff, but also it will be coming forward as an update to the planning board and the city commission.

For the next 30 years, or 30 years starting from the time of occupancy? Yes. So, I mean, number nine touches on this briefly. Maybe Ms. Hedges has more information. It's not really clear to me what would happen, say, 10 years from now. The building is operational. People live there. It's built. It's permitted. It's CO'd. If they fail to comply with the regulation that's mandated for affordability, what happens?

In my mind, they become... illegal in terms of what they are approved to do there. And then the city has options to take enforcement action. The resolution of that could be the development has to be removed or or the development comes in and applies for an alternative form of planning approval, which then does get reviewed by the planning board and city commission.

Yeah, I bring it up because this appears to me to be an element of the statute that doesn't really have a lot of information about it. This is experimental. I'm not aware that this is the first development that's come to this level of development under this statute, but I'm sure this is happening elsewhere in the state, but this is really new and I'm very nervous about that aspect of it. while I'm nervous about quite a few aspects of it, but that one specifically gives me a lot of concern. So I don't know. I'm going to want to try to get more information about that just for myself, because I think that's something that we have to look at very carefully as we move forward. Thank you. That's all the questions I have. Is there anybody else?

Yes, I have one. I've looked at the conditions and I maybe missed it. What is the, oh I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that. I'll move it closer, I apologize. So in terms of life safety issues and evacuation, so and maybe, I apologize, I couldn't see it one particularly.

I think condition 12 might address that.

Okay.

Constitution 12 says prior to issuance of site development permits, let me make a distinction here. So the development order that is granted by the planning department is a planning approval. They do sound same, but they're not. The site development permit is applied and granted by the building department and the engineering department. So there's more steps to this. The development still has to meet building code. It still has to meet external agency requirements. One of the things that the state also mandated that the planning department cannot get involved with in their approvals under a different section of the state statute, which has been in place longer than this, is that we can't hold up a development planning approval based on external agency requirements or permits. So those come into effect at building permit. So at building permits, applicants have to show that they've met state requirements. This condition actually reinforces that in terms of an informational condition, if you like, that prior to issuance of site development permits, the applicant shall obtain an Florida Department of Transportation pre-approval letter addressing the proposed access configuration, including the directional median opening, any signalization alternative, SEAWAY DRIVES ROLE AS AN EVACUATION ROUTE, AND ANY EMERGENCY ACCESS IMPLICATIONS. PRIOR TO ISSUANCE OF BUILDING PERMITS OR CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY AS APPLICABLE, THE APPLICANT SHALL OBTAIN AND COMPLY WITH ALL FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION ACCESS APPROVALS, AND SORRY, I DON'T KNOW THE EXTENDED AMRC, HOW THAT FORMS OUT INTO A conditions required for that stage of development, including any improvements required by Florida Department of Transportation, timing or traffic volume triggers. So as this is monitored by Florida Department of Transportation, they will look at traffic volume in this location and may apply additional evacuation route or other emergency access measures, which the application. Order, please. The applicant or the developer would need to comply with those.

I have a couple others, but please go ahead.

Go ahead, get through your questions.

LET ME CONTINUE WITH THAT ON THE SAME THOUGHT. THIS STUDY HAS AVERAGE, THE NET AVERAGE INCREASE WAS, WHAT, 6700 TRIPS A DAY. THAT WAS THE COUNTY STUDY HAD AN INCREASE OF A LITTLE BIT OVER 50%. on average. So that's not even in season. So I still question, and these are just comments, but the Florida Department of Transportation, to a certain degree, I think has its hands tied, but it still has a connection permit that it can accept or turn down. That is correct, yes. The other thing I'll say too is that The U.S. Census tract, most recent one from the island inlet to Heron Drive, Heron Boulevard, excuse me, that population, the permanent population was, interestingly, was about 3,426. And this project is suggesting an increase on average of population of 2,657, which is a 77% increase in average population. And then you've got staff coming in and out. I'm not sure all the numbers include if they've got permanent residents versus use of the marina, use of shopping, use of restaurants. It's just the numbers are massive. So I'll stop with that and go back to your next question.

So just to kind of follow up on the evacuation. So, and I understand that this is maybe step one and there are some other steps, whether it's step one or some other number. So the project will be required to provide some kind of a plan for evacuation of residents and those types of things. I forget the technical term behind that at the moment, but.

and that's one of the conditions or just a standard requirement so we well it is that will it is in effect a standard requirement that florida department of transportation will need to see as this goes through their process their process is external to the city's process at this moment in time we have no control over that we have been in communication with florida department of transportation they've reassured us or confirmed with us that that will be the case these conditions have been approved by the florida department of transportation and they're happy with those so their access management staff um are aware of these um and also we've been in touch with them making sure that they're okay with those conditions as far as we can put on so i noticed that there were some of these conditions that address or

seem to address some of the environmental concerns and I understand that again and this is maybe I'm saying this for the benefit of others that you know there's some other steps in the process yes but the conditions of approval do talk about certain requirements if there's development water work word of the mean high water line It requires some additional approvals in terms of whether sovereignty submerged lands are going to be euclid lines. There's... There's a condition that talks about 21 demonstration with applicable wetland protection standards. So if there are any tortoises that live out there, I don't know if that's the type of habitat that gopher tortoises live in, but I don't know. There's some tree surveys and those kind of things. So these are the things that are kind of maybe have been addressed and require other steps in the process before construction or at some point, correct?

Yes. There's a combination of what happens during the building permit site plan review and other permits that are going to come through the city and the requirements of external agencies. So you've got like the Department of Environmental Protection, South Florida Water Management District, the Fire District, all those agencies have their own permits and requirements, which under our remit and available options, we can't control. But we do know that the applicant needs to comply with whatever those state agencies or other external agencies require.

And another, so there's a potential that also the Army Corps of Engineers could have a role in this because of the nature of the project and location and certain thresholds.

So there's a series of those steps as well. The applicant is required when they submit a building permit to assure and prove that they have the required permits, external agency permits in hand when they PRIOR TO ISSUANCE OF A BUILDING PERMIT.

ANYTHING ELSE? 31 CONDITIONS AND EACH CONDITION, THE DEMANDS ON THE COMMITTEE, WELL PUT TOGETHER PRESENTATION, I'LL SAY. a lot of hurdles to get over, but the biggest overriding concern I think for all of us is I personally don't believe that the Live Local Act was designed for this at all. And I'll move off of that and just go over to FPUA, the impact there on utilities in general. THE ABILITY, AGAIN, IF WE HAD A POPULATION ON THE CITY, EXCUSE ME, ON THE ISLAND THAT'S GOING TO GO UP 80% AND TRAFFIC IS GOING UP 50%, JUST THAT THE INFRASTRUCTURE NEED AND THE MAINTENANCE NEEDS, I'M SURE THAT THE DEPARTMENT WILL STEP BY STEP STAY WITH THIS DEVELOPER, BUT AT SOME POINT IN TIME, THE QUESTION IS, EVEN THOUGH THAT'S ITS OWN ENTITY, THE at PUA, the impact on them to deliver has to be enormous. It's just a massive increase on all levels. I think this first presentation by this developer is ingenuous. It's just really rough to swallow, but I'll pass it on to the next.

I'd just like to point out what Mr. Whiting was just speaking on, that FPUA is involved in the TRC process. They did provide some comments. Was there any indication in their review comments of significant infrastructure developments directly related to this project?

Not that they issued comments to the applicant and developer and there are certain requirements obviously to connect to the city's utility systems, but we didn't receive any objections to that.

Right. Mr. John? So let me get this correct. So when they interact with these external agencies, you don't get the reports of what they're discussing. Am I correct?

It all goes to the building department. We don't get to see those or sign off on those or approve those. No, we can't.

I mean, I understand that you can't sign off on them or anything like that, but do you actually get to see them? That's my concern.

If they're included in the packet for the building permit, yes, they should be included in that packet. That's not to say that we just dismiss them that they've been obtained. When we get it, so the processes, when we get a building permit coming through, whatever that building permit is, it's routed through the planning department, the engineering department, and the building partner themselves. So each of those entities review that. If we get a building permit that comes through, on this development the planning department will be looking at are there any conditions in here which affect that particular building permit because there are requirements of order there are requirements of does it meet the required submittal date have they done things prior to that So there's a step process. Do they have external agency approvals? A lot of those are checked by the building department, but the building department doesn't necessarily have the expertise to understand what a DEP permit is or what a A different external agency permit is, so we would be working with the building department and the engineering department on all of these external agency permits. But if a permit comes in with a cover letter that says it's approved by an agency, that's the limit of how we can look at that.

Mr. Chairman, so just as I'm listening to you, I think I know the answer to this because you've been talking about building permits and that's because I think I'm seeing that a site plan has already been proffered and it's already part of this. So there will be no independent site plan process.

This is the site plan. So this is the planning part of that. After the site plan, there are a number of building permits that need to be obtained. One of those is called the site plan or site work plan. And that is that engineering part of what happens on site is the first step. Is there any land work? Is there any site clearing? Is there any infrastructure required? All those details go through a building permit process. A lot of that is reviewed specifically by the engineering department because it's mainly engineering work that's going in in the initial process. That has to comply with the approved layout of the site plan. So they can't go in there and put another building in or move the buildings around or use an alternative stormwater system without coming back through and saying this is what we're going to be doing. external agency requirements, specifically South Florida Water Management District, determine how they control the stormwater on that property. So that's a fairly significant permit to get, and that is part of the engineering review.

With the studies that have been done, how do FDOT and the state quantify the lifespan of, say, the bridge and the surrounding area to it?

I've not seen those. How do I put this?

It's going to put a toll on it. It is.

I mean, you're going to get, there's going to be a point, and I don't know that. I've got to say, I don't know that. I've not been informed of the lifespan. And I'm sure the FDOT and the state have their own quantification of that, and that they would need to put it in a capital improvement plan for some date in the future. I've not seen an improvement plan for the bridge. So how all this works from the state's point of view is if the volume increases, then that's the point that might trigger an additional study from the state's point of view. It's almost like you have to wait for an event until you get a solution for that event. And the state has stepped away from direct staff responses to consultations on these matters. So we have had to rely on the state Florida Department of Transportation internal systems reporting back to us. They don't engage directly with us, but we try and keep them informed, but they don't necessarily respond on that information.

When you enter in to do a study such as a traffic study, if there are other ones going on at the same time, would that company or agency be privy to other open studies that are taking place?

And that's why we run these studies through a consultant. There are certain levels of consideration with it. I'm not a transportation engineer or traffic engineer, but I know there are certain levels of consideration when consultants and engineers and the other transportation agencies review these. You have what's called the background. traffic that's the level of traffic that's already existing in a location and that sometimes is And that's why you you when you mentioned this X amount of traffic now And then it's going to go up by that some of the failures that are created by the existing level of traffic cannot be taken into account by a new application Again, that's in state statute There's a methodology that transportation and traffic engineers use. They assess background traffic and then they look at the new traffic. When these things go on, specifically the St. Lucie Transportation Organization do compile all of this information. They're aware of it and they report to the state. I'm not a transportation engineer. I can say that the impact of this and the traffic impact assessment has been reviewed by all the transportation agencies that we would rely on to Review those and it's not normally the case and I've got to tell you this it's not normally the case that we Would need to go out to st. Lucie County that they did offer to assist in the review of the traffic impacts and I wanted to keep some consistency and because this is not a county road. This is a state road. But I wanted to keep some consistency in how things are reviewed in all our other projects are normally reviewed or handled by, in some respect, by assistance from the St. Lucie County. And that was offered. I accepted that offer. I wanted to be able to defend any issues outcome of that and I think if we use the same methodology that has been used for all other city impacts on transportation then that would be more easily defendable by using the consistent consultant and the entities that review those type of applications.

On the workforce housing within it, is that able to be utilized by employees on property? And can it be utilized as a pass-through, potentially?

I think it can be used by either. Obviously the trip capture that's been proposed in here would be essentially looking to engage with boat crews, maintenance folks, and anybody who worked in that industry to allow them to live and work in the same location within that marina area. So that was the idea that is for the applicant to generate that they are subject to Providing certain levels of accommodation in terms of rental levels that is mandated by the state And there are numbers for workforce housing within that in those tabula Requirements

Back to affordability and workforce. I know there's a difference between those two different numbers. Generally speaking, which one is higher

Well, the state's criteria for affordability, if you pull up those numbers for Fort Pierce, which sits in the St. Lucie metropolitan area, they're very high. They're almost at market rate for what you might go and rent a property out elsewhere in the city. The workforce housing is usually lower criteria than the maximum, but some of the numbers are quite significant. And I've just actually been raised again because of the market situation.

And the 40%, is that affordable? Is that the criteria? Affordable, yes. And not workforce?

Correct.

Any other questions for Steph?

I don't have any questions, but I don't know if we're going to... I'd like to make some comments if it's appropriate. I don't know.

It's up to... This is our time for comment as the board. Okay.

I'm just conscious of this is only my second meeting, but anyway, I... So, I guess, you know, there's a level of frustration, I think, to put it mildly, about the predicament from the staff. And the people that sit up here also are city residents. And I get it. I'm going to weave a little bit of a fine line, but the context of my comments is that I have a background in planning and I'm, you know, I'm a former local government semi-retired attorney. I still maintain my law license. And much of this stuff is, some of my questions were generated because of background and I accepted this appointment because I felt like I could bring something to it. And so some of the questions are intentionally to, help the staff or to assist public because i recognize that until you go through this in your neighborhood you don't understand it and it's frustrating and their words and terminology and it is all very confusing and then on top of it and i will the city attorney can stop me if i'm going too far because i'm not she's the lawyer i'm not the consequences that we have seen and when we're at this point in time, because over time, the legislature has preempted local government authority, particularly on development and growth, concurrency management and all those things. And I think, and this act, in my opinion, somebody who's, done this work for almost 40 years. You have legislation that's written by people who are not professionals. They're not planners. They're not land use attorneys. They're not transportation planners. There are people that have suggested a concept and the concept was affordable housing and that this will somehow solve the problem. But there's much that's not clearly set out. For example, how do you guarantee affordable housing for a period of time? In my prior position, I worked for the Martin County for a long time and we confronted that as well as how do you, what do you do to make sure that it stays, you know, and monitor.

And it's a big, it's a big burden.

I understand and I appreciate and I'm kind of walking a fine line, but I don't know how many other jurisdictions are to the point that Fort Pierce has in trying to work through this and trying to understand the box that we have to operate in. I don't know how many others have gotten to this point. And I appreciate also the piece of it is that over time, the legislature has changed some of the rules so that if there is a litigation or challenges or something to development orders or failure to approve development orders, attorney's fees that are assessed against those who challenge we don't necessarily agree and so and that could be against a local government as well and that's a high cost sometimes that's a high cost and a factor and you have your professional staff that is being cautious and that's their job to be cautious and I think that though kind of statewide is like exactly where this box is and what ability to challenge or go beyond just having to accept conditions of approval I'm I don't know because I I retired from full-time work before this law before I saw the impact on my personal level but I'm probably talking a lot but I feel very passionate about and I'm concerned for my community and other communities in Florida that are dealing with this I get it It's not a good posture to be in. We're going to see what happens next, maybe. I also appreciate the rights of a property owner to apply and believe that they have an ability under the law to move forward. I get all that. It's a balance. It's maybe not the balance we all want to achieve. So I just needed to say my piece because you gave me the mic. So anyway.

Thank you, Ms. Story. Before we close on this agenda item, is there any other further discussion from the board?

Obviously, the developer is not going to present anything today. It's just Mr. Freeman. Is that right? That's that's all we got for you. Yeah. The only addition I would make, and the word preempted was used by the legislature, and again, I don't think this act was designed for the application that we have in front of us, but I would suggest to anyone and everyone that you contact your state representative because this thing was developed in Tallahassee.

Thank you, Mr. Whiting. You're 100% correct. That is all we have for this agenda item. There will be no public comment. As Ms. Hedges pointed out, once we are done with our new business, there will be an opportunity for general public comment for anybody that wants to stick around. That is on our agenda. But we have some other items to get through first. If that's all, Mr. Freeman, we will close this agenda item and move on to 6A.

Yeah, was that under that? Oh, and then there's another one that's on Willoughby. Yeah, so then... Those are all.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to continue. So if you intend to remain, please take your seats and settle down.

But for future developments, it would reduce the incentive to build monstrosities on a piece of property when you're including land underwater.

All right. Thank you. I didn't call for an official recess, so we'll just keep rolling. So we are at item 6A, minor site plan with conditional use. Please proceed.

All right. Good afternoon, chairman and board. On behalf of the city Fort Pierce planning department, we bring before you a conditional use with new construction minor site plan for new tank farm. The applicant is Giagrande Engineering and Planning, LLC, represented by Leo Giagrande. Property owners is Caliber Contracting Incorporated. The parcel ID is 2417331000006, also 3700 Okeechobee Road. And parcel ID 2417331000006, 0001-0000 for 1903 South 37th Street. In summary, a minor site plan application conditional use with new construction has been submitted to develop a 9,600 square foot industrial building. The proposed building will be used to store 8,000 to 10,000 gallon tanks. The overall site area, where the proposed development is approximately 2.36 acres, with the north parcel being .063 acres, and the south parcel being 1.73 acres. Future land use of the parcels is GC, general commercial, while the zoning is C3, general commercial. Oh, excuse me. Site plan details are as follow. The overall building is proposed to be 9,600 square feet, which 9,000 square feet is for light industrial and 600 square feet will be used for office. In the C3 General Commercial Zoning District, the maximum height that a building can be is 50 feet. This building is proposed to be 30 feet in height. Okay. The building will be providing three units for bike racks. Each unit will be able to house two bikes per unit, which will provide a total of six spaces for bikes. They will provide an entrance off of Okeechobee Road as well as 37th Street. Sidewalk connectors that are meeting code. Deliveries and pickup for the gallon tanks will be assessed through the 12 foot wide bay doors that are provided in the building. On the north side of the building will be the entrance of the pickup and delivery trucks with the exit coming out on the south end. We also have the warehouse entrance located here on the south end of the building that faces Okeechobee Road, as well as the storefront entrance facing Okeechobee Road. So initially when discussing the industrial use building, we did have discussion with the applicant. It is Okeechobee Road, it is design review road. So we wanted to make sure that the building represented a design review as it leads into downtown district. So this was the initial building that the applicant had provided with discussion and providing examples. We are happy with the planning department to say that the applicant has updated their divine, providing more coloring as well as architectural elevations. And again, here is one of the south end bay door that I was speaking of where the trucks will exit. We have the storefront entrance here as well as the warehouse entrance here. Landscaping details there will be a total the perimeter buffer surrounding the property will equal to about 1322 22 feet in length for the perimeter buffer overall 93 trees which would include existing trees and shrubs and ground covers will about be about 382 that would be planted on the site and Staff recommendation is approval of the site plan with the following 10 listed conditions. One, a land clearing permit must be approved prior to the submission of the development permit with the City of Fort Pierce. Two, tree removal permit with mitigation is required prior to the development permit. Three, all signed permits shall be filed separately from the development permit. Four, prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy, the city approved landscape maintenance agreement must be notarized and submitted. Five, demolition permits are required prior to the submission of the site development permit. Six, the applicant shall comply with the 18 general conditions outlined by South Florida Water Management District, which is listed on pages 9 through 11. in the supporting documents. Number seven, the applicant shall comply with the eight special conditions outlined by South Florida Water Management District, page 12 of that same document. Number eight, the applicant shall comply with the 12 permit conditions outlined by North St. Lucie River Water Control District. Nine, any site plan or architectural modifications must be approved by City of Fort Plairs Planning Department prior to the implementation of the proposed modifications. And 10, applicant shall apply for a unity of title or lot combination with St. Lucie County property appraisals and it must be signed off and approved prior to submitting the development permit. Alternate recommendations will be to recommend approval with additional or modified conditions or to recommend disapproval. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. I only had one question. Is there currently a sidewalk on Okeechobee side of the site? Is that correct?

Yes, sir, there is.

What about on the 37th Street extension?

There is no sidewalks.

Is that part of the site plan intention to add sidewalks on 37th Street? Yes, sir.

Yes, Chairman.

That's all I have. Any other questions for staff?

I have a kind of a background question. So what triggered the requirement that this be brought forward as a conditional use? I didn't see that. It is a conditional use?

It is a conditional use, and that is a great question. So the property in question is located in the C3 general commercial zoning district per the city's allowable use table. This use is classified as light industrial. Light industrial is conditional based in C3.

just maybe another general question so I've seen the code where there's a conditional use process and it references it comes there's a public hearing before the City Commission yes there's also is it just a practice or is it code based that these also are heard by the planning board or I may have missed something I don't know and I get I'm new I'm gonna pretend claim to be new for a little while if that's okay

get two more weeks two more months I'd have to research the code but it is practice to bring those forward to the Planning Board for Commission if it is not required we prefer items to go to the City Commission with approval of the Planning Board yeah I understand that I just didn't see it so I'm a little bit code base so focus so anyway okay thank you you're welcome

Any other questions for staff?

I noticed in the first rendering, they said it was three entrances to the property and now there's two. So are they removing an entrance?

So yeah, so this is the more updated rendering for the proposed building where there will be two. Well, if you, I guess if you count the north end of the building where there's additional bay doors, but as far as access to doors, there is one for the warehouse and one for the main storefront.

All right. If there's no other questions for staff, we can...

What triggers all the special conditions from South Florida water management and North St. Lucie River water?

What trigger?

Correct.

I'm assuming the layout of the parcel itself. There's a lot of trees there. The proposed use, storing the gallon tank. So I believe they just want to make sure that water maintenance on the property is maintained. An updated environmental report showing wetlands and storm waters.

Is it something to do with the tanks themselves or no? Or what the usage is of them?

Per my reading, it's based on the overall use. So it's not that the tanks are going to be producing anything that's hazardous, but I think the report, again, from what I've read and understood from what they submitted, it's just based off the use, making sure that there's nothing that will impact the environment in a negative way by it being light industrial. But again, the applicant can expound more so on their conditions and what triggered it.

Okay.

All right. If there's nothing else from the board, we can go ahead and invite the applicant forward. The applicant is here. Is the applicant here? Yes. Come to the podium. Please sign in. State your name. And if you have a presentation, you can present or we can just ask you questions.

Leo Giangrani with Giangrani Engineering and Planning. I think the presentation she put on was plenty good for everybody. Okay. I'm here to answer any questions that the board might have.

Do you want to elaborate on the question Mr. Johnson just posed about the additional regulation?

You heard me whisper it over here.

I figured you might have some information for us.

So those special conditions apply to many permits. Our stormwater system is actually going to be an underground chamber system, so that's what they came into. So they want to make sure that we're protecting our groundwater well and they function properly to not have any negative impacts to the neighbors. So that's the things that is a little different than your typical site development project.

What type of oil will they have in the tanks?

The type of oil? Like baby oil?

I mean, I'm curious.

They're an aggregate firm. We actually have a, I've gotten to know their business rather, rather well from Rock Pit. So they do sell asphalt. So they could be using the oil, bringing it to another site where they actually mix and make the asphalt. I'm not up to speed on exactly what type of oil. Excuse my baby oil joke. I don't know. 10W30. I'm assuming it's oil used for aggregates, which is most likely asphalt. Because there's a good amount of oil in asphalt.

And the facility is not going to be operating any manufacturing process. It's just a storage and dispensing facility.

Basically, that's all it is. And even the front, that's just an office for one person that is actually going to be there should anything be needed. The nice part is they've had lessons learned on how to deliver the materials, pick the materials up, the types of tanks, above ground tanks, double wall tanks, enclosed with all kinds of safety mechanisms that It should probably have very little action I would expect there other than transferring things through. So if they needed oil to bring it to the other site where they're actually manufacturing the asphalt, they would have a truck pick it up, fill it up, and then when that tank was empty, it would get refilled.

Understood. Not really a question, just a general comment. I appreciate the applicants complying with the request from planning staff to work on the overall look of the building. Definitely more happy with this than the previous alternative we saw. And also, I appreciate the site plan layout, the way that the truck entrance has been developed off of Okeechobee Road. We don't. often see that level of forethought and the way that vehicle approach into these sites. So I'm glad you took advantage of having the access on 37th Street.

You totally warmed my heart.

Stole my words, right? Whoever came up with that idea was thinking.

I've got a great staff.

Any other questions for the applicant? Hearing none, I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you all very much for your time.

At this time, we would open it up to public comment on this specific agenda item only. If there's any members of the public that want to speak on item 6A, please come forward at this time. Seeing none, I would send it back to staff for any further discussion. Hearing none, I will entertain a motion.

Make a motion that we accept this new tank farm application with the ten considerations that the planning department has put in place.

Second.

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

Ms. Clemmons? Yes. Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Ms. Storey? Yes. Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Chair Kreisel?

Yes. All right. Moving on to item 6B, conditional use with new construction. Who's presenting this one, Mr. Freeman? All right. Mr. Gilmore is here.

When you're ready. Good evening, Mr. Chair, planning board members. Before you, we have the Anderson residence, a conditional use with new construction located at 1840 Surfside Drive, parcel ID 2412-501-0124-000-4. The owner is Lisa Anderson, applicant Mike Seal of Architectonic Incorporated. Subject site is approximately 0.54 acres plus or minus. Any applicant is seeking approval for conditional use of a new construction to construct a three-story, five-bedroom, five-bathroom, single-family home east of the coastal construction control line with a height of 35 feet above the FEMA flood elevation. In accordance with sections 125-37, 125-191, and 125-237 of the city code, the applicant is presenting this application to you. In city code section 125-191 before building heights, no building shall exceed a height of 28 feet above grade, except conditional uses with buildings that have a maximum height of 35 feet above grade may be approved. This is the reason for this application before you. Simply the height, not the site plan, not the single family home, which is allowed by right. Just for reference of the South Beach Overlay Districts, how height is calculated. And as you can see, the maximum height is calculated from the FEMA base flood elevation. Conditioned use procedures on this is section 125 237 Which requires the public hearing The subject site is located east of Surfside Drive as shown in this aerial The future land use is low density residential it's RL and it's pretty much surrounded by that an entire area of South Beach and The zoning is R1, which is single family low density residential. To the west is R2, which is single family intermediate density residential. And also for reference, both of these zoning districts have the same maximum height restrictions and conditional use, which is 28 feet with the ability of a conditional use of 35 feet. The site plan includes a three-story structure, the five bedrooms, five baths, ground-level garage parking, approximately 388 square feet, the covered, uncovered patio, gallery, dining room, kitchen, et cetera. The applicant is proposing a landscape plan, which includes a total of 10 trees, 15 palms, 216 shrubs, These are the existing conditions of the site. It's a vacant piece of property, as you can see, next to a three-story structure to the left. These are previously approved conditional uses in the neighborhood with increased heights. 2004 Surfside, 35 feet. 1812 Surfside, 34.40 feet. 1840, 32.7 feet. And 1912, 34 feet. Again, this is the exhibit for the South Beach Overlay District, which states how we calculate the height. Here is a west elevation of the proposed single-family home. The applicant is seeking the 35 feet in height. It's an east elevation. North elevation. South elevation. It's a front view rendering of the proposed single family home. SOUTHEAST VIEW RENDERING.

NORTHEAST VIEW RENDERING.

ALL AFFECTED DEPARTMENTS HAVE REVIEWED THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT PLAN WITH REGARDS TO CONSISTENCY ESTABLISHED ORDINANCES AND REQUIREMENTS OF THE CITY CODE. Staff is recommending approval and that the Planning Board move the item forward with a recommendation of approval. Alternative recommendations, modified approval or disapproval. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gilmore.

So a few technical questions. For this current zoning, what is the side yard setback requirement?

Seven feet.

Seven feet? So we had another one of these not long ago, slightly more complicated than this one, a much bigger lot that was attained through a unity of title. There was a lot of debate. I believe we had a split vote on that one. This one seems a little more straightforward, a little more of a congruent size building for the neighborhood. If I remember correctly, the the size of the previous application was a major point of contention. I think for me, the most significant element of it was the fact that you had two single lots that were joined through unity of title and effectively lost 14 feet of setbacks to the community. We don't have that condition here. I think this is gonna be a more straightforward process, but I do wanna take this moment as a little bit of a platform to suggest to the city commission that we take a look at this height requirement on the beach. I don't think that these applications are gonna stop coming. If people can afford to buy and build on these lots, and 35 feet above the floodplain is pretty reasonable for a house on the beach it seems like we would possibly save everybody a lot of time and effort and energy if we just made the height requirement 35 feet so that's my two cents on it i'll turn it over to the rest of the board

So I have a couple questions. So what is the criteria that staff uses to recommend approval of this kind of a request?

Well, there's no criteria in the code. So from my perspective, we would be using, I guess, surrounding neighborhood and that's why i showed the previously approved um height increases which is pretty much set a precedent um so we don't see where this would change the neighborhood there's already four other ones or and that's just in the surf side where they we've approved um height increases so that's kind of my point um

I've never really liked how subjective the conditional use process is. I'm an engineer. I like code. I like targets and then hitting those targets. Anecdotally, for work, I had to watch a county commission meeting in Indian River County where there was a special exception plan and they had very specific bulleted items in order to achieve that special exception. We don't have that here, so it does become more of a subjective process. The opportunity for public comment is always important, but I really think that with this specific conditional use, we need to look at whether or not this is a really vital use of the city's staff and boards time. Um, obviously the applicant has to come down here and, um, and go through this whole process. So if it's, if, you know, if it, if it's going to effectively just become a precedent as, um, As Mr. Gilmore stated, my recommendation to the commission would be to take a look at whether or not we just make the 35 feet of the established height allowable.

I will share with you that some of the comments you've made is why some communities no longer have conditional uses or special exceptions because from a legal perspective and the standards and criteria for that makes it a bit problematic and sometimes subjective and, you know, society is a lot more litigious than it used to be and it's kind of a, anyway, so I see that in the code. It just talks about the the best interest of the surrounding property and the city. It's kind of generic, but I was just curious as the background of this. And I also appreciate that one of the things is to not require people to necessarily come through a multi-step process for some things if it's not significant impact on neighbors or city services or things like that, a balance of those kind of things. I appreciate that.

Or alternatively, if there was something specific that the city hoped to achieve in allowing that conditional use, then define it, right? You know, what is it that we want an applicant to satisfy in order to gain access to that, you know, what is it, seven more feet that they're trying to get? So, you know, one or the other. But at this point, it almost feels like we're deliberately wasting people's time. I don't know. That's how I feel about it.

Well, as somebody who's been here a little bit longer than you all, I can say that going through this process with building in that area, the grade has changed during my tenure. So the elevation heights have increased. So even some of those that I'm looking at on here, the elevation requirements at that time were much lower. Right. But the floodplain changed. The floodplain changed. FEMA standards changed. So all of that's going to increase the height as they increase those numbers. So those numbers that you're looking at and comparing them to, they're actually outdated.

Yeah.

Because they're not relevant. They're not equal apples and oranges.

Anything else, Mr. Whiting, Mr. Johnson?

Is it only based upon livable space? Like this has a garage. That's the whole first area. Well, it's the, it's the, if you want to go back to the diagram with the level itself, but does, cause I said there was a area for up to 20% for steeples and things of that nature. Right. Is there any percentage or offset due to not having livable space for the first floor or that doesn't.

No, I know where you're going with that. Um, It's not really related to livable space. What we're finding is because of the floodplain elevation is gradually, year by year, getting higher and higher, we're seeing the compression of potential livable space within that area so the height is continually hitting that you know that moment for if they're you know building within that below or within the floodplain elevation it's usually a frangible structure where it can blow out in a in a flood we see those type of housing all along the oceanfront right the way down the East Coast, where the floodplain elevation is going up and up and up. And to get living accommodation of decent ceiling heights, you're going to be pushing against that.

overall limit so there's yeah there's that's why in the overlay the starting point is the floodplain right it's always 35 feet above the floodplain yes so that floodplain can change and therefore the top limit would change with it however if the floodplain you know goes to a certain height you're pushing your first point of living accommodation Right, because the living accommodation has to also be above the floodplain. Yes. All right. Any other questions for staff? Okay. If the applicant is here, they can come forward at this time. You don't have to. You're certainly invited to if you want. Do we have any questions for the applicant?

The public might.

Well, the public's not going to directly ask the applicant questions. We can ask the applicant questions.

Well, maybe if he's, I think, I think the, an applicant should, my personal opinion should appear on behalf of their project. And so, you know, share since it's a conditional use. So maybe just share, I'd like to understand the rationale just so to, I want to, you know, we just need to go through this appropriately, I think. So please explain. So are you the owner or the architect?

I am the architect. My name is Mike Seale. I can add all of your comments based on the height and the livable space restrictions, all of that is valid and accurate. And we do run into constraints with trying to design beachfront homes, especially on this street, the dune is at a certain level. So if you are trying to live on the beach, you wanna see the ocean from one of your livable room floors, So then typically you have to have at least two floors up there. So you'll notice the livable floor is at the dune height, so they can see the ocean from their house. So that's a constraint we run into on this street particularly.

All right. Any other questions for the applicant? Well, thank you for coming forward. Appreciate that. At this time, we would open it up to public comment. If there are any members of the public who want to speak specifically on item six B, please come forward at this time. So please sign in and state your name for the record.

Um, my name is generic morale. Um, speaking on this, uh, I am grateful that you guys allowed me to come up, um, keeping Fort Pierce. Beautiful. I do believe should be a concern. Um, for each property, uh, not just this one, but, you know, um, specifically for this one, um, having that view of the beach and the waters, right, is, is important. It's one of those things that, um, makes, um, that living arrangement what it is. And, um, I just want to point out that garbage and things around the area does deteriorate from that experience and that convenience when it comes to these type of properties and things that are supposed to be nice to be around and convenient. So that's it for me. Thank you guys for letting me speak.

Thank you. Mm-hmm. All right, if there's no one else, I will send it back to the board for any further discussion. Hearing none, I would entertain a motion at this time.

I'll make a motion to approve staff's recommendation. Second.

All right, we have a motion to approve by Ms. Storey, second by Ms. Clemmons. Please call the roll.

Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Ms. Storey? Yes. Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Clements? Yes. Chair Kreisel?

Yes. All right. Moving on, we have item 6C. Before we get started, I'm going to go ahead and recuse myself from this item due to a potential perceived conflict with the applicant. Ms. Hedges, I have my recusal form. I'll hand this to you on my way out, and I'm going to pass the gavel to Ms. Clements.

Mr. Kreisel, if you will hand it to Madam Clerk, she will keep that for you. Thank you.

Okay, so we have next up item C. A major site plan with conditional use, Graceway Village at 1780 Hartman Road.

Department.

Good afternoon, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you. Board members. My name is Chris Sennison. I'm the Assistant Planning Director for the city. I'm here to present to you PZ Site 2026-0008, which is a major site plan with conditional use for Graceway Village located at 1780 Hartman Road. The parcel ID is 2417-3T2-001-000-2. Again, the request is to review and approve an application for major site plan, design and development review with conditional use to allow adult congregate living facilities by the owner Grace Way Village Inc represented by Haley Ward to construct a family shelter community centered on temporary housing with associated site improvements on seven point eight four acres again located 1780 Hartman Road as you can see from the location map we are just south of White Dairy Road, which kind of does a jog here, and we've got a canal to the north, and then Hartman Road to the west. Leading into that, and again, all of that is located north of Okeechobee to kind of give you a sense of the location of the parcel. Current future land use and zoning. The future land use is general commercial, and the zoning is C3 general commercial. The subject parcel was annexed into the city in May of 1997 under Ordinance J337. The property currently contains two buildings containing a combined 7,563 square feet that houses the applicant's cafe program, clothing boutique, and offices. The facilities were recently remodeled in 2009. They had some roofing done in 2024, I believe. THE FUTURE LAND USE PLAN COMES INTO PLAY FOR THIS PARTICULAR PARCEL. AGAIN THE FUTURE LAND USE FROM THE PLAN IS GENERAL COMMERCIAL FOR THE PARCEL. WE HAVE THREE THINGS THAT WE REALLY LOOK AT UNDER POLICY 1.16B WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT THIS PARTICULAR PARCEL. The first is floor area ratio. The land use designation allows up to a floor area ratio of one, and the applicant's proposal is well below this at 0.12. The policy further allows a maximum of 20% of floor area to be residential. And again, the proposal comes in at about half of that at 10.05%. And finally, the policy further allows a maximum density of 15 dwelling units per acre, and the proposal provides 4.59 acres. Overall, staff finds that this is compliant with the Future Land Use Plan. With regard to zoning, a family shelter community centered on temporary housing, we're gonna call that an adult congregate living facility, is allowed by conditional use in the district. When it comes to conditional uses, there are several, for adult congregate living facilities, there are some basic use standards outlined in the code that the proposal has to meet. And probably the most important of these is the residential density, which may not exceed the comprehensive plan limits. And again, that was at 15 dwelling units per acre. with 36 proposed dwelling units. The project will have a density of 4.59. Here you have the site plan. The site comprises approximately 7.84 acres and existing and proposed buildings will cover 12.26% of the land area at ultimate build out. Pedestrian and vehicular circulation paving and parking areas will cover 12.76% of the land use or land area and that results in 73.72% open space well above our code required minimums. But that will include open space, landscape buffers, and stormwater detention facilities. So the plan with this is the applicant will be phasing this project in over time. The first portion will be phase one, which is an expansion, new construction I should say, of that family shelter facility. That's going to be about 10,200 square feet and contain 10 dwelling units and support facilities. Phase two contemplates building cottages. These will be triplexes, six triplexes. Each unit will be about 990 square feet. And all of that will be, all those buildings combined will be about 17,800 square feet. And then ultimately in phase three of the project, it is an extension of the building from phase one. which would expand the facility by 6,300 square feet with eight additional dwelling units and additional support facilities. The proposed architecture really is an extension of what exists on site now. The existing buildings demonstrate a yellow stucco with a gray metal roof and this is being described as Florida vernacular and the phase one and two, I'm sorry, yes, phase one and three buildings that you have in front of you with these elevations will follow through with that color scheme and material scheme. In addition, covered walkways on the site will be expanded from the phase one building to the clothing boutique and cafe. Some of the, that bottom elevation is what you would see from Hartman Road. Right there. And you can see the breakout of phase one to the left and phase three to the right. The application has coordinated with, has been coordinated with the technical review committee. All departments have supported the application. Staff is recommending that the Planning Board recommend approval of the proposed Major Site Plan with conditional use with the following conditions. The conditional use and Site Plan approval are extended to Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 as shown on the Site Plan. Phase two of the project is subject to major design review, architectural, due to the size of expansion and number of units. No building permits for phase two may be issued until major design review for phase two has been approved. A tree removal permit is required prior to the issuance of land clearing permit. A land clearing permit is required prior to the issuance of a land development permit. A gopher tortoise survey data within 90 days of land clearing activity must be submitted and reviewed prior to the issuance of a land clearing building permit through development plan compliance review. Number five, a St. Lucie County right-of-way permit will be required prior to development permit compliance review. Number six, all required federal and state agency permits will be required at time of development permit compliance review. All signs shall be permitted under separate building permits. And prior to the issuance of a final certificate of occupancy, a landscape maintenance agreement must be signed, notarized and submitted to the planning department. And finally, number nine, prior to the issuance of a certificate of occupancy, a maintenance plan and agreement signed by the owner and or operating entity shall be submitted to the city engineer. The agreement shall include the operation and maintenance of all stormwater facilities, and shall ensure the stormwater management system has a plan for the removal of nuisance and invasive toxic exotics and other vegetation to ensure no regrowth of the same. Alternatively, the board could recommend approval with alternate conditions or recommend denial. Madam Vice Chair, that is my presentation and I am open to comments or questions from the board.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. At this time, any board members have questions?

Just a comment. So I appreciated the thoroughness of the staff report. That was helpful given a context. Thank you for reading it. I have to indicate that initially it gave me some pause because we have a land use and zoning designation of commercial. But I see within the, although I actually noticed it for the first time when you were reading it today and is that there's a component of residential within that the commercial land use designation so that that I understand that but the zoning district doesn't provide for that so therein is that's the requirement for the conditional use permit precisely because although the land use authorizes it it's just the next step so It still gives me a little pause to put residential within this, so I'm anxious to hear from the applicant and if there's any comments from members of the public or something. But your staff report was extremely helpful to me personally. Thank you.

This has been a confusing one to put into a bucket for me from a professional point of view, but really when you start looking at the components and the functions of each of the buildings, this really, and I think I might have mentioned it in my staff report, sort of functions as a college campus, if you will, where you have living facilities that you don't necessarily have a full kitchen in those dorms, right? but you do have access to bathroom facilities whether they're private or community bathrooms these will have individual bathrooms for each of the living units but that that cafe really serves as a kind of a central hub of the cafeteria and you can think of the the boutique with the offices kind of a you know, the school store or, you know, the administration building. And so from a very conceptual point of view, it really starts to look more like a residential facility to me than, you know, a big corporate office type thing that you would normally see in C3s. Anyone else?

Okay, we're going to close this portion. Is the applicant present? Please step forward, state your name, and sign in.

Good afternoon, members of the board. For the record, my name is Mark Lansman. I am an engineer in the project with Haley Ward, representing for the client. And the client is also here to answer any questions. Oh, right behind you. I thought the staff did a great job. Thank you, Chris. And I'm here just to answer any questions you may have.

any questions and maybe maybe for the the applicant other than the engineer yeah I'd be interested to hear kind of the perspective I am familiar with Grace Way Village and I appreciate that I just I need I need to feel more comfortable that it's the right location for people living here. Maybe that just a little explanation more about that.

Explain more on what Chris was talking about. This is not a permanent residence. These are temporary residents to help out the community and really to help people get back on their feet and to insist them. So it's not going to be a long-term Resident it is more of a temporary assistance or like a dormitory like he was saying So this is not I could say a residential in that nature.

It's temporary What is temporary me Yeah, come on in. I'm sorry. It's probably best for you.

My name is Crystal Netherton, CEO of Graceway Village and also a fourth generation Fort Pierce resident raising the fifth and the sixth. So I absolutely love our city and the people in our city. Everybody has a story, right? And unfortunately, right now in our cafe line where our kitchen operation is going on, we are serving nearly 8000 meals a month. So these are families that we are seeing coming to us that need that support, need that help for a temporary time. Many of these families are struggling to make ends meet, working hard, but they're just not able to do it on their own to raise that first, last, and security that they need to go and get that housing. So really, this is not a place where they are gonna be landing. This is comfortable, but not too comfortable. This is the first day of coming to Graceway Village. We are talking about your exit strategy to get into your own permanent housing. What this really is is an opportunity for this family to be able to be self-sufficient, to learn the skills. Many of them might only need a three-month stay with us because they have the employment. They have their ducks in a row, per se, but they don't necessarily have that income to get the first, last, and security saved up. So it's very temporary. So I consider this more of a campus-style feel to educate, to get out on your own into your community and your own housing. Really wanna focus on the educational piece. They're required to take the courses necessary to learn how to be self-sufficient. Because many of the skills that we all possess, you know, many families don't possess those skills. So until they learn those, then, you know, they really can't do it on their own. So that's what Graceway Village is really about and focusing the shift on really starting an independent cycle. And the generations to come are going to be affected by this facility if it can get through this. this has been such a long time coming we've been there since 2009 operating our cafe and our clothing boutique serving countless families and individuals so allowing this to take place would not only be a success for the community but also for the generations to come the kids in this facility are going to be seeing their parents success And then that is going to trickle on to the next generations.

So my comments aren't related to the intent. So we're the planning board. And so I guess I just want to feel comfortable that this type, and people are going to be here 24-7, and this isn't a commercial area. And maybe I need to look at what surrounds it a little bit better. I know you talked about it. I'm not, you know, I don't doubt the mission and I don't doubt the need and all those things, but that's not the hat I'm wearing. I just want to try to look at... how it fits and long-term and what's around it, and also maybe some of the safety and the environment for the families that are out there.

Sure, so in my opinion, Hartman Road is a longtime residence. you know, here in Fort Pierce, Hartman Road. I was actually two years old whenever I moved from Hartman Road. So this is a lot of residential units and houses and even, I can't remember the name of it, help me out. community uh the lake bent creek thank you so bent creek is is not too far you could probably throw a rock to it um so it's a very residential feeling on hartman road but again I say that this, yes, they may be sleeping there for temporary, but it's not their residence. So, being that it is commercial, you know, at Okeechobee and Hartman, we have the Dollar Tree. And then there's a facility that helps with dialysis. So that's really the only two businesses that I know of that operate there. Other than that, it is all residential. But I still... I'm sorry?

I was saying it was another business that just built between Dollar Tree and a dialysis. I can't remember what it is.

Yes. I'm uncertain what it is, too. But so there's really just those three. Everything else on Hartman Road is all residential. So but I still argue the fact that we're not residential because this is not going to be their final resting place. This is a place to really institutionalize success. So that's why I bring the mission into it, because that's the important aspect of it, that this is not a home for them. This is a way to gain the skills to go out to be self-sufficient in that home that they're going to obtain.

Madam Vice Chair, may I take a whack at making this story comfortable?

Thank you.

Ms. Story, I want you to take a look at the site location map.

Okay, please, thank you.

Immediately to the east, these are FPUA facilities. This is a contractor yard, contractor office, I should say. This is a lay down area for FPUA, and this is an area, this is a substation for FPUA. To the north, separated by a canal as well as White Way Dairy Road, you have relatively low density residential. I'm gonna flip just real quick to the land use plans, but you have, I'm sorry, one more. To the zoning, you have RS3 County, which is a low density, it's three units to the acre. You have R4 within the city to the northwest of the site. And then every way, everything around you to the west is C2, it's neighborhood commercial. So I would posit that this is actually a good project for a transition between lower density and those more, let's say, industrial uses to the south and east and the potential for commercial across the street to the west.

That was helpful, thank you.

The... the site, the 7.84 acres, you currently own that property.

Yes, sir. We were able to purchase it and pay it off in full in 2021.

And phase one, if you were able to, when could that commence?

ASAP. So we're hopefully sticking to our schedule of November, breaking ground. And again, this is the first and only shelter for families in Fort Pierce or St. Lucie County as a whole. There is nowhere for these families to go. And I definitely bring the mission in because I think it's important in every aspect of what Graceway Village does just because it is so needed for Fort Pierce. When you have a community where you have many families struggling to make ends meet and there's nowhere for them to go, you have to provide a place. And Graceway Village is a nonprofit who's stepping up to do it. So I hope that Fort Pierce sees the need and also

Definitely stands beside us and walks along us with us in this journey I want to commend you all with graceway village for the things that you're bringing to Fort Pierce. Hopefully with this approval You all have done a great job in the past and I look forward to this project When you mentioned that this is the first family Shelter that we will have an account. That was one of the comments. I wanted to make it is greatly needed and Homelessness is a big thing that we have here in this area. There's nowhere for them to go. And it's increasing as our economy goes up more and more. I do have a couple of questions that are more technical. I know this is phase one is all encumbered in one building. So with your cottages, would they look like the original building or are they going to have a different look?

So I have been at Graceway Village for 13 years. I started off as a volunteer, worked every position and thankfully the Lord saw fit three years ago that I'm working on my fourth year as CEO. So this project has been a beast to say the least to get through. I wanted, it was important for me to put the entire vision on the site plan so that you guys could see that, walk along it with me. I don't have the design for you yet. So I don't know necessarily what they're going to look like. I just know that they're going to, I guess, programmatically, they're going to offer a less removed program. So in our current facility, phase one, this is going to be an intense program about education getting to be self-sufficient phase two is a more removed program definitely under case management still definitely under requirements you know for education but not as intense as phase one where you're actually living in a facility and like this. Um, so maybe weekly check-ins versus daily check-ins, you know, that program design is not fully commit, uh, completed just like the outside design is not as well, but I do love the campus style feel we've been there. Ooh, don't quote me. I can't remember when those buildings, the original buildings were built, but it's a long history level with the architects that worked on those original two buildings, you know, and the designers that did that. So I like to keep the same feel if at all possible, not being too modern if, you know, like we're not on the beach.

Right, I don't want to be, well, I guess my concern was using the terminology of cottage And in my mind, based on what you stated, it's more, give it a more homely look, whereas this looks very institutional. So that is my concern, is that when you move away to those, is that it doesn't have that institutional look.

Understood. And just to that point, too, you know, I can even talk about in our floor plan design, which I don't have a picture here. But, you know, that was one of the things in the hallway. I wanted the sconces on the walls instead of the overhead lighting, square lighting, because I do want it to feel as a comfort for a moment, temporary, you know. You're still going out. Comfortable, but not too comfortable. So that intent is definitely on the forefront of my mind and there. It's understood.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Anyone else? No one else. And I will thank you. And we will open it to the public for any comments at this time. Please state your name and sign in.

Good afternoon. I'm Jeremiah Johnson, for the record. And our sheet is full. Good afternoon, board members, Madam Vice Chair, Jeremiah Johnson, city resident, lifelong resident here in the city of Fort Pierce, in support of this project. I've been a volunteer at Graceway for many, many years with this all-star team here in Crystal's love for our community is just a tribute to the work that they're doing. Of course, our site civil engineers with Haley Ward, an architect that's getting after the elements that are important to their operation. And so I'm here to support that. I also own property not too far away from this parcel. And I can tell you that the explanation from city staff, thank you very much for showing and talking about the transitional zoning and how that adapts to the character of the neighborhood. There's not a residence on the parcel that I own, it's just a vacant piece, but I know all about it because I go by and visit and take a look and of course do some maintenance every now and then. I think one of the important factors for this project, not just including this parcel for Graceway, is just looking and talking to St. Lucie County about connecting sidewalks. That's an important factor, and it's a county road. So we do have to have a communication effort between our engineering groups and our public works departments to make those connections to really bolster this type of project here in the city of Fort Pierce. Of course, the vegetative buffer to the north was talked about, Whiteway Dairy, the canal and the buffers, and even the buffer on the east side. So again, going back to that transitional zoning where you're going from residential or more of a rural feel into an urban environment, it really fits the bill right here for Graceway Village in St. Lucie County in the city of Fort Pierce to meet the needs of our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Hello, planning staff. My name is Tanner Rutherford. I come to you from 1402 Hartman Road, two properties just north of this Graceway Village. I do sit on the board of Graceway Village as well. We are in very... big support of this project. Living on that road for a long period of time, I've been able to dive in with Crystal on her design and her intent on this project, which has brought me to be in support and therefore joining the board. We do think this is needed for our area as a long time resident of Fort Pierce, the homelessness is a big issue. Graceway Village is the only one stepping up to the plate to provide something for our community of this nature. And I'd like it to remain in that location.

Is there anyone else speaking from the public? Please come up. State your name again, please.

My name is Jumeric Morell, and I reside at 916 Avenue H, Fort Pierce, Florida. It's just nice to hear the conversations like this, just to hear a pitch. I am not a longtime resident of Fort Pierce. I've only moved down here because there are obvious economical issues. housing issues going on nationwide. So I do believe, I have come down here, sorry. I have come down here a few times. And when I first initially came down here in 2016, I don't believe there was too much talk about shelters being provided. amongst the Fort Pierce residents and stuff. So again, it's just nice to hear that this is an idea that's even being considered in the times that we are in now. And I do hope it leads to the right direction, whether or not temporary or whatever. So thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else? We're going to close the public portion and bring it back to the board. Do you have any other questions for the planning department?

I don't have a question, but I'll make a comment. Is it Soonson? Is that how to say it?

Soonson.

Soonson. So I appreciate your comments about that surrounding area. If you said that originally, I didn't focus on it, and that makes a difference to me. So I appreciate you saying that.

Thank you. I do have another question about the sidewalk connectivity. Are we having them put in sidewalks at this location?

The county has, first off, let me back up. Hartman Road is a county facility. And as part of the development review process, the county has required sidewalk installation. I think they're doing a really good job with it because there's a few existing trees that they're weaving that sidewalk around. I don't know if you noticed that on the side plan, but... I like trees, so I appreciate that. So, yes, sidewalk is being installed. I think Mr. Johnson's comment is apropos. You're talking about kind of the middle of Hartman Road, and what does it connect to? Those are questions for the county more than the city. But I believe that as we have further development along the road, you'll see the requirement for additional sidewalk be implemented either from the city or the county.

I'm glad to hear that. I travel that road and I've seen, I want to assume it's probably a resident that has a motorized wheelchair that holds that road up because they're traveling up and down Hartman Road. So it would be great to have those sidewalks to connect that to Orange Avenue.

One other point to mention is that the county has asked for right-of-way dedication as well. I think one of the problems with Hartman Road is the proximity of the drainage canal on the west side of the road, it doesn't really provide a lot of area for installation of sidewalks to get people off of the street. So I think the county's longer term vision is to expand the right of way eastward in order to make that connection more readily done.

Any other comments or questions from the board? Seeing none, I entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion that we recommend to the commissioners to accept the Graceway Village application that the planning department with the nine conditions.

Second.

It's been properly moved and seconded by Mr. Whining and seconded by Mr. Johnson. I think

That's correct. Thank you.

I'm not usually in this position.

Ms. Storey? Yes. Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

And Vice Chair Clemmons?

Yes. Welcome back.

It's good to be back Thank You miss Clemens All right, let's let's see if we can wrap this up We are done with new business. We will move on now to comments from the public If anybody from the public wishes to come forward and speak on issues generally related to planning Please come forward at this time

in the interest of time we're going to put a three-minute cap on all public comments please adhere to the cap it's Kevin Keene 52 55 Palmetto Avenue and this is regarding the little stretch of beach between Chuck seafood and the ramps or the museum right there on the other side of Seaway Drive Planning doesn't really end at the property line. Responsible planning also considers the impact of any development may have on adjacent public lands. This is a lease I hope doesn't come as a surprise to you. It's 1937 where the Internal Improvement Fund leased that property to the Port Authority of Fort Pierce for 99 years. In this lease, the leasee will not do or suffer to be done in or upon the said premises any act which shall or may be a nuisance, annoyance, inconvenience, or damage to the lessors and their successors in office or to residents of the neighborhood. For 50 years, local families have been going to that beach directly across Seaway Drive, swimming, fishing, enjoying the Indian River Lagoon. I believe there's some work that the planning department should do, some questions to find out with the potential for such growth in that area. One, has the city evaluated the capacity of that public beach? Will additional parking, restrooms, trash collection, public safety services be needed? Has anyone studied how a significant level of new use will affect that beach access for the current residents? And who's going to pay for those improvements? Is it going to be a developer or is it going to be the city? Growth brings opportunities, but it also brings responsibility. And planning for the impacts of our public spaces should be just as important as planning for the new construction and the impact on those public spaces.

I finished.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, please come forward.

Hi, I'm Martha Estenson, and I'm wanting to have more information on the 70, the units being built on the beach. And so you have 407 hotel units, 366 affordable housing units, and the Live Local Act. So there's 366 units. I'm wanting to know about the funding of these. What I could find is if you rented it for 3,000 a month, but the Live Local Act would pay 1,800, If you do the 1200 month difference, that comes up to $5,270,400 a year. So who pays for this subsidized? What is, does the city, the county and the state pay for this, for subsidizing 366 units? There's no one talking.

Mr. Chair, I can provide some clarity that this isn't a Q&A. They won't respond to you. This is just your time to speak to them. Okay.

Yes, ma'am. I would hope that somehow you could tell all the people in the city and the county and the state let them know what this cost will be and how much it will cost each one of us for this. Because the city of Fort Pierce approves the 45-foot height limit with about three stories. That's what it is. And with this live local act, that's what it has done to this. And I just, I hope that you can tell all of us of the city and the county and the state what this is costing us. I couldn't find any information on that, so. Thank you.

My only suggestion is touch base with Dana Trabalsi, your representative.

Okay. Thank you. Can you please sign in?

Yeah, I did.

Pardon me?

Yeah. Anyone else? Keep this moving. Mm-hmm.

My name is Rebecca Gallagher and I live at 1176 Bayshore Drive. Thank you to the board for allowing me to speak. I just find it very egregious that the board is gagged on this matter and so is the public. How can this be so? How could there be... a statute that's meant to protect and give locals the ability to enjoy their environment and the charm of this place, how could that be so violated by the statute? It surely was not the intention of that statute. And so I know it was explained to us how we had to not violate the statute and have a public hearing. But how can that be possible when we pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and the very First Amendment is freedom of speech? How can it be that we have suddenly lost our First Amendment right to speak on this publicly and to have an open forum about it? Because if the local people of this community were asked if they wanted this project to go ahead, I have not encountered one single person that wants this to happen. So we might not be violating the statute of the state, but we're certainly violating the will and the desire of the people in this community. I mean, we all moved here because we loved the sleepy charm. We loved the laid-back life. We didn't want to live in Miami. That's why we chose to live here. So how is it that we could be so overruled that somebody could steamroller into this community who's not even a local and be allowed to circumvent the laws that we have in place in this city with the height restrictions and the density restrictions and be allowed to proceed with this? It's absolutely asinine. It is certainly morally wrong and environmentally wrong for this community to allow the project to go ahead. It doesn't take a impact study on traffic to realize that 6,000 extra cars down Seaway Drive is going to cause an absolute nightmare. It will destroy the quality of life, and it will destroy the... community life that we all love here and so I don't know you obviously can't answer me but I just think something needs to be done at the very highest level to bring back the intent of what live local meant because we all want to live local we don't want great big high-rises all around us and six thousand extra cars and beaches so overcrowded that nobody can enjoy anything Anyway, that's my opinion, and I don't believe it's just a one-off opinion. I believe everybody I've spoken to feels the same way about this. We're being violated and raped by whoever this person is that's coming in, and I believe they should be stopped at the highest level from proceeding. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to come forward? If you do intend to speak, why don't you go ahead and queue up in the front row so we can keep things moving.

My name is Phyllis Elkins, I also live on Hutchinson Island. My question is how are they calculating the density square? How are they getting around half this, it's a 42 acre or whatever property, half of it or more than half or a little in there is underwater. So are you talking about property that if you're only looking at 17 to 20 acres of land, you're using all this large density amount to calculate THE DENSITY, THE HEIGHT, THE SQUARE FOOTAGE. AND THE OTHER THING IS THAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE THE MARINA, THE RESTAURANT, THE HOTEL, IS THAT ALL SUPPOSED TO BE FOR THE USE OF THAT PROPERTY OR IS THAT GOING TO BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC? YOU KNOW, LIVE LOCAL, AFFORDABLE HOUSING, IT CAN GO IN THE COUNTY. WE'VE GOT PLENTY OF PLACES IN THE COUNTY AND THE CITY FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING. BUT TO TAKE THAT PROPERTY AND TO PUT IT IN THAT AREA, I'D LIKE TO KNOW How can we just lay down and do nothing and accept, yes, the state mandates that we do affordable housing, but how can they mandate that it be there?

That's my whole thing. Thank you. Anyone else?

Everybody signed in, Edie Harrison, Harbor Isle. So while the Live Low Collapse, again, we're talking about this, preempts the board from voting down residential density, it doesn't strip you from challenging the calculation. So let's talk about the calculation a bit. Right now it's at 22 units at full 42. 25.5 is submerged lands. which in the future in our own ordinances is completely restricted on building. An additional 60, it has to be a minimum of 65 for residential. So now we've gone from 17, taking that 25 submerged land down to 11, 11 acres for 913 people to live on and for 72,000 square feet of residential property. That should be a question. That is something that we should be able to challenge. Additionally, we already talked about the infrastructure and what that's going to do. As well, there's a bit of double dipping on that, right? They're looking at the full use of the land, full use, but they've got it compounded with residential on top of hotel, on top of all of this other space. They're not counting for what is actually living. It reminds me of going into Orlando and shoving myself into one of those into the trains trying to get to your airport, right? There's nowhere to live and it's not realistic. And I think we should challenge the state on that act and ask them, can we include non-buildable land for people to live on? The other challenge that I would have as well is that nobody's bothered to do a soil contamination. There's not been any state discovery. We have a request for records because the attachment is an eight page that doesn't show anything that FDOT or anybody else has given full approval for that yet. So it's basically build as you go. The approval process I feel has been rushed by third party consulting view that doesn't have any legal right to say whether or not that they're in compliance or not. And there hasn't been any evidence to date to show that they are in compliance. This land went from a trailer park to an active boat yard and is adjacent to a water treatment plant. So it's safe to say that there's gonna be some reclaiming as well on the soil, just like in King's Landing. but no one's bothered to ask how far can you dredge down before you impact the surrounding areas, which includes the bridge, which is anchored adjacent to that property, as well as the environmental of Smithsonian, and then the shoreline as well. There's also conflicts in that assessment because you have longstanding seagrass, but on top of that, on another plat, you have a... a dock that's supposed to go on top of it. So there has to be some oversight somewhere and there should be some challenges that we can do. So what I would ask and in addition, what I heard as well is that we declined help from the county. Mr. Chair. Your time is up.

Thank you. No problem. Thank you. All right, is there anybody else from the public wishing to speak? Seeing none, we will move on to the director's report. Mr. Freeman, do you have anything to add today?

wherever possible I've got notes of where people have spoken and I will try and reach out with email to attempt to address some of the points that would be made and how we based our analysis I'll try and do that I will do that I'm going to try and generalize the answer and then get it out to the Planning Board and maybe the City Commission and City Manager so I hope that I'll try and answer as far as I can what I've heard in the public comments.

Including the last comment about the submerged land issue?

Yes. Everything that I've heard just now and during, you know, I've got other emails in my box. So I'll try and generalize an overall response so it can go out to everybody.

Thank you.

Okay. Yes, so we do have another application on the books, which at the moment is not a live local application, but it does involve seaway drive, and it does involve an area of property closer to the inlet. We have an application, the boardwalk at the inlet, which involves a conference center and some... condos out there parking garage and some restaurant retail stuff going I think it's so it's important for the community to Keep an eye on that That will be coming. It's going in it's going through review at the moment It will be going to the technical review committee. I think it's next week. Are you sure is it this week? next next week and And so there's a review going on on that. After those comments have been heard by the applicant developer, then there'll be a time period for them to review or otherwise amend their application. And then it will ultimately come forward to the planning board. As I say, it's not live local, so the planning board will have at the moment in time, the opportunity to comment and review that application. We seem to be receiving a lot of applications recently on some large tracts of property. One involves the location that was previously approved for the surf park. And so we're dealing with that. It is not going to be a surf park. surf park surf park it was a an application that came in and was approved around 2013 2023, 2023, 10 years out. 13 seems long. Yeah, it does, yeah. So it came in just before I arrived here, and it was an approval that was based on a surf park, which was an artificially generated wave machine, large lake, hotel residential and commercial that's proven to be not feasible to developers according to the owner of their property so we're now dealing with an application which is not going to be the surf park it's a a change of use, mixed use, a split between light industrial and commercial on that same property. Adjacent to that property we do have an application Well, we were aware of application that's likely to come in in the next few weeks, which is for a residential development. So that's an area above Midway, west of the interstate. Lots of little applications coming forward. You'll see a lot of those coming through and we're very busy. We heard the budget this morning. I don't know if you managed to catch that. Significant impacts on the city. The commission did mention that very strongly that the city should be looking at increasing their revenue base in terms of looking at commercial or industrial properties and looking at how we can get that annexation areas rounded out that was a that was a conversation between the city and the county at their joint meeting recently i think they should be meeting further on that but we have direction that coming forward with some information to city commission regarding the properties that could be subject to annexation moving forward. I could, once I've done that at a day meeting with the city commission, I will likely bring that to planning board to give you information about what the strategy is moving towards, so you're aware of that. And we worked out, some bullet points in terms of what our overall strategy is leading to. It's not been fully adopted yet by city commission, but that is gonna be again, part of the discussion between the city and the county and probably more likely incorporated into the strategic plan for 2026, 27. So keep an eye on that. lots of things moving in the city with what the state's doing. And so we're trying to keep ahead of that. You'll all be getting, well, I don't know if planning board will see this, but we're gonna have to propose amendments to the fee schedule. The state has required us to do that. we're going to have to put in place alternative methodologies, i.e. external consultants allowed to come in and do pre-apps or offer pre-applications for applicants, similarly to having applicant third parties do building permit reviews and so forth. So we're working that out, not sure how that's gonna work. We do have a module now for our Tyler electronic permitting system. We're hoping to put into place very soon where, where folks developers applicants property owners can actually request an online pre-application and we'll receive comments back that way at the moment we've been offering sit down pre-applications with applicants um but we i think we need to start to recover some costs of doing that there's a lot of staff time and a lot of research involved with all those things so Yeah, a lot of movements behind the scene, trying to put the city in a good place for future budget discussions. And I think obviously you'll see a lot of that coming forward if the city decide to move ahead with initiating annexations on properties that have a utility agreement. Because if you're not aware, properties that sign a utility agreement with Fort Pierce Utility Agency, sign an annexation agreement that at any time that they become contiguous within the city limits, the city are able to annex them into the city so part of our research is to discover who signed those agreements where they are and then look at a methodology of it's probably going to be a domino situation where one contiguous connection leads to another contiguous connection we've done in the past on a smaller scale but this is one of the strategies that the Commission mentioned this morning interesting all right Thank You mr. Freeman thank you we will close on board comments

I have something I want to share, but I'll send it to you guys first. Does anybody have any general comments? I just want to point out that something very unprecedented in our city happened today. This is our first experience with a Live Local Act presentation. And I think it's more than obvious how frustrated and disappointed the public is and what's happening here as a result of it. This meeting is being recorded. I certainly hope that people with connections to the legislature, our state legislature, state representatives, will watch what happened here today or at least read the minutes, listen to these public comments. And to the members of the public that are concerned about what's happening here, Mr. Whiting said it best. reach out to your state legislatures. This is why this happened. I will disagree with him on one point, and that is on my opinion of the design and intent of this legislation. I think it started off with a mission, but clearly what it has turned into functionally is a degradation of home rule for municipalities like Fort Pierce. the reason the law is written as well as it is, is to specifically strip our municipality from the ability to not grow in ways that we don't want to grow. And that is a very dangerous place to put us in. We're, you know, we're gonna have no control over how quickly A single piece of property can massively increase our population, and it's going to happen in ways that we will have no mechanism and no ability to reinforce our infrastructure to support it in a reasonable amount of time. Growth happens, but it typically happens slowly, and it happens in a way that is measured and deliberate and considered. And a project like this, moving forward as quickly as it can, there is no way for the state and the county to be able to support this level of growth with infrastructure that's necessary for it to not become a complete problem for our community. So that is what I feel is happening right now. I hope that the politicians at the state are paying attention to how disappointed and how frustrated we are. And I certainly hope that the voters of Fort Pierce remember what happened today in November and every November that comes after this. So that's what I have to say about that. If there's no other comments from the board, we will adjourn.

Chairman, we do need to do consideration of absences. Mr. Edwards originally stated he was not going to attend today. And then I received an email that he was going to be late.

so and he did not attend all right um so we have to document his unexcused absence you have to vote on it okay so uh i've never done this one before okay so so i will call for a motion to acknowledge the unexcused absence of mr edwards someone want to make a motion i would like to make a motion that we

retain the option to do it later simply because we don't know why he's late um i don't want to mark him as unexcused or dean him and we don't know he may have had a flat he may have had a car accident um i don't know what our options are as far as that's concerned that's fine it's up to the board so we'll table it till next month next meeting okay um let's take a vote on that motion to table we need a second

We need a second? Second. Okay. We have a motion at table by Ms. Clemons, second by Mr. Whiting. Please call the roll.

Mr. Johnson?

Yes.

Ms. Clemons?

Yes.

Mr. Whiting?

Yes.

Ms. Story? Yes. Chair Kreisel?

Yes. You better have a good reason.

I mean, we don't know.

All right. We will adjourn. Thank you all.