City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Welcome to the January 20th, 2026 regular city council meeting. Our first of the year. So, apologies in advance if we're rusty on some of this technology in particular. We're going to begin with our opening ceremonies, the invocation followed by the salute to the flag led by Mr. Horn. Please rise. [clears throat] Um, heavenly father, I thank you for the beauty of this day. Lord, I thank you uh for any chance that I get to stand up in front of others and exalt your name. Lord, I would ask that you would provide guidance to this group as we stand up on the day as today and serve the citizens of Jacksonville Beach. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the chance we had yesterday uh to celebrate the the life of Doc Dr. King and all the service, the great service he did for our nation. Heavenly Father, I would ask for protection, your protection over all the members of our armed services, all the members of our EMS community, and all the members of our law enforcement community. Lord, those serving at the local level, the state level, and the national level in the discharge of their duties. Lord, I would ask that you would continue to turn the hearts of your people towards your son Jesus. For he was the one who said he was the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes under the father but through him. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Amen. This meeting is called to order. Madam clerk, roll call. Council member Golding here. Council member Horn here. Council member Jansen here. Council member Sutton here. Council member Wagner here. Council member Wowers here. Mayor Hoffman here. Moving on to approval of minutes. Item A, please. I move we approve the minutes from the council briefing held on December 8th, 2025.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Item B. I move we approve the minutes from the regular city council meeting held on December 15th, 2025. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Approval of the agenda. I move to approve the agenda. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor signify by saying I. I.

Any opposed? Agenda is approved. Council announcements. Miss Golding. She's giving y'all a chance. I'm going slow. [laughter] Um, happy new year everyone. Welcome to 2026. Um, just want to make a few announcements. I had the privilege and the and the actually the joy to be able to participate in the Martin Luther King Day celebration that was held yesterday uh at St. Paul's by the Sea. And I just wanted to thank the mayor and Councilman Wagner for their um their participation in the event and the greetings that they extended to everyone from uh the city of Jacksonville Beach. It was a wonderful event. Um and uh yeah, then I also wanted to mention that uh today there was a committee hearing on House Bill 103, which is the local business tax bill, which is proposing to eliminate local business taxes. Um and I just want to give a shout out to our rep uh Rep. Michael and her aid Destiny because they reached out to me yesterday to ask about how the bill would impact Jack's Beach. And thanks to our city manager, I was able to share some data uh about how this bill would impact us. And um based on that, Rep. Michael voted against House Bill 103. Um she was uh she was the only the only Republican to vote against it. and unfortunately it still passed. Um but uh but she is standing up for our community and I hope that everyone on this council will send her a message and thank her for doing that because um it's not an

easy thing to do to to vote in in a way that your party doesn't vote. But she voted her um she voted for her district and that's what that's what her aid told me yesterday is that she she wants to support her district and she's doing that. So we should all thank her for that. Um also want to mention that we do have a meeting tomorrow starting at 3:00. It's going to be a joint meeting between the council and and our CRA. Um, and then, uh, several of us, I think all of us, are we all going to legislative action days next week, um, Tuesday the 27th, we'll be in Tallahassee and we'll have an opportunity to talk to our legislators about the bills that will impact J Beach. And, uh, also want to mention along that line that uh, Beaches Watch is having a meeting on Wednesday, February 4th at 7 p.m. at the Beaches Branch Library. It's entitled Defunding Our Cities: How Proposed Property Tax Cuts Threaten Local Services. and our city manager, Mike Stavopoulos, and the Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach city managers will be there to talk about our city budgets and property taxes, what they do, what your property tax dollars do, and the services that we're able to provide the community based on those tax dollars. It's intended to be um a foundational educational meeting so that hopefully citizens will better understand why we have property taxes and how city how our city uses those property taxes. And then last but not least, um I wore my pink tonight because we have the Donna Marathon and Half Marathon that's coming

up on February 1st. And I see Amanda's here. She'll probably be talking about that. Um, I've been I've been training. I'll be doing the half. I will not be very fast, but I will get it done. But I'm looking forward to it. It's always an amazing event and uh I hope that everyone will plan to come out. It the crowd support is what keeps those of us that are really slow moving. So, um, hope everyone will come out and support all the runners. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Golding, Mr. Jansen.

Yes. So, I'm just going to echo a little bit what, uh, Council Member Golding said. U, basically, I was going to say the same thing that next week we're traveling to Tallahassee, but let's talk about that just a little bit deeper. Um, I I do think that there's probably a version of property tax relief that could be had maybe based on prerequisites or something to that effect, but what really concerns me is the quadruple threat. Uh, here we saw today where the business taxes, they're looking at eliminating that. Uh, sovereign immunity, which you heard me talk about, that's the limits on how much you can sue a local government for a trip and fall incident or any incident for that matter. uh those limits are set in a house at 500,000 at 1.3 million. Currently we're at 200,000 at 400,000. So that's a big jump right there. And then if you talk about also there's a bill in there for filing a cap on enterprise transfer from your utilities. So there's a quadruple threat there. We I don't know that we can take a hit on every one of those fronts and still maintain the responsible government that we've been. We we're debtree. We live within our budget. We're doing an amazing job. We're the we're if you ask me, we're the beacon on the hill. If you want to there's 411 cities in the in the state of Florida. They should be looking at Jacksonville Beach saying that's how you do it right there. So now we have to look at how do we handle this property tax issue. So a complete elimination is probably not favorable. Maybe there's a recipe in there somewhere, but certainly not with the other three bills, but we'll be over there fighting next week.

Thank you, Mr. Jansen. Mr. Ragnar.

So, uh, thank you everybody for attending. Hopefully, you're okay indulging me for a second. I wanted to share just a few of the comments that we shared at the Martin Luther King remembrance event because I think it's a really cool Martin Luther King story. So Martin Luther King visited Jacksonville, Florida in March of 1961 and he spoke at the Ara Missionary Baptist Church. Um and uh the the the content of his speech was it's a great time to be alive. It's one of his other very famous speeches. But the coolest part of that day is after that service was over, they went back to the Singleton's house. And Singletons were an very active African-American family. They invited their friends over. Martin Luther King talked to them about the importance of serving and getting involved. And as a result of that meeting in 1967, for the first time in Jacksonville's history, two female African-Americans were elected to the city council of Jacksonville. And so it was, if you think about just the we all are exposed to all these things that occur at a national level that Martin Luther King helped drive and and bring awareness to. To me, it's so cool to think about how very specifically in our little local town, the way he helped change the face of representation and serving in our community so that we can serve in a place that's where there's diversity of race, religion, gender, viewpoints, you know, and still all of us feel very good about being up and serving. So, I just think it's a great little story. It's kind of cool and I wanted to take a moment and share that with you. And then also congratulate councelor Sutton. I believe he's running the full marathon.

Mr. Horn, I will complete that over the course of the year that distance.

We have great faith in you, councelor Sutton. Um I will not be running and if you ever see me running, something's gone horribly arry. [laughter] Um, so, uh, yeah, I want to echo the comments of my colleagues. Yes, we are going to be at legislative action days in the next couple of days. I just want to comment on that briefly in that we are working at the state level for the citizens. We're trying to do what we can to make sure that the actions at the state level do not come back and bite us in the behind and really make things harder on the citizens and harder on the the city staff to do their jobs through all these other problems that we're experiencing. And I I said this before, I every chance I get to repeat it, I tell it to my friends, I tell it to everybody. But you would not believe how many people at the state level end up in a position of legislative authority, but have not done it at the local level, do not understand what it's like to work in a community, do not understand what it's like to see the changes and see how these things affect the local communities. And that's part of the reason that we go there is to make sure that our representatives can see how these changes are going to affect us, how they're going to affect the communities. Um, I guess the best analogy I can give is like with the Jaguars, if we just pick some random person off the street to be their new head coach, like, hey, look, you've never done this before. You never been a football player, never coached a football team, but here you're in and you're now going to make rules for the whole team. It's going to go horribly. And sometimes, unfortunately, we see our legislators making bad decisions. uh and we try and preempt them. We try and not, you know, make sure that they understand that the ramifications that they're going to impose on our citizens and make it harder for everybody around the state. So, understanding that what works in Jacksonville Beach doesn't work in Tallahassee. It does what works in Tallahassee doesn't work in Orlando and that doesn't work in Miami. So, making sure that we have home rule, we have the ability to do what we can for our citizens at the local level and giving us as much autonomy as we can to serve you guys the best we can and that's the reason we're going uh next week. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Horn. Anybody else? Mr. Waters.

Councilman Horn, thank you for your thoughtful remarks. And I just want to say that home rule is the most important issue I can think of. If we can't run our town the way we see fit, I think it's a sad day. One size does not fit all. Every town is different. Thank you for for mentioning that, and I hope we will all advocate for that. Thank you. All right. Anybody else council announcements? Well, since we are already kind of on the topic, we will go to our um courtesy of the floor and we'll start with Amanda Npalitano. I pressed the button. [laughter] Uh good evening everybody. Uh thank you for having me today. Um all of the talk of of Dr. King. Um, I just learned recently that Jeff Galloway, which is an Olympian that helped found the National Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer with Donna Degan and Dr. Edith Perez, met Dr. King when he was in college. Um, he didn't really know what he was going to do with his life. And he so he asked him, you know, Dr. King, what should I do with my life? And he goes, do whatever impacts the health of others or the betterment of others. was, you know, put simply what he said to it. And so Jeff went on to compete in the Olympics to transform the lives of millions of runners. I mean, he's the reason why so many people run the marathon now and helped us launch the National Marathon to finish breast cancer. So, nice little loved story. So, I had to kind of tie tie it to to to what we're doing as well, which is co-hosting the only National Marathon to finish breast cancer. Not this weekend, but next weekend. Um, we are so excited and I could not be for more grateful for all of you. Um, and for your staff and your team, Allison, um, Steve, um, just the work that goes into making sure that

this event is not only wonderful community event that brings everyone together and so much fun and and cheers and but also safe. Um, and that we're keeping the community informed and that we're doing this in such a way that's respectful for for all of the residents at our beaches. Um things are going very very well. Um if the community needs information about road closures or or um you know all of the important things about the weekend, they can go to breastcancer.com. Um and um you know, most of all uh thank you for supporting the important work of the Donna Foundation um providing hope, support, and financial relief to families living with breast cancer um every day. We could not do this without the support of all of you in the community. So, thank you very much,

Amanda. Really quick. Yes, ma'am. Um, just so everyone knows because one major change this year from kind of the footprint that we've gotten used to a little bit in Jacksonville Beach is the addition of the 5K. Do you want to talk about that?

Yes, happy to talk about that. Um, so we are transforming a stadium downtown. So, trans uh traditionally we have held our Saturday events including the expo uh in downtown in the stadium complex. Um, that's offline for the next couple of years. So, we've moved the health and wellness expo to the brand new Hilton um Mayo Clinic Jacksonville and our 5K and Donna Dash was our Saturday road race events here in Jacksonville Beach in the Seaw Pavilion. So, that is new. Uh we'll actually have host all of our race events here in Jacksonville Beach um this year and things are going very smoothly adding that in. So, thank you for allowing us to to do that.

Thank you. So, you have the marathon, the half marathon, and Bill, what are you talking about? You do marathons all the time in the water. You wouldn't ever see me doing that. He'll be happy to swim 26 miles. He's going to swim alongside Sandy in the 5K on Saturday. And there is also the Pete's Bar Crawl which is where you will find me.

It's not It's a real thing. It is. you you start what what we realized is that people were coming and registering for the half marathon and and running to Pete's and stopping there and hanging out and watching the race for the rest of the day because the race goes through that area four different times and we thought well let's make that a thing. Um let's you know bring more people in to to participate with us. So Pete's Bar Donna Crawl started last year and it sells out at 500 and it sold out again. Yeah. So that's where you'll find me. But I'm going to put it on put this in the minutes. Madam Clerk, I am going to run the half marathon next year.

It's going to happen. It's official. It's the 20th year of the Donna. So it's I've been dragging my feet for 20 years. I probably should have done it Chris Hoffman 20 years ago, but here we are. Here we are. So, it's going to happen. But this year, it's the Pets Pub crawl for me. Well, Jeff Galloway can give you the training programs to make that happen. I'm going to need it.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks, everybody. Great weather and a great another great event. And our next speaker card is Victoria Ye. Can come on up to the podium and give us your name and address. And I will um start the clock for three minutes. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Hoffman and city council members. My name is Victoria Yei. My address is 1575 Marsh Inlet Court, Jucks Beach, of course. Um, and I'm on I'm here on behalf of the concerned residents from Jardend Mirror, Marsh Inlet, 15th Street, Fairway Lane, and Marshide. And for the past several years, our community has raised concerns related to the growth of Discovery School, in particular traffic safety, emergency access, uh privacy, and adherence to the conditions that the school um has when they got approval to run in a residential neighborhood. and the planning commission's 2018 action also carried those conditions forward. However, we have seen uh many residents have seen and continue to observe operational and site related issues that raise questions about the adherence of those conditions. We we collectively plan to continue working with Councilman Wagner. Thank you very much. uh and respectfully requests the opportunity to be able to present and provide materials and context at [clears throat] an upcoming council briefing uh where these issues can be reviewed in a structured and transparent way. Our

goal is clarity, consistency, and safety for the community as well as Jacksonville Beach. Thank you for your time and um any questions? I guess you can't answer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Missy. Okay, that's it for speaker cards. We will move on to the consent agenda. I move we approve the consent agenda. Second. We have a motion, a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I've got a question. We can't do questions during consent agenda. Can I make a comment? Can you make a comment during consent agenda? I don't have a question. I have a comment. Yeah. Motions comment on motions.

I thought consent agenda. You didn't comment. I thought we didn't do discussion during consent agenda. We'll review this. Go ahead comment. You said go ahead. Yeah. I just want to make a comment on the on the consent agenda is approval of the city manager's annual performance. I [laughter] just wanted to tell him thank you for the job he's done over the past year and um keep up the good work. All right, that was an allowable comment. Good job. [laughter]

It was a very uh hefty consent agenda, but as um usual, the staff has done a great job um giving us information in advance um so that we can make in informed decisions. So, now we will move on to uh city manager new business. And the first item is of order. Yeah. I'm sorry. All in favor say Oh, do we roll call? Now you've thrown me off. All in favor signify by saying I. Any opposed? Consent agenda passes. Now we'll move on to tasers.

And half half the staff who was here for the consent agenda can leave. Hang on. Pause. What did you just say? Can you repeat that into the microphone? Not you, Bill. Sorry. Not you, Bill. I see what you did. Councelor Jansson, you messed up. Not you, Bill. Hang on. Hold. Wait for it. Sorry. I just wanted to clarify. Um, I was right. In general, no discussion shall be permitted regarding a consent agenda item, but happy we could still all work similarly. But just so we all know so we all know for the future. I'm just trying to to abide by the so next just for clarification or say it during announcements. You could say it during announcements,

right? Just for clarification. You can certainly move [clears throat] an item and then we can have discussion on it. So I told you I warned you guys at the very beginning of this meeting. We're a little rusty. Okay. Tasers.

Good evening council. Eric Sean Sro commander Jackson Beach Police Department. I'm here this evening to make a request to use federal equitable sharing funds. Our drug seizure funds regarding our taser program. Currently, the police department uses two different platforms or models for our sworn staff. Uh the current model we uh have now [clears throat] that we're asking for tonight is the Taser 7 and we have an older model called the X26. Uh when Taser's parent company, Axon, made the switch over years back due to cost, the police department made the decision to because of the because of the cost, we made a decision to buy 10 of those every fiscal year to try to uh keep up our replacement program. Uh so I'm here tonight as part of the department's public safety technology enhancement plan uh to use these funds to purchase the 31 remaining taser settlements uh to make the department whole. Um, some of the challenges I want to let you know some of the challenges we face with the two models is uh there's two different cartridges. Uh, so if you're if you have an X26 and I have a tape and we're in a call and we get in a jam, we we can't switch uh we can't switch the cartridges. Uh, we have two different t downloading procedures uh for when we use fours and we have two different courses each year and two different tests that we have to take. So that would simplify everything into one under the tab. So simply I'm asking for a draw of $129,51589 for the federal equitable sharing funds to bring the PD taser over to one common platform and that is the taser 7. This purchase of the 31 tasers, the training cartridges, the real world cartridges, uh the holsters, the licensing and 5-year warranty, the whole the whole shooting match. Thank you for your consideration.

You commit. Can we get a motion, please? I move we approve the purchase of 31 new taser 7s utilizing reserves from the federal equitable sharing trust fund. Second. We have a motion and a second. Uh Mr. City Manager,

thank you. Just a reminder for our council as well as for those uh in the public watching here or at home on TV, uh the taser purchase is not just consistency within the department. It's also in alignment with our new police department technology enhancement plan that was discussed at our last council briefing where we're trying to make sure that our police department has all the appropriate tools in order to move forward into the next generation. Uh so this is one of multiple initiatives that we will be doing over the next two to four years to get our department where we feel they need to be.

Thank you, Mr. Horn. I was just going to say I'm only familiar with the older model tasers, but um I look forward to the newer ones coming online. Yeah. Yeah, I still have that video as well. It's good times. Are you are you saying you're willing to test the new ones when they come out? It can be discussed. Listen, hey, [laughter] I heard yes, Mr. Wagner. Well, my thunder was stolen. I was gonna say I can only support this if [laughter] councelor Horn would test it for us all. I said it can be discussed. I'm not opposed to it. I just got to get permission from my wife again.

But mostly we it's important that we make sure that our officers have uh the proper tools to do their jobs. And seeing no other comments, Madam Clerk, roll call. Council member Golding. Yes. Council member Horn. Yes. Council member Jansen. Yes. Council member Sutton. Yes. Council member Wagner, yes. Council member Waters, yes. Mayor Hoffman, yes. Motion carries. Uh, moving on to ordinances.

Mr. Hughes is coming up to the podium. Do you have an update for us? Well, this is the Trevor Hughes, City of J Beach, Parks and Recreation. Uh, we are here again for the second reading of chapter 20, amending our code ordinance for the parks rules. Um, I'm available for any additional questions as I believe we've already covered it. Well,

thank you. Madam clerk, will you read the ordinance by title, please? An ordinance of the city of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, amending chapter 20, parks and recreation, article 3, use regulations. Article four, parks rules and regulations of the code of ordinances to make corrections and add a section to provide codified local rules, regulations, and enforcement provisions concerning the city's parks and recreation and providing for legislative findings, repeal of conflicts, severability, scrier's errors, codification, and an effective date. Thank you, Madam Clerk. This ordinance is before the council for a public hearing and consideration on its second reading. I will now open the public hearing on ordinance number 2026-8231. I do not have any speaker cards on this item. Would anyone from the uh public like to speak for or against? Seeing none, this public hearing is closed. Can I have a motion? I move we adopt ordinance number 2026-8231 as the second reading amending the city code of ordinances chapter 20 parks and recreation article 3 use regulations and article 4 park rules and regulations to make corrections and add a section to provide codified local rules regulations and enforcement provisions concerning the city's parks and recreation.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion from councel? Mr. for Wilders. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Trevor, it's good to see you, sir. I just had a question. Um, whatever our rules and regulations are, who enforces these? Uh, the police department enforces them, park staff enforces them. Um, some of them obviously are are actively patrolled and looked after, and others are, you know, when they're seen, we'll address them. But we we don't go out and inspect and and check it. it can be never ending

because I just like to share with this honorable body that the sometimes I go there and I'll drink my coffee in the morning or whatever and just you know watch the kids play and um I seen these young people on their bikes in the bowl with the little kids and it's a dangerous mix and very a lot of parents are very concerned about it but I see no one I mean the only remedy seems to be for a citizen to call the police. Do you think it might be appropriate if during busy times we had some member of the parks department out there just like watching or we'll consider and look into it. We we do right there during the weekdays when it's busy. We we keep an eye on if we see something out the window. one of us will walk out and and we'll approach and and remind them of the rules and then oftentimes parents will call the non-emergency number and police will come right out and handle the situations

cuz yeah, of course we had that unfortunate incident where the man snapped and um I just hope we can try to find some middle ground to try to prevent these things. Thank you for your time. Any other questions on this ordinance? Madame Clerk, roll call. Council member Horton. Yes. Council member Jansen. Yes. Council member Sutton. Yes. Council member Wagner. Yes. Council member Wowers. Yes. Council member Golding. Yes. Mayor Hoffman. Yes. Motion carries. Okay. Ordinance B. I think we have our planning director here. Oh, sorry. City attorney.

Thank you, mayor. This matter is back before you for second reading. Um, you may all recall we had a bit of discussion on this back in December. Uh we also spoke about it last week during the city council briefing. Uh and then based on that feedback from you all at both the December meeting and last week's briefing. Uh I drafted some proposed additional language for the ordinance that I emailed all all of you uh around lunchtime today. I also have hard copies if anyone needs a copy right now. But based on council's direction, I am uh suggesting we add language a new subsection E uh which would be under the new section 34-733 a new E and then shift the current E and subsequent sections down by one letter accordingly. I'd like to read it for the record real quick and then I'd be happy to give even more detail if there's any questions on that. But uh the rationale for this is this this new state statute does in addition to requiring us to um set up these uh requirements for certified recovery residences. It does authorize us to establish some additional requirements for reasonable accommodation um for these recovery residents provided the additional requirements are consistent with federal law. So in in view of the Fair Housing Act and the American with Disabilities Act, I tried to uh craft these as narrowly as possible to accomplish what city council would like to accomplish yet still comply with federal law. So that's the rationale behind this language. So new subsection E would uh be titled additional requirements for establishing a certified recovery residence. Uh, initial paragraph says, "Approval of reasonable accommodation request for establishing a certified recovery residence as defined in section 397.311 Florida statutes is subject to the following additional requirements. One, the maximum residence allowed in a certified recovery residence shall be

14. A home with 7 to 14 residents shall in addition to the requirements of this section also require conditional use approval. Two, the certified recovery resident shall conform to setback and height regulations for the applicable zoning zoning district. Three, the certified recovery recovery resident shall not be located within a radius of a,000 ft of another existing certified recovery residence. Four, the certified recovery residence shall not be located within a radius of 1,000 ft of a medical marijuana treatment center dispensing facility. Five, the certified recovery residence shall not be located within a radius of a thousand feet of an alcoholic beverage establishment. Six, the certified recovery residence shall not be located within a radius radius of a,000 ft of an establishment providing child daycare services. And seven, nothing in the section shall permit persons to occupy a certified recovery residence who would constitute a direct threat to the health and safety of other persons or whose residency would result in substantial physical damage to the property of others. Uh, with those additions proposed, I'd be happy to answer any questions or give any additional information requested. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam clerk, will you read the ordinance by title, please? An ordinance of the city of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, amending city code of ordinances, chapter 34, Land Development Code, Article 7, Site Development Standards, Division 2, Supplemental Standards, by creating a new section 34-733 requests for accommodation to provide procedures for handling and processing requests for accommodation from the city's land development code. providing for the repeal of conflicting ordinances, severability, scrier's errors, codification, and an effective date. Thank you. This ordinance for the amendment of the land development code is before this council for a public hearing and cons consideration on its second reading under the laws of the state of Florida. An ordinance which changes the actual list of permitted, conditional, or prohibited uses within a zoning category or which otherwise changes the text of the land development code is a legislative proceeding. A legislative proceeding means that a governing body is acting in its rulemaking capacity. It is the duty of the council to arrive at sound decisions regarding the use of property within a city. This includes receiving citizen input regarding the proposed uses within a zoning category. The application has been reviewed by staff and the planning commission for consistency with other portions of the land development code and the comprehensive plan. The council may hear from all interested parties in the legislative determination of an amendment to the text of the land development code. The council's decision on a text amendment application is based on the criteria set forth in section 34-538 of the land development code. Each member of the council has been provided a copy of the criteria. I will now open the public hearing on ordinance number 2026-8232. Uh we don't have an applicant, but um Director Ireland, do you have anything to add? And I do not have any speaker cards on this item. Would anybody in the audience like to speak in favor of or against the

ordinance? The public hearing is now closed. Can I have a motion? I move we adopt ordinance number 2026-8232 on the second reading amending chapter 34 article 7 division 2 supplemental standards by creating a new section 34-733 request for accommodation from the city's land development code. Second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. city attorney. Now that there's a motion on the table, if um council is amendable to the additional language proposed, I would recommend a motion to um amend with the changes provided by the city attorney.

I move to amend the motions the a motion the amendment. I move to a it's been a long holiday. [laughter] Uh, I move to amend the the changes made by the city attorney. Second. We have a motion and a second to amend. Any discussion on the amendment? Miss Golding.

David, could you provide some clarification for me? Um so the first the first criteria I guess or requirement of restricting the resident the the number of residents or the maximum number to 14. Is that because that is in line with what we are doing right now for vacation rentals that we're limiting it to 14 or is or is there something um connected to federal law regarding that or what? Um, so it's along those lines. Um, because we need to keep it narrowly tailored to try to comply with federal law. Uh, we're trying I'm trying not to put any sort of just arbitrary info out there. So, what I researched, I found an analogous statute, um, 419.001 001 of the Florida statutes that regulates what's called community residential homes which relate to uh dwellings licensed to serve residents who are clients of the Department of Elderly Affairs, the Agency for Persons with Disabilities, Department of Juvenile Justice, and the Department of Children and Families. And that statute though not applicable to recovery residences um is very similar and they do um allow such community residential homes for only up to 14 people. Uh so that's where I drew that line and that statute also I'm going to say a bad word here but that preempts local governments on those matters not this matter from anything six or fewer residents. So, I um based on that existing um similar language, I I thought that was a way to narrowly tailor it with with evidence of previous similar actions to best protect us, but also protect the health and safety and welfare of our residents and the neighbors.

Okay. And then u the second item that states that the recovery residents shall conform to setback and height regulations for the applicable zoning district. Is that really necessary? Because I mean I think that any anything would I mean the height and the setbacks would apply to any development right in our community. I did put it in there in an abundance of caution. It probably is not absolutely necessary, but I thought it couldn't hurt.

Okay. I mean, I don't have an issue with it being in there. I just it just seems like it it's not entirely necessary, but I don't mind, you know, adding something for clarity or whatever. Okay. And I would say that um I guess the maximum of 14 residents, I mean, if we're limiting our vacation rentals to 14 occupants, is that correct? Oh, it's 12. Oh, okay. It's 12. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you, David. Mr. Sutton,

uh, no question. Just David, I thought all seven of those were logical and reasonable. Um, so thanks for, um, scripting the, uh, amendment. Mr. Horn, um, two things to ask. Uh, first off, I agree with councelor Sutton in that if this passes, I agree that any amendments adjusted in here or um, Mr. Horn, can you turn your mic on?

I apologize, I bumped it. Um, can you clarify for me number five, the al with thousand feet of an alcoholic beverage establishment? Um, is that an establishment? I guess what qual qualifies as an alcoholic beverage establishment. So, I use that term because it's already existing in our in our land development code. Um, if you give me just 30 seconds, I can look up the definition. Yeah. Or maybe Heather can Heather can director can see who Yeah, she's she

I think I know that book you guys are talking about the land development code. Is that what you called it? Um, Councilman Horn, an alcoholic beverage establishment is a business that's their primary uh use is the service of alcoholic beverages. So any of our quota licensed bars or any of our, you know, other drinking establishments, but that's their primary business. Okay. So I was just trying to determine so so gas stations, Publix that actually So it's for the purposes of consumption on premises, just a bar. Yep. Not a restaurant or a hotel or anything like that.

And is that only so alcohol? Okay. So um I'm going to use an example because the closest one Kurabas is that listed as a restaurant or alcohol establishment that's a restaurant. So 1,000 ft from there is okay thousand feet from restaurants but not so basic or business district central business district more. Yeah. Anything anything within thousand feet of a what we would categorize as a as a bar essentially.

Um thank you. That's that that's one issue that I wanted to ask. And then I guess the next is going to be um the concerns that uh councelor Jansen brought up the last time in regards to uh Senate Bill 954 in regards to its verbiage. I think it's like in the first line or so where it talks about each county or municipality to the governing body of each county or municipality to adopt an ordinance to establish procedures, etc., etc. Um, I still kind of wonder, are we I mean, I don't know if we're helping ourselves here or we're hurting ourselves here. Are we adding too much? Are we not adding enough? Where does the the standing,

you know, where does

Yes. And so, [clears throat] and remember, part of this goes back to the fact that it's not the best worded um statute, the bill by by the state legislature, but the land development regulations for the city of Jacksonville would not apply within the city of Jacksonville Beach. So, um you know, if they pass a similar ordinance, it would have no effect on us whatsoever. I I and I legally recommend after researching this even even more since the first reading uh that we do put these provisions in there because I think now we're getting specific um a I think we're being told by the legislature that we have to do this but by setting up this specific criteria I think we're best protecting the health safety and welfare of our residences versus residents versus doing nothing at all. So I don't think the the fact that I said or it's not like okay the city of Jacksonville has something so we don't have to I don't I don't think that's the best legal

county passed such an ordinance. Um as of December they had not I have not checked again since the holidays. Okay. And are then I guess the next question part of the reason for my question about um alcohol beverage establishments was I like the idea of thousand feet. I'd prefer to be 1,000 yards um just to make sure that we you know give as much room as we can. Is 1,000 ft is that the standard um either at state level or national level in regards to something like this? Can we I mean can we make it more can we make it 1500 feet?

I would recommend against that due to the fact that we have to narrowly tailor this because of the protections under federal law under the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Okay. And also other cities use similar standard and that's the same distance standard we use in other other portions of our land development code which both of those I think make this a reasonable narrowly tailored restriction. All right. Thank you. I just saw all of a sudden flashed on going through the land development code and changing feet to yards everywhere. [laughter] I don't even know how to start with that conversion. Mr. Jansen. Uh Mr. Attorney. I did check the legislative process manual and it does say I can make a comment at this point. So, [laughter] uh, first off, thank you. That's why I called on you, Mr. Jansen, Marty.

Uh, thank you for the hard work you've put into this thus far. Um, I appreciate it. It's kind of addressing some of the issues that I was concerned about as far as these homes are cons are concerned. Um, I've said it before, you know, if if we if these are introduced into our community, you know, you have recovery residents on one side of you and a short-term break case on the other side of you, I don't know that you're sleeping well at night. So, um, at least we're putting in some guard rails here that that's not going to make it, uh, something worse than it could possibly be. As far as the the occupancy, the 14 was is there a demarcation line somewhere near like if you let's say you had a two-bedroom home, they could put 14 people in there or if you get past a threshold of seven, can do they have to go in front of the planning commission in order to in order to establish that kind of residence there?

That's what I proposed in uh subsection one um that that I read before. Um, I'll read the specific sentence to you. A home with 7 to 14 residents shall, in addition to the requirements of this section, also require conditional use approval. So, just a a refresher, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but you know, certain types of developments could be allowed by right in certain zoning districts, and some can only be allowed by conditional use. Um, and conditional use has to show compatibility and and other factors. it has to go before our our planning commission uh for approval. And so that's why I'm proposing that language go in there when it's more seven people or more um to help make sure it's it's appropriate for the neighborhood and compatible with the surrounding uses.

Right. I just wanted that really outspoken for the record so that everybody understands that not every home is going to be a 14 person recovery residence. So there's a process that's in place and I think that the very I have the front right the second the very final bullet point that bullet point of the adversarial effect on on your neighbors or the community is also a good caveat to have in there as well. So thank you Miss Golding.

Thank you. Just a quick revisit. So you know with the vacation rentals we base the maximum occupancy on the number of bedrooms plus two, right? I mean, is this a situation where we could do the same thing with a certified recovery residence so we can make sure to Mr. Jansen's point that it's not they're not putting, you know, right, right? Seven for room or whatever. So my legal concern is and of course you all are the policy makers whatever you you you want to do but here's why I would caution against that. Uh we already have that uh if you adopt this with the language I just read a moment ago you know anything more than six people is coming for a review before the planning commission. Um but if anyone ever decided to challenge this I I liked our our chances better. Um let's say they they want to have um let's say someone wants to have 15 people. Uh and second example will be 13 people. But the current language I'm proposing, um, we'd be, uh, arguing in a worst case scenario that we're we're relying on similar state statutes on a on similar type of situations, uh, where the state legislature has said that's, you know, the reasonable number not to go above versus vacation rentals are not analogous in a way. In many ways, I'm sure they will be, but I don't think it's the best uh comp, if you will, if there's a constitutional challenge on whether or not we're narrowly tailoring this so as we don't so as to not violate those federal statutes I've mentioned before. So, that's my recommendation to stay with the um 14 number uh because it parallels another state statute on a similar topic.

Okay. I appreciate your your recommendation, Mr. Wilders. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was just curious. I'm not sure if this should be for director Ireland or our city manager, but how many recovery homes are presently in Jacksonville Beach? I as I know next to Cup of Job, they have folks who are in recovery and part of the conditions of them living there is they're not allowed to touch alcohol or drugs. So, um I was just curious about that and um I would just like to say uh this past weekend that the two Airbnb beat two Airbnbs across the street from me as I can document on my security cameras, there was between 40 to 60 people staying there all weekend. And um I hope that we will enforce these rules as well as our Airbnb ones. Thank you. Any other comments on the amendment as proposed? So, we are just voting on the amendment. Madame Clerk, roll call. Council member Jansen,

yes. Council member Sutton, yes. Council member Wagner, yes. Council member Wowers, yes. Council member Golding, yes. Council member Horn, yes. Mayor Hoffman, yes. The amendment passes. We're back to the original motion as amended. Is there any further discussion? Madam clerk, roll call. Council member Sutton, yes. Council member Wagner, yes. Council member Wowers, yes. Council member Golding, yes. Council member Horn, yes. Council member Jansen, yes. Mayor Hoffman, yes. Motion carries. That was the final order of business and we made it, guys. We're back. 2026, here we come. Uh, can I have a motion to adjurnn? I move we adjourn.

Second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed meeting and turned