Planning Board - Regular Meeting

purposes of this discussion, and you've probably seen it in the recommendation, this is the submerged land lease area. And for this area right here, we'll call that the Magnolia, or the Magnolia Bay area, because if you look in the, as part of the recommendation regarding large boats, two are gonna be, the recommendation is to allow two large boats in the submerged land lease area, and two large boats in the Magnolia Basin area, a total of four. Again, this area is part of it is C5, and the other area, this area is C4. This is the site development plan. I just wanna show you the only difference is the applicant would like to have a dumpster in this area that is going to be under your review for condition use for outdoor drive dock storage. Everything else is consistent with the previous plan you reviewed. Up here is the new parking matrix and I'll get into that shortly. Again, this is the area where they now want to put an additional dumpster in this area. This is the layout for the basin and the factory bay area is exactly where they plan on having all their uses. This is the restaurant area. Again, this is going to be the dry storage area and if you We're to look at, they have transient, non-wet, charter, charter, tour, staging docks, private docks, the restaurant, and the fire access, which is right in this area. Again, this is the site plan again. If you remember, part of the variance portion of it was this area in here was required to be 20 feet. They asked for a variance for 10 feet. They're also asking for a variance to allow for less landscaping, foundation plantings around the building, and to have the dumpsters here into the landscape buffer which they plan on adding an additional plant material on this on the property they own on this residential property here and they also plan on having their recycling down here again this is the area for landscaping I have already talked about the variances this is the rendering of the restaurant that's being proposed. If you remember, it was originally supposed to be 220 seats. They reduced it to 200 seats. And if I missed something, Zach, I'm sure your presentation will correct that. Now this is new. This is one of the discussions regarding the parking study was to allow for transient and staging of wet slips. They've added to it based on the reconsideration. Now they would like to be able to have buses coming in, and this is the bus access plan, to come through here, come through the building, drop off and pick up, boarding and unboarding, and then leaving. And the reason behind this is because the uses on some of these ships, the amount of seating, they can't necessarily make those requirements based on what they're proposing using the Land Development Code's parking requirements. There's a part in the Land Development Code that allows a parking study for consideration to allow alternate ways of requiring parking requirements. In this particular application, they are looking at using busing to handle some of their parking requirements. They also are asking that you look at the staging wet slips. and the transient wet slips as not being slips for parking because the discussion in the parking study is that staging is the same people that are waiting for the boats. It's just areas where you're staging the boats until they can get on the boat. And then the transient, those are people that are coming Off island to let's say use the restaurant To stay there overnight. They're not necessarily having vehicles so that if you were to read the parking study that was there They want you to consider those requirements Again this is the parking study that was originally proposed And this is the parking study that was revised. Previously they were saying they had an excess of 13.4 parking spaces. Now they have an excess of three parking spaces. The traffic study, based on the now using the bus traffic to bring in guests, the parking study, there's a memorandum here of June 1st that they're saying there's less peak trips because of now that the buses that are coming in and dropping off people and picking people up. I just want to mention the... The memo that was done by Hagen Engineering, which was also the memo, the parking study was done by Hagen Engineering. So again, here's the variances. We've already gone over this, the perimeter planning variance, the right-of-way buffer variance, solid waste dumpster variance, recycling location variance. And we'll talk about the conditional use. And the reason why you have a conditional use approval is they – They would like to have dry dock storage in the area that I For consideration and I'll bring that forward again. Here's the areas for the Variants the landscaping along here the landscape buffer along here the Foundation plannings along here and having a recycling here and a dumpster there Let's talk about the conditional use. The conditional use is required for any outdoor dry storage. Part of the outdoor dry storage requirements is that the outdoor storage has to be screened. That was a condition that is in the land development code. I discussed that with the applicant. The applicant would rather keep the forefoot screening the argument is that you're really screening the lifts or what the boats are sitting on which is right here actually screening that the boats they don't need to be screened because it is a marina and it's filled with a bunch of boats so that's for your consideration again this is the area for the dry dock storage, they're looking at a maximum of 20 slips, outdoor slips. Let's go to the conditions of approval. These are the old conditions. Can you get this on there, Martin? Thank you. uh... one of the things in their in the conditions is for the uh... variance so twenty three it's actually twenty five dash zero zero zero nine six that's going to change uh... if you look at condition five in red It should say or. It had nor on there, so I just corrected that. The 10, 11, 12, and 13 were new conditions since this report was sent out. That would include the approval is conditioned and does not consider imply acceptance of approval of the submitted civil plans or water quality analysis. The final environmental resource permit issued with the appropriate permitting authority covers all basins shall be obtained before issuance of a building permit or construction authorization. The drainage and water quality design shall match the ERP approved. No building permit shall be issued until ERP compliance has been verified by the city. number 11 provide a copy of the ERP modification approval for the proposed improvements to the city's Public Works Department before building permit application submittal 12 sewer hydraulic study required right away permit plans must be must need to show replacement and disposal of any 8-inch AC water main in areas where the main will be under pavement or within three feet of the water's edge. And then striping in the right-of-way at entrances and exits at pedestrian points is required.

Move the page up. Thanks, Dan. There you go.

There you go. And I have copies here if anybody... Now, here's a little rendering that I kind of just kind of threw together with AI. Here's what it looks like currently with a four-foot screen fence.

We're not seeing it. Oh.

There's a picture of what it currently looks like with a four-foot screen fence. This is AI-driven version. If you were to go to eight-foot fence, which is currently on the opposite side of the property, along with landscaping. So right now, the land development code doesn't really tell you how the screening needs to be, but this is just something I kind of threw up just to give you an idea. There is all kinds of possibilities where you can screen outdoor storage to make it look compatible and consistent with the comprehensive plan and the residential across the canal so I'm here for any questions The fence was always proposed at 4 feet. The way the requirement is is it must be screened. Outdoor storage is screened. They're proposing 16 boats that approximately the highest point would be 16 feet. So technically 16 feet is what you're looking for, but I just wanted to show you what you can do with an 8-foot fence with some landscaping. It looks pretty good.

Thank you.

staff's recommendation at one point was a sixteen foot that's correct that's part of our that's part of our recommendation how that comes together uh... we want to make sure we're compatible and consistent with the comprehensive plan thanks thank you dan most of my questions are for the applicant but i do have some for you dan

First, to confirm for the public's benefit, these three distinct items are all tied together. They're intertwined in the sense that if one fails, they all kind of fail. Is that a correct statement? That's correct.

The site plan is tied to both the conditional use and the variance.

And just David and I had this brief conversation before the meeting, but David, just for the benefit of the public, obviously the variance petition and the conditional use permits are recommendations to council. The site development plan is does have a unique council tie-in component because there's an off-street parking arrangement. But hypothetically, if the site development plan were to be voted down today, I'm just speaking in hypothetical, the way it would procedurally move would be they would appeal it to – they could appeal it to council as the Zoning Board of Appeals. Is that the right way of thinking about it?

Yes, sir.

Okay. I just want to make sure I had that right. Dan, you mentioned alternate ways of addressing parking requirements and that being something to consider in the code. My question to you is, is that a mandate or is that an option? In other words, do we have the discretion to utilize or not utilize alternative ways or is that not up to our discretion?

It's for your consideration.

That's helpful. And I guess the only other thing I wanted to mention, and I'm sure a lot of residents feel this, there were obviously some delays in getting all this up, which is frustrating. And I don't want to get into an issue of who did what where. I will say this. For my own benefit, I actually added up the total number of pages. We're at almost 500 for all three of these things. It's a beast. On the plus side, 83% of those pages are things that have been posted since March in some form. In other words, they haven't changed. Only 17% of the page count is new. The majority of those were uploaded Saturday evening. We did have three documents come on Monday because I guess there was a file corruption issue.

You had a power outage is really what happened.

Okay. I was going to ask about that, so thank you. The one thing I just want to make sure of, it was a little frustrating. The traffic information study, the applicant did submit a revised memo, right? That's correct. It just didn't get captured, although I did see you put it in your staff report. That's correct. Okay. And the revision is relatively un-material. I mean, in case this comes up, and I don't know how much we're going to get into a substantive debate on this. Like I was, my head was saying if this is, because we had a conversation late last week that, you know, we don't know when the staff report and everything is going to be up. Did get up eventually. The standard I've had in my head is, is delaying this even further, which we've gotten some emails requesting us to do, would that give me more time as a planning board member to consider things in a way I feel like I haven't had sufficient time to consider? The answer I've come to is, Not really, because I've seen most of this for four and a half months now. And a little bit of it is new. And I've reviewed that extensively over the last four days. And I spoke to some people who were opposed to it and for it as well and asked them. And it's a mixed bag. So I don't know how much of this is going to come up. Other than the only thing I'll say is, again, I don't know where the ultimate responsibility lies. But it was frustrating on my end that we didn't have everything sooner. I'll just say that. But am I correct in saying there is no code requirement that it be up like a week in advance or anything?

The policy that we have as it is 48 hours.

That's what I figured. Okay. I think that's all I have for you.

That policy is in writing, by the way.

I just wanted to mention that. That's all I have for you, Dan. A lot for the applicant.

Do you have questions for Dan and staff? Yeah, I do.

If I could just have a couple. Thank you. Hey, Dan. How you doing? Good. No notice issue this week. Good. So relax. Glad. No notice issue. My concern, and Hayden is right, all this information was put in. We had about a little less than 100 pages that were sort of dumped over the weekend. Some people might have had weekend plans. Some people might have looked at the application earlier. It's not so much about what Hayden is capable of doing, because I know he's capable of reviewing it, or members of the board's ability to review it. That's not my issue. My issue is the public's ability to actually digest exactly what the applicant is doing. And based upon the emails that I read, which is the real concern, not my personal concern, but the emails that I read from people that said they haven't had time to really digest what's going on, is my concern. And Marco Island does have a very important part of the process for the public, for transparency, for trust, that everything's above board. One thing I like about what the applicant has done is they've come in and they've told us now really what the scope is going to be. We did not have that scope the last time. We didn't know about multiple cruise ships. We didn't know about buses coming in, how they would stage, how people would get in and off. There's much more detail in this application, which I appreciate. My real concern is that the NIM meeting, that wasn't there. The neighborhood information meeting and our code is supposed to give the public information about the scope, the breadth, the width, the depth, of what they're doing. That's the whole point of the NIM. And if they went to the NIM and they had to ask about a cruise ship, and then somebody said, well, yeah, we have a cruise ship. You can see it coming in and out of the marina. That's one thing. But a NIM is supposed to be coming forward with all that information, Mr. Chairman. And right now, we've been hit with some complex issues. There are credits in here regarding cruise ships don't have to have any parking. I don't know where that's coming from the code unless it's that section that allows the city staff to come up with some kind of a parking resolution. I don't know about it. And buses, I'm not sure about that. So there's a lot here. And also the TIS report, that was in June. This information is coming in July. This stuff has been submitted in July. So for the public, from my point of view, not from the board's point of view, from the public's point of view, the emails, the overall complexity of this, I think, and it's clearly within our authority because this is a site development plan. We hold the ultimate approval or non-approval of a site development plan. as Hayden pointed out, that we could actually require and say, that last NIM was not sufficient to notify our people on this island the scope of the project. We want a new NIM. We'd like them to present it to the public, let the public ask all the questions in the world. And when they come back to us, we'll have the complete application. It will have been presented to the public like it should be at a neighborhood information meeting. Remember the name, neighborhood information meeting, not some of the information. not a little bit of the information. all of the information. We have a lot of smart people in Marco Island that I've met over my time here, including everyone on this board. But a lot of people out here in the audience that are highly intelligent, know how to ask questions. And some of them, they have the wherewithal to say, OK, we went to the NIM meeting. I don't like what we've heard. Maybe we'll hire an attorney. Maybe we'll hire an engineer. Maybe we'll hire a planner to look at it further so we can be ready for a future meeting. That opportunity, in my view, is not here for the public. I appreciate, Hayden, that you've been able to go through it and digest it. I know I've been working very hard to do so. I do work during the week and the weekends, but I've worked very hard to go through it. And I can tell you, I have so many questions regarding things that they're asking for credits that are not in the code. And one of them just now, and Hayden, I may disagree on this, but a marina with outdoor rack storage has to be screened. It's a conditional use. And I had this conversation with Dan and Mary. Just because someone files for a conditional use and they meet every condition of that conditional use, everything, they check off the box, they hit nothing they need in terms of a variance or a waiver, nothing, they still have to come to us And we still have to review that perfect application as in the requirements of a cup to see that it is compatible with our comprehensive plan. And I guess that's what I'm driving to here. The public really needs that opportunity. I think it would be a disservice if we didn't give them that opportunity, require the applicant to hold that NIM, require the applicant to have all this information to them, and so we can learn from our own fellow citizens as to what they think, what they think should happen, and the questions they would ask if that means. That's my personal opinion. I'll proceed, Mr. Chairman. Again, you're sitting in the chairman's seat. This is your ballgame. It's certainly not my game. This is your decision. and the board's decision, but that's something I would wholeheartedly recommend that we do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dan, David? Eagle?

The only thing I'll say is that under the code, neighborhood information meeting says that it shall be when a site development plan, site plan amendment, or site improvement plan involves a mixed-use project, a variance, or deviations, From the land development code, the director shall require a NIM at the applicant's expense, which shall usually be held at least 30 days prior to the first public hearing on the application. So based upon that reading, the NIM was held prior, you know, within the required time period. From a practical standpoint, if you were to require a NIM every time something has changed, I don't think a project would ever come to your board. So reading the code as drafted, I would say they're in compliance with that. So I don't see any basis on what I'm hearing here to say that there's no compliance with the code.

Well, anyone else on the board?

We've had this come up before.

Do you guys feel like proceeding? Yay, nay? Okay.

Can I ask a question to David just because we're in this conversation, Mr. Chairman? David, it's not my issue whether you think it's in compliance or not. My concern is that the information provided at the NIM is not the same information we're getting today substantially. There are substantial changes. So if it's the city's position, I understand he's here representing the city, not the planning board. If it's the city's position that the scope of this project, which was not available at that NIM, is sufficient for the city to say, move forward at the planning board with all this new information, then that's the city's opinion. And I guess, Mr. Chairman, you can rely upon that. I disagree with it. My direct question to David is, if this board determines that this is too much material, the scope of the project has changed, the board would, in fact, have the authority to say, hold a new NIM. Is that not correct, since it is a site development plan and we have the ability to require that information?

I wouldn't say that based upon the code that you as a board have the authority to require that a new neighborhood information meeting be held. I mean, certainly it's your item. You as a board can decide what to do with it. You've had an initial hearing. You approved it. Additional information was requested, so therefore there was a desire to have the item reconsidered. The applicant has provided that additional information to you. I haven't looked at every single page, but I think what you have here today is substantially similar to what you received before, but with that additional clarification that you were looking for. So, as I look at the code and as I sit here today, my legal opinion is that there's no, you know, the applicant has complied with the code provisions. And, of course, it's up to you as a board to make your decision as far as how you want to proceed based upon my opinion. Thank you.

Just a few thoughts. We're in part here because of my fault. I motion to reconsider this after the April and May meeting. And I think we did the right thing as a board in reconsidering this because of the information that came to light between the April meeting and the May meeting about some of the parking and some of the advertisement issues with one of the vessels in particular. This is now, by my count, and I could be off, the fourth meeting, I think, in which this has been an item of discussion. I'm struggling to see what kicking it back would give in terms of the marginal value of new information gained. And one of the issues, Brett, and I totally understand what you're saying, one of the challenges with it is, let's say we do that. Let's say, even if we had the authority, which I'm hearing we might not, But assuming we did for the sake of argument, we kick it back for another NIM. The applicant goes, presents a NIM. We have a NIM, which, by the way, might now be in the middle of the summer, which would be – we've heard a lot of people say, why are you hearing this in the summer? I think a NIM in the middle of the summer would not get a lot of participation. But let's say we have the NIM. The applicant presents it. They get citizen comments. Then they come back to us and they say, we've made a presentation at the NIM. But we heard some citizen feedback and we made some changes based on that citizen feedback. And so we have a revised application. Then we could sit up here and say the same exact thing. Well, what's being presented to the board doesn't match what was presented at the NIM. So let's send them back to a NIM for a third time and have them give to the public again now with the new information. Then the public offers comments and feedback, comes back to the board with some more changes. It could be a never-ending cycle of NIMS to planning board, NIMS to planning board if we open that rabbit hole. And I'll just say I'm not aware, at least in my time on the board, where we've ever sent something back to a second item. I don't think there's any precedent for that. I would be very careful about getting caught in that precedent that would create and would rather have a very serious conversation today And I got a lot of questions for the applicant I want to ask. And I just think, let's get this done with. It's in no one's interest to stretch this further and further out to just an indefinite period of time.

If I may. Martin, can you put up the first slide, please? One of the things that I failed to discuss is this new application is really a parking matrix. One of the reconsiderations is because of the parking matrix. One of the things that there is an alternate is using the buses so you don't need the parking. That's for your consideration. One of the things that the applicant has agreed to, and it's in my staff report and it's in the recommendation, they have agreed to eliminate all parking in the right-of-way along their property because that was one of the big issues that i've heard from residences all that parking in the right away and all kinds of traffic that creates a they've agreed to allow the city to put up no parking signs and the city will enforce no parking so i'm sorry i failed to mention that portion of it but this reconsideration was really the parking matrix and it was possible the traffic Because of the parking, I failed to bring that up just for your review. Thank you.

All right. Well, as Brad said, it's my ballgame, right? I think we have a lot of information here. I think I would argue that Hayden's point was 83% of the stuff was the same. I would suggest that there's possibly a higher number than that. We've had conversations about cruise ships at the last meetings. As Brad said, there are a lot of smart people on the island. There are a lot of smart people in the room. And I think we have the benefit of their involvement here, via email, at the council level. There are a lot of smart people on this board, without sounding like we're bragging. But I mean, you know, there are a lot of people who ask a lot of thoughtful questions at every meeting, right? It's my belief that the majority of reasonable citizens are going to maybe not accept whatever decision we come to.

Martin, you can take the slide.

But they're going to appreciate the time that we put into this. I know Hayden said he got through it. I'm sure Brad got through it. I know I got through it. And 8 o'clock Saturday night, I was exercising, and I got an email from staff. 8 o'clock on a Saturday night. Collier County wouldn't do that. Kudos to staff, right? 8 o'clock Saturday night, we get a packet with a lot of information. I'm reviewing it Sunday morning. I assume other people on the board were reviewing it Sunday morning. I was sending emails. I was getting responses. I believe that the majority of reasonable and involved citizens are going to appreciate having a thoughtful conversation about it today. And I would suggest we go ahead and do that. Because I know I have a lot of questions. I believe that other members of the board have a lot of questions. Brad has a thicker stack of paper than me today. Unless somebody feels strongly to the contrary, I would suggest we move forward and continue asking questions of staff and the applicant.

Agree.

And there's a room full of citizens and I don't hear what they have to say.

Well, that's true, Mr. Chairman. If we hear the application and we get down to citizen comments and those comments are such that they feel they need more time, we could reconsider the request for a new NIM or a postponement for more time. We certainly could do that.

Well, and I think respectfully, I think if citizens come up and just say we need more time, I don't know how to resolve that. Again, you know, We have an elected body of council. Council has appointed us to do heavy lifting and make decisions to benefit them and benefit the city. And I think that we're 100% capable of doing that today. So I would suggest we move forward.

I did have one minor question for staff that I forgot to ask Dan. Dan, am I correct in saying in the prior parking matrix, if you didn't count the transient slips that I know staff was iffy about, they would have had a surplus. But now if we don't count them, they do not have a surplus.

No, what I said is just the transient alone, I think it was six transient. It's one parking space per two slips. They have three in excess. Technically, they can meet the parking requirements with the transient. I thought it was one-to-one. And then the staging, that's really the staging portion isn't really, there's nothing that discusses staging in the code. We're accepting it based on the applicant telling us exactly what it's for. and that's part of the parking study. As you know, The land development code tries to think of everything in the kitchen sink. Things change over time. And so one of the things that's in the code, which I think is great, for all these new different ideas, new uses, now that we do internet and home-based businesses, and you don't need the parking requirements, let's say, for office. So this gives the planning board and staff the latitude to look at alternative ideas without going through a land development code change.

so does anyone else have questions for Dan and staff at the moment or should we invite the applicant up good afternoon planning board for the record Zack Lombardo here on behalf of Marco River Marina

First I wanted to thank staff and I want to just briefly comment on the materials since that was brought up in the timing here if you'll recall at the June planning board meeting we had submitted right before that meeting we submitted June 1st that material the large corpus of what is here today the reason there were any changes from June 1st is because we met with staff twice to make sure that everything that they submitted they could give us feedback on and so we met with staff two times in June and then again in July to go over anything and everything that they could see as well as what they'd heard from various members of the public and so we did make modifications along the way because there was good and meaningful feedback and working with staff and so we we didn't it was absolutely not our intention to have this material drop when it did in fact we like i said uploaded it on june 1st in large part and so a lot of this stuff is things that have come up along the way another preliminary matter i'd like to address is unlike the initial hearing Unlike at any point in this entire process, and unlike in any other land development application I've ever seen before the city of Marco, the Marco Island Civic Association has submitted a list of demands to the marina, and then they also sent a letter to the city about one of the conditions in all of the approvals about deed restrictions. That condition, which is number nine, in the site development plan and number five and the variance is a condition that's in most mark on approvals it confirms that these approvals are not mica approvals they simply approve the city's code micah's letter to the city suggests perhaps a different interpretation that somehow micah might need to be available to help enforce the intent of that section I'm raising this because because Micah has sent in a formal letter by council I would like to ask Mr. Henson to recuse himself from this proceeding because we have a right to an impartial hearing here and Mr. Henson is on the Micah board and Micah has formally entered into the proceeding and has sent a series of like I said operational demands 12 demands to the marina to modify their approach and I will note Of these three sites, the Yellow Star and the Green Star do not have deed restrictions. The Blue Star has deed restrictions, and they require that to be used, among other things, as a parking lot. We're proposing that it be a parking lot. And so we either do not have deed restrictions or they are complied with. And so the fact that MICA has decided to make demands, and in fact what they told us in that email was that we needed to respond to them before today's hearing, has made my client uncomfortable with the participation of Mr. Henson. So I'd like that to be considered. I'd like to ask Mr. Henson to recuse himself from this proceeding.

Could I chime on that, if you're okay? Yeah, I'll chime in sometime. Okay. My sense is the applicant could suffer damages if the vote doesn't go the way you want it to go. Is that correct? I mean, I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not speaking legalese, but...

The concern about the impartial hearing is that everything today...

The conversation might not be impartial. Yes. The vote might not be impartial.

If I might, Mr. Chair, I could just frame it. So the applicant is entitled to have their quasi-judicial matter heard by an impartial panel, which is you. And that's why we have you make those disclosures before the meeting to make sure that everybody's aware of who you spoke to, whether or not you went by the site. The concern is that if by chance then application is denied and the applicant could then claim that they were denied their entitlement to due process under the law as part of the consideration because an individual on the board may have already formed an opinion regarding the presentation and the application before the presentation of testimony and evidence at a hearing.

If Brad recuses himself, is he allowed to participate in the hearing or is he simply not able to vote on the matter or matters?

It would be my understanding that he would recuse himself and abstain from participation in voting on the matter. And that's not anything that I can decide. That's up to each individual board member as far as whether or not they feel they can be impartial.

I would say this, and if it comes back to bite me in the ass, then so be it. And I know I'm not supposed to say that, but I said it. So here's the thing. I'm going to assume we're going to have a thoughtful conversation. I'm going to assume that we're going to do our best to be impartial. And if we get to the point where there's a vote that adversely impacts the applicant, they can raise that as an issue. Can they not?

Yes, they can.

I'm going to go back to my previous statement, urging us to move this along, and I'm going to use the same logic. I'm going to say there are seven thoughtful people up here who have been appointed by council, and I think we can have a thoughtful conversation. I think we can have an impartial conversation. I think we can... I think we can give you a fair shake. That's my assessment. And if you want to chime in, Brad, feel free.

I appreciate that. I really do, Jason, and I'm sort of – Zach didn't reach out to me and raise this with me. I checked with Verizon. I actually received calls, Zach, that you can actually call me if you want to. I don't just have to send them out. The fact is, with the board of directors' position of MICA, which I am – was very happy to be elected to by the people of Marco Island, I made it very clear to them that any issue that could come before this planning board, I would recuse myself from that meeting. I would have nothing to do with anything that could be before this board at any time, including any application for a builder that needed a little buffer. I'd walk out of the room. I would not be involved. I have taken no part in anything that MICA has done, any email they've sent. I'm unaware of it. And these are two different issues in reality. And I will not participate on any deed restriction issue with MICA with respect to Rose Marina. I'll have nothing to do with it. I have done it before. We've had meetings. I've recused myself. And I advise MICA that. that I would do so. And I also advise them that if they took action as a board, that no doubt the attorney would be duty-bound to bring it up and ask for a recusal. It's part of his job. But I'm saying for the record, I've had no part in those discussions. I have recused myself at the board of directors from those discussions. And these are two separate legal issues. One is us, land development code, in compliance with our comprehensive plan, which I certainly will review this application through that lens solely. And I have taken no part with MICA in the property restrictions or property law aspect of their property.

I have done nothing. So do you feel like you can be impartial?

As I used to say many, many times for many, many years, I can be fair and impartial. with the law of this application before me. So I'm OK moving on if you are.

Can I just say one thing, though? The only thing that troubles me about this, Brad, is the strong position you took about the NIM when we've had this issue come up before with far more objections, far more emails and concerns when there were changes. So that's my little itty bitty concern that you are 100% unbiased because you took a strong stance even after counsel gave you the code and his opinion.

MR. And I appreciate that, Nanette, and I can assure you that I – that's a disagreement between attorneys. My – and I'm going to accept David's opinion. I've accepted it. I didn't make a motion to have a NIM meeting. I didn't do that. MS. Well, you told me we can't do that. MR. It was an – let me respond, please. It was an inquiry. My review of chapter 30-673 puts a lot of things that we have to do in a site development plan. There's a whole list of things, one of which is the NIM. The NIM we determine, I believe, we have the authority to determine whether it was sufficient. I'm not doing anything with this application whether it should be approved or not approved. That's not my point with that. My sole point with raising the NIM was because we got emails. People said they needed more time. They had a lot of questions. And maybe if we didn't have emails, I wouldn't even have brought it up. But they did. That's why I brought it up. I thought it was a good thing just to let the public have an opportunity to comment. Certainly has nothing to do with how I'm going to view this application. Zach knows the law. I know the law. David knows the law. And I'm going to apply that law to this application fairly and justly. And I think the members of this board, most of them know that I will do exactly that without hesitation.

Are you finished? Yes. Because my concern still stands because you took such a strong opinion. And we have expressed that this has come up before. And the NIM was months ago. So I just thought it was an unusual request because of the times we've had before when there's been additional information even later than this time. And especially when staff is making recommendations in some part as a result of concerns by community members and the applicant has made adjustments accordingly. So that's just my point. And we'll proceed from here.

I appreciate that. If I could respond one more time, Nanette, thank you so much for that. The difference is, in this case, for me personally, is that if you look at this packet, this much of it was just submitted. I had a blue sheet in here, about right here, when we got it. And I actually asked for the physical packet because I was concerned. that there would be more items not available to me. So I did that. I picked them up yesterday around, I don't know, right before they closed. I got in there and got it and started reviewing. So I'm doing my job. I'm doing the best way that I can. And I can assure you if I thought any other NIM was inadequate or incomplete or not enough information or the public had complained about it I certainly would have asked or explored that I have not seen that I just I didn't see that issue with an M&M is a new thing for me We don't have that where I was from Jersey, so this is why I was doing it, Mr. Chairman. I certainly have no predisposition to vote one way or the other. The applicant meets the code and the applicant makes his argument of consistency with the comprehensive plan, I'm prepared to vote in favor of it. That's absolutely true.

The Chair made a decision. I think we should proceed.

Well, it's actually my decision in that it's not the Chairman's decision.

Yeah, this doesn't need to be a circus. I mean, if you want to recuse yourself, you can recuse yourself. I've spoken and said I don't believe that you personally need to, but, you know.

Well, I'll tell you what, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that, and I would rather do this. We have one board member that has an opinion that I should recuse myself. I would rather put it to a vote. If my fellow board members by majority think I should recuse myself, I will.

I think we can do a consensus.

I would like that, Mr. Chairman.

Wait a minute. That is not what I said. I said I had a small concern. A small concern. I did not ask. It's a serious accusation. It was a serious opinion of mine. Accusation. And I'm entitled to give my opinion.

I don't appreciate it. Excuse me, everybody. We have an important matter. We have citizens who are here to hear on the matter. So why don't we just do a quick consensus?

No, Mr. Chair, that's not legally, you know, it's a matter for each individual board member.

And we'll go back to Brad's statement. It's my ballgame, right? And for better or worse, I think Brad can participate. And, you know, let's respectfully, let's move on. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it. Okay. Thank you. Off you go, Zach.

Thank you and we'll just note that objection for the record and I will note that we didn't know any of the things you shared so I appreciate you sharing those additional concepts. Micah is not subject to Sunshine Law or public records so I have no way of verifying those statements. We're here, as you know, on a site development plan application, a variance application, and a conditional use. I'm going to back up to the professionals in the room that went through this process. We have our landscape architect, our project engineer, Christopher Hagen, who will be speaking a little bit later, environmental consultant Tim Hall, architects are present in the room, and then Norm Trebellacock also present for the presentation. On the site development application, your staff recommendation is for approval. We have reviewed this as well as the additional conditions. Some of those additional conditions, by the way, those were in the prior approval. I think there was just a little bit of a handoff issue. And so we're not taking issue with any of these conditions. We're going to go through all of them. The one, though, that I do take issue with, given Micah's letter, is number nine. Number nine states the owner developer petitioner is responsible for any private deed restriction approvals with the Marco Allen Civic Association. Based on the letter, which I believe is in the record because they asked for it to be added into the record, where they interpret that as having some sort of enforcement power, I think it's important that this condition be expanded to say that This condition does not create any obligations regarding the deed restrictions the city does not enforce the deed restrictions Micah does not enforce the city's code. These are separate entities. I don't think there's disagreement on that And so I'm requesting that condition number nine be expanded. It's also in the variance to confirm that This condition is simply a disclaimer. It's saying that when the city approves this, it's the city saying that the city thinks this is okay. If MICA takes issue with it, MICA can take issue with it. I think that needs to be specified more clearly in here based upon the letter provided by James Holloway on behalf of MICA. And we can come back to this later if there's questions as to phrasing, but that's a request that we have. As far as updates on the reconsideration process, this was an intensive process. We, as mentioned, did an initial submittal on June 1st and then did another submittal in July and another submittal in July, trying to catch up with all of these things. This is an overview of some of the major changes. The restaurant was reduced to 200 seats. The architectural plans, of course, were updated to confirm that. The TIS was reviewed. The net change, by the way, this was stated by Mr. Smith, but I just want to correct this. It was not because of the charter buses. The net change was because of the restaurant. The restaurant was smaller, so the trips went down. The buses don't impact the TIS in a material way, and this is observable because, and we can have Mr. Travolta come up and talk about this, but a bus is essentially 25 cars. So it's significantly reducing traffic, but it wasn't part of the reduction here. The reduction was achieved by re-looking at the passenger counts and re-looking at the restaurant. The parking matrix, which was the corpus of the change, was heavily modified. The Princess was increased to 100. Passengers, you have an email in your packet from the operator of the Princess. He was going to be here today, but he ended up on a charter cruise, I think, so he's not here. Confirming that he is in agreement and understands what's being asked for here. We worked with him extensively on On that modification, the jet skis were up to two passengers per jet ski. The Key West Express was increased to 195 passengers, and the special cruise parking was readdressed through the bus concept. The parking study now explains the full, what I'll call large vessel concepts. There are, and we'll get into this in detail, the Fully parked vessels. These are all pursuant to your land development code, and this is what might be considered a charter fishing vessel or perhaps a rental from Florida Fish and Wildlife. Then there's the fully bussed debarkation vessels taking this out of order. This is the American Cruise Lines vessel. This boat has no one parking at the marina. They show up. Their buses come from Tampa. They pick them up. They take them around the island. They take them back, and they leave. The hybrid parked embarkation vessels was part of a request from the Princess. The Princess noted that they oftentimes will have weddings or someone who wants to use it, and they'll take a bus from a parked location like the Marriott or the Hilton or a hotel off-island and come and get on the boat. And so we're asking for a concept to allow the going above 100 passengers on the Princess if they can scale it with buses. Now, again, on all buses, and we added conditions for this, They do not park on site. There's a cap as to the number of buses on the site. And in many ways, this concept is taking place not just at the marina but at some of the hotels on the island right now without being explicitly explained in the site development plan. So we think this is good to start getting a record of how to document this and making sure that staff is reviewing, for example, the circulation patterns, which staff has now reviewed both at a public works, planning, and fire level. And that's that charter bus circulation exhibit. So these are the standards in the land development code. I'm going to move somewhat quickly through this because a lot of this is not changing, and I want to make sure that we're addressing the many questions referenced. The site plan itself, and if I could have Chris come up here, this is the current site plan. And before Chris dives into this, I just want to touch on the dumpster thing because I want to correct that. It's not a new dumpster. We originally... had all dumpsters right here. However, since we were given the opportunity to do a nice re-review of everything very carefully, what we learned was there are water utility functions right where the dumpsters were gonna go, and so we couldn't put the dumpsters there, so we moved one over, and we moved one over to the edge of the point over here. So we're not adding any dumpsters. It was more of a relocation exercise. It has been reviewed by staff, and I don't think we have any significant concerns. So I'd like to ask Mr. Hagan, who is a civil engineer and has presented before this board before, and I'd like to offer him as an expert witness as to civil engineering, and I'm going to ask him to walk through the current site plan, which in large part has not changed because, again, mostly this was the parking piece, and then I'm going to ask him to walk through the parking piece. And I want to focus on, at a starting point, the base code level like how the marina is parked at the code level because i reviewed carefully some of the letters from the neighbors and there seems to be some disagreement not with our application but with your code because your code parks things the way it parks them and we have followed that so and one example i'm just going to highlight is that fish and wildlife but fish and wildlife keeps a boat at the marina they have a lease to keep the boat at the marina they're not called out in that master sheet because they're not a commercial charter vessel So they get parked differently. They are parked, but they don't get called out because when you park those kinds of vessels, it's not by passenger count, it's by slip numbers. So I want to have Chris explain that process because I think it's important that we're clear about what is the base rule so we can separate when are we asking something and when are we following the code to the T because a lot of this parking matrix follows the code to the T. So I'll have Chris come up and just talk to the site plan.

Good afternoon. For the record, Chris Hagan. The parking matrix and the parking ordinance is a little challenging because you get credits and debits, and it is a little confusing. What we've tried to do with these updates of the parking study is to show the correlation between the slips, the uses, and the actual counts. The ordinance reads that there should be one parking space for every two wet boat slips. excluding those used for charter so those are just the slips if if it's a slip and it's not a charter slip it's one to two when we get into the charters however One per five for the dry is what it is everywhere throughout. I'm sorry. I'm trying to do this according to the way the ordinance is written. The charter wet slips are parked based on passenger count as opposed to slip boats, et cetera. And you'll see that we've included in the updated parking matrix or parking study, excuse me, a detailed slip analysis. that shows the slips, they cross reference so that the parking, they were included in the parking study also so that you could see that everything matches up and every slip is accounted for. The passenger count is only done for those charter uses. After the submission was done and processed, staff had a disagreement, they felt that the the jet skis should be parked at two passengers per jet ski. I didn't agree with it, but we accommodated it and we still had a surplus. The way this is set up, the matrixes, this is where I feel more at home. This is my baby. You can see that the top quarter of that parking matrix breaks down all the different slip uses and demands. You can see that the one to five is based on the slips. The one to two is based on the slips. Only the charter passenger one is based on charter passengers. So when you look at the matrix that was provided, you can see how we accommodated and counted for all 543 passengers. Thank you very much. Go back to the matrix, please. There we go. The way the code is written, for every slip you provide, I'm sorry, for every parking space you provide for wet slips or marina uses, you get 100 square feet of credit towards upland development, excluding restaurants. So the middle third of the report covers the upland uses that are not a restaurant. And you see that we are over parking with the slips to such a degree that there would be a surplus of parking. Now we can't grab a surplus and count it against it. We can't take that negative forward. So realistically, with the parking, we cover those things. Because the restaurant is specifically excluded, it's dropped all the way to the bottom. And that's why the 285 and the 50 added together equal your demand of 335.8. That's the way it's set up. It matches the ordinance. The ordinance is a little clunky, but it's the ordinance that's been in effect since the 80s. It was done in Collier County when the city became a city. They adopted that ordinance, and it has yet to be edited by either party. As clunky as this is, the city and the county have yet to update it or revise it. I guess really any questions?

Let me get through the standards and then we'll come back to the questions if you don't mind. So recreational facilities, standard 4 did not apply to this particular application. The landscape buffers, nothing has materially changed here from the prior application that's been reviewed by staff, but it was updated to capture all the movements. So the landscaping now addresses specifically out on the point, the new dumpster has been landscaped appropriately. So everything has been addressed, but there weren't significant landscaping changes as a part of this resubmittal. I put these on here before I knew that Dan was going to send around those additional conditions. These were conditions from the first time that we agreed to, the first time that we still agree to today, and they are now in the new packet, which is essentially, and it addresses public works. We are going to get an environmental resource permit, and that's where all the drainage calculations will be done by DEP. and so to provide a less not a duplication of regulation it was added as a condition by your public works department we agreed to that obviously we also agreed to the no work in the right-of-way until right-of-way permit has been issued staff has confirmed that signing is not a part of this application so we will come in for sign permits when when the signs are settled upon on the architectural plan side the plans remain the same the the change here is the actual seat layout and in the restaurant space these seats are regulated beyond the city by Department of Business and professional regulation all restaurants receive a signed off seat count, so the city is not the only person paying attention to the seat count. But we had many people count these seats many times, and we invite you to do the same. There are 200 present in this graphic here. Specifically how that was achieved is 10 were removed from the outdoor seating and 10 were removed from the indoor seating. Again, on this one, because restaurants I think are a heavily regulated space, this restaurant will have the site plan approval, a certificate of land use and zoning from the city, it will have a DBPR food license, and then it's going to have most likely a DBPR for COP liquor license. And all of those things track and monitor the seat count, and both of those agencies, DBPR and the city, can check in on that and have their own violation process should that not be followed. So I know there was a question about we didn't change the actual footprint of the restaurant, but the seat count is, again, a multi-enforced document. And we have the architect here in case there's issues. specific conditions that you want to go over but the condition I want to go over just to make sure we're very very clear is the is the boat condition that we're offering here this this was a question it was brought up by mr. Hansen and and and and maybe also Mr. Bailey and maybe also DuBois at various hearings over the past, which is why aren't we limiting the number of boats beyond just the factory bay area? So in the 2003 boat dock extension, the city council limited boats only out here in the factory bay area. We've labeled that, which is also called the sovereign submerged landless area, to two in what I'll call the large boat category. These are commercial vessels over 100 feet in length or over 100 passengers. The question was asked at the first hearing why not do that in the Magnolia waterway and basin we Responded that we didn't feel that was necessary But after looking at the parking questions that came up we have agreed that that should be considered So we're volunteering to a limit of two there as well and I can show you on this map where this would all go so this slip 71 Over here is one of them, and then slips 4, 5, and 6 is the other one. 4, 5, and 6 is currently the Marco Island Princess. So the Princess is approximately 96 feet long, but it has a passenger count of 100. So it triggers the limitation, even though it's not 100 feet or longer. The American Patriot is typically in Slip 71. It's over 100 feet in length. It does not have 100 passengers, but it is over 100 feet in length, so it triggers that. No other boat can be there when those boats are there under this limitation. Out in the sovereign submerged land lease area, it is typical for two boats to be out there, although not usually at the same time, and they are the American Cruise Lines vessels. and the key west express and these boats both cross the 100 foot in length and 100 feet 100 passengers so they both triggered that line and i want to know when we're looking on the other marinas on the island like the yacht club they have several vessels over 100 feet in length but what we're what the reason why this condition is being offered is we're recognizing that there's a distinction when it's a commercial vessel it's typically a higher intensity higher impact vessel and so we're putting that limitation back on the the basin which is consistent with what the operational pattern has been but that way it's hard-coded we were responsive to the concern that there isn't clarity being provided so I hopefully this is doing that through the conditions, which is that the marina, at full season time, could potentially have four of these vessels at the marina. This is something that does happen currently in season. But the converse of this is what happens in off-season. So we're in July right now. The Key West Express is not present. It won't be back until January, typically speaking. The American Cruise Lines vessel typically is not present in the off-season. So right now at the marina today, tomorrow, you might see the Princess in 4, 5, and 6. And I drove by it before this hearing, and I saw the American Patriot in 71. And there are no vessels triggering the condition out in the factory bay area. So it's not a constant situation. does move around and I think it's helpful from a an understanding standpoint to make sure that that's addressed looking at some other things that came up in review with staff slip 67 up by the restaurant this was requested by an earlier fire review and it was not captured in the last site plan so I did appreciate this coming up in the reconsideration that is a that is a sort of a forever empty slip it is a it is a access point for the fire boat and that the fire department requested as part of their fire review. So that's not actually a slip, it's just a holding spot. The other question that came up with staff heavily was the staging slips, and Mr. Hagan talked about this, and these are the purple slips. And I just want to make sure we're really clear on the record about what a staging slip is. We have, as you can see here, let's see, is the number on here? We have approximately 100 or so dry storage boats in the marina. 164. 164. So these are either in the boat barn or they're out on the point. There's 20 on the point. So there's 144 in the boat barn. There's 20 on the point. When they go into the water, they get picked up and they get dropped in here. Then they get put in one of these staging slips until the person who's going to use the boat comes and gets in the boat. On the deployment, it may or may not be an issue, but for example, when a storm happens or something causes everyone to come back at the same time, we have to be able to put these boats somewhere because we have 20 of these slips and we have 160 or so boats that need to go back into the building. And so this is something that allows the marina some operational flexibility. I would suggest and slightly disagree with staff that this isn't addressed. I think this is addressed in the dry rack storage parking. We're parking the dry rack storage building at 1 to 5, which is a 20% parking ratio. The ratio of Slips in the water to dry slips is more like 13% So I think we have fully parked the staging slips through that process But regardless we would appreciate your consideration of that and the parking study the bus piece is something that Again it's happening now and so we're offering conditions to make it more predictable we offered a condition of a maximum of three buses on site at any one time. We provided a graphic back here, I believe, to show the path. Oh, this is the fire auto turn. Hold on one second. I don't know if we kept that. This is the proposed path. And again, this is something that buses currently use. They go through the boat barn. They come around, pick up on-site, and leave. The condition limits the total on-site buses to three. There is no parking. They do not stay on-site. And just to illustrate the American Cruise Line operationally, these individuals get on this boat in Tampa, where they presumably parked their car there. The boat comes down here, and three buses leave Tampa and follow the boat down. The boat docks at Rosemarina. The buses show up and pick up the passengers from the boat. They take them around the island. They take them around the surrounding area. They bring them back to the boat. The boat leaves. The buses leave. So there isn't a period where the buses are parked on the site. And as a result, there's no parking demand generated by the boat because not even crew is getting on here. Everyone's getting on the boat in Tampa, and everyone is getting off the boat and getting back on the boat here. So we put that in the parking study for your reference. That's the primary piece of the site development plan. If you'd like me to go through the variance before you have questions, or would you like to talk about the site development plan first?

I'm okay if you keep going, but does the board have any questions at this point?

If I could put the PowerPoint back up. The variances remain completely unchanged from the last hearing. There is no modification to them because we did not change the layout. Staff is recommending approval. We have no issues with the conditions other than we do have an issue with the MICA condition and would request it be confirmed that it's not creating obligations, it's simply disclaiming approval. But to remind everyone, the variances are perimeter plantings. And what I want to emphasize here, what these graphics are, All of our variances, while they are less than code required, are more than the currently approved 2014 site plan. So we're bringing these things up, and any new facility we build, like the restaurant, the new parking lot space, there's no variances in those spaces. So new buildings are being built with the correct perimeter plantings. The new parking lot has the correct right-of-way buffers. This is acknowledging that this is a 60-year-old site, and when it was initially built, it had essentially no right-of-way buffer. And so over the years, things are getting more and more compliant, but we're still not to total code compliance. So on perimeter plantings, there will be perimeter plantings, as you can see on the left here, but they will not meet current code standard. And similarly, with the right-of-way buffer, It was approved by City Council in 14 at 10 feet We are asking for that to be put in the form of a variance and what I'll note is when it was approved in 14 I thought this was interesting. The dumpster was actually in the right-of-way buffer and uh... and so and that doesn't seem to have been addressed at the time but it was present and so we're removed that out of their signal full right-of-way buffer thereby again trying to get more in conformance than we were before on the solid waste dumpster that we moved into the northern property buffer uh... again it was in the right away buffer we've now put in the northern property buffer but as you can see on the right this is from the two thousand fourteen current site plan there's no landscape buffer on the northern side here that was approved by city council We're landscaping it around the dumpster to standard, and then we're adding a buffer on the lot to the north by way of a unity of title to ensure that those on Magnolia are getting the benefit of a full buffer, which they currently are getting zero buffer. So I think this is a significant improvement to the current situation. And the last one is the recycling location. The prior approval was only one bin, so it didn't have a recycling container. We can't, again, locate that within 200 feet, so we're asking for a distance waiver of the recycling on the restaurant. Your code requires all solid waste facilities recycling solid waste within 200 feet of the use area. We can't meet that with the existing site as to this point. And all of these have the same background elements that staff has reviewed and that we are arguing are sufficient for the variance, which is that this is a longstanding existing site. It has interesting features in the fact that Large portions of the actual property are underwater, and so the shaping of all of this is quite difficult here, and we believe that this allows us to best address all of those things. For example, if we did put a 20-foot buffer by the right-of-way, we would not really be able to park very much of anything next to the restaurant. And so we would be pushing more people across the street, which I think is a negative result. When there was already a 10-foot buffer, we can properly buffer the other side. And so again, all of these things are steps towards how do we bring the site farther forward. And in no case are we saying we're stepping backwards. We're stepping forward on everything. And so that's the variances. Conditional use is, this is the only condition approval that we disagree with that staff has and that's the 16 foot tall fence there was more than one person in objection who didn't want us to build a 16 foot tall fence I think there was some confusion that we suggested it we didn't suggest the 16 foot tall fence we would like to build a four foot tall fence in this location and but let me take a shot at this here here's the marina in 1974 there are boats in dry storage all over the place on the ground there is no screening And of course, none of the surrounding houses or multifamily buildings are present. Here's the marina in 1985. This is interesting. There is a three-story tall dry rack facility immediately adjacent to English Cove. There appears to be no screening on this facility. And I want to point out that why we're doing this this way and going back to the evolution of this application, this application was filed on July 1, 2024. We've been at this for a long time. The original plan was out here where this maintenance building was. was to put four racks of dry rack going up when we began having conversations with staff about how we were going to screen that we realized that that was not screenable without building a building and we felt that building the building was going to be a different sort of approval process even though in 2014 city council approved a 40 plus foot tall building on the point that has since expired but that was the last approval on the point so we came back in with single story, which is just 20 boats as opposed to 80, and we believe it's fully screened because, again, and this is a great picture coming from the Magnolia lots, there are other boats that block the view anyway. So here's where the princess sits. The dry rack, for the most part, is behind the princess. It's here. It's also here. You can see it's here, and it goes past the princess here. And so if we screened this to 16 feet or even 8 feet, It's still being blocked by the other boats that come through. This is a marina. And I think this is going to be a simple planning point that we're making here. It's a marina. When you look at a marina, you see boats. And so we believe that that is sufficient screening here at four feet. Because otherwise, what you're doing is we're going to create what looks like more obstruction. We're going to create a building-like structure out of fences. On the point, I don't think that that is in keeping with the sort of historical nature of the marina, and again, other boats are intervening in the way. The actual rack pieces are being screened, so all you're seeing is boats, because again, we have no requirement to screen, for example, the boat lifts. We have boat lifts out in the marina, we have boats out in the marina, and there's no requirement to screen these things. So the question and the reason why there's some discretion here is the code, unfortunately, does not provide a standard for this. Dan and I went back and forth on this more times than a normal person would go back and forth on anything. And what was concluded in those back and forths is that there is not really a standard. It is a what does the planning board think. And so if there was a standard, we could come here and say we do or don't meet it and here's what you should do about that. But there's nothing at all. And so the question then becomes, well, when is it screened? And I would suggest it's screened once it's indistinguishable from the balance of the marina. And again, when you're looking at the marina from any distance, which I think Dan put some slides from other angles, you aren't seeing the racks, you're seeing the boats, and that's what you see from everywhere else. And then also from a wind load standpoint, putting a 16-foot tall fence on this point seems like something that is Not positive for the surrounding neighbors. I mean obviously we're gonna have to meet the the building code on the fence but I just I don't think that that's in keeping with the the historical nature of the marina and again I'll go back to these These shots to confirm that there really was no such screening and I do want to take one more moment on this picture Please note the right-of-way buffer There is not one so there's no right-of-way buffer here there's no landscape buffer here here's the old restaurant there's no dumpster i don't even know where the dumpster is and so this is this isn't a iterative process over 60 years it is something that slowly is getting better and i think at the same time the island is growing and the marina is growing and so we just appreciate your consideration that we have worked very hard with staff on this and i want to close by going back to that back and forth that got us to today We appreciate the feedback that there was concern about the advertising of some of the boats and that the parking was not addressed correctly. We consider this to be a very important renovation to the marina and to the island. And so we wanted to and agreed to go to the reconsideration. In that reconsideration process, we basically did three resubmittals in the span of 50 days. To put that in perspective, normal site plan resubmittals take like, three of them would have been nine months. And so it was a lot of work, and we tried very hard to address all the specific considerations. But keeping in mind, your staff had reviewed these things already at that point when we went back for reconsideration for one year and about 10 months. We're now sitting at two years and a couple days. So there's been a lot of review on this. We've benefited from that process because I think we've got a better product here today. You'll notice, for example, there are utility conditions. in this approval that were not in your last approval, we didn't change anything about the utility side of this. So staff has found additional things. We've agreed to those additional things. I think this is a better product all the way around at the current approval level. And I want to emphasize that the standard, the legal standard here, is the planning board sitting at the local planning agency is reviewing this. And it is not a standard that the general public must be fully conversant in everything in this application. But I say that in the sense that we have not tried to keep documents. We filed all these documents. And I'll just suggest this, and it's not super pertinent to this application, but in other jurisdictions, like Collier County, they have a portal. Everything that gets uploaded can be downloaded by anybody at all times. If that portal was present here, everyone could have downloaded most of these documents on June 1st. as opposed to waiting for the agenda packet to drop. And so there are other ways to do this, and I don't think that the reaction of we need to kick it further, I think the reaction should be how do we improve our internal IT system to make sure that these documents are available, because we uploaded them, and they were available. And so we want to be a part of this process. We want to answer any questions you have, and we're very proud of having worked through all of this at a pretty aggressive timeline. So if you could let me know, I'm more than happy to answer the questions, and then I'm sure a lot of them.

Sure. Thank you, Zach. Very thorough. I do have quite a few. Let's start with talking about your feelings about the mica conditions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but was it your statement, and I believe it's my memory, that we've seen that condition or similar conditions phrased in the same way on other staff report recommendations? Absolutely. So your objection is because of MICA's action that they've taken essentially?

Yes, I've never seen Micah formally take a position on what that means. I don't know if you all received the letter. I received the letter. Mr. Tolstice received the letter, and it was asked to be included in the record. So I just assumed you had seen it, but if you haven't seen it.

I don't think it's in the record because I don't remember seeing it.

I mean, it may be in the record. I don't know if it was necessarily provided to the board members. No.

It was sent by Micah yesterday.

But what I can tell you is, and I have a copy of our office's memo from 2021, where the city is not... is not bound to enforce MICA's restrictions. It's not relevant to this proceeding. We simply provide that in our resolutions to let the applicant know that they have a separate entity out there that is entitled to review certain things related to certain projects. But the city is not a party to those restrictions. We don't enforce them. We just, as a courtesy, provide that in the resolutions to let them know.

Which I guess would be my point, which would be, I understand MICA has made whatever intervention they've made. Again, I don't think anyone on this board has seen it. So it's a little bit difficult for us to make an informed decision on. But my instinct would be, just because they've said something shouldn't justify the alteration of a verbiage that we've used time and time again for site development plan conditions. That would just be where my head's at on this.

Yeah, and I'm just putting it on the record because I wanted at a minimum this discussion to confirm that that's what that condition means. Because when you do eventually read their letter, and if you read the letter, the email that they sent to me where they stated that they are interested in enforcing their deed restrictions but also the land development code, which I don't believe is within their purview. I understand. I wanted to make sure it was clear that this was not providing an avenue for MICA to then say, okay, we are going to help enforce number nine, and so you need to talk to us about these ten operational concerns that we sent you.

My own read would be it doesn't convey that.

I agree with that. I just wanted to put it on the record.

Yeah, that's my opinion. Okay, parking. on the second to last page of the parking study we have the rosemarina proposed wet slip usage and passenger counts table um which i appreciate you putting together i guess my question would be how first question would be how did we arrive at those passenger counts for each vessel on that chart

So the answer here is we have been in the process of going back through every single lease and license agreement we have, and we put this into the conditions. We are hard coding these in our leasing and license documents. And I want to address this because this is in some of the public comment, and I'm sure we're going to hear about this. This is what we're saying that we're going to live with and enforce. So if any boat on this list is advertising more than these passengers, after this approval, every single boat on this list will be getting a copy of this and being told this is what we're going to do at the next license renewal or immediately if they're agreeable to do it. and so and i want to help frame that time frame this site plan is a prospective redevelopment if you approve this today the restaurant is not there tomorrow the extra parking is not there tomorrow it's there's going to be a development period in which we actually build all this stuff in that period where almost every single lease and license because most of these are not very long in duration will come up we're committing to putting the parking number that is here in those leases but the other thing we're committing to which we didn't do last time and i think this is important and I think it will really help the record-keeping here is we're requiring all of our licensees and lessees to bring us the certificate of land use and zoning authority back from the city with this number confirmed before the lease is effective so that way the because what happened here and this is just one of those things where things in an old marina things happen There was a huge period of time when the city was not really following its CLU process, and Dan has spoken about this at length. In fact, one of the main things I would say Dan has spent a huge amount of time doing is cleaning up all the CLUs and making sure that everybody has one. Instead of waiting until it breaks, we're going to propose a maintenance mode where we are requiring all these boats to follow this. So how do we arrive at this? In conversations with the boats and what they could live with. And so that's what we went with. Okay. Helpful.

Could I interrupt right there? Yeah. Just because I had something in the same vein. So I spent a handful of hours... searching the old interweb for uh... parking information relative to some of these vessels and i don't need to get into the weeds on it but there are some discrepancies and so to your point where you're gonna bring these all your tenants into compliance this could be a conversation to have before we make a motion but would there be any uh... opposition on the applicant's part if one of the conditions, if a condition was added such that prior to any COs that all of your tenants would be in compliance with those parking counts? And the only reason I ask that question is because you just said as leases renew, as CLUs renew, as things like that, and so I wonder what that looks like. Could that be three months from now? Could that be nine months from now? Could it be ten years from now? And I think for the benefit of everybody up here, at least for me, it would be nice if that was a little more definitive.

We're comfortable with that. Let me go back to the conditions.

And I don't know if the seal of the restaurant would be the appropriate time. I don't know if...

Yeah, I mean, one of my questions was going to be what is the longest duration?

Yeah, our assumption here is CEO of the restaurant. The site would need to be in compliance there. I will note, so these are the conditions here from staff. We volunteered a condition that's not on here that would make this more clear. So we're obviously agreeing to this. If we could switch to the overhead here. Number six. So we can add a basically end of like a time frame on six, which is to say by the CEO of the restaurant, six has to be completed. And what six is, it's requiring us to go back through all of our leases and licenses and get CLUs for every single boat to match our existing parking matrix. I think that's a reasonable request. I think it makes sense and I also want to point out here what has made this application very tricky for us and for staff is you have very few uses where this is how you count parking and what I mean by that is the office use is based on square footage so when my law firm hires three more people nothing changes to our parking when one of our vessels brings three more people the entire parking matrix breaks and So it's a very interesting way to park something, because if I have a law firm with 10 employees and Brad has a law firm with 20 employees and we have the same size office, we have the same parking requirement. So it's a little bit tricky trying to work through this, and I think that's part of what's taken so long on this. But we're more than happy to commit on six. First of all, two six. Six should be in the approval, and so should five. These are both conditions requested by staff that we agreed to. And... And adding that end of the line cap, which is by CEO of the restaurant, all boats at the marina that have a parking requirement, so charter boats, need to have a CLE that is consistent with this document. And that gives us time to do this, and it's going to take some time to build the restaurant.

And just for the record, the document that he's referring to is the cover letter item in the agenda materials. So we can transpose, depending on what happens, we can transpose those into the resolution.

Thank you. Thank you. So follow-up, Zach. Relatedly, the Hemingway Shuttle, for example, says on their website right now it's 34 passengers is what it is. In the parking, the wet slip table, we have 30. So they would be required to put on their commercial land use certificate 30. And how would you practically enforce that? How do you ensure that the vessels are adhering to those limits?

What we can do is we can regulate what they put on their marketing material. We can regulate and enforce the lease. But if the city is asking us to put a counter at every single boat, I don't know that we can operationally handle that.

Would you be willing, I don't know if we can even do this, but even like a sworn affidavit that you've reviewed the marketing material for every advertised vessel each year to ensure consistency with the commercial land use certificates?

I have to talk to my client, but I'm going to advise no on that. I think that's a hard thing to monitor. I mean, we can talk about that. But what I'm getting at is, because I was struggling to find another use that's like this, and so that obligation would be forever into the future, that we are going through every single boat, and someone's signing an affidavit, and someone's delivering it to Dan, and Dan's going and checking the affidavit against the website. totally impossible. I don't see that kind of regulation going on any other kind of site, so I'm just trying to not overburden the regulatory piece of this.

Well, this is unique, and we've had unique issues that have been found here, which kind of leads me to the next line of thinking here, which is you've indicated that the All the vessels here are going to have to come to the level that is listed on this sheet. And I'm looking for, is the Princess on this? It's down at the bottom. It's down at the, why am I not seeing it? Oh, it's underneath there. So let's talk about the Princess. The parking that you have would be sufficient for 100 seats, correct? Correct. That you provided. What does the operational data that you have suggest the average seat count is? And to the best you can answer this, on how many occasions has that ever exceeded 100 passengers?

Dan High, general manager of Rosemarina. The average that we've seen in the past is around 75. Your question is how often does it go above 100? I don't have that number, but the average is around 75.

So one of the things... if I'm understanding it correctly, is because of the bussing arrangement we're being asked to contemplate, that would enable the parking, or excuse me, the passenger capacity for the Princess to exceed the 100-person limit.

Correct.

So right off the bat, we're being asked to consider an arrangement that would allow the vessel to exceed what would be on their commercial land use certificate. Is that a correct statement?

No, because on the commercial land use certificate, if this were approved, we would address that in the commercial land use certificate.

What would the commercial land use certificate say?

It would say that they have the ability to park 100 passengers, which is true. We're going to give them 50 parking spaces. And then that they may use buses to augment that number.

Okay. And we don't know how frequently that happens.

We do not, but what we know is that we are putting the bus limitation on here to prevent all the boats from doing this at the same time is the point.

Okay.

So the Princess is a good example because the Princess is probably one of the only large boats that's operational year-round at the marina. And just to kind of put this a little bit differently, the Key West Express – hold on, let me find it on this chart –

The Key West Express would have a similar issue.

So the Key West Express is something like 60 parking spaces. And so for most of the year, there are 60 parking spaces that are not used from a demand standpoint by any boat. So things kind of modulate in that respect. But as to the CLU, it would say parked passengers 100. And then there would be the ability to do the hybrid increase. And this is something that the Princess requested specifically to deal with this, because this is something operationally that they already do in some form or fashion. And so we're trying to figure out, well, how do we acknowledge that and put the right guardrails on it to make sure that the ACL doesn't show up and the Princess brings a bus and somebody else brings a bus, and the answer is we're limiting the total number of buses.

Right. And I guess that was... The reason I bring it up is because of the letter from the operator of the marina that we all received. And my understanding was you were trying to accommodate this through this arrangement, which is through, Dan, if I'm not mistaken, the pathway that you articulated, the sort of the planning board can consider alternative ways to meet the parking requirements.

That's correct.

I'll just say it would have been helpful to have, and it was under my impression you guys had the actual operational data. It would have been helpful to have that today because it was referenced in your April 21st letter. It would have been helpful to know how many instances were over 100. Putting that aside,

But if I may, on the Princess. As to that boat, we do get operational reports from that boat, so that one is a lot easier to enforce the cap on. For example, the jet skis. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the jet skis don't file something with the marina that says, today we took out six people. The Princess, however, does do this. And so we have an ability to track the Princess on a level that is not the same with some of the smaller charter fishing boats.

Understood. It was earlier mentioned that you gave the example of FWC having a boat stored there, and I think we also received a letter regarding potential other emergency response vessels. Obviously, for the reasons that were articulated, those aren't reflected. Their passenger counts aren't reflected because they're formulaically counted differently. Where are they? Are they in the wet slip non-charter category?

That's correct. It's these 26 slips.

They are reflected. We're still seeing the letter.

Sorry.

It would be in the second data table, very first row I'm assuming. If you're looking at that.

Here and here it's wet slip non-charter.

That's what I thought. I just wanted to confirm that. Okay, you mentioned something a moment ago about the buses, the cap on the buses being a constraint effectively on the number of those large quantity of over 100 foot vessels converging at once. My question to you is, is there a scenario in which you could have all four vessels, thinking about the two over 100 in Factory Bay, the two over 100 that you're capping in Magnolia, on site at one time?

All four vessels on site at one time, yes.

OK.

But that does not mean they're all using the buses.

Right.

So in fact, right now, operationally, the American Patriot probably will never do this. That's not a boat that's tooled to use that at all. The Princess has expressed an interest in doing this. But the point of that bus limitation is so that when the ACL boat always uses them. So when the ACL boat is there, which is more of a seasonal concept, then the Princess is going to have a harder time using that feature because we can't break the bus limitation.

Who is hiring these buses, the operators of those vessels?

So for the American Cruise Lines, it's the operator. They own the buses and they send them themselves. For the Princess, what it sounds like he's doing is he's accommodating groups of people who are chartering their own buses. So if there's a wedding party at the Marriott and they get a bus and they bring it to Rosmarina, that's how it would –

Are we setting up a potential enforcement conundrum where the person who's hiring a bus for their wedding party didn't talk to the person at the American Cruise Line and we have multiple buses converging in excess of the captain?

So what Dan at the marina is doing is all of these, and this is going to be in their license agreements, they have to get permission to use a bus on a particular time frame. And so they're not going to be able to do that. And I think this is very easy to enforce. If there are more than three buses on this site, it's a violation of the site plan. That's easily documented by a photograph.

I want to talk about the Bend site for a few minutes. Obviously I think a lot of – I'll speak for myself and the people I saw comments from and I think you – we all have concerns over the 16-foot possibility of a screening going there that is of that length for if no other reasons than safety reasons, not to mention it would be an eyesore. I am struggling with the fact that the – Practical implication of what screening means is somewhat vague based on our code requirements. And I think your argument, and correct me if I'm wrong, is whether or not it can be distinguished in a meaningful way from the other components of the marina. And you're saying with the proposed four-foot fence, it meets the screening requirement. But staff is telling us, if I'm not mistaken, it does not. It is staff's impression that the four-foot fence does not meet the screening requirements for the conditional use permit, correct?

I think the reason is the consistency with the comp plan when it's talking about compatibility with the neighbors. That's a residential, single-family residential, and that's the area in question that I had concerns with. If you look on the Angler's Cove side, that's an eight-foot fence. That was put in eight foot during 2014.

Well, and that was going to be my follow-up. Do you have any – I know Dan showed his AI rendering of an eight-foot fence with some palms. Do you have any reaction to that?

Our reaction here – and I guess I'll say two things. One is that we believe that the four-foot fence is sufficient because, again, the compatibility judgment here is this is a marina. You can see the boats. You can always see the boats. If we didn't put anything out here on the point, you're still going to see boats. And then I'm going to take this one step further because my point is not that – You just can't distinguish it from the rest of the marina My point is land development regulations have to be specific and when land development regulations are not specific They have to be interpreted in the light most favor of the property owner. And so I don't see how you can look at this picture and look at the historical reality that there have always been, in fact, right now, that there are boats out on the point, and that this has never been called into question, and then say that we need to screen what exactly? Because we are screening the racks. The racks are being screened. What's not being screened is the boats. And to go back to that number, 8, 16, whatever, we don't know exactly how tall all of these boats are, right? If the boats had removable tops, we could screen them at 6 feet. But most boats now don't have movable tops. They have fixed center console pieces, and we can't screen them. What if something changes in five years and it's different, right? The thing that we're installing is the rack. We're not installing the boat. And so we're not interested in putting in something taller than four here because we don't think it makes sense from a compatibility standpoint. But I understand staff's position, which is that... Screening from staff's position is it's 100% opacity. And again, I wish this had more standards in the code. Because again, when we look back at what's happening historically here, there was clearly no screening requirements in 1985.

Well, no screening in practice in 1985. Sure. I understand that and I understand your position is different from staff. Staff is giving us a recommendation. They're giving us a condition which you disagree with and which I understand why you disagree with it and I'm sure many people living on Magnolia Court wouldn't want to see a 16-foot fence of that height. I get it. My follow-up question to you would be simply put this way. And I'm not saying we would grant this, but wouldn't it make practically more sense for you to have come in here with a variance request for the screening requirements to us, rather than accommodating them in this manner and us having a position that you're articulating that is entirely different than what staff's proposing we add as a condition?

Perhaps. I think there's a lot of different ways to skin the cat, but to address that, I might back up a little bit. We came in with a conditional use to put four-story rack on the point and concluded that that was not something that was going to be able to be addressed appropriately, so we made it smaller. We didn't file a new variance request at that time because we couldn't find screening standards. And it's hard to, again, be at this hearing without the benefit of all these correspondence between me and Dan going back and forth on this for quite some time about what are the standards. Because if we're going to bring a variance request, don't I need to articulate to you what the standard is? How do you judge what kind of reduction in screening I'm asking for if there is no articulated screening standard? So I'm not saying it's inappropriate to bring a variance forward, and maybe we could have brought a variance forward, but I don't think it can't be done this way either. by looking at whether the intent of the screening has been met or not, because there is no standard. If the standard said, and when you look at some more detailed codes in some cases, a lot of the landscaping codes in Collier, for example, have opacity percentages and distances and sight lines and these sort of things. It would be very easy to figure out, did we or did we not screen this? And then I think I would agree we'd need to do a variance if we were going that route.

And if I might, under our code, this is a required process, the conditional use for this marina outdoor storage.

Right.

So that's why that's here today, because it's specifically in the code.

No, I understand. But I guess I would ask you, Dan, if you were advising an applicant – would you suggest that they come in for a variance? In this instance, if they don't want to put up a 16 foot high fence?

Well, I gave them quite a few options on how to, lack of a better term, skin that cat. That was one of them. They chose this direction. So conditional use is required for the racks.

But it is staff's interpretation that this direction, without the second condition that you've attached, which is the 16-foot high fence, is not compatible with the screening requirements.

It's not consistent with the comprehensive plan. Let me put it that way.

Thank you. That's a problem, for me anyway.

Well, I guess I would ask, what is the policy that you're citing that it's not consistent with? Because I know you had to rephrase that to not consistent with the comprehensive plan. You can't say it's inconsistent with the standard because there is no standard. So for falling back on a consistency argument, What is the policy number in the comprehensive plan that this is not consistent with? Because what I'm going to suggest to you is whatever policy number is provided, it's not going to say something definite like this must be screened to this percentage. What it's going to say something is uses must be consistent with their neighbors and these sort of things. This English Cove is a C5 site. Angler's Cove, the building itself, is a, I assume, I'm going to assume legal, a legal non-conforming site. You can't put a multifamily building on a C5 site. So Angler's Cove is that. Magnolia Court is not legally non-conforming. That's residential single family, and that's coming from the other direction. But all of this is in the context of the existing development pattern that was in place since the 1960s. And so when we get into the comprehensive plan level of consistency, there's some pretty significant judgment calls that are being made. And so your staff can certainly opine that they believe this to be inconsistent. But if they're going to do that, I'm requesting a policy number so that we can at least understand what the text we're talking about before we just say, Dan said it's inconsistent, and so therefore we can't approve this.

I can give you the policy.

5.1.4?

Conditional use 1.1 policy, 1.1.4 of the housing element. The city will protect residential neighborhoods from encroachment and detrimental impacts of development by enforcing existing regulations that require buffering and compatibility measures between single-family areas and more intensive uses such as multi-family buildings and non-residential developments. That's the policy I cited in the resolution.

And in that policy, what I don't hear is, and how do we do this? And what are the judgment calls that are made to determine this? Because if I go back to this picture, this is the single-family lot that the marina owns. Looking at the marina, the princess blocks the entire thing. And so what is the thing that we're doing on an encroachment level that is causing issues here? And I'll go back to this picture. Every single house on Magnolia Court post-states the marina. And when the marina was initially built, there was significantly more, I don't know what to call this pile of boats over here, but there was just boats everywhere all over the place. And so I appreciate and agree. Encroachment typically means, and your comprehensive plan goes on to say this in much greater detail, if we were trying to rezone into existing areas, single-family neighborhoods that's typically what that has to do with the buffering requirements have been met and we're improving them from where they currently are so we're doing landscape buffering the question is is it sufficient to screen this year and so we're certainly going to disagree that it's a comp plan level inconsistency issue And the reason why, and I appreciate Dan reading that into the record, it's not something that you can look at this and say, oh, well, it's just cut and dry. It has to be screened that way at 16 feet. Because let's dig a little bit deeper here. Dan, why did you pick 16 feet?

Because your application says that the storage will maximize at 16 feet.

So over time, if there are 18-foot boats, they won't be screened. So this is all an art form here of trying to figure out how to impact this aesthetic view. And so our position is just quite simply, when you look at the aesthetic view as provided, what you see is boats. You see boat lifts, you see dock infrastructure, you see jet skis, you see... um all sorts of things like for example i'll note the angler's cove building is visible from these single-family homes it's not screened and it's not a single-family structure that's a large quite large structure and it's not screened and so we we have varying levels of that's not a conditional use structure is it sure sure but but if we're going back to that policy the policy was just talking about making sure that there's harmony between uses and english cove is sitting in a c5 district not a residential district And it is imposing. It's one of the taller structures in the area, and you can see it from the residential lots.

Understood.

All right. Could I pause you for one second? Jeff has been patiently waiting. Do you want to chime in, or do you want to keep waiting?

Yeah, actually, I did have – He made a few questions. I've got a couple questions. I'm sure we're going to have more, Zach. But just to hammer down on this fencing to myself, I have – not like the concept of the 16-foot fence since I first saw it. I think it's a horrible eyesore. The four-foot fence, and I took in the pictures, hides the clutter of the racks themselves. And you're right, boats comes in all sizes and shapes. Dan, a question I hadn't ever asked you. As a staff, we've received a lot of letters from the people in the neighborhood, some pretty good comments, and some pretty realistic comments. And we've had some public comments, but I have heard nothing and I've seen nothing about anyone addressing the staff in the city saying that seeing boats in the marina is going to be a horrible eyesore. I mean, we haven't had any complaints about the idea of these boats having four, six, eight, 16 feet. It hasn't been any complaints.

No, I have not had any complaints.

If you could go to your number five on your conditions for me, because I caught something I hadn't seen before. Which doesn't mean it wasn't there, I just didn't see it. Actually... Or was it a different... It was the other number five. I noticed...

It was your five and six, I think.

Yeah, I'm sorry, yeah.

If you could switch to the document viewer.

Well, what I caught when I noticed it is, there we go, staging slips, all right, where all the boats coming off the dry dock and everything else go in the staging slips. They're otherwise stored in dry storage or for non-commercial transcendent use. That, to me, means people that are coming from Tampa to Key West have come into the marina for a period of time. That's transplant use?

Yes.

Do you know how many of those at any given time are being used? Is it a big? I think it was a ballpark.

Dan, hi, General Manager. The average transient visitation in – is that what you're asking?

Yeah, that was my next question. You have a limitation. In other words, I can't stay there for six months if you're slick, or can I?

I mean, transients are typically two days. You know, at the longest, usually it's just overnight.

Okay. So the liveaboard question, obviously, you don't have anyone actually – live aboard, you know, living on their boat in a long-term basis. Correct. That's not something that you're... Right, we don't allow liveaboards. Not allowed. Correct. I just, when I saw that, it kind of raised my interest a little bit. Dan, while I got you, I look at that 1985 picture, and I go into the 1990s myself. Rose Marina, Mark Weiland Marina for that, had a lot of repair work A lot of mechanical work going on. All the spilt oil in the parking lot and the bottom paint and everything being done. I believe you guys have cut back quite a bit on the mechanical work, the repair work you do at the marina. I don't know if this is applicable. I apologize. But I haven't seen anything where with the stuff you've got going on, there's going to be an increase in any type of boat repair work or mechanical work there.

Well, the work has changed. So we're no longer working on pulling out inboard engines. We've stopped working on diesel engines. We've really shifted to just working on outboard engines. We also lost the shop in Hurricane Ian. That's the start of why we're all here. It's because this all started then. But um now we're able to do the repairs on service racks now, so there's no more oily taking the engine out of a boat and The environmental concerns that I used to see they're totally changed Thanks

So back to Hayden, but, you know, in your submerged land lease, in one of the several that I have, without liveaboards is a condition in the submerged land lease, and I think some of those were in that area, were they not? The transient slips?

I believe the answer is yes.

Yeah, I mean, just to put that on the record.

Yeah, so all of the slips here.

Can we go back to that? Yeah, we're stuck again. Yeah.

All the slips here are inside of the sovereign submerged land lease. The sovereign submerged land lease – and this is a typical condition on almost all sovereign submerged land leases – does not allow liveaboards. So ours is no exception.

All right. My final question for now is – and I appreciate you bearing with me, Zach. I know it's a lot. On the variances, I realize the variances did not change from where we were when we talked about this to now. But in contemplating them and discussing them further and in reviewing the variance section of our code, I realize that all of the variance requests you're asking for would still constitute an improvement over current conditions, and I'm perfectly willing to concede that, and an improvement over historically what's been at the site. My question to you is this. When we're evaluating all the criteria to meet a variance request, and we've got, you know, it could be hardship, it could be practical difficulty to the property owner, We're also looking at things like a measurable impact on aesthetics, public interest, et cetera. Could the argument be made that relative to the baseline of, for example, no perimeter plantings, yes, this is an improvement. But relative to the baseline of the code's requirements, it is not an advancement of aesthetics, so to speak, just sticking with the perimeter plantings. And I would add a follow up to that question. These variances are all, I think, designed to accommodate your site plan and the proposed new restaurant. If I were to put on the hat of the late Eric Bretnitz, who I respect dearly, he would perhaps say something along the lines of your business operation doesn't constitute a reason in and of itself for a variance request. And so I would just ask you to respond to both of those things.

Sure. Starting with the first one, which I believe was where are we measuring the baseline from? We have a current legal existing nonconforming status. So I would suggest we're measuring the baseline off of our current legally enforceable baseline status. So if we just take no action to do any redevelopment, we do not have to put a buffer on the north property line at all, period, no reason. And so if that's the measuring point there, I would suggest. And then as to the business operations, again, we're conforming to the existing site. And I'll start with this perimeter plantings. This perimeter plantings one has nothing to do with the restaurant. This is perimeter plantings for the ship store. and the existing buildings. And so this one is just dealing with a prior approved condition. In fact, if you go back and look at the application history, we filed these variances after consulting with staff and talking through code paths. The original filing did not have any variances because, and I'm not walking off this point, but I didn't feel it was necessary to take it to this level, but we have legal entitlements right now to these things. We don't meet the perimeter plantings right now, and we didn't touch the ship store. So we can leave that alone. The right-of-way buffer is 10 feet right now, and we're not moving the right-of-way buffer around, so we're legally entitled to keep that as well. And so the variance piece here was somewhat of a concession on our part to deal with the fact that the city could not explain why the 2014 site plan didn't seem to meet the code, even in 2014. But to answer the late Eric Brecknitz's question, we're not conforming it to business operations. We're conforming it to the reality of the site. The site has a massive hole in the middle of it because the property line is out here. And so if this was filled in, I don't need any of these variances. I can put a restaurant bigger than what we're building right here, I can park all the way around it, and I can do a 30-foot right-of-way buffer. And so what a variance truly is is for property that is strangely shaped, things that are not conforming and create practical difficulties in development, this parcel is very much in that camp. It is not a rectangle. It has got all kinds of strange things going on in the basin layout. And so we believe that it meets all of the conditions of the variance. And so to answer both of them, again, just for clarity, the baseline that we're arguing is our existing legal entitlements, which were pretty close to zero in some cases. And even if you don't like that answer and say, well, and by us filing this, we're admitting that we're stepping into the current code and saying, okay, well, hold on, we're coming down. Because a variance is always down from the current code, so every variance that you ever grant has to be that. Then the question becomes, why are we here? Why are we doing this? And the answer is because of the layout of the site itself and the way it can function. And so when we go back to things that improve and make things better, if we push the restaurant further west and at the same time bring the buffer in, we can just put all the parking across the street. Rosmarina owns, I'm going to back up and go one step further on this. There's a lot at right here. Rosemarino also owns this lot. So we could put parking here, or we could do above-grade parking garage here, and we could put no parking here and fully buffer this here and now push more people across the street into a parking garage. And so that is possible. A parking garage is able to be done here. It's within the height limit. It's within the code. However, that would be sort of a different look to the area and bring all kinds of new concerns to the table. Again, all of these things are piling up some different judgment calls, but I would suggest that what we're hanging our hat on here is that these parcels are not your typical commercial parcels for development for restaurants.

Thank you.

Anyone else have questions? Would you like to take a break?

I'm just saying before you go to comment next.

Well, we'll do public comment a little bit. But yeah, we can take a 10-minute recess if it's the pleasure of the board. Come back at 3.20? Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you, everyone. Does anyone else have questions for the applicant?

Yeah, chair.

Mike, go for it.

Zach, I think that we talked about a lot and everything you're doing and there's development going on and improving a land that, as you described, that's not perfect. You know, reading the transcript from the NIM and all the comments from the public, there's concerns about density and intensity. And I think maybe we should talk a little bit more about the perfect storm. Hayden started going down the path with all the parking and everything. The perfect storm is the Princess has a full house. American Cruise Line's in town. The Patriot's got a full house. Key West has got a full house. And there's a lot going on at the marina. How often do you think that will happen in the height of what's going on? Because I think the neighborhood, there's a concern there with what's going on with that.

Sure. I don't know as to how to answer it specifically, how often would it happen, but certainly it would happen in season, right? Again, the Key West Express does not operate until January. Day after Christmas. Yeah, January to April, end of December to about April. So what you're talking about is somewhere around maybe February. Yeah. In that world, and I think this is a helpful question, the Princess, if the ACL boat was there, then the Princess is most likely not going to be able to scale with the buses, so they're going to be at 100. If they're at 100, we have 50 parking spaces. That's what the code requires, so they're parked. The Key West Express has its 60-something parking spaces. That's what the code requires when they're parked. And even when they leave and come back, they're parked. The ACL doesn't bring cars in, and it doesn't park. And then the American Patriot, even though this is a large vessel, this really does not have a significant volume of people. In fact, I think the Hemingway might have more passengers than the Key West Express. The answer is the parking matrix and the bus limitation work together to try to keep the site manageable. And just for clarity, the parking matrix, the parking support documents, and the TIS assume everything is full stop, full tilt. So every time the TIS is looked at, any time the parking is looked at, it's assuming there's 200 people at the restaurant, there is 100 people out on the Princess, there are however many people out on the American Patriot so all of these the source documents for the site plan are assuming maximum capacity and so the answer that we would give is we're from the current site providing a significant number of additional parking spaces so some of the growing pains that are we're not growing pain some of the frustrations that are felt now are going to be addressed by this site plan and I'll also note that there are right-of-way improvements here that we haven't spent a lot of time talking about that will help significantly when it comes to the bald eagle corridor right now the turn lanes do not line up with what we're proposing and these turn lanes are going to do a lot for the north south through traffic which right now don't get the benefit of these alternative lanes to try to prevent what's happening out on bald eagle so the site is becoming more intense with the restaurant there's no reason to suggest it's not but it's coming with right-of-way efficiency improvements significantly more parking and all studies supporting this assume maximum capacity at that time even though the reality of the situation is probably nine months out of the year it is nothing like maximum capacity and there's movement there'll be movement too the princess will do dinner cruises so during the day

They're not always jamming the parking lot. The restaurant, the addition of the restaurant, I think there's concern from the neighborhood because that's going to just bring more, right? Sure. But I think it needs to be explained about the traffic flow and the buses is going to help. And reading that the Princess was also going to agree to bring, to lighten that load up a little bit.

Yes. And again, some of that was based on a review of, like I said, looking at what their actual takeout was. But the site as a whole adds every single parking space here is new in the bottom half here. So it's something like 50, 60 additional parking spaces. And then you have these turn lanes here, which are going to provide a significant number of flow-through ability. But the TIS and the parking study assume that every boat's here. Everybody's here. Everyone's at maximum capacity.

What is peak season for? Maybe the GM can explain. What's expected of the peak season for the neighborhood to know that it's going to be busy for these eight, 10 weeks, three months? What is it? What is it? Can you?

February 14th to the day after Easter. There you go.

There you go. As it's been for 60 years, probably. All over the island, we have that, right? Thanks, Chair.

Anyone else have questions? I know I keep looking at you. I figured you had questions.

Just one, if I could. Go for it. Thank you. Just, Zach, just to explain, because I think the public's going to ask it a little bit about, and maybe your engineer can help me. I'm struggling with staging slips, credits, parking credits for buses. Cruise ships, no parking requirements. So I think it would be beneficial, at least for me, if you could explain where in the code those credits exist. And if not, how are you going to get there? I guess that's really what I'm asking.

Sure. The staging slips are part of the dry rack storage. And so the dry rack storage is being parked one to five. And the staging slips are enabling the dry rack storage. So that is where that is in the code. Everything else, and I'm going to disagree a little bit with Dan's statement here because it's not what the code says. Section 488 doesn't say planning board makes a discretionary call. It says four things that are not addressed in the code directly. The city manager or designee, so the staff essentially, can based on review by a civil engineer and a parking study agree to other parking requirements and so what the state of this is from a legal standpoint is staff report has agreed with the parking study and so the these other things are not credits they are part of the parking analysis but to get into the parking matrix and just go one by one as to where these are Dry boat storage barn slips, that's in 488. That's the requirements 1 to 5. Outside racks is the same type of thing. It's 1 to 5. Wet slips non-charger, this is in the code 1 to 2, and that's based off of slips. And wet slips rental is in the code. So those first five lines are all by slip and in the code. Nothing interesting is happening here. Wet slips for charter passengers, Marco Princess dinner passengers, these are in the code. They're passenger-based, 1 to 3, 1 to 2. Nothing interesting is happening there. The first thing that's happening interesting is the debarkations with the bus excursions. This is not addressed in the code. Our analysis of this is that it generates no actual parking. So if it generates no actual parking, how would we even decide how many parking spaces to give it? So, for example, if we said, okay, well, there's 100 people on this boat, do we set aside 40 spaces that are never going to get used or do can we provide analysis which we did that that's not what's going to happen because it doesn't generate any parking and therefore under 488 we're asking for that to be not a credit but a alternative parking standard under 488 the the boat slip parking credit you see here this is in the code so the code and this is probably unnecessarily complicated in the code but what the code says is for every wet slip you have you get a square footage credit for upland marina uses and you get to against that credit not park upland marina uses We have so many wet slips that our number here is more than all of the upland uses we have. So when we look at this, we have 28,000 square feet of credits. We only have 17,000 square feet of upland stuff. Now the code doesn't let us bank those extra credits, it just writes those off. So the ship store, all these things here, are parked to code. And this is a credit, but it's a code-based credit that we have met. And in fact, we've exceeded it by 10,000, and we don't get that. The restaurant is not allowed to participate in that credit by code. It is parked to code one to four at 50. The restaurant slips and the transient is we're going back to the 488 analysis, but we're also going back to, and we talked about this at the first hearing and I put up on the screen, the Marco Allen Yacht Club approval and the prior Rosmarino approvals. These slips have been approved by staff before and by planning board, again, based on this theory that they are not actually generating cars in the parking lot. And so those are credits. These last things here are in almost every site plan you've ever reviewed, which is the pedestrian walkway, the recycling credit, and the bike rack and bench credit. They're frankly very, very tiny credits given the scope of this site plan. So if you don't want to give us the bike rack and bench credit of one, we are not going to fight that. So just to recap that answer in only the exceptions. Everything on here is in the code. What is not in the code is the debarkation vessels, the transient slips, and I believe that's it.

And the staff actually comes up with a solution for that. That's actually a staff call under our city code. The city code is a staff call. So we don't get into that in terms of the planning board. If it was in the code, the planning board would obviously have some jurisdiction over it.

And what happened at the last hearing was staff disagreed with one of these things, and we had a discussion about whether it should be disagreed with, and that was the transient slips. This time there has not been disagreement in there. But 488, if we can pull up 488, it's based on our engineer's analysis and it's reviewed by staff.

And you as a board do have a say. You just don't accept it because that's what staff says that they're willing to do. So you have a right to review that and make sure it makes sense with the impacts that are out there.

That goes to my next question. I'm trying to figure out what the rationale of staff is. for that. In other words, are they basing it solely on the, for example, the buses are going to come from Tampa and drop off and pick up? I mean, what's the conclusion? And I guess, Zach, just so the public knows, you know, what study are they basing that on? I'm sure this is not the first place where cruise ships have used buses to take passengers on and off or to, you know, to get ready to get on and off and those impacts.

I would suggest it's also not a little light on that for me yes this is uploaded into the agenda packet as part of the the parking study the it's also not the first place on the island that is using buses your hotels are using buses to do all sorts of things and they're just not as far as I'm aware specifically called out on their site plans and so that may be something that could be looked at at some point in time but if it's not because it's not called out there's this discretionary ability to do that but in the in the packet The site plan – sorry, the parking study includes analysis in here, and the requirements are that the – and this is an important distinction. This is not off-site parking. So it's not that the marina has contracted with a parking lot somewhere else and they're busing people. The bus has to be coming from a parked location, as in everyone at the hotel is parked because the hotel is parked. Or if they're coming from Naples or Tampa or Sarasota, they're parked wherever they are. They're not parked on island. Otherwise, we'd have to come to you and say we need an off-site parking agreement. So we're not scaling by having a parking lot somewhere else on the island. We're reacting to an existing reality in the market, which is that hotels, mostly, mostly hotels, like to have excursions. And they will bring people by bus. And we're accounting for that and showing you that we can handle that and that there are some limitations on this process. Because the reality is it's happening now. And it happens at other marinas.

I have a question. So these buses that are following these cruise ships from Tampa, are they coming empty, or are they coming with passengers to embark once these people are disembarking?

As to the American Cruise Lines, they come empty. So everyone gets on the boat in Tampa. The boat comes down. The buses leave and follow the bus because they actually, after Marco, it keeps going around, and the buses follow it. And so those buses are for that boat, and they move people around wherever they are. Dan, is that a correct statement? So there's no reload at the marina with other people. It is moving the people around that were on that boat.

So they have to start in Tampa. Yeah. They can't come to the marina and get on?

Not on the American Cruise Line, absolutely not.

OK. All right. One other question, if I could, Mr. Chairman. The traffic study, you know, one of my big points was the level of service and the traffic study. I know we've done it. Dan, have we completed that traffic study? Is that all done now and we've reported it to council? Is that all finished?

That was presented to them at the city council meeting.

Okay. And that traffic study, that LOS, that's what you've used with this application, Zach, I would assume?

I'm going to call out Mr. Trebell-Cockier who can answer this question. But just for clarity, you're referring to the study that was presented to council on Monday?

Well, we've been working on it since 2024. But yeah, they did some traffic counts, you know, for LOS. And I know that they reported it. And I just want to, just so, I know the question's coming probably from the public. In considering traffic to this site, this development, have you considered the new traffic numbers?

so um this traffic this traffic study made for the record please sorry thank you my name is norman trebilcock i'm a professional engineer certified planner professional traffic operations engineer with over 36 years of local experience i actually was the city of marco island's first public works director back in 1998 so i have familiarity with the city So we prepared our traffic study was based on following the city code and we used the city background traffic which was very dated and then we collected additional traffic data and actually used more current traffic data from the city. Our traffic study does not use the traffic data that was collected or rather given to the city this week, obviously, or else I would be sending that in and getting spanked for delaying things further. So, no, we did not. I did look at the numbers. One thing is the level of service analysis they did. They used generalized level of service tables. Those aren't the tables level of service that the city has adopted. They just provided some information, but it's not really. But I did, in looking at that, we don't trigger any failures in the segments, you know, adjacent to the project or anything like that. I did look at those numbers. They used two-way numbers. The city code is a one-way peak traffic. So, you're kind of comparing apples and oranges, but I did look at those numbers and some of the level of service data that they're using, I would just question, you know, and I think it's worth questioning, but to throw that out to say, hey, did you follow this? a it's not an adopted level of service study at all it really needs to be looked at because you look at the level of service say capacity of certain roads i would question you know showing kendall drive at a capacity level of say 1500 trips per hour two-way traffic yet a section of bald eagle only has a capacity of 865. it just doesn't we've got to really dig into it Analyze it and then adopt it at you as a planning board and not just you know, throw it out here Hey, did you follow this because I would say no, I didn't I'm not saying Did you look at it?

Yes, sir. Did you consider it?

Yes, sir I did did here in terms of the segments, you know, the bald eagle segments kind of an immediate next-door project I put our traffic on top of that our peak our traffic and we don't we're still within capacity and So, you know, we're in good shape as far as that goes. I did do that. But I think it's great that the city is adopting this and moving forward with this. I think it's a great effort. And I think, you know, I applaud you guys for really making it happen to catalyze it and staff as well. But I think it's something we've got to work through together.

um you know with everybody so the only point i was making is obviously it was only presented monday is that right dan did you say monday that's correct so there's no there's no way you could do a report dealing with that and i understand that and i appreciate you being frank about it yes sir but i did i did compare those numbers immediately adjacent and and there isn't a failure issue as far as that goes yes sir Oh, you have more? Just one. You said you only had one more? Oh, yeah. If you don't mind. The variance question that Hayden brought up about the fence, OK? And I just, again, this was your conversation with, is the variance, if you're going to put a fence up, what's the maximum height of a fence in that zone over there? Just out of curiosity. You probably know it.

Probably eight feet, if I had to guess.

Eight feet. Hayden made a good point. I think it was an excellent point. If you're going to do a 16-foot fence or a 10-foot fence, you need a variance for that, I would think. You would need to make an application for a variance to exceed the fence height, just from a procedural standpoint. I think it's an excellent point. So other than that, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your opportunity to let me speak. I yield back to you.

Just so... This is a conditional use process. You can go through that process. And what conditional use is mitigating things to allow for Heights, well, in my opinion, higher fences would be allowed because it's asking to screen things that are part of the conditional use. So you can go down that road. Variances, of course, are there, but really the conditional use, my recommendation is that if you're going to screen something that's 16 foot high, then it doesn't matter if it's a fence, it's a hedge, maybe you can do something smaller as long as you're mitigating the the impact with the neighborhoods, which is really what the policy and the comprehensive plan discusses. So there's two or three ways you can go down this road. If you feel that a four-foot fence is mitigating it, that's something the planning board can make a recommendation for approval. You saw my recommendation. And you saw the plan that I put forward to you that an 8-foot fence with some vegetation is pretty good. So that's just my recommendation.

I guess the question is if we do the 8-foot fence, is it a variance for the 8-foot fence or is it just the 8-foot fence? We're saying it can have approval.

I think we should be focused on the use. It's the requested use, the open rack storage. And if you want to oppose a condition, which would be the screening, What is that appropriate condition? And that's how it's set up in the code. So we're looking at the use. If you want to allow the use and you want to mitigate the impacts, how do you mitigate it? What fence, what kind of barrier, what might you want to put in there and what's reasonable?

Just looking at the code, the fence height limit in the C-5 district is 8 feet. I think what Hayden's point was, I'd just like to get clarity on this in case this wasn't his point. I thought what he was saying was you're getting a variance from the screening standards, not from the fence height. Yes, from the screening standards. There is some language in there about the director, however, authorizing additional height in certain circumstances. Our whole point on all of this is The conditional use is a vehicle that allows for the measurement of compatibility across uses. And so if the base use is a marina and the base thing that we can do is put boats on boat lifts, that's our argument. It doesn't need a variance to trigger that next step. I think it would need a variance if it said you must provide 100% opacity at this distance and all this. There's not even a question. but I would suggest that to require a fence over the eight feet creates additionally strange issues because in the c5 district that's not allowed and so not that the city can't do it it's is that what is expected in the district because if English Cove wants to build a fence it cannot be ten feet and so keeping it consistent when we're not agreeing to eight feet but I think that if you're going to do one of the two it's better than 16 feet And then as to the balance of this, we would reserve our final comments until after public comment.

Yeah, I did one quick thing, and I don't know if staff or Zach could help me here, but we've talked a lot about 488 in respect to the debarkation vessels. I'm looking at the code, a Munich code right here, Could someone point out the specific section that is dealing with and the language for the sort of alternative way to meet the parking requirements that the debarkation vessels engages upon?

I can do that.

So right in the introductory paragraph, it says, let's see here. The city manager or his designees may determine the minimum parking requirements for a use which is not specifically referenced below or for which an applicant has provided evidence that a specific use is of such a unique nature that the applicable minimum parking ratio listed in this code shall not be applied. In making such a determination, the city manager or his designees may require submission of parking generation studies, evidence of parking ratios applied by other counties and municipalities for the specific use, and other conditions and safeguards deemed to be appropriate to protect the public health, safety, and welfare. So that's the section that we're leaning upon. I will note that you need to amend your code to say city manager or her designees.

Ah. Gotcha. That's what I figured it was. But on the... So there's two pathways, right? There's the, whether it's a use that's not specifically referenced below or it's such a, it's a use of a unique nature. In this category, or in this instance, it's falling into the second category?

We're saying that it's, I think you can put it in either, but we're saying it's not listed below. Because when you get into the marina use, it's specifically addressing specific types of charter vessels, assuming that everyone's parking at the marina. And so our position is it's not listed below. and that allows the discretion to determine how to deal with it.

Really? I mean, but the marina use is listed below.

Absolutely, and then the marina use then goes through – because here's another way to look at this, and I don't think this is fair to the city, but another way to look at this is the marina use says – If it's not these two things, then it's one per two slips, in which case I guess we could provide 0.5 parking for the American Cruise Lines, which I feel like would be, and no bus limit. I don't think that's a fair reading of this, and so I don't think it's provided below. And I have seen in other examples where staff has looked at things like food trucks and said, this isn't provided below. We can deal with it.

Got it. Thank you. Jeff.

Yeah, Zach, I got a quick question for you. Sorry, bud. You don't want to sit down yet. No, no. And I apologize. This is not part of the actual variance in the SNF. But I think it's something that needs to be brought up. You mentioned the buses. We hear a lot of communications about these buses, people coming in on the ships, and this and that. Tuesday night, I was at a rotary function. And one of the other rotarians brought up the fact that he actually works at the museum on our island. And these buses do bring people down to the museum, which I've been part of the museum. I think that's a pretty cool thing. Do you guys know, have you done any research or any information And I've seen it in the social media stuff, the idea these buses are heading out of town, which is fine. I could care less. But is there any other places where these people are on foot from these ships or are being bussed around that benefits the businesses on our island?

They go to the Historical Society by bus. They go to Naples, and they go to the Everglades. They do walk down the sidewalk, and we don't know where they go. But they could be enjoying the snook. They could be going up to the borough, but generally in a walkable area. Thank you.

Can I ask you a few questions?

Oh, yes.

I'm going to triage my paperwork if that's okay, so I'm going to skip around a bit.

Go for it.

So the most current version of your submerged land lease in your position has language that permits the vessels that are there and that are contemplated to be there. Is that correct or incorrect?

That is correct. The current sovereign submerged land lease is dated –

sometime in 2019 or 2020, maybe?

No, it's dated 2026.

Oh, you have a newer one. Okay.

It's effective 2024, but the date of signing was 26. To really tie together this whole experience, DEP also had a very hard time reviewing all of this, and so this has been a two-year odyssey across all jurisdictions. And by that I mean what happened is we submitted the application, somebody quit, they forgot about our application, and then we emailed them and they said, wait, we didn't realize this was still pending, and so it took a year and a half to get the sovereign submerged land lease issued. But it has been issued. It's got a 2026 date. It specifically addresses, and it's not, the prior versions did not have this language, but in paragraph one on use of property, there's specific language regarding commercial vessels that was not prior present.

Okay. That'll be recorded at some point. It is recorded? Oh, I couldn't find it. I could only find up through like 2009, so. Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

I don't know if it's recorded in the public records yet, but it's in DEP's Oculus system, but it will be recorded.

Okay. So just a couple of things just to put on the record. So when I looked at the agenda and I compared a lot of the new stuff, the civil plans, 7-16-26, I mean, that was fairly close except the parking matrix and the big drill down. The landscape plans, other than like a date change, seemed like they were nearly identical. Correct or incorrect?

Yeah, both of those had the adjustments to deal with that dumpster piece that we talked about. But other than that, Chris? Parking and dumpster.

Yeah. Brad asked the question about the traffic information from Norm. I had some concerns about a bus catching fire in the boat building, and Chris Byrne told me that – That's a new building, so it's fully sprinkled. So I shouldn't concern myself with that. Good question. I'm going to mention this, even though it's probably wasting my breath. project up at the north end of the island that has not been built yet you know they they did something that I didn't love when they said oh yeah we've modified our layout to reflect lower seats yeah I mean you you modified your layout to reflect lower seats but you didn't change the size of the building and I guess you know that's operationally your decision if you want to spend more money to build a building that's on you I'm wasting my breath no I'm receiving your feedback so all right The variance, I think several people have opined on that as far as, you know, I looked around the island, right, and I tried to look for something. And like North Water Treatment Plant, South Water Treatment Plant, LCEC, like hardened type facilities, those are between 8 and 10 foot of fencing and screening. And so I felt like personally that, you know, eight-foot might be more appropriate. I think it might be more achievable, too. I don't know if asking you to do something at 16 foot is really going to be achievable, because you'd probably have to build an actual wall. I don't think it would be a fence, and I think that would perhaps look worse, but that's my opinion. I did look at the site yesterday, and I did like Dan's drawing, the AI drawing with the palm trees. I will say that I'm not entirely certain if that can be achieved or not. I know there is some storm water drainage, there are some utilities there, like where the fence is and the bunks and the boats and all that. I think it certainly would look nicer, so if there was a way for your team to get creative and add some landscaping there, it probably wouldn't be so bad.

I think on the fencing there we can potentially we can look it's gonna have to mostly be planter based based on the seawall so it's not totally impossible it's just I don't know that they can be very tall palm trees but we can one thing we can do with that is we can since this is the conditional use it's going to council we can look at that and propose something with some additional plants material for council

Yeah, and I did want to drill down on something else because it had been mentioned. I know I put you on the spot already via email, Dan, but I'm going to ask you and David again. You know, the whole notion of compatibility with the comp plan, right? And in the staff report, you sort of talk about the idea of 16-foot being consistent with the comp plan you have some members of the board suggesting possibly an eight-foot fence so i don't want us to be in a position where we recommend something that is not consistent with the comp plan do you want to speak to that i'd like to speak to that what that's talking about is the sixteen feet comes from the applicant

discussing having storage at 16 feet really what I'm looking at is compatibility what would be compatible for something that somebody in a neighboring district would not take offense which would screen whatever kind of uses it there I've brought up to the staff I said Looking at boats is one thing, but looking at boats that may be in disrepair over the course of time, and I've seen that. So those are the things. I don't look at what's happening now. I look 10 years from now. I want to make sure that that compatibility is there 10 years from now. So I thought eight foot with maybe some landscaping, and that's why I showed you that picture. I think that's a pretty good screen. I even went on to the Angler's Cove site, and That's an eight-foot fence, and I can't really see anything. If you're in the parking lot driving or just standing there, you can't really see inside that area where they store things and they do business and everything. So the compatibility portion, it doesn't mean it has to be 16 feet. It means you're somehow shielding what's happening over there. It's not offensive to me. That's the best way I can explain that.

And then I'll just say from a legal perspective, you know, you're looking at all the factors involved as far as whether or not it is compatible. The comp plan doesn't say it has to screen the entirety of the racks and the boat on top. It's like what is compatible. And so based on all facts and circumstances presented to you, this board may determine that 8-foot is compatible or 4-foot is compatible or 10-foot is compatible.

Well, that's what I want to confirm. I just wanted to confirm that if we decided to recommend something other than 16, are we not compatible with the comp plan?

I'll be honest with you. A 16-foot fence probably is not the most attractive-looking thing.

No, it would be a wall. I mean, there's no hurricane-approved 16-foot tall fence. It does not exist. So it would be a mess. Okay. Okay. A few people have touched on this, but I wanted to talk to you and possibly Dan about this. A couple of questions. One, have you thought about hours of operation for the restaurant? Is this breakfast, lunch, dinner? Is it lunch, dinner? Is it dinner five days a week, lunch, dinner two days, seven days a week, brunch on Sundays?

A restaurant partner hasn't been identified yet, so we don't know what the course would be on that.

Okay. Another thing that I think people have touched on, and I wonder if you would confirm this or not, I'm not going to go back into the detailed parking matrix, but my sense is from seeing the detailed matrix, how many of those vessels operate during daytime hours only as far as charter fishing, jet skis, things like that? And the reason I ask that question, obviously, is because how many of those people would not be there after 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock? Good question.

Can you pull up that next slide? We'll look at the detail of use. No, the spreadsheet.

The really well-done one with all the funny colors.

There you go.

I don't know if you want to go line by line.

Most are daytime operations. The Pirates of Marco has a sunset cruise. You know, they're back at the dock as soon as the sun goes down pretty much. But the vast majority are daytime operations.

Right. I mean, does Dolphin Explorer do sunset or do they just do dolphin during the day and all the six shooters and Miss Morgan and all the fishing boats? I mean, they're 730 to 330 out by 4 o'clock.

They're usually back by 4 or 5 depending on the, you know, this time of year they're back a little earlier.

And you have some of these boats that do do, like the Dreamlander perhaps does sunset charters or no?

No, they're just fishing, so they're all pretty much fishing during the day.

Marriott, the Blue Cat, the Red Cat, whatever they were somewhere?

Yeah, they're mostly, I don't even believe they're doing sunset, but maybe they do. I just don't recall seeing them. They're sailboats, yeah. They're sailboats. Usually they're back before it gets...

I'm trying to get a sense of... In season, in the evening, what is real world sort of peak

Occupancy peak busyness on on these sites that the marina is in control of Probably you know 8 a.m 12 p.m. As far as charters going out people getting on boats that that kind of thing Then in the eve in the evening, maybe the five o'clock hour is if that's what you're asking, you know boats coming back the restaurant I assume, you know being busy Maybe you could restate your question Well

Without being excellent at math at the moment, let's just say you've got five, six shooters, Miss Morgan, time for you, wild thing. I mean, let's say you've got 66 to 72 spots for some of these boats that are daytime only. And you don't have to say that's absolutely correct, but if we're just looking at numbers and guessing, right, if you've got 72 spots that will not be there at night that would be used for restaurant or other uses, that's where I'm going. And is that general sense of your business operations an accurate assessment? I don't know if that question is phrased any better. I don't think anyone's taking wave runners out at night, are they?

No.

Right? So they're not going out in fishing charters at night, are they? They're not going shelling at night, are they? And if there's changes that are going to be contemplated, you have to modify the parking matrix. You have to get new CLUs.

The parking matrix has to be updated every single time one of these changes. What I'm hearing from Dan is that a lot of these are daytime operators, and the intent of your question is, is the restaurant going to get beyond its required parking of 50? Is it actually going to have the availability of using more parking spaces because these won't be using the spaces once they come back in? Is that the intent of the question?

I don't know if I'm asking if they have more available to them. My concern and other people's concern is that you will exceed the parking that you have in the matrix. There are going to be stresses on your property, stresses on the neighborhood. And I'm trying to ask the question, if perhaps some of these uses are not used at night, to some degree, is it less stressful? And I'm not saying it's not going to be stressful by virtue of adding a restaurant. You're talking about adding a restaurant with 200 seats. You're adding a use, you're adding intensity, you're adding parking. But my question is, if there are people using the parking lot during the day, there are uses that may not be used in the evening.

Yeah, that's correct. I mean, there's different time frames here. The charter boats go out earlier. They come back. The jet skis do not go out at night. The big night ones, I guess you could say, are the sunset cruises. But even the sunset cruises, like the Princess, are not out at 9, right? They're all coming back into the marina well before then.

Well, who eats dinner at 9 o'clock at Marco?

Look, I need to check my perspective there. I apologize. There is a time variation here in the dock activity, I guess you could say. The dock itself is primarily a daytime concept, but what I would also say is Certainly as to the restaurant and as to the charter boats, this is – the code requires this parking and we're meeting it. And so it's all being parked without parking variances.

So it's not something that – I'm asking a question for sort of just putting a different perspective out of the – No, I understand that.

It's like beyond the code, is there going to be this situation where there's just not enough parking spaces to deal with all of this?

Or is it perhaps not as over-parked as – some people might be worried about. I don't go out in season. And I know other people don't.

I think all we can say with any certainty is that a lot of the charters are daylight oriented just based on their operational patterns which would create some relief in the evening times. But I don't want to suggest that there is this massive shift happening in season. I want to suggest that we've met the requirements, and we are trying to park this in a responsible way, in part because Rosemarina is not a spec developer. They're the operator. They know what they need to operate this marina. And so some of these things we have to keep in mind don't always hit these passenger counts.

Well, they are a spec developer in the sense that you said they hadn't identified a partner to operate the restaurant.

Fair enough. Fair enough. But the restaurant is fully parked.

Fair enough. So a question. In one of these conditions, we're talking about this language number five, where it's no more than two commercial vessels over 100 feet or over 100 passengers. And so 100 passengers, is that defined by operational data? Is it defined by Coast Guard data? What is that?

It's defined by this parking matrix here. So the Princess is 100. So it counts as one of those boats.

And Key West Express is 100. 195. Even if it seats 195.

And even if, and by the way, even so like the Princess, Princess is 100, Key West is 195. If they went out with 50 people, it doesn't matter. There's still a, it's what we're attributing them on this list. Now the Key West Express triggers it differently because it's over 100 feet in length.

Okay. uh... your proposed uh... street improvements and i'd hope to get more information on this but i'll rely on you guys and and the staff that's here so because you have a modified bus layout right we didn't have this at the last hearing or prior we have a bus that's going to turn into like the boat barn and drive through and all that by virtue of that I guess I would have two questions. One, does the proposed improvements, do those need to be modified to account for the bus turning into the further south entrance to the marina? That would be one question. And the second question would be, have you thought about any potential impacts to that entrance exit area at Anglers Cove?

now that the bus is will be turning into that boat barn area do you need to change the design of the street improvements at all by virtue of having this bus plan one moment i can answer that question we had the public works director um review this i literally talked to him today there is no changes in the improvements that has already been reviewed and and brought forward switch to the document camera

This is what they call an auto turn exhibit. What it does is it simulates the bus entering and leaving the site. And the red marks show the tire tracks and tracing. The green that's outside is the overhang that comes out. And what you'll see is there is more than adequate space on that driveway vehicles to come in and out and it does meet all the codes it's located where it currently is located it's not there's no big change there and because the bus is just a an occasional use no additional turn lane would be warranted for that area because you don't need to have a turn off unless you have a stacking now further up where we've got the cars coming in we do have the stacking and the turn lane for that

So you didn't anticipate having frequent enough bus traffic to require any modifications? I mean, that's your position? And I think the position is – And the position of the city was the same?

Yeah, there's what's called a warrant analysis where it's determined whether there's sufficient stacking to justify needing the modification. And, again, as to these turn lanes, there's enough cars coming in – that that is required. So this is us on the turn lanes. I don't know that this, and we're not offering it as a condition because this is just required. We have to provide the turn lanes because we're generating a certain amount of traffic. The buses, it would have to be a significant volume of buses to create a traffic issue, enough to warrant a turn lane.

Okay. Well... Yeah. Yeah. You will be pleased to know that is the last question I have for the moment. So does anyone else on the board have any questions? All right. So I think we have three issues we need to vote on. We have public comment. So I think what I'd like to do, if it's OK with the board, does anyone want to entertain making a motion? We'll make a motion on the first item. We'll have citizen comment on that item. And then we'll do each subsequent item, read them into the record, make a motion, have citizen comment, if that's okay? All right. So does anybody feel like making a motion on the first item that we've read into the record, the site development plan? No one wants to make a motion, huh?

We can make a motion on the site development plan. First resolution as read, I would move for approval. Second.

And for the record, I think there are two additional conditions that we need to include from the cover letter. One is number five, which is the addition of the staging slip limitation. Staging slips may not be used for any purpose other than staging boats otherwise stored in dry storage or for noncommercial transient use. And then the other one is number six from the cover letter. Addition of requirements for marina commercial use agreements. Passenger limits must be included in all marina commercial use agreements. And all marina commercial use agreements must require the issuance of a CLUZC by the city as conditioned before use of the slip. All existing marina commercial use agreements shall be required to add these requirements at the time of the next renewal where the applicant has an ability to modify the terms I believe there was another comment regarding a CO, and that the CLUZs shall be obtained prior to the issuance of the CO for the restaurant.

For the restaurant, perhaps. We had talked about that. But that needs to be a consensus of the board, too. I mean, I guess just the motion maker and the secretary. That's right.

I was just asking that all those are included in the motion.

So I would adjust my motion as to council's recommendations. And I second.

And I just want to ask the applicant if he's in concurrence we are okay.

Thank you Does the motion include? The language for condition number nine as it's written or yes as it's written.

Oh, I thought we were going to consider adding The condition does not create any deed restrictions

I mean, from my perspective, it's satisfactory as written. I know Mr. Lombardo had asked for some additional language, but I think this language is consistent with what the city has done in the past, and I think it's pretty clear that we do not enforce or get involved at all with the MICA declaration. So from my perspective, it's sufficient. If you think there's something more needed, feel free.

I'm okay with council's recommendation. Me too.

Okay.

So we have a motion and a second. So why don't we do citizen comment on the STP item? So thank you everyone who has waited here to speak so patiently. I will just call your names in order. Dr. Blana.

Hello, Rich Belano, 1541 San Marco Road. First of all, I'd just like to thank you for your service. It's a very thankless job, and I appreciate it. I want to read something I wrote and then just speak from the heart a little bit. For over 50 years, the Rose Marina has been both a good neighbor and a treasured island resource. Managed by longtime island resident Dan High and a staff of over 35 employees, it is a valued employer. Rosemarine is home to two Marco Island icons, the Marco Island Princess and the Dolphin Explorer. And if you haven't gone out on either of those ships, please do. They really represent the essence and the heart of Rosemarina. In addition, it's the home to a well-maintained boat rental business and a charter fishing fleet. I'm not a fisherman, but I've tossed a few lines with some of those boats. It was also the home of Jack's Lookout, the iconic waterfront bar and restaurant where millionaires and peasants like me could rub elbows and share fishing tails over a cold beer. I really miss Jack's Lookout. I wish that Jack's was being in the plan instead of this 100-seat restaurant. Replacing the restaurant is long overdue, as is expanding the marina's boat storage capacity and parking. So I urge you to approve all three of the elements of Rose Marina's proposals. Just speaking from the heart, you know, it's funny. I always say if I'm going to get one more tattoo, it's going to be on this shoulder, and it's going to say the only constant in life is change. The one on this shoulder says live free or die. Really, you can't expect Rosemarina to just be static and remain the same way it was 30, 40, 50 years ago, actually, it's been here. The islands evolved, the demand for boat storage, the demand for recreational boat activities has increased. And in order for Rosemarina to remain viable and to be the valued employer that it is, It has to change. It has to upgrade. And I think this proposal, it's exactly what they're doing. They're saying we suffered significant damage in hurricanes. We want to now come into 2026 and be a viable employer and valued resource. So I urge you to pass and support all three elements in their proposal. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Ms. Fitch, and she's had time ceded to her by Ms. Yawitz. So we'll give you six minutes, and if you babble on a little longer, we'll try to be courteous.

I have one question, just because I'm just trying to make sure I'm on the right page. The variances are just for the Bald Eagle property towards Magnolia and for the street itself. That reconstruction, that's part of the SDP, correct? Or is that part of one of the variances? Or is that not part of anything?

The reconstruction of the street, I believe, is part of the SDP.

Okay. I just wanted to confirm that before I started.

Unless someone wants to correct me.

That's what I thought. I just wanted to confirm it because I have it in two ways. So Liz Fitch, Magnolia Court.

And I'm sorry, you've been sworn. We're supposed to ask everyone if they've been sworn, right?

Yes, I was sworn. This project represents an aggressive commercial overdevelopment immediately against a quiet residential boundary. It directly breaches the City of Marco Island's explicit mandate to protect and enhance the City of Marco Island as a highly livable community and preserve our small town charm and low density and intensity. I want to detail why the applicant's site plan, specifically its parking calculations, long-range charter boat operations, vendor compliance loopholes, and traffic management is fundamentally deficient and unsustainable for our surrounding neighborhood. this document is one I made up one one of the previous meetings that we had it just calculates out where we were in 2014 2022 2026 and current and it's hard to it's it's easy to read but it's hard to read because there's been so many inconsistencies along the way the princess went from 100 to 75 to 75 back to 100 the Key West Express from 185 I think they say it's 195 now but they advertise as I believe 277 so that's there but when you look at the when you look at that it actually shows an increase of 39% in required parking we went from 41 spaces to 335 over the course of time that's not in there correctly the new matrix shows 40 slips for 543 charter passengers consuming 181 parking spaces over 53 percent of the site's total capacity alone on top of this the applicant adds 200 new restaurant seats demanding 50 additional parking spaces their own traffic impact statement admits dropping From 220 to 200 seats reduces only one single trip. High turnover dining combined with charter departures will create severe demand surges, overflowing patrons directly onto Bald Eagle, Geraldo, Magnolia Court, and other residential swales. If this restaurant is in any capacity the same as the Snook, we are going to have 200 cars there around the clock from 5 o'clock on, not finding a place to park. the american patriot and american hunter run two to five day charters the american patriot routine leaves over 20 vehicles parked in the parking lot their allotment is 12 and they're there two three days they usually get in around six o'clock is when they leave they come back a few days later at eight in the morning but i've looked at that i've seen over 30 cars there at eight o'clock nine o'clock at night again same cars there at seven o'clock six o'clock in the morning So that's a serious issue because that's a lot of parking spaces. And it also would be the same for the Key West Express. That's my corridor. That's where I walk. So in height of season, I see people continuously coming across the street with luggage to go to Key West. They're not going for the day. They're going for a few days. So there's numerous cars parked in that lot over time. I know they don't know what that actual number is, but they're there. The Hemingway Express, which is another one that Hayden brought up in his just asking about the capacity, is this – oh, it's probably – This is a departure date in February, and they depart the Remarina three times a day and come back four. So you're looking at a... at least needing 34 parking spaces for them for that consistent because it's 1 to 3 so I don't know how you account for that because they go out like I said if this was shrunk in but they go out at 7.45, 9 o'clock, 11 o'clock, I don't know how to do that. Thank you. And then they return again. I mean, that's just another failed issue. The vendors have failed to supply true passenger limits. Proposed condition number six requires passenger caps and contracts, but includes a massive loophole exempting leases until the next renewal. The city is greenlighting expansion while blind to actual vendor counts. The matrix also a lot zero parking for captains and crew across 31 vessels at least 62 unaccounted vehicles I know they discussed their staff and all of that, but where do they park it's because they have credits they have to park somewhere You know, I know that you know, there's probably at least 30 employees There consistently or at least half of them and they don't drive together as for the buses I know that you guys have talked about it a little bit. I have seen upwards of four of the buses come through At one time so there are three is not going to hold well on that Then if we talk about bald eagle With the comprehensive Comprehensive plan which basically shows up until bar field is listed as a Collector so that's I mean you guys understand what all the how it's all looked at and all so You're you're proposing to put four lanes in the middle of a residential area basically everything around The marina is residential So that's that. That's the buffer. I mean, you guys are expected to change the traffic pattern. This one shows, this particular diagram shows a total of four lanes in both directions. going north and going south, the gentleman who owns the property on the corner of Geraldo and Bald Eagle, that area will be condensed as well. So the question really comes in with that is it's going to cause a lot of gridlock. I think there's just going to be too much there. But who's paying for this? Who's paying for the street? At one of the last meetings, the petitioner stated that the cost would be split with the city. So we, the residents, the taxpayers, we're the ones that are responsible for the cost of a local's business to desire to expand. know i just i'm not sure where to go with all of it um but i do just believe that the application relies on a lot of vendor debt you know unverified vendor data delayed compliance loopholes parking matrix that's completely out of sorts in the sense that nothing really matches up and the diagram that i put up before we know how inconsistent they were and i don't think that they've been able to give us any clear answers as to who as far as vendors, have how many and what they publish on their websites should be what they're allowed. The Princess at 149, we've rented the boat at 149 before. So it's just not – there's just too many inconsistencies in that I really just think that you guys need to deny all of the above.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Next speaker, Victoria Myers.

Victoria Myers, Blue Bonnet Court. Almost a good evening to you all. I'm here as a very concerned Resident and I'm gonna look at the big picture not these little nitpicky things. We're talking about here Let's start with the need for an accurate NIM. We had that discussion at the beginning of the meeting our council said Technically we've done it, but I would say and he says it's his advice you can do what you want that it's not been accurate the NIM mentioned no cruise ships and no buses and As a matter of fact, at the last planning board meeting, the chair tried to help this out and asked the question of the petitioner, will you please share your intent in regards to the cruise ship business? The petitioners spoke among themselves and chose not to answer that question. So today, we find out we can have four big boys out there all the time. So I would say that NIM was not accurate and should be redone. Moving on from that point, a lot of this meeting, we've been talking about moving recycle and trash bins around on the Titanic, but we're not talking about the Titanic. This is four large cruise ships. And the realization that we just heard that the submerged land lease wasn't signed until 2026, how have these commercial cruise ships been functioning before then? How is that possible? How have we allowed it? This marina has been an asset to our community. And it is expanding and growing, but not for the community, for cruise ships, for the commercial profits of the owners. And I recommend that we do not approve any of this. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Mr. Vilk?

Good afternoon, Greg Vilk, Magnolia Court. I want to first at least make a comment, because I don't want my comments to be taken really out of context. I did have the pleasure to meet Bill Rose once, and I know many people that have talked about Bill Rose to me for hours at a time. And Bill was a community man, and he was a good man. but I will almost guarantee he would have never overreached like this. So I do believe Rose Marine is a destination in Marco Island. It's a gem. But they're turning it into a conglomerate. It doesn't serve the community. It was designed to serve the community. It does not serve the community. It serves outsiders. So going into that, I'm going to just talk specifically on some of the notes because I was not even planning to come here today because I, for one, did not get the opportunity to look through the 180 some pages, not even verifying the priors. So I'm only going to go through what came across today. And I'm going to make one statement that I love seeing the boats too. And I would love seeing them more as they pass by and I wave as they come and go. but not with their engines running, not with hundreds of people unloading and rental cars and lift vehicles and taxi-type services coming to pick them up and congestion in our streets. And I have pictures for everything. So Mr. Hagan mentioned that the Matrix was designed based on the boat passenger, or let's call it capacity or passenger, Boats all have vessels have capacity and it includes a staff or obviously a captain so at a plus or minus The capacity or the passenger in a boat you have to recertify it. I Don't think any commercial vessel is Going to go to the state or the feds to recertify their boat To comply with what was promised here today To fit the matrix Every vessel, almost every vessel is either incomplete, incorrect, or not counted or improperly allocated. You could start with the Princess. I love the Princess. I would never want to see the Princess leave Marco Island. I've rented the Princess full boat multiple times over years. It's $149,000. I've paid for it. It's not 100. So they're not going to drop down to 100. They don't go out unless there's 90 typically. High season, they blow 90 off the charts every day. So as far as a vessel, the recertifications aren't going to happen. The cruise ships have been going on for the whole season, the whole high season. The buses, they come in over the bridge, two of them, and for each vessel coming in. They turn down Barfield. Now, Barfield was closed part of the year. But prior to that, when Barfield was being closed, they go down Barfield and they turn right on Bald Eagle and they go in. They make their loop, they leave, they wait, they come back. They run down Bald Eagle. I have pictures of the traffic with the buses. Those are 80,000-pound buses. that is the capacity of them they talked about buses like from the marriott those are 15 seat buses they're still buses the buses coming in are 80 000 pounds keep that in mind that's what's going through marco island through our traffic causing congestion the demand on our streets is unreal when it comes to the 2014 we're here today I believe from what Dan said we're here to fix everything that was messed up in 2014 so they first asked to have everything amended that was part of the first approvals well the approvals they got in 2014 was to build the boat storage building which they did Then they were required to do the parking across the street, which they didn't do. And then they were required to do a boat sales building on the third lot, the vacant grass lot on the corner of El Cam. They didn't do. They're selling boats still today, 20 years later. They're the only operator in Marco Island that can sell used boats off a parking lot. Jimmy Walker was required to build a dealership And that was required by Rosemarine when they got the approval in 2014. So today they're saying They're coming here today saying we're going to correct all that but they're asking for more variances. Let's try to turn this table back. Let's get Rosemarine back to being what it was designed for and let them to maximize their opportunity. You're being swindled on the two boats at 100 feet and two boats at 100 capacity. They're twisting the words. That is for each piece of land. The submerged land is a different use under the state, and their lot is a different use. So keep that in mind. It's more than two.

Thank you. Those are the speakers who have signed up to speak on the site development plan. We have one more. Ms. Foster.

Hi, everybody. Lisa Foster, Marco Island resident.

I'm with... I'm sorry. I forgot to ask before. Oh, I wasn't sworn. Were you sworn in? Nope. Nope.

Okay. Everybody else who spoke was sworn in, so...

If there's anybody who arrived late who might be speaking on this item or that we have the variance in conditional use, if you could stand at this time, raise your right hand and be sworn in. Be appreciated. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony to give you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth shall be God? Yes. Thank you very much. Okay.

I'm with the group of dissenters. I agree with just about everything that my friends have said. I'm also agreeing with Vic that a lot of these concessions that were granted by the petitioner today seem a lot like a Band-Aid on an amputation. I'm really haunted by this entire proposal and I keep hearing my friend Howard Reed say How did Miami get to be Miami? And it was one variance at a time. And a lot of the decisions that we're seeing be made may be good for Marco Island, but are they good for Marco Islanders? Just on the heels of the LOS, which we know we had Ds and Fs, we know zero about our capacity. We have nothing on our LOS for stormwater, potable water. Sewage, we haven't had it since 2012 unless I'm wrong. This traffic impact study was based on that 2012 data. I think you guys are flying blind. I was at that NIM in June and I feel I was misled by omission. There was no discussion of cruise ships or buses, and Joan made a good point about asking about embarkation and were people being brought to these boats, and I heard an answer from Mr. Lombardo that was, Not from ACL. So that tells me that there is a boat or boats that will be Embarking and we haven't been made privy to that I I'm a detractor of this entire plan. I see us turning into a cruise ship port and a transit station and these buses are not in keeping with the character of our island and what I would hope would be my forever home probably yours too. I hope you vote no. I hope you will decide to have them redo the NIM because there's a lot of citizens that would like to opine and would like to know what's coming because we're looking at becoming Key West as a real possibility. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak on the site development plan? Mr. Martini.

John Martini, Nassau Court. Thanks for having me freeze here all afternoon. It's been a long day. Good thing you start in the afternoon, not at night. I have one very simple, basic question to ask all of you on the dais, I think even the staff, and probably the Rosemarina people. And that is, if you go through with this project as it's being presented here this afternoon, The bottom line is, what is the actual benefit to the residents of Marco Island, to me, a taxpayer of Marco Island, and all the rest of the taxpayers on Marco Island? Mr. High inadvertently, I think, answered part of it when he said, well, when the cruise ships come, they load them up and get them out of here. But a few of them actually get on a bus and go to the Marco Island Historical Society, which is great. Except are you folks all aware of the fact that that's a Collier County museum? Has nothing to do with Marco Island other than it sits here? We're not getting any revenue from that. So again, ask yourselves as you wrestle with this whole project that's been going on forever, what is the benefit to Marco Island as a city and to we the residents and the taxpayers here? Just asking that and never mind all the rest of these nitpicking arguments. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right. Seeing no one, we'll close public comment for that portion.

I just want to respond to the one comment, because I didn't want my answer to seem like I was avoiding it. When I said as to the American Cruise Lines, because that's the only boat that is using that concept, the Princess, for example, is a cruise. So it does load at the marina, but we park it. So if it's loading at the marina, it needs to be parked. If it's not loading at the marina, like the American Cruise Line, then that's when the buses can be used. And then the exception is that Hybrid piece with the princess that they want to do the extra with the bus loading subject to the bus limitation so it's not it's not it was not meant to create this open-ended concept where Maybe a different boat would come in and we'd be bringing busing and people to get on this boat and shooting them off to Key West The that bus concept is specifically debarkation only in the in the actual condition So the marina can't later decide. Oh now we're doing embarkation and debarkation or a cruise terminal. That's not in the plan So I want to make that clear as to that response. I also want to just confirm for the record that when reviewing site plans and reviewing this from a code-based standpoint, the standard is not what is the public benefit of this to the island as a whole. The standard is what does the code require this property owner to do to meet the standards. But other than that, I have no comment on this. I'd appreciate your review and approval of this. This is a scaled-down request from where we started. It is taken into account, public feedback and consideration, and at the end of the day, it's a way to move forward with some of these landscaping and better buffering for the future of the island.

Zach, can I ask you some questions based on the public comment? Roadway improvements, it was mentioned previously, I thought you guys were assuming that. Am I incorrect?

Yeah. I think what we're talking about here is these turn lanes.

Hold on. We have you up. We don't have.

There are turn lanes in the middle of Bald Eagle Drive here. and then this whole roadway piece is being modified. That's the marina's expense. It's not that when a developer needs to improve capacity for their purposes, the city does not shoulder that burden.

By the way, we're putting up signage, let's go forward on... no parking in the swales for towing logistics. Who handles that? Is that at the marina's expense? Is that at the city's expense?

We offered to tow. We were told that the city preferred to do the towing. We are willing to do the towing, though, but because we do not own the right-of-way, we would have to be specifically authorized to do it. So when we submitted this, we said we will do it if you let us do it. but the city, and I'll let the staff respond, preferred to have the police department handle this. And so we're not expressing an opinion on that. If you want us to tow, we'll tow, but we have to be given express authority to do so.

I specifically had discussed this with the police chief. He wants our signs out there, and he wants to enforce.

Okay. Can I expand on that? I'm assuming this is like down at Landmark by – swallow no parking be handled the same fashion that's correct where and how far along bald eagle would these no parking signs extend i think i showed that in i apologize was that yesterday it was a long time

I mean, wasn't it the entirety of their property on both sides of Bald Eagle?

Yes, the entirety of their property along Bald Eagle. On both sides? Yeah, on both sides.

And their property goes all the way down to Magnolia?

Yes, yep, that whole section.

So anyone parking along there?

Absolutely. And just so you know, that was one of the – discussions we had with the whole parking study itself, that was a very big condition for them to say, for us to get that where no parking is going to be allowed in that swale. That was the area that I thought overspill, that's where the concerns were, and I thought that was taken care of. Yeah, good for you. Thank you.

Zach, it was mentioned about the TIS being based on the last 2012 count. You guys did do some counting, as you mentioned, right? There were actual traffickers.

Yes, sir. For the record, Norm Trubelcock. Exactly. We did follow your standard, but we supplemented that with accounts that were collected in 2023 and 2025 in peak season in February. Thank you.

Is it accurate, not a traffic question, sorry, American Hunter, American Patriot, are those overnight vessels?

Yes.

They are. Okay. So you could have folks – those spots could be taken up for days?

Yes, that's hypothetically possible.

Okay. It was mentioned about captain and crew. How are the – I'm sure this is dealt with or contemplated in some way, but how is that dealt with?

It's contemplated in the parking numbers, right? So, for example, if we look at a restaurant, what's not in the restaurant one to four? The cookstaff. You have a lot of this in your code where you aren't specifically parking employees. You're just relying on your numbers. I agree with a lot of those statements about the parking lineup, but this is what your code does. Your code is averaging. Your code isn't saying, We're going to park everybody that shows up today. The code is saying, based off of whatever studies supported the adoption of your code in, like, the 60s, or, like, Collier at the time, and then as it has evolved, was averages. And so it's not parking as to every single boat, every single thing. Apparently it's decided the way it's going to park it is based off a passenger count. And so similarly in the hotel space or the restaurant space or the office space, you don't see callouts. Or like the retail space, you don't see callouts for the shopkeep versus the customer. You just see square footage. So it's – the parking code doesn't capture this. The parking code is averaging across everything.

It was also mentioned – One of the public commenters testified that they have observed currently as many as four buses at a single time on the property. Do you guys have operational data or any information on how many buses may have been on the property at one time? And if it was over three, would – are you then essentially self-committing to constrain that going forward? MR. Yes.

It would be a violation if there were four buses on this site. That's why we offered the bus. We assumed that if we came here and said we're going to do buses and we're just going to do buses, there would be a massive concern about how we were going to regulate that and whether we just shifted all the boats to this model. And I think that would be a major concern. So we're volunteering the three because we felt that that was an appropriate number given the site and what it can handle. And it's very easy to monitor. There are three buses or there are not three buses.

Have we monitored in the past whether or not there's been more than three?

I'd have to consult with Dan. I don't know the answer to that.

MR.

Okay. MR. We built the three off of the – primarily the needs of the American Cruise Line.

MR. Okay. The only reason I ask is I could see if there has been more than three, and operators have been used to that, the constraint creating issues since we're not reducing the intensity of uses on the site. It's only being increased if you consider the restaurants and some of these others. Last question I have is, I want to go back just for a minute to the construction of the, and if this is the very last thing, the second to last thing on the parking study that Rosmarina proposed wet slip usage in passenger counts. It was testified to earlier that you all arrived at these passenger counts based on best available information, whether that's conversations with the operators or what's in the lease. But take something like the Hemingway Shuttle, for example, where it's very clearly advertised as to a different passenger limit on their website in terms of what they can take. How would that have gone in conversation? Like how would that not have been caught and been reflected here?

No, I'm not saying it wasn't caught. What I'm saying is they currently don't have leases that have numbers on them. So we have to deal with our current reality, which is that we don't have license agreements and leases that have passenger counts on them. So I can't go to the Hemingway and say you've got to take off those four spaces until we go through this process, which is we're going to update all these leases and license agreements and force them to do that. So right now, they're holding an entitlement to use this property that does not come with a passenger count. And this is, I think, the major thing that has been observed in this reconsideration process is that's what we have to fix. And so when we're talking about this, it was referred to as a loophole. It's not a loophole. We have to renegotiate all these documents in the same way we have to build this restaurant. we have to build these right-of-way improvements and so we're going to renegotiate all these documents some of them have already been done by the way so there's some that have come up since the reconsideration and we've put the numbers in them so the the reason why they're advertising 34 is because there isn't a document that says 30 but in talks with them they understand it's gonna be 30 okay that's helpful

I'll just close with a comment. This is probably one of the most difficult votes I've taken since I've been up here. And I'll just say there are two competing things in my head that I'm trying to reconcile. One is you have an application that's clearly had a lot of time and consideration put into it by an applicant that has made concessions. And it's on a C-5 property. We have no C-6. where a restaurant and all these other things are uses by right, obviously there are variance in conditional use purposes, but I'm speaking about the site development plan. On the other hand, I'm also internally grappling with the, I think Mike described it as the possibility of a perfect storm happening with a lot of activity all at once. How the realities of this might be practically enforced, and weather discrepancies might arise with what's advertised, what's actually happening, what's actually happening with passenger counts, what's actually happening with bus counts. I think this could get real messy. And I just, I don't know. That's what makes this difficult. It's not as clear cut, I think, as folks on either side would like it to be. There's a lot of shades of gray here that I know I'm grappling with. Maybe I'm just speaking for myself. But I'll leave it at that. And thank you.

Hey, Zach, just to follow up on that, if I could, just a couple of questions. The cruise ships, when they come in, and maybe Dan can answer this, when they come into port, they stay overnight?

No.

No? I don't know, so I don't live out there, so I'm asking.

No, they've been coming in daylight hours, or maybe a little before daylight in some canaries.

So there's no overnight with the American Cruise Line. They don't stay overnight.

There has not been.

Is there any plans in the future to have them stay?

Well, there might have been. Okay, correction. I think there was a few weather scenarios where they did stay overnight, and so that did happen.

So they come in for the day. It's basically like a cruise that comes in for the day and leaves. They come in in the morning or whatever, and then they pick them up and leave. Is that right? I'm sorry, say that again. They come in for the day, so they're not here overnight.

They have not been coming in overnight, staying overnight as part of their normal operational plan. In the future, that may be something they want to propose to us. I don't know. Things change so frequently.

I appreciate the honesty. Has your traffic expert, your engineer, looked at that possibility in the future if you have overnight cruise ships? with embarkation, debarkation.

And this is just looking – so if we're talking – he's talking about the debarkation boat. If that boat has people that stay, they're going to have to stay presumably – there's no parking, right? So they're not – so it's not like the case – and I'm going to compare this to the American Patriot, the fishing boat that was described where – They go out overnight, and there's cars left in the parking lot, and then it comes back the next day, and another one goes out, and there comes a parking lot. That's not what's happening with the ACL boat. And because there's a boat limit in the factory bay area, it's not like we can stack that, if that makes sense. So it's... I think the concern on the overnight piece is the stacking and the double use and the double counting. It's not possible in the sense that the factory bay has a hard limit. And that's not, by the way, that's not this decision. That's been the case since 2003. So that's already out there, and it doesn't change that stacking piece. And then, again, there's no cars in the parking lot. So if we stay within those two limits, it doesn't create any kind of site constraint that is not accounted for by this, as opposed to the comment about the Patriot, for example, going out and staying out and then having the cars in the parking lot.

Would your client agree to, at least as a part of this approval, to limit any cruise ships from staying overnight?

It's already happening.

unless it was weather-related or mandated by weather or something. Saying overnight period, would he be?

No, you can't do that because of weather.

Oh, I mean, absent an emergency. Like, in other words, of course you'd have an emergency where you'd have to have a port, absolutely. Right. But as a part of a regularly scheduled cruise ship overnight, would your client agree not to engage that kind of activity with ACL?

I think as to the debarkation vessels, we would not be inclined to agree to that. Okay.

And the only other question I would have, just to follow up on some of Hayden's questions, and I don't know this business. I know I just went to Alaska cruise. It was a lot of fun, by the way. If it does stay overnight and people are sleeping on it, how is it powered? I mean, it's not electric.

No, there's shore power.

There's shore power. It's all electric?

Never mind. Sorry, I'm hearing it's a generator. I apologize. There is shore power, but there is a generator.

Generator. OK. uh... do we know that you know that the level of noise the generators gonna put out what what's it going to be like in the area do we know any of those details i do not have that with me but i know that you have a noise ordinance and has to be complied with that's all i have mr chairman thank you i mean you just you just threw a grenade in the room talking about overnight cruise ships so

I mean, okay. I'll ask one question. Has there been any consideration to changing the speed limit in this area, lowering the speed limit? Has anyone suggested that? Has anyone said it was necessary? Is it a stupid question?

You're talking about the speed limit on the road?

On the road, yeah. I mean, if we have additional pedestrians crossing the street back and forth...

I don't know what the current speed is, but I know that in some instances, if you have to lower it to a certain level, shh, please, you have to do certain studies in order to justify whatever that speed might be.

Yeah, I mean, go for it, Jeff.

To use Jason's words, not to beat a dead horse any deader and drag it into the ditch, But that did kind of perk my interest. In regards to that, I don't know if Dan can answer. In regards to this cruise ship overnight thing, in the number of years that you've had these ships at the dock, do you have an honest answer? I mean, honest that you know, not, you know, not to be honest. An answer, how many times this actually has occurred where these ships were loaded with passengers and stayed overnight?

I think once. I think once. One time? One time.

I'm going to tell you where I'm sitting, and I was a little on the fence about this, and the fact that you're talking about the possibility or you're not saying that there is no possibility of overnight cruise ships in the future has me on the side of the fence that you probably don't like. I'm just telling you that. Shh.

Nope.

Shh. Understood.

I don't know how you reconcile that, but I'm just telling you, I mean, I don't know. Anyone else have any questions for the applicant or staff?

I have a comment. So these overnight passengers and the concern for the residents is the noise. And you say there's a noise limit. Has anybody measured that noise limit from the generators?

This use that's being described is not current, so we don't have a measurement.

And I would go a step further. It's not just the noise. It's the water and sewer requirements. It's the strain on, again, we're having conversations about level of service. And if we have a cruise ship here once a week, twice a week, five times a week, and there's a need for water sewer pump out and things like that, what does all that look like? I feel like that's a little bit different than having some cruise ships here during the day.

Which has already been happening.

Right. And so the cruise ships during the day is one thing in my mind. Overnight cruise ships is something different in my mind. I understand.

If you could give me a moment so I can discuss with my client.

Yeah, and I'm one person.

No, you're not.

And, Mr. Chairman, I didn't know that was going to be the answer, but it drives to the issue here of what they're doing and how are they going to do it and what's it going to be like in the future. And that's why I brought that up in the beginning. That's the only reason. Because overall, it's just a very interesting plan. He has a right to develop his property. There's laws on that. You see what he wants to do there. But I just think we need to know everything. That's all.

think on the cruise ship piece if the board is so inclined we would certainly rather that be a condition than a no vote so if the board is not inclined to agree with that condition then we would volunteer that as a condition to say the debarkation vessels may not stay overnight unless there's a weather event that requires it from a safe safety based reason as opposed to a programmatic overnight the Again, it's not happening at the marina now It's something that had been asked by one of the providers. The thought was it would cause more involvement with the with those on the vessel on the island every more time on the island and If it makes the board uncomfortable, though, we certainly do not want to jeopardize the balance of this to get a speculative use that is not currently happening at the marina.

And when you say debarkation?

So the boat that we keep talking about is the American Cruise Line vessel, and that's the debarkation vessel. The Key West Express does not stay overnight. The Mark of Island Princess doesn't have sleeping quarters. So there's this boat slot for the debarkation vessel, and that's the one that we're talking about potentially staying overnight overnight. but again if that's not something that you're comfortable with then we would ask that to be added as a condition that it they cannot stay overnight except in an extreme weather event that forces them to stay overnight for a safety issue and I understand from Mr. High that has happened one time and so it does it can happen but it wouldn't be something that they can programmatically advertise we're going to Marco we're gonna stay overnight I dug into American Cruise Line and the research

The Key West Port is different from us. The Key West Port is set up deeper water. They're set up for the impact environmentally, pumping sewage, fueling, trash removal. You're not set up to do that.

We have dumpsters that they use. We do not fuel them. Correct. We do not pump out their sewage, no.

Because that's what I read. I read that there are ports in Florida where they go for that. Marco Allen was not one of them.

And part of that is in the sovereign submerged land lease. There's only certain things we can do in that space. So we won't be fueling them, not because Marco said so, but because the state of Florida said so.

Do you want to add anything, Dan, Zach?

I was just simply going to add again that if the inclination is to say no because of that point, then we would like to add that as a condition that the debarkation vessel not stay overnight unless of a weather event.

What time does the boat normally leave Dan now?

Normally around 5 p.m. Do we want to have the motion maker amend the motion to add an additional condition?

I would be most comfortable doing that. And I would be most comfortable seconding that.

Martin, you can take the slide off, please.

So just for the record, the motion that was made is going to now include an additional condition that states that, for lack of a better phrase, the debarkation vessel shall not remain at the marina overnight unless there is existence of a weather event which requires that it remain in port.

Should it say no debarkation vessel?

No debarkation vessel. That's fine.

I sure don't want to say the because that contemplates a specific vessel. No debarkation only vessel.

I'm shooting from the hip. So no debarkation vessel.

Well, we're all half frozen too, so.

Shall remain at the marina overnight unless there is a... and a weather event which prevents it from leaving the marina, period.

Is there a time on that? the time on it has to leave by? Do you want to chime in on that? I just don't know what the – Nanette made the motion. So is there a timeframe on when it has to leave or is it – I would think operationally they would want to leave, right?

Right. I mean, if you think about their business, if they could stay until 9 and leave instead of staying overnight.

If the bus breaks down, I mean, I don't think we need to make it. My motion stands as it's been stated thus far.

Okay. Well, so we have an amended motion. We have an amended second. Anything else from the board? Daisy, would you call the roll, please?

Member Finkel?

Yes.

Member Jensen? Yes. Member Hogan? Yes. Member Ferringer? Yes. Vice Chair DeVluys?

No.

Member Henson?

I'm going to vote no, and I know this doesn't become a part of the record. But I'm voting no because I really believe the public has a right to have more information about the entire project. And I think Jack, you've done a good job presenting it here. But I just think the public really deserved that opportunity. And I want to thank all the people that spoke, Mr. Belana-Fitz, Ms. Myers, Greg Villick, Lisa Foster, and John Martini for taking time out of their busy day to come in and do this with us, and all the people that came here and attended. I just really feel like I can't give you my yes vote because I really feel the public has a right to have the whole thing shown to them at a proper NIM meeting, so I vote no.

Chair Bailey.

The item is already approved. I'll vote yes.

The motion passes 5-2.

All right, so that's the site development plan. So we move on. Sherry, would you like to read the next item into the record, please?

There you go. The variance.

Now is the variance right? We're losing them.

As you know, the site development plan is tied to these other two.

Both are each one.

Thank you, Chair Bailey. I'll read the variance resolution by title only. This is an application for variance VP25-00096 from Section 30-440A4, Minimum Landscape Requirements, 30-624X4, Design Regulations, Section 30-441G, Minimum Landscape Buffering and Screening Between Uses, and Section 30-1012C1, and 30-1012 solid waste disposal and recycling of the City of Marco Island Land Development Code for real property located at 951 Bald Eagle Drive, Marco Island, Florida 34145.

And if I could, Mr. Chair, just for the record and with the applicant's consent, we will just include everything that was in the hearing on the site development plan as part of the record for this item.

Agreed.

Thank you.

Is this the one with the fence?

No, the fence is a conditional use. Thank you.

And is there anybody in the room that hasn't been sworn in already that might like to speak on the item? If so, you need to stand up and be sworn in. I don't think so, but I figured I'd ask. And I don't see anybody, so we're going to do ex parte again, correct? Or not necessary?

No, I think it's all included. So you have the resolution before you.

Okay. So why don't we do the same thing again? We'll make a motion. We'll have citizen comment and go from there. So does anyone want to make a motion on this item?

I'll make a motion to approve.

I'll second this one.

All right. We have a motion and a second. So why don't we take our public speakers first? Ms. Fitch? Did you want to speak on the conditional use as far as screening and buffers? Or did you want to speak on the, I know you're supposed to be up here. I'm getting in trouble. But you want to speak on the items around the restaurant and the right-of-way buffer?

The solid waste dumpster.

That would be this one. That would be this one.

Hello again. Liz Fitch, the Magnolia Court. So that map is what they put out. The yellow highlight line is the area that you're requesting a 10-foot buffer for a garbage dumpster, correct? Sorry. The variance that I have as far as to permit that particular variance for the buffer. The applicant seeks to place commercial trash onto a residentially zoned property. This directly violates MICA deed restrictions, prohibiting commercial accessory structures, and violates policy 4.2.1 of the comprehensive plan, which strictly forbids expanding commercial uses into residential districts. The other part of this, and this particular slide is from the first proposal, and this is for the boat dock extension. which has not gone forward at this point.

That was voted on.

When was it voted on?

At the original meeting, I believe, wasn't it?

Well, then I guess I missed that. I thought you guys didn't talk about it. No.

It was the conditional use we didn't talk about.

Okay. Well, I'll get back to this then because this is my issue with this. So this variance here applies to that. because that request is basically through this letter, that variance is required for that doc extension. Am I wrong?

Yeah, I mean we shouldn't have back and forth.

Well, I guess I don't understand how you didn't vote on this to be approved, but it's part of this. So if you allow them to move the 10-foot Property line to allow the dumpster you're allowing them to then have a zero riparian Riparian setback in that canal which is going to push the boats out further Seven and a half feet further it extends the property line all the way down the marina and alters everything that's on that water line and I'm not okay with that. I'm not okay with them putting a dumpster pretty much right at the street, right where it is. I just didn't think you guys actually approved that. But that's part of what was listed and that's what that particular letter that I had put down was specifically stated for that variant. This variance is required for that as part of it. So I can only say I just don't think that they need more than what they already have. This has gotten huge. This has blown up. There's way too much there. I don't know if any of you live on the north end of the island, but it's going to be H-E double L up there when that restaurant opens. and the cruise lines come in, and there's more than one a day, and there are four buses for one cruise line boat. Now if there's eight, now they're not all going to be coming in at the same time. And in general, what happens is the Key West Express is there, the Key West Express leaves, and the cruise ships come in. The cruise ships go out, the Key West Express comes in. This project is huge and I do agree that the NIM certainly did not cover what has been covered in the last four months as to what was happening. I think we've all been duped. This is wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Vilk, did you want to speak on this item as well?

Greg Greg Vilkman go your court. I think what Liz was saying is about that 10-foot buffer You're going on to residential land Residential property that is deed restricted as a residential and it's going to be used exclusively for commercial use and that that easement or that use is extending all the way down the canal is what she was trying to explain and which they have the right to use the canal from day one but not going that far into the canal so that was what she was trying to say to you I'm just gonna kind of go on a couple things you have a 10-foot setback variance that was approved in 14-15 which was absolutely foolish for the priors and that goes to council too you want to correct that today and you want to correct it by asking for another 10-foot setback And that's so you can slide the dumpster onto a residential piece of land that's never going to be approved. You're approving something that's probably going to get kicked right out of the place. But then that allows more parking. And then the 10-foot allows them to get more parking at the street. Do you guys have any interest in density? Any interest in maintaining lifestyle in the community? They used the word charm. Rosemarine used the word charm. Charm's gone. This is a port. Separate to that, this property was varianced from a C3 to a C5. It was never set up as a C5. That was a mistake that was done that we're not correcting again today. That was your transition from a C5 to a C3 to a residential R1. You guys are only compounding the C5 to be bigger and bigger and bigger. It's not what the community is about. As far as liveaboards, since it came up, Rosemarine has a liveaboard boat right now. I've got 15, 20, 30, 40 pictures. Now, I don't think the city has jurisdiction on a liveaboard. They do, though, but they don't enforce that. So it's at that point now. Going back to the Princess, and I'm not picking on the Princess. I'm just using it because it's the easiest and the most obvious because the Jet Express is an issue and the others. If you look back at the 2008 or 9 and then the 14, 15, and then the 20 or the 18s, the Princess started out as 149. Then it became a 100 capacity. Then it went down to a 75. and their most recent was 75, and now they're bringing it back to 149. Do you guys realize you just voted a vote that has a capacity of 149 as 100, and none of you are going to regulate it, but you throw it on the neighbors? And if any of you think this is good for our community, especially if any of you are going to want the community to vote, you probably lost it. So I'm sorry that you guys have done what you've done. Thank you. Thank you.

Anybody else in the room who would like to comment on this item?

Tony Oliverio, 1801 Olds Court. I was gonna do it on SDP, but I'll do it now here. Some people made some comments, and Rich Blonde really took a lot of my thunder. If you look in this room here, it's a shame that a lot of the people left, because you gotta ask yourselves, how many people went to a NIM meeting? Ever did one, well, not one, but conducted one? I have. Ask anyone else in this room who has. Have you guys? So what's the point of a NIM meeting? tell the neighborhood what's going on then you get feedback you make changes that's what they did there's no point for new nim meeting it's crazy when i did my project they said we want you to scan the land for burials. We did that. We took that feedback. So if you have a NIM meeting and every time someone asks you to do something, you have another NIM meeting and another NIM meeting and another one, never get anything done. It's sad that people are picking on Mr. High, Dwight, And more Mert Rose, someone who gave millions of dollars to this community that we benefit from. I bought bait from your marina as a child, rented boats from your marina, Went out Princess, Key West Express. So when we say there's no benefit to the community, actually it bothers me right now. I'm actually a little emotional about it that people want to attack people who have done good for our community. Dan's wife sits on a school board here. You've donated your money here, your time here. You could have built across the street parking garages, way more intensive property, and you chose to build a nice, classy building and honestly improve it. You're going to put landscaping buffers up. When people say you don't know anything about Magnolia, you live in the States, oh, no, I owned 879 Magnolia. I sold it twice. You know, the guy who owned it looks right in the marina and says, I want it because I want to look at boats. Sir, are you sure you want to buy this? Zerila, let me disclose, this is a marina. I love it because I want to look at boats. And the guy before him bought it because he wanted to look at boats. The marina was there before anyone else was there. So I just want to tell you, it's hard when you come up to these things and everybody's against you. I don't want Markle Island to be Key West. I don't want Markle Island to be Miami. I don't want it to be Fort Lauderdale. But that's a bigger discussion then. People have property rights. What do we do? You want to change your account plan? Let's talk about changing the account plan. You want to come together, raise some money, start donating property? Let's do it. We talk about people in this room here that I saw that now left want to post on Nextdoor about we got to hit the residents, we got to hit the business owners more than the residents for tax dollars. We need more revenue. Well, now we've got a business that's going to bring in revenue. Now we've got a business that's going to pay on their dime to improve the roads. They're going to have the permit fee that I just paid, $14,300 for my permit fee for my lane on Bald Eagle. They're going to have to pay those impact fees as well. I'm sorry, the permit fees. And then they're going to have to pay their impact fees. That's all revenue for our city. And if we don't want to sell out our city for that stuff, fine. Let's not do it. Then don't be afraid then to raise your property taxes. So I commend you, gentlemen. Thank you very much. This needs to be a bigger discussion as a community as a whole. I commend you for your project. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Seeing no one, we'll close public comment. Did you want to?

There's a little bit of confusion about the dumpster. The dumpster is not on the residential property. The dumpster is on the commercial property. The property lines aren't moving. The marina is planting 10 feet of plants on the residential property because the dumpster will be on the property line. That way there's an equivalent buffer on the backside of the dumpster. But there is no construction happening on the residential property at all. and the setback for the boat dock extension and the dumpster, they don't inherently go together at all. They have no connection. One could happen and the other one could not happen. They don't need to exist with each other. But if there's any questions about that, I want to make sure I clarify that.

The riparian line, does that move?

The riparian line does not move. The riparian line is dictated by the property lines, and the property lines aren't moving.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Anything else from the board? Daisy, would you call the roll, please?

Member Hogan?

Yes.

Member Ferringer? Yes. Member Finkel? Yes. Vice Chair DeBlois? No. Member Henson? No. Member Jensen? Yes. Chair Bailey?

No. Item's approved.

Is yours a no or a yes? I was a no. Okay. Motion passes 4-3.

Final item. Chair, do you want to read that in the record, please?

Thank you, Chair Bailey. I will read the resolution by title only and to the record. A resolution of the City of Marco Island, Florida, approving a conditional use permit, CUP 25-000097, submitted pursuant to Section 30-2649, conditional uses of the City of Marco Island Code of Ordinances. to allow for open boat rack storage at real property located at 951 Bald Eagle Drive, Marco Island, providing for findings and conditions of approval and providing for an effective date. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, so this is the conditional use. We had some discussion about.

And if I might, just for the record, we're going to include as part of this, the record for this item, everything that was presented in the site development plan amendment. Correct, Mr. Lombardo? Agreed, thank you. Thank you.

So we did have some discussion about this. This was the one where staff initially recommended 16 foot. We've had a conversation about a few different things. Does anybody want to make a motion?

Yeah, I'll make a motion on this to be approved, but I'd want to change that to an eight-foot fence.

Do you want to include any landscaping or anything else?

Well, I would state the same, I think. What was the landscaping?

There is no landscaping, I don't think. There's nothing in our...

It's just the eight-foot fence. Similar to the Anglers Cove site, it's an eight-foot fence. Yeah, there's no landscaping.

Do you want to add? Dan showed the picture with the palm trees, with the eight foot, dressed it up.

Right.

I'm sorry.

They have to have, they can't be planted. Anyway.

Yeah, no, Dan, the picture you showed with the eight foot fence at the beginning of this meeting is what I would want that to be changed to from the 16-foot fence.

Just for the record, the plan that I showed, the alternate plan, was an 8-foot fence, and it was palm trees. There were royal palms every 30 feet. That was my plan.

That's the original thing I saw. It started the whole discussion. Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to approve it, but changing the 16-foot fence to the 8-foot fence with the palm trees.

if I may could we be asked to bring proposed landscaping to council on that because I just I don't know what I can actually plant it's on top of the seawall so I don't know what can happen there I'm not saying if you're if your direction is there needs to be landscaping

I understand but I'd like to be given an opportunity to have the landscape architect show what can go there as opposed to saying well we're making a recommendation to council right so you could always go to council and say we recommended this the majority of council will probably be privy to our discussion in the context and okay there was an AI design that you did that was an AI design correct that's right yeah so a eight foot fence or similar I mean you might want to just say or similar recommend the landscaping be approved so we have a motion we have a second

Just for the record, in Section 3 of the Resolution, Item 2, it will say provide an 8-foot high screening fence or similar for the outdoor storage proposed.

Shouldn't we just say 8-foot? Or similar seems awfully ambiguous.