Virginia Key Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Tuesday. We really appreciate you all taking time from your busy days to show up. We don't have a quorum at the moment, but we are going to go through with our meeting because we have some important items and we have some important experts and designers and landscape architects in the room. So we'd like to hear from everybody. You'll be on tape. You're live on Miami TV. And we also take notes. So starting the meeting, would you like to go through the formalities, Rafaela?

Do you want to do the Pledge of Allegiance first, and then we'll do the absence, the presence?

Sure, we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Thank you.

Would you like to go bypass the lobbyist note and go to a call to order?

Yes, since we don't have quorum.

Andrew Frey. Here. Peter Ehrlich.

Here.

Luis Casamayor.

Here.

Steven Leiner. Lynn Lewis. Gary Milano. Vincent Richter. Monty Traynor. Nicholas Lopez Jenkins.

Here.

Jackie Collier. Kerry Johnson.

Here.

A request for absence waivers?

No, I didn't receive any.

Can we request an absence waiver on behalf of a board member, Monty Traynor, for medical issues? Would that be acceptable to you?

Madam City Attorney? Yes.

Thank you very much. We all miss Monty Traynor and hope we see him in our next meeting. We have a couple discussion items, but I think since we have some experts and consultants in the room, I think we'd like to go to that item first, which is Virginia Key Landfill Site Update, and the presentation. Hector Padilla, starting us off.

Good evening, everyone. Hector Padilla, Assistant Director, Office of Capital Improvements. We had done our last meeting and said we're going to give you a presentation on the Virginia Key, the conceptual plans that we have so far. So we have our consultants, SCS engineers, and Savino Miller here to give you the presentation. So I'll turn it over to them.

Thank you very much.

And without further ado, Barry Miller, landscape architect with Savino Miller Design Studio. Thanks for being here today. We've been waiting for this day for quite a while now to show you what some ideas of ours are for Virginia Key. I'm going to go through this fairly quickly, the beginning part. It's location and context. I can assume safely that you all know what the context is and what this is all about. But essentially, the Virginia Keys, you can see in this bird's eye, is just an extremely fortuitously located place, sandwiched between Biscayne Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. So it's just an incredible site with incredible potential. There you can see the wastewater treatment plants, the central district in that rectangle, in that white rectangle in the middle of Virginia Key. There, I think it was opened in 1977. Right directly below that is the site in red. That's the 116 acre parcel where the landfill was. That was closed in 77. I think it opened in the early 60s and closed in 77. We also, those two rectangles, the red rectangles, maybe you can see them flanking the wastewater treatment plant, is two other parcels we want to consider into the master plan that we'll discuss. Just some aerials, what it used to be on the top left. That's the way it was back in 1940 with what was called Duck Pond right in the middle of it, right smack in the middle of it. This is basically a mangrove habitat at the time till today, 2023. Historic and archaeological sites, we looked at all that to see if we're going to be interfering with anything or intruding with everything. I think that's all been kind of clarified with the landfill installation, so that's not going to be an issue. Landmark sites around, you know, there's a lot of research centers around the University of Miami, the Marine Institute, so it's a really important little site, and hopefully this may inform the design of the park one day. Circulation, multimodal circulation down Rickenbacker Causeway mainly. The main idea on this is that when you get to the park, it's pretty much bike passage and cars and service vehicles going to the wastewater treatment plant. This is just a zoning map. It's zoned in Miami 21, the CS commercial special, which is a varying kind of classification, surrounded by T1, which is the dark green. That's natural preserve. The elevation map, you can see, as we can all might know, that it's low-lying land up to about zero to five feet surrounding the old landfill at the bottom. Then you got the wastewater treatment plant and the North Point field area, which has been built up as well. Local vegetation, again, mostly mangrove habitat surrounding the site in the light green there. The site itself in the light blue is essentially, if you've been there lately, it's pretty much Australian pine exclusively around the site. There's a few trees around the perimeter we'll talk about that we hope to preserve. There's some shots around the site. One of the ideas in the plan is to preserve and enhance the habitat and bring in and celebrate our vegetation, flora and fauna in South Florida and Baylor Island type of vegetation. Also, the views. What we've experienced in some parks we've done lately is that people like to get up and and see and have perspective of where they are. It's a natural human trait. So we think this is one of the reasons why this has such incredible potential, this site, because of the, we've got a landfill, it's gonna happen, we're gonna have elevation, and we're gonna have amazing views. Like, such as the one on the bottom right there, that's from a drone we flew over. So the local circulation, is interesting. The main idea, when you come and you get to Arthur Lamb Jr. Road off of Vickenbacker Causeway in the bottom left, The road bifurcates, and on the south end where Arthur Lamb Jr. Road is, that's where 90% of the traffic goes. Everyone's going to the beach, as you know. They're going up to the kayak station. They're going up to the North Point bike area. All that's up on the right, as well as service vehicles. Service vehicles, the main entry to the wastewater treatment plant is right, I'm not sure if you can see my cursor. Are you guys seeing it from your end? Right there at the lower bottom, middle, right where that lagoon comes in and the kayak station is. So that's where all these vehicles, heavy-duty vehicles, wastewater treatment truck vehicles, are ingressing and egressing into the site. The dashed red line throughout there, that's restricted circulation. Most people can't get in there. It's inside the landfill area. There's some old trails, old dirt roads now, and throughout the park. Of course, you can also get up into the, there's a couple small parking areas around the kayak station in yellow, some existing parking down there at the bend that we all know about, and people go up and get fairly close to the North Point bike fields. So our task was to take a look at the 2010 master plan, take a look at it, and look at what it was proposing in terms of a mix of recreational fields, active recreation, and passive park area, nature, nature's hammocks, forest, tropical hammock, whatever we can get in as a leftover. And you could see there was about 20 acres of sports fields in this particular plan, a big meadow, some pervious paving at the bottom, and some mangroves and hammock, which is about 73% of the total. Again, of that 116 acre, plus or minus, on the landfill site itself. So first thing we do, we take a look at the opportunities and constraints. Right now, the constraints map, it's mostly fenced in so people can't get up into the landfill, of course. We have existing parking kind of dividing the site now. There's no real access. Those blue lines which run counter to each other, those blue arrows, it's just places we think there's disconnection, we think there's potentially reconnection to down in the future. We also have the red arrows where you have the service vehicles going in, and that entry I was telling you about, the wastewater treatment plant on the bottom right there. The green, that's supposed to signify the Australian pine, basically an invasion there that is actually much more extensive than what that shows. We want to reconnect, first of all, the site. When we improve the site, we want to reconnect. Again, now we're going with the green arrows. One of the main things we're suggesting is to eliminate the conflict between the service vehicles going into the right side of the park, through the beach areas, through all the recreational areas on the right side, east side of the park, and right up into where the kayak station is, and just talk with the wastewater treatment plant if it's possible, and just make a service-only road going on the west side of the landfill park, on the left side there you can see here. And make the entry where that dash circle is, make the entry into that service area there as opposed to the other side. And just we think it will improve safety and just improve the general aesthetic of the park, not to mention odors and whatnot. One thing I forgot to mention here, southeast winds coming off onto the island, the main places where you really start to pick up the smell of the wastewater treatment plant is in this site over here. where that water tower, the old water tower was, and on the north side where the bike is. You really start to pick up. They tried to do some things there with some sprinklers and misting, but it's not really all that effective. So this is what we have today. The existing landfill site grading site goes up from about 10 to 30 feet. It's not very easy to see that because of all the Australian pines are there, but it does kind of gradually slope up. And this is the 2021 county plant to cap the site by Kimley Horn and URS. This is what essentially has been the approved capping site, and this is what's, you know, trying to be moved forward as we, and that's one of the reasons why we're here today, to find out what we can do to make this improve upon this. So how did we do this? We took the 2010 master plan, which you can see in color down below there, and we superimposed the existing grading now, which is the heavy dash red line, And then superimpose the black lines, which is the Kimley-Horne URS plan in 2021. So, trees there, those specimen trees on the right side, those pink circles and whatnot, those are existing specimen trees. But the main thing is is how disparate these recreational fields are cast all over this landfill, the approved landfill plan. It's just inconsistent and incompatible. First of all, the fields are way too far away from access. It's a long trudge to get from the Arthur Lamb Road to Parkland and back up all the way to these baseball fields, carrying equipment, food, all the things you'd have to do. Let me finish, please. So this was the plan, and we went on to show you. It's not really as steep as it looks. It's about 2% to 3% slope across from top to bottom. but it's just incompatible with sports fields and basically being zero to 1% slope, which you're trying to achieve on sports fields. So we took that and we wanted to, basically we wanted to ask ourselves the following question. Can the Virginia Key Landfill Closure Plan topography 2021 be modified to accommodate level sports fields or other park improvements while recreating a large resilient natural habitat? That's the challenge. So the goals and the vision, simply put, we want to fulfill the master plan program within the context of the landfill site closure requirements. That's a must. We want to provide a sustainable, resilient, coastal, tropical hammock habitat. We hope that's a must. We want to provide active and passive recreation opportunities for the community at large. We want to separate as we discussed before, the park and recreational vehicular access. We think it will improve safety, just the working of the park. And also preserve and enhance the adjacent existing recreational assets. It's the beach, Virginia Key Beach. We can't forget that. The North Point bicycle fields, the key element. And, of course, the kayak station. So, inspiration. This is not anything new. It's been done before. And it's very, very, very successfully. I'm not sure if you've ever been to Governor's Island up in New York. Incredible. What once was a contaminated landfill that they just repurposed into an incredible park. Added level fields for playing and congregating playgrounds. You know, Statue of Liberty we can't recreate, but we know we can figure out something. And these promontories that provide these incredible views across the landscape. Fresh Kills Park, Staten Island, same thing. They took pretty much dead land from brownfield and converted that, took out the contamination level playing fields there, some topography to look at these incredible landscapes and water bodies around the site itself. As you can see in the bottom right, it's spectacular. and should sound familiar. This is kind of the idea of what we're trying to promote here. We just did a park, Bayshore Park. It was basically contaminated soil, contaminated water, It's very complex to deal with, where we essentially dug a lake to use that fill to cap the contamination and to bury the contamination under a foot or two of soil and created what was just nothing land into an incredible park. We invite you guys to go see it, experience it. It's also a resiliency park, too, as the bottom left. The lake is acting as a storage lake, so it doesn't go into Biscayne Bay, the flush. So this is what we came up with on just a very, very conceptual level. There's lots of things that we can do about this, but we essentially took the same program that we started with before, and pretty easily we just moved to south, towards Arthur Land. So we still have the four soccer fields, we still have the four baseball fields, if they're still needed. We have pervious paving parking lots down those little rectangles, number five down at the bottom there. So we just basically are squeezing down everything down so it's more accessible and more easy to use recreationally, and it gives us a lot more space for the hammock and for the lookouts and to really create an amazing... The opportunities and the potential of this place is just amazing. So as you can see, the summary here, the sports fields got condensed and we went down same sizes, but we just reduced the sizes in between and whatnot to about from 17 to 10%. The previous parking, about the same open meadow. We just created two different lookouts, one looking out over Biscayne Bay to the west and one looking out over the Atlantic Ocean to the east. And the nature trails connecting it and whatnot.

And this is a cross-section through it.

From south is on the right, north is to the left. Arthur Lamb Road to the right, and then we had the transition from that to sports field to the actual preserve and habitat. We thought it was important to keep the fields down as close as you can. So admittedly, a lot of the cars are going to come here and stop here. that just reduces the amount of cars going into the online east side and up by the kayak station. So it's just a way of holding traffic back and keeping cars, you know, as soon as they get past that bifurcation, they can pretty much park. That's the existing site photo from the drone of what the proposal is. That's to the left. There's pretty much Australian pine. A bird's eye. And that's it for the presentation. We left this up here for discussion, and we really hope to be working with you all, and we hope we can make this, and you can see the potential in this site, and we can make this thing something that everyone, South Florida down here, can really celebrate and enjoy. Thanks.

Barry, thank you very much for your presentation. We've got seven board members up here. I think you're going to be getting some questions, if that's okay with you.

board members.

Gary Milano, do you want to start with a question or two?

Gary, sorry, if you can speak into the microphone, thank you.

When the master plan was put together years back, the tremendous amount of fill was not there that's on the site today. As you've mentioned, there's some areas that are 30 feet high. Again, this site originally was at grade. That is about a plus six feet. And they basically filled in the pond, the lake, which went down deep. So basically the contaminated material was well below this 30-foot elevation that you're seeing throughout the site. So when this plan, the master plan, was developed, this mountain of fill was not there. This, to my surprise, I mean, you know, for years I was looking at this site differently because I had no idea that this tremendous amount of fill was brought to this site. I mean, 30 feet. 30 feet throughout 100 acres is probably over maybe half the site. You've got a tremendous amount of fill. So anyway, that's new information, and I think using it as lookouts is a good idea. And I do like your conceptual plan layout. It's consistent with the master plan as far as the elements that were put into the master plan. And I see you've added the hammock area, which is a big part This is like a 70 plus acre hammock area that newly to be created that will go on site. 90 acres.

Sorry?

91 almost. 91 acres you're saying. 90.7? Well, whatever. I'll take more, sure. I'm seeing here on your legend. Mangroves, hammocks, 73%, right?

That's the old plan. 85 acres. That's the old plan. That's 2010. Look to the right.

Right, right, right. Proposed. So this is proposed. You're going to 78%.

Okay.

Like I said, more is better for me. Okay. The thing that, one thing that I'm very concerned about is, and I've brought this out through some correspondence that I've tried to get to you, but, you know, been very limited access to your firm for unknown reasons. But the southwest corner has an area of mangroves. And if you go into that site today, you'll see that they're dying. It's mostly dead. Why is that happening? We need to do a biological assessment to understand whether the contouring of the site, this tremendous amount of fill that wasn't there when these mangroves were healthy, after this fill was put there, maybe there's some drainage issues going on that need to be looked at and evaluated so we can incorporate the adjustments, the needed fixes into the overall plan. And I'm hearing, seeing you nod your head. Absolutely. That's great. It could be circulation. There were two culverts that used to feed that mangrove area, one coming through both the road to the west and one coming from the road to the southeast. Those culverts could be plugged and therefore they're not getting the tidal flushing, therefore the mangroves are dying now. There could be both things going on where there's some added fill coming into the site, mangroves like about one foot above sea level. Maybe we've got three feet above sea level, therefore mangroves aren't going to grow there unless we scrape that down. So part of this master plan should be to look at that and to fix it. That is provide some sort of drainage for this contoured area. and as well as to fix the tidal flow into those mangroves. And maybe we're going to even need to take some of the fill out and plant some mangroves there. So that's something. The other thing is, as far as the trucking that goes on to the site, it's all through that westernmost road. You don't see any big trucks coming down Arthur Lamb Road, coming around to that northeastern entrance that you pointed out. I do like what you're thinking here as far as adjusting the access to the plant, and if WASA would go for it, I mean, that's great. I think as far as whether the site can be modified, again, The contaminated material is at maybe a plus three, maybe even lower than that. We've got 27 feet of fill on top of it. So there should be no reason why we can't modify some of these upper layers of fill that is not gonna impact the contaminated material that is already capped and again capping material as you know it only needs to be like two feet of fill so here we've got 30 feet of fill in some places on top of the material so we've got more than enough i think you know looking at this site i think with the conceptual plan that you've developed I think it's going to be minor sort of modification to the topographic conditions, which is good because it'll save money. And I'm up for that as well, being cost effective. So I'm not saying that we should modify the site tremendously, but I do, to answer your question, can the site be modified, the answer is yes. Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah. There's another consultant. Do you want to answer the question? Yeah, hello.

Yes, good afternoon. I would like to respond to a couple of your questions. Yes, sure, please. I'm Sam. I work with SCS Engineers, one of the consultants, working with Loren and representing the city. So the first question about the southwest corner, that was the question about... As far as the mangrove mortality, yes. The design, the current design for the minimum safe closure that's been approved by DERM that includes a berm that goes around that corner. So I think it's being addressed.

So it would be protected as far as any more material sloughing off. Exactly. So if we fixed it, we maybe could get something that would not be impacted in the future.

So I believe the concern about the mangroves is that with the rainwater sheet flowing to the mangroves, that may be changing the ecology. Maybe that's a concern. So with the berm, that concern would be addressed.

No, no, there's two things. There's tidal flushing. There's two culverts. that went through underneath the roads on either side of the mangroves, that used to flush that area. And that's what I'm saying, that we should look at those to enhance the flow through those. I think regulatory-wise, it was a mitigation element, one of those culverts, especially the westernmost one. So we should look at that and fix it, because obviously it's not functioning. But I hear what you're saying as far as the berm will protect the area in the future, which is great.

Yeah, and then the second question was on the fill that's brought into the landfill. So the thing is, these design drawings have already been approved, and I believe they're way ahead in the permitting process. And we had a call with the regulatory environmental agency, and I think given the time constraints about where the county plans are versus implementing the master plan, I think there is a time difference. So they want, they as in the agencies, has advised to proceed with the minimum safe closure with the design as it is today, which is gradually sloping to the sites.

But let me ask you a question. I understand that they are going to be closing the plan, closing the site with their plan that they have in place right now.

Right.

Question mark is, and I've talked to many people through the years, right, at this meeting, is can we... with a bulldozer, go through after they've done that, and modify some of the topographic conditions with their authorization and oversight, because some moving of fill on the site is not going to be of significant impact as far as, because you know the collection system is basically on the edges of the berm where the water's collected, and then it's basically pumped to be cleaned. So it's something I understand what you're saying, but I think the answer is yes, we can modify the site.

Which is actually part of the design. So if we look here... there is, see these contours? Can you see this area here? You see how the shift happens from 22 feet to 12 feet? So there is change that is being proposed after the site gets closed.

That's perfect, that's what I'm saying.

So it is already accounted for in the conceptual plan. Okay, so thank you. I just wanted to clarify and highlight.

But as far as the mangrove mortality, Barry, I think it's something that we should really kind of get a biological team out there, get some elevations, see what's going on as far as the mangrove health, and take a look at the tidal flushing.

Yeah, it's one of the things, if you look, Gary, at the bottom left on this opportunities map, that red arrow connecting that old inlet, it looked like that was probably exactly what was happening, the flushing activity. underneath the road there, you see in the bottom left?

The red one on the left, I see that one, but there's also another culvert over by, on the right-hand side, see where that other green arrow, as you move from the red arrows and move to the east, that first set of, there's another culvert right there.

Right. Yeah. I forgot to mention one thing, just if I may. The eastern, I'm sorry, the western parcel there, There was a discussion earlier about, you know, I'm not sure who from, about hurricane debris. And where are we going to put hurricane debris? It's an issue. And we're proposing on the plan, on the opportunities plan at least, that that west parcel is a Perfect being rather odiferous. It's a perfect place for just back of house storage, hurricane debris. It's not easy to get to from the park area. So we think that could double that space there as utilities.

I had another question about the cap material, Barry, and I sent you these comments. The cap material? I sent you this information. It says, have you looked at the quality of that fill to see if we're going to need a soil amendment for the planting of the hammock species?

Oh, I would bet strongly in favor that they're going to need soil amendments and good soil. Yes, absolutely. Okay, okay, but that's good.

So we're going to have to excavate portions, and then I think we should come up with those specifications.

Or mix. Or mix. What we're trying to do in all of the projects is balance, cut, and fill. It's extremely expensive to send over contaminated fill out to the contaminated fill sites. Very expensive.

This is not going to be contaminated. Everything above six feet is clean. It is. There's no question about it. I've been on this site for years.

I can't tell you that.

Yeah, I think we've done several of these projects with the firm that I work with. What's worked successfully is blending. blending the existing fill with soil amendments, it has worked, and that's what we will continue to explore.

I'm totally supportive of that. It's going to save money, too.

Yeah, thank you.

Gary, we're going to hear some questions from a few other board members, and then we're going to come back to you for some additional questions. Is that okay with you?

No, that's okay. That's my big stuff. Thank you, Barry. Very good presentation.

Thank you. Is there a board member that would like to ask Barry a question?

I have one. I saw the existing or the previous plan had 17% fields and the new plan has 10%. What did we lose in that 7%?

We just brought nothing. In terms of program, nothing. We just brought it in when we did a strict calculation on the computer about where that area was. Where is it? On the old plan. Give me one second. I'm going the wrong way, of course. Right there. It's just a large amount of area that, in between the fields and around the fields, it's shown on the plan. We think by bringing it in and condensing somewhat, we save a few acres, seven acres, something like that, and bringing it back down. Also, the pervious parking, we kind of tried to bring that down further, so there is some About seven acres of savings on that. And we tried to just push that over to the hammock.

Yeah, and that goes to my next question. You showed in the new plan new parking.

Does that replace the old parking or is it just in addition to... Well, there is no parking there now in this particular area. This would be strictly for the new park, recreational fields, etc. Basically lining on the north side of...

So it's additional parking? additional parking the other one would be for the beach and this would be for the parks right my last question you answered you answered one was those two vertical um rectangles on either side of the plant you answered one with with being the debris for hurricane but the other side what would that be proposed for yeah what we're proposing there there's enough room for two soccer fields kind of lined up north south so there is room along there for

I want to move a couple of these over there. If you want to add more, there is room for that facility, a football field, linear, rectangular, not baseball, though. So you could have just a play field. That's what it is right now. Essentially, it's grass that would need to be regraded.

Is that area ready to be developed at this point in time? Sorry? Is there any reason to delay developing that particular area? No?

No, not whatsoever. It's just a matter of getting the will to get it done.

Jackie Collier, do you have any questions?

Any other questions?

Stephen, on the left.

Thank you, Peter.

Thank you, Barry.

Steve Leitner, son of Ellen and Ralph Leitner. Good to see you, buddy. Hi. It might be too early for this question, but in terms of lighting and the sports field, are we too early in the planning process to know what's going in there in terms of lighting? It hasn't been discussed yet, to tell you the truth.

It depends on the programming and who's going to be behind it, who's going to maintain it, who's going to pay for it. So that's really another added thing that could be done if the powers that be want it to happen. We just, if you go to Bayshore Park, It's not necessarily a big intrusion. We have tennis courts. That's another thing to be lit. We have these, I think, called Musco lights, something like that. that are surprisingly not very intrusive to the rest of the park experience. So it can't be done without being so in your face.

And considering that these islands are flyways for migratory birds and lighting and turtles and all that stuff. And the walkways, are they elevated? Are they grayed? I thought I saw maybe it was the park in New York that... that I saw the walkways at. Are there walkways or paths, the paths that are planned in this? Just trails. Trails.

Trails, there could be mulch, there could be stone, there could be coquina shell, that's what we used in the park. So, that's just a variety, that's a design materials issue.

And the impacts of sea level rise, how is that being taken into account?

Well, I mean, the higher you go, the safer you are.

Sure. But in terms of the trails, they seem to be around the perimeter.

Well, you're already at 10. Arthur Lamb is at 10, 9, something like that elevation. It's around 9, 8, 10 going around. So you're already there. It's going to be a long time before it threatens on the inside of that, and then you're just going to go up somewhat. We'll find out that later on how far up we go. But it shouldn't be an issue. Thank you.

Barry, I have a couple questions, and then I know Gary will have a few more questions. I think you've done an incredible job. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and the presentation that you've gotten. When you have a chance, can you send the presentation to our liaison, Raffaella, so she can send it to us? And I really liked how you're trying to create these view pieces, the site, what do you call them, site points? So people can come take pictures and get good vistas. I think that's fantastic. I didn't notice bathrooms or small storage building. Is that in your plans?

No. But that would be added, the little, you know, the parks improvements and necessities. Sanitary. You'd have to have. By the way, it came up in the discussion yesterday. It was interesting. The bathroom, the two bathrooms, the kayak station and the other bathroom closest to the wastewater treatment plant are on septic. The other bathroom down below in the southeast corner is on sewer. So one step you could do is tie those bathrooms over to the treatment plant, in my opinion.

So for this athletic facility that you're showing in this wonderful conceptual plan, just for the soccer, some baseball, tennis courts, how many bathrooms and storage do you think you'd need?

I can't.

I don't have that number right now.

Probably, you know, definitely men and women and unisex, probably 20. I have no idea. That's going to be all. We're way before that process.

Where do you think you'd physically, where would that building physically go on this conception?

Probably somewhere between the parking lots and the fields.

Okay.

So we'd be within that first kind of utilitarian band. There's also things like playgrounds to consider. Lots of things that can be done in terms of bells and whistles, but this basically stuck with the master plan.

And I know you have 30 or 40 years of experience, but budgeting... How much did all this cost? A lot.

I have no idea, to tell you the truth. The capping, it all depends on if you can keep fill on site, the contaminated fill on site. That's a huge savings in how we cap that. We worked on the Bayshore Park project. We saved a ton of money by capping, and also we got them to go to a one-foot cap with a little orange demarcation netting down below. It saves a lot of money. So it's not two feet anymore. We got authorization now with Durham to go one foot, which is huge, especially over a site this big.

If you don't mind my asking, but what was the budget for the Bayshore Park project?

What was the what? What was the budget? City of Miami Beach. Built 20 acres, $32 million. I was going to say, but over 116 acres, you could probably figure at least a half a million to a million, depending on the bells and whistles, again, you put in per acre. So it's going to be substantial sum of money.

No, thank you very much. And you designed South Point Park, your firm designed South Point Park.

Oh, with Hargreaves. Yeah, we had help on that. With who? Hargreaves Associates. Oh. We brought them in.

But it's come out, it's been very, very successful and popular and award-winning.

Yeah. As a note to that, so everyone, Gary and everybody remembers about height. We talked about the height. That was one of the major things in the South Point Park design was to build that landform. Because when you were in South Point Park prior to that, all you saw was some sea grapes and you had no idea Atlantic Ocean was over there. And government cut was kind of on the side. When you built up, it made it super special.

If you don't mind my asking, of all the board members here sitting at the desk tonight, have you all been to South Point? Steve, you've been there, right? Yes, it's... You did a great job. And then I'd like to hear some more questions from Gary.

I'm real interested in the process. When are we going to get this out to the public and have some feedback?

This is to be answered by...

city okay well we'll get them later um so let's while you're up there let's move on with the um what you you deal with as far as the lighting goes we really need to be very concerned and downplay lighting because, you know, turtles, there's a lot of habitat. There's a critical wildlife area right next door to the site. So it's something that we should really downplay and make sure that we're communicating with all the environmental agencies, you know, as far as understanding what the regulations are. As far as planting specifics, when do you see coming up with species lists, coming up with densities, coming up with sizes as far as what you're going to plant on this site? Because there's a lot of money out there, Barry, for planting. The number, the cost for this project to the public is not going to be that great. We'll be able to fund this park with grant money. We just need to get the plan developed enough. to where we then can put it into a grant package and then start circulating it. And we'll be able to really, and get, we can plant a lot of this with volunteers. This would be a great stewardship project. So I don't see the cost. The cost is only going to be into the infrastructure, whether it be you know, the ball fields and the whatever else, you know, some of these. But the actual, you know, the lookouts, you know, as far as the green areas that you see on this conceptual plant are not going to cost a lot because we'll be able to get external funds to plant this. And I've got some good leads on that. It's just I would like to develop this plant a little bit more as far as getting... And I can help you with that. I've got lists that we've planted over on the other side of the street at Arthur Lamb, so it can be done. We planted North Point with hammock species. So anyway, I don't think the cost is going to be that great. I think it's just a matter of getting everything lined up. But if you could develop a species list with some densities as far as shrubs, hammock species. I think that would be really helpful so we can come up with a total number of units and then soil amendment is going to be important for you to kind of develop, you know, this mixing and how much soil amendment we're going to actually need to mix with the existing soil. The things like that are really important for me because I would like to help moving this forward so that we can get the planting going right away. I mean, there's no reason why the planting can't start early on in this whole project before the ball fields are built. Again, we want this thing, you know, we want to plant small specimen trees because they are cheaper. And the sooner we plant them, the sooner they're going to be large.

That's what volunteers can plant too.

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, think about that, those specifics. And when do you think specifics like that will be coming down the road?

Again, I'm just working for the city and for SCS.

Okay, maybe we should get the city up there.

I mean, what I would hope... is that the rush to do something doesn't get in the way of doing something right and the best thing to do. And that may take time. All these projects I've been telling you about before take time. And we've been, you know, the city's been doubting about this since 2010 at least, we had a consensus plan. 15 years later, it's still in limbo and maybe it was good that nothing started yet because they have to cap it. And it's just, like I said before, both plans didn't jive together. It was incompatible. So now we have a chance we can maybe kind of relook and test what can happen and what we can get the funding for, et cetera, and create something new and really, really special, which this site we think deserves.

I have a quick question as far as timing. compared to those other parks that you did and where you were where we are now compared to where you were in those parks how long mas o menos right did it take from kind of like where we are here now to full execution I know it's a moving I don't want to hold you to it but mas o menos you know is it 10 years is it 5 years is it

Well, I'll give you an order of magnitude. For the 20-acre park at the city of Miami Beach, RFP went out in 2016. We won it early 2017. It just opened up, what, eight years later? Eight and a half years later. But this is 116 acres larger. It may not be as complex. There's a lot of bells and whistles and water mains and sewers which went through this thing. So there's always mitigating circumstances, and you never really know until you really can get into the weeds with the engineering aspect of it. And again, to get political will and consensus, that's what drives it. Once we got political will at the beach, then we started moving pretty quickly. So that's the important thing.

Gary, any more questions? Maybe we can get Hector to answer some of these process questions. Thank you, Barry.

All right.

Process. What's going to happen? When can we get this information out? out to the public?

We're in the concept stage. I think one of the things that we need to think about, we're going to face a project, you know, what stage the county is in right now with the landfill closure. The items that we need to include as part of the landfill, for example, conduit for electrical lighting and sewage. We're right next to the stormwater to the sewage treatment plant. However, there's no sewage services available here. The nearest one is the historic Virginia Key Beach. So yes, there's still items that we have to iron out, details and strategies to take care of.

You're talking about getting the conceptual plan out to the public for input.

Right, we're going to take your input in, and then we'll discuss it over with the management to see when would be the next public presentation on the concept plan.

And then you'd be kind of putting it out there for the public.

Sure.

And maybe, is this plan okay to distribute to us at this point?

Yeah, no, it's a public record at this point because we're giving the presentation at this board meeting. So, yes.

Great. I know the chair requested that we get copies.

Yes, we'd like to have a copy sent to Raffaella who can just send them to us. That would be wonderful.

So, I'm hearing the process is kind of like open-ended.

At the concept stage, yeah, there's still a lot of details to work on at that point, so.

And what do you think about this idea once the site is closed, the WASA walks away from it? Okay, they've got everything built, and then they turn it over to the city.

Correct.

To be a park. What do you think about doing the planting early on in the phasing?

That's exactly what I was talking about. What phases we can implement up front with funding available for doing things like that. To answer your question, yes, it is a possibility.

Yeah, because the planting, I mean, can be done easily. Sure. You're talking about the infrastructure needed for some of these other facilities that are going to be located mostly on the southern portion of the site, according to this conceptual plan.

So we'd have to determine what phases to do. We'd have to get permits for it. You're talking about process? That would be that moving forward. So yeah. We're not there yet, but yes.

Right. Okay. Well, anyway, the faster we can move this thing as far as getting a conceptual plan authorized by the city commission... the sooner we can then start writing for grant monies to get some trees put in the ground and get this thing moving. And, you know, I can see the trees going in before, you know, some of the tennis courts go in or pickleball, whatever they're going to be.

Like I'm saying, at this stage, we have to find the appropriate phasing and the appropriate time to do that. But you're right. Whatever we can expedite up front, when the strategy and funding has been developed, we can't.

Because I would really like to be aggressive with the grants because there's a lot of money out there that we can apply for and get the plants started. And then, you know, because it's a big area, Hector.

We can talk to our grants department also to see what possibilities we can work together on that.

And the Tree Trust Fund is another one. Maybe we could talk with other city staff about Tree Trust Fund and possibilities for the site. Every little bit helps. All right. Well, thank you.

Hector, I have a question. The city of Miami has an operating budget of about $1.8 billion, and I think $1.9 billion for the capital budget. Okay. How much is allocated to... of the City of Miami budget to this project?

The funds have not been identified for construction at this point in time.

How much has been allocated for fees, consultant fees, the planning process?

Well, for consultants, that's all that's really, just that portion of the project's been funded at this stage, yes.

How much is that at the moment?

I don't have those numbers with me. We could report it.

All right. But as you go further along, you will be looking to spend some of the city's $1.9 billion in capital improvements to this?

That's a question to be asked. Like I said, funding for construction has not been identified. In order to move it forward, we had to identify a strategy and a funding source for that.

Because I think the city's already done its budgeting for the fiscal year 2025, 2026. Correct. So you're not in that cycle. You have to wait for the 2026, 2027.

Emphasizing what Mr. Miller said, this is not a short-term project. This is a long-term project.

All right. But when millions of dollars invested in something like this, you know, this board would really like the plan that we've seen tonight. We'd like things to move forward as quickly as possible. So, you know, keep it in mind as you go to the city manager and the elected officials asking for them to allocate money to allocate money, you know, to this project as expeditiously as possible.

Gary, another question? One last question. There are two other sites that were on some other conceptual plans, one over on the northwest corner and one right north of the kayak facility. Barry, maybe you can help answer that. What is planned conceptually for those two sites?

Jason to the waste treatment plant in your sight those two other satellites yeah yeah one was kind of open it's an open field now okay on the east side that's just to the south of the mountain biking yes yes what are you proposing in your conceptual for that site right now we it's just an open field we didn't propose anything in particular We did look at putting soccer fields there on the site, but we elected to just follow the master plan, the 2010 master plan, and put the four fields there, the soccer fields on the south side there. One of the things that, again, I think I alluded to this, when you put the active recreational stuff there, that's active parking and active movement and everything like that. We want to keep it, we would recommend anyway, keeping it away from the perimeter of the beach access and the kayak station as much as possible. But it does have the room on that side. On the western flank, that's, we were thinking back a house. Storage, hurricane debris site. You never see it. It's not easy to get to. The odors drift over from the wastewater treatment plant. The prevailing breezes in the southeast, as you know.

So really no park amenities there.

Not on the west side.

But possibly on the east side, having a soccer field there.

Whatever it could be. A hundred things. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you.

Perry, thank you very, very much for coming and seeing us tonight. Maybe we'll see you again in four or seven months as things progress. Hopefully things progress quickly. But it was a pleasure. Would any of your consultants like to speak? Add anything to the presentation? They were nice enough to come tonight, too. Thank you. Feel free to...

I don't have much to add, but I think we are glad to hear you like the conceptual plan, so certainly we'll continue to work with the city and see how we can progress here. Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming along tonight. Anybody else have any questions?

I just have one final question. I know we're looking at this part of the Virginia Key. There's a lot of other areas, and I'm just wondering... when this is approved and moves forward eight, ten years from now, whenever it's done, that one little park is going to be beautiful. But the rest of it, is there going to be any consistency or any maintenance that happens to the rest of the site? So when you pull in off of Rickenbacker, you have some sort of visual, you know, so it all looks good. It's not just this one park that stands out shiny and everything else looks not as nice. Is there a big plan as far as overlooking the whole thing, environmental signage, you know, whatever it is?

you're looking at wayfinding and signage type?

Everything, just the aesthetics, landscaping throughout. I mean, trimming the trees around the parking lot. I'm just making things up.

How does it all kind of fit into place? With any new amenity that we build like that, there has to be maintenance on it. So tree trimming, upkeep of the fields, the park.

I'm not talking about the actual plan. I'm talking about everything else, the rest of Virginia Key.

We have the bike trails on the north end. We have North Point Beach. Arthur Lamb Drive.

I'm familiar with the different areas, but the consistency part. So there's some sort of cohesive visual... feel when you pull into Virginia Key, so it all kind of goes together. It's not just one shiny, beautiful field, and everything else is kind of like dilapidated.

That's something we have to look at. And I understand where you're coming from because there's many different amenities there. And different stadiums. And the park, and then this future park here too. I got you. That is something that we need to discuss, the cohesiveness throughout. Just wayfinding and signage and identification, things like that.

I would like to say something to that. I think that over time, if you start bringing in soccer fields and different things, other people will start looking at the area to bring in other items, other places and other things. So over the time, you know, it's hard to tell right now what'll go on five years from now or eight years from now. But when you start, you know, developing something to make it look nicer, to make it look better, it brings in more people. Oh, absolutely. That also have other ideas on what they may want to, you know, do with the land. And then it'll come up to us to make those decisions on whether we say yes or no. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's ten of seven. You guys can... Drive home and hopefully you don't get stuck in traffic on South Bayshore Drive. All right, we're going to go through the rest of the agenda as quickly as we can. We just covered the Virginia Key landfill site update.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Let's go quickly to the update on the Virginia Key legislation that was scheduled to be heard on October 23rd. Um, last Thursday, the city attorney, do you know why the item was not heard?

I do not. The city commission deferred the item on the October 23rd city commission meeting. They did not say anything else, anything further. So I, unfortunately, I don't know why it was deferred.

Who made the request to defer that specific item?

No one made the request. The chair approved the consent agenda. The consent items that were approved and the remaining consent items that were not approved are automatically deferred.

Who pulled that? Who pulled item CA3? We were CA3. Who pulled it off the agenda?

I don't recall that it was pulled from the agenda. It was in the agenda.

Yes, it was in the agenda.

Right.

But it was not voted on.

Right.

Who asked that it not be voted on?

No one asked not to be voted on. The recording is live and you can always go back and see it.

I tried to access the recording today and it wasn't available.

I can send you the link if you'd like, Peter.

Right, right. It's available. I actually reviewed it before coming here to the meeting. So the way that works is usually the consent, the chair goes through the consent agenda. They pick which items are going to be approved. The city commission then just simply, you know, they vote on it. They approve it, and then whatever consent agenda item was not approved at the city commission, it gets deferred. So it was not pulled for discussion, so there's no further discussion on that item.

So the chair decided that the other items would be approved in the consent agenda, and this item, she pulled this one out, so this one was not approved.

I wouldn't say it's the chair, the one that decides that. The chair goes through the consent items. The chair requests which consent items will be approved. They number them. They approve them. Whatever does not get approved goes automatically because the chair cannot make a determination by herself. it needs to be through the whole city commission, right? Because it's a whole vote.

When an item gets approved or not approved, it's one commissioner who will pull it or the chair pulls it. I'm asking for the name of the commissioner that pulled this item out and why we weren't approved on Thursday.

Right, but there's no chair, there's no city commissioner that would pull the item. The items either get pulled for discussion if they're going to be discussed. If they won't be discussed, then they simply either approve, defer, deny. So they don't necessarily have to pull an item. They only pull it when they're going to discuss it.

Well, somebody pulled our item and it wasn't passed. I want to know who that person was.

Right. Well, unfortunately, conceptually, it doesn't work that way. No one pulled the item. The item went in front of the city commission. The city commission did not approve as a whole.

Who decided that our item would not be approved?

The entire city commission did not vote on the item. So it's all the commissioners.

Who gave them that option? The city commission.

they have the option so that that's within their powers. Whatever agenda item comes before the city commission, the city commission as a whole either approves it or denies it or defers it as a whole.

Frankly, I've attended like 500 meetings. It doesn't work the way you're describing. The chair decides, the chair makes a decision. She takes input from specific commissioners. I'm asking for the name of the specific commissioner or chair who pulled our item.

Right. The item was not pulled in the city commission, so I wouldn't have any information other than the item.

We're going in a circle. I'm asking for specifically why our item wasn't heard, and you're not providing an answer.

I'm sorry. I don't have that information for you.

I'll try to watch the videotaper.

Right.

But I'm sorry, but your explanation doesn't really belie what normally happens at a commission meeting. Let's go on to another item. The next item is the Sequarium site. I think everybody's seen that in the news, and we've gotten some press articles about it. Does anybody have any comments? It's a Miami-Dade County site, but does anybody have any comments on that?

I don't have a comment, but I would like to know, do they have a closing date on that, or if they're going to put something else there, or what right now?

It's a good question. I think it's pretty much being approved. This site seems to be being handed off to a developer, David Martin. This item is controlled by the county and owned by the county, so it's not going to go through the city of Miami.

We will not have any influence other than the ability to discuss it.

I'm sorry, Corey, that's a tough question.

Yeah, I mean, I would still like to know if somebody had some information on whether they had already made a decision on whether the county or whatever was going to put something there or if they had a closing date on it or whatever.

Lois, you have a need. From what I'm aware of, it has been awarded to Terra Group, but there's not a plan yet in place. I think they're in the planning process, from my understanding, in my conversations that I've had. They're still deciding what they're going to do and what they're able to do. and there's going to be a lot of hurdles but um tara has a you know a lot of ability to overcome hurdles so we shall see we shall see i'm hopeless and he has a vested interest in key biscayne with this project and he's done i know he's done a lot of work and as far as the egress and ingress into Key Biscayne. So I'm sure he'll take that into consideration. I'm hoping he'll take that into consideration. But at the end of the day, he's a business wanting to make money. So hopefully he considers the residents and everything around there. But, you know.

Corey, we'll keep following that closely. Okay, thank you. The next item we've got is an update on... Peter, regarding the marina.

This aquarium? This aquarium, thank you. It is regarding the marina part of it. I know there's dry docks and there's also in-slippage dockage. Marina, the actual in-water marina, the riparian part of that planning and it just seems that the less destruction happens around the existing site for additional dockage, the better.

Okay. I see Andrew Fry is here. Do you have any input on this aquarium changeover? Nothing that's not in the public record? All right, we'll follow it as we hear more information. We're gonna move on to an update on Marine Stadium RFP. Andrew?

There's no update from last meeting. We're still pending the city commission scheduling a vote on the first ranked proposal.

Okay. Next item we have is the Civitas plan. I did run into David Snow, the planning director today at City Hall. He said there's no update on that. It's still on hold. And then we went through the Virginia Key land full site update.

Thank you all very much for being here for that.

We are going to go to the two discussion items we have pertaining to meetings, upcoming meetings.

Yes. So I wanted just to let the board know that we have a new parks director. So he will be appointed to the Virginia Key Advisory Board as an ex-official member. His name is Chuck Ellis. So he'll be joining the next meeting that we have.

What's his last name?

Chuck Ellis, E-L-L-I-S.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

The Assistant City Attorney would like to speak regarding the discussion item for the upcoming meetings and the board voting for Virginia Key Advisory Board meetings kind of have intertwined and have to do with each other. Sure. So she's going to provide some clarification for us.

So according to the code, City Code Chapter 2, Article 2, Division 13.5 and Section 2-1191B, which is the one that governs Virginia Key Advisory Board, the board shall meet every other month unless required to meet on a more frequent basis to fulfill the requirements subsection 1 or 10 so if we go to that subsection it's either the the board may meet on a more regular basis but it is to review and recommend to the city manager for approval or disapproval of any procurement items as defined by section 18-73 as amended that exclusively affects Virginia key advisory board so in other words the the Virginia key advisory board shall be meeting every other month

Thank you for now you're referring to Virginia key advisory board item number two Well, they're both intertwined because technically we don't have to have a vote since I didn't know this portion I added it to the agenda since you and I had discussed adding this as an agenda item But since the the board by the bylaws does not have to meet every month, then we don't have to take a vote on it Okay, and it looks like we have a quorum tonight.

We had enough people for a quorum although I One board member came a little late, without mentioning any names.

Well, the bylaws we have, and we actually checked that when our board member walked in, the bylaws of Section B says that if you have insufficient board members present when the meeting starts and doesn't constitute a quorum after the commencement of a workshop, If you have quorum, the workshop shall continue, and there's no quorum, unfortunately. So you still have to continue as a workshop.

All right. So board member discussion about meeting every other month? Anybody have any comments?

Gary? I'm totally supportive.

Anybody else have any comments? Any objections?

How would that affect as far as, you know, the things that go on on Virginia Key? I think that, you know, if you have a meeting every other month, it may be some items that be missed that may go on. Within a month.

I think if there's an important item or we're required to vote on something, particularly something important or bidding, we will have a, we will, Raffaella will inform us and we'll have a meeting.

Okay, so then it'll be that we will just have a certain emergency meeting or something if it's something that comes up.

Does that sound okay, city attorney? Sounds good to me.

Absolutely. According to the code, you should have a meeting every other month unless the subsection that has to do with procurement of an item applies. If that section applies, then you can convene a meeting every month if needed.

All right. Thank you. Sounds like there's no objections. And then when is our next meeting?

So technically, our next meeting then, if we're going to start emphasizing this, would be in December. But historically, the board has not met in December. But the chair, you had asked me to see if the chambers were available on December 9th, and I reserved it for December 9th just in case. So I defer to the board and the chair to see how you would like to proceed.

I'd like to hear from other board members. I think I'd be in favor of not meeting in November and meeting on December 9th.

Can we hear from anybody else?

I'm in agreement with that. Any objections? Who do you want to make a motion? I have something to say. We technically can't because we don't have quorum.

Practice.

Practice.

I would just say, yeah, pretty much I agree with that because this November the 23rd is hitting right there near Thanksgiving, for one thing, and a lot of people will be in and out of town and things like that. I see here that you wanted to move it to... what was it, November the 18th.

It looks like, Cory, we'll move, we're gonna bypass November.

Okay.

We're gonna go right to December 9th.

December the 9th, right.

And the room is available.

That would sound better because you don't want to have it down near Christmas either because that's another situation that comes up.

Any other items anybody would like to talk about?

So, Peter, just to clarify then, and obviously this will be announced at the next meeting, but if we're going to skip November and meet in December, then technically our next meeting will be in February. And then it will be February, April, June, August, October, and December meetings. should the board wish to meet in December because historically there has been no meeting in December.

Okay, it's okay with me. Any objections? No.

So continue then with the meeting for December 9th, correct?

December 9th. And then what's the day that the city commission might hear that item again, Ms. City Attorney?

December 11th, it was deferred to.

So that would be after our... My apologies. After our December 9th meeting, okay. Anything else anybody would like to bring up?

Chair, if you could clarify for me, Andrew's comments went over my head in terms of Marine Stadium. Where is that, the RFP, in terms of Marine Stadium? It's under a cone of silence. Please clarify.

The cone of silence, it's no longer under a cone of silence. There was a winning bidder. According to the news reports, the city attorney can confirm, and it was a day or two days away from being heard by the city commission. And then it was announced that the winning bidder, executive, president, or CEO, had been under investigation for problems with bidding in a project in Texas. There were some fines, pleas. It was, I guess, very embarrassing. And the city manager decided to pull the item. And I don't know the exact update, except for what Andrew told us, that I guess it's managers trying to decide when to put it back on the agenda and in what form. Motion to adjourn. Is there a second?

Yes.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you all very much for coming. It was interesting hearing from Barry Miller today.

His firm's done some wonderful work. I'd just like to say that I had some issues on business out of town. That's why I wasn't here the last couple of months.

Thank you. It's good to see you again, Corey.