Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board - Regular Meeting

You have the choice to decide what is most important. Be strong, be the hero. No matter how your day goes, remember what matters most. Drive safe, every trip, every time.

Who are you? Your lungs. Even though you quit smoking years ago, you may be at risk for lung cancer.

But with a routine screening, you can detect it early.

Learn more at SavedByTheScan.org. We all love to cut corners.

You're all set? Okay, great.

But when it comes to crossing the road, this is one corner you can't cut. Always cross at an intersection. Use the crosswalk pedestrian signal. And when you cross, be alert. Make sure approaching drivers see you and have enough time to stop. Drivers, you cannot cut this corner either. You're required to stop for pedestrians in a crosswalk. It is the law. Really? Yes. Alert today. Alive tomorrow. This message is brought to you by the Florida Department of Transportation.

The City of Miami Department of Solid Waste is proud to announce the official launch of its new Services Alert System, a real-time communication platform designed to keep residents informed, prepared, and engaged with their solid waste services. This new initiative reflects the department's ongoing commitment to providing high-quality, reliable, and environmentally responsible services to all City of Miami residents. Through the services alert system, residents will receive timely updates on essential topics such as collection schedules, service delays, hurricane preparedness, and other important updates. The launch of this platform marks a major step forward in enhancing public communication, safety, and community engagement. Residents can easily enroll in the services alert system by visiting the City of Miami's official sign up at MiamiZeroWaste.com. Stay connected and never miss an update. Sign up for services alerts today. For more information about City of Miami Solid Waste Services, visit MiamiZeroWaste.com or contact 311. The City of Miami Department of Solid Waste is proud to announce the official launch of its new Services Alert System, a real-time communication platform designed to keep residents informed, prepared, and engaged with their solid waste services. This new initiative reflects the department's ongoing commitment to providing high-quality, reliable, and environmentally responsible services to all City of Miami residents. Through the services alert system, residents will receive timely updates on essential topics such as collection schedules, service delays, hurricane preparedness, and other important updates. The launch of this platform marks a major step forward in enhancing public communication, safety, and community engagement. Residents can easily enroll in the services alert system by visiting the City of Miami's official sign up at MiamiZeroWaste.com. Stay connected and never miss an update. Sign up for services alerts today. For more information about City of Miami Solid Waste Services, visit MiamiZeroWaste.com or contact 311.

The best is yet to come. Positive self-talk comes from finding positive voices. I block out the rest. Love, you're mine.

We are here to assist the entire public, people who have businesses, for the process of their applications, both for their use certificate with the City of Miami, as well as to take them by the hand for the process of the Tate County with the Department of Durham.

Are you lost in the transit maze? No worries. Call 311 for expert guidance. Get real-time information on bus stops, routes, and schedules. With 311, your commute will be a breeze.

Millions plan for retirement online. Estimate your future benefits, apply for retirement, and manage your benefits all from the comfort of your home. And give yourself the freedom to do what you want offline. Social Security's online services help put you in control with secure access to your information anytime, anywhere. Allowing you to spend more time with family, friends, or simply just enjoying the day. Social Security. Securing today and tomorrow. See what you can do online at socialsecurity.gov.

The city of Miami and the Department of Parks want to tell all the people who sail the waters of Miami, who visit these islands, we want them not to throw garbage on the floor, in the sand, when they are visiting these water parks. Please keep the garbage inside the boat. If you bring down a drink, some food item, in these islands that please collect everything that is going to go down to the island or keep all the garbage that they are producing, that they keep it inside the boat. Department of Police of the City of Miami, the Marine Patrol, they are constantly patrolling the waters on the weekends, during the week, they are watching to be sure that they are following the rules because there will be consequences if they do not follow the rules. Keep the islands clean on all occasions.

Trees are an important part of our environment, providing shade, clean air, and homes for wildlife. But sometimes trees need to be removed due to disease, safety hazards, or other reasons. If you live in the city of Miami and need to remove a tree on your property, you must apply for a permit from the city. The permit process helps ensure that trees are only removed when necessary and that new trees are planted to replace them. Applying for a permit is easy. Just visit the Miami City website and follow the steps to complete the online application. Remember, it's important to follow the rules and regulations when it comes to tree removal in the city of Miami. Let's work together to keep our city green and beautiful.

Positive self-talk comes from finding positive voices. I block out the rest. Love, you're mine.

Planning an event in one of our beautiful city parks? You might need a permit. Whether it's a birthday party, sports practice, fitness class, or a big community event, if you've got more than 10 people or need exclusive space, you'll want to check with the Parks Department. Applying is easy. For most events, just submit your application two weeks in advance with a $50 fee. Planning something bigger with music or rides? no problem we've got special permits for that too for events at kenneth meyers bayside park peacock park or fuller street plaza there's an extra step you'll need to attend a quick committee meeting don't let permit worries stop your fun visit our website for all the details and to apply let's make your event happen miami style

Pothole is basically formed from sitting water. Wherever the water may sit, it will make a pothole. It will deteriorate the asphalt. Today we will be showing you how to repair. We're going to cut it out. We're going to go ahead and remove the old asphalt and we're going to replace it with new asphalt. We're going to cut out around the pothole, remove the old asphalt. We're going to put some tack oil around that. This is giving it a safe and sticky base. It's like glue. It will bind the asphalt together to make sure if water do sit back on that spot, it will not deteriorate the asphalt. Once the pothole is repaired, we will actually tamp it down. Depending on the size of the hole, you can use a hand tamper or you can use a heavy tamper to go ahead and press the asphalt down. If you guys happen to come across a pothole, please dial 311, give that location, give your name, and it will take approximately two to four weeks to repair that pothole.

Did you know that as of now, all commercial landscapers and residential gardeners working within the City of Miami must have a landscaping certification? To obtain the certification, you can attend a mandatory free landscaping certification course held at the City of Miami Department of Solid Waste. The course takes place on the second and fourth Saturday of every month, as well as the first and third Wednesday of every month, from 10 a.m. to noon. This permit is required for all commercial landscapers and residential gardeners operating within the City of Miami limits. Be sure to obtain your certification to continue operating within the City of Miami.

Buckle up and remember that children must always be properly restrained. Car seats and boosters provide protection for infants and children in a crash. Yet, car crashes are a leading cause of death for children ages one to 13. That's why it's so important to choose and use the right car seat correctly every time your child is in the car. The best car seat is the one that fits your child's size, is installed correctly, and is used properly every time you drive.

Illegal dumping is a real issue here in the city of Miami. Reporting incidents of illegal dumping is vital to addressing the issue promptly. Residents can report such incidents by dialing 911 for in-act and 311 for after-the-act dumping by submitting a report on our official website, MiamiZeroWaste.com, under the Let's Get Rid of Illegal Dumping tab. Your cooperation is crucial in maintaining the well-being of our community and environment. Illegal dumping can also be reported by Crime Stoppers at 305-471-8477. There is a $500 reward for reports that result in citation or arrest. By working together, we can create a cleaner, healthier, and more sustainable Miami for our residents.

Te sientes perdido en el laberinto del transporte? No te preocupes. Llama al 311 para obtener orientación experta. Obtén información en tiempo real sobre paradas de autobús, rutas y horarios. Con el 311, tu trayecto será mucho más sencillo.

My name is José Cobrón, owner, along with my twin brothers, of the restaurant Mofongo Restaurant in Miami.

Welcome to Mofongo. Follow me, family.

The story of Mofongo began when my twin brothers and I arrived here in Miami in 2018. There was a lot of need for Puerto Rican food, so we decided to start and get started. The idea of Mofongo comes from the dreams we had, my twin brothers and I, bringing the Puerto Rican tradition, the culture, the Boricua chadú. We started with a smaller place nearby. We were seven years old. We needed more space. The volume was quite cozy. And we decided to move to another place near the restaurant. And we made this place. Mofon is a typical dish from Puerto Rico. It's the banana. We mash it and fill it with different proteins. Chicken, shrimp, churrasco, lobster, seafood. We have typical dishes like rice with andules, fried meat, cod, capurria. A lot of typical things from Puerto Rico. And an experience, really. Mofon is an experience. Uno de las cosas típicas de Puerto Rico es el pastel. Adicional del pastel hacemos las alcapuras, todo lo hacemos aquí en casa, los orullitos. El arroz con gandules es un arroz típico de Puerto Rico. Se llama el arroz con gandules apastelado. Cada plato que tenemos aquí te hace sentir como si estuvieras en Puerto Rico. Nosotros queríamos que los clientes se sintieran en Puerto Rico. La comida, el sabor, la experiencia, el servicio, que te sintieras en casa. Somos gemelos, somos socios de negocio aquí en Miami, y no nos ha ido super bien.

Queremos escucharte. Ayúdanos a mejorar el sistema de trolleys de la ciudad de Miami. Tu opinión guiará el futuro del plan maestro del mismo. Encuentra la encuesta en nuestra página web. Viaja gratis, sigue tu recorrido en tiempo real y empieza a explorar todo lo que Miami tiene para ofrecer.

This is what the Miami Police is all about. This is our promotion ceremony. I just had the incredible honor of promoting one major, one commander, four lieutenants, and five sergeants. The leadership of the Miami Police Department, as you can see, the energy is buzzing here because these folks, men and women, are the lifeblood of the Miami Police Department. They're the ones that are ensuring that we're doing things with the best interests of our community. Amazing. Just happy to make my family and friends proud.

Keep working hard and study because it's not that easy.

Like I said, I feel great. I'm grateful to be here. I'm waiting for everybody and thankful for the opportunity. I feel great. This is a long time coming that I've been looking forward to, so I finally made it and I feel happy. It's a good day. I'm just ready to take on this next chapter and day by day, ready to fill this new role.

So we're here on 19th Terrace and 15th Ave approximately in Allapattah. And I'm just so proud and honored to be able to do this for the seniors. My residents that live in St. Augustine building, mostly seniors, they wanted a straighter line to get to the CVS and to do the shopping in the grocery store. So I'm just honored and privileged that I can do this for them. They're going to be very happy.

It's great. It's great to see the residents using it. They are super happy. We're here with them. We've gotten only positive feedback so far. And you actually see the use. You see the residents walking and using this path now. It was done in less than three weeks, and it cost about $70,000.

Thank you.

Today we are reactivating our fall garden at Lemon City Child Learning Center. We are placing new herbs, vegetables, and fruits for our children and families. It's important for children to learn how to grow their own food because they're able to access it a lot easier. So it's overall important for their nutrition.

We're working with the parents, soil, we're planting seeds, we're planting vegetation for them to take home to learn how to be more efficient, more economical, to be able to have a healthy living. It also reduces cost in making them become more healthy and self-sufficient.

Ready, Set, Grow. It's a great program for the parents to join in, the kids to learn how to plant and grow the plants and know what a great nutrition it is. The daycare workers that are out here, they did such a phenomenal job. You can tell that they work with their hearts and they love what they do and you can see it in the kids' faces and I just want to thank and appreciate them on behalf of the manager's office.

Overcoming obstacles and difficult situations is an occasional test. It's a daily reality. And when the alarm sounds, we are the ones that people call on their worst days, at their most vulnerable moments. It's very simple. We help people. And whether the mission is straightforward or overwhelming, or feels utterly unsurmountable, it doesn't matter. We show up, and we push through that uncertainty.

Raise your right hand. Repeat after me. Protecting the lives, homes and property of my fellow citizens from the ravages of fire

It's a great feeling, accomplished, a lot of hard work to get it done, to help people and be the best firefighter that I can be.

I feel great. My family and my friends and my brothers and sisters that I graduated with are all amongst me, so I couldn't have a better feeling, best feeling on the planet.

Today we're celebrating a graduation of 37-hour recruits. Today's the first day we call the Miami Firefighters. We're so proud. We have a beautiful history, a beautiful tradition, and today we get to celebrate it. This is a very proud day to be a Miami Firefighter.

Thank you.

I can and I will.

I can and I will. I can and I will. Mantras are really helpful for me in managing my mental health. I can and I will. The mind is so powerful. Love your mind.

Are you lost in the transit maze? No worries. Call 311 for expert guidance. Get real-time information on bus stops, routes, and schedules. With 311, your commute will be a breeze.

Buying on the Internet is very popular. Here are some tips to make the transaction safer.

Meet in public places such as shopping centers, coffee shops or police stations instead of inviting strangers to your home. Verify the user's qualifications and comments on the platform. Do not share personal information and avoid giving your phone number. Be careful with buyers who want to make a deal outside the platform. Do not give verification codes that can steal your credentials or bank information. Manténgase en la plataforma al realizar negocios y presente una queja si es necesario. Siguiendo estos consejos de seguridad, puede protegerse y tener una buena transacción.

Mantente informado en situaciones de emergencia con Alert Miami. Regístrate ahora para recibir alertas críticas en tiempo real, como clima severo, cierres de vías y eventos comunitarios importantes. Puedes elegir cómo recibir las notificaciones en tus dispositivos móviles, correo electrónico o mensajes de texto. Inscríbete usando el código QR en pantalla, enviando un texto ALERT MIAMI al 888-777 o visitando miamigob.com. Tenga en cuenta al registrarse en el servicio que usted debe ingresar a Alert Miami como una sola palabra, ya que algunos sistemas de autocorrección pueden separarla en dos. Únete a Alert Miami y mantén a tu familia segura y bien informada.

Planning an event in one of our beautiful city parks? You might need a permit. Whether it's a birthday party, sports practice, fitness class, or a big community event, if you've got more than 10 people or need exclusive space, you'll want to check with the Parks Department. Applying is easy. For most events, just submit your application two weeks in advance with a $50 fee. Planning something bigger with music or rides? No problem. We've got special permits for that, too. For events at Kenneth Myers Bayside Park, Peacock Park, or Fuller Street Plaza, there's an extra step. You'll need to attend a quick committee meeting. Don't let permit worries stop your fun. Visit our website for all the details and to apply. Let's make your event happen, Miami-style. Planning an event in one of our beautiful city parks? You might need a permit. Whether it's a birthday party, sports practice, fitness class, or a big community event, if you've got more than 10 people or need exclusive space, you'll want to check with the Parks Department. Applying is easy. For most events, just submit your application two weeks in advance with a $50 fee. Planning something bigger with music or rides? No problem. We've got special permits for that, too. For events at Kenneth Myers Bayside Park, Peacock Park, or Fuller Street Plaza, there's an extra step. You'll need to attend a quick committee meeting. Don't let permit worries stop your fun. Visit our website for all the details and to apply. Let's make your event happen, Miami-style.

MPA is protecting you.

If you do scan it, you may compromise your personal and banking information. We are being more vigilant. We are removing the QR codes from our parking signs. And we urge you to use the pay by phone app to make the parking payment.

Are you lost in the transit maze? No worries. Call 311 for expert guidance. Get real-time information on bus stops, routes, and schedules. With 311, your commute will be a breeze.

I see a beautiful soul, a hardworking mom, And someone that loves her kids.

She's everything I want to be. She's an amazing mom, an amazing worker, an amazing wife. And I see the person that I want to be in life.

It's so refreshing and exciting to have you as a father.

You are your mother and I's whole world.

I don't have no doubt in my mind about the next version of yourself that you're going to be.

I just love Houston. I love it, too.

I'm an extra dealer, and I'll be your sub today.

Can you see anything different as a pill? No. You don't know?

Fentanyl is being mixed into everything now. There's only one thing that will save somebody's life. That is naloxone nasal spray. Fentanyl, it's cheap, it's potent, and it's profitable.

Why would drug dealers put a lethal dose of fentanyl in drugs if they know it's so harmful? Really just all about the money.

I just didn't realize that one pill could change your whole life.

More kitchen now.

For this reason, illegal waste is a danger to communities and the environment. People who throw away illegal waste are a big threat to our communities and the environment. in the environment as a dangerous substance and chemical product that comes out of the farm, throwing it into the soil, contaminating it and polluting it. This pollution affects the health of our ecosystem, affects plants, animals, and aquatic life. In addition to this, illegal parks create a breeding ground for insects, lizards, and organisms that could get sick, that pose a risk for residents to live near these sites. Disgraceful appearance of these sites, the terrain of these parks, will have a negative impact on the community. This will reduce the value of the property and encourage potential investors and visitors.

Hola, soy Capitan Freddy Cruz de la Policía de la Ciudad de Miami, y hoy queremos hablar de la seguridad cuando uno está cruzando las calles. Siempre le pedimos a los peatones, cuando están cruzando, no crucen el centro de la calle de un lado al otro. Usen la línea designada, como aquí tienen un ejemplo. Si van a cruzar de aquí a allá, usen esta línea designada aquí en la zona residencial. Por favor, hemos visto muchos accidentes, muchas tragedias, no queremos ver más.

The Supplemental Security Income Program provides monthly payments to help meet basic needs, like putting food on the table, paying the rent, or buying new shoes for growing feet. You may qualify if your income and financial resources are low and you are 65 or older, or an adult or child with a disability or who is blind. Call 1-800-772-1213 or go to ssa.gov slash ssi to start to apply. Produced at U.S. taxpayer expense.

To repair the holes in this street, which are mostly caused by the rainy season that we are going through, the baches are created because the water stagnates in an area and that weakens the asphalt and with the passage of the vehicles, the asphalt is damaged as such. The procedure to do it, we cut around the bache to make a bache as square as possible, to do it in a correct way and to look good. The time we take to do it depends on the size of the bache, on the depth of the bache. We are going to need, on many occasions, if the bache is very deep, we have to fill it with lime rock, compact it. The residents have the way to report any problem you may have by calling 311. Your help as a community is very important for us to be able to locate watchers and to support them so that we can help you because you are the essence of our work.

Hop on the City of Miami Trolley and start exploring all the amazing things our city has to offer. Explore Miami for free on the City of Miami Trolley. Multiple routes connect neighborhoods and popular destinations. Air conditioned and wheelchair accessible trolleys ensure a comfortable ride. Plan your trip with the Trolley Tracker. Get maps, schedules, live tracking and real-time updates. Call 305-416-1132 with questions. Hop on and start exploring.

The life of every child is precious. If you care for a child or teenager with a disability and have limited income and resources, they may qualify for monthly cash payments through the Supplemental Security Income Program or SSI. Call Social Security at 1-800-772-1213 or visit ssa.gov slash ssikids to learn more. That's ssa.gov slash ssikids. Message produced by Social Security at U.S. taxpayer expense.

If you're a homeowner of a single family or a duplex in the city of Miami, you can apply for a building permit as an owner builder. If you're unsure of what is needed for the project, you can always come down to 444 Southwest 2nd Avenue on the first floor and we can guide you on what documents are needed and also what are the standards that the city requires and the minimum requirements for whatever project you are taking on.

The SAVE program, Storm Proof Assistance and Value Enhancements, was approved by the City of Miami Commission on September 11th, 2025 to help residents upgrade their homes. This initiative aims to make homes stronger, safer, and more energy efficient through affordable and accessible improvements. A pilot program launch date will be announced soon this program offers significant benefits, making it easier and more affordable to invest in your homes protection and efficiency eligible upgrades such as impact resistant windows reinforced roofs solar panels and energy saving appliances. qualify for a 50% discount on permit fees and faster reviews through the end of 2026. The City of Miami will soon inform residents of the exact pilot program start date and the steps to follow to access and begin making improvements to their homes.

MPA is protecting you.

If you do scan it, you may compromise your personal and banking information. We are being more vigilant. We are removing the QR codes from our parking signs. And we urge you to use the pay by phone app to make the parking payment.

September 20th, 1991, a young woman is found dead in a field along Seaview Road in Staten Island, New York.

She was beaten with a hammer that was actually left at the crime scene. She was rear handcuffed with not the normal type of handcuffs that police officers use. We believe it to be like a security guard's handcuffs. She had a scorpion tattoo on her buttock.

she became known as Scorpion Girl. And for three decades, investigators tried to identify her with no luck. Then in 2021, with new advances in technology and genealogy, they resubmitted her DNA. This time it worked.

Today, detectives investigating the brutal murder of a woman back in 1991

Her name was Christine Belusco. Christine was from Northern Jersey. She was born on Halloween.

Finally, investigators could track down the family of Christine Belusco and try to piece together what happened to her. But when they spoke to Christine's brother, they were shocked when he asked about Christine's young daughter. Christine's family told police that when she left her home in 1991, she took her two-year-old daughter with her. Her name was Krista Nicole. Once again, investigators began asking questions.

I met Christine freshman year in high school and we immediately became best friends. We were inseparable since then.

Christine's best friend Charlie was the godfather of Christine's baby. He says he last saw Christine and Krista Nicole in September of 1991 at the Mount Airy Lodge in the Pocono Mountains. Charlie said she was acting strange, almost paranoid.

She was getting ready for her move. She told all of our friends that she was going to Florida. That's the last time I saw her.

And when was that?

That was, I think it was in September of 91.

Just a few weeks later, Christine was found dead. To help find Krista Nicole, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children created this age progression image of what she might look like now.

I'm hoping that I can be a part of her life. There are probably about 30 to 40 friends of your mother who would love to meet you and you have a big, big support. network here in new jersey we have so many stories about her mother we'd like to share and explain how much her mother loved her and what a joy she brought well that would be beautiful if you could tell her that you just never know you might she might find her

My name is Carolina Quijano, and I'm the owner of Esquisito Chocolates. Esquisito Chocolates, Miami's first chocolate factory, and we self-produce on-site all of our chocolate from cacao beans we bring from different farms in Latin America and the Caribbean. We specialize primarily in dark chocolate. On-site, you can see us roast, grind, and transform cocoa beans into chocolate bars, bonbons, ice creams, and pastries, and we offer behind-the-scenes tours of how we produce everything. I used to work in finance and fell in love with a really nice hot chocolate that I had while traveling and started to play around with chocolate at home, make different recipes and things and decided that I wanted to open up a chocolate shop. I started in the back of a bakery and a six foot table, just making a little bit of chocolate and little by little grew it out. And then we just recently reopened at this spot about three months ago. So it's usually seven days to turn cocoa beans into chocolate. We start with our raw product and we have to roast it. Then we have to take the shell off. Then we put it into our melangers and grind the nibs for about four days. So if anybody ever passes by our windows at night, they'll see the machines going. And then once we take the chocolate out of the grinders, then we mold them into bars and bonbons and then bake with them as well. So if people are curious and want to see behind the scenes how our machines work, we also have classes that allow you to get hands-on with the chocolate and create your own little masterpieces. I really liked where the city of Miami was going in terms of the food scene, especially Little Havana area and how it was growing. A lot of small businesses where the owner is still in-house and present. And so it really attracted me to be able to open up here and showcase Miami flavors in chocolates. One of our top selling flavors is cafe con leche. And we brew the coffee into the chocolate machines and it's like eating a cafe in a little chocolate bar. Throughout the years, we've really grown and refined down our product. We now have award-winning chocolate that's been recognized throughout different publications nationally and internationally. For the future, I would love to continue being the chocolate place of Miami, the place that people want to come visit, the place that locals want to come support and see what Miami chocolate is all about.

you

We want to hear from you. Help us improve your City of Miami trolley system. Your feedback guides the future of the Trolley Master Plan. Find the survey on our webpage. Ride for free, track your ride, and start exploring Miami.

Hi, my name is George Harris. I'm a waste collector operator too, and I've been working for the City of Miami Solid Waste for 23 years. The route wear, it helps so much with efficiency, as far as it shows us the number of cans on the route, the number of houses that's on our route. It also counts the cans for us. We can use the GPS to locate a route or an address that was missed or we need to go pick up. Also, if our supervisor asks us to go to another route, we're able to just put in a route number And it would take us directly to that route. Even if we don't know the route or the area, the route wear helps us with that. And also, going to the dump, it also GPSes us to the nearest dump. Also, it logs us in to our wait ticket. The pre- and post-trip is so much easier with the route wear because everything shows up. on the tablet. It makes it so much easier. This is like a cheat code.

Yeah, like a cheat sheet.

Yeah, definitely. I can't work without it now. Oh, really? I'm uncomfortable without it.

We're here in Coconut Grove, the oldest part of Miami. We're showcasing kind of a dialogue between the younger artists These are very gifted and talented students from the Mace Conservatory of the Arts down in South Carolina.

A copy of the code section about lobbyists is available at the city clerk's office or online at municode.com. Any person making a presentation, formal request, or petition to the board concerning real property must make the disclosures required by the city code in writing. A copy of the city code section is available at the office of the city clerk or online at municode.com. The city requires that anyone requesting action by the board to disclose before the hearing any consideration provided or committed to anyone for agreement to support or withhold objection to the requested action pursuant to City Code Section 2-8. Any person may be heard by the board through the chair for not more than two minutes on any proposition before the board unless modified by the chair. Any person with a disability requiring assistance, auxiliary aids, or services for this meeting may notify the hearing board's liaison. When addressing the board, the member of the public must first state their name, address, and what item will be spoken about. If the item is being continued or rescheduled, the opportunity to be heard may be at such a later date before the board takes action on such item. A member of the public may also submit comments via the city's online comment forum. The comments submitted through the comment forum have been and will be distributed to the board members and city administration so that the board can consider the comments prior to taking any action. Additionally, the online comment form will remain open during the meeting to accept comments and distribute to the board members up until the chair closes public comment. All comments received will be included in the public record and will be considered by the board prior to action. Items shall proceed according to Section 7.1.1.4 of the Miami 21 Zoning Ordinance. The members of the board shall disclose any ex parte communications to remove the presumption of prejudice pursuant to Florida's statute section... 286.0115 and section 7.1.4.5 of the Miami 21 Zoning Ordinance. Staff will briefly present each item to be heard. For applications requiring board approval, the applicant will present its application. If the applicant agrees with the recommendation, the board may proceed to its deliberation and decision. The applicant may also waive the right to an evidentiary hearing on the record. The order of presentation shall be set forth in Miami 21 and the city code. Anyone wishing to appeal any decision made by this board for any matter considered at this meeting may need a verbatim record of the item. A video of this meeting may be requested at the Office of Communications or viewed online at miamigov.com. The city published an agenda as well as included in the notice to the public the items and topics that will be discussed at this meeting. The public has been given the opportunity to provide public comment during the meeting and within reasonable proximity and time before the meeting. The public comment options established and provided for this meeting comply with section 286.0114 of the Florida statutes, as the city has provided different public comment options for members of the public to indicate their support, opposition, or neutrality on the items and topics to be discussed at this meeting. Board members, are you comfortable with all these notice provisions set forth in these uniform rules of procedure we've established?

Yes.

Thank you.

May we stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? If you intend to testify in this proceeding, may you remain standing and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth and nothing but the truth? Thank you, you may be seated. I'll go ahead and call attendance. Calling Chair Adam Gersten.

Present.

Thank you. Calling Member Andres Lopez.

Present.

Thank you. Calling Member Mario Bailey. Thank you. Calling member Joseph Corral. Present. Thank you. Calling member Maria Paula de Corrales.

Present.

Thank you. Calling member Javier Lopez. Calling member Paul Mann.

Present.

Thank you. Calling member Elon Metoyer. Present. Thank you. Calling member Joshua Patinkin. Calling member Arthur Parasol. Calling member Manuel Vidillo. Present. Thank you. I do have a request for absence waiver by member Javier Lopez.

Move to approve. Second. All in favor?

Also, we do have quorum, thank you.

Thank you.

And as of 6.41 p.m., Chair, there were no online Public comments, may we close the online? Please. Public comment, thank you. Please do, yes.

Okay. Are there any changes to... Yeah, yeah. Sorry, yeah, I forgot about the minutes. Any minutes? I don't think so.

Yeah. So...

Oh, yeah, there were, sorry.

Through the Chair, we do have minutes to approve.

Yeah, sorry.

Yes, so is there... Oh, yeah, I'll move to approve them both, both July 16 and October 15. Okay. No, second. Second.

Okay, all in favor? Aye. Great, thanks. Okay, so are there any deferrals?

There are no deferrals at this time.

Okay, great, thanks.

calling PZAB 1, file ID 17940, a resolution of the Miami Planning, Zoning, and Appeals Board recommending to the Miami City Commission approval of an ordinance amending ordinance number 13114, the zoning ordinance of the City of Miami, Florida, as amended Miami 21 Code by amending Article 6, titled Supplemental Regulations, specifically Section 6.1, titled Intent and Exclusions, Table 13, to modify the permitting process for food service establishments and alcohol service establishments, and by amending Section 6.3, titled Commercial Uses, to clarify and update outdoor dining regulations and to allow outdoor dining by right in specified locations and when scale and design criteria are met, making findings containing a severability clause and providing for an effective date.

Thank you, Melanie. I appreciate that. Good evening. My name is Mawuzi Watson. I'm the chief of land development. I'm really, really excited to be here today and to present our outdoor dining legislation reform. We've been working on it for a long time, and we're finally bringing it before you. Before I go into the proposed legislation, I just want to give you a program update. We've brought in several pieces of legislation through PSAP, and so we just want to give a little update. We've made solid progress across the reform program. There's several items like personal wireless, micro-dwelling units, and educational form that have already been approved by city commission, which is showing a really meaningful need and momentum in this program that we're implementing. Other reforms are actively moving through the legislative process, and there's several key items that are also scheduled for the upcoming PZAP review. Today, we're talking about outdoor dining. We want to do some reform to the Midtown Class 2 permits and must portion of the Miami 21 code. And overall, the aim is just to advance the legislation and make things easier for businesses, for our residents, and even for staff. So currently, oh, sorry, jumping ahead. So we had a workshop, number six, back in October, and Graham did an update in January before the city commission updating them on where we are in the terms of the reform. Right now we're in the process of cleaning up our land use table that I presented before you, I think, last month. What we're going to do is make sure that those categories that we put together are fully aligned, and then the plan director is going to publish a determination with the uses. Today we're here before you about the outdoor dining, and then we plan on coming, like I said, some reform ideas for our class two permits and also an overarching entitlement program. And what we mean by that is that, you know, sometimes when we're looking at our warrant criteria might not be very clear. So we're using this as opportunity to kind of clarify those criteria as well as if there's modifications, sometimes it can get a little bit fuzzy on what can be modified, what cannot be modified. We're hoping to, you know, make modifications that make that easier for applicants as well as staff. and remove ambiguity. So currently, and this is like a lot of text on the slide, but the most important part is is that in order to get an outdoor dining warrant by right right now, you have to meet like six criteria, all of them. And one of them is being in the DDA, which is downtown. We know that a lot of businesses are not downtown. So that knocks out a majority of the businesses that are able to access outdoor dining by right. So our proposed amendments. The objective of this, as I explained, is to provide some clarity, consistency, and fairness on how our outdoor dining legislation is applied throughout the city. We want to make sure that it's aligning with how restaurants actually operate. And we want to make sure that we also are protecting our neighbors. We're here to modernize outdoor dining standards so that we can create vibrant, thriving, small businesses and neighborhoods. You know that outdoor dining activates streets, and it puts Jane Addams' eyes on the street. So in the beginning of this process, we started back in July of 2025, the overall reform steering committee. And our last meeting was in October. But specifically for outdoor dining, we've been having a lot of community outreach, a lot of meetings. So our initial kickoff meeting was in August 21st. And then we had an internal working group, which you're seeing the picture of. We did a presentation before the Miami River Commission, which they provided recommendations that we've included into the legislation. And then we had two other meetings in January with stakeholders. The last meeting that we actually had, we were able to kind of test out our ideas and say, hey, you're thinking about submitting an application. Would this work for you or not? It didn't work for them, but they were excited to hear about the changes. So here's some data. We were asked in land development to take a look back from today and see how many outdoor dining warrants were actually approved. This is a list of the outdoor dining, and there's 24 of them. But we'll just admit that a lot of the smaller scale outdoor dining establishments, they're gonna require a warrant currently. Warrant process is taking too long. There are often extended periods in the review, and there's a need for more outdoor dining to be by right. So here's the proposals, we're excited about this. Okay, so some of these general standards are still the same. With the food service establishments, sorry, outdoor dining is only allowed when you have a food service establishment or alcohol service establishment. So that means that you just can't have some random outdoor dining that's not connected to those types of services. This particular, our purview is on the private property and we're trying to understand where that dining is and how it, so essentially, if it's on the ground floor, then that's less disruptive. But once it gets to the roofs and stuff like that, that's going to automatically be by right. I mean, sorry, that you would have to go through a warrant if it's above the ground floor. Another important key point is that any of the furnishings or any of the things that are associated with the outdoor dining need to be able to be removed within 24 hours. And this is specific to the parking because if you have like a, let's say you have a little cafe and you only have inside, you might have like maybe four Well, two tables and four chairs, let's say. If you have like eight tables and 24 seats outside, it would trigger parking. So that's basically what this is saying. In addition, we also are considering the placement of the outdoor dining. So there has to be a distance of six feet from the back of the curb to the outdoor dining so that we can have that flow of pedestrian movement that we're looking to encourage with the outdoor dining. And again, we're also concerned with the noise. We want to make sure that if we're approving something that we're hopefully adding a business that's gonna be a good neighbor. So we do look at things like maybe like where the speakers are placed or what kind of potential noise can come from the establishment. So this is the part we've all been waiting for. This is the major change. We are adding four by-right conditions to the outdoor dining. I wish I had like a drum roll. I feel like I should have one, but I won't.

Thank you.

All right. So first, all four of these first criteria have to be met by any of the by right, which means they have to be wholly within the first and second layer. So we're seeing these colors. You're seeing the first layer in green, the second layer in like a yellow and the third layer in orange. So anything in the green and the yellow is within the first or second layer. And that's where. you can have by right potentially outdoor dining. It must be on the ground level. I've heard, you know, I did have a community member that I met with that was very, very adamant about the fact that anything above the ground floor needed to be approved. We see sometimes, you know, I see on Instagram, you might hear like buildings that they're part, you know, like having parties and stuff like that and you're hearing the noise reverberating. We want to be sensitive to that and make sure that we're not creating by right approvals that would facilitate that. The outdoor dining cannot be across from a T3 residential zone to be by right, and it cannot be located within MIMO or Biscayne Boulevard Historic District. So these four criteria are applicable to all of the by right, but then we're going to start going into So as I stated, we've broken down the scale and the location by four major groups. You have micro, we have small, we have medium, and we have large. And I'll go into it in more detail, but you can kind of see with the pictures of the chairs how the scale and the intensity or the amount of chairs is increasing as we're getting from micro to large. So the first category that we have is micro. Now there's only two, besides the four, there's only two other criteria. It has to be less than 10 seats, and it cannot abut a T3 or a T4R. So if you look at the diagram, oh, I'm sorry, and I forgot a key point, that it can only be located on the principal front, because that's what we want to activate, right? So this is a diagram of that. Okay, when the outdoor seating is not abutting a T3 or a T4R, then the restauranteur can have seating on the secondary frontage. So they can have it on the primary frontage and on the secondary frontage. This is a rendering of what it looks like. You can see it's a lesser intensity, lesser chairs, just a pretty calm kind of area, not creating a lot of activity with micro. So the next opportunity for buy right is the small size. And this has a specific distance requirement of 150 feet from either a T3 or a T4R. And you can see that kind of with the red buffering. So you can have the seating along the principal frontage here because it's not abutting those two transects at the top, which is the T4 and the T3. Here's a rendering of what that might look like. You're seeing a little bit more intensity, a little bit more potential for activity. The third opportunity for buy right is a medium size, which is from 21 seats. I'm sorry, I think I skipped one part. So for small, it's between 11 and 20 seats. For medium, this is the ranges from 21 to 40 seats. And this also has a distance requirement as well from T3 to T4R, but we're just not communicating that in this particular image. But as you can see, the opportunity for outdoor dining around the block is created more in this scheme. In addition to In addition to the fact that we're opening it up in... So in addition to the fact that we're opening up the ability to have 21 seats to 40 seats in these particular areas, if you fall within a TOD, a transit corridor, a DDA, our central business district, our specialty districts that are located in chapter four, or the D1 or the D2 zone, you potentially have the ability to go by right if you're meeting the other criteria. So that's for medium. So medium has the ability to have 21 to 40 seats. It has a distance requirement. And in addition, if you fall within these specialty corridors, you're able to go by right. This is like the first opportunity in the, well, this is the only

How do I say this?

All of the other schemes that I provided for you for outdoor dining, they're not location specific, right? You can have them anywhere within the city. This one is. And this is another rendering of what that could look like. All right, so large is anything above 40.

Sorry, what was that chart that just, was that coming? I'm going to get there.

I was trying to get to large, so I apologize, but I'll get there. So if If it's above 40 seats, then it's not going to be able to go by right. And this is following the typical procedure that we do every day now. You'll have to get a building permit, you'll have to get a CU, you'll have to go through the warrant process, and your application will be judged through Article 7. And then this is important too, that we wanted to clarify is that just because you are having outdoor dining, you might have alcohol service as well. If a business expands its outdoor dining, that doesn't automatically mean that you're improving or increasing your alcohol service area. So we wanted to make that very clear. And then we have some minor updates as well. For the food service establishment section of Article 6, we're clarifying this and making it compatible with state requirements. Right now in our code it's saying that the size should be a minimum of 2,500 square feet, where it should be 2,000. And then for the alcohol service establishments, we're making sure that that's cross-referenced with Chapter four of our muni code. So I know you're probably thinking, what's the impact of this? Are we just throwing things at the wall? Are we really gonna make a difference? And we're feeling like it's a good start. We still need to do some research and if it gets passed, It's implemented, we can monitor it, but like I said, what we did is we looked as if today, a year back from today, if we had 24 applications, how many of them would have been approved by right? And so we did the exercise and we found that five out of the 24 would have been done by right, which is a 21% removal rate of warrants that we would have had.

Are these numbers days?

Yes, during days.

Thank you.

Yes, during days. And again, we understand that there is room for improvement. That's why we're here. And we're hoping to get these numbers, you know, we intend every day, we work every day to get these numbers down. But this is just a little snapshot of potentially the impact that we would make. Thank you.

Thank you. Can I just mention one thing? I just wanted to give kudos to and her team for the amount of work they put into this. I'm very happy to receive your feedback today and continue the work as we move forward. But all the renderings were prepared by the city of Miami. All the data that was supporting the presentation was prepared by her team. We got a lot of support from the Office of Zoning. We got a lot of stakeholder involvement. We went about this the right way, and I just wanted to just take a moment before we get into the discussion, say a good job to that team. Thank you. Great job.

Thank you. First of all, I love the presentation. I understand the importance of activating streets. My only concern is the noise. I know that we put Chapter 36, but did you ever think about decoupling? And so you get everything but the ability to add speakers and things of that nature by getting it as a right?

You're referencing the location of the speakers specifically?

Well, speakers. Speakers know anything of that nature. And the reason why, so I live in a building where there's a restaurant. And of course, they're able to play music and things like that until about 11 every night. And so depending, I know you put it on the first floor, a lot of people will not be impacted. But some still will be impacted. And so I love the idea that you allow to have the restaurants and things of that nature outside or outdoor dining. But have you thought about decoupling the ability to amplify music outside? And that way you kind of protect the people who live near those. Real quick.

I mean, I'm thinking that's a part of our analysis as we have in number for letter H. I think Graham and I had talked about this a lot because we're maybe, you know, to be frank with you, like a lot of the plans, they might not have the speakers. So this is something that we have to kind of like, that's why we're adding it into the code with H. so that planners, when they're looking at it, they're starting to consider what the potential impact of the noise can be.

Can I ask a question about the question to clarify? Are you saying, like, also the idea that maybe there'd be more by rights if they did not, if they said, we will not put speakers outside, so it's not...

Correct.

That's what I thought I was hearing you try to... Yeah, yeah.

Oh, I didn't understand.

Right, like, right, so maybe... You say, okay, well, there's no speakers. It's just dining. So does that change?

We've added for the first time a general regulation around this. We say that place outdoor refuse containers, orientate outdoor speakers, and locate ingress, egress in a way that mitigates potential noise, smell, and visual ambient impacts on neighbors. So you can place them indoor or outdoors, provided that you meet this requirement. This is to help code. Especially as now we're going by riots, for a lot of things, whereas before we were by warrant, and by warrant, you know, we can get into the details of things. So there's a strike-off, a balance there. If we want things to go fast and streamline through a right-by-right process, we really need to rely a little bit more on enforcement. If you want everything checked, all the details, the location of speakers, you know, all the details, then we bring it into a by-warrant process, and that adds more time, it creates an appeal process, and so forth. So I think

try to capture it a little bit in terms of the general regulation by but also by still having you know the plans show where the speakers are I think you bring up a good point on that on that note whether but his suggestion though is more like what about expanding by right if you say I will never put a speaker and and then and so but then along those lines You know, because that could be, there is a by-right, and there's a box checked on the application, you know, because you still need a CU, right? And the CU is still going to reference that there is outdoor seating allowed, and it would say speakers, no speakers, right? But what you brought up brings up a huge question that kind of affects this whole conversation, which is, you say... well, we can look at it and we can put it in the warrant, and that's sort of how we're going to be able to control it. I say not a chance, because really, at the end of the day, the enforcement of anything in the city has to do with the people on the outside wearing badges. That's it. Okay. First of all, well, that's it. But that's a really cool idea, by the way. If that's what you're saying, I think that's an interesting, could expand it.

Yeah, and just to add to that point, So we also discussed, you know, which direction should the speakers be? Should they be up against a fence? Should they be close to the building? Ultimately, it just depends on the volume control that someone decides to play it at.

Operator to operator. But I think what he's saying is, if you had a choice, if an operator had a choice, you got... I'll... But I understand what he's saying. There was another category that was like, No outdoor speakers ever.

You're saying don't play music outside. Right.

What he's saying is if there was a category, if that was a concern, because I also think... And another thing that will... Can I ask a question to that?

What would you think the appropriate size of seating would be?

I would have to think about that. See, the reason why I mention that, because, like, maybe three weeks ago we had, like, a group came in, noise complaint, same thing, and then, like, in my building, constantly regarding the speakers. And so, like, I do love that you're activating the streets, and I think you can do it without allowing the amplification of music. But if they want to do that, and then you, there's another criteria, and then you guys make sure that's okay, it fits the, like, the speakers or whatever, the way that you want them to, and you don't have the issues. I just don't want us to pass something that we're, We're helping a portion of businesses, but we're negatively impacting the neighbors who live right above it.

Understood. Thank you.

So just before we go on, I think there's merit in what you're saying. I think it may not be about speakers or speakers or not speakers. It might just be about whether you play music outside and whether you agree to doing that.

Is it true? Okay, so what I would like to...

Sorry, real quick. Is this on his...

Yes, because I think there's a difference between alcohol service establishment and food service establishment. So instead of thinking in terms of speakers, if we think in terms of uses, alcohol service establishments are a different kind of animal, right? A food service establishment behaves differently. Maybe that is where you can tweak and make those differences. Also, alcohol service establishments tend to be open for a longer period of time. than possibly a restaurant. So the impact travels with the youth, not with the element of the speaker.

I'll expand on that, though. I will say that actually, just to clarify, alcohol service establishments are now under the newer, the latest version the code coupled with the current trends that are now don't seem just like trends but they see they seem to be sticking alcohol service establishments are not precluded from having kitchens and more and more no no i know i this is not just for you this is this is the general part of the general discussion though is that what's happened and what will continue to happen More and more, especially now because at the House and Senate of Florida, there is a bill now to reduce the number of seats and square footage you need to get an SFS liquor license for a restaurant to 80 seats down from 120 and from 2,000 square feet down to 1,500 square feet. And it is more likely now than ever that that's going to happen. So really, and because of people drinking alcohol less generally, it's really all just blending to be the same kind of thing. People want food where they're drinking, and they want to drink where they have food, and everybody's on Ozempic. So it's kind of like, it's just all the same now, you know, basically. So I hear what you're saying, that alcohol service establishments can be nightclubby, but it's sort of all becoming more,

But their operation and the hours still remain different.

No. No, I'm saying they don't.

Do you dine at 4 a.m.?

Well, alcohol service establishments and restaurants have the same default hours in the city of Miami.

And this would only be until 11 p.m. By code. By section 36.

Right, and then they're all, right, and both nightclubs and restaurants are affected by the noise ordinance.

Okay, so we're saying that, so we're saying that these, the outdoor dining that will be permitted in alcohol service establishments and food service establishments will have a time limitation of 11 p.m.?

Correct. Okay. And that is the code now, so.

Okay.

But, for example, in, There is a different noise ordinance. Yeah, by code, by code. Then there are also community standards that are enforced differently based on probably the neighborhood resource officers, if there are them, who works at night. what the reputation is in different neighborhoods of a particular operation, because it would be untrue to say that there are places around the city treated differently based on how their neighbors feel about them. So it's illegal to play music outside after 11 o'clock in 90% of the city. But it happens and it isn't necessarily equally enforced because some people have good relations with their neighbors and some don't. And it really circles back to what I said in response to Mr. Jones, which is that it comes down to enforcement ultimately.

So just so that I'm clear. Oh, yeah, sure. So we're saying that these outdoor dining associated with alcohol. 11 o'clock. Will be, so if there's music, it'll be until 11 o'clock. That's the law. Okay, so then I don't think, do you still believe that it will impact residents?

I think so. I just don't like giving the right like, given by right, if you're allowing them to amplify music outside of, like, next to someone's window or, like, right above. That's my issue. Like, I love the outdoor dining. I think it's great. I think it's important to activate the street. But once you add the music component, like, I think then the neighbors should have ability to weigh in.

Yeah, okay.

The chair, if I might? Yes. Yeah, I want to just piggyback on that. I'm... The buy right on the music I think is a sticking point. I'm down at Dinner Key not too long ago, a month ago. I was on my boat. The guy right next to me was up on his mast doing some repairs and the Bayshore Club was going full blast. It was on a Sunday afternoon. Their music They're about 300 yards away, not 150 feet, about 300 yards. Their music was so loud that I barely heard his bag of tools hit the dockside next to me about 10 feet away. Barely heard it. I said, what was that? I did not hear him call down from 40 feet up. And he could not hear me calling up to him if he needed help. That's how loud they were playing that music. Now, I called a friend of mine at code enforcement, and the very next week, their volume was down 50%. So that's good news. But how they got away with cranking that music so loud that I could not hear a call, a lookout below. Couldn't hear it. And I've eaten there before, and you cannot have a conversation. So to me, music on the street is something that, I mean, unless you're having a street party and you've got a permit, it's something that should be really low. I mean low because diners want to have a conversation, and you can have lots of small speakers on each umbrella, and they can have a little bit of music, and it won't bother anybody. So if you're gonna go by rights, I think you should have really ironclad rules about the volume that can be piped out there. It shouldn't travel more than one table. And so in the micros and the smalls, it's probably not a problem. But I think that enforcement, once you're expanding this and you have lots and lots more outdoor dining, somebody else be responsive to the people that let the music get out of hand. The only other point is that the six-foot setback from the curb. I can't remember now the name of the restaurant on Grand Avenue in Coconut Grove, across from Jaguar, I think it is. If you park on the street there, you can't open your door because you'll hit a diner's chair. I mean, they're two feet away from the curb.

So, yeah, well, is that what it is? No, I'm not sure, but it's not the only one.

I mean, I love outdoor dining. I think it's, you know, in Europe it's totally normal. I've almost got run over by trucks outdoor dining in Rome. You know, I mean, it's totally normal. But, yeah, I think it's important to make sure that you do keep the curb clear and you have some enforcement, some way of active enforcement for that. And the noise, that there's nothing wrong with having low-key noise, low-key music at every table. But there's just absolutely no reason to have it project so loudly that you can't even have a conversation within 50 feet of the speaker. So those are the only points I have to make. Thank you.

Announcing the arrival of member Arthur Parasol. Thank you.

Acting in his capacity as a full board member. You got anything? You're good? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think we're all residents. We all have to live with our neighbors and, you know, we all have something... I will go last, but.

Just thank you for the presentation and definitely deferring to those with more expertise in this.

Okay. Mr. Mann, I think that the restaurant that you referred to is a sidewalk cafe permit, which is by Public Works, if I understand correctly, because that's on the public right-of-way. I think I know the restaurant that you're speaking about, that it's very tight and you cannot go through the sidewalk because the tables are there. But I think that's under a different circumstance. What I would like to, I had a few questions and I lost my train of thought. I think this is a very good initiative. I think that it will help even if it's five out of 25. If it helps, it's a good thing. If it adds and it doesn't subtract, it's always good. I appreciate that the criteria has been broken down into different numbers, into different sizes from micro to small because they do also behave differently and they should be treated differently. you know, within their scope. I'm a little concerned about when it discusses the expansion in number five, any outdoor dining associated with an existing alcohol service establishment that essentially results in an expansion, the alcohol service establishment shall require an exception or warrant. So the way that I remember outdoor dining, it was typically associated with food service establishment and not with alcohol service establishment years back. Is that right? They were processed when they were associated with the sale of food and not for alcohol service establishment.

It has to be tied to one or the other, but not just food service establishment. If you have an alcohol service establishment license, you can do outdoor dining.

Okay.

But that specific one is that sometimes you might have a business that has an alcohol service establishment and they're wishing to expand their outdoor dining. We're just saying that if you expand your outdoor dining, that does not mean that you can go out there and have your patrons drink. that might require an approval.

Yeah, we've had applicants presume that they've got their outdoor dining worn, and that's automatically extended their alcohol license to the expanded square footage of that area. So it's just to warn them that that doesn't, it's not automatic. It needs to go through the second process as well. You can't just add an extra 10 tables and an extra, you know, whatever, thousand square foot, and then your alcohol license expands in the same way.

Right, because it's associated with an alcohol license.

Sorry, but is that with the state or with the city?

It doesn't change any other provision that's out there. It's just saying that don't presume that because you're getting an additional outdoor dining, by right or by warrant, that the licenses automatically fold under that. that warrant or the law.

I'm saying are you warning them about the state requirement that they update their drawing of where they're serving?

No.

Or you're saying that you would need to then update and do a new warrant application? So think of this, right? So you're saying it's not a minor modification?

No, what I mean is this. Normally alcohol triggers a warrant or an exception. Brand new alcohol service establishment is going through a warrant or an exception. So now let's not talk about a new one. Let's talk about one that exists. So there's an existing alcohol service establishment It currently has 10 chairs where they're doing the alcohol outside. Now they decide they want another 10 chairs. Applicants will come to us and think, oh, I've already got alcohol. I can go throw my alcohol out into the extra 10 chairs. Well, that's not the case. If you want to expand your alcohol, you've got to go through the appropriate warrant or exception to get that. But people assume that because they already have outdoor dining that they automatically get the expansion.

Can I just follow up on that, though? So you all would currently not treat that as a minor modification? Or you would?

Because you're expanding the intensity.

But...

If you're adding chairs?

Okay. If it's not a minor modification to just add 10 chairs... I don't want to comment on it if I'm wrong.

Oh, I'm sorry. No, that would be a minor modification. You're correct. But the thing is that you also have...

other parts of the code that trigger things right so if you're so like if you're five thousand let's say you're four thousand five hundred square that's different that's different and then you add out and then you cross over then it's no longer a minor modification you've got to get an exception no but let's be let's be really this is super super important we've had that happen like in the past year okay sure but look if you cross into five thousand square feet it

There's a really great public policy reason why that number, that size, the amount of people you could probably fit in there. It really is high impact. I just want to confirm. It is a minor modification. If you have 2,000 square feet, you have alcohol service, you add 10 seats outside where you already had 10 seats, whatever. That's a minor mod. If you had a warrant for alcohol.

So we would review that during, you would ask to modify your warrant or waiver or exception application. We would look at that, and then we would say, yes, this is a minor modification, and we would issue that. Or we would say, no, this is a major modification. You have to go back to whatever. We need to re-notice, or you need to go back to PSAB. So you would start by saying, we want to add 10 seats, and then we would say, okay, great. We looked at this. It's a minor modification. Here you go. Or no, there is something in the zoning in Miami 21 that you have now triggered with your 10 seats. If you go to eight seats, you won't trigger it and you can be a minor mod. Or if you want the 10, then it's going to be something else. That's what we do.

I understand that you guys have some discretion. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

I think that any time that you are expanding a use that requires a special permit, you need to go through that special permit again so this behaves the same way. So in other words, if you have a school in an area where you need an exception and you want to increase the size of the school by 30%, you need an exception again. because you're increasing the size of that use, which requires an exception for the use. So I understand that what this number five is saying is that if the alcohol service establishment is increasing the size, then you would have to go through that.

It's if the outdoor dining is increasing.

Not the outdoor dining, I'm sorry, the alcohol service establishment.

But I guess that's what I'm trying to clarify. It's about the outdoor dining. So you might already have alcohol service, but we just don't want for people to assume that because you're increasing the intensity of your dining, you're adding more seating, that that's an area that you can now have your drinks. That might not be the case. It might require another level of review.

And how are you going to enforce that? Like keep us placed for outdoor dining and the other place for drink. I don't know. I'll leave it up to you.

So how we would tell is there would already be a warrant or an exception issued. So when zoning got the building permit and saw that it no longer matches that warrant or exception, the question would start to come up. We would warn the reviewer, hey, you're not matching your warrant or your exception. They would then reach out to planning and say, hey, we think we're a minor modification. Do you agree with us? And then the termination would be made from there.

Okay. I as these as you respond. As you respond. I would like you to think about the real world timing of this, the economic effect that has on the size of the businesses that you are trying to assist. I'm saying that we are all united in trying to solve this problem. When we work on these things, because there are so many overlapping pieces and everyone is doing their job well and highly qualified, it's still hard to then back out. And what I'm going to talk about is what I just mentioned. And when I think back to all the time we put into this, And though we brought up these things, when you check the results against the reality, it's... Because, like, when you said, you know, let's thank everyone for a job well done, it's like, yeah, it's an incredible... Like, we don't get this whole process with all of these changes. Each one has had this, like, super deep whatever. The reason... And I feel bad because I'm... This particular area is so, like, wrought with all these little, everyone's treading carefully because there's alcohol, there's food, there's outdoor, there's noise, it's all the stuff. But on the other hand, and the main reason this was so important, is that the size of these places and the economics involved in just opening them, when you go to the chart, and we talked about this a little bit, for how long it takes to get a warrant processed, Or now we're saying, well, you might also need another warrant for another 10 chairs. And that every month, the typical rent in a small restaurant, whether it's second gen or first, forget about first gen because you had to build it. And you can't even build it till you know what the answer is from everybody on staff. We're talking $10,000 a month at least, right? So three, six, nine months, 12 months. Well, I'm going off your guys' numbers to process the warrant. plans plus architecture fees plus attorneys fees on a cafe you're saying and I'm not saying you're looking at whatever we are saying right if we don't solve this that the status quo of it you needing to budget a hundred two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to wait for an answer so I think

To be fair to everyone, I think collectively we know what needs to be done. Everything you're saying is correct. I think when I say a job well done, I say this is a first step into reforming and modernizing this area. And we fully understand, I think, what the industry is trying to get to. We know what we want to do with small businesses. We're very careful with our communities and our neighborhoods at the same time.

I usually don't cut you off, but I'm going to. Really, if I can, just finish sort of what I was saying. Sure. Because I'm not doing this for you only, right? A lot of people don't know that this has been being worked on. So this is also a public hearing. Nobody here, but it is being recorded. And so I just want to put on the record things that we talk about that you all know. that I know, but maybe not everyone else understands. So I just wanted to be clear that that's why I'm doing this.

So I'm in agreement, and I think your reflection is fair as well, that this is the step one of more steps, and that we've had many workshops where many ideas have been brought up. Morty and I were very careful to put the last slide together to say that this was one step, and there's another phase to come, which includes process improvements, it includes guidance, it includes ensuring that the day-to-day kind of interactions we have with restaurants and other businesses about minor mods and when they're moving tables and all those stresses that have been coming through the department and you've been articulating very well. But we know that. We want to get something going, and this is our first step in that world. And we're very, very much in the mode of a continuous improvement around this issue.

To your point, 20-something percent is huge. If we're reducing this list by 20%, it's an enormous step forward. I'm also saying this for the sake that I know that the people that are elected ask for a little update on what happened on all this stuff. And I want to make sure that it's actually verbalized and on the record that this will continue to be discussed. And a lot of times when we say we will continue to work on these things, we do three years later and sometimes we do it three months later. And I would just say that if we're doing this, this should be one where, you know, sort of follow up is important because what's also going to happen based on all the hard work and the huge advance that this represents is is now with some of the open-ended stuff, it's almost creating more questions for you guys. And so I just want the electeds to know, all the commissioners, that the follow-up on this, because I also hear that they are receiving more calls than ever on some of this stuff.

So I think that as part of our overall process improvement plan in general, and I think this gets to your point about warrants taking so long, is that we can decrease the amount of warrants that are required and make more things by right. But at the end of the day, it still takes X number of months to get a warrant. And we, regardless of whether that is for an outdoor dining establishment or for a lot diminishment or for whatever other warrants that we do, whether it's for a boat dock or what's the list, I mean, we've, affordable housing, that whole list of things, it should not take the amount of time that it's taking. And so what we have put into, what we as the planning department have committed ourselves to doing in our process improvement is doing a hard look using hard data points and soft data points to evaluate why everything is taking so long. To your point of why we, you know, sometimes it takes three months, sometimes it takes three years, we're not starting with warrants. We're starting with rezoning applications, and that is because... It is, as the planning department, we have more control over that process. We want to make sure that the first time that we do a deep dive into where we're breaking everything up, how we're mapping the process, outside of, our whole process is mapped, right? But we have processes within processes. And we have to break down all of those and getting data points on each one of those and then getting soft data points on those. And so we have started that process. I had my first meeting today about the rezoning applications. And so the goal is to get that process correct with rezoning applications, then move to exceptions and warrants. And so that we can really begin to break down why it is taking so long for each application type. And that means everything. And we're looking at why did applications sit with our applicants for 60 days? Is it because they needed to flatten a signature on a survey and couldn't figure out how to do that? Well, okay, that's something that we can either bypass in our process or maybe we come back to it a later date. Is it because we're taking 45 days to write a staff report? Why is it taking us 45 days to write a staff report? It's answering those questions like that. And so it's finding those hard data points and then breaking it down with process mapping and then using some soft data points to really begin to help close the gap on how many days it's taking on all of our applications. None of this process is easy, and we have to start somewhere. The data that Moosey is showing you now is key to understanding our starting point. So we have a starting point. We know where we are now, and it makes it easier for us to track as we begin to implement changes. So we can say we implemented this change. You can see a decrease here. You implemented another change. You can see where we've had another decrease in the amount of time here. Those are all things that we're working on in the planning department. It doesn't answer your question because it's not immediate right now, and I know that everybody wants an immediate fix right now, but we really need to be able to do the work and take a deep dive into some of these issues so that we can make sure that we're not band-aiding the problem and that it is actually a sustainable, and it's actually a sustainable fix. Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Bailey has a question.

Thank you again for the presentation. Just one quick question for staff. I wanted to understand your heartburn, like, if you make it right for no music and a warrant for amplification of music, like, what gives you pause about adding that possible language?

Yeah, I mean, we're more than happy to look at that suggestion.

We're very happy to look at that suggestion. You know, if a restaurant wants to proffer that they're not going to put music outside of any kind, then that means they go by right, then it's one less thing, I guess, in terms of a neighborhood impact or a potential neighborhood impact.

Thank you. The reason, I just want to make sure that I wasn't missing anything. Thank you.

Okay. And, you know, so looking at the medium, let's just, I mean, yeah, because, again, I know how much work has gone into this, but the, in medium, 150 feet from a T3 or T4R property line, you could be across the street from a T3 or T4 are?

No, so generic by right provision is that you're not across the street from a T3. Because that's a budding also. Yeah, so this is talking about the rear or side. Okay, greater from 100. Number two.

No, I'm sorry, number two in medium.

Number two. Okay. So it would be communicated visually the similar way that it is for small, where you see that you're having this buffer between the T4L and the T4R and the T3 at the top, and that's measured from the property line.

I'm sorry. So you can't be...

So if you go back three slides, I think just to run you through it just one more time. Keep going back. The generals. One more.

Yeah.

Yeah, that one. So this one's your starting point. So before we even look at whether or not it's by right or by warrant, you need to meet all these four criteria. That's to be wholly contained within the first and second layer, placed on the ground floor, not located across the street from a T3 or transit zone, not located in this specific district. What it's doing is pushing the outdoor dining to the front of the building. That's effectively what it's doing. The front or side essentially. So everything is buffered from the properties behind it. That's the idea. The idea being that there's already noise activity in the street and that's where the outdoor dining is going. So in context, we don't think the noise will be such a major issue. When you start going to the back and putting it in the T3 areas or the back of the property, you're more likely to noise overspill so this is your starting point in terms of impact on neighbors you have to meet these four then you have to you go to how many you're presenting uh or however how the number of seats you're providing and then you're categorized within these areas the larger you go the less of the city you can go in effectively so if you're a very small kind of ice cream shop you can go and you're only proposing four seats, you can go anywhere in the city that allows you commercial use.

Up to 10 seats.

Up to 10, yeah. So if you're small, anywhere in the city, within a commercial. So we call it micro. As you go up in scale, the more seats you provide, the less areas of the city you can go by right. When you're up to over 40, nowhere in the city is by right. You have to go through a warrant process. That's when we come in. We come in and we check. We notify neighbors. We can put hourly.

conditions on we can do those kind of things so that's really where we've tried to pitch it as the larger you go in terms of intensity the less of the city you can kind of just go by right I guess the the part on medium is the one where I like with everything in the city the in-between ones right that are complicated really I think though that's where you have I mean I

yeah if we could just go back to the the chart um yeah um so it has to be so the top two the micro and small are available anywhere in the city there's just a couple of caveats that you're not busting t3 or t4 uh for a micro and it's small It can't be on the principal, right? So if you are abutting T3 and T4, it pushes you to the principal. So the sides don't abut the T3 or T4.

Right. I mean, also, obviously, notwithstanding, everything here is available by warrant.

Everything right now you can go by warrant. We haven't taken any rights away from anyone. All we've done is create rights for a small scale or scales in terms of locations.

So let me just go. Yeah, so back to the medium. The issue here is that If you're located within a lot of these districts, there's a lot of noise already. Ambient noise is very high. So this is where I kind of... And where you want the activation kind of happening. Correct. So I guess it's just kind of like the 150 feet seems...

But this is just between the T3 and the T4. So I've had like... In the review that I did, it was like, there was one like T6. Everything around it was T6. So it was by right.

Right, but what about the areas that we always talk about?

You're correct, Adam. So there are, when we zoomed in on these locations, you would presume that you wouldn't find T3 in the center of a TOD or a transit corridor, but we do. Like, there's a lot of areas of the city that the T6 abuts and backs onto a T3. So you'll see, for example, it's not within a transit corridor. It's when the building fronts the transit corridor. It's the actual street that creates the transit corridor. So we're being very surgical about where it can be and while still protecting the areas that we get the most complaints about, which is T3, the single family neighborhoods, that when they about these higher intensity uses, whether it be T6 or other areas of the city, that that's when the warrant comes in. And that's really where... the warrant plays its best game, right?

I just want to, again, just sort of though, I, yes, I agree. The problem is, and if you're going to zoom in on something very quickly soon after today, what makes sense is your, so your rents are going to be higher. Your rents are going to be higher in a T5 abutting a T3 with a nice shopping thoroughfare or walking environment. And so to wait, to activate because 21 seats 40 starts to be a lot maybe 22 seats isn't so many that's you know six tables five tables five four tops with an extra couple chairs so i'm just saying that that that you know you have that and you're paying those rents and you're waiting for a warrant to activate on a busy street that just because it has a house behind it or within 150 feet, maybe it's an empty lot and then a house and a building. I just, it's so, it's such a big part of the problem. So, I mean, I know you know, again, I'm not saying this for you. I'm saying this for people that haven't had this conversation already, you know, and to make sure that we keep moving moving on this because this is right now. And I'll tell you, there's another effect that I don't think people really think about at all. The people that can afford that, to play that waiting game, to wait half a year, to wait longer, are oftentimes not local, right? There are all sorts of ways people just tie up these properties and Maybe it's a visa play, all these things. I'm not knocking it, but it's not going to bring in or keep the people that are here trying to open businesses here. Just another thing to think about. But anyway.

I have one more question through the chair. Yes. And to use it as an example, Regatta Grove. Regatta Grove here, right? Roofed, open, right? No walls. Now, I understand that the size exceeds the patrons, so that would process a lot. But that reduced to a smaller scale, right? Is that also under the ordinance where by 11 PM they don't? Because I'm confused. I'm still circling around the 11 PM music, and I'm listening that that's the time. That businesses should close, but they don't.

Oh, no, not close. I'm saying that so we have to, the noise has to, amplified noise outside has to stop at 11. Bars and restaurants both can close at 3.

But they have to keep it indoors.

Keep it indoors. But they can have people outside. They don't have to have no people outside.

No, I understood. But the noise and the sound and the music has to amplify. That's noise already. So it has to be indoors. So what happens with Regatta Grove?

There's no indoors.

Ask your commissioners. I don't know. Or ask the commissioner that made the deal. But also what I'm saying too, and it is sort of the thing is that It comes down to enforcement. Enforcement is not just guys. Oh, I was going to suggest something, though, actually, along those lines, and sort of along what Mr. Bailey was talking about. Let's say you don't give up the right to have speakers, but let's say that one of the main issues neighborhoods have is a lack of the ability to enforce. Like, there's not enough resources to keep a consistent enforcement, because a lot of times that's what happens if you have someone coming out every couple of weeks and be like, look, it's your third violation. You really, you're going to get fined now. Oh, we can take away your CU, whatever. You know, maybe, maybe the ability to go by right is tied the same way we do with like parking trust fund or things like that. You know, maybe there is an additional fee that's paid in to go by right. And that fee is earmarked specifically for an additional noise enforcement off you know like people that are just focused on that or additional officers specifically focused on that in particular neighborhoods i don't know you know it's not my world but you know that type of thing because you know another thing i was going to bring up if i can i don't know were you i didn't want to i'm good is it okay yeah one of the things i was going to um bring up is also like in some of these areas where we're adding Parking obligations for the outdoor dining in general, are we saying when when someone develops a mixed use building that then they're allowed to not have parking based on where they're at does that flow through to the commercial at the ground floor. All parking is waived right.

Sorry, it says that in certain areas where there is a parking trust fund, you can pay into the trust fund. Oh, yeah. No, no.

I was also... Is that what you're asking? No, I'm sort of saying that, you know...

I think I know what you're... Like, if it's a new building, you're going to consider parking, right? I think that this is more for existing businesses that are expanding the size of their eatery, and it might trigger more parking.

Right. The point I was going to make about that is we've spent so much time in here getting presented reasons to reduce parking for residential. And when we talked about this, workshopping it, you know, it's also like, okay, so we're going to give the large, dense buildings no parking. And then you're going to go to a small restaurant that wants to add a couple seats and be like, we're going to now trigger your parking just because we're just going to leave things that way. No, that's not. That doesn't make sense, right? I mean, that's a huge... And that's another one of these things where you're like, hey, the bigger, the more money you have, the more intense this project is, you don't have to worry about parking. Cafe, want to add a couple seats? Good luck, find some parking spots. That makes no sense. There's no public policy consistency there. So that is maddening. Makes no sense. urgent need to respond to that.

Understood. And there is, you know, I appreciate everything kind of once people are under one umbrella here today. No, I know, but... Just so you know, we are also looking at parking separately, you know, in a parallel program. I don't mean to try and punt everything you're saying, but we're getting to parking, we're looking at reductions. Again, this was, we haven't changed the existing provision from the existing code when it comes to when you increase the amount of outdoor dining and when you trigger the additional parking for any commercial establishment. We haven't changed any of that.

Okay, I have a question on that note. Is there a world where, okay, because these are complex businesses we've established, they have a lot of pieces. Is there a world where you all can use these types of businesses, all food and beverage, because they have, it all comes up here. And maybe say, look, I already know the answer to this, it's not possible. But, you know, just the idea that it brings all these things together, are there ways of piloting, pilot programming, something that kind of addresses this? the package of problems that these businesses have only because I think the data supports that these are the ones where we see this wild swing between success and failure and a lot of it really does come down to permitting and all of the rules involved and some of them which make no sense and that everyone is acknowledging makes no sense. That we could try to bundle some of the solutions that you guys see for the entire city into

I think you are absolutely correct. We used to do a lot of that in the Wynwood district, in the warehouse area, because it was less residential at the time. It created an opportunity in the city to, I guess, try out ideas without the risk of failure so much. And a lot of the good ideas were born out of Wynwood, and then we spread them out throughout the rest of the city. you know, activation was one great idea that came from Wynwood, and that's now being rolled out to the rest of the city. So I think you're right. I think maybe we're running out of areas to pilot in a safe area, but I think if, you know, we weren't, we're moving quickly right now. I'm not saying you're not. No, I don't mean that. I mean in the sense that, you know, we've been given an agenda for some time now to roll out reform, and we're very serious about doing that. through continuous improvement, doing it as carefully as we can. So, you know, I think for the more radical ideas, we should be piloting more things. Maybe right now we're in the mode of just trying to make sure things get done quickly. I appreciate that.

For my own clarification, are you saying that you don't feel that if the outdoor dining expands that the parking should be Expand it?

I guess what I'm saying is in general, right, whether it's outdoor dining, it's just the idea.

I'm saying in a bigger... Can I give an example, maybe just for my own, so I can better understand? You know, I might go to Mushi Mushi in Mimo. There's no parking there.

No parking.

So if there's no parking, I'm not going to stop and I'm not going to eat. So, I mean, there is, you know, a tie to parking and a restaurant establishment and being... easily able to access parking?

That's a complicated answer. I'm just trying to understand. No, but I'm going to give it. Okay. So, one, the point I'm making is, yes, that's true, but then every time staff presents why we should say that a building should get higher and denser with no parking, I'd say, well, why would anyone want to stop there? Why would anyone want to live there? That's basically the answer. So the other issue is, you know, most of these areas like MIMO, and there are only a few, we always talk about them, have parking issues partially also because some of the people and concerns that we are hamstringing ourselves with better solutions to all of these problems that are loud but not necessarily forward thinking or thinking rightly about all contexts are preventing parking from happening with public-private partnerships, parking lots, you know, things like that. Yeah, I mean, people do drive and people need to park, you know, and we run into that very understandable tension between you know, residential neighborhoods and where MPA puts their signs to collect fees. But, you know, I think that it's true. But putting the onus on a 70-year-old neighborhood building where someone's already overpaying for rent, trying to pursue their dream and saying you figure out the parking that the city can't is not fair.

Understood.

Yeah, that's my, so, okay. Thanks. Yeah.

So I guess that's basically it.

It's just really the 150 feet question seems a little confusing. Again, I understand all of this is available by warrant, but, and for the sake of anyone discussing this later, on this particular thing, we're first of three readings, correct? Correct.

Because that makes a recommendation to the city commission.

Or what I'm saying is the first time we're talking about this, we make a recommendation and they've got to do two readings. Right. So everything, it's also really important that whatever we're talking about right now is fleshed out, verbalized in all the points of view because they may be considered very soon and through multiple lenses. Correct. And to your point about Wynwood, following up here on the... There was, yeah, and I guess there's the question about the large only by warrant, and I think we were talking about those warehouse districts. Again, if it's not the time and it's not the time.

But D1 and D2 have been added as the categories for median by right. The only one that's excluded is D3.

Right. And we were talking about intensity. And if we're, I'm saying because if we're, if when we talk about scaling based on intensity and proximity to residential and other businesses affected and things like that, and those being the usual, what do they call it? The estuaries of ideas for this kind of stuff. Yeah, it's like those in the... If one was to be considered large category, only because for me I was... I don't think it was class two. I think it was already... And also to Graham's point... the waiting for a bunch or one developer to buy enough or a few to get together in a particular neighborhood and make it a lab versus the people who just are stakeholders at the ground level signing the leases or whatever, being able to bring about the changes this time. I mean, I think that's, for me, what I am hoping. So, anyway, but... Yeah, I think that's the only other piece is that in the industrial areas that outdoor dining has and should continue to be encouraged a little more, obviously, at a larger scale. And I don't know that this... Where... let's say that every single concern you have that's been articulated micro, small and medium is that I'm on board with, which whatever may or may not be, um, the final one to me would be that you have these areas that, you know, should be treated very differently if everything else is true.

So you're suggesting that, um, certain areas whatever we define them as it should be presumed that these kind of activities are okay there even if they're about in lower transit zones or there's pre-existing kind of single-family homes that exist there or t3 I think that there's plenty of no I mean I think that there are there are questions about that but what I'm saying is that it seems like

If these numbers are based on, in some cases, arbitrary sort of ideas about what size the space is and things like that, that when you have D1s, D2s, I'm not sure what other types of spaces there are that could be lumped into that. Most of them seem to grow around each other. And there aren't that many spaces left like that. So I'm just saying it seems like that's where... What is it? Like the Magic City area that became an SAP. That's my point. These places end up getting... bought up becoming SAPs or whatever the new thing that isn't an SAP that's going to be treated the same so someone can get those entitlements and create their own set of rules. And I'm just, I'm saying that those areas now that are left that that hasn't happened to might be the places that we get ahead of that and just say, we're encouraging this here, you know, easier.

Sure, yeah, if you articulate that in a recommendation, I'm sure we'd be happy to look at some language and we can try and attempt to look at future areas that might be called by this more relaxed legislation.

Okay, so then if I was, yes, to cut down to Chase here, if I was to make a, you know, to do it, but I don't know if that's, I don't want to be out of turn if anyone else has, but I'd like to say if I was to make recommendations, I would be bringing The number of feet down on these smaller ones to a number that's probably closer to half. I think we had talked about 75 feet. I don't know why it jumped. I mean, I understand why it jumped to 150 out of safety, but I think we have to think about where roads are, how far away noise is already ambient noise. We're talking about, we have to assume. That whether you have a warrant or no warrant, that if someone is loud and obnoxious, that we have to rely on code enforcement. It's not the warrant or the ordinance that's going to help us, right? It's just not. So assuming that people are going to do what they're going to do, I think that when we think about ambient noise in an urban setting, 75%. Feet is more realistic in a lot of in a lot of cases. I also want to make sure that this contemplates. I know second layer could assume if you had a central atrium area or something like that. I want to just make sure that we're not precluding small scale outdoor dining in these micro small mediums, let's say. And making sure that there were not sort of preventing them from occurring in. in some circumstance where they would make sense and because they have to be 150 feet away, but they're already sort of in an environment where they're in second layer, could be in second layer. Sorry.

No, I think I know. So we did look at also ones within courtyards, those types of that. We did seriously look at that. The challenge is trying to create code and words that automatically trigger something. Right. And then you start saying, well, okay, if it has a six-foot masonry wall around it, is that enough? In terms of noise, impact on neighbors, if it's at the rear of the property, if you have a courtyard, is that then a by right scenario? The challenge is knowing whether or not, without looking at it through a warrant process, whether it automatically mitigates the impact on the neighbors. Now, I appreciate your point about noise. But there's also an issue of, you know, some people feel like as a neighbor, there's also people, not just people that are living in the building, but, you know, other customers coming into the rear of a property. And suddenly you've got a private rear garden and then now there are people coming into the rear of the property to do outdoor dining. That's a change in how. I guess you might feel about your property, how you use it. So again, I think we're trying to get the needle right as best we can.

The rear of buildings, I understand, is very sensitive. Not pushing that button right now. I'm more talking about, like I understand, and if it's, the 75-foot conversation should happen at commission. It will happen, whether someone should or shouldn't be able to. And of course, you can always get a warrant and people can always, the neighbors can always discuss it. What I'm more talking about is 150 feet, first or second layer. And there's a T4R. But again, that T4R is in a neighborhood that is loud already. And we're just saying, okay, it's loud already. There's a lot of traffic, but you can't have your cafe have this many seats because it's 20 seats even without a warrant.

So just to clarify one thing, because I know you've been part of the conversations and you've seen how things evolve. So originally we had on micro the 150 feet limit. Or maybe it was talked about 75. But what happened is we changed it to then a body. When you're a body, you can have it on the principle. So the 150 or 75 feet went away altogether. Actually, it became more flexible in the micro.

On the front, on primary. Right, more flexible.

So we did move it actually in a more clearer direction. We just pushed it to the principle. Yeah, but it still exists for the small. I apologize.

I guess, yeah, I was just thinking about, like, if you have a house abutting T4, let's say you have T4O or T5O, but not at high rise, that's where we're saying you're going to have an issue. I'm sorry. That's the part I don't understand.

Yeah, so it's only T3 and T4R. So you wouldn't be affected if you're next to T4O or T4S. No, no, no.

Right. I'm just going back to the examples that I always give, which is 54th, 79th, Coral Way, right? Aren't those T5O abutting, in some cases, T3? Right. And I'm saying, though, that those, if now we're not talking about backyards and we're only talking about primary frontage.

Right.

I still, I don't understand why 155.

The micro does not have a 150 foot. So if you have a T5 and immediately behind you is a T3, there is no 150.

No, talking about small. I'm saying on small, it does have that. And I'm against that.

Would you want 20 seats next to a single family home?

On the primary frontage on a busy street? Yeah. What's the difference? It's not going to be louder than the cars and the car accidents and the cops and the fire. Fire trucks?

Through the chair, one comment. It's a city. When you look at Coral Way, there's no space in the first layer. It's a bad example. No, but it's good to think because it's very difficult to think in the abstract. So I think it's good to talk about real spaces and how these would affect, like case studies, right?

What if someone had accordion doors?

And then the other thing that I would recommend if you're If we're thinking of depth, 100 feet is the typical depth of a lot size. 50 by 100 is a typical lot. So if you want to separate, you can separate 100 feet, and then you know that you will be 100 feet away from another property. And that's a standard. So that could help. Now, I'm still concerned because I do think that if you have these small properties, you do want to activate the rarer. Because that's the only place in some places, like you think . The small restaurants that have those spaces, that outdoor dining, how do they get the space? It's because it was an old building converted, a house possibly, back in the day, residential, converted to a restaurant, very small, with a garden in the back. And then it turned into a restaurant. That's why I continue to think that it's very different if it's a restaurant use from a food service establishment that's associated with the sale of food, 51%, rather than alcohol. Because that, I think, will help us shape. I think. I believe so. Especially when you're looking at small spaces. But I think I jumped ahead of you. He has his hand up.

Oh, sorry. No, no, no, that's it. So just like, I'm just, you know, I'm just thinking about the biggest thing we're talking about is noise. And when we're talking about smalls and mediums, they could be in areas where there's already a lot of noise. And so I think we're being overly, we're holding on to something that, especially if we're not talking about backyards, Why are we holding on? Like, you know, again, the goal here, again, respect the incremental approach. But I do think that this opens up if you want to go jump from 20 something percent to 30 percent, I think you do that by making this. You don't want to start carving out, oh, I almost had it, but it was a weird lot's depth and. Save you guys, save some time. You know, I think, I don't think, I think anyone living in these areas, someone would still have to get a warrant to put it in the backyard. We're just saying front patio, you know, and then again in these larger ones. you know, second layer, whatever. And, uh, so that's, that's what I'm saying. That would be my, my recommendation.

I mean, if you think that general, general structure is good that you can, you know, general, general, general structure is good. I am, but then I think we're happy. Then we're happy to take recommendations on if you think we've been too cautious where you think you might want to be more flexible. The board want to, together talk about that and make a recommendation we're more you know we're happy to look into it as the item goes forward i think there's one more board member with uh adam i think there's one more comment thank you well so if it's large it has to be by warrant correct correct so you asked a question about size my thoughts earlier and so as i've looked over it like i'm not as concerned as

about the micro and the small. The medium, with music, it makes me slightly concerned, because that's up to 10 tables. And so, because the large is already about warrant and fine, it's just the medium. But I'm completely fine with the micro small with music, because it's only for the, it's only a couple tables for the micro, and then up to six tables, roughly, or five, for the small. But it's a medium. because it goes up to 40 seats, so 10 tables.

All right. And where you mention the parking here in this chart, Are there, and I remember discussing this about parking. I don't remember exactly when. Sorry. I know we talked about it. Maybe Jake was there. Do you remember parking and we were talking about the effect, only in terms of making a recommendation. If we make a recommendation where my point you know we're saying look we understand that we're not about to change all the parking requirements here but does this function maybe this is the city attorney's question too but if we made a recommendation and the commission takes it up that adjusts the parking requirements on this chart does it supersede any other requirement when you go through this

I don't know if you necessarily want to affect the parking requirement, right? Like the three per thousand commercial rate, you probably want to leave that alone. The question is, do you want to alter this specific rule that kicks in extra parking when your outdoor is larger than your indoor? That could be a recommendation. Right, right. That's what I'm saying. That was added later.

Right. Like, in other words, if we said, no, it doesn't. Because we're just trying to generally not keep adding more parking requirements, and so we're going to omit them.

We can absolutely consider that.

And I know we talked, sorry, the final piece on this is, I think it was related to industrial specifically, for the same reason you mentioned, whatever, which is just the types of things that are happening in those places, the amount of parking that's typically there anyway, because you have these large open lot sites, and when the neighborhoods are closed, developing or going through those changes, a lot of those lots sit empty for years and years and years while someone activates over here and activates over there and whatever.

So there is one unique rule that's in outdoor dining that's obviously when you have more outdoor seating than indoor seating, that that triggers you to have the outdoor area count as floor area and also triggers you to have parking.

Right.

We have added an additional provision in there that if you're 10 seats or less, that that trigger won't apply. So if you're 10 seats or less, like you're a small ice cream shop or something, and you've got you won't then suddenly have to provide parking. So the idea behind that is it does assist those very small businesses that don't have the opportunity to create parking on site. So that additional, so we could look at expanding that rule a little bit more.

I think the other thing too is yet to Mawusi's point about Moshi Moshi, like I think people do walk there from the motels and stuff. But then it's also empty a lot and they do turn into this huge like 24 hour delivery business because yeah it's not so easy to park there but they do have dining but we don't want to we don't want to suddenly say well you got to go find the parking if you like I just saw another restaurant just closed in Memo. Two weeks ago or something you know so it's like okay so now someone else comes in with a better concept that's actually going to work but then they're like oh. wait, you know, now I gotta add seats. So I just think anything we can do to sort of conform with that idea and put more pressure on the neighborhood to deal with its parking problems outside of the restaurant owners. I would recommend that basically, yeah. Maybe it skips, maybe it skips so it's maybe micro, small, Maybe medium, especially because mediums are going to there's a after number two there's an and it has to be in one of those areas so there's going to be parking already contemplated in those areas. So I would say, most of these why do it at all, and then you get to what i'm talking about, which is that in industrial. one there should be more by right and two it shouldn't be effective parking shouldn't factor in because how many of these places have we i think i don't remember who was there we talked about the one building you know you have this cool little building and then this huge parking lot because it used to sell cars or it used to have two forklifts and a thing but then it turns into this spot that has a bar and a little cafe but then there's all these people hanging out outside and that goes on for years doesn't affect anybody because the neighborhood's turning over a course of a decade So in those cases, like, why are we worried about parking? I mean, you know, they're, yeah. So again, the recommendation to, if I was doing this would be what we already recommended, I think, at one of the meetings, which is don't force the parking requirement and, and increase your by right options in more intense or industrial areas. to make a difference and again, eliminate more off that list right away that you know are not affecting people in a negative way. If single family homes is the number one thing to protect, what are you protecting in D1, D2? Unless it's actually a budding house. So my other recommendation would be to put that back in that was, you know, D1, D2 at a larger scale. I'm not going to make the motion. Somebody's got to make a motion.

Can I just make a comment?

Yeah.

Something I've talked about in the past is, again, this is a tremendous presentation. You guys did a great job. I know you guys did a ton of work on it. But once again, we're looking at it for the first time. It's not that complicated, really, in the scope of things. There's other things that are much more complex, maybe, than this one. You're flipping back and forth between this and the other, and it's impossible. I'm not smart enough to really understand it the way I'd like to understand it before I'm voting with this type of flipping back and forth. You go back to the first page, and then you look at it, and it's gone.

Why can't we have a copy of this presentation?

Otherwise, I'm telling you, I think I'm wasting my time up here because if I was able to sit here and look at it Well, for the amount of time I want to look at it, not when someone else wants to switch it, I would have a much better understanding of it. It wouldn't take me, but yeah, I'm just saying it again, and you don't have to answer, you don't have to respond. Please don't, actually, because it's not going to make a difference, but I'm just putting it on the record. Thank you.

I mean, I've not made a, I don't know, does someone have to adopt what I said, or do I, can I make a motion if no one does?

Mr. Chair, can you restate all of the items?

We've been, this is a long, been going on two hours now, to start talking about amendments and changes, no, I mean, it was gonna, we'd have to go and really discuss it.

Are you suggesting a deferral?

If you really feel strongly about your, about the changes you want to make, because, yeah, they're impactful. I mean, it's two hours in, now we're gonna start talking about making amendments or changes to...

I'm just thinking. That wasn't me making a face at you. I'm trying to think about what just happened.

What are the two... I mean, yeah, I think it's...

Question. Staff, do you have all the recommendations that we kind of made today that you feel comfortable bringing back something based off of what we suggested for the next meeting and then we can pass it with those things?

If that is your desire, we will look at the things that you have given feedback on today and made recommendations on, and we can look at that.

Thank you. And do you have any time constraints that we should be aware of? We don't have time constraints. Okay, thank you. Motion to defer.

It's a motion to defer to incorporate the feedback that you've given during the discussion today, specifically to look at adding, to look at, I'm sorry, the no speakers that you brought up as well as.

No speakers, like, well, weren't from medium and above. Right. If you want music. Yes. One and two, microns.

And then adding D1 and the industrials back in to also look at potentially looking, right,

Right. At the parking. Parking and the number of feet, I totally get it. Again, the backyard stuff, all good. Distance and, yes.

And the distance requirement.

And maybe, I think what's really helpful, the, for example, okay, I know this is, I doubt it's possible to compress four to three. Um, four to three categories, and also we're saying maybe expand to a kind of separate whatever for the industrials, but the defining, and your stat was my favorite, you know, what goes away because of this, right? Let's look at, let's go, hey, if we did this, Because, by the way, the other thing, too, is if you get one little thing wrong here or there, if there's something we figure out after the fact that got through where you have unhappy neighbors, it's still going to be something enforceable by code and by certificate of use revocation. Do you know what I'm saying? If we got from 20% to 40% and one or two things were wrong, It's way better. The effect for the city is way better for jobs, for people, for kind of, like I said, this weird type of business gentrification where it's not from here and it's the only things that could. So in other words, the net effect is going to be so much more positive for the city if we could double that number faster. Let's see what happens when we plug in this stuff here. And then also for the board to, so this is a recommendation of, upon coming back if a deferral passes to really map out the TODs, these areas that are defined in number three on mediums, so we could see where this takes effect. would be really cool. So yeah, I guess the, to really get some, I know you guys did the, the graphics are awesome to show like sort of certain conditions that could happen, but I think also understanding where in the city, these things will apply some, maybe a street corner or stretch of a couple of places and be like, look, this is what this would look like at 75 feet on this street, that kind of thing. Very real world.

So, The motion is to defer for us to look at the four items and to do some additional studies. We would prefer not the next meeting, not March 4th, we would prefer March 18th, if that can be part of the motion.

Through the chair, I would like to add one more item, if the board agrees. If we're looking to activate and promote processes and open up the processes so that they're simpler and we have more applicants and more businesses, why not looking at having the smaller sites be able to expand and use their backyards should they exist. And with the condition of just staying as a food service establishment rather than an alcohol service establishment. So in other words, you're opening it up. You're bringing in, but you're creating a protection.

So we can add that as something we can examine a little bit further, whether we distinguish slightly differently in certain circumstances between alcohol service establishment and food service establishment. It may be that there aren't that big a difference and they come back the same, but we're happy to look at that.

Okay. Yeah. If the board agrees with that.

I mean, that sounds, I mean, I think anything we can do, the point is anything we can do that you all feel where the most sensitive areas are that people feel like there's a reason why we said it was okay. Let's look at it. Yeah, all right, so.

Is there a second for that motion?

I think there was, actually. I thought I heard one.

I can second.

Oh, okay, there's a second. Okay, great, so March 18th.

18th, the second meeting in March.

Second meeting in March. Okay. So let's do a vote. No. No, no. No, no, no. Thank you, by the way. Thank you very much. Great.

Thank you. Doing a roll call. Calling. Calling, I'm sorry. CALLING MEMBER, I'M SORRY. CALLING MEMBER, WHO IS THAT?

I'M SORRY.

MARIO BAILEY?

YES.

OKAY. CALLING MEMBER, MARIA PAULA DE CAROLAS? YES. THANK YOU. CALLING MEMBER, JOSEPH CORRAL? THANK YOU. CALLING MEMBER, PAUL MANN?

YES.

CALLING MEMBER, ELON MOTOYA?

YES.

OKAY. CALLING MEMBER, MANUEL VIDEO? YES. CALLING CHAIR, ADAM GERSTEN?

Yes.

And then calling Vice Chair Andres Lopez.

Yes.

Passes by a vote of 8-0, deferred to March 18th.

Thank you for your feedback and consideration.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Calling PZAB number 2, file ID 18815, a resolution of the Miami Planning, Zoning, and Appeals Board recommending approval of an ordinance of the Miami City Commission amending ordinance number 13114, The zoning ordinance of the City of Miami, Florida, as amended Miami 21 code by amending Article 1, Section 1.2, titled Definition of Terms to Define Electric Vehicle Ready, amending Article 3, Section 3.6, titled Off Street Parking and Loading Standards to Remove Electric Vehicle Capable Parking Requirements, amending Article 4, Table 4, titled Density, Intensity, and parking, T4. Density, intensity, and parking, T5. Density, intensity, and parking, T6. Density, intensity, and parking, CS. Density, intensity, and parking, CI. Density, intensity, and parking, CI, I'm sorry, CI-HD. Density, intensity, and parking, D1. density, intensity, and parking D2, and density, intensity, and parking D3, and amending Appendix J, Wynwood NRD 1, and Appendix B, Wynwood Norte NRD 2, to reduce parking requirements when electrical vehicle-ready parking is provided, making findings containing a severability clause and providing for an effective date.

Who's ready to talk about more parking and reductions? I cannot wait. I'm Catherine Angleton. I'm from the Planning Department, and today we're presenting to you EV-ready parking reductions. So as Melanie just read into the record, we are defining electric vehicle ready, also known as EV-ready. We're going to remove our current parking requirements under Article 3, Section 3.6, and then add parking reductions when you provide EV-ready parking to Article IV, Table IV for various different transects, basically every transect except for T1 and T3. And the file ID is 1-8815. We are recommending approval and this would be essentially citywide. So a little bit of background on how we got here. In 2020, we adopted Ordinance 13934, which it defined EV capable, electric vehicle capable under Article 1 of Miami 21, and then it created Section 3.6.1F under Article 3, which basically required that 20% of all parking spaces had to be EV capable, which essentially means that there's conduits that are built into the concrete so that one day in the future, the property owners could convert those spaces that had the conduits into actual charging stations. And then our lovely state of Florida preempted local governments from doing any of that in 2024, which is now why we are repealing this. We can no longer mandate any sort of electric vehicle parking or infrastructure. And so that's why we're removing it for compliance with Florida state statutes. And instead we are creating an incentive program for the provision of EV parking. So you may be wondering, is there actually demand for it? The city of Miami has done a lot of research, and in 2024, the city of Miami released their EV roadmap, which was done with some consultants, and it showed that basically we have two different projection scenarios of EV adoption. You can see in your chart, the dark blue one is a conservative up until 2035, the light blue is the conservative going to 2050, the dark orange to 2035 is the aggressive, and the 2050 is the aggressive scenario is the light orange. The percentage that you see is the percentage of all vehicles that would be registered in the city of Miami to be EV So that's the share. So you have your internal combustion engines, your hybrids, and then your fully electric vehicles. The Office of Resilience and Sustainability, who oversaw this report, believes that we'll be somewhere in between, but a little bit closer to the aggressive curve. And we anticipate that we're going to see a lot of growth in adoption and purchase and driving of EVs. So another thing that people might be wondering is, do we actually need intervention? And the federal government has been tracking EV charging locations since 2011. So going back to the data, before we put in our EV capable, which no, it's not the same as requiring chargers, but we're using that as a proxy. of how many charge ports per month were delivered to the market before we put in our legislation. And it was about 2.64 ports per month. And then when our legislation was in effect before the state preempted it, we jumped up to about 9.02 ports per month. then after it goes into effect in state law, we have to repeal it, which basically we just haven't been enforcing it. We're now finally taking it out of the code, but we haven't been enforcing it since it went into effect in July 2024. That number dropped down to 6.47 ports per month. So what we're seeing is that obviously it's higher than before, and that's just because of market demand, but it's still not meeting the requirements, what we're anticipating the future demand is gonna be based off of our consultant research. So we wanted to incentivize it. So what we did was we considered our existing incentive program, our public benefits program. Right now you can get bonus height and or FLR through various different mechanisms, landscape enhancements, park improvements, pedestrian mobility connections, on-site mobility amenities, affordable workforce housing, the public benefits trust fund contribution, brownfield site rehab agreements, and green building if it's silver or higher. We didn't really wanna go with this avenue by adding any EV technology for additional FLR or height because we really don't wanna take away from these existing options. We wanna try to, especially with affordable housing, because the technology is going to be a lot more cost efficient for them to get bonus height or FLR if they just provide some charges than if they're going to actually provide affordable housing. So we didn't want to kind of take away from that. We know we're in affordability crisis. So that was the main reason why we didn't go through this avenue. We also looked at best standards, best practices that have been provided nationwide for trying to incentivize or roll out EV infrastructure. So one way that you can do it is that you have your EV parking count towards your minimum required parking, which only really works if you have both a minimum EV requirement and an overall minimum parking requirement. That way you can double dip. But since we're not allowed to force EVs, then there's not really a saving there because that's not taking away from their overall parking requirement. Another one was parking can count as more than one space, a reduction. So that's what we decided to go with. Another was increasing building area or height, which I just explained we didn't want to take away from other programs like building parks or affordable housing. Expedited permit review, we already offer that for affordable housing and we're really trying not to get in the way of building more affordable housing. So we didn't want to overburden reviewers with additional work that didn't have to do with affordable housing. Permit fee waivers there was not really an appetite for that rebate program That's really only something that utility providers can provide we as the city of Miami can't give you a rebate for Having an EV so obviously it doesn't apply to us parking trust fund We already have one and we didn't want to make that too convoluted by adding EV stuff to it So that's why we're at parking reductions so Given all of that, now we get to determining what the reductions are gonna be. So we wanted to consider what the existing reductions are right now. So right now you can get 10% by waiver. You can do the TOD reductions, which only applies to properties that are not within 500 feet of an ungated T3 transect. And you have to be on top of the not within 500 feet, either in the TOD area or the quarter mile transit buffer, the quarter mile buffer of a transit corridor. Sorry, you have to be within that quarter amount. 30% is the reduction you can get if you meet that. You can also get 50% if you pay into the transit enhancement trust fund or 100% reduction for any structure of 10,000 square feet or less. So, you know, looking at our existing reductions that we offer, we also wanted to consider where the reductions are being offered. So as I said, first of all, we can't do it within 500 feet of an ungated T3. So all the gray areas you see kind of cancel out. Those are the 500 feet buffers of the ungated T3s. The hollowed out thick black lines are all the gated T3 communities. So now I've erased it and taken it out with white, and now we've removed T1, T3, and CIHD. There's an asterisk for civic institutional health district because right now there are no reductions offered for CIHD, so we would be introducing reductions for that zoning transect. So you can see with the colors left on the map, that's the zoning space currently that you're kind of looking at. Now to drill down even more, you have to be either within a quarter mile buffer of a transit corridor, which are the thick black outlines, or you have to be within a TOD network. So those are the thinner dark black lines. And that reduces even more of the city that is qualified for the 30, 50, or 100% reductions. So then we also wanted to consider aggregation of reductions. Currently in Miami 21, only T636 through 80 can aggregate and accumulate their reductions, but it also cannot exceed 50%. So since 30% is already offered, there's a 50% for a contribution, 100% if you're under 10,000 square feet, and then the 10% waiver, we really kind of had to get creative with our percentages. So what we're proposing is that, so except for sites within 500 feet of an ungated T3 transect, if you're within a TOD area or a quarter mile transit corridor, will give you a 5% reduction if at least 10% of your spaces are EV ready. That 10% count is going to be off the post-reduction numbers. And then a 10% reduction in spaces if at least 20% of your post-reduction spaces are EV ready. One thing that we added via substitution memo today was that 50% of all of the EV ready spaces also have to have at least a level two charger or higher. So EV ready basically means that there is a little bit more that's built in from the EV capable, more wiring, higher amps and power. other electrical terminology that I'm failing right now at remembering, but it still doesn't actually have a charger on it. So we wanted to make sure that some of them actually could charge vehicles now. So that's why we did that 50%. This applies to less than 40% of the city, like land-wise. You can kind of see on your map how sparse and how kind of concentrated it is within Little Havana, the Health District, and kind of what we would consider like the greater downtown area, a little bit of Little River. So we're also introducing reductions outside of a 2D area, but you still have to be within, you cannot be within 500 feet of an ungated T3, and we're offering a 10% reduction if you provide at least 10% of the spaces EV ready, A 20% reduction if at least 20% of the spaces are EV ready. Again, 50% of the EV ready spaces have to have at least a level two charger or higher. And land-wise, this only accounts for about 18% of the city, but 9% of that, so about half of that, is actually just Port Miami and Virginia Key. So when you remove that, you're really only looking at 9% of the city that would have the higher reductions offered to them. The reason why we did it a little bit higher outside of the TOD is because there's not a lot of opportunities right now for properties outside of TOD areas to get a parking reduction. Right now it's only through the 10% waiver. And there's nothing in the code that allows them to aggregate so they would have to either choose between the 10% waiver or the 10% EV provision or the 20% EV provision. And that's pretty much all I have for you guys.

Catherine, can you explain to them the items that were updated in the legislation specifically?

Yeah, it was the main thing that we did was that we, like I said, we required that of the EV ready spaces that are provided, 50% have to have the chargers. Another thing that we did was in the definition for EV ready, we added the word minimum before 40 amps because we realized Without that semantic in there, that means that we're just kind of only limiting it to 40 amps, and we want it to be able to have a higher electrical output than 40. 40 is the minimum for the level 2 chargers, which is kind of the gold standard right now. Fast chargers, they have a time and place, and we determined that level 2 is the best for the different types of uses, land uses. and the activities that happen there. And then another thing that we did out for the substitution memo was just in the table itself, before each of these instances of the new reductions, we just put a little short title that just says EV parking program, just so that reviewers in the city can clearly identify it from the other parking reduction programs. Just to note also, all of these would be by right. None of this would require any entitlement.

And there was also a cleanup item for the lodging use as well.

Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. In Article 4, Table 4, for T5 lodging, there was an omission of the, except for within 500 feet of a T3, so we added that in because we caught that last minute.

We're not trying to harm T3. Okay.

Yeah, first off, am I not getting something here? Is it an accurate statement that the city is actively trying to reduce the number of cars that come into the city? That the city's trying to encourage residents to not have cars? Are you actively looking to reduce the number of cars in the city? And if the answer to that is yes, why is the county and the state actively trying to bring more cars into the city? That, to me, has seemed for years a huge disconnect. And no one has been able to explain it to me.

So often what happens at our state legislature is that... we, I mean, we are, so the city of Miami is one of the, one of the densest cities in the country, right? Um, we are also considered a major city within the United States. We are a large city within the United States and, um, we are the, one of the largest cities in the state of Florida. Often what happens at the state legislature level is that, um, Rules and regulations or laws for smaller communities are things that are brought forward by smaller communities, are put forward and moved forward through the state legislature process without taking us into account. There's something currently that's moving through the state legislature, and really, truly, the only impacted city in the state of Florida that would have a real major concern with it is us and it is because of the density of our skyline. And so sometimes there are consequences or unintended consequences from things that the state does that was never intended to be about the city of Miami or looking at urban areas. It is meant for the rest of the state that is not an urban area.

OK, so the city is not in favor of having the state provide an increase in traffic. And there's no way that we can tell the state, stop inviting cars to come to Miami.

I would say, sorry.

I mean, it just seems to me that we're heading for a complete gridlock here. people that are coming into the city with cars are going to find that there's no place to put those cars. So maybe, maybe they'll find some other way to come into town. I've looked at prices on rail, and that's not cheap. I'd rather have a car than pay that money and then get stuck at a station and have to Uber. Then you still need a car to get into the city. And that's time-consuming, and then you're You know, in the summer, who wants to be outside waiting for a car to take you someplace? It just does not make sense at all that if the city cannot do anything about the number of cars that are being invited to come to pretend that it's not happening and not account for it. It seems to me that the city is actively trying to close the door. It's trying to say, no, no, no, don't bring your cars because we're not going to provide parking for you. Am I correct? The city is allowing 30% reductions in parking by right, 50% under fairly easy terms, and here and there, 100% reduction. So yeah, you're trying to encourage Miami residents to not have cars. Can I just clarify? I know you can't stop the state. Maybe you can. I don't know.

We just need to clarify the 30, 50, 100% are by exception with city commission approval. We're only talking about a 5 to 10% within TODs and a 10 to 20 outside.

Has anybody done a study on how many more cars are going to be able to enter the city when all this construction is complete? I mean, it looks to me like they're 50% increase in the number of cars that can arrive. And if we see a 50%, not just taking a number, that's what it looks like from the size of the construction that's going on there. If we assume that we are going to have 50% more cars, then how can we not be trying to deal with that? Why is the city not buying up land under all these overheads, which are ugly? And any construction that takes place under an elevated highway is ugly construction. It's just a horrible environment to live. So why isn't the city building a million parking spots under the highways and make some money on it? It's just a total disconnect here. The city is like trying to say, no, no, no, no. We can't do anything about it. We're just going to continue with our plan here. And if 100,000 cars a month arrive at our doorstep, well, too bad. We're not going to give them a place to come. I mean, that seems to be the game that's going on here. And I'm wondering, how are you all planning on dealing with a 50% increase in traffic arriving on your doorstep?

So it's actually counterintuitive, but there is plenty of literature from traffic engineers that shows that when you reduce capacity for vehicles, you actually increase efficiency of traffic flow, and you reduce pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular fatalities and crashes. So when you reduce lanes or you eliminate parking, you're actually forcing people to make wiser choices, like seeking alternative paths and roads. When you add lanes and you add more parking, you're actually inviting more than what was designed the capacity for. It's what we call induced traffic. It's what's called induced traffic. It's a very highly studied thing that a lot of universities and engineers globally can cite about.

Thank you. I guess you're hoping that people will ignore all this extra access and not take advantage of it, but that's not very good planning either, is it? I think that's a failure of the state. I still think that the city should make money on this. Instead of the underlying, where somebody's going to get killed. I mean, I can't tell you how obvious it is, because I drive, I come down 95 all the time, I jump onto Dixie, I try to make a right on 16th, or on 17th, or on 19th, or on 22nd, or on 20, on, what is it, 25, I think it is, and then on 27, not so bad. But all those first ones, traffic is not thinking about skaters and bikers and joggers seeing a green light and crossing. They're going to come and take that turn and they're going to hit somebody. And it's just, it's not, might it happen? It will happen. And I know that in most towns, when somebody gets killed, that's when somebody puts a stoplight on. You know, and so it just is, the underline is a beautiful idea, but somebody's gonna get killed. We'd be better off using that for parking. Anyway, that's all I have to say.

Yeah, sure. Ms. Angleton, can you please go back to the chart itself? Which chart? To the chart that shows the projections. The projections, yeah. So how many EV vehicles do we currently have running through our streets and parking?

Somewhere between like 60 and 100,000. And that's basically the data for that was kind of doing like a share of growth analysis based off of the county's registrations because they didn't provide it to us by the city level.

I'm a little conflicted about this, mostly because I don't see the trend, even though I see it in front of me, where there will be more EV users. I know that I'm a little younger than most people, but my generation... is enjoying EV usage. And I could see that movement. But at the same time, my generation is also the one who we've said that is going to be using other means of transit. So I just don't see how the correlation exists between that same generation that we're and obviously I'm not asking whether we're studying a specific generation, I just asked whether the amount of vehicles themselves are here, but if we're going to be offering reductions for the same buildings, the same constructions that will be housed by my generation who were supposed to be utilizing other means of transit, providing this form of reduction for EV usage that we're trying to target my generation to use other means of transit. Unfortunately, the same developer will not see it that way. That's scary to me, and maybe perhaps it's a partial bias on utilizing EVs versus the actual gas, so perhaps it's just a bias myself as an attorney I have to think through, but I just don't feel comfortable with this type of legislation where we're trying to provide something for developments where they should be providing their usage when they're next to other means of transit. We should be focusing then on transit versus providing parking for AV systems. I just, I don't feel comfortable with this.

I would like to say to that, that for the portions that are in TOD areas, that actually does help with increasing ridership by providing less spaces.

Oh, for sure. I'm well aware of it. It's a fun, it is, I love these studies, but it is, I understand that. It's just, I don't see how the same developer will see it that way. It's just scary. So it's just, yeah.

I think, I think that, you know, transit is a lot like housing, right? Like everybody needs different types of housing for different points in their life and everybody needs different types of transit for different points in their life, right? Do I believe in public transit? Absolutely. Do I take public transit right now? No, I don't. Have I in the past? Sure, I've taken a bus, I've taken a streetcar, I've taken a trolley, I've walked two miles before to work. Like so different points in my life I've used, I've even used bike share before, right, on a regular basis. So at different points in my life, I've used different types of transit. Right now, in my current situation, it doesn't work for me. Just like at different points in my life, I've lived in different types of housing. I've lived from single family to multi-family. I've probably spent more time in duplex properties than I've lived in anything else, but we need different types of housing for different points of our life, right? And so, I think that it's important to make sure that we're ensuring that we have different options in different ways in which people can reach their objectives. And by allowing the EV reduction, that's just one way that you can reduce it within a TOD, by also allowing for other options in terms of transportation. So I think we all need lots of different options and the more options that we give to people, the more we'll actually be able to solve our housing issues and our transportation issues. And they're also joined together, right? We know that if you're spending more than 30% on housing, you're typically spending less money on your transportation. If you're spending more money, if you're spending less than 30%, if you're spending 20% on your housing, you're probably spending more than the 10% on transportation. You're probably spending closer to 20% on transportation. And so we know that they're also tied together. So I think that giving people more options is the solution. and taking whatever our personal stigmatization of it out of it and letting people have options is the best path forward.

And I agree that, and I thank you for that. And obviously, I started a part of that conversation by stating, you know, and as law school taught me, I put away my own personal bias, and that's why it's difficult for me. I'm just not seeing it, which is why I asked for the charts. I mean, look, I'll go with what the board decides and everything else, and I do believe, obviously... If we provide options and we then limit other options, we will have a commuter base that makes smarter choices. So, I mean, I'll go with the board. It's just, this has been, just for the record, very difficult legislation for me to, but I support it.

Just to add my own little personal thing, I've had my driver's license for 20 years now. I know I don't look that old, but I am. And I don't have a car. I bike everywhere. I take the bus. I take transit. I even bike over the Venetian Causeway into the beach. I've almost been hit on the underline just because there's so many pedestrians there, and they don't know they're walking in a bike lane. So there are some of us that do. I know I'm not the typical Miamian. even though I'm third generation. I know that I'm not the typical Miamian that drives everywhere, but a lot of us millennials, we do like to try to use alternative modes of transportation, try to be more environmentally conscious, and also look at our finances, because having a car is expensive. My insurance went up almost 100% within two years, and I never got in an accident. It was a no-brainer for me to get rid of my car. But I know that's not suitable to everybody's lifestyle. You know, I completely understand that.

Thank you. Just one quick technical question. I see that the date on this chart is November 24th.

Yes, that's the date of the report.

Would you guess that current developments would flatten these curbs or actually steepen them?

So I don't think that the products necessarily would flatten it. I think it would just create more vehicle miles traveled in traffic, actually, for people that, if they get into a building that doesn't have an EV charger, now they're going to be circling around trying to find a charging station.

Sorry. And also, are you referring to the fact that there are no subsidies currently? Right. I mean, that just could be a blip in time, right? So...

You still do get, I think, rebates offered through FPL, so there are some financial benefits for installing the technology. Just none that we can provide.

Sorry, yeah, go.

Okay, so where do I start? Okay, so I am glad that we are working towards EV parking. However, I'm not concerned about what we're doing. I'm concerned about how we are doing it, right? Have other any, I've seen that there's other incentives that have been explored, but they haven't been supported, right? Because there's other ways. We have seen, I mean, we are in a habit of providing parking reductions more aggressively than ever through our ordinance. And we are seeing areas that do not have the parking capacity that they need to operate. And that is being mitigated by developers that, through additional parking, they get, in exchange, development capacity. So at the end of the day, who's paying for it? The residents, because they end up with a larger building, more stories, more shade, more density, which the conversation is not against density. That is not the conversation. It's not that we are not pro-development. It's that there are deficits that are created that have not been mitigated. And here we are with another request for more reduction of parking. So yes, we want the EV parking. Unfortunately, these were requested, as I understand it. They were required without any incentives. And now we have to find ways. so that we can have the EV parking through incentives. Unfortunately, we find ourselves there. So I wouldn't look into other options instead of the reduction of parking. I really do. I mean, and you had a list. So it's not that it's an oversight. It's that it needs to be supported. so yes can we vote on yes because this is better than nothing absolutely this is better than nothing but what is our standard it's really low right now because we're reducing the parking can we raise that standard is my question okay i'm a real estate developer and the only way you're going to get ev parking is by reducing it because we don't have to do it anymore

I know.

Listen to what I'm saying. I am a real estate developer that builds. I live downtown. I walk. I don't take my car out on the weekend. So I'm living in reality here, not in any theoretical conversation. If you don't do this, there won't be an EV parking, okay? Because we're not required to do it anymore. So a reduction will, you know, incentivize us to do this. So I do it now on my project. That's because my own personal belief that it's important. And if you charge less parking than you have, I have one car. I live downtown. The reason why I have one car is because it's $250 to park in my building. So if there's less parking, you can't park, or it's expensive to park, you will figure it out, especially in downtown areas and urban areas. I don't know how far this goes out, but the reality of the matter is the more expensive it is for you to drive, you will figure it out in Miami. Some days, an Uber is $30.00. I walk the half a mile to the train station. I would get myself on the train or I would catch the trolley or else I'll pay the $30. Now, I'm a little bit upset that we got rid of the, what do you call them, the little scooters for that half mile. We need to bring those back. I don't know why those are gone because you can have them in the gables. You can have them anywhere around the world. People have scooters. You know, I was up in Boston. There's no parking in Boston anywhere. People figure it out. And there's not trains to go everywhere in Boston. But the more parking we provide, the more people are going to drive. That's just the reality.

Yes, I understand that. However, there are options to providing the EV parking. Yes, tax credits. Can you pull the slide, please? Thank you.

I build these things. There's no credits. I have to pay to install these in my car, in my building.

I'm not in the business of solving the problem. I'm in the business of making a recommendation. And the recommendation is can we look into other incentives rather than reducing parking again and again? My situation is different. I'm a mother. I have two children. I live across the school. I cannot go to that school. I choose not to go to that school. I drive my kids to two different schools every day. So I have to drive. I have elderly that I had, they passed away, to take to the hospital. So my reality is different. I used to live in Rome for years with a bicycle. I wasn't married. I didn't have children. The city's super equipped to walk, ride your bike, do whatever you need, take the bus when it rains. You can do it. So it's not, it's what Ms. Steiner said, it's a situation in life, and you have to provide diversity for everybody. Now, what we are recognizing here is that there's a parking reduction in every single project that we see, and it's mitigated by developers through increased density. Do we want that? That's my question. Do we want that as a board? Fantastic. Do we want that? I don't think that those are the means. I think there's better ways of doing things. That's all I'm saying.

I will say that within our current parking ratio for, let's say, ground floor commercial with mixed with mixed residential above, our ratio is slightly over 1.6. That is a suburban parking ratio, point blank. Any AI will tell you that. The high cost of free parking will tell you that. The Congress for New Urbanism will tell you that. The American Planning Association will tell you that. 1.6, what is our parking ratio that we ask developers to do is a suburban parking ratio. So even when we start giving some of these waivers that we have, we typically only get down to about 1.4, which is still on the high end for a urban market that we are in. I think that, and also I want to say that I have been following, when we actually took the parking reductions that we give currently in TODs from the by waiver process or by right process, because those 30 and 50% were used to only be done by waiver. And then when we took them to exception by commission, we killed a good portion of our small developers who wanted to do missing middle housing, which created, which increased the affordability issue. Not only that, and I've been tracking specifically that change from before I even got to the city of Miami, before I even applied for a job. Not one single one of those exceptions that have been applied for has this board denied, nor have they been denied by city commission. Every single one of them has passed. I'll have to double check myself on the next piece, the first part I know for sure. I don't think that there has been one public comment against the reduction of those parking, either at PSAB or at Commission. And so we're not even seeing pushback on the parking reductions that we made harder to get They've all been approved. And that's over the past three and a half years. Additionally, we see more and more cities. The city of Chicago did it earlier this year. The city of Baltimore did it earlier this year.

The city of Gainesville, Florida already has it.

They have said that if you are doing multifamily within a half mile of your TOD, a fixed rail transit, then you are no longer required to provide any parking whatsoever. No parking. 60, almost 70% of Chicago does not require parking anymore. And so I know that our transit, and I know the response back to that is always that our transit isn't there yet. But at the end of the day, we know that if we create situations where we have a suburban parking model or a suburban parking ratio, we have too many lanes in our road, we create what we call induced traffic, right? We create more of a traffic issue. We know that we have to increase density around our TODs or around our train stations so that we can increase ridership so that as ridership builds, we have more cases to get more dollars to provide more transit. It's all interconnected together, but at the end of the day, our parking ratio within the city of Miami allows for space to have these parking reductions, and as we continue to move further and further away, major cities in America are decreasing their parking in their TODs while we sit around and argue about whether or not we should do that, or in fact, we've made it harder in a lot of situations. So I think that this is, and I think that we can all agree and based on your comments, this isn't exactly where we wanna be in EV parking, right? We liked our other program, but the state has said, we can't have the other program. We can't have our original program. So, staff has gone, they have looked at the other areas that are considered best practices, and this is our recommendation to continue to incentivize EV parking.

To add to what you were saying about how it killed missing middle housing developers, so... We looked and got some quotes, and WGI is a traffic engineering firm. We actually use them as consultants for our trip generation analysis for transportation concurrency. And according to their 2020 report, the average cost per space of a garage in Miami was over $18,000. So that's a huge cost savings to developers. And I know that we're always talking about catering to developers, but you do have to think about the financials and about the pro forma, and that is a huge benefit, and I mean, we really don't wanna look at the other options just because they're gonna take away from the way our public benefits program works in providing affordable housing, and we know that that is very critical.

After the chair?

Oh, hang on. No, I was just gonna say,

this whole induced traffic thing is interesting, but I'm looking just, on my internet page here. So basically there's a disconnect between this whole thing where you have to basically force people to take transit. We have to force them. It's like there's no other choice because everything is so congested. So there's no other option. There's nowhere to park. But the state just cut tri-rail from 42 million to 15 million. They limited a $60 million set-aside. For rail grants, basically TriRail at this point is going to have to shut down maybe, this is not hyperbole, this is legit, you know, they have another year to live.

I think Brightline's going out of business again or something. I think Brightline's going out of business or something.

Brightline was never going to take one car off the road, basically it's just to go to Orlando, which is not the high, if you're going to sit there and say what is the best use of our funds, would it be Do we need to get to Kendall or do we need to get to Orlando? Anyway, so again, they took away $200 million from Aventura. The Doc Stamp tax reduction has removed $40 to $50 million away from monies that could be used to match federal grants. I mean, it goes on and on and on. So right now, the policy is disconnected from reality, which is frustrating. You guys know that. This is not breaking news that I'm... We all know this. So the leadership that we have in this state is anti a lot of things, and they're anti mass transit, and they're anti EV, as expressed by my fellow colleague here. Anything that isn't, I guess, gas, they're against. It's pretty irrational. But yeah, so what good does it do to, you know, Miami's not Chicago, Miami's not Boston. Miami was built at a different time in history. We don't have the, the way our roads, our city lays out is not conducive to, you know, subways and blah, blah, blah, and nobody wants to pay for it. So I think maybe we should start thinking about a different way to attack the problem. I don't have the answer.

So, you know, 30 years ago, everybody was anti-affordable housing, right? until housing became an issue. So I used to go to, you know, many cities and counties, and everyone would come out against affordable housing. And guess what? Now everybody's for affordable housing. This governor, you know, through all his issues that I might have with him, was probably the most pro-affordable housing developer we've ever seen in the country, right? And it happened because things became difficult for his constituents. So, you know, as we continue to build cars and continue to plug our roadways, We're going to have public transit. We got it in Los Angeles. I grew up in LA. I never thought it would ever happen. And they have transit going everywhere. So it's going to have to happen. It's a matter of when and how we're going to pay for it, but it's just going to happen.

I hope so. Did you say that LA has good transit?

Yes. I mean, it's everywhere now. Unbelievable. Yeah.

I mean, the answer, the simple answer, it's the toughest to enact, but philosophically, The more obvious answer is better transit. But I've thought about this a lot. Where does it go? To me, the simplest thing is overhead. Well, I have something nobody's really... We've got the people mover, but could you imagine two lanes of express? I mean, 95 can't end where it is. 95 has to be extended down to Kendall. But how do you do that? The only way to do that is ugly. Put it up above. Because nobody's going to dig down below, and nobody's going to approve a Key West time causeway going out across the bay and all the way down. So the only answer is to get ugly. Or to take over lanes for trolleys. If you've been watching the Olympics, right through the middle of Cortina, you've got railroad cars going through there. I mean, that's Europe, right? And that's because they've been around for hundreds of years. But the answer here is... start building transit, start making some real plans to have transit. I trust that your department knows what they're doing and you have a plan and you know what the obstacles are and you know what the challenges are and you're trying to navigate the best path you can through them so that 10 years from now, we're in a better place than where we are now. So I'm leaning towards going with you on this one because it is actually, EV and EV is a good thing.

So even though batteries is a whole different world of problems.

You know what I mean? So there's no perfect solution here except put more trains out there, put more buses out there, and make them go cross town. You know, that's the answer. And that's huge money. That's probably imminent domain issues there. I mean, that's where we got to go.

I mean, the city does have a successful trolley program, and it has expanded. And so it continues to expand. So we have seen expansion there.

So...

I want to point to the map that I pulled up really quickly. So if you see the purple lines, those are all Metro bus routes. The orange are the trolley. You don't see a lot of it because it overlaps with Metro bus. And then obviously you have the Metro rail and the Metro mover. You can see with the Metro bus routes themselves, they actually do provide a lot of good coverage. I've used Metro bus before. They said I don't have a car. And it's pretty, it's not bad. Yeah, it sucks waiting in the heat. I'm not going to dispute that. I am a Miamian after all, but.

Yeah. I think if I can. Oh, did you? Go ahead.

Question for staff. Did you guys consider expedited permitting, fee reduction, or anything of that nature?

The reason why we didn't want to go with those is because right now we have expedited permit review for affordable housing, and we just don't have enough staff. In my opinion, one of the issues with getting permits approved faster is a lack of staff. If you look at the county, the Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources has close to 1,000 people. and they're reviewing for unincorporated aid on top of incorporated areas for environmental review and stuff.

We have what, like 20 reviewers in our department?

Zoning has half of that? you see how many cranes there are, it doesn't take a mathematician to know there's just not enough bodies to review it. So that's one thing is that, and I get back to that because once you start adding expedited review, then you start really pressuring people to get things done faster and maybe they won't catch things that are important or crucial, especially at the building permit phase. And the last thing anybody wants is a repeat of Champlain Towers.

yeah follow up um so you guys have been looking at all of the different things that you want to do to kind of like i guess incentivize developers um has there been like a i guess a comprehensive plan looking at all the things you want to do and then put in for fte's uh like like how many ftps that you feel you need or just mike you're mike yeah yeah yeah

If you could repeat it, because I couldn't actually hear that one. Sure, sorry.

Have you guys, like, did, like, something more comprehensive, because, like, we're getting, like, every so often we get, like... I can hardly hear you, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every so often we get new incentives. Have we looked at, like, a comprehensive list of all the incentives that we want to offer, and then, like, create a budget item for FTE so you can do, like, expedited...

Yes. Yes, I do that all the time. That ends up being a big part of my job every year.

Okay.

We're about to go.

So I didn't mean to open a can of worms, but it is a truth that not a lot of people realize is that it's just a lack of bodies.

I mean, that's literally, sorry, but that's literally was your point on the last, I mean, big part of the last item that we just spent two hours on would not be an issue. That's another, I didn't even say that. If we had more people to review and warrants were processed faster, who would care whether you needed a warrant or not? the whole conversation would be moot. Everybody should get a warrant because they're done in 15 days or 30 days or whatever, instead of a year or half. It could happen. There's a world, but whatever. Man can dream. But, you know, I mean, that's the thing. It comes, it's so much of this is about that. And the way that we have to adjust reasonable thinking to twist ourselves into these, you know, things because of that. And it would just be so much cheaper to, to hire more people, basically. Hello. You know, everyone.

I didn't force him to say that.

I was not paid to say that, but I will take the money. But I think that that's a big part of this.

They're always going to say that it's easy to blame the government. It's an easy target. Who is it? That's interesting that you say that, that you guys have a low ratio of of people per application. I thought it was amazing to me that the only thing Jeff Bezos, he spoke about the election of Miami, and he said, oh, I hope that the new mayor makes it easier to get a permit. Oh, yeah.

My dad sent me that the other day. He was talking about AI. Is that the biggest problem we have? Which they did talk about at commission recently.

Hang on. And it's not your guys' fault. I think you need more people.

I think that it's complicated and I don't think that it is just about I think to pinpoint anything on one specific thing is not looking at that comprehensive package. That's what I said about when we look at the warrant process earlier, we need to do a deep dive into it. We need the hard data points. We need the soft data points. We need to process map the unprocessed or the unmapped portions of the process and understand where we're having delays. It isn't just about staffing. It is about Do we have the tools and resources we need? And that is not just human capital, that is technical capital, that's AI, that's software permits. I mean, I have one group of employees that in order to get something to you for public hearing, they probably copy and paste something five or seven times. There's nothing efficient about copying and pasting something five or seven times. Right? Like, that's not efficient. Also, how they don't make a ton of mistakes is beyond me, because if I had to copy and paste that so many times, I would make a ton of mistakes. So their work is, you know, incredibly valuable because that's what they're doing. So we have to look at things like that as well. We also have to look at our process. So as we create new resources, human capital and resources, and technological capital or whatever that is, is our process correct? If we're putting garbage into all of that, we're gonna get garbage out. If I don't train my people correctly, I'm gonna get garbage out of them. If we're not getting the right process into our systems, we're gonna get garbage out of it. So it's also about process. Then it's also about, do we have a culture that needs to change within not only our department, but within our infrastructure, within all of the city of Miami, to help facilitate all of those process changes that are gonna occur, as well as the new advances and the other things that we're doing in terms of our resources, right? And then also, how do we break down our silos across all of our departments and across our city to ensure that we can make everything work? So, you know, is it just add more staff? Is that the sole answer to the entire question? No, that is not the sole answer. It is a part of the equation, absolutely, but it's not the sole answer.

Savannah, is this legislation going to help bring about better transit?

I think this legislation will help us bring better transit. I think that it also incentivizes a lot of the EV parking that we know is coming and what we have to set up for in the future. Or else we're going to have a ton of buildings, I think to Mr. Montoya's point, we're going to have a ton of buildings that just don't put in the EV and then later down the road are going to have to come back, get another permit to put in the EV parking later.

The retrofit is about seven to eight times more expensive to retrofit it once you've built it.

That's the real thing right there.

So I'm ready to make a motion to approve.

We have a question though.

I have a question for the developers on the members that are here. What are some other incentives besides parking? Sorry.

I'd like to do my comments, and then if you have one more thing to add on to him, just because I'd like to just get mine out. Sure, because you may have something to add to it or something like that. One is, I think it's always funny how we hear a bunch of things where we're asked to reduce parking, and we're like, geez, I don't know, this sounds crazy, whatever. And then we find a reason, and we do. And then here, it's like, hey, we want to put more chargers for the types of cars that more people are going to drive. in all the buildings and make people do it and incentivize it. I understand the reservation is like, why not a different system to do it or whatever? But I think it's one of these things. One, yes, we're sort of like over-parked in some of these if there was a parking requirement. Two, the future is likely to include less car ownership and more fractional rental, you know, it's like, we're either going to be even more enslaved financially and that's not actually own cars or there's whatever this, uh, or suddenly everybody has so much money and we're still not going to want to own the cars. And so this type of parking, to me, makes all the sense because you're going to have, you just need more chargers along the way. That's just true. If we're going to be in more electric vehicles, you need more chargers. I think there's an interesting question, which is public accessibility to these additional chargers, sort of like the way the design district does, where anyone can pull into the lot and charge the cars, and there's a ton of chargers, and the parking rates are low. So, you know, that sort of as maybe more of a public benefit component to adding these EV chargers, which no one's brought up, I think could be an interesting little extra piece to this that might make people feel better about it. I don't know how complicated that is, but I would definitely support something like that. you know, where there's a public benefit in that the public has access to a certain number of these chargers. The other thing I wondered about, too, as well, was the proximity to T3 and the 500 square foot...

The 500 foot buffer?

500 foot buffer to T3. You know, I'm not sure I totally understand how that... You know, because I think if you want to say, again, let's just use MIMO because it's literally right outside my house. But, you know, there there's a lot of empty surface lots, things like that. So, you know, I just I don't know if someone built a couple story building. a couple story building um you know i i don't know if that applies but you know why would why would we prevent it i think it should be citywide and those are also you know there's other quarters like that where i feel like they that should belong in the 500 square 500 feet uh seems really far away like like as though it was uh

It's like about an average block size. Right. That's the existing language that we have for our existing reductions, so we figured we would just keep that existing language for standardization, and we figured there was a purpose to it to not encroach on the T3.

I understand it, but everybody benefits from this. So I just don't understand why we would worry so much about it, especially if it's going to be generally inside something. And that you would assume there would be circulation, you know, in terms of plans and, you know, building department, things like that, that these parking lots that would appear that would have these in whatever buildings were close to T3 under 500 feet would be planned in a way that they would be efficient. And if they're on thoroughfares and ingress and egress would all be sorted. So I'm against keeping them away from T3. I don't understand it. Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't make sense. Those are my notes. So availability to the public. I wouldn't do it with... I mean, I think it's dependent on other factors. So maybe there's reasons not to do it. But I think those factors would keep those buildings away from T3. Right? Like... maybe that whatever would make it not make sense to utilize this program close to T3 would also prevent the building that would house this parking near T3. Unless you could give an example that wouldn't work. Do you understand my question?

Right, so basically what you're saying is that if, like, I think the question is where... Like, what is the public policy reason for not having...

less parking in a parking lot, but having more EV chargers instead, or you could get the parking reduction.

So typically, I will say that in other cities, there typically is some type of buffer, even for cities that have no parking requirements. I came from a city that had no parking requirement, but they still had a buffer. if you were within 250 feet of a T3 type of property. And that was because that was the average block length there.

The buffer, I'm sorry, just to be clear, a buffer on what?

Yeah, so the only time parking was required is if your project was located within 250 feet of a T3 size neighborhood. Otherwise, there was no parking required. I mean, none was required, right? I came from a large city, million people. So that buffer is considered a best practice, and that 250 for there was based on the block length. So here it is the block length, which I think is a little, it's actually, 500's a little big. It's probably closer to 350, but it's typically about a block. So in this case, it's about a block and a half, and that is considered a best practice is to allow some type of buffer there. And that came out of when cities started going to things like parking maximums. So originally when cities started going toward the whole idea that free parking is really expensive, the more that we supply it, the more we raise the cost of our overall projects. we have better turnover, even when we charge for higher rates on street parking, you get better turnover in terms of your restaurants and your retail. So there's a lot of information out there on parking. If you ever want to go, just Google it and there's a ton of stuff, right? So I think that I think that it does make sense to keep some type of buffer built in because we don't even have that parking maximum built in, right? We don't even have a parking maximum. So until we kind of begin to straighten out the whole or to look further into the whole entire parking ratio, it makes sense to keep the buffer.

But you do think it's possible that 500 is... on the large set.

I think that we would have to do, my understanding, and I haven't really done the analysis, I think I either asked comp planning or maybe urban design, or maybe I asked RPW, I forget, about that average block block length and it's about, it ends up being like 250 by 350 in Miami. Typically when you get into a residential area, your block lengths get longer, right? You go from a 250 by 250, you usually go to like 250 by 500. You start getting into something that's more equivalent to like a New York City block. So we also see that as well. So I would be hesitant to change that 500 just because it has been kind of, it's been in the code since the beginning. I imagine that when the code was written that there was a lot of study done around that. And so, and it does seem to match that. I would say it's maybe potentially a little, a little large, but I would.

Is that to where you were saying that our, that it keeps, the parking number a little higher, closer to residential. Yeah. But what about, again, just thinking about 78th, 79th Street, the difference between Palm Grove and then you go across and then there's that, but now can they not avail themselves and utilize this program because it's so close to residential?

Unfortunately, my laptop died because I didn't think item one was going to go so long and I didn't bring my charger because of that. So that's on me. I can't pull up the map anymore, but I do know what you're talking about. And you're talking, you said Palm Grove. So when you said the area across the time, like Little River. Right.

So it's like across from Manatee Bend where they're going to be building these bigger buildings.

There was a portion of Little River that would still qualify for these reductions.

Right off of Biscayne.

No, sorry, not off of Biscayne, a little bit further west. West.

Yeah, probably like second Ave or maybe even northeast first Ave. Again, it really, none of the answers really changed my position because it just seems like, yeah, it just, exactly. It feels sort of arbitrary and sort of like a relic from the past. If what we're saying is happening is actually happening, then the response would be, why... Well, first of all, those suburban areas are protected because they have their own parking on the lot, in the garage, in the driveway. And then a lot of on-street parking that's also sometimes protected by neighborhood parking.

Jeremy, I think that's one of the things that the neighbors are most concerned about, is they have on-street parking. Silver Bluff is a perfect example. Coral Way. There's restaurants and such. And They park in their front yard. So that's one of the things, I mean, that's one of the things I think that there was a lot, Correo and another commissioner rolled back some parking, and it was like, people were horrified because we're going backwards because the future is less parking. And that was the reason I think that their constituents told them, hey, there's people parking in my yard.

It's weird.

I hear you. Right? That's it. I understand the concern, and I definitely understand you know, living in a neighborhood where people, but I guess the question too is like, whatever, we're not going to resolve that. But the point is like, there are neighborhoods that have resident only parking. God help you if you park for a minute or maybe still in your car and you're just pulled over to check a map and they're going to ticket you and then there's other ones where it's like that and they should be Enforcing it and they're just not so like again comes around to who's in charge of that neighborhood and who's doing their job and who's not, you know, because because I just don't think we should be building policy around like a failure of one portion of the city's administration or the administration of one portion of one agency. and then saying, well, we can't do the right thing in this thing over here for this type of building in this type of space with this type of information that we have because the parking guys won't ticket in this neighborhood or tow, you know, but that's also.

It's a difficult, it's a, it's a, I could sit, I mean, we could talk about parking for hours, right? Um, It's not an easy question, right? I also think that if you look at our single family neighborhoods, we require two spots per unit or per house, right?

And now you can also park something on the lawn.

Most of them have three, sometimes four bedrooms, right? So, you know, at that point, are you really only having two cars? I live within walking distance of Coral Way. Nobody from a business parks on my street. there is no street parking on my street because it's all taken up by the people who live there, or it's not available because we have so many curb cuts that you can't have any street parking. So there's a whole, it's so much more complicated than just saying, you know, than just saying, okay, we have an EV parking reduction. I mean, we have to really dig into all of those details and look at also our overall development pattern. I mean, there are other cities across the United States that don't have curb and gutter that don't require the parking that we require, but don't have the issues that we have, and also have more infiltration of commercial into their single-family neighborhoods and still don't have it, and also don't have the public transportation. So, I mean, those places exist, so we have to continue to look at it, and we have to continue to improve. You know, this has been brought up because the state has, of course, implemented a regulation. We know that we want to continue to have EV parking It is important for a major city in Florida to have EV parking, and the best solution that we have come up with in the face of what the state has done is to incentivize it this way.

Understood, as it is with many of the things that are now in front of us more recently.

Sorry, I can add an example of a building that was recently completed that didn't provide any EV parking or any EV capability or readiness. The building on 29th and Biscayne that has the Whole Foods grounding it, because it wasn't required anymore, they just yanked it all out. I usually just see EV parking when I'm at Whole Foods. Like, that's their clientele. You don't know your clientele?

Right.

You don't force it. They're not going to build it.

I mean, I... It makes all the sense in the world. We should be putting as many in as many places as possible. So anyway, all right. But that's my, you know, I hope we covered.

I think you've answered most of my question. I have something that's super random. A good portion of, like, near downtown the Biscayne area in Miami is in, like, a mandatory evacuation zone, and we're trying to, like, make people get rid of cars. Like, I generally keep my car for that one time a year, June to November, if I have to leave. like we've been very fortunate past three years, have not had to leave. And so as we're considering like a great reduction of cars in certain areas, just make sure that we are consider of the mandatory evacuation zones.

Would anybody?

Catherine's the one that looks at that for us.

Oh yeah, I'm the one that's constantly hounding the county to do the analysis for us because the state has given the authority of emergency management specifically for storms to all of the counties. So anytime we do a land use amendment for the map that goes with a rezone, we have to go to the county and get that analysis to see what is the impact going to be to evacuation times and shelter capacities. They're not very responsive, but I hound them until I get it, because that's crucial. We absolutely need to know what is going to be the impact to people evacuating in their cars or through the transportation options that are provided by the county. I don't know their methodology, because that's not my area of expertise, but they do give us the analysis, and I have to imagine that they are including some sort of transportation services for people that don't have cars.

Cool.

Well, I don't know, like I said, me would if someone makes a motion I just I'm very interested to you know see the public benefit portion included but if anybody wants to make a motion or did we open it up to the public oh I will but I know I know somebody had just doing would any anyone from the public like to speak on behalf of this item Seeing no one is interested in speaking on this item from the public, I don't know.

I think I speak for everyone here. When I say you're all doing a great job. And listen, we went through all the trouble of coordinating our wardrobe. I thought I should come up and speak. I do want to say, Ms. Steiner, with all due respect, Ms. Steiner? Yeah, the data point of the number of public speakers that show up. in order to either agree or disagree with the elimination of parking, I think is an unfair point in that not a lot of people show up necessarily to these meetings, whether they're these commissions. That said, I don't know what choice you have here, right? I mean, I think you have to induce generationally a change in behavior of half a million residents in addition to hundreds of thousands of commuters who come through the city of Miami from a tri-county area likely every single day. But to the point that Mr. Mann made, and I think Ms. Corrales was making, is that is it easier to induce behavioral change in hundreds of thousands of residents or find a way for you as an entity to compel the government to increase public transit. Because you're going to change the behavior of hundreds of thousands of residents before there is sufficient public transit for them to be able to alter their behavior. So I think it's incredibly You have no choice but to do this, I feel. But at the same time, what is it that you can do to compel the government to actually say, OK, all these people that we're going to force out of vehicles and onto the street into Brickell, which is unwalkable, into Brickell, which is you cannot ride a bike. It is unsafe for parents and children to commute. I got a hit. So I guess that's really the question, is what is it that you can do as a board to compel the smaller subset of people, not the entire community, but the government to actually... I appreciate, Ms. Steiner, the... What was it? The trolley. It's very Mr. Rogers neighborhood. But like, I mean, who takes the trolley? Let's be real. I mean, thank you. You're the one. Yeah. Anyway, I think I've gone over my two minutes, Mr. Chair. But like, it's kind of a Sophie's choice. But like, come on. Like, we need public transit in this town. And what are all these people going to get? You can plug your EV in. And Mr. Chair, I happen to know you have a conflict of interest. You own an EV. So, I think you should recuse yourself from this vote altogether.

You're clearly, this is, this is, anyway.

Keep up the good work, guys. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Kind of regret asking if the public had anything to say. All right. So, motion. Okay. Sorry, did anybody want to accept my... That's what I was going to suggest. If you could outline your conditions or... No, it was just to say that it should include access by the public to this, because if these are all locked up inside a portion of a parking lot you can't get to, you're not really helping. But I... Sorry, and I wanted to... Super quick. What I was sort of joking about with the not owning the vehicles, one thing that will happen is that people are going to jump in and out of automated EVs. That's going to happen.

The Waymos are here.

The Waymos are here or whatever version of these cabs you jump in and out of or whatever. And just having the infrastructure for them to just pull in and charge and not, this will happen. facilitate that at least for the next era of EV and that answers the question too which is it is cheaper to put those cars on the road than it is to build a new metro rail which is never going to happen. All the options we think we have are right. They're never going to happen. But Using cars in a more controlled way and giving them their own lanes and all that is cheaper than buses and maintaining the buses and all that stuff because it's basically just a battery with four wheels and a cap on top. It's really the most likely thing to happen. So I think that this, anything like this, facilitates public transportation, new public transportation. That was the point I didn't make, and I wanted to make sure.

Chair, I'd like to just, sorry, really quick, add a quick data point that you would find interesting. The 2024 American Community Surveys from the Census Bureau showed that for the city of Miami, about 20% of households have no vehicles. So that's a fifth of your neighbors actually don't even have cars right now.

So we should add that, and the reason why we should add it, because it's very costly to build EV charger they changed the law in a garage so I moved all of mine outside of the garage so it would be an incentive to have them as public publicly accessible outside of the garage because they don't have to be free no they don't which you can monetize yeah but it's just cost prohibitive because of fire code and the change in the state law that you know like I said it's cost prohibitive to put them inside the garage right

Is it possible to get that data from you? Because I'm working off of USDOT 2020 data, so it's a bit, no, okay.

I tried.

I'm trying to be well-informed. 2020 was the latest they had for obvious reasons.

I mean, is it possible for us to add incentives for on-street parking?

Oh, for on-street parking?

Yeah, because that's the only way we'll be public, because most garages have control and access.

I would say that you could make that a condition of your motion, and then we'll have to look at it. Yeah, because that would require the MPA. We'd have to look. I need some time to look at that and work that into the language of the legislation. Which the public... Yeah, the public portion. So if you could just make that a condition, all of your conditions either get worked into the legislation or they are also expressed during briefings.

It's a condition. You could even, if I may, you could probably, not to say copy-paste, but look at the language that we utilize for the project we worked on last meeting where it was next to the...

Colmer Park? No, next to the park.

I forgot the name of the park, but for the very last meeting that we had, there was a large discussion about the road closure and the... Right. That one. That one.

I know which one you're talking about.

Yeah, I know. I'm a little tired.

Okay, so condition of public access to parking spots.

Yeah, so I guess the motion is to approve the item with the condition that public access to these chargers be looked at and added, I guess.

Okay, great. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Great. Let's just do a...

Okay, calling member Elon Mottoyer. Calling member Paul Mann.

Yes.

Calling Member Mario Bailey.

Yes.

Calling Member Joseph Corral. Yes. Calling Member Maria Paula de Corrales. Yes. Calling Member Arthur Parasol.

Yes.

Calling Member Manuel Vidillo. And then calling Vice Chair Andres Lopez. Yes. And calling Chair Adam Gerstein. Yes. This passes by a vote of eight to zero as amended.

Thank you.

And then calling PZAB number three. File ID 18899, a resolution of the Miami Planning, Zoning, and Appeals Board recommending to the Miami City Commission approval of an ordinance of the Miami City Commission amending ordinance number 13114, the zoning ordinance of the City of Miami, Florida, as amended by amending article 3. titled General to Zones to Modify the Affordable and Attainable Mixed Income Transfer of Development Density Program, Making Findings Containing a Severability Clause and Providing for an Effective Date.

Savannah Steiner.

Assistant Director of the Planning Department. And while I'm finding a converter to make my PowerPoint work, not sure where the one that was up here went. I assume there was one. This is a request to amend Miami 21, adjusting the number of attainable mixed income housing units a development must provide to qualify for our transfer of development density program that is specific to affordable housing. Currently the number is 200 units and you have to be within a CRA or an opportunity zone. And the change is to go to 200 units still in a CRA and 70 units in an opportunity zone. And then we're also adding a new area called neighborhood development zones. and I have a map to show you. Currently the program is specific to attainable housing, and so there is a request to amend the submitted legislation to also include affordable housing. So that's kind of just a general overview, and so I can run through my slides as soon as I get a converter.

Is tech going to come out and bring one? What, I'm sorry? Is someone going to bring one?

I think Catherine went to see. Oh, she went to go check. She went to get one from communications. Okay.

Is there anything else that you can say without a picture?

I can go over the attainable and affordable mixed income programs, but It's better with a chart. Sometimes it's easier to understand because they have a lot of numbers.

I'm a visual learner.