Local Planning Agency - Regular Meeting

local planning agency meeting. I forgot to turn on the heater in the room that I am, and it's 10 degrees, so I'm going to put it on.

We're ready to go. Can you guys hear me?

No, I'm not.

We're all set.

Yes, we can hear you.

I'm very cold, so I'm going to put something in my head because it's very cold. My apologies.

We heard you didn't turn on the heater.

It's 10 degrees where I am.

Wow. Okay. Hey, we got down to like the 50s yesterday here. Are we ready?

Okay, so do we need to take a new roll call?

Yes.

So Mayor Selver? Here. Vice Mayor Wolf? Here. Councilman Fremark is not here. Councilman Levy? Here. Councilman Sklar? Here. We have quorum.

Thank you. First item of business for the LPA is to approve our minutes from the April 29, 2025 local planning agency meeting. Do I have a motion?

I'll make a motion.

I'll second it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Passes. Thank you. Next item, ordinance, reading of the ordinance establishing procedures for certified recovery residences in accordance with state law.

Mr.

Clerk, do you have to read anything?

An ordinance of Bell Harbor Village, Florida, amending Chapter 21, Zoning Article 4, supplementary district regulations of the Bell Harbor Village Code of Ordinances to create Section 21-367 to establish procedures for the review and approval and reasonable accommodation for certified recovery residences or other federally protected residences in accordance with state law, providing for conflicts, severability, inclusion in the code, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Mr. Manager?

Mr. Mayor, this is an LPA item that we hope you'll recommend then for council action. I'll have legal speak to this because essentially this is an ordinance that is state mandated, if you will. There's not a lot of discretion. associated with it. And so I'll let Susan kind of walk you through the particulars of what this ordinance is doing. There's a lot of words, but I'm not sure that's doing a lot more than what we already have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. So this is an action that we're taking to implement direction from the Florida Legislature, Chapter 2025-182. And it involves something called certified recovery residences. Recovery residences are places where people who suffer from the disability of addiction reside. These are not places where treatment occurs. These are residential uses, and they're occupied by people who are protected by various federal and state laws and have been for decades, including the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The nature of this statute is to require us to adopt a procedure that if someone seeks to open a certified recovery residence in our village, we have in our code a procedure that meets the minimum requirements of statute and tells them how their request will be handled. That request may or may not involve a second request for what's called a reasonable accommodation. This is something with a basis in decades of federal case law and statutory law that If people have federal rights that are affected and prevented from being exercised by local zoning laws, they can come to the local government and seek a reasonable accommodation from that regulation. So a simple way to understand this is if someone is disabled in that they are in a wheelchair, and they need access to their home and they need to be able to build a ramp and perhaps that ramp is not allowed pursuant to impervious surface or a setback or some other barrier. These laws allow the person based on the disability to get the minimum necessary to accommodate their disability. If there's a way to do the ramp that is fully in compliance with the zoning, they need to do that. But if they can't do it any other way, that federal right is going to override our local rights. So that's the analogy. Here, we're dealing with particular kinds of residences that are only for recovery. And that word certified is important as well. This is a scheme that the Florida legislature has created of voluntary certification for certain recovery residences that in a colloquial sense might be seen as meeting the good housekeeping seal of approval. There's an industry group called FAR that worked with the legislature for several years to say the good actors in this industry will meet all of these standards. And for several years, the legislature has been filling out this statutory framework is if you get your gold star, then you get these incentives. And that's what a certified recovery residence is. So it's not even every residence that is aimed at a person with the disability of addiction that is affected here. It's only the certified ones. So that's a long way of trying to help you to provide a framework for this. At the end of the day, those rights are what they are. They have been rights for decades. If these uses came to us before the legislature asked us for this ordinance or before we enacted it, we would have improvised something very similar in order to follow the case law and the federal law in this area. So what this ordinance does is it does meet the minimum criteria that are set forth in the statute. And we recommend that you adopt it in order to achieve that compliance with state law.

Thank you. Any questions from council or from the LPA?

just have one question susan so this certified certification who does the certification at the state level it's done and they work with this industry organization and once you have the certification then that it is a key that opens the door to certain statutory incentives so that they're a chief among them just to illuminate a little bit more uh it's very very common under the florida model of recovery to have people who are providers of the treatment services, the actual recovery from addiction, be both in the business of providing that treatment at a different location as well as recommending their patients for residential environments while they're in the process of being treated. Under the statutory framework, you have to have a certified recovery residence to be eligible to refer your patients to your residence. That's a powerful monetary incentive and a coordination of care incentive for people to go through that voluntary certification path. So maybe that example makes more sense.

Thank you.

Other questions?

I don't have any. I guess, is there a motion?

It is LPA, so we will have public comment on LPA.

Okay, so is there public comment? Seeing none. Okay. Do we have a motion to approve the recommendation to the council to approve the ordinance as written? That. Thanks. Is there a second? It's been moved and seconded. Is this a voice vote? Yes. All those in favor? Right. Roll call.

Yes. We've always done roll call, right? Right. Yes. Councilman Sklar? Yes. Vice Mayor Wolf? Yes. Councilman Levy? Yes.

shaking his head yes and mayor salver yes so the motion to recommend that the village council passed the ordinance on first reading passes 4-0 thank you um without any further business coming before the lpa motion to adjourn we're adjourned on the lpa okay