Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay hi everybody we're going to call to order the planning and zoning board design guidelines meeting, thank you for you guys to be for being here, I think we're really exciting. I think we've made a lot of progress, since the last time we all sat down together, so thank you for your work on this. I think we're getting close. So I think we probably can flip through everything, but I have a couple high-level comments, and if you have some high-level comments, and I see Carlos is going to join us. If you have high-level comments to get started, you're over here. Oh, yeah. And then we'll plan flip. Hi. I'm here? Yeah, you can be anywhere. Okay.

God, they could clean this, too.

So I think big picture, I think the design concept is really cool. I love the colors and I think it's a really aesthetically pleasing. I think some general comments are, I think where we have bullet points under the various sections, I think many of them feel redundant or repetitive in some sections. And I think it would be helpful to do like a fresh eyes review of the bullets and see where we might consolidate, combine, delete, repetitive, and just try to get it down to like the core nuggets. comments and edits to that effect in the copy that i'll leave with you guys um the other thought i had was when we say we should avoid or discourage certain things i'm wondering if we could either instead say we encourage and like to see something although i don't think that's always possible because i think sometimes we do want to say don't do this But to the extent we can also say, you know, avoid this but consider this, I think that's helpful because when you can give a positive example, I think, to people, that helps them understand. And then I think on the photos and diagrams, we want to – hi. Sit wherever you want. I think we want to do sort of a – I think, for example, we have a lot of diagrams in the renovation section of new homes. So I think it would be helpful to just, again, sort of just look at the context of where those images and photo diagrams are. I would also like, I would kind of like to volunteer Carlos, but we'll see what he says, also just do a wholesale review of the images we're calling out and using. Because some of them, I think, include elements. Like, for example, right on the front page, the first image has this fence that we all hate because it doesn't really meet the 50% opacity. So I would hate to have that be the first thing out of the gate. So I think we need to do sort of an editing on the images and photos we use. And I think we probably need to gather more photos of existing homes, legacy homes that we want to showcase. And then I think, I'm guessing the Corradino branding was just to get started, but that wouldn't be in the final packet, right? Like maybe we can have just a one... Yeah, prepared by, yeah, instead of it on every page. That would be better. Other high-level comments? I think the order is, you know, what we discussed. I think, you know, conceptually, it's very close. Any other high-level before we dive in?

Okay. I think that the key is... imperative that we don't show anywhere anything that we don't want for anything to look like. So I think that when I look at through these images actually all I see is things that actually we don't like so and they start referring to what we usually call the big houses monster houses whatever it is. So I know that The problem when you try to reflect architecture in massing, you start to hint at architecture results. This style embedded into these images that people sort of, we are appealing to people. It's a very tricky thing because you have to tell them images, you have to talk about the massing, the proportion of the things without necessarily hinting at our architectural styles. And the problem is what I, I mean I'm just looking at this briefly, just a general comment of where this is heading, is that I think that in terms of when I sift through all this thing and just gather information, all the images that I'm tending to see are things that We just, I wouldn't want to see any of them.

In the back, we did start to collect, I think, some of the recently approved rendered, which I think is good. So I think maybe as we go through it, let's go through all of it. But I think, you know, let's comment on the images and visuals that we don't think are representative of what we want.

And we might maybe think... You know, it's just when you start referring to things that are approved... it gets very complicated because, you know, I've written design guidelines and code for very, very precise architecture, you know, like Alice Beach and places like that where the architecture is insanely... Yeah. So, I mean, I've worked with those... Years ago, I worked with those peoples and we started with, like, you know, Seaside up in the Pensacola Panhandle, which actually started the new American urbanism. So these are the things that started. Now they do, you know, towns in Belgium and all over the world you know, Andres Duany and Elizabeth Platter-Zyberg, which they designed what really new urbanism should look like. And the problem is that when we start hinting at things that are approved, they look so much like something already. So I'm not criticizing, I'm just making general sort of pointing out of that these are things that we approved, not necessarily things we want to see again. You know, there's reasons why we approve certain things, but they're not necessarily, how can I say it, they're not necessarily, they're very particular to that approval. They don't necessarily think that we want to see a town full of these houses. Did you understand what I mean?

It's like a... To couch it as illustrative examples, or we might pick and choose a few and not all of them.

Like this, you know, like... Like, this particular house is full of contradictions and complexities that I think is the last thing that we want to show, because we did approve it, but it was a very complicated, lengthy project that I think that arrived to a certain amount of...

He's referring to page 40.

I'm so sorry, page 40. So this is a particular house that... It's sort of a case study of what we, but it's not really what we want to hint at as what we want to see this town to look like. It's certainly not what I would like the house to look like. So, that is one that I definitely wouldn't want it to refer. I mean, people are welcome to go into the files and look at these houses themselves, so.

we need to give people options, variety, you know, so we have to balance those two things, right? We don't have a ton of great examples under the new code yet. So I think this would be a repository that would be growing as we proceed.

You know, I think that when we get into the houses of this one, which actually is, which page is, where are the pages? 34. So this is a house that actually we hammered down I mean, this is a painful sort of birth to this house. And actually, I think at the end, we were all pretty pleased with it. And it's a good example of how we coach someone into something that I think they like and we like and we are very happy. So I think that this is one that I would be strangely would be for pointing out because it's also it is. It was born out of a collaboration between the client and us in a very productive way, I think, at the end. It's a positive result.

And it's an interior lot.

It's an interior, well, exactly.

A lot of the homes in the repository happen to be waterfront, corners, double lots, and so they're not.

Yeah, they look like mansions anywhere in Miami Beach, so.

We're trying to especially help people with these design guidelines that are the heart of Surfside, those interior lots. Very hard. So let's start going, but I think that we gotta keep that in mind

I mean, I designed this house, and this stuff is very good. I think that the James one is one particular one that, although we love it and we approve it, I don't think it's one we need to not reference. People can help themselves to reference in the town.

Would it help to have, on the appendix of approved homes, and also on the frowned upon homes if you keep them, just a phrase or two that signals what it is you like about it. So movement in front facade, or just something, or exposed utilities, or whatever it is you want to draw attention to. Because sometimes the pictures, I mean, there's a lot to notice in there. Just one or two bullet points on the photo

That's an idea, yeah. I want to caution. George, do you want to sit up here? I mean, yeah. Please join us. Just go on the conversation. Okay. Oh, that's for the town manager, so yeah, you can sit.

Oh, you can sit here next to me. Oh, that's true. I think that one of the things that we have to be very careful with is when we refer to something that it was approved, we're hinting at the fact that If they copy that, it's going to be approved. So how did didactic this information needs to be? For us who are educated people in design, one way or the other, we all are, I think it's one way of looking at it. When people are not educated, we've heard things like this here before. It was like, you know, I drove around Surfside and I saw all these houses built. Why can't I build one of these? Because I saw them. Reference is reference. And you have to be very cautious about what you what the reference is. These houses have to be very specific circumstances that made their approval successful. And there's a history with the approval of these houses that I think is integral to the success of the approval of these houses. But they're not necessarily a ready-made answer to where we want to see suicide. So I'm being the devil's advocate.

Like a blurb leading into that reference section that says these are intended solely for inspiration purposes. It's not intended as a... you know, databases.

Precisely.

Copycat, you know, to be copied.

No, because people are going to look at this like, well, I could just take this, move this here, move this here, and just, it's going to be approved because you approved it already. So that's precisely what went on when it happened. Okay. Because we're going to see a lot of these houses are going to be a sort of a puzzle made out of these houses that were referenced. That's going to be a real problem.

And then we could also reiterate that we don't want duplicate homes at all. So that would be kind of a criteria.

But, you know, when they look at a house and they see a trellis up on a second floor, they say, oh, they love trellis on this floor. So let's put one. Oh, you know, they love this kind of driveway. And believe me, we're going to get a lot of really ugly houses made out of bits and pieces of these things that they... and they're not intrinsically good houses born out of a particular set of circumstances.

So I just have a comment around that on the black and white images. We're normally referring to balconies or to windows or those things. And the images that I see, I think those are boxes that we don't like. And I think my proposal would be just to have the piece of, let's say, windows. This is the right window. This is not the right window. And just show the windows, not the whole house, because people are going to say, I build my house like this.

These one that it's in there the guidelines referring to the the massings. I think yeah abstract massings first of all I think they're in the renovation section so that doesn't really make sense But I also had without the context and the rendered they feel like a box. So let's talk about that What what are these things?

What are these ugly things? Right, but what are what are they? What are they trying to say? I?

They're talking about specifics of the house, but they're showing a whole house, like the complete house. So what I'm saying is, if we're talking about windows... Let's explain to it.

So ideally, when we went through it, what we wanted to stay away from was presenting a design because of those similar thoughts that you are addressing now. What we wanted to show was a conceptual idea where we're giving someone some sort of parameter of... what's socially acceptable and what the guidelines are seeking to get, right? Where you have a modest lead up into the entry of the home, where you have your garage is going to be at a certain percentage and it's not going to overpower the main entry of the home. We were going for a monotone, very simplistic, sketch-like diagrams with those. in order for the legacy and the approved homes to shine brighter because those we knew for a fact that the board was more privy to because they were approved, right? And in that respect, those, the way I kind of approached the images of the approved homes was we're not necessarily saying if you do this exactly the way it's shown here, it's gonna get approved. I think what we're saying is there are a series of let's say there's a menu list of items that are that is being listed here and i think that's one of the benefits of these guidelines is that we're not saying you have to do all of these things what we're saying is there's many different ways to skin a cat and here are some ideas and now we're going to show you a visual representation of some of those similar ideas not that you have to do them but there are different alternatives in order to achieve what we're trying to get.

I think in our design guidelines, we can't have anything that looks like this anywhere. We can't have anything that looks like any of these things anywhere. Because they look like precisely what we want this town not to look like. And I think that they're, you know, I just, I don't need, I mean, that's precisely what I would hope that no one ever builds in this town, is something that looks like this. So I'm saying, it doesn't matter what the intention is. Once it's represented, it's represented. And people think, oh, that's what they want their houses to look like. So I think that is a matter of reference. I think we can't, either these diagrams have to be completely abstract or they have to be volumetric in ways, but I don't think that they can really, I mean, I don't know if you agree with it. I mean, I don't.

So let's put a, I think maybe more towards the images and renders of,

I mean, we wouldn't approve anything that looks like this in this town.

Okay, point made. Let's keep, let's.

No, but I'm just trying to give them pointers on what, how to move forward with the diagrams.

Yeah, I mean, my inclination is to remove the black and white massings. Yeah. And lean more heavily on photos and renderings.

Absolutely. I would just get rid of them. Don't you agree?

Yeah, I got a couple comments to add on the pictures, because it's really the only thing that stood out to me at this point. And it starts actually at the very beginning in the intro. You have two pictures of two houses. They're basically identical in they're low white Ramblers. And I don't know if this was discussed before. But in an introduction, it's trying to describe the town. We're basically describing two very wide houses, unless it's changed. That's changed again. It's in the intro. Yeah, it's Carlos' house and another one on top of it. Yeah. We're kind of showing low-slung, very wide houses.

Like more like ranch houses or different... Yeah, ranch house.

And we're kind of giving a perception of the town that isn't actually accurate. I would keep one of them and introduce a typical interior lot house instead. Then we go to the glamour do's and don'ts page, the... the frowned upon house, well one, I would probably stay away from ever showing a complete house. And then I think I heard as I walked in, like there's one particular image that shows utilities stacked up against a wall or somewhere, I thought I saw it somewhere, yeah, up at the top. Page four, is that what we're supposed to be offended by? I'd imagine we all would be.

Yeah, I think these all lack a explanation and a call-out of what we're trying to offend.

And really, I think an arrow pointing right at the thing there. And if the picture has three items that are offending, point them all out and highlight them and give them a label. At the very back, where you have the approved houses, One thing I would do, given the images that were selected, I would first group them into large lot houses and typical lot houses. You get the impression by looking at the large lot houses, which are up in front mostly, which are fine houses, but they give an impression of grandeur to the town that typically will not be what we want to do. So if you basically create two different... George, which one? Sorry, I got lost. At the very end.

All of the homes, that's the point I was making, is that all of the homes we've approved have primarily been waterfront, double lots... And I think in general, the images should reflect the proportion in town, which is like 90% heart of Surfside in terms of what we're showing, which is going to be hard because we don't have as many, but we're going to have to go out and take pictures.

Yeah. Yeah. And then a little preamble, like I think the liaison was saying, it says on the larger lots were, you know, I think a certain degree of grandeur and, Whatever is appropriate on the it overwhelms the smaller Lots and its neighbors when you put that little blurb with the other stack and then on the 3d sketches the black and white sketches I agree that We're trying to offer one a menu of solutions, but once you show a complete picture it's hard to dislodge that from every anybody's mind and people see oh and this is what they want, and they look at the complete picture. And then, not only, it would be true with any complete picture, but in this case, a lot of these pictures also embody elements that we would never want to see. I think one of them had a staircase that's too grand, another one had a garage slope that is too steep. Etc and porch features and things so I think we need to be very careful I'm not against showing a graphic because a graphic is so powerful and able to convey information But it has to be done well and perhaps if the volume is abstracted almost into a rectangular box and then and and that can be slightly ghosted and then the feature you want to talk about and the garage, or the second floor balcony, or the staircase. That can be bolder and in front. And you're kind of looking at, OK, staircase. This way, not that way. But you're seeing it against a slightly more abstracted box of volume. And it's in 3D. It's an isometric or a perspective. I think that could work. But you have to kind of highlight the thing and lead people to what are they supposed to learn from the picture. because you just can't show them a picture.

I'm gonna intersect with something that I think that I thought about it a while back, and we talked about it, but I think that we should go back to. It's I think if we develop a glossary of architecture styles of this town, okay? I think that we need to have a section where we show the people a little bit of the history of this town. with the legacy homes, meaning that, you know, our, for example, something like my house, which is 1939, which it goes into the height of Art Deco, it moves into the houses that were built in the 40s, who sort of straddle the late Art Deco and go into the mid-century, and then we have a lot of mid-century houses with a lot of 60s houses. I think that the design guidelines have to be very didactic. They have to be a teaching tool to people that might buy a house and not necessarily understand the worth of the house. So when they go about to renovate that house, they have a little bit of an understanding of the period in the history of this town where these houses belong to. Meaning that when I renovated my house, which is 1939, which is a really, really old house for a place like this, you know, I mean, I understand the language, I understand how odd it is that a symmetrical house is built in the height of Art Deco, because Art Deco never really built symmetry. So all these things are good to understand, but it's also, is highlighting the worth of these legacy homes. And if the additions are gonna be made to them, I think that people have a little bit of understanding that their house is a house built in the 60s, that if they're gonna add to it, they might be fun to take into consideration that they're renovating a 60s house. So that's a little bit, our job is to be educational, because design guidelines, to me, the big part of design guidelines is educating the people, why are we suggesting the things that we're suggesting? Because this town does have a history, and it's going into about 100 years, so we live in a place with so little history that whatever little history we have, I think that we should push it forward, and I think that, to me, someone who made the decision to live here full-time, It's something that I treasure. I mean, I go around and I go, oh, I discovered a new one, a mid-century one that I had never seen before, because there's so many little houses all over the time, and sometimes, I stop and take a picture because I'm like, God, I never really noticed this house. And, you know, it's gone through phases where layers have been added to it, and you no longer see it, or they made an ugly addition. So if someone wants to renovate the house, they might want to bring the house back to something more worthy. So I'm just saying that, to me, I think that we should have a section where we take people into a little bit of the history, maybe with different – images of what these we break down the houses into the period of all the way into which i think is significant which is maybe perhaps into the 70s so like that ranch that you have here next to my house that's a that's actually a seven you know probably a a 70s ranch house you know in a way this house has something in common with mine because the ranch house is something that has been built all the way from the 30s to way into the six so i think that it wouldn't hurt to be a little bit more academic and without being pedantic. I think it's just to ease people into, I think more and more people are gonna, I mean right now I'm helping like four or five different people. A lot of people renovating their houses. A lot of people are not tearing down houses at this point.

So I think you do a good job in the introduction of doing a brief history of Surfside, which I think sets context. But perhaps in the section three, before diving into the bullet points and the specifics, we could do a little bit more of a description, like the dummy's guide to the eras and the styles, and with some key elements called out as being key features of those styles.

I have a question on this point for the experts on the board and for the planners. I noticed that some of the images for the legacy homes, quite a few of them actually, have houses with red tile roofs that were not really built in the style that's compatible with a Mediterranean red clay tile roof. remember I lived in Surfside when that started happening in the 80s and 90s and it was kind of a lot of people at the time objected to that because it's kind of incongruous like there's one very 51 has two of them and then 55 has another where you know at least the the one on the bottom of 51 and the one on 55 looked to me to be a sort of closer to Miami modern style, but then they have a red tile roof that doesn't quite... Yes, absolutely. I absolutely agree. Yeah, and I just feel like that's something that people do, but it's an odd hodgepodge of styles, and I wonder if we could be a little purer about the... Where did we end up on the... We kept that architectural style as allowable, but it needs to be coherent, right?

Scarlett or Eddie, do you guys remember? I think we kept... The Spanish revival or Mediterranean.

Let me introduce it before because actually he pointed out to actually something really, really good, which is the fact that this house, this is a quintessential international style house that is mostly from the 60s. This is actually quite a nice house.

51, the top image on 51.

The top 51, yes. So this is actually, we have several examples of this. This is really the height of Edward Durrell Stone in that sort of 60s. The roof? No. What I'm saying is someone helped themselves to destroy the house by adding those tiles onto. So that's precisely, and it's the same thing with the one on the bottom. They added those spiral tiles.

These would be both in the do not do section of section three, highlighting why the roof is not compatible with the design.

Right. But what this house is, this is called international style, which is a linear, very long, that last thing you want to do, this house is crowned with Spanish borrowed tiles. I mean, the most stupid thing you could possibly do. So this is what I'm saying, that if we refer this town to its different kinds of styles, we can explain to people why this is the wrong thing to do. It's because your house belongs to a particular style, so we ground the conversation to a context that has to do with, and it's not, we're not being forcefully telling people you cannot put, it's just, that doesn't go in your house.

Well, and I think you need to do it for another reason, because if you look at your approved houses, that appendix, and you go to 44, And you go to 45, 46, and all of a sudden, Mediterranean houses of some ilk show up out of nowhere as, boy, these are some of the star pupils. Where did that come from? So.

What do you mean? What's your point?

Well, right now, if you're not discussing Mediterranean.

We are. It's part of the.

Well, I know you are, but it's not in the document, right? You're trying to get it back in in this style sheet, right? It's not.

Well, I.

It doesn't get reinforced with the pictures, though, up front. And all of a sudden, we start seeing some really nice examples. Yeah.

I was pulling into approving this one. I want to approve this one, so.

Well, yeah, I know about that one, but it is.

Go on record. I'm saying no to that one, but okay.

But it definitely is this kind of opulent semi-Coral Gables house that, appears out of nowhere, unless somebody, I think, has that extra context that you guys were talking about.

Adding the context of the different styles and elements as part of, I mean, I don't know if it's even just part of Section 3, because, I mean, we're talking about it both in the context of making additions to a home, making sure that they're cohesive, but then also, you know, what does that style look like in a new home? So, you know, we can leave it to you guys to decide where exactly that goes, but I do think a little more detail...

Well, George is saying also there's a sense of exuberance to these houses that are not necessarily what I would be advocating for this town, because I don't see this. We approved it, but I don't see this town.

That's why you're going to go through and edit the photos and give them back, right?

Yes, ma'am.

And take pictures of what you like. Yes, ma'am.

I have nothing else to do, so why wouldn't I do it?

You did such a great job on the paint.

I want to keep them on when I'm going.

Okay, other high level. So I think there's a lot of work to do on the images and the visuals still.

Just one thing. On approved homes, do we have several one-floor houses or not? Near my house, there's one, but it's a new one that we could show because I think we're only showing like two floors.

Can you take a picture?

Yeah, I'll take a picture.

I don't believe we have any approved that are one story right now.

Okay, I'll send you the address in the picture. It was built. probably four years ago, I guess.

A brand new house on one story? Four or five years. Additions we do, but not a brand new one, no.

Are we ready to move into that?

To further add to that item, I do recall, I think it was around the summer of this year, one of our previous workshops, staff had gone out and collected various imagery of existing legacy homes, right? Or the do's and the don'ts, right? And I think what we discussed was that the board was going to go out independently and also provide that because you guys have the eyes and ears. And I think this is a point where our interpretation may be different from your interpretation. And I think images from the board regarding that item would be?

I think I focused on the ones that I didn't like.

The challenge was is the way we collected those photos, there was no way to annotate what we did or did not like. And so we were just sending images in. For example, I sent this image as the fence that I hate. So I think we're gonna have to figure out a system, just make sure when we're sending stuff that we're indicating what it is about the home we like

I mean, what I'm going to commit myself to do, which is something I wanted to do in the first place anyways, I think that I am going to work on a glossary of... You know, the problem is when we talk about all these things, we have to communicate this information graphically. So you're getting all this information, but it doesn't mean anything. We don't tell you exactly how to communicate this information in a sort of concise, precise manner. I mean, what I will do, because it's something I wanted to do in the first place, is design a glossary of houses, period houses of, you know, I'm not concerned with the big lots on the water. I think that those are their own beasts, and I have really so little issues with the houses on the water. I think that we really have to write code for the small lots, you know, the core, the heart, what we call the heart of this town, because I think that's where the dilemma lies, and I think that we have, If we ground a little bit of the conversation in the history of the town, that gives us a little bit of a tool in how to refer back to when people submitted a project. And, you know, the last one we approved, we were here and we were here and we approved. The last time we approved, I kept on referring to what they were trying to do was a mid-century house. They didn't have a mid-century house, but they were actually... creating a full mid-century house. They had no idea they were doing a mid-century house. They just thought that a slanted roof and another slanted roof. And I was so taken aback that someone was so married to the idea of the slanted roof, which is really just for the mid-century houses. So I tried to make the conversation grounded in history. because that gives us reference in how to judge a house. When I was trying to explain that the window choices they were making were the wrong, it was grounded on the fact that we actually do have slanted, we have actually many slanted roofs house legacy homes in this town. We have a lot of mid-century slanted roofs on this. And that's the reason why I ended up liking it at the end. I don't love it, but I liked it enough that I think it fits, it fit into the context, not my favorite house. So I think that I will commit to doing a glossary of starting in the 30s all the way to where it becomes significant international style, and giving maybe three or four examples of each one of them. And then also I will make reference to when these houses have been defaced, meaning whenever, for example, we have a perfect example in the one that you picked, which is in the international house that someone helped themselves to put barrel tile on it, and why this is an example of a house that had been defaced over the course of time. and then we can bring the conversation to design guidelines as why that house, we advocate for people to, if they come to us and they're gonna change the roof, I said we advocate for people to take those tiles away based on historical accuracy, which I think is always very fair because we live in a town that has a history. So I think people can fight us on the, we have a leg to stand on because we can always refer to history. The history of the town.

Thank you for your willingness to put that together. Okay. Okay, are we ready to kind of go section by section? Any other high-level comments? Okay. I have a hard stop at seven, so I'm hoping we can get through. If not, you'll continue without me. So in the introduction section, so I think images wholesale, you know, we'll need to revisit that. Introduction, on the core values, I've suggested some changes to make those active verb starting sentences. So for example, promote the preservation of the town's legacy homes before, that actually just might be it right there. Just leave it at that. Preserve and enhance the tree canopy. Create a compatible built environment that allows for distinct styles of architecture. Consider our neighbors and neighborhood when designing a structure. Encourage the highest quality architecture. The town has no preference for any architectural style. The quality and coherence of the architecture is key. Anything else on that first page from people? Second page, just consistency in the renovation or new construction section where we talk about the legacy homes from the 20s. Here it says through the 60s, but in the glossary it says through the 70s. And I think what I'm hearing is this should be the 70s. There's a sentence here I don't agree with, which is new construction must strive to meet the character of the home that was in place before. I don't agree with that. A new house can be its own style. I think maybe this is intended to, I think we should just remove that sentence and we're fine. Yes, absolutely. That's in the renovation or new construction, about a third of the way down. It starts with new construction. I'm gonna give you my edits too, so you'll have a copy.

Actually, you know what, it might be easier.

I made all these copies with my edits in it. Let me just give these to you.

Jesus Christ, she's good. Huh?

She's good.

She's good.

Yeah, on that point, I think I'm having this flashback. That sentence might have come from a comment that I said at one point at an earlier workshop. And I want to try to restate the idea and see if there's a version of it. Because I recognize this, perhaps, as a descendant of an idea. I think I wanted to say something like, sometimes the board is presented with a situation where a very distinctive, the proposal is to tear down a very distinctive older home and replace it with something new. And the idea maybe was something like, in those circumstances, not that a new home has to mimic the old one, but that it should not represent a loss in distinctiveness or visual interest for the town. You know what I mean? So that if a distinctive legacy home is being torn down and replaced, you would want something of comparable quality, or possibly to say something like, when there's a redevelopment, the comparative value can be taken into account somehow of the replacement or the redevelopment, something like that.

Well, I think there's quite a lot here about high quality architecture, cohesive architectural styles.

I think it might be misconstrued as we wanted nostalgia, and it's like people want to tear something down and build sort of a new sort of... What are you trying to avoid?

For example, I can think of particular corners in the town that are just sort of really beautifully served by the house that sits on the corner. They sort of...

Like right now, one of them has been demolished, the white one that we approved, the big one. That's one of the best houses, and it's been demolished right now.

You mean 1,000? Well, we approved it. Yeah, 1,000. That's a perfect example. But the idea is that I can think of other houses that haven't come before the board because there's no active proposal for them. But you say, oh, it would be a shame if that were gone and replaced by something of lesser qualities. The point just being that the house that's being replaced sets a certain standard for distinctiveness. And perhaps it can be a model for how to interact with that particular street corner or lot or, you know.

I think that concept is addressed here. But I would love your take on the language and maybe to help. Because I don't think this sentence is what you're saying. I think what you're saying is, you know, we need similarly high-quality, cohesive, distinctive architecture if you're going to tear it down. I think what we're trying to do is encourage people not to tear it down first. If that's just not possible, then we want very high-quality, consistent architecture.

Right, that meets the standards, something like that. I mean, I don't think the sentence gets it either, but I think I recognize the sentence as an attempt to verbalize something that I had mentioned in an earlier workshop.

I think Okay, your sense of loss of the nice house is valid, but it's more of a sentiment than anything else. And this, you know, oh, they tore down the ho-hum house, so we'll settle for ho-hum in the replacement. You lead to a very weird situation. I think what the chair expressed, that we're looking for good stuff everywhere, is good enough, and it takes care of that issue.

I think that... The biggest loss when you tear a house is not necessarily the architectural value of the houses because we have plenty of houses that are worthless. They don't have any worth. They're just crappy developer crap boxes. It's the way they fit into the town. It's the modulation of these houses into the rhythm of the town and the scale. That's what the loss is. It's not in the architecture. We don't have an architectural significant town. We have, for the most part, a house full of mediocre houses. They just fit so beautifully in the rhythm of the houses. We have a really beautiful town because it has a beautiful scale. And that's where the loss is because we're losing searchlight forever. It's not the houses. The houses, I don't give a damn about the houses. 90% of the houses are not memorable, but we have a beautiful, one of the most beautiful towns I've ever seen because of its scale and the way the houses all interlock into each other, into the street, into the way the whole town feels. And that's when you lose them and you put something back that Rhythm is lost. There's an anomaly on the street. There's a hiccup in the town. I mean, I passed by a house that they just finished that is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. I literally almost collapsed. It's so insanely out of place in this town. It's in the middle of a block that it almost makes you want to cry. And that's what I think where my sense of loss comes, because I've been here since 2009, is the sense of the scale that we have. Because the houses that were built on these small lots were built to the right scale of the lots. Now we're letting that go for many reasons.

Well, we let it go. We're trying to roll.

Well, we have to rebuild it in the most responsible way, but it's never gonna be what it used to be. It's just not going to be. Every time they build a new house on a block, it's gonna be an anomaly because we're just trying to make sure that the anomaly is the softest and the best way possible to fit something that is bigger and fits within the neighborhood very gently. So that's where my real loss is.

Just one thing on that. I think what you're saying is referenced in page eight. So maybe your beautiful words could be placed there also.

Yeah, that's a good point. and how we sort of describe why we encourage the preservation. I think you guys, you know, you do a good job in the intro here. Yeah, I agree.

I just raised.

But maybe a little bit more about the scale and how these homes fit on these small lots and work together.

The reason why I put this across, because I think that a little bit of what I just said should be coded into this design guidelines, which is so people understand our conundrum and our dilemma in this town. Because it really comes down to trying to make this most responsible, moving into these larger homes and fitting into the puzzle, the insanely complicated and delicate balance that we have with our small lots in the core of this town. I think that that's, because people think, we've had so many people that have come here and say, well, I paid a lot of money for my lot. I can do whatever I want. And they don't understand that they don't own the town. They own the lot. But how that lot fits in the town is not, their ownership. So to me, I think that something needs to be made out, because that's really what I'm here for. I'm really just here for that reason.

So I think you guys start down that road with the primary challenges when you're talking about the lot sizes. I think what you're saying is almost the flip of that. It's not the challenge. I don't know if it's the historic context or the way that the town was laid out and the scale of those homes. Maybe we can work a little bit of that concept that we were just talking about into either introduction or into the introduction into the renovations. I mean, it really does apply to new homes and renovations, so it's probably better in the introduction.

When you're in Mid-Beach and you're anywhere in Miami Beach or Biscayne Park or Miami, when you have lots that are... 10,000 square feet and up, 12,000, 11,000, even 9,000 square feet. Whenever you tear down a house, you build another house. You don't really have the impact. We don't have the loss that we have in the Surfside. This is really only Surfside has this. I don't know anywhere else in Miami that has this problem. No other town, not Hialeah, no other town has this. And that's what our problem is. And that's the part that I think that people don't understand. that we are not trying to make people's lives impossible, is we're trying to make the best fit to the town, allowing these houses to get better. And I think that that is our mandate, and that's the core of the design guidelines, because that's really the core of what the design guidelines is about, is how to move this town forward in a way that what is asked for us is almost an impossibility, which is allowing big houses to fit into really small lots. which it should be enough from the get-go, but it's not going to be the case. So I think it's, to me, it's the core of the design guidelines, not for the water houses.

I think you need to incorporate more of that concept, either in the water houses or in the historic part. You guys get to it sort of at the, you know, how demographics are shifting, you know, and people want larger homes, you know, We talk about resiliency requiring us to raise homes. So those are challenges. But I think understanding the original scale and how the loss of that scale during this transition is a challenge would be good. I would also put the historic context immediately after the introduction, just to set the stage. Anything else before we go? So in the legacy home inspiration pictures, I think this should all go into part three. Really, the introduction doesn't need a lot of pictures right out of the gate. I don't know if anyone feels differently about that. I agree with you. So I think we'll probably need to do a workshop just on the images and what we're trying to say with each image. Let's see.

I mean, I think what is good about my house, it's good because it, in a sense, shows how you can take... I think a lot of people dismiss the legacy homes. They just think that they're just worthless. I mean, I see it. I hear it all the time. They just think they're worthless. And I think if we try to hand the design guidelines to show not only mine, but there's many other people who have saved homes and make them really beautiful. I think that it... we have to be kind of heavy on that thing, trying to show people how you can take a house, even if you have to rebuild it, like I did. I mean, I rebuilt my house. My house is a brand new house. But it never occurred to me that I had even that right, the moral right to tear down my house. I think it didn't belong to me. To me, it belonged to the town. It belonged to Search. I just paid for it, but it wasn't mine. So I think that, to me, in my view, the design guidelines... have to guide people to I mean I help these people that one of the ones who you have here with that addition that we approved on the front you know I designed that for him and show them how they can take a house that it was just a just a shack basically and add to that but still with a feel for a new house but still fits within the language of what houses feel like here so I think that's the most, we can show a million pieces of mansions that look just like North Bay Road. They'll look the same. That's not what the design guidelines have to get to the core of. I think the design guidelines have to the core of how to move forward in the small lots of Surfside and trying to adapt to the new scale and how to make these houses fit into the impossible, which I still find it impossible to fit them, but we're trying to do the best we can.

Talking a lot today.

All right. Anything else on introduction or glossary? I had some minor comments on the glossary. It sounds like Carlos has volunteered to do sort of a, quote, glossary of architectural styles. We'll figure out where that goes when we see it. So section three, renovations in single family homes. Again, here I think all visuals should be existing homes that have renovations or additions. So I had some sort of more minor comments. And this is really where my overarching comment about can we consolidate and really... tighten up some of the bullet points to capture everything without repeating too much. We don't need to go point by point unless anybody wants to call something out that is worthy of discussion. Oh, I did add on page 10 faux materials such as tile or metal that look like wood are discouraged since we're talking about materials there. That may be a better point for The new construction although I think there's a lot of overlap between these bullets in this section and that section in fact I just went through these I didn't go again through the new construction ones Let's see Yes, I think all the visuals.

Can I ask a question about that last bit? It may be beneficial to have some repetition with that, because if you're just doing a new construction, that's only the section you're going to read. And if you're doing a remodel or addition.

I'm not saying not to repeat between the two. I'm just saying within the sections itself, like for example, in renovations, in the main entry features, there are several bullets that could probably get whittled down or combined, or actually I think I wrote it here on page 11, windows and doors. So the redundant and repetitive points within the bullet sections, and then whatever changes we made, if those same list exists in the new construction, keep that, but make the same changes. Got it, okay. I mean, these are all pretty minor, But yeah, see here, this visual on page 12 has the tower of stairs that we just got done saying, don't do that. So I think those visuals should go.

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah. All of them.

Yeah. I didn't understand on page 13 the bullet point I circled with a question mark that says, detached garages shall be located within the rear yard of the lot. I think we don't use yard anymore either, right? We use setback. To the town's accessory building, I mean, we want detached garages in the rear of the house. That seemed unusual to me. Maybe...

I mean, we can easily remove it. I think typically when you have your grid set up, your street grid, and you have alleyways, you tend to want to try to put your detest garage back there if it's feasible. Which we don't have. We don't. It's not applicable.

Yeah, and if there's a code reference about that that doesn't make sense, we should change that code. On the site grading and landscaping in the renovation and single family home, there's a whole section on FEMA regulations, which, I mean, it's very rare that a renovation is going to bring their finished floor up to 10 feet, right? So that seems to make more sense in new construction. And I think in general, probably somebody needs to do what I would call a fresh eyes review of the bullet points between new construction and renovation and make sure that they fall under the correct umbrella, right? Does that make sense?

We do have a requirement, though, of the 50% rule that it is required. Right, but if you hit the 50% rule,

I mean, that's what I'm saying. Those cases are so rare that they come to us where they're actually going to renovate the house and lift the finished floor. You know what I mean?

No, I know. The price points are so high now that nobody gets to it.

Yeah. So I don't know. Just think about whether we think this is important to call out right at the beginning of the section or how we handle that. Yeah. So on page 15, like Control, it says avoid using sconces. I don't think we have a problem with sconces. I think they just have to meet sort of all the other points that we've called out, right? Did we have a problem with exterior sconces?

That did come up at one meeting.

Yeah. Maybe avoid overusing sconces. Okay, sounds good. Maybe that's what we're trying to say.

I don't even want to deal with sconces because sconces actually do a better job of hiding the light source than any other fixture.

I think we were reacting to the linear sconces. That's what we were reacting to. You know, so... I think they need to be compatible with the architectural style, and they need to be.

I think the problem with those is that they keep on happening all over this town. I don't think that there's any kind of court enforcement stopping people from doing it, but I think people are helping themselves to them, and I keep on seeing this house. There's one of them that has probably 14 of these strip lights on it. It looks like it's going to take off every time I pass by. It's blinding. So I think that... when we said about the sconces, which these are not even sconces, I don't even know what they are, they're like strip lighting. They're linear. They're linear lighting, so I think that I'm all for not allowing any kind of linear lighting, because I think, I know it's difficult, but we have to be, because people go ahead and still do them. They say, we don't allow them, and people do them, and they also do a lot of hidden sort of lights in the soffits and everywhere, and before you know it, it's a Burger King, so.

I think you guys have done a good job saying we value a subtle nighttime lighting scheme. You know, the proposed characteristics should be compatible with the homes overall and non-intrusive. You know, I think we've.

No, I think so, but it's hard to stop people from saying you can't use sconces. That's not realistic. I mean, I have sconces in my house.

You should avoid overusing sconces and they need to be compatible.

I would say sconces and all types of linear lighting because I think linear lighting includes strip lights and A lot of people are using strips lights everywhere in soffits and linearly as sconces. I think that we want to stop people from doing that type of blinding linear lighting in a residential neighborhood.

So it's not blinding. But yeah, we can add the comment about strip lights.

Yeah, I think the strip lighting is what we don't want to see.

You know what I would do in this kind of, it could be applied everywhere. So that first paragraph under lighting, basically describes what's important. Everything else is just techniques and tactics. That may be lighting and then that first paragraph and go to another section and do the same thing. That first paragraph is bolded. As a designer, you skim through and you go, oh, okay, I get it. They want subtle lighting. And the rest of it is just detail. And you do the same thing with balconies, terraces, and decks on the next page.

That's a great idea. Sort of like the executive summary of what we want for each section in bold. I like that.

I think the problem with this lighting is also that it's actually, it's almost unsafe. I mean, when I run on my motorcycle, I mean, they're blinding. I mean, there's points where I basically can't. You know, they're blinding to the driver. The one here in the corner, every time I come out, I literally have to look to the side because it's actually blinding in my eyes. It's almost dangerous.

So this is what we're trying to avoid.

Right, so I think that that's...

If there's anything here that you think is not addressed, that would be helpful.

Should we add to avoid the sensor lights? They're so annoying.

Motion sensors?

Motion sensor lights.

Well, that's security. That falls into security.

Yeah, but the Salmon House that you love so much on Byron... It has like, I don't know, it has like six or something like that. I was going to say something. It does. It does. Yeah.

Yeah. So the number of lighting fixtures I think is one thing that's not covered here. Maybe we need to just add a bullet point about the number should be the minimal needed to, you know, safely light the functional parts of your house, you know, something like that.

And I'm saying this because also, like, my neighbor behind my house, they were so kind to move the lightning, the sensor light, because every time I would go in my backyard, it would light me up. So she was really kind to move it, right? But it has to be sensor lights.

In your backyard.

Oh, everyone has them in their backyard. Because they're afraid of people going around in the back of the house. That's where they think they were going to break in.

So maybe we, I don't know where to put that. But I think that sensor lighting needs to be sensitive to neighbors.

See, I have one across the way from me that it drives me when I'm sitting in my pool. But it's also, they tend to come in that insanely hideous white light. which is like they're selling fish on the side of the road. So it's not only, it's actually blinding to anyone who looks into it. My neighbor has it on the entire time, but now that I took my trees out and I have portocarpus, I can see right through it. So yeah, I mean, it's hard to write it into guidelines, but I think that we have to be

To be sensitive to your neighboring properties, right out of the gate. That's why that first paragraph is so helpful, I think.

So we can add it on page 15, right?

Yeah, somewhere. Somewhere in the lighting section, I think we should say motion sensors need to be sensitive to neighbors. And number of sconces and fixtures needs to be minimally...

Didn't I propose not to have... We don't want to see soffit lights. Should that be in the design guidelines that we don't allow them? I was against lights in the soffit, because that's the most annoying, horrible thing that I've seen in this town. I mean, some of the bigger houses have it, but a lot of the, I mean, there's one little house that I go by that literally has 12 around the soffit. It should not be allowed. A legacy home should not have lights in their soffits.

I think it's the number of fixtures, too.

No, we talked about this, about not allowing. When people present things, remember, we always ask them to take them out, and they're okay with it. They're taking them out when they present their houses. But a lot of people renovate without getting permits, and they just help themselves to shoving lights all around it. They never ask for a permit.

Yeah, I mean, I think we could discourage it. I think there are some treatments of it that I think are not horrible, so I would like to avoid.

No, I think they're all ugly. Yeah, lights in Suffolk should not have lights, but I understand what you're saying. But again, the problem is that a lot of people that fill their entire perimeter of their houses with lights don't come in front of this board. So we have to have a mandate that the code informs us that these are not allowed because I see them installing them. I see them making holes and wrapping their house with like disco lights all around it. So I I'm all for saying.

I don't know where it goes, where the no strip lighting, no soffit lighting goes. We might need like a specific kind of fixture.

I would say that, you know, strips and soffit lights are discouraged or something like that. I should just be all in the same sentence.

Yeah. Okay. Anything else on lighting?

Candles are really nice.

Balconies. Roof lines, purpose and mechanical. I had more like just clean up. Any other specifics? New construction. So I didn't, yeah, I kind of just, I didn't go through all the bullet points again here. But I do like George's idea about sort of the bolded paragraph of describing what we do want before each section. Would you guys take a shot at that? Do you guys feel like you could take a shot at that based on what you've heard and we could look at that? I think the next version of this potentially might need to come back in Word again so that we could read it in the Word version and then we could do the layout. Because I think all the images I think are coming out It sounds like all of the drawings are coming out. And then do we wanna do, should we skip to the appendix and the images and just talk through what images, if any, we would wanna keep?

We're not doing any of this.

Right, so I think what I'm hearing is the drawings come out.

Yeah, I just wanted to add something for the new construction, the introduction. Because what Carlos said in the actual introduction, in page number one, maybe probably replicated here. Because a lot of people, they would probably jump this section and just go to the new construction, right?

About the scale?

Yeah. Because this picture shows basically the scale, right?

Well, it's not a picture. We're going to get rid of this picture.

Yeah, we can probably take a real one of a nice block.

It looks like Brad Pitt's houses in Louisiana. I got one quick comment. You wanted to be high level, but this is like down at the level of a grub in the dirt.

Okay.

But it actually zooms back out to the high level. So on page 21, the middle paragraph that says grand staircases, I think we should always try and avoid numbers wherever we can. We should encourage, we should discourage, we should... Yeah. Very strongly discouraged, but three steps. What's really important here is the idea that we don't want a monumental staircase, and it's probably breaking it up into a couple runs is better, maybe three, but when your typical staircase is nine risers, Three risers doesn't get you very far, and then you've got a landing, and then another set, and then another set, and before you know it, your whole staircase is almost 18 feet long. So I think there are many ways to solve this problem, and that gets to kind of the overall idea of the whole thing is, what concerns us, and what do you need to worry about as a designer? And that was it. That was the only thing that kind of popped out of the moment.

I mean, what I've been advocating since we started doing this is I've always said that the way you mediate, I mean, we have, which we have many examples of these steep stairs that are going up six feet, and they're suicide stairs. I don't even know how people get out of those new houses because they literally, if you trip, you literally die. But I think that we need to somehow in this idea of the staircase, the grand staircases, I think that we need to advocate how to mediate mediate the grade of the stair as it rises to the house. I think that I've been asking for people to level terrace, the front of the yard, so landscape could be added as steps that go up.

You have that in the next section. Right. That layering, which.

So, I mean, I'm just saying this grand staircases, I wouldn't say anything about grand staircases.

They're saying they're discouraged.

No, I know, but I'm just saying it's, yeah, I guess so.

And this item had come up at the previous conversation. I think we had it at five, and then the board discussed it. We reduced it to three.

I would remove that sentence.

Yeah, I was going to say. And I think our only...

what we were having a difficult time understanding is, how do we articulate to someone that there needs to be a minimum? And if we don't give a numerical value, then in essence, we're leaving it up to the applicant to decide what's a grand staircase and what isn't.

And that's where I think images that focus in on an example of someone that's done this well in town, that's where a visual, I think, could be really helpful.

I know, but the problem is that just by nature of the fact that you need to get up five feet, six feet, seven feet up in the air, any stair that leads from the street up to the first floor of the house is always going to be a grand stair because the houses are up in the air so high. it's how to express that grand stair. So what we're trying to say is that the stair has to be softened in every way possible, and the only way to soften the stair is by adapting the landscape from the curb all the way to the house. because otherwise it's just, you always end up with a grand stair, because a grand stair is by definition the house is up in the air, so you have to go up, and you don't have a lot of place in which to go up to.

What I would do is you have what, modified as it was in the stair section on 23, or wherever it was we were looking at, 21 right that whole grand staircases thing you have it there and then when you get the landscape reinforce it again in slightly different way but using the layering and the terracing to help you with your stairs right so they get it twice phrased slightly differently but they should get the idea of what's important it's not only it's not like before i forget sorry to interrupt you but it's not only

The stair, I think it's a softening of...

So let's look at page 24, because I think they...

They covered it? Okay. Yeah.

Layered landscaping, use terrace planting beds, raise planters or berms to integrate elevation changes visually. Planters incorporated along the base of the stem walls will reduce the overall height of the wall.

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Yes. So it's there. Okay. Good.

Okay, are we ready to do a little bit of an image audit, starting on section five? So I think big picture, we want a much higher proportion of, quote, heart of Surfside scale, if we can get them, and it's up to us to go find images that represent the heart of Surfside. So now, five is approved homes. Okay, yeah. Let's just go point by point here. So page 29 and 30, this is all one home. I'm not sure we need quite so many. We don't need the rear movie theater, I don't think. No. I think you can get rid of that. And again, this is a corner double lot, right? So it's, you know, I think...

I'm not sure that we even need this house. As much as I actually do like this house, I just don't think it's representative of, I think it's misleading to people that are building in this town because it's like so very few of these houses are going to be built. I mean, I think it's too grand and too pedantic to show this type of house for what most people are actually asking us for advice because they're not building anything that looks like this.

Or at least I'd put it at the end.

Yeah, maybe just have it as a reference at the end. Yeah.

Didn't someone say that we would probably have samples of the lots and reference the type of lot, like corner lot, interior lot?

This is a double corner lot.

Yeah. There's about two of them. We just choose one or two samples of that type of lot, right?

Yeah, and it might be helpful to not, after the address, just say double corner lot.

Double lot, yeah.

you know, so that it's clear, you're not gonna fit this, you're not gonna fit this on your 5,600 square foot lot.

Yeah, that's exactly. This is the one we approved on Byron, the one that we moved the driveway to the other side, right?

Yeah, so that one is here on page 31. Also, I think is a corner double or single?

No, this is a single, this is a single.

Corner single.

No, it's a typical corner lot. It's in the roundabout. I think this is a good one. No?

I would just say corner single lot.

Madame Plano, if you can please pick up the microphone.

They did the extra setbacks on their second story. They didn't even build to the 65%.

Yeah, that's a good one. So do we think we need all four renderings?

No.

So do we want like one...

Well, it's for the same renderings at daytime and nighttime, so we can have one of each. We can have one daytime or nighttime, and that's it. Like across either one of those.

Yeah, I'd probably use the first one and the last one.

Yeah.

Because the top one kind of looks like it has linear lighting, which is confusing.

You know, what I do like about this house in the rendering, the lighting is really good. I think this is the kind of lighting that we want to have. To me, this is the right way of lighting a house in Surfside. So this is a very, very good example. And a big house, you know, a big house with a lot of wall. And it goes for a very quiet sort of way of lighting the house.

Of lighting.

Yeah, uplighting, exactly.

8818 Abbott, this is a single interior lot, right? Yeah. Great.

Should we also add the footage or not?

The what?

Footage. The square footage? The square footage, yeah, because I think that's better.

Yeah. Yeah.

You should have a location and more description about that so people can understand how big this house is because there's no way of telling.

Meaning, well, I think you're talking about the lot size. The lot size, not the house size. I'm saying about both. Yeah.

You're saying both. This is a typical lot, and I'm very curious to see how big this house is.

Lot size and house size and the FAR, I think might, you know, that is the FAR, but that way people can see exactly.

Also, I would be specific about how big is on the first floor and how big is on the second floor, because that speaks to the setbacks and What a good job they did setting back that second floor from the street, which is what it would end up like in the house, in my view. They worked really hard just to hide that second story.

I don't think we need the rear elevations, though, just the front. And they also had some nice nighttime.

Well, the two are the same.

Yeah, we've had a lot of pictures of this one. Yeah, we only need the first two, I think.

Well, the first two are kind of the same.

Okay, so which one would be?

These two are the same.

We you want a nighttime? There's a nighttime one here.

You know, I in this one, I actually like kind of a lot of people fall apart in the back. I don't necessarily mind seeing the back of this house just because it's a it's it's successful, I think, in the back and showing the pool.

And which one would you include for the back?

You've got I think this one shows more. This one is too oblique. This one. This one is good. That's on page 35.

Okay, the one at the top.

Yeah, just show some more. You see more.

So the first one and the top of 35. Correct. The top one on 33 and the top one on 35 is all we need for that one.

Oh, no, I changed my mind. I think that this one is probably better because this one shows more of the yard with the pool. It's more. Which one? Bottom 24. I didn't know there were so many pictures.

Bottom 34?

Top of 34.

Yeah. Don't you like better the one below? Because it shows the... Oh, either one of it.

I'm okay with either one of it. I just want to see the pool and how the pool is on grade. And, you know, it's a relatively modest house that I think is very successful.

What I like about this is it's got the green... Yeah. Okay. ...size that I'd like to showcase. Either one. Okay. So top of 34 and top of 33 for that house.

It also shows a kind of nice, generous backyard. You know, very modest about how they built the house in their lab.

8850 Byron. I think we probably should remove that one.

James's house? Oh, it definitely has to go.

I mean, I wouldn't mind just including the first two images, but, you know, I have a real problem with the perception of the story.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The three looks like a three. Yeah.

Your story. It's also like it doesn't matter how you show this house. It looks a humongous house. It looks massive.

The only thing I would say is, you know, this is a heart of Surfside, 5,600 square foot lot. We don't have a lot of examples. So, you know, would you not want to give one more idea? Because now we've only got one. We've only got this one house.

No, then we have the one with the pretty one with the arches. We can go find one. I just sent one.

Okay.

Remember the...

That was a new home. I don't know. They built it four or five years ago, maybe six, but it's a new data part.

But it won't meet the new code.

No, it's an old code house. Okay. I sent it to Scarlett. Maybe we can check.

Okay. I mean, we can just show one image. It's just, this looks like an apartment building. I mean, it's just like, it's hard to, you know, if we show this to people, they're just going to come up with a, Completely out of scale houses. Not everyone can swallow the information that we can see. I think it's very misleading.

Let's get it off the list for now. Yeah. The next one is on page 41, 9009 Garland. Is this a new home or a renovation?

It's a renovation.

Okay, so that should go in the... It's beautiful. It's cute.

I did it. Thank you.

Okay, so that one will go in the, I think, for legacy home renovation, right?

You know, if you're going to show, when you get to the renovation section, it'd be really cool to see what this looked like, right?

Before and after?

Yeah, because...

that's a big part of it, and you could see, oh, they actually... Well, this house has just been built right now, and it belongs to a friend of mine, and they just tore down the garage, because they had a garage, and the whole idea of this house was how to insert a larger, a bigger scale object to the front of the house, and making it still fit within the language of the street, and I think it did it very successfully. I think this is, I mean, all those things aside, I think this is a Because the problem when you have a lot of legacy houses, they're so mingy. They're really low ceiling shacks. And some people are just kind of overwhelmed how mingy their houses are. And they say, well, I just don't fit in. This house is so small. So this whole idea was to how to add a grander piece to the front of the house to change really the way that the whole house felt. So I think that it would be good to find a picture of this house the way it looked before. Yeah, we're seeing the same thing. No, no, I know we are, but I'm just saying I don't have it, but let's try to find it because it's a... Yeah, I think they have to submit it in the application.

Yeah, it's in the application. Yeah, so let's see. I think that's a great idea. So we would just do one shot before, one shot after.

Yeah.

All right, 1917 Carlisle is another interior lot, so I think that's a good one to include.

Is that a new home?

Yes.

You were here. Yeah.

Yeah, because in the title, we should probably say, right?

Yes, we're going to add the following metadata to all examples. We're going to add the type of lot it is, interior, corner, double, whatever. We're going to add the square footage of the lot.

And if it's a renovation?

The house, including first and second floors, and the FAR, so that they have some metadata to work with.

You know what, I love this house. I love how it fits without necessarily being anything that looks like that here. It has a sort of very soft, romantic version of doing modernism that I think is very compatible with Surfside. Being completely new and feeling completely new, to me, it just still fits somehow into Surfside. I think it's one of the most successful houses.

This is also a great example of how to mediate the entry into the house. So which two...

You know, there's something very interesting about this. There's a modesty and a sophistication and a grandeur about the house. It's all three in one. I think it's just a really, really good example.

One of the best ones. First, the top image, and then this. Do we have this rear image a little more zoomed out, maybe? Which one is there? This one?

I don't think the rear is important.

You want just the front light and dark. That's probably a good...

I think daytime and nighttime. The back is just more extension of the front, so I don't think it says anything.

And then this little cutout here is perfect for that section.

Yeah, that's really good.

The cutout is perfect for a call out on how to mediate an entry, a stairway entry.

And by the way, that was exactly what I was trying to say when I mentioned just Yeah, that's it.

Not the whole house.

Okay.

But this, again, and the last thing I'm going to say, what I think this is really important as a project is that it shows, which I've been advocating for people, to work with side entrances. Because these smaller houses... The idea that you enter on the side end up being, to me, so much more successful than doors in the middle. That's why this one is so successful.

Design guidelines as well. So that might be another good example.

A really good example.

Yeah. All right. Do we want to include 9032 Froud on page 45? 92.

Oh, hell no.

I don't feel strongly about including it. I definitely don't think 940 88th Street is a representative house. It's like a triple. I would not use that one.

That's like a North Bay Road house. It doesn't really belong here.

9532 Abbott. My only concern about this one is the tower of stairs. I mean, we did our best to mediate it. It does have sort of like the planter.

I say absolutely not to this house.

Okay.

Because I think we did the best we can because they didn't have any frontage and we had to accommodate. Right, right. But it's still not our best, finest moment. I think it's the best compromise, but not what we want to show people.

Okay. All right. So existing legacy homes. Also, we might want to just flip the order. Like, if we're going to follow legacy new, legacy new, we might want to... In fact, we might just want to put... the image inspiration right after the section that it refers to. I don't know, not a big deal. We can figure that out later. Okay, so this intro page, is this a legacy home that we are comfortable featuring on page, I guess this would be page 50, or the title page?

I think that house actually, not particularly care for it, but I'm just saying it's really quintessential Surfside. I think it's the perfect choice to say it's a legacy because we have hundreds and hundreds of this house.

I wish we could get that huge looming house on the next to it out of it.

Just Photoshop it out because it's just distracting.

Can we Photoshop that out?

I find this house just a perfect example of what legacy homes are.

So I think the next page are good examples of what not to do in terms of combining elements that don't go with the building type. So we'll want to call out the roofs, the barrel tile as being an inappropriate use of roofing on the wrong style.

So they need to be out of this section, right?

Because it says existing legacy home inspiration. What to do and what not to do. So, yeah.

It doesn't really say that. It just doesn't, it looks like you just, it's not clear as to what's the intention.

I think if we're going to have a not to do section, we're going to have to have a caption that explains why it's in that section. So I think these would fall into that section wherever it is because of the roofs.

You know, I want to go back to the picture on 50 and why it's so good. Because one, it is a surfside house. It is like a poster child for what most of them are. But it also teaches a very good lesson that can be highlighted in a drawing or whatever, whenever you get to that part of the show. And that is a lesson that's useful for new houses in particular. And the horizon on this one keeps shifting. You got the horizon of the sill of the garage door. You got the plane where the entry sits, about 30 inches above that something. And because of the way the windows, I presume in the living room and the hedge work, you see that horizon keeps shifting. It's playing a very subtle game, even though it's one story house and it's all essentially the same volume all the way across. And when you get to new houses that all sit on top of a six foot tall piano, right? It's this horizon without any relief, and this thing is teaching some valuable lessons on how to play with that, to break it up so it's not sitting on top of this podium.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Just for the record, I think you said 50, but it doesn't have a page, right? It's not 50. It's not page 50.

It's a title page. Yeah, we probably should have page numbers on every page just for references.

What is this section really trying to say? Inspiration as in... Because it's really not about inspiration. This is more like a glossary of different things that we have.

I think once we go through all the images, we're going to discover what we want us to do. I think ideally these are inspirational homes, and we're using the images and things we don't like as examples maybe in the text itself to say, not like this.

For example, when you get to this one on page 53 on the top, this is precisely an example of...

This is a double waterfront lot on Vizcaya. Like, I don't think we want this.

This is on the lake. This house is on the lake. But this is a wedge lot, which is a weird lot. This goes like this. I would just remove this. But, you know, what I like about it, interesting about this image, is, like, this is a quintessential ranch house, you know, typical ranch house. And someone helped themselves to change those windows to arch windows and put the doors. So actually, to me, the additions are all incorrect because they put the wrong kind of windows. So I think actually it's very good because we do have, even in the internal lots, we have houses of this period. And this is a very good one, what not to do, which is those arch windows and that front door is completely incorrect. And they just did this. So I think that... I kind of like this example because I passed by this house and I... I mean, right below you have a house that is exactly like it was built. The house hasn't been touched since the day it was built.

Yeah.

So...

It's also a double lot waterfront. So, you know, again, I feel like we want to try to find more... Oh, absolutely.

But I'm just saying this one is... Literally, I know this house is empty right now. This house hasn't been touched. I don't think they've been painted in the last 30 years. But the one above, different from the one below, which is integral to the time. These were built at the same time.

So we could keep the one below, but... It's not really representative of what most legacy homes are.

Right. I mean, this could be in the glossary of, I mean, this house was probably built in the late 60s, I would imagine, which are more like Palm Springs sort of sensibility of that it was brought into Miami. This house is actually not very Miami, but it was imported into.

So we skipped page 52. I like the... house on the top of 52 it's it's a small interior oh that's that's a good one so that's and they renovated very sweetly i think they did a good job yeah so that's a great one um the one below that i think you know doesn't say anything waterfront huge i'd get rid of that unless you think it's good for the glossary no page 54. what is that horrendous house So that's a corner lot. That's a good corner lot example. And we can talk about the style, maybe the glossary. Right. The one below it, what do people think? I mean, it's kind of a typical surf site.

I like that house. I like that house a lot. Okay. It's because, and I'll tell you why I like this house, because they changed, I actually happen to think that house is insanely sweet. I like that house a lot. But when they changed the windows, they put the wrong windows into the house, and they destroyed it. So what I'm saying, when you have a house that is this delicate, is what I keep on talking about, the wrong selection of windows could change the house. And this is the case, the perfect case for it.

Yeah, I wonder if they changed, do you think that arch was original?

I don't necessarily think that that part of it, I think that the lines were not there. I think the lines might have been added. But what I'm really concerned about is the mullions and the double hung with mullion windows on an otherwise really sweet house.

So do we keep this then or not?

Well, I think it's a good example to use it as... What shouldn't do, and I think it's very telling about how important it is to choose the right kinds of windows. When you're changing windows onto a legacy home, it really is all about the decision on the windows. That's why it's so important to choose the right window for a legacy home.

Yeah, okay. 55, except for the barrel tile roof.

Yeah, that was not original to that house. Yeah. That's a perfect example of what not to do with a 60s house.

So when you show an image like this, you want to be careful because this is under the inspiration imagery.

Right, we're taking it out of that section.

Yeah, we're taking that out or changing that title.

Yeah, but even when you show that picture, you want to say the house underneath the tile is actually really good and very representative and had an unfortunate, Roof.

Yes.

And just so people... You're right.

The house itself is beautiful.

Yeah. It has everything that a Surfside house would have.

Similarly with here, the scale on page 54, the White House, the scale of it and some of the detailing and the stucco is beautiful. It's just the windows.

Yeah.

So, I mean, I guess the renovation, all about the windows and the roof. If you do that well, you're 90% of the way there. Mm-hmm. OK, so I think we'll pull the do nots out of the inspiration and try to embed them in the text and call out specifically with a caption what is or what isn't.

And I think that's sort of the drop, but I think that because we're looking at this. See, this is not. This is not a typical, this window was not like that originally. They changed the window to a modern, modern window. But this is a good example how you can change, you don't have to be historicists about the way you change things. This house has seemed swung into a bit of modernity, a little bit more modern, more from the original incarnation of this house, but it's done tastefully and successfully. So I think that, for example, if you were going to change the windows from here, you can go with just very plain, clear glass, which is not what original with the house, but it actually would make the house even more beautiful, which is what I did with my house. So we're not saying you have to be mimicking of what the original with the house, which that's why we're saying that this is a good example. Cohesive, that's the word.

What questions does the planning team have in order to move this to the next iteration?

i don't think i have any questions um but just maybe beyond the next iteration um is this going to be something that's going to come before you guys as a planning board and vote on and then go to the commission or i don't know yeah i don't i'm not sure i think we have to accept it you know we have to sort of ratify that yes this is it um i mean ideally the next iteration

It's close, yeah. I mean, I think really the work to be done is on the images and collecting more. So we will all, and you too, George, commit to taking pictures and sharing with the planning team and with a description of exactly what does and doesn't work on the picture so that they're not guessing what we're sending them. Does that work? Can we do that in the next 30 days?

More than pictures, maybe reference of them, number of the house and everything like that?

Yeah, or an address, and maybe we can have a more professional, not a phone shot of it taken. Yeah. What else did we miss?

I mean, I'm going to commit to working on that glossary to add sort of a more historical component to the guidelines that is grounded in the history of the town. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and maybe do two or three examples of each one of the period houses and document them and give it the address of what these locations are. And I think that would be really helpful.

Can you write just or bullet point out the elements of why they're, you know what I mean? Like what are the elements that make this style the style?

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

Textually somehow, not just the image.

Right, right, okay.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, you know... And we can figure out where that goes, whether it goes in an image glossary, a style glossary, or it goes in the introduction as sort of laying the context for the whole thing. We can figure that out.

I just think that the more we ground the argument into the history of the town... the more grounded we sound like a board. The more we refer people back to what's already here. It's like we're not making decisions out of our, pulling these things out of our hat. These things are grounded into the history of our town, and we're trying to, because again, I think that dealing with waterfront homes and other things, anyone can do that. I think that that's just not that hard. They're just mansions, and it looks like any other mansion anywhere in Mid-Beach. But I think it's, really the design guidelines has to be really helpful into how to move this town into a completely new world. I mean, it's really a new world. I mean, we'll be long gone, but this house will be, this town will be morphing into something that will leave what it was originally intended to behind. our town would be gone. There would be so little left of it. The same thing happened to Fifth Avenue in New York. I'm not trying to be nostalgic, but I'm just saying we're trying to design guidelines that make the next step be beautiful in a different way, but still be beautiful. I think that we can hold to the thought that they will be beautiful and responsibly beautiful and be optimistic about the future, but responsibly, so I think that if people understand why we're doing what we're doing, grounded in history, I think it's a better outcome for all of us as a town.

Speaking of which, I think the front cover, I think this is an old picture of the beachfront. We might want to actually think about an aerial of the heart of Surfside, because I think that kind of shows the town articulation and pattern a little bit more, and it also kind of focuses on what most of the meat of this.

Madam Chair, can you speak into the microphone, please?

Yes. Yeah, I think that's better. My apologies.

Madam Planner, if you can please speak into the microphone.

Okay. This one? Yeah. You know, it shows more of like the... Yeah, that's what Surfside looks like, yeah.

It's the heart of Surfside, too.

Yeah.

One thing that's really just astounding when you see it is a Google Earth view straight down of the town. is when you figure about it, we typically have 10 feet between houses, but we have two-foot eaves. There's six feet of air between those roofs, which are now, unfortunately, almost all orange. But on Google Earth, it makes an impression. And you look at it, and it's almost the side yards disappear. And you compare that, like Carlos was saying, to any other place in Miami, And you go, my gosh, these are estates. No, they're houses on quarter acre lots. They're not estates. And I don't know whether it's just an interesting little graphic somewhere, but they're really reinforced. This is a very special repetition of lots.

Yeah, that's why I think this last, the back page is probably a better characterization.

I mean, I wouldn't be opposed, I mean, that's up to you guys, but I wouldn't be opposed to having, throwing in a few more historical pictures into the guidelines of old Surfside, try to ease people into the beauty of Surfside. Everything is a little bit too 70s condo, a little bit harsh. I mean, I like to start things with history, so... I mean, we have beautiful pictures of the surf club overlooking the lots and the water. I think it'd be nice to add a few.

Those exist.

I mean, beauty never hurts.

Okay, any parting thoughts?

We don't want this house anywhere in the guidelines. Freaking fence. I look at it every morning, I don't have to see it in the guidelines.

All right, with that, I think, do I have a motion to adjourn?

Motion to have dinner.

Motion accepted.

Second.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you. This was good.

Progress.

Thank you.