Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, the September 1st, 2026 meeting of the Melbourne Beach Planning and Zoning Board will commence and we'll have the roll call from Sid.

All right, Chairperson Dan Harper. Here. Vice Chair Gabor Koschegi. Here. Member Todd Albert. Here. Member Jason Judge. Here. Member Michael Kalajian.

Here.

Town Manager Amory Smith.

Here.

uh building assistant steve freeman here and town clerk sid jones is also present uh copy that did you want to mention that corey was on the uh oh yes thank you town planner corey o'gorman is also joining us via teams okay approval of minutes i understand we're a little bit behind on the minutes and nothing to advance at this time not at this time yeah very good okay under new business we've got uh extinguish our our todd's coming up here with the discussions on this impervious uh ratio and adequacy and such but i'll just kind of turn it over to you to start out with todd and i don't know if if cory is perhaps here for this topic too at the appropriate time he can chime in too okay all right Is this like a walk-on schedule, Sid, you'd call this one? Or do you have to, oh, she put it over there, I guess. Copy that.

Where's the next, here's the next. two bills that we have approved over the last two, three years. And I did not have some of the information, so I apologize for that. But I think what I'm concerned about is there's a trend to fill all the total allocated space with impervious ground cover. of some sort of building, patio, pool. And this trend is cutting down on the available space, particularly for primary tree cover, because tree cover has canopy, which is naturally not homogeneous to buildings, pools, decks, upline structures, which are of course impervious In thinking about the landscaping review, which we recently completed, certain goals were made to protect the tree canopy and the trend in covering as much space as possible makes this more difficult. Additionally, several of these homes are using synthetic pervious ground covers to reduce maintenance. And quite frankly, I question the appropriateness of the use because I think it may skew reality. I don't know, but given the trend for new builds, I believe that the town has approved additions that may also be cutting into the pervious impervious equations. And, you know, other towns and cities in the area, you know, maybe doing something. I don't believe, though, that it's a matter of what they're doing. I think it's a matter of what is correct for us. We are a single family character in Melbourne Beach. that has trees and which are more welcoming than others. Now, the way I have this chart is to just list out the addresses of the homes we have approved. I wish I had 1806 Pine Street, which is Corey's place down on the corner of Pine Street. Cause I think it was less than 30 in the pervious, oh no, less than 40 in the pervious equation. But it shows, of course the minimum we have today is 30 for pervious, 70 for impervious. It shows the lot size. It shows what 5% of the square footage is. And the reason why I have 5% is that I was thinking maybe we should look at changing the minimum from 30 to 35 for pervious. You can also see that in what I can get to on the 2024 and 2025 records, there was only one house that had 39% that was below 40%. And since that, and this year we have had five and one of the calculations was a little bit tough to figure because it's on the dunes going to the beach. So the dunes going to the beach and the beach itself counts as

kind of a disturbing trend now uh tell us again what you think the uh the benefits of list the uh what you perceived as the benefits of increasing the pervious minimum requirements can you list them or just just articulate those benefits i wasn't quite clear on them yeah so pervious versus impervious i think one it's

potential tree cover vegetation that is breathing in the air, taking up the CO2 and emitting oxygen.

So as an example, what you're saying is if a guy restricts his pool size or deck to add a tree is one of the things you're getting at. That's what you're trying to say? Yeah. Okay. What else besides the tree? More room to plant a tree.

And I mean, other than that, it's all kind of geared to what we discussed with EAB and where they are headed is we want more trees. Well, you gotta have room to plant. And when you get it down to, first of all, when you get it down to 30%, You're talking about 15 feet on each side and it gets so that there's no room on the side of the houses to really do much of anything except hedges. And those are fine, but it'd be nice to have some, you know, we were talking about oak trees and eight trees for a lot. And that's in most of the cases, it's gonna be limited to the front and the back. The back though will probably be limited because the porches and all that. It just seems to me that people though are wanting to showcase where they live, which is probably okay, but it's taking away from a foundation that I think

Do more trees and then they're gonna be handcuffed with how much they're able to build it It would probably force them to maybe reduce some of this pervious. I mean that's because you if you shrink it They're still going to put eight trees. So what's the difference? Yeah, I mean if we up the trees it would effectively get what you want and force them to be more mindful with what they're building the fair point the

The other side of that is, I think as a practical matter, people aren't going to build smaller houses. they're still going to use the 15-foot setbacks and the front and back setbacks. They're just going to shrink their patios and pools, maybe not put in that circular driveway that's in the front of the yard, something like that. I don't think you're going to get any reduction in the footprint of the house, I think. And then some people would argue, Florida, people like to live outside. They like to have these big pools and patios and such. And if somebody's arguing the other side, they would say, we still have you know, albeit some room to plant trees, not a lot with the soils and such, but that we, you know, we value our outdoor spaces for our outdoor kitchens, pools, and patios. Also, normally, I think normally, Todd, the pervious area is a constraint that's put on for stormwater retention. is the primary reason for a minimum pervious areas typically, not for added tree planting areas. And as you know, we don't have to constrain pervious areas because we've got this massive moat that's built around them now. stormwater swale basically retains so there's no There's no benefit to changing the pervious area because we're already retaining all of the stormwater. So that's not a benefit. So To change it would be to add more plantable area The if I'm looking at your your comparable or your recent ones here like this Pine Street I think that's the goofy one that's on the corner up there that's kind of you know that we talked about the whether they had put swales in or not and

No, this is the one that's, yeah, it's Wales for our discussion, but this is the one down this way next to the park. Oh, okay, all right, okay.

You know what myself. I don't I don't see it sure I don't if the if the goal is to shrink the size of the House. I don't think this does that it just shows and it just shrinks their patio and their pool and maybe their circle driveway, a lot of people for the circle driveways in. I don't think it has anything to do. with really constrained, I don't think it would materially constrain or change the tree planting areas. I think, you know, you might, that's just my thought on it. You saw what I put in here. And I agree, it's not relevant what other communities are doing, but you can see that, you know, right now we're probably at the, add or equal to the high end for pervious. Most of them are at 30 or less.

So anyway. In some cases I've looked at some of these houses and saw single family dwelling, yes, but easy conversion to STR, same short-term rentals. And that if we're building a big house, because we're taking in a daughter and her family. That's one thing that's important to try and do as we have had. But a couple of these other ones, I don't know that it's really a five-bedroom single-family place. Really?

You know, I mean, if the argument is...

I mean, they do have families like that.

We have four kids and us, so it's... Yeah.

Five bedrooms isn't unreasonable. Yeah, I mean, my house is five bedrooms. I got five people in my family. So I have one guest house, or guest room, you know? And if you go and look at... you know my lot i built mine 10 years ago there's a ton of trees on my lot and i would bet if you run these numbers mine's probably 30 pervious but there's a ton of trees on my property everywhere the other thing that is so you i think you can accomplish that with more trees having more trees be put on each property instead of just super plain jane save money on landscaping ask for some more trees to be installed and i think you can cover what you're trying to get to

You know, another thing, Todd, is that some of the lots that are from Ocean down to about 6th, there's a lot of those smaller lots that are only about 70 feet wide kind of thing. Even some are 65. So, you know, the houses, they're going to have to build two-story houses there pretty much. That's what they do. You know, the guys that... So the lots are expensive. People are paying around a half a million bucks now for a lot to tear down and build a house. And it seems, you know, I just, myself, I don't, you know, to constrain the size of their house beyond, we do have the, the you know the limitation to the uh the lot coverage you know and we're and we're uh at our uh above the average on uh minima on the size of lot coverage from other communities too so we we aren't constraining it in that regard i i mean if you guys want to bump the the eight trees up to some higher number i don't have any problem with that but i i would myself probably would I mean, if you look at the landscapes that are done on these homes, if you take the time to look at the landscapes that were put in, they're very attractive and plush landscapes that they put in. They spend a lot of money on them. So I don't know. I don't see the cause and effect there that directly, I guess, Todd, in my opinion. But I'd like to hear from some of the other fellows if they have thoughts.

I don't feel strongly either way. The 30% is OK. 35% would be fine by me. For me, the thought process for the previous impervious is draining water, not for trees. I know we have small lots and it does limit things of what is runoff is definitely a problem and we've seen it in the last few years. I know on orange surf, sixth, fourth, and third. Every time we get a heavy rain, there's a pretty good amount of water. And I'm not sure exactly what changed, but perhaps the pervious to impervious has changed. And this whole, this couples also with the swales. And I know we're gonna talk about later the eight inches in a 24 hour rain period. It's all kind of, it's all related. But either way, I don't have a strong opinion on the actual number, whether it's 30 or 35. And looking at the numbers that we have here, it looks like there really aren't many that are outside of that 35 number either. So right now, I don't know if it would make a real effect or not. But I think if you look at the numbers, it really doesn't.

I mean, I'm with you. I said from the beginning when we were talking about the trees that I thought we should do more than eight. So if you change the pervious, they're just going to find a way around it. They'll make their house taller. They'll find a way to still get the 5000 square feet. we're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees.

We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees. We're going to have a lot of trees.

You know, we did kind of one of my sidewalk surveys here of the number of trees that the new homes were putting in. And on average, they probably were. closer to 1215 probably that they were putting in you know they were. We decided on the 8 because it was sort of the low. Yeah, and if you guys want to bump the trees up to 12 or 15 or something I don't know it's called 20.

I mean I know I think you should have it set based on a lot size to because it's going to be you've got a small lot and you've got this one on Pine that Burton's putting in. I mean, Burton's going to put a ton of landscaping in that place. You're not going to be able to see the house because the landscaping's going to be there. But on these smaller lots, like you're talking about, on these interior streets, putting 12 or 15 trees is hard, but maybe regulate it on a lot size thing because that makes a little more sense.

If you look back at what people are actually doing, they are... if they have the lot size. They're putting in more than eight trees if they have the lot size. So I don't know if there's a need to raise that minimum right now and complicate the thing. I think people are, look at the landscapes these people are putting in. They're very nice.

And I have an agreement. I just said, you know, we have to pay attention to the ones that are not going to do the right thing. They're not going to beautify the lot. So if it's not outside of what people are doing now, then what's the harm in saying this is what you have to do at least?

Todd, do you want to? I don't see any real need to change anything myself, but if you want to make a motion to modify something or you think it's appropriate, I don't know.

I don't think so at this time. I think I've heard enough to where the thought is that we really don't need a change.

That's my thought.

My issue would be that when we start to see the avenues start tearing down and building up, and going up to the edges of the lot lines, 15 feet away, that's when I would really start having concerns. Because, yeah, the one down here on Pine Street, it's gonna be a beautiful place. It's also using, a pervious ground cover, which is not vegetation. It's for draining because he knows he's got a drainage problem in that area on both sides of the house. So it'll be curious to see. I look at, I forget Will's last name on surf. Yeah, and you know, it's, it's great because he doesn't need to cut it into it anything like that at the same time it's not generating any for the good of our ecosystem. I think it's just.

Well and here's here's my opinion to on that because I have turf on my whole property. And I just replace it not a couple years ago because I got tired the grass looking like crap and so I replaced it and if you I can take pictures my yard fills with water and drains within an hour. It's gone and then you're not putting down pesticides or fertilizer or anything so there could still be an argument that maybe turf is better. because you're not getting the pesticides and the fertilizers that are out there too. And you're not getting the grass clippings on the places that are on the river going into the river. having played sports on turf it is not better i agree with that 100 but as far as the yard thing it could be discussed you know it's definitely impervious because it drains out fast you know maybe we could leave it todd maybe we could leave it at let's going forward let's scrutinize

the uh the landscape plans and these uh yeah and these previous ratios that are coming through with these new uh proposed plans and such and see if if an issue presents itself more to be addressed if that's okay with you sounds good okay the next item number deuce was uh oh by the way did michael get a uh a set set of the land development codes

No, I did not provide one so I can make a note to do that.

Yeah, I would give him a hard copy. Sure.

I was just thinking that today. I don't have one either. You don't have one? Okay. No, I was going to actually, I was going to email you today and ask you if I could please have one. Okay. Because I was looking through something in this and I was like, I don't even know what, where to go find it. Yeah, sure thing.

Okay, number two item is this height measurement and I just want to make sure everybody was, we got new members of the of the board here. And yeah, I think the thing is sort of written halfway clear, but there still remains some confusion I think on it. And so I put a little depiction of the old measurement. Maybe you can look at this, it should be in your old packet, if you can. The old measurement, they required the 18 inches off the crown of the road, which basically was kind of a flood zone requirement or something. And then you would start your measurement for the 28 feet from the 18 foot point forward. even though Melbury Beach typically didn't like this term, it was basically 29 and a half feet above the crown of the road. It's kind of the bottom line for checking it. What they did is, here back in, There was concern about, I guess it came in, people were building stem walls, so that was boosting up the start of the measurement by a few feet. And so there was sort of an issue about where do you start the measurement from? And so our prior building official proposed, and we passed, and the town commission passed, adding another 18 inches to the minimum that you would start measuring the 28 feet. So you could have your garage floor at 18 inches, and then you could have your finished floor, a little stem wall at another 18 inches, and then you would start your measurement from there, 28. So overall, you could have 31 feet above the crown of the road if you wanted some acid test. when you're looking at them. And what I was going to mention to Steve is, and I highlighted this, if you look at the first paragraph A there, the last sentence of that last sentence, I guess it's kind of a long sentence, but maybe the last two lines where it says, you know, clearly showing street elevation, existing property elevation, proposed finished floor elevation, flood zones elevation, and maximum height. Some of the plans show that and so it's easy to determine that they're in compliance with our 20 or what is 31 feet above the crown of the road? It's easy to see how high where they're starting their 28-foot measurement from some of the plans Don't put that in and you sort of kind of try to go to do some extra extrapolation to sort of figure it out so the extent Steve you can Show them that last part of that last sentence and have them show that on the plans Then everybody can can check that height used to be a big deal back in the day And that's all anybody have any questions on that. It's pretty straightforward. Very good Okay, um number uh number c is todd again he wanted to Go ahead and say what you want to do on those soil sample requirements.

Back on B, didn't we... Back on B?

Go ahead.

Yeah, back on B. Didn't we... I feel like we said you can build above the 36, but then you have to take down the height.

That's right.

That's right. So that you're squeezing... So I'm not sure that I see... that kind of wording in here, but it might be in another place.

Well, what it's saying is you get 36 inches. If your finished floor is another foot higher, then you could only go up 27 feet from there. That's the rule.

So it's with the other... area that's with the other section that says hey the top limit is yes yeah at the the bottom line is they can't go above 31 feet of the crown of the road now yeah so you should be able to derive that readily from the plans if they fill out all those measurement metrics because i pulled up what we had approved back in march of last year and this ordinance reads exactly like that yes so No, nothing's changed.

I just thought it seemed like there was some, maybe it was just me that was confused. It seemed like there was some confusion on that from time to time. I just wanted to refresh everybody on that. Nothing more than that.

Well, with some, there will always be confusion.

Okay, the next item, I think you're up on the soil engineering.

I did an interesting thing today. I went on to USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, which is an online tool pursuing a soil resource report. And essentially, What I was trying to do was mirror the explanation that was given for the soil for the house we approved last month, I believe. on Hibiscus Trail, which essentially said, we didn't do any borings or anything like that, we just took what the information said on this report and said, here you are, it's sandy soil. We could do that for all of Melbourne Beach, according to the report that's online. And it's one thing to, and then they charge, a good amount of money, the information on the system said that they charge like 800 to $1,000 for a basic residential thing, and then up to 3000 plus for more complex areas, which I don't think we necessarily have, but it kind of just says to me, are we just making people go through hoops that they don't necessarily need to have versus, Providing us with a landscaping plan how you're gonna deal with the storm.

Well, I Obviously this is a rather technical I can't I like I think to resolve this probably Todd will need our The guy that reviews our drainage plans, eventually, probably have him resolve that. But what they do, up until recently, they would have this KSM do the core site samples. They figure out where the water table is, and they use that to design the soils, I guess. They do the hydraulic conductivity and determine what kind of soil. The guys that engineer the swales then fold this report into their, they use these metrics in their models to compute the swaling. And I know what you're saying is the last couple that came through used Brevard County soil averages rather than have KSM do this. Now, I honestly am not technical enough to know whether this can be excluded. And I think that's something we would have to ask the guy that approves our drainage plans, or maybe Corey. Anyway, Corey, perhaps you have something on this. They've traditionally done, core samples, they go out and drill two or three holes and come up with the water tables, you know, dry and wet season and soil types and the percolation rates and such. They give that report to the guys that design the swales then that I think fold in some of this stuff. But Todd is wondering if that's an extra step that could be eliminated because we've seen some recent plans come through that just attach the Brevard County soil types rather than a formal core sample study.

Yeah, I thought that was an interesting point. And I think there's some validity to that. But I do think you're right, Chairman, that the question is really one for the town civil engineer there. I think although the the general composition of the soils throughout Melbourne Beach is probably going to be somewhat similar depending on where you are. If you're on the dune, certainly the soils are going to be very similar from one end of town to the other. But the closer you get to the Indian River, the soils are going to begin changing a bit. And I think each neighborhood has its own drainage issues potentially. Sometimes there probably would be the need for site-specific percolation tests, and sometimes you may be able to get away with just using the soil survey. But that may be a call, that really is a call from a civil engineer, I think, rather than just a planner.

Well, I think in my issue, as I'm reading the KSM report, the net result is that the land here is sandy and it's porous. But at the same time, you know, we are seeing difficulties with stormwater. And I mean, it might just be on the drainage, but it may be that the land is not draining as much and we shouldn't just allow somebody to copy a report from they need to still have soil samples to justify and to build swales. I am not against swales. I am very much in favor of landscaping plans to deal with everybody's individual water. But I'm not sure, we don't necessarily see the landscaping plans nowadays. And a lot of the recent ones that have been approved, landscaping plans will follow before they get a building permit. And so I just think we need to see that they're putting that information in upfront with the building because it's as important as anything.

Do you have any thoughts, Steve? Have you ever dwelled on this stuff at all?

I haven't, but I think Anna is our engineer for the town, BS&E, is to maybe revisit this next month and have her chime in to give her opinion. I see some people go through the process. I think 2-18-6, they got approved and they're out there right now struggling to see what it actually looks like on their property. So I think they're revisiting the stormwater plan to see how they can better attack it than what was submitted.

I see. I mean, I would think they do determine the water table levels and such. You would think you'd need that for your swale design, but I don't know. Sounds good. Does that satisfy you, Todd, as the town engineer? Maybe visit us on one of these TVs next meeting or something? and tell you whether it's required or not? Does that seem okay?

One thing too that you need to keep in mind with those geotech reports is it also helps with designing the foundations for all these houses. So I've read a thousand of those things. It's what we do for every time we design a house. I don't look at the drainage information because that's not what I do. But the geotext important. I mean here. It's a lot of sandy soils But anything on the beach is auger cast pilings and you gotta know those capacities so without that You can't build some of those houses unless you're taking historical data on stuff. That's been done. That's a good there's some other things that are built into those reports that getting rid of them as a whole is gonna be hard to do. I mean, it's on the customer or the client, the owner, to make a decision on whether they wanna spend the money on a report, just take a chance, but down the road, if they don't, we're assuming a certain design pressure. And if they have some unforeseen condition on the site that's been filled with trees or something, I'm saying, you know, it's a responsibility of the general contractor, the owner to get a geotech report.

If not, my design is based on an assume.

Soil bearing pressure of sandy soils of what we have here. So if they decide not to do it, then they're taking a risk. Yeah.

In your world, you get into it and you go, is there coquina rock or is there not? Right. Right along the edge. But I'm wondering if we go... 20 feet in. If we go 50 feet in, is coquina rock an issue? And how far down is it?

And down, it's there deep enough down in some of that area, you know, but there are ledges and you can get through those ledges.

You're also seeing the secondary compression that's from sand that is even harder than the coquina rock.

Yeah, for sure. I think, go ahead. You know, I mean, the amount of rainfall and water we get limits our stormwater drainage as well. The more rainfall we get, the higher the water table is, the slower it takes to drain.

When we have the town engineer comment on this, the point that Todd is making has just to do with the drainage. tests that they do not the Sir yeah compaction for you know that's up to the customer if they want to determine how how much weight they can put on their building right all that but I think Todd you're just talking about whether it's required for the as a prerequisite or an input into the drainage plan isn't that your I'm sure it's required.

not doing soil samples seems to defy that logic.

Yeah, right. You're saying that they should have to hire KSM or something like that.

If we're going to make that a reality, then we should go all the way through it and get it done the right way.

I don't disagree.

But the last one did not, you know, even said, well, we didn't do this because the report says we don't have to.

And I think that's why we brought it up. We were concerned about that. Good.

Okay. Any more on that?

No, I agree with pretty much everything everybody said. It's moving on.

Okay, then the next one is stormwater retention review. And I do have one of these handout things, whatever you call them, Sid. What do you call these things when you do it? walk-on item walk-on a couple walk-ons here's a couple walk-ons pass one down to sid and marie all of a sudden um i'll admit my bias here to start out with i i've had i've scratched my head on this uh i've had a you know some residents talk to me that have built homes and you know, honestly, the majority of them that build homes aren't even, or they're not even aware of this, at this swelling drainage ordinance when they, before they, before they buy their lots and it kind of comes out. And it's, it does, it does make a, it basically, in some cases, it almost, it almost reduces, you know, constrains the limitation of their yards. Their side yards are basically, really not that usable. And if you got a pool, then they're gonna have a big ditch behind your pool kind of thing. Anyway, so I'm just wondering if there's a way to constrain it or to revisit it. And so I tried to find out, I went back and looked when I just handed out here, I went back and I found the ordinance that changed it. And it was dated, Sid, this is called Ordinance Number 2019-6. And on this little handout, you can see this one I just handed out, I put down the before and after this ordinance. And the before was, there was a one half inch rain retention swale required for commercial and multifamily. and single family residentials were exempt. And it's not unusual for my, I have to admit I haven't done a complete survey yet, but it's not unusual for single families to be exempt from it in other communities. So that's the way it was before. Then for reasons unknown to me, and I'm hoping Sid can find the minutes or something that discussed on how they went from a single family exempt to an eight inch retention. And then you notice the single family retention was eight inch and the commercial is the same eight inches. And the other thing that some communities do and Corey's here and I know he's brought up this concurrent argument with respect to drainage before too. Some of the stormwater retention ordinances in cities, they would say, what's the drainage right now before I tear down the house? What's the drainage after I lost some pervious area when I built the new house? And they would make you just retain the added amount of water that you're putting on the lot. In other words, just the additional burden you're putting in the stormwater system as a result of your house, not going back and re-engineering the whole house. So a lot of ordinances are just built to capture that incremental change. And Corey, I bet you've seen a lot of this. And since you're here, maybe you could chime in on some of this stormwater retention. Maybe you even know what the history was when this was discussed here five or six years ago.

You know, I don't know why it went to the amount of storage that's currently required, but I have seen a similar trend in a lot of different communities. And I think at least from my experience, I think the reason that a lot of single family was exempt in the past was because new subdivisions, typically build their own stormwater management along with the overall development itself. So there really shouldn't be a requirement for onsite stormwater management for single family. And that is a relatively new trend. And I say that meaning that at least in my experience, it's been in the last 10 years that I've seen stormwater management being required for individual single family homes. Uh, the, uh, the, the, the difference though, between, um, the, like the half inch that you mentioned, there was a, uh, in the prior ordinance for commercial and, and the eight inch that is currently a requirement. I, I, I'm, I don't remember where that came from. Um, and I, I, having read through the agenda item background, I, I agree with the assessment that, um, at least from a planning perspective and a more laypersons perspective, not an engineering perspective, that the drainage requirements for Melbourne Beach should be consistent with the other jurisdictions that have some jurisdiction over stormwater management in the area. But I'm afraid I don't have any, at least recollection of why that went to that requirement.

OK.

It was due to my house. It was what it started with my house. I wasn't the cause but the property next to me 5.26 it's been torn down and rebuilt was super low flooded all the time. The guy that lived there Was friends with mayor Simmons and then it transitioned into more stuff. They almost tried to tell me I couldn't finish building my house I took pictures of the swales filled with water and no water in his property after rain and finally it went away But they still pressed for this Crazy eight inches of water mean Brevard County requires one inch of water to be retained so eight inches is Crazy.

You know, a few years ago, I did speak with Elizabeth, the prior town manager, and Tom, the building department guy. And he indicated, you know, I asked them, I said, what was the thinking behind this, or what was the rationale? And I'm not saying they had, their recollection was it had nothing to do with stormwater retention. It was to avoid runoff into the neighbor's yard.

Well, that's what I'm saying. It came from it started rooted in mind that my yard was running over into his, which it never was. And we proved that wrong. And then it just all went away because they realized you could see pictures of water retained on my property. And I did one inch. I had some swales on there. It wasn't even the code, but I did it when I built my house and his yard was just low. So his would flood in storms. and hurricane stuff. I mean the whole yard would be filled with water so and then the yard behind him was higher. He was the one that was in the belly. So all the water drained to him. And it wasn't coming off my property because you could see it staying on my property. So I think that's where it started. And I think it had good intentions when it started, but it got carried away and got pushed way to the extreme of something that is almost, I'm not going to say unrealistic, but sort of.

so this is hearsay but i could pursue it and see i heard somebody told me that corey runty told them that the things they pursued about stormwater so many years ago were just based on the wrong things based on what based on the wrong things and they felt badly. I don't know what it is in reference to I mean he's building House 2 doors down from the ice and see him period. So I could always ask him so and I will do.

Yeah, you know I I'd like to I think it just needs to be reexamined with some civil engineers even on us owners would be a C I mean she can look into it give her input on what the county is where we're and I think we should be in line with the county honestly. Yeah.

Even if we're slightly higher, everyone else is one. Right.

One and a half or even one a half. I mean, you don't want these. And here's the problem is some people are going to build these and then come back and we have no control over them filling them in. That's right. You know, so that can happen, too. So if you make it so ridiculous, they're going to come back and fill it in. If you make it reasonable, they'll probably leave it. So that's another thing to think about. It could backfire and make it. too hard to do, and they're just gonna fill it in.

Does this have to do, I mean, it might be coincident, but there's something about storm water and eight inches from a rainfall in a hurricane that came from all the Miami directives. after Homestead was happening and all that. And it seems like there's a correlation there just in the- Yeah, I don't know where they came up with that.

I don't know where they came up with that. It's extreme.

Here's what I'd like to do on this is I'd like to have Sid go back rather than, I do respect that. I'm not much for the hearsay and so-and-so said this myself. I'd like Sid to go back and see what the minutes say. If you can dig those out. I tried to find them online, but they're not online that far back, I guess.

Yeah, that's accurate.

Okay. Maybe you could go back and dig and see what was the rationale behind that metric that was said and why they switched it. I thought, I'm not gonna be here next meeting, so I was wondering if you could bring this back to us at the November meeting, Sid. I would volunteer to, to compile a list of what other cities are doing in the neighborhood, as Corey indicated. And I could also see if I could get my arms around the St. John's Water Management District, what their recommendation is, if any. And then I thought we could talk about it a little bit more on, say in November, and then we're kind of a little bit more knowledgeable as a group. And then we could have your town engineer come in maybe, Is that the BSE? Is that the company that does all those? Yes. Maybe have them come in at the December meeting so we're kind of a little bit more up to speed ourselves on what other communities are doing. And you might find the rationale for us, Sid, in those minutes.

Yeah, so I'll get the minutes, and then you'll look for data on neighboring towns, and we'll come together.

And then get some input from our engineer and decide whether we want to revise that thing or not would be my recommendation. I don't think we need to have a motion for that. Do we, Sid, or do we?

Um, not necessarily. I think it's more just homework for all of us.

Everybody okay with that homework? You want to add some more to the homework assignment? mean if you want a formal motion we can but i don't necessarily think it's required i think it's more just you know topics for future meetings okay very good uh all right let's move on to the next item here was that's it was uh no public comment and uh town manager and or a corey if he has anything to add here at the end uh anything for you maria

No, we just got, we have a budget hearing on, the first budget hearing on Thursday night, and I think we have a special meeting right after where the building department is going to discuss the draft of the new fee schedule that they put together based on the ordinances, so that may be of interest to you.

you know, I know the, uh, the Florida state legislature changed something about the permitting process or something that I know you've discussed that some of the town commission. Is that anything that Steve that needs to be presented here or does it not involve us? You know, the 7,500 bucks and the certain types of, it's been debated in the commission.

Um, 7,500 is going to have very little impact on the town with a lot of the electrical permits, mechanical, plumbing. There's very few. It's been very non-impacted over the last two months, just to do a quick search, to the tune of maybe a few hundred dollars, just over a two-month period.

Can you tell these guys in about just a two-minute Summary of what that ordinance changed or what the deal is.

Yes House Bill 803 required permits for Any projects under 7,500 to not require permit with an exception of electrical plumbing Mechanical any structural aspects And anything that's in a coastal flood zone that eliminates a lot of them here I We may see a few fence, interior drywall, maybe a simple bathroom model with no plumbing. Very few permits that come through the town is gonna be affected.

Okay, but people should the big thing is that people just assume that oh it's under 7500 I don't need to go ask for permission or not or so and they still have to come to the building department to ask for that right so they have to ask for the exemption and we have to approve it.

it's not automatically given so communication and getting them to understand this and we're doing everything we can we're putting everything that we can out on the town website on our permanent applications and just trying to get them to understand that it's just not a headline it's something requirement that you still need to apply for the permit and ask for the exemption very good

Yeah, I think there was a memo or something that Jeff put together for that item. It was discussed actually at the regular town commission meeting, and I think there was an item like a briefing or something that was put on there, but he'd given some examples. So we might be able to pull it up, or you might be able to pull it up. It's on the website.

Okay, is there a motion to adjourn? Wait a minute.

Did I hear the C-1 has been approved?

Yes, the seawall has been approved just fix just fix the seawall yeah, they'll put the cooking a rock back in after the wall has been the idea when that's going to be done. They already released the RFP for it, and they've selected a contractor, so we just have to get legal to draft the contract, but it should be within this month. They'll get started on that. We wanted to kind of finish some stuff off, I think 449 also. RIVERSIDE. THERE WAS AN ISSUE WITH THE PIPE. I THINK IT WAS BENT. SO I THINK THEY'RE GOING TO BE WORKING ON THAT ONE, TOO. THE ROOF AT TOWN HALL. YEAH. SO I KNOW IT'S BEEN WAITING OR SO, BUT IT JUST HAD TO DO ABOUT WHERE IT WAS COMING FROM. THE FUNDING, THAT'S WHAT HELD IT UP. BUT EVERYTHING ELSE IS A GO. SO WE'RE READY TO ROLL.

SORRY. MOTION TO ADJOURN. SECOND.

Favor? Aye. Opposed?