Community Redevelopment Agency Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, folks. Good afternoon. Welcome to the City Commission meeting this, November 2025. Wow. Where has the month gone? Let me get to the right agenda. Okay. So it's a beautiful day. I wish we could have had this party outside. City Manager, next time, could you please arrange to sit on the lawn? Okay. Thank you. All right. So we're getting close to holiday time. So I hope everyone is excited about the holidays coming up.

But tonight or this afternoon, we're going to talk about our agenda items. And the first is the communications, one from Planning and Zoning. And I see where Patrick and Jackie is Patrick Pat, you're both here. And I think that's permissible, right? They can both speak, Duane?

Yes, it was such right.

Or they

can you can sing in harmony? Okay. All right. So why don't you come

up and talk tell us a little

bit about what this communication is to the city commission.

Good afternoon, mayor, commissioners. So I can read the communication if you like to clarify it, or miss Scott also has some she made the motion, so we can just jump right into However you wanna hear.

Thoughts on it. This has to do with the townhouses. Right?

Yes, sir. So it was a rezoning application for a good sized piece of property, about five acres. And, going throughout the process, towards the end of it, as we were approving it, It was made clear that we would not see this project in the future, that they could possibly put as many as 67 townhomes on the property, and it's also a heavily landscaped property with native vegetation and mature trees. And, so the board was a little taken aback that, albeit they support the application to rezone, but that it would not come before us again for future, review, not only for the board, for for the citizens as well that we felt would most likely like a voice, on an application of this magnitude. Ms.

Scott?

Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, this is not the first time we've had to vote on an item for a rezoning where we had no input other than rezoning. And a lot of times, it's very frustrating not only to us but to the neighborhoods and to the people that are there that want to talk about it, which we really can't because it's only a rezoning. So I'm hoping that we have the opportunity to look at the ULDR and see if there's something we can do to provide an opportunity for the neighborhoods and for the board to see what's coming before us other than just the rezoning.

Well, how does this complicate your responsibility as the Planning and Zoning Board? I mean, you're saying it only comes to you just to do rezoning. I mean, this something that you are obligated to rezone or not? Don't you have criteria and Well,

we have criteria to whether or but if they meet the criteria, mayor, for the rezoning, we really have very little it's very difficult not to support it. However, you have an audience full of neighborhood and people that are very concerned as to what's going to go there and people get up and try to speak about it and staff tells us, well, this is only for the rezoning. So we find it very frustrating. Well, we're going to

have that time and again with Live Local and a lot of these processes that a developer has the right, I guess, to say, why do I have to go through the headache of getting neighborhood buy in to a project when the law already allows me to do it. How do we respond to that?

I think that there's it's the ULDR. This is townhouse projects do not go to planning and zoning when many other projects have to come before us. So we were just thinking that it would be good to provide the opportunity for the board and especially the neighborhoods and the residents to have a place to come and speak about it and learn about the project and get input.

So at your meetings, when it comes to the question of a petition or an application to rezone, the neighbors do not have a right to speak at those meetings with regard to rezoning?

They can only talk about the rezoning. They can't talk about we're gonna rezone

The site plan, they can't talk about

site. Yeah. None of that stuff comes up.

Do they come back for that?

No. That's the problem. I mean, they can go to DRC, but DRC is just a technical review. So this isn't the first time this has come up, mayor, but through the years, I've seen this before and I think it's I'm hoping that you'll agree it's time to look at this and see if it makes sense. Patrick, you want say anything else?

Again, the threshold that was suggested at the meeting, was 10 units or more, so it wasn't trying to, you know, stop developers or handcuff them in any way, but when it's of a significant magnitude and so forth that both the board and the public may desire the right to speak and weigh in on it, as we do in general to maybe improve a project or get a project to be curtailed in a way that's beneficial to the community rather than just put in there. Live local is definitely changes a lot of things. So it supersedes everything in many ways, so that's but if it can be controlled and be reviewed by us, that's the thought that we put before you all.

Okay. Chris, did you want to add to this?

Chris Cooper, Assistant City Manager. So Mayor Commission, I think if you give us the direction based on the PCB communication, staff will go back and evaluate what this could look like in terms of a higher level review for a townhome development project of a certain size. I think there could be some merit as you scale up in size with the townhome development. If you're at four or five unit townhome development, the impact or potential impact to the surrounding neighborhoods may be a little bit different than a larger development. Maybe 10 units isn't the right amount, but we could look at what that right amount might be to understand when there might need to be a little more attention paid to certain criteria within our ULDR that could benefit from a more fuller conversation with public input through a higher level review process.

It would

seem to me that, we need to have a wholesale review of much of our ULDR throughout the city. I mean the issue that we had at the last meeting concerning

conditional use. I'm sorry? The conditional use approval for the height and yard modifications in particular? Right. What was the building that

we were dealing with, in the Dolphin Isles area? Amalfi. Amalfi. Amalfi. I couldn't think it.

It's in the Central Beach Alliance area.

Sorry. You're welcome. That building, it met all the requirements that we have. Now the question is, does it really conform to the neighborhood compatibility? And since that wasn't an aspect of review, perhaps we need to start honing in on what neighborhood compatibility can be with regard to future development projects because I think that when a developer goes in, they buy a piece of property and they see what the law is, they have every right to rely on that law.

But if we feel that the cities, the people in the community are hoping to see the future of their community shaped in a way different than what we thought of thirty years ago, now is the time to start rethinking some of these zoning and setback and height entitlements because we are a different city now than we were twenty years ago or even ten years ago. So I think that maybe we need to sit down with neighbors and staff and kind of reshape what I think is an opportunity here going forward.

Right. So I think the last wholesale review of our ULDR was back in the mid-90s, mid-90s. So it's

I'm not been saying the whole city all at once.

Right. And we've done some incremental things in our master planned areas and things like that, but I think there could be some merit to looking at our code more broadly because we do kind of take this incremental approach from time to time through communications and other efforts to kind of chip away at areas where we think there could be improvement?

Well, yes, keep in mind that thirty years ago, we were begging for people to come to invest in our city. And I know Patrick you were probably in high school, but the thing is that it's a whole different city now and we have an opportunity here to perhaps be a little bit more responsible as we try to shape the future of the city. And I'm not saying that what we did in the '90s was bad. I think what we did was try to incentivize investment dollars to come to our city. We've been super successful at that.

And but now are we a victim of our own success? I don't want to see Los Olas Boulevard, for example, become another Brickell Avenue. When I moved here in the '80s, Brickell Avenue was a sleepy little winding street with some nice architecturally enriched churches and some small buildings, and it was just really nice to go down there. Now it's completely compacted with supersize high rise developments, and there's no more Brickell Avenue. I don't want to see Las Olas becoming that. So and that's just my opinion, but I think that the community needs to weigh in on this and see what we feel the future of our city should look like.

Mayor Ben? Yes. I definitely agree we have to be sensitive, and this will do just that. So this is and the project we're going to talk about tonight, this is kind of I think I'll initiate this is in Edgewood neighborhood. And so both the developer and the neighbors are have been having some really good positive conversations that I'm sure they'll talk about tonight.

But this level of kind of engagement, I think, will help going forward and that I'm hearing from both Citi staff and developers in this area about this. They think it's positive contemplation. So, yeah, so if we could because and also, Chris, what's the if it wasn't townhomes, for example, if it was cluster homes, is tell us that differentiation on the Sierra, Ella, if you're willing. Thanks.

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. Ella Parker, deputy director of development services. So cluster homes require a conditional use, and that level of review is under planning and zoning board review.

Right. So that's thanks. So that's just one difference, mayor, that I see why this is a helpful piece is cluster homes would require that townhomes win, but I think they both should, have that. That's a cluster home.

A cluster home is is is a compact, almost looks like a townhouse, but it's a compact of, like, three units clustered together or a grouping of

A grouping of townhouses?

Well, not townhouses, but they look like townhouses.

Doesn't it also have to have a shared amenity?

And they have shared amenities and a and a bunch criteria. Very good.

Very good.

I wish I wish wish I

I I I

I agree with my colleagues. I think we

I should have I that higher level of wish review. It doesn't make sense that for cluster homes, it would go to P and Z and townhomes not. And I understand I understand why we do this the way we do this now because rezoning doesn't really just lock you into one site plan. It really just opens it up to a variety of possible uses based on the comp plan, based on a lot of different things. So I think that it's really important As long as it's complying with the land use, I think that it makes sense for us to have that higher level of review because it is kind of like a catch 22 chicken and the egg when you can only you know what's coming, but you can't talk about it, and it's kinda strange.

Do you

have any sense, Ella, as to the number of units, like what you would what you're thinking or, Chris, in terms of the number of townhomes to I think require the higher level?

Yeah. I think we'd have to analyze that. We've already done some preliminary research just asking other jurisdictions throughout Broward County to see, like, what thresholds do you guys have. And while they don't have distinct, like, number of units, a lot of municipalities do have a higher level review, such as the planning and zoning board. But we would do that analysis and maybe, you know, kind of spread it out a little bit broader than just the Broward County and and kinda just see what best practices are.

Alright. Thanks. You're welcome.

Thank you. Mhmm. Before you, leave the podium, Ella Sure. With that higher review, I understand we know that would introduce planning and zoning, but what else? What does that tier of review actually looks like, what it might include?

That's a great question. So with whatever we would come back and and sort of propose as options would include criteria because, obviously, whatever we bring in front of the, board now would require some level of understanding. What are you reviewing it against? So yes, that would be part of the analysis that we would do. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome.

Any other questions? Vice mayor? No. Okay. Alright.

Very

good. Alright. Thank just Dwayne here. To remind the commission that, senate bill one eighty still, restricts our the city's ability to, adopt more restrictive or burdensome regulations until 10/01/2027. So although staff can move forward with their efforts to look at revising the code, your hands are tied in terms of actually adopting the regulations until either this bill is overruled or we get to that date, 10/01/2027. 2027, okay.

All

right. City manager, do have any other thoughts on this? We're good? All right. The other communication we have is from the Sustainability Advisory Board. Is there anybody here from the oh, hi. How are you?

Hello. Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners. My name is Sarah Romonka. I'm here to represent the Sustainability Advisory Board or SAB to speak to the city's urban forestry master plan, or UFMP. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Commissioner Sorenson, for pointing me to the board. Later in this meeting, you'll receive a presentation of the, urban forestry master plan. The SAP SAB, excuse me, did receive a presentation on, September 30. And the goal of the urban forestry master plan is to achieve an overall tree canopy coverage of 33% by the year 2040

in the city

of Fort Lauderdale.

Alright. Let's talk about that.

Okay.

We got an email from one of your members. I believe he's one of your members, mister McCune. Is he on your board? Anyway No. No? Okay. Well, we got an email from him, and he pointed out some interesting statistics, which I would like to know if we can verify at some point. To try to secure 33% Canopy by any time, within any time frame, would require the planting of over 160,000 trees. Now there isn't enough public space to accommodate 160,000 trees. I mean, it sounds like a lot of trees.

And yet it still would only cover a third. So tell us what kind of pie in the sky gold do we have here that's totally unachievable? And why are we being asked to approve something that we know will be a failure from the start?

Mr. Mayor Glenn Hadwin, sustainability mayor? Yes, Glenn. Yes. Okay. I would ask that you defer that question till you get the presentation from our consultant, which was later on the agenda today.

Okay. So All right. I'll hold that thought. Any questions? Do you have this do you want to continue with your presentation? Is there more presentation?

That's it. That's it. We're asking you to approve we're gonna do the resolution.

We're gonna discuss it tonight. Great.

Thank you. Mayor, can I

ask question? Go ahead. Thank you.

Thank you for your service. Appreciate it. Tell me a little bit about what in your discussion. I haven't read I read everything that your minutes. But what do you all like about the master plan? What's what's what's the compelling part about it? I like where we're heading with it, but I'd love to hear from you.

So there are 14, action areas that were highlighted in the plan, that are direct, like, achievable goals that we can use to implement this plan. So, it does include private land as well, like private land engagement, better code enforcement on removal of trees. Like, that's a big a big component of discussion that we had. A database of trees so that we know, you know, which trees are getting sick or at risk of being removed or, you know, other areas and where we can track the canopy. So those are some of the components of the 14 action areas that we really liked.

Great. Have you has it come up for discussion the updated landscape tree ordinance that we passed a couple months ago? Is that have you all talked about that at all, which kind of better protects the trees and the fires?

I don't remember.

It's okay if you have it. Conversation. Do you remember that?

That's fine.

Yes. Glenn Hadron again. The the board has discussed it. Sarah has joined us recently, so we they've had presentations on the ordinance in the past. I think it may have preceded Sarah's membership.

Great. Thanks, Glenn. Glenn, was overall feedback positive from the Board? Any feedback in terms of the ordinance?

I mean, if anything, they want in terms of the ordinance? Yeah. Yeah. Think the board was very pleased to see that passed and see see us taking steps towards increasing tree protection and and which the UFMP does provides more recommendations to take us even further in protecting our city's trees.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mayor.

Any other questions? Okay. Thank you so

much. We appreciate it.

Appreciate all the work you do for us. Thank you, Glenn. Okay. CF1, discussed the proposal to rename Broward County to Lauderdale County. I had asked the City Manager to put this on the agenda tonight, not because I have a particular opinion one way or the other, but I've been asked and I'm sure many of you have been asked on this day as what your opinion is.

And if I give an opinion, it may sound like it's the opinion of the city and I don't want it to sound that way. And that's why I want to bring it to the commission to have a discussion regarding the issue. I see in the newspaper, there was a poll taken. And I also see that attached to the agenda item Exhibit two, Doctor. Hambury and Tim Petrillo and Walter Duke prepared this white paper to discuss the advantages of having Broward County being renamed to Lauderdale County or some other name, I guess.

So I open it up to the commission to see what your thoughts are because, again, I continue to be asked the same question despite what's going or not going on at the state legislature. So I'll start with you, Vice Mayor. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Well, Mayor, the last thing I read said that the county commission declined to move it forward. And I think the quote I read from Representative LaMarco was, I can count. So I think this is moot at this point, isn't it?

Well, it may be moot at this point, but I still think that we're going to it's not going to die. This question keeps coming up again and again. I think last

time was 2011, so I think we'll all be long gone before it comes around again. I'd rather not have a divisive finalization if it's gonna be another ten years before it resurfaces, but that's just my opinion.

I I agree, mayor. From everything that everyone is saying, this is a dead issue right now. Lamarck is not the the Broward legislative delegation said no, absolutely not.

Okay.

The city the county commission said no, absolutely not. So I don't even know why we're actually talking about it. Okay. Because I don't I don't believe that we should be intimidated by the decisions of others. We are a governing body and we do

have an opinion. So if we have an opinion, let's express it. If we don't, say, well, we don't have an opinion. But don't

say, well, because everybody else

said no, so we have to I say

don't feel intimidated at all by what the other government bodies are saying. I'm just saying that this is not within our purview. This is not our decision. This is not something that we're not going to accomplish even if the five of us today said, yeah, let's change it to Lauderdale County. I'm just trying to figure out why we're having the discussion. If the decision makers involved in this process have all said, I'm pulling it off the table. That's all.

Okay.

All

right. Any other comments? Yes. Ben?

Yes. I agree with what's been said. I think we need to continue to focus on infrastructure, stormwater, traffic, housing affordability. And I think that this is not the appropriate time to be looking at something like this. And I think what we should be doing and which I'm interested in and working on is how can we better position Fort Lauderdale as a city to attract businesses, to grow our economy, to bring employers here, to strengthen our education, to increase housing affordability. And so that's just in my part of the city, that's something I'm working with business owners and leaders on. So that's going be my focus, Mayor.

And I think that's a really important point that Commissioner Sarnison just made. We need to take it upon ourselves if if what the country and the world recognizes is the word Lauderdale or the words Fort Lauderdale, then let us take the lead in marketing ourselves and, as the commissioner said, attracting business, and let's make sure that our story is out there so that folks don't need to worry what county we're in, actually. Let's just take it upon ourselves. We travel to a lot of major cities, ask people what county it's in. They're not gonna know what county it's in anyway. I agree with that. They're not gonna know. They're gonna know the city. So let's let's let's get aggressive, and let's take care of ourselves.

And to add to the conversation, I agree. I believe that this is time to, move away from this. I don't I agree. I don't understand why we're taking up the conversation. When I read about it and conversations when individuals have, asked me about it, My comment is, what, commissioner Glassman has basically said. I know when I travel, I don't usually look for the county name. I look for the city that I'm moving I'm going into. So I don't, with that part of the conversation, I don't see the connection, and I believe that Broward County sounds good to me.

Okay. Well, I think the fact that, there's even a conversation about changing it to Lauderdale is a testament to the aggressiveness that we have marketed and branded our city over the last twenty years. And I think that that success is what others are trying to adopt for themselves. And I think that my hats off to everybody on Citi staff and all the folks that have served on this commission for their collective efforts in promoting our Citi, our name and our brand. And I think that we need to continue with that.

I agree. One of the things that when I first interviewed Raquel when she was applying for the job as City Manager was the question of what focus can we deliver on economic development. And knowing she had a background there and hearing some of her goals that she'd like to achieve during her tenure, it made me feel good that we're finally going to focus more aggressively on it and be able to bring more and more opportunities for those who want to locate their businesses, their homes, their families to our city. If you just look out the window, I'd say we've been doing a pretty good job at it. And I think that whether or not Broward wants to adopt our name is certainly a conversation for the 31 cities to figure amongst themselves.

But you are correct. I think Commissioner I mean, State Representative LaMarca has withdrawn his bill and I believe the county has also indicated they're not taking a position on this now. So and there's no reason why we have to take a position. But I do think that it speaks well of us as Fort Lauderdale that others would like to adopt our name because they feel that there are benefits that flow from it. And yes, when you go different places when like Pam is going to the National League of Cities tomorrow, They're not gonna know Broward.

They're gonna know Fort Lauderdale.

They city's in. I know I'm traveling

to Salt Lake City, but I have to admit I do not know what county Salt Lake City is.

Okay. Okay. Great.

Alright. Very good. We'll move on.

Mayor, along those lines Yes. I get and this is something Raquel, I've you and I've talked with briefly is, mayor, there are some cities that dedicate, resources towards city branding, city marketing and encouraging businesses, visitors to come to it. Some cities in Broward County do that. And I think that could be worth us thinking about, talking about maybe as a commission at some point. There's for example, some cities have a director of tourism, for example. And so we have a lot of great entities in our community that advocate for the broader county or the broader community. We don't have as many that advocate just for the city of Fort Lauderdale. I think that's an opportunity for us, Mayor.

Well, I think you're right. I certainly don't want to spend money on billboards in Times Square. I mean, to me that's like begging for people to come to our city. We've earned our reputation through all the things that you folks have said by investing in our infrastructure, our schools, our quality of life, people recognize Fort Lauderdale for a destination, whether it be to visit or to move here permanently. And we grow incrementally.

We do not have to grow exponentially because that just stresses all of our infrastructure and the cities that have grown exponentially suffer as a result. We at the beginning did suffer with many of our infrastructure problems that we had with sewer breaks and water issues throughout the city. And I'm hoping now we've turned the corner on that. We're sort of ahead of the effort to try to make sure that we're keeping up with the pace of development here in our city. But the thing is that marketing us is probably something we do lack in terms of direct marketing.

And we usually all the years that I've been on this commission, it seems to me that the attitude has been, well, they'll come here and we'll just show them around once they get here. Well, to me, that's not the best approach. The better approach is to be proactive and to reach out to companies and so forth. I remember during COVID, there was a big push to try to bring financial investment companies here. A lot of some came here or they opened a branch here.

Many went to Miami. Some went to West Palm Beach. So but my feeling is there's enough to go around for everybody. And we just have to make ourselves more visible and more attractive. And the way we do that is to show that when a person moves here, moves their family here, that they're going to find that all the things, all the resources that they would love to see their family enjoy and appreciate are found here in Fort Lauderdale. So I think your point is very well taken.

Raquel, is that in terms of kind of thinking about this and targeted, is this something we can continue to develop or Absolutely. Ideate

I think there's a lot of opportunity here and room for growth in terms of branding and marketing the city. So yes, I think we can continue the discussion.

Isn't that really though duplicative of what the CVB is supposed to be doing for us? I mean, generate the biggest percentage of the bed tax. Mayor, you sit on the Board. What besides funding the debt service on the stadium out west, where is that money going?

Well, every year, we're given a proposed budget. And first of all, they changed their name to us. I know

they did that. Recognize So that they're in Fort Lauderdale. They're also in the 101 Building. I mean that helps.

So there you see the direction in which it's going. They've done their own market research and they're the ones that have said that if you ask if you put the name Broward out to the world, it has very little response. You put the name Lauderdale out there and everybody knows Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale. So the CVB looks to fund events that bring tourists here. And so there's a whole list of things.

There are dozens and dozens of events that the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which is no longer called that, it's called Visit Lauderdale, tries to accommodate. Now, I always thought it was bizarre that so much of that money goes to fund the debt service of the arena, because I don't think the arena really draws that much in terms of heads and beds as they call it. But they're stuck with that. And that's just the nature of it. Now you take a city like Miami Beach, Miami Beach's bed tax, correct me if I'm wrong, goes right to the city.

Does it not Yes. Yes. They get the whole they get everything. And we get nothing but through organizations applying for funds to support their event, whether it be the boat parade, whether it be the boat show, whether it be any number of events that take place here, it's not this does not the city doesn't have the direct benefit of that. We only get the benefit through the organizations that apply for it. So but like I said, they've changed their name. Greater Fort Lauderdale Alliance used to be called Broward Alliance. They changed their name. I think that's the path that the county thought might be the best way to move by changing their name to us. Are you

seeing I'm sorry, apologize for interrupting. Are you seeing now with the new hotel and convention center that they're going to be shifting more of their focus to Fort Lauderdale? I mean the county has just invested, what, dollars 1,000,000,000 plus?

A lot.

I mean, can't help but think that they're going to concentrate a lot more of their dollars and efforts in the Fort Lauderdale area than they have up to this point. I think they're going to want to see a return on investment.

So they're

going to see a return on investment as they try to attract bigger conventions to come to Fort Lauderdale.

I'm just thinking in terms too of just where they're spending their marketing dollars now too. I think the county is going to want to see that payback on the money that they've invested in that facility over there. So I'm hopeful and I think you'll probably see this when you're participating in that, that I think you're to see more of the emphasis is going to be on attracting visitors to Fort Lauderdale to support the money that they spent on those facilities. Is that the conversation

you're Yes, hearing it's very much the conversation. And as a corollary to that, the we've just inaugurated three new cruise ships that are that Fort Lauderdale is their home. And these are not insignificant brands. These are very significant brands that have chosen not Port Everglades, not Broward, but in all the advertising is Fort Lauderdale. And Fort Lauderdale is the home base, the airport, our international airport is FLL, it's not BRO, right? So over time, we're seeing our name co opted by all these entities.

I think it's a wonderful thing. And the reason I'm bringing this up and it's sort of to Commissioner Sorenson's thought. So Commissioner, I would just hesitate for us to add any more staff on the city manager side where I think the county and is going to be stepping into that role probably leaning into it a little bit more because of the investment that they've already made in Fort Lauderdale. I'd like to watch and see what they do over the next year or two as the convention center really gears up. I've been over there and I look at the hotel and I look at the convention center, look at these three new cruise ships, Mayor, and I think to myself, they're going to be really doing a hard heavy push to put those, as you say, Mayor, heads in beds because they have to.

They've got to fill it They're going to be there's a huge amount of investment again that they need to recoup. And I'd like to see what they do along those lines before we start thinking about staffing up any more heavily here locally in the city and duplicating the efforts that I'm hoping that they're going be undertaking on their own.

A lot of that is actually happening organically without even a lot of their effort. This past Sunday, there were eight mega ships in our port and more than 50,000 people coming and going just on Sunday, all needing places to be in Fort Lauderdale, all needing a hotel room, but it was amazing. And anyone that traveled on 17th Street on Sunday knows what I'm talking about when I tell you, it was quite quite congested.

No one's taking it.

Well, actually So if you went on Waze on Sunday, it told you to avoid and bypass the bypass. So yeah. So good luck

with that bypass. Already full.

Yeah. So that's what Waze was telling you on Sunday. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. So,

unfortunately, on Sunday, it was actually a light that was malfunctioning was the cause for the issue. So it wasn't solely cruise ships just to kind of track what happened.

I don't

think it was the light. So that's okay. No.

Okay. We we can talk

about it.

Raquel, can No. We

No. No. We'll talk about it because it actually was there was a malfunctioning light.

There was a combination of things that occurred that day, our police department has since met with BSO to see how we can combine resources, particularly on the weekend on Sundays when we know we're having that influx. We were made aware that there was a transatlantic ship that came in, and there were certain activities that delayed new passengers from being able to enter the port as well. And so what we're looking for is greater collaboration between our police department and BSO to make sure that traffic management and mitigation occurs and that we don't have the chaos that we saw that that day. But I am told that it's a pretty frequent, occurrence that we have congestion, on those days, and so I wanna make sure that we're planning for that. Our communications department is also gonna be reaching out to Broward County to make sure that we're aware of all the activity that's happening at the port and we know the schedule so that we can coordinate, more seamlessly.

Just to add a little bit to the conversation, yes, we do feel that Visit Lauderdale provides us with a resource in terms of marketing. We do wanna leverage that. The marketing that they do is primarily focused on transients or visitors to Fort Lauderdale. We also want to make sure we're marketing the city for permanent residents or semipermanent residents, investors, those in the business community. So there are different audiences that we want to tap into. Visit Lauderdale is more so focused on visitors, and we're a full service city with lots of needs, and so we wanna make sure we're communicating to all the appropriate audiences that will help our city flourish.

And and with with that, I'm thinking about our neighbors who are looking for employment. We are offering you know, we're bringing the tourism in. We have the new hotels and the expansion with the port. Are we, as a city, speaking with these entities to let them know we need training opportunities for the neighbors that are here, hospitality, chefs, whatever, the demand is. If we're we're Fort Lauderdale, we don't want it just to be, addressed only on the tourism. Let's also make that availability for our neighbors to be employed through what's being offered here in the city.

Exactly. Absolutely. I think you're spot on, commissioner. I think that's that's the opportunity is so look, getting visitors and tourists to Fort Lauderdale is fantastic. Visit Fort Lauderdale. Visit Lauderdale, great job doing that. But there's this other deeper piece around economic strength, developing a talented workforce here, partnering with companies. That's what just so we're clear, Visit Fort does not that is not their focus. So that's an opportunity for us in partnering with Alliance, the Chamber, all these other entities. But again, great entities out there, none of them specifically focus just on Fort Lauderdale.

So I think that's the opportunity there to partner. And just to close the loop on the cruise, the traffic. So Raquel was a light malfunctioning at 17th And Eisenhower?

So that's what our police chief shared with me over

the weekend when we were communicating.

So Exactly. Right? Eisenhower. That light at Eisenhower, and I was in it. I was in the horrible traffic on 17th. And Milos, I'm sure you can talk more about it. But basically, was happening, and Milos, correct me if I'm wrong in this, but the light at 17th and Federal going eastbound over the bridge was red and wasn't cycling to green and for a long period of time. So the backup on 17th basically going west was Mila, should I have that? Am I saying that right of what kind of the light was doing?

You should have built a tunnel.

Milos Mestorovi, Director for Citi's Transportation Mobility Department. So the primary concern and the obstacle that we're facing was a lot of demand that was coming out from the port. There might be that there were lights that were malfunctioning, but there were simply demand was exceeding our capacity. So we are already meeting or we scheduled meeting for Friday of this week with the port, with the convention center, with our police department, BSO, and we'll make sure that we use lessons learned from this incident and inform our future decisions. It does also include FDOT, Regional Truck Transportation Management Centers.

We want to make sure that we use any technology and any tools that are available for all the agencies to improve coordination, collaboration and incident response and timely responding and correcting these issues in the future.

Great. Thank you.

Milos, I have a question. So I actually was getting text messages from people that told me they were on the bridge for fifty minutes, and they said they felt that it was maybe the light was part of it, but definitely not the whole reason why we were having an issue. That being said, when that happens, what do we do in terms of getting PSAs out or something or just extra staff out there to do something to mitigate that kind of a need? How long do we have to wait for it to just build up and build up and get worse and worse? Because my concern is also that soon the hotel will be opening, that will even add more traffic to that area.

So what are our plans and who do we work with to make sure that we are getting our police or anyone else out there to keep that traffic moving over that bridge in Eisenhower Boulevard.

And that is a great question and feedback, and that's exactly the reason why we'll be meeting and coordinating with others. So it looks like there were some road closures that were placed in effect around Eisenhower And 20th Street. And once we implement the road closure, it doesn't help mobility in the area. There are some shared traffic management responsibilities around the area between the port and convention center. So our police department and the city is not really primary lead on it, but we'll make sure that we sort out those roles and that we secure necessary resources between the city, the county and the state to make sure that we have a proper response.

Currently, in terms of how it's being tracked, for example, traffic conditions along Southeast 17th Street, FDOT has a project that is focused on implementing additional devices to be able to monitor travel times and also traffic conditions. So we want to make sure that we have access to those devices as well.

I think it's just so vital, especially because actually what's going to happen is it's going to get worse and worse. The cruise projections for the number of passengers coming here is through the roof for 2026. And also, with regards to those road closures, I was wondering about them because when you were coming over the bridge, 17th Street Bridge heading west, if you needed to go to the port, you could not make a left and head south on Eisenhower Boulevard. That road was closed. You had to continue west on 17th Street and then somehow come back, make a u-turn, and then try to get to the port that way, which is which I think was actually compounding the problem at that time.

I I don't know why that was a road closure that was chosen, but we definitely have to have a plan. That's all.

Absolutely. Thank you. Agree. Yeah.

Thank you. Not to complicate the conversation, but my people told me that the county in which Salt Lake City is located is called Salt Lake County. In case you're asked at one of the cocktail parties.

It'd be

a great trivia question that night, could not win.

Exactly. Or

if you go on Jeopardy.

Exactly. But never forget, Brooklyn is in Kings County.

It's in Kings County, right? Yes. Moving past CF1. Okay. Business One presentation. Wait, we did have a couple of people sign up to speak on CF1. Is Susan Peterson here? And Charlie, you want

to speak?

Okay. Charlie, you want to come up?

Susan, why don't you go up first? Let Susan come up first. I'm sorry? CF1.

You're on CF1, right? For the The one we're not talking about.

Hi. Just push the button at the bottom of the speaker. At the bottom of the speaker.

I'm Susan Peterson. I'm a local history writer, and I agree with everything you said about not changing the name to the county. I just wanted to add a couple of history

notes. No. The county not changing the name to our name.

Right. Right. Change the name of the And and one of the points I want to make is it's not like we should be ashamed of our history, but the actual history of Major William Fort Lauderdale, why he came here was to displace and kill Seminole and Miccosukee Indians and try and chase them out of here. Fortunately

Don't remind us. Okay.

He was not able to do that, so we have the wonderful Seminole Hard Rock Casino and all those things. And so I feel like all the nice community things that we have going on here in Fort Lauderdale is sort of an atonement for that, but and Napoleon Bonaparte Broward wanted to drain the Everglades because they didn't have the knowledge in those days and also he used to run guns to Cuba. So we have the choice between the Indian killer or the gun runner. I I Fort Lauderdale has a wonderful cache, the name of it, Fort Lauderdale, the sound. It it sounds sporty.

It sounds sexy. It's a success image, and, it's a wonderful image. And, you know, people think of Greater Fort Lauderdale as the whole county, but I I agree with what you, you know, said about not supporting the name change. I think it's sort of like it's a very appealing name and and people wanna ride on our coattails. And, you know, and I think the new convention center looks beautiful, but, you know, I drive to the beach there and I saw I saw a video of two women who got out of their car and were actually directing traffic to help people make turns. I guess it was on Sunday. It was on the news. It was amazing. So something needs to be done about that. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Charlie?

Hello?

I don't see any papers with you. This is unscripted?

Yes. Unscripted. Well, I was going to tell you that Salt Lake City was in Salt Lake County, but you figured it out.

Yes, I figured it out. Someone else figured it out for me.

So it seems like it's a pretty big no brainer. I mean, it's been going on for a while. I mean, no one takes a cruise to the Everglades. It's like you know, we're talking about stationary and signage and all of you up there act like you got some sort of threatening call from a Broward Politico last night or something. Like, you can be in favor of this.

I mean, this is a good idea. There was just a democratic socialist or whatever, know, elected up in New York. I saw a stat that it was like, I think it's like 45,000 people pay half of the income taxes in New York City. So it's not going take many of those people to leave. I mean, that's why I think this has come up again is because there's an opportunity to get these people to move here and not to Palm Beach or to Miami and that didn't come up amongst you guys at all there. I mean, that's the real issue here. Broward County just wants us to be get tourists down here. That's all they're really care they're caring about. They have been taking our money and just furthering it away. I mean, we've got like a world class cricket facility that no one goes to.

I mean, they're not like the best stewards our tax dollars. When I think of Broward County, I don't think good things. I think of nine Democrats that have gerrymandered this county where there's no Republican representation. There's no Fort Lauderdale representation. We're the biggest city in the county.

So if you're going to rely on them to do this for you, they're not going to just like that tunnel you want under the city, they're not going to build that. So I mean, I think you should start I think you guys can all vote to do a resolution. You do resolutions on all sorts of things and and say, you know, we think that would be a good idea that it might attract people with money and businesses and employees and families to this city. Because when I think of Broward County, the Broward Broward County schools, they just lose students every year. I mean, there's not a lot of things that I think of Broward County, I'm thinking of people that get removed by the governor for certain things.

So like I think Lauderdale County would be a way to rebrand the whole thing, give them a chance to get on a better foot and and compete with Palm Beach and Miami. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous that we're we're like the hammock beneath these two counties that are doing better than us. And you're it will be desperate to to put a sign up in Times Square? That's what Boak is doing, but they have a remote Republican mayor. So I mean, I don't know if that occurs to him or you guys just don't want to embarrass what's going up in New York City there, but like this is a huge opportunity to bring people to here and have Broward do it, they're just not going to do it. So I mean, land fire under him a little bit. Thank you.

You're welcome. Just to share an anecdote with the commission. At the mayor's reception for the boat show, right before the boat show that Wednesday night, a guy came up to me and he said, Are you the Mayor? And I said, Yes. And he said, I just want you to know that I just moved my entire family and my 14 employees. I'm an investment banker and I love Fort Lauderdale so much.

They

his head.

And we also have our consultants joining us.

Brad, how are you? Good afternoon, Eric. I'm going to leave you.

How are you? Are you okay? You're not leaving us?

I didn't leave you. No. No.

Haven't turned in any resignations.

Okay. Good.

Not cleaning out any offices. We're all in.

All Just want to make sure.

I'm in it for the long

run. Okay, good.

So today's presentation is just going to be kind of a follow-up to the last one made a couple of months ago on Fortify Lauderdale Phase two. It will include some updates from Phase one, which you'll see in the slides and kind of give you the analysis of why we ended up where we did as it relates to just a slight movement in the projects. And we looked at four through nine. We're really the only ones that basically the middle group of them we focused on because the first three in the projects, their scores really aren't even very close to the rest of the group. So there really wasn't going be any movement there.

So really, it's just those ones we focused on to come to the conclusions we have today. So we're just going to kind of go through this briefly. If there are any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them. So if we can start, just Phase one, kind of a status update for everybody so you can all see where we are with some of these projects. You can go to the next slide, please.

Yes, so just putting up here, obviously, all the way to the right, have Dura's that's completed in February '5. Edgewood was completed in March '4. River Oaks was completed in December '4. We obviously saw some stuff there with the preserve. Remediation and permitting, that's continuing on right now. What we have in construction right now, Dorsey Riverbend, they're going to be substantially completed by 2026. Progresso construction is about at 65%. And Victoria Park, the good news is that should get underway sometime after the first of the year. So a lot of good stuff. We're starting to wind down on the last phase of one of the projects.

And in design, we have Norils Manor and Riverland Civic, and that should be going out sometime in the 2026 to bid. Southeast Styles is at 50%, and we expect those plans to be finalized sometime in 2026 of the summer.

So next

slide, please. These are

just some photos just to kind of show everybody of the progress that's been made. This is a Progressive Village in Dorsey Riverbend. Next one, There's Durs, Edgewood, River Oaks, just kind of a capsulating pictures to show you how the magnitude and the size of these projects are. And sometimes when we have issues thank you. Sometimes when we have issues or complaints, I just have an understanding that it's just there's a lot of things going on in these pipes that we're replacing are, in some places, really, really massive.

So just that's why we're putting this on there just so everybody has an understanding of just the magnitude of what they are. So the overview from Phase two is what we presented last time. And again, as I mentioned before, we focused on projects four through nine to do the qualitative analysis. And if you can see here, this is what it looked like when we made the original presentation based on qualitative. And now we're just going to talk a little bit about the qualitative approach that we took to it.

This is kind of the difference between quantitative and qualitative in the two little boxes there you can see. And that's just kind of how they're measured and what we do to analyze them in terms of making these determinations. Phase two, spattle distribution. And again, this is a little bit more into the science engineering technical part of it. Just talking about how they're grouped, kind of evaluating that in each commission district has Phase two projects.

All of these things get taken into consideration. But an important thing to note about Spatouille Distribution is it does not impact the current rankings. Functional interaction, again, it's just kind of determining if the drainage systems between projects have interdependencies that would impact project phasing. So we look at that and we evaluate it. It's important to note that projects four through nine, they don't really depend on each other to function, so one can be done without the other.

The project groupings are independent to other neighborhoods and these groupings also don't require downstream projects to be completed. So functional interactions also, they do not count towards the current rankings either. Again, construction impacts. When we look at these projects, it's important to know how much it's going to impact all the communities when we do projects of this nature. So part of that is taken into consideration as well.

And as you can see from the results, Project six, seven and eight were identified as concerning given their geographic locations, as you can see on the maps in front of you. Project seven and eight are large areas that would include connecting roadways that would also be impacted. So after evaluating basically everything as part of all of this, the only determination we make at this point in time that we felt we could reasonably accommodate if we were going to make any changes based on what we looked at from a qualitative perspective was recommending that Shady Banks and Project seven Tarpon River or some park be reordered. That would be really the only change that we came out of it that we could do from the qualitative analysis.

And what would be the necessity to reorder that? Is a significant need there? I'm sorry,

is there a

Why did you want to reorder that?

We just looked at that and based on the qualitative facts and everything that was taken into consideration, that would really be the only area we felt that any reordering would warrant it based on using that criteria. If we stick to just the qualitative, we wouldn't reorder at all We would just ask the commission to accept it the way

it is. Well, the thing is that you would be displacing other neighborhoods by reordering them, correct?

It would just the two in the six to seven. Right.

So the

other ones that were six and seven would now be

eight Right. They're both in District 4.

So it

would just be obviously one area over the other versus one over the other. So that's really the only change that it would be. We plan on doing this in groups of three, the first three, the next three, the third three and

the fourth three. Right. So what are you displacing? What's going to be bumped up to eight or nine?

Mayor, just to clarify, two projects would be inverted. So the project that was originally proposed for number six would now be seven. The project originally proposed at number seven would now be number six. So it's just flipping those two.

And Okay. It shows it right up here and on the That's clear. That's clear. Okay. And so for us, basically, the next step would be accepting the rankings, either the original qualitative rankings I mean, I'm sorry, the original quantitative rankings or the ones that are qualitative now and moving forward, providing a resolution at the upcoming city commission and then going forward and getting to work.

Mayor, if I could. Yes. Thanks, Brad. Thanks for your ongoing work on this. Very, very important work and great work so far in the completed projects. Can you go back to the previous slide?

That one? Yes.

Yes. Thanks. Okay. So this is the actually, so this is a suggested reorder. Now if you could go back to the scoring, please. Let's see. Yes. So the give us a little bit about the scoring, what goes into the scoring formula.

I'll as we're getting into more of little technical, I'll let Roberto kind of hang on because you can see in the original scoring that it's just that they're minuscule things apart. So I'll let him take the engineering part of it.

Are doing? Roberto Bencourt, Stormwater engineering division manager. So our last meeting, we spoke about how we came about this. A lot of it had to do with actual elevation. So we have LiDAR. We are able to see where the low spots are. Then there was that neighborhood factor that factored in the FEMA losses. Remember that back then, we had the neighborhood score, but we weighted more towards the FEMA loss so we can kind of help with folks who aren't able to get online and do that. But essentially, a lot of the data is coming from we know where the low lying areas are based on the LiDAR. So very low lying areas that float often obviously have the higher score.

Great. So the higher the score, the more Impacted

it is during storm events, yes.

Absolutely. Okay, great. So this so the six is Shady Banks, seven is Tarpon River. So Shady Banks has a higher score, thus more impacted as a result of the topography and so forth?

Yes. They're fairly close. I mean we were asked

to look

at the qualitative rankings. So we felt somewhere in the middle is where that could be applied, but they're very close together.

Yes. The so and maybe this is more towards Brad, but in terms of the so the reason for moving Shady Banks to six and Tarpon River sorry, Shady Banks to seven and Tarpon River up is due to the proximity and the kind of road impact, construction impact, is that that's the main reason for that adjustment? Am

I So saying that that's that was one of

the large criteria. I mean you can see the just the surface area of that Tarpon, Khoisan Park area is number seven on that map is massive. So we would if you go with the original ranking, seven and eight would be kind of constructed around the same time versus you swapping it at eight and six and it's now constructed at the same time.

You. So Raquel, I'd like to stay with the original rankings on this because of the import of the severity of exposure to stormwater indicates that Shady Banks is 6%, Tarpon River 7%. And I think, I mean, that we can navigate the construction, the impact that, that would have if we stuck with those original rankings, unless I'm wrong on that.

No. Yes. We certainly do. If we have those two under construction, I mean, we'll work together and make sure we Okay. Get where they're

That's perfectly fine, commissioner, just to keep the original proposed ranking.

Yes. Just because for me, the if we could do that from a construction standpoint, I just I want the neighborhoods most in need, starting with Melrose Park, which is top of the list. Right? That's job one, bar none. And then just sequentially, I think as long as we can navigate the construction component, that's how I'd like to like to do it. Mayor, if that that makes sense.

Is there a consensus with that?

Brad, we good? Is that Yes.

Absolutely. We're good with that.

Can I ask

a question? I know we're focusing on Phase two, but in regards to phase one in, Riverland and, Merrill's Manors, could you give us an update as to, where we are in design and how we could keep this moving forward? It's been a process. Process. Sure. Mel, it is

a very large project. There's, as you know, almost no infrastructure in that area So we're about 90% design plans. We're just buttoning up some of the details on the actual lift stations themselves and working through our easement agreement with the Chipmunk facility, because that's where we outfall from. But other than that, that's pretty much we're towards the end.

Okay. Is there a challenge? Because I was under the impression that we had gotten beyond that conversation with Chipmunk. So that's still an issue.

It's it's still an issue. Yep.

And so it has been brought to our attention recently that there may be some change in ownership going on with the Chipmunk site, and so that is a requirement for us to move forward with the project to have the easement in order for us to get the permit with Broward County. We are at the 90% Mhmm. Design level. Our intention is to expedite the procurement process for this project, by doing a two step prequalification process where we can go out and prequalify firms to be able to compete for projects within the entirety of the Fortify Lauderdale program, including so that the easement situation

funding page and just walk me through just very high level like in terms of releasing and securing funding for all the components? Thanks. And Raquel, while they're coming up, Raquel, in terms of speed to delivery, as you know, like talking about are exploring all forms of delivery, not just bid build, but I mean all forms? We've talked about P3 that's been successful before. Like how are we continuing to look at all?

Yes. And I think this came up at a previous meeting. We have been utilizing a design bid build procurement delivery process traditionally for Fortify Lauderdale. What I'm proposing to do and would like to begin doing is to tweak that design bid bill process so that we can have contractors ready and available on an ITV basis per project so that we can, have a pool that we can call on for the various projects within the Fortify Lauderdale program. This will help us expedite, singular procurement processes per project and allow us to be more flexible and agile and thus speed up these projects.

So it is a deviation, a slight deviation from what we've been doing in the past. As mentioned, I'm very cautious about wanting to do P3s for Fortify Lauderdale, especially if it's a very significant project in terms of the dollar value. I do know that our team is working very hard on completing Phase one and going into Phase two. We've been meeting to discuss how we can expedite delivery, and so it's going to look a lot different than what we've done in the past. But yes, we've been looking at multiple options.

Have we I mean, historically, we've done some big P3 infrastructure projects in the city, right? Like I think in my neighborhood, we did one, right? Is that right? We have.

We have done some P3 projects related to infrastructure.

Right. And what's your view? I mean, don't know if you've looked at those historically. How have they done? I mean, my view is it's worked well, but

For Fortify Lauderdale, given the magnitude of the project, I want to make sure that we have enough competition and that we're promoting that so that we can get the best value for our dollars as well as looking at how we can streamline our procurement process so that that's not a bottleneck for getting these projects delivered.

Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Mayor, it's Raquel's birthday today too, so I just wanna call that out

to celebrate while we're asking our questions.

I was gonna I was gonna bring it up tonight. Are you gonna bring it up tonight? Well He's gonna bring it.

Yeah. So so the person who brings it up has to bring the cake.

Bring the cake. Okay. It's coming.

And and the gifts. And the gifts.

It's not out of the oven yet, so it'll be here. But happy birthday, Raquel.

Thank

you. Thank you for where you're going. Yeah.

Funding. So Yvette Matthews, assistant city manager.

Yes. Underground infrastructure reminded him of your birthday. Yes.

It's a gift that keeps on giving.

It's better than wastewater. Yeah. That's right. Right?

Definitely better than wastewater. So

So as we were developing the fiscal year 2026 budget, we had StanTech come and speak to you all about our game plan for how we were going to fund Fortify Lauderdale. In that game plan, in 2026, we will be taking out $330,000,000 in debt. This will cover completing phase one of this initiative and begin the design and planning for phase two. And then in 2029, 2032, and 2035, we'll be taking out approximately $350,000,000 to fund the next phases of the initiative. This is supported by our rate increases.

This year, it was a 15% rate increase. In 2027, we're planning for a 20% rate increase. And so all of these initiatives, as we advance the funding, is supported by rate increases. So you see on that bottom bar the rate increases that are planned over the next few years. It steps up to 20% and then back down to 1510% to allow us to really support the debt issuances that are planned.

Great. Thank you. And when we when we look at Fort Lauderdale, Fortify Fort Lauderdale in the totality of the city, our expectation of completion with the entire project is when?

Not all at once, right?

Yes, yes. Come on up.

So just following the way the funding is coming along, it's going to be around fifteen ish years.

Fifteen years from today. I think that's what we originally anticipated. Okay. 2040, right. Well, I mean, we're rebuilding a city and a lot of this has been ignored over the years.

And certainly, when the city was developed, the developers were allowed to get away with this. So they had alternative methods. I know in particular Melrose Manors, they use the SWAIL system, which seemed to work for many years, but now we have whatever the reason for the cause of all these intensive storms, we now have to adjust who we are and what we do to accommodate So it's a lot of money. I'm just wondering when the debt service is paid off, do the rates come down? Okay. So in 2040, everybody, your rates will come down.

Wait a minute. It's not it's not quite that simple. Oh, not that soon? One thing that

we're also building into our financial modeling is that we don't just build these projects. We must also maintain and ensure that they continue to have the level of integrity that we're hoping that they function at. And so one of the things that we're doing as we, build out this plan is also building out the maintenance and the staffing to ensure that we are able to maintain these. So maybe not a rate decrease, but the rates won't increase as, steeply as we're currently seeing.

Thank you.

And, mayor, I know I'm kind of, this I bring this up regularly, but fifteen years is a long time, and I just we've got it. I don't know how to say it. We've got to do better than that. We just we've got to do better than that. We I know it's complex. I know it is disruptive. I know it's a big investment, but we've just got to figure out ways to move this faster.

I don't know You the solution

know it will be here.

I don't know the solutions to that.

I've been on this commission fifteen years, not consecutively, but fifteen years total. And where does the time go? It's like if we don't have the resources or the staffing, that's going to be the challenge. And that's what gets to be very expensive and oftentimes complicated. So just keep that in mind, Commissioner. Sure.

Go ahead, Rakal. Yes. No, please. Birthday girls first. Go

ahead, please.

Just echoing what Yvette explained earlier about how we've structured the funding over time. And so yes, resource is an issue. And if we don't have all the funding drawn down for the projects, we won't be

able

to execute them in a more expedited manner. And so what we're aiming to do is to make sure that our procurement process is aligned with the funding that we have scheduled for the next ten years as indicated in the presentation. What's

suggesting that we have to increase we have to the annual increases would be even greater than what they are now because right now they're spread over a longer period, the fifteen years. If we reduce that to ten years, we'd have to increase the rate even greater than what we've done now. So that's another challenge we have to consider. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank Thank you. Mr. Labrie?

Hello, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. I'm James Labrie. I'm the Vice President of the Poinsettia Heights Civic Association. And I just wanted to make a few comments today. First of all, all morning long, I've been trying to get the slide deck and it was not available on the website. So I don't know why that happened or who's responsible for that, but this is the first time I'm seeing it.

It also came up as an error on mine too.

So what's going on? Tell us, Mayor.

I don't know.

What's going on?

Yes. We'll make sure we give you

the slide presentation at some point.

Well, all right. Thank you for that. Next thing I wanted to remind this commission that back when we had two directors before in public works, Poinsettia Heights was flooding and we had the director come to our neighborhood and he would add us to the list of neighborhoods that were being repaired and fixed, and that would have put us right after Victoria Park. So since then, things have changed. Obviously, you've seen several other neighborhoods been pushed ahead of us.

Next, just learning today, we had the groupings now are three groups together, three projects. There's four. And what happened to the four projects three times?

So when we had those three groups of four, that's when the estimate was $500,000,000 But now since over $1,000,000,000 we had to fund it, so it turned into the groups of three.

How does that change the price? Price doesn't change.

So when we had the original estimates, that was based on like the first project we did, but we saw immense cost escalation as time went on, especially after COVID. So once we got more accurate cost estimates, we were able to adjust for the next phase to get a more accurate representation. Hopefully that answers the question.

It's not making sense to me, so we'll go on. And then do you have a slide on the timeline when the different projects are going to start? So group three, the first group of three, the second group of three, the next two?

We won't have that yet.

Well, why not?

Taking that item back to the company. Brad, you

have to come

up to the

I think that's a fair question to ask.

Well, it has

to come

up to the microphone to answer the question,

please. As we go through this process and as we come back to finalize this, probably sometime next year, we'll be able to answer that more firmly about timelines and projects with design. I think as we indicated in the slides, some of the stuff for the first three will be going into design next year. So that's as much as I can tell you for construction and all that. It's very it's too preliminary to give you those kind of answers. Okay.

What part of Poinsettia Heights are we talking about? Because a significant part of that neighborhood already has storm drains. So what part are we talking

They're too small and they can't manage the water. 15th Avenue, you know, is floods.

Right. Poinsettia Drive floods. So it's 15th Avenue, which is the main corridor through the city and Poinsettia Drive, which I know always floods, which is ironic because it's right on the canal, but I know. But the rest of the neighborhood isn't impacted as much as I recall.

17th Avenue, Northeast 17th Avenue. 17th Avenue. 17th Terrace. Okay. Heading south.

All right.

Okay.

So you asked a couple of questions.

So I got answers and I appreciate that, but I just think I agree with Commissioner Sorenson. It's taking too long. So if there's a way we can speed this up, that would be great because I don't I have to go back and tell my neighbors that it's going to be fifteen years before this thing is done, and I can't tell them when my own neighborhood is going to be done. And we were told years ago that we were going to be right after Victoria Park.

So thank you. So to answer that question, how was that switched? Was that was it switched? No.

This was before the Fortify Fort Lauderdale project even got pulled

right. Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak on this item? What's your name?

Ted and Sarah, president of RIV Rokes. I think it's sworn in.

Yeah. There it was.

I just want to because you brought something up, Brad Cain did, that River Oaks is not done. We're on the done list, but like he even mentioned, we are not done. So I don't want that to be considered, okay, checklist, checklist and have what still needs to be finished in River Oaks kind of forgotten about. I just want to make sure that we're still and we have canals also and the water is being pumped into the canal and it was coming around over back over the seawalls is what happened a lot in our neighborhoods. But, we still got some things we need to tighten up in River Oaks before we put that on the big checklist as done.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions from the commission? If none, we'll move on to Business two, which is regarding the City of Fort Lauderdale Urban Forestry Master Plan. City Manager?

So we have our team from the Sustainability Division. Doctor Nancy Gasman will lead the presentation, and we also have consultants joining us.

Good afternoon, commission, mayor. Nancy Gasman, deputy director Parks and Rec and your chief resilience officer. Today, we'll have a presentation on the Urban Forestry Master Plan with our consultants, Rez. Justin Friedman will be providing the presentation and available with his team to answer additional questions along with staff. Justin? Thank you.

There we go. All right, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, appreciate this opportunity to present the, urban forestry master plan. We've been working on this project for quite some time. It was advertised back in 2023. Rez was the selected vendor as of December year, and we started work in April 2024. It's been a very collaborative effort. We've worked closely with city staff in the Sustainability and Urban Forestry Department, Doctor. Nancy Gassman, Laura Tooley, Glen Hadwin and Melissa Doyle. We're very involved with the project. We have our project team here, Mark Clark, Megan Rising, Kyra Paris and Larsen McBride.

So we've been working on this for quite some time, and we're excited to get to this final step to present it to you all today. So the presentation outline here, we're going to talk about the goals of the plan.

We're going

to talk about the state of the urban forest. We're going to talk about, the stakeholder engagement that really informed the plan and helped build it, the recommendations we came up with, implementation and finally, a conclusion. So let's talk about the goals of the Urban Forest Forestry Master Plan. So, the city's tree canopy right now or as of, 2024 was 26.6%. The city measures every year.

For those that don't know what tree canopy coverage entails, picture Google Earth. You're looking down from above on the city where you see trees as a percentage of the overall city area as the tree canopy coverage. The city has set a goal of 33% by 2040. That was set in the Advance 2040 Comprehensive Plan, one of the many plans that we, reviewed as part of the development of this plan. So the purpose of the Urban Forestry Master Plan was to create a pathway to get to that number, the 33% can be covered by 2040.

So the plan itself has 62 recommendations that create kind of a road map to get there. Those 62 recommendations fall within 14 action areas really to improve the urban forestry program itself. Obviously, we're going to need to plant a lot of trees. The city is going to need to plant a lot of trees.

All right. So let's stop right there. Sure. Same question. Where do we plant 160,000 trees? And if it's being said to us that this would exceed the amount of available land in the public realm, how do we how are we going to ever achieve that goal of 160,000 trees by 2040? And is this a goal that's already set out to fail before we start?

I mean, it's a great question. It is an ambitious goal. But again, if you're looking down upon the city and you're looking where the trees are and where there's available planting spaces, some of that is in public right of way. A lot of it is not in public right of way.

Right. So how do we get it in the nonpublic and the private part of way? What is it what role can the city I mean, it just seems like a herculean task that to get 160,000 trees planted in the next fifteen years, especially since most of the area that is going to be accommodated is not in the public realm.

No. I mean, it's a great question. So if you look at the 62 recommendations, part of growing the urban forest canopy is preserving trees that are already there. A lot of those trees are already in public sector lands or private lands, right? So preserving existing canopy, but there also have to be

Or replacing them. If they die, if the trees die, then we want to replace them.

Absolutely. Planting more trees on private lands. There's a combination, but really preserving a lot of mature canopy on private lands. It's going to take effort in both public lands and private lands to get to that number. I mean, the urban forest canopy in any city is comprised of all of the trees within public and private lands.

I get that, but I mean this sounds like coffee clutch conversation. Let's get to 33%. Oh, by the way, there's no place to put all these trees. So why are we even doing this?

I mean, well, I mean, it's, again, it's an ambitious goal, and there are reasons to want to improve the tree canopy coverage. You cannot have meaningful canopy growth on public lands only. I mean many cities have come up with these types of ambitious goals. It all requires some aspect of planning and preservation planting and preservation on private lands.

Can't we incentivize private landowners in some way? Is that one

of your 64 recommendations? Yes. There's a lot of within the 62 recommendations, a lot of it is geared to both public and private lands, incentivizing tree planting, preservation across the board.

Okay.

So I mean and again, the trees that are planted and preserved now, I mean, that's what this slide shows, obviously, you're going to have a greater impact on the canopy than trees planted or preserved down the road. All right. So let's talk about the state of the urban forest canopy now. The city measures its urban forest canopy every year using the tool called I Tree Canopy. It also sets a canopy goal every year.

As you can see, the goal has gone up every year for quite some time, whereas the canopy itself has kind of hovered in that 26% range. So it's not easy to be an urban tree, especially in South Florida. There's a lot of pressures on urban trees, infrastructure. Down here, have storms, we have flooding, we have pests, and a huge pressure on the urban forest canopy is development and growth, and this is a very desirable place to live. I already heard that today in multiple presentations.

People want to move here. They continue to move here. And as you accommodate those people, it is a challenge to grow the urban forest camping. But there is a benefit to doing so. So the urban forest canopy as of 2024 generates $3,300,000 in benefits, and that's in reduced stormwater infrastructure needs, pollutant removal, carbon sequestration and storage and all that for a price tag of $1,300,000 per year.

So it's a good return on investment. Planting trees tends to be a good return on investment, plus all of the placemaking, the beautification and all of the other benefits that trees provide. So again, we're at 26.6% as of right now. As you can see, it's not necessarily evenly spread across the city. There are neighborhoods with a lot of trees, beautiful tree canopy coverage.

And then there are some other neighborhoods, with substantially less tree canopy coverage. There are tools out there to measure what is called tree equity that take demographics and income in certain neighborhoods into account. Fort Lauderdale has an overall tree equity score of 78, but kind of looking at some of those differences across the city, it really helps inform where maybe some of the investment should start. So we obviously gave a higher priority to those areas that have fewer trees. It's kind of an easier way to jump in and start to make a difference.

Really to build this plan, it took a lot of stakeholder engagement. That's really what built up the recommendations. The city's urban forestry practices are distributed amongst 14 different departments and teams. So we got input from 12 of these groups, and that really helped inform the recommendation. But any time moving forward, you're going to try to implement such a or try to accomplish such an ambitious goal, coordination between those departments is key. We also did a lot of stakeholder engagement with the public. We attended a lot of events. We had a survey with almost 800 responses. We did four in person district wide meetings and one virtual city wide meeting. We received a lot of comments.

Not surprisingly, most of the comments that we heard, people were dying to tell us about development's impact on trees. They had personal stories about trees that they loved in their neighborhood that they saw cut down. Very passionate. People are very passionate in the city about trees, and I totally understand that. There's broad support for planting more trees, and there's enthusiasm, especially people that tend to go to those meetings, about, community participation and planting and outreach.

So we prepared our draft Urban Forestry Master Plan. It was published in September. We've received another 99 comments from residents, 30 additional comments from city staff and advisory board members. We brought this presentation to the Sustainability Advisory Board, and they seem to endorse the plan. There seems to be support for the plan overall.

We still have heard concerns about the impact of development on trees. I mean, that's going to be an issue, obviously, with more and more people moving here. So again, we came up with 62 recommendations across 14 action areas. Obviously, the city is may not take every one of our recommendations. This is a framework to improve the overall program, to create a framework and a pathway to get to this ambitious number.

As you can see, these are some of the areas in which those recommendations fall. Not gonna go into more detail, but it's all right there in the plan. And then implementation. So this kinda gets to your question, mayor. You know, the the the city has 8.75 square miles of canopy right now. There's 5.6 square miles of potential tree planting area that's obviously spread across both public and private lands. To get to that canopy number, we need to grow one square miles of Canopy.

What how do you determine sorry, go back there. Thanks. How do you determine potential tree planting area that's privately owned? Like how?

I'm going bring up Larson McBride. Okay. Great. Thanks.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Larson McBride, Consulting Arborist for Resource Environmental Solutions. This is a figure that FDAX put out in their twenty twenty three statewide evaluated both tree canopy cover and potential tree planting areas for every city in Florida, Waterdale. And this figure all of the vacant land in the city or just considering sidewalks and roads and tops of buildings. These are areas that can be planted with trees. Depends on the size of tree.

We get into that in the plan, but that's where we're at. There is room to plant a number of trees. But as we said, it's ambitious, but we do believe that it's doable.

Okay. Great. And so is that inclusive of commercial, residential, all of the above? Yes. All of above. Yes.

But obviously, ballfields and parks and utility rights of way are excluded. It's actual potential

planting Great. Thanks.

All right. So here's just some of the backup for the potential planting scenarios. Figures are based on hypothetical canopy averages. Costs are based on average costs of the 10 most commonly planted trees in Fort Lauderdale. It's very obvious that trees planted sooner, earlier in the planned period will develop as larger trees, and create more canopy.

And planting should be done by city staff, residents, community organizations, businesses and developers. It's really all hands on deck to get to that ambitious number, and that was really the purpose. Recommendation cost estimates. So implementation of all 62 recommendations is estimated to cost between $1,200,000 and $2,100,000 annually, and that's excluding tree planting. So that's the building up the program, the training infrastructure necessary to do that.

Achieving 33% tree canopy may require public and private entities to plant between 10,018 trees annually. So again, very ambitious. All urban forestry master plan funding requests will be submitted consistent with the city's regular budget processes. Obviously, it's going to go through all the same procedures as any other expenditure. So, we evaluated, 13 different grant programs valued at $21,000,000, to potentially fund the plan, but I believe that's already obsolete.

I mean, I think a couple of years ago, think in Biden's Infrastructure Improvement Act, there was $2,000,000,000 out there for tree equity. And now I think most of the grant programs are, I know if you have more detail on that are sort of being taken away.

Yes. I do want to just kind of sum it up as when we started doing our analysis of what was out there and how we could potentially make this happen. This preceded the significant funding cuts to much science and infrastructure that happened at the beginning of this year. Not something that we could have foreseen. And according to people in agencies that administer a lot of grants that fund urban forestry, a lot of these cuts may not be permanent, but they are current.

Yes. Over the fifteen year plan period, things will probably multiple times. Internal funding sources. Urban forestry budget, must increase to meet the Canopy goal. Think that's pretty clear. The urban forestry master plan recommendations will generate revenue for urban forestry, and that's, permit mitigation fee schedule changes, additional penalties for tree violations and so forth. So the goal is to try to build up some of those funds by protecting existing trees.

Don't we do that now?

Yes. Yes. So it's reevaluating those fees, to help drive additional, revenue for additional plantings. In conclusion, again, it's an ambitious goal. Again, the city does not need to necessarily implement every recommendation. It's a it's a framework. It's a strategy, to help inform a path forward. We believe it's a data driven document. We did a lot of research on, you know, other programs, on the city's own policies and procedures and codes, a lot of feedback from internal and external stakeholders. The recommendations reflect public urban forestry goals and city staff's vision for improved urban forest management.

And I believe it will pay off in the future if the city is able to reach that goal. And next steps, obviously, would love for the commission to come back and consider adopting the plan. Certainly happy to answer any questions. It's been a great project for us. And as a we've had our offices here in Fort Lauderdale for quite some time. We really love the city, and we'd love to see this come to fruition.

Well, great. Thank you so much for your presentation. Anyone have any questions of the gentleman? Yes, question. Yes. Go ahead.

In regards to, maintenance of the trees that we're going to be planting, I'm really focusing and thinking about an area in my district that I, you know, frequent air air on often. We have the canopy that's grown very beautifully, but also it's overgrown now. Are we implementing opportunities for who's going to maintenance the trees to cut back? Is there funding included in this cost, or how do we address that?

We, address that in our recommendations regarding staffing. Obviously, as you're saying, the status quo is not going to deliver the city to its goal. And so staffing as well as funding for staffing is going to need to increase. You already have excellent existing staff who know, where gaps are and where holes could be filled and what areas could be strengthened, and we think that the city will be able to meet that according to our recommendations.

Okay. What's your recommendations? Do you have any dollar amount when you were talking about all these additional trees in this budget of what's being presented? How much would go towards that type of maintenance financially?

Yes. We have estimates. Those are in the plan. They're broken down into figure tables so you can actually see our estimated annual cost for each recommendation multiplied by an inflation factor up until 2040.

So just to add to what the commissioner is inquiring about, so this plan is very much aspirational. And annual basis, we would look at recommendations incorporated in the plan to determine if there are initiatives that we would be able to move forward, and that would be based on funding availability and some other factors. And so it's not that everything in the plan would be implemented, but we would use this as the framework and foundation to identify opportunities to promote growth of our tree canopy, and that would be inclusive of maintenance activities. So I I just wanted to share that for the record. It's not that everything included in terms of costs, within the plan, that's not something that the commission is bound to do by accepting the plan, but it allows us to have a starting place to have further discussions and policy recommendations and decisions going forward annually.

Alright. And, one additional question. In regards to our tree equity score, we're 78. How do we compare to other cities in our county?

That's a great question. It depends on the city. Oftentimes, you'll see cities that are smaller kind of de facto have greater percent canopy because there are fewer trees needed

to I

think Lazy Lake is probably 99%. Sure. Sure. But what about countrywide? What's the

average That's difficult to ascertain because each community is broken up differently. The tree equity scores are determined at the census block group level. It's kind of like a

I understand that. Just for a overview for us in the city, what do we how do we I understand the difference in the popularity I mean, the population, but give me some figures if you can.

And I'm sure, by the way, that you have to differentiate between the urban, like Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale, Pompano versus Parkland and everything else out there where you know. Right. They've got a

lot of trees out that way last time I was there. Absolutely. Our analysis was limited to the city of Fort Lauderdale. 78 is not a bad score. There's room for improvement, but there are certainly cities that have lower scores than that. There's room

for improvement. It won't be

able to happen in every area of the city, but by raising some of the local equity scores of some of the neighborhoods that are in the darker red there, it will elevate the overall score of the city.

Thank you.

Any other question? Oh, go ahead.

Yes. Thanks, Mayor. Raquel, so how I think there are some great recommendations in here. So thank you for your work. This is great. I understand you're saying, okay, we're going to evaluate, and we'll kind of implement what we can. So will what's your plan in, bringing forward recommendations, what you'd like to implement? Or how does this look? And then how do we track what we've implemented and not implemented? Or how is this?

Sure. So I'll start with the approach. As we're looking at the existing slide, we would want to make sure that we are focusing our efforts on those areas that are darker. So not the greens and the yellows so much, but more so the orange and red.

What is that, Birch

areas. Yes. Birch Park is the darkest green there. So our approach would be to try to ensure that we are enhancing the canopy in the areas that need it more so than other areas. But we do wanna look citywide to see where there are opportunities, and I think on an annual basis, as we go through our budget development process, we will then bring forward, opportunities for the commission to consider. And doctor Gassman, would you like to add to that?

Doctor Nancy Gassman, I think it's important to recognize that there's different layers and different action items within the plan. Some are related to maintenance, some are related to preservations, and some are related to planting. And so one of the things that we'll be doing probably in the next four to six weeks is to gather internal staff and prioritize those 62 recommendations, looking at what we can accomplish at the least cost, looking at which items will give us the biggest bang for a buck as we invest, and then looking at those items that we want to bring forward for decision packages moving into fiscal twenty seven. And so using that process to prioritize and look at where we can get some quick wins, but also where staff feel is the greatest prioritization for more maintenance, more preservation, more inspection. We will follow those recommendations and use those to help guide how we request funding going forward.

And there's a certain amount of funding that's available within the Tree Trust Fund as it stands today that we can work through the budget amendment process to request some additional funds earlier on to start some of the process moving forward.

Great. So that sounds good. So like some of the recommendations, just getting a couple of specifics, is like this idea of tree baits, which are a play on rebates, right? So to incentivize irrigation related tree baits to owners who plant trees on their properties or another one that I thought is really interesting is utility based tree baits to homeowners who strategically plant trees on their property, which could provide shade and thus lower energy consumption. So do we just as those as just one example, would we have to fund those rebates right from another allocation?

So anything that would have a fiscal impact, we would have to bring that to the commission, whether through a budget amendment or through the annual budget development process, which is more so where I would like to see this go so that we can take a holistic view of, how we implement the urban forestry master Master Plan. So, yes, anything that is a rebate that has a dollar value, yes, we would need to budget for that.

Okay. Great. And so that's something, Raquel, I just see as regardless of where the greatest need to grow the canopy, which is great to focus on that, but regardless of that, the tree baits could be everywhere, right, and helpful anywhere, just as one example as I kind

of think about this. So for example, a tree rebate program, could be initially piloted in a certain area of the city based on the need and the prioritization. I don't know that we would launch with a citywide because tree bait we may not see the impact that we'd like to see. So all of those recommendations will be evaluated on a case by case basis based on the level of impact, both fiscally and actually to the canopy. Great.

Thanks.

And and and circling back around, I'm I'm sitting here, I'm taking this all in, and, you know, I'm always ringing the bell about District 3. This red is all over District 3. Mhmm.

Well, the the airport can use some trees.

Yeah. But we're not talking about the airport. We're talking about District 3.

Line the runway with trees. Where

where I'm going with this, okay, we are recognizing that, our city, we have this urban, tree master plan. And just like we do with everything else, we do a priority. We focus in on those areas that is the necessity. And what I'm seeing here I'm I'm I'm really concerned, and I'm surprised for what I'm seeing because when I think about Merritts Park, I know it to be what I know it to be is a community that's filled with trees. Our neighbors are always talking about preserving their trees, and to see us being a a neighborhood who is highlighted as, you know, being one of those that have less trees.

And then also, a lot of young manners. So I'm I'm I'm going through this. But what I'm saying is what what where can District 3, as the city commissioner, how can I be a part of this process with the staff, with, what's going on to make sure that we are receiving the attention needed to be just up to level? We are how many points behind the East side of the city? And there was trees.

I grew up in this neighborhood. We had fruit trees. We had many trees. And I remember when the fruit fruit fruit fly incident and all our trees in a sense were removed because of that, situation with the trees being infected. So how do we get to a point I'm I'm I guess I am addressing this as city manager to be a part to make sure that this is a balanced opportunity for the West Side of the city as well. Thank

you for that question. And if we could just look at slide 13, it's a little less, of a distinction. Now we have shades, various shades of green, and so each slide depicts something a little different, but it all does tell the same story that District 3 is at the lower end of the spectrum when we look citywide. And so, again, I I think that the approach from staff is going to be for us to focus on those areas where the canopy coverage is less than in other areas of the city, and that would be the holistic approach across the board for the various initiatives that might come forward based on those 62 recommendations. And and if the commission, wants to go in that strategic direction, that type of support, when we bring the items forward, would be necessary.

If the commission wanted to, take a more district centric approach and, you know, perhaps maybe there's a combination of a a tiered way to do this, maybe areas of the city that are less on the canopy scale would be in the first tier of prioritization, and maybe we do a district wide pot that can be spread across and have every district participate. But again, I think the primary approach is to go where the need is, and then secondarily, we would want to touch all the districts.

Well, think you originally said, Why don't we consider a pilot project? Because I think that it's an enormous task, enormous responsibility, which you're suggesting, for example, in the area of District 3 where there seems to be the greater need. So what would be the plan? The city to go into the public realm and certainly we can plant trees in the public realm. But to the extent that most of the deficiency is not in the public, but in the private property owners, what do you do there?

You knock on their door and say, we're here to plant a tree in your yard or We're here to give you an incentive to plant a tree. How far can we go financially to try to make up for 160,000 trees for the whole city? I mean it's daunting. Certainly, I think the whole project has merit because at least it shows the direction where the city needs to go and trying to green up the city for all the reasons that you described. But the reality is how do you get there?

How do you get past first space? So that's the strategy we have to come up with because this idea of a you call call it a tree bait, that assumes that the owner of the property has the money to spend $100 to go buy a tree. Then we give them a partial rebate. Certainly, we're not going to give them a full rebate. We used to give out trees.

I don't know how successful that was. Usually twentieth we used to have I remember years ago the promenade in Victoria Park in Holiday Park, we used to have that big fair and people would come there and they would they'd get a free tree. I remember events at South Middle River and different neighborhood associations would have these scrawny little trees where people would take them home and they'd become trees. Those are all very here and there kind of things. They're not hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of trees being planted every year. So, I don't know how to do that.

Think building off of that, what you said, you've said much, and, I believe that's a great place to build, start our pilot program on. That, like you said, with those activities, those events where free trees were given, if that's something we can still do, I believe we at neighborhood day, neighborhood support night, we still do that. We still do that. We still do that. So, even that that is a a tree being planted if that person who takes the tree follows through.

And then also with the, the opportunity where you say knocking on doors, having those conversations, you know, that begins with that conversation at the, homeowners associations and whatever town halls that we're we're promoting this opportunity for the trees. And, yes, we still have that that conversation about can I afford to maintenance the tree? We're back to that part of it. Because a lot of times, that becomes a, lack of a better term, another mouth to feed. Now I have to water my tree.

I have to, nourish my tree, and that has to be considered as well. So thinking about the species of trees that we're offering, is it a tree that would be self sustainable in a sense if the if the nature would take care of this new baby that I'm assuming in my yard? So all of that could be a part of the conversation, but I believe we would have some folks that would enjoy now having a shade tree in their backyard or their front yard.

I remember when I planted last year five apple trees in my yard in Connecticut. By the end of the year, every single leaf had been eaten off by the deer who saw it as a smorgasbord. Mayor, you're just going to have

to step up tuba shavat this year. I think to really you're step it up.

We'll plant two trees

this year.

Step it up, mayor. The things that I hear the most in my district is basically that we need to focus on, disincentivizing the removal of trees. When I see a lot of redevelopment happening in my district, people get really upset.

I thought we'd do that, though.

Not enough. It's so easy.

Is it a penalty? It's nothing.

You take down trees, you have to replace it?

With the new tree preservation ordinance, higher fees and additional disincentives have been put in place. And when you look at a map like this or a map like the equity map, the red areas, can focus on planting more trees. The areas that already have a good tree canopy, we can focus on more of the preservation enforcement type work. So again, the plan offers opportunities to protect the existing trees as well as to incentivize the additional trees. And I think that there's something in there for every corner of the city. It's a matter of where we prioritize what aspect of the plan.

Because I hear from neighborhoods when people come in and if there's some sort of new development or even if it's a single family home or townhome or whatever and very, really lovely mature trees are removed and what gets put back in place is just a little tiny little nothing. And, people have an issue with that. I mean, I remember, although it wasn't my district, I I heard so many complaints just west of the Oakland Park Bridge when we lost, the city lost, I think, one of its most magnificent trees. I think it was a mahogany. It was in front of the Crescent Office building.

One of the most incredible specimens we had, and they really didn't have to pay much to remove it, and I don't even know why it was removed, but I hear those kinds stories a lot. Obviously, it's anecdotal, but I think that's where people want to, focus. I did want to mention, I did appreciate, I think the mayor sort of referenced Doug Coleman's e mail that we got. Did you all get a copy of that as well, with some of those recommendations? I wanted to have a little bit of a discussion because I think some of those comments are really worthwhile discussing, but, I, too, am not really in favor of allowing, funding to come from the Tree Canopy Trust Fund to deal with staff.

And I I really wanna see it just go for trees. And maybe if you could just discuss that concept of of using that fund to train staff.

So when the recent tree preservation ordinance was approved, there were changes made for the allowance of the tree trust fund. And a small portion of the trust fund is allowed to be used for a variety of activities that are not directly related to tree planting. But I think one of the things to consider is that a small investment in the training of staff, a small investment in, the education of the public can result in major changes in, being able to better enforce our rules and regulations. And so the way that our current ordinance stands, we can use the Tree Trust Fund, a portion a small portion of the Tree Trust Fund for those types of activities. So that's already an ordinance.

That's already available to us.

But what is that kind of a dollar amount or a percentage or how is that ascertained what you can get to to use for that kind of training?

So the way that the ordinance is currently written, a portion of the cost of planting a tree related to auxiliary costs, we can use up to 20% of the, tree trust fund in any given year to support auxiliary costs. In addition to that, a portion of that 20% can also be used for supporting recommendations of the Urban Forestry Master Plan, which could include training. And from a dollar amount standpoint, you're talking about $500,000 maximum out of the Tree Trust Fund, for example, in this year. But that doesn't mean that that's the amount that would end up getting spent. Understood. And Thank to the city manager's point, all of those types of expenditures have to go through a process in order to be approved.

Okay. Excellent. Thank you. And thank you, gentlemen, for your work on this. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Is there any other questions you have? Do you have anything else you wanted to add? Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Doctor. Gassman.

Mayor, I just wanted to get consensus that you the commission would like to bring this back, for acceptance via resolution.

Yes, we could. I have a few people who sign up to speak, though, So let's hear from them, and then we can make that decision. Kira Porus. Is Kira here? Kira? No. Megan? Megan's not here. Charlie King and Doug Coolman.

I don't think the percentage is that important of getting hung up on this 33% or that sort of thing. For me, it's more about the quality of the tree that it should be like a native tree. Like I I think our live oaks, we should be protecting, like you just treat them like they're regular trees or something. But they if it's hundreds of years old, it's just never going to be replaced, especially with the speed at which our society moves, where every sixty years, we come in and scrape the lot and cut everything down. So it just seems like today, I mean a year ago, I was here trying to help me stop a developer from cutting this hundreds of year old tree that was like this big around and you guys didn't help.

He had a boom truck 20 feet over my property line doing it. I couldn't get the city to help stop that. They said it was a civil matter.

What was the reason that the city allowed that tree to be cut down? Was it because it's not a native tree? What was the

reason It was I before your this latest tree law you did. He still hasn't built anything in the property, so they can lie. But he jumped ahead to cut the tree down when you were just giving it away. And then you changed the law. It's a little more expensive now. But it's not hard to get a tree trimmer to say, there's some bugs on this tree or the fork should have been here or there. I mean that's what they that's their job. They work for these people. It's not hard to get a sick tree report out of an arborist or something. So you would protect the trees, treat live oaks like they're something

No, it's frustrating because that was a beautiful tree, and I couldn't believe that it got cut down. It was part of what makes Victoria Park so charming are these are the old growth trees, but

I mean, I saw a pile of oak live oaks over by the Parker Playhouse. There's a huge tree there. Are you guys cutting that tree down?

You mean where the YMCA is? Yes. Yes. I know that we're moving some trees.

I mean, there's a huge one that's still there. Are you leaving that one? I don't know.

You better go look

quick. Wait, I I'm happy to report

think you

should treat those things that are here that can survive hurricanes and can survive

I don't disagree with

And if you just get up to 33% by planting a bunch of trash trees and then there's a hurricane, it just leaves us with a giant problem where there's trees down all over the place and we have that giant mulch mountain in Holiday Park. I mean it's like you're just creating a problem. You're not solving it. You're not going to have a billboard. Fort Lauderdale's tree canopy has reached 33%. It's not like something you're going to brag about. It's not like, I mean, maybe in certain circles, but

it's Well, we're Tree City USA, so Well,

what is that? We're a Play City USA. We've got

a lot of trees should be using them, and we'll

take that to Salt Lake City, and she'll she'll be waving a tree.

But I mean, just start oak trees. I don't what are the other big native trees are that have can survive hundreds of years and go through hurricanes with no problem. Like those are the things you should be planting and not just a tree that's basically grows the fastest and then it falls over in a storm. So I mean, have a long term view of it and get into the quality versus the quantity. That's what I would say. Okay. Thank you.

Doug? Doug Kuhlman?

Good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor and commissioners. My name is Doug Coleman. I'm here as an individual, but I'm also here as a member of the pro bono advisory group that helped over the last few years write the tree ordinance. I want to commend Rez on their project because the data that they accumulated is immensely important and was unknown in 2020 when we set the master plan goal of 33% tree canopy by 2040. Had those people had that information, they wouldn't put this commission in position to have to plant 10,000 to 14,000 trees a year for 1,100,000.0 to $2,400,000 a year to meet that goal. The goal

is That under doesn't include the trees. That price doesn't include the trees. That's just for staffing.

No. Well, that's I'll take a minor point on staffing. The when we endorse the When we rewrote with the city staff the tree ordinance, we agreed to modify the, tree canopy trust fund to allow up to a certain percentage of funds to be spent for non planting of trees specifically to help them write the urban forestry master plan and maintain it. The one thing that's in their recommendation to tap into that again for training or anything else, we certainly don't endorse it, but it would be a big mistake. If we're going to plant trees, we're going to have to set a realistic budget.

With that said, there are things we can do, and the new tree ordinance has started to address them. First of all, we just need to enforce the existing tree ordinance. The problem we have in the city we have identified is a doesn't know what b does. They send 10 inspectors out to the site and they only look at the one thing they're looking at instead of looking at all the things specifically, tree abuse. That's one.

Two, all the city's tree properties in the city need to be looked for compliance. A lot of these projects, specifically commercial ones, were built and the trees expired in a year or two. Go back out there and make them replant them. Three, we need to continue to require all new projects to meet the code. And four, definitely don't take money out of the Tree Canopy Trust Fund for anything other than trees and update this urban forestry master plan.

Oversimplified, I would hope you would redirect the city's consultant to reconsider their recommendation to achieve a goal by a realistic year that the city can afford. We can't afford to spend up to $2,000,000 a year out of our general funds in the next fifteen years to reach this goal, so we need to reach this goal, but we need to look at it a little differently. The stuff that they've provided, that data is immensely important. We didn't have it. I'm sure the staff can use it to guide us, but the main thing is, let's do the plan, but let's kind of think it over a little different because the goal by 2040, that much money, that many trees, 10,000.

They're planting 2,000 trees in now this city. How are we going to plant five to 7x that? But anyway, that's I did send you an e mail with a lot more specifics, and we look forward to we certainly endorse the Urban Fortune master plan, but it needs a few tweaks, the one about take money out of the fund to educate the staff. If we need educated staff, let's hire some. We've got some great staff. We need more. Let's hire them with the education.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any further comments with regard to this item? There being none, thank you, folks. We really appreciate your work on this. Moving on to Business three, International Swimming Hall of Fame project updates. City manager.

Thank you, mayor. I just wanted to begin by saying thank you so much to the developer for, going back to the table with city staff and being very flexible and amenable to the district two commissioner for working with staff and the developer and to the commission for allowing us to do a little bit more homework and due diligence on this. We've made some tweaks since the last presentation at the last meeting, and we believe that we have a project that reflects more risk mitigation on the city or for the city. And Susan is gonna go through the presentation, and then I believe that, the development team will also provide a few comments. Thank you.

Thank you, manager Williams, and good afternoon, mayor, vice mayor, commission, Susan Grant, city manager's office. And I join, the city manager in thanking you all and the project team, in helping us get to where we are. And I'm gonna start off with just a little background so that way the recommendations we're gonna make at the end will be in a little bit of context. So we remember receiving the unsolicited proposal five plus years ago in September 2020, all the way to the agreement, the comprehensive agreement being approved in September '23. And then the closing of phase one, if you remember, that is the seawall and the Ocean Rescue Building happened in October 2024.

And we're getting monthly or weekly reports of the progress of that. And I know that the folks in Ocean Rescue are very excited about the progress of that building. So we talked about it last time, but there is the phasing of the project and you see there's phase one. Phase two would be the next one that would close and that includes the West Building and you could see all the things that are included there as well as the public promenade and that's the ground level promenade. And then you see phase three and phase four there.

A project structure. So the city leases the land to Hall of Fame Partners, and that they construct the improvements. Those improvements are leased back to us through, that master facilities lease. That's the number we're gonna talk about as far as the the maximum number that increase. You could see that there are two entities, Aishof Peninsula and Aishof.

All of them would have a set of sub subleases, and that's what they would generate what we are calling the revenue waterfall. And that money would go back up to offset the cost of our master lease payment. Currently, that waterfall that I just described has a 100 of the lease based revenue going back to the city. And currently, the next $2,000,000 of revenue, the non lease based revenue coming to the city, and then a fifty fifty split, between Aishof and the city, again, to offset, that master lease payment. So the initial set of requested changes that we talked about to, last meeting, was number one, to revise the comprehensive agreement to allow for grant awards.

We know folks at the, Hall of Fame Partners have worked closely with staff on applying for grants from FIND and have been very successful in that. But the current CA doesn't necessarily have a provision that allows for, the acceptance of grant funds. So we would amend the CA to allow for that. The next request was to increase that minimum lease payment from 11,000,000 to 13.6. As a result of that increase, we negotiated a change of that second tier in the waterfall, taking the first 2,000,000 and increasing that to $4.07 5.

Again, that was, designed to help mitigate some of the risk of that increase. And then there would be a few other changes in the CA and in the other agreements. First, to, reflect the change in the East Building that would be renovated versus reconstructed and possibly the addition of an elevated promenade. So if you remember, PFM was here at the last meeting and they gave us the base case of the revenue waterfall as well as five different scenarios. And you could see there with the base case, we were looking at a $1,100,000 positive position for the city.

And in those scenarios, the worst case was a minus 1,400,000. So based on the feedback that we got from the commission at the last meeting, we went back to the table and met with the folks from Hall of Fame Partners and came up with two different or two additional recommendations, both during the entire thirty year term contract or the agreement. First, if we wind up in a negative position in the city, that there would be, no fifty fifty split with the revenue with Eyshoff that it would all go to the city until we wound up in a breakeven position. The second would be in any year that there was a positive position, half of the iShoff revenue share would go into an escrow account that the city would hold, and we would be able to use to offset previous or future years where there's a negative position. So based on those two additional recommendations, we ran reran those scenarios that you saw.

So that top set is what we looked at initially, that PFM provided to us. In that revised case, the set on the bottom, in the what do you call it? In the base case, obviously, no difference because we're in a positive position, but you see there's an escrow deposit going to offset future losses. Under scenario one, you can see that we go from a minus 264,000 to a minus $2.25. So a better of 39,000.

You can see the biggest difference in scenario three, and that in that case, we were looking at a negative position of 1,400,000.0. This takes it down to 323,000. So we wind up for the better of, a million dollars. So that's what we're looking at as far as revised recommendations. And I'd like to at this point, I could either answer any questions now or have some folks from the project team come up and talk to you, about a few of the issues or questions you might have.

Okay. Anyone have any questions of Susan? Let me ask you something, Susan. So how do these folks make any money? In other words, we're collecting where rent is being paid. Correct. And the rent is being paid to us. The override on profits at certain percent according to the lease is going to be paid to us. Correct. And it will be paid to us 100% to ensure that there's no deficit that we have to cover.