Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, everyone. And this is the City of Port St. Lucie Board of Zoning Appeals this Monday, July 13th, 2026 at 12 o'clock p.m. Please stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilwoman Morgan? Yes, ma'am. Councilman Pickett?

Yes, ma'am.

Mayor Martin? Here, ma'am. Councilman Bonner?

Yes, ma'am.

Vice Mayor Caraballo? Here, ma'am.

Okay. Moving on to Item 3A, Partial Appeal of the Denial of the Heredo Realty Advisors, Inc., and Ganey, John, and Joan Variants P26-036 by the Planning and Zoning Board.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. For the record, Sophia Trill with the Planning and Zoning Department here to present to you this variance appeal request for Harito Realty Advisors Incorporated and John and Joan Ghani. The applicant and agent for the project is Edward McDonald with Thomas Engineering Group. The property owners are the John Mahama Ghani and Joan Davis Ghani Living Trust and Harito Realty Advisors Incorporated. The property is located on the northwest corner of Southwest Bougainvillea Avenue and Southwest Gatlin Boulevard. The Planning and Zoning Board request at their May meeting was to grant a variance to the building rear setback requirements and the landscaping requirements for a proposed retail development. Before I move on, I just want to provide some clarification that today's appeal request is partial. They are only requesting a appeal to the decision for the variance, for the grantee of the variance for the building rear setback requirements. and not the landscaping requirements. This is an aerial image of the property. It's currently vacant with single family to the north and south and commercial to the east. The property has a residential office future land use with low density residential to the north, open space recreation, low density residential to the south, and general commercial to the east. Lots 5 and 6 are zoned professional, while lots 7 through 10 are zoned single-family residential. They're single-family residential to the north, south, and west, professional to the east, and as well as general commercial. So listed on the screen are the 3 requests that were made to the planning and zoning board back in May again we're there only appealing the decision for variance one which is a variance of 14.6 feet from the building where yard 25 foot setback requirement they're asking that they're building say approximately 10.4 feet from the rear property line. This is a conceptual plan showing that corner of the building that's proposed 10.4 feet from the rear property line. This is a image of their proposed landscape plan. The application was submitted concurrently with two other requests, one for a rezoning of all of the lots to limited mixed density zoning district designations and a request for a special exception use to allow retail use that exceeds 50% of the building's gross floor area and exceeds 5,000 square feet. All of the property owners have entered into a unified control agreement to rezone and develop ALL SIX LOTS. THEY ARE NOT CURRENTLY PROPOSING ANY DEVELOPMENT FOR LOT 5. BASED ON THE LOCATION OF THE PROPOSED BUILDING AT THIS TIME, THE OWNERS WOULD NEED TO SUBMIT AN APPLICATION TO THE CITY COUNCIL TO ABANDON 10 FEET OF THE 20-FOOT DRAINAGE EASEMENT ALONG THE REAR BOUNDARY OF THE SUBJECT PROPERTY. The Planning and Zoning Board denied all three variance requests at their May 5th, 2026 meeting. The applicant requested an appeal to the city clerk's office on May 15th, 2026, but is no longer requesting a variance to the landscaping requirements of the code. And if the council has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. The applicant does also have a presentation. Thank you. Council, questions? Okay.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, members of the City Council. My name is Harold Dot. I own Haredo Realty Advisors, so I own four of the lots that are in question here. And I have a very good relationship with my neighbors, the Ghanis, who are in California. I just wanted to do just a brief introduction and overview. Who you will be hearing from today is Eddie McDonald, who is our civil engineer with Thomas Engineering, and Rick Bushey, who is with Dynamic Engineering. He is the developer on the project. I have done work on the Gatlin Boulevard corridor going back to 2002. So I would say that I have a pretty good working knowledge and relationship with city requirements. And of course, you know, we respect that history on the on the corridor with the development of Gatlin Commons, the Walmart and Sam's, the Starbucks, the racetrack property. So I do have experience in the corridor. I've never had to ask for a variance of this type. The hardship presented by the site is that there is a curvature and Eddie in his presentation will show this curvature on Bougainvillea which influences what we can do. We're trying to put in a rectangular box and the curvature on Bougainvillea has made some, necessitated some adjustments to our site plan. we worked with staff with pnz staff was great with us we've worked with them for over a year it's it's been a challenging project given the size of the the store they need and the geometry of the site but we worked with public works we worked with the legal department um You know, PNZ, the head of PNZ and Dan Cox really tried to show us how to use the code to get the project done. So it wound up being about a five-step. It wound up being a complex project to get to the finish line, as Sophia already outlined. So I'm going to skip that. I think one of the things that happened at PNZ is that we failed to prepare for a detailed presentation. And I think as a result of that, there was some confusion and a lot of questions. We also requested, as you've heard, multiple variances. So in our reconsideration, we would ask the board to look carefully just at the setback variance because we feel like many of the other questions and the other requests we can deal with within the code. So we... We had a neighborhood meeting. We held the neighborhood meeting in March, on March 19th. We are unaware of any opposition to the project. I did reach out to the council members for Districts 2 and 3 because Gatlin Boulevard is the border. Just to inform them, we didn't have any detailed discussions, but I informed those council members that they may I get phone calls from residents and things like that. So I don't know if any phone calls came in or not, but we're unaware of any opposition to the project. And at Site Plan Review Committee, we got unanimous approval. So what I'd like the board to do, you know, today we're to do a detailed presentation following mine and hope you would, you know, give us due consideration for the request for the setback. Thank you very much. And we're here to answer any questions at any time. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. My name is Edward McDonald. I'm with Thomas Engineering Group. quickly run through a quick presentation for you. So the setback is the main reason that we're here. We're here to appeal the denial of the variance to reduce the required 25 foot rear yard setback to 10 feet or 10.4 as staff had mentioned. I want to kind of run you through the site, what we're against, where the site's at, how it's located, and then kind of go in the details. But the request is only for appeals to the 25-foot yard setback. The items on the landscaping, I think we're going to be in full compliance with that. We kind of went down a different path. But the landscaping, we're going to handle separately. So we're only here to talk about the rear yard setback. So if I could skip back ahead. So the site, as you know, this is just an aerial kind of showing the overall characteristics of the neighborhood, what we're up against. The site does fall into the L&D conversion area. This gives us the ability to rezone the current RS2, the single family, which that's the intent of this corridor is where we want to see commercial development along it and get rid of the RS2 zoning. So away goes the small single family homes that are kind of deterring development. Our site would come in and kind of connect the chain. We would be providing cross access, providing public infrastructure in the way of a sanitary sewer lift station that would eventually connect the access, also size the sewer lift station to allow the undeveloped lots to our west to also kind of tie in. Should we be granted this request, it would be a link in the chain that would start to eliminate the traffic that would potentially be there if someone built a single family home on that road and driveways backing in and out. Aerial with the lots on the screen is lots 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The request today excludes lot 5. It's only 6 through 10 where the Dollar Tree site will end up falling, a total of 1.59 acres. The zoning, as staff had told us, sorry, I'm skipping ahead. The unity of control would lock in lot five as part of it, even though it would be undeveloped. But it would be united in there until future development can absorb that to the west. This right here is showing the canal to the north. The RS2 designation to the canal to the north is what triggers the need for this 25 foot setback. So again, the request, I had skipped ahead to this slide, but just to simplify it, it's only the appeals here of the setback. Here's a site plan that shows the conceptual layout for the Dollar Tree. Cresta reduced the minimum 25 foot setback to 10 foot. This is the straight writing, which is technically a 15-foot deviation from 25 to 10. We would seek to have this item appealed on the grounds of public welfare and hardship inconsistency. The granting of this variance would not affect the public welfare. It would be the minimum variance necessary and only required as such because the existing canal is zoned as residential. So we are not harming the public welfare. We're in harmony with the intent of the proposed development that the city wants to see along this corridor. And we believe that should you grant this appeal, it would be equitable for commercial properties within this area as well. So... As you can see, this is just, again, zoomed in. Existing zoning lots 5 and 6 is professional. 7, 8, 9, 10 is RS2. The canal is RS2, right? So when Port St. Lucie was originally kind of laid out, everything was RS2 in this area, which included the canal, which is not a single family home. If the canal was designated any other land use other than residential, it would only require a 10-foot setback instead of the 25, which we are currently held to. So the requested setback variance from technical code section 158, 155, J3. Rear setback. Each lot shall have a rear yard with a building setback line of 10 feet. A setback line of 25 feet is required when the yard joins a residential land use or public road right away. So this right here is just kind of giving you an idea of how this is going to eventually show to you how it would be an equitable resolution granting of the appeal. So from our building corner, which we're proposing essentially a 10-foot setback, to the nearest residential property line is 124.96 feet, plus or minus. So just call it 125 feet. So other immediately adjacent, 166, 171. For context, the immediately adjacent commercial office there is 135, rounded up. So here I wanted to show you some similar setbacks examples of real life. The Aldi located at 1.1 miles away fully complies with the code. They have RS2 zoning immediately adjacent to them. They don't have a canal in between them. And they have from their building to the other building, not even the property line, of 80 feet. We are 125 feet from our building to the adjacent residential property line. So I really want to kind of hammer in that we have a canal between us. And because the canal is zoned RS2, that's really where we're getting the issue with our layout. Goodwill, same thing, located 0.9 miles east of the subject site. So same zoning. So from the edge of the building to the residential property line is approximately 125 feet, which that would be our condition as well. So it's not too far a leap to say that it would be an equitable solution should this appeal be granted. Because the canal is zoned to RS-2, we are required to have the 25-foot setback. Granting this variance would not be damaging to any of the homes and would still provide over 125 feet of total separation slash setback. The properties and conditions of the rezoning area are such that a six foot tall masonry wall would be constructed along that north property line, our north property line, and be between our building, then the canal, and then the residential properties. The only way that it would be a home is if the canal got filled in a house got built on it, which that would not be the case and would not happen. So the benefits of granting this request. The discount retailer would compete for traffic that would go to a larger box like a Walmart. Bases of price, several items, including groceries, would be a good benefit to the surrounding neighborhood. The Dollar Tree is a low traffic generator. It's close to the residential neighborhoods. eliminate trips on the roadway. You can go in, pick up your small item, continue on your day. The Dollar Tree's presence here will help keep traffic off Gatlin. They may purchase the Dollar Tree rather than go all the way, again, a larger box. Hal had mentioned we are unaware of any neighborhood opposition to what we're proposing for the site. And then Dollar Tree would be constructing the lift station. We would be stubbing and sizing infrastructure to support the future development west of us, including the cross-access. So again, that would be a benefit to the surrounding area. The request before you today is the appeals of only the setback from 25 feet to 10 feet. And again, we believe that it would be in harmony. It would be equitable. Given the site's unique structure and shape and what we're trying to do on the site and what we're trying to bring to the neighborhood, the specific, if you were to, let's just go to the site plan, if you were to just offset the blue line 25-foot what you would end up with you would have 229 square feet of our 10,000 square foot building that would be within that 25 foot setback and that's 2.3 percent of the total building. It's a very small request. We're not trying to Jam the entire property up there. It's just the unique configuration of that curvature and how it comes together for us to make it work which you know the Dollar Tree It's a national user. They have very specific layouts that are internal to the building as far as the stores, the racking, the way that the customer or the customer, the employer is supposed to load, unload. They count the number of steps that the employer has to go from the loading to take the trash out to dumpster, right? So they're looking for efficiencies. They're looking for replication as far as how their store can operate and be successful and fit within the greater scheme of things with their use. So for us to fit here, we worked very hard with staff for many, many months, adding up to over a year as far as to get to the point where we were denied the variances. And I think looking back that the landscape and the way that we were approaching the landscape with the guidance from staff, I think was a little clumsy and we were clumsy in our presentation of that request. And I believe asking for two variances on the landscaping and then asking for this variance of the setback was a bit of a bridge too far for the board. So we really want to simplify it, right? And just bare minimum, we can comply with the landscaping. We're going to be submitting a revocable encroachment permit Staff had mentioned earlier in their presentation the need for Public Works and the abandonment of the easement. That application has been submitted to Public Works. They have it. It's on hold until we get further down the line with their approval, hopefully today. Then we have to come back in and we also have the steps for the rezoning and the special exception. So the boards will see this project again as far as the approvals go. if we can clear this obstacle on the setback, if we can make this building work, this layout work, which everything else is met on the site, parking, green space, all of it is met. We put a lot of work and effort into it, and we're hoping that what we're presenting to you today is something that you see as fair and equitable as far as our requests. So I give it over to you. If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you. I think we have a technical issue here. Yes, yes. Just for the benefit of the board, the appellant has in the presentation has used the measurement of 15 feet. I'm not sure if that was just a rounding of the 14.6, but just for the benefit of the board, the scope of what is in front of the board today and what was presented to the PNC board is 14.6. 14.6, that's right.

I did round up... I guess for clarity, but yes, I agree.

So the information in the presentation is not correct, and it's not 15 feet. It would be 14.6. Is that correct?

14.6 feet, correct.

So make sure that record is clear on that. Yes.

That's correct.

Correct.

14.6.

14.6.

The setback, the bare minimum that we need is 10.4, as staff mentioned in their report, and I 100% agree with that. Correct. And that's from the corner of the building to the property line.

Okay, thank you.

My apologies.

Any questions of the applicant council? I have a question. Go ahead. Thank you for your presentation.

The space you said is 10,000. According to this, it's 10,062 square feet.

Correct.

Is that the average size of a Dollar Tree? Is that typical?

Their sweet spot is 10,000. It might fluctuate a few square feet, and they have a few different variations as far as how they make their rectangle and make their racking work internally, but 10,000 square feet is a solid number.

Was there any consideration for the applicant to make it smaller, to make the footprint smaller to actually fit the site?

Not smaller, just we tried many different layouts as far as building location, different size of the building, configurations of the rectangle, but the 10,000 is what this national retailer needs operate.

Because my concern is that, and I appreciate that response, I just think that many retailers have modified their site plans or the size of their buildings to actually fit the site that they're looking for. And the design of the site in itself, to me, has efficiency issues. So that corner being capped off doesn't allow full access to the building, vehicular access. And then the parking is just so skewed. It's like you're trying to fit something in a box that doesn't really fit. And so, um, and for me it's, it's just one, it's, it's a, it's a huge functionality issue besides just a design issue. And I just, if the building was slightly smaller, I think you'd actually work. But, um, I don't know if that was ever a consideration. That's why I was asking.

Not for this user here. Um, they can't go much smaller. They're, they're, They're 10,000 square feet. I lay them out everywhere in different cities, counties, and it's always 10,000 square feet. As far as the layout, the traffic flow, if I can address, I think you said, we have the traffic flow. We have access from Bogovilia Avenue around our building. We're able to make our truck loading work, and we also have a stub out for future cross access that would continue west. So the functionality of the site as far as the parking is 100% met. The loading is met. The dumpsters are met. We have our storm ponds on the site. We have a lift station on the site. We have full functional, and we're complying with all other elements of the land development code.

And listen, I'm not an architect. I'm just asking the question. But hypothetically speaking, where most of our retail is constructed now, let's say you have a semi come in. You know, our old designs allowed this. We have, like, I could tell you, perfect example is right on Floresa, old building, Cumberland Farms. That truck comes in, has to back out right on Floresa, right? Because it can't go around the building, that semi, from what I'm looking at, would probably have to back out into the parking lot to be able to, no? It can actually, it can go around that complete corner there?

It wouldn't be going around the building the way that the truck would load. It would come in off of Gatlin. from the main driveway, pull in, go left, and then it would back in to the loading spot. We have the cross access shown, and what you see in the striped area here is where The truck radius, when the truck backs in, it has to kind of swing out into a stripe area. So we have that stripe as loading. The wall would be blocking that loading area, and the landscaping would be on the opposite side of that wall. So from the purposes of the residential, they're going to see a wall. They're going to see the landscaping. and they're going to have the canal between them. So we have the functionality of the truck loading, which, again, when we run these trucks, we always run AutoCAD Truck turn analysis, which takes into account not the best drivers, but just the average worst driver. And it works on the computer, so the people in real life are going to be able to make this work way better. They're better truck drivers than what I can do in auto turn in the system. So the site is 100% functional. The truck does not have to access around the building in any way. It pulls in. It backs up. It's confined. We have it such that the parking for in front of the Dollar Tree is all that they need. They don't need as much parking as your code requires, but we are providing it to comply with the code, and we're not asking for one more parking variance, which I understand that the city is against giving parking variances. So it's very important to us to have the parking met on site, have full functionality of the truck turn, and no, it does not have to access Brown. But it's very important that we have the cross-access from Bougainvillea around the front of our site to the west, which will be stubbed for the future. So hopefully in the future, when this corridor gets developed as this land use conversion area wants, it wants it to be developed as commercial. It wants it to get out of the RS2 zoning. It won't be able to do so.

I'LL SEE WHAT OTHER QUESTIONS ARE. THANK YOU. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

GO AHEAD. MOST OF THE DELIVERIES THAT YOU'RE RECEIVING ARE FROM TRUCKS THAT ARE 38 FEET OR SMALLER, CORRECT? NO. THEY RUN THE LARGER TRUCKS. THE 53-FOOTERS? YES. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS?

I apologize for interjecting. I don't believe the witnesses were sworn previously. Would we be able to swear on the witness and then have an affirmation that previous testimony was true and accurate?

Sure. Wasn't on the agenda for them to be sworn, but yes, let's make sure we do everything right.

Do you always swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth to help you die? I do.

I do.

Thank you all.

And that's for everything I said so far today since I've been here.

We got it. Thank you. All right. If there's no more questions of the applicant, you can have a seat, sir.

Thank you.

Council.

I'll go ahead and put my two cents worth.

Hold on. I'm sorry. What was that? I thought you were done.

Okay. Come up. If the council permits it.

Are you okay, council, with having her? Yeah, she's sworn in.

I did.

Go ahead, sir.

Good.

Thanks for taking the time to listen to us today. My name is Rick Boucher. I work with Dollar Tree Stores. I wanted to clear up, help Eddie out a little bit on his presentation and answer your question. 10,000 square feet actually is our smallest prototype. Our current prototype size is 12,000 square feet. So we had to drop to the smaller size to fit on this site. We are also very concerned with public safety, people coming on and off the site. the reason the building sets back to where it is is because we require two rows of parking in front of the building that is a safety item we don't want people parking the majority of the customers to park on the sides of the building or the back and have to walk through the parking lot so to do that and to have two-way traffic that's another safety item we didn't want one-way traffic between bougainvillea and gatlin could have shrunk that drive aisle down to one way but that creates another traffic situation an unsafe situation so working within those constraints with a very odd shape site is kind of how we ended up where we are we wanted to make sure customers had two-way traffic had the majority of the parking in front of the building two rows of parking that's kind of a standard requirement for us to kind of keep us out of trouble and from people backing into each other and going the wrong way and that kind of stuff. So I'm also here to answer any questions if the board has any.

Any questions?

No? Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

Mayor, if I may, before we continue, can we just get confirmation from the council members if there were any ex parte communications?

None for me.

None for me.

I mean, you reached out to the office, but I didn't have a conversation.

Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, Councilwoman Morgan. Oh, I apologize. May we also have the two previous witnesses come up and affirm their testimony was fair and accurate pursuant to the oath? Yes. Who testified prior to swearing in? Yes. Yes. Come forward. Sorry, I believe you were, but from city staff as well.

Do you both affirm that your testimony was accurate? Yes. TRUTHFUL.

I DO. THANK YOU.

YES, THANK YOU.

LET'S TRY FOR THE THIRD TIME.

THIRD TIME'S A CHARM. SO THERE WAS A COMMENT MADE THAT THE SPRC HAD ALREADY APPROVED THIS PROJECT, WHICH KIND OF CONFUSES ME BECAUSE THEY HAVE, RIGHT?

It's a great question Councilman Morgan. So the SCU conceptual plan as well as the LMD concept plan had to both go to the site plan review committee to get recommendations for approval from public works, utilities, and planning and zoning. The recommendation from approval from planning and zoning was IN THE SENSE THAT IF THE VARIANCE WERE TO BE, THE VARIANCES WERE TO BE APPROVED, THEN THAT SITE PLAN, THAT CONCEPTUAL PLAN WOULD MOVE FORWARD. AND THEN PUBLIC WORKS AND UTILITIES DID RECOMMEND APPROVAL BASED ON THE CURRENT CONCEPT PLAN. BUT AGAIN, THOSE TWO APPLICATIONS ARE SEPARATE FROM THE VARIANCE REQUEST. THIS FIRST HAS TO BE APPROVED FOR THOSE TO MOVE FORWARD.

THANK YOU. DO WE NOT HAVE AN OVERLAY ON GATLIN TO NOT ALLOW ANY MORE RESIDENTIAL RIGHT ON GATLIN?

This property falls in the conversion area. This is in conversion area two, so most of the properties here have a residential office future land use, which allows them to rezone to one of the listed properties that matches those future land use designations.

Okay, thank you. So I am... Not in favor of allowing this, only because there's a few things. You've got the drainage canal behind you, and I know... I don't agree with allowing any variances into this to encroach in this because of maintaining the canals is very difficult as it is. And I have spoken with numerous people when they're running equipment and they're on such a slant, it could be dangerous. It's very dangerous. And we need that space for equipment and also to maintain the right of way or the canals. Actually, drainage, for drainage purposes. I just cannot get behind this. To me, the first thing I thought of when I looked at it was, I'm not going to say the words, but it's trying to fit 10 pounds of you-know-what into a 5-pound bucket. And it's just not a good fit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. THAT IT DOESN'T WORK. YOU DID TRY TO DO DIFFERENT PLANS, SO I'M ALMOST THINKING THAT MAYBE ANOTHER LOCATION WOULD BE BETTER. I JUST CANNOT BE IN FAVOR OF GRANTING AN ADDITIONAL SETBACK LIKE THIS. THANKS.

THANK YOU. WHO WOULD LIKE TO GO NEXT? ANYONE? GO AHEAD.

I CONCUR WITH COUNCILMAN MORGAN. THAT AREA OVER THERE, WE HAVE SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS DURING HURRICANE SEASON. If it had been 10 feet on the roadside, it might be a different story. But 10 feet on the canal, I just can't support that. And Councilwoman Morgan brings up a very good point. There's a lot of red flags in this, a lot of red flags along the way. And sooner or later, you've got to say, that's enough. And I think the variances that you asked for at PNZ, that should have told you the story right there. But for me, it's no.

Thank you. Who's next?

Sure. Thank you, Madam Mayor. You know, this is nearly, we rounded in the presentation, this is nearly a 60% variance. That's a pretty big variance when you look at it as a percentage. You know, you certainly made a lot of arguments, but because it's such a large variance and because of the similar concerns about the canal, I can't support it.

Thank you. Okay. With that, is there a motion? I'm in agreement with the council, by the way.

Motion to deny.

Second.

And I apologize. Because this is an appeal, the decisions are either affirm or deny. Affirm the denial. Or overturn, sorry. Affirm or reverse.

So motion to affirm the denial. Correct. That would be the correct vernacular.

Okay.

Thank you. I amend the motion similarly. My second, yeah. Okay.

So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries. All right, we have nothing further for this meeting. So our meeting is adjourned.