Planning Board - Regular Meeting

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Please take your seats. The meeting is about to begin. Remember to speak into the microphone as this meeting is being recorded for public record. Please stand by. We are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1. All right. Good morning everyone. Um his favorite line. Welcome to the uh February 10 planning board meeting. Full attendance. March today. I'm sorry. March. You're right. March 10th. Um we are going to start by approving the minutes from our February meeting. If I can get a motion to do that. Motion to approve. Okay. Can I get a second? Second, Elizabeth. All in favor? I.

Any opposed? No. Okay, we're approving the minutes. And I will now turn it over to our esteemed city attorney, Nick. Thank you. Good morning. Oh, I'm sorry. It's two for two.

Today's meeting of the planning board is being conducted in a hybrid format with a quorum of the board physically present in the commission chambers at Miami Beach City Hall and applicant staff and members of the public appearing either in person or virtually via Zoom. Those wishing to participate in today's meeting via Zoom may dial the toll-free number which is 877-853-5257 and enter the webinar ID which is 861-4342 6327 pound or log into the Zoom app and enter the webinar ID which again is 8614342-6327. Individuals wishing to speak on an item must click the raise hand icon if they are using the Zoom app or dial star9 if they are participating by phone. Before I swear on those who are testifying, I'm going to read into the record the city's notice regarding lobbyist registration. If you are appearing on behalf of a business, a corporation, or another person, including as an architect, attorney, or representative of an applicant or an objector, you need to register as a lobbyist with the city clerk's office before you speak to the board. If you haven't registered yet, you should register prior to appearing. You do not have to register if you are speaking only on behalf of yourself. You are testifying as an expert witness providing only scientific, technical, or other specialized information in this meeting, or you are appearing as a representative of a neighborhood association without compensation for your appearance to express support or opposition to an item. Expert witnesses and representatives of neighborhood associations shall, prior to appearing, disclose in writing to the city clerk their name, address, and the principal on whose behalf they are communicating. These rules apply whether you are appearing in favor of or against an item or encouraging or arguing against its passage, defeat, modification, or continuence. I will now swear on everyone who is physically present in the commission chambers and intends to testify. Virtual speakers need to be sworn in one by one before addressing the board. So, if you will be testifying today, please stand and raise your right hand.

Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you will be giving is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay, we're uh going to start with progress reports, planning board file 240684, uh Mint Lounge. And I have to I'm going to take a little bit of a chairman privilege to I was telling Deborah earlier that that I have to congratulate Mint because clubs normally don't have a long life and it's been there since I was in high school. So, I'm very proud of that.

Well, that's great. And you know, to that point, my name is Bob Deluente. Law office is at 1200 Brickl Avenue. I am here today on behalf of Mint Lounge. Um, so yes, you're correct. Mint has been around for a long time. Very good citizen of the city, great operator. In fact, not only has Mint Lounge been there for so long, but with me today are the new owner, Dan Guncram, and the 20-year manager of Mint Lounge, Andy Meyer. Um, so there's continuity here. Even though there is new ownership, we are here today because there was an issue on January 24th where there was an unexpected simultaneous arrival of a bunch of pre purchase ticket holders um which resulted in blocking of the sidewalk. So since then um Mint has been very proactive and I've passed out photos of before and after and you'll see that the number of stansions has more than doubled which more than doubled the ability to queue people. So now they have two lines that are coming in. Um so that that will never be another issue. They've also added two security people to come out in the event that there is overcrowding like that or it's a potential overcrowding to come and manage the crowd. So that has not been an issue since then and they've had similarly well attended events since then and it has not been an issue. The other issue is of course um responsibility for special events and they reaffirm their uh willingness and their commitment to doing that. Um, so I think it's important to also note that um, even though there was overcrowding on the sidewalk, they were never over capacity. You'll see in the staff report that they were well below when the fire marshall went inside to see what was happening. So um, this was just a logistical issue that has since been dealt with. Um, and um, I know that Debbie has mentioned also. Debbie, did you want to ask?

Yeah, I just I um as we were preparing uh for this meeting, I we did some research and unfortunately there was a recent warning for noise, a noise violation. It wasn't a violation issued. Code went out there. They did believe that there was an issue with noise and they issued a warning on February 22nd. No, just a warning.

Just a warning. Correct. Um and if you look through the 20 plus year history of this property, um they have been very good operators. There have been very limited um complaints andor violations for this property. So, um, you know, we were a little surprised when we saw the the photographs of all the the overcrowding on the sidewalk, but in general, it's it appears at least that this is a one-off and that they have done proactive measures to um to not have this happen in the future. So, I think staff is is pretty confident um that they again with these proactive measures that are in place now that they should not have any more problems. Um it's up to the board if you would like to bring them back in a couple months um just to just to see if their new measures are actually working.

Okay. Is there anybody else in chambers speak on this? Anybody on Zoom? Okay. Yeah. I I've never heard of uh in all the years I've been on planning, I've never had mint come before me, so I I'm fine dismissing it, but I'll let Any questions with No, I'm fine. Okay. Anybody else?

I'm fine. I just wanted to say a couple things. Um, number one, looking at the picture versus what you are proposing. You know, I'm not sure that's going to address it, but you know, I'm kind of giving you guys the benefit of the doubt and you guys are the professionals and you've handled yourself well over the years. And so, I just I'm in favor of closing this out. I just wanted to that's an observation I have is, you know, will that those extra two barriers help or fix the problem? Number two is that I guess the question of music when the code compliance officers walked up they heard music from the establishment and I haven't done a close review of this but you know I don't know I don't think there's supposed to be really music being heard on the outside and so that's another thing that to caution you all that to find a way to fix that because that's what's going to flag these issues I think the the crowding on the streets and loud music coming from these

assuming the doors must have been open because I've been to MIT many times and you don't hear anything when those doors are closed. But that's correct. Right. Yes, that's correct. When the doors are closed, you won't hear anything. And then there was also the the noise warning was driven by it was more vibration and it was from the townhouse and immediately very proactive. Um my client's been in touch constantly with the townhouse. They removed one of the subwoofers and that's addressed the issue. The townhouse is is happy now. So Okay. Okay. Anybody else? All right. So, I want to move to a motion to dismiss. Okay. I'll second that. All right. All in favor? I. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you guys.

Okay. New applications. I'm sorry. Modification of previously approved project planning board file 25810500 Collins Avenue and 1509 and 1515 Washington Avenue.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. An application has been filed requesting modifications to a previously issued conditional use permit for a neighborhood impact structure for a new seven-story hotel exceeding 50,000 square ft and a neighborhood impact establishment that includes an alcoholic beverage establishment or restaurant located on the rooftop of a building which is located on a property that is within 200 ft of a property containing a residential unit with an occupancy of more than 300 persons. Specifically, the applicant is requesting approval for the recre reconfiguration of the previously approved venues. This application was originally approved last year, including a neighborhood impact establishment encompassing several hotel venues. The project has continued to develop and the applicant is proposing minor modifications to the venue arrangements. Additionally, after consultation with the fire department, the applicant is proposing adjustments to the occupancy calculations to align with life safety code requirements. This results in an overall increase in occupancy of 12 persons. The remainder of the project, including the operational plan as approved by the board remains largely unchanged. Uh for the record, there is one typo in the order that needs to be corrected. This is condition 4 A. The total number of seats proposed for the cafe should be listed as 62. With that, staff recommends approval of the application is available for any questions.

So, good morning, Mr. Chairman, board of staff. Michael Larkin, 20 South Biscane Boulevard here representing the applicant. With me today is Gavin Curbzo from the principal. He's one of the principles and my colleague Mitchell Toian. Let's bring up the presentation. Next slide. Next slide. So, as you can see, this is an unusually large property for South Beach. It has double frontage on Collins and Washington Avenue. Haden Hall was traditionally the southern half of the assemblage, but then our clients purchased the northern half from Jimmy Resnik and combined the two to bring you this impressive project that you all have previously approved and we're seeking some minor modifications today. Next slide. The zoning is also split. You have CD2 on the west along Washington and the MXC on the east. And then surprisingly, there's also two different historic districts. Flingo Park on the west and then the Ocean Drive Collins Avenue on the east. Next slide. This is how Haden Hall looked originally. I've really hated that Greek statueette for the longest time. I don't think there's any way to get rid of it. Um maybe Debbie will relent eventually, but that's where it was. Next slide. You can see in this picture, someone has stolen it, thankfully. Next slide. And in the rendering, we took liberty to not have it there. Um, next slide. This is how the hotel will look from Washington Avenue. Next slide. And thankfully, we've partnered with Barry Sternlick bringing his Treehouse Hotel brand. It's not uh that common throughout the world. It's in Silicon Valley, Manchester, and London. And now it's going to be on the eastern seabboard of the United States right here in Miami Beach. Next slide. So our requests are to modify conditions 4 A 4B. Those are the conditions that contain the charts with the sea counts and occupant load. We're doing that

because as you go through the design process, things change in minor ways. But what doesn't change is the ability for us to seek a BTR. And then the BTR absolutely has to be consistent with the CUP. If there's any discrepancy, it's chaos. So, we're coming before you today for a housekeeping matter just to make sure the cup will be ultimately consistent with the BTR when we seek it. The second thing is we're relocating the approved pool bar venue from the southeast corner of the of the new building in Washington to the west side of Haden Hall. Next slide. Staff is recommending approval of both of these requests. Next slide. Just give you all I I didn't want to go through venue by venue. I think that'd be kind of tedious. But if you look at the approved offload, the proposed offload is only increasing by eight people. The seat count is actually decreasing by over 60 seats. Next slide. This is where the bar was approved by you all at the southeast corner of the new building, label number three. Next slide. This is we're proposing to move. You see number three kind of shifted across the pool and now it's tagged on the back end of the historic Haden Hall building. Next slide. This is a closeup um note about eight bar stool counters outside, three inside. It's going to complement the lobby lounge area again in the rear of the Headen Hall building. Next slide. This is a view from the pool deck looking into that space with the bar in the upper corner and then the lobby lounge below. Next slide. This is if you're in the lobby lounge space looking out toward the pool deck. Next slide. This is your recess bar in the pool deck looking eastward. That's what you'll see. Next slide. And this is a closeup of the outdoor bar counter. Next slide. And that's it. I'll be happy to answer any questions you all might have.

Okay. Thank you. Anybody in chambers speak on this? No. Anyone on Zoom? Okay. Close the public hearing. Question. Uh can you talk a little bit more about um the thinking of the fire department and why they uh I mean you're saying it's based on on the fire department comments. So could you talk about that a little bit? Particularly, you know, I'm looking at the rooftop restaurant where the occupancy is not double but close to that. And you know that's a little bit of a concern of more people up on the roof.

Yeah, we weren't running these plans through, but what happens sometimes, Scott, is that when people think about oload, they only think about seat count plus the area around the hostess stand plus any area behind a bar counter and that's it. But what the fire department really counts, believe it or not, are all the circulation paths between all the tables. And I think probably what happened the enclave was incorrectly calculated the first time around. So when the fire department got it, they're like, "What the hell are you doing?" You've got to include all the circulation pass at Well. So while it's un tremendously unlikely that the circulation pass will ever be occupied by people just standing there, the fire department always calculates a worst case scenario. And I think that's what happened.

So they're looking at the whole thing and just trying to even out the number of people around the whole property. Yeah. They're just looking is there enough uh space to evacuate these people down the two means of egress the two stairwells that are on the rooftop because you won't be taking that's one of the reasons they I mean did they recommend um putting a lot more people you know increasing the occupancy up on the roof? Yeah, they just they want to be abundantly sure that there's a way to evacuate these people. Okay. Are there any disclosures on this item? Okay, thank you.

Everyone good? Okay. So, want to move it? I' I'd actually have a question. Um, would it be possible for I noticed that there's only five free transit passes for the hotel and restaurant employees and also five feet uh, excuse me, five free valet passes to carpool. I'd like to see a little bit more than that. I mean, if you're going to have a hotel of that that many people, I think it's important that their employees have some ability to Let me look. How do you feel about that? Yeah. Double. How about 15? Oh my gosh. Hold on. Oh my gosh. This is a good I mean, how many employees are you going to have?

This is a good thing. How many employees are you going to have? You expect to have you beat us into submission. We'll do 15 on each category. Thank you. All right, then. Elizabeth, why don't you move it with that condition? I'll move it with that condition. Okay. Can I get a second? I'll second it. Second. All in favor? I I Anyone oppose? All right. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Okay. The attorney for the applicant on the next item is not here yet. So, we're going to skip to item five, planning board file 240731 and uh planning board file 0737. I believe they're companion. Lincoln Road West residential use incentives. Uh LDR amendments and comprehensive plan amendments.

Excuse me. Chair, if I may, is it possible to take up item seven first? We have people who are coming to speak on item five and we thought it would be closer to 10 but you're zooming. No problem. Okay, we'll go to planning board file number it's number item seven on the agenda 25797 periodic updates the resiliency code. Thank you chair. No problem.

Thank you Mr. Chair. One of the duties of the planning board is to periodically review the provisions of the resiliency code for potential updates. In September 2024, the planning board held a discussion regarding possible updates to the code and issued recommendations. After review by the land use and sustainability committee in 2025, the city commission referred the subject ordinance to the planning board. The proposed ordinance includes updates generally consisting of clarifications, cleanups, and reorganization. A bulletpoint list of updates is outlined in the staff report starting on page four and includes updates to definitions, uses, encroachments, planning permits, single family home development regulations, parking, land use board hearing procedures and appeals, the code amendment process, and signage. The proposed ordinance is substantially consistent with the board's previous discussion, and staff recommends that the board transmit the ordinance to the city commission with a favorable recommendation. and we are available for any questions.

Thank you. Anyone in chambers to speak on this? Anybody on Zoom? Any questions or someone want to move it with a favorable recommendation? Um, I'd like to I have a question. Um, so this is to suspend the exterior of the color review requirements. That's Can we have Oh, I'm sorry. I'm They're on the wrong one. I'm like, what am I looking at here? Is the updates the resiliency code? Did I miss the periodic updates? Sorry, it's out of order. Okay. Someone want to move it? I'm okay. Can we get a second? All right. So, it's being moved with a favorable recommendation. Yes. All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? Okay.

Unanimous. Um, next item eight, planning board file 26. Sorry, just one thing, not on this, but separately. If we had a recommendation or something that we would like to change in the code, is that something that we could talk about here or we reach out to mayor and what's generally the process? Certainly, but not not for this specifically. This I'm okay with. I'm saying separate from this. Certainly the planning board can make recommendations for any modification to the land development regulations. So that would typically be a discussion item

at the planning board um level and you could pass a motion uh making that recommendation. So, while we're on this, can we set up for a discussion as a discussion item? One of the things that people have reached out to me about is I think because the code prioritizes essentially moving away from the circular driveways right now with a lot of the current new homes and developments, you only have room for one car or so, which is creating a big backlog on this lo the local residential streets. Um, people have reached out to me to see if there's anything that can be done about that. So, I think that'd be helpful to discuss.

Okay, we can put that on the next agenda and it would be basically the the driveway regulations for single family properties. Correct. Okay, we can put that on the uh April agenda. Okay, thank you. Sorry. Welcome. All right. Planning board file 260818, suspension of exterior color review requirements.

Um, thank you, Mr. Chair. This is specifically to extend the current sunset provision. So in December of 2025, uh the mayor in commission adopted the suspension of the color review requirements. This is for paint, right? So the the permit requirement suspension is for exterior colors on Stuckco, plaster, and similar surfaces on buildings located only within commercial and multif family zoning districts. Um, this was put in place for a 3-month period that would end March 31st, 2026. Um, on February 5th, at the request of, uh, Commissioner Fernandez, the city commission referred an item to the planning board to extend this sunset provision from March 31st of this year to December 31st of this year. So, to the to the end of the year. um you know staff is not recommending that this um extension be incorporated into the existing ordinance. We have compatibility uh within neighborhoods and the potential for property owners especially commercial businesses to want the darkest or brightest color to attract um business to their property. Um we've seen uh that happen in the past when when people have um painted their buildings illegally without permission or without color review and we we do have serious concerns. So we are not supporting um this extension and we are recommending that the planning board transmit an unfavorable recommendation.

I assume nobody's in here to speak on this. Okay. Anybody on Zoom? Yes, we do. We do have one on Zoom. Yo, Johan Moore. Johan, um, you can unmute yourself and speak. Johan, do you swear to tell the truth? The whole truth. Sorry. Yes, I do. Good morning. Uh,

while I will add that my neighborhood association has taken no position on this. uh and Meridian Court community has taken no formal position on this. I would like to advise the board that feedback I've gotten over the years from various residents would seem to indicate that many of us share staff's concerns. Uh imagine uh the vampire house that chooses to paint itself black or a business that chooses to paint itself dark purple. Please do not extend this. I think it would really have a negative impact on the historic district and efforts to engage the public in supporting its preservation. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Johan. Anybody else? I just wanted to say that one second. Anybody else on Zoom? I do not see anyone else on Zoom.

Okay, Elizabeth. I just um I don't I don't know exactly why this is is is I understand that permitting is an issue, but I think sticking with our historic preservation colors is important. Um, I don't think anybody wants to see, you know, some purple house or some big giant, you know, I don't know what, but I just think it's important that we stick with our historic preservation board colors um and make it easier somehow to recommend to the commission that we make it easier for permitting. I don't know if you'all want to talk about it.

I'm I'm I'm going along with Elizabeth and and the recommendation here from staff. I I think we're going into dangerous grounds and I'm not really sure I understand the background for for proposing this. Um, you know, the fee is nominal. I'm guessing the permit timing is not ridiculous. And to so I um I think this is not not a good idea. So I'm not in favor. You agree with staff? I agree with staff. Yeah. Okay.

I agree with staff. I don't understand the intent. I know that uh some commissioners are trying to speed up the process, but this seems to be a fundamental core of zoning and planning to make sure that you don't have purple and green and brown buildings right next to each other. We look like Portoino in Italy. Uh there are a thousand ways to streamline commercial. That's a bad example. I think Portino is pretty there's anything wrong with that. Yes. We have the Portoino here. But our Portoino here. Yes. Uh but the the point is there's there's hundreds of ways of probably streamlining

Yeah. uh permitting so that buildings can actually I just read about Denny's that went into bankruptcy because they it was two years and too expensive to even open that little place. That's ridiculous. you know, had nothing to do with colors and we need to stick within our lanes and and uh so I'm 100% with staff on this. I agree too. I'm with staff. But just a question, quick question. Since this was implemented, um are you aware of any buildings that that took that painted, you know, colors that you would not have approved?

Because they don't require even advising the planning department that they're doing this work. I'm I haven't been made aware of any specific properties that have utilized this. Um, you know, that's the challenge as well. It's it's they since they don't have to come in for any type of approval, it's hard to keep track of. Do do they need to come in for approval if it's a historic color? I mean, can't they just go right through?

So, currently we have a list of pre-approved colors. It's a it's a very large long list. They are very pale colors in general um that they don't need to come in. There's no fee. It's a pre pre-approved permit. Basically, they just need to go online and basically register and and show the color that they're painting. So, what for non-p preapproved colors, it's also a relatively simple process. It's slightly more cumbersome. They can still do everything online, but they would have to upload a photograph of the building and they would have to upload kind of a color scheme if it's not colors that are part of the pre-approved list.

How how many colors are not in the pre-approved? I mean I mean I mean a person's colors are endless and you know what we show in our pre-approved color is that color or an equivalent. So you know like there's probably at least 800 shades of white, right?

It's all going to look the same once it's on the building for the most part. So you know there's a huge range of pre-approved colors. Again they're they're on the paler side. Um, but we also have guidelines um that are codified in terms of approving alternate colors within historic districts outside of historic districts. And there's actually a separate color palette specific to Mediterranean Revival buildings which are more earth tone um and that you know it's consistent with the character of that type of architecture.

So it seems like what he's trying to do is or I may be wrong maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong. Um it seems like what he's trying to do is make sure that that things just get done faster. But maybe we can add like if you're in this same color scheme that I mean we shouldn't have to go through you know if you're in the 800 shades of white section then why why are we having to have to go to DRB or any of that kind of stuff for it if you're in the same tone if you're in the same you know why

from my understanding and I'm sorry to interrupt is is that this is for more intense colors that there have been people who have approached the city with a more intense color than is than is allowed. At that point, we would either send that um paint scheme to the design review board or the historic preservation board for a public hearing. Then you start getting into the more lengthy, more expensive process for the public hearing. Um, so I think that's what this is geared toward, to allow a window of time for someone to to paint their building something darker, brighter, more intense in terms of the color saturation than we would normally be able to approve administratively.

So, if I if I heard you correctly, they still need to register or pull a permit online, only they can choose whatever color they like. In other words, a permit is still needed. Um, I don't believe so. No, this just suspends all review. All review. Yeah. So, what if what if um if what I'm trying to think what if we

keep the historic colors and extend it into that range of colors and anything that's outside of that that is more intense like a you know I don't even know like maybe we just have the uh or recommend to the commission that they um are you saying to the same pallet, but we extend the range of the pallet can be preapproved. But but anything outside Exactly. Anything outside of the normal tone um and intensity that that we that would require some sort of But isn't that current?

No. Um what she's saying is that it's only you've only got X number of colors that are approved by the city, right? And so if there if it's outside of color panone color XYZ then it has to go for approval. But this is suspending everything. And I don't think that anybody I mean look everybody has a different opinion of what is acceptable and what's not and people should have the right to paint whatever they I guess but we're in a different different climate. What if we um you know, I'm sorry, you can't paint your building, you know, uh dark super dark brown or something with with black edges or something like I mean just there's got to be some sort of I think that needs more discussion

is but is it do you understand what I'm saying? No, I understand what you're saying. There there is a range of colors that could be acceptable to be included in it uh that we we uh without being to the extreme where we're letting everything go. So you want to expand the the range of colors that we can do. Um yes. Um well we can we can not support an extension and then come back and have recommendations of modifications. I mean this isn't a modification. What Alex is asking for is a suspension of all review which is we're against. I see. But can we amend it right now or? No. not not to address um pallet or intensity. The the only thing before you

is whether to extend the the relief program. If you wanted to bring a separate uh discussion item um we can do that but not as part of this item. Okay, that's fine. I'm not going to support this then. I'm sorry, just out of curiosity, who has this helped? Meaning, have there been people that have come in front of the city and this has helped them streamlined anything for them? Do we have any Is that again? Sorry. I'm just asking staff who has this helped and how has it helped them? I guess what can we point to? Has the deregulation sped things up? People are

So, I think there was, you know, there was one instance with a a property owner that came to the planning department with a relatively intense pink color. The the planning department uh reviewed the color and said, "This needs design review board um because it exceeded the intensity." I think we could certainly look at if you are going to a board maybe because it is just paint right it is just a color it's a temporary thing that's going to change over time maybe we could you know there we could have a discussion where we could look at maybe streamlining that process of them going to the board or or reducing fees because again it's a very simple request

um we could also look at expanding the pre-approved paint colors um I think there's a lot of different options that we could talk about um if we schedule a discussion item. Okay, just one more quick. I'm sorry, I just thought of something.

Um this just um eliminates all review for paint colors. What if in the process of painting they maybe they're using a cherry picker that's in the right of way it's in or they they need to remove awnings from a building and reinstall them. It wouldn't cover any of that. It would just be for the paint. they would still need, let's say, a right-of-way permit or a permit for awnings or um if they're going to do any kind of um let's say I know with painting you're you know ob you're patching minor cracks in the building but what if there's some stucco work they're going to remove a little area of stuckco and repatch that it it doesn't cover any of that

it does not so anything that requires a building permit would still require a building permit anything that requires a right-of-way permit would still require a right-of-way permit Okay. Yeah. So, Stuckco repair does require a building permit. Okay. Would you all be amendable to bringing this back as discussion item for HPV colors and things like that? I don't want to put burdens on the people that are trying to paint and refurbish their homes and their businesses, but I think we still need to keep as much as possible the character of color palette. Even if it's even if it's let's do it. You good with that?

So we can bring back a discussion item. But are we still do need a recommendation on that? I think I think we all agree with staff. Yes. All right. So Keith, go ahead and move it. Yeah, I'll move that. Unfavorable unfavorable unfavorable strongly. You got a second? I'll second. Okay. All in favor? I. Anyone opposed? Okay. what what kind of um information or sort of background we need for for the discussion item.

So, I can bring um you know the the pre-approved list of colors. Um I can actually bring some colors because we have a lot of the the you know paper samples. Um and we can I can show the intensity, you know, the maximum intensities like I I had previously explained. It's different if you're in a historic district versus if you're outside of a historic district. And we also have a separate intensity for Mediterranean Revival style building. So, I can bring all of that. I can also explain, you know, the whole process in much more detail in terms of the pre-approved process, nonp preapproved process, and then ultimately what the board process would look like. I I guess what what kind of would be just more practical too is is in you know in in opening up something like this and looking to expand it is to understand if there's you know the need for like how many you know how many do we have of cases that are trying to step outside. I mean if it's just like you know if I can count on one hand it may not be you know worth us changing changing it but um so I think there's some background need to just understand if this is really something that there's a demand for.

Absolutely. Okay. Uh, back to items five and six. Planning board file 240731 and 0737 Lincoln Road West residential use incentives LDR amendment and comprehensive plan amendment.

Okay. Um, thank you, Mr. Chair. So, both of these are um for incentivizing nontrans uh residential uses um within the Lincoln Road corridor area. Um, Miriam, if we can pull up, I think the easiest way to to explain the proposal is to to look at a map. Um, because this area is somewhat varied. Um, so Miriam, if we could pull up the exhibit on the screen. Okay. Give me one second.

Okay. Thank you. Do you need some help? No, I got it. I got it.

You made it.

All right. Okay, thank you. So, as you can see, um the ordinance proposes four different areas. Um and we did that. Um and again, this is something that uh the planning department looked at very carefully to address the context of each area which are which is slightly different. Um so if you look at area 1, we have divided one into area 1 A and 1B. Um area 1A is current and 1B um but specifically 1A along 17th Street is currently the highest um development regulations. So we have existing um a 2.5 F for lots less than 45,000 square ft. We have an existing 2.75 F for lots greater than 45,000 square ft. And we have heights in in this area 1A that currently range from 75 ft to 80 ft. So out of all of the areas, this currently has the highest level of of zoning um in terms of height and F. If you look at um so the incentives here are commensurate with that um with that existing condition. The incentives would be um a scale of a 3.0 F which is just a.5 increase for smaller lots and for the lots that exceed 45,000 ft the incentive would be a 3.5. Um the incentive um for the entire area in terms of height would be 150 ft. Um, area two is the north side of Lincoln Road. So, this is the the we're now in the historic district. So, area two and three are kind of set apart

because they're historically designated. Areas 1 A and 1B are not. Um, so area two is slightly more sensitive in terms of the scale and the the uh F that we are recommending. We are recommending a maximum of a 3.0 0 F and a maximum height of 100 ft. Also in this area, we're not just recommending, you know, that the height be allowed to be increased to 100 ft, but there are certain setbacks be introduced in terms of setting back from Lincoln Road and from the side streets to help preserve um the historic character of that area. Area three um is even more sensitive because although this is still in the historic district, this is immediately adjacent to the very low-scale Flamingo Park neighborhood. Flamingo Park currently has um you know some of the lowest scale zoning in the city for multif family districts. It has a maximum height of 35 ft um and a maximum F of 1.25. So we are recommending that the for the incentives that the height in area 3 not exceed um 75 ft and not exceed um in terms of the F 2.75. Again this also this area also institutes um our recommendation for additional setbacks um to help buffer that area 1B is something that we discussed with the with the item sponsor. Um, area 1B would be west um would encompass uh Alton Road and um the east side of West Avenue. This is where the current Epicure site is on on between Alton and West. um in this particular instance, we do believe um given the um commercial corridor of Alton Road um that certain incentives

would be appropriate for again to incentivize residential development. So we are recommending the incentives to be consistent with area 1A for this particular area. There are um several other um provisions in the proposal. Um and I think one of the important concepts here is that yes, we're you know recommending an increase in F and height, but it's very specific. It's only for projects that meet the intent of this ordinance, which would be u moderately priced housing. This is not for luxury housing. that would be dependent on renters or purchasers that aren't intending to drive, right? That do not have cars because um to avail yourself of the extra height, you would not be able to provide parking. So this would be, you know, this is catered to a very specific um type of project, type of development that we think would be extremely beneficial to the city to to increase our moderately priced residential housing, but not also increase congestion, traffic congestion, um which you know is is is a problem right now for the city. Um so that's the concept behind these residential incentives. There are you know requirements for microobility because although we um you know people would not be necessarily having an automobile, they're still going to need to get around. So there are provisions that require a certain level of you know bicycle share stations, scooter share stations, etc. Um so overall staff is supportive of this. Um, and we are recommending that the planning board transmit with a favorable recommendation. Um, I'd also like to point out that

there's a sunset provision. So, this is not in perpetuity. Um, the idea would be to to incentivize this type of development and get, you know, relatively efficient, quick um, projects. Um, we did something similar years ago, if you remember, on Washington Avenue to incentivize hotels at the time. Um, and we saw, you know, two projects basically that that were built within that time frame. Um, there's also the Washington Avenue which I know this board has reviewed and transmitted favorable recommendations to the commission. This is a very similar concept to what's currently being proposed.

Quick question though. You you want us to recommend it, but in the report it says defer it till next month. Any Well, yes. So, because and I can go through that. Thank you for pointing that out. This is an F increase. This requires the extended process. So the planning board is required to hear this twice. So yes, we are recommending that the we are supportive of the way the ordinance is is drafted. Currently the planning board does need to defer it to the April meeting in so we have to

yes because we're having Yes, we've scheduled more of a discussion. It's more of a discussion currently and we have scheduled the required public meeting in between those two planning board dates for March 24th at 6 p.m. So anyone watching this, there will be a public meeting um on March 24th at 6 p.m. All right, Deborah. Thank you. You're welcome. N sir,

good morning chair, members of the board. Nissan Kasen Cecilia Torres Toed Acreman representing uh Infinity Collective uh David Berg who you'll hear from in a minute uh who is a principal of the entity that has uh bought the Epicure block as as I I think it's most familiar to all of us. Thank you. Um David, I would also tell you has an extensive track record of doing really fine urban infill and preservation redevelopment projects. Among them, most recently is his redevelopment of the Esme Hotel on Espanol Way.

Real quick, sorry to interrupt you, but um you're handing out these proposed revisions. Were these provided to staff before? Yes. Before. Okay. Well, they were provided to staff yesterday. Uh but we've discussed them. We've discussed them with staff. So, you all have a review. Okay. We've had this discussion with staff. Okay. Uh before. All right. Um, we got it.

And if you indulge me just for a few minutes, uh, a little additional time because first I want to say this is the most important function that the planning board has. This is actually areawide planning for the city. Uh, and so it's going to take a little bit of time and thought and use of your expertise and knowledge to make this legislation be as good and as effective as it can be. And I would say that this is very much needed legislation. We are glad to see it moving forward. Problem in the city of Miami Beach, frankly, is not that there are too many people living here. In fact, the population has decreased by 10,000 people. The problem is the fact that the people who work here can't live here and the people who live here don't work here. So, we have a t lot of commuter traffic both ways. This is an attempt to create a live, work, play community which is not autodependent and so this is a very good effort and we entirely endorse it. However, as you see in the handout that we have given you, we think there are a few ways that this can be tweaked to make it more effective and really work. Not just a concept, an idea that sounds good and doesn't work, but actually a real working idea. and David will come up in a minute and take you through it in a little bit more detail, but it it involves a few a few uh key concepts. Number one, uh it's noble that we want to reduce the amount of parking um and go to other means of moving people around, micromobility, but providing as little as 20% of the required parking uh will not work. uh as we make the transition from being a city that is auto dependent to one that is less

autodependent, we need to have the ability to have more parking for some of the residents and also some of the commercial uses.

And therefore, we think that this board should be able to determine what the necessary amount of parking is on a going forward basis for these projects. Number two uh among the other things is above the first floor the legislation requires that there be uh only residential. We feel that this is uh too restrictive because I the ideal is to have a mixeduse project primarily residential. Our proposed ordinance says at least 60%. but allow adequate retail which sometimes often times as you can see just if you go the south side of Lincoln Road on Alton Road is two-story retail you know as well as then the ability to accommodate uh some office space as well so people could actually live and work in the same building or within walking distance of their home or their office. So that's why we favor it being uh not limiting uh re uh above ground floor to just residential but also to allow uh uh other uses as long as 60% of the building is uh residential. Another key factor that we want to deal with is the micromobility issue. Absolutely in favor and fascinated with how microobility is becoming a more important factor in our community. But to require 40% of the ground floor space to be utilized for micromobility is not good planning because you want those ground flooror spaces to be retail or restaurant and activated or to uh provide the back of house services for the building that they're in. So we have to have the flexibility to have the micromobility located in other portions of the building above above above the ground floor. Uh those are some of the key uh

elements and changes that we would advocate that you uh put in this ordinance going forward. David will address it in a little bit more detail. And what we would request is is simple. You as the planning board uh it is your responsibility is your power actually to make these recommendations not just to receive a piece of legislation and say yay or nay but to shape that legislation. That's what you're doing here today. So we ask that you give consideration to what we have handed out here to modify what is a very good piece of legislation well intended to revitalize our our urban core and especially as well that block on Alton Road that we are also familiar with as well. This will help revitalize and redevelop that. And with that, I'd like to have David come up and give you a little bit more detail about why these changes we propose are needed. Thank you. Thank you, Nissan. David Berg, uh, Infinity Real Estate. Um, I I just want to state that I I'm a resident in Miami Beach. I live along Alton Road. Our office is on 17th and Alton in the Variety Hotel, which is a historic redevelopment we completed. Um, and obviously this is a block south of that. So, I'm speaking on behalf as someone who works here, who lives here, and uh, who develops here. Um, and so any if anyone is sitting in any traffic on Alton Road, it's probably me more than anyone else in this room. Um, so our site on on Alton was previously designed to be a uh 250,000 foot office building by Michael Chavevel and that office building was going to have 20,000 foot floor plates and designed to be, you know, large format JP Morgan type of trading floor uh programming. We're trying to be socially responsible and bring housing to the community because as Nissan mentioned, the traffic has gotten worse as population has gone

down. And we spent a great deal of time speaking to the community. Um, probably over 15 letters of support from different neighborhood associations, business improvement districts, and the major employers such as Mount Sinai, such as Vie Hospitality, such as Fountain Blue, etc. and um and our as as a hotel owner and operator ourselves, we have probably about a thousand employees amongst our FnB operations and hotel uh employment that like ultimately do commute uh to the beach every single day. And so what we found is that the the quality of service is lacking because as everyone gets trained in their jobs and as everyone gets good at their jobs, they just they want to find a location to work closer to their home and so there's constant turnover among staff in restaurants, hotels, etc. So the idea of of us going through the painstaking process of either via this legislation or through a private application to change the the zoning of our block to bring residential versus just going the easy commercial route is essentially our civic duty and social responsibility socially responsible development to bring housing here. The issue with the legislation as presented and why I want to make a few friendly amendments is that it doesn't address the idea of creating a live work play uh neighborhood. If you want to to make a neighborhood attractive, and I'll use Coconut Grove or Sunset Harbor as examples, we think you need to have attractive uh retail and commercial office around it. Um, this legislation really caters to Lincoln Road, 17th Street, uh, Alton Road, the most commercial districts of, uh, you know, on the beach, arguably other than maybe Ocean Drive and Espanol Way. And so if to if people live here, the I think the goal would be them to walk to the retail they're going to shop to to walk to work and create a true urban environment. So as a result, we think that the micromobility of 40% of the ground floor is ultimately going to yield very little results in development because Lincoln Road has such high rents per square foot on the street. No one's going to lose

40% of their square footage on the ground for microobility. We're not saying it's not important. We think we should have it. it just shouldn't be on the ground floor. Otherwise, I don't think development is going to actually occur here for for housing. Um, the second thing is I don't think it's attractive for residents to live on the second floor or, you know, on the lower floors of of a building. I think that the more attractive residential will be on higher floors. So, having second floor retail, having commercial uh on the lower floors will actually help make it more attractive and again drive more office and retail space to the area. It wasn't too long ago that staff in the city were very uh were large proponents of bringing more office space to uh this this corridor to attract people to live to live and work here. Um and the third thing is parking. The the 20% parking issue essentially says that for every uh five units there'll be one parking space. I just don't think that's a practical solution. We wouldn't be able to build housing if that was the parking requirement here because I just don't think it's marketable. And so although we're a proponent of of microobility and we want people to share cars, um I think the private market needs to dictate the amount of parking spaces the building should have and it should be driven by the uses and at a very minimum I think one parking space per unit is be required to make it make it marketable. Um, so it's it's really in summary, it's it's I think there need there should be a live, work, play atmosphere by creating a commercial uh and and mixeduse building, which means that 60% of the building should be residential use. And that basically is is taking off a bunch of legislations that, you know, create create that legislation of 60 60% of the square footage should be residential, but the rest can be commercial. That will create a a mixeduse project that's attracted to the neighborhood. Two, I think we need more parking um for the for the commercial uses, for the resident uses. And three, I think the microobility should be above the ground floor or in the building in the parking garage so that actually it promotes development. Otherwise, I I think especially on Lincoln Road, Alton

Road, these high commercial districts, they're not going to actually happen. Um, so that's kind of in summary, and I'm I'm available to ask answer any questions. I think there's probably, you know, very few people in the room that are as incentivized by me to to create uh, you know, good residential legislation here. And I assume, Niss, you'll participate in this public hearing on the March 26th. Okay. Um, and I'm I'm sorry, March 24th. And staff, I'm assuming that, you know, these proposed amendments could also be discussed there because we're not making a decision today. So it'll come back with either public comment that agrees with these revisions or not or correct. Correct. Okay. Mr. Chair,

it would certainly be good if these uh uh uh uh amendments were part of the public discussion because uh we think that a lot of people will think that these are necessary. So yeah, that's my whole point is that you all are going to participate in that and discuss these proposed amendments because we're not making a decision today. So it would be nice to go when it comes back to us to know how that meeting went and what the thoughts were. But should we get our feedback on these three issues? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No question. I'm just saying because we're not making a decision today,

that'll be part of the subject matter of the meeting on the 24th. Okay. Sure. Go ahead. Um, I don't I don't normally speak first, but uh, increasing the residential stock in Miami Beach has probably been my number one goal. Uh, from my time on board of adjustment to planning board to any thoughts that I've had with the city. Uh, generally I agree with most of the points here. Uh I think you know the 30% for micromobility is probably problematic especially when you're trying uh to create you know more of a dynamic live work play setup. The only issue that I I do have an issue with which I think we need to talk through is number one um I mean I I'd be okay with saying that you know anything above let's say the second level shall consist of non-transient residential uses that you can have that kind of two-floor double height retail andor some second floor retail or commercial use but I think that if the city is making a big push to get residential use here it has to be focused on as much residential as possible.

But don't we have that locked in with the 60%. Doesn't that lock it in whether they use the second floor or the third floor? So, what I'm saying is that I want even even more more than 60%. Correct. Okay. Um and I think that that should be kind of first and foremost a major goal of this. Um, I mean, Nissan, you've heard me say it many times with some of your your other applications and and I just wouldn't support anything uh other than as much residential as possible while still trying obviously to accommodate, you know, the high rents that ideally you can get with retail and trying to make the overall project work.

That's all I have to say about it. and and not just adding like e extra um units but but also we need to be I think the part of my question to you is in um you know we're trying to in sense that I've in sense that I've some of the cost coming down by um not requiring as much parking in these and so I think the average I think it adds $50,000 uh per unit when you add for every extra parking space you add but um so if we are trying to keep these somewhat affordable units and you know having this parking uh limitation part of it. So what do you guys suggest to overcome the you know the possible increase of prices of the unit when we're trying to make these affordable because we're taking away the the limitation in size. So the 1,200 the 1200 square feet limitation is gone. So how do we make sure that these are not more um expensive units.

These aren't these aren't affordable housing. This isn't affordable housing. It's market rate housing. Right. Right. No, I'm not saying but I mean we're trying to encourage, you know, living space and based on the presentation he's giving, he's hoping that some of his employees will be able to afford this these places. So, how do we continue to um make that happen if we're we're we're eliminating some of the the barriers we're putting there? I would say it certainly doesn't uh benefit developers to to build parking. It's expensive and it brings down the margins of the of the deal. Um it's just it's just necessary as as a as a practical matter because I don't think people want to live in a place or work in a place or you know if they can't park for instance especially the city that doesn't have very very good alternatives right

like take Epicure for for instance Epicure filled that public parking lot every single day if you're going to go to the grocery store I don't think you want to cross Alton with you know groceries so we're trying to bring an Epicure type of replacement to the building people that you know that that use once you know, 40 50 parking spaces, right? Um, so like that's that's one component. And that again, I think that's good for the neighborhood, but they need parking. I think if anyone in this room were to live in in a in a building, they're probably going to want a minimum one space in their building. They don't want to walk across Alton Road or, you know, to a parking lot for their parking space and and not be able to dictate what they're paying on a monthly basis to park their car. Um, so I think the to answer your question, I I think that the private markets will determine the number of parking spaces needed, but it doesn't it's it's it by no means benefits the developer to have parking. It it benefits the the the users of the building in the neighborhood. Um and and then the second thing is I think the commercial space offsets the the you know the ability to to generate uh more affordable residential especially in this corridor because it's just it's a high you know rent high growth corridor having commercial office having commercial retail will allow the residential to be cheaper by eliminating that component I think the residential you know basically it will be required to be more expensive to justify the build um to

to um to address your point on on this the the 60% the concern I would have would be, you know, the Miami Beach office market hopefully is not a this big corporate office. It's supposed to we're trying to create live, work, play for residents. So the average user of an office space here

or even retail space for doesn't matter is relatively small. You're not you're not looking to attract 20,000 30,000 foot users. So I'd say the ideal size would be 3,000 4,000 5,000 square feet. And so if you create only second floor commercial, you kind of have to pancake that floor plate and now you have this like, you know, massive corridor of a very chopped up 1500 feet, 2,000 feet everywhere. Whereas if you could be a little more um deliberate with how you deliver the commercial space, maybe you can deliver, you know, 3,000 ft², 3,000 ft² and kind of like have a nicer experience for these uh for the the commercial office users versus having like a pancake format. Um and again that'll allow residential to you know to to to be offset by the by the by the benefit of that commercial.

Yeah I second um before we continue this I think there's one someone on Zoom that wants to speak and then we'll continue with the Yes. our speaker on Zoom is Johan Moore. Johan you can unmute yourself.

Um yes good morning again. Um if I may um make a couple of comments. Um, I'm struck by how the intention is very similar to the uh sincere intentions behind the Washington Avenue residential proposal, but how excuse me uh the concerns uh uh some of the concerns that exist still are not being addressed. And I I'd like to go through a few of these. Um one is a question if these uh if if such structures are built under what is being proposed um would they uh similar to what I believe we have agreed to on 1600 Washington would those residents be prohibited from accessing parking permits in adjacent neighborhoods? I think that would be an important um uh uh safeguard from the point of view of the neighborhood. Um depending on specifically the outcome of your discussion on on percentages of parking uh the impact of income undifferentiated new residential units namely as an upward pressure on low-end rents remains a concern among many of us in the neighborhood. And a recent study showed that in fact un income unde in income undifferentiated residential new build will only stabilize the middle of the market and will in fact have negative impact on the lower end of the market. I would be uh um I would sum it up in a piffy way by saying you can't have affordable housing unless you actually have affordable housing with the uh uh conccommatant uh AMI cliffs otherwise you run the risk of those negative effects. This discussion about where to

put microobility and uh parking seems to almost be a little bit at cross purposes. Um, it most certainly does seem to make sense that retail is on the ground floor. I have no objection to retail being on the second floor. The question then becomes, how many floors up is a parking level going to be? Um, not so bad if it's in fact a car parking level. But when we imagine micromobility users uh having to what descend a ramp from a third or fourth floor parking garage, uh that starts to sound uh disincentivizing to me. But in fact, if the microobility can be located uh in a more accessible location, perhaps that is your way forward. A floor or two of commercial, a floor or two of parking and then floors of apartments. I would also argue against mixing apartments and commercial offices on the same floor. I don't think that those are compatible uses. Uh I want to finish with the one comment that I heard which was that you uh one of the speakers proposed having one spot per uh unit but would that also require a given number of spots per office because then you're starting to get into a much larger uh number of units. So, I think the devil is in the details on this. Uh, and the concerns really do need to be addressed despite the uh sincere uh efforts at at increasing our population, reducing our population loss. Thank you.

Thanks, Johan. Deborah, that's it. Um, yes, but I think we have one more in the audience. Um, no one else.

Okay. Hi, guys. Good morning. Michael Gico on behalf of Michael Grio. Um, uh, reminding you all that, uh, I was actually the, and it was mentioned earlier, I was the co-author of the, uh, Washington Avenue legislation that led to the Good Time Hotel and a couple other projects getting developed. Um, that started back in what, 2014? But we're 15 years behind on having this conversation about live, work, play environments. And I agree with everything that David said, David, dear friend of mine. And he's he's right. Um, and I'm giving this giving you this from a perspective of somebody who has no dog in the fight other than a resident that wants to see our city catch up with other areas of Miami date county that are putting us out of business. Our population is decreasing because other areas in Date County. They woke up a lot faster than we did to the point where not only did Winwood get created in the interim, but Winwood's already five years ahead of us when it comes to live, work, play. And we don't have that here. Coconut Grove is running circles around us. Dural is running circles around us. But there's one thing to consider and it's something to think about. One of the things, one of the major problems we have on Lincoln Road is that we have a lot of vacancies. And those vacancies are not because there's no demand. The vacancies are because, and this isn't a comment on David. David is is is a phenomenal property owner and and landlord, but we have a lot of outof town corporate hedge fund landlords that will leverage their vacancies, which is bad for us as residents and users of the city. They keep those vacancies open. They put them in their P&Ls on the lost column and all it does is create dead zones and it hurts foot traffic. And one of the mistakes that we made on the Washington Avenue hotel legislation is we did not make it a requirement that you have to fill the ground floor retail. We can't do that after the fact with a vacancy tax. That's not legal. But one of the things

that we can do is we can bake into this legislation. You can't leave your ground floor retail vacant. You can't do it. If there's a demand, you have to fill it. And pause there. How do you do that? If you can't get stupid meaning it's a great idea and it would have solved all the issues trying to deal with that in Sens Harbor. How how do you do that? So while Sunset Harbor was a different deal because that was a lot of that was but I'm just saying about how to require that they don't leave them bacon. They'll just say we're not getting a competitive bid or I mean I'm just curious. It's a great idea as well.

Well I mean you you can use market data to determine whether or not there is we know we know what it is. You know, you you can use market data as a determining factor as to whether or not they're consciously leaving it vacant. We know what the when they're asking for ridiculous rates or they're just not marketing it at all. You know, it when you like as an attorney, you know this that you have to, you know, when when a when you have a landlord tenant dispute and you have, you know, somebody that you've kicked out, you have to prove as a condition proceeded that you have made a good faith effort to release a property. And that is a that is something that you have to prove proactively. And it's the same thing here. You have to put the pressure on the landlords to ensure that those vacancies are not a product of the market, but they're that make sure they're a product of the market. They're not a product of just decision decisions they're making on a corporate level to keep it open because we're not the beneficiaries of that.

But Michael, a lot of these spaces, it's just I mean, these are this is should be common knowledge. These spaces are, you know, 60, 70 years old. I mean, you've got spaces that are 100 ft, 120, 150 feet deep that are maybe 30 or 40 feet wide and they're obsolete. They're functionally obsolete. It's not that I don't think that there's any landlord on this planet that doesn't want their tenant or a tenant to occupy that space, but but how do you you've got you've also got to remember people are having to pay um taxes, insurance, everything else on those spaces and they're empty. So that doesn't behoove a landlord to keep to keep the space empty. But also, you've got, you know, this is a good way to incentivize. I can't think of anything better than to put retail on any of this space. But but if you've got um you've got a tenant, like I said, I think the last planning board meeting, if you've got a tenant in there that is that is Amazon Go, for instance, I mean, are you going to let Amazon off the hook to lease to somebody else? They're already collecting rent. It's just vacant to us. You don't know that it's fake. You don't know that it's already leased, but it is. So, I, you know, you can't force, you can't, you can't say, um, and, you know, we're going to, you have to have this space leased in order to take advantage of this. I don't think that's fair.

Okay. I I I respectfully disagree because if you drive by the Good Time Hotel, one of the downfalls of that project is that the street is dead. And the street is dead because they made they made a conscious decision to not fill that retail. I don't think that they made a conscious decision. I think that it's just like the Carolon where that space has taken what 20 years to lease is is that those are condo developers or that's a hotel developer and the retail space is only an afterthought. So those spaces are um you know they don't care if they're leased or not. It's 25 20 feet deep or you know 30 feet deep and 60 feet wide. That's unleashable space. So and and they're not plumbed. they're not all these other things. So, if if I were going to do anything like that, it would be to recommend that those spaces be brought up to code in any way possible or or take it or use some of this to to renovate, which is I think the purpose to renovate those spaces and to um uh you know, not make retail a second because your first floor is your most valuable. I I've said this two and a half years ago that that putting micromobility on your first floor is not the best is not the highest and best use of space and you you need to have your activation there. I mean, if I look at if I if I look at if I want and I do want um mixeduse development, which is, you know, the live, work, play, all of that. The I I and look, this is Lincoln Road. You're only going to get so many chances to get it right. And you know, I'm looking at Avalon in Alpharetta, Georgia, which has you've got retail, you've got um a hotel in the back, you've got um your second floor, or even your third floor has office, and then

you've got your third, fourth, and fifth or sixth floor is is is um residential. I'm looking at Pon City Market, which is a former Sears um uh Sears manufacturing plant, and they took that entire building. They gutted the building and they put retail on the first floor. They took some of the back space, which is perfect for Lincoln Road. You can take portions of those 50-ft deep spaces and make your micromobility in the back. You can you can add up on top um a food hall. You can add whatever it is that you want and make it what it is that it should be. But here's something that's not being addressed in all this is the infrastructure. And can we handle it? Has anybody has a city done a a plan to see what I mean a study to see what has to be done? I don't know. So part of this application we did a preliminary assessment of um the water sewer the parks um the capacity in terms of the amount of water we have. Okay. So we have confirmed that in terms of the specifics in you know underground um infrastructure that's something that is typically reviewed at building permit um to make sure that the you know underground pipes are sufficient to handle any new um load on our on our infrastructure. That would be the responsibility of the developer if there are undersized um infrastructure for a new developer. So this is sort of being done peacemeal in a way.

Yeah, I know the city is looking holistically and I think the public works department is um working with a consultant on a hydraulic study. Um I know they're looking in North Beach and I believe there's also part of that is for South Beach um for more specifics in terms of what type of upgrades are going to be required depending on the intensity of of new new development. Um but we did provide as part of this the a preliminary assessment in terms of do we have uh the water capacity? Does the county have the water? Yes, we do. We we do believe that that can be accommodated. Will there be certain infrastructure or upgrades that are required of the developer during the permitting phase? Very likely yes. I mean, are we ripping up Lincoln Road is, you know, are we like,

and I don't think we have the specific answers to those questions because we don't have a specific project that we're looking at right now. Don't don't we typically have a project before,

you know, that has been the way the city has operated over the past, you know, at least several years that we we look at things more when a specific project comes up. I think the intention of this was to try and do more more of a u master plan or a comprehensive look at the city and the commercial areas where we we believe we could incentivize some additional residential development. So although you're correct, I mean, we're used to seeing things over the past decade or so on a specific project basis, this is an attempt to to more holistically look at um where we think additional development is.

So don't you have to have buyin by I mean for TDR? I mean I mean there's there's two different camps, right? There's there's the set base F people that say why are we going you know having two people come together and say okay we're going to sell you our rights I do realize that there's 2 whatever million of unused F but if you if you you're still having to have people come together to make that transfer possible but then you know I'm trying to understand how like Flamingo part I mean where you know how what are these you have to have a percentage of the residents come together and say we are agreeable to having to sell you

so that's that is a discussion that's currently at the land use and sustainability committee which is separate and apart from this the way this is currently drafted is not contingent upon the purchase of F from another private property owner so while we are looking at a TDR program. Um, and we are at land use. We've done a we've recently done a market study which I believe is either final or soon to be final that we are going to present again at the land use committee. Could that potentially be rolled into this? Perhaps that's not currently part of the draft ordinance. So the F increases that are currently proposed are just that F increases, not a requirement that they transfer from another area.

After the public I'm sorry, after the public meeting, um will these draft amendments potentially be revised? Um other words, I don't anticipate that um at this point. I think you know depending um on the specifics of the comments but I would not anticipate any significant changes. I think some important points have been brought up in terms of the micromobility where it's located how big it is. Could it be

the first floor and the second floor and distributed more so that it doesn't take up too much of the ground floor if we if if you know the the property owner can lease retail. I think all of those are important things that that maybe we could look at. Um, but in terms of any substantive changes, I don't All right. The only reason I'm asking is if this is going to be coming back to us for a whole another discussion, I don't want to belabor um, you know, unless I I mean, I have some things I want to talk about. I guess I What was the height of the previously approved project? 75 75 ft.

I have concerns about adding a 150 foot building in the 1B section. Um it it it's going to and I don't know how tall I know there's apartment buildings across the street on um I guess that's West a um but I don't not only I mean I get the concern about protect protecting the Lincoln Road you know the nature of Lincoln Road which is why those heights are are significantly short you know lower but by this in this section the 1B section. It's significantly higher and that's because you're working on protecting the nature of Lincoln Road, which this is across the street from Lincoln Road. But I I don't think that that's necessarily taking into consideration the nature of that what's going to be newly renovated West a corridor. It's going to be much nicer streets. There are buildings there and even Bell Isle, the buildings on Bell Isle have a beautiful view to Lincoln Road and to the parking garage there. Um, it's an architectural, you know, you know, masterpiece. Um, and I think this will clearly block that if it's 150 ft. And not to mention that there's apartment buildings that will be blocking all of it. And so and then I know in there in the proposal there's a discussion about protecting u you know having setbacks to protect the the Lincoln Road but there's the Lincoln Road streetscape but um I don't there's nothing about the 1B section. So I have concerns about raising it that significantly. Um number one. Number two is that sort of in a contradictory position. Um, and that's for the residents in the area.

You know, that's a residential area and you're adding in a very, you know, much much bigger. And I do we know how tall like the Trader Joe's parking, you know, or Trader Joe's building and that the with the hotel. Yeah. I don't think that's probably about 65 ft.

You're you're adding a building that's more than double that. I don't think the residents want that. Um, even even if it may add, you know, uh, residential units, I don't think the residents want a building that's double that high. It's going to stick out like a sore thumb. Um, contradictory, I do think that for this area, it's sort of unique. I get the idea of removing parking and and that I think is important. That's where the future is going to be going. Uh but for right now in that area that would be you know very detrimental to the rest of the the residents in that area. They're losing they're already losing on West a likeund and something parking spots with all the street uh raising the streets. And so where where's that extra parking going to go? If they if you don't give them parking in that building then uh you know where where are they going to park? And there was discussion about the the permits to be able to park in the neighborhood, but there's just already going to be a shortage of parking. Even if you do that, um, you know, it's going to completely, you know, they're going to have to start leasing spaces in the in the neighboring buildings, which we already gave them exemptions. uh you know in that hotel we gave them exempt exemptions for the proposed uses and they switched all the uses then then you know and so I I have concerns about I know the the intent is the good is a good intent and I don't you know have uh you know that in terms of the increases on the Lincoln roadside I think you know there's it's more palatable to me but um I think this is a great project what you're proposing I think we need something like that But having a huge structure there without much more oversight without without understanding the details you know you mentioned uh having you know putting in another type of epicure sort of thing on the bottom

floor should have led with that that you're bringing back Epicure but uh but uh you know the I think that's a great concept that's something that I'm receptive to when it comes to the the first floor of a building like this an apartment building. I'm receptive to having a, you know, a market or something that's going to be really available for residents. What I'm not receptive is to leaving it open-ended where you can have another, instead of a Lamborghini experience, you have an Aston Martin experience that's not accessible to any of the residents and it's not accessible to any, you know, the residents of the building or residents of the neighborhood. And so I don't I I I don't I'm not comfortable modifying it without understanding um you know the the what what the purpose is. Now I get that you kind of need that guidance now before you start putting everything into plans, but I I I guess maybe the solution to it uh is having some sort of planning board waiver system like the parking. Um, but you know, one of the problems is is that in 15 years when you don't need the parking, you know, you're going to have all that, you know, parking garage space. And so I I get it that what I'm saying is sort of contradicting because you need the higher height to fit the parking. Um, I I I understand that's a problem, but I have an issue with I think if that office building came to us, it was a beautiful project. I remember it, you know, specifically how the cars were going to drive in and there was going to be a rotate something rotate, you know, uh it was very very cool. If you had said to us then 150 ft, I think there's no way we would agree to that at that point. And and I'm not comfortable with it now. Um would I am I comfortable with something slightly increased, you know, to get residential use? Yes. U but I don't know necessarily what that is. I'm curious to hear. I

think there needs to be more of a uh scaling analysis by the planning department, by staff or or by the applicant, you know, whoever is supporting this so that we can really have an understanding of what the actual impact to the neighborhood is going to be. And I'm I'm worried that while it may go through commu, you know, community meetings, I I don't know if anybody really understands it, will read this and say, "Oh my god, hold on a second." and you know all the neighborhood associations are you know the fact that nobody's here now from from Sunset Harbor Association from West Avenue Association I mean I think that's telling so um yeah

can I address so uh if I may a couple things one um just to clarify this is this is Commissioner Suarez's link road legislation that's more of an urban planning legislation we will be presenting our private application next month and we will have a full package package for you design being very specific about our property. Um in addition, we'll include a survey of height of the heights of buildings surrounding us. So we've done um a big survey of of everything around us and just just by example 11-11 Lincoln which is directly across the street from our project is about 170 ft60.

Yeah. So um and and West Avenue buildings behind us all ex

West Bay the condo is 130 or 40 ft. probably about a dozen buildings within a few blocks that are, you know, higher than 150. Um the the additionally I want to address a couple other things. One is that if you're concerned about parking in the future, 150 ft is going to regulate that because no one's if regardless of your F and regardless of your uses, if you can't go above 150, no one's going to build five stories of parking, right? That's you're not going to lose a third of your building of height to parking. So, at the end of the day, the the max parking you can have is two, three, maybe max max, but probably more like three levels of parking because no one's going to want to to lose all the height. Otherwise, you're it's that's a non-revenue use for in favor of revenue use, right? Um the we we we walked the streets. Um, and by the way, with our private application, you're we have met with Lincoln Road bid, uh, Washington Avenue bid, Soie West, Wavna, um, 15 to 20 different groups. We we we've met with hundreds of people publicly and p, you know, and and through individual meetings. Um, so you'll have the the neighborhood feedback support, and we'll have letters reflecting that. Um, but we walked the half mile radius of of this legislation. There's over 35 vacancies um within a half a mile of this of this of our

propert commercial retail. But just because an owner isn't operating doesn't mean the space isn't leased.

Correct. And so I'll address that. But but I think that the the reason for that and you why you don't see that further east on Lincoln Road is because you don't have many residents that and we spoke to hundreds of people that live on West Avenue. West Avenue residents will walk to Sunset Harbor and they will walk south to South Fifth. They will not walk east. Um, so you you need commercial uses like office, like retail to attract and and and bring density to Lincoln Road West. That's why Lincoln Road West retail suffers, why the Alton Road corridor suffers. It's very pecular. It's not pedestrian at all. Um, and so if you have more office space and more, you know, retail uses, you will bring more density and those uses will they will fill in. So that's why I think that the 60% is so critical because you do still need the commercial mass to attract the residents to want to live there.

I agree.

Um the in terms of uh in terms of the affordability 150 ft of height just for perspective is like anywhere between 12 and 15 stories. It's not 30 stories. It's not five park. It's not a high-rise in in our world. It's it's really like a mid-rise. And so you're not going to have water views. um you're not going to have you're you can't compete with the luxury product of Bell Ale, of West of uh West Avenue, of Five Park, etc. So, it's going to be the market's going to dictate the the missing middle um uh rent levels or even if if someone did condo, we're not a condo developer, but if someone did, it's going to dictate it by the fact that the views just aren't, you know, overly attractive for a luxury. It's going to be a a a B+ A minus kind of product. Um and then lastly just to address the uh the you know two other things. One on affordability. This is this is an alternative legislation to live local. So this gives the city the planning board historic preservation board. It gives all these all these legislative bodies the ability to take control back of the city and create missing missing middle housing regulate the height regulate the F without losing it to the to the state legislation. And that's what we're trying to present. And finally on the um on the retail just to mention I I think that if if a property sat vacant for for more than you know whatever the time frame call six months and it wasn't leased because you can't if something's leased and that that business owner is ultimately harming themselves by paying rent and not occupying but you could say over a designated period of time of vacancy it has to be given back to local artists local community uses.

That's a goart clause in a lease. That's a go dark clause in a lease. But but you can't but but

if it's least if it's least if it's leased then then it's encumbered and that business is ultimately harming itself every day by not operating there. And but most leases do have clauses that if you're closed for a certain period of time it can be terminated. And so the alternative if it's just vacant and no one's interested in the space then the city could require that uh it has to be you know pop-ups have to be three months six month uses for for artists and stuff. trying to get a temporary space activation for a long time and you know get current retailers that are in different parts of the city even to to work with some of the owners and landlords to try to activate even the first 5 10 feet of the space but I don't know what code you know I don't know what's to code what's not to code what they can and can't do and because there it Lincoln Road is so fractured but with ownership but um you know those are certainly great ideas and I mean I'm all I'm all for that but I I I'm it's just difficult because you've got so many different owners and and and like who said uh Michael said that there you know a lot of them are out of town I mean how do you get them to respond you know I mean I've gone and I've made phone calls myself trying to get somebody to respond to me and they didn't even call me back so what does that say you know I don't know that's where you need to hold the accountability I think but

well just like the city requires ires things to be put in the storefront. There could be an activation component and and a code that says it has to be activated if it's, you know, dormant for x amount of months and whatever that means. It could just be, you know, giving the space to a local artist to display their their art. I mean that's a different that's a different discussion but I but more of like the cup the planning when they come back for their individual application it wouldn't that be more of the discussion for that since we're limited here and what we're I mean the challenge in any event is going to be enforcing that right is once once a building is constructed and and otherwise occupied what recourse are we are we going to issue a zoning violation if it's not I mean

that's a that's a that's a private market transaction. So, I mean, I I mean, it's just those are those are, you know, there's all kinds of ways to make things work if there's a will. And one last thing, sorry, the just to give everyone a little bit of ease and Jonathan, you specifically the the average lot size in Miami Beach is I don't know 7,000 square feet. Yep.

Okay. So when you talk about whether it's live local or this legislation or private application or whatever kind of uh planning you're you're you're um reviewing it it takes easily minimum 25,000 square feet to actually have in a you know consolidated like building to actually develop something of this kind of scale just because of FPL volts and and ramp circulation and you know everything that's needed on the ground floor. So the idea that that and as you saw with the Washington Avenue hotel legislation, two properties got built. It wasn't some big, you know, windfall of development. Um to assemble a 25,000 or 30,000 or 40,000 foot, you know, lot in our case this for this legislation is 45,000 ft minimum on along Alton Road. Um it's it's it's going to be like way less than a handful of properties. You're talking about two, three, one maybe that actually can be assembled at that scale. So, this isn't going to ch, you know, change the skyline of the city or by any means at all.

I mean, how I don't even know how tall is um the clock tower building. What? Um that's over 150. Yeah, it's got to be 200 plus. Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking like those are not What was the comparison? The Monad I think is 14 floors high. Yeah. What was the What was the reasoning behind the heights that were chosen to 150 there and and in area three only 75? Was it because there's residential on behind area three? What was the

Yeah, I mean area two and three are different because they are part of a historic district. Um so that's number one and we're trying to preserve at at least at the street level the character of Lincoln Road. I mean the city chose to designate it and we've restored and and preserved Lincoln Road for in including the lapidous um pedestrianization design. and it's undergoing a major renovation right now. Um, so we wanted to keep the heights lower on on area 2 and three to to be more in character of the historic district. Area one, we chose a much taller height because area one is currently a, you know, in terms of all of these areas zoned for the tallest height of up to 80 ft. um area 1B. Um we looked at and and determined that because we do anticipate this Alton Road corridor um you know which is a heavily traveled commercial corridor to develop um you know just for an example and and we don't know where these are going but I think we've received close to a dozen but definitely over a half a dozen live local projects for for this Alton Road area. I like the alternative.

Um and so we we thought that 150 um may be able to be accommodated. Now um we haven't looked I I think specifically this was this area 1B was was added later um because I know um Mr. Berg did have discussions with the with the item sponsor. So, we could start looking at maybe setbacks and those types of um mechanisms um and maybe look a little bit closer at compatibility with the with the West Avenue neighborhood. Um but in general um we did feel that that these properties could potentially accommodate a 150 ft height and still be compatible with the neighborhood. This would require design review board as well. um inter in design review board um one of their criteria is to look at compatibility and that includes height um but we could certainly look at it further. So, has a professional urban planner, someone that's not within the city, h have they has anybody actually done this entire thing that's not I mean, notwithstanding the city and Tom and everybody else and Rohilio, I'm just asking it. It feels like it's not all the way there. I I'm just

This was developed in house by our professional planning department. Um if you have suggestions, that is certainly the role of the planning board to make those recommendations. Okay. All right. Ma'am, you want to speak?

Oh, hi. I'm Claudia Daget. I'm with the Lincoln Road bid. So, I'm happy to address some of the things that have been said about the popups. Um I do have contact with all the property owners on Lincoln Road. I email them constantly. So, if there is a popup or you want to activate the windows with art, we've done it many times. We put it under our our master permit. Um, the way it works is people contact us because there are so many property owners and we help facilitate and we send an email out to all of the property owners asking them to accommodate these popups and they do. Um,

have you tried have you tried to I mean this is a totally off topic, but have you tried to just do a complete plan for Lincoln Road so that you don't so that you don't have the the papered off spaces and the you know those kinds of things? I mean I feel like that that would just be fantastic. I mean, I think Max Mar or somebody did it. Some somebody did something down there where they had their space with can mannequins or something like that and I'm just like anything that that looks like it's activated is helpful. So, we do artists, but there's a lot of um which I can add all of you on to my momentum report so you see what's really going on behind the scenes, but there's at least 15 to 20 people um opening on Lincoln Road. Yes.

So there's a lot of LOIs. There's a lot of things that we're not allowed to talk about because the brands haven't announced it. So the vacancy rate is not what it appears to be. So a lot of landlords can't activate their spaces because they're leased. They're going through the permitting process, which we also help tremendously with. I mean, Annabelle's on the phone with every department trying to hold their hand and push these through. Um, so I just want to level set the any of the myths about Lincoln Road because the Lincoln Road bid can help if somebody wants to open on Lincoln Road or do a popup. Thank you.

And can I ask um what's the city like? What was behind the proposal for the first floor to be fully residential uses? Is that like the lobby? It's not actually having residents on the first floor. It's having like the lobby and residential like amenities. Yeah, I think you know the first floor was envisioned as um well, you're going to have some back of house on the first floor as well, right?

You're going to have the lobby and potentially some retail. I think the U micromobility requirement while the draft text requires a area, right? So 50% of the ground floor area needs to be dedicated to microobility. It doesn't specifically say that all the microobility needs to be located on the ground floor. Um just basically giving a a minimum square footage. And I think it does make sense potentially to look at second floor activity for for things like that too because it may be difficult um to cram all of what's going to be required not only for back of house but trying to get some some retail and the microbiality all into the ground floor. So, um I do think second level could potentially be opened up to those types of amenities slash um you know additional microobility.

So, um I have a question and it it's for the the entire all the areas and then I can speak specifically to to your project. I'm reading that um I guess the as of now is there a maximum unit size incorporated into this ordinance? Initially when this ordinance was drafted there was at uh 1,200 feet when we were at the land use committee um last year or it was a very long time ago. Um I think it was last year um that was removed. Um there was a discussion and you know I think some of the committee members were uncomfortable um with having a maximum unit size and that was removed. Um that was something that planning staff supported if we wanted to roll it back in um a maximum unit size and that you know that with the parking. So the limitation on parking plus the limitation on a unit size you know kind of de facto sets more of a reasonable price per per unit. And that was one of the reasons that I mean the the whole idea of everything we're doing in terms of these incentives is to incentivize residential um and um I think that goes a long way. I know it's been at least on the Washington Avenue. It's in the ordinance. It's out. It's in I think as of now it's in I think that should be a part of anything that we approve.

Washington Avenue we rolled back in and it was 1300 square feet. there needs to be some sort of I mean because you know if you do a 2500 square foot unit that's not going to be attainable.

Um as far as your project whether you move forward as part of this ordinance or a private application um as I said before the whole idea of this is residential to incentivize residential. Um you're you're at six saying you want to do 60% residential. I too think that's that's too low. Um, I know they talked about just have or the staff is recommending just commercial on the first floor. Kequil mentioned maybe the second floor. I could see that maybe even the third, you know, for the size of your building, maybe even the third. But I think the vast majority of of any project that takes advantage of these ordinance should be for residential. Um, you know what that number is? Again, we can debate that, but but 60% is too low in my opinion. Um, as far as the parking, I always said, you know, talking about the Washington Avenue that, and I agree with you to a certain extent, it's impractical to have all these units and zero parking. You're going to have people that need parking. Um, 80% maybe is too high. I honestly, it almost seems like that's mainly going to be used for whatever office space you have there. I know obvious maybe some of your, you know, the people living there um would work there and they wouldn't need a car, but 80% maybe is too high. That's just bumping up the uh the size of your building. Um I think in terms of height, um and where that number is, again, we can be open to that. Um whether it's one car for five units, one for 10, or whatever that is. Um but I think 80 might be too high. um 20% uh you know park or or what was the number? Was it 20%.

I think it's 80% of the lowest tier I think. Yeah. In other words, whatever the numbers are, we can figure that out. But I do think on all these projects really parking you're going to need some parking. Um and again I we can we can go back and forth on what that number is. Um but you know 80% that's you're basically saying you're providing parking for the entire for the entire project for all the units in the building almost. Um and that again that that's going a little maybe too far and I think I think the 80% is also for to to compensate for the retail clients too.

Yeah, that's part of it but it what that does it makes the building higher as well. It's a proposed waiver up up to 80%. And then there's also the ability the if I may uh the virtue of this of having the mixed use of course is the shared parking ability where the same spaces aren't used at the same time. But it it' be a waiver and it' be the planning board's ability to wave. We're um come up with what number would you know would we be allowed to give a waiver up to. So um as far as micromobility I'm could be on the second floor, first floor. I I don't um that's something that I think if uh put on the roof. Yeah. Wherever. I mean, I'm open to whatever.

We also think it should be a a percentage of spaces, not square footage because micromobility is is is moving. Like it could be a moch, it could be scooters, like you know, like it could be bikes. So, it's it's easy. I think it's more of spaces than pretty close. So, um yeah. Anyway, those are my comments. Yeah. So again, I don't I think we're going to move on because we're going to be coming back. But in light of all the comments, that's why I'm asking at this new public hearing that's come coming up. I mean, are these all going to be discussed like or is this academic exercise or

staff? Um at the March 24th meeting, we'll present similar to how we presented today. Um and then we will take public comment Mr. during the meeting including you know um you know David's proposal if if as public comment they are certainly welcome to to present that and and hear from anyone who's in attendance what the general consensus is. We will then provide the planning board with a summary of the comments that we hear at the meeting at the second planning board hearing.

Right. And then wouldn't I mean if any of them are well taken wouldn't that then be incorporated into the proposed ordinance? Um I I think at this point we're we're pretty comfortable with the way the ordinance is drafted. There may be and I think you know there's some important points that were brought up for the micromobility to to really clarify that in terms of how large it has to be and exactly where in the building it would be allowed to be. Um but other than that we are um in terms of our staff recommendation is all right Mr.

Chairman and thank you for indulging us. I think this has been a very constructive discussion, but I I would ask specifically that the planning board direct that at this public workshop there be a presentation, a full presentation of our proposed alternatives. I think that will lead to a more robust discussion. Either staff could do it or we could we could make that presentation, but we may as well put everything out on the table so that the discussion is more productive. You're saying in the absence of us saying anything, you're saying you would not be able to present that? No. Why? We want to officially have the sanction to not just speak for three minutes and to be able to at the public hearing at the public. Yeah.

We want to be able to present this. We've put a lot of thought into this. Let's defer to our expert Nick. Nissan, you're free to to make the at the end of the day, these are sort of your asks, right? So, you're free to present those at the public workshop. And I understand that you have a separate private application which you're going to present be presenting to the board anyway, but of course they can present at the workshop. Okay. As long as it's just understood, we'll have the time to make a full presentation on it at the public workshop. I don't think is there any limit in the public hearing? I mean, is there no it's a I mean it's really informal.

I do one other thing if I may, Mr. Mr. Chair, say this uh that with respect to the sponsor of this Lincoln West legislation, Commissioner Suarez, the intent his intention uh of doing this on an area basis is actually the way that urban planning should be done. It shouldn't be done on a sightby-sight basis. It just so happens in this city be it tends to become done on a narrower basis. But I would not want to undercut the fact that this approach is the correct approach and that's why we support it. Now on the other hand, we do have we have a very there's a very important block which we are a major owner of which needs to be redeveloped and which can provide so much of what the city is desiring in terms of housing. So we'll proceed with an individual application. But don't but but this approach the area wide approach is the correct approach for a policy basis. When I was on the planning board in the 1980s that's what we did too. One other point I'd like to make if I may just so it's clear for the record in terms of neighborhood context. Mr. Mr. Freedom, there was a lot of there was discussion with staff and with the sponsor about the height and everything and the 150 ft was actually a very considered number. And if you look at the the the context of that area, that west area, West Avenue area, you have the West Bay Apartments literally across the street, which I think is 140 ft. Mentioned the garage at 11-11, which is 117 or whatever it is. But more than that, think about the context of West Avenue. You have the flamingo which is 300 feet, the Waverly 300 ft. This board just passed an increase of height of to 380 ft for 1250 West Avenue. This is very modest in terms of a height ask in terms of the context of that area. So, so I think that that needs to be

understood. I think you know Nissan when you're bringing up two things they for the height again one of the most tasteful projects we've seen on West Avenue is that Monad Terrace one which is which would be the equivalent of the height you guys are putting there and I think it's well blended and I think was super wellreceived from from the neighborhood and we're talking about a corridor on Alton Road that uh is mostly commercial um focus and to your point you know the city has lacked um integrating these the the these different sections of the city and we've been more of a patchwork kind of city and and the way we've we've done these developments. And I think the beauty of the section of 1B adding that on to to to this whole development of Lincoln Road and um Washington is we're kickstarting it with a project that's ready to go. And so I think um it's important that we we recognize that this will set the tone for the rest of the development that we can be see your changes incorporated into this. I think it's important that that we get this right and it is Lincoln Road and I think that um these changes are significant. I think putting that much micromobility on the first floor is absolutely wrong. I don't I think that that putting office and FnB and whatever it is on the first two or three levels is the right way to go. I think requiring one parking space per unit or whatever is great. I don't think we should I think if anything we should uh set a floor for how much uh square footage you have but not a max. Um especially if you're wanting to really truly make Lincoln Road special. Um

so so is is the uh today with the discussion item are we supposed to make any recommendations? Are we to support any of these recommendations? Let's make a motion to defer. This is your first of of two hearings on the ordinance. You of course have authority to make recommendations on this ordinance, but you're not transmitting anything today, right? So, I think you know staff is taking notes on the on the board's discussion. We have obviously the community workshop and then we'll have a second hearing before the plan makes more sense on the secondary hearing. That's when you make the recommendations. Okay. But the but the commission will be able to have these this information. Absolutely. Okay. Wonderful.

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for everyone's time. We really appreciate it. Thank No action taken. We'll see you in I guess next month. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. All right. Last but not least, new application planning board file 2550789 323 23rd Street. Deborah. Yes, Mr. Chair. Just give me one second. Sure. Um Okay. Excuse me. Do you want to be present? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, representation rain.

Yes. Okay. Um the an application has been filed requesting a conditional use permit for a neighborhood impact establishment including indoor entertainment um with an occupant content exceeding 199 persons. Um this is part of a larger renovation of the property. Um a interior and exterior renovation. Uh the modifications to the exterior were actually reviewed and approved by the Historic Preservation Board um in October of last year. Um currently the the business um does function as a as a nightclub. I don't believe it's open now, but previously um it is still a vested um business in terms of a non-conforming um nightclub. They um have a a BTR. They're looking at increasing the occupancy slightly which is now triggering um the requirement to obtain a cup. Um their total occupancy proposed is 586 persons. Um that would be 399 indoor and 187 outdoor. Um they are requesting uh hours of operation Thursday through Sunday from 1000 pm to 5:00 a.m. Um while staff is generally supportive of that um we did some research um with uh other neighborhood impact establishments in the area and a 200 a.m. closing time for outdoor outdoor portions of the venue was more consistent with with the approval previous approvals of other um similar venues. Um so we would recommend that the outdoor portion have hours of operation limited it to 2:00 a.m. Um again um no outdoor entertainment is proposed in the indoor entertainment staff um does not have any major

objections. We um you know took a look there are no residential properties immediately surrounding it's a very commercial area. Um we did note however that the existing venue does not have the double vestibules which are very commonly required. Um so we are again recommending that these vestibules be added on the interior so that when the doors are open you don't have um loud noise spilling out onto the street. Um there is no proposed valet. Um this has been reviewed by the transportation department. transportation because of the hours of operation of the venue does not anticipate any um increase um and does not had didn't did not have any comments um with regard to the operational plan. Staff is supportive of the application um with the recommendations I stated and is recommending approval

for what space is this now? I I know that street well. What which bar was there? This was Groove Jet, man. It was Groove Jet. Okay. Yeah, this you you made mention you made mention of Mint. This might be O OG before that. Yeah, we're going full circle from getting getting kicked out of a club to now representing or discussing expansions on the club. So, yeah.

So, um Michael Grio, um Miami Beach Consulting, uh on behalf of the owners of 323 23rd Street strictly as a consultant and a lobbyist. I'm also present is the architect team led by William Arthur who's going to be involved in the presentation. Um you you've pretty much heard from staff what the asks are. Um they're not significant. Um we're going to go through their presentation. It's a pretty brief presentation. We already went through HPB on this and we're looking for approval today so we can move forward. It's my understanding that previously a building permit was issued, but it was issued erroneously. Um, and we're now kind of putting the the genie back in the bottle to an extent and then coming back before you to get the proper approvals. And that's where we are today. So, if we can put the presentation up on the screen. There we go. So, these are some of the potential renderings on the interior. And if you need to interrupt us at any time to ask questions.

So here's the final submitt. I'm going to defer to Mr. Arthur on the So nothing's operating there currently. No. No. It's it's it's a construction zone right now because they had started work um and then pressed pause to to come back and and get the approvals through you folks.

And and what's next to it? Remind me. There's a nightclub next. So, if I go through, if you look here, this is directly AC, this is directly north of the uh parking garage for uh the ballet on 23rd Street. So, this is on the north side of 23rd Street. You'll see the site on the top picture on this slide is where the property is. It's kind of this non-escript building next to uh it's a non-contributing building next to I believe Debbie that's Debbiey's not there. Invisible Debbie. I'm pretty sure that's a contributing building just to the east.

Where where was where was like Mokai? Next Mokai is further east of that. It's another it's another block. So this is this is the block that's it's pretty much the western more block. Then you have the gas station and then it pretty much goes right to the right to the fire station after you make that kind of weird right turn that goes onto Pine Tree. And so I'm going to defer to Mr. Arthur to kind of go through and he'll let me know when to go through the slides to go through on some of the uh architectural changes um from the facade and the interior as well. Go to the demotion sheet. Couple

William Arthur WHA. Uh as Michael said, we had worked pretty closely with staff on this. He had touched on one item that this was inadvertently approved. It was it was by the building department. It was a no fault of our great planning staff. It was planning staff who helped us uh recover from that. Um there's an item on the conditions being proposed of vestibules which I want to revisit to that point. Um, for the most part, and I'll give you sort of like the architectural background of this renovation is the space when we started had a lot of deficiencies in ADA compliance. We reworked the bathrooms. There was no ADA approach to the bars. We renovated the bars and we made them much nicer, but we also comply with ADA compliance. there was some architectural barriers at the rear because there is an exterior component to this and we removed those barriers as part of this renovation. Um, another big aspect of this project was response to the resiliency code. Um, it is on a canal and this property often flooded. So, in response to that and in conformance with the city's resiliency initiatives, uh we installed an extensive, uh drainage system under that exterior deck. Um, as far as aesthetics, sort of just the architectural background of this is that the clientele of the club is getting older and more sophisticated. The music they listen to is probably considered a little bit more tasteful, a little quieter. It's not going to be a very big uh outdoor space where everyone's just dancing at a high concentration. We've introduced lounge spaces. Go to the uh the floor plan. So, we've removed a lot of the exterior um and sort of like dancing spaces and we put more sophisticated lounge. Um another component of the resiliency code is to

implement um shading devices which you see in sort of that hatchy area in the back. all of the occupancy counts uh and seating counts that Debbie had mentioned is is correct. Uh we coincide with that. Um and then one of the things I wanted to touch on is the vestibules and and going back to what I said at the beginning. This was approved by the building department about a year ago and the uh city or the building side inadvertently approved this. Therefore, the owner proceeded with the interior renovations. Interior is done. Um going back to if if it entertains the board going back to that interior and try to install vestibules. Now he would be undoing the work that he was previously approved for.

Do you want to speak to the hours operation? Now let's move on for some of the stuff for the Yeah. Um some of the exterior features that we were removing. We are uh adjacent to a historic building. We did go before HPB. They wanted the new architecture to be distinguished. Next slide. This is some of the seating arrangements that we have and the occupancy counts that staff had mentioned. Next slide. Next, you want to go to the exterior elevation. So, jumping to the exterior, that's what's before you now. And again, it was approved by HPP. You could probably go to the

about the uh some of the details. There's a section of a pizza oven. So, um removing some of the staining tabletops and one of the things we're bringing in is a exterior one of those nice like wood brick pizza ovens that is actually from Italy. You can be serving pizza. Yes, sir. That's great. I don't think there's anything else. um some of the uh invasive trees that we found on the site, seaside mahones, we're removing those and we're replacing those with um some Simpson stoppers and other indigenous vegetation. Okay, I'll defer to any questions or to Michael. Yeah.

There's any questions? Anybody in You're not here to speak on this, are you? Anybody on Zoom? Any disclosures? Yeah, I was saying any disclosures to make. No. Okay. I love pizza.

So, the the one kind of delta we have with the staff recommendation is the 2 a.m. cut off in the outdoor area. Um there is no entertainment in the outdoor area. So, you know, we wouldn't we'd be asking for the outdoor area hours to be consistent with the hours on the on the inside. uh as was discussed by staff and and we agree there are there is no adjacent residential that is impacted by this. Um so this is a different situation than it would be if you had adjacent residential um or if there was was the previous operator um also using the outdoor space until 5:00 a.m. Yes, ma'am. Yeah.

Yeah. So Deborah, what's in light of the lack of residential here? What's is it just uniformity or what's it was basically just looking at consistency in the neighborhood? um for the outdoor hours, but um we didn't find any, you know, the way the the previous operation was run, we didn't find that there were any complaints or or they were at 5:00 outside. Yeah. I can I can testify as a as a former consumer of the product previously early early 2000s. Yeah. All right. Any questions? I mean, I would just say no,

in terms of the 2 am, if that's what stat staff's recommendation is to keep it consistent, I would say if you guys open up and the way that the vestibules work out with the double whatever and the music attenuation, um, if it turns out to be there's no bother to anybody nearby, you don't hear the music, then I don't think anybody would have a problem with keeping that area open till 5:00 a.m. But in the problem is for residents, I know there's not near immediate nearby residents, but the process of undoing that that 5:00 a.m. is really difficult for if there's ever an issue. And so I I would say I would maybe even put a note in it like you know applicant can come back to us after opening you know how you know and and ask to modify that because you guys

Why do you say it's hard to undo? We can modify it. I'm saying what what we can but it needs a a verified noise complaint like it needs it needs to go through the whole process of modifying a CP as opposed to it's very easy for them to come back to us and you know they need a violation you know if there is an issue right but if there's no violation then what's the pro well my the problem is is that if there is a violation right then that gets appealed then then it's it takes them notice of 30 days to come back but if they don't have the 5:00, you're not going to have a sample size to know if there's a problem. You're going to have it until 2 a.m., right? Right.

If ever if there's everything seems great and and there's no issues with the because the problem is it's a new build and I know, you know, their architecture firm knows a lot. They're doing a very good job with noise attenuation. The the issue is we don't know necessarily how that's going to go,

but we we do. So, that's the thing. do this is this this building has been an active nightclub for a quarter of a century if not longer. It go this is going back to the '9s. That area was actually more active and louder the way it was designed previously and they had 5:00 a.m. and there's no history of concerns and that was even articulated by staff. and now to ask us to close the the outdoor area at 2 a.m. where the rest of the property is open until 5 and then saying that oh well if we're good until 2 then we can come back in front of you and ask for five as opposed to just doing it now as opposed to the other way around. That's why we have the code enforcement system the way that we do. If we if if we get dinged, we're going to be in front of you and and having this conversation again. What we're asking is to essentially have the same rights that previous operations had and if there's an issue then we'll be back in front of you with our tail between our legs and our hats and our hands. But I I don't foresee that being the case cuz even though um I my take away from this application, it's actually a reduction in intensity because of the way it's being designed inside, the way it's being presented, the crowd that it's going to be um attracting. So I think that we're going to be okay. I I mean I do understand Jonathan's concerns after we dealt with the Washington the Washington the Good Time Hotel, but I think that was kind of unique in how we dealt with you know had to deal with that specific in a different neighborhood and I think that the history here shows that there hasn't been issues. We have a different kind of neighborhood. I think that it's uh

you know there's a small little window of chance that things go wrong and I think we got to give them a chance. Yeah. And there's no there's no um entertainment or or outside speakers outside. No, sir. There's no there's no entertainment outside. Okay. Not ambient speakers, but there's no it's it's ambient. It's not they're not raging. And I'd be willing to go along with with 5 a.m. I just because you've been operating or it's been operating as a club for a long time. But I do think we should keep an eye on it and maybe um ask for um a progress report after three four months. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. And but on the roof

does the does it have a a cup have a date they have to come back? Yes. Um there is a mandatory progress report. I think it's six months. Perfect. Okay. Perfect. Okay. Okay. Okay. Why don't you move it? Is this Can I ask is there anyone in Zoom? Oh, it's Excuse me. I was corrected. It's 90 days, three months for the mandatory progress report and then annual progress report. I do not see anyone on Zoom. Okay. All right. Question. Uh are they here because um the of the work they're doing or did their BTR expire and then it

it was determined um that this is an increase in the nonconformity. So they are legally operating previously prior to the NIE, you know, regulations. Um but they're asking now to technically we consider this an increase. Um and that's why they're before you. Okay. They're asking for 5 am, but they're also asking no vestable. Is that So, we need to agree to that, too. Right. Well, yeah. So, we've already The issue is that because they were granted a building permit,

the work where a lot of what we're asking for, the work has already been done, including the buildout without the vestibule. So, if we were required now to put in a vest, no, I'm just saying we're passing a cup. Does a cup ask for a vestible? No. No. Yes. We staff is recommending that the vest be introduced. We're recommending it, but that's not part of the cup. So, we need to say we either agree or disagree. Right. Right. And and again, you know, my view is is in light of the neighborhood. Yeah.

And the fact that they've operated like Michael said, a quarter of a century without a problem. Um I'm okay with that. So, we should be on record for 5:00 a.m. and no vestible if we agree. That's the motion. Correct. Okay. Thank you for that. Aren't there residential buildings right there like the art art place or art um I mean not within not adjacent um you know you're a couple blocks away um for residential buildings. So, all right. We have a motion on the table. I do. We have a second. I'll second. Okay. You want to do a roll call? Sure. New applications. I like to do a roll call. Okay. Um, Miss Laton,

yes. Mr. Needleman, yes. Mr. Cement, yes. Miss Bey, yes. Mr. Marks, yes. Mr. Elias, yes. Mr. Frerieden, I forgot. I apologize. Okay, so we got everybody. You vote no. Yeah. Okay, so there's one no vote. Got it. Just for the record. WHERE'S YOUR CAR PARKED? HE'S USING MICRO. Thank you guys. When do you anticipate opening? Just for the just Oh, God. All right. Yeah, I'd say adjourned beginning of summer and and which is a great time to open in Miami Beach. So anyway, congratulations.

Thank you guys. Thank you.