City Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. Today is Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. The time is approximately 7 p.m. We'll now call to order the City of South Miami City Commission meeting. Madam Clerk, if you could please call the roll.

Yes, Mayor Fernandez.

Present.

Vice Mayor Corey.

Present.

Commissioner Rodriguez.

Here.

Commissioner Moniz. Here. Commissioner Kaye.

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. If I could ask the audience to please silence or turn off your cell phones. And if you could please also stand for a brief prayer, followed by the pledge led by Commissioner Rodriguez. Dear Lord, grant me the grace to receive feedback with humble heart. When I'm corrected, keep me from becoming merely defensive or prideful. Help me to discern the truth within criticism and use it to refine my character and grow in wisdom. Protect me from bitter reactions to harshness and give me a teachable spirit that looks for the lessons you want me to learn in everything. Amen.

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

Please be seated. Thank you. Madam Clark, I believe we have a number of presentations on tonight's agenda, correct? yes if i could ask you to please call uh f3 please f3 life saving award officer actually i'm sorry i'm going out of order i apologize we'd agree to do public remarks first i think at our last meeting so uh breaking custom and i need to get used to it i apologize so if we have the sign-in sheet for public remarks Again, if you've not signed up, you're still welcome to come up and sign up for public remarks. If you don't want to sign up, just make a line behind the podium and we'll recognize you in due course. And just for those of you who are here on a land use item we'll take up later in the agenda, you're also welcome to speak when we hear those items as well, contemporaneously.

Thank you.

Okay, we've got two names thus far, Jose Pulido and David Landauer. So Mr. Pulido, Mr. Landauer, if you want to just come on up, make a line. You're recognized, sir.

Hello, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Manager, Attorney.

Good evening. Can you hear me? We can now, yes. Thank you.

Always the first time to break the ice. No problem. Waiting for this day for a long time. And I've lived and had the pleasure of being in South Miami for 31 years. Awesome place. My name's Jose Pulido, and I live on Southwest 61st Street between 67th Avenue Ludlam and 65th Avenue, right across the street from the South Miami Middle School. Seen the fireworks display for decades. The main reason I'm here is because I'm representing my street, which has 11 residences, 11 houses. And the main reason I'm here is because we clearly need speed humps for traffic control, at least two of them, clearly marked. Southwest 61st Street is a street that's right across the street from South Miami Middle School. Recently, because of the speed zone cameras, I've noticed, and I've been there for a while, so I could be the study. Oh, by the way, I could be the study and save you a lot of money. I'll charge zero. Thank you. We appreciate that. I'm the study, and it's clearly marked.

It's on the record.

Yes. Seriously, you don't need any long study or charge any taxpayer one penny. I'm the study. Zero charge. The speed bumps are needed because that 61st street is a beautiful street, but it's a long street, linear-wise. And the speed cameras, what they're doing is the traffic, which is unfortunately kind of aggressive nowadays, they cut through during the speed zone to like, you know, a shortcut to cut through to get into Miller. So they go fast. And nowadays, we also have, I have my iPad. I'm an old school guy, pencil in the air.

I'm sorry, sir. Just to ask, so they're going down 61st and then north up 65th?

Yeah, and the clerk was kind enough. We got your apps. Fantastic. So I was a little proactive. Thank you. And I'm being proactive because, God forbid, and it hasn't happened yet, that we haven't had a tragedy. We've had pets. killed by hit and run cars, family pets that have been killed. And we saw them over the years. We don't want children or an elderly. We have a family on our street with elderly people that walk very slow, with middle school kids, with children, with pets. OK, 61st Street has no sidewalks. It's dimly lit. It's a long launching pad. So they cut through, during school zones, a launching pad to get into Miller. It's very, very, it's back and forth. And it's not only non-resident drivers, but resident drivers and also the UPS, FedEx, Amazon, Uber Eats, and then also now with the electric cars, you don't hear them anymore. Years ago, you'd hear the car have a fighting chance to get out of the way. I wear neon green and orange to have a fighting chance. And I'm pretty quick still. So I'm just saying, the electric cars, you can't hear them. The electric scooters, the electric bikes, there's no sidewalks. We have our middle school kids going up and down. We have elderly. And we have streets, God bless them, in South Miami that have not one but two clearly marked speed humps with less linear feet, nowhere near a school. So we really desperately need one for decades. So I'm being a little proactive. We don't want nothing bad to happen. We don't want nobody to get killed or get hurt. And if you go down that street at any time, 24-7. And so as far as coming to the 4th of July, I've noticed that after the 4th of July or after an event, everybody only wants to rush out, right? Fast. So they cut through also our street. Even though the people with chairs and everything are walking, they're blasting through the street to get out of there. So what I'm saying is they're going very fast up and down, and we clearly need traffic control on 61st Street Southwest. Two speed humps clearly marked would be a proactive lifesaver for everybody, pets, animals, everybody. So let me see if I went through my notes really quick. Traffic, I told you about the nowadays you can't hear the cars. They really whiz by.

We covered that.

Oh, and then two speed humps. Oh, and last but not least, I've gone in the middle of the street to try to slow people down, and I've screened them. And what do I get? I get not one, but two middle fingers. Yeah. They're not up.

So let's give them two speed humps. Okay. Excellent close. I think we've got an update from Commissioner Rodriguez. You want to add something? Thank you, guys.

Appreciate it. I have a request of you. Go ahead. Yeah, please. So just to give you an update, we're neighbors. Oh, awesome. We met when I was walking. I submitted, so every time we request a speed hump, we request it to our public works. And then our public works has to go to Dade County for approvals. Because Dade County is basically in charge of all approvals for any MOT, which is movement of traffic, or any calming devices. So we're basically at their beck and call of when they approve or disapprove. So just giving you an update. Over a year ago, I already submitted through Public Works for 60. So your street turns into my street, 64th. Yeah, that's the shortcut to Miller. So right now, from Miller to the turn, there's nothing. And everybody walks their dogs through 59th. So you know 65th has the stop signs. Twin Lakes Drive has the speed table, which I had adjusted to make it a little bit more bumpy. So right now, the request was put in to put on 64th, because it's the long straightaway from Miller all the way to the curb, and there's six homes with kids on them. And I know you live... I know where you live, too. You have the kids in front of you and all that. So right now, imagine it's taken a year. I got on a Zoom call with the head of transportation there. I got in an argument with him because initially I just wanted a four-way stop. So what we're doing now is the public works director is here. He knows better than where we're at. Right now, we were approved for a speed hump on 64th. And then we'll have to make a request to see if they will do it further down. Because the problem becomes when you reach 65th and 64th that becomes 61, you have the stop sign there. You have the four-way stop. So what they're saying is that sometimes, so they're saying the distance between 65th to 67th is in a long enough span for, again, this is not us. If it were up to us, there'd be speed humps on every street in our city.

Because we're a cut-through city. Trust me, you're so... But we have a fighting chance. Excuse me, with all due respect. We have a fighting chance because we're right next to a middle school. We have no sidewalks.

It's just, we have the speed camera right there.

It's a long linear footage. So it's a lot, a lot of, you know, check the box pros. I mean, we need a speed bump. I've been doing this for, I mean, I went to Public Works decades, decades ago. It's the same thing, you know. I'm being proactive because God forbid something bad happens. Understood.

I'm on your team. I'm on your side. Trust me. I know. My son rides bike through there all the time. You've probably seen him ride. Yeah. What we'll have to do now is just we'll have to see and update. I don't know if we can update our request, see where we are, or do a new request to include the 61st part. So I'll work with the public works director to see if we can do that. The county will have to do their traffic study and all that. I know you say that you do it, but they'll have to do it.

Whatever you need from me, you know, signatures, whatever, you know, old school, whatever.

That would be our request.

Whatever.

It's just logical, man. Yeah, yeah. 100%. I mean, God forbid, I've been there, and I'm like, oh, my goodness. My pets are, you know, people, elderly people, like, walk, you know, really slow.

And by the way, just so you know, Commissioner Bonich also lives on 64th, too, on the other side of 59th. So she lives on the north side of 59th. I live on the south side of 59th. So we see the cars passing by. Trust me, we're on it as far as trying to get speed bumps there. So I'll keep you updated and let you know, but we'll have to update our application or we'll put in a new application.

And you guys know best. It's your wheelhouse. You're the gurus. But no sidewalks, the middle school. There's so many pluses. The camera, it's just like I think we have a fighting chance now.

The only thing we'll ask you to wrap up is because we've had this experience too many times, at least four of us, over the last three and a half years. is we often, we used to spend money on studies before consulting with the public that was affected. Unfortunately, we have to do that. We've procured technology to kind of test whether we'll meet the county's threshold. So we'll do that. We'll get Mr. Munoz to follow up with you. But it would be helpful if you could collect signatures from your neighbors.

Of course.

Because we don't want to go through this process, spend money, and then have neighbors object to having the speed humps installed, which, by the way, you laugh, but it has happened. You're right. It has happened many times before. I will do that.

I would just say also, because you get the signatures to approve the speed bump, but you should also get it saying that they'd be OK with having it in front of their house, because that will stop the project if somebody says they don't want it in front of their house, even if the entire street wants it. Would it be on the property line?

You know what I'm saying? Like in the middle? It doesn't matter where it is.

If it touches their boxes, I don't want to have any... You're on both sides. We've got to wrap up the conversation. I'll leave it on the scene. But I think if you could help us in collecting signatures, hopefully all 11 homes on the street are okay with it. That's the ideal situation because, again, if we have an objector, unfortunately, we are powerless to... I guess we can't override them technically because they're local.

We have to have a public hearing to do that.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Appreciate you coming.

Okay, Mr. Landauer, good evening.

I really came in to talk about resolution number five and misunderstood the instructions.

No, no problem. You're welcome to sit. We're going to call that item up shortly, and then we'll let you speak at that time. Thank you. Is there anyone else who'd like to address this commission in public remarks? Okay, seeing no one in the chamber. Madam Clerk, is there anyone online?

Anyone on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand.

Okay, we'll go ahead and close public remarks. If we miss anyone, we'll come back to them. Okay, let's try to quickly run through these presentations. If you can call F3, please.

F3, Life Saving Award, Officer Rocio and Officer Perez Leon, Chief Hatfield.

Chief Hatfield, you're recognized, sir.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. City Manager and members of our community, tonight it's my honor to recognize two officers whose actions embody the very best of the South Miami Police Department and our commitment to protecting life. On April 18th, 2026, Officer Alejandro Perez Leon and Officer Rocio Alvarez responded to a call involving an unresponsive individual in medical distress. Upon arrival, they quickly assessed the situation and recognized the severity of the individual's condition. The individual was in labored breathing, and without hesitation, the officers immediately began lifesaving measures, including the administration of Narcan and other emergency aids as they awaited fire rescue. In those critical moments, their training, their teamwork, and their ability to stay calm under pressure made all the difference. Because of their actions, the individual was given a second chance at life. What makes this recognition even more meaningful is that both of these officers are among our newer members, having joined the department in 2025. In a short time, they've already demonstrated the professionalism, courage, and commitment that we strive to instill in every member of this organization. Policing is not just enforcement. It's service, it's compassion, and it's the willingness to step forward when someone needs the help the most. On behalf of the South Miami Police Department, I want to commend you both for your actions, your dedication, and your pride you bring to this department. Congratulations, and thank you for your service. Commissioner, do you want to get a photo opportunity?

That would be great. I'm going to stand back here. Yes, sir.

I understand. We'll make room for you in the picture. No, no, thank you.

All right, guys. One, two, and three. Hold that. Okay, Madam Clerk, if you could read item F6, please.

F6, proclamation request, Landscape Architecture Month, April 2026. Great, thank you.

I'm going to recognize Vice Mayor Corey on this item.

Sir, you're recognized. Thank you. This is a proclamation. Whereas landscape architecture involves the planning, design, and stewardship of natural and built environments to create healthy, safe, and resilient communities. Okay. Whereas April 1, 2026 is recognized as Professional Landscape Architecture Day, honoring licensed professionals whose STEM expertise supports infrastructure and quality of life in South Miami. And Landscape Architecture Month highlights the profession's impact on parks, streetscapes, campuses, and public spaces across all communities. And as the nation approaches America 250, landscape architects continue to shape and preserve places that reflect our heritage and serve future generations. And licensed landscape architects protect public health, safety, and welfare through responsible design of outdoor environments, including green infrastructure and complex systems. And these professionals play a vital role in addressing climate change through sustainable design that restores ecosystems and reduces long-term public costs. And the profession strengthens South Miami's economy through education, tourism, and development, supported by accredited programs in Florida. Now, therefore, I, Javier Fernandez... Mayor, along with my colleagues in the City Commission, Vice Mayor Brian Corey, Commissioner Lisa Benich, Steve Kaye, and Danny Rodriguez, do hereby proclaim to observe April 2026 as Landscape Architecture Month.

THANK YOU, MR. VICE MAYOR, FOR READING THAT WITH SUCH INTENSITY. NO PROBLEM. SUBERBI, YOU'RE RECOGNIZED, IF YOU CAN. YES, THANK YOU.

GOOD EVENING. THANK YOU. MY NAME IS SUBERBI. I'M A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT WITH THE MAYOR HAMIL AND ALSO REPRESENT ASLA, WHICH IS THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS IN MIAMI AS A SECTION SHERIFF. AND I WANT TO SAY THANK YOU FOR THE RECOGNITION. AND WE APPRECIATE THAT AS A

Thank you so much. And we're lucky to have very talented landscape architects living amongst us here in South Miami, including those helping us at Curtis and Rogers with our current landscape master plan. So that's us. So thank you very much. We'll take a picture. I'll stand in the back again. My apologies for not coming down.

One of the things that we continue to do in the city is have more ability and landscape architects that help us protect and do better with our neighborhoods as in trees and landscaping and all that. Since you represent an association that does all that, is there any way that we can get some of those people to kind of join some of our design review boards, some of our volunteer boards to really do more with the city? Would that be something that you can help us connect with? Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, if you could help us advertise the openings, that would be great. Thank you so much. OK, are South Miami Wildcats ready? Yep? Come on up. So we're going to have an impromptu recognition of one of our local schools championship girls flag football team. Ladies, come on up. Let's give them a round of applause. OK, who's the team captain? You are? You're on the mic, young lady. What's your name? Give us your name and address for the record, please.

Kayla Tumat.

DAVID CHOEHLER- Kayla Tumat, and you are?

The quarterback of the South Miami Wildcats.

DAVID CHOEHLER- And the captain. Now, you're not just the South Miami Wildcats. You're the South Miami two-time?

Champion. DAVID CHOEHLER- There you go.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

What grade are you in, young lady? What grade are you in?

Eighth grade.

Awesome. And who's with you? Who are your teammates with you? Can you run us through? Yeah, run us through your name and your position, please.

My name is Jaleah Brown. My position is a running back.

Awesome. And you're an eighth grader as well?

Seven.

Seven. Awesome. Okay, great. So she'll be back next year.

Come on up. My name is Jada Norwood, and I'm an eighth grader. And my position is blocker.

Awesome. Congrats.

My name is Anaya Johnson, and I'm in eighth grade, and I'm a rusher.

Awesome.

My name is Fire Hodges. I'm in eighth grade, and I'm a middle linebacker.

Fantastic. Fire. I love it.

My name is Maylynn Mercier, and I'm a blocker.

Awesome.

My name is Isabella Borna. I'm in seventh grade, and I'm a receiver.

There we go.

My name is Olivia Williams. I'm in seventh grade and I'm a corner. My name is Javay Williams. I'm in the seventh grade and I'm a running back. My name is Jade Byron. I'm in sixth grade and I'm a middle linebacker.

Gentlemen, introduce yourselves again. There you go.

Camila wore last year's shirt to show that she was on both last year and this year. There you go. As were quite a few other kids, and we're missing some.

Let me get this thing up here.

There you go. But I am, as a teacher, I'm the designated head coach, but I'm mainly the water boy. And I think most of you know the coach is right behind me, and he's going to talk to you guys. And I would like to say that...

It was my duty to... By the way, we know who you are, but for those who may be watching at home... My name's... I'm a Truby. That's hard to...

But I'm not going to tell you which one, just in case. No, I'm Nick Truby, and I'm the teacher at South Miami High School. But they called me and said... to get this certifiably correct with the right team, because Obi retired. What are you doing retiring, Obi? Come on, man. You got to work till the last day, man. But I said I'd come over. And it's been nothing but great for me. And we had talked about that. But I also, before I let Obi talk about everybody here, it's been great being back with the community and with these kids. And I will also say the city of South Miami came through. We didn't really have a field. We were one of the schools that did have a field. There's a lot of middle schools that don't have anywhere to play. And so we got all home games this year. But that helped.

That's how we like it.

And you guys came through for us. Mr. Tyson behind us came through. Armando on the field came through, as long as we picked up the cones. But... But and city of South Miami mayor and commission came through for us. So we appreciate that. And here's Coach Obi. Well, let's see. I'm 60, and I was a grade ahead of him in South Miami middle school and high school. And he started coaching, I think, the week after he graduated. So he's been coaching for like 40-something years.

Thank you, Nick.

Good evening, sir. Hello. I really appreciate it. uh the city of south mamie and the congregation for uh inviting these young ladies up we we were invited last year but you know i get so involved with i have tackle football going on right now i just came from the field with my tackle football team and i told them i got to go i got engagement with the girls you know i mean these girls are very special i've been coaching flag now for five years and uh I love it. I love coaching them more than I do the boys. I hope no boys not in here. But it's been a good ride. You know, we went undefeated two years in a row, last year, this year. And they haven't been scored on in two years.

Wow. Wow. In two years.

And just not all of them. We're missing about six or seven girls, because a lot of them had other engagements. A couple of girls are trying out for cheerleaders and stuff like that. But I really want to say thanks to the mayor. He came through for us. Every time I asked him for help, he gives us help. I called him and I said, man, we need to fill Mark. And he told me, hold on a second. When I looked at my phone, in 10 seconds, I was getting emails.

That's the manager in Johnson. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I was getting emails telling me how much do we need, this and that. But like I said, these girls are very special. And I hope when they go to high school, whatever high school they go to, they're going to accomplish a lot of things. And like I told them, the best thing to do is just be humble. If you be humble in life, you're going to make it. Nobody likes to show off. Every game that we do win, the only thing I let them do at the end of the game after we shake hands, everybody want to do flips, because all of them can flip. And I told them that I could flip also. Y'all want to see me do it right now?

There you go. Yeah.

And they know what my flip is. I run a couple of steps and I stop. But like I say, it's been a good ride. And I appreciate the parents for letting me coach them. And I really appreciate Mr. Truby because I retired from the school board two years ago. And they was giving me a hard time because they didn't want me coaching a girl. They're saying that you got to be an employee and this and that. And I said, OK. I said, if I got the coach from the parking lot, I'll do that. I had untold my quarterback. Kayla knows. She got the plays wrote down. I told her I'd just give her hand signals of what to do. But everything played out OK. They stopped giving me a hard time. And you know, Truby came in and stepped in. Because he still works for the school board. And I mean, we have fun. These girls are really fun.

Oh, you're going to hear?

Come here, money.

Come on up and introduce yourself, please.

Tell them who you are.

My name is Irene Crawford, and I play right receiver, running back, and corner, and I'm in the eighth grade.

Awesome. Congratulations. Anybody want to say?

I mean, she's very, she's... She seems like she's a multi-purpose talent.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, if I need somebody to score, you know, everybody know who we're going to go to. You know, we're going to go to her, and I mean, she's coming through. She's coming through, man. She's very exceptional. She runs track. She runs the hurdles. She can do a lot, you know.

She's holding down the classroom.

Yeah, and then I need a dean, a dean of Truby. She's not here. She sits about 5 feet 11, and all I do is just tell her to go for the go routes. But like I say, I'm not going to hold you guys up because I know this could be a long night. Hopefully not. Now I'm going to put them in another league that they're going to play in. A lot of the girls that didn't get to play a lot, they're going to start it out. And hopefully next year, I can go back. I'm going to do what I got to do to get certified and go back and coach the other girls. And just like I was saying, I really appreciate what you guys did for these kids. And come out to the Grigos. This is my 44th year coaching the South Miami Grigos.

Coach, registration still open? Is registration still open for the upcoming season, or is it closed already? The Grigos? Yes, sir.

Yes, yes.

It's still open. Okay.

It just started.

Okay, fantastic. That's what I thought, but just wanted to make sure people know.

Yes, yes, registration just started. Fantastic. Okay. If you guys got any 11-year-old kids, send them to me.

Beautiful.

Okay.

There you go. We need girls and boys. And, you know, again, ladies, we're happy to have you down here. We want to make sure we honor you because we've had some success on the guys' side. You know, we had a high-end trophy when we used to play on that field. Be recognized early this year. You guys also bring a lot of positive recognition to Southland. We're grateful for you. Keep up the good work and the continued success next season. Commissioner Rodriguez, what do you want to say?

So, Coach Obie, you know, 44 years, that's a long time. So it isn't easy coaching kids. Trust me. No, it's not. I do it, too. I coach basketball at Gibson. And, you know, I don't know how you've done it for so long. I mean, I'm coaching kids, kids now. Yeah, man, that's that's crazy. So thank you for what you're doing and for giving back to the community, because it really is. You're setting a foundation for these kids. So that's thank you for that. Now, the girls, have you how do you like your poster up at Gibson? That banner. Yes.

How do you like that? Yes, they have two banners up there. Yes. What the guy did was, the guy that put it up, he put it up by the football banners, because those are my football banners. Yeah, yeah. All my championship teams. You know, I mean, I won nine championships, all right, for tackle football. And the other ones, the other two are for flag. And like I say, when he put it up, he put it up with the tackle football. So I saw Mr., What is his name at Public Works? John. John? Yeah, I saw John. And I said, John, can you do me a favor, please? I said, could you have the guy to move the banner? He said, where you put it? I said, he put it over there with the tackle football players. So he said, OK, I'll take care of it. Then the next day when I went in there, they had done switched it. And I know John not in here, but I want to thank him also for taking care of that.

So girls, you know, congratulations on two-time champions. You know, now every time everybody walks into that basketball court, they'll see your faces and they'll see and they'll know that you girls won twice. So congratulations. You're immortal in South Miami. All right. Okay, y'all want to get a break? Let's take a picture.

All right, let's get a break. Come on.

Let's take a picture. Come on up.

Picture first or break first? Break first, fine. Picture first.

Picture first. Picture first. Congrats, girls.

Congrats.

Congratulations. Congrats. Congrats. That's fine.

Hope you're okay.

Okay, Madam Clerk, if you could read presentation item F1, please.

F1, Cure CF Kickball Community Championship Presentation, Jerry Starkeman.

Jerry, Bonnie, good evening. You're recognized. How are you?

Well, thank you for having us here this evening. I'm Bonnie Binkern. This is Jerry Susherman from Cure Cystic Fibrosis Miami. And before we get started, Mayor, how are you today?

I'm happy to report I had surgery last Monday. I'm going to officially announce my retirement from kickball. I will be going to the tournament next year, but I probably will not be playing.

You'll be coaching.

I'll be coaching. So I'll be helping Mr. Riverall on the sideline. But yes, it was a fun tournament, notwithstanding that I ruptured two ligaments in my ankle. So there you go.

Well, and you know, a few years ago, my husband... his whole hamstring, and that was the end of his kickball career.

Bonnie, the good news is I stopped playing and we started winning, so I guess it was meant to be.

But we're here this evening to thank you all once again for supporting the Cure Cystic Fibrosis Miami Kick CF with Bryant McKinney and Friends Kickball Tournament. This was our 13th annual supporting the work of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, and we Cure CF Miami. For those of you in the audience who don't know what cystic fibrosis is, it is a genetic disease that can impact any of the organs in the body. Usually, when you think of cystic fibrosis, it is the lungs and the digestive system. Currently, there are 40,000 Americans in the United States with cystic fibrosis. My granddaughter, Delaney, who is 15 years old, is one of them. When she was born and diagnosed at 15 days old, we were told that there was a 50% chance she would live into her 30s. Because of the amazing work of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and support from our friends like the City of South Miami, children born today have an outlook to live possibly into their 60s because of the medication that is being developed. In addition to supporting the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Cure CF Miami was founded to help families with people with cystic fibrosis. It is a very expensive disease to have, one of the most expensive. Because there are so few people with cystic fibrosis, the drug and the treatments are very expensive. But also we are now experiencing more and more people in the CF community who are experiencing food insecurities. So that is where Cure Cystic Fibrosis Miami is also being able to step in because the CF Foundation can't. We're here tonight to, again, thank you for helping us with our mission, but to also congratulate you all, because once again, you have won the Community Cup. And for those of you who live in South Miami, congratulations to all of you, because your fine city has gone up against City of Miami, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, and they have now won it one, two, three, four out of five. So this will stay with you guys in City Hall until you bring it back to us on March 13th, 2027, and then compete for it again.

Thank you, Bonnie. Not me, but that's okay. Mr. Kiyosaki, did you want to add anything as kind of our de facto team captain with Mr. Rivero?

You know, with Coach, look, what's so great about this event, obviously for the cause, but for the city that understands, it really gets the team of the city of South Miami. We have people from police, public works, parks. commissioners mayors across the board And it really shows the commodity this this city really has and it resembles what we're doing So it's a really cool.

It's really good cause but more importantly we have fun, and it's a good time So thank you for having us Thank you just to let you know our next big fundraiser is actually in the city of South Miami at the Elks Club on September 19th, we are having our second.

Where can we find that information about the event?

Well, we're going to bring you guys some stuff that we didn't have today. Oh, our website, sorry, curecfmiami.org. And it is a casino night where you turn in your chips for raffle tickets and great prizes. So we will keep you all updated. But we're bringing it home here to South Miami.

Before we take a picture, I just want to say, Bonnie and Jerry, Bonnie, thank you for your advocacy. I mean, you travel to Tallahassee and Washington regularly to be an advocate for families with CF. And it doesn't go unnoticed. Your dedication to the cause is amazing. And I'm very happy, personally, to know that your granddaughter is thriving. And Jerry, I mean, watch you do this event before I was in elected office and understand how much personal time you put into it to support a cause and your goddaughter. And there's a community, a world full of people who are very grateful to you for your sacrifice. So thank you for what you're doing. It's a great day. It's a great way to spend time with friends new and old. So if you have not participated in the past, I invite you to come out and experience the event, notwithstanding the injury. Always have a good time. Always have a good time. But the only request I have, and I can say this now because Mayor Cunningham is terming out, and I didn't want to do it while she was in office, is that I would love to host the event at our park as the defending champion next year. So if we can talk about a venue change, I don't know if my colleagues would be amenable, I think it would be great to move the cup to a park of the defending community cup champion. Just a thought.

Interesting. Anyhow, but thanks again. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you for your kind words.

All right, let's get started. All right, come on. You get the whole trophy. Come on. Who else is here that was on the team?

No, no, not this year, not this year. Okay, okay. Yeah, stay behind Bonnie.

Thank you guys.

Congrats again. Thank you guys, thanks for coming out. Okay, let's go to F2, please.

F2, Employee of the Quarter for Q1, 2026, Jesus Garcia.

Thank you. Madam Deputy Manager.

It's my pleasure to introduce you tonight to the Employee of the Quarter for Q1, Jesus, better known as Jay Garcia. He's been with the city since 2022. He's a rec leader with our parks department. And if you've been to the community center, I'm sure that you have been greeted with a warm smile, which is what he's known for. He was nominated by John Tyson. So I'm going to invite John up to say a few words before we put you on the spot to say a few words as well.

Good evening, everyone, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commission. This is an extremely proud moment for me. I can't think of someone more deserving than, I'm going to say Jay, but his name is Jesus Garcia, but more formally known as Jay. He is the face of the community center, especially in the morning time when people come in and they are greeted by him. And he's made meaningful connections up there. Every single person, I have a running joke. Whenever Jay goes on vacation, people are like, where's Jay at? What happened to him? Where's he at? Because that's the type of impact that he has made on the patrons that come through the community center. So I'm extremely proud to have this department represented. I cannot think of someone more deserving than Jay to get this award. I'm extremely proud of you. I am so fortunate to have you on this team. Hopefully, we can continue to have others exemplify the characteristics and the behaviors and the customer service that you employ at the front desk each and every day that you're there. You know how much you mean to me. Thank you. Jay, the floor is yours.

I'm going to let you say a few words.

There you go, Jay. Come on. The floor is yours.

Believe it or not, I'm lost for words. No, I doubt it. He knows. That's not true. I just want to thank John and Manny Alvarez and James Nall for giving me the opportunity to come in and work at the community center. It's been a pleasure. It's been rewarding, humble. I love coming to work. Not too many people can say that. I love coming to work. I do. I really do because I get to talk to different people. We talk about different things. And to me, it's rewarding the fact that we still can have one-on-one conversations with people and hope that we can build on it and make it better. So, you know, I'm out of words now. Thank you, Jay.

Mr. Guy, you're recognized.

I just wanted to say a quick word. There's, you know, it's not every day that we all like to go to the gym. Sometimes I hate it. But to go see you every morning, it makes me feel good because you put a smile on my face. You talk to me. You have a coffee with me. It's really, we're blessed that you're there. You're the man. You're the gofefe. Let's go, man. You're awesome. That's true.

I did just want to chime in. Our adult basketball group found out about it. They come in the mornings, a group of guys, and I know someone's here on this behalf, but they couldn't be more thrilled to see Jay receive this award, and they all share their sentiment as well.

Thank you for coming.

Thank you.

Jake in the middle here. Congrats. Right there. Right next.

There you go.

Right there.

Congrats again.

What do you reckon over there?

What do you reckon over there?

Not all of us can catch it backwards, bro.

I'm just kidding.

Madam Clerk, can we get F4, please?

It's F4, Septic to Sewer Grid Opportunity Error Covering.

Mr. Radley, you're recognized. Good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Mr. Manager, and city attorneys.

Okay, we're ready. Go ahead.

So I'm here tonight to share some information about a grant opportunity that the staff has been exploring to help our residents with their septic to sewer conversions. So let's start with our septic to sewer conversion progress.

Can we go back a slide? Thank you.

Great. So phase one of the city's septic to sewer conversion is nearing completion, and residents will soon be able to connect to the newly installed system. While abutting property owners are typically required to connect to municipal sewer within 90 days of availability, the city worked with the Miami-Dade County Environmental Quality Control Board, also known as the EQCB, to secure a five-year extension for our residents. So tonight, I'm here to talk about the EPA's 319H Nonpoint Source Grant Program. What is this program? It provides funding to states to address nonpoint source pollution. So examples include runoff from agriculture, stormwater, and urban water pollution. Included is septic to sewer pollution due to corroded and aging septic systems. To our knowledge, and we've done considerable due diligence, this is the only non-loan funding, either at the state or federal level, that can be used for improvements on private property. If awarded, this grant will directly benefit residents by easing the cost burden of converting from septic to sewer. Based on historical cycles, the tentative application deadline is July 2026. Now, given government shutdowns, we do anticipate that being delayed. And we've had a bit of help from another county. So Martin County's 319H grant implementation as a roadmap. The execution of this program as designed by Martin County has been approved by the EPA and the state of Florida and has received multiple rounds of funding. So what does the coordination require with this roadmap? The execution as designed by Martin County and approved by the state requires coordination between three parties. First is a city selected plumber as the doer. Next is the city as program administrator. And the third is the homeowner as beneficiary. So I'd like to present a funding scenario example. The city applies and is awarded a $500,000 grant, and 50 homes are ready for connection. Again, this is just an example. The applications have not opened. We have not received a notice of funding availability. So we do not know how much funding is available or how many projects will be accepted. But in the case of this example, let's go with a $500,000 grant. In the case that 50 homes are ready for connection, the maximum assistance per home would be $10,000. So the total grant divided by 50. This is inclusive of plumber and possible third party administrative costs. So let's see a concrete example. Home A. Home A is ready to connect to municipal sewer. The city receives an estimate from the city selected plumber for $13,000. The second step would be for the city to bill the property owner $3,000, which the owner then pays. Third, the work would be completed by the plumber. The city would confirm that the work has been completed. And then the city would pay the plumber the entire amount of $13,000. And the last step would be for the city to seek reimbursement for the grantor for $10,000. And that final math leaves a cost of $0 to the city. Next I don't want to overwhelm the Commission and mayor vice mayor with this workflow, but these are just very Comprehensive steps to how this grant would be implemented with our city stuff I'm gonna run through it very quickly and happy to come back to it. There are specific questions first the city applies for and is awarded the grant and Next, procurement would issue a request for proposals for designated plumbing contractors and establish a cost per linear foot for connections. Public Works would select the plumber and adopt the approved linear foot cost. Public Works would obtain GIS files for each eligible property to identify the location of the home's sewer connection. The homeowner would contact Public Works to express interest in connecting. Public works staff or the plumber would visit the site to confirm the linear footage and calculate the cost based on the approved rate. The homeowner would be provided with a quote indicating their required contribution minus the amount the city expects to be reimbursed by the state. The homeowner would submit payment to the city and finance would confirm receipt. The city selected plumber would complete the work. Public works would confirm the work is complete Finance would submit the reimbursement request to the state for the portion not collected by the homeowner Last finance will record and process this reimbursement from the state once received So I'd like to talk a little bit about some alternative funding mechanisms apart from this 319 H grant that would help to ease the cost burden for residents connecting from septic to sewer just as a PSA and A caveat, and I'd like to draw the audience's attention to this and the commission, mayor, vice mayor, residents must apply to the following programs directly, unlike the 319H program that I've been talking about before. The city cannot apply on their behalf, placing the administrative burden on the resident. The first program I'd like to talk about is the PACE, the Property Assessed Clean Energy Program. It's a loan that provides long-term fixed financing repaid through a non-advalorum assessment on the property tax bill. So this obligation is tied to the property, not the individual borrower, and may transfer upon sale. For septic to sewer conversions, and septic to sewer has been a newly included category in the last six months, PACE loans can cover up to 100% of eligible project costs, including connection fees, abandonment of the septic system, and related infrastructure improvements. Another program through the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department's Septic to Sewer Financial Assistance Program, eligible homeowners can receive up to $15,000 in grants, zero or no interest loans to convert from septic to sewer. These are generally based on home income limits. So I'd like to take a look at these programs through the county. So subject to sewer financial assistance program, I've included a QR code so that the audience or anyone accessing the PDF in the future can quickly go to this page. And they would navigate to how to apply right there. And the steps include completing the application form online and providing necessary documents related to household income and tax information. Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions of Erica? Sorry, Ms. Verney. No? Yes, sir, you're recognized.

Thank you. What did Martin County receive? Funding-wise? Sorry.

I'll defer to our finance director.

They have gone through three rounds of funding. They applied the first time, and I don't recall exactly the amounts, but I think there were about 500 on the first, and I think the second round was a little bit more, and the third as well.

500,000, and then more, and then more.

Now the question is, how many homes did they have as part of the submittal? I don't recall.

Okay. And the grant, is there a fund, like is there an amount total for the whole grant process?

Yes. Unfortunately, they haven't come out with that funding, how much is going to be available. Thank you. So we're still in the waiting period.

But I can add that based on historical trends, the typical amount of funding for any given agency has been between $300,000 and $500,000, irrespective of number of homes.

And statewide funding was, I think you shared with me, $5 million to $6 million annually?

About $3 million allocated to programs.

Thank you. Thank you. Further questions? Do we need to do anything with this? I think we need to.

Do you need direction as to whether we want to apply or not?

Yeah. I mean, given that the city would invest administrative sweat equity in time, and there could be some other issues that we are now between a plumber and a homeowner if something were to happen. Just want to bring this to your attention. If there's a, from a public policy standpoint, that we would assist the residents, get your direction, that you think it's a good approach, certainly we'd be happy to it. This is a moving target. Obviously, our initial phase is 46 homes. We have the 56 homes that were notified as of late that there was a line that was established, could be 15 years ago, and they needed to connect. Separate process that we're pursuing to help them get an extension. possibly so there could be other homes that may want to apply so we would have to be creative on how we notify those residents of that opportunity and maybe come up with a figure ahead of time because it's not like we have a fixed number of homes and then we can divide the number easily by that it may be sort of an evolving program so yes if there's an interest and we get your direction to pursue we certainly would apply upon the application being open in a couple months a month and a half maybe or we don't know

You don't know exactly. Mr. Mayor, from my two cents, I think it would be, I think we talked about this at the beginning. Was there a way for us to basically help residents avoid having to permit their own lateral connection and save them the difficulty of coordinating the work of a contractor? So I'm a fan of the idea. I don't know that for me personally, since I'm one of the first homes where this is going to work. From a timing perspective, one question I did have is can these programs work together? So for example, if your homeowner who wants to receive the grant but wants to be $3,000 or $5,000 is still substantial capital outlay, can also that balance be financed through the low interest or no interest loan program at the county or with a PACE loan?

You're talking about combining? Combining, yeah.

So can we combine 319, is it 319H? Yes. With any of the other programs to see if we can help them bridge that gap. I mean, I have neighbors that are retiring on fixed income, that extra $5,000, maybe on a patient loan they can make it work, but it's still, it's not at a terribly low interest rate.

I haven't seen requirements that would...

Negate that stacking, but I can certainly do due diligence and have an affirmative answer Maybe Martin County has an answer to that question because I'm sure they've got a water so utility that probably May provide similar financing to the consumers Well, I mean there surely could be a gap once we establish an amount that we think we would allocate per per household So let's just pretend it's $15,000 Lateral implementation and and we're offsetting five thousand certainly they could apply to the county to offset some of that other Funding guys just again in terms of making it simple for people so these things are coordinated and they dovetail like again a plot It's just the daunting part is applying. You know I'm talking to my neighbors. We're working together to get quotes For the lateral connections, try to leverage some buying power. I have three or four of us do it with one contractor. It's not easy. And people, you know, we had that experience. We jumped in and put together an EQCB application for everyone who got a notice to connect with now that it's feasible within feasible distance. You know, that's very daunting to a lot of folks. So if we can figure out a way maybe to dovetail the grant, which is incredibly valuable to a lot of people who don't have who may have invested in upgrading their septic system and want to amortize it a little bit longer, or who aren't as proud as to connect as some of my neighbors are because they've got failing systems. If we can connect to help them cover that shortfall somehow, it would be fantastic, if it's possible.

If a resident has their own contractor they wish to use, obviously the 319 wouldn't work. So they would take advantage of some other program. And so I think we would decide what we would allocate per household and then put it all in one letter and document that we would get to each homeowner so they would understand. And certainly if we can link these programs in any way, we'll get creative.

Appreciate that. I'm a fan. I don't know, colleagues, if you guys would recommend we proceed. OK, my thanks to the general direction is yes. Thank you. Thank you very much for doing the research. We appreciate it. OK, let's move to item F5, please.

F5, Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, KCFR Alex from Centron-Coberman.

Thank you. Good evening, sir. No intro for Mr. Riverall, huh? He's just leaving you to your own devices. No, no? Okay. So you're recognized. Good evening.

I would like to introduce Alex Aguste. He's our auditor. This is a first-year audit that he worked diligently, and I appreciate his team and the work that he put into this. So as required by the state of Florida, he will be presenting your annual financial comprehensive report.

Mr. Guzzi, you're recognized. Good evening. We will be kind to you. We will be cruel to Mr. Riverall.

I appreciate that. I appreciate it. Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, city commission, city manager, city attorneys. Thank you for the introduction, Alfredo. And I'm here to present your 2025 annual comprehensive financial report. So I have a paper copy here with me. I'm not sure if you all have a PDF to follow along with me, but I will be brief. The first page I'd like to highlight, it's page one of the document, but it's several pages down into the document. And that's our independent auditor's report. On that report, you'll see that we have issued what is known as an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion. This is the only opinion you want to be associated with. This means that when we came as auditors and asked our thousands of questions, tons of requests for documents, your team, your staff answered the call, records were in place. So I think that's to be congratulated. Congratulations on another clean opinion for the City of South Miami. I'll next turn to page 4 of the document. This is what's known as the management discussion and analysis. If you cannot read this entire 130 page report, I would suggest you read these 12 pages. These pages were mainly written by your management, and it gives you context on what happened throughout the year. So if you have any sort of questions on what went up, what went down, and why, they're answered right here in the management discussion and analysis page. Next, I'll turn our attention to the actual financial statements, so your balance sheet, your income statement for the city. I would like to point out for the general fund, which is your operating fund, you reported a $16.5 million fund balance. Of that fund balance, $9.2 million is unassigned and available for future use. Very healthy position for a city of this size. I'll then turn to the what's the income statement of the general fund and the general funds fund balance in fiscal year 2025 decreased by three million Much of that is related to a transfer to capital improvement to to perform capital improvements throughout the year Next, I will turn to what's known as the notes to the financial statements. These supplement the financial statement. These provide tons of context on the numbers within the balance sheet and the income statement. If you're trying to fall asleep tonight and you want to take a read for these, I think they'll do the trick. Next, I will turn to our independent audits report for your single audit. So in fiscal year 2025, the city was subject to what is known as a federal and state single audit. What triggered that is you spent over a million dollars in federal funding and over $750,000 in state funding. That requires an additional audit to be performed, which is also known as a compliance audit. And it basically Our task is to determine if you spent the money on applicable expenditures for that grant. Did you spend it properly? And I'm proud to say that we found no findings, no issues, no compliance issues when we performed our audit work on that spending. So again, congratulations. Throughout the audit, The audit standards requires me to disclose to you all, those of governance, if we were to have discovered any disagreements with management, if we were to have found any unfounded accounting positions, if we had any difficulties performing this audit. I'm proud to say we had no difficulties to perform this audit, no disagreements with management. We found no unfounded accounting positions. There were no compliance issues, no material weaknesses, no findings. Again, I just want to say congratulations to this body, to the leadership, to Alfredo, Jacqueline, Jackie, and her team for all their hard work. Like I said, we asked too many questions, and everyone was answered timely and appropriately. So with that, that concludes my presentation. If you all have any questions, I'd be happy to take them.

Thank you. Mr. Bader, did you want to add anything, or are you good? Are we open for questions?

Mayor, I know other than obviously there's a lot of work that goes on throughout the year. And I mean, who knows? God knows how many transactions and things that go on. So the ability to have a finance department come out with a clean audit is incredibly meaningful given the number of events, if you will, or transactions that have to occur throughout. So I certainly appreciate the work of the finance department and the oversight of budget and finance and this commission, and certainly having you come and say what you're saying is important to a city from transparency, accountability, and trust, so we appreciate it.

Thank you, sir. Colleagues, questions? No questions? Okay. Thank you for your great work.

We appreciate the report. It's an honor to work for the city of South Miami. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Okay. I believe that concludes reports. I'd just like to ask, Members of the audience, by a quick show of hands, we have a few more people here than typical. How many of you are here for the 62nd Avenue project? If you could raise your hands. One, two. Then how many folks are here for the project on 57th Avenue? If you could raise your hands. Okay. So, colleagues, I was going to suggest that we take the agenda out of order since we have people waiting here for a bit and take up those two items first. I believe the item on 6-2 is items 4 and 5, and the subsects is 6, 7, and 8. Is there one that we would want to start with? Start with 6-2. 62nd Avenue. Okay. So let's take up items four and five. Madam Clerk, if you can read those into the record, and then we'll recognize the city attorney for the appropriate warnings. Thank you.

for a resolution of the mayor city commission of the city of Southland Florida approving or denying a large-scale development special reception application pursuant to a section 20-8.7 of the city of Southland land development code for the 75 dwelling unit multifamily residential project on the 0.802 acre development site located at 69 14 Southwest 62nd Avenue 62 30 and 6240 Southwest 69th Street and 6931 Southwest 62nd Court.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Madam City Attorney, do you want to read? Can we read both items? We can hear them together, can't we?

Item 5, a resolution of the Mayor's City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, approving or denying a development agreement with the South Miami REIT Partners LLC for the 75-dwelling unit multifamily residential large-scale development project on the 0.802-acre development site located at 6914 Southwest 62nd Avenue, 6230 and 6240 Southwest 69th Street. and 6931 Southwest 62nd Court pursuant to Section 20-8.7 of the City of South Maryland Development Code.

Thank you so much. And so, Madam State Attorney, can we get the requisite disclosures, please?

Yes, thank you. We're going to be reading one quasi-judicial statement tonight for items 4 and 5, which the clerk just read, and also items 6, 7, and 8 later in the agenda. OK. Items number 4 and 5 on this evening's commission agenda seek approval of companion items for a multifamily residential development proposal by a subsidiary of the estate companies for a property located at 6914 Southwest 62nd Avenue, 6230 and 6240 Southwest 69th Street, and 6931 Southwest 62nd Court. Item number four is a resolution seeking approval of a large-scale development special exception under section 20-8.7 of the city's land development code. And item number five seeks approval of a corresponding development agreement for the project. Items 6, 7, and 8 on this evening's agenda seek approval of companion items for student housing development proposed by subtext acquisitions for the properties located at 6404 and 6504 Red Road, SW 57th Avenue. Item number seven is a resolution seeking approval of a large-scale development special exception under section 20-8.7 of the City's LDR. Item number six seeks approval of an application for a variance to allow a footprint for levels five and six of the project that exceed the maximum 20,000 square feet. And item number eight seeks approval of a development agreement for the project. The two large-scale approvals and the variance are quasi-judicial. The two development agreements are not. They are legislative or at best quasi-legislative in nature. Both development agreements nevertheless require public hearing under the city's code. For efficiency, one public hearing per project is sufficient. Therefore, the city will frame tonight's hearings within the city's quasi-judicial procedures with respect to presentations by staff, the applicant, and public comment. The clerk has read the title of the resolutions for items four and five and will read the items for six, seven, and eight before public hearing. The public hearing will include presentations by staff and the applicant and public comment. The commission may ask any questions either before or after public comment is closed. Following public comment, the commission may deliberate on each item. The quasi-judicial procedures require this commission to consider the evidence presented to it and base its decision on the applicable law and primarily on the evidence presented, whether by the applicant staff or members of the public. In considering each item, the commission should apply the criteria, which for variances is in Section 20-5.9, and for the large-scale special exceptions is found in Article 8 of the Land Development Code, and the professional analysis in the staff recommendations. The evidence presented must be substantial, competent evidence. This means testimony or other evidence based on personal observation or relevant expert testimony that a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. It is not a popularity contest. It cannot be based solely on non-expert opinions, no matter how fervent those opinions might be. Everyone who wishes to speak on an item will be given an opportunity to speak during the public comment portion of each hearing. If you intend to provide testimony as to any item, you will be sworn in before your testimony is taken. Please know if you speak, you may be subject to cross-examination. If you refuse either to be cross-examined or to be sworn, your testimony will be considered in that context and given its due weight. The general public will not be permitted to cross-examine witnesses, but the public may request the commission to direct questions on their behalf to either staff or the applicant. At this time, anyone who wishes to speak on any of the items, items 4 and 5 and 6, 7, and 8, you should be sworn in. I'd ask that you please stand and raise your right hand. And this is for all items four and five and six, seven, and eight. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I swear. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Clerk, please confirm compliance with the advertising and notice requirements for the hearing. Yes. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Commissioners, we will now do the ex parte communication disclosure. Please let us know if you have had any ex parte communication with the applicant or any member of the public, either for or against any of the applications to be heard tonight. If so, please state for the record who the communication was with and the nature of the communication.

So just to be clear, we're doing it for both applications at this moment?

Yes, four and five, six, seven, and eight.

Let's go left to right. Sorry.

I have spoken with both parties separately, obviously. WHERE THEY WERE SHOWING ME THE PROGRESS OF THEIR WORK.

COMMISSIONER, THIS IS FOR ITEMS 4 AND 5. 4 AND 5. AND THEN 6, 7, AND 8. AND 6, 7, AND 8. THANK YOU.

I HAVE NOT HAD COMMUNICATION WITH EITHER PARTY.

THANK YOU.

Thank you. So I, with respect to 4 and 5, I met with Mr. Roberts and his team at their offices probably three months ago to discuss the project. And this morning I had a call with Alejandro Arrieta to confirm whether the landscaping modifications that had been requested at PSAT were made to, along the I forget what the name of the street is, the western frontage of the property that faces a single family. So that was the nature of that conversation. On items six, seven, and eight, I've met with Mr. Mario Garcia-Serra personally and with his client. I forget the name of your client, Mario, who was in the company. I apologize to the audience. To discuss the project as well and today had a series of conversations with Mr. Garcia-Serra regarding conditions that are the subject of ongoing conversation, I expect will be discussed this evening.

Thank you, Mayor.

I, as well, for items four and five, met with Robert Solis and with Alex Arrieta at their office roughly three months ago to discuss the project. And I spoke with Mario and the subtract team this morning regarding the project and what they would be presenting.

Thank you.

Madam Attorney, I've spoken for four and five. I've spoken to Robert Solis and his team at his office approximately two months ago. That's pretty much for that one. On six, seven, and eight, I talked to Mrs. Sierra, the clients, and I've also talked to Michelle Reardon, one of the residents as well.

Thank you. Okay, I think we can proceed, Mayor, four and five staff presentations.

We can, please. Mr. Alvarez, you're recognized. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Commission. Mark Alvarez with the Corradino Group here on behalf of the City of South Miami planning staff. I have reviewed the plans and will provide a presentation on our findings. This is a large-scale special exception site plan review under Title 8 of our code. It's at formal address of 6914 Southwest 62nd Avenue. The applicant is South Miami Real Estate Partners. And we first got this application in, I believe, January 20th, and we've worked extensively also with this applicant. So there have been some changes along the way, but this is the final plan as presented on April 1st. So this will be a second submittal, and that's what I'll be presenting tonight. So the location of this project is along the west side of Southwest 62nd Avenue. It's between 69th and 68th streets, and the west side of it would be abutting the single-family neighborhood on the 62nd Court side. It is right now a vacant parcel. It's vacant land. It's not the entire block. It corners around what is the estate company offices. And there is one parcel, one house, single family house that's left out. That's not part of it on the south end. And I'm sorry I misspoke. There is a single family house that is within the back portion as well that will be demolished for this project. The flume designation, the future land use designation, is transit supportive development. And the zoning designation is transit supportive TSDD. And the block is split between two subzones, the eastern part of it from the property line, which you can see in the sort of central line, to the east is TSDA, which is our sort of medium density subcategory for the TSDD, and then the western part facing the neighborhood is zoned TSNA, which is the Transit Supportive Neighborhood Area, and it has been tuned to be a transition area into neighborhoods. To the north of this project, just going through the surroundings, to the north is also a vacant parcel at the moment. However, that block has an approval on it for a six-story office building that has townhouses on the back. So again, it was in a similar situation where the front part or the eastern part of that block is allowed for six stories under the TSDA, but the western part of that block would have to be townhouse or a three-story type of product that would have the doors on the front of it like a townhouse. That is already approved, so that is what we would compare against for the compatibility because we expect that to be constructed. To the south is directly and abutting the project is the estate company offices. It's a three-story structure with parking semi underneath the building. As we go further south, we have the hospital building at seven stories across from that. Going east across 62nd Avenue, we go more in. So this is a transitional block. As we go east across 62nd Avenue, we are into the TSDD, the Downtown Zoning District. And the permitted, again, although it's mostly vacant now in parking, it is permitted for 10 stories. The western part of this, or to the west across 62nd Court, would be a single-family neighborhood. It is RS3. It is permitted for two stories and 25 feet. However, the four single-story single-family homes across the street are one-story homes right now. As far as compatibility, there's a little bit of a clue on this. We always intended these blocks when we were zoning the TSDD to be the transitional blocks. This is the way we get from 16-story and 12-story and 8-story and 10-story buildings and go into the edges. No matter what, we always have an edge. So we treated these blocks very differently. Most of them do have a split zoning. All of them are permitted wherever you are at six stories, and they always have to taper down to three for the last 75 feet. So the transition on this one, this has followed all of the requirements of the code as far as the transition goes. Going front to back, front is on 62nd Avenue as this project presents itself to 62nd Avenue, it is six stories. As it moves back, it goes back to a three-story structure, again, that has had its facade. Although it's not townhouses, but there are doors. There's lanai units, as they call it, that face the street with small lanais in front of it. So it mimics the idea of a townhouse and presents itself as a single-family compatible type of residential development. This is only residential development. And you see the rear, as it's been presented for the April 1st plan, there is that breakup of the buildings to create that movement in the wall and create a better transition east to west. Also, this has a north to south transition. So again, as we move from the six-story on the north side of it, and we still move down towards the south towards Sunset, it actually, our heights do go up as we see Past the estate company, we go to the hospital building, which is seven stories. So there is a transition in both directions, and that happens on these edge properties. As far as it is consistent with our comprehensive plan, the comprehensive plan future land use designation is TSD. Because TSD and the zoning code were done at the same time, basically it's compliant with everything in the zoning code, pretty much compliant with the future land use plan. But again, it is compliant with the future land use plan and supports the policies that are listed from the future land use element. It is also the TSDD, as I said, it has sub-districts. This is compliant with the requirements of those sub-districts. So this is the map that's in the code. And the red sort of dog leg is the subject property. The front or the eastern half, I should call it, is TSDA, and the rear half is TSNA. They both have different density maximums as well. So the front or the eastern part of this project could go to 150 units an acre. The rear part could go to 100 units an acre. On these blocks, there are no bonuses. So this has been aggregated. We've worked out how that average works, weighting the average by the amount of land on each sub-district. This project could go to a total of actually 96 units based on the densities, combining those densities, and it is presenting itself for 75 units at a combined density of 93.5 units an acre. And it is compliant with the density. And of course, it is only residential, which is also compliant with the requirements of this code for this block. On parking and loading, this was something that we worked with the applicants through the DRC and the DRB and going into the planning board. There have been some refinements. It is now at 117 parking spaces. I think in your report it says 124. Responding to the neighborhood requirement desires at the planning board They have lot taken four spaces off the back off of the 57th court side and replace it with landscaping there were also some changes to accommodate our requirements for share car parking spaces and delivery parking spaces, which are inside and displaced some of the parking spaces. Still, at 117 spaces, it has more parking than is required. The requirement for the 75 units under our code is 65 spaces. they're providing more than I believe it's about 1.3 per unit, which is What they perceive as being the right number for their market And we have we support it. I also want to note that this project It's probably the first one we've seen where they're using underground parking and this helps get the building a little smaller and fits into the site without going up or having parking lots sticking out in too many places and we were very Satisfied to see that so it's got one level of underground parking and then two levels interior to the building of one of the first level and one of the second level for the parking. And those levels really don't touch the street except the service side where the delivery trucks come. It has enough bicycle storage as well and so again it is compliant with all of the requirements in our code for parking and loading. For street hierarchy, those are not easy to see those drawings, but for the front of it, for the 62nd Avenue side, it has met all the requirements. This was also some changes that happened over time. There were initially some encroachments. All of the encroachments are gone. It meets our code exactly. There are seven feet of clear pedestrian path with a four foot landscape buffer. In this case, the five feet that we have been asking for would not be through a dedication. It would be through a, the word just escaped me, Easement, thank you. I don't know why I forgot that word, excuse me. But it would not be through an easement, it would be through, not through a dedication, it would be through an easement. The two other sides, those streets are not TSGD streets. However, working with the applicants, as we have all these projects, we are using the secondary street guidelines. So they have six foot sidewalks and four feet of landscape and the same situation. And that's what you see on the right side is the side street, and in the rear is the 57th court side. And that particular drawing out of their package also shows the sight lines, which helps us be more comfortable with how this affects the neighborhood and how the trees in front of it do affect the sight lines. And really, this can blend in very well at three stories. The open space, 10% open space is required. This is a fairly small lot and they've provided 10% open space. A few things to note, it is primarily linear open space, in other words, along the side of the building, but there is a small green space on the side lot line. And that green space is emphasized in that box on the side there. It's just a small plaza that there are some benches and places for people to sit and rest. We think it would be a good amenity for the neighborhood, and it's a nice pedestrian amenity as you transition from our downtown into the neighborhood. One other thing I want to mention is that the as has been done with other applications the open space Between buildings you'll see we're on the south sides as property line That is not allowed to be used and they are not using that as part of their open space So in other words all of our open space must be along the street. We don't allow it between buildings that can be there But it doesn't count as open space For the landscape plan, again, it has met all of our landscape requirements without going through all the trees. I think the applicant can present all of that in much more detail, but we've gone through the trees. We've made sure the landscape open space meets all of our requirements with trees, with amount of pervious area, and with amount of more urban impervious areas. And to also mention, there is additional landscape on the third story in the west side. There's an amenity deck for the residents, and that has landscaping as well, which helps to soften the building. For building height, this meets all the requirements. It's allowed to be six stories, again, on the east side. The last 75 feet have to come down to three stories. So that chart has two levels. One is the transition zone is the three-story part. This application meets the height in terms of stories as well as the stories, the height to the roof and the height to the parapets and other features on the roof. As far as building, location, massing, and form, and again, we get into a little more subjectivity here, but as far as the code goes, we have certain measures that we look at. The facade frontage, again, this is an urban downtown, so we require more frontage and not less. So the facade frontages or occupation, as we call it, are acceptable. It's at 91% of the block length or of the property length. along 62nd Avenue the building coverage which is the amount of the floor plate of the ground floor on the lot is that Is that seventy nine point six percent which is just below the eighty percent permitted? The bill to the setbacks the horizontal Movement of the building are all within our code requirements the floor plates above the fourth floor are also consistent there eleven thousand nine hundred and five feet architectural standards again this is a fairly subjective area but we do have certain measures that we use one of them is about windows and this is something we discussed at great length with the code we use windows to at least have some measure of something that's architecturally that we want so they this project meets all of the requirements for horizontal window dimensions as a percent on those walls and it's all there in the Fine print of those that table there is no reflective glass. We don't permit reflective glass and There are no balconies within the build to line. I'm sorry. There are no balconies encroaching the property line and finally the intent is to build to it's a Gold certification equivalency, which is ICC 700 national green building standard and GPS I think we've come across it before that will be accepted for now and is up to the city manager to make that determination at a later time. So as far as going through the process, as I said, this came in in January. DRB recommendations, we had a number of comments regarding the density. We've responded to those comments. It hasn't been changed. It was 75 units then. It's 75 now. But there are a number of misunderstandings at that time about how we measure density in these split lots and their split locks. Those have been addressed and checked again. There were some comments about delivery entrances. And those have been mostly responded to with some fine details about the architecture so that we would make sure, even though it's not an absolute requirement in our code, but make sure that delivery entrances aren't visible to the single family neighborhoods. So they would be situated in a way where there's no direct line of sight. And that's mostly because of the adjacent development to the north. They would be at this point. There have been some small open space adjustments to increase the open space. It did come into us a tiny bit under because it was counting the part to the south. There have been some building movement between that and this plan. And finally, there were some sidewalk encroachments before. Those have been addressed to make sure that we have a seven foot clear path on 62nd Avenue. And with Planning Board, There were some neighborhood residents that requested. When this came in, initially it had four parking spaces on the street in the back, which we thought was a good idea at staff level because we have four Lanai units that would have sort of a parking in front. The neighborhood residents came and they said it would be better for them if the parking was eliminated on the street and there was green space there. This plan now includes green space in lieu of those parking spaces. And it doesn't affect their parking compliance. And that's it. So those have all come into the April 1st plan. And at staff level, we recommend approval of this large-scale special exception. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Alvarez. Colleagues, any questions of Mr. Alvarez before we turn it over to the applicant? Yes, ma'am, you're recognized.

So just so that I take this $10,000.

Please close. Anyone online who's got their mic open, please mute it. Thank you. Madam Commissioner, continue.

Sorry. I just want to then confirm with everything that you've said, they're not asking for anything special. Everything that they're getting is as of right?

That's correct.

I just wanted to clarify that, because there's so much information. So essentially, there's nothing special going on?

Correct.

OK.

Commissioner Rodriguez, you recognize her?

She stole my question. So this project is basically what they've proposed here is by right, and there's no request for any variance or special level?

No, there's no waivers. There's no variance. There's no anything special that even would go below that level.

OK.

Anyone else? I have a quick question, Mark. Just looking at the renderings, there seems to be an elevation change between the ground floor of the building and the sidewalk. What's happening there? Because it looks like on the west end, it's on the same plane to the rough eye. What's happening there?

I think probably a good question for the architect, but that happened when we were moving from where there was a slight encroachment on the front and there was an ADA ramp, and all that has been morphed around a little bit to restructure that. So I think that the architect could answer that a little better.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. We'll wait for their answer. Mr. DeMauro, are you handling the presentation? Okay. Good evening.

How much time do you need, sir? I will try to keep my comments as brief as possible. I think, for the record, good evening. George Navarro with offices at 333 Southeast 2nd Avenue. I think staff did a fantastic job explaining the project. I will try to keep my comments brief. I would say less than five minutes, if that's okay, Mr. Mayor.

That's fine.

All right, thank you. So we're very excited to be here this evening to present this project. Mark did a very good job of walking you through the context of this area, but this project's in the heart of the city's health district. It's an area that has a large concentration of commercial and medical office and office uses, but it's really missing a residential component to serve this employment center. And we believe this project aligns with the vision of the TSDD when it was created in order to create this into a comprehensive, mixed-use, walkable neighborhood. And this project, we worked very hard with staff over the last several months to refine it. But we believe it's going to really contribute to redefining this area by bringing housing within close walking distance of jobs and transit. So we're very excited for that. As staff mentioned, and I think they highlighted, we're not asking for rezoning. This project has been refined several times to ensure it's designed completely. in accordance with the applicable tsdd standards for this site i'd like to highlight some of those things uh that we've done and have done since the time of the planning and zoning board but um this is an area that's very unique in that it's surrounded by commercial uses but you also have an adjacent single family neighborhood and when this tsdd regulations were created They basically created two distinct sub-districts to create a transition between these areas. And we've designed this project, which consists of 75 residential units well below the allowable density. with much larger units, just to give you an idea. I'm sorry, I'm trying to highlight the points that staff didn't touch on. But what we've done is we've designed much larger units that are intended for families, young professionals, professionals that want to live near these employment districts, rather than what other projects typically try to do, which is put as many studio bedrooms as you can. We really have been sensitive to try to serve this market that we believe is in the area. This site plan shows the transition between the two zonings. What we've done is on the left side, which is the western portion of the property, that is a three-story building, which is well below the 40 feet in height that's allowed. We've tried to reduce that height as much as possible, and it transitions, as you can see here, into a six-story building that is also well below the allowable height for that district as it approaches the commercial corridor on 62nd Avenue. Mr. Mayor, this is the, I think the elevation change that you may have been talking about and what we did here is in order to provide a very large sidewalk along 62nd Avenue, we have relocated the entrance to our lobby from this site and it required an elevation change in order to get the building to be completely flush throughout and be able to maintain the height that we wanted to propose on the western side, which was a much lower height.

Before you continue, just a quick question on that rendering. I thought I saw on a prior rendering, is there an ADA ramp on the portions further? There is?

I believe the ADA ramp is on the other side of those trees. Yeah, it's behind those trees. You can't see them, but there is. It's an elevator then? No, it's a ramp. It's a ramp. Yeah, that's behind that pink tree that's there. OK. So we have basically the access is right at the University.

I'm trying to make sure it's not on 62nd Avenue. Correct.

Yeah, it's on 69th Street. OK. This is the updated. renderings that we would just want to show you quickly of The changes that we've made since the time that we've been before the planning and zoning board This is something that our architectural team is very proud of what we tried to do on this front edge is design a very active residential feel at the ground level and the way that we did that was not only through the materials that we chose for the building and and the architecture articulation and the breakup in the facade of the buildings. But each one of these units has a ground level lanai walk-up unit that really activates the ground level. And what this let us do was two things. First, we removed all the curb cuts that would have been there. to make a much safer pedestrian environment. And the second thing it did is it allowed us to set the building back between 12 and 15 feet and push this building further back from the single family homes. That setback is almost three times more than what's required under your code. One of the things that we did since the Planning and Zoning Board, which was a comment from some of the neighbors, was to remove the four on-street parking spaces that we had on that area and replace it with additional green areas and swale and landscaping. And our architect team worked to go ahead and revise that condition. We now have additional street trees and landscaping in that area, and we were also able to accomplish a much larger sidewalk in that area. This is the updated rendering showing the removal of the on-street parking spaces along 62nd Court. One other item that I want to highlight and I think it's a very important item is that we have Agreed planning and zoning board wanted us to look at the height of the street trees that were being planted I know some residents had rates concerns that Landscaping that is planted sometimes takes years to grow and mature but we have committed and it's one of the items in your development agreement That's before you this evening to plant 20-foot street trees, large mature oak trees at the time of planting. And we think that's really going to help with the canopy along these streetscapes and really live up to the standard that the City of South Miami holds with respect to its tree-lined streetscapes. Here you can see the updated rendering. This is different than the one we presented at the Planning and Zoning Board. This one shows the 20-foot trees. And really what we've done is, and to staff's credit, we carved out portions of this building to create additional planting areas so we could block the view into the parking garage from the street view. So there are pockets, if you see here in this Landscape plan sorry for jumping around but that we've provided right at the entrances of both of these parking entrances to really provide some some additional landscaping there I think most of the other items staff touched upon. This is the landscape plan that shows the new 20-foot trees. This is the open space area that we wanted to provide something that would really be an amenity to the neighborhood, as opposed to some unprogrammed open space. We have seating areas with a lot of landscaping and some nice coverage there. And this is the updated final rendering that shows the new 20-foot Street trees along with the removal of the four parking spaces. So I think that summarizes the application as a whole I know staff did a great job highlighting how this project's been signed fully in accordance with the applicable zoning requirements We appreciate your time And we're here to answer any questions Thank You mr. Navarro our colleagues any questions of the applicant Yes, sir.

You're recognized

I don't remember. On the 62nd side, is there any retail on the ground floor?

So that's a great point. So no, one of the things that we did is that there is no retail on the ground floor. And we did that on purpose. So on the ground floor facing 62nd Avenue, we have the activated ground floor lobby spaces. And we also have the management offices for the building. And the reason we did that is we wanted to be sensitive in terms of traffic. We didn't want to add any additional Retail uses that will create additional daytime and evening traffic to the project so the development agreement actually has a restriction that prohibits retail uses that was something that we did to be Sensitive in terms of traffic. Okay. Thank you. Thank you commission for the questions.

I If you could just identify for me, where are we looking at receiving parcel package delivery, small truck Amazon delivery within the garage or on the adjacent right away?

So we have designated spaces, but we've been working on that with city staff. Okay.

Robert series on the managing principal for the estate companies good evening. Thank you all for your time and consideration today mayor vice mayor commissioners I know we've spoken and Put a lot of effort into this particular building because of its size and the complexity of the lot if you notice a lot It's not a rectangle. It's not a simple lot you have a very Specific code that dresses a lot of issues and if you know it sounds like it's no big thing But it was very difficult to ask for no variances. I mean we basically complied with everything in your code So we run institutional multifamily. We don't run Non-professional multifamily, so this is designed our federal FedEx UPS we have a package room in the leasing office and so If you notice, there is a location on the 69th Avenue side where cars that truck and park and get off and come to the front of the building and go into our package room. And so we don't want them, obviously, stopping on 62nd or in any way going into the residential area. So also, we believe that this project is going to mitigate a lot of traffic, because if we do succeed in what we believe are going to be our tenants, which is a lot of the hospital employees, they're not going to be driving on the street. you know traffic is an issue anywhere in this in the in the Miami-Dade County area really tri-county area, but One of the ways to mitigate traffic is having residential close to the jobs And so I think we're accomplishing that I think that's what the master plans today try to do and try to mitigate traffic that way So I'm sorry about what to know. No.

Thank you for the clarification Mr. Warren just one other question I know we have modified our rules recently. It initially came up on an adjoining project. Walk me through the number of on-street spaces that existed prior. Or maybe, Mark, you can assist. How many are being eliminated? How many are being eliminated to provide access? And what the net loss is. And if there's any payment that's owed to us for parking mitigation, on-street parking mitigation.

So I can tell you that in the development agreement, there is a provision that requires us to adhere to that new provision for us to replace the loss of on-street spaces. I'm not sure that we have the exact number yet, but there is a provision in the development agreement that we will comply with that ordinance.

I was just trying to find the number in the development agreement, which we had put in prior versions, but I didn't see it.

I know we have four less now.

Okay, okay. But I don't know the exact number. Okay, so I'll just leave that to our city attorney to possibly address that while we- And maybe I could get you that answer at the conclusion. Yes, ma'am.

I it's funny that you touch on those four spots because I don't think it would be fair for us to charge them whatever that is for those four spots when it's being removed at the request of no and you're understood and that's part of the reason of the request I mean our rules do provide when they're complying with a streetscape plan that we've requested that they're not penalized

But I'm well aware of those four spaces that follow the conversation of the lower board. I had a conversation initially with Ms. Charisse about it, suggested they at least eliminate one. particularly on the northern northwestern most corner. So they could add more landscaping at that edge. They had a rationale that they want to have at least one guest space for each one of the three ground floor units, which did have some logic behind it in my mind. But again, we want to give the neighbors what they want there in terms of an edge treatment. I just want to understand before the project what the net number was. Obviously, they're offsets based on access and where we ended up because obviously parking, you know, I know I'm giving Mr. Riverall a hard time about parking enforcement and parking revenue, but it is not an inconsequential asset that we've got to manage. So, anyhow, we'll get some follow-up clarity from the city attorney and others on that.

Do we at some point want to have that information at least in an email or something?

Yeah, I'm not sure if Mr. Alvarez can get with our city attorney while we're hearing from the public and get some refinement on that particular detail. Any further questions? Yes, sir, you're recognized.

Was there a change to the north side of the building, the part of the building that actually interjects into the residential area? The reason I'm asking is so we're all on the same page. Last time I saw the drawings and the architectural plans, my understanding is that the rear, the north side, would have more townhouse look feel. It seems like it's now... one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartments. Am I being clear with the drawings here?

So yes, so to your question, let me go to that rendering for a second here. There's one that shows it. Hold on, it's back in the presentation. To your question, yes, this front of the project has been revised probably eight different times, six different times, but not since the time that before it's gone to the to the initial review at DRB. We worked on this side with staff prior to submitting for quite some time, and one of the things we've done, and I think this angle gives it a good view, is, and I think there's one over here actually right in front. So what we've done is each portion of this facade, has a different architectural treatment, has different materials, and has different window treatments. So it creates the appearance of a townhouse facade. The ground levels are walk-up units. They're not rear accessed. Everybody walks in through the front. You can go in through the rear, but there is a front door. That is the design. kind of the way it always has been. It's got three levels of units. The ground floor units are accessible through the sidewalk. But the way that the architecture has evolved has changed in terms of trying to really create four different articulated facades.

Let me just add one thing. In reality, it has never changed as far as the way that it was designed. It was always designed to look like a townhome, but it wasn't a townhome. And we have changed some of the elements in the front to accommodate the parking. But it's really stayed pretty close to what we've been showing everybody Since day one that does not this a lot doesn't have a lot of movement if there's there's you know You're kind of defined in a very defined space. It's been the same project for the most part other than just removing the parking and Pushing back the building a little bit, but as far as a floor plan that you're discussing There there's never been townhouses. It's been units It's just this is the effect of a townhouse is what we're trying to achieve and

Maybe it's my misunderstanding. For some reason, I always thought there was going to be townhouses on the back side like that. I'm not saying it's bad or, you know, it's bad. It was just my understanding, and I just wanted to see what the thought process was moving from apartments over townhouses back forth. But if you say it was always like that. It was always like that.

We've never submitted anything to the city at any time that included a townhouse, a two-story unit.

Fair enough.

Colleagues, for the questions? None? OK. Let's then open up the public hearing. So if there's any member of the public, if you could take a seat. We'll reserve some time if you've got rebuttal. If there's any member of the public who'd like to address this commission with respect to items 4 and 5, you're welcome at this time. Mr. Lopez, anybody else who'd like to line up after him? Mr. Tatter, we'll follow up with you, sir. OK?

Hello, Jason Lopez, 7730 Southwest 65th Place. Recently I've been compared to Bob Walsh, being told I'm the new Bob Walsh, and I realize that's a great weight to carry, but I'm gonna continue with that because I think it's pretty cool. I like the building. It's a cool building. I don't think it's really taking into consideration the actual site that it's going on ultimately. There's a lot of letters, TSD, TSDA, things like that that allow trees to be killed because those letters exist. On that site currently, There is what we could consider a grandfather oak. It's a huge sprawling oak tree. It's covered in resurrection fern. It's got tulansia recurvata, tulansia fascicularia, tulansia utricularia. It's got a number of plants that it's hosting. It has a 17-foot diameter breast height. Reading so imagine 17 feet around so they're talking about replacing it with 23 trees or whatever that are 20 feet tall but have a caliper or a DBH of a foot maybe top so The net loss is far greater than what's being replaced and a project like this. They said themselves. There's 10 extra parking spaces Why can't this project? specifically this project take into consideration that there are specimen oak trees on the site that they are removing that are hosts for epiphyte communities, birds, all that sort of stuff. Why can't this particular plan that they have redone six or eight times consider the actual site? It's going based on investment opportunity. I realize they could have built bigger units. whatever, this is filling a space that it does not need to fill. Everyone's pointing out that it's some sort of like the big buildings belong there. The backside are family residents. I have friends that have lived there my whole life. I've used that street my whole life. And I'm well aware that while it is in keeping with the planning that has been decided for city of South Miami, it is not in keeping with the spirit of that neighborhood. It's just really tough to make these trades for the concrete without the consideration of what's actually there. They're going to spend all this money to replant, to replace things that are currently existing that we would all hope that we could one day get for our communities. It's an existing thing, that one tree, never mind the other three oaks that are on the bare lot or the other two large oaks that are on the single-family home lot. Never mind them. This one tree should be protected. It's not unreasonable, and it should be considered. And my time is about to run up. But while I was there, I put on my Merlin Bird app. And there was a gray kingbird, tufted titmouse, mourning dove, eastern phoebe, baltimore oriole, purple marten, house sparrow, boat-tailed graco, northern cardinal, northern mockingbird, and blue jays heard on the site. April 12, I was there for 20 minutes. These sorts of projects do affect our communities, and I realize that this is a special exception, three months, get it in, get it approved and whatnot, but it doesn't need to be approved so quickly. They don't need these special exceptions. They can take longer, they can come back with a plan that represents South Miami.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jason. Any other member of the public who would like to speak, please come forward. Please, you're recognized.

I'm David Landown. I live at 6926 Southwest 62nd Court, directly across the street from the project. First, I want to thank you for the prayer that you started with. That was beautiful. And also for all the presentations. It's really a cheerful city. Thank you. And I want to thank the planning board and the planners. for restoring the swale, which was taken away to make those four parking places that have been described. Those trees have been there at least 50, I've lived there 50 years. My family grew up, my children, grandchildren grew up there. And those trees have been there 50 years. The first, when we moved in, Mrs. Preble told us that the city had given her a mahogany tree that's sitting now, still sitting there in the front yard. I don't know when she got it, but before 1975. So a lot of trees are going to be massacred for this project. Oh, there are only three houses across the street. It was misquoted in the early statement. There are only three single family houses on the west side of 62nd Court. There are three lots, as you can see on your maps. For me, a much nicer project would be instead of the four townhouses to have trees there. And then the people that live in the 85 units in the air would have a place to be under trees. I realize it's too late to realize that I figured that out a couple days ago when I couldn't sleep. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for your comments. Is there any other member of the public? Aileen, please come forward.

Aileen Valentine, 7300 Southwest 68th Court. You probably know I'm here because I'm standing up for the trees. I'm a tree hugger at heart. It's not just there, but I keep seeing these big old native trees go down There's been so many lots that have been cleared and then replanted with palms or little trees I don't understand why you have to build a building to wipe it out and then plant smart plant trees Why can't you build around it? I just I You know, I don't get it. It's very excuse me. It's just very sad Every time I see a big tree down it just it just kills me to see it so just want you to know I'm here in support of Trying to save the big trees the native trees So that we can be the tree city and the bird sanctuary that we all want to be and stay So thank you very much and thank you to our new Bob Anyway, I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Thank you.

Thank you, Lee. Anyone else?

Anyone on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand.

I said who's phone?

No one online, Madam Clerk? No. Okay.

I just have a question. Jason, if you can clarify, are you talking the seat on the landscape plan of 54-inch, still a very big tree, DBH oak tree, which is tree 70 on the plans? I'm not sure. It's near the corner, near the northwest corner of the site?

I did a little tree survey, since you're asking. I have them numbered 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Can I just show you? If you want to come up, I'll show you on the plan which one I'm speaking of. Is this the one? OK. That's it? That's it. I can tell you a little more about it real quick. No, it's good. I'm good. I just want to make sure. I think it said 70 plus inches, so I was trying to find that on the chart.

It's 204 inches around. It's 40 feet tall, and it has a 60 foot crown spread. Tillandsia asnoides, Tillandsia fasciculata, Tillandsia fasciculata variety alba, Pleotheltis polypoides. I'm good. I mean, again. That's all living in the tree, just so you know.

Yeah, that's, I mean, again, 54 inches caught my attention. Yes, sir, you're recognized.

Jason, Jason, if you can. You said it's a 60-foot span?

Yeah, of shade. Of the canopy. The whole property of the four trees of the public space currently equal 420 inches of diameter at breast height. So how many feet is that? There are 152 feet of crown coverage. I measured my height and shade. Distance and I measured the tree crown shade and so we have a hundred and fifty two feet of shade and about 150 feet of tree height but that one particular tree is 17 feet around that's a 400 year old tree like it's Irreplaceable no one in our lifetime will ever plant a tree and see it become that question this may be a stupid question, but you would know the answer I

Relocating that tree is undoable. Impossible. Impossible.

You would have to cut its limbs off, completely change its character, 100% alter the root system. You would stress it out and then it would require that the upkeep following up was top notch.

Yeah, it takes months, right?

That's far more than that. For a tree like that, you would have to root prune it for two or three years, probably. And then you would have to be staked for a couple years. It would need all sorts of care. The compaction that goes on from the construction sites is a problem. There's a number of things. That tree is irreplaceable. Irreplaceable. You cannot get that back. There is no resident of South Miami that could ever make that happen.

We understand. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate you highlighting it. Okay. Colleagues, any further questions? Okay, so are you want to add anything by way of comment or bottle?

Yeah, I just thank you. We've we looked with our arborist At this site and really looked at trying to relocate Some of these trees unfortunately the majority of them if you look at the report they're in moderate condition So they're not very good candidates for relocation and also there are a lot of low-hanging power lines in the area and that would prevent us from moving that tree anywhere. And that tree would be impacted during construction as well. So one of the things that we have done and... Sorry, when you're saying that tree, you're talking about number 70. Tree number 70. Yeah, we've looked at that tree in detail. And unfortunately, there's just no way to relocate that offsite. And it's not in the best condition to be a candidate for relocation. But one of the things that we've done, your code I mentioned requires a minimum of 12 foot high trees. We have committed to provide eight 20 foot minimum time of planting oak trees. So these would be mature oak trees. It's a substantial increase from what's required. And we know it may not replace that tree, but these eight large mature oak trees well above what's required I think will make a substantial impact in the visual foliage that you see along that street tree. So that's one of the commitments that we made between Planning and Zoning Board and today and it's part of your development agreement. I think it's a big commitment for the developer.

We appreciate it. You have a question? I mean, you're welcome to go. We'll wait for you. It's okay. Do you want to take a three-minute break? We may have some conversation. That's why I'm asking. Let's take a break. Well, let's take a three-minute recess for Commissioner Bonnich. It's okay. Thank you. Turn it up. OK, so we reconvened. Thank you for allowing us the break. With the applicant's indulgence, we do have a consent agenda item. And there's someone here in the audience. I apologize. I lost track of that. Madam Clerk, if you could, in between this item, read. If it's OK, then there's no problem with taking it out of order. If we can take CA, I think it's CA1. Yeah, just very quickly, we can take CA1. CA2 does not have any sort of, anyone outside the city, Mr. Manager, associated with it, correct?

You mean the consent agenda?

Yeah, we have CA1, which is the, again, grant for the Jaden Higgins Youth Football Camp, correct? Yes. And CA2 does not require, it's just Mr. Riverall, correct?

It's just both of them.

Division 0 resolution. Okay, thank you. So if you can read CA1 really quickly.

A resolution of the mayor and city commission of the city of Southman, Florida, approving and authorizing the waiver of certain event-related fees and costs that amount not to exceed $2,248, pursuant to section 15B-6 of the city code for a special event known as 2026 Jaden Higgins Youth Football Camp, presented by the Westminster Christian Private School, to be held Saturday, May 30, 2026 at Common Park.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Any questions regarding the item, colleagues? Yes, ma'am.

I actually have something I'd like for you guys to consider. There's an additional $1,685 attached to this. And I'm hoping that we can waive that, seeing as though this is something to benefit. What is that for? It is parks and police. And we routinely waive that for so many other events. and for this one that directly impacts our youth i think we it's such a nominal amount that i think we should add that along with that's fine to the modification any objection thanks guys so do you want to move it as amended yes please okay so you want to say please yeah okay i'd like us to move co1 ca1 with an additional $1,685, which is equal to the hard cost for this event so that it is completely covered and fee waived.

OK, so we have a motion by Commissioner Winnington and a second by Commissioner Kaye. Any comment before we vote? I'd just like to thank, again, Jayden for being a great example of a... Hi, good evening. Thank you for being here. Sorry to keep you waiting. Do you want to come forward and introduce yourself really quickly?

Hello. Thank you, everybody. My name is Jade Higgins, and I'm here on behalf of Jade and Higgins and the upcoming youth football camp.

Thanks, Jade. Thank you for being here. Again, just thank your brother for being a great example of what a South Miami can achieve, and we're excited for his success and appreciate him coming back to the neighborhood to offer the camp and glad to see the Westminster's involved. So thank you.

Go Warriors. Thank you, everybody. All right, guys.

So the motion is second. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll.

Yes, Commissioner Bonnige. Yes. Commissioner Kaye? Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez? Yes. Vice Mayor Corey? Yes. Mayor Fernandez? Yes. Item passes 5-0.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you again. Thank you.

Thank you to you and your family for bringing that to us. It's our pleasure.

We look forward to bringing it annually, so we'll see you again next year. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, back to items four and five. Where did we leave off? We've closed public comments?

Yes.

Any questions? Further questions? Okay. Mr. Navarro, just to kind of get, and Ms. Cabrera, if you can also, because I know this is a particular issue that you care passionately about as well, preserving trees. And we're certainly trying to do that with our new sustainability standards. So I just want to understand, there is a conflict between the local... the development of the building and that one specimen tree that seems to be particularly unique given its size. Can you just clarify? I'm trying to understand whether it's salvage. For example, to the untrained eye, you could say, can we remove the line of two-bedroom units? And would it allow us to save the tree? And my concern was, does the underground parking garage and the footprint of it affect the tree? And so if you can talk about the interplay between those two elements,

Yeah. I mean, we can have our arborist. She's on the line. She can talk about that. But I have a lot of experience doing this because we do a significant amount of development around the Tri-County area. The problem is that the underground basement is right behind that wall and without that space you can't circulate. There is no parking garage. That's the circulation. When you go in there and if you were to go in there and root that part out of it, you're going to disbalance that tree. The tree is likely going to suffer significantly or die. It's just going to be very difficult. This is really not one tree. This is really two trees. So what they're doing is they're measuring both trunks It's really two trees that are growing right next to each other. So it's really half the size It's not a 400 year old tree. I have a 1500 acre ranch and I plant oak trees. I love oak trees And so I know how long it takes for these trees to go. This is not a 400 year old tree Our intent is to plant, you know, 20 foot trees fertilize them so they can grow as quickly as possible The same birds, the same trees that are going to be on this oak tree are going to be on our oak trees. It's just going to be younger trees. But over time, it's going to be a tremendous canopy. At the end of the day, we want our property to look compliant with the neighborhood. It gives us more value if that building fits into the neighborhood. And that's what we're trying to do. We're transitioning from a four-story, sorry, three-story to a six-story, make it look residential, and basically stay within the land use plan and what the vision is for the city. We're doing exactly what... We spent a lot of time trying to put together. And so there happens to be a tree there that is a large tree. There's no question about it. But it's really two trees in one.

No, Mr. Treason, I appreciate the explanation. I think I'm just trying to understand and highlight the complex. I think if you were to then, if you were to try to salvage a tree not only using the units, but you're going to lose about 23 parking spaces or access to 23 spaces. And the circulation. Yeah, no, but forget the circulation. I'm saying it basically affects access to the, when I'm looking at the underground parking level, this portion of the garage, which is the western portion, becomes inaccessible then. Because you would have to change that portion of the footprint as well. You couldn't do the project. I'm just trying to understand the residual impacts of trying to preserve the tree.

And like I said, there's two trees. Trying to relocate that tree is going to be impossible.

To me, there's no, from what Jason's offered by way of testimony and others, what you're saying, I take the report on its face. It's not a good candidate for relocation. I'm just wondering if we were trying to preserve it on the site. What are the impacts beyond you all losing three two-bedroom units? Oh, it would be a lot more than that. I'm trying to understand whether it has a residual impact on the underground level, and it seems it does. And it seems that you lose, by my count, 23 parking spaces underground.

And it would lose circulation. It would impact a lot of things, the garbage pickup, the trash chute areas, staircases.

Those are on the ground floor level, correct? Correct.

Yeah, they go all the way through to the ground floor, into the basement.

But yeah, but I think that that portion, oh, would they, yeah, there's a back of the house and the ramp. Okay. Okay, so it goes well beyond that.

Okay. And then you have the issue with the canopy that would go into the upper level units as well, so it's not just the basement.

Okay.

You know.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Further questions?

No.

Okay. Is there a motion on the item?

I motion. I move it.

This is for item four, correct? For item four? Yeah. Are we moving them? No, we take them separately. We have to take them separately. Separate votes, yes.

So I'll move four.

OK. I'll second it. Second. As presented?

As presented.

As presented. Any questions on the modifications? Do we get clarification on the, well, that's on the next item, on the parking removal. OK. So we have a motion to approve by Commissioner Bonita with a second by Commissioner Kaya as recommended by staff. OK. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Yes, Commission. Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez. Yes. Commissioner. Yes. Vice Mayor Corey.

Yes.

Mayor Fernandez. Yes.

Item passes five zero on the development agreement. Do we have any clarification on the parking? So in speaking with, and Mr. Mayor, sorry.

Yeah, that's fine. In speaking with your planning staff, we understand there are no on-street parking spaces today. So the removal of those four spaces should not impact us. If we want to clarify the development agreement to that effect, it would probably be helpful, just for further clarity down the line. But I'm being told that there is no on-street parking spaces. So Mr.

Overall, no on-street parking in that section that's recognized as revenue generating currently? across the street on the north side okay so there's nothing there was nothing on the south side because it was residential in character before the zoning changes okay thank you okay so if we can just clean up and uh we move the item so we can move it with a modification to strike the the mitigation payment I just think that would be helpful to everybody okay

Excuse me, Mayor. The way it reads, the development agreement 3.2, should there be any loss?

Just strike it, because should there be a lead to a conversation about whether it's owed or not, and it's just a waste of our collective time. Thank you. OK, have a question regarding the DA? Yes, sir. No. No? No questions regarding the DA? Yes, sir.

I just wanted to make a quick comment. I just wanted to thank the applicant. Obviously, we took a lot of time and effort and thought into the zoning here to create some appreciation for the density and intensity in this area. We do appreciate that you came forward with this. And considering what else is in the area, commercial, medical, I do think that this is going to be less disruptive because medical uses can have 20, 30 different cars coming every hour throughout the day. And this one's really only going to have the same rush hour traffic that everybody always goes through with people coming and going, whether they work across the street or whether they work wherever. So I do think that this is a positive project for the city.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So we have a, is there a motion to approve?

I'll move it. With the modification. With the modification.

With the modification. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Motion by Commissioner Bonich and a second by Commissioner Rodriguez. Madam Clerk, again, if you can call the roll on item five.

Yes, Commissioner Rodriguez. Yes. Commissioner Cagan. Yes. Commissioner Bonish. Yes. Vice Mayor Cord. Yes. Mayor Fernandez. Yes. Item passes 5-0.

Thank you. Okay, let's take up items. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a good evening. Let's take up items 6, 7, and 8, please.

Item 6, a resolution of the Mayor's City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, approving or denying a variance application pursuant to Section 20-5.9 of the Land Development Code, seeking to exceed the maximum lot coverage, allow for single floor plate requirements for the floor plates of the fifth and sixth floors for a proposed large-scale development within the Transit Supported Neighborhood Area, TSNA, sub-district of the Transit Supported Development District, TSDD, located at 6404 through 6504 Southwest 57th Avenue. Item 7, a resolution of the Mayor's City Commission of the City of South Maryland for the approval or denial of large-scale development special reception application pursuant to 20-8.7 of the City of South Maryland Development Code for the off-campus student apartments on the 2.73-acre development site located at 6404 through 6504 Southwest 57th Avenue. Item 8, a resolution of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, approving or denying a development agreement with Subtext Acquisitions LLC for the off-campus student apartments on the 2.73-acre development site located at 6404 through 6504 Southwest 57th Avenue, pursuant to Section 20-8.7 of the City of South Miami Land Development Code.

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Madam City Attorney, we have the warnings previously, correct? Okay, so we are good to proceed. Mr. Alvarez, you're recognized for your presentation.

Good evening, Mark Alvarez with the Corradino Group. I'm here on behalf of the City of Miami planning staff. We have reviewed this application and worked with this applicant. South Miami. South Miami. Sorry? South Miami. What did I just say? City of Miami. Sorry. South Miami. That's bad. Excuse me. It's been a long evening already. It is a large scale special, excuse me, a large scale development special exception. site plan review, this one does also have a variance as a separate item. The location of this is fronting Red Road between Hardy Road and 66th Street. It's the full block, and it's 2.73 acre block. It's rectangle. This is somewhat of an outlier of the TSDD. It's probably one of the only properties that's not really connected to the rest of the downtown zoning district. And it's surrounded by Coral Gables. Fade County and on the two sides, city of South Miami. The designation, the land use designation is TSD. The zoning designation is TSDD. And the subzone is the TSNA, the Transit Supportive Neighborhood Area. What surrounds this property, and again, I'll talk in a moment about transitions, but to its north, it looks like a single-family house actually in a very large lot, and that's what it is. It's actually two single-family houses. However, the entitlements for that, it's unincorporated Dade County. It's zoned RU1Z and RU4. Under those entitlements, that property could be developed at some time, and it's large enough for a two and nine story residential multi-family building. To the south of this project, we all know it's Red Road Commons. It's in the city of South Miami. It has been developed under a PUD, a planned unit development, which is why it's not included in our TSD zoning district. It's a PUDM, mixed-use PUD. And that is a five-story building, and we don't expect it to go anywhere soon. It's a mixed-use as well, retail on the ground floor. To the east of the project is, again, no longer in our jurisdiction. It's across Red Road. It is the University of Miami, and it is also Coral Gables. The entitlements in that really go with the campus master plan. And as we can see right now, under the current master plan for the campus, there is nothing slated for that. However, the limitations of those buildings and that scale is really out of our hands. And its development is between the city of Coral Gables and the university. And then to the west is a single family neighborhood. Again, this is a TSA project. In that area, we have that as a transitional area. And we have Under the zoning district RS4, we have single-family homes across the street on 57th Court. They can go to two stories and 30 feet now, but right now those are single-story homes. so for compatibility we have as is the case with most of our downtown development we intended to create greater density and put more people in the downtown so that it would also feed into our our businesses and our mixed uses and our workplaces in the downtown to have people within walking distance and most especially to have people within walking distance of the metro rail station Back in, I think it was November, we started talking about having student housing or student apartments because we are near the University of Miami, and that adds an extra dimension to that so that we would now have students who, in this case, this property is right across the street from the university. So we would... I think we can easily foretell that even with students who are going to an expensive school and may bring their cars here, many would walk to the university because it is only across the street and parking costs money on both sides. So we think this also adds to the pedestrian environment of the downtown for that aspect of it as well. Again, as a TSNA property, there are all the reasons why this is a good reason for the downtown and for the university and for pedestrianism and transit support. We also consider how it works for the neighborhood to the west. So this has to come under the TSNA rules where the front part of the property, in this case the east side, would be able to go to six stories. And the 75 feet in from the west side across from the single-family homes would have to come down to three stories to start to create that transition. And again, just here we have this north-south transition with the potential for nine stories in the county property coming down to six, going to five at Red Road and Commons. And we have really an unknown potential for the university over time. We don't know what the campus master plan would hold for those blocks. But they are fairly undeveloped, so we could imagine that at some time there's something there. Excuse me. And then going, in this case again, east to west, we would have that transitioning down to six stories across Red Road, transitioning to three, and then transitioning to the two-story single-family area. So again, this is consistent with our future land use plan. It's consistent with the zoning code. They were pretty much written together, but it is consistent with the land use plan. It is consistent with numerous policies in the future land use element of our comprehensive plan, which are listed there. And again, this property is in the purple area, which is the Future land is the transit supportive development area designation and it's a little bit locked out by some black up there, but it's the red rectangle. And again, I mentioned it is an outlier on our future land use map. It's not as connected by Red Road Commons because Red Road Commons falls into our designation. However, we couldn't rezone Red Road Commons because it was under a PUD. So under zoning, this property is isolated from the rest of the zoning district. The residential density of this is also compliant with the requirements of TSNA. This whole block is TSNA. It can go to 100 units an acre. However, for off-campus student apartments, as we have termed it, We counted our residential density a little bit differently. And we used the number of bedrooms. And it's the number of bedrooms that really is what we look at. So we take 100 times 3.5. And that was what we put in the code and agreed to. This property, in terms of number of units, comes out to 88 units per acre. And also, in terms of the bedrooms, what would be allowed under the code, This could have 273 residential units, and it could have 938 student. Did I read that right? 956 student bedrooms, and the project comes in at 240 units, which is a little bit under, and 772 bedrooms, which is, again, a little bit under the maximum. And again, we have a regulation for bedroom size, and it meets the requirements for bedroom size as it is currently in the code. So every single one of those bedrooms is above our requirement in the code for 150 square feet. Not for the apartment. Right now, in the code, we have it as per bedroom. The parking and loading, again, the application has decided to provide more parking than we require for student housing. What's required is 384 spaces, and it comes in at 395 spaces. So they have provided all of the parking requirement. It also meets the car sharing and the delivery areas as well. And we have a very intense requirement for bicycles for students or bicycles or scooters or any kind of similar mobility. We have a very extensive requirement, and it's meeting that requirement as well. That table is wrong, but there are 193 required, and it's over 193, and there are 16 on the outside on the 57th court side. One of the things I want to point out, and it's something that this project came in to us a little bit unexpected, in that its configuration put the garage with access onto Red Road. We actually didn't expect that when we first saw it. However, we think it's a very good idea. It's one that's much more difficult because they're putting their access on a state road. There's more permitting for the state to go through. However, what it does is it gives us a very good assurance, as far as design goes, that we would never put traffic onto the back of the project where the single-family homes are. So the side streets do not have access. The back doesn't have access. It's all through Red Road. And through the process of working with this applicant, they meet the loading requirements, the delivery requirements, the car sharing requirements, all on that first level. That garage goes up six stories just as the rest of the building does. And actually it goes down half a story in the back As well and the trash All of that is internal to the project and again it faces red road. It does not face the single-family areas So we have much more assurance that we're not going to have the noise or any of the outside effluence of those activities happening inside The street hierarchy, we regulate, as it is now in the code, we regulate what happens on Red Road. The other streets are non-TSDD streets, as our code currently exists. The project requires a seven foot clear path on the sidewalk with four feet on the outside of the sidewalk so that there is protection from the moving traffic. And that's been provided. On this project, there is a little bit of a grassed area Depending on where you are in the block on the inside of it as well There are a number of configuration issues that came up for Red Road. There's a taper which takes away some property So there's this is why this green area exists also on the inside, but we don't actually require it But still it meets all the requirements. We have the four feet on the outside. We have the seven foot sidewalk around the project we have Again, this project has gone through a number of iterations. We've worked with this quite extensively. But on 66th and 64th, Hardy Road and 64th, which is a county road, this will have curb and gutter and landscape on the outside to protect pedestrians, and at least a six-foot pedestrian path on the inside. Six feet is what we require for the rest of the city. As we move to the back, we've been working with the applicant. There are some changes that are related to landscaping. I'll get to the landscaping in a few slides. But the applicant will be proffering the consideration of actually creating more of a single family section on the 57th court side. So it may be a valley gutter, something neat and clean, not like the usual swale and street, but something that would not have a curb. And the reason to do that is we're going to, and again I'll get to that in a few slides, but there are some discussions about retaining more of the tree canopy that is existing canopy rather than replacing it. And that's apparently going to be a necessity to have that swale area a little larger to try to retain some of those trees. So no matter what, we'll have a six foot sidewalk, but it may be a swale section in the back and that may be something that's, an interesting idea because it's similar to what's across the street for the single family houses and may create a street section that looks more residential. For open space, this does meet the open space as well. 10% of a lot is required. Just under 11% is provided. Again, it's all linear open space with the exception of on the 57th court side, there is a public plaza that would be public open space. And I think as a gesture to the neighborhood, this is something that breaks up the mass a little more and provides an amenity for the neighborhood if they choose to use it. right now is programmed with a dog walk or dog run area and For landscaping, so this is the plan as it stands and as it's in your package. We've had a number of discussions with this applicant. First of all, it meets all of our landscape requirements as far as the trees that are being planted all around the project. And again, we have them mostly in that landscape area to protect pedestrians and also give the tree enough room for the canopy to grow next to the building. There are a number of mahogany's on the back side. There's a live oak on the red roadside and there's a strangler fig on the inside. We've had a number of discussions more recently about trying to save some of those trees rather than relocate or rather than remove them. Those are still ongoing, and I believe, again, the applicant will be proffering part of the development agreement that will work with that process to see what trees we can remove. So the landscape plan may change, but it would be in the effect of keeping more of the trees that are there. And most of the trees on the back are mahogany. For building height this complies with our code as well. We have a six-story envelope on the front that we can go to and it is six stories is underneath the actual roof height and That would go for 125 feet in from Red Road because this is a 200 foot deep block and so to preserve the 75 feet on the West side, by the single family side, it gives them 125 feet of six-story. And then the last 75 feet come down to three-story. Again, it's within the height requirements. And this application also programs private open space for the residents as well, with some amenities on the top. Again, there's been a lot of work with the amenities to make sure that those amenities are quiet amenities that would not be disturbing to the single-family neighborhoods. So there were once padel courts, I believe, and those are gone. It's just more of a swimming pool, sunning areas, and things like that that are relatively quiet. For building location, massing, and form, again, we start getting into something that's a little more judgmental, but we have gone through all of the criteria that are in the code for the building form. This does meet them all. The building coverage is consistent, 80% is permitted, 79.6 is provided. The building frontage on the block faces meets the requirements. Floor plates up through number four are consistent with what's required, and our build-to and setbacks, horizontal building variation, the dimensions of all that are fully met. We are, again, I think I'll wait till the architectural slide, but we are also working with the applicant still to make some changes on the surface, scoring on stuccoes and colors to present that building a little more articulated. The one thing that is the standout is that the floor plate above the fourth floor does not meet our criteria. So we have a limit on anything above the fourth floor in the TSDD zoning district for all of it, not depending on sub areas. that was designed to control tower massing. So when this was being done in the TSTD, we worked on a lot of ways to generically, without getting into the skin and the architecture, control tower massing. And we decided on 20,000 square feet. So I'm going to say right now, before I get to the variance, that was always intended for towers. We didn't actually for, we should have foreseen, but we didn't actually do that for the six-story buildings. Except for one particular set of criterias again the architectural standards We are continuing to work with the applicant and I believe they will be proffering a development agreement condition that they will continue to work with that and Look at the skin and the colors and the stucco and some of these effects that are more on the surface of the building But anyway, the building will be looking to attain a LEED silver certification. The window glazing, which we measure horizontally and we measure it differently for different floors, meets all of the requirements. And the garage screening, which again, we have worked extensively with this, does meet the requirements. And in fact, the screening moves a little bit so it's not all flat. It's been divided into three panels. And the applicant has to They will be submitting this for the AIPP process. So the design that's on there is more of a placeholder. So we have a variance for the fifth and sixth floors. We have five variance criteria. I'm going to go through them as quickly as I can. But the first criteria is that the variance is necessary to relieve a particular extraordinary condition. The condition is not exactly a unique condition. It doesn't need to be. But it is extraordinary, not because of the land. And this is one thing that we struggled with, because what we're really trying to accomplish, we have a technicality that we didn't intend, but we have to get through it through a variance but what happens on this particular property is we have a number of things come together having to do with our zoning code and our zoning code affects these these tsna properties at the edges or all the properties limited to six stories more or less the same however when we get to certain dimensions and certain areas and certain uses in our code we cannot break up that mass without going to a variance When this first came in, I'll explain a little of the history. We require this change, this maximum of 20,000 square feet for a floor plate. And floor plate was our definition. Floor plate is a definition that can also be used for the division between a garage floor plate and the residential area floor plates and habitable areas. Going through the building, the habitable area to the north is about 13,000 square feet. The habitable area, the garage, I'm sorry, is about 21,000 square feet. So it would potentially fall under a waiver. And then the last residential area, those floor plates are 26,000 square feet. 24,000, excuse me. Going through this process, we realized that Having the garage connected at each level to each residential area is a more safe and secure position which more or less emphasized Our position that we had a technicality to overcome and this is a lot of what this variance is about But in any case our extraordinary conditions are not so much the land but the way we vertically treat these buildings in the TSNA we have Yeah, so we have a number of properties where this would affect. But on this particular property, because of the use, so we had allowed for a waiver to excuse the floor plate under certain conditions with mixed use buildings and office buildings. And that has been accomplished already in another application. In this application, because it was a use that really came along a little later, it's residential in its nature, it cannot apply for the same waiver. So same condition, different zoning requirement, different criteria. And that's really where we found the somewhat more unique condition.

Mark, what project was that? I'm sorry, just so you can remind us. That would be Med Square. Med Square, so the one north of the last parcel we discussed.

That's at about 40,000 square feet per plate. And it's on the fifth and sixth floor.

Just again, I'm sorry to interrupt your presentation, but I'm just curious, since you're on the subject. I mean, isn't that just a recognition that typically, in my experience, there's a vast difference between the maximum size of a commercial floor plate and a residential floor plate above a certain level? The market typically builds to a much smaller size So I'm not sure if it's arbitrary in that regard. I mean, I understand it's treating uses differently, but it is recognizing that there is established commercial practice that's very different by use. I don't typically see buildings that have, there are rare exceptions. This site is pretty, I'd say the site here is more unique than the distinction between the uses. in this analysis. I mean, this is a pretty atypically long site for South Miami. We don't typically see a block that's plotted as one track of this size with this kind of a dimension, at least not in my experience, at least in three and a half years sitting up here. So I'm not sure that I agree with the characterization of the basis for denial.

Well, it's actually a basis for the acceptance of the variance.

Understood understood, but I mean I guess the hardship being that you're saying that are having a Arbitrary and it's treatment allowing allowing uses that are not not residential to obtain a variance versus uses that are residential is An improper basis for distinguishing if that's what I've understood you're saying have not established what that difference is at least in our code and

Okay.

I thought the reason we had a floor plate delimiter that was different for residential was because it's customary to see floor plates for residential that are smaller than for commercial uses, anyhow. Again, I try to stay purposely ignorant about our code because it allows me to be a client and not a lawyer. But if I'm confusing principles, I appreciate you clarifying.

Yeah, I mean, the other situation is a mixed use with Office, which is fairly specific. it would actually not apply to anything different other than a mixed use with an office. So we're looking at that and trying to say we'd actually like to cure that condition in our code so that any building would have the same access in terms of form and not having to look at the use before we decide on the form. So that's where the analysis is coming from. We just have a difference not only in the treatment of the vertical building, and this is where this slide was going, where we treat the fourth floor one way, but the fifth floor and sixth floor are different. But the fourth floor still has the constraint of only going to a point in the project 75 feet from the neighborhood. So we have a difference in the way we treat fourth with fifth and sixth. And we have a difference between properties depending on the use, which at this point, at least as we have written it in our code, because we don't provide that reason, is viewed as arbitrary. So, again, I mean, the hard to begin is just that it is confiscatory in that we're treating these conditions differently, both in the vertical, which is all their property, not really confiscatory, but treating buildings across the city or across the downtown in a different manner based on their uses. So whether it's a condition of the owner's action, I think it is. However, we also recognize that the owner has done something. Of course, they designed the project, but the owner has determined that they, in trying to follow the heart of what we wanted to do, they wanted the garage on the Red Road side, which I think complicated their project, as opposed to if it was in the corner or on a side street. So I think they're reacting to our desires. And it came out to a situation where these floor plates made more sense to have them connecting to the garage and not have a space between them, at least on the fifth and sixth floor. And finally, the request would be the minimum, because it's not any larger than the fourth floor. Fifth, sixth, and fourth floors are approximately the same. I mean, there's a few square feet difference. So it's not going bigger. It's just the same thing. And the variance wouldn't really create a building that's inconsistent, because we still allow a six-story building. It still has the transition to three stories. And it doesn't create any detriment to the public welfare To the extent that somebody could say there is a detriment, it wouldn't be any more than not having that condition imposed. I don't think I said that right, but there's no delta on that. In other words, having the spaces and not having the spaces we would view in this project as not having a significant difference to the neighborhood. And those would be our five findings for the variance. So as a staff level, we do recommend the approval of large-scale special exception with the conditions in the development agreement or the requirements in the development agreement to continue working with the surface and to continue working with retaining more of the existing trees that are on the site. And one other condition I haven't mentioned, I know that they are still working with the Department of Transportation Because their left turn lane into the property from Red Road that they applied for a permit for, also they have been requested, and we would agree with it, to extend the left turn bay going to Hardy Road from Red Road. So I know they're continuing to work with that, and we would include that as well, that they would continue with that along what we have been told that they're going to accomplish. And DOT won't permit them pretty much until they do that. So it's more, and then to recommend, we recommend acceptance of the requested variance for the fifth and sixth floors for the floor plates. I know they'll be questions.

Colleagues, questions? Who wants to start? OK. Mr. Vice Mayor, the floor is yours.

I just had a question. The 79% law coverage, does that include the interior courtyards, or it's just the entire exterior of the building has 79%?

It does not include the courtyards. OK. The courtyards go to ground level.

It's just surprising. It seems like it's more, but okay.

It fills out a little more towards the perimeters of the property because the corridors don't count.

Okay.

If those were one level up, then it would be part of the building's footprint and it would be part of the coverage.

Okay. Thank you. Further questions?

No?

Yes, you're recognized, Commissioner Moodings.

OK, in all the words that you said, sorry. Totally verbose. You mentioned that they are working. Too intense for you? Oh my god. It was like mind numbing. But in what you mentioned, you say that they are working on the facade still. And that is going to be tied to the development agreement. Did I understand that correctly? Correct.

Not in a way that changes the form we do regulate the form We don't regulate the paint and the colors and the stucco scoring that we're trying to accomplish to just get the visual appearance of more Yeah, because I mean for for clarification for all everybody it went from sorry guys I'm sorry because I'm gonna say this but it went from looking like prison to looking

Institutional is a better word for that.

But you're just kinder than I am.

Institutional is very nice. So it went from looking like a prison to looking... They had a lot of defenestration before.

Oh, God, please. I'm going to kill all of you. And then we saw some movement on the building, and we're trying to get just a little bit better on the facade so that it's a prettier thing. While we're doing that in the front... anybody pop up what the back will look like, because that's what the residents are going to be seeing. It may make me sound like a jerk, Oh, how do I say this nice? I think the front is great. I think the front is beautiful.

You're more focused on South Miami than Coral Gables.

Exactly. I couldn't care less what people at Coral Gables are seeing. I want to know what my people are seeing. And so if we're working on making the front more attractive, maybe we can make it work for the back as well. If I lived behind there, I want it to look nice for my house, too.

So- Commissioner, do you want to see the rendering as it- Yeah, can we pop up the back right now? I want to have it ready to- Oh, wait. Is there something about the rendering that you're concerned about?

Commissioner Corey is showing it to me. Well, if you look at the rendering in the back, it's very similar to the rendering in the front. So if we are doing that in the front, let's make it prettier all the way around. Like I say all the time, it costs the same to make an ugly building as it does to make a pretty building.

The back is renderings A906, A708.

We're seeing them.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that's why I'm saying if you look at this, it's very much mimicking as a building would, the front to the back. So what I'm saying is as we work on the front, which I have every hope that we'll come to something that's beautiful, considering who's working on it. We do the same to the back.

So just so I'm clear, you would want the facade modified on the rear as well?

As we are modifying the front facade, I think it would benefit to have the back facade mimic that. If not, we have like beautiful in the front and in the back.

So I felt that same way with the earlier illustration of the rear facade. I think this is a whole lot better. I'm going to have to reuse a word that I already used, which is intensity. I think the problem with the front facade is that this block is different than Med Square. It's probably twice as long as Med Square in terms of its one linear dimension. And so when you have a building, I don't care what size it is, that's six stories at 400 feet long, right? It feels super intense, right? Here, because the scale is much lower, I think the intensity is diminished. So I think the architectural problem is tougher on the front. to resolve for that reason. I don't know. We'll hear from the public. I just didn't know if you felt that it's exactly the same condition. I don't feel it's exactly the same condition for that reason. If they want to, I mean, certainly want to see people invest more money and improve the articulation of the facade if they can. The goal with changing the swale, the goal with trying to preserve the trees on that frontage, the goal with trying to make sure that those units mimic the rhythm of the single family neighborhood so that it's more harmonious, but I don't know that the architectural expression should necessarily be the same.

when you consider what we saw. And that's why it really came to mind when you look at the last project that we saw and how they were treating that space so that it did look like different pieces. The same length that you have in the front, you have in the back. So just because you're adding more height to it Like, I don't know how do you say that word in English.

No, but here there isn't, I mean, again, I'm not trying to argue anyone's point, and Mr. Garcia will do a good job of it. But remember, there's a difference in this in that there is a physical break in the building. The dog park. Because there is the courtyard, right? Whatever it's called, dog park, courtyard, whatever it is, right? There is that open area. So the building is the advantage that the advantage that we've given to the residential side is our insistence on having that green space express itself on the west as opposed to the east of the building is effectively fractured at the center. Right. I agree. So again, I think if there are specific items that are of concern, I would just say let's share them with staff so they can maybe iterate it further when it goes back to DRV. I'm just concerned about saying It's a straight one-for-one if it's done on the front side.

Well, no, I'm not saying it's a one-for-one, but what I'm saying is that due consideration for the back needs to be taken as well because once we modify the front, we don't want them to look... completely different. And I have every faith that Architectonica could make this look amazing and our director, Sudami, will work with them to make sure that it looks amazing. I just say whatever treatment we do, we should do it where it faces our residents as well.

Agreed. We've had a lot more conversation, so I'll reserve my rebuttal for after the presentation and hearing from the public. Further questions? No? Okay. So why don't we hear from the applicant and we will open up for public remarks. Mr. Garcia-Segura, good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the Commission. My name is Mario Garcia-Segura with offices at 600 Brickell Avenue. Here this evening representing Subtext Acquisitions LLC, the applicant and contract purchaser for the property located at 6404-6504 Southwest 57th Avenue. Subtex is one of the nation's leading developers and operators of student housing in the United States. And consistent with the recently adopted TSD and student housing regulations, Subtex is proposing a six-story, 240-unit student housing building with a small cafe on the ground level. This project has undergone a rigorous city review process, and we have been responsive to the many requests which have been made to us over the course of the project review. While the process has been demanding, we do feel that it has led to a better project and a project which addresses community concerns. With that said, I'll ask Ryan Bump from Subtext to come up and walk you through the proposed plans.

Good evening.

You're welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners. I am Ryan Baum with the applicant. First I'd like to thank mark staff planning board DRC we've gotten a lot of collaboration from the city a lot of inputs and I think as as noted the designs come a long way the projects come a long way to meet the city's needs and so I think we appreciate and Like where we've gotten to this point um as everything evolved with the design we were focused on three areas the residential feel of the townhomes was a core focus of ours as as the design evolved reducing the amenity on the fourth floor and screening and you know being conscious of the impact that that might have on the neighborhood behind it And then the sidewalk and pedestrian experience and safety as you circulate around the property. The site, as noted, was On 57th and the what we really like about it aside from being across the street from the University the proximity to the light rail and proximity to Downtown South Miami and all the retail and shops on 72nd and 57th It really has everything that we're looking for in a property. I As noted, we are 240 units, 772 bedrooms, and 373 parking stalls, so we are fully compliant with the density requirements for the site. With the public and private bicycle parking, we're at 249 stalls, and that includes mobility, scooter, and e-bike parking spots as well. And public open space, we've been able to achieve over 13,000 square feet of public open space around the property. Here is the ground floor. As noted, really a driver of the entire design was an effort to keep the access off Southwest 57th and keep everything away from the neighborhood on 57th Court. So the primary vehicular access is located there mid-block. We also have the lobby and cafe entrances that are on 57th as well. You can see here, as noted, we've got trash, loading, parcel, car share. All of that is offsite and accessed by Southwest 57. So reducing any impact to the surrounding neighborhood as much as possible. And all of these are fully compliant with the code. Another kind of big change that was made as the plan developed is we were really focused on providing as much sidewalk and landscape buffer as possible on the site. So as things evolved, we were able to provide an 11 foot sidewalk minimum around the site consisting of seven foot clear path and the four foot landscape buffer. And then as you go to the northeast corner down 57th, we were able to achieve a 14-foot sidewalk profile with 10-foot minimum clear. And this is the direction and the path of travel that we would anticipate for a lot of our residents who are going to be walking from the property to campus. Here is a look at the renderings. So the exterior design has evolved significantly. So we've gotten a lot of really good input, giving a little more movement to that facade, more variation, color. We've bumped out the balconies and created these sections that give it a little bit more horizontal breaks. We've added additional glazing, so that's a significant change from when this was first proposed even to planning board the first time around. So you can see we've expanded the size of windows throughout all of those balcony stacks and achieved the zoning requirements for glazing on all levels. Zooming into the garage, this was another area of focus for refinement and improvement. So we've separated the garage vertically into these three sections to reduce the scale of them. We've added these kind of folds into them just to provide that additional variation. And then we really focused on what does that ground level pedestrian experience feel like as you're walking by the garage. So we've completely screened the garage with the exception of the drive entrance itself and really focused on landscaping and lighting and what that pedestrian experience looks like, as well as maximizing the width of the sidewalk as much as possible.

Quick question on this point. So just is the corrugated metal being continued down to the ground floor plane? Is that the screening element for the garage behind it?

No, that's a different material that provides. So there's a concrete break at the bottom of the garage. And that's more of like a softer landscaping style screening, different material there.

Is that wood or what are you guys contemplating?

It's not defined yet. Okay.

What's the range of options you think that would be practical to execute there?

I think for that square footage of area, I think we would be open to anything.

Okay.

Something softer like a wood tone or something like that would be completely achievable.

Okay.

Here we go to the south elevation and you see the step down as noted but you can also start to see that Amenity deck on level four and we've really focused on screening as much as possible and you can start to see How much landscaping is up on that deck in an effort to provide that screening? we have added additional bump outs and variation to this facade as well and And here you can see where we've transitioned from the taller building has a certain architectural language, and we start to transition to our townhome typology as you move over. So the balcony treatment there on the right is slightly different than the treatment for the three-story section on the left. Here is the three-story design and where it's evolved to. So it has gone through extensive feedback and modifications. So we've really improved the scaling, the vertical breaks to provide that townhome scale, focused on the facade detailing, and added some additional color variation. This is where we were at two or three months ago. So you can see it's much more horizontal, not nearly as much detailing. You can see that activity up on the level four deck, we have a pedal court as shown here. This is where we've ended up much more rich detailing across and color variation, gotten rid of the Padel court, and added that additional screening, which has caused, you can't see that level four amenity deck when you're from the ground level. Here's a plan view of the amenity deck. So previously, on the left side of the screen, there was a padel court, some barbecue, and additional gathering spaces. We've removed that based on concerns that we heard and then reduced the size of the amenity deck in that area. And then you can see the rim of green across the whole thing. That's landscape planters that buffer the entire length of the deck. Here you can start to see what that screening does. And when you're in this area of that amenity deck, that's over six feet between the wall and the planters. You're over six feet of screening, so you cannot see anything from the residential homes below. We did want to provide an update on the community outreach that we did early on in the project. So back in December, we did hold the community meeting. We had about 25 individuals who attended that. And we heard a lot of the concerns. A lot of what we heard at that time revolved around security and traffic service vehicles and the amenity deck. It was a big driver for why we put the entrance where we did. It's been a big driver for why we kind of increased the amount of screening and landscape for that amenity deck. And then for that amenity deck as well, we're willing to commit to a 10 p.m. cutoff time and close that deck down so that it's not disruptive to the neighbors. Additionally, feedback we heard was with regards to job creation. So we've worked with JMA, who's our general contractor, to have them set up a job fair when we get a little closer to construction. And then they're also going to use Best Efforts to make outreach specifically to trades, subcontractors who work in South Miami. connect to the workers who reside in South Miami and make sure we make best efforts to reach out to them make sure they're aware of open positions and employment needs and just give them the best opportunity to be a part of the project and then once we're up and operational we'll do the same thing for the property for permanent positions as well The tenants who are on site most of the properties have been vacated the owners of the property had already Had the plan to exit out of the housing programs that they've been a part of prior to our involvement in the project So that was all sort of in process. So there are 14 remaining tenants who are on site currently and We've engaged Miami Homes for All, who is a local housing services provider. They provide support, feedback, guide people through the process of finding that relocation housing and comparable relocation housing is really what we want for these people. So we're actually providing $50,000 for relocation assistance. We've upped that a little bit to provide as much support as possible for Miami Homes for All to help with that relocation assistance. And then we're continuing outreach on behalf of the tenants to Miami-Dade Housing Authority and just trying to make this as seamless as a process as possible.

Just on the slide, first of all, thank you for connecting, Margo, with Miami Homes for All. I think it was a good investment of your resources to help with that transition. The people I had heard from all had vouchers. The other thing I had was they just needed assistance with their rent deposits for their next department. Was that the majority of the tenant mix? Was it mostly all possessed vouchers? I would love some more color into that issue.

It was a... It was a majority of HUD vouchers and moderate rehab and market rate. So I think there was maybe 20% market rate. And then the remainder were mod rehab and then the voucher.

And the 14 that are remaining, are they the mod rehab? Correct. And so they do not have any guaranteed housing assistance for the transition?

Not yet.

Not yet.

Yeah. So their leases expire on September 5th. Okay. And we're fully intending to honor them. We're creating our whole plan around those dates.

Where are they located on the site?

There's two buildings in the northwest corner and one building in the southwest corner.

Okay.

So it's kind of both ends of the site. So we've already worked with the contractor to have a plan that we can allow them to stay in place through the end of their lease and have all of the same services and protection that they have now.

Okay. And so those are the folks that you're trying to connect with Miami-Dade Housing Authority to possibly get some voucher assistance?

Yes, so the typical process is anywhere between 45 to 60 days prior to the end of your lease that you start to get that voucher for or accept it into a new property. With Miami Homes For All, where the intent is to expedite that to where they have that assurance much earlier.

OK. If you're going to speak, come on up. That's fine. Just name and address for the record, please. Thank you. No problem.

Matt Swedenberg with the developer. I was going to say each of those mod rehab units Miami-Dade has already submitted the voucher request to HUD and so those are in process and they're just waiting on HUD to issue the vouchers.

They're going to convert the mod rehab assistance to vouchers for those individual tenants? Okay, that's fine. Thank you for the clarification.

Any other questions on that?

No, sorry, no. It's an important issue.

The last thing, Mark laid out the variance issue. We just wanted to share, I guess, our view of it. And when you talk about where is the value to the city of this 20,000 square foot floor plate requirement, The image on the left is an example of building a tower without that requirement where you can just have your podium and a box that goes all the way up with the intent of the floor plate limitation to cause something more of a break like you see on the right. But our point with this is just it doesn't feel applicable to the dimensions of our site as noted. It's it's a unusually long unusually shaped site for South Miami and So just want to demonstrate where we understand the intent and where it came from And just why it's not necessarily applicable to our site and the last piece was just As noted, this is the Texas amendment that would allow us to achieve what we want to achieve. So it's a fairly minor Texas amendment. And I think it doesn't open up excessive opportunities in other parts of the city to be abused. So I feel like it's justified for this particular site and still offers the protection to the city moving forward. With that, I will let Mario close out.

Thank you very much, Ryan. And one more note on the issue of the variance. The variance I would summarize as being requested to address an unintended consequence of a floor plate requirement that is meant to address buildings which have both a pedestal and a tower. Here we have no tower. This is all pedestal and it is a pedestal where we can only use a portion of it for the maximum height permitted And we're all involved want parking loading and access strictly accessible from Southwest 57th Avenue So further constraining where we could potentially put the program and requiring parking to go up higher than the whole coverage of the other building on the ground level With that said, there's still been a few discussions with city staff in the last few days that Mark alluded to, and I just wanted to discuss those also, in particular having to do with tree preservation and facade improvements. On the issue of tree improvement, we were provided the city arborist report late last week, and it identified certain trees that they recommended should remain. We are willing to make an effort on many of them to be able to potentially preserve them on site or relocate them. And some language that I have here that I can pass out, which would be an additional amendment to the development agreement, would read as follows. Developers shall make commercially reasonable best efforts to preserve the trees located along the southwest 57th court right of way, which are recommended to remain pursuant to the city arborist report prepared by Robert Curtis and dated April 15, 2026, the city arborist report. In the event that these trees cannot be preserved on site, new 18-foot high trees with a DBH measurement of a minimum of 5 inches will be planted along the Southwest 57th Court right away prior to issuance of the project's temporary certificate of occupancy. These are for the trees recommended to remain along Southwest 57th Court. There are then two other trees which we are willing to make efforts on to relocate. which is a strangler tree identified as tree number 35 in the city arborist report, which shall be relocated to a city-owned property to be mutually agreed to by developer and city. And then developer is also willing, with tree number 43, which is a live oak, to root prune that for a period of three months to then determine whether it is eligible for relocation. So that's on the topic of trees. on the topic of architecture, which we've discussed already, and how to improve the facades. We're proffering a revision to section 2.3.41 of the development agreement, which would add a sentence at the end of that provision, which reads, developer shall utilize commercially reasonable efforts to further study and elaborate the facade facing Red Road. We could potentially add Southwest 57th Court also, too, so as to further distinguish and differentiate each wing of the project based on coloring, finishing, and details. meaning the north residential wing, the parking garage, and the south residential wing. As was discussed during Ryan's presentation, the proposed contribution to assist with tenant relocation has been increased from 35,000 to 50,000, and we've also agreed to a 10 p.m. closing time, let's call it, for the amenities deck on the roof of the third floor so as to create, you know, better regulate that space. Your staff and all your boards that have reviewed this project have recommended approval. We ask that you also vote to approve this promising project, which will serve to fulfill your vision for this area of the city. The whole team here is available for questions, and I'll reserve some time for rebuttal if necessary. Thank you.

Got questions? Please, go ahead. Just questions. Let's keep the comments to the end.

Oh, I just have a question. Please go ahead. Because I'm staring at it.

Fenced-in area that we're seeing on the screen will will also have an open and closed time And well, it's gonna be subject to an easement in favor of the city and we think what would be appropriate is probably Sunrise to sundown is the open time as is common. I think with city parks.

I agree. I think that's a good idea You don't you don't want that just open at all at all times.

I

If that's a condition, I would just suggest, because I had a similar question. I think it's 2362 of the development agreement speaks to public access. And at times when it's open and accessible to the public, you just might want to modify it or move it with that modification. 2362 is the section of the DA. Further comments or questions? On the same topic while we're on it, in terms of public access, again, the image is, I think, very nice. The only problem is that to the uninformed member of the public, it reads like it's private space. And so what signage requirements is a question of the applicant and or the city attorney do we have that would help any member of the public understand that I think it's styled a public dog run, a dog run or dog park. would be available to any member of the public to access. So I don't know if you're contemplating signage to that effect or whether we need some sort of a signage requirement in Section 236, right?

Yeah, I think the signage that's shown up there is probably not appropriate for that particular spot, and that can be replaced with something to the extent that...

I think you're just trying to illustrate the condition, but I also want to make sure that we don't forget that, because if the intention is for people who are in the neighborhood to be able to use it, it's got to signal visually that it's a place that's also available to them. OK. Further questions, comments?

We're asking questions after public comments, right?

Questions now. We'll have comments after public comment. No questions after public comment? Please, yeah.

OK. Can we go to page 13, please?

Page 13 of the presentation? Yeah, the presentation.

Let me see. Which one's 13? What's the title?

Keep going.

Keep going.

Three more. There you go. There you go. Perfect. So what do you have on the amenity deck here on the bottom left-hand side? Why is it grayed out? Is it?

That's right now that will be empty space. There is no that that was a previous location of the padel and you know the racket court sort of area Which after considerable comments from planning board from the public and so forth we have eliminated So that'll just be a roof area at this point this flat concrete roof no access Correct okay

Sir, could you clarify a question that the Vice Mayor and I are having a side colloquy on, which is the interior courtyards, they count as open space, correct? Because they go all the way to the ground? Not as public open space, but they count as open space for lot coverage purposes. So I think the Vice Mayor was trying to get some clarity as to how they are achieving only 79% lot coverage. My calculation is the exterior open space, the public open space, which is at the edges, the dog run, which is also public open space, and then the private open space, which is the courtyards that go all the way to the ground. That basically is how they're getting only to a 79% lot coverage. Is that correct? Yes. Okay.

Can I continue? Thank you, Mayor. We stated the comments about the public's wanting of usage of job fairs and everything associated with that. So with other development agreements and opportunities, we've had placements through the city where I'm just giving you a suggestion on how we can fulfill this. We have a job board. you have your subcontractors and contractors submit all their positions, including operations from your guys' perspective, into this public domain that we have. And it's not only for here, but it goes all the way across Miami-Dade County, but we specifically cater to South Miami residents, and that's a good way for you guys to actually get that out there.

The name against job board?

It's Miami Works. You've probably met Willie Poro. He used to work at the Miami-Dade County. I think he's running our... What's the name of it again? I think it's Miami Works, or Miami-Dade Works now. It's Workforce Now. Workforce Now, yeah. Sorry.

Yeah, our contractor, they've already pointed that out as something that they would want to use. I don't think they've used it before, so any help to get that set up?

We'll help out. I mean, it's important.

So I think if you don't mind, a condition where we just are required to connect you and your contractor with these programs and you can have some sort of at least an agreement so that you have a referral relationship in terms of job opportunities, that would be great.

Lastly, can we go over the tree allocation? Because you rammed off the numbers real quick. And I just want to understand what the trees are that you're planning to potentially, best case scenario, try to keep. And looking at the tree scenarios, specifically on the landscape plan, L- Commissioner, do you want to bring up Ms. Cabrera to identify the trees that she's trying to encourage them to preserve?

Yeah.

I think those are the ones that are subject to the proffered condition, correct?

Correct.

Yeah. Basically, they're the development services director. They're the street trees on the 57th court side.

All of them?

Pretty much all of them. And there are two trees that are on site. There's one on the southeast corner which is the oak right 43 and then there's a fig tree that's on the side and that's the one that they've already committed to relocating that's 35 it's 35 yeah how about the trees on north side on the north side there's some on the north side um that are also being kept but our big concern was that the 57th court side really was pretty much all the trees because of the street curb and gutter condition. So we've discussed about not having the curb and gutter and having more of a swale so that we could salvage all those trees. There's just some civil issues that need to be looked at, but we've gotten a commitment from them of trying to work around all the trees on the 57th court end.

It just seems like you have pretty healthy trees with good canopy that'll help your students with shade cover on the north side of the project on 64th Street, Hardy Street. I mean, you have oaks, you have all that stuff, and it's on the median facing on the street. So, Rami, if you can look at that and determine if it's possible. I just think it's already there, it's not in your way. You put up a fence, it's not going to be a big deal for you guys. And it's pretty mature trees, good shade, so just look at that. Because I was looking at all the Xs on the landscape plan, and it's a lot of trees, and they're mostly on the medians all the way on the exterior of the properties, which seems like we could just reuse. We don't have to get rid of those.

On the north side. There's already a curb and gutter.

So I don't think the north side was as problematic as a 57th court site But I'll take a look at that more closely with our I'm sure you should I'm sure you know what what we what we're all looking for there I mean going back to the to what I The elevation drawings were on the rear on 57th court to what it is now. I think it's a dramatic difference. I think that you have this big facade on the front side and I think they've done a decent job of masking that. You have the back side and what you want is a symbiotic kind of way of getting everything together where the flows and how it's all together with the balconies and all that. I think that It's a lot better. I mean, I'm not one, I'm not an architect, right? Like that's not my domain. I don't do designs on that. I think it looks good. I think on the backside, and I'll leave it up to our residents to tell me, you know, I care what Michelle says. She lives right there, right? So Michelle, you'll come up in a little bit and you tell me what you think about this project because it matters to me. But I think it looks good. I think that... The opportunities of removing traffic and having everything on the 57 side has its pros and its cons, right? I mean, having all the entrances on 57th Avenue, I'm not going to lie, it's going to increase traffic on 57 dramatically. And what happens there is that people are going to try to bypass 57. They're going to go down 57 to court and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, you have your pros and your cons. You know, this is a massive building for what we're used to, so it's something that we're going to have to learn, get better. I've told you guys before that traffic situations, crosswalks, and the ability to have a...

Questions, remember questions.

No, this is a comment.

I know, so let's save them for later. Let's hear from the public first.

That's what I was asking.

That's what I was clarifying before. I was letting it go for a little while, but I don't, it's 1030. I don't usually talk that much.

I know, that's why I'm surprised.

Okay, I'll stop. Okay, so we're gonna close our round of questions here. I'll save my questions and comments for later. Let's open up the forum to members of the public. Any member of the public who'd like to address this commission on item six, seven, or eight, you're welcome to come forward at this time.

And anyone on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand.

Ms. Reardon, you're recognized. Please come forward.

Good afternoon, good evening, and almost good night.

It is late here. Thank you all so much for allowing me to come up here. This project is really... dear to my heart right now. Right now, it kind of saddens and it's heavy to me because of the fact that I've lived here over 60 years at this same residence off and on, because I did move out and come back. But I don't feel as though this project fits our residence. It's more like a commercial instead of another part of a residential. I can't see myself coming out of my front door and looking out at this. And Commissioner Bonish, you may have said it, but I said the same thing, is if I have just come into Fort Knox, because we have nothing but this concrete And Matt, I love you because you did take time to talk with me, and I appreciate that. But this is too large of a project as far as the concrete is concerned to be right at the edge of the last street in this community. I get up, and I can't see anything. There's no sun. It's blocked everything that I'm accustomed to, the apartments across the street. I welcomed, well, the apartments were there. And I knew that I can look through the apartments, receive some wind, some sun, some something. I didn't have to deal with anybody on a balcony outside. Everything was on the inside, where the parking. Now I would have to possibly deal with people outside on the balcony. I know everybody do their own thing. I don't want to have to wake up and see people Sunning and seeing all kind of stuff that I don't want to see I don't think that fits this community and the people that I've spoken with last year last week I was on a trip. So the people that were there I invited them to come we're not happy with this projects We don't feel that this project fits our community also I want to say, we have, like you said, to the right on 66, we still have Railroad Commons. To the left down is called Clarister's Apartment. They just added some more on 57th Terrace. We have the vault. We have more than enough student housing. Then we need another one here. Why hasn't anybody gone over to the University of Miami across 57 to see if there was something that they were there? Because they wouldn't have it. They're not going to allow something in their neighborhood. And it's no disrespect to any of you all. I don't think you all would have that in front of your door and you open up with your children. We have kids on that resident that they have their bikes. And sometimes they go across the street and they enjoy riding and walking around the block there. I just feel that this is too large of a project here for us to have. Also, the people that are there, our community was close-knit community. We have residents that have been over there for years, and now to have to uproot them and allow them to go somewhere else, I don't think it's fair. We still need housing here in South Miami. Why couldn't it just be redone and where people that live here can stay here and have it? So that's my thing. I'm not happy with it. The people of South Miami, the area is not happy with it and we hope that it does not pass.

Thank you. Michelle, before you go, I have a question for you because obviously you've been involved for years. So, and that's my appointee to the planning board for a while. So I know that you, I mean, you, you went through this process with us when we were kind of ushering through, um, these zoning changes that we started before all of us got here. I think probably Commissioner Court was the only one that was at the inception since he kind of fathered it. But I guess, and I've said to the developer, I look at student housing as the naturally occurring form of housing given where we are around the university. It's just the nature of where we are in the market. If I could tell someone, don't build student housing, We actually, the manager and I have. We had a site, our inspection site. We had a student housing developer out of Los Angeles approach us about joint venturing on an acquisition of a neighboring site and our property to build student housing. We're like, we're not interested. Again, I'm not offended by student housing, but I don't need to do anything to encourage it, to your point. I think that's what you're trying to say. What were you envisioning would be built when you were on the planning board and we were all considering these zoning changes? What were your expectations? I mean, because I will be honest. Are you just, excuse me, specifically talking about where I am now? Where you are right now, yes.

I was envisioning that we would have better housing, that we could have had townhouses there where it was not just one long building. area that the people, it could have been redone. We could have had more update and modern things that were put there. I don't not say I don't like the housing. Even with Railroad Commons, I'm fine because it's not in front of someone's residence. The one down the street is not in front of someone's residence. That's my whole thing. And it's blocking up everything. We can't see anything. But I was envisioning that we would, because I know progress has to continue. But I was hoping that it will be the same housing area, but a better looking model AND STYLE OF HOUSING AND NOT A CAMPUS OR I WOULD SAY A STUDENT APARTMENT. SO I'M WELCOMING HAVING THAT THERE. BUT JUST THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT, I'M NOT HAPPY WITH IT.

OKAY. THANK YOU. APPRECIATE THE CLARIFICATION. ANYONE ELSE WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THIS COMMISSION IN PUBLIC REMARKS? GOOD EVENING.

Good evening, your Royal Highness. Frank Welsh. Frank's a friend, so it's okay. You guys can pick what's on what I'm talking about. I know, I know. Frank Welsh, 6511 Southwest 57th Place. Grew up in the neighborhood. Lived my whole life with the South Miami Senior High. Family owned a business for 50 years on the corner of Bird and Red. No relations to Bob Welsh. I bought a house, been living there for a while. This project, it doesn't fit. If you look at the picture that they put up there, there's a blob, and then there's houses. And I think you might have been on the Zoom two meetings ago. There was a woman on one of the meetings, and she goes, it looks like a prison. But that's what one of the, on the building commission meeting, whatever, she said it. And my position last week was, If you got a pig and you put lipstick on a pig, it's still what? It's still a pig. So when you come out of the house, and I feel for them because they live on the street that's going to be facing it. I'm a block away. There's just something in my gut for some reason that I just don't think all their numbers are adding up. And it doesn't make sense because they said I had a meeting in December. I've lived there for five years. No one contacted me about a meeting in the neighborhood. It went from 15 to 25. Nobody knew about the meeting. Who would you invite? Where was the meeting? This and that. They talk about in the last couple of meetings, I'm talking about relieving students living in the neighborhood. That's going to bring more people to the neighborhood. It's going to bring more kids to the neighborhood. At the last meeting, they talked about, well, I live next to college kids. I don't have a problem with college kids. I was only there like two or three years ago, so I have no problem with it. But what I have a problem with is the fact that you have people that are buying houses that are two-bedroom, single-family homes that are converting them into seven-bedroom houses now. You go online, they're advertised as dorm houses. raking in $2,000 a month for each person. They're using your trash. They're using this. You've got people that are avoiding the light at 57th and 64th, speeding down the side roads. It already happens. It's not going to happen. It's not new. It's going to happen. They're already doing it. They're speeding down to get to the youth center. They're speeding to avoid the light. Turn north off of Ponce in the afternoon And it's already backed up all the way down. You can't turn on the 66th. You can't turn on the 64th because it's backed all the way up from 62nd and 67th and 72nd. So when we talk about at the last meeting, one guy said, well, it's not going to really affect traffic. It's not going to affect traffic. Are you crazy? It's going to affect a lot of traffic. They already parked on the side streets. So if they're going to live in the building, where are their friends going to park when they come? You built Vox. You've already built across the street from Sunset Tavern. They just built new dorms over there. I mean, where are they going to park? They're parking in front of our street houses already. They block the view on the corners. So when you try to turn, you're lucky there hasn't been a major accident there. They're flying down 64th and 66th when there is no traffic because there is no lights. There's no stop signs. There's no speed bumps. They're speeding down my street on 57th. I'm one block away. So when we sit there and start talking about it's not going to affect, there's a trickle-down effect. And I said this at the last meeting. is when we keep approving all these little things, they add up into one big problem. It takes you 45 minutes to go from just Riviera to where the big cheese is. 45 minutes in the regular afternoon. I mean, there's a lot of things that are wrong with it. And I know you guys, we're three minutes, and everyone already had an hour and a half and two hours. And my only other question is, When this is built, are we going to start enforcing the codes, single family codes, in the neighborhoods that we're avoiding now? Are we going to sit there and say, all right, when are we going to sit there and start enforcing the traffic so where they're not flying down our streets? Because there's no, listen, that's the South Miami that's forgotten about, that area. The rest, everyone else, everyone loves it because that's the nice areas, isn't it? But when you started, you still got CrossFit South Miami Market. You still got Sunset Place. You still got the 60 Step. There's a lot of building that's going to happen here in the next couple years. And you can't drive anywhere around here. And they say college kids don't drive. Yeah, they do. Come on. We know better than that. That's a... A FANTASY. SO MY OTHER QUESTION IS, YOU SAID IT'S A THIRD FLOOR. SO IS IT REALLY A FOURTH FLOOR IF THEY'RE PUTTING THE AMENITIES ON THE FOURTH? IT'S A QUESTION THAT WILL HAPPEN.

THANK YOU, FRANK. ANYONE ELSE LIKE TO ADDRESS THIS COMMISSION IN PUBLIC REMARKS? NO ONE ELSE?

ANYONE ON ZOOM, PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND.

Okay, no one else. So we will close public remarks. Mr. Cicero, you're recognized.

Mr. Mayor, just a few minutes to try to respond to some of the concerns. Both Mr. Eden and Mr. Welch talked about the building just not fitting in or being appropriate for the neighborhood. A tremendous effort was made in the preparation of these zoning regulations to find a way to make sure that scale and context were still going to be respected. And probably the biggest measure that was done to try to protect single family neighborhoods, in this case the one to the west, Was that height reduction and indeed that height reduction is significant when you think that it's going down It's half the height of what the maximum height is permitted So we go down from six stories to three stories in the case of this project in particular, too We could have built a parking garage that was going up throughout the edges of the ground floors the first three floors of the building and Potentially encroaching upon the residential area would have made things easier for us But we didn't do that And that parking garage is completely and exclusively pushed away from the single-family neighborhood and accessible only from 57th Avenue. With regards to existing residents, we were making a significant effort to assist with the relocation of those existing residents. And when the topic of student housing The sort of complaint that we heard right now about too many students living in the single-family home area, that is part of what the student housing regulations is meant to address. The student housing regulations were adopted to try to direct the demand for that student housing into buildings which are designed, built, and most importantly, professionally managed for students so that there is an adult in the room managing. The place and we try to get those Students that are living now haphazardly in single-family homes and townhouses and so forth to live in a place That's appropriate to them and close to campus. So to try to minimize the amount of car trips that are out there with that said I'll conclude the rebuttal and the teams ready and available here for any questions, which you might have

Thank you for that. Okay. So thoughts. How do we want to proceed? You want to go left to right or right to left? Let's go right to left. We've been picking on Commissioner Bonnich for a while. So, Commissioner Kaya, you want to kick us off?

I have a question. Does this property fall into RTZ by any chance? To where? RTZ.

I don't know it's it could I mean that's a to be designated RTZ requires a map amendment by the county by the county so they can Whoever the owner is could make a request of the county commissioner to sponsor a map amendment for inclusion in Whatever so very map I see a hand waving in the back No, come on up. I'll let you I'll recognize you She's pretty intimidating. I've been I've been on the wrong side of Michelle Okay, so we're gonna open up public hearing very quickly.

Yeah, I'm I'm nervous.

I'm just before I just need your name and address Okay. Thank you.