City Council - Regular Meeting

City Council regular meeting to order at 7 p.m. Call the roll, please.

Mayor Faheck?

Here.

Vice Mayor Lamas?

Here.

Councilman Santee?

Here.

Councilman Dionne?

Here.

Councilman Perez-Crespo?

Here.

There is a quorum present.

Okay. Please stand for the invocation led by Vice Mayor Orlando Lamas.

Dear God, as we gather for the city council meeting, we ask your wisdom and clarity. May your Holy Spirit guide our discussion and decisions, ensuring that we serve the best interests of our communities. Open our minds and hearts to new ideas and help us work with integrity. In your name we pray, amen.

Please remain standing and let's do the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. Thank you. You may be seated. All right. Does anybody have... We move on, by the way, to agenda and order of business. Does anybody have anything from the consent agenda to pull for discussion?

Okay. I had a resident call me to ask me about 10B. Okay. And they just wanted some clarity. So, okay. So we'll pull 10B.

We'll pull 10B for discussion. And then does anybody have anything else on the agenda that they would like to move around? I don't think there's anything else really. All right. So... Having no other suggestions for moving things around on the agenda, I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the agenda moving 10B. So moved. Okay. So we have a motion. Second. And a second. Okay. We'll do that with the voice vote. All in favor of approving the agenda as stated, say aye. Aye. Okay. All against, say no. Okay, so that moves forward. We move on to awards and presentations. We will begin with 5A, which is a presentation of the Arva Day 2026 Proclamation to the Public Works Department. So Juan is going to, do I read this to Juan or Juan's going to read it to the public? How do we do this? Juan, come on up. Why don't we go up there? Because as a matter of fact, we're going to have quite a few things we're going to present. So guys, why don't we go up? Juan, tell us why we're doing this proclamation. I know why, but I don't want to.

Mr. Mayor, as you know, every year we celebrate Arbor Day, and this year we're celebrating Arbor Day, I believe it's the 24th? Yes, the 24th. at which point we will be planting a nice yellow Ponceana and a live oak in two different locations in order to celebrate the year. This year, we've installed over 70 trees this year, and we still have another 100 to put in the ground. So it's all part of the... Great.

Thank you. And thank you for your commitment to helping us get back to being a Tree City USA. And I know that this is part of that process. So I'll just read the hoopla. Actually, I don't need this because I'm wearing it, Mike. So... It says, I, Walter Verhead, Mayor of the City of Miami Springs, do hereby proclaim that Friday, April 24th of this year will be Arbor Day in the City of Miami Springs, and I urge all citizens to support efforts to care for our trees and woodlands, to support our city's community forestry program, and to plant trees to promote the well-being of present and future generations. So on this day, April 24th, will be Arbor Day, so congratulations.

And we invite anybody that wishes to attend the ceremony to be with us on that day. Can you share the locations? We will. We'll put them on the website. Okay. Cool.

Awesome. All right. Wait. Picture. This is big.

Okay. Thank you. Good job, man.

One of the locations is behind our entrance sign on East Drive. Okay. That will be the Yellow Pine Santa there.

Oh, that's nice.

And the Oak is probably going to be on Curtis Parkway.

Okay. Nice. Awesome. Thank you. We look forward to that.

Thank you, Juan.

Okay. Stay on up here, guys. We are going to next. So I'll go ahead and I'll skip to 5C just because they are not here. But Yard of the Month this month is 208 Lanate Drive, the Scafidas family. So if you have an opportunity, go by 208 Lanate Drive and see the fruits of all of their labors as they are Yard of the Month for April. So how about a big hand to the Scafidas family? All right. And then we will now do 5B. And last but not least, as a matter of fact, I'll have, so you guys maybe can call out. We have three families. You guys remember that we, this year, decided with a lot of legwork on the part of the Historic Preservation Board, they identified 100 homes, 100, not 100 homes, homes that were turning 100 years old. And we had about nine or 10 of them, right? We had quite a few. They're going to be getting yard signs. They got a proclamation. And so now, with some more diligent effort, the Historic Preservation Board found three more homes that are even older than 100. They're not turning 100 this year. They are already long been centenarians. So let's bring up these three families. Go ahead and call up the families. I'd like to call up the Rahaman family. Come on up.

Say the address. Say the address.

348 Whitehorn Drive.

All right.

And which one's next?

The Irvis family of 218 Springs Avenue. All right. If they are here.

All right. And the Tinoco family of 632 La Villa Drive. Out of curiosity, how old is your house?

Hold on. Let's give her a microphone. Who has a microphone? I just want to thank you for your time. Okay, wait, here, you got to be in the middle here with us. So tell us about your home. Where is it? How long have you lived there? And just anything you want to tell us about this historic home that you've got, go ahead and take the mic.

I just want to say that when I moved from South America, I came first to Miami, and we were living in that house. But eventually, we gave it over to one of our daughters. She couldn't be here today, so I am the mom. I come to receive the certificate of self-help.

It's been in the family quite some time.

It's been in the family for quite some time. And the house is turning, is how many years old now? It was built in 1925.

In 1925, so 101 years old. Okay. And it's a charming house. Yes, it is.

Still going strong.

All right. Awesome. Thank you for that.

All right.

Okay. And next, the Tinoco family. Here, let's give you this. And please tell us the address of your home and your story. Anything you want to tell us.

So our address is 632 La Villa Drive. And well, first of all, my family and I, we love Miami Springs. Growing up, I lived over the bridge, but I was lucky enough to go to all the schools here. So Miami Springs gave me so much growing up that I knew I wanted to come back here. So even though our lives took some different routes. We came back here five years ago and we purchased a home. And actually one of the reasons we purchased a home, it was because it was still a Pueblo house. And it was one of the things that we've always loved about Miami Springs. So I am truly honored for this. So we take great pride.

How old is your home?

1925. So we went over. Yes. Yes. So thank you very much. Yes.

Okay. Wonderful. All right. So let's take some pictures here. Here, squeeze in, squeeze in for the pictures.

Your certificate up, ma'am.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you. And you guys will also be getting yard signs to put in the front yard. Thank you. Thank you for your preservation of our historic homes.

You don't want to.

In the. All right, so we are done with awards and presentations. We will now open up open forum. Just a reminder that open forum is one-way communication. It's an opportunity for people in the public to address the council. We do not respond, so it's one-way communication, but any concerns, lingering concerns that you may have, you can always reach out to all of us. Our business cards are always here. You can always reach out through the city manager's office. And you're limited to three minutes, so please be mindful of that. And please state your name and address for the record. When you come up to speak, come on up. Alex Aguil.

Good evening, council and mayor. My name is Alex. I'm a resident of Miami Springs, 810 Swan Avenue. Got two things that I have here on the agenda for tonight. One of them is I want to thank the Special Magistrate, John Cuneo, for a job well done in handling Tuesday's cases. The hearings are critical to maintain accountability and protecting the quality of life in Miami Springs and ensuring residents are heard. However, I want to address a growing concern from residents. We are seeing repeated issues with emails and phone calls to city officials going unanswered. This lack of communications causing frustrations and delays resolutions of issues. And in some cases leading to citations and residents were actively trying to resolve before reaching to a special magistrate hearing. Additionally, I believe also that code enforcement would benefit for further training and preparation for these hearings. There are instances where cases do not appear to fully prepare or clearly present, which can lead to confusion and inconsistency. Strong preparations, clarity, and professionalisms are initial to maintaining the public's trust. Clear and timely communications along with fair, consistent enforcement should be a priority. I respectfully ask for the city to take steps to improving these areas as soon as possible. Um. Also for tonight's hearing, I wanna speak about the priorities of transparency and accountability. First, I want to acknowledge a positive item on the agenda, the FDLE funding narcotics detection devices investment in officer safeties are important, especially when they're coming at no cost to residents. However, I do have a concern about the overall spending and clarity. We're seeing a significant of overall $130,000 for police laptops and outsourcing general services of out-of-state contract and continuing changes orders in infrastructure projects. While each may be justified individually, together they're raising large questions. Are we fully evaluating cost alternatives and long-term impact before approving these costs? I also want to address the proposal expansion of the red light cameras before moving forward. Residents deserve a transparency, including where these cameras will be placed and what data supports that decision. Additionally, I'd like to bring up something more also important and for clarity. The Miami Springs Police Department was awarded.

Thank you, Mr. Aguilar. I'm sorry. Thank you. Is there anybody online? No one else for open forum? Okay, so we move on from open forum.

I do. That is correct.

We've got approval of the council minutes 7A. So we've got our March 30th regular meeting council minutes. Everybody's had an opportunity to review that. I'd like to entertain a motion to approve the March 30th regular meeting council minutes. So move. I have a motion. And I have a second from the same team. So I can move forward. Oh, yeah. Okay. Can you call the vote on that, please, Erica?

Vice Mayor Llamas?

Yes.

Councilman Santine?

Yes.

Councilman Dionne?

Yes.

Councilman Perez-Crespo?

Yes.

Mayor Fahed? Yes. The motion carries.

Okay. We have no reports from boards and commissions, no public hearings, have our consent agenda. So we pulled out 10B for discussion. So... Would somebody like to read that resolution?

A resolution of the mayor and the city council of the city of Miami Springs, Florida, approving an agreement with Marsden South LLC for janitorial services for the city's municipal facilities, utilizing the terms and conditions of the Texas Region 10 Education Service Center, vendor contract and general terms and conditions pursuant to Section 31-11E5, Of the city code, providing for authorization, providing, providing for implementation and providing for an effective date.

Right.

uh you had uh questions regarding this i know the concern that came up um and it's all in the back of the packet but um maybe you could just address it um was the the was there a vetting process that went on to hire this this company and uh the price yeah absolutely um

The company that we're proposing to award this contract is the current one that we have. They've been our contractor, I believe, for about three years. They started a little bit before I got here. They've been doing a phenomenal job and the contract expired. Juan also wanted to add some services like window cleaning and stuff like that. So they added some to the scope of services. But the thing, the information there about the Texas, that's a cooperative contract that we're piggybacking off of. But the company is here in the state. So we're very satisfied with them.

And

Just didn't think anything of it. And the cost? The cost is, with the expanded contract, with the expanded, it's about $240,000. But that's for all City Hall, City facilities. So this building, the Aquatic Center, the RAC, I mean, the RAC here, City Hall, the Senior Center, Public Works. So there's a lot of... All the restaurants at the parks. And all the restaurants at the parks. Thank you. This is like a big contract. Thank you. No problem. All right.

I'd also like to discuss the police items that the resident brought up. Just so everybody knows that it's reimbursable through outside programs.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll touch upon this if you would like me to. Let's see here. The item A there, the PENDAR. X10 handheld chemical narcotics detection device. That's exactly what it is. It's a narcotics detection device with a laser. The FDLE, we participated in the narcotics task force with FDLE. They asked us, they said, hey, purchase this equipment and we'll reimburse you. So we're going to get it reimbursed because apparently we're huge participants in this task force. So they're going to reimburse us for that money. As far as later on, I mean, if we want to talk about the red light camera later on, we can even talk about it later on under new business. And the radios? The laptops. The laptops are at seven years old. And our IT, the police IT consultant said, hey, these things are going to be obsolete. We have Windows, something with Windows 11. And the chief is here. So they need to replace all of the laptops. And to be honest with you, it should have been replaced earlier. It should have been replaced. There should be a scheduled replacement program for especially the laptops that are working nonstop. This money is coming out of the speed enforcement funds that we just started receiving for the schools on cameras. So that's where this money is coming from. It's not any general fund dollars. It's not coming from the tax dollars.

Would you mind? It looks like the chief. Thank you, chief.

Yeah, I'm gonna piggyback off of what the city manager said. Right now, as it stands, the laptops that we have in production right now, they're not Windows 11 compatible. And being that they're not Windows 11 compatible, we're not complying with FDLE. So our IT consultants said that this is immediate Spanish that we needed to maintain compliance with FDLE.

Mr. Chair, I do remember, I think, You know, me and the council, I think that two years ago, we had all the budgetary constraints, to say the least. They were one of the wish lists at the time. Unfortunately, you know, not a lot of things got approved. So two years ago, they were already having problems and not really being compatible. So we made it two more years. We squeezed it out. I think we're lucky that we got this far and were able to get the reimbursement.

Absolutely. We're getting reimbursed.

No, it's not being reimbursed. This is coming from the funds that we've collected from the speed detection program. What you work for, in other words.

Yes. Thank you, Chief. No worries. Any other questions regarding that?

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And again, I believe all of this information was in the back. Let me see.

Uh, Heidi, after having discussed and be separately, we need to vote on that separately, right? Okay. So I'd like to entertain a motion, uh, to approve 10 B. I have a motion to have a second. Okay. And we'll give Erica a second to come back and call the vote on that. 10 B it was a motion by Dion by the vice mayor and seconded by, uh, Paris question. Okay.

Okay. Vice Mayor Lamas.

Yes.

Councilman Santee.

Yes.

Councilman Dion.

Yes.

Councilman Perez-Crespo. Yes. Mayor Fahad.

Yes.

The motion carries.

My apologies. We have a newly minted vice mayor over here, so I should. Okay. All right. So I'd like to now entertain a motion to approve the rest of the consent agenda 10 A, B, and D. A, C, and D. Sorry. I'm sorry. A, C, and D. My apologies. A, C, and D.

The Vice Mayor. So the motion.

Okay. So we have Dion with the motion. Seconded by Santee. Call the vote, please.

Vice Mayor Lamas.

Yes.

Councilman Santee.

Yes.

Councilman Dion.

Yes.

Councilman Perez-Crespo.

Yes.

Mayor Fahad.

Yes.

The motion carries.

Okay. So we're done with the consent agenda. We have no previous or unfinished business. So in new business, we have 12A in ordinance on first reading. Would you like to read that?

An ordinance of the City of Miami Springs, Florida amending chapter 70 traffic code of the City's Code of Ordinances by amending section 70-02 red light camera enforcement relating to the placement and installation of traffic infraction detectors at an additional eligible intersection providing for conflicts, providing for severability, providing for codification, and providing for an effective date.

Mr. City Manager, do you want to just explain where this is going?

Sure. First of all, whenever you're adding a red light camera, it takes two readings. You have to do it by ordinance. This one is going to go on the northbound lane of Lejeune Road at 36th Street. Currently, right now, we have one southbound on Lejeune Road at 36th Street.

Now, we're going to put one on northbound for Northbound Lejeune Road at 36th Street. The reason we didn't do it the first time is because they didn't have the technology at the time because there's a lot of overpasses, the one toll expressway, there's different expressways overpasses. So they didn't have the technology, they didn't have the cameras to be able to capture any fractions. So we talked to our vendor, they said, we do have the technology now. And they did a study a few weeks ago and a 12 hour period, we had 855 violations. This is a major intersection and it's one of the biggest intersections in the county. So it's needed.

And the benefit is it frees up police time so you guys don't have to answer them.

Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of our accidents occur northbound on Lejeune Road because there's three different travel directions that you can get onto three different expressways. So it's a big cluster and that's all the traffic leaving the airport. So they're kind of confused.

And just to... echo something that the chief said. There was a study that was done that showed a problem. And the only way you can actually that part of the process of getting to prove this to show a study with the statistics that it's that it's warranted to leave 855 violations in a 12 hour period. Wow.

Wow. That's a chair. Just for clarification, the city hasn't placed any cameras inside the city of Miami Springs. They've all been around the perimeter of 36th Street, Dijon, etc.

Well, it depends on what type of camera you're talking about. Speed detection cameras are in the residential areas by the schools, but red light cameras are on the perimeter. They're on 36th Street.

They're all on 36th Street. Can you talk to us a little bit about... when you get these citations, what's the process to challenge a camera or to issue a ticket for taking a red light? How does that work? Do you have a person actually use what infractions?

Yes, we have to have a sworn police officer to actually view the infraction. and give it a check mark to say, yes, it's an infraction. And then the violator gets a mail in the, gets a certified letter to their house and lets them know about the infraction. And they have two options or three options. They have one to say that they weren't the person driving the vehicle, even though they're a registered owner. And they could sign an affidavit to say who was driving the vehicle at the time of the infraction. And then they can pay the violation or they can set it for trial or they can just pay the violation.

And Chief, one more question. So there's been numerous cameras installed. Do you foresee expanding your department to handle these challenges or these infractions or, you know, an officer to look at all the video?

So we have our community police officers. They handle all the infractions. It is going to be an uptick in infractions. and reviews, but we also have our motorcycle officers and we can pull resources, existing resources to view all the infractions. Thank you.

All right. Okay. So I actually need to open up for public comment, correct? On a first reading of this? No? No? Okay. All right. All right. So is there any discussion? Other than that? No. All right. I'd like to entertain a motion then to approve 12A on first reading. So moved. All right. Do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. So we have a first and a second. Call the vote, please.

Vice Mayor Llamas?

Yes.

Councilman Santine?

Yes.

Councilman Dionne?

Yes.

Councilman Perez-Crespo?

Yes.

Mayor Pejet?

Yes.

The motion carries.

All right. So we move on. Thank you, Chief. So we move on to other business. And we have 13A, a request by Councilman Santine to discuss possible action. regarding drafting a proposed resolution expressing the city's support for property tax reform and urging the Florida legislature to advance measures that provide relief for senior citizens. Councilman Santin, you want to take it away?

Thank you, Mayor. The reason I brought this item up is simple. A lot of the residents, especially the senior citizens that have homes here, property taxes and insurance keeps going up, so it keeps getting more difficult. uh, to keep it up. And, uh, they're the long-term residents of our community. So they had a lot to do with the kind of community that we have and we shouldn't be forcing them out of their homes. And so I kind of got my idea. It's been done up by, uh, you know, uh, many others have talked about it before. I think, uh, Mayor Cavill and Hialeah has already taken the steps in doing this, but basically it's, you know, an explored, a targeted approach, focusing on seniors over 65 years old, homesteaded properties. And then it's the threshold, obviously a certain fixed income. So that obviously also limits the amount of people that, can afford it, but those are the ones that are hurt most by the property tax increases. So, you just wanna have a conversation about it so we can show the state legislation how we feel about it. You know, we're not completely against property reform, property tax reform, but I just want to voice our part in this thinking that this is something that we would like them to consider more than other ideas that they have out there. So ultimately it's just a matter of principle. I think it's the right thing to do. And so at least let them know, you know, how we feel.

So what this is going to do is we're just letting the legislator know that we support these type of measures. That's correct. Compared to Hialeah, because I think they did something on their own.

Yes. Similar in that sense.

So how this is a little bit different, right?

This is what this is. We're not doing it now. Let me back up a little bit. Shortly after Hialeah and Mayor Calvo did this relief for this property tax relief for their senior citizens that make a certain income threshold. The next day, as soon as it came out on the paper, Councilman Santino was calling me asking me if we can do the same thing. Something similar here. Long story short is what I told him was, let's hold off. Let's see what the state is going to do because what the state is talking about doing and what the House would have serious, serious impact on the city's finances, in particular our revenue. So he agreed. He said, all right, well, let's hold off to see, let the dust settle and see what happens. And after that, we can come back and explore what our options are. In the meantime, though, since the state is still grappling what they're going to do, He asked, what can we do? And we came up together. We said, well, why don't we pass a resolution urging them if they're going to do something, hey, that the city of Miami Springs is all for something. But, you know, let's focus on providing relief to the seniors. So this is where this idea came from.

I agree with that. And I think especially coming, we're small, but we do have a big voice in this conversation for the city. Like Miami Springs, you know, we pride ourselves on the great services that we have, police, public works. So, you know, I think if there's an area where we could definitely help people, it's on the senior citizens, yeah.

The way it's worded now. So, so what we're talking about is a resolution. This is just, it's, it's a paper expressing that there is a city. It's a resident board.

You as an official board. Right. The city council.

Springs is in support of what they're already debating doing in the state. I think that it's saying. that we support property tax reform and urging the Florida legislature to advance measures that provide relief for senior citizens kind of makes it sound like two different things. There are some tax reform proposals, particularly what passed in the House, that would be incredibly crippling to us as a city, and I wouldn't want to inadvertently imply that.

So I...

Okay, let me hear from other members of the Council.

Through the Chair. Yeah, so when I first saw this in the agenda, I didn't, now that Councilman Santin said 65, we're looking at proposing. So I looked at the census, latest census data for Miami Springs. So we have 2,547 residents, 65 and over. So these are ones would have, And within a certain tax practice.

And homestead exempt. And homestead exempt. They have to be homestead exempt, and they have to have a certain income threshold. So it's three criteria.

It's whoever owns a house, if they're 65 and over, homestead exempted, and income earned. Okay. I know we've talked internally about how property taxes, I think something's coming from Tallahassee. Politically, it sounds great, but... But it's going to affect different municipalities in different ways. Speaking like my father, who's 82, who lives off of, who has a mortgage and lives off of Social Security. And he gets a thousand four hundred something Social Security's mortgage is a thousand two hundred. Do the math. I have to help my dad out. So he's I totally understand. He says, why am I still paying property tax? So I understand where that is coming from.

So we're looking to be officially, we have a resolution, officially we're proposing, not proposing anything, but you're urging them to consider focusing on seniors instead of everything.

Okay, so the hope is we have enough voices for this, they'll notice. Yes.

Yes.

I mean, I'm for it, I think.

I don't want to exclude all the other people, but I'd like it to say focus specifically, I mean, especially for those 65 and older, et cetera, but not cut out anybody else, disabilities, et cetera. Again, I need it. But overall, I'm for it.

To the chair. Look, I don't kid myself. This is going to go completely into deaf ears, okay? I was going to say, this resolution would not be worth it. And they already are set on something a lot more powerful, but still doesn't mean that we have to stay silent. Our opinion, we think this is fair in principle. I really believe this is the right thing. It's something that's been brought up before. They just never had enough people behind it. And I tell Hassan to make the call. But definitely, if it's going to be a measure, yeah, you know what? This is how we feel. If it did happen, we're in support of some reforms. But if it's going to be, it's definitely shouldn't be to the seniors that are going to lose their homes in this town. And the amount, there's always an amount that's going to hurt the budget, but it's not significant enough. You know, I think in Hialeah, look, they're 10 times our size and it's costing them a million dollars. So even if I did the real quick math and 10%, $100,000, Yeah, this is another less $100,000 for Chris and administration to deal with. But I think it's the right thing to do if that was the case, but we don't most likely will be in deaf ears. But like I said earlier, I don't think we should be silent. That's how we feel.

That's how I feel. So it's my understanding that they can't find like they're going back and forth with different ideas. And, you know, from working with our state representative, Alex Rizzo, and with Senator Avila, I think they have a loud voice in Tallahassee. And once they see this, hopefully, you know, at least maybe it's something showing that the people are supportive of a measure that maybe could help them, you know, guide, help guide them, you know. At the end, there are elected officials that are representing us. So.

We can. You. All right. Do you need any other motion? Or do somebody else make the motion? So I make the motion. I make the motion. Hold on.

You want to correct that? Let her. She's trying to speak.

You want to clarify also the wording?

Yeah, yeah. Let's hear from her first.

What I wanted to know is I can bring something back at the next meeting, the actual resolution, so you can see the language and it can clearly set forth what it is that you're supporting and urging the legislator to do.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So you're going to draft something or you're going to show us a... All right.

I'll bring you a resolution at the next meeting.

Okay.

It can go on consent. If somebody wants to pull it, we can pull it.

I do. Hold on. Are we on the same page that the focus of the resolution should be providing, you know, measures that provide tax property tax relief for senior citizens, right? Not just like doing general reform.

Through the chair. So meeting the three criteria, are we supposed to outline those criteria? Age, income?

and homestead exemption? Let's let the people that have a higher pay grade take care of that. Let's let the legislature take care of that. Let's just say that we are really in favor of support, unless you guys disagree. We are in support of property tax relief for senior citizens. We get it. That's not exclusive, but it's something that we can all get behind. And I think that, you know, But I think if we start proposing details, I think they got that covered.

Chair, does anybody know when the House goes back into session?

I believe in May they're going to talk about this item. In June, they haven't even passed the budget yet. In June, they're going to focus on budget with the idea that July 1st they can sign off.

Is there something that we might want to get in their hands before they get back in session?

Next week's session is a special session on redistricting congressional lines. So it's not the property tax or budget special.

It'll be in their hands plenty of times. Okay. And there's still not even a date yet for the special election. It's assumed that it's going to be in May.

And either we're going next week or something else.

I think it shows good consensus. I think that we'll discuss that. We've discussed plenty with them in our visits up to Tallahassee.

So I think it would just underscore disbelief that we have.

Okay, so I'd like to entertain a motion then to... Or do you just need consensus for you to work on it and bring us a draft? Do we need to vote on it?

That's fine. With consensus is fine.

With consensus is fine. Okay. All right. So we move on to our second discussion, which is 13B, which is a discussion regarding the Northwest 36th Street Corridor Initiative. I asked to put this on the agenda for today. And I wanted to just kind of summarize some thoughts to you guys, and then open it up for you guys to discuss, because I believe that they were at the point. In a few weeks, the deadline will be in place for the ballot measure language. And we kind of need to give them direction. So I wanted to, the last time we met in earnest about Southeast Spring, they needed clarity on a couple of things. Were we going to include the Abraham tract as part of the exemption area that would be exempt from the three-story ban in the city. We decided to leave Abraham Track out. We discussed whether or not our ballot language could have legislative intent. I feel very confident that Roger and Heidi worked on something that is within the limits of what we are allowed to do. And I think they put a lot of work into it because it is kind of a tricky thing to do. in terms of wording things so that you are within the limits of what the state allowed. And then the other thing that we were talking about was specificity around the ballot language itself. We wanted specificity. So I have mentioned several times that I think that in talking to residents, there's a skepticism. right, that you guys are going to ask us to vote on something, right, to be done in the Northwest 36th Street District, and then in the future, a future council could expand the district and do something, and basically they gave us a blank check. The other thing that people mention to me whenever I talk about this is, how high is it going to be? How high is it going to be, right? And that's one of the things that we are, because they want to know. So that I, And favor ballot language that that makes it clear for voters what they are voting on. So we would say, you know, that this is the boundary that we want to exempt right as drawn today so that they know that that's what they are voting on on that boundary and that boundary. Can't change. They'd have to go back to the voters to change it. Right. But I mean, I think that would ensure, assure, reassure people that they know what they're voting on. So I feel like there should be specificity around the boundaries. And I also feel like there should be specificity around what height, because that's always the first question that they ask. And and so that brings me to something that, you know, that I've. Kind of learned more about in the, in the past month. As we visualize things in this zone that we're trying to exempt. That so that district, which was 36 street district, the entire district, the 1 that starts on Curtis Parkway goes all the way down to the eastern corner. Uh, that entire district has its own height restrictions in their zoning district buildings are allowed to be up to four stories 55 feet, roughly four stories. If they're within 150 feet of residential and then beyond that. If you're beyond 150 feet, you're allowed to go up 12 story. Right. And when you understand that, when you visualize that use, you see why certain buildings are the height that there are. There's a comfort suites north and a comfort suite south. Well, one is right close to residential. And so it's cap. Right. Because there's there's a cap. And then one is higher because it's. It falls into that area of the zone where you can go up to 120 feet. 120 feet is roughly 12 stories, 11 to 12 stories. So that district has its own character and it has buildings that are allowed to go up four stories or 12 stories, depending on how far they are from residential, right? And that's why the buildings that we have in that area are how they are. But in 2006, there was a citizen's initiative. Some residents of the city of Miami Springs decided to start a petition and they got a bunch of signatures and they were able to put on the ballot. This was in 2006, just 20 years ago. They were able to put on the ballot to do a blanket across the city height restriction on anything that was resident more than one unit. So two units or more. So anything residential that wasn't single family. Right. So that got onto the ballot. So that did not come from the council. It came from the citizens who did this citizens initiative and it passed on the ballot. And so as a result that and look, I happen to agree. Right. Like, I don't think that the central business district should go above three stories with with residential or actually in about 90 percent of the city. I agree. But in that district that had been around for decades prior to that. Buildings could go up 12 stories or four stories, depending on how close you were to residential. And then that what basically happened when they passed that. Right. And I get it. There was an anti-density movement. Right. You don't want you don't want residences, at least hotels. They're transient, but it doesn't have the traffic and parking problems. But hotels have their own problem. So by doing this, this three story limit has basically and for practical purposes restricted us from being able to have multifamily. residential in the Northwest 36th Street District because it's very expensive property. And the lowest height restriction of all other buildings is four. And because of this referendum language now for residential, just for that type of use, it's even less than that. And I think that it's hamstrung us as a city. And as a matter of fact, I come to learn last week that I guess some state legislation was passed in 2011 A few years after this Citizens Initiative.

Actually, it was in 2020, I think, 2022, 2023.

2022. But basically... It went back to 2011. It went back to 2011. So basically, the state legislature prohibited this type of zoning by referendum. So now you're not allowed to do that. It went back to 2011. Unfortunately, it didn't go back to 2006. So, like... To me, I feel like that is something that was short-sighted. I understand the sentiment behind it, but now we've had 20 years And we were told throughout this process when they did the economic analysis that obviously hotels are always going to be a strong market because of our proximity to the airport. But we know what comes with the hotels and we know how many services we have to provide on a monthly basis to the hotels. They're great tax payers, but We haven't had residential in there, I believe, because we've been kind of like discouraging it because of this three story limit throughout the city. So what I am proposing is that within the boundary that we define for the for the residents. Right. As drawn now so that they know what they're voting for. That what we are going to do is we are going, I'm proposing, that we restore the height restrictions in the ordinance that were in place before this Citizens Initiative and are in place now for all other buildings. Because right now, you could build, you know, a four-story office building, you know, right next to residential, and there'd be nothing we could do about it because it's allowed. And 12-story, and obviously. we're just excluding residential for practical, in all practical purposes by this, having this three-story limit throughout the Northwestern District. And I think that that, hasn't served us well in the last 20 years. And I think we have enough data now that we can ask the residents, hey, let's make a tweak here and restore the height restrictions that that area was zoned for before because it had a character that called for that because it was right in front of the airport and on 36th Street. I don't think we'll never know what could have been had we allowed the last 20 years residential there. But it's certainly clear to me that, you know, our biggest asset is proximity to the airport in terms of hospitality and tourism. But I'm telling you, as somebody who worked for the school district and had to drive all over the county, location, location, location. It is an extremely strong market. Residential, we're talking about an area of the city that is next to Every major thoroughfare in the county, you can get anywhere in the county and be going against the traffic, get anywhere in 25 minutes, which is not the case for somebody. The opposite is not true for people coming from south. You can live in Miami Springs. You can work anywhere in the county. I feel like... As I think about this more, what we need to do is restore what was kind of usurped by that 2006 referendum and just carve out this area that we define. And then we'll tell them the height restrictions when they ask, what height will it be? Same as it is right now. Every other building, it'll be 4th and 12th. And then that'll be locked in. And I think that we will not... I think that this is something that everybody will get behind. I think that everybody will agree that it's the right thing to do. Because I think I've been clear from the very beginning, I've been very conservative about, we don't have to hit a seven-run home run. Let's... Let's just get on base. We don't only get one crack at this. If this works out, right, if this opens things up, got a couple projects in there going, and just a few more residents in there, a little bit more residential density, I think would go a long way in terms of providing the infill development to make that work. I think we've all seen a map that... we asked staff to provide us to kind of visualize this area. So I think you guys have had maybe an opportunity to see that, but that's what I wanted to propose. But now I'd like to open it up to hear what you guys think, because I kind of came to this a little more recently, but I'd be interested to hear what you guys have to say. So, anyone?

I mean, I think I've been clear about making it simple. Maybe sometimes it's lost in the translations, but the reality has been that I don't want anything to be any different than we have there now. Every time they ask me, like, well, you're going to get rid of the multifamily and how tall they're going to go. And I say the same amount as the current hotels and commercial buildings. And it stops there. No one even asked me, what is that? No shit, it's no different. So the logic is if you were fine for all these years with the hotels going this height and the commercial buildings going this height, then your argument is not that the height is the problem. It might be another argument for the multifamily, but it sure isn't the height because you shouldn't care that the hotels were going this high. So I've been clear about saying, don't make it simple. We are not changing anything that is not there now except the use multifamily will be an added use.

I mean, to be clear, to be clear, it's allowed. It's allowed.

Residential.

And that is used without the restriction. But the referendum language makes the point moot because you can't, it's overridden by what's in, what was written into the charter when this went to the ballot. And I got to, you know, I asked Erica to share the, it wasn't even close. I think that at the time, right, there was a big anti-density movement, which I think all of us have heard and to a certain extent we agree. But I think that looking back,

It is 2020, right? Obviously, at the time, they thought whether some didn't want anything in reference to density or voters and so forth. There was also a group that thought that the hotels were the most feasible thing. Well, we already know the hotels are not bringing us anything positive to this community. Well, in general, in general, in general, a lot of the older ones. Remember, a lot of these hotels, because if you don't create a sense of community and a higher end community, area for higher end hotels to come in. All these hotels that are in the lower end of the hotel chain will eventually become and will be constantly a lower hotel. Maybe possibly even more headaches in the future if we don't create a center community there. Community is obviously is the one that helps the police watch over crime. Someone's going there for a day or two before they go on a cruise ship. You think I'm going to tell my kid to call the cops or I'm going to turn that person in. I'm going to tell my kid and my family to get inside the room and tomorrow we're leaving. Don't worry about it. But if I live there with my family, I want to care a lot more. I want to be another set of eyes for the police. They need that. They're going there a lot of times after the fact. Not saying that they can't find something before, but the reality is they're going after the fact when things happen. So to me, I think it's time to create a community there that loves being part of Miami Springs. And ultimately, it's going to help police. It's going to help the whole community as a whole. So to me, I just want to be very simple. I agree with you, Mayor, is to say nothing is going to change that it's there now, except that the multifamily will have no restriction different than the other buildings that are there. So our attorney can write it up, but it's very clear that it's not changing anything. And so we won't have to hear the argument, well, you're shutting the presidents and then later on that you can move it somewhere else. No, if you're clear on that language, on that ballot question, that doesn't happen. And the reality is any judge who knows about zoning, why do you think city planners exist? There's a rationale why you go to an area to rezone. There's a need to do something like that. So you can't just move zoning from this spot zoning, ridiculous. It's not gonna happen. There's a rationale. why you do zoning. An area needs it. This area is different. So how, you know, to make those comments to scare people, to me, it's not fair. So I just wanted to be as clear as we can, and we can guide Heidi to do the best they can and giving it, make sure that it's really clear, black and white. Nothing's going to change than what we have there, except that the multifamily obviously will now have no restrictions, different than we have already. Thank you.

Okay. Brian. So I've talked with a lot of people about this, especially since I, from the moment I decided to run and I knocked on many doors, it was a top topic when I was campaigning and still is. And I believe like, so the number one concern that I got from the residents was safety on 36th Street. So I think that maybe we should address public safety in the question. And then me personally, I bought my home from someone that they just, they had to move. They were older, you know, and I think, uh, the adding condominiums to the, uh, or residential to, to 36th street also, um, addresses the, uh, issue of, you know, a lot of people that live here, they've been here a long time. many years, a lot of them generational. And we were just talking about writing to the legislator about helping 65 and older, the people 65 and older with the taxes. I think also this will help them move to a place because it's not only just the taxes that sometimes they have to deal with, but the responsibilities that come with a bigger property, a house, maintaining it. And if they had a place to move and still be in Miami Springs, it would be great. So aging in place. And then I did want to bring up one more thing. I don't know if this is the best time, but I was wondering if we have any movement with the contract from the marketing.

That contract is still being drafted up. But before I meet with them and really, you know, bring Sylvia, I kind of wanted to nail this down so we can have one message.

Vice Mayor, do you want to chime in?

Yeah. I agree with all the points. However, Sylvia, where would this, how would this affect all the studies that we've done and planning? I mean, what effect would this have on revitalized area?

Good evening, Council. It's hard to predict. There's a lot of factors that go into this. There's market factors. But of course the change in the restriction to multifamily and also potentially a change in the distance was going to be two of the factors that went into the equation of making a whole. So these things don't work. you know, on their own. They work as part of a whole. We have just, you know, a couple less tools in the, you know, in the back of the truck to move it forward. But I'm in the process of consulting with our market analyst to just kind of get a sense of his thoughts relative to To the challenges, you know, that was one of the charges that we had, not just to identify what was the potential market, but also to identify the barriers that were in the code. The significant step back distance of 150 feet is one of the barriers that we identified. It's not certainly the worst. And by no means did we intend to eliminate a step back. But we kind of had considered that we could modify. So there's just 1 list.

Yeah. 1 concern that I have about this is. I said all the time in my field that. You know, development instruction is, you know, we've been held back, like you said, for 20 years. if we don't do a significant enough change, then it's still not viable for developers to come in and do what they got to do. If the change isn't, if it's not worth it, they're just not going to do it. So I'm afraid that if we, like she mentions, if setback is too much, then it's not viable for that particular lot. And that's it. It's going to stay that way forever. So all this could be for nothing. We need a big change. I don't want more density, but you got to be realistic if it's, The developer can't make money, they're not gonna do it. And it's gonna stay that way. So I don't think we can dip our toe. I think we gotta go all in.

All right. Councilman Perez-President?

Yeah, I've heard your points today. When residents ask me, what are you gonna do about that area over there? So if this motion over there could be on a ballot, these people would understand. we're talking about and i'm like i don't know what do you want to do over there well i don't like what's over there okay what would you like to see and that's what i'm asking people what do you want to see over there um you know i've challenged people walk down westward drive at 10 o'clock at night any given day and then walk down east of east drive on 36th street at 10 o'clock at night would you rather walk yeah um So the reality is that it's unsafe. It's a blight. It's disconnected from the community, which is not helping us any. And I think about, I wish I could move my dad over to Miami Springs. I can't. I can't afford anything. The day my kids are ready to buy property, they can't afford a house either. I would like to have my children close to me. Did they buy an apartment building somewhere on 36th Street in Lejeune? Why not? Did they work in a corporate office on 36th Street in Lejeune? Why not? The possibilities are there. I think we should not limit ourselves to what could be and not fall for scare tactics like Councilman Centine. And it's a lot. There's a lot of wording out there on social media. And if you believe it, you know, it's just for clicks. It's clickbait. It's just to drive the point. And the algorithm rewards the negativity behind. So I want to stress that very important. Don't fall for the clickbait. You have questions. That's what we're here for. That's what Open Forum is for. This is why I think I feel that we're all trying to work really, really hard to present this in a way that that the residents can say, okay, I could, I could go for that. Um, and then, you know, I agree with, with councilman Lamas point, where, where do we make it attractive enough? And that was a question, I'm not a developer, I'm not an architect, but, you know, what point above four feet, four stories, 12 stories, where is that sweet spot that someone would say, okay, I could build something there. I don't know. That's not my field. I'll default that to others who know more than me. But yeah, I think it's important. We need to do something. We need to plant the seeds of the trees. We will not enjoy the shade. And I think this is the council to finally do something.

Do you need a chair? Yeah, go ahead.

um so yeah i mean i agree with the councilman um i i just think that people don't understand what it's like from our side so they're they're just worried about losing their small town feel we all live here and we don't want to lose our small town feel either uh you know we just want to make it a better place especially with crime and whatnot um one thing that They don't put out there. And if they like clickbait and maybe they should do something and that is that right now you could build a hotel on 36 read that is 12 stories. Right. And that area is coming up so we could do something about it. Get proactive bring tax dollars to the city. Safety and, you know, do the right thing or, you know, the hotels are going to come so

I'd like to just kind of respond to a couple of things. Like, I think that Councilman Perez-Crespo said that that area is disconnected. And it just, again, it strikes me this, that When they did that Citizens Initiative and people were signing that petition, I get it, right? You think of like, I don't want to increase the density in the bird section in the central business district like you want. You want to try to control that. But, like, this is a district that for decades before that had zoning, and it was based on the character of that district and its location, and the fact that it was facing, you know, the airport and this, you know, metropolitan area, like, it had its own character, and this initiative in 2006 just kind of cut that at the knees. That district only... arbitrarily for that one particular use for residential. You can have an office building. You can have an office building or a movie theater or a retail store. You can have a hotel. And it could be four stories if you're within 150 feet or 12 stories. And that's it. We're just... excluding uh by that referendum line you're basically excluding it like it's it's less than the lowest thing all other buildings can reach over there and again because of the location i like that and i feel like that's why it feels disconnected because it's a bunch of hotels i mean i live there guys i'm i'm i'm the eastern most person on this council uh at night like You don't want to be walking around there, like where the Chase Bank is and those parking lots and the Miami Regional University. If there were a little bit more residential density there, I think that just a couple of projects, people could walk their dogs. There's nowhere to go if you're in that hotel area. in the hotels there. And I think that we've missed out on a really strong market that could really make that area cohesive and create a sense of community that you don't get from the transient culture of just being a hotel. We're So I think that that's important. I think that there was also people that may be disappointed with taking a conservative approach because the thinking is, so why bother? We went through all this. We're not going to maximize. I mean, I guess you could argue that the zoning 20 years ago may have been inadequate, right? But I don't see it as you're going to find out you did nothing. There is a huge housing crisis in Miami-Dade County. That area is extremely valuable as it relates to somewhere where you could live and be able to get anywhere. I don't feel like we've got to maximize development. I really feel that if we just default back to what all other buildings can do, Right. So that we're not just like arbitrarily, you know, discouraging any residential there. Right. In this great location. I think that it would help raise that area. And we're not even asking for the entire Northwest 36th Street district. We're asking the Northwest 36th Street district, if I had my druthers, the way it's drawn today. Right. East of East Drive. And again, this could be, you know, I think that I... So for instance, if you guys look at the Wyndham Garden where the pilot house is, their lot has 150 feet from some residences that are there off of Oakwood. And that's where they have their parking lot. And then they have their eight-story hotel tower. And guess what? They're building another tower next to it. This is a surface-level parking lot. Obviously, residential has more parking demand. But you could do a four-story parking garage there and still be able to maximize. I see people creating housing anywhere that they could conceivably find in this county. There is a housing crisis, right? I don't see how... A conservative tweak, let's just restore what was there in place before and what is still in place for everywhere else, right? Like how can anybody be against that, right? Even if you're living right there and you are on ground zero of anything that, if you live next to the aviation property, it's a parking lot, right? Anything is gonna be more of an impact of that. But right now, an office building can go up there and there's nothing that they can do about it. All we're saying is like, can we allow maybe residential? Right? But if it's the same height restrictions, then, like, really... you know, I feel like we're just restoring something. And I don't think that we'll have to wait another 20 years to find out whether or not I feel like if we do this, which is just a conservative course correction is really restoring, then a future council can go back to the voters and say, hey, let's restore everything from the North 36th Street, everything from East Drive to South Drive. Right. Let's see how that works. Right. And go from there. But I don't see like there's There's buildings being built. There's plenty of buildings, four stories and higher throughout this north or 36 street district. But again, I feel like we've built a little culture there that feels incomplete because we've again in 2006 arbitrarily. did something that is basically excluding residential in that area. And I really think that it would help, and I really think that it's conservative, and I really think that we won't have to worry about misinformation. You know what you're voting on. And to be honest with you, as I've realized this and I've talked to people, we just had, like, people... Even the people that I know are most anti-density in that area are like, that kind of makes sense. Why would we arbitrarily exclude that one use in this area that's so valuable? It just kind of makes sense. So I get that we're not maximizing anything. But it's got to make a difference to be able to go back to 4 and 12 like it was before this arbitrary limit just on residential, particularly as strong as that market is. But again, that's just my opinion. But we do have to give direction. So chime in, guys. Tell me what you think.

Well, I think nothing that we've already agreed in public. But in reference to the single family, at the end of the day, That's the one that's most infringed by any development. So all we're saying, we're going to keep it the same. We're going to protect that area that you had before. No different. But to me, the area that we're talking about, it's minor in comparison to the whole area. It's a small two block area. And actually the properties that are there are not in any high value that the possibilities of any development in those smaller areas, including because the 150 feet of air to protect a single family could still be done. In my opinion, I'm only doing feasibility studies. Others are developers who could think that they could do more and they have a little better grasp on the cost of construction. But I think the only pockets that really cannot maybe be developed are so minor, but it protects the single family residents. The rest of the areas, it's just a matter of time because they can be developed even with 150 feet. They're talking about three, four, five acres. So it's not that it cannot happen. So I think we need to protect the single family areas the way they are now that has been in place. And then later on, if the folks, the people want to change that, well, then that's the power to vote. People can come back in four years and say, you know what, we're ready to change. because that area didn't get developed. Those two blocks didn't get there and we need to go further in. That's fine. If somebody else, I don't want to do it on my watch. I don't want to do anything in front of some single family people more than we have already now. So we'll leave it at that.

The other thing that, so as this moves forward, the question comes up of traffic and I have my take. We live between Hialeah, it's on Lejeune, the airport, And now with the stadium coming up, I think traffic is bad there as it is no matter what. But do we have any studies on how the traffic will be affected if we build residential there? I mean, I just wanted to respond to that.

We do not have a study at this point that was not part of our scope, although we could prepare one if the city wants. It would be just based on an estimate and it would depend on how much density the council decides to allow, because right now it's really low. And despite, this is not to contradict the mayor, but I think that's going to have to be one of the tweaks because with the density, again, this is like a whole package of tools that you have to make work together. This is not just to benefit. Just remember, this is not just to benefit developers. This is to attract developers. Right. So and mind you, not to digress, but some of the tools that have to be part of that toolkit are not even zoning tools. They have to be, you know, other things that, you know, you proactively can go to to market, promote, you know, other brands of hotels, not the ones that you're getting now. You can do a branding of the area in a way that promotes it for other kinds of uses. The kinds of uses that I've heard people say that they want there. The grocery stores, the pharmacy, you know. So it all has to work together. But to come back to this idea of the traffic study, typically what happens is that, and that's today also, when a project comes in for development and we review it, one of the requirements is that they have to prepare a traffic study that projects how much traffic their project will generate. And it has to demonstrate that they can meet the levels of service. And that's not just for traffic. It's also for other kinds of infrastructure. So that's, at this point, typically done on an individual project basis. If the city wanted to do sort of a more comprehensive study to project what could happen, that's something that we will have to consider separately.

Thank you, Sylvia. And if we had a 12-story... hotels or 12 story office buildings, I think the traffic would probably be pretty bad.

Each use, there's something called the IT, the Institute of Traffic Engineers manual that has individual use kind of projections of traffic generation. So you have to look at them for each kind of use, kind of imagine how much square footage of office. There's potentially infinite combinations of what you could get here. So kind of difficult to imagine each scenario. But you could do something sort of generic. And certainly, you could. Perhaps the easier use to project would be if you imagined a scenario where you have residential because you have a measure for density. And if you kind of go to the maximum, you can say, okay, this is like the worst case scenario, right? Of how many units you could have, how much traffic it could generate.

Thank you, Sylvia.

Guys, it just strikes me that there are pros and cons to everything. I understand, you know, the cons to increased residential density. Obviously, traffic, just more people that live there. So, you know, I get that. But I also feel like we know the pros and cons to... excluding residential and just trying to do it just on hotel and some commercial. And again, I just feel like it was a short-sighted decision in 2006. I feel like if we try to maximize things too much, because this didn't happen in the 1970s, guys. This happened in 2006. Those people are still around. It like passed like 64 to 37. OK, we've all knocked on doors as part of campaigning. And we know that the kind of things that we hear from residents, those people are still around. I think that it is extremely reasonable to say, hey. That decision in 2006 was a little short-sighted. I feel like we should restore the high restrictions. There's all kinds of things that we still have to do to try to activate Southeast Springs. This is a much bigger project. But unfortunately, that referendum language that got put on the ballot in 2006, and that's limiting arbitrarily anything residential to only three stories. Again, works in most of the city, but in this one little section that we'd like to carve out, we'd like to default back to the original zoning and the current zoning for all other buildings. I don't see how anybody... I just... I don't see how that is not something that we can get everybody behind. Uh... because we've got 20 years worth of data to see that, you know, maybe we kind of, you know, we're missing one leg of the stool here. And I think that it could make a big difference. And then if that works out, then I think that the next election, people will be more willing to restore some other sections, or maybe even depending on how things go, but we gotta get a movement. It's been 20 years of this arbitrary, limit and we see what's happening in that area. I feel like this is something that is screaming to us, please fix this.

I would like to point out one thing that It's obvious our police is being proactive about watching the traffic there. Look at what they're doing with the camera on 36th Street and the June. So there's no doubt in my mind that if there was something to go up there, we'll be on top of the traffic. And to reiterate, Hialeah and their airport They're the issue with the traffic. I don't think Miami Springs adding a couple residential is going to make it that much worse. I think that we live between a major city in the United States with a lot of people. That's the major intersection. People are going to go through there no matter what. Hialeah is still growing, and I don't see it slowing down. And the airport, there are a lot of people coming. And then my concern is, yeah, there's a stadium that was just built that's gonna possibly ask for more hotels in the area. Go ahead.

So going back to my point, again, my concern is that zoning was in place. I'm not about maximizing the development rights. I live here too. You know, I deal with big buildings and I live here because I love the small city feel. We just gotta be realistic that if that zoning was in place for so many years and never attracted any residential, it was obviously a problem. Now, I agree with Centene about, you know, our first priority has to be to take care of the residential around it, single family. I do have a problem with the setback, but I understand. I agree that is our first priority. But then we need to really raise the units per acre and the density of what will be allowed significantly, again, to make it effective. Otherwise, it's... It stayed that way for 30, 40 years before that, and it'll stay that way another 40 years.

The reason we're focusing on the height restriction is because that's the arbitrary barrier. They just decided, hey, it'll be a great idea to make a three-story limit all across the city, and it just wasn't even thinking about what sounds great. Again, it was a citizen's initiative. And look, I get it.

We just can't go back to what was there. It didn't work. It wasn't working. So we need some sort of thing.

Well, the 20 years ago was a different time. I mean, like.

There's been, I don't know, it's such a, we're so centrally located, somebody would have put residential work with it.

2006 for sure. We missed all the multifamily developments. On 36th Street, they were going in. It would have been residential there.

I think we missed out on corporate office, corporate space. There are companies going to South Florida. More and more, before I read the paper.

You could put offices there.

I mean, on the weekends, it's not impactful. Monday through Friday, really, but we missed out on corporate headquarters.

At the end of the day, it was about how the community voted. So the community at the time, that's what they said, and we lived But that decisions and ultimately we're going to do the same man, right, the people need to go open and speak up and not say the silence and have a part of it.

Thank you, the chair and how is this going to help our tax base. If something passes in Tallahassee. Now, What are we looking at?

I can't tell you how significant or how much this is going to generate. I don't know. Let's say it passes tomorrow. It would be five years, six years, seven years, ten years down the road before we even see some benefit out of this. Possibly. It all depends on the market. If somebody comes in and does

The rental building is a commercial building. They're going to be taxed accordingly. There's a lot of homesteaded property.

The one thing I will say is the state, in what I've noticed in the state, in their discussions as far as property tax reform, it seems to penalize those with high homesteaded percentages. So us, Almedo Bay, Pinecrest, We're all on the high end. And the Miami Shores, these are cities that have worked very hard to maintain the small town feel, high level of services for the residents, and really kind of put development kind of like at base and, hey, we don't need it. We have this core that we have as far as single family homes or the small community. But the city seems, I mean, the state seems to be, you know, at least what is coming out of there, penalizing us for that. So cities like Doral, Hialeah, they've said it publicly. We don't care. We don't mind about what the state's going to do because they have, their tax base is very diversified, very, very diverse. They'll have a lot of commercial, a lot of building. If you look at Hialeah right now, there's construction up and down Foggy Choggy Road and next to the racetrack, along West 4th Avenue where my parents lived, where I grew up. All that is where the kennel used to be. That's all apartment buildings. So it's completely to the Amelia District, they call it. It's completely changed. So yeah, this is what's frustrating, because I see what this city has worked so hard to protect, but then the state has their priorities. The state has to look at the overall health of the state. Tourism, they encourage businesses, encourage residential, new residents to come in. They have a housing crisis. So all the things that we've done, all the measures that we've taken to protect the state, if you've noticed over the years, they come in and they're chipping away at those, including simple things as landscaping, right? You want, we, the city, we want to protect our canopy. And we have a strict ordinance prohibiting people from cutting down trees and you have to replace them. But the state passed a law some years ago saying if you get a certified arborist to save that tree on your property and it needs to come down, no permits, no nothing, you cut it down. The state also wants to, you know, they support tourism, right? One of the major things. We don't want vacation rentals. Guess what? We do. And you're going to allow them. You want to, like the referendum that the mayor mentioned, you got the residents here want to pass a referendum to prohibit, you know, to limit zoning or to put restrictions on the zoning, to prohibit some overdevelopment or whatever is perceived as overdevelopment. The state said, no, you can't do that anymore. That's illegal. That action, that vote that they took back in 2006, they can't do it today. So we have to do something Because I fear that something will be done for us. And I've been doing this a long time in my gut. And I've told you guys from the beginning, hey, the state's going to do something. The state's going to do something. And they're doing something.

Yeah. I mean, again, I just see it as such a clear case. I mean, why? We know what we're dealing with that area. We're not discouraging development. You've got a six-story building, I think, in Miami Realtors. You've got the Miami Regional University there. We've got buildings. If we just encouraged a couple projects like An eight story building that had residential like 20 years ago when they did this, the like the market was was different. In the last 20 years, we've seen in terms of like mixed use developments, people want to come home from work and then like, you know, walk somewhere, go somewhere and have like and not have to like go brave and go into Doral or whatever. Like if we just had a couple of projects with some, some residential density, then you've got the, like a talking tacos. You got people will walk around like right now at this time, walking around there, there is nothing. There's nothing, everything is shut down because that is what we have created. I don't see how anybody who is being reasonable can tell me that a district that 20 years ago, okay, felt like we should allow four stories and 12 stories And to take the biggest market now, and especially in the last 20 years, in residential, and just cut it off at the knees and put it at three stories, you're basically that you create and encourage what has developed there based on what we are like arbitrarily doing. It's onerous for just that particular use. I feel like, again, it's imbalanced. I don't think that it's balanced. I think it was a short-sighted decision at that time to do it. Everywhere else, it will remain in place. Look, lots of discussion. There's lots of things that still have to be figured out. I feel like it's going to be hard everybody's going to be a yes uh i feel if if we just decide to let's restore how it is for every other building right that are going up like again i like i mentioned the wyndham garden is doing another tower i mean Let's restore it the way it was and see how that works. It hasn't been working the last 20 years, I don't think. I think that we need to allow some residential in there. And I think that we will... And people will be curious and concerned about how we do it. But if you assure them, this is the limits. So there was a limit before. It'll be the limit going forward. This is the boundaries. We're not going to bait and switch you. And like, I think that everybody will allow us the freedom to try to try out this market. Guys, we are stewards. We have a council in the next April. There's going to be a different council. And we talked about how two year terms makes it really hard to do big things. Why do you think no one's been able to do this? They've been complaining about that in that area as part of the Economic Development Task Force's report. All right. Let's the perfect is the enemy of the good. I think that everybody would get on board and it'll be easy to communicate. Hey, it's what's there now. So it was there before, you know, let's just, let's undo this, this thing that we did in 2006. And it was maybe a little short sighted.

Undo just in this area.

Yeah, just in that area. The rest of Northwest 36th Street District is still going to have, we're just doing a portion of the Northwest 36th Street, but it's the one most in the easternmost corner. Guess what? It also includes the property on the other side of Lejeune where the Holiday Inn is. Who knows if some development later wants to turn that into some kind of, I don't know, but like there is no, I'm telling you, there is development dollars that are looking for places where you could do residential and a location like ours is worth a lot. And to just arbitrarily be like, no, not residential here, only hotels. And then whatever, you know, commercial, but like that. And I get it. It has its downsides. I get it. I understood it. I'm sure in 2006. But not now. I think now as we look back, I don't.

And that would include that if we wanted to change anything else on 36th Street, besides that zone, it will have to go back to the ballots, to the border.

If we define the boundaries of Northwest 36th Street, East of East Drive, that's how we've been calling. The problem is that in our ballot language, it says the Northwest 36th Street, East of East Drive, but a future council could say, well, now we're going to make everything East of East Drive, the North 36th Street District, right? So that would be kind of a bait and switch. I think that people are skeptical. I mean, since they passed this 20 years ago, which is kind of onerous, right? I think that people are very skeptical of what unfettered council could do, which is why they put it in place. So if we say East of East Drive, North 36th Street, as it is, and I'll leave the wordsmithing up to the professionals, as it's drawn today, And it'll, you know, and however we would add, you know, convey that. Cause again, the first question people ask, well, how, how is it going to be? How high is it going to be? How high is it? And then if you say 120, like they don't understand what the, it's easy. We're restoring what it is for everything else is there. I don't know why we're excluding residential. It's crazy because it's the smallest, strongest market. I get it. But like, It hasn't worked to its maximum potential. I think that everybody would be on board with restoring that. And guys, I really don't think we'll have to wait very long, right? Because you get a couple like projects that you see that there's interest, you see, hey, there's interest. And then maybe a future council can have a, hey, let's just do, let's restore from East Drive to South Drive. We won't even go all the way down and see how that works. But like it's incremental. And it's baby steps. And we're only 20 years removed from a two to one vote to put this thing in place in the first place. And unfortunately, this height restriction for residential is what's making everything else basically obsolete. Nothing else can be done in that district. All these ideas we have for how to promote things or whatever, that height restriction is just there, arbitrary. So that's why I feel like we have to be specific. Look, the height restriction will be what it's been and what it's going to continue to be for all buildings, including now. residential. And I think that we'll have that and then we can move forward with everything else that we're trying to do to help the Abraham track and all of that. But I feel like the genesis of this was always this arbitrary height restriction and we got to make a decision.

Councilman Dionne, just to answer your question, the answer is I don't know how much that's going to generate, how much you could possibly generate. But it's better than what we have now.

Yeah. So if it's better than what we have now. And if we lose the money because of the change. The change looks like Tallahassee is going to... They're going to do something.

No reason, nothing.

We will lose our services, which we have fought for for 100 years to keep. I don't even know what that looks like.

They're going to be meeting, but if what the House passed... which is a complete elimination of ad valorem, we'd be lucky to stay a city.

Let's put it that way. And then we won't have a conversation because... We'll be the accountants. We'll be the accountants. We don't get there. Any company that loses 70% of the revenue. Even after everything we fought for, for the alleys to have our utilities. you know, garbage trucks. But they're going to just, I don't know if that's what's going to happen.

Yeah.

And worst case scenario or best case, right? Like we want something because we want some relief. The people want some relief. That would be more money for the city, a lower millage rate. And then at that point, if we want to talk about annexation or other things, it'll be attractive, right? To our neighbors. To the unincorporated areas.

Yeah, I think you also constantly bring up a good point, because 1 of the criticisms levied at the city when we were trying to annex the area West of us was. you know, yeah, show me, what are you doing on 36th Street, right? Like, we certainly weren't showing, you know, good, you know, like, so I think that this is a, it will be, it's restorative in nature. We are not, this isn't an overreach, okay? And I think that it will provide a proof of concept to kind of see if what the market analysis is telling us is that this will be, you know, A welcome, a very welcome change. And if that's the case, guys, restore another section in a future council and take it to the voters and then they'll be like, okay, well, we kind of know what's happening. But like, again, I feel like trying to take too much and then losing it on the election, then what do you, I mean, I don't.

I think that that would be another thing that I think most people are always asking is, well, there's not enough. Well, we'll just concentrate on retail. Should just be retail. Well, retail is not coming unless they see this foot traffic there. They want the options to go, like you said, you know, whether it be another store or any type of retail store or, you know, a pharmacy, whatever it is, very easy for you to ask for that. It needs to make sense. And without some, you know, foot traffic, it could actually go there. for sure, and they can do the math, then they'll take the step to do that. And then we'll all benefit from having another option to go somewhere that we're looking for now. But it's not going to come without that foot track.

How did it come?

20 years. Would it come by itself? We didn't restrict retail at all. What we did in reference to the signal, that's another restriction. They did a reference to restaurants. Could have been there on their own, and they made them mixed use. That was a mistake. obviously in hindsight, but overall retail has not come in 20 years. So why would it go that if we didn't have the multifamily?

The economic analysis said that retail and commercial as a market, they did a market analysis is strong, but as a like, like an add on to something like piggybacking on something, not just which, obviously, like people ask all the time, why can't you just have like a CVS there, but like, they do these companies do the numbers, they see what the density is, to support it, if there is a, you know, if you have that residential density, have a couple storefronts on the ground floor and like, you know, like a cafe, somebody can walk across to like, I mean, again, they live there. They're gonna be walking their dogs. Like it will make it a more cohesive sense of community in that area. We have, again, arbitrarily excluded a use for all intents and purposes by making this arbitrary three-story limit in this district that like the lowest you could have is four. Right. And we're like, again, that doesn't make sense to me. And I don't think it makes sense to anybody who just thinks about it. And especially with the benefit of hindsight, I've seen the last 20 years, what's happened. Yeah.

Mayor, so that I can get some direction and bring back something that's hopefully going to get adopted. I just want to, so I was listening intently to each of you, and I understood from Mayor and Councilman Santin, clearly, that you would like to retain the existing height limits of the code. That that part was clear it wasn't quite as clear from the other three Council members, so I want to clarify first and then seek your feedback. As far as what the existing zoning code says. Your zoning code provides that if you are in the Northwest 36 street district, and you want to build a structure that is within 150 feet of an adjacent residential district. It can only go as high as 4 stories or 55 feet. So there's nothing that prevents today. a residential building from going to three stories. Because your charter sets the cap at three stories, your zoning code allows you to go to four stories. So today, if someone wanted to come in and build a mixed use residential building up to three stories within that 150 foot step up?

No? It's not going to happen.

But there's a lot of things that aren't going to happen. But It could happen, right? Theoretically on paper. Okay. So what you're doing is adding one floor within that 150 foot buffer. From my perspective, what I would like to know is, do you want the ballot question and or charter language separate from your zoning code to address that buffer? and that height limit that's in the buffer. Because what I'm sensing from Councilman Santin and Mayor is that you would like a question that says the height limit, the current height limit, we keep referring to that. But to me, and probably Sylvia, that can mean very different things. The current height limit, there's a maximum height limit of 120 feet in the district. But I know that there has been this focus more recently on the 55 feet. So do you envision a question that has both heights or that somehow encompasses both heights and you somehow retain the 150 foot buffer, which is not what was planned? Alternatively, I would consider presenting a question to the voters and I'm not going to suggest what that language would look like tonight. But whatever the question is, you will always be able to implement it by your zoning code. And so I'm going to strongly remind you that that is where all of these details should be. They should live in your zoning code. All of that character that's so important and makes Miami Springs what it is, that's in your zoning code. It doesn't need to be... drafted today into your charter because then you will be back here or your successors will be sitting here trying to find a way to amend it and so i raised that in part because i i want you to give me the feedback but also because it was clearer from sort of two-thirds of the

Can I ask a question? Is there a way to word the ballot language so that it refers to what the height restrictions as they are now so that you don't have to say the 150 foot buffer and the 54 stories and 120 is the maximum because I think that that is what people want to know. Can you How high is it going to be? And are you going to come back later and make it unlimited? Or, you know, what's the boundary in question? Are you going to come back later? Are you going to change it? And you're going to take, you're going to double it. Like if the ballot language just refers to restoring what's already, because again, my, if that ballot language was not in place, Right now, or what's in the underlying zoning district, the residential is allowed to four stories and more. So it's already in there. We are just removing this referendum language, this charter language that's usurping what's already there. So we just have to point to what's already there. It's already. We don't have to say the numbers. We don't have to be, we just say that's what it's.

And if we don't say the numbers, I'm sorry, Councilman.

I'm saying, just make it clear right there. And the question is, the high restrictions as exist today will not change.

In the zoning district, in the, In the district's zoning. I'm okay with that.

We should be dealing only with the height.

Right. I mean, that's it. But that's the only thing. That's what's usurping everything.

We can try to find some way to write that. My concern is how that would tie us with the 150 foot buffer that exists today. Because the height right now, that maximum height is intertwined with that. So could we say something like consistent with the district's maximum height limits as they exist today? Yes, but then you're asking the voters, now you're explaining two heights to the voters, potentially.

Look, again, I think you're going to garner way more skepticism trying to, I think for, sorry, to the chair right there, but to me,

If the concern is for flexibility and it's 150 feet, I'm saying today, I don't want the change. I want it to be 150 feet. The same rules that we have in place today. The buffer area. Whatever you want to call it, but it's just no different than it's there today. Is that holding us to that? Yes, that's exactly what we want. We're removing the one thing that's holding us more than anything. Future generations from now, or councils, we'll come back and we'll have this whole argument against it. Well, you know, this council decision obviously still limited development because They left that buffer in there. That's fine. That's someone else's care. We want to make it clear that we don't care. I don't want to move 150 feet.

I'd also like to say that when you look at where the 150 feet, there are parcels where a portion of it has the four-story limit, but the others, again, if you go on Google Maps and look at what the Wyndham Garden had 150 feet that they gave, and they were able to build. Now, obviously, a hotel has less parking demand than residential, but I'm just saying, like, I don't see how it is. How? anybody would disagree that it was a, that it probably wasn't a good idea looking back to limit it to three stories and basically exclude that one use. But I don't see how it could not make a difference with as starved as this market in this. And we are in South Florida for housing in where we are located. I don't see how it's this like, Oh, well, what, what's the point of doing it if we're not gonna do like, There's opportunities there. Four stories and 12 stories has got to be better than three. There's no way that that's not going to encourage more development when it comes to residential. Sure. I think you also understand a hotel.

You got a little bit of feasibility in a hotel and the quality of hotels that we got. They're bad, but there's a certain amount of fares that you could charge. They know what it is. They have all the studies done. So that hotel cannot build a four-story. We're already seeing it. I'm a pilot house. That's one of their arguments. Oh, the four-story. So the four-story doesn't make sense. For an apartment building, for parking, it's more feasible to build a four-story parking lot or a parking garage to

you know, justify the apartments. Just because there's an area of your property that is within the 150 foot zone doesn't mean that you can't do anything there. It means that you can only go up four stories in that area of your property, but everywhere else within the area we're talking about, like you can go up 12 stories. Like that's got to provide flexibility. Like again, what is completely inflexible Is saying, you know. Basically, yeah, we don't know residential. We'll just have commercial that closes at 5 o'clock and hotel.

And, you know, so, so I just, I just want to make sure there's consensus. From the whole council, we.

Okay, so I think what's being asked is. Do you want to. for the language in the ballot to lock us into the boundaries and height restrictions as we ask for them to exempt this area from the height restriction, right? I think the question is, what's this area? How do I know what the area is? And how do I know what the height limit is going to be since you're asking to be exempted from it? So do you want us to memorialize that as part of the ballot language or not? I guess is what she's asking.

So when you brought up the thing about the initiative in 2006, we can't say on the ballot, we revert back to pre-2006. We can't say that because no one understands what that was before. But so the language has to clearly explain. Because it's still in place. All the zoning is still in place. But there's a cap. But there's a cap imposed. On the charter side. Right. So we can't, the ballot doesn't say to remove that cap.

No, the ballot says we're going to exempt from the charter limit. And they can find a way to make it so that it refers to what it is now and that that's what it'll be. So the question, but so here's the thing. Are you for or against making the ballot language in a way that it tells people, the voters, that this is what you're voting for and it won't change?

Like you're, are you okay with that? Yes or no? I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it because, you know, Assuming we're going to have workshops and we'll have maps and we can really get the message out there. We can't print a map on a ballot, fortunately, but we're going to do a due diligence and get the message out there. Look, everyone, this is it. Just this. It's not combos on the golf course. It's not that. It's this. Sure. All right. Go with it. Vice Mayor?

Yeah, I agree.

You agree.

Yeah. People should know exactly what they're getting.

Okay. Absolutely. Okay. All right. That's a case. And I think that that answered that one. I think that we want to,

My follow up question is, there had been some discussion about the defining the area. We've been referring to it as East of East Drive in the Northwest 36th Street District. I know some of you wanted to give it a name. We can do that. I would just like to know if there's consensus for that.

And I am through the chair. So I've been thinking, like, I mean, I understand Sylvia's Southeast Springs, but okay, throw it out there, like Centennial District, like Curtis District, Aviator or Aviation District, something I'm trying to. tie it in somewhere to the history, aviation, East Drive District. I was just trying to think at that point.

Let me just chime in a second. We're not there yet. We are eventually going to create a new district by ordinance, correct? The plan was that we would treat the Northwest 36th Street as three distinct districts. you know areas that have their own character and in this one right that for a while was called zone three we haven't given them a name and I think that trying to give it a name, at the end of the day, we're going to have to create a new district, and we're going to have to do everything on the ordinance side that needs to happen. It's just the albatross around our neck is the charter language. I feel like if we try giving the district a name, it's going to sound like nobody's going to know what are we going to call it. At the end of the day, the North 36th Street, East of East Drive within that district. As it is drawn today, the boundaries, that's here. Does it have to be done?

That's the whole point. Whether the name or it has to be drawn before the ballot goes there, that has to be clear.

But I just worry about agreeing on the name before we have to turn in the ballot language in the next couple of weeks when, again, at the end of the day, we're just... Like, I feel like that's gonna be a huge distraction. I think that we just need to identify it.

I'm not suggesting we need to have a name. I just know I received feedback that there were some of you who wanted to give it a name at this point. So if there's not consensus to give it a name and we wanna continue to refer to it as East of East Drive in the Northwest 36th Street Zoning District, that's fine.

Through the chair. I think Southeast Springs is... Naturally, it identifies the area in pretty much three words. And it just, you know, like it could give an idea to where people are going on less saying Southeast street, uh, Southeast Springs takes away from 36th street. Then, because that's the area that we're focusing on, then I will be against it. But Southeast Springs, I mean, this is a South beach.

And you think of this whole area, this whole project was referring to that. I feel like it's just going to be a distraction.

The brand, the brand Southeast Springs. It's part of the project, Activate Southeast Springs, and it was the entire Northwest 36th Street corridor, not just that area, as well as the Abraham Trap. So what we were looking for, what I was looking for, was actually to, once we split it into smaller pieces, each with its own character, each one has its own identity that is branded in a different way. And whether that happens now or later, I've said it many times, I'm not in marketing. So, you know, I'm really looking forward to having this firm on board so that I can bounce ideas off of them and they can tell me, you know, no, you're crazy. We should go with this other name. But we're not there yet for those smaller areas, only for the larger areas.

I just feel like giving a name is irrelevant.

What matters is if we don't get an exemption from the three-story limit in the charter, then everything else is... To the chair, I think that I believe that if you don't make it clear by August that it's just East of East Drive, it ain't going to go. You need to be clear. So the boundary with a name, okay, fine. They make a name, but we better be very clear what this east of east drive is. That boundary better be super clear. Now we're going to defeat the purpose of it too.

When you have this conversation looking at a map, it makes it so much richer, the conversation, because you're looking at it and you're seeing what's being affected. The problem is we've got to have ballot language ready in a couple of weeks and and they need direction on how to write it.

So I think, you know. So this company that was gonna handle the messaging, Do they do focus groups? Do they organize focus groups? I believe the proposal has meetings, like focus group meetings, and could that, could we use focus groups to gauge different names, throw it out there and see how they feel about how they respond to that? I mean, again, this point, maybe it's a little premature now, because we really want to get something out about it, but

I can set up a meeting for this, maybe even Wednesday. We can reach out to them tomorrow. We can meet with them. So be it.

Thank you, Chair. So have we already stricken a deal with this company? Well, yeah.

I know we're waiting for the council. Council approved it last week. And what we're doing now is drafting the agreement so we can sign and execute.

You guys have authorized me to negotiate and execute. I figured that's what I meant. That's what I meant. Like, what's going on? Why is it on hold? No, it's not on hold.

It's actually the agreement's being drafted. Okay. But the conversations change depending on what your intent is and what the direction you give us today can, you know, make the conversation a little different.

I think we need to get to Heidi so she can get clarification from all of us. What we want to do Saturday, a couple of questions. How do you have another question?

By the way, thank you, Heidi.

I don't normally get this much input, but I want to make sure we can advance the ball.

Yeah, it's a big deal here.

Okay, so we're going to include. Something as to the existing height. I'm not going to. Provide language. Am I going to say a word about it right now?

Draft on the data.

I don't do that. And then as far as the description of the area, we'll stick with East of East Drive in the Northwest 36th Street District. And remember, your marketing is on the overall Activate Southeast Springs project. This is one piece of that. And the marketing can obtain feedback on this and other aspects. And you can find out what the people like to call Zone 3 versus Zone 1. So we'll leave it as that, East of East Drive.

Let me ask you a question. As a campaign, we can still mention, when you're talking about all areas of Southeast, but to clarify, you can't clarify that it's East of East Drive. This is what we're talking about.

That the way you've been describing it this whole time has been. Okay. I've talked about the firm.

You're talking about. The firm that we're thinking of higher. They can't make reference to east of east drive.

Why wouldn't they be answer? Okay.

That's what I'm. and what the boundaries are.

So you've already approved them.

Yeah.

There was a contract in your agenda packet.

I got that.

And at this point, it's the business terms that are being renegotiated due to the feedback that was received at the last meeting.

They changed it.

That's separate and apart from this. But yes, they can give you feedback. And there's no reason that they wouldn't be able to ask those questions.

Okay, I know. They can also they can also, you know, highlight each district like we need to be talking about everywhere. So we'll be meeting with them as well. Yeah, I can set that up.

And that's all I have.

Well, there's one more thing we're asking about about the language on how to He mentioned, you know, concern for public concerns, safety.

I've seen public safety and aging in place.

At least safety is more concerning.

Yeah, but I thought in our briefings that...

So, if I...

I have it now.

For the last meeting, what we had was language. And I can read you what we had. We did add some of the legislative intent that you were requesting about revitalizing the district. And I think we wrote something else to the effect of attracting investment, revitalizing the area, things like that. I don't have the language. I'm not used to being disconnected from my computer when I'm Speaking to you. So we did add some of that remember we we are still working with a 75 word limit. So now we're going to be adding potentially language about your existing zoning code and tying it to your existing height. So if we can find a way to add additional legislative intent, we can try. And I've briefed you all on how legislative intent is looked at by the courts. So we're balancing all of these different things.

I'm sorry, Mayor. What you brought up was she's saying tying into this and zoning, et cetera. Your proposal is just undoing what was done, right?

And to that point, before you answer, Ms. Vargas did, or our city planner did mention to me, the legislative history for the Northwest 36 feet zoning code reflects that it was adopted in 2011. The charter amendment was done in 2006. So I don't want to get ahead of, I am getting ahead of the mayor's response to you, Vice Mayor, but I don't think that we are, per se reverting back to something we are lifting a restriction that's in place that's limiting development in this part of the city right and letting it default to what is in place currently in place right I don't think we need to talk about 2006 right now or anything it's in it's what's in place now What I am taking away tonight is that the five of you would like a question that asks the voters to remove the height restriction from the charter subject to... For that area. In that area, east of East Drive. Everything I'm talking about is just east of East Drive and the Northwest 36th Street zoning code. We are lifting the restriction. to allow uh residential buildings uh subject to the height limitations that are currently in the zoning code addressing public safety if we can if we have the space to address some further legislative intent we will do our best thank you okay

I think she's got direction. Okay. All right. So that brings an end to that discussion. And I'd like to recognize, because the Purvis family is here. Guys, you want to just come up to the front? We have another 100-year-old at home. Sorry that you guys had to sit through that discussion.

All right.

Come on up. All right. So come up here. So your house was built in 1925. So that's 218 Springs Avenue. Come on up. Grab this. Tell us about your home, how long you've lived there. Just tell us a little bit about your home and why you're here.

Almost 20 years. Go ahead.

Grab the mic.

Grab the mic. Been there almost 20 years. I've lived in the Springs for 40. And it squeaks. But I love my house. It's very unique. I try to keep it somewhat to its original historical value. You know, you had to do some stuff because it's 100 years old. But yeah, that's it.

Awesome. Well, thank you for preserving it for us. Thank you. Let's take a picture real quick. And you're going to be getting your sign that you could probably display out front.

Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Thank you.

Glad we were able to give that to them. Okay, so we move on to reports and recommendations. We will begin with our esteemed city attorney.

um in your inbox you have an email from me about a an appellate case that we've been handling um this morning so i gave you that news on friday this morning the the petitioner in that case the property owner has requested that the court revisit its decision so we will continue to keep you apprised but For those who didn't get a chance to see the email, we were able to get a victory for the city last week on a code enforcement case where a resident had received a violation was found guilty of violating the code and then appealed to the circuit courts appellate division. And so we defended it. The court dismissed the case last week. And so if there's further developments, we will let you know. There's a few other cases out there. Very, very few cases that are being handled by us as insurance defense counsel for the city. But that's it for now.

Good. Thank you. All right. Moving on. City manager.

I just may thank you real quick and we did want to provide an update to the Council in particular Councilman Lama to ask me for an update regarding the parking to bring it back to the Council this week. After the last meeting with staff and we talked about you know what we can do as far as parking on Westward Drive. I interrupt the district as well. The The police department had reached out to Ivy Academy. I mean, it just happens right after the meeting. And they started parking in their parking lot behind. They stopped parking along. They told the teachers not to park along. We're staffed to park on westward. And they've been doing that. It has improved. It has alleviated some of the stress that it was causing. The other thing that we also looked at is we met with public works and then taking inventory of all the city-owned lots, the one behind Starbucks, the one behind here and behind the post office. I asked public works, I wanna see a layout to see if we can maybe maximize the space and squeeze as much space as possible. To be honest, the parking lots, they could use some asphalt if they're not in the best shape. I'm a little embarrassed to say they don't look good. So we got to invest a little money there. But while we're in the process of investing, I want to see if we can maximize the space there. And then the other area that we want to invest money in and receive money for is Canal Street. Obviously, I'll wait until construction is done so we can do that there. I say that because before we implement a permit process, like a business permit, we need to identify the zones where we can send people to park. Because the parking decal is not going to let you just park the car. So we have to maximize and improve what we have to offer. And then we can, if the council chooses at that time, we can make those parking lots So the decal parking and the employees can park there. That's keeping, ideally keeping Westward free.

Are we still waiting on the three-hour signs?

Yeah, I'm going to, I asked Juan to pull them down. I apologize. I asked Juan to pull them down. And then we'll get the new ones put up. All right. So that's what I have right now. As we get more information and I can have, A better plan layout and cost to do the parking lots. I'll bring that feature company. All right. All right.

This isn't city manager. A couple of quick things just want to take a second to recognize some of our departments. I did. A wonderful job this weekend that we're gonna also want to thank you and Brooks and Tom Hutchings for putting it on. It was a great event. Our police department did an amazing job. I was out there a good portion of the weekend. And Public Works, this morning, I went to get a cup of coffee at 6.30. And unless you saw the blue garbage cans, you would have noticed that we had an event. It was amazing. And our Parks Department also did a 5K. So I just want to give Adam Boyd here a wonderful job. And sometimes that stuff doesn't really go to notice, but I noticed it this morning. I appreciate it. Awesome. All right.

Okay. City Clerk?

I'll report this evening, sir.

All right. Okay. So, City Council. Santino, C1.

Well, same thing as City Manager just mentioned. It was a great weekend. I think the event went well. Everybody worked well together. Obviously, all our departments did an amazing job, as always. That was changed, to be honest with you. But I did have a nice feel for it. At least I enjoyed it. you know, where the crowds are as big as others have been in the past. I don't, I'm not sure I was happy. I don't really need that many people around me, but overall I thought it was a great crowd and it definitely had that community feel that we've been wanting. So to me, it was a kudos to everybody, including obviously Lynn Brooks, Tom, and the administration for getting it where it got. And then that's it for right now. I think we got centennial. We have everything's going forward. Fortunately, those that missed the exhibit in the first floor of the airport, it's no longer there. We're trying to see if we can find another home in the airport. The greater Miami is working hard because they were super disappointed that it was only up there for two months. uh but the other exhibit is still up there and uh and jay international concourse and uh the next centennial event will be a library event the day of the birthday for uh ben curtis and the uh what else we got oh sorry we got the golf tournament june 5th centennial golf tournament and then of course you know august 22nd will be around the corner where the uh I just saw our community. We'll be proud standing there next to it. But all of South Florida and beyond, I hope, we'll be able to get a chance to see the statue and the monument, the Junebug Monument. It's going on according to schedule as Public Works is really deep into that process. And we're so far hitting all the timelines that are in place. So It's not expecting any surprises. August 22nd, we should be able to enjoy it.

So I'd also like to say thank you to our police, Public Works, Lynn Brooks, and Tom Hunchings on a great job with organizing the River Cities Festival. I've heard a lot of great things and it's like if nothing happened right now, everything is clean. We stayed safe. So thank you guys. I'd also like to let everybody know that The Miami Spring Senior High football team has hired T.Y. Hilton, as we've heard. And he's hosting a fundraiser at the golf course on May 8th. And you can get in touch with me or you can get in touch with the high school. If you have any questions about it, let's support our local football team. That's it. I would like to congratulate Mikey on his sermon yesterday as well. Congratulations.

All right. Vice Mayor. Thank you to everyone that participated in the festival and all who came up. Great. Many great things that we have here.

Awesome. I want to thank Juan and his team at Public Works for filling that massive pothole in front of Papa John's. That was a deep hole. But thank you for fulfilling that, what you did. I noticed the red reflectors on the poles on Curtis Parkway as you were driving. I guess that was the county that put those?

No, those are us.

Sorry, because I keep bothering you about the one-way drivers.

And me. And just to give you an update.

I said, if I'm out there and I have my phone... I will see someone going the wrong way on Curtis Parkway. And I took a, oh my God, there's going to be a head-on collision one day.

As you and I had discussed, I know there's, we know there's an issue there as far as people coming and getting onto Curtis Parkway and they make the wrong turn because it's such a, why they don't realize that it's the following one that they can make a left. So they'll make a left and they'll go the wrong way. Spoke with Juan about it. And he's like, listen, to do thermoplastic on every intersection there to show the arrows, It's a little expensive. He was going to reach out to the county. I'll let you know what they say. Thank you. I appreciate that.

I want to say thank you to the scouts 2334 for cleaning up on Saturday morning the canal. They go bright and early on the canoes and kayaks. They do that every year. I want to congratulate the team from the River City Regatta who came through and put on this great three-day community event. I have this proclamation that I've been showing around my house, bragging people for me, but it's not. This was given by the county commissioner for the regatta. Where does this, who do I give this to? Well, up ahead. Go ahead. Do I share it? Do you want to see it? All right. Here we go. That's true. You weren't there. Okay. Oh, we saw Victor Vasquez. Dr. Victor Vasquez. There he is. He showed up Saturday night with his wife and son, and it was great to see him and see how he's doing. It's so positive to talk to him. And, you know, keep going, Victor. You're doing great. And I need to mention that the Miami Springs Women's Club is having their Spaghetti Dinner fundraising Friday, April 24th, Arbor Day, from 5 to 7 p.m. And the next day on Saturday, they're having another meeting of their Garden Club. Both events are open to the public. So the Garden Club is tied into the... new park across from the library. So they have a lot of wonderful things in store for that little park over there. So that's it for me.

All right. Okay, so yeah, great event this weekend. I think that it was good to see some things that were, that, you know, it was nostalgic to see the fishing tournament again. Because those of us that grew up in the Springs, we remember it. The chili cook-off was back, you know, Alliance Club. uh with help from uh truth 34 did a big cleanup that weekend there was a 5k uh police public works parks and recs everybody came together uh there was a very robust kids zone uh that i you know i i had gotten feedback about those three things in particular the kids zone and the and the fishing tournament and the uh and the chili cook-off and all three of those things came back And I got great feedback from residents because I was there just about, well, I was there all three days. So it was a great event and happy to have it. And we're looking forward to August 22nd when we go to actually turn 100 and have a big party. So more information about that to follow. Okay. So having said all that, this council meeting is adjourned at 917. Thank you.

Erica, I'm wrong again.

I thought the meeting would end at 8 o'clock.