Planning Board - Regular Meeting

All right. Welcome to the planning board meeting here for May 12th. If everyone would please stand for the pledge.

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

Please be seated.

All right, quick roll call. I'll start to my left.

Justin Berger.

Joseph Corbison.

Dan Aguero.

Daniel Alvarez.

Jay Miller. I think we have a quorum. Any administrative matters? I know that we do the rescheduling of the June meeting, but I'm going to push that back to the end of the meeting. I know we have one little issue there.

So with that, I am going to turn it over for the public hearing items.

Marcus? Yes. PB 2026-009.

Yes, so the first item is, like you said, PB-2026-009. In ordinance of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Section 8.8 bonus allocations to amend regulations relating to transfer of development rights and payments in lieu of any kind. public benefits within the transit supported development district, providing for corrections, severability, conflicts, implementation, and an effective date. This item will be handled by Mr. Mark Alvarez of the Corradino Group. Thank you.

Good evening, Mark Alvarez for the South Miami Planning and Zoning Department. I'm going to introduce this item. We also have the applicant who has proffered this. This is an amendment to the bonus allocation section of the TSTD code, section 20-8.8. And it does two things, mostly. It makes a clarification. We now have several options, three options essentially, to be awarded bonuses for bonus floors and bonus floor area. One is to provide a public benefit on the site, open space, affordable housing, workforce housing, or sustainability. The other way is to pay in lieu of those bonus items, based on the square footage of the bonus floors, And the other way of being awarded a development bonus is to participate in the Transfer Development Rights Program, which would be transferring development rights from a donor property on the Sunset Buffer up to the amount that that bonus property can donate of floor area and taking it to a property either in the TODA or the TSDA sub-districts of the downtown. So this this amendment clarifies those three options that they are actually all valid options So you can do one of the three it doesn't actually change those options. They're still there the other thing it does is it provides a Right now we have 90 days for pay in lieu we have a 90 day limit to to pay the money in lieu to continue with the development bonus, or for the TDR, it extends that to 120 days. There are also some small clarifications about the handling of the transfer development rights for the donor property to get the proper information and record that. There is a, I think you were just handed out, a clarification on the recording of the transfer development rights, which would be through the Dade County Court. Again, this is more of a clarification. This would be done anyway. one of the other things that has also been handed out to you in another paragraph would be to to if the transfer development rights fell through as an agreement then the applicant would then seek to either well they wouldn't provide the public benefit bonus they would do a pay in lieu and that would that paragraph gives that application another 128 days to to essentially rework their bonus payments. So again, it's the three choices. There's not something other than 120 days, the 90 to 120 days, there's no real substantive change here. Most of it is a clarification that there's three ways to be awarded development bonus.

Do you want to make a presentation? Nick?

I think.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. And this was offered to us by Nick Noto, and he'll explain a little more.

Chairman, through the chair, just for clarification, Mr. Noto is providing public comment.

Say that again?

For clarification, Mr. Noto is providing public comment. Mr. Alvarez suggests- He's not the applicant. Not per se, correct. So we're treating this as public comment. Okay.

Good evening, board members. Nick Noto from the law firm of Bills and Sundberg, 1450 Brickell Avenue. I'm joined tonight by my colleague, Alex Simo. And I just wanted to point out a couple of things. You each were handed a friendly amendment to this ordinance that was originally on the agenda, which essentially just added the two subparagraphs on page five. As pertains to subparagraph G, this was just, again, as Mr. Alvarez explained it, mostly a cleanup item. The commission had some discussion at the discussion item last week about what the mechanism would be to ensure that the transfer development rights were kind of recorded in the chain of title. We think this is what would have happened anyway. It's now expressly stated that the certificate of transfer will be recorded, which will reflect any transfer of development rights and also what's remaining as eligible on the sunset buffer site. The second subsection that we added was subsection H, which essentially just provides for a cure period. Right now, this amendment is silent as to what happens if a property owner or applicant intends to use the TDR program to obtain its bonus floor area and that TDR agreement falls through, it's silent. So there's no answer as to whether we immediately go to the city and make a payment in lieu, if we have time to find a new eligible sending site to negotiate another transfer of TDRs. So the intent of this is just to provide a cure period for that kind of unprovided for hypothetical right now. And we're going to continue to workshop that with the city attorney's office between now and first reading before this goes back to the city commission. But recommend, would appreciate your recommendation of approval of the city commission on this. And if I could be of any help, I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Excuse me, Nick. I'm sorry. Real quick, can you please sign in?

Yes, sir.

Oh, do you need to swear him in?

No. This is not a quasi-judicial item, and therefore, it's not under oath. All right.

So before we go to questions from the planning board, if there's anyone in the audience or online that would like to make comments, please raise your hand. Additional public comments, I guess, since we just had some. Correct. I see no one else in the audience. And Marcus, I don't see anyone online either.

No, the only people available online are Board Member Alvarez and the Development Services Director in the City Clerk's Office.

All right. OK. So questions or comments? So from a more practical standpoint, this is being done, one, to make sure we're keeping track of the TDRs so that somebody doesn't go in and sell more TDRs than they have.

Yes, and I was just thinking through Mark's presentation. There's one other thing that this ordinance does that's really important. currently the code is is drafted in such a way that the Transfer of development rights has to be approved by the city prior to the City Commission considering a special exception application Which we're all learning now as we're going through the implementation of this new tsdd code kind of like in practice What works and what doesn't so this is now allowing the approval of the project and then a property owner can agree with the sending site to purchase TDRs after the approval so long as that transfer occurs prior to building permit so just it also tweaks timing but your to answer your question yes that's that's one of the things that it does okay thanks other questions or comments if not do i have a motion i move that we approve the item do i have a second a second

All right. Any further discussion? If not, Gus?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. All right. Unanimous. All right. Thank you.

All right. Marcus, item number two. Item number two is PB-2026-010, a resolution of the City of South Miami Planning Board, Florida, recommending approval of the proposed community redevelopment plan. Finding the plan conforms with the South Miami Comprehensive Plan, providing for a transmittal and an effective date. This will be handed by Mr. Alvarez. Thank you.

Good evening again, Mark Alvarez. This is an item for the community redevelopment area plan. The CRA plan was adopted by the city commission in July. One of the requirements of state law is that it has to go to the planning board to make a decision as to whether it is consistent with the comprehensive plan, which is why it is here tonight. The CRA plan, it's in your package. It does basically about six things. seeks to stimulate redevelopment through changes in the land development regulations, through changes in infrastructure or upgrading of infrastructure, through housing policy, through code compliance, and through curing transportation deficiencies. All of those have been found in the finding and necessity. That's also included in your package. And then the CRA plan addresses those items and what the city would make for its investments. Those have been approved. The plan is here tonight to seek your decision that is consistent with the comprehensive plan. In the staff memo, we have cited a number of the goals, objectives, and policies in the comprehensive plan. Future land use, FLU means future land use, goal four, objective 4.1, policy 4.1. And these, I can go through them individually, but these all speak about redevelopment and using the land development regulations. Future land use objective 4.2 speaks to the utilization of funding programs and incentives to help benefit the, again, to forward those objectives of the CRA plan, to also use grants available to forward the objectives of the CRA plan. There is a housing objective to support redevelopment to increase the city's tax base, as well as to increase the infill and redevelopment, as well as affordable and workforce housing. There are transportation objectives that are cited from the adoption comprehensive plan that also look to creating more sustainable mobility options. So it supports those. And CIP policy promotes fortification. Basically, it's a list of our infrastructure, and it does support that as well. We can go through any of these policies. I do have them all tabbed in our goals, objectives, and policies element. Actually, some of these, the last time that we amended the city's goals, objectives, and policies, we had a number of CRA-related Particularly the future land use and housing plans goals objectives and policies that we removed CRA because we did not have a CRA when we amended it last year and some of those have come back essentially we've been restored so So that's the purpose of our meeting would be to find it Consistent or not consistent or ask us questions about the consistency with the comprehensive plan That's it

All right. Before we go to questions from the board, any comments from the public on this? Please raise your hand. Seeing none inside the chambers here and none online. Marcus, I think we're OK.

I think so. Excuse me, sir. Would you like to speak? Yeah.

All right. So with that said, any comments from the planning board? Questions? All right. If not, do I hear a motion?

I move we approve the item.

I'll second. All right. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor starting to the left?

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

All right. Last item is PB-2026-011, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Article 6, Administration and Enforcement, Section 20-6.1, Administrative Entities of the Land Development Code to Modify the Composition and Procedures of the Historic Preservation Board, amending Article 11, Historic Preservation Regulations, Section 20-11.4, demolition of designated sites, demolition by neglect, certificates of appropriateness, and undue economic hardship of the Land Development Code to modify the process for determining when certificates of appropriateness are required, provided for corrections, servability, conflicts, implementation, and an effective date. I believe, Mr. City Attorney, will you be handling this, or do you want me to? Sure, happy to. All right.

The ordinance before you is relatively simple. It does two things in essence. First, it modifies the standard, or rather the process by which It's determined that an application needs a certificate of appropriateness. Certificate of appropriateness is necessary prior to any modification of a historic property. The existing rules specify that the building director has an opportunity to review a building permit application and determine whether the change that's proposed is minor enough to be approved administratively or substantial enough to require review by the board. A concern was raised by some board members, historic preservation board members, that some applications might slip through the cracks in this approach. We consulted with the building official, and given that there are only a few dozen properties in the entire city, about 30 I believe, that are designated and would require any kind of review, it was decided that all properties, rather than have the director do the initial screening, all properties would simply go to the board. It's a relatively small number, so we don't think it's an administrative burden or a burden on the board in particular. So that's the first thing the ordinance says. The second thing is change some of the voting and composition of the board. The board is nine members today, and our rules state that quorum will be three members, which, as you know, quorum is usually a majority. So we're proposing to modify that so that it is a majority. We're also modifying the total number of board members. We're going from nine to seven with two alternates. So those ultimately will remain with the same number of board members, except two will have the status as alternates to make up for any absences. That's essentially it. If you have any questions, I'm available.

So let's open it to public comments first. There's actually nobody left in the room. Anyone online that would like to make?

I have that effect on people, sir.

Take some pride in that. We do. I don't see anyone online. So any questions or comments?

I just have one question. When you say all properties are going to go to the historic board, what do you mean by all properties?

All properties that are designated historic, and there are only about 30 or so in the entire city that are designated. The great majority of them are single-family homes. Right. Okay. We also have a handful of commercial properties, you know, in our downtown area.

Okay.

All right. Is there another question I have?

So is there an objective measure of what is a historic property? In other words, number of years in existence, architectural. But we've gone through the process of giving owners and constituents, population, et cetera, a chance to ask for something to be a historic property. We've opened that window and closed it.

We've not closed that.

It can be reopened.

A property owner can decide to request historic designation for their property. The city also can make its own application to decide that a property should be designated. If it does so, public notice, and not just general public notice, but notice to that particular property owner has to be given. Multiple hearings have to be held, the whole process. So due process is maintained. As to the standard, for the most part we use, our standards essentially mirror what's in the county code. And the national standard, if you will, is provided by the Department of the Interior. You look at a long list of various factors in order to determine historic nature. A number of years in existence alone is never enough. You also have to have architectural significance. You also have to have some historic significance, for example, some role in the history of the city, in the country, the state, et cetera.

Okay. All right. It was a curiosity. Sure.

Okay. And who slept there?

Who slept there?

So there was a property at the college because Truman was a member of the Three Score and Ten Club. It was designated historic. The building itself had no architectural significance, but because he was a member, it now was designated a historic property.

There's some artistic license on that side. If you visit sites in Virginia and D.C. and things, you'll often see George Washington slept here. We don't have any George Washington sites here in South Miami.

All right. Okay, so essentially the biggest piece of this is that you're making it so that anything having to do with these historic sites, regardless of what the view of the planning director is, needs to be...

Exactly. And, you know, just to give you some example, you're swapping out windows, and the windows look exactly the same, except now they're hurricane-proof. Is that major or is that minor?

Got it. Yeah, hard to interpret.

Okay. All right.

Any other comments or questions?

If not, do we have a motion? I motion to approve as presented.

Any second?

Second.

All right, starting to the left, all those in favor?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. All right. All right, any public comments or new business from the people who aren't sitting in the chairs? approval of the minutes. I believe you mentioned, Marcus, that they're not ready yet.

Yeah, they're not ready. So we're going to look at those next meeting? Yes, sir.

All right. So let's talk about the next meeting. Marcus, you want to tell me a little bit about?

So our next meeting is June 9th, 2026. The commission, what happens is that the commission has requested that that meeting be used for them there during the summer months and during holidays like around the Thanksgiving, Christmas, they usually back down to maybe one meeting a month. And it's that time of the year where it's summer recess and they're starting to make those adjustments. So they voted on last week, Tuesday, to have their meeting on June 9th.

It's also because it's the capital improvement budget is being talked about. Yeah. Earlier in the day, and so they're going to leave that right into the fund of the meeting.

Correct. So we have to reschedule a planning board to another day. So I wanted to talk to the board to see if they have any particular days they want me to investigate to see. I know that because they moved their meeting, the commission's old date of June 2nd, the first Tuesday, is available if you want to do that one.

How about the 16th? The second's the only one that works for me. Second's the only one that'll work for you. Does anybody else have any issues with the second? If we were to move it? Just so we know. We don't have to be unanimous, but.

The second's fine for me.

It's okay with me.

It's okay today.

Daniel?

I'm open to it.

Is that all right, Marcus?

That's fine. If you want to move it to the second, do we need that?

Do we have time to be able to advertise things appropriately and all that?

Yeah, I'll have to step up the advertising. Normally, I would advertise by the week of... Memorial Day, I would have to do with the week of the 19th right instead, which is next week.

Yes Mr. City attorney do they didn't make a motion or anything to change the meeting or the coat the code actually authorizes the chairperson to make the change Okay, so chairperson again and and Marcus I text you the provision just note that you'll need to post Physically post City Hall with notice of the date change three three days before

But we do, or we?

You do. You have to post three working days prior to June 2nd. You have to have a posted notice. That's it.

So that would be the meeting agenda, correct? Would that satisfy that, or it has to be actual?

Just create a notice, just to be safe, create a notice. Okay. The special notice saying the date now, June 2nd.

How do we let the people that be interested in putting stuff in front of us know of the change? I mean, do we have any circling folks that we know of? I know you guys have a pretty good feel for what's coming.

I have a variance application that was submitted that I'm going to be working on and bringing to this board next month. I will let them know that it's been moved up. It has to go to the design review board first.

So make it push, but yeah, okay. All right. And I think unless there's any other comments from anyone, we are adjourned. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much.