Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everybody. Happy Friday. Let's call the planning board meeting to order, please. Daisy, would you call the roll?

Member Finkel? Member Hogan? No. Member Ferringer? Here. Vice Chair DeBlois? Here. Member Henson? Member Jensen? Here. Chair Bailey?

I'm here. Would everybody please rise and join me for the pledge of 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. Next item, approval of the agenda. Any comments, changes? I'd entertain a motion, if not.

So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Next item on our agenda is time certain. We'll come back to that in a few minutes board absences Meeting next Friday anybody Anticipate Busy month anyone anticipate an absence All right We're not doing approval the minutes will do that the next meeting is that correct Dan Mary yep, and then staff communications

Again, the next meeting is going to be August 7th. We're going to have two things on the agenda. One of them is going to an LDC change in the Marco Lake District. This is the old hotel. that's been there for a long time they're asking to lift the restriction from the 16 units per acre to 26 units per acre which is allowed and consistent with the comprehensive plan this was adopted by the city it was actually something that was done so they would like to do some renovations their proposals to get rid of the restaurant Add additional rooms from currently 19 rooms to 26 rooms. So that's going to be an LDC change moving on your agenda. And also the Walker K Marina. That project's been, we've talked about that for quite a few years now. And that's coming forward to the planning board.

Busy summer. All right. Any questions for staff? Do you want to get started with this? I mean, it's not quite 905 Do you want to read it into the record do the swearing do all that stuff and then maybe we put a pause on it Would that be okay?

Good morning, Mary Holden your planning manager

This is an ordinance of the City of Marco Island, Florida, amending the official zoning atlas of the City of Marco Island to provide for the rezoning of the property located at 560 South Collier Boulevard, Marco Island, Florida, consisting of approximately 10.44 acres from residential tourist, RT, to planned unit development, PUD, zoning. making specific findings, providing that approval does not create a vested right, providing for failure to comply with this ordinance, providing for interpretation and severability, and providing for an effective date.

Thank you. David?

Good morning. David Tolstice, Assistant City Attorney. This item is a site-specific rezoning as such as a quasi-judicial item. So as we do, we would ask that anybody who is looking to testify offer any evidence to the Planning Board this morning, if they could stand, raise their right hand, and be sworn in at this time. If you're not sure if you want to speak, but there may be a chance you are, please stand and raise your right hand as well. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony given be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So I hope you got it. Thank you very much. You may be seated. Back to you, Mr. Chair, for ex parte communications and disclosures.

Mike? Yes, site visit, and I did have communication with the applicant's attorney.

site visit communication with local businesses communication with residency island and communication with the applicants attorney yes site visit communication with the applicants attorney staff citizens business owners no site visit communication with the applicants representative and residents as well site visit communication with the applicants attorney and residents

Thank you. All right, so we're at 9.05. We'll just put a brief pause in it, if that's okay, and we'll go back to the citizen comment portion of the agenda. So this is the portion of the agenda where anyone who would like to speak about items not on today's agenda would have the opportunity to do so. You have five minutes, four minutes, apologies, and if you want to come up and state your name, you're welcome to do so. Is there anybody in the audience who would like to do that? All right, seeing nobody, we'll close that item and go back to this hearing before us. Dan?

Good morning, Daniel Smith, Director of Community Affairs. The application before you is for a rezone of a piece of property that is currently the Hilton Hotel. The acreage is 10.43 acres. Currently, it is an existing hotel. 310 units on 10.43 acres, which is approximately close to 30 units per acre. This piece of property currently has the Hilton, which is large buildings right here with a parking lot in front and a beach here to the west. As you can see the density for the hotels right here is at 310. When you go through the rezone process, the first thing you do is you want to find out if it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive plan is the hierarchy of planning. The comprehensive plan sets policies on how we're going to develop Marco Island. The last comprehensive plan amendment we had was in 2021. And one of the things that we did with that comprehensive plan is we eliminated density, conditional density that was based on bonuses. So we actually reduced density. That was a big thing for the island. This property is part of the... Right here, this is the resort, or I'm sorry, oh gosh, this is the, I'm getting mixed up here. This is the resort residential area. As you can see, this is a resort residential in the future land use to the north. Resort residential to the south and community commercial across the street. The policy for resort residential is policy 3.15. A resort residential future land use category is intended for uses generally along the city's beachfront, which provides residential dwellings and hospitality uses, including resorts, hotels, and timeshare uses. This category is intended to accommodate those resorts' needs associated with an inland island community. The maximum density permitted is 16 dwelling units per acre. That changed. At one point in time, prior to 2021, we did have bonus density. You could actually increase density based on certain things like access to the beach, workforce housing, things of that nature. That was all removed in 2021. The country plan defines dwelling or dwelling unit as a structure in which occupants live and eat separately from anyone else and have direct access to the outside, i.e., hallway and street. of the unit. Density is defined as the measurement of the number of people or residential units allowed per the unit of land such as residents or employees per acre defined by state statute to 163-3164 of the state of Florida. The comprehensive plan does not have a definition of hotel. However, the Land Development Code does. For any analysis moving forward, hotel will be defined as a facility offering transient lodging accommodations normally at a daily rate to the general public and typically provide accessory uses such as restaurants, meeting rooms, recreational facilities. Hotels are different from motels in that each room does not have a separate entry directly from the outside of the building but rather entry gained through the interior of the building through a lobby. For the purposes of calculating residential density, each guest room shall be considered a dwelling unit. That's very specific in the land development code. This is the zoning legend. And again, this is the future land use. This is the zoning code where it's resort tourist zoning. The applicant proposes to rezone the property from R.T. to a planned unit development. Section 30-8381 of Land Amendment Code establish the intent and purpose of a PUD. Provide procedures and standards to encourage mixed-use planned developments that may be instituted at appropriate locations, all in accordance with the planning and development objectives of the city. under this code in the comprehensive plan it is further the purpose and intent of the pud regulation to encourage ingenuity innovation imagination in the planning design and development or redevelopment of land under unified ownership or control the pud zone enables a flexible mix of uses and dwelling types which isn't possible under the strict land development code requirements maximum density in a PD determined is is in the district is determined by the city's comprehensive plan density rating system and cannot exceed the provided density limitations and before you Right here is the master plan that was submitted by the applicant Again here's the Gulf of Mexico Here's Collier Boulevard, and these are the outline of the property. In this comparison, I want to show you what's allowed under resort, tourist, residential, which is currently the zone, and the intent and purpose, and some of the language in the planned unit development. If you can see under resort, residential, which is currently zoned, you're allowed to have hotels, motels, multi-family dwellings, family care facilities, timeshares, townhomes, and pretty much anything that would be considered accessory to all these uses. Under section 30-164, which is the conditional use portion under residential tourist, you can ask for a conditional use to exceed the height limit to go up to 150 feet, which is what is being proposed for this planned unit development. And again, here's the planned unit development. There's four things that it's looking for. The development employs techniques featuring amenities, an excellence in the form of variations to siding, mixed land uses, or various dwelling types, as well as adaptation to the conservation of the topography and other natural characteristics of the land involved. Two, a more creative approach may be taken to the development of contiguous tracts of land to encourage development of infill parcels of continuous tracts of land in certain circumstances. Three, a more desirable environment may be accomplished than would be possible through the strict application of the minimum requirements of the zoning code. And four, land may be used more efficiently, resulting in smaller networks of utilities and streets with consequent lower construction and future maintenance costs. And again, it goes on to the relationship with the regulations of the comprehensive plan. So the proposal being before you is four times what would be allowed. through our comprehensive plan. The maximum units allowed for resort tourist is 16 units per acre. This is a typo here. Instead of 28 units per acre, this should be 30 units per acre. Currently, they have 310 units. Those 310 units were approved as of 2015. There was also a, which was an amendment to a previous plan that was approved in 1985. Currently the applicant is asking for 60 units per acre. Again, policy 3.5 caps resort residential density, resort residential future land use catering. The resort residential future land use catering is intended for areas generally along the city's beachfront, which provides residential dwellings and hospitality uses, including resort, hotels, and timeshare uses. The catering is intended to accommodate those resort needs associated with an island community. The maximum density permitted is 16 dwelling units per acre. which is, at this point, the applicant is asking for 459 units more than what a new building would be allowed. Because you have to understand the, and I'll get into those policies. Marco Island, I'm getting ahead of myself. Marco Island, vision 2034 asks for less density, not more. Three directors that this poll fails to satisfy. development in scale of a small town the 626 unit resort of 150 is not a small town scale of development low density 60 units per acre is the highest density in the immediate vicinity the opposite of the direction vision in 2034 Maintain and reduce density the applicant pros is to be more than double the existing residential density and the parcels Now why is the, this is where I was alluding to, why is 310 allowed today? The comprehensive plan allows redevelopment and it allows you to keep the existing density that's on the property. Currently it's 310 units, even though it exceeds the 16 units per acre. For redevelopment purposes, the applicant would be allowed to keep 310 units per acre, or 310 units moving forward in a redevelopment project. What does it do as far as transportation based on the trip analysis twice the amount of trips currently? The doubling means at street level pedestrian safety at Winterberry and collar may be a risk air view light impacts on adjacent parcels out of scale for the immediate vicinity based on the density and beach in parking stress during peak season and Does this project meet the intent of the planned unit development? Innovation. Creative site planning that could not be achieved under standard zoning. The conventional multi-story hotel expansion density and height increase is a height increase in density only. You can do this under the current zoning residential tourist. Mixed uses, complimentary residential, commercial, and public uses combined on site. This is really a single use. It's a hotel with accessory uses, which would have restaurants, provide parking, recreational facilities, which would be considered a resort residential use. Public benefit, a justification tied to general welfare. This is really a single owner's return. This grants espresso privilege to one owner without a demonstrated public welfare rationale. And plan consistency. It complies with the comprehensive plan density and character policies. This is breaking up density based on changes of definitions, which I consider fractional density. What you're doing is you're looking for a multiplier to add additional units, and that needs to be addressed in the comprehensive plan, not in the planned unit development application process. Six findings for denial. Again, the fail vision for 2023, strategic principles for low density, noncompliant with policy 1.1.1. The rezoning must be consistent with the contract plan. This application is not. Grants a special privilege to a single owner. No demonstrated public welfare justification for the increased entitlements. Violates policy 3.1.5 density cap. Proposed 60 units per acre exceeds the 16 units per acre maximum for the resort residential category. Does not meet PUD intent per LDC section 30-381. Lacks any innovation, mixed use character, or public design of any kind. Really the only thing that I can see that may be innovative is the definitions to allow for the additional density. Out of scale and adverse traffic impacts doubles the trip. So pedestrian safety and along Winterberry and South Collier may be impacted. Density belongs in the comprehensive plan, not the PUD. This rezoning is asking for additional density. It specifically says in the land development code that it's capped per the comprehensive plan. so in all staff recommends the planning board in the city council sunday uh... recommended city council denial staff recommends the plane board set the city council recommendation today that is resigning based on the following findings the rezoning petition for the subject property does not meet the strategic plan marco el vision three point three four principle too small-town field number five development in scale of a small town Low density in addition to the proposed does not meet Marco Allen's city's government mission principle to number six maintained to reduce density as contained in this as a city strategic plan which is incorporated within the city's comprehensive plan and Rezoning position for the subject property does not comply with the comprehensive plan future land use element goal one objective 1.1 policy 1.1.1 The proposed rezoning of the subprime is a planned unit does not follow the city's comprehensive plan future land use element and map based as the following goals directives and policies specifically future land use element 3.5 which provides as follows Policy 3.1.5, the resort residential future land use categories intend for areas generally along the city's beachfront, which provides residential dwellings and hospitality uses, including resorts, hotels, and timeshares. The category is intended to accommodate those resort needs associated with an island community. The maximum density permitted is 16 dwelling units per acre. Proposed rezoning does not meet the intent of the PUD as provided in the city's land development code. The subject property can continue to be utilized as a hotel and redeveloped for hotel use without the request for rezoning to a PUD. The request for rezoning to PUD fails to meet the standards to consider provided in Section 30-62-3B of the City's Land Development Code. The rezoning fails to meet the standards in consideration of a PUD rezone provided in Section 30-63D of the Land Development Code. Rezoning petition would be more appropriately processed through the city's comprehensive plan amendment process that would allow for any additional density proposed above What is currently allowed in the comprehensive plan? Thank you Dan really appreciate that um handful of questions first

Kind of going back to how we got here, you had talked about what the actual density limitations used to be and are now for the property and what the real density is on the site. I went back and looked at that 2015, I guess it was a renovation plan that was sort of submitted as a site development plan. At that time, would it be a correct statement to say the density was whether intended or not, it was increased.

That's correct.

I had a hard time reading through those application materials, finding other than in a very blurry, poorly scanned piece of paper in a parking matrix, tiny font, where it mentioned it went from I think it was 298 to 310, do you think it was a clear It was clearly presented at that time that they were increasing the density of the property? MR. No. MR. Yeah. That's a problem for me, because reading the application materials, I didn't get that either. And if we're already coming with, for lack of a better word, hands that aren't clean, and now we're asking for another doubling of density, that seems to me to be an issue. The applicant produced a comprehensive consistency plan memo, and one of the things in there, is the Comprehensive Plan does not cap hotel and resort rooms in the resort residential land use category. Do you – is that an accurate statement from your – MR. Say it again.

I kind of threw – MR.

It said the Comprehensive Plan does not cap hotel and resort rooms in the residential – excuse me, in the resort residential land use category.

MR. Yes, it does. It's 16. I think I read it a couple times.

MR. That's what I thought. And it's not just the – You know, we've got that table in the comp plan. It's not just the table. It's your interpretation that it's actually a written policy item.

Written policies override everything else.

Right. At one point, staff was doing a, or I think you had hired a consultant to sort of do a density review of the island. Have you received any findings specifically related to these land use categories as to where we might be with that?

Well, just so you know, we did hire the consultant that helped us with the comprehensive plan because we want to do a deep dive in that table. We found a lot of inconsistencies. We did get a draft back. Mary is spearheading the project, and even with the draft, there was still some work inconsistencies, and we are bringing them back in because there's no more work that has to be done because when we transferred our... our zoning, all of our files, all of our wishes between Marcois and Collier County. There was a lot of interesting math that was going on during that time and how that was calculated. So what you see in the table there, that was a table at that particular time. when we did the comprehensive plan. Since then we found out there's inconsistency there. We're gonna clean those up. We plan on bringing those back shortly, probably within the next year.

That's very helpful. You mentioned, you talked about fractional density. It was a little unclear to me because I know we've, you know, there's been conversations about fractional density in the context of this project. There's been conversations about doing through ReZone. Is it your impression that the applicant is still incorporating fractional density into their proposal?

Well, what the applicant is doing is he's giving a different definition of what a unit is, and it doesn't meet the definition of a unit based on how they define it. I'm not going to go down that hole of what that actually means, but in layman's terms, it means 60 units per acre based on the land development code and the comprehensive plan.

This might be a more appropriate question for the applicant, so I'll probably pose it to them as well, but why don't we have a comp plan amendment in front of us? To your point, that would seem, if we wanted to consider this, that would seem to be the correct avenue.

That was the direction the applicant was given at their pre-application meeting.

Okay. And then I guess my last question for now is we usually get from staff, you know, recommendations for approval with conditions or approval outright. I don't typically see recommendations for denial. I don't know if I've ever seen a recommendation just flat out denial on a rezone. Is that something that is commonly prescribed by city staff?

No. We try to do a recommendation of approval with conditions. It's just there's too many things that need to happen before it gets to that point. To me, as far as staff is concerned, it's missing a step. which is the comprehensive plan change. So it's really hard for me to review something that's not consistent with both the comprehensive plan and the plan unit development. It's hard to move forward from there.

I guess I'd like to add one more. You know, one of the things I'm sure we're going to hear a lot about today, you know, maybe in public comment, and it was included as part of the applicant's narrative and evaluation criteria. There are a lot of what are characterized as public benefits, like roadway improvements and, you know, a lot of parking for environmental groups. And that's all well and good, but my understanding is our charge is to view does this meet the comprehensive plan of land development code. And we can't say, well, staff's saying it doesn't, but we're getting X number of dollars for roadway improvements. We can't just abdicate that charge we have and vote for something on the basis of the public benefits it provides if it conflicts with the comprehensive plan or the land development code.

The best way I can explain that is the land development code and the comprehensive plan does not give me any leeway to look at any financial influences to guide my recommendation, for lack of a better term.

Thank you. I'm all set. Thank you.

Anyone else? So one of the points that you made, Hayden, was about the definitions of dwelling. And so we're talking about transient hotel room without being able to eat or have a kitchen in. So that I see as a conflict, and also a conflict in the definitions.

Well, just so that the definition doesn't talk about eating facilities.

Right, but it implies density, the density cap.

Yeah, that's correct. That's correct, yes.

So if we're talking about a transient... room with no eating facilities, that does not indicate that there should be a cap in density, correct? Is that what I'm?

No, no. The land development code and the camp grants plan specifically have a cap. On density, it even includes hotel rooms, transient use hotel rooms. So there is a cap, 16 units per acre. It specifically, both the comprehensive plan and the land development code specifically states that for the sake of density requirements, hotels are considered one density unit. Okay.

Jeff. Good morning, Dan. Good morning. Just listening to your presentation, a couple of questions just popped up in my head. Number one, to build a second tower is what this is all about. That's correct. And we have the height requirement of 150 feet.

Correct.

Are there any other buildings on the beach now that are at that 150 feet mark?

I wouldn't know. I hadn't even looked at that. You can apply for conditional use to go up to 150 feet. So if it's not, the ability is there to go to 150 feet through a conditional use, currently in our land development code.

I know it's a changeover to a PUD. I'm just wondering if they're reinventing the wheel or if it's already been done. That was my thought process on that. Which brings up that other question, that 60 units measurement. Are there any other hotels or properties on the island that are at that now?

I don't know. Until I get a site plan that comes before me for some sort of a renovation, I really don't backtrack. We will have that information, though, soon through the density study that we're bringing forward. Thank you.

Sure.

Fractional density. that was brought forward once before a while back right and that it didn't go anywhere?

That was the previous planned unit development that's across the street. That was for an assisted living facility and that with the same concept was also applied through a PUD which ultimately the city council denied and they came in and met the comprehensive plan.

And then one thing that you said a minute ago I you may have misspoke but our

Our definition of a dwelling in our definitions, right, like 30-10, which is that before and after 2015, this site had more than 26 units an acre. This policy does not state that there's a hotel cap. In this policy, it also states this category is intended to accommodate those resort needs associated with an island community. So if anything, this policy is designed to ensure that the resorts are able two you have the Marriott which isn't a PUD and you have this hotel which is not in a PUD the this is not a multiplier this is not fractional density this is a direct ask of a very specific amount of units based on the fact that hotel units are not residential density under your comprehensive plan Mr. Smith is kind of bouncing back and forth between the LDC and the comprehensive plan but when asked by various members of you, he stated the comprehensive plan controls. I would agree with that. The comprehensive plan controls. There's a definition in the comprehensive plan of what a dwelling unit is. It specifically is a unit where someone lives. No one lives in a hotel. These are transient units. And so this is not density, but you don't need to sit here and say, well, that's an interesting argument you're bringing up and therefore it's true. If that wasn't true, there wouldn't be other policies that have hotel caps across the balance of the island. You would have no need to do that. And helpfully, this issue has been litigated in Bay County, and this exact language that didn't specify and distinguish hotels versus regular dwelling units, the court determined that that was significant and it mattered. And we're going to come back to that in the presentation, but I just want to confirm that this is not additional bonus density there was nothing about the removal and the comprehensive plan as to that point that justified why this had 30 units before and or 29 units before and is now 60. above 26 all the numbers are immaterial the question is can we deal with the rest of this can we meet the traffic standards can we meet the parking requirements can we meet the massing requirements there was a question asked to mr smith are there any other things on the beach that are 150 feet tall He said he didn't know. The building immediately to the south is Crystal Shores. It is a zone height of 150 feet. It's immediately adjacent. And you'll see this in the renderings. And you can see how they stack up next to each other. If we go north, we can eventually get to the Madeira. That's inside a PUD. That is a zone height of over 180 feet. If we go south, we get down to the PUD that is Cape Marco. We get to a zone height of 22 floors. It's not actually put in feet, but 22 floors is somewhere between 200 and 240 feet zoned. So it is not the case that this is inherently a density issue. And like I said, we'll go through this in full, but I want to make sure we're clear about that. on the front end. And it was also interestingly suggested that this is four times allowable. That's four times 16, not four times 26. Every other hotel on this island is 26 units an acre unless it's in this category. And this category is very small. It's west of Collier. It's south of the Marriott. It's north of Cape Marco. So it's not this massive area of the island. There was questions about why we didn't go down the comprehensive plan route. And this is a very important point. It's because we are not conceding that hotel density is residential density. And I think that's an important point after the Live Local Act. If we came forward with a comprehensive plan amendment and suggested that hotel density and residential density was the same thing, and we wanted to increase the density on this site to 60 units an acre, your new live local density maximum on the island is 60 units an acre. That would be a non-starter. And it would be something that if it were to go through, I would submit would not be a good situation for your island. You would lose significant control over development on the island because you already have buildings such as down at the end that are 200 feet tall. And if you had a 200-foot height limit and you could do 60 units an acre, residential units, you're going to be staring down the barrel of a pretty serious live local problem. So I just wanted to put all of those things out on the front end before we go into this at a more detailed level. And so to summarize that initial round, hotel density is not residential density. This is acknowledged by your comprehensive plan across all of the other elements where you have hotels. It's not addressed here. That makes some degree of sense as we're going to talk about in this presentation given the location of this site because the main thing that zoning does is it regulates where things go. And so this is not, we share no property lines with single family homes. We are not in the MICA deed restrictions. We are across the street from a commercial facility. We are across the street at the benefit of a traffic signal. So there's a lot of things going on to this location that make this a more logical place than elsewhere in the code. So given those initial observations, I'm going to ask Ellen Summers to come up. She is a planner with Bowman. and she's going to provide our expert planning analysis on this application and after she concludes we're going to bring up Mr. Trebelcock who's going to provide some engineering analysis I do have owners representatives who would like to say some things as well and I would love to answer as many questions as possible to go through really this density piece because Want to be clear that we are not standing here and saying that this is residential density And I think if you go back and frankly if I could have mr. Smith's presentation put up on the screen I'd like to go through that presentation and explain where we're bouncing back and forth between the land development code and the comprehensive plan and ignoring the distinction between hotels and Not hotels and the key here is what is the current density on the ground as approved by City Council because my suggestion is if you are denying this because you believe that it can't be more than and this was new to me I thought they were gonna say 26 units an acre 16 units an acre we've always been double that so what that sounds like to me is a change of interpretation by the city that will create a significant issue for my client under the Burt Harris Act. So I'm going to call up Ellen, and let's have her talk through this, and then we'll go from there.

Hi. Good morning. For the record, my name is Ellen Summers Hilton. ironically not connected to the Hilton Hotel. I'm a certified land use planner. I have grown up in Southwest Florida. I've worked in Southwest Florida as a land use planner just shy of 15 years. Zach kind of teed up quite a bit here that I'm going to kind of go through in a little bit more detail here for you all. And I'm going to apologize in advance if I take a few awkward pauses. I seem to run out of breath a little quickly here these days. Of course, we're here for the Marco Beach Hotel Beauty Zone. We're located at the northwest corner of South Collier Boulevard and Winterberry Drive. The hotel was developed in 1985. It's remained under the same ownership and management throughout over 40 years. Provides, as we've discussed, 310 approved rooms. I want to give you all a little bit of an aerial. I think this provides a great setting, if you will, for this project that we're talking about and the adjacent area that we're located. So again, we're there at that northwest corner of South Collier Boulevard and Winterberry Drive. We are adjacent to the Crystal Shores. Again, that is developed at 150 feet, and that's that building directly to the south. We have Surfside to the north, and then we have that commercial development directly across from South Collier Boulevard. Again, just to show the zoning, we're in the existing RT zoning district with existing residential tours to the north and south. We have C3 across the street from South Collier Boulevard there at that intersection where it then transitions into C1 and then pass that to residential. Zach went into this, but I'm just going to kind of reiterate it here as a certified land use planner on this project. We are currently designated in the future land use category as resort residential. That's according to the 2040 comprehensive plan adopted in October of 2021. This property has been designated in a similar category to its current designation since the original development plans of the Deltona Corporation of Marco Island. And I want to recognize that this portion of the island has been set aside for hotel and resort development. And again, we reiterate that this project is consistent with not only the current comprehensive plan, but it's consistent with Marco Island's historic and public development documents since 1970. In front of you, I have two future land use maps. The first is from 1970. It's the Marco Island Master Plan. I know it may be a little bit difficult to view here, but let me see if I can use this pointer here and you can see this. So again, this is the 1970 Marco Island Master Plan, and you can see in this brown designated area, that was for hotels and apartments. Um, and I wanna note this just to show how much of the island was designated for hotels and apartments. And at this time, and it's currently evolved to the current future land use map again, approved in 2021. That's the one here to the, to the right. And that resort residential area significantly changed. Um, so again, this is that brown area here compared to what was initially intended. from the 1970 Marco Island master plan. Regarding the density, law in the state of Florida, when comprehensive plans do not include a density cap for hotel rooms, there is no density cap for hotel rooms. Again, the comprehensive plan distinguishes between standard densities for dwelling or dwelling units and hotel units. which are allowed at a higher per acre rate throughout the comprehensive plan and in the resort residential policy have no cap, as Zach previously mentioned. Again, the comprehensive plan defines dwelling or dwelling unit as a structure in which occupants live and eat separately from anyone else and have direct access to the outside of the unit. The property's rooms are hotel rooms. Hotel rooms are not dwelling units, and other than being allowed at a higher per acre density, are not defined in the comprehensive plan. Zach had on the visualizer for you all policies 3.23, 3.25, 3.24, which are the village commercial, community commercial, town center mixed use designations, where it states the hotel rooms are capped at a per acre rate higher than the standard densities or capped at 26 hotel rooms per acre. Policy 3.15, the resort residential of the current City of Marco Island comprehensive plan does not have a capped hotel motel density. And again, I have that policy up here as well, where at the very end, we talk about the maximum density permitted is dwelling units, as opposed to hotel units, where we've seen other policies of the comprehensive plan. Within our PUD, we have a list of proposed uses. We include hotels and transient lodging. And here we define for the purposes of calculating hotel density within this PUD, the following conditions shall be met to exceed 26 hotel units per acre. And that requires all required parking to be provided within the PUD and all required off-street parking to not be separated by a collector or arterial roadway. All hotel guest rooms are constructed in a tower or towers of varying heights. All such tower elements shall be oriented such that a view corridor is maintained above the building height of the lobby portion of the hotel structure, which is not considered a tower. And the PUD shall include a dune system with native dune plant species adjacent to the beach.

There was a representation or argument made by staff that the PUD is not employing any sort of creative techniques of planning other than as to the definition. I would suggest that that's not the correct way to look at this. This concept here is not allowing a carte blanche 600 or so rooms, it's requiring that certain features be met to ensure that the impact can be addressed through the rest of the application. And so that's exactly what a PUD is for. That is why the Marriott isn't a PUD. You have another hotel in a PUD in the Old Marco Inn in North Marco. And the PUDs allow us to go into the specific sections and add requirements, add switches, add levers to make sure that bigger planning concepts can be addressed inside the PUD itself. So if we did a straight rezone, there's none of this. This is not in the conditional use process. It's not in the straight rezoning process. Although there would be no straight rezone here that would make sense. It would just be the conditional use or this. And so this allows us to plan very specifically for impacts throughout the application.

Thank you. And again, as Zach states, we have these... This language here is part of this beauty. It's intentional. When we talk about that second bullet that all hotel rooms are constructed in a tower of varying heights, that they shall be oriented such that a view corridor is maintained, again, that's intentional. That's intentional to the design and scale of the project. In addition to the hotel and transient units, we also include parking lots and garages. Multi-family dwellings family care facilities timeshare facilities townhouses and these are are permitted as right currently today on the property and again our accessory uses Spa recreational facilities parking facilities retail shops meetings and ballrooms again very consistent with resort hotel We have before you our PUD master plan. We're showing our required landscape buffers, total site area, and where we're located with our proposed and potential access areas of the site. We are unique that we have an existing right-hand turn lane into the property. It's aids in traffic flow on South Collier Boulevard. We also have a dedicated left-hand turn lane northbound into the site. Our development standards within the PUD, again, are also intentional. We are seeking 150 feet maximum building height, which is 12 or 13 stories. And again, that's consistent with the property to the south of Crystal Shores, which was approved at a zone building height of 150 feet. We include stepped-back setbacks, especially along the right-of-way. This is intended to prevent... that canyon effect that you may see along roadways. We've got our buildings pushed back a little bit further. The higher they are, it creates nice visual transition, if you will, and it helps reduce that bulk and scale, creates that compatibility with the surrounding area. So before you, I have a conceptual rendering. I thought it was very important to demonstrate how this new tower would be, what that looks like when we're talking about this South Collier Boulevard frontage and how this looks in line with the existing scale and scope of the area. Again, we have our existing tower there. That's on the left side. about 11 stories or 100 feet on the right side here is our proposed new tower at a maximum 150 feet again consistent with the structure to the south adjacent crystal shores a little bit more of a front facade perspective of this site again we are looking to have that new tower set back quite uh quite extensively onto the site. Again, so we're reducing any kind of canyon effect on South Collier Boulevard. This is intended to control the scale, the massing. You have that view corridor that I mentioned and the PUD permitted uses. So we have our lobby. Excuse me. This is our lobby area here, existing tower. And we specifically provide language so that this new tower is space to create or maintain this existing view corridor to the gulf. And again, another perspective. This is looking to the northwest. This is where our proposed parking garage area will be located, existing tower, proposed tower, and again, in line and in scale with adjacent property to the south. Crystal Shores is building height. I've said it quite a few times. It's an existing 150 feet. This is the front facade. This is what you see when you are driving down South Collier Boulevard. It is a fairly large massing, if you will, building frontage along South Collier. And again, that's something that we're looking to try to mitigate for our proposed site with a similar building height. Couple other aerial perspectives. I think again. This is important. You know when we keep talking about the number of units proposed and Maintaining that island character, but I think we need to also consider the existing island character And whether or not this is at a scale and in my opinion when we look on the beachfront area we have the Marriott and That's the Madera there at 180 feet. We have the Marriott Hotel facility. And then we have their off-site parking here on the east side of South Carter Boulevard. Something unique about our site is we have turn lanes that will be maintained. When we talk about pedestrian and traffic safety, I think that's important to note. We already have the existing spacing and the availability for that right turn lane and access into the site. And again, we've created some variation of massing with our development standards. So again, just another perspective of the other major resort within the area. And again, that's that Madeira here, max 180 feet. And I do want to note that between the Marriott and our property, the maximum building height for everything else is just about 100 feet. And then Zach had mentioned Cape Marco, which is on the very southern end here. Maximum 22 stories, which is approximately 200 to 240 feet. And that's Cape Marco. From there, I'm going to go ahead and introduce to Norm. He's our traffic consultant, our traffic engineer. Thank you.

Good morning, my name is Norman. I'm a professional engineer, certified planner and professional traffic operations engineer with 36 years of local experience. We prepared the traffic impact statement for the project. You all have a copy of the more detailed analysis that we did prepare. One of the things in the PUD that we would do is some of those governors that was mentioned that Zach had mentioned was one thing in the transportation side is we put a what we call a trip cap on the project. So it's based on the room. So you have a number of these governors that really kind of tie things down and on the project. So we do create typically the PM peak hour is the peak hour. trip generation so we create that trip cap and i'll review a few other items from the traffic study as well So the TIS, it did use the Institute of Transportation Engineers trip generation, as you all require, for the proposed hotel expansion and existing hotel. In the analysis, we did, you know, we included the city's data that they have available, but we actually picked up also more recent data from March of 2025 for South Collier Boulevard and Winterberry as well. I also did review the more recent traffic data that the city has collected. That's the July 10th, 2026 report that you all have and reviewed that data from their table three dash one and three dash two, which is. the level of service analysis that was done and so I did review that and added all our traffic on there and we're within the levels of service. We don't exceed capacity. The analysis there was really focused on Collier Boulevard. There's not data at this point for Winterberry and that latest data but the data we have and presented in the traffic impact statement does include Winterberry as well. So the level of service is sufficient and really so based on the concurrency evaluation there is in fact based on the substantial incompetent evidence that is provided to you in the traffic study adequate and sufficient roadway capacity to accommodate the project traffic. The network is projected to perform within the levels of service, both on all the data that we analyze and even utilizing the more recent data that was provided to us as well. The access is to remain. As Ellen had mentioned, there is existing turn lanes there and those would be reevaluated as well during the site development review phase to make sure that there's sufficient storage for those turn lanes. For the additional access that's being proposed as well, there would be turn lanes created for that. There would be a southbound right, there's an existing northbound left at the intersection with Winterberry, but we would make sure that that's sufficient as well. Signal modifications, the project would be responsible to modify the signal. And as a matter of fact, the city is going through an island-wide upgrade of all the signals, and one of the commitments of this project is to actually underwrite the cost of the controllers, which is a big part of the whole project citywide to take care of the signal as well. We would do a detailed evaluation during the site development plan phase for the accesses and a right-of-way permit as well would need to be taken care of at that phase. And also they'd pay impact fees for the project too. So kind of looking at those elements here, make sure.

Okay, great.

So one of the things is, again, the turn lanes. There's existing turn lanes as mentioned. And then there's what we call a throat entrance. So in other words, where the gatehouse is would be far enough back to allow cars to queue up. And so the main thing we're trying to prevent is any spillover of traffic on the main line roadway and so the project has good elements of design and then the additional access would be over here. The main access is still where the existing entrance is but this entrance would also allow more efficient flow of traffic to and so then this existing signal we'd be adding I anticipate adding a couple mast arms just in modifying the mast arms to make sure that they work and that would be something that the project would have to take care of us what we call a site improvement and as such There's other items that were mentioned as well as transportation-wise is to repave and re-stripe Winterberry Drive down to Heathwood or create a shared use pathway just as a commitment to improve conditions out there. And so then with that, I'll transition back to about the public improvements. Thank you.

So consistent with the last two PUD approvals the city entered into, we did an analysis of ways to ensure that this increase in intensity, because it is an increase in intensity, can be offset appropriately. And we looked at some of the things that were used as rational nexus for other applications, and they included roadway improvements, landscaping responsibilities, and various arrangements with the cities. And so these are all inside the PUD developer commitments. however believe that these things should be discussed more heavily with city staff if this were to move forward because we did not get what I would describe as significant input from city staff on on these concepts and I think it's important that while we were modeling what the Marriott had done in its application, what the senior center had done in its application, this needs to be evaluated, I think, as part of that process. I want to zoom out a little bit here and talk about the policy here. This is 2026 May data from Paradise Coast. Marco Island, as of May, had 1,275 hotel rooms. 810 of those were at the Marriott. 310 of those are currently at the Hilton. So between these two hotels, most of your hotel rooms are here. I want to contrast this with your Airbnbs. You had 2,060 registered vacation rentals. Now, on the hotel side, we're talking about room counts. On the vacation rental side, this is Department of Business and Professional Regulation data, we're talking about registrations. So to the extent that those 2,600 units are single-family homes, what we're really talking about is 3,000, 4,000 Airbnb rooms. And so the significance here is because the city is not able to step into the Airbnb space and regulate the way that it would any other land use, the market has sort of solved its own demand issue by supporting two thousand sixty airbnb units i would suggest that the city's appropriate response to that is to look at the number of hotel units it has if we look at the line that says naples is not actually naples it's unincorporated collier county And you can see here that they have more like 6,000 hotel rooms and 4,000 vacation rental registrations, which is probably about even 6,000, 6,000. And what I want to emphasize here is the significance of zoning at the simplest level. is about locating things, citing things in the right place. And so when an Airbnb shows up to serve the same need that a hotel room shows up to serve, it drops itself in a neighborhood. There is no TIS submitted. There is no compatibility analysis submitted. There's no questions about how many people are staying in that Airbnb. And while that sometimes arises, it gets very hard to enforce, as the city knows from deep litigation experience. When you try to step in and do what you would normally do in any other land use situation, the state of Florida has ill-advisedly told you no. And so when we're looking at the existing hotel framework and when we go all the way back So this slide, and ask ourselves, where can the demand be satisfied? This is where the demand can be satisfied. Otherwise, what's happening is these Airbnbs are not showing up here. They're showing up all over here. all over the place, next to people who did not sign up for this. What is happening in this location, because even from the original plan, the original plan would have allowed hotels all the way up to Tigertail. Now there's a whole zone that is high density residential, but it's not hotels. And so the remainder of where we are and what you can do to address the fact that you have more than double Airbnb rooms than you have hotel rooms is looking at your existing hotel framework. You have two primary hotels that drive all of your rooms. One of them is already in a PUD, which has allowed the city to work with that hotel operator to find ways to make that function. This property is the perfect candidate to go into a PUD to allow for that same kind of planning to address a market need that has been dictated because of the legislative action here, which certainly my client does not agree with. You have no control over that. And so I think that is a critical policy reason to think about what's going on here. And when we go back to the top, which is the density, because that's the two objections I see in the staff report are density and what's appropriate for a planned unit development. go back to the top the density piece is there it is clearly omitted it is present everywhere else and when we look at this map it makes even more sense because this is where those things go and there are not other places for those things to go and so putting a 600 unit hotel in the town center maybe that doesn't make sense but that's not where we are we're not in the town center in the town center has a clear statement. It's 26 hotel rooms per acre in the town center. So to put a 600-unit hotel there is going to take something like 30 acres, which is going to be hard to assemble in that zone. And so again, the more we look at this from the actual future land use map, the historical evolution of the island, and recognizing, of course, that As we all know, and everyone who's participated in Leadership Collier or Bend of the Museum, none of this happened. And so the size of the island is much smaller. But look, we also lost this zone of hotels right here. And so things have changed. It's not 1970. But what is your available way to address the fact that you really do not have many hotel rooms on this island? And you certainly don't have a diversity of hotel rooms on this island. Hilton and Marriott are not the same product. They're distinguishable products. They add to the available choices for those coming to the island. And both of these hotels serve a critical role for support of the island itself because both of these hotels are tied into the tourist development tax system, the sales tax system. Obviously, the property tax component of this is substantial. But that's not, and I want to agree with Dan, on this part, so I'll massively disagree with him and massively agree with him. The massive agreement is there is no such thing as a financial analysis of this from a zoning perspective. My point is, there is a public policy analysis piece, and that the density is not an issue here. The question is, when we look at your comprehensive plan, it acknowledges that this is a resort community. It acknowledges, but it doesn't say the whole island's a resort community. It says that it has a resort component. Where is that component? It's right here. If you, in the morning, go and walk this zone, that's what's here. Our neighbor, the Crystal Shores, is a timeshare. It's not apartments. our neighbor surf club is timeshare so we're not we're aware this kind of vacation energy is and I think that is critical in looking at this and it explains why there isn't a hotel density cap here so I do before we conclude our presentation in principle and I appreciate the perspective slides here because I think they help looking at what going on because basically there's a hole in the skyline right now where where this this would go I want to bring up Hilton's representatives to just talk a little bit about the family's involvement in the island its current operation some of the economic impact of where this is going and then I'd love to entertain questions before moving on to public comment so if I could call up Karen Marasco and she can introduce herself and introduce our manager James Garcia and just tell you a little bit about the operation itself

Thank you, Zach.

My name is Karen Maresco, and I run the hotel division for Olshan Properties. I'm here to represent Zach Bornstein, who is the CEO and the Olshan family who has owned and managed the hotel since its inception. Mort Olshan was the founder of our family operation here. He bought the land as an anniversary present for his wife Carol back in the early 80s. Olshan family has owned and managed the hotel since 1985. During that time, the hotel continues to be the home away from home for Carol, the children, and the grandchildren. Mort, during the time the hotel continues, Mort passed away last year, three months prior to his 100th birthday, and ironically three months prior to our 40th anniversary here at Marco Island. While this might not be relevant to the subject today, we thought it was important that you understood the Olshan family and their intent and how they have been an active steward for the building and for the community since Mort arrived back in the early 80s. Before we get into the details, I came down this morning to represent the family. to answer any questions you have about the company and our plan. But what I'd like to do before we get into it is I'd like to introduce James Garcia. Don't tell him this, but I think he's one of the best general managers I've worked with, and I've been doing it longer than Mr. Marriott. But James has been at the property for over seven years, and he represents our 240 team members that obviously have also made the hotel their home away from home. James?

Good morning. Thank you. As Karen already mentioned, once again, my name is James Garcia. I'm the general manager for the Hilton Marco Island. I've had the privilege to be the general manager of the Hilton, again, as Karen already mentioned, for the last seven plus years. And I have deeply become invested in the community. On a routine basis, I participate, of course, in the community activities. Certainly, I do my best to be a good steward of the property as it relates to the community. I am happy to report that my job here or my tenure here at the Hilton is not due to my position. I've actually discovered Marco Island in the early 90s. I've worked with Hilton for many years. I started in the East Coast. And I had been coming here to Marco Island for many years when my children were very small. So I was, I've been or was one of the weekend customers that would come here to enjoy the resort. Obviously, we've made many memories with my family here. And to that point, we have always considered this community a very special location for us to make memories as a family. Throughout my tenure, I have worked to build strong partnerships with the city, local organizations, the community stakeholders. I truly believe that a successful hotel is not just a place where customers come to stay. It is also to be an active business partner, active community partner that contributes to the vitality, character, of course, and the long-term success of the island. During my time here, I've had many opportunities to partner not only with the city and other organizations, but the one thought that always comes to my mind when I say that statement is during Hurricane Anne. During Hurricane Anne, we were privileged to house the first responders from the island for approximately two weeks. As everybody knows, it was a challenging time. We had the ability to house them while they continued their community service, of course, dealing with all the challenges that the storm left behind. I'm proud to share that on a regular basis, I do participate, or the hotel participates, with local organizations and businesses to assist them. with their objectives and their events. We're always very open to hear what the organizations on the island need to accomplish and how, of course, we can assist them. Overall, I believe, as a long-term hotelier, we are committed to supporting the local business, creating employment opportunities, welcoming visitors who contribute to the local economy. and participating in the community initiatives. We value the relationship. We feel it's one of the most important. We recognize the importance of thoughtful planning that balances growth and preserving the quality of the community, what makes this community unique, of course. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today, and, of course, I'd be happy to answer any questions as well. Thank you very much. Hayden.

Well, sorry for Zach. I don't know if Zach, you have any closing comments. I don't want to cut you off prematurely.

Our primary closing comment is this is consistent with the comprehensive plan and I'm ready for questions.

Okay. I do want to dive into the density issue. But before I do that, I had some questions about the trip generation. And I don't know if, Norm, this is better for you or Zach. Staff had talked about this effectively doubling the trips to the hotel?

Yes, sir.

Give me your take on that, because that does seem like it could be a problem.

That is, and that's why we looked at those actual trips and applied them and added them to the background traffic to ensure that it doesn't create a level of service deficiency. So we did, in fact, look at that objectively, and so increasing it. Because in the trip generation, the trip generation really is a function of the room count. So if you do double the rooms, you're essentially going to close to be doubling your peak hour trips.

So we are doubling peak hours? Yes, sir. Yes, nearly. Okay. Yes. You mentioned this did not impede or keep the level of service of the roadway beyond what is required. How close does it get, for lack of a better way of phrasing it?

Okay. So in the most recent data that the city has collected, the level of service capacity is much higher than what the background traffic indicates is there. So there's plenty of capacity, in other words. So adding our peak hour trips really doesn't move the needle on that there. Thank you.

That's all I had on the TIS. I appreciate that. Thank you. On this density thing, Zach, would you – the very first piece of paper you put up in the – on the screen there where it talked about 3.1.5, if you could display that again, I'd be grateful. So I'm not going to lie, this is an interesting case as to the fact that in the other categories that allow hotel uses, there is an explicit mention of the hotel density cap at the end of the paragraphs. The way I read 3.1.5 was that the density cap mentioned at the end was implicit to the use description of it. This provides residential dwellings and hospitality uses to include resorts, hotels, and timeshare uses. I guess I'd want staff's or maybe David's reaction to the contention that, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is one of the only land use category areas in which hotels are allowed, but according to the contention, there's not an explicit cap. How would the city respond to that?

Thank you. So there is a specific definition in the land development code that provides that each hotel unit is to be treated as a dwelling unit. So based upon that, the land development code is generated after the comprehensive plan. We need to make sure that our land development code is consistent with the comprehensive plan. So I would say that using that definition from the Land Development Code and looking at that policy in the comp plan, that that reference to dwelling unit also applies to hotel units. So therefore, that density limitation contained in that land use category is consistent.

If I could respond to that. On the screen, I've put Section 3381, which is the PUD section. And Mr. Smith read this. So essentially the way I understood Mr. Tulses' comment and argument is that the land development code, and we don't contest this, has a reference to hotel rooms being treated as a permissible density unit, and therefore we must assume that it must be consistent with the comprehensive plan, because legally it has to be, and that's never been addressed, so it must be the case. What I would point you to is the rest of the land development code, especially the land development code applicable to planned unit developments. typically when interpreting regulatory codes we look for the more specific language to govern here there's specific language that says the maximum density permissible in a PUD district shall be guided by the density rating system contained in the future land use element of the city comprehensive plan and so not as in go look at the LDC definition but in a PUD go look at the comprehensive plan and which we have done here, and the comprehensive plan does not have the cap on it. And so for applying the more specific land development code section to this specific scenario, which is this one, I think that solves that problem as to this reason, but I want to go further than that. I don't think that because the land development code contradicts the comprehensive plan, that means the land development code must control the comprehensive plan. I think the case law is extremely clear that when the land development code contradicts the comprehensive plan, it's inconsistent. the comprehensive plan and so whether or not a challenge could be brought against the city for its failure to conform its land development code to its current comprehensive plan I don't know it's not relevant here because as a PUD this issue is resolved by the section on the screen

want to make this a back and forth i don't know david if you had any response to that i do have other questions but if you have response to that i mean my my only comment would be that um the the land development code is what staff in the city looks to with respect to development issues the land development code is generated after the comprehensive plan specific findings with respect to the land development code being consistent with the comprehensive plan And you can't just look at one and not look at the other. I think you have to look at them and interpret them together. And in this instance, where we have the specific definition related to the fact that a hotel unit is a dwelling unit, we can then go back to the comprehensive plan and read that paragraph and make them consistent.

And to assist with that analysis, what I would say is this is why we cited the Bay County v. Harrison case. The language in that case is substantially similar to the language here. The court concluded that hotel densities are distinct from residential densities. Let's go back to the timing of the application here.

Before you get off that point. So I would say that this case is distinguishable, what we're dealing with here today, is distinguishable from the Bay County case because we specifically have that reference in our land development code with respect to what a hotel unit is. A hotel unit is a dwelling unit. They did not have that in the Bay County case.

So I would distinguish that case from what we have here today I don't know that we know that they didn't have that in the Bay County case because the Bay County case is about consistency which is what this question is and we don't look at the land development code and what I want to suggest here is that when the city enacted the 2023 comprehensive plan it had one year from the according to state statute growth management act to conform its land development code to the comp plan and If it didn't do that here, because that comment we're talking about doesn't show up post-2023. It was already there. So in the 2023 amendment, which was a massive restatement of your entire comp plan, when that hit the line here, the city needed to go back in. Because let me give you another example. In your code well after 2023, you left the affordable housing density bonus in your code. And eventually, I think this got removed. But there was a period of time where it was there. And the comp plan very clearly says no more affordable housing density bonuses. Had someone come forward at that time and said, well, it's in the Land Development Code. We must try to interpret it from that direction. That's not my understanding. But I want to give you one more argument here, and then I'll just listen to anything David has to say. The zoning at a high level, not at a high level, at a basic level, is a function of the city's police power as held by the cases it has to be interpreted narrowly strictly because it's in derogation of the common law lights of private property and rinker materials and the other cases in this space interpreting zoning codes says the following when a zoning code is a land development regulation comprehensive plan land development code is ambiguous or silent it has to be interpreted for the unrestricted use by the property owner of their property And so what I would suggest is bringing up this land development code issue and suggesting that maybe this pre-comprehensive plan enacted section might create some ambiguity here. The best it does is create ambiguity. And if it's ambiguous, the case law, Rinker Materials, and that's a 1973 Florida Supreme Court case. That's not like a recent new thing, would suggest and hold that we have to interpret this in favor of the property owner here. And what furthers that point is what position was the property owner in here before all this? 30 units an acre. And what position were they in in 2014? 298 units an acre. And I appreciate, and the suggestion, the council just didn't know what they were doing in 2015. But they did it. And they are a legislative, I went to planning board too, by the way. It didn't just show up at council. It was reviewed by your staff. It went to planning board. It went to city council. It was approved. There was a hearing. There was a comment about the 12 units. And so that does not mean that all of this should be approved. But what that means is, what is the background rule when it comes to density in the resort residential category? And how has the city already applied this to this exact property?

Well, that leads into one of my other questions. You mentioned in your opening comments that what is on the ground as determined by past city council approvals is relevant which I think is what you're bringing up now. You acknowledged and I hope you would acknowledge that what was done in 2015 was at best unclear in the paperwork that was presented like that was not a clear situation even though I watched both planning board and council meetings in video like that did come up very briefly but a plain reading of the application materials does not give a good impression and not to put uses or cases off each other just last week we were dealing with the Rose Marini case where we were looking at what you acknowledge were things that the council had approved that were perhaps not correct in the way they did them and so we're rectifying those mistakes and making improvements to try to move closer to what the code says today. Isn't that an acknowledgment that city councils and past planning boards can and have made mistakes on this island and that that shouldn't govern or bind us to what we consider today?

No. The past councils, anyone can make a mistake, and certainly the staff and the planning board can make what I would call more material mistakes because they are not the official governing body of the city. But to briefly address the distinction between Rosmarina and this, in the Rosmarina example, we felt it was important, and we did not concede that we need to file the variances. We filed the variances to just facilitate the dialogue about those specific modifications. That doesn't change the entitlement issue as to that application.

And I don't want to do too much on the record on this hearing about the Rosemarine entitlement process, but here— But you did file the conditional use because you realized you needed it, and that is something that should have been addressed at a prior council discussion that wasn't— The conditional use was not part of the 2014 approval.

There was no open rack storage. Should have been. No, there was no open rack storage in the 2014 approval. Okay. It was a repair building, so there was no conditional use that was required. So the only issue that would potentially apply to this question of the variances, and again, that was a decision made without waiving the argument to ensure that we could address that in a way that set a better path forward on that particular application. But what I would suggest here is this application was already at 29 units an acre before 2015. And so we're at 29 units an acre, and then we're at 30 units an acre. that has a consequence here for this particular situation. And the other thing I would point out is this. In Rosemarina, it's not like there was some way to interpret that northern property boundary as not requiring a landscape buffer. There's no other thing that, well, maybe council was reading it this way. There wasn't something along those lines, and so we filed the variance. Here there is a way to interpret that there is not a hotel density cap here for this particular property and the properties west of Collier, south of Marriott, north of Cape.

So is it your contention that there is no cap, no density cap for hotels in this land use category.

That's what we've said very clearly. And I think that what that means is it's not unregulatable. You have traffic. You have parking. The parking here is really what drives this particular one. In order to park on site, we have to build a substantial parking garage and provide a substantial number of spaces. If we didn't have to park it at that level, we could do maybe 800 rooms on this site from a spacing standpoint.

Well, that's what I was just going to suggest is from that perspective, putting aside structural constraints of the property for a moment, I mean, you could – knock things down and put up a big parking lot, I guess. Is there any density limitation that would prevent, I don't know, A handful of years from now, we're getting a request, why not a third tower and X hundred number of new units? From a density standpoint, is it your contention that there is no restriction whatsoever on that happening?

From a density standpoint, that's my contention. And my observation that goes with that contention is that that's not the only rule in play here. And so you have to meet the parking, you have to meet the traffic, you have to meet the massing. So for example, this Crystal Shores comparison height is important. Because it shows the scale of that area. If we came in and said we wanted a 200 foot tall tower, which we're going to have to start going to those kind of heights to add these numbers, like 800,000 rooms. That would be something that would allow the comprehensive plan to come back into play and say, wait a second. We're now going out of scale with this zone We have we have crystal shores and we have an entitlement and a conditional used to go to 150 But you want to go to 200 and why do you want to go to 200 because you're picking up these extra rooms And so there is a there are guardrails out there They're just not in the density space and we know this because the site is 30 units of naked right now so as a sort of corollary Is your reading I'm sorry is your reading of a

the comprehensive plan that the resort residential where our hotels are largely concentrated is the only land use category on Marco Island with no upper limit on density?

MR. That's my reading.

MR. Okay.

I had other questions. Did you want to MR. I just wanted to add on to what you've said. So something I – when reading all of this information, Something I wanted to ask is basically to Hayden's point, if it's your contention that there are no density limits, why are you here requesting a reason? Why aren't you here requesting a site development plan amendment just saying there's no density limit, we want to add a second tower, and we want to put up 800 or 900 rooms, again, to your point, space constraints, stormwater, levels of service, all those things, why are we going down this road then if your contention is there are no density limits?

other constraints in the code so for example the base that the buy right zoning right now without the conditional use is a hundred feet the conditional use comes with all kinds of very Crystal Shores specific obscure requirements that did not work for this site again this is a 1985 site so on the north side it's not at the property line in a way that it would need to be in order to preserve that structure and so essentially consistent with Mr. Smith's observation that PUDs are helpful for redevelopment we were fitting the rest of these things together. So this is not just about density. We have to deal with the existing buildings, the existing northern setback, the height issue as to the conditional use. And then in all of this, what we wanted to do, because I thought it was important from a comprehensive planning consistency standpoint, is we need to be able to prove that through additional limitations that we came up with, This would not create other comprehensive plan consistency issues. And so one of the main things that is in this is in order to get the 626, everything has to be parked on the same side of the street. So we can't use off-site parking agreements to resolve this particular property. that is something that in the straight zoning category we can't say things like that to help tailor fit this from an impact standpoint and so to address the rest of the consistency issues that are out there the pud was what was chosen because again that's what the marriott does the marriott has a pud that has all kinds of conditions in it that say here's how we're going to do all these things to try to address the impact but we wanted to provide a vehicle for that so following up on jason's question um

in the context of other avenues to get at this. You had mentioned at the onset the reason and I don't want to put words in my mouth but my understanding was the reason you are not here for a comp plan amendment is principally because of some pretty significant live local considerations that that would create. Is that fair?

That is absolutely fair.

Okay. My question to you is It seems to be at least the implication for us, if we followed your reasoning for a moment, that there's at least a lack of clarity between the Land Development Code and the Comp Plan on all of this. And if a comp plan amendment could achieve that and achieve your project, isn't the live local objection really just a political consideration? Isn't it just a we know that would never happen because it would blow up the density for the island and we boxed into that for live local. So politically it's a less advantageous avenue for the applicant you're representing to achieve.

It's certainly a political and a policy concern, but that doesn't change the fact that the underlying reason why we are taking this approach is because we believe that the density argument that we provide is the correct one. And so your question to me really, if this is not correct, please correct me. I'm understanding your question to be, why don't you just do a comprehensive plan amendment? Right. And the answer is because I don't agree with staff's interpretation of density here.

But it's also because it would be politically untenable and I think that it would have additional ramifications. Yes The comp plan in other areas, I mean goal one talks about the city small-town charm as consistent with low density and intensity I know these are overarching goals, but how am I squaring a 60 density you know 60 unit per acre density allowance 150 foot tower as consistent with that goal of our comprehensive plan and the other you know vision elements that dan cited well i'm gonna well i pull up that one i want to address the vision piece the vision's not an enforceable document i get that and i can hold on i can probably get a page number So goal one, future land use element, livable small town community.

Right. So at the regulatory level under the Growth Management Act, the enforceable components of the comp plan are the policies. The goals are sort of setting out the framework, but it's the policies that we have to be consistent with. But I don't think that we have an issue with Goal 1 because Goal 1 includes a reference to making sure that there's a balanced mix of land uses to serve local residents and the visitor population. And so when we look at the beach itself, and I think this is a helpful way to – let me get this picture back up –

While you're doing that, just to be clear, you think a 60-dwelling unit doubling and 150 foot to accommodate that is consistent with a low density and intensity?

No, I didn't say that.

But that's what's in goal 1?

No, what's in goal 1 is that as to residential and mix of land uses to accommodate the visitor population and so when we go back to that table that I provided that showed you only had 1,200 hotel rooms across the entire island you don't have a mix of land uses that addresses the visitor population appropriately and if we can build a tower that is no taller than the tower next to us and is shorter than other towers on this strip and is spaced out in a way that's consistent with the skyline that you already see here on the beach We're getting to that part of the goal. And I want to point out another aerial piece. This is the Marriott parking lot. It is 10 acres in size. So if we're saying that they have 26 units an acre, which in their PUD, they do have 26 units an acre. That's their requirement in their PUD. There are 260 hotel rooms being generated by this parking lot, but they're not on that side of the street. They're on the other side of the street. And why does that matter? Because the massing of that is on the same side of the street. And so the net density of the Marriott is not 26 units an acre because there's 10 acres over here that are not actually built over here. It's not like the Marriott did 260 units on this side of the street and then they did the rest over here. So it's not – this is not – if we were coming in and saying this is a luxury high-rise, I don't know that that meets your standard. I don't know that it doesn't, but I know that it does. And so that's not what we're coming in saying. We're saying you have a shortage of hotel rooms. We're saying that this building can be built in a way that's consistent with what you see now. And it can be offset to not create the canyon effect. We can be properly planned for traffic. We can make sure that some of the Major concerns like putting the deliveries behind the parking garage So they're not on Collier making sure that people can stack on to the site So they're not stacking on to Collier all these things can be managed at this number based on our analysis and That helps address that goal piece here because the resort piece of this island supports the rest of the island when it comes to the infrastructure that has to be paid for for everybody on the island. And again, going back to this graphic here, that's where this goes. And so I think this would be majorly policy concerning if The left map, if that was your comprehensive plan, and we walked in here and said, you have no maximum density cap on the hotels on the left map, because the left map's on the left and right side of Collier Boulevard. It goes all the way up. It comes around the corner. You could put these things all over the place. But that's not the map we're operating under.

Got it. I want to ask for a minute about, I have one more question and then one more comment, and then I'll shut up. On the question of the rezoning this to a PUD, It is staff's interpretation, as I understand it, that this does not qualify because it's not a mixed use property from your perspective.

Say that again.

It would not qualify for PUD because it is not mixed use in your interpretation.

There's a few things in there. The mixed use is the concern. There's also, there's a portion in there that if the property cannot be redeveloped under the current zone, that's where PD comes in. This can be redeveloped under the current zone through maybe a couple of variances and a conditional use. We do that all the time for redevelopment.

So, Zach, that's one thing I'm having a lot of trouble with here is the mixed use component. And I know, you know, talk about the Marriott, my understanding is they have a multifamily as part of that track of land. They do. Technically kind of makes that a different ball game. But if there are limitations with respect to how we would consider this as an excuse and the redevelopment point Dan just made, how would we overcome that?

Well, simply by reading the code correctly. If we go back to the document camera, there's a conjunction here, and, or. So mixed use is not a requirement for a PUD on Marco Island. It does not need to be mixed use. This is from the intent section of what is the general purpose of PUDs. And when we see that phrase mixed land uses, it's We're trying to facilitate development techniques, and then it's a list of things. Siting, mixed land uses, and or varied dwelling types. So we're not saying it has to be a mixed, your code, not me, your code is not saying there has to be mixed use. I don't understand that objection. What we are doing in this PUD is we are putting requirements into the ability to go to this level of hotel rooms that can only be achieved by a PUD, and I think that does fit into this category of variations on siting. For example, we're increasing a front setback to what is not code. And if we go back and look at our neighbor again, and I hate to keep pointing to the Crystal Shores, but they're the most obvious building next to us, that building is 150 feet at the front setback. We are not allowing that to happen under our regulations. This second tower is considerably further back than the front setback is there. We're requiring sort of what they call a wedding cake style development to push the taller pieces back. These are all variations on planning and siting that are within the intent of the PUD section, but as a... Final comment on that, that's the intent section. So I don't believe that the city can say it's a hard requirement. But we don't really need to have that argument because it says and or. So we don't need to be a mixed use development in order to achieve this.

Last thing I'm going to say is more of a comment. I love the Hilton. I've been there many times. I officiated my aunt and uncle's wedding there this past March. I've had staff fly in from my company there. And I'm sensitive to what you presented a very interesting slide, Zach, on the balance of sort of tourist demand with the – that was it. Which I thought was interesting. And you sort of made the case that because the city has been unable, for whatever reason, to regulate the vacation rental space appropriately, we've kind of got this matrix that's a little out of whack. And I understand what you're saying. And you described it as sort of, as a result, the residents have to sort of shoulder this burden of more vacation rentals, relatively speaking. And I don't disagree with that. I would observe, though, that additional users of a hotel facility, I'm sure it would be fantastic for the local economy, would pose some of the same challenges that many residents are concerned about from a traffic standpoint, from finding a reservation at a restaurant, from all those facets of quality of life, and I would just go on to say It was an interesting juxtaposition that right after you presented this, we had the representative from the OMER come up and speak and characterize this as the property was an anniversary gift and it's their home away from home. Listen, this isn't a game to the people in Marco Island. It's not something I wish I could gift a 10-acre-plus lot of land to someone I care about that's beachfront. But this has real implications for people's quality of life.

Absolutely.

And I, for one, just don't appreciate it being characterized in those terms as, well, this is, you know, we'll do it as a hotel and that will shift the balance away that's better for the residents. And then framing this as sort of this, it almost felt flippant in terms of, Yeah, the whole thing was just a gift, and it's really their home away from home. No, this has real implications for us. And I viewed that, I don't know, maybe it's just me.

I appreciate that comment. I mean, I don't think that was just a sort of anecdotal summary of their ownership. It's a hotel. It's been a hotel. It's taken seriously as a hotel. And because of the rezone process and as the upcoming potential site planning process, it will have to go through substantial review. Again, the traffic should be re-reviewed at site plan. after some of these new documents are in place. And so my point with the Airbnbs is that there's no analysis of any of that. There are no requirements. Airbnb shows up next to you and they don't have to come to you. They don't have to go to the city other than to file an STR registration. There's no one asking questions about their impact. There are always questions about this level of development's impact and their abilities to condition this impact to address it island wide. I don't think this is a flippant application. I think what was meant by that, but I don't want to over speak my client, but what I think was meant for that was they've had a long time commitment to this island. They are very interested in renovating and improving their contribution to this island because the hotel has not been significantly renovated really ever in the course of its existence, which the Marriott has. There's the pool expansion. I think you're talking about the 12 rooms, but the 12 rooms was converting suites. This is not... hotel defining changes it's not updating the entire property and so I don't think the suggestion is that we just don't really care and it's just this thing we have I think the statement is they care a lot about this property it's very important to their family and they understand that it has a consequence on the island, but it's also at a four-lane highway at a lighted hard corner intersection with turn lanes, and we have available level of service, and we have an ability to provide significant setbacks in screening. We're following height limits that are consistent with the area. We're following architectural standards. It's not like we're coming in here and saying, we just thought we'd put up a very expensive tower. So I appreciate the comment, but that was certainly not the intent.

Understood. Thank you.

Joan?

Well, let me collect myself here. I'm going to segue into what you said. What's troubling to me, and I have been coming to Marco Island since the early 70s, and I have seen many changes. And this beautiful, charming island is not a secret anymore. And we have to be realistic about that. And I took the comments of the Olshan representative totally differently than you did. I took it as ownership and belief in this community. And for those reasons, I'm going to say a couple of out-of-the-box things. Could you put that slide back up about that? That one, yes, please. Would I be correct in saying that there are 22,000 dwellings on Marco Island and that that would be 10% of that is Airbnb short-term rental? Would that be a correct number?

I'll defer to city staff.

Is that correct? 22,000 dwellings and 10% would be Airbnb?

You're asking me about his slide?

Well, no, I'm just asking the question. I prefer he answer that question.

The question to you was not this slide. It was how many dwelling units are on the island.

About 22,000, something like that. Well, anyway, it's troubling to me.

That's the allowed, what's allowed.

Yeah, maximum. OK, maximum. It's troubling to me. And if, in fact, increasing the number of hotel rooms mitigates the number of short-term rentals on this island, I find that to be a positive. Also, you say, the Alsham family and your clients say that they want to be partners, and I would like to also say that I believe that the product of the Hilton is different from the Marriott in this way. I am on that corner three times a day. their families and young families with children whom I see crossing the street. I don't see a lot of density in traffic. I see that people are contained in that resort and then coming across the street to the commercial area. I see that as a family hotel, not a convention hotel. For that reason, I'm going to go and be a little out of the box on this. In your piece from Bowman, you say you would make a contribution to the city of Marco Island of $600,000 to repave Winterberry and South Collier Boulevard. And you want to be a partner in this community. And there are needs in this community. Would your client be willing to participate in upgrading Mackle Park and the swing sets and the bocce courts and the soccer field and the baseball field as a contribution to sweetening the deal, I guess to say, to be a good partner in this community, as you say you are.

I'm going to rephrase some of this.

If I could just step in. I'm not supposed to say that? So while I appreciate your comments and your efforts, what we need to focus on today is what's in the code with respect to what you're supposed to be evaluating. There may be impacts that may need to be addressed in some of those types of efforts, and I know some of those are included in the current application. So those will need to be further, as Mr. Lombardo said, further evaluated as this moves forward to the city council.

Okay. So developer commitments need to be rationally connected. It's absolutely not something that incentivizes the overall approval. It's tied to, for example, at the Marriott when they made the $1 million contribution to Smokehouse Bay Bridge, part of the narrative on that in that document is that they were going to be bringing construction traffic across the bridge. so they they wanted to make sure that they were addressing the safety of the bridge because apparently it was in bad condition before they planned to do the project so there is a used tool by the city and that is legal in the sense of rational connection to the rezoning process as I mentioned earlier we have not received much feedback from staff on this and we would be willing to talk through whatever is rationally connected to the property

Was that it?

I'm done.

Jeff?

Yeah. Sorry. Thanks, Jason. Hi, Zach. Just to drill down on the turn lanes, the signal modifications and everything at Winterberry and...

Thank you.

Winterberry and Collier. You had mentioned... that you guys, that the project was gonna be paying for the controllers. Joan just mentioned the 600K for the whole project. So I guess my first question is, in regards to that total modification of the intersection of Winter Bear and Collier, how much is your group going to be paying to have all of these. You have a new turn lane going into the Hilton. You have turn lanes at Winterberry, this and that. What is this group's commitment to Basically redoing that whole intersection.

Okay, good point. So what we're looking at, like in the site development stage, we do what's called site-related improvements.

Is this turned on?

Okay. And so in terms of that, so for us to make the connection to Winterberry, you know, basically change that from what I call a three-legged intersection to a four-legged intersection, We would have to modify some of those mast arms and things like that. And so what we do is identify that as what we call a site-related cost. That's 100% on us. And then we're going to need to put in a southbound right turn lane to go into that new entrance that we're creating. That's 100% on us. So anything incidental to that, we would take care of. And so that would relate to the signal, the mast arms, probably milling and resurfacing the intersection so you got all the striping okay and everything. The reason that the controller is mentioned separately is the city is moving forward with revising all the controllers on the city. And so that would be a brand new controller that we'd have. So we wouldn't necessarily need to change that because the controller will still be good. But what we're saying is, hey, understanding what this project is, we want to be a good partner in the city and say, hey, we'll pay for that controller costs that the city's going to be incurring. So that was the only reason for mention of that. and as such so everything related to the intersection would be taken care of and that is what we call site related that's separate from the that that $600,000 contribution talking about that's really kind of east of the intersection itself on Winterberry itself to I think it get it to like Heathwood and and so that that's what that idea is and again that's the rationale there is a our traffic does use that area and stuff like that we figure we you know it'd be reasonable to create that improvement to benefit the city as well and with the idea of alternatively the city could look at if they would prefer the pathway type improvement maybe as an idea but

as Zach said that really hasn't been say deep-dived with with city staff of objectively and what they would recommend I'm looking at a with the financial impact down to obviously a zero impact financially to the city on this project thank you for that yes sir I said I've spoken to Business owners in that area, they think this would be a benefit to businesses. I've had some residents say they thought that it would be a nice addition to the hotel industry. But what is the actual benefits as far as their own public interest? I know in our attachments I saw something about bike racks, showers, beach access, all these things. Are those realistic offers or just some type of, hey, this could happen thing? And the other question I'd have for you, if I don't mind to pile it on you, you're looking at building an additional tower with rooms, all right? You need maybe 10 more housekeepers. Is there any employment benefit to this thing to our community? I mean, is there any impact for any increased employment for the people in our area?

Sure, and I guess I'll try to take these backwards. From an employment standpoint, the current projections from the Old Shands is that it would be 145 additional employees.

145?

Yes.

That's a studied? That's what we're planning for.

um the so in addition it's not housekeepers only there's a there's another restaurant that's being added and i think this is an important point we're talking about traffic resort hotels are designed to keep people on their site right and so right now we have one restaurant if we're going to add a tower we can't serve everyone with the one restaurant so there'll be two restaurants there are pieces of this hotel that are designed to keep everybody at the hotel and so there's employees across a series of disciplines at the hotel to address this there's the spa there's In that planning staff, there's all kinds of people but the current expectation is 145 To step back to your question before that anything in the developer commitments is a requirement of the reasoning itself so if we're if it's possible to be achieved as what we're suggesting we are looking at the beach specifically because This is an impact on the beach. And so we want to make sure that we're addressing that impact where possible and And we're basing this off of feedback that we had received. So, yes, it's not a we could do it. It's a if it's in the developer commitment, it has to be done.

Thank you.

Mike? Yeah. Zach, for traffic, you don't have to step up the exit, entrance and exit. from the rendition is very, very close to the beach access. So Crystal Shores is on south of the beach access for Winterberry. That is a very busy beach access corner. Your exit is right there. Is there a consideration of – because I just know when Crystal Shore – when they come out of Crystal Shore – You would think they'd go south and loop around. They don't. They go south, and there's a turning lane. They cut around, and they cut across the traffic. And that backs up there. And you'll have the same situation with yours coming out. You'll think they'll go south, but they're going to want to cheat and go through the light. And that's a very busy traffic beach access.

Right. So I'm sorry. Oh, gosh. Sorry about that.

You had a picture of showing in and out.

So right in this area we're talking about. Yes. Yes, sir. So, yeah, that would be important. And that's definitely a fine-grained detail, but with the crosswalks and the signalization, that's definitely something that we can and would be able to address, I believe, there. But you're right. It's an important conflict point with the pedestrians and as such as well right right there and that would be part of

But just to confirm, so when we – this would be signalized four ways. Yes. And so there would be a crosswalk here.

Yes.

Across that lane. So it would have more – Because it is close to that beach access.

It's a busy beach access.

Right. So exactly. I'm sorry. So that would be – you would have a pedestrian signal. That would be – these would be some of the additions that you'd have to do to the signal system is you'd have a pedestrian signal that would control the folks crossing there and as such to make sure it's safe. You know as a matter of fact There had been historically a mid block crosswalk here and and because of the signalization what it did is it got moved down to the north side of the intersection to just you know that way address that kind of safety issue to make it better for folks to cross at a pedestrian signal the problem with that when they remove that is the gate is up so naturally humans

They don't want to do the extra steps. They cut across the road. It happens all the time. Across the street is a very, very busy, I call it Da Vinci Square. You have all the restaurants, and it's very, very busy. And vacationers like to... They want vacations, so they're cutting across where the old crosswalk used to be. Gotcha. So it's something to consider there.

That's a good point. And that's something to really work with the public staff on if it makes sense to address that as well. So it's a good point.

The other thing about parking, Jeff, brought up with the employees, adding additional employees. I heard this this week that another resort on the island, when they go to 100%, They actually utilize other properties, churches and whatnot, for employees to park. Will you, with your addition of new employees, will you have enough space to facilitate everybody in the parking?

This has been designed to fully self-park employees.

Very good. Good. The other thing, Zach, I think the – sorry, but – The demographics, I think, is very interesting because what Joan brought up, I agree with. We have a lot of rental on this island, and we're an island right now that faces, if the law comes in in November, we're going to have to come up with some additional dough and any kind of draw we can get off of tourism. I think having facilities like this control more than I know you can register for an STR. We're grabbing that. I'm not sold that all 2000 of those are playing fair. So this at least bringing on additional will add additional revenue to the city by taxing. And I think that's a positive thing we may not be thinking about. The other thing, too, I want to say is I'm in agreement with Joan. I did not take the comments from the family. They've lived here a long time. Kids have grown up on the beach. I didn't think it was flip. I think it was just stating, and I'm not picking on you, Hayden. I think that they were just stating that they live here, too. And we're going to hear from citizens very shortly of their concerns. You guys, I'm sure, have concerns, too, about how this is playing out. I'm good, Jase. Thanks. Yeah. Dan, did you want to chime in?

I just want to make a statement, just so we can pull it back a little bit, so what's in front of us right now. This is a rezone to planned unit development that has to be consistent with our policies. Some of the stuff that we've discussed so far has been stuff that would be comprehensive plan amendment discussion regarding tourism short-term rentals all those would be considerations for comp plan policy changes those wouldn't necessarily be discussions that would be at this point and that's where i had the problem with it because there's a lot of good stuff that's discussed here it just doesn't it's not this wasn't the application for What's happening off the islands, what's happening, the workforce and everything else, that's a whole different ballgame. Transportation. Transportation is important. Level of service and everything else that we're moving forward to, that's a comprehensive plan discussion. Secondly, the policy. that we're going with moving forward is the redevelopment policy that allows 30 units per acre, which they have right now. And remember, this is future land use. This is what we're going to do in the future. Not penalizing people how they are today, but the whole idea is to reduce density over the course of time. That was a policy in 2021. I just wanted to let everybody know that this kind of goes the opposite direction of what the policy was approved in 2021. That's where I had issues with, and that was it.

Thank you. All right, so I'll chime in for a minute if I could. Where to start? Yeah, I mean, you know me. I'm just going to go all over the place, so I apologize. You know, when Marco Island Incorporated, we sort of inherited the comp plan and the land development code from the county. I did reach out to the county and I had a conversation with Mike Boese. You know, he said that most of the zoning districts there are 26 units per acre as far as hotel density. I'm assuming you'll have something to chime in on about that.

I do.

Zach?

Yes. Collier allows several different ways to do hotels, and one of them is based on floor area ratio with no density cap. Just one more correction. Mark Island did not adopt a comprehensive plan from Collier. It adopted its own comprehensive plan in 2001 or 2002 or 2003. It was not adopted from Collier County. 2001.

Yeah, so I'm talking about the Marriott. We've talked about the Marriott quite a bit. And so in the Marriott PUD, their PUD is 26 units per acre. And I know we can't get in the heads of those people when they approved it, but for whatever reason, they felt like 26 units per acre was the number. And I'm still struggling to figure out how we go beyond 26. And I understand that this property is beyond 26 now. But we get into this whole conversation about Bay County. We get into this conversation about the conflict between the table we have in our comp plan versus the language we have in our comp plan. For me personally, I always felt like 26 units per acre was the number, regardless of what was in our comp plan. I'm not an attorney. We're not going to argue too much about Bay County. But when I read on Bay County, it looked like the specifics there were a little bit different. That was a blighted area. There was crime. There were other issues. They said, let's change the zoning. And the purpose of that change was to basically get that whole area to be sort of a strictly tourist area. The other thing is, and I'm sure anyone who's an attorney will eat me alive when I start talking about this, but the You know, when they made this decision, my understanding was they made it as like a de novo decision, that it was sort of clear cut in their mind. I know you're smiling, so you're going to eat me up. It's all good. So my position would be that the ambiguity in our comp plan alone, right, we've got a section that talks about 26 units per acre for hotel, motel. Then we've got the comp plan language. I mean, there's some ambiguity that we would have to work through.

Oh, agreed. And so de novo review means that the appellate court was not bound by anything the trial court did. So it's not an indication of how they felt about the case. It's an indication of the standard of review. As to the ambiguity, This is our argument. If it's ambiguous, then it has to be interpreted in favor of the property owner, and that's not the Bay County case. That's Rincon Materials, and that's something that has been upheld across many different cases across the state of Florida. So we're not hanging our hat on that direction, and the de novo piece isn't a relevant standard of review. Okay.

And I'll just say the city council will get your recommendation, but they will conduct an over-review of this matter. So you can analogize that to what the court was saying in that instance.

And so this may be a question more for staff, but if the applicant is at 30 plus or minus an acre now, would the comp plan not allow them to develop to that

That was my point. Policy 4.2.3 allows redevelopment at the standards that you're currently at. So the 30 units per acre, they're allowed at 30 units per acre.

So 4.2.3 applies to over-density multifamily.

And a PUD wouldn't be required, regardless.

4.2.3 says over-density multifamily residential development that lawfully achieved their density prior to incorporation of the city may be permitted to redevelop at their existing density.

That would be a lower number, though, wouldn't it?

So a couple things. The 30 units was after the city. Right. It was 29 before. And this is not a multifamily residential development. This is a hotel. It has never been a multifamily residential development. And so I don't think that's a helpful guide here.

I'm not even sure it applies.

Okay. So in your PUD documents, one of the things that I thought was a little interesting was you guys – You refer to this 26 units per acre, and I'm kind of curious why that is.

We refer to it, and I think this is an acknowledgment of how this is handled throughout the rest of the island, and then we're tying this additional unit piece to those requirements that I put forward in the PUD. And so the idea is to help make this make sense. If we're doing the things that we're promising, for example, on-site parking everything, that's when we can go above this piece because it seems throughout the island that 26 is a fairly standard hotel density piece and so it must be the case that that's fairly unobjectionable so if we're going above that line I think it's incumbent on the applicant to show additional planning considerations to address the impacts beyond 26 so that we did put that in here and we're using that as a guidepost.

All right. I hope it's okay with everybody. I've been asked if we could take a brief recess. Would we be able to take a recess for 10 minutes? I've got other things to say, but I mean, we'll just take a recess now and we can keep moving. So we're in recess until 1120, if that's okay?

questions there you are Zack did you have a question Joan I did I and I do you have a projection based on current revenues how much this project will increase the tax revenues for the city of Marco Island

I don't know that we have a reliable projection, but what I can say is the Marriott property, if you look at the Marriott property and there are 810 hotel rooms, and you look at our property and compare the tax bills, it's there more than two times what our current tax bill is. Now they have more acreage, but the hotel room revenue is definitely a part of the valuation there. So we don't have an exact guess. And part of the reason why we don't have an exact guess is because the Marriott just sold you all know this is going to create a new benchmark for that value for all beachfront hotels which is these two so the we don't have an accurate number there no but we expect it to be double

The only other thing I had was Jackie had mentioned your conversation with Jeff. It sounds like there are some additional planned components of a development restaurant and such. So we could expect if this passes a site development plan coming before us. Absolutely. And that also would entail additional level of service considerations because we're looking at new demands for restaurant and all that fun stuff, right?

Yes, this absolutely has to go to a site development plan approval for all kinds of reasons, regardless if we were adding no restaurants. So it's going to come through at that time. All of your site development planning standards will apply. There's also going to be environmental resource permits required for the stormwater. There's going to be coastal construction control line permits required based on the location of the tower.

Actually, just one question. Since the trip generation analysis was obviously focused on the increase in the hotel rooms, if the plan is to add a restaurant and perhaps some other uses as well, have you considered that at this time, how that would affect the level of service?

I believe the answer is yes, but Norm's going to speak to it. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, yes. For the record, Norm Trubelcock. Yes, it would. The way the ITE does the trip generation for hotels, it does include those uses as well as part of the hotel, so based on the rooms. Okay. So it would be covered. Yes, sir. Thank you. That's all I have.

Some of the data we provided in the application showed some of what we call the cross use right so the the current data shows that most meals bought at the restaurant I think it's more than most are purchased on a room and so there's a significant amount of individuals who are accounted for on the hotel trips that are the customers of the restaurant itself. That doesn't mean that Hilton has no off-site customers. In fact, it does have off-site customers, and that's why, and this is an interesting point, in the 2015 site plan, there is no parking allocated for the existing restaurant that's there right now. It's not required. We are requiring parking for the restaurant, and any facility that a public person can use at this hotel, we've provided parking standards for under this PUD. Thank you.

All right, I have a few final questions, if that's okay, and a few final comments, I suppose. One place where I'm struggling, and I could probably use some input from city staff, if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying that the process that they're following now is not the correct process.

What I'm saying is the process doesn't meet the, isn't consistent with a comprehensive plan and that a change would have to be made, an application for a change.

Okay. And to that end, I think you had some arguments you made or, you know, things you've put forward, reasons that they are not consistent with our comp plan. But some of those were tied to density units.

Yes.

And so I guess my question would be if I am them and I say, okay, we're going to go down this road of a small-scale comp plan amendment, they come back with a small-scale comp plan amendment, and I know it's hard for you to say yes or no without seeing the language in their amendment, but in my mind I'm wondering how do they get to the point where staff would say, okay, they are consistent with the comp plan. If some of your concerns as staff center on the density issue of how do they get there? And you don't have to answer that question if you don't want to legally or whatever, but I'm curious about that.

I would say it would have to meet the requirements of the comprehensive plan where it talks about traffic, level of service. I think we've talked about that quite a bit. The policies look at all those different items, sewage, water, Tourism all that stuff that were considered goals in the comprehensive plan we That's what they would be focusing on is this the goal for the city of Marco Island? the size of a tourism Product that's being offered forward is that where we are moving forward to replace some of the short-term rentals I mean, that's what those are the things that I heard Those are considerations that you would have when you're doing your comp plan amendment. These issues would be brought up on how you're satisfying or you're changing the policies to allow for some of these changes.

and these changes get evaluated here because we always have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan and we do meet the level of service we do address a lot of these all of the applicable standards here and this is not the largest resort facility you have on the island after this resume it is currently the second largest and it will remain the second largest after the resume one other point

Going from resort tourists or RT to a PUD is in violation of our land use map itself. This area is not designated as PUD. So I just wanted to kind of remind you of that also.

I'm gonna vehemently disagree with that so there is no requirement no requirement your comprehensive plan that PUDs must be in the PUD future land use element and to demonstrate this very clearly the one that is immediately across the street from where we are sitting right now The Marco Island Senior Center PUD is not in a, it's community commercial. And so the PUD future land use category may be one of the more obscure functions of the Marco Island Code statewide. I don't know that I've ever seen a PUD future land use category because if you read that category, what it says is There's really no planning. The planning is the PUD itself. I don't know that that's advisable, but that's what you have in your code. We certainly would not have to re-amend this map to get out of here. Our whole argument has been we are consistent with the resort residential future land use element, meaning We don't need a map change. And whether or not you agree with that is fine, but what I think you have to agree with, especially based on the Mark Lown Senior Center approval, is that you do not need to be future land use PUD to be a PUD on this island.

Other question at city staff. You know, the comment that Zach made relative to changing density, so if they come forward hypothetically about, small-scale amendment they talk about a different density number again you may not be able to answer this but how does the city protect themselves or ensure that we don't have unintended consequences from a proposed live local project if if they come forward and say hey here's our small-scale comp plan amendment here's how we want to modify the density And again, you may not want to answer it for the benefit of the city. You may not be able to answer it, but it's something that I'm sitting here struggling with when we're talking about, you know, road A or road B and what do these look like.

The only thing I can say about Live Local is that there are specific statutory requirements that they would need to meet in order to be able to develop as a Live Local project. So I don't even want to go down that road. I think the more important thing is to focus on what you have here today, what your comprehensive plan provides, and the legal arguments that are being presented. are things you need to consider and things that we need to address when this goes to city council as well. But the density issues are unique, I think, to this property from both a factual and a legal perspective. Each property is, we like to say, each application is considered on its own merits. We don't necessarily want to be hamstrung by what may have happened on another parcel at another time. So, you know, I'd like to give you more concrete answers, but I think, you know, in light of what we have in our comp plan, what we have in our land development code, it may be subject to some different legal interpretations. And that's what, you know, we hope to work with you and city council and potentially a developer as well with respect to how this ultimately resolves.

Thanks for that answer that helps me not at all.

I know. Well, I mean, you know, if you're looking at a comp plan amendment, comp plan amendment is, you know, legislative in nature. So city council, when it considers adopting a comp plan amendment, is looking more generally at policies and objectives. And there's a different legal analysis that goes into whether or not that ultimate decision as to whether or not to amend the comp plan is legally supportable. Whereas here, we have a rezoning request for one specific parcel in this city. And the analysis that we use for that is, you know, what does the code provide with respect to the considerations for rezoning to PUD? And part of that are some of the things that you've discussed here today. But the broader policy decisions about density, traffic about you know parks beach access transportation those kinds of those those come up more with a comp plan amendment then with specifically this rezoning requests today sorry yeah I just you know sitting up here trying to figure out you know if I am them

How do they move forward? You know, there's a vote today. There's obviously another way that the staff is proposing to move forward. But if the staff's proposing a way for them to move forward that the staff would not approve with, it's not really a way. And that's where I'm getting hung up. I feel like from what you've said, a small-scale comp plan amendment might not be a way for them to move forward if staff's position is that The density is such that it's not consistent with our comp plan for a small, low density Am I missing something?

And we can't say that that's not an option. They have a very fine attorney. They have good support staff. They can determine what they feel is their best avenue forward. And we're not here to judge that. Whether they choose to do a comp plan amendment, whether they choose to do a rezoning, whether they choose to do a site development plan and apply for variances and conditional uses, I mean, that's their choice. What we have here today is the rezoning request.

Horse is dead, noted. All right. So one comment, you know, Hayden mentioned that he paid attention to the 2015 planning board. meetings, council and all that. You know, one thing I noticed was that their process was a little bit different, right? I mean, they didn't talk about consistency with the comp plan. They didn't talk about any of that. You know, I'll add, though, in the documents, there wasn't really any mention in the scope. And not looking for comment, but, you know, there was no mention in the scope. There was no mention at the planning board hearing about additional units. Again, it was just raised by a city councilor. It was sort of yeah, we added them, off you go, 6-0 vote, have a nice night. So hopefully our process where we're adding conditions and findings and things like that, hopefully 10, 15 years from now, whatever we're doing, we're not finding ourselves in awkward positions. So the Marriott, since we've talked about the Marriott a few times, What would prevent the Marriott from amending their PUD and having no density caps? And this is something else I'm getting hung up on. Again, I know I'm not supposed to do hypotheticals, but I'm sitting here getting hung up on the argument they're making is that this whole district has no density caps in their mind.

The Marriott is not in this district.

But could they not amend their PUD and just say, listen, those guys are doing it?

It would have to be a different argument because our argument is that we are consistent with resort residential. The Marriott is not a future land use resort residential property. They're in the PUD future land use.

But Surf Club and Charter Club and all the other places that are in your district, I mean – Michael Dell or Jeff Bezos could come by him up and say, here we go, we're building a hotel, have a nice day. I know, it's hypothetical.

And I would just say from our standpoint, there are density caps in place. Okay. So that's a different perspective.

And then the last thing that I would ask relative to the proposed PUD document, there are listed uses in there, and it looks like many of those listed uses are sort of in line with our land development code, but is there any reason that the planning board couldn't impose restrictions on that?

Restrictions on?

The intended uses. If the planning board were to say, listen, we would like to recommend for approval to council, or council at their hearing could say, listen, we would recommend this for approval, but we don't want to allow for timeshares. We don't want to allow for healthcare facilities. We don't want to allow for this, that. Is that part of the purview? Is that within the planning board or the council's right to suggest those? whether or not the applicant would agree to them because by virtue of it becoming a PUD, there's a little more ability for the city to get involved and place additional restrictions on things.

Correct. I think that that could be part of your recommendation if there were specific uses that you didn't want to see. that bore some rational relationship to our code, the location, you know, whatever it might be associated with this property where it is that you could find that you would want to recommend those types of restrictions within the PUD.

Okay. Yeah, I think some of my other stuff is just gibberish and probably worthless to talk about. So I'm probably done. Does anyone else have anything? So we are going to have citizen comment, but I'm curious if someone wants to make a motion at this point.

Guys, you want me to make the motion?

Well, if nobody's going to make a motion, then what?

No, I move that we accept the proposal presented by the applicant.

I'll second.

Okay. So we have a motion and a second.

So if I could rephrase that. Please do. So it would be a motion to forward a recommendation to city council to approve the proposed rezoning as presented by the applicant.

Martin, do you want to take the map down, please?

They can see me so that would be the rephrase so miss Jensen. Is that your motion?

Okay So why don't we go ahead and move to citizen comment if that's okay? We do have a handful of registered speakers So I will call on them first and then if somebody else would like to speak after that Please don't hesitate to come up one at a time. So you'll have four minutes. You state your name miss Myers. I

good morning Planning Board Victoria Myers Marco Island resident I started this thinking about what I was going to say today by going to our website and looking to see what the overarching guidance is for our Planning Board It reads, the first thing it says, the planning board's focus is to enhance the quality of life for residents and visitors on Marco Island while managing growth and development and protecting the island's tropical small town character.

How we doing on this, guys? That first and second makes me sick.

All right. Based on that definition, there should be unanimous vote to deny this rezoning request. The petitioner is requesting a PUD. That acronym stands for planned unit development. I would say that acronym means permanently unrestricted density. Are we at that point now? That's what we want on our island? I would suggest this should not be used going forward on our island. Basically, it's a blank check. They can do whatever they want. Unlimited capacity. We are a small barrier island at build out. This category of rezoning should not be used. How and why would we allow cramming more density and intensity into an area our island or our entire island that's almost unmanageable at high season we must respect and uphold the land development code and the comprehensive plan did you read or listen to the staff report it was completely ignored with that first and second I read it and I found it fascinating I think you two should read it again We often hear comments from some people that there's a few old, unhappy, grumpy people and they don't like anything that's happening. I'd like to disprove that right now and I'll be using the overhead. This was the most recent survey done in 2022 of our residents. And this is not a good quality because it wasn't made. I had to take a picture and print from a picture. And when the survey was presented to the city council, it said these are the three most important slides. And I brought them up here. And the number one is, how are we trending? And red is not good, folks. Do you see the red? Change since moving here and direction of the city. Getting worse. And...

Don't like the direction it's going.

So this is not a small vocal group. This is the majority of our island.

Slide number two.

Slide number two is an overview of importance because we don't need to really be concerned about things at the bottom that aren't important to people.

The things at the top are important to people. And those are growth in density, property taxes, small-town feel, and vacation rental. It's reasonable to group those together, and that's 61%. The third slide shows most important is managing growth in density and congestion, and they both show a strong poor or very poor performance. That's a failing grade, and it's been happening, and what's been happening since this survey? There's been more density, more intensity, and more congestion. Please protect what makes Marco Island as exceptional as it is, and it's not just our duty, it's our shared legacy. Residents and visitors are drawn to Marco Island for its unique charm and character. Preserving this special atmosphere is essential for our community and shared success, and is demanded by our comprehensive plan. Our leaders must stand firm to ensure Marco Island remains a place its residents are proud to call home and a destination cherished by all who visit. I respectfully urge you to uphold the legacy and unanimously deny this rezoning request. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Mr. Woodworth.

good morning everyone I'm Rick Woodworth I live on Marco Island I'd like to make a few comments I'll try to be brief I'd like to start by reading what City Council adopted in 2019 following a community-based process the strategic plan was which establishes a single vision statement for Marco Island Marco Island 2034 is a great residential community with small town charm. It's distinguished by its beauty, our world-class beach, natural environment, and our waterways. In 2034, our residents enjoy our convenient coastal living and take pride in our Marco Island community. That vision is anchored by seven principles, great residential communities, small town charm, beauty, world-class beach, natural environment, waterways, convenient coastal living, and again, pride in our community. When I first moved here in 2016, I thought I was moving to a community that was the antithesis of the density and development you see in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. I was surprised to learn when I moved here that the Marriott was building its huge Crystal Shores addition. At that time, it seemed out of character and out of scale to me with the rest of Marco Island. Now we have this proposal from the Hilton. The density that's being proposed, 60 units per acre, roughly matches what Fort Lauderdale's citywide density in its most permissive zoning district, and it comes very close to Miami Beach's most intense oceanfront standards. Our own comprehensive plan caps this property at 16 units per acre, less than a third of what's being requested. Going from 310 rooms to 626 rooms doesn't just add rooms, it roughly doubles the size of the hotel. This means potentially hundreds more cars, plus all the additional staff needed to serve them on a stretch of Collier Boulevard that's already carrying heavy beach traffic. I'm not going to repeat some of the other comments but I think the core of this is it doesn't meet the basic intent of a planned unit development which is supposed to deliver mixed use and design innovation in exchange for flexibility the proposal offers neither it's an expansion dressed up as a PUD to escape density limits that would otherwise apply If the city wants to consider more density here, there's a legitimate path, a comprehensive plan amendment, which would put the question before the public rather than deciding it through a rezoning that staff has already voiced an opinion it doesn't fit. the 626 room 60 unit hotel really consistent what we adapted in 2019 is our vision for Marco Island I don't think so and I'd ask the board to follow the staff's recommendations and deny this petition thank you thank you Dr. Bonham

Rich Blana, 1541 San Marco Road. First, I'd like to thank you for your service. It's a thankless job. 15 years ago, my wife and I stayed at the Hilton to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. Two things happened during that week. The first thing was that we fell in love with each other again. And the second thing that happened was that we fell in love with Marco Island, and we made a vow not to leave the island before putting a deposit on something. So we wound up putting a deposit on the small condo in San Marco Villas, and seven years ago, we built our dream retirement home on San Marco Road. So the Hilton has a special place in our hearts. When I became a city councilor, I met with Mr. Garcia, the hotel general manager, to speak with him about the Hilton's planned renovation plans. He explained what had to be done to upgrade this iconic hotel to stay competitive with the Marriott and the other lodging facilities on the island. I listened to his requests, the same ones that are contained in this proposal that's before you today, and I told him that I would support the Hilton's expansion under three conditions. One was that they would inspect and upgrade the public access walkway to the beach on the Hilton's south side. Two, that they would add showers and bathroom facilities for the public, either on the boardwalk's end or on the hotel grounds itself. And three, that they would have a section of free ground level parking for residents in their proposed parking garage. I made those suggestions because I thought that those would be accommodations for the general population, many of whom are not members of Residence Beach, and this is an access to the beach for them. The Hilton is a major Marco Island employer and a good neighbor. Making their proposed upgrades will add jobs, it'll feed into the island's off-season economy, and bring in additional tax revenue. Their bed taxes add to Marco Island's economy by helping to maintain our beaches and support infrastructure projects without increasing local property taxes. For all these reasons, I urge you to vote yes on their proposal. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, Lisa Foster.

Hi everyone Lisa Foster Marco Island and Chair Bailey I think there's a chance I might go over a little bit I think that anyone in the room is allowed to speak after the registered speakers if I could get someone to raise a hand for me to cede their time in case I go over I don't know if that will suffice. Just one housekeeping issue. The notice for this project has an application number on the billboard as RZ24000098. And I've had a few people ask me about it. And because in a browser search, it turns up the answer that comes back is a number for a control panel manual. So there's a little bit of confusion about that. Zach had some clever angles on undermining the definition of a dwelling and parsing the words living and eating. And I also did a simple word search on those as far as their legal implications. Living as a legal term is a habitation or the bodily presence in a given space or actual occupancy. Eating defined as a fundamental activity of living, not the process by which it happens. I'm sure we can argue semantics all day. He also stated that demand must be satisfied and I contend that's not true On the density chart in our comp plan the word quote hotels is clearly listed on our and on our LDC has a clear definition Also, the Hilton accepted this dwelling unit designation when they came before planning in 2015 Hotel rooms clearly affect our density whether or not occupancy is transient in my opinion uh so as stated by others you know our number one goal in our comp plan is a livable small town community this proposal has kind of taken me to the tipping point where if approved i would be wanting to open up a conversation with my neighbors about filing suit against the city because it's so far out of out of alignment with our comprehensive plan and thank you for staff for keeping everybody on track the subject property is in an RT zone that is ten point four three or four four acres I've heard both by my calculations the chart allows for 26 units per acre and also I believe that this would be a large scale amendment not a small scale amendment because it is over ten acres which allow which makes for a different requirement in votes from council so the math dictates that there should be 271.44 units as stated they actually have 310 so right here this property is out of compliance with our comprehensive planned density um you know and that was allowed by variance in 2015 but as a case study this begs the question where where are we as an island on density there have been no updated metrics in the last 10 years that i'm aware of and our comprehensive plan 3.1.1 has a maximum number of dwelling units on the entire island not to exceed 22 775. Our comp plan is how we would likely tabulate density, and the allowance is not in alignment with that, what currently exists on the chart in this location. Also, the petitioner attached a traffic study that notes on, I think, page 11 that the impact study was taken from the LOS data of 2012. One of the city councilors asked, what's the big deal with the current traffic LOS being incomplete and have deficiencies that show an F rating? Well, here it is. Beyond being part of our governing documents and state law, the comp plan policy 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 dictates that building permit review will be dependent on LOS compliance if we have an LOS that shows a deficiency particularly for a property over 8,000 square feet or 16 or more dwelling units they must demonstrate compliance with traffic LOS compliance shown in that comprehensive plan I don't see how this submitted traffic impact study with calculations using data from 2012 can possibly be valid Also, in the last 12 years, it's my understanding that the city has not completed concurrency requirements for sanitary sewer, solid waste, stormwater drainage, potable water service, or any of these to determine if we have adequate services available for our current density per State Statute 163 and our comp plan, let alone support any new project as a POD which has no density control. This board is basically flying blind in their ability to determine if our infrastructure and public facilities are sufficient for our current density, let alone jump in density like the one proposed today. The site development plan for the project is virtually non-existent. It requires an amendment to the comprehensive plan, and the only public interaction was a NIM in June of 2024 with no available video or transcript on the city's website. find it disingenuous to imply that the public was allowed any opportunity to be made aware of or show opposition to this project it's also been said in City Council that we repeatedly that our islands that build out and in high season I feel we're verging on unmanageable I contend we cannot absorb this jump in density. The proposed shift on this site to a PUD, as Victoria said, is a literal blank check for the density increase in the absence of an approved site development plan. This rezoning translates to an unlimited potential density and a traffic analysis after rezoning is carved before the horse and voids our ability to preempt adverse impact. We also have to be mindful of increased traffic on our beaches, which will bring more pressure to sensitive habitat and multiple endangered species that call Marco Island home. Increases in density and intensity accelerate the need for infrastructure repair that resident taxpayers subsidize almost entirely. And this intersection is the busiest pedestrian traffic on the island before any intensity increase. Staff did not recommend approval of this rezoning. I hope this board will not either. I think we'll see continuing trend, which started with the last variance this board declined to approve, one which city council approved despite the planning board's recommendation. interpret that as a council that favors commerce over quality of life I'm asking my neighbors residents and property owners who are like-minded to join me in a conversation about a lawsuit against the city if this rezoning or comp plan amendment is granted thank you for your time thank you Terry Summerfeld

That's a hard act to follow. Terry Summerfeld, 1111 San Marco Road. I'm finding it difficult to believe that a 25 square mile island doesn't have some level of accountability for density on every single piece of property. So to say that there's no density on this property seems to be an oversight. But I, too, did some analysis. And when I look at policy 3.5, the narrative definitely does not state a number on density. However, policy 3.1.5 does stand alone It doesn't stand alone, I'm sorry. It's part of the future land use element, and that element includes a table. And so the comprehensive plan has a table that goes along with the narrative, and that table does speak to 25 units. So I'm not sure why we're ignoring the fact that there's something in the comprehensive plan that does speak to density across the island. I also think that, obviously, 60 units per acre does not make sense. And I think all of you know that. If you allow it in one place, are you setting precedents for others? If you're looking at some of the soft issues that I heard some of you rationalize as to why this might be a good project, I will say, we don't have an unemployment problem on the island. We have a problem with finding people to come here to work. We bus people in. If we're looking at people supporting this project because they're businesses, no surprise, because the businesses want more business. We understand that. But our island can only accommodate so much. And if we're talking about STRs, it's really unfortunate that we have so many STRs because that impacts on our ability to have hotels. And if you think that the STRs are going to go away because you increase hotel rooms, I'm going to tell you prove it. Prove it. I don't think that that will happen. Probably the most important thing that I'd like to reference though is where is the public benefit? Where is the benefit for the residents who live on this island? They've already been clamoring for some kind of attention, not only from the council, but from you as the planning board, to recognize the impact that intensity and density is having on this island. They need relief. They're also being put in a position where they're the ones who are shouldering the infrastructure. And so when you start talking about the roads and the bridges, you can talk about property taxes. But the Hilton right now pays, I think, $61,000 in property tax. If you double that, that's what, $120,000? How does that compare to the five bridges that we're looking to get a $23 million bond on? It seems to me that there's some imbalance that we need to look at there. And if we're talking about tourist development tax, look at how much Marco gets for how much Marco gives. maybe a tenth of the $15 million that we send every year to the county. We are putting ourselves in a position where we are burdening our residents to the point that they will leave. And I think the question is, where is that small-town paradise that we've talked about? So I hope that you consider this project and say no.

Thank you. Those were the registered speakers. Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak on this? Sure. Just state your name and confirm you've been sworn in. I have not been sworn in.

Tony Oliverio, 1801 Olds Court. You swear from the testimony to give. Well, hold on. Is there anybody else who's going to speak that hasn't been sworn in? Do you swear or affirm that the testimony to give be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you. Thank you.

Sorry about that. I didn't think I was going to speak. I had a question for, I can't ask Zach, but you can ask in full disclosure. Zach also is a lawyer of mine. I'd like to disclose that. Puds be capped. I'd like you to ask Zack because you you brought up some good questions that could the Marriott do that I Think with a pod, but I don't know this answer that you could put a cap into it so we could prevent There being a thousand units. I think that mr. DeBlois had something to look into and then I had a observation i caught it maybe you guys did about a burt harris claim zach mentioned i believe you guys are city council is going to be addressing that on those six avenue properties so i'd like someone to ask zach what he meant by that comment um Ms. Myers, Ms. Summerfield made some good comments. I don't disagree with a lot of things they said. I disagree with some things. But Ms. Foster as well. But I think Ms. Foster said about a lawsuit. I'd like Zach to talk about that because I don't want to get in a lawsuit. But we have a comp plan amendment she mentioned. For a lawsuit. I don't believe he's coming in for a comp plan amendment. I believe he's asking for a PUD rezone So it's not a comp plan amendment So I don't think we could have a lawsuit under the comp plan amendment claim if he's asking for a PUD rezone But we should clarify that and then the last thing is about the table that Miss Summerfield said about density. The problem with that is our table's incorrect. I think Mr. Lombardo would admit this publicly here. I'm the one who paid him to do the math and brought it to his attention probably a year and a half ago, two years ago, that if you look at the 22,775 density units on our table, it doesn't add up to 22,775 units. so therefore if the table is incorrect policy supersedes the table so let's be careful if we are focusing on the table because if the table's wrong policy supersedes and the attorney could chime in if uh he doesn't agree with that but it's in our plan and it specifically states when tables wrong elements wrong policy states um overrides what's correct so those are some questions i'd like you to Please ask and it would be more about the PUD because I don't like it said at the Rose Marina meeting. I don't want this to turn into Fort Lauderdale or Miami, but there's also a really good argument why this makes sense here. There is a huge argument and thank you. Ms. Jensen. I know Attorney Tolstice hates when people talk about money and different deals, but at the end of the day, that's what it's about, right? It's our community. What do we want to figure out? What don't we want to have? How do we make it make sense? People all come up here, and some running for council, that say we've got to hammer their businesses more on taxes. Well, they don't pay their full share. Well, maybe this is a way to get more tax revenue. So we need to have a bigger conversation. I said that at the last meeting. The comp plan has problems, but I'm very concerned here because of Mr. Lombardo's comment about a Burt Harris claim, and I don't want that to become here if this gets voted down, and it's not. I want to see if you guys could ask those questions and see where he's going with that because I caught that right away, and I don't know if anyone else caught that. But those are some things that I wish you guys could address. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Anyone else? Seeing nobody, we'll close the public comment.

Just to address some of the public comment. Sure. Small-scale amendments, the line in the sand is 50 acres, not 10. And there was some reference to East Coast densities. I think if it's going to be discussed, it should be discussed. Miami's maximum residential density is 1,000 units an acre. Miami-Dade County is 250 units an acre, and these are not hotel densities. These are residential densities. I did not have time to find the full answer for Fort Lauderdale, but I was able to quickly find densities above what Mr. Woodworth stated in their code. And so when we're talking about what is a East Coast-style density that would cause this to become Fort Lauderdale or Miami, I think we need to look at what those jurisdictions have. In order to build a 40-story residential tower like you have in downtown Miami, That's not 16 units an acre. It's not 26 units an acre, and it's not 60 units an acre. It's 1,000 units an acre. So I think that's an important thing to just sort of keep in the mind of what is the actual backdrop here. As far as infrastructure, site development planning will be an additional checkpoint that has to be met. All the standards have to be met at that time, and if they can't be met, then the project has to be scaled down at that time for those reasons. Let's see here. I don't have specific other comments as to the public comment but I'm available to answer any questions that you all may have after the public comment.

Anyone have questions?

Oh, sorry, that's what it was. One thing, sorry. There is a cap. We're proposing a cap of 626. That's not a – so it's not a blank check as a document. The document is what we're going through now in this process. So whatever's in that document is the number. It's not that they could get this PUD rezoned and then come back and say, well, good news, we're doing 900 units. That's not – it's not what's in the document. So there is a cap. What I'm saying is there isn't a cap in the comprehensive plan. And we need to be consistent with that document. And so that's my statement there. It's not that we're having a blank check no cap document here that you will never be able to control at a later point in time.

But that doesn't necessarily apply to other properties that may be looking at what you're doing and treating no density cap as the correct interpretation. They could say, hey, we're going to go for bigger than that.

Sure and I think that's the significance of the conditions and the location so if the other property is not in the resort residential category then nothing I've said matters because they all have hotel density requirements if they are in the resort residential category which is there are other properties in the resort residential property the significance of the conditions matters because this is how we're measuring the rest of the comprehensive plan against this point so it's not Your comp plan is not density and no other rules. It's density and a lot of other rules, level of service, making sure that what we're next to makes sense. I think if this were being proposed next to a single-family home, I think that would be a serious compatibility issue and it would be a comprehensive plan problem. So there are other things that come into play beyond just density.

Thank you.

Anything else from the board? I had some comments. I don't want to drag it on too long. Not questions.

Can I ask? I'm sorry. Please. Zach, we've seen more about the project now, you know, the actual plan that you guys have got in place here with the second restaurant, et cetera, et cetera. The beach, is this project that you guys are entertaining going to have any impact Impact on the beach area in front of the hotel. I mean you have a presence there now I don't think it's anything like what the Marriott has which stuff all over the place but is is that anything that we would have to have a concern about is a Massive increase of the use of the beach in front of the hotel. I

Part of the evaluation should be that there will be more users of the beach from the hotel. In the PUD, we're committing to some dune improvements, but as far as the beach and the use itself, I think it's very fair to say that if you add more hotel guests, more hotel guests will use the beach.

Want to go with your comments? Sure.

A couple things. I appreciate all the thoughtful deliberation up here and by the public and certainly by the applicant as well and staff. It's come up a few times this question of taxes and revenue. Again, I would just encourage my fellow board members to look at this from the perspective of our zoning, our land development code and our comp plan and consider that as the primary element. And listen, the applicant has made their case that this is consistent with that. I would have a difficult time applying weight to if a ballot amendment passes in Florida, this could be a great way to recoup some lost revenue. just because that is stretching outside what are charges as a board, in my opinion. I think it's really important to bear that in mind and evaluate it on the merits. Do we agree with staff's recommendation? Do we agree with the applicant's recommendation? Now, I can say in my years on this board, I have never, and I think even Zach would agree with this, I don't think I've ever seen such a divergence between a staff interpretation and an applicant interpretation. And both make strong compelling cases I have a really hard time when our city attorney and our planning staff are making a very clear-cut determination that this does not meet our comprehensive plan I don't know how we can ignore that or dismiss that, because that is a potent argument that I think we need to consider. I also, and I don't want to beat this to death, but it's come up a few times now that we had this 2015 rezone, and I just want to briefly read the beginning of that resolution that was voted on in 2015. It talks about a phased-in project that the petitioner has submitted all phases to make together as a master site plan approval. This resolution is for a five-phase project. Phase one involves the expansion of the lobby, a new storefront, interior renovation of the first floor common areas, a new indoor-outdoor bar, new lanai's on the first floor, Guest rooms facing – new lanais on the first floor guest rooms facing north, removal of the existing tiki hut, new hot tub, new pool water feature, new pool deck, small deck expansion at the northwest corner, courtyard improvements north and south of the lobby, and new landscaping at the port, island, and renovation and reconfiguration of 11-floor suites and standard rooms. All of these improvements are planned for 2016, phasing plans, systemic elevations, and floor plans provided. Phase two, future event law retaining walls and associated walks. Phase three, future back of house facility and storage to support the event lawn functions. Phase four, future upper deck and boardwalk expansion. This is located west of the existing upper deck. And phase five, future upper deck and boardwalk expansion. This final phase will complete the connection of all the boardwalks. I read that for two purposes. First, I think The extent of that makes it clear that a statement made earlier that this project really hasn't been majorly renovated since the 80s. That's a lot. A lot of stuff. And number two, once again, it would not be clear to any person reading the plain text that that in any way increased the total number of units, increased the density. And it did. And we've heard, because I asked Dan at the very beginning, was it his interpretation that that was communicated appropriately in the documents? And he made a clear no. Even Zach said, yeah, it should have been handled differently. We're already over what, in staff's impression, we should be here. And the way it was dealt with in 2015 gives me great concern and pause. And here we are considering amplifying that, not by a factor of another 12 rooms, but by doubling the room count. And I would just close with we've talked a little bit about goal one in the very first section of our comprehensive plan, which in part states For purposes of this plan, Small Town Charm is characterized by Marco Island's convenient coastal living consistent with low density and intensity, a balanced mix of land uses to serve local residents and the visitor population, and a strong sense of place identified by the city's unique history, architecture, signage, landscaping, community facilities, and natural environment. I cannot square the circle of putting this project forward in a way that meets that characterization of small town charm. And I don't think, I would hope, my other board members will reflect on that. And I know it's a goal. It's not a binding policy as stated in there. But I think staff has made a case for why the policy reflects that as well. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Since you called me a liar I would like to respond to that. You said it was a lie that it wasn't redeveloped substantially in your recitation there. I said that it had not been redeveloped substantially. I think it's a matter of scale perhaps that we're disagreeing over. In the 2015 renovation there was a conversion of an existing floor essentially in the items that you described. When the Marriott came forward in 14, they added a tower. And so when I'm talking about substantial renovation, that's what I'm referring to.

I'm good. Okay.

Does anyone want to talk about Mr. Harris? Or no? I don't know that it's worth talking about, but...

I would like to close so whenever I don't know if you want me to close now or yeah I don't know that anything there's anything else coming from the board that you don't feel like chiming in do you I mean you're welcome to go ahead and close it off sure there is support in the comprehensive plan for this there's a request for a balanced mix of land uses the small town piece is achieved by significant portions of the island and we have to read all of this together but we also have to ask ourselves this small town character This is as quoted, I think, by one of the commenters, a 25-mile island. I mean, this is a fairly large area to call a small town. And so there's an aesthetic that that's going for, I understand that, more so than a specific requirement, because as you go through the residential streets in this community, what you are not going to see is small-town housing, and you're not going to see a small number of housing. You're going to see a considerable amount of development on this island. And so this is more of an aesthetic concept that is balanced by the mix of uses, and this hotel is one of those uses. And so the reason why we showed, for example, the hotel balance as a part of this and not as a comprehensive plan amendment is because that's how we're demonstrating consistency in part with the global goals here of the comprehensive plan. And so I don't think you can look at... the skyline that already exists in this zone and look at these existing 12, 13, 14, 22-story buildings on the beach and say that putting another 12-story building on the beach is inconsistent with that which is already there. And so I think there's a way to see that both ways as far as being consistent with the comprehensive plan. I appreciate staff's argument. We've provided a counterargument. I'm not going to threaten you from the dais with a Burt Harris action. What I'm going to say is that If the basis is 26 units an acre – well, actually, sorry, the staff report says 16 units an acre. If it's 16 units an acre, the city, regardless of whether it was done in a way that was as clear as it could have been, has taken some pretty substantial interpretive positions as to this particular property. And to deny this based off of that, I think, is what is concerning because it's clearly not 16 units an acre. in this area and we can see that by looking at the crystal shores next to us by looking at the marriott up the street by looking at other properties right here marco beach ocean resort which is also a hotel on initial build out and so this idea that somehow this is a 16 per acre unit property is completely inconsistent with the town's actions to date so we we are able to deal with a lot of these impact pieces because what i'll close with is zoning primarily is a function of siting it is putting things where they go it is putting things in the right place and so if you're going to have beach resort infrastructure on your island which you already have it is planned to go in a particular place which is where it already is and we're expanding that where it is in sight so we're not going somewhere deeper into the island and saying you need a 800 room hotel in the town center We are where you have your 800-room hotels, in this line, on this four-lane road, far away from most of the residences on the island, most of the traditional small town residences. We are next to residences that are high-rise apartment buildings. And I don't know that you can look at those high rise apartment buildings and say that's a small town character. So obviously that goal has a couple different ways that it can be read. And I appreciate the threats from the community of a comprehensive plan consistency challenge. And I do think that's possible. But what I would suggest is this is consistent.

Thank you. All right. Anything else from the board?

No you're good okay Daisy would you call the roll please Member Jensen yes Member Hogan yes Member Ferringer Mr. Lombardo has highlighted us with his group on this project brought up some pretty good points the staff and the speakers have brought up some very serious and impressive counterpoints to the argument At the end of the day, this is a request to rezone to the PUD, and I believe it should go forward to city council for their review, so I'm going to vote yes.

Vice Chair DuBois? No. Chair Bailey?

No. Item's approved.

So this will be forwarded to the city council as a recommendation.

All right. So next on the agenda, new business, which we have none. Board communications, anything from the board? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

I was just going to say, because the comp plan has been brought up, we did that in 2021. We're looking for an update in 2028. So it's only a couple years from now. So just an observation.

Okay. Thank you, Dan. Motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

All those in favor? Aye. All right. We're adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a good weekend.

Thank you.