City Commission Regular Meeting - workshop

Fresh floor, fresh palm tree. It's looking clean. Looking for a place to work your upper body? Take a shot here at our Stingray Shuffle. Looking to relax? I got you covered here with our Lazy River. Living more on the adventurous side? Check out the slides right behind me. Newly painted, all offer something individual and unique. Check it out. Check out the main pool, kept at a wonderful 84 degrees all year long. I just want you to have a good time. We have safety covered. Lifeguards here, staff, all day, every day when we're open for you to enjoy. Concession is open, pizza, pretzels, nachos, ice cream, we got it all. My crib is your crib. Looking forward to seeing you here. Duty calls.

Hello, my name is Jerome Fletcher, City Manager of the City of Northport. I'm at the Northport Aquatic Center. I'm on the job today. Let's go.

Nice to see you. Thanks for having me today. Of course. We're going to go through our opening checklist for this morning to make sure that the facility is safe and operational. All right. Sounds good. Let's do it.

Before anything else, the team walks the entire area to make sure everything is clean and in good shape.

Our next part of our task is to make sure that our body of water is one clear.

Morning. Today is Monday, June 1, 2026. It's 10 AM. We're in the city chambers, and I call the city commissioner workshop meeting to order. Commissioners present are Commissioner Duvall, Commissioner Stokes, Mayor Emmerich, Vice Mayor Langdon, and Commissioner Petro. There is a quorum present for this meeting. Also present are City Manager Fletcher, City Attorney Fuino, Deputy City Clerk Powell, Board Specialist Linder, Deputy Police Chief Morales, and Deputy Fire Chief Herlihy. I am requesting that all commissioners, public participants, and staff maintain order and decorum throughout this meeting. City Commission Policy 2021-03 states that attendees shall refrain from engaging in personal attacks and boisterous, immaterial, inflammatory, obscene, profane, or disorderly conduct. Additionally, meeting attendees must refrain from obscene, profane, or disorderly conduct, including hand clapping, yelling, and similar demonstrations, all of which deserves the peace and good of the order of the meeting. Thank you. I'm going to call on Ms. Linder. Will you lead us in the pledge today, please? under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. City Clerk, public comment? No public comment, sir. All right. Moving on to presentations. Presentation regarding Welland Park fiscal impacts for the City of Northport. City Manager, this is your item, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Today, the City Commission will receive a presentation from Mr. John Zixi. our Senior Vice President of Land Development at Willamette Park regarding the fiscal impacts of the Willamette Park development on the City of North Florida. Thank you, sir.

John Lazinski, Senior Vice President, Well and Park. Is that speaker on? Speaker on, Matt. Yes, sir. Just didn't hear it, that's all. We're here today to present our fiscal impact study and to kind of give you an overview of Well and Park, the status of where we're at today, where we're going. You know, I've seen things posted that are questions, things, concerns. So what I'd like to just talk about for five to ten minutes. I did not time this, so you guys know everything's off the cuff. And I'm going to turn it over to the Stantec consultant team out of Tampa who prepared the fiscal impact study. And once they come up here, they're going to take you through their slide presentation, and explain to you the calculations. What that study does is looks at Welland Park today, and looks at Welland Park when we're done, which includes the Winchester property, and how it affects the cities and the counties' fiscal standings and operations. I believe you will find that our results are pretty darn positive for both the city and the county. and they're positive for a number of reasons. They will take you through that. But beforehand, I'd like just to start and explain to those who don't know Welland Park, have not worked with myself or our team. Welland Park takes great pride in being a developer that is a team player with the city, the county, and the school district. We fund our improvements upfront. Our roads are in place before residents get there. West Williams Improvement District obviously is an integral part of that. But what people don't realize is we've extended, I came here seven years ago, almost to the date. Since then, we have not extended a single public road that issued bonds in Unit 1, which is the Hertz property that covers all the city northbound. WHAT THAT MEANS IS WE HAVE NOT ASSESSED A SINGLE BOND ON AN EXISTING HOMEOWNER FOR THE EXTENSIONS OF THE MAIN ROADS. WEST FIELDS PARKWAY, PLAYMORE, PRATO, OR MANISOTA BEACH ROAD. WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO INTERNALLY FINANCE THOSE. I was able to determine we can build those roads roughly 30% cheaper than if we went out with the West Village Improvement District and bid those in a public bid setting, i.e., we can negotiate with multiple contractors to get the best value. Since West Village Improvement District and Welland Park started, I'd just like to explain a few things what we've done. AND PARTICIPATED IN WHICH PEOPLE MAY NOT REALIZE. WAY BACK WHEN, LONG BEFORE I EVER HEARD OF WEST VILLAGES, WEST VILLAGES IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT PARTICIPATED WITH THE COUNTY AND THE STATE FOR THE IMPROVEMENTS OF THE RIVER ROAD-US 41 INTERSECTION. WE FUNDED OVER $2 MILLION OF THAT IMPROVEMENT OVER 20 YEARS AGO. WE CONSTRUCTED THE SOUTHWEST WATER PUMP STATION, WHICH IS BASICALLY RIGHT NEXT TO THE STATE COLLEGE. IT HAS GROUNDWATER STORAGE THERE AND PUMPING CAPACITY TO BRING WATER FROM THE CITY AND TO THE CITY AND PROVIDE PRESSURES. WE CONSTRUCTED A WATER TREATMENT PLANT. INITIAL SIZE WAS TWO MILLION GALLONS, BUT THE BACKBONE IS IN PLACE FOR A FOUR MILLION GALLON FACILITY. We constructed the wastewater treatment plant. Again, a facility built initially for two million gallons a day, expandable to four plus million gallons a day. The backbone was in place. As part of the utility agreement we have with the city of Northport, we are obligated every two years to do an updated master plan for the water system and the sewer system. We completed that process earlier this year for both water and sewer, including what encompasses and includes the Winchester property. That study led us to say, hey, we gotta get ready to start expanding the wastewater treatment plant. West Village Improvement District approved in the May meeting, contract with Kimberly Horn to start the design for that expansion. And that expansion will be in place by early 2029. We've also very proudly built the public safety building at the corner of Prado and US 41. And that's a unique building. I don't believe you have anything like that in the city. It houses the city of Northport police substations. NOW THAT STUB STATION IS APPROXIMATELY 6,000 SQUARE FEET AND A VERY LARGE GARAGE TO STORE CONES, MESSAGE BOARDS, AND THINGS LIKE THAT THAT THEY NEED FOR CROWD MANAGEMENT, TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT AT BRAVE STADIUM AND OTHER EVENTS IN NORTHPORT. THAT FACILITY, WELL, 6,000 SQUARE FEET HAILS IN COMPARISON TO THEIR MAIN BUILDING. WAS FOUR TIMES LARGER THAN WAS INITIALLY CONTEMPLATED BY THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF AGREEMENT THAT PREDATED THE POST-ANNEXATION AGREEMENT. IT GOT TO BE FOUR TIMES BIGGER, BECAUSE CHIEF GARRISON, DEPUTY CHIEF MORALES SAID, HEY, 1,500 SQUARE FEET WON'T CUT IT FOR THE SIZE OF AREA WE HAVE TO WORK WITH IN LONDON PARK. SO WE MUTUALLY WORK TOGETHER ON THAT BUILDING. BUT THE BIGGEST PART OF THAT PUBLIC SAFETY BUILDING IS FIRE. IT HOUSES CITY OF NORTHPORT FIRE STATION 86, BUT ALSO HOUSES THE COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT. SO IN ONE SINGLE FACILITY, WE PROVIDED THE ABILITY FOR THE CITY AND THE COUNTY TO HANDLE FIRE, EMS, AS WELL AS POLICE. YOU WILL SEE IN THE NEXT WEEK, I BELIEVE, ON YOUR AGENDA, WE WILL BE BEFORE YOU GETTING READY TO TURN OVER FIRE STATION NUMBER 87, WHICH IS AT THE SOUTHEAST CORNER OF PRATO AND MANNESOTA BEACH ROAD. That'll be our second fire station in three years that we're turning over. Again, when we build these facilities, we not only construct the facilities, in the case of the fire station, we give you all the FF&E down to the utensils. We fund those buildings, we give you the property for nothing. We do get repaid from impact fees collected solely within Welland Park. SO IF SOMEBODY WOULD LOOK AT THE MATH, AT THE END OF THE DAY, YOU PROBABLY PAY ABOUT 50 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR FOR THE VALUE YOU GET. SINCE THERE'S ZERO VALUE IN THE LAND AND YOU'RE NOT PAYING FOR DOLLARS, IMPACT FEES, IT'LL TYPICALLY PAY BACK US OVER FIVE TO SEVEN YEARS, THE ORIGINAL PRINCIPLE AMOUNT. 7% INTEREST, YOU PRETTY MUCH WOULD DOUBLE THAT IF YOU HAD A HOME MORTGAGE. But again, that was part of what we agreed to up front, and us being good neighbors to the city of Northport. We've also constructed roughly a 35-acre park, Blue Heron Dog Park, and we just completed, as part of Fire Station 87, a one-acre hot lot with a small ball field, informal, for the children to play. We worked with Chief... TIDUS AND THAT STATION PARK IS ACTUALLY THEMED WITH FIRE STATION. IT HAS BEEN SO IMMENSELY SUCCESSFUL THAT WE HAVE CHILDREN FROM NOT ONLY WELLAND PARK, BUT ALL PARTS OF NORTHPORT COMING, AND WE HAD TO ACTUALLY QUADRUPLE THE PARKING. WE JUST FINISHED IT IN PARKING ALONG MANISOTA BEACH ROAD, BECAUSE IT'S SO SUCCESSFUL. AND THE INTERESTING THING IS, in our April meeting at the Westfields Improvement District, we had four residents from a neighboring community come and said, there's so much noise there from kids playing on the tower things, we need some noise retention. Quite frankly, I think that's a great thing that a park is so successful that we have to worry about kids playing and being joyful in a park instead of being on their laptops or their phones. West Village Improvement District, I mentioned a couple times here, owns and maintains all the roadways in Welland Park. That means is the city of Northport does not invest in their general fund during the year to maintain any of those roadways. Those roadways are West Village's parkway. TRADLE, LAYMORE, MANISODA BEACH ROAD ARE THE MAIN ONES. THE SMALLER SEGMENTS LIKE THE SEGMENT OFF 41 THAT SERVICES THE WASTE WATER TREATMENT PLANT, A COUPLE PIECES THAT SERVE MULTIPLE PROPERTIES ALSO. WITHIN THOSE ROADWAYS, THE CITY DOES HAVE WATER MAINS AND SEWER MAINS. City takes ownership of those mains after we completed them and they've been inspected and obviously maintenance of that long-term will be the city's obligation, but that's part of the water and wastewater rate system. We also have created our own master irrigation system, kind of unique in the state. We manage TO IRRIGATE EVERYTHING IN THE WEST VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT BY A COMBINATION OF DEEP WELLS THAT THE DEVELOPER OWNS, STORED STORM WATER, WHICH IS WHY OVER THE LAST SEVEN YEARS WE STARTED BUILDING BIGGER STORM BASINS SO WE CAN COLLECT AND HOLD MORE STORM WATER BACK FOR THOSE DRY PERIODS, AND RECLAIM. RIGHT NOW WE GET ABOUT 600 to 700,000 gallons a day on average from the wastewater treatment plant that's there in Welland Park. We purchase that from the city, mix it with our stormwater and our well water for irrigation. We're working with the city on looking at opportunities to extend a main from your legacy plant to the wastewater plant in Welland Park to POSSIBLY USE ROUGHLY 1.8 MILLION GALLONS A DAY OF RECLAIM THAT YOU PUT DOWN IN A DEEP INJECTION LAW. THAT'S A PROJECT HOPEFULLY WE CAN BRING TO YOU IN THE NEXT YEAR OR SO AS WE GET PAST SOME PRELIMINARY ENGINEERING AND LOOK AT THAT ANALYSIS, BUT THAT COULD BE ANOTHER WIN-WIN. WE JUST DON'T WORK WITH THE CITY OF NORTHPORT. WE'VE ALSO BEEN COOPERATIVE WITH SARASOTA COUNTY. We participate, we were requested and, let me back up. First, before I got here, Welland Park provided 90 acres of right-of-way for the future South River Road improvements. So as the county starts looking at engineering, which they approached us just about two and a half years ago and asked us, would we take the lead on engineering the South River Road improvements? Now that South River Road improvements is really the hurricane evacuation route. It's River Road from 41 to Winchester, and then Winchester from River Road to the county line. Being cooperative, WE SAID YES, AND WE WORKED OUT A DEAL WITH THEM WHERE BECAUSE THEY HAVE FEDERAL FUNDS IN THAT ROAD, WE'RE DOING IT THROUGH THE WEST VILLAGE IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT WITH THE BACKING OF WELLAND PARK. WE TODAY HAVE BEEN THE ONLY ENTITY THAT HAVE INVESTED ANY MONEY IN SOUTH RIVER ROAD. WE ARE SPENDING APPROXIMATELY $7.3 MILLION ON THE ENGINEERING AND PERMANENT FOR RIVER ROAD. WE BELIEVE WE'LL HAVE THOSE PERMITS IN HAND NO LATER THAN LABOR DAY. IT'S ON COUNTY AGENDA TOMORROW TO APPROVE THE WETLAND MITIGATION AGREEMENT, WHICH WILL ALLOW FOR OUR SWIFTMENT PERMIT AND OUR ARMY CORPS PERMIT, WHICH ARE ONE OF THE LAST REMAINING ITEMS TO DO. WE WORKED WITH THE CITY ON NORTH RIVER ROAD. WHEN THE CITY AGREED TO PARTICIPATE IN SOME OF THE COSTS OF NORTH RIVER ROAD, 67% OF WHAT THE CITY PAID TO THE COUNTY FOR THE NORTH RIVER ROAD IMPROVEMENTS CAME FROM WELL AND PARK TRAFFIC IMPACT FEES. WHILE 67% IS A DISPROPORTIONATELY HIGH NUMBER, BECAUSE AT THAT TIME, IF ONE LOOKED AT THE TRAFFIC NUMBERS, ABOUT 90% OF THE PEOPLE USING RIVER ROAD CAME FROM THE EAST ON 41, MAKING A RIGHT TURN. But we looked at it and we felt in the future, Welland Park would be affecting that, change that number. And we agreed with leadership at that point in the city that 67% or 4 million out of the 6 million was a fair number. We worked very hard with Sarasota School District. They purchased 130 acres from us for Welland Park High School and a future K through eight site. We worked through not only the land deal, but we worked with them hand in hand through the construction. I'm real proud to say that's gonna be a facility everybody in the city of Northport can be proud of, but it's something we hold dearly. Because the other thing we did that helped make that facility realistic was the school district prior TO THAT, HAD PURCHASED A 60 ACRE SITE JUST NORTH OF WHERE COOL TODAY PARK IS. THEY BOUGHT IT THINKING THEY'D PUT A K THROUGH EIGHT SITE THERE. WELL, THEY DIDN'T ANTICIPATE WE WERE GOING TO HAVE A MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL TEAM IN WELLAND PARK RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET. ON THAT PROPERTY, THERE WAS A 20 OR 30 YEAR, I DON'T REMEMBER, DEED RESTRICTION THAT CAN ONLY BE USED FOR SCHOOL. AND THAT CAME FROM, OBVIOUSLY, WHEN OUR PREDECESSORS SOLD THEM THE SITE. AS PART OF THE HIGH SCHOOL AND K-3 SITE, WE AGREED TO BUY THAT PROPERTY BACK AT THE APPRAISED VALUE, EVEN THOUGH THE APPRAISED VALUE DIDN'T TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THAT IT COULD ONLY BE USED FOR SCHOOLS. WE'RE GOING TO ADD THAT PIECE TO OUR VILLAGE E, AND WE'VE BEEN WORKING WITH STAFF ON IT, UPDATED FOR THAT AMENDMENT. BUT THAT PURCHASE OF THAT 60 ACRES HELPED THE SCHOOL DISTRICT PURCHASE 130 ACRES FROM US. IT HAS NOW BECOME THE WELLAND PARK HIGH SCHOOL, AND IN THE FUTURE WILL BE A K THROUGH 8 SITE ALSO. SO, AGAIN, WE TAKE GREAT PRIDE IN CREATING A COMMUNITY THAT The developer works with the city, the county, and the school district. One of the challenges we received about two years ago, and this kind of led to this whole process where we're starting now, is the Winchester Holdings were always planned to be developed in the county. We secured our critical area plan approval in April 21 for 8,999 residential units, 200,000 square feet of commercial or office space. However, in January 31st, 2024, the Engwood Water District posted a new water study BEFORE THAT, THEY REPRESENTED MULTIPLE TIMES EVERY YEAR FOR THE PRIOR SIX YEARS. THEY HAD ALL THE WATER CAPACITY THEY NEEDED. ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS TAKE OUR PIPE AND TIE INTO THEIR PIPE. THAT MASTER PLAN THAT THEY POSTED SHOWED THAT WASN'T THE CASE. THEY WOULD HAVE TO INVEST $144 MILLION OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS ON WATER IMPROVEMENTS, WHICH THEY HAVE DONE NONE. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, THEY WERE GOING TO BE 1.5 MILLION GALLONS A DAY SHORT OF SOURCE WATER. WE HAD TO TAKE OUR OWN FUTURE IN OUR OWN HANDS, WORKING WITH CITY LEADERSHIP AND WORKING WITH THE PEACE RIVER WATER AUTHORITY. WE CAME TO THIS BOARD IN NOVEMBER OF 24 WITH AN AGREEMENT TO SECURE 2 MILLION ADDITIONAL GALLONS OF WATER A DAY FROM PEACE RIVER. The city did the agreement with Peace River and currently did a separate agreement with the West Village Improvement District and Welland Park to buy that 2 million gallons a day. That is in the new facility they are just starting construction with. Estimated cost was $48 million. That agreement basically says, Welland Park, that's yours. You get the water, you're paying the bill. We mutually agreed upon it. That was one of the reasons WE HAVE THIS ABILITY TO BRING WINCHESTER INTO THE CITY. WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO INCLUDE THAT TWO MILLION GALLONS OF WATER IN OUR LAST WATER MASTER PLAN. AND IT'S THE KIND OF PLANNING AHEAD OF TIME. SO WE HAVE THE IMPROVEMENTS AND WE'RE NOT RUSHING TO FIGURE OUT WHO'S DOING WHAT LATER ON. OTHER THAN IMPROVEMENTS, OTHER THINGS I'M GREATLY PROUD OF, AND I THINK DISTINGUISHES LONDON PARK AS A DIFFERENT TYPE OF DEVELOPER. WHEN WE WERE DOING OUR DOWNTOWN IMPROVEMENT, WE INVESTED OVER $1.3 MILLION IN THE PRESERVATION AND RELOCATION OF HERITAGE TREES. AND WHEN DRIVE'S DOWNTOWN, COMING OFF 41, YOU DRIVE PAST 26 DIFFERENT HERITAGE TREES THAT WE MOVE. THE LARGEST BEING A 96-INCH TREE IS KIND OF AN ANCHOR FOR DOWNTOWN. WE HAD, AT THE END OF THE YEAR, OUR ENVIRONMENTAL CONSULTANT WHO'S DONE ALMOST EVERY PERMIT FOR US OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS. And I asked her, Ms. Monarch, ecology. I said, prepare me a summary of the first 10 villages we've developed. How many acres, how many total wetlands, and what was our impact on those wetlands? Roughly 7,900 acres have been developed. Roughly 1,400 acres of wetlands, we're in at 7,900 acres. TO DATE, WE HAVE IMPACTED, I WANT THIS NUMBER EXACTLY, WE'VE IMPACTED A TOTAL OF 30.74 ACRES OUT OF 1,288.01 ACRES. WE'VE IMPACTED LESS THAN 2.39 ACRES OF WETLAND. A LOT OF DEVELOPERS WOULD HAVE IMPACTED MORE. WE'VE TRIED TO PRESERVE THE WETLANDS, WORK AROUND THEM, AND MAKE THOSE AMENITIES IN OUR COMMUNITIES. And partly because of those efforts, we've got a lot more open space than the city code requires. We're required to have 30% open space. At the same time, I asked one of our team members, I said, Trevor, do the same thing for each plant on open space. Through our first 10 villages, 8,173.4 acres planted. We have a total open space of 4,050.21 acres. Now, Trevor only did this to zero decimal places. I would have loved to have give this to you in two decimal places, but we're at 50% open space, which I think says a lot for us. But the real change that's evolved from the day the City of Northport approved our annexation is some of the philosophy. We are approved for approximately 22,500 units, residential units, within the current city of Northport boundaries. Through preservation of open space, through a change in how we were gonna approach the market. Originally it was contemplated we'd have 50 foot lots and multifamily. Well, today we go from 40 foot single family lots up to 90 foot lots. We have single family product that goes from roughly four to $500,000 on the low end to approaching 4 million on the high end. We've created a true mixed use community from a residential standpoint. And we've been able to deliver more non-residential property, commercial space, office space. Conservatively, I project over 5.1 million square feet of office space, commercial space. And that is conservative. I will tell you that is very conservative. We have the, we're proud to have two hospital facilities, properties on our, within Welland Park. This commission in the last year and a half approved the SMH 28 acres. We brought that in. We worked with them to include them in the village EVDPP. They're approved for an FAR 3.0. I didn't use 3.0 FAR in my calculation. Down the road, less than a mile away, HCA's already built their emergency room and is looking in the long term to do a 250 bed hospital. Again, great anchors for our community. We bring Winchester in. As I said, Winchester was approved for 8,999 residential units, which is great. And now, you know, four or five years ago, that was approved. Nobody realized at that time, when we got down to today, AND WE HAVE DEVELOPED 10 OF 12 VILLAGES. WE ARE GOING TO BE HARD PRESSED TO HIT 16,000 TO 16,500 RESIDENTIAL UNITS IN THE CITY OF NORTHBOARD. AND THAT NUMBER IS GOING TO BE AFFECTED, PROBABLY TO THE LOWER END, BECAUSE WE'RE WORKING WITH STAFF ON SOME EXCITING OPPORTUNITIES FOR A REGIONAL PARK. IT'S SOMETHING VERY NEW AND IS MOVING VERY QUICKLY. SOMETHING YOU WILL START HEARING ABOUT, HOPEFULLY IN THE NEXT 30 TO 45 DAYS. IF WE'RE ABLE TO BRING THAT IN, IT WILL GIVE US SOMETHING THAT NORTHPORT DOESN'T HAVE ANYWHERE. SOUTH COUNTY REALLY DOESN'T HAVE IT. AND IT'S AN OPPORTUNITY. IT WILL LOWER OUR DENSITY, BUT ON THE FLIP SIDE, IT WILL GIVE US AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SOME ADJOINING COMMERCIAL SPACES, RESTAURANTS, HOTELS, THAT COULD BE USED ON THIS FACILITY. WITH 16,000 UNITS AND KNOWING WHAT WE HAVE LOOKED AT AND PLANNED FOR IN WINCHESTER, WE BELIEVE EVEN WITH THE WINCHESTER PROPERTY ANNEXATION, WE PROBABLY ARE WITHIN 1,000 UNITS, PLUS OR MINUS, OF THE ORIGINAL DENSITY APPROVED FOR WELLAND PARK. i.e., I think we're going to be somewhere between 23,000 to 23,500 total units, even with Winchester added. And I have said, and I'm proud to say, Welland Park is kind of the perfect storm for the city of Northport. When I got here, there was three VDPPs going through the process. And the gentleman handling the entitlements would not work with the planning department on a lot of things. It was envisioned the homes would be about $400,000. And one of those neighborhoods, because I met with staff between those two public hearings, and one of those neighborhoods actually is averaging close to a million dollars. So what we've done is our density is roughly 25% lower than approved, our values are roughly 50 to 100% higher than previously approved, and our non-residential have been increased. So from a city tax standpoint, revenue tax standpoint, we're the perfect storm. We're proud of that. We want to keep that going. TO THAT END, WE ASKED IN LATE JANUARY THE STANTEC TEAM. WE GOT A BUNCH OF ECONOMISTS UP IN TAMPA THAT DO THINGS THAT I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND, BUT THEY RUB THEIR BOX AND PUT DATA IN AND COME OUT WITH SOME SIGNIFICANT ANSWERS. SO I'M GOING TO TURN THEM OVER TO THEM. YOU'RE DONE HEARING FROM ME FOR THE DAY, EXCEPT I'LL HAVE ONE THING AT THE END, A LITTLE SURPRISE. They will come and answer questions, they will give a presentation. They will answer any and all questions that you may have for that. I believe I have been an open book with each and every one of you for the last seven years and I will continue to be that way. So please enjoy what you hear from them, look at it, critique it, ask questions. Patrick and Jeremy can take the heat. And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Patrick Luce from Stantec.

Hi, everyone. Patrick Luce, senior economist with Stantec. With me today is Jeremy Bess, also senior economist at Stantec. kind of tag teaming a deep dive presentation for you all, just digging into the raw data, the analysis that we've done to try and quantify the fiscal and economic impacts surrounding Welland Park and Winchester Ranch as they come into play and into the fold for the city's tax base. Effectively there's three core components of our analysis. Hopefully you all don't get too offended by the amount of data that we have today. There's a lot of charts, there's a lot of information. It has been sourced primarily from the Census Bureau, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from Sarasota County Property Appraiser, and from John and his team at Welland Park, giving us an understanding of what the build out looks like. We do want to make sure we're cognizant of everyone's time today. There is a market study that we'll get into first that contextualizes what has been going on in the broader county, what's been going on in the city, and even more sub-regionally in and around Welland Park to get an understanding of, well, is there capacity for further growth assumption and absorption of that growth, both from the residential and non-residential side of the equation, and making sure that we've level set really the underlying economic stability within the surrounding area. We want to make sure that we provide the appropriate context within that market study. So there's some key takeaways that feed our broader, more economic analyses. One of that economic analysis is the fiscal impact, thinking about what it means from not only the tax base, but from the cost presented to both the city and the county as it relates to the ongoing development and growth of Welland Park and Winchester Ranch. We've quantified that to give an estimate of what we see at full build out and want to present those findings today. As John mentioned, please ask questions, poke holes, and make sure that we kind of use this as an opportunity to evaluate where we currently sit with our analysis. On top of that, we've also wanted to quantify the economic impacts of the construction phase of the development, basically the understanding that in order to develop 22,500 residential units and millions of square feet of non-residential construction takes construction workers a new income that then trickles to the economy, but we also want to consider what does that mean once we're at full build out and how that looks from an economic impact standpoint from new revenues, new jobs, and new output for the local community. So just wanted to level set with where we're getting ourselves into today and wanted to just kind of highlight, again, a lot of words, a lot of data. I don't want to read the slides directly off at you. Just wanted to kind of hit those core highlights. Basically, we are highlighting the present, sorry, the historical, the present, and the future development of Welland Park and Winchester Ranch into the City of Northport, understanding what that land annexation looks like from the fiscal and economic implications. As I mentioned, that market study that we conducted just contextualizes the local economy at the county level, city level, and sub-regional, the zip code level. The fiscal impacts that we're going to look at will quantify annually the impact to the general government's budgets, both at the city level and the county level, making sure that we are providing clarity as to are the new property tax revenues generated covering the costs that they generally incur. We'll frame that out as a general ratio. And we'll kind of continue to point this out as we go through today's presentation. But anything above one means that revenues are exceeding costs. Anything below one would mean that costs are exceeding revenues. So that one is kind of that initial bent baseline premise there. And then economic impacts. Fiscal and economic impacts sound very similar, but they present two different findings. The fiscal side about the general government and the funds. the economic impact, more about the local economy, more about jobs access and output and wage growth. And so we want to make sure that we highlight those as well. So just kind of level setting with anyone in the room. We are looking at just the broader county in blue. We're looking at the zip code. That's kind of the level of market data that we can access, the zip code that Welland Park generally exists within. And then the green area is the city of Northport. We're going to go into that geographical context for each kind of layer of our analysis, whether we're talking about local construction activity, local wages, and what happened. So do a lot of level setting here, but like to kind of not bury the lead. If we look at just the numbers associated with each one of those analyses and just give some high level takeaways. We talk about just the market study, again, contextualizing the local economy. We are looking at about 460,000 people in the broader account. That has experienced in the past decade, the data is available, about 17% growth. That's information coming from Census Bureau, median household income around $83,000. And when we talk about the projections from Welland Park, and that's what we're doing, is we are isolating just Welland Park. We are not projecting any other growth in and around the city and around the county. We are just trying to carve out what is going on in Welland Park and Winchester Ranch and what does that mean for the local community. Fiscal impacts, when we talk about that full bill that John was envisioning and kind of highlighting, what sort of property taxable value are we looking at? And so what we did is we evaluated the Sarasota County Property Appraiser Database, zoomed into the existing structures within Welland Park, and extrapolated what present-day market value is for taxable, that is taxable, not just the market value, but the taxable value that will be incurred on the overall general fund. And that is projected in present day dollars, or 2025 dollars is when the study is kind of treating as the present day environment, at $8.8 billion. That is agnostic of any inflationary or property growth values that would take place between now and full build out. With the general government budget, we are expecting about a $515 million cumulative net surplus. And that's cumulative both between the city and the county. When we talk about the cost recovery ratio, it's about 1.39. And that's that kind of number that we continue to hone in on to make sure that we are evaluating does this new development cover its cost? Anything above one means that it covers its cost. So over the full build-out period and the in-between years, the cumulative build-out is about a 1.39, 1.4, meaning about 40% over recovery of its cost. When we look at just the individual years, not just the historical that has happened and not just the present day, but into the future, that will generally fluctuate upwards, closer to about 1.6 to 1.97%. and then the economic impact analysis. We are talking about what is the level of overall employment that is projected at build out. And the way these economic impact analyses work is it talks about new employment. And it's not just directly related to the county, or to the new developments, but it is the indirect effects and the induced effects. So the direct effects will be, hey, we have new folks moving into town and these folks come in and they have jobs and they create new jobs by new spending that they're going to trickle through the economy. And there's indirect effects that are more support type jobs. If we talk about an employment structure and then induced effects, which is kind of the residual effects that happen to the broader community when we think about new restaurants and places like that opening up. Output, when we talk about output, that is almost like a proxy for that kind of core macroeconomic figure, the GDP, gross domestic product. Output just says how much new economic activity occurs as a result. And at full build-out, our impact here is estimated around $7.6 billion. labor income about $5.18 billion, and then total employment supported through just the construction period, not at full build-out, but between now and full build-out, construction period has its own fiscal impact separate than that stabilized amount. So that $68,000 is just to support the construction activity that goes on to achieve and arrive at full build-out. So I know we're spraying the whole economic fire hose. I hope we're okay to kind of start getting a little bit more granular into the numbers. Like I said, we don't want to just read off the slides at you. We just want to provide some high level takeaways. There's a lot of data on here, hopefully being part of the agenda package that can live and breathe and have access to all this information and data that we're providing here today.

And I think if we were to think about the market study, which again, is just designed to frame out where we're at, and again, to Patrick's point, can we absorb the potential buildup that we're talking about? You think about it maybe broken down into four buckets here. Where are population and demographic trends going? Does it pair well with income trends, so on and so forth? And then we say, OK, hey, what is going on in the local economy around construction? It's kind of a heavy topic in the last couple of years as it relates to affordability challenges and things like that. But we want to understand if what's going on here is any more unique than maybe what's going on at the state level or the national level. And then understanding, yes, well, is there land availability? And how is it being used? And again, thinking about what that might look like in the future. So again, to Patrick's point, there's going to be a lot of numbers on each one of these slides. If it helps, you know, we try to put some, again, some overall summary here. Why are we looking at, you know, income percent change over time? Again, we talked about Sarasota County having a 17% growth rate. Well, taking that a step further and actually looking at Northport and then, again, even further, thinking about that zip code level, you can see that a lot of that growth is actually stemming from what's going on here in Northport and then, of course, a significant percentage of growth going on in all the new build-out that we're talking about within this zip code here. And, again, I think we put this out there to say, well, great, we need that momentum, right, to grow communities. And is that momentum... You know, a concern and from again, from this perspective, we'd say, oh, it's actually good growth, right? This isn't a community that's that's stagnant or stale. These are obviously long term issues. And we think about it from an economics perspective. We have this momentum to build properties. And again, the twenty two thousand five hundred that we'd be looking at in the future again. contextualizing the environment here to see, right, are there headwinds that we're dealing with? And from that perspective, no. But then we have to say, well, is the population that we're talking about, you know, have the, I guess, demographic profile that maybe we would, you know, want or to sustain a healthy community? And then you can start talking about, right, general affordability costs, poverty rates. And again, the point we're putting here is no real alarm bells here. This isn't a We're not talking about North Port or, of course, the zip code that we're really honing in on. We're not talking about an area that is putting up red flags for human services or additional human services needed for areas that would have high levels of poverty or maybe potentially lower income. And then, of course, it's going to bleed right into this, which is now we have to contextualize where income is. And generally speaking, above the state level in not only the zip code there, but also in Northport. And the reason why we're putting that out there is because that once again goes right into the idea of affordability. Can we afford the homes that we're talking about? Uh, being built, no doubt we're talking about median household income. I need a room on the upper end that we're talking about with John's point around larger homes and bigger properties in terms of cost. I should say. So, when we see these numbers, just understand that's kind of on media and there's, there's some distribution, if you will, that we know exists right across the country, but. That income inequality that I may be referencing is, again, nothing out of necessarily the ordinary in the area. We're not seeing this area be any more unequal, if you will, from what they call a Gini index that were compared to the state. And all that is is, again, just looking for red flags to say, is there an income distribution issue that maybe causes this median income to be more elevated than not? And the short answer is, no, we're not really quite quite seen any issues there.

Talking about just the job market too, trying to frame out what sort of levels of employment should we be considering for future growth, again feeding into that economic impact analysis. We wanted to create a job profile so that we have just an average mix of jobs that we would assume to come into the future. We have not done a formal forecast on the manufacturing or real estate or public administration job growth that would occur. As a result, we've just assumed the same average profile going out into the future. So this kind of frames that out. Again, thinking about contextualizing it to just the broader state county and city level context very much in sync when we talk about that unemployment rate that's existed over the past 10 years on average, very much in alignment. Again, thinking about looking at the construction employment in the state of Northport to accommodate all that level of growth that has occurred, we've seen big growth in the construction environment.

I'll even say when we think about, again, what's going on maybe more granular against the state, we would actually say that we actually have, in this area, lower levels of unemployment than the state has.

Go ahead. We do this all the time. We just, each one of us wants to talk first. And so when we talk about just the macro economy or that gross domestic product, the output number that I referred to, contextualizing what we see in the local environment, the GDP is about $36 billion on a per person basis in the county. It's about 78,000. And again, thinking about that distribution between services and goods in general government spelled out there. Since 2015 or from 2015 to 2014, GDP in Sarasota County has grown by almost 100%, so meaning the size of the pie or the size of the economic pie in the county has nearly doubled in just 10 years. That outpaces the state of Florida, which has grown by about 88%. That goods producing industry expanded about 112.4%. And basically all this is just showing that it's growing. The region is growing and it's diversifying. And that's good tenants and good long-term perspectives for any of that non-residential construction that might come into play or that is expected to come into play as a result of Welland Park and Winchester Ranch.

Yeah, bingo. We're talking about all these goods and services you need to build out some of that non-residential space. And this, again, contextualizes the idea that says, yes, okay, we're growing here. The need for these buildings will start to be important. And I guess that tails into... You know, a small, a small glimpse into the construction activity, at least on the residential side. This chart simply put is an opportunity for us to actually compare what's going on and maybe the Sarasota County in terms of total housing units. And on the right hand side, just looking at Florida, I'm doing this not necessarily to look at magnitudes. I'm trying to understand just general trends, trying to understand if there are any outliers that we need to be, you know, more aware of or maybe, you know, alarmed by. And again, short answer there is, well, no, right? There's a lot more growth going on in terms of, you know, unit growth in Sarasota County than the state. Again, looking at about 15.8 for the county, state level about 12.8%. That's over a 10-year period. But again, just thinking about this from a, you know, any... headwinds or issues going on here. I think one thing to call out is vacancy rates across this area. This is, again, similar across the state, but vacancy rates in this area are a bit more elevated. Now, I think the caveat there is very important. There are a lot of Seasonal housing that goes on in this area, and if you're not present during the census polling, you'll count as vacant, even though you do own the home. You just don't use it the entire time. Right? You were gone during the season that they came down and actually did. Did these again, the community survey studies that that we're talking about. So I think that's important when we see these slightly elevated. uh levels of vacancy rates i think understanding well what this area has is a little bit more unique than maybe the the rest of florida uh and then drilling this a little bit further kind of rounding out the last piece of the construction trends there we did want to look at at least the msa level construction spending against florida but this is specifically on the right hand side non-residential construction, which maybe gets a little bit less attention these days than the residential side. But again, just contextualizing this to say, are there divergences going on? Is that blue line significantly underperforming what's going on in the state? And the short answer is no, but of course, In the macro environment, yes, we are dealing with some headwinds and tailwinds as it relates to what's going on in the residential and interest rate environment that may be pulling down overall non-res right now. But again, putting this chart up there, you can see there's cyclical trends. We move up and down over time. This is what we call in the economics world as business cycles. So these are expected trends. But again, trying to make sure that, oh gosh, is one diverging more than another one? And the short answer is, generally speaking, no.

I think we've said contextualized like 100 times already. I'll try to reduce how many more times we say it, but we do want to talk about is there available land use within the county, within the city, within the zip code, and try and make sure that there's a core understanding of what's going on with vacant land, undeveloped land throughout the general area. And so this is just kind of a core breakdown trying to provide just a more informational piece about what existing vacant land still exists for the county, about 6% of land, or for the city, closer to about 19.4% of land. But even in the zip code, when we think about the contribution or potential contribution to the fiscal impacts and the economic impacts within the city of Northport, there's still an abundant amount of vacant land at 19.4%. How that ends up getting distributed between residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, or just open space is... to be seen in the future. But if we just target and zoom into, well, what we are expecting or what we're seeing in the zip code that Welland Park is within, it's far more in alignment with Sarasota County than, say, Northport. So the next chart we're going to show is just talking about the contribution that our analysis suggests to overall revenue at full build-out that Welland Park and Winchester Ranch would have on the City of Northport's general fund, recognizing that we are taking a snapshot in time of Northport's total available land area and vacant land and not making any future assumptions about where that vacant land goes. And so this is kind of bringing it all together as we start to transition and talk about what's going on into the fiscal side of the equation. While we're talking about about 18% of the city land area, we are actually focused on about 50.9% of the city revenue. And this is by the year 2040 at full build out. Again, not assuming any future or additional growth or absorption of that 19% of vacant land in the city of Northport. And so 50% of the revenue sounds like a big number, but we also need to juxtapose that with about 37% of the city's cost. Again, trying to make sure that we're creating a balanced overview of Welland Park and Winchester Ranch to make sure that we aren't just focusing in on the new revenues that it brings, but also the costs you serve, new residents, new non-residential, as well as just all of the infrastructure that's kind of surrounding it as well. So that is kind of our step into now talking about the fiscal impact side of the equation. Again, still spraying the whole fire hose, taking a temperature gauge, see if we're good to keep going. So fiscal index, this is where we can home in on how we developed our analysis on deriving those revenues and cost into the future, thinking about the full build out. So we're talking about the development activity, and this is information that was sourced from John's team at Welland Park, helping us understand what is the future residential development look like, that 22,500 unit number that has been brought up a couple times today, along with, well, what are the historical and known non-residential construction opportunities and developments, along with, well, what does the market generally suggest at full build-out, we would experience, or a land area like this would experience, of non-residential build-out. So we want to make sure that we're giving credit to that, and what that taxable value brings is new ad valorem revenue, and quantifying that ad valorem revenue, and then comparing it against the cost of service and any expenditure attribution. And between those revenues and costs, we can get to that next fiscal position and cost recovery. So going to step through our analysis. Again, want to make sure we're balancing some comprehensive outlooks with also trying to take some summary takeaways from a lot of numbers and a lot of data. So this is just understanding the backbone infrastructure. When a new development comes into place, the question is who builds that backbone infrastructure and who develops the land? At this point in time, there's been $0 of capital burden on the city of Northport, $741 million. of that infrastructure and land development has come from the Welland Park team. And we can break that down further and talk about what does this mean from the roads network, water and wastewater, fire, police, and parks, as well as any of those future impact fee credits, and then trails. wayfinding, lift stations, irrigation, earthwork. So kind of summarizing all of the infrastructure investments that have been made and are expected to be made are coming from Welland Park, funding that full backbone infrastructure for the existing and into the future. And so the intent there is that the annexation becomes a net fiscal gain with zero capital burden on the city. That is the goal. Now, breaking that down just a step further, thinking about those master development infrastructure, we've kind of zoomed in onto some targeted infrastructure components, thinking more about just the kind of arterial roads that have been spent to date. So we have the actual column from 2015 to 2016. We have the forecast column, what is being expected from 2026 and into the future, a full build out that we're generally framing as about 2040, 2039, 2040. And so this is just quantifying them as far as it relates to your killer roads, offsite roads, wastewater and water treatment plants that are now being operated, and then the future water capacity reservation that John mentioned with Peace River. fire, police and parks, trails and wayfinding to get to just again that targeted infrastructure spending in total about 425 million. So taking a step back from all of the land development and then just focusing in on the piece that we had just presented that is just infrastructure development. And the intent here is that these will be partially offset by an impact fee credit. The land development, maybe not, but the infrastructure, the intent is to see remittance back to offset all the upfront costs from Welland Park. So now we're getting into the meat, talking about the actual fiscal impacts. piggybacking off of this notion of zero upfront capital costs from the city. And when we look out into the future, we are seeing both the county and the city of Northport having a positive fiscal impact. And when we combine both of those, the cumulative cost recovery between present day all the way to 2040 is expected to trend between 1.6 as a cost recovery to 1.97. And as a reminder, A cost recovery of one means that revenues equals cost. For a cost recovery of 1.6, that means for every dollar of cost, $1.60 of revenue is being generated. So when we kind of unpack how we've arrived at these numbers, kind of drilling in all the data and analysis that we've done, what we see is presently about 91, 9,200 units have currently been built through 2025. This is thinking about Welland Park, it's thinking about the existing units that are all part of that region. But at build out, that's expected to grow to about 22,500. So if we think about from 2026 to about 2040, and we just create a general phasing schedule, it's about 900 units, give or take, per year. A bit more in the front half of the 2030s, and then it starts to taper down as non-residential starts to pick up. And through 2025, non-residential construction is about 1.3 million square feet. the expectation at full build-out is closer to 7 million. And this is based upon an analysis of looking at existing trends within the data to understand what has actively been built, that 1.3 million square feet, what is kind of generally known to be built, about close to 5 million, and then just what is normal. And when we think about the normal, we're talking about just for the broader county, what is a typical relationship between non-residential square footage in units of households. It's about 300 square feet, and that is a newer trend. That trend has actually been descending over time, but when we think about just the future of this, we are trying to understand, well, what does the present-day environment generally look like? And so that means that we're expecting a ratio of about 14.2% of non-residential square feet to residential square feet. So this will be far more residential square footage to be built, but we don't want to discount or neglect the commercial side of the equation. And then what does that mean from a tax standpoint? What are the implications on the taxable value presently? What does that mean for the projected taxable value? And then what does that mean for future tax revenue? And so the top kind of bars there is just focus on the taxable value between residential and non-residential. We've just put a projected line in for 2026 and beyond. to try and estimate what new build out will look like into the future accounting for both residential and non-residential with known developments and then just using that market study and analysis to understand what a typical normal absorption rate looks like. So this is taxable value that will then be incurred or be applied towards the millage rate to create the ad valorem assessment. And so we're talking about, again, by full build out, close to $9 billion in present day dollars. These are not inflated, costs are not inflated, revenues are not inflated. We have just said, well, in 2025 dollars, which is the most recent year of data that flows through the entire analysis, we expect about $8.8 billion of property value. And again, just trying to focus on the data, the math, and the sources that we have available to us.

What does that mean from a fiscal impact standpoint?

We've compartmentalized both Sarasota County's budget and the City of North Worth budget. So this is Sarasota County's general fund first. And what we've done is we've analyzed what existing cost centers are there and what existing revenue centers are there within the overall budget. And from there, we analyzed in the county and in the city how many residential properties there are, how many non-residential properties there are. And we need to understand how to distribute or create a unit version of a cost for the entire community, whether the county or the city. And an industry practice or standard way of doing that is to create what we call functional population as that divisor of cost. So a functional population just accounts for both residential and non-residential. Residential is, well, how many resident people are... living per house and how much time do they spend per house. For non-residential, it's going to factor in the amount of employees and amount of visitors and how often people are at those non-residential structures. In this way, we are accounting for both the demands that the residential side drives to a fiscal impact analysis and the non-residential side. And fundamentally what this does is it creates a common unit to divide cost by. Because that becomes very important in how we will apportion cost to new developments and new single family and non-residential construction. And that's what's feeding our analysis. And so when we do that and we talk about all those units that we're bringing in and we're talking about all the cost within the budget, we need to account that there's some variability with budgets. And when we talk about variability, we're saying that not every single cost in a community scales at a one-to-one relationship. Some are fixed and some are variables. So we went through and analyzed all of the budgets for Sarasota County, which is being presented here, and budgets for City of Northport, and identified using the Urban Land Institute, using case studies, and then using just best practices, we understood or tried to estimate what percent of budgets are variable and what percent of budgets are fixed. This is a overarching high level analysis. It is not getting into the weeds with city staff or county staff to try and look at every single individual line item. So it is a rough order of magnitude that we've tried to attempt here. An example would be if we talk about police services, for instance. Police services, generally those calls and responses generally are variable to the resident population and functional population. So we only apply about a 10% fixed factor to police services, meaning that 10% is always going to be there. The remaining 9% or 90% will scale with all the new development that comes into play. And so we want to make sure that we give credit where we need to and say not every cost is fixed, not every cost is variable. But we want you to come up with an estimate of what is fixed and what is variable. These are the results based upon that estimate or all those estimates by cost center within each budget that has been sourced from the publicly adopted budgets for 2025. We did run some sensitivity analysis to say, well, what if all costs are variable, meaning that what happens if every single cost just scales with that functional population and still found that that cost recovery ratio remains above one for both the county and the city. So we did run sensitivities on this. What we're presenting is just our highest, our best guess or best estimate of what that variability is. But we looked at all bounds. Now with this said, when we look at the annexation period, a lot of those cost centers get shifted into the city rather than the county, and we also see a loss of some of those other revenues outside of just the millage rate. So you can see from once the projection period stops, those revenues and costs from the county level dip. But we juxtapose that with what's going on in the city. And so we just envisioned what if this was all going on pre-2026 and just said, well, once that annexation occurs, whenever that does, if it's 2026 or what have you, what is the appropriate ratio here? So when we look at projecting out into the future, we are talking about a cost recovery ratio today of a 1.55. But if we kind of zoom back, that means about an $8.9 million net fiscal surplus when we attribute those expenses and those costs proportionally. Again, based upon that functional population attribution. And so over time you can see the blue bars, that is revenue to the city, and the red bars, those are costs to the city. Generally flowing, moving upwards as new developments come online, but the blue bar continues to outpace the red bars. And that is kind of one of the key takeaways that we found as we dug into the analysis and dug into the results. And so kind of trying to do one kind of high-level takeaway for what that cost recovery ratio looks like. For the county, what occurs is as the service costs transition from the county to the city as a result of annexation, you can see that that blue bar actually moves upwards generally and that positive to the county. When annexation occurs, you can see what we're now doing is adding in what it means to the city of Northport and then just the combined effect to the city and the county. And so what we found is that the city generally, when I just do a summation of all revenues between the forecasted 2026 through 2040 divided by all costs, from 2026 to 2040, the overall cost recovery is right around that 1.6, 1.58 ratio. The minimum comes about in 2032 at about 1.39. Now, again, we ran sensitivities on this. Not shown here is, well, what happens if every single cost is variable, meaning that there's no service scaling or everything scales in exact proportion to new properties, new non-residents coming online. What is that kind of, I'll say worst case scenario from a fiscal standpoint? And that also occurs in 2032. And in that worst case scenario, our analysis suggested that revenues still outpace costs and the cost recovery ratio would be 1.13. That would be the worst case scenario. The most likely case is right around that 1.39 in 2032. So that is the low point in this broader analysis. And then again, can combine both jurisdictions to come up with that red line that's showing the combined cost recovery ratio when we add up all revenues to the county, all revenues to the city, all costs to the county, all costs to the city. We come up with that combined approach.

The last piece, I guess the three-legged stool here, we did the market study looking at fiscal impacts. But we did want to add this idea of economic impacts. And that's what Patrick was mentioning earlier. You bring all of this in, there's this level of output that should at least be discussed. There's a lot of construction going on in the past. There's a lot of planned construction going on in the future. This creates economic growth in some aspects. And so that's kind of what we want to, again, kind of bring out here. We have what we call horizontal construction. We think of roads and landscaping and things like that. We have vertical construction. Of course, that's residential construction. That's non-residential buildings. But there's... impacts coming from us building all of this throughout time. And then there's this expectation of economic output once you fill 22,500 homes. full of families who are working and doing all these things and spending money to create economic output. So we're looking at that. And then the last piece, why not end with, I guess, a positive note, the Cool Today parks and implications. There's revenue that's coming from that. There's economic output that's been measured. And I'll be clear on that one. We're using a study that I believe is being done regularly. We thought we'd fold it back into our analysis as well. But again, just maybe... simply put, leading with three easy kind of figures to understand. We know that we're spending a lot on construction. Again, what's been done, what potentially has been in the pipeline, and then some of what Patrick was talking about, which is estimates or expectations for further construction, right? The need for non-residential buildings beyond, again, what is already kind of being discussed. The hospitals, the new school, And that's about $16.8 billion in total economic impact. Again, this accounts for not only the cost of putting all of this construction out there, but to Patrick's earlier point, there are multipliers, right? We build all of this. And then there's these indirect and induced impacts that also need to be added. We build something. We're building something. That is economic output. But then we need a supplier for all of the hammers and nails and all these things that go on. And then to Patrick's earlier point, boy, we have all of this kind of activity going on, we need restaurants and hotels and things that, again, are these additional costs. But I do want to mention, though, that at the stabilized community, and that's what we're talking about in 2040, when everything's kind of built, there's $7.6 billion in annual economic impact that stems from all of the revenues and incomes, rather, that these families that I'm mentioning that are living in the community are, again, putting out. Once again, though, capturing the additional indirect and induced impact. And then again, not to mention the last piece there, which is the Cool Today Park is estimated around $116.8 million in annual economic impact that the Brave Stadium has just in this county area. And again, maybe... Thinking about what's driving all of the costs, which then drives some of that economic output, you can see that the vertical construction, specifically around the residential space, is going to be the bulk of that, with a little bit of that non-residential and the vertical construction, and then, of course, the horizontal. And if I was to maybe start with the horizontal, the smallest piece of the pie, this is what I was talking about when I mentioned we've got roads and wastewater plants and lift stations. Again, looking at maybe different categories, summing it all up, That's $919.4 million in cost, right? So again, summing those things up. When we talk about the actual economic output of that, we need to factor in, again, those multipliers. But if we look at the vertical construction, once again, that is made up of non-residential and residential. Non-residential being on the top, We know that there's historical developments that have been going on. We know there's buildings that are in the pipeline, for example, the schools, and then there's that future development potential that Patrick was mentioning around the idea of what we're building all of this residential. There's a certain level of non residential that that is. built up to support the community that we're building. And then again, if we look towards the bottom there, you have that residential, that's the, again, total cost there. So summing all these things up, you can see it's starting to stack, but I like to think about it from, again, an economic output perspective. So during this phase of construction from 2006, again, we're kind of going back in time, but then ending around 2040, when we expect the homes to be built, You're talking about 68,000 people with a labor income of about $5.2 billion. All of that is creating this nearing $17 billion in economic output. Again, kind of removing the impact of inflation, so we're talking about it in 2025 dollars. But again, thinking about the magnitude here of that. Breaking that down, as I mentioned, we know that that's horizontal and it's going to have a smaller piece of it. We've just mentioned smaller costs. So you're only going to get about 7500 total employment of that larger figure. The output being around 1.4 billion. The big kicker here, you're going to get it primarily from that vertical construction that's that's 61,000 out of the 70,000 or close to 70,000. Total employment, but the big kind of figure to zone in on is that 15.3Billion dollars in output accounting again for those. Those multipliers that we would expect as things trickle through the economy. But once we're all built and the construction is kind of, let's assume it ends, there's always further things that get built out. But if we talk about the scope that we have here, you would be talking about, again, 20-some thousand units. That's around on an estimate to be about 40,000 units. uh total employees not everyone in the household is going to have a job we have to factor some of that participation rate in we are estimating to be about 40 000 and again thinking about the labor income and what that actually means for an economic output you're talking about 7.6 billion dollars in output output at this stabilized you know community uh expectation here and then Again, last but not least, I'd like to end on this. We took these slides from, again, the studies that are done, I believe, on an annual or maybe a yearly basis to see what type of impact. And this is the same concept. This study also looks at overall economic output. What is it amongst that direct spending, total attendance going on? And again, We can kind of think about the total economic output being about 116M dollars. That's annually that this that this cool today park provides directly to this local area. So, again, just given a little bit of some summaries here to again, show that there's significant value and fun. There's no fun measurement on here, I guess. But if there was, you'd probably say there's a lot of fun going on there. And so that ends, again, our three legged stool of the analysis that we took that we were trying to answer here, contextualizing the local environment. Can we build it? Looking at the fiscal impact side, what type of costs and revenues are we dealing with? And then ultimately thinking about a more conceptual idea of what kind of economic output would this activity that we're talking about provide to the local area?

All right. Thank you very much. That's an awesome presentation. A lot to digest. Vice Mayor, you're up.

Thank you, Mayor. First, I have to ask, are you brothers or first cousins? I'm struck by the similarity between the two of you.

We love to hear that. We do presentations out in the wild, and we have a slide. If you've ever seen the movie Step Brothers, we look just like the two step brothers with our little vests and everything on. But no relation. My daughters call him Uncle Jeremy, though.

Okay, thanks.

I think it's the beards.

Yeah. Anyway, on a more serious note, A question on cost recovery. I saw that the county gains are higher than the city gains, which was surprising to me, given that Welland Park exists in the city of Northport. Is that more because the county spent more? If so, is it River Road? So if you could shed some light on that.

Yeah, it's fundamentally just on the operational side of the house. A lot of those services post-annexation are absorbed by the city. the county is no longer part of the main cost structure that would serve the community, it would be the city. And so, once that annexation occurs, the county will see some reduction in those other revenues, but still has a county millage that goes through, but if you talk about the city and your millage, it's very comparable to what the county was incurring pre-annexation.

Right. So, startup costs is what I'm hearing. I think that's fundamentally, yes. Okay, thanks. Poverty rate. Given that the income per household in zip code 34293 is significantly higher than either the city or the county, How do you account for a higher poverty rate when compared with the city? That was confusing to me.

Yeah, it's about participation, right? And so you can actually have very low income because someone's not working, but it doesn't mean they don't have savings, if that makes sense. So with an older community, you can have the ability to have minimal income coming in, which actually means you're closer to the poverty line. But you still have the means to afford a home. You probably own it. You have savings and so on that you're drawing down from. That is one aspect of why poverty rates can be a little bit skewed and then see income on the other side of it. For those who are working, you're going to see that slightly inflated. It actually goes right back to that income inequality piece, and that's a tough word to say, but there is this ability where some folks who are making more kind of make up the majority of the income in the area. So 10% of folks that are making a significant amount of money bring in maybe 60%, 70% of the income coming into the area. That's that piece. That's also a good point. The zip code as well, and I don't know if that's exactly what John was mentioning, but I should also say, as you get more granular with some of the ACS data, you will get a larger, what they call margin of error on that as well. And so when I saw those poverty ratios, they didn't scream, oh, they're really big misbalances. We're looking at it saying, well, one's higher than the other. But there's going to be a pretty large margin of error once you start getting even more granular on those zip codes as well.

I mean, is it attributed to investment income? I mean, you could have very wealthy people who, in terms of how we measure poverty, it's based on income, but investment income isn't part of that.

Investment income, it would be. It just depends on how you're getting it. Yeah, because you would have to actually file what you earned on investment income, but partly driven by that. John, you were about to say something in the local area.

If you look at one of the first maps, Cove goes all the way out through South Venice and other areas that are much older than Wealth Park. So that is not a zip code that is only Wealth Park aware. It's giving you some data showing a bigger area that may have more variation in income than really exists within Wealth Park. It's something that's hard to do.

And John, in the future, if you're going to comment, please go up to the microphone so we can get it on the tape.

Great, thank you. And for now, two final questions. On your vacancy rates, I'm assuming that partially constructed or under construction or partially constructed abandoned properties are not part of that equation?

So abandoned properties will be, and that's where a lot of the sense of what a vacancy rate is comes from, where folks will say, hey, there's no one living here, this house is vacant. But when we think about the local market, generally the case is that it's because it's seasonal. And so the vacancy is not because it's abandoned, it's because it's a seasonal property. But it won't include both.

But it wouldn't include the partial build-out that's not technically a formed house yet.

Right, right. Last question. I was also surprised to see under economic impact the impact of Cool Today Park. Could you just sort of characterize what's included in that number?

Yeah. Actually, probably can go back. So I believe, and again, this is taking it from an annual study that's not done by Stantec, but they have to follow the guidelines of, I actually believe it's the MLB's guidelines on how to measure economic impact for stadiums. And so they're going to be talking about It's not necessarily a construction piece. That's going to be talking about overall employment that is used for that. You can talk about all the vendors that have to come and actually, you know, all the hot dogs and drinks and so on and so forth that comes in. And that creates jobs as well because, well, you need it now. So it's not just from the construction piece now that it's built. It's about the folks that are coming and spending, but also the employment that's actually used during that partial period of the year.

Okay, thank you. I'm all set, Mayor, thanks.

Commissioner Petro.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll start from the back of presentation. Cool today, Park. You said that economic impact is such and such and brings so much. Did you include the initial investment that the City of Northport made about $5 million that we did contribute as a city?

Yeah, so with that impact analysis, it's a separate study. We did not do that study. We just wanted to put up the findings. My understanding is that with that investment, there's a $5 million made by the city that is contributing or contributing to the construction stage of the park. But thinking about just the ongoing operations is what that analysis conducts, is how many new projects, visitors are coming to the community as a result of having a stadium present to go to baseball games, to spend money, maybe go to a hotel and what have you. But that's, again, our understanding of their study.

Let me add to that.

See, good job.

Part of the initial funding, because as you know, the city put some money in it, Wallen Park put some money in it, the county and the state. So it was a requirement of creating the stadium that there needs to be an annual report done on is the stadium operating as it was envisioned? So that's an annual report that goes through the WVID to the state. So it's showing what the impact is of the stadium and solely of the stadium. What I asked Stantec to do is show, okay, not only what's happening with Welland Park, but there's this other economic engine that is on top of it. So the Stantec team didn't add the stadium into our revenue numbers. They're separate and distinct. We wanted to give you the full picture of that saying, here's the development. You know, here's the results of development and here's the stadium separate part because the city did participate as it did well in part, the county and the state.

And I understood that actually because it involves the larger picture. Although as a commissioner of the city, I'm concerned more for the city because we did... you know, spend $5 million, we don't get any tax revenue from it because it's owned by the county. So how do we recoup and how did we... Sales tax. Sales tax, but did we, at what point are we going to be breakeven? If we did it or not, or are we still getting to that point? So I think the numbers are a bit skewed, if you will, in that regard. It's a good economic driver for the location as a regional location. But as far as, you know, a lot of it's right on the border with Venice. So a lot of people. go to Venice, and they stay in those hotels. We don't have that many hotels in that area. So, if anything, I think we're still recouping that investment to some extent. I don't know the numbers because I don't know. The study is not...

WE HAVEN'T STUDIED THAT PART OF IT. CORRECT. NOW, THE GOOD THING IS, OBVIOUSLY, AS YOU KNOW, THE STADIUM OPENED FOR ONE GAME IN 2019. REALLY DIDN'T HAVE A FULL SPRING SEASON IN 2020 BECAUSE OF COVID. SO WE'RE JUST STARTING TO RUN LIKE THOROUGHBREAD WOULD RUN. AS YOU KNOW, BECAUSE OF THE GROWTH, PARTLY BECAUSE OF THE BRAVES, WE'RE STARTING A DOWNTOWN HOTEL THAT WILL BE IN PLACE IN ABOUT 18 MONTHS. THE BRAVES, PURCHASED A TWO ACRE PIECE IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT TO THE STADIUM AND WE ANTICIPATE THEM STARTING IN THE SECOND QUARTER NEXT YEAR ANOTHER HOTEL THAT WOULD BE ACTUALLY CONNECTED TO THE STADIUM. SO SOME OF THOSE THINGS LIKE YOU ASKED ABOUT IN THIS HOTEL BUT OBVIOUSLY PEOPLE FROM OUT OF TOWN ARE PROBABLY STAYING IN VENICE AS SOME WOULD STAY IN NORTH PORTLAND. but it's our opportunity to develop and secure more hotel space on property is gonna be a positive. And we anticipate having over 300 rooms available within the next 24 to 36 months within Welland Park. And as you may know, with the development of downtown in the last phase, we are actually bringing Welland Park Boulevard down to the stadium. Somebody can easily walk from the stadium downtown And then actually cross 41 into the understand commercial development that we're going to start land development here later this week.

And I'm all for that for the hotels and that area. I just wanted to put this out there. So. People are aware of this because it's a skewed presentation on the school park specifically. So that's why I wanted to, unless you had some inside information on that study, which you said you did not. But I appreciate that. I really appreciate the presentation. It's very detailed. The other one was, I have a question cost of. service and expenditure attribution, and specifically cost recovery, 2.48, does this ratio, does it take into account the impact fees that would be paid? And that cost recovery, is it only for the Winchester range? or the entire Welland Park, including Winchester Ranch? So two questions in one.

I'll answer the second question first. It does encompass the entirety of Winchester Ranch and Welland Park, so it's the whole area. As it relates to the impact fees, What we have done is because all of the upfront infrastructure is being invested upon, we have recognized that the impact fee remittance is just recouping those costs that have been put up front already. So they're not included in that cost recovery. It's just the maintenance of the service and amenities and everything that comes with servicing new households and new communities. But the impact fee side of the equation did not get factored in because the costs have already been put up front.

Okay, and again, I'm all for Willing Park development. Really appreciate the planning and the thoughts that are going to details and where to put what, a really well-designed community. Just wanna give a little bit of my thoughts A good a plus on that, although the presentation does involve the combination of. Winchester ranch and well, in part, and what I am concerned specifically, because I knew a lot about that stuff, not to that extent and not to that detail, but. My primary concern about this presentation is Winchester Ranch and the annexation of it. And I would love to have it to be dissected from the Welland Park development because the numbers would be so much different. And I see John is coming up to the microphone. And I'll tell you why after I hear you, what you say.

YOU CAN'T HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER. AND THE REASON I SAY THAT, AGAIN, WE ARE TRYING TO BE VERY RESPECTFUL OF THE CRITICAL AREA PLAN THAT WAS APPROVED FROM THE COUNTY, AND THAT WE HAD A LIMITATION ON COMMERCIAL. NOW, IF YOU LOOK AT OUR OVERALL SITE PLAN, AND, AGAIN, I HAVE THE PICTURE UP, WE HAVE DOWNTOWN, WE'VE GOT SIGNIFICANT COMMERCIAL THAT IS EITHER AT MANISOTA BEACH ROAD AND West Village Parkway, or we'll be out at River Road. So if you look at a map, some of that commercial that needs the residential units is in City of Northport today. It really needs the units that we lost that we didn't put in Northport today. Remember, we're approved for 22,000, roughly 250. We're going to wind up back at that number with Winchester. YOU NEED THE HOUSES TO SUPPORT SOME OF THAT COMMERCIAL. WE NEED THE HOUSES TO SUPPORT THE TWO HOSPITALS SO THAT YOU CAN'T SEPARATE THE TWO. ONE OF THE MAIN THINGS WE DID WITH THE CRITICAL AREA PLAN, WE WORKED VERY HARD WITH SARA SOTA COUNTY TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE A UNIFORM PLAN. IN A LOT OF CASES THERE, WE WERE TELLING THE COUNTY WE WANTED TO BASICALLY CONTINUE THE STANDARDS WE USE IN THE CITY OF NORTHBOARD. So I mean one way of looking at Winchester Ranch is just saying that's just a piece of property. We're looking at just number units. Doesn't matter from an economic standpoint if it's here or here. HOWEVER, WHAT IT'S DONE FOR US IS CREATING A COMMUNITY BY SPREADING THE 22,500 UNITS OVER BOTH, WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO ACHIEVE HIGHER LEVELS OF OPEN SPACE, WETLAND PRESERVATION. I DIDN'T MENTION, WE GOT LIKE 36 MILES OF TRAILS TODAY AND PLANNED FOR. SO YOU CAN'T REALLY SEPARATE. YOU GOT TO LOOK AT WELLAND PARK AS A WHOLE. YOU KNOW, BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT US TO come back and try to put seven storey condo buildings in just to get that density here to show less here. Having a nice spread out. But basically if you think about it from what the city previously approved, we're getting an additional 3000 acres, no more homes than has been heretofore approved. But it gives us the, affords us the ability to bring in more non-residential, because we've got more of the population that we planned for before, The way we've done it has been able to create more economic impact and a bigger variety of household income.

It does make sense, although I think this discussion is a front door for the. A discussion to for annexation, if you will. So this presentation is really is. You know, gives us the ability to see what the well and park community has done. The developer has done and how beautiful the project is. In my, in my view, this. Winchester Ranch is a sort of a separate issue as far as can the city support 10,000 homes without incurring financial impact greater than the expense. And going back to the last question on the cost recovery, that if we include the impact fee reimbursement, I wonder what that cost recovery ratio that would be after that because, you know, And specifically, I'm going to say for the Winchester Ranch because 10,000 homes, if we do, I don't know how the reimbursement works.

Stop right there. Okay. Stop saying 10,000 homes. We're approved for 8,999. I've already said we won't get that. We're going to get to about 22,500, which is approximately what the original approvals were. IF WE WIND UP AT 16.5, WE'RE GOING TO GET ABOUT 6,000 MORE HOMES IN THE CITY OF NORTHPORT. WE'RE NOT GOING TO PUT 10,000 HOMES ANYWHERE IN THE CITY. THAT'S WHY WE DID THE STUDY. WE ARE, AND I'VE BEEN VERY CAUTIOUS UP TO NOW, BUT NOW THAT WE HAVE SECURED PLANS AND APPROVALS FOR 10 OF THE 12 VILLAGES, AND THE ELEVENTH VILLAGE IS MAKING ITS WAY THROUGH THE MASTER CONCEPT APPROVAL PROCESS RIGHT NOW, I CAN SAY FOR CERTAINTY, WE ARE GOING TO BE HARD PRESSED TO PIERCE 16,000 UNITS. NOW, WE MAY GET UP TO 16,500 IF THIS REGIONAL SPORTS COMPLEX THAT WE ARE WORKING WITH STAFF ON DOESN'T COME TO FALLITION. BUT IT IS STARTING TO PICK UP MOMENTUM, AND I SERIOUSLY BELIEVE THAT WILL OCCUR. SO WE'LL PROBABLY GET CLOSER TO THE 16 THAN 16.5. BUT THE POSITIVE OF THAT SPORTS COMPLEX IS GIVES US BALL FIELDS THAT WERE NEVER CONTEMPLATED OUT THERE, YOU KNOW, EVEN TWO YEARS AGO. THE PARK MASTER PLAN THAT THIS BOARD APPROVED IN DECEMBER IS THE FIRST MASTER PLAN, PARK MASTER PLAN THAT INCLUDED WELL AND PARK. ALL RIGHT, SO WE'RE CREATING AN OPPORTUNITY AGAIN, THAT WORKS HAND IN HAND. YOU GOT TO LOOK AT THE WHOLE. JUST THINK, WE HAVE BEEN APPROVED FOR A LONG TIME FOR $22,250, SAY. WE'RE SHOWING YOU A MODEL AT $22,500. WE'RE JUST ADDING MORE LAND TO IT, BUT AS YOU SEE, WE'VE ALREADY INCREASED OUR OPEN SPACE BY, WHAT IS THAT, 70%? GOING FROM 30% TO 50%. AND QUITE FRANKLY, I DON'T SEE THAT NUMBER ULTIMATELY EVOLVING MUCH DIFFERENT THAN THE 50% WE'RE AVERAGING. WOULD WE COMMIT TO THAT UP FRONT? NO, BECAUSE I NEED THE PLANNING FLEXIBILITY TO CREATE you know, great neighborhoods, which I believe we have done.

So let me scale back to Winchester Ranch. So by the 2021, you were approved by county, by the county for 8,990, whatever the number is. 8,999. 99, yeah, 9,000, let's say 9,000 minus one. How many households or how many units are you planning to build in Winchester Ranch?

22,500 minus 16,000 is about 6,500. I think that's going to be around where we end up.

Okay. Can you repeat that?

I'm going to... 22,500, which is what's in our economic impact study, I believe we're going to end about 16,000 units. The delta there is 6,500 units.

Okay.

And what it does for us... AND I MENTIONED WE'RE GOING TO START THE BENDERGEN SITE DEVELOPMENT WORK THIS WEEK. IT ALLOWS US TO MAINTAIN THE GROSS NUMBER OF RESIDENTIAL UNITS AND POPULATION TO HAVE THE PEOPLE THAT ARE NEEDED TO SUPPORT BUSINESSES IN THESE COMMERCIAL AREAS. YOU KNOW, THE RESTAURANTS, THE STORES, THE SHOPS. YOU KNOW, BENDERGEN, AS A VERY ASTUTE COMMERCIAL DEVELOPER, WOULDN'T BE INVESTING YOU KNOW, A 52-ACRE PIECE TO START THE DEVELOPMENT THAT CAN BE UPWARDS OF 700,000 SQUARE FEET WHEN IT'S ALL DONE IF THEY DO NOT SEE THE GROWTH. AND QUITE FRANKLY, A LOT OF THESE GUYS LOOK FOR A CONSISTENT STREAM OF GROWTH. EVERYONE CAN SAY, WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS. BUT A LOT OF PEOPLE TAKE THE APPROACH THAT THEY'RE FROM MISSOURI, SHOW ME FIRST, THEN I'LL BELIEVE IT. THE NICE THING IS THE WELL AND PARK TEAM HAS GOTTEN SEVEN YEARS OF CONSISTENT DEVELOPMENT THROUGH DIFFERENT ECONOMIC CYCLES AND YOU KNOW THEY SHOW THE STANTEC TEAM SHOWS ABOUT 890 WE'VE GONE FROM 760 ON THE LOW END WE'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF COVID YOU KNOW WHERE PEOPLE WERE BUYING HOMES SIGHT UNSEATED WE GOT UP TO ABOUT 1200 YOU KNOW SO WE MENTALLY THINK ABOUT A THOUSAND UNITS A YEAR BECAUSE I'VE GOT TO BE PLANNING I GOT TO BE DEVELOPING I GOT TO BE CONSTRUCTING THOSE TYPE OF IMPROVEMENTS. HOME BUILDING MAY FLUCTUATE YEAR TO YEAR, AND IT MAY BE SIMPLE AS HAVING A HOME DONE FOR CLOSING. YOU KNOW, DO YOU HAVE IT THIS YEAR, OR DOES IT FALL INTO A JANUARY CLOSING? SO 890 IS A REAL GOOD NUMBER BASED ON OUR LAST SEVEN YEARS. AND AGAIN, I SAY THAT BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN HEAD OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF WELL AND PARKERSHIP THIS MONTH FOR SEVEN YEARS.

I'll be very candid and honest because of the annexation. I'm really concerned about two issues, and I've related those two concerns to the city managers and his staff about the the ability to provide the services and specifically I'm not going into once it's built out like police and 10,000 homes are added for example we have one police officer to be added for a thousand residents and whatnot I'm not going there my main concern or two concerns is It is an evacuation route, like you said, and we're adding a school there, which would be, and I told you that before, that, you know, a couple thousand, maybe a thousand students in the first year, 2,000 second year total. Evacuation route and the 2nd is water. Can we supply the water since in your presentation you mentioned in the beginning that the water angle would cannot provide because they would have to initial investment over 100Million dollars.

It's like 2 years ago. This commission unanimously approved an agreement with East river for well, in part West villages to purchase 2Million additional gallons a day of water. from Peace River. So, you know, you can take a step back. Separate, apart from Englewood Water District, we built the backbone for 4 million plus gallon per day water treatment plant on Minnesota Beach Road. We built 2 million gallons today. We were faced, as the city was faced, So we went to, sorry, we went to Peace River collectively, city and Welland Park working with Peace River. And one thing I did mention, we are integral to Peace River's future needs to expand a water main up to the Venice Gardens plant for the county. We are working with peace river on those routes. Kimberly horn working for peace rivers, working on an analysis of that. And every opportunity that has cost effective works with us. If it works with well in part, it becomes a benefit for the city of North board. And I won't go into all the engineering details cause it'll probably bore you, but we have the water.

In the financial implications of supplying the water, were those included in the study? For example, lift pump stations to maintain the pressure?

It's shown as it's in the cost. In the cost, okay. Now, it shows, I think, $12 million for future costs. That's because the study ends in 2040. The Peace River is funding that water improvement with 30-year future bonds. All right, we, Welland Park and Westfields Improvement District, have planned for the 30-year payment area. So that 12 million is only a small fraction of the cost. We anticipate with 30-year bonds, historically Peace River through these water funds have been able to borrow money around 4% or less. So our economic models show we need to plan, not the city, we need to plan for approximately $110 million of investment over the next 30 years. I don't know when they're gonna issue the bonds. We're just in those pre early stages of that. But they will issue that. And then with the built-in capitalized interest period, we'll probably start paying for those bonds in about two years. But that's our payment, not the city's.

Last question slash comment. You talked about momentum and that you have to continue to... continue to build and get the ball rolling and not stop. What is your target demographic to populate the area? And I'm asking this because I don't know your vacancy rates on current build outs, but I know that to get into one of the Leases the rent was lowered by 400. So I see a cool off period and I know you want to have a momentum and continue to go. But. There are so many vacancies and so many incentives with the intention of building out the Winchester range. What is your target population or demographic population? What are you trying? How do you try? What are you going to do? And what demographic are you targeting to populate vacancies and grow future houses?

Our demographic is going to be consistent. We are going to be a home for a large cross section. Now, before COVID, we were predominantly a semi-retired, retired buyer. Now we have a lot of families. I would say that percentage has flipped almost 100%. We've got a lot of families, a lot of people in transition. I personally right now, because I sold my home and I'm building a new home, live in a single family rental neighborhood, family across the street, man and wife. They're working three, four years away from retirement. Also in the same development down the street is their daughter, son-in-law, and grandbaby who live here, work here. So we go from young families, pre-retirees to retirees, and I believe that process and that demographic will continue. If you look at vacancy rate, obviously, as soon as you build something, you're done. You got 100% vacancy rate. that take time in these new developments to absorb that vacancy. If you look at it, the Tropia Apartments in downtown was built, hit 92% vacancy rate within less than two years. And that's kind of what we've been experiencing across the board. So is it unique? Is it high? I don't think it's high. Again, when you look at that economic analysis that the Stantec team did, you can only funnel down to zip code. That zip code, if you look at the map on the third or fourth page, covers a big part of Venice Gardens and other areas of South Venice that may have higher rates, may have different... demographics economically than we have. We can't break the census data down any smaller unless they create a whole census zone for just Welland Park. But I believe what the Stantec team does gives you something that's clear, concise. Right now, it appears we're at $8.9 million a year positive to the city of Northport. Now, our study only include Welland Park, so there could be other things developing in Northport in the next 14 years. But if I did the math right, in 2040, it looks like we're $43 million plus positive to the city of Northport. That gives the city of Northport a lot of financial flexibility. $9 million gives you a lot of financial flexibility. $43 million, I believe, is a game changer.

And the last consulting tip, advice, or a question. Have you considered light industrial office space leasing in Winchester Ranch? Because this board consistently and the previous board consistently was crying out that we need more jobs, jobs, jobs, and yet we're adding Winchester Ranch if we vote on it later on. with all residential, practically 98% residential. And I've heard over and over that residential does not justify the service expenditure that the city provides our service. Have you looked into like light commercial, light industrial office space instead of residential, residential? and more residential. I mean, from what I hear from the community, all across the board, on all sides, they're saying, stop residential. We have so many vacant houses, we have so much traffic, and so on and on. Have you considered anything as an office space lease or any light industrial in Winchester Ranch?

Light industrial would increase traffic, not decrease it, just so you understand. There's a lot of light industrial spaces, vacant property to develop immediately adjacent to Winchester. We have the ability, again, staying consistent with the cap, we have the ability for some square footages. When you bring it into the city, we have to follow the city zoning, Ability to do some of that we have that ability one nice thing about our zone the zoning that we're working with It's only we have in one part is the ability adjust and adapt for development and development needs Now quite frankly, we're not going to have the big boxes Northport is starting to get further south We are seven miles away from 75 Light industrial, for the most part, wants to be where they can move north-south quickly. Will we get some of it? Yes. Will we get a lot of it? No. What we're getting, and we've added significant square footage, is medical, medical office. I mean, Lakewood Ranch doesn't even have two hospitals approved for their property. We're gonna become a medical hub more than light industrial. Light industrial may be in the county adjacent to us and some of those pieces that have started to develop that way that are unwell and septic. You drive Welland Park today, our roads aren't overcrowded. We've planned for those. IF YOU LOOK AT THE TRAFFIC ON 41, TRAFFIC ON 41 FROM FDOT'S NUMBERS SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASED IF YOU'RE COMING FROM NORTHPORT TOWARDS RIVER ROAD AT RIVER ROAD. OR IF YOU'RE IN VENICE, COMING TOWARDS WELLAND PARK. IT DROPS SUBSTANTIALLY ONCE YOU HIT ROCKLEY. WE'RE PLANNING APPROPRIATELY FOR THESE ROADS. WE HAVE BUILT THEM. WE HAVE FOUR LANES UP TO River Road at West Villages Parkway. Quite frankly, when FDOT told me they thought they should put a dual left at West Villages Parkway, it surprised me somewhat. So we've planned appropriately, and quite frankly, I know what the traffic consultants, because we have them update our model twice a year, what they believe will need to be four lanes, what needs to stay two lanes, and how to plan for that. So I believe we're on top of that. And again, remember, with Winchester, we're just going back to what's already approved in, well, apart from the City of Northport. We're not adding. We have, and we do on the West Village's improvement district, collect the roads. We even allow LSVs, you know, the golf carts that are licensed have safety belts, you know, in your code, as is ours, low speed vehicles. We plan for those. We have parking for those. We've tried to address the whole cross section of vehicle use, vehicle types, electric vehicle parking stations downtown. We've planned for all that.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation.

Commissioner Duvall.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, gentlemen, for the presentation. First of all, I was happy to hear when you spoke at the beginning, John, I was happy to hear that you addressed water. Almost every day I'm reading an article somewhere about the state of Florida and water projections, water needs in the future. So I was happy to hear. I'm not surprised. I did have a meeting with John. We discussed, you know, Weldon Park overall. What I related to John was in my everyday office as a commissioner, I don't hear complaints from Welland Park. Welland Park is a well-planned community. It's legacy Northport that has a problem. Would I like to see Winchester Ranch and a whole lot of land stay with nothing but trees? Yep, but that's not reality. What I've seen since I've been here is that The Welland Park area is just a well-planned community, and I appreciate that. Makes things easier for me. Now, I do have a question about, John, again, John, it was you that mentioned we share fire department with the county. Fire departments do work together, you know, when one, One truck goes out, the surrounding ones they support in case something else happens. But the city owns that facility? Absolutely. And how, I guess my question is, how does the county remunerate us? You know, I mean, do we get any revenue from them or?

I will answer the first part of that question. when we started designing what is the public safety building. At that point in time, the city actually occupied some space in a county-owned facility on the entrance road into the college. That facility was aged, outdated. We built a facility that could house two fire, I don't know, shifts, we'll call them, at all times. The city has some type of agreement with the county. I am not part of it. When we built that property, we sent a letter to the city, said, we're done, we're ready to turn this property over to you, and we have done that. We did that, I think, about three years ago. And since then, the city has quarterly made payments from the impact fees paid to start paying that debt down. Do I anticipate the county will always be in that facility with the city? No, because I don't know the future. Chief Titus and Chief Hurley, they can probably give you better data on how that facility operates. As he's over my shoulder.

Nick Hurley, Deputy Fire Chief. To answer your question, yes, we have a rental agreement with Sarasota County Fire. They pay us annually to operate their resources and units out of that fire station.

Thank you. Thank you for that. One thing I looked at was, you know, the baby boomer generation is from 1946 to 1964. Those 1964 people are turning 62 this year. Under demographics, do you anticipate any kind of a downturn due to the fact that, you know, it is the baby boom generation? There's still going to be people retiring, you know, going to be semi-retired people. But, you know, a lot of the baby boomers, you know, the 46ers are turning 80 this year. There's going to be a lot, you know, Some of us are going to be disappearing. Not me. Are you anticipating kind of a downturn due to that demographic?

I don't think the downturn is going to be anything different than the macro business cycle. And again, the Stantec team showed the business cycle on one of their charts. And we've experienced that. Like I said, we've gone from a low of about $750 up to about $1250 a year. We plan for about $1,000. The economic step shows it will be about $890 a year. And while the baby boomers here before COVID were the big part of our buyers, the pre-retirees and retirees, now they are a much smaller portion of our buyer. We've got many more families. And the one thing that really has changed with COVID is working remote. I can't tell you how many people, but I bet you it's a big percentage of people that work remote. I know in the last neighborhood I lived in, you know, most of my neighbors from 30 to 65 or 70 were working remote. I was one of the few that actually went to an office every day. So will there be variations in permits and move-ins and sales every year? Absolutely. But the way we address that is we provide a diverse product in different neighborhoods for different buyers. So we may have one neighborhood that is selling like hotcakes today and another neighborhood that may be selling a little slower. But if we provide housing that addresses all buyer types, affordability, again, we go from condos as low as 250 to custom homes that are approaching four million. We can find a niche pretty consistently there.

Thank you. My last comment, question, so to speak, was you were talking about the regional sports complex that may happen. Simple way of asking is, who's going to own that?

To be determined. And the reason is we've put land aside for that. We've worked with a concept plan, with staff, with an operator. We've got the concepts. In my simple mind, I would see the city owning their property, with an operating agreement with an operator that can operate that type of facility without taxing the Parks Department. But that's all to be determined. We've got people starting to sit at a table to start working on that. I believe it will take six months to a year to formulate. Because if you have an operator, you want some guarantees on it. operating standards and things like that. Parks use it, you know, the park department wants to use it. Well, you know, travel, soccer or lacrosse, you want to be able to provide opportunities for that to make this pure, a true destination sports complex. So those things need to be thought about. Those things need to be thought about for people that are involved in that industry. I can design something, I can develop it. We want the operator at the table with the city and with Welland Park to create a world-class facility. So to be determined, but I am very encouraged at the early discussions.

Okay, thank you. That's all for me.

Commissioner Stokes. Well, thank you for the presentation. I mean, I spent a lot of time going through it, so I do appreciate the numbers that are there. As I gather in a nutshell to try to dumb this down for somebody like me, and whoever else might feel that this high powered presentation, some of which may have floated over people's heads. What we're talking about here is that full build out. Which is significantly less in terms of residential units than was originally contemplated. with a lot more open space than was ever contemplated. We're talking about a build out of Welland Park or West Villages Improvement District of which all this will be part of. Close to $10 million, nine, $10 million net net to the City of Northport.

That's in 2025 dollars.

That's in 2025 dollars.

If you look at the chart and again, I'm not bad at math from my head. It was 43 million.

And a good way to do it, because obviously, you know, we're in 25. You know, 2025 dollars, but in 2040, we'll not only have revenues that are probably inflated, but we'll also have costs that are inflated. So be that as it may, it's still a healthy number net net to the city of Northport. Which leads to the question from the legacy Northport side of the city, this sure looks like a windfall and looks great, which is pretty much the reason why I think Northport years ago looked at this in a favorable sense. The county looks at it as a favorable sense because they do less work and they make even as much if not more money and having to do less. So I get how good they feel about it. To clarify for the West Villagers, okay, one question that has always arisen was, well, gee, us West Villagers are the deep pockets for Legacy Northport. But, and correct me if I'm wrong, you guys, proportionately, proportionately on a per rooftop basis, adjusting for property valuation, everyone in West Villages, Or in Legacy North where it pays the same rates, the same percentage rates. What varies is the valuation of their property. So, well, in part residents, property owners do not pay a disproportionate share. They pay their proportionate share. However, because their property values are significantly. above the average in Legacy Northport, the dollars are more that contribute. Am I correct?

Yes, that is correct. Same millage rate, only flexes the property value.

Can I add to that?

Okay.

Because you know I can't not. One of the things that significantly make Welland Park profitable for city is not only the property values, is the city is not expending money for improvements. You're expending, what, 90 million on Price Boulevard? In our case, Welland Park, WVID have built West Village's parkway. That's a big difference because all of a sudden now you've got construction costs as well as finance costs to build improvements in Legacy Northport. that the city does not incur.

That's true, and for the Legacy North Port property owners and taxpayers, that's a blessing. For those who live in West Villages, there's an additional layer of debt or cost that's incurred via their CDDs for the infrastructures that they're paying for, so I appreciate that, and yet nobody forces any of us to live there or not live there. It's a cost of Living there, and we appreciate that. Nothing was hidden when I bought there. I knew full well, the layers of taxation I would incur and I like it there and. I choose to continue to live there, so that's fine. The other point I want to make is that there's been long running in our city. The conversation that for every dollar of. of service that we supply our residences and legacy, it costs for every dollar of revenue that the average legacy North Port property generates, it costs us in excess of that dollar in order to service with regular needed services. In Welland Park, as I look at this study, it's quite a flip for every dollar of cost. There's a $1.30, $1.40, even more of return on investment, so to speak. So that's really a simple function of in Legacy North Port where property values average close to even half of what they do in West Villages. it's no wonder that a quarter acre lot in Legacy Northport costs the city more to supply services to than in West Villages where the property values are so high that the revenues generated for those services exceed the costs. And I need to make that distinction because people have said, well, why do you keep building residential if in Northport it always costs more to supply to resources? That is not true. It's only true in areas where property values are considerably less. because the revenue is generated or less.

Let me interject there. That is a big part of the equation, yes. But as you know, Legacy Northport was developed by General Growth. They put streets in, ditches in. They didn't plan for stormwater. So there is a cost to the city on road costs. and ditch maintenance that you don't have in Welland Park. We have created, and I'm very proud of it because the engineer in me is conservative, that we create these facilities that manage stormwater in an appropriate manner so people don't get flooded, but it's also cost efficient for the WVAD team to maintain those like they do the wetlands. That is a level, that's a burden that you as a city commissioner have to deal with every day. It's how a whole lot of lots were put in Northport, but you don't have the storm water. So it gives you a burden of cost that you don't have. And that, you know, that along with a difference of property value is a major thing to keep in mind.

So let's switch over and let's talk about water. You've touched on it a bunch of times. With the $2 million a day commitment that Mattamy, that West Villages has made on the Peace River, which came through Northport. I mean, Northport had the rights to that water and ceded basically its rights so that Welland Park would have this water.

City had the rights to participate. Right. East River was doing a 17 million gallon a day expansion. Sarasota County was willing to take all 17 million gallons. Four members and North Port is the sole purchaser had rights to a portion of that 17 million. And city stepped up on our behalf at our request. But for our request, the city was not gonna ask for any of that water. That additional two million probably would have gone to Sarasota County.

Well, sure, the city of Northworth doesn't have $48 million nor the ability to borrow $48 million to acquire that water, so I get it. That's another thing why, I mean, that just leads again to the importance of good partnerships. So we have the water and we have the capability to process that water for wastewater, for irrigation purposes, as well as for potable drinking water. Certainly in our partnership with Mattamy, we've got a partner who's got the kind of money to stand behind these projects and advance the funds, which you have done right along the way. And again, where else Would Northport have found the way to fund growth? The reality is. We have a development partner who's advancing all this money while they're going to get reimbursed for part of it. Certainly not all of it. It'll never be all of it through impact fees. Those impact fees are paid by. The builders and property owners within the area. that is being developed. So Legacy North Port property owners aren't paying for that infrastructure, nor are even, am I correct, the existing west villagers paying for the additional infrastructure that'll be put in for the Winchester area?

Correct. Okay. What we do, just to frame everything, there are a number of separate CDD areas in Welland Park. Unit one will cover all of Welland Park. Unit one is where we build the wastewater plant and the roads. We have not issued a single bond since I became chairman in 2019. We have been able to extend those roads from our impact fee reimbursement that we get from the City of Northport. To give you a little more history, The original annexation contemplated the city was gonna fund our roads 100% of the way by reimbursements. When we did a impact fee reimbursement agreement in March of 20, we agreed to a cost share on that money. So we don't get 100% of the impact fees that are paid from Welland Park construction. It varies by where we're at, but generally, Right now we get about 70 to 80 cents on every dollar spent. The city gets to invest that money, gets the balance of that money to use on other improvements. Exactly.

Switching gears to roads themselves. Okay. 1 of the concerns everybody has obviously is connectivity and congestion for legacy north port. I mean, I have a hard time understanding how 7,000, 67,000 homes up in Englewood on the north port line. There are going to impact legacy north port traffic, but it will as as traffic might in an emergency flow down through river road and all the rest. That was a concern the county had, okay, that River Road be widened on the south end, right? Or south end, is it from 41 up towards Englewood? And how could you explain for people very simply and shortly how that cost is being covered so that legacy North port property owners, taxpayers, and the well in part West villages, existing property owners understand that they are not bearing the cost of the widening of that road.

Okay. At the time, the critical area plan was approved in 21 river road was already failing, which meant the County had to improve that road. We had no effect on the road at all. And if one looks at a map, Pareto, West Village Parkway, actually parallel River Road. When he happened, Chairman Kutzinger made it a mission of his to get the hurricane evacuation route for River Road built. And he has spent numerous hours, days, weeks, working on funding for that road. Spencer Anderson, the county engineer approached us in February 24, basically said, would you be willing to take the lead on the engineering? Because you've got the flexibility to move quicker than we do. We entered into an agreement in July of 24 to take the lead and finance it, fund it 100%. So we've done it through the West Village Improvement District and funded $7.3 million for the engineering. That's why I said, right now, up to today, we're the only ones that have invested any money in South River Road. Now, the hurricane evacuation route is more than just South River Road. It is River Road. from 41 to Winchester, and then Winchester from River Road down to the county line. The estimated cost of all of that is roughly about 85 to $88 million. Last I knew, Chairman Kutzinger had roughly between 55 and $60 million of that money. Now, how much is Winchester, how much is River Road, I think it's about 70, 18, something like that, layering on top of that, 7.3 million that would have been part of that budget, we're funding up front. Also, in that agreement, it contemplates a land swap. We knew with the design, the hairpin curve, the county was gonna need land. four to 10 acres was estimated. We built in, because when we did the land donation years ago for River Road, there was a number of stormwater management facility areas. We built in the concept of a land swap. So what it looks like is gonna happen is one or two of those areas adjacent to where we wanna put commercial are gonna come back to Welland Park as we give them other land. And it's meant basically to be an acre for acre or portion basis. So we may be able to pick up some areas for commercial that benefits everybody. They get what they need for building the road purposes. We've gone so far as planned temporary run around, lay down areas, usually when you build, bit of road, you make the contractor go find your own lay down yard and that becomes an added cost. We've done that. We've planned for the road, there'll be some pipe improvements that will ultimately, from that $88 million, be reimbursed to the county from Welland Park or WVID. Irrigation names. We've planned the budget right now, not part of the $88 million, is a landscaping of the boulevard on it. We want River Road to look like 41 through Welland Park. That estimated cost is $4.2 million. That'll be borne just by WVID from our impact reimbursements or Welland Park. So we are working with them to help the shortfall. We're working with city staff to see if we can work on an agreement where our impact fees from Winchester are used also, kind of like we did on North River Road. But again, that comes from the city's pro-rata share of our impact fees, not legacy Northport. And it appears collectively between our front-funding engineering impact fees and then other reimbursements we're going to have for things we've built into the plan. You know, we're going to come to the tune of 15 to $20 million towards that roadway improvement.

All right. So good. So water, we got covered roads. We got covered both of which really don't end up.

Let me just say on river road county is going to, I believe approve the wetland mitigation agreement tomorrow. we believe we'll have that permit this summer, probably closer to Labor Day, which means they can bid the road by the end of the year.

All right, so I mean, the process is being worked on. So these are the areas that everybody's concerned about, not just us, but everybody who lives in and around this area. So we got water, we got roads. You know, Percentage of commercial or non residential development. I mean, in the city of Northport, historically, we're running under 10%. I don't know if we've creeped up above that, but certainly we're down. If I looked at this presentation, right? You know, we're somewhere in the. 14, 15, 16, 18. I mean, we're somewhere closer to that 20%. It'd be wonderful if the city could get to 25 to 30% non-residential tax base. That's probably not happening, certainly in my lifetime. But the commercial development in the overall West Villages plan here accounts for, I think you said, a couple of hundred thousand square feet. A couple of million. I mean, a couple of hundred billion square feet. So, you know, we're talking about significant commercial development. When you add downtown, when you add the centers that will be at play at, uh, Manasota Beach and West Villages, when you consider the Benderson development, even though that won't be your, it won't be owned by West Villages, it'll be a Benderson development. We're looking at significant, but it will be within the City of Northport. Be tremendous commercial revenue generated supported by the residential development that's going on around because after all. Certainly Costco wouldn't have come to the city of North if it hadn't been for West villages development. Okay. So we have to bear all that stuff in mind. The final piece that I have questions on, then I'll relinquish the floor is. The environment, okay? These 7,000 more homes, I mean, there are people who said, oh my God, all this beautiful ranch land, this swamp land's going to be turned into development. Well, some people like development, some people don't. Some people would like to close the door on development after they bought their house and not let anybody new in. I get all that stuff. But the reality is you have property rights that give you the ability to develop, to get past the issue of let's stop it. It's not going to be stopped. The legal rights give Mattamy the right to build and develop here. To me, it's how it gets developed, how it gets managed properly, how it gets done correctly. So, you know, 1 of the concerns here is obviously the Myakka runs right down through. So we got 2 issues. 1, protecting that area, which is sensitive, environmentally sensitive. We've got. a state forest up there that's off of River Road. We've got stormwater management issues that obviously we've seen how master development takes care of that. But what about some of the other areas that may not be part of West Villages? How, if at all, they may be impacted? So if you could shed a little light on the environmental side of this and how you've bore that in mind as you've planned this out, I think that would help some of the people as well.

Okay. You said Myakka. Out of all the property we have, we only have one village that is adjacent to the Myakka River. We're working on the master concept plan on that plan right now. And we have actually worked with Ron Kutzinger and Jonathan Lewis at the county to dedicate a portion of what's immediately adjacent to the Myakka River. Roughly 60-ish acres will go to them for perpetual, and they're environmentally sensitive land, which will tie to a piece that they already purchased to a piece SWIFT might own, and will give us over 200 acres of support.

Now, that's not the case. It'll be about 200 acres.

As you go south, we do south of East River Road, we do become adjacent to the state forest. which obviously we've always been, got cattle operations for part of that land, but we'll always have setback, and we will plan appropriately for that. In the critical area plan, it actually had some lighting restrictions that I'll have to work out with city staff for more dark skies immediately adjacent to the state forest, and the piece between that and East River Road is where we're looking for that regional sports park facility. So we'll have to keep that in mind. We preserve the wetlands. We work with the wetlands into our plans, but there's ways to do that. That's why I made it a point because I'm really proud of that. You know, we've only affected 2.39% of our total wetlands, which, you know, being from up north, when you think of Florida, it's, you know, fill the swamp land in. You know, we filled in low areas, but we did not fill in wetlands in. You know, we planned for that, just like you know and I know, the floodplain changed dramatically in March of 24, because FEMA updated their maps. We've been working for five years to meet those maps. That doesn't mean we don't have to go back and change them, because they wouldn't take the data between 19 and 24, and we're doing that. We're making sure every home is out of a floodplain. We're designing those stormwater basins. We're thinking of that. I've already done a study on how best to handle stormwater for all of the Winchester property and how it ties into it. Because it also affects our master plan from the West Village Improvement District for our irrigation program. These are things a normal developer does not need to do in advance. We need to do them because we wear many hats on many issues all the time. And as you know, I tend to be a conservative person. I do not want to leave and retire, leave the West Village Improvement District or Welland Park without all these strategic things thought through and planned for.

Appreciate it. I mean, again, as we go forward, because this is a process and it will take many, many months to put all this together and get, you know, walk through the steps. But always the water, the roads and the environment are the issue to the extent. You collectively staff and you, John, and your folks can message this to our community. There's so much misinformation. There's so much misunderstanding. I ask a lot of these questions because. We need to flush all this out. People need to understand. I mean. You know, I live there, I supported this before I understood even what it was while I've lived here and into the future. This is. In my estimation, a win, win, win all the way. I have a very hard time finding. Negatives other than the general negative, which is.

Please no more building.

Well, I get that. But in this state, people have property rights. And if I owned a couple of lots in Northport for the last 1520 years, and I planned on building my dream home, if the city of Northport or any legal mechanism we had put a hold or a moratorium on building. It has to be equitable, so we may be able to say to the big developer. No, we don't want any more homes here, but you're going to also have to say that to me 1 of those 2 lots who have waited 20 years to build my dream home. Property owners have rights. And that has to be respected once you respect that and accept the fact that development's going to happen, it needs to be done smartly and strategically. And I appreciate the efforts you guys have made. I think West villages is the poster child for how to do it. Right? I've always believed that. That's why I live there and I feel good as a district 5 rep there. But I really think this is a win win win the final question and then I'll see. The floor is the vendors development across from the supermarket Plaza at West villages and 41. I originally thought about 42 some odd acres that I thought would be all commercial. I understand there's a residential component. down behind it, sort of as you go down west villages and approach the roundabout between Renaissance and Grand Paradiso. Is that like, so does Benderson not buy all of that land?

Correct. That piece, which we have historically called Thomas 167, is 107 acres, 106, 107 acres. Benderson bought 52 acres parallel to Tamiami and going north. Basically, part of that was the old, the Prado, that's where the original Publix was gonna go. Benerson will have a main access at the Welland Park Boulevard roundabout, and they've actually got a sign right there. It will go up to a point, and then we are constructing two storm ponds around a wetland with a trail around it. And to the north, there will be a residential component that we are going to create a pad for now. And that'll be future, that'll be a little higher density to play off the commercial. As you know, in downtown, we've tried to pack in higher density close to those, you know, mixed use commercial uses. Anderson, you know, we'll plan for probably a left turn across from Market Way, probably another right in, right out along 41. And right in, there's a left, in, right out, already built on West Villages Parkway, And a little further north, there's a full access built. That full access is slightly north of the Benderson property. So as part of that, we will be building a parallel access road to West Village Parkway for anyone in the Benderson property that wants to go northbound on West Village Parkway. It'll come up, have a little traffic circle, and then tie into West Village Parkway. That traffic circle will be owned by the district. So south will be owned and maintained by Benderson. And this access point can also service the future residential as well as the benders and property.

I get, thank you. Cause I mean, I've had a lot of people ask me, that's why I appreciate you. I mean, I get the higher densities too. You know, people have asked why all the apartments downtown, And everybody says, Scott, there's so many apartments everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. Well, one, the percentage of apartments in the city of Northport has historically until recently been very, very, very, very, very, very low. And we've needed them. So to me, the fact that there may be so many and so many appear to be still vacant, I consider a good thing because that means with supply and demand, if you got more supply than you have demand, the prices are going to come down. And boy, rents should... Sure, could be a bit more affordable in your point on tropia, which are the apartments you see off of 41 and now all these additional building. I lived there for the 9 months between when I sold my house in grand paradise. So, when my house was completed in wisteria, and in that 9 months, I was in building 3, I have to tell you as fast as those buildings opened for rental, they were filled. The rest of those will be the same case as as they're built out and rented out. And the value is again density. The ability to create a built in density of residential shoppers. And spenders in and around the retail and commercial development is essential. If if they're going to be able to survive every night of the week, every day of the week, there's activity in downtown. Well, in park. all the time, which quite frankly is nicely funded by Mattamy for all the entertainment, the music and all the other special event venues that go on down there. That's all been subsidized by them to help build this up and make it a destination place. So, you know, I appreciate the partnership. I appreciate the effort and I'm not a naive guy. I know Mattamy is in it to make lots and lots of money and God bless you. You've made millions, if not more, and you deserve to. All we want to make sure in Northport is that we're treated equitably, that this is gonna be a net benefit to us, because why would we do it and cooperate with it if it wasn't gonna be a net benefit to our city as a whole? So again, I appreciate it and look forward to learning more as things continue to develop over the next year or two.

Mayor, thank you, sir. Thank you, gentlemen. Very good. City Clerk, we got any public comment? No public comment, sir. Any general public comment? No general public comment either, sir. 1231, I adjourn this meeting.