Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, let's rise for a moment of silence and the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

Would anyone like to make a motion on that, please? Move to approve. Second. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

All right, great. And are there any deferrals? No. Okay. All right, let's get going with, oh, is there any online comments? No, yes.

I didn't realize he was alternate. I don't get to pick on you anymore.

Thank you for that. THOROUGH PRESENTATION.

Mr. Kasdan. The city's recommendation was approval. Yes. Do you mind if I just see how many people are here from the public? Please. Is there anyone here from the public who wanted to speak on this item? There's no one here from the public that wants to speak on this item, so maybe we take it to the board, see if there are any questions.

Okay, great. Thanks. Starting on my right.

Thank you, Chair. A couple of expressions here that make me a little uneasy. What would you... call a habitable roof. What I'm concerned about is that phrase to get picked up by the rest of the city. A habitable roof means all of a sudden more than just mechanical elements. And we know that already developers, architects are pushing the limits of what they can put on a roof. That they're making it not just for mechanical use, they're using it for everyday use. And of course, that's a very small step after that to make it a living space. So what would the city, I guess this is really a question

A commercial use means you're gonna put a restaurant or a store on the roof?

Would that effectively- gives them an extra floor, doesn't it? It's not just for mechanical elements, it's an extra floor to use, and that means you gotta have cover, because you can't have people sitting out there, and if it starts to rain, what's everybody gonna run for the elevator, run for the stairs? So now you're gonna put a roof over the restaurant, and now you've got an extra floor. Now, I don't mind that happening downtown, and I think it's fine that it happens in the design district, but what I'm worried about is that this will get picked up across the city including in T3s where we

I know that. I know that you don't mean that, but the word means that. So I would recommend changing that word. I mean, the rest of the word may not be, may not, let me, this is taking too much time. Okay. To save your, I mean, I just want that, I think it's a good idea to change that word. The other thing is, what's a compact stall? What's the dimension of a compact stall?

That was under the parking changes. Does that mean smaller cars? What does a compact stall?

And changing sign standards to increase flexibility, quantity, and quality and visibility does that mean brighter lights bigger signs more signs i don't care what happens in the design district or downtown so much as that the intent here will carry over outside the sap and it'll be much more difficult for us to try and control it when it affects single-family homes or even T4 condos. We already know that downtown people complain about signage in the buildings downtown. So, are there any limits? I mean, this sounds like you're just opening up the limits to what people can do with signs down the

And I understand the concerns, but there's a need for a special... Can we hear from the city, please?

Mr. Chair, for the new members here, will you consider having the gentleman to finish his presentation so we can, some of our questions might be answered here in his presentation, but it's new to some of us.

Thank you. The last item I had was the setback. Changing the metric that you're using for setback, obviously I would imagine that that would benefit the property owner by reducing his setback requirement. Would that be correct?

So, real quick, just to Member Bailey's question, you know, I think the main thing here is that we just want to focus on the actual changes that are being requested. And some of the stuff we were getting into is somewhat relevant, but it's about, you know, public benefits, things like this. But just to be clear, we've definitely gone through many, many updates for the reason that we're here today, which is Miami 21. having changes outside the SAP that then have to be, the SAP has to be brought to the same level as Miami 21, and then the SAP making requests within its boundaries to just make ad

So, Mr. Chair, he was just addressing the civic space as a 5% requirement, and so there's some things that related to the changes that he was actually addressing in his presentation that I would like to hear.

Okay, so what the, yeah, but do you have a question specifically then?

Through the chair, if I could add something? Yes. I would support a motion to approve if anyone that makes that motion would accept a a textual change. For staff, I just did a little AI search here on the word habitable in a commercial context. And what it says specifically is that habitable refers to residential and it includes living, sleeping, eating, and cooking. But in a commercial property, it's quite different. And the word that AI suggests using is occupiable rooftop space, because that does not include living and sleeping. It allows restaurants, it allows a number of other things, but

I think, you know, just on that, I think that when we have like a term of art or something that's already clearly defined in a document and redefined in a few places, If we go down this road, then we're constantly re-re-redefining stuff that already took the time to be defined by code. And it's just for a maker of emotion to feel better, and we just can't do that every time. It's defined. I mean, that's the thing. If there was no definition or it could be read differently in our code... I would totally agree with you, because the point is well taken. The word is a weird word. It's a weird word

It is more stringent as it's written and defined in our code.

It is interesting that it says shall comply and then says may, but I would say the shall says that it has to be one of those mays.

The building department would have a whole different view of it, and it wouldn't be allowed.

Yeah Thank you, thank you Thank you for the presentation a couple questions the first is for I guess

So what we're bringing in, we're saying there's no additional, because we currently have enough civic spaces. Oh, yes. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Next question I think is for staff. It's regarding the retail front of Gladens. So there was a requirement before, well, 70% by right, but now we're moving that number down. Question for you, why are we now kind of relying versus the public board, UDRB, versus now giving the discretion to the planning director for moving that number?

Thank you. And then my final question is regarding the parking reduction. It removes the criteria if you lie within 600 feet of a parking garage. It kind of say if it's a transit corridor or a transit-oriented development area. I know a lot of our transit is still in development, may or may not happen. So can you speak to specifically why we felt the need to remove this connectivity to a parking garage?

Sorry. Follow-up question. So you said because they're close to Biscayne. So help me understand, like... How does the transit corridor close to Biscayne, how does that help reduce parking? I just want to make sure I...

Thank you. Thank you. So we had a motion. There was an amendment to it. I don't know if anyone took the amendment, but...

Oh, we don't. Okay, so we have a motion. Second. Porosov, Metoyer. Porosov and Metoyer. Roll call, please.

Okay, you're saying this is one of those ones where they did first reading and it's just here and correct kind of cat we're playing catch-up well the First thing is Was there anybody here from the public to speak on this okay since there's not I I'm just going to see if any of the board members have any questions. Maybe to my right. No.

So there's an amendment that eliminates the independent traffic engineer study by the Florida PE. Wanted to know why you rely solely on discretion of the director. We changed the language of it.

So if you don't mind, just into the mic, because it's hard. We want to make sure it picks up on the recording.

Perfect. And then one quick follow-up. I think you changed the 20 to 100 to match Miami-Dade County. Is that correct?

Thank you. Does anyone have a motion? Or you had a question? Yes, I have a question.

Thank you. Because this is before us, move to approve. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Roll call, please.

It's fine, either way, yes. I'm just a man.

I mean, that's going to be an increase of about 5,000. Yeah.

You've mentioned the county a couple of times. Does this mean that it's a done deal? It doesn't matter if 100 people come in here and scream bloody murder, it's a done deal? Well, nice presentation.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, I think the most important thing that we If you have questions, I think now it's probably good for us to discuss some things now. That's what the discussion is for. So that when it comes time for us to look at the exception, we have clarified a lot of this and we're not doing a big... It's not a show. We've gotten a lot of the information that we need.

And that's the thing, right. If there's any questions to... to get clarification on, I think now is a great time. We don't usually get this opportunity. So where we don't have the public and then send them back and make them come back because we asked for something. So now we get to ask for something before the public gets here so that we can have good answers. So I think it's...

The only thing I would ask for is completely unrealistic. And that would be capping the heights. 24 to 30 is you're building a new city in the middle of a low-rise area. And we all know that concurrency in this city is an issue. And it can't take a single more car, much less 5,000 more cars in that area. I mean, I understand that the city is pushing density. And in order to get additional state and federal funding, you've got to get up to a million people. And so this is how it's gonna be done. I don't think there's anything that we could ask of you that's gonna make it more palpable to the pu

In addition, all- And how does a traffic study overcome the fact that every one of our roads are already F? That's why I voted for this traffic study earlier, because it's all just, it's meaningless. We're already at F, we're going to be at F prime, we're going to be at F cubed. You know, it is, well, I think Ms. Steiner, she's on vacation or something? I hope she's still with us.

She said something about Verde ports, about the city going vertical and transportation going vertical. And so that's, you know, that's Jetson territory, you know, from the 1960s. I think it's great, but I think you guys got to be, I know you're imagining how much resistance you're going to get here, so. I don't think there's any way we can sweeten it for the public, especially if it's a county deal and it's a done deal. We can talk until the cows come home and it's not going to matter much.

No, no, I mean, not now. Not now, but how about this? You know, the whole idea of the discussion is to ask for information. So, I mean, would you like staff to come back when we actually hear this in two weeks with an upgrade to the coverage? Yeah. Yeah.

Did you say that there was going to be more parking than the minimums?

Yeah. I'd play that up. when the crowd arrives, that'd be a big public benefit, I think, if you had a lot, if you had quite a lot more parking, I think it might be more palatable.

To get people out of cars, but this is Miami, so, you know.

I can just hear it now. They're all gonna park in front of their houses.

Thank you. Yes, may I? I'm gonna just keep going down the line here, yeah.

Yeah, we'll have it in the next presentation. That's great. You already spoke, yeah?

You can count me in on that as well. No, I'm not saying. I'm interested to see that as well. It's important. And I think the point that was made too is that, you know, we understand that there are a lot of existing spaces, especially in the more scattered zone. But in the concentrated areas, you end up with, the argument that you made, which is, look, we're gonna have all these jobs, we're gonna have all this stuff, and it's true, and for a while, it'll be great as it's being built out, and then when everyone really has to live there, it's like, oh, this is kinda crammed in this zone, and we m

Between the three areas? I think I did just a rough count and- Yeah, it looks like it, yeah. About 12,000, something like that? Yeah. So about a third of that would be commercial?

So if you figure one and a half, that gives you roughly 8,000, so you got 4,000 extra. Mm-hm. And 1,600 is commercial. So there's still 2,400, roughly 2,400, 2,500, that are public parking? Is there any just open public parking being offered?

Did you just say that the county is going to follow the city's zoning?

So we are... I think that'd be a pretty good trick if you actually got the county to agree to build less, to follow the city's code instead of their own.

My question is more so for staff. I didn't see much in the actual packet. And so once we get the presentation, I think I have better questions for the discussion. And so I'll just defer all my questions to the next meeting because I didn't have a chance to really

Thank you for that. And, like, I guess going forward, like, how can we get more of this kind of a focus? I'd love to come, like, to prepare, and that way, like, I don't have to wait, like, so...

I have to echo that sentiment where we can get more of this before so we can prepare better so we can actually have a robust and that way when all the people show up we can have most of our stuff already answered.

Definitely. They're definitely appreciated. But as long as we get the packet before, so we can truly engage. At the minimum, the packet.

Thank you. We're going to see quite a number more of these types of projects, aren't we?

Okay. All right, everybody good on that? Anybody have any other questions that they want answered at the next meeting? Okay, great. Thank you all. Go USA. Yes. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Do we have a second? Second. All in favor?