Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. The September 14th of the Panama City Planning Board meeting is now in order. Please take the roll.

Here. Are there any changes or deletions to the agenda?

Thank you. Are there any announcement or disclosures by board members?

Chairman, I have a disclosure. I went to see all properties that we were viewing today. OK, thank you.

I'll disclose I've spoken with First Baptist Church of Panama City regarding the item, agenda item number C, letter C. All right, good. You have the minutes from the August meeting for you to have a motion to approve. Second. Got a motion approval. A motion to second. Please take roll.

Yes. We have a proposed schedule for the 2027 planning board meeting. Do I have a motion to approve those? So moved.

I'll now read through the process for quasi-judicial proceedings. Step one, public hearing announced, introduction of application by staff. Step two, ex parte communication disclosure by board members. Step three, identification of applicant and effective parties that tend to participate in the hearing. Effective parties that only tend to make a statement may do so at the public participation part of the agenda. An effective party means any person or entity that will suffer an adverse effect and interest detected or furthered by ULDC. including interest related to health and safety, police and

Are there any questions from board members for staff?

Not for staff, but I do have one for the property owner.

Please state your name and address for the record and just if you've been sworn in.

Questions, sir? Do you want me to ask a question?

Okay. When I went by the property, I noticed that there was a for sale sign on the property, so... Why are you selling the property and wanting this variance?

Yeah, this is just a rezoning of this parcel right here to MU1. The next one is the vacation right away.

Chairman, I have a motion. There's no other questions?

You've got to add some public comment and a few other things. All right. Is there any other questions for the applicant? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? Are there any other questions about that you guys could be seated? Thank you.

us so just to back up a little bit this border here will make a recommendation to the City Commission on this item the City Commission I'll have readings on the October 13th and October 27th. As far as the question, that's more a question for staff.

I have a motion and a second. Please take a roll.

So the first public hearing with the city commission is October 13th, and that's going to be at the county chambers on 11th Street. And the second and final reading is October 27, same location.

Council, I was just reminded by Board Member Rich that we did not take any other public comment on that item. Is there anyone else here to speak on that?

You asked. Okay. Yeah, you asked. Yeah, you asked.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, this first one. Thank you. Thank you. All right, thanks. Request letter B.

There are any questions from the board for staff, the landowners property.

All right. Is that what we get here to speak on this item?

Thank you. Any questions for the board for advocate?

So do we have any history in terms of what the city was originally going to do and what they may or may not be doing now with this area that causes them to need this?

So does the city have any future land use anticipation for Ferry Avenue or this area that would cause consternation of approving this? No.

That's it. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? All right. Please give the podium, please. Please come forward. State your name and address for the record, and if you've been sworn in.

I said to the north. And the owner owns parcels on either side of the, correct?

The short answer, all I can say is the owner already owns those parcels, so the entire easement would be, the entire right-of-way would become his property.

No, the city has no intention to utilize the property is what we've been reporting, what's been reported.

Yeah. So we'll let everybody speak, and then we'll come back to the applicant to answer all the questions at once. We're going to let anybody else from the public speak on this item, and then the applicant will return and answer all the questions. Do you have any other questions for the applicant?

Thank you. All right. Is anyone else here to speak on this item? All right. Would the applicant like to return and answer any questions?

And you're not affiliated with the United rentals.

for your to come in and out of you put the road, your entrance road to your development on Elizabeth is what you're that's what initially looking at it.

Thank you, sir. Is there any other questions for staff? Do I have a motion?

I'll second. Motion second. Please take roll.

Thank you. The census is a right-of-way. This will actually go to the city on October 13th. And the first hearing and second hearing on October 27th.

That was to the property we were just discussing. So that they knew. Yeah.

So October 13th, it'll go to the commission and again on the 27th. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Are there any questions from board for staff?

Thank you. Do you want to refer to your question? At least on the parking garage part, I would imagine.

Any other questions for the applicant? Thank you. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item?

Is anyone else here to speak on the settlement? Do you have a motion?

Motion to approve contingency the easements that the city would be needing.

And chairman, I'm, I apologize. I'm forgetting when I publicly noticed I had visited all the properties. I forgot to mention that I called staff about this. I had some questions and I apologize for not saying, um, it earlier, but just, just mentioning it now that came to my mind. So I apologize again for not announcing it sooner, but I did speak to staff about this project.

Thank you. Is that applicant here to speak on this item?

Are there any questions or jabs for the applicant?

Now, is there anyone else here to speak on this item? Thank you. Do I have a motion?

Thank you. Are there any questions for board or staff? Is the applicant here to speak on this? Yeah.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? You're off the hook. Thank you. Is there anyone else here to speak on this item? None. Do I have a motion? Motion approved.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the board for staff?

I just have more of a process question. So under the assumption that this is approved, you have 12 months to develop the proposed whatever it is that you're going to do related to land use. But then within that 12 months, will you have things like public comments come before the planning commission again? Will it be public hearings of the city? Just kind of. Walk me through, if you will, what's the next steps after today?

um and i think it would be good for the public to deliberate amongst itself and us as the planning board and city council members to hear those you know live hear hear those comments as we deliberate right and you uh staff to to hear what the public says about it sure pro or con absolutely yep So I'd encourage that because I know we've got a 12-month marching. That was part of my question. We've got 12 months. So what do we do month 9? What do we do in month 10 so that we meet that month 12 deadline?

Any questions? All right, is there anyone else here to speak on this item? Seeing none, do I have a motion? Motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion. Second. Motion to second. Please take a roll.

So how are you defining water body? Would a wetland be a water body? No. Would a stream or a creek?

Then maybe that would be clearer. St. Andrews Bay and is it tributaries? Sure. So I read it and it's like, okay, is that a creek or? Dig a pond. I think that would be clearer and easier to be definitive in a decision-making process.

Yeah, I feel a lot better about that So Michael have a follow-up question to I see the number 500 feet and as you imagine st. Andrews Bay and it's your tributaries and you see in your mind's eye a where our light industrial zoning is presently. Do we have any light industrial within 500 feet?

So the 500 feet and everything, so as you look at our... B seven. This is only applicable to recycling. I gotcha. Okay. That's a good thing to know. Okay.

I just wondered if, you know, if thought went into, okay, our most precious water body is San Andrews Bay. And are we protecting it enough with where we know our light industry is when we say 500 feet in storm surge? You know, we've got a map in our comprehensive plan. Here's our storm surge. Is there been an evaluation that says, okay, where they are in 500 feet is enough that when we have another hurricane, we're not creating a consternation for ourselves.

But what would that do? I mean, where is, I guess this is the map where light industry is? Is that why we're seeing this map? Okay, is that in our packet and I don't remember now?

Heavy industrial has a lot more restrictions on what has to be done ahead of time compared to light industrial. Sure, sure. Because we've probably got industrial in Watson Bayou too.

So if we said 1,000 feet, it's not going to make a difference.

So as we look, because we're fixing to look at our future comprehensive plan, if we're imagining 2046, are we creating something that we don't, those unintended consequences by saying just 500 feet?

That's the port and paper mill property currently zoned. It's not shown on the map. Oh, no.

Is there anybody in the public that wishes to speak on this item?

So say it again. So we're thinking heavy.

well I think a compliment what you're saying to Aaron is and we've got we started the language you know our water bodies were free to limit to our st. Andrews Bay and our tributaries you know you know often st. Andrews Bay is our most precious ecological resource so protecting it is you know utmost importance and this language starts at that you know what started our conversation is why 500 feet And is that enough or is that too much as we look at protecting our St. Andrews Bay and its tributaries? And I guess the thought for us to contemplate is, is there any other resource that we need to co

To your point on residential. I mean even a concrete Manufacture distributors allowed and light industrial and I argue. There's a noise is the recycling right?

Say that again, Orlando. I didn't hear you.

I'll try. I'll try a motion and see how we go. How's that, Chairman? All right. Motion to approve changing our text on page to be seven. to within 1,000 feet and being more specific on water body and saying instead St. Andrew's Bay and its tributaries.

But they're heavy. So this is just recycling center.

Well, the public didn't even see this, right? This was never in our agenda. I mean, we're seeing it as we walked in the room.

As long as it's in the zoning district, it's okay.

It only applies to recycling centers, and it would only apply if that recycling center proposed new development would be 1,000 feet close to St. Andrews Bay or to tributaries.

I'm just trying to figure out how to map it.

I think the question is more similar to the environmental engineer question is what are we worried about with the water table and whatnot.

Sure. Sure. Right. Or storm surge. all those things.

Is this going to affect the current? Because I feel like the parcels that aren't within 500 feet, are we delaying anything?

Do you want me to do it? Do a motion to a table? Well, let me rescind my motion so that we can have a motion to table for further discussion and further analysis by staff.

I'll take that as a motion to table. Yep. Second. Motion to second. Please take a roll.

I do kind of a process or a question, and this may be for you, Michael, um, I've got lots of tabs for specific questions on things. And I can imagine my colleagues do too. So as we identify something and we deliberate and we talk about something and we have a suggestion for an improvement or a suggestion for a change or something, how does that relate? How do you take that idea and move it forward or not move it forward?

um maybe in the tone of improvement but not necessarily in the category of restrictive um some different kind of maybe creative thinking maybe a way to coin it some of the things that i have in mind um but i just wasn't sure i think we need to decide how we're going to decide before we move out i don't want to have a cereal that aaron makes a suggestion and he's not sure how it moves forward, that we need to decide how we're going to decide if a topic is brought up.

What does that look like is my question. How does it look like? How are we going to convey?

How are we going, how are we going to decide say aaron has an idea oh we like that idea we think that that'll make the city of panama city a better place oh yeah you have to do it live work and play yeah you would do that as the board motion and second the motion is like motion that answers my question so we're gonna so as we have a deliberation amongst us and it's something that we're kind of getting a feel for us someone needs to create a motion it needs to be seconded and we'll vote

And I think we ought to do that in a public setting. I didn't want to bring my questions individually to a staff because I didn't think that was appropriate, that anything that we have to say we need to say in the sunshine.

but that defeats the public comments. That defeats a public hearing.

I think I've got my questions compiled. I know how to articulate my questions.

All right. All right. Go on. So... Where does resilience lie in a comprehensive plan? And do we have the opportunity to enhance the existing related to resilience given the Senate bill 180?

we have not been bringing it to have you seen because the city I know the city has done a lot related to resilience and they have adopted some of that yes and I didn't see I wasn't sir sure of what the city has done related to resilience is that's in our comprehensive plan or is that in our land development I wouldn't sure which body really resilience lies in her the the policies that were done several years ago were incorporated in the comp plan through a comp plan amendment there is still in here there's different parts of them that are part of the comp plan itself okay when we get to that s

I just felt that that's an important piece. if we could enhance related to Senate Bill 180 that we'd want to. So do you want to go section by section? Yeah, well, however you're going to talk. Okay.

Yeah, but his question is more, is there things that the public said that we couldn't incorporate?

I read every word, but that's not answering my question.

of the public comments that was received and you were able to analyze, were there some things that were not in our present comp plan that would deem 180, Senate Bill 180 restrictive, so you weren't able to incorporate them? Yeah, there was a lot of. And if there were, what were they? Where in the report is it?

That's not a question. Am I not saying it right?

Sure. So we have, we have this report and citizens and you've categorized them in what area that they were sad. And some of them were good ideas, but you weren't able to say, okay, We're not going to be able to incorporate this idea because it's more restrictive right now because of Senate Bill 180. But that good idea, we can table that and put that in our library. of ideas for 2028. So the question is what she's just asking which point what kinds of comments did you hear that we're going to have to table to the year 2028 because the Senate bill 180 separated out at all.

Not necessarily. And to know that we are we going to look at this one later on or is it is this is this good idea able to be implemented in the future? 2028 or forward? We can't. So, hey, could we implement this? Yes or no now? B, can we implement this? Yes or no now? And if it emerges as a good idea that will make the city of Panama City a better place to live, work and play, then if it can't be implemented now that we have this public comment that says, okay, let's put this on our library list for 2028, that's the heart of what I was trying to ask, is if we could look at these comments in a

I didn't mean to do that. OK, so in the future land use element page 13, 5b through d has been stricken out where we would treat all stormwater runoff to outstanding Florida waterway requirements when located within our Deer Point Reservoir Protection Zone. So if that's already in our comprehensive plan, my question is, why do we want to delete that?

Would you show me where that is, please? You don't have to get angry with me. I'm asking a question.

Can we have somebody else addressing our questions, please?

would that be preferable for us to yeah you can do a workshop okay second he's suggesting that we email the i mean we can include everybody and they can be public comments so we're not yeah it makes it a lot easier to be able to address your questions if i can answer them first i i really don't want to do it that way fine um

I think it's important that we hear each other's questions and we deliberate amongst ourselves and we pick off each other's good thinking. And if this got moved to another section, then I'd like to know where it is.

Yeah, I would suggest that we'd all be included if it was. Yeah, I mean.

What we want is Ray to have the questions ahead of time so he can go right to them.

But I think... We've done plenty of workshops on things like this in the past, and I've done them before.

We were almost done, and then it got... Well, right, and so here's what's happened, too.

That would have been nice to have it set up like this because I felt like I really studied it hard. I went back and I evaluated the changes. I spent a lot of time and really thought about what is going to make Panama City better. a better place to live, work, and play. And I evaluated the word new words by that. And just have some questions to make sure that we're doing that. If that's our value, if that's our collective as a board, is that our value as we move through these?

You probably weren't even aware of Senate Bill 180 that takes away the more restrictive. I did. I am.

Is there a space that we can meet together, or do we have to meet separately?

an option for a kind of a thought within that we have the port representative here now if we as a board are prepared to talk about just the port semester plan and take that today and let the port representative be able to hear questions answering questions maybe with his time in mind we can you know do that section today and then he wouldn't have to come back for a subsequent meeting

Some of these workshops are like an hour ahead of the meeting, and then essentially the workshop part happens, and then the public comment comes. They can be at the public workshops or open to the public, but then the actual voting on gets happened.

I think in a compliment, one more thing, Mike would be if you had a deletion in a section that we're reviewing, you know, at that particular time, and that deletion was moved to a new section, note that just put a note on it, put a note and say, Okay, five B was was stricken out, but note that it was replaced in page so and so yada, yada.

And so that I don't have to go every page and find, cause I don't have this as a word document. This is the document that I have to send to find those words and which page was, I don't know, as a citizen was that. Particular item replaced, or is it completely deleted? I can't know that reading this.

Yeah, moved to the conservation element, see, yada, yada.

Would it make sense to, with notice from the public, we probably are essentially at next month, to do a workshop starting ahead of the meeting and then let staff recommend between now and then in the time frame they have what sections they are, how many we can take out?

Brian's point, staff will know that. The pace of our conversation will be faster than other paces. It may not be just three at all times, but which ones do we need to spend more time on so we have fewer things on the agenda?

So and a lot of it has to do with the deletions. Um, I didn't I didn't see them being picked up as I continued reading. I didn't necessarily see him being picked up, you know, in another section. So it'd be nice to know that it was

Well, going ahead and having the city commission's comments on them is probably going to cut our job in half.

We just have a workshop, open workshop for an hour. We're going to start and we'll get as far as we can.

So, yeah, conceivably we could maybe knock it out in one or two meetings, not four.

I'd like to think so. I'd like to think so. Especially if we know that something's deleted and it's replacing another place.

If we have the availability of staff to do the workshop at 3 o'clock before the next month's meeting.

I don't know if we can do it in an hour. I don't know if we can do all elements in an hour.

I think you notice that we're going to do all elements, and if we get through it, great.

And I can tell you, well, can we do the port section tonight? You don't have, you don't have enough time to be able to do the port section tonight. Let the port representatives.

I mean, I can't really like to see the city's comments before on the port section.

That's our next meeting date, is that what you're saying?

and then after what can we do is push it later do our regular agenda at four and then do our comp plan afterwards just reverse it keep it the same day or is it better for you guys to um to do a just completely different day well i was the reason we've usually done it in the past is we always hit our notice like because i don't know if they sure okay um i don't think you're gonna have it doesn't sound like we're gonna have a whole lot

What form have they been submitting their questions? I mean, how are y'all collecting theirs that can be then disseminated to us?

Okay, so it's not a big number, big something.

It's not on their agenda yet, so it's not hot.

Well, perhaps there's an opportunity to communicate to the city commission. that the planning board is requesting their comments via the next day. You know, if you could have yours by the next date, then we can assemble your comments to the planning board for their review and understanding.

The virtual workshop's on the comprehensive plan?

Would you send that to us, Michael, that time and date? So if we wanted to join virtually, we could?

This brings us to the public participation part of our agenda. Is anyone here to participate? Go ahead.

Anyone else here to speak? Oh, also the school element. I'm sorry, that was the last thing.