City Commission - workshop

Listen, I'm ready, but it's up to you guys.

Did they send you this? What's that? Did they send you this? Okay.

Yeah, sorry to everybody. I thought this meeting was a six. I just drove from homestead and I think I broke every traffic law not a man All right, uh Madam clerk good to go. Mr. Ernie good to go Commissioner is good to go Mr. Mayor good to go counsel. All right, here we go Notice the public sunshine meeting between city commissioners all interested parties. Please take notice. I a public meeting of two or more city commissioners to discuss the status developments negotiations of the flagler senate district will take place on tuesday july 7 2026 5 p.m in the city hall commission chambers locate

Mr. Chair. Can we pray, please? Absolutely.

Anybody like to say a prayer? Okay, let's bow our heads. In Jesus' name I pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you again for granting us the gift of life, the gift of health, the gift of freedom, and the gift of service. As we serve the residents of the city of Sweetwater as elected officials, please continue to grant the wisdom needed to make the necessary decisions for the betterment of our city, to our commissioners, to our mayor, and our city staff. Please continue to bless our firefighters, our police officers, and the greatest military in the world. Please continue to bless our city staff a

Now, we normally don't say the Pledge of Allegiance, but I think we should.

Thank you for that. Mr. Mayor, you have the floor.

I have a question. I was informed that the first reading was not legally sufficient, is that accurate?

Okay, and then after first reading, statutorily, past precedents, we would have 10 days before second reading. But because of all the notices, what is the statute reading? What is your legal opinion on when we can have second reading?

Does it have to go back to the planning zoning board? Good. I don't have any other questions. Anybody have any questions?

To my colleagues in the commission, would we like to go ahead and dialogue or would we like to listen to the administration's offer? I would recommend listening to the administration's offer, but I'll do whatever you guys ask.

Yes, administration. I have a question to the chair. I want to ask a question. Go ahead, Mr. Vice President. Thank you for coming today and for bringing this presentation. Can you tell me about the $8 million grant reimbursement? What is that?

So it's, so it's just a pass through then is what you're saying. Correct. Okay. Thank you. That was my one.

So everybody's in agreement with having the administration. All right, Mr. Mayor, the floor.

things that have been improved drastically.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Any commissioners wishing to go first? Yes. Mr. Saldes, you're up.

Any other commissioners wishing to speak? Mr. Vice President.

Would you be so kind and let us know what is the impact fees and the offsets and all that? Are they consuming all the impact fees with roadside improvements or improvements to the city? Will there be any money that's coming to the city?

Understood, thank you. So hang on, let me just finish my train of thought here. So... Is it their purview that they can change the number of residents in there if it doesn't work out, let's say for some other part of the project? And then they just pay the $276,000 or whatever it is per acre?

And we would have no say in any of that if we sign off on this?

Mr. Mayor, is that something that will be in our agreement?

That would be my recommendation, Mr. Mayor, is that we have stake in the game as well.

If you don't mind, let me recognize Commissioner Yanyu first. Go ahead. Yes. You can just stand at the podium. Thank you.

that um i think weigh heavily toward your concerns that this just becomes something totally different that this does not make that possible mr vice president thank you for that i just want to make sure that you know we're obviously we're in this together i just want to make sure you know as things progress and change that we can have a say in what's going on in there

I want to set a presence commissioners always first. Absolutely. Go ahead. Yes.

Mr. Mary needs to say anything. All right. I, um, I, you want to say things?

Yeah. All right. I'll yield to you. Good. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, real quickly, I wanted to ask the, uh, developer real quick, uh, the maintenance and upkeeping of all this public area who's responsible for that, including the three acres.

Will be kept by you guys. Okay. When you said use restriction, that was for the athletic and field track area.

i don't know want to use a portion of the park and the city wants to have a special event it'll just lay out the way that we can work together so that it continues to be an enjoyable space but so that the city still can have for both you know correct okay and um going back to the 100 000 square feet of institutional um i believe dennis said we don't have anything number wise yet costs

Okay, yeah, because I know they answered a few of the questions that I had about the changes, and my biggest concern was what the mayor brought into play, which is what I believe my vice president also had, was that it doesn't, even if it's sold to another developer, owner, or anything, this stays as is. The agreement travels with the developer. That's perfectly fine. Okay, thank you.

all right so i'm gonna i'm gonna say a few things um i always like to give my colleagues in the commission an opportunity to have a healthy dialogue before i say anything i tend to bogart the microphone so first i said for the beginning that i didn't care about a park um now we have a free park And I think that's a victory for the city. So, kick ass job. Anytime the city of Seawater gets something for free, at the end of the day, it's only gonna benefit our residents. You did say something where there are restrictions to the park having to do with special events and whatnot. So I'm not in agre

Give me traffic impact and concurrency totals, please.

As far those are the improvements. What does the code say that you have to do with traffic impact?

Mr. Attorney, Mr. Attorney, Mr. Finance Director, do you have those numbers? If so, could you stand at the podium? Knowing you, you probably do.

So they're short roughly 3 million or 2.9 million. Is that accurate?

So it's my understanding that there are $38 million in traffic improvements. Is that accurate?

So the $38 million surpasses the $15.7 million required by the code. Is that accurate? Okay. So we have $38 million. So we're looking at an excess of $23 million.

I agree. I misstated. We're getting an additional $23 million in improvements to our roads. Excellent. That's number one. I keep hearing that we're commingling police impact and government impact. Why is that?

So I remember specifically stating in that meeting, before I voted upon it, we can go back, that I didn't want to commingle those funds. I wanted police impact to be police impact and government impact to stay government impact. Now, if we voted upon that, and it is what it is, I don't like to use those funds. I like for police to be police and government to be government. Now, that's for us to debate and dialogue. The reason why I asked that question, what is the police slash government impact fee for this project?

Um, one acre where for the pre negotiations of the park, it was something like $7.5 million per acre.

I understand. So based on this project, they have to give us $7.9 million for police slash government impact. Is that accurate?

Thank you, Scott. I don't have any more questions for you. So we have 105 dwelling units per acre. How many acres of undeveloped land do you currently have?

Okay. You guys have a survey obviously, right? And so you, based on the survey, you don't know how many acres of undeveloped land you currently have.

How many acres was the project? Is it 105 including the three current buildings? Okay, got it. So that's where I was at. So now 94 times 105 dwelling units. So you're looking at having roughly 10,000 dwelling units.

Give me one second because I want to do some math here. So we have 105 acres times 94 acres is 9870 units. So do it again. 105 acres 105 units per acre times 94 acres is 9870 units. Say that again. We'll do it again. 105 units per acre.

You have to discount the buildings under there and it's 94. They did. It's 94.

It's 105 minus the units. Now it's 94. 94. So 105 units, dwelling units times 94 acres is 9,870 units.

That's what we're at. It says 9,870 units. Is it the intent of the developer to build 9,870 units? No. Got it. So the developer's only going to build capped at 6,000.

I just wanted to get it on the record for a reason. Understood. You guys, how much in... Aside from the 100,000 conceptual square feet of, I don't know what space, how much retail space are you guys looking at? Is it like 335?

Okay, so 282,000 in commercial retail, and that includes restaurants, bars?

I understand. And you guys are looking at a hotel, correct? How many? And you're looking at 350 feet. What is that? Like 20 something stories?

3030 are you guys going 30 feet high I I don't think anything is anticipated to be 30 feet high right now do you guys have a guest summit or less or I don't okay and then the convention center is going to be a component within within the hotel the idea is I will bring both so I'm assuming you're going to have several floors with a convention center and it caters of course to FIU the concept is to have you know that kind of rapport and it's also my understanding that each building is going to have its own silo parking is that accurate

Got it. And then the school, how many students for this conceptual school?

And have you been able to look at the design of the actual school? No. Um, Alex, have you been able to look at the design of the school? So the last time that I spoke to the developer, I wanted to reiterate the importance of having a perimeter road for traffic purposes. If you have, if you just look at that design there and you can think of 114th Avenue, if you force all the parents to go into a shoot around the school, now you minimize traffic. I think that's very important because traffic in that area is going to be ridiculous during.

I agree. Uh, what about the hospital? Is that still on the table?

which is what I said from the beginning, it's a very ambitious thing. Listen, I hope it happens. But if the hospital doesn't happen, we're obviously gonna have additional space. And the concern is that based on that additional space, that the developer might attempt to come back to us for additional units. I'm willing to listen, but I'm a little hesitant only because that area is a juggernaut. He's making a lot of roadway improvements, but Northwest Seventh and 114th Avenue is going to be very difficult. I'm open to it. Like I said from the beginning, I said it in front of everybody, I think i

Right. Okay. A few other questions. We're going to have I think 7.9 million. Then after credits 6.5 million in police and government impact. We're shaking our head.

Okay, so we started at 7.5 and our 4.7 Scott, please come to the podium. The exact amount is really not relevant. Scott Mendelsburg, Finance Director, City of Sweetwater. But if you want to play those games, we can.

All right. Thank you, Scott. Um, How much access are we talking about when it comes to the school? Cause I'm a little, I'm a little confused when it comes to the school, school access. Um, could you explain that in detail?

Yeah. They said there was limited access. I just wanna know what that means.

Okay. So I have two more, uh, requests to consider just a request. You guys are going to go ahead and develop a school, which means that that school needs to have some sort of security component. And I would respectfully request that the developer take into strong consideration to have a Sweetwater police off-duty working at that school for several reasons. He understands being a law enforcement professional, but I would most certainly want to have that radio concurrency, that immediate communication where if something, God forbid, does happen, That officer who has the same frequency as our of

I wouldn't impose that on him because I understand that does come with a financial strain. I just think that having a police officer in a school is different than having a private security guard in a school. Now, by saying this, the police command staff back there saying, oh, my God, how are we going to stop this? Well, that's their problem. They got to figure that out. Our officers are going to have more off duties and they're going to be happy about that. Right. Especially the off duty coordinator sitting there. And then. You said something about the park that we're going to have limited acc

understand I I respect the developer but I wouldn't go to the developer to ask permission for anything it's just my view I believe that is under the city's purview I get along great with the developer I love this project I've been trying to push this project from the beginning but he knows that I do have those mode those things where I'm like no kiddo and this is one of them I want you to take into consideration that any special event is never going to be conducted during school hours. So that's number one. The city doesn't have special events during school hours. Number two, our city special

And the applicant is not asking for a variance to extend hours of operation for the not the bars, restaurants, nightclubs, comedy clubs, whatever it is that he's there are no variance request in this application. Excellent. I don't believe that I have any other questions. I think that I covered a whole lot. I hope that I was able to answer some of your questions with that. I will yield does any other commission wish to speak? Commissioner young you have the floor.

Yeah. So I'm going to say two more things. I also heard you earlier refer to CRAs. Now, again, I think that's very ambitious. Now, I don't have much experience at the 111 building, I don't have anybody here spend much time there. Oh yeah, you were there for like 23 years. That's all. And it's my understanding that the Board of County Commissioners right now is shooting down any attempt at a CRA. So again, I think that's very ambitious. I don't think that's going to happen. I think you'll have more hopes as a CDD, a community development district. It benefits the city to have a CRA because the

yeah i think it's gonna be great i mean i want front row tickets to anything and i'm not sitting in the front row um so that's the first thing is the cra i don't think i don't think that look i didn't think we were gonna get a park and we got three acres so at this point do what you're gonna do uh i will say this final thing so aside from how we may or may not feel about the developer i have my personal feelings about him Our job is to negotiate and advocate for the city of Sweetwater. And I think the mayor has been a tenacious negotiator. I've actually opposed the mayor saying, guys, I think

Yes, through the chair. Mr. Vice President. So a couple things I'd like for you to consider when you sit down with them in regards to the school. I would like for us to obviously have some type of organized sports or the ability to have some type of organized sports there. And maybe some small office space for for someone from parks to be able to kind of manage that for the residents that are going to live in that area. Did you know if it's gonna be a K through eight or any idea at all? I mean, I'm not gonna lie, the schools in our area are all suffering. We have a number of middle and element

But Alex has a thought. Maybe like parallel parking or something. I don't know. I'm wondering how somebody, how do I go there to...

And will that be like, will they be charging for that? Or is that just going to be like wide open?

So if I wanted to go and utilize that linear park, I'm going to have to pay to park.

to get that look you don't necessarily want to have parking abutting on that linear park and how about for the park how will our residents that are going to use the the field at the school will there be parking there the school will have ample parking here and will that obviously will that be available at no charge in the evening kind of thing or on the weekends it would be reasonably negotiated and very likely that it would be available so something for you to think of is you know how do how do the other residents get to that i mean listen we we've come a long way i want to thank you we the l

OK. Commissioner Reynaldo Rey. So I just want to put on the record and let the applicants know and our outside counsel know as well that I concur with the president and vice president on two things. The president says the use restriction We're not here to be doing a 4th of July. We all know that there's no way to do that in between buildings, but not to be limited to anything or ask for permission if we're the owner of the deed. And the other thing, that's why one of these workshops is good because I've looked at this... proposal and everything, and I've looked at it from A to Z, Z to A, and I

I think we have a lot to discuss. I am tired of kicking this can down the road. We've had some debates and dialogues and some heated discussions. Been on TikTok and Instagram and all that crap. I have, police been throwing pens at me every time I drink coffee. It's very interesting. I understand the developer's losing a lot of money. And it's more money than I could ever fathom. At this point, it's just make believe money to me when he says those numbers. I understand that the developer and development team and the 32,000 consultants that you guys have want to get this done as quickly as possi

Before we go, uh, just one last point. Um, and I really appreciate the fact that you guys agreed to this is you're donating an additional acre of land for a police department. Is that accurate? it's not april fool's day mr president so we're not we're not donating another eight so you know what why don't we consider it so if you guys can go back to developer um i know he's away but knowing him he's watching uh so if you want to donate an acre of land you know i mean i'll accept it i'll accept it for our police department you know we we live in cramped spaces um our police parliament we're 90 s