Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

Exactly what they want to do. Max the next page. I didn't see that.

All right. recording. Okay. Will the Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 regular meeting of the town of Melvin Beach please come to order? First item on the agenda is a roll call. Chairman David Campbell here. Vice Chairman Kurt Bellstein here.

Member April Evans is absent. Member Dan Harper is absent. Member Gabbor Kosagi here. Alternate Todd Albert here. Alternate Jason Judge here. Town manager Elizabeth Mascaro here. Building official Roberto Moreno here. Town clerk Amber Brown is also present. Next item is approval of the minutes of the August 5th, 2025 2025 meeting. Anybody got any change to the minutes? Motion to approve. Second. Second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. You got an item on here says new business. What's that for?

There isn't any for this agenda. Normally stuff would be on there, but everything is old business because it's from previous meetings. Same with public hearings. Correct. Okay. So next we go to old business which is site plan approval for 2056 2066 Avenue renovations. Okay. Everybody get a everybody get that packet this morning? Yes sir. But they covered the

n I've already looked at it. It covers the drainage. It's an upgrade on the drainage and making it in compliance with the drainage. What? Which one? I got a second packet today. Scared my kid. She was homesick and all of a sudden the cops were banging on the door. She freaked out. thought she was in trouble for skipping school. She threw up, so she's justified, but I have no I have no issues with the drainage plan. Pardon? I have no issues with the drainage plan. Yeah, me either. That this one looks good.

Yeah.

All right. And then we go to the rest of the site plan. Uh It's existing building. So, and it got the storm water report and the setbacks are all the same as they were before except and I can't find really simple story. It's Tall is the thing supposed to be.

I just don't want to open that one up. I thought it was on one of these smaller ones.

So, one of these. Got it. 247. All right. So that's okay. And setbacks are okay. Storm drainage is okay. So motion approve. Do I hear a second? Second. All in favor say by second. I I

we approve. Next is uh review of the EAB. And Dan's not here and he's the one that's doing that.

Sorry, I forgot. Dan pass. He provided an email and some data and then requested must be tabled so that he can do some more research and provide it at the next meeting. I totally agree with that. Yeah. Second. All in favor signify by saying I I I So that is off the agenda. You already did a lot of work on this too. Yeah, he's done a hell of a lot of work. So we got a couple. Do we hear any comment? Come here.

Karen Fennady, 323rd Avenue. I'm on the environmental board and three of us came out here tonight because it's on the agenda. In fact, I stopped my run early tonight. Yes, in this weather because we were on the agenda. So, I understand I did I was aware that Dan wasn't going to be here, but I think if it was going to be tabled, it would have been respectful to notify the board in advance. um we have some information and on your last meeting you guys had requested a bulleted list um summarizing what we're what we want. So in addition to a complete packet that you have gotten this time I'd like to give you a bulleted list so that you have an idea of what our direction is and then if you guys have any questions I'd like to hear that. Do you have it with you?

I I don't know where we go from here because Dan asked that it be tabled, which we said we were going to do and we can take inputs from you, but we can't act on them. Should we maybe just take it in the effort of looking it over so that the next meeting we can be prepared and Dan has all the information he needs. opposed to waiting till the next meeting for her to give it to us and another I'm sorry I can't hear you. I said take it this meeting that way we can look it over between between now and the next month. That way when we show up next month we'll be ready for you and that way Dan has some another month to look it over.

Well, I mean I I I just wish we were we were we were contacted that it was going to be tabled. I knew there was a possibility, but um I I would like to hand you the uh bulleted list so you guys can look at that.

Okay. Thanks. I'd like to take this up next month with Dan's here with his inputs. Looks good. Do you have a copy?

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Just wonder some of this stuff is beyond the scope of the implement. Well, whether we can implement it or not recommendation, I'm with you. I think we should wait till we get Dan's input before we can. All right. Discuss it more intelligently. So, we're going to cover this next one. Next is upgrading. Yes.

I'm sorry. My name is Curtis 306 chairman board. I was just trying to we had a little not confusion but we wanted to get some direction on the uh landscape ordinance

needed to do. Yeah. So, Elizabeth, do you see that after our next meeting if we have issues, do we have a workshop with EAB or make recommendations back or do we go to the commission from there? I I think you would want to go back to EAB if you're still trying to massage whatever that is. Um, and that might be a workshop to just be able to openly talk about differences and opinions and get it settled for the two of us and then both boards would approve, go to the commission,

go together. That makes sense. Yeah. Thank you, Todd. Yeah. and we're, you know, we want to work with you and I think we've been working very hard to to work together with the P&Z to to get a something good for our town basically is what we're looking for. I would say read reading through what you've already done. You put quite a bit of time into this already. Thank you. We did. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Good. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you. And actually, I think that the commission even wanted maybe um for some of that to already go down to the planner to look at to make sure it's all okay, but there seems to be a lot of back and forth. So, I'll just double check that with the clerk.

So, this ordinance has gone back and forth because when it goes into its final written form and it goes for its first hearing and second hearing, it has to come before PNZ for a formal hearing vote that is advertised to the public. The concern was if PNZ and EAB are not on the same page that it might be voted not to recommend approval from PNZ to the commission. The commission could still proceed and push it forward. However, they do need a recommendation whether to approve or disapprove from PNZ. So that's why it's gone back and forth a little bit. PNZ has to be involved in the formal hearing process. Yes,

I'll just add a point of clarity. Uh Dan and I most recent rec recently met, just the two of us on this and um he he had concerns um and he was going to research that. So, um I was surprised to see it on the agenda already, but wanted to be here if there were questions as I said, but um he was going to go off and do his own research. We are also continuing to do look into some things and then um maybe we'll get we'll make some headway when we meet again next month. I do like this copy better than the other copy we had received. You you like getting every page. Yeah, I like every page. That's nice. Thank you. There's page numbers on there too this time.

Uh moving on. The next item on the agenda is a update about the pier renovation. And we got just before the meeting at the meeting, we got a handout about doing here. Now, I've got a hand out. Okay. just the thoughts collected from the workshop and the comments that I've had with different people including Tom Davis and the neighbors who are on the side of the ramp. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to pass this out. Sure.

Chairman, just to verify, so the next item on the agenda was the pvious impervious. Was the board wanting to table that as well? Yes. Well, because in Yes. Okay. I have some information on that if I may and put this thing to rest. I I encourage you to hear this so that it can go away.

Okay. All right. Just a couple sentences. Okay. So, the town commission asked the EAB to look into um other coastal towns that are doing impervious and pvious regulations. What our group shared and what you have seen is exploratory in nature. And after we spoke with Bvard County Natural Resources who are very familiar with the upcoming state standards because they helped write it, they said that impervious impervious considerations were being updated in a stronger way rel relative to the storm water regulations and those are going to be in effect in January. So any work we do on this isn't going to matter. So we're not doing any more work on this. Okay.

Okay. Neither are we. And therefore neither will we. All right. So we're going to the boat ramp.

Boot ramp. So I have about 10 of these back on the back if you want to follow along. So I think this is a collective issue. Um, frankly, right now the um the seaw wall is collapsing. We had u a sinkhole as a result of it. Uh, and all of a sudden we have a hole that's about 12 inches in diameter uh that u all the sand just wiped on out without really a storm happening. So, the fact that Mike Collasian has sent us a an a proposal of building the seaw wall back. It's kind of nice to get a reference on how much the major part of this might cost. But in my communication with various people, including the neighbors of the ramp, um, with Tom Davis from our workshop that we had, I just made a list of things that I think we need, um, for the boat ramp and for the dock. And one is to and I've got a diagram on the bottom side that shows where at least the first five things are supposed to happen. But it's just to go through it. Scraping the ramp approach to create a swale effect because right now it's a peak effect and so when water comes up the ramp uh it just falls off to the sides and most of it goes into the Atinson's yard. Uh and uh and so and I've talked to Tom. He said that they could do that within the town. Um and should have been doing that perhaps rebuild the the south seaw wall and it's just the south side. The north

side of the seaw wall which is closer to the Stevens property is not really a problem. That's where the waste water comes out or the storm water comes out. Uh but on the other side there is obvious uh a hole and and the concrete is just falling away. Um build the seaw wall. Um but also we would put that to the height of the Atinson's um seaw wall which is about 10 12 to 15 inches higher. Um, and I know there was some discussion of what kind of warranty to have from the Seaw wall builder and the dock builder. And I frankly think that, you know, Mike is pro Mike Collagent is probably one of the best in the area. And I think his guarantee would be to take care of it. Not though in a case of an act of God. if a hurricane comes up and slams a place, you know, we've got a lot of issues to deal with anyway. Uh but then build So right now on the sides of the ramp, the walls go in about six feet. Uh well, about 12 feet on one side, about six feet on the other side. I would think that we need to build walls going up both sides of the ramp in order to funnel the water up the ramp as opposed to letting it fall out. uh earlier than that and then install what could be a removable gate that would be able to close the end of the ramp with the walls of the ramp and pretty much contain most of the water coming through there. Um so that we would not have it go onto the Atkinson yard either. Um there's an unstable white This is mine. There's an unstable white pole on the north side of the ramp at the water's edge. Um, and I think that

should be secure. That should be more secured maybe with a 4x4 piling going into the coina rock and then make sure that two existing two trash bins are available just like on Fifth Avenue Park which is what exists today. Um, the dock I would propose this is at the end of the day, no matter what we do before or after, this is a neighborhood dock with very limited parking. And so I think we need to build, if we're going to have a dock, a a limited dock. And that could only need to be 10 foot off of the seaw wall and four foot wide with embedded support pilings going down into the Kina Rock. Um my feeling is we don't need a 30 foot or even a 20 foot dock. I don't know if others have seen boats pile up there, but there's just limited space for this. Uh but we use 4 foot wide flowth through um legacy Xe plastic decking which I have on my dock. It's great because when the waves do hit it, the water goes through as opposed to just knocking it out like it does wooden. Uh adding a standing piling uh five five to eight feet beyond the dock just there so that you could anchor the stern. Uh but it's not for tying up and going ashore or anything like that. Uh it's just a temporary holding space and that's what the whole dock I think should be. Uh have a depth indicator strip on the last dock piling which would say about two and a half ft roughly at this point. It's a little bit

high right now. Question is is a railing needed? I mean some people like that for support. I have that on my dock. I love it. the people both north and south of us do not have a railing. Um but then request just a regular warranty from the dock builder. Then signage and other things. Parking only for residents with a current sticker. No overnight parking 9 to 5 900 p p.m. to 5:00 a.m. Those two are already there. no trailer parking on the street within two blocks of the ramp area, which would limit still the parking. Um, but allow but most residents would probably take their their trailer back to their house and then come get it when they come back with the boat. Um, have a caution sign, use the ramp, boat ramp at your own risk. Another caution sign, slippery when wet. Another caution sign that's not there is shallow water recreational use only. Those again are asterric because they're already there. But maybe also signs for no loitering, no littering. Do we need a sign for no fishing? There's fishing that goes on regularly from the seaw walls at this point. people walk into the water at that point and go walking along the seaw walls out through past the docks. Now, I don't see where we're going to stop that from happening.

Don't even try.

Yeah. Uh but the nice thing about this is I think it it hits on the lot of the safety issues. There was one day I was talking with Andy and Carolyn Atinson and we a boat pulled up that was about 17 feet and a the two um guys lifted up the older gentleman dropped him down onto the ramp into a little bit of a slippery area. He held his ground. He then walked up the ramp. They then took the two kids and dropped them off the bow of the boat, too. And I'm just thinking a dock would help that kind of boat. It's not needed for kayaks. It is not needed for seedos. It is not needed. It is needed for the Pathfinder, which the fire department has because it's just which is 22 feet, but it's it's a V-shaped keel. And so, you know, um Amber's husband, I can't think of said to me that, um, you know, they run around a lot over there anyway. And he said, could we dredge it?

We are not going to dredge this. It would be, if we dredged it, it would be filled in within six months. That's just the way the sea is. So, these are my fonts. I I I like the list. I think the only one that you missed on that from that work. You're talking about securing the park after hours. Yeah, that was the only thing that I see missing. I didn't I didn't miss it. You didn't? I didn't see it on your list. You just put on your list. Okay. All right. But I think the if we have that um he's got overnight parking from 9 to 5. Yeah. I don't think we're worried about people launching their boats tonight. I think it was more the sense of kids hanging out there to try and keep people off the property. People sitting on the pier drinking.

Yes. That that was the intention of trying to get the keep it closed at night. Let's not No one's going to launch a vote at night if they want to. We could put in no alcoholic beverages. Not not in me. You can't do that. So, where do we go from here? I I think it was discussed last time and I know Mike has said the same thing. 10 feet's not going to cut it. It It almost is useless at 10. 20 maybe, but 30 I get is is excessive. I guess I walked it and we staked it and it wasn't bad, but I don't live next to it. But if you're going to have a dock, you might as well be able to use it. 10 feet. If you go put your boat up to it, you're going to be on the dirt. You know how shallow it is there. Yeah.

You figure you have a 20ft boat, half it's up against the pier, you're you're in the same boat you're in now. 10 feet just really doesn't do anything. I think the biggest boat I've seen go down is um some people living on surf have a pontoon boat that's about 25 feet and he puts it in with no problem. He also has a V-shaped hole and he says that the V-shaped hole sometimes he takes over to Melbourne because our doc just can't handle it but on high water like now he could have se no problem right in. So I assume the town is going to pay for this. That's a good assumption.

Pardon? I mean I mean, I asked actually since the repair became necessary, we asked Mike to give us an estimate because we do have to fix it. Okay. I mean, we this hasn't been brought before the commission yet. I mean, it's literally hot off the press today. It will come in front of them next week. So, I what I was going to say is we forward his recommendations and and the pricing to the town commission and say, "Do you want to proceed?" Right. We definitely need we definitely need to fix the seaw wall. There's that's it's become a hazardous situation. Okay.

So, the other more most expensive thing is the dock. Micah said he would do that for free. I don't know if he has in mind the 10 foot if that's still the case. But I mean, you can ask him, but I'm relatively certain he said he wouldn't put his name on something that was unusable. It would make him look like he doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah. So if you go put this thing out there that can't be used really or gonna do more, you know, it's not going to help. He wasn't interested. So you'd have to speak to him because it's his deal. But he said if I'm going to build something, I want to build something that's usable and it's practical. And at that length, he decided then in agreement it's not just isn't.

What about 18? Is there a compromise in there anymore? 195 995. Am I correct in the assumption that right now the seaw wall itself needs to be repaired before we do anything else like yesterday? Okay. And I know nothing about the costs of seaw walls. I don't know if this is something that's reasonable or not. I have no idea. I don't read it. But will you send it forward to the town commission? Um

just knowing him I know this is a good deal. I spoke to him this morning and he said I'm I'm doing my best by the town. I can I can tell you from experience that my sey wall cost um that we just did that's 90 ft cost $77,000. You are going through coina rock. you are going through. It's a sand pressured together rock that's even harder than the coina rock and they have to bring in a outside r a thing to do this to drill it. Did I say somebody wanted to just address us?

Come up. Identify yourself. How you guys doing? Oh, there he is. 1508 Pine Street. So, we're on the the north side of the um boat ramp.

Yeah. So, I think that it's I mean I think again I think it's really good that you guys, you know, are bringing all the groups togethervious. Um, we're obviously we're on the north side of the dock. My neighbor Andy's here. He's from the south side. We from the beginning have kind of been against the idea of a dock. We feel that, you know, for years people have used this ramp. It's been effective. But look, at the same time, we also feel that it would be unreasonable for us as members of the community to say we're not going to listen to the other side of the community that wants to dock. We think that's unreasonable. We think it's unreasonable to say there could not be a dock. But on the other side, we think that it would be unreasonable for people that want the dock to say we want this 30 foot or even even maybe a 20ft dock and not to say let's come together and figure out how to make this a win for all three groups. There are three groups. There's the group that is against it that lives in the neighborhood. There's the group that's for the dock. And then there's also the community in a whole. And I think that we need to figure out a way to make it a win for all three groups. And I think the win for all three groups after hearing everybody's opinion is, in my opinion, the 10-ft dock. I think the 10-ft dock does three things. I think that it protects the privacy of the neighbors on both sides of the dock, but also the neighbors that live right there on Pine Street. I think that it's a home run in terms of the community that wants the dock. It's gives exactly what they're looking for. They are looking for a safe way to get off the seaw wall onto their boat. They're not looking for a place to to fish. They're not looking for a place to drink beer on a dock that's long. They're literally just looking to get off the seaw wall safely, get on the boat. Well, I think that that photo that I show there demonstrates that

perfectly. That boat right there is a 23 and a half foot boat. That boat right there is bigger than any boat that should be there. That's my boat. I just pulled it up. That floating dock right there is 9 and a half ft long. That shows that my boat is up against the seaw wall and that more than half almost half the boat is accessible from from the dock onto the onto the boat. And then I like Todd's idea about putting the pylon out in the water. Therefore, the stern of the boat, you can have a cleat that then ties the back of the boat up. Now you have a safe way to tie the front of the boat up, the back of the boat up, and you have a safe place in the middle of your boat to exit to come and go. The third area, the third group that it's a win for is the town of Melbourne Beach because one, we're adding safety, but also we're not building a dock that's so big that you build it, they will come. This is a little dock that kind of speaks for itself. It says, "Hey, I'm here for safety, for for your ease, but I'm not so big that people that live in other communities are going to be like you. You understand what I'm saying? It's it hits every mark." So, I hope that that Mike would look at it and say, you know, I think it does hit every mark. And I think that if he were to build that dock, I think that people in the community would say, "It hit every mark." And look how strong that dock is. Because we all know he builds the best dock. So, why not put his name on it? I I really think it's a home run. And we've talked, me and Andy, and we're we're for it. We're, you know, we're we were against the dock originally, but we we sat down and we said, what's the best thing for the community? We don't want to be people that are unreasonable. And again, it would be unreasonable for us to say no doc. So, let's figure out the win for everybody. And that doc is the

So, thank you. Can in this photo I'm sorry. There's no way to get a trailer out around your boat. In this photo, um, do you know what the D was your boat completely floating? Yes. Pulled all the way up there. All the way up to a And this is a 23 foot boat. Okay. And do you know what the tide was at the time? Okay. Is this recent? Is this recent this Friday? Sunday. So it's when the water's up, when the water was way down, can you bring your boat in and out?

So for over 30 years, people have been using this and we can all agree people before the rock was there, people would pull their boat straight up to the seaw wall and that worked. But now you can imagine now you can still pull your boat all the way up to the seaw wall, but now you're going to have a 10 foot expansion coming out. You can't say the ball. That's all you need to get on. It's a home run. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You wanted to address

um Curtis Bird 306 Surf Road. I've been a resident of Melbourne Beach for 52 years. Um we used to have not such a big deal during sunrises or Fourth of July and everything like that. Now we go down to the river. If you go down the river, almost every access is full of people. So, I guarantee you if you do put a bigger dock out there, there's just going to be more and more people there. I don't know the liability, the safety of all that, maybe it doesn't really matter, but I think it does. I think you're just encouraging, as he said, you know, if you build, they'll come. So, I would be I would be for a smaller dock, something that would still work, but uh doesn't encourage, you know, a lot of the people on Fourth of July, the you know, the holidays and even just regular sunset days, you know, coming in for sunset would be on that. Just a thought. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is you got a report. And we have no town attorney. Uh we got a whole bunch of items we've already added to the next meeting. Anybody got anything else they want to add? So we recommending this for to send to the commission. Yeah, we already did. Okay. Yes. I sure

see. Andy Atinson, 1602 Pine Street. As Billy said, the southside. I'm on the south side. Anyway, um Billy said everything. And I I just going to go on record that I don't believe this dock is missionritical. It just isn't. Fix the seaw wall, get it flat, get the the coina rocks out. People have been getting on and off their boats forever. They just have. Um, having said that, I think as a the 10-foot dock is a is a compromise that I think we can live with. I think the other thing that we would like is to put this to bed. I know you guys can't aren't making this decision. It's simply a recommendation. I understand that. But somewhere into we put this whole thing to bed once and for all in perpetuity so we don't just keep coming back to this over and over and over. So, I just wanted to make that comment and also thank you guys for your highpaying job that you do so well. So, thank you.

Uh based on that, should we make a motion? The only thing is I think you uh proposal of a pamphlet do or pier. We've already sent it a motion to mission to take a look at it and see what they want to do. I think we're sending something that's not going to get built anyway because he's not going to do it. I don't think he's going to do it at 10 feet. He's already said that he doesn't think he's interested. So, he's here. You should ask him or we'll table it and bring it to the next meeting.

Why didn't she? Well, there's nothing for me to do other than say that just like Jason said, 10 foot I mean they the pictures they showed was when the water's two foot higher than it normally is. So, I mean, you can always move stuff around to make it work better, but when that water's low, you're not getting anything on there at 10 feet. We have pictures. When the water's low, you can barely get a gue close enough to get it. What's a reasonable minimum that you would be comfortable? I mean, I think it's got to be somewhere around 15 or 20 feet to make it work. Or you just don't build it and fix a seaw wall cuz honestly, I'm tired of it's it's the

biggest ordeal for me to pay for something for the down. I don't know anyone else that's offered that to pay for anything in this town. And I'm getting I mean just ab it's just not worth it honestly. Um if it doesn't function, it's not worth building. I mean, this is what I do for a living. I understand their concerns. They don't build docks for a living. I'm friends with all of them, but they don't build docks for a living. I don't tell them what to do as doctors. So, that's all I have to say about it. I mean, just don't build it if you're going to build it short. It's a waste. Just fix the seaw wall all the day.

Thank you. Anybody else? So, we didn't have any agendas. I guess the next item is the adjourn motion to second.

So now we've got this. So you you do need to kind of make a recommendation to the commission. You know, do you have a do you want to do all these things that Mr. Albert said? Do you want to build a 10-ft dock, a 15t dock, a 20 foot dock? What's your recommendation to the commission? My recommendation was 20 ft. I mean, it was 30, but I understand where they're coming from. And so compromise to me would be cut it in half.

You don't make it to me. I'm just saying. I mean, it's 10 foot is too short. If we're not going to do that, then let's just not do it. That's all this area needs. So, I recommend that we do a we recommend the commission building a dock to these and doing the ramp considerations to these effects with a 10 foot. With a 10 foot. Yeah, with 10 foot. I hear a second. I'll second that. All in favor signify by saying I recommend putting on. Yeah. Sorry.

Now, go ahead. Hit it. Recommend we adjourn. Motion. Motion to second. I'll get that one. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.