Planning & Zoning - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Order of business, any deletions, additions, or deferrals? Hearing none, we'll follow the agenda. Public comments, general public comments.

Hello, my friends.

Two things I want to talk about real quickly. The first one is I'm concerned about an idea that was proffered at the last council meeting from you all for two reasons. One, if you have a house and you're going to knock it down, should you have to continue to pay insurance on it? Number two, should you have to continue to pay the taxes on it that are certainly higher than an empty piece of ground? And then that goes to is it illegal for a person to come in and say, I want to build a tennis court next year or in two years. I want to buy this house here and knock it down because it's going to become a yard. is that illegal according to our code. Anyway, that's what I'd like you to think about. And the other thing I want you to think about is the 30th of this month, we have a workshop of which planning and zoning is a part of four, I keep wondering, or I have for a year and a half or whatever it's been, what happened to traffic, which was my push to get a traffic committee. Well, it turns out if you read the ordinance, the reason that they never had a traffic committee is that's really your all's responsibility. And if you read the ordinance, it's all under planning and zoning. So in addition to your other responsibilities, You're supposed to be evaluating the traffic in the alley on 102nd Street and et cetera. So you have an opportunity at this workshop. I hope you all will think about that, discuss it. And if you think it's a great idea, that's fine. I don't have an ax to burn, but it just seems to me you all stayed pretty busy. Thank you.

Thank you, George. Any other public comment?

Ed Goddall, 37 Northeast 100th Street, 41 years.

I got a public notice. I'm sorry. Can you say that a little bit slower, please?

Ed Goddall, 37 Northeast 100th Street, 41 years in Miami Shores.

Thank you.

Thank you. I got a letter, public notice, that they're going to tear down a house right down the block from me. and build a five-bedroom, 4,000-plus home on a 100-foot lot. I believe it's a 100-foot lot. Why?

This is public comment, not interaction.

OK. I came here to the city hall and asked them about it. And they said that the plans have already been approved. So if the plans have been approved, why would you send the public notice here? What's the point?

Finish your comments and then I'll respond to a couple.

Well, that's it.

The point is that I believe is the property that you're concerned with 133 Northeast 100th Street?

Is that it? Yes.

That's on the agenda tonight for discussion. So that's on our agenda tonight. That's how the process works.

What are you going to discuss?

If you've got a house, they're going to tear the house down. They're going to build supposedly a 4,500 square foot, five bedroom, four bath swimming pool. How? And it says it's a single story house. How? How are you going to put that many square footers on that lot? I want to know. How are you going to do that?

Is that the end of your public comment? That's not an item specific, that's an item specific comment and I do open each of these applications for item specific comment at the end of each one.

Let me start over again. Since I got a public hearing notice and I came here And they said that the plans have already been submitted, and they have approval to build that house. What is the point of having a public discussion on it?

If you want, I mean, we don't have to respond to that right now. I mean, I tried to a couple of times, and he won't acknowledge my response.

No, I know we don't have to respond, but I think it's appropriate. So, sir, we didn't approve any plans.

Plans were, oh, sorry.

So, the plans were submitted, but they weren't approved. In probably five minutes, the board will hear the application, and then if you want to give some comments about the application, you can do so at that time. But the plans haven't been approved. We haven't taken any action on that application.

If Mr., I'm going to say Smith, I don't want to mention the person's name, the contractor. He does a lot of stuff, but he does fairly decent work. I don't know if he's here, but it doesn't matter. I lost my train of thought for a second.

Your public comment three minutes is up. Can you sit down, please, and let us continue our meeting?

Okay.

Thank you. Any other public comments? General in nature, not item specific, please. I have item specific. After each agenda item, I offer public comment. Great. All right. Thank you. All right. Minutes. Approval of last meeting minutes.

Move to approve the minutes of the July 24, 2025 meeting as submitted.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Minutes are approved. Thank you. Tabled item, we have a tabled item, RSP 2537, owner Sebastian Allart, 133 Northeast 100th Street. New construction of a 4,200-square-foot, one-story home. Yes, ma'am?

Oh, before we go into the quasi-judicial matters, I just want to read the board's statement. Oh, I'm sorry.

I skipped through your little oath. It's all good.

So please be advised that the following items in the board's agenda are quasi-judicial in nature. If you wish to comment upon these items, please indicate the item number you would like to address when the announcement regarding the quasi-judicial item is made. An opportunity for persons to speak on each item will be made available after the applicant and staff have made their presentation on each item. All testimony, including public testimony and evidence, will be made under oath or affirmation. In accordance with Section 2-100 of the Village Code, any lobbyist must register before addressing the Board on any of the following items. Board members must disclose any ex parte communication concerning any items of the agenda. So I'll give you an opportunity to do that at the moment. And pursuant to section 2-86 of the village code, Has there been any ex parte communication on any of this? No. And now the board clerk will swear in any persons who wishes to testify on any of the matters that appears before us today.

For anyone who wishes to speak on any of the items, specific items this evening, raise your right hand. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? All right.

Very good.

Thank you. We're good to go.

Thank you. OK. So regarding RSP 2537 tabled, address 133 Northeast 100th Street, do I have a motion to untable that?

Move to untable.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, Planning Director.

Thank you, sir. This is item 7A, RSP 25-37. The lot is approximately 11,500 square feet in size, contains a single-story, single-family dwelling originally built in 1940. The applicant seeks to demolish the existing single-family structure while proposing the development of a new one-story, single-family dwelling comprised of approximately 4,246 square feet in size. The proposed site plan indicates a total of five bedrooms, four and a half bathrooms, and a two-car garage. And it's June 26th.

Hello? Testing?

Sorry about that. At its June 26 planning zoning board meeting, the applicant's request was subsequently tabled pursuant to board commentary regarding the steep roof design, adjustment to overall impervious surface calculations, incorporation of window openings on the east facade, and an overall update to tree mitigation landscaping plans. The applicant is seeking to be untabled and has incorporated technical sheet revisions addressing previous board comments. At this point in time, staff has reviewed the request and found that it is compatible with all of the 20 different zoning categories as found in the code. And we're recommending approval along with all of these stipulated conditions as found in the report. And the applicant is here to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Any questions? All right, one second. Any questions from the board to the zoning director? Hearing none, is the applicant here tonight?

Yes, Sebastian.

Fantastic. Do you mind walking us through your project and telling us a little bit about it?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So it's a 3,700-square-foot AC, plus a two-car garage. That's where it adds up to 4,300, 4,200 square feet. As Eddie mentioned, I'm covering, you know, everything in terms of pervious areas. And most importantly, which was really hard to do, you know, after, you know, everyone knows about the prices on the lots, it was to build a single story house. which in my experience here at the Shores building here and the signing, we've always had troubles with the two stories, with the neighbors, even though they get approved, you know, they feel a little bit intimidated by such tall structure, especially with the, you know, finished floor elevations and all of this. So, you know, I really, wanted to kind of like bring something new to the shores and, you know, I'm not talking about 16, 14, 18,000 square foot lots. We're talking about, you know, this is actually an ice lot which is 11,000 square feet. But still, it was quite hard to be able to do this and maintaining a good dynamic of volumes so it didn't look such as a big mass. In regards of the previous comments we've had, we lowered the pitch of the roof from 6 and 12 to 4 and 12 as requested. And I actually agree it looks much nicer. I think it flows very well with the context and the fabric of the neighborhood and the structures next to it. Actually, the structure to the left, so to the west side of it, it's actually quite tall. It's probably from the 1930s. It's quite a beautiful home, but it's quite tall. It has quite a tall structure, so it's not overwhelming. And I also have, you know, we also have the filter of lots of landscape existing and proposed that it doesn't feel like you have a house next to the other one.

Can I ask the audiovisual folks, just while you're discussing it, to put up sheet ID-103, that's the front rendering. Oh, that's you. So I just want the color rendering so folks can see what we're looking at. That one there. Thank you.

So I was mentioning, okay, so we had the roof. We also had the pervious area. I removed the slab I had under the pergola, which was an open-to-the-sky pergola. We removed that even though we were already complying with it. I reduced another couple hundred square feet just to, you know, just make it, let's say, absorb a little bit more of, you know, have a little bit more permeability. I think the other comment was on the east facade. I added a window which connects to the dining room, so it's on this side right here. And again, you know, you can't see it, not even close from the front, but still just to be, let's say, a little bit more, I guess, inviting to the neighbor. Yeah. What other comment did we have? We had the slope of the roof. OK, the landscaping. So in terms of the landscaping, yes, I didn't have a mitigation plan in it. It was a little bit not done properly. We have that done. I also went ahead and I worked with a very well-known arborist. His name is Michael McCoy. Well used all over Coral Gable city of Miami and everything I have a report from him where he is kind of saying which trees are you know. At the beginning I wanted to save as many trees as I could but obviously you know if. lot like this you kind of have to go to the limits as well so I have a report saying what trees could be relocated which ones couldn't and only two of all the trees that I am planning are what he calls you know they are okay to relocate they're healthy enough to relocate And I also have a proposal to relocate these two trees. The least expensive one I got, and I have it right here, it's $18,000. Again, those, yeah, and that's the least expensive. I had one for 25 and the other one was for 32. And this is because there's a guy we've worked with before.

What kind of guarantees do they give you?

None. No guarantees. And they say it's 50% chances it doesn't go, that it's not going to live. So, you know, I was hoping that the plan gets approved. I am still having to pay, like, you know, because we planted as much as we could. of new trees in the property. But of course, due to the canopy, you can't plant 100 trees. So as they get mature, they wouldn't be healthy enough. So I am hoping that everyone here accepts it and the way it is. And I still have to pay anyways to Miami-Dade County something like $7,000 or $8,000 of trees, besides planting

Pay to the Miami-Dade $7,000 for?

Yeah, as mitigation.

It's still left of mitigation. On your property, though? Yes.

It's with Miami-Dade, right? I have to pay them? Yeah, with them. So pretty much everything is filled with trees as much as it can be, but it's still not enough land to put more trees. So I still have to pay a portion of the mitigation.

That's because you're getting rid of some trees?

Yes, yes, sir. There's five trees. Everything is now there on the landscape sheets. And there were only two of the trees that I'm removing. I'm removing five of all the trees we have there.

I didn't see any revision clouds around your landscape sheets indicating they were changing. And just a quick comparison, it still seems as though you're removing 21 trees.

Yes, but I'm talking about, yeah. Not five. And we still are. And we still are. But 21 trees, but, you know, most of them are palms. Five are specimens. Five are specimens, correct. And the five specimens, only the two is the ones that I can, and I have it right here if you would like to look at it.

Was that included in our? No, no, no, no. So we can't consider that. It wasn't submitted.

Oh, okay, okay. No, no. But I brought it anyways just as a backup. I know it wasn't requested, so that's why I didn't submit it. But, yeah, I'm just...

I have some questions about the impermeability. It feels as though the way you've addressed it is not realistic. Why is that? You've removed the slab where the summer kitchen is. Presumably, you're going to put a pergola there, and that's now going to be landscaped area. You have no hardscape around your pool, which means all your drip line from the roof is going to drain immediately adjacent to the pool. Yeah. You have no hardscape coming out of any of the sliding glass doors on the left side. I think this feels like this has been maximized to get to our impervious and all you did was take away some slabs that we know after permit you guys are going to wind up putting stuff out there because we don't, nobody goes out there and double checks it. It just doesn't seem as though this has really addressed that comment.

Well, I mean, I would have to disagree with that comment just because I can show you photographs. You can go on our website and you can see the photos that we actually like the grass to the pool, okay? We actually sometimes even put stabilizers on the grass. uh to just make it more rigid and not be all muddy and we actually love it we don't plant palmetto grass we plant very nice grasses and people love them and they keep them and i think everything is perfectly up to code um and and you know listen we nobody can control exactly what the next person is going to do with it my proposal it's again it's applying with everything and again i will show you a project Whenever you would like to and in our website and it shows you know the property natural grass and You know the 12 inches of the coping of the pool and that's it all around it Any other questions for the applicant from the board Thank you, thank you

I'd like to, I guess, open this application up for public comment. Any public comment on this application?

Jessica Pfeffer, 187 Northeast 100th Street. If you look through the wall, my house is right there. So I'm actually three doors down from the property. A few different concerns I have. We moved here back in 2018, and the reason we came here is because Miami Shore is such a beautiful, historic area. It reminds me very much of a place my mom grew up in Connecticut called Ridgefield, which is from 1777. Not quite old here, but... Architecturally, I don't necessarily mind the design or look of the house. It's really the size that I have concern with for a few different reasons. One, where is the water going to go? This street is not really prone to flooding, but if we keep taking away grass and trees and all those things, It's going to just, you have more cement, it's just going to create more flooding. Also, I'm concerned about the animals that are in the area. That property is so beautiful and has so much foliage. And there's a lot of birds and animals that are just on our block that are really beautiful. And I'm concerned about not only the habitat being taken away, but also the noise and dust and all the construction that would happen from completely taking a house down. We're all about, you know, new build and stuff, but I'm concerned about developers that are coming in and not actual residents who are coming in to create a place that's a home. There is a new group called Grow Miami. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's a bunch of gardeners that have come together in Miami Shores to try and help other residents learn about how to create native habitats in their homes, and we'd be willing to, of course, talk with you and think about how we can make this more suitable for what Miami Shores is all about.

Thank you. As far as the foliage that they were talking about, about two or three owners before whoever bought the house.

Just for the record, can you just state your name? Are you forgetting me? Yeah, just for the record, sorry.

37 Northeast 100th Street. I've been here 41 years. Senior man on the block, by the way. That house, I think three owners before you purchased it or whoever purchased it, they put a lot of trees. They planted the whole front is full of trees. And if you're going to tear a house down, You're going to need a big frame and a bulldozer, which you know is the only poor house down right down the block here. So I know you're going to transplant some trees, but what are you going to do with all those trees? Are you just going to throw them out?

This is, sir, this is not engagement. This is just public comment.

All right, well, I'm just enlightening the public of what the builders are doing. I mean, they've got another house that I just got a notice you're building a two-story, 5,000-foot home.

having some technical difficulties. This is a public meeting. We do have to keep record of the minutes. So just bear with us so we can just get our system out. So I do apologize. We just have to comply with Sunshine Law.

And the live feed went down as well.

Yeah, and the live feed went down as well. So just bear with us for a few minutes, and we'll get everything started back up.

When you get things started back up, can you test Eddie's mic or the way that his mic is positioned and how he's speaking so that everybody can hear?

So for the record, we're just going to take a brief recess.

I think we're good. It just basically restarted. I'm just, yeah. We've got to get smaller chairs up here. We've got to get skinnier. Okay, it shows that the live's going again.

Is that what happened?

And could all the board members check their mics to make sure that they are working properly? Hello.

Testing, testing.

Hello.

So can we continue? Are you rebooting for the screen, I guess? Yeah.

It will be just loading very slowly, but I think we can continue about the picture.

Okay, thank you. Sorry about the interruption there. You want to go ahead and complete your comments, please?

I'm going to end it because I'm taking too much of your time. But basically, most of the people here in the Shores, like some of the people are talking about, they like the style of it, you know, the old 30s, 40s, 50s type of structure. I just don't understand why we need to have 4,000, 5,000, and 6,000. If you go down to 101st, where George lives, you can see that big, huge hotel that they made. And then if you go down a little bit further, you can see the motel that they made. Now, I know Niagara Shores loves that because they're getting all that dinero in their taxes. And I haven't seen much use of it. Our taxes are going up. I don't want to get too far out. My complaint is stop building these huge houses with 5,000, 4,000 square foot homes on a 100 foot, 500 foot lot.

There's no reason for it.

And if you've got five bedrooms and you've got a bunch of kids, that means you're going to have five cars. Where are you going to put them? I've said my piece. Have a nice day.

Thank you.

Good evening. Sean Rogers, 121 Northeast 100th Street. I am the neighbor just west of the lot. My concern is simply with the size. Part of our house was built in 1925, 26. It sits on a small lot. I don't even think it has quite the setback that we have currently, even from the edge to the property line. So for us, it's just a concern in terms of the massive print next door. I hope that possibly talking with the developer that we can talk a little bit about that. I realize that doesn't necessarily change the plan, but I think your issue that you were raising in terms of some of that massive footprint and what the implications are. I would concur with that, but that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Something that has to be thought about, now that you have traffic responsibilities as well, somebody will have to think about probably the speed hump out here. I don't know where that lies relative to the drive. I don't think that's an obstacle, but it's just something you'll have to.

Thank you. Any other public comment on this item?

Melissa France, 434 Northeast 102nd Street. I am the OG of 102 Street. And my observation is that one of the reasons that we love Miami Shores is because of the the environment. It's not just the architecture. I don't have a problem with architecture. But we're attracted to Miami Shores because of the nature of the neighborhoods, that we can walk down the street, that we can see the birds flying in the trees. I'm not a tree hugger, although I am a member of GROW. And I think if you want to build a five-story house on a little piece of property like that, then you need to go to Davie or Cooper City. I think that we're allowing these monstrous homes to be built here, and we're destroying the nature of our neighborhoods. And that's all I have to say.

Thank you. Any other comment? Discussion? Any discussion?

I think some of the public comments we're hearing are sensitive to homes that were built prior to the revision to the zoning code. I think it's important to note that we made these revisions to the zoning code to put into place certain guidelines to try to maintain the character of the village. Amongst those, perhaps one of the most important is impervious. And I find it a little disingenuous of the applicant that not only was he over and I had to catch it, that the solution was just simply to remove a slab underneath of a pergola where there's a summer kitchen. That's not a usable situation. That's not a usable configuration. And we all know what's going to happen here. This has been done to maximize, to absolutely maximize the square footage without any regard to what the intent of the code really is. The intent is to allow for proper drainage. We're building larger homes and I do appreciate the fact that we kept this home to one story. But it also has to be said that there's a harmonious section in our code as well. And after listening to the public comment and after looking at what's been proffered here, I have a hard time approving this. I have a hard time with the fact that not a significant effort was made to address the tree issue, not a significant effort was made to address the impervious issue. So for me, I think just my opinion on this, we shouldn't let this go through.

Let me ask you, if I may. So you're saying he doesn't meet our previous requirement? Because I'm looking at his calculation here.

First of all, the original plan, the calculation also said that he met it, and he didn't. And I called that out last time. Sir, I believe we did. You didn't.

I did because I did the drawing, and not a cat and not a dog.

Just some decorum. This is the board discussion, and if the board would like to open it up, they can.

I'll give you one last chance. And I can show you the drawing where it was measured. And, you know, what we're seeing here is we're taking it right to the bleeding edge. And we're not, you know, this isn't realistic. There's nobody that is going to buy. This is not the end user here. This is a developer. He's going to turn this house over. And the person who buys the house probably doesn't even know about the code, isn't going to go for a permit to put some pavers down around the pool or underneath of this summer kitchen pergola. This is just, this is not, I don't think that this is taking into account the intent of our code at all.

Any, so let me ask you, so you're concerned with the landscape pervious calculation because he doesn't have a deck around the pool. Is that basically what you're saying?

Because it was incorrect originally and because now in order to correct it, we're just eliminating something where we know a future owner is going to put it and it will essentially create a nonconforming condition. This isn't, yeah, that's my concern.

Hang on, please. Any other board member comments, discussion?

Let me try to do something. As many of you may recall, three years ago, four years ago, there was a very limited method for reducing the size of homes in the Shores. And as long as you met the requirements of setbacks, which was 25, 10, 10, and 15, you could build as big a house as you wanted to. And we had some people build some relatively huge houses that people still complain about today. And with the work of the director of planning, with the work with some consultants, we went through and revised the code in July of 2023, a little over two years ago, you know, to require lot size, FRI, all the things that were designed to reduce the size of houses. And at least my impression is that the applications we've got since then really are not these overwhelmingly large applications that people complain about like the bells across the street from the rec center and are designed to recite and are well within the parameters of most other communities in Miami-Dade County. And this really does meet all those requirements though it's I guess available on the website. If you want to look at that stuff, everything we're looking at, you can look at that and you can see that it does meet the general requirements and are in the revised code. The second thing which is kind of a personal note. I've never felt overwhelmingly comfortable about saying the things that are presented to us are simply a fake facade and that as soon as they're approved, the people will go back and change them to allow them to reduce the size of the permissible areas. I mean, we need to take people at their word. These plans are signed by people and are legally binding documents. If somebody buys the house next week and decides they're going to do something different with it, which I believe probably does happen more than you think, but we really are obligated at certain levels to take people's word when we review these unless we have some evidence that what they're telling us is purposely misleading.

Thank you. You know, I mean, I kind of agree with you, Dan. I appreciate the fact that this is not a two-story box that just overwhelms the neighbors, you know, which is what I think what makes a house look a lot more imposing. So you've kept it to one story. You reduced the roof height. as we discussed in the last meeting to make it look less imposing on that too. Now, I had a question for you and then I'll have you come up if you want to have one final talk. In the back of the house here, is that a pool you have in this drawing?

Yes, sir.

And is that pool part of the impervious calculations?

No.

Because the pool is not part of this permit application, right? Pools are usually under a separate permit.

Is that correct? But we have to show it.

You have to show it because that's what your future intent is.

It's a sub-permit.

But that's a separate permit, so that's not part of this application. Absolutely. So if, and this is a question to our planning director. So if we approve this application and then he comes in later and wants to place a pool which would impact the pervious square footage on the lot, would that then have to be adjusted? The pool size or whatever would then be adjusted accordingly to meet the code?

He would have to work within the constraints.

Correct. All right. And the pool application would include decking or whatever else too. All right. Okay. So, did you want to, any other questions, any other discussion before I let him have a final?

Joe Mohorovic, Jr.: His previous calculation does include the pool. It did on the original drawings. It does on the current drawings. The pool is drawn as 407 square feet.

All right, so all the drawings.

I'm sorry, one second. These guys still wanted to have more discussion. All right. Did you want to discuss?

This was the calculation that I did to come up with this. I included the foot walls and everything. This is what, previous? 102. I used the site plan to do this.

Was this previous or the new one?

This was for previous. This is the previous one. This is where I calculated what you had and what you didn't have.

And I think I know where the problem is. Excuse me. The problem, I think it is, is also the wall in the front. That's a wall. And this one, because, you know, it was mentioned that I said is actually a landscape permeable space. So the actually, you counted it against it. And that's why I did it. However, in this application, And this new one, I counted the Oolite wall, which is considered pervious. I considered, even though it's considered a pervious stone, and as a landscape feature, it's considered pervious. Not under our code. In every city.

Well, we wrote this code, so I can tell you it's not. Okay. And our code is not considered pervious. Perfect. So I took it off anyways. It probably should be, but we did not include that. We didn't include pervious papers either, which is something we were looking to try to continue revising. But, yeah.

Yeah. Brendan, and again, and when I make these comments, I, you know, I don't mean to be rude at any point. This is not going to be hopefully my, you know, the last home. Hopefully we'll see each other very soon. However, so I want to make that. So in this, I think that's where, I messed up, now that you say I know Oolite perimeter walls cannot be counted as pervious, that's what's my mess up. So in this one, even though I thought I was right and I thought pervious, Oolite walls were pervious because they are in every other city, it's fine. I didn't count it at this time. Now, I was going to propose something, okay? Because I understand your concern and I understand, look, I'm not doing it in a tricky way to be able to get with it, okay? I'm an architect, so I have a passion for this stuff. I'm just not a builder who just makes the money and leaves and moves on to the next one, okay? And besides, we have a name and reputation to go, especially in the city. We have, I personally bought seven houses here at the Village this year to be able to do these type of works. They're all single stories. So this is something that I want to continue doing, okay? So at no point I'm trying to be slick at any point. Just, you know, Brandon, I just want to make that clear. Now, what I was going to propose is the following. What if, because I understand your concern, to be able to mitigate that, if the pool, I propose it In this area. Okay? Right here. In this area. That would, I think that would clear up the, you know, what you have. And I would do that, obviously. I would ask for your approval, if everyone accepts. And on the next set, which is the dry run, I would have it there. I would have the pool located in this area. I would remove the pergola. So no pergola. And what I would do is I would do probably the summer kitchen somewhere in this wall here. And this slab right here for the driveway, which I have this as backup. For backup, I'll remove this slab. Right now, I also wanted to be clear because I also understand what the problems are with the pervious areas in all of this. The first thing is we have a civil engineer drawing these. So it's not that we make up and these are all calculations. But most importantly as well is that we're actually not even close to the limit in terms of, for example, FARs. You know, I could be doing 5,400 square foot. I have 3,700 square feet AC. I could be doing, you know, 5,400 square foot house with no garage and doing a pergola like everybody else does. So I'm trying to be, you know, kind of romantic in that side. Okay? That's it.

Comments? Are you asking us to table this item?

We're still discussing.

I think the proffer is definitely a step in the right direction. I, too, want to be careful I'm not coming down too hard on you because you're one of the people that do good work design-wise in the neighborhood. I recognize and appreciate the projects that you've done. There's one down the street from me that is pushing the envelope. I like it. And I said this up here before, the job that we have here is really to be the gatekeepers and to listen to what the community wants. We can't please everybody, we know that. And we have to find what essentially is reasonable. And indeed, a lot of our banter and back and forth was really trying to find that middle line between the preservation of property rights and the preservation of the character of the shores. My feeling when I see an application come before me that hits that bleeding edge of what's possible but then does it in a way that isn't really realistic feels like frankly what larger developers often do. I've been guilty of doing that myself as a developer. But in this community, I think sitting here on this board, we need to be very careful. So I do appreciate the proffer. As to how we get there, I think we could probably discuss how to make that happen.

Brandon, let me ask you, what does the proffer accomplish by moving the pool?

Brandon J. Moving the pool does a couple of things. First, there's a bunch of drainage area that comes off that roof right into that open area. It's going to essentially turn that area to mud. There's nowhere for the water to drain. So what's going to wind up happening there is that somebody in the future is most likely going to want to put a paper around it, especially because the house opens right up to the pool. By moving the pool and eliminating the pergola, there's no longer a requirement or desire to put the slab underneath of the pergola, which was the 300 and some square foot that was removed. So likely when we come, if it's tabled and if it comes back for us to evaluate, it'll be, the impervious will be more realistic. It'll be lower than the maximum, but it will be lower than the maximum in a way that's realistic.

Which sheet was the site plan on?

The one that I used was AS101.

AS101. I'm not at the maximum.

No, you're not. Oh, okay.

Okay. It was the landscape plan. So as far as you controlling the water on this job, on this project, how are you? You have berms on the side? that swales that you're building in. And then in the back there where you're relocating the pool, it says stormwater retention area.

Right, so the retention area.

250 square foot drain field.

Right, so that pretty much gets.

So the drain field goes kind of where the pool is now and then, so you're swapping the drain field and the pool. Or where the pergola is now. Where the pool is.

Most likely my drain field and my entire system since that's,

front and in the front it says trench system stormwater retention how's that working on the front it says trench system stormwater retention so you you're gonna have some some inlets that that are gonna pipe the water to this this trench system

Just a point of clarification. The revised AS 101 does have the septic system in the front. It's underneath of that driveway slab, so it would have been a traffic-rated tank going into a drain field, which was shown just to the left of it. As to whether or not that was enough square footage for the drain field, that's a different question. But where the pool would be relocated I guess that was your secondary? Because I don't see another. I see two. I guess you're going to do two septic tanks?

No. It's only one septic system. However, if you do in drain fields, if you do 50% exactly half of the drain field on one side, you can do them separated. But it's one septic system. It just pumps it with a pump to two different.

Because you had that one in the rear and then the one in the rear. One in the rear and one in the front. So you just move that one in the rear over?

Yeah. In this case, I would have everything in the front. Okay. Which, for me, it's actually better. I would move the pool and, yeah.

And how does that affect your planting?

No, I don't think it's going to affect it because I don't have any trees in the middle of the storm retention system, I believe.

On the front. You've got a tree to remain. Yeah, it looks like a couple of palms there to the right. You're probably fine.

Yeah.

I think it works.

Excuse me. Any other discussion?

So the last time it came, I was against the design, but I think all my concerns were addressed. The roof height, the front facade, the fenestration on that one side, even though it's against the neighbor, it's just the idea of not having walls. Mr. Spirk about the pervious, impervious area, but I think you've given us three proffers that I think get us to a point where I think we can approve it today. That's just my opinion here.

Do you have the wording for the proffers?

I have. That'll come in the motion. Now, I see a member of the public must have a comment. If you want to make a comment, please.

Again, Sean Rogers 121 Northeast 100th Street.

I am the neighbor to the To the west and I appreciate the discussion.

I guess as a neighbor. I actually like the pool where it was Just because it comes up and I'm wondering if just taking the pergola away alone is or taking the pergola and then taking that slab meets that requirement.

I hear you. The pool is kind of isolated in the plan, and now it's going to be right next to your fence.

As I said, I hope that we... Well, I'll give you a chance.

I'll give you a chance, and I'm glad we're getting somewhere here.

I would love that. I mean, because I think it gives kind of like that courtyard with the pool in the middle. You come in the house and then you see the water right there. I would love it, but I want to get this thing approved.

All right, thank you for your comment.

Sure, come on up.

Come on up. I thought this was going to be a short meeting. We're going to be done.

I really didn't come here for this issue, but.

Ron Charles, Jr.: You might know, speaking your name, for the record.

Bob Domleski, 285 Northeast 91st Street. I'm here with my wife, Jan. We've lived in Miami Shores for 25 years. My father bought his first house for $8,000 after World War II. It was, I think, 1,000 square feet. We built a house in Massachusetts. It was seven different levels. big, big thing, earth berm geothermally heated off the grid in the 70s. But we had 20 acres to build it on. And we used some of the trees from the property to build the house. One of the Took a lot of economics courses. I'm a degreed engineer. One of the best pieces of advice that I ever got from an economically cool guy was when housing becomes a commodity, watch out. And that's what's happening. There's a whole bunch of folks here who, from an aesthetic and functional point of view, and from birds and wildlife, bless their hearts. are taking on an issue like this from a subjective aesthetic point of view. My question to the board and to you, because I'm going to be back with the house that's on 92nd Street, is why can you not design or take on the design challenge of reducing the size of the house to 3,000 square feet? I kind of know the answer to this, and it's economics. But that's the development dilemma. You have to take a house in Miami Shores now and scrape it off and put something in its place that makes money for everybody who has a piece of that action. Real estate in Miami Shores is becoming a commodity. This is not Jan and me going, hey, we like to upgrade. How about if we have, and I like your design, by the way. The one on 93rd, is it? Love it. It's becoming a commodity, and we have middle people who are making their living. I don't want to put this fellow out of a job, but the fact is, the pressure that is being created here, and you gentlemen, I hope you have the wisdom to see this and figure it out, is aesthetics, tradition, wildlife, meeting the economic pressures of all the people who make a little bit of money by either restoring a house and bringing it up to a new standard, or scraping it off and packing everything they possibly can into that little space, even if you have to cut down, what was it, 22 trees? I love trees. My original house had 16 trees in it that we cut down, but we at least repurposed. Anyway, I just want to point out, you have a tough job nickel and diming the details of a particular design is really not the issue that I wanted to bring to light. I want to bring to light the bigger problem. If you have economics, and sometimes it's the economics of Lenar trying to do, optimize 20 acres worth of real estate versus individual architects and builders trying to optimize a lot in Miami Shores. And over the 25 years that Jan and I have been here, and by the way, We live in a house that we love and we could fit two and a half of them in the house that is proposed right behind us now. And I shake my head sometimes because I don't know why it got enormous overnight all of a sudden and is being overdeveloped from that standpoint even against the very passionate statements that are made by neighbors. And I'll make the same passionate statement with the next property on 92nd Street, because that's right behind me. Anyway, thank you for listening. I just wanted to supply that perspective. It's an economic issue meeting a sort of an aesthetic and a community-based sensibility. And somehow there's no obvious solution to that.

Alright, thank you. Any further discussion before I get a motion? Can I have a motion?

Motion to approve the proposal with the pool in the original location with the portion of the slab located in the front yard topping the current septic tank removed which is approximately, bear with me, which is approximately 180 square feet and the adjustment or removal of the slab and or aluminum pergola such that hardscape can be allocated around the pool and still have met the impervious requirements.

I have a motion. Do I have a second?

I have an addition to the motion because I heard one extra proffer which was to relocate the.

That goes away now that the pool is here.

No, but it was to relocate the summer kitchen to along the rear wall and not have it out on its side so it becomes a paved area later. That's what I heard the applicant about.

That's part of when you move the pool over here. I don't know if that still is true because the pool is back there. There's not enough room to get around it. But.

I'll relocate it in a way that it's,

closer to the house. Okay. So why don't we just say modify it to say and or relocate summer kitchen as may be required. Perfect. Second.

So I have a motion. I have a second with a modification. Yes. All right. So you're clear on the motion?

I'd like to go over at least the second one definitely. So I have remove 180 square feet of front yard driveway within west portion of front yard. Removal of pergola and that's where I kind of got lost.

Elimination of slab under pergola.

Thank you.

Just include the relocation of the pool.

No, the pool remains as is, and hardscape can be allocated around the pool as required.

And the relocation of the summer kitchen? Yeah, as may be required.

All right, so I have a motion and a second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Application passes as modified. Thank you. All right. Moving right along. New items. Item 8A, RSP 25-51, owner Krista and Sisman Dabkowski, 150 Northwest 101st Street. It's a garage conversion of approximately 228 square feet. PLANNING DIRECTOR?

THANK YOU, SIR. THIS IS ITEM 8A, R.S.P. 25-51. THE LAW IS APPROXIMATELY 8,143 SQUARE FEET IN SIZE. IT CONTAINS A SINGLE STORY SINGLE FAMILY HOME ORIGINALLY BUILT IN 1944. THE EXISTING STRUCTURE HAS A LIVING AREA OF 1,947 SQUARE FEET CONFIGURED WITH A ONE CAR GARAGE, TWO BEDROOMS AND A BATHROOM. The applicant is proposing to convert roughly 228 square feet of the garage in order to accommodate a new master bedroom and bathroom wing. In total, the interior habitable area of the home will increase to 2,175 square feet. In total, three bedrooms and two bathrooms are being provided. Important to note that on August 16th, 2022, the Planning and Zoning Board did issue a development order for this same request, 36-2022. that granted the property the garage conversion approval in connection with the above reference address unfortunately due to circumstances outside of the applicant's control the development order and building department process number both expired therefore staff has reviewed the request in alongside the 21 different zoning criteria and found that it generally complies and therefore we're recommending approval along with all of the stipulated conditions thank you any questions for the planning director

Is the applicant here? Would the applicant like to discuss the project with us?

I don't think we have much to say unless there are questions for us. We're a palate cleanser after that last one.

Okay. Is there anything we want to put up on the board on this one? Maybe the rendering? Maybe sheet A3? All right. So it's just a garage conversion. Any questions from the board to the applicant?

Were there any changes from last time to this time or is it the exact same?

Well, we brought it up to all the changes in the code since 2022. So we basically had to redo everything. But the design itself is generally the same. Yeah.

Are you raising the floor of the garage to match the interior of the house?

We are, right? I think it says that it's flush. There's one step down. I think it's a step down.

There's two different heights in the house, so I can't remember which one it matches, but yes, it is coming up some.

It seems to suggest that it's flush with the living area. I just want to make sure you're not below flood or below the crown of road. Our living area has a step down, so we're raising it to the lower portion. That's all I have.

Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? Any public comment on this application? Hearing none. Do I have a motion?

I'll move to approve the application as submitted with the conditions identified by staff.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Two seconds.

Two seconds.

All right, item 8B, RSP 2553, Sergio Diaz and Jennifer Diaz, address 1260 Northeast 99th Street. Planning Director?

Thank you, sir. The lot is approximately 8,175 square feet in size. It contains a one-story single-family home originally built in 1951. The existing structure is a living area of 2,494 square feet. It's configured with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage. The applicant is proposing to approximately convert 490 square feet of the garage in order to accommodate a new gym area and full bathroom. The total interior hydro area of the home will increase to 2,988 square feet. In total, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a gym area are being provided. As such, we're recommending approval as the request is compatible with the single-family future land use. And we've measured it along the 21 different zoning criteria and found that it generally complies. And therefore, we're recommending approval along with all of the stipulated conditions as found in the report. Thank you.

Any questions for the planning director?

We have a number of existing conditions that, could you kind of talk for a second about that? Because I think that, yeah, can you just talk about that? So all of these are what, were there from previous?

You are correct. So the applicant, through this process, provided staff with some of the historical approvals that were done on the property. And what we like to do with these staff reports is we kind of look at it as kind of like a base document where we're calling out what are the things that comply and what are the things that do not. And what we do is whatever doesn't comply, we just call it out and say it's an illegal non-conforming, which means that at one point in time it was proved, meaning it was legal, that as of today's standard, it doesn't conform. We do that very often with these applications. We just call it out just to say that, hey, this is a base document. We caught this. It's legal nonconforming. They're not making any additions or expansions to it.

No changes.

No changes, correct.

Thank you.

So in situations where we had legal non-conforming, but they were going to build on top of it or something, then we had to add a variance to the process.

That would be a circumstance where we have the ability to make it right, let's say.

Okay, any other questions for the planning director? Is the applicant here? Can you?

discuss what you're doing hi good afternoon my name is Marina and we are currently going to convert about 500 square feet we will be doing flooring ventilation improvement electrical updates for the gym and the garage conversion thank you any questions to the applicant

It's a gym? Yes. That's a nice bathroom for a gym.

I see that you're elevating that slab. Why call it a gym? You're still going to have to do the septic when you get to the county. It just seems like, you know, I might use it as a gym, but it's a bedroom.

No, it will be a gym conversion.

Got it.

Any other questions for the applicant? Hearing none, open it up for public comment. Any public comment on this item? Hearing none, can I have a motion?

Motion to approve the staff conditions.

Second? Second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Application passes. Thank you. Item 8C, RSP 2557, Provincial Realty Associates. Alberto Llorente is the agent at 825 Northeast 92nd Street.

All right, the lot is approximately 12,345 square feet in size, containing a one-story single-family dwelling originally built in 1955. The existing structure has a living area of 2,591 square feet. It's configured with a two-car garage, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms. A fire caused significant damage to portions of the home which required interior structural repairs to address critical life safety concerns. The affected areas will be rebuilt utilizing the building's existing foundation while proposing a minor single family addition consisting of 222 square feet essentially enclosing the front porch. The applicant also seeks to cover a portion of the rear terrace and install a new metal roof. The new total habitable area indicates 2,813 square feet, and in total, three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a two-car garage, home office, and covered patio are being provided. Staff has reviewed the request alongside the 22 different zoning criteria and found that it generally complies, and therefore, we're recommending approval along with all of the stipulated conditions as found in your report.

The applicant is also here should you have any further questions or inquiries. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for planning director?

Is anybody living in the house currently?

Not at the time. It's not in a capacity for someone. I believe it's the, it's a rectory. It's a rectory for St. Marthish. Yeah, unfortunately.

Okay. Any other questions for the planning director? Is the applicant here? Thank you.

Tell us what you're proposing. Good evening. David Prada, Senior Director of Building and Properties for the Archdiocese of Miami, 9401 Biscayne Boulevard. So the existing rectory where the priest lives, Father Salazar is here with me today. He's the pastor of St. Martha Catholic Church. Unfortunately, the existing rectory was burned down, well, partially burned during a suspected arson. There's an alleyway in the back where the homeless tend to come back and forth. And so... As part of the restoration rebuild we're going to build exactly what's there so we're not changing anything we're not changing roof lines not changing footprints not changing anything. The only thing we want to do is there is a very impractical front porch that is very large and there are some safety concerns to it because of the amount of homeless coming up and down that area. And so again, the proposed addition, the proposed enclosure of that takes the door that's, takes this door and this window and basically just pulls them to this line. So the existing roof line, existing harmony with the neighborhood stays the same, no change to the footprint. And again, we want to thank you again for your help during this difficult time. Father's been dislocated from the house for 10 months now, and we're working with the village. We are currently, we have a permit to just basically restore the structure so we don't cause damage to it, life safety mold, things like that. So, and then the other thing is we want to change to a standing metal seam, architectural metal seam roof. But other than that, I mean, it's exact same footprint, exact same everything. We're not changing anything except for moving this out. Because you notice it's a, that area is very large and with the amount of homeless coming up and down, sometimes this becomes an area where they might be. And what happened in the fire in the back is a homeless person came from the alley It's an existing terrace that we're rebuilding, so it's not a new terrace and not a new roof over it. It was always there. But the homeless person got on that back terrace, it was that coldest night last Thanksgiving era, and started a fire. Our cameras from the pastoral center caught it. It started as a small kindling. He must have been warming himself or herself. and with time, we see it get out of control. It burned the backside of the house. Luckily, my father was in this bedroom that was able to call the emergency, and we could preserve the house, or else it would have been a total loss. So with that, thank you very much. It's been a very difficult process, but it's been a pleasure working with your team. Thank you. Thank you.

Any questions from the board to the applicant? None? Thank you. Thank you. Any public comment on this item? None. Can I have a motion?

Motion to approve subject to staff conditions.

Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you very much. All right. Let's do a short meeting.

Don't we have to discuss this?

Sir.

If you'd like, before you speak, I will address that one of our applicants, as everyone knows, we have new ad notice requirements that took effect August 1st. One of our applicants, proactively, without our giving them direction, went ahead and started sending out mailers for, I believe, two properties that are not on tonight's agenda. So if you might have received a letter for a property It's most likely not on this agenda. And that person has already been made aware. They're going to have to do it once again once it is ready. So I just wanted to tee that up in case.

Brian Tenney, 1183 Northeast 99th Street. And yes, I was here in relationship to 1119 Northeast 99th Street, which does not seem to be on the agenda. And the owner was in... The audience.

You are correct.

You are correct.

So you're most likely going to receive another mailer. I believe they're just about ready for the October hearing. So you're going to have the opportunity to speak on that item during the October meeting.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. All right. So item nine, board member comments. couple of things I wanted to first discuss and George Birch mentioned it earlier the council's having a September 30th they have a workshop on their boards you know and I guess every once in a while they go through review the the code on the boards make up how often you meet duties, such and such. So George asked me to discuss this and to see if we had any comments or any things that we may want to make recommendations to the council on as far as the makeup of the planning board here. And a couple of things just going through this, you know, to see if we need any discussion on would be the basic things like five members. You know, we have five members on the board. I think the number of members is good and it works. Since I've been on this board five years now, I don't remember once not making quorum. So, I mean, I think maybe planning board members are more – Dutiful, you know, but I know some of the other boards have seven members and they struggle making quorums, you know So any comments on that to your term to your term, I mean that seems to be working Any comments on that? George did mention something and I was reading through this when it says collect up-to-date information movements of traffic And there are some references to traffic issues as part of the purview of the planning board. Any comments, discussion on that?

I think it's entirely appropriate for us to consider traffic. We're not currently making traffic a requirement of any of these submissions, but most of the submissions we see are single-family residential. I don't think it really has much bearing on traffic. But, for example, when we were hearing the applicant for the For the Barry property, I think that we probably could have requested more by way of traffic studies and things of that manner.

And that would be for commercial?

Yeah, for more heavy use and commercial, we probably need to think about what the threshold might want to be before traffic reports are required. And to the extent that a traffic report is required, that the applicant is required also to pay for a peer review. I don't know to the extent to which that actually goes into changing the ordinance or whether or not that's a process or a procedure.

And it doesn't really get into it much. Things that present and future movements of traffic, I don't think it necessarily pertains to traffic with our applications. But like the ad hoc traffic committee, they were kind of tasked with, you know, locating some of these speed bumps you've been going, you've seen going around and I guess making, Someone at some point made recommendations to close off and dead end a lot of cul-de-sacs and stuff like that. I don't know. That would probably have to become another agenda item on the thing to discuss general traffic concerns or studies. And I think the planning board is an appropriate board to discuss those rather than having an ad hoc traffic or another whole separate board to discuss traffic.

I will add that generally, as staff, we will request traffic study depending on the type of development that's being proposed. So normally with a single family home, it's what they call de minimis. It's really not going to generate that much traffic that's going to cause an impact. but something like a multifamily development, a condo development, a commercial that's going to generate traffic, we're absolutely going to make that a prerequisite and part of our presentation in our staff report. So, you know, to give you those assurances.

But about other traffic issues that are not related to development.

That's a good question. General traffic issues and recommendations. Let's say something regarding speed humps that really pertains to the Public Works Department and even greater, Miami-Dade County, because even though it's a private municipality, they have the final say as to what someone does on the street, whether you put a stop sign, you put a speed hump.

Only if that's a county road.

No? No, regardless.

Really?

If you're in Miami-Dade County, they have the final say, and the Public Works Department, they would be able to speak to that. They essentially have to provide the county with what they call a needs and analysis report for any sort of changes.

So these speed bumps that we see going in, Miami-Dade County has to approve? It's not a permit we apply for.

They should have, yes. Traditionally, that's how it's supposed to be.

Even though it's on municipal roads?

Yes. They have the ultimate jurisdiction because their point of view is these roads ultimately feed into a county road and affects the greater county. So they want to maintain that provision or that power, so to speak.

I don't think we should be taking up speed bumps and speed humps throughout the neighborhoods. I don't think that has anything to do with what we're doing. Like Eddie said, if we're doing a commercial project, we want to see a traffic study. We want to see those type of things, but only if they're related to something that's coming before the board. I don't think we want to get into this I don't think it's in our purview. I think that, you know, the perfect place was, I think the perfect place was the ad hoc traffic committee not planning on zoning.

John Aucott, Jr.: We kind of have our hands full with the flow of applications plus zoning code rewrites and major applicants that occasionally come before us to, I mean, if they're looking, if council is looking to alleviate themselves, I think they had the ad hoc, and that was coming to an end, I guess. And maybe the ad hoc comes to us periodically, and then we, I mean, if we change anything, but maybe that would be the only change, but yeah, I agree.

So then let's look at the language in here.

That would take up speed bumps.

So the language in here says, collecting up-to-date information shall be the duty of the Planning and Zoning Board to collect data information, keep itself fully available, form best practice advancement in the art of municipal planning, I'm in 19-19, so that it may fully be qualified to act on matters that affect the present and future movements of traffic. So we just discussed that would be with respect to development orders as opposed to general. So that wouldn't need to change then? The convenience and safety of persons and all. So I don't really see any language.

I would propose getting rid of 1922 annual report. That just seems to be superfluous. 1922. I don't know.

I think it's good that we do an annual report. I was remiss and did not turn one in last year, but I did. I have... I guess the council wants to kind of get a report. I don't think they do anything with it. That may be true.

On that topic, I was asked today by our village clerk, any word from our board regarding the annual report? I think we push enough paper. That's an unnecessary piece of paper. What she explained to me is that our council hears enough from staff, and this is their... a pathway to hear from the board. So, this is their way of hearing directly from you.

Yeah. On an annual basis. But who? Our council? Yes. From. We show up at the council.

In official capacity.

We speak publicly as individuals when there's an issue that we feel passionate about. Otherwise, there's meeting minutes that are prepared.

I think we have a mechanism to make recommendations to the council outside of the annual report. So we wouldn't wait until the annual report time to make recommendations. We do it pretty much all the time. So if we're looking for something to change, that would be, I kind of agree. We're going to save something. Let's delete that one. At least we did something with what they want us to look at.

I mean, we don't have to make recommend date. If we think it's good as presented, then, you know, we'll say we don't have any, you know, recommended revisions, you know, at this time. I don't really, it's quite succinct, you know.

I mean, if you're partial to the report.

I don't know if we want to just, I don't know if it's important enough to take it off. Yeah, fine with me. Now, following up on this, I'm not going to be here on the 30th. And I know they like to have somebody from the board at least be there and say, hey, we've looked at this. We're good. We haven't had a problem making quorum. Five members, we like that two-year term. I'm here to answer any questions or whatever. Can I have somebody volunteer to attend that meeting for me?

I probably won't be on the board on the 30th.

Well, you'd be on the floor on the 30th because they're not meeting before.

Okay, yeah. We've been postponing that, right?

They postponed it at the last meeting, yeah. I'm not sure why, but. Like Dan so much. Yeah, I think they want to keep it.

If only that was true.

If only that was true.

George, George is nice.

Do you want to put an application in, a running in? I think you're limited. Hypothetically, it would require a four-fifths vote.

Oh. Dan's going to let somebody else have a chance.

Yeah, yeah.

I think that's what he's saying.

This is great news.

Can I get somebody to volunteer to attend? I just don't want to have like no representation at this thing.

When is the 30th?

It's on Tuesday, the 30th next week.

Oh, September 30th? Yes.

Yeah.

Tuesday? I can do it if nobody else wants to do it.

Good. So what they've done is they've kind of huddled certain committees, and there's three other committees that night, and I think you're third on the agenda.

Actually, here's the... Let me give this to you. If you want to make any changes.

Here's the workshop agenda for that night.

This is fairly simple. I'm just going to show up and say we've discussed it at length. We have no changes to make at this time.

No recommendations for changes. We're happy to discuss the particulars if you'd like as to what we discussed. And this is what Yuspele had put attached with the agenda just for you to have.

Put it on my calendar so I don't overlook it.

Thank you. Planning Board recommendations. I had a question for Eddie.

Time is up.

Six o'clock. Eddie, with our new notification process and such, can you run through the timeline on an applicant from when he walks in your door and says I'd like to submit an application till when he could probably actually get in front of the board with notification and what he has to do and all that?

Yes. So, in essence, it does add time to the process. How so? Number one, all items now need to be on a published agenda 20 days before the actual meeting. That's why you got your agenda so early last month and you're actually going to get October's next week. So that affects every single item on the agenda. Published agenda and the property posting needs to be done 20 days before the hearing. Second category is who needs to do the mailers. Based on the amended ad notice ordinance that went to the council, New construction, any demolition that affects 50% of the existing structure or any addition that adds 50% or more to a structure have to do.

So, like these garage conversions wouldn't have to do that?

They do not have to do that. So, the new construction, the first item. He had to send out mail.

The distance that I saw on the agenda on the ordinance as required struck me as significantly more time than we talked about and approved in our discussion. So what is it now?

It's a thousand foot radius.

So, like, how many homes would that be?

It's capturing, I would say, somewhere around 100 homes. That's a lot. Yeah, well, this was 173. Can you pull up his application? Because we can show them.

I was surprised when I saw that.

Yeah, yeah.

What did we have? 500, I think.

No, we didn't go.

And you know what?

And that is why they went so far because we went so little. And that was super clear from that meeting that I believe the council. And you know what? The opinion of the council was much different than that and they wanted to push it even further. And I think if we, If we adopted what we had kind of talked about, I think it would have stayed there, but because we limited it, they went the other way and totally took it. Yeah, because it's 173 people.

Yeah, all those properties fall within.

How expensive is that for them? Who gives them the list?

He showed me his quote. It came out to $1,200. You give them that list?

They have to provide it? They have to provide it. How do they get that list? Property appraiser data. Is there a tool they can use?

There's companies that do, they perform a certified mailing radius service. It's a company that what they do is they go in, they capture all of those properties that fall within the radius, and they give you a certified survey. Hey, I'm attesting that all these properties are within Miami Shores, and they're within this radius. And some of them will actually perform the act of sending the mailers out.

Yep. All right, so the council increased it to 1,000 feet.

Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't going to go there, but staff has had a very difficult time since August.

What keeping up with the new notification?

Enforcing this because there's a lot of people that are, you know, the developers are not happy about, naturally, right? Yeah. Everyone resists change and then this is an added cost.

It's not just cost. And it's an added time because. It's a burden, you know, addressing and mailing.

Yeah, so generally.

Oh, but yeah, a thousand feet is.

Generally, before August 1st, an item could get through the system within a six-week period. Take six weeks, add 20 days, add 30 days. Pretty much.

So if there were two guys who thought they'd be on this agenda that weren't?

The gentleman who was the first item, the tabled, he has two items that will be before you in October. I don't know why he thought he was going to be on this agenda, but because he submitted them very relatively in close to one another's and he just jumped the gun and sent out mailers for the other two also.

The guy who I guess sued us over the two houses, Regarding the date of the implementation of the revision, what is the status of that?

You're going to be seeing that very soon.

We're going to see the status?

No, you're going to see the project very soon. Revised plans?

They're still seeing this?

Have you seen the plans yet? Are they on your desk? Okay. I have. So I'm sorry, to finish the one, so when the developer comes in with plans and says, I want to get on the agenda for the board, how long does that take?

Well, before it was taking six weeks, I think it's landing somewhere in the eight to nine week period, roughly.

Tell me how you get to eight or nine weeks. I mean, just break it down. Well,

We have our submittal period the first week of every month. First week of every month is our submittal period, and then we go into a completeness review. What is that? That's where we catch that you have a complete application, and we get a lot of pushback just on that. You didn't notarize your document. You didn't sign and seal your plans. You forgot your landscaping sheet. But you wouldn't believe how much back and forth that goes with that. So that takes about two weeks, believe it or not. And we have it as clear as day on our checklist on the website. They still can't follow those. We have issues with that. So that takes about two weeks to flush out. Then we go into the items complete. We release it for review. Our reviewers have about 10 days. and then we show our comments and it's really when the applicant comes back if they come back within a week's time we can continue the second review is much simpler much easier and by that point he goes back within a week now we're already at five weeks yes he said two weeks plus two weeks plus one were five

So, the second week of the following month.

The mailers need to be out 30 days before.

Second week of the following month, and usually, let's say, the date is in the 20-something of the month. So, they may miss that second month, most likely.

It's a very tight window. If they don't have a complete application, it's a very tight window.

So, if they do it in the first week of one month, the second month, the first month, the second month, They may get on the thing, which would be whatever, seven weeks.

Like really, if it's a perfect application, you can get through within that eight weeks.

No, garage conversions don't need to notice. Oh, that's right. For a 50% plus development.

For substantial rental or new construction. Yes.

But like Andy said, the first two weeks are because they didn't pay attention. We do when we do the review. Especially people who don't do it. We all do this. We all do this. You follow the directions.

I was under the impression that it was the building department who basically made the estimations because of the thresholds for the 50% stuff.

They do. But they do it pursuant to the Florida building code, right? And I believe he assesses it based on whether they need to adjust the finished floor elevation or not. I think that's why it's a big trigger. You could probably speak to that.

That's part of it. The other one is whether or not you need to come up to the current building code.

That also. So from a zoning perspective, we're just looking to adhere to the ad notice. So if the existing square footage of the home is 2,000 square feet and you're adding 1,000 square feet, that's it. That's enough. Or if you're demolishing 1,000, that's it.

Okay.

So on the same thing on the notice, I noticed in my neighborhood, I see a lot of the, The signs that we put in front of these buildings for noticing these meetings stay in front of these homes for months and months and months. I think there's one on 104th that's from last year.

Yeah, I noticed that.

And I don't know if these people and the lawn mower mows around them and resets them really nice and such and it's fantastic, you know. Are they not told that after the meeting they can remove this thing? I tell them.

I tell them you can remove it the day after the meeting.

Yeah. So the day after the meeting, it's moved, you know. Yeah.

I guess what I can do is when we, the next time.

Send your guy around to pick them up and recycle these things. I don't know when you're in the neighborhood.

I don't know if we have the resources. Yeah. But I think what we can do is when we release the development orders, because that takes about three weeks. You guys know, you come in and sign them. Maybe when I email them, I'll send a reminder, hey, if you haven't picked up your sign, please do so. December, you know. Yeah.

And it also might be a code enforcement issue when it comes to signs being there.

I just figured that they thought they had to keep it there until construction started or something. I don't know.

Is there... Are all these requests indexed in any manner that's marginally searchable?

The actual submittal of an application?

I mean, if I wanted to look at an address, yeah, I mean, if I wanted to go back, somebody asked me, the house on your street, the contracts down there, they said they got, they put up a big, What do you call it when you make the picture of what it's going to look like?

A rendering.

A rendering on that vacant lot. And they were a little stunned because of what they thought it was a significantly more extensive than at least what they thought it was.

That house is one of the houses that prompted the demolition proposal because they went through the process. They got their construction cost. It was three times what they budgeted and they pulled the plug on the project. That property right now, I think it's been sold to somebody else and it's now sitting in a derelict state. The grass is overrun and, you know, it becomes a code enforcement issue for us.

Larry Appelbaum, Jr.: Well, you know, that's the big house on 94th. Do you remember the house?

John Aucott, Jr.: The one with the little yellow shack that's still up? Larry Appelbaum, Jr.: No.

Well, that one, I kept on complaining about that with relatively few. No, on the far end of the street that's like two houses in, you know, it's a big house. Well, the back of that was a vacant lot that somebody knocked down the house. And the architect who came basically was one of the ones who threw a fit because we changed the zoning code. And now that lot is. Well, there's no construction fence, though I think there's a lot of construction material from the guys in front of it.

Yeah, what's winding up happening, and I think that's what one of the applicants this evening is running up against, is if you're treating these properties as a commodity rather than a single family residence, with the code restrictions, it's difficult to make the property pencil. So it becomes more appropriate for an end user who has the time to sit on the property and let it increase the value over time. We have a family living there rather than somebody who's just trying to flip a development property.

Yeah, we have a house on R Street 95th that's three down from us where the guys apparently started doing work and somebody reported them and they got a seesaw and hasn't touched the house in about six months and Julie said she saw that it got sold. And the city had to go and cut the grass two or three times.

Well, I mean, that doesn't happen just because of this. On the 104th, we approved, I don't know, over a year ago, plans and they demoed it. Actually, it was the 104th, the demo and they said idle. And I understand sometimes it takes a while to get a construction project started. Sitting idle and the weeds are growing up and it looks terrible. So our demo requirement wouldn't address that, wouldn't change that situation.

Well, I think it would because the demo permit should not be issued until the building.

We already approved the plans. They already came in front of the board.

It should be like other municipalities. A demo permit is not issued until the full building permit for that project is issued. You can't just go and get an approval for a house and then tear it down and let that property sit. If you're serious and you're moving ahead, you pull the demo permit after the building permit so that project is issued.

What if you don't want to... What if you're not, you don't want to build on it right now, you want to just... You let a building sit. So you let a building sit.

Because you can't have houses being torn down in the neighborhood and expect that to be a good community. And, you know, when you have vacant lots and vacant lots and vacant lots, that leads to blight. Even in Miami Shores, that's going to lead to a lot of issues having vacant property after vacant property. And these houses, and I had this discussion with former Mayor Burch, when you're talking about these houses that are $3 million and you're talking about carrying costs of, you know, a couple thousand dollars a month, That's all part of your development budget. So to say that you have to mow the grass, go mow the grass. I don't know what else to tell you.

What if you don't want to build a house right now? What if you just want to own the lot?

Buy a vacant lot. Don't buy a property to tear down a house.

I want to buy this lot, and I want to clear the house and have a vacant lot for a while. That's what I want to do with my property.

You want a land bank.

Land bank. I land bank at work with buildings. I don't think we can deny people that. that ability to do that with their property.

Well, we can write anything into an ordinance.

We can try. I don't think it'll prevail. I don't think we can tell people you have to maintain this house. Other municipalities do that.

And also there's consideration for the Florida building code. If a structure is unsafe, maybe that there's reasons that it needs to be demolished. So all of that would be taken into consideration when you're drafting an ordinance of this particular kind. But as we're bouncing ideas.

I'm just talking the fundamental property rights issue. I don't want to maintain this house. I don't want to have it become derelict. I'd buy insurance on it.

You know, you should be, you know, if you're going to buy that house, it's going to be an investment vehicle for you or it's going to be an end-use product for you. You're going to have a family that lives there. If you're buying it as a commodity, then there should be stronger restrictions because this is not an investment community, it's a neighborhood. And to Michael's point, If we continue to allow that to happen, we will lose the fabric of our community.

Absolutely.

We've seen it happen in other municipalities. It's the reason why other municipalities have prohibitions on this.

Exactly.

It's important.

So that the city can make you maintain that house?

Absolutely, yes.

Can make you maintain that house, or if I don't, I'm just going to let it go derelict.

If you do that, then we could also put into place, it's called demolition by dereliction. There's other municipalities that have those ordinances, and then you get fined. And eventually the fines get to the point where it gets foreclosed upon and it gets resold to the market for somebody who actually is ready to develop something.

So, and I'm just being the devil's advocate. No, no, I understand.

This is to a large degree to preserve the character.

We don't like a lot that just gets demoed and then the weeds start growing there and it looks like that for years. We don't like it. We don't want it.

Let's say private property rights. Private property rights. But here's the question. At what point do your rights end? In my estimation, your rights end when it starts to infringe on my rights. So I shouldn't have to live across from this property that's left derelictic with a construction fence around it with weeds that are 10 feet tall.

I agree, and that's what we're seeing on 104th right now.

Yeah, and down the street from me, and it was the case for my next-door neighbor who they just sold.

So what if I come in there, and I really want to just own this lot? And I submit a set of plans to the building department here that shows me putting a nice little, maybe a little rock wall in the front and maybe some plantings and saying this is what I want to build on my property.

No, you're changing the use. When you, you're changing, no, no, no, no, no, come on, John. And this is where we're going all the time. And seriously, this is how the notice provision got as crazy as it was because us as a board, because we all voted for it. We voted for something very minor that when it got to the council, the board voted for a developer-friendly, you know, recommendation. And when the residents heard about it and it went to the council, they went and took action that went and threw it to the extreme. And you know what? Bravo to them. Because we should have gave them what was reasonable. And if we gave them what was reasonable, they would have approved it.

And I'm 100%- But we didn't give them something reasonable.

Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. You didn't think 100 feet was reasonable?

No, not even close.

What did you think was reasonable?

You told me- Did we banter for the 100 feet?

Yes, we did. Yes, we did.

That was Mike O'Hara's let's make a deal. That was Mike O'Hara's let's make a deal. And what I was told that day- was Mike, it takes three to pass and there were only three of us up here. So I had no choice but I relied on the council to go and make that decision. So when we go and we bend, but we bend to the developer and we don't go and bend to the resident. And what we're hearing at the council level and everywhere else is push back on that, push back from at least from my me to the left and We need to be cognizant of me but a change of use if you gotta get technical about it and you're an engineer if you have a house and and you're going to change the use on that property your change of you start starts not at the approval of the of the plans it starts at when that building permit is issued and that's when the change of use happens if you want to change of use to pull your demo permit when your change of use happens not before that

Can I build a tennis court on this?

Absolutely.

You don't? So what if I put in a play and build a tennis court and then I demo the house and put my tennis court on there?

You do what they do anywhere else. You have the house and you get the lot. combine the two into one property and you're free to do whatever else?

If there's a house already on the property and you bought the adjacent lot and you did unity of title, then yes, you could do that.

You'd have to do unity of title and all of that. Before I can demo that house. Do a unity of title. No, because this is what happens. This is property. I just think if I wanted to demo the house so I don't have to maintain a derelict house for whatever, then I don't think I'd be able to do that.

And put an imposition on the rest of the neighborhood.

As long as I maintained it. I mean, that's a big heartburn you're having. It's not the maintenance. Let's differentiate this a little bit.

If you bought a house and it was derelict, it was a matter of life safety, yes, you could demolish it prior to the approval, prior to a building permit. That's the proposal that we wrote. That's what they did on Miami Beach, right? It had that built into it. Well, let's be clear. The idea that you can just buy a property and demolish the house when it's a perfectly good house and sit on it for an inordinate amount of time, that's what we're trying to prevent from happening. Because that degrades the character of the village. And we're seeing it happen. So it's not to say that you as an owner don't have the right to demolish the house. You absolutely do. But it's to say that you don't have the right to sit with it vacant when it could otherwise be contributing to the fabric of our community.

And I'm being devil's advocate here. Let's say I go through, okay, I submit a plan to Eddie, just a basic plan. Pull it off the internet. Here's the house I'm going to build. You know, 30-foot setbacks, little house, nice, meets all of the characteristics. Come to the board, get it done. I demo it. And then I don't build the house. Oops, sorry, I ran out of money. I'm not going to build the house.

That's why you shouldn't demo it until you have your building permit. You're not allowed to demo it until you have your building permit for that process. Go through and spend your money and show you're right.

That's more restrictive than what we had proposed just getting approval here.

Yeah, it was just to get the approval here. I'm not...

But I'm not against adding that we see we saw what happened on the notice requirement. So just kind of telling you where this is Potentially going so there's there's there's loop.

There's ways to play it. I guess you know like anything Yeah

more rational people at larger levels of government say, we're not going to let 100 people make it impossible for people to do business. And I mean, and we just have to understand it. And I think that gets to be an issue. And I don't know, this guy, does he do a lot of work in the shores?

This guy, Blanco, yes. Yes, he does. Good work, good work. He did a great house on 100th Street and 12th Avenue. All over the neighborhood.

I think there's been more than half a dozen that they've done. No criticism of the quality of the work.

And he didn't put a huge two-story box with roof decks in front of us either. So he's trying to comply.

And he did comply with our requirements. And he was very cooperative with the commentary. I think that's ideal. But I hear your point too. I mean, this is, if the legislature is doing these things, I don't think we're taking anybody's right away. Because at the end of the day, we're not telling somebody you cannot demolish a piece of property. We're just putting a procedure in place that essentially sets up a set of safeguards. Because what we've seen happen, whether it's intentional or not, is that a homeowner buys a piece of property, wants to build their dream home, finds out that it's really expensive to do that, especially right now, and ultimately can't afford to do it.

Well, you know, in the places like Detroit and places where those things have occurred, it wasn't because those people knocked down houses because they're going to do another one. It was because of the general economic malaise. Yeah. Derelict homes. Yes. And, you know, and I mean, I don't know how many actual vacant lots there are in Miami Shores. I mean, east of Biscayne Boulevard, there's, what, six?

Probably about, I would say, less than two dozen.

Yeah. I mean, and I think at some level.

But the number's been increasing. Yeah. And as to the point of one of the commenters, it is true that real estate has become increasingly a commodity.

It's horrendous. Actually, there was something. Didn't just recently start, but it's amplified. I actually saw something the other day that I thought was interesting. Apparently, someone wants to amend the IRS. So, you're older and the value of your house has increased tremendously, such as mine has. that you get a break on your capital gains when you go buy a new house because there are people that won't sell their house because I don't want to have to pay. I mean, my case.

Well, they give you a break, right? Like $500,000. Yeah, but there's people that don't.

Increasingly. With the amount of money that we're printing, $500,000 is nothing at this point. It's ridiculous.

So, I mean, is there any, is the records for,

Well, I know the agendas are live and they live on the village website. So you can visit, like I do it all the time, 2024, 2023, like the time where I, and you can see all the agendas, you click all the hyperlinks, they still work. I do it often. Um, but can you search for an address in that?

It's not that easy. No, that's the thing. Yeah.

Yeah. The clerk. Um, so there is a public, um, deposit repository was called. Yeah. We're going to search an address in the village, you know, pull up every single permit they've ever had. As long as it's been approved, it would be in that system.

So an issued permit? Yeah, everything that's been issued. A building permit, but not in development order.

I asked Eddie about 590.

Their certificate to go to building permit.

Right. So I got one last comment item. Our district status, as far as, you know, we all talked about Senate Bill 180 and all of that, and it sounds like the Council wants us to, I guess, continue moving forward with our recommendations, with our revisions to the our district. And then I guess we can have that and You know, they can decide to hold it, revise it, or wait, you know, or whatever. But at least, you know, get it done, get that work done, that body of work done while we're all kind of in process. Yeah. Where are we at with that? Is there somebody pulling you back on that a little bit?

No. Our report is done. It was submitted to the manager's office earlier this week. Your report. Our final report? What is the report? Essentially, our summary of all the work that we've done up until this point. We've done two workshops, April and July. We've analyzed neighboring municipalities and we've received, what, 35 surveys between our hard copies and electronic through the So all the data gathering. So all the data gathering and what we found, our analysis, and ultimately what we're going to recommend. So our goal is to release that to you within the next couple weeks, maybe two weeks tops. And we're already started with the red lines.

So we'll get that before our next meeting so we can... That's my goal. Maybe put it on the agenda for the next meeting. That's in essence what we did during the summer. Initial discussion, yeah.

Yeah, that's what we did during the summer. We essentially hit the fast forward button on that. So our goal is to get that to you. Now, the red lines is something that is going to have to go through a legal review Because of, you know, the Senate bill.

The red lines for the ordinance change? But we're not even there yet. We've got to first hash out what the code changes are going to be and such. That's what I'm speaking to. And then draft an ordinance and then go through the process. If the council even wants to go make it an ordinance, that's something they'll have to determine. Or if they're just going to hold it.

They're going to suggest revised ordinance.

We have the final report. It's with the manager. You'll have that within the next two weeks. Yeah. I've already started doing an ordinance. So it's in draft form. So our goal is to, we have to provide that to the legal attorney because then they have to go through it, analyze it in context with SB 180. And then we'll essentially... Do we even want to analyze it in context with SB 180 or just come up with what we think we want?

Because we're going to nitpick that thing apart and then you're going to have to do another legal review. In other words, we give you what we think and then, you know, I mean, SB 180 just is up to, what, 2027. It fires, right?

I don't know if you guys can hear me.

Yes. That's Sinead.

I everyone as far as where we stand so we have clear direction that we're moving forward we're going to review it. Similarly to what we did before and I think we are going to just learn from the past. You all were very active and involved when it came down to the CR eggs rightfully so so I do think that I imagine it will be that same process. where you have a thorough review of this, our district, make your suggestions and changes. Now, when it comes down to the legal review up front, it'll be a cursory legal review, nothing too in-depth, just to make sure that It's just a cleaned up review prior to you reviewing it from staff. Then you'll go through and make whatever changes, not necessarily anything that you're saying. I'm not going to say not consider SB 180, but this is your full-fledged review, what you want to do to this code. irrespective of SB 180. After you do that and we have everything compiled and done, who knows? We filed a lawsuit. We should be filing relatively soon. So I don't know what's going to take place with SB 180. So that's why I'm saying it's not something that's going to stop us from pursuing the work that we need to do. So you would just review it as you would normally review it. And then once we get to the final stage, whenever that may be, because I imagine we might have a few more rounds of workshops. Who knows? We just don't know where this is going to lead us. Whenever we get to the final stage, if SB 180 is still in play, then we would do a legal review and parse out the areas that might be more restrictive or burdensome, if there are any at all. So as far as what you need to do and what you're assigned to do from the council, have been directed from the council, is to proceed as normal.

And Shanae, just to confirm, one of the board members asked if we joined in the lawsuit. I'm not sure if we officially, if the village.

Yeah, that was done already. So we have... 24 counties and 24 local governments who've joined so far. And so within the next week or so, we should have some more updates, but yes, the village is on board.

So when you go...

On the 30th George birds asks you about traffic, I think we concluded here will take care of traffic when it when it's part of the development order and it's part of that, but as far as general traffic issues that's probably really not what this board is. I mean unless it was a big massive village-wide traffic plan that they want our opinion on but on a couple of traffic humps I would say no.

Macro scale traffic issues rather than macro.

And those are all going to get worse as we go forward. Any other board member comments? Motion to adjourn. Do I have a motion? Second. All in favor?