Village Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you so much.

Rachel Streit- happening okay. Rachel Streit- evening i'm a Rachel stripe bells, and this is the July 2026 regular village Commission meeting of the North Bay village Commission, we are going to call the role, Madam clerk.

Commissioner Acosta. Here. Commissioner Cervone.

Present.

Commissioner Dorrell. Here. Vice Mayor Cook. Present. Mayor Stryker.

I'm also here. To lead us this evening in the Pledge of Allegiance is the President of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 81, Lieutenant Cesar Costa. Cesar, thanks for leading us.

God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

For order of business, I'm going to recommend that we take our land use and zoning items at the top of the agenda. So that would be 13A, which is a variance application, and then 14C and 14D. These are our fee discussions and a proposal to issue an RFP, I believe, or to have several TDRs. I'm proposing that we do that after the consent agenda, 13A followed by 14C and D. Does anyone have any objection to that?

14A, are you gonna move that after C and D, the budget?

Well, if we're doing consent and then 13A, which is the only quasi, and then 14C and D, the next thing I think after that would be 14A and B, right? Okay.

So budget less. Motion to approve budget as proposed. Second.

Wait, budget as proposed, Commissioner, or agenda? Agenda. Agenda as proposed. Thank you. And we have a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, fantastic. Okay, we have an order of business established. We do not have any presentations, proclamations, or awards this evening. Although I will say I would like, and I hope the commission supports this effort, but there was an extraordinary focus philanthropic effort that happened at the community center last week with a number of community sponsors, we were able to give away over 300, 400, higher, lower, okay, hundreds of backpacks stuffed with school supplies and an amazing selection of books from Books For You Miami. So I would love for us to have a proclamation thanking You know, both our team, because Officer Polanco did an extraordinary job, as did Lily Torres, our community engagement director. But I'd love a proclamation to thank the leadership for our September meeting. Madam Clerk, if you could prepare that. Okay, fantastic. All right, so let's go to open forum. This is the opportunity for the public to be heard. You'll come to the podium here into the microphone. You'll give us your name and your address and you'll have three minutes. This is not a conversation. The commission doesn't typically respond during public comment. This is your opportunity to be heard. So who do we have for public comment?

We do have Lionel and would you like to speak? This is the opportunity for open forum. I don't know if you would like. Okay.

Okay, this is the opportunity for open forum. And unfortunately, if you miss it, you miss it. And we would encourage you to come back in September. We just want to keep things on a tight ship. So does anyone else have any interest in speaking?

We have one more. Carlos Martin under open forum.

Okay, fantastic. Mr. Martin, your address for the record. Your address is fine.

There you go. My address is 9001 Southwest 80th Avenue, Miami, Florida. I'm an attorney. I represent the Eloquence on the Bay Condominium Association, which is within the City of North Bay Village of North Bay Village. And good evening to the mayor and the commission. So as you know, I represent the association. I would like to thank the village attorney, the village manager, and the village staff for meeting with the association at the property, which is located at 792830 East Drive. this past week in relation to the inspection of the conditions of the property, in relations to the opening of the Baywalk, which is one of the votes that was taken by the commission at its last meeting. We had a very candid, I think a productive discussion with the city attorney and city manager at that meeting. I want to make one point very clear. The association is not challenging the existence of the Baywalk easement, nor is it arguing that it should not be opened. The Declaration of Condominium of the association recognizes the Baywalk easement, and the association understands that public access is going to be required ultimately. Our concern is not whether the Baywalk should be opened, but whether it can be opened safely. in a manner that provides meaningful access and protections to the public and to the association's community while the property is in the process of growing major restoration work at this time. Today, the building is in the middle of substantial concrete restoration, which was witnessed by the city manager and the city attorney. That's going to take... somewhere close to 12 months, I believe. Right now, the facts on the ground is that there are swing stages operating around the building. Portions of the Baywalk are under an active construction zone and blocked off for potential risk of falling objects. Construction materials, equipment, and staging remains adjacent to the walkway. And additional phases of the construction will continue moving along the Baywalk over the coming months. Even the association's own residents currently do not presently have unrestricted access to all portions of the baywalk because of this construction and these enclosures. While there are isolated sections that may be physically accessible, there is no continuous public baywalk from one end of the property to the other as envisioned in the easement at this time. So the association feels that opening disconnected segments today would not create the continuous island walk the village has envisioned. Instead, members of the public would enter the property, walk a short distance, encounter construction barriers, and either turn around where what was possible is they end up trespassing onto the boardwalk that adjoins the marina to get around it, or potentially go through the barriers and put themselves at risk. We understand the benefit of the Baywalk to the community. We also understand the risks associated with right now. And we believe right now the risk of opening it outweighs the benefit to the community and the public at large. Following our meeting, the association did not simply oppose enforcement. Instead, we submitted a proposal requesting a temporary standstill agreement, which has been submitted to the city for its consideration. We understand that the village voted to begin litigation, and we understand that that may occur. And we hope that if it does occur, we can enter into basically good faith negotiations to resolve this issue and maybe create a potential temporary standstill while these renovation repairs are completed.

Mr. Martin, thank you. Thank you for coming to speak to us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much.

No other requests for comments, Mayor.

Okay, if there's nothing further from the gallery, which is the room you're all in, and there's nothing further on Zoom? No. Okay, we're going to close the open forum, and we're going to move on to the approval of the minutes. We have the minutes from our June 23rd budget workshop and our May commission meeting. Commissioner Trevone, how did she do with the minutes?

Motion to approve.

And I'll second the motion to approve the minutes. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Okay, we've approved the minutes. Do we have any advisory board reports this evening?

In the interest of time, I didn't request any of the chairs to attend.

Okay, that's fine with me. Let's move on to commission reports. Commissioner Darrow, do you want to go first?

Yeah, no report this morning.

No report, Commissioner Acosta.

Sure. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. As far as community engagements and events, I was part of hosting for the North Village Chamber of Commerce the World Cup final watch party here at Rosso Indian Restaurant and happy stork lunch. I want to congratulate Spain for a wonderful game. and a fantastic victory. And thank you for the host for a successful community event featuring a fun trivia competition that brought residents together. I also attended the Holiday of Miracles summer kickoff and proudly represented Northside Village. I encourage everyone to mark your calendars for the December 5th date where we're going to host again for the second time our watch party, our boat parade watch party from that organization. As far as youth and community programs, recently successfully completed the second year of my Commissioner Doris Acosta Treasure Island internship program with seven local high school students participating. A college intern will be joining early in August. The interns helped develop recommendations for our youth board and will present their findings at the next commission meeting in September. I attended the Back to School Backpack Giveaway also at our new community center. Thank you so much for the Northern Village Police Department, to the Miami Beach Power Program, and Books for Miami, also to Jessica Polanco for organizing an outstanding event, and our resident beloved Nelly Osorio for helping to secure generous donations and for her support, as always, for local families. Transparency and Resilience and Resident Engagement, as every month I do, I hosted my monthly Transparency Zoom Agenda Review, where residents joined to discuss this week's commission agenda, including the budget and TDR items tonight. I announced my second annual in-person transparency meeting, which will take place right here at City Hall on Thursday, August 20th at 6.30 p.m. We will have department directors who will provide capital improvement project updates and answer resident questions directly. As far as resident concerns and upcoming initiatives, I requested an update on the Anson Family Park on North Treasure Drive so families can enjoy the park before school starts. I believe our manager may have mentioned that in his report tonight. I continue to work on several initiatives that will be brought before the commission in the upcoming months, including exploring additional revenue opportunities for North Village, Exploring potential programs or resources that may assist residents face increased property burdens, tax burdens. Review micro-mobility safety, including e-bikes, e-scooters, bicycle lane safety, education and enforcement along the causeway. I'm also looking into developing a good neighbor construction initiative to improve transparency by creating an online page for each approved development with project renderings, approved plans, timelines, contact information, and construction updates so our residents don't have to find themselves doing all the research to locate answers to common questions they may have. As far as public safety, I want the residents to be aware that Northwood Village Police Department will be conducting an MCAT active shooter training this Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Treasure Island Elementary School. Residents may hear simulated training noises during those hours as officers conduct important emergency preparedness exercises. I also see present here our upcoming principal for this year, who's going to be doing her introduction later to the forum. As far as continued education and partnerships, I also signed up for the Florida League of Cities annual conference in Hollywood, Florida, which is going to be taking place in August 13th, 14th, and 15th. My goal is to strengthen relationships with municipal leaders identifying innovative revenue opportunities and best practices, and build partnerships that can benefit Northwood Village. I look forward to bringing back ideas and reporting to all of you from that meeting at our next meeting. As we begin tonight's budget and millage discussion, I want residents to know that I have spent many hours reviewing our budget with our city manager and finance department. I have worked hard to understand every aspect of our financial situation, and I approach tonight's discussion fully prepared. As a condominium resident, I understand the impact rising costs have on our families. I did not take this decision lightly at all. My goal is to make responsible decisions that protect the long-term future of Northwood Village while remaining mindful of the financial challenges our residents face. If we ask the residents to invest more in our city, we owe them more than a temporary fix. We owe them lasting solutions that strength the city services, support our dedicated employees, and position Northview Village for long-term success. And remain committed to transparency, truthful planning, and doing what is best for our community in Northwood Village. Finally, I want to thank our residents for continuing to engage, ask questions, and share your concerns. Your input helps me shape my priorities, and I remain committed to open communication, transparency, and working every day to make Northwood Village an even better place to live.

Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Treboni. No report. Vice Mayor Cook.

No report.

Okay. I do have a report, but I'm going to start by asking the village manager for a couple of updates on two key items related to the community center. The first is, where do things stand on operational hours for the fields, if you could share with the community? And the second is, when will the community center be fully open to the public so that they can use it? Thank you.

All right. We'll take those one at a time. Let's talk about the hours of operation. Right now, considering what our budget conditions are and the amount of personnel it's going to take to have that community center fully operational into the evenings, we're not at that point financially. So we're looking at least to start off Monday through Friday, try to get one weekend day in Saturday if we, you know, eight to four, eight to five, something like that. We don't have anything set in stone. A lot's going to depend tonight on just how we handle the budget situation for that operation. We want to get it open. We want to get it operational. we want initially to at least have those type of amenities available that don't require instruction so that the children, the older children can get in. They can use the facilities that are there. They can operate with the games that are there. They can operate with the computer programming and those games that they can play on the TV, that type of thing. We want to open it so that the seniors can come in and have activities that they can do themselves, whether it be dominoes or something of that sort, so we get some activity in there. We have not hired staff. At this point, we have one person that we've hired additionally that we're able to capture who came available. It has a lot of experience with community centers. So that's a good get that we have. So we, you know, we want to get it open. When you talk about getting it open. The construction is not finished. We have not gotten a certificate of occupancy at this point where we can occupy. The fire department is really controlling that. They're only issuing temporary certificates of occupancy 30 days at a time. The one that we have now, we went out early in August and we don't know if they're gonna renew it. So, The operational side of it, getting it open, we'd like to get it open as quickly as we can, but there are things that have to be completed in there that are not completed. And we don't have a certificate of lock-in, but soon we get in.

Thank you. I have some follow-up questions. We have our consent agenda tonight is the approval, essentially, of the vendor who's going to operate, maintain the cafe for this community center. But we don't have a finalized agreement with that vendor. We're selecting, approving the vendor so that we can move forward with an actual contract. And then they can start Building out the space? That is correct. Okay. And so the timeline for a cafe, what do you think we're talking about here? Eight months, 10 months?

Well, we have to negotiate the deal on the lease for that. And that has not been done at this point.

Two separate things. I want to clarify this point. The lease is for the office space. That's separate. I didn't bring up the lease or the office space. I know. I'm just addressing the manager's point. The lease is for the office space. The concession agreement is going to be incorporated into the agreement that the village has with PFL. There is not going to be privity of contract or a direct contract between the village and this concessionaire. What your agreement provides... is that PFL has the ability to have a sub-licensee pay oversee to do this concession.

Okay. Have they presented any lease to you yet? We have a draft lease.

Okay. And part of what needs to happen is we need to, for tax purposes, create what's known as a vertical subdivision. And so there's various moving parts, all of which are in progress. Okay.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Village Attorney. Mr. Manager? Well, I guess with the consultation of the Village Attorney. The cafe, eight months, ten months? Are you hesitant to answer my question at all?

No, no. I have not had any conversation with who the operator will be as to what their timeline is. We know that The insulation of infrastructure is in place. They now have to bring in their equipment and connect. So it's not like, I wouldn't think it'd be a long period of time for them to get together. The grease traps are in, everything's been approved by Durham. The plumbing, everything's in for the sinks and those types of appliances they have to get in. So I would think it would move along rather rapidly.

Okay, well, that's helpful to at least manage our expectations as we head into the fall and school opening again. What can residents expect when school starts again in terms of the use of that community center? We have an after-school program.

Is that going to be run out of the school or the community center? Right now, the after-school program is going to be at the school, right? Because we don't have occupancy in the building. And then we will move it. Right, Janice? We're going to move it over to us as soon as we get into the building. Okay. We have the tables, chairs. We have a lot of the equipment for the YMCA is in there already.

Okay, I'd love to provide a comprehensive update to the public as soon as we can in a Friday email. If it's too late for this Friday, Mr. Manager, let's do it for next Friday. Let's give everybody a good update as far as where things are on the community center.

We will do that.

Thank you.

Okay, but let me follow up on the question that I asked because the first one was the operational, the hours I meant in terms of the fields. How's that conversation going? When you say the fields, we're talking about the soccer fields? Yes. There's been a discussion about revisions to that exhibit, right? And the exhibit, yes, includes the pickleball and the pedal courts. And I think having an update on that is fine, but what I'm specifically curious about is the fields. Yeah, the fields, the use of the fields.

The use of the fields, we have met with, well, there's been several different meetings dealing with the fields. The fields are run by PFL. And we have met with representatives of the parents that have children that are involved in the North Bay Village Soccer Club with Coach Kreese's operation. And during that conversation there with Mr. Mariano, there was a change made to the scheduling, which was satisfactory to PFL and to the parents of the children that participate in the CREASE program. I then made contact with the school board representative who has laid out to me the process now to go through to get school board approval because they also have to approve any change to the agreements.

Can I clarify? The board members have to vote to approve this agreement or a school board representative can sign off on the changes?

So if we are making changes just to the time frames that are not within the school's jurisdiction, then an executive that they will notify me who can approve those. if we are making any changes that involve the areas that are under the school's use then it goes to the board okay what we're doing now are just areas that are outside the school operation that's what i understood then on i think wednesday or thursday We are meeting with the new principal of the school.

Who's here this evening.

To talk about those fields that are out there with Mariano as far as the use of the school or those fields during that period of time. Okay. The other issue that has now arisen since we have met with the people that represent the parents of the ones that are in the soccer club is now we have been approached by parents of children that are not in the soccer club and want to know when they are going to get on the fields. That is not included in what's in the schedule that we have now, except in the areas where The village can use them or they can rent them depending on what's available. It depends on how many children, how many are showing up to go on the fields. It's not very simple as somebody to go out on the field and kick a ball around. So we're dealing with EFL to see what can be worked out. If there's some way to do something with that group of kids that are not with the crease program, and they're not, they're just kids that want to go out and play on the field.

I want to use this opportunity during my report to share some feedback. So I've been knocking on doors. That's actually not exactly what I've been doing. I've been very specifically reaching out to neighbors who live around the community center, many of whom have lived in North Bay Village for decades. Okay. There is a very real and justified sense of disappointment among our residents. And I don't mean to take anything away from the extraordinary celebration that we had to open that community center. To see a thousand neighbors come out in the rain and dance with us was just an unbelievably joyful, joyful evening. but it's been a couple of weeks and we knew that there were last items that needed to move forward. This issue with the timing of the fields, this is an issue that we inherited. Not a single person here negotiated that initial exhibit. We were not given the opportunity to participate in that discussion. It came to the commission back in 2022, fully baked. And so now we're dealing with the after effects of that. And it's a really difficult position for us to be in. We need our village manager and our village administration and our stakeholders. I think you guys have all been working together to iron this out. But it needs to get better. It needs to move faster. It needs to be clear because people basically feel like they won't be able to use these spaces. And I know in my heart that that's not true, right? I see it, I've been there. The green space is extraordinary. The connectivity across Treasure Island is amazing. I know it's going to be great, but we're in a transition right now where we had a giant party And now nothing has happened, and there's a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of miscommunication about what is actually going to go on in those spaces. So I'm really asking you to help us communicate to the community about what's going on. You know, I know Commissioner Trevone was involved in dealing with AFA, and I tried to help, and we solicited the support. of Mayor Emeritus Latham, who was involved in the original deal. The vice mayor, I think, made some efforts. This has been a community effort on behalf of everybody up here and the administration. But it's really not sustainable, and I don't find it to be an easy situation at all. So this is both like words of encouragement, like we have your back, but it's also a this has to get better request.

Well, I can tell you that what we have worked out between the administration and the soccer club kids that are with the Christ group and with Mariano still has to go through a series of administrative approvals to be officially approved. That being said, I have told Mariano that I have no objection with that program starting when school starts to use the fields as they've been agreed upon by the groups that have gotten together. So they're gonna be able, the club's gonna be able to use the fields, as they perceived they wanted to use them. It was agreed upon between them and PFL starting when school begins. The issue now is how do we handle the children that don't fit in that box? How do they get on that field?

They're reserving the field just like everyone else, because this is my understanding. My understanding is that anyone who wants to get out on any of the fields will be, unless you're with our North Bay Village recreational soccer program or with a club, right? The field space that is available for general use by the public. Right. You're booking a field on an app. Yep. And my understanding is if you are a North Bay Village resident, you are in a system and you are not paying to book that field.

That's correct. Okay. But the question is, who goes on the field? So the resident now, there may be... not just small children, but let's talk about some people that are adults that play soccer at different places throughout the community, and somebody lives here in the village, and they say, hey, let's go play at my place. I get to use this during this time. Well, that person goes on the field for free, but the people that he brings with him that live in the village do not go on the field for free. They have to pay. Not so easy. It's not so easy, Mayor. We're working on it. This is our position. Who run those fields?

The village attorney is looking at you with like a whole lot of side eye. I think what the kids say.

You can look at me that way.

That leads me to believe that the village attorney wasn't aware of this gray area slash dispute. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay.

But we haven't gotten to that point yet because I'm trying to massage you a little bit. Because as soon as I bring, then I got to bring in Fabian Powell and then we're off to the races for a while more. We're working on it.

Okay. I mean, I don't want us to dilly-dally here. You know, Ms. Sarah and Mr. Powell are reasonable adults, I think, who, you know, and I have a little bit of faith in Mr. Powell's client as well.

The app that is supposed to come out where residents can book the fields, that's going to be available by the start of school as well? Do we know what this app is called?

It's apparently a very common app that people generally use to play soccer.

Or pick up games. Football. Football, yeah. And for the courts as well.

It's actually a separate app, very inconveniently. And then there will be a third platform for our actual community center program. It's not ideal, folks. We've asked them. We asked for integration. It's on the horizon. we hope we hope but yeah that's the reality okay all right so we've beat this course a little bit you're going to communicate um and give us an update and give one to the residents about the hours and that kind of thing i appreciate it okay um i want to piggyback on something that commissioner costa said in her report which was i don't know what specifically you're talking about but you mentioned bringing new initiatives to expand the support that we have available for residents to pay for things like assessments improvements building permits um to sort of mitigate the blow, so to speak, of what increased taxes and certainly what increased utility fees might mean. So I don't know if that's specifically what you were talking about, but I do want to just share, you know, we're going to have a conversation tonight and then through the fall about our utility fees. And one of the things that we had the foresight to do as a body, and we all supported this effort, is we created a resilient housing fund in North Bay Village. We take a certain percentage of community contribution fees from developers, property owners who are seeking approvals from us. they pay into a resilient fund. And we have several programs that exist today that help residents pay for things like their special assessments for their condominiums. And we know of several success stories where people have been able to stay in their homes because of those loans that North Bay Village made available. We also have a utility support loan where people who have lived here for a number of years who are longtime residents and maybe on a fixed income, they can get zero interest loans from the village to pay for their utility fees. And so these are some of the programs that we have money to offer this type of support to our residents. And I know that we want to be able to do it. We can't spend this money on the general fund. We can't spend this money on salaries for anyone. This money needs to be spent on preserving what we have here in North Bay Village. So I look forward to conversations in the fall as we talk about the budget as far as how we can expand those programs. I also will just share briefly, I had the privilege of representing the village at a very important community event last night. 32 years ago in Buenos Aires, a place that I know is close to many of our neighbors, the Jewish community center, the AMIA Jewish community center was attacked. and 85 people were killed. And I have attended this event every year for the last six years. I typically attend with Commissioner Cervone. We attended in the past with Mayor Emeritus Latham. But I do feel like given North Bay Village's diverse Latin American community, as well as our diverse Jewish community, being at that event is really important to bear witness to the stories of the wonderful human beings who were lost on that day. And then I'm gonna wrap up my report by talking about property tax reform. It is not specifically what we're discussing tonight from a budgetary standpoint, but we all have to be thinking about property tax reform. The legislature didn't adopt Governor DeSantis' proposal. They adopted a modified proposal. There is a proposal that will be on the ballot in November. And I know commissioner is certainly aware and you're all certainly aware, but just because of the emails that you sent about, you know, we need to be paying attention to this. And at a certain point, we're all going to need to be vocal about it. Proposals to, you know. basically limit property tax collection abilities on the part of local government. We've already seen changes that are impacting us. We have to look toward a future where that type of proposal is approved by Florida voters and becomes the law. So our ability to generate revenue would be significantly suffocated. And so we have this budget conversation tonight in the context of a very real question, which is whether or not property tax reform is going to pass in November. And I think that it would be short sighted of us as a legislative body to. to consider a budget banking on us having the ability to tax the way we historically have had the ability to tax. I think we should err on the side of caution. I think we should play it safe. And I think we should move through this budget season as if, we are going to be cut off at the knees from a revenue generation standpoint. And that concludes my report.

That was a great point.

Thanks. All right. Let's move on now to the village attorney's report.

Madam village attorney. Mayor and Commission, at last month's meeting, you directed our office to file suit to enforce the village's rights to the island walk specific to three properties in the village. Generally speaking, the 360 property, Space 01, and Eloquence. As of this past Friday, as I shared with you all, We did file suit against 360. I've advised their counsel today of the case number and all of that. We haven't served it because there's a process to getting summonses issued and that sort of thing. But that is in progress. The suit with eloquence is being drafted. It's not finalized. that's being drafted, and then we will move on to Space 01, so that's the update on those three. In an abundance of caution, and I'm not suggesting that we would have an executive session in the month of August, that's our recess month, but in case we do wish to discuss litigation strategy and expenditures with you, I would like to call an executive session in North Bay Village versus 360 Community Association Inc. and other 360 condo properties. That case number is 2026014988CA01. And so that's the executive session that we would have in closed session. And so I'm just announcing that now so that I can obtain your advice on litigation expenditures and strategy, possibly I doubt it would happen in August, as that's the recess month, possibly in September, so we can discuss the strategy specific to 360. If you have any questions on the litigation, please feel free to call me, myself, and my partner, Alicia, Gonzalez are handling the case. Elise is the lead litigator. And of course, others from the firm with different specialties, like the gentleman to my left, Mr. Arecio, are providing some insight on various topics. So with that, that's my report, Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Attorney. In the interest of transparency, I wanna once again mention why I changed my vote on this issue and why I voted last month to file these lawsuits. Reading the actual complaint against the 360 reaffirmed my support for this lawsuit because we need to answer the question of whether the conditions that this village places on approval continue to be enforceable. And we have a village attorney and I think they did a great job drafting this complaint, but being an attorney who practices in the land use space myself, I wasn't going to allow our village to file suit against three condominium associations before reading the complaint. And so I took the time to do that. I had long conversations with our attorneys after I reviewed the complaint. And I just want to say that I stand by this lawsuit. This body has to have the ability to impose conditions on development, and those conditions need to be respected. And that is why I switched my vote, and that's why I support moving forward with all three of these conversations. Mr. Manager.

Good evening. I want to report on the status of the Anson Family Park. Mr. Anson, in addition to the park property being conveyed to the village, also gave a substantial donation to help improve the conditions of the park and make it usable. And to that end, through our Public Works Department, the facility is just about ready where we can open it and the kids can get in there and play. We seems like a milestone, but we got to cut the grass for the first time and it's looking pretty good.

Then the sprinklers work. One step at a time. Yes.

We'll have the fences up and the parking that will be in Pirate's Alley should be taken care of here fairly quickly. So our objective is to have a soft opening to get it open where the kids can get in and play. We're buying some soccer nets and some balls so the kids can go out there and kick them around before school starts and use the facility. And then shortly we need to put together a proper opening of it to, you know, thank the family and so forth for the donations that they made to us. But we're looking maybe as early as this weekend to get it open.

I heard through the grapevine, which is basically I ran into their arborist, the Anson's arborist, and they are evaluating the trees over at Grove by the Bay. And I mentioned to their arborist, if they're looking for somewhere to relocate trees, you know, Anson Memorial, Anson Family Park?

Yeah, Anson Family Park.

Anson, I don't know. I don't know if there's that.

I don't know.

Okay. So the Anson Family Park would be a really great place since there's obviously no trees there.

You're right. Okay. It's how, you know, when you plant some of these big trees and you come along later and say, man, I wish we hadn't put that tree there. We're doing this. Right. So we need to be kind of cautious how we, but we're looking at it. Orlando talked to me about Do we want to put some trees in there? We would like to. Yeah. It's just where? What's the plan?

The park could be used for consideration, too, where the ones were removed. It was mostly the invasive species, but we've heard that.

Well, we have. We have. Closia plants or something. Because we want to keep that pathway so we can get to the kayak launches eventually coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming.

Come on.

Mr. Manager, do you have anything else as part of your report this evening? No, I'm good. Okay. Thank you.

Yes. I don't know if you mentioned it earlier and I missed it, but when I met with our principal last week and I invited her to come over and I missed to tell her to speak during open forum or were you planning to have a special section for her to introduce herself?

No, it's my apologies. That's okay. Please. Yes. Let's welcome our new Treasure Island Elementary School principal. Go ahead.

Ms. Barrows, welcome.

Is it Dr. Maris, Ms. Maris? Ms. Maris.

She's also a past resident of North Village. She still owns property here in Harbor Island. Her family still resides here. We had a lovely meeting. We spoke about some of the things that we see in the future of our school and how we can work together. So I asked her to come to our meeting because school, as you all know, starts in August. And I wanted our residents to be aware that we have a new principal in town. And yes, with that, please welcome.

Thank you so much. And thank you for having me. I just want to say it's really an honor to be here. And it's an honor to be at Treasure Island Elementary. As Commissioner Acosta said, I am so happy to be here because this is home to me. I was a resident here for many years. I did come to council meetings. I sat on the board of many of our condos of our condo association. And now my daughter lives here. So it's still home to me. My background in education goes back 30 years. I have worked at many schools in the North region, which include Dr. Michael Kropp Senior High, Alonzo and Tracy Morning, North Miami Beach Middle, Aventura Waterways, K-8, and now K-9. yet another school here in the north, Treasure Island Elementary. I'm truly grateful for the partnership that we have with the village and all of the exciting things that are happening. Our goal here at the school is to just continue to nurture our students, our families, and the residents. And I truly believe that with a partnership between the family, the students, the city and all of the residents and all of the partnerships, we can thrive as a community and really support our students in thriving in their future. So together, everything we do just comes back full circle to the growth of our students. And that's what I hope to continue to support and achieve as your principal here. Thank you for such a warm welcome from everybody, including our police officers that have been there. And I can't wait to be there on Saturday and Sunday. Oh, amazing.

Right. So we'll see you on Saturday and Sunday morning for the exercise.

Absolutely.

It's so, so wonderful to meet you. Let's take a picture welcoming you to the village. Is that, are you with that? Yes. Okay.

And. 32.

as of the last time that we had access to it. It's fine.

It's fine.

It's fine.

We're going to grow.

Yes, you are going to grow. Okay. Thank you so much.

Okay, do we have a motion on the consent agenda?

So moved.

And is there a second? Second. All right, perfect. Madam Clerk, will you call the roll on consent? Commissioner Cervantes.

Commissioner Acosta. Yes. Commissioner O'Darro. Yes. Vice Mayor Cook. Yes. Mayor Streiffel. Yes.

Excellent. Thank you, everyone. Let's take 13A. This is a quasi-judicial variance hearing. Yes. Madam Clerk, will you read the resolution and then we'll turn it over to our village attorneys to introduce the quasi-judicial hearing?

Sure. A resolution of the Mayor and Commissioner of North Bay Village, Florida, approving and approving what conditions are denying a variance application by Jonathan Offerman to permitted carport at the property located at 1441 South Treasure Drive, Polio number 233209009061. 1-0 with a front setback of 19 feet where 20 feet is required and with a side interior setback of 3 feet 1 inch where 7 and 1 half 7.5 feet is required providing for conditions providing for violations and providing for an effective date.

Madam Attorney.

Mayor, this item was considered by the Planning and Zoning Board at the July 1st meeting. They voted three to one to recommend approval of the variance with the conditions as stated in the staff report. Mr. Pinder, our village planner, will be presenting on behalf of the village. And I don't know if the applicant is present. He's on Zoom? Okay. So the applicant is on Zoom. And at this time, if we can have any ex parte disclosures placed on the record and we can follow up with the village clerk swearing and whoever will be.

Let's go down the dais, starting with Commissioner Darrow. Did you speak to any?

I have spoke to the applicant. He reached out to me about this and I took a look at what's being discussed.

Okay. Did you go?

Yes, I've seen. Yes. Okay. All right.

Commissioner Acosta.

All I did was drive by the property and see the area itself. But no, nothing else to disclose. Read all the information, went through the presentations too.

I walked around the block with Mr. Offerman. I walked past his house every day. I told him how I felt about his application and specifically told him how important it was to articulate his hardship. So pretty thorough conversation, not gonna lie.

I spoke to the applicant directly over the phone twice and I drove by the property.

I had no conversations with anybody about this.

Okay. Let's have staff's presentation and then we'll turn it over to the applicant.

May I just want to confirm with RIT that the applicant is able to mute or unmute himself. Jonathan Offerman?

Yes. Hi, Jonathan. I can hear you. Can you hear us? I can hear everybody just fine.

Okay, excellent. And before we get started, Madam Clerk, can you swear in anyone who will be testifying this evening? That includes you, Mr. Offerman.

To everybody who will be testifying during the public hearing, do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Yes.

Thank you.

Mr. Pinder, the floor is yours.

All right. Thank you so much. Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. I will be presenting the variance request at 1441 South Treasure Drive, where the request is to reduce the side interior setback from seven and a half feet to... sorry, 3.1 feet, and also to reduce the front setback from 20 feet to 19 feet. It's important to note that the carport was installed without the benefit of first obtaining a building permit. On your screen right now is the project location, and the property is highlighted in yellow, and it's along West Treasure Drive and South Treasure Drive. On your screen right now is a site plan that shows the carport highlighted in yellow. And again, along the side property line, which the property lines are highlighted in or outlined in red, the carport is set back at approximately 3.1 feet. And at its closest point to the front property line, the carport is set back at 19 feet, which is in line with the existing building line of the existing home. The application must comply with all seven criteria in order to receive a recommendation of approval. The application as presented complies with just one criteria, partially comprised with one criterion, and does not comply with five of the criteria. So I will briefly go through all five, or sorry, all seven criteria, and if there are any questions, I'll be happy to answer. The first criteria deals with whether there are any special circumstances and conditions that are peculiar to the land structure or building, specifically as it comes to or pertains to this structure. As I mentioned before, it was installed without the benefit of obtaining a building permit. The corner lot has a curvilinear configuration that is similar to all corner lots within the village. It has the same setbacks that are applicable to all corner lots that are zoned RS2, and it contains the principal structure that is currently set back at approximately between 5.6 feet to 19 feet from the property line that is existing, and that is not due to an action of the property owner. So for criteria number one, a specific special circumstance was not demonstrated and a SAS evaluation is that it does not comply with that criteria. For number two, This deals with whether there are special circumstances and conditions that were not self-created by any person having interest in the property. And again, as mentioned, the carport was already installed. But I will mention that the lot configuration and the existing principal structure placement are pre-existing. However, although there may be dimensional constraints due to the configuration of the lot with the curvy linear property line, The circumstance that has arisen is not the result of that property line as the carport is not located within an area that is specifically impacted by that. And instead it was constructed without going through the proper approval process. So staff's determination is that it does not comply. As it returns to criteria number three, it deals with whether the strict application of the provision of the ULDC will deprive the applicant or property owner of the reasonable use of the land or structure or building. The strict application of the setbacks would require the removal of the carport. However, the property can be reasonably used as a single family residence. and the property owner will still be able to park their vehicles on the property, albeit without a covered or the existing carport structure. related to criteria number four, granting the variance requested will not confer on the applicant any special privilege that is denied by the ULDC to other land structures or buildings within the same zoning district. As stated previously, all RS2 zone properties must comply with these setback requirements. and the applicant submitted evidence of the existence of similar carport construction on neighboring properties. However, this does not create a justification as all variance requests must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. So granting the variance would allow the carport to remain within the setback areas, and it could be perceived as granting relief that is not ordinarily available. so it does not comply with this criterion. The criterion number five, the variance is the minimum variance required that will make possible the reasonable use of the land structure of building. Evidence was not provided to staff that the variance that is being sought is the minimum needed and that the carport is sized at the minimum size needed to accommodate the vehicles. Because no evidence was provided, staff cannot determine that this application complies with this criteria. So staff's evaluation is that it does not comply. As it pertains to number six, Granting the variance will be in harmony with the general intent and purpose of this chapter and that such variance will not be injurious to the neighborhood or otherwise detrimental to the public welfare. The existing residential use will continue to be maintained and the character will also be maintained. There will be minimal visual impacts as it is the carport structure that is in line with development within the village on residential properties. And the structure does not create any adverse impacts to light air or public safety. So staff has determined that this partially complies mainly because the carport does not comply with the ULDC. However, it does maintain the residential character as the ULDC wants to create within its residential zoning district. And finally, with criterion number seven, the variance request is not based on the desire to reduce the cost of development. It is not based on that goal. The purpose of the variance request is to legalize the existing carport structure. So therefore, it does comply with this criterion. As stated within the staff report, staff recommends denial of the variance request. And as mentioned earlier by our village attorney, the Planning and Zoning Board voted 3-1 to recommend approval of the variance request. And with that, if there are any questions, I will be happy to answer.

Okay, so we're going to go ahead and everyone on the dais is going to have the opportunity to ask questions of staff. And then Mr. Offerman will allow you to give your presentation. So let's just have the commissioners ask questions of staff, starting with Commissioner Darrell.

Yeah, just clarifying. It says planning and zoning board voted 3-1 in favor with conditions. What are the conditions?

Okay, excuse me. There are, I believe it's seven. Let me pull it up one second here. There are a total of seven conditions within the staff report. They are pretty general. I can't go through them really quickly or put them on the screen if you would like. But the conditions, number one deals with limiting the variance to the legalization of the existing carport as constructed with a reduced setback of the 19 feet and 3.1 feet. And it also states that no additional encroachment or further reduction of the required setbacks shall be permitted. Number 2 deals with permit compliance, requiring the applicant to obtain all necessary after the fact building permits. Number 3 applies with the strict conformance with augmentation submitted as part of the variance application, ensuring that the carport does comply with what was presented tonight. Number 4. Deals with no expansion of the approval. The approval is limited to the existing carport and its current location. Number five deals with any cost recovery charges that will be due to the applicant to ensure that those are paid. Number six deals with the expiration of the variance. which is two years from the date of final action of the Village Commission, which the car part already exists. So the applicant will have to pull those building permits if it is approved. And number seven, states deals with the outstanding code enforcement case to ensure that any outstanding cases and approved fines, if any, are dealt with by the applicant.

Any follow-up questions about conditions?

No, that's clear. I mean, I did drive by. It looked fairly minimal to me. I have no other question.

After much review and the same not finding any complaints from the neighbors and driving by the property, I actually moved to go ahead and approve the conditions. But if there's any other questions. Okay.

Well, there's a motion to approve with conditions on the table. Why don't we get some questions from the rest of the dais and then see if there's a, if there's a motion, I'll go last. You don't have questions for staff? Okay. Vice Mayor?

I agree with my colleagues, so I'll second the motion.

Okay. There's a motion and a second to approve with conditions. Commissioner Ciarpone.

I want to thank you for your transparency as stating that you have emphasized the hardship that he sees, but I'd like to hear the hardship from the

From the applicant.

From the applicant.

Understood. I think that's very important to have that on the record. Why don't we go ahead and hear from Mr. Offerman before we take a vote on this motion?

Can you all hear me? Yes, sir. So, you know, one of the issues, and forgive me because I, you know, I know there's a lot of sort of language that I don't really understand, so I'll just answer this as plainly as I can. The hardships, well, for starters, my property, yes, there were other corner lots in the However, I think there's only one other house corner lot in the area that has, you know, because my house is a ranch house constructed, I think, in the 60s. And I think I'm one of the only houses with a curved lot with the driveway in the back, which is pinned up against my neighbor's property. There are other houses with drive on corner lots, but their area to pull up into their driveways are kind of in front of the house. So they don't have an issue, a setback issue similar, which is kind of a unique condition based on an older house, which is, I guess, one of my definitions of a hardship based on the setbacks that are there. And the other thing is just since I have a very low ranch house on the corner and As you guys know, West Treasure, is it West Treasure or East Treasure? Whatever that, I'm on South Treasure. But on my street is one of the most active streets in the neighborhood with construction. And also my neighboring house is, you know, whatever, 30 feet high. I originally constructed this, the motives behind it. I, the massive amount of debris, just not normal rain and leaves, just blowing off of roofing materials off of other houses and, you know, was kind of starting to damage my vehicle. So between sort of just an oddball place where I am with, and I'm in a very low area combined with the uniqueness of my house, house that was constructed you know in the 60s um i don't have the uh uh any uh you know if i if i wanted to have a cover on my driveway this is my only uh short place to put it does anyone on the dais have any follow-up questions for the applicant mr offerman

No.

Okay. Before we take a vote, I think there are persuasive arguments that the property does meet the criteria, one, as far as uniqueness, two, as far as it not being created by the applicant. I mean, I understand that he put up a carport without a permit, and obviously that was his fault. But he is living in a pre-existing home. He's not redeveloping. The driveway is located where the driveway is. is located it's the only place for a car to be parked on that property and if anyone which I think it's completely reasonable would want to cover their car we live in a very hot place and the property next door did recently build they built a third story and it was an indoor outdoor space and then they recently enclosed it so it does really tower over his driveway so I believe that the criteria are met for hardship for our variance. So I'm inclined to vote yes.

Are you representing the gentleman?

No, but it's important when we vote on a variance for there to be competent substantial evidence on the record. So I just want to be clear about how I perceive this case and the facts.

It's kind of strange having a landowning attorney on the dais to begin with, but also being so vocal about a land joining issue. Sorry, that's my opinion.

You're entitled to your opinion. I think the residents generally appreciate having a mayor that's also a lawyer. I think it's probably in the best interest of the community. So with that, let's go ahead and take the vote. Madam Clerk, you want to call the roll?

Commissioner Acosta? Yes. Vice Mayor Cook?

Yes.

Commissioner Cervone?

Yes.

Commissioner Adaro?

Yes.

Mayor Streiffeld?

Yes.

Motion passes, it's unanimous.

Thank you. Yeah, I think our residents want us to stand up for their ability to shelter their cars and keep them cool in the summer. So let's hear 14C. Yes. This is a resolution of the mayor and commission of North Bay Village, Florida, approving an updated fee schedule for administrative services, building fees and zoning fees, providing for implementation, providing for an effective date. So this is an effort that was started by Commissioner Trevone and myself. I think we agreed several months ago that we needed to update and modify the village's fee schedule for things like TDRs, density, and height. And since then, there's been quite a split here on the dais. We have run up against various significant differences of opinion in terms of how much additional development rights should cost and the degree to which they should be increased if increased at all. We hired Miami Economic Associates to make a recommendation on a formula that was not able to get through this dais. Commissioner Trovoni took it upon himself and made significant proposals, one of which we did adopt, which was to basically legalize or sort of codify the rights of individuals who had purchased TDRs in terms of what they would pay for their increases. in height and density, if so applicable. And I want to thank Commissioner Trevone for continuing to work on this issue. I want to thank staff, who I believe is coming to us with recommendations this evening. And I know after my meeting with staff, I feel pretty good about where we're headed in terms of these fees. We also realized during my briefing yesterday that this cannot merely be a fee schedule update. that we will need ordinances on first and second reading to make actual changes to our land development code to codify some of the things that need to be done here, not just to modify the fees, but to more specifically articulate the consequences and timelines Yeah, timelines mostly and consequences of unpaid fees. These are things that we need to be clear about, not just for the purposes of development agreements, but for our abilities to enforce things down the road. And so, yeah, I think with that introduction, I'll turn it over to staff. Commissioner Trujillo, I don't know if you wanna take a point of privilege and chat about this before we head over to staff. Okay.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll just walk you guys through. Let me just get this moving. So just want to walk you through what we're doing here, where we are right now, what we've done, and then we're proposing. And why isn't this moving?

Come on.

All right, our current set of fees. In T6 on 79th Street Causeway, we have a base density of 70 units per acre. There are bonuses available to go to 150 units per acre. The current community contribution fee is $20,000 per unit. The current payment due set forth in the ULDC, it's 50% within 90 days of approval. the other 50% at building permit. What we've seen on some of these is that it takes a while to get to building permit. So there's a significant lag time before the remainder can be paid. The current fees in RM70. So this is what you see in brown in the corner of the screen. of the screen, those areas on Harbor Island and a part of Treasure. Base density, again, seven units per acre. There's the ability to purchase TDRs to go up to 91 units per acre. A lot of these properties are less than one acre, the remaining properties. So it would be less than the extra 21 units. And there are also a finite number of TDRs available. The current rates for The TDRs are $125,000 per unit when the receiving property is non-waterfront and $150,000 when the receiving property is waterfront. There are... The majority of the properties that remain, that haven't been developed relatively recently are waterfront property. So we're really looking at the $150,000 number, okay? Together with the TDRs, there's an ability to bonus up from a 240 feet level up to 312 feet. That comes with the cost of the TDRs currently. There is a bonus height provision, a bonus that can be obtained. The base height in RM70 is 150 feet. You can bonus that up to 240 feet. That's the 240 feet that you see with the TDRs that you can go a little bit higher when you have TDRs. But either way, you have to get to the 240, and getting to the 240 is at a cost of $750 per unit. per every 10 feet. So if you're going from 150 to 240, that's 90 feet. That's a multiplier of nine times the number of units times 750. The payment due is also set forth in the ULDC, 50% within 90 days of approval, 50% at building permit, but for both of these provisions. There is some contradictory information in the fee schedule. That's something we will clean up. But this is what the code says right now. We are recommending that we be given the direction to draft an ordinance to adjust this timing in the ULDC for RM70 and for T6. I'm not telling you what to do, but we would appreciate some direction in that regard if you want to change that. So the recent changes, Mayor, you had mentioned at Commissioner Schiavone's, I guess his sponsorship was a T6 height bonus that allowed an increase of up to 30 feet above either the T6 24, 24 stories or the T6 36, 36 stories. This was at a cost of $100,000 per lineal foot. of increase that was adopted a few months ago. And I believe an application is in the works to take advantage of that, which will be a substantial number for the village. The proposed fees that we are proposing in today's, in your agenda, the bonus density was $20,000 per unit. We are proposing an increase to $80,000 per unit. We got to the $80,000 per unit based on the increase in property values When the $20,000 was originally set in 2021, since that time, there's been approximately on the properties along Kennedy Boulevard, approximately a 300% increase in property values. That is amazing. So multiplying that times $20,000 gets you to roughly $80,000 per unit. For RM70, the TDRs, we are proposing an increase from the non-waterfront and the waterfront rates of 125,000 and 150,000 to increase them all to one rate of $200,000 per unit. The concept behind that is this is a finite resource. There are only so many TDRs left. These are Village-owned. Village can set the price of these units. You're recommending $200,000? $200,000 per unit, yes. That's what's in here.

Okay. Yeah.

Oh, I went too far. The height, the proposal in the agenda is $10,000 per lineal foot to go from 150 feet to 240 feet. And then along with these TDRs, there was an increase Right now, we do not charge to go from 240 feet to 312 feet. What is written in your agendas is a $25,000 per lineal foot. This does, in all fairness, have an outsized impact on smaller properties, which are what's left. So it's something just for you all to consider. And that's what's before you. Happy to answer any questions or respond to any ideas that you have.

Okay, well, I really appreciate that presentation. Let's take questions and comments from the dais, starting with Commissioner Darrow and working our way down toward Commissioner Trevoni, and then I'll reserve myself to go last. Commissioner Darrow.

I think this is a good balance of what we were looking to do to continue to encourage investment in North Bay Village with a reasonable increase for the projects to come.

So you would support staff's recommendations across the board?

Yes, I'm supportive of what's being proposed.

Okay. Commissioner Acosta? I believe because it's a limited resource, we actually should consider going higher. I would go over the 200,000 at this point. A lot of these developments may not even come about for now. They will benefit from the next units as they close. Prices, as you see, keep going higher. Miami-Dade County land waterfront property is getting more and more reduced. I would like to see these fees actually go higher to encourage people to really not just invest, but build here instead of flipping properties. Okay, so you want to increase these across the board? I want the water, especially for the TDRs. RM70 TDRs.

I want it to go, instead of $200,000, I would like that to go as high as $300,000.

I can meet you halfway at $250,000. Well, you can propose it.

Okay. So you're proposing 300. I understand your concern. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And then on the additional height for RM70, staff is recommending $10,000 per vertical foot. It needs to go higher, too.

I would double that.

We're talking about a million dollars to go from 150 to 240. I mean, that's a lot of money.

A million dollars from the time they're actually going to be doing construction and selling those units. That's also a different price point for those units.

Yeah, and additional to what are these, you know.

I appreciate you guys want to go back and forth. And I think at some point we will. Let's sort of just see where folks are. You want to go up, not dramatically, but dramatically. Oh, yes. Okay. Vice Mayor.

I mean, I'd like to see some comparables if there are from Miami Beach and nearby communities to understand what what's what are some of the averages around around the area. But I do feel like the numbers need to go higher.

Commissioner.

The only comment I have to the proposal, I'm fine with the proposal, is the time schedule. I believe that we should receive our deposit or 50% deposit within 90 days of approval and the remainder within another 120 days from that. And if you do not pay it by then, Use them or lose them. Goes back into the pool. Okay.

Both in height and TDRs. So when you said use them or lose them, you're speaking with respect to the TDRs that you purchased or the entitlements that you paid for, the height and the density? Basically, your site plan would no longer be valid.

They have to submit a site plan. Within 120 days, 120 days plus 90 days, we're talking about 210 days, almost seven months, eight months. I want buildings to go up. So I want it done. I need to entice them to present the plans for the buildings to go up and for them to have paid the bonus and both for density and height. And if they shell out the money for density and height and they have presented plans, it's going up. You know, we have all these buildings that are approved. None of them, there's only three that are going up.

I may say one thing.

Hang on, just one second. Totally agree with you. we want to have a scheme that incentivizes people to build and to build relatively quickly. And we also don't want to be in a position where we're fighting with someone over money and they're holding it over our head, but they're not going to pull a building permit until we resolve the fight over the money. Right? That's the situation you're trying to avoid as well? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So... I think the proposal is 50% within 90 days, as is stated on our code today, but the remaining 50%, 120 or 180 days after that. And once you've paid those fees, you've paid those fees. Those are ours. You don't get that money back. And then we have the money. And if they... Are you proposing a step further that the site plan, like that the height and the density that they paid for would like disappear after two years or something if they don't pull a building permit?

I'd like to see them build. Yeah. You know, and let's be realistic. We have all the projects that we have approved, and we have approved quite a few. I'm not going to go through the line of them. The only two that are going, Tula, which was approved in 2018, is finally going to be completed. Shoma is going up and Continuum West is going up. Nothing else. There's promises. I expect them to go up.

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, can we add a provision that site plan approvals expire after two years unless a master building permit is pulled?

We already have that. We just have extensions built into the code. And then remember that they're always subject to being extended for emergency declarations. That's not something we can control.

Emergency declarations are beyond our control, unfortunately, and we understand those now that they get thrown at us constantly. but that is a larger body that oversees us. But the locals, let's be realistic. Right now we're being, all these projects that I'm talking about were approved locally. There's no real emergencies, declarations that Tallahassee has called since. Shoma was the only one involved with that one, but not Tula.

Hurricane Ian affected several of these. We got requests for extension after Hurricane Ian and Hurricane Nicole. That was a couple of years ago.

The last threat we got was Hurricane Irene. That was over seven years ago.

Hurricane Ian was a statewide emergency. It hit the West Coast, but the emergency declaration affected everything in the state. So we were wrapped up in it.

How many years ago was that?

That was 20, I want to say September 23. And that extended, but it lasted, geez, like last summer, I think is when it finally lapsed. So it lasted two years. And they, by under state law, they get two years plus an extra year.

It's actually a total of up to 48 months. You can extend up to 48 months under this.

They got 24 months for the first emergency and they would get 24 months if there were a subsequent emergency. All I'm trying to say with this is that a two-year window can be extended for a very long time if there's some storm that affects enough of the state where there's a statewide declaration of emergency or there's something here.

We've got to understand we're prone to hurricanes. This is something that we should be aware of when we approve a project of when we see it going up. This dais has approved numerous projects. I'd like to say close to seven or eight. And only two are going up.

Yeah, no, the frustration about that is very real. And I think we all want to make sure that we're incentivizing serious developers, not people who are going to destabilize a condominium association just to get a cheap entitlement and flip the property. That's really not what we're trying to do here. So we already agreed that there needs to be ordinances, right? Is it one ordinance or do we need multiple to really bring everything, to update everything? Like, I think we can agree on prices for things tonight. And I think we definitely wanna give you clear direction in terms of what we wanna see in terms of timing. And so, you know, 50% at 90 days and the remaining 50% at 180 days,

Well, that's that's another they should that sale or you know from the from the sale of the from the from the site plan approval from the site plan approval. That's long period of time. They can take the years of submitting a site plan approval.

No, the site plan approval is the thing that's going to come before us, where we either give them the height and the density, or we don't. they pay for it.

Some people can request the TDRs before or even they can- Well, the TDR is different.

The TDR is different, right? You asked me not to lawyer from the dais, so I'm going to defer these questions to staff.

Please, Tony, go ahead. There are two different things at play here. The first applies to TDRs, height, or even bonus density in T6. That is going to be a project that goes before you guys that you guys have seen, the same things that you've seen. You guys approve a site plan. The site plan includes bonus height. Maybe it includes TDRs. Maybe it includes bonus density if you're in T6. So that would be the approval. That would be day zero of the approval. The 90 days, what I'm hearing, would run from that point where they would owe 50% of that. And then they would owe... whatever next number you determine, whether that's 180 days or 270 days or 365 days, whatever that happens to be, that would be the remaining half, okay? That's the first universe of approvals. The other thing that Commissioner Schiavone, you may be referring to is when there is an RFP for TDRs, and that's only when this commission It determines to issue it. And that's that's a limited circumstance. And those payment terms can be built into the RFP. And they do not they're not bound by what's written in the ordinance. You all can decide, hey, we want to if if you want to bid on this, we want the money at this time.

Got it. When when you mentioned the 90 days, is that a competitive idea? Because I'm worried about a lot of these people basing their payments on construction loans.

That's a fair concern. That is not abundantly common, but it's not unheard of. The city of South Miami has a similar short term. I think they are at 120 days right now is when it's due.

If you're... If the density and the height that you need to realize your project on paper costs $2 million, what this would do is it basically would mean that the developer needs to raise that $2 million, knowing that they're going to have to pay it to the village more than likely before they have construction financing. And we're going to be clear about when we expect the money. We're also going to be clear about the fact that like the money comes as soon as the site plan is approved and if it's not a matter of whether or not you actually build the thing you owe the money you have to pay the money yeah it's not waiting until building permits for us to get paid it's right that's the money that you're going to need to get that entitlement

Yes. And as you all know, resources are very minimum out there and Harbor Island is already taking the biggest brunt of all of this high density.

All that is understandable, but there's a but. And the but is what has lit a fire under us is a need that the village has for funding of a village hall. As of today, we have approximately, I'm going to say 42 million, 38 million, whatever it was that we approved. I'm on the mic.

I know, but it's far away from you.

Okay. We have about $42 million for a project.

Until sometime next month, I think it's the 10th.

or the 9th, we'll open up the bids and find out what the real cost of City Hall is. In a safe manner, I have been saying here we're $10 million short. I hope we're $10 million short, but the way pricing keeps going up, not only for us, for all construction, all these people that are putting plans in for buildings as well, all these costs are going way up If it comes in at $58 million, we're $14 million short. We got to make the money available towards the end of 2028 when City Hall is through. So we also have a deadline to raise $14 million. This is what I'm looking at. I'm not looking at so much Oh, we can get it in three years. Yeah, we can get it in three years. We can get it in four years or we can get it in five years or whatever they decide to build up the building. I'm not so concerned about that. But in the meantime, we have to go out for a loan, pay interest on the loan for so many years until we get those funds in that are going to pay for the building. So I'm trying to get the monies up front. That's what has been my rush and my insistence for the last five months and getting something passed because there are people out there. As a matter of fact, we have a gentleman that's going to speak to us in a little bit about a potential RFP for TDRs that's interested in building a North Bay Village. And I'm holding back from talking because I don't know what to offer them as far as building height goes. I don't know what to offer them as far as TDRs goes. So how can I, before we had a price, I could talk. Now that we don't have a price, I cannot talk. I'm muted. So we're delaying the process. This is what my insistence is. I need to raise funds in a timely manner to cover the village. I don't want to leave my seat at the end of 2020 leaving the village with a $10 million loan.

Thank you. Here's what I see. There's about 150 projects in Miami-Dade County right now. I believe about half of them will be successful. I mean, the competition is difficult. Market conditions are not as easy. And if they realize it on a paper is one thing, then realizing it in the actual market when you have to go out and achieve these prices for these condos. So My fear is that by making things too difficult for our projects to succeed is short-sighted. We want these projects here to give us not $90,000 now or even a million dollars now. We want these projects here so that we can have a successful city for eternity here and remain a city instead of being dissolved into Miami-Dade or something like this if our budget just fails because we don't have money. I think we're being short-sighted by raising these fees too high. I think the proposed fee structure is already on bordering the high side, especially with 200,000 for TDRs. I think at some point, developers will stop Going for them at all and just using what is the building code, because it has to factor out and at some point, you know, it's going to say it's not worth it. And we'll lose the revenue source, in my opinion, altogether, if we continue to increase, you know, at higher rates than already proposed.

Let me take a stab at this because I think I've been, I initially was pushing for very high fees that elicited a very strong reaction from several of you. And since staff's presentation and walking through it in great detail and sharing the the sense of urgency that you have um in terms of having clarity so that we can have real conversations and so that we can continue to accept applications and live in a world where everyone knows what things cost and what the rules are i think it's very important because as you said We have an obligation to build this building, and we need to be able to pay for it. And I've supported that from the jump. So as far as the T6 increase from this is going to be I guess it's gonna be a motion, okay? This is my compromise motion, okay? So staff is recommending to increase T6 from 20,000 to 80,000 per unit. That was based on an analysis of what we thought the market could sustain and based on the increase in the values of the property. So I'm gonna accept staff's recommendation on the T6 density increase costs And that's part of my motion is the 80,000 per unit for T6 density. For RM70, and this is again, this is just height, okay? Staff is recommending 10,000 per vertical foot of height. What I would like to do, because right now you don't pay to go from 250 to 312. If you already paid for your TDRs, meaning you're putting additional density on a site, we want you to be able to park cars on that project. And so you're paying to go from the 150 to 240, but you're not paying to go from 240 to 312, right? The original change that we made to the RM70 is that you don't have to pay to go from 240 to 312 because we want you to provide parking in your project. And so that's, I think, something that we should maintain. I think we should not charge from 240 to 312. But that initial cost of 150 to 240, instead of being 10,000 per additional vertical foot, I think should be 20,000 per additional vertical foot. And again, removing the cost to go from 240 to 312 is my recommendation. And then as far as TDR fees, staff is recommending going from 100,000 to 200,000. But I think because TDRs are finite, we have a limited amount. I think our base price for a TDR should be $250,000, especially if we're removing that additional cost of height from the proposal.

That is my motion. Before we vote on that, I just want to refer back to Commissioner Darrow's comment about short-sightedness and thinking of the values of the properties. I can tell you this. We're building City Hall on the back of Harbor Island residents and all of us in North Village. We received this study that mentioned how other municipalities are handling all of these monies that they're receiving, whether they're going into their infrastructure, schools, streets. This is also for our public benefit because we do need a police station. We do need a fire station. My ask here is that we go as high as possible because, yes, you're talking about developers buying property. But the reality is that sellers could also adjust to these prices to be able to sell their properties. And they're getting the most for any properties right now. And this goes to a house, to a condo, to a whole developer land. So if I see a development, a condo unit that I want to buy, and they have an assessment for their improvement of $50,000 for that unit, the seller does a concession and lowers their price based on what that price is in order for a deal to happen. People are making lots of money here in Harbor Island. I just want you to reconsider when we talk about fees and we're thinking of developers and what makes sense for your money and their money is that you also think about what the sellers should be considering now when they're selling those properties. These are waterfront properties. We don't have that many for. And again, Harbor Island is taking the brunt of all of this density and height. So, i i like most of your motion the only thing i would like is that we go from the t6 instead of 80 000 actually not t6 i'm okay with 80 000 i'm sorry i meant from the arm 70 to 300 000 other than that i am in agreement with everything else thank you yes you may for island everybody is complaining about harbor island that we're tackling harbor island and we're overbuilding the harbor island and

First of all, Harbor Island is the last island we built. Geologically, studies have proven that Harbor Island has the best base of all our three islands. It is also our newest island with the best infrastructure of all. I'm not saying it's good.

No, I know where you're going with that.

But it's the best infrastructure of all three islands. Harbor Island is the one that we have proposed related, Urbanica, Alani, Elad, Gran Vida. And now there is two other properties that have been purchased recently that have to come here. Oh, Tula, let me not forget Tula. Of all those properties that I mentioned, because Showman Continuum is on the causeway, only Tula is being built at 1.950 starting price. I asked at the topping, a side question, how many units have been sold? Less than 10.

People are not lining down the street to buy units.

So they got construction loans. They're building. Pagani is breaking ground in December. Related is opening up their sales center in December. Doesn't mean they're opening right away. So there's not this piling that's going on in Harbor Island. We have a gentleman that's interested in building in Harbor Island here tonight that's coming to speak to us. I haven't had the opportunity to sit down and speak to them, so I don't. Because, again, I was muted until, and I hopefully will reach a decision. I don't agree with the prices you're going, Doris. I think you're going way too high. I mean, you're a realtor. I'm not. So you understand the market much better than I do. But I think you're going way too high. I think we need to give them an incentive to build. That's what we've been missing. By going to all these high prices, we're turning away that incentive and we're requesting them to do what has been done in the past, which is flip, re-flip, flip, re-flip. I mean, it's funny because I just ran into the business part of Miguel Barbarayu. Miguel Barbarayu is the one who had the continuum property and had the crab house property. He flipped it amongst himself twice with his partners. And now it's been flipped all over again. How many times am I going to see properties being flipped? I want them to go, to come off the ground. It's not only sell TDRs. I want to see our city hall built by 28. I want to see, finally, we got the community center built.

Can we, I don't mean to interrupt you. I want to try to advance the item. There's, I think the timing question and then there's the actual fee amounts, right? So how, I'm trying to see whether or not I have three votes for my middle of the road proposal.

I like the one that Tony presented with the 10,000 per linear foot and 25 of you deemed to go higher because of the TDRs. That's up to you. It's up to you, developer, not you, commissioner. We're giving them the option. This is what it costs per linear foot. If your budget allows to go higher and pay the price, you go higher. If your budget doesn't allow you, you stop at the 212 mark.

And those are the incentives we're already working with.

So don't, you know, by... Raising TDRs to a 300,000?

Yeah, I'm suggesting 250.

I don't think so. We're going from 150 to 250. Let the seller suggest. We have 47 TDRs left as of today. On my count, there's 48 based on planning's count. By one TDR. We may have an extra TDR floating because we offered... somebody to borrow their land for two years for two tdrs depends how long they feed their land uh once those 48 tdrs are gone and i know of now three properties interested in tdrs i don't know how much longer those cdrs are going to last Well, I mean, I think you're sort of making the argument for us to charge more.

Yes. So can we meet halfway at 250? She's at 300. Staff is at 200.

Again, this is something sellers could adjust to. Commissioner Darrow, Vice Mayor Cook, 250. And I appreciate your kind explanation, by the way.

You know, I don't think it's in the best interest of the village to do anything more than the proposed schedule. That would be my take on it.

I definitely want to go higher.

I just would like to understand what the comps are. It's like 60,000 per TDR, I think.

Edgewood was selling them for 30 and they got slapped.

Yeah. I mean, we're high.

Well, I think part of what the motion was proposing was that it's, yes, it's 250, but it includes the height to go from 240 to 312. So it's kind of built into that as opposed to separately charging for that. So you may end up in a similar. But you're charging for it with the TDR.

If we go from $250,000 to $312,000, I believe it is, or $240,000 to $312,000.

Yeah, that's about $1.8 million.

That's $1.8 million? Yeah. How many TBRs, increasing TBRs by $25,000? By $50,000. I think it's between the $200,000 and $250,000.

Right, it's a lot of, I understand what you're saying.

You're losing money.

Yeah, it would be across 36 TDRs.

You're leaving money on the table. All right.

I'm willing to accept staff's recommendation on this.

I'm not. I think we definitely should go higher. My biggest concern over the past couple of developments has been that we've been leaving money on the table. And I know that we've been leaving money on the table for the last couple of developments. So I'd rather go high. And if there's a compelling reason to negotiate a little lower, maybe we do. But I'd rather go high. If it doesn't sell, then we can revisit and readjust as needed. But these are our last few TDRs. So I want to go high.

I agree with you. Let the sellers adjust.

When you say higher, are you at 250 or 300? Well, I don't have a comp, but I'm at 300.

So I'm in line with Doris's, Commissioner Acosta's recommendation. No, nobody will buy them.

So we've got two votes for 200 and two votes for 300. And the mayor in the middle is proposing 250.

I mean, it's better to sell for, keep them out where they are so that they'll actually sell and we can raise money.

I have to say face with- You'll continue to see that nobody will pay $300,000 starting now.

Let me remind you, the last time that we cut a deal to lower prices to incentivize a building going up, being very polite, it bit us in the ass. Shoma.

I know what you're referring to.

Yeah. All right. So what do we do?

Can I have an opportunity to be heard? Factual data, just to give some- I don't know about that.

I'm really not inclined to allow it just because you have an item that's coming up. You have like a vested interest in what these things cost. And I want to make sure that the conversation on the dais is a little bit more pure than having a stakeholder have the opportunity to weigh in when other stakeholders don't. You know, there are other property owners in the village who I think might want to have an opportunity to weigh in. So I'm not going to allow you to speak on this item. I think we need to figure this out amongst ourselves. We're arguing over $40,000 at this point.

As a last comment on the TDR, right? So this gives you an extra density unit to sell. It doesn't actually give you more square footage to sell unless you go from the 240 to the 312, which the TDRs allows. So at some point, it's going to say, I'm not going to pay $300,000 for another unit. I'll just build bigger units and not pay anything.

And again, that's a possibility, too.

Yeah, I mean, we're not stopping progress.

It's just to me, it's again, we're putting the burden on us and not the other way around.

There's an offer on the table at 250.

Sorry, I'm going to say no to that.

Yeah, me too.

I can't keep having this conversation. We just need to make a decision.

Ending the conversation means that we're going to 200 instead of two people coming up to 250 with me. That's going to be on you guys. That's going to be on you guys.

I'm here on the community, not on you or anybody else.

She's giving you the opportunity to raise it $100,000 tonight.

Yes. On that point. If that's the case, if we're going to leave the TDR fee at $200,000, do you want to retain the Tier 2 bonus height fee of $25,000 that was presented, which is that delta from $240,000 to $312,000? I do.

Yeah, I mean, if it's going to end up being $200,000 as the cost of the TDR, then yes, I want to have the second tier...

fee absolutely so it sounds like commissioner charvoni and commissioner darrow had accepted staff's proposal so what would be the fee then if you have that extra fee if you were to 250 and then you add that layer it would be if you if you're if you're at you would be at 10 10 000 per vertical foot to get to 240 feet and then 25 000 per basically taking us almost to 300.

it would get you to $2.7 million to get the entire- Yeah, but my proposal at 250 doesn't have the second tier. No, look, I take this very seriously, which is why I've forced us to have this conversation so many times. I don't want to get it wrong. I also don't want to sell out residents of Harbor Island. Look, I was on the losing end of vote after vote after vote after vote. But there's something about being in this position. You realize you have to make compromises on these things. And you've got to be able to talk to people about it. So the point that he's making, where we have a sense of urgency to be able to build this public safety building, because this building, I'd like to remind, look, Commissioner, this building does not have its recertification. We come in here every day and talk about how much we care about our people, but this building doesn't have its recertification. The people who work for North Bay Village deserve a world-class village hall, fire station and police headquarters. They deserve it. And we've raised a ton, a ton of money from development to make it happen. And I don't want- Okay, you got me.

Okay. You got me. So we're moving staff's recommendation. I want to do the 250 like you're saying. You got me. Because I'm not going to go under. If it's going to be that, if you draw the line on the sand that way, you're forcing my hand, I'm going to go 250.

Are you coming down to 250 also? No. without the $25,000 square foot?

Because we do need to make a decision and we can always come back for whatever is left. Okay, fine.

$250 is fine, but can we keep the $25,000?

This $25,000 per linear foot of additional height is a very real cost.

It's a very real cost. And I think, and again, this is just like me from a policy standpoint and someone who understands zoning. We weren't charging for the 240 to 312 because it's in our interest for people to provide the parking that they're going to need to provide so that people want to buy the units. And so that's what we were doing. We were making it a little bit easier. So that's my thought is that the TDRs are finite. There's only so many of them. They should cost more. And if you want to provide parking on your site, we're going to give you the benefit of the doubt.

I can see that vision. So I will second your motion.

I don't know that I have a third vote yet. And we're still talking this through.

We do have to move forward. I think that we are going higher than was presented, which makes me feel better about our community with Harbor Island.

So it's 80,000 per units on the T6. RM70 RTDRs are 250K. There is a $10,000 per vertical foot of additional height to go from 150 to 240. And then your additional height from 240 to 312 comes with...

your site plan approval essentially okay it's ten thousand or twenty for the original year ten was there right but so that's what i'm asking oh no i want clarification now would you support 20. i would support 20 no and i won't support the 250 either okay so that's what i thought you said here so you're a no i'm gonna yeah i know i'm sticking with what was proposed tonight by for the fourth time in a row by legal.

Okay. Will you, a UAS vote for $20,000 for a linear foot of- I'd like to hear from Commissioner Adaro.

Look,

I like the proposed schedule. I think it's a high increase. I think we're asking our developers a lot. And we often in North Bay Village listen to our residents make them out to be the billion of our community. But they're literally investing a lot of money with a lot of risk into extremely difficult conditions. So...

How more difficult do we make it? They're going to have to hold property.

What do you mean the sellers are going to have to adjust?

I want to make sure that the dialogue that we have on the day, especially amongst ourselves, is productive. We know where you are.

Yeah.

Right.

But there's now a compromise on the table to increase the TDRs to 250.

Right. And to increase TDRs to 250 to not to continue not charging for height between 240 and 312. So just we're charging for the height increase from 150 to 240. Right. Which is the day you're going to invest in additional density. You're certainly going to meet additional height. This is the total of what that level of development is going to cost you. Right. And I'm proposing I'm trying to get clarity on whether or not I have three votes for a ten thousand dollar for linear foot. vertical foot versus $20,000 for vertical foot, knowing that we're not doing this $25,000 second tier? I mean, it's...

Yeah, I think you guys, the three of you in the middle, have the ability to move that forward. I mean, I like the proposed schedule.

I don't know where he got. He wanted to hear from you.

Yeah, so that's what I mean. I like the proposed schedule, Vice Mayor. You know, so I think if you want some increase to take the mayor's lead would be what I think is something you guys can do. Okay, all right, I'll support the compromise.

Okay, thank you. All right, so the motion is T6 units are $80,000 a piece. Our height bonuses in RM70, it costs $20,000 per vertical foot of additional height from 150 to 240. And if you would have purchased TDRs, which costs $250,000 a piece as a base, you do not pay for the additional height to go from 240 to 312. correct okay those are answers to all of the questions that have been on the table is that correct yes okay yes and there's no that's what the price is

That's not a negotiation. That's what the price is.

And then I think we should have a second discussion about timing and consequences so that we can get that right. Okay. All right. So that's the motion. Who would like to second?

I'll second it.

Thank you, Commissioner Acosta. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?

Mayor? Yes. As we make these updates to the fee schedule, I want to be clear. At the I want to say it was the May meeting when there was discussion held on this. The commission voted that projects that had acquired TDRs on or before May 19th would pay the bonus height up to 240 feet based on our existing fee schedule. So we've added language, but I just want to remind the commission of that and make sure everybody's still in agreement. Yes.

Absolutely. We voted on it. I don't think we can change our minds. We accepted that.

And then there's no, we're going to strike the language that was in the proposed schedule about development agreement. Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Yes. Commissioner Acosta? Yes. Commissioner Cerrone?

Absolutely no.

Commissioner Darrell?

No.

Vice Mayor Cook?

Yes.

Motion passes 3-2. Okay.

All right. I want to thank everyone for their sincere efforts on this. And I think if we can continue to revisit this. I think trying to incentivize behavior is always an experiment and trying to incentivize behavior in one of the most unpredictable, wild real estate markets in the world is also an experiment. And I know everybody comes to this conversation with the best interests of the village in mind.

Yeah.

yeah let's let's see how that goes we can we can revisit that conversation well and frankly right now we have another item where we're going to have this conversation and this is where we're going to hear from you ethan yeah that's okay right um so the terms um you've heard what we are trying to do and what we are trying to not do what do you recommend

So there was discussion about 50% of it due within 90 days of site plan approval. I believe there was a discussion regarding one proposal was the other 50% due 180 days from that. There was another proposal to make that 90 days from that. So that's a total of six months. So that's either one of those proposals is before you. I would say that front loads it substantially and not to complicate this further, but the discussion that we heard was that we want to see these products go up. If you want to provide for incentive for pulling a building permit within a certain amount of time, you could consider something like that.

That's where I feel more comfortable too.

Perhaps it's a refund of a portion of it so that a developer knows that they're getting the money back if they actually move forward with the project. I'm just bringing that up as a possibility based on the comments that I heard.

I'm open to that.

We ran into trouble where we gave a discount to a developer and the exchange was pull your building permit by November 15th and you'll get 50% off your community contribution fees. And then we had a litigator in here trying to tell us what a building permit was, what the definition of the building permit was. And I sure as hell did not appreciate that. I would like to never be in that situation ever again. So what do you recommend?

Well, I was suggesting the opposite of what we did in that situation where the money is in our hands, in our account. And if we were going to give the incentive would be some kind of a refund or applying some of those funds towards a building permit or something like that. If we're going to consider that an incentive.

I do. I do like the idea of milestones. You know, your meetings are milestones. I don't know about 50%, but you know, some smaller much smaller 90 days seems a little tight a lot tight actually not a little tight a lot tight you're trying to put monies together get construction loans together that that's that takes time and now we're asking a lot more of previous investment to come in i mean i i know i'm coming in with higher fees but i also very I think we need to consider the time. And that's what we can justify some of that adjustment.

The last TDRs that we placed via RFP were paid in 90 days, the first payment, and in 120 days, the second payment.

How much was that? You remember? $2.4 million. Which project was it? If you don't mind me asking. Tony, what would be a more flexible timeline that you could suggest?

So if we did, if just to give you an idea of what this means, if a project, if you want to say something.

Because you just brought up the example of the TDR through an RFP process. This discussion is limited to site plan approvals, right? The timing.

Which discussion?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the conversation that we need to have now in terms of how we are paid for TDRs and what the deal is when we sell TDRs, that's... its own negotiation in and of itself, right?

When it's through the RFP process. When it's through the RFP process, right. And your code currently provides that it has to be within 100, what did I say? 150 days is what we were looking at? 150 days. Through the RFP process.

Right, so this is like a real estate closing situation. I mean, it's development rights that are being sold, not actual dirt, but it's like a real estate transaction. And so the terms can be extended.

But if you do an RFP now, with the actual terms that we have there, we can literally sell out our RTDRs in this RFP.

Yeah, in theory. Why not? In theory, we could. In theory, we could.

Yeah. Okay, so what did you say? Okay. Oh, okay. I heard something else.

You said we could sell out our TDRs in this RFP?

With an RFP out now, we can get enough people that are interested in buying TDRs. We can sell out our 47, 46 TDRs a week?

Yeah, no, it's a very optimistic outlook. I appreciate that. But what we're talking about now is how people pay, the timeline that people pay for density and height after they get their site plan approval, not when people purchase TDRs. When they come to us, we have a presentation, neighbors come and they yell, and then the applicant presents their project and it's, you know,

via site plan, purchase of TDRs via site plan approval. She's discussing that.

No, no, no. This is separate from the TDR conversation at all. This is just like, you know, let's say this is typically what has happened is that we've issued an RFP and somebody has purchased the TDRs and then they've come to us with a site plan already having the TDRs. And so the TDR payment has been negotiated separately and now we're just talking about the community contribution fees and maybe in some cases workforce housing fees, but when those fees are going to be paid and whether or not a discount is going to be offered if they pull a building permit in a certain period of time.

So yes, that scenario, or if they're buying TDRs through the site plan approval process, this timing would apply to that as well. That's right. Yeah.

So you have any other flexible time suggestions?

Well, just to give you an idea, if someone bought 10 TDRs and went the full height, they would owe under the 9270 scenario, they would owe $2.15 million at each milestone. So just consider that as kind of like an average, you know, that's like for a 30,000 square foot site is about what you would get.

I would love to see more time than 90 days, but it's... Well, so my gut is to say... Giving a discount, if someone... is sort of expediting their building permit process and isn't just kind of waiting and seeing what it looks like. Like we wanna see that, right? But we also don't want projects to fail. So I don't want to now insert the real estate market expertise of the commission in the place of the developer, who's the professional, who's invested the money in the project and the land and the entitlements. I would like the fees to be what the fees are. And you pay them... you know, 50% within 90 days and the remaining 50% is paid at 180 days. And that's just the expectation. And if you're serious about a project in North Bay Village, or you want to entitle the site and hold on to it, and if you want to make that bet, we're here to back up the bet. We're working really hard on our infrastructure and our island walk and all of these, you know, things that we're doing to improve the community. Like, we're going to keep doing the things we need to do. But your site plan is going to expire pursuant to whatever deadline you have of site plan expiring unless you can toll the extension of your approval under statute. What is our site plan approval deadline now? Is it after two years? Two years.

Two years with two one-year extensions. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the discount gets us into hot water.

Mm-hmm.

I think it should just be a matter of extending a little more time. 90 days seems a little short for me to pull all that money together. Soon after you barely bought a property, barely put all of this. Permit could be way too long because now they can hold up forever until they're ready to.

I think if you've invested in land in North Bay Village and you've hired an architect and a land use attorney and you're coming to get an entitlement, you know, you've got your investors. They know you're going to have to pay for these things. The cost of what they are is very clear.

That's not necessarily true. All of this investment is done and ahead as far as just getting pre-approvals, and we've seen it. They come here with, how many drawings have this village seen of a building with architectural designs?

And then they flip them. I understand the scenario that you're articulating. I think... When the fees are clear, as they are here, right? If you want this amount of height, this is how much it's going to cost you. If you want this density, this is how much it's going to cost you. Someone can literally particular the pro forma based on those costs. They can go to their architect based on those costs. And they can say, this is the project that we want to build. This is the money, right? Got it. And so if those costs are built in to the project at the beginning and the architect knows what they're designing based on what the developer can afford or the investors would like to see, then they can come and they can have a reasonable expectation that after 90 days of site plan approval, 50% of those fees will be due and 180 days After that, maybe we're giving them more time than the remaining 50%.

I like to give them more time, but I also want you to consider that it's not just a $2.whatever million. It's the cost of the land that is part of the whole investment that they're already putting up front. So that's why I think flexibility in time helps with that. Sure. Yes. I like more time. That's my petition.

How do you feel about discounts for building permits?

You don't want to do it anymore, right? Yeah, I don't want to do it anymore. How do you feel about 90, 50% and 180 days after that 50%?

What I am looking at is that we are scaring our investors, not only those that are potentially future investors, but those that have already invested, delaying their projects even more because the market right now, you don't have to be in real estate to know that the market, pardon the French, sucks. Things are not selling.

especially i mean these are pricey items we're getting all the new yorkers and californians in into south florida no i i hear you they're not coming here they're going to the islands so so what is the proposal on timing i don't want to make the second half do it building permit because that's the wrong marker they could they can take however long they want before they permit and and we're going to lose out on on money so i would i would prefer the bread from the 50 remaining to be paid at a date certain as opposed to an event. How about a year later? I think six months and a year. 90 days is... What you guys are saying. I'm saying 90 days for 50% and you're saying the remaining 50% at a year after site plan approval?

We need to give them time to put all this money together. We're asking for a lot of money. At least we need to provide flexibility for them to put their investment together. Again, people are not lining down the street to buy. They're going to have to hold these properties for a while. We are going to make money out of the taxes a year later anyway from that property.

You're going to make money once the property is completed. No, of course. That is the thing. A year after that. You're talking about 10 years down the road. Probably. Let's be realistic. No, it's true. You're not seeing that immediately.

No, I'm not talking about the property. I'm talking about the sale.

The only person that I know that has the pockets to have been able to pay in that manner was related, which is Perez, who has the money. When you're talking about a smaller developer.

So we want to table this conversation in here 14D.

I don't know. I don't think so.

Okay, that's three votes for tabling this conversation and moving to 14D. Let's do that. We did approve a motion to update the fee schedule. We did. We have updated our fee schedule, so Everybody can feel, well, feel however you want to feel about that, but I'm going to feel good about it. All right, 14D, I'm going to go ahead and read this. This is a discussion and direction on issuing a request for proposals for the sale of village-owned density rights, transfer of density rights. This is Mr. Village Manager, Frank Willis, and this is your item.

My default, I guess, is my item.

Yeah. Well, does staff have anything to say about this item, or should I allow the applicant or the proposal?

I think in brief, just to set the stage, village received an unsolicited proposal similar to what we've had received previously on a different site in harbor island to purchase tdrs the entity that's seeking to purchase 11 tdrs is 7909 to 7911 east drive llc presumably the project proposed project site and the llc is the contract purchaser of the site they're not the current owners again similar to the transaction that the village just consummated in May with CND slash Urbanica. So in that case, CND was the current property owner. The village agreed to sell TDRs through an RFP process based upon the fact that Urbanica was the contract purchaser and ultimately was closing and buying that entire property. So With that background, 7909 sent a proposal. They were proposing to buy 11 TDRs at the village's price of 150 per TDR, which you've just increased to 250 per TDR. So I think at this point, we should hear from that proposer and the direction that I think staff is looking for is, does the village commission want to issue an RFP to sell TDRs. It can be to anyone in the world. That's what the RFP process will do. As a reminder, and I know we've sort of discussed this at length tonight, but there's only two ways that you can acquire TDRs in North Bay Village. It's either through a site plan process and you pay for it through that process when you get your site plan approved, or The alternative is the village issues a solicitation, an RFP. We've done that now twice. And that's how it would be sold, just as by way of reminder. It was twice. Three times?

One time we got no bids. Got it. Put it out again. Okay.

And the first time was about... almost three years ago. And that resulted in the sale of TDRs to the related group and Grand Vita.

Why wouldn't we just keep out an open RFP for invitations to purchase these TDRs?

It isn't really what's contemplated by the code to just have an open ongoing market, but that's certainly something that as we change our ordinance based on the tabled conversation, we can also address that if that's the commission's interest.

I mean, I don't see a negative of just inviting them to push. I mean, we want to sell the TDRs. We could, whenever anybody wants to buy them, I mean,

When we talk about the schedule and the timing, is there a way, let's say, to incentivize people to actually bill when we're talking about timing? Can people be charged, companies be charged? After two years, if they have not pulled a permit, can they receive a charge for their TDRs? Same other words.

Is that like a continuing... Meaning that if after two years they still haven't pulled the permit... Oh, like to keep it alive, I guess? Well, if it's through... The way the code is written right now, if it's through the site plan approval process, which we just spent a lot of time discussing, there's a termination. If a site plan terminates, there is no... They go poof.

But they will come to us for an extension if they want to.

They stay with the property.

No, when you buy it through the RFP process, they stay with the property and they can be sold. They're vested. But remember, because we don't charge the way we had it before, you did not pay until building permit to the 50%. Because you would not have pulled a building permit by that point, they would go poof. at the end of a terminated site plan approval. They're part of the site plan approval.

And we get the TDRs back?

Correct. Because we have not conveyed them yet under the way it's been up to now. Where we have actually conveyed them, where there's a closing, as the mayor mentioned, through the RFP process. So Related, Gran Vida, and Urbanica. Those three, there was a closing money exchanged hands for complete value, they own those TBRs now. They don't have a site plan now anyway, so there's nothing to be terminated. And they can use those on that property or they can convey those to another eligible receiving site.

We don't have a mechanism for conveying.

We do. Yeah. We've written that into the covenants. There is a way, and the village gets a small administrative fee for managing that process and keeping track of it. Yeah.

Let's hear from the applicant on 14D. Good evening. Your name and address for the record, please.

Good evening. Ethan Wasserman with Greenberg Charter, 333 Southeast 2nd Avenue. Here on behalf of the contract purchaser, 7909 to 7911 East Drive, LLC. Appreciate the opportunity to be heard tonight. A lot of discussion. The item, this discussion item is an RFP. We were presenting in accordance with the code, a request for 11 TDRs to build on the site. We're allowed 38 units as of right. This would be for an additional 11 units at $150,000 a door. What I wanted to mention in terms of just the factual where we are today on this property is we are contract purchaser. We are hard on our deposit of a little over a million dollars. And we have a purchase price of all out, purchase price of about 16.7 million. So the numbers, the TDR number is one side, but the bonus height is another side that adds almost a 25% increase in our purchase price of our land. That is a huge swing as anybody up here will agree. That's something that is very difficult to absorb. If set in reverse, if we had to buy this land for a 25% increase in purchase price, we may not proceed, right? But what we're hearing tonight is if these numbers go forward, we are subject to a 25% increase in our land value. Now, that's not fair because there was a price beforehand. It was $150,000 a door, and there was a height for the 90 feet from 150 to 240. But what we're talking about tonight, some of the numbers we're hearing is a massive swing in the basis of this property and puts, I mean, I can't say here tonight with absolute certainty that the project pencils with a 25% swing in a purchase price, which is what this is. So I just wanted to throw that out. We are in for pre-op. I don't know if there's an opportunity for vesting or for projects that can't reprice. We can't retrade with our sellers, right? We have the price gap. that we negotiated when we started this a year ago so i don't know if there's an opportunity for some type of vesting or maybe a further negotiation when we come in for site plan approval but this was a this is a very big swing in just raw cost towards a project in the upfront stages of a project.

In terms of the increase from 150 to 250 on the TDR costs?

That is more manageable. We're going, I think, and staff, I'm doing my math real fast on my iPhone. I don't know if it's correct, but at $20,000 for the 90 feet, that's almost... $1.8 million, whereas previously it was, I think, a couple hundred thousand, if I'm not mistaken.

It was based on per unit. So for your project, it would have been, what, 49 units is what your project is?

Yeah.

So 49 times, what, 750 times 9. Okay. I put zero. Yeah, I did. You're right. So, yeah, $330,000.

Right. So the height is an extra million and change on top, and then the TDR is an extra million and change on top. So tonight is a very big swing in feasibility of a project. I mean, I just... I think you guys understand what I'm saying. I just can't express how serious that number is on a $16 million purchase. This is not a $100 million purchase where I'm absorbing another $3, $4 million into the project. This is a smaller site with a smaller number of units, and it just puts the project in jeopardy.

Have you considered building by right? Under the RM70?

I don't know. The current plan was to buy TDRs and go to the max height under the prices and understanding in the code when we started diligencing the site.

No, I understand. I also know you're an extraordinarily highly reputable land use attorney, and we've been having these conversations in the public for five months now. And so it's not like the fact that we have been re-evaluating our fees was quiet. I think when you and I spoke over the phone, I gave you the heads up that we were increasing our fees. Yes. And so... Look, I appreciate what you're saying. I appreciate what you're saying. I just... It's hard to process unbiased information without knowing... HAB-Juliette Boone, The developer without knowing what the plans are for the site without knowing whether or not you've looked at other alternatives that might make more sense for the property. HAB-Juliette Boone, And and knowing that we. have been told for a very long time that we are under charging uh for development rights here in this community so um are you saying that you're gonna withdraw your proposal no we still want to move forward i mean again our our

Our ship has sailed in terms of contract. We are moving forward. Does it change what we build, the design of our building based on this? It may. That's hard to redesign and reprice a pro forma on the fly. We were expecting, again, multiple people in the city have told us that a price increase was coming. That was to be expected. This is more than I think what most people would have expected. A $50,000 increase in the TDRs from 150 to 200. I think that's reasonable. Again, other cities, that's a very high number relative to other cities, but every city has a different market. So I don't pass judgment on that. The height is a very big swing and a very big cost. That I don't think I or my client was expecting that coming down the pipe. And that's where I'm struggling a little bit on how do we price this?

Mm-hmm.

Again, maybe the difference is for future developers, future purchasers, they can take this into consideration. Maybe it's a lower price point that they buy out units. They can figure out how to make a project work. I'm already full steam ahead. I don't know if there's a vesting argument that you could carve out that projects that are in for pre-app or projects that have already gone hard. There's sometimes ways you can protect a developer like mine who's already in process.

We did it when someone had already purchased TDRs, which felt more reasonable to me. Something to think about. So how many units exist on the site today? 30. There are 30 units. Okay. And just out of curiosity, what happened with the owners in the building or buildings that were there?

I could ask my client to come speak. I don't know. I'm not transactional counsel negotiating the purchases of the units.

If not mistaken, that's the one that I read on Facebook. They were all given a date, a very close date for them to leave. I'm not sure if it's your building or another building. They were given 45 days and they were paid a month and a half of the rent.

Yeah, I'm just, did you get 100% of the unit owners to sell or did you get 75% of the unit owners and then you took over the board?

No, so it's 100% units under contract. All 30 have signed contracts. And I think closing is in two months. Sure. Would it be okay if my client speaks?

Yes. Hi. Hi. Good evening.

Good evening. Danica Zayi. So we have 100% signed, 30 units, everyone signed the contract. We worked with every person that lived in the building. Some said... We need more time to leave. We said, how much time do you need? Some want to leave in February. Some want to leave in December. Some are looking to leave. We're very easy with the tenants, understanding the fact that they lived here for a long time. And some of them are older, and they said, we really can't move. So we worked with them in every way possible. having these fees tonight um change on us not so much the 150 going to 200 or 250 but the other fee really really impacts us and that that's what's you know it it puts us in a bad position because the cost of the project goes up a lot you know we considered the numbers uh when we put in you know when we started to work on the project we knew the numbers um i know there were discussions about raising the prices but uh with the TDR, not with the height. And if we knew that was the case, I honestly would have thought, I would have extended my contract before going hard to see where these numbers come in. And unfortunately, we're at a position right now, we already went hard and we're stuck now. Getting these numbers, it's really hard for us.

Okay, this is helpful. Madam Attorney, Mr. Attorney, explain to us the scope of, what is the scope of authorized responses from us? What can we do here to respond to everything we've heard tonight?

It depends on whether you want to accommodate the request that's being made or not. There's a full scope. So I understand that they are concerned about the differential in the height. I have... I'm less... flexible on that aspect of it than I am actually the TDR costs. What's before you right now is a request to issue an RFP for the TDR costs.

Mm-hmm.

So I think that we can play with. You could set a minimum reserve that's lower than the cost that you just set. But the height, I don't know how, unless you were to reconsider and amend the action that you just took. But if you wanted to keep it within the four corners of this proposal, I would adjust the TDR costs. But here's the catch. If you lower the TDR costs as part of this RFP, if you put the minimum reserve amount at less than what you just passed, and you put this out to market, there's a chance, and maybe that's not a bad thing, there's a chance that they all get absorbed, that there's enough bids to buy them at the lower rate. That's potentially possible.

Mayor, what I would also wanna know is if, and Mr. Pender, perhaps you can answer this. If we were to carve out for properties that are already in the pre-application, they've submitted something to the village, how many parties would that affect?

So, excuse me, with the pre-application, I currently have theirs that was just recently submitted. I haven't actually seen the full plans and the meeting hasn't been scheduled yet, just to be clear. I know we have another interest, but I don't have another pre-application at the top of my memory. I will double check to make sure. I have spoken with, I believe, two other property owners that have also been told that the fees are both the density and the height are being looked at. And they've been advised that they were discussed and placed on every commission agenda for the past few months. But I will double check on the amount that pre-applications for sure.

So we've Potentially have three is what I'm hearing.

Correct. Three interested, but I don't believe all three have actually submitted a pre-application. I've had meetings with them to discuss initial conceptual ideas, but I just want to 100% make sure that they haven't submitted an actual application. I know that this applicant is property owner. They have definitely submitted a pre-application request.

Mayor, if I could amend then my statement. If they have submitted something, then there is an opportunity if you wanted to consider, if the commission wanted to consider addressing the height portion, leave the TDRs where they're at, but address the height, you could conceivably amend your previous action. to allow, we're already providing for approved projects. We could extend that to, in terms of the universe of options, you could extend that to projects that have submitted for pre-app that are already in the pipeline, if you wanted to do that.

Can I first say, so the height increase is going to cost you an additional 1.5, about 1.5 million, right? Right. And the TDRs are going to cost you an extra 1.25 million. So it's the same. I mean, it's similar when you're saying the height is detrimental to your project, but you can absorb the TDR costs. I don't understand that because that's an equivalent value to me. What am I missing?

In the aggregate, I could do one or the other, right? So we were advised that an increase in TDRs was coming. So again, I think we thought it was going to be somewhere in the line of staff's recommendation of 200. So that was a half a million dollar swing. Again, the previous cost for the height was 300 something thousand. So if you told me, hey, there's a million dollar swing, you know, multiple people have advised us that increase in costs were coming. I was putting it in the universe of there's two different buckets. I could do one, maybe two is.

I just wanted to make sure I understood it right. Because I'm like, these costs are the same. Yeah.

So we just voted to increase the cost of TDRs from $150 to $250. We could now issue an RFP to sell TDRs at a discounted rate before that $250 goes into effect. And that would net, hopefully... you know, more TDR sales, we would, you know, and if we do it at the $200,000 rate, which is what staff was recommending, and then we go out with an RP at staff's recommendation, I think that might possibly address the concerns of our applicants here, and also might be a smart thing to do, to say we're going to raise the cost to $250,000, but we're going to basically have a I think we should try a fire sale now. A last call.

I think that's a good idea to raise money. If you want them, here's your chance. If not, they're going up. I disagree.

I disagree, too.

Yeah, I can do it.

We just went through a huge conversation of fees.

That negates the whole thing that we just did.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's be flexible with payments so that they have more assistance.

We've already had a fire sale for the last couple years.

And nothing's happened.

So now we're going to raise them and we think it's going to happen.

I don't know.

I'm interested to hear from you, actually.

The RFP process, let me put that aside for a second. I am okay. I think what staff is suggesting about putting investing for people that have been in for pre-op and rely. A lot of this discussion has been reliance, letting the market know what are things going to cost? How much are you going to have to pay? We're at a detriment. We're not in that category, right? Because we didn't know that it was going up by 600% on the height and another 100 grand on the TDRs. So if we can work on reopening the prior item with a vesting clause for the height, I think that's very favorable to us. That helps us a lot.

i'm uncomfortable with vesting i don't agree with you from a reliant standpoint at all um and and i'm very hesitant to imply that that there's any merit there because again the conversations that have been happening on this day is for the last five months if not not to mention the last six years since we approved nbb 100. i mean i would like to do something

in favor of them. I don't know what, but I'm torn because I know of three other projects that are interested as well. And because we have been discussing it, maybe they have not submitted. Correct. a piece of paper saying, hey, we're interested in whatever.

Right. Again, that's why I'm sort of, I know that I'm only one vote, but I'm just sort of dismissing out of hand the idea that we would vest a party tonight.

Yeah. I find it, I don't want to say funny because it's not funny, but I find it very interesting that I have been mentioning all along. I have three people. I have three people. A fourth one just came up tonight that I met here at the meeting. And our planner is saying that he has heard of three as well.

So what do you think of this issuing in the RFP at the discounted rate of 200, which is what staff was recommending initially?

Basically, I was accepting of staff's recommendation of 200,000 and 100,000 for, I mean, 10,000 for linear foot. That is something that was a middle point of where we ended up being that maybe they could accept because it would not be such a steep TDR increase or such a steep linear foot increase either. Those are calculations that have to be made by the individuals. Yes, we were cheap. We're the last waterfront city selling properties basically. that are being developed, hopefully being developed. So we have the possibility of raising it a bit, but I think, and I was beaten fairly three to two, but I think we went overboard and we're going to lose all four.

May I? Just the fact that, you know, we're hard on the contract is my problem. If we weren't, I would ask for an extension, run on numbers and do everything. But this really puts us in a bad position. And, you know, we're the type of people that we're coming in to do something right and to do the right thing. Like we worked with every contractor. tenant in the building. We're looking to continue to work with people. We're not here to just get everything we can our way and do it and move on. We're involved. I'm personally going to be involved. I want to see this beautiful project come to life. But it's a very big, 600% is a lot. uh you know on the height for us that's that's really it just you know we're not talking 100 million dollar project we're not talking you know 300 unit project we're talking about right now by right you know we're asking for 38 units is by right We're trying to get it to 49. So the height is really going to hurt us.

I feel for you. But I have to think of the entire community at hand. And because we don't have a plan, what you're planning to do, I've had developers come here, say themselves that they're small developers. And I'm not saying you are that person. I'm just telling you what I've seen, not as a commissioner, as a resident. Developers stand right there and say, we're not going to build nothing bigger. I don't really need that height. I'm not going to go that high. And then they come back and they purchase all these other properties. And next thing you know, it's one of the largest developments.

So it's a horrible experience. One of the things that we eliminated from staff's recommendation was this sort of second tier of $25,000 per additional vertical I mean, that was in staff's recommendation, and we just wiped it off the table. We're not charging for that. I mean, that's a significant expense that you all could have contemplated that you're not going to be paying, right? And so to get from $150,000 to $240,000,

um look i mean you could in theory build a 15-story building for with 49 units i mean the problems are a lot is is small and it won't allow it you know we've been laying this out a lot of different ways the properties is one of the smaller lots um it's a little bit over half an acre i think it's 0.55 acres so we can't it doesn't work for us i understand the parking as you mentioned We have to have the parking in order for it to work. And that's where we get stuck.

We actually reduced our parking requirements on Harbor Island. So do you need the height to meet parking requirements or do you need the height to meet market requirements? requirements.

I think what do we run behind that at the parking, I think, you know, 100 spots.

No, you're probably right. You're probably right. We need to figure out what we're going to do about this unsolicited proposal. I mean, we have an unsolicited proposal But now there's an issue because we've changed our fees and we don't know if the proposer is going to move forward with their proposal.

I would like to hear a little bit more about the flexibility in time, which is something we tabled before.

The timeline today.

No, I don't think I want to do that. I think I want the commission. I appreciate where you guys are coming from, but I think hearing from you, the time has concluded. I think we need to discuss amongst ourselves what we want to do. Does somebody who voted for the last motion want to move to reconsider their vote?

Well, I have a question. I have a question. I have a question in reference to RSV. I think this is an opportunity for you to give us a final offer of what you would do, and then we can consider that sale as an individual sale. It's been presented to us tonight. And that's what I talked about timelines and things like that, because they are presented as an offer to buy TDRs. I think that it's only fair that they give us, they heard our numbers, they know what we want.

Can you respond, Madam Attorney? I really want to make sure that we don't turn this into a little bit of a free throw.

I think tonight we made the decision to raise our fees. So unless somebody would like to reconsider, we should stick by the fees. Unfortunately, they're the first ones that come across these fees. But everybody is going to have to face the same decision. And it wasn't unsolicited. I don't think we should be. No, we don't negotiate our fees. They're 250. We set the minimum. That's what you just did. So it's no longer negotiable. We set a height fee. It's not negotiable.

Unless we decide to issue an RFP. If we wanted to, we could vote tonight to issue an RFP for TDRs at a discounted rate of $150,000 per unit or $200,000 per unit. We could set the floor lower. in this RFP issuance than what we set it at per ordinance. And that would be, again, kind of like the splash sale idea.

Mayor, and to your point, you don't need to sell all of the RFPs in this RFP. We can say we are selling... 5, 10, 15, 20, however many the commission wants to sell right now. We haven't done that in the past. We've just done all.

And I will question, is it fair to the other three individuals that are also interested?

They could bid. Now that they've had the benefit of hearing our discussion on what the fees are going to be, if we issue an RFP for TDRs at this discounted rate, wouldn't they all be incentivized to come in and purchase them at the discounted rate?

But if we limit the number of TDRs that we're selling.

I wouldn't do that. I don't support doing that.

Yeah.

I would say let's just put them all up for sale.

When we do call it a discounted rate, it is the highest in Miami-Dade County. It is the highest, I think, in Broward and up to Palm Beach. I don't think anybody charges this much for TPR. It's not a discount.

Well, I appreciate that. But given the base density of this community and where we're located and so many, I mean, I don't want to really get into the merits of the fees since we already approved them. What I'm proposing is actually that we vote to issue an RFP to sell the remaining TDRs at the discounted rate of... I don't know, $150, $200. And for me, that solves a number of issues. It gets us a lot of the money that we need for Village Hall, and it does so quickly. It allows people who have been sort of exploring investing in North Bay Village for a while, who have met with our planning staff, who have met with some of our elected officials, to say, this is really my opportunity now. I want to get in and make this investment, and I'm going to be serious about moving the ball forward. And it also hopefully limits the amount of TDRs that we have left so that we can move on to talking about other things in this village. That's what I would like to do.

Mr. Chair, when we talk about selling, let's say we do this and most of our TDRs get sold, if not all of the TDRs get sold. For the residents in Harbor Island to understand what percentage of their island would not be able to ever have TDRs purchased, What would that be? Do you know more or less based on our current sales, what we've done, what's been approved?

I'm sorry.

Can you repeat the first part of your question?

So let's say we sell all the TDRs. OK. For our residents in Harbor Island to understand that once they're gone, they're gone. And there's still many buildings that don't have any other TDRs that they will most likely remain the size that they could be permitted to be, right? Because a lot of them feel like they have a target on their back that they're going to be on their side. What would be that percentage of property still left that will not be able to do TDR purchases?

Right. I don't have that percentage, but I will say we do have 51 TDRs. 51.1. But if you are correct, if they are all sold, then the remaining properties, which I can't go back into that account for you, but they would essentially remain at the height that they are, or they can be built to the height that the zoning district would allow with the base density.

You think it's less than half?

I can say I think it would be less than.

I would picture less than half of the properties in Harbor Island would remain as data.

It's a third of the density, right?

Any of the TDRs that we sell tonight, for argument's sake, I'm saying tonight, I'm talking about the RFP, which is, for argument's sake, 50. Plus those that we sold to Related, Grand Vita, and Urbanica. can be re-conveyed to somebody else. They can be sold to somebody else.

We're still talking about the same numbers within. Yeah, because if they don't do it and somebody else does, then their building will still be small.

But you're still talking about the same number of TDRs that are still rotating that are still in the mix.

I just want the residents to picture that we're not building every building. It's not going to be able to be a tall tower full of people. I'm just trying to give that image to the public out there to understand that whatever we're negotiating, which I do agree with the mayor, I think that it is falling there. I think it will give us a little more perspective.

I would love to have three votes for my proposal on this RFP. I'd like us to move on.

What's the proposal?

The proposal is to issue an RFP to sell the remaining TDRs at a discounted rate of $200,000.

Is there a deadline to that? For how long?

Does that proposal stay open? I can support it. Does it have a finite period?

Do we make it a three-month proposal? You still have the height.

Correct. The height chart. Yeah. You're only removing a quarter of the cost. But it's a discount. That's nothing. When you talk about these projects... Does it make sense?

Again, just because our property...

I appreciate very much. I'm not trying to be rude, but we've given you guys, I think, a generous amount of time.

I can agree with that. It's kind of... with a limited amount of time.

Going from 250 to 200 on the units, and again, keeping the height increase where it is, but not charging for that second tier of height bonus reduces their costs. I mean, did I write down the math somewhere? What would that mean? If we were at $200,000? Yes.

What would that mean to them or to...

To the village. The TDR costs at $250,000 are $2.75 million. And the TDR costs at $200,000 is $2.2 million, which reduces their costs by half a million dollars.

Yeah, $550,000. That's a difference.

It's a significant amount. And I think compensating in that height is... to me, reduces significantly the blow in terms of what may or may not need to change on this project. I mean, it's a reduction in $500,000, essentially.

Can this expire in three months, this offer? Yeah. Three months? Does that seem fair? No, three months is as long as we're going to have this offer available.

So have the RFP open. How long will the RFP be open?

Yeah, because I think it can be three months.

I think there needs to be a finite period and then it has to default to what's been decided tonight for sure.

Yeah.

So three months.

I can do that. And we're losing two and a half million dollars.

Why are we losing 2 1⁄2 million? You were willing to lose more than that because you were going to vote for the 200 to begin with.

If we sell 50 TDRs, we lost 2 1⁄2 million.

You were going to vote for the 200, right?

Yeah, you're supporting the 200 from the beginning. So how are you losing it? How are we losing it? You voted on something. You right now have $12 1⁄2 million worth of TDRs. By you lowering it, you are risking $2 1⁄2 million. Not me. You. You voted for it. Not me. I voted against it.

But you've been so persuasive. I'm being realistic. And that's why I'm trying to be flexible.

Because of you. And if you go ahead and lower it, trust me, tomorrow morning I'll be calling the other three, advising them also, hey, this is the price that we have. There is a bargain going on. You better jump on it or else you lose it. Of course. You were going to jump in.

And I think it will be a great money raise for the city and it will be successful.

In a very short period.

So I'm going to move it.

If the commission's goal is to get revenue on an expedited basis, I would reconsider the length that you want the RFP to be open for. Obviously, it's going to take us a little bit of time to issue it, but I think you would want to be able to award the RFP possibly in September. Maybe October.

I'm comfortable with 60 days.

I came back 60 days as well.

60 days? 60 days going once, twice, I'm in.

Vice Mayor, you haven't really said much. I'm staying by what I said previously. I still think that we're selling ourselves short and we're kind of going back on what we voted for previously.

Okay. So you're going to be a no? I'm a no. Okay. Well, let's try this. I'm going to move to open an RFP for 60 days to sell all remaining TDRs or what we have available at the cost of $200,000 for 60 days. I second it.

Maybe we'll get a frenzy and we'll get more money than we've expected.