Remarks by Rachel Streitfeld
749 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 22 of 30
“So thank you. Thank you, Renata. Who would like to speak next? Hi. Hi.”
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
“Does anyone want to make comments about the subject application? If you don't raise your hand or step up to the podium, I'm going to close the public hearing. Really? Okay. All right. We're going to close the public hearing. I want to open it up to the commission.”
“Why don't you let them also see the shadow study as well?”
“Sure. But not quite yet. Graham's still doing his rebuttal.”
“All right, I would like for the boards to be relocated to the side as we do the public hearing. I want to be able to see my neighbors. Okay. All right. We are, you know, on to commission discussion. So I know I have a couple of questions. We all received the same email from 360 residents. And I assume that someone is going to sort of approach each of those issues with the applicant. Who would like to start?”
“I'm just surprised that you didn't reach out to one of the commissioners who have been championing that island walk and let them know that you weren't going to be including a connection on your site plan.”
“Okay, but you can't build an island lot connection over a drainage easement. So it kind of screws you on the south side, doesn't it?”
“We can put a sidewalk over drainage, isn't it?”
“We can move on if something comes to your mind.”
“Commissioner Acosta, do you want to weigh in? Commissioner Trigoni is giving me the evil eye. Oh, is that just your regular eye? I love you.”
“Yeah, I would like a design condition on how you screen that eastern facade of the parking garage. So, you know, on the Kennedy Causeway, we require those liners to either be architecturally screened to provide some type of public art, or to have a green wall and we don't i don't believe craig can correct me from wrong i don't believe we define green wall um you know i think that there are vines that you could creeping vines that you could that you could plant but i that there needs to be a screening condition there. At some point, that walkway will be open to the public. And it can't just be…”
“The 360 are frankly a resident of North Bay Village. I have to remind that person to be the bearer of bad news that when you buy a condo, you're not buying the right to control development across the street from you. You're not buying the right to control development next door to you. You're not buying the right to your view, the view not to have a shadow. or the right to be protected from the wind. You do not have those property rights as neighbors. And while we, as your commission, are here to protect you, protect the public, and to approve reasonable development, I'm not gonna be…”
“I would like to add an additional condition to the approval that the garage, particularly on the east side where it abuts the 360 property line, should be screened with something architecturally approved that would be consistent if it were on the T6, if it were on the Kennedy Causeway. Craig, maybe you can give me a little bit of guidance here in terms of what that what that looks like, but I want them to meet a higher architectural standard, whether it's for screening with materials or with plants or whatever.”
“I mean, based on your doubling, look, I think doubling the points that you're pursuing in our green building program is incredibly valuable. And I'm very grateful to you for doing that. And I agree that the design of this building is by far and away so much more beautiful than what S2 had before us in 2022. There's no question. And I see obviously that your additional height improves these amenities and these open spaces and the sort of flow of light and air through the building. No question. I'm more interested in sort of the like mechanics of how the project is gonna work. So I wanna…”
“No, I want staff to respond first, and then you can add.”
“Perfect. Okay, great. Can you walk me through your loading circulation? I appreciate the traffic within the site circulates from north to south, because I think it'll pull people away from the congested intersection at the entrance to the islands.”
“I'm still not convinced that it works. An Amazon truck is really kind of small. What if you've got a full size moving truck, where are they loading?”
“I mean, that's crazy. But no, I mean a full-size – A box truck.”
“Okay, so you're coming in from the north entrance, and it's the same north entrance that is going to be used by regular vehicular traffic, right?”
“If I'm sick of the valet because they're too slow and I want to park my own car, how do I do that?”
“Do you have pedestrian passageways notated on your site plan?”
“Got it. How are you going to communicate between the north and south loading zones so that trucks know where they should park or where they should pull in right like i'm trying to envision a worst case scenario where you've got the loading zone occupied on the south side and you've got another truck sort of waiting to get into that loading zone and now all of a sudden i've got more congestion at the entrance to harbor island are you is there a way to control that to direct”
“No, and this is why site plan approval is the most important time because after you guys leave, I don't get to micromanage anyone. So it needs to be systematized on the owner's side because I am concerned about that.”
“yeah and like that's kind of why we're trying to be as crystal clear as possible as we condition the approval of this project if that is what the Commission decides to do because once a project is built and it's up to us to now deal with building management I think every person who's still in this room will tell you that that's a huge pain and it doesn't often work out the way that we would like”