Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the City of Port St. Lucie planning and zoning board meeting special meeting on Tuesday, January 20. This meeting is called to order. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Chair Norton?

Here.

Miss Moffcerino? Here. Mister Rosen? Here. Mister Prevot?

Here.

Mister Spatara? Here. And please let the record reflect that mister Reycanis and mister Pedavan are not present.

Okay. But we do have a quorum. Okay. Please stand for the pledge. I move the flag.

Okay.

No meeting minutes to approve. No consent agenda. So we're gonna move right into the agenda. And item seven is a public hearing, a non quasi judicial. If anybody wishes to speak on any of the items on the agendas tonight, please fill out a common card and give it to the clerk up front, and we will call the names to speak in that order. Okay.

Excuse me, mister chair. I just want to make a recommendation to just go ahead and swear in everyone now. I'm not sure.

Do we

Mary, are we handling these items together? Are there separate presentations?

We can do that. That's fine if you wanna do that. Okay. Anybody wishing to speak on the items and especially item eight a, please stand and be sworn by the clerk. If you're gonna be speaking and giving testimony on the items eight a, please stand and be sworn. Madam clerk swear them in.

Do you swear or affirm that the statements made today will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you.

Okay. We're moving to seven a. It's public hearing. Open the public hearing. Bethany.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Bethany Grubbs with the Planning Department. I have been sworn in. The application before you first is the Sandpiper Bay Resort Small scale comprehensive land map amendment.

This is a request for a small scale future land use amendment to modify the designation of three portions of the subject property totaling 28.6 acres from limited commercial, residential low, open space recreation to the general commercial institutional, also referred to as CGI, land use. The applicants are Keith in MPLD Consulting, rep and the property owner is Altitude Property Co LLC. The property's address is 3500 Southeast Morningside Boulevard, which is generally located North of the North Fork at the Saint Lucie River, south of West More Southeast Westmoreland Boulevard between the western terminus of Pine Valley Street and the eastern terminus of Morningside Boulevard. The application, the affected area of the subject application is outlined in yellow, and this is what comprises the 28.6 acres. This is the majority, as you see here, on the underlying aerial, the area that is developed with resort and fields.

The proposed land use change is a point four acre portion of land that is currently land use RL, which is a right of way which was formerly encompassed into the property through another separate document. There and it re retained the land use of residential low, which is general of what you would see with the surrounding properties. So this is a cleanup item of that point four acre piece that's residential low. Also, we have a 6.4 acre piece that is currently a land use of OSR. As you saw in the aerial before, Underneath of that OSR is the soccer fields and sports fields for the existing academy.

And then we have 21.8 acres of CL that is requested to go to CGI, which is where the resort sits today. The applicant's requesting this amendment for the 28.6 acres of land to CGI, and it applies to those three distinct portions of property that I just covered. And the amendment is to seek and consolidate the resort academy and the existing marina under a single appropriate land use designation designation CGI. The proposed future land use amendment is supported by goals, objectives, and policies of the comprehensive plan, specifically one point one point four point two, which states the general commercial land use accommodates hotels and resort uses. And then one point one point four point four, the institutional land use is designed to accommodate both public and private institutional sites such as schools and their accessory uses.

And, again, this site is unique as there are two primary users. We have a resort, and then we have, an academy. And so this is their way of consolidating the uses to work as one on the site. And beyond the comprehensive plan consistency, the amendment advances strategic plan goals of building smart and connected city and fostering a diverse economy and employment opportunities. The amendment strengthens the resort and academy's ability to operate effectively contributing to tourism, hospitality, and educational programming that brought in and diversified the local economy.

Staff finds that the policy one point one point seven point one, that the land use requested is consistent with our anticipated growth, character of the undeveloped land, availability of water supply in public facilities, and the need for job creation, capital investment, and economic development. Upon analyzing the site, based off of the maximum maximum land use densities and or intensities of c g and I, the potable water demand would have a net increase of 14,581 gallons per day and wastewater by 12,393 gallons per day and has been evaluated that capacity exists by our public facilities to our our utility services department and is again further evaluated at time of any site plan development. The subject property is not located in a flood zone, and there are no anticipated impacts to parks or schools because it's a nonresidential development, and the subject property contains approximately 40 acres of upland habitat and a 1.23 acre wetland that is under preservation, and that you saw earlier on the map is the OSP land use, which is undevelopable. The proposed small scale comprehensive plan amendment is not expected to generate additional traffic beyond what is already approved for the existing resort, marina and school.

The existing resort has an entitlement of what's been existing of three thirty five resort rooms, and we have a previous approval for 150 students for special exception use for the student count for the academy, and then marina has been existing. However, when we look at analysis of trip regenerations, we look at the maximum intensity that's allowed on a certain land use, and in this case CGI Shopping center is the most intense land use that could be developed on such land, and we look at the maximum development per our code. And that would have no net difference because you have shopping centers also the maximum allowed under the existing CL land use. Therefore, there's no net difference under that. However, we're looking at the proposed land use.

There's an eighteen twenty five daily trips and a hundred and seventy four PM peak hour trips. The planning and zoning staff finds the petition to be consistent with the intent and direction of the city's comprehensive plan and recommends approval. The planning and zoning board, you have the following options, recommend approval to the city council, recommend denial to the city council, or recommend to table the item until a future date. That concludes my presentation. The applicant does have a presentation here.

Thank you, Bethany. Before we move on, I'll just politely ask everyone to silence their phones so we can move on with the rest of the meeting. Appreciate that.

Mr. Chair,

Questions ask a of the Bethany.

Bethany, so looking at the water usage statistics that you had there, that's based on can you explain that?

Yes, it's based off of the public facilities element of the comprehensive plan. There's a certain number allocated for utility service and wastewater is 80% of the utility service. The same thing applies for parks. When we look at parks, there's a certain allocation per capita that is allocated to each development. It's a standard that's used for every development.

So based on the plan that's being presented, that's what the potential water usage?

That is not based off the plan presented. That's what's based off of the maximum. Once you have a land use, you're entitled that land use. So say another user comes in and wants to develop under the most intense land use is shopping center. It would be if they max out their intensity and cover their full land usage of 50 or 80%, what have it, that would be the most that could be generated.

Great. Thank you.

I have a question. I heard you say that there would be no increase in traffic.

Currently, under the development, the uses are existing. I do have public works here who could speak to that further. But currently, the uses are existing, and there is no new traffic being proposed at this time as the marina's existing, the school's existing, and under the land use.

Whatever traffic's there is the traffic that's gonna be.

Yes, and under the land use, look at, you have the same maximum use of shopping center, and it's apples to apples that they generate the same trips.

Answer your question, Pete? Good. Yes. Any other questions for Bethany? Bethany, I do have a couple of quick questions. There there's no new residential going on this property. Correct? No. In fact, it will be prohibited under the new zoning. Correct?

PUD is the zoning district. Land use is what governs intensity and density, and there's no density allowance under the current designations or proposed designations.

Mainly what we're doing is just making the use more appropriate or consistent with our comprehensive plan, correct?

Yes. Again, the RL, that is single family, and we're actually eliminating a residential land use that was a carryover that should have been changed at time of incorporation into their property.

Thank you. Any other questions? The applicant is here?

Yes.

Applicant would like to make a presentation?

Good evening, everyone. It's lovely to be here. I'm excited to be here. I have a lot of excited people to be here. So for many folks here, my name is Rebecca Miller. I'm the President of MPLD and I'm the Owners, Rep and Agent for the project. I've got a lot of new constituents and the fact in meeting this is their first public meeting. So a lot of exciting people in the audience tonight. But we are here for a couple of processes that are before you tonight. And one is the comp plan amendment that we've just been speaking about and the other is a PUD amendment that's going to follow immediately on the agenda. I'm hoping that I can just do one presentation for both. If you'd like me to repeat the presentation, I'm happy to do that. And I'm happy to stand up and answer any questions.

I'll make a note of that when we go to the

right. Okay, perfect. So again, my name is Rebecca Miller with MPLD Consulting and I represent Altitude Property Company and RPS Academies who are the applicants. We have a lot of amazing design professionals on this job and on this project. We have Keith Engineering handling our civil landscape and planning, Simmons and White who did a comprehensive traffic engineering evaluation.

We have into architecture and design, who's helping us to design some of our buildings and Brickley Land Surveying, is a local surveyor here in town as well. So just to go over the comprehensive plan amendment. So essentially, we have some cleanup duties to do. This site was originally 1985 CL was formed and a relevant land use designation at that time, it no longer actually is a land use designation in the city code. And so we've been asked to update and clean up this site to in fact, make this site one comprehensive use in all of the developed areas.

And so we are essentially taking that CL section you see on the bottom left screen. And if you go to the right, the entire area will now be CGI commercial general institutional. This area here shows the areas that I'm proposing some additional improvements for the site. So this is our existing site as you can see heading up the north side, the northwest side of the site. And then very on the very lower part of your screen on the right hand side.

And I'll just tell you, I'm going to take you through kind of what we're planning to do here and one by one and hopefully get us all a good understanding of our exciting plans. So this is the existing northern parcel as you're looking at it to the north. We have one tree. So this is the new plan for that view we just were looking at. So this is all focused on sports.

So OSR is open space recreation. Recreation means sports. So what we're doing out in this field is sports. And it essentially is comprised of 21 new tennis courts that are going out in those fields. We also have a new parking area that we're putting in immediately to the left of the entry off of Morningside.

And we're going to I'll go into this and show you a close-up a little bit later in the presentation. And we also are including where some of the existing courts are, we're putting in a lap pool. So the kids can have a chance to have it's going to be a competition lap pool, so they'll have a chance to train and if the academy wants to introduce swimming at some time, they can do it. Otherwise, they can just use it recreationally. On the other side, we have proposed covered tennis courts.

These are existing courts. And there's nowhere to go when it rains right now. So these are open air coverings, and I'll show you what those will look like. We're adding some we have, I think, a net add of four pickleball courts that we're adding to the site. And then in the if you're going up the right hand side of proposed recreation building, and that's made up of open air shade areas, bathrooms, lightning refuge and sports equipment storage.

And then proposed sand volleyball courts up in the upper right. At the very top, you'll see on the left hand side a future driving range building. Currently, the kids are actually utilizing Ballantrae, and that is where we hope to continue our relationship with Ballantrae. I'm adding this to the site plan if for any reason in the future we want to add a driving range to this site, we can do so. So I want to take you kind of through the improvements that we're gonna do here.

This is the existing mixed use buildings that's directly to the left of the current academy, the east side if you will. It is a shanty town of older construction that Club Med put up over the years from 1980, probably 1980 up through probably fifteen, ten years ago. And we would like to tear this down. It is not very, very good construct. And replace it with on the exact same footprint, a three story Student Union building.

The Student Union building will be again, this is accessory use on the main floor is a gymnasium. We have RPS Academy is an Uber athlete school that trains kids for golf, tennis, volleyball, and what am I forgetting? Soccer. Thank you. I knew I'd hear about it from the back, soccer. And so how do you get them there? We have trainers working in a very, very, very small room currently, and we want to introduce a real state of the art facility for these kids. And we've been touring some of our local gyms and whatnot looking at layouts and stuff. So I know the kids are very excited about this. So the Main Floor is going to be an 8,000 square foot gym.

The 2nd Floor is going to be a cafeteria and also a space for the kids to have flex areas to do homework, that kind of thing. One thing that's notable about RPS is it is primarily a dormitory school. We have day students, but 60% of the student body are dormitory kids. And so they live there and they need a kind of a well rounded existence and opportunities to be offered to them right on-site that the academy is hoping to be able to provide very quickly and soon. On the Top Floor of this are coaches rooms and locker rooms.

So this is the existing tennis courts. I'm just kind of trying to take you through. This is our tennis building, nothing is happening with this tennis building. We might be painting it, making it look pretty and put a new roof on it. But that's the state of our tennis courts.

So right now, everything is about upgrading and allowing our kids to train on the most efficient and internationally competitively recognized courts, so that when they go to their tournaments and travel, they're going from court, like court to like court and like surface to light surface. So this is what the concept is for those courts. This is utilizing the US Open colors and following up the guiding principles of the US Open. So right here on the overall site plan here of improvements, these three courts that are currently circled, they exist already and that's where our covered courts are going to go. And look something like this, we haven't engineered the entire thing, but it's essentially open air sides and just allowing for rain protection.

So there's a lot of different ways we can do this, but in whether we use aluminum or whether we use a fabric, but at any rate, this kind of gives us an idea of what this is going to look like. So we are adding more pickleball courts, again utilizing The US open colors. The green is never that green. It's just very bright green on the slide, I do recognize that. This is the existing tennis court building where the kids have for storage shade and whatnot.

It's beautiful architecture as you can see. I don't know what I want. I don't wanna do anything to this because this is like a relic, but we are proposing giving these kids just a little bit more. So here is the new recreation building. The center areas, if you can see two one third and one third through the middle there, that's actually open air space.

That's shade, fans, benches for them to sit, get out of the rain. On the left hand side, you have bathrooms and there'll be outdoor showers for them to rinse off. And then on the right hand side, we have sports equipment storage. So lightning refuge is in the middle section. And so in times of lightning, are you familiar with the protocols? I'm not sure, but they sound the sirens and they have to get to a place of refuge. And if we're putting these courts way the heck out there in those fields, we need to provide them a place to go to get out of a, the rain, b, lightning issues. So this is gonna provide that to them. Oh, also, I like the cupula. Do you like the cupula?

Because I really like the cupula because if you're in the middle of all these fields and people say, where's the bathroom? You can say, see that thing sticking up? That's where the bathroom is. So that's that's why I put that on there. This is where the building is going in the site.

So you can see we're nestled now light, nice, very deeply into the site, not close to any neighbors at all. Existing sand volleyball courts that we have going on. If you're familiar with the site, when you come in from the Pine Tree Entry, you're going to sorry, Pine Valley Entry, you're gonna see these courts as you approach the resort and after you come through the gates. And those were developed as a part of the Club Med Resort a long time ago to be an amenity for the guests. And then through the ensuing years, they became a place for the kids to use.

We're trying to congregate all of the kids' activities in that one centralized area. And the resort is most likely going to keep a couple courts to be used for their guests. But it is in a future slide, I'll show you it's actually being put aside for future overflow parking. So here's the existing where the existing sand courts are, if you were to look at the whole site plan. And this is what it looks like right now.

And then this is where it's going. So we're putting in seven courts out there in the field. So it'll be state of the art. There's a lot of things that have to happen with sand volleyball courts, they have to water them down in between, like after a certain period of time and there's the kids get really, really sandy and dirty. So we'll be able to provide really state of the art amenities for them here.

So we're really excited about that. And as you can see that recreation building is just a stretch away where they can go and shade and get out of the sun. Right now they have no shade in the current location. This is a future driving range building. We're looking at a very low slung building that if you've gone to driving ranges, you're familiar with them.

They have individual booths. These will have garage doors that come down for protection during rain and such, because there is electronic equipment in there. Electronic equipment measures the golf swings and measures the distance of the balls and other technical data, which I'm not aware of. So which I'm sure everyone behind me is very much aware of. So that's the location of the driving range.

So this is the existing Morningside entry. So this is the entry from the West. This is the entry that you would come in to access the marina. So you can see we have in the picture on the left that whole area that's currently being shown is all Sandpiper property. And so the guard booth was put at the very end of it, and that creates quite a choke hold for the resort and for our school.

So as you come in, what happens when you go to a gate half the time people aren't supposed to be there and have to get turned around? Right now, there's no place for them to do that. They have to back up and in fact, impact our neighbors by backing up into their driveways and whatnot to get out of the resort. So this is going to be providing our solution is to essentially, if you can see that, move our guardhouse significantly back in that throat, create a nice area both before it and after it for turnarounds and opportunities for movement. And as you enter into the resort area, this kind of gives you a nice close-up as to our parking area that we're putting in.

So immediately right now where that parking area is, is bunch of old trailers, metal trailers and workshoppy kind of lean tos that were erected by Club Med back in the heyday. And I guess they fixed their own equipment there. I think they even made furniture and did all sorts of really interesting stuff there. But it is is cleared and it's sand and has just a kind of a bric a brac. It's not the most attractive of places, but we're gonna be replacing all of that with a with a just a lovely parking lot.

We're gonna have EV parking there as well. And then as you can see, there's a drive aisle that comes in and if we didn't move the guardhouse back a little bit, our throat for that drive aisle wouldn't be accessible. Oh, that's also a close-up of our swimming pool. So all proposed improvements are additional amenities for existing students and existing resort guests. Therefore, proposed improvements do not impact current traffic levels, that's kind of a mind bender.

But if you think in terms of the fact that we have a dormitory, we have a dormitory, so most of the kids live on-site. And the day students primarily come from our adjacent neighbors, as you will see when we have to ask some of them to be here this evening. So what we are doing is actually improving the experience for both guests, because there's a lot of synergy. If a guest comes to stay at Sandpiper and wants to arrange a tennis lesson with one of the coaches who are coaching the kids, they can do that. That doesn't create more traffic.

They go from one side of the resort to the other. Our kids are getting replacements, they aren't getting we're totally redesigning and giving them new and additional amenities. We're not putting in a bunch of new classrooms and so on and so forth. This is really an upgrade. That's why you have that negligible traffic count.

So some of the things that are in the PUD amendment ahead that are the allowed uses in the OSR, because I know that's what everyone is most concerned about, is soccer fields, tennis courts covered and uncovered, Padel courts, we added that in because I guess that's a thing. And has anyone played Padel? I haven't yet, but it's becoming a very popular European model. Volleyball courts, pickleball courts, baseball fields, multi use sports fields, lap pool, driving range, golf cart infrastructure, including cart paths and cart parking areas. And then the accessory structures to all sport courts, including accessories, sports, fence and lighting infrastructure, bathroom structures, sports equipment rooms, shade structures, lightning protection refuge.

Around all of our tennis courts, there are multiple covered benches for people to sit in between their matches. So creating those tennis courts, you have to put in they're actually within the courts themselves. But right now, there are very few, there's drinking fountains, there's misting fans to cool off the kids. So it's really going to be state of the art and everyone's pretty excited about it. So this kind of ask, this is the PUD concept plan, essentially what the city asked us to assign all of the different areas their own uses.

So you kind of have the tennis volleyball court zone as it comes down the left hand side, you have student dormitories, which are existing. You have the marina zone and the guest suites. And then as you can see, as it spreads through that resort, dining, guest suites, you have the school zone where that building is located currently, special event parking and so on. So if you look over on the right hand side where it says future special parking, event parking, that's where our sand volleyball courts are currently. We have to come in actually with a site plan to do that.

That's not anything that we have planned to do at the time. We're just including this in the PUD at the moment. If we were to put in those parking lots, we do have to come in with a site plan amendment. That's the process correct with a full parking plan. So that is my presentation and before I finish, I just want to be sure to thank city staff.

We have worked incredibly closely with them over these last months and couldn't have done it without their assistance and help, they've been there for us all the way along. And so it's been a it's been a very very much a partnership, and we're very, very happy to be here tonight.

Thank you. Before we get started, let me remind the board we are on the small scale comprehensive plan amendment at this particular point. Any questions from members of the board for the applicant? Okay. I do have a couple of questions. Just one, actually, we spoke earlier this week. Yes. And you represented and you're testifying today that you did speak to several members of the homeowners association, boards and presidents. Mhmm. I have the Ballet Tres, River Vista, Bills at Sandpiper Bay, and the Anchorage?

Correct. I think we had five as well.

As Tarpon Bay?

Public outreach invitations. Correct.

And and you held outreach sessions as well?

We had two, and they were very well the first one, we had about 30, wasn't quite as well. And the second one, we had about 65 people attend. And then just last week, I had another a smaller group that I met with at at the villas. So I met with their board. So we've had a lot of public outreach. Also for the amendment that we went through previously, I discussed with the community the plans that we had for the school ahead of doing it. So before we actually submitted, I met twice with the community before we actually submitted our plans, taking into consideration some of their feedback. So I had originally on my golf driving range building put a cupula on that one as well. And they said, no, cupula on that one. I don't want one.

So we heard here and there. We added a berm on the left hand side, if you will, the west side that borders the entire tennis court area. So that it would decrease any sort of noise bouncing from the balls, you know, balls on the tennis courts. Things like that and people have reached out to me directly. I've gotten to know our neighbors and I hope that they consider us to be good partners and easily easily reached and willing to discuss.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, this is a public here.

Sure, sure. Yeah, I'm sorry. So there was a couple things that you mentioned that I wanted to talk about is on the left hand side, the distance to the tennis courts. Yes. That's probably one of the closest areas.

Yeah, I'm gonna bring that up for you so you can see it.

I think you've done a good job of not putting the pickleball courts towards the perimeter because those are noisy.

Mainly our neighbors. I think our pickleball courts get used by our neighbors more than

the students.

Elizabeth Elizabeth.

Mister chair, if I may. So the setbacks are covered in the PUD. Okay. So I'm wondering if you could just That's a great question. Maybe hold it for the PD.

And I do have it all kind of listed here and I can go through that in the next We'll

do that on the

next one. I

jumped the gun.

Anything else?

Okay. Anything else for the comprehensive plan amendment? Okay. This is a public hearing. I do have several cards. Gonna call them in order which I can read them. Is it Tracy? How do you pronounce your name? Cut clear. Clear. Welcome. Mr. Chair, before we Go ahead.

I'm gonna keep the the time. Everyone has three minutes. What I'll do is just gently raise my hand when you have ten or fifteen seconds so that I don't interrupt you. And then you can just look.

One second. One

second. Okay. You ready? Yeah. Alright. Go right ahead, Trace.

Two things that bother me is they keep saying they're not adding, but, you know, they're putting in parking, and then they're putting in tennis courts, and they're doing this, and they're doing that. But it doesn't exist there. They're doing that great big building. Okay. They're adding all this stuff. And where's the water gonna go? Alright. Already, get flooded on Westmoreland, and I think about that and the traffic. People are gonna go to the games. They're gonna have soccer games. They're saying nobody's gonna come to the games. Traffic's not gonna increase. I'm just putting it out there. Okay. Those things really bother me. They they what do you push them? They keep pushing and pushing and pushing. We want this. We want that. You know, they come for a PUD.

We're not gonna do many changes and then they come back and they get another change, get another change and our community keeps changing. And it's not fair because we put up with the problems. Where are the animals gonna go? They put up a building, the animals got no place to go. Where does the water go? I have to deal with it. I have the rats. I have everything, know? What about me? I have two houses and I have to take as the water comes running down the streets. I'm just food for thought.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Giorgio Centero.

Did I

get that right? Centeno. It's an n, not an r.

Good evening. Centeno. So

good evening everyone. I wanna thank everyone here today. My name is Giorgio Centeno. I am a student athlete, so I've been part of RPS Academy since January '22. So moving from Canada to Florida was a huge challenge for me. Leaving friends, family, and everything I knew behind wasn't easy. And at first, I wasn't sure what to expect. But coming to RPS has been one of the greatest experiences of my life. It's helped me to grow, not just as an athlete, but as a person. So at RPS, the saying, if you are willing to learn and train, the sky is the limit.

It's not just a motto, it is something we live by every day. And it is reinforced by coach Gabe Pademio and and the entire staff. So this discipline drives everything that we do. The culture of our academy is built on power, speed, and relentless focus, whether it's tennis, golf, soccer, or beach volleyball. Every sport challenges us to push our limits and grow stronger, faster, and tougher.

But RPS isn't just about sports. The the academics here are special, and the teachers truly care about our success. As a junior in high school and aspires to work in the medical field, school is a big part of my life, and learning to balance both athletics and academics has taught me responsibility and time management. The support I've received at RPS has made everything possible to thrive both on the court and in in the classroom. Moving to a new country and starting at RPS taught me a lot about adapting to change and embracing challenges.

At first, it was scary, stepping into something so new, but the community here welcomed me, and I quickly realized that every challenge is an opportunity to grow. Being part of this academy has helped me become more confident, disciplined, and driven by every thought I could be. RPS has shaped me into the person I am today. It's not just about the sports or the academics. It's a combination of hard work, discipline, and the culture that inspires us to be the best every day. I am proud to be part of this academy and this community, I know the lessons I've learned here will guide me for the rest of my life. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good luck. No. No. I'll ask everybody to keep the decorum. No applause. No outbursts. If you wanna raise your hands and say yay. But don't say yay. Jonathan McFarlane. Did I get that right? Yes. Alright. Mister McFarlane.

Ready? Hey everyone, my name is Jonathan McFarlane. This is my second year RPS. I'm a senior now. Over my time here, I've had most fun. And there are really two things that I wanna touch on. So firstly, I am an international student. I'm from Barbados, grew up in Jamaica, Barbados, Canadian citizenship. And living as in a dormitory, it's been the best experience of my life. At first, I was scared, to be quite honest. Moving to The US, 16, by myself, no family. I came in, immediately felt like home. Because that's the thing, I was never alone. From the first day, it felt like I've been there for a lifetime. From the players, coaches, teammates, everyone.

And one of the major aspects of that has been joining the soccer team. Since I've been three, that's been my sport. And I'm looking at all of the great additions that are coming to the team, the school and everything, and soccer is something which has been important to me. It's an aspect that I think can help improve the St. Lucie area.

So I know that there's the upcoming stadium that's being built with a professional soccer team. I've seen as a senior at my school that RPS Academy has produced some of the most exciting talent out of The US recently for soccer. I'm looking at the kids who I'm playing with and the kids who are much younger than me, and they're just incredible. I mean, I'm a good player in my own right, but I'm looking at the talent that's coming in, and we can definitely push on forward. And what separates RPS is that hyper focus on sports.

While we have the academics, there's still that incredible focus on performance first. We all have that one goal. The teachers know it, coaches the know, the students know it, it's all of us. And that's just to get better in all aspects. You know, while we're here, we don't really appreciate it. I mean, I don't appreciate it a lot of the time. You take it for granted, you know, the discipline of training for two hours every single day. And another two in the afternoon, school five hours a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, everything with everyone, every day, all day. When I go back to Barbados, I'm reminded of how lucky I am. I played with a bunch of teams before, none have been like here.

To be here, the lifestyle is different. We live, breathe, play sports, but we don't sacrifice anything else. The commitment here is different. We're competitive, but we're not antagonistic. The competition drives us and it drives us together. RPS is really my home. It always will be. And I'm grateful for every opportunity I've had here. I look at the time and I see, as I leave in May, this has been the best two years of my life. Thank you.

Thank you. Mister Anthony Sion, did I get that right? Mister Sion?

Hello. Thank you for having me. I'm Anthony. I've only been at RPS for five months now. And so far, it's been a great place for me. It has a great environment and a lot of opportunities, a great place for me to grow as a person and as an athlete and as a student as well. Over here, they help us grow academically, athletically, and intellectually. With the teachers here at RPS, they don't just know who you are. They help you immersively try find out what motivates you, help you grow even more. They make you wanna actually learn instead of being school being a place to just go during the day.

Every day, they want you to pass academic standards. They force you to build good habits and make you be disciplined. And all this helps build us for college. Our coaches, they understand us as an athlete, and everyone everyone there, the staff, the students, the teachers, all understand you everywhere. Great balance of school and sports and very competitive everywhere. My students the students there and my teammates all push each other to be at the best we can. We want a high standard from all of us, and we help push ourselves to that level. Everywhere is at a high level. Help having me get better, we help each other get better everywhere to create a great future for everybody. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Me. Yes, I'm just putting everyone in the order that I received the cards. Soraya Khan? Ms. Khan?

Hello. Good evening. My name is Soraya Khan, and I'm a senior here

Miss miss Khan, excuse me. Can we have quiet, please? Thank you. Miss Khan.

I'm a senior at RPS Academies, and I play beach volleyball. I've been a student here for almost three years, and by telling you about myself and my experience here at RPS, I hope you'll see the positive impact that the academy and resort has on all the student athletes and how it strongly impacts our futures. RPS has such an incredible atmosphere that I'm so fortunate to be a part of. Most of the students here live far away from their families, myself included. So this school, teammates, classmates, and staff members become part of our second families.

I cannot even begin to explain the positive changes that I've gone through here. I came here as a young 15 year old scared out of my mind, and if I'd only known the amazing things that this school would have had to offer me and how I would change as a person. Speaking specifically as a volleyball player, our coaches and teammates foster such an incredible learning atmosphere where we're able to give 100% effort into every practice game and get better while still enjoying our practices and having fun together as teammates. Our volleyball team is highly focused on how we perform and grow as people, giving us the tools to become better leaders, getting us ready for college and the world, not just as athletes, but more importantly, as teammates and people. My personal growth at RPS is not unique.

In my three years here, I've seen my fair share of students come and go, and every single time, they leave completely changed, better and improved versions of themselves. Overall, I'm forever grateful to RPS for my experience here, and I hope that we will be able to continue to impact the lives of other student athletes for years to come. Thank you.

Thank you. Manuela Abuchaibi? Abuchaibi. Abuchaibi, sorry.

Sorry. Hi, my name is Manuela Aguchaive and I have been a tennis player at RPS Academies for five years. My brother is a soccer player who's been playing for the same amount of time and my father is the director of tennis and he's been working at RPS for seven years. I live on the Morningside entrance, and I'm here tonight to share my story, hoping you too can understand the great impact this academy has had on my life and my peers' lives. The environment and sense of community that RPS has brought me are incomparable to anything I've ever experienced.

Never in my life have I been surrounded by such hardworking and dedicated individuals, and I can confidently say that I'm honored to be one of them. Growing up with the dad that I had, tennis has become a permanent part of me. And I know that there are others around the world who feel the exact same way about their sport. I think that everyone deserves that opportunity to be surrounded by people who will help them grow and become the best student athlete they can be. And I believe that RPS, excuse me, provides that opportunity.

My dad always said that tennis taught life, but I believe that about all sports, including the ones that we have. And I really hope that those lessons can be applied to future students who come. This institution gave my dad the opportunity to earn a living doing what he loved, and has provided me and so many others like me to go to college in The United States playing sports. It has opened doors for so many kids to truly excel in their passion and I believe its expansion would bring more awareness to our programs locally and globally, bringing hope and possibilities for those who would not be able to have them elsewhere. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Greta Berlund?

Good evening. I'm Greta, and I have been a tennis player at RPS Academies and a resident of Port St. Lucie for six years now. I'm honored to speak on behalf of RPS students and and share how this academy has shaped our experiences. I've been lucky to attend schools in Sweden, The Philippines, and Australia, each offering a unique perspective on education, but RPS stands apart.

It is a place built on balance where athletics, academics, and intellectual growth are treated not as competing priorities, but as pillars that strengthen one another. Through this structure, RPS creates an environment where students are challenged and encouraged to grow both on core and beyond it. From a young age, students at RPS are given the tools to balance academics with high performance athletics, learning how to manage their time, stay disciplined, and still enjoy the process. What I didn't expect when I first joined RPS was how much it would shape me, not just as a student or athlete, but as a person. I've learned that growth doesn't just happen with yourself, it spreads to the people around you.

For me, RPS isn't just a place to train or study, it's where I've learned to push my limits, take responsibility and grow. Through the guidance of our mentors and the structure of the program, I've learned that true success isn't just about winning or perfect grades, but about persistence, helping others, and learning from setbacks. These lessons have taught me to support others by sharing what I've learned, to overcome obstacles by staying persistent even when it's hard, and set ambitious goals, knowing that hard work and planning lead to real results. The lessons we learn here extend beyond the academy and into Port St. Lucie, helping students grow in ways that strengthen our community and inspire those around us.

The growth of RPS means more students will have the chance to develop in the same way I have. It means more opportunities for leadership, collaboration and community engagement. I am proud to be a part of RPS and grateful for how it has shaped me into the person I am today. I am equally excited about the future of RPS because it stays focused on quality, balance and meaningful development. By continuing to support students and learning how to guide others and work together, RPS can turn personal growth into something that benefits everyone. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Jose Pablo Guello? Did I get that?

Yeah.

Alright. South Florida.

Good evening. My name is Jose Pablo Coello, and I want to talk about my experience at RPS Academy. Six years ago, me and my family moved from Mexico City to come to the academy. It was a tough decision, but it's a decision that changed our lives forever. As a 13 year old, I had a dream to play professional tennis, and that was one of the main reasons why we moved here.

At the beginning, I was very scared, but that changed very fast. Everyone made sure I felt like home. In the tennis team, the coaches did not only help me improve, but were always there when I when I needed them. Also, they did a great job at making us at making us feel like a team. As tennis players, we're always told that we're playing an individual sport. But here, it always felt more than that. It felt like I was part of something bigger. We help each other, we push each other, and we get through challenges together. And I think that's one of the reasons why I've made such close friends here. Also, the academy feels like a community.

There is very close relationships between the staff and the students. Everyone is always willing to help each other, and we have each other's backs. It is like a big family. To finish off, I wanna talk about my personal experience living outside of the academy. I do not live in the dorms.

I live in a house nearby with my family. Coming from Mexico, a big city full of traffic, you spend a lot of time in the streets. Here, I was lucky that I could bike back and forth whenever whenever I wanted to. That is a freedom that I couldn't find anywhere else. Also, less time in the streets meant more time with my family, which wouldn't have been possible anywhere else. I am very thankful for my time at RPS Academies and how it shaped me as a person. I hope it can continue to change families and kids' lives for a long time. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael Shore?

Good evening. Thank you. My name is Michael Shore, and I'm a resident in that neighborhood. And I just have a couple of questions. Has there been an environmental study, impact study done yet? And if so, where can we see that? Has a noise study been done for that area? Where can we see that? And can we be guaranteed that it will not exceed a certain level? Has a traffic study been done?

These are all important impact studies for not only those, but for water and utilities and certainly the traffic. If you're going put a building up, how is there not going to be additional traffic? It doesn't appear that all these issues have been addressed completely. It's all very nice and what these people have had to say is certainly great, but if you're going to bring more people in, there's going to be more traffic. That's just common sense. Thank you.

Thank you. Is it Cecile Reyna? What's your first name, Anne? Cecile. Cecile, okay.

Cecile Reyna. Hi. Thank you for having me. First, I want to say we're quite happy to have the Academy in the neighborhood, and we think it's a great learning space. I'm very familiar with it because I live down the streets and I have many friends with children who have attended the school. I wrote something and I can find it. All right. I'm here actually as a representative of River Vista, the HOA. I'm the Vice President. And there's been few concerns from our residents that I wanted to point out.

One thing obviously is the noise level. So I've been talking a lot with Rebecca and we've been exchanging and I've been able to get access to the plan and what's happening. But we really want to understand from the people who live adjacent to the golf course, which their quality of life, their view and the value of their property is going to be affected directly from that. And this is actually six houses on Morningside. So we've been asking to get like a representation, like a rendering of the elevation, what it looks like when you sit on your lanai, you used to have this huge golf course we are looking at that we pay top value dollars for our property and now it's going to change, right?

So that's one thing I would really like to be able to share to our community, so we understand how this is really going to affect us. Yes, I've been told a burn is going to be put into place, which we're very thankful for that. But again, is there a study that shows how much it reduces the noise? Because tennis is not those kids are really good athletes. They don't play tennis like I play tennis and the noise level is definitely going to help.

We already hear them from where they are located currently, but now we're going to have tennis courts 130 feet from the houses. So that's one thing. The other thing is, I'm hearing there's not going to be an increase of traffic. So I'm questioning why do we need an increase of parking? Why do we need to take green area to put concrete flooring there, because there's no increase of traffic is not really a need of increase of parking.

And one thing that we really weighed in our particular area because we totally adjacent to Morningside is the speed the cars are coming into our street. So what we would like is for at least the city to maybe put some speed bump to kind of slow down the traffic. There's children walking to the academy, riding their bicycle. There's also a lot of senior citizens who walk the streets. And that's something that would be really, I think, important for the safety of the residents. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. I have a card here with a Krish T. Is T your last name?

No. No. Last name is Tyler.

Last name is? Tyler. Speak that into the record, please. Your full name.

Hello. I'm Krish Tala. I am 13 years old, and I've been staying at RPS Academies for three and a half years. I'm very grateful and proud to be an RPS member because ever since I came here, I have felt very welcomed and very, very, very felt like home. I'm coming from California alone, and I'm currently staying in the RPS dormitory. As soon as I came here, I was very.

Please silence your phones.

Well, I'm coming from California, and when I came here, I was very nervous at first. However, the RPS staff and students made me feel just like I was at home. The the tennis team and the RPS teachers are very welcoming and very helpful. I have feel like I have learned a lot academically and in my sport. Before I came here to RPS Academy, I wasn't very interested in tennis.

When I came, I saw a whole new version of this sport, and it changed my perspective on tennis and made me very passionate for this sport. Not only RPS teaching academics and their sport, it also teach maturity, discipline, hard work, and success. I feel this academy is very helpful and has made me improve all my life. This is the best three years I've ever had. Despite being away from my parents, they make me feel they make me feel like I am welcome and I belong. I'm very happy that I'm here and I that's my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. David Libs? David, did I get the last name right? Lib? B B? L I B D S. Welcome.

Welcome. Thank you, sir. My name is David Lipps. It's 2777 Southeast Lumoy, Port St. Lucie, Florida. I wanna thank all these guys for coming here because it shows a lot of character about what the school actually is. You know, I don't think anybody dislikes the school, they just wanna make sure it progresses properly. Anyway, I wanted to introduce this not because of what's going on but what may happen in the future. This is an old deed to the property that goes back to the original plat. Section 26 is an agreement that gives Sandpiper Bay Homeowners Association the ability to review projects and stuff like that.

I mean I couldn't find an ordinance that eliminates this, but I don't know why it didn't continue with the Excuse me. The deed itself.

Mister Libbs? Yes. Elizabeth, does that have any bearing on what we're doing here?

It does not, but in the future, it may.

I'm not familiar with the document, so

I can

submit it.

He can submit it and we can look at it and see but I'm not familiar with it so I can't open it Feel free to give

it to the city attorney. Thank you.

Okay, that's out there. So anyway, in the short term, traffic, those ITE codes, those negative things, man, we have so many negative cars running through Saint Lucie, Port Saint Lucie right now, it's crazy. So it's not the resort's fault, it's everybody's fault. I mean, that's resort moving down with one entrance coming on Morningside, or the schools on Morningside, the resorts on Pine Valley and then you got maybe perhaps assisted living facility with another negative 600 or so people coming in. I know that the plan itself was asking for a more detailed study on what was going to happen to Westmoreland on whether it can be widened or whether there was going to be a right turn lane at Port St.

Lucie in Westmoreland or if there was gonna be a left turn lane on The US 1 in Port St. Lucie. Anyway, that that just doesn't seem to be anywhere at this point. The IT traffic study doesn't seem to be all that complete. Now, with the reserve and the parking, the comprehensive plan requires a wildlife corridor between the preserved area and the upland space reserves.

If you put parking in there, there's a lot of protected animals there. We've got sand cranes, we've got alligators, we've got turtles, we've got all kinds of things. I know the gopher tortoise study is due to be done before construction starts, but if you wipe out that area between the mangroves all the way up to where the well now it's sanded, volleyball courts, you're gonna wipe out the wildlife corridor which is against the thing. I don't wanna see it not done, I just wanna see some place for the animals to go because there's a lot of protected animals back there that haven't been studied in the wildlife, study. In fact, I didn't see a wildlife study with that.

The property itself is also in an evacuation zone. I haven't seen a study by fire department yet on what's going to happen if that has to be evacuated and the only exit is going out Morningside, where are they going to go?

You want to wrap it up Mr. Lips?

Yeah. Water usage, 14,560 if we add more, are we going to pay more taxes for more? That's all. Thank you.

Thank

you. Thank you. The final common card I have here is Gabriel. If anyone else wishes to speak after Mr. Jaramillo, please fill out a comment card in the back and bring it forward to our clerk.

I wanna thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I wanna thank all our neighbors. I wanna thank also our staff, our teachers, our students. I am Gabe Jaramillo. I am the Founder and the CEO of RPS Academies. I'm very proud of it. Sixteen years ago, I was looking for a place to go. And we visited Osaka, Japan, Tokyo, Jakarta, Indonesia, and the list goes on. And they gave us very good opportunities to be there, but we chose Port St. Lucie.

And we chose Port St. Lucie because of the city and because of the neighbors. Florida is a beautiful state. It's perfect for sports. It's considered a mecca of sports not only in The United States but in the world. So it was a great opportunity for us to start here. We've been here fifteen years in this place. We started under kilometer academies fifteen years ago. And very few people know that we're there. You go around the city, they don't know we're there.

A lot of our neighbors didn't know that we exist. Just to show you that what we run is a very tight operation. It's really a boutique operation. We have four sports, tennis, golf, soccer, volleyball, like, you know, very proud of the students that came and spoke up. Now, at the same time, we have a very good school. Academically, we're very strong. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to provide for the students that come from basically 30 different countries. Something that they didn't tell you, but a lot of these students that spoke, they live right around the area. They go by bicycle. Most of our students are boarding students.

This tennis court that you saw that we had to build, you know, 20 more courts, you're gonna say because we're gonna need more students. No, it's because we're changing the schedule. Right now, the schedule is half and half to try to accommodate the students. Now we're doing basically school in the morning, sports in the afternoon, very new for us. It's an investment that we need to make, but it is because to benefit the students. Now, here where we are today, we're thinking big. We're thinking big in terms of we want to create a lot of champions. That's been my goal in my life. I've been a coach all my life. All I do is I make champions.

Today, in Australia, in the Australian Open, we have five players that came out of our place. Five. And when they're in Australia, they're representing their families, they're representing their countries, they're representing us, but they're also representing Port St. Lucie. They've taken Port St. Lucie to the world. They're becoming the best ambassadors for us, for our city. Time to go?

You got a few more seconds. Go ahead. Finish up your thoughts. Finish up your thoughts.

I wanted to say that we also we contribute a lot to the city, not only with taxes. We we hired the people, local local people. Our families spend in the restaurants, in the local in the area. So, we are big contributors to the city and we want to continue to be a big contributor to the

city.

I thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you, Mr. Jaime. Thank you. Okay. Claudia Molina?

Hi. So I'm a resident. I live a few houses away from the academy. I'm a parent of the academy, but I wanna talk as a homeowner. So I moved to the area because of the academy, and I was gonna be here for ten months. I rented a house for a few months in the area, and I fall in love with the community mostly. So we decided to invest not only a lot of money in education for three kids in the academy, but we decided to purchase a house in the area. And it's been amazing. Bad thing is right after we bought our house, Club Med shut down. And one of the reasons I love the area was the international community that was in the area mostly because of Club Med.

So, of course, I panic after buying a house and having Club Med shut and not knowing what was gonna happen to that to that piece of land.

Sir, sir, I'm gonna ask one more time. Sir, sir, please silence the phone. Thank you. Sorry, mister William. Please continue.

So, of course, I panicked after buying a house, staying here, and not knowing what's gonna happen to the area. My house faces a Cecil's house right into the proposed tennis courts. So I had an open recreation land in front of me, and I didn't know if it was gonna be sold and have new housing over there. For so for me, it's amazing that the resort will keep going and that the academy is willing to keep the land as open recreation. So and that's what I want for my property to be worth.

So we've been talking with the owner. I just recently talked to the owner. He wants us to work with Rebecca and Cecil who work to see if we can give more inputs. You know? We're his neighbors. He also has a house right by our house. But my main concern is that we are in your hands. So I think right now, all the neighbors were lucky that we're not changing open recreation land use. We're not asking to build houses or anything like that. If doesn't if this doesn't go right, then they may sell the land, and then we might be here talking to you about building houses, and we're adjusting your house.

So for now, I think the best option for us is for this to be successful and to work all together with the neighbors, and to have the best for this place. And I sincerely appreciate that it's open recreation. We're not building anything. And I guess that's it.

Thank you, Molina. Chris Chandler? Mr. Chandler?

Yes, I'm Chris Chandler. I'm President of the Tarpon Bay Moorings Homeowners Association. I guess my first complaint is until last Wednesday was the first time we heard anything about this project, and we are in one of the flood areas. So traffic is a big issue. If you look at West Worland, I mean, it needs to be repaved again already. You

think I I I I that's that's

with my that's dog and I running off the side of the road from that traffic coming in and out. The police go there at ten or eleven in the morning, go there at 04:00 in the afternoon or seven in the morning and try to do that. You've already approved the Revella project up on the corner of Morningside in Westmoreland. I mean, what's the impact of those 150 units with the sewer system and the traffic combined with what they're doing? It isn't.

I mean, anybody that lives in that neighborhood, if we had Druthers, we would close the Morningside gate to traffic. The kids want to ride bikes and do all that, That's great. Nobody's questioning the quality of the school or what's going on. It's the impact for the neighborhood. I'm second generation that has come here in this area, specifically in that neighborhood.

And it's changed a lot, but it's been quiet. But the utilities aren't keeping up. It floods on Pruitt And Mitchell because there's not enough drainage that goes on. And Westmoreland is so bad, you can't even get to the house when it rains in the summer. So somebody else mentioned that here, and it is an issue. Let's see. And in closing, I'd just like to say, why would you trust the company that cut down a thousand feet of mangroves on the river and destroyed that environment? I mean and you're you're talking they hear they're

telling you what they're

gonna Excuse me. Excuse me.

We're gonna keep decorum here today. Right.

So, anyway, I mean, it's traffic. It's water. It's utilities. You know, the noise factor, we're a little bit farther put up the fireworks and the noise over there for years from Club Med. But and what happens when ownership changes? When this company goes out just like the other investments of Port St. Lucie has made, the changes that you're making, what are we going to do? Are they going to put up a shopping center in there? You're comparing shopping centers to a quiet neighborhood? That's one of the original neighborhoods in Port St.

Lucie? It's a challenge. The school deserves to exist, but it also you need some additional support in there. Thank you.

Alright. Excuse me. Thank you. Sir, that's the third time. I'm gonna have you removed if you don't, don't turn it off. Thank you. Mr. James Slay? How do you pronounce your last name, sir? James? Yes. How do you pronounce your last name?

LEN. Just l e n.

L e n. Okay. James s LEN. Go right ahead, sir.

Okay.

I admire the young kids here. You know, they're all for their school and sports and stuff. They're not owners. Okay? They'll be here. They'll be gone. First point. Okay? Second of all, I agree with the watershed people that that are sitting here that get flooded out. I've been here thirty years, seen every storm, every hurricane.

Do you know how long the city took to fix my road temporarily? Calling for fourteen years. One time, I said my neighbor could have a heart attack, and even the ambulance people wouldn't come to my rescue. So now what about my property value? Do you guys live here?

No. We're we're not coming.

We just voted you in. Okay? We understand you worked for the planning department. Okay? It's probably your first deal. I don't see the, let's see, mayor. Right? Historically, for thirty years, we had to put up signs. The first year attempt to get this elevated, you didn't put a sign up. I called city hall, talked to missus Martin. See that? I'm on record. I'm on record for fourteen years. So now when the water leaves my road, it's gonna go right over your property. Did you know that?

If you hadn't done the survey, okay, that's where it's going. When this started fifteen years ago, I called the DNR. That's fair. I bought a house, and we have neighbors, which was Club Med. Okay? Didn't always agree with them, whatever. They sold. Okay? They sold because they didn't wanna pay their taxes. Your administration let them go for three years without paying their taxes. You wouldn't let me go three years without paying my taxes. So now I come back from vacation. I get seven days on your first announcement. Seven days. Okay?

I don't take my mail when I'm on vacation. Call the city. Finally, you put a sign up over here on the on the corner where nobody can see it. See that? Yeah. Now you give all your choice to the people who are gonna run this place. What about the owners? When I left my I'm gonna leave my house to my daughter. That's fair. Right? What's my house gonna be worth when you get done developing this whole place? Now this is only the first chance you ask for commercial. Okay? You're gonna ask it for the next piece of property. Are the kids gonna stand up for that?

Are they going to make announcements on

changing

That's the property my point.

And you. I think wrap up your comments.

A time label or at least a resident make announcements here because they've got the floor already.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

You. You.

Appreciate you, sir.

Appreciate you.

Marika Sexton. Sir, please, please, please. Thank you. Let's keep keep the decorum, folks. Thank you.

Hi. Good evening, everyone. My name is Marika Sexton. I am a Port St. Lucie resident. Just wanted to share my feedback. I am super excited about these potential upgrades. I also work over and support the resort side. I've seen some of the structures, and there's definitely a need for enhancements. And as a community member, I feel that this is really gonna add a lot in terms of amenity for our community.

I also wanna highlight that I've gotten to meet and know a lot of the student athletes and while they were talking about the school, many of them are community residents. Many of the families have bought homes within Sandpiper, so they definitely represent our community altogether. So I'm really grateful for this to potentially be happening, and I look forward as a resident to see it progress. So thank you for everyone's time.

Thank you for your time, miss Sexton. The last card I have is Mr. Renet. Tom Renet.

Okay. I just have a couple of things. I don't think I'm going make three minutes. But there's no new traffic. You guys aren't deceived by that. It's also the quality of traffic. I live on Morningside. When Club Med was there, the hub would come by. If you have no place to stay when you arrive at the end of Morningside and you are the hub, you clean rooms or something like that, you don't start until eight, you get there at 07:59. It could be really hot or 10:00.

It's really hot to sit and stand around. So I don't know if you can build some type of shaded area or air kitchen place where these people can wait. But if they start driving, taking Ubers and driving 50 miles an hour down Morningside, it's the quality of traffic. There's going be an increase in traffic, but also they're going to start racing again down my block because I wouldn't want it with fifteen minutes and 90 degree weather either. The second thing I want to say is on the plan, at least for now, I didn't see any pickleball or patel courts yet. Maybe that's in the future. I would also like to add about the mangroves that were cut down. Don't applaud. It's okay. Thank God we didn't have any hurricanes this year because I don't know what would happen there.

But when you do things, I think they need some I think they need to figure out planning why we have Manticore and things like that in different steps. And the heat is pretty awesome here. So I'm going to be hearing the sound of walls. I like I know Pete. Pickleball is very loud.

I'm glad it's in the middle. Now I like it's okay for the sound of tennis balls and pickleballs, kind of like I'm still athletic, but comes ten years down the line, I don't know I'm going to enjoy that noise anymore. So that's all. And some of us are here and I think we have fear for the future. You're here, we may trust you, you know, it's the next guys that come along. So the same thing for miss Miller, right? It's the next group that comes along that we're worried about. So and the last thing I'd like to say is, I'm glad the kids got up here and did some public speaking. That's not very easy to do. It's a great experience. Your kids did great. And that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. I have no other comment cards. Anybody else from the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, any final comments from the applicant?

Hi. I'd just like to just these are all our neighbors, and we actually have really, really great relationships with them. We have lots of opportunities to meet with them. I think that it's important to say a couple of things. One, the mangroves are something that came up early before prior to my time.

I do want to report back that it was under a different ownership group. And the last point on that is that we're working very closely with the environmental groups to restore all the mangroves. We have weekly and monthly monitoring of them and they are growing back, which is a really, really good thing because I agree with everything environmentally about mangroves that was stated before. So we have a monitoring company putting out and we're being monitored by the state as well. And so the mangroves are growing back.

So that's a beautiful thing. Regarding drainage issues on the site, we have a full civil engineering plan for this. In fact, we don't have a lot of flooding on our site. Fortunately, at this time, we do offer most impart me, the most pervious area within the Sandpiper PUD, the entire Sandpiper. So we are important part of the drainage requirements for our neighbors.

And I'm really happy that's another excellent reason why keeping it a recreational use is such a good thing rather than turning this into neighborhoods. So I think that's about it traffic wise, again, insular uses supporting an all inclusive resort where people come and park and use the resort, everything is there, their food, their beverages, their entertainment is all there, same thing for the kids. Many of them live there. And it is really meant and focused on creating more opportunities for the people that are there already. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Miller. With that, we're going to close the public hearing. And I will call for a motion, second and a discussion. Let's go with Pete first. Pete?

I wanna know if they meet the storm water requirements.

Is that Clyde? Excuse me a second.

Can we also just remember that currently we're in the comprehensive plan amendment?

Will come up. This will also come up.

You still have BUD item and we don't have a site plan before us yet.

The site plan will be coming before you later on towards the conclusion of these two applications that has the storm water review associated with it.

We do have some responses that are related to the comp plan. Ms. Groves can attest to the fact that there was an environmental review.

Yep, great. Was going ask that.

Yes, I'm not going go through the exhaustive list as they don't relate to this application before us right now. However, as part of a comprehensive plan amendment, we do have to look at environmental and traffic, and we did request that an environmental assessment be completed, which they completed of the resort property and the golf course property. And in short, the findings were on 12/11/2025, Maine Consulting Services, also known as MCS, conducted pedestrian transects across 100% of the property looking for a local, state, and federally listed endangered species present on the site. This survey included searching for the presence of gopher tortoise burrows or recent activity. It included the species listed below.

During the pedestrian transects of the property, no gopher tortoises activity was observed on-site. No listed plant species were observed on-site during the site visit. However, there were some listed animal species observed on-site. One I recall off the top of my head was there was osprey nesting, which after they nest, they will move from the site. The site investigation conducted by MCS did not find native upland habitat on this site.

That's all I have. Oh, and in terms of traffic, we do have a representative from public works here. However, we did look at it as the fact that the site is vested for a 100 slip marina, a 150 student count, and three thirty five resort rooms. And this is all ancillary use and accessory use, and therefore no additional trips are generated based off of that effect. And that is what our public work staff report finds.

Mr. Chair, where is that environmental study posted so that the residents can

The full report is posted in Fusion on the city's website. That is our application portal. You can view all documents posted. It would be on the comprehensive plan or the PUD application or both. I'm not sure off the top of my head. But you type in the P number for each application, you can see all the documents posted.

And diffusion.

In diffusion. Right.

And before I ask, Mayor, this application was duly noted to the public and advertised, correct?

That is correct. I selected the location for the signage, which is to be at the most apparent visible site is the guidance that we have per law in statute and code. I selected that the Public Works Division post all the signs for us at each entrance of the property, so two signs over the one required. And it was posted in the manner that was of adequate time per the code and statute advertising requirements.

Thank you. Any other questions for anyone? Comments? Anything? Entertaining motion. Mary, did you have something?

I just wanted to clarify for the board. There is a major site plan, major site plans go to city council. It wouldn't come back to the planning board.

It wouldn't come

back here.

Correct. And so the way the process will go is there's a comp plan amendment and a PUD amendment. And then the site plan follows that. And so the site plan won't go to city council until at least the second reading of the PUD.

And let me just before you say PUD, just remind the board, what we're voting on here tonight is to amend a future land use map to change this to CGI. Okay. That's what we're doing here.

Good. To address any of the public's comments, we wait till the next item. I have a list of things that I wanna talk about.

I would prefer that.

The PUD is the rezoning document and that talks about the sports fields and the setbacks and that authorizes what the site plan will show.

Great, thank you. We're here for just the amendment to the future land use map. Okay, so I entertain a motion.

I make a motion that we approve p two five one five seven.

We have a motion. Need a second? Is there a second?

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Move forward. We're moving on to item eight a. The eight a is a public hearing. It's a quasi judicial in nature. Everyone has been sworn in already. If anybody wishes to speak on this item and has not been sworn in, please stand now. Okay. Before we move forward, ex any ex parte communication, left or right, Pete?

I had a phone call and was supposed to set up a meeting, but they didn't come about.

Pete? Yes. I spoke to the applicant during the week.

I also spoke to MPLD Consulting.

None. I had phone calls, but

I wasn't able to meet up with them.

Okay. And also before we move forward, Elizabeth, is it okay if we place all the presentations as well as any of the comments in the public record for this item?

If that is a desire, yes.

Okay. We will just go we'll do that, Bethany.

Yes. That is the desire of planning on the applicant. However, the applicant would like to go over one slide.

And and if the public wishes to speak again, they

can Yes.

Okay. We are going to enter all the public comments into the record also that you made before into 8A. But if you wish to speak again on item 8A, you're welcome to come forward. Bethany?

Thank you. Mister chair, board members, Bethany Grubbs with the planning department. The item before you is quasi judicial and has been provided to the clerk at least five days prior to this meeting, and I have been sworn in. The application is Sandpiper Bay Resort. This is the planned unit development amendment number two application.

It's an application for the second amendment to the Sandpiper Bay Resort planned unit development, PUD. And the purpose is to amend the concept plan, update permitted uses, update property ownership and other miscellaneous changes. The agents are Keith and MPLD Consulting, and they are representing the applicant Altitude Property Co LLC. The property is located at 3500 Southeast Morningside Boulevard, generally located North of the North Fork Of The Saint Lucie River, South of Southeast Westmoreland Boulevard between the western terminus of Southeast Pine Valley Street and the eastern terminus of Southeast Morningside Boulevard. This slide is the bounds of the entire area represented under the PUD zoning district and guided by this regulation document that is being requested to be amended today.

There is no change to the golf course, which the northern parcel, above what we call the Bunny Ears, where you see there's over overlook in the center of the street. And the conceptual plan outlines all of the designated uses on the property, and any change to that has to come before you today as it as I am today. Here's a zoomed in version. Here we have the areas, the tennis and other sports court zone. In this area, I heard reference to pickleball and paddle, and that is also gonna be included in the sports courts general zone.

And then you have the soccer field zone. And then another topic of today's discussion was the special event parking that's currently sand volleyball courts. And then you have, of course, the resort down here, the existing dormitory, and the marina, just to name a few. The proposed PUD amendment represents the second modification to the regulation document for this development, formerly known as Club Med Sandpiper. The most touched on topics for this revision were revising the concept plan to reflect expanded sports courts areas as they move northern up the property, but on the Southern property still.

Updating the ownership information and regulatory documents now that the property ownership is owned by Altitude Property Co. Amending the permitted uses consistent with the removal of the commercial limited future land use designation. To elaborate to elaborate a little bit further on that, the resort area sits on CL land use currently. And under CL, we have, permitted uses allowed that's spelled out in the planned unit development document. Now that that's being eliminate eliminated, the uses are being reassigned to the commercial general slash I land use for consistency in the marina as well.

We're looking to add additional buffering requirements to ensure compatibility with the surrounding uses. Two buffer zones in particular are the we have the Western Berm along Morningside where there is a typical exhibit with a certain height requirement outlined in the planned unit development with additional plantings on top of that to make it a height of so many feet. And it spells out the requirements when they come in for site plan and development, what type of species of plantings we're looking for, which were helped being selected by our landscape architect to ensure the most noise attenuation. And then we have also on the Eastern property, we have Pine Valley, which along with the property, lined for the future parking area, we wanted an extra layer of protection at time of construction, whether it be vertical or horizontal, such as the parking lot, that there would be a trigger for an additional buffer there. It's a 50 foot buffer where the, 30 foot beep landscaping, which is in excess to standard codes 10.

So we're adding an additional buffer strip there. And then cleanup revisions for clarity and consistency, such as that right of way carryover. And the purpose is to align development standards with updated land goals to support school expansion and enhanced sports offerings. Staff finds that the plan conforms with the comprehensive plan's policy one point one point four point thirteen. The PUD zoning is compatible with the general commercial and institutional uses, and it the consistency updates PUD documentation to match the actual built environment and ensures regulatory compliance for future reviews and permitting reviews.

This amendment ensures compatibility by aligning PUD standards with adopted policies supporting both the uses of the institutional academy and resort functions and its consistency with the comprehensive comprehensive plan policy one point one point four point two supports resort uses under the CG land use, and one point one point four point four supports schools and accessory uses under institutional land use. When reviewing the traffic, a traffic study was prepared, a traffic impact statement and future land use amendment traffic analysis report were prepared to support the proposed 335 room resort hotel relevant parcel to the relevant parcels for Sandpiper Bay Resort and RPS Academy. The report was rep was prepared by Kittleson and Associates and was up and then and has been reviewed and updated. Sorry. It was prepared by Simmons and White and reviewed by the city's third party peer reviewer, Piddleton and Associates, and is dated 11/13/2025 and later revised through staff review and comment 01/06/2026.

The staff analysis does not reflect new trips by this school, and as a result, no additional analysis is required. The conclusions address the day to day operations for the resort and the school that are existing and entitled, and this traffic review gives us a base to the walk up in the future for review. The planning and zoning department staff finds the petition to be consistent with the intent and the direction of the city's comprehensive plan and recommends approval with the following condition. The applicant will enter into into a revocable encroachment agreement prior to the site plan approval. I just wanted to make one comment.

There was talks about lighting. We do have built into this document. One additional change was the fact that they have to have a photometric plan at time of field construction, and that's another notable change. And we are requiring dark sky lighting and also that lighting be turned off within an hour after any kind of game, match, or practice training. That concludes my presentation. The applicant does want to present one slot.

Before you go, question? I do.

Though we did an extensive analysis because we understand there's concerns with parking. And while it might not be needed today, you know, you cannot park in a city's road right away. That is a code violation. So we wanted to protect the residents by building in extensive traffic conditions that will be reviewed at time of site plan. And basically, in short, if there is any overflow parking spilling over into the right of way, there's a trigger that within three months plans for that overflow parking lot represented on the plan will come in to us for review, and it shall be constructed within nine months.

So there's a twelve month window for review and construction. Once it is identified, whether it be through code compliance complaints or the applicant feels that they're ready to build the parking lot, there is a trigger for that. Anything else that

you could think of?

Pete, do have a question?

Yeah, Bethany, can you go to the second to last slide?

This one? Traffic.

Let me go. I think it's the one before that. Was something that says about the requirement of parking I mean, of a traffic study. Okay. It wasn't required. Go go where

It was required, and it was reviewed. However, believe your third bullet that you're

looking at?

Yeah. So I can you explain that?

I will make an attempt, and my our public works staff want

We we got him

up here. So he Otherwise, he's been waiting all night.

He's itching.

He needs to earn his pay. Get up here.

Evening. Clive Cuffey, Public Works. So yeah, the traffic study is required and was provided. And the traffic study basically stated that based on the existing uses, which they exist, there's no change in the traffic from what the resort and school is right now, there'll be no changes.

Okay. So based on what's planned, there's no change so that therefore it doesn't warrant a new traffic study? Okay.

We did have an independent traffic reviewer review that.

Okay. And I just want the public to know if you want to see all these documents that we see, just go to the agendaon.com and find this agenda item and there's a lot of documentation there. So that's helpful.

May I also wanted to expand on the fact that you heard a lot of concerns about the fact that how can there be no traffic being generated? It's all ancillary, it's not ancillary, there's new buildings. To speak to that, under the proposal, one building that currently has the schooling and gymnasium is being demolished and it's being rebuilt, and so it's essentially a replacement building. And also, if there are ever expanded events that want to be hosted by the school, then we are requesting that they submit an updated traffic study that reflects the extra trips that would be generated from such.

Just a point of clarification, the PED does say, it lays out what events they're having and the applicant can explain a little how the resort works closely with the school. But we did put a proviso in there that if in the future we heard a customer say, well, what if they have audiences coming to watch games? There's a provision in the PD that says, if in the future they want to start expanding their special events, they'll have to update their operations and management plan, which is a piece of the traffic study. And so that's how we'll make sure that if they decide to change what they're doing, we'll make sure that any impact is mitigated or addressed.

And you can find the language for that on, I believe it's page 25 of the planned unit development document. And it speaks to resort functions, which are more of the weddings and conferences versus school events.

Bethany, can you explain the revocable encroachment agreement? What does that mean? Kai?

I can explain it. The revocable encroachment is basically there's a portion of the proposal that's going to be constructed within a city easement, and it's just permission. It's a parking lot, I think a couple spaces in the parking lot. So in the event in the future the city needs that area, we have permission to remove it.

Okay.

Just one point of clarification. There's existing encroachments in our right of way that are de minimis. And so as a result, they're doing this agreement that just basically says if in the future the city needs to remove them, there's a couple of fence posts and some landscaping, a couple of parking spaces that we could. So this is just a de minimis thing, but it's a legal lease thing that we need to get into place. And so until we have that finalized, we won't be bringing forward the site plan to City Council.

Any other questions for staff? Seeing none, Ms. Miller, you had something you wanted to present?

Thanks. I just I didn't know if you wanted me to go through that one slide that kind of reviewed this is your yeah. Thank you.

Because it's quasi judicial, we had to separate them.

That one slide. No, it's further up here.

All right here. Oops, let me

go back up. It referenced the distances. And so I just wanted to know what if you felt you needed the clarification of the distances from the local neighbors. So I did include that on this slide. And we have from the northwest corner of our tennis courts, the closest neighbor is two thirty four feet away. And from the closest neighbor on the bottom, so that would be the South West corner of the site is 123 feet. So that is the closest existing neighbors to our new construction or new development of courts.

Is that where you're putting buffers?

Sorry?

Is that where you're the buffer?

And that's where we're putting the buffer. See, all along that Western quarter where all those new that you see four courts there, four sets of two, all along that is in the right up against the courts. So I wanted to put the buffer fairly close to the courts, that our neighbors still have a kind of a nice big field and pretty view and they see off in the distance will be this nice berm with the tree. So, it's not we're not putting it along our property line, which is would give them a shortened view. So we're trying to keep their view broad and large, and also that also cuts down tremendously on noise.

We had a full environmental study, a full traffic analysis. And so all of that combined, I think brought us to a really good point with everyone here and I know that we're very aware of our neighbors and we'll listen very closely in the future.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant?

Yes. So if there was a noise issue, you could put noise absorption on the left fence there.

We have 120 feet to put more jungles if you would like. So to this day, plants are still the best noise filter.

So

if our current buffer situation where our buffer, the berm will be five feet in height. And so all of the noise is at ground level. And so the way that noise travels that will cut off most of it. And then on top of that berm is going to be a very heavily planted landscape buffer. So hopefully with that, we'll wait for feedback. If we find that we need additional buffering, we will. Simple as that.

And the lighting situation is what now for those courts? Because I think that's the only area we're lighting or maybe by the

Yeah. So if you look at is that still up on the screen, the the site plan with improvements? Okay. So along that center quarter, I'm not lighting, we're not lighting these outward courts that are closest to the neighbors. Nope. We're lighting the inner the inner courts.

Got it. Okay. Great.

Thank you. Further away. Yes. Great.

Yep. Again, keeping in mind our neighbors.

Great. Thank you,

You're very welcome.

Questions for Ms. Miller? None. Seeing none. This is a public hearing. Now just a reminder, everyone who spoke before, all your comments will be entered into the record for this item as well. If you'd like, you can come forward and speak again. Please come forward. Yes,

I'm Jim Wen. On the second portion that you're highlighting all the way through, okay, three thirty five units And you're okaying that today? The possibility of 350 units on the second second section behind my house?

Okay. We're not gonna have a rebuttal right now, but go ahead and Okay. Make your

But anyways, what your what your highlights aren't showing, if you're gonna make a judgment on using all that land, that guy's got a lot of bucks in it. He's got the he's got the right to use it. Okay? But your your flow of water is wrong. Every street that's on this golf course floods into the golf course.

That means that every ounce of water on the street has to be on the rain gauge when you use this property. So all your authorities here are looking at the the drain holes that are on this property. It's a split section. The second vote is for everything, which would include not fixing that water problem, the way I see it. You see what I mean?

So I have a little tag on the drain that's in front of my house. It says save the environment. Okay? And when the person who did the survey for this whole area had no idea that the watershed for the second section, which has a different a different tax number or whatever, floods into the golf course. So I'm saying that your watershed and water control is not complete for both of them because that water is gonna come right over this area right here.

And you're taking care of that little pond that's there, and that used to be a a tennis court next to it. That's where the water comes. See what I mean? And you didn't say that you had a permit to to offshed the water from that property into the North Channel. That's a federal permit. That isn't a city permit. That's a federal permit. So the lady who talked about that road flooding, that's the start of the water coming right over this area, right over the main area where it is. And it goes down Morningside. Right?

And I don't know that you're gonna get a new permit to to take all that water off the golf course with a 335 room hotel. And then what is the size of that hotel? How tall is that hotel? It's not on the paper. See my point? Yeah. So basically, we're gonna give you a nice recreational area here. And you didn't do a stir a survey for the 335 room hotel. Well, what what's up? You didn't do a survey for the four lane expansion.

Finish your comments.

You see what I mean? You didn't do the four lane expansion on Westmoreland. Did you do it think that the Morningside in Westmoreland is going to have a traffic light turn now?

Thank you.

You for

your time. It. Thank you.

Remember that. Appreciate your time. Okay. Mr. Richard Cameron.

And as he's coming down, Bethany, we're not building another three thirty five unit building, are we?

We are not building another three thirty five units. That's what exists today and has been renovated or is under renovation under phase one and maybe two. I was gonna say that the height now is 35 feet. The PUD does allow for 75 feet, and that is citywide except for the CRA boundaries, which is not, which is allowed up to 120 feet. They are meeting the requirements that if they did build anything in excess of 35 feet, such as the student union building, which is proposed on the concept plan, they have to submit renderings and elevations, which they did, and it's an exhibit in the planned unit development document.

But there is no height expansion proposed. In fact, I believe the buildings are already complete. However, this is a PUD. The uses in there are so specific to resort, and it only applies to those structures at this time.

So there's no new structure going up?

There's no new structure. And I do wanna add, there's a difference between density and intensity. Commercial, general, and institutional does not allow any density, so no dwelling units are proposed, but intensity of the site is governed by the maximum setbacks allowed, storm water coverage, what basically you could fit with the parameters of code requirements. Alright.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Just again, there's no new residential construction going on here. Right?

No. There's no density assigned with any of the land uses.

Thank you. Mister Cameron?

Thank you so much. I live on Monte Vista. I've been there for twenty years, long term resident. Look, we're not against economic development. It's economic development with accountability. Now, I'm here to look. This is the same company that hacked down all those mangroves. This is the same company during their remodeling. Every day, I go up and down Pine Valley. And during their remodeling, my god, trucks were zooming down forty, fifty miles per hour.

Some of them were unlicensed contractors moving debris that was spewed all over Pine Valley. There's still debris on Pine Valley from their remodeling. Wood paneling, Styrofoam, trash. When I tried to approach the superintendent in a congenial manner and say, hey. You know, could you talk to your truck guys and tell them to slow down a little bit on Pine Valley and and put a cover over the top of their things? The guy wouldn't even talk to me. He's 20 feet away from me. So I had the security guy escort me off the property, and I was congenial. Let me give you another example. They had some sort of cement trucks for pouring whatever slab or whatever.

And I jog on Pine Valley every day. Cement trucks cruising down, going right down to the canal that's right at the the opening there, washing all their chemicals and debris into the into the canal. Again, I tried to approach the super on the job and say, what's going on? Wouldn't even talk to me. I called the city, and this and to their credit, the city came out and met me at the canal, and I said, this is what's happening.

Within two minutes, a cement truck came running down right in front of us, and young guy got out of the cab, waved to us, and just started washing chemicals and debris and everything in the into the canal where with with turtles and fish and everything else. The the fact that they wouldn't even talk to us. You know? And, again, I tried to say, you know, these are the things that are happening here. Wouldn't even wouldn't give us a time of day.

And this went on for months. Finally, I got in my truck and went around and picked up all the stuff myself and took it to the dump. You know, it it it's it's we're not against economic development, but we want it done with accountability, with licensed contractors, and with you know, I don't I don't wanna worry about getting hit by some construction truck going 50 miles an hour down Pine Valley. Are are you with me on this so far? I and that again, you know, I support you guys. I support the city, and I support even the, you know, the people that are. But I'm telling you, this is what happened. And that was just remodeling. What's gonna happen when they start doing major construction? So that's why I'm here, and that's what I'm just trying to let you know.

It's it's, you know, we support economic, but maybe if there could be an advisory committee where the neighbors could bring concerns, some sort of a place to to express what's happening because they darn sure weren't listening to me. I mean, it was rude and disrespectful. And this super was sitting right there, you know, 20 feet away to talk to me. But that's why I'm here, folks.

Thank you.

Thanks, mister Karen.

Thank you. Duly noted. Anyone else from the public wish to speak on this item? Anything else from the applicant or the

We one more.

Somebody want to come forward?

Already have a card on him.

Yep. David. Excuse me one second, David. Mister Cameron, can you guys take that outside?

Thank

you, Mr. Cameron. David?

Alright. David Lips. Hey. Just a couple of things. Rebecca, for the the berm. Yeah. Can you please not put Eureka palms on there? I know the plant itself says Eureka palms. Those things attract rats. They shed, they're nasty, they're not usually

You talk into the microphone.

Oh, yes. I believe one of the plants, of the 56 a one, two, three, four, five, whatever has, the berm has, Eureka palms on top of it. I don't think that's that meets code. I know there's some better ones that will probably be used. On fusion, one of the reports, the traffic reports or public works says that there needs to be improvements to the roads to increase the traffic.

Now it doesn't say what they are and it's not specifically meant to the resort itself or the school, but is it possible to find out in the future what those changes may be because I know all of Sandpiper Bay is on edge because they wanna know whether or not the roads are gonna be widened. Like I said before, these ITEs of negative traffic, they are adding up. Okay. And then on fusion, I couldn't see the list of endangered species, I guess they were there, but in fusion not everything posts as timely as it should be. Like I said again, for somebody that the deed has a clause in it, the old deed that said the Sandpiper Bay Homeowners Association was supposed to be reviewed, that's something they go to legal, I'm sure it's nothing we can address here.

And I'm trying to find out if the schools address the pickup and drop off locations yet for the kids because coming down Morningside, are they gonna be able to drop them off there and turn around? Is there gonna be a long line of traffic waiting to drop off kids? There's not that many so it shouldn't be, but it's something to worry about. And then evacuation for the kids, if there's something that's going on there, is there an evacuation plan because I have not seen one under fusion or any other projects for that. So that would probably be something to look at, especially since it's in any, priority eight or the highest priority zone for evacuation.

So they're not going to be allowed to stay at the school, they're going to have to evacuate somewhere, where would they go? Morningside Academy probably, I don't know. Then again, she's already addressed the berm height, I wish it would go up to six feet not five because it does get a little bit more sound protection to it, extra foot means a lot and the light, the dark light is a great thing. I think that was a wise move by the city. But I mean, I review these things all the time. I can't find out much more to go into because these planners are good. They're doing the best that they can do. I would say those are the questions I believe that are coming up.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Nam, come forward if you'd like speak again. State your name for the record.

Cecile Reyna. I just want to talk about traffic because I understand no study, but the importance is I used to be a member of Clement, so I know this place. I lived there five years during time, so very familiar what it is. Clement was a very different result than what the resort is happening. Clement people were coming from all over the world. They were picked up by Clemente at the airport. They did not come with a car. They stayed at the resort, didn't leave the resort until the last day and they were bused back. This is a very different type of resort. The other thing Clemente had what they call GEO, which was the employees, and they were they slipped on the premises in actually the building where the students are going to be living in.

So there was no traffic either because those people did not have a car. So the study of traffic is going to be a very different traffic actually and we need to take that into consideration. One other thing, I understand we need traffic, everybody has we need parking, everybody has a car, but what I would like to maybe as a developer, if you can think of way to make instead of doing concrete parking, we could have grassy thing where Colomay used to have the overflow parking where people would park on grass. There's different ways to do that where you can actually park safely on grass where they put some I don't know what's the exact name, it's like slab of concrete, but they sell grass. Thinking of a way to be more environmentally and also less intrusive to the site.

So fields remains nature what we have basically. And that's why I would like to try to think a little bit differently how we do things in this town instead of always pouring concrete everywhere. Let's keep nature. Let's keep St. Piper beautiful like what we have. It's a green area. That's why everybody love it. And let's try to do put our mind into designing something that's beautiful. Thank you.

Thank you, Serena. Mr. Lips here. I think the applicant heard you loud and clear. Any other members of the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, I'm going to close the public hearing and again remind everyone we're working on the PUD here. Any questions of staff or the applicant?

I have some questions. So can we get some definitive information about the ownership of the property and who cut down the mangroves and what that situation was because there seems to be some discrepancy on that. What's the

deal there? Public here, now?

I'm asking

you Yeah, question, when that occurred, the developer, the primary investor in the resort was STORE Capital. And they hired along with Phoenix, the lease or hired some folks that came in and did that. It was very unfortunate. It was prior to my time there. I read about it just like everyone else did.

And to the credit though, of the resort operations team, they immediately we were fined, that group was fined by fishing, the environmental resource, ERP and fishing game and all sorts of other things. And under that agreement was an agreement to have this mitigating firm that would control that waterscape. And so essentially would be coming out and doing the monitoring of it. And so they're required to come. So they had a very large planting.

Actually, it was really pretty cool event where they had a lot of volunteers, environmental volunteers come in. They had a big planting party. This was two years, a year and a half ago. And they planted that entire section, then every month they mitigate. So for instance, if we have really bad weather, when things were just taking, some of them floated away, some of them didn't make it, they came in and planted more.

Now they have a nice strangle, there's mangroves that are three feet high that are growing and we are passing every mitigation month inspections. So that is kind of how that came to be. So as far as the group that was involved with it, it was a contractor out of Philadelphia and or the Pennsylvania area who came down who wasn't aware of environmental regulations. And I heard the story that they were told that they could cut to six and they interpreted that as six inches instead of six feet. So I've heard a lot of different stories, but I can't speak more to that as I wasn't in the room.

Since then, STORE Capital was bought out by the current ownership group. And that is the group that now is the primary investor in the resort and in the school. And they're investing a lot of money in our local economy. We haven't talked so much about we've talked kind of about the insularness, because we don't want to talk about traffic, right? We don't want to talk about other people coming here.

But the fact of the matter is this resort is an economic engine for the city of Port St. Lucie, it's the highest tax revenue stream for the city, if it's fully operational. It's been the doors were closed up until very recently, they had a soft opening in December. They're about ready to come on board in another month or so. And so once that engine starts again, that really does allow good things in the future for the Sandpiper community, because from that tax revenue comes the ability to be able to perhaps I'm hearing a lot about roads, I'm hearing a lot about drainage issues, but those kinds of economic dollars certainly help coming into the infrastructure coffers.

Is it possible with this development that you can mitigate drainage? I mean

We have so on our site, we have drainage ponds, in addition to dry retention areas. So for the new development that we have going in, we have quite a large area of dry retention areas. In addition to our control structure pond that is directly in front of the V shaped building. Let's see if you see at the bottom of the screen, what I have up, that's the dormitory, the old building. I don't have that like broken out for you because it wasn't a part of this.

But that control structure, there was a pipe leading from that that's now been fully repaired. There was some leakage, so that would be for our on-site drainage issues. But they we did find some erosion and some differences. So that will really help because all of the ponds actually drain into that control structure and then go out to the river system. So as far as our on-site drainage, keeping in in we're actually since coming through and doing this, we've actually in some respects reduced our pervious impacts on the site.

We've brought in a lot more landscape, we've taken out some areas that used to be cement areas, dug up areas, the original parking lots that are there remain, but the whole inland areas we've converted into landscaped areas to create a much more environmentally beautiful area to come and stay. So in our last PUD amendment when we came in, we actually had a net decrease in drainage requirements on the site. So keeping in mind parking lots, things like that, stabilized surfaces for overflow parking in the future, 's a lot of things that we can be looking at. I know that there was some concern about us taking over OSP areas, preservation areas for parking. There is absolutely no intent to do that.

The areas that we are utilizing for parking, the one that's currently in this plan is already developed. It's just it's been developed and there's a lot of buildings already on it that were trailers put on pads on the ground, electrical resources and different things like that. So I think that from an ownership perspective, we have an angel who's willing to come in and invest this heavily with the school, because they believe in creating a synergy for these kids that is incredible, and an opportunity for our local kids. This isn't just for kids from far away. But I don't know about you, but when I started to work here living Port St.

Lucie for fourteen years, I did not know about RPS Academy. So I wished I did. So now that we're able to really get the word out and really understand the opportunities for our local kids are greatly increased with this visibility and the ability to add more tennis courts means that they can train more people at once on those tennis courts, which is great. So I just think that this is a special place. This is a very special environment. And we should be shouting from the rooftops about what's happening here, because it's really phenomenal.

Any other questions, Miss Miller?

Yes. What kind of rules or restrictions can you put on the contractors? Because I don't think there's an excuse for having garbage around or the area not being cleaned up. If you go through developments in residential, I believe they're required at the end of the day to clean up everything. You can't just leave garbage around. So I don't know

if

Right.

If what that think I can speak to that and I actually flagged him because I would I wanted to Okay.

I'd like I'd like to hear some

Because yeah, because that I believe was happening under the previous watch. So we have

Watch was really bad.

Was bad. Yeah. It was bad. I arrived at I inherited a mess. So I we have licensed contractors, area regional, regionally well known contractors that are doing the work now. Where OSHA mandated, we're under permits, I think that the care that they're taking, if they're not taking care, that's why I wanted to hear it because they will be Those concerns would be voiced.

Challenge with contractors though, is that you could hire a licensed contractors and the subs don't need to become

so that's a concern.

How do you you know, what do you do there? Because you've got

Yeah, this is the first I've heard of mobilization, our construction mobilization having any issues. So we've actually gotten, I don't think a single complaint from the neighborhood since we started our construction.

So essentially, what the gentleman's talked about was previous.

I think so. I hope so.

And you're very hopeful and you're telling

Let me assist you.

Go

ahead. You'll get with mister Cameron after this.

Absolutely. Absolutely. He indicated about two years and we've only been under construction for eight

I just want the residents now to know that what was stated is not what we should expect.

Absolutely, and to open it up if there is any issue moving forward, the city has permission to give my cell number out.

I mean, I think based on what we heard from the students, and I think most of the residents are not against what you're doing. They just want some assurances that things They do,

and that's fair.

And

animals, drainage, garbage, traffic, maybe there can be traffic calming. I mean, I would be concerned if trucks are barreling down the road.

That's all fair.

It sounds like you've got a good handle on.

Yep, it's all very fair. They're our neighbors. They have every right to come up and speak to us.

And I guess we can expect again you to keep your pulse on the ground.

Absolutely. Residents throughout the entire development. I'm on board for the entire project.

Any other questions for miss Miller? With that, we will call for a motion with the condition.

I'll make a motion that we approve P 2 5158 Sandpiper Bay Resort with condition. Amendment two.

Second.

What's

with the condition of

With the condition.

Of staff.

The condition is revocable, right?

Mean, that a revocable encroachment agreement be executed prior to the approval of the site plan.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Thank you.

Thank you. Any new business, Mary? No, sir. Any old business?

I just wanna thank the residents for coming tonight. So we we'd love to see you more often. So come and visit us because a lot of times we're very lonely.

And to the students, congratulations. Yeah. Very well done. And with that, we're adjourned.