Planning and Zoning Board - Regular Meeting

SLU improvement project and E8 canal upgrades will also expand capacity, enhance treatment, and reduce flood risks across the watershed. Together, these projects form a long-term strategy to keep Port St. Lucie safer and more resilient. From the culvert replacement program to system-wide enhancements,

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the City of Port St. Lucie Planning and Zoning Board Meeting of Tuesday, August 4th, 2026. It is 6.01 p.m. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Ms. Massarino? Here. Mr. Rosen?

Here.

Mr. Akanis?

Yes, ma'am.

Chair Norton?

Here.

Vice Chair Pettibon?

Here.

Mr. Webb?

Here.

Mr. Spatara?

Here. Okay, we do have a quorum. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. First item on the agenda is approval of the minutes. Minutes were sent out. I have a motion to approve. So moved. I have a motion to approve by Mr. Rosen.

Second.

Seconded by Mr. Webb. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, minutes, nothing on the consent. We have item seven, which is a public hearing, non-quadjudicial in nature. Excuse me. All right, we're going to open up the hearing and ask the staff planner to make the presentation.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board, Bethany Grubbs for the record with the planning department. The application before you is a city-initiated comprehensive plan amendment entitled Commerce Center North. This is a request for a small-scale land use map amendment to change the future land use designation of approximately 2.74 acres, which is two parcels that you'll see in the presentation, from recreation open space to conservation open space. The city is the applicant and the property is located off of Commerce Center Drive, southeast of Glades Cut-Off Road and west of I-95. Here you have the two properties that are the subject of this request, which are surrounded by other industrial park properties and also open space properties. We have these two that we acquired by tax deed sale and by HOA, from the HOA ownership of the PGA Village. And they would complete the surrounding property, which is the overall Commerce Center drive north that is approximately 94 acres. And this area is part of what we have our conservation lands and acquisition management plan. And it's identified for a future passive recreation site, such as hiking trails. And one of these parcels here off Commerce Center Drive would be the access to the site. But this land use change would ensure that the property remains conservation in perpetuity. Here you see it's compatible with the open space recreation surrounding the property. And again, this would be an overall added property total to this 94 acres that was already preserved in the 2009 plan. Again, the request is to amend the future land use designation for the two properties totaling 2.74 acres from open space recreation. to open space conservation. The difference between the two land use are the compatible zonings that would go with them. Open space recreation allows for golf courses and other higher intensity open space uses, and open space conservation is more passive. This adds to the existing 94 acre OSC property and will allow passive recreation, hiking, biking, fishing and nature observation, which is all called out in the management plan from 2015. This just touches on the difference between open space and conservation and recreation. Open Space Recreation, again, is more geared towards parks and golf courses. And then Policy 5.2.5.2 implements guidelines and recommendations in the adopted City of Port St. Lucie's Conservation Lands Management and Acquisition Plan to allow for the purchase and management of the preservation areas in the city. So this is justified by, again, citing the Comprehensive Plan Policy, which SUPPORTS THIS REQUEST. ALL PUBLIC FACILITIES INCLUDING WATER, WASTEWATER, SOLID WASTE, PARKS, TRANSPORTATION, POLICE AND FIRE SERVICES ARE SUFFICIENT IN CAPACITY TO SUPPORT THE LAND USE MAP AMENDMENT. THE SITE DOES CONTAIN WETLANDS and two retention ponds that were originally excavated as borrow pits during the I-95 construction. Currently, the city is removing all the invasive vegetation from the site, and it will be restored with native plant communities and maintained in the natural condition. And the area is not in a floodplain in floodplain X. The planning and zoning department staff finds the petition consistent with the intent and direction of the comprehensive plan and recommends approval. the planning and zoning board may recommend approval to city council, recommend approval to city council with conditions, motion to recommend denial to city council. That concludes my presentation. Thank you. I'm here for any questions.

And the city is both the applicant as well, correct? Yes. Any questions from the board? Members of the board? No questions? Seeing no questions. This is a public hearing. Members of the public wish to speak on the item? Seeing none. Closed public hearing. And any further questions or questions?

No, thank you.

I'll entertain a motion.

In conversation, I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion to approve project number P26-096.

I'll second it. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we are on item eight, public hearing, quasi-judicial in nature, 8A and 8B are quasi-judicial in nature, and we'll ask our city attorney to outline the procedures.

Both items listed under section eight of the agenda tonight are quasi-judicial in nature. This is when the board steps outside of its legislative policy making rule and instead applies existing policy to the backs of each application that comes before the board. Additionally, each board member will disclose whether they had any ex parte communications on these items prior to the item going forward. And anyone who wishes to speak on this item Please rise so you can be sworn in by the clerk. And if there's anyone on Zoom, which I don't think there is Zoom, turn your camera on.

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

Yes.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Members of the board, please, from left to right, any ex parte communication? None. none, none, none, none, none.

Okay.

Uh, it's the public hearing. Open up the public hearing. Bethany.

Mr. Chairman, members of the board, Bethany Grubbs for the record. I have been sworn in and the official file has been provided at least five days prior to this meeting to the clerk. This application is entitled Verano South pod G it's the fourth amendment to the planned unit development document. THE PURPOSE OF THIS REQUEST IS TO UPDATE THE PERMITTED AND SPECIAL EXCEPTION USES TO BE CONSISTENT WITH THE ALLOWED USES OF THE GENERAL COMMERCIAL ZONING DISTRICT. The applicant is Kotler & Heery and the property owner is Verano Development LLC. The property is located within the Verano Development of Regional Impact, also known as DRI, south of the C-24 canal, east of Glades Cut-Off Road, west of I-95, and north of Crosstown Parkway. The purpose of this request is while you have the entire PUD, it's to accommodate This area here is the commercial land that previously had a land use amendment. And it is now, as you see in the little snippet, general commercial. The remainder of the site outlined in yellow remains residential golf course. And this is 8.03 acres of the entire site. The property is within the Verano PODG PUD, which is generally RGC land use. And here you can see, again, the amendment is specific to this CG little corner. Verona South PODG consists of 1,181 acres within the larger DRI. And this is the Fourth Amendment requesting uses compatible with the general commercial land use for the 8.03 area of the site. And the purpose is to align uses with the intensity that are compatible with the general commercial zoning district, where before it was more neighborhood commercial uses. And then also with that, you have to update the site information chart to reflect the CG land use, and you have to update the permitted uses outlined in special exceptions in the entire document. And also, there are revised development standards included regarding signage, drive-throughs, and lot coverage. The application is consistent with goal 1.1 to provide an appropriate mix of land uses which meets the needs for the current and future residents of Port St. Lucie in a way that's environmentally acceptable and developed concurrent with needed facilities and services. And the Planning and Zoning Department staff does find the petition to be consistent with the intent and direction of the Comprehensive Plan and recommends approval The board does have the following actions to recommend approval to the city council, recommend approval with conditions, or to recommend denial to the city council. That concludes my presentation. The applicant does have a presentation. Do you have any questions for me?

Any questions for staff?

Thank you.

Good evening, Board, Chair. For the record, Pete Hoffines with Cutler & Herring Land Planner for the project. I want to thank staff for a good presentation, so I'll be quick and brief this evening. Let's see if I have it on the mouse. There we go. Just the project team there listed with everybody you can see. Again, just to outline the request, really this is our companion item to the land use amendment that we were here a few months ago that was approved by City Council to bring the PUD into compliance and consistent with that general commercial land use. Here's the PUD document that Bethany was referring to. You can see as we update things, we've got to cross out a lot and underline and bring it into consistency. What I just want to point out here that we're just referring to the city's code for general commercial uses. All special exceptions and accessory uses remain as regulated by the code. Brief project history. Verano was part of the PGA Village DRI approved back in 2003. Many of the board know that. Pod G was approved back in 2018. It did include this eight-acre site as a commercial designation on its PUD plan. And then we had our previous small-scale amendment. I thought it would be good to provide some context for the board of where we are in the city in case there's some new members. We've got Verano up there. on the northwestern edge of the city. And then under there, we've got Western Grove and Tradition and then Southern Grove back there. And so you can see where our site is right there with the yellow star. Zooming in just a little bit to give you some more context on the Verano DRI. We've outlined each of the individual pods there in a different shade. Pod G is one of our bigger pods at over 1,100 acres and features over 2,000 residential units. So this will be able to provide a lot of commercial services to those residents. We actually have just over 2,300 units that have been built in Murano to date. Again, this is getting down a little bit more to Pod G outlined there in yellow with our commercial site in red and the white stripe. and then zooming in a little bit further down so you can see the site there on the corner of Southwest, Verano Parkway and Crosstown. Again, this is just for the board's reference, the RGC future land use. I thought it would be good to provide just a little bit of context of the Verano DRI. This is Map H. It's a required DRI map that was relatively the same in 2011 as it was in 2003. And what I've identified there in yellow ARE THE ORIGINAL AREAS THAT WERE ANTICIPATED TO BE COMMERCIAL MIXED USE. AND SO OBVIOUSLY AS DEVELOPMENT GOES THROUGH THE COURSES OF THE YEARS AND DEVELOPMENTS COME ONLINE, THOSE GET MODIFIED A LITTLE BIT, BUT WE ARE KEEPING WITH THE ORIGINAL INTENT OF THE DRI APPROVAL. Again, as it moved forward in 2017, they actually did another amendment to regulate a lot of the uses down to the PUD level. So that was another amendment that was done. And then just here again, to provide that evidence of consistency, you can see here in our phasing and project schedule, that's part of the overall DRI, the retail service and office square footages that were originally approved. Those add up to just north of 800,000 square feet. I can tell you though that we only have two commercial sites in Verano and we're not going to be anywhere near 800,000 square feet. We'll probably be far less than 200,000 square feet. Again, just the surrounding properties that staff went over for consistency and the zoning. In summary, this is a companion amendment to the land use for compatibility with the PUD. It's an appropriate location and compatible, consistent with our DRI approval. There's no impacts to transportation or public facilities. Actually, we'll be reducing those impacts with this. And that's the request tonight. Can they answer any questions from the question board?

MEMBERS OF THE BOARD HAVE QUESTIONS?

ERIC? DOES THIS DOCUMENT SPEAK AT ALL TO THE MIX OF YOU JUST MENTIONED COMMERCIAL PROPERTY. ARE YOU OR IS THE LAND IS THIS DOCUMENT CHANGING COURSE ON THE AMOUNT OF COMMERCIAL PROPERTY THAT YOU'LL BE DEVELOPING IN THIS

no no sir the the commercial properties uh that are identified within the dri were set at the pud approvals and so what we have here is eight acres in pod g and then the two sites that are in pod h further west on crosstown parkway so there's no increase in residential units there's no increase in commercial land it's all the same as approved with the puds and this will not have any impact on traffic in the surrounding area is that correct This actually will be reducing the amount of traffic because we are approved at the DRI level of 858,000 square feet. It will be a far cry from that with these two eight-acre and the pottage sites. So it will be less traffic.

Any other questions, members of the board? The only question I have for you, Pete, is that you said that this use in this particular portion of the PUD, it was always intended from the original DRI to have this use.

Right, when the DRI was originally approved, you have these large conceptual maps, Map H, and that sort of lays out where you anticipate you're going to have your residential pods, your commercial pods, your institutional, your recreation. And so in 2003, that's really anybody's best guess, right? And as you continue through the course of development and over the years, those Map H gets refined, but really what happens is down at the regulatory level. At the PUD level is where you get really granular with where your neighborhoods are going to be and where your commercial services are going to be.

OK. Any other questions, members of the board? Any other questions for staff? OK, this is a public hearing. Any members of the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, close the public hearing. Any final comments? Staff? Applicant? And if not, I'll entertain a motion. I WOULD PUT FORWARD A MOTION TO APPROVE P26-007.

I'LL SECOND IT.

OKAY. WE HAVE A MOTION AND A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? ALL IN FAVOR SAY AYE. AYE. ANY OPPOSED? OKAY. WE ARE ON ITEM 8B. ANY MEMBERS, ANY EX PARTE COMMUNICATION, LEFT OR RIGHT? PETE? EX PARTE COMMUNICATION? NONE. NONE. NONE? NONE. NONE.

NONE.

OKAY. WE'LL OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING.

Bethany Grubbs with the Planning and Zoning Department. I have been sworn in and the official file has been provided to the clerk five days prior to this meeting. This is the Commerce Center North companion application, the rezoning application, also city initiated. And it is a request to rezone those two parcels totaling 2.74 acres from open space recreation zoning district to the open space conservation zoning district. The properties are outlined in yellow as previously discussed. They are near the Commerce Center Drive Industrial Park and they are surrounded by other open space conservation property already owned by the city. It's a current application with the land use amendment that was first on this agenda. The current zoning of the properties are industrial and commercial service in nature because when you're looking at a zoning, you take it from the middle line of the road, so it's essentially both zonings. The city acquired the 94.49 acres in 2009 as a preserved natural area. Two additional parcels, these 2.74 acres, were later attained, again, tax deed sale and from the HOA properties. And they will be added to our Commerce Center North Conservation Lands and Acquisition Management Planned Conservation Area to be preserved. And this is a request to amend the zoning from Industrial and open space recreation to open space conservation, and this adds to the property for the goal of passive recreation. The proposed rezoning to the open space conservation district is consistent with the open space conservation land use that was earlier on this agenda and supports the goals and policies of the comprehensive plan, including policy 5.2.5.2, which states that we should implement the guidelines of our conservation lands management and acquisition plans. The planning and zoning department finds the petition consistent with the intent and direction of the city's comprehensive plan and recommends approval. The board shall recommend approval to the city council, shall recommend approval with conditions to the city council, or recommend denial to the city council. That concludes my presentation, and I'm here to answer any questions.

Okay, thank you. And the applicant is also the city? The city. Any questions? And again, this is just a companion item to the previous item 7a?

Correct. Make the land use and comprehensive plan consistent. Got it.

Okay. This is a public hearing. Any members of the public wish to speak on this item? Seeing none, close the public hearing. And we'll turn it over to the board for a motion and discussion.

I'll make a motion to approve P26-097, City of PSL, Commerce Center Drive, North Rezoning.

I'll second it. You have a motion to second. Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll call the question. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. We are on item nine. Any new business, Mary? No, sir. Okay. Any old business? No, sir. Okay. This is a public hearing. Any public wish to be heard? Everyone has three minutes to speak. Seeing none, close the public at that item. Anything else, members? I think we're adjourned. Thank you. Have a good night.