City Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome. Today is Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. The time is 7 p.m. We will now call to order the meeting of the South Miami City Commission. If you could please silence or turn off your cell phones, we would be grateful. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Yes. Mayor Fernandez.

Present.

Commissioner Moniz. Here. Commissioner Kaye. Here. Commissioner Rodriguez. Here. Vice Mayor Corey. Here.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. If we could please stand for a brief prayer followed by the pledge led by Commissioner Kaye. Since we just celebrated Law Enforcement Week, I thought we'd offer a prayer up for our police officers. Almighty God, whose great power and eternal wisdom embraces the universe, watch over all the members of our law enforcement community everywhere. Protect them from harm and the performance of their duty. Help them, we pray, keep our streets and homes safe day and night. Grant them strength and courage in their daily assignments, and unite them safely with their families after duty has ended. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. I pledge 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. Please be seated. Colleagues, with your permission, I have to leave early this evening given a family commitment. So I'd like to suggest that we take some items out of order after public remarks. So that may require all of our presence. I'm going to suggest the following order for this evening. We'll do two brief presentations. So F1, I'd like to take in combination with item 6. Then do a brief presentation just for Goodwill Week. I'm going to add that on if there's no objection. And then I'd like to take items 9, 10, and 11, which are the language item, which I imagine a good number of people are here for. Item 13 which is a modification to the TOD rules and there is one discussion item, which is m3 Which I'd like to just give Commissioner Rodriguez the opportunity to discuss with the full body here any objection to proceeding in that fashion I'd also like to suggest if you if the Board is amenable. I'd like to defer item 14 Which is the Item 14, which is the sustainability modification we've discussed. We can move that to June 9, OK? And again, I apologize, but it is my daughter's graduation event, so I do need to get there for a portion of it. So with that, I'd like to entertain a motion to defer item 14 so we can get the agenda in proper posture. Is there a second? So I'll move it. Second by Commissioner Rodriguez.

uh any objection yes mayor do you also want to defer item 12 as well item 12 is the companion it's the solar moratorium item it may be affected by the sustainable development it is but we i thought we we need to extend it anyways do we not second reading of the extension of the moratorium we can WE CAN EXTEND IT. IT WOULD BE BETTER TO CONSIDER THEM TOGETHER AND THEN YOU CAN DETERMINE WHETHER YOU WANT TO.

OKAY. ANY OBJECTION TO DEFERRING ITEM 12 AS WELL, THEN?

NO.

IS THERE A MOTION? I'LL MOVE IT. IS THERE A SECOND? SECOND. OKAY. SO A MOTION BY COMMISSIONER GAYA, A SECOND BY COMMISSIONER RODRIGUEZ. EVERYONE'S QUICK TODAY. OKAY. THANK YOU. WITHOUT OPPOSITION, SHOW THAT ALSO DEFERRED TO JUNE 9th. YES. MR. VICE MAYOR, I'M ASSUMING HE'LL JUMP IN IF HE'S GOT ANY OBJECTION.

NO OBJECTION. OKAY.

THANK YOU, SIR. OKAY. SO SHOW ITEMS 12 AND 14 DEFERRED TO JUNE 9. WITH THAT, LET'S OPEN UP THE FLOOR TO PUBLIC REMARKS. IF YOU'VE NOT SIGNED UP FOR PUBLIC REMARKS, WE DO HAVE A SIGN-IN SHEET HERE IN THE FRONT. JOHN, WE HAVE A LIST.

THANK YOU.

AND ANYONE ON ZOOM, PLEASE RAISE YOUR VIRTUAL HAND IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK.

Good evening. Kick us off, John Edward.

John Edward Smith, resident of South Miami, actually 52 years, and business owner for 44 in South Miami. I'd like to call your attention to what I am referring to as preserving art in public places. Somi Magazine has published in this spring issue a seminal piece, I believe, on the look at public art in South Miami. There are three pieces in this article that I would like to call your attention to. The first here are the Bass Reliefs that are at the entrance to the Silver Martin building. I don't know what plans you all have for the Silver Martin building, which I'm very concerned, but these Bass Reliefs go back to the 1930s and part of the WPA project in the United States. The second is we have three sculptures, cement sculptures, one in Dante Fussell, one outside of City Hall, and a painted cement football player at Palmer Park. the The one I'm concerned about in terms of preserving is the swimmer in front of City Hall Casual notice number one it needs to be very Cleaned but also I think there's some minor cracks so that whole thing will have to be looked at by professionals to seal it before moving it and obviously the Logical place would be our aquatic center The last piece I'd like to call your attention to actually there are two But I only have pictured one is the Xavier Quintana Glass murals on the shops at sunset place These were installed by Nike when the Nike store Opened there. They are huge They're 24 feet high, magnificent colored glass. I mean, he's a well-established, we all know, Miami artist. When I'm looking at this piece, I'm looking at the side of Gibson Bethel Community Center, facing a field where kids are playing, and they're seeing and witnessing beautiful art. The other relief or excuse me the other piece is a baseball player and Actually this morning. I was I don't I don't have that this morning With the manager. He was thinking that maybe Palma Park would be a place to to put to put that piece But certainly we need to be looking at preserving these and We have funds in our art and public places fund, whatever it is. So that's something I would just like to call your attention to going forward. Thank you.

Thank you, John. Okay, we've got Jessica Feingold next on the agenda, on the list. Excuse me. Good evening. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Commissioners. My name is Jessica Feingold. I am an attorney and a resident at 7931 Southwest 58th Avenue. And I'm here tonight regarding Consent Agenda Item 7, the Safe Streets and Roads for All Program, specifically to urge this commission to prioritize the installation of a four-way stop, a marked pedestrian crosswalk, and a rectangular rapid flashing beacon at the intersection of Southwest 58th Avenue and Southwest 80th Street. The City of Pleasant Living is more than a motto. It's something we all cherish, and it's a promise to the families, children, and seniors who call this community home. I'm here tonight asking this commission to help keep that promise by making the intersection of Southwest 58th and Southwest 80th Streets safe. Southwest 58th Avenue serves as a primary walking route for residents accessing Veterans Park what our neighborhood affectionately calls the baby park, as well as Dante Fussell Park and in general the neighborhood. On any given day, 10 to 15 children are at the baby park, toddlers in strollers and wagons, kids on bicycles, siblings, parents, grandparents, and caregivers. To reach it, everyone must cross Southwest 80th Street at this intersection, and right now there's no traffic control requiring drivers to stop. No stop sign on Southwest 80th Street, no marked crosswalk, no flashing beacon. Drivers simply do not stop and are speeding down our streets, even when families with young children are trying to cross. I've lived in my home since September 2025, less than eight months, and I have personally witnessed eight accidents at this intersection. Three of those occurred within nine weeks at the start of 2026 alone, January 4th, January 16th, February 19th, and an additional fourth on March 10th. These are not near misses, and since January 2021, there have been approximately 23 documented crash incidents at this intersection. By counting the additional traffic detail calls, directed patrols, and citizen complaints also logged, which suggests ongoing community concerns, well beyond the crashes themselves. What makes this intersection particularly alarming is not just the frequency of the crashes, it is the combination of factors that make a tragedy involving a pedestrian, in particular a child, almost inevitable. At the same time drivers face no stop requirement and routinely fail to yield, there's a critical visibility problem on the northwest corner exactly where the sidewalk ends and where the pedestrians, often parents and caregivers, Pushing strollers or children on bicycles must step into the road to cross. Overgrown landscaping on that corner severely obstructs sight lines in both directions. Drivers cannot see pedestrians until they're already in the road. And families cannot see oncoming traffic until it is too late. These two conditions together, no traffic control and no visibility, are a recipe for a catastrophic incident. It is not a question of if, but when, someone is seriously hurt at this intersection. I've collected approximately 140 signed and certified petitions from neighbors and stakeholders in this community, submitted to the city clerk in April, all in support of installing a traffic and pedestrian safety measure at this intersection. The safety action plan before you tonight establishes the framework for exactly this kind of action. Yet the intersection of Southwest 50th Avenue and Southwest 80th Street was not included among the priority project recommendations. I respectfully ask that this commission take three actions tonight. First, direct the Department of Public Works to continue to assess the critical issues related to this intersection as part of its ongoing safety study of the area, specifically for the installation of a four-way stop, a marked pedestrian crosswalk, and a rectangular rapid flashing beacon. Second, direct staff to identify funding options, including through the federal Safe Streets and Roads for All program. And third, as Southwest 80th Street is a Miami-Dade County maintained roadway, firmly engage Miami-Dade County as a partner in these safety improvements and advocate on behalf of our community to bring all parties to the table. The data is clear, the community has spoken, and the need is urgent. Please do not wait for a child to be seriously hurt. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, you may.

Ma'am, I have a question for you because I'm drawing a blank. Totally my bad. There's a four-way stop on 80. It's on 59th. So it's one block over?

It's like a block down on 80th Street.

Thank you.

I couldn't remember where it was.

Yeah, it's just down, but the sidewalk on Southwest 58th Avenue is on the north. east side, and then the park is on the other side of 80th. directly across the street.

Yeah, those locations I have clear. I just didn't know where the stop sign was. Thank you. Any other questions?

No.

Thank you. Commissioner, there's also two parks on one side, right? There's a Veterans Park on the south side, and there's Vance Smith Park on the north side.

Thank you. I just wanted to write it down.

Mr. Manager, just on that item, we have a capital improvements plan workshop on the 9th. Can we just make sure we add that to the list? And Chief, if you can get us the traffic crash data, Before that intersection, I know my daughter was involved in an accident at that corner last year. Yeah, no, so what happens is people get very comfortable with, they get accustomed to the four-way movement and stop a block down, and they assume it's a four-way stop and often will enter the intersection and a collision results. So that was the circumstance in the accident she was a passenger in. So thank you for bringing that issue forward. Appreciate it.

Anyone else would like to address this commission in public remarks?

Sir, you're recognized.

Good to see you again.

I don't remember what it was that Mr. Smith said about something at Palmer Park, but it comes to my mind. I was chair of the recreation board for 20 years and of course at South Miami Middle School for 30 years. And I just caution you to be aware of the fact that you have a contract with the city of, I mean with the Dayton County School Board and the school system nor the city can put anything out on the field without making the other aware of it. and see if there's any minor disagreements. But we have had, the city and the school system have had a tremendous relationship for a long time. And I don't want to see that stop because it's, let's put it this way, it's been very peaceful.

Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else in the chamber who would like to address this commission in public remarks? Anyone else on the list, John? Are you here for an item, any of the land use items? Because we will recognize public comment at that time. Come forward quickly, sir.

He's here for Thelma. Oh, you are? Okay. He's here for Thelma Gibson.

There's a discussion item that you're here for. We'll recognize you at that time to speak.

I am Reynolds Martin. I'm at 6201 Southwest 61th Street, and I want to thank this board for appointing me to the Health Facilities Board, where we assisted the Baptist Hospital System to maintain some facilities that would make health care accessible to this community FROM NOW UNTIL THE VERY DISTANT FUTURE. BUT IN ADDITION TO THEIR ATTEMPTING TO DO THAT, THEY PROVIDED THE CITY WITH SOME RESOURCES THEY CAN USE TO HELP OTHER HEALTH ORGANIZATIONS PROVIDE SERVICES.

MR. MARTIN, WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPEAK NOW OR WHEN THE ITEM IS CALLED?

I'M SPEAKING NOW. I THINK THOSE FOLKS THAT KNOW MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION THAT I'M SPEAKING OF WILL TELL YOU MORE ABOUT WHAT THEY CAN DO AND WHAT THEY DO IN THIS COMMUNITY AND OTHER COMMUNITIES TO LESSER SERVE INDIVIDUALS, ELDERLY AND YOUNG PEOPLE. BUT I THINK THAT IT'S A WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY FOR THIS COMMISSION TO ASSIST HEALTH MAINTENANCE ORGANIZATION IN ANOTHER COMMUNITY THAT BRINGS SERVICES TO THIS COMMUNITY. I ask you to consider favorably the request to provide some support for the Thelma Gibson Health Initiative. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, sir. Good to see you again. Anyone else? I know we have Mayor Robina online. Seeing no one in the chamber, Mayor Robina, you're recognized if you'd like to unmute yourself, sir. Good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, Mr. Manager, City Clerk. It's really an honor, and I'm here basically, let me see if you can see me. It's nice to see a face. There you go. I'm actually here to congratulate my good friend, and I want to thank you all on the dais for considering Larry Corbin. I call him our Mark McGuire of South Miami to consider. We're losing one of our best, ladies and gentlemen, and it's a real honor that you guys took the time to name this building after him. So I'm here in support and just to say thank you for recognizing people that really should be recognized. Also want to put in a little plug for his wife, Lisa. When you all build that new building, at least name a room for Lisa because she's been there step with step with him. So hopefully there'll be a Lisa Corbin room also. So that's one of the things I wanted to speak about. Second of all, I just saw that John Edward Smith brought up some issues on the artwork, and that artwork is very precious. All of it, all of the ones that were recognized, we should find another place to put it. And I now have a personal attachment to that football player, Mr. Ward does too, over at the South Miami Middle School. Because now probably the most known national figure that just went pro is a gray ghost.

Yes.

And that reminds me that that concrete statue reminds me of none other than Fernando Mendoza. Uh, he is a gray ghost and that's a great. And Mr. Mayor, uh, last thing I want to thank, uh, commissioner Steve Kaye and, uh, Commissioner Rodriguez and you, Mr. Mayor, as we are getting ready to engage in what I call somewhat of a battle to try to get that Ludlam Trail back up and running. Commissioner Bonich, I know you're ready to battle this too. We spoke about it. No sunshine laws were broken. We talked separately. But that said, I look forward to working with you all because there really is now a push. We've gathered a group of people to really make this thing happen. And, you know, it's all about the squeaky wheel getting the oil. But, again, I want to thank Commissioner Kaye for briefing me, explaining to me where you're at. But more importantly, publicly, I also want to thank Dade County Commissioner Orbis that's also working on it and i had the pleasure of being appointed to the miami loop by our former employee of south miami now commissioner ralph rosado so i'm looking forward to getting our 26 years into making ledlam trail done and hopefully attached to uh all of the other loop projects so that's it for this evening thank you guys and again Thank you so much for remembering this wonderful assistant chief, Larry Corbin, and his wife, Lisa. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Great to have you on. Thank you. Anyone else online, Madam Clerk?

Anyone else on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand if you would like to speak to a public remark.

And final call in the chamber, if there's anyone else who would like to address us in public remarks. Okay, seeing none, we will close public remarks. And Madam Clerk, if you could read F1 and Item 6, please, for the record.

F1, recognition of Assistant Chief Larry Corbin. And Item 6, a resolution of the City Commission of the City of Southern Florida approving the naming of the Southern Police Department Station in honor of Assistant Chief Larry Corbin.

Thank you. Chief Hatfield, you are recognized, sir.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, commissioners, city manager, members of our South Miami community, and the distinguished guests. Tonight, I stand before you in support of item number six that carries an extraordinary meaning for the South Miami Police Department. We're not simply discussing the naming of a police headquarters. We're recognizing a legacy and honoring a man whose impact on this department reaches far beyond title, rank, or years of service. Every building begins with a foundation, and for decades Larry Corbin has been one for this department. Assistant Chief Larry Corbin began his career with the South Miami Police Department in 1987, and for nearly four decades he has dedicated his life to serving the city and the people in it. He has served under eight police chiefs, earned more than 200 commendations and awards, and built a career most people could only hope to achieve. But Larry's legacy was never built on just awards. It was built on the people and the relationships. He mentored officers. He guided supervisors. He shaped careers. He changed lives within these walls. For many, Larry became more than a supervisor. He became the person people sought for for advice, for encouragement, and sometimes simply because they needed someone they could trust. He led with humility, he led with compassion, and he led with his heart. Next month, Larry will receive one of the highest honors in our profession through his induction into the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Hall of Fame. There's no one more deserving. Larry represents the very best of the profession. This item on the agenda will be prominently displayed in the future South Miami Police Headquarters if approved. And maybe that's what it makes this moment so special. Because while walls and buildings may change, people's legacy carry forward. The officers Larry's mentored, the leaders he's helped shape, and the lives impacted inside these walls will walk into a future headquarters and carry with them the values, lessons, and examples he gave them. Mayor, commissioners, thank you for your consideration and support of this item.

Thank you, Chief. Colleagues, we've got an action item. Would anyone like to make any comments before we entertain a motion on item six? Please, you're recognized, sir.

I just want to make this brief. I've gotten to know Larry and Lisa over the last year and a half. We've shared some barbecue together. I didn't have Bacardi Limon. I couldn't do that. But good conversation, spent some time. And I think for me, it is an honor to be where I am right now to give you the honor you're about to receive. So thank you for everything you've done, and it's sad to see you go.

Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, ma'am, you're recognized.

You guys are really special. Larry and Lisa are special people to me because I know them here, there, everywhere. It's not often you run into people like you guys. And I appreciate you. And I'm thankful that I've gotten to know you and that you'll be here even when you're not here, because your name will be here. Hopefully, Lisa will be able to party, party, because you'll be retired. She can pretend kind of like she's retired. But in all seriousness, I think that you are what most South Miami police officers look up to, or at least should. I think you're a wonderful person who's, you know, blah, blah, blah, that Chief Hatfield said, shows the world, or people who don't know you, how special you are. They don't need to show us. We already know. Congratulations on your retirement. I hope you enjoy it.

to put your name on a building means a lot and it was a decision that we all took and we we understood what it meant and in your career what you've done for the city for the people for the community for all the mayors all the commissioners the staff the presence that you have in the city is by far something that's felt not only seen but loved and it's an honor for us to decide that and and for future and forever wherever the building is and how soon we can get that thing built so it'll be such an honor to have your name on there representing what we appreciate and all the guys that are and guys and girls that are coming after you to look up and see that and hopefully look you up and see what you did for our city it's a great honor and congratulations

Oh, yeah, no problem. Mr. Vice Mayor, you're recognized. If you'd like to add some comments.

Thank you very much. I just wanted to say that. City, obviously residents are constantly praising our police and you've been a rock and a foundation there for such a very, very long time. And I'm so honored as well as Commissioner Rodriguez said to be able to give you this honor. So congratulations to you on your retirement. Congratulations to you as well, Lisa. And thank you very much.

Mr. Mayor, do you want to go?

Certainly. Thank you, Mayor. Certainly from a point of personal privilege, I think it would have been more fitting to name a barbecue girl after him instead of the building, but we settled on what's before you. No, I personally want to thank, even though I've only been here three years since January, hit my mark then. you know, coming in a new right away, certainly of Larry and his reputation. But he stepped up to take on a role that was really important, which was become the assistant chief at a time when we had a chief coming from the outside. And that partnership to be able to support the new chief as it relates to history, the department, the community, was critically important. And I appreciate his willingness to step up and take up, you know, that leadership role. You could have just, you know, kind of write it out as a captain, but you didn't. You understood that that was what was needed and the organization needed it, and you put the organization before you. So I appreciate that. It's been an honor for me to work with Larry. I know it's called the Larry Corbin Building, but Lisa somehow is getting in that. It's going to be Lisa Placker. The Larry Corbin, not really, but Lisa, something like that. But it's been an honor for me. And coming from public safety, I certainly respect the fact of somebody that leads in the manner that you've led and the way that you've led with humbleness. As an assistant chief, you see that pickup truck heading out of here when there was emergency calls out in the city and responding just like you did when you first started as an officer on day one. So the fact that you still had that fire and dedication is admirable. So I just want to say thank you on behalf of the city, behalf of me, and for stepping up to take on a greater leadership role at a time that I know Chief Hatfield really needed. So thank you.

So I'll close with yet another thank you. Chief Corbin, Lisa, I mean, I thought Chief Hatfield had it tough stepping into the shoes of Chief Landa, who I'm often told is the best politician in all of South Miami. Everybody loved that guy. He was on the street everywhere. I mean, I want to be as affable as he was, but it's your quiet leadership and your energy, Lisa, that really have been the bedrock of the department for as long as you've been with us. I could imagine a department, and without any disrespect to Chief Landau, without Chief Landau in the future, it's hard for me to comprehend how we're going to evolve here. And so to whoever succeeds, both of you, formerly as chief, but the combined energy you both bring, as a couple to this department, my hat's off to that person. They've got a tough assignment ahead of them because the impact you've left is certainly worthy of this honor and beyond that. So again, thank you. We wish you nothing but the best in this next chapter. And it goes without saying, your home is always here in South Miami. And with that, can I get a motion on item six, please?

I'll move it.

Is there a second? I'll second. A motion to approve item six by Commissioner Bonich and a second by Commissioner Rodriguez. Madam clerk if you can call the roll and then we'll call up chief Corbin and mrs. Corbin to be recognized to speak Yes Yes Yes Thank you, I think there were a couple other Cory's that voted yes in the background Chief Corbin come on up say a few words Lisa, please come on up

Chief Corbin, tonight we would like to present you with this first commemorative brick representing the future of the South Miami Police Larry Corbin Headquarters. Because someday when officers walk through those doors, many may never have had the opportunity to work beside you, but they will still benefit from what you built. They will work alongside leaders you mentored, within the culture you shaped, and within the department made better because of your influence. It is only fitting that this department builds towards its future. Your name and your legacy become part of the foundation as well. On behalf of the men and women of the South Miami Police Department, thank you for your leadership, your friendship, and for everything you've given to this department, the city, and the people fortunate enough to have served alongside you. Mayor and commissioners, thank you for your support on this item.

I think we may want to throw in a grill for the barbecue beyond the break. So, no, no.

Wow. This is amazing. I've been here a long time. I've got a lot to say, but I'm not going to say a lot. You've got three minutes. You know, when I started this journey back in 1987, it was following my father's footsteps, who's here today, Ken Journey. He was a higher patrolman. I was doing this job because I wanted to be a policeman. I wanted to fight crime. And I never did it for accolades. I never did it for awards. I certainly never did it for having my name on a building. It's truly an honor. I've worked with a lot of great people. They're all here today. I'm an emotional guy, as you can tell. You're doing a good job. I've worked with a lot of great leaders. It's only fitting that I finish with Chief Hatfield. I worked with a lot of great members of the dais, like Mayor Julio Urbana. There's just so many I had a relationship with. In fact, Mayor Cunningham, I don't know if you know this, but if you're familiar with him, I'm sure you are, but I was in a building the other day that happened to be his old florist. It's right next to the hotel. And he did the flowers for my wife and I's wedding. And it's getting ready to get torn down. It's kind of a touching moment going in there. But I just want to say that I gave my life to this place. And I'm appreciative of what you've given me.

No, thank you.

Okay, Madam Clerk, if we can read into the record items 9, 10, and 11, and then we'll have the requisite quasi-judicial warnings read by counsel.

Item 9, a resolution of the Mayor's City Commission of the City of South New Florida approving or denying a variance application pursuant to Section 20-5.9 of the Land Development Code seeking to exceed the maximum lot coverage allowed for single floor plate requirements for the floor plates of the fifth and sixth floors for a proposed large-scale development within the Transit Supported Neighborhood Area, TSNA, Sub-District of the Transit Supported Development District, TSDD, located at 6404 through 6504 Southwest 57th Avenue.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Oh, sorry. She's got to go 9 to 10. Yeah, please. My apologies.

Item 10, a resolution of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of South Miami, Florida, approving or denying a large-scale development special reception application pursuant to Section 20-8.7 of the City of South Miami Land Development Code for the off-campus student apartments on the 2.73-acre development site located at 6404 through 6504 Southwest 57th Avenue.

If you can hold for a second, I forgot that I wanted to recognize Mr. Landsberg, who's also here for a good week. So, David, could you come on up? Sorry. And I'll deliver the proclamation personally to your house tomorrow because I forgot to tell the clerk to prepare it for me. Stay right there. I wanted to give you, if you don't know, we have the honor of calling one of our own, the President of Goodwill Industries of South Florida here, Mr. Landsberg, who is a resident of South Miami and a distinguished leader in our community, not just in his current role, but in his past role with the Miami Herald. This past week, we celebrated Goodwill Week. And I wanted to just give him an opportunity to kind of highlight the tremendous work that organization does, you know, employing people, retraining people, repurposing stuff. If you could just share a bit about what Goodwill Week represents and what the organization is doing currently in our community.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. And I appreciate the opportunity to be recognized. I want to take a moment to thank the good people of South Miami for supporting Goodwill's mission. Whether you realize it or not, every time you donate something to Goodwill, it goes to an incredibly good cause. Many people know that we've got donation centers and stores, but many don't know what we really do as a nonprofit. is workforce development, particularly training people with disabilities and barriers to work to be able to be functional in a work role. We've been doing that for the last 67 years. I'm happy to tell you that it is better than ever. Goodwill South Florida, our Goodwill, now stands at 3,000 employees. That 3,000 is the 17th largest employer in the region. And it's made up by more than 1,000 people with a federal level disability and another 1,400 people with a very significant barrier to work. each year about 1,000 actually graduate into community jobs. And we've got the opportunity all over again this year to bring another 1,000 people in, get them trained, and have them participate in our workforce. To me, it's a great blessing to lead this organization. I also want to thank the city for always supporting an attended donation center within the city limits. In case you didn't know, it is behind the construction at the Petco. It is one of our best and most generous- Future Sprouts. Future Sprouts. Future Sprouts, that's right. Future Sprouts. But your generosity as a community is obvious. It's one of our best trailers. So thank you so much. I would also just say that being honored is one thing, but being honored in the city of Pleasant Living, of which I've been a resident for the last 41 years, is a particular delight. Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor and Commissioner.

Before we let you go, One of my favorite experiences with Goodwill, I mean, if you've not been out to, they've got a fantastic, incredible facility where they provide commercial service laundry. We worked on a deal that unfortunately did not happen where we were hoping to employ Goodwill on a convention center hotel project. But the scale of the operation, 3,000 employees, the array of services that they provide to the community, I would invite my colleagues to go out there and visit with Mr. Landsberg and his team because it really is eye-opening. But my favorite all-time moment with Goodwill is the spirit of Goodwill Band. So if you can share a bit about that. And I would love Mr. Manager, as part of our celebration of America's 250th anniversary, if we could possibly figure out a way to invite the band to come out and play at our event on July 4th. But if you could share a bit about the band, that would be great.

Of course, we're most interested in goodwill about all things work and preparing people for the workforce, but we also are very much about giving time for people to do the things they truly love. So there are 25 members of our workforce who come out of their jobs for a couple hours on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. I would say it's an open invitation for anybody that wants to come visit to see people with pretty profound neurodiversity be able to play together in a way that You just couldn't imagine. It's spectacular. They are the best representatives we got. When you listen to them and look at them play, you realize what we're doing here is shining a light on capability rather than focusing on disability. And the people of Goodwill show that every day in their work and their spirit.

Thank you, David. Again, thank you for your tremendous service to our community, for your leadership and goodwill. I mean, for me, that experience, I got to serve a mayor before in the city of Miami in 2009 who was the president of his conference of mayors. We hosted that conference here that year. They played in front of a house full of mayors at the Adrian R. Center, and there was not a dry eye in the place. It was really a fantastic experience. It's an incredibly talented group of musicians. And you're absolutely right. It was just the best example of the vast capabilities that neurodivergent people possess. So thank you for being a force for good. We're grateful to have you here in South Miami. Let's take a quick picture, and I owe your proclamation. All right. Well, I'm here. Can I ask a quick question? Yeah, I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead, Dan. Sorry. Mr. Landsberg, thank you. Two things. We just opened up a unique abilities board here in the city of South Miami where we're encouraging a lot of the community with unique disabilities And one of the major things that we've seen, and we just had a major summit and keep this game with a lot of different cities throughout Miami-Dade County, is how do we start incorporating a lot of these people back into the workforce? So I think you've already set a good example on how to start doing that. I would love to pick your brain, and if I can follow up on the mayor's suggestion that we can get a tour and understand that, I would love to have a couple minutes with you guys.

Absolutely, and I could tell you we very much focus on government as the customer One of the one of the incredible businesses that we run is a commercial cleaning business that cleans every Dade County state and federal location in all of South Florida 140 buildings five and a half million square feet a night It supports a workforce of 250 people with a federal-level disability. So we're very interested. We are expanding into the building, cleaning, pressure-washing business, many other things. There's a lot of ways the city can engage. We're happy to host you and brainstorm. Appreciate it.

Commissioner Rodriguez, you're recognized. Hello, David. How are you doing?

Great. Thank you.

So what is it that the Goodwill does to train these people to put them back into the workforce? How do you train them, if I may ask? Yeah.

So the very best way is real work, right? So we run the stores. We run a very large apparel manufacturing plant in Alapata, 21 and 21 Northwest. That plant has a thousand cut-and-sew people working. I don't know if you all know this. Miami has a great history in the apparel industry, Hialeah and Alapata in particular, but your Goodwill has a thousand people sewing military uniforms. in our main plant and That is a incredible way to get into a job understand it the thousand people that leave us each year is a Voluntary opt-out into maybe a higher paying job a job that they might want to do more a job that's closer to home so Really, what our work opportunity is for many is a vocational rehab, learning what it is I do when I come to the job, from my transportation to how I get along with the boss and my coworkers, how I look at work. And believe it or not, people that derailed from 15 interviews when they came to see us are able to leave Goodwill after a year or two years and win that job through an interview. And we give them a bunch of support while they're there. Everybody with a disability has a counselor while they're at Goodwill. And if they elect to stay for an entire career, they have that same counselor. It's almost like family over all of those years. So it's really the connection. It's the wraparound services and the support and really being a nurturing place that lets them find their comfort and work and, of course, It's the biggest self-esteem generator of anything. And they often go, many go, from the roles of disability, federal disability, to leaving that for a full-time job with benefits at more than minimum wage. And so really, it's turning many people that needed that support to people who are now taxpayers.

So the reason I ask that is over the last few months, I've created a partnership, which is now South Miami and Miami Dade College, where Miami Dade College is offering free upskilling, basically certifying anybody who's interested. Most of these are for management positions. So if anyone that... you know, rises to the top that wants to seek a management position or something else. I mean, there's an array of positions or certifications that Miami-Dade County is offering. It's fully paid for. They do, one of the things that we did on the last, we've had a few seminars. The last one we did was resume building. So if they need anything, we're resume building. We're doing different things. They offer financial aid, even child care if any of them have children. So I would love to get with you. And if you're interested, we can do a partnership where you can bring some of those people that you have to one of our events. And we'll show them how to sign up with Miami Dade College. And they can get certified at no cost.

Excellent. And I can also just tell you briefly, because we want the mayor to make it to his event, especially as a family event, that now that we are 3,000 employees large, we know we're not going to solve the entire community's problem by being bigger and bigger and bigger. And so we are now refocused on sending large numbers of people direct from interview to training Into the community so we too have opened up up scaling opportunities in high volume high turnover jobs where we can solve a problem of an employer They have started in the fields of construction general construction HVAC and solar installation. So now Goodwill is going to be a very sizable trainer and placer of people with LEGIT CERTIFICATION THAT THEY EARNED WHILE THEY WERE EARNING A STIPEND TO TRAIN. SO WE'RE HEADED IN THAT DIRECTION. IT'S A REALLY SMART THING TO DO. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH.

THANK YOU. AND AGAIN, IT'S NOT ALL ROSES FOR MR. LANSBURY. HE'S GOT SOME CHALLENGES. IT'S BEEN A PARTICULARLY DIFFICULT YEAR. I DON'T WANT TO GET INTO THOSE ISSUES. I do want to invite you to speak to him because a lot of stuff that's happening at the federal level in particular is impacting his workforce. And I think it'd be just educational for you all to have a window into that conversation as well. So again, thank you for all your good work. Thank you. And let's come on up and invite your family to take a picture with us. All right. Thank you. Okay, Madam Clerk, then you can go back to reading item 10. Sorry about that.

Okay, I read item 9 and item 10. And item 11, a resolution of the Mayor's City Commission of the City of South Midland Florida approving a development agreement with subtext acquisitions LLC for the off-campus student apartments on the 2.73 acre development site located at 6404 through 6504 South Place 57th Avenue pursuant to section 20-8.7 of the City of South Midland Development Code.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mr. City Attorney, you're recognized for the warning and swearing in.

Thank you, Mayor. These three items seek approval. They're companion items that seek approval for student housing development proposal by subtext acquisitions for the properties located at 6404 and 6504 Red Road. Item 9 seeks approval of a variance to allow a footprint for levels 5 and 6 of the project that exceed the maximum 20,000 square feet for those two levels. Item 10 is a large-scale development special exception under Section 20-8.7 of the city's land development code. Item number 11 is a development agreement that is required for any of these projects. So the first two items, the variance and large-scale development, special exception, those are quasi-judicial. The third item, the development agreement, is not. It is legislative, or at best, quasi-legislative. The development agreement, nevertheless, requires a public hearing under the city's code. For efficiency, the same public hearing can serve for all three items. And in an abundance of caution in order to afford the most due process possible to all parties and without waiving the city's position that the resolution and development agreement is in fact legislative in nature, the city should frame tonight's hearing within the city's quasi-judicial procedures with respect to presentations by staff, the applicant, and public comment. Madam Clerk has read the title of the resolutions. The public hearing should include presentation by staff and the applicant and public comment. The Commission can ask any questions either before or after public comment is closed. Following public comment, the Commission may deliberate on each of the items. take three separate votes. The quasi-judicial procedures require this commission to consider the evidence presented to it and base their decision on the applicable law and primarily on the evidence presented, whether by the applicant, staff, or members of the public. In considering each item, the commission should apply the criteria, which for variances is in Section 20-5.9. For large-scale special exceptions, Article 8 of the Land Development Code. as well as the professional analysis and the staff recommendation. The evidence considered must be substantial competent evidence. That means testimony or other evidence based on personal observation or relevant expert testimony that a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. It is not a popularity contest. It cannot be based solely on non-expert opinions no matter how fervent those opinions might be. Everyone who seeks to speak on an item should be given an opportunity to speak during the public comment portion of each hearing. If you intend to provide testimonies to this item, you will be sworn in before your testimony is taken. Please know if you speak, you may be subject to cross-examination. If you refuse either to be cross-examined or to be sworn, your testimony will be considered in that context and given its due weight. General public will not be permitted to cross-examine witnesses, but the public may request the Commission to direct questions on their behalf to either staff or the applicant. At this time, anyone who wishes to speak should be sworn in. I'd ask that you please stand and raise your right hand if you intend to speak this evening on any of these three items. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. Madam Clerk, can you?

I believe the members of the public are here to speak as well. Are there any other members of the public who also intend to speak on this item? If so, we do need you to stand and be sworn in as well.

And anyone on Zoom who's going to speak on this item, please raise your virtual hand so I can unmute you.

No members of the public are going to speak on the item? Again, I just want to make sure everyone is sworn if they need to speak. OK, Ms. Thomas, would you turn on your camera, please, so you can be sworn in?

Good evening. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Ms. Thomas?

Ms. Thomas? Okay, we'll come back to her. All right.

Okay. Madam Clerk, can you confirm compliance with the advertising and notice requirements for this evening's hearing?

Yes.

Thank you. And then Mayor, Vice Mayor, Commissioners, have any of you had any ex parte communications over and above the ones that you disclosed previously?

You're welcome. I spoke with one of them today.

With the applicant?

With the applicant's lawyer.

With the applicant's counsel. Got it. Regarding the application.

Yes.

Understood.

Thank you. I spoke with Ms. Reardon on Friday to ascertain what the status of board discussions of the neighbors and with counsel for the applicant today just to confirm that there was some sort of understanding between the parties. Thank you, Mayor.

I spoke with Developers Council briefly today, and I spoke with Ms. Reardon today about the project.

Great. Thank you. I, too, spoke with the Developers Council. That's all. Great. Thank you.

We're ready to proceed.

Oh, that's right.

Vice Mayor, you recognize? Thank you.

I spoke with the team virtually about two weeks ago, and then right before the last meeting, and I spoke with Michelle Reardon today as well.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Okay, we're ready to proceed. Mr. Alvarez, if you want to come up and present your understanding of any modifications to the project, we'd appreciate that. And then, colleagues, do you want to discuss all these items together? Yes. We do? Okay. So then we'll go through any modifications to the development agreement, if you can. Mr. Ruscio, thereafter? Okay. Thank you. Mr. Alvarez, good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Mark Alvarez for the City of South Miami Planning Department. We have received a modified application or a modified site plan dated May 12th. The last one that we were on was, I believe, dated April 29. There are some small changes to the building, particularly to the west side, that create somewhat more of a change in movement in the walls. The effects on the consistency of this with the TSD zoning code are very minor, but I'll go through them anyway. We do have actually one bedroom that is in the current plan that is undersized. Instead of being 150 square feet, it's 142. We have a change. Again, these are all fairly minor changes, but I do want to make note of them. We have a change in the parking count, which now it was at 395. It's gone to 394. It's still consistent with the code requirements. There's a small change in the bicycle parking interior to the building that went from 195 to 193. Again, it is still consistent with the zoning requirements. I think one of the areas that we had a lot of discussion about the last time was bonus area, I'm sorry, not bonus area, excuse me, the open space area, which has been increased. Parts of the changes to create more movement in the building have been an increase in open space, particularly on the west side. So it is consistent. The open space increase comes out to 1,051 square feet. It goes from being 11.09% of open space where 10 is required, 10% is now at 12%. The building heights remain the same. There are some small, again, there are changes in the movement of the wall in the building. Movement by movement, I mean the movement in and out from the surface. They are all consistent and it's actually more movement than it had before. Again, particularly on the west side. And then finally, there was one other here. The building, the occupation of the land, the building coverage, as soon as I find it, has changed. It is decreased. Hold on a second. I lost track of that. But anyway, the building coverage is decreased slightly again. So that is due to the greater amount of open space. And I'll tell you the numbers when I find it. And finally, the private open space has also decreased a little bit, but it is well within the requirements. It's gone down by 697 square feet to 33,641. And that would be it. As soon as I find the building coverage, I'll be happy to tell you. I've managed to lose it. There it is. The building coverage, we require 80% building coverage or a maximum of 80% on the land. It was at 79.6 before it's gone down to 78%. Again, it's a reduction of 1,040 square feet of the building coverage on the land. So everything has moved a little bit. They're fairly minor moves. It's still consistent with the code. Questions, Mr. Alvarez?

Colleagues? None? Commissioner Rodriguez?

We're still at 772 beds?

No.

That has changed. The number of units is the same. We're at 760 beds. Excuse me. 240 apartments and 760 beds. It was 772 before. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Madam Commissioner, any questions? Mr. Vice Mayor, any questions? Mr. Roberts, just really quickly before you go, again, I just want to, on the facade facing 57th Avenue, again, the building has been recessed in sections? Yes. Okay, so basically they replicated the move on the western facade, on the eastern facade as well?

Although the western has more movement.

Correct, and obviously larger aperture. Correct. With some spaces, okay. I think Commissioner Bonnich wants to confirm that she's looking at what the final version is. Yes.

It should say May 12th on the bottom.

Yeah, I have it right here.

Yeah, OK. May 12th. May 12th. Yes, it does. OK, for the record, we're looking at a drawing dated May 12th to confirm that that is the drawing being approved. OK. OK, seeing no further questions, would the applicant like to add anything for the record?

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Commissioners. My name is Mario Garcia Serra with offices at 600 Brickell Avenue here this evening representing Subtex Acquisitions. I'm joined today by my client as well as the project team. This project has been subject to a lengthy presentation and discussion, so we will limit our presentation today to what has changed since this project was last presented. Even though this has been a long and demanding review process, I'm happy to say that it has led to a better project, and importantly, a project which has addressed the concerns of the neighbors directly across the street on the west side of Southwest 57th Court, as evidenced by the letter of no objection, which was circulated to each of you signed by those neighbors. I will discuss what has changed number-wise with the project, and Mr. Bernardo Fortreja will discuss what has changed with regards to design. Up there you have the numbers of the project right now. As already discussed, the unit count is 240. Bedroom count has been reduced to 760. Compared to the maximums that are allowed by the code, it is 79% of what is allowed. At the very bottom there, we also touched upon that, the increase in public open space by about 1,000 square feet. And we're now at 20% over the minimum required for open space. The next slide provides some of the concessions or commitments that we've made to the neighbors. They include the outdoor amenity deck to be closed at 10 o'clock every day. Providing a part-time overnight security officer for the first three years of over operation And providing a neighborhood liaison a community hotline for consistent open communication explore permit parking enforcement and signage on the on street parking along Southwest 57th court and also look at perhaps providing more on street parking there in conjunction with the city and the county exploring traffic coming in particular speed bumps along Southwest 57th Court between 64th and 66th Street, and also traffic coming along 64th and 66th Street between 57th Avenue and 58th Avenue. then also hosting a job fair for construction and operation opportunities opportunities to work there during once the Operations already commenced and also providing a construction liaison and point of contact during construction So with that said I'll ask Bernardo to now come up and show you some of the revised elevations and facades

Good evening, sir.

Good evening, everybody. I'm Bernardo Forbrecha. I'm an architect. There's a screen there. We're showing you this time ground level images, not aerials, so you really can see how people feel from the street. This is a view along our residential neighborhood where we have precisely attempted to create the same kind of breakup, almost like row houses, along the street. facade of the building. This is a three-story facade of the west side and it is and this is the effect that we're trying to create by the terracotta tones and and warm gray tones and white and really doing a combination of tonality and recesses that create shadow lines so that the The building along the back is really a collection of buildings. Now, in addition to that, I don't know if I have the controls. Great. In addition to that, you can see that we have a large courtyard, the dog park that is in the center. And we have created a series of recesses also along the building, a series of bamboo gardens that have divided the building into essentially five different areas. sort of volumes, within which there are sub-volumes. And along the avenue, along the main street, you see this is a six-story building. And we were asked to look into some artistic treatment where the entrance is and where the drop-off and garage are located. But the treatment is no longer a flat treatment. It's a three-dimensional treatment. It's like a folding screen, the old style folding screens that you can stand up on their own. But instead, it is doing the same thing with a three-dimensional design. So it creates the effect of what is called a triptych in the art world. And it creates a statement right in the middle of the building. It is in addition to that that of course we have also an additional Recess another one of the bamboo gardens so that the buildings on each side are no longer just two but really three plus the entrance statement These are some of the views of the landscaping that we'll create along the street. And you can see here what we mean by breaking up the mass of the building. There's different tonalities as well as shadow lines. So some of the volumes are projecting. There's recess in addition to that. So it's not a flat facade. It's a facade that has movement. And the way light hits it, we create a series of shadow lines. And in that sense, I return to show you here how shadow lines are important. Now, you can see here the bamboo garden on the left-hand side of the image. You can also see that in some cases, the balconies are projecting forward so they create their own shadows along the facade so that they're not flat facades. You can see that the intent is to create a village-like arrangement of composition to the building. And I hope this clarifies some of the architectural effects that we have created with the perimeter of the building. Thank you.

Colleagues, any questions of Mr. Fort Brescia? OK. Thank you, sir. Sorry, I lost my voice. It's OK. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much, Bernardo. One item which I would like to make special mention of is that the northbound left-hand turn lane into the project, which is a critical component of the project, we have agreed as a condition of approval whereby we will obtain the conceptual approval of that left-hand turn lane prior to issuance of a master permit, and we will complete and install that left-hand turn lane prior to issuance of a TCO. This has been a challenging but rewarding process. We feel that we have achieved a project which merits your approval. We would ask that you follow the recommendations of your staff and boards and to approve the requests that are before you. We're available, of course, for questions and any rebuttal if necessary.

Thank you, sir. Questions of the applicant? Yes, you're recognized.

We briefly discussed today that the landscaping around the building is beautiful, but people walk their pets. And so we need somewhere that has grass that is not the dog park so that people can take their pets to go to the bathroom. Like I mentioned to you earlier, I travel with my dog. And I was in Nashville, in downtown Nashville. And the area that I was at, I had to walk two blocks to find a patch of grass for my dog to go to the bathroom. That is, after staying in a hotel, that accepts pets. And so I said, if your building accepts pets, even just service animals, which by law we have to do, there needs to be a place for those dogs to go to the bathroom at 11 o'clock at night. And second, please remember the art that is on the facade of the building has to go through art in public places. Don't make it the afterthought so that we are catching up to you. Please do it in the appropriate order so that it does not become an issue.

Understood. Mr. Mayor, if I might, on the particular point of dogs. You're recognized. Go ahead. The subtext does allow dogs within their developments. I discussed with the team and we was further elaboration of the plans goes through building permit and so forth. We'll find places where we can trade shrubs for grass. So you have that space.

Colleagues for the questions.

One of the things that we spoke about in the last meeting was the allocation or Keeping of the current trees. Is that still correct?

Okay, that's no they're in Southwest 57th court.

Okay Yeah, and I think the only other concern I had was the left turn. I think that's a big deal in the future reference colleagues I think that as as this building goes up and then we have the one railroad coming railroad Commons The cross streets of and what we're seeing with with the underlying activation I do foresee a lot of people from the community and from these students crossing that street on 57th a lot more. So I urge us to really look at the crosswalk sections along 57 corridor as we proceed with this new implementation.

I mean, one of my big ambitions, hopefully, for the CRA will be to enhance lighting and across connectivity across 57th Avenue and just improve the pedestrian condition generally in the Marshall-Williamson neighborhood. So yes, ma'am.

Yeah, because if I'm not mistaken, between Miller And all the way to Red Road Commons, the only place there is to cross the street is 64. And then 64, you hit the other light and the other light. And I think we've talked about this in the past. It's like Frogger. These kids are just jumping around.

And it's a concern the University of Miami has as well. They'd like to see us address it, which is why they were supportive of the CRA request. But I think more importantly, whether you're a student or you're a resident, getting across that segment is incredibly important. So it'll be a focus certainly of mine and all of ours, I think, as we go forward. Further questions? No, thank you. I just wanted to understand. First of all, thank you for the condition on the access for me. Part of my general acceptance of the design was the fact that the parking deck was not front and center in the presence of the adjoining neighborhood, but that did necessitate the left turn access. So I appreciate you guys agreeing to that condition and really reaffirming your commitment to keeping traffic off of the neighborhood streets to the west. But in that vein, I noticed here in both the development agreement and in condition 24 of the revised resolution here, there is a proposal to explore creating a one-way traffic condition on 57th Court. And I just wanted to understand from the applicant whether that originated with you all or with the residents. I personally am concerned about one-way conditions because it tends to accelerate the velocity on the segment. And so if either of you could elaborate on that.

Yeah, if I can address that. That actually came from discussions with staff and primarily because of the the lack of space for on-street parking within that roadway. At present, there is no space for on-street parking. There are just travel lanes. So we were trying to explore, OK, what could we do? So one of the scenarios is carve out space within the swales to provide for that parking with bump-outs for the trees so that we don't lose the trees that they're preserving. Another scenario, or potentially combined with that, would be exploring that to see if that can work. What we're trying to do is create, and I don't know if it will work. That needs to be studied.

Again, I think we're kind of maybe trying to fix a condition that's not broken. We're assuming it's broken. And I think the friction of having cars on the street, just on the west side, we want to just ban parking on the east side. I understand that. If we can do that, I would say that we should not allow parking on the segment closest to the project. We don't want students parking on the street, but we don't want I wouldn't want to foreclose the possibility of residence parking on the west side, but I do think if that requires us to create a one-way condition, I wonder if it's actually a better outcome. Ultimately, that's a condition we have to approve. I just wanted to get that on the record so that if it's not been discussed with the neighbors, you know, this is not something that's going to happen immediately, but we should have continued conversation about it and make sure that it's something that the neighbors really want developed there. I think ultimately it has to come to us for final approval. So while they've got to explore it and use best efforts to explore that option, it's not a done deal until we opine on it. But I did want to flag it for future conversation with the neighbors. I did see in the presentation, Mr. Garcia-Serra, that you did make a representation about local hiring or best efforts for local hiring. Is that memorialized in either the resolution as a condition or the development agreement?

It is not, but we're fine having that incorporated.

I would say let's incorporate a condition for that as well. And then lastly, just quickly perusing the document, I did not see, is there a public access condition for the dog park at the rear of the building? I believe that was the intended. Is it memorialized anywhere in, again, the development agreement and or the resolution? It is.

It is in both. We have to provide an easement in favor of the city. Okay.

If you could just highlight the condition before we close the conversation about it. I just want to make sure I've had a chance to review it. Those are my questions and comments. Mr. Vice Mayor, did you have anything you wanted to add? We have questions, sir.

Uh, no, I, I did notice that the, uh, I mean, I think the applicant didn't mention it with the increased, um, you know, uh, square footage on the green space, but there are two small carve out areas on the west side. Um, and the, and the dog park did get, uh, slightly extended. I believe they removed, uh, some, um, building there. Uh, is that correct as well?

Correct.

Okay. So, yeah, just highlighting that. I had to double-check the site plan again because it wasn't mentioned specifically, so I wanted to make sure it was still there. But thank you.

Thank you. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay. Lastly, Mr. Garcia, I've had a recent experience in the last 24 hours around the special exception and compliance with conditions. So I just want to make sure your client understands the language in Section 4 of the resolution. So before we close, I just want an affirmative statement that they understand that we do retain jurisdiction if they're not complying with the conditions to have a public hearing and revoke the authorization. So on the record, I believe everyone's been a person of their word and followed up, but want to make sure that my colleagues also understand we do have a mechanism to holding people to account if they don't, in fact, live up to the letter of what they committed to.

That is understood.

Okay. Thank you, sir with that Let's open up the floor to the public if there's anyone who'd like to address the Commission on items 9 10 and 11 You're welcome to come forward sir, please Sir, have you been sworn in would you like to be sworn in or not? Okay, please come forward We'll swear you and anyone else the public would like to address the Commission in public as part of this public hearing Okay, if you could just please stand. Let's swear everyone in at one shot. Mr. McCants, if you want to come forward and get in line, that's two. Come on up. Sorry to make you wait. I just want to make sure we do it all in one shot.

Anyone on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand.

I see Dr. Joyce Price. Dr. Joyce Price, did you want to speak on this item as well?

I'm not here for the audience.

Just in case. Just want to make sure we get everyone. OK.

Please. Please raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I do. Thank you.

Thank you. You're recognized, sir.

I don't have any facts or anything. I just have an opinion. That's fine. I don't agree with this building being built. I grew up in South Manhattan my entire life. And I go to work at 5 o'clock in the morning, going down straight where they want to build at. And college kids, crossing the streets, I don't want to be going to work, barely waking up, just to be watching out for college kids having parties. And another thing I saw, they only want to have an overnight security guard for three years to guard the pool after 10 p.m. What happens after three years? You think the college kids are going to respect a rule that says 10 p.m.? I was a kid. I didn't respect no pool rules at 10 p.m. I went to pools after 10 p.m. And what's going to stop them from not doing that? Are their neighbors going to have to listen to them party and call the cops after three years when there's no more security guards because they only care for the first three years of watching out for the neighborhood? And that's the only thing I wanted to say.

Thank you for your comment, sir.

I didn't get his name.

Oh, sir, if you can come back and just give us your name and address for the record, please. I apologize.

No problem.

My name is Bobby L. Dingle. I live at 5860 Southwest 66th Street.

Mr. Dingle, thank you for coming. I appreciate it. Mr. McCants, good evening.

Good evening, everybody. James McCants. Excuse my voice. I'm getting over something. 6272 Southwest 59th Place. The residents have spoken on their concerns about this project. They seem to be addressing things now. But Mayor, you brought up something that's near and dear to my heart, and that's the employment factor. We're working together. I've been dealing with Commissioner Kaye, Steve. I got it right.

Three and a half years strong.

Yes. Slow but sure. Hey, no clapping. Really? All right, Steve. So I'd like to get that in right, just like you said. We've had projects before that came and promised this, and it wasn't solidified. A related group did a project. And we got some action.

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but just to ask, they've made a representation as to pre-construction or construction hiring and operations hiring. So in your experience, what's a reasonable time prior to the start of both activities, construction commencement and operations, for them to hold the job fairs that they proposed?

I would say let's give them four to six months before the project. OK. Let's get people fine tuned. OK. And get them together, update the contact information that we do have, get them going, general laborers and people with experience. OK. So we can get them going.

We'll see what we can, we'll make that request.

OK. And keep me posted on that. And Steve, I'll be working with you with our list and we'll be fine tuning it. But thank you guys. Yes, sir. OK.

Thank you, sir. Good evening.

Christopher Hudson. I live at 6411 Southwest 59th Avenue, which is four streets over from the project. You mentioned traffic. Can you consider 57th and I think that's 64th or 62nd? One of those crosswalks where I noticed that I use that a lot. And when students are running or jogging, and even when they are crossing there, that sometimes they have to use... They have to go across and then come across again. Can you consider one of those, what they have here in Sunset with the X across there, where they can just all cross at one time as opposed to going twice? Can you consider that in your traffic study?

Sure, I think we are, my intention to the CRA that we hopefully will have approved here in the next month is to examine those segments. And so I'm wholeheartedly in favor of creating that condition. And we have another, there's a student housing project that we are not gonna have. Any say over? Because it's happening in the unincorporated county, just on the site next door. And so, again, I think what your point is, we need to make sure we're coordinating all these elements so that that cross-axis works.

Now, the one before at 57, once they put in that left-hand turning lane, I'm just curious how that's going to work if that road itself isn't widened. So they might have to consider one even south of there. Right there where they're turning into those common roads and that one street there where I see also several potential accidents happen right there during the course of the day. So we may want to consider one there. It's not a light there, per se. It's a light there in and into that complex. So we might want to consider even moving that light back or extending it further when you do your traffic study. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else who'd like to address this commission? Mr. McCance, second by the apple? Come on up.

There's one important factor that I didn't talk about, and that includes the wages. We've had issues with very minimum wages for high profile jobs like this. We want to try to match what comfortable wages are out. So I hope that would be included in this draft agreement.

It's a good point. I would normally be supportive of it. I don't know that we have the legal authority to require that any longer given preemptions by the state that were adopted this past year.

We're limited in what we can commit to.

But we can still ask, right? We can ask. We cannot require. We can require, but we can ask.

Nor do we have, I don't believe we even have the ability to enforce it if they even agree to it. So I think that's one of the, again, I don't want to, unfortunately, Tallahassee every year has been encroaching on our authority. And so I don't want to send a message out to the community that we're going to ask it and then we can't enforce it because at the end of the day, it's not that meaningful. But we hope, I think hopefully they've received the message that we want to make sure they're paying people fairly and at market rates.

Absolutely, and I think we should act as a community anyway. We can't enforce it, but we're going to act. Okay.

Thank you, sir. Ms. Thomas, I see your hand raised. If you could unmute yourself, and we'll need you to be sworn very briefly. Mr. Attorney, you want to administer the oath one more time?

Sure. Ms. Thomas, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do. Thank you, Ms. Thomas. The floor is yours. Good evening. Good evening, everyone.

I don't mean to be the dead horse, but as construction begins.

Ma'am, before you start, just your name and address for the record, quickly.

I'm sorry. Oh, 6531 Southwest 57th Place.

Thank you. Floor is yours. Thank you.

Just one block over. I'm imploring the city to make sure that the vendor, when they start construction, that they find a temporary parking pad for their construction workers so they will not be parked in front of our doors from 7 until 7. Now, I don't know if you guys are interested in the Gibson Bethel parking lot or the parking lot over by the dog park at Red Road Commons, but anywhere in front of our doors from 7 until 7, because again, that takes place of people coming in, the trash people, the landscape people, and that's what they did before when they were doing Red Road Commons until they you know built a temporary parking pad you know with gravel and everything so i do not want because i'll be calling every day all day to have the construction workers parked from seven until seven so i'm just asking you guys to consider some place for them to park thank you mr thomas we'll ask uh council for the developer to address that for us when they get up in the final room thank you thank you uh further comments i'm clerk anyone else online

Anyone else on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand if you'd like to speak on this item.

OK, we'll close the public hearing on these items then. Mr. Garcia, would you like to address any of the comments made?

Sure. It's not so much really rebutting, but just sort of addressing and saying what we can do. Traffic was a theme there. We're making a pretty robust commitment to look at traffic calming. And if it gets approved by the county, implement it and pay for it and install it within the area. employment from the very beginning from the first meeting we ever had with the neighbors that Issued that commitment from us always came up and the time frame that was discussed of about six months before You know commencement of construction to sort of have that job fair and try to see who we can recruit We can definitely do okay and subtext is committed of course to paying a fair wage

And lastly they're starting around just to clarify so six months before construction start and operations conventions. It was both. Okay.

Thank you just to clarify and lastly a construction parking we need to prepare a construction staging plan and Part of that has to be with where our construction workers are going to be parking and it won't be in front of people's houses We will make the commitment and arrangements to park in other appropriate parking lots. I

I mean, if you are building a pretty substantial parking structure, I'm not sure what that's going to be, an element that's advanced first. But it certainly seems like an opportunity to park on site. On site. Potentially. OK.

Question?

Yes, sir.

You're recognized.

Have you guys decided on the contractor as of yet?

So John Moriarty is who the subtext has worked with historically. And that, in all likelihood, is probably who the general contractor is going to be.

I would like to work with the developers and the JMA with the help with finding contractors, setting up the career fairs and everything that we can do to help out. It's been successful in the past, and I would just like to keep on doing that, so I appreciate that.

Okay. Okay. Colleagues, final comments? Anything I've missed, Mr. City Attorney, Madam Clerk? Are we in the proper posture for a motion?

You're ready to go? Okay.

Is there a motion on item 9, please? I'll move it.

Just one thing. Oh, that's item 10. We have a replacement resolution that I'll put at your desk.

Great. Thank you.

Do we read that in now?

No. So item 9 is the variance. So is there a motion to adopt the variance? I'll move it. Is there a second? I don't think so.

Okay, I'll second.

Okay, but motion by Commissioner Kaye, a second by Commissioner Bonich. Thank you. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll on item nine, please.

Commissioner Kaye? Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez?

No.

Commissioner Bonich? Yes. Vice Mayor Corey?

Yes.

Mayor Fernandez? Yes. Item passed as 4-1.

Thank you. Item 10, is there a motion? And the motion to be, it would be a motion to approve, if it's to approve, with the modifications discussed to the conditions, correct?

With the modifications discussed to the conditions, with the amended resolution. Exactly.

Correct, okay. Modifications to the amended resolution. So we have a motion to approve? With amendments. Okay, with the modifications, yes. Is there a second?

I'll second it. I keep looking at you, Brian, because I don't know if you're going to do it or not. Because you go, yes, but then you don't.

We have a motion by Commissioner Kaye, a second by Commissioner Moniz. Madam Clerk, if you can again call the roll on item 10.

Commissioner Kaye?

Yes.

Commissioner Rodriguez? No. Commissioner Moniz? Yes. Vice Mayor Corey?

Yes.

Mayor Fernandez? Yes. Item passes 4-1 with modifications.

Thank you. Okay, item 11 is the loan agreement. Is there a motion to adopt with the modifications discussed?

I'll move the motion. Second.

We have a motion and a second by Commissioner. The motion by Commissioner Kai is second by Vice Mayor Corey. There was one item that was mentioned by Mr. Dingell, I believe, regarding security and the hours. Are the hours of operation for the pool deck, is there a condition addressing that in the development agreement or the resolution? I'm sorry to bring it up at the last minute here.

There is.

10 o'clock. 10 o'clock. OK. So a motion and a second as modified. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll on item 11, please.

Yes. Commissioner Caillou? Yes. Commissioner Bonnich? Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez?

No.

Vice Mayor Corey?

Yes.

Mayor Fernandez? Yes. Item passes 4-1.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. OK. Well, moving on. Again, colleagues, we can take up item 13. Madam Clerk, if you could read that into the record.

Item 13, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Section 20-8.2 definitions and Section 20-8.5, permitted and special non-residential uses of Article 8, Transit Supported Development District of the Land Development Code to revise regulations related to adult entertainment.

Thank you. Mr. City Attorney, do you want to walk us through any modifications between first and second reading?

Certainly, certainly. And one note, one procedural note, Mayor and Commission. This was listed as a four-fifths vote required, but upon further review of the ordinance, a four-fifths vote would only be required if there was a new use that was put in that had a higher traffic rate. Intensity that is not the case here. It's that uses already in the code. So it is it this would would only require a three-fifths vote and Then in terms of the changes There is one change that was not reflected in your In the agenda, specifically as to alcoholic beverages being served consistent with that should read section 4-6B of the code rather than a blanket reference to chapter 4. The other changes are reflected in what you have, and that's condition number nine. Site plan approval would be by the city commission, and it would be limited to confirming compliance with applicable codes, including the requirements of this section, configuration of parking and site access, paint color, signage, and lighting. The other change was to the hours of operation, which are limited to 3.30 p.m. to 5.00 a.m. the following day, seven days per week, as opposed to having additional hours on Friday and Saturday.

Okay. Colleagues, with respect to the changes, any questions?

Oh, my apologies. Thank you. Ms. Arango pointed out to me. The spacing has been increased 1,000 feet between similar uses.

Between similar uses?

Between similar uses. That's correct.

Okay. Questions? You're recognized, ma'am.

Thank you. Are we going to be moving with the same idea of the signage being what it currently is? I know that we have initials and stuff like that.

So the signage, I mean, the signage is subject to the standards that I think are proposed in the ordinance. And as I understand it, there are directional limitations, correct? That's correct. That's where they have to be oriented. That's right. The constant of it is, I think, something that we have the legal authority to dictate.

even if it was something that was agreed upon originally?

It would have to be something that's proffered by the applicant if an applicant comes forward. When the applicant comes forward. Yes. So I don't think it's something we may, again, we may consider or ask for if an application manifests itself. But right now, I think it's not something that we can regulate affirmatively in the ordinance. If I'm speaking.

No, no, that's correct. It's correct. It can only be visible from Progress Road or Commerce Lane. Okay.

Further questions on the modifications?

I just wanted to make sure. We had had initially the DRB approving the request subject to the standards that we have discretion over. I proffered the suggestion that we retain the jurisdiction. I want to make sure that's something the board wants to pursue, or do we want to leave it in the hands of the DRB?

I would rather we do it.

Okay, fair enough.

I just want to be clear so that we're- It's limited to the standards. If an application comes up, it is limited to those standards. Question, Mayor?

Yeah. Mr. Attorney, the DRB also has jurisdiction, or they have quasi-judicial authority on the signage as well, right? So that will go through our community board for review and approval, is that correct? I remember that we've seen that at various places where we have to do signage approval.

For site plan, they have jurisdiction over site plan approval, not necessarily signage, but for site plan approval, just as regular site plan, the structure of the building. having nothing to do with whatever the use is. So signage is not part of the DRB process? To the extent that it's included within the application, it would be. But if it's not included in the application, they can come back for a sign permit later.

And it's still, I mean, if it's, sorry, Mayor. If they would go, if they would do it later, does it still have to go through DRB or just? It would not have to go through DRB. so Sorry, it's just that we've been through this process where like you know the hand doctor that's on us one They came back through the DRB It was not approved through the ERP because of the signage being too too big we've also had through the DRB different scenarios where art or signage has been too big and it's been also Deemed not acceptable by the DRB now obviously they can bypass that going through the Commission or or other ways But I've seen it happen

So I don't know the specific circumstances for those two that you mentioned. I would tell you as a blanket, signs don't have to go there. Now, if they're seeking some kind of variance or something like that, it would have to go there. Sure. Thank you.

Further questions? Mr. Vice Mayor? All good? Okay. Is there a motion? Public hearing. Public hearing. My apologies. So if there's any member of the public who would like to address this commission on item 13 on tonight's agenda, please come forward at this time.

Anyone on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand.

Seeing no one in the chamber and no one online, we will close the public hearing. Colleagues, is there a motion with respect to item 13?

I'll move the motion.

Okay. A motion by Commissioner Rodriguez. Is there a second? Apparently I am. I will make a second then. So a motion by Commissioner Rodriguez, a second by myself. Madam Clerk, if you can call the roll, please.

Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez? Yes. Commissioner Bonish? Yes. Commissioner Kaye? No. Vice Mayor Corey?

Yes.

Mayor Fernandez? Yes. Item passes 4-1.

Thank you. Colleagues, if we can take M3, and then I will be excusing myself.

M3, Commissioner Rodriguez, they're my gifts of health initiative contribution from health facility fund.

Sir, you're recognized. Well, this was, so as we have the facilities board, the health facility board, which Baptist has, I guess, funded that fund, we, I guess, we are required to DISTRIBUTE THAT MONEY TO HEALTHCARE, TO HELP OTHER HEALTHCARE FACILITIES. I KNOW WE ALWAYS HAD IN MIND TO HELP THE CLINIC, DR. SCOTT'S CLINIC. AND THEN I SPOKE WITH RENAL MARTIN WHO WAS HERE EARLIER TODAY IN REGARDS TO HELPING OUT THE THELMA GIBSON HEALTH INITIATIVE. SO I JUST BROUGHT IT TO THE COMMISSION TO SEE IF IT'S AN OPTION, IF IT'S SOMETHING THAT THE COMMISSIONER WOULDN'T WANT TO DO BECAUSE ULTIMATELY WE'RE THE ONES THAT MAKE THE DECISION OF WHERE THAT MONEY GETS DISTRIBUTED TO. SO.

THANK YOU. COLLEAGUES, ANY THOUGHTS WITH REGARD TO THIS? MADAM COMMISSIONER, YOU'RE RECOGNIZED.

Thank you. I've actually had offline conversations as well. I wonder if the best way for us to do this is in the meeting that we have like that first of the month, the first one that we have where we cover general items, if that's not something we discuss or if we bring it up as a whole so we can see how much money we have and kind of the ideas that we have individually for how to use those funds before we start to siphon them off. I think it merits maybe a little bit more collaboration and a better understanding of how much is there, what you're discussing, how much is it, what we need to do maybe somewhere else, how much is it, what ideas the rest of us may have for big or small uses of those funds so that we can make More of a complete decision instead of kind of like hammering it out little by little.

This wasn't necessarily to make a decision today on what amount we're going to do. It's more of is this an organization that we're willing to help, kind of. And I agree with you. We can bring it up in one of our goals meetings and then discuss how much we have and who we can disperse it to and how much. Because at the end of the day, we would have the Thelma Gibson people come and actually ask us how much they need. But Why do that if it's not somebody we're willing to give it to? So that's basically why the discussion item came up.

You're right, sir.

Commissioner Bonici, I agree with you. I think that's a great way of getting that communication out there as well. Two other things I wanted to add to that communication once we have it was we do have a facility that we do clinical services for pediatrics. I know the building's in a little bit of needed of repair. I've asked the city manager to spread out maybe we can get the actual inspection report so we understand if there's any financial duties that we need to go respond, and this would be a good way of using that to add money. Secondly, I would love to understand, you know, as we progress with the decision-making, and hopefully we can be able to support them, is just really understand what the Thelma Gibson Initiative really is going to do. Like, what is their purpose, and how they're going to distribute funds, and what's their goal? Like, I just don't know much about it, but I would love to learn more about it.

So just to close on this, I want to make a request of all of us when we put a discussion item on the agenda. And I think it's a laudable idea. It's an organization founded by certainly a titan of our community who we lost recently in Miss Gibson. Miss Gibson. So I have the utmost respect for her, their work, and the organization. But I think this is, you know, so we all are aware. I've gotten calls of concern from other organizations about the substance behind this item. And I find myself unable to address the concerns or alleviate those concerns because there's no information that's shared with us. our preparation for discussing the item. So I just want to ask us all, as we put things on the agenda, if there's an idea that we want to explore, let's elaborate on it a little bit so we can at least know what the point of departure is for the conversation and can preempt some concerns that may result. From my two cents, again, I know the organization. I don't know their reach into South Miami. That's some very important information. I will say, though, that we do own a building that is in, I've seen the inspection report from February. The building has substantial capital needs, and it does house a clinic that does serve children and families in South Miami today. And so my preference would be to certainly, to the extent that we still have, I think it's about a quarter million dollars, that was the proceeds or fees that we generated from that bond transaction. My first priority personally would be to spend it on addressing the physical needs of that building. And to the extent that there's any money left over, certainly we can entertain other alternatives. I just say that as, you know, again, I think it's our responsibility to make sure that our assets, even though they're not under our operational control, since we just approved a lease extension there, are in the best possible condition that they can be. And so that would be my priority. But again, a more laudable organization than Ms. Gibson's Health Initiative, I can't think of. And if the dollars would allow for it, I certainly would be supportive of making an award, particularly if they are serving families in South Miami. So those are my thoughts. Colleagues, do we want to have the manager work with Commissioner Rodriguez to kind of elaborate the proposal and bring it back on to date certain for discussion? How do we want to dispense with this issue? So on the 9th, during the capital project budget discussion, is that when you were thinking about discussing it then?

That's a great idea. OK.

So Mr.

Manager, your recommendation. There's some work that we need to do. When we were renewing the lease, we didn't really have a handle on the condition of the property. And as a requirement of that renewal, we required an inspection. And so that inspection report has been provided. I think what would be helpful in the conversation, because at this point, I don't know the magnitude of the investment that's required to make the repairs, whether it's $20,000 or $400,000. And I think that given the report, our next step was going to be to bring somebody on board to help us quantify that and sort of put a number to it. Because when I met with Commissioner Rodriguez, I said, I can't even let him know if there's any money available or not, if we can apply that first to the building. So we don't have that answer for you. And I think in fairness to the conversation, I intended to try and focus on that first because it's a capital need that's going to just fall on us. And instead of leaning on the general fund, I would lean on that first. But I don't know what the ticket's going to be. So certainly with Commissioner Kaye and Commissioner Rodriguez's background, expertise, and doing work like this could help us get somebody in that could give us an indication of how much it would be. Then I think that information would help you then. Is there money available to award somewhere else?

So you're asking Commissioners Rodriguez and Kaye to do the estimating work based on the report that we've gotten?

Pro bono. Pro bono. No, I think their guidance would be helpful, and that's their background. That's what they do, and that's the next step that we need to take. We need to bring somebody in that would do that kind of work like a contractor and tell us this is what we, or maybe find somebody that the report didn't find as well. But it's an unknown impact that I think we're going to have to absorb somehow.

Okay, let's see if we can advance that between now and June 9th is what I would suggest we put on that agenda and discuss what our options are then if there's no objection. Make sense? OK, thank you. With that, I'm going to turn over the gavel to Commissioner Bonnice, who's got a little bit of experience running meetings. So we'll lean on her past experience. Mr. Vice Mayor, no offense, but I figured it'd be easier for her to do than you not being in the room, based on my personal experience trying to chair a meeting remotely. And again, my apologies to everyone else. I just kind of tried to catch the last bit of my daughter's baccalaureate services. So have a good evening. Thank you.

He can't run.

I'm ready to keep going. OK. I know that we have people here for certain numbers. So if you could tell me what numbers you're here for, we could try to maybe address those first before we get to the items that we're just having as a matter of course. Number four? OK. What about you guys? Do you know? 15. 15? 16. And 16. OK. See you. All righty. Let's go with.

Madam Commissioner, we're going to do the consent items. If we want to pull any consent items, we can just do them all at one shot.

Yeah. I don't need to pull any consent items. Do either of you? We're ready to vote on them as a whole. If you'd like to make a comment about it before we do that, that would be fine. we're voting for is part of the consent. So Nikki will read them through, and then we'll just vote on them as a block.

All righty. Consent agenda. Item 1, a resolution of the city commission of the city of Southman, Florida, amending the city commission meeting scheduled to provide for only one commission meeting during the months of June 26, July 2026, and August 26. Item 2, a resolution of the mayor and city commission of the city of Southman, Florida, resetting the two regular city commission meetings in September 2026 to Tuesday, September 8, 2026, and Tuesday, September 22, 2026. Item 3, a resolution of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, confirming the reappointment of Randolph Brown to the Pension Board of Trustees. Item 4, a resolution of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, approving an authorizing waiver of certain event-related fees and costs in an amount not to exceed $4,564, pursuant to Section 15B-6 of the City Code for a special event known as the 2026 Juneteenth Celebration. celebration presented by the Southland Black Cultural Affairs Foundation to be held on Saturday, June 20th, 2026 at the Gibson Bethel Community Center. Item five, a resolution of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of Southland, Florida approving the procurement and installation of a shade structure for the swing area at the Southland Park an amount not to exceed $49,494.84, including a contingency using Alachua County Public Schools contract number IFB 24-13.

Do we have any comments we'd like to make about any of those, or are we ready?

Is there anything for item four with Juneteenth that you guys want to announce? Maybe we can announce it now?

Or if you'd like to wait till we vote and then give more information, I think we all know which way we're going. Okay. If I could have someone move the consent items.

I'll move the motion.

And a second?

Second.

Awesome. We have a first in Commissioner Kaye, second Commissioner Rodriguez. If we could please call the roll. Yes. Commissioner Kaye?

Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez? Yes. Commissioner Bonish? Yes. Vice Mayor Corey? Yes. Yes.

If you would like to come up and say anything about the Juneteenth celebration, we'd love to hear about it.

I just want to say that we'll be having our annual Juneteenth celebration on June 20th, Saturday. from two to six p m and i wanted to thank you in advance for your Consideration and approval for this event We will be honoring Chief Corbin and a number of other persons and basically the theme this year is special tribute to city of South Miami difference makers so we'd like to cordially invite all of you to come attend that session and We look forward to having you there

Thank you.

I'll get you a flyer. This is our official flyer.

Wonderful. Any questions? Does anyone know?

Hopefully none. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, then let's see. Let's take up number 15.

Item 15, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Article 8, Transit Supported Development District, to amend regulations to, by new definitions, clarify existing provisions and modify procedures and certain criteria within the Transit Supported Development District.

MR. Mr. Manager, do you have any comments, or are we bringing up Mr. Alvarez? Or you see the city attorney. He has comments.

MR. Mr. Alvarez is certainly listed to speak on it if you need to.

Good evening, Mark Alvarez for the City of South Miami Planning Department. So we're on first reading. We are continuing this item. We had a few issues that we had to go over a little bit more. Madam Chair, I mean, I'm sure we can either go through the entire presentation or we'll go through the changes since we last spoke on first reading.

I think if we go through the changes, it'll be easier. And then if we have questions about that, we'll elaborate further.

So the items that we had some discussion about. OK. As you know, there are a lot of items on this. We had a lot of discussion about building massing and how we would control building massing. And this seems to have become a problem as we go through certain projects that occur on large, long blocks. So we have developed some initial Concepts for the for inclusions into the code for addressing that and the first is really to have architectural criteria considered in addition to the regularly applicable site plan criteria That would deal with that would address facade attributes human scaled streetscape design ground floor Activation building modulation and open space Regulations as well. These are fairly aspirational and the concept that we want to introduce is that the City Commission would have more latitude to make decisions on these during the large-scale development approvals And have the authority to modify these You more or less already do, but we're making that a little bit more clear. We also have considered the idea that one of the reasons that we get a pretty long way, we get to commission before we sometimes have to address these. So we want to come back and go to where we started in DRB, the same discussion we've had with displaced trees and tree removals, that by the time we get here, we've gone for a very long process. So what we are considering is to having a peer review by architects. So the way this would work is, first of all, it would be in the code, and the architects would issue a written report the same way that we would have, for example, on a tree removal permit, we would have an arborist issue a written report. um that would have to be something that we would have to work on with how do we implement that we would have to have a probably rotating list of architects that we would call we would also have to integrate that with our what is it house bill three nine no 399 is wrong it's the one that allows private providers to enter into some of the zoning requirements. But we would like to have an architect, a licensed architect, provide an opinion to the DRB, to the planning board, and to the commission, a written report on some of the architectural features. Because as we spoke about this initially, that we recognize that we had decided when we wrote this code that we were going to be eclectic. We would not have a particular style, such as in Coral Gables. Without that style, it becomes very hard to create regulations that control some of the issues that we're seeing. We know that some of the details of fenestration and where we put the windows and where we put the corners and lintels and capstones and so forth can have an effect on how the building looks. And we've seen this in some of the process that we've gone through. Five or six developments coming through already So we think that that's one way to address it as more procedural manner and it'll be an extra report and it would be of course under cost recovery will be at the applicant expense The other side of this is More specifically we had Talked about having a waiver process and this was directed at we have a problem with the six-story blocks Yes, the six-story blocks at the edges of the downtown district, or the TSDD, where we have a regulation that was meant to control towers on 8- to 16-story buildings, and it does the opposite of what we want. We have a regulation that says that the tower part will be a smaller floor plate. sorry to use the word, floor plate, continuous building floor area. And we recognize that really at these edges, the ground level is more important than the upper stories. So what's in your package right now has been provided for a waiver process. And again, one of the other things we wanted to get away from was a variance process. A waiver that would require a building not to exceed 30,000 square feet at the ground level would include open space that exceeds 15% and make sure that it retains all the specimen trees unless there's a compelling reason to move them or remove them. And that any of the specimen trees that need to be moved will be moved on-site to the additional open space. And that's in your package right now. So in the week, a little bit more than a week, we started modeling what these kinds of things do. So this is a 550 foot long block. 200 feet wide. We've just dealt with that. But this is really meant to be an ordinance that would affect other blocks, particularly all of our blocks that are six-story blocks south of 74th Street. And we have one that's just north of 71st Street that will be across from 62nd. So we want to have an ordinance that will address all these blocks, because right now, the ordinance exposes us to having a mega building occupy those blocks. We talked about Paseo literally splitting the block. And so what we did is we took a model and put all the regulations into it. And then, because there's not a lot of time, we used AI to sort of fill in the trees and environment. As we looked at this, we realized it worked pretty well. But the problem is it takes a lot of development space away from the project. So this right now is 30, these are 30,000 square foot plates. But they are way over 15%, 15,000 square feet of open space. They're taking away a lot of the development right. So that was one thing that we talked about. And I want to present these to you just so you see the kinds of effects. When we just do the 15% open space, Because on a lot of projects, we're seeing linear open space being used. In other words, we give them the option of a plaza or some kind of internal plaza or just more or less create the setback that's typically used. And it doesn't create a lot of effect to the massing of the building. And then finally, we just decided, let's take to about 40-something percent open space. And we started to see that open space does work, but we need to have a lot more of it. So the end result is that we are considering right now as to as we go forward with this ordinance we may take a little more time on this part with the waiver and with controlling massing because we recognize that in this amount of time that we've had it's not enough to come up with something that we feel will be reliable controls for this effect. So with that, I guess I wanted to show you these concepts and how they result. We'd like to work more with the Commission and some of your ideas and try to keep modeling them out until we start to see something that will be reliable and that will work for us as an ordinance. both on the part of having an extra review by architects, licensed architect, and also in terms of the code itself, where we're trying to deal with everything by form, by the way the building sits on the ground, where it sits on the ground, how much open space we have. We work with the amount of glazing. Those are kind of our tools, and they're We really need to work on metering that out just the right way. So with that, at your discretion, I mean, we could take these two items for further consideration and continue with the rest of the ordinance. Or if you want, we can just come back in second reading with some more thoughts.

Y'all have any comments?

I have a comment.

I mean, look, so just recently I started looking at the different opportunities south of 74th Street, where we have a density of 100 per acre, six stories, and it caters back and forth depending. So these units will fall in that scenario, especially when we're dropping down closer to the residential areas. Right. So I'm okay with this going through first reading, but I would love to get with you between first and second reading to kind of go this a little bit further and understand what we can and can't do. For example, I'm looking at some of the scenarios here, and we're not really taking into account maybe parking, right? So massing is not something that we love, but We also need that there's understanding that with that type of density there needs to be parking and the floor coverage also needs to be looked into. So I would love to continue to conversate with you on this particular thing and get some feedback from some other people in the industry so we can get some feedback.

Actually, that was one of the comments on The one where we split with the Paseo, we can no longer have the garage connected to both buildings. And, of course, as you know, everything can go in ratios up and down except parking. Parking space is so big, the aisle is so big, and it's, you know, there's perfect dimensions and there's very imperfect dimensions. Gotcha.

So we'll continue to work with you. Yes, please.

No, I already told when we met, I like the idea of splitting up the building and if they go past the floor plate, they got to go all the way down. I'm happy with that.

I agree with you. And it's an interesting thing. I think we see, not so much here, but in other places where buildings are split up, and there's something going on below it, there's something going on. A bridge, there's something that's connecting these two buildings. It's not something that nobody's ever seen that isn't doable. It is very doable. So even if we're looking at saying, hey, you know what? The parking massing is what's kind of throwing this all off. I understand the concept of it, but I also think there's so many ways to skin a cat that for us to just stay with what we're seeing now, essentially, because We understand that parking is an issue. Because I don't want to look at that.

There are solutions. And in fact, the bridge wasn't something we came up because under our code right now, when we put a paseo through a block, we can't actually go over it. We had a lot of trouble figuring out what height we would need. Obviously, if it's a 10 foot high or 15 foot high, it becomes a cave. And we were trying to work with how that works. We've we looked around in other places. We have a new planner from Seattle. So we got some experience from there and We noticed when we do have the cut throughs how the walls move in and out and the cut through makes a big difference So again, it's just we're trying to digest what works and well, we'd like to work with you We think this is very important to do because we're having a problem with this but Yeah, I mean, depending on how you want to approach it, if you want to pass the rest of the ordinance.

I can't see Commissioner, I can't see Vice Mayor Corey, so I don't know if he wants to say anything.

No, thank you. I just wanted to state my preference as well, splitting up the buildings. I know that creates a lot of challenge with parking and with viability to develop. But if we can work on a solution that works that way, I think that would be my preference.

The only challenges that I'll tell you my colleagues is that when you take away a lot of that space, it doesn't come as viable to build. So we just got to take that into consideration. I'll give you an example of something that I saw that it's really close. It's right across the street from Subtext. So across the street from Subtext is University of Miami, and they have five and six-story buildings there, all condos, very quaint, trees everywhere aligned, and it's quiet. And I think that if we look a lot of the community south of 74th Street or along 62nd Avenue, I would love to see something of that manner where it's quiet, residential. So I'll invite you guys to kind of go through there and see it. It's literally right across the street where Subtext is, where the University Condos are you don't really know they're there because they're so quiet, but they're six-story buildings or condos, and it looks really nice I'm trying to think where that would be It's covered by trees you just can't see it, but it's nice I Walked through it yesterday.

That's why I remember is it close to us I'm trying to like if you had a gauge where is it closer to 64 is it like closer to I'll tell you right now

i'm sorry i know if i may yeah there's one uh minor item that uh we noticed we got some feedback um from actually from mr bass um we have building encroachment language we have had that since the beginning of tsdd these are like regular canopies balconies that kind of thing He had mentioned garage screening as sometimes because we have a build to line that we have to build to and if we require screening which we do on these these garages sometimes it sticks out a few inches so it's it would be to allow screening within the from the build to line to the property line. That's what we want to incorporate for second reading.

And there's a change in this code as well that goes to the property line for the encroachment line.

Okay. Did you all hear that? Okay, can you repeat it for me?

Sure, sure. We presently allow building encroachments over between the build-to line to the property line for balconies, for canopies. This would extend that same ability for the garage screening.

How high up?

We have to start at, it can't be on the first, you know, first 25 feet, the first floor. 25? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, isn't that what subtext is doing?

Yeah, yes, yes. But we don't really have the, it's not currently allowed, so we would like to provide for it.

Okay. Vice Mayor Corey, do you have any thoughts on that? Sorry, we just can't see you. Can we put this down so that we can see him, please?

No, no, that's okay. Yeah.

All right. So none of us have any problems with that?

I'm going to review it between first and second.

OK. So are we ready to vote on this? It's a public hearing. Oh, OK. Does anyone in the public have any commentary? Seeing no one.

Anyone on Zoom, please raise your virtual hand.

All right. We're seeing no one in person or virtually. So we will say the public comment section is closed. Moving forward do we have a motion for this item?

I'll move it Second perfect.

We have Commissioner guy with a motion Commissioner Rodriguez with a second if we could please call the roll. Yes, Commissioner.

Yes, Commissioner Rodriguez.

Yes, I

Commissioner Moniz? Yes. Vice Mayor Corey?

Yes.

Item passes, first reading, 4-0. Perfect. Can we hit number 16, please? Item 16, in ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Newport, amending Section 8.8 bonus allocations to amend regulations related to transfer of development rights and payments in lieu of in-kind public benefits within the Transit Supported Development District.

Okay, this was originally brought forth by our mayor, but he is not here. Do you guys have something to say?

I'm happy to explain it.

Thank you.

Yes, sure. So this was a discussion item at the last meeting. This is a rewrite or an amendment, really, to the TDR provisions and to the payment in lieu provisions. Essentially, it's setting up a three... kind of a three part or three options in terms of satisfying bonus floor area to get to the higher height. You can do it through in-kind benefits, which are things like workforce, affordable housing, public open space, those kinds of things. So in-kind, you're actually providing it. You can do it through TDRs, or you can do it through payment in lieu. And you can piece those together however, you know, whatever it is that you need to get to where you're trying to go. IN TERMS OF THE CHANGES TO THE SUNSET DRIVE AREA BONUS, THAT'S THE TDR DONOR AREA. THIS IS PROVIDING, YOU MAY REMEMBER FROM THE LAST COMMISSION MEETING THERE WAS A DISCUSSION AS TO IF THEY'RE GOING TO LIMIT THEMSELVES TO A PROPERTY THAT EXTENDS BEYOND THE SUNSET DRIVE BUFFER AREA. that they would get credit for those TDRs and be able to convey those TDRs. So we've provided for that in this. They would have to commit to that by covenant and basically declare we're not building above this height. So the rest of this ordinance kind of walks through the particulars of that and the procedure for it. The one thing that is an open question is, so THEY DO NOT HAVE TO PROVIDE THEIR CERTIFICATE OF TRANSFER UNTIL THEY ARE OBTAINING THEIR BUILDING PERMIT. THAT MEANS WHAT? PRIOR TO BUILDING PERMIT ISSUANCE. TO GET THE TDR. YES, BASICALLY TO PERFECT THE TDR. SO THEY'D HAVE TO PROVE WE'VE GOT THE CERTIFICATE FROM THAT BUILDING OVER THERE. WE ARE GETTING OUR BUILDING PERMIT.

Okay. Oh, for the purchaser?

For the purchaser. Okay. Yeah, I should have been clear about that. My apologies. Not the seller. Okay. Correct. Correct. There's a catch here, which has to do with the timing of the billing permit application and the costs of reviewing, because they could run through this entire process and stretch this whole process out, and then at the end say, oops, I don't have it. I'm just going to pay the payment in lieu. WE PRESENTLY HAVE A 37.5% PENALTY FOR A SIMILAR SITUATION WHERE THEY SAY, LET'S SAY WE'RE GOING TO DO AFFORDABLE HOUSING THE ENTIRE WAY, AND THEN THEY SAY, OKAY, I HAVE A BUILDING PERMIT. THEY SAY, WELL, WE'LL JUST PAY THE PAYMENT IN LIEU. WELL, THERE'S A PENALTY FOR THAT. THIS WOULD BE A SIMILAR SITUATION. WE'VE PROVIDED THAT THEY WOULD FALL INTO THAT SITUATION, BUT THERE'S ANOTHER ELEMENT TO THIS, WHICH IS A COST DEPOSIT. element, okay, where they are committing that they are going to provide this because we are going to go through that entire process of review. And if there's no money at the end of the rainbow, We're stuck holding the bag we spent the month we spent all of that we do collect an upfront fee, but it may not be enough to get through that entire permit and since it's not due until the actual permit issuance what we. would recommend is some level of cost deposit kind of hold that so that's a blank in this we left that blank we don't have to fill that blank out now, but I wanted to put that on your radar. And I'm happy to walk through that with you guys more in depth. Through the commissioner.

Go ahead. Yeah, right. Through the commissioner. Yes.

I have a question. So that's if we're reviewing it, what if it's private provider?

Well, maybe the cost positive is less. Maybe we provide a two-tiered. Because we're still going to have some level of review, even with a private provider. But you're raising a good point.

I think it's just one at the end. Right. I believe private provider.

Well, there's still going to be zoning review, public works review. There is an overall building review still as part of that. I would. But I believe that's once the. Ms. Cabrera is here. She can elaborate. But there are some reviews that are still, that still take place.

No, they happen. But at the end, once the private provider provides their report, that's when the final review happens, no?

Not really. What happens when I'm a director. So the prior providers only Florida building code and they could submit for all the outside agencies and agencies within the city, public works, zoning, whatever it is, without having a prior provider package in place. So actually, I would typically recommend that they do that because otherwise your prior provider may be reviewing something that zoning would change and would actually have to go back to the prior provider again. So.

Okay.

But if they are using a private provider, then how do you, the penalty, how do you assess for that?

Well, it's not really a penalty. It's a cost deposit. It would be applied towards their building permit. So they would only lose it if they were to, I guess they don't get their TDRs at the end and they pull out. That's the way the scenario would work. So they would forfeit that into that scenario. So it's basically, the way we wrote it, it's a percentage of what they would pay, the payment in lieu that they would owe at the end if they did not get their TDRs. If they're saying, we're going to do this many TDRs, well, what's the payment in lieu for that many? And it would be some percentage of that. I don't know, 20%, 25%. I leave that up to you guys.

No, I'm not. Because if they don't, so if the purchaser of those TDRs doesn't end up buying those TDRs, which they're doing it because the market is stipulating a price.

If the deal falls through. If the deal falls through, really. That's what we're covering.

Because if not, they'll just buy the TDRs from us. They'll buy the bonus points off.

Well, that's what I'm saying. But if they get to the end, it's a very, like, we think, we hope it's a rare scenario. They've got a contract to buy TDRs. They're moving along, and something happens. The deal falls through. Now they're left holding the bag at permit. But now they don't have the money to make the payment in lieu. Or they don't want to make the payment in lieu. Maybe the property doesn't pencil out anymore. Right. Well, we just did, you know, however many months of review and we're left holding that. I got you. To make us whole. OK. Or to protect us, at least, mitigate.

I would ask, and I don't know about my colleagues, but what percentage, what does the other municipalities, for example, what would Cora Gables, do they do that? And if they do, what percentage do they charge, or Pancras, or any other city in Miami?

I would have to look into it. I don't know off the top of my head, actually. I don't think they do it.

They don't do it like this. Go ahead. I know Nick wanted to go up there.

Go ahead. Yes, please.

Thank you.

Good evening. from a Bills and Sundberg, 150 Brickell Avenue. To answer that question, we did a little research today. And we haven't found any other jurisdiction that really do this thing that we're talking about. We are working with the city attorney's office and we're committed to continuing to do that through second reading Well one thing I did find out today is that the the upfront? Application fee is actually pretty significant. I think in the instance I heard about today was hundreds of thousands of dollars So I don't know necessarily whether this needs to be in an example of a $2.5 million payment in lieu, that 20, 25% number on top of hundreds of thousands of dollars that is required upfront for the building permit application, which I think is intended to cover kind of the downside that we're talking about. seems excessive that would only be applied in this one case. So we're going to continue to work together and try to find what that right number is if the existing permit scheme doesn't satisfy what the city attorney's office is trying to protect against. But I think it's certainly much lesser of a number than 20%, 25%. I think we're talking more like you know, 1%, $25,000, just understanding that there is a significant chunk of money that's required up front for a building permit. My understanding is the intent of that is to protect against this exact scenario, this exact downside where the city should not be left holding the bag for any staff time that went into that building permit review in the event that we do this analysis and it comes out that the hundreds of thousands of dollars are not sufficient, then of course I think that would play into what this answer is. But I think we need to kind of work together a little bit further to see what the right fit is. So just I would ask to allow us to keep working with the city attorney's office. Let us look at a couple actual scenarios, what those building permit fees were up front. to make sure that the city is protected and that this kind of works so it doesn't kind of destroy the TDR program for the wrong cause.

I have a question for you. So you're saying no other city is charging this fee? We would be- The penalty fee. The penalty fee, exactly.

A penalty fee that we found, that's right. I mean, several cities will charge the building permit application if you have a front, which is a percentage of the total fee that's expected at the end of the day. In the case of an applicant that is using a TDR program, rather than buying those same development rights from the city or some other bonus program, we'd not find either in Coral Gables or City of Miami where they required some additional upfront cost on top of the building permit application fees because they're engaging in this TDR program.

Thank you. Sure. Do you have anything you'd like to say?

No, I think I agree with Mr. Novo. I need to, there's a lot of questions that I have inside. And I remember when we first came up with the TDR through a lengthy process before. So we're making amendments and changes. I just have a few other questions I want to take offline. So between one and two, we'll work on it.

Okay. How about Vice Mayor Corey, do you have anything you'd like to add?

No, I think that's a good idea for us to sit down and work some things out between one and two. I understood the comments the gentleman just made, so I'm fine with waiting to hear it again on the second.

Okay, perfect. Commissioner Rodriguez?

Just to put it on the record, the only part of the TDR portion that is not the sellers side, this is just the purchasers where we're fixing it, the program.

There are some changes to the seller side. I mean, mine are just procedural, essentially. But yeah, this is kind of streamlining the process to make it more apt. It basically shifts. The way it was originally written, it required all this work done up front before the... And that was part of the reason why we didn't need anything or we didn't feel like we needed anything like this cost deposit scenario. Now this is shifting everything to the back end, basically, to make it a little more feasible for these things to work. So for instance, Mr. Noto's client received certain approvals. They can now, under this scenario, they have some time now after their approval to go seek out or to encourage owners of properties within the sunset buffer to spend the money that they need to spend to perfect those TDRs, which is what kind of the purpose of the program is, so that they can purchase those TDRs. and there's some time to make that happen, as opposed to having to do it all on the front end before they come and get their special exception. Basically, they would get their special exception and then go to the marketplace and try to... Just because a property has TDRs, you don't qualify for those TDRs unless you spend money invested in your building.

Correct. And I think there's something that's important to say, and I said it, I don't know if it was the last meeting or another meeting, where... When these discussions were being had, it was, hey, fix your building so that you can sell these TDRs. And the money would be coming for your improvements from the sale of these TDRs, right? That's how you were supposed to kind of recuperate your stuff, whatever, so that it didn't come at an additional cost to you as a building owner.

And at the same time, also, It was also a way of not, I wouldn't say helping, but justifying that they didn't get anything out of the zoning upgrades.

Yes.

So that money that they were taking in is what another developer two blocks down would take in by putting up a 10-story building.

Yep. And so I think it's important that when we have these conversations that we keep in mind that that doesn't mean make your building beautiful so you can And I said this, and everybody was like, ah, so that we can then charge the tenants an exorbitant amount. I understand that as a matter of course, the values of these locations will go up as everybody does the work. But I think we need to be very cognizant. What we're trying to do at the beginning of this take care of shopkeepers, take care of business owners, that kind of thing. We don't want to see this then become a vehicle to hike up people's rent when you fix it. And then we are getting rid of the people we wanted in the first place, which is what you saw. Same, same, but different. Lincoln Road, you're seeing it all over the place. So I want us to keep this in mind when we make these decisions. It doesn't just affect one person or one type of person. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Well, I think, can I add to that? I think maybe to Mr. Attorney, that's a form of rent control. Is that something that we can do? Is that something that we can... I know, but it really is what you're asking for.

No, I'm just saying... No, no, no. I don't say that we have to do rent control. I think we just... Dude, we just need to be human. You know? I'm sorry. You know what? We can make money without being... Crazy. We can repair our buildings without choking out people. I'll give you a perfect example, and it's not here. It's been all over the news everywhere. Acme in Nashville. The mayor of Nashville went crazy, raised taxes on businesses an exorbitant amount. Now a bunch of businesses in Nashville are closing because they can't afford it, because the building owners, of course, passed the increases to the tenants. So you're losing the charm of what you had, and you're getting 17 Banana Republics, 13 Anthropologies, and three Lululemons. But you've lost the charm of what you had. So I think it's just a balance for us. And we, I don't think, should dictate to people what they can charge. But I think we also need to say, hey, you know what? We all collectively wanted to keep a charm in our downtown area. And the TDRs were part of how you keep that charm without choking people that had these smaller businesses. And by smaller, I mean lower. They can't go higher. So I just think I'll keep saying it, because at some point, it's got to humanize it for some people.

Yeah, I don't think that works. I mean, our thing.

Well, rent control is a scary thing, Steve.

You know what I mean. It's codifying it somehow is what really, and you can't, right? You cannot. It's so prohibited under the statute. I think Commissioner Bonici, I mean, I agree with you 100%, and we continue to say it. It's just there's no way to enforce it, and there's no way to codify it.

But you know what? If we keep saying it, maybe we make a dent on some human person.

I will continue.

We are human. All righty. So are we ready to vote on this one?

Sure. As a first reading, we still got to go through that one.

Yep. OK. Do I have a motion?

I'll move it.

And do I have a second for Brian? I'll second. I was going to say, we've left you out of that one. OK, we have a motion and a second. Can we please call the roll?

Yes. Commissioner Bohnish? Yes. Commissioner Kaye? Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez? Yes. Vice Mayor Corey? Yes. I'm going to pass on first, 3 and 4, 0.

Perfect. If I am correct, we still have M124 and 1. And then we have hanging out, 8 and 13. 7. 7.

Madam Chair, could we, if you could indulge me on 7. We want to hit 7 first. We have some consultants here that support us on this one. Plus, there's a time sensitive nature. I just want to make sure it doesn't fall out at the end of the night because we have to pursue a grant. And this step has to be taken. And we have a deadline on that grant. So if it's possible. Absolutely. Thank you.

Item 7. A resolution of the Mayor's City Commission of the City of South Manfreda adopting the Safe Streets and Road for All SS4A South Miami Safety Action Plan, including its associated safety policies, procedures, and project recommendations.

OK.

All right, Alex Munoz, Public Works. And we have Chris Benitez here from Stantec. I'm just going to kind of do a quick introduction here on this item. You all had a presentation on this already a couple of months earlier. So this is what you have here today. Obviously, the project team is here, which you'll see shortly. The history of this is you have reviewed it. The city started this back in 2024 and 2025. We're going to go through what this is, which is the work that was done to identify safety issues throughout the city. At the end of this, we have a list of projects, which I think is important for the Commission to see and understand. I want to talk about that in a second. And we also have policies and recommendations, which are important, and Chris from Stantec is going to cover those. This is the project team. I'm not sure why they put me on there, but it makes it better. And we do want to thank Stantec. They have been a great partner in this. And some of their team members are here as well. They've been a great partner and very patient with us and very creative in getting this done. So what is the safety action plan? You have this here in front of you. The main goal here is to find area where drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists face the most risk. If you recall, this was presented to you. They looked at data, obviously. They've also gotten input from folks that live in the city through surveys and getting feedback. And this is done based on a system that's already in place. They're going to talk about fixing the problem. That's identifying those trouble spots and recommending projects. That's what you're going to see here. There could be all different types of projects, and you're going to see a lot of that. Some of these are already in the works, and others are going to be new projects for us. And then I talked about policies. That's something that is as important as the actual projects, to making sure we have the policies in place, that as we grow, as we do new projects, even some of the discussions you were having today, those safety considerations are put in place. If you recall, you saw the map about hot spots in the streets. This is when we were in front of you. Then you saw the safety analysis, and it was based on the high injury network. So you see here what's been done since that meeting. That meeting talked a lot about where the problems were. And we discussed the streets and some of the areas and some of the neighborhoods where they were greatly impacted. And Chris is going to talk about the statistics of where most of the accidents occur. We'll remind you of that. So here, the goal again, as I mentioned, is to present you with the solutions for these problems that have been identified. And I'm going to bring up Chris at this point. He can talk a little bit about the details here that you see. This is not new information, but this is what was presented before. One of the things that I wanted to mention is we're on a little bit of a timeline, as the manager said, because The grant process was moved up. That wasn't part of our original timeline. Our original timeline was to have something done for the budget, which is why we're here now. However, the grant deadlines were moved from July to now, the end of May. So we have to move this forward and hopefully Successful consideration from the Commission will be able to move forward and apply for some of the grants to offset some of these projects These projects won't be done in one year. It'll take several years to get these different projects done.

So with that Chris The floor is yours Good evening commissioners all right, so So this Safety Action Plan is one important consideration. It's funded by FHWA's Safe Streets and Roads for All SS4A grant program. This is specifically with the planning grant program. planning grant program. They also have the implementation grant, which I'm going to talk a little bit about at the end of the slides. But this action plan was developed by the planning grant. So the main focus of this is to, or at least the goal, is to eliminate fatalities and serious injury crashes. How do you do that? So one of the methods with this SS4A program is to look at the data, the data-driven process, and also obtain community consent. So one of the ways that this is achieved is to evaluate the crash data, develop that high injury network, Also looking at the risk-based network, those are locations that may have an elevated crash risk. And that could include locations depending on roadway characteristics, land use characteristics, demographics, activity centers. We also, as part of the development of the Safety Action Plan, there's community-based inputs, which Alex was talking about. We have a web page set up. We conducted a survey, an interactive map-based survey, where the community provided input at specific locations to provide their feedback. And we worked with a communication team to get the word out of the survey through different channels, Facebook, Instagram, the city's communication Process as well and also as part of this plan There's a there's an emphasis on looking at ksi which is fatal and serious injury crashes these all go into the hopper to identify the foundation for the recommendations which are project locations and types of treatments and So some of the key findings from the analysis, one of the key findings is 89% of the fatalities and serious injury crashes have occurred in 10% of the roadways within the city. So this is an important statistic because this helps the city to focus the limited resources at those locations that have a high demonstrated safety concern. The safety analysis also help to identify some of the key emphasis areas, which goes into identifying safety countermeasures at any of the project locations. These engineering countermeasures, they're organized into addressing those emphasis areas. So there's intersection-based type improvements, signalization, mid-block treatment, speed management. That was a community concern. Lighting as well. And the big takeaway is the Safety Action Plan has a chapter that's dedicated to these engineering countermeasures, these safety countermeasures. It's not an exhaustive list of different countermeasures. And for each of these project locations, they should consider other additional countermeasures or modifications to those countermeasures based off of any site-specific evaluations for each of those project locations, agency coordination, cost considerations. The one other idea to keep in mind is that these countermeasures, they're all consistent with FDOT design criteria, proven safety countermeasures. We coordinated with the county about these countermeasures. They're on board with it. They implement these types of county measures in the county. So we have the buy-off from the county, FDOT. And these countermeasures, the other takeaway is that the countermeasures are what's used to inform the different improvements at each of the project locations. So the project locations that have been identified from the safety analysis, they were organized into different tiers. Tier one, these are locations that have a documented fatal and serious injury crash. Tier two, locations that are part of the high injury network. And tier three, locations that are part of the risk-based network. So this provides a balance of locations identified with crash data, but also locations that are more intended for proactive safety planning. And from there, there was a total of 27 project locations identified for the safety action plan, organized into the tier one and tier threes. The locations include a mix of intersections, corridors, mid-block crossings. There was an overwhelming number of intersections that were identified from this, because intersections are one of the emphasis areas from the study. It's an emphasis area in the Florida Strategic Highway Safety Plan. A LOCATION WHERE THERE'S AN INTERACTION BETWEEN VEHICLES, BICYCLISTS, AND PEDESTRIANS, WHICH BICYCLISTS AND PEDESTRIANS, ANOTHER EMPHASIS AREA, THOSE ARE VULNERABLE ROAD USERS. SO THERE ARE A LOT OF INTERSECTION-BASED LOCATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED FROM THIS PLAN, INCLUDING US-1 CORRIDOR AND INTERSECTIONS, SUNSET DRIVE, SEVERAL INTERSECTIONS WITHIN THE DOWNTOWN AREA, WHICH IS A HIGHER ACTIVITY AREA FOR BICYCLISTS AND PEDESTRIANS. The locations also include a mix of jurisdictions. So there's city roadways, there's county and FDOT facilities. The jurisdictional context, it's an important consideration for the implementation of the project. City locations are gonna have a more direct implementation pathway. In fact, we're actually already working with the city on connecting those projects with the capital improvement program, such as the Sunset Drive improvement project. County and FDOT locations, they're gonna require an additional layer of coordination, reviews, approval, partnership agreements, The project locations include a mix of different cost categories and complexities. So there's projects that includes lower cost improvements like signing and payment marking, traffic signal upgrades, crossing enhancements to the more larger profile projects such as a raised intersection. So, but the main takeaway, the safety action plan includes a table with each project location that has all of these elements and also an implementation approach for each of these projects to help inform the next steps for those projects and also to, it gives the city an opportunity to explore funding opportunities for those projects. So there's location-based recommendations, and then there's the policy and process recommendations, which are more of the systemic type recommendations. Policy and process recommendations, they give the city a framework for continuing to address safety as part of the decision-making for the future. So this includes, well, in the safety action plan, it's categorized as leadership type of recommendations, transparency and progress, which is a requirement in SS4A for transparency and progress, engineering, education and outreach, and enforcement. An example of a few of these, one of the recommendations is to designate a city safety champion or coordinator to help continue moving the different pieces of the action plan forward. Another recommendation is analytical performance measures to continue monitoring the progress of safety in the city and ensuring that projects keep on getting implemented. There's also recommendations to integrate safety into the a resurfacing capital improvements plan for future projects in the city. Education and outreach activities include bike rodeos, that's something the city's already conducting, and enforcement activities, coordination with the city's police department to potentially do targeted enforcement at those high-risk safety locations that were identified from the plan. So today, The main goal today is we're here to request adoption of the Safety Action Plan. And really what it provides is, one, it's a data-driven, community-informed process to help identify the safety improvements to make the streets a safer place. It includes project locations. safety strategies, policy recommendations, implementation approach, and funding opportunities to, or identify funding opportunities. At least it sets it up to pursue funding opportunities. And one of those funding opportunities is the SS4A implementation grant, which the deadline is next week. for this grant, one of the requirements for this implementation grant is an adopted safety action plan. So what's continuing right now is the safety action plan. Well, I should say after the safety action plan. Some of the things that are going to continue, the city's already implementing a lot of these project locations and connecting that with the capital improvements. And one of the main projects that's being prioritized is that US-1 at-grade crossing study. So that's going to help support some specific treatments, potentially build upon what we have in the action plan already. The other continued activity is there's going to be continued implementation planning for this action plan, for the recommendations. And what that means is essentially we're going to be working with FDOT and the county on refining the implementation pathway for a lot of these projects' recommendations. We're going to be working with the TPO looking at other funding strategies. We're going to work with other city departments to identify if there's any other policy process recommendations that could be incorporated with the action plan. So with that, I'm finished with my presentation. Thank you very much. And I'm open for some questions.

I'm sure you're going to get them from everybody. Commissioner Rodriguez, are we OK?

No, it's all right.

Is the slide that important?

It's an actual project.

Oh, OK. I'm like, what are we looking for?

So I can ask Alex. How much is the grant for?

Different amounts we are gonna apply for the the priorities that were the most serious conditions At least 500,000 we're gonna apply for there's different tiers as you saw here And so we're gonna go after the first two tiers, which was gonna be over 500 probably, you know near a million dollars, but There's not a set number. It's it's open In terms of what we can apply for.

And that money is used to actually not just do studies, but also actually do implementation?

Yes. It's for implementation, yes. I mean, some of it might be designing an implementation, but not studying at this point. It's going to be mostly focused on design and actual project implementation. Yes, in some cases you might need to study because you've got to capture data.

Always a study.

There's always a study So there is a list of projects and you can see that there's you know dollar amounts there that describe I know it's a small but it isn't Available to you so you could see what some of the problem areas that were pointed out and some of the recommended fixes So this gives us a really good list to build on for the next couple of budget years You asked a good question. What are we going to pursue? We're going to pursue the first couple of tiers of priorities.

Great. I mean, the important for me was implementation. Yeah. Great.

Yep. They've done the work of identifying the problems, so now we can move to the implementation side.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. I think that we're all looking for action, right? I think the plan speaks for itself. I have questions specifically on the FDOT and the county projects. What we've seen in the past is the, I don't want to use reluctance, but the inability to move forward and implement a lot of the corrections. We've had corrections for ADA studies. we have uh implementation studies from the county and fdot on a variety of different things on us1 corridor what do you suggest or how do we get the process going with fdot to make sure because i mean us1 is the major corridor major and all the x's and all the greens that we saw is made on us1 what what was the suggestion from you guys on how we can implement a lot of stuff on fdot for example on us1

So one of the things with the action plan, a lot of the potential treatments, these are kind of like a starting point of painting the canvas. These treatments, they're consistent already with FDOT criteria. So that already provides a certain level of comfort with them. However, there is definitely a lot of work to be done for the implementation of those projects with FDOT or even the county. And I would say one of the things that we always do with projects is we like to, with FDOT involvement, we like to have early coordination meetings with them. Just to get a sense, show them this is what we have with the action plan. These are some of the ideas we have. What do you all think? What do you think are the next steps to get this implemented or to have this considered? So it's all about having those conversations with them.

I would assume they would be having all that stuff. Like we have... We have the underline that we've had to coordinate with f dot all the way across the board, the metro station, the bus systems that we've had south of of dayland. Like, I would just imagine that there's been a lot of consideration from f dot how to do this corrections, the safe planning, you know, the zero plan that goes all the way across the county. I just feel like, for example, a lot of the next steps that we have here is consider the US-1 a great study. What is that? I really don't know what that is. What is the great study at US-1 that you guys have in the next steps here?

So the US-1 at-grade study is a study that the city of South Miami is going to be conducting, where it's going to be a detailed evaluation at each of the intersections along US-1 within the city's limit. And the detailed evaluation is going to include traffic evaluations, safety evaluations, evaluating potential treatments and working with FDOT on the solutions to see what they would be open to incorporating on their system. I want to step on that one a little bit.

Yeah, can you elaborate? Does it have to do, because I feel like we have so many things going on. Yes. So is this something that we spoke about with the traffic studies or the traffic study that we want to do that has the three different zones that we've identified throughout the city?

It's related to that. The at-grade study specifically, and unfortunately, it's been a prolonged process on getting a contract from the US DOT. That actually has been in the budget now for one or two years, but at least the last year. And what it is is to look at all the intersections on US 1 that belong in the city, from 80th to Red Road. We've talked about it, the Taco Bell, the pharmacy turn, all of those. So we're looking at all of those to see safety improvements on everything, pedestrians, cars, obviously, and bicycles, and how to improve those crossings there. we've actually to your point that you already asked about the county and fdot on those between uh patricia and myself we've reached out to the county already to at least start on some of the looking at some of the solutions because they do they do take a long time for example one of them is can we improve the crossing on 80th from the city by adding a right turn lane what could we do on 62nd for that crossing So that's what the study is. The aggregate study is looking at all those intersections. They're going to be doing the study, which is great, because they have a lot of information already. So that will help us come up with solutions that you already said it, and you know the answer. FDOT, the county, and then also some of our own solutions where we can control some of that. Some of it can get complicated. It might be right away acquisition. The other part of that, which we've started discussions, and we need to understand more. I talked about it briefly. I know maybe a meeting or two ago was the lighting, the signalization, which is not something that we control. It's the county, but that's part of the conversation as to the impacts on that crossing. But that's what the aggregate study is.

So Commissioner, remember, this goes back even when the pedestrian bridge was canceled. that the desire was to put more emphasis on looking at at-grade solutions and making multiple crossings safer instead of focusing on one bridge. And that's the genesis of the conversation of at-grade study. So there are locations that are more than the original conversation because of additional issues of the right turn or the left turn on the Taco Bell, things like that. But that was a genesis.

Well, I mean if we're gonna add to that then you know we have With the initial Genesis that we had We've had developers that are doing a lot of the work as well right so we have Avalon phase two We have sunset place that we can start incorporating some of these things like how do we start integrate? How do we start integrating? at great study, how do we integrate the development and traffic studies and the implementation from developers all in that same region so we can combine forces and just have a great execution plan in the not so distant future?

So we did. The Avalon 2, that desire was shared with them. Originally, their interest was to put the crosswalk on the south side. There was an interest on our team side. that it would be on the north side, and through that dialogue, that's where they come back with that crosswalk on the north side of that corner, right, where the Einstein Bagels. So that coordination was done with them. Obviously, Sunset Place is in a different timeline of their project. Anything that's Red Road related, that would be a relevant conversation. So we did address 73rd Street through the Avalon Bay 2 project. Good.

And so, last question. So if we're going to go ahead and consider this grade study, that's the next study that we need to consider. How long would that take to implement due and get ready to submit as an overall plan? And is this something that we need to start considering for our CIP budget for next year, the year after that? What integrations with when we have grants and working with FDOT with any contributions from them? What is the holistic plan that we can kind of start?

Yeah, the grant would fund the study. They've given us a proposal a while back. So the grant would fund the study. One of the things we did, manager spurred us to go ahead and start gathering the data because of the delay. Because in the summer, you don't gather the traffic counts. So we went ahead and they're going to go ahead and get the traffic counts ahead of time so we can not have to wait until the fall to start some of the work once that grant comes in. But it's probably going to be somewhere, just because we started it, it'll be about a year from now because we're getting the counts now. So that will help probably for 27, 28, unfortunately. Like I mentioned earlier, we're already looking at some of the solutions on 62 and on 80th to see if we get other projects in there. Because it's not like we don't know that certain things need to be improved. So I think we'll be doing a little bit of that, you know, at the same time. A little bit of both at the same time. That's for the US 1. There's a bunch of other projects in here that we could also implement.

Vice Mayor Corey, I can't see you, but do you have any questions or comments for the team here?

no maybe just a comment thank you for the presentation i know uh um again these studies would they do have to lead to action if we were gonna plan it out i think uh trying to put as many of those that are within the city's jurisdiction on the next uh budget just because we all know we'll be able to execute those faster residents are always asking us to improve these conditions, but it's going to get even more challenging as we add density to the city. So every year we go by, you know, we risk more of these incidents occurring. So I think, like I said, just as a recommendation would be to put as many of these projects that have city-based jurisdiction for next year and then start working on the rest of them, but obviously the funds won't go out until we get cooperation with the county and FDOT.

Thank you. Okay, we're headed back to Commissioner Rodriguez.

Sorry, just, I agree with everything. I think Commissioner Gaglia made great points and I agree with what he said. I just, going a little further, We do the study. We do the great study. We do. We get the grants. We have all this money. What scares me because, you know, we've been through it or not scares me, but we're going to put all this time where Patrice is going to be working. You're going to be working. Stanton is going to be working. Do we reach a point where the county, which we have experience, says, oh, well, no, you can't do that?

I don't know. It's presumptive, I think.

Or the fact that these are already locations that have been analyzed, have been identified. We have the funds. Are we allowed to proceed to do the implementation? Or are we still going to be at the beck and call of the county?

No, traffic control, you need approval, especially with the timing of US 1 and the conditions. Yes, you're going to need approval from both jurisdictions.

I think, Commissioner.

Well, not just US 1, the whole project.

I just want to put emphasis on that the difference is this is a data-driven project. analysis that is already contemplating some of what supports the implementation, right? And so the difference is that sometimes going to with an ask may not be supported necessarily by the data that meets their traffic management. This is a different approach, obviously, so there'll be more data-driven, and as the consultant mentioned, some of these things may have already FDOT-centric if it relates to FDOT. So could it happen? Yes, but I think this puts us in a better position to argue what is needed based on the analytics.

Okay, hopefully. Hopefully we can get it all done.

Okay, thank you. I have one question slash comment. Everything that is on that list that was popped up before are essentially main roads. If we hear the majority of the feedback, though, from our residents, they're usually secondary roads. And I know that if I understand what you said, we're trying to kind of take a top-down approach. But it seems like US 1 is humongous. We're looking at Bird Road, humongous, Miller, humongous, US 1, humongous. Oh, this is going to sound terrible. They're not our roads. We don't control them. So we're working for somebody else. We're trying to fix US 1. Guess what? US 1 is not ours. And so while we look at this list, and this list is fantastic, as a resident, I look at that list and I go . What have you done for me lately? The answer is zero. Zero, because US-1 doesn't belong to South Miami. But you want South Miami to do the work, get the money, put in money, I'm sure, because that's always the case. Nobody's saying, let me just give you everything. You take care of it, but I'll give you everything. I've never seen that as long as I've been sitting here so far. So my question is, Where are the priorities for our residents? Are we handling those separately? Is there separate money for that?

So what I would say is that the data doesn't lie. This approach is really providing where the problem really is at the end of the day. This is not necessarily about volume of cars. This is about those that result in serious fatalities and or serious injuries, and the fact remains that those roads, whether they're arterial or not, are the ones where, as you said, 10% of the roads are. Because those accidents are not necessarily occurring in the interior roads. The data just doesn't support it. It doesn't mean we're going to ignore. The resident says, we have too many cars on our street. But at the end of the day, when you look at the data for fatalities and serious injuries, there are limited roads in which this is occurring. And so the program is trying to make a huge dent on reducing fatalities and road rates and serious injuries. So obviously, the strategy is that you would apply your dollars to where the data is taking you, meaning this is where it's happening. Putting money over there where nobody has died or been hurt may seem a little bit counterintuitive when you have this road over here and that's where you have the. So it doesn't satisfy the perception of a problem for a resident. They're still going to live with that perception the next day. So yes, there could be traffic calming initiatives that we do. This program specifically is to reduce fatalities and injuries. And the data is telling us where that's happening.

OK, so then essentially these are two different things then that we're talking about. This program for, like, people dying and running over pedestrians and that kind of stuff. And then another program that would be- Perception of a problem.

A perception of a problem that is real for that resident because a certain amount of cars are going by that street. It just hasn't resulted in serious injury fatality. Somebody say, well, you want to wait till it happens? That argument could be said in any road in USA, right? I mean, I've lived this issue my entire life. So fully understand the reality of a resident in an interior road and their experience. This program is very analytical as to where the problem is. So you can put your dollars to work so you have the greatest reduction in their fatalities and injuries. I mean, that's just at the end of the day, right, if I boil it down. That doesn't mean that the interior roads are going to be ignored, but they're certainly, you know, that's not where some of these serious things are occurring.

I would just add to that, just looking at the numbers of the list, the three tiers that are here, there's 27 projects. 10 are city only of the 27. 10 are city only projects. The other ones are county-city overlap. So we'll have to work through those. And we put two issues together here. We put the study for safety, and we talked about US-1 because there's a lot of overlap.

So to take your concept further, what we have done is divide the city in zones. And I want to focus from a traffic management plan so that we're not doing the one-off. because all we do is push traffic to the next street. And so we have divided the city in zones to conduct traffic studies that are related to that ecosystem within that zone. And the first step towards that is getting traffic counts, because you've got to support it with traffic counts. That'll lead to a traffic study. to deal with some of the interior cut through traffic, volume, maybe some excessive speed. And those will, at some point, generate some implementation of traffic calming. So we're not necessarily going to wait 10 years till we finish this one and then focus on that. So we have a dual track approach with traffic studies that encompass areas outside of these roads.

Thank you. All righty, are we ready to call this one?

Yeah.

OK.

I'll move the motion.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

Second. Second.

Well, there we go. OK, well, Commissioner Calla beat you. So we've got a motion and a second. Can we please call the roll? Yes, Commissioner Calla? Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez? Yes. Commissioner Bonish?

Yes. Vice Mayor Corey?

Yes.

And the pass is 4-0. OK. Do we have any preference on how we want to hit the rest of them, or do I just go straight down the line?

We just have one resolution left.

I'm sorry?

We just have one resolution left.

Okay, is that number eight?

Yes.

All right, let's read number eight, please.

Item eight, a resolution of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of South Manfreda approving the second renewal amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with New Hope Corps, Inc. for Unhoused Outreach Support Program Services. and amount not to exceed $30,076.80, authorizing the city manager to enter into the second renewal amendment for such services.

Do we have any discussion on this? Anyone need to say anything, or are we good to vote? Brian has a question.

Yeah.

OK. Sorry, Brian. I covered you with my computer.

If I could just say that I wanted to thank the commission for initiating this last year. In the last two biannual census counts we've had, there have been fewer than three. people unhoused, chronically homeless. So I definitely appreciate your efforts last year when I started here five years ago. That number was 15. The problem will only increase as we attract more people to the city. So I think these services will continue to bear fruit. So thank you.

Thank you very much for spearheading this.

Are we ready to go? He should move it.

Yes. We have someone that will move this. Would you like to move it for us?

Yes, please.

Okay. Do I have a second?

I move the motion. Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Can we please call the roll? Yes. Commissioner Kaye? Yes. Commissioner Rodriguez? Yes. Commissioner Bonilla?

Yes. Vice Mayor Corey? Yes. Item passes 4-0.

Okay. Am I right in thinking we have M124, N1, and number 13? Yes.

We have the minutes, the city manager report. Oh, yeah.

No, I'm talking about other than that.

Oh, yes.

Yes. 13 was deferred? No, 12 and 14? Okay. Sorry.

Madam Commissioner, for M4, we have someone in the audience that's left. That's probably the only one. Maybe we should take that.

Let's tackle that. M4, Commissioner Rodriguez, Green Task Force Purpose and Usage.

All right. Thank you. So on this one, I had a meeting with a couple of the green task force members. And their feeling is that they are not really being used for what the green task force is used for. Pretty much the green task force consists of seven members. I mean, it's too late to read that. So what other suggestions are, kind of like what we did with the historical board, where we're allowing them to review certain items because it just pertains to it. In speaking with Sally and Helene, some of the buildings that are going up with the trees around it, I mean, the green task force is probably best suited to identify what trees should go there, or at least review it and give their recommendation to us as far as what landscape, the sustainability, all of it. If we're not going to use them, then why have the board, basically?

Commissioner Kaya, would you like to say anything on that?

Yeah, look, so I've spoken, and Noah, please come up whenever you get a chance just to give us your feedback. You've been on the board for a while. You're not a resident, but it feels like you are a resident. You love the city of South Miami. But I've been to a couple of meetings with Noah and the rest of the team. I think we can do a better job of using our boards. I'm not necessarily going to say that they need to pick trees, but... No, not pick trees. I know that's what you said. I know what you meant. But what we need to do is we identify, and I think we've done that. I think that we have a landscape plan that we've developed, and I think that got presented to you, a tree ordinance that you guys have been working on that we've been legislatively trying to figure out how to implement it. We've had design requirements that we've had from a tree perspective, a streetscape plan that's coming down the pipeline that we want you guys to review. I think the idea in the places that we need to start doing that, and now we have a liaison that's going to be joining the meeting as well from the city. I think we're going to improve it so we can get more feedback. I think systematically the board needs to understand what's coming down the pipeline, how much time and effort they can put on it. and to give us that feedback in a good reliable time, right? I mean, nothing against the board, but the tree ordinance took a while, right? It took from beginning to end, it took a while. And that's great because it's just a lot of legislative change. But things have progressed so fast lately with the landscape plan or the streets case plans that we kind of need that a little bit faster and a little bit more progress, but we love the second ice from the community and that's what you guys represent. Don't know know what you think or like what else can we do to work better together?

The organization and the in the in the board the Commission and staff in general Okay, Noel Cleland 5990 Southwest 50th Street, and I also have 5984 South of 50th Street, which is in so many sorry I am South Miami see you guys.

That's the reason that South Miami's like the other one house That is and once outfit that it is in South Miami.

Sorry I'm both

Just for the record you want to be part of South Miami and the other houses. Absolutely.

Thank you Yeah, so I think one of the first things I want to think about is when we say green task force Is this are we just talking about trees? Should it be the tree task force or is this is this term green? Intended to be looking at the environmental impact on all sorts of decisions that the city works with and so you know, when you start talking about what's the role, what's the role here? Are we just gonna be a landscape committee? I don't know, you tell me.

No, the idea is that we do a resiliency plan, something green, that the green is incorporating everything, right? So originally you guys worked on the solar panel initiative back in the days with Phil Stoddard, right? Right now, Sirami's working on, the director, sorry, Director Cabrera's working on the new initiative that we're trying to replace and better the solar power initiative with what we're trying to do with the resiliency plan.

Yeah, and the cool roof.

So and you guys have reviewed that yeah, okay, so but we are we are kind of work, but I just I just wanted it I don't I don't want to put us in this box.

We're all we're gonna do is look at But I see there's a lot of needs to work on sustainability mitigation projects and You know to have some people that are focused on that I think is really helpful to the city What can we do to improve it in your in your opinion?

I?

So lots of times we find out things at the very end when they come on the docket. So if you're looking for information to help, we're a resource to be there to help you. to say, here, we finished. Is that good or not? That doesn't seem to meet a very good use of our resources.