Design Review Board - Regular Meeting

I don't see the city attorney or, and I'm not sure who's in chambers.

Good morning. We are live recording in the chambers. Can you hear us?

Yes. Thank you, Mark. Yes.

You're welcome, Daniel. Vice Chair, you have a quorum. You have Daniel Guero. You have Kristen Rodriguez, Angel Lopez, and Mariano Corral. So you do have a quorum. Very good. We have a quorum.

Are we waiting on the city attorney?

The city attorney is here.

Yes. Nice to meet you all. Danny Simo. I'm sitting in for Alex Uribe today.

Oh, excellent. Very good. Nice to have you. Okay, then I guess we'll go ahead and get this started. If we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Very good. If we could go ahead and start with the roll call of staff.

Staff roll call, please. Yeah, so it's Marcus Typhus here in the chambers. I have Mark Alvarez from the Corradino Group and Amina Arsenault. That is all.

Excellent. And if we go ahead and have the board members.

Mariano Corral, Landscape Architect.

Christian Rodriguez.

Angel Lopez, Architect.

And Daniel Guerra. Developer. Okay. Marcus, can we read the first item? Do you want to swear in applicants first?

Good point.

Yes. Pardon me. I got ahead of myself. That's okay. I have a meeting to get to. Let's go ahead and swear in the applicants, please. Anybody who will be testifying or having any comments? to any of the items on the list today, please make your cameras live, open your microphones and be sworn in. I'm not sure if they have access to turn their cameras on, but if we could give them that, that'd be great.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah, my name is Robert Kramer, the owner of 5400 South 63rd Avenue. That should be on the agenda today.

And can you also give Juan Garcia access to turn his camera on and mic?

I have made all of the participants co-hosts, so they should all have access to cameras and audio.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Okay, Juan, if you could open your microphone as well, please.

Good morning.

Good morning. Okay, city attorney, if you could go ahead and have them sworn in.

Sure. So if you intend to provide testimony on 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. At this time, anyone who wishes to speak should be sworn in. I'd ask that you please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Yes, I do.

Thank you. You may sit down and lower your hand.

Okay, very good. Marcus, then, if we could go ahead and have the first item read in.

Sure. We have only one item on the agenda for the application portion. It is DRB-2026-017, the applicant is Home Architecture, LLC, for the property located at 5400 Southwest 63 Avenue to request his new construction for a one-story single-family home. This application will be presented by Mr. Mark Alvarez. Thank you.

good morning this is mark alvers with the cordino group on behalf of the city of miami planning staff i have a short presentation about the application if you can bring it up thank you this is a an application for a one-story single-family home at 5463rd avenue the applicant is with mr juan pablo garcia and robert kramer is the owner of the property It's not working. There it is. No? Marcus? There we go. It is located, it's north of Miller Road, 63rd, whoops, that went too far. 63rd Avenue is a half-section road just north of Miller Drive. It is one lot of record. It was the subject of a lot split, and there is a waiver of plat that when it was approved imposed conditions on this approval. We'll get to those a little bit later. As it is now, it's a rectangular lot. It's a regular lot, and it is a fully compliant lot in the RS-2 district. Surrounding this property is also RS-2. Not until you get a block away does it go back to RS-3. So it is compliant, and the site plan that's proposed, it's a little bit of an unusual site plan that we typically see. However, there is a note in the application, in the package I should say, that the building was in fact actually designed to disturb as few, as little tree canopy as possible, or at least as little specimen tree canopy. So the basic design is there's a central driveway coming from 63rd Avenue, and then you could go to the left or to the right. There's a garage on both sides, a connected garage on both sides that faces into the car courtyard. The entrance of the building and then the building more or less wraps around the swimming pool as sort of a courtyard. All of the setbacks are met all of the dimensional standards for the RS 2 zoning district are met by this all of the height regulations are met there is one Again, this is not something that is that's contrary to the zoning code has just been left out and we will require it to be Put in but the fence height is not noted. There's a chain link fence that goes all around the property back the sides and the two sides and The landscaping plan, again, this was somewhat of a major feature among the conditions that were part of the waiver of plat that the commission approved, that as many specimen trees would be retained on site. So most of what you see in green type for the names of the trees are existing tree canopy. And then the blue ones which are basically the green button woods have been added to this site plan there are three I'm sorry six green button woods on the front of the property there is an overhead power line and the green button woods are Have been planted so that they would they would at full growth clear the power lines. However the live oak is there and it's Close to the power lines, however, it's an existing tree. And it's a specimen tree. And it's been requested by the conditions. Actually, it's been not requested. It's required by the conditions of the waiver of plot approval by commission that that tree would be part of the trees that stay. So the landscaping plan does comply with almost all the zoning requirements. There is a mistake on the report that you have. This property is insufficient in the number of shrubs that are required. We had a miscount on the report that says the requirement is for three trees, it's for six. So the number of shrubs would have to be doubled from what it is. There's also an inconsistency with the code on the amount of sodded area, amount of grass area. So that would have to be, some of that grass area would have to be replaced with a different pervious surface. So other than those two things, it replies in chief with the zoning requirements. It also again mostly complies with the requirements of the waiver of flat it does maintain 50% of the of the existing protected tree canopy and The again in the landscape plan it was noted there was a tree survey used which we do require now anyway And that was actually used as the basis of the lay of the house and where it sits on the property even though it still meets all of our RS2 requirements I already mentioned the street trees and just as a note this is a an area where there's septic service for the wastewater and The tree disposition plan, it is mostly palm trees that have been removed. And basically you see in red are the trees that have been removed and they are exactly where the house would have gone. Everything else has been retained. Certainly most all of the canopy trees have been retained. This is the design of the house. We don't have a lot for the materiality that was included in the package. However, as you see, it seems to be, of course, it is an H shape, kind of like two courtyards, one in the front for the cars, one in the back that wraps around the pool. It is only a one-story building. The roof is pitched fairly high. And to my eye, it's almost a Gothic looking with the tall and narrow windows. It does meet any requirements that we have. It is very consistent, at least in color, with what we've seen in the neighborhood and the new construction that we are seeing lately. So this is it. We don't have a lot on the materiality. Again, we do have the applicant here to help with that. um these are the 10 conditions for the waiver of plat they have generally been met however we have a few things that still need to be done one is one of the conditions on the waiver of plat is that the the canopy the specimen canopy would not only be retained up to 50 or more than 50 percent but they would be retained for a period of six years. That's a condition, and we can't actually say it's met yet because six years hasn't passed, but we will, in lieu of that, time period of passing, we will include that as a condition of our recommendations to approve this. The other part of this is there will be a tree removal permit that will be required. The other part is that there is to be a covenant that's recorded with the county clerk for all of the conditions of the waiver of flat. We checked online on the online system. We could not find a covenant. So that will also have to be a condition of this approval that the covenant that includes all of the conditions on this property would be included and signed and filed with the county clerk. We would not be able to approve the building plans until we have the covenant. And that is it. So our recommendation is to approve with those conditions. We do need for plant sufficiency for the height of the fence to be provided. We don't think it's too high or anything. It's just we need the height. And then the rest would be to fulfill the rest of the conditions on the waiver of plat. And procedurally, of course, whatever recommendations this board has, as well as that, it would be compliant with the South Florida Building Code. Thank you. That's my presentation.

Thank you very much. Would the applicant like to speak and make a presentation?

No, that's pretty much it.

I do believe I did sign the covenant.

It should be somewhere. I'll have to look that up and give that to you guys and see where that was because I do remember signing that. But I have no real comments.

Okay, then at this time, we'll go ahead and open it to public comment. Is there anyone in chambers or online that would like to comment on this item? There's no money in the chambers, but staff. Okay, then we will go ahead and close public comment. And if we could start with Mariano Corral.

Good morning. Mr. Kramer, is this house for you or is this for speculation?

For me and my family.

For you and your family? Okay. Let me say that I happen to like the house. Thank you. The only one problem. You have a right to build on this property as long as you can meet all the land development code and all the code requirements, and you do not. And I'm specifically more concerned with those trees that your arborist even indicated number three and number 29. Those trees will not survive six years based on the proximity to the house, based on what's going to have to happen, and the fact that you will have to cut the canopy in order to be able to put your roof on this home. Now, you have the right to relocate the trees, which is not a problem, but in doing so, you will also have to provide the procedures to do. how it's going to be done and where you're going to place them but here's the biggest problem i have because when i look at the landscape plan um i'm so disappointed that a house of this category we get such a poor design for us to review you don't even meet the requirements and so when i look at this and then i look at the landscape legend And we have power lines along the front of the house. And then you specify green buttonwood gets to be the same size as an oak tree, which is the same problem you're having right now with the existing trees. I'm asking myself, what's going on here? So there's a lack of sensitivity from that aspect. And I hate to do this to a colleague. But the fact of the matter is that someone that's going to prepare plans is going to come before us for us to review. He should read the codes. In fact, I would say have them read section 20-4.5, number E, subsection E3, the E3 A and B. All those requirements must be shown. We don't have a drain field that is accurately And for this kind of house, you know that drain field is going to be huge. It's going to take a lot of the front yard. Either you're going to have two drain fields on each side or one major one, which will affect those trees. I read your arborist report. It's clear. It's there. They're concerned with tree number three and number 29. So when I look at that, and again, this is going to be an issue from the perspective that I am going to request for a deferment on this project. Because, and I'm going to read it one time because there's so much stuff. So I want to start is that a tree survey has been shown, but the landscape architect has to show the energy conservation zone. He has to look it up in Miami-Dade County. because we follow that, too, and even our own code, Section F and Subsection 3, it talks about the energy conservation zone or what needs to be done. Show the location of the overhead power lines, show the actual size of what those rain fields are going to be, because it will affect you, and if you meet all those requirements, and you are able to preserve the tree, and you get a certificate from the arbiter, those trees are going to survive for six years, which I don't even know how in heaven's name that's going to work even within our city. Who's going to be watching that for six years and what happens? But at the end of the day, all of these have to be met. And from my perspective, my perspective, this house has to be redesigned. That's my perspective. And I like it. But it's because of those trees that you made a commitment to the commissioners that you were going to preserve all the existing trees on this site as much as possible, as logical as possible. There's some trees here that I would probably take it out and I would have given you credit for it. And so, but when I see such a poor plan, and there's no sensitivity to the design that Juan came up with, which is a very nice home, and how you reflect that in front of, in fact, I don't care what you do in the back. I'm more concerned with the front and what the appearance is in the front, which is part of the neighborhood. When you look at that, and there's no balance, and by the way, it could have been very simple landscape, because the simple landscape, in my opinion, usually looks more elegant, but it's about choices and how you do it. So, let me continue. Are you going to be having a chain link fence around the property? Or it's going to be a wall?

No, I'm going to build, I'm going to do bay rum trees around the whole property and then put a fence around those.

Excellent choice. I mean, I love bay rum trees from that aspect. They're expensive. That's the other thing that I noticed on the landscape architects planting chart. And let me explain something the difference. When you are taking out trees, and you measure what is called DBH at four and a half feet, and that's where your where your measure. from the perspective of mitigation. But when you're planting new trees, you actually measure from the ground up from six to 12 inches. So in other words, when you have a tree like he has here, 12 feet high, six foot spread with a DBH of two and a half inches, that tree is not 12 feet high. That tree is 15 feet in height with probably about a seven to eight foot spread. So when I look at those things, It bothers me that how can you not know that? At least if you would have said two and a half inch DBH, 14 foot high tree, okay, granted. So those are the little details that happens that you look at. And so, and I say this, Mr. Kramer, because the board here knows me, 45 years of doing this, and I made some doozy mistakes in my life. And I've learned from that. And I look at this, But I've never made these kind of mistakes. I will be embarrassed to make this kind of presentation to a board. So there's visibility triangle missing. The buffer, if you're going to do that, that's fine. Be aware, these guys show their root zones. Your arborist report says this. Show the root zones so that we know how big those root zones are going to be. It's going to be, and the other thing is, in fact, I didn't even go see the grading plan. Let me see. Oh, yes, I did. Let me tell you, that was one of the, I read through all this. I just remembered that. And it was great because it's got all the calculations. It shows you everything. And I really like this guy. I may use him for my project. So when I look at all this, and then my landscape architect has failed me. That's the only way I can say it. So I don't know what his directive was. I do not know if you gave him enough time for him to read the codes or to prepare proper plans. So who says for that?

All right. Well, yeah. Juan, are you taking all these notes for Peter?

Yes, sir.

Just read the codes, sir. That's all he has to do, read the codes and follow the codes.

Thank you. Thank you, Board Member Corral. Board Member Rodriguez.

I had the same concern about wondering where the drain field was going to be located. Besides that, I did appreciate the fact that it's not just a typical box house, but that's all.

There's no one that you didn't upload the drain fields. It's on the front left of the house.

Yeah, it's on the on the sides of the of the driveway.

I mean, I see where you show the septic. It just it's kind of hard. You got those you got those other two trees that are right there. Like, like Mr. Corral said that a drain field is probably going to be pretty big. I don't know how you're going to get there with all those roots and still be able to preserve all those trees.

Yeah, I think actually Miami-Dade County has already approved the septic plans with the terrain field. We have the septic engineer plans somewhere. I don't know if they were uploaded or not.

Thank you, Board Member Rodriguez.

Board Member Lopez. Um, no, I would say aesthetically, uh, it, it is, uh, you know, the, the layout of the house is different. Um, I, you know, I, I, I liked, uh, the, the open entry and I liked the continuous pool on the back. I would say the same thing other than the issue with the trees and the, uh, and the, uh, the, the drain field location. Um, I don't, I don't have an issue, um, with this house, uh, aesthetically per se.

Thank you. I think most of my comments have already been brought up. I was concerned about the drain field as well. Aesthetically, again, I think we all agree the house has an interesting architecture to it and will be appealing to the neighborhood. I do think that some of the plans weren't necessarily ready for us to review. So I'll limit my comments to that. Can I have a motion?

I'll make a motion for defer. And unfortunately, Mr. Kramer, in the past, we were able to approve the architecture and then have the landscape come back. But today, it's not that way. Either you approve all of it or none of it. So I'm requesting for a deferment with the comments that have been made by staff, I mean, by staff and board members.

Do we have a second?

I'd second it.

First and a second. Board Member Corral, how do you vote? Yes. Board Member Rodriguez? Yes. Board Member Lopez? Yes. And I too vote yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Kramer. We look forward to you returning to us with a more complete presentation. You might want to have your landscape architect attend. the next meeting so that we can maybe get through this and at least if need have additional comments, close that out in the next meeting and have you on your way. Okay?

Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Seeing that we have no other item, can we go ahead and move on to the meeting minute approvals? We have two meeting minutes to approve. Do we take them as a consent or should we do them individually?

If you have no comments on your gay, I believe you could take it at consent as Madison city attorney. Do you object or no, that's perfectly fine.

Okay. Uh, then let's go ahead and, uh, does anybody have any comments on the, uh, on either of the, uh, meeting minutes hearing none, um, all in favor say aye to approve. All right. Any opposed?

Hearing none, minutes are approved. Excuse me, Vice Chair, may I have a motion just so it's clear in the minutes? I thought I made a motion to approve. Oh, you did? Yes, sir. And who seconded?

I seconded.

Yeah.

Thank you kindly.

Very good.

um okay and then uh our next meeting will be uh somebody give me the date it's an august next meeting is tuesday august 4th 2026 at 8 30 a.m excellent we'll see you all here danny wait a minute before we close off very quickly i want to make a quick assignment uh staff uh please review the landscape codes one more time there are issues in there

needs to be clarified and that's all i have to say okay if we have no new business this meeting is adjourned thank you very much everyone thank you guys bye guys thank you bye