Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everybody, to the March 10th planning board meeting. If everyone would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. 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. All right, let's do a quick roll call, starting with Gus.

Agustin Barrera. Joseph Corbison.

Dave Miller. Daniel Guerra.

Daniel Alvarez.

Anyone else on Zoom? I don't believe so. Okay, we have a quorum. Administrative matters, Marcus, anything?

No, I don't have any administrative matters at this time.

Fantastic. So we have six items on the agenda. Ed, if you want to swear in folks that plan to testify.

Ladies and gentlemen, items number one and number four on our agenda tonight are quasi-judicial items. That means that any testimony that's provided... We're going to ask that if you want to provide any sort of public comment or testimony that you be sworn in first. We also ask that when you come up to the podium to make your statements that you provide your name and address for the record. You'll see a clipboard on that podium. You can also write in your name and address there if you would please. And so I'd ask if anyone wishes, including staff, to make any public comments for items number one and four on the agenda, we ask that you please stand, raise your right hand,

Number one is the estate company's request on 62nd Avenue, thereabouts. And number four is Subtext Acquisitions LLC, which is the 57th Avenue project. And we are going to tackle those, by the way, as one and two, with just the hunch that you guys are mostly here for those.

Excellent. And so if you would raise your right hand if you wish to speak. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in your response? I do. Thank you. Chairman, it's all yours.

All right. Thank you very much.

All right, Marcus, item number one. Item number one is PB-2026-001, the applicant is the estate company LLC. Resolution of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, approving or denying a large-scale development special exception application pursuant to Section 20-8.7 of the City of South Miami Land Development Code for the 75-dwelling unit multifamily residential project on the 0.802-acre development site located at 6914 Southwest 62nd Avenue, 6230 and 6240 Southwest 69th Street and 6931 Southwest 62nd Court. providing for conditions, enforcement of conditions, corrections, severability, and an effective date. This item will be handled by Mr. Mark Alvarez of the Corradino Group. Thank you.

Good evening. Mark Alvarez of the Corradino Group here on behalf of planning staff and planning consultant for the director. I will be making the presentation on item number one, which is the estate company's proposal for 6202 Southwest 62nd Avenue. And I have a presentation. The presentation is a summary of the staff review, which is in your package. We've reviewed the item for its compliance with the TSTD zoning code, as well as its compatibility with the area, as well as its compliance with the city's adopted comprehensive plan. The applicant is the estate companies, and this is actually March 10th planning board. I'm sorry, the slide says February 10th. I'll correct that. And the location of this project is at 62nd Avenue on the corner of 62nd, I'm sorry, 62nd Avenue on the corner of 60, sorry? 69th Street. 69th Street. I'm so sorry. I was reading it twice. It's 0.8 acres, 0.802 acres, comprised of four separate parcels that have been assembled. The future land use plan designation is TSD, which is Transportation Supportive District. And the zoning designation is TSDD, Transit Supportive Development District. The subzones here are very important. The front part of that Sort of the leg of it going east is TSDA, and the part on the west side facing the neighborhood is TSNA. TSNA stands for Transit Supportive Neighborhood Area, and TSDA stands for Transit Supportive Development Area. The context of this project, it has a vacant parcel to the north. However, there is an approval on that parcel, so we don't expect it to be vacant for a long time. It is also designated as TSD on the future land use map. It is also designated on the zoning map as TSDA and TSNA split in exactly the same way as this parcel is. So the west part is the lower intensity TSNA. The east part is the higher density TSDA. The approval for that is a six-story office building. It looks like that. That's the rendering that has been approved. And on the back side of that, with that approval, would be townhouse development of three-story townhouses to transition into the neighborhood. To the south of this parcel is the estate company's office building, which is the next picture going down. It's about a three-story building. a little more because the parking is underneath. And then as we go further south is the medical offices building, which is seven stories. When we go east of this property across 62nd Avenue, again, it's a parking lot right now. It's the Larkin Hospital parking lot. But that is approved as part of the TSDA zoning district. And that will be approved up to 10. That is developable up to 10 stories. There is nothing approved there right now. And on the west of this property is a single family neighborhood across 62nd Court. It's a single family residential neighborhood. There's actually one story home just to the south that's not included in this. And then the rest of it is a single family neighborhood. It's zoned RS3, so we don't anticipate any change to that neighborhood. So that's both the future and the present for that. So as far as compatibility this when we when we wrote this code a year ago We anticipated on some of these edge parcels that there would be we fully anticipated that we wanted to transition from the very intense downtown development to the single-family neighborhoods and these blocks at the edge are Typically whether they're here or there's some south on 73rd Street. They are always divided so they have two different areas Sub districts on the zoning one allowing six stories because it's inappropriate to have more than six stories on that block at all And of course as you go across the street, it'll be ten stories, right? But you come to 62nd Avenue to six-story development envelope and then as we go to the back the last 75 feet have to be no more than 40 stories and three stories and they have to be developed with a townhouse typology so townhouse typology requires that it be there's the movement in the wall and there's a courtyard in the front or some kind of private entrance, excuse me, and a door to that entrance. So in other words, what we're trying to do is create not just a use and a height that's typical of a single-family neighborhood, but something that transitions in terms of the way that it's used so we have single-family doors coming into that it is in fact a multi part of a multi-family development we require that those doors face into the neighborhood so that we have something that's very similar to the lifestyle of a single family home but one story higher than what's allowed in those districts um as far as the front of it this is the compatibility this is what we're trying to do with the tsdd district the zoning district is intended to bring a lot of residential use and a lot of commercial use together so that we support not only transit but we support the downtown with people who live work and and play uh in the same area very clearly this provides a density of residential that would feed it is a short walk for anybody to go to the substantial amount of hospital offices, medical offices across the street, down the street, as we go to Baptist. So we do look at this as something that would help reduce traffic by allowing people who do work. These would be market rates, so these would be people who could work in the hospitals and now can walk to work. So we do find it compatible in the way that it completely supports what we intended to do with the TSDD. And again, we completely intended that we would not let the TSTD affect, or at least that we would control the transition to affecting single-family neighborhoods. So we don't have a vacant parcel across from a 10-story building. We evenly transitioned down from 10 to 6 to 3 to single-family. And I actually talked about this already, but again this It's a little grayed out, but you see what would be what's been presented to us as the? The illustrations to show that what would happen in the back we have what they're calling lanai units basically they have a door and a small courtyard that would allow those residences on the ground floor to interact with the neighborhood as something like a single-family house would So consistency with the TSTD, there's something to explain very carefully, and you can see this little blue, you know, sort of dogleg is shown on the map. And that area has two shades of pink that don't come out very well, but the west side is this sort of salmon color, the east side is pink, the west side is T-S-N-A, the east side is T-S-D-A. Both of the TSDA and the TSNA allow different densities. The maximum density in TSNA is 100. The maximum density in TSDA, the part that's on the east side, is 150 unless there's bonuses, but the code doesn't allow bonuses on these blocks at all. So there are two different densities. And the way this property works is that those densities are calculated for each piece of it and then added together as a number of units. So in other words, it's not a blend per se, but we take the two parcels that are in the TSDA. We calculate those at 150. We take the two pieces in the TSNA or two parcels in the TSNA. We calculate those at 100. And we get to that this property is permitted to have 96 residents or multifamily residences. So it does, and this project complies with that density. It was presented to us as 75 residences in the building total. And I explain that because there were some concerns in the DRB meeting that we would be not complying with the density allowances in TS&A, but we are complying with those density allowances because we combine them together and each one counts at its different densities. parking and loading this building we have a requirement based on the TSDD of 65 parking spaces the proposal has 121 parking spaces and this proposal does have subterranean parking because they've tried to again with a six-story envelope they've pushed the parking down and are willing to bear that expense to create a building that's within the context of what we require and something that's not too big and transitions down There is no requirement that we have for street parking, but there are four spaces on the west side of the property. Those are just street spaces. They can serve the lanai units, these sort of townhouse-type units that are on the back. It does have a parcel delivery space inside of it because there wasn't a good space on the outside It does we require car sharing and all of our buildings in the TSTD and this complies with that it has two reserved spaces and it has the bicycle storage that is required and For loading the solid waste, we have had a DRC meeting on this before. This building, again, we have a fairly, you know, these are smaller buildings, and everything is permitted, but I do want to explain it. the trash pickup as well as the delivery for truck truck delivery truck bay does come in from the outside and they have to back in from the outside we will require that that door is closed at all times and will be part of the development agreement that door has to be closed at all times that is not being serviced for either trash pickup or for for deliveries and parcel delivery would also go into that space We also noted that across 69th Street, so we do concern ourselves with the back-of-house operations in any building in the TSTD. But one of the things that we do note is that although this is on 69th Street, although it does face a vacant parcel now, it will face an office building in the future. And the permitted office building there has its driveway also coming into that same space. So this would not be in the direct view of the residences. north of 69th Street on the west side, because that building would block that view. But still, the trash and the delivery will always be closed. The entrance to the building will be, of course, open, but it's not in direct view. As far as street hierarchy goes, we have the TSDD defines certain streets as being more primary streets. This does front on a primary street, which is 62nd Avenue. And again, now it's because it shows up better. It's the little red dog leg at the end of the map there. 62nd Avenue, did I say 62nd Street? 62nd Avenue is the primary street. The building does front on that. The other two streets on the north and south, 69th and 62nd Court, are We don't consider those TSDD streets. In other words, we had a street hierarchy that covered all of the downtown in the code. It did not include streets that were outside, so those fall into the realm of what we require for any street in the city. However, those have been landscaped and the sidewalks have been attended to and we're satisfied with the design of those sidewalks and the landscaping, but they don't have to meet the more extensive sidewalk requirements that we have in TSDD. So those would be five foot sidewalks minimum, and they have to have land. We still require landscaping on the outside to protect pedestrians and to create a pedestrian sort of path as we go into the neighborhood and not suddenly cut off. And actually, I'm going to go back to that. We require the same thing of the building that was permitted to the north, that those sidewalks wouldn't just suddenly end. We require landscaping to continue. And this project does do that. As far as open space, it's required that we have a requirement for 10% open space, which can be provided as plazas or linear open space. This has some micro seating spaces or plazas, I'd say, like pocket-type plazas along its north side on 69th. The rest of it is linear open space, and the project does comply with the 10% requirement. For landscape we've gone through we've counted the trees. We've checked everything and the project does Require a certain number of street trees and interior trees and it complies with those requirements We did there's a note here that initially we had a requirement I think when this went through DRB they did not have the seating the seating has been provided and it's got a trellis over it so that it would be shaded from the weather and The building also complies with the height requirements. We have an 84-foot height requirement for the six-story part. It's under that. It's at 80 feet. And then the backside of it is required to be no more than three stories and 40 feet, and it does comply with that as well. And the height, physical number of feet is measured to the roof. This building does have a... an access to a roof garden and that doesn't really count it's to the roof and that is also allowed in under TSDD we do allow roof appurtenances to exceed that height a little bit so this on the southeast corner has a small sort of structured for people to go up and have a small roof garden experience For building location, massing, and form, again, the building complies with every requirement that we have. We have requirements for the movement of the walls. That's been met. We have requirements for the build-through lines and the setbacks. Those have been met. We have the building coverage has been met. It does not exceed the building coverage. And it does not exceed the requirements that we have for fifth and sixth level floor plates. So it is entirely consistent with that part of the code. And with architectural standards, again, we have requirements for the building sustainability. And it's part of the LOI. We have received a package that says that we'll be going for an NGBS gold certification, which is a LEEDS gold equivalent. The compliance will be actually determined by the manager according to our code. But we do accept that for this point in time. And we we do require the entrances we have glazing requirements throughout the building for the first floor and for the Second through fourth and then the fifth and sixth it meets all the requirements one of the notes I want to make it's been asked before is that the glazing The way we work with the code, and this will be actually codified in words in a subsequent modification code, but for every approval, we do not include the back of house or the driveway garage entrance in part of the glazing count. Without that, this building fully complies with the glazing requirements and does create that sort of very active walkable path all around. And the scale of the rear facade does comply with the requirements. And again, we have the movement of the wall, we have the lower building height, and we have the doors in the front. One of the things I skipped and I do want to cover it excuse me I'm gonna go back to Street hierarchy we require as part of the code. We require a five-foot dedicate. Um, he has a five-foot dedication To create the width of the sidewalk and the landscaping that's required on all streets for every for every approval that we've done so far and with this one as well when we have When that street is a county or a state road, it's out of our jurisdiction. So if the property owner dedicates it, they dedicate it to the county, and we lose control over what we can do on that street, which works against what we wanted to do. In this case, there will be an easement granted, and that will be part of the development agreement. And the plans that show the sidewalk location and the landscape on both sides comply fully with the TSTD code. And so, excuse me, I had to go back for that. So we do recommend approval of a large-scale special exception site plan. This project has no waivers, no variances, no special requests. The conditions would be that we have a maintenance easement in favor of the adjacent properties for the office building and the space in between, which is essentially the estate company's building. That space will have a maintenance agreement for that easement. that we would have a 62nd Avenue easement to be provided along with the covenant for those areas for the city commission's approval, and that the NBS gold, in lieu of the LEED gold, would be applied for and would be awarded to this project as part of it. Otherwise, they would have to pay the fee that's already in the code if they don't make that requirement. That's it. So if you have any questions, thank you very much. Anyone here from the applicant?

Thanks, Mark.

I think I have a presentation as well. I think you're planning, for the record, sorry, good evening. George Zavaro with offices at 333 Southeast 2nd Avenue. Your staff did a fantastic job summarizing this application and the request. I'll try not to duplicate some of the stuff that was said. We're really excited to present this project. This project is in the heart of your health district. It's in an area that has a lot of commercial, a lot of medical office, a lot of office uses, but it really doesn't have a strong multifamily component. And we think with the way that the TSDD was envisioned as a true mixed use area, this is the residential component that really is needed for this area to create this true comprehensive mixed use neighborhood. So I think you had a good idea of the context. You could see it's right along 67th Avenue, which is a commercial corridor. You have the newly approved six-story med square place, which is a medical office building. Directly to our north to the south you have other medical office buildings including the new Baptist Health Center That's being developed along with South Miami Hospital and directly across the street of the Larkin Hospital in the Miami Neuroscience Center this area is unique because as you could see to the west we have a single-family residential neighborhood and as Mark mentioned When the city was creating this, they carefully studied to ensure that there was an appropriate transition between these commercial corridors and the abutting residential. And the way that they did that was creating 2 separate zoning categories that provide for varying intensities and building height and density. And our project is fully designed in accordance with that. In fact. As Mark mentioned, we are actually below the allowable height, and we're below the allowable density that would be permitted. And we did that purposely. A little bit of the project description. This is a first class multifamily residential building. It has 75 units, 128 internalized spaces, and is highly amenitized. One of the things that we did, which is something that we studied, is We intentionally designed these units to exceed the minimums in your code in order to provide a more livable and long-term housing quality for these. We felt that these larger units really function more as true homes that would support families, professionals, and long-term residents who want to live close to transit, to all these medical office uses, and to all the services that are in the area. This shows a breakdown of the division in the zoning line currently within the property. And here you get a good context of how this building transitions in height in accordance with the underlying zoning. We have a three-story building on the western portion of the site that fronts the single family and it transitions into a six-story building as it approaches 62nd Avenue. Here you have a rendering of the building along 62nd Avenue. You can see how we've heavily landscaped all the streetscapes. We've included ground level active lobby areas and ancillary rental offices and other ancillary uses. One of the things that we did in order to be more sensitive in terms of traffic that you'll notice is that we did not incorporate any kind of ground floor retail. truly, simply multifamily. We thought that was much more compatible with the area and obviously with the extent of the commercial uses in the area, we really wanted to try to make an impact in introducing this residential component. Here's the access into the lobby area. You can see all new street trees. We've gone ahead and enhanced these sidewalks in order to create a really nice pedestrian environment. This is a view from across the street caddy corner to the new Townhomes townhome typology that we tried to create you see one of the things we did and mark mentioned is we incorporated these ground level Walk up lanai units which really gives the feel of a townhome it activates the ground level it allowed us to remove any curb cuts along the street to really create a nice pedestrian feel We've also included varying architectural materials, a lot of deviations in the setbacks. One thing that we work closely on with staff is that this building is actually stepped back between 12 to 15 feet, which is almost three times more than what your code requires. We really wanted to push this building back, create a nice pedestrian feel along this residential portion of the street. is another view of the Lanai units and the building along the west side. In terms of access, and this is important, what we did is we centralized all of the access to face the new medical office building. So we've diverted any traffic access points to the residential. If you could see in the top left corner of this image, in working with staff, we've carved out further areas along this frontage in order to plant additional street trees. This really buffers the view into that parking area from any of the abutting streets. This here clearly shows the transition, just to give you a better idea of how this project works. You can see the entrances. This is facing north. So you'll be looking here from the new medical office building, Med Square Place. And here you can see the landscape treatment that we've done along all these entrances. Just an idea is the open spaces. I think your city staff mentioned we've tried to really provide some usable open spaces. You can see some images here. We provided seating areas, really activated this with landscaping, provided some covered areas. Try to make it an amenity along this walkway instead of just having unusable green space. And here is a photo of the enhanced landscaping that we worked on to provide an additional buffer to the buildings. You can see this is actually, when we show these renderings, we usually take the trees off of them. So you can see the architecture. This is what the final project will look like once the trees are installed. You can see that the trees create a real nice buffer effect to kind of block this building further from view.

I thought you had a question.

So I think most of this goes back into Mark's presentation. We've done a full traffic study. It's been reviewed. Our entire team is here to answer any questions that you have. And we appreciate the time that staff spent with us on this project to work through our design. And we're very grateful for their positive recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you. So if anyone from the public, either in the audience here or online, would like to speak, please stand up and come up to the podium. You need to sign in. Let us know your name, address, et cetera. And each of you will have three minutes to speak.

It takes me three minutes to write my name.

We're not cutting into that. Take your time there.

My name is Christopher cookie opera. I'm a 40-plus year resident in the neighborhood just to the west of this project I've seen this neighborhood go from little back alley neighborhood where you could buy a house for $40,000. And properties are now selling there for about three quarters of a million dollars for a 10,000 square foot lot on which people are putting up multimillion dollar houses. The change there is tremendous. One of the things that I've been critically interested about this neighborhood for many, many, many years is the access off 62nd Avenue into the neighborhood. By community newspapers, the street as it goes into the neighborhood is wide open. There's no sense that you've passed from a commercial area into a residential area. I think that's critical to be maintained, and I've spoken with one of the commissioners about this. I've spoken with the mayor about this, with the idea of pinching the road down. Now, at 69th Street, it is pinched down, and I endorse and hope that remains the same on the three streets that go into the neighborhood. The other question I had, if this is meant to be sort of a walkable, Todd-supported project, why are they proposing nearly twice the number of required cars? Is this becoming a... for sale parking garage where I know there are parking garages in Coral Gables where people have car collections and they store them on the top floor of office building parking spaces. Why do we need that many parking spaces? The other question is I went to the meeting of the office building that was being put together north of this project. I believe that the townhouses there were two stories, not three, and they were individual townhouses. There's a big difference between a block, a solid block building that the facades are broken up a little bit as opposed to independent buildings. I would have no problem seeing independent, true townhouse buildings put here. But I think what's being proposed is overkill, and I don't think it's compatible with the single-family houses on the street. The last thing is the rendering is very nice with the big, tall trees. Will the developer guarantee that he's going to bring 30 and 40 foot tall? Black olive trees or oak trees or they're going to be the typical like 20 feet You know four inches mean bread sight trees are stuck in the ground and you have to wait ten years for them to be big There's an awful The landscaping is the first thing that gets shaved off and cut down and, no pun intended, gets minimized toward the end of the project. So we need to have a real guarantee that the decent sized landscaping. But the biggest issue for me is the pinching down the neighborhoods and the townhouse section, which I don't buy as anything like a townhouse.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Yep.

Chairman, for the record, we've been joined on Zoom by Board Member Ortega.

Thank you, Christina. OK. Anybody else interested in speaking?

Please sign in.

I'm David Landown. I live at 6926 62nd Court, directly across the street from a wooded lot. And I was pleased to get a message from the commissioner this week that we should save our trees. And this is going to be a big change in terms of a tree canopy. Dade County also wants us to save our swales. I don't see why we have to remove the swale that's there and put in four on-street parking things. That's going to make a big difference for people walking on the street. Children walk on that street to go to school, and it's going to change the character of the street to put no swale in there and along with no trees on the no swale. There is very little green area. I heard him say 10% of the place is landscaped. The rest of the neighborhood, about 80% of the space is landscaped. So we're cutting out. It's going to be a major change in the amount of landscaping in the neighborhood. I should have said I've been in that house 50 years. and it stayed that way and some of the original trees are still there. It's amazing. The pictures show an area of about 600 to 800 square feet for the houses and three stories high. And yet they call them one bedroom, one bath. I don't understand what the other two stories will have on them. I wouldn't want to live in a place like that. And I don't think the only thing I can see, what the buildings look like from the pictures I see, is three bedroom apartments. I can't see why somebody wouldn't just sublet out their upper floors and put in three small families or students. It doesn't seem like a residential house at all. It seems like a stack of studio apartments. I don't have anything to say about the front of 62nd Avenue. Except there is a neighborhood, there's lots of single two-story neighborhoods across the street, I think. And the rest of the neighborhood on the west side of 62nd Avenue is one and two stories all over. This is a dramatic change.

Thank you very much for your comments.

Good evening. My name is Luigi Vitalini. I'm an architect. I've been on the planning board previously. I live a catty corner to this development. First of all, I want to say I'm not against development, and I understand that something will be built there. This project is a little bit too big, but I won't focus on those issues. The most important thing in this project is the relationship with the single family houses. And I disagree all heartedly with what Mark said about the fact that the transition is well accomplished. if you would just the presentation that doesn't show like a section through the street to David's house or my house, but The building is five foot setback. It's a 37 story 37 foot high three-story Whatever faces that 62nd court is 37 foot high and if you do that section and you have like a 15 store 15 foot high house that is set back 25 feet, you will see that that's not really a good transition. What could be done about that? The simplest thing is the reason why this building is so bulky, because they're providing 128 parking spaces. Now, the reason why the code only requires 69 parking spaces is because it's a transit-oriented district, meaning that you're trying to have people use the transit. Therefore, you don't provide additional parking spaces. And in this project, if they could just remove even like 30% of their parking spaces, you'll be able to set back the side that faces 62nd Court and provide a green area, some landscaping. You could even leave that huge oak that is in the corner, which is going to be cut down. Now, the rendering that they're showing, of course, it's with a super wide view. And they show the little tamarind that is in the middle of the... of the circle as a gigantic tree. So I'm not arguing for less density, for less units, but there is no reason whatsoever to have 128 parking spaces. Will 69 will actually do what the code is supposed to do, which is reduce cars? So I just don't understand why that needs to be done. Plus, these are very small units usually. They're 800 square feet, 600 square feet. And one or one and a half parking spaces at the most with some of them is quite sufficient for it and would allow people to use the Metrorail because otherwise, you just take your car. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your comments. Anyone else in the audience? I see we have, Marcus, I think at least one person online. Yeah, one person. Oh, I'm sorry.

Good evening. I'd be doing a disservice to myself if I didn't come up here and talk. We go to these planning boards. Your name and address? 6-840 Southwest 63rd Avenue. I'm Luigi's neighbor. I'm his neighbor. And I moved into this neighborhood 12 years ago. And when these things happen, and it's like the story of UP, you just see these huge developments happening. And you're wondering, why is it happening to my neighborhood? And you are the reason why these happen. And you can stop them. You can create them. Like Luigi, I'm not against them. But there's a factor where you look into it, and you see that you're jamming 75 units in less than an acre, you're going to look at it and say something's wrong. The plans are all pretty and nice, but I drive by every day to work on that street, and I look at it, and I see the development that's going to occur. And again, I'm not against development. I'm a firefighter. I understand there's tax revenues that we need as the city, and that's very important to us. But at what scale and what is the right way? And that's all I ask is that you guys come up with a solution that blends into my neighborhood. Because I look at that development and all I think about is how I want to move out. Because that's not something that when I pull into my neighborhood, which I love, and my kids ride their bikes around, that I look at and I see pros to it. If there's a way that you can make it just a little bit smaller or follow the current codes that you don't have to do all these exemptions and make it where it fits into the profile of South Miami, the reason why we call it City Beautiful and all these Tree USA and everything that we've ever strived for from previous administrations, that we keep that and develop the areas that need to be developed and just keep the big developments out of the small neighborhoods and at least come up with a plan that flows with our neighborhoods to make them walkable, livable. Because that's where I want to be and I want to raise the kids for the rest of my life. I have three houses in the neighborhood. And my dream is to have my kids stay in that neighborhood and not just be like, man, this is horrible. This is not where I want to be. I don't want to be city of West Miami. All these things where these massive developments are happening where it just doesn't work in our neighborhood, which was what makes South Miami so great and the reason why we're all residents here and love this place.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in the audience here? Marcus.

Excuse me, Madam Clerk. Can you allow Robert Gutierrez to turn on his screen and unmute him?

Mr. Gutierrez, if you would, turn on your camera, please.

It's telling me that I cannot start video because the host has disabled it.

Marcus, do you have that ability? Madam Clerk, are you available to turn that on? Okay, Mr. Gutierrez, Chairman... Oh, okay. You've got access now, sir. Thank you, folks. If you would raise your right hand, please. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help me God, absolutely.

All right. Thank you very much, sir.

Excellent. Do you have video of me? Am I good? Yes, you're good to go. Thank you. My name is Robert Gutierrez. I am also a neighbor. Every single one of those gentlemen that's there, I know where they live, where their house is at. I'm located right down the street at the corner of 69th Street and 63rd Avenue. I bought a house in this neighborhood five years ago with the intention of raising my two young kids. And part of the allure was the fact that it's a nice neighborhood, you know, single family homes, not a lot of big development. All of that is off on either the east side of 62nd Avenue or 62nd and, you know, around the Sunset Drive area. Like the rest of my neighbors, I don't object development. I don't object to growth, but I do have to agree with them. And I do believe that It's too much density. There's too much people moving in into such a small little area. You could plant all the trees you like, like the rendering show to cover the buildings, but you still know that there's a building there that's not going away, that's towering over the whole neighborhood. My biggest concern is that as it stands today, on any given weekday in the afternoons, my kids can't play outside. They can't go outside and kick a ball, ride a bike, ride their scooter, you know, even toss a ball around. It's very difficult. Everybody as it stands, and I would love to hear more about the traffic plan that you guys discussed there, but in the mornings and the afternoon, everybody's avoiding the intersection of Sunset and 62nd Avenue. So they decide that 63rd Avenue is the main highway to cut through to wrap around to the building that's right there off of 78th Street and in front of the three companies and the one right across it on the south side of that. Or people just drive all the way down to the circle that's in front of my house on the corner of 69th and 63rd. to peel back out onto 62nd Avenue. So, you know, when I hear that there's 100-plus units that are being added to the neighborhood, I mean, how much more traffic can we sustain in this neighborhood? You know, where are my kids supposed to play? I mean, have a little respect for the young kids in the area. And I don't just speak for my family and my two kids, but I know that there's other families in the neighborhood who I've had this conversation with that feel the same way. If we can't enjoy the front yard or being in our street in the afternoon without having two parents stand out there just to stand guard and make sure that cars that fly through there aren't going to hit somebody or run over one of the kids, I mean, it's ludicrous. You know, I'm okay for the project. Right now, it's just a big, big, the cats and the cat lady live there every evening, you know, feeding the cats. Put something there. I don't object to it, but we don't need that much traffic. We don't need that many housing units on our block. Literally, a block and a half, two blocks from my house. And actually, one block from my house. If you go from 62nd Place or Court, whatever that is.

You're out of time. All right.

Well, I appreciate your time and thank you very much.

Thanks very much for speaking up. Appreciate it. Anyone else? Very short. You've had your chance. Thank you, though. Would you like to have a few comments?

Yeah, I just wanted to address some of the comments. I think one of the things is we're not asking for a rezoning. We've designed this project fully in compliance with the code. And not even fully in compliance. We didn't maximize what could be built. We're below the height, below the density. We're not full of studios. We actually incorporated a very diverse unit mix. We have only five studios. We have 32 one bedrooms, and we have 22 bedrooms. And I worked on a lot of projects. You don't see a balance like that in a lot of projects. You see developers trying to put as many one bedrooms as you can to maximize the density. We did not do that here. Another thing is regarding the parking. We did provide more parking, and one of the things that we did, which is a very large cost, is that we have one parking level that's completely subterranean. So removing parking or providing less parking is not gonna do anything to the building height. This is something that we did to ensure, based on the markets that we've seen, and doing projects near transit areas, we understand that people are going to walk and bike to work. But they also like to have a car that they have, and they want to have a space for it. And they have visitors that come as well to visit. And we wanted to make sure that we had more than enough parking to prevent any kind of spillover into the neighborhood. The last thing in terms of traffic, I know it sounds like a lot of density, but it really is only 75 units. We've done a complete traffic study that's been reviewed. And just to give you an idea as to how much traffic is projected during the peak hour, During the peak hour, we're talking about one additional trip every two minutes. So if I was standing here for two minutes this evening, you would see one car go by. And we'd have to wait an additional 120 seconds to see another car go by. So this is not a massive traffic generator. That is the reason why we did not put any ground floor commercial uses that really attracts traffic throughout the days. This is a residential use only and we've really worked hard to make sure we're not asking for any waivers or deviations from what your code requires. So we thank you for your time and our entire team is here to answer any questions.

Thank you. Mark, any thoughts or any comments from what was said?

I think George already covered the traffic well. The transition, and again, I'll emphasize probably one of the bigger points, is that a vacant lot is not a good transition, of course. I mean, we had, and I'm speaking to the code and not specifically the application, because the application follows the code. But we had an issue that we saw we have two-story we have single-family neighborhood which can go to two stories and 30 feet We just changed in the ordinance. It used to be 25 single-family homes can go to 30 feet and I think as one of the neighborhood residents pointed out that like every neighborhood in South Miami the value is very high and they're seeing a lot of new homes come in and and they're coming in at two stories. I work with the city on some of those applications too, and I see everything's coming in at two stories. So within the neighborhood, we have a transition from single story to two story home. When we did this zoning code, we looked at that. We said we have, at the time, 25. Now it's 30. We have a two-story. We transitioned to three-story across the street. It's a 50-foot street. If we went evenly across the street, we wouldn't be transitioning at all. We would just leave the transition for some other area that's much more compressed. So we go from two to three to six, and then across 62nd Avenue at that location to 10. So that was the transition we tried to accomplish. Regarding the concept of the townhouse typology, in the code, it's actually required only that they meet three stories and 40 feet to the roof. We have worked with now the second developer in this kind of situation, which is this one, to work with that idea that we want something that's like a townhouse that reacts to the neighborhood, not as an apartment building that just has no doors, but at least those ground floor units have doors that... that respond to the neighborhood and can become neighborhoods. That was very important to us as we did this. Lastly, I know there's been a comment about the swales, and there's been a few comments about children playing. We think it's an improvement to have a sidewalk and a curb for people to walk safely on the streets. I live in South Miami, and I do walk a lot. I have dogs. I walk all the time, and I walk in the street. And I would much prefer to walk on a sidewalk. The streets are a little more dangerous. So we think it's an improvement to have the sidewalk as well. We have a continuous sidewalk going from 62nd Avenue down 69th Street and into 62nd Court. So for that block, excuse me, as well as the block to the north from the last development that was approved, we would have sidewalk on the east side of that street. I think that's, other than what George covered, I think that covers the main issues.

Okay, thank you very much. You've had your time, so. There's not a Q&A. Thanks, Lou. All right.

Any comments?

Now discussion amongst the board. Questions?

I just want to make some comments. I mean, I'm a 37-year resident of the city of South Miami. I have two boys. My wife and I's fantasy was that our boys would live in Dade County, and they don't. Why? Because they can't afford to live in Dade County because of the cost of real estate. One of the reasons that I think that the other issue is I live on 65th Avenue. Mornings and afternoons, 65th Avenue is a great way to avoid 67th Avenue. speed bump and all, we still get the cars flying through there. So I can sympathize with the issue of traffic. I see that every day in my house. So the developer here has really done an incredible job of not maximizing development. You get concerned for 75 units. I'm reading the code. They could have done 96 without bonus. and comply with code. With bonus it could have done even more. So, I'm an architect. Ten years ago we were asked to design parking garages that could be converted to other uses because the cars were going to go away. We were going to have self-driving cars. Not happening. People are going to use mass transit. Not happening. What happens if you put less parking here? You're going to have people parking in your neighborhoods because they're going to have to park somewhere. That's a reality. I mean, I wish I could say otherwise. What South Miami did in creating this new district is multifamily housing will allow people that can't afford to buy a home to live in our community, to take advantage of the great community that we have. because they can't afford to buy a house, but they can afford to rent an apartment. So the issue of parking was pointed out by the attorney. One of the levels is underground, so it's not increasing the height of the building. It's not. It's actually very expensive to park underneath the building. So I'm actually I'm personally surprised that they're able to make the numbers work by building underground parking because of the cost of underground parking. They've done everything. The building's lower than it's allowed to be. They have more parking than they required, which I think is a plus. I know some people can think it's a negative. The building's not as tall as it could be. It could be 40 feet. It's 33. I think overall, the architects have shown great sensitivity. The landscaping, it meets everything that was described in the TSDD. If we didn't want to have this development, then we shouldn't have approved the TSTD. Then we wouldn't be having this conversation. This conversation should have been had when the TSTD was being reviewed, not now after it's been approved, because then these projects aren't in compliance with the TSTD. So those are just my comments, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much. Other comments or questions from members of the board? I have a question.

Those four on-street parking, given the abundance of parking you have beyond the minimum requirement, why are they there, the four on-street parking?

through the chair so we provided those I mean so everything is obviously accessible internalized fully internalized all the parking and all the access we want to make sure of that but we did provide that in order for the foreground floor units to have some you know they park there they walk up we didn't want to remove on-site parking but that's something we could study if that's a recommendation of this board we can look at the at the on-site parking how we could

I would just say that while I wholeheartedly agree with everything I've seen just said I do sympathize with the residents there maybe looking at this giant building and I think that's an opportunity if those street parkings weren't there to maybe at least offer as a concession like you know some some tall landscaping some trees something to kind of conceal it and again, that's that's beyond me, but just as a As an option of a way to kind of make peace, okay That's something that will definitely look at between now and the time we go to City Commission

Other questions or comments?

I would just reiterate what my colleague here on the board said. I agree with him. I had the opportunity to meet all of you that spoke in the past, and I do understand your neighborhood very well. I don't live very far from you. I have the same situation. My son is young. They want to play in the street, and we're dealing with this. But I also have my daughter, who's much older, graduated with a law degree and a master's of business, and is struggling to figure out where she could live. I think the developer, in this case, designed the building below the allowable growth and height and number of units. And I think that they took a good approach to making sure that we didn't have these curb cuts. They didn't have parking in front of the street going into the neighborhood. So I think they were working on trying to appease the neighbors as well. But progress is something that is going to be hard for us to stop. Whether it's built on 62nd or it's built 10 blocks south of us or west of us, it's going to create traffic for us. So if we can help our community stay within our community as our community continues to grow, I think there's a lot of value on that. So I appreciate what they did with the landscaping. I think that's a very important point. If we can make sure that the mature trees are brought in, that would be incredibly valuable and appreciated by the neighborhood. Thank you.

Christina, any comments? Let's see you online. Marcus, you may have to.

There you go.

I agree with Agustin. I think he made some very valid points. And specifically when he talked about if this is in compliance with the TSDD, then I mean, there's really nothing else we can do. But I agree if we can add some landscaping and deal with the issue with those extra parkings, then maybe that can help a little bit, at least to create a buffer.

All right, thank you. Any other comments or questions? So would anyone like to make a motion? The one topic that came up that sounds like it's worthy of further discussion are the four parking spots. Yeah. Front there.

So I'd like to make a motion that the recommendation that the four parking spaces be eliminated and replaced with landscaping, and that the trees that are proposed on site be mature trees and not small trees. I second.

Just to be clear, I believe there were three other stipulations in the request, correct? So as it's written?

As it's written plus these additional comments.

Okay. All right. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor, we'll just go one by one.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your time this evening. I'll definitely look at those buffering recommendations you had. That'd be great. Thank you.

Okay. And now we're going to skip to item four. Okay. We talked about earlier.

Sure. You want to wait for everybody to clear the room? Yeah. Okay.

Wait, number four or PB004? Number four.

Right here. 002. Yeah, 002. Yeah. The fourth on the agenda. So to be clear, fourth on the agenda. Marcus, you're up.

No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I don't know if I have that one.

Number four.

So the item is PB-2026-002. The applicant has subtext acquisition to LLC. A resolution of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida approving or denying a large-scale development special exception 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 6404-6504 Southwest 57th Avenue, providing for conditions, enforcement of conditions, corrections, severability, and an effective date. This will be handled by Mr. Mark Alvarez as well.

Hey, Mark, before you launch into it, we saw this before. Yes. And so is this significantly different, or are you going to just go to the differences from what we've looked at previously?

This is a different. This has a number of differences, and I'll go through a few things that are sort of like housekeeping on this. I don't think so. This one's a DRB, actually.

Yeah, it hasn't been to this board yet.

OK. Isn't this where they wanted a coffee shop?

Are you sure? I think.

Yes, it has.

No.

Yeah, with the coffee shop in the bottom. We've seen this before. We've been to the movie before.

Good evening, Mr.

Chair, members of the board. Mario Garcia-Serra, the office is at 600 Brickell here representing the applicant tonight's subject acquisitions. Mr. Chair, what you're remembering is when you were discussing the student housing regulations, we were here talking about different points and proposed amendments to the code in order to enable this project.

We were specifically, though, looking at your site as we were having those conversations, I believe. Correct. Okay. Good. I'm not totally crazy. Okay. Thanks.

But as a quasi-judicial application, it has not been before you was a DRP. Got it. That was legislative at that time. Am I clarifying that enough? That's correct. Perfect. That's correct. Perfect. I stand that. So yeah, we end up talking about these things so much even we all lose track. This is the large-scale special exceptions and this is our staff report summary. This staff report is in your package. The address is 6404 and 6504 Red Road and the applicant is Subtext Acquisitions, LLC. Before I go forward with this, this is a summary of the staff report for the large-scale special exception. There will be a variance that goes with this project. We're going to go through the special exception first. I'll bring up where the variance request that's in the LOI applies to, but that is not before you tonight, and it will come before you on the next meeting. The location of this is on Red Road. It's directly from the UM campus and UM buildings. It is between Hardy Road or 64th Street and 66th Street on the south side. It is zoned TSD. I'm sorry. It is in the TSD future land use category. It is zoned TSD. I'm sorry, TSD. I'm sorry. It is on TSDD, and the subzone is TSNA. There's a lot of acronyms. I apologize when I make mistakes, but I try to correct. So the entire block is in the subzone of TSNA. which would be a six-story height limit. What's there right now are two-story apartments. There are four plexes. It was zoned RM18, and those four plexes were built under that zoning category. There are 48 apartments there. To the north of this in other words on the north side across Hardy Road is no longer in the city of South Miami is Miami-Dade County the The zoning on that property there is a large property actually it has a house on it now. I think two houses I believe However, it is zoned RU1Z and RU4 under county zoning. That would allow up to nine stories. So it has entitlements for much more, and it's a large property. To the south of this parcel, of this block, is Red Road Commons, which is in the city of South Miami. It was developed under planned unit development. It is primarily a five-story structure. It's mixed use. It has retail on the bottom, residences on the top. And that is now in the TSD future land use category, but it is not in the TSDD zoning because it was developed as a PUD. To the east of this is, again, not in the city's jurisdiction. It is Coral Gables. It is the University of Miami campus, and it is While it is also under the jurisdiction of Carl Gables as part of those parcels, that land is all the land that belongs to the university and is under the university's master plan. I did check the university's master plan, and at this time it doesn't have anything slated for future development there. However, that plan is amended from time to time. To the west is a single-family neighborhood. It is on the 57th court side of this, on the west side of it. This single-family neighborhood is zoned RS4. And there are 10 single-family, one-story homes there. We did check. We always like to check to see if they're owned or if they're homesteaded or not. About half of them are homesteaded. Half of them would seem to be investment properties. And those, like anything in RS4 or RS3, which you heard before, those are now allowed up to two stories and 30 feet above grade. For compatibility, again, this block has been discussed. And that's why you recalled this discussion before. It's a block that's right across from the university. And when there were amendments being made, to allow student housing, or what we call off-campus student apartments, to be exact about it. We did include this block as part of that. So the reason it was included is it's right across the street from the university. So it is compatible not only in it being walking distance to the metro rail station, and it achieves that thing that we wanted to have, a transit-oriented or transit-supportive development area, we also wanted it to be When we look at the downtown as a whole, we want the intensity of residences to serve the businesses, to help the businesses grow and sustain, to also serve and sustain the offices and workplaces. These will be for students, but students will also patronize these places. And again, we have the extra addition here that is across the street from the university, absolutely walkable into the university campus. For the other side of compatibility, though, so that is how it succeeds in achieving all of the goals of the TSDD. But again, this is an edge property. This is a TSA property where we have a neighborhood to the back of it. And again, this is a property where we have the same regulation. I shouldn't say that we're quasi-traditional. We have the regulation that it can be six stories and the last 75 feet must be three stories and 40 feet or lower. So the proposal does achieve the transition quite well, in our opinion. It is three-story building height. There is a lot of relief on the rear side of it, again, to try to achieve the sort of townhouse typology. There are entrances. There are stoops. Um, it is a residential land use, which we always are very sensitive about putting commercial facing or even on the same block as, um, as residential or where we face residential. Um, and, um, again, the same issue. We have a transition that would go from a permittable two-story single-family neighborhood. Most of those houses are one-story, as you can see in the depiction on the bottom. But they're allowed to go to two-story and 30 feet. This would transition across the street, across 57th Court, to three stories, 40 feet, and then to the six-story building, which faces Red Road. This project is consistent with our comprehensive plan. We do need to make sure, even though by being consistent with the TSTD zoning code, which was developed with the comprehensive plan amendments, I should say it is consistent with the comprehensive plan. And we have gone through future land use policies to make sure it is consistent. Again, you can see it's highlighted in red. TSNA is a little salmon-colored block on the top right of this. It's an outlier parcel. This would seem less to be an outlier when you look at the future land use map because It's basically about the Red Road Commons. Red Road Commons is part of our future land use, but we could not include it as part of the zoning because it was approved under PUD. That being said, it's somewhat of an outlier parcel, and we do have to treat it a little differently as we look at this. The use of this property is residential. So the off-campus student departments is a residential land use category that was added by ordinance that we were discussing before. It is in the TSNA. The density of the project is under the density that is allowed. I have to get closer to this to see, but I believe it's 86 units per acre. The density of off-campus student apartments we measure not only by the number of units but by the number of bedrooms, and it is under the number of bedrooms as well. It would be allowed to have 954 bedrooms and 273 residential units. It has 235 units, which is under what it could be permitted for. And it is proposing 766 bedrooms on the 2.73 acres. It is also consistent with parts of the TSTD regarding parking and loading. The project is parked more generously than what the requirement is. We require 383 spaces. It does provide 442 spaces. So the parking is in the front of the building, and that's something that seems unusual. Normally when we talk about TSDT, we want the parking entrance to be in the back or something that's not on the main street. In this case, we needed it to be on Red Road because we don't want it in the neighborhood. We don't want it on 66th, and we really don't want it on 64th. So they have integrated it into Red Road with an entrance on Red Road, and you'll see how it's been done. But this is something that's acceptable to us, and we're accepting that it's on the front of the property. That said, with regards to street parking, there is none. That's also something that we accept and we think is a good idea because it's Red Road and it's neighborhood streets. The current design, as it was provided on February 27th, does not have the car sharing spaces. We require it to and does not have them. And it does not have sufficient delivery or parcel delivery spaces. They're not shown in the plan. It does have one trash loading space. And again, we will need, when we further analyze this project, we will need to see how that works with the delivery spaces for a larger truck. It'll have to be, if they're going to use one bay, then we have to see that trash pickup is at a time of day when it's managed so that it's not at the same time as delivery trucks would come. The project as it's been presented on right now is also short on bicycle racks. We have a very significant bicycle parking for student housing. And this project does not meet it at the time. There are 53 external bike racks. We require 192 indoor, again, as students. So we require much more than for other developments. That can be met, or we have accepted in other projects that's met with any kind of personal mobility, scooters, electric bikes, whatever it may be. We realize that fewer and fewer people ride human-powered bicycles, and we will accept storage for other type of transportation. But again, it's not provided at this point. And we do require external bike racks at 53 around the property so that guests and visitors can also use and those Personal transportation modes and be able to park them without going to the interior of the building So it is short in those areas on street hierarchy we have Again, we have three streets. It's a full block, and the 57th Court, Hardy Road, and 66th Street are not what we consider TSDD streets. So they are basically streets that would have to meet the requirements of the city, the basic requirements for streets. That said... So that will be a five foot sidewalk But we still have worked with the developer that we want the landscaping on the outside of the sidewalk In other words to protect pedestrians that's been done on two of those streets on 57th Court and on party Road on 66 the curb line does go to the street Which again is not in the code, but we would recommend that that not be the case that there be some protection for the pedestrians there as far as the the red road that is a tsdd street the sidewalk width is is under the specification that we require for an 11 foot path free path for pedestrians to walk seven is provided it's not an acceptable uh dimension for us however i would note because this is an outlier Parcel I think Red Road Commons I actually don't know I should notice the sidewalk with there But we would accept something that's along the lines of the Red Road Commons so that a continuous path would be similar So you understand what I'm saying, I mean we have a we always think about the continuous path of the sidewalk So this is a bit of an outlier We would recommend that it be at least the same as what Red Road Commons has for a clear pedestrian path in other words No landscaping in the way no building or whatever For open space, the project does not meet the requirement. We require 10% open space. As presented, it has 9%. It's linear open space. So in other words, it goes all the way around the building. And there is a small plaza on the back, which we think is the best way to locate a plaza because, again, it helps to buffer this against the single-family homes on the west side. The landscaping, we have checked and counted trees, and the landscaping is sufficient. There are a few places where, as presented to us, the landscape plan and the architectural plans didn't mesh. That's more of an issue that we can deal with internally, but we recommend that those numbers correlate before we go forward. For building height, this does meet the requirements for building height. It's six stories. The requirement's 84 feet to the roof, and the building to the roof line is 70 feet 6 inches. And with the parapet, it's 75 feet 6 inches. I will note that there is a parking deck on that roof layer, but that's not something that we don't allow. So they have parking in the parking part. The parking goes up to the roof. And on the west side we require for 40 feet or three Excuse me three stories and 40 feet of height and the project Provides us with 37 feet 6 inches of height and three stories and on top of that the roof in this case There is a private open space area. That's landscaped For building location and form, we have a vertical variation requirement that's been met on the Red Road side. We've worked with this applicant extensively on the form of the building. They do meet it on the Red Road side with the exception of there's a portion of the garage screening that's about 84 feet, 85 feet, and it needs to be 70 feet or less. Vertical variation has not been provided on Hardy Road or on 66th Street. It's not technically a requirement because they're not TSDD streets, but we are looking for the developer to provide some more relief on those two facades. Again, on the 57th court side, relief is there. We are asking that it be dimensioned. It wasn't dimensioned when we received the plans. But I think that that does provide the relief as I more or less measured it. For building location, massing, and form, it meets most of the requirements except for the floor plates on the fifth and sixth floor. So one of the requirements that we have in the TSTD, and it was a requirement that we put in really thinking more about towers, but we needed to control the massing of the higher portions of the building. As it affects these blocks on the TSNA, which are limited six stories, we are trying to work with this development and this applicant because we really don't want to have Two-story towers that have spaces in between them unless it's a really great design However, as the code is written right now We need a variance for this. There's 66 66 and 63 thousand square foot floor plates on the fifth and sixth floor. That's too much for a waiver so the applicant would be required to seek a variance from Commission and And I believe that the order that we're doing this, we will have a variance before you on the next meeting. For architectural standards, we have glazing requirements which have not been met. Again, we've worked with the applicant pretty extensively to work with the glazing requirements. I think they will be bringing forward modifications on that. But as it stands right now, it does not meet the glazing requirements actually on any of the facades as it's been presented.

So finally, our recommendation would be that we could recommend approval for this

conditioned on the variance being approved. We would recommend for approval also pending a number of things. One, that we increase the public open space to 10%. And by the way, I didn't cover it. The building has enough and substantial private open space. That we would increase the bicycle storage, that there would be a satisfactory arrangement of car sharing spaces and parcel delivery in the front. That the form variation on the north and south would be, we would have a little more form variation to soften the effect of the building, the effect of the mass, excuse me, on those street facades. That we would have satisfactory coordination between the sheets, that something that happens in a lot of plans, and we'll work with that before this goes forward to commission. we would need a Recommended we would need to know we still need to take this before the DRC. We haven't had enough details for the DRC at this point DRC is the Development review committee. It's an internal committee to the city. We have Public Works and parking and everybody make comments to that and And those tend to focus on parking issues. So we need to resolve some of the issues on the bottom before we have that meeting. And then, of course, any comments that you have would carry forward as either conditions or we'll report it to the commission.

So before I return to the applicant for their comments, Why are we looking at this right now? It seems like there's a lot of things here. There's no numbers on car sharing spaces. There's no numbers on public open space at 10%, but no real firm about where that's going to be. The bike storage, there's no number on there. uh the 50 what is it 57th court to the back and the variation about that facade there i'm i feel like we're getting kind of a half a product i mean we're just not getting a fully baked deal so what am i missing

Mr. Chair, you forgot one item. The units are required to be 150 square feet and some majority of them are not.

Yeah. I mean, there's... Not limited to my comments, but I'm just sort of like, why are we... I'm a little confused why we're spending... So anyway...

We did have the schedule to to come to this board. We have been working with this application extensively There's probably a fourth or fifth iteration of this plan it has been a difficult plan in number of ways because mostly because of the massing and and the floor plate issue we received what I reported to you was the plan the full set that was received on the 27th of February and the applicant has selected to go forward they do have modifications that they're bringing tonight and I believe if I'm not speaking improperly we could hear this again when it goes with the variance

I mean, look, is that normal for us to say we're going to listen to applicants' changes on the fly in this meeting? It strikes me as not particularly well-reviewed.

Chairman, all your points are very well taken. We did speak to the applicant's attorney, and, I mean, he can speak for himself, but I believe one of their goals is to get feedback from you so that when they do come back with a product, it is a product that you will be willing to approve. and it's not something that comes as much of a shock to you. It's something you're familiar with by then. So I think that was one of their goals. He can correct me if I'm wrong, but that's, I think, why this item is here before you tonight, to get some kind of feedback, and then they'll come back to you with hopefully a finished product.

It doesn't strike me as the way we operate. I mean, I get it. We've already talked about this one time before and gave them feedback on the property. And so here we are a second time through an incomplete project. And so, I mean, we want to continue. I'm going to ask my fellow board members.

Through the chair. So is the intention here to give feedback and then defer this?

If that's the will of the board.

Or an option is to put it down and not be beneficial to the applicant.

No, it would not be, but you could vote it down. You could approve it with conditions. You can defer it. You can approve it as is. As you already noted, there are some items missing still, as Mark highlighted. So you have all those options. You could defer it without hearing it. You could say you're not ready to hear it. You could defer it after hearing it. You have flexibility here.

My view would be to defer it.

I, for one, would want to give comments.

Would you?

Yeah. They may not want to hear them, but I'd be more than happy to give them.

I guess we're here. We're here.

We'll hear the comments, and then we can decide whether it's something we're going to approve or whether we're going to defer at that point. Does that make sense? Yes, it does.

All right. Good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board. My name, again, Mario Garcia-Serra with offices at 600 Brickell Avenue. Here this evening representing Subtext Acquisitions, LLC, the contract purchaser for the property located at 6404. and 6504 Southwest 57th Avenue. I'm joined today by representatives of Subtext and the project design team who will introduce themselves as we go through this presentation. I will note at the beginning, as you have noted already, there were deficiencies identified in the staff report. When we received that staff report and we saw the deficiencies, we've been working on them, and so you'll see as part of the presentation how we've addressed the vast majority of them. The variance that was mentioned was supposed to be advertised for today. It wasn't advertised, so that's why we're going to potentially have to come back or we will have to come back in April. However, we do want to take advantage of this opportunity to start getting that feedback from each of the board members so that we can come to you with a project next time around that's ready for final approval or final recommendation in your case. To continue, this is a great combination of developer and project site. Subtex is one of the leading developers of student housing in the country, and this will be their first project in South Florida. The subject property is a 2.7-acre site located directly across from Red Road from the campus of University of Miami, and it is a part of the TSDD zoning district, which was recently amended to permit student housing. One of the motivations in allowing student housing in the TSDD was to address the negative effects of student housing essentially overflowing into an ad hoc basis into the single family and lower density neighborhoods of the city. This project will allow for student housing where it should be located and with the type of building and amenities which students need. Our special exception application is for review of a large-scale development project, and that is what's before you today. There's the accompanying request for the variants, as I mentioned, which we will be back to show you in April. In the meantime, I'd ask Ryan Bump with Subtext to come up here and just tell you a little bit about their company and what they do.

Good evening, all. I'm Ryan Bone with Subtex. We're a real estate company. We develop communities built from the resident up. That's one of our mottos and goals. We develop nationwide. And we're a developer, owner, operator. And I like to say that's important because our team that presents these projects to you is also the team that's going to deliver it. And we're also part of the team that's going to operate this. So what we're sharing here tonight We like to follow through with that all the way through operations. We're partnered with Architectonica and Kimley Horn, bringing their local expertise. They've just delivered projects as close as UM's campus with new residential buildings. So they bring the local expertise to everything we do. Here's just an example of the type of product that we do deliver. So we pride ourselves in the quality of the property and hope that this is a good community asset for South Miami. And just to bring it back, Mark noted this in his presentation, but the site location really is ideal for this use. It's right across the street from campus, as well as close proximity to all shops and restaurants and everything of downtown South Miami, and then a short walk to the metro. So it really is in a really bullseye location, both for our residents, I think, as well as for South Miami. I'm going to pass it to Sherry, and she'll get into the specifics of the design.

Hi, good evening. Sherry Gutierrez with Architectonica. Office is located at 2900 Oak Avenue. I think part of the... Conversation tonight also to clarify a few things. I think that there are things that perhaps aren't as evident Plan there are things that since we did receive the comments we've been working on but for example when we talk about glazing percentage I think there was The way it's written in the code isn't exactly a hundred percent clear the way it was categorized and calculated and Submitted was based on a square footage basis. That's not how it is It's based on a horizontal linear footage in which case we do comply so there's a few things that Perhaps the verbiage in the code isn't exactly 100% clear. We're working with it. We've been working with planning staff to iron these things out as we go along. So I just wanted to mention that some of this is going to be for clarification as well. What you have in front of you today is a student housing project is roughly 240 units 770 some odd beds we have 378 parking spaces not 422 There's also an additional 21 spaces for motorcycles in addition to that there are locations for bicycle parking on every floor of the garage Totaling roughly 200 spaces and there are 57 bike racks around 57 total Bike racks, mobility devices, scooters, electric scooters, electric bikes for storage that is not feet and not vehicular around the perimeter of the site. And Alejandro with our landscape department can show you where those are located. So from a site plan perspective, the block itself is bifurcated, as you know, into two different districts. One is 84 foot in height. One is 40 foot in height. The project is organized around the garage. We worked hard to push the garage away from the neighborhood to have all ingress and egress points off of 57th Avenue. So we would not bring any more vehicles into the neighborhood than necessary. We've been working with Kim Lee Horn and FDOT to get a left-hand turn lane off of 57th Avenue so that the project can be accessed in both directions and, again, not bring vehicles into the neighborhood. The area that you see in yellow is sort of our main lobby space at the ground floor with a small cafe for residents and for the neighborhood at large. The units themselves are categorized around three central courtyards that you see here in the plan. And on the west side, we have a very large open space, public park, dog park that can be accessed for residents and neighbors as well. Around the perimeter of the property, you see these stoops. They've been referred to. It's a very residential feel. You can access your unit directly from the street. You do not have to come within the building if you have a unit at the ground floor. As we continue up through the building, we have, well, these are the project metrics that we just talked about. As we continue up through the building, again, you see sort of the second level of the garage, a second level amenity space that communicates with the lobby below, and again, the organization of the units around the building, typically the same configuration until we get up to level four, which is our amenity floor. So you see the amenities identified in yellow. You also see the carving of the areas on the west side of the building. We've obviously reduced our floor plate. And we have to pull the building back because of the height restriction. So the area along the western edge is where the amenity deck is proposed. There's padel courts, our pool area, barbecue area, trellis, outdoor fitness space, and what have you. So a few of the recreational facilities that students are looking for and the places where they live. And then as we go through the fifth floor and the sixth floor, which continue above with additional units. So from the southeast corner looking north, what you see here is I guess the entirety of the project by broken in our minds broken into three separate components There's sort of the southern component the central central component, which is the garage and the north side, which is the additional residential the the garage again sort of the Defining part between the north and the south pieces. We've worked with staff on different iterations for the project to create movement along the facade to create different massing concepts to break up the the wall, if you will. We've done that with tones. We've done that with massing. We've done it with frames. We've done it with glazing. Additionally, we're proposing in the garage, what you're seeing there is a placeholder for art in public places. We'd like to incorporate a graphic into the facade of the garage. We don't yet have that defined yet. We've been trying to work with the county and the city arts and public places program to further that conversation. So what you see is a placeholder, not a final piece of art. So this is the extent of the full facade. So on the north and south sides, you have these corners of glass. You have the residents that are contained within. I will clarify. So there are two units that are two square feet under the 150. I think it's a calculation error. But every single bedroom is intended to be 150 square feet or more. So that's something that can easily be accomplished. We've broken the mass of the garage again into two different pieces to work along the 70 foot requirement. And this is the view that Mark had shown previously where we're working with the transition from the neighborhood to the 75-foot strip of the building as then, again, it fronts 57th Avenue. We did have a community meeting with the neighborhood. Probably 15, 20 people showed up. We talked about the project. We presented the project. We listened to their comments, their concerns. We did work with them. So that did happen in December, just so that everyone's aware. And then this is the aerial view of that western side. So again, those stoops continue around the western edge. We've identified the same articulation and balcony zones. And again, you can still access your unit directly from your stoop on this edge as well. And you see the carve out a little bit towards the north side of the project for the dog park and public open space in that location. And this is a view walking up. Because if you're walking from south to north, and you see here some of the sort of residential type entry style doors on the stoops, as well as the cafe space where the glazing is, as well as farther to the north inside of that frame where the main lobby and entry point is to the project. And then again, this is just walking by the main entry there along the street with some of the landscape, the buffer, and obviously 57th Avenue. To the right, I'm going to let Alejandro talk a little bit about the ground floor landscaping and public open space.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Alejandro Perez with Architectonica Geo. Office is located at 2900 Oak Avenue, Miami, Florida. So just to go over the landscaping for the project, all of the proposed trees and palms on the project, they are native. So therefore, inherently, they're drought tolerant. They're low maintenance. And from a planting strategy, our intent was to have the larger street trees against the back of curb. Since it's further from the building, we're able to have more canopy. And then closer to the building, have more of an understory tree pallet. So you have, for the street trees, we're proposing larger oak trees. So you have large canopy oak trees. It ties into the existing landscaping around the neighborhood, which has other native canopy trees, such as mahogany and tamarins. So the oaks, they tie in well with that palette. And the understory trees next to the buildings, we're proposing different species of stoppers. So not only are these trees native, these are trees that are part of a habitat that was existing on this site before development. So really tying into that native look and feel of the site. As Sherry mentioned, for the fourth level amenity deck, there are a lot of different Outdoor programming so from a planting perspective. We also wanted to keep this native as well, but since we're on the upper levels There's more Sun at this level is more wind so we also incorporated native species, but more so from the Maritime hammock and dune Habitats, so we're complying or providing plant material that will survive long term from Sun and wind conditions and And just to review a few of the comments or the notes that Mark had in terms of our open space. So we took a look at the open space calculations and we updated the plan so now we are in compliance. In compliance with the 10%, we included the bike rack areas. I think they're a little hard to see on this plan, but 53 spaces are provided, or apologies, are required. We're providing 57, so we're slightly over that requirement. We have two zones for the bike spaces. one at the north side of the 57th garage entry, another at the south, and then two additional bicycle parking spaces adjacent to the dog park, which is at the west side of the project. We're also complying with the bench requirements. 12 benches are required. We're providing the 12 benches. And just to also note, I think there was a comment in the report that 66th Street requesting to shift the planting zone against the back of curb. So we're able to provide that update. Right now the plan, or as submitted, had the planting areas adjacent to the building and the sidewalk against the back of curb. So we're able to flip that so that we meet that pedestrian safety requirement as cars are driving by. And also we're able to have larger canopy trees since the planting zone is further from the building. So we're able to satisfy a lot of these requirements from a landscaping perspective. And with that, passing it over to our good evening, members of the board.

Corey Dorman, traffic engineer with Kinley Horn, offices at 2 Alhambra Plaza, Suite 500, Coral Gables, Florida, 33134. So what we wanted to illustrate with the exhibit before you is some of the direct pedestrian routing to and from the site. There was a request by the city as part of some preliminary conversations for the site plan review to evaluate the feasibility of a mid-block crosswalk on 57th Avenue connecting this site. to the University of Miami campus. In reviewing 57th Avenue there are numerous cross-sectional elements that make it very challenging to accommodate a mid-block crosswalk on 57th Avenue on this block, including the existing turn lanes at the signalized intersection at 64th Street. along with a merged lane that really extends just about halfway between this block on 57th Avenue going northbound. Furthermore, with a lack of any sort of pedestrian entry or exit point to the University of Miami campus, there's a wall on the east side of 57th Avenue. There's really no clear pedestrian circulation path that would encourage crossing mid-block. So again, this exhibit really just illustrates the more primary routes for pedestrians to get to campus where there is actually pedestrian access, which would be safe crossing at the south leg at 64th Street, which is a signalized intersection and therefore a signalized crosswalk, and similarly to the south at Levante Avenue, where there is again a signalized crosswalk. On this slide, we just wanted to illustrate some of the roadway traffic improvements. This cross-section is along 57th Avenue. As Sherry mentioned earlier in the presentation, we did want to emphasize that the project is introducing a northbound left turn lane to access the site. So that to avoid any obstructions with vehicles attempting to make a left so that through traffic can continue northbound on Red Road Among those other improvements and for the record a traffic impact analysis was prepared and submitted to the city The findings of that study were that with you know, Miami-Dade County Optimizes signal timings on a routine basis. So with some signal timing optimization We're able to offset any impact from the project at the study intersections And then the left turn lane as I mentioned along with right-of-way improvements including curb and gutter and sidewalk improvements along 57th Avenue This is the full pavement markings and signage plan if you have any detailed questions You know our team is here to answer them But again these just serve to illustrate the right-of-way improvements along all four front edges of the project.

I

Thank you, Corey. With that said, that's the conclusion of our presentation. We'll reserve time for rebuttal if necessary. And of course, we have the whole team here. And we look forward to your input and comments and responding to your questions. Thank you.

All right. So I still need to open it up for public comment. Anyone in the audience that would like to speak, please step up and put your name in there and information. Anyone online that would like to speak, please raise your hand, virtual hand.

Yeah, my name's Frank Wills, 6511 Southwest 59th place. I mean 57th place, sorry. Homeowner, been living in the area.

You were not sworn in earlier, were you?

Yeah, I was in the back on the corner. Oh, you were? OK. OK. Did I get that time back? Yeah. Yes. No, because they brought a whole crew, so we get three minutes. I would love to know, because I lived there. I didn't know anything about a neighborhood meeting, because that would have been great. I mean, what people did you notify? I didn't know anything about it. The only time I got notified was a week ago when I got the stuff in the mail. I understand it's going to be built whatever, but realistically, Let's look at, has anyone ever driven on 57th Avenue and tried to turn onto 66th Street or 64th Street anytime after 2 o'clock in the afternoon? It's back from 67th Avenue all the way to 57th Avenue already. Red Road Commons isn't even sold out. you're building across the street from South Miami Market, there's townhomes going up over there. So we keep talking about, well, there's this, this, this. All these little places that we're approving eventually are going to become one big major problem. So my thing is, we're talking about, I know he mentioned, I had a bunch of things I was going to say, but all these things pop up when they start talking. And One of the things was we're going to alleviate from students living in the single family homes. We don't even enforce the codes in the single family homes. My neighbor has seven people living in the house next door. They restructured the house into six units. There's five cars in the front yard. We're not even enforcing those rules, but we're going to come here and do a dog and pony show about high rise and this and that. And it's great. Oh, we're going to put businesses on the bottom floors. They're not even sold out. There's not even businesses all the way on Red Road Commons. They're going in and out of business. The only place is the side building and the suntan place and the cookie place. That's it. Everything's in and out, in and out, in and out. Let's be realistic. I got people speeding up and down my street because they're trying to miss the light on 64th and 57th. They're trying to miss the light on 66th. Well, there's no light at 66, but they're trying to cut down those roads. We got the people cutting down the streets because they're trying to get to the Gibson Center because they want to get the Tamiami basketball practice. Guys, this is where we live. This is not for students because I know University of Miami is huge. I've been a season ticket holder for 60 years. My dad had them before me. We owned a business in South Miami for 50 years. I moved back into the area. So for me, living here where I live, I work a mile away. And I plan on working here and then dying here. But this is, I mean, come on. This is getting a little ridiculous. Because all these little places where we're going to say, hey, it's only 100 units. So it's only 75. This is now 200 and something. Sooner or later, South Miami's going to be packed. We can't keep doing this. Because you got the place where they go and pour him. You got now on the other side. You got this. You got that. We got places everywhere. You cannot drive anywhere in South Miami from Ponce and 57th. When you make that turn, it takes me five minutes from that turn on the 57th where everyone's making illegal turns because they're running over the little pylons. There's no cops or nothing there. But they're tearing those up. You're spending money redoing those. It takes me five minutes from that corner to 66th and 57th.

Thank you for your comments.

And it's great that, hey, you got this whole traffic study. But, dude, go out there for yourself and see for yourself. The traffic's horrible.

Thanks.

Oh, I forgot my suit.

All right. Anybody online? Yes, there is some. Oh, Michelle.

Hi, Madam Clerk. Can you allow Michelle Reden to turn on her mic and camera?

Okay. My mic is unmuted, but my video is not unmuted. My video isn't unmuted, so I don't know. Did I talk without my video or no?

Give me one second, and I'll give you access, Michelle.

Thank you. You have access. Thank you so much. Good evening, everyone. My name is Michelle Readon, and I'm at 6420 Southwest 57th Court.

And I'm coming home. Michelle, it's good to see you.

Same here. Thank you all so very much. I miss you guys.

Michelle, we don't see you. You're not on camera.

I'm trying to hit it. And every time I hit it, it goes back on. There you go. There you go. OK. You're there.

All right. Michelle, would you raise your right hand, please? Right here. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Wonderful. Thank you, Michelle.

Yes. So nice to see everyone again. I live at 6420 Southwest 57th Court, which is right across the street from where the project is supposedly being planned. And I've lived there since I was eight years old as a little girl, even though I moved and came back a couple of times. But I've been there now for about 12 years with my mom. Unfortunately, guys, my mom did pass on December 31st. But all is well. I'm just kind of disturbed. And I also know Mark that's on the project as well. And we spoke. But I'm concerned about the people that are being moved from those apartments. Ever since I was a little girl, there were apartments for people to live. There were low income apartments. There were apartments for people that were less fortunate. And still now today, that's what they are. And just like the gentleman just spoke earlier, the traffic is horrific already on 64th and Red Road. I mean, in the mornings, if I get up and walk, once I hit the corner there, you see cars backed up. They're all backed up in the mornings from 7 to 9, in the afternoons from about 3 or 4 o'clock, from 57th to 72nd. It is a line of cars. I'm telling you. My only thing is this, too. You're saying you have the garages, and I know you do. But what about the friends and the relatives that's going to come and visit these people? Where are they going to park? What about when there's different events and stuff going on? Where are they going to park? And just like they said, Red Road Commons is right there from, I guess, the west. to the right of one of the complexes. And then there was just another complex built about maybe six blocks on 58th or 59th for college students. I'm just concerned about across the street, I can't see anything anymore. You're saying there are going to be three stories and six stories. Even with the apartments that are there, I can get some sunlight. I can get able to see something. But now we won't be able to see anything. But my most important things are the people that need their places to stay. We've been moving them out and pushing them out. But I'm just concerned about that. And I'm concerned about all the traffic that is already coming through South Miami. So that's what I'm concerned about. Thank you.

Thanks, Michelle. And great seeing you.

Thank you.

applicant like to i don't see anybody else who in the audience or online any rebuttal comments just a few minor points mr chair so one point that mr wells brought up about there being business uses on the ground floor as you remember from your discussion on the ordinance and the amendments that were done for student housing it's limited to a very small space that's an accessory space for retail use according to your staff report only two percent of the floor area of the ground floor is what that small sort of coffee shop takes up there. Both Mr. Wells and Ms. Readon had the concern of traffic. You heard that we had a traffic study prepared. There's a new turn lane that's being proposed so that traffic can queue up there. I think we have to keep in mind, too, student housing peak travel times are not going to be the same as many people who are going about their workday. There's also going to be hopefully some amount of students that will be walking to campus and to their other needs. And on parking, we're sensitive to the point also too. We are in excess of what the required parking is to try to accommodate and make sure there's enough parking. This board as well as the city commission went through a lot trying to figure out what the required parking should be. And we're in compliance and in excess of that. And lastly, on the issue of relocation subtext, has been in the situation before that they need to assist existing residents that are in locations where they are redeveloping and helping them with relocation. And they're committed to doing that here. I already had a conversation with Annie Lord, who is the president of the housing organization here in the Miami-Dade County, also to try to start enlisting her.

assistance and as I say the subtext company also has experience with assisting existing residents with relocating with that said I'll hand it back to you mr. chair all right thank you all right I'll open up to the board for questions and comments and I don't want to derail it if somebody feels that there is a motionable approval here in front of us without being here for another week or so. I'm all for it. Otherwise, if you guys are agreeable to it, let's do this as a discussion to provide feedback and thoughts, and then we'll move on.

If I may, Mr. Chair, we've had multiple projects that have been presented to us. The 167th Avenue, that's the office building that, again, addressed the whole issue of how to step back to the single family homes. They actually broke up the facades and had fewer townhomes to really give the residential feel. When I look at 57th Court, I feel like I'm looking at A prison, a bunch of punch windows, says nothing about single families. The only thing that we're doing is we're stepping back, stepping down 30 feet, but there's nothing, there's no residential feeling with regards to that elevation whatsoever, other than the fact that they punched out the balconies to break up the massing a little bit. The intent is not just to drop it, but to create that townhome feeling, and this does not promote that townhome feeling whatsoever. Unlike previous submittals here that they need variances to increase the floor plates in order to provide more units. I for one wouldn't support that. The traffic doesn't concern me as much, even though I was in favor of one space per unit because I saw what happened in NFIU where basically they created such a parking problem in the community because they had the half space per, but that was approved by the commission as the half space, so we're good with that. I'm not concerned with the amount of traffic it generates because student housing has already stated this. They're living here, they're going across the street. It's not like residential where you wake up at 8 o'clock in the morning and everybody's leaving at the same time and coming back at the same time. So it doesn't generate the same type of traffic. I know you can nod your head all you want, but that's the reality of it. the to me the main concerns is I for one would not support putting a racquetball court facing single-family homes that's a noise generator that would generate and they have lights according to this rendering so that will definitely be to me a nuisance to the residents because it's not tennis look like it looks like it's a with a new pickleball. Thank you. I don't play, but pickleball, which is kind of noisy. So I, for one, wouldn't support having a pickleball court on top of a building that's, you know, 70 feet from single family homes, especially when it's lit at night. And I don't know how the ordinance addresses that. I still think it's going to be a parking issue and at some point the city commission may have to look at creating parking permits to where people can't park in the streets unless they are residents because they do that in Coral Gables off Ponce to prevent people from parking in the residential areas and then taking a shuttle to downtown to avoid paying for parking. So that's one of the challenges. You know, what was presented and submitted didn't comply. Now we're being told that everything complies. Now we're being told that we meet the 10%. Now we're being told there's no unit that's less than 150. Now we're being told we're providing all the bicycle parking spaces. Now we're being told. So what was presented to us and what was staff recommended is different than what you guys are presenting to us. So that to me is an issue because, you know, we really can't vote on something Unless, you know, we're warning what staff provided to us, not on what you're saying you're providing to us. So those are just some of my comments. I'm not in a position today to, if there was a vote on this, I would vote no. So that's just my two cents.

Thanks, Gus.

I have a serious concern about this amenity level that you have right across the street from a residential neighborhood. And I think that you guys are following a tough act in the last presentation where they didn't even face the front of houses, and they still went out of their way to try and soften that as much as possible. And you guys have a full-on resort right across the street, and it's student housing on top of that, which I think is just like, I would have a real hard time putting my name in agreement with something that does that to those people that live across the street. So that's my feedback.

I'm going to agree with both. The comments have already been made. I'll just list mine off. The 57th court side particularly, as Gus said, the vertical variation stuff to me doesn't even muster. The absence of sidewalks on 64th and 68th. Or small sidewalks on 64th and 68th to me is a non-starter You know people are gonna walk that you hope the sidewalk on the 57th Avenue side looks like it's sitting right on the roadway and I've never seen red road with that few cars on it. So I can't imagine that's a saleable thing to anybody in those units and And so do yourself a favor, move that back. That sidewalk should be a full size. You wouldn't put that in downtown South Miami where the shops at Sunset Place are right now, or I wouldn't, just because it's just too damn close to the cars in there and the noise bounce back, et cetera. Car share and delivery space, you've got to address that. That's the world we're in today. And so the idea, and I see it on Dixie Highway where Uber drivers decide to stop in the right-hand lane in Dixie. At least I hope they're in the right-hand line. Sometimes they stop wherever they want. But to pick somebody up, I mean, the same will happen on Red Road. That's to get a non-starter. The bicycle parking, you addressed that. It was different than what was presented originally. The paddle ball racquet court thing, you're going to have to bring. I don't have a big objection to pool and lounge area. You're up four stories in it. It's technically on that fourth story, but I do think you have the landscape to try to minimize it the paddle ball It's an indoor sport. I mean, it's frankly in Florida's heat and humidity It's an indoor sport and so I don't see putting that on the deck of something right over single-family homes lastly, and this is more of a question for mark and Sir, I mean we don't have to have or do we already have concurrency from Dade County and Relative to red road ingress egress that kind of thing. Do they not have to opine on this? I'm assuming that's a county road, right?

I don't think there's any concurrency for traffic The cities in that chat and a traffic concurrency Yeah Yeah, we're exempt from from doing the traffic concurrency. I believe is that correct mark?

Oh

Yeah, we're in a transportation concurrency exception area for the county. So there's not traffic concurrency in that context. They still do need to show a traffic analysis to make sure that they mitigate their impacts locally on the intersections and streets.

Yeah, so they've purchased a site that has an existing problem. So one of the challenges I have is talking about this project being so horrible because what it's going to do to traffic. What it's going to do to traffic is not much. Traffic sucks already, but you hate to pile onto that whole thing. So the reason for my question, are we sure that nobody else has to say this is okay?

No, there isn't. There's the mitigation from the traffic studies, but basically it's a right to develop that we can't take private land to make wider streets in order to take care of a traffic issue. So there's just mitigation of speed bumps and things of that nature, but there is no concurrency with the county.

Okay. Yeah, our focus on traffic in this case is much more on safety. Yeah.

And again, back to the sidewalk piece, I think you've got to make those larger and set that further back because a car barreling down, passing somebody who's making a turn they shouldn't, that's just a recipe for disaster. So those are my comments. Other comments?

Yeah, just through the chair real quick. I think, Mark, you had said earlier that sidewalk along 57th, I think that pushing it back, like the chair's saying, Red Road has the parallel parking to add that little buffer between the active travel lane and Red Road sidewalk. Is that not...

There's no parallel parking, so we do want the buffer. It's shown in the renderings, and it's shown in some of the drawings, but we do have a seven-foot sidewalk there, which is minimal. We do require 11 foot on a primary street.

I wouldn't compromise there. That's not the road to do it. Christina, any comments?

I really have nothing new to add. I agree with the amenities facing all these single family homes and the noise level. I see the building and it looks like a big block down a very, very long strip. I'm not very fond of it, but I understand there's a need for housing for UM students and in the neighborhood and all of that. If they can create more of a buffer down 57th Court from all these amenities, I think that I agree with everyone else on the board.

Not to reiterate, a lot of the things I was thinking were already said. One concern that I have that hasn't been talked about was the back of the house and the stacking on the delivery trucks and the circulation with the trash and all that. I think that needs to be revisited. The lighting systems today are very advanced so I'm not very concerned about foot candles spilling over into the neighbors. I think you can do that with quality lighting systems. The racquetball or whichever type of corner it is, that's going to be pretty loud. We've already experienced that in some of our parks. So I would revisit that and see what other event you could do. With that said, if nobody else has anything to say, I would make a motion to defer with and ask the applicant to take in the board comments into account.

I'll second that.

Any further comments? You okay with that?

Yeah, we have our work cut out for us. Okay.

All those in favor?

Aye. Chair. Aye. Excuse me. To the maker of the motion, can we clarify when the deferral is to? Did you specify a date? When they're ready. When they're ready.

If they can move quick, we'll take it in the next meeting. Just don't test our memory too far.

We already thought we... Aye. Any opposed?

Okay.

Okay. I know you guys from University of Miami's housing, the new housing built over there. I'm over there all the time. And it's good stuff. And I like the look, so I know you can solve this.

This is unusual. I know you're about to vote, but we voted. We already voted. We, as staff, would like a little more direction on the floor plate issue. It's a major issue. So as long as we're having a discussion.

I voiced my opinion that I would be against it. I heard you.

I guess I'm asking the other four or five of you.

Yeah, it's a pretty significant increase. I would also be disinclined to go along with that unless there was some very compelling reason that's not presented here yet.

Yeah. Thank you. It's a major issue. We want to make sure we had a little more discussion about that. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay. We will discuss that last point, of course, with staff and, you know, hopefully have an opportunity if we still go in that direction to make a presentation and so forth and, you know, put our case forward.

Sounds good. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. So now we will go to item two on the agenda.

So this is item number 2, PB-2026-003, the ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending section, amending 20-3.6, supplemental regulations of the Land Development Code to revise regulations relating to fences and walls for corner lots, providing for corrections, severability, conflicts, implementation at an effective date. I still have everything I need. Would you like me to begin or do you want me to wait? That's why they were here. No, go ahead. Oh, OK. OK. So currently, Section 20.3.6H, as inherited the Land Development Code, is the guiding light for the governing code for physical barriers. Currently, the code states that you it has a maximum height of six feet and when when you're in a required setback area whether it be on the front of the of the property or on or if you're a corner lot on the side on that side street side the code states that that fences can be up to six feet but you have essentially have to have sixty percent of it open the code actually says first four feet can be solid to the top two have to be sixty percent open some Some homeowners or developers, they distribute that load throughout the fence. That's why you have the iron rod fences with the big holes in between them. The code that we're proposing right now is actually going to amend this regulation for those properties that are corner lots. It's to give them a little bit more privacy to their backyards. And so what we are proposing is to allow the homeowner to install a six foot high solid fence. And we are proposing that change with the condition that they have to set the fence in from the property line at least two feet and put some type of hedge or landscaping in front of it to kind of shield it from view. That we're requiring that it be at least four feet high at the time of planting. So staff is recommending that this item be adopted and forwarded to the city commission. And I'm available for any comments or questions you may have. Thank you. And I'm sorry, Ms. Cabrera, did you want to say something? I didn't know because you were walking up.

I was just wondering if they had any questions and also about the foundations of the footings. Did we talk about that?

No, that's not. About the eccentricity of the- No, I didn't get into that one. That wasn't part of the draft I had.

Yeah, so what we're also going to do is require that the footings of the fences be flush with the exterior face of the fence so you could actually do the planting. Otherwise, you can't really plant anything there that will grow. So that's going to be a revision that we're going to make to the ordinance before it goes in front of the commission.

So we would allow people to build an opaque fence up to six feet as long as they put the landscaping in front of it?

Yes, and it's only, so this is only on corner lots and it's only on their backyards so that there's a privacy because it is a special condition.

On the side lot, on the side. On the side, yes.

On the side, but the side from the facade back, not the front yard, okay? Yeah, that's the idea.

Yeah, the front will remain the same as it is in the code right now. We're only doing this for, like Ms. Cabrera said, for those side streets that are the rear of somebody's home.

The two additional feet would only be done on that side. And this wouldn't be from the property line, it would be from the setback.

No, that's from the property line, because you're allowed to put a fence. Right on your property line. Right on the property line, yes.

Correct. There's no set time on that. Two feet further in.

To allow the planting to soften it from the street, trying to get both the privacy for the homeowner on the corner lots, because it is an issue in the city right now. We've had quite a few. But to have the street softened by the landscaping.

And so the landscaping, whether it be height, I mean, you're going to make them plant right out of the gate something that's six foot tall, or do they- Four feet.

I believe it's four feet. Four feet.

So it needs to be four feet at the start, or they're going to put in plants that'll grow and- Well, no, it has to be four feet to start.

Four feet of planting. Correct.

And the intent is to hope that they bring it up to the top of the fence, or no? I live on a corner, and the city fought me on this shit before, so it annoys me, but- Yes, it is. So is the intent that they bring the landscaping up to flush, or that's their option?

That's their option. We're only regulating at the time of permitting. OK. Planting.

This would be from the front wall of the house back, right?

It would be from what's considered the side yard, which is the facade of the house back. So their front yard is like any other front yard. So this wall wouldn't be able to go back?

All the way to the corner.

They will not be able to know.

Yeah, so what she's trying to say is that the front setback area is the first 25 feet from the property line to the front of the house. Anything past that on that side yard would be this six feet. So in most neighborhoods, the house starts at 25 feet. So past that front edge of the house is usually where that 25 mark hits. So that whole side street side going back to the rear property line. Yeah, it's where the radius ends, basically, and it becomes tangent. Pretty much, yeah.

Yeah. So I want to make you aware of the way that the ordinance is written right now, and I want to clarify something. So this would be a six-foot fence, two feet back with the hedges. So if you're on the side yard of a corner house, let's say, for example, on 62nd Avenue, and you go down, and then the next house behind that has its front. facing that same facade that is the side of this house. The part of the fence that goes, in other words, the fence separating you from the front yard of the other house, will now be four feet going back until it meets the line of that house at 25 feet. And then it goes back to six. So it will have a six foot. and then a four-foot, and then a six-foot. So I want to make you aware of that sort of complication the way it's written right now. And if you do want to address that, we'll be open to your suggestions. Do you know what I'm saying? No. I wish I had a drawing. Okay. This is going to be hard at the podium because we don't have a drawing. I can't show you a drawing so well. But if you follow, if you have a configuration where there's a...

61st Street and 62nd Avenue. Both those houses are just like that. I live a block away.

This happens a lot. Subject to a good drawing. Yep.

Sorry. And through the chair, what's the purpose of living in that little space to that height? Four feet.

It's just the way the code is written.

But what added value does it give to anybody?

Maybe you want to consider whether you want to make that part six fit or leave it at four.

I would make that part six. It doesn't make sense to have it at four.

I would agree.

OK. Further discussion?

I make a motion we approve adding that section when you're abutting another house where the front is abutting the side of your house, that it be also six feet.

I'll second.

Allow it to be six feet. Excuse me, through the chair, we have to open for public comment.

Oh.

Anyone have any public comments in the room? Anyone online, raise your hand. All right. I'll second that. Any other comments? If not, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? OK. Unanimous. Next. Takes us to item three.

Next one is PB-2025-017. This is an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, creating a new section 20-4.13. sustainable development in Article IV, other regulations of the Land Development Code to provide incentives to promote energy-efficient home design, sustainable construction practices, increase climate resilience, and conservation of natural resources, providing for corrections, severability conflicts, implementation, and effective date. And this will be presented by Ms. Cabrera. Just to point out, this item was before the board back in December, and this board did defer it. And I'll start her presentation now.

Good evening. So I'm the development services director for the record. Yes, as Mark was saying, this came to you in December. It was deferred with some very good comments, actually. So thank you for that. We're back today with a presentation. We took this to commission last week as a discussion item so that we can also get some of their feedback. So when it goes back to commission, we'll have all of theirs, all of yours, and hopefully have something that's workable. So I wanted to start with two slides that basically set the stage for what we're trying to achieve with this. It's basically two things, reduce water consumption and reduce energy consumption. The reason why is, I mean, obviously, because water is so important to us, but they're so tied together. If you look at Miami-Dade Water and Sewer, they're one of FPL's biggest customers. I think Miami-Dade uses something like 100 Million megawatts of energy or something and a house takes like 12 so it's a scale how much any we're using to clean up all this water and More than 70% of the water that gets to your house Is it used for what it's true for the purpose for which is treated right it's treated for you to be able to drink it But we use it for irrigation for washing cars, you know for toilets the whole thing so it's really a huge energy waste and the water consumption in Dade County or anywhere where they have this system where we basically treat all our water as if we're drinking it when a very small part of it is actually for drinking. And the second thing I have here is the green roofs, because the green roofs are a big contributor to how we resolve these issues. They slow down the water flow when there's rains so that we don't put them into the drainage systems and we don't have to be treating waters or pumping waters and all this. It also helps the home use less energy. It reduces the heat island effect. So the house is not just a house, but the neighborhood in general, when you have this type of construction, actually has lower energy usage because it reduces the heat island effects. If you think about your roof, it's a large area that just heats up and heats up. And if you've ever been barefoot out on a sidewalk, you know that I think I looked up and it was something like sidewalks in Dade County could get up to 170 degrees. But if it's in the shade, it's... 100 degrees and imagine when it's underneath a landscaped area such as this and this is actually a green roof in I believe it's Chicago City Hall, it's absolutely beautiful, but it actually is good for the absorbs and retains rainwater. It cools buildings through evapotranspiration. It insulates the building. It reduces the heat island effects. It extends the roof lifespan, which is something a lot of people always ask me as a structural engineer. It's like, are these roofs any good? And there's research out there that shows it actually does extend the lifespan of the roof. And it can support biodiversity. Last time that this was in front of this board, you all had some very good comments. One of them was you were concerned about the subjectivity of the proposed ordinance. You also didn't like too much the impervious area that we would give up previous area on the Ground floor in order to get some on the roof. So we've addressed that What qualifies as a green roof, I think there was a concerns we've also looked into that and There was a comment about the mosquitoes and the bio swales Also been addressed in what's in front of you today. I The ordinance is basically voluntary, even though when it went to commission for discussion, there was a comment about making the Tier 1 mandatory. And I'll go into why, although this started as a completely voluntary ordinance, the Tier 1 being mandatory is not really a bad move. It's actually, I think, a move in the right direction. And you'll see why, because we actually looked at some houses and went through the point system. So I'll get into that. Basically, we're going to have three tiers. A tier one, tier two, tier three. If you have a tier one, which is that you get 10 points and you accumulate points by doing certain things out of a menu of items that you could do that are sustainable, you would get a discount on your permit fees and accelerated permitting and priority inspections scheduling. There are no zoning incentives on a tier one. If you do tier two or tier three, there's some zoning incentives, and I'll get into those when we go into the description of each tier. So let me, because I actually need glasses to read that, so I can't read it. Tier one, 10 points, and you could earn 10 points by how you orient that. And let me just, because we have architects, very good architects on this board, and so some of these things right now, the zoning code wouldn't really allow this right like every house is parallel to the street and it faces that street and that's it there's no inclination nobody wants to give up setback nobody wants to give up any area that they can't build on so this is going if this is something that the city actually passes then we're going to have to look at our zoning code so that some of these items can be implemented and we're not actually telling people, oh, if you are 15 degrees from south, and then it turns out that you actually can't do that because some other part of the zoning code doesn't allow it. So we'll be looking at that if this is actually the direction the city goes. So the solar orientation is within 50% of true south, and you have cross ventilation, which is another item that Mark and I were talking about today. When we think today, there are a lot of homes that you don't have windows opposing walls or even two walls in the room. So it's really going to take a looking on how we build. I grew up in a very small home. Every room in the house, every bedroom in the house had windows on two walls. In the house that I live in now, it's a much higher end home. My kids' rooms only have windows on one wall. So it's going to take a change in how architects look at this and design on some of these things. But it can't be done. Because like I said, I grew up in a home like that. Mark grew up in a home like that. I'm sure some of you have examples like that. So the cross ventilation in 50% of rooms. Having the deep porches, we've actually put now a number on that. They need to be a minimum of eight feet. preserve protected trees and adding additional canopy or having the cool roofs which is those white roofs that they put on all these flat roofs nowadays and if you have a rain cistern to say like this is some of the examples of some of the things you could do to get a tier one if you get to that tier one you get those ten points you get a 15% permit fee reduction and And it says 10% faster review, but what I'm really looking at doing is that you would not be in the queue based on when you apply for a permit. You would be given priority and you would be put right to the top of the queue if you do this. Now, there's some issues with that because you could tell me that you are a tier one and I'll put you to the top and I will know that you're really not a tier one until I actually review it. and you already got your review done before everybody else, and maybe you don't have any tier one points at all. But we're looking at that. And by the time it goes to commission or it's implemented, it'll be something that I'll have to look at with staff to see how we make sure that we don't let people cheat the system to get FASTERS reviews without actually complying with the ordinance. Going to a tier two, that's a maximum of, you need to get a minimum of 20 points, between 20 and 29 points. And there is where you would have a, I think it's 25% permit fee reduction. You would have the expedited inspections. And you would also get, if you put the green roof, and this is one of the comments that was brought in last time, if you have a green roof, we would actually give you additional square footage of construction, which is very, very valuable to any developer, right? And what we had proposed originally was it was a multiplier of how much green roof you have, green roof you put in, you would be able to reduce that from the setbacks in the ground floor or something like that. It was something that really that this board was not happy with. And when I looked at it, it really wasn't the best way to approach it. So what we did now is that for one story homes, we still have to do something on the ground floor because it's the only place we could do it. But we've reduced it to only 8%. Which is still a nice increase you could probably get an extra bedroom out of a house if you were to put a green roof And you get the same percent eight percent reduction I mean increase in the amount of area that you could build but for two-story homes it's actually even nicer because right now we have a step back requirement on the second floor and we would do is that if you have a 25% minimum of your roof is a green roof You would get a reduction of 50% of that setback, meaning that you get a 50% increase in how big that second floor could be, which could be substantial. So we're not going to be giving up any green area on the ground floor, but we are giving the homeowners, the future homeowners, the developer, whoever it is, some additional square footage as an incentive for giving us those green roofs because they are so valuable in the sustainable construction. So let's say you get the 20 points. You get a 25 permit fee reduction. You get the expedited inspections. And of course, if you do the green roof, then you get that additional square footage. And then we have the tier three. And the tier three, you need a total of 30 points. And you have to have a minimum of 35% of your roof as a green roof. If you do that, for the one-story homes, we're still with the same issue. But we're up to 12%. So you would get an additional. 12% of square footage of whatever the green roof is, of that 35%, at 12% of that, you get that as additional floor area on the ground floor. So you could build that much more square footage. Two-story homes, you would not have a step back on the second floor. So you could basically build the entire second floor at the same footprint as the ground floor. I know some of the architects or some people will cringe because they think we're just going to get boxes. But if you look at the overhangs, if you look at having green roofs, if you look at having operable windows, Think it's it's well worth it To get rid of those step by sir There are plenty of places where they don't have a step back and they have you could have beautiful construction and architectural design regardless If you get to this 30 points or the tier 3 you get a 35 permit Percent permit fee reduction again the expedite inspections and if you have that green roof you get all that additional square footage. I So the green roofs and what they really are, they have to be vegetated roofs. There are systems out there nowadays that are specifically for this. It's done in European countries. There are places where it's been done successfully for many, many years. I think I was reading that since the 1990s or something, they've been doing it. And they started also with a mandate. And nowadays, it's not even a mandate. It's just part of how they've learned to build in some of these cities in European countries. must cover a minimum of 25%, as I said, to even qualify at all for any tier. Impervious area bonus cap. And I'm going to remove this because the impervious area bonus cap, the 1.5 times the green area, when I was looking at some of the square footages, we actually don't need that. We'll never, ever, ever get there because I reduced those percentages to the 8% and 12% additional square footage. So we really don't need that anymore. I just haven't updated the slide. For the two-story homes that will eliminate the required second floor step back and there's no ground level increase in two-story homes So if you have a two-story home you put a green roof you get that additional square footage on the second floor You don't get any additional square footage on the ground floor So passive solar design And I'm going through now how many points you would get for each of these menu items that you would have. So if you have passive solar design, you could get up to six points, depending on how you orient the house. And not necessarily so much the house, but also your glazing. If the majority of your glazing is not facing west, let's say, and the majority of your glazing is from 50% of true south, you would get two points. If you had the roof overhang depths of more than 24 inches, you would get a point. If you had the reflective exterior finishes, you would get a point. So basically, it's simple. You do this, you get a point, add it all up. If you get 10, this is what you get. If you're 20, this is what you get. 30 is what you get. So that's for the passive solar design. Then we have points for natural ventilation. And I'll go through those. You get a total of six points for natural ventilation. You would have to have cross ventilation, meaning that you have to have operable windows on opposing walls in 50% of the habitable rooms. So when Mark and I were discussing it today, we were thinking, how doable is this? You don't see it a lot in construction today, but it was very typical in my parents' 1950s home and their neighborhood. So it's doable. And we're going to reward you with points for doing that. Operable windows. A lot of these homes nowadays, especially these modern homes, they don't have operable windows. They have these fixed windows, these fixed glass pains, if you give us 75% of your openings to be operable, we'll give you two points. So we're trying to put actual measures that are very, so we got rid of that subjectivity that this board was concerned about. Like, you can't just have two operable windows. It has to be a 75% of your windows of your openings need to be operable windows. And then you could get points. So that's two points. And the ventilation tower stack effects, if you have a functioning one, you get two points.

This is actually my favorite slide because I think the home is so beautiful.

But anyway, so this is for the porches. And one of the questions that I had for this board is, we're requiring that you have these deep porches or these overhangs, deep overhangs. And right now, it's set at eight foot depth. And the question that I have for this board is, previously, I had that if you did this, it wouldn't count against the square footage of the home or the building coverage. We removed that. I removed it and what's in front of you now because of the concern that there was about giving up green area and all that. I don't see this being something that people will do, giving up this indoor space for outdoor space, if there isn't a reward for it. So just getting two points I don't think will be enough. I think there really needs to be that we're not going to hold it against you at a percentage. So let's say if you have these wraparound porches, which we've actually given that you can't just have one face. You have to have at least 50%. of the facades with the wraparound porch. It has to be at least eight feet. But instead of just giving you points, you would actually not count, let's say, 50% or 25%. I don't know what that magic number is yet. but that it wouldn't count against your building coverage so that if you're a homeowner or a developer, you're not giving up interior living space to have a porch. And I really think that's going to be necessary for this one. We took it out because of the concern about the green space, getting rid of green space on the ground floor, because this will increase your building coverage on the ground floor. But I need feedback from this board on that one. So that's question number one for the board, and specifically Gus. He's the architect. So just think about it. So we'll go over it when we go through the comments. Next is... shading and landscaping. When looking at this and thinking about it, tree preservation I think is one of the most important items in the sustainability, just because you can't throw money at a tree to make it grow faster. So actually keeping the existing canopy should be one of our main goals in the sustainability ordinance. So we've increased the amount of points that you get for tree preservation. And it can't just be any tree. It'll have to be native canopy trees that we're looking to give points for. So if you preserve your first tree, it'll be four points. Every additional tree will be two points. So I want to know how the board feels about that one, because to me, like I said, this is really important. It's not enough to just come in. And I see it all the time here. You cut down these big, beautiful trees, and you come back with this replacement, but they replace it with like 10 little trees. And they'll never grow to be like the other one before somebody comes in and cuts it again. Because I saw it in the gables, and I've seen it here. So giving the substantial number of points for tree preservation is something that I would recommend for this board to really consider. And maybe if you all feel that it should be higher, I'm open to that too. Let's see. There was the overplanting. So now we gave an actual number. We gave a percentage. It's 25% more canopy trees than the code minimum. That's when you get points. You can't just do 5% or 10%. You need to do a minimum of 25%. And the structural shading, I know there was a concern with that last time. Like, how do we know that this is being done? And I was reading that an arborist could tell you if in five years a tree is going to be shading a certain facade of the house and how that affects. We're going to have that it has to be provided by an arborist saying that, yeah, you know, that review does accomplish this goal of the shading within five years. And that will give you two points. That's why I have there verified by licensed professional. The next category of points is the cool green roofs. Oh, hold on. Nope, skip one. One second. OK. Sustainable local recycled materials. You get up to six points if you use recycled materials. And we've given minimum percentages. So if 20% of material costs are within 300 miles, you get two points. That's considered local material within 300 miles. If the recycled content, if you're using recycled, at least 15% of the material cost, we're going at cost, is recycled, then you get two points. And the high thermal mass, pretty much everything in Dade County will meet that, because eight inch block is considered high thermal mass. But we want a reward for when you're doing the right thing, even because you don't have to. This is the way we do it in Florida. There's no reason why we shouldn't give, so we're giving the points. And just so you know, I actually went through about four houses that were permitted recently in the city. I've done the point system for three not one of them met even a tier one could get to ten points now the important thing is is that it would be very easy for them to get to the ten points and some trees, some permeable pavers, and some operable windows. That's all they needed to do to get to a tier one. So Joelle, you know that I've looked at it and that something could be done. As for the recycled content and all that, that I can't check. I don't have any way of checking these numbers at this point. I could check windows and things like that. But this, I don't have this type of information yet. We will. As we move through it, the burden will be on the builder to show us that they're meeting this, that it is local materials, that they are recycled. Whatever it is that they're trying to get points for, the burden will be on them to prove it to us. And we'll look at this again, because like I said, these numbers are my best guess at this point. There isn't anything like this in the country that I could find and we'll be visiting it we're going to be monitoring it to look and see like what is working and what's not working and we'll be reporting back to the commission and probably this board also you know every three months or six months whatever we see is required to say hey look we're getting a lot of homes and none of them are meeting even tier one or none of them are meeting or everybody's getting tier three it's way too easy you know is this what we really want and this is one of those that I really want to see data on because I don't have any at this point it really is just my best guess All right, cool roofs and green roofs. This is the one that everybody gets on those four houses that I looked at. All these homes, flat homes, have the cool roofs. Nobody has a green roof. I would love to see the green roofs. We raised that to the five points, as I was mentioning before. The cool roofs, you get two points. And the heat-isolated roof systems gets two points. solar readiness and installation. I don't know if you all recall how this came up, but the city had a solar ordinance that was very difficult to implement. We actually hadn't implemented it at all. It had been around for many, many years. When I looked into it, it really was, it didn't serve the city I think what the intention was. I mean, you would actually prefer to cut down trees so you could put solar and have sun. We never want to do that anymore. I think at the time it was written, it may have been the right thing, but I think today we all know better. So I was asked, what can we do instead of the solar ordinance? And then I thought, well, you know what? Why don't we do this? It's the first time everybody's done it. But we do want to reward you. design your home so it is efficient and you've reduced the consumption of energy and your consumption of water, you still need to have energy, right? So if you could have clean energy, that's what we're going to give you points for. So if you do solar, we're still going to give you, that's still part of the program. And you'll get points if it's solar ready or if you have a full PV installation, depending on what you have. I was asked by commission if the savings on the permit fees actually offsets a solar installation. It would not. If you install solar, it has to be because you really believe in clean energy, and that's what you want to do, and you want to do the right thing, and people do it today. What we will do is for the solar installation, we won't have a permit fee at all. So it'll be a free permit to put your solar installation, but it will not offset the cost of installing solar. Bird safe glazing, this came up. We don't have this in a single family. We had this for our buildings, but it's actually a big problem even in single family neighborhoods. I have a house that has a lot of glass, and I have found the little birds dead on my front porch. So we put this in here. I was looking into this. It's really not that difficult to have bird safe glazing. It's not a big increase in cost. If you do this and it's part of sustainable living and being better stewards of our planet, we're going to give you points. So if you have an approved pattern glazing, and there are actually very specific compliance measures out there. There are associations that have studied this, and they have to be two inches apart and four inches vertically, whatever it is. So if you comply with those, you'd get two points. There's the pattern spacing. If you meet the pattern spacing, you get another point. If you limit your reflective glass to less than 15% of the glass on the property, because the reflective glass is the one that's really awful for the birds, you get an additional point. So that'll be a first for the single family here. And then the on-site water retention, this board's concern with this item was the mosquitoes. And everything that I've looked at, there's nothing that really supports that the bio soils are a mosquito. Hazard I haven't been able to find that you could have underground tanks definitely not a mosquito hazard the above-ground tanks are covered also not a mosquito hazard and I actually The picture that I have at the beginning and I included at the end has an above-ground tank because it just goes to show That you could have an above-ground tank that actually could look very very nice. It's a beautiful home very sustainable home has above-ground tanks absolutely beautiful and you get points depending on you know, I if you have pay, the bioswale, and the cisterns. And I talked about the accountability and evaluation. A lot of these things are my best guess at what I think is going to work to get the city where we want to be. But we're not absolutely sure. So what we're going to be doing is we're going to track how many permits we get, who participates, how many points do they get, And we'll report back to the commission for the next three years. I'm looking now at reporting annually, but looking at, we had a DRB that I think had like four or five homes in one DRB. So if I see that we're doing a lot of homes, we'll bring it back sooner. If I see that, hey, this isn't working, And we got six homes in last month, and not one of them was able to do a tier one. Then we'll probably bring it back sooner. But the idea is that we do want to put something on the books that is going to last. It's going to serve its purpose, and people are going to want to do it. It's not mandatory, except for that tier one is one of the comments that we received from commission. So keep that in mind. But we want to do the right thing. And since we're going to be one of the first ones to do this, because I haven't found anything like this anywhere else. I don't know if you've seen this. at all, but I Know there's that net zero, but I haven't found anything like this that we need to make sure that you know what we're doing is there is done correctly and we'll be reporting back to the Commission and probably the support and Then I'll just leave you with one last little thing because the manager really loved this quote We're not asking builders to do more. We're asking them to be rewarded when they do better and This is a house that pretty much has everything that you want to see. It has the green roof, above ground cisterns collecting rainwater. I mean, it's absolutely beautiful. Of course, this is in the middle of South Miami, but we can do it here. It may not be this exact home, but it could be done. That's the end.

Okay. Okay. Interesting.

Do you want to open a public comment?

Yeah, let's open for comments. Are we still online? Is there any public? Do we need to open public?

You need to open it, but if there's no one here, you can close it. Was anybody online? No.

Okay. All right. So to me, aspirationally, I get why we're thinking of doing it. It looks like an enormous amount of work to me to try to monitor this, whether it's a submission, whether it's one thing submitted, and what they actually follow through to do. There's still some things that I think have more subjectivity to them than you want to have. in there at all. As you talk about the faster permit times as an obvious example, you already mentioned that how do you do that. And I can't imagine how we're going to keep up with any kind of volume things going on. So my first thought is to limit it to things we really thought were the most impactful that we want to see happen and not get too far afield. Because I could see where we would spend so much time chasing after the definition of what this is so if a roof if a roof material is a grade six for whatever i'm making this up great you know they either use grade six or they don't or six and above or they don't but some of the other things coverages and so forth are we prepared to go out and measure them when they put them in and then what happens we go back and look at it again six months later to discover everybody just let the grass die on the roof, again, making this up. And so it's a lot to bite off. And if your goal is to have them do it, I'd point them in a narrower direction that we really thought would benefit. Pick your six or 10 best things, put them on the list, and we'll treat you more favorably, or we'll give you a reduction in your fees if you tackle that. This is big.

Yes, it is.

May I, Mr. Chair?

Yeah, yeah.

First, I appreciate the passion. Okay, cuz this is- Come on. No, I really do, I really do. I mean, this is a lot of work. What was put in here was a lot of work. But what you're proposing here already exists. It just doesn't exist for single family homes. You have U.S. Green Building Council lead. You have Green Building Institute, GBI. You have U.S. GBC, the U.S. Green Building Council. Well, U.S. GBC has residential. May I finish? Yeah. May I finish? These are already established with guidelines, parameters, and it's about reducing power consumption, it's about reducing water usage, it's about using renewable materials, it's about using local materials. These standards are already existing. We're trying to create new standards that don't exist that would be harder to measure. Why don't we just adopt these measures And they're easy, they're tangible, they're proven. We don't have to come up with formulas of how it works. We just have to identify the rewards of what we want to give. Everything in the city of Miami has to be either LEAD or USGBC because now there's like 10 organizations that do this type of rating. they give you bonus FAR, they give you different things, right? I would be support of that being the criteria. Let's go to establish standards, let's use them because what we're asking here is just going to be so much more work, like Jay said, for our staff to then monitor these things. You know, one of the reasons why you don't see so many lead rules in South Florida, hurricanes. So you can do them, but they're more costly in South Florida because of the type of construction that you have to use because of wind. I mean, that's one of the challenges with green roofs in South Florida is the wind issue, right? You can do them, but the requirement is so much more stringent than if you're somewhere else where some of these beautiful pictures came from. I, for one, have one of my rain gutters goes right into a cistern and I collect rainwater. I do it now. We love it. My wife uses it. She waters orchids. It's fantastic. So I would be supportive of let's look at these that exist already. Easy to measure. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. There's organizations out there that specialize in doing these things already and implementing these. What we just have to define as a city is what are the rewards that we're going to give for people to accomplish this.

Right, and I know that the U.S. Green Bay Council has, I believe, for residential construction, but nobody uses it.

Because we don't have it in our code.

I mean... Because what you're doing... In order to get points, you have to have a lead person, right? You have to have a lead professional that's going to get on the project, and then a lot of times you have to follow... It's the same thing you're asking them to do.

It's the same thing you're asking them to do.

What the idea here is that you're going to have a checklist. And you're literally just going to go on the checklist. And for the square footages and all that, we do that anyway now for zoning, right? So we have to review these things for zoning. We do tree counts and tree surveys now. for a permit. You have to do it anyway. So it would be that you have a very simple checklist. Now, absolutely looking at what maybe some of the, there isn't really that I know of a point system for single family that relates back to your permit fees and all that. And I guess that's what you're saying, that we would be able to go to US Green Build Council for single family homes or for additions, whatever it is, because I know they have it for, I've only used it for buildings. I haven't used it, but I know it exists. And I just don't see that anybody uses it. Nobody wants to learn a new system.

Well, the only reason they do it in the city of Miami is because it's required by the city of Miami.

Is the city of Miami required for single family?

The city of Miami, no, not for single family, only for commercial. Nobody that I know requires it for single family.

Right. And we do it here for commercial also.

Right. What I'm saying is, why don't we make it a requirement for residential with bonuses?

And again, I think it's the same thing, that you have to have a lead professional to go in. You're adding another professional to the job. TO MAKE SURE THAT THE PROJECT MEETS LEAD, RIGHT? YES. YES. WHEREAS HERE YOU HAVE A CHECKLIST. AND WHAT IS LEAD?

LEAD IS A CHECKLIST.

WELL.

LEAD IS A CHECKLIST. I'M SORRY. IT'S A CHECKLIST.

YOU NEED A LEAD PROFESSIONAL IN ORDER TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE CHECKLIST.

BUT YOU HAVE LEAD. YOU HAVE USCB. SO WE'RE GOING TO CREATE OUR OWN LEAD PROFESSIONALS. THAT'S WHAT WE'RE SAYING IS WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO HIRE STAFF THAT ARE GOING TO GO OUT AND DETERMINE, YES, THAT IS A GREEN ROOF. THAT IS A VALID GREEN ROOF. YOU KNOW, IT'S THE SAME THING. IT'S A CHECKLIST. Renewable materials is part of the LEED checklist. Well, renewable materials will be part of your checklist, right? Within 500 miles is local materials. Same thing as in LEED or USGBC or CBI or well.

So we can't, we're not going to be able to go into all the details. We'll be here forever. I mean, it's already 10 o'clock.

And so I'm not, I'm not, what I'm just saying is I wouldn't support creating our own standards. There's already, multitude of standards out there. We just have to adopt which one we feel makes the most sense for our city. That's my position.

And then just other feedback for Charami? I mean, this is the goal here, right? We're not approving something.

And we're bringing it to commission. The commissioners really want to see this as soon as possible. They're very excited about it. I respect the comment about the U.S. Greenville Council and the lead. There are a lot of other ones out there, some European ones that are much better than what we have here. I don't know if they're applicable to South Florida in particular. And when you have to hire an additional professional to actually commission something, it's It's a big resistance. And the key thing is that the commissioners do not want to make it mandatory. They want to make it so that you could pick and choose from this list. You're going to get these incentives. It's not mandatory. I think that if we go to a US Green Build Council, which we do have for the commercial, by the way, I get it all the time. We don't want to use USGPC. We want to use this other one. Is it the same thing? Is the gold here the same as the silver there?

And they are. They're comparable.

Well, no. Actually, I asked for one of them just maybe a couple of weeks ago, and they decided to go against it because they couldn't give me that it was an equivalency of a gold Rating, right? It might be that the architect's no good. A gold rating in LEED may be a silver rating in UBC.

Can we take this off? Seriously, we are not going to be able to define our points. We're going to use this one or that one. The feedback so far has been get rid of anything subjective and to try to at least, again, I'm not speaking for everybody, to limit it. We don't want to make it mandatory. I applaud the city for saying We're not going to force you to stick solar panels on there with the effects unintended. It'd be great to have something that people would really use, and I don't know that we need three tiers to do that. It'd be sort of like if they get to any tier, that'd be pretty exciting. And so maybe we find the ones that really matter that we can measure that won't be a big difficulty for staff and limit it to that, and that would be our starting point. And then if we see an opportunity to offer more in the future, because anybody even shows any interest in a smaller list, then that would be great, but at least be the right step.

And please, operable windows, they're required in residential because they're a means of egress.

Only one per room is a means of egress. You don't need to have them in every window. I see it all the time. Means of egress, I get it, but you only need one, and people give one. My house is like that.

I've never seen a residential house with fixed windows. But that's a whole different issue.

Oh, yeah. They're all over the place now.

They're all over the place. But I understand what he's saying. In a bedroom, you have to have a means of egress. But they'll give you one, and it'll be exactly the size that it needs to be. Without a doubt. That's it. That's all you're going to get.

Just again, applaud the staff and everybody at that time into this. Obviously, it's a lot of work. The unmeasurables are challenging to work with, right? And there's a lot of great ideas. I'd love to see eight-foot porches everywhere, verandas all the way around the house. But I don't know that we have the dynamics of our properties that will really allow that to be functional. So I do think it needs to be tightened up and maybe it is taking another certification process and adapting it to measurables and doing that with us. I get the concept of the three tiers because it might cost too much money to get to the third tier and I can't afford it so at least if I do something I get something. But definitely mandatory wouldn't work. It's got to be a carrot not a stick and there's got to be a benefit. I agree to your point. If you have to hire a new person to do it and you saved something, you lost it in the new person you hired. So finding a way to work within that. But thank you for the work. Yeah.

The difference is, and I hate to interrupt, is if you do these things, it pays for itself. So yeah, you may have to pay $2,500 to a professional. But I can tell you, I put in a variable air handler in my house. And my electric bill went from $300 a month to $200 a month. Yeah. So, I mean, so the thing is this. Yes, you have to spend money on a professional or Harvard's done, but there's a reward.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. On some issues, I did the same thing. Water consumption, toilets. I ran this year on my ACs and everything.

I mean, so there is rewards for doing this. So everybody wins.

Everybody wins. Yeah. On some of them, like, you know, just, I mean, using an example, the... These solar panels, depending on which ones, could raise your insurance costs. You need to measure that out. So some of it. So you might get points on one side, but it might cost you in another way. Not to get lost in the weeds, but I agree with the chairman.

Cannon levers, natural ventilation, these are all old.

But thank you.

Again, I really appreciate the passion. I really do. I'm serious. I'm not joking.

Was this helpful at all?

Last time it was more helpful. Last time I wasn't here. I like more direct. We don't like trading one thing for another, and we want more measurable standards. And like I said, I mean, going back to the commission and saying, hey, listen, the Planning and Zoning Board doesn't like what you guys like and doesn't want to move in this direction is going to be really tough at this point.

I also, in our honesty... We'll take the blame. In reality, it's not monitoring. In my opinion, you can't pull this one off as it is right now. It's not measurable enough. It's too complex, and you wouldn't have the staff to cover it. That would be my opinion.

But is it our charge to solve the staffing issues? No, it's not. No, that's my problem. Right, so I don't know. I think it's great. I did three houses in one day.

Why would we do anything but encourage this? I'm okay with encouraging. I'm just saying you need to make it

So when you're the first ones to do something, it's never going to be easy. And you're always going to get people that are going to not want you to do it. And it's just how badly do you want it.

All right. We've given you feedback. So there's not a motion, correct?

I mean, this is not a... We need a recommendation in order to move forward, right? That's why Commission just looked at it as a discussion item.

So we do need a recommendation from this board.

If there were a recommendation, and I'm just talking out loud before making a motion, I would say maybe to create a subcommittee with people that specialize in this. Because it's not my specialty. I mean, I've been around it in the construction. But if we created a subcommittee that maybe gave it more tangible measures and was able to create something. I like Gus's idea about trying to follow one that already exists. But they're more commercial for the most part. There's not anything great in residential.

So I have a lot of clients that are not required to design their buildings to lead, that design them to lead, they just don't go through the expense of certifying them.

That's it.

You go to the checklist, you check things off, and you do it. What you don't do is hire that professional That's going to cost you money to then give you that seal that you want to put on the front door.

Right. Well, I was going to say, if you don't have the professional that certifies it, you don't get the benefits. I'm sorry. You don't get the seal.

You don't get the benefits because you did buy the renewable materials. You did buy local materials. You did install the water system. And basically, it's a checklist. It's a checklist. It's just what you're doing. And you can check off that says, I did all these things that make gold. What you're not doing is going to the USGBC, paying somebody to come and inspect it, and paying $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 to put the seal on your building. I have clients that we design their buildings to lead gold, lead silver. They just don't go through the expense of getting the seal.

Right, and for the city to give you...

Enough discussion. Yeah, I mean, look, this is going... We have a motion. If anybody has a motion, put it forward.

I make a motion that I support this, that we support this, but to use already established standards. There's 10 different organizations or more out there that already have established standards that do exactly this, that measure sustainability, that measure water conservation, that measure power conservation, that measure renewable materials, that measure local materials. Why are we inventing an 11th one? What we have to establish is what are the rewards for doing it? We shouldn't be creating the criteria for it. Those already exist. That's my motion, if that makes sense.

Again, is that our responsibility here? I'm just trying to get off the topic.

Can we just recommend a recommendation to approve just considering all the comments that have been made?

That could be a motion, but I think there's already a motion on the floor from Gus. So I mean, is there a second? I think is the first question we have. Is there a second?

OK, motion dies.

Next try. Now, JR, to your point, yes, you could make a motion as you described. And if there's a second and there's a vote, we'll vote.

If I was going to do that, how would I word it?

Where did however you like?

I'd like to make a motion to recommend that we pass this on for the recommendation for approval, just that all of the comments that have been made here are given due consideration, because I think everybody made some good points. But I think we're all trying to solve problems that aren't really ours to solve, like the city wants to do.

I think the way you phrase it is perfectly fine with the caveat. Jamie and I have been writing notes, lots of notes. So we'll condense these notes into a recommendation, OK?

What would the motion be?

Motion is to approve subject to the commentary provided by the board. That commentary, just to summarize it very quickly, includes consider using existing standards, consider reducing subjectivity, keep in mind the administrative burdens that this might present. Fair?

I don't know if he's actually made that motion. Yeah, I did. You did? I did. You did? Yeah.

Okay. And you have a friendly amendment? Is that what you're saying?

My only concern is that the way it was presented was so loose that I'm worried that the commission wants to push this through. Is that bad?

At the end of the day, it's not required. So they can push it through. It's irrelevant. It really is irrelevant.

That's a fair point.

To me, if we want to do it, if the commission wants to do it, they should follow established guidelines that exist out there today and make it mandatory. Then you're doing something. But to do all this, it's just so you can, I don't know if they're listening, it's just to punch you up in the chest. We're the first city to do this, but you're not doing anything.

Yes, that is part. I think that you make a good point, and I think that I'm up here thinking, and I believe that we could do both. And there could be a method of that if you follow a Bauhaus, or whatever it's called, or USGBC, or any of these other ones, and it's commissioned, maybe your incentives are much higher. And if you don't want to bring in a professional that's going to do this for single family, because we know that everybody does this in multifamily. We have an ordinance that requires it. Coral Gables has it. The city of Miami has it. They all have it. Nobody has it for single family. There's a reason why. Nobody wants to hire that guy. So if you don't hire that guy, hey, listen, you could go through this checklist, and it could be based off very loosely off the USGBC or one of the other ones, whichever one. I like Bauhaus better, but... We could look at that, and then it could be a, I mean, that's the good thing about bringing it to this board is that, you know, you give me feedback that I start ticking, you know, and I'm like, well, maybe that could be incorporated in a way and make it better. So I think that we can incorporate some of what Gus is saying and make it better. And then, you know.

But I would like to add to the motion that it's mandatory.

That is not going to pass in commission.

Then we're wasting our time.

No, but actually, tier one, the mayor wants to make it mandatory, tier one. But in all honesty, in all my meetings with elected officials, none of them want it to all be mandatory. Nobody.

So just, and I hate to say this again, Whether it's LEED or USGBC, the only requirement that the city or the county or Coral Gables or South Miami has is that the only requirement is the minimum. Nobody requires you to go beyond the minimum. You go beyond the minimum for additional benefits. So for the mayor to say he wants Tier 1 to be the minimum, it's exactly the same thing as USGBC, as LEED, as UBCI, as well as all these other organizations. All your requirements to do is the minimum. You get additional carrots in return if you do more.

Let me try a different tech. So this thing is written so nebulously anyway. I mean, it's essentially saying these things can do this or can do that. We can probably recommend this as it's written without much definition to it. The definition comes and what you shared with us in your comments of the vision, etc. But the way this thing is written in here, you know, contains requirements for sustainable development, single family homes, including requirements, blah, blah, blah. I mean,

I don't think you're looking at the exhibit. The exhibit is what actually gets into the meat and bones of it, so it'll tell you very specifically in tables. If you do this, you get this. If you do this, you get that. Correct. And they're very miserable.

And, Chairman, I would... I mean, the maker of the motion can clarify, but I think that's what JR is trying to get at. He's saying this is fine, but also... Consider all the feedback.

You've been you've received is that is that correct exactly right so so chairman I think what you've just suggested step back into a motion the only thing that on here is actually Doing something is getting rid of the mandatory level of solar panels Everything else, but that's already got action Well, it's an accurate a more moratorium or more moratorium turning it from moratorium into real and

If this doesn't get passed, then the moratorium ends and we go back to the solar.

Correct.

And so this would end the moratorium. Yes. But it would get rid of solar. It would get rid of the previous ordinance. Then it's confirmed a commitment to promoting sustainability. Does that sound like it's a hardcore rule? Not really. It isn't a mandatory requirement. It's not. Passive architectural design, such as encouraging people to use it. So I mean, it's... Why are we saying no?

I think that's just...

Is there a second to Mr. Corbison's motion?

So formal. I'm about to make a motion to order food.

You have to order.

It's only nine. This is the motion.

Jay, are you looking at the actual? I'm looking at the actual, yeah. OK. Because there's the ordinance, there's the presentation, and there's a memo, and then there's the actual meat and bones that would go in the code.

Yeah, I've got the ordinance.

OK. OK.

I call the question.

It hasn't been seconded. You can't call it.

You can second it, Gus. Sorry, you didn't mean to break out the book.

I'll second it, but I'll vote against it.

You can do that.

That's fine. I'll second it.

Tell me again, what's the motion at this point?

The motion is to approve with the condition that staff consider and evaluate all the comments received We have notes on the comments. I'm going to summarize them as follows. Reduce subjectivity. consider including criteria or simply using criteria from established standards like LEED, USGBC, Bauhaus, recognized standards.

And then... Staff.

And evaluate whether this could be administered, whether you have the right staffing, et cetera.

Yeah, that I'm not worried about. I'm going to give you something to think about while you... Florida has a very good energy code, right? Why do we need LEED if we have Florida Building Corporate Energy? Why do we need Bauhaus if you have Florida Building Code Energy? In that mentality, you would never do anything different. Or the same. Florida has a very good energy code.

It does. All in favor?

No. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. It's not that hard, please. Oh, gosh.

Yes. It's passed. Motion carries. All right.

Mr. Guerra, what was your vote?

Okay.

Passes five to one.

Thank you. And I will absolutely. I've read a lot about it in the last six months, so yes. Thank you.

All right. Marcus?

Okay. Item number five is PB-2026-004, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Section 20-8.9, Street Hierarchy Plan of Article 8, Transit Supportive Development District of the Land Development Code, to provide the manner of adoption and subsequent amendments for the streetscape master plan, adopting the streetscape master plan, providing for corrections, severability, conflicts, implementation, and an effective date. So initially, the commission reviewed and adopted, when they reviewed and adopted new standards for the TSDD, They also amended 8.9A so as to provide regulations for a street hierarchy plan intended to support the city's vision for a highly connected multimodal pedestrian and bike-friendly network of streets and to support a mixed-use trans-supportive downtown area. While those regulations were being reviewed, the commission also selected a private firm, Placerbia, through a RFQ process to create placemaking, branding, urban design standards related to at the time when the hometown district still existed. Now the hometown district is no longer there. Everything's now TSDD. So based on on those parameters that consultant created a street a streetscape design set concepts, which is exhibit a in your package tonight Per that exhibit it that exhibit provides guidance on on wayfinding, signage, street lighting, landscaping, design materials, and street furniture, among other things. So one of the amendments that staff is proposing is to add a line to section 20-8.9a. that incorporates this streetscape master plan into the TSDD regulations, but also to give the city manage the authority to weigh certain elements. If there is a conflicting, it will be on a case by case. If there's some type of hardship that prevents them from doing that, that the manager has the ability to address those matters individually. Staff is recommending approval of this application and allowing it to be forwarded to the City Commission for final adoption. Thank you.

Board, I'll just add one point, which I think is important. This ordinance also sets it up so that future master plans can be accepted by the City Commission by resolution instead of changing the code every time. So there wouldn't be a new ordinance to adopt a new plan as the plan progresses. For example, right now as we speak, some edits are being already planned for this based on construction drawings. Construction drawings are being prepared. And as you work through those construction drawings, you realize you have to make certain tweaks. When those tweaks come about, the city commission will be able to accept them or reject them or modify them by resolution rather than a whole new ordinance.

let me add one other thing yeah and that is the idea we don't want to have a code we don't want to codify this because it's too changeable but we do have uh we have a discussion item with the commission with the slate of changes for the tsdd all the things that as we do approvals we find could be tightened up one of them is this section where there's a chart in there. And it's already been covered, and it anticipated this in the code. But if there's a dead conflict on right-of-ways between these two, we'll correct those as part of that when it comes to you probably in a month-ish, too. So that's the only thing I would add. I think we would want to codify where that table is that has all the right-of-ways. If we have something that's an absolute conflict between these two, we'll correct that in the code.

Yep, anybody any public comment?

I don't think but he's still alive Okay seeing none Comments closed through the chair my I think for corrective measures, you know, this makes a lot of sense You've met simple administrative things that needs to be addressed with conflicts. My only worry is that if somebody comes in and for lack of a better word, lobbies for profit to make a specific change because they want to implement something, and that's not necessarily what the city intended or what the community wants. That's my only worry, if this would allow that.

I mean, it still requires a vote from the city commission. It's still a public hearing, and a resolution has to be adopted. Certainly, lobbying is a reality, right, in a democracy. So certainly, the lobbying can happen. But you still have a public meeting. You still have notice. You still have sunshine.

Thank you.

And there was a discussion about That the city managers allow them to make certain adjustments here.

So the city manager's power to grant, I think we call them waivers, yes, to waive specific elements, he has to have one of two showings. That's on a case-by-case basis, right? And it's based on one, showing of unique hardship, or two, where modification results in an improved outcome for the city. And that power, under this ordinance, the power would rest with the manager. Okay.

That covers all of it. Yeah, it's pretty broad.

So how is this to be implemented through the chair? Is this supposed to be implemented by somebody who's doing a development and they do their block or is this going to be

So there's a mask.

Citywide on the commercial districts.

Within the TSDD, right, for these particular streets identified on the TSDD, there's going to be a established plan with construction drawings already set. When a developer comes in for their frontage, they will have to redevelop their frontage to those permit drawings. that our consultant is preparing now. If when that developer comes in, he finds that because of the nature of the project that they're proposing, there's some sort of conflict. Just to throw out an idea, maybe this particular use requires a curb cut where the drawings don't call for a curb cut. That sort of adjustment could be made by the manager. Provided that there's a showing of that hardship, UNIQUE HARDSHIP OR WHETHER MODIFICATION RESULTS IN IMPROVEMENT FOR THE CITY.

THE ONLY PROBLEM I SEE WITH THAT IS THIS COULD BE AN INCOMPLETE PLAN. YOU HAVE ONE BLOCK THAT DOES IT, ONE BLOCK NOBODY DOES ANYTHING, ANOTHER ONE THAT DOES IT. IT LOOKS VERY INCOHERENT. IT DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A MASTER PLAN. IT DOESN'T LOOK CONTIGUOUS. IT DOESN'T LOOK PLANNED. I MEAN, THAT'S JUST MY OPINION.

Just another point on the process, most of what happens in the TSTD comes before you anyway as a large-scale special exception. And once this plan is in place and it's codified in this manner that we refer to it, we'll be referring to it when it comes before you as a large-scale special exception. So it will come before you. I think the manager's decision will be sometime after that decision is made. We're kind of working with the process as we go, but most of the if it's a small if it's something small Then it won't come for you, but anything large is gonna come for you anyway, and it would follow these Guidelines but who determines what's small or not small and Large scale special exceptions is 40,000 square feet or over on the property or more than four stories. So most of the major developments that would be contributing significantly to the streetscape would be before the planning board.

Makes sense. Other questions or comments?

So the answer is this will be done piecemeal as developments come. This won't be done as a citywide project.

That's my understanding. We're having development pay for most of the improvements. And again, the manager may have other... parts of this that I don't know about. But as far as I know, it would come in with redevelopment.

So just picture Miracle Mile with one block being done on one side, not being done on the other, the other side having angle parking, the other one not. I mean, at that point, it's not cohesive.

Well, no, I think that this would make it more cohesive in the long run. Right now, for example, anything that's come before you, you don't have a plan.

Yeah, in 20 years when all the projects are developed, it will be cohesive. But then you have to go back and redo the ones that were done 20 years ago because they've already been, they've already deteriorated.

I mean, I don't know if there's a plan on Sunset or whatever that the city's paying for. I don't know about it.

And I love the plan. I love the plan. I love how it was thought out. I love the materials. I love the pedestrianization, the bicycles, how it's all laid out. I just don't like the way they want to implement it by just passing the cost out to each developer as they develop. Because again, you can have one block yes, two blocks no, third block yes, and it just then doesn't look cohesive. And it doesn't accomplish what I think the ultimate goal is.

I mean I wish Tony would have been here for this item but I don't know if the plan is that they do it or if even we have like a like an impact fee type where you collect the fees and then the city does the project all in one which might be that is what would make sense yeah yeah so I'll discuss that with the city manager because I don't know exactly what the plan was with this yeah yeah I mean the code the way it's written is the developer has to take

It has to improve the streetscape in front of their project up to the center line. So that's the code part of it. What I don't know is if the city has its own plans, and I should know it, right, but I don't, if the city has plans for doing streetscape work on its own, and that would be something we'd have to refer back to you on.

That's my only objection to it is it becomes piecemealed. But if you just do half the street up to the center line of the road, then the other half isn't done. And in some instances, it covers the whole intersection, right? When you have a corner and you have the four corners, you're doing the whole corner. So if the developer's on this corner, why is he then going to pay to do the whole off-work corner? He's going to say, wait a second, I'm only going to improve my corner. So it's the implementation that I have an issue with here, not the plan itself. I love the plan.

Tony told me that they were going to put construction documents together for the whole thing. They are. So that's why I'm a little, I'm not sure that.

But as I understand it, as I read it in the code, the construction documents are those to be implemented by the developers. So this was done, for example, a similar approach was done in Wynwood, where there's full construction drawings for a lot of the Wynwood street plan. And as development comes, that gets implemented. What I want to emphasize to the board right now before motion gets made is that there's already a plan in place. And if you do nothing today, it's going to remain piecemeal. What we're asking you to vote on today, what this does is say that modifications to that plan can be done by resolution. And also it has that language that you called out about the manager being able to waive in certain circumstances. The goal is to have some flexibility to move quickly on these plans and not get bogged down with a new ordinance every time.

And the benefit, I think we just dealt with this on, and I can say it now because it's approved, but we had this issue on Avalon too. And there was a lot of discussion about the two sides of Dorn Avenue. And so the commission would have the capability to include that as a condition where that comes up. But now we have a plan where the commission can decide what's going to go on both sides of the street. So this is a benefit. It's just the implementation, I agree. But part of what large-scale special exceptions are is that the commission does have the capability to negotiate that with the development.

Remember that with these large-scale projects, there's a development agreement. There's a lot of back and forth as to what the impacts are going to be and how those impacts are going to be mitigated. And very often, impacts get mitigated. We were discussing this with another item. There's no concurrency requirement, sure, but there's an opportunity to mitigate problems on the street, both with pedestrian traffic, et cetera, through the development agreement. And at that stage, having this tool available to us really, really makes it easier.

Again, you take a street, you pedestrianize it, you put in your vehicle, your bicycle lanes, and then the next block, there's no bicycle lanes because that street block hasn't been developed yet. That's my only issue. I love the plan. I love the concept. I think the implementation is to pass it on to developers. it's just never gonna really be visualized the way that the commission sees it, of having this beautiful streetscape

and the tstd there there's i'd emphasize too there's nothing stopping the city for example from filling the gaps so you know developer a does half the block developer b does the quarter of the block and the remaining quarter could be filled by the city if the funds are there if they want to contribute the capital cost to that other quarter

right yeah but through the chair that this is what we already have in place that's what we have we're not changing that today we're voting on the on the corrective event right you know that's fine i'm just voicing my opinion no it's it's you're it's i'm in agreement with you i understand your concern but it's it's what's already there i didn't realize that okay yeah it's a bad plan it's a bad plan that's why i'm not running for commission so part of it is they don't want to pay for

All right, so any further discussion? If not, do we have a motion?

Motion to approve is submitted. Second.

Any further discussion? No. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Christina?

I said aye. Okay. All right. All right. Okay. So the last item on your agenda.

Really quick, let me read it into the record. Please do. Yeah. Last item is PB-2026-005, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Section 20-8.2 definition, the 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 relating to adult entertainment, providing for corrections, severability, conflicts, implementation, and effective date. And this item will be handed out by the city attorney's office. Thank you.

So, board, this last item on the agenda is another example of the ongoing effort we've had with the TSDD district. As you know, we established a TDSD district, and it's been an ongoing effort to refine it. When the TSDD rules were originally passed, we had a set of rules that were specific to adult entertainment uses. We are now coming back to you as we have with other uses to improve on that. We've been working, actually we've communicated with some of the industry, the adult entertainment industry, to understand what their needs are, requirements are, and we've identified some modifications. In the broadest sense, the modifications specify that adult entertainment uses will be permitted on Commerce Street and Progress Road. As you may know, that's roughly an industrial type area. The requirements in this ordinance before you would require frontage on one of those streets. It would also require distance separation of about 300 feet from sensitive uses like parks and schools. And also it has certain other requirements we can get into the details if you'd like with respect to Security for example hours of operation etc. I think it may be easiest if we have just a free-flowing Conversation about it you have the language there before you So the one thing I remember asking specifically was to limit how many of these could be

in that area. And I don't see that addressed here. I see the three, I see where you've dropped down from the 1,000 feet, because they'll essentially put you in, not check me, whatever it is. But I wanted to make sure that we didn't develop our own little adult Disneyland over there. And so Can we, and I know with cannabis dispensaries, we had the conversation, we were prepared to say there could be no more than one per two blocks or whatever it was. Commerce and the other are relatively small things, so can we do that?

So adult entertainment presents a slightly different situation because courts have held this is an expressive use, right? Right. And so because of its expressive qualities, we're not allowed to put a hard cap on how many establishments there can be. But yes, we've identified a location where that can be. We've also identified those spacing requirements. And so I think we're duly protected.

So the other question I have is, do we have anything else that we've approved within the, well, I know we do have food spot, but that have hours as long as this? I mean, can you just have a restaurant and a bar and have those hours, or do you only get the longer hours if you have nude dancing?

I believe we can, but I'd like to introduce you to my colleague, Jamie. Jamie's been with us now for almost a year. Yeah, exactly. And she put a lot of great effort into this ordinance, so I'll turn it over to Jamie.

Thank you, Ed. If I understood your question correctly, Mr. Chair, was whether these time restraints for purposes of adult entertainment are mirrored anywhere else in the code?

No, it's more of a, you know, they seem like long hours. I mean, we're giving them more than we would give someone else who has to open a restaurant or a bar without nude dancing. I'm not sure why we would do that.

So I would like to point out that even though the hours may appear long, as you just mentioned, they're still held to the requirement of the alcohol ordinance, for example. So they can't sell beyond the limitations provided in the city's alcohol ordinance. So hours of operation with respect to adult entertainment are not, I would not view them in the same light as alcohol or a restaurant because they'll still have to comply with those other requirements.

And I'm not aware of a limit on how long a restaurant can operate. Exactly. It's alcohol service that is limited.

And so that, to Ed's point, that will still apply here.

OK. Other questions or comments?

I know last time we talked about limiting the alcohol further. Is this as written, are the restrictions the same as, for example, a restaurant in terms of the selling of liquor?

Yes, I believe so.

Is that right, Jamie? I can pull up if you'd like, but the limitations on alcohol are consistent with section 4-6B of the code.

So yes, that's the alcohol code.

So yes.

So we're treating this like any other bar?

Yes. I can pull up the exact language if you'd like, but to Ed's point, it's similar to a bar or something of that sort.

So we're not giving them later hours to serve booze because they have... Artistic dancing.

With respect to the code, no. They're not getting additional benefits to sell alcohol. But they are allowed to sell alcohol consistent with the code as it exists today.

Christina, does that cover it?

Yeah, and I know we talked about it a little bit last time saying how they'll just pop up with like a liquor store next door and then next door they'll purchase the liquor and then come over back to the facility. But I don't even know if it really matters to limit it further or whether it should even be considered. But as long as they're not getting more time than a regular restaurant, I think it's fine.

Okay. Other questions? What? Other questions or comments? No. That was the right answer.

I mean, no is the right way to vote, for sure. Why not limit the hours more? Why give them operation?

For the entertainment portion.

For all of it. Yeah, because I think you're looking at it like a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah, that's the issue.

Essentially, this is an... The way we've structured this, the entertainment is an accessory. It's a permitted accessory to the restaurant use. And so we are putting limits on that accessory portion. We were already putting some limit on there. If you'd like to provide different hours, that's a condition you could propose. It can't be zero hours. It can't be, you know, but it could be a different limitation on the hours. Yeah.

So it isn't the whole issue about the artistic expression is it won't hold up in court.

Yes There are reasonable limits intended to control what's called secondary effects or secondary impacts, right? And so yes, it would be reasonable under the case law to put our limits So mr. Guerra if you want to recommend a limit on hours That could be part of your motion that could be part of a motion to to to the commission a recommendation to the question

So the question that was asked previously and answered is, there is no limit as to how long you can have your restaurant open 24 hours a day.

McDonald's.

But that would be not very wise because people don't come eat 24 hours a day.

We might tonight.

We might tonight. So restaurants set their own times of closures based on, hey, past a certain time, I'm not going to make money. So they close. In this particular case, we're setting a limit Because they will have people coming to later hours. And we're saying it's because of that condition that you mentioned is we're telling them you can have the artistic expression up to a certain time. You have to stop selling alcohol at the same time to the restaurants and the bars do. But your artistic expression can be done until a certain time before it becomes a nuisance or whatever term it was used.

That was my purpose of my original question. I mean, it's artistic expression. We can put hours on that. Then by all means, we can- And that's what we have.

Are we doing that?

If your goal is to change the hours, that certainly could be a recommendation. Right now, if you look at the page six of seven on the ordinance, paragraph 11, that lists the hours. Sunday through Thursday, 3 p.m. to 5 a.m. the following day. Friday and Saturday, 3 p.m. I'm sorry, 3.30 p.m. to 7 a.m. the following day.

So we said that the first time yeah, yeah, we got the school right there 5 a.m.. Is so Several challenges with this one is that obviously this new ordinance allows to be closer to a school than what it currently is and to That if you talk to the folks who do live near this establishment today or is that an establishment like this in the in the city and The complaints of the after-hour spectacles are substantial, and my concern is we're burdening another area, and we're burdening closer to a school and closer to other folks. It's very hard to support this. And I understand there's speculation that this will have legal ramifications, but I have not yet seen concrete evidence that this will turn out to be a legal problem.

If I may, why are we changing the ordinance?

It's really moving it over to a different part of the thousand.

Correct, correct. It's relocating it to identify a location where the use could be, could operate.

They could lease in the, we're talking about the one we have, they could lease in the new building, assuming that it made economic sense, and the building wanted them as tenants.

Correct.

So we could leave the law. We're not speaking.

So where they're at now is okay with the 1,000 foot?

I'm not sure. I haven't looked at that.

I thought the whole point was because they determined that there was nowhere.

That's what they allege.

That's what I remember. Yeah, that's what was the discussion. They can be where they are.

That's what they allege. They allege that there's no space that could comply with the 1,000-foot limitation.

In South Miami?

Correct. And so we're identifying a location, progress and commerce, and we've worked with the industry to identify it as a place that it would work.

Across the street in the city of Coral Gables.

Well, look, let's carry this through. Do we have to do anything? I'm asking because... You can recommend denial. They're in a spot now. They're going to lose their spot because their landlord is going to redevelop the property. And so that would happen if you were Dick Sports. Sure, sure. So do we really need to go and find them a new location in the city? Are we having to do that? It's a bad name.

What we're trying to accomplish here is modify the code to address the allegation that there's not a place where it could occur.

Can we recommend that their existing location be grandfathered in?

No, the problem is the location where they're in, the property has been sold. I know. So folks... Okay, okay, but... But if you're going to build a multifamily...

condominium there you're not gonna have a You know that's up to the first of all folks while you're you here's here's the important too cute on this thing you're getting yeah, okay Thank you What what I'm trying to get at is we're not here to discuss one property or one tenant We're here to produce a code that allows a use to exist It's been alleged that currently our code does not allow that use to exist. So what we're trying to do is accommodate that allegation, avoid, frankly, avoid any sort of conflict.

Is our code in alignment with the same distance requirements as other municipalities in the county with regard to distances to schools and so forth?

It varies throughout and generally what occurs in municipalities is that someone makes the assertion that their constitutional rights are being violated and hearings like this one follow. So what I want to say is yes, there isn't one standard that applies that is universally approved or an average standard that's universally approved.

But there's nothing in Florida statute that talks about exotic dancing limitations within a distance to a school. There's nothing in Florida statute.

In the Florida statutes? I'm not aware of a Florida statute on that.

That issue tends to be held by federal law. So it's not Florida as much as we see a lot of case law.

Okay, so is there anything in federal law that talks about... Just a minute.

Let me clarify, though. What you're referring to is a set number, right? That's not the federal law that Jamie's referring to. Jamie's referring to case law that states that this sort of entertainment is expression. It's a form of First Amendment expression. And therefore, it has those protections. At the state level, I'm not aware of any numerical standard. At the county level, at the various different municipalities, the rules vary widely. And generally, they vary widely because of challenges brought by the industry.

The feeling is we have to have, we need to offer something, correct, to avoid putting ourselves in a place we can't stand. And so we picked a location. We tried to make it consistent with the alcohol laws, et cetera. The hour limitation thing, I don't know why we couldn't do that. and bring it back from 5 a.m. We can argue that there's school traffic rolling through there or 7 a.m. or whatever it is and make it something more palatable and something consistent with what businesses really, other than Food Spot, do here in South Miami.

So the rules that are on paper now that are before you contemplate the potential conflicts with schools. That's why they end at 5 a.m. on a day that could fall onto, if they could spill over into a school day, and allows up to seven from Friday to Saturday and from Saturday to Sunday. So we have the same thought in mind, and that's why it's structured the way it is. Again, if you want to change the hours, we recommend that the hours be different, not 7 on the weekends and 5 a.m. on the other dates. By all means, recommend it.

I'd recommend 2 a.m. 2 a.m. when?

On weekdays?

Sunday through Thursday.

All days. Okay, 2 a.m.

I have a question. So this lineal path of travel, the 300 feet? Yes. If you, I guess... I know that last time we spoke, you were talking about how we have to look. I guess that these things can only be established within like the TSDD or a certain area in South Miami. And given the size of it, we couldn't have the 1,000 feet because then you can't do it anywhere because there's nowhere. There's too many schools and too many public libraries or whatever. So was 300 the farthest we can go?

I think we talked about this last time. Why aren't we looking for a place that's 990 feet and just find one spot that's as close to 1,000 feet as possible? And then we're not eliminating them via this restriction.

We looked throughout. And this was, we thought, the ideal location. And we picked that 300 feet because that's what worked.

But ideal location because of what that area is, not necessarily.

Both.

Because 300 feet from 1,000 to 300 is a big jump.

We understand that, but it's also a balancing act, right? There are other locations, perhaps, where there's a greater distance, but there's also other uses in the proximity. So we've identified this location as...

If we find the bare minimum, where we find the number of feet where there's one spot, then that severely limits their options.

Mr. Bennett, if I may, just for a moment. The other thing I want to emphasize here is that this has been discussed with the industry, and the industry has indicated to us that they're comfortable with this. So the input that we've received from the industry is that there would be no conflicts on commerce and progress.

THIS IS A FLORIDA STATUTE. I CAN'T HEAR ANYBODY. I'M SORRY. I WASN'T SPEAKING INTO THE MICROPHONE.

MR. BERNARDO WAS HIGHLIGHTING A FLORIDA STATUTE THAT SUGGESTS 2500 FEET. AND TO JAMIE'S POINT EARLIER, THE FEDERAL LAW CONTROLS. The federal case law, and there's also state case law to the similar effect.

Going back to my question, is this a crow flies measurement?

No. Pedestrian path. And that's also an important element, right? I'm glad you highlight that. We had 1,000 feet as a crow flies. This is 300 feet linear path.

300 feet is nothing. Yeah. Yeah, I understand. 300 feet is nothing.

For a crow. Exactly.

I mean, there could be kids walking. 100 yards.

Yeah, 100 yards, nothing.

That's a gap watch. That's good measurement.

It's kept at 300 feet, but you can't also... I'm trying to think outside the box. We can't also limit how close they are to each other, so you don't want to have a little row of adult entertainment.

You could do that. You could... So Ms. Ortega, yes, you could do that, but you can't do that in such a way that it wipes out the possibility of the use existing. So propose something by all means. And then if you have that in mind, just let me know what the distance is. I've got 2 AM. I've already got one board member down for 2 AM. If you need a distance separation between the establishments, let me know what you have in mind.

I'll be honest, I'm not the best person at suggesting those numbers. Just trying to see how, because it seems like everyone's concerned, like, you know, first the distance to like a public school or private school or whatever, any educational facility, but also the times and, you know, not having an access amount of these types of, you know, buildings in our city. So, I'm trying to think what else you can write in here. If you can't extend the 300 feet.

So do we have any, seriously, we're going down back and forth. I appreciate everybody's moral values and everything else. But we need to move along or say we're not. So do we have something that is motionable here?

Does anybody want to make a motion? The recommendation is 300 feet?

Yeah.

But you're also talking about an area.

Yeah.

Why are you talking about an area?

Well, I'm saying it's 300 feet from the park, school, and so on, churches. Now, the area that we've identified is Commerce Lane and Progress Road, which is a very, I mean, those streets aren't very big, right? They cover just a very small area.

But we're not designating those areas.

No, we're saying that the use has to front those streets, one of those two streets.

Oh, so we are giving an area where they have to be.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's wrong.

We're right next to 700 beds of student housing.

That is, I think, Ms. Ortega's point about creating spacing. If that's your concern, then Ms. Ortega's point might be well taken.

What distance do we have today? Didn't we ask that last time?

There's no spacing distance today between uses. Between establishments, there's no spacing requirement. The code says 1,000 feet from parks, churches.

So they're saying because it's 1,000 feet, there's nowhere in South Miami that they can put this? Correct.

Correct. That's what they're alleging.

Can we prove them wrong?

We've not yet proven them wrong.

So we've searched and we can't. Can we say 500 feet? So the other question. So at least there's a restriction. I think the smaller the distance, the more opportunity there is to have clubs.