Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, can everyone hear me okay? Welcome to our April 14th Planning Board meeting. Everyone please stand 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,

All right, first order of business is we'll do roll call. I'll start to my left.

JR Corbison.

Daniel Guerra.

To the Zoom.

Cristina Ortega.

Agustin Barrera. Anyone else from the planning board?

Daniel and Lino, if you would, unmute yourselves and turn on your cameras, please.

Recording progress.

Daniel, you're logged in twice. That's the problem.

You need to shove one off.

Lena, we need you to turn on your camera. Looks like it's trying to come up here. Welcome. And Daniel, we got you too. So we have a quorum.

Sounds good. Administrative items real quick.

Actually, let me I'll do the administrative item, and then we'll do the swearing in. One administrative item is we're going to generally go with the order that we published. However, items four and five are going to be reversed. So we will tackle the issue with the solar panels first, and then with the land development code relative to adult entertainment last. So with that said, Ed?

Thank you, Chairman. For everyone in the audience, both in the chambers and on Zoom, please know that the items B and C on tonight's agenda are quasi judicial items. And so if you wish to provide any testimony related to those items, you will be asked to be sworn in. and also to provide your name and address for the record. If you are providing comments by Zoom, we will ask you to turn on your camera. We will swear you in when you are ready to make your comments. At this time, I'll ask anyone in the chambers who wishes to comment on applications or agenda items B and C that relates to the student housing project, please stand and raise your right hand. 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 righty. Without any further ado, item number one, Marcus.

So are we doing item number one or number four first?

No, we'll do item number one. Okay.

So item number one is PB-2026-006, an ordinance of the Mayor and City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, amending Article 8, Transit Supportive Development District, to amend regulations to provide new definitions, clarify existing provisions, and modify procedures and criteria within the Transit Supportive Development District, providing for correction, severability, conflicts, implementation, and an effective date. This item will be handled by our planning consultant, Mr. Mark Alvarez of the Cordino Group. Thank you.

Good evening, Chairman and Board. This is Mark Alvarez with the Corradino Group here on behalf of the City of Miami planning staff. This is a presentation for a, I'll just call it an omnibus of legislative changes and amendments that we're making to the downtown TSTD zoning code. I have a presentation to help us walk through them. It's a lot of different items, so the presentation may help. So I can start a little bit. So the way that this has come about to us is that we have now, we have had the good fortune of changing the zoning code and we've had quite a number of applications. Through those applications, no zoning code starts out perfectly. We have learned some lessons about some of the things that are not as well stated, that are a little bit ambiguous, and sometimes not, some of them are contradictory to each other and in some cases they didn't, EXACTLY AND EXPLICITLY STATE THE WILL OF THE COMMISSION AND THE BOARDS IN IMPLEMENTING THE TSDD. THIS HAS BEEN DISCUSSED BY THE COMMISSION TWICE, SO FOR THE MAJORITY OF THESE, THEY ARE NOT POLICY CHANGES, THEY ARE CLARIFICATIONS. WHEN WE GET TO A POLICY CHANGE, I'LL NOTE IT, AND THOSE HAVE COME FROM THE COMMISSION. So there are a number of these, and these are just quick summaries. Starting from the beginning in the definitions, we are making a modification to the word alley, which right now refers only to the back of a property to also include the side of a property where alleys occur on sides of properties, such as where Commerce and Progress are. The alley on the northwest side does actually hit the sides of some properties. We are creating and defining a new term called contiguous building floor area to replace the word floor plate Later on I'll get to it that we have the word floor plate used to control the building mass of towers floor plate is also used in the building code and it means something different and a floor plate as used there could have say a garage and a Habitable area touching each other they look like the same floor, but they are There are firewalls in between them and they're not floor plates. So we're adding that word to replace floor plate. We have modification of off-campus student apartments. This has been an ongoing discussion where it's related to the size of the bedrooms. We had decided after a lot of discussion to have the bedrooms be counted separately, but they would still include the closet and an en suite bathroom. At the level of a large-scale special exception that's very hard to do and where it's done, there may be some changes as we go along. So there's a change there to simply measure it as the same way we measure multifamily. So it's the area of the whole apartment divided by the number of bedrooms, and we've changed the numbers. Also to create a new term called personal mobility device and define it to replace the word bicycle when we're talking about parking because of course that would allow electric scooters and so forth to also be stored and counted towards those requirements. um going back to the off-campus student exactly what i said this is also in section in the residential uses section where we have explicitly stated that we will now count the same way as multi-family as the apartment size divided by the number of bedrooms and we don't have to try to figure out what closet belongs where and what bathroom belongs where so it tracks pretty much along with multi-family although in most cases it's about 100 square feet less for the apartment for a certain number of bedrooms, because we expect them to be a little smaller. And it does have adding 150 square feet to the apartment for four bedrooms, for five bedrooms, because we know student apartments have more bedrooms. In the non-residential uses section, we have an adult entertainment ordinance tracking along with this tonight. There is right now adult entertainment is a special use in the entertainment uses category, and it is being stricken to be replaced by the ordinances going forward tonight. Adult entertainment has also been excluded explicitly from nightclub uses, which is sitting in the hotel category. And again, we just wanted to make sure that everything goes to the ordinance that will go forward tonight. In the parking area I already mentioned that we have to find PMDs or personal mobility devices Those will now be part of the count. We've had a number of instances from the Commission members who would like to include the prevalence of scooters e-bikes and so forth in that storage space and we can count that towards the same and there's also a Regulation in there to have electric outlets in there for the recharging of those devices and And it's done very simply by striking through the word bicycle everywhere it is and putting in personal mobility device. For bonus allocations, we've we've had there are two issues related to open space. I'll get to one later But we had learned that we have left something out. We thought it was obvious That open space must be exposed to the sky vertically. So if you look up you see this guy we want to explicitly exclude encroached open space from bonus allocations and I'll get to it a little later. We're going to open it up a little bit to a waiver. But for any open space that's counted towards a bonus, whether it's the bonus area or the open space that you're required to have before counting the bonus area, all of that has to be not vertically encroached. It has to be open to the sky. The reason we want to do this very strictly with bonuses is the bonus was designed to count for the lost floor area that you had over open space, extra open space, plus the lost potential bonus from another bonus that you had over the open space, and then actually add a bonus. So that's why it was three times. If you had one square foot of bonus open space, you got three square feet somewhere else up above. that was not a triple counting that was accounting for each piece that was lost to development and then adding it all back plus a bonus so when we encroach that open space when the building comes over it we're basically sort of cheating the system and triple counting and not really getting the bonus so that's been uh proposed as being absolute and just anytime there's a bonus we don't allow the open space to be encroached vertically by the building um street hierarchy plan we have had a number of instances where we have um developments we we require that we will have a dedication typically of five feet to make the streets as wide as we had anticipated them with the downtown plan to have the wider sidewalks the landscape outside wherever development is on a um a state road or a county road we have as these these have gone through and we've always recommended that we have an encroach uh An easement instead of a dedication and the reason is if we dedicate we still don't control what happens on that area It's the state or the county so we've consistently Recommended an easement and we're simply codifying that that were to state or county road. It will be an easement and In the open space plan again, this is related most well, there's a few things one is to distinguish public open space from private open space We found that they're a little bit muddy in the code private open space is typically on the roof or on a A deck above the the ground floor it's for the use of the residents of the building or the occupants of the building. It should go under different rules and particularly with regard to encroachment vertical encroachment of the building may be coming over that. That recreation deck we're fine with that and we think it's up to the development to allow that as they see fit because it's it's their It's their market. They're marketing those properties So we assume that they have a good idea of what they need to do and we've seen those on I think almost all of the residential projects so far however for for public open space we again want to do that differently we feel that public open space is public and And even, again, if that open space is not counted towards a bonus, we are recommending that it go to a waiver process. So if it goes through a waiver, commission can approve it based on the design and the conditions in that particular circumstance. We think it should be allowed perhaps in some areas where it will look good and it's high enough and so forth. On building location, massing, and form, this is the contiguous building floor area issue. Again, we wanted to replace that word floor plate with something that's distinct. It's not the best term, but it does the job. And basically we're saying that that contiguous building floor area would be something that defines two buildings. And this was meant to regulate the massing of towers for taller buildings, anything above the fourth story. to regulate the massing of those towers. We had a lot of discussions as we were doing the zoning code about this to just regulate that and let waivers apply to it depending on the circumstances. So if it's to be about massing, then it should have an air gap between two structures. And that's why we wanted to get away from floor plate because floor plate can mean a parking garage and a residential or office development that's attached to it, two different, with a firewall. So we've redefined that. The minimum air gap of 10 feet, we just used it as a marker. If you want to recommend a different number, that's fine. We just wanted to have some kind of marker that says it's two structures, two external walls that don't touch. Also, one of the things that's missing in the code right now, and again, it has been, we've worked with each application that's at the edges of the TSDD and they have their rear property line or their sides on what we call non-TSDD streets, streets that were not called out as primary or secondary in the code. Every single application has worked with us on that, and we have no problems, but we do want to codify it so it's a very reliable standard and basically says that we'll treat those streets as if they were TSDD secondary streets so that we still can apply the four-foot landscape buffer. We can still apply the sidewalk width and so forth. Before, we just didn't have that. We simply worked with each proposal. Sustainability. So we know a lot of lead equivalents have been requested. We don't have a process for it. Strangely, we do have a process spelled out in the bonus. And we took the bonus process, moved it over here. It basically says that the city manager or his or her designee would be the determination of whether we accept a lead equivalency. On building elevations, we have a few things that, again, we have had no problems with this. We've worked with each development as it's come along, but it's not codified. The code is silent to the idea that we will not require glazing requirements at driveway entrances to the garages or at back of house. So there's certain areas of the building, the loading areas, that, of course, we can't apply glazing. It's not there. We've worked with it, but we'd like to codify it. We are also quant we have a requirement that was a little bit of a not having a full Bird safety ordinance we did implement in part of the code that we would not have reflective glass that was not defined We're using reflective reflective value of 15% which is sort of a middle of the road between What would be? The ideal, I think, was around 20-something percent for bird safety and something that's attainable for most buildings. And again, reflectivity value has almost nothing to do with the solar efficiency. They're really different values. Provide that ground floor glazing. We've had an issue that was raised about frosted glass. Translucent glass shouldn't be on the ground floor. It's meant to be see-through so that there's eyes on the street and there's points of interest for the pedestrians. So we've added that in there as well. For building encroachments, we've had an issue, particularly on Sunset, where canopies are replaced for new buildings, and we've had to go through some awkward process. Basically, they're variances, but we've worked with them to try to get those canopies replaced. The TSDD code requires canopies much higher than those buildings even have the height that are existing now. So it's been clarified that if it's a TSDD Building something that was built to the tsdd code then it is canopies Will also apply to tsdd if it's an existing building they go to their existing zoning code And also we had we needed a clarification about property line and building line being the datum points for for building encroachments and we've corrected that to be the property line because we have instances of on streets where there was no dedication, and it caused a problem. So it's all property line. For waivers, so this goes back to the floor plate issue or the continuous building floor area. We have a waiver available for that requirement. Again, that was something that went through commission and this board, I think, a lot of discussion. We knew it was something that was very inexact to have that requirement and it had a little bit of a cutout for some Six-story buildings that were not mixed use Sorry that were mixed use with offices And we've we've opened up that waiver process for any building that six stories or less that would need relief from the 20,000 square foot contiguous building floor area requirement and that would be judged through a waiver process with Commission and it would be to a practical difficulty standard And we there's also a paragraph added to the waiver section that would allow it for public open space I discussed that before where we may think that vertical encroachments are a good idea in certain situations They can look very good in some buildings depending on the height and where it is and a paragraph is added to that Last thing, we have a zoning map issue. This is erroneous, basically. I can't say Scrivener's error. It's not words. But we designated TSDD on the Baptist Hospital properties, which were permitted under PUDH, PUD Hospital. We can't do that. Any kind of PUD goes with its original entitlements. So we're going to correct the maps. Actually, there's three properties that are outlined in blue over there. And that is all of it. So thank you for your time. If you have any questions. Thanks, Mark.

Any quick questions before I open it up for public comment? Thank you. All right. Anyone who wishes to comment on this particular item, please step forward to the microphone or raise your hand on the Zoom call. All right. If you would state your name and your address.

Travis Williams, 5942 Southwest 62nd Street. And I am sworn in. Good evening, planning board. As someone that served on this board for almost three years, I respect what you guys do. And I don't even have a planning background or anything like that, but I'm a quick study. And I learned a lot when I was up here. With that being said, the issues that come before you in my opinion, are important because you let the commissioners know your opinion about certain things and what you think should happen. And I'm here, not only as a former member of this board, but as a longtime resident of this city, We need workforce housing in this city. Just across the street, a big tall building by the metro rail, student housing. UM's building more student housing on their property. We got students living in our neighborhood. Probably more students than residents. I'm talking about the Marshall-Williamson neighborhood, by the way. We're forcing people. People have jobs and families. We're forcing them out of here to look elsewhere. They're moving out of the state. My family moved out of this state because of no affordable housing. We don't need no more student housing in our neighborhood. I have nothing against the students. I have nothing against UM. I'm a Hurricane fan. I've been going to that campus since I was a kid. But we need our residents and our future residents need somewhere to stay. And Everywhere you turn is student housing, student housing. We couldn't even get the county to turn that box building into, why is this students? I get four checks a month as a veteran working at the VA and my disability. I can live anywhere I want to live, but I choose to live here because I love it here.

Mr. Williams, I need you to wrap up.

We don't need any more student housing planning board. We would like to have workforce housing in our neighborhood so we can keep the integrity of our neighborhood and keep people, families in our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments from the audience here or online?

I'm here today concerned the railroad apartments. It seems that he has something else outlined with the blue building is over on 72nd I'm not here about that. So I lived on Red Road probably since I was two years old and I I've not heard that it's been purchased. So being that I'm hearing that it's purchased, I know that some things aren't going to change. A lot of things seem to be changing. So with the things that's changing, OK. The apartments, I guess all these students would have to have somewhere to stay. But it is kind of overwhelming and taking over the neighborhood. This is supposed to be a community. When you grow up, you get friends. You grow to know people. That's a community. Now, with the students coming in, after a while, they're here. I went to college as well. I didn't stay there for long, far as like me living there. So these students will be here, and then they'll be gone. And then enrollment of the UM has been expanding and expanding. But at one day, it'll probably be be dilapidated as well, like with everything. So you can have a yes and a vote for these apartments to be built, but then one day when you guys aren't here, then when you ride by and you see all these buildings that you're saying yes about, then you see that they're dilapidated like hotels have become, like you see Airbnbs came up. Things will change. Think about that as well. Think about the community. Think about you not seeing people who you know. Think about these students will be here, but you don't know these students. So what about the people that know people, and then you don't see people you know anymore? That should mean something to somebody up here. Because I like to see a familiar face when I see people. I remember seeing you before as well. So you guys think about that. And then as far as how tall the building would be or how high it would be, Five to six floors. My home now is behind that. It'll be a building, a wall. I wouldn't be able to feel anything. Probably the sun would be blocking me as well. So five, six floors is not something that can be built. Three maybe, but then you probably would say they would want a party deck on the top. I live right there. How long are they going to party? How loud is it going to be? It's a noise nonsense. Think about that as well. So, I mean, don't let all changes be the right changes. Some things you have to say no about. Seems all you guys are older than me, so some things you should know to say no about. Have a good day.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I would just point out that while there is an item within what we just discussed that does deal somewhat with the student housing aspect of, it seems that you're addressing particularly a project that is still going to be coming and the presenters are here, the project folks are here, and I'm sure they've listened to your comments and thoughtfully. So thank you. Appreciate it. Any other comments? I don't see any online, Marcus. If not, I'm going to close it from public comments. Is it relative to the broader issue that we discussed or just to this apartment?

Just to this apartment.

No, that's not now. That's an item coming. The next two items are going to be handled together. So this was a broad, as he said, a big omnibus covering a number of topics. And there was reference to student housing and some of the size issues and so forth that go with it. But it wasn't a discussion about this apartment complex on 57th Avenue that runs between 64th Street and 66th or 67th, whichever it is. That is coming after this. All right. I'm going to close it to public comments and open it for any discussion on the planning board.

Through the chair, I just wanted to get a clarification. So the intention of the contiguous floor is when you have the abutting residence or a firewall or expansion joint, but two different buildings, although they're touching, so that becomes contiguous, right?

We want to avoid that we would count it when there's two different buildings touching. We want it to be totally separate. Right. So exactly where we have a garage touching. habitable space with just an expansion joint and firewalls. This was about massing of towers, and we want to make sure that it's separate buildings.

You want it to be separate buildings. So it is counting as contiguous when they're touching. You want a 10-foot space between them. Correct. Okay, my question to that is, when we have our setbacks, do we ever have a condition where we have a neighboring building touching walls with a neighboring building? And are we going to... take away possible usage because we're trying to create this. Will that create another conflict is the question.

I'm glad you brought that up. Then we will probably have to change the air gap, that numerical space, and just leave it as two separate buildings.

But yeah, that's... That's why I bring it up. I think the air gap's a challenge. I see what you're trying to accomplish, but you might be causing another situation. And then when measuring the square footage on the apartments, is that to exterior wall and center of the mizing wall, or is it paint to paint?

um it's it's given to us in the architectural sets generally as central central wall to center wall and because we're not going out to measure it we just want to have a a way of um addressing that that's one we're sure that's not going to change so easily whereas the the interior walls we're pretty sure may move around um and in in certain case we have an applicant that has done this and it's fantastic We have some applicants that say that's going to be too difficult because they're moving it around all the time.

I bring it up because if you could define it, it'd be easier. That way we know what we're getting each time, and it's not let's check how one did it and let's check how the other one did it. So that is more defined.

And a lot of it is because we know we can't, as staff, really check every one of these anyway, so we want to make it something that we can spot check. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Thank you.

Other questions or comments? I see a few people shaking their heads. If not, do we have enough for a motion? Danny, since you suggested some changes, I would say.

I'll make a motion to consider board and staff comments to approve as is.

I'll second that.

We have a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor? Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Yes. And aye. So I think unanimous. Any nays? No. That's it. OK. All right. So that takes us to... Items two and three, which do relate to the same development. And Mark, are you tackling that as well? Yeah. So you're back up.

Okay, the first item is PB-2026-007, the applicant has subtext acquisition to LLC. A resolution of the Mayor and City Commissioner of the City of South Miami, Florida granting approval of or denying a variance application pursuant to Section 20-5.9 of the Land Development Code seeking to exceed the maximum lot coverage allowed for single floor plate requirements. for the floor plates of the fifth and sixth floors for a proposed large-scale development within the Transit Supportive Neighborhood Area, or TSNA, sub-district of the Transit Supportive Development District, TSDD, located at 6404-6504 Southwest 57th Avenue, providing for conditions, corrections, severability, and an effective date. And the next item is DB-2026-002, the applicant again, the subtext Acquisitions LLC. A resolution of the Mayor and City Commissioner 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 a 2.73-acre development site located at 6404-6504 Southwest 57th Avenue, providing for conditions, enforcement of conditions, corrections, severability, and an effective date. Thank you.

Good evening again. Mark Alvarez with the Corradino Group for the City of Miami Planning staff. We are, if I can, we would take this as one item for the staff report. Is that acceptable?

I would ask you to cover the two together, unless you tell me there's some great reason for splitting them, but otherwise I would cover the two together and we'll take the two together from a voting perspective.

Okay, perfect. That's what we have done because one is hard to explain without the other. This is a large-scale special exception with site plan review with a variance that has been requested. is for a project called Verve, and it's for student housing, and it has been applied for by Subtext Acquisitions LLC. The location for this is, it fronts on Red Road, is between Hardy Road or 64th Street and 66th Street, north to south, and the back of it is on 57th Court. It is, the Future Land Use Map designation is TSD, or Transit Supportive Development. Its zoning code, its zoning designation is TSTD, the Transportive Development District, and it's got a subzone of TSNA, which is the least intensive zone for the zoning district. It's got two, it's a rectangular property, it's 2.73 acres, it's the entire block. Right now, there are 48 apartments there. That was developed under RM18 zoning, and it's 48 apartments in 12 buildings. The context of this is that it's a long red road. It is directly across the street from the University of Miami properties, not perhaps the campus formal, but Everything across Red Road is University of Miami and is functionally part of the campus. To its south is Red Road Commons, a somewhat earlier concept of the same sort. It is mostly for student departments. It's a mixed use. It has ground floor retail. It was developed under PUDM zoning code. It's five stories high. To the north is a property that is a single – it's actually two single-family structures on a fairly large property. It's not in our jurisdiction. It's Dade County. But under its current zoning, it could go to nine stories. has two designations, RU1Z and RU4, which is a multifamily designation. So that property could be developed to a nine-story apartment building. Right now, it's sitting as single-family. And again, that's not in our jurisdiction, but it's good context to understand what happens here. And to the west, we have 10 single-family homes. that are designated, excuse me, RS4. They are, it's a stable single family neighborhood and this is one of the areas we discussed at great length when we were doing the zoning code that we need to create a transition. So the transition along Red Road, if I went north to south, not going by what's there on the ground, but what the entitlements are is there could be a nine-story building to the north. This proposal is coming in at a six-story building, and then it would go to a five-story building at Red Road Commons. So we have sort of a transition as we go north to south along Red Road. And we have done everything in the code, and this applicant has followed the code, to create the transitions going into the neighborhood to the west so that we can transition from a more intensive development to single-family. Across the street, the UM side of it, depending on their UM master plan. There is nothing in there right now that I can see that's been planned. Most of the buildings are still in the campus formal that are being planned. But we know that's Coral Gables, and they work with Coral Gables on what they're going to do. We don't know what the limitations are at this point. So as far as compatibility, there are two things. One is its relationship to the goals of the Transit Supportive Development District. We wanted a project that we want projects throughout this area that are mixed use, that are more intensity, that will feed into the South Miami Metro Rail Station that can create that Transit Supportive District. We wanted projects that have increased the density to put people on the street to serve to essentially populate the area, create that pedestrianism, and also help our businesses and our retail grow along with that. This has a particular other reason. It's student housing. And I'm going to drop back a little bit to when the ordinance was defined. And there were some comments here already tonight about this. When we determined this did not come into the TSDD from the beginning. It was a use that was added more recently. I think December of 2025 is when it was adopted. This use was allowed in Mostly right around the Metrorail station where we thought it would be most appropriate But we also realized that this property was sitting there directly across from the campus So there's no better instance for pedestrian use from students going to the campus across Red Road one of the other reasons that that we looked at student housing, and we looked at it a little later, was that, as you know, as I know, we all know this, there is student housing throughout South Miami in the single-family neighborhoods, not just in the Marshall-Williamson neighborhood, but also in all the neighborhoods around we have student housing. It's not always a problem, but it was something that there was a desire to control. One of the reasons to put the student housing use into the downtown was to create a sort of more of a Supply side answer, instead of restricting the single-family neighborhoods more and more, and the restrictions are very difficult to implement, to enforce, that was the reason that this use went into the downtown at a fairly intense development envelope. This one, we kept the development envelope way down because we recognized the sensitivity of the neighborhood, but we also want to have that interactiveness with the campus. So it does, anyway, the project, it follows the zoning code and it implements our code, it implements our comprehensive plan, it does everything that we wanted to do to put people within the metro rail station area and on the streets for the downtown. We do, and I've said all this already, but we do have the transition we require in all these properties. They can be up to six stories tall, but they must transition down to three stories in the last 75 feet. Three stories being a transition that can now go into the single family, which are those built at one story for the most part. They're all, I think, one story. they have a development envelope or entitlement to go to two stories. So the transition that way is two to three to six, and we don't know what university will do. So it does achieve the transition. It does achieve our goals for the downtown TSDD. All the elements have to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. I don't have to cover this at great length because our zoning code was designed to be consistent with the future land use map designation. So it is consistent with the future land use map designation for this block as well. With the TSDD uses, we looked at the residential density. It's consistent with the residential density. It can have up to 100 units per acre as a right, and it has 88 units per acre as is proposed. However, we Count ours our student housing in a different way we multiply by 3.5 and we actually count the bedrooms so as I write this would be permitted to have 200 I'm not reading that right 273 I'm sorry 956 bedrooms and it's providing 772 bedrooms so again it's within the density envelope that's permitted for this block This application has been traveling with us at staff level for some time. We've worked with it extensively. We've gone through a lot of issues. At this point, I can simply say that it complies with all of the parking standards, with all of the delivery standards, with the car sharing standards, with the internal bicycle standards, with the outdoor bicycle parking standards, and that would include personal mobility devices at this point. One of the things I want to point out, though, is that the project has an unusual configuration that we didn't expect in trying to have a project that had the least impact on the neighborhood. So in other words, typically we see garages having entrances from the side streets or maybe the back. It's part of our code that we don't allow the access to the garage from the back where the single family neighborhood is. However, this project has put the entrance to the garage on Red Road on the front. And that's an unusual configuration, and it creates, I think, some design challenges. But it's in the front of the project. Everything comes in and out through Red Road, all the delivery, the garbage, the parcel deliveries, Ubers, and they all go into internal parking within the building. There is no street parking on this at all. So it has been designed from a traffic standpoint to have the least possible impact on its surroundings. And everything comes in through Red Road. And being a state road, they've had to also address the issues. And they did address the issues of how far that access point is from the intersections as well. They have their traffic engineer here. They can go through all the issues there. On the street hierarchy, and I talked to you a little bit about in the ordinance, which is not effective now, we have worked with this applicant to make sure that not only did they comply with the TSDD regulations for the Red Road should be a primary street, but it's not marked on the map. We have designated that as the front of the building, and they've complied with all the regulations for a primary street as would be for Red Road. So they have a seven-foot sidewalk, they have a four-foot landscape buffer on the outside of the sidewalk, and depending on where you are in the building, there's a landscape buffer a little bit on the inside. Also, as I said, we have worked, you know, talking about when I was speaking about the ordinance, we've worked with every development to make sure not having the code to support it, that all the side streets and the rear street would have the same standard. And this project brings forward six foot sidewalks and four foot buffer, which are not required, around the building entirely, always on the street side of it. They are consistent with the TSDD open space requirements. They have 11% of open space. 10% is required. It's all linear open space with a small sort of plaza in the back, which is actually a dog walk as well. And that will be open to the public. So that is public open space. And it was favored to go on the residential or the neighborhood side of the project to lessen the impact and provide an amenity that will be useful to others. It is consistent with the landscaping plant requirements, providing a total of 73 shade trees on the street that are not there now, or some of them are there now, and providing a total on-site in some of the private areas, but also in the plaza of 25 shade trees and about 68 palm trees. So they have complied as well with the landscape requirements for the project. The building height also complies. I said, of course, this area has a transition zone, so they are allowed to go up to six stories. The maximum roof height is 84 feet. It is below that at 72 feet. The parapets at the top of the building and any structures are still under the requirement. Requirement is 94 feet. It's at 80 feet. And it's six stories. The last 75 feet of this project transitioned down. And it's a three-story structure with amenities on the top. And it does not exceed the roof height of 40 feet. It's actually at 39 feet 7 inches. For building location, massing, and form, this is a long table that's in the code, and it regulates the building coverage on the street for each facade. We want building coverage on the street, not open parking lots. They more than comply with the 80% and 85% requirements. The building frontage of the block meet. We have requirements for the movement of the wall, as we say, so we don't want a blank wall facing the street, especially as projects get larger. They have complied with the movement of the wall. There's five foot variations, no more than 70 feet throughout that length, as well as in the back. The floor the the one thing that stands out is because of how it goes back to the issue of floor plates When this building came in they had designed it to create that garage in the middle that they had floor plates defined as plates of floor between firewalls we don't count it that way at this point and if the other ordinance goes through and adopted we would count it differently and But right now, the way we count it, it's at over 60,000 square feet, which is too much for a waiver. And so it will require acceptance of a variance and approval of a variance by commission to have the floor plates organized the way they are, to continue to have the building organized with a habitable space on the south, a habitable space on the north, and both of them connect into a garage through internal circulation. The architectural standards are also met. The applicant will be applying for lead silver. The window glazing meets all of the requirements, both for the first floor and the floors above it. We have different requirements. And the grower screening which now is a sort of a colorful Pattern just as a placeholder it will be applied for an AIPP project an art public places project To have some kind of painting on that wall It is a screen right now and even the screen has some movement in it So it's not a flat screen and that was something that we required to meet the criteria in the code of So going to the variance, that's the one last thing that would be required for this project. And without the variance, it cannot go forward as designed. So we have to go to section 20-5.9H in our code. Our variance criteria have five criteria that all five must be met in the affirmative to approve the variance or for the commission to approve the variance. It must be necessary to relieve particular extraordinary conditions relating to the property. And I'll go through these one by one, but I'm going to read them off quickly. The denial of a variance would result in a hardship to the owner. The extraordinary conditions don't result from the actions of the owner, that the request is the minimum necessary to make a reasonable use of the property, and that the approval is not inconsistent with the general intent of the code and the comprehensive plan or the general welfare of the community. So the variance necessity. It's a 2.73 acre rectangular property and we typically don't see this as a property that will require a variance. However, the variance that we have is for the floor, is for the building coverage on the fifth and sixth floor. We have a very unusual circumstance. It's really something constructed out of a lot of circumstances that we require from the zoning code that turn this into a necessity to relieve a particular extraordinary condition. I'll stress that this is not a unique condition. It's extraordinary and that is unusual among properties even at the edge of our district. So for reasons of trying to keep the the traffic intrusion into the neighborhood as I mentioned the garage was put on the front that is very unusual and then when the garage is on the front and they have to keep it away from the intersections on a DOT road it ended up in the middle of the building. Any logical design would simply connect the internal circulation to the garage. In doing this, this created an interesting situation, though, that we have a 200 foot wide property. 75 feet are taken out from the fourth, fifth, and sixth floor, which leaves 125 feet, which is fine for a double loaded type of residential and even for a garage. But there's no extra room in that situation. And not only that, but it's also somewhat Different from some of the other properties in the area which gets to number two so we have this Six-story condition which we allow to happen by a waiver in certain cases Doesn't happen in the same circumstances everywhere because we don't have the state road everywhere We don't have the parking in the front everywhere, which is really I think what lined this building up to require this so the hardship it's in the code the hardship definition is that it results if the restriction of the zoning ordinance when applied to a particular property becomes arbitrary confiscatory or unduly oppressive and i think it becomes when we started to look at it we realized that we had a very arbitrary condition in the zoning code which treats different blocks on the edge of the of the district differently and not always for reasons of the actual property or the land that they are touching. And more than that, we have an arbitrary distinction between the fourth and the fifth and the sixth floors. And I can tell you this wasn't intended. As I mentioned before, I don't want to mix too much between an ordinance and this hearing, but we had intended that to control the massing on towers, on taller buildings. When we were doing that, we defined the first floor and the second, third, and fourth floor differently because we knew second, third, and fourth are typically a pedestal of some sort. When this ordinance was put through and we had six-story buildings at the edge to control the transition at the edges of our downtown, we were treating the fifth story and the sixth floor different from the fourth floor. What we would be actually asking for would be the fourth floor could be the same, could go across the whole building, and then the fifth and sixth floor would have these cuts in it, something like castle ramparts. And we'd never intended that. But the thing is that we still have a condition where The zoning code, more than the land itself, has created a number of conditions that when they combine put a hardship on this property that they would have to create, in a sense, the fifth and sixth floor as almost separate buildings from what's below it. And we also have a situation that we have an exclusion in our zoning code that treats properties that have mixed use with an office. And those can go to a waiver with this condition, and others can't. So we recognize that this is something that's somewhat arbitrary. There's not a particularly good reason for it. All buildings with the same form, the same mass, in the same situation of a transitional area should be treated the same. So that becomes part of our recognition of the hardship, mostly relating to the arbitrariness of the code. The conditions are not the result of the owner's action. And again, we could easily say that the owner has designed the project. But we also recognize that we have an arbitrary code and a number where they've done certain things very well, particularly with the garage and keeping the traffic away from the neighborhood. These constraints have pushed the building into a certain form, which makes sense, except that the code says it can't make sense because it has to have divisions in the fifth and sixth floor. I would say that that's not entirely the fault of the owner. That's part of our fault for having an arbitrary code or the city's fault. that the request would be the minimum necessary to make possible reasonable use of the property. And again, I mean, structurally, if we have first, second, third, and fourth floor going up in a certain way, it makes sense that the fifth and sixth would be the same as the fourth floor, and this project is. The fourth floor plate and the fifth and sixth are pretty much identical, save for a few square feet. Also noting that through working through a lot of conditions there are no other aspects of this proposal that need any kind of waiver or variance. Every design criteria is met. No excuses at this point other than the variance. And finally that the variance would not be inconsistent with the general intent. of the land use of the zoning and it would not be detrimental to the public welfare and again what we have is a six-story building which we allow we don't believe that forcing some kind of cuts in the middle of the building would do anything to create a situation that would improve the public welfare because we don't believe it has a detrimental effect as it is on the public welfare and actually having the garage and the habitable portions of the building connected by internal circulation, as we expect, creates a safer and more secure situation as well. So we are answering all five conditions in the affirmative and would recommend the approval of a large-scale special exception and would recommend acceptance and other requested variants and recommending to the Commission for approval. If there's any questions.

All right. Thank you. Any quick questions for Mark?

If not, let's turn it over to the applicant.

good evening mr chair and members of the board my name is mario garcia sarah with offices at six hundred berkel avenue here today representing subtext acquisitions llc the applicant and the contract purchaser for the property located at sixty four zero four sixty five zero four southwest fifty seventh avenue you will remember that we presented the project at your march meeting and there were a lot of open issues which staff had identified in their analysis and there are a lot of comments from this board which we had to address. I'm happy to say that we regrouped, we redesigned and we worked with staff and we now have a project which addressed all the open issues in the previous staff analysis and which addresses the comments received by this board including but not limited to the removal of the racquetball or racquet courts on the amenity level, a complete redo of the west facade Facing the single-family homes and the expansion of the sidewalk and landscape areas along the perimeter of the property We also have heard some of the comments that have already been expressed tonight about Neighborhood impacts and we're ready to address those also with that said I'll ask Ryan bump from subtext to come up and walk you through the plans and show you all the changes that were Made and then I'll come back to wrap it up

Good evening, planning board members, chair. I am Ryan Bohn with Subtex. We appreciate you guys having us back here to share all of our changes. I want to thank Mark and all of the staff that's worked with us. It's really been an effort of coordination, input, comments from the last time we presented to you all. And I think that the project is better off for going through that process with everyone. In making our updates, we focused on three areas, the residential feel of the townhouses on the west side, reducing the scale and visibility of that amenity deck on level four, and increasing sidewalk widths on all sides to maximize pedestrian safety. I'd also like to note that we held a neighborhood meeting back on December 4th. We had about 25 people attend that and I know we had a big focus at that time on job opportunities, operations with the construction project or with the property itself. So that's not in our presentation but did want to note that. mark has given us an overview of the site location already but here's just a refresher good proximity to the rail line all of the retail in downtown South Miami as well as proximity to the University the unit mix and metrics have remained largely unchanged 240 units 772 bedrooms 373 parking stalls all of which meet the requirements for the code The ground floor plan here, again, we have the vehicular access on Southwest 57th. This was done to keep everything out of the neighborhood. We wanted to focus all of the building operations, so parking, loading, trash, everything comes through this single spot on Southwest 57th and keeping it mid-block away from the intersections. Even more importantly we've increased the sidewalks on all sides So we've been able to achieve the 11 foot sidewalk with minimum around the entire property that's a seven foot clear walkway with a four foot landscape buffer and And in the direction as you head north along Red Road, we were able to increase that sidewalk width to 14 feet with 10 foot clear. This, we recognize, is probably the primary path to campus for students who are going to be walking from the front door. So being able to achieve that 10 foot clear, really nice area to queue on the corner and provide safe pedestrian access and crossing. The facade. Has been revised Big changes are adding some additional glazing Which think enhanced it as well as brought us into full compliance with the code? the Screening of the garage as mark noted has been improved and And as you can see here, we've also paid a lot of attention to, as you're from the pedestrian experience of walking underneath the garage, you get more landscape, more screening from the vehicles, and also the addition of some down lighting and just kind of really making that pedestrian experience feel seamless as you're walking by the garage. Moving around to the south side you can start to see that step down to three stories and you can start to see all of the improvements to the Landscape screening that we've incorporated on that level four I can show you more as we spin around from there We we spent most of our time and made most substantial changes along 57th court We've improved all of these to have more of a townhome scale across all this. Additional color variation, facade detailing, stoops, and landscaping, as well as increasing the size of the sidewalks on this street frontage as well. This is a view of the previous design that was presented. And just wanted to kind of show that to contrast it against where we've ended up. So all of these details are really evident when you kind of see where we've come. So appreciate the input that everyone's had. And I think, again, we've ended up in a better place because of it. You can also see from this view the screening with the landscaping up on that level four deck, the removal of the Padel court. All of these things make that amenity deck kind of go away when you're looking at it from the street level and the neighborhood perspective. Looking at that level four landscaping, you can see where previously that left side of that courtyard still had that Padel court and other uses. We've significantly reduced the size of the amenity deck. And you'll also notice there's a three-foot green landscape strip along the entire edge. So it's completely screened the entire length of the property. Here you can see where that increased landscaping provides that buffer. Here's an example. That's over six feet tall where you've got the parapet wall and the landscape planters extending up. So intent there is to completely screen the pool deck from that neighborhood perspective. I'd also like to add, operationally for our properties, it's professionally managed, full-time staff on site, and strict enforcement of anything that does happen on the pool deck. I know there were some questions about the existing tenants on the property. So the sellers had already engaged in a program that was going to phase out of the current use of the property prior to us being engaged at all. With that, the tenants, as their leases have been expiring, tenants have been leaving. There are 14 tenants remaining on the property at this time. We've engaged Miami Homes for All. They're a nonprofit that supports residents with applications, working through the process. These are moderate rehab affordable units. So all of the leases will expire this year. We're offering these services to help those tenants find comparable housing to what they have now so that they're not put in any worse of a position. So we're providing $35,000 for relocation assistance. This is intended to help them put down payments on a new place and work through that process. And then we've been facilitating with Miami Homes for All with that outreach to HUD and making sure that that process moves along so that no one sort of gets stuck. The last thing we wanted to share is just building off of what Mark discussed here. And from our perspective, the language of the code with regards to the floor plate is intended to kind of address the tower podium situation like you've got on the screen here. So it's taking a site where you would have a 60,000 square foot floor plate or something going all the way up 20 stories and just showing how the code in that situation does benefit the city by causing masses like that to be broken up. As Mark noted, for a variety of reasons, it's just not applicable to our site. And so we do appreciate the consideration and the work that's been done to work through that. Just sharing the code language, which you're all familiar. But just sharing for our particular item, it's fairly limited text amendment that's allowing us to proceed with that. And then here's just a shot of all those improvements. This is looking at that dog park, which we do view as a community amenity. We want that to be a rich, lush experience, open to everyone, safe, well lit. And I think all the improvements again with the collaboration of the city the input from everyone who's been involved I think this demonstrates that we've ended up in a nice place So happy to answer any questions. Thank you

Thank you, Ryan. Mr. Chair and Board, your staff has done a very good job in their memo and in their presentation this evening of describing how the requirement of the reduced height on the west half of the site combined with the need for the parking garage space and access to be oriented towards Red Road essentially squeezes the program of the building to all be on the Red Road side and how that floor plate limitation in the context of a six-story building is not appropriate and indeed, as staff had mentioned, even arbitrary. And you are in the process of correcting that already in your code by making that a situation where six-story buildings could get relief from the floor plate requirement by waiver. So in this case, since that has not been adopted yet, we're asking for a variance. But staff has acknowledged that the variance is justified. We would ask that you follow your staff recommendation. We thank you for your comments that you made in the previous meeting. We believe that this is made for a better project. We will reserve a little time to address perhaps any more concerns that come up from the neighborhood, because we have been trying to address them. And we want to be considered a good addition to this neighborhood. And we want to find a way to be able to work with our neighbors. You've already saw that a bit by what we're doing with the existing residents and assisting in relocating them. And we're open, of course, to any other suggestions to make this a project that everybody can be proud of. Thank you very much.

Thank you. OK, I'm now going to open up the floor to public comments. So if you wish to speak, please step up to the podium, sign in, state your name and your address. Remember, public comments, each person is limited to three minutes. And it isn't really a question and answer session, but because the applicants are here, they certainly may address some of the things that you bring up. And with that, I'll start with the people in the room here. So were you sworn in originally?

Yes. Okay. Chris Hudson. I live at 6411 Southwest 59th Court here in South Miami. One question for the gentleman. You mentioned a term, strict enforcement of the pool area. What do you mean by that? We're professionally managed. Excuse me, folks.

Again, this is not a Q&A. Please make your comments and we'll give them a chance.

One of my complaints was with their height of their pool and the surrounding foliage, it would not alleviate noise from the back residence there on 57th. That was one of my concerns. Even though it's a height, One thing I know about college students, they get good grades, but they also party a lot. So that was one of my concerns. And next was, what have you considered for the residents during the construction phase of this project? We know there's a lot of trucks, a lot of traffic during the construction phase. That 57th Street there, would that be considered as a no zone for trucks coming in, construction trucks coming in and out? What time of morning would they be coming in, 7, before 7, or after 7? I know there's an ordinance for 7 AM to 7 PM. Lastly, have they considered even widening Red Road with the way that they have their current traffic pattern? He said they went from 48 units to over 200 units. That's a lot of cars. And including, like he said, the trucks and the office people and the staff and the stores. So you're not talking about multiplying the traffic by four or five times on the current road. And so that's my concern. about that facility and lastly I'm gonna say it's not as a not as a slight but as an encouraging when you consider a variance for a project like this you should also consider residents that pays the taxes and live in this area I hate when they accommodate Owners and developers but not taking consideration of the home owners that pays the taxes for these facilities to to come in here So consider that varuses and it's nice if you make a change don't just make a change for one party make a change for Everybody as a whole so please consider that in your in your vote and then your analogy and everything like that Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments other people in the audience that wish to make a comment or Please step up. Your name and your address, if you'd sign in as well.

I did already.

And I think you were here to get sworn in, correct or not? Yes.

Yes. Yes. My name is Gray Reed, and I live at 6820 Southwest 64th Court. I am an architect. I have a PhD in architecture, and I have taught in the School of Architecture at FIU for 25 years. So I think I appreciate very much the back and forth between the city and the architects. And I think the project has improved a good bit. And I think it's being built essentially by right. You know, it kind of is what it is. It's within the zoning designation and this variance that they're asking for is really a technicality in a sense that this rule about the 20,000 square feet really doesn't apply to buildings of this type. So my only sort of confusion, I suppose, is that In some of the drawings, I think, that were included with the package, that it looked like there were four stories on 57th Court. And in this presentation, I see that there are three stories. So I think that the intention of our code was that it be three and not four. And so I would just, I mean, I suppose I can get that question answered somehow, but I think that the three stories needs to be enforced. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, other folks, comments?

Good evening. My name's Dale Andre, 6820 Southwest 65th Avenue, and I was sworn in.

Would you sign in, please, if you would? I did. Oh, you did? OK, great. Thank you.

Marcus? This is already a finished deal, so I think I'm speaking more in terms of how we move forward in the future. I've been to a couple of the meetings. I went to the public presentation that you referred to, concern about whether there'd be jobs or not. I guess as a planning board, I would hope that you could look at these projects before they became a finished project, because what they did was a beautiful presentation to the community to say this is it. And now there's some variations, but there's no input about what it feels like to live across this monolithic dormitory for UM students. And somehow as a city, I think we should be looking at what everyone has said about the residents and what's happening to our community, that we need to make places for the students and for growth, but if we're kicking out our residents, then it's not South Miami anymore. My house has risen in value incredibly, which is wonderful, but not if it's pushing out the people that make this community what it is. And I think one of the things that was mentioned about the concern of jobs that might come out of this now that it's going to happen, as you referred to, but didn't say anything about, they basically said they can't do anything because they contract out. So it seems to me that if they're the developers, they find the contractors that should be in that arrangement, that there's going to be work for the residents. So I would just like to embrace this incredible community with you and looking to the future that we're not just given what's already completed and then make some adjustments, but really make it a place where we don't find homes for the people that are leaving these houses now. They're not going to be able to find places in South Miami. So how do we keep people here and still move forward and progress? Can we work with you as a community to make more of this happen? Because it feels a little like a TV film. I feel like a film here. It's like the pros and the cons were on either side. How can we work together so this can be South Miami and not a New Coral Gables? Thank you.

Thank you. Other comments from the audience?

Good evening. My name is Anthony Truesdale. I live at 6530 Southwest 57th Court, right on that street where they're trying to build everything at. I thought this was the city of South Miami of pleasant living, but it seems like it's changing. I've never moved out of this town. I was born and raised right here in South Miami. And for years, I've been living on 57th Court And they've been trying to move us out of our homes for years. Now they finally got the apartments to move out. And now, I don't know if this a done deal already, but it feels like it. But I, the lady just said, you're taking South Miami away from us just to support Car Gables. I have neighbors next door to me that goes to University of Miami. Ask me how do I feel about the neighbors next door. So they have these tall fences that you can't see through and you don't even know what's going on over there. You just pray that everything is okay. But how would you feel living where you've been living for a long time and all of a sudden somebody comes in and build all these high rises of students I was there when they had the Manhattan. There was cars everywhere. Right now, with the, what, railroad coming? Right now. If I don't get home early enough, cars will park right in my way where I can't even park in front of my house or get in my yard or get out. So there's a lot of people moving in there that would be moving a lot of cars. What happened to the city of Pleasant Living? Is it for a city of Pleasant Living for some, not the residents that's been there living for a long time? Would you like this in front of your home?

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else that wishes to speak in the audience? By the way, the two fellows that spoke earlier on the item we were covering before this had some relationship. If you wish to speak again, you're certainly welcome to do that.

Good evening to the panel and everyone who's present here today. My name is Mildred F. Mitchell. I've lived in South Miami practically all my life. I was here when it was, he just spoke of, city of pleasant living. We could walk, we could talk. The community was a part of us and we were a part of the community I Listen to this plans these plans tonight and I'm of the opinion also that it's a done deal Now what was presented? Seems nice, not that I would want it in South Miami. And I wonder, since it's for the University of Miami students, they have the whole city of Cargabus. It's two or three times larger than South Miami. Why not go in Cargabus and build some of these astronomical tall buildings? And they have them over there, but seem like the building is coming forth to South Miami. Now, my concern, since it is a done deal, you spoke of wide sidewalks. What's the purpose of such wide sidewalks? Are people going to be eating on those sidewalks? Are there going to be storefronts in this building? Can residential people live in the building, or is it just for students? We need homes, too. We need places to live. Why can't we live in the building also, since it's going to be there? No one addressed that. We are citizens of South Miami, and we didn't want to go anywhere else, but it seemed like we were being pushed out. But I really want to know, it's Red Road Commons that's already there? I don't think, I don't know this, but I'm wondering if all those resident places are filled up. Did they fill up that building? And here we are trying to build others. We have this over the metro station. Everything can be for students. We have some elderly people here, and I'm one of them. We have other people here in the community. We would like to stay here. But I'm asking you purposely now, in this building on the street, are you having storefront staff for people to rent out?

They will be happy to address later, but this is not a Q&A. So you have about 30 seconds left.

No one's going to answer that now, correct?

Not right this second, no, ma'am. This is not an open Q&A format. You have 15 seconds. They will address as they would like.

I'm going to say this on Sunset Drive. You have all these chairs and people eating on the sidewalk. Is this going to be another place like that?

Thank you for your comments.

Please address some of our concerns.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else that would like to speak?

My name is Denise Goodman.

I'm a resident at 6400 Southwest 57th Court. OK, my concern is that you're putting a whole community, 200 or more young students there that want to party, make all kind of loud noise. And I live right across the street on 57th Court. What am I going to do with that? You can't get no rest and it's okay because the, they're gonna be making a lot of money off of these students with this property. I already have students that living next door to me that I'm afraid of. Every three, four years, I'm getting a different neighbor. I didn't move to South Miami for that. I moved here because it was a nice, peaceful, calm area. Now they making it like a city. I'm gonna have a whole city of people living in front of me that I don't even know. Riding on scooters and partying all night. That's all I want to say.

All right. Thank you. Anyone else?

Yes, please. Ed? Yes, sir.

Raise your hand, please. Do you swear to tell the truth about the truth?

Thank you. I don't know what I'm swearing to tell the truth about, but okay. I was here last time. I was the only one here last time. I like the fact some more people showed up. They mentioned a bunch of things that I wanted to talk about last time, and when I started listening to them speaking about all their plans, I think it got a little... heated and stuff like that. Kind of the same thing, but not really thing. I look at, you know, they came up with a bunch of the plans and all this stuff, and really, it doesn't really look like there's a whole lot of difference in the design, except you put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig, right? They just make it look a little pretty. Put a nice design on 57th Avenue. I have no problem with them. That's their job. Right? That's their job. If something's going to be built regardless, Now, what's built is up to you guys and what you allow. The variances and all this stuff that need to be changed and a hardship for them, that's their problem. They bought that property. You went and bought that property. That's not our problem. That's their problem. Their problem is they got to design and put that building there and that amount of space in the land that really isn't good for what they want to do. They just finished building dorms, brand new dorms on UM. You got Vox. You got Sunset Place that's about to come up. You got the spot across from South Miami Market. You got another place at 62nd Avenue that you guys have already approved for several units, and now I think there's another one coming up. The traffic on 57th Avenue is going to be ridiculous for people turning left and right into the property. Um... It's just bad. And they've mentioned stuff about people living next door. I've already said that. I have seven people living next door to me in a place that's advertised as a dorm online. Single family living, ain't no single family living over there with five cars in the front yard, seven people living in a house, none of them are related. That's all code violations. Ain't nobody come by. And I've reported it several times. Nothing is ever done. Using your trash bin, you use a trash pile, all that stuff, all code violations, but nothing's done. So my thing is, I know it's going to be done. Something's going to be done. I know there's other plans over there for that market, across the street from the market. That'll be a huge fight coming down the road. I know he mentioned, oh, we had a neighborhood meeting. I saw a lot of head shake about what meeting. Last time I was here, it said 15 people showed up to the meeting. Tonight, 20 people showed up to that meeting. So 10 more imaginary people showed up to this meeting in December. Now? that happened in December? Come on, man. There's a lot of things right now just they're not adding up. They're not making a lot of sense. And I'm a resident, live here, bought a house here, family owned a business on 57th and Red for 50 years. So I got a lot invested in it. I hate seeing history go because my family owned a business that was history. And right now what you guys are doing, it's not like he said it. I said it perfectly. It ain't the city of Pleasant Living anymore, man. It's not. It's not. It's all about money. And we know that's what it's about. But I have no problem with them. They're doing their job. But sometime or another, you guys are going to have to put a limit on what's being built and how much is being built in South Miami.

Thanks very much. All right. Any other comments? I think we have one raised hand on the Zoom call. I'm not sure whose hand.

Yeah, it's Sharon Miller.

Sharon, we see you now. We don't see you unmuted, though.

Yes, I'm here. I'm here.

There you go. Great.

OK. Hi, my name is Sharon Miller. Miss Miller, before you begin.

Where are you in? And if you'd state your address.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Would you raise your right hand, please? Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, or nothing but the truth?

Yes. Thank you.

And your address?

My address is 6420 Southwest 57th Court. Okay. Am I officially sworn in there?

You are, and you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Again, my name is Sharon Miller. My family has resided here since conception. I've been living here. My parents lived here also. We bought this place because it's a residential area, and South William is a nice place. It's a family place. But what you all are trying to do, I'm not sure whether it's already been approved or not, is to put something in the front of a residential place. Like everybody stated, the traffic is going to be terrible. It's already terrible on 64th Street when you turn. Now you're building buildings there, and then you have students that's going to be renting there from colleges, from the college, or wherever they're going to be coming from. And, you know, we're going to have some more traffic. We're going to have some more noise on there. We're going to have you dealing with college students. And any time you're dealing with college students, you know you're going to have some problems, some kind of activity that's going on. We're residing in a community. And I'm in concurrence with everybody else, seem like you have no regards for the residents that live here, that's been living here for so long. And this is their dwelling place. We are a community. And like everybody said, what happened to South Miami of the pleasant living? What happened to that? You have no regard for nobody. Seems like, I don't know whether it's a done deal, I'm not sure. But it's not the right property for this project, for this place. The building is not appropriate for this area. And it's not about whether we're going to have, whether it's going to satisfy the community. It's all about a dollar. I'm going to build it here. We need some place to build it. But nobody has ever gone on the other side and car gabers and said, well, we're going to build a place like that right in the center of car gabers at all. So I personally don't think this is the right property for this area because you're taking away from the people that bought homes here for a reason that is community. Not to have six stories, four stories. You wake up in the morning, you got to look at building and forget about the sunshine, forget about anything else. But the traffic is already horrendous coming on this street. And there are people parking in there, like Mr. Truesdale said, you can't even get into your house sometimes. So therefore, the property that they're trying to build here with no concern and no regards for the people that have been staying here for 40 years or 50 years, I just think that's just unconscionable for you all to do that. And that's just my take on it. And I really don't think that it is really not the place to build that type property in a community where people have been residing for years. And I'm done. Thank you for allowing me the time to speak.

Thank you very much. All right, I don't see any other hands on the Zoom call. Anyone else in the audience? If not, I'm going to close it to public comments, and I'm going to ask the applicant if they would like to rebut or answer some of the points made.

Thank you. Yes, I would like to try to address some of the concerns that were expressed here. And one of them that was expressed is how student housing is sort of feeling overwhelming. And I'd say probably four or five of the speakers talked about how that student housing is creeping into or is already existing in so much of the single-family neighborhoods and causing problems, whether it be traffic or noise or whatever it might be. We're not here by accident. This ordinance that was adopted by the city to address student housing was meant in part to address that very issue and to be able to have student housing in a place where it belongs and to have it importantly professionally managed so with sufficient parking so you don't have the sort of parking issues or noise issues because you have, for lack of a better term, adults in the room that are going to manage and regulate that. The noise from the amenity level, which was another issue that was brought up, we made a pretty significant move and removed those courts, those paddle courts that were up there on the amenity deck, which would have caused some noise. And we also have to comply with the noise ordinance of the city just like everyone else. And unlike other situations where it's not professionally managed and you can't find anybody to take responsibility, here there will be individuals who are going to be responsible. Construction staging will definitely be part of any building permit approval process So we're gonna have to establish by where the construction trucks are gonna be parking and where they're gonna be getting access and I can assure you based on What we've already discussed with the city of South Miami that will not be on side streets or interfering with a single-family area Number of stories in the rear, it's clear. It's three stories. There's no doubt about it. It's three stories on the west half of the site facing the single-family area, which, as Mark explained, is meant to provide for that transition from the single-family neighborhood to the property. There is a small retail space on the property, but it is relatively small in size, 1,400 square feet for a coffee shop. The idea is that it's going to be open to the public. Ryan, maybe if you want to come up here and talk about jobs and sort of reiterate the idea of having, they have pledged to have a job fair so that the general contractor needs to meet with the neighborhood to discuss job opportunities, not only for construction, but also for management of the property also.

Yeah, that's correct. This was brought up in December, and our team has taken it seriously. We will be using JMA as a local general contractor. They're very familiar with the process of holding job fairs along with their subcontractors to support the employment in the surrounding neighborhoods. And as a developer and owner, we're fully supportive of that as well.

I think I'll just close out by saying that this project, this code, is meant to try to address the impact of student housing and have it managed responsibly. The demand is there. It's going to continue to be there, but let's address it in a responsible way to minimize the impact to the neighbors. And a professional company that's dedicated to student housing is going to be more responsive to that than several different homeowners that are just renting out their property to make a quick buck. With that said, I thank you very much for all your attention, and we're available, of course, for any questions that you might have. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. Members of the planning board, anyone have any comments or questions for the applicant or for the city planning?

I do. First, I wanted to thank all of you for coming. It's obvious that you all are very passionate about this, and I fully respect that. I would be, too. Mark, question. We talk about the buffer from six floors to three floors, but it's pretty obvious to me that functionally this is a four story building on that buffer side. Even Ryan referred to the amenity level as the fourth floor twice in his presentation. So is that strictly limited to the architectural height of the building, or are we talking about the use of those spaces?

It's strictly limited to the height of the building so the roof can be used then the roof of the third floor may be used and

Sure, OK. I would just like to say that I think we've gotten into this debate about whether or not there should be student housing there. I don't think that's within any of our power to dictate, no more than it is for us to dictate what you guys do with your own houses. All we can do is assess whether or not this fits within the rules that are established by elected officials, which we are not. But that being said, I agree with the gentleman in the red sweater. I'm sorry, I forget your name. I don't agree with the assessment that I think it was the third condition to approve a variance. I do think this is of your own design. 57th Avenue was a state road, I'm guessing, before you brought this property. So the fact that you had to move the garage to a different place, I think those conditions existed before you made this plan. And I do agree that it's not their cross to bear. So I would ask that we look at this and say, hey, how can we create something that doesn't require a variance?

And I get it. I get you guys don't want to live next to students.

But I think the market is dictating that students need to live there, not any of us. So I think that on the other side of that, it would be helpful to those who will be your neighbors to operate within the confines of what's allowed there.

So let me ask a question, Mark. The variance on this, my understanding is that what they've done with the ingress-egress coming off of Red Road is a voluntary deal in an attempt to keep the cars out of the neighborhood. That's not a variance request, and Red Road is what it is. I wish I had the power. I wish we had the power to widen Red Road because we thought it was too crowded because believe me, I'd be up there with my magic wand today. But what are the variances here that we are considering? It's simply a look because it's a larger use project and because of the floor plates, correct?

The variance is just about the fourth, excuse me, the fifth and sixth floor floor plate.

Correct. And not having the gap of the 10 feet as we were just putting into the code, which has not yet been voted in, correct?

Right. Not having any gap at all. Right. It's a continuous building at this point.

So does that change? There's no variance relative to what you're talking about.

Well, no, there's a variance of the fourth and fifth floor.

The plate, yeah, but that's it.

Not your... Excuse me, my question is why are we considering a variance at all when there's rules in place? They're not approved yet. Agreed, but there's rules in place currently. Right. That's why they're asking for a variance because their design doesn't conform with those rules. That's all I'm asking.

The variance is strictly to the plate. Correct. So you feel like that's enough to stop the project? Well, I wonder.

I'm just asking why would we consider agreeing to recommend approval of that variance to the board? It's there for a reason.

Okay. It's an interesting point of view. I mean, so if they add back the 10 feet in there to break up the plates, then you wouldn't have any objection to it.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I could be correct. But my understanding was that because of where the driveway comes in off of 57, and the way that the garage is situated in the building, that this necessitates that these floors be bigger than what would otherwise be allowed. Is that correct?

When we did the analysis, we considered, again, we have a fairly large rectangular property. started to understand from working with the applicant exactly why everything happened the way it did. And the garage being in the center, and again, it fits. I mean, they have 125 feet. That's not the issue. But it didn't make sense that the buildings would be separate from the garage at that point at the fifth and sixth levels. Since the garage the garage has six levels the buildings have six levels and it made perfect sense that they should Connect for safety and security so so what is the habitable area of the fifth and sixth floor currently?

I'm sorry. What is the habitable area of the fifth and sixth floor currently in this design?

I have them on the report, but roughly one is about 22,000 square feet and the other is about 26 or 28,000 square feet so both are are still larger One would be within the range that we could have a waiver application and in both cases if we do have an if this were I Shouldn't say I mean it Is it okay if I say if the ordinance were to pass? Yeah. If the ordinance were to pass that we have presented earlier tonight, this building would be able to, as it's proposed, go through with a waiver, which would still be a commission request. Sure. It would just have different standards that we would apply.

Thank you. Other questions and comments? May I, Mr. Chair?

Yes, thank you. I had the opportunity to meet with the property owner, the zoning attorney, and the architect. They came to my office to present the modifications to the project based on all the input that was received by the residents and by the board. And I was happy to see that they took a lot of those comments into consideration. I too can sympathize with the residents. As a 37-year resident of the city of South Miami, for almost 30 years, the house next to me was owned by some gentleman out of New York. And the majority of the time, it was rented by students. i can honestly tell you that was not pleasant i had the city of south miami police on speed dial so when we see a project like this unfortunately it has to be in some part of the city that hopefully will alleviate that from other residents having to endure what i had to endure for almost 30 years as stated previously this project is by right the major Considerations for the waiver is there was a major undertaking people have forgotten. There was a major undertaking under the direction of the commission to re, look at zoning and we look at the comprehensive plan. And as part of that revision. There are times when you miss things. There were some things that were missed here because as stated by a consultant, the issue of the floor plates was considered more for high rise building than it was for large format sites like we have. So it's normal to have tweaks like what's being presented here tonight that was already approved by the board that will ultimately go to the commission. That's just part of the process of how we deal with zoning. But overall, I think the owners And the architects have done a really great job in changing the look of 57th Court with regards to the feel. It doesn't look institutional like it did when it was presented. It looks more residential in scale. They widened the sidewalks, increased landscaping, have that dog park there. So I think they've done a... a good job in trying to listen to the community. Again, this project is by right. They've done what we've asked. They have not maximized the number of rooms they can have. They can still have an additional 200 rooms, which they're not proposing, thank God. So overall, I think this is a project that I think hopefully will address what the commission wanted, which is to try to alleviate the rental homes to students throughout the city. So thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks very much. Other questions or comments from the board?

May I make a correction?

I misspoke before.

The floor plates, the north side, the habitable side, is 13,069 square feet. The south side is 24,175 square feet, and the parking garage is 21,000. So I did state that they were larger than they are. Separately, all but one of those could, if a waiver was available, could easily go for a waiver.

Okay. Thank you. I see some of their hand raised. The public comment is closed, so we won't be addressing a non-board member at this point. Other board comments? My thoughts are, before I go to Dan, I'm just going to say I appreciate what you guys have done to modify the plans to make it better for the neighborhood. It is still a six-story building. It still has three stories in the back. But the amenity deck has been reduced, particularly from a noise perspective. having no paddle ball and whatever else up there makes sense I would probably ask have you given some thought to having any kind of restriction relative to how late you could have that area lit and you may have you may have an answer for that from other buildings you've run and what you do about the noise since this isn't your first student housing enterprise

Yeah, I don't have the specific hours, but that whole deck is intended to be locked down separately from the building and kept to strict hours. And they're held to that strictly.

Thanks. I would also remind everybody that The three stories of the main livable building are going to be facing out to the same amenity area with the same concerns about noise and lighting. They're even closer to it than those on the ground.

And lights will be shut down when the pullback shuts down.

Understood. And one other thing I want to say before I go to Daniel, I know he wants to make a comment, which is these are not done deals. We are a recommending board. And so how we vote on this, we will be voting whether it goes to the commission as it is, whether it doesn't go at all, whether we turn it down, whatever. But ultimately, the commission is the body that approves it. And I wouldn't be wasting my time up here if this was a done deal, as fun as this is. Daniel? Daniel?

Yeah, guys, um, just want to speak real quick to the involvement of the community and the construction. Um, I was the, uh, civil contractor for the Redwood Commons in the early 2000s. Um, and we were forced through contract through the GC and the developer. To have a community workforce program to hire local. Uh, for percentages of, you know, each trades contract. So it just might be something, um. you know, in an effort to help out and those concerns about, you know, local jobs. A job fair is nice, but you could force your contractor to come up with a program, you know, a boiler program, whatever it be, To hire local just a percentage. Um, but it's definitely, uh, you know, an extending, you know, an olive branch to the local residents. Uh, that might need jobs or looking for jobs. To help, you know, a job fair isn't, um, a for sure thing. But forcing them through a community workforce program to a meet a goal. As part of a percentage of the contract of the subcontractors and all that it's feasible. We did it. I had to do it. With the Red Road Commons project, so it just might be something that the developer could talk with the talk with the city. And again, extend that olive branch to the local residents.

Thanks, Daniel. THROUGH THE CHAIR. FIRST OFF, I DO WANT TO THANK ALL OF YOU THAT CAME OUT TO SPEAK TODAY. I GREATLY APPRECIATE THE COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT. AND TO THE COMMENT OF DUNDEAL, I DID WANT TO MENTION THAT THIS IS BACK IN FRONT OF US BECAUSE WE REQUESTED CHANGES THE LAST TIME THEY WERE HERE. We are by no means a rubber stamp board. We definitely give comments. We reject presentations. We definitely try to call balls and strikes here. So I do appreciate the comment, but I want to make sure that the community knew that that's what we're doing. I do believe that the architect and the developer have gone or the applicant have gone out of their way to create an environment where the entrance is on 57th Avenue, which will directly affect me because that's my path every single day. I am in the same neighborhood as well. I am not very far from this project. I, too, will be affected. But as some of my colleagues have said and some of you in the audience, I have students living in my neighborhood in single-family homes. And I am a fan of doing everything possible to change that. The fact that this developer or this applicant has presented 80% of the units that they're allowed, to reduce it by 20% is substantial. To go through the extra cost of bringing in the back of the house and the entrance through the front of the property so that it doesn't affect the homes behind. I met many of you as I walked your neighborhood. I know exactly where your homes are, and I empathize with the proximity of this project. But I do think they're making strides to do things that are beneficial. Somebody mentioned taxes, and taxes are important. And as you know, at the state level, there's a large conversation of how to reduce residential taxes. And if this city doesn't build our commercial tax base, we're going to face a big challenge and a big deficit. So the taxes are very important, and adding a larger commercial tax base is incredibly important. I will say this to the lighting. I think it's very important. With the lighting systems today, it is incredibly important that we don't have foot candles spill over onto other neighbors. And you can do that very well with the advanced lighting systems that exist. We we've seen it in some of the parks that we've delivered recently in the city And so I urge you to take great caution to make sure that that spillage doesn't cross over and affect the neighbors That's all I have to say. I appreciate the applicants effort of making the changes I greatly appreciate the community coming out to to speak And believe me you have been heard and your concerns have been taken into account. Thank you

Danny, do you have an additional comment? Your hand is still up.

No, Chair. I'll take it down.

And Christine, your hand's not up, but I see you talking, so.

Yeah, if I may. I don't want to be repetitive. I agree with my colleagues and all of their opinions regarding the development, I do want to express empathy for the residents. But unfortunately, there is a need for student housing and this property is in close proximity to the school. I understand because I also have neighbors that are students, like college students, and there is some noise level and disruptions. And I do agree. I think it was the owner or somebody had mentioned that at least here it's more contained and there will be like management of the property versus having an owner who's not in the premises being able to control what's going on. So I do see that as a benefit. And I do agree with what Daniel and Jay mentioned about maybe controlling the lighting out, the noise levels and things like that in consideration of the residents. But aside from that, I don't want to repeat what everyone else has said. So that's just my comment.

All right. Thank you. If there aren't any different additional comments, do we have a motion?

I make a motion. We approve. I submit it with staff recommendations.

Do I have a second? I'll second it.

If I could offer a friendly amendment just to include the board comments as well.

So approval as presented with the board comments included. You OK with that? In particular, relative to lighting.

So yeah, but we have some conflicting comments, especially Mr. Corbison's comments would go contrary to. So can we narrow that list to, what is it, lighting? And Danny Alvarez mentioned a percentage, right, for hiring?

I would like to see that explored, but I'm not for putting that as a condition.

Okay. Okay, so greater control of lighting. Hours on the amenity level.

Correct. Noise hours as well. This is what these guys do, you know, is run projects.

Sure, sure. Lighting to control spillage. Okay. Anything else, board?

I'm seeing some shaking heads, so we have a motion and a second.

So really quick, are we doing each item a vote separately, or is this for this motion?

Let's have a vote on each, please.

OK. So those conditions would be for the variance, or would they be for the large scale development?

I would recommend that they go to the large scale development.

OK. All right. To the large scale development. All those in favor? Yes.

Aye.

Aye.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

OK. And now on the variance, do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion. We approve the variance as recommended by staff with meeting the five conditions as stated.

I'll second.

Okay.

I'll second. Any other questions? If not, all those in favor?

No.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay.

Okay.

Item carries. Motion carries.

Motion carries. Correct. Okay. Thank you very much for coming out. We appreciate all your comments.

Okay. Next item.

Next item.

The next item.

Number five. We're going to skip to the, and we're going to finish with the number four. So number five is all about the... Is the solar panel moratorium.

Extending the moratorium, yeah. So item number five is PB-2026-008, an ordinance of the City Commission of the City of South Miami, Florida, retroactively extending the previous moratorium on the enforcement of Section 20-3.6W, of the city's land development code relating to the residential requirements for solar panel of solar photovoltaic systems provided for implementation, severability, conflicts, corrections, and an effective date. If you recall, this was an item that was already extended once by the commission. It is scheduled to expire actually tomorrow, April 15th. So that's why we're putting it back on the agenda. Originally, the moratorium was put into place so that we could produce sustainability regulations to replace it, which the development services director has done so. That item is actually scheduled, is working its way through the city commission at this time. That ordinance, unfortunately, does not do it, does not repeal the solar panel regulations. So that's the reason why we're actually putting this back on, requesting the moratorium be enacted again so that there's time set aside so that we can actually properly repeal the solar panel regulations from the code. If we do not repeal them and the moratorium ends, the residents will be subject to those regulations again. even with the sustainability ordinance gets adopted, they would still be subject to the regulations. So we would like to take the time, freeze the solar panel rules so we can properly remove them from the code. Staff is recommending approval and that it be forwarded to the City Commission for first and second reading and adoption. I'm available for any comments or questions you may have.

Thank you recommending the extension of the moratorium for another six months. Yes to October 15th. I believe okay Any public comment? either in this room or Online Seeing none any comments or discussion on the on the planning board If not, I would ask for a motion I

I'll make a motion to extend. I second.

Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay. Motion carries. All right. On to our last item, item number four.

Thank you. The last item on the agenda is PB-2026-005, the ordinance of the mayor and city commission of the city of South Miami, Florida, amending section 20-8.2 definitions and section 20-8.5 permitted in a special Permitted in special non-residential uses of Articles 8, Transit Supportive Development District of the Land Development Code to provide regulations relating to adult entertainment, providing for corrections, severability, conflicts, implementation, and an effective date. This item will be handled by the City Attorney, Mr. Edward Martos. Thank you.

Thank you, Marcus. I'm sure you all recall from our last meeting this item. This has to do with adult entertainment uses. And as we discussed, there are multiple changes that the board is welcome to make to recommend to the ordinance. the reason why this ordinance is being brought before you is because when we originally the tscd rules we put in a one thousand foot spacing requirement from various uses parks schools this is a very common requirement. It has been brought to our attention that the requirement effectively eliminates the use entirely from the city. And an existing operator has expressed concern that this would potentially violate Florida law. In particular, First Amendment rights to expression. So we examine the ordinance we have always We always put in the TSD as it was said earlier in the meeting with regard to another item When you're doing major rewrites of a zoning code things come gradually you work out the kinks So we had always intended that as a placeholder now is the right time to address that adjustment then the ordinance that you see before you is the same as a one that that you had seen earlier. No changes have been made between the last reading and this one. What has been done is that I've done, our office has done additional research, additional examination of some of the ideas that you explored. to refresh your memories. Some of those ideas were modification to hours, operation, modification to distance requirements, modifications to security, protocols. Signage is another item that we discussed. And also just the general location. What the ordinance currently contemplates is that this use would be permitted in the TSDD and specifically on two streets, Progress and Commerce, which are currently the majority of the existing uses there are really kind of semi-industrial warehouse type uses today. And so I'm open to conversation, whatever conditions you guys want to impose on it. If you want to go back deep into the ordinance and go line by line, we can do that as well. But I think this is your third time looking at this. I think you're familiar with the general outline.

So do I need to open this for public comment? Yes, please. So let me open this for public comment. If anyone would like to speak on it, please sign in. Were you sworn in earlier?

I was. Okay. My name is Amy Donner. I live at 6000 Southwest 76th Street. And I've never been to a planning and zoning meeting before. Walk up. This is very tedious. You guys are remarkable. Thank you for doing this work.

So I live on 76th Street, and I'm an early bird, and I walk early in the morning at 5, 530.

I have coffee at 6 o'clock at European Cafe. And the adult entertainment operator in that neighborhood, I assume, is the one applying to move. I don't know that, but it's awful. The people that spill out. are all over the neighborhood. There are police all over the neighborhood. And it's not compatible with the other uses in the neighborhood, with coffee shops and dog walkers. And it's just an incompatible use. And the idea that you have to make a space for it in a city this size, I don't think that that really will hold up in a court of law. If you were Hialeah, but there are other places for them to go in Miami-Dade County. And there is a precedent for that. So given the size of South Miami, there is no place, to your point, there is no place once you consider all the distances from student housing parks, the schools, the churches. You guys have already discussed this, I understand, ad infinitum. But I just want to add, as a person experiencing it, I know that the people that own the shops and stuff around there, they don't want to let them in to go to the bathroom. They're on three-day bingers. It's really terrible. It's just a really bad use, and we don't need it. And there are other places for them to go that are more compatible. You know up on Bird Road if you have to put them in South Miami And now you're gonna combine that with student housing. I mean talk about insult to injury and on that and that That the industrial I call it because that's where I get my car done That side of South Miami is even worse because all those businesses are open super early in the morning so the conflict with other uses in that neighborhood is worse than the conflict with other uses in my neighborhood. So I think they had a good run, and I'd run them out of town. Thank you.

MARK MCQUEEN, JR.: Thank you very much. Any other comments? Any other comments? Anybody online? I don't see any. Okay, so let's open it to discussion. You're on the planning board.

I'm happy to run with it. Um, if I may through the chair. Yep. Um, I have. Lost sleep on this one, honestly, and to, you know, to the point that, you know, it's like, as we mentioned to the crowd earlier that, um. You know, we, we, we take this position seriously. Nothing's ever ever stamp here. So I did speak to merchants. I spoke to residents, neighbors. I spoke to some law enforcement. And it dawns on me that some of the concerns that we need to consider also is what burden does this have, if any, on our services? How many service requests do we get? to or because of this use in our city? And what costs does that bear? And that's something that I think we should quantify. I don't know if it's a public service request. I don't think we'll get that tonight. The other thing that I find challenging, and we just had interesting testimony from a resident, But the request to reduce this by over 60% distance to schools and parks, after that testimony we just heard, it's very unsettling. That is a great weight to bear for this board and for our commission to tell the residents that that's the mission. And you mentioned signage earlier. So on top of that, now we're going to have signage within a football field of a school and a park and churches. So I would say, by far, signage would need to be subtle and have height limitations and all kinds of stuff. to that effect.

I think we have a lot of signage rules in place.

It's not defined in this particular verbiage.

The key signage rule that's currently in the draft ordinance before you specifies that the signage has to be along the frontage of facing progress or commerce and it cannot be seen from any other right of way. And if you know the orientation of commerce, you know, they sort of face each other, right? They don't face, if you're on Commerce for Progress, you cannot be seen from US 1 or any of the other surrounding streets. So that's our goal. But you bring up a good point with respect to height, and perhaps there's another restriction that can guarantee there's not going to be any sort of spillage of that sign from other locations.

Yeah, I mean, the intention of maybe having it seen from US 1 would be challenging because then it means it's seen from very far away as well.

Right, and that wouldn't be practical, it wouldn't be possible because of the orientation of those streets today.

The other thing I would say is, you know, bringing into the conversation of law enforcement, maybe we can add that, you know, the on-site, surveillance cameras are shared with our police department, you know, that there's a more cohesive connection there where the police department is directly involved with this process, requiring minimum a D-class security guard provided by the Department of Agricultural and Commerce Services. And I say minimum because D-class is not like a high-level security guard. It's a certification, but we could even maybe consider going beyond that.

You could see that they've changed the... I mean, I think you did make a change. That wasn't the way it was originally, was it? It doesn't... No, the ordinance...

It doesn't speak to it. It doesn't speak to it at all.

No, I mean, in your verbiage here, we were talking about that you would have security guards and or off-duty police officers, and you would go from 1 up until 8 p.m. Correct. To where you go to 3 from 8 p.m. Yeah, but... That was in the prior version as well.

I think what Mr. Guerra is saying is he'd like to have a minimum level of certification for that security guard. If it's not an off-duty police officer. Obviously, an off-duty police officer has... Can we mandate off-duty police officers?

Only if you think you can supply them.

Yeah, I hesitate to do that, but I can look into it. I can look into it to see whether that's feasible. That could be a recommendation.

And going back to the resident's statement, the hours of operation are relevant. A lot of these kids go to school really early. A lot of these kids get meals early in the morning at these schools. And to be crossing paths in this process

We can pull this back to 5 a.m. across the board as opposed to the 7 a.m. that was originally contemplated during the weekdays. I'm skeptical about people getting food delivery at 5 a.m., but I do think you would give people a chance to clear the area to get out before kids start rolling in. Absolutely. Before the parents start trying to dump the kids off in the area. OK. And I do think the auto body, again, I don't know how much they're permitted to do prior to 7 AM or 8 AM. Well, you have a bunch of gyms back there too, right? They do.

They do.

I think you have to look at the hours carefully to make sure there's not an overlap with the daylight crowd.

And I'll leave you with two other thoughts. In terms of distances, I would say that if there needs to be a reduction to find a path forward, it should be no less than 750, not 300. And we should create a limitation of closest distance between establishments. Because we're not trying to create a district here.

Okay. Yeah, I talked to Ed about that. I'd like to see it just like we did with, and you were on the board at the time, with dispensaries, where we said we couldn't have more than X dispensaries either within four blocks or whatever the number is.

I think for dispensaries, it's 500 feet between dispensaries. That's right. Yeah. You could use a different number, though. Each use is unique, and so if you think a different number is necessary, we can...

The idea, if I remember correctly, on the dispensary piece, we were doing that not to really try to regulate anything other than we didn't want to become a dispensary district. Frankly, we were including CVS, Walgreens, whatever in that whole thing. So it was a retail establishment focused on selling, you know... Prescriptions and things like that so same thing. I wouldn't I don't think any of us would like to become the district of Is incompatible with what we're trying to do in South Miami so?

Understood putting something into that effect Understood with that in mind though is does that not open the door for a second operator to claim the same infringement upon their rights In what sense Well, if we're saying that, yes, okay, this person can operate in this district with these conditions, but similar business can exist within a certain distance from this one, are we not worried about that second operator raising the same complaint?

Yes, and the key distinction here and what the courts look at is reasonableness. So, for example, the courts are, and I'm going to oversimplify this, but the courts say is you can't completely exclude the use outright. You also can't say it's going to be within 20 miles and your town's only 10 miles wide, right? And you're going to say the restriction is within 20 miles because that's the same as a prohibition. What we need to be worried about is if you specified 1,000 feet and it's physically impossible to do 1,000 feet anywhere in the city, that could be seen as an effective prohibition. It could be seen that way. And I emphasize it could be seen because there are a million circumstances out there. For example, what happens if a school pops up after the fact, after you've already second in time to your location? So it's always going to come down to a reasonableness standard. In this circumstance, for example, with the distance separation between the uses, we're identifying a minimum of these two streets. And these two streets have over 1,000 feet Now, how the measurement is done under the proposed ordinance is by sidewalk. So if you've got two streets parallel to one another, now you've got not only are they over 1,000 feet, but you also have the walking path because you have to round the corner.

We would need to distinguish that then it's the nearest path.

Yes, the way what I would propose if you're going to do a spacing is door to door, right? Front door to front door, not back doors.

It would have to be the nearest, right? Because you could walk all the way around the block. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What can we do as a crow flies? Sorry?

What can we do as a crow flies?

No crows go.

I propose that we do this one the way in this manner because we examined... the legislation already contemplates for schools and other places that it will be by pedestrian path. And so we're just being consistent between the two. And the analysis that we had done as to locations that would work, we already did, was by pedestrian path. So that's how we helped find this location. CHRIS RODGERS- Christina?

CHRISTINA TOSI- Yeah, the pedestrian path, is that from the edge of the building to the other edge of the building? Because it's not door to door.

Pedestrian path is front. So for schools, parks, churches, it's front door of the establishment to the property line for the school, church, or park. For establishments, traditionally what most municipalities do is they do door to door. They treat establishment spacing different from schools because schools are actually a great example. The school is usually a large property with a big lot. It's got kids playing in the playground. It's got a front door also. And the front door is not necessarily where the playground is. you know, we kind of cater to those different uses a little bit differently. For establishments, traditionally, it's done door-to-door. That's not to say it has to be done the same way as it's done traditionally. Board, if you have other recommendations, we're all ears.

Gus or Dan, do you have any comments or thoughts? Gus, you're talking and you're not off mute.

no chair i just i i'm good i mean same same thing i said last time if it has to be there you know it's all agreed upon and it has to be on one of those two i would even say sunday through thursday even less than 5 00 a.m uh so me the school in question which my daughters go to they have a tutoring program i drop them off every monday and thursday at 6 30 in the morning If you're going to 5 a.m., by the time it closes, spill out, the workers get walked to their car. It's an easy hour there, you know, give or take. You're going to cross paths. So if it's possible, I'd even say Thursday, sorry, Sunday through Thursday, even move that up a little bit. You know, I don't know if 2 a.m. is possible, even 3, but going to 5. You know, I'm not going to say I frequent clubs, but spillovers are always.

Literally around the block from the elementary school.

Yeah, I'm telling you. Guys, put it this way. At the morning drop off of that school, the line that goes, you know, the drop off line before the gate opens, it seeps into where this is being proposed to be. So if it could be moved up on Sunday through Thursday before 5, I would say that would be huge.

What time would you like? Pick a time. I think what Ed's trying to tell us is we can design what we want to propose to move forward. Yeah. And so if we want it to be 3 a.m., we think that's fair, gives them a chance to clear, you know, whatever we think in the group is reasonable.

Yeah, if you're telling me to pick a time, I'd say 3 a.m. I'd say 3 a.m. Okay. More than enough time to clear and before the 200 kids get there at 6, 6.15 in the morning.

And so on Friday and Saturday, I could make an argument that you would keep it similar or maybe take it to 4 AM. But we have a pretty significant running community in South Miami. They're out on the streets organized and heading out. And that's a ridiculously early hour because of the heat. And so it won't be me out there, but, you know. But so I would propose that we use earlier time as well for Friday and Saturday. Let's say 4 a.m. Okay. If that works for everybody. I see that as a safety issue. I agree.

There's also a biking community.

Big time.

And they tend to bike like at 5, 530. Yeah. Because they're trying to avoid the traffic. And there's also a gym in the industrial area. And I think they open like at 545, aside from obviously the school. So I think that would reduce any adverse impacts it would have on, you know, the spillage and having any kind of disruptions.

And I don't know, we talked about this a little bit, what is a distance from parks, schools, et cetera, that we can use that would allow someone to be in there? But, and I think, so what is a reasonable number? Is it 500 feet?

Is it 750? I think 500 feet would work. 750 feet might work as well. It's, you know, very often this is a very factual, intensive issue because it depends on where your door is, right? You pull a building permit and you move your door.

So what if we try the 750, because that's not way off what we originally proposed. Okay. I agree. To the extent of not, so we don't develop a neighborhood of late night artistic dancing that we do put in that we don't want to have, they need to be separated by at least 750 feet.

So you want that for both the parks, schools, and churches and also for the establishments?

Establishments themselves being both. They need to be both, absolutely.

Okay. I also agree with Danny's suggestion about the certification of the private security guards or whatever he had mentioned. That was a good idea, too.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Off-duty police. And I don't know. We need to stipulate South Miami off-duty police. If we open up the off-duty policemen in Miami-Dade County, I would think that we would be OK. and that would give them a broader pool to yank from.

So you'd like it to be limited to off-duty police as opposed to the option of- It'd be my preference.

I don't know if that's really feasible. Okay. I think I'd overlay Danny's comments about certification.

We will research whether that's an option, and that could be a condition, by the way. Yeah. Staff, and we'll speak to the police department also. Yeah. I think they have a lot of guidance to provide for us.

And I would add that it's important that maybe we take some details on the service calls to the commission for them to digest. This is, I mean, and it's not just to an establishment of this genre, call it, but of, you know, anything in and around it because I think sometimes, you know, the problems move off property next door as opposed to, and that's what I heard from a lot of merchants.

Look, I'm not going to try to tell anybody that nothing ever happens outside BT's, but I live six blocks south of it. I mean, directly, same corner of 79th Street. And so, and I'm out sometimes that early, not a lot, but a lot of my friends and my wife run down in that area, and it's quieter than it was when it used to be, whatever the bar was there before. BT's does, I think, a good job of keeping it internal, and so I'm not seeing the same activity down there, and I'm down there early enough that I'd see remainders of it, people still being sorted and so forth. So we need to recognize that we need support, et cetera, but It's not the same animal as it once was.

I mean, the only thing I'll... Sorry.

No, go ahead. Go ahead.

I was just going to add that at the end of the day, this is an ordinance that's going to go beyond BTs or whatever other adult entertainment there's going to be. And we can't just rely on like what, for example, one owner does because that owner can change. So I still think we should... you know, include nothing.

This is intended for all.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

This is the same restriction.

We're also acknowledging what you said. I agree.

And I want to go back to Danny's comment on signage. I do think we ought to be able to put a height restriction on the sign that would guarantee that it isn't the beacon of, you know.

Or if it's illuminated that it's only on during hours of operation or something like that. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Anything more?

And what else do you think we need to make this something that is recommendable, that doesn't put us in dormy or put us in stalemate?

I think everything that you've proposed so far is reasonable. I think these are great comments. I like them a lot. I don't have any other recommendations, really, on you guys to propose.

A motion?

I will make a motion to proceed to recommend a parole, given all the comments that we've received. OK.

Understood. For clarity, I'm going to read back to you the comments as I wrote them down. OK. Prior to city commission, we're going to ask the police department and our code enforcement to quantify impacts on police services.

Right. Or municipal services. Yeah. I'll change that. Municipal services. Any services, period.

Okay. Yeah. From these uses for the city commission's information for their, so that guides their conversation. With respect to signage, we are going to add a height limitation to further ensure that it's not visible from other rights of way. or other properties. We're going to specify also that if the signage is illuminated, it's only on during operating hours, while it's operating. With respect to security, we're going to ask a minimum of a D-class security license for security professionals. And I'm gonna go ahead and suggest that we say, or such greater requirement as the police chief might recommend. So if there's some greater license that we're not aware of, I did some research. It sounds like Mr. Guetta did some research. He's a knowledgeable guy. Exactly. The next condition is to examine whether it is legally permissible to require or the police chief would be comfortable with having the security required to be off-duty police, regardless of whether it's South Miami Police or Miami-Dade County or so on. Hours of operation will change to an end time of 3 a.m. from Sunday to Thursday and 4 a.m. for Friday to Saturday. Distances will not be 300 feet but 750 feet from parks, schools, and churches. We're going to add a new distance requirement of 750 feet between adult establishments. And that's all I got.

And the distance increased from?

Yeah, from 300 to 750. Oh, you already said that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

Anything more? 750 feet away from something?

I believe so. By pedestrian path, because you've got to round the corner.

So with that in mind, we have a motion. Do we have a second?

I'll second it.

All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye.

Gus? Aye. Danny?

Aye.

Aye. OK. Unanimous. Yep. All right. Find my agenda here. All right. Sadly, that's the last thing we have in front of us. New business. I don't think we have anything right now. The minutes. Can I make one request, Marcus? I'm not sure how we got away from this. But on the minutes, especially on, and I could live with this on the deferred items only, which would be if we're deferring something, we think it's going to come back, is to have some level of detail. What the deferral we generally say we would like to have some bullet points about the deferral What we were talking about so we don't go back and read invent the wheel because our memories suck Okay, so the minutes any questions comments if not do I have a motion for approval Second

Second.

All in favor? Yes. Aye. All right. And next meeting date is May 12th. So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good night.

I don't know. He was on and he was off. Yeah. The new fellow.