City Commission - Regular Meeting

at the city commission meeting of the city of St. Pete Beach. Today is Tuesday, February 10th, 2026. It is 6 p.m. And let's stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. City clerk, if you can please call roll. Vice Mayor Marriott here. Commissioner Robinson here. Commissioner Rzniki here. Commissioner Maldonado here. And Mayor Patula here.

We have a quorum. Thank you. The first item is the approval of the agenda. Are there any amendments to the agenda as proposed? I have some discussion items. Okay. Um first one would be I'd like to discuss the uh uh three times permit fee on after the fact permits. Number two, an update on Mike Twitty coming for presentation. and three historic designation.

Okay. Are there any other amendments? Oh, we had um ordinance the second final reading of 2025-24, the revisions to the code of ordinances chapter 131 and 132 pertaining to communication and small wireless facilities. Uh we received an expert report Friday at 6 PM after the packets had already gone out. We also received proposed changes to the ordinance from the legal team for the citizens um yesterday on Monday that haven't been distributed. Um so we'd ask for time to review those and put those in the packet. I think it's important that the public see what's proposed as well as give you time to read uh the proposed changes, the expert report and understand what you're voting on before we vote on it. So we'd ask that item be continued. continue.

The date that we're looking at date certain is March 13th. March 24th. March 24th. We wouldn't have time for February. Don't we have another commission meeting by February or even the earlier March one? Francis, we definitely do not have time to turn it around for the second meeting in March because of the timelines and we keep running up against these timelines and then we don't have the packets prepared um for but the first meeting in March could work. last. Okay.

It just gives us less time to make sure we bring you a complete ordinance since we are working between two different stakeholder teams and trying to get you a very clear presentation of what the ordinances that you're going to be considering and what are the alternatives based on the two different stakeholder teams that they're presenting as options or considerations for the commission. I think the sooner the better on this. It's been out there for a while. So yeah, we've been working on this for six months now. So the soonest if soonest is the first one in March, then I you know would take

you will have some choices to make then at that meeting. Yeah. Okay.

Is there additional information you can share with us today? Um well there one of the main issues is whether there is a separation between towers particularly on replacement towers of utility poles and whether that's allowed by state statute and trying to look for an area um a workaround if you will from any state preeemptions regarding that and then trying to make sure that if we have setbacks from real property lines um of adjacent property that that doesn't act as an absol absolute prohibition um which is not allowed by the state statute either. And I have a table and a chart we'll put together for you so you can see the distances and and whether or not it acts to prohibit them completely which is not allowed. And this is when we're talking about the city right away small facilities. It's a bit easier and we could do it on the other towers.

Well, just a question. I don't know if you're look I mean I don't know if we should have a discussion on it but can we add a discussion item for this? Yeah. Could we do it that way? Just so we could ask questions about that. Is that possible? Just so we could talk so that way it doesn't happen later. You know like if there's some things that we might already have on our minds that it could help to prepare for the upcoming meeting. Seems that we have a lot of people here. Well, would you be opposed to moving that discussion item to the place of where we were going to have the conversation about it? because I think we may have a lot of people here who want to speak on the 5G and I don't think they should have to sit here for 3 hours when it was the first item on the agenda. That would be fine. Okay, let's do that. Thank you.

Okay. Are there any other amendments proposed? Is there a motion to approve the amended agenda? I make a motion to approve the amended agenda. Second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Mayor Petrilla, yes. The motion carries. Thank you. All right. The first item is a presentation by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners. Laura Canary, community development director. This evening, um, I'm very excited to announce that we have Sarah Vatitali here from the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. She's the director of civic technology and has been extremely helpful and a wonderful partner over the last several months in working this density bonus pool um, tool out for us. Um, just a couple things that I want to note before she goes into her presentation. Again, this tool is specifically for those density pool units. There's other economic um modeling tools that we would use for let's say a regular project or a byite project. So this is specifically for the density pool units exclusively. And secondly, it's really meant to be a fluid tool and like a staff tool. That's why we don't really have you taking a formal action on it. We want to be able to refine this as we use it and be able to go back as we determine as a city that maybe we need to put more weight towards say resiliency improvements, you know, so that we can have that flexibility. And then of course just as the market conditions change from a real estate standpoint, we'll we'll need to plug in the information accordingly. So without further ado, I'm going to introduce Sarah Vitali to go through the presentation. Thank you.

Good evening Sarah. Good evening.

Uh thank you for the opportunity to uh present this to you. Got to yank it. Right. There we go. There you go.

So for the record, my name is Sarah Vitali. I'm with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and I'm here to walk you through this decision support framework. Uh a framework that the city can use to evaluate requests for bonus unit density requests. So, it's a spreadsheet template specifically developed for St. Pete Beach to help staff estimate the market value created by your vote by allowing bonus units and to compare that value with the developer proposed uh public benefits package. So, I'm with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. We are the regional planning council for the six counties and 23 cities, municipalities in our region. And our role is to support local governments by providing technical assistance, analysis, and decision support tools. We don't regulate land use, uh, approve projects, or set local policy. Instead, we help cities and counties think through trade-offs, understand impacts, and make more informed decisions. So, this framework I'm presenting today fits really squarely within that role. I also want to recognize and thank Commissioner Resniki for her leadership uh representing St. Pete Beach on our board. uh and to introduce you to our TBRPC liaison uh Megan Blancher back there who serves as your primary point of contact and helps keep the city informed about our work uh the lesson learn lessons learned from other communities and resources that may be helpful to you. So I'm going to cover three uh parts of the the framework today. Uh discussing the framework itself and how the bonus density value is defined, how that logic is implemented in a spreadsheet template and then how the city could use this tool going forward. So a core concept in the framework is this idea of the trade. So every time

that the city approves bonus density, it takes a discretionary public action, your vote, and creates new private value. And that value does not exist by right. It exists only because the city allows those additional units to be developed beyond what the zoning permits. So that's the city's currency in this trade framework. Um it's that access to bonus units, units that cannot be built by right. Then there's the developers currency. Those are the public benefits either cash or inind public benefits. Uh benefits that advance the city's priorities uh such as resilience or infrastructure investments, public access, boat slips, public art, uh workforce housing. All of these things could be considered a public benefit with of value to the city. So this framework makes that exchange explicit and visible so that staff and the commission can clearly see both sides of the value being created and exchanged before those ne negotiations become hardened positions. So the goal is efficiency, consistency and defensible decision-making. Another core concept is what is the vote worth? The value of a density bonus is measured as the incremental land value created by allowing those additional units. So it's in the framework, we're comparing what a site is worth under existing zoning to what it's worth with those approved uh bonus density units. And the difference between those two values is the unearned increment. And that itself is the value created solely by your public action, by your vote. So in simple terms, we're not valuing the entire project. We're trying to isolate the value created by your vote. So for example, you can build 150 units by right and your approval allows 170 units. Now the question is what are

those extra 20 units worth in the market? That's the value that the city helped to create and that's the value we're trying to understand when we're negotiating these public benefits. And behind the scenes, the template applies standard real estate valuation methods. So the same types of methods that lenders or appraisers would be using uh based on project type. So uh you can see in the the bottom some of the default benchmarks. The condominium project type would use sales comparables. Rental projects would use stabilized net operating income and a capitalization rate. and hotel uses lodging would use room revenue assumptions and hotel capitalization rates. So all of the benchmarks that are embedded in the tool, they're really starting points and uh not appraisals or fixed fees. Uh they function like cost estimates or or traffic assumptions. So they represent an order of magnitude input and it's intended that they be refined over time as market values evolve. Uh so all the benchmarks are listed in the settings tab of this spreadsheet so staff can continue to update them as local conditions change. Now the capture rate once the value is estimated the next question is how much of that value should reasonably come back to the public that's what establishes your capture rate. So in this framework there are three different tiers that range from a more development friendly uh tier uh for maybe markets that are emerging or in a more uncertain uh standing. Then there's more of a balanced range, a tier 2 split where your capture rate is around 40 to 60% of the value, the incremental value that was created by your vote. And then

you've got the tier three, the public first range uh for strong constrained markets. Uh in this template, I set the starting uh capture rate at 77% to represent the city's finite density pool. These units are gone once once they're developed. So that's a pretty high uh value item. There's a lot of scarcity involved with that. So I set you up in the tier three just as an example for this for this presentation. But that capture rate, it reflects a posture, not the economics alone. And it varies based on the market strength, the scarcity of the remaining units in that pool and then how your negotiation evolves. You may start in tier 2 and then decide, hey, they're going to give us these public benefits. Let's make this a little bit more development friendly and lower the capture rate as you go through the negotiation process. So, it's meant to be fluid and and dynamic. finding the winwin. So the the negotiation feasibility how successful a negotiation is really depends on this overlap between two thresholds. On one side you have the city's minimum expectations and that's based on this capture rate that is applied to the value that was created by the bonus units and then on the other hand is the developer feasibility limit. So that's the maximum contribution that a project could support uh contribution being public benefits value uh while maintaining a reasonable return on their investment. So shown here using a benchmark for um minimum profit margin. So where those two thresholds overlap is called the zone of possible agreement or the ZOPA. So if a a proposal falls within that zone of possible agreement, it's meeting the city's expectations,

it's remaining feasible to the developer. If it falls below that range, it's not meeting the city's expectations or their minimum threshold under those assumptions that are established in the template. So this is replacing some of the subjective uh negotiation and and judgment that's taking place with more with a more clear and defensible explanation uh of why the proposal is or isn't ready to move forward. So this this logic is implemented in our uh spreadsheet template and I want to remind you it's this internal decision support tool. It's not something that applicants would necessarily fill out and it's not something that would replace the city commission's discretion. Um, and here's just an example of that zone of potential agreement as a diagram. So you can see you have the city's minimum uh floor at that 77% capture rate and then the best case scenario for the city is that they capture the entire uh value that they've created and then you have this negotiable range between 77 to 85 in this example and it overlaps with the developers uh frame uh I guess range preferred range where their best case would be zero that they're not paying paying anything for this extra density or up to uh 50 15% of the value. They don't want to lose that as their profit margin. So those thresholds are establishing your ZOPA diagram. So back to the template, these are just screenshots from the uh Google spreadsheet and it's uh the workflow is pretty straightforward. Step one, the staff would enter uh project facts from the

application. So the unit counts, uh the unit type, the location. Um there's no judgment or decision- making that's really happening at this stage. And the there are yellow required user inputs. Gray is things that are auto calculated in the template. And then blue are optional overrides, which I'll get back to in just a minute. And there are five tabs. So the inputs tab, the engine where it's just calculating the valuation formulas. The staff don't need to do anything there. Uh then the summary which shows you the diagram that I just showed you, the ZOPA diagram and some recommendations. And then uh there's a settings tab where staff can review and update and maintain these benchmarks and these assumptions that fuel the tool. Uh, and then there's a final tab, the ledger tab, where it's it's designed to help staff over time uh, monitor the density pools to know if we're if whether or not there's some scarcity happening across the pools. Uh, I I heard that that might be something that's helpful for staff to save time and be more efficient. But here's the inputs tab. So, as I said before, you're entering the project name and the applicant, the address, what the use type is. That's going to drive which real estate valuation formula happens in the next uh tab. Uh which density pool you're pulling from, residential units or uh the temporary lodging units, what the base entitlement is, and then what the requested uh bonus unit request is over base entitlement. And then the market type. So, it could be an inland property or a gulfront property. And again, I'm helping the city by creating the template and the structure, but all of this can be customized. You can have multiple tiers of market types that create different multipliers. The the

real service is to create the structure and the framework, but I I'm excited to see how the city can evolve that to to be most useful for for them. Uh, so then and then building type, whether it's low, mid, or highrise. And then uh you're going to assess the proposal. Uh in step two of the inputs tab, this is where you're able to create essentially recreate the developers public benefits offer or their package. You go in and list each one uh the quantity of what they're offering. So for example, kayak launches. there's 10 kayak launches and they're telling us they value that at 20,000. So $2,000 a kayak launch. Is that reasonable or not? The tool won't necessarily tell you that uh for some for an example that's specific like that and there aren't as many industry benchmarks to compare it to, but it gives you a place to document this and document the change over time and it gives the city a column to assign their own value to that same benefit. So you can compare what the developers suggest the value is to the city's suggestion over time and see how far off uh these two players in this the negotiation are from each other. Within that same tab uh there's this public benefits benchmark library. So this is intended to be a starting point for for staff and the city. But what we're doing here is trying to capture how different public benefits are valued. So using case studies and examples from other communities, did they assess the the value of a living shoreline by linear square feet or seaw wall by linear square feet? And then what what benchmark was used to help them understand that value? Uh this is

intended to evolve and it's really intended to be an estimate. So, as you read the public benefits benchmark, you'll see uh parks or plaza, dollar per square foot with a low, a high, and then a median uh benchmark that's applied. So, the goal isn't to come up with one specific number, but really just a low estimate and a high estimate. And what would be applied in the formulas are whatever is derived as the median between those two. Or that blue column, the override is where if you did a specific study and you know the exact value of this shoreline investment, you can pop that right in and it'll override what this template uh comes with, which is just a lot of industry benchmarks. The next step all in the inputs tab is the strategic priority section. So in here this becomes a bit more qualitative. uh you can like I said before the city can establish this capture rate and it can evolve over time and another way to establish the capture rate is to uh basically self-score uh the the development proposal for the public benefits and think to how well does it align with our strategic priorities uh operational excellence recovery resilience and sustainability community prosperity reliable infrastructure and economic development and smart growth there's different criteria for each, but you can give that uh public benefits package as a whole a rating of one through three and that will weight the the score and then it'll shift your uh capture rate up or down based on how well it's aligning with the community's or the city strategic uh priorities. So you put in all the inputs, it does

the formulas and the engine and then it spits out the summary tab. And what information is valuable here is you see that the city's minimum required amount for public benefits and it's a dollar value, but that dollar value could be made up of different types of public benefits. That's also what gets spit out on the summary page is the breakdown of the developer offer. Um, and then you see their total current offer and then you see the difference. So, how far away are we from that win-win zone of uh possible agreement area. So, you get the chart that shows the different negotiation threshold ranges. You get the at the very bottom, it's a little hard to see it, but it says the current offer. So, what you want to see, and as the negotiations evolve, you want to get that closer to that green range. But right now you see that in this example the current offer is way below what the city should uh accept way below the the value is undervalued in terms of the density bonus units that the city is going to give away um in this scenario. So, this is a bad deal. And I'm happy to say I took a look at the Corey Landings project uh earlier today and it's a I I have to refine the tool slightly because it gives us an interesting uh result here, but it is on the positive side or it is a it's a good deal. Um the the minimum required benefits were set lower than what the actual offer was. So, that's not necessarily that that things are wrong in this template. It just means that there's means a couple different things. Uh maybe a portion of the benefits aren't just the discretionary uh incremental value. Maybe it's including like some of the impact related benefit or impact fees associated with the bonus units.

So that might be what's skewing this. Uh and also it might just be a lot of conservative assumptions that I baked into the tool. But by applying it to this past project, it's neat to understand how this tool needs to be refined to be more accurate. So you're trying to really reflect what actually happened. So that's a good way to continue to refine the tool so that it's ready for future projects. Can I ask something really quick before is is the five million on the bottom the maximum on the you've got a line all the way down in the bottom. No, the maximum is at three million. I think it just kept that's the x- axis and it went too far. Gotcha. Okay.

It's the city's uh ceiling. So the far right uh 3 3,400,68,750.

Thank you. So how the template is applied, this is basically summarizing uh what I've stated, but before ideally before the proposal reaches a commission, staff have picked up a template that has just made things quicker for them. They're not starting from scratch in every new bonus density proposal. They're estimating the value that's created by these bonus units using assumptions or refining the assumptions. uh they're applying a capture rate to establish this minimum expectation that the city should capture a certain amount of value for these bonus density units. Then they're comparing the benefits package that the developers presented to what this minimum expectation is uh to better understand those different zones and how far away are we from a win-win ZOPA uh situation. And a reminder, if you're within that range or higher in the Corey Landing case, um you're meeting that minimum expectation and it's an economically feasible project uh for the developer, that sounds close to a win-win. Uh if it's below, it's not meeting the city's minimum threshold under that assumption that's baked into the template. Uh additional public benefits might be needed. That might be one approach that the city could explore. Maybe there needs to be fewer units offered for the same amount of public benefits. You can tweak that and see how that affects your range or uh just in general further negotiations are are warranted. At least gives you that much information to to take with you in your next steps. So uh customized template tool intentionally structured so staff can add or refine these benchmarks over time adjust the assumptions so when the market changes so this tool can change. It also creates some homework because it can become outdated if it's not maintained. Um you can continue to

expand the public benefits benchmark library and you can apply discretion as the ne negotiations progress by tracking it in this tool. So the real crux of it all is is the benchmarks. I think the the public benefits benchmark library. It's challenging to uh value something that isn't easy to put into a market and assign a dollar value to. So I think there's a lot of great uh long-term outcomes for other projects when it comes to understanding the benchmarks and how different infrastructure is valued. But the point is that staff no longer has to guess if a project or a seaw wall is really enough for 25 units. Next steps refining the calculations is a clear next step uh by staff and with uh this is opportunity for you all to give us feedback. So continue to refine this uh incorporate local cost data and outcomes. If there's been fee studies done at the city level, that's the perfect information as local as possible is what makes this tool uh the most valuable. And then testing it against real projects to learn from it and continue to refine it. Uh documenting the lessons learned from negotiations and approvals and then refreshing these assumptions so that they stay current. So with that, I just want to thank the city for the opportunity to do this work. I learned a ton. Um, and I think that there you all have been kind of like the ta the test subject for this type of study and there's a lot of lessons learned that we can transfer to other communities in the region. So thank you and I'm happy to answer some questions.

Thank you, Sarah. Commissioner's comments questions. Um, how many cities in the um Tampa Bay area have pool density?

Uh, they have I don't know the exact number of cities. I looked at a lot of different cities, not just in our region, but uh in other states as well, and I tried to look at cities of the similar scale, Barrier Islands. Um, many have bonus density programs, but none are exactly as stringent as strict as uh St. P beach when it comes to uh negotiating really unit by unit and less so the height of the development or the floor area ratio other ways to uh cons you know there's other development concessions that are in play in a negotiation St. P is to in my experience in reviewing it is pretty unique and challenging in a way where it's just that's it the units and that's it. Um, one other thing I forgot to mention is there's a like a word document that goes along with the spreadsheet and that's where I'm going to uh give you all the case studies that we did in the first portion of this project. So, you can read about uh some of those examples I was talking about.

Commissioner Marriott.

Yeah, thank you. Um, so first I want to thank Commissioner Resniki for um sitting on the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council board and um helping take the lead to help get this this project going. Um, I think this is a a a really good start. Um, I think it's always good to have a consistent method of applying data to a project to try to come to a good decision. And so um, so I'm really pleased by that. And I think from a from a standpoint as a city that's looking for um you know that's looking to have individuals reinvest in our city and we have you know lots of aging aging structures and and uh and aging buildings that need to be updated and redeveloped. And so I think it's also really good to have a uh a predictable method for people who are coming into our city to do these developments. And so um I think this is an excellent tool for that as well. So, so I really appreciate that. I think the trick is going to be, as you said, keeping the the data updated and and you know, the inputs are, you know, the the assumptions that the tool makes are going to really be the critical thing that that makes the difference on whether or not this is useful or not. Um, and so I think that's going to be the the real challenge is making sure that that the the dollar values associated with those assumptions are as as accurate as they can be and that that as as our city staff is able to keep those updated as we go forward so that the tool stays accurate and useful to us.

Commissioner Baldn. Yeah. Again, thank you to uh Miss Vitali and Commissioner Risniki for the hard work and bringing this before us. I like the fact that this minimizes or reduces the guesswork and anything that we can do to uh to create a standard and duplicate is only going to benefit us in terms of transparency and um yeah know I just look forward to working with this. I would like to see the data that you mentioned that was going to be one of my questions. You know I'm I'm a fact-based person.

I'd like to see that just to make sure that we're comparing things appropriately. But I like that this is a living document or tool that it can be uh adjusted as necessary. It will require constant work and update and that's fine but you know it's something that sets a standard and that we'll be able to move forward with. So again thank you to both you ladies. Thank you. Thank you. Go commission Nikki.

I just want to say thank you you know for presentation um the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council even last Monday's meeting is just a wealth of knowledge um for local cities um municipalities and counties um statewide. Um, so I I do enjoy being on it because I learn a lot from you all. Um, and I am excited about this tool. Is there um like any goal like when when is this going to be available or is this still at the beginning states? Um, like you had mentioned, it's a living document. I don't know if it'll ever be totally complete. And I've had a hard time setting it down and stop not adding more to it. Um,

but I'll leave that up to the staff's discretion. And I I do need some time to just write up some of the takeaways from this meeting and the case studies that I mentioned but maybe within February.

Okay. So is it usable now by staff? So you guys are okay. All right. Good. That I guess that was my question. Is there a recommendation like when when to use the tool when we are in a negotiation because things are fluid and change you know um the you know at a tech review or site it's very different from when you get to site plan right. So like at what points is it right before an application or when the application is coming to commission or um we just keep changing it as it goes along as you know we're negotiating with the developer. So that number could change,

right? And I think it would change as the benefits evolve and the package sweetens or however it plays out. But I think the very first step is for staff to, you know, digest the tool and really understand how it's structured. Um, and then work with other departments to to get some more clarity on what the actual value benchmark should be. I would assume like the parks department would have a better idea, public works would have a better better idea for some of these uh benchmarks that are in the tool. I used some state standards, regional assumptions, but getting the those the settings tab uh together so it best represents St. Pete Beach, I think that's going to be uh beyond just this the community development department, but other departments to kind of come together on that. That's step one. Uh and then when it comes to negotiation or applying it for a project, I think that can start right away. uh because you know it's not going to be um completely refined. You have to kind of use it to to bring the value to it. Um and then you can continue to see where that might have gaps and you can add to it. Uh so yeah, to answer your question, I think beginning, middle, and end.

It's a good time. Thank you. I appreciate Thank you for all your hard work on it. Absolutely. Thank you,

Commissioner Mother. Yeah, just an alibi as uh Commissioner Riz Nikki was speaking that I just thought it was uh what AI implications or assumptions are you thinking about in terms of the population of the data that's going in there? You you you mentioned assumptions and it's one thing for a uh a person to plug those in manually. It's another thing for AI to help as a tool. Yeah, I did I purposefully tried to avoid going down that path for not that I'm opposed to using AI at all, but um I I tried to stay with um industry uh standards in terms of uh different uh data sources like HUD for market value. I try to go traditional um to explore how AI can can accelerate or assist in uh maintaining the tool or or updating the data is is an interesting thing and I would think that that makes a lot of sense to do. Um I built it instead of in an Excel spreadsheet I built it in a Google sheet so that it's online so that you can have uh a APIs. I forget what that stands for, but you can be pulling data into it from the property appraiser from other places on the internet. So, I think that that gives it some legs. So, if you wanted to explore AI tools, there's probably an addin for Google Sheets and maybe you can get it to start maintaining it for you in some way.

Thank you, Sarah. Um, I think this is going to be a great tool for us moving forward. Um, so usually what happens developers or somebody looking to build something, they will come and have a chat with the city manager or city staff before it ever gets a technical review or anything else. So it's it'll be good to have something we can hand to them and say, "Look, if you're going to be asking for anything, um, here's a good starting point of what we're going to be looking for. Um, is there any reason we couldn't expand this further?" So, for example, we have uh several properties that might be by right 10 units and they could ask up to 30 units per acre,

which means they're asking for an additional 20 units per acre. If they have a 2acre property, it might be asking for 40 additional units. Now, that is still requires a commission vote. It's a conditional use application. They have to come before the commission just like they would for the density pool. Is there a reason we couldn't use this in that scenario as well? I'd have to think about that. Um I really designed the the template to be thinking strictly bonus density and well it is bonus. It's not by right not by right.

It is it is by application and by a vote of the commission. So, you know, if somebody's looking for a double density, whether it's density pool or whether it's conditional use application, you know, the difference is is the same. At the end of the day, the effect is the same. Mhm. And so, you know, because this does happen all the time where somebody will come in, they'll ask for double triple density what they currently have.

Um, so this would give us a tool that we could use in more than just one scenario. think that's definitely possible. Um, yeah, it was outside of my scope to kind of apply it and think about it broadly like that, but I think that the ZOPA framework, all of this is comes from all sorts of other uh fields. So, I think there's lots of ways that you can make this a valuable tool. Okay. And I think the only other things we probably need to look at is just kind of the assumption based on values because I'm not sure you can buy anything in ST Beach for $125,000 a unit. Um, I had some sticker shock when I was looking up some of this stuff, but yeah.

Uh, but I'm sure we can come up with some um some more accurate data and and more, you know, market value driven data. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, city clerk. Do we have any general audience comments?

Russell Boring. Please state your name and address for the record. Good evening. I'ming of 215 43rd Avenue, St. Pete Beach, Florida 33706. As I said, I'm Russell Boring. My wife, daughter, and I have lived here in St. Pete Beach for over 25 years. I attended last night's uh League of Women Voters forum to hear what the candidates for mayor had to say about the recovery and future provision, excuse me, for prevention of flood issues in our area. Let me tell you, I was appalled by the conduct of our current mayor. Despite preliminary instructions and later repeated admonitions that the candidates conduct themselves civily and refrain from any personal or character attacks, Mr. Petrella opened with a shameless personal attack on his opponent. Not surprisingly, he did not mention that he had lost his own home in a foreclosure lawsuit. You can look it up. It's Collier County civil case number 1229323CA. Again, that's 122923CA. It gets worse. Adrien Petrilla had or has bigger problems than that. There's a money judgment against him for a bad debt by American Express in excess of $24,000. That's case number 112013CA 0034700. And even worse, there's a federal tax lean from the IRS against him for $15,000. $15,932, excuse me. It's blatantly clear that

Adrien Petrella considers himself above the law and beyond the rules of our society. That became obvious when he had a work crew at his house doing repairs and dry out the very next morning after the Helen storm. While the rest of us couldn't even re-enter the island to check on our homes. I seriously doubt whether anyone actually believes his gas leak excuse for that incident. According to the Penllis County Sheriff's Office, there was no report of an emergency call for a gas leak. Last night, Adrien Petrella continually attacked Mr. Tate throughout the forum so much that he was admonished multiple times and the moderator had to threaten to end the meeting if it continued. He demanded zero he demonstrated zero decorum or class and is an embarrassment to his office. We need to stand up to his bullying tactics and his threats of a $42,000 assessment for residents unless we vote for his uh ridiculous toll plan. Please vote for Scott Tate, our first rate choice for mayor. Thank you.

I thought there wasn't supposed Sorry. Yep. Um I guess the rules of decorum I can read from the back of the cards that you all have. Persons addressing the commission and all boards. Any person making personal, impertinent, slanderous or profane remarks or who willingly utters loud, threatening or abusive language or engages in any disorderly conduct which would impede, disrupt or disturb the orderly conduct of any meeting, hearing or proceeding shall be called to order by the presiding officer. If such conduct continues at the discretion of the presiding officer, the person may be barred from further audience with the commission during that meeting. Let's keep that in mind as we go forward.

Next person, Todd Webb. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

This is Todd Webb, 4300 Belle Vista Drive, St. Pete Beach Peach. Just wanted to address kind of in the same uh deal. I've been here since uh the early 80s. Started homestead studying here in the early 90s. watched my family grow up here. It's It's probably the best place to live. You know, I've been a 100% service connected veteran and I've been a airline pilot, corporate pilot my entire life. I could live anywhere. I choose St. Pete Beach. And I'm concerned about how this mayor race is going. You know, um Scott is is absolutely a great guy. After the storm, he manned together people from Vina, from Belle Vista, other parts of St. Pete Beach, and he got us all like getting water for people. He got, you know, people picking up stuff for people. It was wonderful. I had a a horrible tragic thing happen. My mother drowned during the storm. He came over, gave me emotional support, unbelievably physical support, helping move stuff. He came back because I didn't know what to do with my houses. And uh he came back with spreadsheets. Crazy. I mean, showing what our houses will be worth in 10 years, if I elevate, if I don't elevate, if I rebuild. and he put things really in perspective to me, helping me with decision making. I knew right then, you know, I mean, this is this is way before the mayor race. I mean, he would be a fantastic mayor with what he was doing, showing me everything. And then, you know, of course, I was here at the

meeting last night and I thought it was almost shameful that, you know, we elected you mayor and, you know, you're name calling, you're putting these little snippets out all the time. It's just not very respectful. I mean, after this race, no matter who wins, I mean, you're both still going to live here, and we're all going to still live here. I mean, you and I, we have a mutual friend right in the neighborhood where I live. And, you know, I'd like to be friendly to you whether you win or you don't win, but as you know, you continue to, you know, run this mayor race, you know, I I don't think it's very good. And that's my that's my concern. Thank you all.

Thank you, sir. And I'm sorry for your loss, Tracy. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

It's Tracy Maki, 255 South Tessier Drive, St. P Beach, Florida. We've been here over 25 years. I've worked and lived in this community, specifically at one of our Walgreens on the beach, and I've gotten to know many of our citizens who I respect and and value their opinions. Last night, I'm on the same topic, I guess. Last night, I was disappointed to hear personal attacks instead of solutions. I don't think that that was proper. What stood out to me was how Scott Tate remained composed and respectful. He was very professionalism, and that's the kind of professionalism that we exactly what I want in a mayor representing our city. The fact is that Scott tape modeled professionalism and restraint matters that do matter to me as a voter. Leadership shows in how someone behaves when challenged. One candidate chose mudslinging while the other stayed professional focused and respectful. That contrast says a lot about who is ready to lead our city. I don't think personal attacks move our city forward. We need to stay focused on solutions and treating others with dignity. That is what Scott Tate demonstrated. When people are struggling to rebuild after storms, it's critical that leadership avoids even the appearance of self-interest and stays focused on our community. That is not what I've seen from our current mayor. As a resident, I'm concerned when false information is presented in a public forum. Specifically, references such as, you know, this gentleman played in a band in all these trade winds surro and all these other hotels and we want big, you know, overdevelopment. We don't know that. I do know that I've watched the band a couple times. He's played in the city park. He's played on Corey Avenue. I haven't seen anything where he's played in these these particular resorts. So that was a direct lie. And so when I hear a direct lie like that, I wonder what other false things are you speaking of? You know, you've had several years to turn the beach around. Yet still the drains up and down the beach, including on my own street, are full of muck. It was flooding on our street before the water ever crested the seaw wall. That's unacceptable. You

know, the these news channels have been up and shown different things about yourself that were not professional. You know, I am in a professional I'm a pharmacist, a pharmacy manager. I'm in a professional, you know, realm and I have to behave myself in a professional manner when I'm speaking to my customers. Your customers are the people of the city. You we deserve to be treated with respect and so does every other member of our city. You know, I don't believe in mudslinging. You know, we've lived through hurricanes, recovery struggles, and tough decisions. And the trust that we need is critical. What stood out last night was that Scott Tate chose professionalism and facts over attacks. And that's the leadership that I want. I don't don't believe that this is a good way to res resent our city, represent our city or yourself. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Deb Shner,

if you'll please state your name and address for the record. Yes.

Uh Deborah Shener of Bokaza Isle Drive in St. Pete Beach. I will say Scott made several digs, but he smiled while he did it. And hopefully we will receive the recording from the League of Women Voters. I haven't seen it yet. I don't know if it has been uploaded so everybody can judge for themselves. And I applaud you for bringing out truth. So I wanted to talk about the Thunder concert again. Will we need more sheriffs present? Can we have code enforcement there for the entire time to protect the turtle nest, the skimmer nests, and the several surf birds in the area? We also need the lights checked. Will fly or be part of this? Because that will scatter all of the skimmers and their nests and we may lose all the babies. How can we avoid future large beach concerts, events, etc. by city ordinance or regulation? We all know that hundreds and hundreds of concert goers will be drinking. It's not a positive for the skimmers, shorebirds, or the turtles. Not positive for our beach either. And they better clean it up beautifully afterwards. I really do fear, you know, these people going to be smoking outside and everything and just throwing everything down. Will the music be over at 10? Will the tradewind stop serving on the beach at 10 and just limit their serving of alcohol to the area that's interior of the property. We need to take a look at this is a wakeup call. This is a wakeup call for

our beach. Is this who we're going to be? party central on our beach and the trade winds I do believe said they're going to do it and fence it in I think all the way down towards the water if we don't do anything to stop it now literally everybody is going to be knocking at our door to do a big concert they'll be upam they'll be at um pass a grill and certainly at the county beach and then trade winds and This really is something that I feel we have to take seriously and put forth rules and regulations. And again, appreciate the mayor.

Thank you. There are no more general comments. Thank you. Next, we move on to the consent agenda. Is Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott.

Yes. And Mayor Petrilla, yes. The motion carries. Thank you, city clerk. Next, we move on to discussion item on the small wireless facilities.

I'll read the title of the ordinance. An ordinance of the um ordinance 2025-24. An ordinance of the city of St. P Beach, Florida, providing for amendments to the code of ordinances. Chapter 131, wireless communication towers and antennas, and chapter 132, communication facilities and public rights of way. Renaming chapter 132 to communication facilities and city rights of way providing for codification, conflict, severability, correction of scriveners, errors, construction, publication, and an effective date. Again, we've received um some changes to the ordinance uh that arrived yesterday um to pages 81 83 um then it looks like possibly 84. Um, we also received an expert uh report um at 6 PM on Friday dated February 6th from Kent Chamberlain, PhD. And these will be distributed for the next reading. Do

you have a Did you have a chance to Is there a short summary of what the changes are so we can or have we not gotten that far? Um, if you look at page 81, um, they're taking out the last two sentences and replacing with setbacks from property lines shall be based on sight specific aesthetic and concerns. But for the purpose of structural safety, there shall be a minimum setback of at least 30 feet from any existing developed structure or structure for which a site plan or permit has been submitted and deemed complete as measured from the closest point of the structure which is the minimum distance necessary as determined by the city to satisfy the structural safety or aesthetic concerns that are to be protected by the setback. Applicants may request a variance per the requirements of section 98-126 at sequence. Um there's another change in um on page 83. It has uh quite a bit of strike through and underlining. Um but just to read it without the striketh through and underlining. Um with respect to location, groundmounted small wireless facilities up to 28 cubic feet in dimension shall be located within a 10-ft radius of the existing structure or utility pole for the colllocated small wireless facility. Registrants are encouraged to locate new groundmounted small wireless facilities with reasonable spacings of at least 500 ft from other groundmounted small wireless facilities in the public rightway. Such

groundmounted small wireless facilities shall be installed in a location that meets location requirements, locationational requirements. to ensure pursuant to Florida statutes sections 337.417G 4017g and H that the placement of proposed ground equipment and communication facilities does not. And then we have the five uh criteria that the state statute does allow us to regulate in. And that is we can prohibit cell towers in locations where they materially interfere with the safe operation of traffic control equipment. Materially interfere with sight lines or clear zones for transportation, pedestrians or public safety purposes. material interfere with compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act or similar federal or state standards regarding pedestrian access and movement. D. Materially failed to comply with the 2017 edition of the Florida Department of Transportation Utility Accommodation Manual. E failed to comply with applicable codes. And Failed to comply with objective design standards authorized under 337.417R. 4017R. Then 7R says um a city may require wireless providers to comply with objective design standards adopted by ordinance. The the ordinance may only require that one, a new utility pole that replaces an existing pole be of a substantially similar design, material, and color. to reasonable spacing requirements concerning the location of ground mounted component of a small wireless facility which does not

exceed 15 feet from the associated support structure or a small wireless facility to meet reasonable location context color camouflage and concealment requirements and for a new utility pole used to support a small wireless facility to meet reasonable location context color material ial and predominant utility pole type at the proposed location of the utility pole. And it does say in um subsection 4 337.41 under four, an authority may not limited the an authority of the city may not limit the placement by minimum separation distances of small wireless facilities. utility polls on which small wireless facilities are or will be coll-located or other atgrade communication facilities.

Can you repeat that please? And this will be put in the packet to you for the next reading.

I'll replace the word authority with city since we're a city. A city may may not limit the placement by minimum separation distance of small wireless facilities, utility poles on which small wireless facilities are or will be colllocated comma or other atgrade communication facilities. Do we have any audience comments on the subject, please? Lauren Mones.

Good evening. If you'll please state your name and address for the record. Sure.

Lauren, um from Pastor Grillil. Um I was really upset to see this pulled from the agenda. Uh this is four times in a row. I feel like we're still at square one after a year of literally my giving my life to this and I think it could have been handled differently tonight, Ralph. And I really appreciate all your time and your effort in helping us with this, but tonight it didn't have to be pulled. It could have been discussed. It could have been voted in with the with the new language. And I disagree that you did receive the expert report on Friday. That's supplemental. It really doesn't have a lot to do with the decision making process. In addition, what my lawyer sent on Monday morning um was the same language, exactly the same version, exactly the same language as version one that you all unanimously voted in in December. So there was nothing new. The only new language is what we've been discussing for weeks. And you knew this and Francis knew this and the entire commission was very supportive on what we're asking for which is very simple. 30 ft minimum setback in the right of way from residential property lines. Easy. Simple. Okay. We have a stake in this. AT&T doesn't. You are listening to AT&T with their bullying and their threats. I don't know who Francis thinks the stakeholders are. She said two different stakeholder teams. I'm the stakeholder. Everybody here is the stakeholder. I pay into the city. AT&T doesn't. AT&T makes money off of the city. Doesn't pay into the city. I pay the salary. Your salary. I elect you. So does everybody here

watching. They're not stakeholders. I'm the stakeholder. The only people you should be listening to is us. Okay? But yet, every time we go to put this thing on the agenda, it gets pulled. Why? It's clear. It This is clear. It couldn't be any more clearer what we want. Deliberating this is just It's just beating a dead horse. We're just asking for reasonable protections because you know what? The city's hands are tied. The residents have no say in where these small wireless towers are placed. The city's hands don't have to be tied anymore. If you pass this ordinance, the residents get a chance to say something about these towers being placed 5 feet, 10 feet from their bedroom windows. Reasonable protections. And if telecom is threatening to sue the city, well, that's on them. And that shows their true colors. And that shows that they're not here to uh be, you know, players in the game, just negotiating.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Marriott. Um yeah, I have a a couple questions for um for the city attorney. the um

what the is the the distance between the towers and the 30foot setback from the property lines are those the um am I understanding it correctly that those are the parts of the ordinance that that from a legal perspective you have the biggest concern that that may not be defensible or allowable by state statute. Uh we're trying to draft something that would be allowed and it's very difficult. It's like threading a needle. Um for example, we have a a thing where you can apply for a variance and then we cite to the variance section, but the state preeemption prohibits public hearings. So we have to figure out who would who would review the variance application. Staff would have to decide the variance. I guess we have we have quite a number of issues. We've had three or four uh teleconferences team zooms with the lawyers for the citizens. Um we've been trying to brainstorm different ideas. Um their lawyers been very frank with me and said, "Well, I represent the citizens and this is what they want. You represent the city. I understand you have to protect the city." Um so we're trying to find language that everyone can live with. Um, so we do have this new language. We have the report. I think you guys haven't seen the report yet. Uh, but that may be helpful to understand some of the technology that goes on. And if we pass the or if we pass an ordinance on second reading and then it is legally challenged by the telecom companies, once it's legally challenged, am I correct in understanding that that once it has been legally challenged, we cannot enforce any parts of that ordinance that has been legally challenged.

I'll have to look at the new state statute on state preeemption things. That may be a possibility. Okay. I know that it does award attorney's fees. there is a way to stop ordinances from going in effect if it violates a preeemption. Um, right now it's arguable whether it does. We're trying to make sure that we win those kind of cases if they get filed. And if if this were to be challenged, if we were to pass a second reading and it were to be ch I know this is a lot of ifs, right? But if we were to pass the second reading for these for the next reading, too.

Okay. And then well, I think this is I think this is a simple question. um if it's challenged um the the and if do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do you you I guess this is just a question you can be prepared for for the next time um does the city's um insurance pay for the legal fees for that kind of a challenge or is that separate from from what our insurance covers? We have inquired with them and it depends on what kind of challenge is filed or when it's filed. So they won't give advisory opinions until a suit is filed then they'll review it to determine coverage. Okay. Thank you. They've asked and they said they can't they can't tell us right now. Yeah. Okay. Thank you,

Commissioner Maldo. Yeah. I just I just want to clarify um you know not only for the commission but for the uh public so we can include setbacks and separations. We're just at we're not in the zopa to steal uh a comment that was used earlier in terms of what that distance would be correct or is that an inaccurate statement? So we we as commission can uh come up with what we believe would be the minimum

it says the city may not limit the placement by minimum separation districts distances. Excuse me. Let me start over. A city may not limit the placement by minimum separation distances of small wireless facilities. Utility poles on small wireless facilities are or will be colloccated or other atgrade communication facilities. So the statute says you can the statute says that. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Resniki. Okay. So then we're saying, if I'm hearing what you're saying, then we can't say 30 or or 500, right? Is that what what we're hearing here, that

it's a very it's very difficult. If we're going to try to do that, I have to try to fit it in the statute and the statute is clear in one section. It says you can't expressly do that. So I'm trying to find a way to do it without violating the statute. And and just questions, you know, I mean, and I'm talking with their lawyers, too. they're trying to help us find a way to do that.

Are are we looking in like what is a city, you know, like um when I was up in Tallahassee talking to different municip municipalities and commissioners and councilmen and asked them is this a problem in your city? And I went up and down the barrier island, you know, to Indian shores where one commissioner um Howard is at and they weren't even sure and they don't have like what's the difference? like why are we receiving so many mini towers here in this city based on what? Like what's the data? Are they giving us reports? Is this part of of what they do? Like you know I don't know what year and I don't know mayor maybe you were mayor then for the fiber optics were you a part were you on the on mayor? So, prior to the um the mayor being on, I think we had the discussion on commission about fiber optics um frontier and you know, we we put um hand billills on everybody's house, right? I think everyone here probably received one, right? Saying that we're going to underground fiber optics throughout the whole entire city and now we're getting, you know, cell towers popping up all over the place. I mean, I've I've driven more. Every time I go somewhere, I'm becoming more cognitive of what's around. And some are hidden pretty well. I saw a couple that went into district one. I don't know if you saw the ones, you know, by the church. And I'm like, what what's this doing here? You know, like, how are all these things just popping up and why? Based on what? I mean, there has to be something that we can defend ourselves to say that this can't happen, you know? I mean, we can't just sit here and say, "Okay, no, let's not." You know, I'm almost feel like, "Well, yeah, go for a lawsuit." because we need to be able to speak up. You know, something has to be done and you know, I you know, we tried I know um Lauren and her group gave me some paperwork to try to pass over um while I was up in Tallahassee and we presented it to different um legislators um in the House and in the Senate and nobody was taking it. I know we're trying to get

this sponsored. I know this is at a state level, but we need to become a little bit more vocal about this because it's kind of ridiculous that we're are behind a lot, you know, and I mean, it's everywhere. Um, your district 4, I mean, they're hidden and with within people's bushes right in their house, the one that was moved from Maritana was moved to someone's backyard on Gulf Boulevard. I mean, I I think I can pretty much jump to it and kind of, you know, fire pull it down, you know, onto Gulf Boulevard from their balcony. I mean, it's it's ridiculous. I mean, we have to we have to do something. And I don't know if any of you have been trying to think of what we can do as a commission, but we need to become a little bit more vocal because we're not doing anybody any favors by hiding behind what could be a lit a litigation when we're talking about the safety of a lot of people. Um, you know, I I didn't read that whole report. I and I know, you know, there's a lot of science in it and I'm I'm not gonna I'm not an expert in the science of the effect, but this is happening, you know, um and and I don't know how many people here know what's in their backyards. I mean, they're they're hiding it pretty good. One of the one of the historic light poles on district 4 was converted to a mini tower right on Pass Way. You know, I don't I don't think none of us approved it here, right? it just happens, you know, and we spent money on those light bulbs, you know. So, I mean, it's I I don't know. It's just kind of ridiculous that we're being so careful um when potentially a lot of people can be getting hurt, you know. So, that's why I don't want to wait till March, you know, because come March, there could be so many other changes and other things. I don't and I know it's priorities and and I understand you know Francis that you're saying there's a lot of things that we're putting on but can we say remove some things so that we can make

this a priority and push something else to march you know um I I don't know it's just a little frustrating because the more once you know and if if the people who are here or the people who are listening start looking there's no rhyme or reason you know why is it's you can have them 20t way you could have five 10 feet you I mean we could have them stacked all over the place up and down the line and then you're competing with all these different companies you know we have Frontier fiber optics then we're going to have AT&T then we're going to have Spectrum they go out of business then another one pops up they don't remove that poll why don't we colllocate you know there is there anything protecting us you know for for there not to be so many polls out there um it's It's just it's very very fr frustrating. So I would like to know what you know why did we go into fiber optics is we we put a lot of people's in headache. I know in mine people's driveways got torn up. Um their grasses the landscaping was all messed up. I mean what was the purpose of all that? So um anyways I I would like for you to look to see was there a rhyme or reason? Did we have any control back then? Um and and I don't know like we we got to defend the people that live here, you know, um all of us and in the state, you know, I think people just don't know what's happening and then when they notice it's a little bit too late. Um so anyways, thank you,

Commissioner Robinson.

I I'm just going to say that I don't believe anything that big telecom tells me. I don't believe anything that big pharma um tells me, big tobacco tells me. Um and I'm all for the safety of the residents. Um I work in an industry that does use wireless. It does use C-band and and KU band for transmission purposes and I can tell you that 5G does interfere with Cband. Um which is one of the stronger signals that you can transmit with that requires frequency coordination so you don't injure anybody. Um, with that said too is understanding that 5G is in affluent neighborhoods. You're not going to find it in non-affluent neighborhoods. It's because everybody wants their smart home and that's the data it's collecting. It's not about cellular service. It is about data strictly. Um, with that being said, I mean trying to find a fine line. Is it worth the wait to wait two weeks to see if Ralph can thread a needle, you know, uh, you know, through? Is it so that we don't get sued? Because we're in a situation we don't have a lot of money and we have people talking about plans and no plans and this and that and whatever. But the reality is if we lose, it's going to cost you, me, the city money. Is it is it worth considering? We don't know if it gets covered under our PM PRM policy. We don't know that. But um you know that that's kind of where it is. I I you know I have confidence in our legal team. Um I I mean I think the big question here is how many more applications can they shove in before two weeks, right? Um and then the you know other side is

what do the other cities have you know 500 foot uh limits you know do do the other cities and if they do how how are they getting away with it and we can't um you know I don't want to be the red-headed stepchild you know uh that that's how Tallahassee views us because we are up there asking for money you know we're we're trying to get grants and and you know get funded on a lot of projects And you know, if we're deemed in bad light, I'm just saying I will say, you know, big telecom has big money. Um, so there is a fine line. I I have confidence in in in Ralph and and the law firm to to try to thread that needle and I'm hoping we can do it because I don't think that uh any of us want to risk our safety, our health or our property values because we already know all those are already at risk in everyday life and there's nothing that we need to do to add more to that. Um, I'm for it, but I'd like to see if we can get something that we can, you know, take take to the bank or or or try to get through that has limited um consequences to us. And I think you all probably know we're I'm in for the fight. I'm in for a fight. I'm okay with that.

Commissioner Mald another.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So to answer Commissioner Rousniki and Commissioner Robinson's question, St. P Beach has 35 wireless infrastructures, not including rooftop nodes. In comparison, Treasure Island has 11 total, including rooftop nodes. So there's obviously a problem with over placement of these and it needs to stop. So I mean the bottom line is that they can camouflage them. Yes, they're well hidden, but at the same time, you know, if this continues and we're going to all suffer from this and it needs to be the commission's input to the legal team to set some boundaries. Now, what I'm not advocating for is a fight. I don't want to fight. I think that this is a partnership with the provider or is referred to as the other stakeholder, but I would like the commission to at least give some guidance to legal so that they can go to the next meeting because we've been in receive mode right now. We've been told here's what's coming. Here's what it looks like. We haven't had any direct contact or negotiations. I understand that there's a statute, but on good faith, I would like to have them profer something to us in terms of separation and distance. I think that it's their obligation as community partners to put us in a situation where we're not getting into a legal fight. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner Robinson. And I'd also like to know, why are we so unendated versus the other cities? Why? Well,

obvious extremely frustrating sometimes that the gears of government just move very slowly. That is the reality of it. I'm not saying I like it and I really was not a fan of pushing it again one more time for the fourth time now. We've been working on this for for over half a year and I thank you all for bringing it to the commission starting the process. They're really how it should work in a city, right? You the citizens have a concern, we bring it before the commission, we're able to start working on it, working together with our constituents to make sure that we bring something forward. Um, I think where we are now, it's like we've we've got 97% of it, 98% ready to go, except for one one question really. Um, if this was the first reading, we could just go forward. Not an issue. Just move forward. There's going to be a second reading. There's going to be opportunity for conversation and but because this is a second reading, this would be the final reading. And the the main issue that we want to avoid is um if this is challen so we have the 97% that is good and that our city attorney can easily defend and say look this is all falls within the guidelines you know we we feel comfortable on solid ground on that. The issue is if it gets challenged we may lose that 97 good percent as well. That's what we don't want, right? We want to make sure that the whole thing is is good to go. Um, is there a way to break it up to where we we leave out just the 30 ft for the final reading and then we come back with a new ordinance

whether it's in two weeks or four weeks or six weeks whenever it is after we have additional time because I think the only thing that's really contested is that last part the setbacks and the uh separation. Okay. So, in the separation, we're at how many feet now?

Well, I think we started at 300. Now, they've gone up to the citizens first started with 300. Now, they've gone up to 500. The statute says you can't have separation. Uh, so we're trying to find um a middle ground there that would work between the statute and what we want. I'd like to prohibit them probably in all residential districts. We do have something in there that says that they're discouraged in all residential districts and that we ask them to move to non-residential during our negotiation time period that's in the statute. Statute has these various shot clocks as well. But if we ask and they say no, then we can't say we can't say no to that.

So what we do have in the ordinance where we can actually ask. Did you just say that they said non that they cannot be in residential? We have written into our ordinance that if they propose a tower in a residential, we would ask them during the statutory negotiation period to move to a non-residential. then they have so many days to review it and see if they can. But if they come back and they say no, we have to stay in the residential, then the statute says we have to allow them to stay there. So it doesn't really mean anything.

Um I think that the statute has shot clocks, the statute has negotiation periods. Um the more leverage we put in our ordinance, um the better we have at negotiating. So, we've tried to put a lot of leverage. This ordinance is 89 pages long. Um, you know, so we're down to page 81, page 83. Um, we have a lot of things that we've put in here that will help us uh with our negotiations, with leverage, trying to do the, you know, the best that we can here. The real battle needs to go on at Tallahassee, but we can't get Tallahassee to budge. There's a battle going on in Congress. we might get some uh help there. Um especially with the RMF and the health impacts. Um so that's going on simultaneously. And then the the battle in Tallahassee right now is about the hyper data centers. So this 5G preeemption was done in 2017. Um but now they're pushing for these hyper hyper data centers that run AI and where those would be located in zoning categories around the state. They're huge energy users and they have a lot of impact. That's House Bill 10007. But so far we're lucky there's nothing to increase the 5G preeemptions that's pending that I know of. So, going back to the original question, can we break it up?

You could. Okay. Is that something we could bring? We can't do it tonight since we already took it off the agenda, but can we bring it back at the next commission meeting minus those two items? Give you the full four weeks we asked for for the other two items. You could do that also. I think if we would take separation and setbacks out though, that should be a new ordinance. It would That's what I'm saying. like we we would have

you could do that also and we I don't think we would be challenged but for those two provisions so then that would go into effect then the next ordinance if we do the setback and separation and that gets challenged at least the other ordinance amendments are on the books already okay city clerk do we have any other audience comments on the subject please Ron Vino, if you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Yeah, my name is Ronald Vinino from Pasilla. So my question is if there was a statute that would allow people people to kill people, would you support it? That's what we're dealing with here. The statute makes no sense. It doesn't matter. Well, all our lives are at risk and this is serious. You know, I'm going to show you something. This is a IMF little machine. I don't know if you're going to be able to hear it, but you see in the needles that kills people. And I don't care what the what these company thinks. And their studies, I really really don't care. Their studies are all paid by them by to people. But they they pay the people to say what they what they want to say. It's all money. But they're playing all with our lives. This is Yeah. This is like so frustrating. My wife's spend so much time like fighting this and she's fighting for every one of us. No, everyone. And uh and I know there's rules in place and all that, but it doesn't matter because at the end of the day, our life is worth more than any of this. You know, you know, maybe Ralph, you'll lose your job over this because you're going against the statute, but who cares? At the end of the day, you know, you to save your your children, your grandchildren. We're talking about life matters, you know, and this is the most important thing. I I wouldn't come and speak tonight if this was not like a life-threatening things. And I and I'm speaking from my heart. I'm af I'm afraid of where we're going, you know? And I'm going to make a few parallel. You know when the when the COVID vaccine came out, they say all of us all safe. You see everyone dying from it. You know, we are at war and it's not another country fighting us. It's big

corporation making a lot of money. Greedy, greedy corporation. I don't know if anyone in the room has worked for those company, but you you you have to question yourself if you want to keep working for this institution of death. you know, and this is serious. We we all g need to do something. And thank you, Betty, and thank you Lisa and Adrian, you know, and also Karen, John, for supporting us. You you guys are brave because a lot of people don't want to touch this. This is very, very dirty business, but you know, we we show I mean, St. Pete Beach, you know, maybe is amazing because it's not developed like other cities. We've preserved something very special. You know, we have a very very beautiful community and it's it's sickening to see that we have $35 and you know why? Because there's money here. There's a lot of people with a lot of money and they don't know that life is at risk and if we don't speak up you know those companies going to make a lot of money on those people that collect data that going to be used to make more money with those people that has a lot of money. So, we're gonna stop this and thank you for your time. Thank you. Appreciate a lot.

Thank you, sir. And I we certainly take it very seriously, which is the reason we're having so many meetings on this because we do want to make sure that we get it right the first time. But but you can tell by the amount of effort and time every one of our commissioners has put in for the last six months on this, we do take it very, very seriously. And we want to make sure that we have something that is going to provide serious protection for our residents. And and you're right about the reports. I've sat here many times and questioned those reports and said, "Look, you you know, remember asking one time, have you ever found a report that didn't meet your criteria?"

Right. So, you're right. And but because we're up against those big entities and we're a small entity, we want to make sure that if we're going to be David to the Goliath, we have the right stones in our sling. Kelly Lee Mcfreick. If you please state your name and the address for the record.

Hi there. Kelly Lee McFreder, 3612 East Maritana Drive, St. Pete Beach. So, what I did want to start with um one was the thing was that we are still a historic neighborhood. We qualify to e as a historic neighborhood even if we qualify for even though we're not designated yet, we can still be qualified as that we could become. So, they still look at that as an important piece of this. And I want to talk about the 30t. It seems I think I want people to know what the 30 feet came from. The tower in front of my house was 24 feet from my house. And so 30 feet really became, if you look at Maritana, some of Bella Vista, some of everyone else is, we do have larger lots. It was to keep them out of the right of way. Let's get them out of the neighborhoods, but separate them. And then also, but what we gave and I know was brought up was a variance. We said, "Okay, AT&T, Verizon, whoever you choose to be." If you do insist that it has to be at this less amount, you have a right as a variance. same as every single person in this room has to do a variance if they change their house which we thought was very fair and I've also been learning that some of the setbacks of excuse me setbacks the 500 foot distance with some of the beaches in our panel county do have that in some of the towns so that's not something that's so random that is out there as a known fact so those are the two things that we were really looking at hard and just so everyone knows I went door knockocking I've been door knockocking I've been at every neighborhood meeting I'm doing what I can I cannot not find a person out there who says, "I want a tower in front of my house. I need more cell phone coverage." No, I don't. And I would have this room packed. I spent another hour and a half untexting everybody, emailing everyone saying we're off of the agenda. I wish I would have packed your room and had them all speak about how they feel with with complete respect. You all would be the most popular people about in this entire country with this go as we make this go forward. It's us taking a stand as a hero and going we are going

to be an example. I feel telecom is definitely a little threatened because we're here because they put so many what are we at 35 towers we have put in so far and I will voice what what he was saying as well is that we're looking at we are 550 billion this year and what they're expected to increase the revenue what they're going to be making to 850 billion. These are not good citizens. These telecom companies are not good citizens. They're going, "Oh my word. We're going to take that nice little light pole in front of Kelly Lee's house and put up a 6000 foot tower there and go, that's a great thing. I'm a good citizen. I'm right on the inner coastal. I'm going to block her water view. I'm going to fall on her docks 10 feet behind and I'm going to go right on my house at 24 feet." Bam. Isn't that a great citizen? That's not someone that's for us. So, I'm what I I went door knockocking more on Maritan who has lots just like mine. And speaking at your meeting, Bel Vista, some of the people have come back to me. Sorry. of it being a Delmare. They've come back to me. They're I've become known. I've been on the news. I'm here and they do not want this. And that's what the constituents are saying. We want to be protected. I understand, you know, how we have to do it, but and I I really have no fear. Thank you.

Thank you, Kelly. Jack Rice.

Good evening, sir. If you'll please state your name and address for the record. Jack Rice 3612 East Maritana Drive. So the thing that people haven't talked about is insurance, homeowners insurance, property insurance. So when we began the insurance industry years ago, I've been I've been for 35 years, by the way, they decided to make flood plans. So you get charged if you're lower and less if you're higher. Then they decided to charge for whether you had a fire hydrant near your house. the further away it was, the more expensive it is. They're going to do the same thing with this. So, you're going to be charged if there is a tower near your house if it's within the ordinance.

And if it's closer than 30 ft or 500 ft, you're going to get charged more. So, we all worry about homeowners insurance, property insurance, commercial insurance. All these rates are going to increase based on the decision you guys make here today, and it's going to start here. So, if you're too close to a tower like the old Bush mansion which is right next to their I mean it's right on their property they're going to pay more insurance so it's going to come down it's going to be there so that's another thing to think about and everybody's in insurance is an important thing thank you

Dear Shner if you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Um, good evening. Deborah, Bokea Isle Drive in St. Pete Beach. I think I have a reason why we have so many because they're expecting huge developments to go up. Thousands and thousands of rooms that will need cell service and Wi-Fi. So, sometimes there's unintended consequences for what you vote on. This is scary. It's scary that somebody could come home from work and a huge tower is in their yard and to sneak one in a backyard. I mean, that's just wrong. I think that they should be in the hotel district. To have 35 already to me is unconscionable. And then when you talk about hyperdata centers for AI, AI takes so much water to cool down their product. We're in a drought. So I guess none of these companies really I'm going to say give a damn about us in St. Pete Beach. So that's why we're going to have to fight it. Put them near businesses if that's the way to be. I don't it's it's there's just something wrong as to why our city has to be the first to fight this. But I also wonder if other cities in Penllis County or possibly Hillsboro, wherever else will join that lawsuit and share some of that cost because this is coming to them whether they like it or not. But again, I really, really, truly think that if we didn't have all this huge development with the ballrooms, and of course we all know they want casinos, um, which we have fought forever, that put them where the hotels are, let them deal with it if we want them. It's it's

really a tough situation here, but listen, health safety is a primary job of a city and so that's something that we have to look at. Thank you. Thank you. Claudine Ree, if you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Hello. Claudine Ree, 3120 East Vina Delmare. Um, I just want to say that I agree with the residents that have been up here talking about um the unchecked um telecom companies because as people are saying, you know, they'll create studies that show data in their favor, big pharma. Um, and I just love seeing the consensus. Um, I just wish though that you had had that same passion when we were talking about big developers. Um, but anyway, I I'm so happy that we have a consensus and I wish that um we could get this passed through. So, if we can just get it over the finish line, um, we'd all really appreciate it. Um, and apparently there were going to be quite a few people here. So, um, hopefully they're all writing in to let you know how they feel. Thank you,

Matt Mucci. If you'll please state your name and address for the record. Matt Mucci, uh, Lakeland, Florida, uh, representing AT&T tonight. So, uh, you know, let me just say first off, um, my presence here tonight, I had no idea that the this agenda item got pulled. Um, and the language that was read earlier tonight, I don't know if that's language that we have seen yet or not. I'm assuming we haven't. That's from the citizens. You have not seen it yet? Yeah, have not seen it. Okay. Saw it yesterday.

Great. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that. So, I came to this meeting tonight thinking that we had reached an agreement with the city and um you know all the work that we have done with Ralph and Francis over the last like you said four meetings now this has been pushed um we have we thought we came to somewhat of an agreement and so it's a little surprising to be here tonight to hear uh that there's new language and uh you know new concerns and now you're thinking about peacemailing it and and that's your objective you can do whatever you want with that. Um, I just again just wanted to state that we've had a very good working relationship. We've had a good working relationship with some of your citizens about some of the AT&T. I can't speak for the other telecoms. I don't know where their their resources are, their infrastructure is in this city, but I know where ours is and I know we've had some issues and we've made some concessions. Um, but what it all comes down to is what you all decide on as far as a future ordinance. Is it in compliance with state law? So that's that's every meeting we've had with the city attorney. Uh we've gone through and we said we can accept this or no this is in um in defiance of state law. And so that's where we are. That's our guide. So if if there's changes to state law that are going to be made, like you said, making that check up to Tallahassee and getting to change the minds up there, then we will fall in line. But as it states now, what has been somewhat agreed upon has been in compliance with state law and we have been in agreement with as well. So that's where we are. So if you have any questions for us, please, we will continue to have that open dialogue. We appreciate the openness that we've had. Um I mean, you all have been great and I can't complain about anything other than coming here tonight and realizing that you pulled it and there's new language to consider. So once we have that new language, we'll again review it and we'll report back to you. And again, I don't know where it stands. I'm not an attorney, so I can't tell you that that's going to be acceptable or not. But again, we are here to work with you, not against you.

Thank you. And

just just for just so that we have uh clarity of the record of how we got here today is the last time it got pulled is because we got language from the telecoms and we wanted to make sure that we gave the residents ample time and our city attorney to review the language that we were asked by the telecommunications companies to revise our ordinance. And so we're now also giving them the opportunity as well to come back with it. Um, I also just want to make sure that we're we're being technically correct. We haven't had any agreements because we haven't voted on anything. And so, you know, you have a communication with the city attorney, you have a communication with the city attorney. You know, both sides are talking to them. We're trying to do some back and forth on this. See if there's a middle ground where we can all uh win from this. We It's clear that we haven't got there yet. And so which is why we're having these conversations now because this is the only time all five of us can ever talk. We're not allowed to talk about these issues. And so there could not have been an agreement at any point until we voted. And so this is why we're having these extensive conversations because if you're asking us for changes, if you're asking us for changes, we want to make sure everybody has an opportunity to see what those things are, that the city attorney is able to review them. And I'm not sure that 24 hours was quite enough time. I I appreciate what you said about we sent them on Friday. I also received it Friday at 7:15 p.m. which I do check my emails on weekends, but at the same time, it's technically been 24 business hours since we've had an opportunity to look at. We do want to make sure that we do the best possible job of the ordinance that we bring that it actually does give us the protections that we're all looking for. I don't think anyone here is not looking for protection. We all seem to be very much in agreement on that.

There are no further comments on this item. Okay. Is there okay so if we break up the ordinance into two I'm just trying to think out loud here and have this conversation right if we're breaking up this ordinance into two components could we bring both of those separately as two separate ordinances for a first reading in two weeks and then for second reading in four weeks which keeps us on the same schedule that we have now, but it also allows us to deal with the individual issues.

Yes, you could do that. of the uh Verizon head comments that the ordinance was too vague. Those were not comments that the ordinance violated the state preeemptions. The reason the ordinance has to be vague is so we don't step across the line on the state preeemptions. It was a bit intentionally vague, right? um AT&T after going through the ordinance as proposed by citizens and worked on language and after going line by line through the ordinance like we did with the citizens attorneys. Um they agreed to everything we had in there and agreed to were also right in there that nothing in this ordinance will abregate the private property rights of citizens which the citizens attorneys wanted in case they have to challenge a tower in a particular location future. We also put in there that um the towers shall comply with all applicable codes. um that allows our building official to go in and check to make sure they're in compliance with all the building codes. Um they did object and said no, we can't agree to the 300t separation, which is now 500t separation proposed. And they said no, they can't agree to 30 feet setbacks from the real property line in the rightway because the usable portion of the rightway is less than 30 ft because the street takes up the middle of the rightway and typically there's only eight 11 to 18 feet on the shoulder where these things would go in. So they couldn't fit one in a rightway which would be an outright prohibition which is prohibited by the statute. Um the latest language we got yesterday from

the citizens changed it to 30 feet from a structure. So you know everyone has their house and their front yard for example and you think that entire yard is yours but there's a bit that's the city right away that's in there. Uh, but 30 feet from the structure probably doesn't prohibit small wireless facilities in the rightway because if you're in the rightway, you could probably find a place that's 30 ft from the structure depending on where you locate it. So, so that one might be uh Ralph in the in the 30t rightway in in a case

in that 30 foot rightway that you're talking about. Are you talking from the center of the road to the front of the home or from no the rightway on the opposite side because let's just say Maritana Maritana is a 50ft rideway from the way it's written right now is that the no no small wireless facilities say tower be within 30 ft of the house. So that could cross a rideway. Sometimes it doesn't cross a rideway. Sometimes it's in the setback, but it's a structure to structure to the pole basically.

Do we have a height limitation on the on the poles? Height limitation on the poles. The state law says that they have they can be we can say no taller than other polls in the area.

We have that in the ordinance. I urge you all to read the whole entire 89 pages of the ordinance. I know it's tedious and hard, but go through it with a highlighter like this. Print have them printed out at city hall. Go through with a highlighter so you can see all that's in there. There's a lot in that ordinance that's beneficial. Um, that has been agreed to. Um, so separating it like the mayor is talking about. I haven't thought of that till you brought it up tonight, but they could be. then the one ordinance wouldn't get challenged and then maybe the other one would, but at least you'd have the one ordinance with all the uh beneficial language in there that helps us.

So, so it is it is a complicated document and it takes a fine tooth comb to go through it. So, on page 14 of this current document, it addresses the heights, but I also wanted to add the layer of complexity is that Passic Grill does not have the separation that some of the other districts have. So that adds another layer a layer of u challenge and that's why I said you know the 30foot um there may be the need to adjust that but as Kelly Lee eloquently stated there's also the variance so just we have to capture that if we want to have teeth on this thing otherwise it's just an ordinance so

if we don't do the variance the other alternative is to propose it during the negotiation period also which would probably clearly more clearly within the statute. That's what we did for the residential versus non-residential. And then I like the idea we said that towers in residential are discouraged. Maybe we could say towers in the hotel district is encouraged

and they're right away adjacent to hotel district is encouraged. And then um if you when you read the expert witness report, it explains the difference between capacity and coverage. Um and then fiber optics and it explains it this way like fiber optics runs into your house, right? And then you have your Wi-Fi in your house with your modem and you have a bunch of people in your house, maybe bunch of kids all streaming movies. that can cause a uh capacity problem if you have too many things feeding in there. Um, and there can be a coverage problem with that Wi-Fi. Um, that may not reach the basement or may not reach the backyard or something. But remember, you're on your phone there or your iPad and you're on Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi. You're not on cellular. But when you leave your house and you walk down the street and you're walking your dog and you're not connected to Wi-Fi, that's when that capacity and then that coverage issue comes in on your phone. And it's I've been told by the experts that it's primarily not talking on the phone that's the problem. It's the data that people access and utilize on their smartphones, iPhones, Google phones, all the phones that you have and all the data you're doing on there, all the apps. So, can we So, commissioners, what what do we want to do? Do we leave it as is four weeks final reading after some more revision or do we want to split up into two components? First reading in two weeks, second reading in four weeks.

I like the split, but do we talk about two is splitting? We would split the two out that two out the telecom won't agree to that. Leave the the the hard was all in in one ordinance, right? That I think we're all in agreement on anyway. And then those other two, do they get split out separately? It would be split on a separate ordinance and then the fight would be over those. Okay. Would they be one ordinance or two different ordinances, one per each? I would do one for separation and setback. Okay. That's what we're doing with the beach ordinance. We're separating. Yeah. Same thing. Avoid the legal challenge. Yeah. Okay. Do we have consensus on that? Yeah. Okay. Does that give you something to work with? Yeah.

Can you restate the timeline? First reading in two weeks, which essentially is we already had a first reading on this. It's just because of the substantial change to the ordinance, we're now doing a second first reading or a new first reading or do we not have can we do a second reading and cross out that one section? We could do a second reading on the basic ordinance, the 88 88 pages basic ordinance and then we could do a first reading on the 30 ft and 500 ft. Do a first reading on that and then you could have the second reading on that in four weeks.

Okay. So then we would have something that would be before the commission that could be voted on. If it passes, it could be implemented immediately. You get the basic stuff. You also have a first reading for the second component which we could then have a second reading on in four weeks. Yes.

I mean, listen, we're here until 10:00. We're here until we've been here till 1:00, 2 o'clock in the morning. Like, it's it's not a matter of there's too many things on the agenda. If there's work to be done, we're here. Work will get done. Maybe we all go home at 10, but we don't, right? If we have to, we will stay here. So, if there's already, you know, full agenda in two weeks from now, as much as I hate to ask the city manager and all of our staff to be here, you know, if that's what it takes, that's what we'll have to do. And so, but I think if we can get a first reading, close out this one, have a first reading on the other one, then we can move forward with with something here. So then I need a motion to continue ordinance 202524 second reading until February 24th. Is there a motion?

I motion to um move um the second reading of ordinance 202524 for cert date certain which was February 24th. February 24th. Soon thereafter or soon thereafter. Second. City clerk, if you'll please do a roll call. Commissioner Rzniki. Yes. Commissioner Maldonado. Yes. Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. And Mayor Petrilla? Yes. The motion carries. Then if I could get um I guess just consensus to prepare the second ordinance and

we do want that also on this 24th. Well, if we do a first reading on the 24th, then that'll still give us the full four weeks for the second reading. So, it doesn't change the time table. We're not pushing back even further. Okay. Perfect. Okay. And then the second reading, if it passes on the first reading, would be on March 9th.

Okay. Uh March 9th is a Monday. So the 10th Yeah, the 10th. We're doing election day. Yeah, the meeting is on Monday. We happen to have an election on March 10th. So the meeting is the 9th. So the meeting is on the 9th. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm looking at just a blank calendar. Yeah. Okay.

I'm not sure if the word's gotten out about the election, but Okay. Um Great. Next we have action item number 6A resolution 2026-04. This is a resolution of the city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, accepting the finding of necessity report prepared by Stantech Consulting Services, Inc. for proposed community redevelopment area. Making the findings required by chapter 163 part three, Florida statutes finding that conditions of blight exist within the proposed area. Declaring resiliency, infrastructure improvements, housing and economic development as a primary redevelopment purpose. Declaring a need for community redevelopment agency to carry out the purposes of chapter 163 part 3 for statutes. Directing the city manager to take all necessary all actions necessary to effectuate the creation of the community redevelopment area and providing for construction, correction of scriveners errors, and an effective date. Thank you. Hi, Laura.

Hello. Good evening. Laura Canary, community development director. Um, before I hand it over to Matt Lewis with Stantech, I just wanted to do a quick overview on the CRA. Sorry for the acronym, Community Redevelopment Agency, Community Engagement Process because I think it's really important. And again, before we do the deeper dive, just kind of do a high level level overview of what we've done and where we're at. So currently tonight you have the finding of necessity study before you. That is also what's referred to as a slim and blight study. I'm sure many of you have heard that term before. That is the first step in the process. Again, when you're identifying and establishing a redevelopment agency, this is the first step. No matter where you are across the state, this is what you have to do first to find out if those conditions exist in the area that you're looking at. Um subsequently then um we will start if this is um approved tonight then the next step will really be to start that engagement with our stakeholders and also begin facilitating the community engagement. I want to emphasize that the community engagement again this is a community redevelopment area. It needs to be a communitydriven plan. This is different than the comprehensive plan. This community redevelopment plan doesn't necessarily even have teeth. It's really more of a strategic plan. Think of it as you will. Um, and then as we update the comp plan in the LDC, that's how it's memorialized and that's what gives the initiatives that are identified in the redevelopment plan that teeth. Um, secondly, I I just want to emphasize the importance of that partnership with Penllis County. Again, with Penllis County being a charter county, they do have the ability to say um and change their policies is what they've done as far as um what their TIF contribution looks like. TIFF is tax increment financing and that's basically in essence why we're doing all of this is potentially to have that partnership and that funding. Um but that engagement is key and so we already have started

working with Penllis County and forward Penllis and basically gave them a heads up that this is coming. But upon approval if um the next step will really be to then go back start sitting with the county and as we talk about the next steps as far as the coordination with them and how we look at their policy and their delegation criteria. We really want to sit with them. We've already worked through that criteria, but we're going to be we want them at the table with us so that we can ensure that we're identifying shared goals and objectives at the end of the day. Again, these are Penllis County residents as St. Pete Beach residents as we develop the plan. Um, I put an asterk next to it because there it will require the potential issuance of an RFP. Again, we would be coming back to you all for that direction at the time once we get a better understanding of kind of what we can anticipate costwise. Um so that's why potential issuance of an RFP. We would develop the redevelopment plan. Again, that is um I anticipate that that would take um considering that there was already a lot of work done even going back 20 years ago. So there's not a lot of new information. It's really um just generating kind of those um initiatives and strategies that you want to incorporate into the planning document. And again, making sure that it's communitydriven. We'll have a series of workshops and stakeholder engagement opportunities both online and in person to really have the community be able to come out and provide their input. Once the plan is um is drafted, then it would go before you all for adoption. And then again, kind of some of this is happening simultaneously. What we would anticipate is again as we're working through the county policy um criteria, we would be kind of having a really good indication as far as where we land. There's I think I've said before there's basically three tiers that you can be now per the county's delegation criteria. You can be an urban revitalization area, which is basically saying that you have the greatest need.

You can be a community renewal where you're kind of in the middle and then you can be economic development, which is the lowest of the threshold. and and basically that's what determines what the county's contribution will be percentage-wise, what the term of your CRA operational time frame will be, as well as um you know, the county has pretty much taken a stance that if say they're approving a 10-year, they want a five-year review. They want that midpoint review to just kind of see what's already been done and what's going to be continued to be done or what is planned. So, as we were as we're kind of arriving at that, then a final step would be to go back to the county where we would get a delegation of authority resolution, which is basically them delegating that authority as a charter county, and then the redevelopment trust fund ordinance. The redevelopment trust fund ordinance is what establishes the redevelopment trust fund. And that would be where all of the terms and the ingredients are basically woven into whether it's a 10-year CRA. If the countyy's contributing at 70% or 50% and what that looks like, that would all be in um intertwined into the redevelopment trust fund ordinance. Um before also I um kick it over to Matt, I just um a couple questions have came up along the way as I've kind of begun to talk to um staff on our team as well as members of the community. And you know, slum and blight is a very touchy kind of word. And a lot of times one of the biggest questions that we get is, is this going to make my property values go down? Or even if it's the perception, you know, kind of like when we think of a brown field and that negative connotation. So with that, I mean, I could probably talk and I'm a huge proponent for CRAAS. I think they're the only red or excuse me, economic development tool left at the local level, but I encourage anyone to do their own homework. Go. The Florida Redevelopment Association is an arm of the Florida League of Cities. The Florida Redevelopment Association is the association through the state of Florida

that CRAAS are a part of. There's currently, last time I counted, about 227 across the state of Florida CRAAS. And when you look at that makeup, you can see that St. Augustine is a good example of a successful CRA. We have many here locally. Denedan I would consider one of the poster it's really a poster child for a CRA and when you can see how redevelopment was done right and you were able to utilize the increment to reinvest in that area. St. Pete has some super successful ones. So again I just encourage anyone to go to redevelopment.net to really take a look at those CRAAS and to really hopefully um kind of eliminate some of that stigma that some may think when they hear again slum and blight study and what that means for the future redevelopment. Last but not least, I just want to say how this is um I don't want to say truly unique that it would be the one first one and only in the state that's resiliency and infrastructure centric. Um we know that there's a lot of other CRAAS that have had to start to like weave that into their redevelopment plans, but I will tell you that from the starting point with this plan, this has been a a true partnership with public services. Camden and Gina have been in every single meeting almost that we've had with Stantech again because we wanted to develop this area and this boundary based on the infrastructure needs and being able to identify the you know basically the tiff as a funding source for these infrastructure and resiliency needs. So with that I will hand it over to Matt Lewis with Stantech and again just thank you to the our team Gail and the planning team and also public services for their help thus far. Thank you. Thank you, Laura.

Thank you, Miss Canary. Um, oh, wow. Thank you, Matt Lewis. I'm a principal with Stantech and, um, working with, um, as Miss Canary says, um, the planning team and the public services team to look at developing a finding of necessity for an infrastructure and resiliency focused CRA beach. So I am a lot of what I would say on this slide Miss Canary's already covered. So I'm not going to go belabor these points with you anymore other than to say that a finding a necessity is a data-driven process. It's about what objectively do we see in the community that attribute to these slum and blight conditions. And I'm going to go a little bit further on some history of the Sle and Blight. And that term actually came from an old 1950s program called urban renewal. Urban renewal was renowned as being not the best idea in the world. What it basically said was these areas are full of slum and blight. Let's tear them down and hope that somebody builds something back better. States like Florida came along later and said, you know what, I don't think that's working out the way you intended for that to work out. Let's go ahead and do something a little bit different, which is let's identify the steps needed to improve these areas to address the conditions that led to this slum and blight and let's fund the improvements necessary to make it happen. We're taking this one step further and we're saying let's look at how vulnerability to major disasters

is a condition that hurts property and life and let's look at how we can use the same tools to reduce that vulnerability. So this gets to why we need a CRA here. To sum it up, St. Pete Beach is a city with a small population, very small population base, receiving a disproportionate amount of the impacts of Penllis Countyy's tourism economy, and I'll get into that a little bit later. On top of it, we're on a barrier island, a very narrow barrier island. All of which is inundated in a major storm event, which means all of our infrastructure, all of our population is at risk to a major storm. And our infrastructure is older and our housing supply is older. Our buildings are older and I'll get into those later. So, we have limited advantages, limited possibilities for redundancies in our system. And on top of all this, all this stuff adds up to it costs more to build infrastructure here than it does in areas that are high and dry. You have to build it up. You have to expect for it to be damaged in the future. You have to rebuild it. So, the resiliency in this investment is going to be a critical component for bouncing back. We're not going to stop the ocean, but we're going to bounce back more quickly. I want to get into a little bit about how we found this boundary, how we thought about identifying the boundary for the the proposed um CRA. Um I'm not going to belabor the first slide. That is the red means you're underwater by 9 ft in a category 3 hurricane. You know

that I don't need to belver that point. Um, the second image in this is actually infrastructure that was damaged during hurricanes Helen and Milton, tropical storm Debbie. And it's a good deal of infrastructure. And there's two areas, South St. Pete Beach and the um the downtown where we're at right now that were hit the strongest in terms of infrastructure damage. The third slide is the border, the boundary that we're looking at for the CRA. And when you look at that boundary, you have one downtown um incorporating all the plans to rejuvenate downtown and two the tourist district, the large resort hotels, the boutique hotels. This is the capturing the revenue that that area is generating that is otherwise going countywide and bringing it back into the city to mitigate the impacts. So to give you a sense of just how important tourism is to Penllis County, not just St. Pete Beach, is the bed tax revenue here is comparable and in some cases exceeds larger cities despite a population of 9,000 people. What that means is you have intensified demand on local revenue on local infrastructure services without the population base without the basic tax base to mitigate those impacts. You know St. Petersburg is mitigating their impacts over 260,000 people. City of Clearwater less tourism impact 117,000 people. St. beat each peach 9,000. And let's think about the population.

Now, typically when you look at a finding of necessity, you want to identify areas that are vulnerable either economically um from a uh a social justice point of view or whatever reason that may be. From the point of view of resiliency, what we have in St. Pete Beach is an aging population. 42% of the residents are 65 and older. That means that mobility is becoming an issue. Getting around. The fact that there's no grocery store on the island means something and that you have to go over the bridge to go to the grocery store. It's not a quick trip anymore. So accessibility to basic goods and services is important based on the vulnerability of the population. So I'm not going to belabor the geographic vulnerability you being evacuation zone A. This is known. We've experienced it over the years, most recently in 2024. But I will say this is being amplified with climate change. You can expect it to be more and potentially more severe. Um, and establishing the CRA is one tool that helps to reduce that vulnerability. It supports the investments in storm water management, seaw wall reinforcement, dune restorations, utility upgrades, and these things are not going to hold back the ocean, but they will help you bounce back quicker. And I'll get into why bouncing back quicker is important in a little bit here. Laura alluded earlier to how other CRAAS fund resiliency and address resiliency.

Um I want just want to point out a couple. Um there's the Amelia River Waterfront CRA. It's in Fernadena Beach and they actually have projects devoted to resiliency. It's not a resiliency focused CRA, but they have projects devoted to resiliency. And one of them is this waterfront park. And this is something to think about as you're going through this planning process is that a resiliency improvement doesn't have to be a massive engineering project. It can be two things. A waterfront park can be a flood mitigation project. Another one is the North Beach CRA in Miami. Now, the North Beach CRA actually has a whole section of it devoted to resilience with capital improvements to fund streets to address street flooding, daytime flooding, which is a big deal there. Um, seaw walls, waterway restorations. So, again, things can be two things. And then there are other tools used around the state um that uses the same charter county ability to make tiffs without going through the CRA requirements that you see in statute. Um one is the Bay Park Improvement District in Sarasota which includes a um a living seaw wall effectively. Um the second is not in this area but is in Washington DC which is the Anacostia waterfront initiative. If you ever been to the Navy yards there, that is built with TIFF like CRA like funding from the Anakasha waterfront initiative. And then in Gainesville, they actually just went ahead and did a CRA and built their own interlocal agreement between the city and the county that established a state statute like CRA within the county's authority.

So I alluded earlier to um Corey Avenue vision plan. The Corey Avenue vision plan is actually the foundation for the downtown portion of your CRA. Um improvements in that address everything from walkability to sustainability and resiliency. Um the current comprehensive plan has special planning area future land use district that establishes character areas throughout an area that effectively covers the CRA and that's not an accident that evolved from 2005 and 2013 efforts to develop a CRA for the area. Um the difference being today we're focusing on the resiliency improvements and less on traditional CRA approaches. And I keep wanting to do that when I have this in my hand. All right. So, under Florida statute, we are in the first step of a CRA designation procedure, finding of necessity by the county or municipality. I'm not going to belabor and read this to you, but this study is looking at these conditions, slim and blight conditions determined through the statutory criteria through a lens of improving your ability to recover from major disasters. and you meet the statutory criteria, particularly two factors. These are the slum factors. Inadequate provision for ventilation, light, air sanitation or open spaces. Keep in mind sanitation during the last storm. Major

major sanitation damage. Um, and then the existence of conditions that engender life or property by fire or other causes. Category 1 evacuation zone. If category one hurricane hits you, 3 ft of water covers pretty much all the island. And I'll go into the um the other factors in the following slides. So mentioned those severe sanitations challenges. Just a few highlights. All of the late wastewater lift stations, three of the wastewater pump stations and one storm water lift station were damaged by the storms. 10 required major rehabilitation. Nearly 60% of your wastewater infrastructure requiring major rehabilitation. That is a sanitary issue due to vulnerability to major storm events. Tens of millions of gallons of overflow went into Tampa Bay just because of the fact that there was a storm. When we looked at the infrastructure damage within the area that we were looking at for the the boundaries of this, there were 547 points. That was 547 pieces of infrastructure damaged within that boundary. 65% of them were utility related. That's your water and sewer system. It's one of the foundations for why we have cities is water and sewer. The existence of conditions that engender that endanger life or property by fire or other causes. So evacuation zone A 3 ft of water even the most minor of storm and don't expect it to let up. Um, we had a year of a cluster of storms one after another. Um, we probably hopefully we

won't have that again, but climate change evidence is saying otherwise to us right now. One of the factors is predominance of defective inadequate street layout, parking facilities, roadways, bridges or public transportation facilities. So all of your streets are in the coastal hyazid area. This is known all of them are underwater in a major event. These are evacuation routes as well. So being underwater in one storm is fine. Being underwater in repetitive storms is damaging your evacuation ability. So it's something to keep in mind is how do we make sure our streets are resilient and can bounce back so we can make it shirt through the next storm. And then one of the things we noticed is just failing to meet modern design standards. And this gets back to the tourism economy here in that if somebody comes to the island and decides to stay in a hotel on the island, use use the resources of the island, then it'd probably be a good idea if they spent money on the island. The moment they get in a car, their options are beyond Corey. Their options are downtown St. Pete. Their options are gateway. They can go multiple places that are just as easy as going to Corey. So improving the sidewalk network, improving the multimmoal transportation connections is a big part of keeping those dollars on the island, unsanitary or unsafe conditions. Um, interestingly enough, I did not expect to find this because typically after a storm, you'll let up on code enforcement because, you know, people are they have other things to deal with. Um, but there was a 27% increase in code

violations following the storms, which means it stuck around. The typical ones, substandard property, unpermitted work, overgrown vegetation. That's a indicator of vacancies, which is an impact on tourism. It doesn't look good. People don't feel good about being here. Deterioration of site or other improvements. And I'm going to go into this in the next few slides, but basically what you're seeing is storm events damage infrastructure, make you more vulnerable to the next storm event, make it more expensive to recover, and you're in a cycle. First one, your infrastructure meant to protect you, damaged dunes, seaw walls, making you vulnerable to the next event. you have to get these things repaired otherwise the damage next time is going to be more um and then I mentioned earlier the the population and the basic services um the only grocery store in the city was lost to fire um CRA may have the ability the tools to bring that into to bring something those basic services back into the city and then I'm going to get to vacancy rates now so they are higher in this area than in the rest of Penllis County. Co-star data is showing a 6.4% vacancy rate. The rest of the county is at 4.9%. However, city tracking of this information is significantly higher. CoStar is a known piece of information. It's a good data source for these types of of studies. Um, internal city tracking we know should be higher um but not necessarily as trusted as a co-star piece of data. However, what is trustworthy is your halfsent sales tax revenue. If you look at the budget in

2024, 722,000 and half cent sales tax revenue collected. End of 2024 fiscal year happens coinciding with several hurricanes. 2025 actual revenue half of that. So if that's not a leading indicator of business loss, then I don't know what is. That's half of the sales tax revenue down, half the sales gone. Um, and then, you know, just based on the pictures that we saw, the community, the code enforcement, you see residential vacancies more prevalent, a lot of damaged structures still not repaired, which brings us to the risk of of uh Florida building code violations. And this particular factor is a weird one. So we looked at it from a different perspective is that in the city what was built before the notion of FEMA flood zones before the notion of building something above the flood plane and what was built before it. So 68% of the city was built before the notion of that. That's 68% of the buildings that are likely at risk to, you know, flooding issues. And just, you know, as a FYI, it's not something we looked at. 2002, the Florida Building Code became a statewide code. Um, with the exception of 202 structures, everything was built before then. But this we didn't get into that because we didn't know if people replaced their windows or fixed their roofs. A lot of things could have happened. So we're meeting the statutory require requirements to establish a CRA. Um

we have and this is just looking at vulnerability to climate change, vulnerability to major hurricanes, vulnerability to just basic flooding from tropical storms. Um we have an aging population. We have a high storm surge risk. Our infrastructure is old and not necessarily able to handle repeated events. We have unsanitary environments and site deteriorations as a result of these storms. We've lost seaw walls. Buildings are gone. They're people are not coming back into homes. Some homes are just not habitable anymore. Um, vacancy rates and economic decline are evident both by sight and in the tax revenue data that we've seen. And a large share of the buildings in the city are vulnerable to code issues. They're built prior to FEMA standards and likely built and not rehabbed prior to the statewide Florida building code. So if we establish today that St. Pete Beach has a necessity to use tax increment financing revenues to fund infrastructure improvements to help us bounce back more effectively from disasters in the future. Um Laura actually summed this up much better to begin the presentation, but what you're looking at is a process where you start doing a community redevelopment plan. That community redevelopment plan, my advice to you is you bound it by reality, both economic and physical, as well as

political. So that if you're doing the first tiff for resilience that's at its heart and core that thing you have something that can deliver can deliver the improvements and can actually make the city a better place to live and a safer place to live. So I'm available for questions. Thank you sir. Commissioners questions, comments? Commissioner Maldonado.

Hey uh Matt, thank you for uh that presentation. I found it very informative and answered several of my questions. What considerations, if any, do we have to consider when it comes to historically designated uh areas? Any impact whatsoever as far as resiliency improvements and

in terms of the CRA designation? in terms of the CRA designation, you can look at that and you definitely would look at historic designated areas that are within the CRA in terms of how you would think about planning for them. Um, and the way you would approach the resilience improvements in those areas would have to be sensitive to those districts um while at the same time protecting them as much as possible. Um, I can't tell you exactly what it looks like right now, but you will have to think about that. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Robinson. Um, are some of these conditions though consistent with any natural disaster? The decrease in revenues, things to that effect?

Consistent with any after a natural disaster such as, you know, if we were going to go to Hawaii and look at the or or we're going to go to California and look at a a fire. If we're going to go down to Naples or Cape Coral and look what happened to them after a hurricane. Oh, you're right. After a natural disaster, you will see a reduction in in revenue. You'll see businesses not being able to to remain open. Um some businesses clo closing. Um what we're talking about here is not eliminating that condition because it's going to happen. You cannot stop the ocean. It's bouncing back more quickly. Understood.

It's it's how do you recover as quickly as possible and just understanding the importance of St. PP to the Penllis County tourist economy and the importance to Penllis County for St. P to b bounce back more quickly

and um compared to the damage assessment that we see here. Why are some areas not included and other areas are? So, we looked at areas that one would have the potential to really produce the most tiff revenue as possible for you, which are largely your non-residential areas. First, first and foremost, they're less likely to be homesteaded. Um, and secondly, areas that have the potential to drive your economic base and implement your plans. So Corey Avenue being the de facto downtown de facto Main Street, it's critical to get that in to make the CRA improvements necessary to make Corey Avenue the the gem that it is. um extend the gem from sunrise to sunset and um and then to include the the hotel districts um because they are you know

the court seem to extend a little further than what initially was planned for in the downtown redevelopment. What was the reason for that? I'm sorry. Hold on one second. What page? I'm just looking at a map. Hang on. I'm going to find a map here. Um the map with the St. Beach Community Redevelopment Area in red. Or you can go to the one that actually has this one.

Um go to the one that compares the Hang on, let me find a page here. It is right here. Um your pa uh our agenda page 151. Your page 2-27. Sorry, little. That's actually the one here on the screen. Page nine for you. Thank you. So, it's on the right of this. Uh, it's got the Corey Avenue vision plan on it. Yeah, if you go down five more pages. Oh, okay. Sorry.

Oh, this says seven. Sorry. The one that says history and priority. There you go. So the the question well it's expanded much past this. I mean this is basically 75th some 76 uh you know it's 73rd through 76. If you go up five pages it actually includes all of that area. It includes all that but it also expands past that. Yeah. So if we look

asking why it's expanded past that because that does include some you know resident a lot of residential in that area and then it doesn't go to like where Woodies or or or Toasted Monkey is or anything along Sunset around that way which is also um something that we're looking at as well from uh I think it does. No, it does. Yeah, it does because it goes uh two blocks north of Corey, three blocks cases. If you look at the If you look at the page, four pages. Okay. One more. There you go. All the way to the right. Right. It's that entire colored in area.

Yeah. All of that. And then all the businesses along Blind Pass. And then does not include the residential areas in district two, just the resort areas in district two. Okay. Good. Because on the red one it doesn't appear that way and it didn't have the streets on it. Yeah. Tark. So what this is doing is

it's taking that special planning area, one area that has the existing strategies for community redevelopment, community revitalization in them, and extending it so that you capture the coastline. Um, and you capture areas where you can make a lot of the resilience improvements that you that you could possibly make through a CRA plan. Um and um it also is covering a lot of the hot spots for infrastructure damage um that you saw during the last uh cycle of storms.

Commissioner Marriott.

Um yes, thank you. Um thank you for the presentation. That was great. And thank you Laura for for getting that kicked off. Um I think this has been um very thoroughly and thoughtfully done. and I appreciate that. Um, and and I think this is a our our best current uh potential way to really increase some funding for some resiliency projects and and and have the potential to make a really big difference going forward in St. Pete Beach. So, I think I think it has a ton of potential. Um, and my question and and this may be more a question for for city staff or it may not be a very answerable question, but what what is the um, you know, I think I think in the past um, the city of St. Pete Beach tried to create a CRA um, and it never it never quite got to the finish line. And so, um, I don't know if you had any information about about what what's different or is is the landscape changed or has our application process changed? Are we do we fit the criteria better now than we used to? Do we do we have a better chance of actually getting this to the finish line than we did before?

Thank you, Laura Canary, community development director. Um, I think it's a a combination of things. Um, I think uh, number one, the county criteria that I mentioned, that all started in about 2019 is when they first said that they were going to kind of they had a number of CRAAS in Panelis County that were um, reaching their 30-year mark. Um, per the state statute, the way the statute is written, it allows a CRA to have a maximum life lifespan, operational time frame, if you will, of 60 years. If the CRA was established before, it's like July, whatever, of 2002. So, if your CRA was established before 2002, you can go out potentially a total of 60 years. If it was after that time period, a total of 40 years. So in Penllis County in particular, we had quite a few CRAAS that were coming up on that expiration date and coming forward to the county of wanting to extend their operational time frame and the county was like, well, wait a minute, like again, not to not to knock on St. Pete, but when you see some of the super success in St. Pete, you know, the idea is that a CRA should put itself out of business is what they say because essentially you want, you know, to see that that revitalization has occurred. and you were seeing the success of the CRAAS, but you weren't seeing them sunset. And so at that time is when the county said, "Okay, we're gonna, you know, put some policy in place that basically because we are a charter county and have that ability so that we're kind of being more um you know, it's it's a fair um process for the municipality. So as they come forward, whether they're a new CRA or looking to expand, meaning their boundary and make it bigger or extend their time frame, that we're looking at criteria that make sure that it's aligned with our goals and objectives. So that all started in 2019 and then

became like memorialized in 2021. You also have that I don't know all of the history, but I can tell you that the original boundary and everything didn't change too much. Um, I can tell you that I think it would have been a very very heavy lift even, you know, you know, three years ago to try and get one in St. Pete Beach or any of the barrier island communities here in Penllis County. But I think what we saw with the storms is that you saw that blight can happen overnight and it's not always visual. Um, in our case, we know that when it comes to the infrastructure, we already had these issues well before the storms and and you know, going back to as early as when the CRA was first looked at, but because visually you can't really see it and if you're not in the thick of it like Camden and understand what I and I is and all of that, you you know, it's it's harder to say that this is a slum and blighted area. So I think that the combination of with the storms unfortunately the impact and Commissioner Robinson to your point I think that's a very valid point and and one of the concerns that we had early on as we were starting this F study is as we document the conditions we need to be very careful that we're not documenting conditions that are maybe considered temporary right or just part of the rebuilding. And so what we tried to document was exist conditions that existed pre-storms but then again what maybe became just more visual with that blight that occurred overnight. So I think it's the combination of those things. And then last but not least I think that again this is just something you know I've learned more since I've been here almost the last year but you know even even before I got here I knew what a contributor St. Pete Beach was to tourism in Penllis County and how St. Pete Beach as a contributor was not getting its fair share through the CIP and elite event funding that you know VSPC funds you know through the bed tax. And so in in my mind again it's part of

that bigger story of what St. Pete Beach means for the county's, you know, economy, frankly, and how this this is really essentially I almost want to call it instead of a community redevelopment agency, I want to call it a community rebuilding agency essentially because I think that's really what you know that's the what we're doing here. Again, it's all about the the rebuilding and being able to build back faster. So, I hope that answered your question because I think it's really the the compilation of all of that coming together and the timing is ripe that if there even though it still is a heavy lift, I think that if we have an opportunity to sit down with our county partners, now is a better time than ever.

Thank you. That that does answer my question. I really appreciate it and and I think this is I think this is a like I say, I think this is our best opportunity to get a get a lot of the funding that we need to make some really lasting changes in the city. And so, I'm very in favor of it. Thank you. Um, I did want to say one more thing that I forgot to say earlier. I'm sorry. When I was saying, you know, to to anyone that wants to do their own their own homework, another really good resource, if you go on the on Penllis County site and you want to pull up the VAB, you can actually see the TIFF districts for Penllis County. And so, you can see, again, historically, I wouldn't use the last years as the the best indicator, but you can really see how these areas are outperforming the cities as a whole. So when you start to look at those valuation increases. So the the question as to if it's going to impact my property valuation potentially but likely it'll go up. That's all. Thank you.

Commissioner Maldonado. Not so fast Laura. So first of all, if I understand correctly from previous meetings, this is one of your superpowers. This is something that you bring to the city in terms of having worked this uh issue prior. Is that correct? Yes. I get a little more enthusiastic about this than substantial damage assessments.

So, so we have we have a sandbagger uh amongst us and I'm I'm just happy to see that we're looking at this and you know after seeing two previous attempts I think that maybe we just required the skill sets and the expertise. My question comes to the CRA boundary that's up there right now. I see that district 4 the southernmost part of uh St. F feet beach is not included in the what is this here the boundary and my question is does it have to be contiguous or is this something that we can package and peace meal because we also have a um a business district we have the boutique hotels that you know were severely damaged and are struggling to get back we have one in particular that you know they're going to be coming to the city with um some plants but it's gone I mean that thing was 4 feet underwater so you know I'd like obviously how we can leverage this uh you know not only to modernize our infrastructure but to improve that resiliency.

So I I think um start small and what I mean by that yes it does have to be contiguous. The other thing um they changed I think Port Richie was the last CRA in the state that was able to get in where almost their entire city is a CRA. So now they have you cannot have your CRA be more than 80% of the geographical boundary of the municipality that it is within. So we are you know we have those parameters but then again that's kind of why we start with the Corey Avenue that downtown core and then branch out. Um that isn't to say that at some point and especially if we're doing redevelopment right and we're getting that ROI on the investment that we couldn't look at a potential expansion andor another area. you can have uh more than one district at that point you would still have one agency that would be overseeing the redevelopment trust fund. The only caveat of that is that if you were to say establish another district or even an expansion, if you were to expand the boundary, um in in the case of an expansion, the base year is still that original base year of when of when the CRA established when you create the a new district, excuse me, or an expansion. um if it's in now you're not contiguous, you have to reset the base year. So, and a redevelopment trust fund, the redevelopment trust fund is separated. So, you essentially have a little bit more limitations on the expenditures, but again, you can look at those those other areas as long as you're within the 80% of the total boundary of the municipal boundary.

Thank you, Commissioner Resniki. you answered a lot of the questions I had written down but first thank you um for the presentation both of you for for the presentation tonight 100% support of the CRA um and the questions you answer because I I was agreeing with um Lisa Robinson with Commissioner Robinson sorry with um the residents because when you were doing your presentation um you mentioned you know the tourism and everybody else who comes in you know for um improving the the business district, right? Like that's what we're trying to attract, but we're also talking about the people who live here at the same breath because you mentioned, you know, our our grocery store, right? We can't shop within our own area. It's the people that live here, too, that are also supporting these businesses. I mean, that's what we want is for the people who live in all our different um residents in all our different districts. Um, you know, so I mean, I wrote down the note that you said now it's 80% of the boundary. um in the discussion between everything I was trying to pick up what we can or we cannot do. Um is that 80% like what's the percentage right now with this just this area? Do you know?

So I just actually Gil just had the the acreage um ac Yeah. So we were at seven square miles. So again, we're well with under that threshold and so we would have potential room to look at, you know, making that boundary broader. But um again, that's where I think we need to be very uh strategic and intentional with, you know, uh I think, uh a lot of times something that gets a little bit concerning is when you start to expand that boundary and especially into those residential areas in particular. I guess the boundary has to be continuous.

Contiguous. Yes. And so yeah, because I mean I'm just trying to think of how you get all the way down to pass a grill because you have I mean we still have boutique hotel district all along the coastline then it becomes residential but it's slash residential commercial by El Central then the dawn and then there's a little bit of residence before you get over to Pass Grill which is a historic district which is I want to say it's almost like a business in itself. People go over there just to drive through. Um, so again, just trying to get creative on it because you mentioned St. Augustine and I don't know what percentage they are, but they're a historic city. So I don't know if you're when you gave that as an example, is that the whole city of St. Augustine or just their historic district?

They have um that now they just created a third CRA. So they have the historic CRA which is in the historic district that was found on parking and transportation blight and essentially is how they funded their parking garage. And then they have the Lincolnville CRA which is a predominantly residential area that again is more it's really all about housing in that area. So again parking and transportation over here, housing for the second and then they just established a third CRA which is the West City CRA. Um, one of the things though that we see a lot of, and I think that as a practice, um, practitioners have gotten better about, you'll see a lot of CRA boundaries split in the middle of a roadway. And so, you end up in a position where the CRA can say fund the sidewalks and the pedestrian improvements on the north side, but then they got to partner with the city for the south side. So, we've gotten a little bit better about that and, you know, trying to make sure that we're capturing both sides of the road to not run into a situation like that. I will tell you that we still do have the ability to with this boundary as we get out there. I mean, the real work is going to be as we start to do the plan development and are out talking to the community and hearing that feedback. So, again, by all means, if there's a parcel that's contiguous and it makes absolute sense or we see something or there's a project that we just know it makes sense, we have that ability to, you know, tweak it as necessary um before it's memorialized and finalized. um because again the conditions that were found are not saying that these conditions exist on every parcel. It's just that within this area these conditions exist. So we do have a little bit of flexibility there. We would just be probably a little reluctant to get too big right away is you know kind of baby steps working with the county. I think

I think it's better to get something approved right than it is to expand beyond what is approvable.

Correct. Well said. And then just what the last comment that I had to is we mentioned you're you're all echoing um how the city of St. Pete Beach is the number one contributor I I would say right to tourism or biggest biggest I'm hearing number one like the biggest for Penllis County. Um you said number one back there two. Okay. That's that's still pretty pretty significant. Um that we got to use this information. And I'm not saying just with you, but a city overall, you know, with um the tourist development tax dollars, our bed tax. I mean, if this is what these reports are saying, we should be and I know Francis, you you're nodding there. So, but we need to all somehow um be going to Penelis County and talking about about this, you know, because this has been going on maybe for some while. And and I don't not asking you to tell me that data. probably don't have it, but maybe it has been like this for a long time and and we're not really fighting for the dollars we should be getting com, you know, in comparison to what we're contributing back, you know. So, um, we got to get a little vocal about this. And I think that, um, you know, getting the CRA champions, as I'll call them, on board, right? because you know the bed tax in some ways it's not related to the CRA and this establishment but it really is you know and and I think it's telling that story and getting those champions that are able to then go forward and when we're there you know for the CRA you know understanding first of all really educating and understanding that hey by us creating the CRA all that bed tax that we've been contributing for decades that we haven't really seen come back besides with the beach renourishment um you know this is one way that we can start to cycle some of the the funding back into our county back to where it's being generated from. I think that's the beautiful thing about

a CRA is that there's no concerns of that this area over here generated it and you're spending it o only over here again. It's just getting cycled back into that area and that it's kind of that, you know, that tradeoff if you will for understanding that, okay, if the policy is what it is and you're not going to, you know, we're we're only going to look at beach nourishment from here on out, well then then all the more reason this is again probably phase two or three. um some of the criteria that the county looks at for example is very similar to like the CDBG stuff. So again h getting the county to a point where they weight resiliency or being in a coastal high hazard area as much or more as being in a CDBG census track.

Thank you. Laura, I only have one question. Um, have we done any preliminary studies or assessments as to what the positive revenue to the city might be if this goes through?

Not yet. Not yet. Uh um I know that when we ran the original valuation for the boundary and we can come back with that as part of our probably first engagement and outreach session, we looked at the overall valuation and then we use a rule of thumb of a 2 and a half% valuation increase which is um pretty conservative but that's kind of just standard across. Again, it's just a projection but um that's what we usually use when we're looking at a TIFF projection and and spreadsheet. So, we'll probably show that and then again um break it out as far as how that looks at a 50% from the county because again different millillage and so you have to put it all in um collectively. But we'll probably show some examples so that we'll have a really good indication as far as if we fall here with the county in the crit here's what we can expect and here's where we can land because again that's going to help really the planning process and what you can do. Um, I'm not crazy about the economic development threshold only being 10 years. You know, that's something that again, if we establish it, that's something that hopefully we have time then to be able to re-evaluate what that looks like and and again, if we're going forward for an operational time frame extension again, that we even have that ability. But I think we start with getting it hopefully approved and then and then we can really show how this is now the model hopefully for um resiliency and infrastructure based CRAAS at least in in the barrier island communities here in Panelis.

Do you remember what those initial projections were? No, I'm sorry. I'm talking few hundred thousand or million dollars. Oh, it was over a hundred million for the valuation for this area. Yes, I I do know that 100 million. Yeah. At a 2 and a half%. So 2 and a.5 million. Was that per year or is that for the lifetime of the 10 years? That is per year. Okay. Again, that was really rough though. I understand. I'm not going to hold you to that number. So, but I mean in the next steps we'll get even more details on on the projections, right? So if we if we max it out, here's where we can be.

I'm just looking because I know Gil had the exact number. Okay. If he has Well, we can go to audience comments and if you find it, we can come back with it. Okay. Commissioner Robinson. Go ahead.

Yeah, I had another question. Um, where are we in the process? Because I know originally it was the do the do the study and then because my concern is I just want to make sure we have community buyin. I don't so see why we wouldn't but I would like to see community buying if people are concerned with being called blight. So the next step from here you all authorizing us to basically entertain and look at now the next step would be to develop the redevelopment plan and begin those conversations with the county. So, um, we would also be then looking at again based on the anticipated cost of the redevelopment plan, we would be bringing that back to you for approval and potentially if we need to issue an RFP for the issuance of the RFP to be able to go under contract to write the redevelopment plan. So, that would be the next step. And then the community engagement, that's part of the planning process. That's day one. That's of the planning process. So that's after we've approved the CRA and the whole bit and the county's approved it then.

No, that's that's to start. Okay. When is the So the community engagement would come not next but after county approval after you all after we have been given authorization to enter into a contract to write the redevelopment plan. Okay. We would start the community engagement immediately. I think one of the first slides showed that that like that was like like we're on step one and step two was that includes like step two and a half is the community engagement

and for full transparency because I think it's very important because I've said the heavy lift with the county and everything. Okay, so what happens if all all of this work and then they say no or they don't want to play nice in the sandbox. this all this work is not then for nothing as one of I think it was um Matt's second or third slide showed those other alternatives for tiff districts you know it doesn't again this is the state statutory criteria for a CRA but obviously that model is kind of getting outdated and even you know the slum and blight and you know I think that we're we I think at the end of the day even if we're in a situation where it doesn't look like the CRA um historic model is the right fit for us We would still use all of that planning, all of that community engagement. We would still use it all to inform the LDC updates that we're looking to do. We would still use it to to inform our comp plan amendments when we're able to make those. So, it would that engagement would still be utilized and then be able to be incorporated into our policies um one way or another and then again hopefully have another vehicle to actually fund, you know, through a diff a tiff district. The other thing is is that nothing says that you can't still as a city have the CRA have that dedicated funding source so that it's cycled back in. Again, you just don't benefit over the the the county's contribution. But that still would require a delegation of authority from the county to say that yes, we can establish it and now because they have the redevelopment powers, they're giving us the redevelopment powers to do that within this area and set up a trust fund. So it it wouldn't be ideal for sure, but we would still have we've kind of come up with some plan B, C, D, and E. If necessary, we we would pivot.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Do we have any audience comments? Yes.

Gregory Primmer, if you'll please state your name and address for the record. Sure. Gregory Primer, 3957 Moody Street, Belle Vista in St. Pete Beach. Um, I had the honor of being in your guys' position 10, 12 years ago when the CRA was last got brought up and shot down. The biggest hurdle we faced at that time was the community or development. the there was a small yet vocal faction that detested the words blight and slum. If there's a way we can tweak those words so they're not as harsh. I don't know if that has to be part of the actual verbiage, but blight and slum word just killed it for anybody that was especially on the north end of the island. um if we can soften that somehow and get the word out to this is how it's going to help us. Now, I was also happened to be around when we did the Corey Avenue vision plan where it was uh Corey Sunrise. Where am I? Cory Sunrise. Cory Sunset. Um now that we are where we are, the sunrise part is underway. The sunset part I thought was beautiful. If you haven't seen the actual uh vision of it, the band shell at the west end of Corey with hotels down there. Speaking of hotels, um there's a reason we're number two in uh tourist development dollars, bed tax, head head tax is our great hotels. Well, I've been in city of

St. Pete Beach 34 years. In that time, zero new hotels. Not a one. Hotel Zamora was a remodeled. We've had some remodeling, but we had zero new hotels in the entire 34 years I've been here. In that same time, more than 1,000 condominiums have gone in. Th individual condominiums. Six different condominium complexes have been built since I've been here. Now, we got another one coming in. Cory, uh, Cory Sunrise, which was going to be apartments, now it's condominiums. Makes me wonder, we have a mayor that's a real estate developer. Oh, stop.

That it makes me wonder why none of the money is going to hotels and why everybody is so afraid of, oh my god, it's going to be a huge concrete canyon. We're going to be another Clearwater Beach. Let the hotels modernize. They are the lifeblood. Everybody in St. Pete Beach knew this was a tourist town, a resort town, and without our hotels vibrant and redone, we're not going to have that distinction anymore. So, thank you very much. I hope we do get the CRA moving. And good luck. Good job. Thank you,

Deborah Shener. If you'll please St. P Beach. I can tell you why the first one failed because it was eminent domain. So they're taking properties for the CRA through eminent domain and that clearly failed. I was here then. So, I was all for this until all I heard from one of these gentlemen, tourist, tourist, tourist. I didn't hear make the residential area more beautiful. No, make the hotels. I don't want those hotels to get a penny of this money. They have enough. And if they can't afford to redevelop properly, and quite frankly, if hotels abided by our laws, our regulations, our comprehensive plan, they surely could have been built. I have actually been to the um CRA in St. Augustine, and here's one of the problems that they had. A lot of the homes that were improved became uh VBOS's and so on the next block all the houses said homes not hotels. So when we prepare this, I think we need to be very very careful and to have very important safeguards so that our communities do not get ruined by this CRA I didn't understand is it for the whole city just that little section. I don't want the hotels to get my tax dollars that should go into infrastructure um improving homes. I think we need to look at the CRA and we just have to keep it out of the hotel area. They can contribute and they

should, but we need to improve infrastructure for residents as well. Everything seems to go to the hotels, the undergrounding, the sewer pipe. We need to get paid back for some of that stuff for sure. So when I walked in here, I was all in favor of it with severe safeguards, i.e. I know we have rules and regulations about um the RBO's, but unfortunately they're not always um found out nor taken care of. Streetscapes. Yeah, that's a good one. Street improvements. They also have architectural guidelines, which I've always thought was a good idea. Redevelop housing. That's what they did in that Lincoln area. Traffic improvements, parking, infrastructure. They don't talk about hotels when they did it in this particular area of St. Augustine. I don't want my tax dollars going to a private entity. I wanted to go to homeowners, small businesses, and maybe even a couple of very small hotels. So, if you do this, please have restrictions and please have safeguards. Thank you. By the way, we pay 80% of the real estate taxes, not the hotels.

Thank you, Kathy Garow.

If you'll please state your name and address for the record. Kathy Garop, 3607 Casablanca Avenue. Um, this looks great, Laura and Commission. I I just wanted to ask as you are looking at the way that your areas mapped out, at least I'm curious why the Donses Hotel maybe wasn't looked at. And I know that we're exploring I mean just because that is such a an incredible special place for our community. Um maybe it doesn't make sense for this first round but it stopped there. The other aspect of course is that it sits on the Donsesar plat which we already know um creates a lot of vulnerability for the city including the boat ramp. So potentially I just wanted to mention that that could be a valuable and kind of congruent aspect of um the way that we're exploring this going forward. So thanks. It's great though.

Thank you Kathy. There are no more audience comments.

Okay. Well, as we saw in the report at the last commission meeting, our city has a real need of $213 million of infrastructure that we somehow have to find money to pay for. And I want to say thank you to to a couple of individuals. Um, I want to say thank you to our city staff. I want to say thank you to the University of Florida who helped us get this ball rolling. Um, I want to say a huge thank you to the commissioners that when I brought this idea first forward to the commission for your support then and I want to thank you for your support today because it is important that we do pay for this infrastructure need that our city has and if we can bring an additional $2.5 million or more in additional revenue every single year. This is money that would have gone to the county but instead this is now coming to us. uh this can pay over the next 10 years for at least 10% of that. And so with that, um I want to say as far as the commission goes, you will have my commitment um that I will work with the county commissioners to do everything I can to move this thing forward. I know we've built great relationships with them. I know the city staff has done an amazing job in the short time that they've been here. Laura just a year, city manager just a year and a half. But the relationships that they have built with the county administrators and the county staff, the relationships that we have built with the county commissioners, um you on a couple boards, me and a couple of boards. So we're going to make sure that we use every resource that we have at our disposal to see that we get this thing moved forward because you know after the storms a lot of this became avail I mean it became apparent that we do need to find ways of you know how do we redevelop responsibly? How do we

attract redevelopment? How do we attract new businesses in? And that all starts by having nice new clean buildings that tenants and business tenants in particular want to come to. And so I want to say thank you to everyone that's that's helped bring this this far and I hope that we can take this over to the finish line. I I look forward to the community engagement, having those town halls and having those communications uh those conversations with our residents. I appreciate everyone that came here tonight and I look forward to taking this all the way. And so with that, I will make a motion that we pass that we pass resolution 2026-04 accepting the findings of necess necessity report for a proposed community redevelopment area.

Second. City clerk, if you'll please do a roll call. I'm sorry. Who was the second? Commissioner. Commissioner Maldonado. Yes. Vice Mayor Marriott. Yes. Commissioner Robinson. Yes. Commissioner is Nikki. Yes. And Mayor Petrilla? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. The next item that we have is action item 6B, resolution 2026-1.

A resolution of the city of St. P Beach vacating a three-foot platted easement at the rear of lots five and six of block C of Sunset Park replat recorded in plat book 18 page six of Panelis County public records located within the property boundaries of 103 24th Avenue and providing for construction correction of scriveners errors and an effective date.

Good evening Brennan Barry planner. There have been no changes to the resolution since the prior meeting when it was continued. In the interim, we have received a building permit to relocate the sewer line that was discussed at the meeting. Uh it will remain on the subject property. It's being moved to the east side of the property adjacent the neighbor's lot. There is a proposal and I believe the owner stated they did record a license agreement that has been reviewed by the city attorney's office uh that would preserve the access the sewer access to the manhole at the rear of the subject property for the neighboring residents. Um according to the city attorney that does protect the city's interest. We do have the property owner and the their representation present. Staff has no additional comments. Happy to take any questions. Thank you.

Commissioners, questions, comments other than say thank you to getting us to this point. Yeah. Know that that was it. It's just thank you to the uh the staff and the attorney as well as the uh the pazes for just coming up with an innovative solution to what was not a commission problem, but it is a community problem. So, thank you all. Do we have any audience comments? Michael Peza. Good evening, sir. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Michael Peza. Uh 103 24th Avenue. Pastor Grill. Uh and I just wanted to kind of, you know, Brandon kind of brought us up to speed with everything here and I'm very happy with that. Um, we wanted to do it to, you know, lay this plan out so that we could, you know, make sure that there's no disruptions with the sewer from our neighbors. Uh, we're willing to pay for it 100%. Um, it's, you know, $8,000. It's a lot of money, but, uh, we're willing to do that. And, but I just wanted to, you know, come up here and, you know, thank you all and and give you a little bit of background on how we got here, you know. So, and I'll do it quickly, but you know, we bought the house in 2017. Um, and it was our intentions. We bought the house to put a a built-in pool in. And with with that being said, uh, we started that process a couple years ago. It was two years in March that we started this whole process and found out about this sewer running into our yard. Okay. We did, we had no idea. Did total search. It was clean. No problems. Uh Helen comes through and we decide that even though our house didn't get damaged uh and we love our house, but I was there and the water was coming and it it was scary. So we decided, you know, we're not going to put all this money into the property. Let's rebuild it, right? So we went tried to donate the house to the city. You guys did your investigation on it. Didn't make sense. We now have a um a buyer for the lot that's going to take the lot and hopefully move it to they already started uh hopefully move it to Cory Evan.

You mean the house? Awesome. You know, the house. The house. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. So, we we've got that we've got that rolling. Um some things have been tied up here just because this vacated lot is is very crucial to us. Um because we can't build the house or put the pool in unless that lot is vacated. talked to all the utility companies. They've all approved. Um so we're, you know, we're good with that. So now we're just hoping that you guys will approve this, you know, the the uh information that's in front of you tonight so that we can move on and house will be moved and uh you know, we'll be able to build our our dream house one story, not this monster, okay, pass a grill. So I think it'll fit in great with the great with the community. So that's all I wanted to say.

Thank you, sir. and thank you for bringing us to this point and and working it out with the neighbors. We appreciate very much. Any other audience comments? There are no other audience comment. Thank you. Is there a motion? I'd like to make the motion to approve resolution 2026-01. Second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Rniki? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. Mayor Petrilla? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next, what we have three items for discussion and they're all for you, Commissioner Robinson.

Um, I just wanted to start off by um discussing the um three times permit fees for the um for the after the fact permits that uh per the city website states are will become in effect February 16th. Um I have concerns with that. Um as I don't think the notification was has been adequate and giving to the residents on that considering we did send out a letter in January to those 500 and some odd homes that uh this would affect. And we did not include in that letter that the uh permit fees would then be three times uh as a penalty for the after the-act permitting starting February 16th. I would like to see an extension on that. Penllis County itself um actually um the unincorporated plus city six cities including Bair Beach have extended their after the fact permits without fees to June 30th. So I would I believe we are ahead of the curve on this and I don't think that's where we want to be especially with uh I don't feel that the notification was quite adequate. I believe we should give more notification to the residents for this. Um, I'd like to see a longer period for an extension on that.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, what you're talking about is unpermitted work. Correct. The after the-act permit fees for unpermitted work from the hurricanes. Okay. So, I think we can I mean we could do this a couple different ways, but I think one way we could do it is to have call I mean this is this happens all the time with parking tickets with other issues is we could have an amnesty period, right? Where we could say look so this is part of the city ordinances, right? If you do unpermitted work

and somehow, you know, you're found out, then you're actually not responsible just for the regular permit fee, but for triple permit fees. And so we could look at doing a amnesty program and just say, look, you have until everybody else is June 30th, we could do June 30th, that's 120 days almost, right? and have an amnesty period and and just let everybody know, no, just if you did the work, just come tell us, right? Like, we're all live here. We're all neighbors. None of us want to come, you know, find you. None of that stuff. Nobody wants to do any of that stuff. It's been a year and a half. And at this point, if you did unpermanented work, come in, get your permit done. We can get someone in the building department to help you with the paperwork. You know, make sure you you get it done the right way. I would assume there's going to be another letter that goes out most likely and maybe that's as well as we can we can state that in there. Um and again I'd be looking at this being for unpermitted or after the fact hurricane damage

repairs, not

somebody who's doing it and know knowingly that it's not a hurricane related. So, if if we're provided this guidance by the commission, then where we're at right now, just so there's background for the public, we have the last report I got from community development was about 250 um residents who have been nonresponsive to the final notice that was sent out in January. If we're provided this direction, the plan would be to personally notify those 250 of what the commission has guided us to tell them. And then just so you also know, those 250 may not have done unpermitted work because we have a mix of situations right now where out of the 250 that have responded, we started with about 500. there are several people who haven't done anything and they're just waiting for various things like funding um deciding whether they're going to rebuild or fix. So this would I think the guidance we are seeking is this would only apply to those who have done unpermitted hurricane repair work and we're just trying to get them compliant with the city codes and then others who have done nothing there's no penalty at this I there's there's nothing to

other than to wait and help them to the extent we can when they're ready to to rebuild. But are there FEMA implications for the city?

There are not. So FEMA the process they pay attention to is are we communicating and enforcing our code. So even though maybe someone has not repaired their home if it's not blighted or a code enforcement um we do have actually two active examples of that where we have windows blown out the the um property is in very bad disrepair. Those are that goes into the code realm. But if your house is looks beautiful from the street and you just haven't fixed it up, there's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah, this is we're not talking about letting people off the hook and not getting permits, but rather just not enforcing the punitive aspect that is already on within our discretion. Yeah. And just say, look, look, just please do the right thing. Bring your permits forth, Commissioner. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure I understand you correctly. When you say amnesty, you just mean amnesty from the from the the punitive triple permit fees. They'll still be paying the regular permit fees. Yes. Yes. Okay. Perfect. Yeah. No, I think that's a great idea.

So, but in but in that case then why have an amnesty? Why why do the three times permit if we're going to you know what I'm saying? Like why say that if we're going to you know there's a I mean walking around all over this pl all this over the city there's people who are receiving these letters and I can guarantee you the people who have not submitted this back a they're scared okay I I've been talking to you they're crying they they don't have the resources or sometimes knowledge to understand why are they getting this letter some people are getting confusion between I got three bullets but Penllis County by the if you haven't if you don't know this is also sending a letter to our residents in our city and now they got one that's due by the way March 1st. Okay. And they are confused. Okay. I I really think from walking around all district three that there is some lack of an of education or or communication or something that they're not understanding what is going on. Okay. There there's people who don't have water heaters in our city. Okay. They don't, you know, and and a couple that are really close to my house that I know because they don't know what to I mean, a it's financial. There's many reasons, right, why people aren't moving forward. Some people did unpermanent hurricane work because, you know, they thought that they could, not in a bad way, they just want to be in their house. They have nowhere to go. Okay. Um they there's, you know, oh well, you just sell your house. It's not that simple, you know. Penllis County is expensive to live in, you know, and I mean, I don't know. I I think this is a very punitive thing for the city to do to call it three time. I mean, that's why I'm

saying to let's remove it then why not have an amnesty? Yeah, I'm in agreements with you, Lisa. No, I mean, I think we're all talking the same thing here. That's what I'm saying. Single or it's the same. We're talking specifically about hurricane impact at home. That's what I'm talking about. You did unpermitted work and it wasn't related to the hurricane. We're not talking about exempting you, right? This is We're talking exactly what you were talking about. Everybody hurricane though is what I'm saying. No, there's plenty of people at renovation work that wasn't the gentleman that was just here. Their house was not impacted and they're doing work. They're building a brand new house. Not because they were damaged, but because they want

it work is what I'm saying. No, no, but I'm saying that is an example of work that was that's being done that has nothing to do with the hurricane damage. And so we're we're talking about the exact same thing here. And I think we're on the same page here, right? We want to help people that are related. We just say it's a single fee.

Well, it's more than that. We want to tell them come talk to us. That's that's what the letters have been. Come talk to us so we can help you. I mean, we have amazing commissioners. Commissioner Bolado served with the volunteers. You know, if there's something about codes that and building permits that Commissioner Robinson doesn't know, I'll be surprised, right? We have people. We have resources. We still have volunteers available that if we wanted to, we could call them up and 10 of them would show up tomorrow and say, "Let us help you." That's what we want. We want people to come to us and say, "Let us help you. If you're confused, we can help you. If you don't know what to do in this situation, there's no punitive part. There's no punishment. There's nothing. We just want to help you. Come talk to us." And I think that's the message that it should be is come let us help you. We want to help you. We want to help you figure it out. If you're not quite ready yet, that's fine. But if you did work that's unpermanent, that's what we're talking about today, right?

So that what is that what we're adding to these 250 that we're saying that are nonresponsive? No, we we're saying I mean the communication piece that you're saying is what I'm talking about. Well, the 200 Well, that's been part of the letters that's gone out is just come talk to us. That I mean it's you got an official letter, right? Well, look, I'm I'm happy if if we get if we get that list, we can call them and go you and I can go door knockocking and talking to those individuals because, you know, we do want to hear from them. We do want to know what's going on. Um, and we want to help them. I think we're on the same page. It's like we really want to help these individuals and it's just tough because they're not responding to anything. I'm not even sure if they're in their homes or where they're at.

But also for the other besides the 250, if you did unpermitted work, please come see us. We're gonna we're gonna work through this. I think Laura is cringing. Maybe she wants to add something to the discussion.

So, just um just a couple items. So, the last letter that went out, yes, was um intentionally the specifics on the potential three times the permit fee were not included because that was not going to be the case for everyone. Every situation has been different. And so, we have them categorized when they respond into three various buckets um to date. And again, the the intent has never been to even even after the 16th subject people to the three times. We just want compliance and for them to come in and try and encourage that. Um, one of the things though that I think we need I need clarification on for sure because um whether it's after the 16th and to the June 30th or however that looks. One of the things that we've been distinguishing between is those that come to us again, we just want you to come to us. we want to work with you versus those that maybe are either from an enforcement state either turned over to us, someone tells us, reports it, there's a contractor doing work without a permit and now so I I just want clarification and um on if you would like us to treat those the same because again a little different those I think we're all on the same page of if you're coming to us again even after I want to say after the 30th of June but again the goal is just to get you into compliance to the point of um and talking and the city manager. We we were even she was suggesting well we even picking up the phone if we had phone numbers for all of these individuals we would want that type of communication with them again just to be able to have the conversation put their mind at ease even if there was work we don't the goal isn't to go in and tear out all the drywall you know really to help them through that process. Um, but one thing again is that the ones that aren't coming to us that are doing it that are either turned over to us or from an enforcement standpoint just an inspector goes by and sees it and again they're not coming forthcoming to us. I just need that

direction. Commission.

Yeah. So, so thank you for emphasizing that. So, I I see that we're all on the same sheet. I see that there's passion and compassion for helping the uh residents. I think that the commissioners can help uh by bringing this up individually within our districts and then city uh can use the communications uh you know media as well as um letters to just clarify what the commission's position is once we decide on what that is because there is confusion. I I've been asked and I've seen letters, you know, and just like uh Commissioner Rniki said, you know, whi which trumps which. So, we can give them that clear guidance. uh we can communicate it and we can you know we can get going with it but we need to do something about it. So thank you.

Thank you. Do we have consensus? Yeah. Can I ask one last question because you you reminded me of something which trumps which? Do we have clarification yet as to why Penelis like what's the Penllis County letter? Would that trump anything that we're all talking about here? Like why are they requesting the same exact thing? I can answer this. You know already. Okay. Well, Mike Twitty will be here. But if you talk about the next Yes, the next meeting. That's was that was the second thing on my list. Go to your next point. I was going to be go right into my next point. We can transition to that. Well, let's make sure we have consensus on this. Yes. I don't know what June 30th for. That's not what I heard from what what type of date.

Mr. Res Nikki, it sounded like you didn't want to ever put three times on a I would love not to put three times on it, but if we're saying you you don't want to. No, no. amnesty that yes that's okay. No, we are on the same page. Okay. So, so after June 30th, yes, the times will be in effect will be in effect for anyone who has not come to the city for and it's a hurricane damage, right? Got it. Or uh for hurricane, but in the meantime, I guess we're saying three times is still in effect for anything that's not that's not storm related, not not if you don't come to us. For example, I have real estate listings. Yeah. That have been reported to us. Correct. And they have now become a code case. Yep. Yes. That is out of the amnesty.

That is out of amity. As soon as you land in coat territory, you're out of the amnesty period. If you landed in coach. Okay. Can I ask the city manager also and I don't know how the rest of you feel about it, but probably the same way I do that those 250 people who are left who who you haven't heard anything from or who haven't responded in any way. I know that I would love to have I would love to know who those people are in my district because it's much easier for me to get in touch with someone and say, "I'm your commissioner. I want to help you. Then when they get a letter from the city and they go, "Oh my god, I don't I'm like I'm not I don't know what to do. I'm not going to respond." I would agree with that. We got 200 divided by five. We each get 50 and Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

And that and when we do send out letters, maybe we should include a phone number for them to put on their own as well. You know, their return info to us. Oh. To give to give us their phone number. Yeah. Because the thing is if they're if their mail is getting forwarded, we may not know that. But if they're returning and signing that letter, because that letter had to be signed, I believe the check marks, the options on what you were doing. But if there wasn't any fill in your return address and phone and with the phone number, we could call them with the return address. We could get in touch with them. We can know where they are. Email, phone, something. Yeah. Yeah. Anything. Anything. Yep. All right. Commissioner Robinson. The next discussion item.

So the next item is I had mentioned about um seen about if we wanted to get Mike Twitty here. So I did talk to Mike Twitty on behalf of this commission and city manager and um community development and he has agreed to come here to do a presentation on Feb on our next meeting February 24th. He at that time will uh discuss the letter that he sent out. It's the condition status uh letter. Um, I asked him as well on the uh FEMA uh wind uh mitigation letter for 2025 and as well the 100 uh 110% rebuild. Um so he will come if he gets called up to Tallahassee, he's still going to have somebody here for us to do the presentation or or talk us through it everything. Um he uh they are as well doing an education um presentation Thursday, February 12th at noon at the South County building at 2500 34th Street North. Um it'll go through it's an education. It's going to be streamed and it will be taped. Um and it'll go through exemptions, condition letter, etc. Kind of the same thing that we're going through now. It will be in their training room. you can as well. I will provide the city manager with a link to register for that that we can put on our on um out on the website as well. Um what else? Um, and I highly suggest everybody take a look at on the property county uh property county property appraisers website panel counties um there are facts storm facts. So it might be something that you take a look at prior to this. So if you have any questions or anything rings true that you've heard from your residents that they've been asking um that we can bring those up and

ask those on their behalf. There's also the uh repair, replace uh calamity, damage, or destroyed property info. So, they have a lot of good facts on the website, but that's just in prep of him coming. I would frontload the uh property uh increase and decrease. There is a lot of disparities. I do have some insight and info from what's been provided to me by the appraisers's office, but it would be very nice to hear Mr. Twitty say what the county's position is on that. Thank you. Figure that would be better coming from him. Um and then historic property la

last item to talk about is historic designation. I just wanted to put that out and to to have um each of you um promote that within your own districts for folks that are still on the fence if if they're thinking about it. Any home 50 years old or older can apply. There's no charge to apply. it um is quite beneficial, especially if you're not going to elevate. Historic homes bring value to a community. They add value to a community. They keep with the character of the community and they do add. You can look that up. You can read about it um on any and that's why they do historic designations to begin with. So um there's a lot of value with that considering two going into another storm. um if you're not going to elevate and I'd be happy if we get good feedback on that to do another um another workshop on that. I did one at the library previously, but I'm happy to do another one again.

All right. Anything else? Do we have staff reports? City clerk, I have nothing to report this evening. Okay. City manager, nothing to report. City attorney, nothing this evening. District four, nothing to report. District three,

just one thing. Um, working on the volunteer um programs talking people heard about it. Um, so I have a a group of people in Bella Vista that are interested. We talked I guess in this meeting too about um what our city looks like um going down Gulf Boulevard. So, I have a core group of people who are willing, and I'll work with you with their eyes wide open over there, that want to just walk Golf Boulevard and pick up trash. That's all they want to do is pick up trash. They say that they are proud of their community and that, you know, they want to do it now before springtime. And these are a lot of people who are just here now during this time uh in this season. and they they want to they just want to be prder of the city. So, they want to do that. And then also a couple of businesses that wanted to do the same on the beach side is to just go around and pick up garbage. So, that's it.

Thank you. District two, uh library events. Tomorrow, the 11th, Florida's Highwaymen presented by Elizabeth Britt. On the 13th, there's a feature film roofman at noon. And then on the 13th, a Valentine's with with the St. Pete Sachs Quartet District 1.

Um, so all I have to report is that uh I'll have a beer with a commissioner event at Masteries Brewing next Tuesday, February 17th. And uh despite all the comments earlier, to the contrary, we do have a small grocery store on St. Pete Beach. Beach meets opened on Saturday on Gulf Boulevard. Um, and I know I'm super excited for them. So if you haven't been there yet, make sure you stop in. They have meat and seafood and produce and all the things. So, uh that's it.

Thank you. Yes, it's it's been amazing the number of um openings that we've had in St. Pete Beach in the last couple of months. Uh especially brand new businesses that were never here before. We have Caribou Coffee. We have the crepe place next to the ice cream place. Um that looks amazing. We had Malios, you know, that's been there for a little bit longer. Um, Adrian Steakhouse, no relation to me, um, right up the street here. So, it's really nice to see how many new businesses and I'm, you know, I love going to, um, you know, to all those events. The Seahorse just reopened. Um, so, it's good to start seeing the businesses finishing their renovations and then coming back uh, and excited to uh, to go to all these amazing local businesses. With that, thank you all. We are adjourned.

Audience make sure we have