City Commission - Regular Meeting

Order this city commission meeting of the city of St. Pete Beach. Today is Monday, March 9th, 2026. It is 6 p.m. Let's stand for the pledge of 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. The clerk, if you please do a roll call. Vice Mayor Marriott here. Commissioner Robinson here. Commissioner Rzniki here. Commissioner Mald Maldonado here. And Mayor Petrilla here. We have a quorum.

Thank you. All right. Are there any amendments to the agenda as proposed? Like to add uh Country Thunder to the discussion items. Okay. Any other changes to the amendment? Any other amendments to the agenda? Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended? I make a motion to approve the agenda as amended. Second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call.

Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Risniki? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. Mayor Pat? Yes. The motion carries. Thank you. All right. Next, we have a few presentations. The first one is 2A communication and small wireless facilities.

Um yes. So in the presentation section we want to talk about um five B a little bit. We have some people who are here to give presentations um outside of public comment on the item and before uh all regular audience comment. And we have Scott McCulla who's here from this children's health uh network and we have Matt Mucci who's here from AT&T. And we wanted to give them time uh to make a presentation. And Francis, do we have them lined up on Zoom? They're on Zoom.

Yes, they're both here. If uh Scott, if you would like to go first. You're muted though. If you could unmute yourself. I'll be happy to go first. Um I believe we have since your presentations were distributed as paper copies.

Thank you. That'll make things easier. I'm not very fasile at talking and clicking at the same time. Um, thank you for letting me address you and to do so remotely. My name is Scott McCulla. I'm a telecommunications lawyer. Been doing it far longer than I care to admit. Um, the uh residents in your area, including Lauren and Kelly Lee, came to us and asked us to help them uh on this project. and um you know we've enjoyed working with the your city staff and having the opportunity to present our views before you. Um things have evolved a lot over time. Uh this has been before you a couple of times. Where we are now is we pretty much have agreement u with your staff and um with your city attorney on all but about three issues. There's really only three that remain. Um, we we did just see their uh language that came out in the agenda on the driveway and fire hydrant distance require requirements. Uh, and we can accept that language instead of what we had and so that's no longer an issue. There are three issues that remain. One is the setback distance. Staff encourages 30 ft to the dwelling unit. We seek a mandatory 40 ft. Um the second is a legal issue whether uh FS 33741 completely prohibits a civet the city from requiring any separation between wireless facilities. And then third more generally whether any restrictions are should be mandatory or only encouraged. Um, so that they're basically just city preferences and maybe to be negotiated.

Uh, I'm not going to go through all of the uh technical discussion in in the handout. Um, I gave you some background information on what these things look like, what's usually on top of them, uh, and what you typically see in St. Pete's. I think the general takeaway is these things are usually about 40t tall. They got heavy equipment on top of them and then in the middle they become topheavy and they can fall in a high wind. I understand you have some high winds there. Um we think that a 40ft setback is essential and a 30-foot setback is really not effective at all and indeed it's probably almost meaningless. Uh, and that is because at a 30-foot setback on a 40ft pole, if it's set close to the property line, that thing falls, it's going to hit a house with about 10t of pole with a lot of heavy equipment on it. And if it falls, these things, if it's still energized, it can cause a fire. Uh, there's going to be heavy shards that are going all over the place. The whole goal here is to avoid having a dwelling unit be hit. And that's really only possible if you have a setback that is equal at least to the height of the pole or the other structure. I've done this in a lot of places and when when we do setbacks, we always have it at least 100% of the pole or structure and many times we add in more an additional 10 or 25% to account for things like the debris zone, stuff that breaks and flies out when it falls. So, uh, you know, we appreciate the staff's effort on this, but the bottom line is 30 ft just won't cut it. Um, there's also some other benefits and I go through them. I won't repeat a whole bunch of it. It adds some adverse

aesthetic benefit. It's a little further away from the property line. People uh won't have it right on top of them. Um, and in 33741, the language in that statute does allow you to have regulations based on location context. We don't believe that a 40-foot setback is going to be a de facto moratorum. There may be some debate over that, but what we've seen in the area is there will still be enough places in the area or 40ft setback on the side lot uh even taking into account driveway and fire plug issues uh for them to be able to reasonably place facilities where they need to be. There are other places in the statute where you are allowed to do similar things. Um you know there's there's language in the statute that allows you to have special language in places like historic areas and that is so even u notwithstanding the moratorum provisions. So I do not think that a 40ft setback is going to be a moratorum and I don't think that it's going to be what we talk of in the federal side as being an effective prohibition. Let's turn to the more contentious issue. Um, we are also seeking a uh three a 500 ft separation requirement and that is 500 ft between these wireless facilities. Um, we're not talking about regulating where the poles are. We're talking about regulating where the wireless facilities are that go on poles and other structures. I grant that the statute could be read many different ways, but when you look at the whole thing um in trying to sort through the difficult grammar and take

into consideration other parts of the statute, I think it is certainly a fair reading that a 500 ft separation requirement can be justified. Um there there's some judicial cannons when you read the statute the way that it reads especially when it concludes or at other atgrade communications facilities. I won't get into what all the Latin means, but usually when you have a set of things um and then there's one like here where they're very specific at grade you you can many courts do when it's ambiguous um treat all of them at like and so I think one reading is that the separation uh language in the statute is really talking about atgrade communications facilities not stuff up on there's also some other issues here. Uh you're allowed to take location context into issue. Uh that includes aesthetic measures and you know this is an aesthetic measure. What we're trying to do is ensure that uh no certain no specific location has a whole bunch of other of these things. They're ugly enough on their own. We don't want a bunch of them really close to each other. It really upsets the view, especially treasured views like you have there. There are some places where um the statute even actually preserves um existing separation requirements. Um it it allows the equivalent of separation requirement to prevent any of the situations in se uh 7D 11 AF. It preserves separation requirements in an agreement that was entered before July 7 July 1st 2017. It allows historic preservation zoning regulations to stay in effect even if they have a separation

requirement. It it preserves um homeowners association regulations where they exist, including those that might have a separation requirement. Finally, um this is a form of concealment. Now, that's a federal term, but what it basically means is when you conceal something, you hide it away, shield it from vision, treat it so as to be unnoticed. Certainly on the federal side, and by the way, the statute mentions concealment. It gives you power for them. On the federal side, this 500 separation requirement would be a concealment measure. So, I think it can be justified under that, too. So uh you know we did give you uh one example the city of Winter Park where they have what I I believe is a separation requirement at least for other support structures. It may not include utility poles but it certainly does support structures. So there's some precedent for this. Now, um you know, one of the other debates is are we going to have a a a polite ask or are we going to have a waveable requirement? We have agreed to the staff's language where they have the negotiation and I'm going to come back to that in a second with the few sec minutes I have left. But um you know in combination with the negotiation requirement I think you have a very good place where you know if they want to come in with something that's less than 500 ft y'all will have an opportunity to negotiate and it may be resolved. So the issue may never really come up. Now let me conclude. Um I know y'all are reasonably worried about getting sued. When I used to advise state agencies I was with the state attorney general's office. We were always concerned about litigation risk. It is a valid concern. But when you

assess litigation risk, you also have to balance against the benefit to be had. Any business is always going to assess risks and benefits. And if there's a big benefit, you're maybe willing to take a little bit more risk here. I don't think that you face a large risk of being sued merely upon passing this ordinance. Let me tell you why. Yes, that language is in the statute that does allow them to bring suit, but that would be what we call in the law a facial challenge. In Florida, every facial challenge, you have the burden of proving that the challenged ordinance provision always operates illegally. There is no circumstance under which it can operate legally. Here, I've already explained to you there are several situations where it can. So a facial challenge to your ordinance probably would not lie. Now when could it come up? It would come up only if they apply for a permit. It is less than 500 ft. Uh staff and the applicant go through the negotiation period. They cannot agree and then you ultimately deny the permit because of the 500 ft requirement. Only then, I think, would you face a potential lawsuit over this. So, the litigation on this is going to be on a casebycase basis. You're not likely to face an initial facial challenge to this statute. I see my time has elapsed. I'll be happy to answer any question.

Thank you, sir.

Commissioner Robinson. Hi, thank you so much for your presentation and for all your work with uh um the residents here. Um I had a question. Where are things on the federal level on this um aspect? And is the state of Florida one of the few states that has preeemption or is it uh one of many? There are things happening at the federal level that do threaten to challenge local jurisdictions authority in this area. Uh there's some bills in Congress. There is an ongoing um rule making at the FCC where the commission is basically um you know going to completely take away any kind of discretion that you have. Now we are challenging that. We and many, many others, including all of the organizations representing state and local governments, we're all very much opposed to what the FCC is going to do. And we've raised a lot of reasons for why they cannot take away all of your power in this fashion. Now, what do I think the FCC will do? I don't know. I've practiced in front of it for 40 years. I I don't know what they're going to do, but yes, there's an effort to make things worse. I think it is important for you to get your ordinance strong as it is right now. So that if the commission does do this, then when there is litigation and there will be litigation in the courts of appeals, then uh the city standing strong and trying to assert their local power and authority would u do well. Now in Florida, Florida is not the only state that has the kind of restrictive statute like you do. There are several others. Indeed, it's in the 30s, maybe the low 40s. They're not all the same, but they have some similarities. I think, however, the majority of states still give local jurisdictions far more

power than you have. Um, you know, I would encourage you to keep working with the legislature to try to have them see the light so that you do have the traditional police powers that local jurisdictions have always had in the area of land use. Um, and maybe we can convince them to make things a little bit better forward. We have however tried to work within the statute and everything we've done. Um I do have another question which is the 40 foot versus the 100% or let's say 110 percentage. Um why are you're not looking at the 100% considering if the towers could be 30 feet um and and kind of settling in the middle.

We started out trying to get a much larger setback. We tried to take that into account and indeed we wanted originally to measure from the property line but in the interest of negotiation and compromise we gradually came staff's way and it significantly so. So we instead of going from the lot line um we did go ahead and accept uh measuring from the dwelling unit from the building itself. And while you know frankly we would prefer more um we were willing to go down to 40 but that's about as far as we can reasonably go. Uh yes uh our 40 ft if the pole is 45 ft there's going to get be a house that gets struck. We're just trying to balance interest here.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Marriott. Sure. Thank you. Um I just have a couple questions for you. Um, is there any Florida case law that's that backs up any of these positions? You know, if we um the the separation or the or the setbacks. Is there any existing case law in Florida that would support any of any of those positions that we can count on or rely on?

I'm not aware of any case law on the separation issue in particular and certainly under the the state statute as it exists. I did of course shephardize it. None came up. Um there were some older cases under the statute as it originally um existed. Frankly, there was a case on payones where the the courts held that the local jurisdiction there uh retained authority on placement of of payones and some of the signage on it even though it was also a matter subject to Florida PSC regulation. But that case was really more about whether the the commission the the Florida Public Service Commission or the local jurisdiction had exclusive authority. And the court said both do. I'm not aware of any uh instance where kind of that's really close to our issue right now.

All right. And then um you said uh in talking about the 40-foot setback, you said that um that you think it would not be an effective prohibition against towers. If if that were challenged, whether it was on a on a whole ordinance uh basis or a case-byase basis, would that be up to the up to the city to prove that that it's not a prohibition or would that be up to the challenger to prove that it is? The effect prohibition language comes out of the federal statute and specifically 47 USC 332C7 B. And I'm not going to get into all the rest of the sub paragraphs. Um, in that circumstance, the it would be the wireless company that would be filing probably in federal court and it would have the burden of proving an effective prohibition. It would have the burden of showing that it cannot effectively provide personal wireless service without getting that pole that wireless facility on that pole in that place that there are no alternatives.

Okay. That's that's and by the way you don't get your fees under the federal statute. Yeah. Yeah. All right. And then um the on the 40 foot setback issue for for for it being a safety a safety issue. Is there any um any data that that has been collected over time or um showing that that these things have fallen over and damaged property or set things on fire? like do do we have some data to back us up on that claim that it's dangerous by being able to show that that this has happened x number of times and it's caused x number x amount of damage.

I'm certainly aware of lots of instances where utility poles themselves have fallen. Um I think you might have suffered a few of those during the last storm y'all had. um whether there have been documented cases where it fell and it was because only of a small wireless facility on top of it. No, this is a relatively new kind of technology. We've only been arguing about small cells since about 2016 and so we haven't had enough time for any trend to be uh really discernable in terms of data analysis. But I I you know I'm sure that you guys have seen falling utility poles when you get storms. It happens all the time. And you know it happens for other reasons too. an automobile could strike it. And there is an incremental effect that would occur when this is something more than just a utility pole or a light pole. You've got heavy stuff up there with sharp things. And it is electrified, you know, electrical equipment that really does have more of an impact when it does fall. It's not just a pole falling. It's a pole with a lot of equipment on it that's still pushing through electricity.

Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you very much, sir. Thank you again for the opportunity to address you. Of course. Thank you. Matt, are you ready?

I am. Thank you. Um, just let me say, I'm not sure if this will be categorized as a presentation, uh, but there has been comments made at prior meetings that a lack of representation, uh, may indicate that either we're not impacted or we are in agreement to what the city is doing. So, my presence here today is to state the opposite of that. We obviously are very concerned about what the commission is considering and I will just say that over the past several months as it's been stated multiple times uh there's been a lot of conversation a lot of back and forth I think AT&T has done an exceptional job of working with the residents working with city staff working with this commission to negotiate some good language and I think some good language was agreed upon in the ordinance that was passed at the last meeting. Now, when it comes to the second ordinance, tonight's ordinance, you know, it's it's it's simple. Uh, and I've said it once, I'll say it a 100 times. What is being suggested will be in direct violation of state statute about what we are allowed to do in ride ofways. So, anything that is done to conflict with that is going to be a problem. And therefore, that's why I'm here today. Um, again, I thank you all for the conversations we've had. Um, we've listened to the residents. We even moved we moved one of our small cell facilities off a pole. That was that was uh something we didn't need to do, but we did in good faith. We were have every right to be there, but we have since taken steps to move that one down to G Boulevard again as as mentioned in a prior meeting. So, um, again, I'm not a I'm not an attorney. I'm not going to sit here and talk to you about what it is. I think you all know what it is is right and what isn't right accuring to current state law. Uh,

so I will just leave it there. I thank you for the time tonight. Thank you for letting me participate via Zoom. I'm going to stay on this call because there might be an opportunity later to address uh some other questions. I know the residents may have some questions that they would like answered and if I can answer them I will. So again uh AT&T's position is this in ordinance to tonight we are in opposition. Thank you. Thank you Matt. Any questions for Matt? Okay. Thank you gentlemen. Uh next we're moving on to the second presentation on seaw walls.

Who wants it?

We have our building official Luke Curtis who is coming on his way hopefully. My apologies. Thank you for your patience. There's a delay in watching it. So, we're going to be talking about seaw walls and staff is just looking for some direction to uh from commission for possible tweaks or changes to our seaw wall ordinance. And to to start off, we just want to uh say that the the seaw walls are in place for a specific reason. These are put in place to protect against tidal flooding. Um there is the potential that there are uh rainwater events that can possibly back up on the other side of the seaw wall, but in these instances we we're looking at two separate things. So we have the seaw wall to protect against tidal flooding and we have other measures that potentially protect against the the rainwater. But with that being said, um give a little bit of history in our seaw wall ordinance. So our ordinance is um in section 98101 is where the seaw walls are uh defined and the regulations are set. And a little bit of history on that. So in 2021, there was a slight change to the ordinance where it established or clarified the elevation requirement of 5T NAVD and that's the North American

vertical datim and that roughly that means 5T above sea level. Um, and then in September of 2024, we have the uh the revision that was included in or uh put into the code to allow for a variance process or an administrative variance. And for uh these instances where there was justifiable cause to allow for a seaw wall to be put at a lower level, this variance was put in place to accommodate for that. And then um looking at the number of seaw wall permits that were applied for post storm, we're looking at a total of uh in in the year post storm as compared to the year pretorm. There was roughly double the number of seaw walls that were applied for. So twice the number of seaw walls from uh from blue sky compared to the gray sky. And this is um to be expected. We had a storm surge that uh came over the island that added water. Uh where we had seaw walls that were in disrepair or in rough shape. It collapsed them entirely. In other cases, they were damaged, not as bad, but obviously the result was that the uh seaw walls or the number of seaw walls had to be uh repaired and replaced. for the for the sake of the conversation and for the uh variances that are requested, we have two basic uh or general areas that we're looking at as far as the situations on a property. So on the one hand we have a um a non-conforming home that was built prefer or a structure that was built at grade maybe a

singlestory home uh that was built prior to our flood insurance rate maps were adopted. And then we have on the flip side of that, those homes that were built after the adoption of the flood insurance rate maps that these homes are either built up on uh an elevated lot or the home themselves are elevated and thus bringing the living area outside of the uh the potential for flood damage. And these these properties these buildings are going to be built so that the uh the lower level is either floodproofed or so that if a flood water comes into the property that they are either there's minimal or no damage and it just needs to be cleaned up. the um the code section that we have uh for the administrative variance process there's there's five criteria that we have to look at. So if we if we look at these criteria the number one is there are special conditions of the upland subject property existing upland structures or buildings or vested and permittable upland structures or buildings which the applicant has taken reasonable investmentback steps to construct for which the application of the subject standard will present a hardship. So the best example for this would be that prefirm or non-conforming structure that singlestory home that is built at grade the living level might be at 4 feet. If that seaw wall is up at 5t then there's a potential hazard for that living area. So that would be a a clear-cut uh decision to approve that variance. The second one is uh hardship is not predominantly financial in nature. This is a standard practice for when we're talking about variances whether

administrative variances or um other scenarios like that. I don't believe there's been any that have asked for a variance for the the value uh rel or related to the value but um that is that is a standard um verbiage that is in our code. The third section is uh application of the subject standard will imperil the subject or neighboring property. So in these scenarios where there's the potential that by elevating this does it does it pose a hazard to the existing structure or the neighboring properties um and this again can be challenging to identify but um in in certain aspects when we're looking at uh development of any property the uh the even the Florida building code says you can't do any development that's going to negatively impact the adjacent properties. So we need to see something in place there that's going to mitigate possible flooding. So if it's from rainwater then might see something in the example of swailes or retention or detention or even infiltration trenches something to accommodate for that. Uh, point number four, the hardship does not result from the upland property owner's unwillingness to modify the site to accommodate retention or detention of a 25-y year, 24-hour storm, or such modification would itself rise to the level of a hardship that deprivives the applicant reasonable use of the land, structure, or building. So, going back to uh speaking of, you know, measures that can be taken on a property to help mitigate these flooding events, this is when we're talking about the 25-y year, 24-hour storm, it's looking at a certain amount of rainfall and being able to accommodate that on a

property. And that can take numerous different forms. again. So, infiltration trenches or retention or detention areas on the property or swailes. There's there's numerous different methods to do this. So, this this section here is looking at the property. Uh do they have the ability to do the one of these measures to accommodate this type of flooding? And uh so looking at the example of say a conforming home, it's elevated. we have the area on the sides uh to accommodate that 25-y year 24-hour storm, but what is is it reasonable to do or does it impact that property? So, that's uh so one of the factors that we take into consideration. And then lastly, we have the the variance requested is the minimum necessary to reasonably mitigate the the peril that application of the subject standard would otherwise cause. So when it talks about the minimum standard when we get these appeals in for or not appeals for the request for administrative variance they're recommending a certain elevation of that seaw wall height and what they're they they've got to quantify that and say okay this is this is the minimum height that or maximum height that we can go without further causing peril to the property. So what do we need to take into consideration for changes? So there's a few different areas that we can look at and um the first is uh do we want to add language to the code to require caps on seaw walls in uh to be designed for future upgrades to the required height. So in those instances where we have approved an administrative variance to lower that seaw wall is that seaw wall designed so that at a future date that

could just be added to and brought to that required height. Uh and we can we can require that in the design. Also potentially looking at the hardship variance would be granted if the cost to accommodate the storm water exceeds 20% of the value of the structure. So this is another possible uh area that we could look at is in that scenario where we're looking for retention, detention or infiltration to be to compensate for that rainwater. Are we uh are we overt taxing that individual? How much does that cost going to be? And is that going to be exorbitant? And we put the number of 20% in there just as a guide, but that could be any number. Um and if it exceeds that number then that okay that's justification to approve a lower elevation. And then we can also look at the the specific criteria that we have. Do we want to modify that to make it easier for uh these administrative variances to be approved? we can lighten that requirement some in some of those areas and to make it easier for those appeals when they come up or you know we can take into consideration too do we want to do we want to alleviate that requirement for the height elevation there's uh there is some safety in having an elevation of the seaw walls do we want to push that do we want to compensate for the the rainwater potential flooding And then lastly, we want to look at new construction. Is this a potential area where we want to set some other standards? So, if somebody's building a brand new home, home is elevated, it's 100% conforming, they're going to have to make the lot conforming with

landscaping, with storm water uh issues. Do we also want to cont uh consider the application of requiring that seaw wall to be brought into conformance with the codes too? Lastly, I've got a a a an image to to try to help uh portray the the elements that we're talking about. So on on the one side we have the proposed 5- foot NAVD not North American vertical datim of the seaw wall and then on the right we have the three-foot. In both instances we have the potential of that rainwater backing up. Uh whether it's at 3 feet, 2 feet or 5T we have that potential. the and again the the rainwater uh we have to we have to handle that separately than the seaw wall because we're looking at two different sources of potential flooding but with that lower elevation we're also increasing the potential for tidal flooding adding to that. So with a lower elevation of a seaw wall, we have the possibility of that being topped and adding to the potential flooding on a property or an area. So with that being said, going back to the five criteria, I'm open to any questions that you may have or any recommendations.

Commissioner,

I'm going to have a lot of questions. only because I've been entrenched in in this stuff. Um, and I don't know really I I mean I wrote a lot of notes while you were speaking. Um, obviously the ordinance was, you know, back when it was made or and I'm just talking about the five nav back in 20121, which I remember clear as day coming here um as a resident not very happy with it and and I'll go into why, you know, I wasn't happy because of of what it meant for properties at lower lying, right? So and then I don't remember the variance at 2024 but the administrative but prevent prevention of tidal flooding right um and then you mentioned other measures for rainwater what are those other measures what other measures are there

so I mentioned some of those so they can be handled in a in a lot of different ways um so we can have uh so if we have a structure and on the sides of that structure we can have swailes What a swale is just, it's just basically a cut out, a low area in that lot that can direct storm water to the street or uh you know off the property so that it can be directed into the storm drains. Uh there's other methods too that can be utilized such as retention or detention. Um, and sometimes in some areas, some municipalities, they actually what they do is they have these uh retention or infiltration areas and what they do is they dig the dirt down. Pardon me. They dig the dirt down and they fill it up with with stone to allow space for that rainwater to go. Um, so it creates a a void, if you will, to allow that storm water to give it time to percolate down into the ground. Um, and by use using a a method like that, it gets it off the the top of the ground into that infiltration area and it it is less impacting on the the property itself and it's less impacting on the storm drains.

Is that required right now for a property owner to have to do those types of measures when they build a seaw wall? The the there aren't any uh requirements in there. Now there the co our code does mention swailes to compensate for certain things but not in the seaw wall ordinance. Um there are triggers like building a new home where they have to take into consideration these measures and accommodate the 25-year 24-hour storm. Um but I I don't outside of the mention of swailes I don't think it mandates any specific process or procedure to do that.

Okay. So in that case seaw walls are just for tidal flow. They're not for rainwater. If we're not requiring it, then we're really not protecting a a home or a neighboring home um on rainwater currently. Correct. Yeah. The sea the seaw wall isn't isn't providing any protection from uh from rainwater. It's providing protection from the tidal uh flooding potential.

Next, you mentioned uh pre-firm home um non-conforming and postfirm. I I kind of am worried about using preferm and postfirm and and this is a question I guess to you or as to how we'll deal with this. There are some um there was a year and maybe you remember the year when pre-firm and postfirm was made um 198 74 somewhere 86

74 was the first map when it was adopted. There are homes that were built during prefirm but are considered postfirm but were designed as prefirm because it was in that iffy year. Okay. My home is one of those. Okay. So I'm I'm very familiar with it. Um, so using those words without taking those homes into consideration is a false um to say that my home is prepared to take in flooding when it wasn't designed to do that. And there's a lot of homes that were built in that time currently in our city. Um so that that would be one concern with the the number one that you have here for administr administrative variance is being cautious of using uh prefer or poster as a determination of a home being able um to take in rainwater or storm water uh flooding. So that's one. Um number two, I didn't really have nothing because financial I know it's not a requirement but three imperiling of the neighboring property. um to not negatively, you know, impact an adjacent property. If we don't have a standard to prevent um rainwater flooding when building a seaw wall, then that's a problem because people don't know that they need to build this. And then from what I've heard from many people who are trying to contain their rainwater and even if it's new construction and put vaults or swailes or whatever it may be, there is no standard. much our our ordinances don't allow it in many cases. So that's that's another problem. Um so that's not a question, but this is that's just a comment because it's a problem with that number three. Um being able to accommodate rainwater on a property um on the number four um that 25 year 24-hour storm, that's that's

pretty heavy duty for some properties, right? like how when you already have a home that's there, where would you put all this water? You know, especially in an area that's already lowlying, you don't have much to go down when your groundwater is pretty close to you already. So, that's a big concern on that number four. Even the way it's written there, it's almost like an undo. It's not doable for many areas in our city. So, that's a that's a big concern for me. Um and then recommending a max height a max height without causing peril for that number five. Um or was it maximum or minimum? I think you used the word max.

Yeah, the the minimum elevation of that the proposed minimum elevation of that seaw wall that will um but were you mentioning during the presentation a max height? I don't know why I wrote that down. That you would be recommending a maximum height without causing peril.

Yeah. So what that point is saying is so when we receive uh a request for an administrative variance, we get a we get a we get a letter from uh a professional engineer and they're they're stating in there this this is the maximum height that we want to see the seaw wall at uh before it starts to become a potential peril to the property. So that's that's what that's in reference to is that that maximum height is is the contractor or the engineer basically. Correct. It's more so the engineer than Yeah. The onus is on the engineer because they're the ones that are versed in uh coastal construction and what's where that peril lies.

Now what type of guidance does an engineer get in that? Because and the reason I asked you this is because I'm trying to get a seaw wall myself and when I've asked various contractors, they all just look at the ordinance. If the ordinance says five nav, then they're they're bidding a price to a fivenav because that's what our ordinance is. And I asked many contractors already because they've been trying to get bids. If a city doesn't have a five nav ordinance or or any at all or really no guidance, what do you typically do? And so they told me, you know what we do is we go to your home, we look at what your your um floor level is and the back of your house if if your seaw wall is behind your house. We get a laser and we we point out to see to make sure that we can't go over that point or whatever that point is so that you don't have water coming back on a rain you know rainwater um you know what we're trying to protect here and that's how they determine it you know so I don't know how do we guide people uh you know to an engineer to say I mean do I hire an engineer say hey just make it so that I don't have to go to a five nav or a sixnav or whatever our nav is because I'm going to get flooding when it's an obvious, you know. Um, so I I don't this the wording is so hard when you're asking for variance when we already know the areas in our city that are lowlying. Okay. Um, and it's not just the dawn. I know everyone say the dawn. Well, there's several areas in our city. I know places in Bella Vista, they're having issues right now trying to get their seaw walls up when a neighbor is getting a new construction, but the ab budding property owner is much lower and they know all that water is going to run to their house. I mean, I know you know the calls because I send them to you, right? So, I know there's this issue um in our city. Um so, again, the the wording I know we're trying to give recommendation, but I know there's a lot of issues with with this ordinance. Um, and then of course, which I know we're going to talk later, um,

about rideaways, you know, when they abut a rideway, how can we contain water? That's a city right away, right? So, how do we even address that when there's already a significant hardship? Because we know a the road is lower than the house. So, there's no way for the water to move. It's going to sit on the road and then it's going to come back to a to our home, right? So that's a huge problem for a lot of people, not just a don Bella Vista, parts in Leo, all the same that their road is lower than their home and um the water just sits in there, right? So So it comes back. So that's a that's a big one. Um and also with with the elevations of of the I'll give an example, Vina, right? Vina Delmare is much higher. It's filled. You know, you look at those homes or that and I could stare at them, you know, from my house. They the water rolls down to a five nav seaw wall, right? And the other side of the water, it'll never do that. So unless every home in a neighborhood are to raise and fill, we would never look like Vina. So I don't know this. It's really hard to get one variance that's going to accommodate the variety of everything going on in our city. So I guess that's a question to you. How do we get there knowing, you know, you're trying to manage our flood plane, but our flood plane is not the same throughout St. Pete Beach?

Yeah. And to comment on that, uh, one size does not fit all. So depending on where the property is and what the elements or conditions of that property are, they might be different from from one to the other. So yeah, it it makes for a difficult um process, but you know, that's part also why why we're here to try to get some feedback and what what direction commission wants us to move in as far as making alterations or changes to our code. Um, in some instances we like Vina Delmare, uh, we might not want to approve any variances because they're they're elevated and that no, sorry, that that neighborhood they're they're going to be they're going to have the seaw walls at the required height. Not to pick on that neighborhood, but they're like you said, they're they're elevated to a much higher uh level.

There's a reverse to that, too. They're elevated, but I know there's people there who want to go higher than five nav and could, you know. Yeah. So why not allow someone to even go higher if they if it was going to improve, you know, it's not going to impede into their home. It's not going to flood a neighbor. Why not allow them to go to six or seven if they have the cap, you know, capability of doing so?

And that's something we can take into consideration, too. Do we want to limit how high a seaw wall goes? We can add that in there. I know in another municipality that um uh that I've dealt with, they have a limitation on uh you know, just throwing this out there for what they put in there. They didn't want to see where one property was so much higher than another property. So, they said you can't go any more than 16 in higher than the adjacent property. And that was to help mitigate any possible um surges being deflected off that seaw wall and impacting ne negatively potentially negatively impacting those adjacent properties. So that municipality put that verbiage in there. Um and it would take you know ultimately we want to get these seaw walls to a higher level but they're like case in point where where you live in your neighborhood grade itself is so low that how how best to handle that and like I said we have the seaw walls to protect against the title then we have the other side of it to protect against the the rainwater because even if we have a lower elevation for seaw wall we still have that rainwater we have we've got to deal with.

Correct. And and the last part in the considerations just so that the commission can also hear this part because you're saying um to be able to in the in the variance to allow them to go up higher, right? The cap to make the caps engineered so they can go up higher if needed. Why just caps? Because I've spoken with contractors who tell me that they don't have to just go higher in a cap. they can do other things behind a seaw wall to increase in height. So it's not there's other alternatives to not just adding on to your cap. Even for someone who's currently at a lower cap has a good seaw wall, something can be done adjacent to the seaw wall to give it that height. So that's just, you know, consideration that hopefully maybe you would consider um instead of just caps.

Yeah. And and that can be something we we have seen in other areas. They weren't looking for a lower elevation for the seaw wall, but what they did is they had the seaw wall elevation at the 5T, but then they also had a step up backing off the property. It was a commercial property, but there was a step up that brought that protection, potential protection from uh title flooding even higher. So, that is a potential that could we could incorporate into uh provisions in our code other varants. Okay. So, that's a good thing. Um and then you mentioned hardship exceeds 20% of the value. What are we considering the value? The what's the value? What's that number from where?

So, uh typically when we're looking at a value, we're looking at the building. Um but it could be attached to anything and it would be at commission's direction. Do we want to look at the value of the building? Uh if we look at the value of the seaw wall, you know, compared to the value of uh potential uh infiltration or detention retention, then that number is going to be exponentially less and um might not be a good gauge. But it's it's all up to you and and how you want to direct us. We can attach that percentage to the structure. We could attach it to the seaw wall.

So we just determine Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Robinson. Um when you said um doubled the amount of permits, are you talking per uh permits in general for uh seaw walls or you talking for variances? No, just just permits in general for seaw walls. So what's that number? The number of permits

and actually I don't have it right here. So I can I can tell you the total number of permits. it. Well, pre-torrm that previous year was roughly 30 something. I thought I put it in my notes, but I don't see it here. And then that year posttorm was in the 70s as far as how many uh applications came in. But since since the storm, we've seen a total of 83 seaw wall permits that have come in. That's from taken from October 1 of 2024. And how many of those are asking for variances? I don't have that information. I didn't I didn't think to pull that. My apologies.

Okay. And where did we get the 25 year 24-hour storm? So, that's a a standard practice in the industry. They they look at that um there's a standard and I can't give you the details because I it I typically don't that's something that an engineer is making determinations on. Um, but that's it's something that's factored in the building code. It's called out and it's a standard for how much rainfall within a 25 or within a 24-hour period that could potentially fall and then that property is supposed to be able to handle that amount of rain. Um,

the standard in the building code industry in in in design and um engineering engineering um standards. I can get more details on that for you if you like. Is there a FEMA limit on heights on the seaw wall caps? No. And this doesn't address any sort of the back fill issues at all. Correct. Correct.

Backfill is a huge one. I mean, we're looking at people that, you know, you're looking at the folks that are are uh post firm and they're going to get, you know, flooding into their garages. Yeah. And as far as now you're referring to like requiring requiring fill for a new prop a new home or just in in general backfill for both a new home and also back fill for for what we can do behind a seaw wall itself too.

So there's uh there's no requirement for the fill but the code does call to a limitation on how much fill. So, for example, in certain areas, you're you're not allowed to do fill. So, in a VE flood zone or a coastal Azone says no structural fill. Um, for the instance of an AE flood zone, the if you're utilizing a stem wall foundation, then there is some fill allowed in that stem wall. Uh outside of that it the code says fill can be used for uh landscaping and for grading the property and but it doesn't have any requirements for it.

And then um have we talked about I mean some of the other I'm thinking criteria I think um um Alcazy had mentioned sump pumps which I thought were a great idea on some of these areas too. um whether that's a an idea that uh is um something that's could be part of any sort of code or requirement as well. Um whether that's a reality. So for requiring sump pumps on a private property or private property or for with with the seaw wall with the with the flooding for the rainwater prevention suggestion

and and that is a possibility. Um you know adding some verbiage into the code to require it. Uh, I know there is at least one property, a commercial property that does utilize a a pump to get rain water off their property because over time from uh filling or doing work in on the front of the property and then the rear of the property is raised, it they've come to a point where everything drains towards the building and so they have a pump on either side of the building that gets that rain water out of there. Um, so that is that is a possibility and and that would kick back to uh the um you know point number four. You know if if somebody wanted to manage that rainwater that way then that would be a possibility. I'm sorry I'm Yeah, I didn't mean to point to that. That's okay.

But yeah, that that is one means of of accommodating that um potential uh rain flooding because I believe this drain here is two-way. Correct. It can go inflow and outflow for the drain on the seaw wall drains. Am I

Yeah. If if Yeah. If there Well, sometime sometimes they design seaw walls with what they call a well point. And what that can do is if there's upland water that's accumulating, it will allow the water to uh exit out of the seaw wall or from behind the seaw wall. But if there's an equal pressure on the opposite side, then it's just going to stay stagnant. Uh so it doesn't do it has the potential to alleviate some pressure, but it it would be limited.

I just think there there's a lot here with this that there's a lot more probably discussion that needs to be had on it. Um I don't I don't have uh waterfront property, so it's a little bit beyond me, but a lot of people do. So, um I I would uh look towards, you know, some input from them as well on this. Thank you, Commissioner May. Yep.

Yeah. Thanks, Luke. Um so, the you said you didn't know how how many or what percent of the people who have applied for seaw walls are asking for variances. I mean, just as a as a rough estimate of your general feelings about it, is it a handful or most of them? No, it's relatively few. Okay. Um, they typically come to me. Yeah. And um I mean, I'm not I'm not looking for a a a number. It just maybe

8 to 10 just off the top of my head. Yeah. uh since the storms that you know give or take a few maybe but uh relatively speaking out of the 83 seaw wall permits it's a relatively low number. Yeah. And and are there I mean I'm assuming you're bringing this to us because there's some where you're like man I feel like there ought to be a way to give this person a variance but according to these sta these criteria that I have I can't. So yeah, it was kind of the opposite. There was I was hesitant about giving a variance for for one,

but there was enough argument to be made that made me reverse that. Okay.

Um and what it came down to is the verbiage in these five criteria. Um, in this instance, it was a an elevated home, postfirm. And to, and I meant to get back to um, Commissioner Resniki's point, postfirm, prefer, we do have to be careful with that because we can have a post-firm home that really isn't compliant with our flood regulations. So, we do have to be cautious when we're referring to those. I use them in very general terms for the sake of the conversation. So, just to clarify that. Um but um and I apologize I lost my thought. What was the question again? Oh just if the if the problem was that that you felt like you

yes should give variances but you can't according to the criteria or you feel like the criteria is too lenient.

So in this one example the the home was elevated and no living area on the ground floor. Uh but the the issue was raised that well the seaw wall is going to be higher. It's going to be I can't remember the specifics but basically it's going to potentially impact the uh the pool deck the pool and entry into the house and um then then there's contention about dealing with the rainwater, you know, because it was all about the rainwater potentially backing up on the property. uh is the the specifics of the the project. I can't recall exactly, but that was the basic gist of it. Um and then it it made it difficult too because as far as compensating for on the property for the handling of the rainwater, well, how do we how do we get it off the property? Is there a way to do that? And basically it came down to that uh it was a very difficult decision to make simply because of all the criteria. We look at uh you know does it imperil the structure and then we're going down to number four and saying well what about handling this rainwater? What are we going to do swailes infiltration? And then it came up about the well doing that work is going to be it's going to be excessive amount of work. So it wasn't an easy decision to make but I did recant it and I approved the uh the administrative variance in that scenario. So and that's that was I think the uh the latest one that made us come before you looking for direction. How can we at the very least clarify this to make these decisions easier? Uh or you know, however we want to go, do we want to relax them a little bit? Do we want to stand firm?

Yeah, that's a tricky one. I agree with with Commissioner Robinson that, you know, I feel like this is one where some some public input from the people who are mostly most directly affected wouldn't be a bad idea. And you know, on the on the one hand, I can go, well, you know, if if a bunch of people raise their seaw walls to 5T and we have a storm like an Eta or an Adelia and it, you know, nothing would have flooded except for the handful of people who have lower seaw walls and then the water over tops the seaw wall and floods a bunch of people's houses anyway. And and then the rain, you know, the rainwater issue is a separate issue. And so it's like what are we what are we most trying to protect against and and what is what is the point of what we're doing, right? Are we trying to are we trying to protect individual houses the most? Are we trying to protect the island as a whole the most? Um and uh you know ho how how what is the best way to do that? And and and like Commissioner Robinson, I also don't live on the water, so I'm not not as intimately familiar with it. But um you know off the off the off the top of my head my initial my initial reaction would be that you know there's a lot of variables here and you know if it makes sense you know anytime it makes sense to you to think that that's the most reasonable thing to do to grant a variance it seems like we want to be giving you enough leeway to do that. Um, but I do like the idea of of some kind of requirement, whether it's a cap on a seaw wall or something else, but some kind of requirement where if somebody's putting in a new seaw wall that's not to the current height, that there is some definite path for the next owner or down the road for it to get raised up if the house gets torn down and a new one gets built. So, um, for for what it's worth, that's my uneducated thoughts.

Luke, you're looking for direction tonight, right? Yes. What what direction are you looking for? So, uh, a couple parts. So, we see the administrative criteria as far as making these decisions. Um, if commission can give us some direction and by some of the comments, I think we've we've gotten some direction there. Uh but if there's any specific direction outside of that that as far as how we want to modify the the codes um if we want to modify them at all uh especially the administrative criteria. Do we want to uh tackle that? Do we want to try to ease those a little bit? Do we want to stand fast?

City manager, did you have a recommendation? Is that what you're asking us? Because what we have here just says for considerations. Yes, I know these are not considerations. These are your current codes. If you could go to the next slide. This is what we're living with, what you were just looking at.

So, we want to hear No, go back. We want to hear generally from you direction on um as the building official me mentioned and Commissioner Marriott spoke about it is do you want us to include um language that requires future upgrades to get to the required height if they cannot because they need a varian. So that's number one. Um on on the requirement to put some sort of storm water mitigation on their private property, we wanted some value. Do you want to give a value attached to it so that we have some more additional guidance on expense? Um one of the considerations we were looking at, I think the example he gave where the storm water mitigation was more than the cost of the seaw wall. Well, now it becomes cost prohibitive and so the resident now won't have a seaw wall and won't have st storm water drainage. So, you know, kind of just giving us general guidance. What is the priority? Um administrative relief. There's no appeal of the building officials decision current in the current code. Do you want to provide that to residents or not? Or is he or she the final say on the administrative relief variance decision? And then lastly, new construction. There's been some discussion of requiring five NAVDC seaw wall and storm water on new builds. So that's completely demoed and rebuilding on the water. We currently require storm water, but there's no requirement in the code for seaw wall. I say that with the caveat that everyone that's rebuilding has been doing the right thing, but do you want it in the code for future in the event that someone decided they did not want to build a seaw wall? So that these are and then anything else you've heard in the community, give us feedback. Then we can come back with some language and I'm hearing maybe some normalizing with the

community. We could do a community workshop with that new language before we brought it back as an ordinance reading. Commissioner Maldado.

Yeah. just uh thank you. Uh and you did answer two of my questions in that process. Uh I would just say that we need to add an appeal process to this that in the event that there's no agreement and that we may have put somebody into a very difficult situation as our city manager said that we don't just leave it like that that it does have an appeal process. Thank you. I'm also in favor of the new construction, making sure that they're being brought up to code. And I think because of the number of or the lack of number of impacted individuals, I'm not sure that we need a communitywide workshop for 8 to 10 homes. I think what we have here is a solid proposal. And if the commissioners are agreeable to what's been proposed, we will always have additional public comments at the two ordinance ratings.

Can as for new construction, I'm all for, you know, people doing their seaw wall uh for for new construction, but how do you incorporate the impact on an adjacent home? you know, because if you just say at new construction, you have to do a five naver or whatever it is, but they can't mitigate the storm water, you know, in a in a, you know, an area that is low. So, then how do we deal with all of that, you know,

or for a new home, it's required to be in the design. So and that can take different forms like the what I was mentioning but in essence whatever falls whatever rainfall hits that property that property is responsible to retain it whe and and part of this too uh falls under our imperous surface ratio. So, we can only have so much imperous area on a property because if we have bare ground grass or stone or whatever that is allowing that rain water to percolate down into the ground, that's ideally what we want. Um but above and beyond that, if that volume that is potentially hitting that property exceeds that amount that can percolate down into the ground, then they have to provide some some means to handle that water. Whether it's swailes, which we see a lot of the times to bring that water, that rain water to the street and ultimately into the storm drains. That's that's one method, but it is it is required for um for all new builds to compensate for that 25-y year 24-hour storm.

And I I would only add for the new construction for the unique situations, which are very few, but there are a lot where their seaw wall is not just their property, right? The dawn is an example. There are two legal descriptions. When someone owns seaw wall over there, separate from their home, we've got a 50 foot rideaway. There is no way that someone doing new construction is going to be able to mitigate what's happening across the street when there's a street that's lower than their property. So, that has to be added there somewhere because there's no way that the calculations wouldn't even make sense if you're looking at it from just where the home sits and the seaw walls across the street. Right. And that's actually a a perfect scenario for the variables that that fall into play because with a new home, they're required to handle that 25 year 24-hour storm on that property. But if we're talking about a separate property that's now across the street, what do we do there? How do we handle the

city recognize that there are two legal descriptions in that neighborhood? So if you're doing a new construction in the Donsesar subdivision, that's it doesn't apply. Is that what you're saying? So a new construction, someone's building a new home in the Donsar Seaw wall is separate because it's another legal description. Correct. Correct. Okay. Okay. Commissioner, do we have consensus on these items? Yeah, I think all of the all of the recommended considerations here are are reasonable.

Yep, I'm I'm good with that. I don't know if I public comment will come after. I know there's people from Seaw wall presentation here. I mean, we usually don't take public comments on presentations. Yeah. Is the appeal when we're talking about the appeal process, are we talking that going to the commission or are we talking that going to city manager? It would not come to me. It would come to the commission. We we want to adjustment play around with that because you want someone who actually knows engineering and building. So I just want to talk with staff like what's the best route?

Would you have an outside adviser if it did come to you? Those are things I've seen done in the past where we hire another engineer to come advise you while you're you're contemplating it. So, we'll bring all that back and um when we bring some proposed language. Okay. Does that give you enough to work with? It does. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next presentation is on the parking rate study.

Good evening, commissioners. Adam Poyer, assistant city manager. Just a second while the PowerPoint changes. Um, just to give you a little bit of a background on this, as you know, um, I was in front of you uh, last meeting for a component of the parking, but I, like I mentioned, this is kind of a very comprehensive overview of our parking system, which um, resulted in a parking action plan from Dixon Resources back in 2025. Um it it it kind of uh resulted in several recommendations stemming anywhere from technology to signage enforcement uh ordinance changes and then revenue. So based on your direction, revenue was uh seemed like the priority. So although we've been doing other things as well, uh we wanted to bring some revenue options back to you as quick as we can. Another component of this was we created an enterprise fund this last budget year to manage the parking system more effectively, both revenues and expenditures. Uh so that is already in place and and uh moving forward. So tonight, like I said, we're going to focus on the revenue uh portion of parking. So, uh for lack of a better term, what what I've prepared, what what our staff's prepared for you tonight is kind of an alocart um options for revenue enhancements. So, um I'm going to kind of go through each one of them separately and kind of tell you what the the potential um increase in revenue could be. Um but a couple caveats to that none of them build on each other. So when you see these numbers it's not not assuming that you're going to accept all of them. Okay. Um so it is alocart right now. I will show you what it looks like if you do accept all of them as well. Um but the actual numbers of increased revenue are just based on the individual components of it. So it's also based on historical data. So we look back from 2025. So we're looking at a 12-month period. Obviously, we went through a significant event um at the end of 2024 which could have altered um demand to some degree. So, um you know, those numbers are, you know, again,

estimates based on that 2025 um demand. So, all right. So, our first option that we have in front of you tonight is updating the citywide hourly rate. So, the proposal in front of you is is to raise it by 50 cents per hour. Um, again, based on the the current uh historic data, that would raise you about $600,000 per year in extra parking revenue. And then your new rates would result in $5 per hour during the weekdays and then $6 per hour on weekends. So, but we we right now we have two separate rates. Obviously, weekends are Saturday and Sunday. Um, so that would be $5 and $6. And please feel free to stop me if you have any questions on any. I'll go through all of them and then I'll give you a chance to kind of look at them all together. Um the next one that we have before you is so basically um all of our parking is done through credit cards. There's not a cash option anymore. So um what's kind of being seen in other uh parts of industry is passing the credit card rate off to the customer. Right now we uh handle the credit card rate as as the city. So if we were to pass that credit card fee uh over to the users, that would bring in about $170,000 annually. when we when we developed all these kind of uh alocart options for you, some of it came through the parking study by Dixon. Other is is our staff. Uh huge thank you to Kathleen who did a lion share of this work looking at other communities and kind of seeing some of the techniques that are used in other cities and also ensuring that we kind of stay consistent with other communities. So, one of our local communities is doing something called a sunset pricing. So, we do see demand increase a little bit in that uh kind of nighttime range, 4 to 8:00. Um, our in most areas of our city, 8:00 is the last hour of enforcement. Um, so we presented a sunset pricing increase, which would raise the rate by a dollar from 4:00 in the afternoon till 8:00 at night. Um,

and basically what that would do for you is bring your weekday price to 550 and then your weekend price to 650 after 4:00. Again, none of them build on each other. So, if you were to choose the 50 option, then obviously that would raise the rate to $6 um during the weekday and then $7 uh on weekends. And just to give you an idea of of the demand during that time, it's about 20% of metered sales. So, when we looked at the the meter sales, I should say we we don't have the numbers of how many cars that results in. What we do have is how many transaction it is. So, we're we're looking at demand periods by transaction. So conceivably it could be the same car that paid for an hour, it expired, they came back and paid for another hour, things like that. So it doesn't necessarily mean how many cars, just means how many transactions occur during that period. And like I said, that would bring you, and maybe I didn't say it, but it would bring you about $257,000 if you were to choose the uh the sunset pricing option.

Do you know the transactions like how many there are?

Um I I I definitely have that. I don't know if I have it readily available. I'll look as soon as this presentation's over. But yes, we do we would be able to tell you that for sure. I'll tell you just in general over 2025 there's over 621,000 transactions. So, uh, one of the other options is to raise our seasonal rate. So, again, when we look at demand periods, 34% of the demand comes between the months of February and April. So, we're going to consider that our inseason uh times. Obviously, uh we're we're right in the middle of that now. Um, so we could if we increase the parking by a dollar during the season um at all of our city facilities and our county uh lot, which I'll talk about here in just one second, um that would bring in about $425,000 in additional revenue. So, I mentioned the county park. So, the county park uh across from Dolphin Village is a shared parking agreement that we have with Penelis County. They own the property. We handle the enforcement. We handle the maintenance at the uh at the restroom facility. We're also able to um we're also able to sell uh concessions in the back with the uh uh umbrellas and chairs and things like that. So, we manage that as well. Um there's some other components to it. Right now, the pricing is different there than the rest of the city. So, it's actually cheaper to park at the county park than the other facilities. Um through some research, we noticed that the county rate isn't consistent all the way up the beach at all their lots. Um ourselves and our legal team reviewed the contract. It does not appear that we're um contracted to keep any specific rate. It looks like the rate is up to us. We do the enforcement, we do the collecting, and then we pay the revenues to to the county on a split agreement. So, we believe we can standardize that rate with the rest of the city um so that they're all the same. And that would bring in about $90,000 extra per year. And I noticed Pastor Girl spelled wrong on there. So, I apologize for that. I'm missing any.

So, one of the options we were asked to explore at some point was uh what about those slower demand periods? What could we could we lower the rate a little bit um in a slower demand period to, you know, maybe boost um some some traffic? Uh to be honest, we don't really have too many slow demand periods. when you look at a 24-h hour period or really just the um main enforcement time for all of our city parking um you know we we we calculated 8 to noon just to show you but I can tell you starting at about 10:00 you start seeing a pretty significant spike um in demand but we we did want to provide this to you um another thing I will tell you is the tech technology continues to to be enhanced in the parking field um a new company just took over two of the the platforms that that we currently use. And I know Kathleen's already se seeing some great technology increases and advancements in that which I think at some point we'll probably even be able to be more flexible where we're we're kind of changing pricing based on you know real-time demand. We're we're we're certainly not there yet. So we wanted to at least give you an option of something that we could manage today based on the technology. So this proposal would reduce the parking by a dollar across the city from 8 till noon. Um, and if we were to do that, again, based on current demand, um, it would it would reduce your overall revenues by about $45,000. And again, when I say reduce or increase, uh, certainly reducing the rate may drive demand. Raising the rate may decrease demand. Those are all unknowns. Uh but again, now that we have that enterprise fund and we're managing this uh a lot more uh actively, um we'll be able to to make those adjustments and bring those things back to you if we start seeing a change somewhere. So, just a couple other uh possibilities. I mentioned that the weekends currently are Saturday and Sunday. Um again, when you start looking at those transaction spikes, they spike

on Friday. So, you know, we're over a 100,000 uh transactions on Saturday and Sunday. Friday is in that like 80,000 range and then the rest of the week is like 30s to 50,000 transactions. So certainly your spikes are on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So if we started considering Friday part of the weekend that would add $120,000. Um another thing that we do that that a lot of other communities do um certainly you'll see some businesses along Golf Boulevard do this on holiday weekends. So we're talking Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Fourth of July um charge a flat fee. So, the commission voted to do that probably about four or five years ago. So, we started charging a $25 U onetime fee for parking on the holiday weekend. Um, so we're just propos we just put a number in there. It could be anything. Uh, we did the the figures on 40. Um, so if we went from $25 per transaction to $40 per transaction, that would bring in about $480,000 extra per year. And again, we're talking Memorial, Labor Day, and um and Fourth of July.

Quick question. What's the hours for that? Is that just all day? It's all day. Yes, it's it's through those holiday weekends. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

So, again, just to give you a just a one slide of of all the possibilities. So, this would be implementing all of the possibilities and just kind of a quick description of each one that I that I explain. So basically, if we uh added all the uh increased revenues and we also um did the $1 reduction till noon, which again reduces by $45,000, you'd be looking at about $1.7 million in increased revenue annually. About a month ago, we did a very similar presentation to the finance budget review committee. Um kind of going over all this and data and looking for a little bit direction from them. Um I will tell you unanimously they supported everything but two of the proposals that we provided to them. The two they did not support were uh passing the credit card fees on to the enduser and then they also didn't support the reducing the rate uh from 8 to noon by a dollar. So, um, the slide you have in front of you would be if you were to implement all the things from the fud, uh, finance and budget review committee, you'd be looking at about $1.9 million because again, you don't have that reduction. Uh, you do have a reduction in the credit cards, but you don't have that large reduction in the hourly rate. So, just a quick summary of the uh of of what your new rates would be if you were to adopt all of these. your citywide rates would go to $5 um an hour during the weekdays, $6 an hour on the weekends. You'd have that sunset surge to a dollar. Um and you'd also have that surge during the end season. So, you can kind of see what part of the season you'd be paying what. Um on the most expensive scale, you'd be looking at your sunset um fees during your end period. Your seasonal period would be as high as $8 on weekends. Uh again, that's a limited limited time of year. Um, again, uh, making Friday part of your weekends, you'd have that $6 basic rate

throughout the year and then the $40 on the holiday. So, like I mentioned in in the actual uh, parking study, they did provide some kind of benchmarking. We just put our two local ones on there just to give you an idea where you're at. Uh, Mader Beach right now is $4 an hour. Uh, Treasure Island is $4.95 during the weekday. They surge to 5.95 on weekends. Um, and then they add they're one of the communities that add that $1 extra for the sunset. Uh, they we didn't add it to the slide, but I will tell you they also have a special events rate where they do that that that single rate um throughout the day and they do it for some of their bigger events, but it seems to fluctuate a little bit, so we didn't uh we didn't add it to the slide. All right, so final slide is just kind of giving you what's next. I'm going to go back a couple just so I can uh hear your input on it. But um basically tonight you're going to have your second reading of your ordinance which allows us to adjust the rates via resolution. So uh just a little bit quicker for us to come to you uh and adjust these things. And again it could it could work both ways, right? So um you know parking rates isn't just a revenue generator. It's also trying to turn over those parking spaces which can benefit businesses by getting more people out here. So, there's a lot of components of why you'd want to use the rates to to manage your parking system, but certainly we're we're trying to put things in place so it's quicker for us to come to you and make adjustments when we see the need to do that. Um, again, we'll bring back um as long as we get some good direction from you tonight, we'll be able to draft a resolution to bring you in the following meeting, which would actually increase the rates, and then we'd start working with our technology vendors to make sure that we implement those as quick as possible. Our next step from a revenue perspective is now we're going to start looking at all the fines. We've really already started doing that, but we're going to look at all the parking fines, the tickets for for not using uh meters, parking too close to fire hydrants. A lot of them are state regulated, but there are some that we have local control on. So, we'll be bringing those back to you uh as as part of a a supplemental part of this project. And then apart from fees and and revenues,

we're working on a bunch of other things as far as our technology. Um the license plate readers will be going out to bid that we use on the on the vehicles for enforcement. We're looking at some creative ways to um really maximize our enforcement efforts so that we can get our parking enforcement officers uh throughout the city more quickly uh and enforce more um improve financial reporting. again, by creating that enterprise fund and now managing it through the city manager's office, um we have a much better handle on the overall parking uh system and and I and I think we're going to continue to see improvements of that. Uh we're evaluating the signage throughout the city. So, we're looking for missing signs from the hurricane. We're looking for faded signs. We're looking for signs that uh just maybe are confusing or just don't make sense where we need to clean up the the language on it a little bit. maybe there's something that you know um more no backing signs that there's just not enough of those. So we just provided a pretty long list to to public services of things we've already found. So those will be uh being implemented over time and we're continuing. I'll tell you um we get a lot of feedback from the residents as far as as far as parking. So we're constantly looking at where we can make a you know enhancements u to help the user experience for our residents and and our visitors. And then finally, um, we're going to be looking at resident parking. Like I mentioned, um, one of the one of the most, uh, common things that we hear about. So, we're going to be looking at ways to en enhance that for our residents. That could include anything from we're looking at adding potential, uh, adding golf cart spots to the north end where we do have some in the south end already, but we don't have them on Up. We don't have them at the county park. So, we're looking at uh, ways that we can enhance the the resident uh, experience out here as well as part of our overall plan. And there's, like I said, there's a lot more. That report was very comprehensive, but that's just kind of a overview of what what we're looking to do. So, I'm going to flip back to the overall possibilities. And

with that, I'll be happy to uh take any questions and u we'll go from there. Thank you, Adam. Commissioner Marriott. Thanks. Um, hey, Adam. Thanks. That's uh very comprehensive. I appreciate it. Um, uh, one quick question for you. What are the hours that we enforce parking? Uh, so we we enforce all of our city lots from 8 to 8. The county parks 24 hours currently.

Okay. Um, so I think I have I have just a couple comments. Um, and and uh um I I'll start by saying that generally generally I'm in favor of most of these things. Um and and I think we have to try it to know what happens, right? Um, I think that, you know, like like we've like we've seen with the freebie when we charge more money, you know, there's a point at which we'll charge enough money that people will use it less and our revenue predictions might not might not be the same and but but we won't know till we try that. Um, I I have a little bit of concern um in district one that as we increase the parking rates, we'll push more people into the neighborhoods. Um, and again, that's something we'll we'll find out if it happens. And that's the good news of how we're going about this. It's easier to to pivot and change and adapt as we as we get more information. Um the uh the and and so you said we enforce from 8 to 8.

Yes. That that's what we charge. So yes. Yeah. And I and I'll tell you, you know, from an enforcement perspective, we it is a

it is a relatively challenging position to fill in some cases, especially our part-time one, which is which is basically nights and weekends. Um but we are full staffed right now. um which is pretty recent that we became full staff. So um certainly in some cases where I've heard issues with a lack of enforcement, I'm hopeful that that that'll pick up now that we're full staffed. And again, we're kind of looking at some of these technology advancements so that we can maximize our enforcement efforts. I the only my only comment about these the the exact um possibilities here that that that I have is that um and and and I'm probably the one who is who who was most in favor of lowering the parking fee by a dollar in the morning um you know to just to give people a time to go to the beach and people who are just walking or surfing or things like that to not charge them as much money. Um, I would say that that looking at this and thinking about it, I would be more tempted to say that like how about on the weekdays we just don't enforce till 9 or 10. And then, you know, and and and make m and make it public. You know, have have it on the, you know, that that parking on weekdays is from, you know, 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. And because because noon is probably a little bit too late or or or maybe even just bump our enforcement back an hour on weekdays. Um, just to just to give those people that are that are, you know, kind of early morning sports recreation people a little more opportunity to go to the beach and and do their thing in a time when it's very underused. Um but go you know those 10 am to noon hours probably you you especially on the weekends but even on the weekdays you start to get a lot of people stacking up and you know so anyway that's my only comment

and to your point and again we we put 8 to noon just to show you what that looks like certainly you know whatever the commission likes we're happy to look at. Um you know I'll tell you even at eight o'clock you're looking at uh you know 190 almost $200,000 in in lost revenue if you if you weren't doing it at eight o'clock. So between 8 and on just on weekdays. Yeah. Uh no, that's overall. So that's including weekends. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I would just I would just be talking about weekdays. Yeah, I got you. Yeah. Commission another. Uh again, thank you, Adam. Uh when was the last increase that we had?

I would have to get that for you. Um I I don't remember when it was approved. So right after the hurricanes in October is when when we put it into place. what what we found when we started managing the parking that the commission had approved an increase and it hadn't made it to all of the meters yet. So I would say the last time it went up on the meters was the October shortly after the hurricane. So about a year and a half ago.

Okay. Thank you. So yeah, I don't agree that we should pass through the credit card fees. I think that you know part of our allure is that we should share and essentially eat those. I don't agree that we should reduce the rates. I think that the revenue loss there in itself is is considerable. I do agree with all of the recommendations from the finance and budget review committee. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Risniki.

I I just want to say that that that I agree with that that I do I do like the recommendation from the finance board as well. Um not in favor of the the reduction or passing the the credit card. We need $213 million. I'm in favor of getting every penny we can, including credit card fees. I really have no opposition to that. I don't, you know, it's 26 cents per transaction. It's not a, you know, significant amount. I'm sorry. I'm

We need We need consensus. We need consensus at some point. Where I stepped in here when I got took office and I can tell you it was like right after I took office and we talked about the fees. And I flat out said, I think $6 an hour and here's here we're at. this

just saying um because my my experience that I had said was that 35 years ago when I went to Yik Ki it was $6 an hour and we are one of the number one beaches or were we're number five I guess now or so in the state of Florida and with that comes you know a price on that and um there's a lot of usage out on on the beach that needs to be taken care of so yeah I'm fine with it. I mean, as far as the credit card fees, um, I know that downtown St. Pete is, um, you pay a lot less, but I'm not getting what I'm getting at here. And they do pass through the fees. Um, what do the other cities do? Are they passing through the fees? Are they not? I mean,

I I' I'd have to get back to you. I'm not, as far as our local ones, I'm I'm not sure to be honest with you.

Yeah. Um I'm I I prefer that than trying to give back uh you know lower the the pricing by a dollar um before noon. And I would think that would probably be if we were to do that that would be the 8 to 10 and not really the noon. Um but um I I would agree with you know all the recommendations. I will back the uh finance and review board. So with with you know it seems like the majority is is in favor of the finance and budget review board. Um what we can do is we can draft the resolution um based on that. Um and then we'll have the opportunity for public input at that time and certainly we can we have all these figures. It's it's it's uh I don't want to say it's relatively easy to do because Kathleen's going to manage it but uh she's a rock star. Um but it um it is relatively easy to to make those changes um if if you know when it comes before you all if you'd like to uh make any changes to it.

Should we do and also with this holiday rate do an event rate should we consider that as well? certainly could considering I think we have an item of discussion tonight as well and um there's been other larger events and if that's the future of the city then that's something as well to consider

and that could be something where you know when we start getting these special event permits maybe that's something that we bring to you at the same time that we could bring the that special event rate. Um again like I mentioned the the technology is getting better. Um, right now I'd be hesitant to say that I could get it implemented, you know, if we approve it on a Tuesday, I could get it implemented by a Saturday to to to to be in place. Um, but I do think eventually the techn is going to get there to be able to do that. So, I don't think that's long off that we'd be able to do something like that. Commissioner Marriott.

Um, yeah, I was just going to say I think as far as the special event rate goes, I think that might be a a down the road. I mean, I think we have there there may be an upcoming exception, but for the most part, most of our special events are not really citywide. And I'm not sure we have the technology currently to have parking be one rate at Passagill and a different rate at Uppam and you know, or or how workable that is right now immediately. Um, so, you know, um, but, uh, but I I also am fine with passing through the credit card fees. I mean, I think that's become a very that that's become a very common thing. I can hardly think of a transaction I've paid with my credit card in in that kind of a especially with an app or in that kind of a service business where where you don't pay the credit card fee. I don't think that's a

Yeah, you're getting more and more of that even when you go out to eat. Yeah. Okay. So, how many do we have in favor of the credit card? I'm just asking. Thank you. Well, I wasn't sure on Commissioner Robinson because she's

mentioned both. So, um the only other item I would add to this is Not necessarily that we need to decide this today, but I would definitely have a chat with the businesses in Pasa Grill. Uh, you know, 8th Avenue primarily, uh, especially the restaurants. Uh, from all the ones that I've heard, they when I say they dislike, I'm really being gentle in the language I'm using on the $25 fee. and uh they're um and even some of the other u boutiques and you know other shops because if somebody's coming for breakfast you know if they pay five bucks six bucks they're there for an hour hour and a half that's fine but then to have a and in some cases for example the seahorse there's nothing else available if if it's not in their five spots right that's across the street and everything over there is going to be that $25 minimum on the weekends right so I would be Just curious to find out what the revenue difference is going to be if we switch it to just flat hourly like everything else versus going from 25 to 40. Now that wouldn't preclude us from doing a special events you know if there is a special event happening um to still do something but I think most of those businesses really would appreciate. So I would say just let's compare the numbers so we have real data to compare it with and and be able to make a decision based on that and also have a conversation with them about you know if the data is the same then I certainly take their point. If the numbers end up being the same then it's just it's more work for us anyway. Commissioner

I I agree with that. But I was just going to ask, do we have that granular of level of data to know how many people are paying the daily fee versus paying hourly on on a holiday, you know, or or on a holiday rate? Do we only have the do we only have the daily fee on a holiday rate? On a holiday, everybody pays the holiday rate. There is no there is no hourly anywhere. Okay. But we do have the data to evaluate what we did X in one location like Passive Grill and Y in another location. Mhm.

And so we know we know on those holidays how many do we know how long anybody stayed because they paid the daily rate so we don't have any idea how long they stayed. Um so we have two pro parking providers. One of them tells us when the car the duration that the car paid for and the other does not. It just tells us the starting. Okay. But we do know how many cars. Yeah. Right. Yeah. How many transactions? We should be able to do the, you know, a close approximation or extrapolation of from that data.

Yeah, let us put our heads together and and take a look at that. I I I definitely think that's a legitimate concern. Um and and it was brought up in the in the parking study. So, let us see if we can get that to you before we bring back the resolution or at least when we bring back the resolution. The other thing, I'm just thinking out loud, but we could conceivably put a special event rate in the in the actual fee uh stud, you know, the fee calendar. We don't necessarily have to put it in place immediately, but then it have been approved and it may be quicker for us to be able to implement it. So, that's something we can look at, too. I wouldn't be able to give you any data on what how much that's going to raise because we wouldn't know how many special events or how many people. But, you know, maybe something that we could get approved and then that way if we want to implement it at some point, we could we could do it quicker. So, just a thought.

And too bad there can't be some sort of voucher because if there could be a voucher, then anybody frequenting those shops on that time period um on those days could use that to get it as um something to think about. I'm excited where the technology is going, but we're not We're not quite there yet, but I but I do think uh the the future is going to be bright, especially with the new company that's kind of Kathleen mentioned. We have two companies right now. They're taking over both of them and it's going to help us a lot because we're going through two completely different companies right now, which is challenging. Maybe it's something you can ask them if they have any ideas on that. Certainly. Um because that might solve a lot of those problems.

Thank you, Adam. Thank you. Next we have general audience comments. John Rondolino.

Please state your name and address for the record.

John Rondolino. Um and the property is 3191 South Maritana uh Drive in Dons is our place. It's one of the waterfront strips. And I'm speaking in on the seaw wall issue and I just have some points. I'll try to go quick because time's limited. I don't think there's anything in the code that mandates people upgrade their seaw walls. It's just if you come in you've got to do this with the exception of I heard tonight for new homes they're looking at mandating new seaw walls and all the talk was seemed to be on bay or canal properties. The seaw wall ordinance also includes gulfront properties. So you'd be requiring six foot, not from the physical ground, six foot from whatever the elevation is along all the property lines on any homes that are built on the Gulf. Um something to consider whether you want to do that or not. Um I think your goal is to have people that have old dilapidated seaw walls replaced. Um, and seaw walls. Tonight was the first I've ever heard that seaw walls are designed to retain rainwater. Seaw walls are designed to keep the sea off the property. So from a variant standpoint, when you're talking about in order to get a variance, you have to prove that uh you're retaining 24-hour, 24year, whatever storm water, that has nothing to do with seaw walls. Everybody I know that has a seaw wall has drain holes in them or rocks behind them so that the water goes in and then drains out the seaw wall. So there should be nothing in the variance about requiring some study for storm water to related to your uh seaw wall. Um the next part is on elevation. Y'all require five foot elevation and six feet on the Gulf. And every time I've talked to

anybody about it they said that's for safety concerns. If there's a big storm, you have to have 5 foot elevations. In Dons's place, the road in front of my property is 1.78 ft. And my seaw wall, which is built in 2020, was surveyed at 2.93 feet. There's never a normal high tide that comes over that seaw wall. It's only during a hurricane there's going to be an issue. The high tide issue is because the city uses 24inch drainage pipes through the seaw wall. And so when the tide comes up, anytime it's above 1.78 in, the water floods the streets over there. If five feet is really that important, then you should allow, if not mandate, that people that are building new homes raise the elevation of their properties to five feet. So that if it's a flooding issue you're concerned with, it should be a flooding issue that a homeowner that wants to raise their property to a flood elevation can raise it. Uh the average elevation on my lot uh that's across the street at 3190 is um 2.9 ft. I think I should be allowed if the 5T elevation is such an issue to grade that property to a 5-ft elevation. I'd still be mandated to have engineering studies so that it retains all the storm water and doesn't flood anybody's property. Last thing real quick.

Thank you, sir. Um, Dons is off. Thank you, sir. We're trying to keep everybody consistent. Thank you. Kathy Gar agenda. Oh, okay. Sorry. Deborah Shener,

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

Um, Deborah Sheckner. Um, one quick comment about the sea the um seaw walls. So, in my neighborhood, and I'm sure many of the others, way back when, if you didn't have three adjacent homeowners that would agree to a seaw wall, there was no seaw walls. I have several areas like that. So, I don't know how you're going to address those if you're going to make the people, you know, put up a seaw wall or not. So, that, you know, I didn't hear it mentioned. So, that's why the I said that to you now. So you are aware of it. And then I think it's also important. I can't tell you how many people didn't know tomorrow is voting day. All those cards, all that information. And they said we have a vote on March 10th. Yes, you do. So there must be some strong disengagement there. Although every year there are people who don't know that that's the next day is is voting day and hopefully that they all show up because to me that's very very important for our community is to have that participation of voters and I always hold that dear since I'm 18 I've never missed a vote in my life even small ones so I wish more people would take that as serious as I do and others but good luck to everybody tomorrow and um I think we should charge the credit card fees. People used to it. Thank you.

Thank you, John Kersman. If you please state your name and address for the record.

John Kursman be on the way. Um on seaw walls, if you could zoom into the actual picture, it would be really helpful. Um, I happened to be just uh in Blind Pass last weekend and I took a picture because I admired it. They have seaw walls and then they go to having actual sandy beach. Uh, and then one house even has a has a has a wall there. So, I would just ask that if it's possible if we could make sure that we consider people to allow do certain like things like that. The other thing on the seaw walls as I'm concerned because you know if you raise a wall and you don't back fill you just make a bathtub and you make a bathtub for the the rain. You make a bathtub if the water gets on the wrong side. So it's really important to do the filling. But I find it interesting that the new rating system from FEMA no longer considers your BFE in your in your price. If your BF changes, your price doesn't change for national flood insurance. It now looks at the lower lowest adjacent grade natural grade. It would be great if we could build moes around us. Then we'd pay the le the least amount. Part of the problem is they developed it thinking about rivers that if you filled you then blocked water and caused the water to rain raise because you're at a a ravine uh and a fixed amount. But that's not the Gulf. So I would recommend you get your your your your lobbyist to be working on on fixing that. Um, on the on the parking, um, I think you could charge a fee for credit cards if people have a choice to pay cash, but if you don't have a choice to pay cash, and it's just always going to happen, just raise your rate. Um, and and for the if you had some data, which I think Karen, Commissioner Merritt was asking for about, you know, what would we lose on weekdays waiting till 9:00 a.m., what would we lose on weekends waiting till 10:00 a.m.? What would we lose maybe even 11:00 a.m.? that might be a good approach to then because that would help. And then on sunset, if someone comes and only shows up during the sunset hours, I'd recommend charging the

higher amount. But if they were here all day and they would just have these extra hours at the end, I wouldn't change the rate. It might also encourage people to come before even more before sunset, do some shopping or, you know, go to a bar or something. Um on the on the um cellular, you know, I was in this industry. I and and also, you know, after 911, I walked around New York with a with a G radiation meter and I had an RF meter and I, you know, I checked properties with the Geiger counter. I'm concerned about this stuff, but you know, FI 5G has gone down a lot in power, but now it's in the microwave band. So, I understand the concern. My suggestion is to address the the 30 foot, make it 30 feet from the uh setback line because the next house might be closer to the street, but also say the lower of the higher of 30 feet or the height of the pole. So if you're 40ft pole, then you need to be 40t away. And that justifies it. And lastly, watch out for that 500 foot rule because let's say at again wanted to go to Gulf Boulevard, you might now force them to now be in front of a residence because of the 500 foot rule. So just be careful.

Thank you, sir. Kelly Lee McFreder. Please state your name and address for the record. Sure.

Hi, Kelly Lee McFreder, uh, 3612 East Maritana Drive. And my only concern with the seaw walls is because our docks were built in 1926. I have two concerns. So one of them is my middle section. Um we're looking at when we talk about yay without a permit or without paying permit fees. But there's two things I wanted to state on. One was we're looking at accessibilities to our existing docks. And I really do want to make sure how are those going to be permitted? How are those going to be approved? Um we had issues with my historic dock before because the county said you have what others don't have. It needs to come down. So, I do have a concern of how many permits are needed and will the permits pass if we do things correctly as good citizens. Um, that being said, number two is we have not addressed or have I not heard about the commercial. We're we're two doors down from Hotel Zamora. Are there dogs going to have or excuse me, are there seaw walls have to be improved as well? Because we can take mine. I don't want to go five feet. I'll be honest with you. I just want to go three. I'm really good with that work with that. I have rip raff. I've maintained my seaw wall. It's it's in pretty good shape for how it I done foam inside of there. We keep it maintained. Um I've had to back fill it from the ski slope and some other items um that are next to it. But as hotels and more in some of the commercial areas, are they going to also have are they going to be mandated to raise their seaw walls? Because why would I do mine if they don't? Because their water is just going to go right up into my yard and my neighbor's yard. And my neighbor's seaw wall is in much worse shape on the west side of my house. Uh people on the other side have both improved both their seaw walls. So, we're willing, you know, just it's just a lot to undertake. And we also want to have a voice on what it looks like in terms of how they're engineered. I want I told you before, I wanted fans where they would just spread out. I do not want all my landscaping and pavers and everything ripped out like it looks two doors down from me. So, I really do want to have a voice in that. But my concern is the commercial properties that those are also mandated. And of course, we've talked about the boat ramp and other areas that we all do this as a joint community. I think is very huge. But I

think we all need to have a say and I agree with what John was saying of maybe we don't need to go to five feet and look like a citadel. Thank you. Thank you. I have no more general audience comments. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I move that we I move that we approve the consent agenda. Second. City clerk, if you'll please do a roll call. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Mayor Pato, yes. Motion carries. Next, we have ordinances 5A, final reading of ordinance 2026-02.

An ordinance of the city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, amending appendix A of the city code of ordinances relating to parking fees. removing parking fees from appendix A providing the parking fees shall be established and amended by resolution of the city commission providing for codification conflicts severability scriveners errors construction publication and an effective date good evening again Adam Pyer assistant city manager again this is just the final reading of the ordinance we've made no changes since the uh since the first reading but I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have thank you questions comments are there any audience Audience comments. There are no audience comments on this issue.

Thank you. Is there a motion? Make the motion to adopt the final reading of ordinance 2026-02. Second. Commissioner Resniki? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Mayor Petilla? Yes. The motion carries. Thank you. Next we have ordinance 5B, final reading of ordinance 2026-03.

An ordinance of the city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, providing for amendments to the code of ordinances, chapter 132, communication facilities in the city right of way section 132-16 design standards providing for codification, conflicts, severability, correction of scriveners errors, construction, publication, and an effective date. Thank you. I can introduce the basic changes. Um,

I did want to say at six o'clock this evening, we received a letter from Verizon um from the Shutz Law and Bowen law firm which I'll distribute and there's a copy for the clerk. So uh between the first reading and today uh we met with the citizens attorneys and also discussed with the Verizon and AT&T attorneys. Um the changes that we have to both the staff alternative and the residents uh are presented in your board packet. Um as the attorney Scott McCulla pointed out, it basically boils down to a couple of things. Um, one is that staff is still recommending 30 feet from an existing dwelling unit where the residents are seeking 40 feet. Um, the residents proposed a distance of 10 ft from the driveway apron and 30 feet from a fire hydrant. Um, staff um, agrees but uh, is citing instead of saying exact separation distances, we're citing to the codes that have those distances in them. And that's the um land development code section 2.1 for traffic visibility and the minimum distances required by the NFPA and local code amendments for a fire hydrant for public safety purposes. And these uh 10 feet and 30 feet is something the staff has already been uh applying to uh utility poles and um or excuse me to wireless facility poles. The additional uh section that we both agree to is to place wireless facilities and new utility poles with new wireless support structures near common interior side side lot lines subject to the driveway and fire hydrant limitations rather than directly in front of the principal facade of a residence and the residents uh have now agreed

with staff alternative to do the negotiation period rather than the variance. The second uh point was the 500 feet that the residents were proposing um as a minimum separation diff distance. Um instead the staff has not wanted to put a uh actual number on it. So instead of doing a minimum distance separation uh we asked for a maximum distance to the extent possible and technically feasible from other small wireless facilities in the public rightway without limiting communications service. So that will be considered and determined on a case-byase basis. Um we agreed also with the residents to add uh to the criteria and 2e um failure to comply with applicable codes including specific rules or restrictions applicable to any historic district applicable to the site's location. So that was agreeable language to both. So with that, I think we have answers to any questions. Brandon Barry is here to talk a little bit about the setbacks, the 40 ft versus the 30 ft and what's feasible. Good evening, Brandon Barry, planner. So there are two proposals uh before you. The staff alternative is proposing a 30foot setback where viable. That's from the residential dwelling itself, not from the property line. Uh the citizen proposal has also been updated to a 40ft setback. I believe in the prior proposal that was from the property line. Um not 40, it was 30t at the time. Uh the 40 ft is from the nearest existing residential dwelling

unit or structure that has been submitted for permitting and and declared complete. Uh between the two obviously for uh 30 foot is much easier to accommodate. Typically the right ofway distance in the city outside of Passil it's much uh shallower in Pasigril is between 12 and 18 feet. Typically the front setback requirement for a new structure is 20 feet from the property line. So that leaves a curb to potential building distance of between 32 and 38 ft. Most areas in the city, there is some variation. There's typically a significantly greater distance between the curb and the property line at intersections. In some older neighborhoods, there are areas of the Donsesar neighborhood, for example, that have building setbacks of 30 to 40 feet just based on the historical patterns of that area. Um but typically the older neighborhoods have greater setbacks to the structures outside of pass. Newer structures we found are typically built very close to the front property line in most cases. So a 30-foot setback which in the staff proposal is a recommendation. Um it's where when it's technically feasible to accommodate. Uh that would be more easy to accommodate in most neighborhoods. 40 ft would be a a challenge in certain areas. It wouldn't preclude wireless support structures um or wireless facilities, but it it would be a more more difficult to accommodate in most neighborhoods. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Questions, comments for city attorney or city staff? Commissioner Maldonado. Yeah, thank you. Uh Brandon, so I'm just looking at it. I want to make sure I understand this. So, you did make the adjustment and the recommendation to 40 ft from the property or dwelling, correct? Uh, the staff is still at 30. Is that still is still at 30? Okay. So, I'm going to do a little show and tell if I can get our assistant city manager to help me here. Please bear with me for just a second. If we can operate this thing, I've tried to find the lowest technology possible. So, perfect. If you'd go out to 30 feet. I saw this in a movie.

I did too. I was 30 feet. Now hold it from the podium here.

30 feet. A 30. Okay. Tighten it up. You might want to tighten it. Yeah. All right. Dean, if I could get you to stand there. I go back to 40 if you could. We got some election equipment. So, so that's what we're talking. We're do talking about 30 to 40 ft when the pole is 40 ft. Correct. Grant. The average pole length is 40. Um, for the ones that support transmission lines are typically 40 to 45 ft in height.

Perfect. Okay. Thanks. So, I just wanted to show you something that what we have here is a critical safety issue. If something falls at 40 feet when we're recommending 30, then it's pointless. So, we're looking at litigation with 37 people versus maybe two entities. Correct? I'm just doing simple math here.

Trying to get this down as distilled as much as possible. So what I am going to uh essentially recommend is that we change that to 40. And this is you know this is I do realize that there's unique circumstances uh with distance and passive grill in other locations but I've said this from the very beginning. It has to have teeth and for it to have 30 feet distance serves no purpose. We're essentially setting ourselves up for failure 37 times. So, and that's all I've got to say on that. You know, I mean, it's it's going to go back and forth. Uh, I do see that.

Do you have any thoughts on the 500 foot? Struggling with that. Uh, I'd like to hear what some of the other commissioners have to say and then I'll circle back to that piece. Okay. Commissioner Marriott. Uh, thank you, Brandon. And I just have one question for you on the um so we're Commissioner Maldonado was just talking about the poles the average height of the poles being 40t tall that have transmission lines on them and is the are the the wireless antennas that we're talking about are those generally mounted at the tops of the poles? Right. They typically extend above we frequently see five to seven feet above that height and then that they're allowed 10 under the statute but it us typically is 5 to seven.

Okay. So, so effectively they're even taller than that. Correct. Um, some of the tallest poles we have are 51 to 53 feet with the antennas on top. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Nikki.

For the for the 500 ft. Um, and this would be a question to legal. what what um can we focus on the aesthetics of the city of we're not talking about separation or if I think what we're also talking about is how the city is going to look you know if if we're not um limiting how how many are in a certain area aesthetically we could have a forest of poles and I'll give an example that's right by city hall I mean everybody's seen the forest of poles that exists right by the by between city hall and the library. I don't know what street and maybe Commissioner Robinson knows what number name if it's a name because I don't remember the one right here behind us that's um by the library there's like literally I don't know every 10

hardening poles that are are the just to give a visual correct hardening poles right I'm not saying those are communication but I'm just saying of of because we don't limit anything that's what it looks like right there you know so why can't we focus on the aesthetic of what our city could look like if we're not limiting polls.

City clerk, do we have any audience comments? Roger. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

My name is Roger Hood. I live at 109 Second Avenue. a property I've had for almost 36 years. Uh I for the 27 years prior to the storm, I lived around the corner on Pasigrow Way till that house washed away. So I moved lucky enough to have a house to move into about four doors away. But um I do have a pole, one that Brandon was talking about, the one that 50 ft high. Um so there's some concerns. I'm here also to support the requested changes, but my concerns are uh for point of reference, my house is 36 ft from that 50ft pole. Uh the head of my bed's a little bit closer than the front door. Um so there's the that the aesthetic issue is one of um again I'm a I was a realtor. I'm concerned if I went to sell my house that the health issues are real or perceived they're going to affect the eventual cost or if there's another comparable house down the street without a tower smack in front of it. I'm not going to ever sell the house. Um, one other issue is I've had Verizon for 35 years and I'm not an engineer. My background is in telecom, but I'm not the engineering side. But that tower went in. I don't know for a fact that it was fired up, but since it went in my service I'm going to probably end up having to change. My cell service is unacceptable. My calls drop. I can't hear the person on the other end. And it and it doesn't happen in the car when I'm away. It happens while I'm home. And it happens on every call multiple times. I can't hear the party I'm talking to. It blacks out. So the the aesthetic values, the the the issues of safety. Um little off subject. A few years back, we changed the street signs in Pastor Grill. I called Mike Clark to say, "Boy, that's a little change, but they made a huge difference as far as adding to the quaintness of the town, and I think the cell towers do just the opposite." I think athe instead of adding to the

aesthetics, I think they take away from such a quaint, special town as Pas. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ron Vino, if you please state your name and address for the record.

Yeah, my name is my name is Ronald Vin from Basil. So from now from by this time you know you all know how I feel about what's going on. Um and I was uh I called my mom today before this meeting and I asked her some advice. She's 80 82 years old. I'm going to go on about this. And she said, "Just talk about love and she's right. She's she's a wise woman. It's all about how we love our self enough to do the right thing." Okay. Obviously, you know, my wife and I, we've been we've been talking about this for a year and you guys have been talking about this for a year. So, it really comes down to love. If we're going to love ourel enough tonight to do something about it and it's going to be okay because every time people do things coming from a place of love, they are supported. And it's not all about money. I mean, you didn't pick this job for money. You know, you can make a lot more money somewhere else. You know, you you picked this job because you love your community and you want to do something about it. So that's the time to do it. That's tonight. Thank you.

Thanks, Ron. Lauren Monz, please state your name and address for the record.

Uh Lauren Monus from Pasigril. So, um I had a speech planned, but I think I'll go off that and talk about the separation because I think that's really the the contentious thing. But so the 500 ft um separation, it's not just about how which is approximately two blocks. So if you can imagine two blocks is just not a lot, right? But I I'm pretty sure these telecom companies want these every 50 feet. And can you imagine having these every 50 feet? So it is like Betty said, it's an aesthetic issue. And like my lawyer said, we can use the term and the provision of concealment to defend this 500 ft separation because that is allowed in the Florida statute 337.41. Um because you know even Roger's pole, have you guys been to the beach and looked at his pole? It is it's terrible. You know, not to mention what he has to look out from his bedroom window. So, it's not just about how far these towers go, but like what is our city going to look like? You know, like on on Gulf Boulevard, those cement things are just everywhere. And some of those probably will turn into wireless towers. I mean, that's what they're looking like right now. So, I just can't imagine. And like I said in my speech is like, but also I wanted to go back to what Karen said earlier today is we won't know what happens unless we try it. She said that about the parking, right? We won't know what happens unless we try this. and and like my attorney also said, um there's not going to be a

lawsuit on the ordinance. they're going to submit applications and if if if that goes against our ordinance then um we bring it to the negotiation table and then but I don't see us not being able to negotiate this stuff, you know, like I don't see like there being fights about this because there's always alternative locations always. They'll say no, but there always is. Um, so you know the I I don't think we should base this policy from a fear of a lawsuit because of what my lawyer said and also just doing the right thing, protecting the residents. This is what the majority of people want. Um, I you guys know where I'm at. So that's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Dean Lurker.

Thank you, Dean Lurker. Pass the grill. I rise also in support of the resident's request for 40 foot considerations. Stand back for the purposes of safety for our dwellings. Um, I appreciate the visual demonstration of what we're talking about footage wise. Um I also do believe in the 500 foot mandate or at least 500 foot separation. Um I can understand why telecom companies want to have maybe denser population because of the doublem 5G wave uh does not do well in dense foliage areas nor does it do well where there's a lot of concrete construction. We don't have that in passive rail. We don't have that in St. Pete Beach. Everything's pretty open. So, they'll have good transmission capabilities. So, I would recommend certainly the 500 foot at least separation and also uh support the idea of the aesthetic impact it's going to have on our community, our buic community that we all love and cherish. So, thank you

Nancy Lurker. Nancy Lurker 1405 pass the grill away. I'm going to repeat what everyone else did. Betty, thank you for bringing this up because that was going to be my opening comment which is the 40 foot. My husband already talked about that. And then the 500 foot. I'm sure you've all seen them. You go look at these things. They are ugly. and to have I can't imagine that we could have or that we'd have no limits at all on how many can get put. So, we're spending I don't know how much money. I'm guessing over a million or more taking down uh telephone lines or whatever the electrical lines on Gulf Boulevard. Partly, I know for hurricane reinforcement, but also aesthetically. And then we're going to go put these telephone these cell phone towers everywhere. Go take a look at the one that's on the old uh the large estate on Pasigril Way. Um that thing is ugly.

Pardon? Thank you. Um I can't imagine they're going to be happy with that. I don't want one of those sitting in front of my house. Not to mention it's going to bring the value down. So I would just encourage we do what we can. Go to the 500 foot distance in particular and then the 40 foot for safety reasons. Thank you. John Kursman. Kelly Lee Mcder. This is my first time ever being up here.

Hi there. Kelly Lee McFreder, 3612 East Maritana Way, East Maritana Drive, excuse me. U just real quick, I was thought it was interesting. 60 Minutes just recently did did a segment on the Havana syndrome. is the same thing that these 5G towers do to us and they're now starting to get awareness of this and we're going to be continuing we've actually from a federal level been asked to write to 60 Minutes to exploit this continuing more with what the what the radiation can do to us. So the demonstration was fantastic because we know mine was 24 feet from property line. So 10 more feet was 30. So B basically where your 40 was my driveways here. It's there and that mine was actually I believe about 60 ft plus the 5t on top of it. Um so it is quite an impact and I know we don't live in fact as we know maritana for those that don't know sorry about that is on the inter coastal waterway. This is not what we want on the inter coastal waterway. I don't need it to affect us, the wildlife, everything in the water. It's going to affect Bel Vista. It's going to hit them. That's going to radiate right over to them if we continue along the inter coastal waterway. And the point I brought up last time was the fact that we're not, as the gentleman said, we're not a place of hills, valleys, and trees. We have enough and 500 ft does protect the neighborhoods. We're very adamant about that. We're also talking with the FCC directly. One of my other neighbors is really calling in. We're learning about this because we know AT&T wants to directly come out and say if I have you every 50 60 feet which hasn't brought out you have to have my equipment because none of your equipment is going to work and that's a fact. So we definitely do not want a monopoly and we're looking at Verizon, AT&T, some of the other ones actually just fighting with each other saying hey you can you cannot have this monopoly. We should be able to have a choice and we know that we're going to go to Starlink and some other items and what's going to happen to these polls down the road. But aesthetically, the other gentleman was right, Roger, who said it, "Who's going to buy my house if they put mine mine back up as compared to one down the road? My property value be completely impacted." And people are getting smarter and smarter and smarter, and

they know better. And so, I do think this is something that is realistic. I definitely enforce of it. I know you all had a lot of emails sent to you. I've got quite a little war weapon behind me of wonderful girlfriends that are aware of this and love their homes, and they really want to see this go forward. So I appreciate you hearing us and I hope for this to pass tonight that we make this happen. The 40 ft 500 ft is very very important and 60 minutes has us. It'll just take a little phone call and they'll hear some more about this and we'll get some more information. Making us important is what I'm talking about with 60 minutes that they can make us important that we know there's going to be a lot more information coming out and we're looking at doing the right thing now. Thank you all.

Jack Rice Jack Rice 3612 East Maritana. Can I say anything about the flood too or just about the

Okay. All right. So, so the the the flood water, rain water, if I put a seaw wall up, it's going to impact her house cuz it's going to go from my water back to her water and flood her house. It's the dumbest thing I ever heard. Anyway, I said the same thing before. The one on Bat's girl next to Agie Bush's house, you're wrong. It's below the light. It's not above the light. I can almost reach it with my hand. So, you're wrong. Staff has no idea what they're talking about. This is bad. I'm so tired of being here. I'd rather be home watching something, sports, something else. This is ridiculous. I've been here six times, seven times in the last two months. This is ridiculous. You guys need to stand up for us. It's just ridiculous. do the right thing no matter what. We don't need any more towers. Just say no more towers. We just have it at that. Pure and simple.

Kathy Garow Kathy Garshaw 3607 Casablanca. Um, I just wanted to speak on behalf of uh the community and support of the direction. Thank you, Commissioner Maldonado, for bringing that measuring tape. I think that was brilliant. Um, I want Excuse me, sir.

I wanted to show something on here. Oh, thank you. Just one. I think you all have this, but it it already says we have 100% coverage. So, I think that's one thing we all just have to look at and say. So, if if our experts show we have 100% coverage, I I don't know. I think that's one thing we just have to look at. The um the other thing everyone's been talking about, so I know shared some pictures like this before, they're not good. Our our utility friends are not good neighbors. Um, I take a short walk within less than a mile of my house. And this just is a image of a lot of sad looking unkempt utility lines and poles all along. Duct tape. I mean, it's it makes our city look terrible. So, even now they want to throw up new things. So, I I just wanted to share a couple of these things because I don't know ultimately what the legal impact is like the experts do, but just logically and as a resident, it just doesn't make any sense. So, I I hope we can support this. Deborah Shener Um um drive in St. Pete Beach. I think I remember a show called Mad Max and it was like a terrible future and it was all dark. That's what those polls looked like to me when I saw them and I took a ride around the city to see how many there were and it was surprising to me.

I think we have also find a way. How do you mitigate the loss of your real estate? 10, 20, 30%, who knows how much that will be? And that significant hardship for anybody who has that pole in or near their house. When we went looking for homes, if there was um those large transmission lines, we immediately said no. We didn't even go in the house. that was not. So I think other people are like that too, especially people who may be health consscious or whatever. Um, what I really thought was weird is as I were looking up, Duke needs to do a much better job on their wires. Things are hanging. Um, we pay a lot of money. We pay more than per rate than North Carolina pays because we're Florida and the utilities think they can charge us anything they want and pretty much through the years they've said okay. So we already pay more and we get less. So I would like Duke to come out here and do a better job just doing those wires. And I wonder, so we had 4G, 5G, is there a 6G down the word the road and then we have to do something totally different? What will the new technology be? Um, but I really do worry more about the homeowners and I truly hope that they can um sort of mitigate this or the city can help them. I don't I don't have the answer to that, but I don't think any of us want it in front of our houses. Thank you.

I have no further comments. All right. Thank you, commissioners.

Commissioner Marup. Um, yeah. I've got a couple questions for our city attorney. Um, do you agree with the residents lawyers assessment that that the if we pass the residents proposed language that that wouldn't that ordinance wouldn't be challenged as an ordinance, but it would just be per tower if we don't allow them on a per tower basis?

Well, I think there's two parts. If we could think of the 30 or 40 foot setback, we could probably go to 40 there with the city's staff language changing 30 to 40, but keeping it encouraged. Um, the second one is the minimum separation, the 500 ft. The statute says the city may not limit the placement by minimum separation distance of small wireless facilities. utility poles on small wireless facilities are or will be colloccated or other atgrade communication facilities that I think it would be very hard to defend that 500 foot as a not being a minimum separation district distance. I think it's being proposed by the residents as a minimum separation distance. So I think it would be hard to to defend that.

Okay. And then I think there would be a challenge probably facially because it's so clearly a minimum separation district distance and the statute says that. And there's a there's another Florida statute under chapter I think it's 120 that awards attorneys fees if cities adopt ordinances that are in violation of state preeemptions. So I think they would see that as lowhanging fruit and probably do a facial challenge on on that minimum separation. And once that once that once that challenge was begun, we would the city would be on the hook for their legal fees. If we lose, yes.

Okay. So, I I think, you know, I I don't think this is a I don't think we should be looking at this as a uh choosing having to choose between being for the residents or for the telecom companies, right? I think I think what we're all trying to do is adopt an ordinance that that c that can be defended. Um, you know, because an ordinance that can stay in place is infinitely more valuable than one that does not survive a legal challenge. Um, and I think we need to be very clear. We need to go whatever we do, we need to go into it very cleareyed about the potential risks and costs. And so, you know, I I don't feel comfortable putting the city in the position of carrying the torch and leading the charge for us being the test case in Florida to see what is defensible. Um, I don't feel like we're a big enough city with a big enough budget to take that risk. Um, I am 100% for using our lobbyists to lobby at the federal and the state level to get some of these things changed and I am absolutely for changing the distance to 40 feet particularly if we keep the staff language of encouraged. Um, you know, the the encouraged are required as long as there's a negotiation period. I'm not sure what the um what the ultimate difference is because we can still even if our language is encouraged, we can still deny a permit application,

you know, on a on a per pole basis. Um, and we could choose to to to have a legal fight on a per pole basis, which, you know, if if somebody's trying to put a tower in a particularly egregious spot, we could choose that legal fight that may be a a more winnable or a more a more possible fight. That's not true.

So, my my feeling is that um, you know, we have that as an option. I'm not comfortable with the with the 500 foot separation. I think, you know, I don't think there's any reasonable way to read that state statute and think that we can put in a 500 foot separation without being in direct contradiction to state statute. Commissioner Robinson,

I'll start with the uh 40 ft. Um, I am for that, but I'm also for the lesser of 100% or 40 ft. In case they were to go higher or lower, um, we'd still have the 40 foot protection on that. Um, being if, you know, they did a 30 foot, they could do a 30 foot. We're, you know, um, so, uh, not requiring them to necessarily be 40 feet. I think that's a little bit of a give and take. Um, but we are seeing towers that are larger, so we also have that coverage as well. Um the 500 foot there's uh I I'm very happy to see some things that happened since the last meeting um that staff worked hard on the fire hydrants, the driveways, the reference to codes. Um there were a couple things I brought up whether we had anything in regards to gas lines, any of that. Um but that reference does help as well. Um there was a item brought up very expensive one that if we underground if the whole city is undergrounded um that there you know that that that just gets rid of this problem but that's a very expensive expensive solution to that. um the 500 foot. Is there anything that we can do in here in regards to as was mentioned aesthetic in reference to aesthetic or concealment and I asked that back to the city attorney um because I think we're getting there. not as fast as everybody would like and not as as much as everybody would like, but um I am uh definitely for the health, safety, and welfare of the residents and the community. I know that this was in 2017 the uh Florida League of Cities filed a challenge to this preeemption

itself and they lost. But um I think this is worth going forward with these changes to be able to protect the residents and and more so on a safety. I mean health is definitely a potential concern because I just remember what's been you know when it was fine to use your cell phone and then all of a sudden it's oh oh maybe you shouldn't be holding that next to your head every you know every day every hour. Um, so we just don't know what's in the future. And I do agree with Kathy's um, you know, we don't have really good um, um, what do I say? Partners in our utility companies because I do the same thing. I walk through this city and I see the horrible disarray, horrible disarray of every utility company that's put anything in the ground and all the boxes in the ground and everything out there. And so I am concerned aesthetically on what this city is going to look like and I'm concerned on the health and safety of the community as well.

So I ask um I guess you had a couple of questions. One is about aesthetic and one and concealment, right?

So right now we can control the color of the paint similar to aesthetic and concealment or paint or wrapped. I think one of the companies wrote that they don't like to use wraps. They want to use paint. So, we made that an option in the ordinance that we already adopted. Um, there is a bill pending in the legislature. The last day of the session is Friday. If that bill passes, we can't do landscaping requirements. If it doesn't pass, maybe we can. We won't know until after Friday. um I mean one suggestion that we could do um is that we could do the staff language and then uh substitute 40 for 30 and then for the other one which is the 500 shows up as number three here. We already have number one and number two on the citizens proposal. Uh but we could make number three a new subsection 4 and leave in the 500 so that if we that way if we get sued and that gets stricken or we have to repeal it, we can repeal that. But we still have the staff language as a in there as a number two. So we would adopt staff's alternative for number two. And if you were to adopt the resident's 500 foot language, which is three that that would be in there um as a u a new subsection and I believe we have and we can make sure we have um a good section at the end of our code. It's called severability. It says the provisions of this ordinance are declared to be severable and if any

section, sentence, clause, or phrase of this ordinance shall for any reason be held to be invalid or unconstitutional. Such decision shall not affect the validity of the remaining sections, sentences, clauses, and phrases of this ordinance as they shall remain in effect. It being the legislative intent that this ordinance shall stand notwithstanding the invalidity of any part. So if the citizens part gets stricken, the other ones would remain. You still would run the risk of paying attorney's fees however many hours were incurred up to the point that you might repeal or have a court strike it.

Commission another Uh, thank you, Attorney Brook. So, yeah, that just made my decision even easier. So, at this point, yeah, I would say at least 500 feet were ever possible and technically feasible without limiting communication services for the separation as a new subsection. I know at the last meeting I asked if we could do something besides distance for example density units per we looked at that the statute says we can't limit the number of facilities so if you're looking at the number per acre I think that would be a limitation on the number

so is it the same vote you can't say you can only have 100 in the whole city yeah we're not saying or you couldn't say you couldn't have 100 in the particular neighborhood. No, but the I was asking specifically if you could say X number per square mile. So, we're not limiting. We can look at it some more, but it seemed it seemed that that was limiting the number or a minimum separation distance. That's another possibility we can look at and bring back to you. Um, well, I was hoping to have that answered today since it was asked twice already.

I guess in my opinion that would be a limitation on the number and probably would be preempted just like the minimum separation distance is probably preempted. We could add a subsection five that has some kind of density limitation, but I don't know how you would even phrase that. I'm not saying we need addition to him. I'm simply saying as an alternative to the 500. We could ask Brandon to come up. I is there any way you think that we could phrase a density sim something similar to density for communication facilities? I I can't think of anything offhand. And like the city attorney said, there's um and I'll try to find the language, but it says that the city cannot limit the lo of a utility pole uh to support wireless support or small wireless facilities. So I think that's that's the challenge. Um we we could think it over some more, but I don't have anything right now. They haven't said that yet, but Is there a motion? Make the motion to adopt with modification of 40 foot setback from dwellings unless variance and 500 separation requirements

where possible and technically feasible without limiting communication services for the final reading of ordinance 2026-03. Did you want to include the uh additional language about the negotiation period? Everything that's in the citizens proposal here? Yeah. Yeah. Because again this goes to more than just ground equipment now. Now this is all support structures and poles. And can we do that as a subsection? It will be a new subsection 4 to take their three and that entire three paragraphs and make that a new subsection. Absolutely. Yep.

And we'll add in the 500 ft whenever possible and technically feasible without um impacting coverage. is that the final version of the motion? Yes, it is. I'll second to the clerk. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, no. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Mayor Patulla,

yes. The motion carries. Thank you.

Next we have action items. First one is 6A resolution 2026-06 to grant an easement to Duke Energy. A resolution of the city commission of the city of St. B Beach Beach granting a 10-ft x 10 foot limited purpose utility easement to Duke Energy Florida and providing for an effective date.

There's no staff report. I'm just here to answer any questions. This is just for one utility box that goes in the ground at the corner closest to the street. Are there any audience comments? Oh, I did want to say audience comments on this. I did want to say that Camden was uh expressing to me that he would like to do these utility easements as narrow as possible uh from now on. So that's why we're seeing 10 by 10. We're going to try to make the smallest areas, try to deal with some of the cleanups uh that were pointed out in the prior uh presentation with the pictures of utility stuff everywhere. We want to make sure it's all compact. Sure. Is there a motion? I make a motion to adopt resolution 2026-06.

Second. City clerk. Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Rniki? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. And Mayor Patulla? Yes. The motion carries. Next we have action item 6B resolution 2026-05 to wait permit fees for seaw wall repairs and right away.

So resolution of the city commission of the city of St. P Beach to temporarily wave building permit and plans examination fees for private seaw wall permits adjoining city rights of way beginning March 10th, 2026 through and including March 10th, 2028 and providing for an effective date. So we have just a single slide uh to to show uh it was requested from the commission to look at the possible impact that would be incurred should uh the permitting fees be waved for the seaw walls adjacent to the right ofway. So there's an estimated 4,575 lineal feet of seaw wall that are adjacent to the public right ofway. What we did is we pulled all the permits post storm to current to look for seaw walls to look at what the average cost was. What that equated to was $1,18 per lineal foot multiplied by how many lineal feet is roughly $5 million in the value of that work which equates to $83,000 roughly in peritting fees. So, that would be what would be potentially waved. And I'd be happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Commissioner Robinson, how many homes does that include or properties? Do you know? Not 100% sure. I think we're in about the 60 range. It's 5,000 8,000 80,000 divide 40 properties. Roughly 40. 401 properties. Okay. Yeah.

Um, and I I'm just trying to get a feel for I just feel like this is just so pointed to one area and I know it is um but I also feel that needs to be opened up to other areas as well um for for everybody. I mean it shouldn't just be exclusive to if somebody wants to redo their and and that's what we're trying to do here, right? We're trying to get resiliency all around the whole bit. So, isn't this an opportunity to allow anybody who wants to to go ahead and redo their uh seaw wall the opportunity to get a chance within this two-year period to wait to have the fees waved for that? Um, I just feel that it should be, you know, across the board for the community and not necessarily just in the rightway. That's certainly a commission decision. I don't have the analysis done for you citywide. We're in the process of doing a citywide seaw wall study which will be complete in 2027. So if that's a decision you want to make based on estimates, I would need a little more time to get you a back of the napkin ne estimate. I'd need at least 18 months to get you an official um more detailed analysis of the state of all the seaw walls in the city.

I think Commissioner Robinson is just you're saying waving permit fees for seaw walls period. Yeah. For the next two years. Yep. You said we did 80 some odd seaw walls this year. 83 up to this point from October 1 of 24. Okay. So 83 times 5,68 is roughly 400,000 and some change a year. That's $2,000 a permit. I'm I'm just trying to think. Well, no, the the average permit is $5,000, right?

And so if it's 83 properties, then that's a little over $400,000 a year. And so we would have to come up with that. So the reason we're doing a proposal is that's for seaw walls adjacent to right ofways is because it bled the city property and then it's you know we're sharing the cost a little bit with the resident with the residents in those areas

and I I agree with you that we need to be as resilient as possible. I just don't know that we have the ability right now in light of all the other expenses that we have to, you know, take off take $400,000 off the table. You know, it was with the permits that the permit fees that we waved before, we were at least being reimbured by FEMA, right? So that $4.5 million that we waved before with this one, there is no there's no way to recuperate it. is would there be worth talking about a way to open it up to other areas afterwards? I mean, it it just it needs to be equitable across the island.

Mhm. Um for those people that are looking to to redo their seaw walls. Well, it might be worth if we just get actual numbers and data and then we can see what the numbers are. But for the purpose of tonight, I'm fine with this one as is. If we wanted to expand it, I would certainly like to have actual numbers that we could make those decisions on. Commissioner Marriott,

thank you. Um I agree. I think that that for I think this is a great start and I think this is important because um like you say, these are seaw walls that abut city property as well. And so we're we're helping out with these residency walls just on the permit fees so that we can also protect more protect city assets. And so I think that's important and and I think that it absolutely is something we should look at down the road to expand this program potentially or or some kind of program to more homeowners who are looking at seaw walls, whether it be waving fees for people who do living shorelines or or living seaw walls or or any number of things that we can do. And I think that as time goes on and we get more data, um, you know, I think we'll have a mid-year budget adjustment here and we'll know how much money the building department is taking in. Um, I'm sure the building department is taking in record revenues with the number of permits that have been pulled in the last even even since even even if you don't count the ones that we weren't charging for. Um, but but I think that can be a separate issue from this one that we're looking at tonight. Commissioners,

I would just say I agree both with um with all three of you because you you've all kind of hit the same thing. Just to remember that the difference is because of this right away. And in essence, it's not just about the private property seaw wall. It is the property of the public as well. So by encouraging homeowners to improve that private seaw wall, it in turn helps protect our roads, our sidewalks, the utilities that run under the ground along all of these um rideways that that abut them. Um and also the drainage system. I mean, if you know, some of our CIPs, our capital improvement projects are up and coming have to do with drainage in some of these areas. and we're about to invest a lot of money as a city and if these seaw walls are not secured, I mean, it's kind of like we're we're just putting money down the hole. So again, just because this is in reference to the specific rideway, like you see this image here, that's really what we're talking about. I do I do want in the future to do the same thing that you're mentioning is to make the coastline all around of our city more resilient. Um and hopefully we can get some data in the future, you know, to help encourage um citywide to do the same thing. Thank you.

Are there any audience comments? Kathy Garshow.

Kathy Garshaw, Donses Place. Um my first comment is just on behalf of the Donsesar Property Owners Corporation board. Um we just had a meeting tonight. So on behalf of them, we absolutely support the easing of these permit fees temporarily to try to accelerate the um you know the the development that we need on these seaw walls that are in disrepair where we know that about little less than 20% of our homeowners impact, you know, 100% of our neighborhood um in terms of our ability to uh get around the the Maritana streets. So, we need that. It's vital to the resiliency of our neighborhood and the future investments that I think the city hopefully will be making um to help us um address a lot of the flooding issues that we already know we have in that area. So, just wanted to put that as a part of the board message to you all. Thank you. Um, on a personal note, um, I just wanted to, if it's okay, just say something about the parking because I do want to mention that, um, as somebody said, yes, we are getting, um, people parking in our emboldened to park in any of these empty lots in our neighborhoods. Um, and I guess the sheriff, which that's fine, they can't do anything about, that's what they said. But maybe the city could um help us with a towing company because I had a neighbor who had two people parked right in their driveway and left for the beach because their house is under construction and they couldn't get anybody to come out. So maybe there would be a towing company that might be more readily available to our city. So that's just on a separate note. Last comment. Again, personally, I want to thank you uh Mayor Petrilla and uh Commissioner Rzniki. I know we have a big election tomorrow. You guys have put everything out there. Thank you so much for your service. However this works out

in all of you, I know you pour a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this role and it's can be a thankless role. So, thank you. Thank you. Is there a motion? Oh, sorry. Sorry.

Don is our place. Um we've been working on the resiliency committee for forever. Uh one of the issues out of the roughly 75 10-ft strip lots that surround Donses Place and I think this is directed 100% at Donsesar Place because that 10-ft strip is abudded by Maritana on the whole side. There's probably I think in the study that we talked about 40 or 50 of those that have old seaw walls that are a problem and there's probably 25 of them that are original seaw walls from 1925 that just keep no water out. So when there's normal high tides it's not you wouldn't be looking at waving permitting fees for all 75 because there's a whole bunch of properties that have seaw walls that are perfectly fine. But we're really struggling with how do you get some of these people that have lived there for 30 40 years to have to spend 40 or $50,000 to get to replace this old seaw wall. If the seaw wall is not replaced, we're continuing to have high normal high tide full moon flooding that floods the streets. The city then puts these giant pumps out here and has to use staff to go out, refuel, repair the pumps to get the salt water out. If there's some way that we could provide an incentive for those people to say, "Hey, maybe now's the time for me to go put a seaw wall in that's allowed to be three feet because the roads at two feet to reduce their cost and wave the permit fees. It would be great so that we can then move on and figure out how to stop some of the other flooding issues if we can resolve the high tide issue that comes in. So, I agree it'd be great down the road if the city decided to wave some fees for people that had

dilapidated seaw walls in other areas, but in this concern, it's actually costing the city money because you have to keep the pumps out there and the maintenance of the pumps and clean everything out because of all the the seawater that comes in over these old seaw walls, some of which aren't even existing any longer. Thank you,

Commissioner. No further audience comments. Just one last comment. Um, and there's not a lot and and I appreciate that he just mentioned what he did because there's not a lot that need to be done, but I also wanted to recognize those who have already stepped up to do their seaw walls in the time that, you know, this resolution was um drawn. So, I um I want to be able to request that it goes to the storm, not just uh January 1st. And there's not many. I think there might have been one maybe two um permits that had already been submitted um to do their seaw wall. One that did go to the five nav by the way and then others that are kind of pending maybe after uh a look at our our um seaw wall ordinance that we mentioned at um our presentation. So, I'm just asking cuz it's not many like we've just said. Um, and I'll draw the motion, but it is it it is to go retro to Helen.

Is that your motion? So, I do motion um to adopt resolution 2026-05 with the amendment of retroing back to uh Hurricane Helen. Second. City clerk. Commissioner Robinson. Yes. Commissioner is Nikki. Yes. Commissioner Maldonado. Yes. Vice Mayor Marriott. Yes. And Mayor Catrilla? Yes, the motion carries. Thank you.

Next, we have items for discussion. Commissioner Maldonado, Country Thunder. Uh, we've heard a lot of it recently. Uh, it was featured on a uh podcast and it's starting to get a lot of exposure. I've been having lots and lots of questions. I just wanted to uh bring it to the attention of the convention. hopefully have some input to the city manager. I know that it'll be if approved, it'll be a large uh gathering. So therefore, it's going to require resources committed from the city uh standing up the EOC partnering with PCSO on getting additional folks out here just in terms of crowd control and preparedness. I also wanted to say that I support it, that I think that it's a great thing for St. Pete Beach uh to have large venues come and experience what it is that we have to offer with the caveat that I don't want it on the beach. I think that we should propose to them that they use the uh the parking spaces. Uh we have lots of wildlife. This is the height of the nesting season for the turtles as well as the um black skimmers. And I've heard rumor of folks moving nests and talking about contingency plans to work with wildlife conservative or conservatory agencies and things like that. And I'm not comfortable with that piece. Uh but outside of that, I think it's a great uh opportunity, an economic boost for our restaurants, hotelers, and local businesses and establishments. But I do want a cost estimate on what it's going to cost the city, how we're going to fund that, if we're going to directly bill the uh the organizers, and uh and to just be very transparent about it. I'd like to hear how the uh the commission feels about uh this event and if they have any input uh to the county in terms of issuing a permit. Thank you.

Thank you.

My thoughts would be it's just at the wrong time of year. I mean, it's at nesting season during for turtles and for skimmers. Um, it's it wouldn't be the first time we've had a large event out here, but it is something on the beach of this magnitude and with the crowd that's not going to be paying for tickets, um, is going to be all over the beach and that is a huge concern. strictly from well from a lot of areas, but my big concern would be for the simple fact of the uh turtle nesting season and as well the skimmers because once we lose them, we will and we keep doing anything like this during their season, we will not get them back. They will not come back. and we have a comp plan that has nothing but our love for sea turtles and our love for our environment and here we are stepping all over it. I I just I just find it um kind of rude and insulting to actually have it been be proposed during that time of year, especially when we're sitting talking about beach ordinances and doing the lighting and doing everything else. I I I was uh I I worked the hangout festival in in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and I know what it takes to put on something like this. And it's going to be a week before putting everything up and it's going to be a week after. And if they don't have their act together, which I've heard that they are, you know, that they they do, but they haven't done one of these on the beach before. But I just find it hypocritical of us to sit there and talk about how much we love love love our sea turtles and love our skimmers and love our, you know, our

beaches and all this sort of stuff, but we'll just, you know, sell them out and it's sad. That's how I personally feel about it. Um, so wrong time of year. Do we have a status of of where they are on permit or overall just the event? They're still in the process with the um Department of Environmental Protection and Fish and Wildlife through the state. They have to um get a state permit to do this type of event on the beach.

Is the city a part of that decision that's made with the permitting? Do they ask us about our ordinances and what we have as far as protections of the sea turtles? I mean, they're so they're not interacting with us at all.

They are not. We've sent our concerns to them, but they are not inviting us. Let's just say we don't have a seat at the table. So, they don't care. Well, is there is there another way that we can inter and and I'll give an example because it happened um in the Donsesar with when we had the horses the polo event that was held behind the Donsesar hotel um which happened twice um first time there's a lot of hassle you know environmentally on the beach because of what happened they were reprimanded it happened twice again and then they didn't go for the third time because we pretty much drew up a stink about what and literally a stink about what happened over there. Um, you know, so again, those are examples of we know this could happen. You know, it already has happened and we weren't and I think back then we were involved because I think I was president at that time and I thought we were part of a meeting when that permit went in um for the polo event that was held on the beach. So I I quite don't understand how we're not involved with a permitting process for this big event that could be held on a beach. or why it changed because I thought we were supposed to be involved. And I don't know if and I know I'm looking back there because you're all like but you might not have been involved but I know it's not the same staff but I remember there was involvement because I was part of the complaining about what happened you know and it's basically you know it was uh the hor's feces was all over the the beach. No one picked it up. The the drainage all they were there was direct discharge into our storm drains. Okay, it was a huge problem and it happened two times in a row and then they didn't give them that third permit after those two times in a row happened. So, it's kind of like someone needs to remind whoever's up there. Don't you remember

this happened already before and why we were very concerned about something potentially even worse happening with an event that is actually way bigger than that event was. Um, I don't know if we can look into it, but I mean I mean we I not if we know we should look into it, you know, we should be calling and talking about this. Well, we we should demand a formal um input in terms of our concerns and they should be responded to. I mean, obviously, Commissioner Robinson brings up the the first and most important thing is that our wildlife, you know, either we're with them or or against them. And if there's plans being made to disrupt or to somehow hamper what's currently going on there, then then that's a a red line for me. And that's why I said I highly support it. I think it's a great thing for the city, but I don't think that it should be on the beach. There's plenty of room uh on the property to have it off of the beach and that could be a contingency plan that they could get ahead of and and understand that that's our position. We're we're willing to partner with them however we can, but I I find it uh difficult to believe that they haven't come to us for any kind of official input. So, but maybe it's because we're not asking.

Can I ask another question too? Definitely on the environmental, but also on the safety for all the residents and those who live close to that area because it's going to draw, like you said, you might buy a ticket, but you might not buy a ticket, right? So, where be a lot not buying a ticket? There will be a lot not buying a ticket. And where are they all going to park? Because they're going to be circulating districts one, two, I would assume, right? because it would be the closest to walk or or elsewhere because you can park all the way and pass a grill and maybe ride freebie over there. I'm just saying it could happen or you could walk the whole beach like what is the involvement of the city as far as

I think I think it might be appropriate to give you probably a presentation because you're asking a lot of details that some they've provided some they haven't given us all the detail yet but the it's a no parking event meaning you have they shuttle in Uber in whatever you have to shuttle in from Tropicana or Uber in so there's a lot of um moving parts moving parts that I think she kind mentioned because they I know they'll say they're going to park off, but how are they going to protect the city also for those who will be circulating for spaces in the neighborhoods or on people's driveway? Like as Kathy mentioned,

it would be nice to think that they're going to go and and and um frequent the bars and the restaurants, but they're going to be eating the the food of the the food and the booze of the festival itself. Um and that's kind of the reality of what festivals do. there might be some residual from, you know, I'm sure there would be from the hotel occupancy in that regards, but from the actual festival goers from a a dayto day and depending upon what the schedule is, it's it's going to be difficult. So, and I don't think any of us know what the schedule is because that hasn't been published publicized. And it's ironic that somebody's out there doing, you know, selling tickets and doing all this when they haven't even secured

permit. Um, so it's it's a bit presumptuous. And I'm assuming this is an administrative permit. I can say yes or no. It's an administrative special event permit. All right. Thank you. Next, we move on to staff reports. City clerk,

just as a reminder, the municipal election is tomorrow, March 10th. Polling location for districts 1 and two is here in city hall, and the polling locations for districts three and four is the Warren Webster building. Polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Thank you. see the manager.

I just want to take a minute to personally acknowledge Brandon Barry who is our senior planner and if you were watching this evening, he was here. He covers a vast amount of city policy review, interpretation, recommendations. His job is very difficult and we would be extremely crippled without without him. It does trouble me when he's attacked by community members in a public meeting. So, I just want to personally say as his city manager since I represent the employees, um he's doing a great job. So, thank you. Thank you, city attorney.

I'd second that about Brandon Barry. He's excellent, a great resource for us. Um we did receive one prosay um piece of litigation. It's a circerari petition. Um was filed prosay by a resident without the benefit of a lawyer. Um, it's Barbara Holler versus City of St. Pete Beach and CP St. Pete LLC. And this deals with the 702 pass a grillway um board of adjustment variance um that was approved. Um it was it was properly uh styled in the circuit court, but it was filed in the district court of appeals. So, it was mailed to the wrong courthouse. that court received it and um they gave uh the petitioner Barbara Holler I think 15 days to uh explain why it shouldn't be sent back to the circuit court and of course it will be sent back there and uh did want to also report that we do have insurance defense coverage for that case that case is similar to the searchers cases that we have with the Sarata and the tradewinds um they're basically an appeal that's based on the record and the court reporter's transcript of the proceeding and an appendix. So, it's an appelllet type proceeding. There'll be no trial.

Thank you. District 4. Okay. Thank you. Uh just a reminder that our community meeting is next Monday the 16th, 6 p.m. at the Warren Webster. And u I I echo your comments about Brandon Barry. He's probably one of the uh if not the uh the tip of the spear when it comes to knowledge and just uh an expert in everything that he does. So he is he is definitely uh do the uh recognition and um everything that he gets for that. So thank you. District three.

Um I just want to say the same thing um about Brandon. I I don't think it was called for in a meeting to attack um a staff. Um, I think we should uphold as a commission when something like that happens in the future that that we recognize it as well. It it was uncalled for. I think we all know what a great employee you have. Um, and and you know, if you're listening, Brendan, you know, that that was definitely not called for. So, um, that's all I wanted to say. Thank you. District two,

um, just want to remind everybody to get out and vote. Tomorrow's voting day. And then I did have a question, Renee. You said uh districts three and four even for mayor they have to vote over four. Correct. Okay. Just want to be clear on that. Um over at Warren Webster and um I I um I second and third and fourth the comments on Brandon and as well I guess um I will venture and put that out to anybody um including everybody sitting up here because I don't think anybody said anything on that for the mayor when he was attacked as well. So, um I will say we should be doing more points of order up here and that goes for everybody. So,

District 1.

Um so, I just want to remind everybody that there's the first spring concert in the park is this Friday, I believe. Um and then, uh the Corey Avenue St. Patrick's Day street party is the next day on Saturday. And uh I just want to give the folks at uh the Corey Avenue Business Association props for putting on some really great events lately and um Corey Avenue has really been hopping and there's a really nice mixture of stores there and um I've gotten lots of comments from visitors to the town that you know how lucky we are to have that and how unique it is um in Penllis County up and down the beach communities. So we really really thankful that we have those guys over there on Corey Avenue making things happen. Thank you. Thank you everyone. We are ajourned.