City Commission - Regular Meeting

meeting of the city of St. Pete Beach. Today is Monday, November 3rd, 2025. It is 6 p.m. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Vice Mayor Marriott here. Commissioner Robinson here. Commissioner Rzniki here. Commissioner Maldonado here. And Mayor Petrilla here. We have a quorum. Thank you.

Are there any amendments to the agenda as proposed? Mayor, I'd like to um please re request uh the addition of consent item 4 C. Authorize the city manager to execute the services agreement with Sheila Dalton for financial services consultant for emergency assistance not to exceed $50,000. This um item, staff report, agenda report, and contract has been uh provided to the city clerk to be entered into the official record, and each of you have a copy in front of you for consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to add an item for discussion. Yes, sir.

Like to add standards of conduct and civility for Saint Beach. And I'd like to add um a discussion about economic development if I could. Okay. I'm going to add a item for infrastructure and revenue. Any other changes? Is there a motion to approve the agenda as amended?

I move to approve the agenda as amended. I second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Rniki? Yes. Commissioner Maldonado? Yes. And Mayor Patulla? Yes. The motion carries.

Thank you. First we have presentations starting with the parking study results. Hi, good evening uh mayor and commissioners. Adam Poyer, assistant city manager here in St. Pete Beach. U before we we have Julie Dixon's going to be joining us virtually uh via Zoom to do a presentation on the parking action plan. But just to kind of give you an overview while we're waiting for that to come up. Um over the last several months, as you know, uh through a lot of community engagement, a lot of uh online surveys, we've been going through a comprehensive parking uh action plan. So, what you're going to hear tonight is is the results of that study. Obviously, it was in your agenda packet. Um but I just want to bring a couple things to mind. Um one, very appreciative of our staff. Kathleen Murray and the city manager's office has been our project manager for this. So, it's been a lot of uh data back and forth between us and and Julie's team. So, um really appreciative of all the um staff and the community involvement. Um the community survey had a very high turnout for for a community of our size. So, that's that's very impressive and certainly uh reflective of the community's interest in this topic. So, I'm looking forward to uh to it being presented to you. You're going to hear a lot of things. Um I just want to make point that it's really a starting point for the staff, right? Because um there's going to be a lot of recommendations, a lot of ideas that we can move forward with or not move forward with from a parking perspective. So certainly anything we would bring it back in front of you all uh you know to get approval. So just because you see it in the draft or just because you see it in the presentation doesn't necessarily mean it's something that staff is you know going to immediately move forward to with or ever move forward with. But um we'll be looking for your direction as as this progresses. So Julie's going to kind of go over a um a next step and certainly you know one of the things that we heard a lot is is the pricing. Um, and there's some some um uh ideas that that Dixon came up with uh to to implement and that's probably going to be one of the first things that you'll see us bring back to you all in the next, you know, I

don't know, 90 days or so to to do some adjustments to those. So, that's kind of where we're going from here. But I look forward to uh to her presenting that to you. She's not on the call.

We will check on that then. Is there any questions that you all have while on sitting here before we get uh Julia technology community forum presentation good evening Brandon Barry planner [snorts] so this is a followup to the October 9th community forum that we held in the city commission chamber we had about 40 to 50 attendees property owners residents business owners over in the town center 2, Cookina West area, which I'll show in just a moment. Uh we met to discuss this area, the future, at least in the short and medium-term. Um how to address some of the redevelopment challenges that this area is facing. um potentially some of the short and medium-term uh visioning for the district. Not go so far as to talk about some of the community redevelopment area, historic district, potential main street concepts that we've been discussing um that are tied more in with the longer term visioning, but really just address the short and medium-term redevelopment potential for property in this area. TC2 currently promotes town center uh sorry, promotes large block level parcel assemblage. the same zoning and future land use is on the west side is on the east side. There are slightly different standards related to property consolidation, but we've obviously seen that um realized over on the east side through Corey Landings approved last week. Um we have not seen that assemblage and redevelopment concepts presented for the west end uh the the Cookina West side of the TC2 district. So, the TC2 West area is bounded on the north by 76th Avenue, 73rd Avenue to the south. Um, Coina Way to the east, and Sunset Way to the west. Currently, there's a horizontal mix of uses. Vertical is the preferred mix based on

the future land use category and the zoning standards. Uh there are significant setback and buffering requirements for horizontal mixes of uses commercial adjacent to standalone residential. That's especially the case when commercial abut single and two family doesn't apply to any existing uses that are present in the on properties in this area but it applies to any kind of new development. Any new expansions would be subject to those buffer and setback requirements. This area has one of the largest concentrations in the city of non-conforming standalone uses. It's primarily residential and standalone lodging. Under the current zoning and land use categories, standalone residential and lodging is not permitted. Single parcel level redevelopment looking forward um may prelude large mixeduse projects. When the special planning area was put together and and the vision was generated for this area in the late 2000s, early 2010s, there was this desire for block level redevelopment. That is the highest and best use of this area. 24 units per acre largely in in towers of six to eight stories in height. Ground level would be office, retail, restaurant, and so on. Um allowing for even just one or two parcels on a block to redevelop would preclude that development at the current standards that we have in place. Very similar in density, intensity to the Corey Landing site. Um it just would be in accompanied and and um provided for more at a block level on the west side. So you can see um looks like a Mandrean painting but on the on the uh use mix size side it is very much a horizontal mix of uses. You see more commercial toward the Corey Avenue and 75th Avenue side. Toward the north end you see largely residential. Same on the south end but there is that horizontal mix. Uh whereas vertical is currently promoted based on the zoning and land use codes.

Can I ask a question? Is the the white which is vacant is that commercial vacant or residential vacant? That would be eligible for commercial currently. It's currently commercial vacant. Okay. Thank you.

So, what we heard at the meeting, uh, we got some excellent feedback. We had a lot of property owners, uh, residents and business owners turn out. There did appear to be some consensus on continuing to promote redevelopment, see redevelopment in the area. Some of the items that were brought up as positives of this is uh floodplane compliant buildings. Many of the buildings were built prior to the city entering the NFIP. Um this would also promote a more beautified streetscape. There did seem to be consensus on a desire to allow multifamily development without mixed use or full block consolidation as is currently required. That is particularly for the areas where residential faces the district that is zoned for residential across the street. So those would be the properties on the north side of sorry south side of 76th Avenue on the north side of 73rd avenues they they face residential across the street and they're those are zoning districts that allow for residential uh redevelopment. Talking about standalone development there was interest in reconsidering height and number of floors. That would be three to four floors instead of seven to eight for the smaller projects, whether those be mixeduse, standalone, commercial, or multifamily standalone. There was interest in preserving and allowing for commercial development as well as redevelopment, promoting multi-tenant if possible. One of the concepts brought up was effectively a smaller John's Pass village. There were concerns about rooftop uses adjacent to residential elevated um highintensity uses, but there were residential property owners at the meeting who did acknowledge that they might be willing to wave some buffer requirements, setback requirements if multifamily or standalone residential were to be introduced, not create those those significant restrictions on commercial development, either the existing or new uh new development. There was a lack of interest among the commercial property owners who were present in redeveloping atgrade

commercial. So that accessible right from the sidewalk commercial. Uh there were concerns about the impacts of that, the potential loss of appliances and fixtures should another storm come through. Looking even at the east end um Corey Landings, they are eligible for post um resoning of their property. they would be eligible for at grade commercial, but they still decided to elevate that commercial up to the base flood elevation. Um, that was the concept that we heard. Maybe not going up a full residential level, 8 to 10 ft off the ground, but at least elevating the commercial enough to get it out of the flood plane, the the 100year flood plane. There was interest in allowing lodging to remain and redevelop. I know the Bellisa Inn recently completed their renovations or they're coming up on the end of those. Uh we do have one property on the south side of 76th that I believe is currently used for long-term residential, but they do maintain a lodging license with the state. Um so there was interest in allowing those lodging uh uses to remain and redevelop if desired. There was a recognition that the district faces unique pressures due to the extent of the damage and the non-conformities that are faced really in this area in higher prevalence than anywhere else in the city. There were some concepts that were brought up that are more focused on community redevelopment area and longerterm visioning. This might be something that the city chooses to pursue in the future. Um looking at one-way streets west of Gulf Boulevard and relocating street or public space to be located along the waterfront. So staff came up with a few concepts based on the feedback we heard. These are certainly not the only options. Um they also are not discreet. We can look at multiple concepts. What we're hoping to get from the commission tonight is not necessarily direction on one specific concept, but direction how would you like us to move forward and considering um con continuing to whittle down these concepts, potentially engaging with the community on what we're presenting here tonight. Concept

one is simply an extension of the town center core. This would extend the town center core zone in the TC1 west to Sunset Way or to the water if the commercial general area is sought to be included. The benefits would be maintaining the commercial mixeduse character but allowing that development on single parcels. There does not need to be a whole block level consolidation to allow for those mixeduse free developments. They can be done at the single parcel level if this were to occur. It scales back the development potential in this area. Allows for two to four stories as we heard at the community meeting. And this would be an accelerated county review process. It's one of the quickest that could be undertaken. This would be considered a resoning within the special planning area. So, it's a staff level review. It doesn't need to go through the full uh county commission level review. The [snorts] challenge uh probably the biggest challenge is that this would still require vertical mixed use. That is required in the town center. We don't allow standalone residential. We allow for commercial the ground floor, office the ground floor, residential above. The communities seem to support multifamily standalone redevelopment. It is lower density. Um the current district allows for 24 units for the properties that are consolidated to that block level redevelopment. TC1 allows for only 15 units per acre. This could make it harder. Um it could also make it more costly for the city in terms of allocation from density pool to make whole any existing development. It removes the scaling benefits of the property consolidation if that's still desired. um it gives less of an incentive for those property owners to consolidate and look at a block level redevelopment if that's something that we would still like to see undertaken. And this would likely require some kind of community buyin. Obviously, we have Senate Bill 180, but this could be construed as being a stricter standard in some form for certain types of development. Even once Senate Bill 9 expires or if it's modified, we still have the Burchie Harris Act. we still

have to consider any kind of investmentbacked expectation in property and how this would affect those property owners. The second concept would be a partial resoning. This is looking at the south side of 76 north side of 73rd Avenue in particular. Back in 2003 when the city went through a citywide resoning, these properties were actually zoned standalone residential. So this would effectively just be a reversion back to what was in place in 2003. the benefits. Um, this generally fits the character of the area as currently developed, not desired based on the vision plan, but what is actually present on those properties today. It would also be the path of least resistance for residential redevelopment. There would be no heightened special planning area standards to undertake. They could be redeveloped to standalone residential properties. Challenge is of course this would not benefit the property owners facing 75th Avenue or Corey Avenue or along the way streets outside of this area. It would allow lower density development from which commercial must be significantly buffered. We have buffer requirements between 25 and 35 ft. For commercial properties that abut single and two family residential given the lot depths in this area of 100 to 1070 ft. That is a significant amount of property that needs to be landscaping and setbacks. So that would have an impact in any kind of future commercial redevelopment. It reduces the development density and this would actually take the properties out of a zoning district that allow for density pool allocation. So they would be allowed by right residential but if they're under the acreage threshold they could not seek additional units out of the city's density pool unless we were to modify the density pool. And this would be a more clear change in zoning. It would eliminate the ability to build commercial on these properties. This could again uh run into Senate Bill 180 or Burchie Harris Act issues. It would likely require community buyin. It might even require the community to bring

forward this reasonzoning independent of something that's initiated by the city. Third concept is simply modifying the TC2 Cookina West standards. This would modify both the existing land use and zoning standards to allow standalone residential and lodging uses. One of the major benefits, this would introduce additional options, but it would likely not have any Senate Bill 180 or Burchie Harris Act issues. The same standards available to these properties today would remain available. It would just introduce an additional option for property owners to undertake. Properties would remain eligible for the density pool. So even if the base density isn't enough, they can still seek to redevelopment either as a makehole or with a greater number of units um based on the density pool availability if that's something that the commission wishes to to undertake. It would allow district specific buffer requirements that reduce disturbance to commercial uses now or in the future. So we can look at just the TC2 and the impacts of new commercial developments on a budding residential. Going back to what I brought up before, one of the comments we received at the community meeting was that they understand there might be need to be some give and take if we allow standalone residential. This would allow us to focus on just that area without disrupting other areas of the city where we may want more intense buffers between residential and commercial. Uh the challenges are more related to updates. Uh it's not directly in line with the district purpose. So we would need to re-evaluate that district purpose. Um, parcel level redevelopment would likely preclude block level redevelopment as I brought up before. And if we do still seek to promote that block level consolidation or parcel block or partial block consolidation, we likely need to maintain a lower parcel level density for those standalone multifamily or mixeduse developments. And the photo on the screen is buoys next to the town homes to the north. Uh these were obviously developed long before the city had a special planning area, but this is the type of

development that this would promote a commercial next to a residential standalone development. Fourth concept is a special overlay. This would create a special overlay. They're sometimes referred to as a floating zone. There are different methods that can be undertaken for this concept or a character district that applies to all or certain properties within the TC2. Uh we do have of course the Pastor Gril overlay. That's our largest overlay. But the best example of this would be the Sable Palms in down in Pasigril that has not only its own special zoning that doesn't apply anywhere else in the city. It's only for their property, but they also have what's called the resort facilities overlay that was instituted prior to the pass overlay, but it affords certain permissions compared to other lodging uses in the district. but it also limits and in some cases requires a conditional use permit. That's what an overlay typically does. It introduces special permissions and restrictions that won't apply to an underlying zoning. The biggest benefit this just allows the greatest flexibility. Um it would also allow us to take advantage of some of the newer county incentives and benefits. Ford Penelis has introduced many benefits and incentive zoning um provisions since we undertook the special planning area in the late 2000s. We have many properties especially at the north end that would benefit from the distance to public transit. So there are some incentives we can take advantage of if we were to look into this. Uh the challenge is this is the most time timeconuming process. It really does tie in best with an extensive visioning process instead of just a one-off um stop gap measure. And it can be very challenging to understand especially when there's multiple overlays, multiple zonings applied to a certain property. Um especially as you know staff leave and and um other other staff enter it, it can be a little bit difficult to uh interpret these standards. The last concept is simply to lessen

non-conformity restrictions. So this would allow primary residential uses to be substantially improved with or without limitations regardless of unit count. So this actually already has some support in the comprehensive plan. It just hasn't been fully realized in the land development code. We have the future land use element objective 1.5 and policy 1.5.1 that speak to this. It would also benefit other areas of the city that face similar challenges. For example, the Donses has a number of multifamily developments. They face non-conforming challenges similar to Town Center 2. They're multifamily and a single family zoning. It's a use and compatibility. It would benefit those areas as well. some of the challenges. Um, and this is more of a dampening of a benefit than a direct challenge, but this would have a city-wide effect unless we whittle it down, focus on a particular area. It may reduce the impact of existing benefits for historic preservation in Pastor should we move forward with other districts, it would impact them as well. Um, obviously, one of the major benefits of historic preservation is allows for those substantial improvement waiverss or variances depending on the scope of work undertaken. But a lesserk known benefit is that a multifamily property can be substantially improved without losing their unit count if they are on the local historic registry. And it would dampen that benefit if we were to apply this citywide. It would also need to be accompanied by permitting standalone residential in the town center too if that is something that the city commission desires to pursue. So looking at these concepts as I mentioned before um these are broad um these are not the only concepts that we can pursue but these seem to be the most straightforward based on what we heard from the community at the community forum. Our two major requests are that if residential is to be allowed we ask that you consider multifamily. This could be apartments, condos. We could look at attached single family rights standards based on that. town homes and

and so on instead of detached one and two family options for redevelopment. This would inherently lower the buffer requirements. We obviously talk a lot about protection of residential areas, but the second part of that policy in the future land use element is that other land use areas should be protected from encroachment of incompatible residential uses. So look at that higher intensity residential where there's that potential and that that reduced expectation that there be that peace and tranquility within a commercial area. Um we also ask that only the most modest changes necessary to bridge the process to more robust visioning and future efforts be undertaken. We're looking at of course a potential future community redevelopment area, potentially a main street designation which stems out of the historic designation options. We have many different ways we can move forward in the future. They're much more robust visioning methods. We are looking at this as more of a a bridge to allow for redevelopment in the in the short term. Um we asked to avoid drastic changes that would completely eliminate the commercial vision um such as allowing residential as the sole highest and best use. And if there is to be a modification to mixed use, maybe look more at the four to six story um two two to two to four uh four to six story mixed use on a smaller acreage that could potentially be supported uh with a reduction in uh in use intensity in this area. So I know this is a lot. Um we're not looking for any particular concept to be voted on tonight. We're just presenting these as ideas. Um, we definitely want to refine these more. We're just looking for your general input tonight. All of these options will require us to engage with the county. We have our special area plan. We will be making comprehensive plan modifications for all of these. So, we will need to move forward with discussions with Ford Penllis. Um, this will likely require consideration of or modification of the

city special area plan depending on the concepts that are pursued. Once we have engaged with Ford Penelis, um we'd be happy to have another community meeting or two if if need be to present these options once we've refined them a bit more. We'll return to the city commission with a concept to move forward and then from there we would produce draft code and plan amendments. So our questions for you tonight, again, these are overarching. We don't ask for a vote. We're just really looking for input. Do you have preference for any of the particular concepts potentially an alternative that hasn't been listed here tonight? Do you desire to keep the vertical mixeduse 7 to eight story block level redevelopment that we saw in Corey Landings as an incentive for parcel assemblage on the west side? And if not, do you support lower rise four to six story and or lower density or intensity vertical mixed use on smaller parcel assemblages? That's all I have. Happy to take questions.

Thank you, Brandon. Brandon, could I clarify? Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Um, just wanted to check. Can can standalone residential be grandfathered in for those that want to keep their residential status?

So, we don't we don't have a um it's it's grandfathered until it's substantially improved or redeveloped. If we were to look at allowing for redevelopment either at the same unit count or even the same floor area, we would have to amend our code for that. But it can exist as long as it's not substantially improved or redeveloped. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Marott.

Um, so just a couple of a couple of quick things to make sure that I'm understanding it all correctly. So the um I think part of why this came about is because we had property owners who had um residential primarily residential uses um most most of them multi-unit you know three to two to seven unit um residential uses who after the hurricane were concerned that if they had been just a little bit more damaged they wouldn't have been able to put back what they had. So, I think the this this kind of started with the idea of of how do we how do we let these people put back what they had if we were to have a bigger storm next time. Um, and so so I like the idea of of the the whichever one of those options it was that just kind of adds multifamily residential as an option in those zoning districts. Um, I also I think looking looking at it from a from a citywide standpoint, I really like the idea of having multifamily residential be kind of a buffer between commercial areas and single family residential. I feel like there's a lot of places in the city where there's some conflict that happens because there's commercial right next to single family residential properties and having some kind of a buffer and and multif family is probably a good thing to have as a buffer between those two zones. Um and then could you just confirm for me so I'm sure I'm understanding this right when you talk about um landscape buffer requirements. So when you have a um an area like say the south side of 76th and the north side of 75th where you have commercial on the north side of 75th backing to residential on the south side of 76th. Um and right now there's essentially no buffering, right? There's a fence or what whatever it is. Um the the the trigger for needing a buffer would be the redevelopment of the

commercial property or would it be the redevelopment of either property? It would be the commercial properties specifically. Usually the more intense use provides the buffer. That would also apply to any kind of an addition. Um if there were to be a rooftop deck added for example, that would need to meet the setback requirements. So if if for instance to to to be really specific although this isn't a spec this isn't a this isn't anything anybody's talking about [laughter] not trying to start rumors but if for instance buoys said we want to substantially improve our building they would have to or or or that use was being changed from a restaurant to something else that was commercial. That's when those buffer requirements would come into play and and potentially there wouldn't be room on those lots for the amount of buffer that's required.

Correct. Um substantial improvement would trigger that for a change of use depending on the intensity and that that applies specifically to mixed use and um restaurant uses. So it's the higher intensity of the of the commercial uses. But if they were to change in use, it's usually based on a dollar amount of the renovation. It's not full compliance outright. Okay. So, all right. So, so if they had been substantially damaged in the storm and had needed to rebuild, then there would have been buffer requirements that that that potentially the lot isn't big enough to accommodate the buffer and the building. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Is there a way to differentiate between higher density apartments and condos. So if we wanted to allow higher density with condos instead of multif family, I think we could currently we classify both under the same umbrella of multifamily. So we would need to modify that likely at the uh at the definition level. I believe I don't I don't know that we could specifically call out condos separate from apartments. Yeah, unfortunately at the state they regulate apartments and condos as an ownership uh style or ownership pattern rather than as a zoning or land use matter. Um you sometimes have apartments converting to condos. Um you rarely see condos converting to apartments, but you can see an apartment or even a hotel converting to condos. It's something we usually can't differentiate directly and we have to kind of get it at it from tangential zoning constraints. So I bring it up because as we saw from the Corey Landings project and the multiple proposals that we've had over the years, the community particularly seem to appreciate the ownership aspect rather than the transient nature of apartments. And so the question is if we you know, there seems to be some support for maybe a little bit more density if it's if we have owners who are actually invested in the community and live here versus

We can look into a way to try to make that happen. Okay. Thank you, Mich.

Um, yeah, on that note, I think that the um I I think we want to be just a little bit careful particularly in that neighborhood. you know, that's that's the location currently of of uh and and in all of district 1 and in that neighborhood kind of the only thing that one might consider workforce housing in our city. Um which are apartments. Um and you know they're not big apartment complexes and and and so I think that that can be controlled with with density, right? because um but but I don't know that we want to proclude ourselves from having lower density apartment projects and and not having anywhere for all the people who work on the beach to actually live on the beach who who currently do live on the beach. So, I just wanted to mention that

I guess we still have that problem if they want [clears throat] to turn an apartment complex into a condo and that's kind of out of our control too if they do anything like that. Yeah. So, and there's still limited but there's still some workforce housing along Gulf Winds and a few other

but we don't have much we don't have much here. Yeah, we don't have much. I I would say that I do like the concept of the floating zone. I think that there's a lot of flexibility built into that. Uh it's just anything that we do, you know, I do agree with the assertion that it has to be modest changes. Uh but more importantly that we have to consider secondary and tertiary effects. you know, I don't I don't want to move in a direction that's going to impact a historic preservation zone and even beyond district 4. You know, we're starting to see things uh move forward. We're coming forward with studies and I think that's only going to grow and that protects not only the um historic character, but then also some of the homes that have been designated as such. Doesn't give you much to work with, does it? [laughter]

We can probably eliminate a couple of Is there going to be another community meeting like the one you held soon? Like

we we can definitely have another community meeting. Um I I think staff's current intent is to refine these concepts a bit more, engage with forward penelis. We need to make sure that we can move forward with one of these options that they're viable. Um I think what we've heard so far is that there is support for standalone multif family, potentially using multifamily as a buffer. So we'll look in that direction. Um potentially not addressing the mixeduse block level redevelopment which will eventually work itself out if we see redevelopment um along these along these corridors. and um potentially, you know, the the ability to preserve workforce housing either as it exists today or through through redevelopment as well as exploring the floating zone concept. Well, a lot of this I'm not aware of. Um we can we can engage with the county on this and see what their options are for for floating zones. And I think one of the things to uh to get ahead of those is obviously Senate Bill 180 and the uh Bert J. Harris. Otherwise, we're just going to be spending time and resources on something that's going to be um non- effective.

What I heard from a few residents were basically they kind of like a mix. Um and they actually liked a mix between one, two, and five. Okay. And for some of that was they they like the idea of the TC1 coming down their way. They like the the lower heights. Um they like the historic, you know, trying to take Corey and bring it back, you know, all the way down and um as a historic main street all the way from end to end or close to end to end. Thank you.

And um they did like you know two and five is to maintain residential. I mean that was kind of a lot for them because they're near they're nearby. Thank you. So for that option one, we were talking about the extension of the town center core. We would not go that direction if we were to look more at the TC2 um expansion and and allowing for different options. Would the commission support that up to fourtory mixeduse development on a on smaller parcels? Is that something that you'd like us to look into or should we be focused just on on multif family at this time? That's I mean that is an interesting idea right because the the instead of the seven to eight

and I think that was more instead of the seven to eight and I think that was more of a discussion in terms of development scale it wasn't necessarily presented in the context of allowing a mixeduse redevelopment on a smaller parcel but I think there was some support for a three to four story uh redevelopment concept currently it's two stories for commercial or eight stories for mixed use there's no in between so it's big jump big jump form.

Um yeah and like you said it's it's been out there for a long time and nobody has has assembled everything out there for that. Um the other thing is just you know just trying to figure out a way to keep if people want to do the residential that's that's huge. Um and um being able to do something a little Gulfportish, should I say, uh where you do have the waterfront and you do have, you know, uh businesses nearby, but you have homes as well close by. I mean, that's what that kind of reminds me of a little bit. I don't really want to use so much the term of the smaller John's Pass because John's Pass really doesn't have any, you know, mixed use on top of it at all. Okay. Does that give you something to work with? Yes.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Are we ready for the parking study? Let's try it again. Good evening again, Adam Puyer. For the record, I do see Julie and her uh team on here, so I'm going to throw it over to her for the presentation. Thank you. Yes. And thank you. I do ap Yes. Terrific. Again, I'm going to share my screen here and let make sure everything is all connected. Stand by one moment here. Terrific. Can you see a blue slide deck?

No. should say parking management study. I'm sharing screen now and just let me know and you all can see that. It's up on the screen, Adam. But it's it's very small. It's very small. Is there anything on the side that we all might be able to adopt? We'll try to bring it up on here, Julie, and I'll just flip through it when you tell me to switch.

Terrific. That sounds like a great plan, then. Well, thank you all for tonight. Uh, my name is Julie Dixon with Dixon Resources Unlimited. I'm joined by my colleague Blake Thomas. Uh, so we are parking and transportation consultants. We do work all over the country on projects similar to St. Pete Beach. I say similar only because I haven't come across two programs uh that are quite the same and uh there's no doubt that uh your geographic layout and your demand and your aesthetic is very unique to St. Pete Beach and that's something that we definitely try to tackle as we talk about the parking challenges and demands that face you all. Hopefully, if you can see slide three, um you're going to see all of the areas that we basically um study throughout this project, we're going to talk today about data and why data is relevant and important, especially as we talk about not only now but also in the future. When we talk about parking management decisions, that is going to be something that is going to be really critical uh when we start to talk about how to measure and monitor and to modify parking management decisions. Um throughout this project, not only did we include the um entire area that you see here on the map on the right side of the screen, which hopefully you're all seeing. Um

Julie, we cannot see anything. Julie, I need you to pause for a second. We can't see anything. Oh, we are finally up on the screen there for a minute. All right, you are good to go now.

Terrific. So, if we're on the study uh screen then I'm just going to minimize one item on my screen for for the study overview. You'll see all of the area comprehensively that we collect the data for. Uh we also will talk a little bit about the customer outreach and engagement portion of the project. And it was really important when we talked about parking management in St. Pete Beach that we talked about really aligning this with the city's goals. We need to ensure that we not only have a sustainable solution, but ideally a program that does generate revenue. And then we also want to ensure compliance so that we've got people following the rules. And we also want to make sure that we're managing the impacts on residents. I think this was one of the items that has actually continued to come up in questions is residents really saying, well, how many cars is are too many cars? And that's going to be something that we'll really talk about when we talk about being able to manage and um control the demand. And then anything that we can do to optimize operations is something that really reflects in the bottom line. Anywhere that we can basically be as efficient and effective as possible when it comes to parking management is um the goal. And as we talk about just some of the recovery um throughout the area, it's important to recognize that one of the items that you'll hear about here today too is the importance for our signed regulations because it's really important that in order for people to understand what the policies are, we have to be sure that they're posted clearly as well. And we did lose a lot of signage uh during the hurricane. and that's something that we're still recovering from and hopefully we'll get back on track, especially before we hit our next peak season. So, as we talk about outreach, uh, one of the things I like to share when it comes to parking is that we need to be transparent as an agency. We want everyone to know what we're doing. We want everyone to be talking about parking for that matter because the only way that we're going to be able to manage change or to be more

optimal is by making sure that people understand what we're doing and why we're doing it. So, we held um a community meeting as well as a meeting with local businesses. We also conducted an online survey in the month of August where we had 658 responses and we've also had ongoing engagement through emails and phone calls with a variety of stakeholders. We had a project email address that um people could communicate through or also u folks that communicated with the city. We also got engaged with those points of contact as well. One of the exercises that we conducted when we completed the meetings was we bring a parking magic wand to our meetings and we always ask if you could change, fix or improve anything about parking in St. Pete Beach, what would you use it for? And I can assure you of the fact that we had a whole array of responses and we'll definitely specifically talk about Corey Avenue as well because we definitely got some intelligence back from uh the key stakeholders, not only business owners but also residents in the area as well. So this really kind of encapsulates some of the key themes that we received from the outreach was that the businesses along Corey Avenue prefer that we not change anything. The real aspect along Corey Avenue was to really be able to leverage the existing parking assets that actually exist today and to try to mitigate maybe some of the signage about towways, especially when it comes to the weekend market. That was something that um was definitely well heard, especially as the theater um was preparing for opening. Uh when we were there at the end of summer, uh we heard a lot of feedback about having more parking supply and one of the ways that we want to tackle this, not to get ahead on our recommendations, but is to leverage shared parking agreements. A great example of that is the county beach lot, which we'll talk about here

in a moment as well. that anywhere that we can take advantage of existing parking assets, existing parking spaces, is an opportunity for the city to try to mitigate the impact, especially in some of our more popular destination locations. Um, we know, as I mentioned, that we have a lot of signs that are missing today. And so the opportunity to make sure that our rules are clear and that we have um adequate signage to ensure compliance so that our visitors to the area understand what the rules are and where they are or are not allowed to park. And we also know that optimized management during our peak seasons and times is something that would be ideal. Uh being able to demand to manage based on demand is something that is not unique to St. Pete Beach. The fact that we know that we need to ramp [laughter] up to be able to handle uh the popularity of our location is something that's really important. Um if we manage with the same resources all year long, it's not necessarily allowing us to be as efficient or effective when we talk about how we manage parking moving forward. And another one of the key themes uh especially from the responses from the survey was 50% supported a fee on resident permits if there's a resident benefit added. This was important so that um whatever kind of resident perks can come along with it whether it be closer beach access or any of the other opportunities maybe in the business districts if we start to manage parking differently. uh was the request to ensure that there's some type of resident benefit that is associated with a resident parking fee. So, let's talk a little bit about the data. So, not everyone's a parking geek like me, but what I like to share is when we talk about parking data, there's a couple of numbers that are important. One of which is when you're at 85%

occupancy on a consistent basis, it basically means that you're near or at capacity. And so, um, that's when cities need to start to make parking management changes because it basically you don't want to get to 100% plus because then you're already full and we basically don't have many opportunities to be able to make adaptations. So, one of the things that we did, and this is important because it did come at the tail end of the season, is that we actually leveraged LPR or license plate recognition technology that we also supplemented with drone imagery for all of the areas that you see highlighted here on the right side of the screen. Now, some may argue, why did you do data collection so late in the season? And the one thing that I like to share is that the data collection is critical no matter what time of the year that you have this because you basically have the baseline that you need now so that you can continue to monitor data on an ongoing basis so that as you start to make parking management decisions in the future, you have this as a baseline. This is also important because many of you might recall that we had a technology provider with sensors and we were able to leverage not only that data from a historical perspective but also um moving forward you'll have this as a baseline as well. And so this is critical when we start to talk about that 85% measure. Understanding not only how many cars are parking but also how long they're parking for is going to be critical when we start to talk about things like demand rate models. when we start to set up programs like this moving forward. I also want to highlight an image you're going to see here in a moment is the reason why we utilize the drones is because sometimes the images are what you really need. You know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. And while I can show you lots of red lines and yellow lines and a whole rainbow of colors of parking occupancy

throughout um St. Heat beach. It's the drone imagery that demonstrates some of the density challenges that we have in some of your more popular locations that I'm sure all of you are very familiar with, but it also helps to really move the needle when we talk about when and where to start to make parking management decisions. So, on that map you saw, we studied practically every street in St. Pete Beach. And what's important here is is that this is the aggregate of that data that was collected. so that we can actually understand for both non-paid and paid parking spaces how long the cars are staying for. And what you can see with this data is by the day of the week, how long as an aggregate. Now, mind you, this is for all of the parking spaces that were studied. But the one thing that this number says to me is when you have a paid parking, managed parking space, you can see the goal that you're trying to achieve, which is turnover. And that's something that's important when we start to talk about managed parking. A lot of folks don't understand the fact that when we talk about managed parking, I like to call every parking space a wallet because every time I turn that parking space over, it's another wallet that can come into my community and ideally spend more money in my city, in my shops, in my restaurants. And that's something that when you look at these numbers, you can see for our non-paid parking spaces versus our paid parking spaces, we have a shorter time frame or basically more turnover in those paid parking spaces. So that's an important consideration as we talk about how we manage parking moving forward and especially if we introduce any kind of resident benefit. You have the opportunity to start to monetize more parking spaces for our visitors and guests to the city. that ensures that

parking benefit to our residents as an overall. But you can see right now that the majority of people parking in the paid parking spaces are staying for less than 3 hours. And in the case of our non-park non-paid parking spaces, you can see that the number is pretty equal there. About a third of the cars are staying between 0 to three hours and another third of the cars are staying up to six hours. But this definitely gives you a good aggregate of what's happening um on our block faces. Now, importantly, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m., this is what I was talking about about the rainbow effect. So when you start to look at this data, you can basically start to understand that if you have a red or reddish orange color block, that's basically a location that is consistently on average exceeding 85% occupancy. Now, I tell you that because when you look at the rest of the map, ideally you want to see a rainbow of colors because what you typically want to see is that you have an occasional red block, but then ideally there's available parking within a block or two. And that is the parking industry standard. In the United States, industry surveys have demonstrated that most people expect to walk between one to two blocks to their ultimate destination. And so even on the right side, using the historical data during our peak season months in March, you can see that while we're full overall, the reality is there's still available parking spaces in and around the area for that destination. And on the left side of the screen from the data that we collected between March 24th and June 9th, you can see that we have readily available

parking spaces um in and around uh Upen Beach as well. So this is basically the baseline that we now have moving forward when it comes to making parking management decisions. Now, this was one that garnered quite a bit of conversation and dialogue because on Corey Avenue, basically it's um no time limits, no paid parking. And so that was the general consensus of the businesses is that they really don't want to see any of that change, at least not at this time. And when you look at the left side of the screen, you can actually see that we do have available parking resources based on the blue lines. We have one yellow line in the area and one green line. So, meaning that the aggregate between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. demonstrates that there are parking spaces typically available. Now, this is an area that especially as new businesses open and as the peak season starts to kick in, this is an area that I would suggest that we would need to begin to monitor closely to determine when and if policy changes are needed. You can start with time limits, but you also can start with the opportunity of introducing paid parking opportunities. You can very much treat Corey Avenue almost like an off- streetet parking lot where you could provide certain benefits first hour free uh when you initiate your parking session and then you could try to escalate a rate after that. There's several opportunities as we talk about mitigating this moving forward. But the most important part of this process is making sure that you use the data to influence those recommendations. It is also important to recognize, and this was feedback that we had from the business owners, is that as the theater is opening and as we have different restaurants in the area, that in a lot of communities in a business district

like this, there would typically be a time limit of about 2 hours. And so that's something that you want to be mindful of as well is that you want to ensure that the rules can support what the demand is. And you either need to have off- streetet parking locations where I can park for a longer period of time that are close and accessible or we need to be mindful of what the design of those on street policies are to be sure to accommodate all of the businesses in the area. Now, as we talk about pass, this was an important location when we talk about the data collection because we have not only the historical, but we also have the data that was collected here between May 24th and June 9th. And this was one of the areas that again got hit really hard when it comes to missing signage. So this is something too that we had quite a bit of feedback from residents indicating uh the number of illegally parked cars. And this is an area that we know needs to have a focus on where and when folks are allowed to park. But you can also see that when we get down into the eighth, ninth, and tth um locations, this is going to be part of the spots where we know the demand is really popular. And this is one of the areas that we really need to start to tackle how we're going to manage parking moving forward. And this was particularly important on 8th because we really had a mixed sentiment from the business owners because they know that a lot of the people that are parking on ETH are going to the beach, but they're walking past the shops. They're making a pit stop in the shops and they're, you know, spending money and enjoying their time there as well. It's really about how much time that they're spending in the shops and stores versus at the beach and how long should they be allowed to park there. In my experience, ETH is a location that we really need to mitigate

and manage more proactively to ensure that the cars that are parking on that particular street location, especially 8th, 9th, and 10th, that they are patronizing our shops and businesses and not merely coming to go to the beach. And I do think that our private lot owners in those locations do a very proactive job in ensuring that the people that are parking in their off- streetet locations are patronizing their shops and restaurants. And so I do think that that's something that the community and your visitors recognize, but they also know that they can get away with it, I will say, um, when they park on the street. And that's something that we also need to be cognizant of when we start to talk about how to manage these policies moving forward. It is a very unique dynamic and mix in that particular location because you have such a beautiful beach location to go to. And the convenience and walkability of those parking locations is so accessible to the general public. And this is one of the reasons why we know that signage is so critical to ensure that our visitors especially know where they're supposed to park and for how long they're supposed to park there for. And I really do appreciate the businesses and the challenges that they have because obviously we want the patronage, but we also have to make sure that those parking spaces stay available so that customers that truly are going down there to utilize the business district can turn those spaces over. So, I mentioned the drone imagery and this is just an example on Saturday, May 27th. This is just one of the images that we captured for the county beach parking location. Um, one of the things that I will highlight is that this is a very challenging location to monitor and enforce. We have some technology

recommendations that we think will prove to be advantageous for this particular location, but anyone who has spent any time in this parking lot can appreciate. Uh we need some new paint, uh some directional arrows, and we need those processes to be enforced. Honestly, the cars kind of go every which way uh trying to get those available parking spaces. And when you mix that in with, you know, ice chests and children and bicycles kind of running all around the place, this is uh I will use the word controlled chaos. Uh but it's also a very difficult location to enforce. And so we have some technology recommendations that will come along with this location. And we definitely want to highlight the opportunity to really maximize this particular location. In some cases, because of the congestion, some spaces go underutilized. and we know that there are some more effective ways that we can manage that particular location. So now I'll pop into uh the recommendations and this is important. So when we start to talk about um increasing supply is to be recognizing shared parking agreements. This is something where we've identified a few locations. Um you do have to have negotiations with these private property location opportunities to be able to identify this. But I will say this is not unique to St. P beach. Um, developing parking is expensive and one of the ways in order to develop future parking, which is that next bullet, you have to start to mitigate and manage demand and also ensure that people are willing to pay for that. And so, anytime that you can take advantage of existing assets and be able to leverage public private partnerships, this is really the way of our future. This is how other agencies all throughout the United States are managing their parking demand. And this is an opportunity for us to take advantage of existing resources and create mutual benefit for

both public and private sides of the agreement. And this is something too that we know can have an immediate impact. It also can be something that's only leveraged during certain peak weekends or certain peak parts of the year or certain events. But we do know that this could bring an immediate advantage to the city and especially to our community that their streets are obviously impacted when that demand occurs. So the opportunity for our parking garage, this was something that we heard loud and clear. And this is another reason why the shared parking agreements are critical because if we get to a place where we're able to fund a parking garage development or again a P3 agreement, that would be fantastic. we're going to need to leverage um those parking assets that exist around us to be able to offset that design or that demand uh when that is being built. So, I think that that's something to also be monitoring. And then this was one where we got a mixed result on feedback also on the surveys, but we know that golf carts exist. They are real in St. P Beach and we want to be sure that we're acknowledging golf carts and their parking because we need to ensure that they're parking where we safely want them to park and also being accountable for parking where they're supposed to park. And so that's one of the things that we know as we start to manage the curbside moving forward more proactively. We can't omit the golf carts, nor can we omit bikes. We need to be sure that we have secure bike parking located throughout the city so that we can encourage folks to ride their bikes. We just have to make sure that they have a safe place to be able to secure them. So, nobody likes to talk about parking enforcement because nobody likes to get a parking ticket, but it's really important that we manage and mitigate our optimization of both technology and enforcement. The city has made some past investments in technology and

strategically we're in a place now where we want to be able to streamline some of our technology and make some incremental recommendations here that would be incremental investments in technology. One of the items that will come into mind is being able to leverage fixed mount license plate recognition cameras and to also be able to leverage handheld technology that allows our parking enforcement officers to be more nimble. For example, in the county beach parking lot, having a parking enforcement officer in a vehicle, especially a larger truck, is not very accessible, nor are they very nimble in the parking lot. We need the ability for our parking enforcement officers to be able to go out on foot and to be able to efficiently navigate the beach parking lot in order to effectively enforce the beach parking lot. And one of the ways that we can also tackle that is by utilizing fixed mount LPR cameras. The technology works in such a way that it's integrated with the paid parking infrastructure so that we know that there are 100 vehicles in the county beach parking lot for example and only 70 of them are currently compliant with the parking regulations. And ultimately with that type of technology, our parking enforcement officers have the ability to know which of those 30 cars they're basically looking for to be able to go out there and enforce the regulations. Now, mind you, it's never going to be a perfect system, but when we talk about optimized management, that's really what we're looking for here when we talk about being able to ensure compliance because ultimately it shouldn't be about writing parking tickets. It's about getting people to comply with the parking regulations. But one of the ways that we do achieve that is to ensure compliance is there has to be a known expectation that I could get a parking citation. And I think that's

one of the things today and you'll see this in bullet number two is that our penalty schedule is on the much lower side compared to our neighboring cities. And that's important so that when I'm willing to violate a parking regulation, even if I know I likely get a ticket, if it's $30 for me to get that ticket for the day, that's about what I would pay to go to the beach in any other community. So, the reality is it becomes almost my beach parking fee for that matter. So, we've got to be sure that we bring our penalty schedules up so that they're comparable with our neighboring cities. And it's also important that we can't forget about these penalties and fees. We need to be sure that annually we're adapting and modifying based on CPI so that these fees stay current with the times so that again that expectation of me getting a parking ticket. It really needs to be significant enough for me to follow the rules. And that's really important. It's just like speeding on the freeway. If I choose the speed and I'm taking the risk of getting pulled over, I know that if I get caught, you know, it's going to be a pretty hefty fine, that's got to be one of those same opportunities when we talk about parking management resources as well. And speaking of parking resources, another opportunity as we talk about moving forward, especially when we talk about peak season, a lot of agencies in Florida have taken to outsourcing parking enforcement services, even supplementing parking enforcement services merely to be able to ensure that we have the consistent coverage throughout the community to be sure that all of our resident curve spaces are being served and to make sure that all the areas that are paid that people are actually compliant with those regulations. Now, one of the things I

like to highlight about outsourcing parking enforcement services is there is no motivation on the number of citations issued. There's no quotas, there's no minimums, nothing like that. You're simply paying for a service for labor hours. And it's a way that we can basically more effectively and consistently manage the curb. And it's how a lot of communities have been able to effectively manage their parking programs is by bringing in these outsourced services. You can also tackle things like parking meters or pay station maintenance or also even sign repair. A lot of agencies have found that supplementing outsource services can make a big difference. Now I mentioned this about 8th 9th and 10th um down there in Passa Grill. One of the opportunities is to have a dedicated parking ambassador that really plays the role based on whatever approved policies are determined to make sure that we achieve compliance. And when I talk about outsource enforcement services, even penalty schedules, I do like to reinforce it really is about compliance. We try to focus on education information. Anytime you relaunch a program or launch a new policy, it should be all about warning notices, getting the word out there, making sure people know what the rules are because we're not looking for a gotcha program. We're looking for a program where people actually comply with the rules. And that's the reason why we call them a parking ambassador because they become an extra pair of eyes and ears for the community. They're out there to really again make sure people understand what the rules are. If we see somebody parked on ETH and they're unloading the ice chest and all the beach chairs, the fact that we can make contact and let them know, you know, what the rules are, that there's a time limit in that parking area. That's really the intent is to have that proactive role in that community, especially during our peak season and on our weekends because we

know how popular uh this area is. So, let's talk for a minute about signage. I've already made it clear that we're missing a lot of signs, but one of the opportunities that we also want to be mindful of is the opportunity to leverage digital signage. One of the places that we know that this can prove to be advantageous is at the county beach lot so that I can know what my availability is in that parking lot, whether I should even make the turn to that parking lot as one of the opportunities, especially when we use the fixed mount LPR cameras. But the other place that we were thinking especially was at the entrance to the um city, especially off of the Bayway, is the opportunity to be able to demonstrate that if you turn left and try to head down to Pass Grill, we're near capacity. Like you need to head over to the county beach lot or head over to another beach or frankly, you know, head over to Treasure Island for that matter because we're near capacity. And that's one of the opportunities that we really very much have is to be able to direct vehicle traffic based on the way that technology, intelligent transportation systems work. Yours is such a unique design that this could be a service and a solution that could work very effectively for your community. Um, we even went as far as thinking about having gate arms for that matter when ultimately if you need to close it down, but that's a whole another engineering requirement that we're not quite there for, especially when we talk about resident access. But anything that we can do to encourage people to go where there are available parking resources and I know that that was the intent when the sensors were installed years ago. And ultimately when we start to talk about optical technology today, this is something that we know could very much serve the community and very strategically investing in this type of technology is something that we know

could help offset some of the congestion impacts that we know gravely impact our residents and we heard a lot of that feedback as well. So again, we know sign maintenance is key. We got to get the signs back up and then we got to be sure that they're maintained. And importantly too with signage is to make sure that the directional arrows, the local ordinances, there's continuity in the height and the orientation of the signs. Basically, the signs need to be predictable. That's the easiest thing I like to describe to folks is. You need to know where the expectation the sign needs to be. So that that way when I get out of my car and I look left and I look right, there should be an expectation that there's a sign at the entrance to a block face and there's a sign maybe at the exit of a block face. But that's really when you start to talk about continuity and signage and clarity, why this is going to be so important as we talk about the program moving forward. So, when we do talk about our paid parking rates, it's important to recognize that we are really right there, you know, in the mean, maybe on the slightly higher side of things when it comes to some of our neighboring communities. But this is an opportunity when we start to talk about peak season versus weekends versus weekdays, morning hours versus evening hours. Uh, we were even talking about having a sunset rate for that matter. People kind of scoffed at me when I brought that up, but the fact is is that it's such a destination location to go and watch the sunset. These are all opportunities. And if anybody's ever been to a, you know, busy metropolitan downtown, especially in the early morning hours, and you see the flaggers out there saying like park here, early bird rate, those types of things. These are the types of methodologies that you actually can leverage in your program moving forward. you have the technology in your mobile payment solution as well as in your paystation solution that we can

predicate and basically establish all of these different varying models. But the one thing that I always like to say is that when we talk about municipal parking management is is that the rates need to be predictable. The technology allows you to change the rates honestly on a whim for that matter. But the one thing being a public agency is you need to be sure that your rates are predictable. And whether we have weekend rates versus weekday rates or if we have holiday rates versus special event rates, these are all things that typically would come to you all for approval in advance so that we can also push that messaging out and make sure that everyone is aware of what those rates are. Again, we don't want to have those gotcha moments. It's kind of like at the World Series when you show up at the ballpark and suddenly the private lot operator is charging $500, you know, for the evening parking. That is quite unexpected and it's not something that you'll see on the city streets because again that would be inappropriate for most public agencies. So, the more predictable it can be, but you definitely have an opportunity to be able to leverage some of those different rate models. And that's why I wanted to talk a little bit about demandbased pricing. you have the opportunity to be able to set that range. We know what your occupancy numbers are. So, the fact that you could actually establish a pre-published rate model. One of the reasons why I brought up that early bird rate like when you're in a metropolitan downtown going into the parking garage, you actually can have a rate schedule that can build throughout the day or throughout a weekend or throughout a holiday period. And that's something that's really unique uh to the technology that you are already currently invested in. One of the things that I shared with city staff was that you all have made very strategic investments over the years and you do have really solid partners uh when it

relates to your parking technology opportunities and now it's really about kind of filling in the gaps and making strategic investments and on locations like the digital signage or the fixed mount LPR and to be able to leverage those types of opportunities for where we can optimize your program. One of the items that we also worked on as a result of this project with some of the financial projections and by introducing a demand rate model that allows for peak season pricing, we've estimated that you could actually have an increase of to your annual revenue of anywhere between 300 to $800,000. Now, I know that's a pretty wide range, but it really comes down to the menu of options and really, you know, how simp how simplified or how complicated you want the models to be. But even just starting with a a slight increase in your rate models with an increase on your holiday and peak season, that's something that we could definitely demonstrate, especially with consistent coverage on the enforcement model. Now, on your parking permits, this is important. We highly recommend that you go 100% virtual or what I like to say is permit by license plate. No more hang tags. No more requirement to come into city hall. No more paper on the dashboard. No more putting my restaurant t-shirt, you know, on my dashboard. But allowing your customers, your residents, your business owners, your employees to be able to self-manage their parking permits and their license plates online. And I mention license plates because your license plate is a unique identifier to your car. And that basically becomes your parking permit. And that's something that we highly advocate, especially from an efficiency perspective. We had the pleasure of riding along with, I think, almost every one of your parking enforcement officers, and they have to spend a lot of time getting in and out of their cars, checking the dashboards, looking

on the seats, trying to figure out if there's any kind of parking marking of any kind on a car, and then oftent times spending time with, you know, going into the restaurants or going into the shops and trying to help, you know, resolve whatever those issues are. Ultimately, if we go to a virtual parking permit system, it won't be completely seamless, but it'll be much more efficient and much more effective. And allowing your customers to self-manage their accounts is a real gamecher and is something that we've seen have a really big effect honestly across the country. And we are also suggesting that there needs to be a fee for residential parking permit. And again, that could include some exclusive beach parking. And the reality of what the value of that is is quite significant, especially as we talked about some of the rate impacts. But if there's one other thing that you learned from me today, there is no such thing as free parking. Every single parking space has a value, whether it be in front of my home or whether it be in front of a business or whether it be at the beach. And the reality is there is a cost associated with a parking permit program. And all we're looking to do is ensure that we cover that cost. We actually have some states that are introducing legislation that mandate that residential parking permits actually have to be designed on a sustainable model. And that's what we're really recommending here is making sure that we can cover the cost of the technology involved, the enforcement requirements, the signage requirements, everything that I've mentioned here so that we can cover the cost of the program. This is not intended to be another tax on your residents by any means. It's truly just intended to ensure that we can ensure parking availability in our residential neighborhoods. And for our employee parking permits, we just simply want to make sure that we introduce options for purchasing parking permits. Oftentimes,

this is not uncommon where parking permits are established on an annual fee schedule. And in the reality, especially for our service workers who maybe are at a lower wage or a minimum wage level, they can't necessarily afford to front out the entire expense for an annual parking permit. So allowing for employees to be able to purchase on a quarterly basis, in some cases a monthly basis, when you take it online, almost anything is possible. And so we just really like to encourage that when we talk about accessibility and making it easier for people to follow the rules. That's really the core root of why we're trying to make it simple. We talked about modifying some of these um programs. We're almost done. So, policy enhancements, uh consolidating the parking program budget and operations. I'm sure you can all appreciate the parking lives in practically every department in the city. And while I appreciate that everybody has kind of a hand in the process, it does make for tracking expenses and um revenues difficult. So, this is something that has actually already begun to be tackled and I'm very proud to report that we're doing much better when it comes to these tracking opportunities. But that consolidation effort is something that we highly encourage should continue because it's really how we're going to be able to measure the effectiveness and impact of any of these policy changes is making sure that we can track those expenses and also track the associated associated revenue. Now for Corey Avenue, again, this was one where we had a very strong showing from the business owners in this location. And something that can be considered is in terms of increasing turnover is the implication of a time limit, a 2-hour time limit, designating locations where employees can park for the long term, and then also introducing longerterm parking in the parking lots. Now, this isn't

necessarily something that has to happen tomorrow, but this could also be something that, you know, as we get into the um snowbird season or as we start to hit our early peaks, this could be an opportunity to begin to demonstrate via a pilot demonstration what that could look like and begin to monitor and measure the data to see what kind of an effect the time limits can have and to begin to designate those locations where those longerterm parking opportunities are. And that's really when you can start to measure whether or not this would be a long-term need or if it's just a seasonal need. But that's something that we think is important when we talk about adaptability and being able to have an adaptive solution moving forward. So on the municipal codes, we always like to talk about future proofing your municipal code so that you're ready for whatever comes in the future. Uh it's important that when we talk about daylighting is that we need to be sure that we're not parking on the approaches to our intersections, it's impeding our pedestrian view lines. So that we need to be sure that we're keeping those sight lines clear. And so making sure that those are either signed or painted, whatever the case may be, to ensure that we don't have those vehicles impeding on those locations. And then also looking at some of the zoning policies that we might be able to modify to facilitate additional parking opportunities or regulations that exist today that might prohibit the use of locations for parking. All things to be considered. And then also defining an oversized vehicle. This is something too whether it be height restrictions, width restrictions, weight restrictions, making sure that that's definitively def defined and also ensuring that our parking enforcement staff have the ability to site for these violations as well. Um that's going to be something that can be determined by planning and whether that stays in code enforcement or not. But [snorts] oversight vehicles

continue to become an impact um especially on our curb side. So that's something that we want to be mindful of and especially those vehicles and trailers. You have your designated locations where our boat trailers are allowed to park and so we want to make sure that they stay in that area. And then an opportunity to future proof your code is to just allow for the consideration in the future for outsourced enforcement. This is something that doesn't require you to do it, but it just basically allows the municipal code so that if at which time you decide that that's something you want to pursue, we like to open up the municipal code to allow for the readiness of the adaptability or in case you want to bring folks on for a peak season. uh that just again brings you the flexibility of being able to make those modifications and not have to de labor or push out um future implement improvements so that that way you're ready for it when or if it happens. So in terms of next steps uh demand-based pricing really looking at that opportunity to implement and introduce uh different rate modeling that could increase the bottom line on the revenue uh bringing in for the program. Definitely those signage upgrades that we were talking about, not only the replacement and updating of the signs, but also the consideration of the digital signs. We think that that could be something that could be a lowhanging fruit opportunity that you could look at very costefficiently. We think that for the county beach lot, you could do an installation there for I want to say the low end of the scale, you could do something for about $25,000. you can get really fancy and do something for about six figures, but um we're talking about again just trying to get off the mark and get some tools out there. So, there's some opportunities of how you can leverage that. And then we know the importance of residential parking. We've continued to hear from your residents about the importance of protecting the curb space out in front

of their homes. And so, making sure that we introduce this residential parking permit program holistically throughout the city so that we can provide those safeguards. And then uh to not stop the conversation. Again, I don't think anyone's going to stop talking about parking in St. Pete's Beach, but one of the things that we know is that to continue to monitor the data and continue to monitor these changes, the ability to demonstrate via pilot um opportunities, but to continue to monitor and measure and adapt and modify. I always like to say to do things incrementally. Parking is a learned behavior. So when you can start to make changes and really see if you can modify that behavior and to be able to manage it effectively is to be able to monitor it effectively as well. So with that I am here to answer any questions. I also just want to thank you all for the opportunity. Um it's been a delight working with your city staff. Um your parking enforcement officers are very positive people. They have to deal with a lot. There's no doubt about it. but they do it with a very positive attitude and one that I'm very proud having been a former parking enforcement officer. I was very pleased uh with their performance and their um support from a customer service model. So, I will stop sharing my screen and uh turn the mic back over to you all.

Thank you. Commissioners, questions, comments? I I have a question in regards to um the data. I see that such areas as um the north side of the beach was utilized, which really doesn't have a draw to it. I mean, there's no beach there. It's 20 blocks away from the beach, so people are not going to walk there. It's not on the Sunrunner path either. Um, and it's as well what about 15 blocks from Corey Avenue. [snorts] So I I'm I'm questioning and I saw some other things like Vina uh uh Delmare being in the in included as well as part of the data and I'm assuming that kind of goes towards pass a grill um more residential areas being used as part of um occupancy as part of uh the count and itself and I'm just wondering if that kind of changes is uh the number it being making the number low.

So when we really get down into the weeds of the data, the ability to break it out by block face is really key because um when we start to talk about the aggregate, it definitely ties in those lower occupied streets comparatively. So that's why I really appreciate the data detail that's in um the report is because you can actually look at it by individual blocks. And I also like to highlight the reason why it's very important that you monitor the residential streets is to understand if we do have any kind of beach spillover. Um because that's something or again commercial spillover or any kind of neighboring venue spillover. It's important that as we start to talk about moving forward, especially that you really can use the data to start to garner what those future recommendations need to look like. Oftent times I can look at a program that continues to proactively monitor data and I can call the city and say, "Hey, what's happening on X Street?" And they'll go like, "How did you know there's construction on XYZ Street?" But the data really does speak volumes. So, it is really important to monitor both your residential, your paid, your non-paid, your time limited streets. It's important to moni especially with your design, the way that your city is designed. It's so important from a spillover perspective and then to understand in some cases I've got some beach communities where folks are parking and then pulling out those foldup scooters out of their um out of their trunk or they're storing their cars and one car is picking everybody up to go to a ball game or something like that. There's a lot of things that can come into play and that's why having the data it really is a game changer for you in the future as well. Thank you.

Nikki,

um something similar and I don't know if if Commissioner Robinson was thinking maybe something what I was thinking about the same that that slide that you had about the average length of stay um citywide that had the mix of um because you mentioned the rainbow effect, right? So, but when I'm looking at that image, there's a mixture of residential, commercial, some paid, some unpaid, some areas that are no parking, some areas that do have um like uh 2 RD or 3RD parking. Um so, it's very confusing for me to see the rainbow if um some areas are allowed parking by residents all the time. So to get that average that was presented was really hard for for me to see that it's a I think you had it as a three to four average length of stay of time but it's a mixed use. So it was very confusing for me to see if it's if it's meeting that rainbow. Uh you know it it wasn't a good representation of the data for me to be able to tell what's needed. Um we've had at least in my district I've had um for a while a couple of different areas or neighborhoods asking about their parkings on specific streets. Um I know it was mentioned in the presentation about 46. Um which they have um commercial, you know, let's say parking like anybody could park there, but there's safety concerns on that street. People can park on both sides. Um so you know it I don't know if it's capturing that um in in this study or um another issue uh recently maybe it was about two months ago like on Puna Vista Drive it's a no parking street but it's a residential street and um so there's no data collected at all on that street

because it just says no parking so that street's blank. Um, so it was a little confusing for me to see that, you know, and and I did agree with what you said that people do park in residential areas and pick up the rest of the people and head out to the beach because I've seen that happen in our area, but we lack the signage. So even though we know it's a 3RD parking in the neighborhood in Donsar, let's say people will park um let's just pick Vina Delmare as an example since you mentioned that that would park all the way in Vina Delmare and I'm not sure and maybe commissioner here can tell me if there's actually a parking signs that says residential parking only because people will park really far away and then take another avenue, you know, to get to the beach. So anyways,

we obviously had to, you know, start at the top of the detail um for the aggregate, but in the uh attachments, and I'm sorry, my agenda is not opening up as quickly as I would like it to, the report actually includes the data details. And so if you go into the supplemental um appendices for the data, you actually can pull up by block base, by time of day, and you can actually see the individual. If we had brought all of that tonight, we would have been here for many hours to go through all of that with you. But I did want to highlight, and forgive me, and Blake, you probably can tell me the appendix that that is because I'm not able to open up the web page quick enough. But um I just wanted to highlight in the actual uh final report there's a data report and Blake what's it called?

That' be appendix A.

Appendix A. I knew it was an appendix A to know which letter. So if you open up appendix A you actually can drill into that and you can actually look at all of the individual streets that were captured by time of day. I do want to highlight any location that is a no parking zone that would be not considered in the inventory because there's no parking space. Look at their parking and it says it's $5, you know, per hour. So, I don't know if they have a varying rate. So, I'm not sure why because it's making it look like ours is higher, but I've seen I've gone to other cities and I know they charge more because I've I've gone to park and was quite amazed at how expensive it was to park in other beach communities close to us. Um, so that you know was and again I guess I will look at the appendix to find out how you aggregated this but it it makes you mentioned that ours is pretty high but I kind of feel like it's

not pretty high just slightly higher I want to highlight but you're right there right there in the mean you're right there there you're right there on the average just on maybe the slightly higher side but by no means higher in fact that's why I think you have the opportunity to increase your rates I'm going to have to definitely go back and check to see because I'm going to suggest that Treasure Island must have just done an increase, but um because these were rates that we confirmed uh when we finished this project there at the end of summer. So,

okay. And then just one last thing about the parking ambassador that you mentioned, is that a volunteer position and that you've seen happen in other cities? And do volunteers site tickets or are they just trying to be polite and tell someone not to park there before someone yells at them?

So that's a great option. I will say I have seen volunteer ambassadors in other communities. But the one thing I will say about volunteers is that um there's a requirement of a certain level of training if they are going to issue parking citations. And I have found in my experience that it is best served if there is going to be an enforcement element of that that they either be a city employee or an agent of the city like an outsourced uh vendor. Um not not to say that volunteers don't uh work well but from the enforcement perspective there is a certain level of training that we need to make sure that folks have um which can be achieved through a volunteer program. Um, I see a lot of communities that utilize volunteers to do disabled parking space enforcement and um, while it's something that can be effective, it's a bit inconsistent. So, I think that it's one of those resources, especially in such a high touch point location, that while it could be a volunteer, I think that the more effective model would be somebody that has the training capacity to be able to enforce the same rules that they're out there trying to educate and and uh inform on.

Commissioner Maldonado. Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So yeah, I I just wanted to circle back and answer Commissioner Rsniki's question. We do not have restricted parking on Vina Delmare. We're fortunate that most of our residents use their driveways and garages, so there's plenty of parking. We don't encourage people to come down and use that, but it is it is uh something that does happen. I see folks walking over the bridge with their, you know, trailer full of items and things like that. And uh it it just is what it is. I Julie I agree with your comments on the parking ambassador. Personally I'm concerned for the physical safety

of volunteers. You know I have asked people politely that uh this is not the case and have gotten some very uh inappropriate responses and you know there's nothing you can do about it. You're just like you said trying to deescalate. You're trying to help people. It's the same at the uh public parking lot. You know, I used to tell people, you're gonna get towed and watch their cars get towed because people do not listen to people that are in civilian attire and just trying to help them out. Um, so I just wanted to circle back to one last thing and that's the shared parking agreement. The city does not currently allow folks to uh rent or sell parking spaces, but is that something that you've seen in other cities? I know that our city was approached at one point with a uh a parking app similar to Park Mobile where folks can get into these agreements like they do over by Tampa Stadium. Absolutely. In fact, one of the opportunities that you have is via your parking brand is also to allow private entities to leverage that and in some communities which we've been able to do and I'll use uh Salt Lake City as an example. Uh the city of Salt Lake City does not own any off- streetet parking assets. And so what they did is they created the Park SLC brand. And then what they did is they created this list of I'll just say 10 criteria that you as a private property owner could leverage our brand and our imagery. And we'll put your information out on our website, but you had to meet these 10 criteria and be subject to inspection, etc., etc. So that that way I could guarantee the parking experience for the visitor or guest that would park in that location. So kind of similar to what you were describing is there's an opportunity for us to leverage and expand our program because the core solution here is make it easy for people to park. You know, get them out of their cars, go spend their time and money and then get in

their car and let the next person come along, right? And so anywhere that we can leverage the parking infrastructure um is ideal and optimal for the program. There's no doubt about that for sure.

Commissioners, I think there's a few individuals here with audience comments. I know that normally we wouldn't take audience comments, but unless you have any objections, I think we should. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Do we have any audience comments for the parking study? If you're so indicated on your yellow card, the city clerk will call you now. Amy Arbach.

Please state your name and address for the record. Arback 24046th Avenue. Okay. Thanks for having me tonight. Turn that to the left. Oh, other side. See the screw up other way. There we go. Thanks, guys. I'm here tonight. Uh, we have four members, including myself, from the Leo Beach Civic Association, and we're here tonight to comment on the parking study. Um, are you asking for additional time? Pardon? Are you asking for additional time beyond?

No, no, I have 10 minutes. Yeah, I'm just saying yeah, I got 10 minutes. Thank you.

Um, so specifically about establishing an agreement with Plaza Beach Hotel and then just a couple of comments about the study and the occupancy rates. So, we're going to talk about the non-conforming in the activity center, the history of the parcels, that corner, and the children's playground that's near that parking recommendation. So, just to point out in the study that um the property of the Plaza Beach Hotel is actually three separate parcels. Um, so just wondering, do you really count it as one thing or three separate things and how that affects any recommendations? And then also on page 12 of the packet, um, that property named as 3855 Gulf Boulevard is actually not owned by Plaza Beach, although the report seems to indicate it is. So, just wanted to highlight that Sunold LLC as the owner. And um, those also those don't have a number. They're just in the property appraisers site as Gulf Boulevard. Um then regarding the financial projections that um Dixon put together. So pulling just a question out of the study. So, if 85% is the industry benchmark and this study is already saying that the city is underutilizing the parking and that we only have an average occupancy rate of 37%, are we are we really short on parking if there's such a gap between the industry benchmark and what we have today? And um just kind of wondering, you know, we we all want more revenue for the city, so that's a big part of it. And then I also want to just thank before I move on um district 3 commissioner for bringing up 46th Avenue. We're not going to talk about that tonight, but I live on that street and it is of relevance to the

community. But tonight we want to focus on um the Plaza Beach Resort property. So recommending a parking lot uh on this property is non-conforming to the activity center character district in which it resides. The purpose of the activity center district is to provide commercial development with secondary residential purposes and that um the commercial redevelopment will be encouraged in a manner that will serve retail services needs of residents and visitors alike several decades into the future. And a parking lot by its nature does not serve residents. Plaza Beach Hotel, who's the named owner of that parcel, was brought to the special magistrate and has operated that property without the appropriate permanent permits. Um, the initial case for the special magistrate was entered in December 2022 and the complaint was secondary use created without a primary use. And then you can see the expert excerpt, excuse me, from the special magistrate order that was on August 14th, 2023 confirming that it was established that they used the vacant lot for off- streetet parking without their conditional use permit and that the fence was erected without a permit. Additionally, this property owner removed trees from that property without a permit. And this after the fact permit that I've shown is a poor representation of the trees that were actually cut. We also have concerns in the neighborhood about this property because the property owner in the past has um had a lot of litter and trash on this

property and we don't have a high degree of confidence that this property owner maintains the property. um properly. And this excerpt is from the staff report um from an um a second attempt by this property owner for a conditional use permit. And here's the current state of the property. So, I didn't think I had time to show you the terrible transformation from what used to be a beautiful green space to now. yellow grass, dirt, piles, shipping containers, etc. So, with these parcels, the city staff has already recommended against a parking lot in this location. Um, this was on October 24th, 2023 when there was a conditional use permit. Um and the staff recommendation that that conditional use as proposed would adversely affect the public interest and may significantly adverse affect the character of the area. You can also reference the minutes where the applicant withdrew his application and it was with prejudice by the commission due to the fact that the applicant actually did have time to address the requests um that were presented to them at the technical review committee that was in April of that year. [snorts] This corner is also problematic um for a couple reasons that we want to share with you today. It does flood. This is Hurricane Adidalia and the flooding that was a result of that storm. Also, there's several driveways within

block of this parcels. Um, so there is the Shell gas station. Oh, creepy. I'm not a weather person. The Publix uh on-ramp into the public's parking lot. the uh Leo Gardens Apartments, Yakimono Restaurant, Drunken Clam Restaurant, and then um across Gulf Boulevard is the Gulf Strand Condo entry point and then the entry point to Plaza Beach itself. And to Commissioner Maldonado's comment earlier, in season, there's like dozens of tow trucks coming out of the public's shopping center. And I agree, no matter how much parking we have, people are still going to go to the beach and park in that public's parking lot. So that corner itself is just very um in my opinion dangerous to try to include more car density on that corner. And you can also see obviously the south side of the county lot as well that was also mentioned in the study. Um just to reiterate, there's a high volume of vehicles also that drive by this location. This is a traffic study commissioned in September um 2022 on Labor Day weekend. And so you can see, you know, over 20,000 cars, over 25,000 cars, and this was um a Labor Day weekend, so also not peak. Um so we have a concern in terms of the volume of cars again and people trying to come and go in that area and unfortunately there have been pedestrian deaths already at this location. So there was recently a couple maybe in the past three years who were killed at this intersection and then from further back there's also pedestrian fatalities.

And then in conclusion, this Plaza Beach property is adjacent to a children's park. So the photo on the far left is taken from the perspective of 45th Avenue toward the park. So you can see the school age kids parking lot. The one in the middle is First Street facing the picnic shelter with the fence that is the border of the property. And then there's the toddler um playground. And then the last one is also from the perspective with back to 45th Avenue with the toddler playground and then you can see the parking the property with the containers in the back. So as you consider the results of the study and as the decision-m continues, we'll be here to remind you and thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you. Ron Vino.

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

Yeah. Hi, my name is Ronald Vinho, 1109 Droy in St. Pete Beach. So ladies and gentlemen of the city council, thank you for your opportunity or thank you for the opportunity to address the pressing issue of parking in St. Pete Beach. We all know how vital it is to ensure that our visitors can easily and convenient conveniently find a place to park especially um as our beautiful uh beach and local attraction draw more and more people to our city. Today I'd like to propose a solution rooted in the principle of free markets. Currently, homeowners are limited in offering their own space uh to visitors. I believe that if we allow property owners, whether it's in Pasigril or anywhere in St. Pete Beach, to offer a parking of their own land for a fee, we can address our parking shortage in a way that is efficient, flexible, and communitydriven. Importantly, uh this approach would come into a play uh will come into play only after the city's own parking facilities are full. In order in other words, homeowners would have the opportunity to offer parking of their private property only when the the public parking oper uh options are already at capacity. This ensured that the city does not lose any revenue from um from their own parking operation and it provides a convenient conveniently overflow solution during the peak times.

Additionally, um allowing a kind of uh this kind of private parking solution will help drive our local economy when visitors uh can find convenient parking as um they are more likely to stay longer, visit our restaurants, explore our boutiques, and enjoy uh our coffee shops. This simple change will not only relieve parking pressure but also support the small business that makes St. Pete Beach unique and vibrant. By embracing free part free market approach to parking as an overflow solution, we not only solve practical problem, but do we also strengthen our sense of community, boost our local economy and foster innovation. So, let's trust our residents and the visitors to work things together to make parking in St. Pete Beach much better. Thank you.

Thank you. Lauren Motors. If you please state your name and address for the record.

Hi, I'm Lauren Monus. I live at 11:09 uh Gulf Way in Pasigril or what I affectionately call the parking per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per purge p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p per p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p purgatory of p a because people lose their minds when they're trying to find parking there. Um, in high season, by 10:00 a.m. the city spaces are full, the meters are full, cars are looping the same streets for one hour. Families are getting stressed, kids are crying, people are arguing, and eventually people say, "Forget it. We're going to Fort Doodto. We can't find parking here." And when they leave, so does their money that our economy could have benefited from. I'm sure we lose thousands of vi visitors per year due to the stress of not being able to find parking. So, while visitors are stuck in parking purgatory, hundreds of empty driveways are sitting right there in the neighborhoods, totally unused. My driveway, my neighbor's driveway, all empty, all available for use to alleviate some of the parking pressure the city faces. So, we're asking the city I'm asking the city to allow residents who have space in their driveway to open their spaces to visitors for a fee. This is only when the city parking is full. So, the city will not lose money. The city gains a happy visitor that will spend money on on businesses here and will come back again and again. If they cannot find parking, they leave and they never come back, taking their tourism money somewhere else. In the parking plan, it is recommended that the city adopts a more innovative parking technology that quote prioritize cellular networks for enhanced

connectivity end quote. Expanding parking does not mean we need more surveillance technology or more 5G antennas or I or AI powered license plate scanning. A big part of the solution, at least in pass, isn't more construction or more technology. It's simply using the parking spaces in driveways that are already built out but are sitting empty. Thank you. Thank you. John Kerszman.

Hi John Kersman from uh St from Behond. I'm happy to be back here. Um on the parking, you know, I attended the earlier workshop and there was just a I mean and hearing some of the things that people have said, couple of ideas. One is it seems like if purpose-based parking was available, it would be helpful. In other words, people are welcome to park on Corey, but they're there to shop on Corey, not walk to the beach. So, the technology now exists that that you know after you dine or after you buy something or after you go into a store, you get a code and then you'd enter that code to pay for your time. and and so you could have your two-hour parking, but you could you could establish that the the guests of these businesses could take advantage of the the area. Um the next thing is hearing about uh the parking over near 46th. Uh it reminds me I I once tried to use that uh toddler playground for my toddler grandchild, not me. Uh and we couldn't park. It was and I had to park illegally with my flashers going the whole time while we were playing in the playground. And again, it would just make sense if I I know we don't want people to park at the, you know, park and then walk across the street to the beach, but there needs to be a way we could just say, you know, resident only playground parking two hours or something so that again you can at least allow people to do that kind of parking. Uh, and then just back in the weeds again at Upen Beach, I made a recommendation, you know, north of the strip in the middle of the of the road where there's parking. Uh, in the corner, there's some resident parking, but there's room for another row of resident parking. And I've suggested that there be an island for that, but I didn't see it anywhere in the report, so I thought I'd throw that out there again. Um and and that also gets into when you look at our our our parking maps and this is goes on back from you

know 2021 you know you you tell them where you live and you know it's interesting pass or vina and and and you know a lot of the places up by the trade winds are all on the same zone. Uh but it's that's about where you live. What we need still is a map that says where you can park once you do establish your permit. And it's it's hard to find, you know, when you have it. Oh, gee, maybe I can park over by the Leo playground or maybe I can park over by GG's or whatever. It it would be good to know that. Uh and then and then lastly, um and this is sort of about the beach, but it sort of it struck me because I I flagged this when when a fence got built around the sidewalk that people were using to get to the beach. And there's a a state law since 198 that says um we're such uh the public's right to laterally traverse the sandy beaches of the state where such access exists on or after July of 1987. So any access you had to the beach before July on July of 87 still needs to exist or where the public has established an access way through private lands. So this is something important for the beach but it's important for just people traversing our city. Thank you.

Thank you sir. I believe that's all I have on the parking. Thank you, city clerk. Any manager, what are you looking for from us at this time?

So, generally just um abstaining any any objections to the many ideas and outcomes in the report. Um staff will take the report and begin to bring back various items through the public process for implementation. And as you can see, they require code changes, fee changes, and those would all be subject to the public process. So, we just wanted just a general agreement. Unless there's some policy matter that is absolutely off the table, then we won't spend any time on that on that particular policy item.

So, a couple of items. Um, let's start with Corey Avenue and 8th Avenue. I think for those in particular, I think I would like to see more community input, especially from the business owners. Um, just going back to Commissioner Robinson, Commissioner Versniki's comments earlier and Miss Hourbach's comments as well. I think the study's purpose was to just give us the data and then make some recommendations. Now, those recommendations, some of them are not necessarily feasible, not because they're bad ideas, but for example, the parking lot Miss Hourbach spoke about that requires a conditional use application. So, it's not really subject to, let's just put a parking lot there. Um, just as an example. Um, so it's good [clears throat] to have data. The more data we have, the better decisions we can make. Um, but I think for those two particular ones, I don't know what the commissioners think. Um, but I think definitely we I would like to hear more from from the from the business owners since they're going to be the ones most directly impacted by any decisions in in those two streets. Um, like the idea about having dedicated golf cart and residently parking as one of the perks. Um, I know we have a down in Pastor Grill for golf carts, but it'd be nice, for example, to have something available at uh at Up Beach, especially where Mr. Kursman mentioned that we do have, you know, vacant, you know, space available that could be utilized that way. Uh that would give us the opportunity to give residents um dedicated prime parking without cannibalizing any of the revenue from the existing parking. Um,

[clears throat] I like the idea of of kind of a a percentage occupancy based or some kind of a you know, congestion based um parking fee structure so that as it gets higher um you know we do we do maximize that as well. And then on the on the parking enforcement [snorts]

I think two things are immediately and obviously glaring. One is that we are the lowest you pretty much in Penllis on on parking fines. Um and I can certainly see how somebody might make the decision to you know do I pay five bucks an hour and six bucks six hours that's 30 bucks I want to stay here for eight hours I might as well just take the fee. Um, so I think that warrants uh looking at. So just for information, we generate it almost it's like $398,000 last year in parking fines. Um, if we went from $30 to $60, that still puts us $20 cheaper than almost everybody else. So that would be an additional $400,000 potentially in revenue to the city. And that's we haven't done anything with this yet, right? So we we just changed the fine amount. We haven't hired staff. We haven't there's a zero additional cost added to that to the city. Um on the other hand, if we also looked at increasing the parking enforcement staff, how many staff do we have right now? We're we're we're advertising right now because we're not fully staffed, but three and one part-time. So, the part-time's the challenging one to fill right now

and roughly what is the annual compensation for it? This is all public records, right? We're not revealing anything that I don't I don't know off the top of my head. I can get that information for you. Okay. Is it is around 50,000 around 60,000? I I would say probably in the midpoint. Yes.

Okay. So, if it's $50,000 and we have three people, that's $150,000 of salary expense visa v$400,000 or potentially $800,000 of um I hate to use the word revenue. It's just that the way accounting works like it's just it's money that comes in. I think because of the geographic challenges that we have being spread out over five and a half miles north to south and and the sheriff encounters this as well is it's hard to monitor the entire island from one end to the to the next uh if you only have three people. And so, for example, one of the examples was a sign that's in passive grill for residents only parking with a $90 $90 per every two hours fine. I would be curious to find out how many times we've actually issued that in the last year and I would guess it's probably virtually zero because by if they start on first avenue and pass the parking enforcement by the time they finish their shift they're at their north side they don't even have time to go back to the south side and check and see if and so the reason I mention this again is one of the reasons that we asked for the study to be done it's really for quality of life issues that our residents are experiencing like 46th Avenue, like 59th Avenue where I live, you know, any given Saturday, Sunday, you'll see the streets just packed with non-residents parking on the streets because it's maybe a block or block and a half. It's not too far if you don't mind crossing, you know, a few hotel properties. You can be to the beach very quickly and very, you know, very cheaply. But at the same time, we see people's driveways blocked. We see people's mailboxes blocked. can't. So, the post office can't deliver on certain properties because of where the cars are parked. And these are non resident cars, right? And you know, that's one of the things that the

parking studies showed is that if there is no parking, they'll happily sit there for five or six hours versus if they have to park, there's a higher turnover rate. They stay, you know, three and a half hours on average. Um, and so I certainly would also be in favor of of reviewing where, you know, if there's some adjustments we can make in staffing with parking enforcement to have better coverage, greater coverage. So that if we there's no point if we have two-hour limits somewhere if we can never enforce them. Now, if we can use technology to some enforce that, I would like to see how that might work. And so maybe that's a different way to leverage technology rather than additional staff uh for that additional parking enforcement. But I think if we could do those things that would significantly improve the quality of life for some of the residents where if they're in passive girl, if they're on 46 or in other streets where it's just on the weekend, it's it's almost impossible to get out of the house.

Yeah. and and two points I'll make um as far as the uh the fines for for some of the you know illegal parking things like that. So we are looking at all those figures of historical data and that way we can bring back to you hey if we raise it this much this is this is what the revenue would look like. But again the goal is is to get compliance right and to make sure people are parking correctly and that these spots are turning over. Um to your point about enforcement, uh certainly I think we need to look at it holistically as far as do we need to add staff. Um do we need that option of potentially contracting out for some of these tough shifts to fill? So for example, we enforce till 8:00 at night, but we're having a challenge filling, you know, certain time uh scheduling uh periods because it's just hard to find uh people to work those shifts. So you know, that might be an option. And then further the technology that Julie mentioned, especially with the county park, we spent a lot of time and enforcement in that park. Really not overly productive, just trying to navigate the challenges of that of that county park. So, if we're able to leverage technology and put that LPR reader uh and keep our enforcement officers out of there, that means our enforcement officers are more in the neighborhoods and and enforcing some of the things that you brought up. So, kind of looking at this uh holistically. It's going to take a little time. every time we kind of peel a layer of the onion off, we find something else that we want to address. But certainly, we're working as a staff to bring those options to you and kind of show you what what that result would be.

Commissioner Robinson, what is the arrangement with the county park? Again, refresh my memory. So, the county park um so we have the basically they maintain the the the the facility, the parking facility. So, the pavement, things like that. So, the striping the things we talked about, the striping, the errors, all that would fall to them to to get done. So that's something we can immediately we can we can work with them on that. Um they split the cost of maybe signage if

so there's there's things we can do. So like we're actually reviewing the contract right now. We signed a we signed a contract. It renews every year. Um we don't have to bring it forth to an action. It just automatically does that. We have a revenue split with them right now. But there's a lot of different components of that. For example um we can do some technology increases and advancements in that facility and then build a county for them. it it appears. So, we're kind of working with our legal staff to see what we can leverage because obviously we have a lot of great ideas from Julie's study. Um, you know, we maintain the the bathroom facility, but when we do certain maintenance, we can build them up to a certain amount annually. So, we're kind of looking at all those ways that we can leverage improvements and not have it on the on the taxpayers's backs here in St. Pete Beach.

Yeah, I think that's a great option. I it's just I've been walked by that beach on on a weekend, not necessarily a holiday weekend, but I've seen that beach so packed with people that I'm wondering, you know, from a buy and and I know that the hotel uh the old dolphin um resort, they complained all the time about just the overflow and the spill. So my concern is too what we add to that area as well as you know for um increased day tripping over there and and what that's you know do we have buy in from the other um properties next door um to those and I'm not I'll be honest I'm not I I don't think the one property that was mentioned uh beach plaza is a good idea because then you got crosswalk you have to build in and the whole bit. I mean, if we're looking at doing something, I would think the better shared agreement would be with Bricksar or or the Publix that they're going to raise up. They're going to increase parking below. So, what are they going to do with the front space? Plus, it gives um you know, uh visibility to all the businesses that are there. There's a light already there. There's curb cuts already there. There's a crosswalk already there. So, just But again, it's what are we trying to do? Um, are we looking to increase capacity or are we looking to manage the capacity that we have? And I'd again be concerned with the buyin that we have with the adjacent properties. Uh, what they want as well.

Yeah. And and I agree and I and again that would be a commission decision if we want to increase capacity or and and I just want to bring a point for our residents. Staff didn't vet any of these specific areas. You know, we're we're kind of landlocked and there's only so much vacant lots. Um, so certainly in the community meetings when you know opportunities came up, Julie's team, you know, did show those as possibilities. Um, but it's certainly not something that was vetted by staff and that we're we're uh, you know, uh, moving forward with rapidly or anything like that.

I mean, there's a lot lot of possibilities if you look at it for we're looking at vacant land. Um, any of those. I mean, we have it up and down Corey right now as well or 75th with the um, laundry uh, dry cleaners. We've got other properties. So, um I think the shared parking agreements are awesome for to assist Corey um with its overflow. Um as Mr. Kursman mentioned, there's definitely room for added growth uh spots over at Uppam. You know, it's it's fairly significant um to help that out over there. So, um Pasakril has its own it's that's that's that's unique. Um and maybe maybe they do need the counter to to just say they're full.

Commissioner Marriott.

Um yeah, thanks Adam and thanks uh Julie for the for the presentation. I think that um you know what's clear to me after looking at all this is that you know we don't need more parking everywhere in the entire city. What we need is more parking in some places at some times. And so, you know, things like the area for the Sunday morning market, we need more parking in those places at those times. Um, and uh and I think I think we have some really good ideas for staff to pursue along those lines. And so, um, I don't want to, uh, I don't want to completely discount the idea of of the shared parking agreements just because there's one that we don't want in one specific spot because I think there are some others in the area around Corey that can be incredibly valuable um, for the Sunday morning market and that sort of thing. And I think we also need to um keep in mind that when we're doing some of these shared parking agreements that they aren't necessarily what or or don't necessarily all have to just be for beach parking, but there's a number of um of businesses that need customer and employee parking. Um you know, I know that, you know, GG's down at the entrance to Belle Vista, you know, really struggles with that. You know, where do their employees park? And if their employees park there, there's nowhere for their customers to park. and and so there are some places where maybe some sort of shared parking agreement that's just for employees of neighboring businesses could be very helpful as well. Um uh as we're talking about increasing our you know potent not necessarily increasing our parking rates but increasing our parking rates at surge times um and getting some additional revenue from that. Um I I would also like to see us consider maybe um maybe slightly lowering the rates at really low use times. um you know because I think that there are you know I know from um you know and it's it's small anecdotal information

right it's not this this hasn't been studied by me or anyone else but um you know on weekdays in the off season in bad weather when people who use the water not just the beach want to go to the beach that there's a disincentive for them to come to St. PE beach because it's, you know, four or five dollars an hour to park. And so, you know, and and I hear that frequently from from people in the surfing and the wind surfing and the kite surfing community that they're like, "Man, the place is empty. I'm the only one there. Nobody wants to go to the beach at, you know, 8:00 in the morning on a day when it's set, you know, 52 degrees and blowing 30." But I'm but but I'm going to have to, you know, like I can either pay for parking or I can go out to breakfast when I'm done. I'm not going to do both. And so, um, you know, I think there I think there may be some some opportunity. And I don't think it would take much, you know, but like if we're going to if we're going to bump the parking up a dollar an hour for for holiday weekends and potentially sunset and surge times, let's back it down a dollar an hour for, you know, weekdays before noon in November or something, you know? I [laughter] mean, I think there's and I think that there's some opportunity there to maybe get more people to come to the beach. You know, I don't I don't know that we would even be losing any revenue. I think we would we would perhaps be getting more people to come use that resource. Um, and so I think that's all I have in my notes, but again, thank you guys very much for putting this all together. I think I think we have some great things to start working on and to move move forward on and make progress with. Commissioner Nikki.

Um yeah, just to add on the on demand parking. Um it would be nice to have um maybe a map of our city of the areas that would need those on demand whether it's based on business like we're talking about or events um to kind of go in conjunction with the fees because because it's a twofold, right? if you charge too much, not only is for for the beachgoers, but also for businesses. Um, and I'll give you an example, a personal example, which is why I know Treasure Island charges more. Um, I went for I think it was last year for their Sand Castle Chauvation. Um, and and it was literally $30 an hour. So, I got there, finally found a parking, parked, and then I thought I had my family with me. So, I'm like, "Okay, we all chip in. Let's park this." But it was a distant We literally left at that hour. We didn't stay. So the businesses there inherently suffered because I didn't stay. We went to go eat somewhere else. You know, we went to downtown St. Petersburg, you know, just how far we went. Um because we could stay there longer and enjoy the day more. So increasing prices can also cause harm to businesses. Um so you got to kind of look at that. maybe maybe asking around like what's happening in so like it showed in the study that's the beaches that are charging a lot St. Petersburg is not. Um, so are the beaches successful in charging more money other than the revenue for the city, but is it successful for the businesses and everything else? Or are they being hurt because people just leave? They don't really spend money on anything else other than the parking. Um, so I'd be careful with that. And then and with that, what is our capacity? you know, we're always talking about, you know, up here on cups about traffic studies and density and too many people. Um, but if we're opening up thousands of more

parking spaces because we're going to have um shared parking or resident parking um do we just do it on specific times when needed versus saying that we have this year round because we're in essence increasing more people on our island. So, um, I would just caution with, you know, with that.

I I agree. I definitely think it's a balance. You know, like like Julie said, the the good thing is we have the data now. More importantly, we have the methodology that that Julie and her team utilize so we can start studying these things. And then to add on that, we have done good with technology, especially in the parking area, that we do have the technology in place that we can do some of these things that that have been discussed that that may not be possible in other communities, but we already have that in place. We just haven't really fully leveraged it in our community. So as we move forward, we'll be able to leverage uh a lot of these things that we learned from the study and that our technology is able to do. So I I think we can get there. Thank you, Commissioner Maldado.

Uh just two things uh briefly. The first is uh thank you for the study was uh very thorough. I believe I read in there somewhere about a max for holidays and I think that that's one of the areas that we can immediately turn up and you know uh increase the uh the revenue uh just by the flip of a switch. And then the other thing I just want to get ahead of is a phenomenon that's going on in uh Gulfport with the van life where folks are coming in uh to areas that don't have parking restrictions and basically camping out. So it's something that we're going to have to consider uh at a certain point uh just as a preemptive measure so that our residents aren't impacted, but we're also being fair about that. Thank you.

Thank you, city manager. enough enough to work enough to work with enough to work with. Yes. Thank you. We had about 47 items before this meeting, so we uh we'll be busy. We'll be busy. City clerk, are there any general audience comments? Bill Thompson. If you'll please state your name and address for the record.

Uh Bill Thompson, 664 76th Avenue. So, uh, we switch gears here from parking to zoning. How's that? Um, I have property on the south side of 76th Avenue. It's the northern district, northern edge of the the TC2 boundary. Um, I've talked with, um, first off, let me thank Brandon with us.

He hit it out of the park again, as he always does. So, did a good job. Um, I've talked with most of my neighbors and we're all in agreement that we'd like to see residential on both the north side and the south side of 76. It really I think it was a mistake back in the day to draw that boundary line down the middle of 76. So, you've got residential on the north and what's now zoned as commercial in the south. So, [clears throat] that ought to be pretty pretty straightforward. Um, and I think Commissioner Marriott nailed it when she said, you know, they'd like to just be able to put back what's on the ground now. So, you know, if you live on 76 on the south side, you know, you're a non-conformist. We're all nonconforming residential sitting on commercial land. So, um, and I when I when I met with Brandon several months ago with another neighbor, we said, Brandon, could we just add comma or a multif family residential to the existing zoning because that seems to me to just kind of solve the solve the problem. So, um, and on the assemblage, uh, acreage requirement, if you look at that northern block on the western TC2 zoning district and you you net out the six town houses that are on the waterfront of Blind Pass, you add it all up and you get to maybe like 1.6 something acres. And the magic number now for assemblage is 1.7. So, it makes sense to ratchet that down a little bit and continue to foster at least the opportunity for assemblage for a larger project, but at the same time, we don't want to preclude being able to rebuild what was there or what is there now for residential. That's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

John Kursman Kersman be away. I've got a couple topics. First is uh if you can zoom in on this here, hold I'll rep this is not my X-ray. This is from realtor.com and it's a sound map and it's showing you where the most noise is um in the area. And so down below is u you got Terraver and then you have you have uh us. Do you see that? It's not showing the top of my screen. I'm not seeing what you're anyway. Okay. So, this is a blowup. The hot spot is along Corey Avenue. And if you saw it in True Color, it goes all the way to Blind Pass. So, I I am very concerned that you're going to expand residential. I would recommend expanding commercial because if you could have businesses that are open during the day and aren't going to complain about noise, that could that could be beneficial. These businesses already exist. We have music venues. We have entertainment. So, the idea of putting more people there to then say, "Oh, I bought and now I'm going to complain about the the music." I I don't think we should set that stage. Another topic as I was on a conference call a few weeks ago with Penllis County. They did a seminar or a Zoom call about their reclaimed water. They want to raise the rates, but they also talked about meters and other things. I'd be happy to talk to someone about it later, but it was very odd what was going on. Next is, you know, we've always talked about ghost chairs, chairs that serve no people. I've been watching what's going on in Fort Walton Beach now that the new customary use ordinance has, you know, gotten straightened out. And in fact, it looks like things have gotten worse there in some regards. And I'd hate for that to happen here. So, you know, uh we've always had signs on properties like here at the trade winds

of Sarata or at the end of a of the zone, but the the the property the signs are usually as you're getting onto the beach, not in the beach. And I did some research. I spent a day in in a searchers vault, actually in a different state, but you know, they don't even have the surveys in a searchers vault. This is the official documents. The deeds are there. So when people say, I have a survey that says I own the beach. So great, anybody could pay someone to do a survey. What you need to look at as the deed and you need to look at the exceptions. So for instance, here's a deed and it says they have it's it's a warranty deed, one of the best kind. And it reserves it says, hey, the public has rights. Uh and then don't forget uh I did this a while back. This was uh looking at the at the tax assessor site and how nobody's paying for tax paying taxes on the sandy beach. They're only paying taxes on the marshland or the hard land. And so we've had talks recently about another business that's just come forward. And so if you look their their land is 125 by 290 on land and they only have 6,000 square feet afterwards on the marshlands which if it's 125 ft wide is only about 50 or so feet into the water towards the beach. So there's no there's no taxes being paid and and so you know people should I think be cognizant of that and the whole customer you story. Thank you very much.

Thank you sir. I have no more general comments. Thank you. Yours is on an item that will be heard. Okay, Bill Lowry.

Bill Larry 245 pass away. This is on the comment on on the uh board clubhouse and I just wanted to make a comment now because I and there I don't have any well uh I I see the city managers uh what they want to do and and demolish it. I understand that. I don't have any disagreement with any of that problem or any of that. But I would like to point out that you know the way this came about uh initially the historic board which I'm a member of we did approve the demolishing of the shovelboard club. Of course we have no authority to not do that but in any event and then it looked like we could save it and people came and talked about it and it looked like we could maybe repair it. Went out for bid and then the bid was pretty high. Now we're back to talking about demolishing it and I agree with all of that that I don't think there's an issue particularly with that and I like the path forward they've talked about. Um I would point out though that there is a possibility that you all should consider there's a home on 24th Avenue that is 100 years old. Um the mayor pastor girl used to live there. They have the people are going to demolish that house. were willing to give it away. Uh I brought it up with the city months ago, but then there was some citizens that thought they might want to do that and that didn't work out. So the timing is right if we can get it to happen. I do know that what it's going to cost to move that uh one of the persons got an estimate is similar to what we have to cover for it. And I really think we should look into that. Uh time is an issue. They they're house is going to be demolished, but it wasn't harmed in the storm. It'd be a shame to lose it. It's a win-win situation that we could have that historic house on a city-owned piece of property. Uh so we have some

control over it because as you know, we're losing lots of houses down there and uh if we could save one, it'd be a good thing to do. So I have a lot more information about that. I would just ask that if you can ask the staff to look into that. I've talked to them a little bit about it before, but now the timing is pretty good. May not be because they I don't want to disrupt these people from doing what they want to do and they've been very generous and nice, but uh it had does not have a demolition permit yet and it's going to take a while to do that. Um I have more information that could potentially help us do this and I just think that would be a good thing for the city to do to save a house. uh that has such provenence and it would replace the shuffleboard court clubhouse. It would be bigger but it would be nicer uh and you could put a plaque on that and it's you know it's nothing like the issues you've been talking about tonight with parking and zoning and stuff but it's one little thing we could save maybe. So that's my comment. Thank you.

Thank you sir. I have no further comments. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? I motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. City clerk, if you please roll. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. And Mayor Petilla, yes. The motion carries.

Next, we have action items. The first one is action item 5A to authorize collaboration with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. Good afternoon, Mayor, Commissioners Gil Martinez, Senior Planner, Community Development. Before you today is a request for authorization to for city staff to partner with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and the National Wildlife Federation in the development of the Tampa Bay Coastal Master Plan. This is a four-year grant-f funded regional resiliency initiative. We have representatives from the National Wildlife Federation, Mandy Moore and Katie Mastenbrook here tonight who will be providing a presentation on the details of this effort as well as projected outcomes. So, if there's any questions or comments after the presentation, I'll be glad to address them. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Good evening. Amanda Moore, National Wildlife Federation. Gil told me to keep it quick, so I'm gonna be quick. [laughter] Um, I am the senior director of National Wildlife Federation's golf program. I live in West St. Pete. Katie, uh, here with me is from St. Pete as well. Um, and we are, uh, working on the Tampa Bay Coastal Master Plan. I'll tell you a little bit about what that is tonight briefly. Any follow-up questions? because I'm going to zip through it. So, just let me know and I'm happy to answer. Um, but the master plan is a four-year project to develop a science-driven and community informed plan for flood risk reduction and habitat restoration and protection. And the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is the prime on this project. Um, as I'm sure you know, they're one of 10 planning councils across Florida. um six counties, 23 municipalities, and they really work uh to um foster collaboration across jurisdictions and in this case with resilience planning. National Wildlife Federation is a sub on this grant. Um our job is to do direct outreach to communities and then to folks, decision makers like you. Should I do the click or you click it?

We go. Um, so really briefly, why do we need a coastal master plan and what's going on here? We actually wrote this grant and applied for it well before the storms came. Um, but as we all know and we're talking about tonight, um, that there's been very heavy development patterns in the region. Um, we have uh developed over coastal land and previously agricultural land um and made our communities more vulnerable to things like rain for rainfall uh storms, sea level rise, high tides. And so we've really been developing to keep the water out um and dredged and paved over a lot of our natural flood defenses which are our wetlands and our forests. And Tampa Bay is um consequentially one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to co coastal flooding by economic damage vulnerability. Um very built out, very densely populated. Um and there's been some recent studies that are estimating the um uh property loss um projected property loss nearly $3 billion in property value by 2045 and close to 17 billion um by 2070 from title inundation. Um the very good news is that we we can um invest now to help um save on on adapt or invest in adaptation to help our region say um save money and impacts from disturbances. And so this plan is essentially a road map and it's it's modeled after plans that have come already and been in place and seen a lot of success. So, uh, Louisiana is a big, um, a big inspiration for the Tampa Bay Coastal Master Plan. Um, after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the, uh, Louis theo, the the entire state of Louisiana said, "Okay, we've got to do something very different. We're extremely vulnerable."

Um, and they have really walked the talk and invested heavily, um, in their coastal resilience and protection. very different coastline. So, it's not apples to apples, but there's a lot of things that we can learn from. Places like coastal Louisiana, other states have followed suit. Virginia has a coastal master plan. Uh Texas has a coastal master plan. Um and and there's other states as well that have stepped up. Um and this would be the first master plan in Florida, and we're just looking at a regional level. But as in comparison, coastal Louisiana has a little over a million people across the entire coast. They're investing about $2 billion a year um into coastal restoration and protection and just this region alone that we're talking about has over four uh million people. So, a lot a lot of risk here. Um and so this plan is really again it's a roadmap for flood risk um project implementation and prioritization and how to get funding. Um and this is the footprint at seven counties again four million people. It's not just um coastal, you know, we're calling it the coastal master plan and communities like St. Pete Beach are extremely important, but also looking at inland communities. There was so much riverine flooding um that we saw after Milton, for instance. Um and so they're definitely included um in this project. You know, technically the entire state of Florida is a coastal zone. Um we have two big goals for the plan. It's to reduce our current and future flood risk to communities and to protect our habitats and ensure natural systems are resilient in the face of a changing climate. There are four phases. They roughly go with the four years. Um the stakeholder engagements the first year we are in the first year of the project. Um it began early in 2025. Um and we are doing the stakeholder engagement work which is is partially what we're doing now. Um but we this work will continue throughout the entire project. We'll never stop um

engaging with communities and with key stakeholders. Um the plan is designed to be updated every five to six years and that's typical for all the different coastal master plans. Um and so this will be the first iteration against a living document. And I think it's really important to note that there has been so much work done on vulnerability assessments um and other flood chronic flooding work. And so we want to make sure that we're building on that. that we're being additive to that, that we're respecting the existing work. Um, and that's a big part of of what we're doing right now as well is making sure we're collecting all that data and building from that. Um, we are not trying to reinvent the be wheel or be inefficient. Um, and then the next phase is a risk assessment phase. This is when we're mapping and prioritizing areas for um, projects. And this, um, will include the technical flood data. is going to be compiled and reviewed with um local knowledge and um that's going to be gathered during public listening sessions that are starting that will be starting soon. Um so it's not just looking at data but it's kind of this balance between the community input and the technical data as well. Again a communitydriven and science-based plan. Um and I want to take a second just to talk about the types of floods that this uh plan will address. So chronic um uh sea level rise flooding, tidal flooding, rainfall flooding, and storm surge flooding. Um and there's going to be structural and non-structural solutions. And non-structural being a good example of that being home elevation. Um and that's one of the only solutions really that can address more major storm surge inundation. Um but um but also uh nature-based solutions. And so we'll talk a little bit um I'll talk about those now really quickly. So when we talk about nature-based solutions and hybrid solutions, we're talking about things like living shorelines, green infrastructure, urban wetlands, and

things that provide what we call co- benefits. So um reducing flood risk, but you're also gaining a healthier coastal habitat, improved water quality, improved fishery, stronger tourism, improved quality of life, and a more resilient, faster recovery from these flooding events. Um so and that also helps us achieve those two goals that we were talking about of not just flood risk reduction but also the habitat protection and restoration. Um so then we'll go into our project development phase um again working with both community and technical side in that um and gathering information and then going into our final plan um which will uh be unveiled in a symposium. It will summarize flood risk mapping and have prioritized project lists. It's going to include an interactive dashboard to help communicate the plan's findings to the public. And so this will be a nice tool for local governments um that has actionable project ideas and data and decision support tools to enhance your capacity to assess risk and implement adaptation solutions. So the funding for this um is uh primarily from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. We have a $2 million grant to do this work. Um, which is really a shoestring budget. Um, the Louisiana master plan, for instance, is about $12 million um, at this point for them to implement um, and and plan out over time. Um, so we are constantly looking for other grant um, supportive grant funding to go with this to help us do more outreach. Um, but that's that's where we're where we're funded from. This is a list of current partners and collaborators. I don't think it is. I think it's actually more have joined um to date, but just an important slide for you to have an idea of what who the partners are um out the gate on um on this plan. And then I wanted to really quickly talk, we have two different work groups. So there's a community work

group that really focuses on engaging communities and having transparency um making sure that we are building capacity with underserved communities to participate in this work. Um and it's really guiding how we do our outreach and where and how often. And then the technical work group is um gathering all the local data and completing flood mapping and uh risk assessments. And so um we work kind of side by side in parallel and then at key times come together to make sure that we're balancing that technical and community focus um input. And there we're doing workshops right now. University of Florida is leading some of the trainings on community workshops and a lot of them have just recently passed. but we have one coming up in Penllis Park on November 13th. So, that's one way um that folks can get involved is um attending that workshop, learning how to lead your own community listening sessions. We have back there um a QR code that leads you to a flood risk assessment where you can participate that way as well, like right now. Um and then tonight, as Gil was saying, we wanted to um invite uh St. Peach to join um as a former former formal partner collaborator um on the plan with all those other municipalities that that um were on the screen. And um I have a handout here that I can give to whoever about the details of what that distinction between partner versus collaborator. as a collaborator, you're participating in workg groupoup meetings um and helping with report dissemination, helping with the risk assessment, data collection, making sure we are um not being redundant and we're including all the good ideas that St. Pete Beach has in this already and building from those with the community. And that is all. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Should I give this to anybody? City clerk. Commissioners questions, comments.

Commissioner Baldo. Yep. Thank you. Little tech issue there. Yeah. No, I'm happy to see uh collaboration versus partnership. I think it not only elevates the uh status, but it really just underscore the importance of the co- benefits. So, I'm highly supportive of that uh regardless of partnering or collaboration. But I do uh favor that. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. The clerk, are there any audience comments? There are no audience comments.

Thank you. Commissioners, is there a motion? I'll make a motion to authorize collaboration with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council and National Wildlife Federation, Tampa Bay Coastal Master Plan, and to designate the city manager or designate as the liaison for participation and coordination activities. I second. City clerk, please do a roll call. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Mayor Petrilla, yes. The motion carries.

Thank you. Next, we have item 5B, resolution 2025-25, authorizing the demolition of the shuffle board building. A resolution of the city commission of the city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, authorizing the city manager to enter into an agreement with Paul Materials, Inc. Doing business as Paw Demolition to demolish a shuffleboard building at 101 9th Avenue. Good evening, uh, commissioners. Um, for the record, Kim Mills, public services director. Um, so this item we had previously presented back in April, and we received the direction to solicit competitive bids um to evaluate if a rebuild would be feasible uh for the shuffleboard building that's currently located on 9inth A. Um, this building is historically designated. Um, so this this building has been 100% um deemed 100% substantially damaged by by our building official um as well as FEMA. We had previously solicited quotes for the demolition and the low bid on that was just over $8,000. Um, a couple updates for you since our April discussion was we um have received an updated um insurance after cash value of just over $94,000. And then we did um solicit a competitive bid um to see if rebuild would be feasible and that value came back at just over $192,000. Um with that bid, I'll go back here. With that bid that we solicited, um we it was a a public request for for proposals to rebuild the structure. Um and and as I mentioned, the the 192,000 was the low bid that we received. In the scope of of that bid, um they did recommend um structural demolition of of several of the building items to be able to rebuild.

Um previously, our historic preservation board approved the demolition um back in January with a 50 vote. And um since our last discussion in April, uh FEMA's environmental and historic preservation review um also completed the review of the structure and and then they recommended uh demolition as well. Uh with the request for a proposal that we advertised, um we requested full rehabilitation of the clubhouse structure following the hurricane damage. um with work to be performed in accordance with all applicable local and and FEMA construction standards as well as historical uh preservation requirements. Um that that public bid um was closed and as I mentioned it came back at just over $192,000 and and demolition of damaged structural elements uh would be required as part of the scope uh with that rebuild. Um also listed here on this slide is is some of the other components of the scope of work that would be um required if we if we were to rebuild that structure. Um so tonight we want to seek your direction for for a path forward. Um we're presenting a resolution to authorize the demolition uh with the low bidder Paul um Paul demolition materials um and and moving forward we really want to evaluate facility options um for what could be at this location in the future. U we would be coordinating with the shuffleboard club to see what their facility needs are. We have began some preliminary discussions with them. Um, and it seems like their their main concern is being able to just um have somewhere where they can store equipment um for their shuffle board and then we'll also coordinate um with our planning and zoning and and our historical board for any site requirements um if we do um bring back a different facility for this area. Um so with with this we're asking for for the authorization for the demolition um in order to remove this um this public health and safety hazard of of the current structure that's out there. And then our moving forward um there'll be a community process to see uh what's the

best use for this site um and and what sort of modification of amenities that that would be desired by the community. Um and with that I'll I'll open it up to any questions. Thank you. Have you explored um board member Lowry's suggestion? Not in detail, but but Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Maldado.

Yeah. Uh thank you. So, no, I mean, obviously, this is something that's been, you know, going on for some time. We've certainly uh entertained many options, worked with um city staff, and just trying to come to a successful conclusion to save this. And it is what it is. I mean, we have to accept the the hard facts that it's just not salvageable and that it's just not cost uh effective uh for the city. I do, as uh Mr. Mayor pointed out, want to circle back to Bill Lowry's comments on a potential donor property. Uh work with the city on that if possible or even feasible. uh you know he he did mention the uh the high rate of demolitions that we're starting to see of historic homes and we have at least two that were not uh damaged by the storm that could be potential fills for this. So no, it's with a heavy heart that I see this that uh it's going to go and there certainly is a lot of district interest as well as community interest. I've heard from folks uh you know just expressing uh the sadness that we're going to lose another historic building, but it sounds like there may be you know uh a silver lining in this. So let's let's pursue that. So thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Robinson. Um I I feel the same as uh Commissioner Maldonado and um I would like to see I mean we obviously do have to uh do the demo on it. Um, but I would like to see if we can save another home um and and put it in that position, a historic home. That would be great and serve two purposes. I don't know if um if that's you know what the cost will be, but if you can get back with us on that, that would be great. Yes, we'll look into that. Commissioner Risniki.

Um I just I want to say I do agree with both um commissioners um about the potential of bringing something there. You know there the loss of a lot of historic homes. I mean it's happening in many other areas as well in other districts. Um I hadn't know I didn't know about that home that um Mr. Lowry brought to us or to our attention. But um we got to move fast is is my problem. Right. or I think it's the community problem a involving the community and and I hate to put a task to Commissioner Maldonado but you know your community the most is is to really know is that something that the community would want I mean I know the community is strong historical would they want to save this home and if that's the case how how fast can we go legally can we bring this home and place it on a park um you know um I I don't know uh connectivity or can that home be moved temporarily to the area as a like a placeholder without connecting it. Um because of time you have a private homeowner who wants to move with their project and to ask that owner I think would be a lot to say to wait for the very lengthy process of coming to commission and and so forth. So, is there a a quicker way to, you know, bring us more of what happened versus um come multiple times to commission to get something approved. Um, you know, because I I would without speaking on behalf of the the last two haven't spoken on it, but I think the mayor had already mentioned, you know, what Mr. Larry have brought that we would all think that that would be the best thing to do for the community, but again want to make sure that that is what the community wants and how fast we can do it. Um and again maybe just a placeholder because how why not I mean you' be moving a house and putting it in

a place can we do it? It's like storing it, you know, um because of time frame. I don't know the legal list of it, but I'm just throwing out an idea. Um, I think we should explore with the owner what their timeline is and what their contribution is. The public services is going to have to look at site plan prep

and I would estimate the price tag is going to be pretty large. So, we'll try to do some estimates and see if that's what you want to invest in. Yeah, I I would say that we've at least socialized it informally with uh vacant lots. There are folks that are willing to temporarily store this there. Uh even if it's not to keep it within the city. Um we're meeting with some folks from various organizations that would also be interested in salvaging this 100-year-old home. That uh that would be a shame to see. But as the city manager said, what we don't want to do is penalize the folks that are donating this and slow down the process. I think first and foremost, we would do a disservice to them. Uh but we have to look at the greater picture within reason. You know, obviously if it's at the same cost of restoring this, which I doubt and it may not even be a conversation starter, but there have been different things socialized a lot of uh synergy within the community. So, thank you. City clerk, are there any audience comments?

There are no audience comments. Thank you. Commissioners, is there a motion? I motion to approve resolution 2025-25. Second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. And Mayor Petrilla, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next, we have item 5C, resolution 2025-26.

A resolution of the city of St. Pete Beach designating the city manager or designate is the administrative authority responsible for receiving, reviewing, and processing plat or replat submitts as well as approving, approving with conditions or denying plat or replat submitts as required by laws of Florida 2025-164. providing for severability, scriveners, errors, construction, and an effective date and expiration date. Thank you,

commission. This is a resolution that's required by state statute that became effective on July 1st of 2025 and requires us to appoint someone to administratively, review, approve, or deny plat and replat applications. Um the House bill or Senate Bill 784 which became this laws of Florida 2025 164 also states that there shall be no public hearings involved by the city commission. Um we have um to review them and either approve, deny or request changes within 7 days of receipt of a plat application. Uh you may remember there was a Sarata Plat application that came before the city commission. We asked for some changes, some lines to be straightened and moved. Um those were all changed and moved and that um plat has been submitted now. So we're within the 7-day time frame that the state statute requires us uh to appoint someone and to make a decision. So this resolution would do that and would appoint the city manager who would work with city staff to make sure that the plat applications are reviewed for compliance with the city code as well as the state statutes. So, we really don't have a choice in this one, unfortunately. We certainly want to thank the state of Florida for once again infringing on home rule and particularly I like the not even allowing public discourse. That is my absolute favorite because we certainly don't need to hear from the public ever.

Anything that that affects the I have copies of the U bill too so you can keep them in your files on home rule intrusions. There you go. I have a list that I keep. Commissioner Resniki, did you have a comment?

Um, yes. This is very concerning for me and I just want to know legally what can a city do somehow? I'm I I'm understanding we can't have public comment, right? But um we have zonings in in our city, right? And I can give you count. You brought up Sarata, but there's other ones that through conditional use applications become a a replat or a plat, right? Um, we had one winward was a a recent one too that you know was denied which was odd for me because it came as a cup to the commission but they were all five separate lots and it wasn't replatted, you know. So, it's almost like who's leading who? Is it the horse, the cart, you know, like how does that happen? Um, and how does uh what can we put in place to asssure that we're not converting um areas that weren't intended to be let's say larger if you're consolidating like let's say those five lots um that was uh you know boutique hotel that could then look like it's not um or or in any other area um whether it's residential homes um I've seen this happen already a couple of times in in my neighborhood where uh homes consolidate property and now we have a bigger lot never came to commission. So forget about com public comment, it didn't even happen. It happened through property appraiser sites. Okay. And and so that was very concerning to me. Um, so even though this is big, we've had issues already in the city on plats and replplats and and I don't I don't still quite understand how we can get a better hold of it. Um, because the the people

who are putting or consolidating these lots together are are are making the decision. You know, [clears throat] even though we might have a a vision or look of our city, we we don't seem to have a control. So, I I'm just very concerned that, you know, we're not going to be able to not the commission, not the public, no one's going to be able to say anything, you know. So, there has to be something that we can put in place as a city to be able to manage that. Um, not that I don't think the city manager wouldn't be listening, but you know, I hate to say city managers come and go, right? But you're not going anywhere, Francis, but but you know, if you go, we don't know the next person. We're not all going to be here. So, how do we manage that, you know? So, a couple questions for the city attorney. Um, is there anything preventing the commission from asking the city manager to notify us whenever such a request is received?

No, that's permissible. As long as we're doing the notice ourselves and not requiring the applicant to do notice, that's permissible. No, just an email. Um, second, is there anything preventing the city commission asking the city manager or staff to maintain a list on our city website of any such notices and requests? No, that would be permissible as well. Okay. Is there anything preventing the public from communicating with their commissioner or mayors about their feelings, thoughts on these? No, that's that's permissible as well. And is there any are there any issues with the commissioners having a conversation with the city staff and the city manager in particular about such requests?

Yep. I think you're supposed to go to the city manager um under the charter. So you would question the city manager and she would bring in her design to help answer any questions.

Okay. We do have some provisions in the code in the land development code 24.2 and 24.4 for or even if they go to the property appraiser to combine a lot or split a lot, they still have to come to the city to make sure that they get zoning review that they haven't that they've haven't interfered with the minimum lot sizes or created any non-conforming structures or non-conforming uses. Um, so they were supposed to come here in the past, sometimes they do, sometimes maybe they don't, but that wouldn't change. and the city manager and the designate would still review to make sure that any lot combinations or splits don't result in non-conforming lots. So with that in mind, I would ask for those two things that when such applications come before the city manager's office that we just the city commissioner would be notified and then if we could have you know a section whether it's on the permitting somewhere in the website that says here's an ongoing list of just a notifications page. Okay.

Will there be any objections to that? No, I think it's a good idea. Should we put a in advance? We want notification. Well, they have to respond within 7 days. So, be just saying if we post it within, you know, 24 to 48 hours, then that there's, you know, so that's you have to make a decision within 7 days whether to to say yes or no. You could ask for additional information. Okay. within they could resubmit an application too like they could submit the requested information they could submit on day nine and then we have seven days to keep reviewing. So the clerk are there any audience comments? There are no audience comments.

Thank you commissioners. Is there a motion? Yeah. I uh make the motion to approve resolution 2025 26 designation and administrative authority to oversee plat and replat applications with amendments. Is that correct? We're doing with amendments. Well, there's no real amendments. They're just instruction to the Okay. With with instructions to the staff. Okay. Second. City clerk, if you're pleas. Vice Mayor Marriott? Yes. Commissioner Robinson? Yes. Commissioner Rzniki, yes. Commissioner Maldonado, yes. Mayor Patula, yes. The motion carries. Thank you.

Next, we have item 5D, acceptance of the substantial damage administration procedures plan.

Good evening. Luke Curtis, building official for the city. So, tonight we're gonna just do a brief overview of our substantial damage administrative procedures plan. And this is just a 30,000 foot view, if you will, of the uh processes that will be in place. Um, we'll go over uh an overview, the community meeting that was uh performed, implementation, then we have some time for questions if uh there are any. So, initially the the first part of this is uh pre- disaster planning. So this will be in this phase we're ensuring that all staff members are informed and equipped to understand the applicable regulations and the required actions in the event of a disaster including communication establishing standard operating procedures, methodologies and identifying staffing needs. And then there's the immediate coordination post disaster. So in the aftermath of a disaster, focus is going to be on identifying substantial damage hotspots, vulnerable areas or low-lying or at risk buildings and then assessing specific staffing requirements and assigning personnel along with necessary resources for these and then gathering required materials and providing clear direction to staff for efficient responses. And then the damage assessments and determinations. So conducting the initial damage assessment, this is a critical phase where uh the it's the initial damage assessment to basically do a what's called a windshield evaluation. And then this is just an overall very rough idea of the extent of the damages. This gets reported to Penelis County, Florida Department of Emergency Management and to FEMA. And

then once that's completed, then we'll roll right into the substantial damage assessment. Uh and this will be done utilizing our our new software 4ERunner. And uh this is a much more streamlined and efficient process uh from the previous event and it'll help us to get through that stage very quickly. Uh it also helps us to notify the property owners in regarding the damage assessments and uh providing some guidance there. reintegration and recovery. So this is uh at this stage we'll be man managing appeals to the substantial damage assessments uh accepting and processing permits, applications for repairs, reviews and issuance and then assisting property owners in the accessing of recovery sources and uh including funding opportunities. and then documenting the processes and procedures for evaluating and identifying opportunities for improvements. So if we're not learning from our our events, we need to or we need to make sure that we're learning from these events and uh our experiences so that we can make improvements there. So on September 24th, we had a community meeting and this was just uh we had an overview of the um SDAP plan and got some feedback from uh the participants and we're taking those recommendations into consideration to see how we can apply those to the community to help better uh get through these uh unfortunate events that may occur. So the the idea of this plan is is not to adopt a specific plan but to uh present this to commission for acceptance. So this is uh for lack of a

better term a living breathing uh evolution that will constantly change. So we have this overview of the process and uh we have identified our plan here. We also have the ability and opportunity to look at a template that uh Florida Department of Emergency Management is coming out with so that they're going to have a template. It hasn't been released yet. Once they release that, we can compare that with what we have established and make some adjustments where we need to make additions, subtractions, whatever is required there. Um, and then we can modify our plan continuously to better serve the community. And then after that, uh, once a year we can bring it before commission to, uh, show what those proposed changes will be and, uh, we can adjust accordingly. And with that, that's the overview. I can uh field any questions if anyone has any. Thank you, Luke. Commissioners, questions, comments, thank you very much for putting this together. We I know the community appreciates the input that they've been able to contribute to this um to make sure that in the event um that we do have another situation that arises that we are even better prepared going forward. So, thank you very much. Um city clerk, any audience comments?

There there's no audience out there. Well, John's not here. 's an honorary member. [laughter] City commissioners, is there a motion? Uh, I'll make a motion to accept the substantial damage administrative procedures plan pursuant to chapter 98, building and building regulations, article five, flood hazard mitigation regulations, section 98-122.4, substantial improvement and substantial damage determinations. I second. City clerk, if you please do a roll call. Commissioner Robinson, yes. Commissioner Rizniki, yes.

Commissioner Maldonadoano, yes. Vice Mayor Marriott, yes. Mayor Petrilla, yes. The motion carries. Thank you.

Next, we have items for discussion. Commissioner Maldonado, you're up first, please.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, yeah, I handed out a uh standards of conduct and civility for St. Pete Beach. This is something that uh I've been [snorts] discussing with my community members and uh really just something that I wanted to discuss openly with you all to see if there's even any support. Uh what I'm trying to do is build a framework for fostering an environment of mutual respect and trust. And uh for context and background for folks that [snorts] are looking at this is that recently a neighboring city has had an uproar as a result of conduct by one of its commissioners uh towards one of its residents and they uh created uh something similar to this and what I'm not talking about is things that are illegal or unethical because we have statutes and laws that cover those. I'm talking about things that are immoral and as they pertain to conduct of uh commissioners uh board members and committee members as they're sitting here on the deis you know just my expectation is that we would treat each other with respect that we would uh try to uphold and to exhibit behaviors that we hope that our citizens and our residents would model and just to kind of stir really just a positive environment so that it does encourage discourse and discussions without lacking respect for one another. So, I'd like to see how folks feel about that. And and if you'll notice on the bottom of this, there's two ordinances that I've cited where similar things have uh have been [snorts] adopted, you know, both in resolutions and ordinances uh not only Treasure Islands, which has some great ideas, you know, in terms of accountability, um but

then also the town of TNF city, which in celebration of adopting civility went ahead and adopted this. So, just how do you how do you all feel about this? Is this something that maybe we would want to have a more thorough discussion? I mean, I I don't intend to have this now, [snorts] but I just want to see if there's any support uh moving forward. and maybe even get some comments from our city attorney who uh coincidentally [snorts] has written several of these for other counties. So just a little bit of expansion of the pledge of civility um can be adopted as you like commission. Um, so I I think this is worth I think it is worth a discussion and I appreciate you going to the trouble to assemble this all for us. Um, I think that uh we we can always do better and you know even even though we're in a in a small town and you know there's not a big audience here tonight, [laughter] we are still uh we are still in the public view and and I think that our behavior does matter and I think it's always worth being reminded that we can hold ourselves to a higher standard and do better. So, I appreciate this and I think it's um uh worth all of us looking over and and I would appreciate a further discussion about it.

Commissioner Resniki. No, I would agree. You know, I know you just put nicely put this together, but I like to read stuff. So, I like to, you know, look at what Kenneth City is doing and and I do know what happened over in Treasure Island. Um maybe that's why they're enforcing it per se or codifying it somehow which I don't think should be necessary to to go to that extent but would like to read on it and maybe um you know if the city attorney could get you mentioned you might have written for other cities but other examples of what's out there um you know it's worth looking into.

Thank you. show an opportunity to read the 12 14 pages that we have here. Yeah, it's it's a brief uh summary, but uh I just wanted to put it out there for discussion, let you all do a little bit more [snorts] independent research and then obviously, you know, just try again to uh to just spur mutual trust and respect uh not only with this commission but even moving forward. So, thank you. Thank you, sir. I think it's a good idea as well. Um, I think we talked a ways back about ethics as well doing something. So maybe that can get included in here too. The Treasure Island has a section in there on ethics you could take a look at.

Yes, I saw that briefly. So thank you, Commissioner. Before we move on, just could I get a sense of urgency from the commission? I I don't know how long it would take, but I mean I know everything's a hallmark, but um I don't I I don't know. Early next year, [laughter] we only have We have two meetings. I know. So, January. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Marriott, you had one item.

Yes. Um, so I wanted to uh to see how everyone else felt about um contemplating the idea of having the city staff or the community development department have some sort of more formal economic development arm. Um, and uh uh this is this has come to mind. I I think the the the thing that got me started thinking about it is some folks in my neighborhood who, you know, o over over the year following the hurricane, you know, it took forever to get building permits and they finally got permits and they finally got their house fixed and they moved back in. and they commented to me um and this was a few months ago before the post office opened so this isn't up completely up- to-date information but they commented to me that gosh you know like we were so excited to come back and move back into our house but now it doesn't feel like the same place that it was you know and particularly in my neighborhood you know Veto and Veto and Michaels is closed the St. John's didn't open up the school. The post office isn't open. You know, Willies isn't open. Woody's isn't open. And uh um you know, and saying, you know, it it doesn't even feel like the same place. You know what? You know, what's going to happen? What's the city do? Is the city going to do anything about it? And I said, well, I don't you know, city can't compel people to come back and open businesses or, you know, compel landlords to fix buildings. But I did start thinking about the fact that you know the I think there is some room for the city to be a bit more proactive in um in being available to give better information when people come into the city looking to start a business. And certainly the Chamber of Commerce fills some of that that need um but not all of it. And you know the the Tampa Bay Beaches Chamber of Commerce goes all the way to Clearwater. They're not really St. Pete Beach, you know, solely St. Pete Beach focused. Um, and you know, I think that the the general consensus of the residents is that one of the things that they love about St. Pete Beach is that we have a

lot of independent, you know, unique independent businesses and mom and pop and family businesses. And and I think that we keep those by by having really good information for those small business owners when they want to try to start a business or get a business back open or they have some concept or you you know and so I think that having having the ability to have the city be a bit more proactive in filling the role of knowing you know what parcels of land are available for sale, what what land owners are would you know have come to the city and said you know what what what should I do with this parcel of land which has started happening since the hurricane. Um and and being a bit more proactive and in a conduit to try to you know link those things together so that we can encourage more of the kind of businesses that that the people in St. Pete Beach want. And um so uh you know I brought this up just as a just to kind of get a feeling for how the rest of you feel about that about if that's something that in the future maybe by the time we get to next year's budget cycle that we want to be contemplating having there be a staff member or or some more formal way to have the city have a little bit more of an economic development one. Do you remember one time? Didn't we and maybe you remember because I I think I could have sworn I remember talk about it prior um we didn't have I don't have businesses in in the in my neighborhood. I think this is when I was not even president at at the Donsesar, but I I remember hearing a a prior city manager um talking about how to bring or draw businesses to empty lots and because I remember, you know, now when the conversation came about the using the the lots um where the Christmas store used to be, you know, and how we can

draw business when Dixie and all that. Did we have a group before doing something I don't know if anybody here remembers and I know you guys weren't here but I remember something of that. I don't recall there ever being any I mean nothing official. Maybe someone and I know our community development director might not but someone might remember because I do remember um Michelle Gonzalez. I mean, I'm just throwing out names, but that they they actively doing something to try to draw um I think there was some talk about there might be things that could be done, but I don't think there was ever a

So, I don't know what we need like I don't know staffing. Do you need additionals? Because I know they were using within the same staff. Yeah, I know something was going on, but I don't know if it was I think I mean I think that you know Laura the city manager would probably have a better idea of exactly what's required in the way of staffing. I mean, I I think from my mind it would just be somebody who can be a little bit more proactive about, you know, people reaching out to the city and and looking for information and then maybe maybe having somebody from the city able able to follow up and be like, "Hey, what do you you know what what are you really trying to do here? What how how can we try to make this work or or be upfront that it's not going to work?" You know, [laughter] one or the other. Yeah.

Well, part of that might be grants, maybe seeking opportunities through grants. uh you know working with the chambers just put the weight of effort across the bow not just on uh the city staff. I don't know how much bandwidth we have to absorb any more of these new incentives but uh there may be resources already out there that we're just not tapping into. May be a great thing to bring up tomorrow during the chamber meeting.

So I haven't in reviewing the documents of the city in the last several years I haven't seen any remnants of a sophisticated economic development strategic plan. Those do exist especially in larger cities and you're seeing probably some activities that fall in the economic development category. For example, Laura is carrying the CRA concept. That is something typically your economic development manager would be working on. You're mentioning things like buzzwords or opportunity sites. the city literally maps on a GPS sites that we want to um that fit into our long-term planning or possibly city purchasing for park development. Um they take the uh oversight especially on small business development which they typically need more help. Um, some cities that have funding, you start to get creative. Like if parking starts to generate funding and you want that win-win for business and parking, you create small business grants. I mean, there's all sorts of creative ideas. Um, but we have been I've been seeing some piece kneeling together of these ideas and Laura is carrying the CRA concept right now. So I could definitely in the context of the annual budget look at revenue, what what what we have, what we think we could gain and bring that back in that presentation if that's you're interested in that. I Laura and I have already been talking about how do we because economic development builds your economy. I mean, at the end of the day, it it looks fluffy, but it definitely is the engine behind making sure that you have a really strong, balanced local economy. So, and Laura probably wants to say something, too, because we get excited about this stuff.

Sorry, I was so tired and I just got excited again. [laughter] Um, I just wanted to say thank you, uh, Laura Canary, community development director. um in the interim because kind of a lot of the things that we've just been talking about as part of the rebuilding just fit its economic development and chamber is fantastic but rule of thumb the chamber isn't our economic development arm. can't expect that I don't think but um in the interim I've reached out to Susan Chrisman over at Panelis County Economic Development just as a resource and basically said you know we don't have that arm yet but I really need some kind of benchmarking right now to even because there's a lot that I don't know um for example we've heard about or get questions about well how many businesses have reopened or how many haven't well how does that translate to employment so when you don't have the numbers to start with it's kind of start hard to start to identify how you're going going to address it. So, um those conversations has have just started in the last couple weeks and they have I've kind of reinserted St. Pete Beach into that group. They have a quarterly economic development practitioners group meeting which is all of the economic development arms of the municipalities. So, we'll be attending that in December. And then again, she gave me the right point of contact because they have a great kind of um data arm of the PCED where these numbers that I'm looking to get to kind of just give us that starting point. Um we're we're starting to do that because I think that um that'll also kind of help us determine what direction we want to go in and how robust. But I think we start small baby steps and then to your um point, Commissioner Maldonado, um any grant opportunities or any funding opportunities that we can kind of maybe tap into until we have a dedicated team seeking those out. Um our eyes are wide open right now.

Thank you, Laura.

All right. So I have one more item for discussion for this evening and I would ask the commissioners to indulge me with a few minutes since we really do not have an opportunity to talk about many subjects outside of this public forum and so I wanted to well let me start this way. So, it was it was almost a year ago uh right here in this commission chamber in the aftermath of two hurricanes that we had on December 10th. um were the commission and the community was made aware of the full extent of the condition of our infrastructure, the systems that keep everything running from storm water to tide check valves to the sewer system to the streets, utilities. And what became evident in that time was that the city needs roughly $200 million to bring our infrastructure up to good functioning condition. Not to really do the above and beyond stuff that we would like to do, but just to bring it to the point where it's functioning as it should be. And for many of these things, the needs are immediate. I mean, we were told that the pump to Treasure Island, the the pipe to Treasure Island would be good for 8 to 10 years. Then we find out it's really going to be two to three years and then we need 25 to $30 million for that project alone. Now, there's a lot that could be said about how we got here. Um we talk about failures of a neglect of the past and those might all be valid points but I think it is better for us not to fixate on the past but rather to look at how can how we can address those problems today. And so because of that I wanted to focus on the future and the f and the

challenges ahead because $200 million that is that is a substantial challenge. It is not small. Now, one might look at it and say, " $200 million, that is that is a lot." And it is. And it might sound impossible for a city of our size. I don't think it's impossible. I think it's just it's going to require some extremely innovative, out of the box thinking. Um, big problems are going to require big ideas and especially if we're going to find solutions that do not increase the tax burden on our residents because it'd be easy just to say let's raise let's raise taxes we can fix that. No, that's not what we want to do. It's not what I want to do. And so what I've been working on for the last year is a $200 million infrastructure plan. This plan will allow us to start raising revenue that we need immediately or in a very short amount of time. It will fund the entire $200 million infrastructure need. And keep in mind that this is $200 million at today's cost. What is it going to be with inflation and rising construction cost in five years and 10 years? And it will also set us up for the future. This will this will position St. P beach to have a self- sustaining diversified revenue model that will set up set set us up for resiliency because the last thing that we want is to fix the problem, pay for it, and then find ourselves exactly in the same spot in 10 or 20 years from now. And so the plan I want to propose to the commission and to our residents tonight has seven components to it. And there's some big items in here. So the first plan, the first piece of the plan

is to look at what other cities in similar situations across Florida have done, especially in the wake of massive storms and hurricanes, but what they have done um to fund some of the infrastructure items that we need. So for example, you could look at what Santael Island does, what Bokeh Grand does as well. So with those two communities, those two island communities that are very similar to our communities have in common, for example, is there's a toll road to get onto the island. So when you look at the access to St. Pete Beach, FDA will tell you that there are roughly 60,000 daily trips across our three access points in the south, in the middle, and in the north. Now, we have less than 9,000 residents. I don't think it's our residents driving back and forth seven, eight times each. I mean, I [clears throat] know in a given week I might not leave the island more than once, maybe sometimes twice. And so that means that most of the wear and tear of roads, most of the congestion is not caused by the people that live here, our residents. So in my proposal, residents, business owners and employees would have priority access while visitors will pay a small fee. So, for example, just based on the FOD numbers, if we had a $1 per car access fee, that's $11 million a year in additional revenue to the city. Over the course of 10 years, that's $110 million. So, this idea alone would fund more than half of the $200 million infrastructure needs that we have. question is can we do this? I began conversation with FDOT to see if

this can be done and I've also spoken with PSTA because one of the things that we would like to accomplish what I'd like to see accomplished is to improve the quality of life for our residents. And one of the ways that we can do that is to reduce congestion, reduce traffic, and then reduce the pollution that comes with that. And so there should be an opportunity for us to partner with PSTA to provide access to the island and then remove as many cars off the road as possible. And at the same time, we would be funding the infrastructure and the needs that we desperately have in our community without adding a greater burden to the residents. We would not be adding more cars. We wouldn't be adding any additional cost to the residents. So that's the first part. Second part and as we've heard in today's presentation which was done at the request um that we look at our parking situation in the city I believe that we have an opportunity to leverage this parking resource that we have for additional revenue. As we saw we charge 450 weekend weekdays 550 on the weekends. Um and that generates roughly $5.6 6 million annually. So if we combine that with parking enforcement, raising the cost of parking tickets, looking at additional enhanced enforced measures, just these two items alone could easily add somewhere between$1.1 to $1.6 million per year to the city's revenue income. and again without any additional cost to the residents. Beyond that, as I've mentioned in several commission

meetings already, been working on a strategic partnership with the University of Florida. This is a long-term partnership to help us plan smarter and in particular working with the University of Florida fiber program, the Florida Institute for Build Environment Resilience. Their team has been helping us come up with these additional funding streams, improve infrastructure planning, and design a roadmap for resiliency, innovation, and sustainability. Part of that CRA project that we're working on is part of this relationship. What the CRA will allow us to do is to reinvest a portion of the property tax revenue that would have normally gone to the county, but now it actually would come to the city. will help us pay for infrastructure, beautifification, parking, parking, public spaces, and even a modest CRA will allow us to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in additional revenue to the city, again, without raising the tax rate. This is another powerful tool that we can use to fund improvements and strengthen our economic base. also in the partnership with the University of Florida been working with their school of law to assess some model ordinances some some very unique ideas on how we can for example one of the ideas is to explore a parking assessment for commercial properties as we looked it's 60,000 cars a day it's less than 9,000 residents right when you look that where the impact on the roads and the infrastructure comes, it's generally now from our residents. We have 7,300 commercial parking spaces citywide and even a modest amount would raise significant revenue and that could be entirely dedicated to roads and infrastructure. Fifth item.

So, we've been working on and I think we need to do more work on this and I'm I'm I'm happy to see the progress just like with the resolution that we had earlier today is to to pursue additional state and federal grant funding. So, we brought in a federal lobbyist, we have our state lobbyist, and we have the partnerships with our state representative. For example, Linda Cheney was just here last week to present us with a $3 million check. This was the second check. The first one was for $2 million. So in that partnership, we've been able to offset nearly 50% of the cost of the new Passer Grove fire station. And so another area that we can increase revenue or increase the bottom line that the city has to work with our infrastructure needs is to pursue additional grant funding opportunities at both the state uh and the federal level as well as private grants that are available. Um so for example, there are private grants that could be used to acquire land for city parks. The point of all of these is that it frees up money that could then be spent on infrastructure. The next item, sixth one, is the tourist development tax uh that Penllis County collects. And we have seen for years how St. Pete Beach contributes every year tens of thousands of dollars in in tourist development tax with the second largest contributor in the county. And even though the number one city has 35 times more population than we do and we're just a couple million dollars behind them. And so I've been working for the last two years to get some of that TRD money back. We've already had some success with the beach reourishment that the county is now paying for from the TRT dollars that we're taking from St. Pete Beach. And now we're working on

a plan to recapture more of that TRD money for capital projects right here in St. Pete Beach where they belong. And then lastly, and this should be coming back at one of the future commission meetings here very shortly, as we're working on the parking study, we're also working on a fee study to make sure that we update our outdated fees like the impact fees, which haven't been adjusted in years. This is something I've asked the previous city manager for and the previous city manager before that. Uh, and so I'm happy to say that we finally have staff uh, who's willing to take a look at it and take a look at our fees and make sure they reflect the real cost and that they are aligned with our city's long-term needs. So my goal with this plan is not just to fix the financial challenges that we have today, but to position ourselves for the future. It is important our city has a self- sustaining diversified revenue model that does not rely on raising taxes on homeowners to stay afloat. I think with this St. Pete Beach could be a model of innovation that other cities look at and say, "Okay, what are they doing? How are they managing to do this?" Maybe we could look at it because I don't want to just patch holes. What I want to do is I want to build a foundation that we can have that gives us a a just a more resilient future. So I think there's a way that we can meet our $200 million challenge. We can fix the sewers, modernize the storm water system, improve our roads, improve the reclaimed water system. And I think there's a there's a way to do it without raising taxes on our residents. And so this is the plan that I would like to bring to before the commission for discussion

and hope that we can move this forward. Thank you,

Commissioner. Nikki. Yeah. Um, mayor, I just want to I mean, I want to thank you for summarizing all this, but I mean, I'm only hearing one thing that is that we haven't tapped into because we are currently doing a parking fee study. Um, the CRA I know we've been presented on um that uh Laura has presented with us and I know you I think I know you've been going to UF I believe to do that fiber program. I I've been seeing those updates. Um the parking assessment for community prop I mean I think that's something kind of like we're talking about today. You know from the parking it's a little bit different. It's it's actually

like just commercial properties is what you're saying. So what what the idea is and again this is going to require a little bit more additional flushing out where they've they've done. So again, the reason that I'm bringing this to you now is I wanted to bring you I wanted to do the initial leg work on most of these items to see if they're viable. The leg work on some of these as you mentioned with the parking study, the fee study was started a few months ago.

Some of them even before the hurricanes were just put on hold for a while. Um, but I want to make sure that we had at least a viable idea before we invested time and staff resources and city attorney resources, you know, because there's no point. I mean, I've done all the leg work that I can do to bring it before you and then from this point on, if there's consensus, we can then give it back to the city attorney and to the city staff uh to work on some of these items. So the idea of the parking um assessment is um and this is again directly tied to impact of uh the impact on the street and infrastructure. And so this would be a a nominal assessment. Um it could be could be $10, it could be $100. I mean again that would require that we do the studies, right? We're going to have to do an economic impact study. We're going to have to look and see what what are the needs, what are the requirements, and then based on that we come up with a number. Um, but the idea would be to have a assessment on commercial parking spots.

Okay. A one time or yearly or it would be an annual because it is tied to road maintenance, right? Road maintenance isn't something that we do one time and then we never do it again. But rather, you know, for most of our city streets, we're working on a, you know, 10, 15 or 20 year cycle. So as we're, you know, look at the condition of the roads, you know, we improve them, we fix them, we scrape them, we resurface them. Uh, and so this would be again a, uh, a impact an impact fee on the section that creates the vast majority of traffic and usage of the roads.

So a tax on businesses basically instead of a tax on residents, which you've said you don't want to do. So that's that's the other option, right? You just tax the businesses, which is what that would be. This is an idea that I'm proposing. Yep. No, I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. So again, the issue is we need $200 million. I'm I'm happy to hear other ideas of how we can raise $200 million in a very short amount of time. In a short amount of time, five to 10 years.

I still had some questions more. So, and you clarified now. So, you're it's an assessment. So, it's not a not part of the parking fee that we were talking about earlier. So, okay. So, that's that's a separate and and working with UF partnership law school. I think you said that they were doing something with that. Okay. So, that's that's a different thing, but it is obviously an assessment on commercial properties. Um, pursuing state and federal funding. I mean, we're doing that already. I don't I don't see what's new about that. the tourist development tax. I mean, two years you've been working on it and so and we still know we're on it. But I Well, I know we got $10 million for beach reourishment. I don't think that's but we always get beach reourishment out of tour.

Not from this is the first time the county has ever spent a dollar for pass and open. So every time it's been the Army Corps of Engineers, not pass a grill. from as far as I know it's been the only thing no it's it's been the Army Corps of Engineers so that's one thing and so I think 10 million or whatever the amount was is a substantial amount um and then we're also looking at you know continual funding from TRD that we're pursuing right now so that we get additional money from them whether it's you know to fund additional beach improvements or additional um you know, infrastructure.

Yeah. Well, I'm I'm 100% trying to get more tourist development tax dollars. Um Well, it's not getting more tourist development tax dollars. It's getting tourist development tax dollars back. Correct. Back. Right. Correct. Because they were taken from St. Pete Beach or an increase in percentage as well because I thought and I and I could and maybe meeting with the city manager I think had been working with Penllis County as well. I'm not sure. But but just to finish because the the one other thing that I saw that or that you mentioned and and I don't and this is illegal and I don't I don't know because the idea of tolls has been brought up before

but tolls where because from what I remember before in discussions prior to being on commission was that because we don't own the road we can't place a toll. um because there is technically already a toll, you know, coming from Eard when you it's just we're not dumping a quarter anymore, right? Or or whatever it may be. But um then we said the only road that we could do a possible toll was a pass away, you know, that was the conversation, you know, to toll people coming in because we have control of that road. And then I don't know what ever happened with that. Um but there was talks about that. I don't know legally what we can do or cannot do. Um because I know other cities, I've lived in cities where I lived in another island that residents obviously and and businesses don't pay to go in, you know, to to where they live. Um but there is there is a toll. Um but in most cases it was for the purpose, right? Like um let's say um pass I think we were talking about it because passway is an emergency exit route. So maintaining the emergency exit route so it's not flooding. You know I don't know if there has to be that reason why you toll. Um but I mean I think that's worth looking into. I just don't know you know why in the past it didn't go through. I was in a part of

I can tell you why it hasn't gone through. It's and I will take 100% of the credit for this is because they haven't gone as far as I have. Which is to say I've been talking with FDOT and the reason we couldn't do it is because FDOT owns Gulf Boulevard which is also the reason why we cannot do half the stuff that we know we should be doing for our own safety but also the Bayway. So where would you put the toll? Correct. So FD do is more than happy to divest of Gulf Boy and give it to us. So they've told you this.

Yes. So with that, [snorts] if St. P Beach takes back G Boulevard, that then allows us to look at how do we fund the infrastructure needs of those roads. And if you look at it further, so every developer that's been before us the last two or three years, including Forward Penelis in their traffic studies, what do they do? Every single time they put Golf Winds, Blind Pass as through fairs, right? So it's not just funding Golf Boulevard, it's funding all of the side arteries because once you go down on Golfwinds, if you go down Blind Pass and then also taking all the side roads. The other thing that this does is

but there's a huge cost and I remember that was one of the issues. You've got a bridge at the end on district one that and I'm not quite sure the ownership because I think Treasure Island the bridge involved as well. Um there's some some story there, but the cost. So if we were to divest, if we were to take in G Boulevard, we'd be immediately taking in an expense without the revenue yet in advance, you know. So I mean, I know there's a lot of leg work into this, but

so that's that's a that's a great point. Um so with that, FOT would resurface and put G Boulevard to a 100% functional state. So, they would be turning over a road that does not need immediate maintenance. And then based on the estimates that I've asked city staff to the back of a paper napkin, but unfortunately Camden is way more than just back of paper napkin. It's somewhere less than $900,000 a year in projected maintenance. And so we look at it as a net $10 million in revenue. So, if we have a million dollars coming in from a dollar a car minus, let's say a million dollars for maintenance on G Boulevard. And so, this is where this plan goes even further because if you have that money that goes in, you can put that now into a streets resiliency fund, right? And then as that fund increases, you can do two things with it. You can borrow against the balance that's in the account and then fund those infrastructure problems like the sewer system, pump station one, the pipe down to Treasure Island. And you can also borrow against future revenue, kind of the way you do with your mortgage, right? You go to your bank and say, "Here's my salary. I want to buy this thing for $300,000." They look say, "Okay, you've got the income. It looks consistent. You've been there a couple years. We can see what the traffic numbers are, right? And so now we're able to again use that revenue or that projected future revenue to address. That's why I said some of this will allow us to address some of these needs on a more immediate basis than it actually would take to set these things up. And so,

you know, it gives us an opportunity, right, to to fund projects much sooner than we would have to. Not only that, but you got to look at it, you know, how do we get here, right? It was years of, you know, we we were, you guys were all here. We were told everything's fine, everything's great, everything. And then we got then we got hit by two hurricanes. Our sewer system fails both times. And next thing you know, as we're looking into deeper, it turns out all the things that we were told were fine. We're not actually fine. And we're 20 years behind on on maintenance and infrastructure. And so what this would allow us to do is is to have that reserve fund, the self-perpetuating reserve fund that is that is building in the background so that we can address you know not just you know the maintenance that we need but have preventive maintenance so that we can have you know this is something that if we did today this will have an impact on the residents of St. Pete Beach for the next 50 years. And it puts us in a position where we're far more resilient. And then here's the other thing is, and I didn't necessarily want to bring this up tonight, there's a good chance next year you'll see on the ballot a measure to get rid of homeowners tax,

which I think is great, right? And for the size of our city, that still represents about 15% of our annual budget, which is a lot. And so now we either cut our services by $15 million or whatever the number ends up being because it's not going to be all property tax but some of it. But even if we have to reduce property tax, if if we, you know, eliminate some of that property tax, we need to come up with the money for the infrastructure from somewhere else. And so I look at it and say, you know, here's an opportunity.