Planning Board - Regular Meeting

to call this meeting to order. This is the Planning Board of St. Pete Beach. The meeting for Monday, June 16th, 2025. Please join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please. Member Perry, here. Member Grocott, here. Chair Hubard, here. We have a quorum. Thank you. Okay. Are there any changes to the agenda? Uh, yes. I would like to add an item to discuss um concerning our priorities. Okay. Priorities. I um took the liberty of I'm gonna ask um to have this on the screen, but I put this at your um seating places so that you wouldn't have to try to take notes. Okay. I will add that as 5C. Uh member Gokott, any changes? Yes, I'd like to or add a discussion item on the sign ordinance. Okay. Okay, I'll put that as 5D. Okay, can I get a motion to approve the uh modified agenda? I move to approve the modified agenda. Second. Second. Roll call, please. Member Grocott, yes. Member Perry, yes. Chair Hubard, yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Do we have any audience comments? Does not appear so. Okay, we will move on to approval of the minutes for the May 19th, 2025 planning board. Any changes? Okay. Can I have a motion to approve?

I'll make the motion to approve the minutes of the May 19th, 2025 meeting. I second. Roll call, please. Member Perry? Yes. Member Grocott? Yes. Chair Hubard? Yes. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay, we have no action items today. So, we will move on to discussion item 5A, community redevelopment agencies. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, board members. um Gil Martinez, senior planner with community development. And um we're going to provide you with a quick presentation just generally speaking to what a community redevelopment agency is and um potentially how a a CRA would be of benefit to the city of St. Pete Beach. Sorry. So, community develop redevelopment agency commonly known as a CRA um it's established by Florida statute 163. Community redevelopment agency is a public agency created by a local government for the purpose of revitalizing areas facing economic decline, blight or infrastructure challenges. It is a mission to improve its physical condition, attract private investment, and to enhance the quality of lives in the designated redevelopment zones. A CRA, community redevelopment agency is established by identifying that there is a condition of blight exists. So local governments must identify that an area shows signs of blight as defined in Florida statute. Blight indicators may include deteriorated buildings, aging infrastructure, high vacancy rates, inadequate roadways or utilities,

environmental contaminations, unsafe or unhealthy conditions. These are just a few examples. There's many more that can be included. Once um it's developed a document the finding of necessity report must be prepared and the document must illustrate the conditions that exist within the CRA is also the community redevelopment area which is the actual geographic area that is identified for the purposes of tax increment financing. In the case of what we've been considering here in St. Pete Beach, we are looking at a CRA that is um focused greatly focused on resiliency and improvement of infrastructure. Um so in working with conjunction with um public works, we identified areas that align with our capital improvement projects. So, we are looking at a potentially an area that to the north starts with um the residential office retail zoning and to the south ends at the Bayou residential district. Um this would be a consideration as a as a potential area for consideration. So upon you know going through the process you know and and and retaining someone or or working with or developing a finding of necessity the finding of necessity must clearly demonstrate that there's a presence of blight and it must be justified that the CRA meets Florida statute 163 requirements. The report is then presented to the local government, uh, city commission, county commission. Adoption of a resolution declaring the

need for a CRA. The governing body, in this case, a city commission, votes to adopt a resolution confirming that the area meets the criteria for a CRA as per Florida statute and through by way of our finding of necessity as well. This action establishes the intent to create a CRA and move forward with planning. A community redevelopment plan is then developed for the purpose of the CRA. The plan includes proposed projects such as infrastructure, housing, public facilities, and funding strategies, typically the use of tax increment financing, usually referred to as TIFF. There's a process for community input and community engagement strategies. A timeline is created. Goals and performance measures are created and the plan must align with the city's comprehensive plan. So if this CRA moves forward and the community redevelopment plan is is defined, that community redevelopment plan must be in line with their comprehensive plan as well. The local government adopts an ordinance formally establishing the CRA approving the community redevelopment plan. The ordinance also establishes the CRA governing body. That local governing body could be the city commission itself or it could be appointed um as a separate appointed board. Once adopted, the CRA must notify the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and the county. If the CRA affects tax county revenues, interlocal agreements are required regarding revenue sharing for or terms of TIF use. This is a quick explanation um what tax

increment financing is. CRAAS use TIFF as its primary funding tool. When the CRA is established, the property tax values are frozen at a base year. So if you look at that graph um in a 25 year span, the area in purple would be the the base adorum year. As property values rise due to redevelopment, the increment or i.e. the difference in the tax revenue is directed towards the CRA. So the triangle in yellow the incremental AV that is the amount of funds generated which in turn would be eligible for use for improvements within the community redevelopment area. TIFF revenues is reinvested into projects within the CRA boundary. Implement the CRA and begin redevelopment activities. CRA is now a functioning entity capable of entering into contracts, acquiring and disposing properties, applying for grants, issuing bonds, using TIFF funds for capital improvements and public private partnerships. That is concludes the qu the presentation on a CRA and what we can expect when we discuss CRAAS. I'm glad to take any questions. defer to Laura as well who's um very well versed in CRA and I'm sure Ralph you can weigh in as well. So any questions and input glad to take them. I do have some questions. I don't know if anybody else does. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Um so I I looked at the material in the packet and that um what's it called? The information the name of it the finding the finding of necessity. Okay. This

particular one that was in the packet had pictures from like 2005. Yeah, that's a 2005. And there was another one done around Corey in 2013. Um, and for some reason neither one of those went forward. Um, so obviously there's pros and cons to everything you do, but um, I was just wondering if we know why they didn't go forward when this was done before. And secondly, um, you know, there are other places that have gone through hurricanes like we have, which has dramatically changed the picture, and I can certainly speak more to that. I'm just wondering if if Cape Coral or any of those other locations took this approach and if they were successful with it. I can tell you that based on our research and going back to 2005 um and that finding of necessity, it is our understanding that at the time county was um was a bit hesitant to consider CRAAS for um coastal communities for barrier island communities. Um that has changed somewhat. there are provisions in the in the criteria for CRA now that speaks to um resiliency and um that may be one of the reasons that it it stalled and didn't go any further. And what about the 2013 effort? I'm not familiar with the 2013 effort or what ended up with that. I I know that there was a study that took place, but why that didn't go any further, I can't really speak to that. I I remember it and there were a lot of really bad suggestions. I mean, the the people the the cons consulting company that worked on it clearly didn't understand, you know, our particular environment. Yeah. Um so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. Um when I looked at the pictures from 2005, I was happy to see that some of the blight that was there,

like I remember the gas station that's now a BaskinRobins and Dunkin Donuts. I mean, a lot of those things took care of themselves. And part of what I'm wondering is now that we've had so much destruction from the last two hurricanes, like there's a lot of houses in my neighbor, my neighborhood would probably be declared a blight at this point. Um, so many houses are torn down. So many of them are waiting for, I don't know, insurance money, grants, whatever. Um, part of my concern with this is the implication for taxes, which is why I'd like to know what other areas have seen. And I just wonder if this is a good time for this type of project in light of the fact that we have so many issues going on on the island right now. So those are my some of my questions. Something to take into consideration as we as we explore. Um this this is the first time that we've having this discussion in general. So there there's a lot to take into consideration, a lot of research to be done. So, right. And I I agree with all that and um one of the things I've asked to have added to the agenda, interestingly, you would use the word resiliency and um this may be one approach to get to resiliency and there are other approaches and so um I think we're all trying to address the same problem. Um but I just was wondering because I know that that this hasn't gone forward twice before. Very well. I I had a question about tiffs. Is so is it specifically just for property tax tiff? Yeah, it's completely adorum. So when it when it says freezing the assessed amount, is it is it really freezing it from the property owner's

perspective or just from distribution of funds? Distribution of funds. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, is is the primary purpose to allow the CRA to receive guaranteed funds regardless of, you know, future opinions that the commission may have because now it's set in stone. This is what's happening with that money for the CRA. Correct. Okay. The main kind of, you know, again, with these CRAAS, they're really they're a tool in the toolbox. You know, um in many cases, they've become one of the only economic development tools left at the local level. and you know they were on the chopping block again this year um because that comes up frequently it seems as though sometimes the more successful a CRA gets the more it deviates away from its purpose right and so that's one of the things that that you risk um however in our case I can tell you that I think one of the biggest benefits and why revisiting this now and the importance of looking at this again is really just looking at how to leverage and layer the funding and so because we are in Penllis County and it's a charter county. Um, in addition to the finding of necessity and per the statute, what we would be looking at per those conditions, we would also be looking at Penllis County has changed their delegation criteria. So any new CRAAS coming forward now as well as any CRAAS that are looking to expand or extend their operational time frame are now subject to the county's criteria which looks at things like if it's in a coastal high hazard area there's stuff in there that wasn't in there and it kind of creates this additional layer and it kind of also flipped the script on the funding because at least in my experience with most CRAAS and if you were in a charter county and had the county's participation usually It's a 95% contribution from the participating county and you know the municipality. Panelis County has changed that. They've basically said that we're going to start

at a 50 and then you kind of work your way up. So based on that need and those conditions. So um and we've again we've looked at it just very preliminary just looking at the area. But um that's the primary purpose would be knowing the infrastructure and resiliency needs that we have. It really is just a funding mechanism to leverage and layer. And then I think you said it very clearly, but I just for the public benefit um you know when it comes it doesn't change anything like it doesn't initiate any additional tax on their tax bill. The valuation would go up just the same. It's just that incremental difference that then would go into again it would be per the city's millillage per the county's millillage and then whether it was 95% of that or say we landed at a 75% from the county and 95 from city then those funds would go into the redevelopment trust fund for that area. The anything up until that point would still go into the general fund and be you know be able to be used and expended anywhere. Could could the city potentially have to increase its millage rate as a result of the tiff? Because if there's a budget shortfall and you've got guaranteed money being taken from the tax roles for the CRA now, they could potentially have to raise the millage rate to make up on the general side. No, because it's only based on the in on the increment. And so what you'll sometimes see is in my experience, you may see a CRA that's created that doesn't realize a tiff for maybe three, five years. There's been even other worst case scenarios. I've also seen situations where um for example in Clearwater where the base year was actually reset because for so many years there wasn't a tiff being generated and so they do a look back and they actually reset it again just to your point so that you're never in that position. It's always moving forward and based on that incremental difference. Okay. Given the the fact that a CRA is

defined in Florida statute, does it offer us any advantages? Uh perhaps it would trump other Florida statutes that we find not favorable. Does does it offer anything like that? Not that I know of. For example, development within a CRA still has to be consistent with the comprehensive plan. the future land use element and all those chapters. Um it would also then have to be considered under the CRA plan as well. Okay. But the CRA plan does not trump the comprehensive plan necessary with it. So the CRA coming to exist for the purpose of solving blight wouldn't necess wouldn't allow us to modify our comp plan in a way that a different piece of Florida statute says we can't do. The two things are separate. Okay. The CRA plan has to be consistent with the comp plan at all times. Doesn't mean you can't mend your amend your comp plan separately. You'd have to do that if you were doing something that's contrary to the comp plan. Okay. And should the city decide to move forward with the establishment of the CRA and you know the F is the first step and then the delegation of authority and then when you get to the redevelopment plan step in the process that's when it would be coming before you all as the LPA to review it and and also really help in the development of it. Um you know but that's as the LPA is really um the most important stop when you're creating and establishing a CRA. Okay. So, um, going back to the point of the CRA embed, you know, nesting with the comprehensive plan. So, it's been suggested over the last several months that the comp plan needs to be reviewed. So, I guess it's kind of a cart situation. Is it um in your opinion better to look at that comprehensive

plan as the first step or to go ahead and and you know potentially look at a CRA and then where we may find conflict individually section by section kind of look at the comprehensive plan to to try to continue to make ensure they nest. So right now, because of Senate Bill 180, you're probably not going to be able to do anything more restrictive or burdensome with your comp plan, you can be more liberal, allow more development, but you can't allow less development. You can't have more procedural stops, you can have less procedural stops. Um, so you can't can only go one way with the comp plan at this point until they lift the Senate Bill 180 in a couple years. The CRA I would think of in my mind as a way uh to create financing funding to do things like streetscape improvements, put uh street lightss in, put brick street pavers in, um do things with the sewer line within the CRA district, do storm water projects within the CRA, uh do those kinds of projects, giving you money to do infrastructure projects most typically. So, yeah. So, we're focusing on on infrastructure. Got it. Um, as far as grants were were mentioned, um, is does the CRA give us access to grants that the city doesn't otherwise may otherwise not have access to? Um, is there anything specific to being exclusive to a CRA potentially or available exclusively to a CRA? I can tell you that it it helps because it gives you that blueprint for a lot of the grant opportunities if that makes sense. Your kind of story is already there. So you're more than and you already have your projects identified and since a lot of times as you know with grant applications either they want to see that match already in the budget

and a lot of times we can't do that. So it just gives that other mechanism to be able to say it's in our plan. So it strengthens our case in your opinion. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Um, you might get points, for example, on certain grant applications. They award points for different things. If you're in a CRA, that might help get you points. And just matching. Sorry. And just one more thing to add. Um, we've been in communication. We've been working with um the University of Florida fiber their or organization and um they basically the mayor had attended a summit where he talked about even the possibility of creating a CRA because there's other communities across the state and as um kind of the the subsequent step to that is that we're continuing those discussions with fiber because knowing that the barrier islands not just St. Pete Beach, but really any of the coastal communities in Penllis County historically haven't been the ones that are what we think of when we think of CRA. And so as we've talked about the importance of how this is going to be so resilience and infrastructure centric well fiber has such good data available and and they already are looking at some of these things and have so they're going to be in contact with um as we develop the finding of necessity as well as if we move to the next steps we're going to our goal is to be able to at the end of this have you know they're just as much of a partner throughout this process and so um being able to visualize again because it's kind of a different type of blight that we're talking about that isn't as easy to take a photograph of you know unless you are in the you know aftermath of the storm and then you know how how accurate is that if you're depicting you know the worst worst case scenarios you know and here we are you know nine months later um so they're going to be hopefully assisting us throughout that process and I think going to be a great resource and also one of the things that we talked about with them is you know how you set your plan up for those grant funding

opportunities great great and I think Um, fibroids want to tell an acronym um, people may not be familiar with. It's University of Florida's Institute for Built Environment Resilience, FIB ER, and they were formed in 2018 and they're working with other coastal communities in Florida as well. Does that differ from the I read something in the agenda packet about I think it was UF's College of Law was working on certain things to benefit small municipalities like ours. Is that different? So there's a um fiber which is part of the college of design and planning. Yeah. And then they work uh with the law school. There's joint programs for students to take planning and law. You receive a joint degree. There's also a conservation clinic at the University of Florida Law School. And um those two programs within two different departments of the same university work together with communities like St. P Beach to come up with resiliency programs through this fiber. Okay. Looking at the slide that you have up here addressing infrastructure, um when I read the packet, I really didn't get the clear message that we were talking about infrastructure and resiliency. Um so part of my concern was that we were going to be diverted to blight when we really had, you know, higher in my mind higher priority. Um, so I guess that needs to be flushed out a little bit to really understand, you know, why we would want to do this. Florida has a pretty liberal definition of blight. It takes in some pretty affluent communities that we would not normally think of as urban blight. Um, and the the criteria are very liberal, so it's pretty easy to to qualify to be a CRA, but then the money um can be used for these resiliency projects. I think that our local representatives, Linda Cheney, was actually talking about

trying to put more money in CRAAS into resiliency projects. that would be less money in business marketing type aspects because I think a lot of the blight the hurricane probably helped move along people having to deal with that and with the county's criteria what they've changed they've actually now outlined what they would like what county tiff can be expended on versus city tiff and again they're allin-one trust fund but as you can imagine you pay for some infrastructure over here now that frees up funding in the general fund and that can be used so it is kind of like a leveraging and layering, but um they've outlined what it can and can't and they've gotten much more specific um because again it just as some as the success of some of the CRAAS um you know allowed them the opportunity to maybe have spending say to for festivals or for public art you know not to say that that's not community renewal but again going back to what the purpose my my really favorite example to use is um I worked with the St. Augustine CRA in their historic area. And when that CRA was founded, it was founded on transportation and parking blight. It was very specific because if you know St. Augustine, you know that the inadequate infrastructure and parking that they had there. Um, again, but when you think of St. Augustine, at least I don't think of slum and blighted. Um, but that was what their findings were based on. And then with the revenue that was generated, they were able to build the parking they bonded for the parking garage. and then now they have the parking garage in their historic area. So I think what we've seen at least over the the last 10 to 20 years is um kind of a shift in in revisiting that remember what the intention of and and being very specific and intentional of what your C cra's purpose is and and again just knowing kind of that we're going to be potentially one of the first and well the first in Penllis County as far as barrier island communities go. I

think it's going to be very important to your point that we continue to focus on infrastructure resiliency. Infrastructure resiliency. Would would the northern boundary of the CRA be inclusive of pump station one? It could be. Okay. Believe so. We have we've worked very closely with um public works and we identified where they have capital improvement projects planned out for and aligned it with the CRA boundaries to the best of our ability. Okay. So yeah, you get to draw your own lines when you're creating the CRA. Okay. No, I just I would like to hear more about again the resiliency and and what they're actually planning. And I I do think it can be one tool in the toolbox. We certainly need other tools. Um, one of the things I have concerns about, and I don't want to get ahead of myself, but um, I know that I know the um, city commission is having a couple of retreats on prioritization tomorrow and Wednesday, 4:30 to 7:30. I can never make it Tuesday, but I will go Wednesday. um because I think that there's a lot of demands coming from every direction and I think having clear priorities is really crucial to achieving success. Um and and I didn't know much about this, but I do know there are some other areas where I feel we are really um behind the times and it's hurting our residents. So, you know, I want to make sure that we include those items. So the next step is we are scheduled to go to the commission meeting on the 8th with the finding of necessity request.

Um we have received a scope of services to conduct the finding of necessity and that will be going before the commission for their consideration on the establishing the the CRA. Um, so when you set the boundaries for those those tax bases set within that boundary, can the projects can the money generated overtime also only be used within that section then? Right? It's not you can't apply to any part of St. Pete Beach and then revenue generated from outside the the tax revenue generated from out the CRA can can't be augmenting that CRA, right? They're complete distinct set by the boundaries just the increment, right? So the base, anything below the base that cont continues to be general revenue, but this increment once you establish the baseline and hopefully property values go up, that increment gets put back into the CRA and to the county and the county and the city have to figure out what share goes to each one. Only properties within the established boundaries of the CRA and only that increment above the established boundary. And I think you rais a really important point because what I'm seeing is that property values are really going down right now overall. Um so I don't know and I did read something somewhere when I was looking into CRAAS about you know there were have been instances where the thing hasn't gone up and they really haven't you know generated. That's it's a bit of an art kind of like the stock market. You want to buy low and then watch it grow. Um, so you want to as it's going down, you want to buy thinking it's going to start going up soon. And then that's why also sometimes they reset if they're uh they set the baseline at the wrong point in time or it becomes more advantageous to establish a new baseline, then they can reset the baseline. So potentially, so if it keeps going lower, you keep

resetting it. potentially if we had an RC area encompassed an area with a lot of vacant lots and the base was set there and then those vacant lots were developed that increased revenue would go to the CRA. Yes. Okay. Dragon. Thank you. So to that to to add to what Laura stated, um we are looking at a date of July 8th to bring the item forward to the city commission and we have received confirmation from the University of Florida fiber that they will also be here to speak to the resiliency matter exactly to this entire mission. It's its primary purpose is is resiliency and infrastructure deficiencies. Okay. I I don't think we have anything else other than I'd still be curious if you if you find out if you know some of the other areas that were hit a couple years before us. Absolutely. It's a it's a very good point. Um, I'm I'm sure there are areas that already had CRAAS established, but I'm not sure if I know of any that have tried to to bring forth CRA since the storms, but I'll definitely look into it and come back to you with a report for next month. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Uh, we will move on to discussion 5B, the Florida model lighting ordinance for sea turtle protection. presentation. Okay, I see it. Excellent.

Okay. Um Gil Martinez, senior planner with community development. Um here before you with the marine turtle lighting standards in St. Pete Beach, there's been a great deal of discussion about this. With me is Pete Der from code enforcement who's probably watching us somewhere. Um in the event you have any questions for him in regards to the enforcement, but it's a quick presentation and um I'll try my best to answer any questions. My knowledge of this is rather limited. I'm doing this for Brandon who's not here today, but our city attorney, I'm sure, can weigh in if you have any questions. Okay, some of the background. Due to significant feedback on the beach ordinance, staff has chosen to present the item as three separate ordinances. Ordinance number one is regarding behavioral and conduct issues. that he is permitting requirements for public beach solicitors, bicycling on the beach permits and prohibitions of wild bird harassment or wildlife harassment in general. Ordinance number two is specific to the marine turtle lighting which addresses standards of existing and new beachf facing lighting. And ordinance number three, beach alcohol service and cabanas is addressing the location and stacking requirements for cabanas, alcohol service regulations, etc. So, ordinance number one and ordinance number three are going to be a part of the code of ordinance amendments. So, ordinance number one would be addressing behavioral and conduct issues on on the beach and ordinance number three number three will be addressing alcohol and service cabanas. Ordinance number two would be addressed through our land development code division 44 and that is specific to the marine turtle lighting.

Current regulations from 2007. The city has existing regulations for marine turtles lighting in division 44 of the land development code. Regulations pertain to existing lighting lighting for new development. Division 44 was adopted in 2007 and contains outdated standards such as allowing for non- turtle friendly bulbs. It lacks technical standards for visible light transmittance. Lack of defined dunes on some properties makes standards based around natural screening irrelevant or difficult to enforce. And finally, lack of lacks vetting process for bulbs and equipment. It's in general just too general. Fish and wildlife model lighting ordinance for 2020. It's a voluntary model ordinance to bring communities statewide with into compliance with science-based regulations contained in the regulations for the FWC certified wildlife lighting program, eg bulbs and bullards. Um, prevetted equipment and standards reduce reliance on local evaluation. So, one of the benefits of this is that the FWC has already vetted the type of lightings and equipment that are acceptable. Um, it regulates new improvements as well as complete statewide redevelopment. So, it would apply to standard standards to pools, additions, and even whole properties in the redevelopment process. specific standards for physible light transmittance and it provides more objective criteria for existing lighting special events pre-season inspection scheduling. Along with that ordinance, the FWC model

ordinance does not majorly change existing standards for new vertical development. It adds more objective technical standards for evaluating compliance, including new accessory development such as parking lots, pools, beach walkovers. It adds specific vetted standards for bulbs, windows, films, and other standards where local official knowledge may not be sufficient. Some of the challenges may be that there is um no identified major challenges from FWC model ordinance for new vertical development. When parking lots or pools are built and no dunes exist, vegetation or lowmount lights or ballards may not need to be used due to lack of natural screen. Non-dune ground level barrier construction is a last resort. With existing development, light meters, spectrometers requiring require being within feet of the light source. Ownership often extends far seawward of the dunes in SE St. Pete Beach. Questions remained around whether turtle safe lighting tests are sufficient when citing violations. The next steps in this process is to solicit the planning board's feedback which is now. Discuss the content, challenges, solutions with the beach stewardship committee and technical experts when viable. Return a draft ordinance to the planning board or vote for a vote. Move ordinance to the city commission for first and final readings. So, this is where we are. Um, obviously we're looking to model the fish and wildlife ordinance to the best of um, our ability. There are pros associated with it. They've done a lot of the leg work as far as

identifying what is the correct type of lighting, what is the correct type of equipment. So, it takes a lot of that out of out of our preview and um, it's more objective in general. I think my first question would just be after last meeting I believe city attorney you were going to investigate whether the there was an inherent conflict between adopting this and SP 180 prohibiting it. Yep. So we've looked into that and I've talked with Brandon and and Becky Vos and uh what we think is that we could adopt similar to the FWC being a voluntary model model lighting ordinance. when they say voluntary, they mean it's voluntary for cities and counties to adopt it, and most have. Um, but because of Senate Bill 180, um, it's probably best to adopt it as a voluntary technical guidance to assist property owners with ongoing compliance. Um, adopting it by resolution or adopting it as a footnote, uh, making it a voluntary technical guidance. And it's there so they can as property owners figure out what kind of lights to buy, what kind of lights if they do purchase them would satisfy our existing code. Our existing code compliance relies on I think the beach committee saw the cards u for helping property owners determine whether their lights can be seen by turtles. So if if we uh have a voluntary technical guidance, say someone fails that uh card test, property owner then says, "Okay, well, what do I have to do now? What lights should I buy that won't fail that card test?" So this model lighting ordinance has these technical standards in there that they can take to uh the internet or a lighting shop and they can say, "Hey, I need this particular light and I need to replace my bulb with this. I need a new housing. this is the type of housing I need. So, it would be looked at as technical u

guidance to assist a property owner rather than a more burdensome or more restrictive land development code requirement. If we were to move to that, are we giving up the ability to enforce what we might want to enforce in the current code? No, you can still enforce your current code. It's just a way to point the property owner in order to come into compliance. here's some voluntary technical assistance to bring your property into compliance. And that would also help them with achieve ongoing compliance because uh as you go further um down the road into the years where SP doesn't 180 no longer applies, but also as new technology advances, they keep updating the model sea turtle lighting ordinance. They're working on one now at FWC to add some additional technology that's available so we can adopt it as the model Lawrence ordinance u by the FWC rule number as may be amended from time to time. that way as they amend the model lighting criteria uh that can become new guidance and then once SB 180 goes away uh you can consider making the voluntary technical guidance mandatory but we can't right now within the land development code for some of the behavioral code sections we we possibly could. Okay. Does does our code dictate the manner in which compliance is determined? So, we've got our existing sea turtle lighting regulations. Does it also state how code enforcement is to determine whether someone's in compliance or not? Code enforcement is here and they can explain how they do it. Now, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the planning board. Um, I'm Pete Derer, code enforcement manager for the city of

St. Pete Beach. the existing code that we use. Um it allows us to regulate lighting. Um and we have in fact cited um a property for an infraction lighting infraction taken special magistrate. As a matter of fact, I think we had a recent uh case where this person was a repeat violator. So we brought him back to the special magistrate uh hearing and I think they were fined $500 per day. Um what um Mr. Brooks just explained, Attorney Brooks just explained is we have a card that we use with a lens that we're able to utilize on the beach. And when we use that card, it helps us to determine if um a property is has a lighting infraction and we are able to site using our existing code. um the existing code is written in such a way that there might not necessarily as as Mr. Brooks was alluding to, you might not have to necessarily do wholesale changes to. It's adequate enough for enforcement purposes. If there's additional um sections of the code that we might be able to amend or modify, we can use that um model code to make those amendments. Um the bug type lights for example is um from what we've understood is and we've all been certified by the um sea turtle conservancy. Um so the bug type lights are I think ancient. They're no longer useful. And so it's in our existing code. um those lights if we can for example remove that language it would bring us up to a standard or a code that we can effectively continue to use.

Okay. Is the cards my understanding from reading the FWC model ordinance is they're basically to not show wavelengths that are visible to turtles. So if if you see light coming through you know it would be visible, right? Okay. Yes. It's like, think of it as an X-ray film. I don't know if you've ever looked through an X-ray film and you can see certain um types of lights. So, for example, if we were to use the lens on these lights, they would reflect kind of bluish purplish and it would be an infraction. Um that exit light, if we were looked through the same lens, you would not see that light at all. Um so, we could say these lights are in violation while that light is not. Okay. Any other questions? Um so in adopting or if it's a decision to adopt this does the um either the variance board or the commission when listening when um deciding on conditional use permits. Do they still have the ability to negotiate higher standard compliance voluntarily as part of a cup? So developer wants to come in and and put something on the beach side and as and they need a cup to do so. Can the commission compel that developer to say you will comply with these standards and if so we can add conditions to a conditional use permit addressing and then it is enforceable to the higher standard even though it's not part of the land development code because it was part of the cup. Well, Senate Bill 180 also covers not just comp plans and land development code changes. It also covers development orders and development permits. So it would have to be crafted very carefully, but we certainly could reference the sea turtle lighting ordin ordinance and the conditions and the FWC manual and the conditions and the criteria in there can be helpful guiding a developer where

they want where they're going to put their fixtures, how they're going to shield them, what foot candles to use, what cumulatively visible means and certified wildlife lighting sources. um 10.76 lux for example, they can go and get all this technical stuff where a a lighting engineer can read that and and know how to design a project to be in compliance with those voluntary guidelines. And then if they're in compliance with those, they won't fail the the lens that's being held up to them by code enforcement. Code enforcement won't tell you what kind of lights to put in. They just tell you, "Hey, you're in violation." So now the landowner needs to figure out what do I do to stop my violation through the lens and that's where the model C turtle ordinance lighting criteria can be helpful. Yeah, it seemed pretty straightforward. I I would I suspect the the real problem is ensuring your vendor who promises you these bulbs will give off this particular wavelength and nothing above it. whether that's true or not. Kind of like shopping on Facebook. It's not always what you get in the package when you order it and then it arrives at your house. Um what Mayor Gokott said makes me curious if if if a developer agrees to a more restrictive cup to gain approval. Can they then choose to appeal the like a line item appeal of something in the cup outside of the commission to say, "Hey, I agreed to this, but I shouldn't have had to because it doesn't meet these these laws or something along those lines." Or are you by agreeing, you're saying, "I'm taking this as it is, and I'm there's nothing further to be done." If they agree, typically not, but sometimes they won't agree and then they'll challenge them. They'll say, "We'll take the approval uh with the uh caveat that we are still going to challenge these criteria." Okay. Had we've had a couple of those, not with sea turtle lighting, but with other criteria. Okay. I'm I'm happy to see someone from the

beach stewardship um committee here because I know they have done a tremendous amount of work on this and I I just want to make sure from a process thing that we're not usurping them or I mean I don't know how I know in your slide it shows that there is a place where it all comes together. Um but I just want it goes through both advisory boards. So both of both your boards will comment to the city commission. Okay. Yeah. I I think the only real concern I had was giving up something we currently enforce by adopting this. But as long as that is not occurring, then yeah, unfortunately, we won't be able to because of Senate Bill 180. We're stuck with what we have, but we can give some more guidance, voluntary guidance, okay, which would be helpful for everyone for ongoing compliance at least until Senate Bill 180 is no longer impacting. Okay. I'm I'm very happy to hear you say that optimistically because I have a feeling it's going to be here forever. Well, there is two sections. There's one that just addressed hurricanes um Milton and um Helen and another hurricane uh forget the name now but there's another section of 180 that says for all future hurricanes there'll be a moratorum uh and prevention on more burdensome and restrictive regulations or criteria conditions for one year after that hurricane um 100 miles of the track right 100 miles of the track for that every future hurricane hurricane storm. So yeah, I would love for it to expire because that means we made it without a hurricane coming within 100 miles during those periods of time. You're free to adopt more burdensome and more residence any audience. It's difficult because some of the things you want to do for resiliency are by their very nature more burdensome of course restrictive. Um, so

you're almost prevented from doing resiliency when when after a storm, only before storms. Okay. Um, member Perry reminded me I forgot to solicit audience audience comments for 5B if we had any. I don't believe we do. Okay. Uh, are we okay to move on? Do we have any on this on this? Uh, the next one is your discussion item 5C, priority of planning board. Well, um, Pety, I'm glad to see you here because a lot of what I have to say has to do with how our current code is failing us. So, um, I asked to have priorities put on and I I do know the commission has those two, uh, retreats tomorrow and Wednesday. So, I would I would hope that the the prior topic that we had um and and possibly this um I did put some handouts on. So, um, can I ask you to to put the thing on the Well, they're up there. Okay. So, the first one, um, I've been watching with great interest what's happening at Treasure Island because I keep hearing how some of the things that we're doing are hurting our residents. And I feel like this is a a fairly urgent situation. So, this was published in the Catalyst. I don't even really know what that is. But um Treasure Island, they tried doing an elevate TI. They had some um restrictions in it that the people in the residents were not happy with. So they've made modifications. But basically what they have done is um effective May 1st people can voluntarily elevate their land using fill material which is a significant shift from the no fill policy which I've brought this up before when we did the seaw wall thing because I said you know we would love to raise our seaw wall but if we can't fill behind it we're not going to because we

don't want to create a mosquito breeding ground or something to save the salt water to kill our grass even worse that it already gets killed. So, um I feel like we need to be able to address sunny day flooding. I know that um this talks about what Treasure Island did. I the next um thing that I have to put up is their path to resiliency. So, I'm very happy to hear us talking about resiliency because I do think yes, it looks like this one. Thank you so much. So, they have a plan for how to get their island elevated. Um, and if we don't start thinking about elevating, then we're going to be underwater. So, we need to think about it. And then, um, they also have a road map, environmentally sustainable roadmap, which is the third thing. So, I I passed these out because I thought it would be easier. Um, I can give you a couple of examples of why I feel this is so urgent right now. Um, my husband has a colleague who has torn his house down and pass a grill and wants to rebuild. and he's been told that his garage can only be 16 um inches above the crown of the road. And I said feet on here, which is a mistake. So, what that means is that every time there's a king tide, he will have water in his garage. And I think it's crazy for us to have building requirements that put people in that situation. And I know I know for my own house um the street in front of my house is is 3 feet. At the end of our island it's less than two feet which is why it floods all the time above the datim. Um and we were able to build our garage um 6'2 in above the street which um they aren't letting people do anymore. And I don't know why that's changed or if it's because of pass being different. I I don't know

why, but um you know, instead of having, you know, about a foot of water from Helen, we would have had like over 20 inches. So, um people are getting hurt. So, here's somebody building their house and they can't put the floor of their garage above a high tide level. I just don't understand why our codes are not helping people better survive, have resiliency. So, I don't know why we're being more restrictive. I think Treasure Island, they're saying you can do fill and I think they can go two feet above grade. I mean, they do have rules around it. It's not just, you know, fill in whatever you want. But I I'm hoping to bring this up at the priority meeting for the commissioners because we have people that are building right now and our our outdated codes are holding them back from being able to be more resilient. and and Treasure Island ended up making a lot of this voluntary and I think that's why it got through because originally they were going to mandate things and people said no, I can't afford it. We need to be trying to help our homeowners rebuild more resiliently as soon as possible. So that's why I asked about this being brought forward as a priority and and bringing it to the commission. Yeah, I mean it certainly sounds like changes that would not be impacted by SP 180 were were not being more flexible. Um that that's why I had asked Brandon at the last meeting if if there was direction from the commission on what we should be working on and I am hopeful something will come out of the retreat. But if not, we can always try to push for. I mean, I'm sure we all have bits and pieces of the plan or land development code that we have a personal interest in bettering. And uh I'm not opposed to we can coordinate it through Brandon. But if the planning board wants

to have workshops and just collaborate on our own ideas on things we can accomplish, I'm not opposed to trying to make that happen so we can spend more time together since it's the only time we're allowed to discuss these things and try to make meaningful changes. Um, yep. It looks like Senate Bill 180 would not affect um a voluntary increase in the elevation fill limits. So that's something you could look at. So So in general as we've kind of looked tackle a couple of these things, you know, we tackled the artificial turf, we've kind of tacked seaw walls and things like that. So, I mean, while we're in this this period of SB80, does it behoove the the planning board to sit with the staff experts, the city experts, um, come up with solutions and label them all as voluntary and while we're in this period. And then it also kind of preps us for if we ever get out of this situation, we already have what we would want to be mandatory crafted, worked through city staff, worked through commission, worked through the community, and then we'd be postured to kind of execute getting those things in quickly if we do ever get windows and and prioritize what they would be so that if we do get breaks in this in this SB80, um, we would kind of have our our road map, so to speak, ready to go. But if we could re if we could give some relief right now like this person is being told to build his garage at a level that will be flood every king tide. I mean how do we force people to into a bad situation and I what I was told and I haven't spoken to him directly so was that he was told by the city to put a lift in his garage so that he could get his car up when the garage got flooded. And if that's true, that's a very sad approach, very expensive

approach, that's for sure. Um, without again knowing the specific origin of was this a historical issue, was this a, you know, is it something that's a variance approval to get waiver on? I mean, my understanding is the variance process is available to every resident. Well, we can take a look at the specific code section that that says you can't elevate above a certain amount and then see if that can be changed or removed or made uh voluntary instead of mandatory. Right. And on the and on the back to you that is um right now we're being prohibited from the code is stopping us from doing something that would be beneficial. So if we could look at those kinds of issues where we're actually causing harm to people, right? I'm just suggesting that we would need the appropriate city staff. Absolutely. Because I I presume that everything has a reason. People didn't just, you know, throw darts at the board and go 16 in no fill. Like there's that, you know, that there's So I think we need to kind of understand the genesis of of the development of the code to start with, right? And I think we have some of that. I mean, a lot of it's historical. A lot of that's been along for a long time. And there was a lot of fill going on in the early days, and I think they they tried to put a halt to it. I think now we're in a totally different situation. But I completely agree with you. We need to have experts looking at things um so that we can hopefully come up with good solutions or even just to bounce ideas off of. I mean, I I know some of that stems from not wanting one property owner to elevate to the point where all the runoff goes into their neighbor's yard and and that's the kind of thing they would be able to tell us that's why this exists and why we shouldn't do it this way. See, that's that's a perfect argument because like I told you, mine is higher. what we we had to put in

swailes. We had to put in as part of the construction of our house um where we filled in on the garage and this was all approved by the city, you know, when we built in 2011. So, I don't know what's changed or but it, you know, yes, the problem you're trying to solve is your water can't go to your neighbor. So, what do you do? Put in stem wall? Do you put in drainage? I don't know. But instead of just saying no, you can't do it, let's identify what is the problem we're trying to solve and there may be other solutions other than just no. Sure. And and I think the other piece of that is that if we're trying to encourage resiliency, part of that is, you know, you have three neighbors in a row that elevate their seaw wall voluntarily. It's I mean, I watched it happen across the street. It was it was absolutely a kind of a pyramid. Like the first house said, "Oh, I'm going up 18 inches." And the second house I said, "Well, wait a minute. If you're going up 18 inches, then I'm going to go up 18 inches." And then the third house did it and and it went across five houses. And believe me, when house number five started, he was an absolute no, I'm not doing this. Like, I'm not spending that money. I'm not doing it. And then he thought about the resiliency of his own property as all the seaw walls around him got elevated. So there is also that, you know, if allowing people to do it then kind of encourages neighbors to do it, you know, and I'm not saying that we should be putting people in a in a financial spot that they cannot, you know, um that that we're going to damage their property and they financially cannot be in in a place where they would be able to raise a seaw wall or or build their property or something like that. So, you know, there's all sorts of considerations, but there is some some goodness in, you know, watching the the, you know, domino effect of people improve resiliency on their own personal property. Absolutely.

Well, should we see what the outcome is of the retreats are if we get observed direction coming our way? And if not, we can coordinate through Brandon and see if we can try to do some of our own work to get things going. I'm not opposed to that at all. Sounds great. Okay. Okay. Let's move on to discussion item 5D, sign ordinance. So, my question is uh for city staff. I watched the commission meeting uh when they received the uh recommended ordinance and noted that um there was significant opposition to the continuation of pole signs um and wanted to see that completely stricken from the um from the ordinance for monument signs. And as I kind of drive down G Boulevard and see in some spots where businesses are very close together, you know, my concern is um a staggering monument signs and what that does to um sight line down a road. And I'm just curious, has there been any kind of um safety perspective done on that from either our fire or police, whomever does road safety, whoever does those sa those those analyses for us. Um and if there hasn't, I would just, you know, ask that, you know, perhaps that be considered before it goes back to commission for final reading. Um because that is a concern I think when you have people that are not familiar with our roads looking for things maybe not looking for people coming out. I mean I'm concerned about pedestrians walking out behind monument signs or cars coming out of cutouts behind monument signs and people not necessarily paying attention and looking for whatever they're looking for. If we have series of monument signs in a in a condensed area. We can ask Brandon um about that and our traffic engineers. Thanks. We have a consulting group too that was

working with us on the signs. Great. Thank you. Okay. Uh if nothing else, I will go ahead and adjourn the meeting.