Planning Board - Regular Meeting

operate. This would provide requirements for low flow fixtures, energy store appliances, irrigation reduction for planting and so on. This is available to both commercial and residential development. For the residential focus, so anything on the single family up through multifamily side, there are also national certifications through the Florida or sorry, through the Energy Star certification program. This certifies homes to be at least 10% more efficient than those that are built to the minimum code standards. This is a fairly relatively frequently achieved certification. There are several million homes in the United States that do meet the certification. Looking a little bit out beyond that, the Department of Energy has an efficient new home certification program. It involves renewables that offset energy costs. It is a higher standard than the Energy Star Certified Home. That is a prerequisite for earning this certification. Looking at the EPA indoor air plus, this would be more focused on environmental health, improvement of indoor air quality, and this is also applicable only to residential construction. So up to this point of the ones listed on the slide, only Florida Water Star is eligible for commercial development. Green Globes is a newer program. I believe it's been in place for several decades, but it has expanded over the recent decades from what I can tell. It's very expansive. It's similar to LEED. It has more of a national focus than a state focus, but it has a similar program that awards points in various levels of sustainability, like water conservation, energy use reduction, and so on. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also has a model lighting ordinance for sea turtle compliance. This is a higher standard than the local code. It's even higher than the ordinance that was moved forward last year and is currently pending before the city commission. It requires full cutoff lights, native vegetation screening, includes higher standards for pools, dune walkers and walkovers and so on than what the city currently has in its code and even what it would be adopting under its new code. This would require independent certification if this is something that would be added to our code that the development complies with all the recommendations, the model lighting ordinance that is applicable to the development type. There is no... Department within the state that would provide a certification for an individual project. This is something that the state adopts as a model lighting ordinance that expects that it expects cities to administer and certify on its own. So some considerations. We are not experts on the intricacies of each of these programs. Some of the programs we do have staff who have some familiarity with Florida Green Building Coalition. We did go through the process with the Miramar project. I have some level of knowledge on the Water Star program, but some of the other ones are brand new. We do want to avoid doubling of points across certifications so for some of these programs for example the water star certification Florida green building coalition built into its certification criteria gives points for the water star certification It's not required, but it is something that it awards points for so we want to ensure that if we if An applicant achieves significant points in one area of certification, such as they're earning significant number of points for the Florida Green Building Coalition water conservation criteria. That should not solely be used as a basis to achieve another certification. If they're already earning Water Star as a means of earning the Florida Green Building Coalition certification, they shouldn't be able to double up on points. We should be looking at those criteria independently. And we also wanted to introduce and get board feedback and potentially crediting higher tiers of one certification as two certifications. More is not necessarily better. Developers do not stumble into the highest tiers of certification, achieving gold or platinum certification. under LEED or Florida Green Building Coalition requires significant planning from the onset on these projects and more substantial investments in sustainability, especially with LEED Platinum. There's generally an expectation that the project be a net zero project. That's not so much required for the lower certification tiers where it may just be a higher investment in more efficient AC units and solar lighting and so on. Lower tiers may be easier to achieve via products modification alone without comprehensive site considerations. And as I mentioned before, some certifications have significant overlap or even award points for achieving the other. Florida Green Building Coalition is a great example. It awards points for achieving Florida Water Star, which would be an independent certification. So the staff's proposal, this is just a concept for the board to consider. We are looking at potentially modifying in undertaking this land development code amendment to allow for standards that are applicable for single and two family developments on single zoning lots only. We do have two homes that are currently under development in the special planning area. We have more that we believe will be undergoing development soon. And this would allow for compliance with the Florida Energy Conservation Code, which is a baked in current Florida building code requirement. That would be one standard that they would be required to meet. And that is intrinsic just in the new development process. The applicant would be eligible to achieve one of the other standards. This would not apply to multifamily development. It would not apply to condo development or townhouse development, large projects that are based across many zoning lots. These would be single and two family homes on one single zoning lot. For all other developments, we would keep the current standard, one of LEED certified or Florida Green Building Coalition Bronze would be a requirement. That would be for all development projects, small office developments, all the way up through large multi-family or large temporary lodging projects. Both LEED certified and Florida Green Building Coalition Bronze can be achieved and count together as the two required standards. That is the current standard. But we would like to promote a higher achievement level if that is viable. So we would be introducing the ability for the applicant to achieve a higher standard. That would be either LEED Gold, Green Globes, Three Globes, which is an equivalent more or less certification to LEED Gold. or Florida Green Building Coalition Gold as two standards. So that would be a higher standard within one program. That would count as the two standards. We would also be introducing potentially additional standards that could be selected or proposed, but the points awarded under the second standard would not be able to overlap the minimum points needed to achieve the minimum LEED or Florida Green Building Coalition certification as selected. I've brought up now multiple times the Water Star certification. If the applicant were to only achieve Florida Green Building Coalition through achieving the Water Star certification, they would not be able to count the Water Star certification as their second certification. They would have to select another that would bring them up to a higher standard and achieve a different higher certification. So with that, I know this is very technical content. Staff is trying to get up to speed on these as well, but we do have a pending project. The Tradewinds project had also been approved. It is currently in appeal, but it had been approved with the intent to achieve the Florida Green Lodging Program as the second of their two certifications. So should that project exit litigation at some point, if they were to move forward, they would be in the same boat as the Miramar project. We are looking for your input on the proposed programs and certification reconsiderations if this is accepted We will prepare a draft ordinance for consideration at an upcoming meeting How to take comments or questions? so what what does one do with the points that they accumulate from achieving the higher levels are we incentivizing something out of that or so the proposal the staff proposal would be that there there's a minimum number of points that must be met to even achieve a certification otherwise they just would not earn lead or the florida green building coalition certification the additional points they have thresholds for both programs that would put them into a higher certification tier lead has four total tiers florida green building coalition has three if they pass that threshold and the other prerequisites for that level they would achieve that higher certification under that program oh i i just mean like i'm a i'm a hotelier what what am i doing with these points like why

What is my incentive for developing to the higher standards to achieve these points? What do I get out of that?

So currently there is no incentive based on this update. There could be a higher incentive for those who want to aim for LEED or Florida Green Building Coalition gold standard, the higher standard. They would only need to achieve that one certification. So they would achieve a higher certification in one program instead of the lower certifications in two. So that would give them an incentive to achieve a higher gold certification.

I think an answer to your question also is if they don't achieve it, they don't get their approval.

Okay. Okay. But they can achieve the bare minimum, and we're not doing anything in our development code to incentivize going to higher tiers? Correct. Currently, no, we're not. Okay. Do you have any thoughts as to whether one can be both resilient for hurricanes and achieve higher levels of LEED certification? Are they compatible or mutually exclusive? I was just thinking back to one of the large resort district projects and, for example, Some of the some of the things that lead awards points for would be a green roof or painting the roof white to reduce heat islands, but If doing that to get your lead points means you're putting your physical plant at the ground level somewhere else when it could have gone on the roof now you're at risk of flood damage, so I'm just curious if know after our experiences with milton and helene if if we might want to revisit the entire concept of what we're trying to achieve and if these two might be at conflict with one another

So I think based on achieving bare minimum, as you brought up before, I haven't received much resistance from that. I think that just meeting the minimum threshold, which for LEED, I believe it's 40 out of 120 points. So there's a lot of low hanging fruit that can be achieved just to be able to, you know, increase the R values, include solar panels, use Florida native landscaping, low impact landscaping. Florida Green Building Coalition, I think does a very good job with providing those florida level specifics that maybe lee doesn't consider they actually award points for having a hurricane evacuation plan for improving dunes using native plants on you know on the beach and so on um they do a very good job without lead with their international focus doesn't have so much of that but I haven't seen any projects where they've been unable to achieve the minimum certification. It's going to get more difficult, as you point out, for the higher tiers where they really need to hit all of those criteria to get to platinum.

And our pressing need is that our LDC requires certifications to programs that no longer exist.

just for the one program, but we do have two projects that were approved with that certification. And especially with the Miramar, they're nearing substantial completion and they would have a difficult time retrofitting to meet if they could at all. And we would not be able to Issue a certificate of occupancy for that project without these two certifications.

That's where we we meet that immediate need is it possible for us to Temporarily reduce the requirements while figuring this out and then put them back in place or didn't then do we get run into? SB 180 type issues where we relaxed it and we can't make it more restrictive to just to get it back to where it was and

I think if we really wanted to explore this in a lot more depth, I think we could probably put a standard in place that would recognize that they were certified as meeting a standard that no longer exists and we can temporarily substitute just for those two projects. But I think on the Tradewinds side, they have not actually begun to develop. We haven't gone through site plan permitting.

it may be more viable for for certain projects than others miramar being under development is is much more of a challenge okay yeah so two there's two things going on here i think right for me to kind of keep them straight you have the major projects like the miramar that's that's kind of the one the most pressing need um i I think I like what you said earlier. I think it's the right thing to do. I think they should get either a waiver or grandfathered in. I don't think we need to do really anything to help them. They should just get approved as long as they meet the intent. They can show they met the intent of that, which is now no longer a thing. We don't wanna punish someone for doing all the right things. And if that's where you're going with that, I agree with that. So on the residential, and then just to piggyback on Member Hubbard's question earlier. So the points, specifically for the hotels, we'll forget about the residential right now. Really, they have to have so many points to get a certification. They need two certifications, right?

Correct.

But beyond that, it's really then for them to show, my guess is if they wanted to go to a higher level, it's really so they can tell everybody they're at a higher level and maybe that's good for their business, right? Correct. But there's no other incentives?

Correct.

Okay. That's kind of, and it's,

Well, it might be that they pay less for energy per month. What's that? If it's an energy-saving thing, they may pay a lower energy bill. Okay, so that's... That might be like a business incentive, reduced cost.

Okay, so there's... Monthly cost. Someone will reduce... Okay, so that's an incentive. They'll get that from somebody, the state or somebody, right, if they do that. Utility company. Utility company, okay. All right, so going to the residential piece, let me just ask this question first. What is the problem that we're trying to solve here?

So with a project like a nine-figure hotel redevelopment, both the... No, I'm talking residential. to give context with a very large project, including these certifications in the development process is not a challenge because it's a considerable cost, but relative to the overall project cost, it's very low. on single family residential development there's a minimum entry level cost just to get the certified fire on the project a lot of new home builders are not familiar with the requirements for leader florida green building coalition so they have to get an outside entity it's a significant additional proportional cost relative to the project even just to achieve the bare minimum certification it's not unachievable they do have a separate homes program but

the proportional cost on a very small project is significantly higher than a bare minimum certification cost on a larger development okay so the problem that you're stating and the reason we're having this discussion the way i hear it is you're trying to save homeowner new new build home right new build homeowners

a portion of of their construction cost is that what we're trying to do correct that's that's that's part of it it's also the fact that a lot of especially in the area that we're discussing a lot of the single family development is just solely redevelopment in a lot of cases of storm damaged homes so they're simply putting back what they have they're not looking for additional development benefits they're they're redeveloping that's not usually the case on the on the commercial side where there are additional benefits that are coming out of the redevelopment.

Okay, so we're doing this specifically because the way this system is working right now, the requirements right now, I haven't heard anyone complain that the requirements are too hard for them to achieve or too expensive. What is the cost that we're talking about? Changing for change's sake, right? I just want to make sure that what are the facts that we're dealing with here? What is the real problem? So if you're saying the problem is the cost and that's driving the staff to come up with something new for the residents, what is that cost? Give me a dollar amount, say per million dollars of a new residential home. What is it?

I don't know if I could give you an exact estimate. We've only had two projects that have gone through this process because the majority of single-family lots in the city are not within this area. They're mostly along Blind Pass Road, a few up along Gulflands.

This has been in place since 2008, though.

Brandon, can you go back a slide? Because I think the staff, to your point... Like, I know that in looking at the requirements, the energy star certified was pretty easy to achieve. I mean, most people today are not going to buy, you know, terrible appliances that waste a lot of energy and stuff like that. So I think it would be a mistake to totally exempt single family. But I think you've already started making efforts for the or maybe it's one before that there was one you had recommendations. And you had something about the single family residential. I think we've probably gone by it.

Yeah, before we get to that though, Brandon, I still just wanna make sure it's clear that for the homes that are in the district there that we're talking about, the very few number, again, this thing's been in place since 2008, if it's purely residential, of monetary savings thing that you're trying to achieve, it would be helpful to know what that number is because it may not be worth all the trouble and time and effort you guys are going through. If it's more than that, let's say, go ahead.

He can give the examples of I think the last two that we've had.

i think that'll help answer your question even they may not be an exact number but what did they do to achieve it because i remember we talked on the phone they had to bring in an outside reviewer and certifier a lot of the cost is more in the administrative certification cost especially with achieving just one certification it's not going to be so much on the

development cost side for the bare minimum certification to to your it's kind of like choosing the refrigerators and choosing the hot water heater they'll have an energy rating on those appliances and then someone puts them on a piece of paper and calculates the number and then certifies that number So you have a number of choices when you're choosing appliances, hot water heaters, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, those kind of things.

It was slide 18, staff proposal, because I think that gets to your question about what is the staff trying to do. That was the one I was thinking of, is I think you're trying to make it easier for the homeowners.

Correct. It's not that they would not need to achieve a certification. It's that they would need to achieve one certification in the baseline Florida building code certification. The basis for that, as you pointed out, it's really monetary. I don't have an exact estimate at this point in time, but I know that the review cost and the cost of getting a consultant on to assess compatibility of the building is considerably higher as a proportion of the product cost. And just with a lot of these larger developments, they already have consultants, they already have developers on the project that are LEED certified or have some kind of background in this with single family homes they tend not to have that so um it's basically just making it a little bit easier for single family homeowners and two family homeowners to redevelop that's that was just for consideration by the board it's not a proposal at this point right so so and i can buy that too like if i were to say well it's a residential home why is it different than my residential home

somewhere else in the city, right? I think that's what we're trying to say. So let's make it the same for all residential homes. The only thing I would say to that, is there any criteria in that district or along the waterfront or anywhere along the beach where you would want to have stricter compliance with something? And now we're just letting that go away, which then gets me kind of to my other point here. You know chasing search search. Without any real standard like you know so going back to the residential piece of there's a residential home in the district on the beach. The standards need to be higher because we want the city wants them to be higher. And this goes to the overall thing about the certifications where you're trying to go with updating the ordinance. You have to know what those are, what the tradeoffs are. If you're going to allow these other things to be considered, but what are the minimum things you want met? And are you going to give those up? If not, if there's no concern and you want those homes to be certified exactly in the same way as any other home in the city, then okay. But I think you have to answer that question first. Or is there a reason they have a higher certification because they're on the beach?

right so the city does not have any beachfront single-family home eligible lots that would be subject to the standard we of course do further further south and in the city but um none of the currently zoned lots would be eligible for a single family home so it would not apply to them it's largely the small lots and this this one's a little bit hard to make out on the screen but this is just south of the former wells fargo along blind pass road that is the site where a new single family development is taking place and they are subject to the standard but the special planning area does not encompass any properties that would be eligible for a single family home so that so these rules were probably put in place to achieve a standard applicable to mostly

larger projects, not single family homes. These people just happen to be located in this area.

Correct. And as written, they are definitely subject to the standard. It did not exempt them, but it's applicable throughout the whole district, but it's applicable in the same way to single family homes as it is to nine-figure hotel projects.

And the city doesn't want to require the standard citywide?

Just with Senate Bill 180, I think that could be challenging to impose at this time. This is only within the special planning area.

Yeah, like what Member Izzy said, if the intent, if our desire as a city is to have this standard apply everywhere and we just can't do it right now, then we don't want to relax it in one area that has it. So it would be good to know what the city's intent is. If we believe this to be best for everyone, then we obviously should leave it in place and say we'd like to get this out to the rest of the city at some point when we're allowed to. But if we believe it's a waste of time, then sure, throw it away because it's doing nothing.

That's why I say, and I've said it a number of times, I've opened up with what is the problem we're trying to solve here. we gotta have a clear definition of a problem before we go and make changes, otherwise we're just making bureaucratic changes for change's sake, and it's just wasting a lot of time, because it's not really solving a problem. We shouldn't be creating solutions when we don't have problems.

We do have the problem in the form of the Miramar development is currently under development. They are not going to be able to get it.

But that one's easy, and you've already stated where you're going with that, and I don't think anyone disagrees. They are in good faith, they complied, they shouldn't be penalized, right? And neither should anybody be penalized if they've done something in good faith. So that's not, to me, that's not even a problem. Changing this whole certification thing I'm just trying to figure out the why behind it.

One of the main ones is no longer available. So they have to have other options.

Well, the other one to articulate in your packet, there's the LDC standard 39.9, and it has A, and then it has all the different standards, Florida Green Building Coalition, LEED, and it goes all the way down to eight. But it doesn't include Florida Energy Conservation Code, where Brandon's called twice and said, well, single family homes have trouble meeting one of these eight. Can we add another criteria that makes more sense for single family homes? That would be this Florida Energy Conservation Code. So maybe it would be like a number nine that says for single family residences.

compliance with Florida energy conservation code would be one more criteria correct correct did the some or all of the proposed additional standards would be added in we would reformat the ordinance around potentially requiring one of the currently required certifications which is either leader Florida Green Building Coalition and one of the others or just have them as additional options this is really just for board discussion on the single family side I think the potential problem that we could be discussing it's not an immediate need but we're opening this ordinance so it was something we wanted to bring to the board which is a consideration of for those who were redeveloping solely a single family or two-family home that fall within the special planning area Do we want them to be held to the higher standard? Do we want a higher cost on their project? Because their current home is certainly not Florida green building coalition or lead certified. Do we want to make them comply with that higher standard? I don't think there's currently any desire that I've heard of to make this a citywide requirement This is applicable only to the special planning area. So I It gives those homeowners that we know that they are contemplating redeveloping Do we want to give them that option just just to achieve that that minimum level of compliance? They would still meet a certification, but potentially it would be the Florida Water Star certification or the Energy Star certification Which is a much lower bar to clear than lead or Florida Green Building Coalition even at that bare minimum standard those higher certifications, the more difficult to achieve certifications are much easier to achieve on very large projects where they're really considering those those energy savings and water savings in their project, where they have those who are certified, it's a much higher proportional cost for a single family home, all else being equal.

Seems to me like it's kind of unnecessary to have single family and multifamily single lot developments in this area have a different standard from the rest of the city. And it should just be larger developments because I think new developments are new new builds using family residences already have to have extensive AC codes and windows that have low E and plenty of insulation and energy efficient appliances are usually something people go for.

So you're saying you feel the building codes have also become Oh, yeah, harder to achieve. And so is there some redundancy here?

Yeah. And also, it's, it's, it's what, one or two houses, right? But yeah, I don't think well, I single family, I hear what you're saying.

And I and I, I think that we certainly don't want to make extra bureaucratic steps yeah but i also feel like this is really where we would go as a city i think the staff has already done a really good job of trying to find a balance here and i i don't think that we want to take this away totally and then at some point when things free up try to reintroduce it i think i almost think that because of the way it's been relaxed and tried to make it achievable, not the same as a hotel. I think the staff has already, in my mind, addressed that concern. I don't think getting this will be that much harder, especially with some of the other standards like that.

No, but it'll be more expensive.

Well, I think that goes to your point. What is the cost? I mean, if it's $50, $100, you know.

It looks like it's 1% to 5%. For to certify our silver rating and it's higher for a gold or platinum is about ten percent Higher cost and then it's three thousand to certify.

What is it for an energy star?

It saves you twenty or thirty percent on your energy bill.

I Guess the easiest one they could get which is the energy star. Do we know what that one cost?

It said one to five percent more than without getting it. I

So that would count as, you need two.

So Energy Star would be one. So based on the potential proposal, they would achieve for a single family home only, they would achieve one certification. Then of course they have to comply with the Florida Energy Conservation Code. So that would be their two certifications only for those projects. For any other project, multifamily, office, commercial, they would need to achieve LEED-certified or Florida Green Building Coalition, the minimum standard that is currently in the code. They can achieve both. That's their two. Or they could achieve one and all or some of the certifications listed on that slide. For the commercial development side, they are much harder to achieve than the Energy Star. The Florida Water Star is a significantly higher standard. All right.

I like the way the commercial looks here I think it makes sense the single family, I'm just confused about why they need a different standard than the rest of the city.

This would make them compliant with the rest of the city or more compliant with the rest of the city because currently the rest of the city does not require any of these certifications. This would remove the requirement that based on the current code they earn both LEED and Florida Green Building Coalition. They would have to earn both based on how the current code is written.

That's too much.

Do we have any idea if any of the other nearby communities have something like this in place for residential?

No, the only other community in the state of Florida that I'm aware of that has this for private commercial projects or residential or commercial is Delray Beach, their central business district only. They require very high-intensity commercial projects to comply, but I believe we're the only jurisdiction in Florida that has this at this scale in place, so...

Yeah, so maybe we all are in agreement saying it a different way. I think for residential properties... I think regardless of where they're located, if they're single family residents, it should just be the same throughout the city. If there's nothing for any of the other houses, no certifications required for any other homes, there shouldn't be a certification required for these ones. I mean, if they're just single-family homes, let's just keep it simple, and let's not go down the road of requiring certifications, because that just, you know, why?

I agree with that. Unless we want to do a full city standard.

Yeah, and the full city standard would probably be what the Florida standard is now. I mean, the standards are pretty high for residential. We don't need to have... And we don't need to have badges to have badges. We don't need to just say, oh, I got a certificate. The houses are being built energy efficient now. They're all being built to a high standard. So I'm in full agreement with the commercial properties and even if they're commercial rental properties kind of thing. But single family homes, let's just keep it simple and standardized. That's my two cents on that.

Yeah, I feel the same. If we're not going to call this the intent for the entire city, then it doesn't make sense to have a special requirement for the same exact development in one region.

Applicable specifically to single family? Correct, yeah. Okay, just making sure. Okay.

Or two family on one lot. Okay. As well, I think.

so based on that if we are going to remove the requirement applicable to single-family homes we will actually need to bring that forward as a comprehensive plan amendment because it doesn't currently distinguish but we're going to keep that as narrow as possible it's going to exempt only single family and two family on single lots so it would not apply to townhouses condo projects or anything of that nature the rest of the amendments will be solely in the land development code it sounds like the board has some consensus on additional commercial options but keeping the standards effectively as they are now single family would be exempt through the comprehensive plan would that

Thank you is for the commercial projects is there a Some type of variance process that could allow them to get through so this can have more thorough investigation on alternatives or do we have to get something in place to

We could potentially write a standard that is applicable solely to this one situation. It would be an exemption, but practically it would be used by one project. There is a variance process, and we actually had a potential office development right next to the Bank of America a few years back. They went through that, but we can't vary the number of standards. We can only vary the standards they achieve. Okay.

I can, sorry. Just one more thing on the commercial side. I think what you said, I'm in agreement with. The thing I would caution us though is, and to think about, and this is where I think, again, defining the problem. what is it we would like our commercial properties, let's say hotels, to actually really be in compliance with? So for example, the FGL is no longer enforced, but it may have had things in it that we as a community like and would like our hotels to be compliant with, right? If we say that, if we define that, and if that's the case, then maybe we can have a St. Pete beach equivalent to the FGL. And we tell all the commercial properties, Hey, these are the things that are important to us as a city. And this is a assert that you need to get because these things mean something to us. You know, the recycling and all those, there were some good things in that. I say that, and I say it again with any other cert, have an intent behind what you're asking for. Don't just say, get two certs, here's five to choose from. Okay. Get the ones that are meaningful for our city. And if there isn't, again, if there isn't one there now because this one went away but we really thought this was important, then that's worth creating an ordinance over saying do these things as your second one or what have you, right? Just don't chase certs is what I'm saying. Let's have some purpose and meaning behind it so we get the outcome that we really want.

and i have to say i think the when you put the comprehensive plan requirements in there and then you said what did these programs accomplish i think that was the question that was trying to be answered you know that's why well you get to pick you get to pick one but right but you have you have goals i mean it talks about natural resources water conservation energy i mean it's not i don't feel i i felt like there was a very thorough process done here so i did not feel like it was just certs going after certs i felt like it was trying to tie into what the city does want to have in the comprehensive plan

Okay. Well, I don't disagree with you, but if one of them is going away and we're trying to figure out what's acceptable, all I'm saying is should we prioritize what we think is acceptable, or are we just going to let people choose from the five, and if that's good enough, it's good enough, you know? I just like to have some intent when we go forward with things. I don't, you know...

ANYWAY. IT'S A SHAME THAT THE GRAIN LOGGING PROGRAM WAS ENDED BECAUSE LIKE I MENTIONED IT WAS VERY OPERATIONALLY FOCUSED AND WE'VE LOOKED WE'VE TRIED TO FIND A PROGRAM THAT AN INDEPENDENT CERTIFYING AGENCY OFFERS THAT WOULD BE EQUIVALENT AND IT It doesn't exist from what I can tell. It was an excellent accompaniment to the Florida Green Building.

So that's my point. And if that one was the one that we all thought in this city was the important one and now we're losing it, Should we create our own that achieves the same thing and say, you have to do this, or do we just let them pick from the ones that are available? To me, that's the easy way out, right? And it will work, but does it get us what we really want? And if we're sitting here, you sound disappointed by it. I looked at the, there are some good things on there. If we don't get the same results out of any of the other ones on there, then why do that? Why don't we tell them, hey, you gotta do these things?

Well, I think what you're saying is take what was in the Florida Green Lodging Program as the standards and criteria, cut and paste those and put those into the ordinance if possible, into the code.

I'm saying if that's what we feel is... Ones that are good, that we like. If we feel that's more important than some of these other ones that are available for certification, then I would say let's do that. But we have to answer that question first. You know what I mean? Answer the question and go, yes, this is what is important to the city. And then we move forward with the next step. It's a little bit of the easy way out just by saying here's a smorgasbord of others to choose from because we lost one.

I think some of those criteria are implemented by the hotels anyway. When you check in, you know it says if you want to wash your towels, put them on the ground, otherwise hang them up and reuse them. Those kinds of criteria.

Is it legally possible to adopt the,

final iteration of the fgl codes or i think we may since we had it in there already just because they don't recognize it the fgl doesn't i think it would be the same standard just being put in it wouldn't be more restrictive or burdensome you have to take a look at the actual criteria and see what each one was would that put more cost on the city versus i guess the proposal would

as it's written would put more not much more you said but more cost on the developer whereas if we do it grant suggesting would that require more enforcement from the city or monitoring

I think the certifications were traditionally paid for by private sector certification person.

We wouldn't be doing certifying.

We would have to kind of take their word for it on the application.

I had the same question because the way the FGL is described, it sounds like there would have to be ongoing audits to have any idea if they're compliant. Was there such a thing? Was the FGL an actual entity that would provide ongoing auditing of daily operations?

There was. There was a separate division within their sustainability office that provided ongoing certification. That is a great idea and I wish we could administer that but the investment would be extremely high. And we did and looking at just this alternatives list I did try to pick out ones that have both come up in the development process That the community at least in recent years has held out to be you know their priorities looking at the water star certification The indoor air plus that's getting more into environmental health, but that would be an option for new development They're intended to be accompaniments and not overlap LEED and Florida Green Building Coalition. So the first one on the slide and the last three, those are standards that could be above and beyond what they already need to achieve under LEED or Florida Green Building Coalition. Florida Green Building Coalition does award some points that are much more state specific like the evacuation plan, but they can earn a lot of energy efficiency credits under LEED achieve the minimum lead certification and earn nothing on the water conservation side. So achieving the Florida Water Star certification would not overlap. It wouldn't just be another certification to achieve. It would actually have demonstrable results if they were to achieve that.

To to we allow for any type of offsets to achieve the goal like I obviously were interested in and we can really buy an offset to produce water, but if you're trying to build something in the most energy efficient you can and you just can't get there does Do we as the city allow for the purchase of offsets to achieve the same goal?

There's a recent bill that the governor signed, HB 1217, that prohibits offset programs. Oh, OK.

and i do even you know again this this being a voluntary certification i i think lead might give some credit if they pursue that voluntarily again it's a point-based system but it is something i believe that they would receive credits for which ones of this list of six are for homes only energy star and energy efficient new home certification i believe that i don't know if it's capped just at single family but it's it's definitely not a an apartment complex they indoor air plus is for residential but i believe it goes up through multi-family apartments and condos so as you as you continue to go through this though you're gonna also look at possibly the one cert if it's a higher cert that covers a lot of other things you're going to look at that too right you said i'd like to if the board's amenable to that i think that it's just we we see it when we certify annually for our insurance offsets um there's low hanging fruit that are very easy to achieve but as you get higher as you get more points and achieve higher certifications you really need to start making investments and achieving what they're looking for in the program so I can't say definitively, but achieving gold in one standard could very easily be a higher standard than achieving the bare minimum in two standards because the points required to achieve a gold certification are so much higher than the individual.

I think achieving LEED gold would be substantial. My college had a lot of LEED gold and platinum buildings, and I think they're miles and miles ahead of any Florida beachfront hotel. So I feel like having that kind of standard achieved by a hotel in an area like this where, you know, the zeitgeist isn't so eco-friendly centric, I think that would be impressive.

Yeah, you look at the project list and it's San Francisco and New York, you know, they tend to occupy the top thousand spots. all right are we good with this action or discussion item okay the next discussion item is 5b status of expanded sidewalks in the special planning area this is a follow-up from last month I just wanted to talk about the status and get a little bit of basis for what's going on let me see here so this is in our land development code as a requirement for any development project as appropriate this land development code section 39.10 a a 10 foot sidewalk shall be constructed to allow for safe unobstructed and efficient pedestrian flow and the potential for sidewalk cafes and outdoor eating areas is appropriate in front of all development projects within the community redevelopment district this is now the special planning area Specifically, they need to be installed along Gulf Boulevard or Blind Pass Road and within the town center core area. So that's effectively our downtown from 76 down to 73rd on the west side from 76 down to quarry on the east side of Gulf Boulevard. The requirement may be reduced to six feet when warranted through the Technical Review Committee site plan review process. We have tended to, as a policy that is a staff level review board, we have tended to not reduce that requirement in most cases. so moving from the north end of the city to the south just showing the existing and proposed sidewalks that will be expanded to meet the 10-foot standard we already have quite a few of course in downtown it's most appropriate place to have them looking along 75th ave and then along corey avenue in our downtown we do have a number of sidewalks that meet the 10-foot standard already those were put in place prior to the special planning area Corey Landings, as a commitment of their development, has agreed to put in 10 foot sidewalks along their entire frontage. So that will be along the former auto body as well as along the areas of the site that contain the mixed use condo projects. They will be installing those at the time of development. That is a requirement for that project. Moving south, again, both the Tradewinds and the Serata Resort projects are currently under appeal. However, part of the commitment for their development is that they will install sidewalks along the entirety of their frontage should the project move forward. Serata is a one-phase project, so they will achieve that by the time the resorts are operational. Tradewinds is a four-phase project starting at the south moving to the north, so they would install sidewalks at 10 feet by phase moving along the project site as they move toward the north side of the development. Both developments do have certain triggers that if they start to develop and they only partially achieve the development project, they are still required to put in sidewalks along the entirety of the frontage. Should they move forward with either development project and not fully redevelop, they would still be required to install the full sidewalk span. Moving a little bit further south the one sidewalk at least during my tenure with the city that has actually been installed was a caribou coffee, this was formerly an auto depot taxi depot dispatch it was converted to caribou coffee shop in starting in the early 2020s finished up about a year ago, they have installed the full 10 foot sidewalk along their frontage. And then Miramar Resort is under development. We would expect that sidewalk to be in place by the end of the year when the resort opens. That is a requirement of their development. So that's really all I had. I did want to point out that it is development that triggers this requirement. The most frequent type of development that we see that does not involve actual construction of a new building is like what you saw with Caribou. There is currently a... conversion of the dry cleaners I believe at 66th Avenue and Gulf Boulevard to a coffee shop they would be subject to the same requirement one other recent change of use was the Beach Meats property that was formerly a photography studio they did not install the sidewalk they did obtain a variance just based on that change of views the pushback and the concern we've received from a lot of owners and developers has not been on the larger projects that's been more an issue with timing the concern we've received with change of use really being the lowest threshold for development under the city's definition it's not just the cost of the new pavement a lot of times especially along gulf boulevard and blind pass road there is a requirement that they bring the storm water inlets up to the current standards or fully replace them that can be a considerable cost speaking with one developer the cost of replacing the sidewalk alone was higher than the cost of the renovation to change the property to a different use so for the smaller more local projects that has been the challenge we haven't seen a lot of redevelopment we haven't seen a lot of of change in use but with these new development projects as we as they come online we have tried to be forthcoming with requiring these sidewalks so happy to take board input answer any questions

Thanks for bringing this up. I know I was the one who asked for it, so I really appreciate it. I do have one question for you from a historical perspective. Is anyone, so totally in agreement with the 10 foot sidewalks, right? Has anyone ever discussed putting a vegetation barrier next to the road and then the sidewalk on the other side of that? For example, if you're in downtown St. Petersburg, You walk down there, a lot of their sidewalks, nice white sidewalks, but immediately next to the road, they have like four feet of vegetation, kind of like just a barrier of some sort. Aesthetically pleasing. I don't know how functional it is in the event someone were to run a car through it, but... it keeps people that much further away from the road itself, which is, you know, from a safety perspective, I think it's pretty brilliant, you know, to do that. It keeps anyone from really falling over. You have that natural little barrier there.

I think that's a really great idea and I think personally I'd rather see a six foot sidewalk and four feet of vegetation like you're talking because I think about not only the safety aspects of it but we're trying to not have everything be impervious and you know I think it has a lot of other secondary things plus I think we need to be aware of where the poles are the transformers I don't think we're trying to get some of that stuff moved. So I think that's a great idea.

Yeah, and I don't know if it's ever come up in the past, and that's why I'm asking. And if it hasn't, I would just like to float that idea. Because the trade winds and these others that are moving along, they haven't fully, you know, they have time to change some of their design if they needed to. I also fully realize, I mean, Gulf Boulevard is the biggest safety issue we have for sidewalks. also realize that we don't have a lot of room to go on some places. So we may, as a city, want to look forward to saying maybe one side of Gulf Boulevard becomes the big walking thoroughfare of the 10-foot. The other side, you know, we just we just try to find a way to you know, make it safer But it's it's hard like and there's just some businesses and you there's no no room to go Some of them are almost on the road themselves, right?

I agree with that also because when I see people moving their luggage and everything it seems like the Gulf side is where they need more space and so I think that's another really good consideration and

I think also from just a pleasant walking perspective, there's no trees anywhere along the sidewalks on Gulf Boulevard. So it's not great to walk through in the summer. And if you had some tree cover and some shade, I think it'd be very cool.

yeah i i i think there's a lot of goodness there i mean the the the con the con to it you know we always got to talk pros and cons that the con to it would be the the water needed to you know and the um irrigation systems and the maintenance of those and who would that fall on probably you know there'd be a tussle between the businesses and the city on that but but the benefits would outweigh, I think, that small cost, right? So that said, how do you have that discussion to go down the road and say, hey, sidewalks must be 10 feet, but they also must have a vegetation barrier between the road, and if that's something we want to do. I mean, is it something we say, hey, we would like you to go look at that, or is it...

you know making that change that's definitely something we could look into with obviously the focus being blind pass road north of 75th and gulf boulevard those being the high volume areas where those issues are more evident um we would need to engage with the state those are state roadways they have been supportive and they have worked with us on the 10-foot standard but With the landscaping as you pointed out their maintenance considerations. There might be line of sight considerations especially with Palms or other, you know low water need plants They do typically have setback requirements from curbs and so on for that just for anybody who might run out into the road and Um, so we would need to engage with them on that and see if that's something they'd be amenable to. But what you mentioned makes sense. Um, we do see, you know, especially over the summer, of course, just groups, you know, and it can get a little precarious on the five foot sidewalks, but with four, six feet and then a buffer that helps.

So, and if you think about it, it wouldn't be any different than pass a grill. That's true. When you drive down there, right? And I don't know if that's still considered State Road or not. No, that's local down there. But basically the same concept with a wider walking area.

We had a workshop with FDOT, I want to say, one or two years ago, specifically about Gulf Boulevard. And did anything ever come out of that? It addressed these exact things. They were supposed to have their best and brightest come up with some ideas for Gulf Boulevard and get back to us.

we did get a safety study it didn't get into that level of detail a lot of it was media and intersection improvements nothing conceptual like what the city has for downtown where it actually gave renderings of what we would like to see but there is as you point out there's flexibility with some of the larger projects that are committing to these sidewalks miramar is under development so it's a little past the rain on that one but um we can we can certainly engage and i think we have some time

Is FDOT who is in charge of curb cuts on Gulf Boulevard?

They are, yeah.

Because there are some places, like if you go to Agave, because they're not allowed to have more curb cuts, you actually have to drive on the sidewalk to get into a parking spot. So there are places like that along Gulf Boulevard that are problematic. Yeah. So I don't know. It's a mess. Everywhere on Gulf Boulevard is a mess. But yeah, I would love to see some of the ideas I like. I like the plant buffer, too, and trees. And if you put them on one side, it encourages people to stay on that side and not jaywalk. And people are running across the street constantly over the summer. It's just like dodging people whenever I drive down there. OK.

Yeah, we'll look into that. We'll engage with FDOT and get back to you. Thank you.

All right. We don't have anything else on the agenda. So with that, I will adjourn this meeting.