City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you for not making me hit that thing any more times than that. That was I appreciate you guys. It's a good morning. Alright. Let's call this meeting to order. Madam Clerk, if you could do a roll call, please.

Mister Engelking? Here. Missus Frank is requesting an excused absence. Mister Howard?

Here.

Mister Smith?

Here.

Mister Reed?

Here.

Vice mayor Bolt? Here. Mayor Pachono?

And I'm here as well. So we will stand for the invocation and the pledge today can be led by vice mayor Bolt.

Our father, grant us wisdom and understanding so that we may work together for the common good of our community. Keeping our hearts and minds open to the thoughts and perspectives of others that we may serve with steadfast purpose. In your name, we pray. Amen. Amen.

Alright. We have a a good full morning of recognitions. So I'm gonna go individually with the recognitions and then as you're you're done with yours, if you guys wanna leave so that there's plenty of room for other folks to be here and come into the room for their recognition, that they're here to attend, that would be very courteous of you. So we will start with, recognition of master municipal clerk designation for Mercedes Garcia. So if I could get the deputy clerk along with the FACC Southwest District director, clerk Scotty Lin, and then if we could get James Klinch to join me upfront.

Good morning, mayor, members of councils, city staff, and attendees. It is my honor to be here and thank you for having me. My name is Scottie Lynn Kelly. I am the Florida Association of City Clerk Southwest District Director. I also serve on the Professional Education Committee.

This is really loud. I'm currently the city clerk for the city Of Sanibel and it is with great pleasure that I appear here this morning to congratulate your city on the recent accomplishment of your deputy city clerk records Mercedes Garcia upon receiving her MMC designation. The International Institute of Municipal Clerks or IIMC and its partner, the Florida Association of City Clerks, FACC, are professional associations that promote continuing education and certification through university and college based institutes. IIMC's primary goal is to actively promote the continuing education and professional development municipal clerks through extensive education programs, certifications, publications, networking across the globe, annual conferences and research. PACC's primary goal to actively promote the continuing education and professional development of municipal clerks in the state of Florida by partnering with the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Institute of Government to meet the ever changing and educational needs of city and town clerks to improve their knowledge in areas such as public administration, law, management, elections, and many other disciplines.

Currently, only 9.76% or fifteen oh four of the 15,405 members of the International Institute of Municipal Clerks have attained this master municipal designation. At this time, of the six eleven members of the Florida Association of City Clerks, only 22.9% or 140 members have reached the MMC designation. To achieve the master municipal clerk designation, the first step is becoming certified municipal clerk through the completion of the International Institute of Municipal Clerks approved municipal clerk's institute program. These are some really big words. Conducted by the John Scott Daily Florida Institute of Government, Florida State University in Tallahassee.

This program provides a 120 student to instructor contact hours of in-depth courses in managerial and leadership skills, social and interpersonal concerns and technical training needed to deal with changes taking place in government today. The government or sorry, the program aids municipal clerks in improving job performance and recognizes the professionalism of the municipal clerk's office. Completion of a recognized career development academy or a baccalaureate degree in a public administration or related field, responsible experience in local government and participation in conferences, meetings and educational seminars are required to earn

the

prestigious city certified municipal clerk designation. However, true professionals never want to rest on their success but instead keep reaching higher. The master municipal clerk academy was established to further professional education of city clerks and to meet the challenges of the office. Academy members must demonstrate they have actively engaged in educational and professional participation that keeps them current with the changing events in the local government scene. Academy members seeking to earn their master municipal clerk designation are required to attain a hundred and sixty eight hours in advanced education with 80% coursework in public administration and 20% in electives and attain 20 points in professional and social contributions to include attendance professional meetings, conferences and hours and awards received for specific individual achievements.

This is quite a task considering the daily demands of the clerk's office. Ms. Barcia is now a part of an elite group of professionals in local government, a group she could not have become part of without your commitment to support her efforts. In light of the speed and drastic nature of changes these days, lifelong learning is not only desirable, it is necessary to keep pace with the growing demands and changing needs of the citizens we serve. Your city can take immense pride in Ms.

Garcia's educational achievements and achievement of this milestone. Finally, on behalf of the Florida Association of City Clerks, President, Board of Directors and its members, the Florida Association of City Clerks Professional Education Committee and the Southwest District, we are also very proud of you. Mercedes, commit yourself to lifelong learning, display your plaque and wear your pin with pride as an example of your dedication and professionalism. Please join me in congratulating Mercedes Mercedes Garcia MMC on her impressive accomplishment as one of the newest municipal master municipal clerks. Well done, my friend.

Well, thank you, Scotty Lynn. I have the honor of presenting on behalf of the city today for Mercedes. And Kelly Michaels could not be here regrettably, But it is my treat because I've gotten to work with Mercedes for many years and I can tell you she is a committed and dedicated employee. A lot of people don't know how closely the city clerk's office works with the city manager's office. We are communicating every single day.

We're dealing with every single situation, crisis, deadline that comes up and Mercedes, is somebody who I can go to anytime I need something, almost any hour or day of the week, and it gets done. And that is incredibly valuable, not only to me personally, but to our our organization and to this city. So thank you Mercedes. It is with great pleasure that Kelly and I congratulate you on your recent accomplishment of the MMC clerk designation. Very prestigious and this is not your, your first stop here.

You got your certified municipal clerk status in August 2023, which is a three year program conducted by the Florida Institute of Government at Florida State University. This prestigious program provides an in-depth course in managerial and leadership skills and technical training needed to be effective in the ever changing landscape of local government. Mercedes didn't take a break though. She continued to advance her professional growth working towards the master municipal clerk designation which she is receiving today. The MMC certification involves advanced education preparing participants to perform complex municipal clerk duties, and it also involves rigorous educational components, professional and social contributions.

Mercedes, we just wanna congratulate you on this achievement. It is a great display of your dedication, your perseverance. It is very challenging as someone else who's gone to school and worked a full time job, to balance work with education, with family, with more hurricanes than we can count over the last several years, but you did it. And it wasn't easy, I'm sure. None of us know the challenges, but we can be here to celebrate you today and say congratulations on this prestigious recognition.

Thank you. I'm just gonna keep it brief. I wanna say I'm very grateful to city council and the leadership for their continued commitment to supporting development growth, professional growth. It's very important. Never stop learning.

The only person that can stop yourself is you. So my encouragement to everybody, it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what stage in life you are, keep on learning, keep on growing because the knowledge is the only thing that you have that no one can take away from you. I appreciate each and every person I work with on a daily basis especially the wonderful team, my clerk's team. They're amazing, they're such empowering women and I am blessed to be working for the city. Thank you.

Alright. So with that, we're going to go ahead and take a break until twenty after and then we'll come back in for squaring ends. I know you guys have it in you. Let's bring it back together. Second time is always the toughest. Alright. We're gonna move on to the swearing in ceremonies for our our fire service. So if I could get the fire chief to meet me up front, and Bernardo Rivera and his family and friends, and of course the clerk.

We go.

Little bit of dancing. Okay.

I, Rivera.

I, Bernardo Rivera.

Solemnly swear.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will support.

That I will support or protect.

And defend.

And defend.

The constitution and government.

The constitution and government.

Of The United States.

Of The United States.

And of the state of Florida.

And the state of Florida.

And I am duly qualified.

That I'm duly qualified. Hold my position. To hold my position.

Under the constitution of the state.

Under the constitution of the state.

And that I will will and faithfully.

And I will will and faithfully. Perform the duties. Perform the duties.

Firefighter paramedic.

A firefighter paramedic.

I wish I.

I wish I. I'm about to enter.

So help me.

So help you God.

Good morning. I think it's definitely safe to say we are no longer practicing COVID protocols. So good morning again. Thank you mayor, thank you council, city manager. Every swearing in is such a unique opportunity, and as fire chief, it brings me joy to see just the the family support, and we're we're so excited to have such such good employees, and today is no different in the fact that we're we look forward to your opportunity, your career, and thank you so much for what you and thank you so much for the support of your son.

Thank you. Thank you. So as tradition has, this will be the the pinning, so whomever is the the lucky person, here we go.

Okay. Next up, we're going bring up Danielle Van Dusen, Christian Stoddard and Jacob O'Connell. Wade through the sea of people. And then if they have any family members here with them that are gonna do their pinning, or friends, or designees? No, you can't speak. You had your chance. I wanna say something too. Okay. So

again, as I as I mentioned, swearing in's are are always a very unique and cool thing. What what you really get to witness this this round is something that really has never happened in the history of Venice Fire Department and I'm excited to watch this as with all of them, but you'll see these pinnings, you have a retired firefighter from California who is a grandfather and thank you for your service, who will be pinning his grandson. You'll also recognize a very familiar name in the O'Connell family here Venice, and they will also be pinning their son, and something too that's extremely touching to my heart is you'll get to see for the first time in the history of Venice as well, is you'll get to see a a current battalion chief in our fire department, department and he will be swearing in his daughter who now also works for our fire department. Very very cool stuff.

Alright. So we're gonna try to do this as orderly as possible. We'll start with Danielle, and if everybody just wants to shift off to the side there, families and everything. So we'll start with Danielle, and then if you guys just jump out of the frame of any pictures. There you go. Yep. Whichever way you want to go. Left or right? It's all it's all up to you. We'll start with Danielle. Danielle, come a little closer. Okay. Perfect. I gotta go where you're standing though. I'm sorry, you can go to the other side.

No, I'll stand.

Okay. It's like a Van Dusen sandwich.

Okay. I, Danielle Van

Danielle Van Dusen

do solemnly

swear I

will support, protect,

and defend

the constitution

constitution and government

of The United States

Of The United States

and of the state of Florida

and of the state of Florida

that I am duly qualified that

I am duly qualified

to hold my position

to hold my position

the constitution of the state of

the constitution and the state

that I will well and faithfully.

That I will well and faithfully.

Perform your duties.

Perform the duties.

A firefighter EMT.

A firefighter EMT.

On which I.

On which I.

Am now about to enter.

Am now about to enter. So me God. Now,

Frank did forget one thing. This is actually one of my students as well. So it's full circle that I get to be up here while one of my students gets sworn in. City's got great vision. We we know you're a man of many words.

Give give give me one sentence.

Actually, I I wanna thank I was worried about being in tears up here because obviously, you know, this is a big deal for me, but I wanna thank council, chief, and the city for my career and you guys are now I mean blessed with another Van Duzen for the next twenty five, thirty years. So thank you all. You're amazing and I'm very proud of

you. Alright.

We'll do Christian Stoddard next. Left hand.

I Christian Stoddard.

Christian Stoddard.

Solemnly swear

do solemnly swear that

I will protect, and the constitution and government

the constitution and government

of The United States

Of The States

of the state of Florida

and of the state of Florida I am duly qualified I am duly qualified

To hold my position.

To hold my position

Under the constitution of the state.

Under the constitution of the state.

And I will well and faithfully

And that I will well and faithfully

Perform the duties.

Perform the duties

A firefighter EMT.

Of firefighter EMT.

On which I

which I

now about enter.

Am now about to enter. So help me God.

My name is Bill. I'm Christian's grandpa. I'm very proud of my service. I'm proud of my grandson. Part of the service is filled with tradition and I would like to give you my old home that I wore with pride.

I'd be bawling my eyes out right now. You guys are good at this. Got Jacob O'Connell.

I Jacob O'Connell. Do Do solemnly square.

That I will defend.

That I will support protect and defend. The constitution constitution and government. Of The United States and of the state of Florida that I am duly qualified to hold my position under the constitution of the state and that I will well and faithfully perform the duties of firefighter EMT on which I am now about to enter. Help me God.

It was gonna buy us another twenty five minutes, Derek. Okay. If you guys would just come up and sign real quick, and then we're all set. Congratulations. Now the hard work begins.

Alright, Chief's up here already, so if we could get Juan Leva to come up. Chief, don't go anywhere. Chief, stay up here. And then we'll get city manager James Clinch. Chief. Chief, you're walking away again. Firefighters, man. There he is.

Juan, congratulations. We're here to celebrate your five years of service to the city of Venice. And this is always a treat for us as we celebrate new employees coming on board and our existing employees who are here serving every day, taking care of our community in their hardest times of need. So thank you for this and it's a great milestone. So we recognize and congratulate Juan today on his five years of service.

Since his employment as a firefighter paramedic with the city of Juan has served with pride and dedication. During Juan's time, he has diligently worked to educate himself and enhance his understanding of the profession. His recent accomplishments include obtaining certifications in fire officer one, live fire training instructor, field training officer, advanced vehicle machine extrication and rescue, and CPR instructor. Additionally, Juan holds an associates degree in fire science and is an active member of the fire department honor guard. Our sincerest appreciation Juan for your commitment, your education, and your service excellence. Thank you and congratulations.

There's no way that the cops are gonna be able to top this. No

way. Again,

very humbling to be up here to just to see all this take place. I wish that I could take Juan's passion and instill it in all of us. Know, passion for his occupation, passion for his family, and and really just it's it's aspiring for all of us and thank you so much. Five years comes and goes so fast, but just a a true impact to our department. Thank you.

He turned it off so I couldn't speak anymore. Alright. We're going to bring up Derek Applegate from the building department, we get Michael Reeves to come up as well. And this will be ten years.

Michael, congratulations. We're so happy to be here to celebrate with you today on your decade of service to the city of Venice. Michael has, over the past decade, been one of our most highly skilled multi licensed inspectors, holding licenses in plumbing and electrical inspection, as well as a plumbing plans examiner. He's also currently enrolled in our Building Officials Association of Florida cross training program to continue to expand his licensure even further. Michael's commitment to professionalism, accuracy, and public service has made him an invaluable member of our building department.

His expertise and strengths are not just a benefit to the building department, but truly, he works every day to protect the safety and welfare of our entire community. After these hurricanes we just experienced, I can't tell you how thankful we are for the response efforts, the restoration support, and making sure that our homes are secure and safe into the future. So thank you for everything you're doing, Michael. I also wanna take a moment to recognize and thank Michael for his service to our country. He is a proud veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and we just wanna recognize that today as well. Michael, thank you for a decade of service to the city of Venice, We look forward to many more years and congratulate you on this milestone. Thank you.

I just wanna reiterate what James said. Michael's been here for a long time. He's actually been over twenty years technically, but he had a little gap in the middle, but he couldn't stay away. He's back. He's been here for ten. He does good work. He's very passionate about the community. He credits all of his skills to his mentors and teachers prior to, so he tries to pass that down to newer, younger inspectors. So he's definitely a vital member of the team. We appreciate everything that he does, and he also has a lot of bad dad jokes for all of our team meetings.

Thank you.

Well, thank you very much. You've heard once a marine, always a marine. So when I got the invite to come to this function, was my best response would be to keep working because if I don't work, my buddy's gotta take up my slack. So but then we have a new a new thing with the city that they started in HR, and they're giving monetary bonuses. And I got one for $500.

As soon as I got that, my heart sank. I had a lump in my throat because the city was showing appreciation to me, and that just melted it. So and it got me thinking about appreciation and respect. And as I look around the room, I see many faces that have been here as long as I have, and you're still making the city great again. Don't ever write your notes in a gel pen. It'll smear all day.

And good eyesight too, by the way. Who

knows? So,

it's a beautiful thing. Thank you very much.

Well said.

Can't top that. Alright. With that, we're gonna go ahead and take a break so that everybody can go outside in the courtyard, get photos. We'll come back at fifty five after nine. Alright.

Let's bring it back together. Let's get nice and quiet, please. Okay. So before I read about audience participation, if I could just give everyone a quick reminder, it is like a sound studio in here. There's people at home listening, there's hearing aid devices that are part of the loop, so every little thing that we say and do in this room can be heard and sometimes it'll cover over the audio of what we're saying and what the speakers are saying.

So with that, if I could remind everybody to take out cell phones and put them on silent or turn them off, so that the next part because we do have a lot of speakers today that deserve to be heard, so I want to make sure that everybody is nice and quiet so that everybody gets the attention they deserve. Okay. On to audience participation which will be limited to one hour. Speakers are not to address council members individually. Any person making personal, impertinent or slanderous remarks or who becomes disorderly may be barred from the meeting.

This is an opportunity to provide the City Council with your comments. City Council will not respond to any questions or comments during this time per the City Code. A member of City staff will follow-up with you if it's appropriate. Any documents shown during audience participation or part of the meeting must be given to the clerk for the official record. With that, Madam Clerk, do I have anybody signed up to speak?

Yes, we do.

Okay. Let's start with our first speaker and how much time do they have?

They have five minutes. First speaker is Ellen Byrne.

And then you'll notice there's a podium over here. I believe we're going to try to keep the mics ourselves so that you don't have to push buttons, so when you see the green light, that means you are free to start talking. There's a series of indication lights up in the front and they'll do a countdown and tell you how much time you have when you are up here. When you get to that yellow light, that's your warning that you'll have a minute or two left to speak, and then as soon as the beep happens or the red light turns on, that is the conclusion of your time, not the time to summarize, and I will stop you from speaking at that point so that everyone can be heard. Good morning and welcome to you.

Good morning. Thank you. And I want to thank the city council for allowing us, the citizens, to come and speak. I also want to thank our yoga community for being here today. Raise your hands. Where are you yogi? Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you.

Let's keep it I

want to talk for a couple minutes about why the yoga community is making such a fuss. What are we carrying on about? And how why it's so important for both the folks who do yoga but also very much for the city of Venice and the entire community. And we've got some ideas on how the city can help because we need some help. Yoga on the beach is a real focal point.

We're talking hundreds of people. Come January, all those snowbirds keep flying down, you'll see four or 500 people on the beach in a two hour period in the morning and then more in the in the afternoon. And we do it both because it's healthy every morning to start our day like that. But it's a real sense of community and and that is part of what makes our city of Venice so special. And what that means is when you come down for a long weekend or people come and visit and we bring them, it's a one of the big selling points that maybe they'll come back and start renting or like me buy property and stay here.

And so it's a real community asset and let me tell you, it's a real negative blow when people come on the beach and feel intimidated and pick their stuff up and leave and the word gets out on that pretty quickly. It's not just important to, you know, the yogis. You guys know as it's a marketing asset. You know we've been featured on the newspapers, on the pictures, the front covers of the magazines. I believe they're interviewing our yoga instructor again today about what makes it special.

People put it in the real estate listings. And you know, when you go every day, the yoga teachers are very good about announcing and promoting all the activities going in town, supporting the community activities, supporting our local businesses. This is what makes the community you're building that fiber that makes it so special. And you guys know even better than we do, more folks in Venice means little bit higher property values which brings more money in for your taxes. So it's all it's spin off effect.

You know, it's not just a yoga issue, the issue we're having right now with one individual because this can happen again. This can happen in other parts of town. This can happen on Venice Avenue in Saturday night in front of some of the nicer restaurants or in Centennial Commons. You don't want that. You don't want that for residents.

You certainly don't want that for visitors. I'm from a big city. And you know it doesn't take much for people to freak out about crime and they're not coming downtown and you got problems. So let's let's not allow this to happen and also let's not set ourselves up for any possible confrontational situations. I'm telling you, our community is intimidated when there's somebody in your space talking, shadow boxing, going finger guns.

We've seen that finger guns. Also, you know, some very rude words. Not every morning but it's happened enough times. He's very intimidating and our people either people have left, people have, I know, brought weapons and guns and are talking about it. It it's just a tinderbox and it's unnecessary. The beach is miles wide. There's nobody there and except, you know, we have a permit for our area. So we need your help, folks. We need you to help us fix this. We need you to give the police some more tools so that they can ask him to move along.

We're not asking him to be arrested. We're not upset about being homeless. He is welcome to sit and do his yoga with us like we do it, not take up a 20% of the space and walk around and play music while she's trying to talk, talk to himself, film everybody out there, put it on his YouTube stations. That's just not fair. And so I know I've shared with you all an example of a disorderly conduct ordinance that Pompano Beach, Florida uses.

And frankly, I it's based on the state of Florida has a statute, talks about breach of peace and disorderly conduct. So Pompano Beach says it's unlawful for anybody to engage in disorderly conduct as described, and they're guilty of disorderly conduct if they're doing it with a purpose to breach to preach the peace, you know, to breach the peace and to be a nuisance which is what we're saying that he is. When any public place, for instance, somebody does an act or creates a condition which does does or is calculated to encourage Thank

you very much for your comments. Your time is up. Okay? Madam clerk, next speaker.

I will leave this You

can leave it with the clerk. Just leave it with the clerk. Thank you.

Next speaker is Ellen Larson.

Ellen Larson. Madam Clerk, five minutes?

Five minutes.

Okay. Ellen Larson.

Okay.

Ellen Larson.

Good morning. I am not a resident of Venice so I actually only have two minutes.

Okay.

And I respect that. I could take five but I'll take two.

Thank you.

Yes. My name is Elin. I am the yoga teacher and the permit holder on Venice Beach. And been there for eighteen years. It's been a lot of fun. We've had a great time and probably everybody's familiar with it because that's what we do. It brings many people three hundred sixty five days a year, weather permitting, to the beach and they get their exercise. We've had three marriages out of the class which is pretty cool. So it's a good place to meet people. People go on cruises together.

We have a cruise director director that kind of puts things together and she does a great job. And last trip we had 29 people, something like that. And they get together and go shopping and I went to the coffee shop the other morning and I knew everybody in there. They were coupled off, there were some threesomes, they all meet at yoga. This is where people meet their friends. And average age, it's hard to say but anywhere between 50 and 90 years old. We have one woman who's 92. She comes every day. She can't make it down to the beach so she's up on a platform. And Barbara who is our greeter, she greets everybody.

Get their social in, they get their sunshine in. It's just something for people to do every morning, 08:00 and 09:00, and it's really important to the city. We do a lot of charity work. We just gave $6,850 to Agape Flights. Just pitch in, you know, a couple dollars here and there from everybody. So we really get out there a lot and we're in the public eye and we're proud of it. Yeah. Over the course of winter, we get lots of people just coming down to check it out and they stay and they come back for vacations. But it has been a real It's been a problem with James, which is his name, on the beach. People walk on to the beach and they see him and they walk out.

Now Thank thank you very for your comments.

That's Okay.

Thank you very much for listening.

Absolutely. Madam Clerk? Alright. Let's keep it down folks so we can keep this running. Madam Clerk?

Next speaker is Mary Goffier. Mary has five minutes. Okay.

Good morning and welcome.

Good morning and thank you very much for allowing me to speak my piece about what's happening at Yoga. I have lived in Venice, City Of Venice for seven years. I've owned a home for five of those years. I pay all my taxes on time and I vote in this state of Florida. I live in Venice because of the small quaint town that it is for the amenities, for the beaches, for the entertainment. But the number one reason that I love Venice so much is yoga. Yoga just offers such a great beginning to your day. It's peaceful. It's great for flexibility, for strengthening. The camaraderie that we have in this organization is fantastic.

Many of our yogis are KVB members that go out and so Thursdays is a very light day at yoga because they all go out and clean up our city of Venice. So the concern that I have, and I'm only gonna speak for myself, I've heard a lot of things of what this gentleman has done at our yoga, but what I witnessed a day before yesterday is he was there. He literally made circles very very close to Eland Circle and he talked on the phone the whole time. Not in a quiet whispering voice, normal tone of voice. Honestly, I don't think anybody was on the other end of the phone but he was talking about other people in yoga how they did this to him and they did that to him, which probably isn't even true.

So what I am asking of the council here is to please understand the statute that is available to you to be able to rule, to keep peace in our yoga community. You know, they've been doing it for eighteen years and it is absolutely the best thing for the community. And it is up there right there with the parades and, you know, all the entertainment and the drum circle. It is now an amenity of Venice that is very very important to so many people that come here. So please do the right thing.

Understand that this man is is being disruptive and, you know, I couldn't even concentrate on her moves that day because I could only hear him talking about all crazy things at the laundromat and how somebody threw him out and I mean, just on and on and on. So please. Thank you. That's really all I had to say. I had five minutes but I didn't have enough to say for five minutes because they already said it.

You for your Appreciate you. Madam Clerk. Let's try to hold the applause as much as we can so that we can keep this moving. Madam Clerk.

Next speaker is John Hollick. Mr. Hollick has five minutes.

Former Mayor Hollick, welcome. I don't think I have to explain how this works to you.

I never use this.

Lights and red lights. I'm gonna be using this too. And I didn't get any memos about what to wear today. This is just happened. Okay?

Good morning, mister mayor, city council, charter officers, staff. I just wanted to give you a brief update on the activities that occurred during November to help those residents of Venice area that are food challenged. But first, I wanted to thank two of the staff members for an outstanding job in helping us gather needed items to make sure the season was a little brighter. Lorraine Anderson did her usual fantastic job of getting information on the city website, and Brianne Lorenz did a great job on the on organizing the parade. So thank those two.

They kept it smooth and flowing. It was a long parade, but it was smooth. City manager was also very prompt in replies and very accommodative to a successful food drive. I'm going to make an appointment with Mr. Klinch to debrief him and Lorraine and Brianne on some of the observations with hopes of further improvement for next year.

I act as a coordinator for the South County Food Pantry Coalition. It's a loosely knit organization of eight food pantries in South Sarasota County. We are forced to have a South County organization because like so many things, it seems as though recognition of the county residents stops at Blackburn Point Road. This year, the coalition organized a food drive beginning November 5 and culminated the Friday after Thanksgiving. The food drive was designed to aid only the five pantries in Venice, in the city of Venice, so that food collected would be distributed to the area of collection.

The food collection points were set up at city hall, the three fire stations, the police department. We had boxes at Waterfront and some boxes at Venice Yacht Club. We also had a surprise collection. Taylor Ranch Elementary School decided to do a food drive. They called it a thousand in ten days. So they participated along with us. I have the statistics. I turn it on?

No. It's it's on.

Oh, it's on? Okay. Of the food drive, I can't see the screen so I can't tell you. Oh, it's over there. I can't tell you if I'm pointing at the right thing but it shows the different weeks and the different organizations where we picked up food.

The police department was the early lead on food collection, but the fire department came in on the last week and just blew it off the charts. We collected a total of about 5,500 pounds of food that was distributed to the various food pantries. In the parade, we let off the parade. We collected about another two fifty pounds of food and $14.40 dollars which was also distributed to the five pantries and the Boy Scouts who helped us out an awful lot. In addition to the food drive, we do have and I wanted to give credit to a local realtor, Lou Ann Wood.

She donated at least 72 frozen turkey breasts, a 150 cans of corn, a 175 packages of stuffing and lots of potatoes, cookies, and water bottles to Laurel Civic Center. And Laurel Civic Center put it together in bags, and that's the group at Laurel working and distributing the food that Luann dropped off. Those are just two examples of what was done to get enough food for those in need. I have some very interesting statistics on South County Food Pantry, which is over on Warfield. But unfortunately, there's not gonna be enough time to tell you about it.

It is in the notes that I gave to the city clerk. I just wanted to say thank you to all the food pantries in South County for all you do to make life better for those in need. Thank you to Together We Can and One Christ One City for supporting the efforts of the food pantries and the food drive. But most of all, thank you to the generosity of the people of the city of Venice for delivering an absolutely phenomenal response to those in need. Merry Christmas and happy happy New Year to all of you.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

Next speaker is Linda Surbe. She has five minutes.

I didn't catch the name, so if you would just say your name for the record.

Linda Serbe.

Thank you.

I'm also here to talk about the disturbance at the daily yoga at the beach. I've already emailed the council about passing a nuisance ordinance. It's not right that one homeless person can disrupt hundreds hundreds of tax paying citizens, property owners, and visitors, and the police say they can't do anything. The police should be able to make this person move down the beach when his actions are a nuisance to the yoga group. His only purpose coming to the beach where yoga is held is to cause a nuisance with his loud audio playing or loudly talking while videoing the yoga group.

We shouldn't have to nor can we move elsewhere that can accommodate the number of people that come daily daily and we're talking hundreds at times. Yes, it's a public beach but the instructors pay a perm pay for a permit and the somewhat disabled participants need to be near the benches and it's the only area that is large enough to accommodate all who come. As I wrote in my email to you, it's shameful that the police weren't able to do anything last year when this same man was basically living at Service Club Park creating an eyesore for many months with all of his belongings strewn all over the picnic shelter. The city needs to create ordinances that address these situations so the police can take care of these problems. I'm tired of hearing the police say we can't do anything.

Please give them the tools to do something. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

Next speaker is Abigail Roos. Abigail has five minutes.

Abby I'm Bruce. I'm

Abby Bruce. I'm a resident, ten year resident of Venice. I love Venice. I love our yoga beach and our yoga family. I love our policemen and our firemen. And I love that I walk early in the morning and I always feel safe. But that safety factor has changed in the last month at yoga. My mom also is a 92 year old woman that comes every day to yoga. It's a challenge for her to walk, from her car to the beach, she stays on the wooden platform. She normally comes 07:30 in the morning because this is her time to love the people around her.

She came five years ago and this little Venice community filled up her heart and given her a home. But in the morning she thinks twice about coming at 07:30 in the morning for the 08:00 Venice or yoga because she doesn't wanna be the first one there because it doesn't feel safe on the beach anymore. We used to walk early in the morning before yoga but we don't do that anymore because with this man and he comes not to like the Venice people do that are kind and considerate. He comes to poke the bear. He comes looking for to start a fire.

He comes with aggravation and if you just would come and see how he behaves, it scares you and it makes you think twice. People move away from where they normally sit because they feel afraid. The and in this world where there's imbalancement scary. And we were down for the Christmas parade and he was there. And you wanna walk and and go to the other side of the street because he's seen his behavior.

And I know how much you all care, the police care, and we want this to be a loving, caring community. But it's scary and I don't feel safe. And I walk early in the morning with my dog and I see him on his bike and I'm alone with a little 20 pound dog and he's walking or riding his bike and I don't feel safe. So I appreciate you taking the time and the energy to seriously consider this situation and and, you know, this month it's been changed but I don't know if there is a way of just helping our town where people can walk early in the morning. They can go to the beautiful beach.

This is why we moved here because it's caring and it's safe and you can walk your dog and you can go on the beach. And we thank God every day for this beautiful town and this beautiful beach and the beautiful community of yoga. It's a family and everybody feels loved and cared for and respected and that's all we want of people on the beach is to respect and be kind.

That's all

I have. Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

Next speaker is Natalie Norden. Natalie has five minutes.

Good morning and welcome.

Good morning. My name is Natalie Norden. I'm a resident here in Florida, in Venice, love our community. And I'm a recently retired emergency physician. I've constructed a letter that I'd like to read to you and then give to you as as a form to keep. Dear city council members, I'm writing to you because of my concern about disruptive possibly dangerous behaviors occurring mornings on Venice Beach. Venice Beach Yoga with Elon has been occurring for many years helping people, taxpayers, homeowners, renters, full time residents as

well as

snowbirds who financially support this community to get healthy and build a strong community connections. This has been an asset adding much to our city. The problem is there has been a homeless man who has been intimidating many of the yoga participants and interfering with the instruction. He is loud with aggressive speech and appears very volatile. He is a large man a large strong man with a labile affect and I am concerned for the vulnerable population who participate in beach yoga.

They could easily become victims of his bullying behaviors. I am an emergency physician and I have seen many violent incidences, uncontrolled mental illness during my career. I hope that this man can get the help he needs and that the yoga community can be safe again. The yoga population as well as that it excuse me, as well as anyone else who enjoys the public beach has a right to safety in that space. I am writing requesting that he be banned from the beach for public nuisance behavior at least during the yoga times to protect hundreds of people that are at the beach every morning for yoga instruction. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

Joan Farrow is the next speaker. Joan has five minutes.

Former council member Farrell welcome.

Joan Farrell. Aileen Larson has been the face of Venice Beach Yoga for the last eighteen years. Her class is listed as one of the top 10 things to do in Venice. Thousands upon thousands attend each year. On November 2, her classes began to experience disruption from a homeless convicted sex offender.

Alin was called a sexually denigrating name and the interloper positioned himself in the middle of her circle. His behavior is mercurial, sometimes being kind, talking reasonably and even offering a piece of candy. Other times he is threatening and shouting curses often playing harsh music too loud. James Van Bliet takes pictures and even videos of the participants, circling the perimeter of the group or weaving in and out of the yoga mats. Students told me that he ruins my happy time and makes me nervous.

Another stated that it was the first time I've ever been afraid. Two others concurred that he did his best to be an irritant or aggravation. Another observed Bentley kicking the belongings of a student. Yet another described the yoga class as a very stressful situation. I don't know what he's going to do.

Van Vliet taunts the students calling them pussies for their yoga participation. He recently stated that I can grab the donation bag and no one can catch me. This is likely true as most of the Aylin students are elderly. Van Vliet is 51 years old, six foot four, two hundred and twenty pounds and by both police and Alin's description in great physical shape. The yoga students and the general public view this behavior as a public safety issue.

A public nuisance bordering on menace and manipulation. Unbelievably, the Venice Police Department, the City Council, and the City Manager's Office have not taken any action for over a month stating that Van Fleet is Van Fleet is merely exercising his first amendment free speech rights. Evidently, the first amendment does go so far as they even allow hate speech. That is and listen carefully unless and until it is so provocative that it elicits a violent fight response and this did happen. After much crude name calling, one of students defended her.

The student called Van over and then pushed his chest with both hands. A scuffle went suit and apparently the student who is believed to be in his mid sixties threw the first punch. The police arrived and asked Van Vliet if he wanted to press charges. He did not. However, the student was barred from the Venice Beach Yoga for a year.

No action was taken against provocateur Van Vliet and the police consider him a victim. It is clear that spin doctors are at work. Who are they? Do they come from inside the city or perhaps externally? Other politicians or political groups who want to shape the narrative that sex offender and agitator Van Vliet is the real victim here.

Not the hapless yoga students often elderly merely seeking better physical and mental health. Let's consider what will happen if no action is taken to protect the public. At the very least, Aylin students have taken to their phones and social media to alert everyone. Alin had hoped to resolve the situation quietly and easily. Now it will be a battle in the court of public opinion.

In a recent comment on the economy and more specifically affordability, former US house speaker, Newt Gingrich said, I cannot overstate that in a free country, it's the people who define what is real, not the politicians. It's real because the American people think it's real. Will the people of Venice be hoodwinked into thinking this is free speech or will they assert that their public safety is at stake? And speaking of the economy, if the general public cannot be assured their safety, if they see Venice as dangerous or even just seedy, they will simply go elsewhere. Long time residents are leaving.

Tourist dollars will dwindle. Already many homes are for sale or rent and many Canadians have not returned this year. Let's act for the greater good while there is still time. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

Next speaker is Angela Daily.

Angela Daily.

Angela has five minutes.

Okay. Good morning and welcome.

Good morning. I'm not going to repeat. I'd like to echo everything that everyone has said because it is true. There's been no exaggeration, there's no hyperbole here. Everything that has been said is absolutely true. I'm a resident here. I try to attend every single day. One of the last mornings that I was there, I observed this man's behavior just feet from me in a concentric circles with his his militaristic postures and the loud banging music and it's all done. It's all done to, I don't

know the

reason. I'm here to support something that is so important in Venice. It's one of the reasons I live here. I often tell Elin that she's like the sun, the moon and the stars. No matter what day it is, I depend on Elin

and

the other instructors to be there for this so important activity that happens in Venice. And we are a very vulnerable soft target, if you want to call it that, on the beach. And so many people are afraid. A lot of people are not coming and we cannot allow this to dwindle away because of one person. Personally I feel like, well, when my children were young and they were attacked or or verbally or physically or whatever, any children you always say, go to your teacher, go to the police, find someone in authority.

Well, right now you guys are the adults in the room and we need something to be done so that we can all live in peace, enjoy this. And I also believe that this man should be at least approached with help whether it's because of his homelessness if that's the case or his mental ability. I do know that my own husband is offering to come with a firearm to to help. I heard that other people have been doing that. That's not a good situation in our peaceful city.

I think that that's all that I really wanted to say and I'm so glad that everyone came and like I said, you guys are the ones who are going to determine what happens. The police go by the direction. If we have a law we can use, fantastic. But let's resolve this so that we can all maintain our peace and thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. Adam Clark, next speaker.

Next speaker is Steve Lindblom. Steve has two minutes.

Steve Lindblom. Good morning and welcome sir. How much time do I have? Two minutes.

I'm Steve Lindblom, resident of Nokomis. I'm the 60 I'm not I wish I was 65, I'm 72. I was I was there on November 1, first time we saw this man and he scared the bejesus out of me. He threatened Elon. Let me first say that I think the yoga on the beach is part of your vision. They're the biggest part of making this charming and historic. Elin, Karen, Sue, and Julie, they're treasures. They're local treasures. Just go to one of the things and see it. But this guy, he was screaming, cursing, yelling. I was scared for her. I watched him for a couple minutes. It started getting worse. And I I didn't throw a punch. I pushed him.

I tried to I tried to act like the rodeo clown. You know, when a guy falls off the guy runs out and tries to distract him, that's what I did. And there's two things that you guys should be worried about. One, the police did not investigate They came with preconceived ideas, they never interviewed me, they never wanted my opinion about what happened. I don't believe they interviewed a lot of people. So I don't know why, it doesn't make any sense. And two, the thing the police told me, the man has a right to do it, I said, do I have a right to do that? Yes. I can take my chair, go down to the beach, sit next to a nice family and start cursing at him. That's that's loud.

Doesn't that seem dangerous? Doesn't that seem like how can Venice survive if the beach is having those kinds conflicts? I believe there's a disturbing peace ordinance on the books that should be enforced. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. Madam clerk, next speaker.

Beverly Hunter. Beverly has two minutes.

Good morning and welcome.

Hello, my name is Beverly Hunter and I'm going to yoga on the beach for about five years.

The group that we have

is between the ages of probably 50 to 90. And the thing is we are it's a vulnerable group and this guy knows that. He knows that he can go down there, he can bully people. He takes he gets any kind of he wants to create chaos. That's what he wants to do. Then he takes videos of those and then he posts them on his YouTube. And people actually pay him. They actually support this and that's what's really really scary. Because someday, he's gonna go too far and he's gonna actually hurt someone. And then who's gonna be responsible for that?

The police asked absolutely said he had the right to do this. What about our rights? Our rights to feel safe. Our rights to enjoy this. This is something that's really, really special. To get up in the morning, be on the beach, listen listening to the water, watching the dolphins, and doing yoga. It's it's it's amazing. It's the most probably one of those favorite feelings that you have. This guy is like he's a registered sex offender. He threatens people. He's threatened Elin. He's called her a white privilege, he used the b word. He threatened to destroy our yoga group. And he's actually said these things. Now what does that mean?

Is he's actually gonna hurt us? Is he just gonna cause enough chaos that no one wants to come anymore? And you know what? Why should she? Why should she take responsibility for this group when this guy is here and he could hurt anyone. You know, it's it's not fair. It's really not fair and it's and I hope I hope someone could do something. There are ordinances. There are things on here for nuisance. He is he is creating stress and we're not safe on the beach anymore.

Thank you for your comments. Madam Clerk, next speaker.

The last speaker is Wayne Jankowski. Wayne has two minutes. Okay.

Good morning sir and welcome.

Good morning and thank you for allowing a public forum like this. I too am here to support the people of the yoga community who have made many comments all of which I agree with including the statement that there's been no hyperbole. Absolutely no hyperbole. I just I've heard other specific people talking about how he intimidated them even though I didn't personally hear the intimidation, but the fact that they were intimidated, I think, was worth noting. And I just have a simple question.

If I and I don't ever do this, but if I or anyone else came into a restaurant or other place of business, even if they don't own the property, but they're renting that space and and Elon is paying every year for, you know, use of that space. If they come in and just disrupt the group, disrupt the restaurant or whatever the business is, they can be asked to leave. And if not, the police can escort them out. And I don't understand why there can't be something like that provided by Venice. Because this is Yoga on the beach is the reason I decided to come to Venice, frankly. And I really appreciate you all listening. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your call.

You. That's the last speaker.

Last stand of speakers. Mayor, I have a point of order. What's your point of order?

Mayor, I understand we don't normally respond to people who speak during audience participation but an urgent safety issue has been raised and there is no related item on our agenda today. We have only one meeting this month and so I would like to propose that we add an agenda item today, that would allow us to hear from the police chief, allow us to hear from our city attorney to update us on this situation and allow us to discuss possible action by the city council.

Okay, so you're

Folks, have concluded audience participation. We're now at a point where we're conducting business. So if you can allow us to do that, I'd appreciate it. We're going go ahead and take a five minute recess and then we'll entertain the idea to add something to the motion. A few things just to clarify for everyone in the room.

There are plenty of seats, so please take a seat so that way we don't have any issues with ingress and egress. Also, be mindful of city staff and where they're sitting so that we're not pushing up against their workstations. Yes, okay. Mr. Smith, we are at a point now where we're going to entertain the point of order. If you would go ahead and make your motion and tell us exactly where you'd like to add this agenda item to the agenda.

Mary, are you asking me to set the time for any agenda item?

No, I'm asking you to make your motion of what agenda item you'd like put on the agenda and where on the agenda you would like it to fall so that we can then properly vote on adding that to the agenda.

Well, Mayor, I would make a motion that we add to our agenda an item on Yoga on the Beach and the safety issue there so that we could hear from the police chief and the city attorney and have a discussion of possible actions by the city council in response. I am concerned we have a large group here on another item, so I would suggest that this be put on the agenda after the public hearing on Tuscana Isles.

So would you settle for council action and discussion?

Yes.

Okay. So we have a motion to add yoga on the beach safety issue for discussion under council action and discussion Section C. Seconded by Vice Mayor Volt. All right, then let's go all voice vote. Let's do Madam Clerk, you could do a roll call vote please, just for safety's sake.

Mr. Mayor, will there be a point of discussion on this motion before we vote?

Sure. We can talk about it now if you'd like to. Go ahead Mr. Weed.

I'm sorry Mr. Mayor, did not have a point of discussion. I was inquiring for the protection of the other members that we have an opportunity to discuss this.

Does anybody on the council want to have any discussion? Okay, seeing no discussion then we'll move to the electronic vote. When we're ready we can go ahead and do that. Madam Clerk, can tally and display. All right, passes unanimously.

So we'll be adding the Yoga on the Beach safety issue discussion under Council Action and Discussion and that will fall right before Charter Officer reports. Okay. So let's move on to consent section. All matters listed under the consent section are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion unless an item is removed by a council member. There will be no separate discussion of these items. If discussion is desired by a council member, the item or items will be considered and voted upon at the end of the consent section. Do I have anybody wishing to pull anything from the consent agenda? Okay. Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Vice Mayor.

I move to approve items on the consent section.

Second. Seconded by Mr. Howard. All in favor say aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? Passes unanimously. Okay. We are on to public hearings ordinances first reading and the public hearing is now open. Madam Clerk, if you can read this ordinance by title only, it is two zero two five dash three seven.

An ordinance of the City Of Venice, Florida annexing certain lands lying contiguous to the city limits pursuant to petition number twenty five dash twenty nine a n by Alderem, Ayad, and Sarah Ayad into the corporate limits of the city of Venice, Florida and redefining the boundary lines of the city to include said addition providing for repeal of all ordinances and conflict herewith providing for severability and providing an effective date.

And have you received any written communication? No. Okay. Then with that we'll hear a staff presentation.

Good morning. For the record, Nicole Tremblay, Senior Planner for the City of Venice.

Give me

just a moment to get my presentation up here. Okay. So this is 2529 A N for Flagship MOB 2. This is at 2805 Curry Lane. The request with this petition is to annex about five acres into the city's jurisdiction.

It's currently got a county future land use of moderate density residential and a zoning of county open use estate and it would be in the Pine Brook neighborhood of comprehensive plan. This is within JPA Area 6 and the applicant does intend to build a medical office building project similar to the other flagship. Flagship. There are two petitions filed concurrently, one for the future land use and one for the zoning. So here's an aerial map, you can see this is Currie Lane which you're familiar with, there's been a lot of development on Currie Lane in recent years.

So there are two medical office and rehabilitation projects on the north side of Currie Lane, one right next to this property. To the south there's a multi family project, the Sofia and then there are townhomes being built at the end of the lane right now and then an event venue approved on that single family home directly to the east. So for existing conditions we'll look at the future land use map, zoning map, site photo and I'll briefly touch on the surrounding uses again. So here's the future land use map, this has the county moderate density residential but it is surrounded by city, future land mixed use corridor, commercial, institutional professional and moderate and medium density residential. So Currie Lane is a large, is a mix of all different future land uses.

Zoning corresponding to that, plans, public hospital to the north, office professional and institutional, commercial general and multifamily. So here are some of the site photos from Curry Lane and then that last one is across the street, you can see the Sofia there so that's the view across the street from this property. And right now it has just a single family home on it. So to the north is the hospital, to the south is the Sofia and east and west there are medical offices and that commercial general property which is a single family but approved for an event venue. So for planning analysis we will look at Florida statutes, conference of plan and the land development code.

This is an annexation So for an annexation we look at chapters one hundred sixty three and one hundred seventy one of the Florida statutes which provides for the joint planning agreements and interlocal service boundaries. We do have that with Sarasota County as you know and the JPA identifies which land can be annexed. Whether it's a logical candidate, what the appropriate land uses and infrastructure needs would be for that land, establishing the procedures and ensuring protection of natural resources. So consistent with these state statutes the JPA provides procedure for annexation of land into the city and this land is identified as an appropriate candidate for annexation through its inclusion in JPA Area 6. Area 6 allows the institutional professional uses East Of Pine Brook Road and gives an intensity limit of 0.5 floor area ratio.

We're not at the point of intensity limits yet but the use of institutional professional will be relevant in the subsequent petitions. So consistency with the comprehensive plan for an annexation, again kind of revolves around the JPA because the JPA is part of the comprehensive plan and so if the land is consistent with that, that's the main aspect we're looking at in the comp plan. So JPA area six indicates this is available for the use they're looking at, indicates that the property will be served by city sewer and water and then further analysis of the development standards like the intensity they're proposing and buffers and setbacks and all those things we'll look at through the site and development plan should this go all the way through the rezoning process. So conclusions related to consistency with the comprehensive plan. Analysis has been provided to determine consistency with chapter one hundred sixty three and one hundred seventy one of the Florida statutes, the JPA between the city and county and this should be taken into consideration upon determining consistency with the plan.

And then looking at compliance with the land development code, again there's no technical or development standards to look at so it's really just the straightforward process of annexation. And so in order to approve an annexation City Council must find that the application demonstrates consistency with state statute, contiguousness and compactness of the property and that it does not create an enclave, that's included in the JPA or has been determined to be an existing enclave, that has access to a public right of way and that a preannexation agreement exists and has been executed. So the petition complies with all the applicable land development code requirements and the preannexation agreement for this property was executed on July 8. So upon review of the petition, Florida statutes, conference of plan, land development code, staff report analysis and testimony provided during the hearing, we believe there is sufficient information for city council to make their decision and this does come to you with a recommendation of approval with a vote of seven-zero from Planning Commission.

Any questions for staff? Thank you very much for your presentation. We'll now hear from the applicant.

Good morning. I'm going try to keep this brief. For the record, my name is Marty Black and I'm representing the developer for the petition. We concur with the staff comments relative to the petition itself and its compliance with the annexation statutes in your comprehensive plan. This same owner was actually before you a couple months back for property just further west down Currie Lane.

Again we have a similar intent to build a medical office building and support around the Sarasota Memorial Hospital piece. I'll go into some more details for the comprehensive plan and zoning piece because I think as counsel is aware there were stipulations we placed on the prior condition relative to the storm water conditions along Currie Lane and we'd like to provide you with an update on that because there is good news it is moving forward with resolutions. We wanted to share that in those next couple of hearings relative to any potential stipulation. Thank you, we're available for any questions.

Any questions for the applicant?

Mayor, I would.

Mr. Smith?

Would you speak just a little more Mr. Black about that stipulation and whether it's part of this proposal as well?

It's not part of the annexation, it

would actually be appropriate for the zoning component of it. So we can go into that but I did want to highlight that we're aware of that and obviously since we proposed one on the initial piece, we want to at least provide an update to you because it is moving toward resolution at this point. We didn't want to hide that through the annexation process, so at least it, but it will be appropriate to place a stipulation at the time of zoning.

Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, Madam Clerk, do we have anybody signed up to speak?

We do not.

Alright. With that, I'll close the public hearing. And I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor. I move that ordinance twenty twenty five-thirty seven be approved on first reading and scheduled for a final reading.

Second. Seconded by Mr. Smith. Any council discussion? Alright, seeing none, Madam Clerk if you're ready. Oh, Mr. Smith, go ahead. I I

just want to repeat comments we've made on previous occasions with Curry Lane and our concerns for the flooding there and people waiting to work out there and it's very important to me what Mr. Black said about the stipulation that they're going to participate in the improvement of this and that this isn't going to happen until the Southwest Florida Regional Planning Council is approved and certified that that situation has been resolved. This is part of our joint planning agreement with the county, it is what we have as a vision for the ancillary services all around the hospital that we've approved and approved for expansion. So I would favor, this motion, with that understanding. Thank you.

Any other, comments? Madam Clerk, if you'll ready us for an electronic vote. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And Madam Clerk, can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. Alright, we are on to Ordinance twenty twenty five-thirty eight and the public hearing is now open. Madam Clerk, when you are ready you can go ahead and read this ordinance by title only please.

An ordinance of the City Of Venice, Florida amending the twenty seventeen to twenty twenty seven City Of Venice comprehensive plan future land use map and associated pages pursuant to petition number twenty five thirty CP. To change the future land use designation of specific real property located at 2805 Curry Lane from Sarasota County moderate density residential to City Of Venice institutional professional providing for repeal of all ordinances and conflict herewith providing for severability and providing an effective date.

And do we have any written communication?

We do not.

Okay. Then presentation by staff.

Yes. So again for the record Nicole Tremblay, Senior Planner for City of Venice. Much of the information about the petition is the same so I won't repeat that but we'll move to the planning analysis. So this is the conference of plan request to assign a future land use of institutional professional. The map is the same, here is the proposed future land use map.

You can see it would be the same as the neighboring properties and the same with the zoning. So looking at a comprehensive plan amendment, we look at compliance to the land development code in section 1.5.3. These are the decision criteria for this type of petition. City shall consider impacts to the adopted level of service standards, consider the compatibility matrix in the conference of plan and its subsequent impact on possible implementing zoning and find the application in compliance with all other applicable elements in the conference of plan and Florida statutes chapter 163. A transportation impact analysis is required for a comprehensive plan amendment to the map.

They did provide this with the three planning horizons as required in the plan, but a more specific review of the exact footprint of the development, the intensity will be analyzed with the site plan. So here is consistency with the comprehensive plan, strategy LU one point 1.2.4b is the institutional professional strategy. This provides areas for professional offices as educational, healthcare, religious or similar uses. So this does fall in line with what they're proposing to do, they've chosen the correct future land use designation. And then for compatibility between land uses, there is a compatibility review matrix in the conference of plan demonstrates that it is proposed compatible.

It looks like my matrix moved a little bit, I apologize. It should show around the MEDR and the IP, so those would both be green. It does show that it's presumed compatible with the adjacent future land use designation. So looking at the Florida statutes, this is a small scale amendment based on the size of the property. So there are types of data that should be used to develop the future land use map contained in those statutes which we have used and the applicant has responded to those types of data that's in your agenda packet.

The next section describes what type of analysis amendment should be based on and then the third provides indicators of urban sprawl and requires that at least four of the indicators against sprawl must be met for a proposed amendment. So these are four that were provided by the applicant with their responses. The proposal directs or locates economic growth and associated development to geographic areas that do not have an adverse impact on natural resources. Promotes efficient and cost effective provision or extension of public infrastructure and services. Promotes walkable and connected communities and provides for compact development and a mix of uses and then creates a balance of land uses based upon demands of a residential population for their non residential needs.

And so staff has provided analysis of the proposed future land use map amendment regarding consistency with the comprehensive plan, the land development code and other relevant city ordinances, resolutions or agreements. In addition, analysis has been provided regarding compliance with chapter 163 of the stat utes. This should be taken into consideration regarding your determination on the proposed future land use map amendment. So upon review of this petition, all associated documents and testimony, we believe there is sufficient information the record for you to make your decision. And again this did have a recommendation of approval by a vote of seven to zero by the Planning Commission. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions for staff? Okay, seeing none we'll move on to the presentation by the applicant.

Again for the record, my name is Marty Black and we concur with the presentation by staff and the recommendations from the City Council, excuse me from the Planning Commission to the City Council. I did want to go into just a few items to preview the stipulation because I think it is important particularly as you relate to the future land use change. This is consistent with the designation that's in the JPA as far as the institutional professional and just as we did on the last petition, our intent is to meet your compatibility requirements. We do intend to place the building to the rear of the lot as we did on our first petition with the parking in front to ensure that compatibility. Obviously you will see that with the site plan and the other provisions.

With regard to the actual potential for the zoning stipulation, I wanted to at least address that now because we do recognize it's a significant issue and it does go to the land use intensity. Obviously we intend to comply with the point five FAR. Our preliminary analysis indicates that we will be able to hold the storm water and treat it in compliance with both your standards and the water management district. The water management district has received permit modifications from the applicant that was in non compliance that was causing the flooding and those permits are being reviewed now. The water management district took issue to notify them of potential litigation, so we kind of forced the issue, we've been continually monitoring that and participating with the other owners along Curry Lane and we believe that that issue will move forward and be resolved.

It's our intention as part of the zoning to concur with the stipulation that we not be allowed to obtain a CO, a certificate of occupancy for this parcel until that issue is finally resolved. But the good news is it appears that the water management district has put enough legal pressure and other pressure on with the other owners to begin to move that issue forward. So we did want to provide a little more detail with you at this time. And again we would anticipate the stipulation would be imposed at the time of the zoning to give you that assurance moving forward that it will be resolved before anyone can occupy the site. Thank you, we have available for any questions.

Any questions for the applicant? Seeing none, I'll just say a few things, you know, thank you very much for that, that was a very complicated time for us, especially with the restrictions that Senate Bill 180 put on the city. I just really appreciate you guys working with us to make sure that we're being cognizant of what's going on in the area.

Thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Okay. Then at this point Madam Clerk, we have anybody signed up to speak?

We do not.

Okay. Public hearing is now closed and I'll entertain a motion.

Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Engelke.

I move that ordinance number twenty twenty five-thirty eight be approved on first reading and scheduled for final reading.

Mr. Smith. Any council discussion? Okay. Seeing none, Madam Clerk, we'll go to the electronic vote. If you can make us ready to do that. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And Madam Clerk, you can tally and display the vote. Passes unanimously. On to ordinance number twenty twenty five-thirty nine, this is a quasi judicial procedure and the public hearing is now open. Madam Clerk, if you can read this ordinance by title only please.

An ordinance amending the official zoning atlas of the City Of Venice, Florida pursuant to zoning map amendment petition number 25Dash31RZ to change the zoning designation for the property located at 2805 Curry Lane from Sarasota County open use in state one to City of Venice office professional and institutional providing for repeal of all ordinances and conflict herewith providing for severability and providing an effective date.

If anyone wishes to speak please go to the kiosk in the back of the room and sign in now so that we can put you on the list to speak under this quasi judicial procedure. And Madam Attorney if you would inquire as to conflicts of interest or ex parte communication please.

Anyone that has had any ex parte communications that are not presently part of the record, please identify who that was with and the substance of the communication. Mr. Engelke, we'll start with you.

I attended the Planning Commission Meeting.

Attended? None.

Watched the meeting site visit? None.

Thank you.

All

right. And Madam Clerk, we have any written communication?

No, we do not.

Okay. We'll start with the staff presentation, will be up to 25.

Okay. Thanks. So 2531 RZ, the request is to assign a city zoning designation of office professional and institutional for intended development of the medical office building project we've discussed. So the maps are the same, here is the proposed future land use map, here is the change to the proposed zoning map, OPI like the properties to the west. So for planning analysis we'll look at comparison of districts, comprehensive plan consistency and land development code compliance.

So this is the existing versus the proposed zoning, once the property is annexed it cannot retain its county zoning, but the current county zoning is open use to the state which allows one dwelling unit per acres that would not be relevant to their proposal because they're going to OPI so there's no residential there. Maximum dwelling units right now is one but when they go to OPI their maximum square footage based on the limit in the JPA will be 108,900 square feet. We don't know what they're proposing exactly yet but that's their maximum. The maximum height in OUE was 35 feet, with OPI they would get 35 feet by right and the ability to ask for 46 with a height exception. Lot coverage in OUE is 20%, goes to 40% with OPI and then principal uses are pretty different.

In OUE, residential, agriculture, animal, boarding, family day care and then in OPI, it is healthcare institutions, artist studios, professional offices, financial services, things of that nature. So consistency with the comprehensive plan again that's focused mostly on JPA area six, so appropriate use based on the JPA intensity limit and utilities provision defined as city water and sewer. And their request is consistent with their request in the previous petition for the future land use of institutional professional. So there were no other strategies in the land use element, the Pine Brook neighborhood or any other elements that relate directly to this zoning request. So analysis has been provided to help Planning Commission and City Council determine consistency with land use element strategies applicable to institutional professional future land use, strategies found in the Pine Brook neighborhood element and other plan elements.

For a zoning map amendment in the land development code we have procedures in section 1.7, there were no issues identified by the technical review committee and the applicant did respond to all the decision criteria, so those are in your packet and in the staff report. They also respond to the land use compatibility analysis for a zoning map amendment, so you can see their answers to compatibility with the surrounding properties and then we saw the matrix with the previous petition. There are special considerations for compatibility in section four of the code and those will apply to this property when it comes time for site and development plan because there are a list of factors that trigger these special considerations and one of them is property subject to the JPA. So those are things that they'll need to consider such as whether increased buffering is appropriate or increased setbacks or certain architectural design techniques. So those will come forward at site and development plan.

Conclusions related to the land development code, this proposed zoning map amendment is compliant and no inconsistencies have been identified with the code. So upon review of petitions, statutes, comprehensive plan, code, staff report analysis and testimony, there's sufficient information on the record to make a decision. Again this had a vote of seven to zero to approve. And then this is the recommended stipulation that has been alluded to so far. A signed development plan shall not be approved until the applicant confirms through a certified statement from the Southwest Florida Water Management District that construction deviation issues for Curry Lane have been resolved based on the permit number that they have.

The applicant agrees to cooperate with the adjoining owners along Curry Lane and any improvements as may be necessary and to cooperate with ongoing maintenance of Curry Lane. So this is very similar to the stipulation on MOB 1 on Currie Lane. With the understanding that this is in process and we believe it's possible that they will have this resolved even before your second reading. But in case it is not, we would like to propose it today so that it can go with this ordinance and then if they end up not needing it because they resolve the issues then it could be adopted without it later. Do you have any questions for me?

Any questions for staff? Briefer Schmidt?

Is this stipulation part of the package automatically if we move to approve it? Or do we need to add that to? It

would need to be added to your motion.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay. And with that we will move on to the presentation by the applicant. And again you'll have up to twenty five minutes as part of your presentation.

For the record, my name is Marty Black and I have signed the statement. We agree with the comments provided by the staff. I'm going go right to the stipulation because I believe that's the heart of the issue. The only change we would suggest because this is a little bit different than the first condition and given that we are now aware that things are moving forward, we would request that the first part instead of saying the site development plan should not be approved, simply state that a certificate of occupancy should not be approved until the applicant. That will allow us to move forward with lot clearing and beginning construction but not actually physically occupy until those issues are fully resolved with water management district.

Just to give you a little more detail, they need to regrade the ditches on Curry Lane and change a couple culverts, so it's not like a whole rework of their stormwater management system, but it's primarily regrading of the stormwater ditches along Curry Lane and some of the placement of the culverts. So it's not, we don't anticipate it to be a substantial amount of work, but it is significant, but by going to certificate of occupancy, it will allow us to continue moving forward while this issue continues to be addressed by the adjoining owner. We are available for any questions.

Any questions for the applicant? I do have, just to clarify, the regrading of the ditches that you're speaking of, is that going to be each individual property owner or is there an entity that is going to handle the entire process?

There is an entity that handles the entire process, the group that actually installed it in the original application that failed in their inspections with water management district has that responsibility and they're correcting it to meet the permits as originally issued that should not have resolved in this, resulted in this issue had they built it for the plans.

So then if for some reason they should not regrade this appropriately or not comply, then basically the stipulation still prevents you from occupying the facility until then you would take legal action to make that happen?

Either us or the combination of the owners along Curry Lane to correct anything, correct.

Okay. All right, thank you for that. Madam Attorney?

Maybe our city engineer can speak to this, but in looking at the paperwork that has been filed to resolve the permit issue, it appears that they may have already done the regrading, it's a matter of reviewing the paperwork submitted to ensure that everything's been met. I know neither myself or the city engineer worked for the water management district but he might be able to speak to just to what he observed in the documents that were filed. We might be further along in the process.

I wouldn't mind hearing from the City Engineer if he'd like to come up.

Good morning mayor and council. For the record, John Kramer, city engineer. The revised ad spilts have been submitted to the water management district that demonstrates the ditches have been regraded. The Southwest four water management district needs to review that information and agree with that and then the as built deviations will be resolved. So I believe what has been submitted to SwiftMUD will satisfy their as built deviation concerns. However, need to hear from them that they agree.

Okay, thank you for that. Any questions for city staff before I release them? Okay. Sorry for hijacking your presentation, if there's anything you'd like to add, go ahead.

No, and again because none of us really control the water management district that's why the suggestion is to make this subject to the certificate of occupancy. But we do believe it is moving toward a resolution positively, it's been a few months. But we also think it's appropriate to have the stipulation at this point.

Thank you. Okay, then with that anybody signed up to speak?

No.

Okay. Then does staff have any rebuttal or summary?

I'll just say that we don't have any issue with the change suggested by the applicant to certificate of occupancy.

Thank you. And then any rebuttal or final comments from the applicant?

None, thank you.

Okay. And with that the public hearing is now closed and I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Howard. Based on the evidence of record, move ordinance twenty twenty five dash 39 be approved on first reading and scheduled for final reading.

Would you include that stipulation or no? With the stipulation as stated. Okay. Seconded by Vice Mayor Bolt. Madam Attorney, are we okay with that or do we have to stipulate that it's the CO versus site and development?

I think it's clear the intention was with the stipulation as agreed to with the modified language by both parties.

Perfect, thank you. Okay, then with that I'll open it up to any counsel discussion. Mr. Howard?

Yes, I'd just like to compliment the efforts put in because it's been an ongoing flooding challenges out there as this medical campus develops. It was a sad day when our hospital closed on the island and we were kind of in a state just of where do we go now, right? Sarasota, Fort Myers and spending a career in healthcare, huge proponent of all things medical. And I think we're we're so fortunate that we have this medical campus that continues to develop out there and without medical office buildings you can't have sub specialties. There's an ambulatory surgery center going out there and I could see this campus becoming one of the top campuses in Central Florida.

I'm just very excited about that and thanks for all the work that you guys did. Thank you, Mayor.

Mr. Smith, did you pull your okay.

I want to thank you also for addressing our concerns about the drainage situation reassuring us with that stipulation and I have no problem with it being changed to say the certificate of occupancy rather than before the site development plan can be submitted and then I will count on our staff to make sure it happens and so I can support this. Thank you.

All right, then I'll just make a few comments in closing. It's never easy, I've been doing this for now six years and it's never easy to do these land use decisions And I'm very I admire the applicant for working with the council because there's so many state laws that sometimes tie our hands on what we can and can't do to make sure that development doesn't cause issues. And the flooding that we saw, we had workers stranded trying to get into a rehab facility, you know we had a lot of issues out there and without the developer working with us to make this happen, it'd be very complicated. So I really just appreciate that. I know we have the stipulations, I'm glad the council had the forethought to make sure we put stipulations in place working with staff.

But I just will say that without the developer working with us, this would have been a lot more challenging. So I just I really appreciate that. Okay, we will move on to the electronic vote. Madam Clerk, if you can go ahead and make us ready for that. Council members, when your lights are flashing, you can indicate your vote. And you can tally and display. Passes six to zero. Okay. We are on to ordinance number twenty twenty five dash 46. I will state just before we get going on this that I'm going to plan a lunch break right around 12:30.

I know we have quite a few speakers signed up to speak and just preliminary that that could take over an hour or I want everyone to understand time wise. That said though, this is a very moving and dynamic situation. So we may not be 100% accurate, but I will do my best to keep us to a 12:30 break for lunch, at which time we will return at probably 02:00. So, we'll go ahead and start then, with this being a quasi judicial procedure. Public hearing is now open. Madam Clerk, if you could read this ordinance by title only, please.

An ordinance of the City Of Venice, Florida granting PUD amendment petition number 25Dash01RZ for the Toscana Isles planned unit development for Wisdom townhomes located at 0 Nights Trail Road by allowing development of townhomes in Sub Area 3 and adding an access point along Jean Green Road providing for repeal of all ordinances and conflict herewith, providing for severability and providing an effective date.

And then if anybody wishes to speak, please go to the back kiosk and sign in. Staff is present and available in the back of the room to help you do that process if need be. Madam Attorney, if you'll go ahead and get us started off and then as soon as you're done move into inquiring about conflicts of interest and ex parte communication.

Sure, I might flip that around. So I'll start with if anybody has any possible conflicts of interest, please indicate those at this time. I don't see any. So then if you've had any ex parte communications that are not presently part of the record, identify the substance of the communication and who it was with. Mr. Engelke, start with you again.

Yes. I attended the Planning Commission meeting and I also rewatched the Planning Commission meeting prior to this and also a site visit.

I watched the Planning Commission meeting.

Attended Planning Commission and did have a conversation with a resident that lives out there.

Can you identify who the resident was and the substance of the communication?

Sue Perry just to make sure what was on the agenda etcetera.

Thank you.

And then I had a site visit and watch planning commission meeting.

Watch planning commission site visit.

None. Mr. Mayor I will go ahead and do a little introduction today just because we have a number of residents in the audience who may not be familiar with our land use review processes. So I'll provide just an overview of what today's hearing is about and what the standard of review is. So this is a quasi judicial proceeding, it is more formal than our legislative proceedings.

The role of counsel today is to determine whether the applicant has met their burden of proof by showing through competent substantial evidence that their application is both consistent and in compliance with our land development regulations and the city's comprehensive plan. So to break down what competent substantial evidence is, competent means that the people testifying are qualified to provide evidence on the subject. Substantial means that there is sufficient relevant and credible evidence on which to base a decision. So if the applicant meets their burden and shows that there is competent substantial evidence to show compliance with the comp plan and land development code then the burden would shift to the city or the opponent to show through competent substantial evidence that there is a legitimate public purpose to deny the request. Council is only able to consider the testimony evidence you hear today that's why we have ex parte disclosures to ensure that everyone is basing their decisions on the same information and the same evidence.

This is not a popular, in quasi judicial proceedings it's popularity contest. So in a legislative decision you can make your vote based on any number of reasons because this is quasi judicial it does not matter if 99% of the residents want to have this approved but there's not competent substantial evidence you'd have to deny it and vice versa. So if 99% of the citizens don't want something approved but there's competent substantial evidence to show its compliance then you are compelled to approve it. The only difference is if there is a legitimate public purpose for a denial even if they have competent substantial evidence. Just also wanted to other things point out that if we do end up with a denial based on state law we have to provide specificity as to the requirements that they are not meeting.

And also we're just pointing out that we are here today amendment. So the relevant items for consideration of counsel are only those that are requesting to be modified by the applicant otherwise the existing allowances for development are there and those are subject to our review and we're also not here today on a site plan. So with that unless there are any questions I will turn it back over to Nicole.

Real quick before we get started, do we have any written communication?

It was provided at advance and will be included as part of the record.

Perfect, thank you. All right, staff presentation up to twenty five minutes.

Okay, thank you. For the record, Nicole Tremblay, Senior Planner for the City Of Venice. We are looking at 2501 RZ, a planned unit development amendment to the Tuscana Isles binding master plan. So the request is to amend the binding master plan for Tuscana Isles to allow townhome development in Sub Area 3 and to add an access point along Jean Green Road. The owner is Wisdom Properties LLC, the applicant is Meritage Homes of Florida, the agent is Josh Law of Morris Engineering and the total of Sub Area 3 is about 10.5 acres.

Future land use of a PUD is mixed use residential and this is in the Northeast neighborhood of the comprehensive plan. So brief description again, this would allow townhomes as a permitted use. Currently multi family is allowed and all types of commercial and neighborhood, so this is language from the previous comp plan, the full range of residential neighborhood and commercial are permitted. But multifamily is given as an example and townhomes are not so the applicant would like to add townhomes as another example of the types of residential development that could occur here. It would add the standards for townhomes that are presently in sub area two of the binding master plan and then they would add their access point that they have proposed along Jean Green Road to accommodate a townhome development.

This would be the only access to the proposed development. They will have to submit a future preliminary plat petition to create the lots and proceed with that development and it would replace a previously contemplated internal access from Villa Resi Boulevard. They did submit a conceptual plan which I'll show you and which is in your agenda packet but it's not part of the binding master plan so if this were to be approved that conceptual plan is not automatically adopted as part of their binding master plan. So this is the concept plan. They've got a mix of six and eight unit buildings proposed in this townhome development and you can see there are lakes and open space on the property as well and the only access would be from Jean Green Road.

And so for that reason they have proposed a new connectivity plan, this is part of the binding master plan currently and then they've proposed the connection you can see there on Jean Green Road to be added. These are the proposed townhome standards. These are exactly the same as what's currently allowed in Sub Area 2 for townhomes. They've moved those over to be part of Sub Area 3 as well. So a front yard would have a 15 foot minimum structure setback, a 20 foot minimum driveway length, they've got side yard separations between attached units and no case less than 20 feet between structures, and then a rear yard setback of 10 feet and no case less than 30 feet between structures.

So here's the aerial map showing you which properties comprise Sub Area 3. So the property to the north is the property that Wisdom is interested in or Meritage is interested in developing town homes on but the property to the south is also sub area 3. So any change that's made to Sub Area 3 does impact both of those, however the access point is only for the property to the north. So for existing conditions we'll look at site photographs, visual land use and zoning map and the surrounding land uses. So these are some photographs of the northern parcel.

You can see it's undeveloped. And then this is the southern parcel. These are taken from Knights Trail Road. The future land use map shows that this is mixed use residential and is not proposed to change through this. And again the zoning map is also not proposed to change.

Planned unit development and these would remain part of Tuscan Isles. Surrounding land uses for the northern parcel, the one proposed for the townhomes or which will be proposed for townhomes, there is a proposed multi family development. The current zoning there is commercial general and feature land use is mixed use corridor. For the property to the south, north of it is the rest of Tuscan Isles, PUD and mixed use residential. To the south of the northern property is the rest of Tuscan Isles.

To the south of the southern property is Brevelo, multifamily development with a zoning of RMF three and a future land use of medium density. To the east of both properties is Tuscana Isles, P U D N M U R. And then to the west of the northern property is the development known as Generation At Venice which which is RMF three and four. And to the west of the southern property is Triple Diamond which is planned industrial. So for the planning analysis we will look at the comprehensive plan and the land development So consistency with the comprehensive plan, for mixed use residential there's strategy 1.2.16.

So six a lays out that there are 5% non residential uses allowed in the PUD, Sub Area 3 is part of that 5% purchase on aisles but the intent is to convert about eight out of 10.6 acres from commercial to residential. They would still have the range of commercial uses applicant is to develop that property as residential and the potential would remain to use the other 2.6 acres for townhomes or commercial or anything that's allowed in Sub Area 3. Six C for the MUR strategy provides that PDs are required to have a minimum of 50% open space. These parcels in Sub Area 3 are commercial or multifamily residential so they are not counted as part of the open space. Tuscan Isles appears to have over 58% open space currently so this does not impact their open space requirements.

Seven A of the mixed use residential strategy provides the residential density range. Tuscalis was originally entitled to seventeen fourteen units, there are seven forty seven unbuilt units remaining and so the applicant intends to use 50 of those for a future preliminary plat for townhomes in the northern piece of Sub Area 3. So conclusions related to the conference of plan, analysis has been provided to determine consistency with land use element strategies, Northeast neighborhood and other plan elements and should be taken into consideration upon determining whether this application is consistent with the comprehensive plan. So looking at the land development code, the primary thing to consider with a planned unit development amendment is unified control. So addition of townhomes as a use and their standards is considered minor because multi family is already allowed, residential is already allowed, but this is just a different building form.

So they're adding standards that could be applied to use this building form. However the access change is considered a major change. If a major change only affects the parcel with one owner and the parcel is not open space, then unified control of the entire PUD is not necessary. So that is the case here, the access point only affects that northern parcel and it is not an open space parcel. So the applicant was not required to get signatures of 100% of the owners or unified control for this amendment.

Wisdom Properties LLC actually owns both properties in Sub Area 3 but again the access point is only relevant to one. For the compatibility analysis in 1.2.C8 applicant and staff responses have been provided in the staff report and again it is important to note that residential was already a use and townhomes is clarifying which type of residential would be allowed. So conclusions related to the land development code, oh sorry decision criteria first. So decision criteria for a zoning map amendment, There are eight for any zoning map amendment. So whether it's compatible, changes in land use or conditions, consistency with the conference of plan, conflicts of public improvements, availability of facilities, effect on health safety and welfare, conformance with the land development code and findings of the environmental assessment report.

But then for a proposed major amendment to a planned district, there are the following additional criteria. So whether it's consistent with reasonable expectations of other residents within the planned district in regard to how it would be built out over time, the extent to which the amendment deviates from the existing approved binding master plan including whether any change could be accommodated by a conversion or flex table. This binding master plan does not have any conversions or flex tables so that would not be a consideration, just the extent to which it deviates. The extent to which the alteration will service and or benefit other uses within the plan district and whether it's compatible with the common scheme of development contemplated in the binding master plan. And then 10 is a catch all of any other applicable matters to the LGR and conference of plan.

So conclusions related to the land development code. The subject petition has been processed with the procedural requirements to consider a planned district zoning amendment. It was reviewed by the technical review committee and no issues regarding compliance with the land development code were identified. So upon review of the petition associated documents, the comprehensive plan, land development code, staff report analysis and testimony provided, there's sufficient information on the record for city council to make their decision. And this comes to you without a recommendation of approval from Planning Commission as that motion did fail six to one. Do you have any questions for me?

Any questions for staff? Appears to be none.

Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Engelke, are you trying to press your button? Okay. Hold on, there's questions. Mr. Engelke, go ahead.

We

use two different definitions here. Multifamily condos which is as I understand is approved use and then we're going to redefine it to be townhomes if it passes. What's the legal definition or differences between the two?

So I will say it wouldn't be redefined, it would be an addition. So right now it says the full range of residential neighborhood and commercial contemplated in the 2010 comp plan. And then it gives some examples and multi family is one of those examples so townhomes would be just another example, it would not replace multi family. But in our code the distinction usually is that multifamily is all on one lot, often all units are in one building or multiple buildings with more than three units. Whereas townhomes typically have their own lot and can be sold individually whereas a multifamily project usually is a rental project.

But this would be an addition rather than a substitution.

Thank you.

Mr. Smith? Could you please put

up the decision criteria again and leave it up for a minute for me?

Yes, would you like to see the ones that are additional to a planned unit district or all of them? Okay.

Any other questions? Thank you for We'll your now move on to the applicant presentation, which will be up to twenty five minutes.

Alright. Good morning City Council. My name is Josh Law. I'm a planner with Pitt Dawson, formerly known as Morris Engineering and I have signed a speaker's card. Today we're here to discuss the PUD Amendment 2,501 RZ. So Nicole did a really good job of giving you a journal overview, so I'll just kind of hit the highlights here. The major two things that we're looking at today is two things. We're looking to permit townhomes as a permitted use within sub area three of the Tuscana Isles BUD and we're looking to amend the connectivity standards map to allow access from Gene Green Road. No other changes within Tuscana Isles are being asked for at this time. Those are the only two things that we are asking for as part of this presentation.

As we mentioned, here is kind of a conceptual plan. Once again this is not part of the binding master plan. So this is absolutely subject to change. But what this could be developed into and kind of how we are envisioning it would be a 50 unit townhome development. So as Nicole said, these would be individual owners on individual lots.

We would have access from Jean Green Road to the north which I'll get into a little bit later in my presentation. We're looking at a 40 foot building setback along the eastern property line which is consistent with the Tuscana Isles master plan. There is a 50 foot easement along Knights Trail Road to the west. We have already began to look at storm water and drainage for this site and like I said this would comply with all the Tuscana Isles PUD standards other than those two items that we were requesting. So here you can see the Tuscana Isles general overview outlined in blue there and sub area three outlined in red.

So once again, the red area is still part of Toscana Isles, I do wanna make that clear. So as it was talked about, Unified Control is obviously a big point of contention. So Wisdom Properties LLC does own both properties in Sub Area 3. So we own both the northern parcel and the southern parcel. The proposed access point is only relevant to the northern parcel so that would be access off of Jane Green.

And like it was mentioned before, section 173E3A, if the change only affects parcels with one owner, which we own, and if the parcel is not an open space parcel, which it is not, unified control for the entire PUD is not necessary. So I did wanna make sure that is very clear. Did wanna give a little background on Toscana Isles. So the last time Toscana Isles was previously amended was back in December or so of twenty eleven. What that amendment did was it added an additional 21 acres along the southern property line there along Laurel Road bringing the total PUD acreage for all of Tuscana Isles up to a little over four twenty eight acres.

With that amendment it did install a couple maximum percentages. So installed a maximum percentage of four units per acre for the entire Tuscana Isles PUD, not on individual lots but for the entire PUD. It did install the maximum seventeen fourteen dwelling units and the maximum 5% commercial land uses within Toscana Isles. That's also when the three sub areas were developed which is sub area one low density single family, sub area two low density mixed residential, and sub area three once again that is commercial. So when I talk about the development standards, I did want to highlight what those are within the Tuscana Isles PUD.

So the Tuscana Isles PUD does talk about those numbers one through eight there. So permitted and accessory land uses, maximum building height restrictions, yard bulk standards, things like that. And like I said, this is also when the Descana Isles PUD did install those three sub areas relating to residential and commercial uses. So you've heard me talk a lot about those three sub areas, so here's a map from that original 2010 or 2011 master plan update. So everything in yellow here is the low density single family.

Everything in orange which is, kinda looks red on your screen but is orange, is the low density mixed residential. And then Sub area three which is the outline two commercial properties. So once again commercial is already straight allowed within Tuscana Isles as it sits right now on those two parcels. So I don't want to go through all of them at least on this side, I will kind of get into a little bit more on the next slide, but I did want to show here is the full range of uses that are allowed within Sub Area 3. And once again I'll kind of go into it more on my next slide, but what you're seeing is we are just adding townhomes as an allowable use within those sub areas.

So a couple of the items here within Sub Area 3 that anybody could build without coming through here would be retail outlets of goods and clothing, appliances, automotive parts, vet's office, drive through and pickup facilities, financial institutions, multifamily dwellings. So we did kind of already hear about that so those could be apartments. Most of the time with apartments you do end up getting a lot more units. Normally on a site like this we could go from around 100 to 150 apartments that would just be allowed. We would not have to come in front of City Council to discuss this.

So the proposed townhome uses is less intrusive, compatible and produces less traffic than those already permitted commercial uses. So I didn't wanna just hammer that one more time. We are asking for residential uses, not the commercial uses that are already permitted to be on these sites. But when you're looking at development you're not only just looking at what the comprehensive plan tells you, you're also looking at compatibility. So townhomes are considered single family uses per the city code.

So we're looking at providing single family adjacent to single family. And there would be no change in the future land use of mixed use residential and no change in the zoning of planned unit development. So there is not an increase in intensity or in density next to Toscana Isles. We are providing single family next to single family. So if we can allow the single family unions for townhomes, we have to provide some sort of existing standards.

So as it already states in sub area two, we have front yard setbacks of 15 feet, side yards and rear yard setbacks of 10 feet. We're looking to use what's already approved within Toscana Isles and sub area 2 and allow that in sub area three. So once again that's the same thing, front yard setback of 15 feet, side yard setback of a minimum of 20 feet between structures and a rear yard 10 feet setback. The last thing we did look at is do we have units that we can even build on this site? So as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, the Toscana Isles PUD does provide maximum percentages.

So some of those maximum percentages are four units per acre for the entire four twenty eight acres. Toscana Isles is approved for seventeen fourteen dwelling units. They are approved for seventeen fourteen dwelling units. And it does state that a maximum 5% of Tuscana Isles can be commercial. So built within Tuscana Isles as it stands right now, there's nine eleven single family units, 56 multifamily units, bringing the entire Toscana Isles build to nine sixty seven units or around 2.25 units per acre.

So this does leave seven forty seven units unbuilt within Tuscana Isles by Wright based on the Tuscana Isles master plan. So what we're looking to do is we're looking to utilize 50 single family dwelling units within Tuscana Isles. So that would bring the total number of single family to nine sixty one, the same amount of multifamily, bringing the total units built within Toscana Isles to ten seventeen units or around 2.37 units per acre. That still would leave six ninety seven units unbuilt within Toscana. So now that we're looking at what we can build, we need to access to the site.

So as part of the connectivity standards map that is based within the Tuscana Isles PUD right now, you can see the subject site that we're looking for is this kind of red box here in the northwestern part of the property. So we were looking to get access from Jean Green Road. You actually can see on both the Tuscanum Isles master plan as it is now and kinda here as well just to kinda show it. There is or was a restricted entry point into our site here. However I will get into a little bit later in the presentation that we are not allowed to access that site.

So even though it is shown on the connectivity standards map, we cannot access that internal access point. So like I mentioned, access is per rose off of Jean Green Road, which would be to the north. Jean Green Road is private, however an access ease easement does exist to service the property. So we do have legal access off of Jing Green for the access to the north. So when it comes to possible access points, there's really three different ones that we can look at here.

To the north is the access site that we are looking at which would be access to Jim Jing Green Green Road. We do have a grant of easement like I mentioned. We do have verification through First American Title Insurance that shows that we do have access, that we can get legal access off of Jean Green Road. And there is an approved access point from Nokomis Grove which is the property to the south or from property to the north which also shows access off of Jean Green Road. So as I mentioned to the south along Villa Rossi Boulevard, which is where it's shown on the Toscana Isles development master plan, we are not able to access Villa Rossi development which has existing access to Knights Trail Road.

So you can actually see the the stud out here which would be where we would like to, but based on litigation and stuff outside of this courtroom we were not allowed to access that site. So that leaves the only place left that we can go is west, and that would be off a Knights Trail Road. However Knights Trail is a Sarasota County roadway, and per Paula Wiggins which we did have a conversation with, and I will invite Michael Yates with Palm Traffic Engineering up here as well to discuss a little bit more. A Knights Trail access point would not comply with the minimum separation requirements between Villa Rossi and Gene Green Road. The county does have minimum separation requirements and an access point off of Knights Trail would not comply with those restrictions.

And I'll kind of turn it over Michael to add a little more information.

Good

morning, Michael Yates with Palm Traffic and I have signed a speaker's card. As Josh mentioned, we did meet with Paula Wiggins about the access to Knights Trail based on the planning commission's recommendations and the access connection spacing is six sixty feet for Knights Trail. And so based on the distance we have, we have about 1,000 feet of frontage so that even if we put it in the center that makes the spacing 500 at maximum that we could meet. So we would not meet the connection spacing standards for Sarasota County for access to Knights Trail. And given that we do have a legitimate access rights to Jean Green Road, that is where we would be required by Sarasota County to put that access.

And then again this is showing the Necumbus Grove's. They already have an approved plan. We included them in our traffic study. They do have access to Jean Green Road so they are already adding residential traffic to Jean Green Road, which was the other concern the Planning Commission had raised was adding residential traffic to Jean Green Road. It has already been approved for residential traffic and significantly more than we would add. We have 42 PM peak hour trips. So we're very limited in our trip generation.

Thank

you Michael. So once again that is the overview point of it. Like I said I did want to talk just based on two things. What we're looking for today is to permit townhomes as a permitted use within sub area 3 of the Tuscana Isles PUD. So once again, commercial is already allowed there. What we're asking for is townhomes. So this would be less intrusive than the permitted commercial uses that are already allowed within Tuscana. Secondly, we're looking to amend the connectivity standards map within Tuscana Isles that would give us access to Dream Green Road. This is our only legal access point verified through an easement and title insurance. And like Michael said there already has been residential trip counts along Jean Green.

As it relates to environmental, I would like to invite Carrie McNutt up to go through her environmental sides to give a little more background on the environmental of this site.

Good morning, I'm Carrie McNutt with Monarch Ecology. I did sign in as a speaker and I am doing the environmental project. As you can see on the graphic, we do have wetlands on the property and we did get a formal wetland determination from SwiftMud in September '4. We have approximately 1.65 acres of wetlands and surface waters. We have the area shown in blue is an existing drainage easement that's been on the property for a while, it's designated as a surface water and then we have remainder of the areas designated in green are wetlands. We also have one thing I want to mention though with the drainage conveyance, there is a 50 foot drainage easement associated with that which will be maintained.

Okay.

This is just a historic aerial aerial dating back to the 1970s that shows that drainage conveyance which has obviously been there for many, many years and again that's going to be maintained. This is a just a zoomed out aerial photograph showing kind of some of the surrounding uses. The property does drain west into Cow Pen Canal and then eventually Salt Creek and Donough Bay. These are just a couple example photographs of the existing weir that's located just on the east side of Knights Trail and again that's going to be maintained as well as the drainage easement. For impacts with the future development, we are going to have some minor wetland impacts.

The main one is tied to the road crossing that you see that is highlighted in red. Overall it will be roughly 0.23 acres of wetland impact. And the main impact is going to be to accommodate the roadway crossing which is going to be culverted obviously to maintain drainage for the drainage easement. As far as wetland impacts too, I just want to mention that we will be buying credits from mitigation bank as opposed to doing on-site mitigation since we are kind of limited on on-site. We did do some preliminary listed species surveys, we did not find anything other than one tricolored paran listed waiting bird and they'd still be allowed to use the wetlands on-site.

We will have to also do a formal of tortoise survey before we do any construction. And of course if we find gopher tortoises they'll be relocated. We also did a heritage tree survey and only found one tree that met criteria for heritage trees.

Perfect, thank you Carrie. And lastly I would like to invite Matt Morris of Paved Austin or Morris Engineering up to talk about the master drainage plan for this site.

I'll be the first to wish you a good afternoon I guess. Matt Morris, I did sign a speakers card. What you'll see in front of you is just a quick exhibit we put together. We've already actually done quite a bit of design on this project. We've submitted for an ERP permit through SwiftMud.

We've already gotten some comments back from SwiftMud or in the process of addressing those comments. So we've already done a fairly detailed drainage analysis. As Carrie mentioned in her presentation, we are going to be crossing the existing wetland there with a roadway. Obviously with having our only allowed access point really being up on Jean Green Road to get from the north side of the site to the south side of the site. We are proposing a fairly large culvert there and the system that's existing will still be in place.

We're definitely willing to work with the HOA and everybody on making sure there's easements there for ensuring that that we're in that wet one system continues to be maintained adequately. You can see here some of the results from our storm water analysis which was done based on the NOAA Atlas 14 analysis. So that takes into account the higher rainfall events that we've seen over the last few years. So the upstream point you'll see that there is no change in the water levels based on the pre development analysis being compared to our post development analysis. Again we build our sites into the overall watershed analysis and are able to run an existing scenario and a proposed scenario taking into account the additional impervious area and our storm water ponds.

All of our site will be collected in internal pipes and inlets and piped into the stormwater ponds to provide the required treatment and attenuation. So again you'll see there's no change from pre development condition to a proposed post development condition upstream and then downstream we actually saw a bit of a decrease there. I think we've got the numbers backward or sorry from a 9.05 feet down to a 6.67 foot water elevation in the development condition. So that's because our storm water ponds were holding that water back that was otherwise just draining right into that wetland system and continuing south. The way we've designed it, we've also allowed some of that water as it's backing up to actually back up into our storm water ponds as well to effectively create some floodplain type compensation and storage in storm water ponds which is again why you're seeing that decrease in the water levels from the precondition or existing condition compared to the post development condition in the modeling.

Perfect. Thank you, Matt.

So with what everything you've heard today, we do believe that we do comply with all decision criteria one through seven as outlined for any rezoning. And we do believe that we comply with letters A through D as it relates to the additional criteria relating to major PUD amendments. So in conclusion, Morris Engineering and Pape Dawson concurs with the city presentation relating to the citing of LDR and comprehensive plan codes. We enter grants with staff that the proposed planned unit development rezoning is in compliance with the comprehensive plan, the land development code and any Florida statutes. With that we request your approval for this application and we are available for any questions you may have.

Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Mr. Smith?

Well, thank you for your presentation. Can you tell me was access from Green Green Road ever contemplated before now?

The plan only really works with access off of Gene Green Road. We can't go to the East, we cannot go to South based on that litigation, we can't go west to Knights Trail, The only way that we have legal access to is to the North.

Was it ever contemplated, ever projected, ever shown to residents or anybody else at any time in this process from the beginning of the PUD till now?

Mean Jean Green Road is a private roadway, it has always been talked about but once again the only access is off of Jean Green Road. This is something that at the Planning Commission, at the neighborhood workshop, we did show this concept plan so anybody that is familiar with this, this concept plan has been shown to everybody of the public showing the access off of Jean Green Road.

Are you saying that there is no other access, there is no internal access, there is no opportunity for any access at any point other than where you propose this access?

Correct. Based on litigation we cannot go to the South which is even though it is shown on the development master plan legally based on litigation we cannot access that. To the West we cannot access Knights Trail based on the fact that we don't comply with their separation requirements. We'd have to get a variance to the County and that's even a possibility. And so that leaves the only access that we can go is to the North and which is why it was such a big deal for us upfront to see, to make sure that we have that easement, to make sure that we have a title insurance that shows that we have that access and that's why our access has always been proposed off of Green.

Okay. We received communication from Ajax Paving about what they perceived to be an unsafe situation if there is access off Gene Green Road and what is your response to that?

I'll invite Michael Yates up to talk about some of those stopping distance and the traffic concerns as well. I would say once again, which I'm sure he will allude to as well, the Nuncumbus Grove site which is already approved through the City Council already has residential access to Jingreen Road. And so I'll let Michael add to that a little bit more as well.

Hi, good afternoon. Michael Yates with Palm Traffic and I have to sign the speakers card. So we have provided as much separation distance from the intersection as possible. I think we're about two thirty five feet of separation from the intersection. So we're sufficiently pulled back from the intersection.

Again it's a private road. It's designed to carry traffic. If there are any necessary improvements that are deemed necessary between the Nokomis Groves traffic, any of the other uses to the east And this project, could there be an improvement required potentially and then that would just need to be worked out amongst all the people who access Jean Green Road. I don't know if that fully answers answers your

question. Commissioner Smith? Now what additional problems does it create that it is a private road? What, can you repeat your question? What additional problems are created for us that this is, would be accessed onto a private road rather than to a public right away?

I mean from a traffic perspective, I am not aware of any concerns that it would add to the city that it's connecting to a private road rather than a city or a county road.

But doesn't it, isn't required, is it not required to meet all the standards if it were a public road?

It is not. It's a private road. So it's a permitted private road. So with that, it would have the burden would then fall to the people who have the agreement to access that road. So only where it connects to a city or county road would then become the jurisdiction of that to evaluate. Evaluate. Thank you.

Madam Clerk, you'll reorder me last per the code and Mr. Weed you can go next.

Thank you. Yeah, do have

a question. I need first to be educated. It's been referred to many times based on litigation that you do not have the obvious access of Villa Rosy Boulevard. So please educate us on the points of that litigation why that is not a now what looks like an obvious access point.

Right. So there's a there has been a lot of previous conversation regarding that. And you know I can only go back so far and what I know is that we have gone in front of a judge to get access to the site. For whatever reason that access was denied. Thus even though it is shown in the Tuscana Isles Master Plan that we should have legal access tonight, it was denied. So with the judge's ruling, the only other options that we have is to go to the North and West for access.

Okay. And my second concern is a private road. I personally have over forty five years of experience dealing with mixed use of residential and commercial and industrial use on a private road and quite frankly it has been a forty five year nightmare. So my question to you is the maintenance of that road, the upkeep of that road, the maintenance of the drainage on that road, the management of sidewalks and safety, who does that responsibility fall to?