Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. I'd to call to order today's meeting of the Planning Commission for 01/06/2026. How about that? Could I have a roll call please?

Chair Snyder.

I am here.

Mr. Wilson.

Here.

Mr. Hale.

Here.

Ms. Scherberg. Here. Mr. McKeon. Here. Mr. Young.

Here.

And Mr. Jasper?

Here. Thank you. I got a set of minutes from December 2. Do I have a motion or suggested Mr. Chairman? Yes, Mr.

Wilson. I move we accept the 12/02/2025 regular meeting minutes as presented.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

I'll second it sir.

I was going say you two are to fight every time. Thank you. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed the chair was aye. Do we have anyone signed up for general audience participation not associated with any of the applications?

No, not for general.

All right. Thank you very much. Then first up today is variance petition number 20Five-65VZ at 114 Corte Del Ocelo. I like that. Staff is Nicole Tremblay, the agent is Andrew Conaboy and the owner is Joel and Julia Hessman.

What's that? We're good? This is a quasi judicial hearing. I have a memorandum that says that this is a certified public hearing for this petition was appropriately advertised on 12/20/2025 as required by the City Of Venice Land Development Code and proof of publication is on file in the Planning and Zoning Office. Let me open the public hearing and ask the attorney to question Board members regarding any ex parte communications or potential conflicts of interest.

If anyone has a potential conflict of interest please indicate that now. Seeing none if you've had any ex parte communications are not presently part of the record including site visits or other discussions with someone please indicate those. We'll start with Mr. Jasper.

None. None. None.

None. None.

Thank you.

I think that's none. Amanda, we'll make sure we have speaker cards. Nicole. Good afternoon. Welcome to the New Year.

Thank you. So for the record Nicole Tremblay, Senior Planner for the City Of Venice. This first petition is a variance for a screened enclosure that is existing. So they are looking for relief from the five foot setback requirement for screened enclosures. This property is low density residential, it's zoned RSF three and it's in the Island neighborhood.

It's in the Bellagio neighborhood on the island. So they have this existing screened enclosure, it encroaches by a few inches into the five foot setback you can see from the site plan. And the owner is really requesting this so that they won't have any issues with selling the property in the future, they mentioned that there were some past issues when they bought it and they don't want to face that again when they try to sell it. So you can see from the survey the blue rectangle highlights this green enclosure but the actual encroachment it just barely crosses the line there at that five feet. Here's the property backing up against some open space in the neighborhood.

And for the existing conditions just I'll briefly go over these maps. It's all low density residential around it and it's all residential single family three around it in Bellagio. So we'll look at the land development code for a variance. There are procedural requirements for common applications in section 1.2, those were satisfied by the applicant and staff and then your decision criteria specify that you will make an affirmative finding on each of the criteria or that the variants would correct a bona fide error. So looking into how this might have occurred, there was a permit issued in 2002 for the enclosure, it was approved upon inspection but there's no site plan in the records because of how old it was.

So we don't know if the site plan showed this encroachment and it was missed by staff or if it just was constructed in a way that they went over by a few inches on the setback. We really can't tell at this point but it may well have been a staff error in approving the permit, we are not sure. So here are your decision criteria to look at for a variance. The physical conditions of the property would be a hardship on the owner, the conditions are unique to the parcel, it's not based on any financial or occupational or ability concerns for the owner, not created by any person presently having an interest in the property, not detrimental to public welfare, the minimum variance necessary and that the property could not be put to a reasonable use unless it's granted. Those are your seven to look at or to determine that it is an error that needs to be corrected through the variance.

Quickly upon review of these documents, conference of plan, land development code, staff report analysis and testimony. We believe there is sufficient information on the record to make your decision but I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Nicole.

Thank you.

Alright, I'm confused. Okay. Which is easy these days. I'm looking at the survey that was submitted I guess by the applicant.

Do

you have that by any chance with you there? Not the one with the

Not the slide, you want the agenda attached

to Yeah, one with the blue box around it is somewhat deceiving I think.

Okay.

Or misleading I should say. Okay.

Give me just a second to get there.

There you go. Okay. And can you blow that up?

Yes. Let's see. Can I?

There you go.

There you go.

Okay. So the dash line is the setback, correct?

Yes.

And does the enclosure go beyond that dash line or I read this, is it

Barely, I Most mean

of it is inside the dash line.

Agreed which is why that maybe no one did flag the permit at the time. I can't say for sure but it's conceivable that someone would deem it compliant.

I realized a lot has a curve to it which may be part of the problem here but

The owner I guess has experienced issues when they purchased it?

So they were not around in 2002 when this was done?

No, they were not the original owner.

And they purchased it and had issues when they bought it that it wasn't in compliance?

That's my understanding. They are here and they can give you more information as far as as far as I know but that was our understanding from their application that they had issues and they wanted to prevent having an issue in the future when they sell it.

And there's nothing on the record that you have that says this is an error by staff or it's not an error by staff?

No, all I have is that it was approved and inspected and deemed you know compliant with the inspection but I don't have the actual original site plan.

Okay. Any other questions of Nicole? Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Is Mr. Connoboy here or there you are. The one with the green light is fine. Hello. Hi, any presentation you want to make or?

Everything I was going to say she just said.

She's good at that.

Yes, the only thing I'll add is that this occurred when the current owners were purchasing the property, we discovered this and it was brought to their attention that should they sell this property in the future this might come up again. It's extremely minor encroachment, but I was the closing attorney and I brought it to their attention, essentially advised them that hey, is something that either needs to be cleaned up now or you're going to experience in the future. So we held back some funds eventually solve this, which brings us here today.

So how did you resolve it when the first purchase occurred?

We held back money from the closing. Haven't resolved it. This will be the resolution.

Okay. So it's been going on for how many years now?

Not years, it's been maybe nine months to Okay. A

Very good. Other questions? Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Do we have anyone sign up from the audience on this one?

No, we do not.

All right. Let me close the hearing. Do I have a motion?

Mr. Chair?

Yes.

I'll make the motion.

Thank you.

Based on review of the application materials, the staff report and the testimony provided during the public hearing, the Planning Commission sitting as a local planning agency finds this petition meets either of the variance criteria in Section one point one three point three of the land development code and therefore moves to approve variance petition number 20Five-six5BZ.

Thank you. Do I have a second? I'll second. Thank you. Any discussions? Yes, go ahead.

Yes, I just I know we have strict guidelines that we go live, but every now and then you get one that just simply comes down to the common sense rule. Clearly, there was nothing nefarious here, no one was trying to sneak anything through, some extremely minor encroachment and it encroaches onto open vacant land that is not going to affect anyone, it's just common sense. I agree. Thank you. Yes, Pam. I

would also add to that and I agree with my colleague. Some times especially if it's been sounds like more than twenty years, our land sometimes moves, the sand shifts in time. So this is probably very appropriate at the time, but here we are twenty some years later and we're just needing to put this in place so future buyers and sellers will not have this issue.

Very good. Anyone else? Could I have a vote please? And it's approved seven zero. All done.

All right. Next up is a conditional use petition number 25Dash71CU for the Venice Bay adult park. Staff is Nicole Tremblay, the agent is Kimberly Whitkop and the owner applicant is the Venice Bay adult park inc. Again, is a quasi judicial hearing. I have a memorandum that says that this is to certify that the public hearing for this petition was appropriately advertised on 12/20/2025 as required by the City Of Venice Land Development Code and proof of publication is on file in the planning and zoning office.

Let me open the public hearing and I'll ask the attorney to once again question Board members regarding any ex parte communications or potential conflicts of interest.

Start again with potential conflicts of interest, if you have any please indicate those now. Okay, seeing none, if you've had any ex parte communications that are not part of the record presently then please indicate those. Start with you again Mr. Jesper.

None.

None.

None. None.

It's like you were all on holiday. Yes, we were.

Now wait a minute. Okay, Amanda will make sure we got speaker cards. Nicole, you're back.

I'm back. Okay. This is 2571CU for Venice Bay Adult Park. Their request is to allow recreational vehicle parking on four parcels that have historically had it, but it was not properly applied for in the past. So this is Venice Bay Adult Park retains its inactive zoning of residential mobile home.

It's got a moderate density residential future land use and it's in the Gateway neighborhood. So as I mentioned, there have been four parcels for RV parking historically in Venice Bay Adult Park, two on Morning Star Road and two on Bayou Drive. These were not necessarily permitted in any way but they were destroyed by the hurricane, the units that were there. And so now that they want to put them back, in order to do that they would need a conditional use approval because RV is a conditional use in this zoning. So they're not proposing to change anything about the neighborhood itself as far as access or physical characteristics but they do want the opportunity to use those four parcels for RV parking again.

These are the four areas in question. The green outline is a little bit hard to see but there's two here on Morningstar and then two down here on Bayou. Now so here's the aerial, you can see there were RVs or some type of units here that are no longer there.

Okay,

well give me just a second. This might be an old version of the presentation but I want to show you some things that they need to comply with when they do apply for these RV parking spaces. Here we go, okay. So there are building code requirements that they're gonna need to comply with when they come in, not the building code but the National Flood Insurance Program. So they have to meet these A through D, how they're built, what size they can be and that they need to be designed to be self propelled or towable, not for use as a permanent dwelling and to further that they can either be on the site for fewer than one hundred and eighty consecutive days or be fully licensed and ready for highway use.

So the wheels are ready to go, have insurance, they have current plates. So those things will be confirmed through the temporary use process. When they're ready to put a unit on this, if they get conditional use approval they would need to come in for a temporary use permit and that would be monitored most likely on a 180 rolling basis to make sure that they were compliant with that. That's something we would work out with them when they apply as far as how we'll monitor, but that's the plan for if they are permitted this use to make sure that they're complying with these standards. So for existing conditions, I'll show you some photographs and the maps as well as the surrounding land uses.

Okay, well I don't know what's going on here. I hope you saw the photographs in the staff report. Right now they're empty lots, there's nothing on them at this time. So the future land use map shows that this is moderate density residential all throughout Venice Bay Adult Park and correspondingly residential manufactured home which is inactive but of course we apply the closest standards possible when we need to. So looking at the comprehensive plan and the land development code for the comprehensive plan, Strategy LU 1.2.3B is the moderate density residential strategy, that's what applies to this property.

It supports single family detached and attached residential with a focus on attached. Multifamily may be supported but it also recognizes existing mobile home parks. And then intent h g 1.1 for housing options indicates that the city will promote a range of housing options to reflect preferences, economic circumstances, seasonal status, and special housing needs. So this would be intended to be a seasonal use because as I mentioned it could not be allowed more than one hundred and eighty consecutive days or it's got to be kept up and travel ready. So conclusions related to the conference of plan analysis has been provided to help determine consistency with land use element strategies applicable to moderate density residential, the gateway neighborhood, housing element, and other plan elements.

For compliance with the land development code, we looked at the land use compatibility analysis and decision criteria. There are no real standards in our code for RV parking, but we do have the compatibility and the criteria for conditional use. So they are within an existing mobile home park, they have been used for RV parking in the past, that doesn't mean they have to be allowed in the future, they were not permitted in the past but they have been using them that way and would like to legally use them that way in the future. There are no changes to the density, the development standards or any other aspects of the park itself. And then for decision criteria, just summary statement would be that they are contained within the park, they are an alternative type of housing that we don't typically allow anywhere else and they're meant to fit on these very small lots for different types of needs, seasonal, lower income, different reasons why people might want this.

And so it's meant to house smaller units. So here are your three decision criteria for a conditional use. One compliance with all applicable elements of the comprehensive plan. Two compatibility with adjacent properties and other properties in their district. And then any special requirement set out in section two of the chapter, but there are no special requirements I will tell you for this particular use.

So conclusions related to the land development code, the subject petition has been processed to, according to the procedural requirements to consider a conditional use. It's been reviewed by the technical review committee and no issues regarding compliance were identified. And so upon review of the petition associated conference of plan, land development codes, staff report and analysis and testimony, there is sufficient information on the record for Planning Commission to take action. Do you have any questions for me?

Yeah, just one. Sure. If I'm reading this correctly, so you've laid out what they have to now comply with. Yes. If this were granted. But it has a big or there. So the one hundred and eighty day requirement or beyond or excuse me, be fully licensed and ready for highway use. The fully licensed and ready for highway use is indefinite then?

It appears to be. So that's why every one hundred and eighty days we would have to have them basically report to us and prove or confirm that they are keeping up to date with the registration and licensing and everything or that they're having leases that turnover and they're moving the RV and placing a new one or something to that effect.

Okay. Bill?

So the intention of that is you don't put a license on it, park it there and then leave it there for the rest of the time, so it's no longer an RV, it's a mobile home.

Right, it should be

That's the intent.

That's the intent, yeah. As far as I understand.

Moving or capable of moving all the time.

Yes. Very good. Thank you. And yes, go ahead, Ben.

Thank you. And the information that was provided to us, do I understand that this has been used for exactly this purpose for the last couple of decades?

It has.

Go ahead. 2024 when the hurricanes came through, they probably utilized that space for other things like waste and whatnot. Now they're wanting to come back and use it again. Is that purpose of this?

Yes. So it was used before. I think there were some issues with how it was being used as far as it was, they were more permanent kind of hard Okay. Wired in and so in order to make it a legal process and make sure they're compliant with all these things, they would need to do this in order to start using the property that way again.

I understand. Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions? Anyone? Thank you Nicole.

Thank you.

Miss Whitcup, if I have that right. Or Kimberly, whichever one.

Thank you for having us here today. Just wanted to do a short introduction about Venice Bay Adult Park. If you don't know about it. This is a 79 unit land condominium that is located off the Tamiami Trail by the KMI Bridge, the south side of the KMI Bridge. And they actually have been parking RVs there since 1947 and prior to that.

So in 1982 they incorporated as Venice Bay Adult Park, profit. And this is how they've continued since then. So these particular four lots in question are what we're talking about today. And they're owned by the association. And the Board is consists of seven directors, Board of Directors.

And currently they really had a hard time after the storm. So after Milton, they had a lot of damage and so a lot of the mobile homes were ruined and a lot of the RVs. So they had to really do a lot of cleanup and they were just recovering from Ian. So they've been through a lot. And there's a lot of limited low income people and limited and so they do help each other there.

Right now they're using the clubhouse as storage, so they're trying to get everything organized in there. We're doing a big FPL project to get the electric back to a code and bearing the conduit and new meters, new pedestals on all lots. So they've done that project and that's over $40,000 for the boring. They've done a lot there to try to get this community back to where it used to be. So as we previously saw, these are the lots in question.

There are two on Bayou here against the retaining wall and then two by the clubhouse over here. And they're very small, they run between 1,000 square feet and 3,500 feet. So some of these lots we just can't put a mobile home on. So the RVs are as a way to have a structure property. And what is important about these four particular parcels is that they do generate income for the association.

And they've been keeping these fees very low for the residents. And so they don't want to have excessive fees, special assessments and all that. So they're keeping it low. So they want to have this income for the RVs to further reserve accounts, storm restoration and things like that. And I understand the issues that we're addressing today are compliance issues.

So the utility hookups, the way we're we're doing We're parked there. And they have been addressed in the past. I think what happened maybe in the past a couple of the units had structures around the RVs that were like built like decks and stairs. And so things like that probably would not be going forward. So these are the issues here that we're talking about.

The Venice Bay Adult Park, you know wants to have this affordable housing option for the residents and it's good for tourism for Venice. And it generates over $50,000 of income for the association, which is really important for financial stability of this small community. So we want to continue to contribute positively to the City Of Venice. And what we're asking is just to have that long standing land use of parking the RVs to continue doing that. It's been about over seventy years because even prior to 1947 they had trailers parking there as well.

So we did a lot of research in the Sarasota County digging some information up and we found a couple of different articles at the Venice Gondolier. So this is what we're looking for.

Is that it?

Yes.

Okay, thank you. Questions? You realize the requirements that they will put on you for permitting on whatever once if this conditional use is granted. In other words, they will require you to do a permit process?

Yes.

Okay, going forward and it will be monitored and what have you?

Yes.

Okay, Probably a little different than I suspect was there before. But okay, were aware of what's there. Okay. Any other questions? Do we have anyone from the audience signed up for this one?

Yes we do. We have one speaker, Sam Dundley. If you'd like to come on up. Okay.

Yeah. I don't wanna take up too much of y'all's time but I've been in Venice an awful long time. That park over there, as you know with the name Venice Adult Park, they're trying, they wanna, I'm not against that, but they are raising everybody up. They want them all to be up real high. I don't know how that's going to be an adult park anymore because 80% of the residents can't do those stairs. Lots

of

them have sold out now. All the investors are over there trying to snap up the lots because of all the changes that are going on. As Scow said and she is right, they've been parking RVs in there since the 40s. And that comes really to my other question is I am on Bayou at 139 just a few lots down from where they wanna put these RVs in and nobody in that mobile home park care whether it's an RV or a trailer or what it is. Now I understand concerns of the city and even mine would be that you're not parking a hunk of junk in there and trying to cover it over.

The other side of the coin, they're talking about putting containers in there that they're gonna fancy up but it's still a container. My other what I'm really here about is I would like to even permit it, put my million dollar mobile home there instead of my trailer actually didn't get damaged like most of the others. We barely got water in on the floor and didn't move it. Didn't some of them, I mean you know they had catastrophic damage and I get tearing those out. It makes perfect sense.

I think I'm hoping the council here will think about where we're really talking about. It is actually off island and it's been like this. I mean it's been what it is for an awful long time. And I heard somebody saying about those trailers, the RVs on these that they want to keep RV lots, they've been there forever. Some years they might not have rented one of them, but pretty much the people had to pull those out when the hurricane came.

And to me back to the perfect sense of the hurricanes aren't going to stop. You actually got to realize the water level is coming up, but the roads and every all the infrastructure really in there isn't going to change that much. You're going to have to get any vehicles or anything you've got out of there when a hurricane comes. So licensed movable RVs is really a perfect solution in that part, especially for the group like my wife, I'm fine, I could go up there 10 steps to get into what they want us to do now. But my wife, that's never going to fly.

Most of the people that live there aren't going to be able to do and I'm sure not putting in elevators. They're not going to be able to live there anymore. You're basically getting rid of 80% of population in there. We keep going on as it's going. And I don't wanna tie you all up, but if any of you were here in 1960, you'll know Venice Avenue had water over knee down at in a hurricane.

Hurricanes happen. We fix back up and actually usually it's new and better. But I don't see the reason to totally go crazy in there just because most people aren't used to hurricanes apparently. We haven't had a decent hurricane in quite a while in this town luckily. But that's all I have to say.

Very good, thank you sir.

Did you just have a point of clarification?

Yeah, I'm going to in a second. Anyone else, Amanda?

No further speakers.

Nicole, I have a question. I know you don't have anything else you want to say, but we have a question. Yes, I do too. Well the gentleman sparked a question in my mind. Is this in a coastal high hazard area?

Yes, I believe so. Yes.

So are RVs allowed in a coastal high hazard area only because they're temporary?

Well, believe that's what those national flood insurance program regulations are designed for. That's

But that ore would allow them to stay indefinitely theoretically.

A point of clarification that what we're working with here today, the only decision that I understand that we're making today is can they put RVs back on to these two small areas.

Right. And really can they apply to? Because once they apply to they still have

But the other thing is this gentleman was talking about is nothing that we're actually dealing with today. And would For the for the attorney, does there need to be a stipulation? We heard about that there were things that were attached to the RVs that were permanent, would we need to make a stipulation that they would not be allowed to do that or is that covered already?

Yes, think that was referring to things that were there in the past, RVs that were there in the past, so that wouldn't be seemingly wouldn't be permittable unless they were elevating these to meet the flood standards. So I don't think that's something you need to include. It's just a part of the regulations that will apply to this Thank

you. Any other questions on Nicole? Thank you.

Thank you.

All righty. If there's nothing else, let me close the hearing. Do I have a motion?

Excuse me, Mr. Chair? Yes, Mr. McQueen. Based on review of the application materials, the staff report and testimony provided during the public hearing, the Planning Commission, Cindus' local planning agency, finds this petition will not adversely affect the public interest and that satisfactory provision and arrangement has been made concerning the conditional use criteria in section 1.18.3 of the land development code and therefore moves to approve conditional use petition number 20.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

I'll second that Mr.

Okay. Discussion? Anyone? Okay. Could I have a vote please? Yes, I knew was I gonna be that liar. You're approved six to one. Okay. Alright. Next up we've got three petitions associated with a Home Depot Adventist Crossing.

These are petitions, conditional use petition number 25Dash52CU. A design alternative position number 20Five-53DA and a site development plan petition number 20Five-51SP. Brittany, you don't care if we do all these at once, do you? You'd probably rather do them all once.

I would prefer that we do them all at once.

Thought you would. All right. So I'm going to open the public hearing for all three. I have three memorandums that essentially say the same thing. That is this is to certify the public hearing for this petition was appropriate advertised on 12/20/2025 as required by the City Of Venice Land Development Code and proof of publication is on file in the planning and zoning office. Okay. Let me back up here. So let me ask the attorney to question Board members again regarding any potential ex parte communications or conflicts of interest.

We'll start again. If you have any potential conflict of interest, please indicate that. Seeing none, if you've had any ex parte communications including site visits and please that are not presently part of the record, please put those into the record at this time. Mr. Jasper, we'll start with you.

I pass the site basically daily, but so I would say a site visit.

I went over for a site visit. Nice flat piece of dirt at

the moment.

Site visit only.

Say there that I go by there frequently.

Like my colleagues, I also go by there frequently.

I also go by frequently, no communication.

Same here.

Okay. So let me turn now to Britney. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. So Britney Smith for the record, planner with City of Venice and I have signed a speaker's card. So we'll start off here with site and development plan petition number 2551SP for Home Depot with the agent being Jackson Boone of Boone Law Firm and the owner being two thousand and one Laurel LLC, the applicant is Home Depot USA Inc. For general information, the project is located at 204 Chillingham Avenue. The request is for the construction of a retail home improvement store with the outdoor storage center.

The parcel size is approximately 11.29 acres with the future land use of mixed use corridor with the commercial general zoning in the Laurel Road neighborhood. The application was received on 08/06/2025 and the associated petitions are 2552CU and 2553 DA. A little background in existing conditions. The proposed building is 106,651 square feet for the Home Depot with a just a little over 28,000 square foot outdoor garden center, which has the concurrent petition for the outdoor sale and display use and the design alternatives to landscaping, signage, and lighting. The property has again retained its CG zoning which is an inactive zoning district.

And the preliminary plots you've seen multiple times for this project, three to be exact that have come before you showing these commercial lots in the development. Here's an aerial overview of the project here outlined and or hatched in green. And here is the overall overview of the site plan for the property. Here are the elevations starting with the front then going into the rear, the left elevation and the right elevation. For existing and proposed conditions, I'm gonna look at the future land use and zoning maps and the surrounding land uses.

So here's the future land use map showing to the north, to the west, and to the south, the property is surrounded by mixed use corridor. And then over there on the east, it's moderate density residential Sarasota County future land use. For the zoning map, again to the north, to the West, and to the South the property is CG zoning and then to the east has the county zoning of OUE 1. So in looking at the maps I went over all the surrounding land uses and currently the existing land uses, most of those properties are vacant. For planning analysis we'll look at comprehensive plan consistency, land development code compliance and concurrency and mobility.

Bear with me here, This is a lot of words on this slide, but we're looking at strategy LU one point two point nine point C for corridor. So there are nine different parts of this strategy. In the staff report, I give you responses to each of these, so I'm gonna read over them since you know I really wanna dig into this. So one, it's envisioned to be located in the to support the island, Laurel Road corridor, gateway and the Knights Trail neighborhood. So for my comment here, this project is in the Laurel Road neighborhood so it meets that part of this strategy.

The for number two, it supports mixed use horizontal and vertical. For my staff comment, mixed use development is defined in our code as a type of development that combines the mix of uses to include residential, commercial, and or office spaces within one building or multiple buildings and provides pedestrian access between those uses. So this project does provide pedestrian pathways to adjacent parcels and roadways and is providing a commercial use in the area. For three, moderate density to medium density rental uses are permitted. I won't read the rest of this one, but my staff comment is at this time there's no residential uses that are proposed.

So four, non residential uses are limited to commercial and institutional professional. So my staff comment is this is a commercial use project. Industrial uses are not permitted except as noted below. For a staff comment for this there are no industrial uses that are being proposed at this time. Number six, designation total development percentage min max percentages.

So non residential, see specific neighborhood for the min maxes, we did do that and it meets that. The MUC is within the Laurel Road neighborhood which has over 4,000,000 square feet of developable non residential intensity would be remaining if this project were to move forward as being an approved project you would still have 4,000,000 square feet of developable non residential for this area. For number seven, intensity and density. Non residential intensity of the FAR, a 0.5 average and designation wide, for designation wide and a one point zero maximum per individual property. So for my staff comment here, the FAR of the proposed project is point two seven which is within the allowable FAR for the property.

Number eight, typically developed utilizing foreign based code. So this one is a little complicated because this is a mixed use corridor but they did retain their CG zoning district so there are no mixed use concepts that are driven forward nor does this section really apply even if it did have a mixed use, the implementing district we would go to now, it's not a requirement, it's just something that is suggested for the area. And so for number nine, except for MEC located within the Laurel Road neighborhood large scale single use commercial buildings and uses including those requiring outdoor displaying goods are not prevented within the second designation. My staff comment is this project is within the Laurel Road corridor and therefore this proposed large scale commercial building with outdoor display would be considered an allow able use within this future land use. So in conclusions and finding a fact with consistency with the comprehensive plan, analysis of the land use element strategies applicable to the MUC future land use designation, strategies found in the Laurel Road neighborhood and other plant elements have been provided.

This analysis should be taken into consideration when determining comprehensive plant consistency. Looking at land development code compliance, this has been processed with the procedural requirements contained in the code and reviewed by the TRC. The proposed plan outside of the requested design alternatives and the conditional use petitions concurrently running process with this petition have been reviewed for compliance with the regulations including but not limited to use parking setbacks, land area, height, lot coverage, lighting and landscaping requirements. Responses to the land use compatibility analysis and decision criteria are included in the staff report and in the agenda for your review. Another thing that I need to mention here is this property may be considered for additional mitigation standards based on special considerations in chapter 87 section 4.4 b as it is adjacent to property that has a Sarasota County zoning and it's included in the JPA.

These are the following mitigation standards. I'll briefly go over them. The seven, I know you guys are familiar with them, but one is lowering density and intensity, two is increasing building step backs. Three is adjusting building step backs. Four is required tiered building.

Five is adjusting on-site improvements to mitigate lighting, noise, mechanical equipment, refuse delivery and storage areas. Sixth is adjusting road and driveway locations. And seven is increasing buffer types and element types. I would like to note that these are things that we had considered when we looked at the preliminary plots and prior public hearings and also that we have looked at in design alternative applications that have come before you as well where the applicant had set buffer types and these elements and strategies were taken into consideration at that time. The building setbacks as is, they are significantly over requirements and many of the other things as mentioned meet the code requirements.

But I'm putting these here just with how the code's written, need to mention it again. So here going over the land development code compliance and standards, you'll see the setback requirement for CG zoning is 20, provided is 316.4. Your side setback to the east, 20 foot provided 89. A side setback interior is eight foot required provided 84. Rear 10 provided 67.

So again, exceeding those building setback requirements that were required. For building height, they have an allowable 35 feet and are requesting 34 feet. And for their parking with our current code, their range of parking would be between three twenty for the minimum and six forty for the maximum and they are coming in at four zero one spaces so they're well within that allowable range. Okay, this is just a repeat of those extra standards that you could put in there. So for land development code compliance, again this is in process with the procedural requirements contained in the code and reviewed by the TRC.

The proposed plan outside the requested design alternatives has been in compliance and responses to the land use credibility and decision criteria have included in the staff report. So in conclusions and finding a fact with the I think that we have some repeat slides here. Why is that doing that? I'm sorry, I think I hit the up button instead of the down button so that was my fault. So in conclusions of finding a fact in compliance with the land development regulations, the site and development plan has been reviewed and deemed compliant by the technical review committee.

Any issues identified during TRC review have been addressed through this process. So for concurrency, for potable water, sanitary sewer, solid waste, this all falls within the I'm sorry, for potable water and sanitary sewer, these are county provided services and the applicant can speak a little bit more to this, but they have been working with the county to make sure that those standards are met. For solid waste compliance was confirmed by public works and for drainage, the storm water requirements have been met and the compliance has been confirmed engineering. So concurrency mobility, no issues have been identified regarding adequate public facilities capacity to accommodate the development. Applicant provided traffic impact statement comparing the approved trips for Venice Crossing which were approved for the preliminary plot at 12:08 peak PM hour trips.

That That's what was set with the preliminary plot and this project is having a proposed one hundred and fifteen PM peak hour trips that would count towards that overall master planned traffic for Venice Crossings. So again a full traffic study was conducted at the time of preliminary plot with a significant amount of coordination with Sarasota County, FDOT, and the Sarasota County School District. This has been reviewed by city staff and the city's consultant and no additional issues have been identified. So in conclusion, upon review of the petition and the associated documents, the comprehensive plan, land development regulations, staff report analysis and testimony provided during public hearing there is sufficient information on the record for Planning Commission to take action on-site development plan, petition number 2551SP. And I'm going to move into

Before you do.

Okay.

I know think says the site development plan, but we're not there. We're dealing with the conditional use first. So I'm going to ask if there's any questions from members related to the conditional use before we go on to the design alternative. Are there any? Okay. So you want to do the design alternatives next?

Do you want me to do design alternative or the conditional use next?

Well, you can do the conditional use, I thought we'd already done that, but go ahead.

Okay. I read the site and development plan one first because it has the most information in

it. Okay.

And then I can read the conditional use and fine. The design alternative.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Okay. So this is conditional use petition number 2552CU for the Home Depot. Agent and owner are the same. The request is for outdoor sale and display of retail merchandise as an allowable use. The project description proposes outdoor sale and display of retail merchandise as an allowable use in commercial general and the concurrent petitions being the site plan 2551SP and the design alternative 2553DA.

So here is an outline of the conditional use where they are requesting to do the outdoor sales and display. This one right here is the garden center. They have a seasonal display area down here and then they have several, I think this one's the shed display and then they have a couple that are for rentals rentals that are identified on here. For existing conditions, we've looked at the future land use map and the zoning map and the surrounding land uses with the site and development plan, so I'm going to just skip over these pretty quickly. And for planning analysis, we'll look at comprehensive plan consistency and land development code compliance.

So you get a much shorter version here, but we did again look at strategy LU one point two point nine point C for corridor. The strategy supports mixed use both horizontal and vertical. Non residential uses are limited to commercial and institutional professional except for Laurel Road corridor in which a large scale single use commercial building is allowable. So conclusions of finding a fact with comprehensive plan analysis has been provided to determine consistency with the land use element strategies applicable to the MUC land use designation strategies found in the Laurel Road neighborhood and other plan elements. This analysis should be taken into consideration upon determining comprehensive plan consistency.

Compliance with the land development code, this has been processed according to the procedural requirements contained in Chapter 87, Section 1.8 of the Land Development Code. It's been reviewed by the TRC and no issues were identified. Responses to compatibility and decision criteria have been included in the staff report and in the agenda for your review. And consistent with the notice requirements of the JPA, the City of Venice provided notice to Sarasota County of the conditional use application was received and we did get a letter in response from the county finding that this petition was in compliance with JPA Area five. Just another mention here again of those mitigation strategies, I won't read them all again since we've been through them all, but they're here for you to look at.

So conclusions of finding a fact with the land development code, the subject petition has been processed with the procedural requirements of Chapter 87 to consider the conditional use. In addition, the petition has been reviewed by the TRC and no issues with compliance have been identified. So conclusion upon finding upon review of the petition and associated documents, the comprehensive plan, land development code, staff report and analysis, and testimony provided during the public hearing, there is sufficient information 100 on the

record for a planning commission to take action on conditional use petition 2,052

CU. Okay so on to design alternatives. Okay. So this is design alternative twenty five fifty three d a for Home Depot. The agent and the owner applicant are the same.

The request is for relief from chapter 87 section three point five point three point b point five for wall sign standards, chapter 87 section three point seven point five point c point two for divider median landscaping, and chapter 87 section three point nine point eight point eight for lighting pole height. Project description. As previously stated, these are three design alternatives with the one regarding wall signs, the second one landscape divider medians, and the third one parking area lighting. So for chapter 87 section three point five point three point b point five for the wall signs, the wall sign max size that's allowable by the code is 400 square feet. The requested wall signage with this design alternative is up to 579 feet.

Noting here that this size of signing and how this looks is very typical of what you would see for this kind of development and this kind of store. So for chapter 87, section three point seven point five point c point two for landscape divider medians, request is to have only a few divider medians to make room for seasonal sales, contractor parking and rental services which are typical of a Home Depot operation. And so outlined here in orange are those areas where the applicant has requested to not have that divider median there and you will see that probably half of the other required divider medians are in place. Moving on to Chapter 87, section three point nine point three point eight for parking area lighting. In our code, light fixture height max of 30 feet within the center of a parking area decreasing in height to a range of 12 to 15 feet at the perimeter of the parking area.

The applicant has requested light fixture heights greater than 15 feet at the perimeter. So looking at planning analysis, we'll look at comprehensive plan consistency and land development code compliance. So for comprehensive plan consistency, again, looked at strategy LU one point two point nine point C for corridor. This strategy supports mixed use both horizontal and vertical and nonresidential uses are limited to commercial and institutional professional except in the Laurel Road neighborhood which does allow this large scale single use commercial building and those including outdoor display of goods. So in conclusion, finding a fact and consistency with comprehensive plan analysis of the land use element strategies applicable to the MUC future land use designation strategies found in the Laurel Road neighborhood and other plan elements have been provided and this analysis should be taken in consideration upon determining comprehensive plan consistency.

The conclusions in finding a fact compliance with land development code, the subject petition has been processed with the procedural requirements of Chapter 87 to consider the design alternative. In addition, the petition has been reviewed by the TRC and no issues regarding compliance with the land development code were identified. So in conclusion, Planning Commission report in action upon review of the petitions and the associated documents, comprehensive plan, land development codes, staff report and analysis and testimony provided during the public hearing, there is sufficient information on the record for the Planning Commission to take action on the sign alternative Petition 2553DA.

Thank you. Does that conclude all your presentation?

That I think is all of them.

Okay, very good. Any questions? Brittany, go ahead.

All the way back at the beginning of the presentation you had a slide on elevations.

Okay. If you could pull that up again.

It's easy to understand the front and the rear or the front and the back, the left and the right elevation. I would assume that the right elevation is west.

Just one second.

It looks as though that's what a garden center would look like. Yes. Yes. So the right elevation is west and the left elevation is east.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

Very good. Any other questions? Okay, thank you, Brittany.

Thank you.

Mr. Boone, I see both of you here, but Jackson, I think you're running the show today.

All right. Good afternoon. You have me today. Okay. First off, good to see everybody back from the holiday break season. Hope you all had a good time. Ready to kick off the new year here with an anticipated site and development plan. I know we've had a lot of talk about this Venice Crossing commercial center, what's it gonna look like, what's a master plan. There's all different pieces of the puzzle. Here we have a site development plan in front of you that's a first piece of a puzzle.

So to start off my presentation first, for the record my name is Jackson Boone, attorney with the Boone Law Firm. Agent for the applicant Home Depot USA Inc. I'm joined here today with project team members Tegan Newton, PE with Kimley Horn Kyle Morell, PE with Bohler Engineering Bassett Ali, PE Transportation Engineer with Kimley Horn Andrew Pluta, PE with Kimley Horn Jim Collins, planner with our firm, and Jeff Boone, attorney with the Boone Law Firm. Subject property, I'm gonna be using the overhead pretty frequently today, just to go over a number of documents. But the subject property is an approximate 11.3 acre parcel located within the 83 acre Venice Crossing Commercial Center.

So this is the boundary of the commercial center. This parcel here, it's just netted out. This is the one that is under ownership by Walmart, but our property is here, and I'll show you with the preliminary plat aerial. Overall site. You can see you have Laurel and Nokomis to the South, you have the reserved apartment complex, you have Sarasota County property here to the North to the East, that's the sheriff's transfer station.

You have the Casada Lake subdivision in the city of Venice here to the North. So let me pull up the preliminary plat, so this will show when I talk about pieces of the puzzle. You can see where we are, we are tracked three fifteen. So we have to our north, this track here which is a wetland, this is storm water pond, here's the project boundary. To the south we have a storm water pond, and we have internal commercial roadway network tracks, and then additional commercial center tracks.

Here to our east we actually have a portion of the right of way which will be improved for Twin Laurel Boulevard. So the subject site does not abut Sarasota County, it does have this half 30 foot right of way stretch for Twin Laurel Boulevard which is within the commercial center, but that's being subject to permitting approval right now. The future land use for the property is mixed use corridor, the zoning designation is commercial general, that was covered by Brittany, and it's within the Laurel Road neighborhood. I wanted to pull this up, so this actually shows the future land use designation map for the adjacent areas. Obviously as I mentioned, so we're internal to the site, we're bounded on all four sides by the commercial center property, And this is the MUC, but here we have county moderate density, we have county commercial center, this whole, this is a 32 acre mixed use site.

You have city moderate residential here, this is the gray color because I used the scale on the GIS just to show the county. But that gives you an idea of what's surrounding the site here, particularly to the East. And then with this, with the county zoning adjacent to us, this also has a city zoning layer on there. You can see here, we're commercial general in red. You have the RSF 4, Casado Lake subdivision to the North.

You have the county OUE here to the East, the substation for the sheriff's transfer station farther to the East, has the GU. And here's this county commercial general mixed use CG zoning right there. Of note, you all may be aware, particularly this was discussed during the preliminary plats for this overall commercial center. The county property immediately to the east has been the subject of recent applications of the county for hotel proposals. And so this area here, even though it's the OUE zoning, this area is of interest for development.

The property to the north here also has held a neighborhood workshop for proposed multi family. So it does have the OUE zoning, it's a little bit out of place because that's the old, what I consider holdover zoning in the county. So eventually in time that's going to be developed as well. So talking about the preliminary plat, that was first approved in 2024, that has been subsequently amended, a recent amendment appeared before you in June past year, so June 2025. And then following that, a subsequent preliminary plat amendment, a minor preliminary plat amendment was processed late in 2025 largely to implement some key revisions.

These revisions include the widening of Chillingham. So originally this was a much narrower entrance off of Laurel Road. This has been widened, and that is in part because a new traffic signal is going in there. So this has been revised to actually make this the focal point of vehicle ingress and egress to the site. As Brittany mentioned in the staff report, that has been coordinated with Sarasota County transportation staff, Sarasota County school staff, DOT, city staff, and the city's transportation consultant.

That's a key point of this amendment. And also there have been some minor tweaks to pond configuration and what have you, but this is mainly the large amendment that has happened since you all saw this in June. Features already approved for the commercial center as part of the preliminary plat, such as landscaping along the perimeter, particularly here to the north, I'll touch on this later, and to the east. Transportation analysis concerning trip generation and distribution. A master storm water plan, which includes these storm water ponds here in the site, and external site access.

These all remain in place, they are not impacted by our applications before you today. So touching on our applications before you today, we have the three applications that Brittany mentioned. We have a site and development plan for 106,651 square foot Home Depot retail building with an attached 28,156 square foot outdoor garden center with associated site improvements. We have a conditional use application for outdoor sale and display merchandise including an outdoor garden center that I just mentioned, and specific areas identified on the site and development plan. And we have a design alternative application for signage, parking lot landscaping design, and the height of light fixtures at the perimeter of the parking lot area.

So site and development plan, I may have to play around with this from a zooming perspective, so please bear with me. Here this is the, this is the main overview sheet. Now if you're familiar with the site development plan, you've reviewed it, you understand it's divided into two sheets. So there's a northern half and a southern half. I'll get to those next, but I wanted to show you this.

This shows the overview of the site. Here's the main retail building. Here is the attached outdoor garden center. And here's the parking lot, which on the next sheet has the details on where certain, what I call the multi use parking lot area, where those certain uses are. As you can see, the building and the garden center are on the northern half of the property.

The multi use parking lot area encumbers the southern half of the property. And we have additional parking and vehicle drive areas here on the west, the east and the rear. This is a modern Home Depot store, one you all are very familiar features a single story building, high ceiling, has a main entrance and exit provided in the center for retail focus customers. It has a, I'll zoom this out. It has a lumber area, which includes a pickup canopy here to the east, and then further to the east at the southeast corner of the building has a rental office, more or less basically a rental component for those that are using Home Depot to rent trucks, equipment, trailers, have you.

Then attached on the western side, this is the garden center. You all are I'm sure are very familiar with the garden centers that are attached to the large scale home improvement stores. It's designed in that same manner. It's fenced in, open air has a little bit of a roof component, but it's outdoor garden center attached with the site. The multi use parking lot includes vehicle parking, and this is on the next sheet.

Let's see, okay I'll zoom this in for you all. So this is what I call the multi use parking lot area. It has vehicle parking, and then these areas identified that I've highlighted in yellow, these are what I term the multi use components of this. It has an area here, this is for shed display. This is an area here for seasonal sales.

This is an area here for truck rental. This is an area here for trailer display. And then on the sheet I just showed you above, so basically this is the southern portion of this. This is the equipment rental location right here, which is right by where the rental entrance, what I'll call the rental office entrance is. The layout of the parking lot, as we heard during Brittany's presentation, the layout overall though from a landscape median design standpoint is subject to a design alternative request which I will touch on later in the presentation.

The building in the Garden center are a maximum of 34 feet and approximately 24 feet in height respectfully. That is within the 35 feet maximum building height permitted by the CG Zoning District. Miss Sherberg, you beat me to it. I wanted to make sure you all understood exactly which elevation was which one, as far as how they're labeled from left and right to which side of the building it was. So thank you for doing that and beating me to it.

But as you can see, it's your standard Home Depot design. As I mentioned, you have your center focal point, this is really where your everyday retail, if you're going in, if you want to buy tools, you wanna buy Christmas decorations, what have you, this is your general retail. Over here farther to the right, this is where the lumber component is, depending on your level of do it yourself ish, You could be doing that, or a contractor would be utilizing that component of the store. The rental area here where the entrance is here, and then the garden center is over here. This is the rear, obviously.

This the, this says left, this is the east if you're looking at it from the east. And then this is here where the garden center if you're looking at it from the west. Alright, I'll go back to the SMB plan. The access to the site is provided via the internal roadway network from Venice Crossing. There are two accesses that are on the west side of the store.

Point those out to you, you have a northern one here, you have a southern one here. There's an access all the way to the south here off of Holstein, another internal street to the commercial center, and then there are two accesses here from Twin Laurel Boulevard. Twin Laurel Boulevard as I mentioned is to be improved, it's currently under permitting, and the engineers who are in charge with that believe the approval of that permitting will be obtained by the middle of this month. So this portion of this road here will be improved in connection with this project should it be improved. As Brittany mentioned, the setbacks are provided well in excess of the code requirements.

We have three sixteen feet of setback provided to the south where 20 feet is required. 89 feet of setback to the east where 20 feet required. 84 feet of setback to the west, where eight feet is required. And 67 feet of setback to the north, where 10 is required. As I mentioned, and you can see it here as I drag this down, the north, That setback does not include this wetland and storm water pond area, which goes to this border here, where the single family subdivision is located to the north.

This is a 300 plus foot area, and it also will not be developed. The storm water pond obviously will be dug. That could be considered developed activity, but no building will be erected on there. And then this wetland is a do not touch wetland. So this will remain as it is.

And also in context, just to understand as far as separation, if you're thinking of okay, this Home Depot, how will it look from Laurel Road? It is about 500 feet from this line here to Laurel Road, and that also has the storm water pond and these additional commercial outparcels in front of it. So in a full developed state, this will actually not be seen from Laurel Road. Mean could it completely be blocked out? It's possible, but functionally this will be in the center rear of the site for the Venice Crossing Commercial Center.

Landscaping on-site is provided consistent with the land development regulations including the required three inch plantings within the parking lot where a design alternative is requested concerning the number of landscaper divider median. I'll repeat that again, I'll touch on it later on. But the landscaping in the parking lot, even though we're requesting a design alternative for the divider medians, we're still meeting the required tree plantings and the inches that are required. So it's not to have less green in the parking lot, I'll touch on this later, it's more of a functional standpoint of the design. So a key component for landscaping for this site is we've met all the code requirements on-site, but what's important and we touched on this in our preliminary plat that came in front of you back in June.

The applicant, the property owner for this overall commercial center, they have requested and got approved a design alternative for the landscaping to be planted here along the boundary to the north. What they did is they requested an alternative to modify the required buffer, so they could provide taller, more mature canopy and understory trees, 18 to 20 feet and 12 feet in height at planting along this boundary adjacent to the Casado Lake subdivision where there's a six foot wall. So the intent of that was to get out ahead of, okay there's going to be development taking place south of this boundary within the commercial center, we wanna put trees that are in, that are basically at maturation height essentially, so they provide an immediate and meaningful buffer. Now I've pulled the sheet that we had from that preliminary plat where we made that design alternative request, And you can see, so this is what the requirement was here, and this is what was approved as the design alternative. So you can see the intent behind that, that landscape buffer will be in, in connection with development taking place with the commercial center.

So that was the purpose on that. I wanted to highlight that for purposes of landscaping and buffering to the site, which is again 300 plus feet to the south. The perimeter landscaping runs along the the boundary, as I mentioned it goes to the storm water pond, and then it gets to the wetland area where it cannot be disturbed and it stops. I wanted to highlight that as I had mentioned. A transportation analysis was reviewed and approved for the preliminary plat commercial center, and as Brittany mentioned, it had 12:08PM peak hour trips approved.

This project proposes a one hundred and fifteen PM peak hour trips. So it's, you know, understanding that that transportation analysis has been reviewed and approved for total PM peak hour trip generation and trip distribution. This is taking just a small component of the overall trips that have been approved for the site. Two off-site elements associated with the Venice Crossing Commercial Center that benefit the project include the improvement of Twin Laurel Boulevard, I already touched on that, and the installation of that new traffic signal at Chillingham, which I already touched on. Storm water is handled via the master system approved at the preliminary plat and will be accommodated by the ponds built within the commercial center.

Utility service has been coordinated with Sarasota County staff as they are the water and sewer service provider due to the JPA. Where there actually is a lift station being built within the preliminary plat to help handle those items. No issues with Sarasota County staff for water or sewer utility service. As staff mentioned, the project has been reviewed for all applicable facility types. There are no issues with concurrency that have been raised.

Aside from the requested design alternatives and the conditional use request, no issues have been raised regarding compliance with the land development regulations. Site development plan is consistent with land development regulations including the section 194 decision criteria and the section one two C eight compatibility analysis criteria, it's consistent with the comprehensive plan. So now I will get to the conditional use. I'll bring up the site and development plan which I've already showed in front of you where I have the areas highlighted in yellow. Again the conditional use is for outdoor sales and display of goods that are associated with the Home Depot improvements.

These areas include the outdoor garden center, and I'll show this northern half sheet first. So I didn't highlight this because I figured you all are well accustomed to what the outdoor garden center looks like attached to a home retail improvement store. So you have that there, you have the areas in front of this, very standard. You may see planters, etcetera, sod, what have you here. You have areas in front of the store, here as well, that are also identified for outdoor sales and display.

Typically those are Adirondack chairs, they could be, I've seen golf carts at some locations. Functional store front for outdoor sales and display. And then here you can see where I highlighted, this is the equipment rental, here in yellow. And then I'll go to the southern half sheet, Here's and the seasonal sales area, here is the This is the shed display area, here's the truck rental, and here's the trailer rental area. These areas here, the equipment rental up to the north, trailer rental, truck rental, and the shed display, these are all in areas that are marked reserved, which indicate that they're not parking spaces.

Whereas the seasonal sales and display does have quantified parking spaces in here. So this is because of the thought that it's seasonal, therefore there could be times in which this area would not be encumbered by a tent or what have you. However, should these parking spaces be taken away, as far as not be taken away but they're not quantified for purposes of parking, we are still in excess of the minimum parking spaces required by the code. So I just wanted to call that out to let you know that even though these are quantified, should they not be quantified, we still meet the minimum parking standards for the site. The proposed outdoor sales and display areas are attributable to the unique nature of Home Depot and other large scale home improvement retail stores.

This Home Depot functions as numerous numerous stores in one. As I mentioned, it serves multiple types of customers. You could have those looking to improve or maintain the inside of their homes, and those visiting the garden center to improve or maintain their yards and patios, all the way to contractors purchasing lumber or materials. And then those who are true do it yourselfers, you can rent equipment and trucks to help facilitate those tasks. During certain seasons, this seasonal sales in display area, you can buy a Christmas tree.

The equipment rental, truck rental, trailer display and shed display areas are within the reserve spots. I mentioned this right here for the seasonal sales and display area about the parking, whether or not those would be quantified. But it provides a multi use component to this parking lot, which is unique with the type of large scale home retail store. The breadth of services and goods provided at one location is a benefit and serves to help reduce overall vehicle traffic as multiple goods can be purchased and the equipment or the truck needed to complete the job can be secured all in one trip. With the subject property being located internal to the Venice Crossing Commercial Center and its substantial separation from Morrill Road to the South and substantial separation from the single family neighborhood to the North, there are no concerns regarding compatibility with the adjacent properties within the commercial center and those beyond.

The proposed conditional use will allow for a well designed and fully functional home improvement center in a safe convenient and aesthetic manner consistent with the section 183 A decision criteria. Now tying this all together with the design alternatives, we have three design alternatives request including a proposed design alternative to the wall signage standards to allow signage greater than 400 square feet. A design alternative request to the parking lot design standards to provide an alternative alternative design for landscape medians. And a proposed design alternative for light fixture height standards to remit light fixture heights of 20 feet near the boundary of the property. So for the signage, and I will grab the signage plan here.

Staff, Brittany had showed it, had put this up in her presentation, so you all are familiar with it. Here's the overhead again, I'll zoom out. So the Home Depot store as I mentioned, it functions multiple stores in one. So part of that is having way, it's directional signage, even though once you're a repeat customer you start to learn and understand where the certain things like the garden center are located. Okay that's on the western side of the store, therefore I'll park on the western side of the parking lot.

But you can see these are the signs. We have the main Home Depot sign, which is in the center. Garden center sign here to the west. The lumber sign, which is here where the lumber pickup and entrance area is, and then the rental sign here. Now not only does signage help for way finding, it helps for the parking as I mentioned.

That helps direct those on-site, it creates a convenient and efficient operation of the parking lot. Therefore, people know where they're parking, typically they're gonna park closest to the entrance that they wanna use. If you're only going to the garden center, as I mentioned, you're gonna park in that portion of parking lot. You wouldn't park in front of the rental area and walk across the entire store. That in itself is just safer for those, for the foot traffic and for the vehicles, because there's less confusion.

And that's standard though, that's why you have directional signage. A large part of the design alternative request comes to the actual scale of the building. So typically 400 feet would be maximum that would be allowed here. This building in itself is larger in scale than most other buildings. This is a large scale, full service home improvement retail store.

So that's why the signage request for that additional square footage comes into play. It's not only because we have these four sign areas, it's because this building is so big. This has been designed consistent with the Home Depot standards for signage. So this isn't something that is outside of their wheelhouse as far as what their scale is. That's the component for signage.

Basically the scale of the building and your standard directional information on-site. The design standard for the parking layout concerning the dividing landscape divider meetings, meetings is attributable to the unique nature of the parking lot, which I call the multi use parking lot area. Again with the seasonal sales, pro parking area, and truck rental area. Now when I looked at this, what stuck out to me is that absent this angled parking, which this is a unique feature which actually is an efficiency component of the parking lot. We could have these divider medians here in almost every other manner.

And as I mentioned, it's not about not providing the plantings, we're meeting the plantings. Every required tree hinge for the parking lot area is still being supplied on the site. It's more of okay, how do we take what the unique nature of this parking lot with the multiple uses and components, and how do we blend it with the code. Now I looked at other Home Depots and compared whether they have any landscape divider medians, or when some, some of the owners have all of the landscape divider medians. But they don't have any of these components in the parking lot aside from a seasonal sales and display area and maybe some spots where they shove the trailers and the sheds and what have you.

Those are older stores, not planned out, and they don't have the area specifically identified like we do here. The layout, as I mentioned, seeks to blend the code requirement with the provision of these unique features while meeting the required landscape tree and plantings. Our proposed layout provides landscape divider medians in nearly every other row of parking, save the row of parking which is angled right here to accommodate vehicles with trailers, which is an efficiency and safety design component. Here the intent is to create the hybrid design of the lot, which is superior in design and efficiency, while keeping with the desire to avoid parking lot areas devoid of landscaping. And then here the last design alternative request we have is for the height of light fixtures at the perimeter of the property.

The code requires a tiered, a step down implementation where 30 feet for light fixtures is allowed in the center of the property, and then 15 feet is the maximum at the perimeter. So here at the perimeter, we are asking for, and this may be

a little tough for you all

to see, but I've identified where these are, I've circled them here. The light fixtures here, you can see here, right there, and then I'll I'll get to the northern sheet. Here you can see these. So the city code permits the 30 foot light fixtures in the center. The key from the code is to create a step down effect.

Now what we're doing is we are keeping with the step down. We're going from 30 feet to 20 feet, but our proposal is to do so here they are at the northern, this is the Northwest corner, and then there's one all the way here to the Northeast. We're doing so in a manner that still follows the step down, but it limits the number of light fixtures needed to provide adequate lighting for the property. We've looked at it and basically for every two twenty foot poles, you'd have to have three fifteen foot poles to ride the same number of lighting. This was in a manner to have less light poles on the property.

Home Depot believes that's an efficient design for the site. But stepping back at it and looking at, okay, what is our how does our property fit into the commercial center and the adjacent properties? We're adjacent to a roadway tract, I'll go to the first sheet for this. So the property itself, again is bounded on all sides by the commercial center. We are bounded on the west by an adjacent roadway tract, and then additional commercial developed property.

To the south we have a storm water pond and future outparcels. And then to the east we have a roadway area that will be improved, which property then farther to the east will eventually be developed. But thinking about okay, impacts, because the reason of the design, the reason for the step down is for an aesthetic standpoint, and it's to limit impacts to adjacent properties. So thinking of okay, what's the property you really want to protect from impacts, you think about the single family to the north, right? So if we were bounded up against them, I would feel differently about this.

But because we have this 300 foot separation, and we have the additional landscaping, in all honesty, I feel the impact to the neighbors to the north is severely mitigated, and that the 20 foot here will not create that issue. I understand why the code has that standard, which again we're following by doing the step down. We're not proposing a 30 foot tall light fixture here, but we are proposing a 20 foot tall, two twenty foot tall light fixtures in this location, and one here, a handful down here and some here. That's to limit the number of light fixtures. Again, we believe that's an efficiency design and that's what Home Depot would like to do here on the site.

The proposed design alternatives are consistent with the stated purpose and intent of the land development regulations and comprehensive plan. They allow for superior design, efficiency and performance for the Home Depot store and they do not create a material negative impact on adjacent uses, which is the key. Results in an aesthetically pleasing and efficiently operating home improvement store, it's compatible with the surrounding area, it's in scale with the 83 acre Venice Crossing commercial center, and they're consistent with the Section 100 eleven-three decision criteria. These applications, the site development plan, the conditional use for outdoor sales and display and design alternatives are compliant with the applicable sections of the land development regulations. They're consistent with the comprehensive plan, including strategy LULR111B and strategy LU129C and further the intent of the Laurel Road neighborhood by proposing a non residential use where such uses are identified as needed.

We respectfully request your approval on these three applications and are available for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Jackson. That may be as comprehensive as the one you did on the Sarasota Memorial Hospital. So well done. Thank you. On that, I know it's a lot of work. I've got a couple here. When you talk about the light fixtures, it appeared to me that those are primarily at intersections, was that intentional?

Obviously lighting, so site lighting is where people and vehicles are going to be.

Yes, so I saw those at where the intersections are

on? Correct.

Twin Laurel and the others, so internally, okay. In your material you had a photometric

picture?

Yes. You have that with you?

I do. It is very interesting. What I wanted to

know is how realistic is it? I So I am not a photo engineer. I'm not a photometric You got older I could ask if they want to opine.

Well, know it said for, I think it just said for example purposes or whatever it's got a qualifier on it. But I think it's important for folks to see what that is trying to tell us in terms of where the lighting goes.

Here, let me make sure.

Here we go.

Okay.

So here's here's I believe is what you're asking for. Mister Snyder. Yep. This lighting is plan.

This is basically done. The bigger blobs in the middle are your 30 foot ones. Yeah. And it shows how the light disperses as it leaves the property. Correct. And what it's trying to light up. And that's very interesting. We've never seen one like this before. And like I said, I don't know, it says it's an example or something on there. So I assume that's fairly realistic.

I would have to assume so too, yes sir. Okay. And to your point about where the entrances are, so here's the southern, here's the Southwest entrance, Northwest entrance, this is the immediate Southern entrance drive and then here in the Northeast corner, that's an entrance as well.

Yes, looked like we lit up the entrances which would be helpful for traffic coming in and out of there. On the subject of traffic, I know a lot of coordination has been done. We talked about this I think in the preliminary plat. Are there any traffic improvements that are being required? I'm thinking deceleration lanes, There those kind of

are. I know that because of the change with the add of the signal, some of that has been modified. If you want to know the exact improvements, Bassett Ali's who the transportation engineer for the project is here. We add them here in case you have any questions.

Well, all I mentioned, we're only dealing with the one application today, not the whole site. But I assume the whole site has been viewed and whatever needed traffic improvements have been identified. Yes sir. And not

only City Of Venice and Sarasota County, but Sarasota County Schools and DOT has also been coordinated for traffic improvements here. Now there is a traffic light at the school today, it's gonna remain?

Yes, sir. And it is straight across from your other entrance if I recall correctly? Yes, sir. So there will be two traffic lights there controlling traffic going by this center. Alright, Twin Lakes, Twin Laurel, you say it is due to

be improved or is being approved? It is currently under permitting for improvement with the city And right

what does that entail? A double paved road, a single paved road?

It'll be, so the Twin Laurel Boulevard easement that will be improved, it's a private road easement, 60 feet wide. Yeah. That will include pavement, it will include sidewalk at least on one side and the associated drainage that needs to be coordinated with those improvements. But that will create additional access to this site. All right.

And in the storm water has also been looked at in the preliminary plat. I think somewhere in there I was looking at it, it must have been in the staff presentation, said something about the twenty five year.

As far as the any applicable city requirements for the storm water, yes. I know from the staff report it says that it meets the twenty five year storm event. Right. That we have the civil engineer here who handled the preliminary plat. He's available for any questions you may have for further detail, but it does comply with the city of Venice requirements. Is there a difference between the city's requirements and the county's requirements? I'm sure there are if you want to know the exact differences we could have the engineer.

But the only one that's applicable here would be the city requirements.

Yes sir.

Okay. I think that's everything I've got. Are there other questions? Pam, start with you and we'll go to Dick.

Thank you. I agree. Very comprehensive presentation. Thank you. I assume that I believe it's a Twin Laurel Boulevard will be used for deliveries heading north on Twin Boulevard and then west into the back end of the property?

So yes ma'am, it certainly will be available to be used for deliveries. I don't believe there's any restriction on regular vehicle traffic using it. But because it has that entrance, if you look at the way the site is designed, because the entrance off of Twin Laurel Boulevard is all the way to the Northeast where kind of that rear area is, That does incentivize almost kind of like a de facto separation. Now right, you or me, store gets built, we could still go that way if we wanted to. But that's a more direct area for trucks to get to the rear of the site.

Sure, it's where the lumber will be as well. Flooding, I believe it is the Kings Way residential area. Previously have talked about the flooding that they are experiencing today on that particular roadway. Were you able to work with them? Think at one time you were talking with them or engaged with them at some point to ensure and their concern of course is that it doesn't worsen what they are already experiencing.

So the the and then it's funny how time goes when Casada Lakes was being permitted. When it was being zoned and then preliminary plat. We were involved with those efforts and they were dealing with flooding issues on Kings Way down that road at that time. Well before this property was developed pursuant to the approval. I know that there have been some discussions with some residents there.

Now our firm, we haven't handled those. I think those have been handled by the engineers. Obviously they're the experts when it comes to implementations or any items as far as what they would do with development on the site and how that could or could not impact them. But I do know that's been a subject of discussion.

All right, thank you.

Dick? Thank you.

Most of my questions have been answered and thank you for an excellent presentation. Has there been any concern or consideration for internal traffic flow? For example, I go to buy a pound of nails and decide I need some groceries. Am I allowed to how do I get across the street? Are there crosswalks or?

There so the internal roadway network is designed in order to facilitate movement of vehicles within the site. There's also a sidewalk network that is there too. So if you decided to drive to a store and then walk to an adjacent store, you'd have that ability too in a safe manner. As far as an actual incentivizing somebody to go from one store to another pursuant to the design, I would believe it's just your standard internal commercial roadway network design.

Okay, thank you. And do I understand there are now three entrances off of Laurel into the facility in general?

There, let me

We have Twin Laurel and the new traffic light and the old traffic light, the way I refer to them.

Yes, sir.

Yes,

sir. And one other last question if I may. I am kind of interested to know what's the impact when the school speed limit suddenly drops to 15 miles an hour and it now takes me three times as long to travel distance through the school zone as it does normally. That has got to have in my opinion and my experience some impact on traffic and I was just interested how do you handle that in the analysis?

Could have the transportation engineer come up and answer that.

You don't mind.

Yep. Sure.

Good afternoon. For the record, my name is Bassat Ali and I'm the transportation engineer with Kimley Horn.

Oh, louder.

Thank you.

Perfect. So you spoke about the speed limit during school hours. Also as this is a commercial, I suppose development, most of the traffic is not expected to be in the 7AM to 9AM school hours. So the majority of the traffic is in the PM peak hour, which obviously schools let out by that time. But as for specific speed limit study, that was not a part of the traffic study, the standard traffic study for the city.

Signalization, coordination?

Yes. Yes, so signal coordination was a part of one of the studies that we did for Sarasota County in which all signals starting from east of the interstate all the way to the West towards US 41, they would be coordinated in a way that it provides for a smooth flow of traffic traffic platooning as well.

Part of my question also is that in the morning traffic area, I think that's when mostly our professionals are going to your store to figure out what they need for their day's work. So that and that's usually pickup trucks pulling trailers or box trucks which are more difficult to see around and deal with than normally when it's just cars. So is that kind of traffic flow I assume has been considered in some model somewhere somewhere or someplace?

All vehicles whether they're regular cars or trucks, they are considered any standard traffic study if that's what you're asking.

And also part of that is the rationale between behind moving the main focal point of ingress and egress to the site farther to the east. So that gets those vehicles vehicles that are going westbound off the road before they even get in front of Laurel Nacoma School, which school district staff was very happy for us to propose that change.

But if they're eastbound they still might have to make a left hand turn somewhere, So I still have concerns.

That is correct. There are multiple ways for instance if you live north, you could take 681 to Honore, come around, take the right hand turn and then you could come to the site from Twin Laurel Boulevard or you could use the Chillingham entrance. But you are correct, there will be vehicles coming traveling eastbound going

My to the immediate solution is that when I'm traveling eastbound, I go up Laurel or Farm Road to Colonia and across to Pine Brook. I avoid that intersection unless I absolutely have to use it. Thank you for your answers.

Other questions?

A very thorough presentation and I I have to admit I came in here fully expecting to harass you over the lighting because I was like, why in the world would they wanna make them taller when they're around the edge of the building? And I really was kinda concerned about that and I have to admit, it's a logical explanation and that visual, if that's really accurate, that took away my concerns on that front and also the degree of how far back it was that really the only part that was single family was in the back. You alleviated my concerns. Thank

you. Very good. Kit, anything? No sir.

Jerry? Yes. Trin Laurel Boulevard, will that remain a private road with easement or will that be taken over by the county?

So it will not be taken over by the county for purposes of maintenance. That will be a private property owner or basically an association entity will be maintaining that is my best guess in the future. County is not in business of taking over private roads because it costs them money. But that road whether it is private in the sense of who maintains it, as I showed you with that commercial, the mixed use 32 acre project in the county, farther to the north, that project there probably will eventually have connection to Twin Laurel Boulevard. The properties there to the East and then to the Northeast us of us along Twin Laurel Boulevard, when they're developed, they're going to be using that and when they're developed, they're going to be developed which will then make that even though it's private, it will be a full fledged open vehicular access road.

There will not be a condition where there's a gate in front of

Twin Laurel Boulevard. Yeah, well, it appears right now maybe on the whole Twin Laurel, there may be three residents and so basically what you're looking at or I don't know, has it been zoned by the county that the other properties other than those three residents will be commercial or

is Yes, that I can I can pull up the zoning again, the zoning map and Bassett will have to reach out for you for this? So I'll show you the zoning here. Back to the overhead. This is the 32 acre mixed use project and it has multi family, it has hotel, it has medical office building, so on, other various uses. And then here, this entire, it kind of connects here like this, it's like a, I don't know what shape you want to call that, but that has been the subject of applications for hotel development.

Not a client of ours, but we're familiar with their project, we have every reason to believe that they're still going to pursue applications to entitle a hotel here. I think it makes sense because of its proximity to the interstate and SMH, but this will obviously be developed at some point in the future. And then these three properties, these three parcels that you mentioned which have the homes on them, they had a neighborhood workshop now a year, two years ago for a proposed multi family development. So we have every reason to believe that that eventually will take some sort of future development.

Jackson, is it likely then that county would require, those are all county properties, County would require some stipulations or whatever around that road when those other things get developed?

I'm not sure what type of stipulations Well

they might want it to widen, they might want sidewalks on both sides, they might want

sidewalks So both the good news is the way that this plat was laid out, there's a 60 foot private road easement and it's 30 feet on each property owner side as they abut the center line running up. So the property owners have gotten together and they've moved forward with permitting improvement of the Twin Laurel Boulevard at least up to that northern entrance on our east side. Okay. And that to me I believe will kind of set the standard. It wouldn't make sense for us to have this initial, I'll call it half to be built in one right of way profile and then the connector piece be something different in an improved manner, right?

Right. So I think every intention is this road is gonna be built as far as those that want to build it at this time. And then obviously when the northern, more northern properties are developed, they'll have to improve it. Okay,

and to your traffic engineer, Laurel Road with the full traffic study that was done on the whole property, not just the Home Depot part did not require any widening of the road itself? No, sir. Okay, thank you. All right, any other questions? Seeing none, thank you gentlemen.

All right.

Thank you. Do we have folks signed up for audience participation?

Yes, we do. We have three speakers. The first is Steve Carr. Mr. Carr has five minutes.

Mr. Kar, welcome back.

Am sorry. He actually has ten minutes because he signed up for two of the applications.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

He is usually not that long winded but we will see.

Correct. I don't think it will go that long. The first comment that I had was concerning the design alternative regarding the lights, pardon me before I get going. Am Steve Caron, Chairperson of the Central Venice Coalition. And thank you, Mr.

Chair, and Planning Commissioners for the opportunity to speak today. Design alternative, I was going to question, but now it's clarified. I wasn't sure the I I knew from the the writing that the three the three light poles in back would have been would be 20 foot feet. I did not know the rest of the light poles, even though they wanted higher than 15, were going to be 20, but that was clarified. So that was the issue, not issue, but the comment that I had regarding that.

My other comments are related to a couple of unresolved issues. They've pretty much been hit, not quite exactly this moment, but the first unresolved issue is one of safety for the students, parents, staff and general community entering and leaving the Laurel Nacoma School, especially during drop off and pick up times during the school. The comprehensive traffic analysis did provide periodic updates, but it did not mention any improvement in front of Laurel Road, or Laurel Nokomis School other than a sidewalk, I believe, and of course, the the the full intersection that is that is going to take place. So, my request, and along with the other one, just to set set where I'm totally coming from, is to postpone the the action on on this request for for the approval of the site development plan temporarily so that city officials can work with county officials and state officials further on addressing that issue, that unresolved issue regarding safety in front of the school to see if other improvements could be made. I think the traffic study has was quite comprehensive, our analysis was quite comprehensive, but again did not mention anything regarding that actual time of for the school drop off and pickup.

And speaking of the traffic, that's the other unresolved issue that's of my concern. Right now, the staff report indicated that there was quite a comprehensive coordination between the county, the state, and the school district in terms of improvements. But as a result of that, there's only, as has been pointed out, two basic improvements that are happening. One is the intersection at school, the other one is going to be the intersection across from the departments Chillingham. Again, I'm not totally sure of the names of the new roads, but I think it's Chillingham. Those

are

the only two things. But when you look at the traffic study, the traffic analysis and the updated one, even though the individual Home Depot came in under what it used to be or came in under the totals. It is indicated that 27,216 daily trips will be generated by the Venice Crossing project overall. 27,216 trips generated daily. And I believe that is at the end of the build out of the whole project, which I think is 2,030.

I'm sure I'm gonna get corrected. I know they get another chance as the mayor said another bite of the apple, if you will. But there's 27,216 vehicle trips that are there. That, I think, is a cause for alarm when when there clearly is that much traffic and even more in the current area. Why is that in terms of the of of what takes place?

It's because we all know Laurel Road is owned, maintained by the county, some by the state, a little bit by the state, and Pine Brook Road and Honore County Roads. The traffic analysis did also indicate that there was a need for improvements at that intersection. However, because of that reason that it's not owned by the city, hasn't been addressed. But it is, should be, I believe, addressed. At this point, there have been numerous other projects in the area that have called for improvements to that intersection.

But again, because it was controlled by the county, those improvements haven't been developed or planned. In my opinion, the projects in the vicinity itself, almost every single one of them also called for those improvements to the intersection and it created somewhat like, as an analogy, a little drip. So if you have the Sofia Villas, that's a drip on traffic. Curry Lane Townhouse is another drip. The medical buildings on Curry Lane, drip drip drip drip.

More traffic, more traffic, more traffic. The events center in Curry Lane, more traffic. The hospital traffic. The new hotel traffic. Now 27,216 more trips coming into that vicinity, and still not an improvement planned for that intersection.

It's just a flood of traffic. So in my opinion, that's why I'm I'm here today, to say, I'm hoping you see enough is enough. Now is the time to take the action to slow things down. Look to say to to city staff, please reach back out to county and state officials, take some time, come up with a plan for that intersection. That is the biggest issue that's not addressed at this moment.

I have looked at the county appraiser's sheet for the main part of of the parcel of within the Venice Crossings. It's 0380020001. That's it. It's mentioned numerous times in all the public records that are available through the planning office. It indicates in 2016, land was appraised of that particular parcel at about $1,400,000 Right now, in 2025, it's $30,700,000 It is hard to believe that with all of that change and all of those funds and all the interest in that land that the county, the city, and the state, and the owners can't get together, use some of the mobility funds that are going to be collected over a period of time for all these projects and fund those changes at the intersection of Pine Brook Road, Honore and Laurel Road.

That is the key what right now along with the safety issues that are caused down by the main entrance, one of the main entrances into that. So at this moment, I would like to request that there will be a postponed, not to approve at this moment the site development plan that has been requested and give some time to the officials to work out addressing an unresolved issue. Because if it's not done now, when will it be done? There will be another project soon. There will be there's 17 parcels there. It's they're going to be coming. At what point will we address the unresolved issue of safety and the intersection? Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Corr. Who's next?

Next speaker is Bill Contrelle.

Good afternoon commissioners. Thank you for having me today. My name is Bill Cantrell and I'm president of the Nokomis Area Civic Association. We represent over 400 members and over 13,000 rooftops in the Nokomis proper. In addition, I'm speaking on behalf of residents who attended our 11/11/2025 community meeting hosted by our organization, where approximately a 150 residents participated in a discussion regarding the proposed Venice Crossings commercial center.

Venice Crossings occupies a strategic gateway location at Laurel Road and I 75. More than ten years ago, NACA, other organizations, local leaders, Sarasota County, and the state worked together to secure over $1,000,000 in funding for landscaping at I 75 and Laurel Road, for that gateway, for those improvements. The investment was intentional, made to protect this entrance and ensure development enhanced rather than erased our community character. From a planning perspective, gateways are not routine commercial sites. They are transition zones that warrant heightened scrutiny, coordinated design, and long term consistency with adopted community standards.

At our November meeting, several important facts were presented. The site encompasses 83 acres, 17 individual parcels, Applications submitted, Home Depot, Car Wash, Panda Express, Walmart owning 22 additional acres. Only two access points are planned on Laurel Road. Beyond entrance improvements, no additional roadway or intersection upgrades are currently proposed. From a technical standpoint, the community's concern is not any individual single tenant.

But the absence of a comprehensive coordinated planning framework between the city of Venice and Sarasota County. For Venice Crossings and the adjacent Twin Laurel development. We strongly request the essential practical need to coordinate with Sarasota County with interconnectivity between Venice Crossings and Twin Laurel. Vehicles must be able to move about within the projects versus going out on Laurel Road. This is essential for safety and practical traffic best practice.

Advancing this project through parcel by parcel site approvals under preliminary concept plan does not adequately address cumulative impacts including traffic congestion, especially during school drop off and pick up at Laurel Road, heavy tractor trailer service, servicing these two large retailers plus the 15 other businesses, storm water responsibility and flood risk across city slash county boundaries, noise, lighting, buffering, overnight parking, student, public safety, given the project's proximity to the Laurel Nacoma School. For a project of this scale and location, the community strongly believes the appropriate tool is a binding concept plan, which would establish enforceable design commitments, require intergovernmental coordination, provide predictability for residents, applicants, and decision makers, ensure that gateway aesthetics and functional impacts are addressed holistically. Finally, commissioners, this body has consistently applied elevated development standards to projects on Venice Island in order to protect character, scale, and quality of life. We are respectfully asking that the same planning discipline and level of protection be applied here because this location serves as the front door for our community. Gateways define cities and approving Venice crossings without a binding coordinated plan will define our community in ways that cannot be undone.

Please protect this community the way you protect Venice Island. What you approve here will define how Nokomis is experienced long after today. And in closing, I ask you to consider my concerns and apply Commissioner Wilson's common sense rule. And Commissioner Hale, you you brought up, I'm going off script now, you brought up a few minutes ago about interconnectivity, and you're right over the is that the time? Yeah. You're right over the target. And no left turn should be made off of Twin Laurel. Somebody's gonna get killed. Thank you.

Who's next?

Next speaker is Barry Schneider.

Who? Not me. Is there another one?

I'm sorry.

Not speaking on the other today. Sorry. Schneider

Schneider.

Schneider? Is there one?

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. There's no further speakers.

Wow. My name used to be spelled S C H N E I D E R but that was Okay. Many, many generations Mr. Boone, would you like to address any of the comments that you heard?

Yes sir, before the clock gets started, somebody left their phone in the agenda planner here. Alright, for the record Jackson Boone, agent for the applicant. Just to respond quickly to a couple items. To start off with comments shared from Mr. Carr, and as I mentioned during our presentation, we can go into detail if you all would like on the improvements being made to Twin Laurel, Twin Laurel Boulevard, but most importantly what he emphasized Laurel Road.

We have our transportation engineer who's handled the preliminary plat, we brought him here for that instance, so we're prepared. That would be up to you. We, as I've mentioned, we met with school staff and county transportation staff to work on the roadway improvements for the Venice Crossing Commercial Center. That was part of the light, That also, Sarasota School Staff actually asked us to move the sidewalk from one side of the road where the entrance is, the Laurel Nokomis on our side, to the other side of that internal driveway, we did it. So we've coordinated with them, we've worked with them.

Any representation that we haven't been doing that, this isn't fully baked, this is half baked, it's just false. Traffic has been reviewed by county transportation staff, city staff, city's transportation consultant, FDOT, and Sarasota County Schools. No issues have been raised. We've been coordinating all of this, as you know, for the preliminary plat, but I just want to again put that on the record. The traffic light at Chillingham is being paid for by the owner, the master developer of the property.

That's uncommon and that's in addition to the mobility fees being paid. So these are anticipatory what's the best condition for the project, what's the best condition for the surrounding area measures that have been made for this project. And then interconnectivity to Twin Laurel Boulevard, that is being provided. We talked about that a little at length about okay, in the future how would that look like in this instance with this project, with the commercial center moving forward. Twin Laurel Boulevard is being improved at least to that Northeast access point.

You will have the interconnectivity off of Twin Laurel Boulevard. And to my knowledge, there will be no left hand turns out of Twin Laurel Boulevard. So that as a safety concern has been mitigated. I don't want to rehash all of the points I made in my presentation, but I do understand the overall kind of, I'll call it angst about the traffic. But this project from preliminary plat standpoint to now you're going to start to get the individual projects, the master plan that everybody wants, that's the preliminary plat.

That's your storm water, that's your perimeter buffers, that's your internal roadway networks, that's your transportation study including trip generation and distribution and off-site improvements. That's been thoroughly reviewed and vetted and approved by all the applicable authorities. We've done our work, all the applicable authorities have done their work and they've approved it. This project in front of you is a component of the overall commercial project trying to pump the brakes and saying we're not ready approve it, we have all these issues to work out. It reminded me of when I was sitting here when the theater was going through its rebuild effort and at the last public hearing one gentleman showed up and said, I think you're moving all too fast, need to stop this.

So we've been here in front of you all for multiple applications concerning this overall property and respectfully request your approval for this site and development plan. Thank you. Jackson, Mr. Carr referenced something about 27,000 peak trips. Is that all the background transportation in

the whole area or do you have any?

I could grab, I brought the transportation information with me and I could have Bassett come I'm

just trying to get a feel for what all it includes.

So the gentleman obviously expressed his concerns about the traffic and he mentioned the 27,000 daily trips that are generated by the whole development. The way the county and every jurisdiction in the country does it is they do it by the peak hour of the roadway because daily traffic obviously the worst case scenario is a peak hour, off peak hours the traffic is way less. So when we looked at the peak hour and I could pull up the tables here that we analyzed Laurel Road. In the table essentially, sorry, it's taking me a second to get to it. If you could pardon me.

And I'll explain as I pull up the table as as to what the numbers mean. So as you can see here, in this column right here, it shows the level of service peak hour volume. That's essentially the capacity of the roadway as a four lane roadway that it can carry within that hour. And just next to it is a total peak hour volume after the project build out during the peak hour. And as you can see, it's still within the volume to capacity ratio, it's still about 400 or so trips less than what it can handle upon project build out.

So yes, the 27,000 it seems bad, but it's throughout the twenty four hours and in the peak hour as you know, we had we showed 1,200 trips. And again, all of them are not going to be along this roadway because some come from the West, some come from the East. So it further again declines down to manageable levels.

So the 27,000 was for twenty four hours now.

That's twenty

four hours. That's correct. I understand

that. And I would actually, I'd like to have Andrew Pluta come up and just since we're into this and it's come up in multiple We'll we'll let you all see the off-site improvements that are being made as far as headway. I think it's to everybody's benefit.

Yes, let's get it on the record.

Hey, good afternoon. For the record, Andrew Pludo with Kimley Horn. Engineer record for the on-site master infrastructure and the off-site term lanes and associated signals. All right. I have a little markup here, Ariel.

Let's see if we can zoom out.

Can I spin

this? Yes.

There you go.

Yes. That's good. That's better. Thank you.

Excellent. So I wanted to just go step by step and make sure we hit on all the comments that I jotted down with respect to the off-site improvements and traffic from a geometry standpoint. Bassett, of course, was speaking more to the trip, but wanted to clearly articulate that. So as of this moment, all the on-site permits associated with the project have been issued. We have the prior version, what we refer to as the third iteration of the Off-site Improvement Plans with one signal, that's been approved by Sarasota County.

So we are in the process of modifying the adding the second signal off-site as we speak. So to go point by point though, there was a mention that again Jackson pointed out very clearly that we had done little coordination with Sarasota County Schools which is inaccurate. We flipped the sidewalk from the east side of Brahmin Avenue to the west side per their request because we have reason to believe there'll be a need for students at this future location. In addition, at the actual the intersection itself, Sarasota County requested that we add a blank out sign, which is you can imagine, a sign that when this light is green on the south side for vehicles going and turning right, that sign is normally black, but when it turns when it flashes on, there'll be a sign that that will indicate to drivers, hey, be aware of pedestrians because obviously it's directly across from the school. So we accommodated that.

There was a mention about the length of the school zone and the duration to get through the area. So we've not proposed to extend the school zone. The limits of the school zone on the west side are unchanged, and they're unchanged on the east side also. So we're not extending or making that longer. What we are doing though is redistributing more of our traffic away from this intersection, and we are extending the turn lane, the left turn lane into the Lower Nokomis, so there'll be more queue for folks to get out of the primary travel lanes and queue into that turn lane.

So that's one of the points there. In addition, just remember that Sarasota County only just recently approved the concept of a second signal at Chillingham. So we are still in the design process, but realize that we're that's in progress. On Twin Laurel Boulevard, absolutely there will be no way that we can that any site and development plan approval for Sarasota County would ever approve a left out provided that there's an ability and a left out here. So you have to generally have to alternate and make sure you have your driveway spacings meet the minimum criteria.

But realize here that if I've tried to depict what what will be approved or is under review by FDOT, SwiftMUD, the city of Venice, and Sarasota County, realize that there will be a pork chop here. A raised median to prevent folks from doing illegal lefts out to improve traffic safety. Thank

you. Does your study also take into account what I consider a fairly recent action by Sarasota County by putting no parking signs up along the side, the south side of Laurel Road around the school? Parents used to be able to park there and walk over and pick up their kids but now there are signs up there. Now whether they're policed or not is a different deal but there are signs there for no I'm

not sure that would be part of a study because it wouldn't be, it's hard to study activity that's not permitted.

That's not permitted, So

it's hard to have you and a lot of the studies are done by a modeling program. It's a

fairly recent development to put up those no parking signs. Improved a little bit in terms of the flow there in the morning and the afternoon. But I think we still have some folks that are not paying attention to those signs. Okay. Dick, did that answer your questions on traffic?

I'm good.

You're good? Okay. Thank you. All right. Jeff or Jackson, I have one more. I think you said that the easement for Twin Laurel, there's a half easement ownership, is that by the master developer of Venice Crossings?

So the eastern most portion of the Venice Crossing parcel is part of the Twin Laurel Platte and has easement rights to the entirety of Twin Laurel Boulevard. The western 30 foot portion of that is on their property. So the farthest east 30 feet of their parcels that are within the Twin Laurel Estates Platte, that's the western 30 feet of Twin Laurel Boulevard, the private road easement. But that entirety is the entire roadway is being improved, not

just the 30 foot. But the ownership requiring maintenance of that would be the master developer of Venice Commons?

Will be maintenance is not going to be taken over by a local government whether it's this property owner entity or a future entity. Let's say all the property owners get together and decide we're going to divvy it up by X percentage that's how that maintenance would be handled. All right.

I think that's everything I had. Any other questions of all right, none. Thank you. All right. Any additional staff and I knew Roger was going to get up.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of Planning Commission for the record, Planning and Zoning Director, Roger Clarica. Brittany, just to come back up here, clarify one graphic that was shown as far as the conditional use.

So on the presentation for the conditional use, I showed a staff produced depiction of where those conditional use areas were. On the presentation, excluded this one portion right here. So I just want to verify that that area in front of the store, they would also be able to do the outdoor sales and display of merchandise.

It was shown on the staff report, just wasn't. There was a different graphic in the presentation. Just address a couple of things because these things have been coming up kind of since we started this project and it did start a long time ago. I think the first application for this project was August '23. As Brittany indicated in her presentation, we've done three public meetings on this.

There's been some minor administrative adjustments for the plat, minor adjustments for the new access way for where the new signal light is going to be, some adjustments made to the stormwater ponds, some minor things, the lotting actually of the front tracks. So some of those things were done administratively but the the major portion of this has been done in those three public meetings that started quite a long time ago. I know there's a lot of talk about master plan. Why isn't this a master plan? Why doesn't the city and the county get to their get together and do a master plan?

If it was a master plan, it would also be under the same standards that this project is being developed under today. It wouldn't be any different. When it comes to traffic and transportation on any project that comes into the city, not just this one but any project, most of our development as you know occurs on county roadways. We pull them in right away. They're involved in methodology meetings regarding transportation for every project that comes in.

They get sent the traffic studies, they make comments. So they're in from the very beginning and they've been in on the very beginning on this project. We actually meet with the county yearly and we get together and we did meet with them most recently, I believe it was around October, November, we did discuss this project and the transportation impacts that were going to be involved. So we have worked extensively with them on this. They are in charge of the roadway, in charge of the improvements and all that is going through permitting.

I think you just heard those permits have been approved. So you're probably gonna see some activity rather soon regarding those improvements that are gonna be done. The only thing we can look at as far as traffic is concerned is access to a site. We no longer have transportation concurrency. It's mobility fees.

That was adopted by Sarasota County, was also adopted by the City of Venice. We collect quite significant mobility fees from every project that comes into the city and those fees are collected for the benefit of the county and then we work with the county on where those fees are to be spent to do improvements on transportation. And it's good that they're mobility fees because that does not only mean you can add road lanes and add capacity projects, but you can do different things. You can do trails, you can do sidewalks, you can do transit, you can do mobility. Basically, that's why it's called mobility fees.

You can put that towards all kinds of mobility. So it's a better way to go. But as we all know, Florida is growing at a pretty fast pace. Traffic never keeps up with development, okay? And the fees come in and then they get prioritized through a process that we go through with planning commission and with Sarasota County which we recently did through our CIS.

We identified the priorities of where those fees should expended. And as one of the speakers mentioned, the intersection of Heimbrooke and Laurel Road is on the list and there are improvements necessary there. But that does not make this development responsible for those. This development has followed all the rules that they need to follow. They've provided all of the data that is necessary that's been reviewed by as has been mentioned, the county, the city, our traffic consultant, FDOT is involved in this, the school district has been involved in this and changes have been made at their direction.

And I will add one other item here that city planning staff reached out to Sarasota County Sheriff's Department and not just the sheriff, but the sheriff and the crew that is in charge of traffic in front of the school and we reached out to them and made sure they had all the information that they need. So we have gone to extents that may not be typical but in this situation we understood the concern and we did reach out to as many agencies as we could and those that are required. So I want to confirm that that coordination has taken place and will continue to take place. But as I said, you've really and mentioned this before that this was really done with the master plan. And I say that in reference to the plat.

You've seen it from the very beginning, how it was gonna be laid out, some of the uses have changed, But basically that came to you as well when this went from, you know, a portion of the area was going be residential. It changed to commercial. You saw how it was going to be laid out. The only thing that was kind of left was those large tracts in front that we did get parceled out through an administrative approval. So this is a typical commercial center development.

You may not have seen one for a while. We've kind of had master plans recently that you've seen a lot, but there are plenty other projects in the city of Venice, Plaza Venetia, Venice Commons, probably you could name some other ones that were not done through master plans that were done just like this and actually some of them have some parcels that are still available that will come in and you will see those. So you not only saw the plat process and went through all of that over the last few years, but you will also see each individual site development plan that will come through. But if we were in a master plan situation, we'd be in the same situation. Same standards, same traffic controls and standards and reviews, it wouldn't be any different.

Peak trips, like they said, that's the way that traffic studies are done. And that is, that's why I say that this development has met all the requirements for them to develop this property. Twin Laurel Boulevard, kind of an interesting situation where the center line comes from both sides of each owner and it's not only the owners, but it's the jurisdiction. So the eastern portion is the county and the western portion is the city and my good friend Kathleen Weeden was nice enough back in the day to tell Sarasota County, we'll permit that. So the permitting process is coming through us.

Wouldn't be any different if it was at the county, but but we agreed that we would do the permitting and I know that has gone through our process. So, I I heard the term unresolved issues. Well, all the issues for this development have been addressed, reviewed and deemed compliant as you've seen in the presentations by staff today and as indicated by the applicant. So I just wanted to make a few comments to that extent and if there's any questions, I'm certainly here

to answer them. Very good. Thank you, Roger. Any questions of Roger at this time? Thank you, sir. If Appreciate there's nothing else, I'm going to close the three hearings and we're going to do this in three different votes. Let's do the conditional use first. So do I have a motion on the conditional use? Mr. Chairman. Yes. Mr. Chairman.

Based on review of the application materials, the staff report and testimony provided during the public hearing, the Planning Commission sitting as the local planning agency finds this petition will not adversely affect the public interest and that satisfactory provision and arrangement has been made concerning the conditional use criteria in section one point one eight point three of the land development code and therefore moves to approve conditional use petition number 20Five-52CU.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

I'll second that.

Thank you. Any discussion? I don't know of a Home Depot that doesn't have a outdoor sales. Okay. Could I have a vote please?

Mr. Jasper? There we go. Okay, that's approved seven zero. All right now, before we do the design alternatives, city attorney do we do these individually or all as once? I realize it's one application.

You can take them all as one if there's something that's not desired to be approved then it can be broken up.

Okay, let's see how we go then. All right, so do I have a motion then on the design alternative petition?

Mr. Chairman?

Yes, Bill.

Based on review of the application materials, the staff report and testimony provided during the public hearing, the Planning Commission sitting as the local planning agency finds this petition complies with the design alternative criteria in Section one point one one point three of the Land Development Code and therefore moves to approve design alternative petition number 20Five-53DA.

Thank you. Do I have a second?

Mr. Chairman? Yes. Second. Thank you.

Any discussion on this one? Seeing none, could I have a vote please? And that one's approved seven-zero. And now for the site development plan itself, do I have a motion?

Can do that.

I'll do

it again.

Me get to the right place here. Based on review of the application materials, the staff report and testimony provided during the public hearing, the Planning Commission sitting as the local planning agency finds this petition consistent with the comprehensive plan in compliance with the Land Development Code and with the affirmative findings of fact in the record moves to approve site and development plan amendment petition number 20Five-51SP.

Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Any discussion?

Seeing none, could I vote please? And that one's approved seven zero. Gentlemen? Okay. Yes. Would you like a break? Yes.

I'll just get this spring now.

Alright. Let's let's take five minutes or so. If you're done back there, we got a little bit more business to do. Thank you though. Okay.

Last item in terms of petitions is a comprehensive plan amendment petition number 20 Five-73CP, the annual development data, one that Amy looks forward to every year I know and and this year was a lot easier. I'm thinking to put together all the data based on my review of it anyway.

Think she agrees.

She doesn't agree with that? No. Well, I tried. I'm trying to make this process a little, you know, fun. This is a legislative hearing. I have a memorandum, the last one of the day that says this is to certify that the public hearing for this petition was appropriately advertised on 12/20/2025 as required by the City of Venice Land Development Code and proof of publication is on file in the planning and zoning office. Let me open the hearing. Amanda will make sure we get speaker cards and Amy, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. For the record, Amy Nelson, I'm the Planning Manager for the city and I've signed the speakers card. And we're taking a look at, wow, I thought I got this just right and I did not. It's not '23.

No, It would be '26 probably or '25.

Supposed to be '26. '25. Yeah. '25. I'm getting confused with the change in the year now. 2573 CP. I apologize. Wow. That was a terrible thing to do.

Else use last year's presentation

for this. That's what the coffee paste gone. You have to. I don't want to retype all of that. Jessica? Here is the look at the map showing all the different neighborhoods of the city. We have seven neighborhoods and within each neighborhood, there is designated areas for mixed use and that's what this report is all about. We do this report every year. It's required in our comprehensive plan and we're just going to run through and if you have any questions just let me know. And I'm hoping that I got the rest of this report right. I might have copied the wrong report actually. That's probably what happened.

Yeah, we can

pull up the agenda or I have the paper copy. I have the paper copy if

You could probably

Because I think that's what I did, copied it the last minute. Yeah,

you could probably just use the change pages because I think that's what all of us focused on.

Right.

As to which numbers are actually changing and a little bit about why. That's why I thought it was easier because a lot of them you just change the year.

It would be easier if I could find the right thing instead of going through it too quickly. Alright. Yes. I have the right one here. You can see 2578.

There you go. So I didn't I wasn't delusional that I got it. Let's just look at the first page. These are usually the same at the beginning part with the look at the map and then you look at the different neighborhoods and it just lists out the neighborhoods and the types of mixed use that they they have. And we look at these parts of the comprehensive plan, looking at mixed use categories and the monitoring that we do and watching out for 75% of the applicable development thresholds when they are met.

That's the big reason for doing this so we can keep an eye on the way that it was set up before my time but in some of you all's time to keep an eye on the mixed use areas and see how they are developing out and see if you got the guesswork right for the mixes of the uses. Anybody want see the neighborhood maps?

What's that? I can

show you the individual neighborhood maps too if you want.

Not really necessary. I don't think.

I think you

can go right to the tables.

Okay. Because

that's This

is looking at the first one which is the island. There have been a few changes just the Venice Isle development which has some residential and non residential. Ringling Park has been submitted, airport terminal and aircraft hangars. We've had a lot of different developments but I just try to pick out a few of the more substantial ones to put on here. And keep in mind that also there's areas of these neighborhoods that are not mixed use and they're undergoing development as well so that does not show up here.

It looked to me like one of the major impacts was setting up the hospital

I as its own can skip over the neighborhoods that have nothing

of

note and there's quite a few of those. I'll reach that in just a moment. Here we go. We have a couple of items of note in Laurel Road. We have Venice Crossing that we just discussed part of that with Home Depot and Laurel Self Storage.

And then we have, I believe I skipped that one. Because this is where Laurel is the neighborhood where the hospital is and so that is one of the areas that did experience some changes. Let's see. Too many papers up here. So they did copy off what what I think you wanted to see chair.

Right here.

There you go. Yeah. That's the one.

You can see it. You can see the big change right there to add in the change in the hospital. It's now the PPH designation hospital. And the way that we decided to show that was to pull it out separately so that you could see how that's different from the rest. But that is our, probably one of our biggest changes of all for this year.

Yeah and from my standpoint, I thought this was a pretty smart way of doing it because what the comp plan was trying to do is how we doing versus residential versus non residential. Taking the hospital out then it leaves the remainder as to how we're doing between those two And the splits are still the same in terms of looking at them. So it shows what we have left in terms of what's there and recognizing that the planned public hospital area while part of the corridor is now designated just for that.

Right. And that was the director's idea.

That's great move. Give Roger credit for one.

Let's see, I will show you also the summary tables because I think you'd want to see that. That is right here.

Yeah, there you go.

This is the top section of this page is looking at dwelling units and there have been some changes in there, some increases. Then if you look at the bottom table, there we go, that's looking at the square footage and we've had some increases there as well.

So as we've had in previous years, the East Venice Avenue has never really matched up?

Right. It's an anomaly. Yeah. It's been over the limit from the beginning.

Right, from the beginning. As far as the other ones, I see the Knights Trail mixed use corridor at 98% on the residential part with only 40 units left.

Yes, sir.

That's not surprising given what's going on up there. But it does show that if our intent was to limit where that residential was going, we're near our max. Right. I think the rest of it though, if you scroll down to the non residential for that Knights Trail, we're what is it 16%. So we've got a lot to more go on the non residential or somebody will have to decide they want to make a comp and change to change the percentages.

Right, right.

And as far as the commercial side, the Laurel Road corridor approaching 76, I'm assuming that's mostly what's happening with Venice Commons?

Yes.

Okay. It's doing what it's supposed to do.

It is, it is. And again like you said, if there's going to be changes made, somebody is going come and ask for it probably.

And then some of the others are no changes and it's just we're changing the year in terms of when we were reporting from '24 to '25.

Right.

Okay. And then if you're ready.

Yeah.

For the conclusion, upon review of the petition and associated documents, staff report and analysis, testimony provided during the public hearing, there's sufficient information on the record to take action on comprehensive plan amendment petition number 2573CP.

Thank you. There any other areas you wanted to highlight in terms of?

No, really wasn't a dramatic difference from last year. It's just that big PPH decision to pull that out. Yes.

And I'm sure that took some calculation to do that.