Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Call the meeting in order. Could I have a roll call, please?

Mr. Wilson?

I am here.

Mr. Hale?

Here.

Ms. Sherberg? Here. Mr. McKeon?

Here.

Ms. Fresca? Here. Mr. Jasper?

Here.

And Mr. Ferlagi?

Here. Thank

you. I have a set of meeting minutes from March 17. Do I hear a motion?

Mr. Chair?

Yes, sir.

I move to accept the 03/17/2026, meeting minutes as submitted.

Do I have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed the same. And the motion passes. Thank you. Do we have anyone sign up for general audience participation?

No, not for general.

Okay, thank you. That brings us to the first order of business. We do need to elect a chair and a vice chair. Do I hear a motion to that effect? Mr. Vice chair. Yes, please.

I I elect, Bill Wilson as for chair.

Well, you can't elect him but you can't

I mean, I nominate him. Excuse me.

I'll second that. Okay.

And then we have a motion and a second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. And all those opposed the same. Good I have no enemies. Okay, good. And we also need to have a Vice Chair.

Mr. Chair.

Yes.

I nominate Kit McEwen for Vice Chair.

Do I have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed the same. And we don't have to switch chairs, we're in good shape. Moving right along, that brings us to our variance petition number 20Six-06VZ1205 Tarpon Center Drive. The staff is Nicole Trembley.

The agent is Luke Bierman, Freedom Fence Builders LLC, the applicant is Sea Villas LLC. This is a quasi judicial hearing and you have a memorandum. This is to certify that the public hearing for this petition was appropriately advertised on 03/21/2026 as required by the City Of Venice Land Development Code. With that I'll open the public hearing and could I have the attorney question the members please.

Yes. If anyone has a potential conflict of interest please indicate that at this time. Okay seeing none if you've had any ex parte communications with about this petition that are not currently part of the record whether that's communication with staff or someone else in the community please indicate that.

Virtual site visit only.

You're not on the end anymore Mr. Jasper.

Welcome to the board. Have you had any communications with anybody about this petition? Thank you.

Okay. None. I did a site visit and when I went out there, have to drive all the way through the place to the very back to where the pool is and I got out and walked by the big sign that said, private property, no trespassing. So I figured I better identify myself. I did see a lady, I see her in the audience Kim who was sitting by the pool and I went up and identified myself and explained why I was there and it turned out she was going to be here today but she the only thing she did say, she showed me where the fence was going to go along the thing there and I thanked her for her information and, so we did have that conversation.

Thank you. None.

None.

None. Thank you.

Kelly, I

have a correction. I did do a buzz through if that counts. Yes, just I went through the parking lot in about one minute. So, Okay. Very

Thank you. We'll confirm the speaker cards are taken care of. With that, Nicole, welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon. For the record, Tremblay, Senior Planner for the City Of Venice. Welcome to the Commission, Mr. Flarelogi. We are very glad to have you. Okay so today we're looking at 2600 Six-twelve 05 Tarpon Center Drive. The variance is from Section 80 nine-2.11.4A which prohibits any construction seaward of the Gulf Beach setback line and they are requesting to construct a fence. This is C Villas Condos represented by Luke Behrman of Freedom Fence. The parcel is about 1.43 acres with a future land use of high residential and a zoning of residential multifamily four of course in the Island neighborhood.

So previously, Sea Villas did have a fence that was seaward of the Gulf Beach setback line. It was only around the pool so they're wanting to put it back in a different location but it does still need a variance since it's not an exact replacement. The old fence was damaged by hurricanes. There's a new proposal primarily for safety and security. The old fence just going around the pool didn't keep their deck and restroom building and everything else secure so they want to secure the entire beach side of the property basically.

The site plan that was provided by the agent was not drawn to scale and there may have been some misinformation in the community about that so the correct measurements were provided and staff did create kind of a rough exhibit just to show you based on those measurements where it would actually go. So here you can see on the C Villa's plat, here's what was provided by the applicant with the measurements and it does give the heights and materials and shows you where the gates will be. And so then on this one that we just kind of measured using our GIS, the green shows you where the gates will be to connect to the buildings and then the blue is where it will go around the existing low wall. And actually on this side it will go on the outside of their wall, it's a very short like retaining wall. So it's going to go on the outside because they want to prevent people from climbing over.

They've had a significant problem with trespassing recently since there's been no fence. And then over here it will go on top of the existing wall and they will vary the height so as to keep a continuous height along the top edge because that wall has a decrease when you go down towards or when you go east towards the parking lot. So here's the aerial location, you can see on Tarpon Centre Drive, they've got condos to the north and south and then across the street is City Marina and then of course the beach to the west. So for existing conditions, I'll show you the site photographs so you can see the location a little better and then the future land use and zoning maps. So here's the wall I mentioned.

Right here they'll be building on the outside of the wall. This construction fence you can see is where their old fence was before it was damaged by the hurricanes. So then here where it's a bit lower, they'll be going on top of this wall and then the gates will be here to connect the restroom to the other building and then to connect the fence to the condo building over here. And then this is where you can see that difference in height and so that's where they would vary the height of the fence so that the edge along the top is continuous at the same height. This is the future land use map showing high density residential primarily surrounded by high density residential with open space functional across the street, corresponding zonings of RMF four and then recreation for the marina or boat ramp.

So for the planning analysis for variance, really just have the decision criteria to look at and since you do need to find positively on all seven of those, I'll go over them briefly. The first is that the surrounding shape, topographical condition or other physical or environmental condition is a hardship on the owner if the strict letter of regulations were carried out. The conditions are unique to the parcel, not applicable to everyone in the vicinity, not based on conditions including financial, occupational or ability personal to the applicant, the hardship was not created by any person having an interest in the property or was created as an error, the granting would not be detrimental to public welfare or other properties, the minimum variance required to make reasonable use and that the property cannot be put to reasonable use unless the variance is granted. So those are your seven criteria that you must find positively on. And in conclusion, upon review of the petition and associated documents, land development code, staff report and analysis and testimony provided, we believe there is sufficient information on the record to make a determination on variance petition 2606VZ.

Do you have any questions for me?

Please. Ms. Sherburne.

Thank you. Could you go back to the photographs? Sure. You mentioned that there's a picture here that depicts where the previous fence was located. Can you show me where that is?

So the construction, this orange construction fence around the pool, that's what they had before. It was just around the pool.

So they basically had an open patio area.

Right. The deck, the restroom buildings, and then walking in between the buildings was all open and they would like to have more security and and cut that off. Alright.

So their intent in some areas is to place this fence seaward of the what I would think of as a seawall and in some cases on top of it.

Right. So on the beach where the sand is, they're going to put it on the outside of the wall to prevent people from stepping on the lip of the wall and climbing over it was their reasoning. And then on this side where it's adjacent to the condos next door, they would be putting it on top of that existing wall.

Thank you. Sure.

Nicole, just oh, yes. Go ahead, miss Jasper.

You're showing the walls there. Are those the existing walls?

Yes.

Were they existing from prior? So it's a matter not moving the walls out or anything, it's putting the fence on or right adjacent to the walls.

Exactly. These were taken last week, so this is the current condition. Yes.

Thank you. Yeah. No offense to your drawing, but I have to say until I went out there and saw it live, I had a big misconception about what was going on. Did I read it correctly in the materials that the back edge of that back building and all the pool area and that low fence, all of that is currently beyond the coastal setback line.

Yes.

And has been for many years.

That's correct. So on this right here, it's not a great drawing, I agree. But I did label the Gulf Beach setback line for you and you can see it cuts through their buildings. So no matter where they were to put a fence, it would be seaward of the Gulf Beach setback line basically.

Yeah. I always when I saw it, I guess it's because the other drawing that goes further out into the beach, I was thinking we were suddenly projecting out and going around to capture more land or something.

And I think that And that wasn't

the case when I got out there.

I think there was a misconception that, yeah, they were building a fence way out to the water, but that's not the case. It's as you saw on existing wall on their property.

You.

Got another Yes. Can you go to the photo, the aerial photo showing the two units to the north? Yes. Okay. Basically, will this or does the wall doesn't show on this photo, wasn't me, but does it extend at all westward any more than the two units to the north?

I don't believe so. Let's go back to the photographs and we can kind of see this property over here. I think their pool is actually a little bit farther west. The neighbors to the north, their pool is farther west than this.

Yep. It is.

Okay. Thank you.

You had described some fence going on top of one of the walls Mhmm. And was described as a six foot with a three rail aluminum fence. Is that six foot total or is that six foot on top of the already the retaining wall? So how

It should be it should be six foot total. They were varying it, they gave two different heights. One would be well, one would be six foot and one would be four foot so that it becomes six foot all the way across because the one wall is two feet higher.

Okay. But the six foot is showing it's gonna be on the retaining wall in between the two the property to the north and not not from the golf side. So Right.

The red to the north and to the south.

That's and that's showing the red, which would be a six foot fence on top of the two foot. I mean, it yeah. Is it gonna be six foot tall or we gonna

put six

on top of two? That's I'm just

So if you look at this top right picture here, this is where they're saying the six foot would go and then this higher one they're saying they would put four foot.

I see. If I can follow-up on the question. Basically, as I read it, the better? Can you all hear me now? But the six foot, that's going to be the total height from ground level

on top.

That's my understanding. That's my understanding. The fence contractor is here as well so if that's incorrect hopefully he can

Thank you.

Clear that up. Yes.

Anna?

I might have missed something but this is an HOA, small HOA community, right? The condominiums?

It's a condo. They have a board. Yeah.

A board. Yeah. So and I just wanted to confirm that there are no that everyone, all the property owners agree on this fence and

Yes. So it was submitted by the board after taking a vote

on Okay. Good.

Yeah. Yep.

And I believe one of the board members is here to speak on it as well.

Great.

Any others? Thank you Nicole. And Appreciate can we have the agent come forward please? Okay.

Alright. Good afternoon board. I'm Luke from Freedom Fence. I got some other clarifying photos which may help answer some of the previous questions that were asked. This is like an AI depiction image of the proposed fence.

It's actually gonna be on the beach side of that concrete wall that you see. This image here, you can see is my mouse showing there? You can sort of see the buried wall under the sand here. So our fence is probably gonna be 15 feet further away from the gulf than the northern property fences. This was the previous existing fence, also fully in the Gulf beach setback.

This is just showing that the wall was always there. This was in the sixties or seventies, I guess. This is our site plan showing the placement of the fence being significantly inside the property line. Post storm photo, another one. This is mid construction, reconstruction of the pool area.

This is the updated survey. So the one Nicole showed you is one that caused confusion that we uploaded originally. This is the corrected placement of the fence on the survey, not going all the way to the west side property line. This is the cut sheet for the proposed six foot high fence. So there was a question about total fence height.

The fence that is going on the wall will be a total of six feet high above the wall. When you made the site visit, one thing that you might have noticed is that the sand on the beach is probably three and a half feet higher than the level of the pool deck. It's not gonna be seen at all from anybody walking on the beach, aside from the fence that runs along that runs north to south on the west side property line. And then it significantly drops off into the property. And this is the pool code cut sheet for the four foot high fence that you'll see from the beach.

Are there any questions?

Any questions? No, no. If not, thank you, sir. Appreciate it. And do we have someone signed up to speak from the audience?

Yes, we do. We have two speakers. First speaker is Kim Hering. Hering. Hering. Like to come forward, you'll have five minutes to speak.

Okay, ready? Hi, good afternoon. First of all, my name is Kim Herring and I'm a current owner and a year round resident at Sea Villa Apartments. My husband and I have owned here since 2018 but we've been vacationing here since 2001 when my in laws purchased a home in the same community. Sea Villas, let me give you a little bit of history, Villas was built in 1966.

We are a 55 year old and older community and we are comprised of 20 units. Today I'm here just to give you some additional information that may be a little confusing to what we've discussed in regarding the pool area. As I mentioned before, we were built in the nineteen sixties. As you can see here in the picture, the lovely people in the I think they look at like they're in the sixties and seventies but you can see the wall was here. So the wall was erect at the time that the that we were actually the community was built.

But let's move forward. As we all know, 2024 came and when it came, it was given it came with a bang and hurricane Milton, I mean, Helene as you can see and hurricane Milton did quite a bit of damage to us. Residents were impacted by these storms and had significant damage to their homes and properties. As you can see again we were no exception. Many owners and communities around Venice were able to immediately mitigate and restore their homes.

However, again because we're a first floor community comprised of only 20 units, we had the opportunity to work with FEMA because of the fiftyfifty rule to ensure that we could restore our community. After months of working with these communities, finally in May 2025, we were finally given approval to go ahead and start permitting or the approval of our permits to move forward with the restoration of our homes. At that same time, the board created a committee that would begin the task of restoring our pool. I luckily, was chosen to be the committee of this or the chairperson of this committee. We worked with, many different agencies to come together and get, designs, plans for what we felt like was gonna be the best, use of our, area.

At the same time, we also had the opportunity of working with the Department of Environmental Protection Agency in Sarasota County to facilitate the removal of the sand that this hurricane caused us after turtle season. Again, it was during this time that our committee felt like we had a great opportunity to begin and make some modifications to our pool area. We did have to go to our owners, all 20 of them and get a vote from them and this happened last October and it was unanimously passed that they chose to allow us to make these modifications for two reasons, two big ones, safety and control. So with that being said, me pull this one up. Have since then, we've repaved our area, we've added some wonderful landscaping, we have gotten all new equipment and the final stage of our plans is to have a fence because we all know without that, the board of health is not going to approve our pool to even be open.

So again, the two reasons that we're coming to you and we are wanting to do this is because of control and safety. Just last month, we had one of our owners kind of take note of how many trespassers we had on our property. From March 1 to March 17, we had 74 trespassers and that's only the ones that she could count come through our property. Some were trying to use our bathrooms, some were trying to use our porta potties that they're on property because of our restoration people there. Some were trying to or using a shower to wash their feet off, to wash their surfboards off and truth be told and it's even in this picture, the orange fence right there, they even hopped over the fence to get into the pool which is it it clearly says closed.

So security is a big issue in control. And again, the other reason is security. We are a 55 year old in community but many of our trespassers that come here are younger in age and like to come through and when they're presented with, you know, you shouldn't be here, you know, kindly go find the public beach access. One of them said to one of our owners, I hope you die old man. One of our 92 year old residents was pushed aside so that they could get out to the beach and get out there for surfing.

And one just a couple weeks ago, had four young men pull their pants down and moon her as she was trying to you know, ask them to leave our property. And these are just a few but as time progresses and and you all realize, we recognize improvements need to be made. This again is a picture of where our fence used to be and this is all it was around our pool. So again in making these modifications our committee came forward to our board and said let's look at the safety and control that we can have.

Thank you.

And I'm done. That's the end one, you all can see where the fence is. So we appreciate your time and consideration of this project.

Thank you. Are there any additional staff comments?

We have one more speaker chair.

Oh, got one more. Sorry about that.

Yes, so it's five minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is Steven Herring. I'm a resident, a full year resident at Sea Villa. I moved down a few years ago to live with my mother. She's 94. She wasn't feeling up to coming to this meeting. She had hoped to make it. She's been a resident here since 2001. And, my sister-in-law, Kim, covered a lot of what I was going to cover, but the burden of the trespassers has really been extreme. It's at least one to three times a week where there's a few trespassers, and on certain days when the surf is up, there are 20 to 50.

And I also confirm and testify that most of the surfers are disrespectful. They don't really listen to us when we advise that this is private property. We have signs posted. The city, we've notified the city a number of times through their call click connect. They've put up signage about where one has public access, people ignore that.

The city has posted on their social media not to cross through private property. We've called the, I've called the police personally four times and that's not many considering the number of trespassers, but when they're threatening us with their surfboard or when they're cursing when there's more than 20, and really it's uncontrollable as it is. So we've done everything we can. Know, of our community, of the 20 units, nearly half are full year residents or full residents. And of those, eight were educators, four were veterans of the military, or three were veterans, one's a spouse of a veteran.

So our community, we've done our share through the years of educating people. We have one of retired law enforcement, of educating people trying to enforce, and what we've done has just not been successful. So again, we believe that this fence will put a halt of people trespassing through as it has for other communities whose fences were not negatively impacted by the hurricanes. So thanks for your consideration, appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Any others?

There are no further speakers.

Okay, thank you. In that case any additional staff comments? Oh, we're good there. Alright. In that case, I'll close the public hearing. And do I hear a motion? Mr. Chair? Mr. McCann?

Based on review of the application materials, the staff report and testimony provided during the public hearing, the Planning Commission, sending us a local planning agency, finds this petition meets each of the variance criteria in Section 1.13.3 of the Land Development Code and therefore moves to approve variance petition number 20 six-six VZ.

Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion?

No? I would just say, I know we strive for consistency in our decisions that we make and we had another fence thing just recently, and I tried to compare the two and I think there was quite a difference. We had one recently where it truly was really just an inconvenience, it was not something that was a hardship, but when I look at this situation, see where all this existed for many, many years now beyond the coastal setback line, I mean that's just the way it was built a long time ago, Whereas this other one we had was brand new construction and they were trying to build something brand new and put it beyond the coastal setback line. This is something that has existed for many years I think it does speak well for itself as with the safety concerns obviously around the pool and the security issues and so therefore, I plan to support this petition. Any other comments?

If not I'd

just like

to make a comment. Think that the historical perspective seeing the old fence was really it was very, very helpful. And thank goodness for AI. I mean, what you did with the putting, you know, where the fence because that was my biggest question. What is it gonna look like today? You know? Yeah. And being able to see that and kinda in kinda real terms, think, was so helpful. So thank you for that.

Thank you. Any other comments? No? Could I have a vote, please? Okay. And the motion passes unanimously. Congratulations. Okay. That will then take us on to get Roger up here and we'll go over some rules and procedures.

Good afternoon, Planning Commission. For the record, Roger Clark, Planning and Zoning Director. And yes, wanted to go over the rules of procedure today. We haven't done that since 2022. That was the last time we adopted them.

Not a whole lot of changes. Most of them are remaining the same but through discussions with the city attorney, we had a few things that we wanted you to consider. And I think the one stems from the times when the former chairman was out of town and it could get quite cumbersome sometimes, especially when we had a lot of people in the room for him to be able to chair the meeting and sometimes not being able to see the crowd. It was kind of a difficult situation. So we were hoping to make it a requirement that the chair of the meeting be physically here and not virtual. So that's why we made some changes here.

Just to add on to that, so that's how the mayor position works as well. If the mayor is not present then he cannot share the meeting and participate. So this will be consistent with how city council handles it.

So that's the language you see basically there in number five.

I did want to see a clarification I saw just when it came to the rules of it was a little different, when it was a quasi judicial. There have been times when we've had a huge crowd where we've made adjustments for the length of time that the speakers could have each one of them. With one that's always crossed out and said with the exception of I wasn't quite clear what that meant now. Can we still make an adjustment if there's a huge crowd to speak?

To reduce time limits or yes, mean you still as a right there's standard procedures then that we have in the city code but that doesn't prevent you all from determining that by a vote of the body that you wish to adjust those. But this would they've been very successful at the City Council level having very defined timeframes as a base. So this would just put you on this on par with how City Council handles quasi judicial time limits.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure I understood that because it's it has been often but there have been times when that was necessary.

Yes, I think that was one the next one I was going to come to is the fact that we're making that change as you just discussed. You and the Chairman and the City Attorney could determine the timeframes. But as Kelly said, the quasi judicial rules that have been put in place for counsel, as you know, we have sat here for hours and hours and I myself have been grilled by attorneys for two hours at a time. And the new timing policies are certainly working well for City Council and that's why we put those in there and kind of eliminated that other aspect to where you had to make the decision. Obviously, as Kelly said, you could still make adjustments but this would put it consistent with the timeframes that city council uses at this point.

And then the other ones I saw was just the fact that they were making it gender neutral. They're calling a chair instead of chairman.

Yeah. That was was

a Quite bad a few of those, so it's common procedure there.

So those are really the only changes that we're proposing. If there's anything else you wanted to consider, we'd certainly entertain that.

Okay. Any other questions for Roger? Seeing none, could I have a motion please?

Chair. Okay,

Ms. Sheerberg.

Thank you. I move that the Planning Commission adopts the rules of procedure as indicated with the edits as noted.

Do I have a second? Second Mr. Chairman. Second, Mr. Hale. Thank you. We have a motion to second. Any further discussion? If not, can I have a vote please? And that passes unanimously as well. Thank you, Roger.

All

right. Thank you.

Any other comments we have from the

Yes, just a few things you will. Your next meeting is the twenty first. We have applications on that meeting. It looks like we've got four applications, three projects. You've got a preliminary plat, a site plan and then a site plan with a design alternative. So you will be receiving the agenda prior to the meeting and we will have a meeting on the twenty first. Couple of things I wanted to update you on. There was interesting variance that you heard this morning. As you indicated, the building has already passed the Gulf Beach setback line. Gulf Beach setback line is the 1978 coastal construction control line, then they moved it further inland.

Know, there's You'll you'll look at those lines down there and a lot of times they won't make a lot of sense when you see buildings in the way that's They have another line that's called the general permit line which is between the two, but the Department of Environmental Protection pretty much handles everything from the coastal control line all the way to the water. So anything that comes to us for that area has to go to the DEP for potential either a field permit or a state considered permit where we might get a little more involved. But you'll see a lot of this because our code did maintain that Gulf Beach setback line as a line limiting construction on the other side of it. So whenever we get something that may look crazy because there's a whole building on the other side, but when we get that, we have to bring that to you. So I appreciate your consideration of that today.

Made a lot of sense for their project. I do have the Seaboard consultant right now tentatively scheduled to come before you in June, probably at your first meeting in June to give you an update on our phase one phase one portion of the Seaboard Master Plan which is pretty exciting. So I'm excited to have him come and speak to you about that and you'll get to see some really neat things that they've they've come up with for the plan. And then just kind of an update, you know, I've been giving you some thoughts on some of the bills that have been proposed at the state level. It seems like some of them are maybe easing off a little bit.

I think maybe they realized maybe this might not be such a good thing to do in certain circumstances, but in other circumstances they have been signed. So we will still have to deal with some things and I know Kelly's monitoring them closely and going to be working with staff on, you know, if we have to do updates to our code or comp plan or something like that or handle some procedures differently. We certainly will do that. And finally, I want to welcome Mr. Flarelogi to the Board. I appreciate your ambition to participate and I think you'll be a great Board member along with our other new member Ms. Fresca. Appreciate having So Words

out of my mouth, I was going to get to that.

Well, you go.

That's all

right, you can still do it, sir. Other than that, I have no other items.

Okay. Thank you, Roger. Any comments from the commission?

Could I ask a question about the seaboard presentation?

Sure.

When you say seaboard, do you mean the jetty construction or what are we talking about?

No, the Seaboard area is area on the other side of the Venice Avenue Bridge. Basically, it's from just a little bit north of the bridge running along East Venice Avenue, down the bypass, and then over to the intercoastal waterways. So it's the original industrial area of the city. It's where the Seaboard Railway went through, that's where the name comes from. So we have a master plan that was done a couple years ago by our consultants that we're looking to transition that area into more mixed use area.

And this right now we're working with them on that first phase of it which is really mostly the property that the city owns and has control over and working on the technical details of how we might implement that plan. That's where that is.

Yes, Mr. Hale.

Roger, occasionally I get asked questions about the Neopublic's development that was going on Laurel Road.

You do?

As a commissioner, I have said, I don't know nothing and if I knew something, I wouldn't tell you anyway. Are we likely to see something from that again so I should maintain that posture or is Are we done with it? Do you feel

I would always maintain that posture until something comes up out of the ground and is blessed with the seal and all that stuff. So I I think you're doing a great job of of maintaining that posture. Whether it will come back before you, I don't know. I'm not know it's up to the developer how he moves along with progress. We'll see where it goes. Thank you.

You have nothing filed, correct?

I have nothing.

That property so technically you're free to discuss it but like Roger said until something's actually built you never know. I won't know nothing. That helps you.

Any other comments? If not, I just also want to add my welcome to Nick joining Anna's our two newest members. We're certainly delighted to have you here and we appreciate your your wanting to be here and help out. Welcome. And with that, we are adjourned.