Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Are you good to go? Call the meeting to order. Can I have a roll call please?

Chair Wilson.

I am here.

Mr. Hale. Here. Ms. Sherberg.

Present.

Mr. McKeon? Here. Ms. Fresca? Here. Mr. Jasper?

Here.

And Mr. Ferlagi?

Here. Thank you very much. We have a set of minutes from 04/21/2026 regular meeting. Do I hear a motion? I move to approve the minutes as shown. Okay. We have a motion to approve. Do I have a second?

Second. Mr.

Falagi was first I think. We'll have him as the second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? If not, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed the same. And the minutes are passed. Thank you very much. Do we have anyone set up for general audience participation?

No, we do not have anyone signed up.

Thank you. So that brings us to public hearings. The first one is variance petition number 20Six-01VZ-one61CanoeBendAvenue. The staff is Nicole Tremblay. The agent is Katrina Tejesus from Meritage Homes. This is a quasi judicial hearing. I do have a memorandum to read. This is to certify that the public hearing for this petition was appropriately advertised on 05/02/2026, as required by the City of Venice Land Development Code. Proof of publication is on file in the Planning and Zoning Office. I have that. And with that, I will open the public hearing and have the attorney question board members.

If anyone has any possible conflict of interest please indicate that now. Seeing none, if you've had any ex parte communications that are not presently part of the record please indicate what those are. Mr. Floraghi start with you.

None.

None.

Only.

Thank Site

you. We got everybody. Okay.

And we'll confirm speaker cards have been signed. And Nicole, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon. For the record Nicole Chimbley, Senior Planner for the City of Venice and we're looking at a variance for 161 Canoe Bend Avenue. So the variance request is from a standard in the Rustic Road binding master plan which requires five foot primary structure setbacks on the side for single family detached homes. This parcel is a little over 5,000 square feet.

Its future land use is mixed use residential and it's in the rustic road plan unit development in the Knights Trail neighborhood. They applied for this on December 29. So this is in Magnolia Bay North. They're required to have the five foot side setback and they did show that on their original permit. However, when the slab was poured it was only 4.69 feet from the property line.

Since they discovered this and applied for the variance, the house has been constructed completely but it remains at 4.69 feet from the side property line. So you can see this was their site plan that they submitted to the building department, was reviewed by zoning and this five feet here was compliant so it was marked approved. And then this is what is actually on the ground 4.69 feet right here on this side. Here's the aerial. It's changed a bit since this data was taken but it's on Canoe Bend internal to the Rustick Road North, or sorry Magnolia Bay North part of the Rustick Road PUD.

So for existing conditions we'll look briefly at the maps and some site photos. Here's the future land use map. It's mixed use residential all surrounded by mixed use residential and then with the interstate to the west. And then on the zoning map the same planned unit development all part of the same PUD. So here is the site as it exists today.

You can see a kind of a straight on view and then the top right there is the side that is too close, it's 0.31 feet too close and then the bottom shows the compliance side on the other side. So for a planning analysis we'll mostly just look at the decision criteria from the land development code. So the procedural requirements in section 1.2 for all applications have been satisfied and there were no remaining comments from the technical review committee. So the section related to variances 1.13.3 specifies the Planning Commission shall make an affirmative finding on each consideration to grant a variance application. The applicant did provide decision criteria responses and indicated that the deviation from their approved permit was simply an error and was not intentional.

And then here are your seven decision criteria. Particular physical qualities are a hardship on the owner. The conditions are unique to the parcel not applicable to other parcels in the vicinity, not based on any conditions including financial, occupational or ability personal to the applicant, not created by any person having an interest in the property or if it was, was a result of an error, granting will not be detrimental to public welfare or other properties, minimum variance possible, and the property cannot be put to a reasonable use which complies fully. So those are your decision criteria to find, we must find positively on all of those. So upon review of petition and associated documents, conference of plan, land development code, staff report analysis and testimony, we believe there will be sufficient information for you to take action on this petition.

Do you have any questions for me?

Any questions for Nicole?

I have a curiosity question. Sure. How was the less than four inches discovered?

Believe during the slab inspection the applicant can confirm but I think that's when they first reached out to us.

Alright. Thank you.

And the question, has the neighbor that is closest on that side been made aware of that?

So you can actually see in this photo the neighbor, the neighboring house is available on the garage and these were just taken last week so I believe it's still under the ownership of the developer not And owned by this one also has not been purchased by an individual yet.

Anything else? Thank you Nicole.

Thank you.

If I could have the petitioner.

Is it which one is oh, close this.

Good afternoon. My name is Katrina De Asus and I am here on behalf of Meritage Homes, the builder and the property owner of 161 Canoe Bend Ave located in Magnolia Bay, Block 14, Lot 11. We're requesting a variance to allow a side setback encroachment of 0.31 feet or 3.72 inches. This request is a result of a slight misalignment that occurred during construction, which led to an encroachment of 0.31 feet or 3.72 inches into the side setback on a completed residential structure. The variance is minimal and remains consistent with the surrounding development pattern.

It will not negatively impact adjacent properties in terms of access, fire, drainage, visibility and overall neighborhood character. I've also brought a side by side. So this is the side that is in question. This is the overview. This is the side by side comparison of the approved plot plan next to the final survey. It is in keeping with the intent of the code while allowing for reasonable use of the property under its existing conditions. Based on these factors, we respectfully request your approval and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do you have any questions? I do. As I read this, checked the dates of when the permit was issued and I checked the dates of when there was the variance was requested. It appears to me that you discovered the error when the foundation was poured. Is that correct?

It's correct. So with

this And yet situation you went on ahead and continued to build the building.

With this situation, RCM and the surveyor apparently had miscommunication between the two. It wasn't brought to my attention until much later, like probably three to four weeks later. And that's when I found out that he poured the survey or the slab and I was kinda shocked myself.

But but knowing that it was wrong, when it was only a slab, you continued on, you applied for a variance but you didn't wait for an approval, you just carried on?

I reached out to the construction manager, I'm not sure why he continued on unbeknownst to me. I'm not out in the field, I'm in Tampa but he should have stopped and he didn't. So there's another communication that was rectified after the fact. By the time I actually was aware of it, I communicated that was zoning right away and provided them the photos instantly.

Well

Practice would be to stop and he knows now but Right.

I'm I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt this time, but essentially what you're asking us to do is condone when you make a mistake and you find it, we are telling you and every other developer that's out there that, oh, it's okay, just take it to planning and they'll approve the variance, it's only four inches. Well, no, we don't have to approve that.

I

understand. I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt this time, but I want you to know I'm a very anal person. I actually have every copy of every one of my procedure notes from all the years that I've been on this board. I've been a big binder and I'm going to put a tab on the side of this one, and I'm going to circle up here the name of your company, and I don't expect to see you come back with same same scenario where you found a mistake and you went ahead and just proved it anyway just assuming, oh, they're gonna approve it. This is your pass, one time, but I want everybody out there, every other builder out there to know that's not the way we operate.

We take our responsibility very seriously, and okay, it's an honest mistake when you pour the slab, but one of the things we we have seven criteria, one of them is willful intent. There can't be willful intent. I think if it comes back to me another time, I can I can prove some willful intent, make sure it doesn't happen?

Absolutely, there were consequences for those actions.

Any any other questions? No, okay. Any audience participation on this one?

No, we do not.

Any additional staff comments? No, okay. Thank you. And then okay. Thank you, ma'am. With that, I'll, close the public hearing. And do I hear a motion? And I'll speak up at once.

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 meets each of the variance criteria in Section 1.13.3 of the Land Development Code and therefore moves to approve variance petition number 20Six-01VZ.

I have a motion to approve. Do I have a second? Mr. Chairman? Mr. Mr. Jasper is the second. We have a motion on the Dick Hale. Oh, I'm sorry, Dick Hale. I was looking at you, Jerry. I'm sorry. He's a good guy. Hey, it's tough when you get to mileage. Mr. Hale is the second. Thank you. Sorry, Joe. Okay. Is there any further discussion? No. Seeing none, could I have a vote please?

And Ms. Sherberg, what's your

vote? Yes.

She has a yes.

Yes.

And it passes, motion passes. Okay. Next we have variance petition number 2605VZ400ParkBoulevardNorth. The staff is Nicole Trembley, the agent is Brian Zambrano, The owner is Norman Ebbsory. And this is a quasi judicial hearing.

I do have a memorandum to read. This is to certify that the public hearing for this petition was appropriately advertised on 05/02/2026 as required by the City of Venice Land Development Code. Proof of publication is on file in the Planning and Zoning Office. And we did that, we did that. I will open the public hearing and I'll have the attorney question the board members.

If anyone has a possible conflict of interest, please indicate that at this time. Seeing none, if you've

I do live in a neighborhood but I can remain unbiased.

Thank you.

And I also I live a few houses further down the street than he does and I walk by this every single day but I can remain unbiased. Thank you.

If you've had any ex parte communications regarding this petition that are not presently part of the record, please place those into the record.

Site visit?

None. None. Yes, regular site visit. Site visit only.

Site visit.

All right, thank you.

Okay. We'll confirm speaker And cards have been completed. Now Nicole welcome back.

Thank you. Once again for the record Nicole Tremblay, Senior Planner for the City of Venice and we're looking at a second variance for 400 Park Boulevard North. This variance is from the driveway code. The driveway code requires a setback of 40 feet from the edge of pavement, when adjacent to two streets. So for a corner lot, which this is.

This parcel is a little over 13,000 square feet with a low density residential feature land use and a residential single family two zoning. It's in the island neighborhood. So this applicant applied for a carport permit, which was approved and as I mentioned it's on a corner lot so the setback to the street on one of those streets was not shown and it wasn't requested to be shown because the reviewers were really just looking at the carport. So they were approved for their carport, it was built, and then when they came back to apply for the driveway, they did show both streets and the setbacks at which time they were alerted by the reviewer that this did not meet our driveway code. However, they have stated, you know, they've already built the carport, it would be impossible to meet that 40 foot setback from the edge of pavement.

So they did initially apply for a greater variance and then once they were alerted to this code, did reduce it as much as possible so that now they're just asking for a two foot variance to be 38 feet from the edge of pavement. So this was, we would consider this a staff error so when we get to the decision criteria you won't need to find on all of those. It was just an error in the reviewing, we didn't have enough information and the carport was built for good reason. They were approved with their permit for that. So here's the site plan showing the current proposal to have the driveway 38 feet from Park Lane Drive edge of pavement.

You can see a little over 18 feet of that is past their property line in the right of way and it's all grass. So here's the aerial at the corner of Park Boulevard and Park Lane Drive and We'll look at the future land use, the zoning and the site photos. Future land use as I mentioned is low density residential, all surrounded by low density single family homes and the zoning corresponding to that here is RSF two. So here are some site photos. You can see the distance from the driveway to the edge of pavement and then a straight on view kind of of the house.

So the driveway and then this is the carport that was already constructed based on a valid permit that they had received. So as I mentioned, looking at the decision criteria, it does state that Planning Commission shall make an affirmative finding on each consideration or find that the variance will correct a staff error that has led to a design or construction that does not comply. So in this case it was an error during the initial carport permit review and they did not have knowledge of the driveway setback code and so therefore did not intentionally violate it. So upon review of the petition and associated documents, conference of plan, land development code, staff report and analysis, and testimony provided, we believe there's sufficient information on the record for Planning Commission to take their action. Do you have any questions for me?

Any questions for Nicole? No? Thank you Nicole, appreciate And we have the petitioner please.

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the Planning Commission and staff. My name is Brian Zambrano, I am the agent, but I am also the registered architect for the project. And I represent the owners, Norm and Elaine Epseri, they are in the audience. To give a quick overview, the project is the owner's retirement home, they're moving from South Florida to here. And so the project is a remodel for their forever homes, this is part of what they wanted.

And we've been working diligently with staff, we completed the master permit with it, the original step which had the carport. And so as part of the process, we were beautifying the house, we did a few additions, new kitchen stuff, as you do for your home that you really want to be I'm presenting photos of what the house looked like prior, so you can see and in the next photos, it's the rendition we're doing. Really this is the project they really want and it also beautifies the neighborhood, substantial investment in the home. The project went through our normal process, applying for the permit, master permit, everything was included when we had applied for the sub permit for the driveway, that is when this issue started to arise. It initially started and I put a timeline of our review process here, but essentially we applied in May 2024 and we were issued a permit in October 2024.

Then we started construction. The issue slightly started to rise back in November 2025, which was a request for a dimension. We went through a couple of back and forth because we weren't clear what the dimension was for. Then in January 2026, that is when we were like the 40 foot rule was brought to our attention and we were in a hardship for that one. We would have gladly had known this was an issue, we would have designed it from the get go with the proper dimensions.

This was completely unintentional. I'm presenting, this is the original home as it was. You can see the U shape driveway is an existing U shaped driveway, poured concrete style and in the previous images you can see the condition of the driveway. The next image is the original set of plans that were approved and submitted with the new dimensions of the driveway. I've highlighted the dimension where it was in our first approved permit dimension.

After finding out with staff, we tried to rectify it, we made with discussion with staff to see how much we could reduce that to make as little an impact. If we could avoid it, we would totally have. So the next image is the redesigned site. So it dropped from 34 feet one inch to 38 feet. The driveway is 11 foot wide with a one foot offset from the actual column that was poured, it's a structural column.

The reason we have those dimensions is mostly so that the car can make an adequate turn. It's still tight, but it's an adequate turn without causing damage to the structure or the car because you know how it is, you make a sharp 90 degree turn, the radius that is our limiting factor. Again, if we had been aware of this during the planning stage, clearly we would make the carport easily two feet shorter. So that's the scenario and this is the kind of the overview of where we're at and why we're requesting the variance. This is photos of the existing conditions, slightly different.

In the red is where we will be, it's kind of a feeling of where we're going to be in the photograph from the street view. The yellow line is the 40 foot line. So it is two feet and I take it very seriously that we're requesting it. As from a perspective of the community and as utilities and visibility, we feel that we're still able to meet the intent of the 40 foot rule, which is we're making little to no impact on the drainage. We're not there is a as you can see in the left photo, there is a catch basin.

We won't be impeding any of the drainage in the area or affecting it. We will still have a traffic we put in a 20 foot traffic triangle on the corner of our property and we are still maintaining that and holding back any vegetation from the traffic triangle. So from a view of safety, the corner will still be fully visible and have no impact on safety on that perspective. And essentially, the only other thing is we did look into it with the contractor if we needed to move it and it will be hardship on the owners as the initial cost we looked at it is, it would be at least a $40,000 impact just to move the column two feet. It affects I mean it's an overhang, so it's got a lot of uplift load from a structural perspective.

So it's a substantial investment to just rectify it. But we do feel that if we were granted it, it would be little to no impact on or the others in the area. Okay. Anything else? No, that'll be it.

Thank you. Any questions? Thank you, sir.

No, thank you. Any

audience participation on this one?

No, there's not.

Okay. Any additional staff comments? None. I have a question of staff. Okay. We do have a question of staff, Nicole.

Sorry to make you do that. Nicole, I hope I'm not putting words in your mouth, but if I heard you correctly when you made your presentation. But you said that actually during the review process, the error in not picking it up was actually on the city side, we didn't pick it up?

That's correct. Initially the dimension was not provided and they weren't aware that they needed to and staff also did not ask for it. So it could have possibly been prevented at the carport stage, it wasn't until they got to the driveway and found out it's too late to really meet it.

Okay. Thank you very much. Sure.

Thank you. Any other questions? No? With that I'll close the public hearing. And can I have a motion, please? Mr. Vladi.

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 corrects a bona fide staff error that led to design or construction that does not comply with the LDR and therefore moves to approve variance petition number 2605VZ.

I have a motion by Mr. Vlagy and I'll second this. A second by Mr. Jasper. Thank you, sir.

Any further discussion? I would just like to say, we always strive for consistency when we're having these decisions and there is a a marked contrast between this situation and one that we've recently reviewed. Here is a situation where there was no fault whatsoever on the part of the owners. There was an error that that, wasn't caught and it was an error by the staff and when you look around, there is absolutely, I walk by that house all the time, the house over next to it, it's a long way away, There is no impact to anybody on this on this and there was no fault of of the owners of this property. So you know, I have absolutely no problem with this variance whatsoever.

This is what the variance process should be. It's what it should be. Okay. Can I have a vote please? And Pam? Yes. Okay. We have a yes vote for Pam. And the vote is seven zero, you're good to go. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Welcome Roger.

Thank you Mr. Chair. Two interesting cases today, quick meeting, but two interesting cases. Don't know that we've had any like that for a while. So I appreciate what Chairman indicated on the first one. But also thank you for approving that. Obviously a major hardship to tear a whole house down but I appreciate the words that you provided. Hopefully I have other people listening as well. That could certainly cause a problem for the new owner when they buy the house. So I appreciate that.

And the second one obviously is staff error. So we did put that in the code when we adopted the new LDRs just in case that occurred. I'm glad we have that in there. So I appreciate your diligence and review today. Next meeting is June 2 and we will have a meeting. We've got several applications on that agenda. We've got some property one property up in the Laurel Road area, not yet another. User coming into the Venice Crossings, going to be a tire company. We also have Sarasota Memorial Hospital will be coming in. They're doing some expansion up there, which is exciting as always.

Family promise with some affordable housing, some site plan and design alternative which is also exciting and some code changes that were mandated by the state recently for certified recovery residences. So we will have several applications but the best thing we'll have I think is we will have the report from the consultant on the Seaboard technical plan. There should be the final draft coming to you to see that. As I indicated when this whole process started, this wouldn't be something that would have a lot of input from either the public or the Board. We do have a technical working group that's working with the consultant kind of giving them advice as we move along.

But this will give you a look at that first phase of the Seaboard Plan as designed by the consultants. So that's an exciting thing. They will be presenting at the council on July 14, I believe we were going on sixnine, but that meeting has been canceled. That will be exciting. I want to mention we recently had the Venice Beach Pavilion identified as being on the local register.

You might remember that as it came forward. We put a we had just a real small ceremony down there at the beach and there's a plaque there as you walk in from the esplanade on the sidewalk there, it's right there on the right. So if you get a chance, check that out. Nice little pedestal with the plaque on it that that structure probably should have been on the local register a long time ago but it's on now. So it is definitely an iconic structure.

It is a hyperbolic parabola. Took me a long time to get that one down but that's what it is. So that was exciting. We also are planning for another local register forum. You may remember we did the Historic Architectural and Preservation Board did this last year.

We sent out, I don't know, probably 800 mailings to any property owners that could qualify and possibly be put their structure on the local register. There are advantages to that. There's tax advantages and permitting advantages. So we did put that out there last year and I think we did get really good response. The forum involves not only a member of the Historic and Architectural Preservation Board, but it involves planning staff.

We also have a contractor who's familiar with renovating historic structures come in and talk on that. The Sarasota Historical Society, Sarasota Historical Alliance will be here to provide the benefits of being on a register. Also Venice Main Street will be there to talk about preservation and how important it is economically. So that's scheduled for June 4 at the library at 05:30. So hopefully we'll get some good attendance.

We did last time and got some good response from it and hopefully we'll get some more properties listed on the local register. Beyond that, we're actively working with the consultants regarding the parks master plan. Probably going to be a while before it comes to the board. They're doing the initial data collection and those kind of things, assessment of our parks, but we are actively working with them at this point. They will be in town the June to do a parks tour.

Some of the tour will involve our public work staff, some of it will just be on their own. So we are actively doing that at this point. So that's pretty exciting. Other than that, council has provided some direction on some concerns regarding our posted signs out there that we put in the public. I'm sure you've seen them.

We're going to be bringing a report back to counsel next week on that. We're going to be doing some bigger signs so the public will be able to see them better. Also we're going to be talking about neighborhood workshops and the format that we use today. So some things that are coming down from council as direction and obviously they will probably work their way back toward this Board eventually and City Council. So a lot of things going on, just kind of wanted to fill you in. And with that, I have nothing else unless you have any questions.

Any questions for Roger? No. Thanks, sir. Appreciate the update.

Thank you.

Do we have any comments from any of the Board members? No? Seeing none, well then, I wish you well and we are adjourned.