##VIDEO ID:TmnK_TyPuzE## e e e e e e Happ e e e e e e e e e e e e right good morning and Welcome to our January 28th uh 2025 Board of county commissioner meeting please join us uh with Pastor ke and steel for our invocation good morning morning good morning Commissioners so great to meet you and be joining you today thank you so much for having me let's pray Heavenly Father we are so thankful for today uh we come before you with hearts that are full of gratitude for the opportunity that we get to be a part of Martin County and for the leaders that you've placed in this room today uh God we lift up the Commissioners to you asking that you would grant them wisdom Clarity and discernment as they carry the weight of responsibility for this community God would you guard their hearts and their minds in every decision they make and strengthen them in their leadership Lord I Thank you what Hebrews 1317 reminds us that we are to obey our leaders and submit to their Authority because they keep watch over us and those that must give an account and uh Lord I pray that we would do this so that their work would be a joy and not a burden and that would be no benefit to you and so God I pray we'd live that out and Lord also we lift up the citizens of Martin County to you God would they feel your presence and your peace in their lives we pray for Unity and understanding and trust between the community and its leaders and together that we would build a stronger even more vibrant County God would this meeting be filled with your presence your peace and your wisdom and all the decisions made here today they would reflect your will we trust that your work in all things it's in Jesus name that we pray amen amen thank you now would Molly moriarti and Michael D please come to the podium and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and afterwards would you tell us about your tours of Duty please thanks I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America the stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all thank you hello I'm bu1 Mor Ary as they call us on drill weekend by our rating in our last name um I've had the pleasure of working for Martin County since 2013 uh in the field Ops Department I'm grateful for Mar County giving me the opportunity to work there and also to be so kind with all of the demands that I had these last few years with Service as we know we had a uh tightening of the budget in 2012 and those of us that had good training and diligence got called on very very often um since I hired in I've set up a brand new unit and Mission in 2015 in Mayport Florida which is up by Jack Ville running Security on patrol boats uh we escort ships in and out so that they do not get attacked uh even though that's Homeland it's still an opportunity for Homeland issues uh I have deployed to Djibouti Africa for back-to-back tours uh again those were involuntary mobilizations our unit went and the unit relieved us with short-handed tried to grab 12 of us only got four of us and I was one of the four um come home from that we're still short-handed and then they call me again to um it's new the actual area is all the way from Newport down to ches Peak Bay entrance up to Yorktown to do security on patrol boats and escort our aircraft carriers and others and submarines in it all ours uh again to protect them from any homegrown options that may happen fortunately we haven't we're a uh defensive unit we're not an offensive unit but we train pretty much like we're offens you we can do what we need to do but we're like the bodyguards for the boats you see us you go oh I'm not going to mess with them at least that's our intent however if we were ever attacked of course we would respond in kind um my last deployment because I've got 21 years and I'm looking at 22 to and retiring this year was supposed to go back to jibuti Africa but they snatched about few of us up and they were short-handed on active duty side so I went to fujara uh which is in United Emirates doing once again Port security but working in conjunction with active duty so that's kind of in a nutshell um I want to thank you guys again uh a lot of businesses or whatever kind of aren't as sweet and kind as you've been with our obligations to our country and also respecting us when we come back my job was there Mr Hunter was there so it was it was really nice and I thank you thank you [Applause] Molly thank you for your service both here and abroad Mr D would you like to address introduce us yourself and address us please sure absolutely uh good morning morning um my name is Michael D um as you can see I am the veteran services offices manager I've been with the county since 2018 with uh GSD I was the security and life safety administrator uh prior to this um I don't want to steal anything from Molly thank you so much for leing that in your story I really do appreciate that um I will certainly have my opportunity here in the near future as well yes thank you thank you welcome thank you to a new spot let's see do we have a motion to approve the agenda so moved second there's a motion uh there's there's an additional item which is Department 6 which is a request for approval of resolution initiating chapter 164 Florida Statutes conflict resolution proceedings between Martin County and the City of Stewart regarding the city's non-compliance with the 2023 interlocal agreement and its comprehensive plan there's also a request to withdraw DP qj1 which is a request plat approval for 3600 Southeast cpoint court so there's a motion in a second to approve the agenda all those in favor I I opposed that motion passes unanimously there is one Proclamation and that's a proclamation uh declaring Martin Luther King Day Martin Luther King Jr day good morning Commissioners Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr was a Visionary whose courage and determination to balance the scales of social justice changed the world forever Dr King's peaceful Crusade against segregation and discrimination has inspired hope in the hearts of men and women throughout our country and around the world January 20th is the federally recognized Dr Martin Luther King Jr holiday when we reflect upon Dr King's Legacy and actively serve others on Saturday January 18th abundance love Ministries and the Hop Sound Community United to host a commemorative event that honored and celebrated the life and leg Legacy of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and here to accept we have Geraldine harriel who is the director of abundance love Ministries good morning good morning good morning thank you um again my name is Geraldine Harris harriel I am CEO of abundance love Ministry we have been doing this event for the past three years we have received our Proclamation uh repeatedly here I just want to say thank you so much to the board uh for your diligent work uh for serving us in our community we know that Dr Martin Luther King stood for unification equality and justice so we're going out and we're um proclaiming to bring unity and our community uh also we had collaborated with ban Club Academy that we was able to bring uh Tony Anderson I know that's a familiar name in this Arena uh he was able to come and give us a motivation there at the ban Lake School and also he was our speaker for that event on uh Martin Luther King day uh his topic was uh then now and what shall we do and today I just want to say we shall continue Contin to uh be strong to be vly and to serve our community with love and peace and harmony with all mankind but there was all a parap faith that he used there too we are all God's children some of us are good some of us are bad some of us are messy some of us just totally a mess but but we're going to continue to strive we're going to continue to love one another and we're going to join hands in hand to continue to work for everybody that be equality and justice for all thank you so much uh we did have a greeting for campy but he wasn't able to get that at the time but we'll be doing this again next year and we look forward to seeing you there as well sir thank you so much thank you [Applause] good thank you thank you uh next is public comment if you have um filled in a request to speak for you have three minutes to tell us your thoughts first is Tom Pine followed by Julie priest do you want to speak now or in public hearing number one one okay followed by Bert Krebs okay good morning Commissioners my name's Tom Pine I presently live in the Jensen Beach area I have four photos that I had approved earlier in 2024 the the Treasure Coast food bank provided over 55 million healthy meals throughout the Treasure Coast and being vetted is part of the process over the last several years our community Dev Redevelopment agency has been handing out $2,000 grants to businesses and C at a meeting sometime last year at commissioner herd's office I asked the head of the community redevelopment agency if the business that were getting the $20,000 grants were vetted the answer was a simple no here are two photos of the downtown Jensen Beach area the top photos that at least two of these buildings got businesses got $20,000 grants all the buildings are owned by the same person some of the most expensive real estate in Martin County the two photos on the bottom are from the business at the corner of Dixie Highway and Bridge Road that got approval for a $2,000 grant grant just recently It's Not Unusual to see several beautiful antique cars sitting out front I want everybody to get this straight you're struggling to me make ends meet in order to get help you have to show proof that you have a need in the C the Community Development AG comes to town and there are many and there and their main purpose is to make sure everything looks pretty just like Disney so they hand out $20,000 grants to businesses in the cras without a care in the world just like the money grows on trees be damned the people who are struggling one of the most hated associations in Florida is the homeowners association where nosy neighbors like to tell other PE neighbors how to live their life now the community redevelopment head wants to change the C into HOAs because hundreds or maybe the thousands of rules and regulations that County government already has to control what you can and can't do on your own property isn't quite enough and just like every other Banana Republic the scan continues on the taxpayers back thank you for your help thank you you Doug Farley is next good morning good morning morning I'm Doug Farley I live in Jensen Beach um I have a couple of comments and and questions am IAD to ask questions we don't do a back and forth but you can ask questions well um I want to talk about uh the implementation of quiet zones at railroad intersections it was my understanding that uh your staff I think it was the public works department was tasked with a survey and study uh regarding the viability of quiet zones at intersections and it was supposed to end in September no that's what I was told by your staff so that was months ago and my question is is this commission going to act on that are they going to move forward on implementing quiet zones at railroad intersections I urge you to do so please uh these horns they're just noise pollution folks they're not safe I understand your primary position your your your main purpose is the safety of Martin County's citizens and its visitors that's understandable uh but you also have a you you you have you have to consider the quality of life of your citizens as well now the upgrades at the intersections that were made when bright line came through satisfied the Federal Railroad Comm uh Comm uh Federal Railroad what do they call themselves commission they have guidelines so that communities like this can silence horns at intersections those guidelines have been met with Double Gates so with that you can have quiet zones and be absolved of liability I understand that's probably the biggest concern uh so people are under the misconception that horns are safe uh they're not they don't work gates work barricades work and I'll point out the recent Story down in at Del re Beach where that firetruck went around the gate on his way to a call uh if there was a double gate there that wouldn't have happened I've been in that position I was in the fire department for 31 years and I drove fire engines and when we approached the gate come to a stop um so anyway I I just I just urge this commission to uh to move forward and have quiet zones at the UN sections for our quality of life and it's a win-win situation uh it's the barricades are safe you're satisfying that obligation and now without horns you're satisfying the obligation of quality of life and the beauty of it is it doesn't cost anything the the upgrades have already been made by bright line you don't have to go to the taxpayer with your hat in your hand for to fund any building or or or infrastructure so thank you thank you commissioner heatherington I was just going to refer to Don that I believe sir that we have an agenda item coming up we are scheduling an agenda item to discuss it uh in terms of uh um of course the county doesn't control all of the intersections and so there'll be a presentation to you on on um on quiet zones the application process uh they've been working staff has been working with the federal rail Administration they have their own scoring that you have to get below uh the the gates are just one piece piece of it um there's also the speed and the number of accidents so anyway that presentation will be uh uh coming uh to you all in the near future for that um no that sir you can you would have to be on the mic and we do not exchange with a conversation we will not have a discussion with you here today uh I'll just have a discussion with the board thank you for clarity sake I'm in favor of quiet zones Donald award is next I have some papers can I sure oh my name is Donna Ward I'm new to Jensen Beach I just bought a house today pull the mic down a little bit you can pull it down toward okay I'm an avid pickle ball player I'm playing at Langford seven days a week it's a great Park I love it the only problem is the crowd is horrendous now I heard there's a fiveyear 5 million project for all Martin County for pickle ball but five years is a really long time to wait when you're already waiting 30 30 minutes for a game the the easiest solution is a blended Court where you have tennis and pickle ball on the same court you leave the tennis net in place and you have portable Nets and we could do it for nothing the pickable players will chip in um you can paint the lines or you can get tape I have pictures of the utilization just this past Sunday there were 16 people playing and 22 people waiting to play and there were two completely empty tennis courts and it's like that all the time you can if you look at the thing you can I don't know if I should put it here no if you handed it out okay um you can get four pickle ball courts out of one tennis court and this this is the um a machine that puts down the tapes and we have a player that has that is willing to use it the and all you have to do is clear the court of debris you get a chalk line you measure you put the tape down you put a primer so that the paint doesn't bleed and then you put a coat of paint now the other way is uh this cloth tape it's from Amazon it has no residue and I there's a review from Texas that said they had it down for a month hot weather rain it lasted a month they think it could last maybe another two months but these courts are used seven days a week from Sun up till after sun down I went there last night there were six 16 players there was nobody waiting 16 players two completely empty tennis cours there were two 10 10-year-old boys playing and a father and teaching his son how to play and that's all that was there I I believe that tennis and pickle ball can peacefully coexist I just bought this rain shuttle it's uh top-of thee line super siiz squeegee on wheels that is very effective for moving uh the rain from the courts and we would cheerfully share it with the tennis players after we change our courts I'm um leaving uh this Thursday I'm going SK skiing and on my way back I'm stopping in New York and I'm going to pick up a five dozen bagels cuz I think a great way to get along with people is to break bread so I'm if I don't break a leg skiing or my plane's not delayed I'll be here on Wednesday and I'm bringing uh cream cheese and butter you got to bring your own locks but if you tell me what kind of bagel you want I'll set it aside for you well we meet on Tuesday so don't come on Wednesday no no you want to come down to the courts oh you see for yourself bring your sneakers you can try pick aall if youve it's a great sport we have a player who's 90 years old Ralph he line dances he plays pickle ball and he's still competitive it's great for all ages pickle ball has grown 223% in the last three years and ten tennis is like 10% your time is up thank you sorry thank you thank you jolen Jensen is next I just want to make one comment oh sorry commissioner Vargas yes I just want to make one comment I have been to the pickle ball courts so and with a lot of players there so I understand uh your reasoning and I've looked at your packet in the short time that I've had in my hands so hopefully we come to a solution about yes I'll I'll I'll speak with him not at all Miss Jensen is followed by Gail Goldie good morning Commissioners my my name is Jolin Jensen and I am representing the Rio Civic club today the first document that we've handed out to all of you is our new brochure celebrating 75 years of doing good in the neighborhood we are so pleased that for 75 years the Rio Civic Club has worked cooperatively with the county with other organizations to to improve conditions in the Rio neighborhood some of you may know that Rio was started in 1893 and it has a total of about 1,600 residents and businesses now our goal is to continue improving conditions in Rio as we redevelop it and thankfully we've got a wonderful Rio NAC that works cooperatively with us on projects to beautify it and to continue to improve it um some of you may know not that any of us remember but some of you may know that in 1950 the Rio Civic Club was actually created to pave 707 or Dixie Highway as it's known now so we've come a long way um what you ALS also have there besides the brochure is you have an invitation to our 75th anniversary celebration which will be held on March the 5th at 5:00 pm and you will have a display of the past of Rio um as well as the present and the future and we are so pleased that eileene Vargas has agreed to be our honored guest and speaker at that event um I on behalf of the Rio Civic Club I would like to speak in support of the CRA architectural design standards that you all will be considering we have been very involved in those standards um in the creation of those standards for years it um I was reading newsletters going back to 1999 last night and the Rio Civic Club has worked to maintain standards not strict like an HOA but reasonable standards so that the the homes the businesses the yards are um with with in a reasonable um state of repair and we're continuing to do that we believe that the standards that have been suggested are appropriate for Rio and we encourage you all to approve that your time is up thank you thank you Gail Goldie is next and Dan Braden would you like to speak on public or on ph11 okay good morning G good morning Gil Goldie 1153 Northwest 12th terce and Stewart good morning Commissioners the blog I'm about to uh read can be found on Weare martin.org on their website Martin County has made significant efforts to pursue a lawsuit against the city of Stewart for failing to write a letter supporting the bright Line Station Grant from discussing it on the DI to having phone calls with administrators writing official letters engaging in internal discussions and even drafting a detailed five-page resolution however the issue has never raised but however the issue was never raised by any commissioner or the public to be placed on the agenda this raises serious questions about the accountability and representation if the commission isn't the leading voice behind these decisions then who is who is shaping The Narrative that ultimately determines how taxpayer dollars are spent if this isn't coming from the commission who then and governs our County the overwhelming influence of County administrators has become concerning it raises questions about whether they are truly taking control of the decision making on the entire for the entire community and if they are shouldn't they be elected to represent us through the Democratic process the county attorney and administrator are supposed to serve at the commission's discretion but currently the roles appear appear to be reversed where are we headed as a community when the County Administration considers suing our seat our County Seat over disputes regarding spending taxpayer funds what is the endgame such actions State significant resources and jeopardize the foundational trust and cooperation essential for our County's our community's progress these recent developments have revealed the murky political landscape that has long been clouded by special interest and entrenched agendas do our commissioners really believe that pursuing legal action against the city is wise is the commission aligning with the current chain of Authority or will they seize the chance to re re reclaim control Commissioners let's see if you have the resolve to avoid unnecessary conflict unite and restore the community confidence or are we simply heading into the abyss and I have three words for the Commissioners transparency transparency transparency thank you thank you that's the last request to speak form I have for public comment anybody else Miss Lee anybody else morning good morning I guess I'm speaking on ph1 that's the CRA the new uh do you want to speak in public or do you want to speak at ph1 well I can do both no one I'm going to just do public then because I got another appointment uh I just want to say that I know this was worked on all of last year by a lot of different people a lot of different groups I'm in support of it I think it'll open it up for more people to participate and I just wanted to show up and and tell you all that I support the new Arrangement that the CRA is is going for today so I hope you'll approve it thank you thank you anybody else want to address us for public comment in that case we will now go to commissioner comments commissioner heatherington I'm all set this morning thanks commissioner campy I'm all set this morning commissioner caps good morning it's been a busy time since our last meeting and we had the privilege to be involved in a few community activities that I wanted to tell you about on January the 16th uh I was privileged to administer the oath to the new board of the Indian toown Chamber of Commerce at the historic seminal Inn and we wish the chamber a wonderful year ahead and then on January 20th I got to walk in the Martin Luther King Parade here in Stewart in very chilly weather I was underdressed at a a bit frigid but it was a great event and then on January 22 we had the hob Sound Chamber after hours at se Coast Bank uh where we had the poster unveiling for the hob sound Festival of the Arts that will be occurring this weekend the featured artist this year is Robin Lee macowski a very important figure in hob sound um she is best known for her iconic painting safe Arbor and it's a a painting of our famous FAS trees going to Hob Sound Beach you've probably seen this picture over the years it was it was uh painted in 2004 and and they have been out of these posters for many years uh and they've been in high demand people have been requesting them for years and Robin no longer lives in our community but she came down for this and because she's the featured artist they have revived this poster and print and they're going to be available this weekend at the festival of the art so make sure you make it there and get your uh your uh print of safe Arbor and then lastly this past Sunday morning was a big deal in Hoban the historic hob sound train station arrived to its forever home on Dixie Highway and Hoban I'm sure many of you saw pictures on Facebook and uh everything went super well we want to thank brownie Structural Movers uh for getting this job done without a hitch and we want to thank the Martin County Sheriff's Office they played an intrical role and we want to thank FPL for moving all the power lines because the the building was so tall that many power lines stretching across the roads had to be pulled down and put back up we want to thank County staff uh they were awesome and they put so much into helping us get this done and lastly we want to thank a number of key Comm Community leaders who uh put forth the vision for this and paved the way to make it all happen so those are my things for comment this time thank you commissioner Vargas yes I also was at the Martin Luther King Parade but I was dressed appropriately so yeah it has been busy uh the Jensen Beach Chamber of Commerce celebrated 75 years and there sea shells and diamonds at the Hutchinson Shores Resort in uh installation of 2025 officers and directors where I had the honor to recognize each recipient and administer the oath of office um it was highlighted with videos capturing stories and Legacies of success highlighted by preserved newspaper clippings videos of the only TV station at that time interviewing local business owners old Jensen Beach Aerials past board of directors presidents and chairs Awards present and music by rainfall a very talented local reggae band we also had the young Professionals of Martin County installation of officers and board of directors at the Flagler Center downtown Stewart honoring those businesses 40 under 40 that are run by young entrepreneurs uh for example uh Culver's Custard uh two locations here in town seast bank uh a Veterinary doctor a rental apartment SEO a family run garage replace and Repair and Rental Apartments branding and marketing so there was a variety of businesses and those individuals that chose to step out they have made their mark on our community this past weekend Martin Reeds part of children's services Council of Martin County the 10th Street Community Center in Stewart hosted a literacy event first through fourth graders as a former reading teacher in the County School System I do understand the importance of developing the habit of reading and I explain to them in kid-friendly terms what it means to me and how it help me become a better leader by learning from the best history influencers teachers explorers and superheroes as they solved problems made tough decisions and helped others and also to become a better listener a really good listener and how to stay calm when things get tricky uh they also did a short video with me featured that will help them promote this skill uh the local steart small business bubo's burritos provided lunch and again young entrepreneurs and the Gratitude Steel van provided The Melodies it was a great time for everyone thank you Mr Donelson uh just one quick item and that is our registration is currently open for our next uh uh Martin cares uh which begins March 27th and we do have some opening so anybody watching here or anybody in the audience that's interested in participating in our Martin car's program uh please register thank you thank you Miss Woods thank you commissioner heatherington forgot to announce something if you don't mind yes um so the Martin County Council of the Arts will host artsfest in downtown Stewart uh Saturday February 8th and 9th and yes the Super Bowl is also the 9th but it ends the Arts Fest ends at uh 4: on Sunday so please join us it will be in the the the park downtown and a couple of us now are on the Arts Council board and we look forward to a really exciting show and a turtle hun too there are no consent pulls could I have a motion to approve the consent agenda approve second there's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously we will now take up public hearing number one which is a public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending article 12 divisions 1- 7 community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin county code regarding architectural design standards good morning good morning good morning commissioner Susan cores community development director and I am here with Dana little and Jessica Seymour both of the Treasure Coast Regional planning Council and we're going to talk to you a little bit about architectural design standards in the CR um Jessica Seymour from Treasure Coast Regional planning Council while we load up our presentation um you um as you may be familiar with already uh from article 12 um which is the CRA specific Land Development regulations we um are asked today or with this project to take a look at the architectural standards more specifically um the first portion of that article 12 are general rules that apply to all of the CRA and then they break into more specific regulations for each of the cras today those architectural regulations live in those more specific areas of each of those um uh for each of the cras and we wanted to clarify that the work that we're doing today does not change um or propose any changes to the permitted uses lot coverage the heights that are currently permitted this is specifically looking at just the architectural standards um why are we looking at the architectural standards four of the six cras already have architectural standards and in their implementation um there's been a desire to have more Styles available to more of the cras we are also looking at the improvment of the frontage type coordin uh requirements with the architectural style c um requirements and standards so there's been some disconnect between those two elements of the code we wanted to improve the language for its application to Commercial and multif family versus single family homes CU today those architectural standards do not address those different uses very well um and we wanted to include more illustrative examples photos and drawings we're talking about architectural standards it's very important to have some visual examples of what those are so as a little timeline of where we are where we've come the cras have had their own Land Development regulations since 2004 um there was a big overhaul of those standards in 2021 those really focused on the layering of um the permitted uses the development standards like lot coverage um and addressing some of the concerns that were in that we did not touch the architectural standards at that time that was seen as a worthwhile of its own separate effort to make sure that we had the community engagement needed for the architectural standards this is the timeline of where we uh we where we've been with this project we kicked off in February of last year uh we've did a presentation on the value of design for communities that was open to the entire uh Community we've continued to have Outreach with the AIA the American Institute of Architects this was presented as well to the historic preservation board the Treasure Coast Builders Association and then again we touched back with the Treasure Coast AIA we obviously went to our nac's and got feedback from each of the neighborhood advisory Comm commes the CRA and the LPA and now we're here in front of you to do this work um I've been you know I've been helping my daughter a lot with her math homework and we always talk about the importance of showing your work so this document right here is the design standards reference guide and this is essentially showing our work um the background knowledge to what going into our research for developing the the architectural standards the proposed architectural standards um in front of you is an example of one of those pages that was shown in the document we went to look sure at what are the historic structures in each of the C we also did driving tours to identify what are the existing Styles in those CRA um and we also took took an extensive look at different Land Development regulations across the state and what they're doing to create standards for architectural um um in their community those all that information went into um the ldrs like I mentioned that's just really just showing our homework um and I'll go through what the proposed Land Development regulations are uh I mentioned the driving tours um when we looked at the existing standards that are out there today so again we have architectural standards in the majority of our our cras today um and these six Styles Florida vernacular Mediterranean Revival Anglo Caribbean Bungalow artco and classical traditional are what's reflected in the the rules and standards today after our driving tours and meeting with um multiple Architects and Builders through the community we heard that we needed to ad um add additional Styles so those additional styles that were uh identified were mid-century modern which is actually quite prevalent in a lot of our communities Mission which is also part of the kind of historic background to many of the C Ranch the Main Street vernacular and the Contemporary style um again from input from the American Institute of Architects we brought all 11 of these styles to each of the nac's and asked those nac's in that public forum what are the most appropriate styles for your community um so we presented all of them in the Land Development regulation um document that you'll have in your agenda package I'm going to go through kind of the DNA of how each of those Styles is introduced so it's first introduced with some images of examples um of that style and then it goes into what are the required elements of that style it's broken up into five required elements um and those elements are what make up a building roof doors windows finishes uh the frontage type is a standard on how that the front of the building meets the street so a porch for example in Florida vernacular we spent a lot of time looking at these required elements to make sure that they are of a rational Nexus for that style um and also a flexible enough so that there's more variety in the community um and also meeting more modern uh building styles for example and this gets into the specifics of architecture um the Florida vernacular Style Today calls out for crawl spaces in that um architectural standard people are not building homes with crawl spaces very often anymore so we want to remove that existing standard that exists um another part of the Florida vacular Styles today requires a roof pitch of 6 to 12 um roof pitch is you know how how steep your roof is um that 6 to 12 requirement for a Florida vernacular again is not very consistent with some of the examples that are out there in the built environment today it's not consistent with how um many of the builders and architectur are specifying their homes today so we recommended more flexibility um of a of a 4 to 12 slope to 12 to2 slope so there's more flexibility from what the existing standard is today um another again with the roof and what we heard again and again is we needed more U flexibility in what shape of the roof is required right now you're required to have a um Gable end roof in Florida vacular for example that's where you have a kind of a triangle at the end of roof um like this example in the image um that is more prone to damage in a hurricane and there's some impacts to the cost of um your homeowners insurance down the line if you do have you have a gable-end roof so we introduced hip as more to more of the Styles so that you can have that option of a hip roof um in more of the Styles than exist today the next page um these two pages here we show an an example of what what a single family home in that style looks like and then a multif family or um a more commercial structure and again that was to address the concerns that are guidelines today don't address commercial structures as well and then on the other side of the page you'll see there are um the recommended or encouraged features these are not required of every building um but they do um enhance that style and and further they're very common elements of that style these these are not required of a project in these uh proposed regulations unless you are in the core subdistrict and the core sub district is where you've got the the highest concentration of buildings the main street of your building the front door of your CRA for example and then in that in that case you would be have the option to pick three so there's an option to um the applicant the architect and the homeowner or the business owner run through all of the stock and then we'll talk about which nac's um what the discussion was like with each of the nac's about which styles were appropriate for their NAC so Mediterranean vial many of us are familiar with that um the clay uh the barrel tile roofs are a very common feature the Anglo Caribbean really comes out of St Augustine it's an example of some mixed materials of of Stucco and wood sighing and if Dana if you want to add to any of these please feel free a little um on any of the architectural Styles as we go through them uh The Bungalow um very common to have the porch a very common popular uh Style again for single family homes Art Deco um AR Deco the eyebrow is often the the most iconic piece of that um style along with the um more simp um stripped down architectural features but there's still um a lot of depth and and texture to them as well mid-century modern this one was really interesting again in our driving tours to see how often are midcentury modern homes in our cras and that was not reflected at all in the existing standards so this was a really important one to add um I particularly like this um example from Rio with the really um expressive roof and the chimney elements if I may add to this this is also a very popular style these days you may notice that a lot of Renovations that are occurring in historic districts or areas like the cras um a lot of attention is being put back into this style of architecture so the fact that it was missing was very prevalent once we got into this the ranch style also a very prevalent style in our neighborhoods that was not um reflected in the existing standards it would be hard to see how those fit into those six categories previously the mission style this one again is um is really nice it's show you see it a lot in Golden gate a couple of homes in Hope Sound as well um it also lends itself to commercial structures very well um or even small apartment missing middle type housing as well the Main Street vernacular uh this was a really important one to add as well this is our bread and butter of all of our downtowns our main streets um and again it was not very clearly reflected in the existing standards and this is really a lot about how the build the rhythm of the building and how it feels meets the street um and how that Frontage interacts with with the neighborhood classical traditional this one is um was one that was already part of the standards but you could also see some examples of um on some of the estate Lots where these homes might be applicable um or again in more commercial structures um there's also you know the more um tutor style or Colonial styles that might be um something that you see in Savannah would also fall in uh this this example this umbrella love of styles if I may add to this is um we had a lot of discussion about this in the in the nac's and interestingly in Jensen when we were discussing this um the applicability of this style why while it may not seem necessarily useful for single family but for civic buildings it's certainly useful and in fact the Jensen Beach Community Center fits this style specifically yeah exactly Civic buildings um churches as well that might be an applicable um use of the style as well and then the Contemporary style this is a really the maximum flexibility um they're you know they can be rooted in his historic Styles but they really um have a lot of flexibility to them so each of those uh Styles was presented to each of the nac's this is a matrix that shows you where the existing stock Styles occur today so you'll Noti Jensen Beach has a guide book the green check mark indicates where that style um is already a part of the ldrs or guide book um Rio right now has no standards as well as the Golden Gate um CRA old P City Hope Sound in Port Sero again have those existing architectural standards for those um indicated we went to Jensen Beach there was a robust conversation there um the the only style that was looked at adding was the main street vernacular again reflecting the the main street that already exists in Jensen Beach Rio had a really robust uh conversation um they the indication by the board was to add all of the Styles so that they had the maximum level of flexibility um while including those Styles old P city um recommended improving the mid-century um adding the mid-century modern the ranch the mission and the Main Street vernacular Hope Sound um similarly uh wanted to have the the maximum amount of flexibility with just the ranch um not being added and again with Port Sero more flexibility was what the the board Direction G was from the NAC um so those are all um been added and then for Golden Gate um again they would all be added um they did not elect to include the art deco or the classical traditional and again because because those would not reflect that neighborhood character as well um I wanted to point out um in your agenda package it's it's lengthy ldr package so um just to kind of break down the three types of changes that are included in there one is the necessary changes just to make sure that the document is coordinated um this includes adding um additional glossery items and also striking through the existing language and this is some example of that oh this is actually the example of the coordination with the frontage type we didn't want to have language in two different places talking about the same standard so this is again to clean that up so that it's easier to find the material when you're when you're applicant understand standards um this is another place where that shows up so this is where that language is replaced in the in the new proposed uh standards another big one that we came across at the end of the the process was um looking at what's called facade transparency and facade transparency is uh is planning speak for just saying adding Windows to your building um when we started the work um back in 2019 we introduced the facade transparency requirement for some of the building types it was not included for types that were um predominantly used for single family homes um again the Assumption being that most people would include a window on their front facade um we found that that wasn't true actually and that they were projects coming across without any windows on the front of their buildings um and so it's a very small percentage um what we're proposing is a a requirement of a 15% um facade transparency that there be a window on the front of the the facade um we also are recommending that as well for the um the outbuilding the Boat Barn and the industrial buildings and again this is so that you don't have a a neighborhood um fabric without any articulation on the front of the building um there anything else you can want to add to that um since you've received the the October 29th draft we have continued to um talk to applicants and and um building Professionals in the neighborhood who have some um provided some input one of them um was we wanted to add the casement window to uh The Bungalow building style um again when we list out uh the applicable window Styles casement should have been in there so we wanted to correct the record on that um we also uh talking again to to folks who have hear what applicants want what the what uh individuals want to build and they wanted to make sure that it was clear that black could be used as a trim color uh frame color uh and for architectural accents so that's another piece of language that we wanted to um modify from the package that you've received already and the last of which was um the existing overhang requirements there's existing overhang requirements for the Florida vacular The Bungalow and the and the proposed ranch style they require a 24in overhang 24 inch overhang and this is an image of what we're talking about to the right um help to protect the walls of a structure from rain um they do a lot of work they're not just for an architectural um uh Aesthetics that's but they were born out of those historic Styles because they protected the building um and they are those deep overhangs are very characteristic of the Styles but we did hear from the building community that they would like to see a little more flexibility within that a little relief from that standard and so we're recommending that they can go to the 18inch minimum overhang uh for the Florida vernacular and The Bungalow um I just wanted to point out that the CRA has been um Distributing this um information widely through their website um and through uh e several emails through the process and so it's been very helpful to get feedback in addition to the meetings that we've um had and NAC input that concludes the presentation thanks Jess commissioner heatherington back to the um just got the windows mhm the 15% facade coverage that only applies to the the front facing the street correct correct doesn't apply to the other side exactly yes okay thanks and to your point commissioner we tested that many different ways um to try to find out what would be a reasonable percentage um and we felt comfortable that with with a regular you know facade on a 50 foot wide lot 15% was really very doable if I can I'd like to just speak a little bit about coordination with the community and the different groups that we talked with and how important that input was and what input we kind of coordinated in this effort so I'm going to go by group we spoke with lots of Architects uh they had many different many in a lot of input that they wanted to give to us for example and I'm going to go through a little list they wanted to increase the size of the access restructured to 450 Square ft which we thought was fine from 400 ft so that was incorporated the Florida vernacular I think Jess went through um it's an extremely popular style in all of our cras and we added three additional roof types the additional slope additional materials for the roofs doors and windows we made four requirements into three and we changed or proposing to change the roof overhang as well and and we added additional features to those needed in the core subdistrict if you remember Jess went through um one page of if you're in the core you need to add three required elements and it was brought to our attention that some of those Styles only had three more required elements so those were the ones you would have to have chosen if you were going in that direction so we added additional features to that so that again a builder an architect or homeowner would have uh additional flexibility and affordability and we took out the Gable ends with which Jess mentioned we also do not require a Hardy stucco front anymore um and that increases affordability and then we talked with Builders and we had input from them some of that was minimum depth depth of the balconies to be smaller um because they felt that that would increase affordability as well ma Lang we changed the language for the use of black trim uh doors and made it clearer for property owners and builders that was actually brought To Us by a builder and we added a range of sizes for clarity so the old regulations say large or deep to uh describe some of the architectural features and that's difficult for homeowners Builders and Architects what what does that exactly mean what is large what is deep in in the opinion of you know the architectural community so we added uh exact ranges for that so that people would know what they could do couldn't do and would have that additional flexibility and Clarity we added exterior finishes to our list so that they could choose uh more types of finishes in the community the community actually was really knowledgeable about this um one of the changes that we made the casement windows we had a Community member in Port solo who gave us three emails with pictures all about the windows in Bungalows historical pictures and why casement she made an excellent case why those types of Windows should be included so that is one of the proposed things that we are uh bringing you today we took out the stories so in the beginning we had something additionally in this package that said you know Bungalows are two stories or you know Mission can be three stories and that was confusing to the community and two CRA uh namely Golden Gate and Port cero both recommended to us that that was confusing and it sounded like we were telling people how many stories they could build on their house when in fact it was just a you could do this not that you had to so we took that out we added additional pictures of every style that was a big recommendation from lots of our community folks um and in general we took out other things that would increase flexibility and affordability like style colors we added definitions so that everybody would know uh be on the same page if you will we offered the reference guide so that people could look at uh what was in the community and coordinate that way we added a visual sheet to show how to implement the project in the CRA from start to finish and how to read the new uh standards we also removed operable shutters from some of our Styles um and instead of having all the architectural design throughout the entire outside of the house we are including that it can be just on areas visible to the right of way which also would include some affordable uh Parts there and I I would just also like to um give you a little more information which is that this is something that actually is in our comp plan our comp plan says provide for the visual continuity of designated Redevelopment areas through application of sound principles of architectural design and Landscaping it's also in all of our community redevelopment plans and our countywide community redevelopment plan so this doesn't come from the CRA office this comes from what the mission of the CRA is and I think it's it's well defined in all of those documents um to respect our area's identities and certainly the community is interested in doing that enhancing the public space protecting the value of all the public and private investment improving the quality of the growth and development that we're seeing and serving as a helpful tool for all of those that are involved designers Architects community members homeowners residents Builders Etc thank you commissioner Vargas yeah um I I did listen to your presentation today and before and uh quite familiar with and have attended uh The Knack meetings in Rio and Jensen Beach um really familiar with this uh this type of architecture um as being active in real estate in Miami and different sections my first home that I bought I was 22 years old I had a mission mission style I'm looking at it right here I saw the picture I said that's my my house I had the crawl space which was cooling there was no air conditioning at that time but when I moved into it there was air conditioning and the casement windows chimney all the touches inside pecky Cyprus Wood Floors a cracked Mediterranean tile beautiful um if there was someone who wanted to buy in that North section of Coral Gables they had to follow one of the styles that were accepted there there they couldn't just build something that was totally contemporary unless they were in the South section of coral cables so what I'm getting at is like here in Jensen Beach I see that um Mission and um Art Deco are not included is this static in so far as what is possible so this is something that it's an ldr change so if the um if the NAC or the board would in a future date want to look at adjusting this again just like we're adjusting it today um it would be an opportunity we would have to go through that same process though um and this is reflective Jensen Beach is unique because it is one of the smallest of them um and so right now there's no examples that Yi can really point to a mission but if there was um you know um a desire to change that that would go through the same ldr process that we're going through today um this reflects what we heard from the NAC though as far as the Styles then I am starting to get push back from people you can't dictate how my home should look why is it have to be like this and um I do try and explain some of what you've explained but you've explained exceedingly well um and they feel that is uh dictatorial and it's similar to an HOA but I explain to them that nobody is forcing them to live in a certain section of jnon beach or in my case and there other uh districts too and that if they want want to be outside of and correct me on on the words the core and then there's the perimeter portion of that neighborhood neighborhood um there is another section that they can and they can build pretty much whatever style that they would wish is is that correct that is correct and it's important sometimes to remember as well that c areas make up 1% of the County and in the rest of the county um these standards do not exist okay and if I may add to that I would um recommend that anyone that has those concerns and I understand that in the reference guide that Jessica mentioned we identified 20 different examples that we drew from around the State of Florida of different ldrs and design guidelines some of them like Coral Gables can be very very detailed and very specific about what's required some of them are a bit looser so my recommendation would be anybody that has those understandable concerns really look at what's being required it's simply stating that if you want to do a certain style your windows shall be of this proportion or that you have a certain type of overhang um I don't think there's anything really onerous in what we're recommending compared to what is existing in the regulations today there are onerous requirements that exist today within the regulations so our our our choice was with the nac's to fix the existing regulations rewrite them which is what we've done or just get rid of the entire process and never did we hear from the nac's get rid of the design standards alog together commissioner heatherington my question relates to the accessory dwelling units and we had this conversation in my office so uh and I see that is going to be a more prevalent and prominent thought as affordability um is and Workforce housing is addressed people are going to want to have accessory dwelling units and whether it be their college kids or their parents prob maybe my college kids too um are going to need to you know use this as affordable housing so you you mentioned the adus and if say I'm I have an Adu on one of these structures do does the window facade and the porch requirement does that um apply equally to the accessory dwelling unit how do we keep those affordable and make sure that um something that completely um wipes out the affordability of having the accessory dwelling unit is not in here yet it meets the standard the architectural standard of the community so if it um exceeds that 450 um uh square foot um footprint number there it would need to be consistent with the style um but it does not have to have the frontage type so it does not have to have its own porch or its own arcade for example you know it would um it just needs to be consistent and by that it means they don't need they shouldn't be completely mismatched from one another um and so we kept that in mind with the affordability the facade transparency for example that wouldn't apply to that accessory dwelling unit unless it was like a carriage type house where that became the primary fac where the there's a few for the estate Lots there's some cases where an Adu can be in front of the house so in that case the facade transparency requirement would required to them but again that's that's because that's up against the street um so if it's in the rear it would um we would the staff would be looking for just a consistency with the the existing structure or the primary structure so that that would include consistency with materials color that kind of thing okay so it has to match but but doesn't have it to its own porch or balcony or doesn't have to be a little duplicate of the house and as Jessica pointed out that's for a footprint size that's 450 Square F feet or greater that may not sound like a large number but it's actually a pretty big footprint size for an accessory dwelling unit or an accessory structure that's 20 by 22 feet approximately okay commissioner Vargas yes I'm very familiar with Carriage Houses uh additional um small cottages on lots and I think it's going to be more sought after um because a lot of people don't like to live in a box in a condominium and they want to see the grass outside and uh be able to walk sidewalks um so my understanding from what you're saying if you cannot see the frontage of the cottage or the carriage house from the street it doesn't have to follow precisely am I correct he's nodding his head no not exactly as Jessica said if your footprint size is 450 ft or greater then you have to be consistent aesthetically architecturally with the principal structure those specific requirements though like the frontage type where you are required with a certain style to have a front porch that additional element is not required for the building in the back I understand exactly what you're saying so if you're say 450 or less 449 then that doesn't have to follow principally with the main structure is that correct yes and the reason for that is that there are and we heard this throughout not so much this process but the previous process when we were going through the code that you can go out and buy [Music] pre-manufactured structures a garage a shed something like that so we didn't want to penalize folks that if they went out and bought a shed that was 420 square ft that they had to modify it to look like the main house okay chances are the thought was chances are if you're building a structure in the rear that has a greater footprint in that it might U the likelihood might be greater that it's built on site as opposed to just trucked in and if I could add to that um so what the what the specific language says for accessory structures less than the 450 foot um the use of a complimentary uh complimentary maturing color shall meet the requirements of the standard so that's the um if if you're under that size the you still should ideally be complimentary to the primary structure but it can be satisfied with the use of color and that example if that helps to clarify thank you let's hear from the public Julie priest will be followed by Bert Krebs good morning good morning chairwoman heard and honorable members of the board I am Julie priest a 47-year resident of District and an advocate for revitalization and traditional neighborhood design also known as New urbanism and walkable communities as the 1980s downtown Stewart Merchant I was tuned in on how to create communities where people want to live work and play When the accomplished architect and planner Andre stani came to Kickstart the revitalization of our depressed County Seat his vision became reality and I got to experience what good planning and implementation can do the character and identity of each of Martin County's six historic CRA neighborhoods are unique because of their history residents in these neighborhoods support enhancing that historic character by incorporating recognized architectural styles that complement and Elevate their neighborhoods we all understand that a well-constructed structure will be there for probably 50 years or more therefore the feature should be appropriate to an established architectural style my husband and I have constructed homes and rentals in Rio to inspire others while applying appropriate architectural designs and quality materials that various Builders have admired and replicated the costs were slightly higher than Builders grade but the return on investment is appreciated and respective street views improved and neighbors are pleased the residents who live in Rio have volunteered for over two decades to lift our community up and we support architectural design standards in Rio after two years of public meetings and workshops that began in 1999 architectural standards were included on the list of goals for our master plan that was adopted by the board of County Commissioners in 2001 CRA design standards exist and are currently in the code they are not new however the proposed architectural design standards presented today make it easier for developers Builders and Property Owners to design neighborhood appropriate structures that will last the test of time my husband and I ask you to move forward with achieving good design for CRA neighborhoods that comprise 1% of Martin County Land and adopt the architectural design standards as presented I would like to introduce you to and I'm sure you know who he is he came in a little late to the meeting but we have a representative here that has not been introduced Mr Rick Gonzalez who also sits on the Tallahassee historic preservation board that makes selections for the national register of historic places thank you Commissioners Rick uh Gonzalez is part of our team and will be also speaking with you okay in a minute uh Bert Krebs is next followed by Daniel Braden good morning Commissioners thanks for your service and what you do for us we really appreciate it uh my name is Bert Krebs I'm a resident of hob sound lived there since 1988 I'm also chair of the uh uh hop sound neighborhood advisory committee and the um CRA which I appreciate your appointment and your confidence in me um in addition I'm going register Landscape Architects I'm familiar with the codes and ordinances and guidelines that we all have to um uh fit into uh and I'm here to speak in favor of the proposed architectural guidelines I believe they will preserve protect and enhance the historic character of our communities I think it's about taking pride in our communities taking pride in our properties currently there are guidelines in in place as as Dana and um and the group has talked about they they uh they are not appropriate right now and these will improve the the current guidelines they will provide flexibility and options uh many people have been working for a year on this project they've carefully considered inpoint for all different points of views from the builders the public The Architects neighborhood advisories social media multiple ways it's been uh uh put out for everyone to comment on thoroughly vetted they've been adjusted and accepted by many people the last piece to the puzzle is your vote so I appreciate you and I hope you'll uh consider voting in favor thanks thank you Daniel Braden is next hi uh my name is Dan Braden um our architectural firm has been here since the 60s and I am familiar that the AIA did discuss these s the situation um a couple of things were discussed and don't appear uh one was we thought it was important to exempt churches from the CRA because churches have a 2,000-year history of architecture and it seems kind of obnoxious of us to tell them what their church should look like and it just seems to create a problem that the board doesn't want to have uh the biggest concern concern is that there's no mention of cost in the CRA guidelines I would do a lot of work for guys who build little houses and my discussion this morning was that in this CRA it costs $35,000 more to build a small house because of the regulations the biggest regulation problem we have is there's a requirement that no matter where you are or what your flood zone is you're required to have your finished floor be 21 in above the finished grade uh we're doing a project on Jefferson street now where the finished grade is three feet above the sidewalk yet the C still requires us to be three more steps on top of that I don't think it's very friendly to people who are in wheelchairs or people who want to age in place that we require them to have three steps to get into their house now in September of 22 the AIA wrote a letter requesting to have a discussion about this and we've never had this discussion and I don't understand where I found where the Department of Justice wrote a letter stating that the Fair Housing Act prohibits practices that discriminate and that you can't pass a law that discriminates a a class of people and requiring someone to put a 20ft ramp to get into their house appears to me to be discrimination and it's an unnecessary requirement I know what the concerns were because people built houses and they didn't do them right and they flooded their neighbors that's an enforcement problem it shouldn't be a design regulation it should be required the architect and the Builder to provide proper drainage and we shouldn't start telling Architects how to practice architecture thank you thank you would anyone else from the public like to address us on ph1 back to the board commissioner campy thank you very much uh thank you for your efforts I know that Jessica and Dana through the Treasure Coast Regional planning counil have been well first off they're based here a lot of people don't realize that they're based here in Stewart they have a real sense of exactly what's happening they're not Out of Towners uh so that's appreciated and I know that throughout the my history with the cras I've had sort of um I've run I started out cold with the cras when I first showed up in 2008 because back then it really the mechanism was not in place to really accomplish much excuse me what happened is with the Tiff money created enough dollars to sort of continue to plan but never really to execute and uh the recession was there and we I was one of the ones leading the charge and lowering the percentages of the Tiff because what I had heard from my community and what I had felt personally is that it was like here's this beautiful plan of what could happen it won't ever happen but it is a beautiful plan and then through the work of um several I I won't get into the personalities but a lot of very important smart uh people came to town within the CRA uh and changed all of that and then we had the dark days 2012 through 2016 um where the C and the nac's were not taken seriously the the members the volunteer members of the boards were dismissed and it was reworked and and sort of the success and the progress ground to a halt and I know and and I can speak for him even though he's not here because he said it many many times in front of lots of people commissioner Jenkins one of his primary catalysts for running was the concern that how the the CRA and in hob South had been derailed and we certainly felt the same way in pal City and then from 2016 to now uh it's been remarkable really remarkable uh all of the areas Jensen and Rio had always had Julie and others like her that were leading the charge LGE um in Palm City we had uh Dr pliml and Rex Cel and Mike surl who've dedicated Decades of their time to continue the vision and now new people have come I sit I go to our NAC meetings in Palm City and it's a very young board which is very exciting uh because they've realize what's happened and so several years ago when Jessica and Dan worked on a full revamping I remember at the time complimenting you on being experts in each of the nac's literally knew the street names and the personalities and the specific benefits and and projects that needed to be worked on and you're doing it again so I'm very very pleased with your efforts my conversations with Susan um Miss gorus was try to work with the people that are upset try to eliminate the concerns try to work with those people hear what they have to say uh and see if we can incorporate it I like the fact that it's not a one-size fits-all across the six of the nac's which wouldn't have worked because it's completely different in hob sound as it is in Jensen and Golden Gate as it is in Palm City uh and you did that I have had feedback we all have gotten feedback back both pro and con to these changes several of the folks that had reached out to me uh who I I use the Expression they paid the price of admission they are participating in this progress uh several of them are Builders several of them are Architects uh members of the community that are really involved as recently as yesterday I had phone conversations with a couple of very well-known Builders and asked them are you okay with how this has worked out and they said yes now of course they're not g to say I like every single thing about it but one I think that their concerns were uh you had asked the questions and you listened you listened to the nac's you listened to the individuals and what I told the the folks yesterday the builders was these these um criteria it's not put in place necessarily for them it's not put in place rules and regulations guidelines criteria is not normally for the people that are doing it at a very high level it's to for the folks that are trying to slip in the low-level work that don't want to follow regulations that are not necessarily going to deliver a product that everyone can be proud of especially the immediate neighbors we have had cases where people came forward and said why did you allow that to happen why did you let my neighbor build something so out of character to the rest of our homes so I look at these criteria as forcing the folks that would come to our community to do lower quality work the guidelines are for them not for a majority of our local Builders our local Architects that are working at a much higher level that understand that you have to have a certain amount of Windows on the front of your house and they have to be large enough so it doesn't look like some kind of Pump Station because we've seen that work and I think when the work is done right people sometimes don't notice it because they're expecting that level of quality work and architecture and design but when it's done wrong everyone notices so I would be happy to make the motion to accept these I do agree with Mr Braden that churches I don't know if that's a thing or not I think churches uh could be uh exempt from some of these rules because within a religion there are certain architectural details that are appropriate to a religion and I think the important in final comment the important thing for our residents to realize as Miss korus has said this affects 1% of everything that the countyy is doing 1% of our land Falls Within These regulations so it's not like this is a blanket approach and as commissioner Vargas said you move into certain neighborhoods you're expecting a certain architectural feel of the community the people that are already there expect it to continue to look like that they don't need an outlier to come in and say I'm going to build a glass monol in my mission style neighborhood and I think this is not an HOA r ulation um I get the the concept of not wanting to be dictated by what can and can happen in your neighborhood there's plenty of places you can live where that wouldn't be the case if that's your goal to build a castle uh that's going to be red buy a piece of property where you can build your red Castle but if you're within the C you've you've sort of agreed to respect your existing neighbors to build something that would be appropriate and thank you for your efforts thank you commissioner I just want to make one comment um as far as churches go that's not what's in front of you today that's not something that is part of this effort as is the 21 in that is not part of this effort 21in three step is already in the code and it's not an architectural standard um so it is not proposed for any changes today so just wanted to make that distinction that that's not before you today just in case it was I thought that made that was a Salient point and I wanted to yes and and certainly something we can look at thank you commissioner caps yes uh I'd like to begin by saying that I appreciate all the work that staff has put into this and the treasur Coast Regional planning Council as well uh initially I plan to support the adoption of this ordinance since lots of choices and flexibility are offered and since there is a request for alternative compliance that is in place in the last several days I have changed my perspective on this for the following reasons our CRA communities are older neighborhoods that are largely built out these standards would only apply to a few remaining vacant Parcels in the cras and there are so many choices for so few few Parcels that were not really establishing the character of a neighborhood like say a Newfield in Palm City or in Abacoa and Jupiter which are very lovely communities I would I I like those places uh they're beautiful uh secondly the owners of these vacant Lots would resent requirements that they build their houses and businesses differently than most of the houses and businesses in the neighborhood and would constantly be requesting alternative compliance I served on the hob sound neighborhood advisory committee for four years and we had a number of requests for alternative compliance that came in and as I remember we granted every single one of them um and uh because these were our neighbors and because I imagine the board members felt like you know beauty is in the eye of the beholder and uh we ought to respect individual taste um and then lastly uh if there are disagreements uh about these artistic elements and design standards the homeowners would have to litigate and I would hate to put our neighbors through this um this this uh leads me to believe that it would be best to let the homeowners and business owners of these few remaining parcels and the CRA make their own design choices thank you it was brought up that someone is may have driven all the way from Tallahassee to attend this meeting today so if so would you like to address US Miami morning morning my name is Rick Gonzalez I drove up from West Palm Beach um thank you Julie those were excellent words I couldn't do and Bert old friend from pal Beach from years ago I've been a practicing architect for 40 years in South Florida and throughout the State of Florida I'm also an AIA member I'm proud of that and um I'm also on the several State and national boards of historic preservation Julie mentioned the uh Florida historical commission which we viw all the historic applications before they go and get certified in Washington DC I'm the chairman of that subcommittee and president Trump appointed me on his first term to The Advisory Council of historic preservation I'm also the town architect for Abacoa which you mentioned and I grew up in Miami Coral Gables which you mentioned so um and I worked I had the pleasure of working with my good friend Dana and Treasure Coast uh Mr Champion you said it perfectly you are so fortunate to have someone like the Treasure Coast here here in Stewart helping out Martin County with all the issues America today is under attack with very very poor design across the country everything the suburbs out west you know the cities um the crra is really about community redevelopment uh Mr caps and eventually uh like the pressures in South Florida there'll be a lot of Redevelopment so uh these standards are really about the minimum they really are about the minimum you know uh because it's first of all it's only 1% of the county which to me makes it really special you have these six very special places that haven't been turned into uh part of the uh megalopolis of South Florida which is 100 miles long of 100 towns that all merge into one another you have six beautiful areas in your county you know your county is like the last place of uh of uh of uh of quality you know uh before the rest of Florida continues to go the way that it's going and so the standards which I had the pleasure of working with them I am a practicing architect I do a lot of work in my firm reeg Architects we do a lot of residential we do a lot of commercial mix huse buildings and so forth they're really good they really help Architects Builders and developers they set up standards you know they help you um keep that quality of design that uh if if it's not there you're going to get just about everything you you'll get mcmansions you'll get boxes you know they're very minimal they've been uh we worked on it what over a year right Dana over the last year and a half and and where we're at today is a lot less than where we were when we were starting uh with the standards uh the Civic buildings you know Civic buildings are so important churches they set the standards right the uh the beauty of a Civic building so uh making sure that a Civic building has some architectural Beauty you know uh in government buildings too right beautiful this mid-century modern uh building that you have here set standards for the Community for Developers for Architects to be able to use so I hope encourage you all to give a unanimous vote for this wonderful effort I know that might not be possible but I'm here to answer any questions if you have any questions and and thank you for the opportunity oh by the way we just got a project in hopes sound because of these standards we're just about signing a contract for a little two-story mixus building and I said to them where did you find us well we saw that you were working with the CRA and we're excited about the design standards a developer from South Florida and they wanted to come into Martin County and do a nice little infield project so I wanted to share that with you thank you for the opportunity Madam chair for the record we had nothing to do with that selection of work as the thank you thank you yeah I think that the addition of the um ample photos and illustrations were extremely helpful the cartoons in the in the uh item are are extremely helpful for anyone who is looking to make an investment in the cras however I've talked to uh uh small Builders lot owners in Port cero and new Monrovia these are largely um historic owner owners small Lots uh not big investors very small investors and the design standards for them are onerous they make it too rigid and they make it more expensive and we've just had uh tornadoes rip through disproportionately new Monrovia and Port cero uh and have destroyed a number of structures and the people looking to rebuild and everyone is eager to rebuild are stuck with a a bill that's maybe $20,000 more expensive than it would be outside the CRA um I've talked to a couple Builders who have said that they are not going to be able to build even though they would love to in new Monrovia and Port Salo because of the additional costs of building so uh unfortunately I I'm not going to to support this either big developers can afford to uh build to these standards small ones not so much and I want to make sure that the that the historic owners of properties are the ones who are able to rebuild in Port Salo so commissioner I'd just like to point out um to you that we have had those discussions as well uh with those small Builders and and I know that um melry was one of them for example and I asked uh Mr Matos if he would send me what were the elements that he found um made his price so much more or a little bit more however you know there's been different uh prices kind of thrown around here today and he did he sent me a list and and the prices for those things um the stem wall was an additional cost however again that's not what is before you today that's already in our code and he quoted that as $6,500 but I would like to point out that that is not the only alternative to building in the CRA you can also build a monolithic slab thickened or other Foundation types that are appropriate so there are other ways to get around that and again not before you today the 21 in of fill with labor and skid steer he said was $7,500 um not in front of you today but again that cost may also be required for a slab on grade uh building the Hardy stucko front elevation he said was $4 per square foot of wall for a total of 3,900 for the models that he builds we've eliminated that so that's in the plus column 18in overhang uh he gave a whole you know how much all of those things cost it came out to about $3,500 uh we are changing that as well to make it more affordable and we've taken out the Gable ends which was the four the fifth thing that he stated uh was a problem for him at $2,500 and now that has been eliminated as well so that gives you another $6,500 of not additional costs and all of the things on the list are things that you build anyway you need doors you need Windows you need a roof they're all things things that are already in a plan to build a home um I don't think I think that the affordability of it equals if not exceeds what's in the code now what's in the code now for Port solo specifically are those five styles and that's it they don't get to have any of the flexibility that's being say we keep that we don't get any of the flexibility of choice or any of these savings that have been built into the new propos proposed uh document before you thank you you're welcome Mr campy any further discussion there's a motion and a second on the floor all those in favor I I opposed opposed oppos that motion passes three to two with Commissioners caps and her dissenting thank you we will now take thank you very much 10minute break e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e excellent we're taking up public hearing number two which is a legislative public hearing to consider transmitt of comprehensive plan amendment 24-21 9 G good morning members of the board my name is Clyde Duan for the record I'm the comprehensive planning administrator and I i' like to introduce to you Amy uh Offenbach our newest planner in the comprehensive planning division she'll be presenting uh the nine gems uh transmittal public hearing this is a legislative public hearing it's one of three public hearings that uh plan amendments typically go through uh this is for this is the second of the three and is for your consideration to transmit to the state land planning agency uh after uh review by state land and planning agency staff it'll come back to you for final adoption and with that uh Amy welcome welcome thank you hello as Clyde said my name is Amy Offenbach planner with the Maron County growth Management Department this is comprehensive plan Amendment 24-21 a request to change the future land use map for a property known as nine gems the property owner is South Florida water and Management District and Martin County and the application was initiated by the board of County Commission ERS and the AFF David of uh publication and certification of public notice has been turned into the clerk this is an expedited Amendment requiring three public hearings and the local planning a agency considered it on January 16 2025 with a vote of four to zero recommending approval and this is the second public hearing for transmitt to the state and local agencies for re review the amendment is to change the future land use on 1,533 Acres from agricultural to institutional public conservation and the property was purchased with a grant from Florida Florida communities Trust and there is a deed of restrictive covenants requiring a future land use that is dedicated to open space and conservation figure one shows the subject property located south of Bridge Road between Pratt and Whitney Road here and Interstate 95 and the area for this amendment is the blue and red areas only the letter of concurrency from the south Florida Water Management District did not include the green areas but it does have a conservation easement on it so again this amendment is only for the blue and red areas the adopted futurum land use map shows the subject property and most of the surrounding areas designated as Agricultural and the area in yellow down here is agricultural ranchette and the proposed future land use map would have the subject property designated as institutional institutional public conservation the national Wetlands inventory map shows that the subject site has a majority of the area with potential wet lenss on it I'm sorry and the amendment has met all four of the criteria from section 1-11 of the comprehensive plan in order for uh staff to recommend approval and the amendment discourages urban sprawl pursuant to all 13 of the requirements from uh Florida State statutes and meets eight additional criteria that discourages the proliferation of urban sprawl and so the amendment is consistent with the comprehensive plan and staff recommends approval this concludes the presentation questions for staff I I have one this is terrific I'm I'm very very supportive um the 1500 no 1353 Acres that's north of the property that we're uh nine gems is also state-owned um and is has a conservation easement presumably but why is it not included hi this is Michael Houston senior project manager uh Martin County Public Works Department uh I talked to my counterpart at the South waterer Water Management District and they just wanted to focus on the fct properties so without their concurrence we we can't change the Lang use and Zoning on those other areas okay thanks commissioner heatherington this is great uh pending any public comment I will move um staff's recommendation for approval second commissioner caps I just have one uh General educational question there's reference to or an organization called Florida communities trust and I believe that is uh the land acquisition arm of the Department of Environmental Protection and then there's another state program called Florida forever and I think it'd be good to have you explain the differences between the two particularly in light of what is getting ready to happen with um uh half cent sales tax money and uh tapping into these types of programs and leveraging our dollars uh in these State programs going forward as we acquire more and more environmentally sensitive lands maybe you could just explain the difference between the two um so uh Florida forever is I I would say just the land acquisition program in general and I might be getting this wrong but Florida communities trust is an actual agency within the fora Department of Environmental Protection they run Forida forever and they have specific grants uh for uh land acquisition that supports County or other municipalities that might want to acquire lands um so they can acquire lands through the Florida forever program separate from that and then it could just be managed by the state but in this for Florida communities TR specifically people uh want to acquire property so let's say Martin County wanted to acquire property we could work with them to provide a grant uh to help us to acquire that property when you do that uh F fct has you signed uh a grant award agreement and it it puts restrictions and on the deed for the property and there's certain requirements that you then have to meet so that includes you know they want you to provide Public Access so you're using public funds to acquire this property uh you know uh so you need to provide Public Access you need to restore conservation values on the property uh this particular one is one of the more important ones to them because if they don't want to give you money to acquire lands for conservation and then you develop a use that's incompatible with the reason why it was acquired in the first place so so this provides that protection so uh I believe that's the role but I didn't really think about this beforehand in terms of like who Florida forever actually is but that's my general understanding of the difference between the two very good thank you Mr Donaldson it'd be nice if Mr H Houston could give us just a two seconds on the value of the property that we're doing it is a been involved in this it's a really spectacular piece of property and if you could describe a little just a two minutes of of the efforts you put into it as song could you do it two minutes my all right two minutes we'll try and keep it brief uh this property is critical to the restoration of the Northwest Fork of the lock AE river which is a federally designated wild and Scenic River so this is a part of the comprehensive Everglades restoration plan to uh provide dry season freshwater flows to the Locke River and to help restore the locks a itself so this property is connected to uh one of the one of the most amazing Greenway systems in the State of Florida I you all might have heard of the ocean to Lake Trail but essentially in Martin County we have uh a system of conservation lands that goes all the way from the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian River Lagoon across to Lake okachobee and then if you go on the other side of Lake okachobee there's one that goes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico so that's unique in the State of Florida there's no other place where there is a Greenway system that crosses the entire State and this is a part of that it's a part of the lockah hatchee and this restoration will improve Wetland systems on the property it'll provide the dry season flows to the Loach River uh County bought it back in 2005 2006 and we took the initial steps to restore the property we removed invasive exotic vegetation and plug ditches so I've been working on that property since 2009 to try and restore it was that two minutes that I felt like that might have been three but you know Mr caps yes you you referred to the ocean to L Trail and I'd just like to mention that the termination point of that trail is Hoban Beach and so you can walk from Hoban Beach all the way to Lake okachobee I understand it's about 60 miles uh think I've heard 45 but is that right okay it's a long distance sounds Trail four day 4 day camping trip yeah and they I've never done that yet to the south of this property but uh it's still in that whole cross you know Florida Greenway system occasionally in hobtown we see people with backpacks coming down like A1A and even at Hoban Beach and they're they're ending their their long journey from uh Lake okachobee to Hoban Beach you probably saw me doing that I just recently finished it caring for M to P you any further questions there's a motion and a second on the floor all those in favor we need public comment I'm oh sorry would anyone from the Public Public like to address US seeing none there's a motion and a second on the floor all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you thank you thank you members of the board next up is public you got unanimous on your first item write that down go my second you started High goes downhill next item is public hearing number three which is a public hearing to consider changes to division 5 hob sound article 12 community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin County code regarding the maximum height for institutional use gymnasiums in the general subdistrict Mr sinot Mr Senate remember when you were new now you're an old veteran absolutely I should mention that I actually hiked the full length of the ocean of Lake Trail in February 2021 I saw you there it's Gorge yeah exactly it's gorgeous it's like walking through a back painting it's it's great how long have you been with the county now uh just over two years December marked my two-year anniversary good for you thank you proceed please thank you madam chair good morning Commissioners I'm John Senate senior planner with growth management this a requests by Architects design collaborative on behalf of Boys and Girls Club of Martin County for approval of an amendment to division 5 Hope Sound article 12 community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin County Code to change the maximum allowable height for certain structures within the general subdistrict the applicant proposes a maximum allowable height of 35 ft two stories specifically for gymnasiums developed as part of an Institutional use the current maximum allowable height within the general subdistrict is 30 feet two stories to give you some background division 5 hob sound of article 12 was established via ordinance 1134 in 2020 section 12.54 development standards of division 5 received minor revisions with the adoption of ordinance 1159 and 2021 table hs5 section 12.54 establishes criteria such as minimum lot size density maximum building coverage minimum open space and maximum Building height the applicant has requested that table hs5 section 12.54 be amended to allow a maximum Building height of 35 ft 2 stories specifically for gymnasiums developed as part of an Institutional use in the general subdistrict currently the maximum allowable Building height in the General subd District of the hobes sound CRA is 30 fet 2 stories this illustrates the proposed change to table hs5 a footnote would be added to the height standards for general for the General subd District specifying that gymnasiums developed as part of an institutional use may be constructed to a maximum height of 35 ft the proposed change in allowable height for gymnasiums would facilitate an internal vertical clearance of about 25 ft this ensures that building structural components in the HVAC system do not interfere with game playay or player safety the proposed height would accommodate various levels of play practice and community events this change is specific to gymnasiums developed as part of an Institutional use in the the hob sound C General subdistrict all other structures within the general subdistrict would be subject to the current 30 ft two-story height limit the general subdistrict is also utilized in the Jensen Beach Rio Port Sero and Golden Gate cras again this application is specific to the general subdistrict as it's implemented in the hob sound CRA however I did want to provide this table just to demonstrate that the request is consistent with the building Heights currently in the general subdistrict present in other cras as you can see in the table structures in certain areas of the Jensen Beach CRA are allowed to be built to a maximum height of 35 ft or three stories within the general subdistrict of the Rio C 35 ft is the maximum Building height and within the port Sero and Golden Gate cra's General subdistrict buildings can be built to a maximum height of 40 ft this matter was heard before the LPA on January 16th of this year they voted four to zero for approval with one absence staff recommendation is to move that the board adopt the proposed ordinance amending article 12 community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin County Code that concludes my presentation commissioner campy Mr Senate thank you very much you had me at boys and girls Club um I think that uh this makes perfect sense uh that we would do our very small part in the effort to continue to revitalize not just one location of the Boys and Girls Club but they're doing it at all of their locations uh perfect example is what they've accomplished in East Stewart which is a remarkable beautiful facility and it's not just used as a gymnasium it was also it's a great meeting place for the Community they celebrated recently Sheriff Snider's uh retirement there with over 300 people in in the space uh and so I'm very envious for my friend and colleague and hob sound to have this new uh Endeavor with the boys and girls club it would not be possible without um their leader Mr Fletcher Keith Fletch Fletcher his staff and the generous members of the community not just in the hob Sound area but probably the entire community that he's able to have this Vision with his team to continue to bring this level of service to our most needed most um deserving young people so it's a thrill to be able to uh make a motion to accept staff's recommendation applicant would you like to make a presentation good morning Madam chair board members uh r o Campa with ADC Architects uh the the request is is really simple and it's minimal uh is if you compare the steward to what we're proposing for Hope Sound the difference in the height is is quite vast uh but the the 5T that we're requesting is really needed in order to have a gymnasium that has the clear playing area that is required or the playing height that is required um and then above that of course you've got things like uh air conditioning lighting structure and all of those elements so 35 ft I believe is the minimum that we could request and I've already uh spoken with uh with staff who's been very very helpful in terms of all of their analysis of this project so uh unless you have any questions that's really the end of my presentation questions for Mr ampo commissioner heatherington uh I don't have any questions but I was I was at the facility before they demoed it and my son's played basketball and we know there's a lack of space for recreational facilities I'm so happy it's getting underway and I will gladly second it uh can you tell me what's the height of the tallest building in hob sounds General sub District right now I don't have that information in front of me close to it not sure I could uh Church yeah maybe maybe a church Blake's house you know this this is a noble intent but there are consequences when you make exceptions and this is no different from any other uh exception that we make it establishes a precedent um there was a proposal some years ago when Florida oceanographic was building their new facility to exceed the 40t height limit and man it was a noble request so that we can see from from the the uh Indian River Lagoon to the ocean but it was going to establish a precedent from which we would not recover and they wisely withdrew their request and my fear is that this is a similar sort of request it's not necessary you don't need 35 ft you want 35 ft you can certainly do a gymnasium with 30 feet um I would like to note that we did go to the NAC in November and they did speak favorably of the proposal and and uh especially in light of the fact that the language itself is very narrow and and specific to institutional use gymnasiums um in the General subd District it is now commissioner I you know I I fully support the boys and girls club and I'm delighted that you're building a new facility in h sound I'm just um afraid of making exceptions because they they always have consequences commissioner campy thank you uh just for clarity sake the oceanographic at was above 40 and 40 is our number countywide that we don't go over and I agree that um they came with a very exciting plan so that you could see from one side of the other they did withdraw it after a lot of uh push back but the 40 foot or four story height limit is is etched in Granite in Martin County this does not rise to that and and I actually fully support it thank you commissioner Vargas so you mentioned institutional can you give me some other examples besides the gymnasium would it be a hospital do you have an idea yeah I can read some of the uh institutional use is oops are I I think my concern is any nonprofit can say this is an institution and it may really not war and I do understand chairperson's herd's concern very much so so if you'd give us some idea what else might fit in right so it would be you know gymnasiums as part of an Institutional use institutional uses include administrative services not for-profit community centers cultural or Civic uses neighborhood assisted residences with six or fewer residents neighborhood boat launch places of worship post offices protective and Emergency Services Public Libraries public parks and recreation areas passive Residential Care Facilities if established prior to the ordinance educational institutions public parks and recreation areas active Residential Care Facilities recycling drop off centers and utilities now obviously some of those uses wouldn't really Implement a gymnasium some of them would and we feel this code changes the minimum to facilitate a an attractive and and useful facility so would not just be gymnasiums that were voting on us pretty much across the board it would be gymnasiums developed as part of an Institutional use it is specific to gymnasiums as a structure because you mentioned residential facilities also yes I just in the specific uses within the institutional category understand so for example if you were to develop a gymnasium as part of a school in the general subdistrict then that gymnasium could go to 35 ft okay so we're referring to gymnasiums not to living centers or some of the other uses that were listed there correct have to be spelled out specifically for that gymnasiums yes the the language of the code is such that it is a uh I can pull up the footnote as you can see in this Slide the the proposed code change just adds a a footnote to this table hs5 the footnote specifies that gymnasiums developed as part of an Institutional use may be constructed to a maximum height of 35 ft and again that's specific to the general subd District of the hob sown CRA thank you and the height of a standard basketball hoop is 10 feet 10 feet but the requirement if I may for play is 25 ft you have to have 24t clear minimum okay uh you have rather large structures when you build a gymnasium the spans are quite large therefore ually you have to provide for at least six to 7 feet of structure to support it in other words trusses that are that deep air conditioning cannot go in between those trusses the main trunks are going to be below those so that's going to add probably another 30 to 36 in then we have to have the lighting and the fire protection below that so that the lighting doesn't cast or the the air conditioning doesn't cast Shadows on the floor so when you add all of that up together that's the request of the 35 ft the existing gymnasium um at Hound now I believe is at 32 feet it's pitched I don't know if you've been there but if you have you've noticed that all the air conditioning is on one end does it really function very well uh but that's one of the problems that you arrive at obviously uh when it was done back I don't know 20 some odd years ago um cost was a real factor and the requirement to do a preab metal building uh came into effect and that's the reason for the height there but had we done it today we would not do that especially if we're going to have a gymnasium that also serves a as a community center wherein you're going to have a large number of people congregated for other activities other than just the play of basketball thank you would anyone from the public like to address US yes excuse me not from the public my name is AUD cre I'm a land zoning attorney on behalf of boys and girls club and I did want to make one comment just to hopefully um have the board have a little more comfort with this scenario if Mr Johnson if you could please go back to the uh chart that shows all of the CRA Heights that would be appreciated thank you so much so I understand the concern about exceptions I I sincerely do because yes every single choice we make does have some consequence of some type whether good or bad how however I would suggest to you that this is not an exception in the general scheme of CRA we have the Golden Gate CRA with an automatic 40 across the board no matter what use an automatic 40 of maximum height Port solerno again across the board of pelona we've got a 40 uh which is five feet more than we're asking for and 5 feet more than the general currently Rio the general across the board no matter if it's institutional use no matter if it's a gymn museum is 35 ft here at the growth management department and the uh boys and girls club have made a very particular decision they're not asking for let's make it 35 across the board for everything they're asking for a very specific subsection that would be allowed in Rio and portela Golden Gate and all of these other cras they didn't ask for um Hope Sound to be 35 across the board they asked for can we have gymnasiums for institutional uses be 5T higher not let's have 35 across the board of Hope Sound can we have this particular subset 5 feet higher when other places that are in the same vein Rio portelo Golden Gate are much higher across the entire board and I would suggest that that is not an exception that would make that big of a difference in any way shape or form because you already have it in Rio portelo and Golden Gate and it's not across the board it is not exception to the overall arching code it is an exception that applies to one thing and one thing only institutional uses with a gymnasium I appreciate your time and if I can answer any questions I am here any further questions commissioner Vargas I just say if it's restrictive language tightly wound MH there's no confusion yes this is this highlighted portion on the screen here is would be the the footnote that's added and it is about as restrictive as it can be while still accomplishing their goal yeah I understand I see Jensen Beach is 24 is that correct so yes this is a an except from the table um Jensen Beach does have 24 as the standard for the general subdistrict however there is a a footnote similarly in that development standards table uh which specifies that structures along certain locations in in the General subd District of Jensen Beach CRA can be built to 35 ft three stories there is a motion is there a second yes I second there's a motion in a second all those in favor I opposed opposed that motion passes 4 to one with commissioner herd descenting thank you very much than you next up is public hearing quasi judicial number one which is a public hearing to request approval of the 22nd Amendment to the Jupiter Hills Village planned unit development zoning agreement including a revised Master site plan and phase nine final site plan Mr Senate excuse me commissioner Noe that's right we've got a lot of stuff to cover first um let's see first of all Mr Mr Senate have you given to the clerk all the required materials yes I'm turning in my work history and the agenda item to be filed as exhibit one excellent commissioner Vargas any expar he disclosures none already been filed commissioner caps if I have any they've been in they have been filed I don't think I have any if I do they've been filed commissioner campy I filed the fact that I had none and commissioner heatherington if any they've been filed now would anyone who's going to be participating in SW and providing testimony in this please stand up and be sworn Raise Your Right hands do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth I think we're ready to go right yes there are no interveners okay thank you madam chair I'm John Senate senior planer with growth management this is a request by lucido Lucio and Associates on behalf of Jupiter Jupiter Hills Club for approval of the 22nd Amendment to the Jupiter Hills Village PU zoning agreement including a revised Master site plan and phase 9 final sight plan the proposed development of phase 9 consists of a one story 32 bid building and Associated infrastructure on an approximately 4.59 Acre Site to provide dormatory style employee housing phase 9 is located approximately 430 ft Northwest of the intersection of Southeast County Line Road and Southeast Federal Highway into Questa included as a request for a certificate of public facil fa reservation here you can see the uh outline of the overall Jupiter Hills Village PUD in red it's approximately 366 Acres located north of County Lon Road it currently contains two 18 hole golf courses and ancillary uses along with single family detached dwellings Condominiums and and townhouse or villa style buildings phase 9 is located in the uh Southeast corner here here in blue phase 9 is approximately 4.59 acres and it fronts the Federal Highway the northern portion of phase 9 it's currently developed as part of the golf course while the remaining portion of phase 9 is is undeveloped to the east of phase 9 across Federal Highway we see the r3a and WRC zoning districts along the inter Coastal to the south of the site is the Public Service District and then to the West we see the remainder of the Jupiter Hills Village PUD and the PS zoning district and this park is a taquesta park the future land use designation of phase 9 is estate density to UPA across Federal Highway to the east we see the commercial Waterfront future land use designation to the South is the general institutional design ation and to the West we see the remainder of the estate density to UPA designation and the recreational future land use the Jupiter Hills Village PUD was originally established in 1978 phase 9 was created in 1986 via the 9th PUD Amendment the master plan which was approved as part of the 9th PUD Amendment designated phase 9 for commercial use and based on the most recent revised Master site plan which was was approved in 2006 phase 9 is still currently designated for commercial use the proposed 22nd PUD Amendment updates the proposed use of phase 9 from commercial to employee housing specifically for employees within the Jupiter Hills Village PUD it creates a minimum parking rate of one space per bed for the employee housing it establishes that all employees residing in the dormatory must be 18 years of age or older and it includes a revised Master site plan to reflect the phase 9 employee housing use phase 9 final sight plan consists of a one-story 32 bed building and Associated infrastructure to provide dormatory style employee housing it includes a 1.15 acre Upland preserve area a83 acre Landscaping buffer area which will utilize existing native vegetation to the extent feasible and provide supplemental native plantings so in addition to the Upland preserve area and the the landscape buffer there's an additional 85 acre area in which existing native vegetation will remain this is the site plan on the left side of the plan this is south of the building you see The Preserve area on the North side you see the existing golf course which will remain and then there's an area of native vegetation around the golf course which will remain under this plan this is the 32-bed building one story the dry detention area is between the building in US1 and then along between the dry detention area and us one is the landscape buffer which again the landscape buffer consists of native vegetation supplemented with Native plantings this matter was heard before the LPA on January 16th 2025 the LPA voted to approve it four to zero with one absence development review staff have found the jupyter Hills Club application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report staff recommendation is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as exhibit one move that the board approved the 22nd Amendment to the Jupiter Hills Village PUD agreement including the revised Master site plan and move that the board adopt the resolution approving the final site plan for phase 9 of the Jupiter Hills Village PUD that concludes my presentation questions for Mr sen commissioner caps yes um this building that is proposed is right along US1 it is along access will be provided from us one um how visible will it be from us one I'll let the applicant discuss that when they come up to present um but there is it's a roughly 30t landscape buffer between the US one right of way and the dry detention area and then the building itself is set even farther to the west of the dry detention area but the applicant can discuss that further another question um the land that it's going to be put on is this uh is this scrub habitat is this have a scrub Pines and uh scrub Oaks uh where and this land would be land that would be very critical Vanishing environment for The Scrub Jays that exist in JD Park and along the Rolling Hills of uh Southern hob sound and uh I have great concerns about that kind of habitat I I go hiking in it a lot and I really like it um and um I'm actually fond of the blue Scrub Jays that I see and the problem with it is that it's Vanishing habitat another thing I've heard about that kind of habitat is once you disturb it and you pluck all that stuff out it's never coming back uh you can't really recreate that kind of habitat uh in that white sugar sand once you once you take that stuff out all you're going to get is like Exotics growing in there uh it's a permanent erasing uh of that type of of habitat what are the the current um development allowances for this partial but Express a little more about the current land use and Zoning for this particular spot so the the zoning is a state density to UPA that's over the whole Jupiter Hills Village PUD um it phase 9 was designated for commercial use when it was originally created in 1986 and it's still designated for commercial use as of the latest master plan which was from 2006 um going back to your comments about the habitat the environmental assessment did identify a scrub habitat on site and uh as so as part of that the applicant will provide a preserve area um when you have scrub habitat your preserve standards are more restrictive so instead of just preserving 25% of the total Upland area they're preserving 25% of the total site area which gives a preserve area of about 1.15 acres in addition to that preserve area they are maintaining existing native vegetation along the golf course portion and then their landscape buffers they are preserving uh the existing vegetation to the extent feasible given the existing grade and again the applicant can can discuss that more during their presentation so uh this is a PUD zoning agreement Amendment and with puds we need public benefits uh or that's what we're looking for um and uh what what do you think some of those might be the applicant is not exactly um deviating from our normal development standards um I'll let the applicant discuss some of the benefits but one benefit is is taking cars off the road since there will be there it's a just about a mile from the entrance to to their Club um so obviously right now some of these employees might be housed miles and miles away it takes trips off the road by installing this building here it provides some additional you know housing stock to others thank you commissioner Vargas yes um have the studies been done about Wildlife you know everybody's tortoise Wetlands that type of thing right they the EA did not identify any Wetlands just uh the Upland habitat being scrub The Preserve area is is capturing you know the the ideal habitat I know some of it was impacted by Exotics um so that um played into the the location of The Preserve area The Preserve area being in the south of the site it does AB but an existing preserve area on the adjacent parcel um and then the EA did not identify any listed species then prior to building they'll have to update their list species survey just to make sure that no goer tortoises migrated onto the site and and that can happen definitely so so I I understand everything you've said about Jupiter Hills uh Club having its employees right there on site I I will tell you my own personal experience when I lived overseas I was working for an employer and they had employees living on site very nice very clean very modern and it was quite um comfortable for the employees because there'd be somebody to pick them up and maybe this is the case here or they could just walk to the facility where they worked so I I can see this and I certainly understand the concerns of my fellow Commissioners this can if we were to approve this this this particular building could only be used as dormatory for their employees they couldn't say well we want to build an addition you know and have something else that may complement for more gained do you know what I'm saying they could build town homes they could do something else is that what I'm understanding the language of the amendment and the final site plan itself is specific for this use if they wanted to change this you know in any way go to another use they'd have to come back for another amendment but still an amendment correct um so I'm looking at our revised Master site plan and also the the uh Narrative of the planned unit development zoning agreement and I don't see any mention of a 32 uh maximum density of 32 beds because I also noticed that there are 49 parking spaces so I I want I want to be able to to make sure that this doesn't turn into substandard housing and if there's no mention of maximum number of beds then what's to keep them from putting 50 beds in there it is documented on the site plan and it's not on the it's not on the master at it's not in the narrative for the the Pud um the master I believe does note the 32 beds no as density in this case Master do you have it let me see U Peter en Deputy growth management director it is listed under the the land uses on the master it shows the residential types uh major land uses and employee housing is listed and also under land use data employee housing 32 um on 4.5 Acres this is in the lower leftand corner of the master commissioner her Alise Elder Deputy County attorney we could easily add a provision in The Narrative of the agreement if if the board desires um that could be added yeah absolutely and it would be only one parking spot per bed that yes MH there are 49 parking spaces we can let the applicant discuss their current parking need but you are correct that um the amendment itself currently establishes a minimum parking rate of one space per bed and also this is the um uh future land use is a state density correct two units per acre correct I I know that before it became a PUD that that uh this kind of housing would not have been an allowable use what makes it an allowable use just because it's in a PUD and mean the Pud when it was approved had didn't specify that there was a planned or allowed uh dormatory housing multi multi you know that's correct that's why we're before the board to make the amendment to allow the use and go from a commercial use to the dormatory housing how many how many uh dormitories would commercial allow uh it would allow a hotel there that would basically serve the same uh transient lodging up to six months would be available to them at 20 units per acre on a hotel so we we actually captured the residential density uh even though this is an accessory used to the club it's we actually they had density to give so we captured the 32 units as residential density on this project Which is less than what a hotel density would have been at 20 units per acre uh can we hear from the applicant please yes good morning Madam chair members of the board uh Brian Nolan with lcio and Associates representing Jupiter Hills Club I also have in attendance with me today artilla cardones of the Jupiter Club jupyter Hills Club and uh Jerry Garcia uh Jerry Garcia Jerry Compton with cre Engineers um if it pleases the board I can run through my presentation sure uh so again this this use is a proposed employee housing uh within the Jupiter Hills PUD uh this will be used by uh seasonal employees of the club many of which are PGA professionals uh typical employee will travel around uh various clubs throughout the year uh Jupiter Hills uh being one of them uh part of the reason we're doing this we're here today is as we all know there's a shortage of of affordable housing around particularly short-term uh rentals as many of these employees are seasonal um and as noted housing the employees within uh within the community will save trips um we are approximately one mile uh from the front door of uh of the facility to the clubhouse and we do have a direct uh sidewalk connection uh bicycles will be provided by the club we have a bike rack in the plan that I'll I'll go through in a minute um and also during you know inclement weather the uh jupo Hills Club also has has uh shuttles that they can use to get uh the employees from point A to point B um as staff stated um we are proposing to amend uh the approved use of phase 9ine from commercial to employee housing with a parking rate of one space uh minimum per bed and a minimum age to reside in the housing of 18 years old um and we have updated the master plan graphic to reflect the proposed use a graphic depiction in The Preserve area and we also noted uh the entry point in the turn Lanes so just for orientation phase 9 here highlighted uh you'll see the proposed site plan the site is 4.59 Acres Approximately 80% uh perious uh 20% impervious um as staff also noted we have a 1 Point uh 25 1.15 acre preserve area or 25% of the site uh with an additional 85 Acres of native landscape to remain and here is an aerial overlay uh with the site plan you see the Turning movements into and out of the site a right in right out off a Federal Highway you'll see we sighted the building uh within an area uh that is less vegetated uh so to speak than the rest of the site and the building is about 90 ft from the property line and it's about another uh 50 or 60 feet from the drive lane for for US1 you see here where the parking lot is located um pedestrian access ramp the the site does ramp up from uh Federal so you see we have uh the ADA Compliant ramp and sidewalks surrounding the parking area uh we are providing a bike rack as I mentioned the club plans to provide bicycles uh to the employees to get back and forth we have our dry detention area between the building and US1 our lift station the refu enclosure as mentioned we do have a native preserve on site uh this preserve is cited uh also adjacent to other existing preserve to provide a cohesive uh maybe larger preserve area if you will we also do have an additional almost 0.9 or 085 acres to be exact native Landscaping to remain uh both along US1 uh to the East and to the West uh behind the G by the gulf course you can see here the landscape plan uh it is 100% native vegetation as to views into the building we are preserving to the extent we can final engineering plans are still being worked out like I said there is grading issues but we do propose um a decent landscape buffer uh between the building and US1 um admittedly there will probably be a shot of the narrow side of the building from federal uh as you pass the project entry um as to the building it is single story 20 ft in height with two entry points we have a common area kitchen uh laundry room laundry facilities uh for the employees to utilize we do have a manager Suite a two-bedroom uh two B with a kitchenet and small eating area for the managers and 30 employee rooms including four accessible room rooms and I appreciate your time and I'm here to answer any questions commissioner caps yes I I applaud your efforts to have some affordable housing for working people that that is good U but this land then this type of land is so sensitive environmentally um um that I don't think I can support this um scrub habitat is disappearing in this state and there are lots of creatures that can only live there and for that reason I don't think I can support this can you point to the um public benefits in the Pud uh as as we indicated we are providing the the preservation and additional native landscape um we are taking trips off the road and providing affordable housing for these employees on site um I think over and above that which was already approved in the original PUD um you know those are those are the benefits there are no modifications to the original PUD at least they weren't included in my packet so there are no public benefits that are uring as part of this uh Amendment at least I don't have it is is there is the uh P the public benefit have they been amended uh no it's a 366 acre existing PUD from 1978 those benefits were probably established at that time uh this is an additional 4.5 Acres that was done as part as phase nine of the project so we didn't feel that anything above the trip capturing and the affordable housing aspect of the Pud was necessary and I would offer too that you know the the as as it was touched on the approved use in the master plan is commercial and I would argue that this is a a less intense use we can argue the degree to which um but that what could potentially be on the site under a blanket commercial uh designation uh again to have a viable commercial site we have 80% of this site is left imper uh perious versus 20% of the site uh as impervious so I think this this proposal I think is a one could argue is a far less intense use than what could potentially uh be on the site now granted whatever is on the site um you know depending on the level may have to come before for you but as it stands now this is a a relatively uh lower intense use commissioner caps who owns this land right now Jupiter Hills the the HOA the homeowners association or or the the club the club okay all right good thank you commissioner campy thank you very much lot to unpack here um just for clarity sake the original PUD was nearly 50 years ago I agree with you and what staff had mentioned that I'm sure there was an extraction of a public benefit then for the uni for the overall site if that was a thing that was happening back in the 19 late 70s so I don't think that it would be necessarily fair that every time that the club came forward looking to make some kind of an alteration that they should have to give an additional benefit of of consequence I think the things that our staff mentioned and you reiterated about less cars on the road uh the opportunity to create a housing uh because if those folks don't move into this facility they're somewhere else in the community utilizing rental properties that someone else could use if they didn't have the option as you mentioned it back in 1986 nearly 40 years ago it create it had a commercial use for that specific property since then and it could have been from what I'm hearing from our staff it could have been a hotel which if the concern is how much can you see this from US1 I'm sure you could see the hotel from us one I'm sure that 32 beds uh generates way less trips than a hotel would which would be like one of the highest trip generators as far as I can imagine the highest trip generation would be a hotel change the character of the area down there I know on the Marines on the water side it's kind of a marine Vibe what you said is true in terms of the the plan that you showed out of the 4.5 Acres you're really only um utilizing 1.5 Acres so to my colleague commissioner Cap's concern which I I I hear them about the the decrease of of habitat what you are proposing would leave the most potential habitat so I I check that and I hear lots of people talking when one of the questions was well how come dormatory housing for employees wasn't listed originally on the Pud back in 1978 because that wasn't a thing back then but it's certainly a thing now uh golf courses in particular and I have a history and a background with golf courses um you are the first people that have gotten all the way to the commission as far as I know with the the concept of finding some kind of housing for employees I know some of the other Golf Course uh that we've discussed I think what also needs be taken into consideration for decision-making for the five of us is that Jupiter Hills Club and Community is one of the Premier I'll speak for the golf course is one of the Premier golf courses not just in our area or in the state but in the country it is renowned uh and we are so fortunate as a community to have it located here so I think in my opinion at least we should be doing everything we can to facilitate what you'd be looking to do and to thank you for that because I can imagine the tax base generation is monstrous with the community and the club uh you really give us um you know it's it's a feather in the cap of Martin County as far as I'm concerned to have Jupiter Hills Club here um it could have been a different commercial use you have uh created the smallest footprint in in the area that you could use so to my colleague's point there still will be un uninterrupted undisturbed uh habitat and you own the property you've been paying taxes on the property have a legitimate right to utilize the property as you see fit and um and when we talk about trying to create housing opportunities especially for Workforce you're doing it for all of those reasons I would happily make the motion to accept staff's recommendation commissioner Vargas yes um I do I do understand and I do empathize with commissioner caps because I like to hike and I like to see vegetation I'd like to think see our natural environment undisturbed um to my past point about having lived and understand the convenience and the affordability has a viable benefit to attracting quality employees um permanency seasonal permitting um I I think that this is um this is a a a project that is not as invasive as some other petitions we've received but it would have to be deemed exclusively for employee use and maintained up to the caliber of of the club itself fully understood and this use is very limited to employee housing and it is Jupiter Hills Club and they they will make sure that that it is kept up to up to speed right I assume it's an equity membership club so this is owned by the members correct correct okay so so in the future if they say you wouldn't it be nice to put a hotel more units here that cannot happen because this would be written very tightly where there's no airspace for anything else is that correct correct correct the only way that could happen with my knowledge it would be coming back back here to change the use but don't come back here to change the use don't plan on it good commissioner heatherington yeah I I think we have a major major major challenge facing us with Workforce and affordable housing and like commissioner campy said I I actually appreciate that there are private we all have to have skin in that game to face some of us I have some constituents in my district who work at clubs around the county and their rent has doubled and they're looking at moving out of the area and they're good contributing employees of some of these um clubs and some of the things that we feel are assets in Martin County so I particularly like that there's skin in the game and the private sector and the public sector We're All in This Together to uh address Workforce housing so I like the project I like the way you've used it I'm satisfied with The Preserve area and the way you've managed it and increased The Preserve so I will gladly second it would anyone from the public like to address us uh commissioner herd I just see Mr Nolan to either turn in his Affidavit of notice or confirm that you turned it in already sure uh it was turned in at LPA thank you thank you any further questions um I'm I still am dissatisfied with the um the language of the Pud zoning agreement there's no mention of a limitation of beds there's only the mention of one parking spot will be provided per employee and there are 49 parking spots I'm also concerned that there are that there is not a uh an amended uh PUD agreement because there's there required to be public benefits and if there are public benefits they are not listed there's a motion in a second all those in favor I I opposed oppos opposed that motion passes 3 to2 with commissioner's U caps and her dissenting we'll break for lunch now shall we come back at 1:30 that good --------- ##VIDEO ID:oameMmh2FMU## e e e e e f e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e you're on we're good we are now resuming our board meeting with public hearing quasi judicial number two which is a public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance amending division five we no uh Hope Sound article community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin County Code Florida's mobile park LLC Mr Senate commissioner oh yeah this is quasi judicial so Mr Senate have you turned over all the necessary I items to the clerk my work history and the agenda item to be filed as exhibit one terrific let's go through expart disclosures commissioner Vargas uh none and have been filed Pusher caps if I have any they have been filed I have none and they've been filed commissioner campy I have none they've been filed and commissioner heatherington I don't have any and they've been filed would anyone who's going to be providing testimony please stand up and be sworn Raise Your Right hands do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and are there any interveners no interveners excellent please proceed thank you madam chair I'm John Senate senior planner with growth management this is a request by engineering design and construction on behalf of Florida's mobile park for approval of an amendment to division 5 Hope Sound article 12 community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin County Code for subdistrict change from the current General subdistrict to the corridor subdistrict the subject property is an existing recreational vehicle park located at 10705 Southeast Federal Highway south of Southeast Porter Boulevard and west of Southeast Dixie Highway within the hob sound ra the subject site is outlined in red it's approximately 7.98 Acres it's an existing recreational vehicle park it is bound to the west by Federal Highway and to the east by Dixie Highway and to the north by Porter Boulevard the Greek Orthodox church is located to the north of the site across Porter Boulevard this mobile home Community to the South is the c cbze mobile Manor Mobile Home Park the property owner also owns this it's approximately 1.3 acre undeveloped parcel north of this L-shaped building however the property outlined in red is the subject of this application the property is located in the hob sound CRA to the east of the site we see the regular article 3 zoning districts R2 and r2b the future land use designation of the site is CRA Center as well as uh properties to the North and the southwest of the CRA Center designation the mobile home park to the South has the CRA neighborhood designation and to the east of the property across Dixie Highway and the FEC RightWay we see the low density future land use designation the current subdistrict of the property is General to the north of the property we also see the general subdistrict and to the south of the property we see the corridor and the mobile home subdistricts Florida's mobile park proposes a change from the current General subdistrict to the corridor subdistrict recreational vehicle park is not a permitted use in the general subdistrict the applicant is seeking the change in order to establish recreational vehicle park as a permitted use on the site the corridor subdistrict is in intended to extend The Pedestrian oriented building types frontages and Street Scapes along a major roadway this is an excerpt from Martin County Land Development regulations Section 12101 G it demonstrates which subdistricts are designed to implement a particular future land use designation as you can see the requested Corridor subdistrict is consistent with the CRA Center future land use designation the subject site does have the CRA Center future land use designation these are the development standards for the existing General subdistrict and the proposed Corridor subdistrict most of the development standards are identical you can see maximum residential density is 10 units per acre building coverage is 60% maximum height 30 feet two stories minimum open space 20% these are the conditions supporting the request the subject sit's location along Southeast Federal Highway and Southeast Dixie Highway which are classified as arterial roadways is consistent with the goals of the corridor subd District the range of residential and non-residential uses permitted in the corridor subdistrict is compatible with the established pattern of development in this area of the Hoban CRA the proposed change to the corridor subdistrict is consistent with the underlying CRA Center future land use designation this matter was heard before the LPA on January 16th of this year they voted four to zero to approve with one absence development review staff have found the Florida's mobile park application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the staff report staff recommendation is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as exhibit one and move that the board adopt the ordinance amending division 5 hob sound article 12 community redevelopment code Land Development regulations Martin County Code to change the CRA subd district from General to Corridor on the subject site that concludes my presentation questions for Mr Senate you have a presentation good afternoon for the record Brad curry with Haley Ward um I have been sworn in and I turned in the notice affidavit at the LPA meeting for the notices for this project today I'm representing the owner of a 7.97 acre property located on the east side of US1 and on the south side of Porter Avenue staff did an excellent job presenting the application I do have a presentation but I don't need to go through it because I think staff did an excellent job um many of you know this property is the old angle in I think it has a um little bit of history with people that have been in County for a while and U my client bought the property in 2010 and started um cleaning it up and and making it a respectable RV Resort here in Martin County we started this project some time ago several months ago and one of the the intent of the reason I got involved with this project was to do a Redevelopment of the parcel and so we started looking at the land use and zoning and we realized that the zoning and land use this property was changed in 2020 and it was changed to uh general subdistrict which does allow RV parks so under the current subdistrict we would not be able to do a Redevelopment plan for this project um and so that was the first first thing we wanted to do was change the subdistrict so that we could start the Redevelopment um this is an older park it does have its own sewer um treatment package on the on the on the project today and we would like to remove that and put a lift station in and tie into a municipal sewer the subdistrict change was done in 2020 really at the height of of cod and and I think my client if he had if they had known that you know that there subd District change was going to make it to where RV parks were no longer allowed we would have definitely voiced Our concern but I believe with everything that was going on in 2020 it just was missed so really the first step in doing any kind of Redevelopment for this project would be to get the subdistrict to be consistent with what our proposed use is and also what the existing use on the property is today the owners of the property Susie and Mike Graham are here today along with Chris story who's helping us with this project and we' be to answer any questions you have regarding the project commission caps yes um so connecting to sewer is going to be in the future if we were to do a Redevelopment plan yes sir that would be part of the plan would be to to have a lift station that would tie into Municipal sewer but but it's not the plan for Florida days uh RV park it present would um yes sir it could be I mean it would require a site plan approval to make any changes to the plan right now and so part of that site plan change would be that we have a use that's consistent with the subdistrict okay you mentioned Redevelopment by going from General to Corridor I understand we need to do that in order to be able to do RVs and and and I'm good with that um but does that also bring additional development rights that might not currently exist like like next year could they do away with the RV park and put in condos um I'm not sure about the residential uses I do know that the general and the court and the general subdistrict and the corridor subdistrict I believe um Mr Senate did have a slide up that showed the difference in uses there so there are different uses that are allowed in the different subd districts I'm not sure if condos are allowed in the in the corridor or not I don't the density for this property I believe is capped at 10 units per acre whether it's RVs or whether it's multif family or something else so it's it's that density is going to be capped mhm so uh so what do you think about that like um like could there be like unintended cons like I'm cool with uh with having an RV park in Hoptown I think we need one um and these people have done a great job uh cleaning this one up and they' great Community Partners and they have done uh you know they're a major part of our community now and there's a big demand for RV parks but I'm I'm just thinking about the changing nature of parcels and and like say they sold it 2 years from now would would there be some increased property rights that go along with this change that could bring unintended consequences I'm just trying to think down the road um potentially uh both the existing General subdistrict and the corridor subdistrict allow allow for a variety of permitted uses from residential to Commercial and I'm trying to find that slide I have here development standards so both the proposed Corridor and the existing General they have the same maximum residential density 10 units per acre same building coverage same height same minimum open space m um so you could make the argument that even their existing General subdistrict would allow the owners or if they were to sell it they could potentially do a more intense development than a recreational vehicle park but that that right would exist under either correct uh subdistrict is that the right word correct yes okay well I would move approval uh I think the uh and I would also say that uh we appreciate all you've done for hobes sound uh cleaning up that Park and making it so nice and uh and being a good Community Partners in our town so thank you and I I'll make that motion Miss Elder um Elise Elder County attorney just a point of clarification the subd district did change the zoning in 2020 and it does not allow RV parks but RV parks were not permitted before that so I just want the record clear on that point commissioner Vargas yeah so I understand that this was not a permitted Park initially is that correct yes I believe the and the applicant clarify if they'd like to but I believe the use of the property dates back to the 1970s when it was a mobile home park and I think recreational V vehicles have been on the property for some time now I think around the hurricanes in 2004 2005 there was a a transition to more of a recreational vehicle park use but there's no site plan that's been approved by Martin County right it devel official now we are this as opposed to that uh you mentioned about lift station tying into the sewer who pays for that the applicant would pay for that I saw her doing this yeah I'm sorry the the applicant would be responsible for constructing the lift station and then tying in and then um they would be responsible also for the maintenance of it as well and that would be South Martin Regional utilities and the storm water system too we would have to improve the storm water yes ma'am currently there's no storm water really on the property right now and it any kind of new site plan would have to be brought up to today's code okay you know hobes sound you have to be very gentle with that community and I I get it totally as a Meridian um it's like opposite ends of the county you've got jenssen Beach Rio and you have hob sound they're kind of cousins kind of look sort of like each other but not quite so we're very protective I would also like to point out that this application did go to the Hoptown NAC on November 13th of last year and they spoke favorably of this application and um the owner's long-term vision for the site commissioner campy thank you very much uh the things that stand out to me is that with the ability to make this change you could go from a package plant which is your current uh septic management system to a lip station to Municipal sewer that alone is well worth it uh the fact that you were operating a business that had the underlying change the underlying use changed this became an unintended consequence so yeah it makes sense that we would allow you to keep doing your business with something it wasn't like hey we just showed up and we want to do this well you can't well we were already doing it you know so I would assume that that would have you know sort of grandfathered in or gone along with it and as we heard from both our staff and the applicants representative it wasn't in great shape prior to you taking it and you've improved it which is what we always would hope for so and the fact that as commissioner caps had mentioned the fear of an unintended consequence you basically could do now what you would be able to do in the future so I will second commissioner Cap's motion and I thank you for your um continuing to do business with Martin County would any member of the public like to address us on this item seeing none there's a motion on the floor and a second all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you Commissioners and bringing Chris's story with you doesn't hurt at all either good to see you m story nice to see you brought the closer with you we will now take up uh public hearing quasa judicial 3 which is a public hearing to consider a request to designate a Brownfield on 9670 Southwest marineway LLC and here to present for the county is Jen she has something to say okay Comm yes this property is related to Ferrera group and as a consultant of that I will be abstaining recusing myself from the vote I have filed my form 8B with the clerk and um therefore I will obain okay uh this is quasi judicial uh Miss Nai have you produced all of your records to hand to the clerk yes ma'am the agenda item and a copy of my work history has been turned into the clerk terrific and Commissioners commissioner Vargas any expart disclosures none uh filed okay filed commissioner caps if I have any they have been filed I have them and they've been filed commissioner campy I've had someon they've been filed commissioner heatherington if any they've been filed and anyone who's going to be providing testimony please stand and be sworn in do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and are there any interveners no interveners in this and new Commissioners this is novel for us I've never considered a Brownfield application it's it's not that typical yeah a steuart is still in you know the initial phase because I was inquired about that proceed please thank you very much good afternoon Commissioners my name is Jenna Obi senior planner with the growth management department and this is the first public hearing on a request to designate a Brownfield by 9670 Southwest marineway LLC there are two required public hearings for this type of request and the second public hearing will be held on February 11th 2025 Florida statute section 37680 outlines the administration process of the Brownfield program and states that the jurisdictional local government shall adopt a resolution designating property as a Brownfield if the requesting party establishes that all of the necessary criteria have been met during these public hearings the subject property is located at 9670 Southwest Marine Way in unincorporated Martin County it's approximately 7.75 acres and has a future land use designation of commercial Waterfront and a zoning District of Waterfront General commercial there currently An approved minor final site plan for the property and that uh the approved uses through that site plan include a marine construction equipment warehouse office building space a boat ramp gravel parking storm water dry detention and green space Florida statute defines Brownfield sites as real property the expansion Redevelopment or reuse of which may be Complicated by actual or perceived D environmental contamination the applicant has submitted this request to Martin County to designate the property as a Brownfield and they need to establish during these two required public hearings that the criteria outlined in the Florida statute has been met for this request I know that the applicant has a presentation as well where they'll go through those five criteria that they they must comply with there are also specific public hearing procedures for these types of requests that the board must follow the first of which is that there's the two required public hearings and also that one of the two public hearings must be held after 5:00 p.m. unless the board by a majority plus one votes to hold that public hearing at a time other than 5:00 p.m. so with that being said the staff recommends that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments including the staff report as exhibit one and move that the board hold the second public hearing on this request to designate the property as a Brownfield on February 11th 2025 at 9:00 a.m. or as soon after as the matter may be heard and prior to 5:00 p.m. also forgot to mention that uh the brownfields program is administered through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection so that's the agency that oversees this program and there are uh state-based Financial incentives that are afforded to sites that are designated as brownfields and I know that the applicant can go into more detail on that but that concludes staff's presentation and we're available for any questions Miss Nai if um the request to hear this the next one before 5 o' has to be passed by uh a super majority is that because there's an abstention is that three or four it would be four votes okay thanks uh any questions from Miss naby applicant oh I'm sorry commissioner caps you have a question first sorry um just for the Public's benefit yes um I think I'll mention this and you tell me if I'm right um it's important to remember that this is not an application to build a project that's correct U these folks already have their approvals yes s the Marine Center or or that thing that you described that it's going to be is going to happen one way or the other so uh because the approval is already in place uh the purpose of having this land designation as a Brownfield is to help the owner get a Florida corporate tax credit uh and that is the only issue here associated with this and uh you know I when I was studying this it was very interesting I thought well we we probably need to hear some evidence that there's been contamination here where's the science showing this and that's not our job as a County government that's for the Department of Environmental Protection to figure out you know as to the legitimacy of whether there's actual contamination that's because they're the ones who are paying for this not not us so I think it's important just that the public understand what this hearing is all about what it is and what it is not you know so it's it's not it's not to approve a project uh they're trying to get a Brownfield designation so that they can get a tax credit as I understand it yes good thank you now applicant good afternoon Madam chair members of the commission and County staff my name is Brett brummond with the goldsteen environmental law firm I'm here on behalf of the property owner 9670 Southwest Marine Way LLC as staff mentioned we're here at the first of two public hearings but I'd like to give a broad overview of the property its environmental history and the project and then I will discuss the five criteria for designation that are set forth in the statute I'll be available to answer any questions so as staff mentioned this is a single parcel located on the St Lucy canal it's proposed for a water dependent use um due to its location on the canal it's a fantastic location for an expansion of forer constructions Marine construction operations uh but just to start uh we are here uh to request approval of a resolution that would designate this property as a Brownfield area which is the first step in the process of entering into a Brownfield site Rehabilitation agreement with FD and that is a voluntary cleanup agreement that's required for access to these incentives and under that agreement the property owner is agreeing to conduct voluntary cleanup of contamination of issues at at the site that it did not cause so these are environmental issues that existed uh for a long time since at least uh the early 19 or mid to early 1900s when the agricultural uses in the area started so what this resolution would do if approved is it would create a Brownfield area which is defined as a contiguous area of one or more Brownfield sites uh some which may not be contaminated in this case they are uh or I'm sorry the property is and which has been designated by a local government by resolution so this is the process the legislature created as the first step uh it's intended to promote public participation in a program that is although public record it's otherwise somewhat opaque generally people are not aware of the site Rehabilitation that's going on around them so this uh in exchange for making this a public process the uh state grants certain limited incentives that come at no cost to the county these are funded uh as Florida corporate income tax credits through the the Florida corporate income tax uh exclusively uh those tax credits are limited there's an annual cap of a million dollar in cost and that tax credit is equal to about 50% of those costs so this is also not a grant program this is a program that requires the property owner to pay for their site Rehabilitation costs upfront and then apply to the state every year after the fact for that partial reimbursement so looking at the property Redevelopment plans as mentioned by staff the uh development is uh approved for construction the site plan is approved and for a construction intends to use the property which is being constructed by 9670 Southwest Marine Way LLC for a new base of operations for its Marine construction arm the access to the St Lucy Canal will provide it Coast to Coast uh access for marine construction equipment to do things like dock construction bulk heads dredging and and work like that that is entirely dependent on the water uh specifically proposed here is a 12,000 foot square 12,000 squ foot Warehouse a 7900 ft office building a boat ramp and a new bulk head along the canal uh this work is expected to create 30 full-time equivalent positions with uh pay ranging from 20 to $35 an hour and those positions will consist of dock Builders laborers equipment operators and Carpenters uh also the applicant did do a wildlife survey and identified several gopher tortoises that are on the property so they are in the process of Permitting those tortois for relocation uh a letter has been submitted to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission that uh uh confirms there is a reservation for these tortoises so the relocation work still needs to happen but the construction will not start until those tortoises are relocated we hope that construction will start by March 1st but that's all dependent on when those tortoises can be moved so looking at the environmental history at this site uh agricultural use took place for about 60 years up until 1986 and it resulted in some isolated uh soil and groundwater contamination likely as a result of the application of common pesticides and herbicides over time uh what we're seeing out there is an area if you look at the figure towards the bottom of the screen there are different areas of impacted soil that will be uh targeted for removal and relocation uh specifically from the dry retention area and the area the uh future buil ramp in any area that could be exposed to storm water infiltration uh there's also uh impacted groundwater that's been monitored for several years it's located it's located in the North Central Area of the property it does appear to be stable Andor shrinking which is our standard for uh being near the the cleanup completion goal however here after construction is complete that groundwater monitoring will continue for at least one year after construction under what's called a post active remediation monitoring plan uh the property owner has also submitted a soil management plan to FD which was approved in November that describes how these soil will be managed and in fd's response they required uh they approved that soil management plan and required some additional groundwater monitoring Wells to be installed post construction and the area of the impacted groundwater we're seeing are located generally in this area of the property North Central with groundwater flow going generally towards the canal and the idea here is that the new bulkhead will prevent any uh impact of groundwater from flowing towards the canal at the completed proc project uh so your role here today as the board of County Commissioners is to uh confirm that we have satisfied the five criteria for designation uh those criteria are touching on them very briefly that first the designation be requested by someone who owns or controls the property they must also have a Redevelopment plan and they must agree to conduct site Rehabilitation here the applicant is the property owner they do a Redevelopment plan as evidenced by their minor site plan approval and they already in the process of conducting site Rehabilitation as evidenced by their submitt of a soil management plan and the continuation of semiannual groundwater monitoring while they've owned the property the second Criterion is that the rehabilitation or Redevelopment must result in economic productivity and create at least five new jobs that did not previously exist uh these jobs have to be located on site they can't be associated with the construction work itself for the rehabilitation work itself but here the applicant expects to create 30 new jobs with rate uh wages raging between $ 20 to $35 an hour and as I mentioned those jobs will consist of laborers equipment operators and dock Builders as well as Carpenters the third Criterion for uh designation is that the Redevelopment must be consistent with local comprehensive plan and Land Development regulations and again as evidenced by the County's approval of the minor site plan uh we think we've met that Criterion uh the uh comp County's comprehensive plan also does mention brownfields Redevelopment and encouraging a designation of Brownfield areas uh however I think in this case it's very clear that this project is generally constructible and permittable for its location in the county and added to that this is a heavily water dependent use and this location directly on the canal really facilitates that there are not many other options anywhere else for this project to go uh the fourth Criterion is that notice must be provided through posting and publication in accordance with statutory requirements and we must give the applicant must give those receiving notice and opportunity to comment and ask questions and we did that through uh providing notice of two Community meetings we held one back in November we had no attendees and we held a second community meeting following announcement at the last Board of County Commissioners meeting we hel that meeting that community meeting on January 23rd we had one member of the press attend um and that was he did not provide many comments uh but we discussed the brownfields program generally and how uh this uh project qualifies for it and finally the the final Criterion is that the applicant must provide reasonable assurance that the financial resources to complete complete the rehabilitation and Redevelopment with the idea here being that FD does not want to uh allow a project into the program when there's no realistic possibility of it being built here the applicant provided a letter certifying that they do have the financial resources available to complete the project uh the applicant is also affiliated with forer construction company which has had immense success with Redevelopment projects both locally and Nationwide so that just bolsters the ability for this applicant to complete their own Redevelopment project here with that I'm available to answer any questions thank you Mr Vargas what is the cost to clean up this property you must have a number in mind an actual number not made up yes commissioner so I believe the soil management costs alone those would I I believe based on the budget we were provided those would be about $300,000 for the soil management costs the groundwater monitoring program I don't have a number for that but that will continue for at least four quarters post construction uh that's typically less than $100,000 in the range of T the tens of thousands of dollars but the soil management will be the biggest component of this Redevelopment in cleanup project so do you have a number for that I think it will be I don't I don't have an exact number but I think it's in the range of about $300,000 the 300,000 and then this company is applying to the State Fund for the brownfields grant program funds is that correct so they would be applying for the voluntary cleanup tax credit program yes and this that is not a grant program it's a Florida corporate income tax so if they say were to incur that full for example if they were to incur that full $300,000 in the year 2025 they would be eligible for a $150,000 Florida corporate income tax credit right 50% okay what is the maximum on this program per year there is a uh cap per site of $1 million in costs and this program the legislature recently tripled the funding from $10 million a year to $35 million a year as evidence is how popular this program is Statewide for projects like this so is there a limit on the number of years that they have to complete the project to clean up is it four years three years there is no limit on the number of years however uh there is a bonus tax credit available for completing your project so when the state issues your site Rehabilitation completion order uh you're eligible to receive a bonus of 25% of your previously incurred cost or previously approved costs up to $2 million so that's another maximum of a $500,000 tax credit as uh a goal for you to complete your project okay so the tax credits are derived from imputing tax on other corporations is that what I'm understanding within the State of Florida and and that's where they pull the funds from correct yes yeah the the Florida corporate income tax credit or Florida corporate income tax funds the program and these tax credits are issued so a company can use it to defer their own corporate income tax or they could be transferred to an entity that can yes right exactly I understand what you're saying so what when you're you're cleaning it's two three four years 10 years I think that is unlikely very unlikely here we want to get the project built and building the project is part of the remedy all right how are you certain that the property has been cleaned to the capacity that's required before beginning construction so that will be a determination for FD uh the property owner does have a team of professionals that it's uh overseeing and Reporting the work to D ultimately the determination will be based on the data so we'll know the project is the rehabilitation project is complete once all impacted soils are not uh nobody can access them we be exposed to those contaminants and that the groundwater contaminants are stable the plume is stable and or shrinking and that's a determination made by D after reviewing all of the available data commissioner caps yes so this is kind of a academic question but I think I heard these words initially um by Miss Nai um actual or perceived contamination I was just curious what would would be an example of a of a situation where somebody could get a Brownfield designation and a tax credit for perceived contamination instead of actual contamination thank you commissioner that is a great question and one that we work in we work in that area a lot that Arena a lot so typically we would say there was perceived contamination if a developer maybe a prospective purchaser they haven't purchased the property or they just recently purchased the property and they found through say a phase one environmental site assessment uh that for example that the property was a historical Orange Grove orange groves are associated with localized arsenic contamination because of our cynical pesticides that were used to be sprayed on the plants or if an area there's a say a shed on the property for mixing but no data has been collected yet so nobody's gone out there to take soil borings or groundwater or put in groundwater monitoring Wells so we don't know if there's contamination there yet so you can go prospectively and request a designation based on the suspicion that something might be there if you ultimately find nothing great the you're done you can move on but if you do find something then you're able to enter into that cleanup agreement immediately with the state without needing to come back and go through this two public hearing process again interesting thank you any further questions we getting down to the nitty-gritty we are commissioner campy thank you as our chair said we don't do these every day um between Miss naby and you you've educated us on how the process works seems relatively uh straightforward I don't have an issue with your um company the person that hired you to get a tax credit for doing a cleanup so close to a sensitive environmental Waterway if you were not uh willing the company was not willing to take on this endeavor it would just sit and as the rain continues to fall on the property it would continue to wash in so that alone for me gives me a reason to think that this is the right project uh knowing Ferrara that the concern of like hey someone would take this on and it's bigger than they thought they could handle I'm pretty sure it's not bigger than they can handle and uh in terms of would they move at a rapid Pace yes because they're not just cleaning it up to leave it alone they're cleaning it up to turning it into a a sort of a launch point for their Marine business so I'm sure they'll work as quickly as possible because they're not just starting the Marine business either so with all of those uh favorables uh I would make a motion to accept staff's recommendation would any member of the public like to address us on this matter seeing none commissioner caps second any further discussion there's a motion in a second to approve the project um to approve the staff's recommendation oh sorry the motion is to Contin to have the next hearing um before 5 o' and then you'll vote on the designation at the next hearing okay and if we and if we receive a majority vote a super majority we can hear it before 505 correct correct so we'll see if we get that but yes to what you said I'm staff's recommendation was that we would move it to whatever you said February 11 okay so to clarify we are just moving correct this particular issue to the next meeting we are not voting on this today we're voting on moving it to the next I understand that but I'm saying we're not vot on what you said initially to approve this right right well I would do that too but if I can't I won't it's a second public hearing so it's not a continuation it's just moving to hold the second public hearing before five o'clock right on or majority before okay so I'll second that one there's a motion in a second all those in favor I opposed that motion passes four to zero with commissioner heatherington abstaining thank you thank you thank you okay we now will move to Department one which is Stephanie Merle's Department Office of Management and budget items which require board approv approval good afternoon good afternoon commissioner Stephanie merley director of om here to present today's OMB item I have nine items on the agenda today our first item is a permission to apply for the FY 2022 Federal Transit Administration 5339 bus and bus facilities formula grant our Transit department is requesting application to assist in the purchase of a replacement fixed route service bus in the amount of 118,551 $57 and there would be no cash match required for that our second item is a permission to apply for the 2024 call for proposals for hazard mitigation grant program The Watershed planning program um our public works department is requesting $400,000 for a storm water master plan um in the proposed watersheds of South Fork of the St Lucy River robu Creek and Fern Creek bre these um projects will address flood protection resiliency and water quality a $100,000 match Grant match would be required for this which is already budgeted within our storm water master plan CIP sheet our third item is a permission to apply for the FY 2025 small County Outreach or the scop grant through fdot for the Southeast Palm Beach Road resurfacing project our capital projects Division and Public Works is requesting um a grant award in the amount of 1,965 72 for the milling and resurfacing of Southeast Palm Beach Road from Southeast Monterey Road to Southeast Ocean um there would be a grant match required for the balance of the project in the amount of $365,500 item number four is a permission to apply for the fy2 scop grant um through fdot for Southwest Sand Trail in Southwest Sand Avenue resurfacing project Public Works is requesting a grant award in the amount of $972,000 for the milling and resurfacing of Southwest Sand Trail to Southwest Sand Avenue from Martin towns Boulevard um this would require a grant match for the balance of the project of $324,800 which will be programmed within the FY 27 roads program CIP as well item number five is a permission to accept the Florida Department of Children and Families or DCF Court diversion program grant our human services department is requesting the acceptance of a grant award in the amount of $376,500 to support Martin County's mental health court staff and services um this better serves a high needs population with Co occurring mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders to help connect them with the services they need and there is no cash match required for this grant item number six is a permission to accept the Florida Department of En Environmental Protection FTE grant for the Martin County Bessie Creek retrofit project um our Public Works is requesting the acceptance of a grant in the amount of $500,000 to fund the design and permitting of the Martin County Bessie Creek retro um this will increase storm water conveyance and capacity and mitigate future flood events and there would be no cash match required and OMB is requesting the amendment of The CIP to show the grant revenues talk now yes commissioner campy I just wanted to take a moment I know you had nine of these and they're all important to somebody but this is a huge huge event on our um in Palm City this is something that uh Public Works and myself and others and the community have been working on for a long time and this is a huge amount of money towards our goal it's multi-million dollar project half a million dollars with no match uh not only does it uh clean up water uh through the area it creates uh a lot of drainage Corrections and management and I could not be happier with our staff for not only doing the project but finding clever and creative ways to have funding come from outside of our County to help pay for it job well done thank you item number seven is a permission to accept the Federal Aviation Administration the FAA bipartisan infrastructure law Grant um to extend and expand the taxi way a hold Bay design um our airport is requesting the acceptance of a grant award for $ 44,400 um and it requires a match of approximately $3,800 to come from our Airport Enterprise fund which is budgeted within our airport CIP item number eight is a a request to allocate allocate a contribution for the southeast Luna Road Southeast Southeast cable Drive turn lane project um in accordance with the development order issued to the property owner of the vacant land north of Southeast l Road um the de developer has contributed funds in the amount of $9,746 and 25 cents to construct an eastbound left and Westbound right turn lane within Southeast Lal Road wi um RightWay access for the hunter Lake subdivision and OMB is requesting the adoption of a budget resolution in order to allocate these funds in the budget and last but not least is a request to to amend the hul Library outdoor space Capital Improvement plan sheet um the proposed hul Library outdoor space will feature lighting seating and Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility to Pro support a variety of activities um we are requesting that we allocate Library impact fees due to the increase in the cost of materials um associated with the construction of this project there are funds available within the library impact fee fund and om is just requesting the amendment of that CIP to recognize those Library impact fees and that's all I have today questions I'll move staff's recommendation for approval second any further questions there's a motion in a second to approve uh Department one all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you next up is Department two contracts that meet the threshold for board approval of a million dollars or more and Christy Brotherton will present good afternoon I have one item for your consideration today again Christy Brotherton Chief procurement officer um this is a change order for the Southwest water sideway and State Road 76 caner Highway roadway construction project um the purpose of this change order is IT addresses additional work items that were not anticipated in the original project scope um this includes extensive excavation remove unsuitable soil material within the roadway limits as well as adjustments for other unforeseen conditions and minor scope quantity modifications um staff is recommending that the board approve change order number two to CW Roberts Contracting in the amount of 7 $ 7,11 and no documents related to this request and that concludes this item that's nice why isn't the south Florida Gateway PUD paying for this Improvement George Zama Martin County Public Works deputy director um yeah this this material is from a lake uh that was that's shared it's a shared storm water Pond um by both the county and the Pud and um we were hoping that the material would be suitable but uh for the roadway but um for the long-term longevity of the roadway um we opted to um stockpile the material for our future site which is required to have a uh vegetative privacy burm so it's it will be used in the future for the county um Jim Gordon Public Works director the purchase agreement that we had for that property included the requirement that the county construct that right away so we got a a discount on the property per acre but we had to build the roadway to access our property so water sideway was a requirement of our purchase agreement so what kind of a discount did we get because it looks to me like providing the RightWay is costing us 5 million bucks um it was I don't have those figures with I don't think it was a bargain yeah it was um if if you remember we we did purchase that prop property at a time where where um real estate was pretty volatile and we we um um did get a discount at the time but I I don't know that it was you know $5 million discount but it was a um the reason this roadway has to be built the way that it is is because we're going to put our heavy trucks this is where our operations are going to go so we had to really uh engineer this roadway to accept our trucks so they're going to have dump trucks heavy lad Ms um uh as well as the uh vehicles coming out of the Caris cold building as well which is a Reaper trucks refrigerated um tractor trailers that are begin using that roadway so it's it's a a really industrial roadway that we built that'll hold up over time thank you any further questions motion to accept staff's recommendation second there's a motion and a second any further discussion all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you next up is uh Department three a request to discuss a text Amendment to the comprehensive growth management plan revising industrial future land use designation Mr Duan good afternoon members of the board as the executive summary describes uh the comprehensive growth management plan in the industrial future land use designation currently provides the option of Permitting freestanding uh industrial urban service districts outside the primary and secondary urban service districts uh the board has directed staff to bring forward this agenda item to uh present and consider the initiation of a of a text Amendment to the comprehensive growth management plan that would uh take that text found in the comprehensive plan currently out of the plan and uh remove that as an option um staff seeks Direction on the attached resolution to initiate an amendment to the comprehensive growth management plan um I requested this uh we um reive the results of a 2023 commercial and Industrial needs and and analysis that clearly found that no uh additional industrial or commercial lands need to be designated in Martin County that we have enough for the very very far future and uh freestanding urban service boundaries uh deplete resources and revenues um at at an astonishing rate and also they prohibit planning if they can happen anywhere in Martin County then we cannot plan for the necessary Urban uh services to provide for them so it's it's uh it's an important planning and resource and funding protection for us Mission campy I have I'm a bit confused in regards to your desire Madam chair is it to somehow manage the existing ones or is it to make sure that we don't create another one it's we can't do anything with the ones that are already designated my my uh uh desire is to prohibit designating future freestanding urban service boundaries because they're terrible for the county understand um my concern when I use the term managing existing ones for an example if there was hypothetically one of these uh that had made a p sold off a portion of its property uh on one side of the property to a governmental entity for environmental benefit and then was able to purchase directly adjacent to it on the other side not exactly apples for apples the acreage but we're talking less than 250 Acres would they I think we should allow them to include the new purchase of property that's adjacent to their freestanding urban service District because they did all right here it is can you make it larger enlarge it certainly um I think what Mr Camp is referring to Commissioners is that we have currently an application in uh to expand the egg te uh freestanding urban service District uh where my curs where the cursor is shown right there can you do you have the ability to switch that to a satellite view please I can go to the map thank you oh that's all yeah just that version is fine I'm very familiar with this portion of property it was recently sold to the folks folks that own this um the Martin triangle it's if you can move that white box out of the way thanks it's got a very large lake in the more usable portion and you can see as it heads North it gets very narrow and be nearly impossible to use and then if you can look at the construction on the western side of this property they sold uh property to South Florida Water Management District to continued to create the um connector the connector between the c23 and the c44 I know that this property I'm calling it The Triangle their goal is to include it in to that I don't want to create a situation where they would not be allowed to do that but I hear your point about not creating an additional uh freestanding urban service districts I'm not opposed uh to that I just would want to make sure that we didn't hamstring existing owners of the ones that sjs South Florida Gateway um I keep calling this by its old name what do they call this now a tech is Martin Commerce and um I said seven JS didn't I well anyway those I if you your point is to create a moratorium that we're not going to do that again I'm with you I just want to be able to continue to allow these folks the opportunity to manage their properties uh right Within These specific locations uh to the best benefit because if they benefit we benefit this is not residential this is industrial um I think at least in these two locations that I'm more familiar with in my district uh we are po wased to see a terrific opportunity that we have been waiting for all the way back to the days when agtec was originally created um there were some Global issues that made uh success here in particular during the agtec days much more difficult originally when it was done they had the recession and then there was a m majority philosophy switch on the board for four years and then the property was put for sale and sold and then there was a global pandemic so I think finally all the planets have a line to have the right owner of that property and the right climate um here to make this a success for us directly next to 95 doesn't really not that obtrusive already exists so I would hope that we would leave those kind of um details on the table but I'm not oppos to moving forward on your vision of we're not going to create more of these that's exactly what this item is supposed to do is supposed to give uh Mr duelan uh clear Direction on what is going to be pursued I would certainly support not creating any new freestanding urban service boundaries um because the of the for the reasons that I stated however three carries anything so any so if there if you if two other Commissioners support you then Clyde probably will prepare some options for us right yes commissioner hea heatherington can Clyde if can you put the language on the screen that if you were proposing to remove freestanding urban service boundaries what language would you be striking out of the comprehensive plan well there's no strike and underlying proposed here at this point uh this is the language from the comprehensive growth management plan describing the industrial future land use designation the areas in shaded or the text shaded is is the language that gives the ability to create a free standing urban service District so this language would at the minimum be uh modified if if not stricken so if you have a consensus you're going to bring us back more language if uh if this resolution is adopted today uh this language would come back uh with a staff analysis and a staff report um with proposed changes to this text to uh conceivably there could be options as well to either eliminate this text completely or uh offer for a revised text that has some other options such as uh not permitting new freestanding urban service districts but uh permitting forap perhaps the expansion of existing ones if that's an option that the board wishes to entertain or that don't increase the size of the existing designated freestanding Urban Services Services which is I believe what commissioner campy was suggesting mine would require a bit of an extension because what they gave back on the western side for the canal for the connector is not exactly you know uh a for a it's there's a it would be classified as an expansion but I think under the set of circumstance under the set of circumstances that I mentioned being upfront that's what they that's what they're looking to do there but if it's 225 on the Eastern side and it was 100 118 or whatever on the western side I'm talking it's connected and it makes sense I'm not talking about if it's 1500 acres and then the next door neighbor has a thousand it's now it's 2 200 Acres I think that the word expansion would have to have a definition okay even if you wanted to make it a limit but you wouldn't want to make it impossible for these owners like for instance we where we were just talking about where we're putting our maintenance facility we maneuvered a little bit there because if you remember the original entrance and exit for that Industrial Park was going to be on 96 Street and we swapped out some land from 96 Street and put the entrance on caner where it made more sense that's just it was good for the county but it was also good for the for the owner of the property we would want maybe to say expansion to x amount of Acres not to the point where you've you've open Pandora's Box and it's a thousand acres but if you wanted to say you know you were maneuvering a little bit give a little bit of flexibility into the future versus saying absolutely nothing commissioner Vargas okay so so there's Clarity on this we are going to be voting on cease permitting freestanding urban service districts but if you start to say well just a little bitty this way and that way then who makes that definition as to what's good good enough for that particular owner to be able to spread further out which three votes yeah I I get that but who makes the decision is it just one person professing this right now and the wonderfulness of this or is it something we really have to think about because it has just been on a tear here in Martin County and I heard this recently I I don't know my fellow Commissioners if they've been out there really talking with people and how delighted they are with what's happening with Martin County so so you know we have to be very Vigilant in how we're voting this is not just our County it is of the people and we have thousands of bosses out there we do and they have been strong and they made a statement this last November loud and clear commissioner heatherington I was goingon to say I think this board always takes things on a Case by casee basis which is the way I favor doing things but if if there are applications in that you just mentioned and those predated this conversation wouldn't it be incumbent upon us to hear those items prior to making a change Elise Elder Deputy County attorney you can grandfather in the existing applications so it wouldn't impact them and that would be a smart move because they have the property the board would still hear that application but they any changes prior to that application moving forward forward would it would be would not be applicable it would be retroactive it would be prospective so an existing application would be able to expand if they're in already um but new applications would not and that's how we would word the proposed pre standing Urban Services boundary I mean it would be a new application for right now we have four freestanding Urban Services boundaries would would this triangle piece be number five no we we look at it as a proposed expansion of the existing one okay um but it's it's being brought at a different time for a different property boundary how would it not be construed as number five uh I'll go back to the map uh it's it's adjacent to MH and it has and they're seeking the same land use designation as the existing property this property hatched uh where my cursor is has the agtec future L use designation currently um the applicant is seeking to expand that designation onto this property and change the name of it all at the same time so it's they're seeking two amendments one a future L map Amendment and two an expansion of the freestanding urban service District onto this triangular property so it's it's conceived of and considered simply an expansion of the existing and then I'm trying to get my my head around are we are we voting here now on the actual substantive issues or just a resolution to initiate or as as opposed to the actual substantive issues I mean latter you're voting on the latter to initiate an amendment and then the details of the proposed text would come forward to you at a later time but the board is it's the former okay the board is being asked to give input in what you want in the ordinance that will come forward that will restrict these freestanding industrial C districts so this is not a final determination on the issue it's it's kind of we're asking for direction on what what the board prefers in the ordinance okay okay well are we asking for options about what we might consider correct or that yes whatever you want us to put in the ordinance we could put options we could put one thing it's at the board's desire whatever you prefer commissioner campy Mr Donaldson have something I need to hear first maybe I was just going to Mike just add to briefly to the conversation is in in one is uh commissioner caps and your question regarding is even if it's attached to adjacent property is that a freestanding or is it just an expansion of the existing freestanding that ultimately can also be part of the definitions and the code that they're written so other words if it's as aggregated properties that are contiguous uh could be considered a one freestanding definition or you could write your definition that every individual property whether it's attached or not could be considered its own freestanding I think that's that's it gets more complicated I think but staff is saying that for us The Logical attachment would be that if they're all contiguous and touching we would consider it one that would be I think the way staff would look at it but you could write the definition differently the other thing is is that the today is simply Direction on initiating the actual writing of the code before it comes back and the more specificity you all give us or the more ideas that you put in there it it it enables us to to be a little more precise in what we're writing good thank you thank you um I I think I see the two points here one to commissioner herd's original comments from a couple meetings ago What She Said Today is obviously looking to stop any new ones um this particular case this example that we're using there was a contraction of this property of the urban freestanding urban service District I don't know what level of contraction it was what did do you guys know what they sold off 110 is was this big piece of property and it was from north to south so I've been told it's approximately 100 acres but I don't have the well that's what I'm saying so I mean I get that if we said if we left open the language of expansion that could be too open I'm assuming for you too wide open oh yeah yeah so that being said no yeah so I'm trying in my head to come up with a uh acreage number that would be palatable for my colleague that would allow some flexibility of these existing property owners that is not creating a a level of uncomfortableness for my colleagues because I get what the overall goal is here so I would put on the table I was going to say a percentage would work well depending on how big the property is well what are the these is this the largest of the four oh yes and what is this 1700 Acres currently 1700 Acres yes okay so a percentage percentage or or a number you know six and one half dozen another all I would like to see is if they gave up 110 on the left that they would be able to include this now I think this is 200 did you show what it was on that did it say 200 and something the acreage is around 200 Acres yeah so I mean I would feel remember also that this has a tremendous a 50 acre Lake on it which is unless you're going to paddle around in the water it's not usable uh and then it Narrows some of this way to the top you can see how narrow it gets so a lot of that is not usable either so if my colleagues would agree if we set like a a 250 acre maximum on the four Urban freestanding urban service um districts I think that would allow some reasonable flexibility for tweaking without it turning into a situation where they're actually adding extra commissioner Vargas yes what about a percentage rather than labeling acreage I mean we've made our points here today and um I I think that we need to stop designating freestanding urban service districts um you're talking about joining property that's surrounding it why does it have to be 250 50 acres what what's that number okay why don't we do a percentage all right so if this is 1,700 Acres it's now600 it was 1735 initi gave up and now it's something less than that so 16 let's call it 1630 so then 10 would make it 160 how about 15% 10% 10% doesn't percent what per % this it's well so let me well that's what I'm just trying you obviously what I'm trying I'm not disagreeing with you I I get that we're not going to have any new ones that's fine so so so Clyde needs Direction here so we also have to be concerned about the blob that ate Martin County so let's say you add on another 150 acres then can you add on another percentage no I after that maximum so you get one one little bitty add-on and then you're maximum you have to give them a consolation percentage 10% 10% Works across the board for a lot of business dealings what he's looking to do right here though it it may not but but it's I'm sorry but it's like uh the chairwoman said the blob that ate Martin County I mean that's a good way of putting it we don't have to be fancy about this but I haven't been on the commission that long so we have to look to the previous commission and I'm one of them you are I appreciate that so I am I am only looking to this is already in the pipeline correct this is an application that's in so if they wanted to turn this into a legal matter this is already filed as an application I'm just saying that into the future if we just cover these kind of situations and the percentage works better because if this is the largest one and there's a smaller one and you do set acreage that could be a lot I don't mind 15% that covers this he could come in 3 weeks with the application shows up at a commission meeting and he's going to get what he wants anyway I'm just looking that we can layer it into what we're discussing today give staff very specific detail to move forward so when they come back we're not having this conversation again commissioner heatherington I would favor grandfathering the the the one applicant in and then having a percentage and just for clarification freestanding urban service boundary only applies to industrial property right correct so only so if a future commission 10 12 years this is all developed decides that they don't want to base their you know have their tax base as heavily um dependent on residential then it would take a text amendment to correct change where industrial unless it was inside the urban service boundaries would either take an urban service boundary change or to establish a new industrial freestanding or it would it would require repealing this text Amendment or doing something additional that's correct so we're we're basically definitely tying the hands of a board from 15 years from now correct unless they unless they initiate a new text Amendment and amend it create a new uh text Amendment to allow this that happens it's happening right this minute AE past board created a plan that very you know soon after there was a majority shift is changing I I'm willing to I have a plan Madam chair sure go ahead this is already this application is already in so we could basically leave this one alone uh I think that if we created a situation where the for existing Urban freestanding urban service districts uh are what they are and we're not looking to what do you what's the word moratorium for new ones or prohibition of new ones whatever word smithing you come up with uh with the ability to have as commissioner Vargas said a 10% um contiguous expansion so on one that's 200 Acres you're only getting 20 on this one you could only get extra 10% commissioner Vargas yes uh definitely um I I think that is sufficient again there are other places that can be developed County to the South County to the north counties to the north counties to the west but this is Martin County and I think we have to be very very correct with what the voices spoke loud and clear this this needs to cease and you know the thing is that you can always come back and request an amendment it does not mean that you cannot is that correct if in the future someone wanted to create a freestanding urban service District they would have to first do a text amendment to create put in language similar to what's in there now and then a another amendment to establish it someplace okay so it's there are possibilities maybe always yeah correct well I'll end on the note that our chair started with we did a study that said there is now with these four plenty of acreage available for uh us to have all we wanted in terms of uh Economic Development and expansion of this type of business and I don't disagree with that plus the way that they're located oh someone's coming forward the way that they're situated in the county does give you some coverage as well they're not all in the South or the west or the North so let's hear what this guy has to say Mr caps for clarity um so what we're passing here today is no new ones and 10% expansion of existing ones only no the existing Mr um chair um Commissioners I think what you're giving us direction to do is initiate an amendment and we're taking the the the board Direction the options the discussion here as as our direction to then formulate a staff Report with options for you and I think we have a number of options that you've mentioned that we can bring forward in a staff analysis and you can select from them or you can expand upon them at a future date so the a couple of them that I've heard thus far a couple of these options would be no new ones and 10% EXP expansion of existing ones only and have then have there been any other options presented at this point I've heard here mentioned grandfathering the existing application well that's given that has nothing to do with what you're doing okay grandfathering act anything else have we have we deciphered anything else as far as giving uh staff Direction I think it's pretty cut and dry at this point okay so we're not really voting on the substance of these issues right now correct you're not okay Mr Donaldson no I I I don't need to weigh in you covered it thank you don't tread over here sausage here good job Mr stalie would you like to address us thank you for the record I'm teda stalie CEO of The Economic Council Martin County thanks for the opportunity um I hear what you're saying I'm very happy about the expansion opportunity uh I understand that the motivation commissioner about not wanting these everywhere uh I can appreciate that uh as a long-term reson here um I just want to be clear on a couple things I think we started off this conversation at where this discussion came up it started off with we don't want moral more rural lifestyle freestanding urban service District then it became any urban service District now it's back to just industrial and so I get a little concern when we focusing on Industrial that in my opinion is kind of the goose that laid the golden egg of taxes for Martin County I'm not saying we should proliferate them everywhere uh but I liked what I heard from commissioner heatherington about a case-by case basis to make sure they're kind of in the right locations there's a lot of conflicting information your comp plan as you know about where industrial should go it should be near I85 the urban service boundary isn't anywhere in near 95 we don't necessarily want to I don't want to see it expanded out there um so I I want to see us tie the hands of our future uh by just ruling them out completely uh on the industrial I do also uh have to say that I fought very difficult very hard with this study this commercial industrial inventory analysis that was done and I would ask you to I don't think you probably have it with you Clyde but I would ask you to bring that back to the next meeting and read the conclusion of that document I take great exception of the fact that we use the same methodology you done you had done previously with that study and it ties the demand for industrial property to residential growth those two things are completely different from each other that's not the way you determine industrial property needs uh industrial properties don't create commercial demand that needs population growth uh the idea of industrial business growth is to grab those contributory businesses Health Products outside the area and putting those near major corridors like I95 and the Turnpike makes sense because those products get developed here and sent back out and you keep that traffic off the inside of that urban service area so um I understand the I understand the motivation I'm a little concerned that we're only looking at an industrial you stop talking about all the others uh so we're not stopping the proliferation of free standard G service boundaries we're just stopping the development of new or major expansion of existing freestanding Urban Service Industrial specifically for industrial just going step by step so so the only one that allows them what's that it's the only land use that allows freestanding urban service districts Oh I thought we had uh R lifestyle no that can be next to it that can be adjacent within a mile it's not a it's not a free standing it's not a free standing service it's special land it's a land use designation not gotcha thank you okay I made my point Thank You commissioner Vargas I have a question um Miss Elder does this not set a precedent if we're deciding Case by case so right now you do decide in essence Case by case as applications come forward based on the comprehensive plan it's a legislative decision so that's what we're doing right now what the proposal will do is we'll take that um option away and you won't be able to decide it at all because they won't be able to come forward so that's the distinction right now under our comp plan we can have them it's a legislative decision by the board you can determine on a caseby casee basis whether it's warranted the proposed will will not allow you to determine that any longer it'll be the option will be taken away pretty much so so this is one of those questions that no means yes yes yes okay can you go in the voting booth Focus okay do you have clear direction we do yeah do you need a motion yes please I would make a motion that we send staff off with the direction to make the four freestanding urban service districts that we have the four not look to to include any new ones and that those four would have the opportunity if they even wanted to increase no more than 10% ever one time not one time but no more than 10% I think it's as simple as that okay so it's a a yes well that's a motion it I believe the EST is to uh the the resolution was just simply to Annex the the text uh Amendment um and then to incorporate all of the um comments that were the commission did during the discussion okay do you want me to say it again so so it's a two-parter move that the board adopt the attached resolution to initiate a text amendment to policy 4.13a point10 of the comprehensive growth management plan with the criteria that the four will be the only four and that the existing four can have no more than 10% uh increase thank you is SAR a second I thought we were having a group yes I'll second it because just for clarification we're not actually voting on that policy today we're we're voting to have it brought back to us in written form is that basically what we're done okay I'll second this so so it'll be absolutely crystal clear when they come back yeah yes everybody understand see all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously that was painful thank you members of the board next up is Department 4 which is approval of a preliminary request for proposal as directed by the board on March 5th of 2024 to Surplus County property located on Martin Highway in Palm City for sale and Redevelopment good afternoon Miss seura good afternoon Carla seura real property manager and I have with me Susan corz the community development director um the subject of this agenda item is the property that the county purchased in November of 2023 um that is located in Old Palm City then it was brought back in March of 2024 where the board directed staff to draft an RFP for review and approval prior to solicitation today we are presenting the draft RFP for approval staff has collaborated over the last several months in drafting the RFP pursuant to Florida statute 163 380 ensuring the proposal for the sale and Redevelopment is in the best interest of the public the propos The Proposal is in line with the gold Palm City Redevelopment plan and is consistent with Martin County comprehensive growth management and plan and the Martin County Land Development regulations to meet these objectives the architectural style must comply with article 12 divisions one and four and all proposed developments must include parking in the rear the design can consist of either one story or twostory commercials or mixed juice development with a maximum height of 30 ft the RFP includes several key development objectives including a landscape buffer along the property line facing Martin Highway that would be consistent with the other um properties on that stretch and an interconnect between Newberry and Palm City School Avenue Additionally the selected developer owner will be required to convey at no cost the Western portion of the property lineing to Newberry for drainage and storm water related to Danforth Creek the property will be sold to the highest responsive bidder with a minimum bid of $3 million the count the county reserves the right to award to a so propri proposer negotiate with the proposer or read vertise the RFP without altering the evaluation process or may choose not to proceed a selection Committee of five individual idual with government experience will review and rank all qualified proposals the scoring criteria is listed within the RFP and also in this agenda item we ask that the board approve the RFP and authorize staff to proceed with advertising if there's any questions we'll be happy to answer questions is the entire 5.76 acre parcel for sale yes and and what's the donated portion um on the west of Southwest Newberry Court to the county I don't remember the you know ex it's in there um let's see por the the donated piece would be the donating back to the county for use of storm water access to the creek yes so the tire property is being sold but we're letting the future purchaser know that there is a part that is unusable to them and they must donate it back but through that why we just redraw the boundaries well there's an issue that this uh in order to comply with our subdivision regulations and the ldrs the only way we could do it is um to have them convey it back otherwise it would have to be ploted okay so was just an easier course of action okay do you know how big it is it's 093 Acres Oh I thought it was about an acre yeah it's just under an acre and Jim Gordon Public Works director and the importance to the county is that for uh the last four or five years we've had a project in the CIP M to improve Danforth Creek there and this provides us the property that we need to access Danforth Creek great commissioner Vargas okay so this is the property that the developer paid $2 million for wanted to put 90 units on the property and then the Development Across the way Danforth objected and so the county purchased this property for $4.2 million is that correct do I have my facts correct here no not exactly but very close well okay but but how much did you pay for the property that was the that's the part that you got very close the other your other comments that I was uh it was 4.2 and slightly over okay so all right so why are you marketing it at $3 million property west of Newberry is worth uh 100 about a 100,000 and um no is it million I knew that didn't sound right it's worth about a million dollars so um in order to get us where we were so that we're not losing a large amount of money on the purchase and get what we want for the property um development wise that was determined the best and least amount we could do yeah I understand that um has there been a a market analysis done on the property uh how can we make the residents of of Palm City whole again I I mean they're paying double taxes as I'm understanding is that correct because the bond was floated no there's no double taxation for this particular project and no bond through the CRA and I don't believe through the county either um so the the three million would make us whole again there but you paid four at over 4.2 so but we get back um property to the west and then we sell the property to the you know the rest of the property so it comes out to about 4 million yeah so the the property was purchased with um uh mstu funds and um uh CRA funds and uh it it was an in it was the use of uh those funds plus what was uh the difference that because there wasn't sufficient funds in both of those so there was also a loan from the um our reserves and so that uh is the so the total balance of the property was paid for with Martin County funds uh that came out of um the um the district funds and the uh CRA there's an obligation the board approved that the CRA and the um uh District are obligated to pay that back and that currently um our budget office has uh tagged all of those any revenues on those funds are slated for that whatever price gets uh redeemed from the purchase of this uh whether it's all or in part um would go back to the county to First pay the reserve funds back and then any other funds would go back to use for the CRA or the mstu if the property was sold uh at a at a a cost less than what we did than the MST or the or the CRA would still owe the the general fund payment plan to bring that back um uh and we would bring that to you after the sale of the property okay but aren't there an additional or a greater line item plus an additional light item on if I lived in Palm City on my tax bill there's no I what you would see is that it depends on if you lived in the CRA um the CRA taxes are being collected and the mstu funds and so those are the both of the funds that were used to to um use as a funding source to pay off the uh general fund reserves that were the remaining balance of the funds but this this action here is to take the property which was uh taken off the rolls and they uh to and now to put it back on the tax roll but with sufficient restrictions so that a 90 unit apartment cannot be built there that's part of this RFP the most important part of this is the restrictions so that it is the development that does UR will be limited to something that would fit um in the neighbor with the neighborhood yeah understand have you done a market analysis of this because you want to put it back right we did one um to the inventory the property in 2023 we did an appraisal and uh justification for things because there's an easement for the road to Newberry and all of that so yes we have one available and and what is that um one was 4 million one was yeah one was 450,000 the other was 4.55 yeah okay can you do a more up todate yes we can I think I think that is prudent because this is not a good deal this is not a good deal at all keep in mind that this is an RFP that has the minimum offer that is accepted so this is a competition it's not that anybody can submit this and it will be accepted it is what offers would the bo if there are numerous proposals and we would hope that there are um and only proposals in excess of the minimum bid would be opened for consideration and brought to the board those that offer the highest amount would be the one uh that would be considered unless there's some caveats to it we would bring that back to the board so this does not this is just step one then there would be an advertisement um allowing the private sector to um to bid on this uh and then uh after that time we would open the bids and uh and bring back uh any offers uh the high uh that uh with recommendations that are in excess of the $3 million okay who decided on the $3 million figure it it was a uh with staff and the district commissioner looking at the total value of the property less the use of the property from um Public Works um so why don't you raise the minimum because you can always decrease what you're asking but it's very hard to increase when you're negotiating with somebody again we work with the district commissioner to prepare an RFB that we brought here today understand I'll share some of the information with you okay well why don't you share I got to wait till it's my turn okay Mr KY there we go for clarity sake for my colleagues that are new I'm sure you followed along but being here it was not Only Danforth this project is unique because the the CRA should have basically stayed on map road I consider the CRA to be Main Street zoning but the commissioner before me in a very smart strategy to bring Steward Fine Foods to Palm City increased the CRA boundary down Martin Highway all the way to Barry which then allowed for the supermarket to be built there um at the time back in 2004 or five that seemed like a good strategy the unintended consequence of that is that it brought CRA Main Street zoning if you will where you could build directly onto the sidewalk all the way down Martin Highway which is not a main street so then a year and a half ago early 2023 there was talk that the property was sold for 2.1 million and someone was going to build about 24 correct me Miss corus if I'm wrong Cottages you know little had individual homes Town Homes had porches and everything else and the CRA rules would have applied they spoke to the neighbors behind in Oakbrook spoke to the neighbors that were affected Isles were Danforth hammock Creek Whispering sound Saw Grass Villas not just Danforth and everyone was happy but then the financial people said wait we don't want to put porches on them just like we were having this morning they did they bked at some of the CRA guidelines and they pulled the money the next version came forward um from a group of folks out of South Florida Bon or delr and there was their plan was to put 90 apartments in three three story buildings on these it's called 6 Acres but it's really not 6 Acres because there is a RightWay driveway that takes you from Martin highway back to Oakbrook and then everything to the west of that grass trees right up onto Dan for that was about 2 Acres but it was still considered in the calculation so it gave the project an additional 30 units the only way to fit 30 90 units on four acres including all the parking lots and everything else they are three story tall buildings there are no three-story tall residential buildings anywhere in Palm City they would be directly up on the sidewalk because that's the zoning that's Main Street zoning so there's no landscape buffers or anything like that you're looking at a 30 foot tall building directly on the sidewalk two on Martin Highway and one on the side street which is Palm City School Avenue which is where about 700 kids walk or bike or their parents drive them to school you would open your front door of your apartment you would step out onto your porch you would go down two steps and you'd be on the sidewalk where 700 kids are going back and forth to school I the applicant did not need to come to me as the commissioner because it was a byright project he it was legally permissible so that meant without any push back from us it would be built you can imagine if that was happening in any of your districts so completely different of anything that we could do we discussed for half an hour today about a 32 unit thing on us one this is 90 apartments on Martin Highway and if you say Well it wouldn't really affect me well anyone entering Martin County you can't get to Jensen Beach uh or Stewart or you know Golden Gate you got to come either caner or through Palm City that's what you would see we very cleverly and at the time with commissioner heatherington and commissioner herd and the former Commissioners we came up with the strategy I had put it together with staff that the same thing I say to everybody if you're unhappy with what's happening next to you the only legal right you have to say something is if you own the property so it dawned on me that we should try to figure out how to purchase the property Miss chorus and I Mr Donaldson Miss Woods Miss sagora we started a brainstorm like how could this happen it happened well it's not a first time it's ever happened it happened one time up in Jensen Beach where and then at that point the county even designed if I'm not mistaken created what they really wanted it to be and then they sold off the concept what we decided to do now a lot of people said it should be a dog park it should be this I know someone wanted three or four dog parks uh or used to bust my chops and say well how do you if you do this now how do you stop this from happening all the time how is everyone not going to ask to do this two things now yes the people paid $2 million for the property and and then a our staff don Donaldson and Miss Woods went to meet with them and negotiated they said they would do it for $4 million and I think the the the above 4 million was the closing cost and legal fees or whatever it was $4 million so we did an appraisal the first one came in at 4,50 and the second one came in at 4.5 million if he had asked for 5 million or 6 million or seven we wouldn't have been able to do it and those apartmentss would be well under construction right now they'd be done by now so we did that well then the Commissioners said well it's not fair to the people that live in Jensen or in hob sound why should they have to pay to stop a project in Palm City so that's when we said well we'll use all of my district funds you have District funds all of us do we'll use exclusively the district funds and the CRA funds from the Palm City CRA none others and we went to the NAC board they were nervous but they got it and that's what we did now my goal was never to we could afford to pay for it over the next 5 years all of the CRA funds and the district funds at the time I was running for re-election so I could only commit to one year is worth of funds because I cannot encumber future Commissioners funds now I happen to still be here but even if I wasn't the CRA and the original money from the district funds would have paid for the loan the portion that the county needed was the portion that a developer is not going to want any anyway the road to Orchid to CIT uh Oakbrook and the environmentally sensitive portion next to Dan for that they couldn't have used anyway so now we're asking the reason it says $3 million is because the county paid approximately a million and now we're at this number what Mr Donaldson was talking about like all of the conditions we didn't want someone else to sweep in there pay the $3 million and do something that we also would not want to have so we worked very carefully for over a year many times to figure out what was restrictive enough that it would fit the character of the community but not so restrictive that no one would want to buy it and I think we've come up with a perfect set of circumstances before we go to the cone of silence we had some folks Reach Out came to the community excuse me came to Don's office to disc discuss like what could they do I've had several people reach out to me personally and say what are you doing with this property what are you doing with this property um there is a lot of activity in Palm City there is a lot of properties along map road part of which I think is because map road turned out beautiful it's a it's a testament to the cra's work that it's it's if you build it they will come and they are coming so that piece of property in a very uh beautiful neighborhood uh with a lot of opportunity with Martin High we got the turnpike entrance and an and a 95 entrance exit right there I believe the property the 3 million is the minimum that we will accept the bids you're new so how it works it's like anything else it's a sealed bid process so if if person a says oh I want that well if you bid $3 million the next person could bid 3 five and you're out so you have to put your bid in knowing that we're not accepting anything less than 3 million but if there's three or four five people in the mix you don't know what they're bidding you have to put your best deal forward in a sealed bid proposal we have a committee of who's on the committee five five who are they they're Jordan Pastorius from the CRA uh Jim Gorton Public Works Leo retti from utilities Mandy John's from from real property and Rex sentel from uh the Palm City Community that's a CRA and NAC all of the professional educated people that can look at a proposal and say is the utility going to work is it going to fit in the CRA will the community like it will public will uh real property think it works I think it's a great group and we're ready to put it out there and it'll go back on the tax roll it won't be 90 Apartments the other Advantage is that which was said in the in the description it'll have a connector Road from Newberry court so imagine on the North the most North portion of the property from Newberry Court to Palm City School Avenue the advantage to the county is that all of the people there's about 75 homes in in uh Oakbrook they have to come out and when they get to Martin highway to make the left they have to come out there's no it's not signalized they just have to take their chances now they can come through this back connector the road and come out on Palm City School Avenue at a traffic signal and make it much safer not just for them pulling out but you can imagine if you're doing 35 45 miles an hour on Martin Highway and someone just pulls right out in front of you so there is a lot of advantages to it what we need for you all to do today is to say yes staff you have done uh a longtime process to make this happen let's put it out there and see what happens short of doing that is your ask asking us to keep it Mr caps never the goal my question has to do with uh the STA and the creek that has had flooding problems in that right in that area or have the flooding problems been down the way a little ways the the flooding problem is actually to the West it's in Palm City Farms but restriction in that area the area north of County Road 714 has a rest restriction all the way up to um Sunset Trail so we need to um widen the creek in that area and the biggest problem is getting your equipment down to the bottom of the creek and and this project will give us our staging area and give us room to bench that slope back um to to soften the slope and to widen the bottom so under the prior plan if it would have turned into 90 Apartments would any of this have been done as part of the prior plan you would have to negotiate access through either that property owner or one of the other property owners that the concern that we had in that area is that there almost everything's developed at this point and that's the ideal location to get into the creek um to do what we need to do so if there's a silver lining behind everything that's transpired to me that would be one of them that we're actually going to own 93 Acres that we can use for accessing the so we can widen the creek and uh these are these are good things that go along with Plan B uh as opposed to plan a it does make that project more realistic and that's that really needed to happen to help with drainage and Palm City Farms it absolutely needs to happen yeah it's a critical project and uh whether we had this or not ultimately we'd have to acquire access to that and it would either be through voluntary action or under the most extreme condition condemnation and we don't do a lot of condemnation well I see that as a real benefit to all that's transpired uh you it'll be it'll be nice to to be able to get that project done so when when would that end up happening you think it's in the CIP we're in initial design stage right now we just got our report back last year and uh so initial design stage so we're still five years out anyway at at the earliest um a project like that we will aggressively go after grants and um but we need our preliminary design first so that's we got a half a million dollars today that's part of the same project yep yeah well no that's Bessie Creek so no but I'm saying Palm City Farms irrigation it's all interconnected without a without a doubt yeah all of that drainage in Palm City Farms is all tied together and um and I realize both of the new Commissioners I haven't yet sat down with you about that study and I will and after I do then we're going to do a presentation to the board uh just to go over what we got it's just a timing thing because of when you came on to the board um good thank you Miss Elder um that was Mr Gordon SL okay you done I I just wanted to clarify the the way we came up with the 3 million doll was we looked at the value of the property that the county would be getting along the creek and and the thought was that the stormw water mstu would pay for that piece of the property and if you subtract the value of that property from the total asking value that's how we got to the the $3 million does that make sense I I understand the math but I still think strongly that you need a new market analysis of that property because it's the market forces that will drive that if everything's wonderful in Palm City and everybody's coming you will build and they will come then people should be willing to pay premium I would think based on my expertise and dealing with real estate that's very reasonable but to blindly just say well we're just going to put at 3 million that doesn't even make sense you have to have up-to-date figures so if I say yeah sure go ahead and put that a surplus you know within the county a surplus property within the county marketable you have to have a solid figure commissioner the only I can add is that when we bring it back we will have an appraisal looking at how it compares the other thing is when you do a market appraisal that becomes a public record and everybody will use that in the bidding process we're essentially using the free market to do that analysis for us so we will get the bids we will get the competition on it and that hopefully will establish a price that is that is fair and uh and competitive um in the event there isn't uh a successful bidder we'll certainly go back back and then we would do more analysis to see what is the what is the proper evaluation yes I understand very well about it being public information understand that clearly so then you want serious biders to be able to approach the county not somebody who's bottom fishing commissioner caps um understanding that the $3 million figure is just a floor price minimum bid and that the bids could very well be much more substantial than that I'm comfortable with this so I would move approval thank you I will second your motion with the upto-date appraisal no I I to respond to your comment I think Mr Donaldson said it if you did an appraisal the last time we did an appraisal it was I don't even want to have this conversation publicly for the people that are interested that 4.5 million included the prop the proposed 90 apartments on it there's a property that's sold recently with brand new about 110 unit apartment complex for I'm I'm not sure if the exact number was a private deal but it was in the neighborhood of $50 million for 110 Apartments so yeah 4.4 million was a great opportunity for us but it's what someone would bring an appraisal 3 million plus the money we're getting from the county makes it a break even proposition which is what I had said to my colleagues at the time it wouldn't cost money it would be a break even anything above 3 million which I'm happy about is the county making money on this transaction which was not necessarily the goal because as governments were're not supposed to be competing against the private sector my original intent was to stop 90 apartments from being built there and to make the county be as close to financially neutral as possible 3 million which we set it as the minimum gets us to financial neutrality if it turns into a bidding situation it's not a war because they don't know it's not an auction but if someone wanted to come forward they have to not only give the dollar amount they'd have to give a vision of what they'd want because we're not going to say Hey you know someone's going to pay us $5 million and going put a smelting plant there because they can it's hey we this is our vision for this property we think it'll work into the neighborhood we're going to pay 3.8 million $4.1 million five of our key employees will review hopefully those multiple proposals come forward to the five of us with an opportunity and then we will close this chapter the CRA will get their funding back that they put up front the district commission uh dollars will go back to where they were and everyone will be paid and it will be a huge success well you could also make a profit too there's nothing wrong with that you say break even if somebody's going to bid on this property they know the restrictions it's already been outlined by our CRA person here so it's not a surprise oh I didn't know I could put 90 apartments or a smelting plant there no they're purchasing to fall within the ramifications of what's been laid out so commissioner the beauty of the uh RFP process is that not only can you sell the property but you can also look at what your development objectives are and in this case those development objectives are really important because that's what kind of drove this whole uh deal this whole process proc so the RFP allows us to do that allows us to say these are the things that we want to see there and you have to show us that so not only do you need to have the funding but you also need as commissioner uh campy said the vision and there's criteria to the extent of which we you know they're graded pointwise on that yes I understand all that perfectly clear they would obviously have to have a vision and they have to have the wherewithal to see the project to the end yes but they also have to pay pay a fair price and Mar Market forces change and that's what I've been going back to over and over again although I'm being told oh well everything the numbers are the I I need take a piece of paper and a pencil and really see that how that can you see what I'm trying to say I do and and the only believe me I want to get this off yeah this nightmare off okay um of of not not being prod productive for the county I guess what I'm trying to say is that they work hand inand so that there is I don't know that you can give development objectives a monetary value but that is part of the value is to get what it is we're looking for in that spot understand but I guess Palm City will be able to draw the right people because it's explosive in growth it's not explosive I just wanted to say that as part of the um RFP it is a responsibility of any bidder to do their due diligence ahead of time to make sure that's done and then once we get a contract uh together and all that information then they do the formal stuff normally because of the way our process is understand understand perfectly well thank you I just want to clear the record it was intimated that I supported this purchase I did not for a number of good reasons I did not voted once on it I voted against it no on the final but you voted originally I had a 5 at one point I was very pleased I didn't I didn't vote for this purchase because not the purchase it was unplanned and it was unprecedented go back and watch thank appreciate you saying that and also I I agree with you commissioner Vargas that there should have been a a an analysis done of the value of this we do property appraisals for every other purchase I don't know why on Earth we don't do one when we're selling property well that's it it seems backwards to me too absolutely it's very convoluted yeah but this is the perhaps lemonade that we're trying to produce from lemons there's a motion and a second all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously let's take a 10-minute break you have 10 yeah e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e we are back taking up Department 5 which is a request for approval of a contract with Hudson protective Enterprise to patrol County Conservation lands Mr Houston do you want to start oh you can start okay hi I'm Michael Houston senior project manager for the environmental resource division um the reason why we're bringing this item before forward is uh we have had a longterm issue in terms of protecting our conservation lands from anything from off-road vehicle use uh Berry Pickers illegal structures so on and so forth and this is a group of off-duty law enforcement officers that can come and help us deal with those issues and the importance of this is that they can go they will go where we want them to go when we want them to go there and it will provide us a level of protection we've really never had with our conservation lands program so that's why we came up with this idea of partnering with the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who have officers that are accustomed to working in these kind of environments they work in wooded areas all the time to help us deal with some of these enforcement issues that we've been having Frank Morley uh assistant County attorney the reason we're bringing this before the board is because we are diverting from our normal insurance requirements of a million dollars for commercial Auto the vendor was unable to obtain such Insurance um he is able to provide 200,000 300,000 per incident which which is in line with a Florida's sovereign immunity statute um additionally he will be waving workers comp as he has no employees and um only has 1099 independent contractors uh we will require a notice of exemption from the Department of Financial Services certifying that he is exempt from workers comp and one more important point to make is that when they see a crime being committed or when something's happening uh immediately switch to their role as FWC Law Enforcement Officers they become so they're inactive while they're patrolling the second something happens they become active FWC law enforcement officers at which point they're no longer working under the County's discretion they're working under the state discretion interesting that legit unfortunately this is is necessary I'm I'm so happy to see that we're finally taking action because as we all know in some of our most revered uh conservation habitats uh things are out of control and it's time to bring them back under our control and and to take to take charge so this is gives us an ability to uh uh preserve our resources Mr C thank you thank you for coming up with this idea when I read it in the agenda item I was hopeful this is what you were going to say it was going to be uh and it is I know that our constituents and neighbors and friends that live in Trailside have had nothing but difficulty a lot of the gunshots that initiated heading in their Direction come from property that we are now in charge of uh will they be I know they're not going to patrol our this Hudson group won't be patrolling in there but will they Patrol you'll give them direction to keep that neighborhood what one of the specific things that they will be able to do is uh we have this issue with illegal structures all throughout that area and uh in order for our Code Enforcement Officers to feel safe going out there they need an escort so this will specifically help deal with that particular issue and certainly you know if there's uh they're also under contract with the palar water Control District so if people are shooting from out you know outside of Palmar that's something else that they can Patrol uh I don't know that we'll be sending them out there regularly to just Patrol Palmar in those in those levies uh but they will have a specific role where they can help us in that regard in addition to you know we have a storm water treatment area with the Wetland at Bessie Creek and that's been plagued by off-road vehicles that are just tearing it up and they come out out there at 1: or 2 in the morning so we're not out there we don't know it that it's out there and it actually can put us in in violation with the conservation ement with the Water Management District so they'll be able to go out there and be able to patrol that area as well so there's a lot of different things that they can do um including activities in Palmar that will help us deal with the problems that we've been having with Trail side with with Trail side and with with these illegal structures people doing illegal things on their property that violate you know County codes I appreciate that I would just say that our the most valuable resource out there is human resource uh the people that live nearby so I appreciate that they would look to protect damaging our environmentally sensitive areas but I would encourage you to have a strong emphasis on trying to eliminate the beginnings of some of those things that the room has been filled there many times that are affecting our residents in Trailside and congratulations for doing this I appreciate it much we've as elected officials these residents come and and they say please help us and we've been you know beating our heads against the wall trying to figure out how to do it and you have done it it's a big day for you m big day it is thanks give him like a plaque or something both of you you got a plaque too you've been here twice today too yeah commissioner heatherington so the the duration is 3 years would you come back to us and just give us um a report and a year and tell us how it's going and sure what you found and yeah we can document where they've gone and and you know any arrests that are made any anything that they've investigated we can provide all those kinds of details for you commissioner Vargas yes uh I understand about the independent contractor status rather than W2 and you know that's fine they don't have to carry workers comp I think my concern is about the 200 and 300 that would be for anybody to be able to carry on their insurance State of Florida and they'd be in compliance but if they are a commercial Auto liability insurance are we protected in case there is an accident and somebody is killed or severely injured because we have an alliance now with this Hudson commissioner yes uh we would still have our sovereign immunity caps which would cover that nobody be able to come back and say well my mother father sister brother died you know and uh you employed Hudson and this happened and it was a car accident or um it would only be a limited circumstance in which they were not in their FWC law enforcement capacity so if they were in pursuit of a violation or someone committing a crime they would be back in their FWC um position and fwc's insurance is 200 300 that's the state for all their commercial automobiles all right but I'm I'm just saying would this be a potential to come back on us and they I don't have lost you don't believe so or no no no definitely not so they wouldn't be able to come back and sue us and say well you owe us another $3 million because my relative died while they were so as a political subdivision of the state we're capped at 300 per occurrence there is a claims Bill process um that people go through through the state legislature for amounts exceeding that if there was a jury verdict commissioner caps so these officers do they have arrest Powers they they would but they would under those circumstances they would be operating as FWC law enforc officers and not County Contractors so as I said the second that they see something happen they immediately uh become active duty FWC Law Enforcement Officers right my concern is just you know do they have enough teeth you know to to actually stop problems um um you know because uh like the Wetland damage that's being done out there with this big dune buggy things um you know uh just tearing up beautiful lands you know and uh you know and I hope they they have the ability and that and the will to to uh put a halt to a lot of things that are going on out there illegal structures all kinds of other things and that they're not just and and they sort of monitoring things but you know they're stopping problems you know and they can enforce Martin County laws too it's not just State statutes and laws they are they are able to arrest people for violating uh County laws as well so and some of that would be covered by county law commissioner the uh the enforcement of uh laws and regulations on County owned property is very clear and easy when a when somebody is engaging in a lawful activity on their own private property um and so the nuances of this are uh the I I don't want to underestimate how great this is to have on there but it is a tool it does not solve all your problems right right cuz I as I you know like I in Palmar you have little tiny isolated Lots in the middle of swamps that are owned by private individuals and those lots are right next door you know border pieces that are owned by the county so you have people uh you know driving big anyway I think that discussion is best we could talk to you uh individually rather than describing the nuances for those that regularly use that area right right right right so anyway just uh hope they can you know put some teeth into this any further questions or comments is there motion to accept staff's recommendation second there's a motion in a second to accept staff's recommendation all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you and on to to Mike houst our final agenda item Department six which is a request for approval of resolution initiating chapter 164 Florida Statutes conflict resolution proceedings between Martin County and the City of Stewart regarding the city's non-compliance with the 2023 interlocal agreement and its comprehensive plan Miss Woods yes um Sarah Woods for the record Martin County attorney um again this is a request for an attached resolution to initiate conflict resolution proceedings pursuant to chapter 164 with the city of Stewart regarding the city's refusal to abide by the interlocal agreement uh dated December 12th 2023 including its failure to provide a letter supporting the County's Grant application to the federal rail Administration as well as its failure to comply with element two of its comprehensive plan let me give you some background because I think the facts are important for this on October 23rd 2023 bright line trains issued a uh Treasure Coast request for proposals for the location of a train station in either Martin or St Lucy County as you all well know this was um kep born out of our uh 2018 settlement agreement with brightline Martin County settlement agreement with brightline which required the location of a train station on the Treasure Coast within uh five years of the um beginning of the uh bright line service Martin County and the City of Stewart approved an interlocal agreement dated December 12th 2023 to outline the party's responsibilities for submitting a joint proposal to the bright lines RFP for a station and a parking garage on three county-owned Parcels in December of 2023 the County and the city jointly submitted a proposal to Bright line pursuant to that interlocal agreement on March 4th of 2024 brightline sent a letter to the city and the county notifying them that the joint proposal was selected brightline included in its letter of selection terms to proceed with the negotiation of final agreements for development in a new train station city and county staff developed a proposed amended interlocal agreement concerning the station on August 12th 2024 the city approved the amended interlocal agreement as well as its ground lease agreement with brightline on August 26 2024 the city commission directed its staff to prepare an agenda item for its September 9th 2024 meeting to consider resending approval of the 2023 interlocal agreement the amended 2023 interlocal agreement and the bright line ground lease on the 9th the city resented its approval of the amended inal and the ground lease and directed the city manager to meet with the county in brightline for a better deal the city did not resend or take any action regarding the December 12th 2023 interlocal agreement it's important for all of us to remember that the board of County Commissioners directed staff continuously to continue negotiating with the city and bright line to reach an agreement um they specifically took this action during its September 10th and September 24th meeting on October 14th the city unilaterally considered alternative terms for negotiation for a train station which ultimately would reduce the city's obligation to $5 million a $25 million reduction and would increase the number of daily bright line stops from four to8 the city did not authorize the city manager to move forward with negotiations of the alternative terms and did not provide direction to the city manager for further negotiations thereafter at the October 22nd Board of County Commission meeting because understand the process had stopped uh the board requested an update on the bright Line Station following the update the board of County Commissioners unanimously directed The County Administrator and the county attorney to issue a request for bid of a long-term lease on the County's downtown Stewart Property and Fairground property for a high-speed rail station and to prepare a Federal Grant application for station funding on November 12th of 2024 the board again unanimously awarded the RFB to Bright line trains and approved a First Amendment to it the board's November 25th 2018 settlement agreement with brightline among the changes in the first amendment was a maximum contribution of $15 million by the county for the train station with the remaining cost to be funded by state or federal grants the board also authorized staff to apply for a uh us doot Federal rail Administration Federal state partnership for inner city passenger rail program Grant on November 25th the county S an email to both city of Stewart Village of Indi Town Town of Ocean Breeze and town of open Jupiter Island requesting letters of support for the County's Grant application by December 2nd 2024 in order to meet the Grant application deadline uh PS all the other jurisdictions have provided those letters of support Stuart city manager advised the county he'd bring the request to the city November 25th 2024 meeting the city manager presented the County's request at the November 25th meeting the city took no action regarding the request on January 7th 2025 the County Administrator sent a letter to the city manager outlining the city's e legal obligation under the interlocal agreement to provide the letter of support as well as the negative Financial impact the city's failure to act will have on the County's Grant application the letter concluded with the hope that the matter would be resolved quickly without the need to resort to the Florida governmental conflict resolution act the city manager presented the Janu this County's January 7th letter to the City Commissioner City Commission on January 13th the city failed to take any action regarding the County's request the following day at the board's January 14th 2025 meeting the County Attorney provided an update regarding the city's failure to provide a letter supporting the gr County's Grant application at that meeting the board authorized the County Attorney to prepare an agenda item for the January 28th 2025 meeting requesting approval of a resolution to initiate conflict resolution proceedings pursuant to chapter 164 I'm going to read in part the purpose of the conflict resolution act in Florida law it's to promote protect and improve public health safety and Welfare to enhance intergovernmental cooperation efforts by creation of a governmental conflict resolution procedure that can provide an equitable expeditious effective and inexpensive meth method for resolution of conflicts between and among local and Regional governmental entities it is the intent of the legislature that conflicts between governmental entities be resolved to the greatest extent possible without litigation um the issues are that the city's actions including refusal to provide a letter supporting the F Grant is a breach of section B of the December 12th 2023 interlocal agreement in addition the city's action violates several provisions of element two of the city's own comprehensive of plan which require support of grants for passenger whale as well as the construction of a train station in the city which interestingly the comprehensive plan um sets forth an area where is exactly where the county has proposed to place the station it it provides a geograph an area of GE geography where it should be um my recommendation uh or the staff recommendation is moved to approve the proposed resolution initiating chapter 164 uh conflict resolution briefly um and we can I don't know if the board wants me to go over the uh resolution itself it basically on several Pages goes through all of the um facts that I've outlined it also talks about the sections in the 2023 interlocal agreement that require um the city to um uh support each other in Grant applications both of us um there's also a provision with within the Ila that says if any if one term of the Ila is deemed invalid the remaining POS Provisions uh survive it's our position that this interlocal agreement in 2023 was never repealed it remain remains a binding legal contract if you will between the city and the county um and after the city and the County's proposal was selection the county relied on those that inter local agreement to continue um the other issue that's outlined in the resolution is the requirement of the um the city in their comprehensive plan that the City shall continue to encourage expansion of Passenger rail service it then goes on the city shall actively support the uh establishment of Passenger rail on the FEC rideway including the construction of a downtown rail station Transportation Depot preferably on Flagler Avenue between East Ocean and Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard um but both of those policies re require shall um in addition the Mo's uh 2045 long range Transportation plan also encourages Transit op options including passenger rail service to the county um I will say that in the resolution there's a typo and I apologize it's at the top of page four the copy you have refers to the Mo's 2024 long range trans Transportation plan it's the 2045 because we plan in 20-year increments plan um and when that I'm happy to uh answer any questions oh one more thing um within if the board decides to enter into conflict resolution there's a multi-step process the first step would be to have a conflict assessment meeting within 30 days of um the passage of this resolution we've um been on the receiving end of conflict resolution in the past the city of Stewart initiated it with us uh I want to say maybe 10 or 12 years ago over a um CRA matter and also the town of Jupiter Island I believe o over in in Inlet management was it um and in the past we my recommendation and the county administrators we've included the chairman of the County Commission to assist us with that initial meeting um so with the board's authorization if this passes we'd ask if chairman herd could uh join the County Administrator and the county attorney in the initial conflict meeting the hope is always that in this initial conflict meeting between staff um and a representative that we can reach re um a resolution amicably and quickly the next step is there's a joint meeting between the two elected bodies and then the third step is to go to mediation so again it's it's not a lawsuit it's shouldn't be expensive and we are remain optimistic that we can work this out amicably commissioner caps I'd just like to say that I support our county attorney's thorough analysis and her efforts to advocate for our legal interests this is her job and if she didn't and we were damaged this would be legal malpractice on her part so thank you for that and this is not a lawsuit you know there have been things in social media that use that word and that is that is not at all what this is this is a conflict resolution proceeding and we're just trying to get in the same room and work this out amicably and I think it's a a good reasonable next step and with that I would move approval commissioner Vargas I have a couple of a number of questions who's really in charge here on this is it somebody that's not elected that's paid staff member that's bringing this forward continuously uh no ma'am uh it it is we're following a statutory process um which I'd be happy to set for with you so the Florida law uh sets forth in great detail who would which which who would attend each of the steps again it's only we only engage in this when we've been authorized by you all our elected officials we only can take positions that are authorized by you all our elected officials the resolution sets forth the parameters which you're considering right now of what we would engage in what we would who would be guiding that you would provide us board Direction on this and again it's all strictly Within Chapter 163 which sets forth steps that would be be done all the way and again it it's it's all in accordance with Florida law so so what are we trying to accomplish here by by continuing with this continuing continuing with $6 million spent on a lawsuit with bright line this is not already so the particular matter is p specifically related to our application for a train station that's totally what this is about this doesn't have anything to do with the um the the lawsuit years ago over bright line that was over safety and other issues that that were in federal court principally I think there might have been one state action also over Environmental issues but that has nothing to do with this okay but do you think it's prudent to continue to spend County resources time and money this way to go after the city of Stewart the county seat um I I being the County Attorney is part of my job so that's part of what I do there's no additional cost to the taxpayer for this um for for this um and yes ma'am we have a contract with the city and we have um uh some we've been told that we need to get these letters of of um of support who told you this who who said you had to get these letters of support the grant advisor I believe well we talked to the board about getting letters of support when we made the application that we would get letters of support from the um uh from the various community members and of course we had an interlocal have an interlocal agreement with the the city of Stewart um where it's anticipated that they would continue to provide that letter of support the uh continued actions that we are moving forward today are policy Decisions by the five of you and so we continue to receive direction from the board on our continued proceedings so if if Martin County does not get the grant will we continue forward to eventually sue the city of Stewart we haven't said that we're just simply asking for a letter of support for the grant at this time just as the board continued um Don and I have worked on this for quite a while just as we continued optimistic during the fall and the board w at the time was we we felt optimistic and hopeful that we would work something out with the city and with bright line to come to consensus um and when it didn't happen the board didn't make any threats they just went with the RFP process and um and approved an agreement with brightline I until the board gives me some direction about lawsuits that wouldn't be anticipated I I don't I don't have the authority to preemptively file lawsuits without the board's permission yeah okay but you have many other counties as you said that are in support So file those with the Grant application do you mean municipalities municipalities counties I I I don't have any other counties that I'm aware of I Mr stokus sent out the letter we have all the municipalities in Martin County supporting the uh Grant application but because and I'm waiting out of my comfort zone here but but because for Grant purposes this is the jurisdiction that that the station will be located in and this is the jurisdiction that has the most benefit arguably if if one sees benefit I I believe when a grant evaluator is looking at this this could be a a an important letter possibly possibly not I've written grants before so it may or may not be yes ma'am so so what's the end goal here I I mean with with us pursuing steuart the end goal is to get a letter of support and if they don't want to give it to you then then what happens we're we're going to go to the next step then I think the step we meeting and then I think we're a one step at a timeit one step at a time yes one step at a time commissioner campy thank you madam chair this has turned this whole bright line from the very very beginning um getting to be decades old now this whole issue um but focusing my attention specifically on where we are right now U I did give uh direction to miss woods and Mr Donaldson about she they were both very clear and upfront with me about what my opinion and wishes would be in terms of crafting a letter they shared uh the language of what the letter would look like the intent of the letter the sort of the the feel of the letter I was hopeful that that letter would sort of you know allow their city manager to bring it up and I watched their meetings to and and Mr mortell tried quite a few times to just have the conversation and obviously their board is very well divided on you know their opinions of the train station the train system are very apparent um I felt that the letter did not meet its intended goal I think it was misrepresented as a threat for lawsuit it wasn't uh it was a strongly worded letter saying we would like you to live up to what we feel is your portion of an agreement to support us I was surprised at the level of push back because originally most of the um opposition to the station was financial and there are Commissioners that are opposed to the station you know as is their obvious prerogative was to fight on behalf half of City residents wallets and when it turned out that the continuation of a requested station would have really no dollar amount price tag attach to it for City then why not support it if it was purely a financial issue that you didn't think it financially made sense for your residence and now it wasn't going to have a financial burden on your residence you could have at least continued to support it but I think that was a little bit of a a long shot or wishful thinking on our part I do believe that you use the word evaluators that Federal staff empowered to approve Grant proposals will be well aware of the conflict between the county and the city if they were not organically aware of it I'm sure there's plenty of people opposed to the station will be writing letters to whoever is involved in that process so at this particular Point even if we were successful in going through the steps that you've just outlined which are not lawsuit steps but are those things the last time I remember the city had a real kind of strained relationship was it was while I was out of office so between 2012 and 2016 where you guys met at at the Flagler Center to sit down and almost have like uh marriage counseling between the two governmental entities it had come to gotten elevated to that point and I believe the two of you were probably either involved or definitely here at the time maybe in in different Capac not you miss woods but you would have been the County engineer at the time and Miss Woods would have probably been assistant what was your title before you were but I didn't deal with this so I'm thinking even if we are successful in gaining some type of letter of support from the city it would be under duress it wouldn't have I don't believe the same appeal that an actual letter that came uh willingly from the most important government entity other than us in this because like you said it will be located within their jurisdiction and two and a half three of their Commissioners don't feel the value in it uh even the two that were historically for it one had made a motion the other had seconded it and then he he withdrew his motion so it never even got to a vote which I would have preferred a vote on the record my only concern now is if we continue to drag this process along um it just adds pouring uh it's just gasoline on the on the fire if you will I think it gives their uh elected officials who are completely opposed to the station under any circumstances now it's apparent just more reason to argue fight and continue to um disagree which could really irreparably harm our city to County relationship on all of the topics I would almost be uh interested in going it with the letters of support that we've already received forcing their hand to give us a letter of support I don't know how valuable that would be if I was in Washington reviewing Grant applications knowing that yes a letter dry uh letter of support from the city of Stewart uh knowing what the circumstance an es were I think you got from je who were the entities that you did receive all the other ones every what are they who are they the village of Indian town uh the Town of Ocean breze SS point and is Island and the no the and the no those are the letters yes and one obviously from us yes and from Congressman Mast and Scott Senator Scott um I I I I did want to mention one thing we do not intend and I'll defer to Mr stokus to answer more specific questions this is not about one letter because we intend to um pursuant to the amended settlement agreement to try to go after as many grants state and federal as we possibly can to lower the impact on the taxpayers of all of Martin County that was one of the things that the board discussed so it's not just I mean this is the one right before you today but we intend to continue applying for uh any any kind of a grant that we think that would help to fund the station and not be funded by the taxpayers I get that and I appreciate that but if you get the one letter now it's either one or all if they're not willing to do it for this round of Grants I don't see them willing barring some kind of M major shift in opinion or or personalities I don't see a major change my recommendation would be that we end the back and forth fighting with them on at least on the concept of us requesting a letter of support if the letter of support comes at with a gun to their head I don't see the value in the letter of support I think we'd be better ending this portion of the of disagreement and going with the letters of support separate of them anyone in DC will understand that three personalities on their board are not interested in the station I don't know how valuable the letter is at this point especially if it means we're going to continue to be in conflict with our municipality their residents are also our constituents I don't know if there's value in it for a letter of support if down the road we figure we need to challenge them on some other things so be it but I don't see a value in a letter of support if we have to rip it out of their hands thank you Mr Donaldson um commissioner I would uh and and the decision on this is purely a policy matter and so it really uh for us moving forward is is either way is is fine I only say that the goal would not to be to get a letter under duress and that I think uh in the conflict resolutions that we've concluded in the past they did not end in lawsuits they ended in a amicable resolution in the matter and I think the Jupiter Island issue we had we ended up with an interlocal that described how we would work together on on the inlet so our goal would not be to um uh uh to to to you know have a judge order a letter it would be to to try to negotiate what is what what other amicable means is there a other path forward to get a letter that um um we could get and perhaps if you feel that the opinion that is there is not then that's fine I just wanted to say our goal would not be to um uh to enter these negotiations with a mediator with the goal of um creating more conflict the idea is to resolve it and to find out if there is any negotiation with the other parties that the two boards could come together on and whether it's a an an amended interlocal or something like that where you could jointly agree on how you move forward on this particular issue having watched their meeting and heard their opinions I don't think you're going to get there commissioner heatherington you just touched on my earlier thought and question would we deem the um conflict resolved if we received a letter or were there other things in the Ila that we were looking at or future um amendments to the Ila but you just touched on that that it's not just one letter it's the Ila in general and conflict resolution I don't think is a bad thing I think you know there could be a lot that would could come of this and I think about some of the lap projects that we've funded at the mo that were in my mind we the mo and I we sponsored um the city's lap project I don't believe they were lap certified and we had to offer our staff and our letters of support and in order for them to get grants on sidewalk projects and things that I didn't necessarily agree with the project in itself but we participated as a board because it was something that their residents wanted so I I think that there's benefit to the conflict resolution so the so the the therefore at the end of this uh resolution says that we take all appropriate steps to seek enforcement of the 2023 interlocal agreement regarding joint proposal to Bright line trains for a train station and parking garage and of the city's of Stuart's comprehensive plan so what we're seeking to do is to to uh make the parties compliant to the to the uh uh interlocal I mean good Heavens you can't you can't break binding agreements you know we have we have contractual obligations with all kinds of entities what happens if if uh if we say you know what that firefighter contract is just it's just too much money that is just $25 million too much money I'm not going to pay it you know we you can't walk away from these things they were the aggressors in the first place the city of Stewart was you you'll recall the county was was more reluctant more hesitant than the city was um but they but they have contractual obligations that have not been extinguished Even though three of their Commissioners don't like them it doesn't that doesn't extinguish them they still have an obligation to honor their contracts so I don't think it's a it's it's you know the letter of support I don't I don't know how how important that is but what is important is that we have conflict resolutions so that we honor our legal obligations that we all agreed to miss Woods I just um to Mr Donaldson's point I just wanted to to to share um just personally I practiced law for over 40 years there is nothing that in in my opinion with government that's better than sitting everybody face to face around a table and having a discussion which is what this process does um I don't think there's any um promise of of resolution necessarily but I remain hopeful maybe I'm a crazy Optimist that if we sit the city and county staff and hopefully a representative from the city and we sit around and we have a a civil discussion maybe we can meet a compromise to talk about things at e at a minimum at least there has been a discussion rather than um isolated comments said in the press or at a at a separate meeting and we're just kind of shooting sideways at each other and I don't even want to call it shooting because I don't think that that's healthy that we're just talking crosswise with each other and so that for I know for Mr Donaldson and I the idea was to get everybody around a table and kind of talk it through and if it doesn't then then it comes back to you all to to decide but that this is to sit down and talk about it I will tell you when this process started when we were working on the interlocal agreement to submit the bid that is exactly what happened you know there was a back and forth among uh city and county staff there were compromises made every almost all of the sentences in that interlocal went back and forth and back and forth up to the wire and with with discussions with the board so I I'm I'm just suggesting that yeah it's it's it's not our intent for this to be adversarial in any way it's the intent is to see if we can find Common Ground commissioner campy I agree with both of what you said commissioner herd I agree in terms of the value of an of an agreement um and I agree with what Miss Woods just mentioned about trying to if we could all sit down collectively as a group and uh talk it through I'm interested in all of that I'm just saying if the gist of that original conversation meeting was to get a letter of support from the city having watched their comments I don't think we're going to get a letter of support and if we somehow maneuver our way into a letter of support I don't know how valuable it is in the process versus leaving that specific portion alone letting it play out in DC and elsewhere every time you need it to and then have a Neo still have a conversation on what does this look like going forward but if we're going to negotiate specifically for the letter of support but I also agree that three Commissioners previous entered the city and their staff into um a a competition if you will to get the station to come to Stewart and um and now with new Commissioners we have new Commissioners and so so I want to build uh a resolution with our colleagues on the city of Stewart commission we represent the same people and um I'd like to see the like you said this not being uh hammered out or argued out and social media blogs articles in the in the newspaper that they're going to write no matter what even though they didn't reach any of us uh for comment which wouldn't have been ideal anyway to start to like play this out in the newspaper but if you want to get together and have a group discussion some of us you're talking about just the chair correct at this particular meeting okay look I'm perfectly happy to send commissioner herd with you all as our representative I'm just saying if it's exclusively to get a letter from them and you came back with some you know half baked letter of support I don't know how valuable that is I would like to see us start to put this behind us there's a lot of things we're going to have to work on collectively with them do you want a second to commissioner Cap's motion I think so right you have a motion the motion is to move the the board approve the proposed resolution initiating chapter 164 Florida Statutes conflict resolution proceedings is it only for a letter no it's for it's it's conflict resolution that says nothing about a letter okay second any further discussion there's a motion in a second all those in favor I I opposed I that motion passes four to one with commissioner Vargas to sting commissioner if I could Sarah woods again um would that motion or could I have a board authorization to have commissioner herd um join County staff in the initial meeting I'd make a motion that commissioner herd as our chair represent the board with our staff in those uh discussions there's a motion in a second all those in favor I opposed that motion passes unanimously thank you what else it's at the end of the day time for commissioner comments commissioner Vargas gee I've had a lot of comments today I hope they were all taken in I don't have to go over that again um no I I think that I've spoken um succinctly I think I've been very factual I think I have uh covered all of the topics thoroughly I will continue to do so uh we have to keep the spirit of Martin County above any fry people are watching each and every one of us unfortunately I did not have the pleasure or the courtesy to be able to make the vote one week off of when I was put in office this board could have waited to allow me to weigh in especially to this matter commissioner caps I am good I'm set commiss campy I'm set commissioner heatherington I'm all set Mr Donaldson I have anything more M Woods any public comments we are adjourned