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the microphone as this meeting is being recorded for public record please stand by we are going on air in 5 4 3 2 1 good afternoon and welcome to the March 11th meeting of the land use and
sustainability committee Mr attorney uh why don't we do a roll call to establish quum sure um commissioner Suarez is present vice mayor bot here and chairman Fernandez preson
we have a quorum all right and let's get the virtual participation notice uh right into the record today's meeting of the land use and sustainability committee will be conducted in a hybrid format with members of the committee physically present in the commission Chambers and staff and members of the
public appearing either in person or virtually via Zoom to participate virtually the public may dial 1888 475 4499 and enter the webinar ID which is 85599
92337 pound or log into the Zoom app and enter the webinar ID which is 8505 9923 037 if you're wishing to speak on an item please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom app or dialar 9 if you are participating by phone thank you Mr
attorney Mr director are there any additions withdrawals deferrals to today's printed agenda yes Mr chair two announcements item number 11 which is the item pertaining to the opening of the bayw walk and the development of the bayw walk on moving up the Baywalk on
the Geo bond prioritization list and updates to the bayw walk presented to the L use committee that item has been withdrawn by the item sponsor and item number 15 which is to discuss a possible agreement for development and conveyance to the city of a public parking garage
at 1247 to 1255 West Avenue for City Garage that this item is being deferred to the April 15th land use Comm Comm meeting okay with uh with that is there a motion to set the agenda with a withdrawal of item number 11 and the deferral of item number 15 is it it's
been moved uh by Committee Member Suarez seconded by the Vice chair y uh we can show the agenda adopted by acclamation uh Mr director let's introduce item number one okay item number one is discuss and review the final report and
recommendations of the 2024 ad hoc historic preservation ordinance advisory review committee thank you Mr director and with item number one what we're going to do with item number one as part of item number one we're going to discuss item two through
seven um items two three four 2 three five six and seven are covered under the incentives uh section of the presentation that our chief preservation officer is going to presented to us uh and item number four is is going to be
covered under the review uh process so so you know these items they're all incorporated into this and I'm just going to introduce this this item quickly B before we go uh into our staff presentation as we all know Miami Beach
is home to 14 historic districts and 17 individual individual historic districts we have 31 historic single family homes all of which are critical to our City's Heritage and contribute not only to the economic growth of our city but also to
our state the city's historic preservation ordinance was initially adopted in 198 1982 and has been in place now for over four decades and throughout its history it has undergone several
amendments however the last comprehensive review of the ordinance was completed in 2001 meaning it's been nearly 25 years uh since the historic preservation code was last updated on
March of last year I sponsored a resolution establishing the adhawk historic preservation ordinance review advisory committee uh I dare any one of us to say that three times quickly to comprehensively review these regulations
it was evident that our historic preservation code needed to be reviewed and updated to better facilitate preservation efforts and ensure the protection of these important landmarks in our re establishing the ad hoc historic preservation ordinance review advisory
committee was a crucial step in addressing the challenges facing many of our City's historic districts the committee was designed to be nonpolitical in nature and professionally driven it was led by its chair Rick Lopez a professor of the
University of Miami and a former chair of our historic preservation board the committee was also composed of a diverse group of community stakeholders there were activists there were Bankers there were developers and there were residents from neighborhood associations that participated in this Review Committee
the Committees work focused on identifying ways to simplify and enhance the preservation process and make it easier to protect our historic assets and they looked into into many aspects of of preservation incentives to
encourage Property Owners to preserve historic properties they focused on improving the review process and administrative review processes they discussed updating existing regulations So today we're going to
review uh these recommendations but as we reviewed these these recommendations we are making an investment in the future of Miami Beach ensuring that not only do we remain a vibrant City and a culturally Rich s City but that we
maintain it a historically significant City for generations to come um I'm going to invite now to the podium our chief preservation officer Debby tet who was a leason to this committee to guide us through the work that they have done
for us um thank you Mr chair uh good afternoon members of the committee um before I get started I had Mr chair a request from from the committee's chairperson uh Rick Lopez who would like to say a few words if you will um he'll
be brief sure and Mr attorney do we have uh chair Lopez on the uh on the line yes and he's already been made a uh a panelist thank you uh welcome uh good afternoon welcome Mr Mr Lopez I just want to start by recognizing the members
of the advisory committee and thank them and you for all of your work over the course of the five months uh from June 2024 to October 2024 that uh that you all uh were we're working on this item so I want to
welcome you to offer some remarks thank you so much uh good afternoon commissioner and good afternoon to all the committee members um I wanted to take the opportunity to to thank you all for allowing us to form this committee um and I also wanted to
recognize my um former um committee members um which as you say were you know diverse in in terms of where they're coming from um professionally um they include Michael Goldberg who served the vice chair Alex witkoff Andrew howerin Scott needleman Daniel Caldo and
Javier Ganda and I also wanted to um thank your uh City staff uh who uh I've known gotten to know for for a number of years when I was on the preservation board but during this process Debbie tacket Jake seing and Nick Keller just
were a huge help and I think they guided us through what was a very amicable and positive uh experience um finding a number of ways to streamline the process to you know facilitate um you know folks whether
they're coming from a you know single family house to you know larger more complex projects to be able to uh engage the process find incentives to restore and protect their properties and U you know hopefully make uh Miami Beach um
you know a a a keep it a great place for for a long time to come um also just wanted to point out one of our recommendations and I know you guys are going to go through in more detail but um to facilitate the additional incentive process that we recommended um
we recognize that your staff um has a lot on their plate and we may be adding to uh their charge with some of these recommendations and so just want to point out that it it should be considered um um that they may need an
extra hand or two and so anyway with that thank you for including us and allowing us to make these recommendations to you today thank you Mr Mr Lopez and uh and as was noted on on the recommendations certainly you know the additional staff members may be
needed not only to to PR to process planning applications but to process any new incentives is something certainly that the committee will will consider um Debbie uh the floor is yours to present um thank you Mr chair um over the course
of about it was about a femon uh committee uh the committee really focused on three main areas of their recommendations um one was the certificate of appropriateness criteria the second area they focused on was the
process both the historic preservation board and the administrative review process and lastly um they they discussed at length um possible existing incentives and possible future incentives um I'm just going to jump
right in and feel free if you have any questions because it's a lot of information to interrupt um the first item was with regard to the certificate of appropriateness criteria um with our existing criteria it is it is quite extensive I could not find a comparable
municipality with anywhere close to the amount of criteria that we have how many criteria we have over 50 criteria if you take every everything together the sea level rise criteria um the demolition criteria and then all of the design criteria how many
do most of other cities have most other historic cities and we looked at comparable um cities have the 10 that are found in the Secretary of interior standards for rehabilitation so most cities historic cities have 10 we have
50 crit and they've been added to over the years so what um we did as staff members is we identified some of the criteria that we believed were redundant that that were obsolete or that simply were informational type CR
not really even criteria right they were informational I can uh give you some examples for example in the demolition criteria there was there is a criteria that talks about is the demolition for a a parking garage and that parking
garages in the it states in the criteria um parking garage are not permitted as main use structures on Lots um along Ocean Drive or espanol away well a lot of this information's in the code these are code requirements and aren't really
review criteria for for a land use board um several of the other um criteria again many of them were redundant they were repeated throughout um they're also redundant with the secretary of interior standards which we do have in in and we
present it to the committee so we have those 10 plus our local criteria um after a long discussion uh the committee did uh recommend consolidating these which would equal the removal of about 15 I think it's either 15 or 16 criteria
we went through each one individually um and they unanimously agreed that yes for perception purposes and for ease of of not only you know our staff analysis but also board level review
um that we should simplify these um and I would imagine this also has an impact to applicants uh when we have these redundant requirements in in the code correct the applicants as part of their submission do respond to all of our
criteria um you know they for for some of the criteria they usually summarize um in their response instead of listing them but we have other applicants that actually will list them out um which is very difficult to do commissioner Bond vice vice mayor Bond I can only say
that for a couple more days or weeks um so just to be clear um these were um um agreed upon unanimously yes okay and um streamlining is good 100% in
favor of streamlining it doesn't reduce the protections that we are trying to um keep from being eroded correct um the things that are listed as criteria for instance that you um say already in the
code um and you you mentioned are for the benefit of the people like on hbb for instance wouldn't that be more of a you know as a project comes up for review that you or somebody else somebody on staff would say just as a reminder this isn't a code because
people on hbb and drb are not going to know the ins and outs of the code so it's it wouldn't have to be a criteria but it would be something that gets pointed out on when each project is being considered that is correct and we also do have a criteria another criteria
that will remain as part of this recommendation that says is this application consistent with all applicable um zoning and comprehensive plan um the staff report that we present to the board also prepares a zoning analysis as part of that narrative if
there were a project that hit N Out of the 10 it would be noted somewhere either by the applicant lawyer or by staff saying this hits N Out of the 10 here's the one it doesn't and here's why you're still talking about it yes we actually respond to all of the criteria in our staff reports so this will we
will'll save a couple trees by not having to list and respond to all of them all right okay um we'll move on to the um the second topic of discussion um and this one is a bit more intensive um
is the historic preservation review process So currently just to summarize we have a a review process which is focused around what's called a certificate of appropriateness a certificate of appropriateness is an approval for any work that's being done
in a historic district so it's either an exterior work or work within a public interior space there are two tracks that review process can take one is an administrative review and one is a board level review um with regard to the the
first discussion and in set of recommendations for the committee they focused on the expansion of the administrative review Authority um currently our Authority is relatively limited we can approve Windows Doors we can approve um minor
demolition for things like accessibility or other types of Life Safety or building code we can approve signage we can approve paint um we can approve a limited amount within the interior certainly everything in P in
non-public Interiors may be approved administratively um and the board thought that the current list which is um is outlined in the appendix um was rather limiting and was requiring a lot of these very small
projects to to go to the board when when the committee felt confident they could be reviewed administratively um there's also some inconsistency with what the design review board staff can approve administratively and what the historic preservation board staff can approve
administratively so some of these suggestions were to make them more consistent number one was um sustainable roofing for example that could be something um like a metal roof that's consistent with the architecture of the building um but right now they would
have to go to the historic preservation board they couldn't apply for it and have administrative review like for example if there's we have these um the walkthrough permits now uh would you know would Roofing be allowed to go
through a walkthrough process yeah I I mean I almost certainly I would think a roof repair replacement could go through a walk and so but in this case if it was a metal roof it would have to go first of the historic preservation board correct and in this case you guys would
be able to review it correct um so that was one uh properties walls fences and gates are not specified as something that staff can review um within historic districts outside of historic districts staff is able to
review in practice because this becomes extremely cumbersome um we have approved at a staff level property fenes that meet all of the minimum code requirements and that meet the certificate of appropriateness criteria but that's something that's more of a cleanup that
I believe would need to be amended to formally give staff that that review Authority minor public interior modifications that do not harm or destroy any significant uh architectural features within the interior or are
historic lobbies historic lobbies and and it's a relatively common application that goes to the board um staff spends a lot of time with applicants actually trying to figure out modifying their plans so because they don't want to go to the board um but things like adding a
an an extra desk um adding a small bar within the original Lobby space those types of things currently do have to go to the historic preservation board um creating a small opening to for connectivity within an original wall that doesn't have any significant
features on the wall would be going to the board currently so the committee was you know thinking that we could be slightly more flexible with with minor improvements to public Interiors I have a question so because this is something that until we engaged in this process I
didn't realize because I always I always operated under the presumption that historic preservation review applied to the exterior elements of the building and in this case it you know we're learning at least
I'm learning uh now that the historic preservation review also app app guess like if we're dealing with a Historic Hotel let's say applies to the hallways I would imagine not the the corridors like to for the guest rooms it would not apply
in those areas it would apply in the lobby areas if they had an original dining room I mean if you look at at huge buildings like the fonton blue or the Eden Rock you know they have multiple public spaces um where they may want to put I think we worked with the Eden Rock they went through the board
process they wanted to put a little Starbucks in kind of a corner in one of their public um spaces and that would have had to have gone to the uh to the HPB yes and under this process that wouldn't have to go to the HPB
potentially as long as the staff is able to review it and it satisfies all of the criteria right if if we determine that it doesn't satisfy the same criteria that the board would would review then we would either request that they make changes to it or send it to the board
okay all right question commissioner Suarez and then vice mayor bot thank you Mr chairman you know believe it or not I got involved in politics because of a certificate of appropriateness uh I remember the address it was 310 Meridian and we all remember yeah
they what they did was not minor on the inside uh inside work I mean they they completely did a whole gut job and I just want to know what's the difference or what has changed from that particular project to now because if if
they were able to do a complete renovation inside and on the sides of the building and the back of the building um and they were not they didn't have to go to get a certificate of appropriateness what has changed since then and and maybe you can reference it
to that project that's a good question thank you um from what I recall I don't I don't believe I viewed that permit but I'm very familiar with the situation um that was 310 Meridian was originally constructed as a as an apartment
building did not have public interior spaces like a a Lobby or a ballroom or a dining room um nonpublic interior spaces uh like apartment units um even the corridors leading to the apartment units
um are not under the jurisdiction of the historic preservation ordinance at all so we don't review a certificate of appropriateness for those areas of the building for the exterior um and from what I recall and
and I apologize if I'm not getting all the facts straight there was a sign a lot of window replacement on that building that is currently allowed all window and door replacement may be reviewed administratively as long as it's consistent with the historic design
um I believe there also may have been a separate entrance added for that's required for Ada accessibility that is also specifically outlined as something that staff is able to review and improve administratively minor demolition to
accommodate uh life safety codes fire codes and that type of thing to the best of my recollection that's that's my response but we can certainly talk later if you would like uh and I don't know the City attorney wants to be recognized
the only thing I I would add um commissioner Suarez is I think the the big issue with 310 was that the property owner exceeded the scope of what could be approved uh administratively is that right de that was the Jefferson that was
333 Jefferson which we did bring back to the board vice mayor bot um I was actually going to reference um the project 310 as well if somebody um has a situation where they get
administrative approval to replace the windows and they then on the job decide instead of um having fixed windows we're going to have sliders would they have to come back to because the then the functionality changes right so you go from having a
window that you can open to a door but they got window approval they're not thinking about anything other than the adds value or I'm already here what's the difference who's going to know or I just don't care or insert reason here there would be an inspection wouldn't there well so that's that so that's what
I'm asking so if um to get their final Co there would have to be a final inspection that would match the plans to what was built is that correct correct okay so if somebody is um not looking super closely and sees
there's a new window DeMark ated on the plans to be here and there is a new window here and they didn't look at the plans to see oh it's a jealousy window or it's it's one of these super long windows that goes like from your knees to the ceiling but now it's actually not one of those windows it's a slider door
which then makes it I guess technically a window but it's also an egress point and changes the way a a building could be used right you could have people coming in and out all over the place without going through a central check-in point in a residential neighborhood how would that be
stopped or rectified so there's a couple things um uh the chair is correct there would be inspections and it would likely um it should be caught at an inspection not only by our planning inspector um who does look at it for our design
purposes to make sure it's consistent with plans but that's also a building violation no I understand that but and so they would need to be not approved at Co they would be required at that point to submit a revision to that permit So Not only would planning review it but
fire would also have to review it because believe it or not fire is very concerned with window openings and eress and how they um how they open um but it would need to go through the whole review process at that at the point it came to the planning department planning department would look at it to make sure
it's consistent again with the historical documentation if it is we could approve that revision if it's not we would stop that permit and say you you know we cannot approve this administratively it is not consistent with our criteria and you need to file an application to the
historic preservation board and at that point it would be an after Thea application and that does happen but they wouldn't be able to um occupy the building or lease out spaces or do short-term rentals or anything like it
they could not use it until they rectifi the situation either by bringing it up to an approved plan or taking out the whatever was not being approved because I mean I don't I don't remember but I just want to clarify right now windows
are allowed to be reviewed administratively yes okay and so this specific cleanup that we're doing through the unanimous recommendation of the Review Committee relates to minor public interior modifications and a few other several
things mentioned correct but but but right now this this that we're on it relates to uh the minor public interior modification Windows is something that already exists and I think we also did create a process where where the public needs to be notified of an
administrative review process when the whole window situation and I think I remember sponsoring legislation that there has to be a posting uh as it relates to the third and Meridian item that came out um when at the time citizen Suarez uh was appearing to us
with the concerns having to do with that project that is correct we do a posting for all administrative certificate of appropriateness is and those are also posted on our website so I guess what I'm trying to get to whether it's windows or something else I don't want people to come in and say oh they'll
approve this small thing and or this minor change but once I actually do it I'll do whatever the hell I want they'll I mean they can do whatever the hell they want but they'll get caught on the backend they'll fail their inspection right and yeah okay and and I'll be honest with you going to the board
doesn't prevent someone from doing that either because I've you know I've seen the board approv certain things and then an inspection has shown it even happens with paint colors we're dealing with that now with a restaurant they got an approval from one of the boards on a
specific pink color and the shade is just slightly off and they're being forced to go back before the board and because they can't get their approval because they St is slightly off and we're also dealing it with that home that's being built with a fence that's
that the the wall that's like AB budding the sidewalk on Allison I think it is okay all right so no system is perfect yes Mr chair that's this is going to clean up this clean up is going to help with situations like that for Shades of color I mean well I very
honorous on a I we it that's not included here but we do have separate legislation uh that will make its way to this committee at some point having to do with paint colors uh in in historic not in historic in commercial buildings is that correct Mr director yes that's
on the April 15th agenda so we have an item that's going to be coming forward regarding that uh Debbie let's let's proceed okay so I'll move on to the uh second process topic um that the committee has recommendations I just want to make sure did we cover the minor work involving improvements of public
RightWay easements you're correct I'm skipping ahead I apologize so um the other items um that the committee wanted us to explore for administrative review would include minor work involving
involvements upon public rights of way and easements this is uh consistent with the design review boards criteria I mean Authority and I think it makes um you know a lot of sense to to get especially these Public Works projects the small
minor things uh reviewed as as quick as possible as you know we're having a lot of infrastructure upgrades ongoing every day it seems um the next uh item was uh Demolition and
reconstruction of architectural features in accordance with available historical documentation and this is limited strictly just to elements yes these are architectural Elements which are often and we've I
have a bunch of examples of this often you know projecting features they could be um usually they concrete because those are the the portions of the building that seem to have structural defects um projecting elements like an eyebrow an
overhang um we had one one pro project that just went through or is currently going through the board process now um but had gone back to the board because during construction they realized that their projecting ptical share structure um was was an unsafe structure
they had to stop construction They delayed probably a month or two and went back to the board with the same design they said we just we have to reconstruct it exactly how you approved it but we we have to remove it and put it back and in
this case we what what is being recommended is that the architectural feature be no more than 20% of the facade area correct and we have to have documentation so that it can be restored as close as possible as to it was how it was historically and so I just want to
make sure like for example I remember a while back maybe a year or two ago there was a hotel in Ocean Drive one of the iconic hotels on Ocean Drive and there was concrete issues uh it was it was an architectural
element that it it was a projection that it had concrete that was falling that to me is a public safety issue but in order for them to be able to address that they would have had to have gone before the historic preservation board here they
would be able to go to you guys and be able to get administrative approval correct and what we've seen in the past is when you have a real life safety issue you know we don't delay the removal of an unsafe element um but then what you see is all these after the fact
right um applications that have gone to the board and we believe you know staff is confident that we have of the capability of approving the Reconstruction meaning it needs to be exactly either how the board had approved it originally or what the
historical documentation shows administratively if they want to change the element that would require going to the historic preservation board vice mayor Bond what if um the building doesn't have uh historic documentation of the element that needs to be
recreated once it's removed we we do a pretty good job at finding stuff but but if we couldn't find it would be a a conjectured element and then we would have to probably bring that to the board yeah because part of the criteria would be that you have enough documentation to
know how it was originally designed and sometimes we don't but that's rare Deb let's talk about railings okay so there's two recommendations for railings um the first recommendation is with regard to basically any building but
specific to contributing building buildings in historic districts um the the committee has recommended that we that staff be allowed um to replace that element um particularly if it was a wood railing which we have in our historic
districts or a concrete railing that is you know having structural issues that staff be able to approve a replacement railing that matches again matches as close as possible to the historical
um railing in design features um the second recommendation that I think is part of a separate item on the agenda today is with regard to non-contributing buildings so these are non-contributing buildings in the historic districts and
what what I have seen in the past probably year to two years is a lot of non-contributing buildings in our districts were built in the late 60s through the 1970s even early 198 80s and they have those concrete projecting
balconies and most of those buildings are going through a recertification process and the railings get flagged for two two different reasons right they get flagged as part of the structural component of the recertification and then the fire department is also looking
at these very closely because most railings that were installed on a building before 1980 do not meet the current height and rejection requirements of current Life Safety codes so what we're seeing is these huge concrete railings condominium owners
coming to us saying we can't afford to put it back or it's too heavy it wasn't you know wasn't a great design to begin with right because you have all this heavy concrete on the ocean projecting out that is going to need all this maintenance for the future and will probably need to be replaced in the next
25 years again so we've had several building owners and PJ I think I S sent you a a visual for this because it might be easier for for me to show them several of these condominium buildings have gone through the historic preservation board process um the board
has expressed um you know frustration and and not wanting to see these types of applications um but currently because they're changing the design say they want to take that big clunky concrete railing and put a a simple metal rail or
aluminum rail and we have examples of that I think 851 Rian Avenue was an example PJ I'm not sure if you're able to it's displayed those images just give me one second I'm pulling up for you right now excellent thank you wasn't there um when Nancy
leedman um was on mbu and and I was on mbu there was I can't remember the details but there's a big to-do Tom I'm sure you remember because Nancy was in your office a lot um there was a big to-do about um
railings and variances fire code variances for historic properties it was kind of along these lines wasn't exactly can you do you remember what it was the Wendy rug or the the Bell Plaza one was a little different because that's outside of an historic district but they
wanted to maintain that railing design unfortunately it didn't meet the current requirements of the Life Safety Code and the Fire Marshall at the time had very little latitude to vary from that because it was not an historic building and the fire marshal at the time actually went to Tallahassee Lobby the
state to change the law to allow them to do it on the historic properties what Nancy advocated was um allowing for railing design to retain to the greatest extent possible the original historic
design by more limited intervention so for instance if you had a 30-in railing perhaps you could go to 36 by putting a top bar but you keep the rest of the railing or if the openings are so wide perhaps you put a glass panel behind it
and we've seen examples of that like at the Victor if you go to the Victor Lobby the upper level railing they put a glass panel to retain the original railing which was still existing right and it was that that also applied to stairwells I think right and stairwells y I can
remember something I have to say I I find those I got y done for safety purposes but I think those that glass takes away from those historic railings I mean kids were kids and back then too I know but everyone's litigious now I know all
right petj were we able to uh there we go there we have 851 Meridian which is on the top I guess that be is the example of correct and you can see the the previously existing railings were a cast concrete large block system um that
was causing structural issues on these builds um and so the picture below is what the board had approved and what was installed on the building and and I think the the residents were very happy but they had to go through the historic preservation board process correct which
added time and expense to the residents of those Condominiums correct um the next uh there's a couple more examples this is you know a different typology this is on the ocean so even more vulnerable is the Riviera Plaza condominium uh they wanted to
change their masonry and um aluminum railings to entirely glass um they went to the board and the board approved the the change and so explain to me because the Riviera is that's in a historic district that's in the architecture
District it is it is not in the architectural District but it is in the Collins Waterfront historic district it's a non-contributing building right um but nonetheless the rules are aren't different for non-contributing or contributing if you're changing a design
element you would go through the historic preservation board process because you're in the in a district yeah and the committee you know you know we had a really talented contractor who works with historic buildings on as a member of our committee and I think all of the committee members are very
sensitive to what these larger Condominiums are going through right now with their recertifications um and they just felt that this may be able to provide some relief I mean and a lot of buildings are dealing with us like for example you have tridon Tower that's that's that's
around there you have uh Marisol Towers you you have Riviera you have the King David you have so many buildings that are around their Club Atlantis that fall within within one of these historic districts yet these buildings are not
historic in nature but their residents are being assessed great great amounts of money in order to engage in this work and now they have to hire lobbyists they have to go through the process and the time of taking this through through a board
which can take time and this will streamline then correct I think you have another example um yes the latest example is a building I'm currently working with that has is in the process of submitting an application um if we could go to the
next slide this is on uid um oh no excuse me this is another property that went through the board process the last one is the one I'm working with now um so this this project also went through um the historic preservation board process relatively
recently in 20 I think at the end of 2023 they had gone and gotten approval but it was you know very similar situation it's kind of the same story over and over they were going in this case it was a bit more challenging they were going through a recertification
process they hired a contractor they had contractor issu issues one of the the contractors when because they're looking at structural the structural report from the engineer and saying okay all of these things need to be repaired when the contractor was trying to follow the
structural engineer Direction he just removed the balconies cuz he in his mind the contractor thought that that was structural repair so this went as an after the fact all the the the entire slab um in most cases for this building
and the railing were removed this particular one you know is probably the least well done of all of them because it's just that you know basic vertical picket um but this went through the board process they delayed a lot of a
lot of their construction to get through the board process and given the circumstances um and hearing from the residents of the building uh the board did approve it all right and your last example the last example is is a building on lenux that I'm currently
working with now I mean you can see they're doing other repairs to this building um they're in a difficult situation where I think the fire department has been by as well so they've kind of put some plywood up to try and satisfy the the 4 in rejection
in some areas and non-contributing building they're looking at you know about a a four-month process um to to move forward so the it seems like the majority of the buildings that would be benefiting from
this are kind of our our inventory of naturally affordable naturally curing affordable housing who need the most help the fastest because they're being hit with the same assessments as everybody else with not to make generalizations but with likely
less opportunity to dip into their pocket boooks to fix things so this would help alleviate some of that pressure and I and one of the things that I like that the committee recommended is not only the streamlining of the process
allowing the the the planning department to do that administrative review but that they're recommending that designed guidelines be developed to allow staff to approve railing designs alterntive railing designs for non-contributing buildings but having that designed
guideline in place as so that so there's that road map okay you might need to go away from this concrete might be costly to replicate that concrete and we know that that concrete and the weight on that concrete could create greater structural
pressures in in in the future but what is it that we want to take what direction do we want to go in and having that pre-approved design guideline could be helpful yes all right great with that should we go into the the two-step
process absolutely okay very excited about the two-step process you have great vision yeah and and the committee was very excited about it too so the the two-step process we currently have this process outlined in the code um you know when we were when we going through our
discussions with the committee it dawned on me that huh yes we do have this process because I you know you don't often think of it because it's never been used one of the reasons it's never been used at least I don't know Tom's been here longer than me um but since I've been here almost two
decades you know it hasn't been used so when I was reading through the Section it it was very unclear how how to use it what the requirements were who was eligible for this two-step process the the existing code says the historic
preservation board will determine who is eligible for this process well if you're not allowed to file the application how do you get in front of the historic preservation board to make that decision so the committee recommended that staff prepare a much more
detailed um process for this um they did believe that for the very large projects this would be extremely beneficial um very large projects such as you know the Raleigh Hotel project the um Shore Club
project the Ritz Carlton project rare I mean they don't get reviewed in in one hearing and I brought talk brought a properties with lot sizes of one acre or more yeah and I I brought a visual so you can see the magnitude of what's
required for a full application to the historic preservation board right PJ can you zoom in on that how many pages that's like this is I think oh I count I had the number um I think it's over 200 Pages all right and that's that's just
to have like this preliminary first review at the historic preservation board this would be right but we require to get in front of the board we require a full application so that includes you know minutia details of in public Interiors all materials everything has
to be finalized to get where your elevator is at where your Escape Route is at correct the place when in reality we want to be focusing okay you're massing how far back are you from the setbacks how tall is your building something that's more conceptual for
that first right the I think the intent behind our existing two-step process was to provide these larger projects um an opportunity to go in front of the board and and have the board really deliberate issues of compatibility with the
surrounding neighborhood scale massing um those are the big issues and that's often like with with M with this project and with other projects the board ends up spending a lot of time on that and they often have comments they
often have conditions or or request changes so if the applicant is submitting a full package and the board starts asking for some modifications to the location of the addition to the height of the addition that's a ripple
effect to the point where hundred of pages of plants hundreds and then it would have to come back anyways with a fully revised plan and it's it's hard for the board um more than anything from my perspective it's hard for the board to digest so much information where they
may have six or seven other applications on the agenda when there they often don't focus on things like the details of the restoration of the historic building because there's so much else to focus in on that the two-step process allows the board to approve you know
basically a site plan with the general ma with the massing you know we it will require detailed information either engineered or architecturally you know signed and sealed drawings that are accurate but it would not require all of
the vast amount of details um and we do think that would be helpful because then if the their site plan gets approved they can come back with all those details and the board will really have the time and the energy to focus on on that so we do think it will I'm sorry let's yeah uh pet did we there's there's
some noise that's coming in just wanted to alert it to you through the sound system all right let we just that um we do think it will be a huge assistance and in Saving of a lot of resources for applicants but we also think it'll probably result in better projects
because the board will have more time and feel more relaxed to to take small bites out of a project than to try to digest the whole thing in one hearing okay all right um and and this would apply to properties on lot sizes over an acre correct and projects uh or
developments over 75,000 girls square feet either or so this is for the really large projects in our city yes okay all right any feedback on that no all right I like it okay um the next
recommendation was with regard to the existing Transportation analysis and mitigation plan requirements uh currently the the resiliency code requires any project going before um the the historic
preservation board that is over 5,000 gross new square feet or if it's a multi family building that is greater than four new residential units if you meet that threshold then you're required to submit
the transportation analysis and mitigation plan which does funnel through our transportation department who does a great job in reviewing these but it it does add a significant amount of additional time um it also does require through that process with
Transportation a um a consultant review um and the committee did believe that this was was burdensome on smaller projects um you know 5,000 gross square feet is is not a a large remember gross square feet includes any parking areas
excuse me um any roof decks any outdoor Terrace areas sure and I've heard over over the years um that this is the biggest delay that applicants often face are the traffic studies and the prer review of these traffic studies and
right now I think our our regulations even says you know if you're doing an addition that adds four new units well you know what's the impact four new units and so now we're going to delay a
project through this bureaucracy uh and creating you know keeping a burdensome process this would actually just stream like that where we're going to say really this is for the larger projects do we really need these um these reviews
and what's going to be what's going to be the threshold the committe we can't hear you the sorry the committee recommended the threshold be 50,000 Square fet which is consistent with the planning board's
uh conditional use uh review okay so there are projects that aren't captured by the planning board because they're in residential districts um but they would be captured by by HPB because we would for over over 50,000 Square ft the the recommendation is to still require this
type of study I have a macro question for you for Tom um or whoever um I'd like this being consistent across our different disciplines and our different districts um I know that one size does not fit all but I so clearly remember if
you were on the planning board you had left already but there's a resident who came Nick you probably remember who' come and was pulling his hair out he's like it's just not consistent from block to block from door to door our code isn't consistent and so this doesn't
address all the issues but I I really like the cleaning out to make it more consistent and so I'm wondering if we're doing this are there other opportunities to kind of make things more consistent um like we're doing here in
other ways that I don't know the code well enough to capture so obviously that's not a that's not a thing like yes here are five examples but I would put it to you guys to maybe think about it talk about it and come back to us and say here a handful of other examples or
opportunities that may or may not be historic districts or contributing or whatever but it's the same issue just in a different section so I don't know if that needs to be a motion um or can just ask you to remember to do it or I don't know what
the right Pro processes we we can also meet meet with you if you like with staff uh to identify some specific issues okay all right cool very good all right um next um process recommendation by the board
is uh to expand the existing section that is entitled the special review procedure for single family homes um currently we do have um expanded authority to review single family homes in historic districts um for exterior
changes um however we do not have expanded authority to approve additions over a certain size so we can approve up to two story additions but the way the historic preservation regulations were
structured and I believe the intent when these thresholds were put in place was for larger commercial and multif family residential buildings it was structured to limit the percentage of any new addition that staff can review and approve administratively to a percentage
of the existing square foot square feet of the building so if you look at you know our historic homes in historic districts they're primarily in the western part of Flamingo Park and in Palm View well these existing homes in our historic districts are very small um you know
some of them they probably they probably range between maybe 13 or 1400 Square fet to 2500 ft so if you had a a 1 1700 ft home and you wanted to do addition and currently You' be allowed to do a 300t addition
administratively so it's not proportional I think to to the intent of that regulation so the committee uh did recommend that staff be able to approve um in addition to the special review procedure that's already in place to
approve additions that don't exceed the allowable setbacks um lot coverage or unit size or height administratively um provided they're not substantially visible from the public
RightWay so this would would not include an addition at the front of the property for example and this is great because what happens is that what what happened I'm sorry I got distracted I got distracted very I do too talk about dogs talk about dogs
there you go um what happens is the moment they have to go before the historic preservation board they'll just come in to request a demolition permit at that point they won't come to say well you know if if I'm just going to go through the
historic preservation board let me just go and get everything that I can in this case by avoiding the historic preservation board to make an addition to a house we in essence helping make these homes more more usable for modern
standards while at the same time helping encourage people to keep the homes by avoiding having to to go through the regulatory process of the board correct and the committee had um another recommendation that if this if
this should move forward um that at a minimum requirement the the property owner should be required to send a mail notice to his adjacent um neighbors to notify them in advance of of any permit being issued and and staff thinks that
that is a a very good idea as well and it's mainly flaming West and Park View Palm View yes pal sorry okay moving on we have
um uh two cleanup items really F uh finish up the the process recommendations one was to remove um what we believe is an obsolete notice requirement specific to continued items on theard board's agenda only um this I
believe used to be an all four land use board notice requirements it was removed from all the board requirements but it was left in um speaking to your consistency issue left in somehow in the historic preservation section this
basically says if an item is continued it requires a a notice in the Miami Herald 15 days before um we're not noticing in the consistency between the boards correct just to just to make a a consistent noticing process for all four
of our land use ports um and the final um recommendation was actually brought to our attention by mied County um myate County authorizes the city through enabling legislation to have our own
historic preservation program uh communities that do not wish to opt into an independent program are under the jurisdiction of Miami D County so the county has minimum threshold requirements for the City of Miami Beach
to meet in order to have an approvable historic preservation ordinance we um submit a a annual report every year to the county they're always very happy with the work we do but they this year they did point out uh the fact that we are not consistent with one of their
minimum standards and that is uh the inclusion of procedure to remove historic designation so the minute I found out that we were not in compliance with one of the minimum requirements I had a conversation with the chief of historic preservation at miia County she
explained it to me um she um gave me the County's language and said it's you know it's not to encourage the removal of designation it's just to to have a process in the event that that someone
requests this and basically what the County's language is and and what the committee had recommended is that it be the to amend or resend any historic designation it the process shall comply
in the same manners and procedures as the original designation okay so for example in our historic districts someone wanted to remove a designation that would require hearings in front of the historic preservation board a hearing in front of the planning board and ultimately two hearings before the
city commission and that's just that's just for us to be in compliance in order to maintain our historic preservation ordinance we need to comply with the county requirement and the county requires us since we have our own historic preservation code to have this element within it yes all right let's
talk about incentives for preservation so that we don't have to use that section okay um yes moving on to incentives the the first incentive the the committee um discussed and and was very positive about would be potentially expanding our
current advolum historic tax exemption program we current the city currently has a program eligible to single family homes only um the board or the committee wanted to discuss expanding that to all
properties commercial multif family um properties and it's it's interesting to note that because I have had conversations with my County about this too Miami day County currently for their portion of the taxes currently offers this this program for all buildings
within the city of Miami Beach um and they you know of course would support the city doing that I confirmed with them that they would be okay with that and this would just be for the city's portion of the taxes so we don't see a ton of applications I'm still getting the final data from the county about how
many applications they have processed over the years for for the County's portion of the taxes um but potentially a reason why maybe because it you know the County's portions about onethird of the tax bill we are the significant part of it right and so and so this would
offer tax exception for the renovation to the historic property and it would allow for the exension of up to 100% of the increase in taxable building value for the improvements correct and that's the phrase well it's it's not the
property value it would be the increase in building value after Renovations are done it could be very significant if it was a very large project uhuh um and especially when you take into consideration the city's portion and the county portion correct and that is for a
period not to exceed 10 years so after 10 years that would get rolled back the The increased building value would get rolled back into the tax bill for both the county and the city so this is the same thing we already do for single family homes but extending it for multif
family and commercial buildings correct and this is significant vice mayor Bon so I I love this um I'm curious Nick maybe I misunderstood but I remember when I was first elected um we talked about how to
incentivize Workforce housing and had an idea I brought to you an idea that was similar to this for new development um to defer taxes or you know the the differential and I was told that we we were preempted by the state but that's
for new development I understand that so the question is and I I don't want to limit this I think this is great because we want to see more preservation or Redevelopment and um as opposed to building new like that I was by far the greenest way to redevelop and put more
better housing stock in but if if we have if this exists for one type of housing why can't we use this to incentivize another type of housing when it's on the books state law specifically provides for an
adum uh property tax exemption for improvements to historic buildings so this so this is this is pursu to an Express statute uh Mi county has adopted an ordinance that would apply to to any development our ordinance only applies
to single family so the recommendation of the committee would be to expand the program uh to to take advantage of the you know the full benefits of what the statute allows I mean look I think this this all these other things are really good I like them this here this we should be shouting from the rooftops I
mean to your point commissioner Rosen Gonzalez we've been talking about um how do you know is it better to buy new or to redevelop and you know the a good case can be made for either depending on the circumstances but if now properties
that exist know that they can do some pretty significant upgrades and expand the size of their properties you know add four units so you go from being a six unit multif family building to 10 unit it's not nothing and if a bunch I mean I'm thinking just of North Beach and we have plenty of them um with a
little bit room to maneuver right like you know we don't want to have no green space but there is some room to maneuver up there and all of a sudden one of the things we keep hearing is um we can't do it it's too expensive it's not worth the effort well all of a sudden that's no longer true if and when this gets
adopted I would like to very strongly recommend that there is public Outreach Community meetings that's um that's in the works for like like specifically for this one everything else is great but this is the one that can really move the needle and can happen the fastest versus
a new development that'll take you know two years to get permitted and three years to get built and find the funding and buy the land and all that stuff and we've tried to do this in the past and there was not the political wherewithal to get this to the finish line and I hope that that that that that with our
renewed focus on historic preservation and the challenges and the threats that we see to Historic preservation that this tax exception on to the commercial property to the multifam property that invest in their preservation make it the
very best incentive that we can offer to preserve our architectural Heritage in Miami Beach commissioner Suarez I thank you Mr chair this is a great learning experience for me um commissioner but mentioned you would go from as an example you go from four units to
six units how how are you increasing F or how are you actually increasing units uh in the example you gave I mean I just pulled that out of thin air the chair yes sorry through the through the chair um I just pulled that
out of um thin air for an example if somebody were like oh I really would like to improve my my building and I have room to add some units I oh okay just I want to be clear that no it's not an F thing it's just like if somebody
owned a property and said boy you know these There's an opportunity here there's all this unused land on the lot and I could do something here um or I could make my property nicer um place to live um I could put in central air I could replace the roof but it's too
expensive but we can also but you can also through reconfiguration increase the amount of units in a historic building um for as long as is as it is consistent within the density requirements under the comprehensive plan is that correct
Mr attorney yes so so so you have the ability to go from four units to let's say six units through through an approved reconstruction for for as long as you are within density limits and that that does happen on on a regular basis for for example when we were
talking about our um transportation our transport ation study requirements you know if you add more than four units to an existing building it would trigger a transportation study which is which delays the process so there is the ability to do it commissioner Suarez
yeah thank you Mr yeah it just it just caught my attention when there was a mention of green space and you know possibly adding more over that green space I I I I just wanted to make sure that we're this doesn't allow that administratively to
happen no right okay no no this any any addition to a property would have to comply with the current land of Val I'm not I'm not suggesting nor would I ever suggest that we pave paradise to put up a parking lot or two additional uh units
but if you are sitting on a on a multif family property in a historic district that was built in the 1940s or 50s that may not have the most beneficial use of space on the lot and there's an
opportunity to do something with it um but you've never considered reimagining how to reconfigure the space because it didn't make economic sense now you have the opportunity to have the conversation a where as before you never did and and but I just want to clarify
just want to make sure that the record is clear that the exception applies only to qualifying improvements of the historic property so if would apply to new construction no it would apply only to qualifying improvements stabby is
that correct um partially correct just to add to that um my conversations with the county uh tax appraiser and the historic preservation Chief is that small additions attached to the building so if you had a rooftop addition or if
you put a rear addition on your property to add additional units that potentially could be qualifying as an improvement to the existing building if you were approved to build an addition detached like a separate little building in the back that for my understanding would not
be a qualifying Improvement but you know as we read about affordable housing Solutions all over the country there are lots of different ways to do it right so an a separate Adu would work in Bay Shore where a lot of the single family homes already have those little guest Cottages in the back and that's a thing that
already exists and we've got legislation to incentivize new adus to be structure I don't I don't know if anybody's applied for that but that is a small tool in our toolbox if you have something here where you have you know maybe your building has four units on
one side and three on the other side you could potentially do a a fourth little unit there and and now you have another incremental and I know this doesn't move the needle but it all adds up and anything that we can do to encourage um owners to think about how do we take
better care of our buildings because the other thing is is we don't just want people to live in really crappy rundown buildings we would like them to be able to live in affordable places with central air and windows that open and floorboards that aren't um wildly uneven
and so if we have things that can incentivize people to take better care of their building provide better quality of life for our residents um and and protect our historic culture I'm very excited about this side I'm telling you we we were in my briefing and I'm just
so proud of the work that thatb has done and of the committee that we put together because it really has been professionally driven recommendations to help our community and better preserve our historic character so Debbie let's talk about tdrs and uh tdds okay uh the
TDR tdd which is transfer of development rights or a transfer of development density is is a more complex program that we don't currently in the city have a a structure for um as part of a I think this was item number two on the
agenda today um staff did prepare a a memo that outlines um an initial structure of how such a program could be um could be put in place in in the city of May beach taking into consideration
comments that we received at the I believe it was the November land use committee specific to having a a sunset period and specific to C C areas kind of a smaller area Washington 17 perhaps right uh including this as part of the
residential use incentives where we have Lincoln Road 17th Street and Washington Avenue as a potential um one of the things that we pointed out and we think is critical before this um goes too far
um into any formal recommendations is to uh have an economic study a market study uh for such a program best practices throughout um the country have all indicated that without this type of
study um there's there's less likelihood that any program like this would be successful there there needs to be a market for not only the purchase but also for the sale of these development rights there also needs to be appropriate um ratios put in place for
what can be sold and what can be purchased um um so it is it is difficult there also needs to be a certain saturation level if there's too many available um they they're also not likely to be successful if there's too little available for the needs of the
purchaser that's also likely not to be um successful there's there's different ways of structuring this um we had noted that that the two main ways are for the developer to make a a I mean all of this is a private transaction but there two
main ways is is at the time the developer needs them to go individually to a property owner and purchase them at the time he's getting his project approved the other option which um seems to have more success throughout the
country is is to treat them like Commodities to basically allow them to be sold to anyone at any point and have um what a lot of communities do is they have what they call a a transfer development rights Bank where it's a central location that has either
purchased these um and can negotiate with with developers to sell them so it's you know there I think this is out of the planning Department's Wheelhouse in terms of the expertise for this type of study and we are recommending that
before we we issue any uh formal recommendations or more specificity that we do go ahead and and uh hire a consultant to perform this study and I I think you know clearly we need to understand you know what the administrative costs are with uh with
implementing a program like these the legal fees the monitoring uh the market facilitation for it um you know we want to make sure that there's even a market for it um you know are there buyers and
sellers and the risks involved with it and and evaluating you know who benefits most from a TDR program and how to uh mitigate the disparities in accessing these the these programs so um as part
of the recommendation that we have before us today would be to conduct an overall economic study on what establishing a TDR program could be so we can see what those economic benefits and drawbacks could be and better inform
our decision making correct okay commissioner Bond and then commissioner Rosen Gonzalez so I would actually go a little bit further than that and I would take the TDR tdd and take it out of all these other things and treat it very separately
because I think we're going to be enthusiastically endorsing all of these things um I have significant concerns about doing tdrs here it's not like we have um a lot of underdeveloped land in
the city and we already are talking about um doing potentially some very specific and delimited up zoning in areas where we could maybe afford to do that which then would also be the
receiving areas for any tdrs I don't think and and we have a history not anybody here but we have a history of as a city of giving people an inch and they take a mile and that's how you end up with you know a tower at fifth in Alton that you can see from mid
Beach and another Tower at 7 second and um uh Dickens I guess the cross street is that you can see almost from mid Beach and so given our history given the players in the market um and given the
reality of our geography and topography and built environment I don't think and I I'm the first to say let's go explore it but I don't think that this TDR should be um something we endorse as completely is this and I would like to
separate it because that and that's the intent the the the intent is to keep that as a separate item Tom I think the intent is to continue to keep that on the agenda that's correct as a separate so it's going to come out of this yes so when we vote to say yes let's approve all these or recommend it it will be all
of these except for this that's correct because there's also going to be the cost of doing a study and given what we know we're losing $7 million right off the top next year in our budget because of the DMV situation you know is this $200,000 or half a million dollars and I
and I think they have they they may have Mr director correct me if I'm wrong you guys are looking within your departmental budget because the dollars may exist potentially for to to hire someone to do this economic study correct we think that we may have the funds already we do want to confirm what
the cost is and this would go to the commission as a recommendation for the commission to authorize it um Madam Vice chair yeah all right um let's talk about the single family zoning incentives oh I'm sorry yeah
commissioner Ros Gonzalez um I think this is no I I I think it's great I mean I'm not on this committee but I'm glad that I'm here to witness this because I think it's really uh cool stuff I and I I do think that the tdrs are important because it offers
an economic incentive do I love them no but do I understand that we have to I I I don't know that's what you know but but but it it would it could potentially encourage somebody who was not going to um you know renovate to do so if you
know as long as as long as we voted on it I don't think it would be a big problem but I do think that that's a super economic incentive also I can't believe you were able to get the administration to agree to a tax exemption you know this tax exemption is so powerful I would like I think that
any building owner who builds within the zoning that they currently have instead of trying to go above and beyond should get that same tax exemption now I was told that we could not do a tax exemption and now but this already exist this has always existed for for at least for at least 15 years this has existed
we've had it in Miami Beach for a long time it's been limited only to single family homes in the past we've tried to expand this Beyond single family homes where you haven't had the political support to expend it of course because we're talking about a tax inact
and what does the tax impact affect it affects our general fund but I think this puts our money where our mouth is it puts our money where our values are are aligned it puts our it puts our values to say that we want to support the preservation of historic properties
even when they're not even when they're not single family homes they're worth preserving and we're willing to make a 100% uh tax exemption to the city uh on those on those invest for a period of 10 years and and wait can I because I'm
asking these questions here the the only thing that I would add and what I think would make this even better is like if somebody with a historic building decides that they want to renovate it and they want to build as of right they should get the tax exemption on whatever new on whatever they add on to the
property so this this uh this tax exemption for improvements to existing historic buildings is specifically authorized under state law so we would we we would be limited to the to the confines that for of just that yeah even if they just put well if they add on a
couple of units and they're still getting the tax exemption well and and what what Debbie explained is that in certain instances um at minor additions to an existing building could qualify but you know a brand new let's say a brand new building at the at the rear of
the property that would that would probably not qualify how could we how could we look at that statute and and see because maybe if you kept the entire historic structure and just add it on to it and let's say that they had 50 ft in the historic district fine this is what we want to encourage you want to
encourage 5 foot you know resent five five foot 50 foot 75 foot buildings not you know 400 yeah not 150 so if there was a way that you could look at that law and see if they build within the right and they keep the historic you
know and and they renovate the historic portion they should get the that would be they should get the tax exemption and that would be a real fin incentive I think and I don't know if that's a possibility Nick but we can well let's let's check in with Debbie on that um thank you Mr chair so we can certainly
have those conversations the midate County property appraiser is actually the entity that makes that final determination of what the value of the qualifying improvements are and the county um in my discussion the county also has regulations that we need to
follow I can certainly and these are discussions I've had previously with it with Miami day County trying to fight for for historic single family homes and additions and even with their with their application trying to fight to get more for our historic Renovations um so we
can certainly I can certainly as part of this moving if this moves forward have those conversations um and get you some more information but it's really the tax appraiser I think that's making that final determination there's three more points that we get to get to okay and I just this is my final thing that I want
to add and that's it yes you know on Sunday I was at the taste of the fountain the Normandy Circle which I hadn't been to like in six months or something well what I saw was an organic um Rehabilitation you know what I mean oranic about blossoming of this
neighborhood and that's what I always said would happen if we you know if we held off and didn't allow you know and didn't allow this type of development we would get that organic cell what you have right now is a very cool burgeoning
gastro bar cool je jewelry a candle shop opened now you have laba that little cab French Cabaret but as it relates to this item sorry is that we okay yes but but that's but but that if we insist on stuff like this and we don't we and we
hold the line on the other stuff that's what we will get and that's what we want to get because that's so special and you can't build that yeah you just can't what I've been saying this will helps this will help thank you commissioner Debbie okay uh thank you Mr chair um the final items we have uh the single family
home zoning incentives um this is currently available that that uh reduces setbacks for additions to architecturally significant pre-1 1942 homes that are being retained and
restored um so they're allowed to follow the same setbacks that exist for new additions it also allows for additional uh lot coverage and units size the committee um strongly encouraged the city to look at also allowing these
incentives which primarily in the historic districts it would benefit the setbacks um to continue for small additions um so this creates consistency creates consistency with the exception the committee was was strong in the fact that they did not believe the additional
unit size that's allowed outside of historic districts should be available to Historic districts but this relates more to setbacks and lock coverages correct okay any questions on that nope all right and um finally uh the committee as
referred by the mayor and commission the committee did discuss um two uh items that are on today's um land use agenda these are the um incentives for property owners to restore and rehabilitate historic resources there's one for North
Beach and there's one item for Flamingo Park um the committee discussed the those um those applica those items and while they believed that it could be somewhat beneficial that they they stated it's unlikely to really move the
needle because the financial incentives provided um would probably be too low to encourage someone to go ahead and renovate their entire building um but they did believe that those ideas coupled with a larger incentives package
would be helpful um and so they weree uh positive regarding the individual incentives but as long as they were coupled with larger incentives to make a bigger impact um they believed that they were beneficial So in theory thank you in theory they could be you know just um
uh recommendation number five and six of this package and just folded into this um and okay so that's what I'd like to see done okay um then one of the other things that that's under the other categor I'm going to take the Liberty
because the chair of the committee brought it up is the additional funding uh to to support his historic preservation review at the staff level I think if we create all these new categories for administrative review
that needs to come with support for staff so that we don't end up with a backlog in in that review process as well for any new incentive program that could potentially be created like the ad hoc historic preservation um uh tax exemption program
and I would like for us to consider that with that uh Debbie anything else that you would like to add um no I just I I want to thank um I want to thank you Mr chair for establishing this committee I think they all did great work I want to thank Nick ceris and Jake cyberline who
really assisted with with all of the work that was done and again I I really want to recognize this committee um for you for for a long time to I've spoken to you to Tom about the possibility of creating this committee
to update our 40-year-old historic preservation code bring it up to to to Modern standards and help support preservation this committee has delivered such excellent work and like any person that serves in a public seat
like ours we're only as good as those who support us and you are a big part of this work Debbie and I'm so grateful to you to Nick uh to the planning department to to for having facilitated this process is there any other dialogue from the deas uh regarding uh these
recommendations I would just add um this is excellent work and for anybody who's not seen or witnessed um experienced Debbie Tac at doing a tour of a historic facility run don't walk next time you get the opportunity she is a treasure
and a font of knowledge and deeply loves what she does and so thank you uh are there members of the public wishing to speak on this item Mr chairman we have two hands up on Zoom actually commissioner Dominguez has her hands up we have one other hand up let's recognize commissioner Dominguez
and then we'll recognize the members of the public commissioner Dominguez welcome hi there Mr oops um this has been such a great discussion I've really enjoyed it I know that Comm ER bot and I submitted a
couple items for the historic ones in Flamingo Park and also in North Beach so I'll do some more research to see what I can couple those incentives with but uh thank you to the chair for bringing the ad hoc committee and thank you to the ad
hog committee and also to Debbie T because this was phenomenal and I just wanted to say that thank you thank you and thank you both commissioner bod and commissioner Dominguez for the item so you referred to the committee uh it really it really was very substantive
any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item yes we have Kent Robbins uh Kent welcome you have two minutes to speak all right this is Kent Robins I have a question maybe addressed more to the attorney than to the board I know in
the city Charter there is specific Provisions conern concerning guidelines in the of the historic preservation board and specific prohibitions from specific
prohibitions of from the uh historic preservation board um reducing the requirements and strent requirements the hbb board without referring the matter to the uh to the electorate for a
vote Citywide vote on the reduction of the requirements I think it would have to first go to the city commission the city commission then would have to set it down for an election um what Provisions have you considered as far as
which items as you're suggesting changes would require Citywide approval by referendum thank you Mr Robins for your for for your questions um I think that's I I don't want our City attorney to be
placed in a in a position of I well up to you you're you're you're you're the attorney Mr chairman I I uh the only comment I would make to the committee is that we will ensure that any amendments to the Land Development regulations that come out of this
discussion comply with applicable law perfect yes all right are there any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item seeing none in person none on Zoom all right commissioner Rosen Gonzalez um
I see Mohammad in in the audience Mohammad you're not going to be happy about this recommendation though um okay I had a resident um a few residents um business owners in the community come to me because of some of
our distance oh is this is this on item one on the no this is item 16 you I only have I only have okay let me let me just close this item okay so there's all right okay so okay we have items one
through seven uh with the with the recommendations of the of of the committee let's um Mr attorney or Mr director should we do a motion approving the recommendations on items one through 7 ascept for item number two and
continue item two for the for the market study to a future meeting yes and and if it could be by acclamation to bring a draft ordinance to the city commission for a referral to the planning board in accordance with the recommendations in
the lusc memo which reference the report that Debbie just presented yes so I make that motion it's moved by by the Vice chair second by commissioner Suarez I think by acclamation we can show that done uh thank you colleagues on that and
on the market study do we need to make a motion to the city commission to conduct the market study to analyze the pros and the cons of of the ldr yes the TDR program do we know the cost like how are we making a motion on something we would we would bring that to the commission
they staff would bring that to the city commission all right is there a motion on that it's been moved by commissioner Suarez seconded by the chair and we show that adopted by acclamation all right by acclamation and then we're going to continue item number
two which is the actual creation of TDR program we're going to continue that item because we're not making a recommendation we need a study to tell us is there a market demand how it would work before we make a recommendation on that as I correct Mr director that's
correct Mr chair so so so we will continue item number two on the creation of a TDR program to a future meeting all right with that we conclude uh this section of our agenda and out of a courtesy to commissioner Rosen Gonzalez who is visiting us today and welcome
commissioner it's always good to to to have you here and it's good to see our good friend m Islam at the audience I will take item number 16 out of order thank you so much uh commissioner Fernandez um okay so this is about our
distance separation um in North Beach regarding um tobacco products um and let me explain why I would like to loosen the restrictions for example if Publix wanted to renovate an existing
supermarket they won't because they would become because they're a non-conforming use and they would lose their right to sell tobacco similarly some of our storefronts that are actually operating and successful have licenses um in in this case I had a
business come to me they have a thriving business and it happens to be a liquor store but because of this law they can't sell um tobacco products now I understand I know commissioner Fernandez says that you know there's been some
bans across the city and a lot of people don't um you know and and I know that this is not really the direction that we want to be going in but the question is do we really want to punish existing businesses um with that non-conforming use by they have a license to sell
liquor but they can't sell the tobacco products so I said I would bring it forth I'm looking at the recommendation from the administration um which says do give it an unfavorable Rec Commendation but I would argue that at a time when we have so many vacant stor
friends that we should consider the fact that we might end up hurting businesses that are struggling to survive and um do we really want to do this and if I if we did want to help out this business owner um Tom I know that we had a meeting and
what was your recommendation I I know what your recommendation is but how could we fix this problem so that we do not um put somebody out of business or harm their business or they have to change their business model just because we have we've done some
bans through the chair yes um I don't believe that the person who contacted me was in North Beach and it was a couple of months ago um but this is a a small business who has a similar situation he actually has a state license to sell
tobacco but and he's in between two stores that do sell beer and tobacco he only sells beer whatever exact details it is and so he loses business because people come in say you know a sixpack and a pack of smokes and he's like well I can give you the beer but I can't give
you those the pack of smokes and so they're like forget I'm going to go next door where I can get both not that I'm condoning any of this Behavior or whatever but the fact of the matter is they are legal businesses and so um Alex Comm chairman Fernandez I'm sorry Alex
um chairman Fernandez started this work when when we were on the planning what's that your Royal Highness um uh started this work when we were on the planning board together and it was born out of um a a real desire to tidy things up and it
it caused quite a Ruckus because it had been done in South Beach and it hadn't been done in North Beach and so it wasn't Equitable because you're tidying things up in South Beach but you're not Tiding things up in North Beach and then people up in North Beach are like well you're destroying our way of life there was like this this whole boy there's a
lot of drama for a long time about this and the one in South Beach and so I think that I I would almost suggest that we look at it Citywide and and like not have this discussion yet but take it into a bigger um a bigger conversation
not how do we incentivize but how do we protect the businesses because if there's one in North Beach and there's one in South Beach there might be a handful of others and so very surgically carefully protect the businesses that are legal businesses selling legal products I'm not talking
about the people like you know wake and bake on Washington Avenue which is not really what we're trying to encourage but you know and maybe there's nothing we can do but I think it it's worth of a it's worthy of a grownup thoughtful
conversation about how do we make sure that the businesses who are operating selling products which are currently still legal um make sure that they are on an equal playing field without undoing the good that these these changes in both North and
South Beach were designed to implement so I so I'll just give you some some of my thoughts um you know clearly we have these establishments already existing in North Beach um you know and I was speaking with staff and so like let's
say a Public's wanted to go in or some other Market that happens to sell this as ancillary they wouldn't be able to well do we want to prohibit that and you know while I'm not excited about about
the um about the tobacco cigarette portion of the establishment I wouldn't want to get in the way of an establishment like a publics being able to go into into an area I'm not comfortable saying that this right now
should apply Citywide and rather you know we've we've received contact about the business in North Beach that is dealing with this I'm happy to see how it would work in North Beach um are
there any unintended consequences as as a result of this of this exception is there abuse as a result of it like for example you know someone could get a license for a convenience store and really not operate as a convenience store at all it just completely operate
completely as a vape shop well we don't want that correct you you know we want to make sure that there is a very you know balanced uh uh activity there so I'm willing to see you know how it works in North Beach uh see if there are any
unintended consequences before we have a broader discussion Comm U let me go to the Committee Member and then I'll go back to commissioner Rosen Gonzalez thank you Mr chair Tom can you just I was just out I don't know I know if you went over some of the details of this proposal can
you lay up for me please sure um The Proposal is right now just to give everybody some background as we stated in the memo um our code does not distinguish between the retail sale of tobacco and VAP products either on an
incidental or ancillary basis like you might see in a Publix or Walgreens from the true tobacco and vape stores so they're all treated the same same and currently under our code we have distance separation requirements Citywide and then in North Beach there's
actually a Prohibition on new uh tobacco and vape dealers through the through the north beach commercial character overlay and this legislation when it was adopted in 2017 was purposely written very broadly and we included in an intense section um that's pertinent that says it
is in the intent of this division to limit access and exposure of tobacco and vaping products to Children and adolescents due to their addictive nature and damaging effects on health it is also the intent of this to limit the proliferation of tobacco vaping and smoking device product dealers in areas
where the city encourages terrorism into U minimize the negative implication that these types of businesses may have I believe the proposal here is to create some limited relief in North Beach to allow for
entities that sell these products on an inary or incidental basis um uh to allow those types of um venues or establishments um to have um the ability to sell
these can you give me an example of some relief that would be provided for this so if this if there was consensus uh among the land use committee members on this we would have to amend two sections of the code we have to amend the north beach commercial overlay character
District regulations um because right now tobacco and vape dealers are prohibited and we'd have to modify those regulations to allow for some type of incidental or anciliary use and then two we would need
to modify 7.5 5.9 regarding the distance separations and we could make distance separations specific to areas of North Beach um and basically create a distinction between those types of establishments that sold tobacco and VAP
products on a truly anciliary or incidental basis and distinguish those from Standalone tobacco and vape dealers that solded as a primary product I have an idea through the chair all right are you done yeah I'd like some followup
questions but I can after I can ask you all right commissioner Bon I have an idea maybe that addresses some some of what's going on there is a business and I don't want to call out names because I just did and I don't want to do that again but there's a business on Collins that is um
a food store um that sells Vape products and arguably more than that um and not a food store like a general grocery store like a fast food store so technically it's an ancillary business but they've no business selling like if you go into a clothing store you don't expect to be able to
pick up a six-pack like technically I guess you could but it doesn't make sense is there a way to more narrowly craft this so that if you're already selling alcohol you can also sell legal tobacco products but not if
you're um but if you're you know like selling Sporting Goods or whatever you're not it's not that we're going to open because what we don't what I don't want there to be an unintended consequence of now everybody can sell booze and alcohol if they have a state license to do so right we don't want to
expand the proliferation we just want to make sure that the businesses that are already doing business in this General area are able to compete um okay let me just I have like five minutes before I have two minutes
actually um okay here here is what I would say about this I want okay we have some food markets across the city right and they're not going to improve their properties because they're going to want to hold on to these licenses so what are you going to see they are going to hold
on and not do one improvement with the fear that they're not going to be able to continue their business operations right so there has to be a way to very narrow tailor it for food markets and if you're selling alcohol any kind of alcohol like beer or wine I see like I I
guess that's what you're saying if if you I suppose if you're a food market and you're selling any kind of beer wine then you could um update you should be able to update your current business and um and if and and and if the business had the right before but based on these
regulations no longer has that rate somehow to keep that business open and I don't know how you guys are going to craft this but it seems like we do it's in the code that if you if you exceed more than 50% uh then you have you you lose uh is
that correct you lose your uh non-conforming use or if you're closed for six months you lose it and that is a pure code amendment is that correct uh Mr yes that's right okay I not trying to do your job or anything but I think okay
yes okay commissioner uh Suarez and then let's see if there's a motion on this item okay so again this is just for existing businesses yes yes okay uh is this are we trying to
single out a specific single business in a specific block or is this going to be all of North Beach like what what what are we carving out here Tom it would depend upon what
the direction of the committee is the referral was specific to North Beach if you wanted it to be for all of North Beach you could give us that direction if you wanted it to be more narrowly tailored to certain businesses in North Beach we could come up with some
language and bring it back to you I will tell you that I will be inclined to see the most narrowly tailored approach possible most narrowly tailored approach possible possible and I would encourage you to work with the sponsor this
something that is very narrowly tailored not for all of North Beach and and I just want to stay I I am you know last night checked tobacco and vape causes cancer okay and it's going to be a stretch for me to vote on a on an on an
item that's going to change our code to loosen those restrictions that we've put on for tobacco and vape products so um but I'm not a hard son C causes cancer the chips we just you just say C
I'm sure has like chemicals that cause cancer not like tobacco does you know I mean it's it's it's it's proven that that it causes cancer and so if if if the sponsor wants my vote on on on approving this to change our code for a
product that is detrimental to someone's Health you know that's that's it's a stretch uh for me me and and I you know I love working with you guys but there are some things that I'm just not going to agree to and um you know I don't I
don't mind just staying quiet on this but you know if I vote it down please don't hold it against me um I I have traumatic experience with cigarette smoke and tobacco so um for me changing our code for something like that is it
is a it's a stretch and I'll tell you I I and as vice mayor B mentioned I've I've sponsored these specific regulations what I don't want to do is hurt any existing business I don't want to cause unintended consequences and
that's why you know I'm I'm happy for us to explore something that is extremely narrowly tailored uh so that so that we can just you know make sure we're not causing unintended consequences through the chair for me yes I would like to make a
motion to to continue this to next month and have the um the sponsor work with staff and maybe staff work with other folks to try to come up to find a solution that addresses the intent which is to not
punish existing businesses um without the the unintended consequence of the proliferation of things I mean we're trying to become a Blue Zone City so I don't really want to have a ton more vape shops either I don't think that's I don't think that's your goal anyhow and and so I understand
what the goal is I don't want to have all these people all of a sudden selling T-shirts and Vapes that's not what I'm trying to get to so the question is is there and maybe there isn't a way to do it and that that might be the answer we come to is there a way to get to
existing businesses who already have maybe it's it's people who already have the state licens to do it I don't know enough about this to be able to craft this from the de so I would like to propose that we defer this come back for in a month with better information and
figure out if there's something we can do or if there's nothing we can do and then proceed accordingly but we don't have the answers yet okay so why vote on it all right so um so I so let's bring back the item next month with draft language narrowly tailored language uh
and we can take it from there yes thank you guys for understanding and supporting and let's be clear this is about supporting our small business Community existing business existing businesses keeping storefronts in business instead of having vacancies
which lead to public safety issues and they are unsightly and they tend to stay vacant for a very long time so I am I I and I I and I thank you to commissioner Fernandez and Bot for understanding and
um possibly commissioner Suarez um in the future if he decides to support this because this is about um we are not just we're a community of residents and also a community of residents who own businesses in our community and we are
not in the business of putting people out of business and that's what this is about thank you commissioner Wilson Gonzalez we'll continue this item to next month and we'll have draft language at that time let's introduce item number eight okay uh Mr chair item number eight
is discuss the North Beach water quality and Park View Canal report all right welcome welcome so uh commissioner Russen consal I'm not sure if you if you want to stick around because this is an
item uh we I sponsored a number of years ago the original uh um study on water quality for for North Beach by Dr solo Gabrielle uh you did the followup uh you sponsored the the the follow-up study
and and uh we have our resiliency director today to present on the item welcome Amy yes yes thank you and I I actually got the report and this is fascinating um stuff that I think will that I think we can apply also to other areas in the
city it's also quite disturbing once you see some of what is happening in our waterways but um uh thank you for the acknowledgement and I'm going to chair my aack meeting okay all right bye guys thank you yes yes commissioner Bon um
Nick if you would add me as a co-sponsor with the um with everybody's um agreement to that um I would like to say for everybody listening this is a Hot Topic and I would like to um commend
my colleagues for having brought these items forward and I would like to commend the staff who have been working on this because the their predecessors again not going to call anybody out but I literally I called the city I emailed
the city saying my dudes what is happening the Citywide water quality advisory has not been lifted for Parkview Island but it's been cleared for the entire city and what I kept getting told for months months not a couple days was oh it's just an anomaly
it's fine you you'll be fine it's not a big deal don't worry about it stop bugging us predecessors not the folks here in the room but predecessors said that that was in March April May going on of 2020 and it has taken years of pounding fists on
table tables residents getting perhaps overly um exercised um Commissioners sponsoring activities funding being secured through the general budget to get to the point where we are so it
is I can't believe that residents had to basically scream at the city not not you guys but holler at the city to take seriously the fact that this was not normal and when residents get together and Advocate they can change the world or at least change what's happening in
their backyard and it is so important that you guys are presenting this to us because had residents and Commissioners not taken this seriously and had you guys not taken this seriously we'd still be sitting there begging people to do
the research to do the work to understand what's happen happening and to start finding Solutions we are not where we need to be yet but we are so much closer than where we would have been without this so thank you and to commissioner Rosen Gonzalez and to you
guys and it's great to see you again last time I saw you we were drilling holes in a parking lot it it was permissible it was permitted we weren't just randomly drilling holes but we're getting water sample qualities so it's great to see you again um so thank you commissioner bot and I'll tell you uh one of the first things that I did ask
and I'd like to official was to team up with our uh environmental and sustainability department and team up with our city Administration specifically um specifically because of the of the degraded water quality um in
in um in the Park View Island uh canal and I remember uh it was an issue you you flagged for me when I was running for office I remember sitting on your on your on your deck um with a group of
neighbors and you educating me on the issue and it's why uh specifically because of you uh and your neighbors I felt a great sense of responsibility to to bring forward the first study the funding we've been prioritizing year
after year for relining of the infrastructure and other infrastructure improvements which Amy I believe we've been able through through some of these uh Capital Investments we've been doing temp Investments uh quick winds but we've been able to lower the the level of
toxins in the wat is that correct yes that's correct and we've been able to take it from one number to one number um It's A variation and actually the professor will will show that but she'll show you definitely it was much higher in the past and now it's not quite where we need to be but between storm events
it's uh significantly lower is it's lower significantly with clearly still more work to be done so with that I want to recognize you and ask you to introduce your item sure well thank you so much um you know Mr chair and Commissioners and for your support of the items and for for also keeping that
support in ways that move us forward and keep us motivated but you know hold us accountable um Park View Canal is a very important item for our community for our city but also us as staff as public servants um when I came to this position the last thing I wanted to do was to
have a a a polluted Canal you know at my footsteps and we've worked really hard the whole staff behind me is part of the team that has worked on on this and they're also here to to share and to answer any questions for this area um so we are surrounded by water in Miami Beach we know that trash waste bacteria
sources and anything on the streets and underground ends up in our water ultimately uh biscan bay bay is already an impaired water body uh we've gone through fish kills it's at a Tipping Point and particularly in the Northern Bay it's lost a huge amount of sea grass
which is where you know this canal lies within so it's a very important area um if you take a look at the Miami water keeper uh swim guide reports you will see that in Miami Dade and Broward County canals have Urban storm water runoff that causes bacterial issues so
this isn't unique but it's not acceptable for our community um the issues are widespread uh beaches tend to have much more uh Stronger levels of circulation so the levels are very strict there and you know bathing and swimming is is allowed but that that
level is much more difficult in these canals but again that doesn't make it okay so these Canal levels have been high since we started sampling six years ago we don't have results before that and um we actually utilize the Surf Rider results as well within our data um
since this has been so persistent we've had Dr Helena solo Gabriel um twice this is her second study so she she specializes in this field of contamination and intertial zones she is an associate Dean with the University of Miami College of Engineering um and um
she's really recognized nationally and internationally for her her work um now due to the work and all the sanitary sewer improvements she's going to highlight some of the improvements and that's good it reconfirmed that storm water is the the biggest issue that we
have washing sediments into the drains and into the canals um as the chair mentioned we have dedicated more than eight million over the last few years in projects some are done some are are in process and some are future to to Really fix this um including a a dredging a
flushing analysis as well sanation sorry what was how many dollars have we more than 8 million in the last few years in how many years in the last few years couple years two two to three years like three years yeah and so we are ready to do more you
know we're not giving up so Dr Sol Gabriel will share her findings and recommendations there are 10 selected recommendations listed in your memo that she will go over uh that give us the best chances of restoring this um this water body so with that I will turn it over to Dr Helen
Gabriel welcome doctor thank you you can call me Helena that's fine okay is the presentation up great okay I'm going to be describing our work looking at intera coxy and as a reminder Interac coxy is a FAL indicator
bacteria it's an indicator of feal contamination and it's used to assess the risk of gastrointestinal disease when in contact with water specifically I'm going to talk about Interac Cox in groundwater and storm water at the Park View Canal this is a
joint project um led by University of Miami with collaboration from Noah and again I'd like to thank the commission and City of Miami Beach for everything um uh that was done and also all the support that was provided wanted to emphasize that when
you measure FIB or in Terra coxy there's two main measurement methods one is by culture or growth if it's grows it means it's viable capable of causing infection and the culture method is required for State monitoring and the way we measure growth
is we collect a water sample we put it into a tray which separates it into Wells and then um when the bacteria grow they release fluoresence and we count the number of wells and that gives us a unit called most probable number the other method of analysis is a
genomic analysis based on measuring the DNA now the DNA a is not dead or alive it it it's um you don't know we just know that the organism was there and the nice thing about the um genetic analysis
is that it not only tells intera coxide that we measure by Interra 1A when we measure it by DNA we call it Intero 1A but it also gives us information about dog presence human presence and birds the units of measure are genomic copies
GC and again it tells us whether or not there were dogs contributing humans birds and we also measured for seagulls specifically both General birds and seagulls the regulatory guidelines for inter coxy yeah I'm sorry just a quick question when we talked we talked about
the fact that aruana is everywhere pooping so we didn't and and in Parkview specifically we have families of raccoon raccoons we don't keep them there but they live there in the in the mangr um so but we have a ton of iguanas so th that wasn't measured as well through the
DNA they don't have markers for raccoons yet or Iguanas Iguanas okay yes but they would also contribute to the inter side okay in terms of the regulations um there's a whole slew of different guideline levels the guidelin set by the
Florida Department of Health for bathing in beaches it's not designated for canals specifically but for going in into a beach is 70 mpm per 100 Ms then there's another guideline that's been issued by the uscpa which is for kayaking and calm Waters of
371 and then there's a research Focus guideline based on the microbial Source tracking markers which for humans um for swimming purposes they recommend no higher than 525 genomic copies per 100 Mills and for Birds no more more than
200,000 now the PPC is unique in the sense that um as Amy mentioned on the ocean side we have a lot of dilution and beaches on the ocean side tend to have better water quality than Beach is on the Bayside uh the PVC is located on the Bayside and not only is it in the
Bayside it's a canal within a canal so it has very restricted water flow there's very limited dilution in addition to that it drains a large area of eight over 80 acres 34 of that area comes from east of of the island and about a quarter is from the island
itself and then on to further complicate things the the storm water infrastructure was installed back in the 30s 40s and 50s before before there were regulations for the first flush treatment of the water that um uh comes through in the storm water so now there
is no treatment because of the time frame of when the storm water system was installed there's no treatment for that storm water um that comes from the streets and enters into the PBC so just to confirm the pipes here I know have been lined but there is the
Jay this might be putting you on the pop pop quiz seat um the the pipes have been lined and that's been useful and that happened very quickly because I was still living there when that happened so that was great but um at the outfalls there's there's no water cleaning system is that right and
the pipes themselves unless there's been a rupture they have not been replaced since they were built in 56 through you Mr chairman you're referring to the storm water when you say any of the pipes on parf few
well with with the storm water we don't we have uh a project underway to install fil filtration systems yeah but I'm talking about the actual water treatment but the actual pipes there're two kinds of pipes we have sanitary sewer um pipes that are lined but then
the storm water pipes are different and those have not been lined as far as I understand and on the sanitary store we've already invested on lining and we have I believe $2.5 million allocated for phase two um and actually I think that's been
about 90% uh complete and invoiced okay and the engineering team can speak to that yes I my name is Patrice Randon I'm the Regulatory Compliance manager for for the city and I oversee all the trenchless sewer trenchless Rehabilitation we have uh Public Work
have prioritize all trenches rehabilitation in North Beach specifically starting in the Park View area because of the water quality issues we've lined uh the sewer um 95% and rehabilitated all of the manholes and
then we proceeded to line about I would say 95 to 98% of the sewer that we call the Park View extended area which is 73 to 76 from Park View Island all the way to the ocean that is the area that's um
tributary to uh that would have any cross connection with the storm that would have any contamination flow uh so that is completely n also all the manholes have been rehabilitated the ones that needed Rehabilitation yes so I'm sorry I should
have asked this in the briefing but it didn't didn't occur to me and I I know I grilled you on lots of questions but if we've lined the sewers and that has helped we haven't line the storm water drains right so there there are two possible issues
one is just where the water that's in the storm water drains comes out that's a huge problem but is there also an issue of um leeching through the pipes that are were laid in 1956 they just
protect what's that okay um my thought um is that yeah the storm sewer pipes sometimes they're not lined intentionally because you want that water to flow into the ground and that provides a little bit of treatment um so those are typically not as critical and
the groundwater usually is what we've been finding in the study is cleaner uh is clean is relatively clean compared to so even though this huge area and for people watching at home was a slide with the light blue square around I don't know if we can like a rectangle yeah if we can put that slide back up just so
people understand um so it's that light blue rectangle to the to the east of Parkview Island which is very densely populated including a school full of kids going to the bathroom all day long but I think that's part of what the
doctor's going to get to no I understand that but but so all of that stuff is coming through into Parkview where you've got the island at at The Canal at right angles basically so wouldn't storm
water help lining the storm water um um canals help I'm sorry the storm water pipes help a little bit you need drainage on the from what I gather you need drainage on the storm water because not all the water in the storm drainage makes it way out so you need it to drain
otherwise it's going to populate nutrients when it stays stagnant in there I would imagine yeah so again there's two kinds of pipes there's the sanitary sewer that comes from inside of a building that has human waste in it right those are the pipes that have to be lined because if they contaminate the
groundwater or the storm water it's a major issue right whereas the storm water the the thought process is that it's not as bad as the house the waste from the house well we've just talked about how there are birds and homeless folks and dogs and raccoons and
iguanas um who are not using indoor plumbing right and so the question is how much worse is sewer line water than storm water water let's do something I want to allow the doctor to
finish the presentation let's let's keep a note of our questions because because I think you know the doctor's going to go through a lot of data which we've seen in our briefings uh but I want the public to be able to to to to stay on point with this as well um is we owe it
to them for purposes of transparency to be able to go through the TR through through the presentation so okay okay that's let's just allow uh Dr solo and I'd like to get back to that yeah so okay thank you no problem thank you okay so um we started going over the
data that's been collected and we separated the data into the red which means above 70 and the green which is below 70 and um as mentioned as Amy mentioned the data start was collected starting in 2019 it was initiated
because there was a water quality study of Miami Beach at that time the sewage spill the big one was in 2020 um and then the water quality kept being elevated above the 70 and therefore monitoring continued um and it
just didn't go down and in 2022 um University of Miami was contracted to look at this in more detail and during that time as we were collecting the data the information City of Miami Beach was very proactive in mitigating um and improving and in
cleaning um uh in through as best as possible through short-term measures um the the area and so by 20122 there's was an enhancement of the mitigation process prior to the mitigation 92% of the
sampling sites samples exceeded the 70 and after 70% exceeded this difference is significant it's statistically significant so there has been an improvement um overall but it's still high there's still a lot more work that needs to be done because there's still a
lot of red another aspect that um we've been looking at is look is the kayaking standard so just out of curiosity um what would it look like if the focus was on the kayaking St standard of 370 which is given by the yellow and we now have
the number that would still remain red red above the kayaking standard and prior to the intense mitigation measures of 2022 56 exceeded that guideline level whereas 20% are now exceeding after the fact 20% is still a lot it's still High
um but at least it's um closer to to possibly opening it for a partial use which would could be kayaking another very significant aspect that we saw between 2022 and 2024 um is this the thin lines here
correspond to 2022 the thick lines correspond to 2024 the blue is the tide the the elevation so we see low tide coming through and the black corresponds to Interac coxide and this is between storm events and what we saw dur between the storm events is a very significant
decrease um in the Interac oxide levels from thousands so we have a log scale thousands of mpm per 100 mils down to tens and even below the 70 um guideline level so that's a a very important Improvement because before it looked like there was a groundwater Source
coming in which was indicative of sewage and um we lost that source which is good um so we no longer see a groundwater source so it appears as though the mitigation measures to the sanitary sewer the um the improvements to the air release Valves and also the pipelining
has made an impact and that's that's the slide where I was asking you Amy so so let's let's say pre uh the uh the sore upgrades that we've been doing what was the level we were at
uh I mean we're we're looking there at almost thousands thousands yeah like a thousand 200 and then it dropped you know to hundreds down to even below 70 below 70 so we've gone from thousands to
below 70 still not right it's still not where we need to do where we need to be but I want to highlight to the members of the public that are watching but this is only during storm between storms at and that's and that's and at low tide is
when the water in the canal is real low so we're getting groundwater coming in so it shows us that the groundwater is no longer contaminating serving as a source of contamination and and you know so to the public that's been asking us to do work
year after year we've been prioritizing funding and thank you Amy for guiding us on this but we've been prioritizing funding for for the sewer improvements and this is showing us we're still not
where we need to be we still have a lot of work to improve on especially when it comes to you know street cleaning and a lot of different things but when it comes to the sanitary sewer improvements the numbers are showing that our
investment is yielding a positive Improvement to the water quality I agree and I think this is a very significant Improvement thank you at least it's it's moving in the correct direction like you know is it
significant enough we could have that debate all day long but if it were going in the other direction we would know we weren't even close to being on the right track from 1,200 to 70 it's significant but it's not enough yeah it's but a groundwater source is really concerning
because it usually indicates sewage sanitary sewage and the fact that we no longer have that even though our numbers are high at least it's not sanitary sewage commissioner Suarez yes Mr thank you Mr chair so the fact that we lined our pipes it's
helping us so yes would you um so it is coming from our sewage pipes what that's only 22 there was some evidence that groundwater was contaminated there was some evidence that there was some groundw water contamination I we didn't know where it was coming from we didn't because what
we were looking at was a mixture of groundwater and storm water but at that time because of the way the timing of the um elevated levels you know at low tie we were seeing higher levels of bacteria it indicated that the groundwater was contributing we don't we
didn't know if it was sewage or not at that time but now we don't see it so which is really good what what is what what does this graph show you know fact if you could give me in like one sentence what what does this
prove as far as our infrastructure it indicates that groundwater is no longer a source during low tide which supports no sewage contamination that the pipelining has
had a positive impact and commissioner that I think that's very relevant because this whole study and the issues with this canal it's a study in non-point source pollution we're trying to to go to the biggest sources first and rule them out so you always think it's going to be the
sanitary sewer so that's it's kind of like getting to now what else is it what's the next Source yeah I'm just concerned about all the other pipes in my beach where they're not lined yeah and you know you have you see it in park viiew Island because it's such a small
narrow strip of water but when you go to West Avenue you you don't you don't have that I mean obviously it's in a flush Zone but to think that we're you know our pipes are so old that mhm we're we're contaminating the water
possibly um yeah I mean it's a real concern I mean this is how much of Miami Beach has been lined well it's an engineering question do you know that off the top of your head the chair it's hard to say we we've been
trying to to see what has been lined prior to our time and and trying to get those records has been hard and and we've been we we've constantly working on on um validating the the work or the information that we
have prior to to us but it trans Rehabilitation is lining of sewers has happened since the 90s and the city has been doing a has been doing trenchless rehabilitation in the sewer for only mostly for II issues as part of the code
with the most for what kind of ises inii inflow and infiltration reducing a inflow through cracks or through manholes and infiltration through the pipes that's inii inflor and infiltration so
mostly lining of pipe is done for that reason for ioni to stop inflowing infiltration of groundwater and rain water into the storm water into the into the sewer sorry I guess my concern is that not withstanding the fact that the pipelining has
had positive impact in in in this area of the city where we needed it uh and clearly we have areas we have recurring water quality problems not to the severity that we see at Park View Island and the canal there but we do have from
time to time water quality issues in other parts of the city it's certainly something that that that we should be seeing and perhaps we should uh this committee could ask the administration to provide us with a report of those areas of the city that have already had
pipelining areas that you know that might be lower in the in the priority list for uh sanitary sewer improvements that perhaps we could expedite in the meantime lining in our effort to uh to improve overall water quality and we
could make a motion to to request a report like that to come at a future date uh to this committee through the chair yes this is literally why we need to have the discussion about raising our sewer
rates and for us to not want to have that conversation or not want to um make the hard decisions for projects that are 60 and 90% designed already um for
projects where where costs are going up by the day literally um given the last couple of weeks of economic data it is to me sort of shocking that um well this is why we need to have the
conversation on Wednesday to move forward with with the responsible management of our infrastructure that's not the item before us today I understand that thank you commissioner I'm GNA recognize the doctor to to to continue and also say we talk about Workforce housing and we you know we
need to make sure that we have the proper processes in place before we adopt anything that could affect our lwi income and fixed income individuals further strength them we need to make sure that we protect those individuals so that we don't kick out of our city
inadvertently the very same people who we're trying to protect through our policies while we're creating tax exceptions for big developers who have abandoned their properties uh so they can preserve their properties it's all it's it's not about you
know it's not about just getting it done it's about getting it done without hurting people in our community who have been part of the fabric of Miami Beach and who we need to protect as their elected officials so it's all a balance I don't disagree with you but we need to protect those who who we need to who
don't have a bigger voice doctor please continue okay I'll keep going okay so now in the 2022 study um we identified that the main the highest levels of inic coxide were within the storm water conveyance system so that
green line is the storm water conveyance system an example and if you look at the plans take a cross-section view so you cut into the ground and you look at it from the side this is an image of what the storm system looks like the PVC
crosses into the uh storm system and so in the storm system there's a mixture of PVC water and groundwater and when it rains there's storm oil that comes in and so in that in the storm system which is where we were sampling during 2022 it
was a big mix of storm water groundwater and PVC water and so in our 2024 study what we wanted to do we focus is to separate the water sources we separately sampled the groundwater from the storm water to better understand where the
Interac coxide was coming from and we also added in the microbial Source tracking so we collected separate samples of storm water groundwater and PVC water at different depths we separated those samples into three um splits one for Interac coxide by culture
another for the DNA analysis and the last one for water quality this is just images of the different sampling methods the groundwater as commissioner bot mentioned was through drilling um into the ground where we were able to extract groundwater storm water um you can see
there where the grate was removed and then at the water surface there was a person physically there during the rain and was able to collect the water before it fell um Into the Storm conveyance system and of course the water from the PVC these are the results from the
groundwater um the groundwater if you look at it a large portion of it is very high quality less than 10 but there are places where we have hot spots the major hot spot is up by The biscane Beach Elementary School um 24,000 over 24,000
which then caus us to look um in that area a little bit more specifically and then there was other areas that were elevated in the hundreds along the 73rd Street quor but if you look at the storm water so here the big one was 24,000 just one but if you look at storm water on the
other hand the levels are orders of magnitude higher um we had to change our dilutions and the numbers went up to 240,000 even above 240,000 and there were no no samples that were less than a thousand so the storm water the water
that's on the streets is what is really contributing high levels of in Terra coxy to the PVC and that's what's bringing in bacteria like from padways from litter everything that falls on the street SS yes and not to not not to jump
the ship but what what was the DNA result like what was it mostly um yeah it um it has everything in it was there any one more than the other um well um interestingly it was bird
birds are everywhere and then PVC the birds were just one of those markers that were just predominant and it's everywhere so but we also see human and we also see dog or like magnitude wise how much more bird
poop was there than human and dog poop it's hard to tell um all we can say is that every sample showed evidence of bird so um the bacteria oh we can say that it was there present so we to do it
quantitatively to say birds are more than humans that are more than dogs is difficult um I think it's better to look at those uh risk-based levels like birds are everywhere obviously right yeah yeah but the um but to look at the levels of the marker there's a risk level for
humans of 50025 and then the birds it's okay to get up to 200,000 so we can look at those levels to see if there's a risk from the microbial Source tracking markers but if I can sure I'm sorry can I continue okay thank you but what this
shows is that we're we haven't gotten to microbial Source tracking yet on this slide we're just looking at the bacteria the anic coxide and the levels are really high um throughout the Watershed and this is at the street surface and then within the canal U The Canal at the
kayak launch we see 9,00 but at the outfall at the biscan beach Elementary outfall um we're seeing about close to 200,000 which is really high for a a water body um of a canal here just to emphasize the differences in the
bacteria the total bacteria level groundwater again this is a log scale the groundwater in green is lower than the storm water which is blue the kayak launch and the biscane Beach Elementary are in between with the biscane Beach Elementary higher than what we're seeing
at the kayak launch are the numbers that we're seeing out of the norm um in terms of the PVC we are within um what the literature shows would be considered typical within highly urban areas and usually the literature emphasizes more contaminated
sites so we are um consistent with other um cities in the United States now with the microbial Source tracking go back sure wait we're double Houston and R how's that we're all I when I look at the
bacteria level I think of like order of magnitude so 50 you know if it's like 20 200,000 then I would say yes we're we have an issue but if it's in the same order of magnitude so if I multiply by 10 or divide by 10 the numbers are
consistent um so doctor one more thing if you could remind everyone what does PVC water EXA exactly Park View Canal oh no but is that's just the water that's there yeah so yes the water that we collect those are the level the the
median levels but you're you're if you go back to the other slide where you have those two big orange circles that's that's because you're are you collecting anywhere else besides those locations in the PBC in this study we collected only at these locations
okay in 2022 we went all the way around okay a couple of times okay I'm going to continue on to get to the microbial Source tracking this is these are the results for the canal and the green corresponds to the
anic coxide by both culture and by DNA method and you'll notice that there's a lot of pink which is the bird and the level of pink is very high upwards of 200,000 which tells us that the levels of bird marker in the canal are
excessive and just from the bird marker alone we would not recommend swimming um in the canal um but we also see from the gray and also the aqua blue uh we see um impacts from both humans and dogs but
the birds are predominant and they're very high levels within the canal um I I would like to we're going to try and get through this but just so I can understand um if if it were so the birds just they exist they are an urban
thing um no one's going to get take out BB guns and start shooting the birds that's not a thing that's going to happen but if it were just the birds and we didn't have you know the fact that you've got this entire I forget what the term you Ed but this tire rectangular area that was draining into park viw
canal and park viw has these right angles and we've got the school which is a hot spot if it were just the birds it'd be high and you know you you take your chances but that's normal and it's not great but that is what it is it's the birds that are compounded by all
these other exacerbating factors that is pushing us over the brink but by how much well that's that's what I'm trying to get to what it birds with a storm water with a with a ped waste with the homeless but the the birds would be like this Benchmark like not a benchmark this
Baseline and it's all these other things that are incremental that are yeah when you have a combination of birds with humans the level the risks are higher and the humans are coming because it's the are you talking about birds interacting with
humans swimming in it or bird poop plus human poop human poop dog poop and bird poop okay and so the human poop is because the it's not the sewer lines anymore because we fix that so what the public so but we don't have control over the
portion that is from the person's home to the public rway and the school and the school is a hot spot and so do we have any sense of whether it's coming from homes that aren't properly fixed or it's coming from the streets yeah but she just showed a slide
that it's everywhere it's coming from the streets the human source and the dog source is coming from the streets so human poop coming from the streets comes from people who don't have sanitation okay and we know that there is a
homeless encampment up in that neighborhood because we've cleaned it out a bunch of times um and there are people living under bridges who are trying to do the right thing by not pooping on the lawn and this is where you know sometimes we have to have a conversation it's not you know we try to be very
proactive on how we handle homeless issues but you know sometimes we just need to have a bathroom open you know to prevent people from doing basic life Necessities on the streets in mang grth on
outfalls where we don't want them to be doing it doctor you can continue sorry so yeah so coming back to the microbial Source tracking what we're finding in the canal is all three sources a lot of bird and then dog and
humans this is the groundwater data um what's interesting about the groundwater data is that we do see bird there but lower levels of bird and I believe this is contamination From The Storm water so the the storm water has high levels of bird and so so does the PBC water and I
believe all of that is mixing underground and influencing and that's why we see bird marker in the groundwater but if we look at any other sources we did not see any dog marker there was one site that showed some indication of human marker but the human
marker was below that 525 human the threshold for 525 so the groundwater just had one small detect on the humans um and so that's those are the results there and then in it when it comes to the storm water again we're we're seeing
a lot of pink the storm water shows um this this is the street surface water shows bird contamination we see dog and we see human we see the gray bars and we see the aqua bars um throughout the storm water as well and the levels of
Interac coxide in the storm water very high looking at the microbial Source tracking in more of a spatial way again you see the the pink which is the birds throughout the Watershed but you also see some of the aqua and if we highlight the aqua um we can see perhaps
that there you know there maybe it's around the parks um maybe um you know that's the human Source it may be associated with the parks um so can you go back to that side for a second please thanks and there's some remnants of dog source and other places but can I just
say that drawing looks like a bird just I had to a flamingo maybe a flamingo there you go yes that's good doctor yes all right is that where the homeless encampment is where that
blue no that's why I'm looking at it um also another aspect that may be attracting Birds I just want to mention it may be worth looking at the birds a little more carefully but there are some people who have animal feeding stations y and they they are still and they feed
the birds intentionally kep feeding so yeah it's just some I think it's yeah it's so okay so I know Parkview Island better than I should so um I can't see what um the one that's like at the head of the bird all the way at the left okay
this more like a tail that's yeah that's more like the tail but yeah but that's that's human that is that is a that is a building that has deficient pipes because that is a park but this is coming out from the street surface has not gone down down yet so this is water
that we're collecting from the street surface okay but I'm telling you storm water it's storm water that's not in the in the pipes yet yeah the s means storm water so yeah by the way so okay because that Park is used by kids and dogs all the time so
I'm Cur maybe maybe folks who are camping out come there at night but I've never I mean I live there for six years I never saw homeless people on parkvi island I I did see them on the bridges connecting the island to um crab valy
and um and there's a big not a big there's an issue there but there's a there's an encampment um uh near where the dog park is just just uh south of the water towers there like where that's fenced
off there are people who live back there on and off we've cleared that out a few times but then you look at the one that's like right in the middle um I'm sure there's a number or a letter to it like a wing there's one that's half pink and one it's half
blue oh yes I see that where where is that s means storm water um that's on let's see carile and 73rd those are all buildings like are people just squatting between cars and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night I
don't know I don't know yeah what is the source like how is that you know elevated level making its way there ultimately that's yeah it doesn't make sense like I would have expected to have seen those half blue or quarter blue you know where folks are sleeping and
camping under bridges whatever but could that be a sign of broken pipes somewhere it's on the street it's so has it's on the street I have a question through the chair yes um and and I don't want to piss off the C people but there are also a lot of
cats there have you do you also have have you checked for cats cat poop we did not check for cats the the yeah there there is a cat marker though cats can be identified so but the numbers would be even higher if you were checking for cats we may have more pie
yeah more pieces to the pie the numbers wouldn't be more but the interre yeah the numbers might be different the yeah the pies may look a little different and is there a way to still use the data that you have to see if there's cat poop
there I have to retest it or you you have to yeah I mean my sense is if there's dog there's cat I mean yeah but what percentage I mean we because that's that's we're trying to identify the source we know that we you know we have a cat population just gr and that's
growing and so you know I think why why wouldn't why wouldn't we have tested for the cats just wondering because it's expensive to analyze and it's very you know it's time you know it costs more money to do some additional markers okay um what other um markers
didn't we consider just I don't think there's much be I mean there's cows and pig but that's not applicable to I don't think yeah I think cat is the only other applicable one that and how many how many times did you sample at these locations some locations were eight or
nine times eight or nine times over a course of how long of a storm um we we were out during the summer yeah we were out during the summer um from um maybe three to four months and and in between the periods of storm so like for example if there's a storm a it
flushes out all the crap on the floor did you wait a day a week two weeks to the next storm or what whenever we could get rain uh it's not easy to to get to get storms um because predictions were so whenever we were able to get a rain I mean there were a lot of Miss we thought
we were going to get rain we were there and it didn't say happen so it was a lot some trial and error but we tried to get every storm we possibly could okay yeah it's just crazy to me that there's so let's let's allow the doctor to go to her next SL conclusion right sorry yes
here okay so yes so on the uh storm water the sources are bird human and dog so again we conclude that um the in the Interac coxide were lower between storm events especially at low tide we
lost our groundwater contamination signal which suggests that the sanitary sewer pipeline and repair of the air release valves has improved um water quality we believe that the main source or the main water type contributing
Interac oxide to the PBC is storm water and the source to the storm water comes from Birds humans and dogs at street level um in the PVC there's an additional load from Birds more so than
what we see in in the storm water and we also note that the bisc Beach Elementary outfall also contributes in Terra oxide to the PVC our recommendations are here I I wasn't planning on going into details of the recommendation but there's a lot of
bullet points um for storm water including addressing outfalls and increased street sweeping especially on the east side um of the catchment um and hopefully with increased um mitigation short-term measures um we can address
the storm water contamination um groundwater I believe that the ground a lot of the groundwater may be due to contamination from surface water so that would help with the groundwater um but regardless there needs to be an um continued um
inspection and maintenance of the sanitary sewer system and hopefully those hot spots will be um taken care of and then the PVC itself um we recommend improving the flushing of the PBC by through a dredging and flush program and
then also improve the water quality um from storm water outfalls um improve the shoreline and then also consider maybe as a step um to increasing use of that Waterway by thinking about um the kayaking guidelines all right um and with that
I'd like to thank thank um thank you for listening and thank you for this opportunity it's been um a great opportunity for myself for my students and for all the researchers involved we really I'm guessing we're not done with you guys yet we are not done and thank you so much for your for your work with
the first study with the second study with these uh findings and recommendations you've brought forward to us is very enlightening I I just just um on the on the issue of the source going back whether birds or human or
dogs um you know again this is all based on DNA yes and so and so you know bird DNA is bird DNA yes bird DNA wouldn't be cat DNA correct okay all right so so you
know there's no way to mess that there's no way to it's like 99% I mean you know there's always a a small risk of measure you know measuring bird and it was really something else but it's like 90 you know these markers have been tested for okay um extensive
yeah yeah no I was just I was just you know inquiring about that so you know we've done a lot I mean I I think that's that's a clear thing there's there's been significant improvements uh with with the efforts that our Public Works
staff has done with the professional guidance of of our chief resiliency officer and and and you Doctor uh the guidance has been significant and the Improvement is clearly evident in the study results what are the most pressing
things that we can do over the next six months that we were to say we are going to prioritize resources to bring this water quality level the same way we got it from 1,00 to 70 now drop it even further what are the key things we need
to prioritize over the next six months to achieve the intended outcomes there's a whole list of recommendations there and I I believe that it's going to take a lot of those recommendations in order to bring it down to the 70 Focus area um there's
some short-term recommendations like the street sweeping I know it's very intense on the island but I I don't believe it's as intense on the east side um which represents three quarters of the catchment so maybe increasing the the street sweeping on the east side could help um in addition the street sweepers
tend to be these big machines but I do believe that there may be some value to also having more detailed cleaning where you have people with actual pooper scoopers that can actually pick up the waste from grassy areas um maybe even
sweeping the curbs um with you know more detail because those big machines they're good for cleaning but bulk cleaning but I've never been impressed with the big machines honestly I I I honestly would sell those machines because I honestly don't think that they make you know let me just well not only
that but what are they those machines aren't picking up bird poop right they're cleaning up the street which is where all the contamination is so by removing some of that debris that's from the street they're removing a some of the the bacteria what so what else so uh street
sweeping more detailed cleaning what else analysis of the out I mean we we looked at the big outfalls um I recommend looking at some of the private outfalls as well and documenting what's coming in from the with Miami day County public schools and informed them of the
elevated level of issues we have coming from their property um yes we have um Mr chair so we have been on site we have walked their whole system with them and sort of pointed out different areas that could be you know systems that have to be maintained we sent a formal letter to
the superintendent of schools asking them to uh you know address the problem and that they we would collaborate and support them and we've had a lot of um back and forth trying to assist them in evaluating their system has any action been taken by the school board regard Guardian um it's a very old system and
they've had a big transition in staff is kind of what they what they told us um I believe they did a little bit of of work and looking at their manholes Patricia they' they've done they've done some yeah yes commission okay so before I get into the school thing because I I've got
like I feel like in Congress I have whiteboards and things um the bird poop being elevated specifically on Parkview Island like going back to those remember that it's not just sparrows and seagulls but one of the beauties of Parkview
island is that it's a mangrove and so you don't hear cars there most of the time and you see all these gorgeous birds that I don't know the names of but the ones with the crazy long legs and the long bills and the the you know the herons and the great herons and the you know there's like all kinds of birds
that you know what those birds can poop in the water on the street those birds are it's it's amazing that we see them make making nests in the mangrove there it is a gift so poop away Birds go nuts um what I'm not okay with um is the fact
that um and I'm going to try to be diplomatic about this that the school board has a very large piece of property there that is very intensively used by a lot of people every day and anybody who
spent anytime with kids knows that those small children of whom I had two go to the bathroom all the time and they have failing infrastructure as well and we know this and they know this and their response to us is you know we're doing the best we can sorry
basically and I I know that they are tasked with many many many things but being good stewards of their property and it is their property within our city that affects our residents is
also one of the things that they must be held accountable for for and it doesn't seem like we have much leverage however Tada they just um are interested in
doing um building out um a partnership with us to use this site that is part of thecan Bay Elementary footprint and um make it into um a more Community
accessible and usable footprint with playing fields and playground and courts all kinds of stuff that is amazing and guess where this is this is exactly this is exactly where we need to get access to
do the work that we need to do and so they're a hang on a second they're asking us um for financial support they're asking for us to partner with them on doing this and I say absolutely we would be happy to do
that with you and part of what we are going to do is go there all at once and fix what needs fixing because in addition to what it's doing to our water quality and our neighborhood do we really want kids playing on a field that is contaminating with poop I don't think
so so let's do this all together at once with the school board I I'll be reaching out to Joe Geller our new school board breath and suggesting that we collaborate as partners and neighbors trying to do right the right thing for our teachers our kids our
neighbors in one Fell Swoop I would love to go into the storm system that they have just to trace it back up if we can that would be part of what we're doing like let's make sure this is but I mean I go back to that that chart with that ginormous Blue Dot
on the School site I mean if we just mitigate that alone especially to due to its proximity because that's not getting filtered out by being washed down on the roads it's not getting filtered out by being swept up it is going into the canal which is adjacent to it the only
thing separating the school a lot from the canal is Crab Alley which is in no great shakes itself but I know commissioner dingz has brought an item last year and we're working on it to beautify that which is great any infrastructure we can improve in that is you know this is all part and parcel but
um so I I would like to I know there are a lot of things we need to do but would like to since they're asking us for help really jump on that with the with the support of the administration um assistant city manager Martinez and and um our our general
manager and our attorneys and you guys say we have a unique opportunity to do something significant here so so let me just uh follow up on that because I think that's important we need the school board to buy in on that and I fully support you in any effort you want
to bring forward to address that um and that I see that as a long-term project um because you know we got to get them on board they we got to they're asking for money today yep yep um but um
in the short term the sanitary seore system cleaning out the sanitary s Source system you know do we need to clean out our sanitary Source system more frequently mean St the storm storm conveyor storm conveyor thank you um it
would be good to maybe have a program in place where maybe once every two weeks the manholes are pulled and if anything's found inside that yeah to take a look and see and what's our current um Jay how often does that get cleaned out currently what's this what's
normal uh commissioner my understanding is that the storm water system in general gets cleaned up once a year um in conversations with uh operations today we talked about looking at cleaning the catch basins more frequently doubling up
on on the timing of that two three times every six months in addition looking at the outfalls at the outfall there are some structures there and looking at um addressing those on a monthly basis looking at cleaning those out okay uh
how about the recommendation from the doctor about the manholes going in uh once every two weeks and look at how often are we going to those manholes and cleaning those so the catch Basin yeah oh the catch B okay that's the same Anonymous in essence you
have catch basins that are on the side of the streets those are the sumps that's where you probably going to get your best bang for your buck by cleaning those out because anything that comes off is going to be left in those cat basins all right so you so what is the frequency that you're saying that that
that you're proposing for the catch Basin um three times over the the next six months three times a week three times over the next six months so it's every other every other month we'll be our cleaning them out right now they only get cleaned once a year and that's
Citywide so let me recog next commissioner as far as thank you I I it just I I don't see how cleaning the catch phasin out is going to stop bird poop when it storms and and all the bird poop
collects and then it goes to the water I like salt but it has a Solid Waste like um you know cups and styrofoam all that needs to would you say that the real catchall solution would be an injection well at those
outfalls like what what what would be the most solution oriented problem for Park View Island besides doing these Au there are some designs um that um the city engineer I believe has put together for
treating the storm sewage um which includes a sedimentation system followed by um other treatment processes that then go to the um PBC um I remember Christina Ortega would describe those if
if I may sure inter response so yes the Public Works has a uh a design for the outfalls um and it's about a $2.2 million project it's a treatment system as was suggested it's a hydram hydrodynamic SE operator so it basically
separates anything that's left in there before that water's discharged right now it's in a permanent phase it's probably going to take another 3 to six months to permit and then we go to construction uh hopefully to be completed late in 2026 and this is for all the outfalls too this is this is for I believe there's
two outfalls that um are entering into the the PVC so those are your two major outfalls that are in there there's an you know other projects that are up there are associated with uh you know increasing the whole storm water system up there associated with the the Town
Center Northshore d project and that's going to be a whole other project with other storm water systems throughout the city and all those are aimed at exactly what you're talking about how do we clean up the discharge how do we clean up that outfall before it goes out the bike and just thinking outside the box
because we're going to be six-month permitting is there is there a solution that you can drip feed into the storm water system to remove the bacteria before it goes into the water
besides I it's almost like you know you have you have a fish tank you know declinate the water and then you put the fish adding chemicals will impact the ecosystem but um UV disinfection may be good because it re uh it um does not keep a chem it's not a chemical that's
at it it's like radiation right there as it's going through um but the water has to be very well we we chemically treat all the sewage water at the plant right and then it goes into the ocean so I mean what what I'm saying is is there something is there is there a chemical
treatment that we can have temporarily maybe even just to test it for a week to see if it if it removes all the bacteria from from the from the outfalls in traditional wastewater treatment is here we use chlorination chlorine um but I
don't know I mean in turn in the wastewater treatment plant it's treated at the wastewater treatment plant that goes to an ocean outfall which is Miles offshore and then there's a lot of mixing yeah so it's it's a diff it's as opposed to having it right here in you know right next to where it's being
discharged the people are be right there you don't have as much dilution so so so the the the end all be all would be a injection well or a separation system that that that's at the the last step of the storm water but they're working on that already yeah corre but that's
that's still permiting that's still in still going to need construction for Parkview and Town Center if I may yes Mr chairman so in a wastewater treatment plant yes you add chemicals you chlorinate but prior to discharging to an environmentally
sensitive area you declinate so that what's coming out of the pipe will not harm the the environment that you're discharging into really not potentially possible in a short term or in this situation because what you're building is a whole water treat a wastewater treatment plant for your storm water becomes a very
expensive Venture anything that we do within that storm water pipe we need to go to the regulatory agency's Durham and get their approval to do it they're probably not going to allow us to do any kind of chemical addition to that storm water flow um because they don't same reason they don't want to harm the
environment the ultimate in what the theory is on most of the storm water designs is separate so you do the the hydrodynamic separator or Vortex structure or something else that separates the solids out of that discharge stream your first flush which
hasn't really been talked about here tonight is that when it first starts to rain that first water that comes off the street that's the most heavily Laden with whether it's bacteria oils petroleum products whatever that's where it's
coming so that first flush if you can take that and divert it to an injection well rather than out to the surface water body that's the best you're going to do and that's sort of what the current design is do both of those types of projects in your discharge into your storm water system that's where the
future is going so but but but the thing is and I'm sorry commissioner SS in the short term so you have that long-term plan in place that's a big project you have that how far away are we from that so that that that would be some of these critical projects of the storm water
projects that is what that's Encompass what we're looking at for the 2 and half million I believe that's just the hydrodynamic separator I don't believe that's includes an injection Ro but I could be wrong I'm just not sure but even that that that construction we're
talking is the end of 2026 2026 all right and one last thing two two questions so I'm assuming there's birds also everywhere in Miami Beach and wherever there's no injection walls are we going to is it safe to assume that we
have the same problem where where there's a lot of birds you're going to have this sort of bacteria that's going to be pumping out into the bay would be worth looking at uh again and I want to go back to commissioner bot's comment about the native birds
that we want to make sure we preserve versus the feral Birds um so it would be worth looking determining whether or not there's feral Birds also in the area a feral bird like not not native not like
pigeons and um crows and vultures yeah so or maybe vulture may be native but my my second question is you have you ever seen anything like this before yes with birds there's animal feeding stations that's so there are people who
put bread and then there's a flock of pigeons no no in another city have you ever seen this type of report or conclusion where you have a high amount of bird poop that's contributing to
bacteria it's been observed um in the literature in Canada for example they have Canada geese and there's be and there's a Canada geese that influen the beaches there so they have issues with the the birds in that situation as an example plus Canada geese are mean they'll bite you yeah so it's true yeah
so birds are sometimes an issue um that's okay so we know that there's a long-term plan in place um which is a 2026 potentially best case scenario so the question is in the short
term jay do you want to go through your list well we have a little list okay that would help that we we made together um but in addition in addition to adding more cleaning to the storm drain system that that should help um we had an idea
to engage the city's cleanliness index inspectors to take a look at those specific hotpots at the street level um and I you know did speak with Leslie about it briefly but perhaps they can be focused on these areas and be reporting and then kind of feeding back to the sanitation team um along the Tatum
Waterway you know there there are situations where people are littering and there and you know there's garbage and sanitation you know can maybe evaluate adding additional services to make sure that that is also included um because that's not a traditional RightWay area um you know Communications
wise you know my team can work with Melissa and her team to get the word out more you know we have campaigns we can mark storm drains to let people know what's going right to the canal you know some of this is human behavior in terms of you know garbage and and litter uh we are working on dredging in my department
uh we're getting at a point the flushing analysis is done we may be going into permitting within the next six months or so so that that program is moving along and then um in addition to that actually that's that's what we have in a more immediate time frame so I I'll
tell you I and I love the clinic index program and I think it's great I think we know whether it's clean or not right now we know it's not clean what I would do is I would do a crisis
intervention you know and flood the area with as many no pun intended yeah with with as many cleaning resources as possible forgot about the cleanliness index the public will tell whether it's being cleaned whether it's
cleaned or not I think we just need to divert as much as we can to clean those catch Basin uh to to to to doing the street sweeping uh to to to doing those very detailed cleanings because that's I I
just feel that's the lwh hanging fruit working with the Schoolboard is something we absolutely need to do it's going to take time the injection well uh certainly something that we certainly have to do it's going to take time but what is it that we can do right now and
that is in our control as much as we can to clean those catch Basin to do the street sweeping to do the detailed cleaning of the of of of of the curves and all of this other stuff that we can start tomorrow if we if we wanted to so
if I might build on that there two things one is that if we do a concerted effort over the next six months or so especially as we head into the rainy season we will have great data to tell us um if that those measures are
effective cleaning the streets and getting that runoff off the streets or improving the quality of the runoff if such thing is possible like it's not as disgusting as it used to be because we've had you know concerted efforts and street sweeping in whatever else we're doing we'll have like a before and an
after so six week six months or year with all these other things we'll we'll have a good sense of those measures are working in addition to the longer term thing the second thing I will tell you is um I would like to work with you and and Melissa on the communications part
part of this because the initial plan that your predecessors put into place backfired spectacularly which is basically in English and Spanish pointing the finger not literally this wasn't a finger pointing sign but it said you guys are
not picking up after your dogs and your polluting the water and if we catch you doing it um it'll be $200 and everyone looked at each other like there aren't that many dogs here and we're you know we're cleaning up after our dogs like what are you even talking about so it
needs to be a more nuanced message so that the people who are actually taking care like they're not changing the oil of their car and spilling the old oil down the drain like they know it's a thing it's it's the way Sophie Ringle approaches Beach cleanups right or or Dar and Dave they're like this is a
thing you can do to make it better you are not solely responsible for everybody but you've got to pick your stuff up and let's work together and we will help you do it but this sort of big brother if you do it we're killing you it's not going to work and there is still
residual negativity towards that all these years later and what we don't want is to piss people off what we do want is for them to to work together to for us to all arrive at a better outcome one one last thing and I I tottally
forgot to mention this but when you sampled the water in pom view Canal uh or Park VI Canal did you you found also human in in the water itself yes you know there is an Anchorage of of boats
just south of Parkview Island and I'm looking out on the map and there's probably like 20 30 boats okay they don't move they have they have not moved in probably a couple years um they bring water but the water
disappears uh it's only safe to assume that they're flushing their toilets into the bay um and on an incoming tide that carries it just to the Park View
Canal uh could you say that that might be causing also a a large portion at least of the human bacteria given what we see in the storm water I'm pretty sure it's coming from the streets no not to say that it's not
coming also from storm water but I me to to say that you know because on an incoming tide it just it's a very narrow passage uh right under you know 70th Street to to because and and but just let me finish you know there's about 30
boats and they're all flushing um could that be also exasperating the is it could be samp it could be sampled um but my intuition tells me that the streets are the big one it's the big one and then also coming back to the recommendations of all the sources I'm
not as worried about the birds um you know we don't share as many diseases with bird but we do share diseases with other humans bird flu well bird flu and we well yeah and we're not going to be apprised of data that's being collected about bir flu one thing that hasn't been
discussed is um in terms of short-term recommendations would be to see what can be done for the the community that doesn't have sanitation especially in the middle of the night um there's no access homeless yes okay especially yeah um there's no bathrooms available um
even when we go sampling we have a hard time finding a bathroom or somebody letting us come in to use the restroom I I think you know what we should not you know shy away if we need to put porta potties we got to do it because we should just enforce our camping laws well but we cannot expect our police
officers to be everywhere all the time and that's the challenge that we have homeless individuals move depending on enforcements like water they go if you do too much in one area they'll go to the next area and so yes well we have camping laws and they and they are a tool we also do know that there is an
issue there you know perhaps you know home the police need to go and check that area out but to the extent that we do have an issue there we should have Port AOL porta potties as well or have bathrooms open that that that that
individuals could also use let me just ask you because you also mentioned UV tell me about the UV how can that be used how difficult is it to implement how costly is it I mean I've been looking for in the
literature for ideas in terms of how to treat surfaces like Street surfaces the only thing I have found is with respect to covid-19 when they were you know spraying the streets with um disinfectants um so maybe some of those Technologies can be used um UV
disinfection maybe will work um been looking uh yoga facilities they have these special UV lights that that disinfect the floors um that may be a possibility as well um the water in order to disinfect the water you have to
have very low turbidity particles in the water so you know there's a question about whether or not it how well it can work with the water but maybe it can but I wanted to go back to the homeless issue um yes um I think it would be useful to maybe interview you
know have some people who are experts in in interviewing the homeless um one of my students um when he was sampling he he you know the homeless person went up to him and they talked about you know facilities and and this homeless person said I go intentionally in the storm
sewer so it doesn't mess up the street so they think they're doing a good thing um so there is an issue of access to sanitation facilities and maybe communicating and having a conversation with the homeless may help identify what they they would prefer or how how to
handle yes how to handle that situation Amy uh and colleagues if we if we agree I think we need an item at next week's meeting we have been dealing with an environmental emergency in Park View canal
for it feels like five years since March of 2020 five years we have been dealing with an environmental emergency park viw Canal we are hearing today some very substantive action some long-term fixes but also some short-term fixes that we
can Implement if the political will is there to do it and it's now in our hands to do it and I think we should bring um we should bring uh an item to Wednesday's meeting that we should ask the administration uh Amy together with
Public Works to work on and Elva's team and alus team and the police you know from you know from increased Street and Canal cleaning uh to addressing the issues with with with with homeless
needing a place where to do their their you know life sustaining activities at um to addressing ing uh the issue with with with the school we need an emergency item on Wednesday's agenda
operation clean water uh because we've we've done significant work from the initiation when we started lining these pipes and we've seen a significant Improvement but if we truly dedicate ourselves to to it and we get this tremendous feedback that we're
getting and we do the cleaning of the catch basins and we do the street sweeping and we do the detailed cleaning and we look at the outfalls and we see if we can do the the uh UV set sanitation I don't know if pressure washing helps in any way or not if for
pressure washing then you'd have to pick up that water you have to pick water to be collected instead you can't let it go into the storm system well I'm going to ask I'm going to make a motion of this committee can we do it as co- primes that's do co- primes and I don't know three of us want to join in as as co-
primes yeah listen I I'm in favor of everything I um Mr chair respectfully I I don't think that putting PTO potties is is a solution no I'm very concerned about that yeah um where you put them you know how and what happens I'm I'm in favor of everything
else except portal potties that's fine okay let's let's let it be professionally driven recommendations on what we need to what what emergency measures can we take over the next six months
to see what drastic improvements we can achieve uh for Parkview Island Canal it's been screaming for help for five years we've been trying to do what we can we've seen improvements but there's more that can be done uh and and and you
know I think we we could bring something Wednesday to just immediately start work stuff we have the list we and we could we could we could start Wednesday and doing it feels like we've done significant it's just this last stretch
and it's like this it's like the last mile that you got to run through but I think if we push ourselves we could get there and just also um commissioner Suarez your point is not lost about um the increasingly large Anchorage that's right there I will tell you when this
started there were three or four boats out there so I don't think they didn't start the fire to quote Billy Joel um have they EX acerbated it maybe I don't know enough about that but um it has only gotten really big recently in you know over the
last year and I have other issues about that because you know you've got you've got other parts of North Beach that are affected by what's going on there I don't think we've ever dealt with it but um I I'm not ruling anything out but I I wouldn't look to them as being like the
primary source of what's going on in that very narrow Bend behind Parkview um because the other thing is is it seems like and without being a water expert it seems like where they are it would go kind of past Park View in The Wider part
Park of the The Wider part of the Tatum canal and like having it go in and take a hard right turn and then hard left turn and then take another like it seems more convoluted well probably just mixes and so but it where they are it's already so Broad and it seems like it
might go out to the Bay before it comes back into par I want to recognize commissioner Rosen Gonzalez uh uh to to speak on this she she we we brought this item together uh so commissioner Rosen Gonzalez you recognize I believe your
hand is raised yes can you guys hear me yes okay I wanted to tell you that I got a copy of the report the other day and um I I put one very specific item on the agenda and I'm hoping that you guys will
will support it um when I looked at everything that we could do and what wasn't so complicated um we've been looking at this idea of the UV lighting for a very long time so my resolution is to direct and it's very simple yours is
much more comprehensive but I think that we should pick five of the hot spots have them figure out how to retrofit them with this UV lighting and then go back and test in like 3 months and see
you know see what's happening and you know we I'm very happy with the results that I'm not happy with the results I'm I'm happy with the study and understanding what's actually going on so I think that like that one of the simplest things we can do is to at least
start getting the data to see if the UV does anything at all you know so that we get like process of elimination so that's that's the and that's really the only item you know that that I brought forth with this because everything else was so complicated the street sweeping and I mean there so many things that we
can do so hopefully you guys will you know will be supportive of at least this you know the UV lighting portion of this I think it's really important and and we did the preest now we need to do this intervention which is five outfalls and then um and then do a post test and I
think that will be very telling I don't know how you feel about that but anyway I'm glad that everyone's well and I and I think maybe maybe we just we should probably just I think it's one effort I think I think we I think we just should if if you're bringing an item I don't know if you just want to like make it
all one item uh commissioner well I have mine is very specific mine is pre-test we have the preest now pick five hotspots then post test and after that I mean look a lot more comprehensive stuff has to happen but I think sometimes when we get too
comprehensive and we try to tackle Everything at Once then we don't do that much so mine is very very narrow and and I think it will go along way and looking at maybe once we figure out this UV lighting thing and if it does work you know then then then that's possibility
one other thing that I wanted to bring up somebody who actually you know lives in the area told me that they think that the pump station has really exacerbated the problem because there's no UV Lighting on that pump station and it picks up all the filthy water and just injects it into the canal at a super
high speed and then it just sits there you know and we're not looking at that you know specifically um and and and so that's another problem that we face and we probably should really try to retrofit the pump stations with UV lighting because that's the majority of
water that's going into in into Park View if you think about it all right Mr chman thank let me let me just recognize commissioner Dominguez who also has her hand raised on on Zoom commissioner welcome thank you um Mr chair
uh I also have a very specific item and it has to do with the EPA uh kayak for the city to adopt the EPA kayak guideline um and it's very specific to the kayak launch and there's way more to
do but this would be the first step in um potentially updating the water quality standard for that area I I I will tell you you you know and and Amy mentioned that to me uh the recommendation and the report about
possibly luring um that standard for kayak launches um and what what would be the rationale in that Amy yeah so that's an item your your your your mic is off yes so that's an item that the professor brought to us that you know we have this
very strict standard for Beach bathing and we're utilizing that for this you know very small canal and she said it's something to consider so it would be 371 I believe MPN where people could access the kayak launch for kayaking and
feel comfortable that they would be safe if they stay in their kayak and it would just be for for that and we'd have to it's just something to think about to be a lot of guidance when you mentioned what that when now were briefing that recommendation to me I just had concerns
because you just have to assume people who are in a kayak are going to get they're going to fall off their kayak you know they might end up in the water and that and that to me is a concern I see people take dogs on their kayaks or
they or their kids and it's very easy for someone to fall in in in the water and I just I just for purposes of transparency uh and I told you Amy when you brought that recommendation forward I had a concern with that and since we're in a public setting now uh I just
wanted to be out there I'm not sure I will be able to support that because until until you know it's okay for bathing in the water I'm not sure I will feel comfortable telling some someone they can kayak in in the water yeah just a follow up on some of
maybe the temporary solutions and Jay I don't know if you can speak to this but is there a temporary injection not an injection well obviously but a a container that can do the hydraulic press above ground and then feed it back
into the outfall I mean is there are there is there an engineering contraption that we can do above ground temporarily um as a modular uh fix your
mic thank you uh three you Mr chairman not to my knowledge I know there are temporary units we use them you know during King tides on our pumps we use those separators um the downstream Defenders to do similar you know treatment before it's discharged um but
where the storm water is coming off the street entering into catch base and most of that's by gravity so in order to treat that water you'd have to collect it yeah bring it above you pump it up um we can explore that um anything we do with the drainage we have to uh take it
to Durham get get there blessing with it but we we can explore something like that and see if if we can come up with a a bench scale or something that may you know offer some solutions okay maybe part of that part of our request for next week is something that to explore
that we can incorporate that commissioner Von um so two things one I don't know if commissioner dingz is still on the call but I I was originally inclined to think about letting people know that they could make a decision about whether or not to kayak but then I remembered that I would sit on my deck um and watch people especially coming
around the bend of of Park View Island canals kind of like being on a lazy river right so they would put their paddles up and they would kind of have their arms trailing the water and it was it was so lovely and and people on paddle boards would be kind of like paddling with their arms and kids would be on their paddle boards and jumping in
and out um and I would literally say if you have Cuts get your hands out of the water now and no matter what you do shower the second you get home and that was just me on my deck sounding like somebody's scary old grandma mother like I could see that I was going to say Mom
but you said Grandmother but I'm like make sure you wash your hands but you know people like oh my God thank you for telling me um so I I worry about that because you know in Crab Alley people teach their dogs to swim and people are out there fishing and I don't want you know so I don't
want to encourage people to think that it's okay because it doesn't just stop it like I'm going to yeah safely paddle so I love the idea but I don't think we're quite there yet and then um the other thing was we're talking
about operation clean water Binga an item to oh I know what it was well first okay so two things um one is how about the poop stops here is the name of the operation what is the operation Operation clean water this emergency intervention our emergency intervention
there like like what we what can we aggressively do over the next months but I actually had a thing so um but it's not it's bird poop that's the problem no it's not it's it's not just but but wait so can before because we can go back and forth on this there's too much poop in the water whether it's
bird or human or dog or iguana it's a combustible mix it's coming from lots of different places we got to clean that up literally in figuratively right like that's the issue so um I will just say and I love a little interde departmental rivalry Jay looking at you
so the new Arctic that we just unveiled yesterday the Genesis of that um real time crime Center thing with the drones and the the cameras on poles started because two burglary detectives were like we just don't know enough about what happened
here why don't we put some cameras on polls and try to figure this out like 15 years ago and they did and that was them Jerry ring stuff and that is how we went from that to what we have now and I'm not saying I'm encouraging you to Jerry
rig things together but I'm just saying they did it and you know so like get to your little workbench and start tinkering around see what you can come up with so so let's let's allow staff to put together a very aggressive plan that we can bring to commission to
to to you know run this this final stretch that we have um over over the next six months and I think you see at least three four five I five Commissioners participating uh in this discussion who I think would be probably
very inclined at least without hearing from our other colleagues who I know and I trust care deeply uh about this is a reason why we've engaged in these studies and we're so grateful for the guidance that that the doctor has given us uh Nick let's open up the floor to members of the public wishing to speak
on this item if there members of the public wishing to speak on their item on this item please raise your hand on Zoom uh the first caller is Omar Jimenez Omar welcome you have two minutes to speak hi good afternoon uh Omar here
president of the park VI Island sustainable Association um as we found out from the LTC biscane Bay Elementary School was identified as a severe contamination Hotspot with one 198,000 parts per 100
milliliters that's 2800 times the current fdoh standards the biscan Beach Elementary sight tested 20 times higher than the Park View kayak launch site it it's imperative that this hot spot is eliminated and this area is
remediated this further reinforces the need for increased above ground sanitation and parks and services along the shoreline of the Park View canal and Tatum Waterway walkway the walkway is an extension of 75th Street in the past few weeks there has been a plastic mesh fence erected along the entire shoreline
of the Tatum Waterway walkway preventing anyone from accessing the shoreline for clean up of contaminated trash and debris the kayak launch from remains closed since 2020 depriving residents of recreational resources the study states that achieving full compliance with
Ocean Beach water quality standards may be unrealistic raising the need for alternative water quality thresholds for kayaking and other activities we are glad to see the hydrodynamic separators planned for late 2026 these are good for sediment and
trash interception but do nothing for bacteria or nutrients maybe jellyfish units are the best ways to address the core issues yet some of these critical projects remain unfunded the city should prioritize seeking state and federal grants to
expand water treatment infrastructure beyond what is currently budgeted over the past few years as we know our association has carried out an extensive engagement and Outreach campaign Paving the path for more resilient and environmentally sustainable future for a
Park View and Northshore some of the projects we've focused on have been this water quality issue repairs and upgrades to the Tatum Waterway walkway including renaming the walkway into northshore's first nature trail and a research and data collection project focused on the
viability of Eastern oysters and leaf tree oysters in the Park View canal and Tatum Waterway we strongly believe that remediation of this area would also greatly benefit from the addition of more holistic approaches to the plan of action to include an oyster restoration
project floating vegetation islands for nutrient nutrient sequestration and water purification scattered along the canal and introduction of plants and vegetation that purify the water along the shoreline the main focus of the alternative F uh holistic approaches
would be based on bacteria and nutrient removal through natural and already proven coste effective purification and sequestration processes we remain optimistic with the establishment of blue zones in Miami Beach and the transformation North Beach
is going through there is no better time to think about the incredible opportunities ahead of us our City's economy comes from tourism hospitality and property taxes but what we sometimes seem to forget is that our biggest asset the environment and safety of our
recreational waterways are the TR the true economic engine of this city people move here to live on or near the water to be able to recreate in it not just look at it and think of how nice it would be to to recreate in these Waters and that's why we're really looking
forward to continue our collaboration with you all in North Beach and Parkville Island and just one last note as a waterfront property owner of Parkview I look forward to one day finally being able to enjoy full use of my property as I intended when I first
purchased my home on this island without having to think about the negative cloud of uncertainty that has had drastic impacts and negative effects on our Serene Island lives for the past five years thank you thank you Omar and I want to thank you for your leadership and your advocacy and your passion on
this issue I've certainly have learned a lot from you and our conversations as it relates to park viw Island and Parkview Canal um and and you've also highlighted um you know the the issues with cleanup
and the actual conditions along the shoreline uh from 71st Street to 75th Street um you know specifically I know You' you you've highlighted that the sh line along Dickens um is not being cleaned how it should be umg and you
know that that's something that we need to address uh the trash accumulation in in in the mangroves and in in The Roots along the tenum uh water Waterway uh Shoreline uh due the due to the tides is something that hopefully can be
addressed as part of our operation clean water that we take to the city Commission on uh next Wednesday are there any other members of the public wishing to speak on this item no sir all right uh with that uh Amy uh any any
other feedback that you need from from this committee any other information you need to share with us at this time just a huge thank you for a huge thank you for allowing uh the professor myself and the team to present all this it's a lot of information and everyone was so
gracious and preparing for this and you know your ideas and the staff team this whole team has been working on this issue and I can assure you they're incredibly committed so thank I also want to add that the staff has been wonderful very responsive it's been great working with the the city thank
you and the professor as well I mean the work that she has done um is just just drops compared to what a large firm would have charged us in the learning for her students and they've really been outstanding thank you so much doctor thank you so much Amy and to all of our
staff to Public Works to our engineers uh to everyone working on this effort really uh this is a priority it's been a long-standing priority uh and uh and I know we'll get through this if we all come together uh with the seriousness continued
seriousness that this merits thank you all and with that uh Mr director there's a number of items we haven't got into that we perhaps we should uh continue to next meeting okay and on this one Mr chair on number eight there was a recommendation to move this to the full
City Commission next Wednesday do you want to keep this item in committee or conclude this item I uh I don't I know we're working on a separate there's it sounds like there's many different items being worked on sounds like commissioner Rosen Gonzalez has an item that she's
bringing on UV lighting sounds like commissioner Dominguez has an item that that she's bringing on the water on the levels of the bacteria and kayaking it sounds like the committee is separately uh co- priming uh the operation the
operation clean water uh initiative as an emergency six-month uh enhancement measure uh so I think might be best perhaps let's keep this item on committee okay so that we have an item parked here where we can continue to get updates on our on our efforts measure
our progress and keep the expectation high on the deliverables we expect uh especially as it relates you know you know the cleanliness The Mangrove the shoreline making sure that we are seriously addressing these issues show this say continue to a future date yes
let's continue this item just just on a monthly basis I think we just need to keep this item coming back on a monthly basis okay all right okay and so with that um let's show items number 9 10 12
13 and 17 deferred to our next meeting okay all right okay all right anything else for the good of the order all right the committee stands adjourned thank you for