Well, good evening everybody. It is Tuesday, April 21st at 5:30. I'm going to call this meeting to order. Ask Mayor. Please bow with me. Lord, thank you once again for the wonderful city that we live in. Thank you for the staff that keeps it run smoothly, keeps it clean,
and keeps it moving on. We ask that you watch over all of them and give them blessings of their lives. We ask that you give the council uh good decision making tonight and make good and honest decisions. We ask that you watch over all our citizens and do all we do in
your name, Jesus Christ. Amen. >> Amen. >> Pledge allegiance to the flag the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation of indivisible with liberty and justice for
all. >> Thank you. Mayor Kathy, can you please call the role >> here? Bishop >> here. >> Here >> Stewart >> here. >> H >> here.
>> All right. So, announcements. Um uh uh business from the audience. So, if there's anything that anybody wants to talk about that's not on the agenda, please see clerk Haley and she'll get you a a card to fill out and then we'll get your comments uh after uh when the
when the time allows. So, uh councilman's com uh concerns, comments, leazison reports. I'll just start with Rebecca. >> Mayor's report. >> Mayor's report. >> Thanks a lot. Ever since it's been a long day first meeting, so good job.
>> Off to a great start. >> You're doing all right. So, um I have nothing to report. No. Um just a couple good events that we had. The soda fest was huge and sipping on the circle last couple weeks. So, lot going on downtown. Um coming up, we got
the jet jet skis at uh Vets Beach. Um just to announce that the boat ramp will be closed from Friday till Monday morning. So, if you're planning on boating on Lake Jackson, unless your boat's in the lake, it's going to be pretty tough to get in. uh you will not be able to access the boat
ramp uh this weekend because it's uh there'll be over 100 entries in this uh event. So, it's a it's a pretty good event and it's it'll be on CBS Sports also in the near future. So, it brings a lot of attention to to our uh great
little town of Sebring. Um, also, and I might steal somebody's thunder about the fire truck that we got, and thanks to the fire department for what they did for building a 100 foot ladder truck, uh, Tower 14. Um, they had the, uh, the
wash down and the push in. Um, and, uh, it was really kind of a cool event. The fire department has now has an honor guard that's very professional and did a great job in showing what they did. So, it was it was neat to see. U, especially with the guy playing the bag pipe. So, I
thought it was real real an honor to see that kind of a thing happen. But, uh, congratulations to the fire department and, uh, city council for approving the purchase. So, that's all I now >> and I have nothing to say. Nothing to add.
>> Gosh. >> Um, just want to let everyone know the Rotary public restrooms are complete and open. We got a couple little punch list items, but they were open before the soda fest and um no big issues, everything working well. So happy that
project is done. For those who don't know, they're located behind the circle theater uh right off the circle. Uh I think open to the public every day from I want to say 6:00 a.m. to 10 p.m. and um air conditioned. Nice. Hopefully you don't have to use a portable toilet for
an event going forward. David. >> Uh yeah, I have a couple things I want to bring up actually. Um we all got a uh an email from a merchant downtown the other day regarding parking on North
Ridgewood. Um, my thought was on certain events, you know, outside of Christmas parade, Halloween, transporter parade, you know, the big ones, maybe we stop the road closures at Wall Street
rather than go all the way to Pine and do Wall Street on every spoke. Just wanted to see what everybody's input. I mean, honestly, we just leave it up to the organizer and staff. We don't need to make a decision on every single one, but I don't see the need in
closing North Ridgewood all the way down, South Ridgewood all the way down. >> I I totally agree and um thank you for bringing that up. A lot of these events are not even using those streets. >> Exactly. You know, >> um >> outside of Halloween, Christmas,
>> right? >> On that same note, I think and I had a discussion with Scott about this earlier. Um, one particular vendor, probably the same person, complained to me that they were closing the street at like 2 PM on a Friday. I think we should
for events and I think confirmed that maybe that didn't happen that, you know, I think Steve was saying it's supposed to be 5 or 5:30. >> Yeah, there was a closure of two roadways happened at 2:30. >> Rest.
>> Okay. What we had discussed was maybe making it so events can't close, you know, especially Saturday events can't close before like 5:30 so that those businesses down there um can have access at least during normal business hours before things shut down. >> If you close it off at Wall Street, you
still have if you make it up there, you have an exit, >> right? You can move around. >> You can go to Wall Street. Which brings up my second point is maybe it's time we start talking about making Wall Street one way. Yeah, >> it should be because you can't
>> if I'm coming down, you're not >> you're not making it the other way. So, it's just a thought. Want to gauge gauge everyone's interest. >> I think that's a good idea. >> And the road closure thing, just I think leave it between staff and,
>> you know, the organizer. We don't need to give me a blanket. >> Right. >> Cool. I think the only thing to add to that if there's a possibility that we don't have to close a day early, too. So, if the event's on Saturday, do we have to close on Friday night, too? So, something to take
>> probably depends on the setup, >> right? >> Again, I don't think we need to be involved, but >> just let them figure out consideration. What do we need to do to make Wall Street one way officially maybe a conversation with D as well just to verify
this But >> maybe it's something we do after the road transfer. >> Yeah, if if it comes I I doubt it's going to. >> So I think we're pretty close to that, aren't we?
>> And then I want to check fire department, make sure I think that will be the case, but we'll investigate. come back with you come back to you recommendation >> how we're going to accomplish
>> all right >> on the um event application is there where they want where they indicate when they want the reg closed that's a part of the application >> it's a part of our special event committee meet >> okay >> there is a place for time of events I
want to say there might be a place for road closures I just had specific times but we Okay. But we do that in special. >> All right. I have just one more thing. This has been a thorn in my side every time I died drive down 27 and I'm not
sure what we can do, but where they've planted peanut grass come August, it's weeds and I don't know what we can do as far as getting DOT involved. The county I think had something to do with that planting, but we cleaned up the lake
real nice and in three months the medium is just going to be overgrowing with weeds. It's a very specific spray system that has to be put on peanut grass to control weeds. I don't know what we can do to control it, but
it just looks like >> Oh, I agree. >> Looks like crap in the summertime. Anybody witness that or is it where I don't go? I mean where it's in the medium like between public
>> between Sparta and >> hammock >> uh hammock. >> Okay. >> Actually goes up a little through the gauge station. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I think you can spray I think there is a chemical that you can spray
on the peanut grass. Not kill the peanut grass but kill the I don't know if it's something we just bite the bullet and do it ourselves because DOT is just going to take decades to do anything. >> Is this an expensive thing? Do you have any idea? >> I don't know.
>> Okay. >> I mean, one guy with a backpack trigger can do it in an afternoon >> unless the chemicals are wildly expensive. Can't be that much, >> right? >> Probably be easier, cheaper to just do ourselves than correct. you'd spend more
time and uh payroll on the phone, right, with DOT. >> Yeah. >> Well, DOT originally did it. So, do we need to talk to them? >> Is that something on it? >> Yeah. Just say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do." >> That's what I would do.
>> Probably another discussion. >> Okay. >> I would to say this is what we did. But >> yeah, >> so sorry. So sorry we got rid of those weeds. All right, that's it. >> Do we need any direction on that or Scott? Is that something that you can
talk about? >> Okay, no worries. Thank you. Um, one thing I got is to echo what mayor said, thank you to the fire department, elected officials on the state side for making that aerial and that tower truck happen. It's a really big deal for the city and for all of our residents
providing the best service that we can. Um, it's great thing that we have a $2 million truck. Hopefully, we don't have to use it often. Um, but it's nice that we do have it in case we ever need to. Um, and I know so the guy in the very
back who does not want to be recognized, Jared Lee, he's a huge part of that as well. So, thank you, Jared. So, for the guy in the back in the blue shirt, make sure you do not acknowledge him or say thank you. Could not have done it without him. That's what I got. Um, so moving on to
the consent. He approved. >> Moving on to the consent agenda. Looking for a motion to approve. >> I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda as presented. >> Second. >> Got a motion to second. Is there any uh
comments from the audience? >> Happy. >> Yes. Yes. >> Stewart, >> yes. >> H. >> Yes. Uh, there is no old business. So, moving on to new business, we got uh silver on the circle special event with
Miss Gale. >> Good evening. Good evening. >> Members, thank you so much for allowing me to speak. Um, I am Gail Jagger and I'm the first vice president of Florida Sun Coast Air Stream Club. And our club is been around for our budget club has been around for over 17 years. And our
motto is we rally together and we think Sebring would be an outstanding place to do a rally and that's what we're requesting to have 25 rigs um on that grassy lot that we put in a packet um for the weekend. Any questions from council?
Any questions for that? >> A three day event or a three? >> Uh Wednesday through Sunday. >> Okay. >> But Wednesday would be like just a setup. >> Okay. Are you are you bringing in restroom facilities or >> No, our rings are self-contained and then I think there's public restrooms by
the um library. >> Okay. And so there's a >> a dumping station somewhere else that >> Yes, we're going to work on that. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> And remind me again, how many people do you think you're going to bring into this? There'll be 25 bricks, so about 50
people. Um, and we may sometimes people don't like to dry camp, so then we might add invite them to do it the hammock or a local would probably be no more than about this be. Thank you. >> Thank you.
>> So, with all that being said, we have a motion. Move to approve the event as presented with the event. Excuse me. The event organizer providing a certificate of liability insurance listing the city as additional insured at least 10 days prior to the event.
>> Second. Do we have any uh comments from the audience? >> Fish. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Stewart. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> All right. Moving on to 10B. This is a public hearing and resolution for the
conditional use permit. So, um, purpose of the public hearing is to receive public input on an application by the city of Sebring for a conditional use permit for the development of a 100 foot tall uh tower for a quick space metering system and wireless communication for
the city located at 100 YMCA lane. So, I'm going to open up this public hearing and have Bob introduce the rest. You have resolution number 2026-14 that's on the dis when you came in. That is the resolution at issue for this
action item. Thank you, sir. >> Good evening. For the record, Marissa Barbie with the Central Florida Regional Planning Council. Um I do have a PowerPoint presentation for this item. This is a conditional use request by the
city for um the 100 foot tall tower. The This is the location of the property at 100 YMCA lane lane sorry 38 acres in size roughly. Um they are requesting 100 foot tall
monopole tower for their fixed base meter reading system. It would also have communication wireless communication facilities that are city only wireless communication facilities. So not cell phone power type use on there. Um
some of that would be for powering the cameras in the area other again a zoom in version of the site. There are softball fields, um, couple of bathrooms, and the proposed location is on the eastern side of the property by tree
line. This is the um map that was provided as part of the application property and then the tower with base with a 200 foot radius which is the drop zone requirement in the code
for uh Wi-Fi ground mounted facilities. This tower is designed to collapse in on itself. But the future land use on the site is recreation. The zoning on the site
is mixed use quality development. This is the um power plan that was provided as part of the application as to what we built on the site. Um this is a stock image of what that
would look like. The land development code does not specifically address monle power for city utilities. So we opted to run this as a conditional use um under the wif5 monopole tower section due to the height
of it um and to ensure being consistent with that similar type use setbacks and all. So the mixed use of quality development district allows up to 150 ft tall tower.
So we meet that requirement. Um there are setback requirements from residential lotines and for roads. The proposed location does meet all those requirements. the um
there's standards for um data set back as far as the principal structure would have to be they have to be accessible by service vehicle. The proposal meets all those requirements and then there's visual compatibility requirements. The project is proposing
an 8 foot by 8 foot vinyl fence to surround the base. Um the code does require landscaping along within 150 ft of the tower. The land the property line there is a property line between two
city owned properties. So the um plus fact that the tree line is right there. The is asking to be waved from that requirement. And then also they're asking to be exempted from the required landscaping outside the fence area due to the location of the tower not being
directly within the sight line of the softball fields and being off to the side. Um There was a resident contacted city staff and asked about the Aomemed um landings that happened there. So, city contacted Aomemed. AOMED said, "Well,
you're not required. We would prefer you to put an obstacle like light on top of the tower and to coordinate with us so we know when you're installing it." So, we are proposing that as a condition in here. City is doing that. Um so, your conditions are an obstacle
light will be placed on the top of the tower. The city will notify met on the time of the installation. The tower is exempt from the property line landscaping requirements and both parcels are owned by the city. The tower is exempt from the fence landscaping requirements that shall ensure the
planning and zoning board. Next slide. Um did hear this item at their last meeting and did so to recommend approvals to um I'm happy to stand for any questions you may have. >> Thank you very much. Are there any
questions or comments or input from the public on this? Hearing none, we're going to close public hearing. Any uh questions or comments from council? And if that's the case, looking for a
motion. >> I make a motion that we approve resolution 2026-14 as presented. >> Second. Any comments? Bishop, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Yes.
>> Yes. >> Yes. >> Next up, we have 10 C. Um going to Bob. We're going to do 10 C and 10D together. Um Bob, do you want to introduce us? So
these are proposed ordinances and they are addressing the land use and zoning for and they are entitled an ordinance of the city of severing Florida changing the future land use classification for approximately 2.95 acres located at 2511 state road 17 north from public use to
medium density residential providing for severability providing for conflict and providing for an effective date. The second ordinance title an ordinance of the city of seing Florida changing the zoning classification for approximately 2.95 acres located at 2511 state road 17
north from single family district R1 to city plan development PD providing for severability providing for conflict and providing for an effective date. So we're going to open up this public hearing and Mercy. >> Thank you. For the record Barbie with the Central Florida Regional Planning Council. I did do two separate
powerpoints but I'll just run through them both together. So this is the property. It is owned by Green Roof Development LLC. The owner and representatives um are here. Applicants representatives are here as well. The
property is just under 3 acres. It is located at 2511 State Road 17 North. You see it in the blue there. Um it has Seb Parkway on one side and 13 on the other. The existing single family of R1 zoning
is the zoning that is assigned to the property. The future land use assigned to the property is public. So those do not um they're incompatible with each other. They're inconsistent. So the applicant is requesting a future land use amendment um to medium density
residential to provide consistency. There is a companion zoning map amendment. Next slide. This is the existing future land use map. You can see this property is public. The property on the other side of it that has the former Masonic lodge and there's
a single family house there. It's also public as property that is church. Everything else around it is medium density residential. But so medium density residential does allow single family and multif family development. It allows between 5 to 12
million units per acre. Um, so this future land use assignment would give this property the same rights and opportunities that the property around it that has residential on it be consistent with what's been.
This is the existing zoning our one single family,000 square feet. Next slide. This is the view of the property from Parkway. from State Road 17. Um or the future land use the
compatibility is generally compatible because everything around it that it doesn't have public has that same medium density residential. Um so that is the compatibility of the land.
be looking at the analysis of proposed maximum impacts under existing future land use of public. We cannot build any residential uses. Um the proposed medium density residential would be 5 to 12 growing units. So a potential increase
of 14 to 35 dwelling units um on that site. The some of the impact analysis that follows is summary information is provided to assist you in your review. any future ling zoning that is assigned
does not um reserve capacity in any of the system. So there is water and sewer um available. There is an 8 in water line force main located um in vicinity of the property. The owner or the developer
would be responsible to making any connection improvements related to utilizing there was a from the city saying there is capacity at this time to meet the demands of this special.
Uh the property does above state road 17 on the east, seed parkway to the west and there's an undeveloped rightway on the of uh to the south which is undeveloped rightway for drive. Both the Department of Transportation and Highlands County
have denied direct access to state uh to 17 and to uh parkway. So any development of the property would require an extension of Hawthorne Drive from that intersection. Looking at capacity of level of service,
there is capacity in those road systems to accommodate the maximum development potential of the university residential as of application moved forward through zoning and site plan. Um a formal traffic analysis would be required and
if there are any reduction in level of service then mitigation measures would have to be provided and that's consistent with city code, state code and county code depending on what parts of the road system. Um all development is required to
provide recreation and open space. city is currently meeting its level of service standards. The property is located outside environmentally sensitive areas and like every other application that cuts through additional review would come in at an actual development application.
Emergency services are located within a three mile radius and the school board has acknowledged they have capacity for impacts generated um at this potential level of development. Planning and zoning board did um vote to
forward the proposed amendment to you um with approval. The vote was 4 to one. So I will go through this zoning portion of this lot of obviously this is our piece of property again is the companion um piece
to the future land use amendment. They are requesting to build a multi-family project. Um there the medium density residential as stated would allow 5 to 12 units per acre.
Um the zoning is currently R1 4.3 unit per acre at a minimum of 10,000 square foot lot. They are requesting a planned development. Um so
piece of our property. Um, looking at our compatibility with surrounding area, multifamily may serve as a buffer between larger lot residential and public uses. All of the property in this area, well zoned or one does have a medium density residential
future land use. So, it too could they could as property owners also request a building change to a higher build multif family if they so chose. the analysis of impacts, excuse me, they're requesting 30 dwelling units. It would be an increase
of 18 dwelling units from what they've been filled today under R1. Um again your impact analysis does not vest any um rights or reserve capacity in any of your systems.
There is water and sewer as previously discussed and there's capacity for it. Um as mentioned the both the state and the county have said they are not allowed to connect to their system. So the development would have to happen road slide.
Um there is capacity in the system. Um a traffic study was supplied with this application, but a more formal one would come in with their actual application to figure out specific impacts to road systems.
This is an image of Simpson Avenue um which the intersection at Simpson Avenue is where that road would be extended. Um it is a substandard road approximately within 21 ft. Marissa, in relation to that photo, where is the entrance to the
>> development? So, if you go all the way to the end, that's the church, and you're going to turn and they have to build the road into the >> applicant is proposing to exceed the open space requirements. They are propo providing um 1.41 acres of that include
fitness trail, recreation, playground um areas. It is located envir areas, but that would be further vetted through an application development. Um, schools and emergency services we
addressed already in the future. This is the proposed um plan for the PL unit development. As you can see, the 30 units are stored between six buildings. Hawthorne Drive will be approved of
Simpson Avenue. We have worked with the applicant to have them connect or extend the sidewalk so it connects into that sidewalk system that existing sidewalk system. Um this uh next slide
this is the the site requirement zoomed in because that was kind of hard to read. Um so it includes your the setback requirements. Um it does have I guess I'll get to that. Sorry. And that's where I where they're going
to construct the sidewalk to connect to the existing sidewalk system. We are proposing conditions for the planning for the play development. The site would be under these development standards. These are the development standards that are listed on that site
plan. Next slide. Um a requirement for a formal analysis of traffic impacts um would have in here so that that would happen with the with the site plan application. All internal roadways would
be privately maintained. Um they would not be dedicated to the city for maintenance. The developer shelter drive the intersection Simpson Avenue. Um and construct the existing sidewalk.
Um they are uh will enclose the property by a perimeter fence and the gated access portion will be determined at the site or the time of site plan application. Um they will have all their landscape buffers installed and maintained as required by the main
development code. The master development plan um needs to be updated to reflect the required type next to the public properties and um they will have a sixoot fence located within the landscape buffer. A twoft
grass strip located outside of the fence. Required planning shall be located interior to the fence. The landscape strip between the parking lot and the building walls may not be less than 5 ft. The size shall be requirements for the United States
strip. Um the required amount of recreation open space as shown in the master plan must be built. We are also asking them to realign the fitness trail away from the existing single family homes to increase that buffer from those existing
single family homes. Um and then that those recreation open space facilities would be constructed and installed prior to the issuance of the first the parking requested for the project is more than double the required parking
basis for multi multifamily for our code. So we are requesting um them to provide a maximum of 60 parking spaces which parking spaces per unit and um the parking spaces located directly by the entrance need to be removed to avoid
conflict with the incoming and outgoing traffic and the dumpster shown on the on the plan would be uh voting this on forward applicant has a presentation they would
like to give and any questions for Marissa before we turn over to Dana. >> Good evening. Dana Redell, owner of Stonehenge Land Development Consultants. For the record, with me tonight, I have Jeff Kennedy and Reed Fellows, a traffic professional, who will also be joining
me for portions of this presentation. I'll be representing Green Group Development LLC this evening. And I wanted to just point out and make sure that council received, I believe there were six letters of support that kind of rolled through over the last two
days. So, wanted to make sure you all were aware of those. Um, in terms of the project, I'll try not to be too redundant with what Miss Barby did. However, there were a lot of questions that came up at the planning and zoning meeting. So, in addition to just filling
you in and on any of the gaps that you might be unaware of, I'm also going to try to address any comments or concerns that came up during the planning and zoning meeting. So, on the next slide, we have our project overview, which is basically what's
already been stated. We know that we're working with the applicant of Green Group Development LLC. There's a current zoning of R1 Single Family District with the proposed zoning of PD Plan Development District. The current future land use is public use and the proposed
future land use is medium density residential. Right now, the zoning and future land use are not compatible, which means nothing can be developed on the property until either the future land use is changed or the zoning is changed. In this case, we're requesting
to change um both first of all for the medium density residential to be consistent with the surrounding area and for a planned development so that our specific development will be consistent and compatible with the surrounding area.
The proposed rental range is approximately $1,375 per month and the target audience will be rental and workforce housing. So, I'll go ahead and go into that a little bit further on a few other slides in the future. I'm going to pull out some facts
and information from the 2025 housing study. Thank you. Next slide. Thank you. As mentioned, the property is 2.95 acres and we're proposing a density of 10.17 dwelling units per acre, which is under
the 12 dwelling unit per acre max. If we were to maximize the medium density residential future land use, the minimum living space would be 850 square feet, which is larger than the minimum living space in your current multif family
dwelling districts. And an open space of 0.89 acres is required where we're providing 1.41 acres. As mentioned, access would be required from Simpson A. And again, I'll go into that a little bit later, but to go back and address
some of the transitional how this can be a really beneficial transitional area between what's now currently a public future land use and uh residential land uses is right now we have what used to be the
Masonic Lodge. The person who occupies it now will probably likely have to come in for some kind of zoning or future land use change. I suspect it will be commercial in nature just from my conversations with that particular um
the realer who sold them the property. Even if it didn't get reszoned to commercial, it would have a public use and the public use that exists on this property now. If we had a reasonzoning for public, a school could be put in this location which would generate a
much higher number of trips. It was brought up at the planning and zoning commission who would put a school here. And I'm not talking about the Highlands County School Board. I'm talking about like a a private school entity could be a 501c3. There are schools with that type of formatting that exist here in
Highlands County today. Um just like the Masonic Lodge was a public meeting place. They're 501c3. So they were able to operate on public future land use. So, it doesn't necessarily have to be a uh city entity. It could be a public
entity of some kind that would operate in the public future land use. So, I just wanted to bring that up. So, on the next slide, I wanted to talk a little bit about the developers. Most of you are familiar with them or aware of who they are, but we have Roy Mangle
Green, his father Mango. um they're tried and trueue developers, so this is not going to be a flip. They're not just increasing the value of the land to resell it to someone else who might come in and do something different than what's being said today. Not to mention, we're binding ourselves
to a plan development, which means we literally cannot change the plan from what is being proposed today unless they come before you and ask for permission. Again, we know that this development group is in the process of developing Victory
Plaza, which is super neat and has some beautiful lights, beautiful characteristics, really welldesigned. Um, there might even be more parking to come in the future because I think that's the only concern I've heard about this potential development. They've also gotten approval for Sparta
Gardens, which is 30 single family dwelling units in the unincorporated county, but will be using city utilities. There's a couple other subdivisions that they've built out here in Highlands County. I don't have all the names off the top of my head, but
what's most notable is Los Villas is how they came in and turned around a defunct subdivision that was slated, platted, and recorded for 150 units where 18 were built and it went belly up during the recession. At that time, for years
afterward, the pool was green, the lights didn't work, the gates to the neighborhood did not function, they were in disrepair. In general, the neighborhood was in disrepair. uh when the Green Group Development
uh took over this particular area, they managed to build out all 150 units and sell or rent all of those units. Instead of having a defunct HOA, they have a 15 member very active HOA and they have fully functional pool,
lighting, gates, etc. on your screen is a picture that is a picture of Los Villas. I don't bring this up to compare what this development will be to what
Lost Villas is because remember Lost Villas was created and designed by another developer. The Green Group just came in and helped complete another developer's vision. The green group's vision is in my
opinion a little bit elevated, right? So if green group did it, they might have set the the houses back a little bit further so that you could fit more cars in the driveway, things like that. That's why they work to provide so much parking in the plans that we've currently proposed. But I just wanted to
touch on who the green group is, what they have done in Sebring and just make sure that the council is aware of everything that they're capable of. So on the next slide, I'll go into the 2025 housing study prepared by Highlands
County. Highlands County is the one who paid for it, but Kimley Horn is the one who actually did the study. That's who they paid to do it. So, what's really interesting, I find a lot of this study very interesting. Um, but you have kind of what looks like a
heat map on the screen and I just zoomed in and specifically focused it on the Sebring area. Obviously, the blue is Lake Jackson. The smaller blue is dinner lake.
And where the purple gets darker, there's a higher concentration of jobs. And when they prepared the study, they basically indicated that you want to place your market rate multif family housing units in close
proximity to job centers where there's a high volume of jobs available because that's where people will work. That's what makes housing uh workforce housing more appealing and more feasible because If your car breaks, you can walk to the
grocery store. You could walk to maybe just Dollar General or um ride your bike to your place of employment. Uh and that's hard to find here in Florida because we were developed on the principle of urban sprawl. And now we're all trying to to take that back. So what this is, this is
infill development. And I'll go into that again later. But on the right side of your screen, you'll see another excerpt from the report. On the north side of Lake Jackson, you'll see the numbers five and eight. The proposed development is directly
between numbers five and eight, which are nodes that were recognized as places that would be beneficial for market rate workforce housing. And that's exactly what's being proposed today. On the next slide,
they talk about in the study why we are where where we are. There we go. Okay. Um with with our housing. So they provided a breakdown of our
population. And what's interesting is in the age group of 45 to 54, there was a 16% decrease of that age group in Highlands County. But that's because a lot of them were aging up into the 55 to
64% age group as the baby boomers begin to continue to age. Um, with that you'll see a lot of baby boomer boomers who prefer home ownership, but some will seek higher
density rental options, downsizing from higher maintenance family homes. And then on the flip side of things, you have younger homeowners who are having a difficult time amassing their down payments and paying the mortgage interest rates. So they continue to have
to seek rental options again further driving the demand for multif family and single family rental options. On the next slide, we go into demand. Okay, so I've seen a lot of different numbers when it comes to demand for
multif family housing and market rate housing. And after I really did a deep dive into the study, I can see why that is. But in 2024, the county's medium household income was 56,165, which was almost 25% lower than the
state's median of $74,175. As of the 22 census, almost 75% of the county's households only had one or two people. That's very important. We're proposing one, actually, all of these units will be twobedroom units. So, in
Highlands County, that's something we struggle with is people have to rent entire homes, whether they're here for short-term, long-term, whatever the reason is. Um, they end up having to rent an entire home, whereas this development is catering to the actual
needs of Highlands County where we only have one a majority of one to two family households. And this again is influenced by the aging population and an increase in empty nesters and lower birth rates. So on the right hand side you see the
forecasted household growth. And then what really caught my eye is under where it says new supply. So they have planned additions to the supply and you hear a lot of talk of like we
have all this housing coming. This just got approved. That just got approved. All these things might have been approved at the planning and zoning level as people continue to plan for the future. But when this study was done about one year ago, there were only two
developments that were active and it was 2200 Scenic Highway. It's the one you see getting prepared by um Bernie Little with the pipes coming up from the ground and you'll see me come forward for that one too because we have some zoning to
clean up there. Um and then the Ecomoss Apartments out at Spring Lake. So those are the only two that actually had permits in hand ready to develop. And based on this study, there's an a
demand for 932 units. And at that time, there were 331 units actually being constructed with an excess demand of 601. We're trying to make a dent at 30.
On the next slide, you'll see I have 3.5 to four million kind of like flashing in the corner there. Uh because again, I just want to point out the contribution that these developers have made to the city of
Sebring and the Highlands County area. Their previous developments have resulted in an infusion of over $25 million into the Highlands County economy, whether it be through purchase of building supplies, the use of contractors,
subcontractors, things of that nature. But this particular development is expected to result in a cost of 3.5 to 4 million to the developers. And this is infill growth. We know it's infill because we have everything
already in existence. Water, sewer, electricity. It's just a matter of connecting. It's all right there. We have residential development on either side. I mean, you know, across the road, Home AB, we have our residential development. So, this just slides right
in there. Um, what was found by Smart Growth America is that infield developments cost 38% less in upfront infrastructure versus green fields. It generates 10 times more tax revenue per acre and cost 10% less in ongoing city
service delivery as in roads, fire, water manes, etc. Other fiscal impacts that you'll notice are obviously the short-term construction, employment, and local spending, which is kind of what I alluded to with what they've done
before. Long-term job creation through property operations. Um, and you know, it's like incidental jobs. So, it's not like they're going to employ a exterminator like full-time, but they're going to be using companies like
extermination companies, AC companies, um, property management companies to help come in and make this development be everything that it needs to be. And obviously, it strengthens the city's overall tax base. So, on the next slide,
there was a lot of discussion over the surrounding area not really being shown in some of our renderings. Our renderings will come later, but essentially on Simpson Avenue, and I'm starting to get into like traffic right now. Um, on Simpson Avenue, there's five
existing developments. Four of them are homes. One of them is a church. And it was brought up that this particular property was used as a like a landing pad for emergency
services like if Aeromed needed to come in and land a helicopter here. Um after speaking with the developer and even putting in a call in to Mr. Bobby Border today, what we learned is that yes,
it has been used regularly on an unofficial basis for landings. Um, it's not designated by the FAA as a landing space for these helicopters, but the previous property owner and even
the current property owner who's with us today agreed to allow them to use the property as a landing pad as needed. However, that use stopped when the new owners of what used to be the Masonic Lodge uh came in and fenced the property
because then they were no longer able to get in and out using the Masonic Lodge's property. And obviously, right now there's no road constructed to Simpson A for fire services or emergency services to be able to get through. So, it is not currently used for emergency landings.
On the next slide, I just wanted to point out that interconnectivity to this property was always part of the plan. This plat was prepared in 1925.
And you can see on your left side toward the bottom, popcorn dry, it was left open so that it always could connect to our property or the property that we're talk we're discussing today.
On the next slide, we have a visual of the proposed development. You already saw this with Miss Barby, so I won't bore you too much with that. But we can pull it back up if we need to for reference. And on the next slide, we have it in writing from Florida
Department of Transportation from Samantha Irvin. It specifically says if they have alternate access, which would be Simpson AB, we would not approve access to the state road. Additionally, we would not approve a
right in right out on a right turn lane. On the next slide, we have our denial from Highlands County in terms of access to the property because we asked them if we could enter through the parkway and they said access to the property, excuse
me, will need to be from State Road 17. Access from the parkway will not be permitted due to the turn lane for home app. So, both the county and FDOT have stated basically clear as day that they won't. And there was some speculation during the planning and
zoning hearing that FDOT didn't like our development or the county didn't like our development or that the traffic counts would be too high and that's why they denied it. But FDOT denied it specifically because of the distance to the intersection. We could not meet
their standards, but Simpson Avenue does. and Highlands County has their turn lane issue as well as simply just not allowing any new access points on the Parkway if they can help it. So on the next slide, I want to provide
a little bit more information about the rights of way. So as Miss Barby indicated, I think she had a measurement of 21 feet. We have a measurement of 18 ft for the width of Simpson Avenue.
And the applicant asserts that road widening isn't really necessary, but they will they will widen it if they're required to as part of the commercial review process. But I provided additional analysis of
other roads throughout the county who have two, three, four, five, six times as many trips as this road would have with the same width. And I think at the planning and zoning
hearing there were comments that okay well that's a dead-end street and I think that's a benefit if we have a limited number of trips on a dead end street we know that there's not going to be any additional through traffic
one of that like you could ask us or it it's been put on the table why haven't why wouldn't you construct the rest of Hawthorne well first of all We only need the one access. But second of all, that would also generate additional through
traffic. In this case, I mean traffic studies are not like a perfect science, right? So I can't say for sure there's only going to be this many trips per day, but we know there's only going to be 30 a maximum of 30 units, right? So that automatically limits exactly how many trips are going to be able to come down to the end of
the road. And the way that I can think of it of as Uh, sorry. It's just like a culde-sac. Why Why wouldn't a fire truck
be able to turn around on a culde-sac in the same way that they turn around on a stubout? I mean, it's like a three-point turn, but they can get to the end, they could turn around, and they can go back up. So, because that's been part of the concern is uh emergency vehicles being
able to access the road and drive on those roads and things like that. Um it's not really a consequence if it's private property or public property for the fire truck to turn around. are currently using
the church to turn around. And what we would be building is two stabilized surfaces up to today's code for the fire trucks to be able to turn around or any vehicle to turn around. And at this time, I just have two slides
more concerning traffic. I'll invite up Mr. Reid Fellows. He'll go over some of those items and I'll come back up to finish us off. Good evening, council. My name is Reed Fellows. Good evening. Good evening. I work for TR Transportation Consultants and we're
the one who conducted the traffic study which was part of the application. Um I'll step through it real briefly and then I'm here to answer questions. But we did the um traffic report consistent with High Highland County's minor traffic projects requirements,
generated the drifts for the 30 additional residential units, applied those to the area roadways, and then we looked at the level of service on all roadways that currently have measured concurrency or level of service and there's adequate capacity on all the roadways. That includes Sebring
Parkway, State Road 17, Home Avenue, Home Avenue as well. Now, on Simpson Avenue, there's currently we did traffic counts at the intersection and looked at a there's only um three peak hour trips
in the AM and excuse me, five in the AM and three in the PM. So, there's very, very minimal traffic, which is to be expected on this local roadway. The uses that are on. Now, when we add our traffic to this, we're looking at from our traffic generation
characteristics about 15 additional trips to six and a half, which is very minimal. Again, granted, it's more than it's there now. But if you take that into perspective, um, and if you look at the traffic included, the existing and the proposed, it's about one car every
four minutes. So, there's very little side friction. You know, both times you wouldn't even encountering another the other way. But even if you do, there's 18 foot of pavement. This is a very very low generating trip of development along
with very little traffic on roads. So there in my professional opinion, there's no issues for adding additional trips to 6. It was already stated before that FDOT would not allow any access to their state roadways. That makes sense. That's
just the planning. state highways are generally for moving traffic and arterials here and this is general practice from FTO and as was stated in the letter they um try to get local traffic off of local roads and this is an example this exactly what we want to
do you don't want to inhibit turns if you cannot you will have to do a little uh more analysis on this but pretty much all of it was done as part of this application and as part of the study that we did for it but we'll look at it again when we get to the site process as well.
So, I've already touched on the emergency access benefits, but again, when we add two additional turnarounds, they'll be more structurally capable. They will be able to meet the turning radius requirements, which has been some of the concerns voiced by the community.
It will be unobstructed and reliably available and it will meet all IFC and NFPA standards. Children's safety has also been a major concern. So, you know, in general, there's going to
be speed control measures. If necessary, the applicant is willing to even install speed tables if that satisfies any concerns to the residential neighborhood. And we are also extending the sidewalk for pedestrian activity to occur in a safe manner.
In terms of ten tenant quality and management, it will be professionally managed. There will be on-site oversight, strict lease standards, and background checks. I find this to be um I recently moved
into this is a little anecdotal, but I recently moved into a secured gated neighborhood where background checks are required to move in and I'm much more comfortable allowing my children to play outside knowing what's approved and what's not approved
through the background check process. Um, if this were a single family residential neighborhood, which would allow 12 single family homes, there's no guarantee that there would be background checks for anyone coming into the neighborhood. Anyone can move in at that point
in compliance with any other state and federal regulations. And then also in terms of securing our development, it will be fully fenced. That's a condition of approval. It will be fully fenced and secured with the white vinyl privacy fence. Uh so there
won't it will help mitigate any noise impacts, any visual impacts, and it will also help contain any children like you don't even want to know what my kids are up to these days. I like I didn't even know you were
outside. But um yeah, it should help just keep the neighborhood contained in general. So, quickly because we've already been over some of these things, but I really just want to come in and and hone in on some of these things. When it comes to environmental and flood management,
there are no wetlands indicated on the National Wetland Inventory map. There's approximately 0.08 acres of Zurich upland shown on the Highlands County Interactive map, which is great. Zurich means high and dry for
the most part. Uh the Florida Natural Areas Inventory indicates no known endangered animal species and it is outside any special flood hazard areas. The Natural Resource Conservation
Service indicates a Statula sand at 0 to 5% slopes which drains extremely well. And we've heard some concern that there might be some drainage issues in the area, but due to the water management district
requirements, local requirements, the postdevelopment runoff cannot exceed pre-development runoff. So, we cannot exacerbate any existing issues. And if there are any runoff issues on our property, they will be handled at the
time of development. And yeah, I I want to finish up for y'all, but I have like two more slides left. Okay, so compatibility. I think this is really important. In terms of medium density residential future land use, it
is consistent with the adjacent properties to the south and east. We know this. The regional planning council stated this as well. More medium density residential properties exist in the surrounding area. So maybe not directly adjacent on the north side, but yes, across the road further down, we have
lots of medium density in the area. There's no question that that's compatible with the area. Medium density residential land use allows 5 to 12 dwelling units per acre. The proposed development is approximately 10.2 or
10.17 dwelling units per acre. And this is the part that I think uh brings such shock. I want to call it sticker shock, but it's not really sticker shock. It's just um fear, right?
Because we're talking about 10 dwelling units per acre adjacent to properties that are developed at an intensity of one to three dwelling units per acre when you factor in all the roads and everything like that.
But multifamily development and some jurisdictions call this single family attached development is not inherently incompatible with adjacent single family development on 10,000 square foot lots. It's not just
automatically incompatible. The way you achieve compatibility is through design, not use alone. And that's where you see a lot of municipalities switching over to something called formbbased code where it's all about design. Does the design
is it going to create a nuisance to one another? Is it compatible in the way that it's designed versus just because it's considered multif family and they're attached? But this person is doing the same thing every day, waking up, taking a shower, eating breakfast, and going to work. And as the person one
lot over on a single family lot doing the same thing, the uses themselves are not incompatible. They're both people are just living their lives. It's just to what intensity and what density. But there's design factors that can be
used to mitigate anything that would be considered more of a nuisance. So for that reason, the development is limited to one story to alleviate any concerns regarding scale and privacy. And home separation really only affects
those residing in those developments. So if I have a single family attached home, I need to be quiet for my neighbor. But next door, they still have their 25 foot front and rear yard setback and 7 and
1/2 foot setback. We have the same setback. We impose setbacks on the building from the property line so that there would be a generous distance the same amount of distance that you would see in a single family residential neighborhood.
Uh privacy fence will enclose the entire property as mentioned and again this provides adequate transition from non-residential uses to residential uses. And on the next slide, Miss Barby already went over this, but I just
wanted to make it explicit that there is a 10inch force mane on the east side of State Road 17 and an 8 in water line on the west side of State Road 17. Um there were questions about you know essentially why we hadn't engineered
plans yet. The site plan has been developed through a CAD program and these are simple connections. It is not ed normal or typical for a full-blown engineering design to be done at this time. Um, but the property
owners have done their due diligence and they're aware of what utilities are available and they're happy to meet the city in the middle on any of those requirements. So, after this are just the renderings. I'll ask Scott to go ahead and scroll
through them. Um, to be clear, we came to you with these renderings way back in December. These are the same renderings. So, conceptually, overall, more or less, they're this they haven't changed. But one thing you don't see on these
renderings is the fence. So, there will be a fence. Um, outside of the fence, there will be a twoft buffer for maintenance, like a two-ft grass strip. And essentially, at this time, um, we're going to turn it back over to you. I'm
going to ask to reserve some time at the end for the owner to provide a statement. And we simply ask that the council consider this decision with competent substantial evidence like the evidence we brought before you today and not really on a not in my backyard basis
or an emotional basis. Um although we do understand the the concerns that have come from the surrounding area. I'm available for any questions. Thank you very much, Dana. I open this up to the public for for
questions, so come on up. >> For the record, I'm Jennifer Murphy. Good evening. I live at the dead end right beside the church off of Benson Avenue, and I'm here to respectfully ask that you deny both the future land use and the zoning request for this
property. The planning and zoning board denied the resoning because of serious concerns that they noticed um regarding access infrastructure drainage and the site suitability and they're still unresolved and this is going to be an ongoing concern.
While the board recommended approval of the future land use change may be because mostly of the uniformity around the surrounding area, it shouldn't override the site specific conditions and the denial of the reasonzoning clearly shows that the fundamental
issues with the site remain unresolved. In approving the future land use change is not a neutral action. It establishes development rights that remain within the property regardless of whether zoning is approved. Even if zoning is denied, the developer can return or pursue development under the new designation.
That means approving the land use change continues the development pressure on a site that has already been identified as constraint. The limitations of the site are significant and again unresolved in regards to access traffic transportation
in the traffic study which we've seen earlier about Corvette and these other streets none of those are deadend roads and I'm assuming I forgot your name I apologize but with the TR um consultant we noticed and my husband comes home he's self-employed so it was like dark
it was I don't know six o'clock 8 o'lock at And these little white things that looked like a TV remote essentially was attached to the stop sign at the end of our road. And we don't know who did this, what this was. Being it's a bus stop. It was kind of alarming, but these
are just there watching our kids. Looked like kind of maybe a camera. Not sure, you know, if that was you um or or what that was, but we did pick up on that and the next day they were gone. So when you're stating 5:00 a.m. or 5 in the morning and three at the peak, was that
device used. If so, you really didn't have a full, you know, picture there. Um, regarding the turn radius when you're seeing because we brought up in the planning and zoning, another concern was having fire truck semiis. I've had stuff delivered and it came on a 53 foot
semi-trail and with that they have nowhere to go but in the church parking lot back all the way up, pull back up garbage truck same way. And they mentioned um specifically that we were able to, you know, lose their access. Well, if it's gated and it's fenced and all these securities, they're
not going to still be able to use that. And when you're talking a grass grass lane that's roughly I hear 18 and 21, I'm not sure what you know really it is. When I measured it, and I do work in this field, 15 foot because what are you going to do? Cut the grass slope off where the parking lot is at the church
or you going to cut into the neighbor's property? It's 15 foot because where's the drainage going to go? And that's another concern. Um, and when you're talking some of these like sewers, um, water, etc. At the time currently, it's
in capac, you know, it has the available capacity, but what about when the development actually happened? Could that be five years? Could that be one year? Is that capacity still going to be available? Um, drainage, flooding, ponding, they already occur. um and in
the P or the planning and zoning you have stated that they will comply with D requirements and so forth or they could be b kept fined if these issues occur. However, compliance and penalties don't prevent harm. They address it after it has already occurred.
Um and if you want to look at one of their examples, go to Ramon off of Ramona by State Road 17 Ramona at intersection where it works. those roughly eight houses and eight parcels. That's some of their examples of how their drainage works. There's a house in a ditch.
Where's all it going to go? Blood. You can look also at the topography, the elevation, and see how it definitely would be doing that. And we drove by and witnessed it ourselves. also in her presentation table four the population by age specifically
it's very minute within the target audience but they're claiming that we'll be utilizing these particular units so I guess I don't understand some of that either so to sum it all up these are not minor details they are fundamental factors in determining whether this site
is appropriate for development considering it's not quite three acres it's not a question of whether development should occur it's whether this site is appropriate and ready for development. Based on this information that's been presented up to this point, it is not demonstrated that it is ready
for such. For these reasons, I respectfully ask that you deny both the future land use amendment and the reasoning request. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you very much. Anybody else would like to speak on this? Come on up. You could tell us who you are.
Take your time. >> Maybe a half hour. Christopher Toughly, Sebrurn resident. I've I'm opposed to this particular development. A lot of your facts, very interesting,
and apply to a lot, but this is just a space that is too small for so many people. Um, I was noticing that that the apartments are roughly 850 square ft. 875
That's a very small space. I mean, that's the size of a tiny house if you think about it. The rent is going to be over $1,000. So, I just think you're going to have a hard time finding people that be willing to pay that much money for that small
space. And I think the people in the neighborhood have made it very very clear. And I I think with good reason that access in and out the traffic situation. I just don't think it's going to work
the way it's it's been presented that just a suit that's too small for the body. Come on up. >> Thanks Tim Magus. I'm with P City. I'm assistant pastor there. Pastor Taylor couldn't be here tonight, but uh I'm here as a representative for Hope City.
We have several members in attendance here. We have some concerns as far as uh where we stand as a church because it's uh Cincinnat. Um there's a couple things I want to want to bring up. one the uh the sewer connections or the uh
the sewer connections versus the septic systems which the surrounding areas the residents we have most of those around there are septic systems um and for the statement to make it's a simple connection that's across the highway I just don't see that um being plausible
right now um our park our parking issues or the parking issues they're going to have there how is that going to impact the church's parking lot um what we're foreseeing is if there's not enough adequate parking spaces or they become at a capacity that the church parking lot is going to end up being a a a
overflow for them. Um which is going to add additional cost maintenance for us to maintain our our pavement that landing and everything else. Also that turnaround on the undeveloped hawthornne a um or that turn for the un undeveloped
hoporn a is going to cut into the slope in the gradient that is already up there for drainage purposes. Plus we have a swift mud pond that's attached to that that we maintain that we have to have certified on a regular basis. So once they cut into that gradient that's going
to change the dynamics and impact that footprint of what that drainage system is already. Um, no proposed safety barriers for increased traffic for right against the parking lot. We didn't see anything in that. No consideration for the neighbors, um, which they're talking
extending the, uh, sidewalk into connecting the other sidewalk. But again, that's going to be a footprint that's going to have to be added into making that not a substandard road, but a standard road that they can have a throughway. Um, not to mention, y'all just talked about having a 100 foot
ladder fire truck. What's the possibility of that firet truck being able to turn into that without having to do multiple uh point turns or even getting access into that? So, our emergency services are not able to have a a a right of way or access into that
as it stands right now. Um, as Jennifer said, increased deliveries uh coming in and out of the property. Um and then again the comparable roads that were up there. Those are all through streets. Um and and then the traffic study, you're
saying you did it from this time and this time. However, the church, we do have multiple events that are are regularly scheduled that we have multiple days that we have activities there. We do have annual activities that are scheduled there. So those traffic studies aren't accurate as far as the
the traffic that comes up and down that road that's already a deadend road. Um and then the potential hazards that are there for the children that do uh attend this church and the surrounding neighbors. Um and then the to not include the neighbors into your
renderings. That that is just not a consideration for for even getting their their interest or showing them the interest or for that you have for them as well. I understand this is business and and we understand and we support development and growth. We do we but the
thing we stand on is let's grow responsibly. Let's make good decisions that's going to impact or have minimal impact to the neighborhood but are benefits to those that are all involved. I thank you for your time. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Good evening.
I live on 1708 since the house full of this property. I have allergies. I'm sorry. But um I've lived in Cra since I was born. Okay. This was a town and it's still to me it's small but still
beautiful. And then I was a city. I love growth. Everybody sees growth. We see it in our children. We see it in our you know our neighbor. We see it and we love it and we you know we treasure growth. But when you're building so much, it can
explode. The aftermath is what our community, our residents, and our neighbors are stuck to deal with. Yeah. Adding 30 more apartments to that road would require more um well, police officers to go out
there because I mean, you don't know what's going to happen. It's a possibility something's going to happen. And you say 30 cars are going to go through there. Okay. I have a car. I drive. My husband has a car because we both work and my son works and goes to school. He has a car. That's three
vehicles that travel. So, I know these houses have two bedrooms. What tells you they're not going to have four people living in them. That's four vehicles per car or house. You don't we don't know. We don't know what's who's moving in or
not. But this is our my concern is it's just too many apartments for that small of a property. It's not even three acres. And you know, they bought it knowing that it was in zone for it because when starvation army sold it for
$67,000, the pastor and Lutheran bought it and resold it for $169,000. So don't come and tell me this is not about money. This is all about money. Money moves everything. But we have to we have to worry about
the safety of our community. The ones living here already, you know, we are living here. We've we've grown up. Our kids are growing here. Yeah. I mean, who doesn't want other people to come and move in and make Sebring better and beautiful? I mean, we all do. But this
location right here is not the location for the safety of our community is a lot more important than bringing more you know, income to the land owner because that's what rent
is. You're paying somebody else's bill when you are renting. Those boomers she's talking about, that was me. That is me. But I wanted to be able to buy something in Sebring and grow my roots and have my children one day say we can
come back to Sebring's beautiful. I go to Orlando for my son for his therapy every month. Every month I go to Nemor. You know what I come when I hit Sebring? I'm relieved because I left all that craziness behind and I mean traffic. I
mean accidents everywhere. We don't have that much here. We do have a few and that's why that land um that emergency landing was so good there when the city of Sebring rented it out to starvation army.
That's why it was there. But it was so efficient because we've seen I mean I've been there for about nine years and I've seen so many landings there. So many lives probably been saved because there's an emergency landing there. I'm
not saying you know it it should be a emergency landing trip or anything. And I mean like I do want to see growth. I wouldn't mind to have neighbors but not not 30 apartments in the back. That's just too much. And the that stopped right there on 17th.
That is a very dangerous place for all those cars to get out because most everybody goes to work by 8 8:30 or 9. That school bus stops there at 7:45, sometimes 7:50. So if I mean if anything is important,
please make it our neighbors, our residents, our community and our children. That is very important to all of us. Growth is beautiful. We love growth. But it can explode and I do see that happening on that little small property.
That's all I have to say. I hope you deny, you know, for future neighbors and everybody. I mean, help us, you know, helps our community cuz I love everybody. My kids call it C boring, but there one day will come back and they'll
say, "Mom, you're right. We love being in secret. neighbors, we help each other. We're all together. This is this is our piece of heaven. This is our piece of heaven and you would be taking it away from all of us.
All of us that are here against us. Please consider all of us and your determination. >> Anybody else that would like to speak? I'm Randy SW been a city for over 27 years now
28th year there and uh like the uh thing there church on one side that's another side and Walter and that's we've been maintaining that road for 20 years I've been there 21 years and that's or 25 years I'm maintain that ourselves. The city don't
maintain that. We've been doing it ourselves, mowing the grass, doing all that there. Uh I don't know how that happens with that, but we but we've been mowing it all the loop. Uh over here you got Stone Ridge
subdivision. You got Wateride RV Resort Park and they're fixing to expand that to make it even bigger. You got the uh house development behind Bernie Little's. That's a lot of houses coming in here pretty short and not the dollar store. I don't know what's going there
if it's housing or not from the dollar store there at the home home avenue and all. But that is a lot a lot of people coming in here for that. And I don't I mean we got infrastructure for that. I know she said something about schools but hospitals and jobs and stuff like
that. And like like she said Ramona man I went over looked at that. That's ridiculous. Little cracker box houses. I mean It look rough. And uh and on state state road 17 at 1709, state 17 right at the end of
Theon, the state had to come here several years ago and put a a drain in there, paved the road and put a guardrail because they was wrecking there because water going over the road there and went into several people's houses and stuff like that. You might remember that stuff. I don't know. And
uh and of course at the end of our street Simpson the water goes almost to their house there uh on Miss Alicia's and Mr. Tarters. And then of course the school bus stop there like we said there's a lot of kids there morning and everything doing getting that up and and
and against another thing I just was paying attention to is uh they said that this 2.95 acres and they're talking about 1.41 acres of that is going to be trails this that and the other. you pretention ponds and the house. That's
half the property right there. I mean, I don't know how you going to put that all in that little spot. You know what I mean? It just don't it ain't feasible for far as I'm concerned. You know what I mean? And I hope y'all really think consider this real good. And I hope y'all do deny both of them. But it's up
to y'all. But I appreciate you time. Thank you. Any other public comment? Okay. Come on up George. I live at Lost Villas uh community. I met the builder that's
asking for this three years ago. Uh when we came down and we looked for houses from the state line Tallahassee Denell and Ocala and you see we fell in love with it. One reason we fell in love with it, it's a
brand new house that we saw coming from 53 acres. I'm living elbow to elbow now, but the kids are great. Neighborhood's great. Parking issues, I see parking issues everywhere in this town, in this state. Uh, so anyone can
claim that I am here because of my witness to the commitment this builder makes. I moved there. I was concerned mainly with could he bring the old neighbors and the
new neighbors together. I did not really think he would be capable of doing that. My other concern was he'll go bankrupt before he gets it done. Neither of those things happened at all. He did bring the community together. He has committed to
be there and he has been there for three years. He is committed to it. He's on the board and we I want him on it because of his experience. I truly believe he deserves this development and other development
in our community. He has bought lots of tax money. People have to get used to tighter building because of how much square foot costs in taxes. can't. People can't afford those big
yards. Lots of people who can, but you need low rent. This gentleman said he couldn't see how how much they could pay. People are telling me that's low. I can't believe it. I have enough to own my house. But people need low rent.
People need good spaces. They shouldn't. Most of the thing I hear here is fear and not my back. They can't take care of this and that's what I know very much. Thank you.
>> Good afternoon everybody. How you doing? >> Good afternoon. >> So I came across >> Could you say your name for the record? >> I'm sorry. Julian Surret. I'm a local contractor. So that's how I came across the green group development and um at first you know they were they're very
welcoming very trustworthy so on you know and they gave us you know they gave us the opportunity to work at Las Vegas to help them achieve their final phase everything was nice you know everything went well I can't say anything better um so not only just it just didn't end
there he also you know he had some issues with his own personal home which then he reached out to me for me to help him out, which I thought was awesome for a while. This is me. Along with that, when I was there at his house, the contractors that were helping him out or
contractors from Highlands County, he didn't outsource not one bit of anything that he ever did. Everything went right back to the county. Um, you know, along the way, I met his wife, his kids, his brother, his dad, and everybody all has
that same family orientation. you know, they you're not just a number to them. You know, I've I've seen and witnessed that, you know, whatever needs to get done to please, you know, what their ultimate goal is, they're going to do it. I've, you know, I heard everything
you guys have said and and everything you guys have said is extremely valid. You know, and they do take this as a point. You know, they I know this for a fact. They're not just going to throw it off to them right now. I could imagine that they're actively thinking how we
improve this for for the for the residents that that are there. They are really great. They are really great people, you know, and I'm not just saying it's just outside, but ultimately they're here not, you know, you say,
"Oh, they're going to make millions of dollars. No, they're they're they're here to provide work. They're here to provide space for people to live. You know, we've have we have now Amazon center. There's talk about BJS, you know, that's thousands and thousands of employees
where we're going to put we're going to sit them out of the middle of the drive town. That's that allows that facilitates that plus the schools, plus the hospitals. So,
I believe it's a good idea and I believe that they will 100% adjust and create the the to what the concerns are from our appreciate it guys.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you. Good evening fellow council members and attendees this evening. My name is Assaf Ace Mangle Green. I am one of the partners of green group development that is my father Mango and my brother Roy
sitting in the audience. Quick background on myself because we've heard a lot of technical details this evening by the professionals and I think all that has made its point. I want to take things a little bit more on the personal side, a little bit about my background. I've served on numerous boards. Past
president and vice president of Alliance Club, done a lot of charity work, past president of a Toastmasters club, past president of a scholarship fund, gave out a lot of money to high school students, current president of the Los Villa board. I know the value of serving on boards
and how important it is to support the right people and the right projects because that is what directly impacts a successful organization or a successful city's development. I think it's important that we understand that growth is inevitable and
all the data supports that Sebring is growing. When I explain Sebring to people who don't know much about this town, I explain to them Sebring is a slowmoving freight train. It's growing. It's not booming. It's growing. It's unstoppable. We as developers have been here for 5
years and we don't plan to leave. We own a home in Lasis. We live here year round, week to week. We call it home. We take personal pride in the Los Phillis project. I personally love Sebring. I don't intend to leave Sebring. This is a great great city to be a part of.
Development is inevitable. The facts speak for themselves. But I think selecting and approving the right personnel, the right people to be developers in this community makes the right long-term vision. into a success.
That is what we are here for. We are longterm visionaries. We haven't sold anything off that we own here. We personally manage everything and will continue to manage everything, including this project. We run a very, very tight ship. We are all just three people. My
father, my brother, myself, and a very small team of people that help us. We are no, we are not a big conglomerate. We've had numerous opportunities to sell off to investors or partition and have other people join us for millions of dollars and we always say no. My father
likes to say if partners were so great, God would help. But we don't like to do that. We keep everything in house. We believe in what it is that we do. We love this town. And I think the track record shows that we don't just walk the walk, but we talk the talk. Thank you
very much. Appreciate your time. >> Thank you. Anybody else? Come on up. My name is Walter Garcia and Jennifer. Um, I only really have one
one thing, one point to state in this request. And it's safety. Safety not only of the community and the neighbors. Safety also of those first responders whether they
be police, fire, rescue or any other. Um my wife is an IC. Time seconds cost lives. Uh having a fire truck that has to make
a threepoint turn to get into a development like this will cause someone's life. A fire truck that is speeding down a 15 foot wide road where there's a church at the end of on
a Sunday will cost someone's life. It is it is just that simple. I know this because this has been part of my life the last 10 years. We lived in Miami. We moved here to Seab to work at my wife
work. She works ICU. She also works in the what they call ED which is the emergency room department as well. So I can attest to how these things how these things unfortunately this
tragedies are unavoidable. Every time that hospital every time that helicopter would land uh I know it was exciting for the kids to watch the helicopter land it wasn't good news for somebody whatever was getting loaded into that helicopter or
whoever was that helicopter was coming. From my standpoint, it is it is really a matter of safety. That's all I have to say. And thank you. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you.
Anybody else? For the record, I'm Cheryl Humphrey. I'm a resident. I live on the other side of the Parkway from the proposed development and I heard some things tonight that actually concerned me. was sitting in the back of the room and when they were talking about the traffic and
they were projecting how much traffic they're asking for 30 units and I couldn't hear whether he said 15 or 50 additional trips but I'm sitting there doing the math thinking how many times
we drive in and out of my driveway and if there were 30 people like me living in there it would be 250 trips in and out of that Because every person who lives in my house is an adult with a driver's license. Every one of us owns multiple
vehicles and we stay busy all the time. They're talking about young working people being in that development. Well, to begin with, I'd like to know where those people are because I haven't seen them around Sebring. Most of the people I know in Sebring are closer to my age.
But those young working people, they're not going to stay home all day either. They're going to be in and out of there, couple of times a day, every day, all the time. So, the traffic that they're looking at projecting on that
road will be more than the projection, not less. That is a very narrow road. It is a dead end. It goes straight into the church and then splits at a 90° turn with street running onto a narrow street into a 30 complex. That makes no sense
to me. Now we're hearing we've lived in Sebring for five years. We lived in Sebring for three years. Grew up in Sebring. Born in Sebring. I moved to Sebring in 2010. I moved to Highlands County in 2004. I'm probably the only person here that moved from a less dense
population to Sebring. Right. I am looking at the rest of the neighborhood and changing from public use, changing the map, changing the zoning to allow even 12 houses or 12
units to be put on that property does not match the rest of the neighborhood. We might be zoned for it, but look what's there. We have single family houses on double or triple lots on my side of the road and on the other
side of the road. There is not one multifamily. You have to go like across home avenue down the street and then there's a couple of duplexes and even the duplexes have big yards. So for somebody to come in from wherever they
came from and say that we have to get used to the smaller yards. No, we don't. We bought the property we have and we don't need to have in the middle of our neighborhood something divided up into little tiny parcels and their numbers
don't make any sense. The numbers make no sense at all. They had was it 4.1 or 3.95 and then they're talking 2.1 and then was 3 for Wait a minute. They're talking about one little sidewalk that runs around the outside for some sort of
like walking track. Okay, they named it Veterans Walk to pander to who. That That didn't really sound very That wasn't That didn't sound nice to me at all. You're going to put who in the there's they're not building this for
veterans. These could be the best builders on the planet. They could be the most reputable people. They picked the wrong spot. They picked a lot that had been designated for public use for single family homes
at most and they're trying to put in a multi-million dollar apartment complex. There's plenty of land available in Highlands County, and that lot is not walkable to any
any employment source other than the Dollar General across the street. You know how I know? I live there and I know that there were very few days that I could drive across town
to Harland Christian Academy, which was 2 miles from my house, right? Half the time it was either raining or is too miserably hot to walk two miles. So, who where are they going to walk to?
They can walk to the Dollar General and that's about it. So thinking that we're building this for working families and they're going to walk to work or they're going to walk to they walk to the Dollar General like everybody else in the neighborhood does and that's
about it. So think about how much are you looking to be consistent with the neighborhood or how much are you looking to uproot and totally change the structure of our neighborhood. If I want to go buy a piece of property
for development, it not be wise on my part to go buy property that I'm going to have to request a difference in the land use and a difference in the zoning. And then I'm going to be concerned about public access and the road and the water
and the sewer and the drainage and the schools. And sure, Highlands County can absorb 30 families in a blink. Woodlon Elementary cannot. That's Woodlon Elementary and they're full.
So, please consider current conditions before you start looking off to future conditions. Think of the residents that already live there. And this is not about not in my backyard. You know what's also not in my backyard, but it's right across the
street is that big citrus growth that is going to become something. And what it becomes is up to you. The developers will come and they'll ask for some use over there. That's a great big plot. Do as you please.
This is a little tiny spot in the middle of a residential neighborhood that has been a residential neighborhood for 75 years. Long time. Why do we have to be the ones to accept
that kind of change? Put it across the street. There's lots of room. They did a wonderful job at what Stony Bridge, whatever it's called over there. Yeah, we all we all watch that. If you lived in Sebring, you watched that. It was going to be grand, then it
collapsed and then finally they came in and they fixed it and good job. We appreciate that. Do that again. We think it'd be a great idea, but do it on an appropriate property because this is not that property.
>> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Anybody else like to speak? Hi there. My name is Rob Bulock. Um, so I do not live on Simpson or anywhere near Simpson. However, I've driven up and down Simpson several times and I've had to three point turns multiple times,
sometimes four points. Um because I own just a regular pickup truck. Um so what I am is a public safety consultant and I'm not here to say um not in my backyard, although I can understand
where the neighbors may feel that way. Um I'm not here to say anything negative about the developers. I'm here to also say um it would be great to have development more in Sebring. However, the concern I have is the one
way in and one way out for 30 extra units on a little more than two acres. Um, the concern I have is the fact that you have two denials from two governing agencies for entrances into that
property for whatever reasons that they may want to say. They don't want to a turn in off the Parkway or off of 17. Um, and they want to say use Simpson. Simpson is a very narrow road. Um, utilizing math as other speakers have
said, um, and going by the facts um, in the presentation, 30 units they said would have two two spaces each. That's 60 cars. Um, adding to the neighborhood currently
there, the neighbors currently there. I currently live on a dead end road with just six houses. I'm in and out of my house multiple times a day. And just my one neighbor's wife alone, I pass her four times, at least four times a day, because they
have multiple kids and she's up and down the road going and dropping off kids, running errands. Um, so if you have 60 cars, two per unit, and they're in and out on top of the regular neighbors on a small narrow road, you're going to have
multiple trips. And just say Simpson Road, I've not mapped it out. I've not measured Simpson Road, but it's a small short road. Say it's 900 ft. That's about 30 cars, 40 cars. I could be off the map depending on if they're small coups or
fullsize pickup trucks. You know, that kind of traffic is going to back up at that stop sign on 17. Not to mention, if you have half of those half of those units full of kids now waiting for school bus, that's going to increase the amount of time the school bus is going
to be stopped there, increasing the amount of traffic that's going to be backed up on 17, possibly multiple times depending on how many school buses there are going to be stopping there. Um I don't know if any of that has played into a factor. Um but all of that
could play into the safety of that neighborhood. Um you know as one of the speakers said you know you got to factor in the additional deliveries. You know I have seen neighbors including my own that there is UPS, FedEx and Amazon wars
several times a day at just one house alone. Imagine 30 units having that on top of the the existing neighbors. Um that's going to increase the traffic up and down such a narrow road. Now, where does that fit in when you have regular emergency services coming? Um
can a fire truck do a three-point turn? Yes. It's not fun. I know that, you know, they're saying that they're going to put in, you know, a platform um surface that where they can do it. It'll be able to withstand a fire truck being able to the weight of a fire truck. That's great. the end of the road. Now,
what happens when there's a multi- alarm fire where you're going to be stacking multiple units in there? What happens when it's just a basic medical call on that street where you have an ambulance and a fire truck responding and now it's clogged up the street for 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and now you have 30
or 40 neighbors trying to go up and down that street and now they're stopped because you've got a couple of units just waiting there tending to a medical emergency. Now, Let's let's bump it up more. You do have a structure fire on that street and let's say it's at the
beginning of Simpson. Now you have 30 units plus the church if it's on a Sunday. How are they getting out of there? You have all those people stuck in there for hours until they get a fire under control and enough to get that
scene cleaned up to where it's safe to get those people to be able to move back and forth with with traffic vehicles. So, just food for thought, you know, I'm not here for the not in my backyard. I'm just here for the small narrow street.
The fact that you have two governing agencies saying we're not going to give give you two ways of ingress or egress off of major roadways where it would be larger entrances into this development.
That would be safer. Most developments usually have, you know, a divided entrance way. They're saying that probably for a reason. So, I would take that into deep consideration. If something were to happen on a disaster level, how are you
going to get all those people on the other side of Simpson that might be in there, all those other neighbors, how are they going to move in and out to 17 to get out of that neighborhood? The convenience, inconvenience, and the public safety part of it. Thank you for sharing.
I think we've heard I mean unless anybody wants to speak I think everybody covered their bases. Dana do you want to have uh some time to respond to to some some questions concerns before we close the public hearing. >> Um no I think our presentation really addressed a lot of these concerns as
they came up. Um, we're available to take any questions and is there anything particular traffic-wise that felt needed to be addressed? >> Yeah, couple quick items to notice kind of an original presentation and um I thought I would just hit a couple points. One of
them came up a couple times when they were saying I find it interesting that two agencies or FT is not allowed to access off their roadways. We kind of touched upon that's not meaning they're for the project or against the project. It's just good traffic planning
principles. You don't try and put driveways on an arterial on a state route. Plus, we're inhibited on Sebring Parkway by the turn lane into home. And then also if um if they could avoid it, they would like traffic off of the State
Road 17 on the local. So, we kind of talked about that and it was brought up a couple times that they thought that was not those concerns. Another item, when we do our traffic studies, we go by the Institute of Transportation Engineers
trip generation manual and that surveys thousands and thousands of pond sites all around the country and it comes up with a trip generation scenario based upon the use and the number of units. What we found out the instit the the IT
it's called in institute of transport engineers recently updated their manual and they found out in developments such as this the actual number of trips have come down over the years everybody thinks it goes up co had something to play into that they also um other
comments were about you know I drive several times a day we look at the traffic peak hour am peak hour and pm peak hour and that's what is the worst So yes, you may come and go several times during the day, but it's not always between 7 and 9, between 4 and 6.
You're going to dinner other times. You're picking up your kids, going up to lunch, you're going shopping, you know, the things on the weekend. So I venture to believe that the trips that I had in my report are actually considerably high, probably less. Even if they were triple what we're estimating, they're
still a low volume contributor to a small local All right, I'm going to go ahead and close this public hearing. Time for council's comments, remarks, notes. One one question on traffic for you real quick to make sure I understood. You
said that the study showed about 15 trips per hour at at the peak hour. Was that Did I get that right? >> 15 in the I believe it's PM peak hour. Yes, sir. >> Okay. And that was the highest that your your study concluded. >> Okay. And that's where you said one car every four minutes approximately.
>> Okay. That's the only question I have for you. Thank you. >> Uh I would assume part of our permitting process would include a uh confirmation that our emergency vehicles could turn around in
there. Correct, Scott? Okay. Um, that's all I've got as far as questions at this moment. >> No, I got one more. So the open space calculation um Dana to clarify maybe for for the public that includes any
retention that includes the walking trails open space your calculation it's not just the walking trail it's it's all open space so non-pavement non um buildings correct >> correct and so open space doesn't automatically mean recreation either because I think that's sometimes uh the
insinuation is that you think when it's open space you have to be able to actively use it you can passively use it as well. So, it's just land that is not developed with a parking lot or building or anything of that nature. So, that includes the fitness trail and the retention areas. >> Okay. I I had one other question for
you. I think it was noted at the PNZ meeting um that originally you planned for more parking and um Central Florida Regional Planning Council asked you to reduce it. >> Correct. >> Is that accurate? >> Yeah. Uh, and I think some of it has to do with the the positioning because the
parking is in the front of the neighborhood where people will be entering and so there could potentially be some conflicts there, but we're happy to leave it or uh remove it, whatever the board would prefer. >> Okay.
>> All right. What do you mean by that? You you you said you could still add more parking in that. >> Well, the site plan as it stands today shows I think 70 something. Thank you. 72 parking spaces and as part of the review, the Central Florida Regional Planning Council asked us to reduce it
to 60, which is one of the conditions included in the approval. So, you can agree to that condition or you can ask for that condition to be stricken and then we would continue with providing 72 spaces or um
you know, we remove it because that's part of the condition. So right now as the conditions are written, it's written for only 60 spaces instead of 72. >> I had a lot of questions after hearing
the the PNZ meeting. Um, you've answered really all the questions that I had. You did an excellent job of addressing those questions and concerns. I think one of the things too is I know that Los Villas is a different development too, but one of the issues I do see at Los Villas is
the comments I get is parking. Um, but it sounds like again two different developments, but you're being sounds like the developer is being a lot more specific of of who they're going to allow in with the, you know, background
checks and everything else, too. So, do you do you foresee parking being an issue with with the two spots per unit? I mean, in comparison to Los Villas, I don't um you know, Los Villas is threebedroom homes and you could fit one
and a half cars in the driveway and maybe one in the garage. And then when you look at two-bedroom homes and I think back to a lot of these developments that exist in Lake Placid like Thornberry Apartments and um there's another one I can't name right now.
Not only do you have young families, but you have older people, people that are living alone. And so, and then you have people who are living alone who can't drive at all. These are really good affordable apartments for people who are on a fixed income. So, you have people
relying on public transportation as well to get around. Um, especially when you have Medicaid. Now, they even offer five trips per month for like personal use in addition to all your medical appointments. So, I just see where It's not when we're talking about parking, a
lot of people are looking at worst case scenario if every room or every unit had two drivers. And that won't always be the case. Some units will have zero drivers, some will have one, and some will have maybe more than one, but yes,
I believe that will be regulated as part of the approval process. What was the uh the one opposition to the PNC board >> to to the future land use >> to why they desented? >> It was Jeff Carlson
>> just that >> and I for the record though I think that the opposition on the zoning I think that actually was unanimous. The one voter who voted against the denial like corrected himself in the recording. He thought
voting no meant voting no like I'm going to deny this. Okay. So I think they unanimously voted on a no on the zoning denial but full one in favor of future land use. >> That did happen. Um but that was Laz who
mixed up his vote but Mark Wilson did specifically vote. >> Okay. Okay. I mean, this is why we have a PNZ board. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, I guess I tend to agree with their vote.
I think that, um, the future land use, it only makes sense to change it. Uh, why it's public. I have no idea any reason why I have no idea why the the house on the corner that is clearly not public use. It is a future land use map
of designation of public. Um, land should be able to be developed in some aspect that makes sense. I don't know if I agree with the PD for the density. I guess I would lean towards planning and zoning's decision of keeping it R1.
So they could still develop build houses on there just not to the density that we're discussing. The access would still be through through Hawthorne and Simpson. But I think the amount of homes they could build if we left we changed the future land use map to match the
surrounding areas and but left the zoning in place would probably end up being like eight or nine maybe once roads and setbacks are considered. I obviously I don't know that for a fact. I'm just guessing based on size. I would love to hear the rest of your
thoughts on that. >> I think it's a lot for that area. So it's just a lot of homes is one my only concern. of um residents. >> David, >> I agree. I mean, I think it's a I like the project. I think it is kind of the
wrong space for that area. It's, you know, a confined area and it's just too much for that one area. One more question too. So, Hawthor was not to get developed, right? Or built out extended
>> correct? the connection from the development to Hawthorne wasn't proposed to be extended just from Simpson to that little segment of Hawthorne to the development. >> So in the PNZ and correct me if I'm wrong on this too. I think they said well maybe if we can work on some of the
issues or work through some of the concerns that PNZ had could we work together on that? Is that something that would beable to to bring back before we vote on on on this?
>> If the board is open to us exploring other avenues and is open to the idea of us potentially expending H extending Hawthorne as a solution, I would ask that the h I'm sorry guys. I would ask
that you all vote yes tonight so that we can come back for second reading because this is just first reading and we can further negotiate and determine if that do some calculations and determine if that's something that would still be feasible for the developer. Um but if
everyone votes no tonight then we can't come back with the zoning on second reading. Um, but I believe, you know, the developer is open to exploring all options to make it feasible.
>> Are are you talking about extending Hawthorne through to Simpson? >> I thought like one of the concerns was just having that one access point, but if we had >> I think that would maybe I'm I'm speaking out of terms. I think that would make >> Yeah, because it's allow through traffic.
>> Yeah, it opens up through traffic. >> I'm sorry. I thought I heard my name. Um, Yeah, it it opens up the potential for more through traffic, but it does make it so that there's more than one entrance. By engineering standards,
a second ingress and egress isn't triggered until you hit 75 units. So, 30 units plus the four that are existing is still considered safe number. So I agree with with changing it from
public developers should have a right to to develop. I have no issues with that too. Um so when it comes to the second part of this either we do as Dana recommended or we do a continuation say hold on or table
it. So what I don't want to do is stop any kind of change. Well, so if we voted down, what they're asking for is a a zoning change from R1 to PD. If we want it to be R1, we can
vote no. It just remains R1. Personally, it just speaking for myself, extending Hawthorne through does not change how I feel about this. And I think it probably makes the neighbors feel worse. Um, and to me, it's a it's a density issue.
>> It's not really about about the access point. Um, Yeah, I mean that I think that's really how I feel. It is kind of spot zoning. You know, it is it is R1 right now. Future lane map doesn't match. Fix that
tonight. Um I guess after just hearing it and and considering you know all these options, I think that R1 is probably I mean maybe if they were open to a PD that was slightly higher density that can make it work for them, but not anywhere near the 30 units that have
been proposed. >> And for clarification, if we vote no on the resoning, they could still come back with another PD request that was different and more in line with R1, right?
>> Does it does it trigger a lockout time frame? Yeah, they would have to wait a year, but they could come back and ask for any zoning designation that is permitted in medium density residential land use, which is up to R3. >> Okay. And then any QD, I believe.
>> So, they wouldn't be allowed to request another PD. They could request something. >> They could ask for another PD after a year, but they could also ask for any of those other things. And candidly, you would have a hard time denying a request
to something like R3 if you change the land use designation which would otherwise allow for R3. So, help me understand because I don't why the future land use map for the entire neighborhood is medium density
residential, but they're all R17, right? That's the existing. But you're saying if we if we change the future land use map to match that there would be issues with us turning down a zoning that would be higher than our
>> you have a harder time turning down a a requested reszone for a zoning district that is permitted in the land use for the property. You have an easier time turning it down if they ask you to change the land use to make it happen.
I don't know what the medium density residential allowed for back when that was designated as medium density. However many years ago, certainly don't know why that's publicly uh publicly in use at the moment. That's a long time ago, I presume.
If we turn down the change of uh future use, that triggers the lockout as well. I'm not sure if there's a specific talk out on change of the land use. I don't know if you happen to know that
off the top of your head. Not sure. Certainly tableabling it as one of your options if that's an important issue to you to allow us to time that important.
So I guess the end result that I'm that I am thinking is appropriate and I'm looking for feedback here is the site should be able to be developed right it shouldn't have to remain in this weaker zoning future land use limbo that it's in now but I don't think it should be a higher density than
R1 or at least not much higher you know something slight changes under PD I would be okay with it as long as the density is not um not much higher than R1 and how we need to vote or you know to
accomplish that as well. >> This is the applicant's request to you all. You can't force them to take something different than they're asking for, but you don't have to >> prove that which they have to table both motions. >> You could >> it would require if if you did, it would
require another advertisement for the the shift in the the hearings, but that's not that that big of a concern. If you if you voted for both the zoning and the land use chain at the first
hearing, that gives them the opport they understand where you're going to do with the second year. >> Okay? >> Because you could deny both at the second hearing if you wanted. Correct. >> You you could it you it looks a little weird to say yes now and no later. I'm just saying, >> but I mean, yes, you could. It's not
final until the second. >> And you're giving them the opportunity to come back with something else that that kind of fits what y'all are talking about. Correct. It could be that. Yes, sir. >> This is a binding site plan they have though, right? Is are we going to have
like a reasonable time to to vote on something that if I'm hearing the rest of council correctly, that site plan is not going to be voted in favor of, >> which is their the basis of their meeting. So, is that time frame enough for them to make a change that we could even vote
yes on? I think that would be a question for for developers. What I what I do know is I really love working with Green and what they're doing for our city county is phenomenal. These are the type of developers that we want to work with. But hearing all the the concerns and
what DNC has too just want to keep that account but want to work with you all development of some type that works well for what we want to see for the future. before you answer can. But what are we looking for? Are we looking for 15? Are
we looking for 10? Are we looking for 20? I mean, because if they can't go back more than 15, >> right? So, if they can't back up to that, then we could if we just make that clear, then there's either no way to move forward. If we can't go past if we're not going past 15.
>> Yeah. So, and just conferring with the owner just a moment ago, um, of course, we'd like to get out of limbo. So amending the future land use, we would really appreciate that so that this property can be developed, but uh at this time
really it has to be 30 for it to be feasible. So, um, we really appreciate the council willing to consider lower number than we have, higher number than what the R1 zoning would allow, but it sounds like
we're probably just going to have to go with a yes or no on the zoning today. >> So, that means we got we have a chance to fix that. We can only vote yes or no, >> right? >> Well, we can't we can't we can't. So,
what what Bob is saying is if we vote yes to change it into R2 essential that it means we're somewhat beholden to to consider a zoning change that matches in the future. Yes, sir.
Okay. So, if we vote yes tonight, it means that we are setting ourselves up to vote yesum. zoning change that matches sometime in the future. Right? They're not asking for R1. They're asking for density residential.
And while I don't understand why that neighborhood exists in that form, I don't want us to think we're doing one thing and we're setting us ourselves up for something different down the road. So longterm fix is no right now correct me if I'm wrong and then having city
change from public to say that right to request the city can change it. Um it's just not done but it's not very common.
You can say no to both tonight. You can approve the land use change if you want or you you could table it. You've heard the applicant say they're not doing they can't move forward with less than 30. If you're seeing that as a problem in
the density, come on up. I saw brother. So I just kind of want to explain the the reason that there's a 30 is the request the cost of the today to do site work and underground work is so expensive that for that to be a feasible
project you have to have long and if we were to do 15 or 12 or 20 the rental prices we meant to keep that as a rental community you have to rent 22500 and it's impossible. Um so that is the reason we went to the volume to keep the
rents low because the underground costs today are extortionate. Uh we already have prices uh rough prices from excavation point about 600 plus thousand. That's just to keep the underground in the ground. That's the reason we needed the volume to make the numbers work. So it wasn't to upset
anybody or whatever. We looked at it as a project a workable project to keep them slow to keep them to attract the right to the community. So that's why anything less than 30 it just That's why we just comments.
>> I guess I would ask the if if we're if the board doesn't vote to approve future land use as requested to MDR tonight, would you prefer we vote no or table it so they could ask for something else? Um, in terms of future land use, if you
aren't going to approve future land use, I mean, doesn't m just we could close the case and say no, but I would say don't get mad at me, Bob. But I I disagree with Bob a little bit on this.
Um, because medium density residential is consistent with the R3 zoning, but it's also consistent with the R1, the R1A, the R2. It's like this
middle ground, this flex space. R3 really should pair with um high density residential, but also in the city of Sebring, you all allow like a very high amount of
residential if you do a planned development depending on where it is and things like that. Um so how tonight I made the case of it's not just the zoning, it's also the design.
There were conditions imposed in the zoning that would have controlled the design which made it more compatible with the adjacent single family residential home. If somebody came
forward with just an R3 zoning request, they could not condition the zoning, meaning they could not agree to additional landscaping or adding additional sidewalk and make promises
that like we made tonight. Um, so I still feel like you would have a strong basis to say no, R3 zoning isn't compatible adjacent right next door to the R1 zoning that exists because the city of Sebring does subscribe to
Uklitian zoning. So, you know how I was saying there's like form based codes and then there's uklitian codes. Like uklitian is saying the use next to the use. And is multif family right next to single family compatible?
A according to Uklitian zoning? No, not really. But according to formbbased zoning, which is what I was kind of trying to push tonight through the PD, it can be compatible so long as it's designed a certain way. And that's what we were trying to accomplish with the
PD. So, um, again, just a difference of opinion here and Bob is great legal counsel and I respect him so much, but I just would also say that it it wouldn't give me the same fear that they could
come in with an R3 zoning request. It does make their case a little bit stronger, but you could still stand strong in saying no to an R3 zoning because it's not compatible and consistent with the surrounding area.
>> That's it. Thank you. >> Motion. >> I move that we deny the ordinance on first reading. numbers on it. >> 10 10 C or 10B or both? >> 10. Well, you're going to do them individually. Yes, sir.
>> 10 C or 10 C. >> A second. >> Motion. We got a second. Copy. >> No vote. Correct. Uh, Bishop. >> No. >> Hold on. >> So, what does that mean? You're voting
against the motion here. >> Okay. So, it's going to be yes vote on the no, >> right? >> Yes. >> Lidell, >> yes. >> Stewart, >> yes. >> Habri, >> yes. >> All right. So the denial just the denial
passed on 10 C which was the >> toD make a motion that we deny ND we have a second >> second >> no Yes. Ladell, >> yes. >> Stewart, >> yes.
>> Avery, >> yes. >> All right. Uh, on to 10B. Thank you all. This is a another public hearing. So, you're talking of uh well, Bob's going
to introduce us 10 E >> 10 E. >> We already did 10 >> echo. You did Dan to echo, which is not a public hearing. the exception to the landscape or my fault. May want to give folks a moment that are clear now. >> Take that.
>> It's been a long two and a half hours. >> Does anybody need a break? >> No. >> That's good. Public hearing 10. We're looking for the exemption to application.
>> E, is it about the parking lot? >> Yes, sir. It is. You're up. >> Good evening, council. Uh, my name is Vlad. I'm an assistant county engineer. uh and my full name black bela. So uh
I'm here basically on behalf of the county. So we want to request uh a variance of the landscaping requirement for a parking lot that we are going to construct and we hope we are going to construct. So uh I can tell you a little
bit more about that. So as you all know uh the city of Sebring and county we do experience some issues with the parking area uh downtown. So and at some point it was decided that uh if we can we
would love to build a parking lot where we could maximize parking spaces as much as possible. So in this particular project so we uh came up with 37 parking spaces. But the problem is that if we
want to do that, so we will need to take some of the green area which is landscape area and irrigation. So yes, yes, that's this gauge. So in order to maximize parking spaces, we just want to
ask you for evidence in uh for this project and also I think it's going to benefit the city. It's going to benefit the county and as far as I know we do have a lot of activities like let's say Christmas parade as far
as I know it goes along that street. As far as I know I might be wrong I live in Lake Pl. So yeah, maybe this year I will visit your parade. So but uh yeah, and as you can tell, we do have some green
green area, but it's minimal. Uh it's going to be just up front and the retention pond area, but uh pond area, it's basically grass and sod. You don't need to have some shrubs and things like that there. So uh and here we are
proposing to have uh But it's not going to be like St. Augustine grass uh that's going to die if you don't water it. I think we will try to put something uh crowd tolerant and something that's
going to be okay only uh getting the rain water. So, and also I want you to remember that we as the county we are going to maintain that and we are going to make it look nice and clean.
Thank you. Any questions on this? >> I just have one. Um the blue building that's existing that you're not removing, what's the use for it? >> Yes. Uh this building uh there is a department uh housing department. >> Okay. >> Yes. Yeah. It's also a county building
and people work there. Correct. Uh there will be another building but it will be removed in this yellow one. >> Yeah. As you can see, >> thanks for tearing down my dad's building. >> Yeah,
>> people park there uh right now anyway. So, what we are trying to do just to make it better for people. >> Yeah, if you have any questions, please, I'd love to answer them. >> I move to approve the uh landscaped
ordinance for um the property in question. I don't see address anymore. >> Second. >> Any comments from the >> exception to the >> correct >> and I second that.
>> Anything from audience. >> Bishop. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Stewart. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> There is no business from the audience and no city attorney's business. So
Scott, you're up. Good evening, council. Uh the only material change I believe was to the project report is sent you an email from Chief Oakland earlier this week in reference to um the
foreclosure >> foreclosures that we long >> Kathy you're ups First council to pay his bills, please. >> So moved. Second. >> Anybody have objections about paying
bills? >> Kathy, >> yes. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Stewart. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Kathy, you're up again. >> 14B.
Um try again. We have um three people who have subitted application to serve out Mr. Lidell's um term for the CRA. Um it will be to fill out his unexpired term which is to September 30th, 2027.
Um I'm going to read the names in alphabetical order. You only get one vote. >> One yes vote, >> sir. >> One yes vote. >> One yes vote. Sorry. Yes, sir. Thank you.
So, first name is Aisha, I think I always say that, but anyway. Aisha. >> Um, Bishop >> pass. >> Pass. >> Lidell. >> Pass. >> Stewart. >> Pass. >> Habry. >> Pass. >> The next name is Jessica Carlson.
>> Bishop. >> Pass. >> Kobots. >> Pass. >> Lidell. >> Pass. >> Stewart. >> Yes. >> Hy. >> Yes. >> Ashley Brook. Dermat. >> Bishop. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Videl. Yes.
>> 14 seat authority >> at long last. Yes. >> I can't believe you're still here. >> Yeah. >> Two members are here. >> Dedication. >> It is way past both your bedtimes >> this term. Um The appointment will begin
May 1 um of 2026 and expire on April 30th, 2030. So this is a four year term. So we have two vacancies and so I'll read the names. Um again, you get one yes vote for each vacancy. The first
name I'll read is Stephen Brown. Bishop >> pass. Pass. Oh, >> I'm sorry. >> Pass. Lidell. >> Pass. >> Stewart. >> Pass. H >> pass. Next name is Gary Germaine. >> Bishop >> pass. >> Pass.
>> Lidell. >> Pass. >> Stewart. >> Pass. >> Habry. >> Pass. >> The next name is Craig Johnson. Bishop. >> Yes. >> Kovich. >> Yes. >> Liddell. >> Yes. >> Stewart. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. That's for
>> Can I pass on that one? >> Sir, >> can I pass on that one? >> Be careful of that guy. Okay. >> Hard pass. >> Vacancy number two. Steven Brown will be um
>> Bishop >> pass. >> Kettz >> pass. >> Widell >> pass. >> Stewart >> pass. >> Avery >> pass. His name is Gary Germaine. Bishop >> pass. >> Kchettz >> pass. >> Widell >> pass. >> Stewart >> pass.
>> Habvery >> pass. >> Peter McDivet. Bishop. >> Yes. >> Kchett. Yes, >> Laid. >> Yes, >> Stewart. >> Yes, >> yes, >> we're done. >> We're done.