it doesn't be tall no tall wide angle i love you yeah so you should automatically I got one i'm ready [Music] that's what we came up with
i know i know we have [Music] some Try again jimmy you're the one person [Music] all right good evening i'm going to call
this special meeting of the Stewart City Commission East Stewart zoning items for the 20th of March 2025 thank you so much all of you for coming i know how difficult it is to make your
time and be here this is what a city should look like contribution and participation of all of you especially those of you who live in this community are in affect by the decision we will be making so our
invocation will be provided by father Christian from St mary's Episcopal Church I'm sorry roll call please mayor Rich here vice Mayor Collins here commissioner Clark here commissioner Gobi here commissioner Reed here okay
will the Lord be with you all and also with you okay father God in Isaiah whoa hello well Father in Isaiah 32:18 you say "My people will abide in a peaceful habitation and secure dwellings and in
quiet resting places." Yes father we pray over this um over our homes over the habitations that you presside to us you give to us over our community we pray for a peaceful way of
looking and asking for your wisdom to guide every single person in this room may your your wisdom your Holy Spirit guide us all today yes Lord so come Lord come God of all wisdom come God of all peace where God provides the home
provides the habitation we call upon you God and we pray that the wisdom is beyond understanding not of human wisdom but of godly wisdom to be moving through this room right now that human forces cannot be the forces that make the calls today that it's a call of the wisdom of
God for all people Lord so help us to surrender to your call today may we become the lesser so you become the greater Lord and we all know that it's led to the power of love and if it's not about love it ain't about God so come power of love to be leading for the
people to be caring for your people especially the good people of East this we pray in your name we bow down to you oh Lord our King we humble ourselves before you all this we say in your name and all God's children said amen
i know that but I've asked Mr jimmy Smith to come up and provide brief remarks before he leaves us in the pledge of allegiance i just want to thank the NAACP because they made this is normally their time for their meetings and they made this time
available to the community thank you Mr smith thank you hey good evening good evening welcome everybody to the first time history this is historic today would you know that first time we ever had a host of city commission meeting
here in East Stewart with all the commission here so we can give God the glory give him a high hand clap and thank you all first of all I want to say thanks and all for opening hearts up to decide to
come here meet the people where they are show them that they care about East Stewart community as well as the city of Stewart and I'm just thankful that NAACP is hosting this is that uh this organization belong to all of you whether you're a member or not still
fight for equal rights civil rights and justice for all i want to let you know that the love of God is in this place today i want to thank you thank you very much and uh please uh yeah at the same time uh we're going to try to conduct ourselves and love and compassion even
though when we speak at the microphone if you disagree with someone still have respect and love don't call people name don't get mad uh let's do it in love and compassion this is watch this this meeting is watch all around the world yes and tonight I know I will get call
from New York Chicago from the state and also from national how we operate in Stewart we the most looked at branch in the state of Florida and around they admire what you do and we do here in
Stewart Florida so let's show them how they should do it around the world thank you amen young lady to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it
stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all amen okay thank you Mr smith for that admission comments by city
commissioners you have any comments this evening sure i'll keep it simple um I've met with a lot of residents in East Stewart i'm hoping tonight there's a lot of healthy conversation back and forth between my fellow board members as well
as our development department chiming in just so we have everybody on the same page with some of the terminology that's going on and um I know the consensus I've heard from some residents they want discussion tonight but they necessarily
don't want action taken from the board tonight as well so that's all I have thank you Commissioner commissioner Gobi yes good evening everyone thank you for being here number one I just want to make I think that there was just a little something left off of the agenda
which is that when we spoke at the last commission meeting it was stated that everyone would have four minutes to speak not the normal three and since it's noted there for those of you who were not at the last meeting everyone has four minutes to speak when everyone has spoken if there's time you can then
again speak another four minutes i don't know i don't see anywhere else in the agenda that I'd be able to make a motion so can I make that motion now you may certainly well thank you mayor okay i'd like to make a motion to allow the commissioners to answer questions from
the public for this particular meeting the public can direct a question to a particular commissioner who will then respond the commissioners responders would need to adhere to the same four-minute public four-minute rule for the public for what the public needs to adhere to for this meeting i think it's
really important one thing that is very frustrating and I myself have been on the other side of that podium is that you get up you speak your mind and you you want to hear some feedback and previously at other meetings we're not really able to do that but I think at this meeting it is so important that you
are able to question and we are able to answer them uh so Commissioner Gobi before I look for a second from that motion we did agree at the last meeting that we would be allowed to ask questions of the public commenters so
that's already in place um so you know I'm not sure we need a motion since we all agreed to that i am not comfortable with because this is a formal meeting this is not a workshop uh I am not comfortable with the public
content and the public speakers being allowed to address us individually we all sit here together there's a very good reason for that if you look at what happened at the last time I was here that can quickly get out of hand and it
becomes nonproductive so if it's okay with you I would ask that you withdraw your motion but certainly we are allowed to ask additional questions of the public speaker after they're done with their remarks um Commissioner just
clarification what you're saying is that res of your motion correct the nature of my motion is that they have the ability to ask us a question and we can answer them which has not happened in the past and I think that the audience and the people here and others would like to do that
refer to specifically just one commission i appreciate a conversation so then you need to make your motion is there any public comment on that motion other questions or comments by the
commissioners roll call please i don't have my microphone on i'm sorry okay i think we can hear commissioner Collins yes commissioner Clark yes vice I'm sorry mayor yes and Commissioner
Gobi yes commissioner Reed yes okay does that conclude your remarks that was it commissioner Clark remarks this evening good evening everyone i'm just so glad that we're all here today and
that we'll have an opportunity to speak on the subject of the uh zoning and anything that's of concern to people with regard to that subject i'm just glad that we're having participation from our public and we're just looking
forward to hear what is on your mind thank you yes I would echo that same neighborhood cityhood this is a this is a very contentious as far as I can
tell set of things that we're trying to do not necessarily unfortunately sometimes things get politicized and in my opinion a neighborhood can be used as a political my from my perspective so You
guys can hear where I'm coming from my goal tonight is to try to bring clarity to what we're doing to try to discuss exactly what the zoning is today and the changes that we are
proposing to try to one limit the type of uses that [Music] can that under conditional use and you're going to find out what that means tonight so there's some things I'm saying that we're not sure what that
means thank under conditional use process would be the avenue by which development that is more intensive than residential happen Stewart secondly that will be part of
the discussion tonight is how is Stewart zone what you will find out tonight is that since 2004 East Stewart the zoning in East Stewart has changed from a primarily residential
neighborhood to a mixed use three and four story type many city place or a co-op type zone many of the residents who actually live in East Stewart do not realize that their parcel is zoned
for what could be you know coffee shop sushi bar underneath burger joint and then on the second and third stories of this large high very bougie apartments three $4,000 apartments a lot of people don't realize that their little single
family home that your lot could be pieced together with several others and build that on Tar on Bahama on 10th Street after 3/4 and you'll see tonight at least two is zone to that as of today
right now i appreciate the petition that has been circulating and I myself would sign it too nobody up here wants to do anything that can be perceived as discriminatory towards
anybody and I truly believe that even though we disagree wildly on what the action steps would be to achieve it that we're all trying to do what we think the community best serves the community as a
entrenched political agenda wants to hurt anybody but my goal is tonight for everybody to be able to listen to the facts where there's been a lot of swirling potentially miscommunication about what we're trying to do and on
your own decide what you think is the best course of action for us and I am positive that this group of five will seek to implement what the neighborhood wants us to do on two parts one like I said the type of
uses that happen on these parcels and what I mean when I say that is can it be a single family home can it be a duplex can it be a bar can it be a hotel can it be a
restaurant what can happen on your may not want to have a bar next to your church or single family home in a predominantly Christian neighborhood i wouldn't so tonight you're going to see
what kinds of uses can actually happen in your neighborhood and we want to receive feedback from you whether that's appropriate and what you would like us to do and secondarily on even individual parcels
on the map how they are zoned which is what opens a door to what you can build my general statement to everyone would be use you zone a parcel what you intend for it to become so if the goal is for
East Stewart to remain a residential neighborhood that's what it should be so that was one of our other thank you Mr vice Mayor um so let me actually meet what this meeting consists
of because on the face of it it looks very simple but I Now after two years that's never the case so there's two elements we're going to be talking about one is what the vice mayor has just been speaking at length about and that is
proposed zoning changes that's actually item number two under discussion and deliberation i can't imagine we will be making a decision regarding those items this evening and that is why we're here
to listen to you to listen to the residents that you however there is a the first thing we're going to be talking about is item number one the zoning it's the last element of the zoning and progress land development
code textment specifically we pulled at the last meeting the commission pulled a table out and the table said these are all the allowed uses and stewards and all of them are subject
will be subject to conditional use and it's that unique restriction that is is the reason we're here to discuss that because no other nobody else in the city would be subject to those same kind of
restrictions so we'll talk about those at and I've been thinking about this because I've been most people know this why I was here two weeks ago because I've been very upset that we are treating this community so
differently than the rest of the city and so then you look around and see what's happening i mean Jackie Robinson's name being told the national cemetery and just
yesterday landmark anti-segregation legislation was overturned but I don't and so you start to think on that scale but I was very lucky I was able to attend my wife and I the
NAACP gayla on Saturday night and not want us to accept the suggestion made by Mr rick Christie and Mr christie is an opinion opinion editor for the Palm Beach Post and he born and raised
and he steward and graduated from county and what he urged us to do was make a decision for ourselves he spoke specifically about making sure we vote for the people and the changes we want to see but I
understood it in a broader context he said "Not only do we have the obligation to choose but you have the right and the ability to determine what's best for you not only do you have to exercise that
right but you sure as heck should not give it up and that's what this ordinance is taking away from you unlike everyone else who lives in the city there is no guarantee you can live on build on or sell your
property to whom you choose what this ordinance is saying is that the five of us up here know what's best for you and there's a lot of problems you have
but the big one is we come and go right we come and go but you know who's going to stay here and live here you are and you're the ones who need to hold on to that right
to make the decisions going forward for your community so can I get a motion for approval of the agenda so move second we have a motion by the vice mayor and a second by Commissioner Clark any public comment on
the agenda if not roll call please all in favor all in favor i oppose okay just thank you Commissioner Gio for bringing that up so we're going to deviate from the
normal rules that are enforced except for the one mentioned by Mr smith thank you is the quorum will apply here and unlike the meeting two weeks ago you can't start yelling at me and insulting me or any of the other
commissioners um so I just act that you be courteous and I would ask that the commissioners when they question the public speakers that they not use their questions to discredit them or embarrass them that our questions them are also
respected and we're here to we are here we are present to hear from you and so one thing I would ask you're under no obligation to do this but if you could just indicate whether you grew up here andor still live in
East the most important people to hear from Pastor James is sneaking away for something Mr are they copies of the agenda yes sir yes sir so the comment from the public you need
to I'm sorry are you okay madam clerk you'll be calling people to the podium come to the lectern madam clerk correct yes I can this is general public comment first okay so this is
public okay all right no no no okay so what we're going to do is we are going to I am just we are making the assumption up here you're all here to speak agenda items okay
does anyone want to make a comment on a non-aggenda related item something other than any something other than these two items yes okay um introduce yourself please thank you Mr
like tell for help me out appreciate it and I'm sorry um I I had my water mistakenly turned off and in order to have it get turned back on I had to pay
one turn off within a month ahead time so that's doubling what I had to go people don't have that so you have people have to struggle to come up with the extra $200 or $300 add to the bill which is ridiculous i expect to pay the
disconnected pay fee i stick to that in LA whatever that's fair but it help me to pay a month in advance of 137 oh already then pay another $130
something please and the bill ain't been through that just like beat down on I don't know east or everybody have to go through that I don't know but I'm saying why is that why are you ding the bill
people have they fortunate that I am they don't make the money I do and they have a hard time keeping their bill off and we going to add more that don't make sense and another thing this bill I get a bill every month
for $100 something i know I'm not using that much water how in the world is they doing the thing come back out and read the media and get the true uh thing don't assume pro what I'm using i ain't using that i want to pay what I'm using
for i can barely I don't water my grass i confess cuz I can't afford it i can't afford it i want green but I don't want it i can't afford it especially being insane so y'all need to check into that
how we are being charged so much two people in a house paying $100 a watching every day it don't make sense it don't confuse i'm sure Mr martell will speak to staff regarding this issue again I
have you resolved's problem oh okay anybody else hello everyone my name is Rudy Jameson i was born and raised here in Stewart um but what I have is has nothing to do with the
zoning um that community block grant i filled it out i did everything that was asked of me they told me to fill out everything they had me go to the bank seven times seven times they had me go to the bank and find the bank manager told me "They
do not want to help you." That's what the bank manager said about the community helping me repair my money um I went and I spoke with Miss Julie downtown i said "Miss Julie I've done everything you guys have asked me."
I said "You know I'm disabled i'm a disabled b." I said "I've done everything i I crossed all the tees i dotted all the eyes." I said "If you sought me to the bank seven times for the same thing nothing has changed." I said "I wish I had the money that you guys think I have and I would not be
here." I said "But what I will not do is beg you to help me." So I asked them to give me all of my paperwork that they have with me and my family they've had it for eight months and I got all my paperwork back and I'm going to go and speak with one
of my counselors that are the VA counselor and I'm going to see if the VA can help me because the community black rent apparently is not for me there's other people that have got help from but they for some reason I'm not getting
help thank you thank you for I don't have any anybody else madam Cler okay so Mr back will you please read item one
for consideration ordinance number 2539-2025 ordinance of the city commission of the city of Stewart Florida amending and restating the city's land development code chapter two zoning districts districts use allowed density intensity
chapter three special zoning codes chapter five resource protection related development standards and chapter six on-site and offsite development standards which were determined during the zoning and harvest under section 1.04.04
4 Stewart Land Development Code providing for conflict providing for codification providing for an effective date and for other purposes and just to remind the board statue the last meeting uh adopted all of the proposed changes
to the text except for section 3.02.03 03 uh in the East Stewart neighborhood um special code and and it's also the um figure ESN which stands for East Stewart neighborhood 08 which was the table and
uh that was the section that you guys had not voted and and continued to have uh more further conversation and to vote on that today so just to clarify again so Miss Cooger is going to make a presentation to begin
this item and she's going to speak about both with the vice mayor reference and what's of concern for this for item one so just to help you keep it clear really
the relevant parts of the discussion really to item one are more towards the end of this but she's going to be going through all the zoning this is a lengthy presentation because this is it's actually very interesting historical perspective on what's been
done in and for good me okay now can you hear me okay everybody get the gift box um so I'm just going to walk you through the presentation um a lot of these slides you've already seen are
previous presentations um during the treasure coach regional planning council from 2002 to 2021 2022 which is the adoption of the forbase code but there was some further discussion prior to that in 1993 when East was trying to go for an
east community development block grant program to look for stabilization for the east community and economics and looking at revitalization so I'm going to just walk through the history of Stewart that I was able to have seen so your first
slide is this is what it looked like in 1956 circle of blue this is a map that was on a map that was done in 1978 and in there you will see so in this area right here is East
Stewart a lot of that during 1978 that was R3 most of the properties are R3 and the P is for public and there was a little bit of B1 zoning in this area so that made up the makeup for East
Stewart back in 1978 moving forward in 1993 was the first plan done to create a a uh East Stewart plan to talk about it was originally written for the CBDG
grant along with um East Stewart community um that gave involved the East Stewart area um this is also through the apron ACP so and this was really to talk about the journey to upgrade social
economics it journey to upgrade um the uh vital status um the vitality of the residents and make a more desirable place to live and raise a family once again this was adopted by the city of Stewart city commission at that time on
June 7th 1993 this started the plan to start moving forward to look at the districts and different areas in East Stewart to find out what would be appropriate for commercial or single family or mixed type of
use this again in 2002 there's a post redevelopment expansion plan that was prepared uh this was adopted um at that time uh Terry O'Neal was our consultant you probably heard his name many times he was a consultant he was a development director
for the city of Stewart and that too was to um to uh bring up a neighborhood plan and a master plan this was the proposed area that they were going to expand the
CRA and this was East at that time in 2001 as you can see they were looking to make some changes and this is beginning of when some of these areas changed from mix shapes of single or actually R3 to single family to duplexes a business
district as you can see through this area so this is in 2001 again another plan was done in 2002 which adopted the community redevelopment plan
and then we came then we come to the 2002 East Chet that was done in that was done by the Treasure Coast Planning Regional Council this report there was a section of this report that was specifically for
the Eastwood Chouettes area a lot of people attended they talked about they did a 7-day workshop they talked about the ideas that they wanted to see um so the report's very lengthy so uh from there they took this report and this is
some of the public participation in East Stewart as you can see children are always the best planners if you go to a school they'll tell you exactly what they want they have a better visualization than us adults sometimes and now this brings us to the
2022 this was the form base code that you're probably more familiar with that you probably attended a lot of these public hearings that started off in June 21st of 2022 from there they had people come and
sit at the tables they had them labeled and each group labeled specifically what they wanted to see in a certain date this was the timeline as you can see we started the kickoff started in 2021 interviews by the East residents
were done and conducted in 2021 in November um there was an East Stewart vision update um there was a walking tour they had many workshops and presentations at different locations within the city um a lot of East Stewart
residents uh did attend those tours and those different types of meetings and you can see we had a lengthy process it went from 2021 all the way to 2023 beginning part of 2023 um it says adoption was done in
November of of November 14th and November 28th of 20 2022 actually was not adopted until February of 2023 because we were in a zoning in progress at that time
during that uh form base these are all the different types of meetings that were conducted as you can see um they had a lot of they had they mailed over 3,500 postcards there was flyers there was door hangers they did a community
walk through and they had their own website and Joey if you could just mention that second [Music] They did interview and engage with more than 110 residents and these are property owners uh stakeholders
community redevelopment board members and city commissioners these are just showing the different um as you can see some of these slides you're probably familiar with because Treasure Coast Planning Regional Council did do this presentation before and instead of recreating the wheel I just
presentation so um this is code updates this was a work in progress again this was June 21st over 30 participants this was the Easter um update workshop that was done in January of 2022 and there was over 30
participants at that time this is the walking tour that was done on January 22nd 2022 and there was over 30 participants and this was throughout the Easter area this is just some pictures from the logging floor
this is the workshop it happened on March 7th and attended 20 participants now we go to the east zoning map so this map was was approved around 2020 I mean 20 2004
and as you can see in in your dark green is your public and I think three of the districts that we're really talking about tonight is going to be the um East Stewart General Residential Office mix and single family
duplex your single family duplex is in a yellow color format your business mix is in like a purple majestic color and the other the lighter green is your your office general office district which is
referred to as grow this was um this is something map that was adopted in 2004 again after the shrutz and the cornbase code this is what we ended up with and I can tell you there was only a
few changes i'm going to kind of click back and I want you to focus on this area right here this was single family and this was was um office general I mean um multi
this is multi family I'm sorry general resro okay general residential office if you notice this was changed back to single family duplex so this is no longer a commercial commercial district this right here became a little bit
your single family duplex area and this particular area changed right here to a business those were the only changes that was done in 2023 when we passed
code this right here just kind of goes into different districts where your business is choose your east general office and your single family duplex and it just kind of breaks it out because that's really one of the things we're here to talk about is what does do they want to
turn back some of those those commercial areas back into a residential or keep it as a commercial so this is your business mixuse this was existing in 2006 and after the performance code was
adopted you can see this change happened and this change and this is your East Stewart general uh residential office which is considered grow this was in 2006 and then this is 2020 this is
2023 as you can see this area was incorporated as in your general office going back and forth as the Salvation Army jody I'm sure it's in your presentation but just do you mind giving at least
some context for what can be built i know you're going to have your uses but the number of stories that gro and then some of I know we do have to
use sharp because your height if you have anything other than your two story your two story or 35 ft you'll have to get a conditional use regardless of whatever type of use so if you want to go up to that 45 foot or have that four story you will still have to go through
a conditional use process today all right so for clarification that was a little bit confusing GRO so do you mind going back to the green absolutely maybe the the entire chart where it shows the map oh okay you want to see
the proposed or the whole existing current this is so BMU is in purple business mixed use can be threetory by right and that's a term
like what does that mean by right what is right that means without any notification to the community without a public meeting where you can have input that purple give me a second that purple anything that's purple there can
be built to three stories and 40 ft without anybody's input or even notification right magenta magenta on
no then you can go to 45 stories with commission action so Commissioner Collins you are correct but there is some of those uses that if you walk those heights you still have to go through conditional use today correct so so and I'm just going to kind of give
you an example and I don't have the use in front of me so I do apologize but I don't know what's marked conditional use in our chart i write what I'm saying is correct right right but there is stuff that's already has a conditional use process and that would be to allow those additional height or even that type of
use that type of use in particular yeah so if you have and mainly it's probably affect whenever you get into like this area right here if you wanted to build a hotel in this area and I'm sorry I don't have my corner so I'm hoping everybody can see it so that's one hotel yes so
say you wanted to build a hotel here that would still have to go through a conditional use you don't get it by right because it is a conditional use process so you would have to go you have to applications from the city to our department you would go through the
notification process and you have to get approval to the city but other than hotel we could do you know is not a conditional use here you could you could do apartments you could hotels you could do mix so you could do you could do three
stories up to 40 ft mix correct And now the green that's 40 so the green general res that green color it's on Carbon and Bahama deep it's in deep down in the middle of the neighborhood on Tarbon
right show the street on 10th Street show the street's name so people can know so all on 10th Street right on Bahama on Tar right you got even green on what's that bou
anything that is green all over in here can be three stories and 35 ft that light green color this is like public you want me over there that's fine
so any any of that light green color that is G O general resial office that's a commercial designation not residential can be 35 ft three stories without anybody's permission without anybody's even
notification wow a developer could come in and do that they would only need the commission to get involved when they go to four stories and just 45 correct
are you finished with your presentation i just wanted to do show you what a conditional use process would look like so this is a flowchart showing all the different steps that you would have to do to go through conditional use
so you just number one is a prelication meeting with the development department uh and and these steps can be modified by the board if they like to modify these steps um for these any type of if they wanted to do to change these for the
conditional use process um step one is a pre-application meeting um then it starts once they submit the application goes to step two uh the city the development department has to be complete before they move forward and if
it's incomplete goes back up to step two where they have to review it and get a complete go to what's the staff report which we start preparing staff report for the city commission for the different boards once that done we'll get it scheduled for the CRB board and
then There you would go through all your notification requirements and then you'd be scheduled for the city commission who ultimately makes the decision and then from there any conditions of approval will be addressed at night at the commission meeting and then set the
order gets recorded can you say how how long that process may take two months three months to be fair that process is not a threemon process and and Do applicants normally need to hire an attorney and or planner under
so like we tell most our applicants that's up to the applicants request we can't we cannot we cannot advise them they have to hire an attorney so for further clarification this process that is
outlined in the flowchart is a conditional use process you call it and this is the alternative to a developer being able to build by right so when I mention the community even being notified having a public meeting where
the community could get input and say that does not belong please vote the way to trigger a public meeting in that process is the conditional use process so one of the other recommendations that we're discussing along with the zoning
map is for more intensive uses like I described mixed use hotels you know three and four story for this larger type of use beyond the type of residential use that's in there a developer right they want to stitch
together two or three partals and build that next use they're gonna have to go through the conditional process so that the neighborhood can be notified and that they can receive that's that's what we're talking about
i did want to mention that code that was adopted for Easter um when you're talking about height um when you have to go through those conditional use process there is a different there is different building types so when you start getting closer
to those residentials you do have to step back like a wedding cake a tear you know tear it back so you're not just right over your single family or your duplexes so and there is certain distance requirements for those type of uses that were built into this form
based code um that is more to the code show illustrations for the no code that's some of the things that were adopted in the form based code so there's some aesthetic and some things that so developers don't put those fourtory buildings right on top of your
duplexes do you have do you have those the menu of some of those examples i I don't have them in my presentation but they are in your packet um that was on the first item um so some of the
things that you mentioned so just so you know bars are very sensitive um bars are always a conditional use specifically next to a church you do have a distance requirements and conditional use so somebody wants to put a bar in the Grove
District or the BMU they would automatically have to conditional use that's already been approved today so I just want to let you know those are some of those condition uses that were already built in here i think Commissioner Collins's concern was if you want to put a restaurant um and
they those are those are permitted by right so that's some of the things that um the council commission has concerns about so that was one of the reasons why they looked at this and trying to see what the east would want do they want a restaurant
right next to a single family home or do they want a restaurant next to a duplex so those are some of the concerns that um we've been discussing okay since the only thing that we need to look at in order to complete this
zoning in progress is the um chart in section 3.02.03 03 on the permitted uses the ESN8 do you have that chart that you can put on the board that shows people what
the actual uses are now that they can do and if everything goes conditional what it is do you have that chart okay cuz that's what they that's what we are going to be voting on at the end of the day just with regard to the
conditional use process though the main difference in it happening administratively right a development project comes in and staff and everybody loves you Jod and they trust your judgment right but when it happens administratively by right internally
within the make those decisions the community will not be made aware if it is by right versus a conditional use process by its very nature triggers a public meeting you will see your signs go up everybody will know we're going to
have a meeting about this particular parcel and we can receive feedback from the neighbor that's the difference between by right administrative versus conditional use the two if I wanted to our two positions
here um the there's a faction on our board that feels like that is too too laborious that is somehow taking away from the rights of property owners that they might have to
go if they sold their property they might have to go through that process which would notify the public that's too much the other side is saying we need to make sure that that protection is there because what you're talking about is a residential neighborhood it's not the
creek district so if you're going to start changing that then it should be with the community there and informed and able to give you feedback on whether or not that particular M you have any questions
i'm listening um I I will say uh there are other areas in the city of Stewart that do require conditional use not just East Stewart by the way um when you look at the land development charts um I think the biggest discussion like I've heard from residents and board members
is trying to determine where you want commercial property where you want residential property the height um do you want it by right or not by right or anything outside of single family residential i would say those are
the big things to to think about if you are a resident in the city um I know when it comes to formbbased code sometimes it's not necessarily a bad thing i understand form-based code is meant to uh make redevelopment easier
to have flowcharts to have pictures so you know what um your development would look like instead of looking at um verbiage and text so that's typically how you have land development code for anyone that might not know the difference between the formbbased code
and regular land development code that was the purpose um I know when it was presented to the city of Stewart uh Treasure Coast Regional Planning said it's not that unusual to have a restaurant next to a single family residential house i disagree i think it depends on where you
live um I personally live in a mixeduse neighborhood i live off of Colorado next to the roasted record it's always been a mixed use so I knew that when I bought into it um if we looked at a neighborhood off East Ocean Dolph and
Drive all those streets that's a predominantly single family residential neighborhood so if we went over there and proposed changes for all this commercial development and mixed use I would like to think most people in that neighborhood would tell us to get out of there so when you buy your property you
know what it's zoned for um I understand the intention behind the farm-based code and the sharets and um I'll speak on behalf of Treasure Coast Regional Planning the reason that it was actually started and implemented they were looking at East
Stewart and wondering why there wasn't development happening or redevelopment so that's where the process came from um it might have gone a little too far and I think most people realize that um and this obviously was brought to the
attention of the board when we were going through our land development code when we did the zoning in progress to target multifamily with commercial proponents that was done when I won my election um but hopefully tonight we can have a lot of
clarification on what people actually want um so they're not sweeping changes is uh that's all I have for now though how are we doing question of I I can't chime in i
actually my family and I we own property on Martin Luther King it's actually on Cortez and Martin Luther King so when we talk about my right like uh Vice Mayor Collins said I had to do a conditional usage for a preschool by right how it is
now it wouldn't have triggered a board review we could have gone higher more intense um I'm looking at the GRO now we could have built a restaurant on the corner of Cortez and Martin Luther King
um it's a 1 acre parcel so it would have been a large restaurant right on Martin Luther King by right that's how the code is right now we could do a restaurant there um like I said the biggest thing to think about is if it's by right
conditional usage where you want businesses to be developed in East Stewart where you want single family to be developed um those are my thoughts bring your mind um so this was the one that was
presented in February 2024 um anything that says a has now been changed to a conditional use mr a few further questions no I just I was wondering well since you don't have the
most updated one the only thing different is the A was changed to CU right right anything that has where it's not in red and it says CU that was already approved so it has to be done through a conditional use process that was already approved during
the forbase code so the the main issue that I see what Mr the main issue is that um every single use apparently can be done in East Stewart everything uh in
terms of residential duplex multifamily or any type of mixed use daycare centers bed and breakfast everything can be done that's the proposal now everything can be done but you have to complete the conditional use
process and bring it to the commission so no development unless you do it under the conditional use there are few things that are um purple that are that are put out the group homes in certain district
and the home occupations in certain district those black check marks are still on by right and not with the conditional use is that correct that is correct are there any other questions yes before
we have a motion so for clarification as of right now right we're talking about what we're proposing to do do you have the chart as it exists this moment not what we're
proposing just for clarification because if we don't do anything if we don't move forward to update this what is allowable without anybody being notified right
multif family apartments mixed views [Music] like hotels motel room boarding houses bed and breakfast um funeral homes library museums ALF
assisted living facilities um art galleries and shops banks barber shops bars catering shop clubs and lodges bars to you are correct that one is current organizational use with clubs
lodges fraternal organizations that is also currently use but everything else I just rattled off you can do right now without anybody notification yes sir we'll do public comment in a minute um massage
therapy let's see here office business professional medical and betterment so any kind of medical offices could happen today in that neighborhood without anybody's notification restaurants convenience general drive-thru retail and sales so
commercial commercial activity uh studios art dance music exercise yes um I think it's good for clarification when we get to
motion discussion more broad and so what we're proposing to do everything I just read can't be built today what we're proposing is if you're going to build these more intensive than residential uses is you need to go
through the condition process so everybody knows what's going on and that's the change that we're proposing on the voting for clarification okay so because the staff is still presenting and I did ask staff about um
figure ESN08 under the transient residential and overnight accommodations you said you have the the old version there So currently is it true that hotels motel rooming and
boarding houses bed and breakfast ins are not allowed at all no they are currently allowed in your in your business district uh hotels are allowed in your business mix but not allowed in
your general office um you're getting more business use in your office but not allowed in your single family district correct um oh okay your bed and breakfast are allowed in the business mix use in your
general office district but not allowed in your single family duplex so the chart you can see the different how it's broken out on top here the other is your mix business mixed use and if you go back to designing map it'll show you where those locations are the business
mixed use was the majestic purple the general res again everything that looks purple and green could be these uses that we're talking about that are more expansive and residential and while you're toggling that up if you will allow it
I'd like to just mention the Commissioner Reed's point you know what why the Treasure Coast regional plan did this in their Shere report which you saw the picture of i'd like to read just
quickly why they did it i think I think this one matters okay along with improving vigorous circulation and encouraging a plan that promotes growth one of the bullet points of why we are doing
this from their words is to eradicate the stigma attached to the neighborhood's name on page 38 on page 38 they go into a little more detail and it says "A new name for East Stewart." Listen to me a new name for
East Stewart east Stewart as a neighborhood has always been centrally located within the city its name has never been a reflection of its geographic location during the sharet several residents expressed concern regarding the
neighborhood's name over the years a negative connotation seems to have been attached to the East Stewart designation residents believe that a new name for the neighborhood should accompany the adoption of this new
master plan selecting a name that reflects the community's identity character and history is a feasible relatively easy and inexpensive task it's erasing a neighborhood
and if you look at the picture it's on here it's of a downtown fair a bunch of people walk into a commercial visitor like what I was describing just for clarification understand at no time
did anyone in the city or the treasure regional planning council ask for a new name i have the notes from the 2002 sharet and I was impressed at the shared as well and that what was written by or read by commission was 100% accurate during the
course of the sharet those residents that were showing the pictures by staff earlier did discuss the fact that they wanted to rejuvenate the Stewart neighborhood and generate growth and businesses and turn
it back into the uh business center that had been in the 60s and discussions at different tables during shared you have different tables that write down little notes and comments and one of the discussions was a new name for the
neighborhood conduct a neighborhoodwide survey to determine if the residents feel the neighbors name the neighborhood's name should be changed neighborhoodwide names public community meetings online surveys flyers and
posters ers define a name selection method address it and go through it the shared took place in 2002 and was adopted and those comments did in fact come up and that was in the report there's no doubt about it and then in 2003 and 2004 they followed up and did
the neighborhoodwide survey and it was learned that East Stewart did not want a new name and as a result that died in 2004 and there's never been a new name since the very fact that you would even
try to go in that direction that sir sir Sir I have to ask you to be seated and [Music] responding to a question i was just
showing you um you wanted to see the map today requested yes so just just to be aware this right here is a planned development this is where the project lift is going so this is not a business mixed use so again for clarification
when you look at this map the only single family duplex res the changes that were made most recently is we added single family we did add single family
well the housing authority block is what it is unless you wanted to change that okay any other questions seeing none can we have a motion please thank you for the purposes of discussion I'd like
for purposes of discussion I'd like to move we have a motion by the vice mayor we have a second we have a second by Commissioner Go we can have public now we can have time
madame clerk matt you need assistance ma'am okay could you just fill out a green card please would she like to come first
so she can sit down [Music] mayor Rich mayor Rich you're good um when it comes to responding the public comment how do you want it to work you want us to flip our card up um well I would
let's not have the appearance of us in their four minutes that's a lot of conclusion thank you for asking thank you for let's not tell them your name and your address thank you first of all my name is
Lucille Hall smith i came to Florida in 1955 we lived in Roger Project for years until Cherokee Motel and apartment was built
you live there until they decided that they wanted to degrade and move out some of the black people out of East they said the apartment buildings was corrupted with
iron and the water and they had to move out ever since I've been here in Florida and Easter I'm 83 and no one no one never said that
water was in Cherokee Place the motel nobody said that the eye was in the fire department they all the same rout but they tore down Cherokee because they wanted to move out the blacks out of the
neighborhood come on now and we have no place to stay no reparation for the children nothing out here and I have seen this place degraded nobody tried to come out here
and build it up no one never come out here and say "Can I help you by getting someone to paint your house to make you look better?" Nobody never volunteered or asked no
question of what we needed out here to make your place look but every time we turn around it's a new going up cross the track we have nothing out here put some of that money that we are getting
that we poor people are paying taxes and fill us some places that we can help we need help and nobody else want to help we don't
need no restaurant right now we need houses for people to live i got grand right now they want to move but where is it to move they leaving here going to Port St lucy they taking all
the people away from we have a big community out here once but no place to live so you moving to Port St lucy they leave living going beach we need y'all to come to your good senses and say we
need to help those people out there we need to stop and help but that's what we need we need to help out here now I was at my home and
another home I have but that's me a lot of people don't have nowhere to go amen grandchildren your children they all love two bedroom house that's not right that's not right and we got all this
money sitting up there in a bank or wherever you got it at but we need you to come in our community thank you we have Darcy here my name is Darcy Weir 216 Southeast
Hibiscus Avenue in Stewart Florida i was asked by Reverend James uh to speak for not just his community but my community with St aries our churches have worked together to build bridges
between the white community and the black community we've discussed all kinds of things around tables that have brought us together and we've we begun to understand one another and care about each other i've been privileged to
discover a lot about the East Stewart community and its norms and its unique culture i would not like to see East Stewart changed i don't think the residents want to see East Stewart changed except to
have more money put into it which could be helpful i think the one thing that does unite the East Stewart community is the fact that sometimes things are imposed upon the East Stewart community and the only thing they can do is stand together
rather than being rolled over so I ask East Stewart residents the majority of them have asked that these plans be shelved that they continue to have their by right
privileges if you get to know me Stewart at all it's not like white communities where I don't know many people in my neighborhood and we're pretty anonymous in E Stewart everybody knows everybody else and if
Glattis wants to build a hotel everybody's going to know about it it's not going to be a sneaky developer moving in so I think they can and I think they ought to have the right to do that but
at any rate I don't think any plan should go forward without a lot more consultation paul Mr mr there i have an request with your permission can I swap faces with Mr
johnny Bale you certainly yes thank you thank you very much good evening Mr b good evening um I' I've been a Stewart for 78 years i was raised here i was educated
at Steuart Training School i've been a a businessman in these sto 60 years i own a business and I've seen Steuart grow and develop i've been an activist i've been involved now in that
presentation right there there was something missing there was a there was a code before 2023 what was that code all right you might be new yes so that was
your urban urban code that was out in 2004 no not that one there was another redevelopment code in 2020 there was a code which I I chaired that also at St monica's church with the blessing of the
former city manager Dave Collier and the late James Christie the code was done for East Stewart it's called the Eastwood urban code yeah that's the code you just replaced but that's not mentioned that
code that code was done for each steward with input from the citizen from the steward they've been trying to do undo this code since we put it in effect because this this code spells out what the what the residents wanted and he stood and a lot
of out of time developers and people outside didn't like that code but he stood that code wasn't mentioned it actually was the if you look if you look at the I existing map where go the other way the other way to the existing and
propose where we were so the existing map right there that was the code from 2002 until 2022 which was a product of the East Stewart sharet that you were No this code was not I chair the sharet also sir I understand that the that's
not the code I'm talking about that is called the Eastwood urban code that was done in 2008 no that's a shre the urban code just increased the density from we did that in 2017 [Music]
18 we had Mr collier was deceased in 2017 what but he was the city manager when we with Terry O'Neal they they attended the meetings at St monica's church i agree that was their 2003 but that code is not mentioned yes it was
it's the same uses the only difference was that they changed the density from 15 units an acre by right to 17 units well it's changed greatly because that code you just that form base code you just quoted yes sir no neighborhood that
is gone that you know he stood in the community but but back back to that point let me say this i also attended the meetings by the stretch and coast regional council
out here for that code yes we rejected that code absolutely then they came back with with a another code that would include Martin Luther King from A1A to
to reluctantly agreed to that that hasn't been stated yet we never agreed to the phone base code this community never agreed to that so it's been forced on us and that's not fair we're trying to roll it back please do that because
it's not it wasn't done properly the first two meetings we rejected from the treasor we rejected that i voted for forb code i was brand new okay it is my single regret i did not understand but
but it hasn't been told right yet and then the second time we refuse it again and then then the next time I go to a meeting downtown for a plan and I get up and they say "When did uh Jessica Seymour says,"Well when we go down top we can put business down here." I said
"Oh Jessica when did Topon pass Church Street become commercial?" And then you delayed the meeting and we never heard anymore so when did this thing who voted to pass this the community didn't agree with this
this is forced upon us it's not fair mr i I did have a question and this might be towards uh uh city manager Marcel as well so I understand the the zoning map that was there in 2004 correct
that's what what happened was the original shre was in 2002 adopted in 2003 then Jim Christie formed the and was participating Mr bell and the concerned citizens of East Stewart that came out of that churet and they
ultimately formed an East Stewart main street that caused East Stewart to increase the density from 15 units acre to 17 units per acre then in about 2017 or 18 Kevin Freeman brought forward what was going to be a form based code and uh
Commissioner Clark notified everybody in East Stewart and they all came out to the meeting and the East Stewart residents as Mr bell points out rejected that code and said they did not want to pursue that code and then following
COVID there was a push to make it easier for people to move forward with their property and they wanted direction or they wanted a code that they could follow through and that's why you know that the outline in roughly October of
21 they started the um notification process and spent from October 21 until February of 23 holding outreach meetings meeting with people walking in East Stewart having meetings here at 10th Street having meetings at city hall they
sent out 3,500 flyers they let they put 500 door knockers on every single door he steered and met with over 110 by the way nothing changed the point is when Jody showed what happened that
all they changed was that in 22 they made the 10 properties on Tarpon that had been since 2002 GRRO they changed them you can see it right there the dash lines are around it those were green
they made them single family uh uh duplex and then at the top where the Cherokee was and where Sam owns that vacant lot they made that mixed use because in the 2002 Sharrett the me
residents of East Stewart midnotes right here said they wanted Lake Street to be returned to a Main Street type business and they wanted MLK Boulevard to have mixed use on it and that's why they made
the property next to Willie Gary's uh gas station and the build open area right there and also the purple to the right of it that's right behind the Cherokee behind what's now the veterans building mixed use and on the left end
of the property where it's all again still purple that was the uh business district or whatever it was going to be called and from 2002 until 2022 it was called mixed use but the
problem with it was that you couldn't do anything because you couldn't just build a grocery store you had to do a grocery store and an apartment upstairs or you couldn't just do a restaurant because you had to do an apartment on sale but you couldn't do a house because you had
to have a grocery store with it so in 22 during that workshop process it was agreed to modify that use and say that doesn't make sense for you Steuart and make it so that it can be either or it could be a commercial use or a
residential use and those were the changes that actually happened it wasn't significant now Mr collins is accurate too in in 2002 the sheret that was adopted did in fact make the GRO or
general residential office throughout a lot of the city and it also made the mixed use or throughout a lot of East Stewart and it made the mixed use a use throughout a lot of Stewart prior to that it was R3 which was multif family
and B1 and B2 which was commercial they made it more of an urban code or the eastward urban code as Mr bell points out and what Commissioner Collins is saying is he wants it to not be by right
because he's afraid that if a developer comes in they're going to be able to just make those changes without having this kind of a public hearing the point of this clarification is simply that the city of Stewart didn't actually make significant changes
to your code in 2022 all it did was make a little portion of it single family duplex and a little portion right up on Martin Luther King Boulevard mixed use and then it made the mixed use portion that was red be allowed to have
residential only but that doesn't change the fact that back in 2002 when the original sharet was adopted it did allow these mixed use development or urban the east urban
overlay zone development to go forward and a lot of it was by writbased code was adopted it wasn't changing all those uses it was just showing them if you do this you can come
right in and get a permit without having to spend money on consultants and doing all this stuff and it just kind of wrote out how it worked but it didn't change the content of what was going on or had
been going on since 2002 or Terry O'Neal and Dave Collier's original sharet in 2002 and so what's the question before tonight is not that somebody's trying to slip something in under the carpeting or do
anything it's the commission is trying to find out from the community if they want it to be by right and allow people to come in and be able to make that without the expense of a community a conditional use and without notifying
you or would you rather have it be conditional use where people have to come in and have public hearings and get approval the conditional use takes longer and maybe a little more expensive but it also provides an opportunity for everybody to heard get heard but the
very first woman that got spoke was very clear that that she said she wants us to come in here and do more to allow this place to get better and grow better and that is what happened in 2002 and that is why the city gave those developments
by right but they didn't do it to take anything away from anybody they did it because they believe that's what was being requested the purpose this commission's before you tonight is to find out exactly how you want to do it the city doesn't want to do it any
different than you want to do it we just want to know what you guys want to do and that's what they're going to do the Eastwood urban code and the form based code is like night and day the Eastwood urban code because of
the history of East Stewart we allowed East Avenue to be mixed use with small business and residential that was the history of East Stewart martin Luther King was always commercial we allowed the Eastwood urban
code allow commercial use from Topon to Church Street church Street to 10th Street is all residential forb want to make that commercial even on 10th Street you want to make it's night and day with those
codes that though forb will not east will not be a community anymore if you implement that that's what we're trying to say we don't want that code we want the code that we approve the community approve approves Eastwood
uh uh urban code they approve that can we just allow the city about this to clarify how to mic it says existing zoning it's because this slide came from the
presentation when Jessica was presenting this in 2022 it was the existing urban code it hadn't been changed yet this was it and then you go to the next one this was the
proposed code where they were proposing to make the changes that Mr bell is talking about as I pointed out this is one of the changes they were proposing to change this from green to yellow green meant that it went all the way
down as GRRO General Residential Office making it yellow changed it to single family duplex in addition to that they changed these two parcels right here they were
GRO which was general residential office and they changed them to business mixed use because the consensus was they wanted MLK to be mixed use they also changed the Cherokee or the uh I don't know the name of it now as well as the
vacant parcels behind it to be allowed to be mixed use the other significant change as Mr bell pointed out the original East Stewart urban code wanted East Street to be the main street and they wanted mixed uses on that but when
it was written in 2002 it was written in such a way that when the staff people went to go look to see if somebody should get an approval of an application it said every single parcel had to be mixed use so if someone come in and
wanted to put a daycare they had to also put apartments upstairs because a daycare is just commercial and it didn't have residential to it so they couldn't just get their daycare approved or if they just wanted to put in a cafe they
couldn't do the cafe because it had to be mixed use and it had to have residential upstairs or if they wanted to come in and build a single family house the answer was no because it had a new mixed use and they had had a
business tied to it so in 22 when they made the changes they changed this business mixed use to say that you're also allowed to do it individually it can either be just
commercial or just residential or both the question for everybody tonight is do you want it to be these things do you want it to be something completely different and if
you want it to say these things do you want it to require anybody that comes in to build all those vacant lots with throughout East Stewart are do they need to have a conditional use approval that requires them to go that extra step so
that everybody in East Stewart knows what that is or do you want them to be able to have it by right and the commission just wants to hear from you in public comment to tell what you want they're not trying to change anything to push anything on you
you don't want this is what it is by the way if you want everything to stop being any of these uses tell them that too because then you go back and they can change all of this but historically you saw the very first slide of this
1978 this was all R3 which was multifamily and B1 and B2 which was commercial when the urban code took it over it changed to these code words of GRRO and BMU which is effectively the
mixed use and the residential office use but dramatically expanded the commercial nature of East Stewart well the commercial nature of East Stewart on East Street in the 60s this was all commercial this is a cop in main street
and also allows where there's nothing for there to be three and four it does allow the as as commission points out since 2002 it allowed the 3540 ft with by
right and then it needed conditional use to go to four stories that did not change in 22 that was the case from the very beginning back in 22 back in 2002 with the urban code overlay and stuff again though that's why these take place
that's why we're all here so that you guys can tell the commissioners exactly how you want it to be but what happens is once it happens and it gets adopted and somebody comes forward and then they say "Well wait a
second." And this is what happened in the what happened was in 2009 10 11 12 13 14 and 15 we were in a recession and everything was expensive and people from sew were saying well it's too expensive to come in and have to pay these application fees for the conditional
uses and do all this stuff so they were asking for a different type of code but maybe having a little more expensive is okay so that everybody gets to find out what it is so that you can in fact know in advance what's going to go there or
not go there and it can remain publicly discussed every time a project comes forward so she ended up with like the gutter company where you didn't even know what was going on well except for the gutter company was commercial since 1978 that property was
from the very beginning so under this under the current code whether it's by right or not by rightight the gutter company wasn't seeking the additional use it was already zoned commercial it was one-story building it didn't expand the footprint the building was already
built so it technically would have got permit to your point the way that we have it currently zoned allows for that to happen and nobody gets nobody inut so I want to add another layer of of
this is now we're in public comments back on that just for a second okay in the past can I just finish my No can we finish public
good evening commissioners i have written a um speech I gave to you a couple of weeks ago concerning this proposal and I have rewritten it from clarifications I have heard i live at
902 Lake Street i also had previous other property in Steuart formally but from what I am hearing there's been much clarification since I wrote this letter or this memo but what is missing
for me and I believe for others that we need to actually sit down and look at in streets this beautiful colors but I don't know where Martin Luther King really and I don't really know
where T i need to look at this a little closer with the street names i know all these streets and S Smith she's been here 83 i've been here
75 and I'm not going anywhere this is my husband been here since 77 my sister my brother we've all lived here we all have children we haven't moved we're not planning on moving we love
East Stewart we are a nice knit together close community my church is in East Stewart my pastor we're concerned
about what is going to be next door what is going to change our community from the quiet calm community that it is other than when outsiders come in and cause a
disruption so I appreciate Mr collins explaining and Mr mortell I got more of what Mr mortell said than me so I'm I appreciate you with the pleasant presentation explanations but we need to
sit down and actually look at these streets we know what we had in the past martin Luther King is in business east Avenue has been business that's where my church is i don't need a bar next to my
church we haven't been able to make improvements any steward because you haven't property was taken away and replace it with anything property and replace
it and as she said our children are moving to Port St where they can afford to live i ask people to come and live there in Steuart and they tell me "I can't afford to live there i don't know how you can afford to live there." And I can because I bought
the property back in 1976 but today's prices no way so we need your help um I'm hearing that you want to help us you want to know what we want
and the only way we're going to do that is to sit down street by street we can tell you what looks good for us what is going to prosper us we've not bothered you over the years we've let you take whatever tax moneyies you get do
whatever not been put any steward so now we need you to come help us since you brought up this proposal come help us that's all we need so that's why we're here tonight especially if the second item is to be
able to go through those streets and tell us what should be residential and what should be business I defer to the next speaker Odin okay Mr mayor Commissioner you know I had a whole different presentation I thought I was going to
give tonight but it was titled You Don't Hear Me Go i was born in Stewart Martin Memorial Hospital just like many of you before the condo before the gated communities before the city started looking at East Stewart like a blank slate instead of a
place with history my family was already here i didn't have the privilege of growing up here but I came on the weekends and during the summers with the scent of salt in the air feeling a hot pavement under my feet as I ran to Georgeless to get my hot sausage and pickles pig
[Applause] stopping by the store on Tarpon where George was out before heading to my favorite spot to get my Lily dilly but you others in the audience from New York like me that's an Italian ice my uncle painted houses for a few dollars and
little uh his ro brush strokes layering the stories onto the very walls of this community my people have been here since the 1920s my father Dr walter Odin was born in a house at 909 Baleo Bay my parents were educators here in the 60s
shaping young minds in a segregated school system believing that knowledge was the key to freedom my father was more than an educator though he was a voice in this community spinning records on WSTU radio station by he hosted the Bondo party somebody
reminded me of that today a dance show that filled living rooms and brought our people together that our that's our culture that's our identity i own my grandmother's house Elery James on Tarbon i own the lot my grandfather's house stood and was torn
down on on Church Street across from the little park i own other properties in East Stewart not as a New Yorker outside looking to flip land for a quick buck but as a developer who understands this process who has deep roots in the soil
and I am challenged by the city or anyone else telling me what I can build in my neighborhood that we can't create a place for families and people to come back to for businesses to even grow i agree that these two
needs investment but you don't hear me go this city council voted to develop and limit development in these stewards to single family houses only i understand that and they said it'll protect the community protect the
community from who from what i get all of that but this is South Florida hurricane codes make building expensive when you force developers to build single family homes only the cost of housing skyrockets without investment less family higher prices
more displacement the very thing people fear gentrification it's being facilitated by condition it can be facilitated by conditional use if not implement implemented properly i used to revel in
the tales my father would tell me about growing up in East Stewart when it was full of businesses we didn't have a have to go across the tracks to get what we needed homer Thompson's Gas Station Taxi on Front Street my front doors beauty salon Dolphin's Barbecue The Picture Man you weren't ready for Easter unless you
had a picture miss Magdalene's Club 19 had music floating into the night if you needed something from the store you went to one of those affformentioned places or Luther Baldwin's place in the bottom miss Reynolds was like a little general store right georgia Boy's place Phil
Harvey got your haircut in my brother before this the city decided where black folks could couldn't go for it developers came in with their preconceived pre-approved visions we built this community we were
entrepreneurs we were developers ourselves and now after all these years instead of supporting these same people we're putting up roadblocks but you don't hear me i don't want my property rights impeded i don't want my land my parents land my history my inheritance
controlled by people who don't understand this place i don't want rent so high that our own people can't afford to stay and I don't want a council that listens to one and not the hundreds who have lived here for generations what I want is what we've always had community
and if you don't hear me now I promise you [Applause] okay thank you Mr so you do indeed in your family is on quite a bit of property Stuart for decades the Hamilton the Browns the Odens yes the Ros and yet
you've failed to build on them for quite a while and and and why is that it is expensive it is expensive i refuse to charge the rates that one would charge when building at the rates that hurricane um
building without some kind of subsidy without some kind of investment it's just too Mr that if we're seeking to provide an opportunity Mrs smith is that right as Mrs smith said her grandchildren want to live here the best way to accomplish
that is through duplexes triplexes and quadlexes because that helps defay the cost so I I will say this i think we have to build what the community wants just look at a 2,000t house at $250 a square foot that's $500,000 can one
family defer that cost or absorb that cost or can two and some of the families in here certainly can right others may need some support i have a better opportunity how about we build that $500,000 house and provide the folks $300,000 so they only have to pay
200,000 that way investment I think there are dollars out there if we do the right kind of research to get that investment in the community and Mr just take a guess how much do you think having to go through
the conditional use process would add to the cost of building housing look I I I think that's very difficult it's it's 10 20% more as much as 20% more if you're not careful because most of the folks in here are not going to be able to walk into that conditional use meeting by
themselves they're going to need legal support and that's going to cost money so that's a challenge thank you question um Mr o sorry thank you um you're saying that we people need help
in order to develop um would you support the idea of the city working with the community and the local banks to create some kind of a reinvestment pool absolutely if you look on the news now in Unionale New York we have a lottery going on i'm building the
house it's not my house i'm building it for a group the average cost of a house in Unionville New York is $600,000 they had a lottery one person is going to get that house for $280,000 because they put subsidy into that building that's what you have to look at
and also are you aware of the homes that have been coordinated with the um Habitat for Humanity single family homes in the East Stewart area i've seen three i've seen three of them yes
20 over 20 oh county yeah I think we have we have three if I'm not mistaken i believe of I know that following the 2002 Sharette the East Stewart residents
wanted the city of Stewart to give its housing or give its land that was in East Stewart and have it used for housing and the city of Stewart donated all of the land that it owned at the time in East Stewart to the Habitat for Humanity and um houses were built on and
there's people in this room that received houses from the Habitat houses but the city doesn't own any other land other than the Willie Gary property right now and that's not owned it's by a grant for that particular apartment we
don't own individual lots i know city said that Taylor property the city has no ownership interest in the Taylor and so we don't have the authority to tell them what to do with their property or to do anything with their property that is their private right not ours i will
tell you one of the things that they're doing in New York to make this affordable also is if you do have land that you own lease the property build the house so that the inhabitants live there they don't flip the house for more money right but they give the house back and then the next family has an
opportunity to be in the lottery for it so that's just you know look I don't have all the answers but I certainly have seen some best practices yeah the county has a program similar to that it's a shift program where they just offer a down payment but you have to live in here for about 5 years before
you can change anything underneath if you get CRA credits in the in the federal dollars and make the ship payment a $300,000 payment as opposed to a $5,000 or 10,000 I think that's where the help and support really comes thank you
the vice mayor has a question so I think everybody appreciates how expensive housing is we're all with you what we're talking about scaling back is not single family homes but we're talking about having conditional use for like city
place i think they are getting conflated nobody up here is trying to make it harder to home that are affordable we're trying to prevent it as I understand it now I have a a lot on
the corner of uh Tar Pond and Lake across from the Willigary Plaza and I understand that today I couldn't put a triplex there and that's what I was working on with the city to do before this zip happened and that that actually froze part of our development
it's here so that's GRO that could be three story up to 35 this was just a one story three triplex but I understand I couldn't do it that's what coming into the As of today right now you can you would only need approval
if you were going to go 40 as of today right now we're talking about what we're discussing though is potentially restoring that to residential single family home duplex zoning what it was
pre20 that's what we're discussing and then if it is and that's going to be really up to the neighborhood we need to go street by street but if it does remain GRO that it would go through the traditional use process because it's next to single family
triplex next to somebody's house you would want to see that the neighborhood can be made aware that that's happening is that is that unreasonable i I think it depends i think the the folks in this room have to make those decisions about what they want in this community i will develop what they want i I know on
Tarpon you have some uh single room occupancy buildings cuz my family built them right but I I think I would be challenged with that as opposed to a triplex that was welld designed and and the aesthetic of which matched the community
thank you thank you can I ask a clarification question it's just a followup it's a question that um Commissioner Collins made a comment to Mr wooden and he mentioned something about city place type
development and I was going to ask either Mr collins if he could explain that or if staff could tell us with regard to drainage and sizes and types of development whether they're condos or whether they're small shops what is a
city place type development and can it be built on a single lot in East Stewart so part of the the uh the sales pitch here for keeping this like it is where it can be three story
is we're going to we're going to have it be what it was during segregation where this neighborhood here itself right internal that's not what we have it zoned as we don't have it zoned as a single or maybe twotory barber shop and
small scale grocery that's not what it's zoned as but that's what it's being pitched right now is zoned like Alcoa for city so it is three and it can go up to four story high is not for the community to
take care of itself and service itself our our zoning today right now like I mentioned and we saw it here okay i think this is a good opportunity we we are going to take a break
here it's 7:00 we will take uh we'll take a 10-minut break to try to reconvene i don't know heat heat
heat heat heat heat yeah heat yeah heat heat heat heat heat
yeah heat heat heat [Applause] heat heat heat [Applause] heat heat heat
[Applause] heat [Applause] heat heat heat yeah heat [Applause]
heat heat heat [Applause] heat yeah heat heat heat [Applause] well I broke my mind heat heat
heat heat heat [Applause] heat heat heat yeah heat heat heat heat heat
[Applause] heat [Applause] heat heat heat heat heat heat heat yeah heat yeah
heat yeah i believe that Heat heat heat heat i just have a question heat heat [Applause] yeah heat
heat heat heat heat yeah heat heat heat [Applause] if uh we can begin our seats here we can start off again with public comment
which is the most important reason we're here to hear from you thank you to Jimmy Smith [Music] excuse me back to order and then folks out there
please everybody be seated thank you okay we lost you actually the recess is a good opportunity to call people appreciate that opportunity um madam
David Hall was name [Music] good evening Mr hall my name is David i'm sorry i own property i'm a local real estate broker i own property
here in Port St lucy and I'm not property here on Bahama Avenue in Stewart i'm sorry um the I had a couple of questions just get clarification on um one you changed the density for single family resident from like 4300 to
like 6,000 square ft i just need to get the logic behind that because I want a piece of property that is 1.11 of an acre so when you change that density to 6,000 I would need to get another lot in order to be able to build
a single family home on it and currently there's two houses beside me there's one on up each side so I won't be able to build on that property unless I try to sell it to that's not quite true mr
mr so the the code that was adopted by the city commission was that moving forward any parcels that are not currently in existence will need to be 6,000 square
ft but if you have a parcel that's currently got parcel ID number that's 35 ft wide and 2800 square ft it is grandfathered in as a buildable parcel the intention behind it is the
commission didn't want the big developer to come in and start buying up lots and using them for other purposes or getting lots that aren't in existence and chopping them up because if we have no
minimum lot size in East Stewart you could see other lots get diminished down smaller and smaller at least that was the lie instead they said every single Monte Stewart that's in existence as of September 4th 2024 is deemed legal and buildable from
this day forward but any new parcel ID numbers would need to be as I understand it a minimum of 6,000 ft per family so currently that won't affect if you are a current owner and you sell it to someone else they can still transferable
but but if you owned if you owned a lot that was 10,000 ft you can't divide it into two 5,000 ft lots and sell them both and have somebody build on both of them you would be needing to sell it as one lot because it wouldn't be able to
be up two 6,000 foot lots but if you haven't known two 5,000 ft lots that have parcel ID numbers right now they're legal they're transferable and they will be perpetually legal we didn't make them nonconforming or grandfather
non-conforming uses we said no they are valid uses and will stay valid there's no conditions my second question was delus i know people were speaking earlier today about accessory dwelling units about affordability and I know
there's a move within the state now as far as allowing homeowners to be able to build an accessory dwelling unit in the back of their house so that those kids who may come back home can't afford they can stay on their property but I understand that I understand unless I
read it wrong it was saying something about only one water meter per unit itself they did they did the commission al said yes to accessory dwelling units and the intention for it was again just
like you said family wants to have their kids or somebody else or even a friend rent out back that's great but the desire by the board to have it be one water meter was so that you didn't get the situation that happened in Golden
Gate in the 70s and 80s that was a middle class neighborhood and then a lot of outside investors bought up all the properties and started renting out both sides of all the duplexes so the concern was that if people were allowed to do
ADUs you get outside investors that build a house up front and an ADU out back and treat it just as an investment property and not be a member of the community at all live in Miami or Orlando and have one tenant in the back and one tenant in the front and they
wouldn't even know each other and it was intended just to make money off of the community so the commission said to in order to make it promote ownership and residents that live here if you had one water meter then the person that owns
the property or the main house could live in the main house or for that matter they could live in the ADU if they didn't need that much space and they could rent the main house out but they'd have to talk to each other and it couldn't just be two random tenants because that way they wouldn't abuse
each other's water privileges or whatever you want to call it but that was the logic but you asked the board yeah because what I read in the package that was online it stated that the owner the only one that can live in ADU is the owner or the owner can be able to use as a business but not So what you're saying
is that the owner would have to move into ADU and then No either one but but but the state is going to reserve all the municipalities it's already gotten out of the first Senate committee there's a companion bill and it's going to say to
all of Florida that anybody can come in build a house and build an ADU and we cannot restrict who lives in those and so that's the real peril of single family home zoning because that's where
the law is going to apply and we have to be very careful here if we're expanding that usage that's sure fireification if the state passes that law because they will they'll be viewed as investment properties well no the
ADUs is being is currently because I'm telling the law changing that they're saying there's no restriction anybody can live in a house in the main house and anybody can live in the owner does not have to reside there
next I have Paul Skyers hello again Mr skyers how you doing there paul Skyers 600 Southeast East Street i I'm confused about for instance a challenge that
Commissioner Reed would have on his parcel on LK so maybe you can help me understand if you could build a restaurant on your parcel complying with the
setbacks the semi-p permeable permeable ratio and the parking requirements per 300 ft i think it's one parking space for 300 ft in a restaurant and have a viable business if you were to have a
business that you wanted to sell liquor for instance as a part of the the menu you'd have to have a 2600 foot restaurant at a minimum in order to get the alcohol and tobacco division to give him any kind of a liquor permit or any
any how would he have enough parking to support 300 seats on his parcel with the required semi-permeable perable ratios and and the density requirements
for a restaurant how would that work yeah it's it's the same thing with when you start talking about um uh city place more they're spreading all these rumors about stuff that you think
is coming to East Stewart and stuff that you think is happening you don't have the density and the compliance with the planning codes in order to do it so that's a question that you can answer in your your time because I I can't figure
it out my issue is with East Stewart old and East Stewart new and how we blend those two existences to create a path forward for us i represent Taylor property as a part
of this that no one is discussing you you reduce the density proposed density to 20 units per acre now the only thing we can build on that 4 acre parcel at 20 units per acre is
high-end luxury apartments or condos if we do that Easter's dead it will gentrify within 12 years matter of fact 10 if that's what you want if you want to move all the working class people out
there you can contemplate this nonsense but if you're serious about having workingass folks residing in a community enjoying the the the the benefits of living amongst their their peers then you need to stop this nonsense and reverse all of this
activity that you're doing here and go back to square one because you are killing that neighborhood under the guise that you're helping us you're not you're doing this oh we're looking we're looking up we're so commission the city manager just said
but you're not you're lying and and it hurts because you don't live in East York you don't even know you didn't know you didn't even know beforehand that East Avenue was a commercial i'm not lying about that i'm telling you
you where you are you before you there was there was four weeks ago you did not even know that East Stewart was that East East Avenue was a commercial strip we had to tell you that in a meeting and that's on record you can look you can look that up at the cameras if you
continue along this trajectory telling telling folks that you are looking out for interest when you're not you'll hear from us in due course thank you some questions for you so we're talking
about density 20 versus 30 units per acre unless you want to put the residents of East Stewart in apartments over there if you're actually talking about building homes that are affordable that people can own you don't need to be going up to 30 units that's for
apartments so you brought in front of this commission for the Taylor property affordable housing that people could buy and not just live in rentals that may be very possible with 20 units right are you negotiating with
me in public speak the truth are you negotiating with me I don't mind negotiating if you want to negotiate let's negotiate because then if at $250 a square foot 30 minutes break you don't know because you don't live
over here but let me explain something to you i can put a threebedroom three bath home in a 1200 square foot space now you do the math i I won't do the math let him do the math you multiply 1,200 by 250 and tell me if the
average person based on household income in East can afford that housing is expensive for everybody that's not the you're even going to ask you not to swear oh
I'm sorry is this being so because I thought when I checked the road I don't want to I thought that was the one word I could use i thought the other word was sorry yeah well if you want to
negotiate let's negotiate because if if somebody wants to do the math for me multiply 1,200 by 250 and tell me what the dollar amount is if you tell me that somebody who's making 40,000 when we did these updates you had the ability
to do that on that property oh I got rejected by by the city commission by the city manager he ran interference on that proposal commissioner J seen it commissioner Reed has seen it i don't know if commission I
guess not but I I I know embarrassing stop the negotiating we're not horse trading here we're dealing with people's lives you see it's easy for me to sit there and say "Oh oh oh oh uh Bright Line is
coming and all these rich people are going to buy these homes and put up city place." It can't happen if you can't if you understand transit oriented district financing it can't it can't you say "Can I get financing for a to district along
along the um bright line corridor right now is it is it even remotely possible?" Yes or no okay Mr you i appreciate it i'm sorry i'm sorry Mr skyers you need to come
back up commission would like to ask a question it's okay i'm short no one sees me but you're beautiful thank you okay so my one question is and you're right we did need but you're not your presentation wasn't to build homes it was to build apartments that is correct okay and so
those apartments would have been affordable if you allow us to have the current density and if we were to build homes with that same density we could we could make it work because we would get patient capital you we can't do that at 80 right now what you're forcing us to
do is to build luxury luxury condos luxury hoes you're you're affording us to build luxury housing if we do that East Stewart dies within 12 years but when we met I think we both agreed wherever you build today
is luxury because the cost is so high for materials the banks are not willing i mean you and I had this discussion yeah we didn't agree on that though i said to you that we could get patient capital that takes us out 40 years i don't know if you remember that well
maybe not but I know that we agree that the cost of building housing was so unaffordable that's true yeah we did agree to that right so it wasn't just in East Stewart wherever you build it it will be astronomical that's true that's
all I want to make yeah if you look at at with your permission if you look at the actual census track in Easter and this is why there the guy who was chasing the low-inccome housing track the low-inccome housing uh tax credits
fail Easter is sandwiched by affate communities so when when you're up in Tallahassee chasing those tax credits they look at you and they say "But wait a minute when if we cast the average between the affluent community and the poor community your your your your
income per household rises no deal take the expensive tax credits which are the 4% so developers are caught as much as they want to to build for the average person who lives here the person who cleans the toilets the person who cooks the yard
the person who picks up the baby pants the person who helps survive they can't live here they have to commute from Port St lucy from from places south of here and west of here if this continues Yes you're shooting
your own self in the foot and eventually you won't have people to take up your own bed understand the reality that I'm telling you don't listen to these people talking stupidness okay thank you [Applause]
you know clearly you know clearly clearly this commission needs to not only commit to listening to this community but we need to and those of you who know me I have been saying we need to make a commitment
to affordable housing and the good thing about that is is we can provide a solution to both those in this community if we really put our minds to it and made the resources available as
Mr indicates so good evening and in 1973 Bob and I moved here in August and I registered the two children at JD Parker uh at the time I thought the kids were going to school but then I
found out John had was coming over to East Stewart now I'm from a small town where there there were no blacks a lot of you know I've always said that but I came and I was very scared bringing John over here for kindergarten and let me
tell you thank God he did i met the most wonderful caring people and they just just wrapped I remember Mrs saw her that she wrapped her arm around me and said "Okay mom we're in this together." So that I've been here now 52 years and I've been in they've been in my home
i've been in their home and party together and beach parties and all good parties but I this is their city this is their neighborhood listen to them and I can make a few clarifications here i was
the stakeholder downtown when they were having these meetings back in 2002 or whatever and back then I told that Mrs lewis is sitting right here and I said "Oh they're going to try to wipe out E Stewart." Mrs lewis and they're going to want to change their name e Stewart like
I told you all was founded in 1913 now I also spoke when the city gave away the land for the housing uh and they they didn't charge them fees that that organization that builds the houses
thank you i can remember we should have put in it was for the residents of the city in the East the one house went to Indian Town the other house went to young girls of my color uh who didn't live in this
story but yet we was the city land and the city peace now I came to all the meetings on 10th street and they had meetings here i was at all of Mr bell's meetings mr frankley was there too and Mr bell is telling the truth the whole
truth and nothing but the truth and I'm not a lawyer i'm not a professional and anything i'm just a housewife but this neighborhood and they do we all take care of each other
because I'm included they all say yes so let them but we can all have all the meetings but they can tell you Mr bell and Mr brinkley we've been at so many we think you listen to us and then you go right ahead and do whatever you darn
well oh Mr smith made a very good point yes the Cherokee Motel and Taylor's property those students went to school with my students they were friends of my children and when they were torn down
that the city had been torn down we all thought you were going to build rebuild places for the pe the people in East Stewart well I got an empty lot in Joe's property and I got an empty lot at the
Cherokee Motel you guys please treat these people with the same respect you treat me and every other person just just to clarify the city did not tear those properties down torn down by the owners of those [Music]
properties come up here i have I have the mask i had the problem i am Bernie T simpson Ruby Taylor's oldest child and I live in town but I went to school in training
school Mar County i graduated in 69 so but my sisters and brother lived in town i have my own home in Indian they lived here and still with my parents i had to down because every time somebody get
killed or hurt and steward I was told your property will be the blame because everybody will go over there so that's why I had it torn down so that we can build again because we get blamed that
property got blamed for anybody that got shot or anything that went bad that's true and it was nobody even living there and those were all empty so that's all I wanted to say sorry
good evening board commissioners city manager this is very confusing i now live in metro areas for 20 years and just not even this a small
small community beautiful people around us steuart always took care of each other this county always took care of this county that's right we are family
where's the love where's the love it's a new generation but in reality we have things have have approached us right mind this right here all I do is shake my head this is
too much how many acres is this how many blocks is this this is This is a home this is where people live always but nobody's not even talking about taxes
nobody ain't talking about taxes nothing nobody ain't talking about taxes okay god forbid anybody pass away like my mother did my grandfather did it goes into your children's name and they build something a $10
million i'm just talking $10 million property somewhere if you can find it the assessment of that property is going up i'm not paying no $20,000 a year not
me i'm just not i move to Swiss Point i'll move to Sw i move to Palm City i'm new to this community i'm very quiet very sure i watch everybody when I say everybody everybody
i'm a old boy a old boy pretty much so where's the love where's the love where's the understanding thank
you thank you thank you Miss Clark my wife knows you she speak very highly of you and I'm trying to understand me and you had a long talk you never spoke before and I enjoy that
that talk we had i really enjoyed it but there's a change in you has to come it's not about money i'm not from here either i only been here 12 years i'm not from here my grandfather
is like everybody else i'm not really from here i can't tell nobody here nothing i came 12 years i'm a baby i'm still young but still but
This is not Miami this is not Fort Lauderdale this is not Jacksonville this is not Tampa it's not even Tallahass it's a small town a small town with some big taxes from the car
i seen it and I'm seen it downtown Atlanta i ain't helping sad to say sadly to say I helped them that's all I got to say just make a
change pray about it i know I do love every last one of y'all too good evening how's everybody thank you for this opportunity to speak for y'all and it's one thing that the
community need to hear and that is the truth now when this based code came about I look in this room where nobody anybody that's sitting here now was he was the
city manager at that city attorney at that time miss Clark was sitting there maybe maybe Miss um Miss Mr right bride because she always at the meeting and myself at that
board meeting and the topic came up with Justin Seymour presenting the farm base code and they asked the question what is the farm base code and I'm sitting back there I'm like if they don't know how in
the world they going to throw this on east but here's This is the thing that the community need to know the comment was to combine the Creek District which is a business
district and he stood together pete Wson God bless his soul he's dead nobody nobody but Pete Wson and myself pete Watson first said what y'all doing
is wrong creek is a business district east stood is a residential community how in the world you want to combine the two he said "What y'all doing is not right." Then I got up and reiterate the same
thing after that meeting he came to me and said "What they're trying to do to you all is wrong." Creek District start from cross the railroad track to US one look at what we are we are a
residential community see the plan is y'all need to understand here don't look in front of you look beyond cuz the plan is to push you out of here that's the whole plan so we need to understand that the the plan that the city got in place
do not include you and me this lady here been here based on her life you put those three on there somebody that done scrubbing made a life for them won't be there anymore here's the
thing we ask you just like Miss McBride said Mr bell and myself we interrated a long time we asked you all in private meetings and public meetings what is the farm based code we never got the answer
we did did it and what we told y'all over over and over we did not want the farm based code cuz that was straight out justification and what didn't you all do you voted for
it anyway but now I have to say many times I came to that city hall let the people of the know what's going on you all voted for it then Miss Clark I have much respect for you but
you paraded around here that Saturday went from the Greek district on the city trolley bringing those people majority white people over here in this community that was dead wrong but what you're doing is basically was pushing setting
us up setting us up you all where we won't have this community no more right Mr question when that subject came up about the three story on Martin Luther
King you said "Isn't that what the farm base coal pump?" In other words you were saying it's okay to build a three story cuz that's why the farm based coal is in place that was your word those beautiful
ladies should go back and take that mhm and I told you it should have been you want to talk about the gun company that's a historical building it shouldn't have been a lot yeah that was a nightclub so it shouldn't have been
city manager it shouldn't have been that was a historical building a nightclub that wouldn't be in your neighborhood that would be in your neighborhood your neighborhood your neighborhood let's be honest it wouldn't be
This is something I want you all to come around here 7 7 7:30 in the morning and see what we go through right here we have to put up with this noise every single day traffic all these big trucks flying up
and down the road would that be in the white neighborhood absolutely not would this farm based hope be over in Crooked Creek absolutely not would it be on Dolphin Avenue absolutely not y'all need to wake up and understand
what's going on the plan that the city has don't include you and me we need to understand you might not like what I say but you need to get the dollar signs out your eyes that's right come to reality
of what's going on cuz it don't include you and me before this phone case came up let me tell you what God has so much to do stopped me and said "Mr
franklin y'all better keep fighting cuz the city want to bring developers up in there." And when they do that you all is out of here this is someone that had knowledge of what's going on this been about four years when I was told that
and look what's going on this wouldn't be in no white neighborhood y'all like Miss Lucille said we need housing we don't need no business up in here we need housing that's right right now I
see every day that people is walking the street why cuz they don't have nowhere to stay sleeping in cars walking in the street sleeping in the park sleeping in the woods yes this would not happen in
no white neighborhood let's be real about this now let's be real cuz the garments right now is licking a ch and Chris I admire you what you say you might not be able to say what you
want to say but I admire what you're saying and you all need to listen of what's being said cuz this plan don't include us let's be real and another thing we got to keep our eye on is mankind yes we got to keep our eye cuz
anybody when they desperate they'll do anything when they're desperate and I'm going to tell you right now they will get money for a community like this here and put that bright line there so we better not guess the city we better be
looking at Martin County too listen if that bright line comes there We're in charge and I admire you all for not giving up our money to a billion dollar company that's somewhere down the
line going to go under going to go under but y'all I live right here and I see a train don't nobody be on your train i'm telling you so
Chris Joey y'all do your job and come on let's get on board let's get on board now let's get on board and do what's right we need housing in this community there's too many people homeless you won't do that in no white neighborhood
in this thing so let's do what's right some some commissioners have questions for you go ahead Mr i just want you're talking to your neighbors and I want you to make them understand what they have now is that form based culture what that form base should do right now is just
what we are going through right now my new king that could be you all understand me what we are going through it could be you all the next time around look what's on this street here homes business can come on this street right
now we are living in a situation right here on my little team right now that we have to deal with this rightly every single day we weren't notified matter of fact I'm walking down the road i'm like "Oh they
put us on these places." Next thing I know all these trucks is piled up here we didn't get notified we didn't know nothing about it that's what happened next door to you y'all better come to the reality of what's
going on cuz it the plan do not include you and I we need to get on board and open our eyes we need to stop looking in front of us look beyond cuz again I reiterate the plan do not include you
and me we need to get on board and open our eyes and let these commission listen to what they saying thank you go ahead come on nice man i just think he makes a good point with taxes you know people don't always put
together all the pieces here and when these new threestory tall mixed use type development comes in it's 10 and 15 and $20 million and you're the parcel next door and the new assessment comes through
taxes are going up absolutely there's only so long that you can deal with that while you're being offered stupid money the more you're like so I appreciate your comments and that's another thing if the doors get open up taxes go up you
can't afford it where you be on the outside looking in and once you out of this community you cannot come back in cuz you couldn't afford it so we need to wake up y'all we need housing there's too many people homeless in here right
now i have I have mine i got something for my daughter and my granddaughter make some for other people cuz you can get money and I want to say one more thing concerning the habitat the city gave habitat some houses right in here now nobody in this community got those houses three houses were built in the
last three years nobody in this community got none one of those houses now you can't miss that fast i know what I'm talking about i can show you the houses right now three houses got built one right on the corner of Top and Church Street one around here on Bahama
and Unknown B not one of them got one of those houses it's against the law for the city of Sewer to discriminate in any way and whenever you do any kind of habitat for community or any kind of affordable housing it has to be open to
all residents we can't lock it in to just be steward it has to be open to everybody that's not our choosing that's the state and the federal government we cannot do anything about it it doesn't matter what we build it doesn't matter if we build it it doesn't matter if
somebody else built it the 1968 Civil Rights Act started it and said you cannot discriminate in housing in any way you do not have the right the only thing that they can do is give a local preference but the local preference was
given to Martin County residents because that's who Habitat is it wasn't limited to you Stewart and that's what happened but but who own who owned the property before having the city just like I got my house right
now i can say city manager I want to give you this house but only you give somebody only if they live and he stood but the people that live in stewards already live and he stood in a house no no no no
everybody don't have a house no no everybody don't if they already live here they already live here they living in the woods that's a different story they living in the streets i respect you now come on now let's be real then they
don't qualify as already living here because they don't have an address and tell me why tell me why cuz a lot of the things the city got rid of to Mr can I just ask you to allow the city manager to answer your question i'm I'm pointing out our hands are tied it's not that the
city didn't want to when we gave the property you're living in we didn't want to give it to some stranger we wanted people from East Stewart to end up in it the whole reason the city donated that land was because the resident Stewart they asked the city to do so that's
exactly what happened the city of Stewart didn't select other people the city of Stewart doesn't play a role in it we It's against the law for us to but we don't do it anyway we don't have the It's not the city that made the decisions the city yes it donated the
land for housing because the residents asked it to and that's exactly what it did 100% of the land the city owned that's what happened but s how many times did I come up in front of you all and say people is homeless in that
community people need housing in that community mr mr lincoln we are well aware of the homeless problem not doing anything well Mr are you listen to what um one of the proposals we considered was
very affordable housing where the city garage is and it was okay and you know what we so you allow me to finish we end we we talk to the
developer who has built them all over the state i went to his fourth one in Lakeland Florida and we c we presented it to the community and you know what the community said we don't want it we don't and we don't have it and tell him
tell them what tell the community why because you didn't want it cuz he wouldn't couldn't afford it couldn't afford it i talked to the gentleman i talked to him it was too high it was too high to experience and you know it just for two
bedroomedroom two bath $725 no I was not no I was not we This young lady this young lady me and her sister particularly spoke to that man so you're not being honest there you're not being honest now being honest to these
people you're not being honest okay whatever it was matter of fact whatever it was matter of fact it was going to be a one bed room she started talking to Mr because the community didn't want it
they didn't want the apartment buildings okay for a variety of reasons and it didn't get built that doesn't mean we don't continue to seek solutions to this problem everyone is very well aware of it and and mayor how tall would that
building going to be too tall for this community okay and and you know how much the rate was unaffordable to the people because I talked personally she talked we the we the three of us together spoke to him before he even got up to you all and I
walked away for from him cuz I told him nobody in that community would be able to afford that i left her talking to him and that's when he switched from a onebedroom to a bedroom to twobedroom it was going to be just one bedroom instead
okay we don't It was rejected by the community okay i'm sorry Mr frankly commissioner Clark has a choice you mentioned Hi Mr frankly you mentioned about the ways the ways that people um get housing
developed are you saying that the way that your particular house was built is that's a good model and that you want the city to follow that for other people is that what you're suggesting see this
is this is what I want the city see you got this woman maybe about three heads of kids working at McDonald's she can't afford no 12 $1,400 a night see when you use that term affordable affordable to
who see that affordable is broad it's broad so I I don't like hearing that affordable cuz that woman that working at McDonald cannot afford no 13 or $1,400 rent the duplex behind me just to
move in is almost $6,000 just to move in behind me in this community that's why you all what you got don't let a dollar get in front of your eyes hold on to it hold on to it cuz once you out of here you won't come back in mr don build
those houses on Martin Luther King for black people right now no black person can afford to live in there and we build for this community can't afford to live in there almost $2,000 just to just to
live in there we need low income for that mother cuz that's what I'm fighting for see God done blessed me with a house i'm out to help somebody else cuz see when you selfish God don't like selfish people see you got to put others before
self see you got to look on the things of others more than you look on self and see when you when you greed all you see is you see I'm trying to help somebody else get something like God bless me with so I want to see some houses in
here that someone can live in and not live on the street i don't I don't want to see this woman walking down the road with her kids don't have nowhere i got to live in the Salvation Army thank you and some have living on the streets come on let's be real this is our community
we want to live this we want to have this we need house we don't need business we need housing amen good evening that's a tough one good evening U commissioners and the
public at large uh we have a reading we the people of the United States vote to form a more perfect union establish justice ensure domestic provide for the common justice promote the general welfare secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves our
pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post pro post prosperity to ordain and establish the constitution of the United States of America well that that's I used to know that the preamble to the constitution by heart they were taught them in school it was the beginning of a document that was crafted
in 1787 1787 to establish the the rights of the citizens of the United States of America and the operative word of the rights right so we're here to discuss things that that have been transpiring as relate to code and conditional use
i'm fair to say that as a as a born and raised here um still living here in the city one of the fundamental things we have as citizens of the United States our rights and and you and one of those things that we're talking about now they use a term what we call by right by
right means simply as a as a land owner you have a right to do what you need to do based on the code the land use and the zoning so when you when you relinquish that right then you give up that opportunity to to take advantage of
the right that's afforded to every citizen within a city limits so if that's not an effective right then I believe we should have conditional use throughout the entire city um because you at the end of the day we're not
we're not here to to break down every code and land use and street because guess what it's very complicated but I think if you can simplify this argument that if you're going to take that fundamental right reserved when they
established the constitution and at the time they did that we know that a lot of people in the room were not being considered but we move forward as a country now if we move forward in the country and gave the folks that were not in the room the right to to decide what
goes from individually them then how do we go back to taking that right from those folks so one of the things we have to consider is that we don't go backward we go forward and so whereas the document that we're discussing with this
the form based code is not a perfect document I don't think we should be just torching it we should just be very deliberate in making sure that it it's an effective document that can be tweaked um so I'm here to say that we
shouldn't be just totally saying "Okay get rid of the form based code let's go to the conditional use because we're going to think that we're going to have density or land space that some some developer that's going to spend maybe to buy the whole be store." I guess he's
going to have to spend billions of dollars to buy everybody out and if he does that then everybody cashes out right all the land owners that's not going to happen so because when we when when you develop it has to make sense
from the bank the bank it's got to make sense you can't get certain densities you can't get because you got setbacks you got to step back developmentally you got what we call you know your four area max it's just it's a development term meaning that when you have a certain
square footage you can only use so much for for for a building right so you can have 20 with if you got a maximum floor area usage 20,000 ft you get down to about 6,000 square ft of building that you can possibly put over one or two floors so it's it's a very complicated
process but the idea is that you retain control when you never give up your right to decide what is fundamental to you reserved in the constitution of the United States of America that supports everybody so if the CU process the
conditional use process which already in embedded in the form based code if you get over certain you want to do a certain thing outside of the the state code or land use you have to go through a CU process anyway so but to give up
the right to be able to you just even consider that it's very difficult for me to believe that the people who came from a place where they were restricted rightwise to say I need to tell you I need to you need to come get permission
for me to do anything as if you can do you have to let the entire city but if the CU process is a is a a so-called dome for each steward then I want to make Make sure that people over in Hane Creek has that same dome or the people over in the hospital district have the
same dome or where you know the Fraser Creek put that dome called the conditional use over the entire city and then it'll be fair and it'll be equitable but it's an unfair burden to put it just impose it saying I'm here to
protect you the people of East Stewart can protect themselves they don't need to Yeah I just want to reiterate there are a couple places throughout um the city of Stewart that you would have to apply for a conditional usage currently as the
code stands when we're talking Yes of course conditional use is a tool that the city affords everybody if you want to change yes but it's not a blanket it does not exist in a blanket perspective does it does it Commissioner Reed what
do you mean by blanket it means that the entire neighborhood is under conditional use process correct in certain uh zoning districts depending on what business you want to put there you would apply for a conditional entire community
neighborhood no I'm asking you the conditional use process proposed here tell me where that is where you're talking about an entire community has to go before to decide what they want to do with their property tell them where that
exists anywhere in the city in its entirety no no no no no you're talking about you're you're saying to me there's a block that has to that that's you can do some non-conforming things through a conditional use process that's what you're talking about right so when we talk conditional usage for each that's
section three right for the conditional usages when you look at other urban areas throughout the city you would have to apply for a conditional use absolutely correct yes yes um that's why we're here is trying to determine if people want conditional usage or if it's
by right depending on the No so what I'm saying people should read I might be missing what I'm saying to you is that they don't they they have a right that's what by right means you're you're entitled to that the definition of by right is you're entitled right you're
titled right so as you're entitled to to do it based on the land use and the zoning right but if you decide to go outside those parameters then you then have to go to a conditional use process to do it anyway right correct and that does exist throughout the city absolutely but are you going to are you
are you telling the viewer you're going to say "Hey but it's already existing why are you here talking about process if it's already existing?" So I think the big difference is this form based code came and expanded the usage yes the map did not change but the usage
intensified for example it was conditional usages before for businesses and then now it's by right that's what's being discussed by right so should somebody give up the right is like that's that's constitutional rights
people relinquish the right to bear arms so the is not they're not coming right but you know that's why they that's why we had second amendment right because coming so we had to bear arms right I think the big difference Joe
what we can discuss is when you buy into a neighborhood you know what the zoning is correct yes what happened here is the zoning and the intensification changed after the fact that's what's being discussed so so my question to you is
once Once again if if let's say Steven Ross developed Hudson Yards spent about 26 billion only by Miami Dolphins if he came to every resident here and said "Hey I'll give everybody here we're going to split a billion dollars." Right
no matter even in the CU process you're not going to stop them from doing it you're not stop someone from buying right you're not correct cuz they're going to cash out right correct so why do we have in order for them to so many rights they don't have to give
up their right to decide that's the issue they don't they don't need big brother to impose any more than what they need to impose that's the whole thing we need limited government oversight big brother dramatically changed the use of a residential neighborhood to commercial business use
okay that's what big brother did a residential neighborhood is at risk of not potentially being a resial Yeah I don't think so how's where's all this development that you're talking about where's where's where's all this big building where's the
I mentioned Bright Line earlier okay Bright Line so let's talk about you can't get a single family home for a million dollars in Miami right now tech companies huge industrial companies people billionaires are moving from all over the world to Miami yes we're about
to plug eard into that economy and that culture no these are people these are people that are so rich bright line is a Saudi Arabian wealth management fund that got bonded for$2 billion this is this is these people are so rich
they don't care about money we had no idea of the level of economy you're talking about that you're about to plug East Stewart into and with the zoning as it sits there it there's a huge risk of losing this residential neighborhood thank you what's your plan to and you as
a developer see profit from that listen I want the truth i want So so we have to make So let me tell you a little bit about um me right
so my dad moved here in like 1956 right he built a lot of roads and highways right he did that then he had a bunch of family you know he came from the war first he came from he came from a war in a former career he came back to a town that he was born in Augusta Georgia
right and he was he went to school with James Brown but he came back to a city that didn't welcome him he fought for the country then then he said "Okay well Florida expanded they're expanding." So he tells at that time we had his family was
growing he had to make a way right and so my my dad he went to work at about 12 didn't have much of an education but he knew how to do things with his hands and so when he went to war he was an electronics guy he moved down here he built lots of roads and highways but he
worked for a lot of folks we had a bunch of kids it was 12 of us he said you know my mom she barely made it out of middle school but she bounced check and they said to us go farther than we did and they put us in school right and so with
that hard work they afforded me I have an MBA in international business because my parents said go further right so yeah if I I'm in the business of construction and I'm proud of it right because guess what before I came along
there were no black general contractors right but I I broke that I broke that sla right i'm very proud of it i've worked on a lot of projects and we don't talk about blessing yes yes yes i I am in charge of the cost it's a $100
million profit but for the grace of God but guess what if you think that I'm going to come to my community that I think I'm going to my parents right my dad is
937 i do things based on making them proud right no listen listen i All what I'm saying to you is the people get to decide not the city okay we need flexibility because if somebody have a coffee shop
guess what at the end of the day they're going to play shell games when you're talking about that little that Saudi Arab hedge fund guess guess what the same people gave Jared Kushner $2 billion also they did right so will have to come in but guess what guess what if Bright Line comes to to Martin County
they're not just coming to the city they're coming to the county if someone if the McCarti wants to build a coffee shop and attract people to the store and make money off the res let them decide that they need that right there's
nothing wrong with building don't restrictly tell them that the right line is the boogeyman for each store right cuz guess what i have clients down the line i would love to have build a bright line because I spend
hours countless hours on the highway yeah but you you have you have gentrified because you moved here also you gentrified this your parents gentrified Steuart Martin County yes you did because you moved from down south up here so when you talk about
gentrification you move down here to your fancy house and you contribute to what we can charge for president i'm sorry Mr cooper and Vice Mayor your both viewpoints have been
expressed commissioner Clark thank you so I know that this is you mentioned about commercial um commissioner um vice mayor Jodie can you again please go to
the only thing that's on the agenda today which is the ESN8 and give me those uses under commercial uses and if you could just go through and tell us what was previously
there and what is it I know commissioner Collins suggested was let everything um be allowed in East Stewart or let it be a conditional use there were some uses that were approved by Rice but now that
you're going to be commissioner that's not what I'm saying well no I'm just saying what is in the code what is what is here which is the check mark and see you for everything and I just want Miss
um Edwick to um I want her to go through this because this is what we're voting on and people need to know exactly what it means what was under the BMU can you zoom in more so that it's more
she might lose it it's um commercial uses in in the um ESN08 and you can explain to the public what was approved by right art galleries
shops banks financial institutions barber shops whatever those were just go right down the line say what they were and if they were not under the BMU or if they were not under
the GRO but now they're under it because um our commissioner asked that it be put there no you're mischaracterizing what I did i'm saying it was already there we're just saying you have to have conditional use i did not no we have everything under conditional
use and I know that now it is under conditional use previously wide open you could do it without right over that right i did not advocate for that okay no I just want her to go over the list
[Music] no see the new stuff everything [Music] everything that says has to go through process the only thing that's going to be by right in the EMU
and the which is the business mixed use district and the general residential office in a single family and home occupations um everything else will have to go through the board for conditional use what are the commercial uses please
so in your BMU and commercial uses um by right you were allowed to have an art shop a bank a beauty shop beauty salons specialty salons uh a bar was already a conditional use prior to um this uh this
request um a catering shop by right and clubs lodges and uh rental organizations was a conditional use requirement prior to tonight could you enlarge that let me see if we can get that enlarge for you is that is that better
that's as large as it goes do you want to get in your way yeah so uh the massage therapist establishment is now was by right micro breweries and craft distilleries was a conditional use prior
to the office business professional medical or veterinarian was by right at BMU restaurants retail sales in service uh were by right they're going to be conditional they are going to be now
conditional use dining was always a conditional use studio art dance studios exercise are now going to be by conditional use a theater including a drive in theaters is conditional use it used to be writers if we can go back up
to the general residential office um which is your second column this column right here again okay excuse me since you were talking about the MU correct why don't you point out again on
the map where the BMU and call the streets up and call the streets so pull that up i think it's pretty easy do you guys think that we should have all [Music] this pretty easy
how about Bahama should Bahama be residential or should Mr vice Mayor will you let your answer [Music] next week yeah this street over the street down here would be 10th
Street we have one which goes from Martin down to 10th Street you got to make that bigger i don't have to keep that place black history that black area just like it was and I
wonder why we can't do the same thing [Music] chris could you say when you're going down each one say say what the magenta color is on each side what the green is what it is what the land use is as you're going down
street i don't have all that memorized everything that's yellow is single family home everything that's green is GRO residential commercial office so taron all through here is that threetory commercial
should it be residential [Applause] unofficial pole can unofficial poll all right bahama in Bahamas residential residential all right now historically where you see
purple here on east this was business this was B1 and single family home in Arizona but all over here was residential whereas now you can do the threetory commercial should this be residential [Applause]
okay 10th Street all right on residential residential okay over here was business as well all right but going this way right that was this is easy
we let it be easy most of those lots are too small to support you piece them together and that's how you build it okay okay can we try to regain order nothing is more complicated than
code if it is and there's unintended consequences so I sympathize if you're confused um is okay okay let me ask you all tonight are you all going to be
voting to pass this tonight talk about it again the formb already exists we're not voting on the forb my question is why are we tonight you're explaining this to us you're
trying to make us understand it i'm tell I me like some others are still confused we don't We're not understanding the purple and the green and I understand the yellow is residential i understand the pink is
business i don't I'm sitting back here and I don't know one street from the other that thing's so far apart i can't I can't say what we have to mad i had no interest in us voting
tonight i just wanted us to come here and listen to you and then come back again when you take your now better understanding and listen to you again and answer your questions i do not understand why we are hurrying why we
are pushing this so fast okay right now but unfortunately unfortunately the commission made a motion and the votes going to be the vote's going to be taken now they can table it we could vote to move it again
[Applause] but we'll see what happens so we have a workshop why not just pass and I agree with you and explain it to us where we can see the map and understand what's going I agree with you ma'am but
unfortunately um so we have excuse me we have how many cars left I have about 11 left so we have 11 left I want to make I want to make sure we take the time to
listen to those people cuz they waited a long time so it's 8:30 it's going to take at least probably an hour to hear from them so we'll see 44 minutes so madam clerk
is Miss Brown still here okay charles Gains Mr gains Jones Jones good evening Mr jones good evening mayor good evening commissioners good evening everyone i thought I I had something that I
wanted to say and then it's kind of just melt into this could you just state your address please yes sir 1802 Southeast Balletto Street Port St lucy um I thought I had something that I wanted to say and I'm just gonna talk off the top of my head because all of this is just
here's here's here it is i don't have the education of an MBA but I do have education i also grew up in East Stewart like a lot of other people grew up in East Stewart i'm not a developer i'm not a lawyer i'm not an accountant and I'm
certainly not a commissioner but what I am is a person who has common sense and at least can appreciate what is happening around me and appreciate what I see with my own eyes just like I would not trust a politician to tell me how to
pray or a preacher who tells me how to vote I certainly don't trust anything that's just put in front of me and I'm supposed to accept that these colors the yellows and the greens and the purple and beautiful colors but the truth of the matter is when you look
at the situation and you look at where are we going to be in another 10 years you're not going to be in East Stewart that's just the reality how we get there how we designate our usage whether we put up houses whether we put up apartments or movie theaters is not
going to be here the real issue is it's a money game that's the issue the people who look like me who look like you and you know what let's just be real there are white people that live in this neighborhood there are Spanish people that live in this neighborhood it is a
money issue that's right the people that come here that have these yachts when you drive over Roosevelt Bridge in these super yachts you look around and you see all this construction that's happening where do you think it's who is it impacting it's impacting us i grew up in
these streets i ran these streets bayu Avenue is where I grew up 909 Bayu Avenue right next to Mount Calvin Baptist Church that's where I grew up but you know the neighborhood is dying
the neighborhood is on its last leg there's no community like it was when I grew up does that matter anymore is that not important the only thing to me that seems to be important is money and whose interest it serves it's not serving us
we know we need affordable housing we know we need something that gives everyone a fair chance or at least a chance to build the the neighborhood and make it into something but at what detriment to us and our interests gentrification that's okay i find it
insulting when you look at our nation you have a president you have a governor who are doing everything that they can in their right to destroy diversity when it benefits us but when it impacts us in a negative manner such as "Oh let's let
everyone come into the neighborhood and then we die a slow death by gentrification." How does that help us how does that benefit us we can go all around all night and everyone can give their opinions but the honest truth is just this this community is not going to
be here so what's the solution how do you help us help you what is the common ground to ensure that people don't come in and turn this into a city place that we maintain the growth but we do it
where we have an input where's the legal leg for us to stand on so that we have an agreement with the city there are property owners here in Stewart there are people who have interest i'm sorry if I'm boring you mayor because you look like you're dozing off i'm sorry
[Music] [Applause] i just want to know i just want to know where is our common ground stewart East Stewart the name change don't forget something you know what this place used to be called color Town town it was
called Color Town that's our history color Town color Town whether you change the name whether you try to take the people out regardless of what you do there has to be a common
ground what is our common ground we want to keep the people here we don't want everyone in we don't want this crazy growth we want something that is fair and just we also need affordable housing i find it I I find it impossible relief
that with all the millions of dollars that are coming in here and we want to redevelop we can't refurbish we can't build upon what we have to maintain it why do we have to tear down and build up to make something new for someone else i don't understand
that but again I don't have that advanced education i have some education i have a house that I own but I tell you what this is my true story and this is my truth my mortgage has gone up $800 a month
i have a good job i'm okay i make it happen but everyone is not in the same position as me so what do those people do i have family i have cousins and nephews and nieces and aunts and I watch
their situation and there's nothing I can do to personally help them because I don't have that but aren't we supposed to look to our local government and our leaders to help us not for them to take what we have and give that to someone else i want to say this if you think
that East Stewart is not valuable if you think that East Stewart is not desired and wanted you are fooling yourself look at the location of where we are at 5 minutes from the beach you can go to the mall our location it is
beautiful you think people don't want to come in here and take this come on so all of the talk whether you're talking it over our heads regardless of what is being said the bottom line is this what do we do to
keep what we have to build it but not bring other people in and take it away from us and what do we do to solve our problems that's the issue so I'm going to ask that this vote be tabled until we can come to a solution together
and if we have to meet and if we have to have these meetings then that's what needs to be done but we have to be heard people we have to be heard and we have to ensure that what we have is not taken from us that's right thank you sir thank
you Commissioner hello hello Commissioner hello Mr jones i love you i just wanted to know if you think that um a way of affordable housing would be having multifamily that would
be like apartment buildings or condos or single family i'm not really qualified to answer that but I can tell you how I feel personally i think lowincome housing probably single would be the easiest to
accommodate the needs small house yes yeah at least something but when you see rents that are $1,500 for a small apartment $1800 2,000 that's a federal number who can
afford that who can afford that i I I work in medicine i do okay but I can't pay $1,800 $1,900 for an apartment how can I expect my sisters or my brothers to do the same i can't we all grew up in
this place we are community there's a reason why Easter was put here you know the story behind Easter we were put here because it had to be an area that was carved out for the color people so we could be in close proximity so we could walk to their houses and clean their
clean their houses do their laundry be their maids and cut their grass that was the original intention of East look along the coast of the Treasure Coast all the communities Rio [Music] Gomez I'm just I'm just speaking the
truth and it's race based but make no mistake about it it may be 2025 but it's not 2025 in some ways all the way we're losing what is valuable we're losing our community maybe that means
nothing to either one of you and I'm not going to say that because I honestly don't think you are callous people but money has a funny way of making people say to do things and they normally would not do what we're trying to
the entire reason that we're having this these two items are in front of you for your opinion is so that we can do what you're saying we're trying to to protect this neighborhood from becoming a city that's why we're here to get input from
you so you're saying "How do we do this what's what's the solution?" We're trying to offer that solution get some consensus from everybody and obviously there's some division but the majority of people want us to make these more intensive uses through the conditional use process
so the neighborhood has input and can be notified then us voting yes on this would do that pushes it kicks it to so that we have forever meetings constantly the map that we're talking
about with changing the different streets is a separate conversation but the motion that is in front of us right now for clarification is do we make these more intensive uses have to go through a conditional use process that's more intensive than
single family and duplex we make it go through this process it's mixed apartments if it's three stories 35 40 ft do we make it go through a conditional use process or not usition of conditional use is our
attempt to try to make sure that the community is involved in that so that there are no surprises that that's what we're trying to do tonight it kicks the can if you want to devel if you want to develop this neighborhood city place you want us to
it so we kick All all I can do is express my opinion and all I can do is express my opinion as someone who grew up here and walked and ran and played on these streets if it were your community how
would you address it i would I would put this back to residential like it was before 2002 and I would have these more intensive uses be under conditional use exactly what I'm trying to offer you my my my my I guess my my my followup
question is this because obviously this is not an easy question and it doesn't have easy answers but if it helps safeguard what we're trying to hold on to then I am for
that it may not be completely what we want but if it safeguards and it holds on to what we want that's something I'm willing to do now again this is my opinion everyone has their opinion everyone has a right to speak how they
want to but again I will say this i grew up here i walked and ran and played in these streets i've lived in Martin County i got an education and I have common sense that's all I have and I have a voice just like everyone else has a voice if you decide you want to use
your voice you should use your voice and speak out regardless of what happens you should speak you should have a voice and you should speak again if it's going to safeguard what we're trying to hold on to which is our community which to me is paramount
[Music] limits it limits and and causes additional I'm sorry yes yes so sir can I ask you one question yes sir you said the neighborhood is dying is that correct did you make that statement i did and
why did you say that it is it is well let me let me let me help i remember when Cherokee was existed cherokee was the heart of East Stewart
once Cherokee left that was it pretty much there were a lot of changes also 10 years ago when I I like to call it the conquest when that started when you started suddenly seeing developers and people coming and offering you money to
sell your property a lot of people took that money and they left when the people leave and you lose that community because hey if I dangle something over you I may not know any better you're going to offer offer me an amount of money and I go "Man that looks good." Not thinking about the long-term
implications that wow I sold myself short but who did I sell myself short for i didn't sell myself short for my people i sold myself short for the property that someone else is going to have and as Mr brinkley said once you get out
you can't get back in that's right so yes the community is dying families that I have known since I was a kid gone my own nieces and nephews who grew up here can't live here because there's no place to live they they can't afford it they
can't they don't have an opportunity to even have decent jobs here when where's this vibrant city that Stewart used to be the blue pond like where the businesses that used to be along Martin Luther King sir
I've lived here i can see with my eyes it is dying and it's bleeding out it's bleeding out but what used to be so just let me most of the vacant land in East Stewart is single family is has been
zoned single family for a long time so why and I guess my question mayor is this then where are this no no so this is this is my question then why hasn't that land been used or turned into something
to make it into affordable housing for the people out here if that's the case because the land has sat here barren it's it's been vacant for years to me again it comes down to money and it comes down to city again sir with all
due respect East Stewart is not going to be around in another 10 years it's not it's not maybe it's nice that other people will come in and go "Wow this is such a beautiful place and I love this location and proximity to everything but where
are our families where are our people going to be they're not going to be any here where can they go you drive it up to let other people who have money come in to take it okay that's great but then what do you do about the people who are displaced where do they go what do you
do that that's to me that's just common sense and again commissioners mayor vice mayor I know this is not something that we can sit here and discuss ad nauseium and come up with a solution tonight because it doesn't work that way these
are complex issues that we're talking about there's no simple answer to them but there has to be at least a middle ground to at least satisfy the people that are the community of East Mr jones for coming forward um
there is no easy answer i don't think tableabling the situation is going to help what I do believe is that you said um affordable housing low-income housing all of those things are needed and if we're going to get together as a community again and we're going to discuss it do workshops we need to do
that but I think we need to really get rid of the form based code go with the new coding and move forward from there and I will tell you quickly I grew up in a neighborhood similar to East Stewart it was an Italian Irish Spanish neighborhood there were people in the
shops the people own the shops went live upstairs there was a community there were the deos there were the Italian food shops there bakeries all of that and everyone else lived there unfortunately as the older people left and children didn't want to live there and started selling off those
brownstones so honestly it did become gentrified the people from Manhattan moved in uh now that those brownstones are now worth 67 million rents are $5,000 and the people who used to live above the stores okay who own them those
are little apartments that been cut up into studios that go for like three $4,000 a month so I commend this community because it takes a lot to keep a community like this going and I think that you all have the ability to do that and we're trying to help you continue that and I think if we work on other
things together in workshops and getting together more times than we do this we do it again and again until we find the solution outside sources not for profofits whoever can help to get that low income housing affordable housing in here you all live you know what the rest of Martin County is like affordable
housing is not affordable to any of us who live here it just isn't people do have to commute i come from the north originally everybody commutes to work i mean it just is what it is but I'm just saying that it's a great community you've done so much to keep it vibrant i think to go forward and to continue that
even if it's for another 20 years and if you do it right forever yeah i mean all I'm saying is is that we all need to work together we really shouldn't be bickering within the community you all should come to a consensus of how you move forward and I
think we should not table anything and go forward from tonight and work on those other workshops that would help the community i I would say just my my my only thing would be this commissioner does it matter if the community is dead
in 20 years it doesn't matter it doesn't it it doesn't matter i mean this is just all useless survive forever depending on how it works but it won't survive for us that's what I'm saying it won't survive
today it can anything is possible if you already determined that it is dead or dying then everyone should just leave here tonight sell the property and no ma'am i believe No ma'am i I am the most optimistic person you could ever be i'm
counting on your optimism but I'm also I'm also a realist and I also understand this that there are halves and there are have nots and that's what this is ultimately turning into it may have started out as race but it's turned into a class issue that's what is happening
to Martin County that's what is happening to the city of East Stewart i know you guys all read the pages the zoning had passed in Stewart except for East Stewart and I think the only reason that happened is because we came out and forced to city hall to the meeting to at
least voice how we felt and we and what was important to us again to me it's not an easy answer i understand this this is a complex question it doesn't have easy answers but I am for something that
safeguards our community to keep it but I am not a proponent of coming in and having more buildings put in place more business and not keeping residential and not keeping it affordable if we have to say "Hey I'm sorry to those of you who
have money who want to come in we're keeping it the way it is then so be it." Yes what is the purpose of repl for clarification the issue of the vote tonight is not to get rid of the formbbased code or keep the formbbased code the only meat on the table tonight
is to amend the formbbased code to allow for the conditional use requirement or not but either way based upon as it's drafted the formbbased code will be here tomorrow if that vote takes place so I want I don't want anybody to think that
the vote is turning the form base code on or turning the forb code off because that's not what's going on right now unless we rewrite it thank you Commissioner madam Clerk Aaron Hawkins
good evening Mr hawkins hi how you guys doing uh my name is Aaron Hawkins i live at 1616 southeast of Repo um I've got family that lives here in Eastwood grew up in Eastwood probably spent like 8 to 10 years of my life in
this very building um I'm going to say some stuff that some people don't want to hear but we need to have a serious real life conversation um I've got a background in economic development uh urban and regional development i also got years of
experience working in real estate specifically here in Stewart i know this code very well um if we if affordable housing is a priority then we need to keep the current code and some people don't want
to hear that because the fact of the matter is is that if you want housing you're going to need apartments you're going to need duplexes triplexes quadplexes i was on the CRV for a while i've been an advocate for affordable housing i'm going to continue to be an
advocate for affordable housing you're going to need those options and you're going to need them by right not having to go through another plan that's going to make it more expensive to put affordable housing there so if that is something you are
passionate about that you want here in East Stewart you do not want the uh the new regulations on some of the intensive use someone mentioned it earlier about the Taylor property if you want affordable housing there 20 units an acre is not going to make it
happen that's just that's just the way it is um and another thing is that a lot of these this this uh conditional uh this conditional use that we want to put over this area the issue
is that a lot of these properties the bigger ones that this is end up going to be affecting the most they're owned by local people the Taylor property the McCarti the one up on Tar Pond all of these properties are own are owned by local people from here in the community that should have the right to develop
that aren't going to sell out their community to make it into Abcoa that is with all due respect that's a little ridiculous of an idea but I understand the concern we all understand the concern of gentrification i I totally get that trust me
um we have commercial has always been on east side it's always been on Martin Luther King and then the extra light green that everybody is seeing that is residential or office space it is already residential i know people are
worried about it because it looks like that's a lot of commercial space that is residential the Taylor property was already a mixed use it had a store in the front it had residential in the back that's perfectly fine for an urbanized district like East Stewart uh this is
you we should just leave this alone we shouldn't be touching this we should just leave it alone in reality plus there's people in the community already that the issue is not you you were right a little bit about the Treasure Coast Planning Agency they got it wrong the
issue wasn't the zoning the issue was a lack of funds people don't have access to capital to develop this area that's why even though they changed it who does no but my point is that even though they changed the land codes that's why we still haven't seen the development in the last 20 years right have the money
to do it that's only if people sell and if people sell let them sell that's up to them that's the whole point right but my point is that this this makes affordable housing harder this makes gentrific gentrification happen yes it does
it does uh if if you we were talk a property came up earlier about the one the project on the city garage i spoke to that guy as well myself he those apartments they start off as ones and they move to two twos
it's a specific federal program that he has to take advantage of in order to build this kind of affordable housing that's why it started off as one ones it's not a money grab or anything like that when you're talking about uh uh when we're talking about that project the thing is is that those were going to
be one ones for about $600 two twos for about $800 and then they were even talking about adding some threes in there but it was a conversation on conversation that got shut down but the thing is is that if you want affordable
housing if you want to keep any kind of business local to East Stewart this is the code you want a lot of that green already is residential and it's not going anywhere that green on 10th Street is not going anywhere that is residential green on uh uh uh East that
is residential it's not going anywhere the green on Tarpon is residential it's not going anywhere uh it's I'm just I'm just trying to help people understand better what they're looking at um thank you Mr oh one more thing
sorry if you guys are as concerned about gentrification in East Stewart as you say you are I propose you should look into creating a special taxing district that allows for residential housing to be taxed at a lower rate or a limited
rate and increases that allows the local people to keep their homes even if there is development and it affects prices um and allows people with fixed incomes to stay in their homes and it also uh what's it called it it incentivizes
people to build the housing that we want the residential most of those lots are already single family residential they they a lot of those lots aren't contiguous so they're not going to be able to connect them to build larger things anyways they're going to have to build single family residential so if
you really care about gentrification and you really want to make sure East Stewart doesn't get what you're talking about make it a special taxing district the city of Stewart only makes up 25% of the taxing district in Martin County so it's a 20 mil tax the city is five of
those mills the rest is Martin County Southore Water Management District school board Florida Inland Navigation District etc so even if the city 75% right right I understand it's an intergovernment conversation as well no
doubt about it but you guys are here in the city you're our direct leaders you can lead the way on no thank you Mr hodkins actually that idea was suggested to me for the first time i'd never and there are areas apparently where there they can freeze the property taxes for
up to 25 years absolutely and that's really a primary concern of this community i know it's property taxes and again we should take the time to consider what options we have and I just hope we do that yep if you're looking for some comparisons they did it in
Riviera Beach I believe and I think there's also a community I'd have to look through my notes but in North Carolina where something like that is also included and it has good effects there are options we have not considered and I hope you take the time to do it thank you thank you
all right you going to make lean down all right so for those of you um are having problem with the maps and the colors okay the yellow is designated
residential only all the other colors the purples and the light green and stuff they've always been zoned you can do residential or a little more or more if you want and the fact that you're looking at
all those colors where you could have done more than residential and the people of East Stewart never have there's your sign okay that's what the people of East Stewart want with but those other color lots that they could
have made something different okay so along comes your betters the people that know better than you E Stewart and they say "Look look at this zone that's never been taken advantage
of we'll we'll we'll we'll show you how to do it okay and we're going to do it in the dark of night because that's where we're at the choice is simple
how can you vote against more sunshine more daylight on what's going to go on next to you to the Martis and the Taylor and all the oldtime people that own the land you will stand up just
fine to your peers next door because they know you and they know you have good intentions for this community okay but the people that want to do this without your input neighbors all
right they don't care about you all right and and just try to decipher through it's all about who you going to believe right so who you going to believe in this
conversation the people that are for more darkness and not the daylight of conditional use zoning where you neighbors get to really get an idea what the hell's going on before it happens
like that at the administrative level without ever coming to anyone that we voted for all right by right your conditional use applications
do not take away anyone's rights what it does do is you can say to your neighbors "Hey I'm I listen to you i love you but the hell I'm still going to do
it." And that may happen okay but the people don't don't want daylight okay you don't you don't want to know you don't want you don't want those people making choices for you and this idea
that and I'll go I'll go back to it real quickly when you look at East Stewart from 30,000 ft and you look at the catastrophe that has happened on US1 and west and you
you're developer you you're a elitist globalist the guys that illegally extended runway 1230 1998 and turned the center of our town into a dirty filthy pit
stop for the globe as jet setters okay those people all right they got plans for Easter big plans big plans big plans and they have more money than God
literally and they buy politicians and they train all your city bureaucrats that the the people that really understand development understand what's best for you thank you Mr mcrist no
questions for me i have no question do any other questions don't listen to your better hello commissioners um I just want to say thank you for coming out tonight can you hear me okay thank you for coming out tonight and having this meeting i'm
Nikki Hawkins for your those of y'all that don't know me I'm your first vice president Martin County NACP i'm a licensed real estate broker and community developer as well so um I'm just here to say that regardless of what happens tonight we're going to move forward we've established a nonprofit
called Jumpstar Treasure Coast Community Development Corporation and we're going to move forward with doing what we need to do in this community for the people of this community thank you it's um actually Oh okay no she's not there oh she's not so then go ahead
thank you you were next yes I am yes yes hi everybody so um I was actually invited to a meeting by Nikki Hawkins my name is Aalia Hall my address is 917 Southeast Taron Avenue um and I
was invited to the meeting to have a better understanding of what was going on tonight and the night when she called me I couldn't sleep crazy and I read my Bible like I hope all of y'all do when you can't sleep and I hope that you go
back home and you read the book of Judges deep breath thank you what we would like is community but we cannot look to others for our community in the book of Judges it lists
every family every family that played a role in the rejuvenation of something that was something else did he go through something yes but were we all able to come together underneath God 100% and
where was there oppression and things against us 100% but what we had was the strength of the Lord y'all and right now we cannot depend on others for our strength we have to lean on our own understanding of what we want what we are is not what we can do with our
property because we know what we need with our property so I would like to ask Christopher Collins vice mayor every time someone comes up and they say something about their property you initially go into building into something else where would that funding
come from if I'm already on an empty lot where would my funding come from if I cannot fix where I am where would come to build something else so that that's the point is that we can't afford to renovate or build on
what's there and we massively expand the use of that land a single family home let's say hypothetically is $500,000,000 but my question is where would the funding come from if you don't have the
funding and you don't have the funding I don't think you have an answer for us come from outside is what I'm saying and what outside source is that so we can all look into it to do our part so we can make sure we receive the funding they're not they're going to buy your land right and that is what we do not
want so if that is your if that is what you are telling us we are telling you no that is not what we would like we do not want anyone to buy our land that's what we're trying to stop that's that's so every time somebody proposes something and we're telling you that we don't want it and we're actually asking
for additional funding and you're telling me somebody's going to buy my land that is not my solution i don't understand if somebody is going to buy the land that I cannot afford right now my solution is not to just give it away because I cannot afford it what I'm asking for is
assistance to be able to stay where I am a gentleman over here in the blue as I was sitting there earlier told me that because something does need renovation you guys will put fines on them to then where they will have to condemn the property because they the fines so it's
it's it's a catch 22 that's not a solution either rich do you have anything Mr mayor no i I I there is no more difficult problem for this city to solve than how to
revive as it's been said the neighborhood is dying how do we revive this community provide opportunity protect your rights and keep Eastart intact so if you all do not have the
answers I will I will humbly ask you but that's exactly why I came here on my own two weeks ago to listen to you and why we're here now again to listen to you because you know what we don't always have to have all the answers right away
but we have to be willing to listen to understand the problem and seek a solution and I think we're all engaged in that effort so so as I'm asking the community to come together I'm also asking you all to come together to
understand us and not how we on accordance because sitting back here we can tell that you are all divided you're not on the same page so how can you lead us to something where you're not on the same page thank you thank you
jill just Jill just Jill bahama Avenue is just Jill still in the audience apparently there's children who Samantha
Bryce Bryce hi my name is Samantha Bryce and I own a company down the road called Therapy we recently opened two weeks ago so in that manner I technically live
in Port St see but I would have been here anyways and now I was valid as a business owner so this is cool mr i ask you to speak on the commission please okay sorry so that was my next point i want to preface this by saying I'm obviously a little bit younger than some of the
people here today so I'm still learning everything in this process so I'm sure there are some things I'm not going to understand to the fullest extent however I'm going to try my best to be eloquent um I just wanted to say thank you i wanted to say thank you to everyone
who is here today from the passion that I've heard in every single person's voice I can tell that we all really care we all really love a couple other people have mentioned that as well i think that's something we need to hold a little bit higher up in our consciousness right now or at the forefront of our hearts we need to be
attacking this problem as a group we are a community these people in front of us are not here to hurt us they're here giving us an option to help i personally believe this is my own take i don't think we should be making anything easier on companies or corporations to
have rights such as humans to come into areas like this and be able to use their rights against our own i think as a community we need to uphold our personal rights higher than anything else i think that having the opportunity to have these companies have to come to us in
person as the community and ask us if this is a company that we want in our on our streets is a good move i have seen my hometown from Houston Texas be gentrified in the past several years and
there's a reason why I don't want to raise my kids there why I don't want to settle there i've been living in Stewart now for over 3 years and I want to stay here if I'm going to do that I want to make sure that the companies coming into my community are asking us and I understand that we might not know this
second step about the um the housing solution at the moment but I think the first step is what we're doing here today and what you mentioned a second ago about having more of these community meetings and more talks in general i would like to ask the committee to please not vote today it does seem like
there is a bit too much misunderstanding going along so I understand not kicking it down the road because I don't want to do that but I also want to make sure that we all have the chance to make this decision and feel like we're all on the same team with that I think that the community needs some more time to
research this and to truly understand what's going on um I want to say that also that I'm grateful that we get the opportunity to customize the city with our local businesses and with who we want here and with making sure that our sisters and brothers and family members are able to
make these decisions and set their once again our community up for financial success in this area for the next 10 years um I don't want to see the community i want to see everyone pack up and move away because we give up hope i'm sorry but I am a bit younger than
some of the people in the room today and I don't want to be defeist i want to think that we're going to be able to find a way to come together as a group to move forward with businesses and companies that are sponsored and local that help our local people i don't want
to see a company like Black Rockck or somebody else come in and buy up this whole coast because we aren't able to afford at the moment to refurbish or to rebuild and they're the only ones who will have this money the only way we can prevent that from happening is if we
take a stand and make something like where they have to come in front of us as the people to ask us if we want this company here thank you tell them what church is it yes question i have a question thank you for
coming thank you for being part of the community and yes you're younger than the rest of us and you're the future so that's great and you mentioned that you said um you mentioned that um you wanted it to be where companies couldn't just come in so basically that is the
decision we're trying to make today to change that yes and I just don't think that we as a community are are understanding what y'all are saying tonight and so I would love the opportunity for us to get that we are obviously scared as a community about losing our homes about losing our land
around here about losing our I'm going to say control of our community and I believe that passing something where we would make these billionaires come in front of us as a community and ask us if we want them to be here is the only way we're going to have control of this
situation otherwise they are going to spend enough money that it doesn't matter what we do and that is the decision we're looking for today someone else mentioned that because I understand it though i just want to say as a whole my ask is that we don't pass i might understand it but I don't think
everyone's quite getting it tonight the problem I see and someone else mentioned it is that they look up here and they see that we're divided and we are we're honest about it there are several of us have one view and and several of us who have another view but from what I can tell tonight is that so does the
community you have people who in the community who have one view and how they would like to go and other people who have a different view i I just don't know what the answer is but we have to go forward i think we've come quite far tonight on understanding
this type of topic and I think that as a community we should be allowed and honestly we're all learning through this we have not had to have community this heavy in a long time i think that a big part of us continuing forward for the next 10 25 years is going to be having a
ton more of these meetings all the time we need to be together as a community talking and discussing and working with our representatives on the laws and things that they're passing we can't be relying anymore on just social media or on just being away i'm a little
disappointed at the lack of other youth that are here tonight but these meetings and continuing these discussions I think we are it's going to be a learning curve and I think that's where we're in right now but we've already come really far tonight with being able to motivate this community and understand what you mean
right but to things and have them go kick the can down the road we can still move forward not table an item and continue to discuss and and go forward because there's other issues besides these changes to the public there are other issues of affordable housing
low-inccome housing those things can all continue to help the community and all of that but I I don't think down the road is I was just Can I say one more sure i heard you mention several other times
tonight about um uh just different issues that we need in different communities i mean committees and it sounds like we need more talking within the community and I would like to ask you all to help us please as our leaders please help arrange these please help us make more of these tonight we need more
of these thank you thank you thank you good evening good evening good evening um you know I was sitting today um I'm one of the blessed ones i was um able to get my home bill through Habitat well I didn't have to pay that much for my mortgage my mortgage started off ma'am could you introduce yourself please in
your address oh excuse me my name is Michelle McFadden i was born here in Stewart Florida i moved to Hulktown i was fortunate to get my house built through Habitat that's how I end up being in Hulktown uh my mortgage there was just
$455 that I had to pay i was blessed um nowadays I think the mortgage is like $1,000 for them to pay but um that's something that they able to own you know but I was sitting on my couch today and all of a sudden on the news it came on saying something about their Ray um it
was D Beach talking about uh trying to help preserve the legacy the the project protecting legacy black family in Dar Beach and they're trying to do everything they can to preserve and protect and find out how can they do
housing to bring back the people that was there in that community that that has history in that community and I'm sitting there saying to myself here it is derry Beach yes is trying to find a way how to protect their black community
that has history they're trying to find a way to bring back housing so the people that was moved out can move back in there so they can have a history i want my kids to be able to come back here and say "This is where my history started at right here." I don't want
them coming back saying "Well where my mom where my house used to be at where my mom used to be raised at." You got you all going to have to worry about that because you over on the other side of the tracks i'm on this side of the tracks i don't care what I have where I'm at i always think about the kids
that parents that young girls that has three four five kids and then talking about building one or two bedroomedroom apartments how you supposed to fit those kids up in there they should not be sleeping in the bedroom with the mom and they should not be having boys and girls sleeping in the same bedroom so where
they going to come at we need something affordable to bring our black kids our black parents back here in the neighborhood when when they tore down Cherokee that this place a lot of people then all of a sudden they started putting the blame the police department
I'm sorry I'm not against you started putting everything on the tailor saying that anything happened they was to blame for it so don't nobody want to be sued and lose what they got so she said they called they had their billings knocked down now we need to bring a solution to
the town we need to get these children's the parents that live in motel with their kids that's unsafe we need to get them out of there and we need to start thinking about the community building for the community sg homes apartments something we need to get them out of
these motel we need to get them out of the streets living in cars living in the park we need to get them out of there and we're looking to you all for the solution and if you can't help us then we have to follow you all and take it up to to the next level because if we can't
get it in our in our community here then we need to take to the next level which is the governor if we need to go and hide in the government we will but we got to get a stand somewhere i mean we can talking about businesses if somebody want to do a business she got property
over there if she want to own open up a little smaller store the moms and pop store it hurt you know what I'm saying what happened to the old law that we had here in store where they wouldn't let us out of the store what happened to those rules regulations what happened to that
if we now if we go across the track to try to get a loan and they find out oh you stay over there in Stewart they're not going to give you a loan to build your property so you you you'll be losing there and that's been in place for the longest anytime somebody come
out of the store to want to build like she was saying earlier where can we get this funds from to building our property cuz the banks are not going to loan it to us so where do we go from there where do we go from there that's what we need we don't need people coming
in here that are born and raised in store trying to tell us what to do about our property we don't need that the people that was born and raised in store should be making the decision for Stewart this is a legacy this is historical we need to make our own what
we want in our own community ask us don't ask nobody new that just came in here ask us the ones that has roots that's grounded and we don't need people telling us "Oh it's better for you to just leave here or sell your land." Selling land is not optional it's not in
the property it's not so come up and find something for us to do and if you can't do it like I said if we can't get it through you we'll go to the we'll go to the next step which is up to the other that's what they do in the other communities rp is find a solution to
keep their people there because they say if they commute to somewhere else they're going to spend their money way up wherever they have to commute to wherever they work at when they get off of work they going to spend it there and then come back to Fort Pills so if Fort Pills can build low affordable places where the rent for a threebedroom don't
go over $800 I'm quite sure we can find a solution here too thank you thank you bring it up to your uncle yeah I want to say good afternoon to each and everyone i wish it was afternoon but uh I have a situation that uh it's
mindboggling some of you all may not be familiar with my situation commissioner Reed let me tell you we are talking about building this bill i'm not talking about his own i'm talking about what
build or start to build in my situation that I build three units done everything that the city asked me to do the building department we presented a plan we went through the
architecture took our plan to take the plan up we've done everything does not have a problem with the bill of what we done but once and I want you all to realize too once you build once you get it built they may very well your home or
whatever they come and tell you you got to tear it down yes you heard me correctly dr hold on because you going to go for a ride we built a high standing building because that's what I do i can take
$5,000 and put up something that's unreal because I can do it with my hand i've been doing it for years lay plate put on the roof i don't have to pay for the labor that's why I can accomplish so much all right get back
i'm try to make this quick i built this building it's three apartments get it all done and get it up and everything what's the address Mr oh I'm sorry the address is 433 Southeast Lake Street some of y'all may not be
familiar but like I said uh uh Commissioner Reed he been out here and I appreciate you Commissioner Reed for coming out because I would be worried supposed the other people from the building department supposed to have came out but it's been so stressed where
I have been stretching my head I have lost all my hair that's that's what has been happening to me I've done I have spent a lot of sleepless restless nights have used all my money that I have saved over
the years and then something kills you after you get the building up that you got to tear I I have had enough and I know what a lot of people saying and but they have to be in the condition and understand where I'm coming
from i put my place up for sale i say I have enough i can go somewhere out west or somewhere and deal a community go to where someone want to see development low income my apartment are low income apartments once the margins
get in our apartment they do not want to go anywhere they got security we leave believe it or not we do not lock our doors i shouldn't be saying this but it's a fight everybody loves living back there we got cameras we We are family
back there yes we are but getting back to the the situation they tell me I got to tear the building down i don't understand that maybe you may not be familiar with why they say I feel too close to the the pond
after signing the paper getting ready to receive my check and the buyer here the situation you got you got we going to have to bag out of this contract they bagged out so I could no longer sell it all because this person said we got to
tear down the building instead of saying we're going to take this situation and talk about it and discuss it they made a statement in front of it are you really so I've been treated so unfairly so
unfair who want to live in stood i like to build i have done it all my all my days i can build houses myself i can't build so fast now cuz I got old but believe me I will put up a house by myself in a year and a half even right
now yeah and I've been doing it and everybody notic but so I'm so disgusted and so depressed tearing my building down after Commissioner Reed been in there
when you walk in this apartment three apartments and when he looked around he said "Ooh this is really beautiful." In these apartments is like going to the holiday in the room on the end yes sir tv on the wall
refrigerator wall to wall you got a big bathroom that you can actually live in if I'm lying that's truth right there so I'm saying "All right let me tell you another situation." And it's not all about money at my age I don't need a lot
of money i takes a person a guy that I've been knowing I'm going tell you how the situation and I'm so disgusted and so depressed i get a guy that I've been knowing for years sleeping out of my loss in the
woods and I see him and he say to me say how come I we saw I went to get some lumber and he was laying on the ground i said what's going on but he said hey I'm down on my love and I get emotional when I talk about it he said
I'm down on my love i said man what happened to you you say this thing could happen to Louis i said I tell you what i'm get in the car i'mma take you in i'mma take you and let you live in one of them apartments he had nothing no money no
nothing it's not all about money helping people amen so I take some home and get him in the apartment the lights are on he had nothing we tried together i got him help so after the getting his lights on and getting the apartments going and
everything they tell me "You got to get him out." I said "Get out where is he going to go why can't you let let him stay there until he get we get situated getting we one day from completing getting the uh
the fire breakers in one day it will been completed the building itself is liveable nothing wrong with it you know this why not let this person stay you got to get it out i said get him out
yeah i said "Put it back out in the woods you got to get it out." That's not even humane okay thank you Mr l i believe the city manager would like to respond yes their property is 0 29 acres
and everyone in the room has said that they don't want the increase in density and they don't want the multifamily apartments and they don't want all that 29 acres at 17 units per acre allows four total units and on your property
you have one two three plus the three you built so you built six units without getting a permit from the city oh wait but wait let me finish that's outside of the comp plan we can't in do that without having a conditional use hearing and that's what we're talking about tonight because the city can't let that
happen because everyone in this room has already told us that we need to follow that old code and that old code says you need conditional use for that but you also didn't pay the impact fees for it and you also didn't pay the sewer hookup fees for it and you also got a permit for a back porch that didn't include
bathrooms or kitchens dan Brave was the architect I met with him and they got converted to apartments without telling anybody to the city which by the way I'm not saying you don't need the apartments and I'm not saying you did a good a bad job cuz I think you did what I've been saying all along is that you need to
come before the city commission and they need to grant a conditional use and then you can move forward and that's all you need to do but I can't do it administratively because the current code prohibits me from doing so and that's why we're here incorrect let me
straighten you okay we presented the plans the architect drew up everything we You gave me a permit the architect drew plans for a Porsche oh no oh no
definitely not i have them no i'll go be up there short i got a permit and I got the plans i know and no one has said anything what was said to me it was built too close to the pawn but not only that let me show you how you target me
how you target me you say also that my apartment has been there over aundred years that's what the old railroad guys live in history yeah over a hundred years and I have renovated and
made it beautified and it's very my please a very good looking lady let me finish now let me finish let me finish then you come and say 437 which is all the way on the other side you say to me it's too close to the arm
and on this particular building is about 65 ft away you got buildings next over next door is 25 and 30 ft no one has said a thing i'm just saying how you targeted me but we got all the plans we
got all the inspection don't wait until I finish a building and then come up with all of this we start from the ground we got we got plans we got permits from the ground and we presented it to you and if that's if there was an
issue you should have a mention of saying something don't let it up as long as it's a screen porch like it was presented in the plans and not apartments it can stay but it violates the fire code a screen on what that's
what the That's what the plans were for oh what building i got several I got several buildings which one you talking about mr l you have very specific concerns i am sure that most of the other commissioners are going to be speaking with the city manager regarding
this issue we need to the city the last thing the city wants to do is tell people to tear down their homes it shouldn't have never been said it should have never been said i lost thousands and thousands by making that statement instead of saying yes rather than speak
at length about your very specific issue let's continue on with the more general discussion regarding u regarding the vote take very soon but we will be looking into it i promise you i promise you okay thank you sir thank you
commissioner I want to thank you very much for coming out and taking a look at the promise you've done more i'm done what i I do have a question but I I do have a question good evening
you introduce yourself michael know who you are for all the mic i do have a question um you said not me to direct it to one person but I just want to know what is the fear when it
comes to bright line why is it just being you know you said we came to listen but I keep hearing a particular bright line i keep hearing you know what they're going to do and it's never how
can we you know I get I'm not hearing anything else and for me out of respect it's kind of upsetting because it's like oh I I sense some type of fear here you I don't know
what it is i can't I can't direct the wrong one person but I don't know what it is i talked to one commissioner you know one on one and and I'm still here it's it's kind of uneasy because I'm hearing it too much and I want to know what is the sense of
urgency what is the fear of Bright Line what I'm afraid of Bright Line is that that one intersection that's my biggest fear about Bright Line you know the community what community has to do as a culture because there are some things
that we have to do that means we have to grow with the times we have to take accountability on things that we want for our community and we have to be um hands on with making our community better I'm all about that I'm not just going to leave it in your hands but I
want to know what is the fear what what is it not Albaore is not Miami is not I don't even think we have the infrastructure to handle that type
of capacity here so so so what so what is it i mean I don't want the I don't want the community to not truly understand that if this is not
done this is what's going to happen what can we do to revive the community because me I know when I had on Martin Luther King 7th Street Front Street when
I had a restaurant there and I didn't know I just I closed up one day and I went across cuz there wasn't no business wasn't business coming and then I went across like everything was so vibrant down downtown so vibrant and and even I
run through it's like you got every freaking thing you need downtown i come over here and it's like dang it's like the water is turned off you know what's what's what's going on
you know and then some of us not me afraid to go downtown i like it you know I like to be bougie and go down there cuz that's what it is but sometimes you kind of feel uncomfortable you know what I'm saying you're not going to make me feel uncomfortable i'm
just very you know may not have what you have but I'm still I feel okay when I go down there i enjoy it but no one should feel uncomfortable you know but what is you got you like I said you can't even put another break down there there's no room
for nothing else downtown so it's over here but at the same time we have to play a part we have to play a part with bringing the community up but don't put don't scare us into that
well we're not scared [Music] chris you call me up call me up don't call me up don't call me up this is uh this is something that we've seen happen a lot of other places the goal is not to put fear on anybody but
you need to be practical and honest about what's coming and in the past there have been other parts of the city to develop there's been green space we've approved and built thousands of apartments over the years but our green space is
basically getting to the point of redevelopment separate and when you combine that zone with the availability of parcels plus bright line I'm not trying to scare but it
is money that nobody none of us around here have any real concept of how much money you're talking about these are people that value convenience and being able to walk from their little bright line village to that train and shoot down to Miami and they don't care what
it costs it's having a place up in Stewart right and then they shoot down in Miami or multiple places kind of economy that's happening in Miami and this idea that this zoning allows
for blackowned businesses and a vibrant East Stewart it's been like this for 20 years absolutely but and that's not happen but what is about to happen is and we haven't had the resources or
you know you can't the city cannot build housing for anybody because the city's the the city's money is everybody's tax dollars we make nothing the city produces nothing it's not a business all I can do is take tax dollar and if you
give it to one person or another for their house it's at the expense of somebody else right the city wants and I don't want to speak for anybody in particular cities municipalities because they don't produce anything they want more
tax when you have a community of people who are homesteaded in single family homes that's not good for the city that's good for the people that live in those homes taxes may be buffed but the city makes a lot more tax dollars when it's
alcohol when it's an apartment building when it's all the things that we we end up [Music] improving not trying to scare you but that is the reality of what may be on the horizon and we're trying to
hedge prevent that from happening here like it's happening 100 other places California New York everywhere every Atlanta people know a thousand places like this and Stewart is
still it's not as vibrant as it was but it's not a race yet and Mike I showed you in that master you I read that to you on your podcast they wanted a new name for this for for the neighborhood so he been
given a new name if they wanted that because you know Martin Luther King only goes to Palm Beach Road so even Martin Luther King it tells you the heart if I want if I want to get if it's going to be like you said how many of those new
um developers and and resident people that really wants to live on Martin Luther King because we know the value going to go down it's not going to be as it is over across from Palm Beach Road but I don't want to get into that but I do want to say this too because if y'all
can remember um I I I I love Miss Clark and I'm going to talk about her for right now i'm not talking to her i'm going to talk about her because I'm going to give her credit and if the community realized um about seven or eight years ago she was
trying to tell us what was coming down the line she had it was over at St monas and she was trying to talk to the community so we have to give credit where credit is due you have to listen
when things are being told we may not understand it but at the same time we have to pay attention and I know we keep talking about affordable housing affordable housing there is no more four
$500 $800 housing that's going to be affordable anywhere anywhere not how long housing authority going to be here sometimes we really just have to be real about it as much as we don't want to we have to really be
real about it what are we going What are we going to do to help ourselves in our community we We sat here with developers we sat here with
business owners and if until we come together ain't no point of us keep coming in front of these faces i hate to say it like this but until we come together we're going to continue to be going y'all know that song here we go run around in circles go ahead son go
ahead you know it kept coming to me last night will we go around in circles no I didn't no I didn't no I didn't we go around in circles we keep dancing to the melody but there's no
melody in our community and until we get the melody then that's when things will change for us oh stand hi i don't have a Well I just want to say something following up on what you're talking about the community and I
want to just direct this to Mr the mortell cuz maybe he can probably better express it but I worked in the on the city commission to try to get us to pass and to push for an Africanamean heritage
district designation and the reason why I'm talking to Mr mortell or even Mr bagot we had the last meeting here and I know that we're waiting to hear from our um consultant Mr weieber what the status is and maybe Mr martell will be able to
update this but that is to keep the community we're talking about heritage the sense of the community combined with what we have in the code so that people will know that this is what is expected and this is what's going to be developed
in this community and if we keep the if we get that designation for the African-American Heritage District that is how we're going to that's one of the tools that we can use to maintain East Stewart and to maintain that heritage
and to carry it on for generations that's what's important okay mike do you have a response on Paul Weaver i mean it's still pending but I don't have any updates okay okay all right okay thank you
i'll be very quick one time there are two things there's two things I just want to help you shall we go all the way around we have one more that came in after Mr hawkins it's he he just he he wants to close though so I'm going for him okay
but listen two things I just want to dispute real quick first the idea that big businesses are going to come up here and buy up this and turn it into a because that's not going to happen there are local people right now people not businesses own these properties want to
develop them that is what we are looking at doing we need tools right and that is the other part the other part that I want to say is that there's this idea that the finances are not here we don't have the finance or that we need the city to put in the finances or something
like something along those lines that we need some kind of subsid subsidy or something what happened to me there is a plan that people have been working on from East Stewart putting together for a development a development plan for this neighborhood that involves
affordable lowincome housing involves commercial space to bring back local jobs and can solve these issues if we have a restricted uh uh uh uh special taxing district which we talked about earlier
if we start changing this that plan can't happen if you go about putting the extra regulation on that means now for that plan to happen it's more expensive and we have to come to you guys forever which gives you more power and us less power and this plan hasn't been made
public yet because it's literally taken people years to put these resources together when I say we have the resources I'm talking about we have developers we have the funding we have the finance we have the the agents we have the appraisers we
I It's taken us years to put this together that's why you don't know about it yet and that's why I'm so passionate about this is because I've been here for 5 years now talking about affordable housing we're going to make it happen but I need
y'all to work with me we're serious thank you Mr can I make a comment on this certainly thank you thank you Mr hawkins um I know that this is definitely not
the right time but we've had this where our commissioners have made um motions in the middle of a meeting or during comments or whatever and I could wait until probably after I think Mr smith is going to be the last person after he speaks but I'm going to say
this now from what I'm hearing from people in the community and people have come i've had town halls here people have come and they've said the same thing year after year after year and right now at the city of Stewart we're
planning to spend upwards of 600,000 to maybe a 100,000 for two years to have a new environmental planner come in i I don't know by the time they get all their benefits and their it will
probably be more like 800,000 in reality although we have well I'm saying that we have to their their car their car their vehicle everything that is associated with that position if we do that it's not just a $500,000
thing if we do that we're asking to do that i'm asking tonight of my commissioners if we don't do it tonight let us think about it east Stewart deserves an economic planner somebody
who's dedicated to work with the community and to build this neighborhood and to guide this neighborhood and to redevelop a master plan for this neighborhood and truly work with the neighborhood i think that is what we need we've been asking for years and
years people want to get rid of the affordable housing element out of our city housing plan there's no tools to do housing there's no tools to do economic development because that's probably not as sexy as doing something else but I
think that if that is what the community is asking for it's different from the the the code issue that we're talking about but I hear it reverberating through all of the comments and we need to consider if we're going to look at
this neighborhood we talk about neighborhoods in Vero in Fort Pierce Delray that's how those neighborhoods get to achieve something because they have planning staff and they have people who are interested and they follow through and they put the time into it
because it takes time and planning and years to try to get it and if we want to show a difference that's what we need to do is to make it serious and look at the plans for the community prepare plans and really work it so that we know that
we can be able to preserve and build up this community again thank you Mr vice Mayor my sense is that generally we need to leave this neighborhood alone and let it be a residential neighborhood we
should restore the pre202 zoning we don't need more urban planners we spent two years and God knows how much money coming up with this that nobody likes we don't need more planning and planners this neighborhood is what it is and we
should restore it back on paper to what it is in reality which is a residential neighborhood thank you Jimmy Wilson how everybody doing my name is Jimmy Wilson i live on 801 Park Store
Florida i've been to a lot of these meetings some I've been coming consensus but I've been coming to these meetings for over 20 years he has city meetings i remember some of y'all like
the guy that was here early he walked there for a few seconds i remember when he was a bike up there but the one thing me as a resident of East Stewart like I said before I
admire my elders in my community cuz that's how I was raised i respect my elders in my community that's how I was raised but the one thing I see now is my residents wants to do things with
the property they work hard for many years cuz a lot of times I ask these residents how they got these property cuz I can't afford it some of them say they had two jobs three jobs work midnight work overnight for this
property that they have right now it wasn't passed down they worked hard for that some even died didn't even enjoy their life so they family could have something behind remember how they say change the
generation curse that's what they were doing and for them to come here and say and talk on behalf of their property and be confused because they feel like they was misled by some city commission i got
y'all or maybe what the problem is and he steward is one person is being told this one person is being told that so there's confusion and I want to know if you have confusion how can you have
togetherness how can you have unity you can't and you won't you going to have what you have right now whole bunch of people saying nice and intelligent heartwarming things but nothing get
done people lose property people sell their property and each store become apple core what was all this for why did we do all this if it's not going to change anything and it's not going to change
anything if everybody stays confused and you got one crowd over here want to do this one thing you got one crowd over here want to do that one thing and then some city commissioners want to talk to certain people so they can get the answer they want to hear they're not talking to the whole community that's
the reason why you don't have together and that's the reason why you don't have the young out here tonight you don't try to talk to the young you rather talk to the older the property owners the business owners those who love taking pictures with you
and then you listen to them and they say what you want to hear and you like "Oh that's what he steward wants." Guess what no it's not and everybody in this building has told you that thank you thank you [Music] good evening good evening again yes
again this is um I'm surprised I expected better from you and out of talking to Miss Clark out there and told her she started out for East Sto and she made you turn on and I'd
like for her to go back to be with us right now you two not with us that's how I feel about it and hear more about what the developer want of us and I have been going to these meetings back since
199 I've been going to city I didn't but I kept informed and when they was making the cold east I was in the meeting about the urban law and then we we said east
of be used and Marcus King did it we put that forth And that's what we saw that I was there fighting against the sheret my late brother-in-law and I we went to city
hall and we voiced our opinion the people didn't stood what to y'all for anyway to surrender it's a group of people nothing against those people I don't I have respect for I have no hate for them
neither y'all But I'm disappointed with some of you know like you know human I believe just like you all believe i believe you I God made me he made y'all he make you no better than me
he ain't make me no better than y'all we equal but we don't get treated equal and all these proposals every time you turn around you come in at East Stewart with different zones and East Stewart back in the
day went from Crystal the East Ocean from from the track down east down then you start changing it for a reason and
therefore to connect take over east to it push it out expand that's my opinion expand downtown all this going to be business once you get out like state it going to be nothing but business and you should know better you should have sympathy
but because you look like me that don't mean you for me and I sorry I'm sorry but I still love you but right is right wrong you know I I don't I ain't got time for that in my
life cuz I'm going to be miserable i ain't going to be miserable because you miserable i'm going do what God want me to do god my enemy do good to those who miss him or whatever i'mma do that but what is going on is surely racist and
racing i've been going to city hall with people listen to what's going on in the story i came here in 1958 9 years old this my home and yes I'm fight for it i'm going continue to fight i fight for
1999 for things that going on in this community that shouldn't have been going on but thank God we still know Let me go let me go let me go i'm real quick i just got one question because my
name's Kiana Smith as you make everybody announce your address please my address my address is 5680 Southeast in Port but um I was born in Stewart Memorial not clinic and I'm raised within the streets
of Stewart Portman in Jens Beach uh which uh kind of correlates with what was spoken earlier is being the black communities i was raised within the three of them um and I was sitting here just listening and you know I'm I'm an
advocate on the treasure coast for youth because I believe in the future i believe we have to do everything based and grounded around future our our next commissioners our next doctors our next lawyers we're not investing in them and
we can't expect a return from them and earlier the brother spoke about the community dying um we're not the community isn't dead but it's losing its stature and I think
it starts with the city as well because when I was a little boy raised up coming up in Stewart um it was all about the youth everything the city commissioner did was to 100 100% support the youth
give them give give them whatever is needed i mean one of the biggest things that went on in East Stewart at that time was the Stewart Hornets uh football program the entire community gravitated
to and it it produced great young men and women from this local community well what I think is that the city and I don't know how long you guys been there and I don't know a whole lot
about who's on the board or what cuz it to me it really doesn't matter what matters is is are we going to invest into the community the right way and I think we got away from that from that about 20 years ago
and we left kids with here in this community with the alternative to watch adults be adults at a young age and what they was left with was to try to be an adult themselves
before their time which caused in returns to tumili you can probably understand this which caused a high rate of crime because we had kids trying to be adults at a young age so they were doing adult things and that was the loss
of the investment from the city of Stewart towards the community of East Stewart with a lot of youth activities which we're still starving with right now today for the support of of the city i could personally account to that uh I
have to pay money to give a youth program for free or uh I do charge a cost it's not a co It's a cost to do business it's not a cost to to for me to make money but I still have to pay here
locally for outdoor court i can't even get an indoor court there's not one here available and I just think we along the way the ball has been dropped on investing in what's what's most important all these people that have
been here and left or still here are residents that has kids and grandkids that predominantly like was said earlier that no longer live in the community because of that because the community
didn't rehabilitate in a way so they could stay here they had to go elsewhere and I mean I hear you with the the the proposed regulating i hear a lot of stuff that's being said but my question is is
where where do we think about whatever investment that's going to be made how it's going to impact the youth uh community so the community will continue to thrive and not find itself in the situation it's in right now so my
question is what are we going to do concerning youth in the community thank you yes sir are there any questions no sir i I I I completely agree with you um it's it's I'm I'm I'm 71 years
old and sports used to be an opportunity that was pretty affordable for most people and now sports I can't believe how expensive it is for children to participate travel and and you know the most you know we we talked tonight about
capital but the most important capital is human capital and if we don't invest in our children and provide them opportunity and give them models the community is going to pay a higher price and so that money is I mean I even
I even think like this I hear a proposed project here um in the park we are spending how much what's the number how much are we 9 million 9 million 9 million but we got no funding for affordable houses is that more
important than revitalizing the park i think some asking I don't know revitalization there [Music] so the investment we're doing in the
park is baseball fields soccer fields basketball fields running fields and it can be used as well and park and things like that and that can be used by everyone we don't have the liberty to individually
choose one individual and say we're going to spend $500,000 on their house and ignore everyone else but even if we did we don't any own any land to do it and the money that we're spending came from grants and other contributions from the state that were conditioned upon us
providing outdoor recreational activities and parks for the community understood but we're we're we're even in our local community right here um there's we're our local kids is not
really uh things that are going on in the local community are not basically helping the local kids here we have entities that come in like you said earlier with the with the cost with the money with the funding to to have these
programs where our local kids here start people in the east community know this real well um but the city used to fund Steuart Horners annually did
annually to fund it because it was something that helped the community it kept the community in a in a growth state the kids were able to constantly rehabilitate uh right now we got a large lacrosse program out here where it
doesn't impact no kids from the East community any anybody that's in this local community could drive by here any day of the week take a look at what's going on the park is also predominantly used for soccer program for the the Spanish
community uh which does not impact nothing here in our local community for the local kids here that live where this proposed regulating plan is we're talking about and also years ago not exactly on the towns
but we spent a lot of money to cover basketball courts out here when I think we should have been spending some funding to build a gymnasium that would impact the youth here not only in the way that this building does but even in a greater way with that type of square
footage that would be the Boys and Girls Club was under construction at the time and we knew we'd be building an indoor gymnasium next to Steuart Middle and MLK Boulevard uh-huh which does not which is not being used again with Keith Fletcher i'll be the first to stand here and tell him that the courts
are not being used to help help impact no outside curricular activities for the kids which is used in most black African-American communities as a tool to help promote education and behavior but we have none of that here not only
not only in this local community but you know I can speak about some other ones as well but my question is we want to make sure we do the right thing with the regulating plan but if we want to know a solution to helping the
community stay the community helping the community grow well why don't we invest in the 14y old that's walking around here give them something to do put put some stuff together and maybe it's the people that's already in place maybe they they don't have a care to do that
but I'm just speaking for what I know facts that's not going on thank you sir yes sir thank you Mr smith yes sir is it true you're the last and you're the last i just want to say first of all thank all of you this
come out today now I want to thank you very very much i want you to know that you can take it back and note this date this is a historic night date it's the first
time this ever happened here in East first time in a lifetime that I can go back to Mr robert Hall time all through the whole uh NWACP was established here in 1968
there's no recordings that we ever got that city commissioners all city commissioners came to East Stewart and conduct a city meeting here in East Stewart father some of you probably the first time you ever came to this community which is good great to have
all of you here it means well to the community uh that we can come together and you can bring it to the people uh they say meet them where they at i think that was a great meeting tonight i think all of you come up with so many great
ideas y'all discussed so many great things uh I think that uh I think there's a lot of love in the room compassion i know maybe some of you might don't like the way he was approached but you know what it's all because of love this this community love
this community they fighting for it i hear about the kids yes I can stand behind that uh Jimmy and Dab and uh uh Kim are talking about the kids the Steuart Hunters uh that that's something that you commission should get together
and try to look back into this because I I I can remember that the Steuart Hunters was I played the first year of that little league football uh and of course when I was a Panther we had to we had to play the harness uh and it was
one of the greatest great thing in all these community that's from Palm City on all palm city doctors I can remember so if we can get that back we can get that back that's a long
time ago i know you saying that but uh if we can get that back and bring it back to the community what it did it gave the community something that they can come and be proud and see the kids it was always a competition for learner
farmstead Dawson Json Beach and and the Stewart Hunters and Hope sound i know Stewart beat a lot of us but let's look into that it will really help lift the community from the S commission
standpoint to say "Hey we do care we want that back for our s we want our s to be the best." And then on a Saturday night you will you'll be amazed the kind of crowd of people that comes and it's economic it's amazing amazing that what
it would do and have impact for this community and also with the things I would have to say with the way things went tonight it was a great great meeting that if you I know you don't want to keep your butt down the road and all that let them sleep on this tonight
let them digest this because now they have a better better understanding what y'all brought tonight but they need another moment to digest this put it on the agenda for a later date we put some announcements out say "Hey we're going
to come to this date we gave uh the community whatever 3 4 weeks or whatever and we're going to bring it back and put on our agenda and we're going to decide uh hold on to what we got or there are some other changes i ask you that i ask
you that from my heart don't decide tonight okay it will really help the community have a heart to say I got to feel what you are saying all of y'all are saying the same thing in so many
ways we care for this community we want the best for community it's just that everybody have a different way of saying hi is the best for doing the but let them sleep on it tonight as as me coming to you from my
point as the president please don't vote tonight and I want to just say that the last and least that my heart goes out to uh the uh where she when she
gone Miss Smith was talking about uh how long she been here and she seen the roads and seen the drugs and Miss Lucia Smith uh and she drove us all those years under my father leadership and I
look back at those roots And I look at the other roots and uh that we as a group of people and I know all of y'all working hard and trying to figure this out just ask God in your heart to hold on tonight and thank you
for what you're doing and I know you can work together okay and I know all of y'all five commissioners can work together to get something done thank you very much thank you thank you all 9:00 was a lot of public comments and
that's the whole reason we were here and I really appreciate those of you who stayed and took advantage of the opportunity to tell us your concern so we have a motion and a second do we have questions or comments by the
commissioners who who made the motion um I have comm Vice Mayor Collins made the motion commissioner second and that's to take action to adopt 2539 that's a good point let me just clarify
the narrow thing we're actually deciding is just is not making zoning changes it's not giving up on based code it's not creating more resident single family
units or it's just will the city of Stewart will city be Stewart be required to get a conditional use approval on all
uses that's that's the narrow focus of this function yeah u my my personal view is obviously speaking from the community hearing them there obviously has to be more i mean
you know it's split even up here uh you see it in the community i I personally think it should be tabled and trying to figure out where single family homes should be where businesses should be should the businesses be buy right
should it be by additional Yeah I don't have a mic unless I take that one the mics are running out of batteries yeah so I think the consensus should be trying to figure out where you want single family homes um where do you want
businesses do you want businesses by right do you want them by conditional usage that's obviously the the thought process behind it um I personally think there should be another meeting um
before we decide that's just my opinion i mean most people know what they want it's it means trying to figure out those little details in my opinion
so the way the way it is now it's it's very extreme one way it's being proposed extreme another way and I think there's a middle ground somewhere so that's all I have to say i personally don't support the motion in the way that it is uh just based off the
feedback that we heard tonight thank you indicates that not only did you learn about this but we listened and we learned and that's the whole point of this vice Mayor do you have anything
yeah so how does that work with if we table it to a fourth reading yeah you can table it to to a fourth reading that's not it's not an issue it's probably preferable like we did last time is pick a date while we're all
here still need to do item number two we don't have to do the second item i feel like the deliberation which was item number two we compassed in this discussion but if you guys want to have a separate discussion for that well I mean unless me going right there
and saying should be residential or commercial is sufficient we should probably have a second meeting where we're really in detail going through those streets and what the uses are I agree with I would
is he withdrawing his motions I'm happy I'm happy to withdraw it and we just need to have it yeah withdraw it we can't so but we need to have another one of these meetings where we
can basically have a fourth reading of item one and then two i would recommend that the commission instruct the clerk to record the ordinance as written without the
adoption of the steward segment and then you guys are going to go back and redo it as all the streets it was going to need to go back to the LPA because it's going to be so steep anyway that way everything else you adopted can be implemented we can assign a new
ordinance number and it could be just for this issue and just for East Stewart for its own ordinance its own limitations it own agree that would encompass the map a we would have to do all the at the same
time you need a motion for that i think a consensus that you guys just walk away from we just walk away okay y withdraw your motion all right vice mayor sorry just going to walk away or do we
need a motion to table you don't need a motion to table because it just didn't pass and now it's over and the other ordinance is going to get recorded and staff's going to start over with a new number and we'll do the map and the language in the same one but it'll be a separate ordinance yeah it'll be more
it'll be easier to follow can I ask you to still be quiet thank you um my question is is that you obviously need to fall somewhere in the middle now is that going to happen because we're going to talk about it only in sunshine is that going to happen at that next meeting where we're doing road street by
street or are we going to talk about Oh question was that obviously need to fall somewhere in the