we're ready to go Madam clerk correct we are I'm calling this regular meeting of the Stuart City commission for the 10th of February 2025 to order good evening to you all and thank you for all taking the for taking the time to come here and share
your concerns with us for a very lucky community so we will begin with the invocation I ask you all to please stand and it's Pastor Dino pedron from the steuart Congregational Church good evening Pastor thank you sir
good evening shall we pray Our Father we thank you for the commission tonight we thank you for this meeting we pray your blessing upon our mayor our vice mayor our commissioners our city manager our City attorney our city clerk father we
realize that you have taught us in your word that the government has been placed into position by holy decree We Believe Lord that the meeting tonight is by that method and father we ask your blessing upon each of them Lord whether they're dealing with budgets or Capital
Improvements or Appropriations or governance whatever it may be concerns of the citizen we pray Lord that you bless them in their deliberations today thank you for the government that we have here thank you for the government we have in our nation our state and we
thank you Lord for the Privileges that we have we are reminded in Scripture that we are to pray for those in Authority uh we are to supplicate we are to intercede we to give a thanks for each one of them and so tonight as we
proceed with this meeting we are reminded of the words of the ironic blessing may the Lord bless you may the Lord keep you may the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you may he lift his countenance upon you and give you peace and I ask these things
the name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ God the father and God the spirit and with respect to every religion we ask these things tonight in the name of our God Amen so please remain standing while we do the pl of Allegiance and then Mr
Daryl McGill will sing the national anthem for so I ask you to remain standing for that as well so I pledge algi to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible
withy andice for all Mr Migel you have a microphone oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we
held at the twilight's last gleaming whose broad stripes and bright stars through the peress fight all the ramp parts we watched were so
galletly streaming and the rockets red glare the bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there
oh see does that star spangled B yet W over the land of the free and the home of the
[Applause] brave as well which is hard Super Bowl thank you aella Mr May if I could ask you to back up on the agenda and do the roll call what roll call oh I'm sorry roll
call please Mary Madam clerk mayor Rich yes vice mayor Collins here commissioner Clark yes commissioner goobi yes commissioner Reed here okay sorry I got so excited about the Arts moment uh Mr baggot could you please
read the proclamation re regarding Engineers week whereas Engineers design construct and maintain the infrastructure and Facilities that contribute to a high quality of life for all residents of the M municipality the municipality growth
depends on Engineers executing Innovative creative and highquality solutions to technical problems and whereas the purpose of the Florida engineering Society is to advance the public welfare promote the professional social and econ IC interest of
engineering professions and to stimulate and develop professional Concepts among all Engineers through education and ex excellence in practice and whereas members of the Florida engineering Society in the American Council of engineering companies of Florida are
making strides to interact with the engineering education SE sector to prepare future Engineers to maintain our economic leadership and quality of life and it is important that we recognize and honor the continuing contrib
contributions of America's Engineers now therefore in recognition of an engineers's week in the city of Stewart I camel Rich mayor of the city of Stewart to hereby Proclaim February 16 through the 22nd 2025 as Engineers week
and accepting this Proclamation on for engineers week is Devin cerran project engineer Mr Curran are you here Peter Peter Peter Peter I'm sorry call Peter call Peter pull it up we got another
engineer in the back okay is you have the a real engineer thank you real engineer chief engineer see they have redundancy speech no he doesn't have to do
that ofet accept token app thank you Mr bagot the proclamation and recognition of Black History Month please whereas in 1926 historian Dr
Carter G Woodson established what would become Black History Month to bring special acknowledgement and awareness of African-American accomplishments contributions and history in the shaping of America and whereas the African-American Community has endured Decades of struggle to be recognized as
equal among our fellow citizens and has persevered through hate and bigotry to stand up for the rights and the basic rights we are all entitled to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and where the theme of the theme for 2024 focuses on African-Americans and the
Arts this theme is infused with African Caribbean and black American live experiences in the fields of Visual and Performing Arts literature fashion folklore language film music architecture culinary and other forms of
cultural expression the African-American influence has been Paramount African-American artists have been have used art to uh preserve history and Community memory as well as for empowerment in uh 2024 We examined the varied
history and life of African-American arts and Artisans and whereas the city of Stewart is proud to honor the history contributions and achievements of African-Americans and our community throughout our state and our nation now therefore in recognition of
African-Americans past and present in the city of Stewart I Campbell Rich mayor of the city of Stewart to hereby Proclaim February 2025 as Black History Month and accepting this Proclamation for Black History Month
is thma Washington the long time director of the Gert Walden child [Applause]
Center I give you this [Music] I accept this award on behalf of all of Martin County and it's it's funny because I moved to Martin County in 1983 I have worked in this in East Stewart
Community for 42 years this year 42 years I have worked in East St so naturally I've seen a lot of growth a lot of changes a lot of improvements so I am happy to have been a part I did my first 15 years as a fifth grade teacher
at JD Parker and then at ger wal and Childcare Center also I'm being recognized by Aces on Saturday at the um black Heritage Festival so those of you that want to hear the ABCs of the first black history in Martin County I would
invite you to come out because I'm not going to do it today but what I am going to do on Saturday also is to mention those names that help mole and model me into the person that I am today and it's funny that quite a few of them I see
today I have um the Mardy daughter who's Gloria mcarty and I work together at JD Parker Alex Edwards I work with at the city of Stewart Robert and Sandra Newman their kids were in my class at fifth grade and Robert played the trumpet when
I was teacher of the year at Parker so just the Leed family so so many that and I have their names as a part of my ABCs to who I am on Saturday so it's nice to see them today the rosers their daughter
was in my class in fifth grade so and it's great because a lot of those students have moved away they are grown and come back I had two that were in my class in fifth grade I've now had their grandchildren at ger Walden and I'm
still young so thank you very much and thank you Martin C thank you much thank you City Commissioner and now we have two Service Awards this evening uh the first is for five years of service in fire rescue
Lamont dub Lamont are you here there he is [Applause] Leon to the left to the right
sir really who just remember I do remember I'm just gonna stand down here and do this one he is here boli 30 big ones it doesn't even look 30 you don't
even look 30 want to say a few words for your 30 speech speech uh just wanted to say thank you this evening the city of Stewart has been like a family to me I fished on the Roosevelt bridge when I grew up in belg
Glade my family has been out there with a big sugar for uh my family's been out in the Glade since before city of Stewart was incorporated and we used to fish over here and visit all the time and then I remember coming and interviewing I got a speeding ticket from a city of Stuart
police officer my first day of work he followed me to City Hall to verify I was actually an employee here so then he turned it into a warning so uh that's great and my first week of work the uh I couldn't keep my pencils on the desk because they were blasting for the Roosevelt bridge and the dynamite was
like shaking City Hall and I said man this is going to ruin the foundation they go don't worry we're going to get a new city Hall I'm I'm I'm now sitting over at Wells Fargo so it finally finally happened and um a lot of the people in the room I mean when I came to
work here as a uh intern when I was 16 and no that's not true but uh Milton had already had 20 years of service here yes that's true that's true yes Milton had already been here 20 years when I got here no uh so I've grown up with a lot of these people seen a lot of uh
individuals move from boards to becoming Commissioners to other roles in the city and a lot of citizens have come and pasted over the years with me and uh I really felt like a family and enjoy keeping Stuart you know I care about it a lot doesn't matter who I speak to I get very defensive about Stuart you know
people like what did big cities do I'm like what does Stuart do you know so but anyway thank you very much for uh loving me for 30 years and I I hope that we continue to love each other just as well thank you thank [Applause] you
um so we have a presentation this evening and I appreciate the effort made by DR R Singh who is the vice president C chief medical officer of the Cleveland Clinic and he's responding to the great
concern that so many of us have regarding the quality of service and the scope of service that our local hospital is able to provide and it is I recognize is a difficult situation not not just in Stewart but around the country so I
appreciate you taking the time and providing the information to the community Dr s yeah thank you thank you for all the Commissioners for allowing me to give this talk and for the community coming here tonight to listen to this discussion so I am Rishi Singh I am a physician I am the first physician
leader in the Martin Health System uh prior to this it was predecessors of mine were attorneys and various other attributes and doctors have different roles to play in Hospital systems and I'll explain why that's important in just a moment I represent not only myself today but the 5,000 employees
that Cleveland clinic now employs we are the largest employer of Martin County we are your friends your neighbors your colleagues the people who live on your street the people at your soccer games your football games everything around you is is people that work for our
hospital this time six years ago Cleveland Clinic came in uh with an agreement with Martin County Martin Hospital System to run the hospital the commitment was the following it was to expand the services that were offered to increase the amount of care that was being delivered there to touch much more
lives than we uh were were doing in the past many of the patients were going one to two counties away for care uh despite the fact that you know we have uh have had challenges in the market and I'll explain what six years ago is like we've
committed and completed all of those accomplishments six years ago was a different time January 2019 go back for a moment and think about that time for a moment Co pandemic didn't exist prices were at normal
ranges inflationary concerns weren't even known the interest rate was 3% very very different economic Times than where we are at now and different in health care too from we are now uh Hospital systems were at least
non-profitable at at the level of of equal profitability Martin actually was a system that for years had just had a balanced budget never had much in cash reserves never had the ability to really have a large uh days of cash on hand for
future future opportunities the co pandemic hit this hospital was taken over at clevand Clinic we spent three years caring for people in this community many of our patients died in our arms in this hospital system fathers next day was the
mother next day was the child all suffering from the same illness by the way during that three years of time frame if somebody passed away in our hospital we never provided a bill to that patient for services not rendered so because their insurance company didn't pick up their bill for the
hospitalization we didn't go after them we assumed it was a commitment to the community for the past three years we've actually spent the time rebuilding the hospital from where you needed to be because we had an exodus of Physicians nurses a lot of providers not out of our own doing because they were not
necessarily willing to come along with us on the healthcare Journey we needed to take which is to drive the level of accountability increase the number of patients we seeing and invest in our community improving their healthare for the past three years we've actually doubled the number of doctors here we've
tripled the number of advanced practice providers this year we touched 1 million patient lives which is 200,000 patients over where we started six years ago we've already committed $380 million to the hospital system which Martin health
system could never afford the first year I was here we lost $100 million think about that for just a month the hospital would have closed if it wasn't for the Cleveland Clinic thankfully through a lot of different efforts and time and work
we've not only been able to improve the health care services we've been able to offer here but broaden it and finance the budget through the process this last year we lost $50 million some might say to me that that should give me a gold star in some ways but that doesn't give me a gold star because the Cleveland Clinic still
picked up a bill for 50 $50 million in this hospital system and without the Cleveland Clinic this Hospital would have definite closed since our time here we've expanded 13 healthc care services we've added services like or oncology Cardiology Services which have expanded
neurology neurosurgery coloral surgery and even my own specialty Opthalmology those are vitally needed services in the community that was so well underserved that many of our patients are going away for care the addition to that Primary Care was a
big problem we first came here we had patients waiting up to a year for a primary care appointment this past year we hired 12 primary care doctors all within Martin County that would have never been possible on the prior hospital system they could not attract
as many doctors as they needed to attract here the healthc care shortages across the country are being felt here in Martin County especially because people don't know about Martin County necessarily maybe that's intended but maybe it's not because we have to Serv as a community we added 8,000
appointments as a result of recruiting those doctors and now our Primary Care weit time is less than 30 days so we've definitely allowed for Access of care in our areas and we've excelled in a variety of different areas and I've given you a handout which goes over all of these things and the community can
also read this handout as well I've given it to the Commissioners it's a there's a handout outside the room we can certainly distribute them to anyone here but let me speak about some various topics that have had hit us and I I would say to you that these are the ones that are most concerning to me the first is at the hospitals has become the
doormat for the community in many ways and I'm going to speak with that very Frankly Speaking it is very startling to me being from Ohio I was there for 16 years and when I came here three years ago brigh eyed bushy tailed and happy to work here I was encountered with a
community that said to me don't wear your badge to the grocery store why why is that because I'm Ohio I'm used to wearing my jacket my label my brand recognition as well known we're we're known for our integrity and healthare our ability to deliver Health
Care in a proper manner to patients to not do procedures on them just because they come to our office and say I need a procedure done that was what we were known for and the reality is that the the CR the public has become very critical us for very good reason for very good reasons many times on patient
experience on our nursing care which was disastrous when we first took over the hospital because we had a lot of people leave when I first got here we had 1300 TR we had 1300 nurses of which 300 were Travelers not in our community not our teammates one out
every four nurse here was actually a traveling nurse that's not a great kind of uh teamwork style or kind of culture creating there if that happens we're now down less than 20 traveling nurses out of a Workforce of almost, 1400 nurses
again because we invested in our nursing schools because we have the Cleveland Clinic brand behind us because we have a lot of ability to work with nursing programs across the country we were able to get those people to work with us there's been a lot of criticism in the community about various issues that
have happened in the hospital issues with medical care I would say to you again that's where we had to work through those those problems those issues so I'm not here to tell you that we're perfect in any way I would just say to you that when people come to say bad things about the hospital remember
that that's your neighbor you're talking about sometimes or your friend down the street and think about that for a moment because the public forum on Facebook and everything else it's an easy place to throw a volley at somebody it's hard when you receive it on the other end and our 5,000 employees again receive those
volleys every day some of the changes we've had to make in the hospital have been different by our finances some of them have not let me speak about one that has been particularly uh striking in the community OB so when I came down here 3
years ago North Hospital was birthing 60 babies a month an average birthing in the United States births around 400 births per month to do it proficiently you have to birth about 400 I looked at this program and as my my colleagues did and said we want to
invest in this program we want to grow it what can we do to increase the number of births in this facility by the way many of our constituents who talk about us were already going to birth in Jupiter Medical Center and in St Lucy Medical Center with no regards of their
birth certificates not existing from Martin County at that time we decided at that time we were going to invest in birthing and despite the headwinds and all of that we decided to do so let me speak about those headin for just a quick moment there was a total lack of
oby doctors in the United States there's a pipeline issue not people are going to obig why it's become a very leous area of healthcare secondarily the Florida state laws for abortion make it incredibly hos
inhospitable for oby doctors to come here and practice what they are doing the third is that we have Medicaid patients that are in our community where they're receiving about 30 cents on the dollar for every birth that a normal birth would cost us so we lose money on
every birth that would be coming from Medicaid populations by the way Medicaid hasn't been adjusted for 18 years up until last year when it was finally adjusted by Senator G harell so those headwinds alone were lots of reasons why we had a trouble keeping our Birthing Center open
despite that we actually increased it to 100 bursts per month miraculous we went out and advertised we talked to people we worked for people like Martin County Healthy Start that helped us get out the word we were doing this birthing in the community and we did our best to keep
that open we had 11 openings for obig doctors we had six doctors for 11 openings we increased salaries up to 50% more than we had offered in the past for obig doctors we simply couldn't attract those doctors here so we had to make a decision and we
could have made a decision strictly based on finances and say close everything if we were an HCA or tenant we would have closed this thing and said you know what it loses money six days to Sunday why should we keep it open in the first place instead we decided to cohort care and tradition hospital where it
already had a very well-healed birthing area which could be enlarged to accommodate more births than it could to get a level three nicku and then to go back and to populate Martin County with what it needed which was Gynecology Gynecology Urology Gynecology
Oncology Mig surgery which is minimally invasive surgery for women all of those things that people were going elsewhere for so we've made our commitment to do what we need to do you might look at it like the finances we look at it like Staffing we could not staff this
appropriately and in fact even despite all that we're still have people working with Martin County Healthy Start if they would like to set up a freestanding birthing unit where willing to help and in fact three of our physicians and our aprns are serving on their committees to
help them do such a thing for that and by the way the county has never provided a dollar to US nor do we ask for dollars right now and the city has never provided dollars to US either in direct form a direct payment for these patients so that's the story with the birth with
the obset and Gynecology let me Focus again on something else you may have heard of which is our South hospital we are a success story in hospital medicine we are able to take care of more hospital patients than ever before why because we have amazing teams
of hospitalists that can immediately provide your history and physical your treatment plan within six hours of your arrival to our emergency rooms prior to me coming in that was 24 hours so you'd be sitting in a hospital bed for maybe a day and a doctor wouldn't have written
your treatment plan and therefore nothing was being done for you we changed that we made it six hourss now all that's happening we activated our hospital care at home program it's seen over a thousand patients already at hospital care at home it's the first a in the Cleveland Clinic system you can
now receive Hospital level Care at home with a nurse on call paramedics coming visiting you and they stay in those hospital care at home situations for 3 to 4 days and are discharged safely without any problems we're avoiding 3,000 brick and mortar days as a result
of hospital care at home so what did we decide to do well we our our South Hospital has excess bed capacity we're on a census around 50 to 55 every day sometimes in the season it gets higher but we have ways of Escape bows for that
it has 100 beds in the hospital so rather than shutting those 50 beds down what we're going to do is we're going to retool them we're going to work with Partners in the community to develop inpatient hospice inpatient uh skill F nursing and rehab
and actually inpatient Jerry psych those are the three areas we're looking at right now so just imagine yourself like I am right now with an 84 year old father and a 70y old mother and they have a Jerry sight condition the closest place to go to would be either West Palm
Beach or ver that makes it very difficult for you to care for your parents that's the type of facility we're trying to invest in here locally to occur how about impatient hospice impatient hospice doesn't ex right now in Martin County all those things we're going to
be adding by retooling our hospital every year we spend with our Community Partners and take time and effort and determine what services the hospital would offer if tomorrow the birthing rates went up in Martin County to exponential levels we'd be happy to
bring back birthing to North Hospital we're not changing what's happening North Hospital right now the building is not being torn down we're not destroying anything it could be immediately put up but we simply do not have the providers nor do we not have the birth rates in this County to support it let me finish
by talking a little bit about the community because the community has been very sour on us for a lot of reasons and I'll I'll be honest with you again this is where I think there's a real disconnect I understand that there have been stories and certainly care issues and treatment delays and things like that those happen in me in medical
systems and we're very attuned to those we respond to all of our on budsman complaints within 24 hours when a patient complains about us or has an issue I personally make make my cell phone available to almost anyone who can get it I'd put it on a billboard in Martin County if I could but the issue
is that we also provide a huge amount of charitable care to this community last year alone we provided $250 million of charitable care to this community you might ask why Martin County is this affluent area I've been told full of people that can afford
healthare the opposite is true and the opposite is true because the places like Indiantown because of Medicaid redetermination by the state where patients have lost their Health and Care insurance by the population of patients who are undocumented in this County who
are still taking care of our our Gardens our areas outside of our facilities they still have jobs here they're still working but we had to provide charitable care to all because we don't distinguish between whether you're a Martin County resident whether you're from Indiantown whether you're from okobe whether you're
from St Lucy our care goes beyond on these county lines and that's really been a commitment we've delivered to the community last year we worked with many Community Partners to uh expand deliver care to them 35 Community Partners delivered over
$200,000 in charity care in charitable dollars to them that's again on top of the $50 million we did lose last year we didn't stop that commitment based upon that and yet we're still are here today talking about how much this this Hospital means to this
community so I would offer you the following I'm happy to listen to comments and discussion I would say to you that we all live amongst you and I would offer the fact that if I was in anyone's shoes here I would take the
words that you're saying and think about them as your family members and your community members who are affected by them because I can tell you I'm incredibly proud to be here I've been here for three years I'll be here for many more and I wear my badge proudly at
the grocery store now as I always have and I will continue to advocate for the hospital and advocate for the 5,000 employees that I represent and the 10,000 employees that we represent in the Florida region who take care of patients in this area so happy to take questions and
comments thank you Dr s do any of the Commissioners have questions or comments for Dr s yes I do have sure yes that thank you for coming today I think you certainly Enlighten the community on many things I want to thank you for that you and the hospital did during Co and
all of those new programs for as you said your father your mother elder care all of those things are important commissioner your microphone oh I'm sorry I'm sorry it's not that they're not important thank you um the issue currently is the birthing
center I mean is the the maternity ability yeah for the hospital those individuals who are mothers who are about to give birth yeah theirs is not a long-term it's not hospit it's not there is an immediate need okay and that immediate need is now going to be
serviced some 35 to 40 minutes away and you have to hope that when you're ready to give birth especially if it's your second or third child that you are not doing it during season or during commuting hours because you will never make it to the hospital that's number
one number two I know you didn't make this decision it's made it's a bean counter in Cleveland Ohio who makes these decisions for everyone and the thing I think I resent the most is that yes you bought in you bought over the tradition uh system in Port St Lucy St
Lucy County but we are two separate count two separate counties so those needs are now moved over to St Lucy and I understand they have a great growth rate greater than ours but in a sense you are relegating us to almost rural
status right there will be no families who are planning to have children or second or third children or young people are planning to make their life here and eventually have children they're not going to come here so not only are mothers fathers grandparents all Insight
the people who should be also upset are the investors the people invested in property here in Stuart for it to become the city it is right because now what you've done is basically we can still be voted the best coastal town in America where families and soon to be families
will be leaving it will only tourists need apply and so that is an important issue and I understand there have been many um mentions I believe there was a report that was put out by Cleveland Clinic about how much you were able how many people in Specialties especially
obstetrics was one of them where you've expanded Services right so could it possibly be that they all have to reside in Tradition could we not have a smaller birthing center here so that we have at least two NICU available a smaller birthing center since we cannot even
compare to Port St Lucy let me let me cl those are very fantastic comments let me clarify a few things the bean counters were not involved this was done locally in the Florida region by doctors by nurses by providers by everyone involved we this was not an easy decision to make
I mentioned to you before that we could not recruit Obstetrics and Gynecology providers to this community we tried our best for three years to recruit 11 doctors we ended up with six it's it it's not a it's not a game of of
of money it's about buying getting providers so if the if we can be successful as a community attracting those doctors here with all the headwinds in the State of Florida with all the headwinds nationally in regards to insufficient number of Physicians
coming to the State of Florida for Obstetrics and Gynecology then we can change what we're doing and CH certainly do that and again if we have proficient number of births we do that but by by the way commissioner I have to say again going back a little bit no one bats an eyelash
when they go to Jupiter Medical Center to deliver their baby and they have a Palm Beach uh birth certificate yet they have problems all of a sudden when the hospital changes what they do and they're going to St
Lucy and they're going elsewhere I I can tell you we spent three years doing this and we tried to increase the number of s went from 60 to 100 that's a quarter of what National Services normal services do so your your answer as far as I'm
concerned absolutely we are evaluating Year bye and we'll change and and retool that a secondary thing to add to that is if a mother is in need in this County we have made sure our emergency rooms can service their care because we know that the first place they're going to go is
to an emergency room so we have two emergency rooms in this County in Urgent Care as well all three are well tooled to take care of a mother in desperate need of delivery and to figure out what the next step is whether it's delivery in our EDS or whether it's transfer that
patient to a facility we will make that sure that happens but I understand the challenges here but I think the challenges just to be clear are made here the decisions made are really made here locally and within the region of Florida not at the Bean Counter level in clayon Ohio well you might have been
better to let me believe that it was in Ohio and not local trust I just want to be honest with you because I think it's it's transparent you know if again if if we cannot S stand up a service I it's very hard for us to recruit Physicians there are many services we have very
difficult trouble attracting Physicians with a great example was primary care when we first got here Primary Care is not a specialty a lot of people go into it's a very low paying specialty I can tell you that as the spouse of a primary care physician who works hours hours
past her bedtime to basically make sure all her charts are answered for patients so it's a thankless specialty but yet we still are able to recruit those doctors here for many many different reasons and part of it is the culture we're creating in the hospital system and I understand what you're saying that you would
increase or reactivate the birth unit that will never happen if we don't have one I'm not asking you to reopen the whole unit maybe you can only staff it with two doctors but at least there should be a dedicated bed not an emergency room bed there should be some
sort of dedicated section where it would be for birthing it would be an at least one nicku in case there is a child in need right okay so I just feel that you've done some great things and I know you came into a situation where you had to make a lot of
changes since the beginning of time in the Bible births are going to continue to take place and they'll take place into the future unfortunately if you close a birthing center here they're not not going to take place in our community uh commissioner Reed yeah I
just I wanted to say I beg to defer um I was actually born at Martin Memorial and I might be the only one sitting up here with a Martin County birth certificate um to me it's a shame if I do decide to have children they won't have that same opportunity to have that
Martin County birth certificate um I'm also an educator for the Next Generation I'm a small business owner with my family for preschool um we service about 16 infants in this County alone right off East Ocean it's right across from your
hospital um my questions for you would be how would you handle an emergency birth if you had to if Transportation was not the option if someone came into your hospital right so we we have uh we have all of our Ed
teams well equipped to handle births if they do occur uh that's something we can do you don't need an obstetrician at the time of an urgent birth to take care of a baby nor do you need um you know if there's a pediatric emergency at that time the Ed doctors are well trained
we've actually gone through all that training with them we've activated intubation carts intubation uh pediatric carts that have lines in them so we can place lines they've actually gone through simulation training up in St Lucy which we have a St a Simulation Center up in Tiffany so we have the
ability to take care of those patients urgently when they come into our facility right off the bat with regards to transportation we own our own trucks we own our own ambulance services we can run patients to our facilities or to other facilities uh we have trucks that wait in our facilities for Urgent Care
situations just as the one you described I don't have any doubt we're going to be able to take care of those patients if need be my next question was um you had mentioned two things you talked about the birth rate being too low yeah and that was one reason so is it a two-part reason cuz you were looking for more
Specialists cuz you only had six no so we were looking for 11 Obstetricians we had six Obstetricians so you would need 11 toal and and does the birth rate still have to go up no that was just to staff it at the low
level we had it at to to to Really sufficiently staff the hospital because if you imagine a doctor Works 12 hours on call 12 hours off call so we needed 11 to fill a month shift we only had six
doctors so what happened to the rest of it well some people were having to double shift sometimes triple shifts it's a horrible quality of life for those Physicians and they they're they're liable to make mistakes at that time because they're going to be exhausted so we really think that that
that was that was the major reason that was the Genesis of the beginning it wasn't the financials it was really around the fact that we were facing huge staffing issues with with the hospital we initially faced staffing issues with nursing which I mentioned you before we
were able to rightsize then with midwif Midwifery programs and also with Physicians the Midwifery program actually was was fine it finally was the Physicians that really broke the the straw on that camel's back and when you mentioned the the quarter million dollars that you guys give away was that
like services that you provided that you never build for or corre 250 M $250 million not quarter million yeah it's it's 200 50 million that was Prov 250 million so the2 a quar of a billion dollar and that was that was services that you gave services that we provided
the community that they could not afford or pay for that ended up in charitable care because uh either they they could not uh afford it due to their poverty level or otherwise they just could not make make it happen many of our our charitable care policy is two and a half
times uh the the poverty rate which is quite generous some up to three times the poverty rate in some services areas and still we had a lot of people that could not afford those those that Healthcare they didn't have insurance to even Bill and with the six doctors that you had mentioned you needed 11 for a a
month basically to staff it it wasn't possible to staff it every other week so you could have some BS at all so we should so just playing this up Sean I don't know if you're a father but tell you not yet tell your wife to hold on to the baby for the next week cuz the
doctor's on call I was just curious like no no I mean I mean in the kindest way possible I just don't think it's possible to staff at other week it would be doing I think the community a further disservice to say that every other week we would have it available to people all right but I understand the
concern uh commissioner Clark oh go ahead I'm sorry um thank you Dr Singh thank you for coming out and I must say Dr sing I want to thank you for the community workshops and different things that you've had that I've attended and I
really appreciate your efforts to reach out and I'm glad GL that you explained some of the things about Staffing and the idea of um some type of uh people either malign in the hospital or whatever is happening it's in our community and we want to make sure that
it's the best facility and ser giving the best service as possible I have two questions I'm going to just ask both of them they're probably unrelated but then you can wrap your head around them and figure it out so I with regard to um
Health the start and the work that they do um trying to encourage mothers to have a safe delivery for their babies and to have a safe prenatal um uh work in the community and to make sure that
that help is there um my question is to ask you how realistic or viable it is to work with um Healthy Start to see how we can get something like I think commissioner was saying having some type of a dedicated uh facility or or
something so that we know that there there'd be something here um how realistic that is and then the other one is not related to Maternity at all but to care is uh what is the status of providing care to undocumented persons
now at the hospital yeah okay so two great questions so uh regarding the first question uh we've been very much supportive of Martin County health chart we founded their Doula program their mom mobile for patients to be screened in the community we provided both in kind
services and dollars to that that the the organization uh is regards to their ability to stand up a freestanding birthing unit which is part of state of law in Florida absolutely it's possible it does require again the ability to recruit those providers finding the
providers I think will be the biggest challenge we have three of our people uh one uh Midwife as well as two Physicians who are on their current task force so we have committed individuals we didn't turn our backs and say we're not you know know participating they are participating in those discussions we
actually had discussions even prior to this about them coming in and taking over parts of our facility that we're birthing at the time but the time they were not ready for that and I understand why because it is a very large Financial commitment for anyone to undertake this as I talked to you about before it's not just the fact that you have to find the
providers you have to underwrite these situations and insurance companies as I mentioned to you before Medicaid in particular pays 30 to 40 cents on the dollar for for most of the things that are done in the community that hasn't changed in a long long time now just up until last year hadn't changed for 18
years and it's still way below the level it is it's sufficiency so I think you know all of those are possible and challenges but they can be overcome with the right mixture of various support structures we're willing to help and to continue to help them over time in
regards to undocumented individuals we care for undocumented individuals with regards to the amtala laws which are important for all of us to follow the amtala laws for those who aren't aware if patients come in medical need to our Ed facilities or urgent care facilities we do take care of them we have to take
care of them it's our law it's our it's our um it's a law to take care of those people who have undocumented status in regards to that um in regards to undocumented status in our ambulatory sites and and elsewhere they are provided charitable Care at times and it
again depends on their qualification uh but they are still provided uh charitable care and that being evaluated as the government's evaluating it it's sort of the government's rule not our rule at this point but they're still allowed to receive uh charitable care under some of those activities thank
you uh Mr vice mayor so doctor thank you for being here yep I uh I appreciate that you're here to take potentially slings and arrows yep um in the same way that you are here representing Cleveland
at large I feel responsible to to communicate to you directly face to face the frustration that I am hearing and I feel from our residents M sometimes what makes sense on
paper doesn't translate into what is best for the community would you agree sometimes we can lose track on spreadsheets it often happens in here with development and other things this is a fundamental function of a hospital
even though you have multiple hospitals within your system this is the hospital for this community people have been born in that hospital like commissioner Reid mentioned that's what I've heard a lot
of Boomers a lot of folks that are a lot older than me telling me that they were born in that hospital and what a shame it would be and even before that when it was off a coconut by Hospital Pond m in that white building that's still over
there people were born in that hospital moms don't want to give birth in an ER would you next to somebody overdosing or somebody with some kind of Staff or bacterial infection that's come in some
diabetic infection while you're trying to have a baby do you do you understand what I'm saying I have serious concerns that as population increases I've heard ominously from my
city manager that Port St Lucy intends on dumping another 500,000 or so people over the next 50 years be about 400,000 over next 30 close enough Newfield will have 12,000 people there on
Citrus thanks to Stacy heatherington and Company I'm very worried that this community will not be able to get to that hospital safely and that it will endanger mothers and their babies uh specifically around home
births or situations where there's issues that weren't accounted for which there always can be you're a private business you're company's a private business I'm a chiropractor just next to where you guys
are I appreciate this is not a public Enterprise but you are a hospital that serves this community and you spoke about the perception of your hospital in
this small town right and one of the worst ways to damage the perception of your hospital with relatively new ownership and management would be to do something like like this in this community it's not a good
look and not to beat you up I again appreciate that you're here man it's I respect you a lot for coming in here and I hope you'll stay and I hope you'll listen to some of the comments from midwives and doulas and people that their livelihoods involved in this and
they're the ones like you have um you might be administrative now but at some I'm clinical fantastic but they're putting their hands on mothers and babies every day so I hope you'll stick ground for those comments but if there is a way to do this at a
small scale I I've heard your comments that you can't find staff anything that you could possibly do I would just face to face encourage you and ask you to find a way to not close that Maternity at our community hospital so
thank you yeah thank you so uh vice mayor I just would probably add to your comments as far as uh decision making um physician leaders do things that drive accountants crazy
because we do it for the good of patients exactly let let me give you a quick just example of where the decision making comes into play I have Obstetricians but they're also gynecologists because we could not um
staff obstetrics we we also turned away a lot of patients who had gynecological needs this county is almost 10 years older than St Lucy County your mother or my mother might come home one day with abnormal vaginal
bleeding and need to see a gynecologist only realizing that there are not enough gynecologists in this community to service her that's what we're doing when we are basically deciding between Obstetrics and Gynecology because simply we don't have enough providers now in a different
if we had enough providers then we have enough people to service all the community but we're trying to do the best to Service as many communities as we can with the limited Staffing that is available and I know that doesn't not sound palatable at times but basically
at the same time while we are Staffing our obstetrics we're getting we're we're really ignoring our gynecological patients and last year alone we had 200 patients or so that didn't have gynecological surgeries at Martin Hospital where did those women go
we don't have any idea where they went to we hope they got care someplace I hope they got care someplace I'm a practitioner I provide care in my hospital to patients U simply I hope that they get someplace they need to be those are the difficult decisions are
being made this day in healthcare and you as as a practitioner knows better than anyone the difficulties with insurance with denials with prior authorizations with all those sort of things that really are affecting us and we're not immune from that and I believe you can figure it out yeah thank you I
appreciate the vote of confidence we will do our best to figure out things and we've actually done better at most of these things that most have we thankfully are a large organization that now spans almost 25 hospitals across the us so we will fig definitely figure it out in some way so thank you thank you
Dr s y thank you Dr Sing just let me um as I mention in my introductory remarks for you is this is a crisis that exist this across the United States and we uh you
know it is not just Cleveland Clinic in in Martin County um I know the mayor of Sebastian and they completely lost their medical system a while with the collapse of the steward Health Care System it also left the state of Western
Massachusetts one of the wealthiest states in the United States completely without Health Care no service at all as they had a private Equity to Backle with that system and I know they are working desperately to try to get doctors and nurses back in those
hospitals so to ask you to solve these problems that the entire ul's Health US Health Care system has created in addition to Insurance in addition to legislation
especially with regard to OBGYN it's a little bit unfair and I do think you are making your best effort now if the city of Stewart wants to solve this problem and provide this
resource and the irony of this statement is not lost on me we need to work with the county we simply this city simply does not have the financial resources to cover the costs the very real and substantial cost that would be
incurred uh I see Miss saich is in the audience I hope that she's spoken with all the Commissioners the at this point I think that's most practical Way Forward uh and she does have the cooperation of Dr
Singh and that Health Care system and we need to you know if we want to and I don't know it's very difficult when government gets into the business the private business of healthcare then we're going to need to
work with the county and come up with Solutions so yeah and I would I would ask offer if people have solutions to this issue we're really willing to hear them we we one of the the hardest things about my my job is to say that we are not the smartest people in the room that
there are other people that can help us be smarter at this we're willing to help have people come and give suggestions as you are right now as others have in the past but we're willing to listen to listen to those any suggestion we can get to change things in what we're doing
thank you Dr s yeah thank you thank you Mr Mayor I do have a few public comments on this presentation that's up to you that's kind of unusual but sure let's go ahead Samantha saich oh there we
go I might open up little forever good evening Miss saich good evening I'm sorry commissioner Collins you're the only one that I did not get to beforehand I'm working on getting you scheduled um so I am Samantha saich CEO of Martin County
Healthy Start Coalition I'm also a resident of the city of Stewart and a mother of three lovely children um who two of which were born in Martin County so I this is a very it's not a great situation and I highly respect you Dr
Singh I applaud you for coming out here and talking about the is the the situation um but until this point our County has had a hospital where expectant mothers could safely deliver their babies close to home and as you heard earlier they will no long this
will no longer be the case the closure closure of this unit means that every pregnant woman in Mark County will not have to travel the county to the county north or south and that's going to be could be if you're on the Eastern side of the county anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour considering
traffic this is not just an inconvenience it is also a direct threat to our maternal and infant health studies have shown that an increased in travel distances lead to higher rates of maternal complications pre-term births and ncu Emissions the financial burden
will be severe for those families and our community as well for many women especially those with high-risk pregnancies limited Transportation or economic hardships this change could mean the difference between life or death for them Martin County is now on the verge of becoming a maternity care
desert just like okobi County and as our birth numbers continue to grow so last year we had a record-breaking 1,353 births this lack of access will only become more dangerous we haven't seen a maternal maternal death since 2006 and
I'm fearful that this closure could result in that most immediately yes Healthy Start is uh educating our clients on the Urgent warning signs that during pregnancy and postpartum period that will indicate that they should seek out their closest emergency department
we need to ensure families in our community have safe accessible options for child birth I urge the commission and I applaud you for your leadership in doing this today um to address this crisis whether by supporting alternative maternity care options like a community
based birth center working with State and Healthcare leaders or advocating for Immediate Solutions to fill this dangerous Gap our families deserve better our infants deserve better and the decisions that you make today will impact Our Generations to come so thank thank you thank you are there any
questions M have have you been speaking with the county yes I have yeah so any questions no and she's also spoken to the state yes all right next I have Randy thank you Randy
Pennington hello I'm Randy Penning and I have the privilege of being the president of Martin County Healthy Start um the closing of this uh birthing center in Stuart's concerning due to the added stress on the infrastructure uh when expected mothers have to be
transported via ambulance to the tradition hospital we talked about 45 minutes an hour round trip um it'll I I think it'll put uh some stress on the city or county ambulance uh when we we think about they won't be able to
address local needs uh just something to think about and it has a I think it has a significant effect on this population I'm trying to think like my parents are aged I wouldn't want to uh have an ambulance not be able to get them to the
hospital so just something to think about wanted to bring that to your attention thank you thank you sir thank you madam clerk anyone else yes I have a Mr or Mrs Beck King it's a m
hi I'm toind Beck King and I'm a nurse home visitor for nurse Family Partnership part of Martin County Healthy Start and I'm also a mother to three young adult children two of which reside right here in Martin County and I hope to be a grandma someday before I'm
80 and um I'm I'm really here because I work with moms and babies right here and um of course we're concerned about them being able to have the safe access that they need for delivering healthy
babies and um in my work and working with families for a long time I know actually something I think we don't think about is as a mom is concerned that she might need to get to the hospital even earlier than needed I know as a health care worker when someone goes to the hospital too early medical
staff like to um have unnecessary medical interventions cuz hey well you're here you already drove 40 minutes to get to tradition you think you're in labor let's start some medical interventions to get labor going and that's just one example of the
complication if we have moms right here that are trying to get there even earlier so I just um wanted to address the fact that there this really is a concern to not have especially in such a prosperous County as Martin County is we
know that in the State of Florida so it's appalling to think that you can't give birth here so I beg you to consider what are other options thank you thank you I have Rosie Shepard evening Miss Shephard good
evening um thank you so much thank you so much Dr Singh um my name is Rosie Shepard I am a director on the board for Martin County Healthy Start um when we look at our community and we look at that atrisk population here in Stewart
it sits in East Stewart right near the hospital the you know what Martin County Healthy Start is doing is phenomenal um I do hope to see continued support um and I do love that you guys are are
behind us too thank you so much thank you Jill Taylor hello all good evening thank you so much Commissioners for having us here today and allowing us the opportunity to speak to you um I am an employee with Martin County Healthy Start so it's very
exciting to have all of us here to be able to speak to you I think we're preaching to the choir it's very obvious that you all feel the same way that we do and that our mothers who birth babies have a right to deliver in a safe space where they feel welcome and they feel heard and although I'm a Martin County
Health startart employee I'm also a woman of childbearing age and one of my closest friends had a baby at North and I was there pretty much her entire stay and it was the most one of the most incred incredible experiences that I've seen and so for myself to say wow I wish
I could have that and now there's a potential and a likelihood that I would not be able to have that um it feels like the rug being ripped from underneath me and as part of someone who works for Healthy Start and has been there for the last four years and works with uh many of the families they are your children they're your neighbors um
there may be nothing special about them except for the fact that they are going to help to keep Steward alive to keep Martin County alive and you know as the population here ages we have something that's called um you know a population curve and so as the population ages
someone has to fill that Gap and so if we're not able to fill that Gap with children who can live here go to school here work here the entire infrastructure starts to sort of crumble and so I'm so grateful that you are supportive of our decision to come up with a resolution um that's something that Healthy Start is
very proud of is that when we see a problem that supports or that impacts our families we are solution driven and so just very grateful that you are all are on board with us and we look forward to working together to see how we're going to solve this problem so thank you so much thank you you I have Katie draw
I can't read this I'm sorry begins with a d okay ahead met my name is Katie Douglas I'm going to give you a quick background my husband and I moved here 29 years ago to work at the women's center of Martin County worked there it was an
independent birth center and it went well and I can see the future of another birth center that Healthy Start is working hard to put together um in those 29 years I have delivered 3,000 babies in this community I have worked at all four hospitals with Martin being the one
in my heart it has always been the one in my heart and I can only speak from my heart today I don't have a lot of numbers you guys presented some very very significant information I thank you I thank you for your support um a couple
of things that I do want to bring up the diversion that Dr Singh spoke about was there wasn't a diversion the number of babies that were born at Martin 60 a month was a diversion to St Lucy Medical Center because there were problems in
this community one with Physicians I'll agree with that wanting to be somewhere else those problems have been resolved Cleveland Clinic built a pretty strong OB situation they have doctors they have
nurses those nurses are dedicated they have whatever things came out a few years back have improved they provide safe good services I don't know how many nurses or doctors are in the room but when you get a ob patient in the ER the
first thing they do we're bringing her up they don't want them you might say they're trained they're scared of them they don't want them they don't want them that is not a solution um the other thing I want to bring up is that Dr Sing
is basing his numbers on a ob Department that does 3,000 to 4,000 deliveries a year Martin we heard it300 this past year Port St Lucy they have some issues right now I don't know what their numbers were
they're down tradition 1500 Lawnwood is where I work now out of the county I'm sorry but Lawnwood 1500 Longwood and tradition are considered busy hospitals we are grow we
are in a growing Community but we are still a small community that needs a small community Obie service not to Jupiter not to tradition here in our County for our mothers to have safe care for our babies to be born my husband and
I were over here at kuas Park last weekend with our grandchildren and he said you know look around here these are the last of the Martin County babies thank you thank
you Sonia Bond all right I'm Sonia Bond um I was born here in Martin County 42 years ago um as were five of my siblings and three of my five children um and so thank you for allowing me time
to speak I come before you today just not as a concerned citizen but as someone who understands the Deep Impact that access to Quality maternal care has on families and I'm going to cry so bear with me I'm one of my earliest memories as a
young child was actually the birth of my sister at Martin north um 38 years ago it still sticks with me to this day it was a beautiful beautiful experience and um at the age of 16 I was
raped and I became pregnant and Katie Douglas was actually one of my midwives at the age of 16 at the birth center and um my pregnancy deviated at the end and I needed to deliver at Martin North and um
that's what happened and my nurse uh was an amazing woman her name was Karen she actually just retired two years ago from the OB unit there and I know that that day I was just a young girl having a
baby right uh but she treated me with respect and dignity and a standard of care that still exists to this day on that floor she changed my life so much that I went on to become a birth worker my sister
went on to become a midwife we practice here locally I've been attending birth in this area for over 17 years I've attended over a thousand births in this local area and most of them at Martin North because it's an Exemplar
OB unit absolutely exemplary Cleveland Clinic's decision to close the County's only labor and delivery Union is not just a policy change it's a life-altering decision that puts the health and safety of women babies at risk and has brought fear and
loss of choice into a room where neither should exist labor is unpredictable and as we've already mentioned it's it happens fast uh recently I attended a home birth with licensed certified nurse Midwife
just 2 miles from Martin North and an emergency did occur at 2 a.m. it took paramedics 35 minutes to transfer my client those two miles during a absolutely lifethreatening Hemorrhage
that was not treatable with medication it needed surgical intervention and and that is why this matters it's a big deal deal thank you thank you Jerry Gore Miracle
child my name is uh Jerry Gore 410 Lake Street um my kids were born here in Martin Martin memoral but uh when I got sick in 2009 and I went from Jacksonville all
the way to Miami and couldn't find a doctor and I became a dead end so they sent me down to Cleveland Clinic which is in Weston since then that's in 2009 I had a complete colon removed down at Cleveland and I got sick and came here to
Martin uh and they stabilized me and then they transported me back down to Western to fix the problem I had a a liver in a transplant done by Weston uh at Cleveland clinic and when I
had problem with that I would come to Martin yet still again I had to be transported all the way back down there to Weston I had uh instruction in my bladder and we are I just passed that
test we uh are free of that now and if it wasen for Weston my kids that was born in Martin would not have a father and my wife would not have a husband so I think my baby days is over
with and I think some of my kids baby days are over with but I want to thank Cleveland Clinic if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be standing before you today and all if I done integrate work in this community at all I give thanks to
Cleveland Clinic because they kept me here and I'm a pastor here also so if I touch anybody Li and I have a food bank here so we have quite a bit going on here because of Cleveland Clinton giving me another opportunity besides God but
Cleveland Clint was in the mix and the most of my doctors here a lot of them done retired or they passed on already and Cleveland Clinic keep bringing new doctors so I give them a challenge too so I want to thank Cleveland tonight for what they have done for me and my family
thank you Cory Wier pardon me uh just very quickly could you just introduce yourself my name is Cory Wier I live in unincorporated Martin County over by Mariner SS I've lived here for five
years I know a lot about political economics um as it pertains to like someone mentioned Cleveland Clinic I'm from Broward County originally when you want certain treatments you do have to go to West Bonaventure that's the original Cleveland Clinic um while
everybody has a lot of concerns about procreation and how their children were born in Martin County you guys should just try to understand and give the city commission and the County Commissioners a break because if you were in Miami Dade County or Broward you
would find that the resources for uh maternity care meaning the follow-ups like the five or six appointments you have till you actually give the birth then the follow-ups um are way backlogged and Martin County does a really good job as best as it can um because our population isn't so big if
that makes sense it's a blessing political economic uh wise and tax base wise just that we were able to bring in a huge facility of the Cleveland Clinic um so please think about that even though it might be a little disappointing that you might have to go to Jupiter to the next closest uh
facility for maternity care and thank you for being here thank you Andrea Barry is the last one this is the last one Madam clerk hear you hi I'm Andrea Barry I live in Jensen Beach so nice of you guys to hear this today and Dr Singh thank
you so much for being here I know it's not easy to hear all this stuff because it's it's real I want to comment really quick um to what everyone was thinking when that gentleman said this is this is not Miami and we keep it that way for a reason so there's a difference and let
me just be clear before I start my comments there's a reason why Martin County is different um I am um the CEO of family empowerment project I'm a mommy of two boys that were born right here in Martin County and a wife to a
firefighter and uh who does EMS and I would really like to just ask because it has been batted around a lot about what would it actually take to keep labor and delivery open I would I would really like to know exactly what it would take so that we as a commity
Community could help to make that happen if we could see the metric in writing so we know and we could work towards it because I think that would be so helpful could you please address the commission and not the audience I'm sorry I'm sorry um absolutely I would like to see a metric and that that chose what we could
do to what exactly it would take to keep that and the other thing is I worked as the CEO of uh Indian River County Healthy Start for seven years and we have a Hospital District up there which is one of the solutions I was thinking of because the hospital District would give you guys the clout and The Leverage
to be able to unfortunately take tax dollars but it would allow you to keep um the quality of care and I we do see Cleveland Clinic kind of shrinking its its services it would allow you to support that and the last thing I would say
is is a big request for Cleveland Clinic to show its values that they list on their website and keep labor and delivery open in Martin County thank you next item I'm all set mayor we have no more public comment on this issue okay
thank you Dr Singh for sitting through the concerns of those who bothered to show up and share their concerns with you so there's a lot to talk about there's not an easy solution so hopefully we can work together all right moving on to
something a great deal more pleasant and I'm glad I'm sitting here and able to do this because I actually got has have we ever recognize this much volunteer service in the city before Mr not even and I don't think we'll ever do
it again um because this is we're providing recognition for someone who served on a volunteer board for 40 years and and why I'm happy I'm able to do this is because this was the first
volunteer board on the city I sat on and he had been there I think Bill this was eight years ago I got on the LPA with you and I think I sat directly to your right which was good for me because he really knew what he was
talking about he had all that experience and he was never reluctant to let me know I didn't know what I was talking about so his experience his insight and his genuine concern that the city
prosper in a responsible way in an environmentally sound way uh we have all been the beneficiary of that experience and just let me see here I have make sure I mention everything Mr
Ms and it is the first time I've seen a in coat and tie um yeah his expertise as an engineer has provided invaluable insights and guidance throughout the years making a lasting impact that's so true on countless
projects we are all in your debt and grateful for your exceptional contributions and tireless dedication to the city of Stewart Mr William Mathers 40 Years of now you were never that loquacious bill
but perhaps you would like to make some remarks uh I'll make a few uh usually I find it's better to say less than more okay um first of all I'd like to introduce my wife and my daughter back here in the back of the room that's why I'm dressed the way I am
that's why I made all those meetings many years ago is because they you know both supported me even when my daughter was much younger okay um the only thing I would say is that I probably learned more than you can expect by sitting on
the board um now I was well I was born here in Stewart all right uh Dr Parker delivered me my aunt was his nurse okay uh graduated from Martin County uh high
school that was down on East Ocean Boulevard uh and we actually my last year we moved out to uh kander um but I realized several things one staffs that city has they work
overtime uh they're usually short-handed uh and now the day of the computer that we didn't have back then okay okay uh it makes a little bit easier but staffs have already supported all the boards uh it's a Relentless job
uh it's a lot of paperwork uh so I think they do uh they have as much uh I'd say gratitude that we should give them is the staff so so but it's uh been a privilege
working on the boards uh some of you I know a few of you don't know of course the ones that know me please don't talk to the ones that don't rich is Right sometimes up on the board it's a little bit different there Commissioners there's you know they're
winking be between each other I remember sitting on the boards uh some of the uh people we've had sat on the LPA and the pnz board in the past years were very dedicated citizens
but uh I remember getting a little bit teased sometimes because if I'd go to ask a question uh if it was getting late and the basketball game was on some of the guys were you know Sportsmen uh they wanted to get home so
sometimes there a little bit of pressure on you okay don't you know listen to An Answer ask your question but but don't delay it okay um so I can't say uh you know it's a really honor for you guys to
do this uh I think there's a lot of boards there's a lot of men and women that have been serving on the uh commissioner uh good citizens and again uh to have to set up there and make decisions that affect
people's lives both the citizens of the city of Stewart and the citizens before you uh I found that was very uh difficult at many times especially in the past early years uh changes affected
neighborhoods okay so uh I became a much better person looking at more than one side so that I could understand what I'm doing and as an engineer uh many things we do we can accommodate or we can not
accommodate things that should be looked at okay uh so it's uh very much uh appreciative uh honor I had and the last thing I want to say because I know everybody's here for something else I apologize
okay so but I went back try to figure out when did I first come on the board planning zoning board uh and what I found was uh well I think everybody remembers Charlie Foster yes sir okay Charlie served on the boards I think
from 68 to 2004 well in 1977 the water management districts came into being before they were Flood Control District the first thing they did is they began to assess all
municipalities their water use and in 77 uh Charlie came to me and he asked me if I could give him some help because he found some flaws in the documents that he wanted me to look at so I told him
I'd be glad had to so that was the end of 77 so we started looking at it and Charlie was right there was a flaw in the numerical numbers and the City of Stewart was looking at a uh daily
gallons of about two million gallons per day okay Charlie found that was about a million dollar million gallons off it was over three million okay so I worked with Charlie uh we sat with the south Florida we spent some time they
re-evaluated and Charlie himself by his efforts got that extra million gallons per day and that was pushing the limit at the time because we were closing in on about that you know uh many gallons per day so Charlie did a great job uh
sometime after that I think he told me it was if I had serve on the board there was a great retirement plan and everything and you know I could do some good because we going into the deep well and uh so forth and new water plants and
stuff so uh but he put me there uh I now he was there until 2004 I probably spent those first 20 years because Charlie kept me on it after that uh I'm sure it was uh Commissioners possibly here and those in the past that decided to keep
me there or they forgot I was there and they just left okay uh but again I can't say enough this is unusual uh it's really something and especially in front of my wife and daughter uh I don't think they ever been one of my meetings okay
what they've dressed me they dressed me for all of them okay so I appreciate it and thank you very much so I would ask all of us on the Das come down please and Bill hey hey come back here bring his wife to take a picture and
bring the family come on family take your time I forgot some again Mr Mortel you sat I was gonna sit quiet years he gets back
[Applause] took my glasses okay now item number two we're all ready to go it's not my fault yeah never again I don't think ever again do you think Mr
Mortel 40 years is a long time especially because now we have term limits of eight now we have a presentation by the relatively new director of the B Business Development Board of Martin
County sir I'll let you introduce yourself good afternoon Commissioners great to see you all hope you're doing well today um thank you for the opportunity first of all uh to give this annual update I appreciate it and I've got a couple dozen slides to share
but I I promise I'll be as efficient um as possible and respectful of time today uh so let's get right to it so uh this first slide summarizes what we as professional economic developers strive to accomplish in partnership with and on behalf of the
communities that we serve we're committed to supporting retention expansion of existing local businesses we're committed to prioritizing High wage job creation and we're committed to strengthening the local business climate and here's an important statistic that I
love to cite um per the international Economic Development Council which is our uh Association uh existing businesses are responsible for up to 80% of net new local employment and this really illustrates the importance of our local businesses and entrepreneurs large
medium and small um and and why we focus most of our time and efforts on existing businesses as opposed to attraction and recruitment efforts so the bdb occupies an important space between the public and private sectors where under the Florida Sunshine
Law in most cases but under Section 288.5a uh we are allowed to keep specific company information confidential excuse me during attraction and recruitment of companies uh to the city of Stewart Martin County Village of Indiantown when discussing negotiation
of potential economic incentives so key responsibilities uh the bdb has several which are Illustrated on this slide number one we promote Martin County as an ideal place to do business we act as a primary liaison between the County city of
Stewart Village of Indiantown and uh Florida commerce uh where the single point of contact when we get those Prospect leads from the state to uh help deliver services to them we also exist excuse me assist existing companies with expansion and retention efforts
especially contributory businesses which I'll get into a little bit uh in just uh the next next slide we assist the county City village with coordinating incentive programs to attract new companies and also provide administrative services to the Martin County Industrial Development
Authority and um the Industrial Development Authority as an aside they uh issue tax exempt bonds at lower interest rates um lower borrowing rates for certain eligible projects such as industrial manufacturing plants warehousing or distribution facilities company headquarters or even um a
parking deck in an urban downtown area like the city Stewart for example contributory businesses as I mentioned before basically these are businesses that bring in new money from outside of the local economy um into the economy examples include boat
manufacturing or Aviation related manufacturing such as uh for example Pursuit Aerospace which uh is located in the city of Stewart of Commerce they manufacture complex aircraft engine components business retention and expansion I previously mentioned the
importance of existing industry to the success of the local economy and this slide talks more about that um BR or business retention and expansion it's a core activity in the economic development discipline and at the bdb we've branded it as what we call our
pulse program whereby we uh proactively Reach Out engage communicate with businesses to check on essentially their pulse um you know how they're doing any pain points what do they need um you know connecting to in terms of resources like technical assistance and access to
Capital um and you know those are the program's goals and basically that helps us identify Trends and uh help us with um new programming for example our manufacturers Round Table program was born out of the pulse program whereby we
realized that companies particularly manufacturers wanted to interface with and they needed a medium to do that and we help to provide that um with our manufacturers round table which we do quarterly uh post program highlights uh from FY 2024 the important stat in this slide
I'd like to point your attention to is the third row and um followup and business assistance tasks that or those things are items resulting from the initial visit so these are connections to the technical assistance uh or access to Capital that I spoke about on the
previous slide and five of these visits actually resulted in bigger more official projects like a company that we discovered is running out of physical space they desire to expand but um of course from our perspective we'd assist with the goal of helping them expand somewhere where they currently are
whether that be the city of Stewart Village of Indian town and of course Martin County uh this slide this next slide here simil uh kind of summarizes our company visits by by industry uh as well as by geographic area and when it comes to our responsibilities of business
retention uh and attraction we're almost perfectly aligned with the goals uh objectives and policies that are listed in the economic development element of the city's comprehensive plan so we're especially encouraged to see the bdb specifically listed among your uh
economic Partners so our goals really do align perfectly so we appreciate that that support this next slide breaks down the companies we've visited uh by years in business years in Martin County and number of employees and as you can see we've been able to reach a nice variety
of companies across the Spectrum including our very important small business Community um which we spent most of our time with that 44% of companies with less than 10 employees uh this slide summarizes the recent Trends and um in terms of
opinions we've been hearing from the business Community as we engage and speak with them notably biocracy has moved on the list uh of uh top business challenges and Logistics has moved up on the list in terms of area advantages along with that small town field so
kudos to you all uh to your leadership in those areas um you know and keep up the great work because the city of Stewart is essentially uh what many consider the quality of place quality of life that continues to be a significant driving factor in business decisions um
in terms of location along with the other more quantitative factors um such as cost of doing business Etc where are we headed uh I've been doing a lot of what I call board development in my first three four months here um in terms of refining having our board working
with them engaging them to refine the the vision mission as you can see the vision here is to foster a strong Martin County economy characterized by a diversity of businesses with a growing in sustainable tax base and they just uh uh edited and updated that last month so
very uh you know there was a number of workshops that we went through and so I appreciate the board's support in that the mission of course is to lead Economic Development by supporting local contributory businesses attracting investment and fostering job creation business attraction in addition to the
existing indust side of things I'd like to speak a little bit to the attraction and recruitment side of the business where similarly to the retention and expansion of existing businesses we strive to bring businesses into the community from our targeted Industries with the goal of continuing to build
that tax base um via corporate investment with the intended not the unintended but the intended consequence of capturing additional revenues so that you all are elected leaders um you know don't have to find the need to resort to raising the tax rate for example so this
is all going into building our tax base and increasing Revenue to help the community another um some examples of recent business attraction recruitment efforts this first one is in the county the second one's in Jensen Beach the third is in the city of Stewart right
here uh Power Systems manufacturing uh they are looking at um the tangible personal property exemption as well as one of the incentives that helped to make this happen they originally found founded in Martin County and moved out we did help them to relocate into
185,000 Square ft at the um South Florida Gateway off caner Highway and so that's going to bring more than a 100 high wage jobs at really great average salary of 74,000 and again we're talk about the tax base and I didn't mention
this before but the tax Bas and building that up that in turn can help individuals and families raise their um you know median incomes and turn contribute back into the community it's a cyclical positive process that we try to engage ourselves in the second
example is IM group it's an Italian manufacturer of paints inks and Coatings this is in Jensen Beach they uh we helped them move they grew and tripled their space within one year and are very actively engaged with the bdb in terms of our programming and finally granard
Amo of course uh rehabbing that 25,000 square foot um building the old YMCA rink uh as I'm told they're going to be looking at a second facility out in Indian town that would be 100,000 plus Square fet 80 new jobs $90 million of
total capital investment so we're really excited about these recent developments and are working with companies other companies to do the same opportunities this slide as well as the final section of the presentation identifies and discusses uh potential opportunities as
we see things from the bdb's point of view as how we could possibly continue to collaborate and partner with you all at the city of Stewart great news is that U you know five 10 years ago ago we didn't have the current situation that we're in now we have millions of square
feet in the pipeline and we are excited about the opportunity where we are able to put companies that are expanding growing and that have come into the uh into the market economic toolkit again I mentioned the tangible personal property exemption that um voters passed several
years ago we are using that as an incentive to attract companies to the area we also have an increased focus on capital investment um in this toolkit and I'm working with the county on developing a toolkit um that will continue to put our incentives front and
foremost access to Capital Loan Fund this is uh you know we're currently working with the county on this as well but there could be a more city of Stewart focused application to this program for small businesses within the city limits and I've had um conversations as well uh with City
leadership in terms of potentially um doing something on a similar level with varying organizations so we're really kind of trying to hone in on the small business community and the entrepreneur community and how we can help fill the gaps as it relates to Capital or you
know um down payments and things of that nature um as it pertains to loans strategic economic areas this slide gives an overview of our areas of focus includes the entire County of course but also illustrates areas that we're paying uh attention to in the city
of Stewart including the downtown core and South you see numbers one two three uh to which been identified as The Innovation Hub in um you know previous recent study the geographic area uh identified for the study does encompass a portion of the city of Stewart between Federal
Highway and Dixie Highway generally speaking from Indian Street down to the southern city limits right around where the U Mason multif family development is uh there's opportunity as I mentioned as we see it to piggy back off of the
proposed infrastructure and aesthetic improvements to attract additional investment um in this area Innovative companies to that area with the ultimate goal of again building up the tax base increasing the value of the taxable commercial properties and revenues
derived from therein here's an image of the uh Innovation Hub as presented overlaid with the city of Stewart boundary which is in red uh along with the uh C boundary and other points of interest and I look forward to working with um you know Community Development
staff CRA staff here at the city of Stewart to potentially capture opportunities um you know for growth as it relates to you all and the City of Stewart and here's another image of the Innovation Hub that you may remember taken from the study uh that was
completed a couple of years ago a lot of uh a lot of opportunity for redevelopment and you know building up the properties that are are currently in and around this area and finally these last several slides they offer a summary
of the industrial inventory in the city of Stewart and as you can see the city does have a significant amount of inventory as a proportion of the county although it is on the smaller end in terms of building size as compared to say the newer you know 500,000 million
square feet U buildings that you see in the county but on the bright side I will say there are plenty of companies and businesses whose needs do fit hit those um space options most of the city of Stewart's industrial inventory is used for warehousing and Logistics including
wholesalers as well as manufacturers uh as you can see from this slide here and the most important bullet point on this uh second to last slide here is the absorption rate of tenants leasing industrial property and that is picked up which does indicate um an increases
demand in demand as I see it uh in the city of Stewart and you're seeing this across the county and that is is definitely a good thing let's see the third bullet point on here is most important for this slide um it's the reason why we see this area of the city as such a great Economic
Development opportunity in my opinion and finally uh here's an overview of the main commercial real estate statistics in the city of Stewart and uh vacancy rates and CR fundamentals from our point of view are are pretty healthy looking so we look forward to working with uh
you at the commission working those the vacancy rates those are the vacancy rates yes yes sir wow yeah so it's things have picked up from several years ago and it's a good problem to have that's why you see so much um you know
construction and you know speculative you know commercial construction happening so this is a sector that is definitely one to to to latch on to and and take advantage of so uh with that that's my presentation looking forward to working with you all looking forward
to working with staff um and partnering to to to build everything up thank you Mr Corbin thank you enthusiastic presentation are there any questions or comments from any of the Commissioners for Mr Corbin will you come with your ask during budget time he's here today
say what it's on the consent the consent but are you okay but are you going to come with more than what is on the consent for today um I think th those were all my my comments th far okay so Mr Corbin you actually you you got
here very recently right you arrived uh two weeks before Milton so quite a uh experience I guess my wife's from Del Rey and she was like we never get this so yeah what a welcome right but I'm I'm still here so no I met with you a couple
times and I appreciate your enthusiasm and there's terrific opportunity in the county and this area uh I I I you you said something right at the end that struck me because I attended a meeting of the Treasure Coast Council of local
governments and your equivalent in uh St Lucy County was there and he said their greatest need by far was 3 to 10,000 squ foot industrial spaces so you seem to indicate that that's I would agree with that yeah I would agree with that so I think it's something that business you
know you hear about the big right the big you know 185,000 s f feet leases but oh you know you don't about the the smaller activity that really does drive the economy which is why I mentioned that small business you know the businesses existing industry 80% of net
new local growth Etc so and so I ask what opportunities you can provide our community so do you work the most obvious example would be project LIF do you work with them and helping those graduates obtain the skills that can be
valuable to local businesses is that something you do organizations like projects lift our organizations that we like to communicate and keep in touch with uh we do we actually named um uh young Parker Smith from Smith marine services was the youth entrepreneur of
the year if you remember from our Awards earlier this year so really important program really important resource for the community and yeah we we do good thank you can I ask him a question certainly commiss just out in the county the huge Gateway Distribution on caner
Highway when I it's already build so when does that get filled and how much is the actual square footage of all those buildings you know I I I can't remember off the top of my head it's got to be more than 500,000 plus plus I mean it's a million plus square feet I think
uh or close to there about but it's a lot they're they're working hard to to fill that now kushman Wakefield they're the listing broker for that it's a Foundry commercial development uh but they're working together to fill that in and part of our role is to keep in contact with those commercial Realtors
so that we know and we can understand the trends and we can bring potential um clients to them and so it kind of that's how it how it works so part of what we do is build relationships with the commercial real estate industry so that we can interface thank you okay anything
yeah oh vice mayor um oh sorry this may this may sound like a bit of a critical question but you had mentioned grind hard ammo that's sort of the example I hear often when I'm asking about bdb in the city in its relationship with businesses what
what did the bdb do the grind hard ammo could not do on its own as a private business what was the role of bdb well the role I think that we did play was a lot of the coner service you
saw the little um what do you call that the uh rope The Velvet Rope the Conor Service as it relates to the process of permitting which I know the county is really making improvements on but as I understand it at that time you know we were really helping to Usher them
through that process and also helping them access things like the TPP exemption although it is uh filled out by the applicant by the company you know we engage in doing workshops we're going to be having another Workshop coming up in about a month or so because those are
due at the end of March and so um you know helping with the entire process so like for example with grard they they approached you guys to have them be helped with permitting like we engage with with helping them with permitting
I'm not uh I can't speak to exactly who reached out to whom but we did engage with them yeah to help through that process the county and and we're doing the same with the village of Indian Town um in terms of their uh potential I didn't mean to drag you developments there no he wasn't at he wasn't here at
the time I was I can speak to what we did with my heart to help would you like to hear it's okay it's okay I just wanted a general sense I get I did they were staying in St Lucy until we learned and then we brought them into the city you brought them in yeah we introduced them to the city showed them the site work with site selection on Sir can you
come to the D and introduce yourself I Crumpler for the record I've been a consultant with the bdb for five years I was here during that time period with dardo and they were they were in St Lucy that was their plan to stay they were looking for something better we helped him on the site selection led him to the
old YMCA pardon me old YMCA site held him to the process also helped them through the the approval process in the village so it's your sense that they would not have been in that kind location without the bdb that's a fact and all told they represent a 90 million capital investment plan too and jobs
that pay very well blue blue collar jobs they're trying to get to three full shifts on their production side it's a great story a lot of what they did is really reshore man uh ammunition manufacturing most of it takes place out of the country a lot of people didn't realize that till the co scare but they brought in all of the there's four
components into making Manu to making ammunition and they were able to get the three non the three safe side here in the city and then the one element the primer that is that has an explosive component is in a building that's very fortified like for I understand what they do just just just for brevity um
with with regard to uh grindhard when did they open up when did that happen in the city I'm going to say late 22 but um I might be wrong on that do you have some other examples like grind hard ammo where the bdb was instrumental so the
bdb's primary focus we is like an 8020 breakdown 80% of what we do is taking care of our local existing businesses and their expansion needs that's where we primary focus we don't really do like St Lucy County for example has the means has a broad Suite of Attraction within
the city de like an example of of that seever maybe a few of that kind of relationship with some of our local businesses in the city that's the most profile example of an attraction piece be like more generally what you do like a specific example that's what William was speaking to about the pulse side so that's going and talking to people who
are here current employers existing employers and seeing how we can help can you give me a few examples of those businesses in the city I mean I could follow up with you with a detailed look at our 50 plus pulse visits performed just last year if it helped and that we can break down that percentage of which are in the city we could go in detail
but okay not at that not at my immediate uh disposal thank you thank you uh commissioner Reed yeah I just had a question thank you Mr for William in the summary it mentions 10,000 but then it mentions up to an additional 15,000
appropriated for special projects what would that entail in the summary that that could entail perhaps Innovation Hub area activities or some project that's more specific to you know something that we're not you know necessarily doing um
or something that you you know working with the CRA on something for example and how much does the bo TC give to or is this a mutual 25,000 between the city and the county no no so every each of the you know communities that that you know are investors they are different
levels so 465,000 is from the uh from Martin County the village of Indian toown 10,000 and the U you all are also at um the $10,000 level um of that so you know we they the county and the city they
prioritize you know economic development in their comprehensive plans you know recognizing all of this and so that joint investment while varied in size it does kind of reflect the commitment to what we do um you know here at the business development board and I'm so it's and its entirety is the bdb funded
by the municipalities and the county only or do you get we also have private investors as well is that like membership based or how how does um we're 501 C6 I believe so it's technically membership based so yeah they're like an in investors um you know
would would come on board to to support the goals that we try to advance so a private investor would just donate money to the bdb I guess yes companies yes yes yes sir okay so it's a mix say yeah all right any other questions of Mr
Corbin uh it sounds like you should probably stick around that this happy to thank you thank you I appreciate your time probably going to get pulled it sounds like from the consent calendar all right okay so this
is we had quite a few of the city staff this is item number eight here pres presentation who participated in the leadership development program over how long a period of time did that program take it was about four months okay seven
months well we're going to learn all about it because RZ Johnson head of HR is going to make a presentation indeed very nice to be here good evening RZ Johnson strong HR director for the record thank you Mary um so I'm here to
to um share with you a leadership professional development opportunity that our leadership team experienced um very exciting program the city manager desired leadership training for his team um and we have new er members of leadership on our team we
have an eye on succession planning um we're in different buildings so we don't see each other as often as we used to um but quite frankly it's good practice to make sure that your leadership team is informed educated brought up to date with the hope that the outcomes from that training trickles down into the
organization so some of the original ideas that the city manager and I discussed included a retreat which is generally an off-site um event with breakout sessions takes place over the course of a few days we talked about a workshop uh which is usually onsite
maybe for a day or two we talked talked about um facilitating a training series uh where members of leadership would explore at their own pace and then they would we would get together for group discussion and we tossed out a few other ideas as well ultimately we agreed that
we wanted to make sure that whatever we did was government specific um there are unique uh situations in government that are don't necessarily exist in private sector or otherwise we wanted to make sure that the topics were varied and that they were well researched meaning
whoever we partnered with really needed to be qualified to facilitate a program like this we wanted to make sure coursework was relevant for all the professions were a diverse City so what made sense to the fire chief would also make sense to the police chief and to the HR Director and to the tech services
director we wanted it to be Universal the themes to be Universal um we also wanted to make sure we included some self assessments here at the city we do true colors and the dis assessment but we were open to the Myers Briggs um the pi the Clifton strengths we were open to
um whatever assessments uh the facilitator may suggest and we wanted the takeaways to be meaningful and um immediately transferable meaningful and transferable I mean that's a whole idea of Education right we want to be able to walk away saying that we learned
something and we can do something with it so city manager asked me to look into what was out there and get back with him and that's how we found leader goov um they've been serving cities and County since about 2012 uh the top picture is
Tim fenbert um and lower picture is Bill Stark and they um engaged with us as a city they specialize in local government leadership training and support uh they do do strategic planning and Retreats and we did talk about the concept of a retreat but as many of us know Retreats
really are for extinguishing the flame they're for putting out the fire and bringing uh an organization back to life if you will we weren't in a panic we didn't we hadn't lost our leadership team in full we we weren't in a in a case of emergency so we said you what do you
have and well they've got this professional development um focused on long-term results and it's facilitated over the course of seven months well that sounds interesting so we signed up um 13 steart leaders participated in the program uh we developed two cohorts so
leader goov works with cities and counties all over the United States and what they do is look for other cities and counties who are equally as interested in a professional development cohort and so they signed up um seven of us on our team with seven from dun
County North Dakota and then six of us on our team participated in with the city of Atlanta Georgia and the whole idea being that sometimes it's good to come out of your local area and expand to other counties or cities in the nation to learn how they're handling
problems and they can hear how we're handling issues what innovative ideas have they come up with what have we come up with and we share that and learn from each other um we met once a month via zoom and it was seven months and seven topics so here were the topics there was
a leadership overview uh personality and self-care and the disk assessment which is what they facilitated which we love we think that's a great instrument uh we had a top our session on strategic leadership high impact goals and smart goals effective team communication and
servant leadership um and then at the end we all had a Capstone project to produce and each get together with our assigned cohort included these breakout sessions so we'd all be together on zoom and then they would break us up into uh groups of
three or four to go a little deeper into a topic and go granular and share our experiences so these were the seven topics that we uh covered over the course of these seven months months so the leadership overview module um we we
Dove deep into the differences between leadership and management and while that may sound um uh almost Elementary to some people the truth is some folks either haven't thought about this in a long time or truly honestly don't know that there's a difference leadership and
management are two entirely different approaches and different um different things so we went granular there we also went into the importance of self-care um leadership roles I can tell you that no one in a leadership capacity here at the City Works an8 hour day it's unheard of
it's never going to happen it's not real even a nine or a 10hour day is is you know maybe the Baseline but quite frankly most of the leadership team is available 247 so they drill into the importance of self-care and making sure that members
of leadership are you know shaking off the day and taking good care of themselves um so that we can take care of others um and our homework for that partic from that session is we had to identify one aspect of leadership to implement that month and one area of
self-care to implement that month and one of the beauties of this program is everyone was held accountable so this this element of accountability was instilled in every single session every month and each of us had to come back and talk about how we applied what we had learned uh what we were going to do
more effectively moving forward so if one of the members hadn't done what they were supposed to do it was really kind of embarrassing and a bit humiliating so everybody knew that they had to do their thing because they were going to be asked about it at the next meeting all of
us the next session was about leadership and personality and we dove into the dis assessment uh we had all taken the assessment in that month space in between and um at this session it was interpreted and we all walked through each other's um dis assessment results
and we talked about what are our Tendencies which is what the dis is all about um do we move toward or away from problems people the the pace of the day and processing guidelines um and we had to identify two dis blind spots some
might call them weaknesses or deficiencies I don't like the term I call them blind spots because we all have them it's natural it's human nature and we needed to identify our own blind spots where we could improve and we were required to work on those that month we
also were expecting expected to have all of our team members in our own departments complete the disk assessment uh we use the Cloverleaf software platform which is a really terrific platform and invite our team members to uh participate in the disk and then at
our own meetings uh each department has their own staff meetings on intervals that work for them talk to the staff about their results and what it means and are they task focused or people focused are they fastp or slower paced
um so and again there's the accountability piece we had to report back uh the following month about how that went and the dis actually was explored over the course of two sessions because it's such a meaningful instrument again which is why the city we do ascribe to
this and facilitate it here um we believe in it and so uh leader goov spent two sessions uh talking about how the dis applies in the workplace and how we can use it more effectively the next session was strategic leadership and we got into a SWAT
analysis and what one of the things that was interesting is to hear from the directors who actually use a SWAT analysis they're familiar with it they use it it's natural for them and others who had heard of it but maybe didn't know how to apply it and leader goov was
really wonderful in helping us understand how a SWAT can be applied uh we talked about managers and how they approach things tactically leaders approach things strategically each has a purpose neither one is right or wrong or better than the other but again this
whole program that we were in was about leadership development so the the goal was to get any who think like a manager into a more uh leadership mindset and it was important for us to
recognize that all of us in leadership we manage and we lead we do both um that's just part of the life as of being someone in a leadership role and then how does that how to manage and Lead how does that feed into a SWAT analysis so for this month's homework we
were required to do a SWAT discussion with our teams and receive their input and ask them what do you think we can do better in our department where are we doing well where are we not doing so well and put together a SWAT and uh create some goals from that SWAT
analysis and again there's the accountability piece report on it the next month and we went into our breakout sessions with our cohorts and talk to them about what do they do for SWAT they want to know what we do for SWAT um so that was a a terrific experience as well
then we moved into high impact goals and smart goals now again you know we hear smarkle smarkle Sparkles and I think sometimes it becomes repetitive in in some folks minds but the truth is smarkle are smart smart goals are are really brilliant and when we really take
the time to slow down and create create a smart goal a longterm and then break that long-term smart goal into smaller uh achievable goals in the short term amazing things can happen so we
walked through smart goals and creating some high impact goals and to create our own uh we each needed to ask ourselves like what is one thing that will revolutionize my department or the service to the community uh is there something holding my team back and if so
what is it and how do we overcome it pardon me and we had to think you know what is one problem if we were to solve it in our department that would transform the effectiveness you know so we had to go back to our team members and ask their opinion um I think it was
said earlier tonight by someone you know the great decisions don't happen in the bubble at the top of the pyramid and in fact in servant leadership which we'll talk about in a second that pyramid that is so traditional that it looks like a pyramid it's a inverted in in the world of
servant leadership um so we needed to get to our team and get their input and the accountability piece again then we moved into effective team Communications one of my personal favorites um we talked about difficult conversations what they look like and
what are some strategies to um approach those difficult conversations um to navigate them um because it isn't really tackling them or or other words that could be used it's navigating uh difficult conversations you know life is hard work is hard um
how do we how do we get through those and then we they continued to weave in the uh disk assessment and how different styles listening Styles and tendencies affect Communications and once we can know each other a little more effectively through those assessments great things can
happen through communication protocols uh we talked about the different types of meetings and the Dynamics that we can expect in those meetings and for our homework we were asked to initiate a difficult conversation preferably with a team member um you know maybe there was something that we
learned in this session that would set us up for a successful interaction on a difficult topic with a team member but it could be with a family member or a friend or you know some of departments are smaller and uh so we had to do that and then we also had to talk to our
teams in that month about the the real need to have authentic conversations in the workplace and what this really ties to is psychological safety in the workplace and psychological safety is all about employees feeling comfortable and free to speak up to share a thought
to share an idea to share a concern without being ridiculed destroyed and decimated in that environment in that space we need to create a a safe space for employees so by being a little vulnerable and opening ourselves up to our team we needed to ask them to rate
the quality of our meetings and as managers leaders we all have different types of meetings um again different intervals and we call them tailgate meetings um I call them pulse checks and we had to ask our our team members our
staff you know how do you think these meetings are going are they effective for you and if not why what can we do better it was opening up that flow of of conversation and then the last thing we had to do this month was ask ourselves what can I do better am I communicating
effectively or not what can I do better and really reflect do some hard reflection and be prepared to um to do better right we're not perfect we make mistakes um and we just the best thing we can do is acknowledge it own it and
move better or move forward doing better and that's what this module asked us to do and then the the near last that we did was servant leadership and this is where the leadership pyramid is inverted um and there are elements of servant leadership that are listed here that
we're active listeners we're empathetic we have a high EQ uh we can be persuasive we're healers we're Visionaries Steward we have foresight we like to develop people and we're all into our community and so we dove into these at a granular level and we were
asked to um consider which element of servant leadership we would like to improve upon what we would like to develop in ourselves and be honest and open with ourselves on where we could improve we had to write a leadership statement and accountability again and
we had to come back to the table the next month and share what we learned and then after we went through all these modules each of us had to do a Capstone project and there are some questions it could have been on any topic related to the training we had received but we were
asked to ask ourselves these questions um how are management and Leadership intertwined how can I be more effective how have I actually integrated self-care um how can I use the disc more effectively have I done a SWAT effectively have I established higs and
have I established smart goals am I helping my team develop smart goals am I into their Improvement and development and and progress again some of the participants who engaged in this and committed to this are those that we're looking at for
succession planning so what are we doing as leaders to develop our staff for succession planning uh becoming a servant leader doesn't happen overnight you that's something a lot of us aspire to become um so if if this is something that we
wanted to pursue to ask ourselves am I really a servant leader and how do I prove it and if not how can I do better and these are all the folks who um showed up these folks uh stepped up to the plate
and um showed up every month ready to engage um with their Partners in the cohort uh they were ready to do the homework um they reported back each month with their successes or their failures and you know we love failures failures are okay they're inevitable um
but they are they are required in the journey to achieve success you've got to fail um fall down seven stand up eight right I mean that's just part of it and failures invite us to learn and improve so these folks did the work and they came back and shared where they succeeded that month and where they
could have done better um that month and you know I have to say and I'm sure I'm speaking on behalf of all those who participated to thank you Mike for really wanting to bring something like this to the table for all of us to learn and to um share the table together so to
speak that we're all singing from the same song sheet we're all headed in the same direction we may be in separate buildings but we're all moving in the same direction so um this was a terrific exper experience and I believe almost all of them are here tonight uh we do
have plaques for them um mayor that we would like to be able to hand to them if I could if I could read the names and they could come up if that would be acceptable I am going to the clerk's desk that's a wonderful thing so of course Mike mortell City man and then I think we're gonna probably come down for
a photo perhaps so Mike mortell Mary kindall Darren Duke D there he is yes Peter cunan Vince felicon Joe tanelli you're
here Jim kolski yes truly myself but I'll stay up here for a moment Milton is Milton leet where'd he go there he is penal gandhis looks like penal might be out
Ben Hogarth Ben are you here congratulations okay and then Kevin Smith I know Kevin's here and Flur zelic is out of town at Department training oh there she is there's Penal you're supposed to be
[Laughter] there [Applause] jeez came to late before I depart did Den if you have any questions on the program or are we good thank you Ros thank you Michael welcome
thank you R you city manager did they get raises for doing it no ma'am this is all part of the enjoyment of what we do professional development is a wonderful thing okay thank you comments by City commissioners commissioner Reed do you
have any comments to share with us this evening yes um this one was for Mike I know we've been discussing the the Hamilton project does this need a motion in order to come back or is it set to it was originally going to come back in
February but we ran into the first and second reading of this so I'm pushing for March I know Mr Hamilton submitted a um proposal from his contractor a couple weeks ago and I know that uh the C director has submitted that to uh Florida commerce so the intention was to
bring it back once there was some resolution or response I haven't received any response from Florida commerce yet so so there's really if I brought it back I wouldn't have anything to tell you okay um the only thing I was going to do I was going to make a motion then to pull agenda item 10 11 and 17
for discussion and then put item number 19 um first for commission action and that was all I had okay second you said 101 and 17 yeah so 101 and 17 for discussion from the consent
calendar and then item number 19 for first commission action okay when we get to the approval of the agenda we'll okay take that up 10 117 okay any other comments commissioner re that um that is it well if um when we had
that joint meeting I know the consensus from the board seemed to be um taking care of capital Improvement projects that we currently have and safety improvements so I didn't know if you wanted me to list those or wait for the next CRA meeting maybe and bring those
up I I'm not sure what you're asking I mean if you had so so people had mentioned Hospital Avenue needing repaired it's it's actually already programmed okay so then that's it thank
you commission I have no comments um commissioner Clark do you have any comments this yes several I just want to again commend Jolie uh for his years here and he's our budget director and he's been doing very well I
just want to thank him for that uh February is Black History Month and I know that we gave the proclamation to thelman um Miss dly was here but she left but there'll be a Festival this weekend and there's also another event on coming up all the way in June they'll
be having something but they're already working on getting young people involved with that um uh in June but uh that's that uh recently I went with the mayor and I'll get let the mayor talk about that if he wants to to to to celebrate a
a a woman who had 102 years old at at Alto right in our city and uh the bdb is here and when Alto was coming in they were trying to get the industrial the Ida the Industrial
Development board for the county to do the the the letter the pass through letter so that the the funding could come in for that business and the the Industrial Development board for the county at the time didn't do it but through we worked hard with the city we
got that letter and that's how the the developer came in and and did that project Alto in the city so uh it's important to coordinate with the D bdb as well as with the county on these things and even when their Industrial
Development board didn't um go through that with the with the funding effort that they needed to have this um particular um thing done for the pass through letter that's how we got Alto because we kind of work and stayed with it and and got that project built along
Palm Beach Road um uh Stuart well Martin County is is is 100 years this year 1925 Governor Martin that's why we are called Martin County and the County's planning a lot of
projects um I'm sure that you can look on their website or see different things that are happening around town but Stuart was incorporated in 1914 but it became the county seat when Martin County became a county so we are a 100
years as the county seat I have not heard that our commission has wanted to do anything with the county with regard to uh recognizing that we are the county seat for Martin and that we um we are
also celebrating a 100 years as the county seat uh in Martin and I was wondering I want to put it early and put it before the budget time that if we could use this year's um July 4th
celebration even just to name and to coordinate I don't know if we're if we're going to be asking for money from the county but at least use it as a Time to celebrate the fact that the city of Steward is um a 100 years as as the the
main County the county seat for Martin County I don't know if we if I need to make a motion to ask staff to look into how we could best um try to have a plan to come and and and do that because I know each year it's always a struggle to
find funds for uh fireworks and for other things but um uh I'm going just putting it out there now and I'm going to talk to staff again and if I need a proper motion I'll I'll work with the city manager and come back at another another time but I just wanted to let
that be known the other thing is that um if we also need to do some kind of a proclamation through the city if we need to work on that and get that done maybe sometime in May or so um we could do something towards that with the county
and the other thing with regard to um working on uh celebrating the history of Martin County is that uh tomorrow night February the 11th our um I know that the national level
they have the PO laurate although I hear that one of our po laurate has been D something um but I know decommissioned but um I know that we have Sandy th thurlo as our um historian and uh she's going to be presenting a program at our
flagless Center uh tomorrow tomorrow evening starting at 700 p.m. with our um uh steuart Heritage Board and other um Heritage and preservation organizations in in Martin County and and in Stewart
and so I just ask for the public to participate either go to the website or go to the Stuart Main Street site or go to the Martin count I mean the Stuart heritage site any one of those things or even just Sandy thurlo just look her up
and you'll see when she's going to be SP speaking at the um Flagler Center um also uh with regard to activities this month to celebrate Black History Month the Martin County School Board will be putting on a program on February
22nd uh at the Boys and Girls Club in uh Stewart and it's an all day Affair from about 10: until 2 and or 9 until 2 and they'll showcase their young people with their food truck and other things there and of course the school board will be
putting on uh something with regard to Black History so we'd like to look forward to to seeing that in our community um uh Sandy has an issue going on with regard to um trying to get people to
identify uh various photographs that maybe she has had in her book or she's had other places if you ever go to the museum or someplace or if you have something in your churches or organization or family she'd love to get as many pictures and have them
identified with names or occasions for the for the Morton County history and uh Sandy thurlo if you have a problem remembering we have a little building just two buildings down is called the steart feed store and Museum and they
can give you any information you want if you'd like to contribute to the Martin County historic project whether uh whatever your background Creed Color Race business affiliation or family affiliation as long as it has to do with
Martin County we appreciate input so that we can keep our history and preserve um the information that's it thank you so can we just go back to what what now the city is older than the county correct the city
incorporation uh the county was a part of Palm Beach County and Miami D it was originally part of Dade County yes yes yes so I'm not sure what you're asking for commission we're the county seat because Martin County is 100 years old
and an attempt to try to jointly get more funds from the fireworks was that the idea probably are at least uh at least recognize Martin County okay at the Ben hogart isn't here but at the a show they had it was very expensive I don't know who did it for the a show but
they had something that said you know all kinds of stuff they talked about veterans and other things and they they actually had the Drone show yeah okay so if we could do something special to say something to Martin County I'd appreciate that we can get a committee
and work on that uh mayor um commissioner job thank you I just want to let you know that there was the Martin Arts Festival this past weekend and they did celebrate the Centennial they gave a plaque presentation to Sarah herd so they did do a celebration of the
Centennial from they're doing it all year they're doing lots of things and my wife is actually doing the book for the county yeah okay because she's done all the books with Sandra up till now but Sandra's actually not doing the
book The Centennial so I'm I'm not well you can work with the city manager yeah I'll work with city manager and I'll bring it back okay uh M uh vice mayor do you have any comments this evening my only comment is along the same lines of commissioner Reed's comment with the Hamiltons is I would just love to see
that be resolved as soon as humanly possible I feel like it's a it's a a black eye it's just it doesn't look good so if we need to reach out to whoever we need to reach out to and email them every week Mike to get some kind of res were waiting for the
submitt from The Hamiltons it just came two weeks ago okay I mean that sounds wonderful and it's polite but Mr Hamilton Mr Hamilton I'm sorry well you know what you've been jerking me off for seven months and I'm getting tired of it seven
months he he can do the fact is it's Florida commerce that's funding it he was authorized to hire his own contractor and he did not submit anything from his contractor until middle of January 2025 because no
contractors would touch the place I agree I don't care why but there's no doubt that we couldn't move forward until it happened and we couldn't pick the contractor because Mr Hamilton obviously what happened the last contract you destroyed the church canot
have this dialogue from the audience what it's worth we are waiting the city manager is indicating he's waiting to hear even though he just said I was lying about that it being submitted three weeks ago or two weeks ago he's now acknowledged that it was in fact submitted in January and that it's now
at the floorida Commerce and as soon as we hear from them we'll put them on the agenda and then is there some sort of time frame with which we need to follow up with them instead of just well Florida commerce is going to either authorize paying the additional money or they're not got it okay that was all
thank you anything else mayor Rich yes um to reiterate on that I actually had a teams meeting with Florida commerce on Thursday and they said at this time that they weren't going to pay
anything um when I had a teams meeting with them that it was strictly on the city city of Stewart and potentially they might help um but that's what I was told when I had a teams meeting with him on Thursday last week well let's let's
let's wait for a formal response to the city manager did you go over the transmitt because I haven't seen it do you know how much he submitted it for I saw it come in the email from panol um I want to but no I'm saying when you were on the phone with Florida commerce did they had they seen it and reviewed it I think they said they were still waiting
on something from shipo so they hadn't reviewed it yet but they said that we were financially irresponsible though we we we you know we don't need to rely on verbal Transmissions to commit I mean I could have requ we made the city has made a formal request
and we're waiting for a formal reply correct we've also requested a structural engineer but we haven't been a get that as well that's that's what we're required to do okay uh my comments are very simple and I do I would like to thank Commissioners jobi and Clark for
accompanying me to Alto which actually is a very nice facility I had never been there on Palm Beach Road and we did I was very happy to give to Miss Ruth Whiteman of Philadelphia so
she's happy um recognition for2 years old and the reason I mentioned it and by the way she was totally with it I was very impressed uh she had her family there but she indicated that she had ever since she was first El eligible to
vote she has a perfect voting record she has never missed the chance to cast her ballot and I was very impressed by that so it was nice to meet her and it's it was it was very enjoyable wasn't it yes yes it was uh and then secondly so this
is I'm asking for a D and D we all received this from Bonnie Moser Bonnie sits on the crb board it the subject was traffic coming please do something uh just to give you a little background and qualification Bonnie is a uh Urban
designer uh she works in traffic she lives on 10th Street she lives right in front of she lives right in front of which St Joe's she lives right in front of St Joe's and they've been having a number of incidents very scary to the children and parents and oh yes Miss
McBride I did see your name mentioned there and what I just like to do is have provide us up here an opportunity to hear from the parents so if there's no objection could we put this on for D and D at the next meeting um I'm are you saying like a town hall
for the parents to call just put an agenda item on to let the commission hear comments from the neighborhood but it wouldn't be for February 24th because we have about as busy a meeting for February 24th as we do today but we can do it for March 10th okay that's fine I'm actually going to meet with the
neighborhood at in that intervening period anyway so apparently there is a great deal of concern and so the children well there's two schools yeah yeah so apparently so and it's complicated we've had one meeting
already I think Milton was there and we met it's county road so it is a complicated Palm Beach is County Road and tenth is City Road right so those are my only comments comments by city manager Mr mortell um first uh I also was going to
mention Sandy thurlo will be speaking the on behalf of the steuart heritage museum at the Flagler Center titled celebrating our Centennial and it will be highlighting Martin County's 100 years as part of their um year-long celebration of their
Centennial uh I also wanted to thank Jolie for the 30 years of uh commitment he's given to the city and um I should also call him Lewis because that's what Milton calls
him and uh last ly um I wanted to also mention that the city of Stewart was named for uh the second year in a row the 2024 siga healthy Workforce designation which is the siga healthcare has honored the city with the 2024 gold
level healthy Workforce designation and recognition of its strong commitment to employee health and well-being through its workplace Wellness initiatives the city's award-winning steuart strong wellness program is built on three-pillar approach to create a healthier work environment and lifestyle for the employees and I
should mention that it's part of the uh health program to avoid medical claims in the long run and it's obviously the it's called the wow program or steart strong program and it's um been very successful and obviously siga is recognizing the the great strengths that
the uh city of Stewart has gone to to achieve the goals and it is beneficial to the employees because it gives them better physical and mental health but it's also beneficial to the city because in doing so it prevents uh in theory the large medical
expenses that would come from poor health and that's all I've got thank you so can we get a motion for approval of the agenda we're going to pull from the consent 10 11 and 17 is that correct Comm I replace 18 with 19 and 19 with 18
move uh Mo whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa just let me replace what 18 with 19 and 19 with 18 19 will be moving up 18 next so it go it will go moving 19 to the first
I got it it will go 16 191 18 yes and no no no it'll go yeah no it'll be consent 1918 all right got it and and we're pulling 10 forgive me 10 11 and 17 okay move approval second second we have a motion
by commissioner Clark and a second by the vice mayor all in favor I I comments from the public um on agenda on non agenda item if it's okay with the
commission could we allow people to comment on any of the items rather than make them wait if they're not going to be here if they're not going to be here they by the way it's kind of their privilege to do so anyway we just ask them to because it's more effective to
have it at the commission at the time but if someone wants to comment on it they're welcome to so is that okay with the commission I'll allow them to speak so if you if comment right yeah yeah so if you feel you won't be able to be here I have no idea when we'll get to the the
latter items um feel free to speak at this time so comments from the public yes I Madam clerk Robert Hamilton Robert Hamilton the 1895 Church of Stewart here we are again I am glad to
see the leadership awards given out to two people that covered up the fraud and swept it under the carpet that makes the taxpayers feel real good about that I sent you all an email today those
emails kept bouncing back we were blocked from the system here I stand 7 months later you said you were going to get to the bottom of it 7 months later we're here going back and forth back and forth back and forth kicking the can down the road it's
quite obvious to everybody who's watched this watch what went on the destruction the cover up the lies the fraud forging my signature this is not a joke anymore we have two weeks till the next meeting I'm asking you mayor Rich sir I
want it put on the next agenda yes or no I know you want to ignore me that's what goes on I'm not talking to you you're not you're not the mayor this about city employees not doing what they're supposed to do and they're running the roost the cabal in
the back room runs the city I have to deal with two people I have to deal with the commission and the cabal in the back room kicking the can down the road lying insulting my wife taking photographs in the curtilage of our home do you
understand what that means the curtilage of your home to take photographs without people knowing you me and my wife I want those photographs mayor all of them and the videos inside the curage of our home nobody has a right to do that I'm
letting certain things go that church is going to get fixed one way or another I don't care I'm tired of this leadership ship Wards are so good that two people had screwed us over 7even and a half months coming in here and I'm not
supposed to be upset the taxpayers are paying for this again and again and again because the city didn't say hey Patriot you screw this up it's in the contract they gave you the paperwork today you've had it for months you had
to remedy but you didn't want to do it and to this day Guardian still employed by the city of Stewart recently the West Coast of Florida a homeowner reached out to ogan and I asked if we knew Antonio Jenkins asked
if we know Don Cobb ogre saying why they went into their Horror Story of their home in real time I have meetings set up with her advise her to go to in the governor's office this has got to stop we need to Doge in here whatever you
want to call it we need a doge in here to stop this I want my home fixed false leans on my home I wasn't fixed thank you Olga
Hamilton she left she couldn't take it Julie priest thank you Miss Chief was GNA hand him out good evening mayor members of the commission city manager and City attorney I am Julie
priest I am an oldtime 1981 downtown Merchant and I retired from the retail business in 1995 in 1987 I was the first chair and president of steuart Main Street and started help start that program it was a difficult start we
didn't even have an office we moved our Main Street manager at the time that she was called a manager at least three times to donated offices donated equipment from Houston's office supply store used to be downtown and a lot of that is missing from this book but
there's a lot that's in this book it's called saving Stewart Florida this is about the revitalization of downtown Stewart what is amazing to me is that what you see today is not what was here in 19 80s and
1990s it was a blighted deteriorated place I had the audacity to purchase a store from a couple who were retiring a children's clothing store called pipet it was on one side of the lyric no longer even there anymore because now it's become part of the lyric it was
demolished and the lyric took it as part of their backstage then Bob Green uh retired Green's department store and I had already brought Critter fitter shoes from Central Stuart to downtown to help I don't know I had this idea downtown
was really going to be a great place but it was still deteriorated in the early 80s so in 87 we started Stuart Main Street soon after that we had Andrea stani our accomplished planner come to town there were charettes we came to a consensus and we accomplished what you
see today the vision came to reality and I just implore you and this is also sold at Stuart har Heritage to take the time it's an easy read it the lines are spread far apart so uh you you don't
have to get a uh any any special glasses to read it and it's quick and it was written bl by Blake fonton using mayor Joan Jefferson's files he also did interview a lot of us who are still alive some downtown Merchants um there are a few of us left and I also wanted
to bring you up to date on what's happening with the Centennial because I'm working with Miss Mrs Rich uh and also Mr George stokus at the county for the Centennial uh Mrs rich is helping to design a book a coffee table book and
I'm sure we had the city of Stewart as being one of the neighborhoods so-called neighborhoods that's going to be described in the book so each of the neighborhoods are going to have about 15 pages and in addition to that which they hope to have the book published by
August I met with Candice our director of Stuart ha her of uh Stuart Main Street just last week Mr Blake was there an McMillan was there another downtown Merchant she had a bookstore uh we had inz from the bdb there and uh what she
would like to do Candace would like to do is during historic preservation month if I can go on just a minute to inform you uh during historic preservation month she wants to have a two-day presentation at the flaggler where we uh have slideshows and everything on the
history which could include the county seat and all that information uh along with have having presentations by those who used to be here the old-timers like me so uh George stokus if you wish to get more information and of course Candice and she's planning to do that
during May historic preservation month any questions thank you okay Daryl [Applause] Mill hello my name is Daryl Mcgill and I from uh uh Kingswood Phase 2 here in uh
Stewart and uh first thank you for the proclamation and I actually came to sing to be a part of the program today to sing the national anthem which I sing for all the major league teams here in all three of the stadiums and I just wanted to at least let you know once I've been involved in entertainment and
producing events since 1972 so that's over 50 some years and I've been a volunteer at your Martin County Fair it's not your Martin County Fair obviously I'm the Martin County fair that you don't oversee and have no purview of but I'm a member of the Martin County Fair for 14
years volunteering actually and six years as the entertainment director and just happen just uh two two weekends ago I did go to the fair and I was in my volunteer shirt and they said you're not welcome here I said excuse me you're not
welcome here our feir board has voted you off the fairgrounds for two years I was in shock I had tears in my eyes after 14 years just the last couple things was one just recently I was named
an uh nominated unsung hero for the Treasure Coast I received from my County I was the uh one of three persons uh as the pride of our County this is in New York ster County I've served on fairs
for over 40 years and I came to the when I came here I started volunteering and helping at the Martin County Fair uh and I just remember as a kid my folks are from gford I'd come down here each year and we would go to gas
stations or restaurants or whatever and the same words you're not welcome here were ushered to my parents and I remember that so with that I just wanted to leave that message with you it's black history month and I feel very hurt
how I was treated thank you for your service thank you Rod Peterson Mr Peterson Mr Peterson here saw he left earlier unless he's out there I can do the next person if he'd likes first AO Cree
good evening I know it's a long night I see the agenda I'm going to try and keep this as short as I can and I realize it's also been a very heavy emotional night so I'm also going to try and keep this as emotionally uplifting as possible first I'd like to apologize when uh I believe Mr Hamilton decided to
speak out of turn I also did because I do believe in the order that needs to take place in order for for us to have discussions like this that are often extremely important but also extremely hard to do so for your time and your energy I thank you and I apologize for
overstepping my bounds but I do greatly respect the order that needs to happen for us to have this conversation so um I had no intention to talk tonight which of course is what always happens um not always but often I'm here for my job I'm
here tonight personally um well I was uh here for my job I'm now here for personal reasons in front of you right now so first I applaud the city of Stuart for their leadership training I'm also in the leadership program at with the Martin County Chamber um and I will
actually be riding along with uh one of the city of police uh soon as a part of that leadership um I of course am a female of childbearing age in Martin County I was trying to make these comments during the
actual disc discussion to the hospital but as you stated it's kind of different to have comments kind of not or in regards to a presentation that was done versus in public comment um I would suggest that and this is not to place blame but just an observation just
something to think about when we say you Cleveland Clinic must keep the OB open you must fix this you must keep it here I am not disparaging anybody as far as
um uh the various um Nos and the various 501 c3s that do excellent work I am not disparaging at all the fact that we would like to keep an OBGYN unit here in Martin County what I am saying is that when we say no growth or we say slower
growth or we say no we're not going to have multif family or we say we're not going to have this that and the other thing there may be a secondary unintended consequence to that I'm not saying that we want to be Broward none of us want that heck I'm four
generations Martin County seven generation Floridian none of us want that but there is an unintended consequence to saying we don't want those 60 units we don't want I I was part of the presentation that created or
brought an approval for 60 units on Central uh Parkway it was highly contested at the time and I have had people ask me how the heck did you bring that how could you it's because I'd like us not to die I'd like us to have
children I'd like us to have an OBGYN unit that does birth 400 a year thank you thank you thank you Rod Peterson apparently Robin cartright good evening
Commissioners I drove past the Costco site this morning and I almost threw up and it's not because a Costco is going in but because it was never about Costco but because of the behaviors permitted and encouraged to get projects approved some examples Communications are shared some even labeled confidential with
developers and their experts yet rarely with the public staff takes the word of developers at face value while ignoring us even when we provide pictures and videos a developer paid expert like an environmental consultant can lie about their credentials and staff and some Commissioners will just blow it off
while we're told that we are not and cannot be experts lies shared by a certain blogger continue to create vitriolic Behavior by some members of the public and when the city has been asked to address this it's just quote we can't control what get gets published staff presents only the positive emails
while not even mentioning those in opposition even after our project is started we expressed concerns about the lack of oversight and the reply is that you have no control over other agencies actions or oversight a developer and even some homeowners don't need permission just a friend on staff and
maybe the commission there's so many more but here's the biggest takeaway as part of her ruling regarding the caner cpud the the administrative law judge said six times that the city failed and there have been no improvements and no changes to the process nothing has
changed presentations are created to suit a narrative that isn't honest or complete using propaganda and M ction while fostering the out forementioned vitriol and allowing ad homonym attacks instead of focusing on best practices and sustainability and I want to be very
clear about this when a developer buys a parcel they know what land use is assigned and what zoning is permitted by right there is no by right when they require a land use and or zoning change even if they Annex it into the city add to that homeowners doing major work
without a permit and it's Shrugged off by certain city staff affordable housing is being approved but it's unenforcable a parking deficiency was solved but not really by creating tandem parking tonight an applicant wants a zoning change that will seemingly exempt them
from commission approval of a site plan and Costco will open nothing has changed it should Helen McBride hello McBride from Flamingo Avenue I was here last meeting and spoke about 10th Street and the city manager said he was
going to ride down 10th Street nothing has happened to been done and um and Reporting back to my neighbors but what happened at the last meeting uh I know Mr mortell said it was AT&T but according to my neighbor it's a company
out of Indian town but I Mike did you see the mess I'm apolog I actually have photographs of both issues one is the cord that's hanging down and then the other's like the hole the hole and then up by St and I have um been trying to
address it the problem is if we mess with the cords running along those things and anything goes out then all of a sudden it becomes every single person's cable and phone and everything in the whole city so we're the black table with the wires on it right in front of right in front of the church no
not hang it's right on the ground and a hole that right there's a hole with a cable in it but there's also the yellow the the hanging down well that but the two things on the ground should be taken care of but it's not our mess it's this
company's mess correct the this the black stool you know the round thing with black wire on it that's right in front of St Joseph's recory and then the other one is down uh by Pine school's opening um same St Michaels school and
um Mr mortell Mr Mortel Milton did put a something the are to protect the children he put that but we you know then you know my kids they're in their 50s but I love all kids and I my neighbors asked me because they know I come here and I love my neighbors and
I'm going to keep you know we want to keep after this because the the the schools are there they they're not us seniors or High School these are Elementary SCH stud student St Joseph's and JD Parker so and we we just
appreciate anything you can do we just it's been like this for a couple of years I I I just ignored it but now these the young mothers are concerned thank you thank you Walter Lloyd yeah to when we're done with these comments he he
requested if you'd like to make your comment during general public comment it's up to you good evening Commissioners I had intended to speak on 19 but let's get it let's get it over with um as I understand it we're uh altering Zoning
for a property owner this evening and or at least in consideration who I assume did do diligence when they invested in this uh property as it is um I'm asking you to please and we just heard it from another uh speaker don't do another
Costco thing please I ask you to please act with care and uh to study the future plans of what this owner has intended for it to keep controls on the effects it may have on our environment and
culture please don't allow a precedent to be introduced which will lead to unwanted changes to our quality of life in the best small town culture as we have it now this I happen to live very close to the Costco I'm experiencing
extreme heartache and uh my quality of life is definitely affected now I understand it's under construction but I am quite sure it's going to be ill affected for quite some time so please don't keep doing that let our let our
town maintain a quality of life that we'll enjoy Sandra Newman I am Sandra Newman uh Lake Street in Stewart um I was here to address uh item number 21 the
Redevelopment I was hoping to hear all of it before having to speak but let me just read what I've written um since it's I may have to leave it is my understanding that originally our people were on the water
near s su's point where there were the mosquitoes most of the time then it was decided that we were the black people moved to a property away from the water and near the railroad tracks I was born here and I have been here in steart all
my life my family is here and other families that have not asked for very much uh over the years from this city or from this commission we have let you go and get money based on us and do
whatever so over the past few years you have used all kinds of tactics to get us to sell our properties to you in the East area we are perfectly happy there we do not want to sell that did not work
so now whatever you are planning or trying to do with our property and not provide for our people to have a a decent place to live uh or they can afford um we appreciate it if you would not do that we don't want it and we will
object to it forever you have taken away Living Spaces uh through the tayor property the Cherokee property and not giving us anything back so what we would like for you to be working on would be to stop
this rezoning to remove some of our property take it and use it for businesses it appears from what I've heard earlier today and put in funding and our programs to increase minority ownership in the east St area we need
your help not your resoning uh and to help us with businesses small businesses being built in the east St area not larger businesses that are going to take over our property and create noise like um a
business that we now have on Martin Luther King Boulevard don't look at it's Eastward for your expansion is what we're asking for today to see our needs we're not willing to sell or move we need housing and small businesses there
are a few here who have been able to stay that agree with me and if you all would stand now please look elsewhere and not at East Stewart thank you thank you thank [Applause]
you we have Michael benetti good evening Commissioners uh Mike manetti um from peral Circle um I want to mention tonight I want to uh well I some commercial properties on Oola Street in the R3 zoning District right now I'm on Oola and in Georgia um
I want to propose that we consider adding beauty salons specialty salons and barber shop as a promoted use in the RS3 zoning District itself um I fig that now in the zoning and process be a good time to bring this up um and I think it
fits um salons are appointment based uh Professional Services and are part of the dbpr uh just like veterinary medicine um Architects and interior designers all which are in that zone existing right now um salons they all have specific
license requirements just like massage therapists who are also permitted in there um and many uh massage therapists also work out of salons too in that category um I feel that's no more intense than what is currently permitted
in the R3 District um and in some cases salons may be less intense um one of my tenants was labor for a number of years and they were extremely int tense in terms of parking and everything all the services they provided um but um you know where I'm at
right now there there are salons in the R3 um Sal um sat um sat sat Salon is in the R3 right now um IV is just to the the next property west of me they are in
the urban District um in my same block just to my South was Salon a Biza Boutique was there also um so they they exist in the area and I I feel like it would it' be a good fit for the area for small businesses and individuals like
that um uh I can't think of any conses it supports the community small businesses it feels a need um and like I said I I do not believe there's many more intense than what is currently allowed um like uh Mr Corbin said
earlier in his presentation of small businesses account for uh 80% of local growth too in the area um so uh in summmer I'm just proposing the addition of salons specially salons and barers ships to be included as a permitted use in the
R3 during this zoning progress era I didn't want to interrupt you but you talking about 400 Oola is that that property yes so that would be B2 not R3 just for clarification I'm trying to figure out where you're specific R3
residential um ool in Georgia yeah Oola in Georgia yeah yeah it's right before the cut off goes to the back of the hospital right go satellite um here we
go that's the hospital he's this way on the east side of Georgia so that's for the corner of Georgia Anda there the R3 so the the Brown is not
R3 wait if you click on that yeah it's got him as R3 multi family okay office yeah family office okay um that's the pleasure of the board okay we got it thank you appreciate it thank you is that something we need to have a d and over
to be able to vote for expand because that's that's like at the edge of the it's all of our three so that would go down here all the way down East Ocean down Oola and it would also go here and here his neighbor next to it is a hair salon so wonder what's the discrepancy it's
the a use allowed in R3 it's just it's not listed use to it's just you can add it could we D and D this a conditional D and D it yes sure you want anything we want because if he's our three then
right next door that property that we own what is that this is only the first reading that well this this isn't R3 changing that there's no text amendment to R3 currently in the first reading unless you guys amend it tonight and add it add
R3 say right next door so we need to find the street yeah so this is urban General so this is where the so that's why the downtown overlay Zone ends there right so we would be talking about
extending the overlay to he was asking us to change R3 to allow add use you could amend the that's what we should do Urban overlay map but I also don't know if three yeah not not as
like exactly part of the zip it's not part of the zip if we did and I'll tell you that because we can bring it back for a discussion because that would if we change R three not to be going back and forth with the other Di clarification it would change Citywide all R3 could include hair salons but if we just take
that Urban Zone and make it one more parcel over now you would be within the urban you would be allowed to do hair salons there it would change the zoning but it would expand use more than okay we got to be careful with this so we need to
look at this and have the staff bring clarification just so everybody knows by putting it on a DND that makes it though it's not going to happen as part of the zip and if you so if it was turned out in the D and D that you wanted to make a map Amendment or change the zoning in R3
text Amendment we would then go back to the LPA or if it's in the urban area it would be back to the CRA and the or crb CRA and LPA and then come back for two readings so it would be probably
August yeah that's why I'm mentioning it because it's not going to be something that happens in that's the process would be June July by the time that's the process yes and it's not something we could have before second reading well we
have first reading tonight completely thrown off the whole zip if the if the board votes to do a text amendment to add a use to R3 it can be included not that um or I mean we don't have map Amendment thatb Zone to one more the LPA
would not wasn't the LPA would not have heard it no no and that's not allowed the text Amendment could be allowed but the okay we understand your and we'll work on it can you can you bring us back something next next meeting to discuss
it the those two options sure outside of a free meeting with so I believe you sent us bring back next meeting it's out it's like it's if you don't do it if you don't motion mtion for something to be included in a text Amendment tonight it won't be able to be included in the second reading so it'll be out anyway Le
is saying that would be inappropriate with the zip because the LPA didn't hear it well the map Amendment would be inappropriate with the zip but the text Amendment could be in the zip if you were adding a use to the R3 but if you're not inclined to add a use to the R3 and you just want to expand the that
that would also require a future land use change comp plan Amendment as well because the land use below that we have to know which properties are downtown ends with that purple line so could we discuss that next meeting could we have that on as an item sure separate
from the zip right it's no it'll be like a D and D so would that be City initiated or is he going to be initiating it as a Zone in change it's right now it's a D and D okay so nothing is right yeah the the the land
owner would have to come in it would be no different than the yes folks that are asking for a zoning change tonight is uh on us one yes okay so the next meeting we're going to unpack it we're going to have a d and d for you
guys to discuss the thing but I'm not sure what you want us to what I would like you to bring back is sort of those two options where we could be expanding that that um overlay from Urban one more parcel over to include his parcel versus changing our three just so we can really
impact the implications of both well because those would be the two the two method methods to achieve that correct right but you also I it isn't as arbitrary as expanding Urban over one parcel is is it's if the commission is going to say we want to expand the urban
overlay Zone you would look at the borders of the ENT I mean it could be across the street as well or it could be five Parcels down I mean like it's not it wouldn't be just for that parcel under the D and D we would just be saying here's a map Amendment here's a text Amendment and then as far as how
far you want the map amendment to go that would be really up to the board because right now it ends and I also I don't know where the CRA ends but I believe the hospital is in the CRA so I'm assuming that R3 has to be in the
CRA for it to reach but I don't know if like Illinois Avenue or East Ocean in front of the thing to commissioner Clark's point the normal Mo here would be for him to submit an application if he wanted a zoning change for that overlay to expand
over or no or he could also do a conditional use right just for that parcel right what would be the most expedient here we can't advise him well I'm asking the city manager the most expedient to
do what I mean if you wanted to make it urban center you it would take probably longer because you have to do a future land use map Amendment and a zoning map Amendment if it was just just to allow a
beauty salon he could do a PUD condition um I don't know if he can do a conditional use because I don't think he's in the urban center so it would have to be a PUD approval to do the um hair salon which is what s did on East
Ocean Boulevard and um bboa which was referenced in his comment um and it's simply a zoning you could do a Zone change and request a change in the zoning or you could do a PUD to
request an exception to the zoning or what's basically contract zoning perhaps he should talk to staff and we'll bring it up on we'll bring back the DND to explain the map and thing next meeting as well so could you set so it would be better for them to talk to jod and start
that okay you can't hear come to the microphone sorry page um so what they kind introduce yourself I'm Paige Benedetti okay um his wife um so what we've kind of understood is that the because of the zoning in
progress we kind of started this application that you're talking about back in June or July um and then the zoning in progress happened and it kind of halted everything that we were doing um so then because of this we were like okay well all we want to do is add this
verbage essentially to allowing salons especially um Barbers to the R3 zoning so it's and that's what we're trying to say it's not changing anything as in massage therapists are allowed in there estheticians are allowed there um Lab Corp was in there so we're not changing
the traffic flow we're not but it's allowing smaller businesses to still be in the city I understand I think we understand but I would talk to staff about the way to proceed at this point well I mean there's nothing with the zip holding them up right the only
way to do a text Amendment to the to the ldr would be for the commission to adopt an El a text Amendment if they want to do a zoning change they could apply for a zoning change um to change the zoning to a different zoning use no we could potentially add you're saying Salon but
the text Amendment with the zip is yeah I mean you could do it add the use to R3 to just add the use to R3 okay that would be the it be all R3 do you feel like you have a good sense of why or why not that was not included in R3 I don't have any idea okay to be able to discuss
it tonight I mean I'll be I'm going to look it up right now so I'll be able to discuss it by the time we get to it all right okay we'll see we'll figure it out thank you okay any additional public comments I do um Rosie Shepard good evening again as you know um I'm
not a big fan of the zip but you know I'm very uh disheartened to hear about a lot of the changes and how they will affect the East Stewart Community from the ability for the land owners to uh
build a duplex to um a lot size that they W you know a small lot size not being non-conforming um and then having to ask permission for a specific use in grro so if they're zoned that way and that's how
I understood it so I I feel you know it's very unfortunate um and it will be damaging to them on the other side um I do support the bdb they I do hope that um
you know they get the budget that requests that they're asking for oh I hate talking public but um they're really critical for people that are in business having them as a resource here in the county I
deal with business owners every day and being able to say call the bdb talk to them and use them as a tool um I hope you do consider strongly of continuing the support thank you so much thank
you Joe Cooper good evening Mr Cooper good evening May commission thank you for having me Joseph Cooper 906 Southeast 9th Street um a non it's an agenda item so it's out of order due to time we're talking about agenda item 21 to build on what Mr
Newman said and the young lady here talked about the text Amendment change that is going to affect the current you know historical owners of the land within the easto community I think we should slow down figure out talk to the
stakeholders um AC cross-section of stakeholders because you want you're trying this text amend will eventually affect their ability to choose their development um process and on their land whether it's a commercial so we know historically um that was a segregated
neighborhood everybody in this room understood that that neighborhood consisted of businesses and homes that's just how it was and that's how it should stay you should have an ability to figure that out but we can slow down I know the text am menes is the first
reading you're going to do that but I think that there consequences that will be suffered or or or people that own land need stort um will be adversely affected by that there's a process that can be undertaken by the city that can
encourage input from the Das and input from the community a crosssection it take but with people who are land planners and and things like that that can kind of see this kind of and I think if we do that then we can get a better understanding of what all the stakeholders whether it's the city of
Stewart as it relates to growth um as whether the the the current Loos and how they want to develop their property they need the flexibility we don't want to kind of take these rights I mean it's like going into Haney Creek and taking the rights of the folks in Haney Creek we're not going to do that we're not
going to go to selfish point and do that either right we're not going to do that in those neighborhoods don't need to do that we need to slow down with this uh when it comes to the bdb they're talking about expanding and giving access to Capital to small businesses if you start to take these text Amendment businesses
that may want to build or have people that have land and each store can't do it if you take the text Amendment and you kind of put it in there and said it can't it can only be a residential it can't be you know or if you want to do it you got to come get permission everybody's big everybody's grown here we don't need permission because you
always already have you have a process by which if you bring a project to the city of store a development project it goes through the different boards gets been the LPA the crb it gunes before the commission now we're adding an extra layer for what the East store Community
it's probably not right I think you guys should use your conscience I know we probably can't stop it as my dad would say let your conscience be your guide you know the days of just trying to dictate or say we know what's best for you we don't need that we're we're
learning folks everybody's got a ability to rationalize and bring things up and conjure up an idea on an ability to develop or and make decisions and so we we need to definitely I normally don't go over time but I just want the
commission to das is to to really take their time take a step back there's a process if they want you want to hear about that process that the city can be involved in it can in involve the community and they get the the stakeholders they can put provide very
valuable input on how they want to develop the eort community thank you thank [Applause] you I just I had a I want to Mr May Mr vice mayor we're we're about to go to
break so just in case you guys were not going to stick around I wanted to make a comment about E Stewart quickly um the changes that are proposed for East Stewart I can't tell you what we're all going to vote on tonight but what I've been advocating for is to keep that uh
neighborhood single family home okay what happened in the late 90s and early 2000s was the East Stewart master plan the sheret came together and decided that that single family home neighborhood should be all mixed use and
residential office except for a small subsection of it that's more to the east and south side even on tarpon even on um I think Bahama that just sections that are all single family homes were rezoned to business mixed use this is my
major issue is there's been a lot of miscommunication around what is going on unless you're a developer or you want to sell your property in E Stewart you should want the zoning in there to stay single family home or as close to it as
we can get because if it's General residential office or business mixed use and you have multiple vacant Parcels like on East and somebody comes in because there's a bright Line Station all of a sudden there that East Stewart master
plan comes to life because now there's demand for E Stewart and so you have developers coming in and offering a lot of money to people to sell their properties peace meal them together and turn it
into a Starbucks on the bottom and bougie Apartments upstairs I want that neighborhood to remain a single family home neighborhood and the people who live there to continue to live there and not have the pressure financially to sell their properties to developers so I can
appreciate you know developers that come up and they speak to want you know they want to see more development happen there but I want that single family home neighborhood to remain so that if you stick around for the zoning and progress conversation when we get there tonight that's what you will see from me is
advocating for the expansion of single family home zoning where in 200 1998 through 2004 we changed that from single family home to business mixed use so that was all I have Stephen
cotton Stefan hi I'm Stephan cotton thank you thank you for that Mike I've been a uh 50-year resident and have a company in downtown Stewart for 42 years uh I bought a property in 2004 and had a uh
Halfacre empty lot on it I tried toh see what I could develop on it I came to the city did everything they asked for spent up quarter million dollar got it virtually approved but they wanted a variance for some kickout balconies I
agreed to put that in anyhow long story short Virginia Sherlock uh decided she was going to sue the city if I if it got approved and I it quashed the deal uh couple years ago I came and said let me see what I could do now because the uh
property uh uh was supposedly in demand because of the shortage of Housing and they wanted housing in Stewart and I did a feasibility study and I did some other studies and found out that the need for highend and shortterm rentals would be a
great product and I designed that product uh on I have a 1.3 Acres total I think and I was allowed per the Pud for roughly 38 to 40 units of one bedroom
small type units they were all uh designed around one parking spot uh I thought there was a need for people going uh to visit people uh from out of town uh at the hospital people getting a divorce needing a quick place to stay uh
support for Hospitality people coming out out of uh South Florida and up north that needed a shortterm stay during the season to visit the uh City again I'm very familiar with the city after being here for 50 plus years uh I understand that there's a
consideration for changing the parking from one unit per uh unit to two .5 which would absolutely kill my produ uh uh pro project and make the uh uh
property not be able to fit that that usage uh again I think from a standpoint of Revenue the city needs to be looking at how do we get more Revenue in the city every time I hear about meetings it's the revenue shortfall to get
Revenue shortfall you need High expensive product you need buildings you need things that create Revenue on a repeated basis and I'm seeing how this is sort of being denied now and again I think my pro project was well thought
out as a need for the uh for the county for the city and made a lot of sense and now I think it's it's it's going to be potentially scra based on the parking and why we would want one and a half more uh uh parking spaces of asphalt on
a 600 foot unit you don't it's going to be one person staying there in one car or a family with one car we just don't need it and we have a again overflow based on the One units but I just uh ask uh everybody to please uh look at uh
before we just do these blanket uh things that we really look at the potential impact and it would financially uh impact my project uh greatly thank you for your consideration Kimberly mccardy
Grant hi Kimberly mccardy um with the rezoning in East store there are a few people who own the majority of the property in that area my family owns quite a bit um I think it's an
assumption of knowing what's best for us rather than Consulting with us about what we'd like so at this point I'm asking you to please um I know you have access to all of the information you know who the property owners are if you could consult with us
so that we don't have to hear about it and not assume that you know what's best for us we're quite content right now with what's going on so before you make changes on our behalf we would just ask the just consideration of being um
consulted with about that if you want to know what we think for ourselves thank you mayor we have no more public comment we have what we have no more public comments okay we are going to
take a 15minute break three and a half hours in um so we'll reconvene at 20 of su Madame clerk okay 20 of eight a you don't want to
do e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e commissioner [Music]
Clark no she's not here nope she's not for her I know there's a line there long night very long night calling the meeting back to order at 8:47 8:45 7:45
sorry uh can I get a motion for approval of the consent calendar pulling items 10 11 and 17 second we have a motion by the vice mayor and a second by commissioner Clark all in favor I just want a clarification
first if we're doing that are we reading um 19 first then no no consent agenda right now right but then we'll do 10 and 11 and 17 19 before 18 we'll do them in
the order in which they so when I okay when I had originally made my motion by the way it was supposed to be commission action based so in my thought process it would have been 19 first and then that is what we agreed to no we said the consent agenda comes first and we hold
10 11 and 17 for discussion and I said for commission are are we okay with following his line of thought and doing just on the consent to gender right now still got okay just want to make sure that's where we're at though so we can do 19 next okay that I think was that was the okay if that pleases the board
right okay but we still need to pull approve the consent calendar and pull 10 11 and 17 yes okay so all we were all in favor no you got a roll call please or come in from the commissioner
Reid yes commissioner Clark yes vice mayor Collins yes commissioner goobi yes mayor Rich yes now we have 10 11 and 17 it you can move to 19 if that's the board's pleasure Apparently that is the
board's pleasure so Mr bagot will you please read item 19 ordinance second reading for our consideration please [Music]
ordinance number 2537 d225 an ordinance of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida amending the city's official zoning map to rezone a 33 acre parcel which is located at 255
Southwest 6th street from the urban Waterfront zoning designation to the urban Highway zoning designation providing directions to the city clerk providing for repeal of all ordinances in Conflict providing for severability and providing for an effective date and
for other purposes okay do we have a motion move approval of ordinance number 2537 2025 is there a second we would have a presentation probably okay we'll move through the
presentation I can hold back by motion we another um it's not legislative okay they want to go through the process first okay so hold on we don't have to code
requ okay do the do the commission commissioner Reed do you have any exp parte Communications to disclose yes I talked to Nish Matel um two weeks ago I think it was on a Saturday evening I think we spoke for about an hour hour and a
half commissioner giobi no actually they never reached out to me commissioner Clark I've have none I'm here with an open mind vice mayor I've spoken with the mesh and I have not spoken with the applicant I have spoken with City staff
with regard this with regard to this issue um City attorney will you place any potential Witnesses under oath sure will all potential Witnesses for the applicant and the city staff please stand raise your right hand and be sworn in do you affirm that the testimony that
you are about to provide in this hearing will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God all right you may be [Music] seated okay will the development department please make a presentation regarding
this thank you mayor good evening board members for the record my name is Jody cougler the development director with the city of Stewart tonight I'm presenting agenda item 19 an amendment to the official zoning atst to change the urban Waterfront to Urban Highway
zoning designation at 255 Southwest 6th Street pursuant to the Land Development code public notice requirements on December 20th 24 the applicant mailed notices to all adjacent Property Owners within 300 fet of the subject parcel to provide details of the requested
petition in a date and time of tonight's public Hearing in addition three public notice signs were posted on the property with the same information for context the point 33 acre parcel at 255 Southwest 6th Street
is currently vacon the site is within the urban overlay zoning district and the community redevelopment area the current future land use is downtown Redevelopment and general uses permitted include low density
residential multif family residential office commercial recreation lodging public facilities and conservation and mixed use projects the subject parcel is surrounded by the downtown Redevelopment future land use destination as depicted in
blue the existing zoning is urban Waterfront which refers to special Waterfront oriented uses including marinas restaurants entertainment hotels and highdensity residential existing Marine Industrial uses are conditionally
permitted the subject parcel is currently zoned Urban Waterfront within the CRA the properties to the north south and west are zone urban Highway the property is to the east is zone urban Waterfront the applicant is requesting to propose the 33 Acres site to rezone
to Urban Highway and occurs on both sides of the Southeast Federal Highway as it traverses the urban Cod District this area allows large front setbacks and Highway oriented commercial or high density residential uses with generous parking
lots this Pro this uh petition was heard at the local planning agency they held a public hearing on January 16 2025 and the board voted unanimously passing a motion to forward a recommendation to the city of Stewart city of Stewart City commission for
approval again this also was heard at the community redevelopment board on February 4th and the board voted in an passing a motion to forward a recommendation of approval to the city of Stewart City commission this petition conforms to the
criteria outlined in section 11.1.0 n of the steuart Land Development code for statues and is consistent with the goals objectives and policies of the city of Stewart comprehensive plan staff recommends that the city's commission
adopt ordinance number 2537 d224 to approve the resoning the subject parcel from Urban Waterfront to Urban Highway this does conclude staff presentation we do have the applicant in the audience that also has an uh
presentation if You' like to hear that does the petitioner wish to make an app presentation okay sure good evening Commissioners uh Jared Gaylord for the record on behalf of PK Street hotels I'm joined this evening by nes and Vall
Patel who are my clients um you'll recall I was at the commission meeting um back on the 27th of January and we're back here today for the second reading of the ordinance um I'm gonna ask Jody if she can assist oh apparently I have a
clicker [Music] today thank you thank you uh this is the surrounding neighborhood uh it is on the east side of US1 if you can see it's outlined in that red line there
just north of 6th Street and just south of the dondog this is a closeup of the property you can see that um the structure on the West Side closer to US1 is a former former funeral home and that building closer to Frasier Creek is where a
crematorium was located this is just an aerial to give a little bit of a vantage point of the view from uh some of the properties on the east side of Frasier Creek uh noting that when you measure out that distance uh between those property lines is about
70 ft um uh the other thing that's worth noting is that there will be um the plans do in include adding vegetation along that 100 foot of Waterfront that uh does exist important to note that
that portion is not zoned Urban Waterfront it's actually zoned Urban Highway the portion that does not front Frasier Creek is strangely enough zoned Urban Waterfront and this is another Vantage Point looking to the east uh there's really
only about two maybe three houses um east of the creek that uh would have somewhat of a fronting the property um again their their View Corridor would not really be conducive to seeing the proposed uh structure which would be
closer to US Highway One um and so it would you know it would be somewhat difficult to see with the six foot high wall that they have planned and also the vegetation along the these are just some of the you know pictures of the existing uh site you can
see the former funeral home you can see the notice signs and also a picture from the rear parking lot that would be facing towards the urban Waterway portion of the site this is a survey showing the property um you'll note that
that that little uh portion on the uh Northeast quadrant would be that portion that fronts uh Fraser Creek South side of it where we're actually resoning it does not front the creek this is that enlarged survey
again uh my clients purchased this property in April of 2023 and then joined it with the unity of title so that a Redevelopment could occur uh in May of 2023 um again because of the conflicting zoning regulations we really have to pick either Urban Waterfront or Urban
Highway if we have both of them on the property there isn't really much we can do with this site because of the conflicting regulations namely where that parking lot is going to go right it's either going to go in the front or it's going to go in the rear again as as staff went through this
is the current zoning designation of urban Waterfront for that basically 33 Acres uh portion of the property the total acreage of the property is 1.58 acres and the proposed just so that it's consistent so we don't have that discrepancy in the code
and again it is in the downtown designation you will notice that um North and South along US Highway one on the east side it is consistent with the other zoning designations as Urban Highway um this is just something that I
thought might be helpful um there some of the definitions of urban Highway and urban Waterfront descriptions in the steart code Urban highway is an an area that allows large front setbacks and Highway oriented commercial or highdensity residential with you uses with generous parking lots
an urban Waterfront refers to special Waterfront oriented uses including marinas restaurants entertainment hotels and higher density residential Urban Highway um it's it's important to note that the front building facade should be constructed parallel to a street uh
property minimum setback of 15 maximum set back of 40 feet um it does it is important to note um that the Heights are the same for both water Urban Waterfront and urban highway so regardless of which zoning District it
is you're still allowed four stories um all parking lots so it's important to note on Urban Highway it says all parking lot areas shall be located behind the rear facad of a principal building or screen from public rights Way by a street wall trellis or other screening and then Urban Waterfront
another another difference I already mentioned that the parking right and I'll read that now for urban Waterfront parking shall not be located within 10 ft of the front and side property lines and shall not be located between the rear of the building facade and the water so that would be problematic for
this project the other thing to note is that a Vista shall be designated for urban waterfront properties um along the side of a property that provides an unobstructed view of any public RightWay of the St Luc Lucy River or any of its tributaries um it's our position that
having an urban Highway designation would be beneficial for those properties across from Fraser Creek we're going to be situating that structure closer to US1 further from those from those properties a lot easier to screen the structure If instead we're pushing it towards the creek and we have to have a
Vista that's going to open it up have less opportunities for landscaping or other site walls so it become more visible and I'm happy to go through any rezoning standards that the commission may have or um answer any other
questions that that the commission may have so just to remind the Commissioners we're talking about the zoning not any particular project we're simply talking about the zoning so are there any questions of the applicant or
staff this one might be for staff is there um I noticed during the the presentation and stuff um how the urban Waterfront doesn't necessarily touch water per se are there other
Parcels throughout the city that have the same zoning that don't touch Waterfront At All by chance not that we're not that we're currently aware of I also don't know if that
parcel didn't touch Waterfront when it was designated as Urban Waterfront in 1998 um it may have been that it was part of a larger parcel and a portion was sold off and so it was separated I
don't know I didn't do a title search on it yeah so I can tell you the parcel if you can just see where my cursor is um there was maps that showed this as being Urban Waterfront dis parcel right here in 2002 and it went all the way down
this way over time I don't have the actual time exactly haven't finished the analysis but over time it did get change from Urban water front to Urban Highway for this and for down here too and when you when you show the back of it you're talking about all the way up to the road
yes correct so it's the entire parcel right but specifically are there other Urban waterfront properties in the city that may have that zoning that don't touch waterfront property so i i p up the city zoning map
before this meeting and looked at it yeah just go to the city zoning map and you can look right at it and blue is urban Waterfront I didn't see any okay I see four on Third Street and uh Atlanta Avenue are they not on the water they're not do we know if there's a way
on the gis map to where we can filter by zoning designations you can it's got the the St but you can't you can't separate them out okay so we can't separate them out to to see we're basically doing what I'm doing is bouncing
around that's it then Mr vice mayor so to both the city manager and Jody's points my concern here is around this eating up of urban Waterfront this is a very tricky area we
got a lot going on we've got Urban Highway we've got Urban Waterfront and then we've got Urban neighborhood right behind it this is very tricky my concern is we are slowly eating away at this Urban water front
and turning this whole thing into urban Highway and I I would not feel comfortable personally continuing to eat into that Urban Waterfront anymore I think it set a precedent where we're just you know it's it's one thing if we have sort of
like we were discussing earlier on Oola where it's more appropriate this is there's a lot going on right here and to change that zoning I think could be problematic um uh commissioner coll would we want to see this you know eating into urban neighborhood you know
like where does Urban Highway stop so yes vice mayor if if I may the uh property that's in question or the petition this particular property doesn't even touch this is a separate parcel from this one I understand so it's not even on the waterfront at this
point but because to um City manager's point the parcel just you know above it at one point was and then became Urban Highway this is sort of this Progressive eating up you know and turning what is urban Waterfront into urban
highway just to add I don't know I mean I did not run a title search on this so I don't know but just because that partial to the north was Urban Waterfront at one time doesn't mean that they were a part of a larger but even if it wasn't do you do you hear my point of you're setting a precedent for continuing to do this where you're
expanding Urban highway I'm not a I'm not trying to set a precedent for anything tonight well we would be by potentially but what I'm trying to do is get my Cent to have one set of zoning regulations so if the commission wants to have this be Urban water I think another option that that is is available
is for your for the applicant to come in for a conditional use so if for you know if it was the board's pleasure that this was not appropriate changing this zoning your applicant could come in for a conditional use correct I mean that is a possibility
I just don't understand why this is not it it makes sense that this one site should have one consistent Zing regulation for it I appreciate your perspective those are my comments and I just want to put on the
record that um after looking at the urban Waterfront zoning I can count one two 3 four 5 six 7 8 n
10 11 it looks like Parcels that um are zoned as Urban Waterfront that are not uh touching the water Mike what would be um the purpose I guess or what was the goal for the Zoning for urban Waterfront
was it meant for the public to have the Vista while they're walking throughout residential neighborhoods or downtown the the Vista was added by commissioner um Hutchinson and she wanted it so that you could have a Vista through to the
water the reality of it is in a lot of the situations the the property owner originally provides the Vista and then within about four or five years there's a hedge and the Vista goes away gotcha um or they don't trim the bushes or
whatever it is or it's between the two parcels and things like that the I mean obviously when you look at the zoning the zoning is almost identical it's just the placement of the property and what they were saying when they were doing the urban Waterfront is that in Stewart
there's a big Maritime Community as well and so they wanted the view like when you're in downtown on the boardwalk looking at the coastline they didn't want it to be all parking lots in the backs of buildings they wanted that to be kind of the front yard projecting
onto the river of a you know of the presentation so in this instance if it is urban water Waterfront whoever Builds on that property will have to push whatever the structure is all the way back to the canal and so then the building would be up against the canal
so the people across the canal would be essentially closer to the structure if it's Urban Highway the exact opposite happens and the structure is moved up to the sidewalk next to the highway and then the parking goes behind the
structure which would be away from the canal and you know and as far as it goes this is actually the parcel that's in question tonight is one of three Parcels
that were Consolidated into a into one parcel so it could be and not suggesting that this would be the case but if the commission didn't take action you could end up
with a development still on the other two parcels that just kind of ignored this parcel and it would probably end up with less landscaping and less design but that's you know it's that's more speculation than
anything else what do you mean by that with less design less landscape well right now I'm looking at it and I don't know how many I don't know how many square feet or if it's an acre or two acres or what it is but if I carved out the urban Waterfront to just go forward with straight zoning on Urban highway I
would take that square out and still design whatever Urban Highway would allow and then you could end up with another entity coming forward and if somebody came forward with just the urban Waterfront square and said Okay I
want a straight zoning I don't know what the you know how they would be able to do the Vista but that's they' still have to meetod right and I think to it there wouldn't be that stuff you know again to push on the possibility of conditional
use it would give this commission the ability considering how how much is going on in this very small area it would give the ability for the public to have input it would give the ability for this commission to have input over ultimately what went there if that you
know was something you were open to doing just to make sure that everybody is satisfied um so just give you my thoughts I would like to see not a rezone today but you guys coming in for conditional
use any other comments or questions um so no matter what use one of my concerns about this site has always been the traffic going North
coming around that curve it's dangerous enough for those of us who live here but for tourists who are maybe enjoying themselves I really worry about that because if you hit that light and it's green you are really
moving if we were to Grant the change you could put the entrance no matter what you built there on six off of six correct rather than right on us one I believe that they I mean I don't know for a fact but I believe that they're
going to have a primary entrance off of us one and then an ancillary entr off of six tough part of the site plan but that would be a part of the site plan and the staff's review and approval not necessarily for the zoning hearing today
okay okay I have no other questions um oh no I'm sorry have you spoken to the people who live on the creek and those I've spoken to some of the people who live on the creek and I believe uh my client has reached out to some of them after this hearing and when the site
plan is formalized um I've been in communication with Jody that we would set up a community meeting so have they expressed a preference have they expressed a preference I can tell you several of them are fous okay um let me speak they expressed their preference would they rather see the building up on
the creek or would would they rather see it on the road they have not uh expressed any preference either way from what I have gathered uh my communications with them they are more in you know hungry for information rather than objecting I don't believe that there's been an official letter of
objection given to the to the city there's just been more we'd like to know what is happening and that's that's why my clients and I are willing to meet with them once this process do you have a comment regarding that Mr Mortel I'm not aware of any objection being formally filed as well the development
director is noding no as well CH chair Rich um so at the uh and I failed to mention this but at the Planning Commission um or planning the local planning agency um the board did request that the applicant set up a neighborhood meeting once uh the petition of the
rezoning so they can have meet with them and uh we would held it in this C in the city council chambers and we have reached out to them got the addresses so once we hear the final uh we will be holding a a public meeting with them or a neighborhood
meeting commissioner Reed what um comments did the LPA members have or what was their recommendation um the recommendation was to approve the rezoning recommended to the city commission with with um I
request that we meet with the um adjacent neighbors during a neighborhood meeting once we they get the final designs because a lot of your Urban guidelines already address a lot of the Aesthetics essentially like if if it's if it is urban highway and it's pushed
up to the front of the the US one side even in the rear of the building they cannot even expose AC's so they would have to screen those they would still have to develop balconies so it gives some Aesthetics all around the entire building that's what your Urban overlay
does require they're not exempt from that um both both both um Waterfront and um Urban Highway requires that your Urban Highway also has where you adopted the US One Corridor uh tree planting program that they have to expand um
along us one and they're going to expand it down to Sixth Street as well um so it kind of gives you that Lush Landscaping a long six and also long us one did you have a comment yeah I would just I would hate
to see this end up with a parking lot and then the building in the back I don't it's it's ugly from the road and it's ugly to the people who live across Frasier Creek there and um you know we're trying to rehab Frasier Creek and make it a usable Waterway
so that would be too bad so that's my concern can I ask Jody a question yeah so I know that we're not looking at the site plan or anything we're just looking at um the
uh Z the the compatibility of the of the zoning uh with the other surrounding area and then of course the um uh whether or not it uh it meets our comprehensive
plans and um the contiguous issue that's there and of course those are the blue ones are there and of course we have the changes where along the urban the the water the highway we have all those highways I I think for contiguous
sake uh and again not looking at the the plan itself but your comment that you had mayor about whether or not if somebody puts something on that property which has a Unity of title so they can build on the the both Parcels but they
want to do something that will meet the requirements if if if we put a building on the front side and do what we have set out to do in our downtown planning and our Highway
planning to let buildings come up against the highway and then have parking in the back um what is the major problem that's that's making um the parking or anything at the parking
or Landscaping that could go into both of those um current zoning changes what is it that's causing a problem would it be because the the the any particular building square footage would also encroach on the other the both zoning
would be used this is not a site plan review I know I know but I'm saying there couldn't be anything causing a problem okay all right so so the so so so it's just a matter of trying to get it compatible I find it compatible I find it meet circum plan requirements
like staff um presented and the LPA has recommended that it meets the requirements and the crb said that it met the requirements also and I really think at this instance we should follow them and if
anything happens it will be later on sorted out in any site planning but I know with regard to zoning and compatibility and and contiguousness with the area with what's on the rest of the the parcel that's actually owned by
the the um the the same person uh I am I am again going to make a motion hold on not yet okay all right I'll just leave my discussion at that because I think we should follow the LPA and the C okay do you wish to offer any additional
information before concluding your presentation no I would just I would just ask that the Commissioners when they vote on this that they look at your rezoning standards and that's what you base your vote on um that's what's before us not whether we could come in with a different plan
it's do we meet these set of criteria that you have if yes then it should be approved thank you thank you very much for your consideration so the presentation of evidence has ended and the hearing is closed do we have any public comment on this issue Madam clerk I do not
[Music] okay do you wish to make closing remarks sir so so I looking for a motion okay again like I said I I'm making a motion to approve ordinance
number 25 37-22 based on the fact that it's uh contiguous to the to the um to the other uh zoning designation that it's asking to go into it's it's uh it meets our
comprehensive plan requirements Our Land Development code requirements and it and I I think it's compatible with the area and the crb has um recommended it for our approval and the LPA has recommended
for approval on the condition that after it's after uh if this project if the zoning is approved by the board that they meet with the um neighbors and I'm also including that in my motion as a
condition I don't know if I can do that or just keep the zoning separate is that right Mr um you can't make yes just I'll make it I'll just only the zon and I'm going to leave out that part about meeting with the neighbors have a motion by commissioner
Clark is there a second see no second the motion fails uh mayor I'd like to actually make a motion to deny this request at this time um we have a quasi judicial hearing is that appropriate Robert's Rules of
Order what can what yeah you can make a motion on it because I'll second it so we have a motion could you state your motion very clearly um my motion would be to deny this request okay well the requests no
longer to change this to change the zoning to deny ordinance number 2537 2025 did you otherwise and he seconded it otherwise this will this will just sort of sit out in purgatory if we don't can
I can I can I ask a question we had a motion second have a motion on the second yes he seconded it he seconded it okay so sometimes if there's a denial on this particular thing it's not a compli change but it's a rezoning um you're saying that uh it
will stay out there but that it doesn't prohibit them from coming back with with with something else but the thing is that if we ask for it to um to to maybe be reted or something that will allow them to at least um deal with some
issues well we've raised no issues if you if we deny it like I said My Hope personally is this comes back is a conditional use project for us to and the neighborhood to have a say in with the type of you know and you get to have
all your questions about neighborhood that's all around there there's so much going on there I I I if it's if if it's uh denied tonight the application will be deemed completed and the matter will be ended and if they wanted to come back
with a conditional use they would need to file a new application and start over and you get to ask a recycl question no and I didn't you're saying if we go forward with with the negative motion if once it's completed the application is over
whether it's granted or denied it's over if it doesn't pass tonight if it doesn't pass tonight it's technically not over they could come back and amend it if they wanted to or do something like that I think you're getting caught up on it being a negative motion yes I think it would probably been better to stick with
the original motion and had it seconded and having the vote that way this achieves the same effect yeah but no this effect if the other motion didn't pass it would be still out there and not finished whereas this is terminating it or or that someone had seconded it just
because you second the motion doesn't mean you have to vote in favor of it it just brings the the question it issue to be voted on so um I think it's probably in the future it's probably better just to vote if you're gonna vote vote against it you just vote against it not raise a new
motion negative motion that's why I think you're getting caught or not perverted all right we have a motion in a second um do we have any public comment see no public comment I guess we're ready for to clarify the motion is to deny the ordinance approval correct
corre so yes would be denied okay I guess do we have comments or questions by commissioners before we get go to the vote everybody understands okay okay commissioner please um I'm sorry let's explain a
negative vote here just reread sorry so you need to vote Yes you're voting yes to say NOK yes that's why right or motions are okay thank you desirable just re explaining that I vote Yes okay commissioner Clark no vice
mayor Collins yes mayor Rich no commissioner Reid yes motion fails oh motion passes I'm sorry the negative motion passes mayor I have a question the zoning application
is denied yes okay the question is are we going back back to we're going to 18 oh we're going on to 18 okay my question what about the items that we pulled from the consent I we are going to go to them
after 19 okay isn't that the will that no no forgive me I thought we were going to I thought you wanted to reverse 18 and 19 yes so Sean 18's next he wanted Sean wanted to put 19 before those items
that were pulled from consent not he just wanted to go to 10 okay that's what I was questioning Mr bagot will you read item 10 for our consideration sure uh where are you on
the consent calendar item 10 number 10 the items that were pulled 10 11 and 17 and they will be in order just to confirm that they will be in order resolution number 16-22 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart
Florida authorizing a contribution of Aid to the business development Board of Martin County Inc for the 2025 fiscal year in the amount of up to $25,000 for programs and initiatives servicing businesses and residents of
the city of Stewart subject to the provisions of the contribution of Aid agreement providing for an effective date and for other purposes Jim kolski Community Services director let's talk about DB so the best
way that we can um start this is to give you a little history we've had an agreement with the business development Board of Martin County um longer than I've had my hands on it in any way shape or form I was working with Paul nicketti in 2013 and we kind of adopted this
there was agreements through that when was the bdb formed when was the bdb formed and it was formed by the county is that correct the County Commission it was uh The Economic Council actually uh Bud Jordan and a group of men that
created the economics Council approach approached the county and a bdb is a structure that a lot of counties across the country have and they uh presented it to the county and asked the county to create it and it was created at least that's my understanding
so um and that was again forgive me what date1 91 and when did the city start additionally funding beyond the County's funding I don't have the beginning date 201 I know that I was here in 2013 and
it was already in existence before then okay so was in existence before I started working with Paul directly you know like years yeah forgive me years I believe it was during the reorg
which would have been around either 9 or 11 right in that era yeah makes came on the board makes sense so this form this agreement is taken on many forms throughout the time period here um we used to have some deliverables and it
was based upon the deliverables that were set each year um do you know what those deliverables were matter of fact I did yes it was like they had to come into a presentation every quarter and update and give us information and things like that but it wasn't any specific I need a business pilter put on
this spot but it was updates and working with the city and then it at one point it was $50,000 is that correct that we 60 believe it was 60 then yeah it got downsized to 50 yeah um and then this last time um what we did is Joan had a
an idea about being able to go ahead and create different levels of membership so um there was a leadership level which was $110,000 and that was basically selected because because of Indiantown because Indiantown
contributed $10,000 as well so we've been running with that model for the past two years anyways yeah so this is really kind of a formality and so it's your pleasure about to like 105 we've sort of had these different
Arrangements along the way yeah yeah and and it's been 10 now for a couple of years um and then there's a $115,000 additional amount that you've budgeted for under your budget in which if the bdb and the city agrees on additional projects then we would look at those projects and then they would be
contracted and today we have not had any of those projects paid out so it's 10 and then if 10 and 15 10 and 15 in Special Projects if approved by the board and so
last year we we we uh 10 paid them 10 and not the 15 correct got it and um we are here to look at the agreement and discuss it um I structured this so that the business development board would be here as a presentation to
give you an orientation and also answer any specific questions that you might have of that are there any other questions of Staff no um we need a motion and a second then
proceed further actually can I just maybe generally make a statement um that'll be generally directed at Jim sure I've been sitting up here all night as well well I have a I have a a comment
for Jim sh yes so Jim you know sir my my goal is to is to going into this NE next budget cycle cut taxes full trans Arcy I want to see
following suit with Federal and listening to Rhonda santis lately you know I want to see the um next budget cycle have some something smaller on the millage so I I'm very appreciative of the bdb
and our relationship that we've had with them in the past I know that they do great things we saw some of that today but to me these kinds of things that don't have like a demonstrative clearly this is what we're doing for the city this is taxpayer money that I would
rather save personally um [Music] Jim so I'm not going to be in support of the 10 or 15 within this agreement if we do go into a motion I just want to let you know
that thank you are there any other questions yes sir I just wanted to chime in and this might be for uh Ike and William I know during the discussion during the presentation one of the largest projects was grind hard ammo where they you know
expanded and opened in the YMCA skating ring and now they're going to Indian Town my only concern is the city of Stewart's 97% built up so most of the large scale um expansion that you're going to
see for most businesses in in my opinion be more so in the county or another County that's underdeveloped um North or west of us that would be my biggest concern for example I I did it myself with our own
family business I felt it was difficult to expand inside the city and that might be my business model because of what I do um as a professional but that's just was my perspective we're 97% built up where are you going to actually expand
to where the bdb would come in and find land per se on you know 100,000 to 4 500,000 square foot that you've talked about because I know grindhard how how how much square foot is that in Indian town I mean 100,000 100,000 in
Indian Town yeah and actually the I we may not have we may have gone over this before I think we did a lot of the opportunities that you're talking about those bigger opportunities they are in what was what's known as The Innovation Hub area and so that's why I was trying
to detail that because there are about I don't know one two 3 four five nine Parcels that are seen as potentially potential Redevelopment whereby you could yeah bring something like a grind heart so that's what you know just wanted to make that make that clear we
didn't go through the parcels there but those were in that area so that's an opportunity that I that we see do we know how much acres those nine Parcels were offand 8.8 8.8 eight yeah about nine yeah so there's I mean there's some there is some I it's not the county but
it is there cess I guess hypothetically speaking like where do you draw the line I guess whether it's this fiscal year or in five years when let's say that these eight Parcels do get developed where are you expanding at that point inside the
city to where it would benefit the city a lot of it would be Redevelopment when you're when you're dealing with a city that's built out yeah um particularly with the age of you know Stewart you've got certain properties that may have reached their functional obsolescence um or have you know
dilapidated in certain ways or could be improved again with an eye to wordss building the tax base and making sure that those properties are assessed at a higher value in the future so that's that's what we're trying to do we're trying to work with you all just like we work with Indian town to strategize
towards that outcome gotcha okay got a question for Jim Jim do you know how much much the county finances the bdb offand they answer that 400 and
some, I know but so 469 excessive 400 and I think to to the greater Point um are city of Stewart residents Martin County taxpayers yes yes thank you Helen I
wasn't sure okay so then if the city of Stewart is financing the bdb and Martin County is financing the bdb then city of Stewart residents are effectively paying twice for the bdb and from what I remember from the presentation that I
saw 25% of the industrial space in Martin count is in the city I don't understand why the city would be paying again just my general thoughts Jim and I I think your point is well taken and it's something that has
been discussed in the past um so I think it's good that you're verbalizing that thank you um I think there bdb may have a succinct answer in regard to that William is that something that you wanted to address we talked about this
can you repeat that question sorry the question is double Taxation and how you see that uh well I I think that each of the areas you guys prioritize economic development in your
in your comprehensive plans right and you guys recognize the importance of investment um capital investment and job creation and this the investment that each Community has made whether it be 10,000 whether it be 25,000 whether it
be 465,000 is you know kind of reflective what I would say reflective of that commitment and so this is a show of that um as we try to
um Implement our vision missioning goals but Jim if commission could we let commissioner Clark you've had I just I just you had multiple opportuni speak no we're going we're goingon to let commissioner Clark I just want to finish my point we're going to let commissioner Clark speak all right so I'll go on with what
um commissioner vice mayor was saying so if we take that literally then we don't need to have cities or anything else cities or Villages or towns we'll just let the county run everything or the
state or somebody else because if we take that as it this this double taxation idea um because you know same thing goes for the school board and whatever we pay the soft flow to water management and all these other things
and um each entity still taxes and gets money to do certain things and if we say we just pay one tax which is our property tax and that should take care of everything it doesn't hold we have a certain amount of Goodwill dealing in our community we have people who live
here and come here to do businesses and they their business may not open in Stewart but the reason why they're attracted to Martin County or to some other place that's located close to steart and especially because we don't have large industrial areas and I'll get
to that in a minute is because we are we are here we have amenities at the city and we have the opportunity with our our chamers and different things to attract businesses and to keep jobs and to keep our community vibrant it doesn't mean
that we're going to overgrow or anything but it just needs amount of vibrancy as to deliverables um and Jim can correct me if I'm or or Mr Mortel but we had the study of of the whole area along
Commerce Street and the county did a lot of work in what they call their Innovation um district and whatever the city did the city worked along there because some of the parcels are also in the city limits and um all of those
things come together to to create a certain place the place that we live the things that we offer Commerce we offer education we offer places for people to live and it's a part of our complete
completeness as a community and I so I think that um having the uh relationship with the business development board and having the ability to go to them uh with regard to Economic Development and other things I think it's important and it's
vital that we support um that in our community [Music] commissioner Reed I agree with what you're saying commissioner Clark um and this might be for William um it it comes back to grind
hard ammo being maybe the only one in the city that you guys were thinking of Ike might know more if he was there longer hog Technologies was another one that hog Technologies right hog hog technology um does the bdb only support expansion or new businesses hog
Technologies was new and so was the ammo so I want to look to the Future and I want to develop a really close partnership with you all uh just as we have with the village of Indian town they are you know have been great partners and in terms of existing
industry existing businesses working with them to grow working with them to expand and also attraction recruitment opportunities you know they've been very open to and I would like to continue that relationship with and being be able to be continued the relationship with
you all and be afforded that opportunity um I really don't want to look in the past I want to look in the future because there's a lot of opportunity happening and I would hate to you know not have a formal relationship um and I think we should in order to kind of build up the economic environment
honestly William do you still do the business accelerator program we're with Staffing with current staff level needs or Staffing capacity we are looking at opportunities to part partner with uh sister organizations you know Chambers
in order to potentially reinvigorate that business accelerator program so I'm glad you brought that up thank you yeah so I guess to answer the question it's not just business expansion existing businesses it would be new businesses it's new business um you know existing businesses expansions um also if a
business what is the criteria for a new business per se like you would sit down with them come up with a business model the whole night yards or or is the bdb more so seeking applicants that are going to do large expansions or pull in
um larger companies to the area because you know there's a lot of small Mom and Pop I was going to use East Stewart for example has the bdb ever helped someone start a business in E Stewart and all these I believe so and we would Ike might know actually I can answer that um
there has been some Community classes that we've had that were geared for young entrepreneurs different business Prof foras understanding how there was a had one program called side hustle domain gig was that paid for the city of Stewart or the bdb put it on that was
specifically put on by the bdb for the city of Stewart done at the East Stewart when was location last year like two so that would be an example of the 10 to 25 right that's a special project but regardless of that you know we do things like access to Capital workshops that we
did one in September um and again I mentioned the potential for the cap you know Capital uh Loan program you know the access to Capital Loan program potentially as something where we could Target different neighborhoods um of course the entire County but again
working with you all to identify those needs a little better is something that you know I would look forward to as as a as a great partnership perhaps mayor can I make a comment it's actually the vice mayor's turn again oh sorry Mr
so the hard part about being fiscally conservative is all of the the organizations that come to government always have well-intended you know mission statements reasons for their
existence with their handout but every one of these 10 or $25,000 that this board up here hands you comes from somebody's hardworking
pocket and if you can't demonstrate I'm going to be very Frank with you I've heard a lot of posses and maybe and yes I'm pretty sure and if you can't deliver something real I don't think that you guys should get any money from the city because this is not our money to give
you this is the money of people who work and have to pay their taxes this is effectively like a political tithe to your organization so we can stay in good standing if 25% of our industrial um
properties the city is the commercial industrial hub for greater Martin County and if you're not going to be working with the city of Stewart unless they give you 10 or $25,000 that would be crazy when the county pays you
$469,000 in the cities in the county and we're the commercial industrial hub for the county so I don't want want to misconstrue that that's the point that you were making where our relationship might be damaged you know by not giving you this money but again these are
people that work right their tax dollars are what we're handing you it's not just I'm not understanding what you're saying the what you're implying what are you not understanding I'm not understanding what you're implying could you repeat that the money that you're asking from
this board is our tax dollars every dollar of them the sense I got from you a moment ago when I was just standing there is you said you would hate for the relationship between the city and the bdb to be injured implying that if we don't hand you that 10 or $25,000 that there might
be a fracture in our relationship which I find to be very unusual since the city is the commercial industrial hub for great Mar greater Martin County and the county which we are the seat of pays you $469,000 a year to exist and fulfill
your mission would say that the city is one of the hubs I don't think it's the Hub I think you see a lot of millions of square feet as I mentioned in that first bullet point one of the slides that are coming out of the ground now and it as it in the county and that's not
happening in the city and so I would like to partner with you to make that happen and build up things in a way that's beneficial to the tax base that's happening in the county that's not happening here so I'm not sure if I would characterize it as the The Hub The
Hub of the county you don't you don't believe that the city of Stewart is currently the commercial industrial hub for greater Martin County will be but today I think that there are a lot of recent developments that would challenge that statement as of today as of today and that somehow the bdb is going to put
us in the Forefront in that realm with it being almost completely built out Teamwork Makes the Dream Work I appreciate your hustle you know okay commissioner Clark I should have written it
down um the deliverables and Mr uh kski maybe you can correct me but I know that we had the the veterans fear we had the the job fear um I think
commissioner maton had we had done a couple of different job things at the 10th Street and we and especally when we had the career Resource Center there at 10 Street we're working on on on that kind of thing and one of the main reasons that I really want to get the
business development board continuing to have a relationship and to expand our Horizons um if we if we continue with them is that there's been a lot of talk about what will happen with the
um project lift and of course uh with trying to bring back some uh uh commercial in in the East Stewart area where people have had mix use um before and that people are trying to at least
be able to buy a cup of coffee in East Stewart and it may not be a lot but at least something and to work with people who are wanting to develop something whether it's a fruit food truck or whatever it is that needs to happen that
we have a resource that they can go to the other thing is that I think you mentioned something about a loan pool and people are looking to figure out how they can get the understanding to work with the loan pool to try to redevelop
uh some of their small properties even if it's to add something where they can make some income out of that um second home or apartment or accessory delling unit or whatever needs to happen happen if they can meet the requirements after
we''re gone through today so maybe Mr Kowski we did stop having the deliverables but maybe if we ask um the business development board to come to us with a plan and what the plan will cost
maybe that might be something that's more palatable to this commission to say what can you do with and for the city of Stewart um and I'm just I think think that would be more appropriate would be to deny this today and then if you want money from us come back and let's get a
plan going but just handing over money and assuming there's going to be maybe we can demon plan continue it and and bring it back I would deny this ex this current one I my my instinct would be the motion to deny this I a deny there's no Motion in no second I I but that would be my instinct I'm just giving you
my thoughts and then go yes and then have him come back if if we want to rediscussed yet I am I am I am I'm I'm done that actually I like that idea because it's then focused on a particular project or program uh so I
understand there were programs that were done at 10th street or in East Stewart n but they were programs nothing seemed to come of them so I think it would almost be more beneficial for the East Stewart Community or for whatever Community within the city of Stewart for the commission the taxpayers in Stuart if a
project came before us that said this is what we can do on an entrepreneurial basis for small business all Encompass training uh loan uh access to loans all of that so that it could become a successful business and and that might be a better fit for us as a city a small
City versus just an ongoing um being part of the larger Cog I mean you guys are all into Indian and I understand because they're all developing now and they're big and you need to you need to be in that area but I think if it was more project oriented it would be
beneficial for you it would be beneficial for us so I think it works for both both of us and it certainly works for the taxpayers in the city of Steward we can be in that area and we can be in your area we are trying to be in your area as well and this actually I believe correct me if I'm wrong this has
been budgeted for the 25 year we're talking about from October to now so this is a report back about that I think what you're talking about is FY 26 no if we approve this this money goes to you right but I'm saying it was adopted
in the budget for FY 25 I can save it I don't have to give it to you I can just save it I don't think the Mone money Sav is money okay well this is the end of the staff presentation do we have a motion for item resolution number 16202 five is there a
motion I would I would like to make a motion that we at least give the um bdb uh the $10,000 For What and uh to to uh maintain and to have our to show that we
are are partners with them and uh you wish to amend this resolution to no it says it says for 25 fiscal year in the amount of up to $25,000 so I'm saying the $110,000 and if they need anything more
or and and I I the amend my Amendment would be is that they immediately before the thing is issued that they bring us a plan of how they show us how they're going to use that those funds no that's that's that that's his exact motion she made a motion is there a
second can I say something Mr Mayor unless there's a second is there a second see no second item 10 fails item 11 Mr bagget will you please read it for our
consideration resolution number 17225 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida author izing the city of Stewart to submit an application for a Florida Inland navigation District Waterway assistant program grant for a courtesy
Dock and wave attenuator and authorizing execution of a grant agreement if awarded and further authorizing any minor amendments to the grant agreement to facilitate the program as appropriate providing an effective effective date and for other purposes um since this was
pulled and there's no staff here to talk about it I'll just briefly talk about it the city in the past has done the entire Boardwalk system in courtesy dock by way of find or Florida Inland navigation District grants currently it's a floating cement Dock and without the
wave attenuators we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on maintenance because waves cause the pipes and things to bend and it also makes it um less stable when people are getting off of their boats onto the docks the wave of ten waiter is essentially a wall that's
in front of the dock that blocks the wave action so that in the the uh curtilage of the dock to use Mr Hamilton's words um it doesn't have the rocking in the waves there's wave attenuators at the um harborage Marina
and as well as uh the Sunset Bay you just don't see them because they're right like in line with the dock and underwater what's the time frame on this getting accomplished well if the grant is awarded by fine which it's very likely to be we got all the submerged land leases straightened out and used
grant money last year to do that so it would be able to go forward like this summer Mike is it um a requirement for it to be 50% matching or I notice in the resolution it's Florida navigation district is requires a 50% match on this
particular Grant but it's I mean I was just curious yeah so what are we looking at mik well I don't it depends on how much they give us but it could be a couple hundred thousand dollar but the last time we did a repair on the dock it was 990,000 as someone who was responsible
for maintaining a dock that got a lot more fetch than this one you either spend the smaller amount or you spend a lot more and and also I mean when people are getting on and off the boats it also St that's a very it's a very attractive element to downtown steart question for
the city manager Mr certainly commissioner goob Mike um without the grant what is the cost for this because you said we're not doing it without the grant oh okay it's not happening okay what is the cost then total um I don't know if it's in
here or not but at one point there there's there's all sorts of phases but we could spend $600,000 on Wave attenuators but it depends on what the grant is so okay but you're saying the grant could be up to 100,000 so if 100 we could spend 100 and spend 200 and do
a section of the wave attenuator to make the boats on this side blocked off he'll attenuate as much as he can get money for exactly now here's the thing this is just to authorize the application you can reject it if we get
it I mean I would have to do a budget amendment I don't have the money in the budget to do it so it would have to come back and reject mayor I'd like to move approval resolution 17 2025 you're good second motion by the vice mayor and a second by commissioner
he has a question commissioner Reed this is there can we get public comment on this before we have discussion by the I just had a question for Mike okay yes let's have public com question we'll get to it okay are there any questions
madam there any questions or comments from the Commissioners on this item yes um Mike is this like um not to bring up the cdbg grant again I know as an applicant you could have applied for 880,000 as a resident us applying with
this as the city do they cap you on what you can get or so Florida Inland navigation district is ATT taxing a agency and it's a tax that's on Statewide and they um they get money and they have a fund and they literally give
the communities up and down the coast this these funding the entire Boardwalk one one year we got $600,000 to do Boardwalk with but the amount that they award changes because it could be that
they're dedicating $3 million to Martin County to dredge the inlet and therefore the other counties bravard and St Lucy County and Dade County and Palm Beach County it would be unfair to continue giving money here so they spread it out up and down the coast last
year instead of giving us the final money for the wave attenuator they did give money to the county and so we're expecting this year to actually receive the funding for it I don't know until the board do you know what the total amount was last year in the state that
they I can look it up millions dollar it might be millions millions I'm sure it was Millions but I was just curious um well City
up yeah you can what it's not urgent or anything email on it yeah it's not an urgent thing I was just curious my own piece of mind um it's coming up a page a this page was not found but it's it says a full list of the 2425 assistance
program recipients and their funded projects can be found on the find website at this address and then I click on it it's not there that's fine it probably got turned off um I think we have a a vote on the somebody we know I think there was public comment there was public
com no there was public comment I didn't see anyone come up any questions or comments from any of the other Commissioners regarding this item roll call please mayor Rich yes vice mayor Collins yes commissioner goobi yes commissioner Clark yes commissioner re
yes Mr Bag will you read item 17 for our consideration please is number 12 no it pull number 17 we pulled 10 11 and 17 this is the last one out of the consent calendar Mr bagot resolution number 29-22 a resolution of the city
Commission of the city of Stewart Florida authorizing budget amendment number eight to the fiscal year 2025 budget appropriating and authorizing the expenditure of funds for Fire Station 3 traffic signal providing an effective
date and for other purposes and uh again because this was on consent there's no staff here I'm not sure what the question is but the money is when any development is done in Stewart the city of Stewart collects traffic impact fees on behalf of the
county a couple years ago the state passed a statute that said the county had to spend the impact fees that were collected in the city of Stewart within the city of Stewart so as a result the the county is giving this money to us to
pay for the traffic light and it's because the countyy is giving it to us it's obviously not in the budget so in order for us to receive it and spend it on the traffic light we have to do a budget amendment um to accept it and then it would be transferred from the
County's fund to us what already um agreed upon and been signed off and it's part of the design and it was in the plans for station three all along and including the impact fees it just wasn't done for it that was my question then so
I'd like to make a motion for approval then I'll second a motion so we have a motion by commissioner Reed and a second by commissioner Joby is there any public comment on this item see none are there any questions or comments by the Commissioners regarding
this item nope roll call please Madame clerk commissioner Clark yes commissioner Reed yes commissioner goobi yes vice mayor Collins yes mayor Rich yes so item number commission action
item number 18 will you read that please Mr bagot for our consideration resolution number 30225 a resolution of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida authorizing City staff to schedule the initial conflict assessment meeting with Martin County pursuant to
the Florida governmental conflict resolution act Florida statutes section 1 164 D 16411 through 164 um
1065 authorizing the city manager City attorney and other designated representative to attend the initial conflict assessment meeting providing an effective date and for other purposes um this is an agenda item that I put on I know you guys had asked previously not
to bring up uh the letter from uh Martin County on um letter of support for their grant for the bright Line train station however they had initiated this uh Florida governmental conflict resolution act and um under it it is mandatory
under Florida Statutes that we uh comply with this statute so that was the need for me to put this issue back on um under there's several steps under this act that require us to cooperate with the county um and so they they followed
the ACT they first initi initiated it and had a resolution at the county level uh subsequent to that they followed the the act by sending us a a letter requesting uh the scheduling of a public meeting to discuss the issues related to
um the interlocal agreement regarding joint proposal to Bright line trains LLC for a train station and parking garage dated December 12th 2023 and the enforcement of element two of the city of Stewart's comprehensive plan um
there's multiple steps in this um act the first one is to set up an initial assessment meeting which is a public meeting and they have proposed it be at the uh library next to um the Martin County offices and um and in
that uh meeting it would be an initial assessment meeting between the the uh the county and the City they are going to have the County Administrator the county attorney and the chair uh chair Sarah herd uh appear on behalf of their board to to be present at this initial
assessment meeting as part as this this resolution uh I am requesting the same um both Mr mortell the city manager and myself and a designated representative of the board um I left it blank so that you guys can decide who that would be um
and it's just an initial assessment meeting and um potentially something could maybe be worked out if anything is potentially suggested it would still have to come back to the board here for a vote and if uh we did not reach an any
type of resolution or an agreement with the county on that then we would go to the next step which would be scheduling within 50 days a joint meeting of both boards um at the Clark Library and and so um that that would take place at a
later date um and that would be an second bite at the Apple to try and resolve the issue if no resolution is had there then the next step is um the the the county or the city could request a mediation okay mayor rich I I will also comment that um it needs 10 days
notice because it's a public meeting and in order to Pro and it says it's got to be noticed in TC palm and in order to do the TC Palm notice which we have to send that to Naples it normally takes three or four business days so today is the 10th which would make the 14th be three
business days from tomorrow which would make the 25th the earliest we could have the meeting and the 24th was the last date they had available so really the first date that works for everybody is March 5th we could have it later than that but we're suggesting in this resolution that the commission select
March 5th as the date for the meeting I think it was rich you have a do you have a question of Mr Mr baggot no I do not I'd like to make a motion okay i' like to make a motion on resolution 30-22 and I'd like to appoint um vice
mayor Chris Collins to be our person on that um conflict resolution meeting okay we have a motion second and a second by the vice mayor you have that Madam clerk I do okay is there any public comment on
this item see none is there any com comments or questions from the other Commissioners commissioner Reed I was just going to chime in um I wasn't sure how the other board members felt um I think there's some of
us up here that might know more about the situation than others um I can speak on my behalf I feel as if I know a lot about what's going on um whether it's through the comp plans um the RFP responses and I do
believe uh vice mayor Collins is well-versed as well um what I will say is um I think sending him there he's going to look on behalf of the taxpayers hard-earned money um so I think if the city is going to get the best deal
possible um you're a solid Choice thank you any other comments or questions I just want to say Comm clerk oh sorry I didn't put on my light um I I appreciate that I wish that we had um uh uh nominated um to have the mayor
go uh to represent the city and I know that I've listened to Mr Collins and his um uh his vment um you know against the the bright line per se or the and the funding and and its relationship and I
think the county is well aware of that but I guess if he's if if we decide to vote on on him going there I you know when we have one person speak we need to have that person speak with the voice of the commission so if there are
some guidelines or some things that we want him to look into or to find out about I think that we need to let him know that because I don't think that when you have one individual saying that this is what the city wants or this is what the city does I think that we have
to get to the point where we um are our personal view is different from the city's view I know for the city the city has a transportation plan that um supports having mass transit support
having something a passenger train and a possible stop we've identified that in our comp plan I know that um commissioner Collins is interested in uh Financial uh um I don't know worthiness
of a corporation that would have a train stop in our city and he's also concerned about um taxpayers dollars to uh build anything uh in our city even though it might be on counted not might be would
be on County Land but I just want to make sure that it's not that we're if if we do vote on this that we're not sending someone with two voices but it's with the idea that there's there's we we've had people in the community who
have shown a lot of support and I know that this meeting is just a meeting to uh do an assessment meeting and to because and the the whole point there's only one word in here that is very important conflict and the reason why
we're here is because we have conflict and we're supposed to be going towards conflict agreement so I want us to go in that spirit and to to work uh together to figure out what needs to happen but if it's just going to go um I don't know
I don't care I don't want to do anything with anybody then I don't think that that's the right approach but we haven't voted yet so I don't know what will happen but I just want to let my voice be heard well I appreciate uh your thoughts
there commissioner clerk but um despite the overwhelming support sent to us and evidence in our meetings at this point uh the vice mayor more you know accurately represents the
will of this commission so I don't see it I see it as a valuable exercise for him to meet with Vice chairman herd um she's very experienced she's very thoughtful she cares for the taxpayer as much as anyone and perhaps
she can provide an argument that will make more sense to him and to the the majority of this commit commission that currently is opposed to this so I do not have a problem with the vice mayor attending this initial meeting
Public public it should also be noted that no matter what commissioner herd and commissioner Collins don't have the authority to enter the agreement it would all be conditioned on returning to the respective boards for approval anyway and Mr mortell is there he's well aware of the city's obligations under
the comprehensive plan so um as as well as everybody else we ask for public comment on this no is there any public comment on this and then I got a mayor Rich after I got a comment it hasn't been determined yet it uh Mrs McBride it hasn't been
determined yet but it'll be published and noticed I would just uh like to if you guys could make it introduce yourself pleas M Frank mccristal uh city of Stewart I would like um maybe on your website or somewhere
let the public know when this process becomes totally public like this is this a this first meeting is it like behind closed doors and then the second meeting at the BL Library first the library
first small meeting is also public oh yes yes yes explained you would be noticed in the TC P beautiful thank you right any other public comment just the tone of the meeting we want to make sure Mr sh good evening folks uh Nicholas shro
resident of the city business owner in the city um I think Mr Collins has made it very clear that he has a personal mandetta against bright line and it's really a poor choice to send him to this if it's the will of the commission then
then that's fine um you know this sto being about the taxpayers when it stopped costing the taxpayers of the city anything and you still didn't want to do it so you know I I think when you look at the contradictions of hey we're
doing this in the name of the taxpayer and we're going to go cost the taxpayer what we're going to cost the taxpayer and some of the other items on this agenda it's it'll become more evident but if you if you play chess and don't stick to the game at Checkers it's it's
a bad idea thank you thank you I have no more comments commissioner Reed no yes uh I want to touch base on that so I seek um my my own Council just to see how they would
interpret the settlement agreement and it just depended on what team you were on when you hired your legal council if brightline was responsible for half of the station or not um also I wanted to ask uh the city
manager are we able to provide literature to to either you or Lee or vice mayor Collins prior to this meeting um just so they had documents or anything that I was able to print out and Supply or no you do it right now
have to be right now I mean you can't do it in private it would violate sunsh it now like the um I would just reference the Martin County comp plan how they're not supposed to subsidize development on behalf of the taxpayers to that's huge it's in their scope in their comp plan
I'll pull it up right now if you'd like you referen you did reference it already let's see It'll take that and the long range Transportation plan I agree were valuable and I would also um vice mayor colins I would point out in October I think it was October 9th of 2020 in the
Martin County M long range plan uh bright line was supposed to be privately funded that was voted on um by fellow board members up here um and one that's no longer here but it was supposed to be privately funded it was
clearly written it was clearly voted on in October of 2020 why did it change is the question um let me pull up this comp plan for the county as well technically in that plan it Still Remains it's still absolutely it Still Remains they're actually planning the 2050 long range
plan by the way and I would imagine that's when the verbage is going to change I sit on I'm one of the City commissioners that sit on the no um it's probably going to come before us and they're going to be changing that verbiage but yes in the 45 plan it did
say that and it was very clear well I don't I don't think the issue of whether bright line is paying half is any longer on the table the county has had a vote in September where they voted to adopt the amendments to
their settlement agreement for clarification as well as to enter into the lease with brightline that specifically said that brightline would not be responsible for half of the station so that issue right line in the county could hypothetically rework a new
agreement right but I mean that's not the issue that we're resolving because that issues not that's not before us because that that was when they breached their agreement so that would be part of that conversation and I intend to bring it up along with the points made by other
Commissioners as well any other comments or questions regarding oh I'm sorry Miss McBride I'm so quiet you don't know what me um you know in the 40 some OD years probably 45 or more I've attended
meetings in City Hall the old one the new one and I don't ever think I'm going to get in B Fargo because I don't think you're one day one day okay you do know I'm 88 but anyway we the people vote for our five
Commissioners and when I understand just listening you have to elect amongst yourselves for one commissioner to represent you and one commissioner has been
nominated I trust all five of you equally I don't care if you're the mayor the vice mayor the the queen of May I trust you to make a good judgment and you have to vote and it has to be
either it can be five but or at least three people have to vote so please let's have dignity and vote the right way I'm not vote the right way but keep it clean and you know we such a friendly City Hall here I don't like what's going
on let's keep it nice and friendly thank you thank you thank you mayor Rich may I commissioner Reed so if you look at Martin County's comp plan section 1.2 scope it says it is further intended that through the comprehensive planning
process Martin County sha which we love this word right Sha um item number six it says protect taxpayers by requiring conservative and prudent fiscal management and a financially
feasible uh what is it comprehensive growth management plan which ensures and requires that development pay for itself rather than being subsidized by taxpayers um I would also write WR down on page 60 I believe it is in the Martin
County no long range plan that's where you're going to find they should privately pay for it I tried to pull minutes but I don't think um Martin County no went back to October of 2020 because I actually wanted to watch the meeting myself to see if anybody
discussed it brought it up and uh I just didn't go down that path of talking to Beth yet to see if they had a recording of it it's in three different of their charts on in that plan if you there you go it's embedded in charts that it's private and that's all I have to say commissioner Reed are you saying we're
Bound by the comprehensive plant look at Martin County's comprehensive plan they're the ones spending the money at this point were were were you just quoting our comprehensive plan no that was Martin County that was their comprehensive plan and I think it's a good point to bring up that Martin
County put the city in the position of violating its comprehensive plan by breaching the interlocal in March 2024 by letting bright line off the hook for paying half can I provide further comment and and my analysis of this I believe the county only came to the city
because they wanted our hard-earned money that would be my uh opinion on that because we were never part of the original settlement agreement by the way in 2018 why else would they come to the city think about
it question we're ready for a vote Madam clerk yes commissioner Reed yes commissioner Clark I've said my peace but because we want to be United I will we I trust all
my Commissioners you have my blessings commiss vice mayor yesk mayor Rich yes commissioner doobi yes vice mayor Collins yes well thank you you look for trusting us thank you guys um bagot item
20 for our consideration please ordinance number 2538 d225 an ordinance of the city of Stuart Florida repealing article 9 expanded poly Po polysterene and Plastics
regulation of chapter 20 of the code of ordinances providing for conflicts and providing for an effective date this is the second reading uh as you recall um I don't know if you want me to give the background since we already did it or does the county have this
currently I'm sorry does the county not allow these particular straws currently uh yes that's the code the first reading it's the the plastic straws are banned in Martin County I was asking for Mar County so it's just the city does not
they don't have any ordinance on it I see you're saying yeah thanks guys mayor I'd like to approve uh move for approval ordinance number 25 38 2025 we have a motion by commissioner Collins I'll second the motion we have a
second by commissioner go do we have any public comment on this issue none see none do we have questions or comments by Commissioners yeah I just wanted to reiterate I think Mike spoke about this at first reading and the cost
of the actual straws yes it's in the city it'd be a fair playing field if it was countywide or Statewide it would make more sense true but commission but we can set an
example an Endeavor and I know that we've had issues with the um the business owners and some of them have tried and they're doing what they can I just think that um every little thing that we do when you look at the large
effect on on the world on climate change uh it may not seem like a lot but whatever we produce still goes into our our landfills or goes into our waterways or or goes into animals or anything that
is affected by by these substances and if we can do something to help I think that we should uh continue to try it seems like we're a little Pebble in a large ocean and um we have a lot of resistance sometimes um with the paper
straws and all these other things but I I just think that we can try or maybe come up with uh some other ways to um promote um you know not uh using these
substances and and it's it's you know it's it's a thing to go buy a whole bunch of stuff at you know some of these big box stores and just throw away throwaway because we're a throwaway Society but um I don't
know commissioner doobi oh I'm sorry that's fine I took it off sorry Mr vice mayor yeah I would just like to point out let's not lose focus here that the reason that we're doing this is not um
to open the world back up to Plastics in more recent years we're becoming increasing aware that plant-based straws contain except for a very small number of of companies that produce them
poas and and these flines are found you hear that so it's not about bit you know necessarily business owners and they what we're saying is business owners are are allowed to choose if they want to expose their um patrons to to
the risk of plastic versus their they can make that decision versus poas or you know they can pick what straws to buy and the city's taking more of a hands-off approach and letting the market figure that out with this next level of risk now floating around mayor
Rich commissioner jie I just wanted to add also that it's my understanding that the federal government is removing a ban on plastic straws would that prohibit us would that prohibit the city preempted if we're preempted I don't know what I know that the
president did something but I don't know what law it is because currently plastic straws are legal on US1 so I'm not sure what was banned in the first place talking about it so um I haven't looked into it and I didn't really care because it didn't it'll be it'll be on Federal
Highway one I mean like I don't know where they were banned by the federal government before he also baning black history mon um this is a this has been a difficult ISS um I was down at evco and I took some heat from those
people because they're aware that we're considering this you should probably tell the the ever it's the Everglades conference it's the largest gathering of all the um environmentalists concerned with uh restoring the Everglades and steuart is well known and certainly for
our consideration of an environmental attorney I mentioned last time that the assertion that pooa and P f is present in straws is because of one study and I was told that that's not the case there are numerous articles that
mention it but I looked at the top 15 results on Google top 15 articles here's from Green generation Foundation toxic paper straws the sample was taken from various shops in
Belgium paper straws contain toxic forever chemicals this is the 20 3 study in Belgian affidia the Journal of food diagnostic Belgian study reveals high levels of pasas in paper sustainable plastic have some
pasas with that straw a team of researchers at the University of ANP that's Bel decided to investigate Plastics today Belgian researchers have found yet one more reason food and wine in 2023 researchers
from the University of antp uh this article's packaging dive study in Belgium Pines past researchers find pess University of antp in Belgium it's all here's the
assessment of poly per floral alcohol substance is the commercially available drinking straws Belgium green straws raid red flag past forever chemicals identified in 90% of paper researchers in Belgium it's all
all Belgium finally so that's the 23 there have been no subsequence to what he said finally I found a study that was in 2021 in the US that had the same result here's the
problem they tested paper straws and they T tested plastic straws 90% of the paper straws did show evidence of pasas 75% % of the plastic straws showed
evidence of past So based on basically one study the the the 21 study did not study plastic straws on one study for a modest 15%
Improvement we're going to start throwing crap back in the rivers and fing our recycling stream and I just find it interesting because it's been said here you can get a study to say anything you want do we
even know if this Belgium study was paid for by the plastic straw industry but I have never seen a decision based on less evidence than this one tonight you have to disclose it in
your in a study you have to okay so um I I I just I don't think we're really solving the problem here and I agree with commissioner Clark that we must make every effort how small it is to
seek Improvement to keep to stop polluting and there's a very real cost of uh fing our our recycling stream and
so I'm not willing to overturn the ban at this point in time so just on a cursory glance I think maybe what you might have missed is actually going into Pub Med which is you the National Institute of Health as a database where
all providers all researchers uh compile research versus articles that might be referencing one research paper when you go into PubMed and you search you can start to go through and then you can look at what paper there sighting and so just on a cursory glance I've got three
in front of me and then if you start to go into their papers you can pull their citations so it's not just one study okay was there was there a had public comment on this we did have right we did
okay was there more public any more comments or questions from the commission if not roll call please vice mayor Collins yes commissioner goobe yes commissioner Reed yes commissioner Clark no mayor May Rich
no he here we go anyone can we take a break no people been waiting okay keep going item number 21 Mr bagot all right uh ordinance number 2539
d225 an ordinance of the city Commission of the city of Stewart Florida amending and restating the city City's Land Development code chapter 2 zoning districts uses allowed density intensity chapter three special zoning codes chapter five
resource protection related development standards and chapter six on-site and off-site development standards which were determined during the zoning in progress under section 1.4.4 of Stewart Land Development code
providing for conflict Prov providing for codification providing for an effective date and for other purposes so we're on this item I just want to reiterate this is the first reading I had that question earlier by one of you how do I have
the um you would have wanted to do that when we voted on it but you're going to need to re need to raise it back and ask I don't know who the motion and seconder was on that we need to so just just just quickly um in the previous item for the
um going a meeting with the county for the date I think with the resolution said March 5th commissioner Collins is requesting that it's March 6 but it wasn't amended to say March 6 so you have to amend the motion to change it so
right Amendment or reconsideration a motion of reconsideration of the matter to but it's really you could do it in two steps or one you could just say we're going to amend it to March 6 and amend it or you could do a motion to reconsideration have discuss vot then when the reconsideration is granted we
can then have the agenda item again and hear it again and have a motion to have it March 6 so can we just can we just have consensus to March 5th or March 6th right he doesn't want March 5th got we just have consensus the county provided either date yes both dates are available
just the resolution said March 5th because it was first okay so can we just read consensus just a motion no we want if you just motion to change it may I'd like to move that we we uh take that resolution 30 202 30 2025 she was a moov
one I was the one who made the motion to begin agree to that or just have a new motion it doesn't matter right I mean we're not this is not rocket science vice mayor yes mayor I'd like to move that we um amend um item 18 that would be
resolution 30 2025 uh to include the date of March 6th on a Thursday instead of March March 5th and the vice mayor would be the and that I would be the oneing everything's the same that's the same is there a second to that I'll second that motion we need
a time for the meeting at all no because we just still have to schedule that figure it out see no public comment comments or questions from no roll call please mayor Rich yes vice mayor Colin yes mayor or commissioner Clark yes commissioner giobi yes commissioner Reed
yes thank you guys okay so 21 why don't you go oh so I don't think we need to read it again Mr bagot I I finished did you read it all I finished reading it and I made the comment just to remind you I had a question earlier today uh this is the first this is a legislative
correct but it's the first reading as well so someone had asked me if this was the first or second some we we don't have a sheet for a legislative no no okay so anything we should be aware of with regard to no leg I mean I have my
we're going to have a presentation from the development director can can can we talk about how do you want to vote on do you want to vote on this all at once or Pie by piece or what's the best way to handle this so well it probably be to go through the resolution and address the issues that
were adopted or changed because like for example the one resolution has the 10- foot setbacks but you guys agreed to leave them the way they were so you're going to want to recognize that that's um changed but it's up to you guys you can say first of all first reading you
technically could just move it to Second reading Mr Mayor hold on just just we don't have to make our mind readinga was reading as we're listening to the presentation yes thinking on how
we want to vote on it Mr Mayor can I say presentation and then you'll see that a lot of you have some comments and you're going to wanting to see clarification and when you get public comment you're going to see that there's other clarifications and it's going to kind of drive it because you guys are
going to start making changes okay M Mr Mar can I make a comment you certainly make okay so this comment is related to this question but technically has nothing to do with this question so the reason why is because
this is item number 20 20 number 21 regarding the um zoning in progress which has been very um involved and somewhat controversial and I know that we've had Miss rudge come here uh
several times and has said well let the public speak first and I know that tonight we did try to accommodate the public on certain things but when you have this large item that affects so many people and it's starting at 9:30 at
at night and we have so much to go through and we have changes from the crb or recommendations and the LPA I'm really really concerned about even moving forward with this tonight when we
have um when we're at 9:30 p.m. but I know that there are people who have meetings until 2:00 in the morning but that's the same reason why the public says well they're doing something nefarious down at City Hall in the middle of the tonight but I just wanted to make that comment before we start
anything and um as to whether or not we change certain things about our comment and we have to adopt any changes on the way our agenda is presented I'll bring that up the next time but I just wanted to bring this up because we're starting at 9:30 with a very very is it 9:30 or
9:30 with a very very um complex um subject matter right Jody are you saying that you'd like to hear from the public no I just I'm just making my comment J Let Let It Rip sorry good evening again uh my name is
Jody cougler I'm the development director with the city of Stewart um my presentation is just going to be short it's just really uh outlining what what staff heard and what the resolution and just trying to gather all the information and how it was presented I'm just going to go through what um you
request the staff to make changes uh the first one was the STA uh Self Storage many warehouses only permitted in industrial zoning districts and if I if if there's something that's not correct or there's missing L missing please stop me and let
me know what we need to add or subtract uh no parking waivers or shared parking all parking is to be calculated on both residential and Commercial uses change lot and our lot of record to parcel and our parcel record and Define
it um uh restore all residential Parcels to 6,000 square feet with added language that all Parcels of record as of September 4th 2024 are deemed legal conforming parcels and any newly created Parcels must comply with 6,000 sare ft
Citywide uh the other ones is remove half units and parking requirements remove requirements for RV I EV charges per state statute uh only families only single family approved all other uses under the bmu and grro
require City commission approval within the East Stewart increased the normal increased the the number of parking requirements by 05 for one and two's bedroom multifam increase Sha Sha tree calculation for multif family to 60%
coverage adus are not allowed to be occupied unless owner or property lives in the primary or the Adu adus require only one water and electrical meter uh non-conforming duplexes in near Flamingo that are uh
currently um zoned R1 shall not expand or any Improvement shall be limited to 50% or current value uh refer to substantial Improvement definition with it's already established within uh chapter 11 that one uh that one I think we took out to discuss at a future date
okay so just remove this one in general the duplexes okay so I'll go back to that one just remove that I will remove it um and the other one was the um far
ratio multif family uh far multif family shall be reduced by reduced by commercial for each 800 feet of commercial the density of the property shall be reduced to one unit shall be reduced one unit um so we did take some of these
these recommendations to the different boards our crb and our local planning agency um this was heard at our community redevelopment board on February 4th and they voted to recommend to the city commission and to request to
slow down provide analysis and create a master Community master plan with Community public participation and then our LPA um agreed with most of the changes they did um request that the East Stewart proposed changes should be taken into into consideration and separated at this
point until the community has opportunity to meet and gain feedback from its residents and also the city commission should take into consideration the master plan emailed by Mr Christie for the Easter portion and whole public meetings with the community so after we adopt the um the
uh changes um we will have to move forward with the necessary comprehensive plan amendments um that is something that we are required to do um so this is just so that would be like right after second reading basically we would start discussing Those comp plan
amendments it it probably wouldn't be on March 10th just because that agenda is going to be full but it'd be the second meeting in March because we can discuss yeah so so a lot of your language has been changed since your first uh revision is just because of the publish
date um we have received some um letters from A um from uh Council regarding some U language we did try to um what specifically is to when the the Lots were adopted and when they be if they
come legal non-conforming or so uh excuse me just to be clarify you can't just say we'll start discussing comps amendments that is an entire process I know but this commission mandated by state law that we
are required that's very l the and this commission would send forth those amendments for review after study and public meetings and yeah it's a very it's a very lengthy involved process we just don't say we want to
change this and in the same way that our city commission made many of these changes around density in half units and and um after studies comp plan we can also do that and restore it back to what it was
before they did that provided we obtain those studies yeah so it's not just a whim it's not a whim at all you have to prove that there's a are
you good I'm good I just if there's anything that I miss can I start ripping through these if is that okay doesn't thank you Mr um vice mayor Mr Mayor don't you aren't you going to do the the presentation with the text changes I just wanted to give a synopsis of what
was captured based on what you uh requested staff to change um so the the language is in a strike through um underlying format uh when it comes to you to be adopted it will be in
an ordinance format what's that do we comment on it we had public we're going to have to have a we're going to have to have a motion in a second before we provide an opportunity
and that's that's what I was asking I don't this particular this particular item is going to be moved for second reading so it's not necessary you're saying you want to vote on it as a whole then in its entirety well this this item will be approved at second reading today
today we're not really approving we're making all the recommendations are you saying you don't want to vote on it at all what I'm saying is we need to go through this button it up and then we would formally vote on it at the second reading that's our that's our that's how we do it we could vote on it but it would be a
formality take a look at each language chain yeah I want to go I want to go through each of these sections okay so I if I there's no objection from the if any member of the public wishes to comment on any section that we are discussing I would simply ask them to
come forward at that time so yeah there's a particular item we're discussing yeah and they wouldn't be limited to this set one time Mr shth yes so you want to come when we just have this comprehensive Overview at this
point okay fine no that's fine want to get clarity um I mean just letting you all know I take issue with the idea that um an accessory dwelling unit has to be occupi or the owner has to occupy the house I mean I have an accessory
dwelling unit if you're telling me I have to occupy my house in order for that dwelling unit to be occupied that will be a problem um also I think procedurally there's some confusion because if you pass Land Development regulations that are in conflict with
your comp plan I I think that lawsuit writes itself and so the um you know maybe just think about that because I think the mayor is trying try to make the point that a land a comprehensive plan Amendment isn't
like some slam dunk deal you just send to Ronnie boy and have them sign like it's a process that typically comes before your Land Development codes and all of those all the stuff you're trying to get rid of in the Land Development codes the the comprehensive plan changes
came first and so in doing it backwards here I don't know that that's the case I think you're opening yourself up to thank you quite a bit litigation and as a taxpayer in the city of Stewart who manages many hundreds of thousands of
our clients buildings that pay taxes in the city of Stewart I would ask you to protect our tax dollars please thank you okay could not on an item right now yeah could you just please introduce yourself please no no we'll get to you
it's a little halfhazard because there's so much material go ahead no go ahead go ahead I'd just like to reiterate as far as the changes that you're contemplating for the East St community that you take into
consideration what we would like so moving forward I think you preface the conversation by saying that you were trying to protect us from big land developers coming in um I don't think that's a concern with us as I said most of the properties are owned by certain
individuals I know my family certainly has no intent on selling so we'd like to develop our own property but you would be limiting us as to what how we could proceed my uncles um own a lot of property they're not selling so if you
could work with us to help us to develop our own property we wouldn't be concerned about other land develop we're not selling thank thank you thank you for allowing us the opportunity to to speak on each item As
you move forward this is Marcela camer for the record before we start I just want clarification um two things the City attorney said read um amendments to chapter five if I heard that correctly I want clarification for that because
chapter 5 is not posted as part of the uh any of the documentation that showed any changes um only chapters 3 six the defition special zoning issue okay just
clarification if there's something that is not posted that we haven't seen but um I also maybe think it makes sense um staff mentioned that the LPA agreed with almost all the recommendations um I don't know if we
don't care about what the LPA motions were I was here one of two members of the public and stood through the whole meeting one of the Motions of the LPA was that they disagreed with the increases in the parking and they disagreed with the elimination of the
shared parking uh the second motion was that they wanted E Stewart to be taken into consideration separately that was put on the screen and then it was also stated that they disagreed with the F reduction and the formula and they were
sending it back so um I don't see how that mashes with saying that the LPA agreed with almost any everything so can we read the Motions or is it does it not matter is there a particular item that you're taking issue with right now just generally kind of going into a recap
presentations yeah because it was just stated that the LPA agreed with almost everything and that's not what the motion stated so which one is it did they agree with everything or did they have issues just clarification please yeah Jody would you like to
clarify characterization of the lpa's recommendations yes uh Marcel is correct I I I uh failed to put that into the presentation I did put in a green so she was correct as regards what
as far as the F they wanted more um methology of how they came up with the 800 square feet and the parking um requirements okay thank you for that clarification Helen McBride I'm just going to follow up with with Sandy
Newman was the first when she spoke in the very beginning back in 1913 Easter was founded and only the black people could live there and the boundary were the railroad track well I call it now Palm Beach Road 10th Street Martin Luther
King Boulevard they could leave the area to work in the homes around the fields but they had to be back in at a certain hour the reason there's commercial areas in East Stewart is the black people and no I'm I apologize you you know well you
you all know me um well I know Miss Charlotte her family owned at a grocery store in East Stewart to get the bread and the produce for their store they took a wagon and at a
certain hour had to go and pick it up at the produce place for the bakery but they had to be back in at a certain hour and that's why there is commercial areas in East Stewart now in 1963 when they the integration
was that the older people were not that willing to leave in that but slowly the young people did and there were shopping in the white stores in that so that that's you know how the residential
the commercial areas went out of business because they weren't needed but these young people are here and I bless them all for coming and standing up for their rights but I go to the 10th Street and I'm one of the seniors I'm one of the young ones I'm 88 now Mrs Lewis I'm
anyone you know Mrs Jesse Lewis she's going to be 91 Friday we've got a 97 a 95 a 93 black people and when I go back like tomorrow and I'll tell them about this meeting and that and I'll say about
coming they say oh I bother miss Helen they're not going to we're so used to being spit a b kicked and shoved aside and we're they pat us on the head or on the back and say oh don't worry we're going to take good care of
you they don't but I'm hoping and praying you five up there are going to listen and you say I'll have a meeting well I my family I'm it because it's getting tough to drive at night but they don't want to go out at
night and when they come to meetings and I've gone of many many meetings at that 10th Street and we've they all spoke you sometimes I've spoken but no one listens to them I know Mr Bell we all know Mr Bell he uh and he'd get up and he was
and I know at one meeting and one of the employees that he wanted to speak and she get want oh no and she wanted to give me the phone microphone I said no Mr Bell will speak before me but I respect all people I don't care what your color nationality if you're democrat or
republican but you've got to listen and understand what the community has gone through and I've listened to them all and the the I love when they tell the story not this they're not stories they're telling the actual history and
facts of each story thank you thank you okay Jody this is um your section two this is where most of the changes in other some of the most of the changes ended in chapter 3 um if you'll see some of
it's been let me just start from the beginning so like you'll see in this it's it's see where it's crossed out says set of lot is not parcel um again I'll just kind of scroll
through and there's a particular section that you want to discuss just let me know um I think uh this is the use table and this is where we changed it to
to uh just put the self storage and um many warehouses in industrial only as you can see right here Warehouse in general storage Warehouse mini storage and Warehouse wholesale and distributions um is Just
sh going now into the industrial area um this is also if if you have a um a by it that means it's permitted by allow through a city commission public hearing and we just added a language saying by resolution just to give clarification how you would adopt
that you said we could ask questions yes absolutely I'll just do it now because that's one of the main question yes we go go ahead yeah that's one of the main questions especially with the East Stewart area that word a I mean that letter A allowed through City commission
public hear in process and I want to know if that a when that a comes up in the other use tables if that's the same a the same process because there was some idea that no it doesn't have to go through the entire hearing process which
is LPA commission something just has to only come in front of the commission so I want to be sure that when it says a the same meaning and definition goes throughout the document and it's the same process commissioner Clark we did uh use
the same language consistently throughout the document in your chapter three where you referring to the table for E Stewart um the a is the same process uh they just go through the city commission public hearing process and what is that process
Jodie Miss sorry Miss Miss cougler that's fine uh it would just be coming for the board uh be like any other resolution you would just it would be listed on the agenda you take action on it and people can comment on the um on the uh agenda item only in front of the
board not in front of the LPA that is correct 800 it's a footnote is that changing our own comp planting that process no did you hear the mayor Miss I
did not hear the mayor is is that casual a use it's just a use it's not a Zing change or use change it's just a use so it would be like almost coming with a conditional use then uh it would not be advertised as same as if you were
approving a uh major development plan there is a requirement that you have to come in Forth the city commission for a major development plan and you would approve it through a resolution you don't have to go through the LPA or an ECB it's just an approval through the city commission and that plan would have
to come with a plan like a signed I I'm Having side conversation Mr Mayor yeah I'm sorry can I finish my thought Miss cougler thank you that would have to go in
um with a with a engineer plan and a proposal a full proposal so that the city would be able to consider it and adopt it at one or two hearings um are it just a
conceptual so typically if the so there's two parts of it this was just allowing the use yes allow use so it would just be a use allowable of a use um it would still follow the same guidelines if it's under the 50,000
threshold or the uh over 50,000 so if you have a a use in the in the um East Stuart District and you want to put in a professional office before it was permitted by rights now you just have to go through a public
hearing to approve the use if the if the professional office is less than the 50,000 then it would just go through Administration okay all right and that's just discussing the a but when we do get to East Stewart I want to talk about
that because that's the table that got really changed where some things were allowed by right which creates a certain predictive ability and now it has to come in front of the commission when it could have been allowed by W but we'll get to that but I want want to make sure
that when it says a that process is allowed through City commission public hearing process thank you and in the way that staff interprets that unless there's unless legal or the board uh
speaks differently this is just basically the use okay that they would go for the board does this make existing facilities non-conforming no where does it say
that when we do an ordinance um sorry go on between Mr bagot and and M cougler go on so majority of our language for the parking and for the land use size or the parcel size I'm talking about the storage specifically where you change uh
we don't have any language in there currently um I'm going to refer that back to to the City attorney so it it will make the existing uses non-conforming and as a result think
about it as like an adult restaurant or adult entertainment place when they banned that type of restaurant or business from being in Steward there were three and if it goes out of business for more than 180 days it loses
its status of that business and then is no no longer allowed to reopen and gets converted into a a different use the commission didn't give us direction to it's it's essentially it's grandfathered meaning it's stay in stay
in its place and while it's open as so long as it's open but if it ever closes down or gets burned to the ground it doesn't come back unless the commission's direction that's automatic because that's a non-conforming use that's zoning law okay but if the commiss is that what we want that's the
question if the commission wants it to be a these sites that already have storage facilities on them can always be rebuilt as storage facilities you would need to add language to that effect but you know I that's totally your
discretion the the intention was to try and get if you so the intention was to not have storage facilities all over the place because it doesn't seem like people really like them they don't create any types of jobs they're just a matter of uh convenience for people to
hoard stuff in don't need um so if they SE cease operation for how many days 180 so not not if you go on vacation if you don't pay your business tax and you don't actually you close down it's not a business just like if you were a
restaurant just you know in downtown Stewart and you have the liquor license if you close operations for 180 days you lose your liquor license in downtown Stewart and it gets auctioned off to the next person in the uh liquor area and the again the adult uh restaurant stuff
if they Clos that one north of the bridge ever closed for 180 days it would never be able to return and there's other um changes that had been made for example um auto repair shops that were not inside when the urban code was
adopted in 1998 the only place you could have auto repair shops was on US1 or on Savannah Road and so if an auto repair shop went out of business for more than 180 days it couldn't come back unless it was indoor Auto Repair rather than
outdoor Auto Repair pursuant to the code whatever the code terms are whatever wasn't included in fact it may have been that beauty salons were allowed in R3 for all I know and then they got banned and any of them that weren't open would
be closed but that's just how the zoning works it's grandfather because you have the you have it already speaking of this would be the appropriate chart to consider making that allowable as we had talked about in the break Jody do you
mind giving a little more context about that or I'm sorry did you wish to speak to this issue yes thank you um I went ahead and did a green card um I'm going to preface this by saying I am not a res identify yourself please sorry Audrey Cree um I happen to be a land use and
Zoning attorney in Martin and uh the city of Stewart however I will state for the record that I am not a resident of the city of Stewart or east Stewart however I do have a business in the city of Stewart what I wish to say is with all due respect and with all
cander these are very intense decisions these are decisions that are very much affecting people's lives in a very very large large way and I beg of you because I'm seeing I'm seeing the fatigue i' I've seen people grab their eyebrows as
if they've have a headache I've saw someone just limp out of the door with all due respect no one is at their best right now and I beg of you if you're going to make these types of decisions that could in theory shut down businesses within 180 days please Audrey
we've been doing this for six months we've been going over this for six months come onow her to finish I understand I understand the frustration of wanting to get things accomplished I I every single time we have to do this I I sincerely do I would there's physic
IAL signs that nobody is going to make a good decision right now so I'm just going to state that you all could do what you want with it but I I I do this is why it's going to be midnight I do hope you will realize that you may not be physically capable right now you just
to address yes I did Limp I'm facing knee surgery so I'm limping all day and night sorry I'm so sorry it wasn't directed at you I just I saw physical signs from everybody sing so I just want to put that out there there uh thank you for thank you for hearing me thank you for
listening okay so thank you do you mind do you mind um like I had me like we had talked about on break with R3 this would be a place where we could have it allowable for the beauty
salons as you know Dr Benedetti had brought up earlier that we could do an easy text Amendment here yes uh vice mayor um so in your 3 District uh long ocean majority of those homes have been converted over to commercial businesses
smaller homes um smaller businesses uh Dr Ben and dedy has approached the city to try to um do a salon and looking at this he's requested um or is looking to try but the code is
very silent it does not allow salons at this time however it does allow massage therapists establish L Ms um as a permitted use uh I do believe Dr Benedetti is requesting to um add the
salon as a permitted use within the R3 and I I personally agree seeing as there's one you know right across the street from him it's kind of capricious to me so what's the address street is the urban 400 stre Urban
District sorry this would be adding a use within the permitted use Cate with an R3 can I can I just mention I have a client that has a B4 zone property and they'd like to do a self storage is it that like you got to regulate this it's a
circus it doesn't have to be if you're in charge you can make sure that it doesn't do this would that by adding that usage would it be a zoning change well yeah it's gonna yes it it's going to allow that zoning to have a to
be it's going to allow that to be um a use in the zoning well in that case then in cases which the proposed or change the actual zoning map for a parcel or Parcels land involving less than 10 continuous Acres the governing body shall direct the
clerk of the governing body to notify by mail each real property owner whose land the municipality will redesignate by enactment of the ordinance and who dresses no this is state law is known by reference to the latest aborm tax the notice shall State the substance on the proposed already such notice shall be
given at least 30 days prior to the date set we have to have a whole public hearing you have to do economic analysis on this if it's well if it's a zoning map change then it would require that this is not a this is a the entire zip
is a text Amendment that's what we're doing so the text Amendment you opened it up in the land use regulations to allow everything in the text Amendment now you directed staff to start accepting commercial applications as
long as they didn't have a residential component in it but in doing that the board never said that commercial was off limits or anything like that they never said they weren't going to address commercial so the ldr is
technically on the table for the board's discussion and discretion I don't know that this zoning change is going to solve Dr Benedetti's problem because I haven't seen the application I also know that you guys are doing shared parking
ban and since he's already occupying the building it's very likely that even with the zoning change he's not going to qualify because he's going to have to build new parking spaces for that talking to Jody she said that would not be an issue well I again I didn't talk to Jody so I don't have idea and I
haven't seen the application this is zing in progress you're wasting just as much time talking about a single right you have you have somebody in the yeah come on Mr shth Mr shth this is the problem is every time we've had one of these meetings 30 45 minutes an hour
hour and a half is spent discussing why we shouldn't do it either from people up here no the voters gave us a mandate Nick okay they did they absolutely did what the voters gave us a mandate which
is why you're the only one up here from the previous I'm sorry mat we can't which is why commissioner Clark is the only one that's still up here from the original commission they are gone you represent I do I represent everybody so it is but not our not this is ridiculous
vice mayor Dr Grant just hold it down Jody keep going okay okay sorry I had a question for jod I'm real sorry so Jody um I know that this is not a format like in the Munich
code but on I don't know if you have the same page number I printed out some stuff it says page page 290 page 290 which is the front of the zoning District what what front of which zoning District page 290 of
725 so that's what's on our yeah that's where we're at yeah on our comp so so those those um uses across the top residential non-residential PUD and the R1 R2 R3 because it's a continuous thing
is there any way maybe the next time you come back to us is there any way that you can label that same thing across the top when it needs to be I I understand what you're saying so it would follow that we can read the scrolling through
the pages have the headings yeah yeah yes I understand um I I apologize I mean this was a lot to put together and well and none of those were changed yeah yeah I hear you but just people to read it and
understand it it makes it easier to see through thank you so the only thing that was changed there is the um is the warehouse to add Warehouse General General storage mini warehouse warehouse wholesale everything is permitted in
certain categories which I can't see the top of the category and then it's allowed based on going to the city commission and you did add by resolution it was being moved to Industrial by your direct yeah huh storage was being moved to
Industrial pursuant direction of the board that's what happened we did specif per permitted okay and allowed okay fine so to my point does the board feel like it would be acceptable to
include the salons in R3 seeing as that district is businesses uh what was the Prohibition to have beauty salons in another District as opposed to R3 and it would
be throughout all R3 it would be allowed based on coming in front of the commission would it be a A or would it be a permitted use it would be straight zoning and it would just be they could open up and get a business
tax okay and if somebody comes and they are doing something else on Martin Luther King or on us one and then somehow somebody some neighbor doesn't like it and and we say oh well we change this guy but we won't change this guy we
need to have consistency and predictability and be sure that that's how we want our city to look and be okay correct it's up to you guys I'm just trying to make it work we can't one mayor Rich may I commissioner Reed um
Mike as far as this R3 and okay I'm sorry we're going to adjourn while commissioner clerk needs to leave the room okay thank you Ser to read
okay this feels e e e e accomplished in six mon Mr vice mayor there's no reason for you to you know what are we back in session
lie about the motive of your fellow Comming you guys are it's clear that's an inappropriate remark commissioner Clark yes we are G's go commissioner clerk yes sir your light is
lit mine was still I know we'll get here that was it but um of course well I've said what I needed to say about the time Reed I want to talk about the whole Salon thing if we're we're discussing R3
it's scattered throughout residential neighborhoods as well so if it was by right technically you could have a salon in a neighborhood so currently as it stands couldn't they apply for a PUD mic yes so you know if you're going to change it
it's either a PUD or conditional usage but you really don't want salons and I'm I'm looking at the zoning map by the way and R3 is in some residential neighborhoods so yes sir you know but as an you know you could apply under a PUD
as it currently stands in the code yes and they have park it and consensus here we're not comfortable making that it's currently available under a cpud or M MX PUD correct so if we were going to change R3 by right then you could end up with salons and residential
neighborhoods and that that would be why I personally wouldn't be for that as a PUD correct ad correct and you could apply for a PUD as it stands right now yes and that's why I wanted to have that table really marked out so people can
see how the correspondence well I really wish the gis map and I'm sure there's some people in the crowd if you could actually filter it buy specific Z I can ask Zeke to do that oh really what about for us like the public sure just turn it on that'd be awesome right yeah that's
good just need to create layers but okay it won't be done tomorrow but I understand but that'd be awesome tool by the way doesn't seem to be consensus there okay Jody next bonus units page 304 oh jod uh density jod that was my
next thing 203 and the charts that were there yeah so on our packet it would be page 303 yep okay okay so if you scroll down to those charts we had discussed it it didn't seem to make it
into these amendments but um scroll down a little bit Jody but where we go from 15 to 30 pretty much everywhere there's a 30 it should say 20 that's what we had discussed is just going to five additional instead
of um 15 additional so in the R3 and the RP UD and the B1 B2 Urban Code E Stewart Downtown Development is different yeah oh wait to all of them so
we now have an improperly advertised Element no it was it was raised at the original meeting and voted on by the city commission to was provided right but you're making that's what this is first reading to make revisions and
changes so it's not improperly advertised or not you can make those revisions that's what this is for and that's why there's a second reading of it to be able to address those but even at second reading you could make changes yeah you could continue to a third reading yes sir so so Jody
um do you see what I'm saying anywhere it says 30 it would say 20 and then on the footnotes on 6 10 and 11 they would all say 20 not 30 yeah I know it's been we don't have to vote on
it it's just been suggested we already we already did this just uh accidentally didn't make it into the okay just to give you an idea how fraught this is going to get with the complex every sing single item has to be filibustered can we not this we already we already voted
on like we already moved forward on this it just didn't make it into the packet for some reason we discussed this going five above Mr vice mayor is it your intention that only you may speak regarding these items or May the other Commissioners in the public speak as well you guys have
spoke a lot I'm just trying to get this done so we can go home well if you feel there's if you feel there's insufficient time to hear from your other Commissioners then let's just adjourn but you know that we already discussed this and we voted on this we voted on 20 units per acre as
that but this is the final language that we're I no this is incorrect is what I'm saying we already voted on this but these are the regulations these are the ordinances we're going to have to enact and the commission is allowed
to comment on them now that they are finally presented sure oh okay thank you so removing the density bonuses it
violates decreasing not removing it violates decreasing not removing six objectives of the comp plan seven different policies and three goals nobody's removing de no it is struck no
it's going it's going okay changing them decreasing them that is not against any Comm vice mayor Collins will you please allow me to finish my comments and then you may comment for example I certainly will not site them all
but this is from the comp plan housing opportun 3.8 2.6 housing opportunities in order to expand the number and types of opportunities for affordable attainable housing the city will encourage new construction through density bonuses and other Provisions
provided to the land we've been doing that objective 1 A7 to accommodate smaller residential units and allow smaller housing units to be calculated to half density element seven the city will encourage new constructions through density bonuses
and other Provisions provided through the Land Development regulations as well as Su grants and special so this is just to go to the point that we are going to have to go back through the comprehensive plan and make
these many changes which we is a very arduous and lengthy process I would ask that we ask staff before we go any further to say which elements are going to require comp plan changes and we consider those
before we make the changes why waste our time we already did this why waste our time talking about elements that are just angering people if in fact we realize that we might not be able to make those compant
changes because we have the process we've engaged in is insufficient in scope and we haven't even meeting with the public started a process of amending our comp plan what are you talking about
that is correct you are correct commissioner we haven't even begun that process you're raising a that is my comment thank you thank you Mr Mayor M comment and I know that commissioner J I'll go right ahead commission I mean Miss
uh cougler with regard the um page 304 as published I'm I'm looking at page 30 4 of 725 as published um where it has
these footnotes so the footnotes are go with right right there footnote number five that's taken out that's that density bonus that's taken out but above that number one where it talks about assisted living with 30 units per acre
number six up to 30 units with major Urban code conditional use number 10 up to 30 units with East Stewart neighborhood conditional use approval H how does that um those
numbers which have not changed because they're still in Black how does that compare with what um vice mayor Collins was saying needs to be updated in this particular chart and of course I know that the right here it's just a small
portion of three different uses that are for East Stewart per se the rest are in in the actual plan itself well how does it I'm sry there's a side conversation which they would all go to 20 you okay that's that's I just want to okay so so jod even though you didn't have number
one as a as a as an amendment so that assisted living facility is allowed a maximum of 30 units per acre and all of those um little uh footnotes what happened was the development department
had a very short turn around window and they tried to meet all of the items that were addressed by the city commission and there are items in charts and footnotes that were missed that would be still be being revised between now and
second reading right but in this presentation it is Our intention as staff to say that the commission directed us to change the density from 30 to 20 as the density bonus and that was the direction of the board for us to
follow and yes items that we missed but they're being revised daily thank you Mr Mayor may I make one short thing the only reason why I'm saying that is because I secured several copies of this particular thing that was set for today
and I gave that out to several people land owners who are interested in this process and when they see this and they're assured that something is happening because it's in Black it's not in red it's not projected for change and then something else I just want to make
sure that um we know where things are and I I know that staff did not make all of the specific changes but I just wanted to to be sure since we're on it thank youel miss miss miss camblor sorry I'm
not in charge of the meeting I'm sorry you took over thank you Marcela camer for the record um so clarification whoever wants to provide this um it was set repeatedly during the
workshops that the original exhibit a that was provided remember that one that was illegible was just a list of of things so that staff could start working on that's exactly right and and now what is being said is that's
already been voted on what was voted on the resolution was voted on to direct staff to bring those changes back right so we haven't voted on we we're talking about those today so no one voted on whether 20 was the final number that's
what we discussed yeah we discussed that staff would put it in there and now this commission needs to vote on that let me just um you know because it is my profession because it is like jod what we do as colleagues your entire comprehensive my entire my City's
comprehensive plan is written Based on data and analyses that entire data data and Analysis in the case of the city of Stewarts is based on the maximum density of 30 units to the acre to meet Bieber
projection and census projection the ER that was recently submitted to the state is based on the 30 units of the acre maximum on each one of our categories changing it to 20 requires going back to the data and
analyses and redoing all all of that data and analyses and requires when you do the ER and then the state is going to decide how you're meeting census and beaver correct so if if we if we are not doing that we don't know if we're
meeting the statutory requirements to meet our long-term planning projections so it's not as easy at let let alone the taking situations that may happen it's procedure and we're doing it backwards and we're not doing the required
analyses that's in our code and can can someone from staff not just someone who said I already voted on this tell us if this is the process or not because we are lost who's we the people in the audience that are trying to follow this and read
statutes and have done this for 30 years every one of these meetings you know what we're doing uh I don't understand why process is not being followed why we're skipping and why we're doing things backwards and please um I just feel that every every time I am here I get interrupted I've been
sitting for five hours without interrupting so thank you thank you Mr Mayor can I just make a thing can I ask Jody one question on page 307 footnote 2 is it says density bodus
is available in an MX PUD that's deleted correct I'm sorry what page page 307 put note two density bonus is available and an MX PUD it's redlined I don't see it okay
yeah he's 307 at the bottom okay is that correct it's not reduced it's eliminated right mix mix P you see it commission it say yes it says number two it says density bonus is available despite the repeated and strong urging in our own
comp plan to provide density bonuses we are just saying with no study with no analysis and can I we're eliminating them yes can I Mr mortal I know you're going to let me just say this when I even before I became on the commission when Terry
O'Neal was here and I know we've had other planners we've had so many Community things so many studies so many work and some of these things take time to come to fruition I think the main thing with this and I said this when we had two new Commissioners come on the
board that I know that they would want to learn more about the come plan see what going on have things explained to them but there are things that we can do and need to do and especially if we're going to change um the vision of the city of Steward with some of these um
things that we're changing that we need maybe we don't we don't need to to have the zip in order to do that we can work on these things just like how we pulled out the commercial and I've said that several times and I know that Mr Collins
thinks I'm I'm filibuster and it's not it's not it's not it's just one of those things that I think that there's a way to do things and there's a proper way to do things and I said that before and then tonight I also said that it is a
very late hour for us to say we're going to start working on this um zoning thing and especially when people have given us said we need to work on making sure that other members of the community especially communities that we have said that we want to to work with and protect
and provide um Redevelopment for and if we're changing the course of the city and we don't want to work with people with for redevelopment and for other things then you know I mean this mandate thing I didn't know about it but I I amum I just have I'm I'm I'm not against
anybody but I just need to I think that it we just really need to say that I don't think that this is the way and uh we had parking studies when we did the parking requirements we had people from Tampa we had accountants we had
everybody we had Traffic Engineers we had accountants all kinds of stuff to do with and we had the Main Street involvement to deal with our parking study to make all these um things done it's just not a dictatorial um
situation I just think at this point mayor I'm sorry mayor can I commissioner J yeah I just think at this point we need to at least move forward okay I think what commissioner Collins is saying that I understand how you feel and we all do but that isn't going to change tonight but what can change is
that we go forward in this process so let's try and do that but if it's going to be to the ill of the people and the community and it's not going to reflect our real um goals and ideals and it's not going to if you have three parking
spaces and somebody can't build an Adu and they can't meet all the the requirements the drainage requirements and so on then are we stem are we stopping something or are we promoting uh some vitality and viability
and sustainability traffic that's what you're promoting I don't think little all Stewart is going to stop traffic coming through US1 because we have millions of people in Palm City West Port St Lucy West and
Jupiter and other places so throw it to the wind who cares just build it out just just go all the way if if if it's ruined by Port St Lucy Why Try just let's just mix juice everything four stories who cares what voters care about who cares don't get in the way of progress
not going to change don't get in the way of progress I hear you you're saying just to do the explanation I hear right I understand but you're not going to change that we understand how you feel we all would like to just get through the night no one wants to be here till 12:30 but this is our job this is what we said we would do and let's just get
it done okay thank you and we do know how you feel and I appreciate how you feel but I think that that's not going to change right now so let's go forward and let's do that thank you mayor I think commissioner Clark is a good one because we're not getting it done
because we were we are required by Florida statute all Land Development regulation enacted or amended shall be consistent with the adopted comprehensive plan we're going to amend the comp or a melet or portion thereof and any Land Development regulation
a development order or Land Development regulation shall be consistent with the comprehensive plan if the land uses densities or intensities and other aspect was this the plan tonight was to do this with every single thing with every item okay I'm going to adjourn the meeting for five minutes was this the is
to filibuster every single item vice mayor can regain his composure and allow his fellow Commissioners to speak you're not e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e meeting back to order
2040 so obviously the attempted providing a more free willing discussion was not working so how many sections do we have Jody
that we're going to go through um we're on section two at the moment correct we on on two we have we are on section two we have section three correct correct and we
have section six correct that is correct do we have section five which is mentioned but you should have section five there's some of and if it's not it's just correcting a lot versus parcel
excuse me Jody in chapter five it's just correcting the lot versus parcel any language ahead lot we were just so mainly your your most of your changes are going to be in Chapter 2 three and
six have my light on okay so me too I'm going to ask that the Commissioners only speak when recognized by the chair okay using our fabulous lighting system and that they not not interrupt the other Commissioners as they make their
comments as regards public comments when we begin to consider a chapter the public May comment on any issues in that chapter they wish at that time and I would ask that the Commissioners not address members of the
audience and that the audience not just speak up from their seats but rather be recognize when they approach the Lector so Jody let's finish two please so we left off on um footnote two density bonuses
available in and mix puds uh that was that was strike through and then moving to the next table which is 20310 table four no we skipped ahead actually he he skipped and went a page ahead but we're we still
need to finish 2308 and 2309 so go back up Mr vice mayor I had just asked will you please be recognized before you speak sure do you wish to speak or yes so go back to 2308 Jody he
skipped ahead two charts to make that point about that vot note but we were still within 2308 and 2309 correct okay so this chart as well if you scroll down just a little bit same kind of a thing you're going to see those NOP no go up go up go up there you
go right there you're going to see 30 units per acre listed in this table as well these also need to go to 20 within these three charts 2307 2308 and 2309 all of these where it says 30 units per acre should
be 20 including in the footnotes you with me Jody yes cool okay um and that was all for those okay so I'm yody for point of clarification do the tables presented to
the LPA say 30 or 20 they say 30 so they actually did not consider these items as they're required to do the density discussion was made I think numbers okay just clarification that there was different information given to the LPA commissioner Clark just
a housekeeping thing on that same section 2.03 point10 table 4 page 308 um and throughout the document you have the red thing as being the new stuff anything that's crossed out and
red what's the yellow the so I removed so since you have the published um document the it has been updated those are some of the sections we were still evaluating at that time so
uh we have updated those sections so so like the yellow that says um the square footage 43,560 square feet where does it show that we're making a change there on the one and two in the note
or we're not making a change so in the notes um down below after the footnotes um this is all refers to the um mixed PUD uh that was all amended and then the language was added
to say multifamily far density shall be reduced by commercial for every 800 square fet of commercial the density shall be reduced by one unit each residential unit shall be reduced the allowed commercial by 800 ft
this is one of the LPA um requested that the um we go back and evaluate the far and where the 800 square fet um was um the methodology of the 800 square fet I
agree that's a good spot thank you commissioner Reed he lights on oh I well we're coming up to the the next uh table here that I wanted to talk about then I see there's some changes so
on the R2 single family this was done in 2020 uh October 26 of 2020 um so the minimum lot with for R2 single family used to be 60 foot now it's 50 foot and also the minimum side setbacks were 7
and 1/2 ft for R2 single family and for R2 two family the minimum lot with used to be 75 foot and then for R3 single family the minimum lot was 6,000 and um 60t minimum lot width the
minimum front uh setback was 25 foot the minimum side setback was 8 foot the minimum rear was 20 foot instead they were giving them bonuses when they did two and three story to relieve from minimum side setbacks but when we brought that up during the zoning in
progress the commission voted specifically not to adjust the minimum lot width because about 40% of the Lots in the city were 50 feet wide and they also
specifically um went back and said they did not want us to change the setbacks because we had discussed we were going to be changing it from 5T to 10 ft and the board directed us or staff not to
adjust these lot wits or setbacks unless you guys are suggesting that we change it now the history was we were familiar with it then as well but the commission told us not it took took me a little bit of research to find this from an old LPA meeting I mean but we were aware that it had been changed yeah but we didn't know
what the what they actually were Mike and um when they changed it in 2020 um so are you is it is this a direction to staff to change just bringing it up to see what the consensus of the board was um but this is what it
was prior to October 26th of 2020 so are you suggesting we should change numbers what numbers do you want to change it to um well is it easier if I make copies of the or you want well I mean just are you saying you want to change 50 fet to something so the minimum lot was 6,000 and then the
minimum lot width uh was 60 ft for R2 single family I see it's 50 on there I know but what do you want it to be 60 okay and then for the minimum side was 72 feet and I believe if you scroll down
Jody yeah see they gave bonuses um whether they did two story or three story they provided relief for one and two story right it was five for one story and then it went up as it if it was a one story it was a 5T seven and A2
foot well it's five for the first floor correct but historically it was always 7 and2 foot regardless if you did one two or three stor so are you changing that because we announced to the LPA that the commission told us specifically at the last meeting not to change
that so is it not something I no we can change it if that's what you guys want to do I just we just need to let them know because you guys voted not to and then for R3 single family it was I see if you scroll up Jody you have it as 6,000 which was
correct but the minimum lot width for R3 single family should be 60 foot the minimum front was 25 foot the minimum side was 8 foot the minimum rear was 20 foot so what is that that's yes correct so
that's what I I'm just that's what I'm looking for okay yes so leaving the side sides alone no he's suggesting taking the sides too back to seven and a half for which one are we talking R2 single family yes it should be 7 and 1/2 foot
and then for R3 single family it should be 8 foot instead they were giving them bonuses um from the last development director did you see any of the notes associated with that did you I'd have to go back through the LPA meeting but it
was difficult to find Mike what was the rationale for that which I don't I don't have any recollection of the um side set back of the 7.5 I don't know um what the rationale was I don't even honestly don't really remember that I also don't
remember the 50 to 60 foot thing other than I think what happened was they went through and looked and a lot of the Lots on coconut a lot of the Lots on uh the 14s 15s and 16s and 13 are all 50 feet wide so it was just because that's what
they were but I mean if the board wants to change it we'll just have to address it how it does any idea how many properties will be affected by that change you talking from October 26 until now but prior to that it was like that for many many years um so it's been changed for the
last four years I think for me I would be satisfied with the 6,000 for now and if we wanted to revisit this in more detail with more context and history on it before we start I'm pass it doing the setbacks on
the flly Mike am I allowed to pass this to a fellow board member yeah okay I just want to make sure thanks uh commissioner Clark your lights so the this I'm looking at page 310 of 720 of of 725
correct correct okay and we're looking at the minimum side yard um requirements and so on and the minimum front yard require requirements um I don't have the study um and I hear that commissioner um Reed is passing
something to commissioner goob I don't have the study of of that and um usually when we have these zoning changes they're done for a reason I don't know what was going on with the the staff or with any anything at that time I don't know if all of them were done all all
throughout at the same time in 2020 um but circumstance change and different studies bring forth certain things that will make it um easier for a neighborhood or for a particular um type of land use to accommodate um uh
development on it and maybe that's why it was done I see that most of them have um stars uh the above table does not apply to the CRA except for footnotes okay so that doesn't apply to the CRA
and then there's special zoning codes um duplexes zero setback um based on common wall for duplexes existing purples with assign ID okay so that goes back to that
whole parcel and lot issue um existing Parcels with assigned parcel ID numbers at the effective date of this code and then um so I guess maybe whenever that assigned parcel would be assign lot ID
and then there's a a newly pled Lots or parcel of record have a minimum lot size of 6,000 um I don't I don't see the reason to go back to have it to the to the more requirements uh if we've been working
with this uh since 2020 but if it's a suggestion I'll be very careful when I vote on this um when it comes up for a vote okay commissioner Reed is asking to make is asking to instruct the city maners make the change now I think we
should vote on it m if you make the change would it have to go back before the LPA for reconsideration it's no because it's it's still within the subject matter of the conversation right it's going to definitely make Miss camper um sue us
um but it will have other effects I I don't know you know at the next reading we'll have to bring you back the number of lots that areed non-conforming and won't be able to get help um Insurance yeah that's that's what I I
have on my notes too because yeah these people can we take a vote on Mr Reed's suggestion so those changes can you call the role on that she has a question I'm sorry who were we're gonna do no I changed it I'm sorry we just comment
what if you're going to vote on it you have take public comment Marcel you didn't have a motion so Marcela camor for the record I'm assuming we're going to have three minutes for this um I'm not going to spend the time
reminding this commission why those changes were made you've done so much analyses I'm sure you know why those changes were made um does this mean that what was said in every single meeting in every single one of the zoning in
program workshops where those lots that were already platted and had a plant number were going to be were going to remain conforming is does that still stand or are we making all those lots
non-conforming because because I'm sorry consistently this commission has said and instructed staff to include language to keep it conforming can and I don't I that is exactly what
was said last time but the commission also said that it wasn't going to go down this path last time because there weren't enough Lots left to worry about I'm just say I'm talking about mine I'm talking about mine during the LPA both of you told me we were agreeing to dis
or arguing to agree that the commission has clearly stated that those that had a plat number were going to be deemed conforming that was based upon on the representations by the city commission at that meeting at that same meeting
that they made those representations they said they weren't going to go down this path because there wasn't enough land left to make it worth addressing and making these changes because they were only trying to make it so that lot splits didn't happen and they were
covering that by doing the 6,000 square foot issue so they didn't feel the need to go down it they they changing that tonight so if they change it I it depends on what the direction that same thing we were talking about maintaining Conformity of the just 10 lots that I
legally did under the prior commission as a self down zoning from 30 units to the acre to 10 can someone tell me if that which was repeated at every single zoning
meeting that changed today M so today lots that I have building coming out of the ground are non-conforming is can somebody answer this I think I think the city manager has told you dep depending on the
instructions we provide he can't answer that at this moment okay is that correct Mr yeah because I don't okay do we need a motion have my letters been made part of the record as requested yes nobody wow is this a
vendetta I mean what is it I know Kingswood doesn't want this I mean commissioner what did you ask I'm sorry is this a vendetta why are why I'm the only one that you're that you're doing
this to the only because you're the only one of these that exists because of Kev Freeman what are you talking about okay as I asked you prior let's not engage with is it the consensus of this commission to reject Suggestions by commissioner
Reid or do we need a roll call on it for me I'm comfortable with the language as it is here well 6,000 IIT that in the future I'm open to it but as of right now I'd like to just move forward with what's here that's fine I was just bring it to
the board's attention thank you moving on thank you we're just moving on this change isn't being voted what year um Table Six is your uh commercial impervious surface uh there was no requested at this time at no request to
make any changes other than uh staff cleaned up the language from lot to parcel as you can see um so in section 2.4.2 is your supplemental area requirements uh as you can see there's a
lot of red um we did clean up the language to say Parcels as a opposed to uh Lots or lots of record again um we did put the language in there regarding the um no parcel record shall contain less than
4,356 square feet that existed honor before September 4th 2024 and newly created parcel record shall contain not less than 6,000 square feet after September 4th 2024
again uh some clean up language with Parcels versus Lots um is this going to impact commissioner Clark is this going to impact Lots in East Stewart no because the commission voted to keep them the same keep all of them however there are
lots in East Stewart yeah there are lots in East Stewart that are currently being held as where it's 250 foot Lots being held as one parcel 100 feet wide that will not be allowed to have a lot split in the future because they won't be 6,000
ft so those families have held those properties years that parcel will still be a buildable parcel but it won't be able to be split in half only wealthy owners will buyers will be able to deal with that that will be the start of gentrification yes it
will exactly what it is the start of gentrification was that East Stewart master plan that Marcela was a part of where everything's business mix used over there that's start moving on moving on moving on absolutely vice
mayor stop stop you the lead person are stop show me the lie I don't stop not the place not the form let's stop let's be honest about who's gentrifying the neighborhood don't say
it's us it wasn't 2004 vice mayor do you want to get through this or do you want to just adjourn every 20 minutes you're going to say something like that where are we Jody uh we're at section 20500 Cottage Lots we're just changed
that to Parcels um we do need to clean up the language uh the um again we did put in here the same language that we've been putting consistently we did change the language from um parcel record as of December 10th 2007 is now
considered um any parts record as of September 4th 2024 uh that language has been modified throughout this section the logic behind that is that the minimum lot size had changed to 4365 so all lots that were 5,000 whether
they were a cottage lot before December of 2007 would have fallen under the 4,300 and so they all vested so we move them back to September to make it clean okay thank you for that this rendering here we just need to update where it
says Lots we need to change that to parcel um I just had to reimage this um it was in the code as it image um what page you on j i your pages are going to be different to me so I'm going to get to the next section I'm around
the two section 2063 assistant living facilities this is about where I'm at Hold On tool it is Page 323 so you've passed the types Frontage typ
cold relief do you want to commissioner clerk do you want to consider prior pages is that page three hold on she she has there's no changes 20.06 is a development St standards yeah we're
currently on page 42 of 80 correct well that's her that's her item but not yours your you're 339 per page numbers and our page our our page numbers are different also referring to the section number so you can look regardless of what page it is
2.0 6.03 okay so there's essentially no changes up to to you get to um and I I'm I apologize I'm SC scrolling too fast or making you dizzy just keep moving
um so in your uh section 2. 06.09 your home occupations uh we did change parent number seven where it said no home occupation shall be conducted in any accessory dwelling building unless
approved by a conditional use so we added the language I'm sorry jod could you just go back to 2.0 6.04 why is that yellowed so if you see some of the yellow I do apologize that was just some of those things that we were still working through so um in my document
there's no more yellow we've already researched that area we just highlighted all the sections it's it's not applicable in your section so will stay the same it will stay the same number a okay so um again this is second reading I would
just ask that you remove that highlighting if it's yes this again when you get this in second reading it will be in an ordinance format this is just your working copies because again staff had very little time to kind of put this together so this would be my working
draft and typically I would write the language from there thank you now we're on 2.0 6.09 home occupations yes and it's pen it's a peren 7 and it said no home occupation shall be conducted in an accessory uh building unless approved by
a conditional use hasn't the state preempted us on this no um this was also because it's home occupation is but this is a secondary use so this was the um we had a planner that came in and said she
wanted to have her office be a separate like in her thing and the compromise the commission had was to have it be uh approved by a conditional use permit and that's where it got so these will be on a a caseby casee basis it's not a
permitted use by rights there's no state law on our in about it constrains our ability to limit you can have a home business and we can't prevent you from having the home business under the state law in your primary structure but you can't build a primary house and then
build build a second business and have a second use or business and have a house here and a business here because now you have two uses on the property if you want your living room to be your home business have at it if you want to build the out parcel you can't conduct your
business out of your Adu that's what the code says really before it said no home home occupation shall be conducted in any accessory building period That's legal what we're adding to it is to allow it
to be used as a by conditional use so the code prior to this change was no opportunity ever you can't even come in for it now we're saying you can and it can be approved by conditional
permit seems a little heavy-handed but more government I mean it's your guys' choice if you want to you want so I just get through some of the I'm just trying to understand I'm sorry
but so my adult son lives in the Adu and he has a business that's not allowed if you and I have and my wife has a business in the primary residence so you would come before the the board to get approval
in the access Cod for the accessory right the wife's is your wife's is allowed but that was what the code said already that's not a change we're makinging um someone I'm sorry someone I thought this was a very good point what if somebody rents their
house and they rent both the primary residents and the Adu and the res person in the Adu is is a family member so they're not the owner but it is a family that's in the primary residence the the intention is
to not have two separate tenants so that would be you would think of renting a if someone rented a m a primary house with a guest house on it to one family and one family lived in it it would still be one family living in
it and it wouldn't be contrary to the intent even though they're not the register well then that's right maybe our language needs clarification on it but the intention was to not have one person renting the front house and one person renting the back house if one
person is renting both then it wouldn't be two different rentals it's one rental okay as long as the language is clear because I I do know people in town who have rented for years and years and years and it's going to be almost impossible though
course okay sorry go on jod oh I'm sorry commissioner Clark so jod section 2.06 15 have we reached there yet I want to find out why we took out the roof pitch roof and Architectural so there's a state statute
that was passed around 2020 stating that we can that that municipalities or government cannot um do architectural standards for a single family or or duplex unless it's
in a PUD or a um CRA or a overlay District so this would be just some cleanup language okay and the same thing goes for number eight main entries that's an architectural thing an ornamental
structural details that's on page 346 of 725 yes Arbors all that is taken out and number nine yes okay we can no longer regulate that the state statute Reed
us so that's clean up language that staff is requesting um why did the state excuse me why did the state go because big were building cookie cutter houses and municipalities were whing architectural stuff and the state said no to the
municipalities you can't do that okay um I'm up to two section 20 2.06 you oh one7 was that Marine related okay that's fine yeah it's just some that was just some clean up langu so RV Chargers
uh as you know we cannot no longer mandate them so we struck out the language oh that's why we're taking that out I was wondering if it was because we're P we on page 350 of 725 removing the RV charging stations
because the state statutes said we had to preempted us right correct said are no longer allowed to regulate that correct okay thank you are mandated right that's why we're taking it out and then for the drug and alcohol rehab
treatment facilities uh we are not touching that language as of right now the commission directed us to bring separ going to be required to build them at the Hilton that was in a PUD and I don't know if he did he can come back and ask a change here yeah non-secure
residential the facility with fifth 1500 square feet so these requirements are what are these are these are standard requirements which is why we suggested them I'm sorry what uh what's section 2.06 23 23 okay let me just go back up
there oh the main thing was about with it not being in one half mile of another such facility we're not doing the we we struck that language and removed it all together so that's not oh so that's struck Cas no longer in your uh in the uh new up
document so we will uh so 2.06 23 the commission told us to bring back Standalone unrelated to the zip so it's not being changed correct so this red language no but it's not but right in the revised version it's black now great so it doesn't have because the
resolution originally had it in it but then after you voted on it at the resolution stage you told us to take it out but the resolution didn't get modified so the direct so the development department had the direction to leave it in but the actual meeting minutes show that the commission voted
and told us not to address it so this is going to be gone it's gone already so if you see on the screen it was already gone it's it's it's removed out of your um it's removed out of the out of your working document mayor commissioner goob yes can I ask
the city manager a question you let me just clarify so we don't have that that they cannot be located with one half mile correct all that's not what happened was we brought it back in the resolution form to address it where you guys adopted the resolution of stuff and
on that day you guys said we're not ready to adopt all this stuff within the county yet we want you guys to postpone it and bring it back separately and on its own okay and then thank you it didn't get the unfortunately the resolution itself didn't get updated so
when it got sent over to development to um write this code they thought it was still in and included it but the resolution you guys told us to take it out now if you want to go down the path oh we're going to address it separately right exactly yeah that's fine Mr Mayor can I have thank you um
Miss cougler on page 356 of 725 the mix use being added into the um mix use PUD as well as the porking standards and porking requirements and everything else on the other two tables table 207.
8 and table 207 B and 207. a um all of those are in yellow what does that mean so and if you look up on the screen you can see that uh oh
you're going going back we we listened and had to uh like uh the manager stated that the resolution is some of the verbiage for the resolution versus the actual minutes um were a little little inconsistent so we actually had to go
back and strike the parking requirements it was requested during the mixed use portion of it so there's no shared parking there's no um conversion for uh shared parking so that's all been taken
out so everything in yellow is in fact redlined uh so we are still evaluating this section and this is probably a question that the we that staff has to the board is being that this is part of your um D I do believe is something that you
wanted deleted with the same thing with the with the shared parking but I still think you want to maintain the upgraded sidewalks that you if you in a mixed ju um PUD you still want them to create a public a private amenity um so I think this still is something that we want to
maintain but take out the verbiage for D corre question commissioner Clark so I have my light on so the so the it standards we're not following the it standards so staff did suggest that but
um when the final resolution came out the the board did not support the it so what standard are we going to use just these these things in table 207a what is that we a
weekend you're you're going to have to park it accordingly so if you'll have to go back to your parking table you'll have to park your commercial based off the parking requirements for commercial and residential so that will give us bigger parking lots more hot areas less
trees smaller building and no and no no no no ability to share parking that is what the board directed the staff chair juice parking is mentioned numerous that's what I need
parts of the comprehensive plan yeah and we we'll have an impossible time providing justification or data it'll be possible to uh justify those comprehensive plan changes because that data just doesn't
exist so why do we keep the oh you're not keeping the tables you have them the red yes they are redlined so what is the actual standard what is the parking standard uh-huh uh according to the parking
calculations in SE section six or chapter six you'll have to take each use and park them accordingly so did the LPA actually consider the the parking standards that you are going to that will be written so that is
something that the LPA did want us to do more evaluation on the parking standards so they did not consider that okay they considered it but they didn't agree with um making the changes and can
I can I just sorry my thing went out CL so we had taken out commercial from um from the from the the zip and I think commercial is one of the places where
you have uh a lot of parking and then of course there's multif family but I hear that we don't have any multif family except for the multi family that's or say the R3 that's available in East Stewart I hear that we don't have a a
lot of multi family vacant so um I'm not sure why we're we're uh what we're doing with the parking standards here but I I know what I I think what it is is that if people decide to go three stories or even four
stories then it's like well if they're going to do that much then they're going to have to quote unquote park it um based on those standards but um what is your actual recommendation Miss cougler you're looking at
it well staff did make a recommendation we requested that we use the it standards that's evaluated every two years Kim did kimly horn say anything on that the commission voted to direct us to do it this way
and Mr vice mayor yes um I think a point to consider with regard to parking requirements in light of sb102 would be you know a developer was trying to convert a project to Apartments they would have to meet these
parking requirements well they couldn't come in for apartments without under Senate Bill 102 they have to they they give density and the height but they have to meet [Music]
parking okay I just want to make sure that when we take out these spots if we are taking them out that there's some congruency in this whole thing and I know you're saying it goes back to chapter part six or something back to chapter six to your parking standards
okay all right thank you where the iial unit bonus that is uh removed as well that was one of the things we we no residential bonus
youit removed I mean I don't I don't agree with it I think that it's something that can be worked on during PUD time and so on um because uh that's why we have the the guidelines like that but um
uh we'll see residential unit variety density okay so if we're changing res we did it once and we cross it out then I see it in Black in that table that doesn't have a name or number but it's
under Section H mix use density calculation it says um residential unit variety density bonus what's the difference between that and the part in red that's under total development floor
space I agree I think you should clean that up too clean this up okay drf tdf because that's using that three under h under H yes and do you have um do you
have a little um legend for the trf and the tdf really that I mean Jody that whole chart right correct would be could you ask to be recognized sorry sorry thank you I just think it needs to be explain
I mean the short form maybe you did put the short form somewhere else Miss cougler but I don't see it I just all of a sudden it just shows up in the chart as trf and tdf although it's total development floor area it probably needs
it probably needs to say it after where it says it their total residen IAL floor space it needs to say it over there instead of after the number 75,000 Square ft 120,000 square
fet and mix use what's the purpose of adding in this mixed use PUD this is the language that was requested that every um I'll have a mic explain that a little bit better just say that this is
actually it it falls under the under the floor area ratio but the so if you had when you guys gave us the instruction it wasn't thinking of it all in the same building we did put it but
it's still the same so when you said for every 800 squ ft of commercial that was developed the developer was deducted one unit of density so if someone built a 10,000
square or a 15,000 foot office building you would divide 15,000 square feet and I'm pulling up my calculator so you'd take 15,000 and you'd say 15 1 2 3 divided by 800 equals that would be 18.75 or
rounding up to 19 units would be taken away so if the 15,000 ft office building was on 2 acres and they were entitled to 30 units of residential units and instead they built 15,000 of commercial space it
would reduce the 30 units down by 19 and it would only leave 11 residential units available rather than letting the developer build the maximum building envelope of commercial and then still
having the maximum density regardless of what commercial was built the commission's direction was to reduce the density by one unit for every 800 square ft of commercial that was constructed solid I mean that's the
explanation for it um okay and I see that she had the definition somewhere else on another page but oh it was 1,000 original table 2.0 say sh us of the purpose residential park space let's not read out loud CLK all we have any we're at the end of
section two as far as I can tell yeah what's. that's chapter two do any Commissioners have any other comments questions regarding section two I'm proud of you guys I should be writing to Jody do you have any other comments
no I did not commissioner clerk just to be sure since we did something with the um drug treatment facilities earlier and I forgot where it is at the very end of that whole thing where it says um page 61 of 375
non-secure residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers where we we discussed that we're bringing that back separately it's not being addressed on this okay so okay I just want to be sure because this this just shows up at the end of the chapter underneath um I'm not sure where it fits
in it was because we had to get the agend out out 2 days after the meeting okay that's fine I we're going I know that the LPA didn't see all of this and I'm even saying things that your version is a little bit different up there but I just want to bring it up because it has
to be on the record thank you okay I'm gonna on CH there's no objection from the commission if any members of the public wish to comment on our conclusion of chapter two or I'll let you comment as we move into chapter
three Madam clerk do we have any green card sorry yeah Mr Price good evening I am here um I was could you introduce yourself yes duet price 257 and 245 St Lucy
Boulevard the duplex properties that I think are the only ones that are somewhat vacant right now where you know I've been silenced but I'm coming here tonight to make sure I let everybody understand so I see we're now we're going to D dlex properties going from 50
to 60 and 75 and then making setbacks at 7 and a half so are they going to make like r1's and rs and all that comparable in their setback requirements so if you do a calculation which we talk about the data commission the commission voted not
to make those changes and to leave it right okay it was just a discussion today yes yes yeah oh okay that's well we woke you up though sorry yes yes you did well at the same time I will tell you that
um just as I was getting ready to go into the DAT out there's no data I hear staff they're trying they're struggling to go through this and there's a process I've heard the mayor go through certain things I think I've already spoke to Mike and the City attorney as we go
through this is that this process is not being followed in a proper way so Bert Harris I'm going to say it over and over Bert Harris the comp plan everyone thinks it's a simple process I hope you do send everything that you're saying to
the to the state because that will wake him up and maybe somebody else will take the torch and really take a look at what we're doing here so I just want to put that under record that a lot of what I see Happening Here is a diservice to the community don't let me get an East
Stewart because you know what everyone already knows my point and where we are with e Ste okay because at the same time everyone says they're protecting but no one has a plan and no one is looking to try to get them a plan that is disingenuous everyone can say we're trying to save them because the
developer is going to come and build a Starbucks in the bottom and highrise guys I'm in a development game you look at City Place in Claus you go one block off of bright line you go to boka none of that has changed okay and for a developer to come in here and do what everyone is claiming is going to happen
it financially is in feasible so but that's just me because I just do that for a living so I just want to make sure that everybody understands that thank you sir thank you Miss camper thank you Marcela camer for the
record um my Council sent three letters which we requested they be part of the record I don't know if they are part of the record or not um one of the letters is
appropriate to the impact that the changes to parking are having on an approved Urban PUD that I have um in fact the changes to the requirements of
parking for single family um apartments for example Studios that are now going to have proposed two um two parking spaces per studio um the same as a big house in Palm City or two-bedroom apartments now
having 2 and a half parking spaces per um per unit again more than any house requirement in the entire County as if that's really going to stop the traffic or affect any of the policies that are bringing the traffic through us that
included with the removal of the shared parking uh policy that is inconsistent with three policies of your comprehensive plan and it affects my development potential directly um I did
the calculations I don't know if any calculations have been done um I know that for many of you it doesn't matter but for a project that I am trying to do with 16 residential units where that project would have
required 45 spaces when I add some commercial and I won't have the benefit of getting a parking exception like the people in commercial apparently have um this change would take it to 85 spaces
that Coupes so from 45 to 85 with 16 residential units if I keep a one to one you know each unit has to be mixed use so if I keep each little bedroom apartment with um an office downstairs
I'm going to 88 parking spaces whether it fits or not that's my problem what that's doing to our environment coupled with the new laws from uh the Department of Environmental Protection that are coming in it will affect the city and
will affect developers with storm water runoff um these things need to be addressed and um like I said um the letter from my Council has been submitted for the record thank you thank you anyone
else okay Jody chter three please I'm just gonna scroll down so I my light is on this is just some clean up Parcels a lot of the first section is just going to be um so in uh section 3.0
1.03 uh urban center talks about shared parking uh that has been strike through and then you'll see a lot of the uh parcel lot versus parcel Cleanup in the the urban the first part of the urban
area um could you give me a 384 ahead so I think a lot of the the uh substance for lot for chapter three is going to be in the East Stewart where um you directed staff
to uh so this is your new parking table for urban areas uh for duplexes uh you request the staff to change it from 1 point to.5 so in duplex residents you will have to have two per unit and then
single family also I mean mul family two per unit so you're in 3.02 East Stewart neighborhood code now I'm in the urban code district uses uh it's by the parking table um if you look
at the screen uh commissioner Clark you can see uh some of my changes that will help oh I had the two unit thing I thought we had passed that already yeah because okay that's when Miss cemer came up you has to be recognized commissioner may be recognized I'm sorry so just
right above that Miss Miss um right above that you had um some language about uh the exemption the parking exemption uh is before that and then there were I wish I could find it so the
staff was not directed to touch anything in the Oldtown District or the parking exemp examp area in the CRA so we did not make any changes there okay but the one I was thinking about was V
and V and VI six five and six could you give us a clue what page you're on page 3 78 of 725 are we in the urban area it says with it's right above that land use type where you had the two per unit it's
Roman numeral um five and Roman numeral six but they're small print let me just um is it the word exemption no the width of the parking spaces may be reduced to 8 and 1/2 ft for up to 10% of the
required parking right there we didn't make any changes okay so I was thinking of a development like marcela's and how you comply with the parking if that kind of gives her somewhat um a l if she's if
she's in this category I don't know this is urban something so maybe she's not in that Parkway development isn't in this it's not in that category that's what I thought okay okay so the only changes we made here was the uh we uh increased the 0.5
parking space requirement 1.5 to two I'm sorry I passed through that long time okay so I'm just gonna so we did there was no changes in the parking exempt area within the C uh CRA a lot of
this is clean up from lot to parcel and uh I think you'll see more of the changes um go to the east Stewart over uh form base code um 3.02 two and then let me just
get down to that are you down to 49 yet Cody so I'm at um section 3.0 1.06 where it talks about Urban code conditional use requirements
3.02 I have I had a question about that Mr May so scroll down a little bit to number three public art no number three okay yes so where it says mixed mixed
residential unit types the proposed development includes a mix of one and two-bedroom rental apartments a th000 square feet or less of gross floor area why why would rental
be if why would the rental versus fee why why is that relevant if it's for rent or you could own unit I mean it's not being changed so no no I know but I that caught my eye why why is
that what page are you on Mr vice mayor yes 394 I just thought that was interesting what's a I think this what's a rationale for that so well I think that it probably was a mistake I mean it probably was
simply portable at the time they were thinking of because people were saying you have to remember you have to put in context with the workshops that staff was being presented with the public was coming in and saying we need more housing we need Workforce housing and
the department of uh The Economic Opportunity had come in and recommended to the city commission to build apartments and they were you know like the the room would be filled with people saying we need more Apartments than Stewart in all of 2017 and all of 18 we
had like five workshops and they all so I think staff did but I think they just said rental because at the time that's what was being discussed or created by the board wasn't nobody was AO wasn't going to be condos it was it was rental
that they were discussing but I agree with you that probably should the word rental shouldn't be there it should just say includes mix of one and two bedroom units right it just seems strange that it would drive one type of product right and I think that was just a typo or
a Freudian slip as they might say does the rest of the board see see where I'm coming from is that number three you're speaking of commissioner yes vice mayor so you're asking to strike rental apartments 1,000 square feet or less no
just just the units the size is fine but rental see my language the product type okay number three just right here rental rental apartments should be units thousand square feet and apartments yeah just just saying units units two there are two bedom apartments
less than but there's also two bedroom condos that are less than a thousand instead of driving one type so he's saying it's not just rental it's also a condo just anything otherwise we're just saying that the urban the urban um thing is for rental is just for rentals yeah I
hear you sir yes sir okay remove rental thank you okay that was all that was all there that I saw can be rental or anything else kind of um oh sorry would you like to be recognized commissioner Clark yes I
still have my light on Section you can't just leave your light on time section 3.02 01 um so where is that start in the East Stewart Neighborhood code yes it does I have no problems with those pages with
the blue thing and so so on so that variance that's on page 403 point of 725 variance section 80501 what does that mean what page you
page 403 it's going to be figure uh es sn-3 required board presentations so if you recall um your board of adjustments are no longer and all any variances are going to be heard by your local planning agency that's
right so we struck out board of adjustment and also uh it's it's kind of redundant to go to the community redevelopment board okay agency so it's just going to the local planning agency okay so so that's a reference to the thing that struck out
the um the board of adjustment and we have that out so now it'll be a pre-application conference um what about the crb that you have that checked no that is actually been strike through okay see
that's why I the only that's struck through the only board or final decision for any type of variance would be the local planning Agency for any for the variances that's not correct at all that table so the local plan agency only has
one thing checked on it there in the in the red which is not struck out that's underlined or is it struck out struck out variance is underlined it's underlined if you look at document on the screen which is the most recent document that is underlined so that
means it stays it stays well that's not what we have here yeah we don't have it here yeah we don't have it here okay that's why I'm I'm going carefully like this so that I know that what I'm reading so um so these black um check
marks are good there's no Board of adjustment no CRA local plan agency and everything goes in front of the city commit yes the only thing that we did administratively is if you do a zoning change uh and we did this with a project
project lift you had to go do the prea then you had to go to community redevelopment agency then you had to go to the local planning agency and then you had to have two two City commission readings so it it just it was very redundant language so we struck out the local planning Agency for any zoning
changes any future land use changes because your community redevelopment agency acts as your local planning agency in a CRA thank you for recognizing me Mr Mayor um and I'm I'm trying not to digress but I know that um
we're we're at this East Stuart juncture and I know that there has been something from Mr James Christie Jr who talks about some kind of a oversight board and having elected people to make decisions similar to like a homeowners association
or CD or something for the community in that vein but since we we're here it's going to be through the city commission I just want to say that that was something there maybe of course we're going to be talking to the community and the neighborhood about some of those
ideas but I'm wondering if that was some of this stuff because I remember we ask and we do ask people when they come in here have you gone to the neighborhood have you talked to the residents can you set up a time to talk to the residents but we don't have an official thing that
says everybody needs to get out there and and meet with the neighborhood we're only require them to send the letters within 300 ft um to those in the 300 ft radius and once they send those letters then they're okay but sometimes we do ask people to go out and talk to the
neighborhood so I don't know I I mean I don't think that we need another at least without any study I'm just thinking we don't need another oversight board but I just want to be sure that this is the procedure that we're using and people just come straight to the
commission and if the commission has any conditions and requirements that's when the commission tells that person who's developing uh in any one of these uh any major plat application major development project or conditional use or zoning
change or future land use change is that correct um Miss cougler I think here your we're looking at ESN 03 required board presentations right so these are just the boards that are that's already
established um there is some language in the creek District that does require you to have a um neighborhood meeting okay in the creek District right so but it's not in the um East Stewart East Stewart and as staff or a development department
we always encourage our applicants even even though it's not required to go talk to the neighborhood have you if you want us to add that we can well I think they they did ask they they want something like that um I'm not
sure what they they they said that people said that they wanted to know what was coming into East Stewart because they were upset about the gutter project and well I shouldn't call other people's names but um whatever projects they were concerned they were even concerned you know is there another
marcher going to come in or is something else coming in so I think they they want to know but I it's not that it's going to be uh a second level of somebody making a decision it's more of an informative thing to let people know if
something major but Mr Mortel with history even though we have never done this would it be something to put a requirement that if it's a PUD or if it's something that's over a certain square footage so that we don't have everything bogged down is there
something is there some guideline that we could use to say when something goes to the to the neighborhood I mean what do you guys same criteria as the creek District okay use what is the creek District criteria is anything anything
requires a uh community meeting okay so if a business anything a deviation of code requires a public meeting okay but then that's a point is that with E Stewart not having there's a lot of things that they used to be able to do by right but it's not
happening so it's like everything is going to be a deviation of code then it will all have to go before the community and I don't I think that we need to go back on some of those uses but we haven't gotten to it yet and see what form of community board would that be
it's not a community board you have to have a community meeting at 10 Street and let people just the coming to board was just his suggestion but that's like legally with uh sunshine and everything it's not going to even work but um it's just they have to reach out to the public and
provide a public input meeting okay well when we get to the land uses in East Stewart I'll definitely have some comments as to some areas that I think need to be outright instead of having to come to the the commission um this mother may I think and and beg you
master Joe to do something is not my thing it's one of the most racist documents I've ever seen yes and TOD 08 so I'm at section uh 3.2.3 and it's permitted
uses and this is the language that we pulled from um which the other from uh chapter two we added allowed through City commission public hearing process are marked with a by
resolution so it was staff understanding that the only thing that's permitted by rights within the bmu or the grro district is single family the rest would require a a uh public hearing through the to the city commission and it has to
be approved the use would have to be approved by a resolution and that's consistent throughout unless it said conditional use then you would follow the conditional use process commission Clark so that home
occupation that has a full black has it changed now because I have it just all black on so uh home occupation where are you I'm a table ESN O8 permitted uses in the East Stewart neighborhood page 409
need it needs to have a c there and under the bmu the grro and the sfd that you need to change the duplex one as well to add I guess we call it aoud or whatever is there no what's under
sfd it would be conditional use for duplex under sfd doesn't it doesn't duplex require hearing that's one more over that's bmu right and then gr then under sfd it's still duplex so shouldn't it be uh
allowed it's it's got to be it's not just by Straight zoning it has to be authorized by resolution of the commission why is that now I thought it was uh already allowed in there and it's only in the bmu because you just voted about an hour ago to tell us to make
duplexes require a resolution for approval I'm going to let the I thought I'm going to let the vice mayor come I thought that we said that the steuart was not going to be touched when it came to that all commissioner Clark could we allow the vice mayor oh sorry I thought you talk to me Jody can
you pull up the I think I think we should first address this issue on the duplex because commissioner Clark her recollection is that E Stewart was not being addressed uh under that so we need to address the what's the intent of the board that's why I want to I want to
talk about this regulating plan as okay the context for that so can you go back to the larger map okay so I I had Mike my my intention is what I said earlier to restore this back to what it was before that 2004 um
Master Plan update to what looks more like the zoning pre 1998 or 2004 exactly when that was so I had Mike shoot that over and I believe all of you got
that and so where we see a lot of that green grro historically and I'm going to do two layers of this one is the historic zoning two is what is actually over there and I think in the context of both of those this makes
sense but historically with zoning um you have R3 all the way until you get to East Street right East Avenue East
and then East where it's all bmu there East going north and then cutting to the left is B1 everything other than that is R3 so what we have in this 20
4 update is wildly different than the historic zoning because it takes one existing single family homes and I'll go into that in a minute single family homes in R3 and converts them into
grro and then where you had something more like grro I guess you could make a case for being bmu you know it was B1 with houses intermixed on East and so this is this is the further context is
when you I went parcel by parcel looking through here if I were to zoom in on Tarpon right between Lake and Church Street that grro that's there that those green Parcels those are all single family
homes can you zoom in you highlight that Jody so from Lake Street to church on Tarpon all of that grro that's there yeah exactly all of that is single family home if I'm on Bahama
so just go a little bit up Jody I'm sorry I almost need to walk over there and point it but a found on Bahama all that grro that's above Spectrum next to gertude Walden that pond that's all single family home it's been made GRL it's right between the purple and the
green at the very top right the little see right there the left of [Music] it that's all single family home right no so yes currently as it sits what's the name of the street is it b bah all
single family home that is the lwh hanging fruit to start with is both in the historic zoning the baby and currently as the parcel sits are single family homes not residential
office and if we go to grro right where's the sheet for grro what's allowable in grro right duplexes multif family dwelling units mixed use Family Daycare that's fine home occupation what whatever room room
boarding houses bed and breakfast in adult daycare child care centers which there's you got two over there but not there I need more um community centers government buildings
libraries alfs religious institutions which there's religious institutions in the neighborhood but a lot of those uses don't look anything like the single family homes that are there so what I had talked mic about it it was a little
clumsy what actually ended up on here what I was describing was expanding the single family home sfd into some of these other areas and
it used to be R3 there's so much R3 mul family multif family they're all single family homes but traditionally it's R3 so but what is there is not R3 I thought you wanted to go back to what was there I know I'm saying the context
of both so you had you had residential and then what's actually there is a single family home yeah so instead of it being [Music] grro which allows all those other uses it should be truly converted back to
sfd I say truly converted back to multi family multi sfd is our closest equivalent to R3 is multi family multi family that's what we have for that is sfd not grro okay the closest thing we have to that is the
sfd now if I move off of those two that are low hanging fruit besides a lot of the Housing Authority you know that's in there once you get over to East right if I go down
east most of if I'm going north south on East right most of that um northern part of East is either vacant or single family home or there's some duplex up closer to
MLK but besides Styles and the daycare right and right up on MLK what what I'm describing here I'm not talking about messing you know touching anything up on MLK or tent in the same way that on 10th Street you have grro on 10th I think that's appropriate same thing too
would be with ML you can have bmu or grro right on MLK but anything interior of that these are all single family homes so if you allow those to be grro and bmu use you're going to lose potentially those you're setting this up to not be single family homes that's the whole
point of doing this if I wanted it to be single family home I would have it be zoned a single family home if I want it to be grro and bmu that's what I would Zone it as and that's what has happened here can we look Reed to make a comment Mr vice
mayor are you done no I'm not done though but okay no no then continue I'm sorry so so on on East there that I I think it's if you were going to
make sort of a concession to move in this direction of um having bmu I think East is appropriate in in the context of it historically being B1 along with going along that MLK Corridor um like
from east to Center and MLK that that that was historically B1 but south of that that's like right up there is all single family home um and you know historically was R3 okay I'm confused you keep saying historically
because supposedly this is historical map and that's that B1 went all the way down to whatever that is all the way down it says B1 there B1 is this it's an L yeah yeah so you got East and then you've got you're saying but just along
okay and then all the way down all this inside here was was it is homes yeah R3 this a little piece R1 right there I see but otherwise our three but even even today like all of that internally in there is homes okay so you're not saying historically you're saying you keep
saying what is there today well our closest equivalent to R3 uh is sfd that we're picking from on this which includes duplexes sfd Which single family and duplexes right right so instead of grro for instance
that R3 that's tucked in that little L should be sfd okay all right do you get what I'm saying I do yeah so I don't know exactly how this works Mike you had talked about when I brought
this up having a map Amendment so so that's what uh the mayor was talking about earlier today with the notice when you do a zoning map Amendment it requires a publication and that there's a there's a whole criteria in the
statute that we can do that but it's not going to be part of this zoning and progress adoption but we can bring it back separately as we're doing the comp plan amendments and do it at the same time I'm sure the community would really
appreciate that but it's but what I'm what I'm prescribing is effectively restoring the single family zoning that was historically and also matches with what's currently there why are you shaking your head now you disagree with that let's let him finish
I'll wait until until after Mr commissioner this might be a point where there's some discussion because we lost I lost control of that situation we're not going back to that Mr re are you done with your comments Mr vice mayor no okay commissioner Reed yeah just wanted to touch base on uh Mr Christy's
comments and what he had sent us and commissioner Clark's comments and I noticed when you look at the East Stewart Neighborhood code that we're looking at it's figure es sn-02 how to use this code Jody and if if you guys really want the
public input in E Stewart um when you're looking at you're going to let's see where are you at Jody ESN 06 so it's it's back sum then in the E Stewart code
beginning uh yep keep going back the blue all right scroll down now just a little bit and it's going to be uh section c if you scroll down a little bit
it's right below this keep going no it's a am keep going we can do it at the same time so where it says C right here it says the development director May is that something where we can change it to the development director shall request an applicant so then they would have to
have a community Workshop in East Stewart for any major development projects it's exactly what we were just talking about oh gotcha okay okay so just changing from May to Sha should should get us right Lee right perfect
difference big difference and and it it's also applicable in the uh Creek District but I don't think there's as much concern as far as fixing the language there it might be the development director said in the creek District was required yeah uh it says
the same language I believe okay okay commissioner Clark are you done with your comments commissioner re yeah yes and that that would allow the public to weigh in then for major development then that should take care of a good amount just by changing one
word commissioner Clark okay so E Stewart um commissioner okay I'm not going to call names um there's there's a um suggestion that we go back to what is a historic or
go back to pre 2004 which is like 255 years or 20 years plus even before that would be over 30 years we're talking about a community that's growing and changing and the reason why
the bmu and the grro was kept in when treer Co Regional planning Council met with the community and did stuff was because from the time when um I said I wasn't going to call name one of our former Commissioners who was on here for a very long time and couple of a couple
of our other Commissioners they wanted to have in fact East Stewart used to have a Main Street district and they wanted to have business come back again even though as miss Helen just said today that because of desegregation after 1968 and in the 70s and then the
malls were built in the 80s and '90s and people didn't have to go to the corner store except for Taylor's grocery I am calling names now um that um that they and maybe the kids going to school had a little place to stop by now they have
the Harvest Plaza or Sam's Plaza on MLK where they can stop by and get a drink and so on but you can't look at a neighborhood or should not look at a neighborhood and say let's bring it back to 1999 or 19 whatever those people's
lands have value those people want to do something and they want to have the option to do something and they're going to keep it they if they're going to keep it a certain way with um they used to have all along um Martin Luther King
there were bars and houses on top there were um multifam motels where the um Cherokee was on East Avenue there was a pharmacy the Mardy family had a pharmacy they had homes upstairs I mean rooms
upstairs there were other people who had and these people every time I hear somebody from East Stewart they say we want it back in the old days that doesn't mean that that's only place that they're going to shop but they want to be able to have the ability to have a little dress store to have another
little um hair place or to do something I know that we had the Vista Plaza that was there and that didn't work out and I don't know what happened what the landlord did and what kind of tenant he had but it's been probably 30 years now since that Plaza hasn't worked or at
least more than 20 since that Plaza hasn't worked but people are saying that they want the option to do that and all this R3 is there because people can have the ability to meet the parking if they
go up and they can have parking underneath or have parking in the back and they can still have some type of a multifam unit that they rent out to others people don't have to rush off to Port St Lucy and pay 24 I'm calling
names $2,400 a month or whatever for one single place they could have a place you ask I'm not I'm not going to call names there's a couple people he's a famous barber in the community he rents um literally in today's world it's he rents
for peanuts but it's because somebody needs that place and it's good a good decent place to live and he is a very good and well-respected uh landlord and people want to be able to do that so that they can have three or four or five
units St Paul a I'm calling names they have they have property they have land they want to redevelop when Mr I'll call names when M commissioner Christie was on the board he wanted and they wanted don't have to qualify that they wanted Redevelopment this is the history I'm
giving the history they wanted Redevelopment but they wanted it in a sustainable refined way that met with the the the the nature of the people in the community and the land owners who have a history in the community so it's not that everything should be single
family because that's what they want people have their land they know what the zoning is they know what the value is and I think that we need to go with what the historic thing is that it was a mix use the only problem that happened
during the East Stuart code was that the way that it was set out in the Stuart Urban code or east Stewart Urban code at the time it says that you had to marry the mix use with the residential and when the East Stewart code came in that
was changed to where you could have business office residential in even in separate different categories but it was all underneath that that that youth name but you could be residential or it could be business or it could be office it
didn't have to be married together and that's why there was some hesitancy on Redevelopment on East Avenue but East Avenue is considered the main street as well as Martin Luther King Boulevard and people want the option to develop and
not just have one land use type and say stick to one land use type and that's because that's what it was 30 years ago no it was not that 30 years ago people have a single family house because that's what they can afford to live in and because they've been hemmed in by
refinancing laws and all kinds of different things whether the family names we have a program now we're we're trying to get people to get property in their name instead of living on their grandmother's property and still not have it in their name but um that's probably that's why it's like that
that's why we need Community studying that's why we need good Economic Development that's why we need a relationship with the bdb that's why we need to be a city and plan and work with our community thank you commissioner CL vice mayor
so I I think this is I I hear your point that people want flexibility in there but how long how long have we had this type of zoning in that neighborhood over 20 years right the bmu gr two years since 2024 when we did St no when we did
that master plan it changed this what we approved the name bmu we we approved the form based code was just Rec codifying what was already there in 2004 mix use so for 20 years this has been the way it is and these
projects that you're describing haven't come online well that's people's fine it's their property but that doesn't mean you take the option from them so let them finish please sorry oh I'm sorry it is it is disingenuous to me to to make
this point that in the past E Stewart was this mixed use area uh um that had all of this business seg after desegregation that did change right and since then that hasn't returned so what
you have since that time is a single family home neighborhood rezoning a single family home neighborhood to all mixed use in grro
erases with time a single family home neighborhood would you want your street to be mixed use and grro no way cuz you like your single family home now I know that there's property owners that would like to be able to sell their property for
more right it it it's I get it but the people who live in homes in this neighborhood I would challenge you to have an event at 10th Street let's talk about it yeah let the
people who live on Bahama right and Tarpon in those houses understand that their parcel is set to be whatever is in grro and bmu and not just Jerry Gore and people who own property the people who live in the
houses okay because I think you might get a very different reaction and to point back to what I said earlier about that East Stewart master plan right of which Marcela was one of the lead people involved in that
I'm going to bring it up again because I think it's very important to get the spirit of what this did okay all of this two and three story and up stuff that is not single family home
neighborhood right and I I found the most interesting I think this really captured the idea of this was on page 38 of of that that again Marcela was keenly involved in organizing in and leading and it says a new name for E Stewart Ula
a new name for East Stewart okay when we're talking about erasing a neighborhood and turning it into something else even to the point that we have we're going to give it a new name I think the people some people have asked for that sorry to East Stewart as a neighborhood has always been centrally
located within the city its name has never been a reflection of its geographical location during the charet several residents expressed concern regarding the neighborhood's name over the years negative connotation seems to have been attached to the east Stewart
designation we're completely reformatting this neighborhood all the way to the point of giving it a new name so to me this is I said this before this is disingenuous what we're selling that somehow we're going to return the the Vigor to East Stewart
where it's going to be people from East Stewart um owning these businesses and these developments it's not they're not going to be blackowned business bus is it's not going to go back to what it was but what we can do with these zoning changes is
gentrify this entire neighborhood and turn it into a little city place for bright line that is the reality of this that is what the intent was even to the point of erasing the name of the
area that is crazy and to pretend that anything else is going on so that we can help certain people cash out for more when all the developers come calling when there's a station there is wrong I wouldn't want it in my
neighborhood I wouldn't want this where I live I would fiercely defend it and I don't live in this neighborhood but I'm going to fight for this like I do like I live in one of those houses and it was me because I bet you that the vast majority of people that are living
in all those single family homes have no idea about this they have no clue they just know that the city screws them over time after time that's all that they know commissioner clerk thank you so a
couple of things the the um the mix of the neighborhood in terms of density so we have uh and Mr mortal if you could help me I'd appreciate it or maybe Miss cougler we have something that was created back in
1962 called the um Housing Authority Federal housing that housing authority by acreage as well as unit numbers as well as people is a predominant use of land and of the
source of people in East Stewart so to say that it's mostly single family it's a lot of multif family and that's a federal units that are there and it's they're um three stories three two stores plus their duplexes a lot of
duplexes and that's what it is the other thing is that most of the people who were here much earlier on and made comment if all of them if not most of them are actually land owners who rent
some of them rent properties whether it's along Bahama whether it's along East Avenue or or Central they actually rent property to other people so some of the homes that you see that are listed are looking like single family on a map
there sometimes people rent them okay they're not necessarily their home there are some single family homes that were put in dixy lane and I think those people own them even that area is not a part of the traditional East Stewart area because it's new and of course um
Sherwood force on the other side is not a part of what we consider the traditional East are it's a very small discret area and so along Tarpon Avenue along East Avenue and even along Central Avenue where Mr Willie's um bait shop
and other things used to be that's what people see as the areas that used to be commercial and they want to have some things come back people don't may not have the money to finance these things maybe that's why it's been sitting like
that but that doesn't mean that the land shouldn't have the opportunity to have that and I'm this speculation that somebody's going to sell their land to somebody and we're going to have this or that um we have a historic district that we've created with a code that says
that's what we want to do if I can chime in for one second we're actually talking about a map change change yes sir which is not on the agenda for tonight thank you sir and so we'll have to bring that back anyway and since it's after 12 we should probably focus on what's on the
agenda so essentially tbling chapter 3 no no it's nothing to do with am just the what I'm talking about changing single family to bmu or whatever that's a zoning map change yes sir right getting back to the text amendments okay
we've spent about 35 minutes on a matter that's not on the agenda so I'm trying to bring us bring it back in So Mr Mayor would you want to comment on that page 46 or yeah I'd like to to come back after this with a with the map
Amendment my my next questions just centered around um page 413 page page 413 but it's um the East Stewart neighborhood lot size building placement Building height so after this I don't agree with
that because I wanted to make sure that we did the same kind of a thing where we get down to 20 units instead of 30 we did it in the other chart but but I wanted to make sure it was mirrored here excuse me Mr can just go back
because I wanted to talk about figure ESN d08 permitted use 08 okay I'm on what this says to me is to the people who own these properties we don't trust you we don't
think you have the intelligence to develop your community correctly we have to protect you this is sounding really ugly and the down potential downside of this is enormous we don't treat any other
community in this city like this you're right we don't turn it into a business mixed use we don't treat any other community and if there's an election and potentially they get some other Commissioners here who don't like this
community and want to hamper them and shut them down they can do it completely or they can say hey I have a family day you know I have this business I don't want competition I'm not going to approve that so to deny these residents
of our city the same rights the same property rights the same opportunities that the rest of us have it's just racist you have to call it for what it is you're talking about the allowed portion is that what you're saying it did every anything they want
to do they have to come before the commission the the remember the purpose for this was for for the community to have input not to restrict anybody that's what we had discussed was the community was going to we can ask them to go to sorry Mr Mayor we can ask them
to go and have a community meeting and then work with the development director but let the land use stand I mean let the land use and the Zone stand sorry we done I'm sorry up to you you wanted to
speak about he's ref to Sir could you just wait till the end of the section trying to keep some order thank you thank you commissioner I think we're close to the end vice mayor Collins was referring to the chart at ESN d09 okay where it references 30 units per acre and I've taken the note to fix that to
make sure it says 20 where is it I'm sorry bottom 12 I don't know what page it's on because my page number is different but it's es n-9 the chart page 43 right under
3024 or page 413 is vice mayor residential Max and unit it is it's a chart on page 16 RIT 46 says gross density change to what instead of cu3 it'll say
cu20 on the porch yeah residential units per acre gross density it says gross density density Max in units per acre yes okay but it was also discussed okay okay so this is a different you
have a different document which is fine I mean but it was essentially advertisement in yeah yeah and it's again because we had to get the agenda out literally 48 hours after the meeting the whole process has been very compressed okay anything so keep
going so under that do you have a comment yes p 416 the Adu must be on the same water and electric meter as the primary residence can you explain that one because I know that there was a question on that you guys discussed it
and it was intended and again it's it's the pleasure of the board but um it was intended to discourage from uh the idea was that some guy from Miami would buy the front buy the whole thing and rent the front out to one guy and the back out to
another guy and they would be strangers so it wouldn't be as easy for them to reconcile the water and the electric whereas if the owner of the property lived in one of them they could rent it out to somebody but they would be the owner so they could go in and say Hey
you owe me $28 for the water or whatever it might be for or for the electric or if it was their kid or their family member they might let them off the hook completely and not have to pay at all it keeps it small town versus like a commercial Enterprise with these adus that developers can Leverage is that
legal isn't the state preempted us on that it's it's not preempted but we do have multiple occasions where we have people on um multiple electric meters for one reason or another um and for
that matter um adus it's actually more expensive for the homeowner to have two meters because they have to pay for a second equival equivalent residential connection and a second meter hookup so they would also be getting a second sewer bill and all the stuff so it's
probably in their best interest for the water to be on the same meter anyway but the electrical sometimes the uh there's circumstances where people have had their pool area or their Dock and things like that on a separate meter but Clark convenience too thank you Miss cougler
on page 432 of 725 um and I just happened to see this so the word may is used with the cottage lot and I'm wondering what system you'll use to make changes because if you just do a a universal change section that
is ESN ESN 26 C Cottage Court if you just do a universal change this may is good here this is good May is good here so it's it's not everything that should be shall so I just wanted to make sure she's not she's not going to change
every May to sh yeah I just want that one line right that shall be a disaster yeah that okay shared parking is gone 438 right nothing else in the steward no we're at the end no is there anything
else yeah page 451 just the parking 41 I want to make sure that the parking updates it made would also apply what's the section one unit one per unit s-42 yes sir Y how do you want that to read Mr that
our parking our parking requirements would extend also to East Stewart that we the changes we make the the the multif family does the residential units um this so when it says all residential
units we want it to change to say two bedrooms equals two maybe just have our existing parking requirements okay superimposed into this instead of the lots are so small oh sorry yeah you'll never yeah you won't get that we I thought we weren't going to touch this
East Stewart doesn't even have minimum lot size as well they do now you guys are adopting it to 6,000 square fet so they're going to yeah that' be only applicable to lot splits though well I mean it's not the
the parking is not applicable to the the buildings that exist already either it's just new construction so I mean it's a pleasure of the board but that's I mean the question is whether it um applies or not what's the
direction if again we're looking at what would be new development we're not trying to punish who's there they would be grandfathered in but for new development they would have to follow the Citywide parking requirement so if this were to turn into art master plan where it's all you know
three story mixed used it would still need to follow our rules you know where if you make East Stewart the only place where you don't have to adequately Park you could create a mess there as it
develops into what it appears it may develop into all right what's the pleasure of the board here I don't think we should change it um where was the change again ESN 41 it's ESN d42 the first sentence says all
residential uses including adus one per unit and we would tomorrow switch that out for the exact same parking requirements for the remainder of the thing which is a two-bedroom unit has to have two parking spaces a you know the
the whole instead of 1.5 per unit it's two per unit and the whole owner standard it's not onerous it's just what we have Citywide okay um I have my commissioner Clark couple of things in the creek District I know I did the
walk and we did a lot of things in the creek District but I'm looking at page 470 is this related to this parking issue yeah is it oh no I'm just moving on could we if what is the yeah I think
we should have the one unit one parking per per what do you do you have an opinion here absent and affirmative I'm we'll leave it as it is just looking at the map and stuff and
trying to figure out how many Parcels I guess it would even be applicable to um it would be 100% of the parcels I get that um if they redevelop right all of the parcels that are V vacant which is
about 50% would be subject to it just going to hamstring people Comm Clark can we allow Commissioners giobi and Reed to express their opinion your your opinion is clear on this matter yes she wants to
speak again no no well she has her light on before we can move on okay um I'd much rather see it at one personally just for those guys um I get the whole Redevelopment side of it um maybe one and a half for a
compromise um it's obviously more for a mixed use or multifamily that's what you're going after I would imagine with the parking vice mayor Collins yeah it's
going to be mixed use that if you look at the EAS a master plan that's the whole thing is the bottom floor is commercial and then the top two floors is Apartments yeah I have the poster pulled up so I yeah that was an ' 04 yeah then
they had a Master Plan update in 2023 I'm going to say there's there does to be see has strong motivation to change it Morel well I I do feel that the issue would be under Redevelopment I guess I'm on the fence
I'm thinking about it okay we'll come back to it they'll be coming to the board if they have it I don't know if you guys want to come back to it tonight but this is going to be something we're going to come back to Second reading I guess we'll leap the question is I'm looking for direction if we should change it between now and second reading okay
thanks um commissioner Clark okay so miss miss cougler I ran through the creek district and I don't know if I had missed this when I was working on this before but
I'm seeing that their um color guidelines in the creek District similar to our guidelines downtown I'm just bringing it up that's all I don't think we had color guidelines in East Stewart but I guess we did put that in the creek
district for the color of walls and they had more Landscaping details we can't do architectural requirements yeah that remember no but they have color in here though I saw it I just have to find it well we'll take it out okay that's what I'm I'm saying I saw it I just have to
find it but all exterior buildings okay page 470 of 725 all exterior building wall colors shall comply with Section 3.14 G architectural standards and regulations of the urban code I do think
a CRA and a um uh historic neighborhoods may be exempt from that they are um requirement so that's why it's still in there yes you're in an overlay okay I just I mean I I did anyone just hear what jod said she said
yeah they're in an overlay oh okay okay all right that's I didn't know if you heard it yeah and my next one sir is on page 477 where the yellow is marking out section 3.04 after conditional uses what
does that mean is it that 3.04 is a new name now a new number by the time it gets changed is I don't understand what you're saying I'm not I'm not k k What 477 K is just above the bottom of the
page h i j k what about it is it 3.04 going to be a new designation like by the time we make a change it will have a new number or a new name oh you're just saying why is it highlighted yes sir I think that was just because it was something that they were trying to remember but we'll take that out yeah
yes it was probably it's on a working document it was for staff right okay thanks we had to go back under planed unit development and it was to cross reference it James how we doing Cody is there any additional
elements you want to point out no other changes in the creek District other than I had I had a question about um cd8 page 481 within the um permitted uses in Creek
I'm sorry what it's uh cd08 figure cd08 oh wait where me Stewart keep going keep going 120 41 120 he's almost there keep going keep going is it oh you keep
going CD d08 three more pages two one that's it keep going keep going I thought that was a jar four we're halfway yeah we're halfway there sorry it's it's getting very late find it here too okay permitted use there we go okay
okay so for duplex multif family and mixed use anything that's this kind of stuff should be conditional use across the board or yeah don't you think I mean that's what the whole point of this ZIP was well multif family wasn't conditional use multi I guess
you're putting it in in the creek District it might have been but multi there is multif family that would be by r zoning if you came in and you had a 10 acre parcel and you wanted to build a 12 unit apartment complex and land that was future land use of multif family it
wouldn't require conditional use because you could meet the zoning on it but right now if it's in tell me if I if I'm interpreting this wrong if it's in if it's a partial in Creek North and you can meet the the parking and setbacks you can build any of those
things or it has to well that's right when I'm looking at this changing to conditional use um but I don't know if that's black or red or which one it is one is only an industrial but check in CU so it makes no sense to have by right and initial use so they took away the check mark
this was just cleaning up some language it had a check mark and a c and a CU so it typically it's by conditional use it's just cleaning up some language inter the nonland owner right so am I interpreting that properly if I have a
parcel anywhere in Creek North we need have the commission vote to do that just because it didn't it didn't require conditional use before but we can have it require the the duplex was your intent based upon the meeting to have
all duplexes in East Stewart require conditional use but if you're expanding that that's fine we can also include that to uh the creek district and am I correct in what I'm saying what the way that this is set up
is can on any parcel you can do any of this in Creek North or Creek South if you meet the zoning right now you can do it meet the zoning meaning if it is so if I have a two acre parcel and I could do up to 15 units per acre that would
mean I could do up to 30 units per acre so if I decided I wanted to build a 12 unit apartment complex on that 2 acre parcel and I provided the par have to be Zone multif family or not it's already if it's already zoned that it allows multi family use that's allowed so it's
wide open right right so you can do itek by right yes commissioner Clark again I'll bring this up so the creek District as we can see and I know that I adopted this I was a
part of the adoption everything is allowed by right and then we go back to the east Stewart map everything is uh only with our permission yeah mother may I
please I don't think that this is good in Creek District either I don't think having no zoning is good it it's not no zoning it's good zoning it's predictable zoning it's just in any parcel in Creek North I
can build any of those things that have a check mark by it yes right so there's no more multif family there's no more commercial three parcel yeah it's the thing is at the top of the line it's not wide open then it has to be Z R3 well no in R3 throughout the city you can do it
in the creek District it has a future land use of downtown correct and Creek districts zoning which allows it to be anything correct the at least not good that was how it was adopted any of those Parcels can be Apartments correct you
guys understand that I do you do and there are lots of Apartments there they're like it's all apartments it's also the creek district is not as big as it actually not like right it's not like it's an over how is that predictable you to your point you said you wanted straight
zoning and people should have know what their zoning is straight zoning is you buy commercial property and you can build commercial property not you can buy a Paraline it's anything right no it has certain uses that can be sorry to be recognized sorry may I be may I respond
to him he did say you are you done with your comments yeah I'm I'm trying to have more of a discussion not just comments but that hasn't worked so we're going to stick with it why is it not work commissioner Clark so um yeah so the predictability and the fact that if somebody has the
property they can do any one of these things but they still have to meet the requirements they maybe it's a small thing they can't do multif family they they can't just go and build a hotel on it there's all kinds of requirements meet yes they can if they can if they
meet the requirements right but all the requirements was the whole the form based code yes was where you went through it and did all the requirements so that they could without coming through the public hearing process apply the code and do these different uses and
that was the then again if it's commission's intent to turn that back we should just do so and keep moving rather than debating it one way or the other because it you know it I don't want to surprise everybody at the second reading we went do all of this to try to limit
multif family and then in Creek multifam is wide open well it's still limited to 15 units instead of 30 units and it's still going to have to require two parking spaces per unit instead of 1.5 that will extend to Creek as well the parking requirements or does she have your
attention I mean if it doesn't it's my understanding that it's supposed to be Citywide well not in E Stewart though thing well you guys just skipped E Stewart five minutes ago but before that it was we're g to come back to that re I'm letting the vice mayor
citate here for a moment I'm i' I made my point I would like for that for at least multif family to be conditional use across those there it is commission I would support okay mixed use and multif family thank you for
recognizing me Mr Mayor and thank you for cogitating vice mayor section 6.01 9 Stuart Parkin code so that brings up this whole thing about the urban code the East Stewart District the creek
District that's page 543 544 and 545 with the parking Alternatives Miss cougler can you talk about those please are we still on gol carts Are We Now moving from chapter
three to chapter six moving to chapter six as far as I know I just went there's no changes on commissioner CL we just finished we didn't have any changes we were still discussing the parking Citywide versus the creek that's why I
brought this parking thing up it's we're still discussing he said he finished clut M Reed yeah I just I wanted to follow up on uh vice mayor Collins i i would support the conditional usage usage for
uh the multif family mixed use and mixed use yeah well I suppose we should take a vote on it Mr Mar talking about the Creek right now is that where we're at yes um yeah I think you should this would have to go
back to the LPA too I don't know that it has to go back because it's still a subject matter I can have the City attorney research it tomorrow because I don't think it would because it's the commission has the right to it's the notice yeah the notice that you provided was that everything was at
issue the draft that we presented um right but you people have infed paral wouldn't know that they look at that and they go I don't have to worry so now right that's not fair I mean it was pretty clear to the public that multif family was at issue the parking
requirement Citywide would apply to how much for transparency okay so do we need a motion I I'm I don't know what the I don't know what the proposal is right now I I heard commissioner Reed say he would support it for multif family and
then commissioner or vice mayor us said mixed use okay so the motion would be in Creek North South and Industrial you would have multif family with conditional use and then in Creek North and South so
there is no no one could build a 4unit apartment building without a conditional use approval right because there's no multi family zone no yeah well they they do have multif
family zoning because it's got the downtown future land use and Creek District which allows multif family correct so if you want to do multif family you'd have to have conditional use okay and then uh conditional use for mixed use as well
across and duplex and and duplex so for those three you would have conditional use okay second second so we have a motion by the
vice mayor and a second by commissioner Reed is there any public comment on this item Mr Price um let me see defamation Lial slander but I digress so I keep hearing City Place being
brought up as this huge item let me give you a little bit of history of City Place in the 1980s Downtown West Palm had acquired a reputation for Crime poverty vacant and dilapidated businesses and houses local politicians were not
optimistic about the Redevelopment of this area sound familiar so you know a good friend of mine the mayor at the time Nancy you know what they did they put their money where their mouth is so I challenge you guys you guys feel that hey they not
like us so we know better so guess what put your money where your mouth is you have enough money in the CRA go buy these properties and figure out how to develop it correctly to help the community I don't think that's too far
off hey you say they not they don't have the ability to do it they're not smart enough to do it it and you're going to protect them go buy it as a city you've got a lot of dollars in the C to do that you don't have to buy it all but buy to
justed it's been on a long time no Mr Price we did not turn off your microphone you can have mine your mic is as tired as we are sorry but all I can tell you is listen yall want to make these changes
to protect this community like I said I think you can do it put your money where your mouth is you got how much money in the CRA 40 million 30 million take about five million where these folks that you claim
want to take a buy out but tell them you're going to go back and build something for that Community you can take that CRA dollars right now and expended cleaning up the neighborhood putting in shade trees putting in parking putting in Parks you want to do
something for the community stop the bicker and stop the foolishness where you're going to hold back developers coming from Miami put your money where your mouth is take the dollars and go do it for the community that you claim you want to protect I will tell you that
that will go a farther way to show that you're trying to protect them and then if single family ends up being what it is then single family ends up being what it is but today someone goes and buys one of those lots it's going to cost them 250 Grand to build a tool a 1,000
ft house 1,000 ft house $250,000 and that's not including land cost permitting and coming in front of the different boards probably spending another three four grand just to get that process so put your money where your mouth is buy the properties and go
help E steart I challenge you guys to do that thank you you um good evening my name is Frederick James I'm the pastor of St Paul Stewart
in that area where we're talking about toight not only am I the pastor there I'm the only one in this room that lives in East Stewart I live in the parsonage the concern that you have that the
people um will never redevelop that area well I I'm a man of faith and with man it may be impossible but With God all things are possible I know the people that own a lot of the Lots in those lots
that you're concerned with and I know that they would desire to develop and keep that property in their name in their family name it's it's their family's uh uh wealth that they would like to keep in their name and for you
to suggest that they may not ever redevelop that uh it's far-fetched when I have conversations with them and I know what their desires are um not only that and I do appreciate uh your passion
but um there's a there's a a phrase called snake talk where uh you say one thing when it when it involves one area and then when it came to Creek because you had said one thing about East
Stewart and you figured you'd give us a bone we've been there we've done all of that we know uh we can see through the facade and all I'm saying is before you make that decision to uh limit us that
we can't do for ourselves will you put a put a chain on us that we can't develop for ourselves because of the zoning that you just did I would ask you I would pray that you really cons reconsider um the people that you're representing
that voted for you are some of those same people in the Stewart that you want to chain up any other comment Madam cler I have no more further comment any comments or questions commissioner Clark okay so officially I'm crossing
through everything that goes for um we have a motion in a second oh there's a motion oh I'm sorry I'm going moving we're having comments and questions regarding the motion regarding changing to conditional use in all three Creek
districts uh duplex multif family and what was the third one mixed use mixed use you have any questions regarding do you understand we're all getting tired I simp okay since my light is on I'll make
a comment okay in the creek district from from um Colorado East to A1A there is a public housing and of course a all health department and there's vacant land and then there's the
Delaware Commons when I was on the board of the East Stewart housing authority and we had to get the Delaware Commons going it was um a struggle to get that going but the city worked and they got it done that's
multifam there's other places in there here that other people want to put in some multif family or do some things and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that um as long as they can meet the requirements I don't see why it can't
happen it it conforms with what's in the area all of that public housing is there um in that in that area along um Sixth Street and Fifth Street and Third Street whatever those streets are north of Martin Luther King and um and they comp
they're compatible they're compatible with the historic homes that are there the historic buildings that are there as well as um uh new development so um I don't think the single family homes on the other side of Colorado behind where
the the commercial is on Colorado are suddenly going to change um on akan and some of those other places but some of them do have um there's some I don't know if you could call De K uh a multifam uh but they're very close
they're attached um units or semi detached units whatever it is but I I I I think that it should just stay the way it is um it's just the we don't do enough and I think I agree with you Mr
Price we don't do enough proactively to help um housing that we talk about the housing situation but then you you know we say we don't want to have more people in steart but we've looked at the land use that we have and we looked at the projections and Mr Morel has told us
that 28 29,000 that's our Max for the city of steart unless we 23 unless we unless we um we Annex some other areas some other Geographic areas but that's
it but at the same time we need to help create that incentive for the fure Parcels that we want to redevelop that they're able to do it without spending an arm and a leg and I think that it's important to create that option people
can have a nice cozy little place someplace in there and and have a place to live even if it's just a a single person living in a a small unit I think that um that is what downtown areas are for and that is what uh you know artists
and other people were trying to encourage them to be there at least that's what the thought was when I came onto this board and what people worked on and the vision of some of the people who are uh have businesses in that area and who live in the public housing it's
it's all public housing all of the multif family there is all public housing um uh in the creek district and and people are fine so any other questions or comments if not want to go on to page roll call
please oh commissioner Clark no commissioner goobi yes commissioner Reed yes mayor Rich no vice mayor Collins
yes you have your direction Mr Mortel yes are we on to six Cody looks like it are we sure we want to start going forward on this at 10 of one in the morning is there really anything in it's
just on page 543 60109 steuart parking code that's what I see and then it goes on for the next three pages and that's it no other changes right that is that is is is commissioner
Clark correct well page 517 it was a highlight on nursing homes no we we didn't change anything so section 6.1.0 n uh the steart parking code we did change that sunsetted date thank you chief that um he's not leaving he's
getting he's helping hel charging stations those are yes because so we changed a date it should be the 4th um so you don't have incompliance parking same thing all through this code
should be the fourth rep yeah it'll find it everywhere in that word document just where are we so in the uh section section
6.1.0 n the steuart parking code we just amended the date to from July 1st 1995 to say that anything's in compliance as of September 4th yeah let's let's get moving right let's go um in the
6.01 10 we took out the shared parking requirements you can't be sharing parking um this was something else that you spoken about uh parking Alternatives like for two motorcycles it would equal one parking space uh golf carts and then
uh a Transit bus so we are adding that language uh same thing here is um you can no longer share parking offsite within 500 ft you have to park on site um also this state will be for the
fourth um shared parking this is where I I don't did we say because the 500 feet is not shared parking it's a shared I know but I know that but there also could be a situation where a person buys a business and I have a doctor's office
and I buy the property across the the street from my business to provide the parking for it and it's got a surplus of parking and I'm not sharing the parking with anybody it's just for my business and it's offsite or down the street from
it so it could still be used I'm thinking about like the orthopedic doctors at the triangle parcel on Monteray they use the parking garage as their assigned parking and their parking units are in that parking garage it's not shared with somebody else it's
designated as their but it's not on site so it's not shared parking but it's within 500 ft of the property so if you go back up to that 500 foot paragraph where you took it out I don't know that that that probably
needs a little tweaking and we can address it because it's yeah because that's as long as it's the primary parking and it's not being shared right it should be okay okay good uh shared parking this is again um it was is been
requested to be removed here's your off street parking schedule where you changed it to 0.5 so this is shows the uh addition parking spaces requirement um I I don't worry about this at all I'm completely opposed to it this will the
state and your e Chargers the state will never approve this change it's again so many elements are comprehensive plan there's not a single study you're going to be able to put forward to show that this makes any sense in fact all the studies prove quite the opposite so is there anything else j a wasted exercise
no just the EV Chargers so that's that had to come out and then there's one section of definitions which we did uh add a definition for um parcel which is in your chapter of oh that was fun gosh I have a couple other items to go
over not do you need us to uh do you need us to formally move it to Second yes yes need a motion what was that exact language to move it to Second reading transmit yeah motion to transmit to the second reading what a motion to
transmit the agenda item to the second reading May I'd like to make a motion to transmit this to the second reading we have a motion a second by commissioner Reed is there we need public comment on yep is there any public comment on this
please all right commiss comments or questions by the commissioner seeing none roll call please commissioner Reed yes commissioner goob yes commissioner Clark no no she doesn't want to transmit it you guys could do
what doesn't support it she's out vice mayor Collins yes mayor Rich yes okay guys at 8:30 meeting is adjourned I got a trial I have a two trials tomorrow and for