there's a lot never short of people so toasty D the West Coast right after okay all right good evening everyone it's 6m I'd like to call the meeting to order it is July 1st 2024 and this is our Workshop meeting Maran can you get roll call Mayor Young here vice mayor sori here council member Brandon here council member painter here council member French here thank you the first agenda item tonight is an overview and discussion regarding our Property and Casualty as well as our benefit in health insurance mer good evening Madame mayor vice mayor council uh Merlin Reed director HR and risk management we are here today to talk uh um mostly in our capacity of the risk management and benefits and to give you a state of the insurance Market still out have a lot of issues to be resolved and you I'm sure you guys are aware of what's happening in the insurance Market market so last year was the first time we Workshop this and we thought it would be a good idea to do this again this year uh joining us are our Brokers and we're going to start with the insurance benefits and we have Christian Bergstrom to address uh the benefits section he's a Senior Benefits consultant with the gar group mayor council Christian Bergstrom with the Garing group um we're going to just present the employee benefits update and just so that you are aware quick over overview of the program uh the village does uh provide a comprehensive employee benefits package so it includes employer paid medical dental vision life insurance and uh employees are also able to purchase voluntary employee paid life insurance and long-term disability traditionally uh The Village's plan has had less than 100 employees and Therefore your claims are blended with others to determine a premium rating you need to have around 500 employees um that would allow the village to be looked at on its own for its own solely used for its own renewal calculation with the Florida Municipal Insurance trust and other carriers they pull claims in segments so small groups is less than 100 for fmit and large group is more than 100 and in the Standard Market if you were with a traditional carrier such as Florida Blue you would be considered a large employer um because you have over 50 employees um fmit is unique in that it only underwrites a government pool that you participate in with other cities and municipalities throughout the state most cities offer comparable packages so when we look at your peers pretty much everybody offers um comp comparable packages and really it's to um enhance your recruitment efforts and to solidify retention uh of your employees um some offer uh employer paid short-term disability and long-term disability if that is something that the village would want to consider in the future benefit designs vary widely amongst your peers but generally public sector entities offer uh richer benefits meaning less out of pocket uh cost for employees and and their dependence cost sharing also varies greatly however a survey of Municipal clients in Palm Beach County um have the employer these are the average employer contributions uh towards their coverage and so the average uh here in Palm Beach county is about 95% for employee only coverage where five out of the nine are at 100% where you do offer 100% coverage for employee only costs all right the health insurance Market Trend so costs have escalated greatly uh over the course of the last 25 years 283 per have the costs gone up since 1999 uh in The Last 5 Years uh costs have increased 22% uh when we look at uh the overall average premiums uh for uh workers with family coverage what factors health insurance Trends and why do our costs go up so greatly well we call it Trend and a lot of it has to do with advances in technology uh We As Americans want the best uh for our health care and demand it really and so therefore those costs are passed along to the consumer um providers are forming groups so you're not looking at just your one solo practitioner anymore they're big uh medical groups that have been buying at practices throughout the country and therefore they can demand higher costs um cost shifting from when you are uh changing the cost shift between who is actually paying the bill um an aging population uh for example Americans we are getting older government mandates Health Care reform and in particularly this this past year uh what's really driving the cost are the gp1s uh specialty medications gene therapy as well as mental health so what to expect here in 2024 so uh verbally fmit has indicated a 16% increase uh to the medical insurance premiums 16% equates to approximately $316,000 why is that well claims are at 118% of Premium so um your claims are at 2.23 million while the premium that you've paid in the last 12 months is 1.89 million so just to point out to you in the general Marketplace um under the Affordable Care Act a desired loss ratio is 85% so if you were in The Standard Market the insurance C companies would be recuperating the 18% plus the 15% so about a 33% increase in the open market so 16% is what we would um pretty pretty good deal based upon your losses uh but again that's just the initial um there's some negotiating that we're be doing um and um talking with your benefits committee as well last year we did a market bid uh via a request for proposal process and only one medical carrier submitted a proposal and that was your prior carrier Florida Blue um their quote was a 41% increase and we are not seeing any market movement for this year and don't think that there would be competitive offers based upon your claims and the ongoing claims that you have the dental vision life and disability are currently being marketed due to excessive increases from those carriers so we will be coming back to you um with um the evaluations of the responses of those programs and for that that's the end of the employee benefits update thank you Council any comments or questions on this portion I do questions uh the first one uncontrolled cost at 16% um it's a large number we understand that that's the market is there anything that we can do towards the future to start working towards being in more control of those costs is it beneficial to form our own trust in the future or is this Florida Municipal much more beneficial for the village uh that's the first question if you want to I believe that it is beneficial for the village to participate in the Florida Municipal Insurance trust um because if you were in the open market I would anticipate that the renewal that you would have today would be in excess of 30% um so they're able to actually pull the risk amongst all of their members and that's going to help have a lower cost to you also you have um some very large claims activity um within the group right now and they have a different internal pooling levels that they have their own reinsurers that are reinsuring those claims for them so it's not directly affecting the members themselves thank you and the second is there anything we can do as a village to uh lower that rate if it's any policy or actions on our own to make a more uh healthier pool or is there anywhere that we can improve that there there is a weakness where in the future we can possibly have a lower rate of course we always want to address wellness and we want Wellness to be at the Forefront of all the employees and and their family members um because obviously if you know your numbers and you take care of yourself you're going to have lower health care costs unfortunately with what's going on right now with the claims activity and the large claimants those claims were not preventable and so um unfortunately it's just uh um some different types of autoimmune disorders cancers that could not be avoided thank you any other Council comments or questions um just one you said the uh the increase is 16% but do you I know you can't promise but I know there's still time uh for negotiation we do expect that 16% to go down at all because I know right we just had our first budget workshop and we budget at 12% so it' be nice to get closer to that 12 if we could what's the expectation there um so we will be having additional discussions with the trust as well as um we will look at the claims as they come in for June to see if they've run any better um we just don't have those numbers yet and then we'll also be looking at uh different plan designs Alternatives that could lower that cost okay thank you thank you and next up we're looking at Property and Casualty and we have Ramy Mitchell the senior consultant um and risk Services team leader good evening mayor council Ramy Mitchell with the Garing group I'm serving on the property and Casualty side this evening again in a similar manner just to provide you with kind of an insurance market update um most of you that were on the dies last year remember that we had definitely some volatility so I'm actually happy um towards the end of presentation to kind of talk through the fact that we won't really be experiencing that this year aside from some factors that may influence your renewal but for those of you that are unfamiliar with the program and just as a reminder um the current program for the village is written through again the Florida M Municipal Insurance trust it's a package program so what it does is it combines all types of lines of coverage so property insurance being the most expensive obviously the most um exposure to the Village just with the assets that you own all the way down to Workers Compensation Insurance so the package that they offer provides quite a few coverages that are baked into those individual lines specifically for your property policy form there are lots of other little coverages built into that things like Inland Marines so equipment that the police department may have that parks and wreck may have um you know trailers Marine vehicles under a certain length there's flood insurance and an excess provided to you as well as some other things like business income and expense if you were unable to operate for a certain period of time and the biggest um proponent or I guess benefit advantage of the property policy with fmit is that they do provide you with TurnKey Disaster Recovery Services so they have an entity Synergy that they partner with for those of you that have not been here during a storm it's really key to have one entity here to help adjudicate and prioritize all of the claims that you're going to have in a disruption so that's one of the great things about having your package with the trust um is that they provide that to you at no cost cost whereas in a standard Market situation you'd potentially be working with multiple different carriers to adjudicate claims for all of the assets should you experience damage and certainly in a nam storm uh you know high intensity situation that can become very very cumbersome and also difficult to manage um in terms of your cost outlay so that's one of the benefits of having the property policy in that package with um the fmit so kind of similar to what Chris shared with you on a municipal entity comparison many public entities are with one of the three government trusts within the State of Florida the Florida Municipal Insurance trust is the larger of the three in terms of the overall asset value that they carry um the preferred governmental Insurance trust or PID is second to that and then the PRM is third to that what's important to note about these government trusts similar to what Christian was sharing on the health insurance side they're pooling Prem amongst other like entities so government public entities but it is one of the only markets for guaranteed cost workers compensation coverage especially where Public Safety is a component of your Workforce so what that means is that you know if a claim is experienced the insurance pays for it first dollar um and and Workers Compensation Insurance under statute provides 100% of medical insurance costs for medically necessary treatment as well as Indemnity benefits should you be unable to return to Your Capacity because because of a workplace injury or illness so that's one of the biggest things with respect to placing your coverage within a trust there are markets that are available you know outside of the trust in a standard Market but typically they want you to have a high level of retention so if you were to self-insure that component you know the minimum retention would be $350,000 per claim so it is kind of again another advantage of placing your package within the trust and since you do place so many lines with the trust they're able to you know kind of spread out and pool the premium across those you know several I mean there's probably five or six lines baked into that package there are some entities that do ensure their property insurance via the Standard Market it's called a tower program are layered typically there are anywhere from three to eight different underwriting carriers that participate in a piece of the business the difference in placing your property insurance with the Standard Market is that you're typically looking at not covering your full total insured value so your full value of assets um The Village I think we're going to be somewhere close to like 35 36 million this year in a standard Market program you would probably write something like 10 to20 million on an per urrent spaces so there is a little risk with that and like I mentioned before they don't necessarily bake in a lot of those coverages that come under the policy form so they wouldn't include things like business income unless you asked for it um Inland Marine Marine Insurance equipment breakdown which is really important for some of like your water utility assets for example so those are things that that make it kind of different and you have to make sure that those coverages are in place in comparison with your package today if you wanted to explore that market but like I said it is a lot different you're working with you know again four to five different adjusters for any one claim that happens because they all take a piece of the business so if you wrote let's say $10 million there were four participating you might have one that says I'm going to take the first 2 and a half million and then it trickles down from there so it is different um and then those that do Place their property program in the Standard Market they typically have very large total insured value so we're talking you know over $ hundred million of TI a lot of them have over a billion in TI which is more attracted to that market um and what they do is they Place their remaining lines either with a trust program or some other Surplus line depending on how they're funding that so right now the village funds at guaranteed cost meaning full cost is be is borne by the carrier whereas some of those may be self-insuring um certain things so what to expect in 2024 like I said um this is a different conversation from last year thankfully there was a huge Market correction in the State of Florida particularly for those participants in some of the government trusts because their standard rating had been below market Norm this year just in terms of a commercial property not necessarily um indicative of the fmit which I'll get to but that was forecasted anywhere at plus 10 to 25% so certainly much less than what we saw last year I think part of that was you know we didn't have any major activity here other than a Dalia but as you can see that storm alone resulted in over $36 billion in losses and that's the problem with um you know either commercial property insurance or anything that where your insurance in asset you know flood coverage Etc there were a record number of events last year that reached over a billion dollars here in the US so what you have is you have markets that are covering all of those losses who are also purchasing insurance on the back end to help them float the boat so thankfully we saw a little bit of a correction there where there is a lot more Capital going into the reinsurance market so that was one of the drivers in you know even having a plus 10 to 25% range but particularly for the fmit their property indication is about 1 to 5% to your base rate adjustment whereas you could see something High in the Standard Market but like I said a lot of that was due to the reinsurance market kind of correcting itself and them being able to negotiate um a great renewal with their carrier you know aside from that inflation is High um over the last 12- month period through December 2023 as far as the CPI was reported it's about 19% increase in the cost of building materials so that's kind of what's driving a lot of the conversation behind ensuring property to Value the fmit also provided indication for the remaining PNC lines so you have general liability insurance with them which also includes cyber liability insurance their range on a standard basis is about 5 to 10% adjustment to the rate auto liability we actually thought this was going to come in a lot higher this year so they kind of leveled out at about 15% a lot of the drivers behind this kind of in the same vein is you don't fix a bumper anymore for ,000 to $2,000 there's technology with in those assets and they end up being much higher um cost repairs and then aside from that there's kind of this Factor called social inflation it might be something that rings a bell they talk about it from time to time but with that there are consistently higher jury awards that are be being awarded in the liability space that does affect the auto liability quite a bit the average award is somewhere around $2.5 million for 2023 and it keeps increasing um part of social inflation also is there is a thing going on where you have Capital entering the market but there's a lot of what's called litigation financing going on well you'll have like a private Equity Firm come in and say Hey listen if you want to take this case you as a lawyer I'll pay you you know XYZ to kind of get that going if you think this is going to be something that we can win in in a court amongst your peers in a jury situation and then they're obviously looking for a return on that so that's kind of driving some of these higher jury Awards which is affecting the auto market especially down here in Florida especially in South Florida where we have a lot of uninsured underinsured you know drivers um on our road so that is definitely a cont a contributor but like I said we expected this to be somewhere closer to 30% so their indication is 15 and then the workers compensation pool they're forecasting anywhere from 10 to 15% again you're probably going to be looking at a little bit of a higher end because of the public safety component where you have a lot more losses when you have police and fire just due to the you know the duties that they perform daily so their contributor with respect to this range are their pool losses and again because they are ensuring a lot of those entities with you know Public Safety component or even without on a guaranteed cost basis it is driving them to make a little bit of an adjustment this year so with that this is just kind of the ranges that are the norm um what's going to end up fact ing into your renewal are these things here so there was a property asset survey performed it did result in about an 11% increase to your total insured value Marlene and I sat very painstakingly um and made sure that that schedule was indicative of the assets that that you know the village felt were the highest um critical assets with respect to your operations and made sure that those assets that we were ensuring were the ones that we truly did want to pay premium for so so we're not ensuring things that you know maybe we wouldn't replace right away they're not critical assets or they fell below a certain value just due to the way that the policy is structured in addition to that your payrolls are increasing this is an old number marene gave me the update today there was a reopener um in one of your contracts so I think on average that increase you said 5.43 5 5.43% so that will impact your liability lines and your workers compensation but the great news on the workers compensation is that they use what's called an experience modification factor to help underwrite the premium because there are filed rates in Florida so what they do is they look at how your claims performed so we are going from a factor of 1.07 to 0.92 so we're under 100 they're paying out less claims and we are paying or I'm sorry yes they're paying out less claims and they were paying in premium for the prior period so that will help to reduce the trend increase that 10 to 15% so there will be some leveling we do expect an overall package increase somewhere in the low teens just depending on how the property shakes out with that TI increase and what we see on the workc comp but we are marketing the program um to compare package pricing so you will have a comparable option prior to a decision um being brought before you for approval and I think that's the end of my presentation so any questions thank you Council questions comments thank you all right thank you thank you yeah have a good evening maryan any cards on this no cards any public comment all right Merlene Romy Christian thank you appreciate your time thank you all right next agenda item two uh continue discussion on our commercial uh overlay districts Jay good evening Jay hup community development director you know I think we're getting close to the finish line here I just want to focus tonight on formula businesses and then also um development incentives so I'm going to break the presentation up into two parts um formula businesses and then development incentives and you may even want to open public comment up after the formula businesses I think some people are here just to talk about that topic and then we could potentially talk about formula I mean uh development incentives later um as you know these are our proposed uh commercial overlays there's three of them vill chiner us one and to Quest to drive um there's a lot of similar regulations in all three districts um 5% Civic open space a maximum front building setback of 20 feet a minimum landscape offer of 15 feet you can encroach four feet in the landscape buffer with porches and Architectural features all third stories must have an additional setback between 8 and 12 feet parking is not permitted in the front setbacks or side setbacks and surface parking shall be screened by buildings or Landscaping from public View and also waivers are allowed um from certain site or landscape requirements in all three I don't know how those happen who let's hope it's not like I don't fancy okay so the definition of formula business um is something that we've talked about um I'm going to show you a slide later that shows how a lot of other municipalities in Florida treat formula businesses a lot of them are primarily focused on formula retail um when we first started workshopping this you know I wasn't here but I I think I'm one of the first meeting I was at it seemed like the the the board or the council was more focused on retail and at some point healthc Care Medical Dental personal services real estate kind of got added in there but I think retail has kind of always been the focus o apologies on the the PowerPoint uh so here's uh examples of formula businesses throughout Florida I shared a few of these last time but then we did a little bit more of a deep dive um Santa Bel requires a special exception for all new formula retail however formula restaurants are outright prohibited in the entire city in an Maria Island um which you know I think a lot of people know is a really quaint great little Beach town in the west coast um all formula retail and Commercial businesses are prohibited in the entire city um Palm Beach as Mr Bradford knows all formula restaurants are prohibited in the entire city Stewart um requires a special exception for formula retail and restaurants in their formula business area Holmes Beach which is just south of Anam Maria Island um requires special exception for formula retail and their overlay and then in Miami the Art Deco district prohibits all formula retail and restaurants and Ocean Drive and Ocean Terrace and then Miami Beach and Sunset Harbor if you're familiar with that that's kind of the western side of um Miami Beach um where there's a lot of character it's kind of a dining district and um there they they have their own definition of what makes a formula business and it's 100 100 businesses for it to be retail and 200 bus businesses um for restaurants so it's a little bit high of a definition but they do outright prohibit those chains from coming into um Sunset Harbor area so our possible definition of formula business if if you would like to to make it Focus kind of on retail like a lot of other communities would be to strike healthc Care Medical Dental personal service and Real Estate Services and and kind of make it focused on retail only um another thing that's come up is is kind of how that this could be potentially burdensome on property owners um we've previously extended the um the uh from 90 to 180 days for existing businesses to be replaced by the same type of formula businesses without having to get a special exception kind of grandfathering clause if if the council would like we could extend this to 240 days 270 365 days um you know or0 you know we've heard from a few people that have said that that you know 180 days doesn't give them enough time to to get the new tenant however as I've pointed out to miss Dean or Miss guen who you'll hear from tonight A lot of times the landlord hears about that that tenant leaving well in advance of of the expiration of their lease right so there's usually you know three month six month lag time before that that lease even expires for them to start finding a replacement tenant but if you'd like we could certainly extend that um additional time um we also talked about creating an expedited review proc process so um when there's a tenant change out so when it's not a new business or not not a new site plan when it's just a tenant change out that requires a special exception for formula businesses we could we could um do a 30-day turnaround from the time they submit their application to the time they're in front of this board um now of course that would have to be a completed application they can't just you know give us Chicken Scratch and expect that you guys to approve it but assuming it's a full application 30 days I don't know what happened to my presentation apologies and then on the um and then I think you know Jeremy and I talked about kind of going through each overlay and and you guys deciding you know which which um aspects of formula businesses and formula restaurants um you like and don't like and so to Quest the drive overlay there doesn't seem to be any any kind of push back on this one drive-throughs are prohibited formula restaurants are prohibited formula businesses can come forward for a special exception in the US Highway One overlay drive-throughs are permitted on the side and rear of buildings as long as are screen from public View and formula restaurants and formula businesses both require a special exception and the Village Center overlay drive-throughs are currently prohibited in the code as we talked about the last one we could we could change that to say that all new drive-throughs are prohibited so there's some existing non-conforming or buildings that with existing drive-throughs um you know it's hard for them to to repurpose and so we can we can allow those to to remain as drive-throughs if you'd like um also in Village Center formula restaurants are prohibited except um we put a caveat in that one formula restaurant can apply for a special exception within a a larger development um and then all formula businesses would require a special exception and that's what I had on um formula businesses and formula restaurants I can go through the rest of the price presentation or if you'd like to kind of do a deep dive and dig into this I I can stop and I think go through the presentation and then we can decide after we want to take public comment first or discussion first okay so next is Building height so in the village of taquesta um this is how we measure Building height it's from the coping of a flat roof the average height of a building that has Eaves and kind of a roof pitch um deck lines and a maner roof and um height will be determined by the underlying zoning District the overlays themselves don't actually assign height to buildings I mean to to buildings so um in the C1 it's two stories or 35 ft this is the Questa Drive overlay in the C2 District it's four stories or 50 ft that's in all three overlays in the C3 District three stories are 40t which is in test drive and Village Center and in the MU District it's four stories are 50 ft in the Village Center in US1 overlay unbelievable so one thing our Cod doesn't allow is architectural features above the assigned Building height so these are obviously no one's going to come in and build you know these buildings Henry Flagler built in St Augustine in 1810 right but it is an example of a building that could not be built in taquesta um both the buildings the left in St Augustine are next to each other um the building on the right is uh a popular hotel in Rosemary Beach um that Tower feature would not be able to be developed or constructed because it would be above the the 50ft building height in the village um rooftop dining also we we don't really have an allowance for rooftop dining or if someone wanted to do a rooftop bar or lounge so this is the Restoration Hardware in downtown Bon Beach um as you see the building kind of steps back and the um top floor restaurants not very visible um here are some rooftop dining lounges in um my Miami um as you can see they're very interesting design wise and you really wouldn't even be able to see them from the street here's a a rooftop um Lounge at a brewery in Jacksonville this is in Five Points if you're familiar with Jacksonville um and so as you can see on the right you really can't even see it at the street level um but on top you know you've still got enough you've got tables and you've got a bar area that's that's covered so um that's something that that um you know you really wouldn't be able to do in the The Village as our code's currently written so the height allowances in North County are all over the place um I focus on North County um just because they're nearby um I could you could find these in aspirational cities all over Florida and all over the country really but um really all all the municipalities in North County have some high allowances of course we're Testa we the most northern we're you know a little bit more unique than than everyone but I just wanted to to show how some other places do this so in the Jupiter inet District so that's the you the Jupiter the dining area love Street you know utiki that whole area um you can do an additional story for live work units you can do an additional half story bonus if the roof line and Architectural variation are appropriate you can actually get an additional um story for every square foot of one story building space you do um I've actually done a project in juper inet District District where we did that and it was it was really cool we had like a a one-story retail area and we were able to do a third floor um uh Penthouse type area because of that which was which was neat also in Abacoa and Jupiter um spires bell towers similar structures so architectural features maybe a maximum of 20 feet above the maximum Building height so that that's not even with a waiver that's just by right um then you can also request a maximum of 25% increase um for the use of varying assorted roof designs and styles and that's through the site plan approval process so their counsil would have to approve that and North Palm Beach um there's a and the mixed use code which is probably a little similar to our mixed use code you can get a waiver from the council for an additional story um and that's in a very specific part of that overlay um as you get closer to to the IR River where there's some Building height um or not no I'm sorry the inter Coastal um where there's a little more Building height so that part's a little bit more appropriate for that waiver um also by right all buildings can have a partial story provided it's less than 30 feet of the floor below and then also uh it specifically says you can have rooftop gardens pools restaurants Cocktail Lounges um and then there's some stuff about screening those and if you want to have a a cocktail lounge or restaurant that's larger than 30% you can request the waver from that um additional height allowance so I mean this this one's obviously very extreme in North Palm Beach and Lake Park and the C3 Twin City Mall site that's corner of North Lake Boulevard and US1 for a site that's 5 Acres that has 50,000 square fet of non-residential uses and half acre of Civic open space buildings can be six stories and 75 ft and it kind of goes up on a sliding scale as the properties get larger and more um commercial space is required but that kind of shows um that you can kind of condition it so so you can put something like the vision of half an acre of Civic open space in order to be granted some additional Building height in Lake Park and their Park Avenue downtown so this is not us one this is not the Nautilus building that everyone hates um this is the Park Avenue downtown which is you know a little more of a quaint are a little more similar to kind of our mix use distri district and what we want the town count commission there may wave up to 20% increase in the height of a building that has architectural features and Palm Beach Gardens again back to that North Palm example not anything similar to what we would even do here but they do allow a Workforce and a affordable housing bonus to um increase their building Heights between 135 ft and 180 ft and these are usually zoning districts that are well below that in height um and they actually in their PUD process they allow waivers for Building height through the site plan process uh in Juno Beach their Council May approve an additional story um so it's the Baseline is about is four stories for a mix use project and that's in their commercial General and medical commercial zoning districts so here's some possible height waiver language that we could do if you want to um you know allow some developers to have a little bit more um you Building height so in the waiver code right now it says waivers cannot be used to increase the maximum Building height however it could be conditioned to say something along the lines of accept the development over two Acres that creates 15% Civic open space substantial off-site improvements or a combination of the two may be eligible to apply for a waiver for a partial fifth Story which cannot exceed 50% of the building footprint so again this would just be for a waiver it doesn't the waiver does not have to be granted they would have to prove public benefit and if you thought architecturally that it didn't look good you could say no you know so if someone came in with with the Restoration Hardware type design in West Palm Beach you may think that's fantastic and say okay we can approve that but if it was something that didn't look good you could deny that waiver it it does not have to be granted additionally if if that's something you didn't want to do um if you want to allow architectural features you could do what Jupiter did in that avoa area and allow spires bell towers similar structures to be a maximum of 20 fet above the maximum Building height um or wave up to 20% increase in the height of a building for architectural features because right now as the code's written you're you're really pushing people to create boxy buildings I mean I I think if if you're trying to create unique design you want to give opportunities for for unique features like that that spire and Rosemary Beach so right now as the codes written you know you're likely going to see developers come in with with with fairly boring boxy flat roofed buildings um an additional thing is that is that North Palm code where it explicitly says you can have roof top Gardens pools restaurants or Cocktail Lounges up to you know certain percentage of the square square footage of the floor below so then density is another thing it's that's come up um The Village currently allows a density of 18 dwelling units per acre and the mixed use and C2 zoning districts um property owners in the village have requested additional density or density bonuses it's something that's come up at some previous work workshops and meetings um so I'm going to give you some examples of density so this is Central Gardens this is in um Palm Beach um Gardens on Central Boulevard um right by 95 so this is 19.5 dwelling units per acre so a little bit above what we allow um however it's units but it's mostly three-bedroom larger units the next one here is the point so this is the one that's just south of Nexa FPL on US1 unincorporated Palm Beach County um so it's 22 dwelling units per acre it's only three stories um but this one has 26348 Square fet per acre so it has considerably less square footage than this one which had 33,099 but it has a higher technical density because it's got a mix of one two and three bedroom units but that mix is a lot more um smaller units right and so that's kind of just exemplifies the density doesn't always equate to the intensity or overall square footage on a site um this is another one atlantico at Alton um as Jeremy reminded me I don't think we'd want this built in the village but it's just an example of um what density looks like so this is 27 dwelling units per acre it's more similar to that other one in Gardens at 33809 per acre um this one has a little bit more mix of one and two bedroom units um and it's all surface parking in the interior of the buildings so density bonuses um again all over the place but most of the places in in North County offer density bonuses of some sort Gardens allows between six and 14 dwelling units an acre for Workforce or affordable housing Jupiter and all its zoning districts allows a 30% increase of 40% of the units or work force housing um Jupiter in certain areas um Tony Penna the um Inlet Village allows it between 31 and 100% if 50% of the units are Workforce housing Jupiter also allows um two dwelling units an acre density bonus and its puds if there's public benefit um North Palm Beach and its mixed use District allows an increase from 24 dwelling units an acre to up to 36 dwelling units an acre for Workforce housing Lake Park has no criteria for theirs but they allow density be to be counted districtwide so they actually let people kind of pull unused density from other projects and count it in their project um and like I said there's no criteria for for granting that I guess it's the discretion of their Council and then in Juno Beach um within their puds like Jupiter they allow a density bonus um it varies by zoning District it uh from eyeballing it it seemed like it was around five seven extra dwelling units an acre um but that's not precise uh and also that requires public benefit for the that density bonus to be granted so any increase to the number of dwelling units allowed per acre would require us to actually modify our comprehensive plan it's a lengthy process you have to go to the state it takes you know sometimes 3 months four months it's much faster used to be I'm sure Keith can attest to that um but one one way you can actually allow additional dwelling units without amending a comprehensive plan and going through that process is to allow smaller units to count as partial dwelling units for density purposes so you would allow a um one-bedroom unit to only count as 0.5 some places do it where a two-bedroom counts as 75 um this is done in other municipalities around Florida and around the country as a way to increase housing of affordability it's especially popular in California with their housing crisis that's going on um and really all we'd have to do is is update the definition of dwelling unit in the zoning code to allow that way I just mentioned to to count the residential density so um a way that you could potentially wrate this would be to you know it says that waivers cannot be allowed to increase the maximum allowed density or intensity you could say accept a development over two acres that creates 15% Civic open space substantial offsite improvements or combination of the two maybe eligible to apply for a waiver for uh to allow one bedroom units to count as 05 dwelling units for density purposes again if if you thought that there were too many one-bedroom units or that it wasn't a good project you could still you know deny that waiver and deny the project um but it gives a developer an opportunity to come in and and do that um you could also cap the number of one-bedroom units that be could be counted that way so you could cap it at you know 10% 20% or 50 units overall so there's a lot of different ways you could do that if there was a desire to and with that that's the end my presentation thank you all right Council would you like to open a public comment for us we have discussion um keep in mind we might have ideas and thoughts up here that the public hasn't heard yet and if you know public first they can't talk after we speak so keep that in mind but whatever the majority of council would like to do we can go ahead with like I'd like to ask Jay a question before we open up her absolutely com so that slide you just had up and you're talking about dwelling unit going down to a half of a unit is that in regards to the parking that we've kind of heard rumors about or is that counting it towards the dwelling unit instead of 18 that'd be counting it toward yeah towards the 18 not parking interesting okay yeah so okay I have one other quick question that we may not know the answer to today but just looking at the formula formula retail do we have a definition of what retail is or would be in that in that scenario if you don't right now I know this is all hypothetical but yeah we don't we could we could um when we come back again okay we could do that I know a few places had certain things excluded from retail so grocery stores and certain types of retail were excluded so um if we were to focus on just retail we come back with with what like soft good sales kind of stuff yeah okay I got you would a liquor store just out of curiosity would that typically be classified as retail yes okay just okay that's all got I'm just curious so would you like Council discussion first or public comment first I'd prefer public comment first to hear from the from the audience and Jay thank you for that presentation as well it a great explanation and visuals other council members I can go either way I was going to say the same thing umce mayor I typically prefer hearing public comment first but your point that we will not be able to hear from them after is well taken so what do you think Rick yeah well I think that we've heard a lot of the comments already and I think through what we as council members have had the ability to go through over the last since the last meeting we have I think it might be nice to kind of throw out what we're thinking and then we can kind of play defense from that point but I would like to see what we think and just kind of put our cards on the table and see how we can do to to move forward I agree with that I'm okay with that okay majority okay so what why don't we tackle I do think we talk about when I am a time so you want to start with formula businesses and then we can talk about the potential incentives after M all right EXC all right open up the floor well since I wait one I was say can we go back we're going to start with the the first overlay is that what you were saying are we going the formula businesses just fores and then we'll talk about we can talk about incentives after that well since I kind of asked for this um you know the the overlay process when it first came out I was extremely excited about it I thought it was a great thing for the village I thought that it will allow us to take the feedback that we as Council people through campaigning or just through Open Door policies that we hear about from people um and through that process and me being up here for the last 16 months um I have heard a lot from people that are a lot that have a different background different experience than me and um my my opinion has changed a little bit because I've had a lot of time to think about it but in the tester I'll just go by the three overlays and the Testa overlay um I like it how it's written I could do with I really like to no formula r no no formula restaurants allowed so formula restaurants and theer overlay I'd like to see prohibited formula businesses I'd like to see um as a special use exception um but no special retail formula businesses would be allowed but no special retail uh formula retail pardon me no formula retail in the quest over overlay so no formula restaurants no formula retail and yes to formula business with special exception with special exception in the village overlay I'm I'll come back to the village in US1 overlay again I I think we should just get rid of any restrictions on the formula business um that we have formula businesses now we have formula retail now uh and that while I don't want it to look like this is no offense to our partners to the South but I don't ever want to see our our version of us one our 1.1 mile or whatever it is look like a North Lake Boulevard or look like um an Indian toown Road or something like that a Blue Heron Boulevard not what I'm looking for um but that's where we have it and a lot of this I think we need to let the the free market determine what can be absorbed and you know we've had we've had talked about well what if another dollar store I we have three of them in the village now what if another one came in well one of them is going to go out of business you know and I think that that's just kind of let the free market take care of that so in the US One District overlay I would um have formula restaurants as a special use exception I'd get rid of any reference to any restrictions on formula business back to the Village overlay um I'm okay with what is presented to us in the code to I think it was one formula restaurant if it's a two acre parcel I believe uh I'm okay with that um formula business I still think that needs to to be not even discussed I don't I think we're legislating and I've said this for several of these discussions questions I think we're legislating and regulating an issue that really hasn't been presented to us at least it hasn't been presented to me so I want to get rid of the formula business restriction or language or dialogue in um in the Testa in the in the village overlay I'm comfortable with the village saying um formula restaurants if it's uh on a partial that's greater than two acres I think I'm okay with that now uh I'd want to see how many Parcels that we have in this overlay that are greater than 2 Acres to see if something if there's a Redevelopment what that would look like um but getting rid of the again the formula business um I don't want formula retail so get rid of formula retail uh and formula business get rid of it uh so really just looking at formula restaurants and I think we'll come back to incentives and waivers later thank you mayor I'll go next because this is really easy um and I don't want to repeat everything Rick just said but my notes that's exactly what I have um and I'll kind of give some explanation as to why agreed a lot of time has gone by that has allowed us to think we've been able to have a lot of conversations with people that maybe we otherwise would not have been able to um but and also I would agree like when we first started talking about this it was exciting it really felt like something at the time everybody uniformally wanted and maybe that's just because we hadn't heard from everybody um that said when we first started talking about this I I'm pretty much positive that we really started off talking about the formula restaurants like that was our we were very protective of that and I think it was a good suggestion I don't even remember who made it at the time but we were like well should we also consider the formal of businesses and I think at the time maybe we we didn't really understand the full impact of that and frankly we didn't get any push back for months from it so we just kind of assumed everything was okay um you know obviously we know now that's not the case um so that all said I too have kind of done a bit of a 180 on this one but without repeating everything I'm happy to do it but everything Rick just said on the per overlay districts I 100% agree with thank you council member Brandon or French anything else to add I think I said last time I was open to the idea if we were to remove the formula of businesses or do them by special exception I'm still open to that because we do have so many on the US one and I think at one meeting too I even mentioned to some degree we need some of them like an Ace Hardware or a Publix or even I hate to say it but HomeGoods because that brings a lot of people to the shopping centers and I know someone that owns a hardware store in a different state it's very hard just the amount of overhead and whatever to that retail so I'm open to it Jay you mentioned in the village overlay the possibility of having one formula restaurants I'm chewing on that because that's the first time I've heard that so I'm I'm not saying yes or no to that when he put it up it's been in there yeah the like if it's two acres or more what yeah I think it was put in in like January newer just I don't know if I fully agree with that yet I'm thinking about that one the idea was if someone was doing a large Mass plan development but it's kind of like vice mayor said like I have to sit i' have to look real quick at the map of what is over two acres over there right am I reading that right can you pull up the village overlay on the screen please while you're doing that mayor um when I say get rid of I'm talking about the restrictions on formula business not saying we don't want I don't want formula business I don't want the restrictions yep that's what I got trying to say that yeah just in case you read I mean it's primarily it was primarily written for the Paradise Park project right we knew we knew that that was going to redevelop and but that's project solely by itself and I've said that before like that's a specific project that not the whole overlay so I'm just curious where we going put one of those sure all right that's all I'm good for now thank you for the retail I still would like to see more more discussion or different language I think the three dollar type stores in our village is a good example of something that I don't believe we plann for in the future wouldn't have agreed to that structure um and maybe I need to get past just that one scenario that one example I I don't believe that that scenario repres presents the charm of our Village um the charm that's been there since 1957 we can still say that charm is there I don't think it represents that so I'm I'm hesitant on that retail side Professional Services um I I agree with everyone who's spoken so far and with the other um overlays I agree with what the other council members have spoken so far as well um so just to be clear I'm taking notes to make sure I summarize what everyone said um you you want to consider leaving retail in on which overlay District so it be the US one would be the only US Highway One overlay yeah because Village Center dequest it's already out so US Highway one so you so for us one you would be restaurants and Retail correct okay thank you for clarifying okay I will say we I mean we had talked about removing some business services for the past several meetings so you know I I came in tonight thinking that um leave dequest drive as is which it seems like the majority of us are in favor of that um but you potentially want to add no retail as well to the to the Testa Drive District because right now I think restaurants are completely prohibited and then um formula businesses are a special exception but did you want to prohibit the retail too um as sit here yes I can't think of unless I can somebody give me an example of a formul in retail that would fit in there okay so that would be a potential change to what's WR written now if there the council agrees um on the village for me on the village in US1 overlays um I thought it' be a good idea to reduce it to just restaurants and Retail and allow everything else um so that's kind of my stance and I do think no matter no matter um what's allowed in each overlay District I do think we should have language because this is this was kind of the original goal of the plan to begin with was you know making sure future growth and development fit from aesthetic standpoint architectural standpoint in the village so I do think no matter what the district all of them should maintain the language that all formula businesses and restaurants uh whether they're a special exception prohibited or flat out allow that they do need to comply with the arual considerations for the area agreed agreed I don't think we've done too much push back on those have we generally last and then I do think you know no matter where we land in each district I think all of them since staff offered it up that we should do the expedited review if it's going into an existing tenant space and not tied with a uh site plan modif or site plan approval they would get the expedited special exception use I thought that was a great idea and solution in all districts right you guys agree with that I did yeah yeah yeah is it staying at 180 days so the special what you you are committing to a 30-day turnaround if it's going in the same in an existing tenant space can it be a different tenant is a different uh business type or was it yeah CU I think the same business type was for that the non-conforming thing that we pushed to 180 days can you just clarify what you're committing to before I commit you to it it's it's if it's the same so if it was a restaurant replacing a restaurant then they'd have 180 days but if it was a restaurant replacing retail it would not be grandfather in under that okay for that process and then for an expedited special exception use review that is if it's going into an existing tenant space not tied to and not tied to a special um aite plan modification or application no matter what even if it's a different business that's going in there okay Y is that clear yep that was the 30-day yeah okay okay so everyone's good with that 30-day review into an existing tenant space okay but mayor to be clear if we are sounds like we're leaning towards eliminating language restricting formula business MH so there'll be no timetable no 180 240 270 no there will be no restriction on a on because it's not part of the overlay so if there's a formula business that goes out it could stay vacant for two years if you're hypothetically the US high if we said us one Corridor um there was no ban on formula businesses then would any of those restrictions apply whatsoever yeah right okay but B in like to Quest Drive overlay that right okay I just want to confirm okay thank you thank you for that just try to make sure no it is going I know where are my visuals J bring back up and then I will I mean I I've talked to a lot of people between our last meeting and this meeting because I you know we had this whole planning process that was uh the community was very engaged on it and you know we had a the committee that was recruiting people we had you know interviews so it was a really engaging and open uh planning process and now we're going back and changing things which is fine but we don't have and you know we're doing our normal uh messaging like we do through all our platforms but it's not above and beyond like the original planning process so I thought it was really important to like talk to a lot of people and make sure you know if we're making changes is this the direction that the community wants to go in and I will say the overwhelming majority of people that I talked to were in favor of council having some discretion with some formula businesses um there were very few that outright didn't want any but most people wanted a good a good blend of national you know chains and local businesses and they thought that Council should have discretion within reason to make sure you know we maintain that good balance here so I just wanted to throw that out there because I thought it was really important to to get that Community feedback since people aren't engaged as they were during the actual planning process just curiosity so like were any of those um any of those comments specific to like the toest drive overlay versus us one like did certain people feel likea Drive how we have it laid out was good yeah okay and the US One everyone thought it was reasonable yeah they've always been there so that's a good spot for them but let's make sure you know we have the right stuff coming in that's all my comments any other comments on the formula businesses I don't know if I followed exactly where you were on each one oh because I think we all went through each one where we stand unless I missed it no I mean I I to Quest a drive I'm going um I like the way it is if counil wants consider also totally restricting retail the vice May brought up we can consider that uh the village I would like to do the restaurants and Retail so don't do you know remove like the business services and then for us one I would like to do the formula restaurants and Retail and remove the business services that's restrict formula restaurant and retail on us one not restrict them but do the the special exception special exception okay yeah so so Village an ous one um well no Village is different village has the formula thank you J the formula restaurant is prohibited except if it's a 2 acre so leave that but then change formula business to just retail and the usest one have restaurants and Retail as a special exception and remove like all the business services that we've been talking about for a couple meetings now what it's worth it that is a nice Middle Ground if that's where we end up but I'm curious to see what public has say okay so we'll leave it there for now and then we can um revisit after we have public comment so let's move on to incentives so I will open the floor to the discussion about incentives developer incentives I think we all know where I sit on we do I don't dislike them I just like to be extremely careful with them but if we were to put any incentives or waivers in it's still still needs approval by a council correct for whoever sitting up here technically anything that requires a waiver has to go to count be approved by Council does that waiver request also go through pnz and opa it does go through P multiple eyes before it even gets to us and staff has to feel comfortable moving forward that as well correct correct and are we commenting on how it's currently proposed right now or those examples you put up there or just kind of generally whatever you think I mean whatever you saw and you think you'd like to consider what you would not like to consider so we're really talking waivers yeah I mean the whole point of this is to add that waiver process to all well does we decide what districts all of them none of them two of them so our our our kind of uh test would be public benefit is that it would just have to have some kind of public benefit in addition meeting all the other okay well I mean as it's written it said that if you're you have to I mean the way I proposed was you have to create 15% Civic open space so that's three times what the code requires or substantial offsite improvements could be which could be streetscaping they could they could decide to bury power lines they could you know build a park you know they could do a lot of different offsite improvements um or some combination before they would even be eligible to apply for that waiver okay and that that's just what um you've proposed on the screen not that's made it into the proposed code language yet correct yeah just just for tonight this when we have these workshops it's uh it's an opportunity for us as the council to hear the status where everybody's at um and I say that because is a this is an opportunity for us to talk it out to see where we are and we don't get to talk it out beforehand um and and so I say that and that the waivers the incentives I think when people hear height and developer they picture a highrise or if you ever seen pictures of Paris you see six-story buildings everywhere then all of a sudden boom there's 31 six uh 30 story building sticks up and that's not for me that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about an ability to make a small change if needed for architecture um or whatever that use may be if it's a half a floor or a floor and that's my understanding of Our intention here as waivers that if we um are flexible in some areas and then we obtain a Civic benefit that we would hear on a w a waiver in this manner I do like that the language is specific and that's what we ask for that it's not just general language it's very specific so we know what we're going for uh so I do like the language uh that was presented here with being specific and the Civic open space and my intentions were being to work with the uh land owner the developer to attain their goal with some flexibility on our part thank you council member French um the 15% recommendation that's in there now is that the way the Civic open space was originally presented 5% which could be part of the landscape buffer is this 15% still part part of that 25% or does this 15% need to be basically taking part of the property out of income producing capacity yeah I mean the 15% would still be part of the 25% um minimum landscape or minimum open space they' be have to require but you could you could always change it yeah because where I'm at on wavers or the waiver for for height if a developer or a property owner or some somebody's going to come in and give us something that is to the public good I believe number one it needs to be on the property itself so to do some offsite improvements an example was oh they might just make a Boulevard if you will on on Bridge Road I don't know if everybody benefits in the public has the ability to benefit from making Bridge Road nicer uh or more streets scaped so I I would be favor of a waiver for height if it was 15% were they they're it's got to I don't want to say I don't want to make it hurt but they need to be taking something out of like we've had we've heard discussion of a a quarter acre or a half acre Park on a a specific parcel in the village um they can't do anything with that they're giving up the ability if they give us a park they're giving up the ability to to go vertical on that and I go back to you know we can we allow 50 ft currently in mixed juuse and looking at the entire overlay not just the one specific parcel that everybody references but looking at the entire overlay um if somebody's willing to take out because we might have Redevelopment in that overlay as well if somebody's willing to take a portion of their project out of income producing capability for themselves that's the only reason that I think we should be able to that I'm comfortable with giving them from 50 to 62 feet giving them an extra story because by taking that out if to to talk about the Elephant Room the three AC partial for Paradise Park they could have four stories four stories and four stories so collectively 12 if they're going to take part of that out and give it for public benefit to a park and we allow them One More Story somewhere else it's still aggregately less than what have could have been on the entire parcel um so I would be comfortable with that we talked about a 50% use of the floor space below it um I'd like to see be a little bit more like 65 um and where that needs to be stacked I I don't know um because if it's going to be on a park do we want to have that partial story overlooking the park or have it on the outside I think that needs to come up during conceptual presentation and sight plan approval um but I would be comfortable going to the 62 60 or 62 feet whatever the extra story would be but there's got to be a that 15% that's taking out they're they're losing something by giving us by us giving them that that extra height that extra floor that they're going to they're losing the ability to go to vertical on that on that specific Park and that's kind of where I'm at on that thank you vice mayor yeah no I uh think this is good language Jay I um I mean I keep coming back to the fact that ultimately um this is something that Council would have to approve um I'm just kind of going through the step by step 15% so open yeah I mean I'm open to it whether it's you know us in up here future Council um there's pretty objective um guidelines here and again I I think you know it's it's up to up to council to approve it ultimately so whether it's this or some form of incentive or waiver language I'm I'm open to it um but I think this is pretty a good start for height in reference to what vice mayor was just saying um I I did speak with a developer and I did ask them not that I would necessarily consider raising height but if they ever brought something to any cting Council I would prefer the public benefit to be on that property like he mentioned not necessarily undergrounding something I would prefer the public use benefit to be there on the property if they came in ever with any kind of ask so I do agree with you on that but again goes per property per project for me yeah I guess I'm just so sounds like we got at least two council members who maybe don't love the substantial off-site Improvement language I'm trying to think of the harm and you know if we keep it in there then it's an option for me it's just longterm the benefit use of the public if it's a onetime fix on something I mean technically the village should be budgeting for those kind of things anyways yeah so I'd like to see it be more of a long-term public benefit longterm they're par or or something outside yeah it doesn't me be a park but something that's publicly accessible to the residents and not like a private club but it's longterm they're getting that use 10 years 15 years so let me give my my input so um I did a lot of research on chaker right development uh incentive programs and and traditionally and typically they are enacted to um promote Economic Development and Redevelopment and they're usually tied to you know allow for affordable housing too and they do allow for things like historic preservation and park sites but um we don't have that problem here of needing to attract Economic Development or Redevelopment so that's kind my first question why are we adding this when traditionally they are used for those reasons and we don't have that problem um you know this plan started to be a guideline for the village and developers um to have design guidelines and some parameters as the village organically you know redeveloped on its own not not nothing we were trying to promote or speed up so um so I'm kind of like why why are we adding this we really don't have this kind of need for economic development or Redevelopment and then um you know it's no secret that the you know Main Street property has been Property Owners has been driving this waiver process we're only considering it because they brought it to us and I definitely want to work with any develop here and be a part of a successful project that's what we all should you know strive for up here but I think that um you know I know they have shown me their recent concept I can only assume they showed a Teresa Council and what they presented really didn't have a sense or area that really fostered like Community engagement um and a place of gathering like I didn't see that so again I'm like why are we considering this with what I've seen today just really didn't seem to have a a good public benefit there and then um you know another thing another thing that I consider is say we were to allow a waiver process and something gets granted for additional height or density we all know live local is hanging out there that doesn't Sunset so that goes away if the state decides to get rid of it right so for all intensive purposes it's it's here to stay and you know we could have they can pull from Beach roads so we could have 11 story buildings on us one basically the US1 and the village overlay District so I mean this is talking and it's hypothetical of course but it's talking longterm down the road say a live local building or two gets built here say a project or two is granted for more you know height or density and then we're really really changing the skyline and the fabric of our community long term and so for me it's like it's very hard for me to stomach being part of someone that put this process potentially put this process up here and 20 years down the RO just really you know change the fabric of our community like I said those are unknowns but with the that state preemption with live local really makes me nervous of what the future could potentially look like down the road and this would just add to it and then you know when you have future like special exceptions or waivers submitted it's going to be easier for them to justify it's compatible with the surrounding area so like it's very long-term thinking but that's what you know this could be the start of that um so it really concerns me um and again I you know I talked to a lot of people between the two meetings and the majority are just really not in favor of additional height or density even for a good public benefit okay so that's my two cents Keith can I ask a question Mr Davis Keith hey sorry oh sorry quick question um and I don't know how often this comes up so if there isn't an answer that's fine but have you heard of many instances where let's say developer one comes in and we we uh Grant a waiver and developer two comes in asking for the identical or pretty similar waiver and for whatever reason we don't Grant it is this we open ourselves up to litigation with something like this or so we always say each property has its own unique characteristics and the decision making is based on that and the other side of the equation they always say well you did it before so you should should do it for me and and that's where the rub is and yes that's what gets litigated okay that's what I figured thank you mayor um if I may um to address some of your comments um you I understand the concern with live local but live local wasn't done by this Council and we had nothing to do with it we advocated against it uh and if that comes up then I hate to say shame on the State of Florida but we we we can't I don't want to I'm not looking at this because somebody the State of Florida has told us what we can what we cannot approve because that would come in if it was an administrative approval go through so that part to me is I I understand where you're coming from and where your heart is on that but for me it's like that we didn't ask for that we were told this is what could happen so I'm not taking that into consideration I have heard through two years of Resident surveys um through talking to people through a bond issue that failed for whatever reason it failed but there was discussion of using that for for green space and parks that I do believe that our our community does want green space and parks and I believe the Treasure Coast plan and what we're looking for and what residents want and why it's called Main Street is that's where that can be the signature heartbeat of this Village and it's going to take something very special to make it that heartbe of our village and I think giving us giving up Green Space to be a focal when you think of amphitheaters and we're not talking about something as large as an Amphitheater because it wouldn't fit there but something where people can gather around when everybody can use it not streetscaping something or well everybody could use quest to park and somebody might come and developer might say oh go ahead and I'll redo all your baseball fields on Questa Park it's still I think the green space and a variance to give them an extra 12 feet of height um because they can do something to help us develop the vision for our heartbeat of Thea that's why I'm I'm looking at it more from an overlay not Paradise Park because there could be the overlay extends down to the south end of our property that property is being demolished for perhaps Redevelopment I'm not quite sure how far north it goes it could be done so while it's what's it's been currently talked about right now is from the owners of of a specific parcel this my comments apply to the entire overlay and things change ownership change V Visions change a little bit and the current owner of this property has a vision that perhaps was never even presented to us before when you look at the historical uses of those properties and I don't think it's a bad thing I don't want to change our code for one person but I think when you talk about what we're trying to develop as a business as a community and I said this at our last meeting if we create tools and a waiver is a tool and an open space is a tool for somebody to give us what we want they can't give us what we want if we don't offer those tools and ultimately we're still the you we they need three out of five to move forward so I understand but I just want to make it very clear I'm looking at this on an overlay I'm not looking at this is not spot zoning that would get sued for this is an overlay issue so my comments for the record are based on the overlay and I can't I'm looking past the local because it's unfortunate but the entire us one could be live local can I clear up the the live local things so you cannot use height or density bonuses for live local it's only capped at the highest allowed density or height by right so the waiver process they can't they can't use that for live local I think they put that in when they when they retweaked it in 2024 which we'll live local they can pull from Beach Road which is 11 stories correct so that's what I'm saying we could get a live local building that pulls from from there and then these other buildings because yes I agree with you if we waivers don't count towards them being able to pull from that I say overall you get an 11 story bilding two 11 stories building you have a instead of a four you have a five story Bon have a three a four story bliing you overall just start to creep up so but yeah thank you for claring for that and I agree and I guess just kind of stating the obvious here but just another consideration is I think there's a lot of great examples of municipalities that surround us that have gotten some really awesome benefits public benefits through through waivers you know we don't have to grant them you know there's no one saying we have to do it but some Palm Beach Gardens I know they've had some really good um examples of using these to their benefit you know and I I think you know it's our jobs up here to uh just improve our village as a whole but also increase the amount of you know service and benefit to our our village and if we can get those free that's through a waiver process and I'm all for it with the understanding that we don't have to approve any of it we or whoever is sitting up here so that's what I got any other Council comments no so for those are in favor of incentives where would you want to add them the waer incentive process speaking of in the language or in the process to add that in the what what districts do you want to ow to add it to if you're going to do it mine would be in the the the village overlay only only because we go back to the comments that have been made uh on a different different building on US1 and how it the way it's situated it feels like an alley and the mixed use overlay or or the village overlay by Design the west side of that is is Cap to three stories so I don't I don't I don't see it being a a bunch of high you know mo most we're talking about and under my recommendation would be five stories we're not talking about six or or it doesn't create a an Alleyway effect or like a New York City type effect where you feel you're doing that because to the west of it is the tracks to the east of it it'd be the the US1 Corridor which is I believe at three at 40 40 store 40 ft I believe so I would say my recommendation would be for the overlay uh the The Village overlay only and all of it or just the mix you Zone and the village overlay oh because it goes up US1 now right well you have C3 and C2 is red C2 you c23 so the village over the to you have mix C2 C3 and then where's the C2 in the mixed use current in the village over the red but so right right is red C2 but it's not just right there and then a little bit down there and then the C3 is down on the south end as well yeah my my recommendation would for the entire overlay so if it included C2 and C3 any other opinions on that I'm not in favor of adding it so understand I agree be Center overlay in its entirety and I am not in favor of adding it to any of them I I think it should be built to code I think Village Center overlay I think you could maybe even open up to us one if you had to but Village Center overlay I think makes sense okay and then um typically too when you're putting down putting incentive plans together Jay maybe you've done a lot of this but um you know it's it's a process making sure that the incentives are meeting goals of the comp plan I don't know have you done that yet compared to the comp plan to make sure any incentives we're offering are meeting comp plan goals I can double check on that and then you know identif the identifying the boundaries which we just did uh you know program Target and goals really Define those the bonuses offered um considering off-site Alternatives which it seems like those that are in favor do not want off-site Alternatives it needs to be onsite is that what I'm hearing that's mine that's what I prefer that's and then um you know stakeholder and Community input I do think this is worthy of getting an additional Community input as well well um we're not going to go through a whole another Sher it planning process but I think this is you know a big deal to add it the possibility so there needs to be some kind of Greater Community input then um get the messaging out maybe some more we're going to have to have another workshop for the incentive part only or maybe formula but for sure the incentive part I think we're going to have another Workshop um and then you know the things with the recommendations you have now Jay was like the 15% Civic open space I had the same question you did like is it count go towards the overall percentage or is it separate and you know what does 15% look like on a two acre or 3 Acre can we get like an actual visual of that just I think that kind of helps understand if the benefits really worthy or not um so I think there just needs to be some more due diligence on the actual um you know public incentives that would have to be submitted for consideration of the additional height or done okay agree that'll be to I agree with everything you just said including the additional workshop for the residents uh we did the same slow down let the property owners uh have time to collect their thoughts and present multiple times and the residents should have the same okay and then is there anything else in any of the overly districts that is up for discussion or was it just the adding the incentives and fine-tuning the formula business and restaurant regulations Mar I think there was also the density discussion as well which you guys haven't touched on oh sorry I was kind of mixing up height and density as together do we want to talk about density separately as the intensive or yeah I I think in my head I was kind of combining incentives as height and or density um so if anyone wants to break it up and talk about density separately please do and we did confirm yeah that does not count has nothing to do with parking just density correct so parking would they have to like say you split how would the parking would the parking be adjusted to me our current requirements if you change the density if you support this concept we'd have to reconsider how to handle parking for one bedroom units I'm thinking cuz that's where I thought it was going because I know I've heard that there was some fining with some parking on a future project and and knowing that would be for the overlay as a whole I don't know if I could support that as a whole sure maybe a project but not as a whole so just to confirm so if it's current code said that each unit is required to have two spaces I is that what it said mhm corre um just to confirm I think we've already said this but the 0.5 dwelling unit would that that would have no relationship to dropping that two to one or it would it would not as of now but that's something that if if you support this we would have to it probably would make sense to to revisit that correct e yeah yeah because you're going to if you did this you'd have more units on the same piece of property which yeah sort of requires a net increase in park that would have to be figured out for sure do we need to discuss this sh I mean we already are but yeah okay we well I think it'd be nice to get council's direction with the majority ones like are we are we thinking we would only like to potentially add highight as a uh to the waiver process or do you want to consider density too or vice versa or both I think the density should not be considered at this time I think for our small village it's logistically too complicated right now we already have parking issues on the current ones that meet density yeah I mean this was definitely a little Messier with the parking that's my only I'm not opposed to talking about or hearing the public where the property owners have have in mind but it definitely gets a little more complicated for somebody I don't i' like to hear more about the density I don't necessarily have a problem with that solution for avoiding the changing the comprehensive plan but the the parking does create an issue I've seen that in other places in palom County before uh where they force down the parking it definitely creates an issue I agree councilman French okay so Council needs data to decide on the density please and Jay your just like I said with the language your visuals your specific language same thing with density or parking uh is appreciated um especially with density we see but the parking to be specific examples okay we'll do thank you and and mayor I don't believe we covered the turnover the current 180 days that we discussed when we on the checklist thank you is that something anyone wants to change I mean I'm okay with where it is I am as well I'll be open to if I get a ton of public feedback about it but from what I hear so far is the 180 was okay since we increased it last time I think the issue my concern would be with the formula businesses like uh those that are major corporations that would be coming in like a I use the bank for an example that has been used in this but if we're going to those are going to be excluded from any type of restrictions and I think 100 I'm comfortable with 180 unless something else comes out of the woodwork but okay I'm open to increasing it as we hear more comments see the end result of the overlays in the language okay all right anything else before I open it for public comment no okay Maran cards uh we have Caitlyn [Music] guen good evening uh Caitlyn Garen with the gunster law firm uh on behalf of s SW andc Testa Village I really appreciate you know the additional time uh we were given to to kind of talk through this and and the opportunity to talk to to each of you and it's been it's been great to hear um you know Mr hub's uh proposals and to hear your thoughts I'd kind of like to take a little bit of a step back and take kind of a high little bit higher level View at this I think talking about the three different overlays has been really important because they do affect you know very different areas of the community that each have their own character um the the US One commercial you know it's an existing commercial Corridor um the the US One Corridor largely consists of properties that are zoned C2 commercial right now um the C2 zoning District uh by the code the intent of the C2 zoning district is to serve the community at large and provide a mixture of uh convenience goods and services that affects a greater variety of uses than permitted at neighborhood level so this is um you know different than the C1 neighborhood commercial which is intended to to serve the neighborhood community and Commercial uses in the mixed use zoning District uh which are intended to serve those residential communities so this intentionally has been um established in the C2 zoning District to serve the community at large and that's why you see it along us one um so the overlay and there's been a lot of talk about the formula business and and restaurant definitions and and tweaking those and I think those are all really positive steps um to take for this but but looking specifically at this commercial Corridor by bringing in those types of formula uses you're you're conflicting what the intent of this commercial area is and this is the only area um that's zoned as C2 and intended for these these larger uses and so you know there's a conflict with with restricting these types of formula restaurants and even if you narrow it down to formula restaurant and retail if you look at the existing tenants out there right now you're going to have largely non-conforming tenants If This Were were passed and you're looking at uses like I've used three natives as an example you know started here have franchised and have been incredibly successful and you know now will no longer be permitted you know if you look at rales Dune doogs Cr Chicks PA barbecue you know not allowed to come back into the community unless you go through this use and you know Mar young I think you kind of hit on on the heart of it a little saying look people understand needing the mix um you know the financial feasibility of having some of these anchor tenants but we want to see the right mix of uses and that's kind of the heart of the issue with the these formula definitions is that we still don't know what the right mix of uses is absent you know the discretion of the Council on that day so I'd like to carve out the overlays for this commercial Corridor um or the formula uses see got my three minutes up but my request would be would be to to carve out the formula definitions for the the commercial Corridor they're better suited for the quest of drive and Village overlay thank you thank you thanks for the extra cou Maran any other cards yes uh Mr Tom Franco thank you uh Tom Franco Franco per Partners Paradise Park um and thank you for all of this and the process that we're going through I know it's wasn't much you envision but I do appreciate all of you taking time I want to thank jery and Jay I think you guys have done an amazing job kind of crystallizing this down to what the issues are and I think we're like personally I think we're made tremendous progress tonight so I have couple clarifications so as I understand that what you're proposing for next The Village overlay retail will need a special exception it's not it's not prohibited you just have to go through a special exception process to get it is that what you're proposing that's what we propose but why don't you continue your three minutes and then we can answer questions after um so question about that um in all due ECT you you said you weren't impressed with our concept plan about the public benefit that's not fair it's a bubble diagram it hasn't been elaborated um obviously if we would and I'm not sure we will but if we were to ask for additional height or additional density whatever it is we we would have a significant public benefit component as part of it we're not there yet it's so it's so preliminary so um we we appreciate that you've taken into consideration the extra extra height again you know very kind of you just rep represent represent or recommend 60% you know whatever we would do would be something that you would never even see from the street it would be centrally located it would be set back and it would in all likelihood also be a public benefit for whatever was put up there where the public could enjoy it so I appreciate that but the only thing that we feel that um we' like you consider the density thing I know you haven't you've kind of pushed that to the side for now the thing that was not mentioned and one of the things we were were hoping you would take up was some uh Unity control opportunity with any kind of public benefit that we create um the way your code says now it has to be uni of title but it used to say years ago unit have control which allows you to have more density if you partner up with neighboring properties where they transfer their density over our parcel and we were hopeful that you consider that too thank you thank you um and to answer Mr Frank's question I believe Council was in favor of leaving the restaurant language as is in the village overlay and then changing formula business to say just formula retail yes yeah Mara um do you want to hear one more time so form retail special exception yes but formula business yes correct formula business good form retail special yes Mara marshia neelon 94 be to a trail um so speaking you this is very mindblowing the whole thing um I'm really against the whole waiver thing it's so arbitrary you like it you don't like it this conso likes it everybody else hates it it's just too arbitrary I mean I don't have a problem with you know the height thing if you're putting a little cop Koo or something on there but I don't want to see big buildings it's not just Paradise Park it's all the way down Dixie Highway and supposing they decide to take the old um you've got you know everything's like three stories all the way down Dixie Highway suppose they take the old post office down I don't want a monstrosity sitting there so you you know it's just not Paradise Park and I cannot IM imagine I cannot imagine a park big enough in this little tiny village that I would give up those density or that I'd give up height to any great extent thank you thank you Tom Bradford good evening Tom Bradford 44 chest the trail to Questa um so there are elements of your discussion tonight that I think are okay and there are elements that I disagree with that you're talking about changing and doing but that's not why I'm here I I I think that my message to you is that it was very evident to me through Jay's comprehensive PowerPoint that the wherein he showed you ele uh how other codes are written in our neighborhoods so to speak okay and here's my point taquesta has historically been a against making changes in its code to keep up with the times I'll give you two examples one when I came here every piece of property between Old Dixie and taquesta drive north of excuse me Old Dixie in US1 north of taquesta drive all the way to the water plant was Zone C2 I had to pull teeth to get people to understand that that was no longer valid they built a regional mall and got palom Gardens you weren't going to get that kind of retail into Questa it's you got to change your code the code is a tool and tools change over time with technology and this that and the other and you've got to be flexible my message to you I'll just stick with that one example my message to you is your code has not been re written and I'm not just talking about the zoning code I'm talking about the entire code from start to finish at least since 1986 this is unheard of these people your neighbors are doing Innovative things to give developers as well as the council flexibility to end up with a a an exciting and robust and different types of development so please look at those examples that he showed you some were not applicable to us many are potentially applicable to us but we have to keep up with the times the code needs to be changed and now that I have 38 seconds I'll tell you the second example I got a homework assignment from the EAC the other day where we're supposed to ID we were supposed to identify places in the taquesta code where the subject of tree are located Jay gave us one example of Atlantic Beach all in one place to Quest is got tree subject matter spread throughout the code it's it's it's crazy so my message please do not be afraid to change the code and update it from time to time start to finish thank you very much thank you Mr uh Patrick dolena hey good evening Patrick gazal um to start off real quick I just want to thank you uh council members because I think last time we had a very robust discussion about a number of different things um and it seems that most of you I think all of you have gone to the constituents of Village of taquesta and and other people and really gotten some feedback so thank you for doing that I mean that really does mean a lot to to um the folks in the district that that really want to hear um that they have voice right so that's important for us to to see that you've done that um as I said the last time I've been doing this for 20 years and uh I think from from a Layman's perspective the discussion tonight is very confusing um I would make a suggestion that in the future you separate out all three of the overlay districts and have individual discussions about those overlay districts um density in Testa drive and that overlay district is Thea from what I understand and I think everybody is behind that um the US One Corridor and the discussion about uh National tenants it to me we need to really have an understanding about the economics of what we're talking about here right if we get rid of national tenants that are the anchor to the shopping centers that we're talking about we're going to have big holes in these shopping centers and we we could get into a situation where we have a negative um along the US1 Corridor which nobody wants to have right we have to have the right control between National and Regional tenants and local tenants right those local tenants they can afford to be here we had a discussion previously tonight about insurance costs and I can tell you you know I have a building in Key West where the Insurance costs have not tripled but four and five times what they were before and the only reason that a local tenant can be in that building is because we have a national tenant so just a a piece of information for you a data point to really understand um what's happening there and then as I said let's separate out the overlays The Paradise Park overlay is obviously a consuming discussion as we have discussions about all of these overlay districts um just my two sents if we can split those up we can have a more constructive discussion about Paradise Park as opposed to those other two overlay districts so thank you very much thank you than than you John is good evening Council I uh just want to uh express my appreciation for you extending this uh process and and keeping an open mind and tweaking making the changes that you are considering and um especially keep it in mind the effect of you know the necessity of these formula businesses to balance the commercial um you know properties that we have in the village not just for the property owner but also for the residents so you know they're not traveling to to other towns to to patronize these other businesses as well um and I I believe that from what the discussion is leading in in that that I'm I'm understanding that in the village overlay that the formula businesses I.E a bank and specifically in my property will still be allowed uh under the new overlay District so it wouldn't apply to the time criteria of the 180 days and and so forth which I think is a good thing because again my property is specifically designed the building was built with the drive-thru is under the rest of the building so it's not like it's a drive-thru that I can just tear down there's a there's office spases above it so it's especially critical for me that if it's going to become an obsolete use it's going to significantly impact any U Future use for the property as to the um your consideration and discussions as to waivers and incentives um you know it doesn't really apply a lot to me I have no intentions or visions of redeveloping my property in that um you know can't say what is to happen 10 years down the road or anything else but you know just need to be careful about incentives and and that as the most critical components I believe of developments are height density and parking especially as it affects its continuity with adjacent properties and its impact on other adjacent properties as well so again thank you for your time thank you Andrea Aken mayor vice mayor council thank you for being here and what you do um this is my first time so I'm not really good at this and I feel like what I want to say is more of a question um but I'm not really comfortable there seems to be a lot of emphasis on us one and the corridor and it feels like I'm hearing Mr Satori um no waivers that we need to leave it open for formula businesses and again I agree the definition of formula businesses um is is kind of out there and what that might mean and that they would so openly not have the same restrictions uh because it's us one um that formula restaurants or other restrictions in there um doesn't seem to make sense to me and i' I'd like to know how that makes sense to you for the local business owners on US1 that are struggling and have built to Quest been here for a very long time and it's not just a typical us one you know you've got a lot of residential area right there too um so I just I'm not so easy with just sort of opening us one commercial Corridor to formula businesses not having to have any requirements that you're putting in place for other areas of Testa and again I don't understand how you feel that serves um the business owners here the local and the residents that are so close to there and the residents and keeping with the tradition of what our village is so that yes thank you that's it no any other public comment okay right so Council I want to Circle back and give staff direction we're definitely going to have uh another workshop on incentives um because we need more info I don't know if we need a workshop formula businesses uh anymore so we're but we can if then consens as majority wants to but um I want to give staff Direction on both so focusing on the formula uh regulations we all want to maintain the aesthetic considerations for all formula businesses and restaurants in all the districts but even the ones that don't have to um apply for a special exception agree so maintain that language in the overl district which is already there yeah all right do the expedit expedited 30-day special exception review if it's going into an existing space and not tied to a site plan modification or site plan approval in all the districts give me a second I'm going to throw my notes um Jay had said add language that for the drive-throughs add the new drive-through language do we want to add that so existing drive-throughs can you come up to the podium and just explain that one more time this is for the village still yes on the Village Center overlay I think drive-throughs are prohibited um but because there's a few existing ones there um we talked at the last meeting about adding L which just said um all new drive-throughs are prohibited so the existing ones could could remain and be utilized I would agree with that like we got at least two two I can three yeah that makes sense okay so we'll say um you'll he'll word it as such so it just that apply to bank specifically or could like a different type of business come in and use to yeah I think because the property I brought up was the P the vacant PNC which somebody's brought to my attention they'd like to use as a non-formula restaurant with the drive-thru but they can't under the current code under the proposed overlay it does not allow a drive-thru but then somebody has to repurpose the building they have a building that will sit continue to sit vacant unless another bank comes in so right now the three are they were all existing our former Banks right all three of them only one is still existing the other two have been gone um so I guess I mean do we want to I would be in favor of leaving it um having that language but it it has to be the for the same purpose I do think the intent of this was not to have correct drive-thru like restaurant restaurants through these districts I hate to even say the word again but you could you could allow it to be a waiver for a new use to come in so if a if a restaurant did come in maybe maybe it could be appropriate as a drive-thru with the existing one and that could be granted through the waiver stop saying waiver I'm just kidding I'm just kidding thank you for the option I'd be against them I I don't think that was the intent of what the community wanted up to cross a drive so I agree I would agree okay so leave it it has to be the the bank use for the record I disagree with that just because I think we're now restricting the use of of of that building to a bank which there's has again as I said earlier the free market will determine what can go there and there's been nobody banging down The Doors to put in a bank so I think we're going to have by restricting the use to the prior use I think we're going to have a building there it's going to sit for a while just to be to be clear though so if like um the PNC so what's the uh the Wine Place that uses like someone if someone brought it they could still utilize um the drive-through area for any they couldn't use it to drive wine proxy is and the corre AR Gallery yeah what was that before I don't even remember was it it had been was bank I can't remember a historical question you like you could repurpose A Bank drive-thru into like seating for a barbecue restaurant or something Bren your gallery you just couldn't use it as a drive-thru for a restaurant is that my Jay I'm sorry maybe you should stay on the podium I think the intent is we don't want to driveth through like a McDonald's type drive through restaurant on quested drive but if they were to utilize it like Council M pandra said to do like seating for people yeah we we could clarify that it wouldn't be like a like a restaurant drive-thru yeah like people are reserving uh repurchasing service stations now and making them cool yeah okay it's not no long it's not a drivethru I just want to make sure we're not because I agree I don't want to pigeon hole that to being just a bank I mean the reality is somebody could buy it knock it down if they wanted to but um if it could be used for something cooler as long as it's not a drive-thru in the sense of a dve a car is going through it to pick up food and pay then I think that's great okay so you can add language accordingly and is the ma the majority in favor I know Vier is not yes I am council member Brandon yes repurposing but not Vehicles going through much like we already have happening historically okay and then DEA Drive overlay um the consensus was to leave it ads is but also add um prohibit retail that was the vice's request yeah yeah it was formula retail well no this would be so right now it prohibits restaurants everyone was in favor of leaving that uh formula business requires a special exception uh vice mayor had brought up potentially adding retail from the retail as being prohibited as an outright yeah I mean I could go either way I know I agreed to that initially I could go either way on that one but um think the intent there is really to protect our local retail so I'm okay with it but yes add the prohibit the [Music] retail I agree as well okay got that Jay yep and then the village overlay uh I know vice mayor wanted to remove formula businesses Al together somewh okay with um changing it from businesses to retail so you would have the leave the restaurants as is that they could do apply for a special exception within a two acre development and then either um completely remove business or change it to formula retail instead of formula business requires a special exception so what does majority think there I would I would be in favor of changing in Formula business to formula retail VI you have anything else to add I don't feel like I'm speaking for you no no I don't okay formula business being Professional Services you're switching to formula retail as we just did so the formula businesses no no so the last bullet point formula business requires special exception change it to formula retail requires special exception so formula businesses like Business Services they don't have to apply for a they're allowed and they do not have to apply for a special exception so yes to that yes that you clarifi that yes do you want me read it one more time so everyone's super clear so the businesses are allowed the formula retail would need special exception yes okay yes yes yes majorities yes okay and then us one um we're kind of the same uh Vice M suggested to remove formula businesses and just but leave restaurants as a special exception and then there was a discussion of changing just like we did for Village overlay change formula businesses to formula retail require special exception I'm okay keeping the restaurants a special exception in business and Retail being permitted being permitted yeah omitted or permitted per pered they don't have to apply for a special exception well you all are confused just for us one look at okay so look at I it's like permanent not so the second bullet point we would leave as is Formula restaurants require a special exception and then completely strike the last bullet point that's fine so the only formula restrictions would be restaurants would have to apply for a special ex which I think is what the original intent where we even started this whole thing years ago on so I'm fine with that for us one over agree wow okay formula to be clear I'm sorry just formula businesses will be allowed name formula retail will be allowed okay we create a new definition for formula retail so there will be formula retail formula businesses and formula restaurants you update that on the ordinance yeah and then the formula restaurants still require a special exception yep y this overall we're focused on the formula restaurants is that kind of this intention that I'm feeling seems I I know we have the language down but that's the intention of for Mar yeah I think like you said what the maintaining the aesthetic and Architectural considerations no matter what helps that cause and maintain you know at least visually that you know the character here you know Starbucks is a great example that it's not your typical looking Starbucks right it looks it fits in with the village so they did a good job yeah so it's kind of maintaining that so I think that will help even for the formula businesses I don't have to submit and so when we leave here this evening that we're on the same page we're not on the same page but we're going to talk about density and Inc basically yeah okay so that's really I think the only thing about the workshop is yeah on this subject matter yeah and I think so we'll just the next workshop on the 29th we'll just focus on um the density and height incentives and we're not talking about form businesses again I think we're all have set our piece we've reached some level of compromise and I think we're there yeah that's great because for those I mean everyone knows we've been working on this for a long time we just didn't start talking this long time coming and if there still is any conflict out there or a lawsuits wherever that is please continue to keep us updated so we know how to have these discussions um further agreed disagree is or lawsuit either way okay good to move on the next item Jay are you clear I'm good thank you very much all right the third item discussion on dequest to drive uh great Crossing quiet Zone Doug good evening mayor Village Council Doug Chambers Public Works director uh the reason I wanted to bring this item back to you the council had tab staff with moving ahead and applying for a quiet Zone Quest Drive Crossing and just for a quick overview um uh the requirements for the horn rules in the quiet zones right so locomotive Engineers must begin to sound train horns at least 15 seconds and no more than 20 seconds in advance of the public grade crossing so that's currently what we have there a procedure was established to allow a public authority to establish a quiet Zone and by meeting that criteria you have to show that by eliminating the train horn you are adding something additionally an additional safety feature to the crossing to the grade crossing now depending on how many Crossings you have some cities have multiple Crossings so the criteria that you have to you have an accumulative points based on the safety features that you have at your Crossing so if you have multiple Crossings they score multiple Crossings to get you to the quiet Zone at multiple Crossings where we only have one Crossing so back in 2016 we had uh the Palm Beach County Transportation Authority do an assessment of our grade crossing and at that time we met the criteria for a quiet Zone during the bright line project we met out there again with um with the TPA and also the Treasure Coast planning uh Council who was working along along with bright line project and also the TPA we actually walked theer Drive Crossing we walked Martin County Crossing with Martin County we also walked the the Jupiter Crossing and this was at the tail end of the bright line project and we received information at that time but that we still met the criteria to apply for a quiet song Once the bright line project concluded however the reason I bring this back to you today I met with the F right the federal rail Administration in April and we went through the crossing and we went through the criteria and we have two obstacles that are preventing us from moving ahead with the Quiet Zone one of those the the um Crossing was built with two gate arms right so potentially somebody could drive the wrong way on to quester drive incoming traffic and obviously get through the crossing we do have curved medians we do have curves along the sides we have sidewalk we have gate arms on the sidewalk well we only have two gate arms so somebody could get potentially get around the crossing that's one obstacle we have the other obstacle we have um there is a commercial driveway at 304 toester drive that is within 60 ft of the gate arm and the requirement would be that that gate arm is 100 feet from the crossing so we have two options number one we could Lobby to have two EXT pressure gate arms added at the Crossing so we'd have four gate arms uh the manager and I are currently working with the TPA and the do to put additional Crossing arms and signalization at the Crossing that would get us to the quiet Zone that however um is not we're not sure if it's current if they currently have funding to do that that is part of the second phase of the bright line Improvement project add additional safety features throughout South Florida at different Crossings so so the manager and I have applied and asked for funding to put the additional Gates there we will know within the next month or so if funding is available in this fiscal year or it's going to move to the next fiscal year so to add the additional arms um and signalization it could be a year out or less so in looking at that with the F the other option if you look at uh if you look at the screen there that is a commercial property on the uh just um just uh west of the of the crossing if we were to move that commercial driveway which shows in that picture we moved it 40 additional feet which gets us to the 100 fet we would meet the criteria for a p Zone just by moving the one driveway whereever the impacts to moving that driveway we have to modify the site plan we have to apply for a site plan modification because that site doesn't currently meet the current fire code and fire access to the proper property um and doing that uh moving that driveway we would have to install a fire hydrant at the entrance and we would have to expand the west side of that I'm sorry the east side of that property which would allow fire rescue to have access to a hydrant at the entrance to the facility and also provide additional access on the east side of that property so we have a couple challenges right to get us to that quiet Zone my my recommendation would be that we we wait an additional 30 days to hear back from the do and to see if they're going to find the funding and this fiscal year there are some projects that may not be moving forward uh they may be able to find some additional funding to move this project ahead and then we can get a timeline on on when they could start actually the design and construction and what that would look like how far out we would be to move the commercial property the driveway um I've already spoken with the property owner uh who's in favor of us doing this work um he he understands the need in the village uh you everybody who either leases there he has his wife has a business there has to listen to the train horns all day long and so um if we were to do something like this on this property The Village would pick up that cost right in your packet I broke down the the cost and and the different items that we would have to add to this property to meet that fire code and so relocating the driveway uh the pay pavement extension uh installing the F hydron we would have to relocate the Landscaping in the front uh to move that driveway and also the Landscaping so when we extend that pavement to the east that's actually Village property that's our property so we we would have to relocate that uh cocoa plum hedge and obviously we install that pavement it's on our property we would maintain that pavement um but that would get us to you know site plan approval for that modification so um if we were to move forward with that we're looking at a budgetary cost of $82,400 that would be the village cost we would take on that cost again the property owner is in agreement that he would sign an agreement with us to modify the site plan but he's not going to put up the funds for that so again those are our two options um other than doing one either the gate arms or moving that driveway we currently cannot apply for a quite Zone we don't meet that criteria and unfortunately at some point uh I you know although I have been told this verbally or in writing at some point with all the accidents we've seen with the bright line trains that scoring criteria changed right that we met the criteria now they added a second track and a second train nothing has changed the parameters are the same the requirements are the same but the scoring has changed and so in that second phase uh in South Florida they're going to be adding additional safety features not only you know at our request inqua but throughout South Florida so that's where we currently stand okay thank you dou Council questions comments so just to make sure I follow um if we did the the site work and relocated the entrance then we do not have to do the arms it's a one or the other or we would still the arms would still have to happen we have to do one or the other either move the driveway then we meet the criter here we SC we score high enough to meet that requirement to apply for a quiet Zone okay the gate arms are still going to come at some point yeah just right now we don't know when that's okay yeah um is there I hate to even ask this but you know there that property owner is certainly going to get a benefit from this is there any use in asking to contribute to any of the cost or can what ask could ask I have not asked you know the initial dialogue was uh you know making some modifications to the property again that whole e side is our property yeah it's not his property so he would have access to the Village property we'd extend that pavement so the only modification to his property is the driveway and moving the parking spaces from where the existing where the driveway is going to be moved and where where the driveway used to be so we're going to relocate a couple driveways I mean parking spes and in that conversation as well he may possibly lose two parking spaces and he's okay with that so we didn't talk about cost or anything like that the only other way for him to meet the current code which is not required at this time um because he's not he's not changing the site he could install a fire sprinkler system in the building which would be his cost but you know currently he's good where he's at okay so since we're so close to the other two Crossings do we have an update on how their applications are doing cuz didn't Jupiter apply for the one near the bridge and they had to do fencing and all that Jupiter has um they're in the process of issuing their their notice of intent okay um Martin County is still on hold they're still assessing it but again uh the town of Jupiter will base they will be scored on multiple Crossings right so you may not see four Crossing arms at their procing I think they're adding some fencing and some other uh safety features as well but their scoring Will based on you know it will be accumulative based on several Crossings I don't personally agree with that I think you should be scored the same at a Crossing whether you have two arms or four arms I mean if if if if our location at sequester Drive requires four gate arms I think every Crossing should should have four GS just for safety Fe I was just curious because I know in our last discussion just we only technically have the one but we're so close to the other one so even if we had a quiet Zone we could still hear the other horns and I was just curious what their process is obviously we don't need excessive one then two then three but I was just curious where they're at in their process to see if we going to have any different process of upgrading and then again Martin County is still on hold they're still they're sitting on it to see how see how it goes over the next year with any potential accidents there there is one other option that I throw out there just so you're aware of it and I did have this conversation with Martin County and the town of Jupiter so you can you can piggyback on another City's quiet zone so in other words we could try to team up with the town of Jupiter and then we would be scored based on multiple Crossings right we could do the same thing with Martin County now with Martin County they're not moving forward at this time with a noce of intent so I don't know when that would happen they said at least a year I sorry interrupt but I remember Martin County said they were going to wait a year from what I remember so right and they're they're still on hold and then the town of Jupiter when we did the walk through they didn't necessarily want to partner with us because what happens when you do partner a piggyback on somebody else's quiet Zone anything that happens within that jurisdiction affects your jurisdiction so if there's an accident or something happens there you lose your pet Zone based on multiple crossings that are outside your jurisdiction so at that time we didn't think that was a it was a good plan for and I would beant to piggyback them because they've had some issues and they have way more Crossings than we do but I just wanted you to be aware that that is another option out there but we weren't we weren't going down that path Doug a question on on the Hedge that would have to be relocated and thank you Jeremy for pulling that up um we're not giving we're just giving granting access to the pro we're not giving that property to him correct so he will have access to it you'll still be Village property and it's really going to be access really just for they're widening the driveway where people might enter and go south it's just so they can get the the fire rescue truck there it's almost impossible to get around the back of that building right right so they have to Wi for that the access is the entry is on Cypress M and it's one way through the property and uh matter of fact in the back there so that's where the existing Drive is if you go straight into the property to the back that's where Waste Management's dumpster is so they're pulling in and pulling back out so he could he could potentially move the dumpster onto the new pavement and that would provide some more access as well for garbage pickup so we're not currently utilizing yeah we're not currently utilizing that stretch because it's it's a hedge and that's such a we talked about this in the past it's such a dangerous place you know I'm glad we created Green Space out of it instead of a just a rideway but um yeah we would have to take that hedge out you can't save that hedge but we would replant we would we would lose that by agreeing to to either we pay for it or we wait so in 30 days we'll know if there there's money from do for the arms and did we know what that what the timeline after that would be timeline is yeah so you know it's not just gate arms it's all the signalization it's the lights it's the horns it's or we could move forward with paying for it at $882,000 right getting a ton in the benefit of getting a quiet zone for the residents that and the businesses that are on that whole stretch but with but with no real guarantee necessarily it would just I mean would that guarantee us to get our application approved at this point where we are with them either option would get us to so okay so if we do if we invest 82,000 if we were to invest $82,000 then we know then we control it and we move okay we move quickly so it's just a check of the box and we' come back to you with a notice of intent through resolution Keith has already drafted it's in the packet because would approve the resolution we send out our letters and we move forward that could take two to three months that's a two to three month process just to get back um the acceptance from your notice and then when you get back that back then we issue the notice to establish then I meet back out on site with the F and we go over exactly what we're doing and the timeline Jeremy we're in the process of budgeting and fighting dollars is there any place would you be comfortable if we said let's move forward with this even if it's the full 100% of it because the property owner may not participate so this would be uh this would come out of probably this year's budget which is where we're at now and I mean not in the budget but we would take it out of reserves to pay for this project you know our currently reserves and I think Doug talk talked on a little bit like my recommendation would be let's wait 30 days let's let's just at least get an answer if it's going to be funded I mean anything that we can get funded that we don't have to pay use our tax pay money you know it's been a year and it hasn't been quiet I mean I think a couple more months are you know I understand there's a desire by residents to have this quiet Zone but you know I think saving 80 80 something thousand will go a long way if we wait 30 days and then we'll get a we'll have a lot better um a lot better uh presentation for you about timelines or something like because I know Doug just heard back from them today about uh the potential timing of getting an answer for the funding that we didn't have a week ago when we put this together so I think waiting 30 days would be the appropriate thing to do with this but it would be an un unfunded um budget item that we'd have to take out of reserves okay yeah I agree with the plan uh wait 30 days if not I would support approving the $882,000 if needed I was shocked at the 500,000 for gate arms uh price I can't support that 5 ,000 yeah that's insane but I guess I don't know the industry definitely need that arm I've been first on scene for a lot of these accidents and I didn't realize we didn't have that fourth arm as many times I drove by and we'll still push for that even so if they don't get it funded this year for us and we move forward with this version we'll still be trying to push for the for the gate arms in the future to make sure that it happens for additional safety Jeremy can you turn it towards the railway real quick I just want to see that median that's there I know I drive by this every single day man okay I guess their point is someone could just drive over the Medan you can you can go up to that medum drive go further back yeah you can drive between the two mediums get the it's it's usually uh elderly or NE grated yeah I think KT can attested there was somebody on the other side of the gatear one time right right after the bright project finished so I just want I want to be clear if we make these improvements we are guaranteed guaranteed to be granted the quiet Zone that's what the f told me in in April 2024 and all my communication one of the other all things changed the first told us we met the crossing requirements it makes me nervous Doug we were going to we were going if we agreed to do this we were going to put together a notice to proceed we would give them our plans then they would say yes you if you do these improvements you will be a quiet Zone you can be quiet Zone and then we'll do the improvements and spend the money that's notice of intent is first that would come back to you first we send that to them with the changes we're going to make at the Crossing and then they would get get I asked that question because I didn't want to spend told us we met the requirements now it's change so I I don't trust it um and then on the fire access so that's on our property the proposed fire access would be on our property the hydrant is in the RightWay right in the Swale in the front of the property right that would be on Village property and then the extending the pavement property along the U What west elevation of the building there right right that's so how I mean we would have like an easement agreement with that property owner who would be responsible for the maintenance of that I mean I know those are all things to be worked out but you have high level answer to that yeah um our property so I would say we maintain it I mean once if if we go in that direction that pavement is good for 25 30 years there's nothing happen but it's not for our use it's for it is for our use it's our it's our prop well for it's for but it's for fire access for that property correct right so technically not for I yeah we're not going to be storing items on there and you know I mean it's it's really for fire exess so we can forite okay so whatever agreement TR with the property owner like it'll be clear they can't use it or store stuff on it or anything like that or how is that going to work because it's the fire access is for their property right but it's on our property it's on our proper but they will use it for access to drive on to go around the property they're not going to use it for parking but they will take the dumpster that's on on the very edge of their property and slide it over onto that pavement so Waste Management can come in and out and and more easily pick up so I guess all I guess is that going to be clear in the agreement with they can and can't use it for I mean just want to make sure we're that's why we have ke yeah yeah okay through all those details if that's the direction yeah yeah and if we want to put some language in there that he has to maintain it we can put that in there too now I don't know he'll necessarily agree to that but uh he's been very accommodating so far in in know this option and and and losing at least two parking spaces that's true okay any other Council comments questions no thank you so what would we wait to hear if we get the funding and then would this come to a workshop again for hoping I'll hear before the next workshop on the 29th I'm hoping I'll hear in the next couple weeks they're pushing this and so we basically have the price from Bright line now $568,000 and now we're just um we're waiting to hear back from the TPA how much funding they might have in a project that's not moving forward or has been delayed they'll take that money because we coming to the end of the fiscal year and then what the do can put up to supplement the cost okay so the plan will be update at July 29th Workshop so we talk about one more time before it went to council meeting okay all right if I could just thank Doug he's done a lot of work on this I mean everything from coordinating to talking property owner talking to TPA multiple times he's done a I mean just an awesome job with keeping me in the loop on this and and really trying to move this forward so thank you dougk you thank you any cards no cards no any public comment Mr brard yes Doug did a good uh presentation for you but cities do not give anybody anything so why would you let this man use your property and not seek compensation do a lease thank you you get I mean just my take he doesn't have to let us do this and we don't have a quiet Zone yeah or we pay $540 may have to pay $500,000 so I mean there is a trade-off his trade-off is letting us do this so I I mean uh we just have to be mindful of that we can ask but just know that there is there is a Good Samaritan that he's doing as well for the rest of the village to make the quiet Zone happen thank you okay AG we can talk about about again on the he's also getting a significant benefit too's UPG well and they want the quiet as well so I think maybe on the 29th you could have some potential options that would be reasonable for us to ask okay yeah just just an ask not a demand yeah we'll be open do that doesn't Hur to ask okay 100% all right with that can I get a motion to adjourn so move second all in favor I may good job keeping those UHS organized that was uh cuz I think I don't know if we would have had all that I was same here but there [Music] was thank you I appreciate