1-6-26 Special Meeting @ 10 a.m. - Jan 06, 2026

We're going to kick us off with a board workshop on the development review and administrative powers and duties. Ms. Barrett or Ms. Barrett? Ms. Chair, yeah, I'll just introduce. Christine is going to obviously do the bulk of the presentation. This is an item that's generated from staff. You know, over time as we go through the development review process, we see all manner of applications. And when we're going through those applications and we see things in the code that don't seem like they really quite fit or probably don't get to your intent for the scope and scale of the requirements for applicants, we sort of make a list of those, and then every once in a while we'll bring them back. And so that's what we're doing this morning. And it's just really the kind of things that we think, you know, when you're in any kind of regulatory position and you're sitting across the table from somebody and you just don't feel like, I don't think that's really what they wanted to do, but it's in the book, it's in the code. We want to bring those back and make sure that we're always updating our code and making sure it's getting to the board's intent. So with that, Christine will go through a number of examples of different types of applications that are smaller in scale, not the big Newberry Villages of the world, not the big projects, but some that should have a different scope and scale of application. Awesome. It's a new year, so let's get started. Good. Good morning. Welcome. Okay, and we'll get started. So we'll start with the powers and duties in Chapter 401. This is where all of the different types of things you see or the DRC's authority over is provided for. And the thresholds tend to be based on an impervious area amount, 1,500 square feet. So you guys are familiar with, you see a lot of preliminaries for anything over 25 units, and on occasion a redevelopment plan when it has a deviation that you need to look at. And then basically everything over 1,500 square feet goes to DRC, everything else. And then if it's less than 1,500 square feet, we can do an administrative development plan, and that's a staff review. And in 2018, we added some language to require that you can only do that one time, which also can be limiting. And we just haven't really taken a lot of time to, like, kind of go through some of these lists over the years, I feel like. I feel like there's things that are missing, and I think a big part of today's discussion is we're treating, like, everything like development, and I'm not really sure all of our rules were intended for some smaller things to be considered development. You know, maybe we need better distinctions between, like, greenfield development and small changes and small improvements. Also, there's a big difference here in what the applicant's expected to submit. When it has to go to a public hearing, they usually have to hire a consultant, and then that's expensive, and then they have to pay for surveys and landscape plans and all of these other things, as well as it takes the extra time for advertising for a hearing. So when it's anything over 1,500 square feet, it can also seem to be kind of onerous on an applicant that may not have, you know, the ability to hire someone to help them. So these are just some of the issues on this slide, but we'll get into more detail in some of the upcoming slides. But that's just why I kind of want to bring up some of the examples here that we have a lot of uses, like trailhead parking, that it's not even mentioned, but it still falls under that category right now, development. But I don't think we really consider, like, trailhead parking development. And so I'll get into some more examples here, too, of where we think maybe things don't even need an admin plan, perhaps. Maybe pre-screening would be better, like sheds. Doing lots of sheds lately. And so the issue really starts with these definitions. We have three definitions for development. And the first one on this slide is the one that sort of is what's governing what I'm doing here with development review. So any new subdivision, expansion of existing subdivision, new residential, commercial, industrial, basically it says anything that goes to DRC is development. And that makes sense for greenfield development, but, I mean, there's a lot of smaller changes that end up going to DRC, and then we struggle with all the extra rules and the regulations that are applied to that site when they go through DRC. So we would like to rework these, consolidate them, and clarify what's applicable to when it's greenfield development versus maybe a small addition, as well as make these make sense. I feel like, you know, the first definition isn't really – I kind of like the last definition better, but maybe we'll come up with some combination of that. So here's one example of that sort of that limitation of the 1,500 square feet. Because these were two applications that exceeded the 1,500 square feet, they had to go to DRC. And one of them was a pickleball court at an amenity center at Oakmont, and that's all it was. And then the other one was – this was probably the silliest of all. Well, there's an outdoor sort of obstacle course behind the Gainesville Health and Fitness at Tioga, and they wanted to cover it, and even just a covered patio is an impervious area. And so it had to go to DRC just to cover the outdoor gym area. That was already paved? It was shown as grass on their approved development plan. So because they were – What is impervious? Yes. So because they were adding a roof over it, we sent them to DRC because the size of it was over 1,500 square feet. And this is something that, like, was caught at the building permit levels. The contractor's like, oh, I'm just going to, you know, build this covered patio thing, a big – you know, like we see at other parks and stuff. And, no, we had to send them to DRC for that. So, I bet – okay, so for this example, I mean, I'm just going to dig in really quick. Okay. That's a lot of impervious surface that wasn't approved, which means that the stormwater doesn't necessarily handle that impervious surface. I mean, it's not a ton, but it is rooftop that was grass that was going to absorb water and now isn't going to absorb water. So if it didn't go to DRC for review, would our Environmental Protection Department or our stormwater engineers still review it? Like, who would look at it to make sure that that isn't going to cause flooding to a neighbor nearby? These are two types of examples that I would think should still be an admin review rather than a public hearing. Gotcha. And we did have them verify that. They contacted JV Probe. And JV Probe, there was probably a second sheet that just had notes that said, the basins at Tioga planned on this expansion. Because when you looked at the approved plan, it actually looked like a grassed area that would be future gym anyway. Right, right, right. You know, whether it was an enclosed space or outdoor space. Right. So we did verify that. And they oversize their stormwater usually. Yeah. And so it was, you know, and it's in the town center, you know, which was planned to be, you know, covered and, you know, built. So we still would review it. I just didn't think it really needed a hearing. Right. You know? Yeah, totally. And pickleball courts, that can have impacts, you know? But this is the amenity center at Oakmont, you know? I think if a subdivision was doing many courts somewhere maybe, then that would be a different type of impact than adding a second court at an amenity center. But because of that 1,500-square-foot threshold, we had to take it to a hearing. And it just seemed like overkill for these two types of improvements. So that's kind of what I'm – we wouldn't not look at it. I'm just trying to maybe make the process a little easier for some of these different types. I would just go through a staff review for compliance with things like that. Yeah, we're going to still look at all these things. It's just not going to DRC. Gotcha. Yeah. Makes sense. And so same thing with admin plans. So, you know, we don't really acknowledge the use with that threshold. So it's 1,500-square-feet. Anything less than 1,500-square-feet, we have to do an admin. And we have been doing a lot of sheds at churches and schools. And it just seems silly. Oftentimes it's caught at the building permit level. The contractor is going to go add a shed to a school, and we'll know that needs some review by us. So then they have to go submit in CitizenServe as a development application. We tend to just charge, like, an hourly fee, and most of the time it's just growth management looking at it. Maybe there's some reason to ask the forester to look at something or ask fire rescue if it affects their egress or something. But we would like to have some acknowledgement of maybe accessory uses. And what we would like to do is to send them through prescreening because that's where most building permits go through anyway. And now that we have CitizenServe, it's pretty awesome and easy. And all the same people are still going to look at it, you know. And we're not even going to charge a fee for it. It's free. So I feel like if we could have some acknowledgement of a threshold that allows not really huge accessory uses, but some size and accessory use allowance could be done through prescreening. I remember doing a small accessory structure for the city of Gainesville, and they allowed us to submit in lieu of going through, and this was some years ago, but they allowed us to submit a plan for a small rain garden next to the accessory dwelling unit to make it move through. Is that something we might want to think about just to take care of any additional runoff that could be? You mean like requiring some kind of water quality treatment for a small accessory structure? Well, it just took – it was a rain garden, so it's a depression in the ground, so it collects a certain amount of water, and it's not – you know, it wasn't a huge amount. It was maybe 10 by – or 20 by 6, I think, just along one side of the building, and it collected rainwater so that it didn't increase the runoff because it was close to downtown Gainesville, so it was an issue there. So I was just curious if that might be something that we could think about as a way to mitigate the impact of an accessory structure without – because we get a lot of citizens that come in and complain about flooding, right? And so every time we add to impervious surface without thinking about it, in their minds, of course, we are thinking about it. I'm just thinking out loud, but I don't know if the city of Gainesville still allows that or still does that, but I thought it was actually a really good suggestion. I think we would want to – when we work through these thresholds, I would want to work with public works and make sure that whatever our size is is going to be something – and it may be even based on the size of the property because there is a threshold where stormwater isn't required, you know, if it's under a certain percentage of impervious for a water parcel. Yeah, but I just don't know, like, if building contractors that build sheds would also feel comfortable building a rain garden. You know, maybe we could – Basically a ditch, but, you know. Okay. We could ask about that and maybe even have, like, some kind of work with EPD and see if there's any kind of water quality provisions. I mean, anything we can do to increase infiltration in a healthy way is a good thing. And so, you know, if we can educate folks about that, it really – I mean, you know, people that put in sheds, they have to, you know, build foundations. They have to level the building. They have to tie it down. They have to do a lot of things. Digging a ditch really isn't that big of a deal. Yeah, and I have – I've even seen some buildings that sometimes they put them close to a basin, and then that affects the grading and the drainage as well. It was just a thought. So that's all stuff that would be reviewed in this pre-screening. Like, they would look and see, oh, are they cutting down trees to make this? Are they – Yeah, that – but then I would elevate it. Right. That's what I'm saying. So the pre-screening would give it the chance to sort of say, yes, this needs administrative review or no, this is – Yeah. Good. Mr. Chair, I just wanted, while we're on this subject, to clarify that with what the pre-screening process is, and Christine was alluding to it. Almost for every building permit or every structure that would require a building permit, we have a free pre-screening process that goes into CitizenServe. It's the first step someone calls, and they say, I'd like to put X on my property, whether it's a single-family home or a shed or what have you. We send them to this pre-screening process. It's free. It's very quick. But that – what that does is it has environmental protection staff, public work staff, growth management staff, including the forester, if necessary, if there is going to be tree removal. We do, like, just a review of the aerials to just check, is it in the floodplain? Are there – is it in strategic ecosystem? You know, things that, for any building permit, we would want to make sure our regulations are taken care of. So it's sort of like a mini little DRC review. It happens pretty quickly. Sometimes there are site visits that go along with that. But that happens with almost every building permit, and that's what Christine is speaking to, is some of these we can catch the impacts there, and they don't need to be elevated for further review. But there may be some, whether it be stormwater or environmental impacts, where it does need to go through more process. Well, I think that's good. And I would want to say that, too. Maybe if we got to that next level, that might be where we would have some kind of – Yeah, but, you know, it could still keep it from being elevated to already going all the way to DRC. Yeah. Just, you know. And I would want to keep a size threshold, too, because you can get pretty huge storage buildings, you know, at churches or schools, and then maybe they turn into other things. So, like, I would still want to keep some kind of size component to accessory structures. And there's also a slippery slope where – well, not even slippery, so it's a slope towards reaching capacity if people keep adding things. Yes, yes, too. That's the other thing is, you know, maybe we should have some limitation, which is already in the code, about how many times can you do this before we want you to go back to DRC and have a site plan approval. Okay. So next we're going to get to the use regulations. So this paragraph here, I'm not going to read it to you, but it's basically how it links our use regulations and the standards under each use to the process and the decision-making bodies. And it's basically, you know, there's specific – most – a lot of uses require development plan approval, and that's kind of vague, then we can figure out the right threshold. But then there's also uses that specifically require DRC approval as well in the use regulations. And we haven't gone over these in a long time, and I'm going to go through the whole Chapter 404. This is just a snapshot of a handful that specifically require DRC, which is the public hearing step. A lot of them say development plan review, and that is a little bit more flexible. I find a lot of times, too, that the ones that typically require DRC are sometimes things that already have been approved by you. So the development plan approval step, that could be admin, that could be DRC, depending on what it is. I kind of want to go through that and see if there's any uses that maybe we would be okay allowing go through pre-screening instead of admin. And likewise, are there uses in there that specifically require DRC that maybe don't need DRC? Like if they got a special exception approved by you all, do they really need to go back to another public hearing if that master plan was, you know, what you all approved? And then the other things that typically require DRC are, like, deviations, you know, like a waiver to connect to water sewer. And then everything else is just considered development, even when there's not really substantial improvements for the application, like adding a use or changing a use. Oops, sorry. So what we were thinking about with this, and this is sort of where we need the board's direction on if you agree or not, is when we're analyzing a property for the use standards, should we be applying all of the regulations that we apply to, like, Greenfield New Development to something like a church that just wants to add a preschool to their church? You know, if you add a child care facility to a church, sometimes you don't even need to make any improvements, you know? But we struggle with, are they still required to go get a tree survey and designate 20% canopy retention? Do they need to plant back enough landscaping to meet the 30% shade requirement? A farmstay is another example that we've had where we're like, okay, you're adding, you know, a couple RV spots to your farm. Do we need them to still go through all the same level of application requirements of, like, hiring consultants and getting the surveys and landscape plans just to show that they meet those use regulations? So that's one of the things we need some direction from you guys today. And if you are amenable to it, we think the minor development plan definition and process might be a way for us to clarify what's required during those types of application reviews. What does that mean? Commissioner, I'll further and then, Commissioner, could you? I agree. I mean, going through a full development review for something like this is reasons why people hate government, quite frankly. So I think the minor development review makes a lot of sense. I guess I just want to understand more about what that means because I think the two examples you gave are very different examples. One is some camping sites with a pole where an RV drives up and plugs in. Another is a building that you're attaching to your church. Maybe, maybe not. But they, some, what I, what I'm, so a change of use, which it is an expansion in a way if you're adding a child care facility to your church. Right, because then there's more cars coming every day. There's more impacts with that. There's more impacts with that. There's more impacts with that. I get, but if they're not, if they're not building something. But sometimes they don't have to build something. Sometimes maybe they need to add a bike rack and a couple trees or something like that. You know, we struggle with what should be required. And I have an example here. This is from 2018. This is just a small church where they renovated their lobbies and updated their bathrooms. So a small building addition. And it was a revised final. And they were required to show 20% open space, canopy retention, and 30% in 20 years. Did they do all that just for a renovation project? It was a small building addition. That's where we don't really have any kind of clarification on these thresholds, you know. And I would, so it could be a size limitation that I'm thinking about, as well as some clarification on when you're addressing use standards, like adding a use or changing a use. And then what would a, how would you review this instead? It would be through that administrative process? Oh, these would probably, these could still potentially go to a public hearing. I mean, it's still going to be reviewed by us. But we're just thinking that we need to clarify if you're just addressing the use standards, do you need to also meet all of the landscape code, tree code, all of the things? Or can we just evaluate the uses and say, yep, this site is appropriate for a child care facility? All right. And then, Adele. So, you know, to me, it feels like there needs to be, there needs to be a threshold, obviously. And so I think in terms of percentage of increase of impact, so whether it's like this appears to have an increase of traffic impact of more than 20% or an increase of impervious surface by more than 7%. I'm, you know, I'm just grabbing numbers out of the sky. But to me, it seems, is that kind of the direction that you're thinking? Like, you know, you ask on the application, like, is this, you know, what is your expected number of increase of trips? What is the square footage of increased impervious surface? What is the, I don't know, increase in utility needs or whatever? I don't know, but that, is that what you're thinking of in terms of a screening process? I'm curious of how you would define the threshold and how you would enforce it. Because, you know, there's going to be the perhaps unintended consequence of people trying to just be underneath that if it's going to, like, make it cheaper, make it quicker, and, you know, allow them to move forward more efficiently. I think for existing sites, I'm thinking in terms of small threshold of change, you know, like, would this church need to survey all the trees, or will we just let them survey the trees that might be impacted by the building addition? You know, that kind of situation. But then the other kind of example I'm thinking of is the ones where it's just specific use standards. So just trying to demonstrate that this site is appropriate for the things outlined in the standards. That seems very much a staff level. And it could still go to DRC. You know, there's probably some uses that I would think the attorney's office still want us to take to a hearing. Well, absolutely. There's some cases where it might be very, very appropriate. But staff can determine that, right, by based on the amount of impact or maybe the legal, you know, ramifications of whatever is changing. And there would still be development plans. I mean, there's still plan sheets. It's just the amount of information they have to analyze or submit to us would be less. You know, you've mentioned child care a few times. We, you know, we want to encourage those, you know, changes of use. And everything we put in the way of that makes it more difficult. Not that I want to not, you know, follow rules or allow people to, you know, do things that are against our comp plan or what we want to have done. But on the other hand, we don't want to make it, you know, hard in a way that doesn't make any sense. Commissioner Whelan and Commissioner Peer. Just a quick question about impact on neighbors. You know, at that point, if there is a neighborhood that's surrounding this at that point, would you consider a public hearing then? Or would this, you know, an expansion means going further out towards boundaries, you know, that may have been established that had not impacted a neighborhood the way an expansion might? We could have some language that stipulates if it's in a residential area versus not a residential area. But I think that would probably just affect maybe whether we go to a hearing or not. That's what I'm wondering, if, you know, if that would be a trigger for a public hearing, if there is a neighborhood that might be impacted by that kind of expansion. Yeah. And I do think we do have certain things in the use regulations that have different criteria if it's in a residential area versus a commercial area. So we could still, you know. That's already been addressed then. You all have already. And there are some uses that say that. Like, I think the security quarters one in that previous slide says that if it's in a residential area, it goes to DRC, which I thought was kind of silly because what is the impact of a security quarters? But, you know, I'm sure there was a reason someone put that in the code someday. Those trees that are where they are work as a barrier for sure. So those are important. Those are important. But I just, as people expand or whatever the business is that would be, you know, a child care center for sure. Yeah. A playground area that close to a neighborhood. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we have had those situations where neighbors come out and are concerned about the noise for a preschool. Right. Or the safety of the children as well. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Prisca. Yeah, I guess I'm, I mean, I'm with you that, like, what we want to do is make things simpler, easier, and less expensive for people where that makes sense. Like, you know, the goal is to streamline things for you all, for us, and for the public to be able to do things that they want to do simply. But I do think what my, my only concern is that we don't reduce the level of expectation around our protection of natural resources, around stormwater, and that we don't create a situation where someone can do something by a thousand cuts. So they could build a building, and then they could do an addition, and then they could add out the back, and then they could put on their patio, and they would never have to go through a development plan because, you know, a full site plan because they built it in sections. Mm-hmm. So I do want to make sure that whatever we do, we do it in a way that they can't keep coming, taking bites at the apple, and or that, like you said, it's only a percentage of the site. And once you've done that certain percentage, then if you trigger it again, or then you'd have to come back with a site plan. So I just want to make sure it doesn't turn into what she's saying is sort of a way to skirt the larger expectations for someone that was actually doing a full development of their site. I don't think they'd probably do that on purpose. It just, you know, happens over time. You know, a church has a plan, and then all of a sudden they become very popular, and they want to add all these different things or whatever. So we have a multiple, we have a multiple application kind of threshold, like a second or third. Well, so, like, our thresholds that come before the board, I think the language in there talks about total over time, you know, so that you can't just keep coming in with something at 25,000 square feet. It's a cumulative calculation. And then we have in the powers and duties for the administrative development plans right now, it says you can only use it once per site. And so something like that in this definition would also help with that sort of incremental change that we want to avoid, where if you are continuing to come forward and expand your site, then you should be doing landscaping, you should be doing tree preservation and all those things. I guess my only question here is going to become, I'm sorry, were you done? Yeah. Is when we have, like, something that was maybe approved 30 or 40 years ago before we had a lot of these things in place. And so then we may want to, you know, bring them up to some base, or would they already be grandfathered in? What is the rule there? That's actually, this site right here is a good example of that. And we struggled with that, that, like, this is a church that's just been there so long it never went to DRC. Right. And so I feel like we sent it to DRC just because it had never been, and they had to meet all the rules. But I hate to torment people that have been there a long time. But on the other hand, you know, there's sort of, like, there's some place in between where we want to make sure that, you know, we have stormwater requirements met. We do have, you know, some concern about stormwater leaving their site, those kinds of things. I'm thinking stormwater because that's one of our biggest challenges right now. But I think, you know, that's that. So how did y'all handle it? You went to DRC, right? You made them do all the things. I went to DRC. They had to hire, you know, it's just a small church. They had to hire a consultant. Yeah. They had to get survey work done, you know. The consultant might have even just done it pro bono. I mean, again, they start off at the building department thinking, I just want to renovate, do a small addition, update the pastor's office, and, like, we threw the book at them and send them to DRC. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah, but in general. And Mr. Chair, by throwing the book at them, we enforced the code as it was written. We did. But, you know, we didn't have any other options either, you know. And I do want to say while we're having this discussion is where there is the ability of the director or the manager to make decisions, we do make them as logically as possible. But there are cases where it just seems it's so clear in the black and white what's required, and we try to treat everyone fairly. I think this example, too, gets to two things. We've talked about process, but this also gets to standard. So Christine mentioned the 30% canopy required at development, and this may be one acre of developed site on a five-acre property, which we've had some examples where the other four acres is pasture, and it has been for 100 years. Are we going to make you go buy a bunch of trees to plant them to make 30%? So some of what we would be coming back with would be looking at those standards that we see that pop up and talking about thresholds for when that's required. I think that – Okay, I was going to do a comment. Yeah, I'm all for you all making it more efficient and helpful. You're the experts. As long as we're not creating any compatibility conflicts or any new unintended impacts, then I'm all for streamlining it, and in a case like this, using common sense, I would not expect that if they're just looking at one acre that we would require them to do the same that we would require for a five-acre site. We would use common sense and let the staff help them through it without hiring a bunch of professionals that are going to tell them exactly what staff would have told them to do anyways. That's where I am. Yeah, Mr. Prisio? Yeah, I was just going to say, I mean, in those instances, I would hope that for sure we wouldn't be, like, requiring them to go in and backfill a 30% tree canopy on a property that never had tree canopy. Right, exactly. I mean, that may be what we do now, but I think we – Yeah, I think those are examples of where the development community looks at us and says, you guys are impossible. Yeah. Like, this is crazy. You know, like, we shouldn't have to do this. We're just building a patio or whatever. Like, I think it would be great to be able to streamline that. But if they're cutting down a 40-inch tree to build that patio, well, that's a different story. That is a very different story. They need to show why they couldn't build a patio on the other side of the house or why they – Around the tree. Around the tree or why they can't mitigate for that tree. Yeah. So those are the – Yeah. And I feel like even with, like, tree – even if, like, if we have a threshold for, like, an existing site to make a small amount of improvement, the tree code still applies if you're removing something. Or maybe instead of surveying the entire five acres, we would just have them survey the area of the change. Just that spot, yeah. That way we can make sure the trees are protected or they're mitigating for anything that they do remove. You know, so it's not going to be a blanket you don't meet the tree code. So everyone's going to meet the tree code no matter what the application type is. It's just we struggle with the lack of clarity on when is it appropriate to require them to show 20% canopy when it's updating their bathrooms. Professor Tressa? You know. Yeah. I recall Reverend Troutman in the Monte Oak area with his church. Yep. And he had to go through the whole process. He was really upset that he had to spend that additional funding just to add an addition to the dining room. I don't know if you guys remember that yet. I think that's where we changed that admin code threshold because I think that he came in after this church. And that's where we amended the code to allow something one time on any site as long as there's no off-site impacts. It was for the Monte Oak church because they wanted to do like a big addition of – it was, I think, a cover thing. It wasn't even enclosed. Enclosed, yeah. Yeah. And, again, we didn't have any clarity in our code of how to process that. Yeah. We updated that threshold. I think you're hearing consensus to simplify if possible. Yeah, yeah. It's great. Okay. Okay. Cool. All right. So now we're going to get on to redevelopment. You've all have seen a couple redevelopment plans over the years. That's really all we've had, I think, or maybe two that have had to come before you. And they come before you because they're requesting a deviation from the code. We'd really like to update this part of the code. The definition just – there's so many sites, over 40%. I'm not really sure why the amount of impervious area is the threshold. We'd like to just update this definition. Any objection to that, Commissioner? No. I think any redevelopment is redevelopment in areas that's previously developed, period. And then, you know, it's not really clear in that code either how much of the site should change. Like, if they tear down the building, do they need to move the building? How do they – you know, the rearranging of the components of the site, which is that example here, the Chevron. They came before you because they didn't want to move the building up onto Newberry Road, and you guys agreed. I think we should be thanking folks that want to do this and encouraging it. So I love the fact that you want to change this. Well, and the other thing is is that you guys make the decision if there's a deviation, if there's something they can't meet, like Chevron. Do you want to continue to make those decisions, or would you be comfortable for us deferring to the DRC and changing their powers and duties to include redevelopment? Or would you want us to continue bringing the sites that are requesting – I like to see it, but I don't know how my colleagues feel. I mean, I guess that depends on what it is. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, I guess I feel like if it's meeting our code, if their plan meets the code in that current zoning district and that current land use, and all they're doing is redeveloping the site and moving the building or moving some things around, but they're still in – they're still – what they're going to do on that site. Like, they tear down the building. They have a whole new, basically, greenfield, brownfield development site. They want to build something, but it's in the land use. It's in the zoning. It meets all the – like, I don't know why we need to see it. Yeah, me agree. I agree. But if it's something where they want to – like, it was a gas station, and now they want to build a housing. Well, the site doesn't fit the code specifically, and we have to – Sorry. We need to give you the exception of why it makes sense. I mean, then it would come to us anyway, I guess, because they'd have a good rezoning or whatever. Yeah, deviations come to you. Deviations would come to us anyway. Because they want to keep the building exactly where they've always had the building, which is with parking all around it. Right. You know? I guess that's the part I don't – that part I don't understand. Like, why does that come to us? Like, if they want to keep the same building, it's still redevelopment. I don't understand why that comes to us. Like, if there was that one that was the hotel and everything. Yeah, it's – usually they don't want to meet activity center standards, or everything in the cluster now needs to meet T&D design standards. Well, these suburban uses don't usually want to comply with those design standards. It's a different code now. And, Mr. Chair, the redevelopment standard is such that – you know, in this example, it was because it's a small site and they didn't want to move the building to meet the activity center standards. It's not always that. Sometimes it's the landscaping standards. Sometimes it's not necessarily stormwater standards, but we do have some examples of other elements of your code that, you know, access management standards, where because it's already a developed site, there's already existing locations of access, it may be difficult. And so that's why they're coming in to request it, a deviation from your code. So you don't see the one – if it meets all of the code, you don't see it. So that's why you've only seen two, because these are the two that – Yeah. Well, that's not onerous, really. I know. I was going to say, I mean, I guess why would you not want it to come to – like what – I mean, I understand that it's difficult for the – Mr. Chair, I don't think there's a staff feeling on that. I do – I will say if we touch this element of the code, there's a difficult element for staff where it's asking staff to make the determination that the deviation requested is the minimum necessary to develop the site. That is a very difficult – so I'm going to – I would like to take a look at that definition – that language because – That's an opinion. It's an opinion, and it's also the standard. This was an example. They could have moved the building if it had been a smaller building. I guess I think – What is the standard? If I'm speaking, I mean, I would say that I think from this board's perspective, we want redevelopment. We want people to use sites that have already been developed rather than clearing new sites. Like we want infill, we want creative reuse, and so for me it's not about doing the minimum, it's about doing the maximum. Like I want to see the maximized use of that. So I hate not minimize the – you know, sort of the disturbance of the site or whatever it is, or have to move a building just to say it's redevelopment. Like for me, we want to encourage reuse. So I'm interested to see how we could update this so that it does encourage that kind of reuse and increasing – you know, maximizing the density, maximizing the zoning, maximizing the uses of the sites to be able to ensure that we can keep our growth management area intact. Right. So – I'm sorry. It's – I agree entirely. Sometimes, you know, minimizing the deviation also minimizes the potential of the property. So, you know, why would we want to minimize it? Maybe they have a really creative solution that really changes the deviation but makes the site so much better. Yeah. You know, so I don't know. I feel like – I like the word optimize. Yeah, optimize is a good option. Optimize the deviation to develop the site. But again, that may not be a staff. Call, like you're saying. Yeah, no, that would have to come to us. I think you're right. Yeah, we have had some difficulty with that, I feel. I also feel like if we update this section to maybe clarify how the site should change in this section a little bit more, then maybe we don't need as many deviations or it will be easier for you all to make the decision about the deviation or us to recommend which path it's going on. Because right now it's like a paragraph and, yeah, it's the minimum possible has been really challenging. Okay, so we're all in favor of staff looking at this? Yes. Yeah, definitely. And it sounds to me like the deviations perhaps should still come to you all if you're okay with that. And we didn't have an opinion one way or another, like if it should be D or C or if it should be the board. I feel like the wording should change such that we don't sound like we don't want something to change. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because I think the, I'd like the optimization. Yeah. And maybe there's thresholds, again, for the deviations. Like maybe there's a thing for you all to look at in terms of like, you know, with, I mean, that there's certain deviations that they're kind of necessary due to site constraints that they could be administratively approved or DRC approved. You know what I mean? Like if there's literally like a building on both sides so there's no way they can put in a new street or something, like there's no reason for that to come to us because it's not possible anyway. Or, you know what I mean, certain things like that where the site constraints don't allow for them to meet the standards. Okay. I don't know. And so perhaps, I can start, I'm starting to think of, yes, that maybe there's stipulations of parcel size, access, things out of their control. Out of their control. Yeah. Or perhaps, for instance, if they had wanted to change this particular filling station into a drive-thru restaurant and there was a drive-thru restaurant next to it, then they could have made some arrangement to share a drive-thru in order to minimize impact to traffic or something like that. Is that something that would be, how would you guys deal with something like that? I'm not, I don't know. I don't know. I guess you'd have to have the other property owner involved. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, yeah. No, that happens a lot in larger cities, I think, where they, you know, they make arrangements between to optimize the use of space, right? Well, Mr. Chair, I think what we would be asking for is for where applicants can't meet the existing code for them to demonstrate why and then to demonstrate how they're mitigating the element. They're doing something else better. You know, they can't meet some requirement, but they're doing X, Y. And I thought this applicant was able to do that. He said, we're able to actually improve upon seven of these things. We can't meet the eighth. Right. Great. Thanks for doing it. Yeah. And that's what we all said. Okay. Yeah. And I just, yeah, I'm just curious because I think there's so many creative ways problems can be solved, and I just don't want to get in the way of that, basically. Jeff, I like it coming before us because you saw this board kind of wrap our arms around, let's make this happen, which is now forcing this discussion of, well, how can we change the code so that other people can do it in the future? So I think it's good. I think you're hearing consensus to, yeah, let's rework this. Okay. One more? And then this is, these are just a few examples of some kind of missing types, which, again, everything's considered this umbrella of development when you might think is greenfield development, but then, you know, is a trailhead parking lot really development, you know? And that's another one that we've struggled with because, like, you know, Public Works will say Lime Rock is impervious, and they're like, well, then a trailhead parking lot exceeds 1,500 square feet, you know? And can that just have a separate, a different process? Maybe that would be an admin or pre-screening or something. They're very limited impacts for a trailhead. They need to change development to site improvements. Yeah. Just change, just add a site improvements instead of making everything development. Yeah, that's why I'm, it's like we almost need more definitions to distinguish between what we think of, this development, straight-phase test development versus other site changes. Renovations or site enhancements. And ABA upgrades, I put that up there because I find that when people are trying to make their site more accessible, then it triggers all these other things, you know? If you put a sidewalk in a park, it exceeds this 1,500 square feet threshold, and it needs to go to DRC, and then we have all these other rules that are applicable, and I kind of feel like maybe some ADA improvements should be more exempt from other requirements of the code, especially if it's an old site and they're updating it. Like, that's a good thing. Do they need to now update the site to the new landscape code, or, you know, does it need to go to DRC for that? I think those could probably be administrative. My question is, if rather than have concrete pads, would you consider a boardwalk? That would be, that would be pervious. It is, but I think that gets really expensive, and also I think with, and I'm not an engineer, but, you know, the slopes that they have to provide for ADA, I'm not really sure how easy that's to achieve with a boardwalk versus concrete. I guess I'm thinking about some more about wetland areas, too, that, you know, that we're going through more water-sensitive areas rather than putting concrete down to put a raised boardwalk. But through the woods and the forest and dry in the uplands, it wouldn't be an issue. I got you. And a lot of times the ADA upgrades that I see are usually like a commercial site, gas station, restaurant, or our parks that are trying to update the sites, and then it trips all these other thresholds that kind of seems a little bit much. You said something about adding definitions, and I just want to speak from somebody that used to spend a lot of time looking at codes and stuff. If there's any way you can take those definitions and turn them into a chart, I just want to throw that out there. It's so much easier to read, you know, a chart of here are the requirements and here's where you fall. Does that make sense? Yeah, like some kind of a table or something. Yeah, table, chart, whatever. Yeah, just throwing that out there. That's a good suggestion, thinking of almost like a process table or something, perhaps. Okay. Yeah. Did you want to add something that the trailhead? Yeah. Cool. No, well, just to make the point that it, you know, this is an example where it may be, you know, half an acre of impact on a 400-acre preserve. So that's where. Yeah. I guess I would just say, I mean, again, I don't have any problems with doing any of these things administratively. I think the key thing is just that we don't lower our standards with requiring stormwater. That we're not saying just because it's administrative means, like, because it's a parking lot, you don't have to put in stormwater. Or because it's an ADA, you don't have to figure out the impervious, calculate the impervious, make sure your existing stormwater is going to handle it. Like, I want to make sure that those things are still accomplished. They just don't have to go through all the rigmarole for the rest of the site. And I think that that point gets to Commissioner Alford's example earlier, where the city had a requirement where it may be a shed, but it's in the duck pond on tight lots where, yeah, we need to deal with that rain garden to keep runoff from running onto an existing property, but it's on a quarter-acre lot. And so the same half-acre trailhead on a two-acre property is different than, you know, so I think those are the examples where we found it being an issue. And all of these things are, we're all still going to look at it. It's just a different process and clarifying what's required in the process. The other one that I have up here, this is Tesla at Cracker Barrel. I just, we've been getting a lot of EV charging stations and parking lots, and that's great, but I don't really think it requires, like, a whole lot of review. Why does that come to us? We could probably handle it through pre-screening. When it's already a paid block. But we do them as an admin plan, you know, and charge the money. And once again, it's like a Tesla contractor trying to go through our process. She's more comfortable with building permits, not development plan review. And they tend to not really impact anything other than perhaps some tree barricades need to go up. Maybe they mitigate for a tree that they remove. But this is another, like, example that I really think could probably just be pre-screening. We're still going to look at it. We're just not going to charge them $1,200 and take two weeks and go back and forth over it. We're going to just probably just handle it with GM and then route it to other people, like fire rescue in the forest, or if needed. That's pretty awesome. And then the other thing that's not in the code, but as we're changing things to maybe allow things to be administrative, we do need, I think, something that clarifies in the code that if they don't agree with meeting our code, that that needs to go to DRC for a denial so that we're not working on admin development plans and trying to analyze a denial administratively, making sure it goes to a hearing. I know that's something the county attorney's office has advised us to do if someone doesn't want to meet our code, but you're just having that in the code to make it clear that if you don't agree and you don't want to meet our code, then you're going to DRC and we're going to have a hearing. But you just said that they would deny it. Well, we would recommend denial to the DRC. Right, right. And we would have a staff report, an analysis, and a hearing. It's just what she said. It was funny. Go to the DRC for a denial. A DRC can do whatever they want, but they tend to follow what we recommend. It was just funny what you said. Sorry. That's okay. And, Mr. Chair, the key element is creating a record, giving the due process to the applicant, that then they have a record, they have something they can appeal with a record, and moving forward in that respect. Very good. Thanks. So these are just kind of some – we'll have other missing types for a request to advertise that these are just some of the ones that are on that list that we've been keeping for years that we think that probably would be just a different process. And so this is kind of – this is a summary of all the things and the topics that I went over today. If you agree with what we are proposing, we'll come back for a request to advertise. Any motion? So moved. Back second. We have a motion and a second for those five items requesting board direction. Yes. Will you just – I'm sorry? I was going to say, it sounds like there's going to be a fair amount of, like, content change, though. Like, this is just sort of conceptual, and you're going to be adding a lot, like, creating definitions. So can we get that with some time to review it before – you know what I mean? Like, often – I guess this is the kind of stuff that I would like to see more than, like, the Friday before the Tuesday meeting. Oh. So I have more time to read it. Bring that back to us once. Absolutely. I mean, it doesn't have to – We'll bring us an update. You can just email it to us once as soon as it's – As soon as it's ready, so we can read it. Yeah, because I intend to take these changes to, like, the Builders Association for a workshop where it's pretty regularly just going there for anything we're working on and getting feedback from them because I'm curious, are there things that we missed, that they would have good suggestions that could make things a little easier, and I want to be able to incorporate that in the request to advertise. So we could. I mean, once we're past that step, I don't see why we couldn't, as soon as I submit something to eScribe, also email it to you if that's okay with the attorney's office. Or have another meeting or include it in another meeting like this if it's going to be substantially different than anything we've discussed. Yeah, because Jay, we'll make that judgment call whether it's just something we're sending out or based on – and the next step would be a request to advertise so it's not even the hearing, so you would have another chance to look at it. That's the chance to actually talk. That's right. That's right. Yeah. This is – yeah, this is not the request to advertise. I see what you're saying. I thought this was the request to advertise. I was like, if we could have – okay. Yeah, and we do. We've got – we're going to be touching all the chapters, it seems like, and going over things carefully. And if we feel like we need to split up the topics, we can do that too. Like, I don't know, maybe redevelopment needs its own discussion. I'm not sure. So we've got a five-part motion to increase staff's authority to implement common sense. That's what it is. And I think you have unanimous consensus on that. Let's open it up to the public. Let's get some thoughts. Let's have a document on the table. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Conway. This gives you a chance to look at things without rolling your eyes, right? We don't roll our eyes under any circumstances. I can't believe that. No. I'm looking at her eyes now. I'm looking at her eyes now. I think it was a covered gym part. That was the one to the point. I got it. I got it. You're being facetious. Okay. Mr. Conway, if you're right. Mr. Chair, I'd like to focus on page one of the Florida Right to Farm Act. The legislature finds that agricultural production, that word in HB 211 in 2025, was expanded to include storage and processing for certain kind of farms. It's a major contributor to the economy of the state, and agricultural lands constitute unique and irreplaceable resources of statewide importance. It is the purpose of this act to protect regional agricultural and complementary agritourism activities conducted on farmland from nuisance suits and other similar harassments. Now, I want to read you the definition of agritourism activity. Any agriculture-related activity consistent with a bona fide farm or in a working forest. On page two, farms are absolutely immune. From all local regulations, immune. From all local regulations, if state of Florida best management practices apply. Let me give you an example. Medical marijuana is not agricultural. Because agricultural taxes are based on income, their taxes would be through the roof. They never apply for it. Because of the legislature's increasing activity to stop you from harassing, stop local governments from interfering with agriculture, because of that, the courts are noticing, and a 10-acre minimum on timber has been eliminated. A one-acre timber farm immune from your regulations are contemplated. Period. Now, I have been trespassed, harassed for years on a lawful timber farm while someone built a 6,000-square-foot structure with a runoff going into a hole in the floodplain that's going to codes Thursday. So, the obvious thing to me is, first of all, you need a board of adjustment. Sounds like the DRC is a kangaroo court. You need a board of adjustment like the city has to challenge unreasonable, unlawful determinations by your staff rather than have to go to circuit court to do that. That would be very, very helpful. And let me tell you something else. Wildflowers Music Park is not production. Wildflowers don't grow where people are stampeding the land. It's a farce. They should not have an agricultural classification on that land. And the final thing is, if you're not regulated by State of Florida Best Managed Practices, you're fully subject to all county regulations. Thank you. And I'll see you in court if you guys can't comprehend that. Thank you, Mr. Collins. Next speaker to the motion, if we could. We'll have a chance for public comment after this. Go ahead, Collins. I fully agree with the simplifying but going to minor developments. I'm on the city's development review committee. And I originally wanted to make a comment about the composition of your DRC. But after the most recent city development review meeting, I am not as confident of the citizen appointee structure. In fact, I'm thinking maybe it should be a hybrid structure. But I admire the way that your staff interacts with applicants. It is that most parts of the process take a customer service type attitude, you know, rather than a coerce and hound type attitude. I won't say who. It's enforcement. But I like the fact that they do that. But I think having a fully, having your DRC be all staff people, even though they're not the ones making the direct forward-facing contacts, is kind of a mild version of a Jekyll and Hyde role. You have them doing the enforcing and the friendly touch out of the same department. I think it's contradictory, but as I say, I'm now less confident in the citizen appointee model because our last meeting approved something that had no business going forward. It was something calling itself a variance that was not a variance. That's a whole other long story. But I ended up being the one dissenting vote, and serial votes on that item moved toward approval of something that just should not have happened. So, but my reason for voting, though, had to do with the planning training. And, you know, I have the same training as your development folks there, but they're way ahead of me on experience. I have the textbook side. So I knew that this should not go forward. So the citizen model failed in that case. But having the one professional head there would have stopped it if I were more than one vote, but I haven't got a kind of tier-ready power yet. So, and I want to thank, what's your name? I'm sorry. Pardon my pointing finger. Mr. Barish, Mr. Barish. You are very interesting at having a meeting. You're really, really refreshing. Thank you. Throw the book and that's cool. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Anyone else? All right, a couple of great compliments. I agree. I believe our staff does use all of their efforts to try to help folks understand what is a very complex thing. So, all right, any more discussions, commissioners? Okay. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Submissions and yes. Okay. Mr. Barish, thank you. Jeff, thank you. Appreciate that. All right, moving on to the next item on our agenda. I forget if I put this on or not y'all. I think we all asked for it. Yeah, joint meeting agendas. And I think there's, Michelle, did you have anything specific on this? Y'all wanted to talk about some of the things you want to bring up at joint meetings. We have one suggestion that as staff we would like to bring up at the joint meetings, but you want us to bring that up first? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you have? I'm going to let Missy. I'm putting her on the spot. Sounds like it's bad. She's having Missy do it. Welcome to the firing squad. So one of the things that we, and Missy can answer questions, I mean, one of the things that we made an effort at in the past, and it did not go anywhere, but I think the time is right to make the effort again. And I think if we do it from a board-to-board discussion, we may have more success, and that is to go back to a discussion of joint planning agreements with all the municipalities, particularly because of roads. Because of what? Roads. I think we really need to address the road issues between us. There are some other ancillary issues that become part of that, such as annexation, that can be part of the JPAs. If the board recalls, I don't remember when we did, we did an initiating resolution some time ago, and nobody really bit on that, but we believe that there are some municipalities that may have an interest now, and if we're going to do it, we may as well have that discussion with all of them, particularly where MTPO is now countywide. I think there may be some willingness to go that route. But in talking about it as staff, we thought that maybe it would be a better discussion if it was between the board and the boards of the municipalities, and so that staff could get some direction from there, if that's what they wanted them to do. Patricia, what do you all think? It's a good idea. No, it's good. It's good. I mean, actually, some of the things that I had were joint planning. It was bike and pedestrian plan, and MTPO was on my agenda for all of the municipalities for us to just serve. So I think it makes a lot of sense to have us presenting some of those things and sort of have that as a lead-in to why we think a joint planning agreement is a good idea and the opportunity to explore that with their staff makes a lot of sense. So I think we leave with transportation, is what I'm kind of hearing. Yeah, leaving with transportation. Also, economic development. I think we have, we're now the EDO for the county. I was hoping we could bring that up and talk a little bit about some of the strategies we have and let them know that we want to coordinate with them on their efforts around economic development so we don't have so many conflicts with decision-making, like a bunch of distribution centers at Tarifar Roads, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, and we're talking to staff from some of the cities now, the first one will be City of Alachua in a few weeks, towards the end of the month, just about coordination, since they have an all-new staff there, we're starting there, but some of that may be able to be put in the JPA too, like a lot of the stuff that Steve and his office do, and those coordination type things and processes and how we interact before things get to your level as staff so that we make sure we're going through everything. But we could create like kind of a summary sheet for you to be able to use at those meetings of what we think that would be accomplished. That's a great idea. I think you're hearing everyone's agreeing. Mary, did you want to add? I was just going to add something completely different, which was, are we going to, is it going to be too early to get sort of a summary or an update on the East Alachua County Forward Focus project? Forward Focus. I've had interest from other parts of the county. We're actually bringing you one at the second January meeting. Okay, but I'm here for the joint meetings because I think that other parts of the county are interested in the work that we did there and what we found out as well, not just Hawthorne and Waldo. Yes, as long as they're not scheduled between now and your second meeting in January. I'm not sure. That's a big lift for staff. Yeah, I don't want to, yeah, I just didn't know where you were with that. Once we get, oh, the presentation we're working on for you for the second meeting in January will be perfect to farm out to others as well. And I think there'll be a bigger discussion on the East side of the county, but I think the rest of the county was curious. I mean, we can ask. I'd say maybe it's a smaller version of it, but we could send the presentation and we'll certainly be at the meetings and can talk about it. Yeah, okay. Is that for all municipalities or you only want the East side of the municipality? No, I've gotten questions from municipalities that are not part of it or perfectly part of it. I think when we have the discussion in the second meeting in January, from there we can then discuss if we want to continue with that in other areas of the county once that's done. I think we have to finish, let's finish that, which is a year, still a year out. Right, right. We're just getting in the middle of year two and then we had year three as our plan. I think they just want an update, you know, just like here's the thing we're doing, here's why we're doing it, and here's, you know, kind of where we're at. I'm not talking about like here's the finished project kind of deal. I do joint planning agreements with staff to discuss transportation, economic development, really incorporating EPD into the whole process so that we're on the front end versus the back end. I think that's all good. What else, Commissioner? So I have under JPS, the discussion of joint planning, I have things, transportation, MTPO, bike ped, economic development, and EPD. Did I miss something? That's good. Okay. That's a lot. I mean, I mean, it's also a good time to talk about the charter amendment of having things not administratively approved, but having them, where we had that issue, that's coming back to us, haven't come back to us yet. Or what you're talking about, what are we talking about? So right now, the municipalities have the ability to administratively review things under the charter amendment, and that's where we got into the Little Creek stuff. And so we had asked staff to bring back a change to that policy, and I don't know where we are on that. When we're talking about roads, can we talk about impact fees? The lack of, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that could be part of the JPA, and I think that the nice thing would be to be able to have that. Just, just... Yeah, that's part of what we would want to discuss with transportation, because there is an ability to reach an agreement where if their development is going to place an impact on our roadway network right now, this municipality receives those impact fees, those transportation impact fees. We don't, but it may solely, in some cases, solely be our road that gets the impact. Okay. Yeah, I just... So that's been a discussion we've had with municipalities in the past. There's been some resistance, but now because we've got all this growth and all this road use, particularly with the trucks and everybody's... Yeah, the only thing I had thought about globally for the specific meetings was we will be done with legislative session in the middle of March. Right. And so whatever of the seven bills gets passed and signed that's going to be on the ballot, I think it needs to be an item that we discuss and ask them how they've thought about the impact of that. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. So to that, LaToya tells me our first meeting is scheduled this year for February 9th with Archer, which is earlier than we typically, I think, do them. Usually, I think it's April, May, June time. Yeah, that's the only one that's before the end of session. All the rest are in April. Okay. And I think Archer wanted to meet earlier because of what's going on with their... That's cool. Okay, so we won't know that specifically. And then secondly, and if, you know, Celia needs to chime in, but if something is signed by the governor, we have to be very careful what we say and how we say it because we are no longer, once it is, once something is signed so that it will appear on the ballot... You can't advocate. No, you can't. We never could advocate. The law changed in, I believe it was 22 or 23, but we also can no longer educate. Educate. Yeah, so my perspective, it's not about talking to the citizens. It's about talking to the administrator and the elected officials about how are you preparing your budget this year in anticipation of this maybe passing or not passing. We will be... Because we're doing zero-based budgeting, theoretically, from the ground up, assuming that whatever is going to pass is going to pass and that we're able to prepare for it. I just want to have the same discussion with our municipalities who heavily rely on that to learn. We can do that. Yeah. I don't think anything will be signed by... What do you mean? I don't think anything will... Oh, it'll be passed the legislature but not signed by the governor. Got it. I don't think anything will be finalized. Yeah, I agree. Let's sign on in June. Okay. Yeah. And you had something else? For High Springs and Newberry, I was hoping we could have the rail trail on the agenda just so we can see are they interested in contributing, like how are the conversations going with them and FTC. And then I had development and impact fee, development and impacts and fees so that can all get rolled into that conversation about the JPA. And then Mr. Tuttle's item for Alachua. Alachua. Yesterday, yeah, the distribution center. So you missed it but we had a presentation by a citizen at the MTPO about an alternate truck route. So for Alachua, you want... I'm sorry, I missed that. Yeah, it was 235, Alt... 235. County Road, 235, Alt... 235, A2, right. Okay. Hawthorne, an update on their industrial park plan that they're partnering with now that it's... We've done our side of approvals, just interested to get an update on what's happening with that industrial park. That's right. I mean... Yeah, no, that's good. We need to have it on their... Yeah. I'm surprised that the mayor hasn't come forward yet to share with the board what it is. I've been waiting for her to do it rather than me. Waldo, I don't... I just... I know that they had a bunch of improvements to their road. They're still having issues, it sounds like, with traffic. I just... I feel like we hear, like, these dribs and drabs in Waldo. Also, I don't know that we've approved their Wild Spaces Public Places project for Waldo. If we haven't gotten something back, then probably not. Okay. I mean, that was kind of a note I had, generally speaking, as Wild Spaces Public Places. So, Waldo, you want to update on traffic? Well, I just wanted to know how it's going with the upgrades from, you know... But if we're talking about MPO anyway, it'll probably come up. But I was just interested to know how things are going with the DOT improvements to 24. Because they were going to do one thing, and then the community came back and said no, and now they've got a very different thing. So, I'm just interested. And then, I guess I was interested in, like, Alto. Because originally, Wild Spaces Public Places was going to do... Like, they were going to be doing a dock and, like, some improvements at the end of that road that is not very accessible, like, to get out to. So, I was just kind of interested in what... If they are doing that with Wild Spaces Public Places. Why don't I get an update out to the board in general on the Wild Spaces agreements... That'd be great. ...and where all those stay in. That way, you'll know. That would be great. So, if we need to bring up any of those... That'd be great. ...at those individual meetings, we'll know. Gina keeps a running track of what they've said they want to do, whether we've got an agreement from them, and whether they've done it, that kind of thing. Okay. And then, Archer, I know fiscal, obviously, and, like, what's the update with all of the stuff that they're dealing with, but I also, I feel like it's... And maybe, again, this could come up during the JPA conversation, but I feel like it's ripe for a conversation around their comp plan and development review processes with this concrete plan and other things that have been happening in Archer. It seems like there's not a lot of oversight or support for how they're approving and managing... That's right. They don't have any staff, and it's just like... So, again, this JPA process might be that conversation, so we can just let that play out the way it does. But those were my notes. McEnope Fire Department update, maybe, what's happening down in McEnope. Okay. Anything else on joint meetings? I don't know if we need to wait even, but, you know, what's going on at the Eastside Clinic, the development around that area. I think, was there's a bus loop that's... Or a bus center that's supposed to be in... Coming in to play in February? It's a bus depot. It's like a full... Evidently, there's a new tent city out there now. My adopted daughter works out there at that clinic, and she keeps me posted as to the activity that's going on there. She's been there for about three months now. And, yeah, she says it's really uncomfortable to walk around in that area now because there's a whole new... There's about 30 encampments out there. So, you know... Well, we could refer that to our mobile outreach group and see if they could do some outreach to those areas and see if we can get those people some support. Got that, Michelle? All right. Any public discussion from joint meetings? Thank you, Mom. No, this is about joint meetings, but that's next. Oh, oh. Well, let's say that right there. Okay, we'll close that. Now it is. Yes. We'll have public comment, open public comment. Thank you. And I just wanted to return to that idea I was talking about, that DRC... I can imagine a DRC that has maybe Jeff and Ivy and three citizen appointees. So you'd have the professional balance, plus you'd have some more of a public perspective. And if you guys would at least study that idea, consider the pros and cons of all three models, hybrid, all citizens, or all staff. We've done that. And maybe if you would consider it, the city... I might be able to persuade the city to copycat and consider it, too. I think both sides of the street need that adjustment. And I just want to thank you again on the minor development thing, because there's no reason that your development code should be a welfare program for a bundle of professions. And they'll make it without you doing that. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. All right. Is there any desire in this board to refer to staff to look at DRC? I mean, I'm really happy right now. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, I think we've done that. But this board, not in my time here, but many previously, we had a citizen-based one. Like, we've kind of had a lot of models, and we've looked at them before. And I feel like there's problems with all those situations and political influence. I feel like it makes sense to have professionals reviewing, and I think they're doing a good job. Yeah, I'd rather get through kind of these improvements, see how that goes for a minute. And then if that doesn't work and we need to go through a hybrid model, that would be a step. I'm not really in favor of a full citizen model for the reasons that we got away from that in the past. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Kelly. That's you for it. All right. Let's move to any other public. All right. Let's move to the commission comments. Chuck, you got anything? All right. Anna? I do. I asked this last year, and I'm going to ask it again. I really feel like we should not have a commission meeting during spring break. Like, UF has now aligned their spring break with the school spring break. Like, we have – it's like a time when a lot of our staff are out, their kids are off school. Is that the first or second meeting of March? It is the – it's actually not. It's a special budget meeting on the 17th of March is what we have right now. So if we were able to move that to either, you know, the first – I think we can move a special budget meeting. Because we have a special meeting technically scheduled for the 3rd, so if we could put it on that 3rd special meeting instead of on the 17th. Or we could do it on the 2nd meeting with that. Or we could do it on the 20th. Right. All right. So does anyone object to Michelle rescheduling that calendar budget – that calendar special budget meeting? I don't know. So your request actually is for us to not have any public – My request is that we don't have public meetings during spring break. Like that it becomes sort of – Moving forward. Moving forward. That it becomes sort of commission – not a full commission break, but that we're not holding public meetings. Because our community is gone. Staff are gone. It just seems so. I hear a second. Second. Any discussion? Any public discussion? Back to the board. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All right. We've got direction. Michelle, let's work around that. That'd be good for staff, too. Yeah. That's good. Mayor Helen, can I say? Just very quickly, you know, I've worked on the lakes up in High School. High Springs, since before I came on the board, that went by the wayside. But we still have access – Talking about the pit. Up in High Springs, right. You know, the Lime Rock pits. Lime Rock pits. They've gone back into operation now, and all that beautiful site has been re-destroyed. But we still have access to the cemetery if we want it. And, you know, somebody was going to be looking into that as to who or how they are willing to give it to the county. We can pass it along to the church if we – you know, whatever. I just didn't know if this board is in the interest. That is the one piece of that property that I can still have access to if we want it. We just need to know if we're as interested in this. It's Historic Black Cemetery. The last time it was surveyed was back in 2015. If you can – you'll look up on Desolation Florida website. It will have it listed there. Do we have other cemeteries? Because we don't, but it would be given to us that we could re-gift to somebody if that is what we want to do. Well, who would we re-gift it to? I just want to understand that. To a church. To a church. Byron Williams. Maybe I would talk to, like, Mrs. Mabel Blake. Okay. Because her family is buried in that cemetery also. Okay. All right. I think Byron Williams may have some. And I believe it was her uncle or somebody was a minister, and he's buried out there too. That makes sense. It might make more sense for us to help facilitate it just being gifted to that church directly. Well, see, that's – That's what I would – Rather than us taking it and then passing it along. Okay. I just didn't want to leave it hanging out there because it's been offered. Do I refer that to staff to just look into and forward to – Well, I think we've had that referred. Yes. And an email went to the board October 10th. Yes. On October 10th, it has some general information about the cemetery itself. But is the cemetery considered abandoned? Well, it's a piece of this property that the mine is leased. But they have also agreed with the landowners. But the condition of it the last time I saw it looked like it was abandoned. It needs to be weeded a little bit. But I've walked it, yeah. And I walked it last year. It's not horrible. It's not horrible. Not horrible, but it's getting there. A church group could go in there and spend a day and probably get it in pretty good order. You know, or maybe a weekend. Yeah. Maybe a weekend. But I guess I can get in touch with former Commissioner Byron Williams and see, because I know he was real interested in that at one time, too. Oh, good idea. Because I know what they're trying to do statewide is to find these historic black cemeteries, you know, and give them the care. I know the state gives funding to keep them maintained. Right. There's opportunities out there. It's just a matter of finding the right people to hand it off to. That's all. Okay. That makes sense. So, yeah. I'm not saying that we should have it. To be overseas, right. Yeah. But if they're willing to give it to us, then maybe we could filter it back to somebody else if that's easier for them to give it to the county. I would rather us facilitate a direct gift to a nonprofit or a church, because I feel like the paperwork of us taking land and then us donating land is a lot for, like, our legal team and our staff to deal with. That's what I'm thinking, too. But. So, if we can facilitate a direct gift to. I'll get in touch with us. Plus, then it's, like, not the government taking a family. It's very box. Okay. Well, then I take it off the county's hands, and I'll just try to. Well, I'll refer to that on October 10th email and get with Byron. Yeah. That'll be information in there. Yeah, I will. Okay. All right. Anything else? Thank you. No. I think that's it. Oh, no, no. It isn't. We got this thing from WastePro, and right then they were talking about the research on tourism waste. Do we know anything about that? Have we were included in that at all? Because we have a lot of tourism here in. What it is, it says that Orlando Division recently partnered with the University of Florida to assist students in obtaining samples for a project focused on tourism waste division. Do you know about it? No. Well, I was just going to say our waste division, I do know that our waste division almost partners with Tim Townsend and the team at UF all the time to do waste audits with us. So I don't know that we've done a tourism-specific waste audit, but they do specific waste audits. I'm just curious as to why they didn't partner with us or that we weren't included in that somehow. It's a specific project that Orlando, you can- Or Orlando. Different cities and counties reach out to him, and he reaches out to people to do specific audits as a part of teaching students how to do waste audits. And because Orlando, I mean, we have a lot of tourism in nothing like Orlando, and because Orlando is so intense with the theme parks and everything, I think they wanted to probably be able to potentially pass on some of those impact fees to some of those larger tourism operators, so they wanted to do the audit is what I- Seems like we could use some of that, too. No, I'm always looking for the eco-loop, too, because that's another project that came on right as I was coming on the board that seems, you know, to have kind of- Because I, over the holiday, I took some things, yard trash out, too. La Vida Brown, which is my favorite thing to do. I love to go out there. But I was following trailers and trailers of good stuff that was being taken to put in the dump there. And I don't know if there's any way that we can restrict or redirect or, you know, there's no- There's a pile of place that people can salvage from. They just don't- I think they just are- don't want to- I don't want to say people are lazy. I think that we just get single-minded, put it to take it and take it to the dump, you know, but if we could somehow redirect that stuff. And I know at one time we were talking about- Well, we were talking about- A processing. We were. We were talking about having a full MRF. Yes. And having a materials recovery facility for bulky waste. Well, boy, we could set up a shop with what I saw go. And we have a full feasibility study that we funded that Reuse Project and Repurpose Project did around that idea. I don't know that we've gotten the full- I know we got emailed that report and some of those results, but I don't know that it's, like, pushed forward in terms of us funding that or any private industry stepping up. Because I do think probably if we're going to do something like a MRF, it's going to take public investment in the infrastructure in order for a company to want to be able to operate it. Because, you know, you make the money on the individual units that you separate and sell. But, like, the ability to make the capital for that- Could have opened a shop with what I saw going into that. Yeah. You know, but even signage or something that says, you know, the Repurpose Project or take it here or, you know, or have our people, I don't know if we sort it there. Do we sort it as it goes in? No, it just goes all the same. Unless it's in the landfill, it's in the landfill. That's what the MRF would have done. That's what the MRF does. A MRF is a sorting facility. The MRF would accelerate it out and then things that are reusable send them either to the Repurpose Project or some other. Yeah, they have these- It's, like, giant, and you have, like, areas where they dump it and then they sort it. And some of them are, like, reused right away. Some are disassembled and reused and, like, recycled pieces. It'd be great jobs for a whole lot of people, you know. And the big warehouse out on 53rd past the shelter is for sale or lease. And it's a huge warehouse. It's not really. It's not. We had that discussion. Because that would have been a great place to dump that stuff and sort it, you know. It's not there, but it's not really for sale. It's not, okay. There's also, like, to do a MRF, there's, like, a lot of regulatory requirements in terms of, like, how it gets built. And usually they're big, giant, like, open. So trucks can, like, drive in and they have big sorting bays and facilities. And, I mean, Florence was doing some of that on their, one of their sites with some of the construction materials. We've had, like, mini MRFs in town from time to time. The reuse project is kind of a mini one, but. We have a dual stream MRF that we use for our recycling that we get. Right. Our aluminum and paper. Yeah. So I think it's just, it's a matter of maybe revisiting that conversation about, like, our. . . But I think they're going to be bringing back some stuff around EcoLoop anyway, right? Correct. We're going to be talking. . . So maybe when we talk about that, we can. . . That would be the time for it. That would be the time. Okay. Because it hurt my Scottish blood, I'm telling you, to see all that stuff go in there. Well, it's frustrating because you've got this gap between students graduating and moving away and the next group of students moving in. And if we could overlap that gap, which is hard to do during the public days. Well, we just funded somebody to do that. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. We just funded a part of a small grant that we gave was to a company that's actually trying to address that issue. And they're interrupting at the major apartment complexes that cycle and gathering all that stuff and then, like, reselling it. There was one, and we gave it to both of them. Yeah. That's right. That was right. Yeah. So one of them is working on that. I remember they're picking up the organics now, which is a big thing. It's a good thing, except the. . . No, this is stuff. Education, though, is part of it. Education is part of what we are talking about here because we do provide the opportunities for people. So, for example, at our, even at our rural collection centers, there are sections for people to place items that they don't want to throw away, but they want to leave for the next person who may drive up and say, oh, I need that suitcase or, you know, whatever, a box of hangers or whatever may be there. And so we do have that. It's just a matter of educating people that we do have those opportunities. I dropped off a pump that was, when I bought the house that I live on now, that was pulling water out of the lake. I dropped that pump. We took the irrigation out of our yard. We dropped that pump off, and someone had it. It was picked it up as I was dropping it off. Yeah. Yeah. I would have brought that. No, if we could do that, it's just a matter of taking time. And I know there's a dumpster right now of 16th that's loaded, one of the big ones, and I could see two big glass front china cabinets sticking out of each. And I'm thinking about that. And that's all that Reuse and Army Purpose partners have been focused on for years and years and years. And they just think, you know, until we have, we being our county, not necessarily we, the county government, but, like, until Alachua County, whether it's private or public, has a MRF where people can, instead of going to landfill and dumping it, they have one place that they can just go, and they can drop off their stuff, and it can get filtered. Yes, it's reusable. Yes, it's recyclable. Yes, it's deconstructible. Like, it's going to keep being like that. I mean, there's just no way, like, we just don't have to make it easy for people. You have to make it easy for people. If it's not easy for them, then they're going to do the easiest thing. No, you're right. They're leaving to go out of town in their apartment. Let's see if these two pilot projects work out, and then that will be the time to talk about. All right. Anything else, Mary Ellen? No, sir. Thank you. I just have one thing. The projects list that we get in our mailbox every month or so, I just got it. I wanted to make a request that we add on there the date of the motion to put it on there because we have so many things that have been on there for kind of a long time, and if we could just add the date that it was put in place, because not all of them have deadlines. You've got the deadlines on there, you know, when that was part of the motion, but we also assign deadlines. Okay, and you assign deadlines, but we have so many that don't have a date on them. I just kind of would like to keep track of, like, when the motion was made, how long it's been on there. We can do that. We have that field, I think, as a matter of, you know, we were trying to fit it in. Yeah, you might have to make it landscape. So, but we'll get that in there. Okay, yeah, it would just be helpful for me because I had a bunch of motions on there, and I'm like, when was that? I was trying to put things into perspective. Yeah, I mean, it also could just get emailed, and then it doesn't have to be. Right, that would also be fine. And then it could be however big. Anything else? That's it. The only thing I have, Michelle, is at the MTPO meeting, I brought up paratransit and transportation disadvantaged. It's going to be on the February 2nd MTPO agenda. And, Jeff, did you have any – congratulations, Jeff, on getting out of the plan. Yeah. Did you have any update on kind of where we are? When's that coming back to us? Mr. Chair, yeah, I've spoken with MV Transportation and I've spoken with the city, and I've spoken with our procurement staff on what we need to do. It was really a contract amendment with MV when the dominoes start falling. So we have a plan to bring back to you. It may probably be in the February meeting. First meeting, February. So it will be after the MTPO. This is the 27th of January. Oh, is that on there? It says 127. Okay. So I guess we'll discuss it on either 127 or the first meeting of February. I did have one thing that I forgot, and that is before my time, when Hutch was still on the board, I believe, and Sadie was sheriff, we kind of made a pact with the sheriff's office not to use mugshots and photographs of individuals and sort of create what I consider to be a shaming campaign around people and their potential crimes when they haven't been convicted. And since then, it's sort of crept back into practice. You brought that up last time, sheriff. I brought it up again, and I brought it up directly. So at this point, I'm asking if we could send a chair letter to the sheriff requesting that they not use mugshots and photographs of non-convicted criminals in their social media and press release. So what I remember the sheriff saying when you brought it up and they were here was that... They said they only did really violent people. Yeah, they actually do, they have reduced, and they are only putting up mugshots of folks that they believe it's important for the community to know, and that's a judgment call. Yeah, I guess I just... It's not how it's happening. It's not how it's happening, and I just, I guess I generally don't agree with the practice. I mean, I understand that there's a discrepancy here of a matter of opinion, but I feel like we're trying to create an innocent until proven guilty, and, like, we run court services, and we support victim advocacy. I just feel like there's a lot of problems, and so far, I mean, what I'm seeing on their social media is not just... And maybe those people have multiple charges, and this is just their latest charge, but... Marijuana charge. Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of marijuana charges. I'm seeing a lot of non-violent crimes being, you know, being kind of put on social media with people's mugshots. What would the chair letter say? It would ask them to cease the practice of using mugshots and photographs of non-convicted criminals on their social media and in press releases. I mean, that's pretty much all they're having. It's like their new social media campaign is, like, to just put up people's mugshots with, like, their charges. And some of them obviously have mental health issues, too, like the guy that sent the homeless camp, you know, campsites on fire. Right. It's like, I mean... I suppose, again, yeah. So I guess I was just hoping that we would ask them to stop doing that. Did we have that agreement with her? We once upon a time, they stopped, and I know that it was a conversation with the board and the sheriff's office to stop doing that practice, and it was ceased, and it's just sort of, like, crept back in, and I think it's... You could just say that we've had, in the past, we've had this policy, you know, because we've re-implemented it. Yeah, my only issue is, without hearing their side of it, I hate to kind of send a chair letter with our, like, our request. But I understand, but, you know, I'm just one of five, so if three of you want to do that, I'm happy to sign whatever letter is put in front of me. Well, you call and ask him. I guess I would move that we send a chair letter asking them to cease the practice of using mugshots for non-convicted criminals and their potential charges on social media and in press releases. I'll second that question. Okay, we got a second. Any public discussion? Come on up. Just say non-convicted defendants. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, they're not criminals. You know what I mean. Non-convicted defendants. Well, they're... Yes, they're not a convicted criminal. I was putting those two words together. They're not a convicted criminal. No, they are. You were looking for the right word. I could see you looking for it. Yeah. Okay, we got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you for bringing that up. All opposed? Nay. And motion passes 4-1 with Cornell on the side. Thank you. Anything else? Okay, then I think our next meeting is next Tuesday, and we are adjourned. All right, thank you. Good meeting.