Good afternoon. The speeding of the Community Development Board is called to order at 1 p.m. on March 17th. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone. Welcome, everyone. Please rise and join me in the education followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Father, thank you for this day and for the opportunity to serve the people of Clearwater. Help us remember the responsibility we carry and the trust that has been placed upon us. Grant us wisdom today in all of our decisions as we work to improve our community and the lives we live within. Bless each member of this board and guide us as we strive to build a future marked by fairness and integrity in all that we do. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. This board consists of seven members and one alternate who are appointed by the city council and serve voluntarily. I am Michael Bootscrest, and I will ask the other members and the staff to use themselves, beginning on my left. Andy Hart, O'Brien Holderport, Mike Mastrosario, Erica Agelo, Rosemary Call, City Clerk, Matt Minich, Assistant City Attorney, Ted Kozak, Planning and Development, Lauren Madske, Planning and Development, Diane Aginelli, Kurt Heinrichs, Michelle Chenault, Andrew Hupp. Please remember to turn off your cell phones so that they do not become a distraction during the meeting. Please also refrain from having conversations in this room so that we might hear all the testimony given today. To ensure a complete record of this board's actions, we ask that each individual wishing to speak, including the applicant, speaking to the microphone at the podium in front of us, clearly state your name and spell your last name for the clerk. Now we'll ask all those in attendance today who plan to speak to please rise and be sworn in by the clerk. Thank you. Agendas of today's meeting are on the podium to your left near the entry door. Also on this podium are our roster of the Community Development Board, the list of staff experts, city staff experts on their resumes, the board's rules procedure, and the annual schedule of this board. Our first order of business is to review and approve the minutes from last month's meeting. May I have a motion to approve the minutes? Motion to approve the minutes from last month. Second. Second. Motion made and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. Next, items not on the agenda. Is there any person wishing to address the board today concerning any matter that does not appear on today's agenda? Seeing none, this board has adopted a consent agenda format, and the consent items are identified as such on the agenda. Consent agenda items are those items for which the Planning and Development Department recommends approval, and the applicant is in agreement with any proposed conditions. Please note that written comments to the case that have been received today do not result in action being removed from the consent agenda. Items may be removed from the consent agenda today only by a member of the board, a member of the staff, or any person in the audience for questions or objections. I will read each item on the consent agenda, and if any person wishes to remove this item from the consent agenda, please so state or raise your hand, and we will remove it from the consent agenda. Items removed from the consent agenda will be heard in the regular order of the meeting. Items that remain on the consent agenda will be approved with a single vote as to each type of hearing. Today's agenda includes two items on the consent agenda. First is FLD 2025-12029, a flexible development for approval of an existing 4,776-square-foot commercial dock and marine facility, an accessory to 60-unit overnight accommodations in a tourist district. The building does not exceed 80 feet in height and includes 84 off-street parking spaces, and it requests flexibility for a commercial dock and marine facility. Does anybody wish to have item 4.1, FLD 2025-12029 removed from the consent agenda? Seeing none. The next item on the consent agenda, sorry I'm having difficulty speaking today. I have not started with the green beer early, I promise you, is LUP 2025-11004, an amendment to the future land use map designation from residential urban to residential medium. This is a level 3 application. Does anyone wish to have LUP 2025-11004 removed from the consent agenda? We do have somebody raising their hand to have that removed. That's fine. We'll remove that one from the consent agenda, so we'll only look for a motion as to FLD 2025-12029, which was a level 2 application. Do I have a motion to approve on the consent agenda? Move to approve case number FLD 2025-12029. No, wait, not the wrong one. 0129. On today's consent agenda, based on the evidence and the record, including the application and the staff reports and hereby adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law stated in the staff reports with conclusions of approval as listed. I move to approve case number FLD 2025-12029 on today's consent agenda, based on the evidence of record, including the application and the staff report, and hereby adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law stated in the staff reports with the conditions of approval as listed. Do I have a second? I'll second it. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion carries. So now we'll hear in the regular course of the meeting a level 3 case. Make sure I get my procedures correct here. All level 3 cases, such as a plan amendment, rezoning, or development agreement, are considered legislative hearings. The Community Development Board reviews the application, the staff report, correspondence, and all evidence presented today and makes a recommendation to the City Council. For level 3 applications, the City Council makes the final decision. The procedure for all level 3 cases is as follows. Presentation by planning staff, 10 minutes. Presentation by the applicant, 10 minutes. Comments by the public, 3 minutes per person. Closing remarks by the planning and development staff, 3 minutes maximum. Closing remarks by the applicant, 3 minutes maximum. And then closing of the public hearing and discussion and vote by the board. Our level 3 case for today is LUP 2025-11004. Who is going to be presenting that to us? Afternoon, counsel. Adrian Young, plan development. Reading LUP 2025-11004-2446, Nursery Road. This case involves a property consisting of one 0.4-acre parcel located on the north end of Nursery Road. The property is owned and operated as an assistant living facility by Lantern Senior Care Air LC. The request is to amend the future non-use map designation on the property from residential urban, as seen on the slide, to residential medium. The max density in residential urban is 7.5 dwelling units per acre, and the max density in residential medium is 15 units per acre. In this case, for an assistant living facility, 3 beds are equal to a unit. The present medium density residential zoning district is consistent with both RU and RM for 2019's designations. And the purpose of this request is to achieve an increase in allowed bed space. This amendment would allow for an increase from 9 beds to 18 beds. Because the proposed amendment would increase the bed count, the proposed amendment would increase, also increase the demand on several public facilities. However, it has been determined that the proposed change will not result in degradation of existing facilities when it comes to public water, sanitary, wastewater, salt waste, parkland, stormwater management in the streets. Again, as detailed in our staff report, the proposed amendment is consistent with the Community Development Code and Comprehensive Plan. The proposed amendment is consistent with, incompatible with surrounding future land uses and the use of the property. And staff recommends approval of the proposed amendment from future land use map from residential urban category to the residential medium category. I'm here for any questions. Any questions? So by adding these extra beds, are they modifying the building? No, sir. Is this thing on? Okay. So what I'm asking is, by changing this, are they changing the building itself? They're just adding beds? Hi, I'm Mercy Stenmark, Long Range Planning Manager. So at this time, this is a land use plan amendment to change the map, the future land use map. They may choose to make changes to their building in the future through a permitting process. We are not aware of that, but we do know that they wish to have, they are using it as an assisted living facility, and they would wish to continue to do so with additional beds. All right. So that's a future possible future. They could possibly change the building, but they would be subject to the land development code and the permitting process. Thank you. At this stage, it's a map amendment. Yes. And not any actual use that would change until they take further steps. That's correct. These are changes, it's just an increase in bed space. What prompted this land use amendment? Well, the outcomes are going to be their presentation. They probably can address that through their presentation, I think. Oh, it was through the applicant. It wasn't through the city. It was privately initiated. Does anybody have any other questions of staff, or do we want to hear from the applicant? Then let's go ahead and hear from the applicant. Thank you. We're taking the time to listen to you. Please state your full name and spell your last name, please. Byron, by the way, V-E-R-W-E-I-J. I'm the administrator for Linton. Why don't you put the microphone so we can hear you? Point a little bit more at your mouth. There you go. Perfect. Well, I can say perfect. Sorry, I'm not used to this. That's okay. Okay. Arend Ferwe, V-E-R-W-E-I-J. I'm the administrator for Linton Senior Care, assisted living facilities. We are currently operating that in the current building, Linton Senior Care. We have a license for 12 beds, which is already above the allowed usage because I was grandfathered in from the past. It has been there for about 30 years. So we're already at 12 beds right now. And the zoning change would allow us 18 beds, total max. The current building would actually support that. The ACA license, size requirements, bathroom requirements would support that within the current structure if you want to. One of the reasons we're trying to expand is because we have a limited mental health license. In Clearwater, there are 28 assisted living facilities. Only three have a limited mental health license. So we deal with mainly mental health residents. There is zero in Largo and zero in Dunedin. So there's only three in here. And combined with I think we do a good level of service, we pretty much always fully occupied and get lots of requests for additional help in that space. Show you how well our residents are doing, our current 12 residents. One moved in this year, one moved in last year. The other 10 have been there two or more years. Longest resident has been there for 10 years actually. So we get regular basic weekly calls from parties, especially in the mental health license. I'll have a letter, I don't know if you've seen it, from Clearwater Effect Team, which is a mental health resource center operating in Clearwater Effect Team in Clearwater. Can I read that? Is that? Yeah? Yes, you can read it. Okay. I'm writing from the Clearwater Effect Team to share my support for the hopeful expansion of Lenten Senior Care at 2446 Nursery Road in Clearwater. Aaron recently informed our team with attention to apply with the city to expand the number of beds at the facility. And I wanted to offer a perspective from the community-based mental health side. We work with many individuals in need of assigned living placement, including people living state hospitals and others in the local community who rely on stable housing and daily support. Over the years, our team has consistently seen how limited these placements can be, especially for people with serious mental health needs. Whenever we work with Lenten Senior Care, the experience has been very positive. Staff are attentive, patient, and generally invested in the well-being of the residents. Clients we have placed there tend to do well, and the communication with their team and ours has been open and easy. Besides the need for dependable assisted living options in Clearwater continues to grow, I believe that expanding this facility will be a real benefit to the city and to the people we serve. Additional beds would help us address a clear shortage and would give more individuals the chance to live in a supportive, caring environment. For this reason, the Clearwater Effect Team supports expansion of Lenten Senior Care. Feel free to reach out to me. Further information would be helpful. Sincerely, Andrea Morrow, and she's in charge of the Clearwater Effect Team. So, as far as the children, there's a clear need for what we do. In terms of complaints of our residential neighbors, as long as the three years I've been running as an administrator, I have not had a single complaint for our neighbors about what we do in any face or form. Employment, we have eight people, licensed people on staff. Only one of them lives outside of Clearwater. Everybody else lives in Clearwater, and we're trying to expand it because we like the fact that people can respond if we need responses from our staff on a fast and quick basis. One last thing, which kind of my wife likes me to tell you guys, is we develop our yard as a permaculture garden, meaning self-sustaining, where most of what we plant is edible, usable in our current environment. It's the same concept as a church next door. They operate a beacon food forest where they try to teach the people how to do sustainable gardening and try to supply food for the community. And we actually have the same gardener as they use. We hired them to come and help us develop our yards the same way. And our residents are helping with it, too, and they really enjoyed it. So thank you for your attention, and we hope to continue to doing this for a long time because we really enjoy what we do, and we have very good people. Okay. Does anybody have any questions of the applicants? Yeah, do. Is this a mentally ill institution or mentally challenged? No, it's an assisted living facility with a limited mental health license. But for mentally ill patients or mentally challenged? Most of our residents have mental health issues, 95% of mental health issues. Okay. That doesn't mean they don't need some assistance also with showers or whatever, but it also means our age group is very wide because we don't really have a minimum age because we focus on mental health. So our youngest actually right now is 33, and our oldest is 79. And we have six males, six females. So that's not by design, but it kind of worked out that way. And how long has the facility been in service? I think about 40 years, 40 years, 1976 or something. Yeah, it has been there for a long time. And as this type of facility? When we took it over, there was a limited mental health license already on it, yeah, and we continue to apply for that and train, special training and special fees and all of that, yeah. But, yeah, we continue to keep doing that because we enjoy helping the people we do. Anybody else have any questions of the applicants? Okay, thank you. If you have any other questions, we'll check with you in a few moments. Okay. Thank you. Now for public comment. Anybody from the public wishing to come and address this matter today? Please state your name and spell your last name for the clerk. Sure. My name is Mark Gerenbaum, B-I-R-E-N-E-A-U-M. I'm a resident of Clearwater for over 47 years. I raised my family, and my wife and I just celebrated 60 years of marriage. Congratulations. I'm here to be on behalf of 16 residents that signed this document that I will give to the clerk, voting no to the ordinance 98, 64, 25. These 16 residents, because of this being a week of vacation, most of them, 95% of them, could not attend, only a few. But the Community Development Board needs to know that these 16 signatures on these two pages all voted no to this ordinance being passed. We have seen over the years wrong information being conveyed to the public and to the city. So I, as a citizen, am recommending that this motion, this ordinance, not be accepted based upon the signatures of 16 people, 16 residents, that live within the nursery road area, which I have lived in, which is between Belcher and 19, called Rose Street Court. Rose Street Court has been there since 1979. I have seen growth, traffic, accidents, school buses, problems, et cetera. And so all I can say is I do not recommend changing the residential to expand just three more bids, if that is really the long-range plan. I have seen other things that are not quite right, and that will be explained by another person. Thank you very much. And I'm going to give this to the clerk. If the clerk would, could you pass that to each of the board members? I wish we could take a look at it, and I'm just curious what this statement is about their signatures as the public comment continues. Did you have more to say, sir? I have nothing further to say unless there's questions from the board. Can I ask questions? Yes, you can. So what is the primary concern? I mean, you said something about development. The facility is not really capable as it has been. We have a new owner here, so he has changed something from California to Florida. Okay. But I have other things that need to be taken care of, which another person will bring forward to you that will explain that I don't think, I don't believe that they are being handled properly. Growth of this retirement facility is in an area that has ambulants, fire trucks on a daily basis going into the subdivision where Lantern is. So we have police records, and we have ambulance records, and we have all kinds of things that are not quite normal in a neighborhood, a residential neighborhood. In my residential neighborhood of 18 homes that have been here since 1979, all of them, and I've seen traffic, accidents, speeding, death. We have a trail. A woman got killed crossing the trail. We have a child on Bel Air that got killed. We can go on and on. But I'm trying to hold down the expansion of a place that has never grown but somehow keeps creeping up with additional residents, if you want to call them residents. I've seen naked men running around on that property. That's not right. There are children in this neighborhood, in the surrounding areas. And those children are being exposed to individuals that we do not know who they are living in that retirement facility. That's senior care. What are their conditions? I don't know. There is no documentation that is made available to the public to see the conditions of the facilities, the health, the food, et cetera. I can go on, but I don't want to. Thank you. Thank you. I've got a question for you. Yes, sir. You said you've lived there how long? Since October of 1979. Okay. And when was this building built, the one we're talking about? It's been here for years. The 1950s? I... So the building came before the... But it was under different management over the many years. A Chinese couple owned it at one time. Point of order, Chair. Okay. Can you clarify for me, we are, he's asking us to, are we, is it our duty on this board to approve an ordinance? Isn't that legislative? No. What we do, thank you for asking the question, what we do is we make a recommendation to City Council based upon the testimony we hear today and what we read in the staff report and the staff presentation today. So our recommendation is by no means final. City Council has the final word on this one about whether we think that it should be approved or whether we think that it shouldn't be approved. That's our role today. That is all. Okay. So he's making comments related to conditions and code ordinances that aren't really in our purview as well? And I don't think we can get, have that conversation during our discussion, but I think you're on the right track there in that respect. Okay, thank you. But I think we have other people who want to speak as well, so I want to be mindful of the others so we can continue with our meeting. I was told about the word party status as the board so that... Party status is in level two, right? It's not on a level three. Party status is for a different type of matter where we're actually making a final decision. We're not making a final decision. We're making a recommendation today. So there's not a party status aspect to this particular issue. Well, this is new to me, so I'm... I'm answering your questions for you. I'm just a retired, you know, manufacturing citizen that is retired, so... There are others who want to speak. Let me bring them up. Hopefully they answer some more questions that we might have up here as well. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else wish to speak on this matter? Please come forward. You might want to lower that one. Nothing like being petite. Lowering it? Bending it. You'll be fine. I think we can hear you. Go right ahead. My name is Barbara Bierenbaum. I have served as an ad hoc mom in traffic engineering, county drainage, and city engineering for years, and sidewalks. I've also served the city, the state, as your state literature representative, and I am also a paraprofessional neuropsychologist interning out of Boston Children's Hospital. I have personally observed this assisted living, and there's things that are very concerning. A man fell on the grass. I ran to the assisted living, and I said, do you have a wheelchair? No. I helped him get to the facility. I was in the facility. He sat on a sofa that smelled of urine. The card tables are what they eat on. The kitchen is from 19-7-56. It was not necessarily always a retirement center. It could have been a residence of someone. I have questions that need to be answered by the board as you consider your recommendation. No answers right now. Who and how is this legally managed? Who and how are maintaining records for the city, the county, and the state? Who is actually the owner of 2446 Nursery Road? Who pays approximately $4,500 for residents? Is it private, Medicare, or government? Who are doing the background checks of the residents? Are they deviance, are they mental incompetence, and are they indigents like the one I picked up off the grass? And for the ALF staff requirements for the state of Florida, the following have not been observed. Who is the director of the facility? Name and license. Who are the licensed? C-N-A, certified nurse assistants and medical techs. Who certifies the training of the aides that I have never seen? What physician is assigned to the visits, weekly, daily, or on call? Is there an assistance level needed by these clients or residents? Is there a really full-service kitchen that can serve 18 people? Who is the name of the nutritionalist who supposedly visits daily or weekly? The cleanliness of the facility, the beds, the linens, and the health standards. And the health and cleanliness of the residents. I have seen, I have recently walked around. The grass is as sky as the high. There are cars parked all over. There is a boat in the back. There was a man behind a chain-linked locked fence sitting on a lawn chair in the grass. I'll give you, your time is up. I'll give you about, ma'am, your time is up. I'll give you about 30 seconds to wrap up. So just be mindful of that. Respectfully submitted by residents not in attendance due to spring break, Barbara Bierenbaum from Rose Tree Court. And I have, thank you. Thank you. Did anyone have any questions of her? Is there anybody else from the public with comments today? Mr. Chairman, not Bill Johnson, as I think we're friends. I was not sworn in. Please be sworn in before you speak. I do. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Go ahead, please. The thing that has not come up regarding the increase in density, as I think the board knows, is a school open immediately across the street from this property. Big expansion. A lot of traffic problems at that location. This is expanding. We haven't heard whether they're going to expand their staff there, whether that will have additional traffic in this area with this grade 2, K-12 school across the street, which I think has 400 or 500 students in it. So thank you. All right. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. I appreciate that. Is there anybody else from the public wishing to speak on this matter today? Seeing none. Moving on in the course of our proceedings, any closing remarks by planning and development staff? None? Are there any additional comments or closing remarks by the applicant? Yes? You have three minutes. Thank you. I listened to the comments. I heard them. I just wanted to make sure it's not part of the zoning change, I would assume, but we are inspected by ACCA, we're inspected by the health department, we're inspected by the fire department. We have more inspectors than you can imagine on a quarterly basis pretty much, and we are in full compliance with all rules and regulations there are. And I think all these reports are public. You can just pull them up from the different websites. So we have never really seen any violations. So I think we're doing the best we can. Thank you. That's it for our closing remarks from the applicant and planning staff. Now I'm going to close the public hearing portion of this, and we're going to go on to discussion and vote by the board. Does anybody want to have a discussion first? Because I think, Ms. Chenault, you brought up some points I think I can address procedurally. I do think that our role is limited today to looking at whether we would make a recommendation to the city council for approval to this ordinance change. The public comments today were addressed mostly to the operational issues. And I do think that between the state level, from what was described by the applicant in their closing remarks, as well as what I generally tend to know in my real job that I get paid for, there's state agencies as well as state code enforcement that could look into those particular issues and determine if there are any issues there or not. But that's not really what we have control over today. It sounds to me, if I've got the testimony correct, their zone for eight, their grandfather into 12, and they can go up to 18 with this ordinance change. Is that the very quick summary of it? And I'll let you answer that question just so I'm clear on it yet. You can just nod your head. I kind of get you there. I can clarify. Their zone, they have, they indicated that they are licensed for 12 beds. Okay. That's actually a few more beds than what they're entitled to under the residential urban category. But they're legally, they're a state non-conforming. It's a committed non-conforming use. Correct. So they've got a few more than they could have, but they're requesting up to 18 through this change. So, and thank you for answering that. So in terms of the comments and summarizing overall from what I heard testimony today as we look at voting on this, the approval of the ordinance change would kind of make the grandfathering no longer an issue because that would, like, 12 fit within the category. And anything that they try to do to expand would require them to come back for other steps to the extent they have to, in terms of whether it be on their licensing or whether it be modifications to the structure, which might come back to us or the property. So that's where I think we stand overall in the process. And we're limited to the zoning map change from residential urban to residential median density. Is that correct? Just for further clarification on the voting. So if this was approved on a land use, what is the process for an increase in beds relative to an approval? Well, it sounds like from the testimony, I don't want to necessarily reopen it, but it sounds like to me from the testimony that there's probably a state licensing aspect to that, first and foremost. And then secondly, if there's going to be any modifications to the structure, then that would require permitting and the like. But if the building as it sits could accommodate those additional beds and remain in compliance with their state licensing and any other regulatory agency that may license them for their operations, then that may not be anything that would come back to us either, if that answers your question. For clarity's sake, we're approving or disapproving or recommending a land use change. Correct. The beds is just a function of what that falls underneath. Yes. Okay. All right. So does anybody wish to make a motion on this one? I'd like to make one comment, if I may. Please do. It seems that, you know, the subdivision which adjoins this, which is probably made up of 22 houses, I'm guessing, there's 16 of them that objects to this that basically surrounds this property. I think that's pretty apparent what the immediate neighborhood thinks of this facility. I disagree with you. Are all 16 of those from that neighborhood? I have no way of knowing that. I think they proffered that. Yeah. She said that they did. They were from that. They clearly seem to be nearby and have an interest in this in some respect, and I think that's what, from our perspective, would be relevant. But I also, I mean, the petition from my standpoint as an attorney, as a board member sitting here reading it and evaluating it in terms of evidence for consideration, it simply said to vote no. And we heard testimony today that gave me other things to consider, but that didn't say a whole lot other than vote no, and that doesn't tell me a whole lot in terms of when people were signing it. I've seen all kinds of petitions that don't make a whole hill of beans difference because the people signing it don't understand what they mean. I believe these folks did based upon the initial testimony we got, but the petition itself to me doesn't weigh very heavily, just in thinking out loud in terms of my mindset to whatever benefit that might be for the rest of you all. I'm not trying to sway anyone one way or the other. I was pleased that one of the people from the public has some background in traffic and engineering and the like. This connection was the first person spoke about the issues, and the second person was qualified, but that person didn't speak about it, so that left me, it makes it a little bit of a challenge, but I still have some assumptions. That being said, unless there's other discussion, I'd like to have a motion so we can then maybe either discuss the motion so we have a direction that we're going in or not. This will be a level three application in terms of your form, motion, templates. Can you stab at it? I'll read it. I move to recommend approval of case LUP-2025-11004 based on the evidence and testimony presented in application, the staff report, and today's hearing, and hereby adopt findings of fact and conclusion of law stated in the staff report. Do I have a second? I'll second. Is there any further discussion on the motion? The motion is to approve recommending it to city council for their further consideration. There being none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed? Aye. I mean, no. We have two no's, it sounds like. That motion passes. Mr. Messorio and Mr. Messorio, and right next to me here. I mind you were blank. I wasn't going to try and pause. That's all right. All right. So that motion passes, and that takes care of that hearing. Going back to our agenda. Next is director's report. Election of officers. Yes. It's that time again to do our annual round of elections of officers, so. I'm always fine with stepping aside or continuing. I don't believe anybody should stay in this role for too long, but I've been on it since last February, so it's up to you all what you want to do. I think you do a fine job. I agree. I agree. I think you do a great job. Yes. I say continue. All right. Well, one more year, then the rest of my term, others will do it. I guess we have to have a vote on that. So we have a nomination for the chair to remain in his position. Do we have any other nominations? I nominate that the chair remain in his position. I'll second it. Any other nominations? All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you for your confidence, everyone. And we need a vice chair as well. How do you feel about continuing on? As long as you're here, I'm good with the vice chair. Things are kind of easy on the vice chair. I'm fine going either way. I'll move to approve Mr. Huff to continue as vice chair. Thank you. I'll second. Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Any other nominations three times? No another? Then all in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Here we go. We have a chair and a vice chair. Another year. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. I just got reappointed to the board, so I'm here for 2030. Make me really feel full of myself. 2030 on here. Any other directors? Nothing else. Thank you. All right. Any board members wishing to be heard on any matters? There being none, we are adjourned. Thank you.