Planning and Zoning Board on 2025-12-15 5:01 PM - REVISED AGENDA - Dec 15, 2025

I'd like to call to order the December 15th meeting of the Delray Beach Planning and Zoning Board. Ms. Miller, if you could please call the roll. Roger Cope. Here. Mitch Katz. Here. Deidre Strong. Here. Jim Chard. Here. Price Patton. Here. Judy Malica. Here. Gregory Snyder. Here. All right. Are there any changes to the agenda proposed? We can only pray. Nope. Okay. Having done, can I get a motion to approve the agenda? Motion to approve the agenda. Second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? The agenda is approved. We have to approve minutes from July 21st. I move to approve July 21st and August 25th minutes simultaneously. Yes. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second to approve both sets of minutes. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Nay. Minutes are approved. At this point, anyone who wishes to speak tonight needs to be sworn in. So if you could stand, please, and Ms. Miller will swear you in. Hold. Your right hand by the authority that's to meet the number of the state of Florida. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Okay. Okay. At this point, we'll take comments from the public on any item that's not on our agenda. Not on agenda items. Any comments on items not on the agenda? Seeing none, the public comment is closed. And we have no presentations tonight, so we'll go into quasi-judicial hearing items. And I'll read the quasi-judicial rules. This hearing shall be conducted in accordance with the City of Delray Beach quasi-judicial rules. The applicant and the City shall be permitted to present their case. The public shall be allowed to speak for three minutes each or a maximum of six minutes if the person represents an organization or group of people who are present but agree not to speak. The board, members, and staff and the applicant may be allowed to cross-examine the witness. The City or the applicant will be allowed to offer rebuttal testimony. The decision to approve or deny an application or appeal may not legally be made on the personable use as to whether a project is a good project or not, nor may a decision be based on the numbers of citizens who support or oppose a particular project. The law requires that all decisions must be made on the basis of whether the project meets the requirements of law, the comprehensive plan, and the land development regulations. All right, moving on to item number 8A. Ms. Dossary, could you read the file into the record, please? Yes, absolutely. We are reading into the record file number PZ000234-2025. It's a conditional use request for 24-hour or late-night use associated with a freestanding emergency department, and we have representation for the applicant to present. Thank you. Ex parte communications. Mr. Cope. None other than reading a communique that was waiting here for me when I arrived. Okay. Ms. Mulligan. None. Mr. Strong. None. Mr. Patton. Yeah, I had communications with Sharon Merchant. Can I pass? I'll get it. I don't think we need their names. We need to, if are they. Okay, there were four other people on the call, and then I read all the. Oh, on the call. Okay. Yeah, I read all the emails. Okay. That'll do. I think that'll do. Thank you. I spoke to the next door neighbor. I think I spoke to the same people, Heather Hebert from Tenant Health and Sharon Merchant and a couple of Matthew, I believe, and a couple others that were on that call from Tenant. And then I got all the emails on the server. I did drive by as well. Yeah. And I drove by. I also had a virtual meeting with Sharon Merchant and people from Delray Medical Center. And I've spoken to one of the neighbors. I think that's it. All right. Sir, please. Good evening, Chairman, Vice Chair, members of the board. My name is John Roach. I'm an in-house urban planner, certified urban planner with the Gunster Law Firm in West Palm Beach. With me this evening is my colleague, a Gunster and attorney, Brian Seymour. We're excited to be here on behalf of our client, JFK Medical Center Limited Partnership. It's for an application for a conditional use permit to operate a 24-hour business, specifically a freestanding emergency department. The subject property is a 1.79-acre tract of land that's located at 3921 West Atlantic Avenue on the north side of the roadway. Currently, the property is vacant, and it does have a planned office center zoning designation. And we'll get into this part a little more detail on this in the upcoming slides. But as you can see here, the property is approximately 258 feet from the closest residentially zoned property to our north and approximately 120 feet, which is across Atlantic Avenue, from a residentially zoned property to our south. The properties to the east and to the west are both non-residential. Just some site photographs. This is looking east from Spodek Drive, which is a private roadway. You can see the vacant property here along Atlantic Avenue that is the proposed site for the development. This is also looking east, again, from Spodek, primarily looking at the site itself. The area off to the left, which I'll get into, is a separate vacant parcel that is not before you this evening and is not proposed to be developed. And that is this property here. So there are two separate parcels that are both owned by our client. The property here on the northernmost end of the site is proposed to remain vacant and will be the site for future development that would be required to comply with the code. We are solely focused on the vacant parcel that is along Atlantic Avenue. The inset picture is just a representation of the buffer that currently exists between the northernmost property of that vacant site that will remain vacant and the high point community that is to our north. You can see that there's a solid opaque barrier there, currently minimal landscaping. But as I'll get into, any development on this vacant parcel would have to install the necessary code-required landscape buffer along that wall. This is the current condition along our south property line against the Woodlake community, which is on the south side of Atlantic Avenue. You can see here the 120-foot right-of-way that makes up West Atlantic. It is a six-lane divided with a median, pretty significant roadway. And then the inset picture here is a representation of the buffer that exists along Atlantic, completely enclosing the Woodlake community from that right-of-way. There are solid opaque fences, walls, and then as you see in that picture, many even have a solid hedge. So you can barely see that that is actually a community within there. We are before you to accommodate growth in the region and provide faster emergency care to the surrounding community and reduce the demand on hospital emergency departments, which thereby reduce wait times across the entire emergency health care system. Our client is proposing to build an approximately 10,800 square foot, 860 square foot, freestanding emergency department, again on that vacant parcel along Atlantic Avenue. The city's zoning and land development regulations define this as a medical clinic, and this is a permitted use within the POC zoning district. Freestanding EDs are required and licensed to provide the same emergency services as a hospital emergency department, including the same equipment, and they're also staffed with board-certified emergency physicians and ER-trained nurses. And providing these services 24-7 ensures their ability to serve the community's emergency needs. At any time of the day, because we can all agree that emergency health care can occur at any time. While the use is permitted by right, the city's zoning code does require that all 24-hour businesses, if they're located within 300 feet of a residentially zoned property, and that's measured property line to property line, they have to obtain a conditional use permit, and that's why we're before you this evening. On the screen is a conceptual site plan. As outlined in your staff report, this plan is required to go through the city's Level 2 site plan review process, at which point staff will determine compliance with all the city's applicable zoning provisions. Again, the portion that were before you this evening is the 24-hour business operation. But as currently designed, the facility is proposed to consist of a single-story building. You can see they're central to the site. The primary public walk-in entrance is on the south side of the property, fronting onto Atlantic Avenue. And then on the north side of the property is a required ambulance bay, which I'll get into more details in just a second. And then there is easily accessible surface parking on both the north, south, as well as the east sides of the building. Of the two sites owned by our client, this one was chosen because it was farthest from the community to the north, which will be separated, as I indicated, by future development on this additional vacant parcel, and places the use adjacent to Atlantic Avenue, which, as I stated, is a major six-lane roadway. Although the city's zoning code measures 24-hour businesses from the property line and not the buildings themselves, it is important to understand this context. So as you can see here, the proposed building is approximately 370 feet from the closest residential building to our north and approximately 250 feet from the closest residential building to our south within Woodlick. But as I stated at the start of the presentation, if you measure property line to property line, it's 258 to the north residential and 120 feet to the south. In addition to the existing opaque fences and walls that I talked about along the perimeters of each of those residential communities and the code required buffers that will be necessitated on our site as part of the site plan review process, high point to the north will be separated from the proposed freestanding ED by the future development site that you can see outlined here. So at the time of its development, including structures, parking, it too would have the required landscape buffers along the entire perimeter, and that includes the required buffer between commercial and residential, which is one tree every 25 feet, to form a continuous tree row, which is above and beyond the normal one per 30 feet. Along the south side of our property, near the high point community adjacent to Atlantic Avenue, the city's code already requires an additional enhanced buffer of at least 30 feet in width and one tree every 30 feet, a hedge and ground cover, which will all be incorporated as part of our proposed site plan. And so you can see that there. And again, this is above and beyond what currently exists around the perimeters of each of those communities. Freestanding EDs are modern health care facilities that are integrated into their communities. They offer hospital-level care, that's both equipment and staff, in a fraction of the time. This includes reduced wait times, quick evaluations. They're closer to the residents that they serve, and this can be life-saving. And this improves patient flow across the entire health care system, regardless of an operator, by expanding emergency care resources to a growing population. An example of this is when Delray Medical Center constructed a freestanding ED near JFK, near Lantana and Atlantis. It did nothing but approve emergency health care services to that community, and this situation is very similar. Freestanding EDs have been shown to generate a fraction of the traffic, as some other uses that are commonly found along these commercial corridors, as most of the patients arrive by walk-in or personal vehicles. You can see here that freestanding EDs have studied through other real-life examples generate approximately 17 peak-hour trips, and that's in the PM. This is compared to an urgent care facility, which is 42 peak-hour trips, a pharmacy, which is 149 peak-hour trips. So you can see that the 17 is substantially less than some of those other uses. And again, the use itself is permitted by right. While there is an ambulance bay, as I talked about, other facilities operated by our client have shown that, on average, there is only one ambulance that occurs or arrives and departs per day. A small percentage of patients ultimately require hospital admission, so there's very little transportation associated with that. As stated previously, the 24 hours is required to provide the level of care associated with the freestanding ED. And as outlined in our application and confirmed by your professional staff, it complies with all the required standards of the city's zoning code. We respectfully request your recommendation of approval to address a need for accessible, high-quality emergency care, and contribute positively to the health and vitality of the community. This will allow the city to continue to fulfill its policies and its comprehensive plan, including allowing wellness centers and health clinics along its corridors and within its commercial districts. So that concludes my presentation. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Roach. Ms. Dossery. Good evening. My name, for the record, is Rebecca Dossery. And as Mr. Roach just noted, this is located along West Atlantic Avenue 3921. Its land use is transitional, and the zoning is planned off the center. It's currently vacant, but the request to approve the 24-hour or late-night business for this freestanding emergency department is conditional use. The medical office use, which we would consider this, is allowed as a principal use, meaning after you get the site plan and your zoning certificate of use, they could just start operating, but this 24-hour portion of the request is why they're here before you. Any business within 300 feet of residential, as was noted, is required to get this approval just to make sure that the health, safety, and general welfare of the citizenry is protected for any uses that could potentially have an impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. When a conditional use is established, the approving bodies can impose conditions which could limit the hours of operation or the longevity of the use, and they can also be imposed pursuant to the compatibility with the existing development, consistency with the land development regulations, and consistency with the comprehensive plan. There are two findings that have to be made to approve the request, that the conditional use will not have a significantly detrimental effect upon the stability of the neighborhood, or hinder development or redevelopment of nearby properties. So, as has been noted, to the east and west of the property is medical office consistent with the use itself that is under consideration. To the north and south is the residential use that triggered this request. So, some of the required findings related to the land use map, concurrency, consistency, and compliance with the LDR are going to be discussed simultaneously with the findings for the conditional use itself about hindering nearby development. But, medical offices and clinics are permitted uses within the POC district. So, something like this is anticipated by both the land use and the zoning. There has to be a positive finding relative to concurrency, whether or not the public facilities can support the use. Solid waste, water, and sewer are all within the expected capacity of the facilities in the city. A traffic performance standard letter from Palm Beach County is not required at this time. It would be, if needed, as part of the site plan. But, the applicant has indicated that they are anticipated to have 1.1 to 1.2 ambulances per day at the facility. The required findings related to consistency with the comprehensive plan. We have a number of policies about how transitional land use is used for changes in intensity between land uses and different types of use. And, the comprehensive plan really calls for consistent and complementary uses for adjacent development. And, similar use, and it establishes how uses between these different uses should transition with transitions happening at the back of properties. And, also, that any approvals should fulfill remaining land use needs. So, on this note, so, again, medical offices are adjacent to the subject site on the east and west. There is a public benefit in that an FSED is subject to the same requirements to treat anyone, regardless of ability to pay. And, also, in general, the West Atlantic Corridor supports a wide variety of commercial activities. So, if you look, I did a screen grab from our zoning map, and you can see that throughout the corridor, there's commercial uses mixed with residential. So, this is a pattern that the comprehensive plan has indicated should continue. We also have a number of comprehensive plan policies about encouraging industry clusters, such as health care. That's a big one. And, also, that there needs to be access to quality health care without the city as an essential service for our neighborhoods. The healthy community element talks a lot about access to health care and along corridors and within commercial districts where this is going to be located. But, again, the use itself is not subject to the request, but the 24-hour portion of it. But, since the use is health care, these policies are relevant. To approve a 24-hour or late-night use, there are requirements related to a security plan and buffering. The security plan requirements do not apply to this use, only to the convenience businesses. But, 24-hour or late-night businesses are required to provide adequate buffering to minimize the effects of noise and act as a visual buffer for the residential properties. So, again, to show in the context of where the 300-foot buffer lies, there is a natural buffer to the south from Atlantic Avenue. And, there's the fence and hedge along the neighborhood to the south. To the north, there's a buffer from a vacant parcel, which is owned by the applicant, but it's currently vacant. It's 255 feet deep, and there's an existing masonry wall along that property line. So, relative to buffering, there are three different types of considerations. I think lighting, sound, and landscaping. And, we're going to discuss landscaping on the following slide, but the applicant is anticipating 1.1 to 1.2 ambulances per day. And, sirens and lights are required for any Code 3 emergency in general, which would be a high-priority response. I'm not going to speak to that specifically here, but we do have Chief Martin from Delray Fire here to answer any questions about emergency responses and what could be expected of this type of facility. And, then, lighting being another concern, our Code requires that all lighting be full cutoff, which minimizes overspill. And, there's certain requirements to not have overspill of lighting onto the adjacent properties. So, our applicant described their conceptual landscape plan in detail. As was noted, this request, if this is approved, would need to come through for our Level 2 site plan, which would, it could be approved administratively, but given the size of the development, we would likely have it go before board, which would be the site plan, review, and appearance board, unless they requested relief. And, then, in that case, it would come before the Planning and Zoning Board. But, the threshold for the site plan would be met for administrative approval. The applicant is voluntarily proposing the solid tree line along the north property line of the vacant parcel. At this stage, when the applicant submits a site plan, that would not be required. But, the board could consider making this a condition of approval if it's determined that, at this point, that would be important in providing the necessary buffering. The site, conceptual site plan, is generally compliant with our regulations. This plan presented doesn't show the tree line every 30 feet, which would be approximately 8 trees, between the vacant parcel and the subject property. And, that could be something that, that will be required as part of site plan. And, then, to summarize the considerations for the board, whether this is an appropriate location for a 24-hour or late-night business associated with this emergency department, and whether the landscape buffers are sufficient to shield the residential areas from any negative impact, or if the more significant landscaping should be required as a condition of approval. And, that concludes my presentation. And, we have, again, Chief Martin from FIRE, if you have any questions regarding emergency response. Thank you very much. Okay. At this point, I'd like to invite public comment. I think there were a couple people who came in. Okay, well, we'll make, I'd like to invite public comment. If you have not been sworn in, and you want to make a public comment, you're going to have to be sworn in first. So, just, so, just, when you come up to the podium, I'll tell you what, anyone who's going to speak who hasn't been sworn in yet, please get sworn in now. Mr. Spodak. I knew that was going to happen when I saw you walking in. Yes, Dr. Spodak. Please raise your right hand. By the way, that's to me, the delivery of the state of Florida. Do you swear to affirm the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. Nice to see you. Oh, at this point, the floor, should we, yeah, public comment. Let's go. Time for public comment. Yeah, please, sir. Good evening. You need to state. Yes, my name is Andrew Sparanzini. I'm with the law firm of Randall K. Roger & Associates, and my firm is general counsel to High Point of Delray Beach Condiment Association Section 1, which is the property to the north of this development. I just want to quickly introduce, if you look out into the audience, you'll see people in red shirts. We have about 25 owners and residents from High Point that are here because they're concerned about the project. If you all want to just either raise your hand or stand. Can I know for just a second, just on a point of procedure, if you're representing a bunch of people that won't speak, you can have six minutes. There may be a few of them that want to speak, but not all. You have six. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Can the six individuals who will give up their time for yourself raise your hand, please? If six people that don't want to speak, raise your hand. Yes, just six people. Give up your time to the... So if you don't want to speak, raise your hand. That's adequate. That's adequate. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. So the 25 or so owners here from High Point are very concerned about this project, about the noise. They're a little bit dubious about the claim of only 1.1 to 1.2 ambulance trips per day. They're concerned about the noise and the light. And they just don't feel that this is an appropriate area for this type of a development. I know that it's classified as a medical clinic, but, I mean, common sense, maybe I shouldn't use that word, but, I mean, it just seems like it's a lot closer to a hospital use than it is to the dental clinic that's right on Spodak or like an urgent care type of a use, like an MD Now or whatever. So they are asking that this board deny this request. But if you decide to approve it, they're asking that you exercise your discretion because according to the land development regulations, this board has a lot of discretion to condition its approval on maximum protection, including landscaping, for the surrounding residential uses. So we would ask that you exercise that discretion to protect the owners and the residents in High Point. While this subject parcel does not directly abut High Point to the north, the vacant parcel is also owned by this same applicant. And so we would ask for the purposes of considering what kind of landscaping you're going to require to protect the residents that you would almost treat it as if it does abut. I do appreciate in the presentation from the city and from Mr. Roach that they're voluntarily offering to do the continuous tree line along the northern property line, trees within 25 feet. So we would ask that that is a condition of, if you decide to approve, that that be made a condition of approval. We would also ask that the trees that are planted be fully mature at planting to provide maximum visual obstruction to this neighboring development. And we would ask that it be trees that provide maximum canopy so that there would be a visual obstruction, visual protection throughout the year. Trees, I'm not an arborist or anything, but, you know, live oak, gumbo limbo, southern magnolia, button woods, American holly. We understand that these are trees that have a large canopy that remains in place all year round. So we would ask that those are the type of trees and that they be fully mature at planting. We also ask that they be planted early on prior to construction to mitigate the nuisance of light and noise during even the construction phase, again, assuming you decide to approve this use. And we also ask that you even go above and beyond that. In rear property lines, in rear yard areas, the LDR 4.65C says you can have a hedge of 8 feet in height. We would ask that you also require an 8 feet hedge in both locations, on the northern boundary line between the vacant parcel and high point, and then also on the parking lot, the rear parking lot, the off-street parking, between the subject parcel and the vacant parcel, that there also be a continuous tree line and an 8-foot hedge at that location as well, which is, again, permissible under the code since this is a rear yard area. Just a reminder that the LDRs for the city indicate in 4.6.16 that the landscape requirements in the code are the minimum requirements. So, again, you are well within your discretion to go above and beyond the minimum requirements in the code if you deem it as necessary to protect surrounding residential uses. And I would argue that it is necessary to do that. And the 25 people here would agree with that sentiment. We also, an important consideration is that as a condition of approval, that the applicant be required to properly maintain all landscaping into perpetuity. There's been instances where surrounding uses, their landscaping, that's a solid masonry wall along the northern boundary. So roots can get in and damage the wall, or tree limbs or other vegetation can encroach over the wall. So we would ask, again, as a condition of approval, that they be required to properly maintain all of that landscaping at all times. And then with respect to the lighting, I know it's already a requirement in the code. But obviously all lighting, again, with the mature trees, with the big canopy, that will assist. But obviously all lighting should be pointed inward towards the parcel and not towards high point. And then the security plan. I noticed that the staff report indicated that a security plan was not required because this is not a convenience business. I apologize if I misread the LDR, but I was looking at the LDR and in 4.3.3 WV2B1. It's actually the convenience uses that are exempt from the security plan, not the other way around. So I would argue that this use actually should have submitted a security plan as a part of its application. And everybody, I mean, these types of uses, they've got controlled substances. They've got drugs on site. That can be an attractive target for criminal activity. So I don't know how they were excused from submitting a security plan, but I think they need to do that. I think that's required by your code. Again, if you look at 4.33 WV2B1, you know, it says a 24-hour or late-night business shall submit a security plan detailing the manner in which the business intends to address the security of the establishment, its patrons, employees, and nearby residents. A convenience business, as defined in Section 812.171 Florida statute, as may be amended from time to time, is exempted from filing a security plan with the city pursuant to the subsection. Sir, could you just please make your final comments? So that's – I'll finish up. So I think that they should – a security plan should be required. So in summary, we're just asking that you – first of all, of course, that you deny this use. But if you decide to approve it, that you exercise your discretion to require maximum landscaping for noise and light buffering and also a security plan and that the lighting comply with the code. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Name and zip code. Good evening. Zip code 33446. And name. Lori Vinicor. Dr. Lori Vinicor, president of the Alliance of Delray Residential Associations. Good evening, everyone. I'm also a member of the governing board of Delray Medical Center. And this – I understand this Mr. Roger, whatever he said about the landscaping hall is very good for medical office. But an emergency department freestanding here does not really work. For more than 20 years, I've been involved with the Alliance. And we have our finger on the pulse of the community. And these are super seniors. This is the epicenter of the super senior community. And our seniors are the most vulnerable when they go to an emergency department. I have a 98-year-old cousin right here that I take care of, and she's been – had three falls in the past few years. Every time, ended up in an admission to the hospital. Why? Because the elderly have multiple health issues, and many times the falls are caused by something very serious, and they need to be transported sometimes directly to the OR. It is so confusing to an emergency patient to then be presented with a decision to be admitted to a hospital that's 20 minutes away in regular travel time rather than a hospital that's five minutes away. And additional costs are involved when they have a fire rescue come a second time to an emergency department facility. This facility would offer no new services. It is in the wrong location. We ask that you deny this application. This land use is transitional, which is intended for low-intensity non-residential. This proposed ED is certainly not low-intensity. Code 3 emergencies are brought to freestanding EDs with lights and sirens. This is not a transitional land use. The 1 to 1.5 or whatever calls per day, the statistics show that area fire rescue – we're talking about unincorporated and Palm Beach County and the city. There are many different fire stations. One of our area fire stations right in Delray Beach had – not the city, but unincorporated – had 3,000 calls in September. They expect 4,000 calls a month during the season. To even – if it's just city fire coming 1 to 1.5, that is not going to happen. This is not transitional. It does not belong here. Please deny this application. Good evening. My name is Gail Kennedy. I live in High Point, Section 1. I don't have any slides, but in the actual document, the applicant's submission on page 16, there's a diagram that shows residentially zoned properties, 300 feet buffer – 300 feet buffer – 300 foot buffer, excuse me. And myself and a number of my neighbors here, it cuts right through our homes. And our homes do back up to this particular piece of property. In the actual document itself, it states it's our backyards. It's actually our bedrooms and our back doors that will back up to the ambulance bay itself and any sirens and any noise and communications on the ground. So I have a couple of – my biggest concern right now is the appropriateness and the compatibility to the neighborhood of this proposed facility. I know that JFK has two other freestanding EDs in Palm Beach County. One is up the road at Jog at Wilbright, at the Shops of Wilbright, the Surrounded Community, and the 15-acre multi-use – I'm sorry, I don't know all of the lingo here, but there are shops. It's next door to Publix, which has deliveries 24-7. It was built at the same time that the Surrounded Communities were. So it's – they have fully integrated within those communities. The one in Palm Beach Gardens is a 40-acre multi-use project that actually has luxe condos as part of it, as part of one of the phases. So all of these people at both of these sites and these areas were aware of what they were buying into. They were new communities. I think the sites are about 15 years old, rapidly expanding, rapidly growing. So, yes, it makes sense. We are a 52-year-old community or 53-year-old community, and the surrounding communities across Atlantic Avenue and next door to us are in the 20-year range. And this is literally stuck in here like a sore thumb. So I am concerned about the compatibility of just having it there in general. We are aware that we have Delray Medical down the street, basically a mile and a half from us. And I think I am concerned about the buffering, the noise. I'll be very frank with you. I'm – the statistics that were used for traffic and the estimate of number of ambulances per day, I just find specious. I have no idea what it's based on, if it's based on these two communities or not. And I am concerned that it's appropriate for us. So thank you for listening. I appreciate that. Craig Spodek, 33445. So I'm the immediate neighbor to this proposed project to the east. And I remember 13 years ago coming before you guys to get my dental office built there, and you would have thought by the response I was building an amusement park, I had massive levels of upset people around because of the intensity. And I'm not here to speak beyond what I understand of the project, but I can tell you for 50 years, the time I've lived in Delray, this has been a completely unoccupied parcel. It's not landscaped. It's not like a wildlife preserve by any measure. And I've been the caller to police and others because of the dumping. You know, people just treat this vacant parcel as whatever. I've had abandoned vehicles. We've had suspicious vehicles. I've called police out before. We've had a lot of just, you know, people dumping refuse over there. There is some level of improvement. So there's like fire hydrants and septic and sewers sticking up. And if you go around and joyride or whatever people do at late night, they hit these things. They've damaged water lines and stuff like that while I've been the neighbor there. And, look, if I had my magic wand, I would think of things that I'd like to put there. But for the entire 50 years that I've lived in Delray, I've never seen any movement on it. So I'd love to see something. I can't speak to the effects on the community. I would be sensitive to that. But I do know that High Point, I don't know if some of you guys were there, when I tried to build a dental office, but it was not a very favorable reaction. And we managed to get along as neighbors. And I can't speak to more than just the fact that when I visit EDs and when I hear ambulances, they're very inconvenient. But if a loved one was in one, I'd be praying for their ability to traverse safely around town. So it's a complex project. I know you guys are weighing on the 24-hour rule. But for me as a neighbor, I would love to see something there. I think the blighted nature of vacant land and the attractive nuisance that it creates by not having lighting or anything like that is a detriment to the community. So, you know, I'll let you guys do your job, but I just wanted to opine on it. Thank you. Thank you. Eric Lieberman, 33484. I'm a cardiologist in Delray Beach. I've been practicing here for 25 years and also serve as the chief medical officer for the Palm Beach Health Network, and I practice out of Delray. I want to focus on the role of freestanding ERs and the specific role for an institution such as this. There is no doubt in communities where access to urgent, appropriate, hospitalized health care, freestanding ERs clearly have a role. They have a place. They have a need to serve our communities. When you're going to place a freestanding ER within a few miles of a full comprehensive medical center that offers comprehensive cardiovascular care, a comprehensive stroke center, a level one trauma center, one of the few within Palm Beach County, one has to question the need and potentially the confusion it creates specifically not only for the ambulance traffic but for those walk-in patients. For the patient who I see every day who comes in not sure if they're having gastroenteritis, a stomach ache, or in reality having a heart attack as we took to the cath lab this morning, or somebody who comes in with a little numbness in the finger who in reality has a stroke. And any delay in care we know relates in lost heart muscle or lost brain tissue. Heart time is muscle, time is brain. Just to give you a few examples, and we'll talk a little bit more about access to ER time. At Delray, our current door to balloon time, meaning from the time you walk in the front door or the door to the emergency room to the time we're opening your artery in a cath lab is 47 minutes. The national goal is less than 90 minutes. The time from the time you hit the door to a CT scan if you have a presumed stroke is 4 minutes. Goal is less than 10. Door to evaluation by the stroke team, 6.8 minutes. Goal is less than 15 minutes. Door to puncture if you can't be treated with medications but require an intervention for your stroke is currently 65 minutes. The average in Palm Beach County is 71. In the Florida Stroke Registry is 77. And for all comprehensive care centers in the state of Florida, for stroke, 72 minutes. It is important for our patients to know where to go, to know where to get the urgent access they need. If they come to a freestanding ER, which is just a few miles from a comprehensive center, the delay in treatment is going to be significant. Even if identified quickly, they then need to be transported to a center where they can get appropriate care, get the thrombolytic therapy, get the intervention, an intervention that cannot be offered at a freestanding emergency room and is going to jeopardize the health and livelihood and well-being of our patients. It will impact their quality of life and, frankly, increase their risk of dying. Thank you very much. Good evening. Heather Havertack, 33484. I am the Chief Executive Officer at Delray Medical Center. I do want to address some of the comments that were made in the proposal because they were not factual. There are not long lines at Delray Medical Center for patients that are coming in to seek emergency care. Just as my colleague, Dr. Lieberman, said, freestanding emergency departments do make sense in communities where they're lacking access. We are within 3.1 miles of a comprehensive full-service hospital. When a patient comes to Delray Medical Center's emergency department, from the time they walk in the door, on average, they see a provider within 12.7 minutes. That certainly does not show that people are waiting in lines outside the door and that there's a lack of access. Patients that are just going to be treated and released have a discharge length of stay, meaning they stay in the emergency department on average of 172 minutes. Our fire rescue partners, when they bring patients to the hospital, we monitor something called wall time. So we want to make sure when our EMS partners come to the hospital that they're back in the community as quickly as possible so they can serve more people. And on average, that time is six to seven minutes. So we do a phenomenal job with service. Like Dr. Lieberman said, we serve a more elderly population in Delray Beach, especially in that surrounding area. So they have a variety of comorbidities or complex conditions that can look like something minor but then turn into something very serious. And we want to ensure that we don't cause confusion in this community and delay care and delay the outcomes that we are very proud of at Delray Medical Center. So I just want to clarify some of the facts that were presented because we certainly do not have an access issue or a wait time issue or patients waiting in lines outside the door. So thank you. Hi, I'm Barbara Milano on the board of High Point Section 1. I'm right behind the wall. And we have a lot of our owners that couldn't be here today that wanted to be. And they all are concerned about all the items that were addressed with the traffic, quality of life, and just sitting, like being in the parking lot and people talking. And the ambulance was when they come in, they're going to have the lights on. They don't turn the lights off. I know sometimes they turn the sirens off, but there's still going to be noise and lighting pollution. So I also want to mention the fact that I think this whole justification statement is based on flawed information about 1.2 ambulances. Hey, that doesn't even make sense to me. This is an application for a freestanding emergency department. It's not like an MD doctor facility. And you're going to get more than 1.2. I don't know where that number came from. It seems kind of made up, but what do I know? All right, thank you. Roni, 33445, also High Point. I'm also in the medical field, but in a different capacity than the Delray Medical Center staff. I've lived in Delray 15, 20 years. I happen to work on the grounds, but in a different capacity. Number one, serve in our community. They've been here for a long time. You know, East Boca has a hospital. West Boca has a hospital. Bethesda East, Bethesda West. We have Delray Medical East. There's nothing west. JFK can go west. Great for them. I see a lot of discharges from the hospital. No fault to them. Mental health, drug-related, out with gowns, paraphernalia. So this is a retirement community. Look at the slide. The communities are all around there. We already have a crime problem with our community and surrounding community. It's not gated. I'm surprised that the Seagate Hotel or the Seagate Country Club is not here right now because traffic right there. How are they going to get in and out? The light at Homewood and High Point Boulevard, already the city is expanding because it's the deadliest intersection in our city. My car insurance already says it. It's triple if anywhere else in Delray. You guys know it. They're already expanding. How are they going to get in and out? There's no light there. They have to go up to Hamlet, turn around, or cross block the high school kids. They walk every day. You're going to have traffic fatalities, pedestrian fatalities. We already do all the time. It's absurd, really, truly absurd. So, and again, like we said, it's in our backyard. A tree buffer is going to do nothing. Delray Garden Center, I can hear their chickens and parrots and whatever. So ambulances and whatever, it's going to happen. They're going to meet our community. It's not good. It's not good at all. So, thank you so much. Good evening. Lynn Tartaglia, 3345, a member of Section 1, prior president of the community for five years until 2024. We're a community of blue-collar people. I'm 71, and I'm probably the junior league in terms of age range, okay? People have moved there from all over the country. They come down there to have some time after they work their whole lives and just relax their little piece of heaven in Florida, Delray, the city, the friendly town by the sea. That's all we wanted, and it's all we want now. I want to focus on the 24-7 piece of this because apparently that is what you're here to decide, really, is whether you want to have an exception to that rule, not whether any of the other stuff happens between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. when Dr. Spodak is doing his medical stuff. He's not in there at 3 o'clock in the morning with the drill going, you know what I mean? So he's not going to be impacted by what happens between those hours of 11 at night and 7 in the morning, but we are. We're a non-gated community. We don't have any place. When people pull in our driveway, they can't just say, oh, wrong driveway, and turn around. They have to go all the ways down the middle of the community and turn around at the end and then pull out again. So there's no place for them to turn around. Walk-ins and folks from downtown and the communities that we all know live along the sides of Route 95 these days, those folks, with the drug issues that happen in those areas, we've all seen it, that's where they're going to walk. And if they get that far, sometimes that community decides, I'm going to walk until I don't want to walk anymore. And a nice dark place out back that's behind this facility that nothing is built in there yet looks like a great camping zone to me. Finally, we are surrounded by noise, surrounded by noise. We have the high school. Come and see Friday night band practice with us or football games with us or soccer games with us or any other kind of community event that happens at the high school. I can hear the traffic on 95 all day and all night. When they rev up those motorcycles on 95 and West Atlantic Avenue, I can hear them from start to finish. So adding more noise to that for us is really a real offense to our peace of mind, the one thing we came here for. I think, to finish, the woman who spoke earlier said it best. Most of the buildings that are going to be in proximity to this will face them with their bedrooms. That's their bedrooms. The bedrooms are in the back of those units, and that's what's going to be listening and seeing the sounds and hearing the noise that's coming through. We ask you, please, find a different place for this. We don't mind that area getting developed. It's the way of the world. I wish you'd make it a dog park, but other than that, we'd like it not to be open between 11 and 7. Thank you. Richard Gigliotti, 172A High Point Terrace West, living in Delray Beach. Of all the presentations that we made, I guess I'm going to ask the only question. Why does JFK want to move into this area? Why do they want to be down here when they have the whole operation where they are? And we can take them to, we can take injured people to that observation, that location, if we need to. But why do they want to move down here to disrupt everybody living here with lights, sounds, speeding? Atlantic Avenue is not one of the safest roads to travel on. There have been so many accidents, and the speed is horrendous. And now we want to put ambulances there. We want to put police cars there. Why? To do more disruption to the people living there? I've lived there, I've owned there since 1985, 87. And we've never had this situation, never had this situation. So my question is, why would we allow JFK to move into this hospital in this area if they're doing well where they are? And, you know, there's just so many different things that affect the people. So that'd be one of them. That'd be one, the lights, the sirens, the sounds, that'd be another one. And then there's going to be an additional movement later on for the same thing. Why would we do that? Thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to comment? Seeing no one, public comments close. Mr. Roach, Ms. Dossary, do you have any cross-examination of the witnesses or rebuttal? None from staff. Thank you. Good evening. I'm the aforementioned Brian Seymour that Mr. Roach mentioned. It's not really rebuttal per se because, frankly, we covered all of the issues. I will just explain. The 1.1 to 1.2 is not a guess. The reason it comes out to a weird number is because it's based on data that's collected from the FSCEDs that are operated. So that's a factual statistical number that we created. That's why it comes out very odd, by the way. We're not going to chop an ambulance up into point ones. But what I want to offer specifically is for High Point, there was a lot – and I'm not going to try to pronounce their lawyer's name. I wrote it down, but by the time I got from my seat to here, I already lost it. But I'm happy to sit down with High Point's representatives and see if we can come up with the right kind of buffer. We can certainly do some additional buffering. We did, and we can agree to the condition on the site plan, by the way, to the buffering that we've proposed. We can walk through some of those issues. We can talk about the lighting. It will all be internal. There's no spillage. There's all these things that we will make sure happen so that we can accommodate for those issues. We do understand those concerns. We hear that. The anti-competitive issue is a complete other issue, but the actual impacts to the neighbors, we're happy to sit down and talk with them before we head to the city commission. Thank you. All right. Board comments. Mr. Katz. Are you starting me? Yeah, I'm going to start with you, unless somebody else wants to start. I'll start. I have a couple questions. I have a question to the attorney. The applicant mentioned numerous times that they were allowed by right for this use. My understanding is that a conditional use is only vested upon an approved conditional use for right to a property. Well, I think Rebecca could answer that question better. Yeah, so the medical office use is by right. The 24-hour portion of the use is conditional. And so for the case, though, of this particular request, the 24-hour part of the use is crucial to the operation of the medical office due to some state and federal requirements for the emergency room use. But the medical office use is by right. Right. So the medical office is by right, but a 24-hour use is not vested right. So just to remind – and I hear this a lot from applicants when they come up for conditional use. They're under oath. Please, I ask them to tell us the whole truth. They say part of it. But when they're asking to say, hey, once it's approved as a conditional use, then that property has vested rights. But until a conditional use approval is, they don't have vested property rights because it says subject to a conditional use approval. They have the right to apply. And just – it seems like this is the second or third meeting in a row we have applicants saying they have a right whether we say yes or no. And that's not the truth. I think in this case, the applicant is accurate, whereas we can debate about the other one another day. But medical office, it's a straight – Medical office is, but 24-hour has to be approved conditional use. Correct. So it's a little bit muddled, and we allowed them to proceed with this beforehand prior to the whole site plan just because of the nature of the request. But it's a weird chicken and egg sort of thing. But it is not unfactual to say that the medical office is by right. It's very rare that we would see where they're so closely tied together. Can I ask you a question? Sure. Interrupt you. Just so we understand what we're deciding here. Just a 24-hour question. Are we only deciding whether or not there can be a late-night use, or are we deciding that there can be an emergency medical center there? The late-night use itself. So if there – All we're approving is the late-night use at that location? Correct. But if there are things about the operations of that use that you think could be mitigated by conditions being imposed by the board, that you're allowed to do. But it's not the medical part. It's just the 24-hour part. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. All right. No, thank you. And I just – I want to make sure we're clear on what we're approving and whether we have to approve or we can listen to those conditions. I – to Mr. – Dr. Spodak, sorry. When he was up here previously, you know, to get a recent change to his, I actually made a comment, I'd love to see something on that empty piece of property. When I first saw the – when I first saw it come through, I was like, great, there's something on that property. And then I saw the 24-hour part. And then I saw the 24-hour part. So I had other concerns. And I did say if the neighborhood – if they felt, hey, they could use – this would be good for them, right? Potentially to have, you know, a 24-hour use. If they came out here and said, hey, we want this. This is great for us. We don't have to go all the way three miles to Delray Medical Center. We could go right across the street. It doesn't sound like that is the case. They're definitely not coming here saying that they really want this use. We have to also consider – let me get down to the bottom – is will this have a significant impact on the neighborhood? And I think that the 24-hour portion will. Like I said, I would love to see just a medical office there even – you know, I don't think you need another urgent care because there's about 10 within a mile, I think, of this space of urgent cares. But if they wanted to put an urgent care or something like that, it might make more sense that's not open 24 hours. I'm just – I don't think it's appropriate. I think it – I think I heard somebody say even out west, like west of Delray, there is, you know, like Lyons area. There's nothing out. That is a barren land. That would make a lot more sense. But we do have Delray Medical Center within three miles. Knock on wood, I haven't had to go there in a long time. But I have not heard, you know, that people are lined up there for hours. And I think the CEO shared data that says differently. So I'm not inclined to approve this tonight. Thank you. There's no need for applause. We all have our opinions and we're all – and you might not agree with all of us, but please respect everybody's opinion whether you agree with it or not. Oh, yeah. Thanks for that comment, man. Mr. Chart. Not very much. Mr. Chart. I've got a number of questions. Would it make a difference – Yeah, you're on. If the ambulance bay was flipped to the south side, so you then have at least some blockage of the alleged noise and it would not be as close to the community, is – from the applicant's point of view, would that be a possibility as a condition of approval? Mr. Chart, who are you asking? You're asking – The applicant. Okay. Do you want to get up and respond? To be fair, I'm not an architect. But I – you know, what it would do would flip, so the primary entrance for the people who drive themselves would be on the north side because you can't have the ambulance. But is it possible to do – I suspect it's possible. Or we'd need to check with the architects. We can evaluate that if that was something that would be helpful. Okay. The reason I ask is that the community's lawyer has suggested a number of conditions of approval. The canopy trees, the hedge, the security plan, maintenance. Are all those things that you would be willing to consider? I would suggest the vast majority of them. They're things that we can do. I'm not sure I understood all of it, which is partly why I'd like to sit down and talk. Like two hedges, what constitutes mature trees. Typically, when you deal with trees, you're talking about, you know, how high and the width of the trunks and things of that nature. I don't know what the market allows. I mean, a full mature live oak could be a 50-year live oak, right? So we'd have to go through that. But I'd certainly – that's why I want to sit down and see if we could figure something out with him and try to come up with something that would work. The challenge there is we're trying to make a decision tonight. Well, you're making a recommendation tonight, I think, is – So if you were not to vote in favor of it, the request would stop dead unless the applicant appeals. However, if the board felt there was a need for there to be a site plan, a detailed site plan associated with it, you could continue it to the next meeting. That would be – because I think our landscape regulations are quite robust in terms of tree size, and I don't want to sit here and try to have the board maybe even require something that's less than what we require. So I think if that was the route you were going to take, continuance would likely be preferable. Which is something we certainly can do. So if you wanted to continue this, we can go back and we can bring the details so that that condition – those conditions could be much more detailed based on what the plans could look like. And in that time, we'd certainly sit down. I did hear some people say they didn't care, but I would try anyway to sit down with the attorney and see if we can figure something. Excuse me before you continue. I need to interrupt. Being told that we would like to take a quick five-minute break, I just need to have a discussion with the Development Services Assistant Director. So I'm sorry to pause. I know I normally don't do this, but we just need a five-minute break. Okay, five-minute break starting now. Let's go. As soon as we get everybody back, Price. Price. Price, as soon as we get everybody back. Price. No, I know, but we want to get going. Price wants to stay here all night. I'm trying to move my flight to an earlier flight. I'm depending on the length of this meeting. The meeting is rejoined, resumed. Okay, so just information for the – Do you have something you want to say? Yes, information for the board. So Development Services mentioned that they accidentally forgot to include some important findings for you all. That the board has to consider. So because of that, the applicant has made a request to move to continue to a date certain in two months. Do you want to add anything? Just the date would be the 23rd. It will give us time to, you know, answer a little more questions, put a little more detail, meet with the neighbors. You'll get your findings, put everything back together. So that would be – What, 23rd of February? February. They need to – yes. Do we need some kind of motion or something, or are we just going to continue it? It would be a motion to continue. Can we have a discussion first, sir? Yeah, if you want. I would just add is I would ask the applicant. I hear a lot that we – and this is not the first time recently where, you know, we'll go back and work with the community on things. Now you have a chance if we're going to move it is to work with the community, meet with them, meet with their attorney and the neighbors and see if, you know, you could change their minds and see why they might want to support this might help. So doing that outreach in advance of coming here really helps us. So now that it sounds like you're going to get that chance. Yes, sir. I'd ask that you reach out as much as you can to that community to see if – they might never support you, but at least you try. They may not, but I do have – I'm going to – Sparezzini? Ooh, I have Mr. Sparezzini's card, so I did get it. Yeah. And I will shoot him an email when I sit in my car from my phone so we can connect, and we will take that time to go through some things. We'll go back to our client and ask about some of the questions that came up today as well. I'd like to move that we defer this matter until the February 23rd meeting. Second. We have a motion by Patton. Seconded by Ms. Mollica. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All opposed? No. Good. Thank you, sir. We have six to one in favor. Mr. Chard, not in favor. Mr. Chard voted no. You want a roll call just in case? Shall we do a roll call? Let's go ahead. Do a roll call. Let's do a roll call. Yeah, we'll do a roll call. I'm just a, since we don't, we're not unanimous. Yeah, please. Roger Coe? Yes. Mitch Katz? Yes. Deidre Strong? Yes. Jim Chard? No. Price Patton? Yes. Judy Mollica? Yes. Gregory Snyder? Yes. It does pass six to one, and I just want to say that I think your attitude is excellent as far as attempting to cooperate and solve the problem. Yes, sir. It may or may not work. I've been doing this almost 30 years, and we're not quite at Mr. Katz's hair line, but I'm getting there. And I'm not saying anything against the community at all. I just think that... Totally understandable. If I can make a quick clarification. Yes, please. Yeah, so for the members of the public, we will not be sending a mailer out for this meeting because it was continued to date certain of February 23rd. If for some reason the applicant chooses to move it to a different date, then a mailer would go out. But for the purposes of now, no mailers will be going out for the February 23rd meeting. So mark your calendars. Mark your calendars. February 23rd. We'll be here. What time? 5 p.m. 5 p.m. 5 p.m. 5 p.m. 5 p.m. 5 p.m. Sorry, yeah, it's 5 p.m. Yeah, it's got to be 5 p.m. And thank you, everyone, for being here. I'm curious to see if you can change models. I think you're on a great track. Their lawyer was very accountable. Well, they should have, I thought. They probably should have reached out. Well, they probably, yeah, they didn't do enough. But I just, I don't know. I can't see. We'll see what happens. I think they didn't realize. Uh-oh. But they did. We've got Alexis. I call him that. We're lucky. And we've got Christina, so we're really lucky. The manners that we're using, are you going to be a special special? Which part? Oh. Of course. Yeah, yeah. I can tell them to do that. Yeah, Rebecca, did you hear? Are you hearing that? To us for your, Ms. Rosenberg, want to read the file into the record? Yes. Good evening, everyone. Hey, just a second. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we're trying to have a meeting here. If you could go outside, please. If your items continue, we've still got a bunch. Sorry. Please go ahead. For the record, Alexis Rosenberg, senior planner, I'd like to enter into the record file numbers 172-2025 and 174-2025, which is a land use map amendment and a rezoning for the properties at 2855, 2875, and 2905 South Congress Avenue. And we're here with Christina Belenke, who's the agent for the application. Thank you. Ms. Belenke. Hi. Good evening. Nice to see everyone again. For the record, my address is 14 Southeast 4th Street in Boca Raton. It's a pleasure to be here representing Delray Corporate Center this evening. So to put things into perspective, if this works. Oh, yes. Sorry. Let's do ex parte. I'd hate to interrupt you. None whatsoever. None of the drive-by in my office, of course, in the middle of the building. I drove by. None. Since I was going to Costco anyway, I did do a drive-by. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Go ahead. All right. And I'm having technical difficulties here moving this along. I don't know. I drive by. Thank you. Okay. So it sounds like most of you are very familiar with the property. So we're looking at three parcels currently that make up the Delray Corporate Center. It is 7.6 acres total located on the east side of Congress Avenue towards the south end of the city, south of Linton. Right now, we have two requests. The current land use designation for the parcel is Congress Avenue Mixed Use. We are proposing to amend that to the Commerce Land Use designation. And then, separately, we have a rezoning request. Currently, the property is zoned MROC, Mixed Residential Office and Commercial. And we are proposing to change that to MIC, Mixed Industrial and Commerce. And so there's a lot of history with the MROC zoning district and the industrial nature of Congress Avenue. These properties were built in the 80s, starting in 83 and then going on to 86. In total, there are five separate buildings. They're just over 100,000 square feet in size. And so when the property was initially developed, it did have a light industrial zoning designation. In 1990, that was changed and updated to Mixed Industrial and Commercial. But through that entire period, industrial uses, light industrial uses, were permitted on the property. In 2006, the city created the MROC zoning district. And really, the goal was for Congress Avenue to have really a mixed-use nature with residential, with retail, with office. Specifically, the goal was to have a lot of Class A office space along Congress Avenue. And ultimately, that just didn't come to fruition as the city had initially expected. And what it did is it put a significant burden on the industrial uses that are in this area. And so the industrial nature of the property, those uses are grandfathered, and they're legally non-conforming uses. But anytime there's a vacancy, if that industrial use is abandoned for more than 180 days, then it's no longer permitted on the property. And often, with industrial uses coming in, just by nature, they need a little bit more time. 180 days is quick for a tenant to turn things around, make the necessary improvements, and get their certificate of use to be able to continue. So it's put a lot of, quite a big burden on the property owner in securing their tenants. It puts a lot of pressure on proposed new tenants to be able to open in a timely manner. And ultimately, you know, it's really impacted the industrial uses that are important to the city of Delray Beach. And so, I'm going to skip that one. Really, the difference, again, between the MIC and the MROC is related to the Class A office, the nature of the mixed uses. So, what we're proposing to do is essentially revert back to the industrial uses that were permitted on the property before the creation of the MROC zoning district. So, going back to the MIC district, which is what the property was zoned previously, that allows the household furnishings and goods, the kind of showrooms for flooring and bathrooms and stuff like that, that are in existence in this corporate center now. So, the MROC zoning district also has a general requirement that retail uses cannot comprise more than 20% of the total floor area. And so, again, for these showrooms that have, you know, large space for customers to walk through, it, again, puts a burden on them limiting their ability to utilize kind of their space the way they need to. And so, more recently, just a couple years ago, the city engaged StreetSense and CBRE to re-evaluate the Congress Avenue corridor. Really, they wanted to see what the market demanded today. And, again, they noted that that Class A office space hasn't really come to the corridor. The mixed use nature that was intended hasn't really come to the corridor. It's more so being driven by standalone residential uses because of the high costs of the land. And then there are, you know, these pockets and clusters of industrial areas that, again, you know, need to be supported. And so, the StreetScape study talks about that. It talks about, specifically, this area, it calls it out as a light industrial cluster. It talks about providing, you know, marketing efforts to help bring awareness to those areas, adding flexibility to the MROC zoning district to allow for light industrial uses. That hasn't happened, which is why we're proposing to revert back to MIC. And really, it's saying that broadening the uses, allowing those light industrial uses, again, will support the vacancies that are in there now and support the important industrial uses in this city. So, the staff report does go into detail related to the required findings. The land use map, again, that is something we are proposing to change. But there are numerous objectives in the comprehensive plan that do support this change. For example, Policy NDC 1.4.9 talks about, again, analyzing the existing use, land use, and zoning designations of the Congress mixed-use area and providing a balance of mix of uses that include commercial, industrial, office, and residential. So, again, the industrial is an important component of that. And protecting commercial and industrial land uses to maintain and enhance the job base. That's Policy NDC 2.3.7. In terms of concurrency, again, the staff report goes into water, sewer, solid waste. All of that is being met. And when it comes to traffic, when we're looking at kind of the maximum development that would be permitted under the existing future land use designation versus what's being proposed, it's actually a decrease in traffic by 31,302 daily trips. So, the industrial nature of the uses is much less impactful than what could be developed there under the current land use. And compliance with the LDRs, again, any development that would be proposed in the future would need to comply with the land development regulations. In terms of the rezoning, valid reasons to support a rezoning include that there has been a change in circumstances, which makes the current zoning inappropriate. And, again, I think we've seen that, you know, the city has really tried to bring their vision for the MROC zoning district along Congress Avenue into fruition. It just has not happened. It's, again, been a burden on these industrial areas. And so, now with that street-sape study that was done, we see the importance, again, of these light industrial areas. And it is a more appropriate zoning district. And so, that's essentially it. I have the summary of the requests, again, on your screen. And I am happy to answer any questions that you may have this evening and certainly appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, again. So, I'll try and be brief going over the site information, again, because Ms. Belenke summarized it pretty well. So, the subject site is comprised of three parcels, totaling 7.6 acres. It's currently constructed with five commercial office warehouse buildings that together equal 102,632 square feet. The current land use map designation is Congress Avenue Mixed Use, and the current zoning is Mixed Residential Office and Commercial, also known as MROC. The request is for a small-scale land use map amendment from Congress Avenue Mixed Use to Commerce, and also privately initiated rezoning from MROC to Mixed Industrial and Commercial. So, the image at the right shows the surrounding areas. We have office and storage to the south, the Delray Oaks natural area to the west, multifamily Delray Oaks west to the southwest, and then vacant property to the north. And then, briefly going over the history, as stated, the current development or the current structures were built in the 1980s. Then, in 1989 slash 1990, the three parcels kept the Commerce land use designation but were rezoned from light industrial to mixed industrial and commercial. And then, again, in 2007, with the city initiated a land use map amendment and rezoning, it got a Congress Avenue Mixed Use Land Use designation and an MROC zoning designation, along with 62 other parcels along the Congress Avenue corridor. So, here is an image showing the existing land use and proposed land use from Congress Avenue Mixed Use to Commerce. Congress Avenue Mixed Use is intended to accommodate a variety of commercial office and residential uses. There's a base density of 40 dwelling units per acre, and it can go up to 50 dwelling units per acre with a revitalization incentive, which includes workforce housing. And the maximum floor area ratio is 2.5. The proposed Commerce land use designation, on the other hand, has more limited residential density, goes up to about 24 dwelling units per acre in certain areas, and then it has a maximum FAR of 0.6. Then, here we have the existing and proposed zoning from MROC to mixed industrial and commercial. So, the existing MROC zoning, similarly to the land use, it accommodates more transit-oriented residential development, commercial, and office uses as well, where the proposed mixed industrial and commercial, that supports more light industrial uses, limited residential, and some office. So, going into the SAP analysis for the land use map amendment, pursuant to the Always Del Rey Comprehensive Plan, the proposed mixed industrial and commercial zoning district is an implementing zoning district of the proposed Commerce land use designation. The existing, sorry, the existing Congress Avenue mixed use land use designation does not support a lot of the lighter industrial zoning districts that are in the city. Also, going into the concurrency review, the schools, water and sewer, solid waste, drainage, and parks and recreation have been met, most of which will also come into play if a site plan amendment is proposed. Just narrowing in on traffic a little bit, as Ms. Belenke said, so this charts from the submitted traffic impact analysis, and it highlights when it comes to a rezoning or land use map amendment, we analyze the most intense development that can be proposed under the existing and the proposed land use and zoning designation. So, going under the existing, applying a 2.5 maximum floor area ratio, which is currently permitted, and the 40 dwelling units per acre, the most intense development could result in possibly 33,239 daily trips, where proposing the mixed industrial and commercial zoning district with a .6 FAR and 24 dwelling units per acre, the most intense development could generate around 1,937 daily trips, so that does equal in a potential net decrease of a little over 31,000 trips. Going into the consistency with the Delray or Always Delray Comprehensive Plan, so the plan emphasizes on the importance of preserving a lot of industrial properties throughout the city and also fostering a balanced mix of uses along the corridor. Initially, that is what the existing land use intended to do, but as stated through some of the recent studies that hasn't been accomplished, originally, the MROC zoning district was intended to attract more Class A office space, but it seems that more Class or B office space might be more supported, light industrial and home improvement clusters, and also standalone residential development along the corridor, we see an interest in that as well. While the MROC zoning district reinforces high-density residential development and also a variety of commercial uses, the zoning district doesn't support a lot of the light industrial uses that the comprehensive plan puts emphasis on preserving. Additionally, just going into the Congress Avenue Strategies Plan, which was prepared by CBRE in 2023, it provides a market-informed and retail strategy recommendations for the corridor. So the specific site is located in sub-area four. So they have different characteristics and recommendations in the bullet points below. So you might see 100% residential projects, standalone, also more horizontal, not vertically mixed uses. And then also it says the MROC zone is interrupted by industrial zoning or existing light industrial clusters zoned as MROC are unsupported. The site is also within an industrial cluster and it's classified as a home improvement and light industrial zone. So it's etched out in the red dotted square at the bottom of that diagram right there. And the site is also within an affordable housing incentive area due to its distance from the tri-rail, which is almost two miles. Under the existing MROC zoning and factoring in the possibility of a Live Local Act project, the site is at risk of being converted from light industrial to fully standalone residential. Going into the valid reasons for potential zoning change. As Ms. Spelenke stated, the applicant is proposing to go under all three criteria for it being established an error, also a change in circumstance, and that the proposed zoning is more appropriate for the subject site. Going into the specific standards for rezoning as well. So in the staff report criterion A and B and E are not applicable to the request. Criterion C advocates against requests that would result in strip commercial development. So the existing zoning district and the proposed zoning district could allow uses that would result in strip commercial. However, no site plan has been proposed in concurrent with this request. And then Criterion D requires that all rezonings shall result in allowing uses that are deemed compatible with the surrounding area and that are sufficient regulations do exist to mitigate any adverse impacts. So as mentioned, the mixed industrial and commercial zoning district, it allows for a mix of commercial, office, and industrial uses, such as manufacturing, fabrication, wholesale distribution, service industries, and it limits residential development to 24 dwelling units per acre in certain overlay districts, which this site is not located in one. These uses are compatible or generally compatible with the surrounding areas. We have a chart at the bottom right, which goes over the immediate adjacent uses and their land use designations and zoning districts. Just wanted to highlight, because I believe this had came up before in a similar request, that certain uses of concerns such as adult entertainment centers and CBD oil establishments, those uses are allowed uses in the proposed MIC zoning district. However, they would not be permitted at this specific site due to specific distance requirements in the LDR. Those distance requirements are minimum distance requirements from residential zoning districts. So in summary, some considerations for the land use map amendment is to consider whether the request of the commerce land use designation is consistent with the applicable goals, objectives, and policies of the comprehensive plan, whether the requested commerce land use allows the most appropriate development to fulfill the remaining land use needs, and then for the rezoning, whether there's been a change in circumstance on the site or within the neighborhood that renders the MROC zoning district inappropriate, and whether the requested zoning is of similar intensity allowed under the Congress Avenue mixed use land use designation, and is more appropriate for this property. Going into just review of others. So the applications were transmitted to the interlocal plan amendment review committee back in October with no objection. And if there is a recommendation of approval tonight, we anticipate these applications going to January and February city commission. And then just here are a summary of the board options. And that concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions. Great. Thank you very much. At this point, is there any public, anyone wishing to comment on this? Seeing no one come forward. Public comment is closed. Congress and Christina's not here, I can't believe it. Yeah, it's too far south. Does the staff or applicant have any rebuttal? No rebuttal. No rebuttal for me either. Okay. Board, who wants to start? I'll start. They didn't get a chance last time. I got cut off in the middle, so I'll stop. Okay. They haven't presented the landscaping. I know. Yeah. How many trees? He wasn't going to talk about trees. I do want to thank staff for, you know, mentioning the long forgotten Congress Avenue Task Force report in the report, because there's a lot of hours spent on that. This one's a no-brainer to me. And the reason is, I think there's a great deal of evolving concern in the city that residential is squeezing everything else out. And certainly in the discussions on the Visions 2035, that is a major concern. I think this is a step toward solving that concern. My only, or two kind of issues. One is, does this come close to constituting sort of single-use zoning, spot zoning, because it really only applies to this area? And if it does, I'm not real concerned about it, because the applicant said that we've been trying to get this changed for years, and no change has taken place. But, I mean, it just seems to me like it is really spot zoning. So we did look at that as staff. What helped was it was three parcels coming in, not just one in a sea of other MROC zoning districts. And there has been talks about looking at the rest of the corridor, because we've seen similar applications come in, I think, within the last year, and some more might be coming in. So we'll be looking at that. The other thing is, there was language in there that talked about light industrial dash home improvement. And that just concerned me that we would be limiting, in effect, light industrial to home improvement. And there's all sorts of light industrial out there. I mean, breweries are light industrial. Pharmaceutical compounding is light industrial. 3D printing is light industrial. So it seems like the city, in some ways, is closing the door rather than opening the door to jobs and light industrial. Yes. So I put the image up back on the screen with the diagram. So it does show the home improvement light industrial cluster that you had mentioned. Correct me if I'm wrong, Rebecca. But I think this was more supposed to show where these opportunities can be, not necessarily limiting to these types of uses are only allowed in this area. But more of this is where these types of uses can thrive. Thank you. And also, as part of the whole analysis of the corridor, they identified different areas where there are existing industry clusters and where we needed to look at revising the regulations. Ideally, we do have it in the plan to update the uses in MROC. But in the intermediary time, I think, to make some of these businesses able to be productive land uses based on their characteristics, which haven't changed since MROC was, this is an alternative way to allow them to continue that use that's existing on that site. Not that we couldn't do other uses, but to support what's already there better. Thank you. Want me to go? Yeah, go ahead. All right. I just have a couple questions. One, currently, is this land under the Live Local Act where they can utilize the Live Local Act? Under current zoning? I believe, because it's mixed use applies to Live Local, so I believe yes. No, the MROC that it's under right now. Oh, MROC. Yeah, so MROC is the zoning district that we turn to for Live Local. So there's not really to establish the maximum density because it has the highest density without incentives, because even though CBD has up to 100 dwelling units per acre, you can only get there through doing certain things. So this is the Live Local density, so if someone wanted to do 100% residential, they wouldn't need to do Live Local. Currently? Currently, no. But if they change it, so it's not really changing. What I'm worried about is that we're going to—I'm all in favor of more industrial. You know that. So when I hear more industrial, I'm very—that sounds great to me. I just want to make sure we're not taking away our rights, potentially, because this Live Local Act still scares me and gives a lot of opportunity for taking all local rights away. So that's my concern. Yeah, right now they could do 100% residential anyway, so it would be more steps to get it to—so either way, you're not necessarily losing anything in terms of residential, but it's possibly gaining something in terms of adding to some uses that are currently a little restricted. Okay. That really helps me in my decision. Do we have—do you know what's planned there? Is that we allowed to—I don't want to—I know I can't weigh my decision, but are we allowed to share with it? So really, this is intended to support the existing uses that are on the property. Oh, like we did with the others we changed recently? Yes, exactly. Okay. And I have no problems with it. Okay. Mr. Crowe. Well, I'm with Mitch and Jim. I almost defer to Jim, Mr. Congress Avenue, you know. Right? But I mean— Everybody calls me that. Two-lane Congress. So I'm in favor of both the amendment adoption and the rezoning change. It's that simple. Great. No comments, no questions. I'm in favor. All of my questions have been asked and answered. Yeah, I'm in favor too. It's a difficult piece of land because it's just so narrow there. I remember going to ribbon cutting at that call center and decided it didn't survive. But anyway, I'm supportive of both changes as well. Yeah, my only question I had on this whole thing was why we were doing it in advance of that in the beginning and I can support it. Can we get a motion? I have a motion. We need to do these one at a time, don't we? Can we get a motion for the land use amendment? Move a recommendation of approval to the City Commission of Ordinance Number 05-26, a privately initiated small-scale land use map amendment from Congress Avenue mixed-use CMU to Commerce CMR for a 7.6-acre property located at 2855, 2875, and 2905 South Congress Avenue, finding that the amendment and the approval thereof is consistent with the comprehensive plan and meets the applicable criteria. Set forth in the land development regulations. I have a motion by Ms. Mollica, seconded by Mr. Chard, and Ms. Miller, would you call the roll, please? Roger Cope? Yes. Mr. Katz? Yes. Ginger Strong? Yes. Jim Chard? Yes. Price Patton? Yes. Judy Mollica? Yes. Gregory Snyder? I move a recommendation of approval to the City Commission of Ordinance Number 04-26, a privately initiated rezoning from mixed residential office and commercial MROC to mixed industrial and commercial MIC for a 7.6-acre property located at 2855, 2875, and 2905 South Congress Avenue, finding that the request and the approval thereof is consistent with the comprehensive plan and meets the applicable criteria. Set forth in the land development regulations. Second. Second. Okay. We have a motion by Ms. Mollica, seconded by Mr. Strong. Call the roll, please. Roger Cope? Yes. Mitch Katz? Yes. Mr. Strong? Yes. Jim Chard? Yes. Price Patton? Yes. Judy Mollica? Yes. Gregory Snyder? Yes. That also passes. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. There are more than three addresses when you go in there. Each building had a separate, so I don't know if there's a technical technicality problem there or not. No, so there each parcel has its own address and then within each parcel there, or each building has separate addresses assigned? Some of the three addresses will suffice to cover all five problems. Correct. Okay. We could look at the... I already put that in. Mr. Rodriguez, if somebody would... Hc. I wish. Good evening. Yeah, right. It's Robert Vento. He's not here. Good evening. I'm John Reed, representing... John. We need to read it into the record first. I'm sorry. All time. Senior Planner, introducing file 2025-203 of conditional use modification. Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez. Is there any ex parte on this? I have not been in a while, so I'm not to this subject, but I mean, I did... We were part of the original approvals, so I'm very familiar with the site, and I've had... I've been there thousands of times, so... Sure. None. That's a trifle. That's right. Okay. I went to the silver ball to look at what this is going to look like when they get it done. Nothing. No. No ex parte. None. Okay. John, now you're on. All right. Thank you. Good evening. I'm John Reed from 970 Southwest 14th Street in Boca Raton, and I'm with JSR Design Group, and we are representing Silver Ball, and what we are looking to do is to enclose 874 square feet of the second floor, which is currently a two-story open space. And Silver Ball is, as you may know, is a vintage pinball and arcade entertainment facility, and what they are looking to do is to enclose a portion of it to provide pool tables and being used for other entertainment purposes as well. As you said, the Silver Ball opened up in 2016 after renovating. The building was originally, I think, 1925. And then we are presenting tonight with the purpose of requesting review and approval for a modification to the existing conditional use for the commercial recreation establishment. And for Mr. Katz, full disclosure, to the best of my knowledge, we are asking for permission, not a right. Thank you. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I believe that is, but I'll defer to Rebecca in Brazil. And in order to do this, as you can see, I guess everyone is familiar with the Silver Ball and its location, and the property lines of it are the building itself. So all parking is city parking around it. In order to do this, we are bringing up to meet all the plumbing requirements, which it currently doesn't meet, as well as we're bringing it up for a fire code. We are enclosing one of the open stairwells to provide to bring it up to all fire standards. And then in terms of the, I'll leave Grazell and Rebecca in terms of all the technical aspects of it. But the, am I able to shift with this? So the gray, is one a pointer by any chance? Do I push a button or how do I aim it or I'm sorry. Okay. The shaded area on the second floor plan, that is what we will be infilling. And as you can see, the pool tables up there for, are located there. It is over the pinball area. It's a two-story open pinball area. So that is what we're enclosing. The, the areas in yellow are a bar area. So, and the, but that, you know, the basis is to provide, enclose that to allow for more pool tables up there on the second floor. I guess I would defer to Grazell and Rebecca for all the technical data. Yeah. Keeping it simple. That's it? That's it. Oh, okay. Great. Thanks. I'm not quite as long winded as a lot of people. Yes. And I was going to wear a red shirt today. I'm glad I didn't do that. Yeah. You're right. Uh, please. Ms. So this is application 25, 2025, 203. It's a conditional use modification for a commercial recreation facility. The location is CBD across from the railroad tracks. On the other side to the, to the west is the, uh, remainder CBD and the OSHAD, the historical district area. The land use is commercial core. The central business district is the zoning and the current use is commercial recreation. And that will not change. This is what the building looks like on the outside. No changes are anticipated at all. And the hours of operation of the building are Sunday through Thursday, 11 in the morning till midnight and Friday through Saturday, 11 a.m. till 2 a.m. the next morning. The request is the modification to add 874 square feet to the second story of Northeast 3rd Ave, 19 Northeast 3rd Avenue. The expansion is to increase the total floor area from 8,325 square feet to 9,199 square feet. Also includes updated restroom facilities, which will be added through building permit and the conversion of the existing second floor general use area to a 116 square foot bar area. The parking will require one more space, but per the LDR section 4.4 13 I to C, the parking exception can be invoked and will be invoked to grant one more parking space on a one time basis. Only one time per property can this exemption be given. The history of the approvals for this is that in 2016, there was an original approval for 7,697 square feet and the area subject to parking was 9 1,975. The formula that was derived at that time is that the food service areas plus 10% of the area where people could drink theoretically or carry their beverages 10% of that area and that's how you got the area for required parking. So this is how required parking was developed. In 2021, that figure moved to 2,038 square feet of area per parking. And today it's going to be 2,241 square feet of area for parking. This is the site plan that was proposed. As the applicant said, the gray area is the area that's going to have a new area. By the way, the, I've been told that this makes it a second story, even though there's still some open area for the building code and fire code, it is still an open area, but a mezzanine no longer. Section LDR 2.4.6 A5, the establishment of a conditional use findings that will not have a significantly detrimental effect upon the stability of the neighborhood. It's a commercial recreational facility such as amusement game facilities are allowed as a conditional use per table LDR 4.413 A. The hours of operation are, as we said, Sunday through Thursday, 11 to midnight and Friday and Saturday, 11 to 2 AM in the morning. And that it will not hinder the development or redevelopment of nearby properties. The arcade faces a railroad track and surrounding lots are primarily commercial parking areas. So, and to give you a better perspective of where it sits relative to the central business district and the old school square historic district. Okay. The CBD is the preferred zoning district for required findings under the land use map. The CBD district allows commercial recreational facilities such as bowling alleys, skating rinks and amusement games and conditional uses. And table NDC one of the always Delray comprehensive plan. The preferred district for commercial core is the CBD. Required findings with respect to concurrency. There are no changes in water, sewer or drainage services. There is sufficient capacity to accommodate solid waste. Schools and parks and recreation are not applicable to this request. And the expansion adds one parking space, which is allowed as an exemption in the CBD when only one space is needed, as we previously said. The consistency issue with respect to the comprehensive plan is that we can, they continue to develop and redevelop the area to improve, provide affordable goods and services, which this establishment is not changing. It's just growing within. The other one is the downtown surrounding neighborhoods. It protected and enhanced the village by the sea character of the downtown area. And under the commercial core land use designation, it stimulates the vitality and economic growth of the city to have this kind of an amusement there. And it supports the growth and development of small businesses. This is a small business which is trying to become more sustainable. The required findings compliance with the LDR. The commercial recreational use is allowed as a conditional use pursuant to LDR table 4.413A. Approval of the expanded use is subject to the required findings in the LDR 2.4.6. And these are your choices. Great. Thank you. At this point, the floor is open for public comment. And seeing no one come forward, public comment is closed. Does either the applicant or the staff have any rebuttals? No. Okay. You look excited there, Ms. Mulligan. Go ahead. Yeah, this is going to be long. No questions, no comments. I'm in favor. So, I wish this could have been approved administratively somehow. But, so here it is. Here it is. Good point. I mean, this is interior only capturing a portion of the, you know, the mezzanine, what once was a mezzanine. I guess we can't call it a mezzanine now. But, of course, I'm in favor of it. I think I heard some testimony by John that it was a 1925 building. I was always taught that it was like 1900, closer to 1900. But that's beside the point. It's an iconic building that has transformed from a warehouse, an all exterior red brick warehouse. It was a beautiful building at one time. It was a Hans warehouse, right? It was a Hans warehouse. It was a Hans warehouse that morphed into city limits, that morphed into an artist studio, that then morphed into the Silver Ball Museum. And so that's what we see today. We all love it. We all, you know, it's an iconic destination for a lot of people. I mean, how on earth can we deny what they're presenting? They're expanding the second floor and making better use out of the building. And I think, apparently, updating a few deficiencies inside with the staircase and the restroom. So I'm in total favor. Great presentation by both people. Okay. Mr. Strunt, anything? No. I mean, no harm, no foul. It's internal. It seems to check all the boxes. I would. Mr. Penn. No, I'm the same. I just, maybe I, maybe I misoccur to you. I think you said that it's in the Old School Square Historic District. I don't think it is. It's west of it. East and west. And I'm a surgeon. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm in favor of it too. It's too bad it's not in Old School. Yeah, they were going to HPB and not us. Mr. Church. Mr. Church. I'm in favor. Also, I do have a question. There was no mention in the staff report of in lieu payment for this one parking space. So. There was. They don't have to. In lieu payment is not required. Said they could have one more. It didn't say anything in the staff report about in lieu. The space is granted as an exemption. I understand. Therefore, in lieu is not required. So when they came in previously, they were asking the, the use required more than one space. Therefore, they had to do in lieu. However, this increases demand by only one space. And we have this policy in the LDR that is in there to encourage adaptive reuse of buildings rather than going through a much more dramatic expansion. So this is such a minimal expansion that they don't have to do the in lieu. They're just exempt from providing it for this. It's one time. One time. You could never. At least if they somehow find many more square feet, they couldn't do it again. It's only for this one that they'd be allowed to. I just didn't see there's any clarity around it. I understand the one time, one space. But. Get out of jail free card. I'm barking. Yeah. The other thing I'd ask. Remember, Roger, when we approved this, there was a whole debate between. What is a billboard and what is a mural? And the outside of that building looks a lot different than what Scrab approved as a mural. I would go one step further. It's probably morphing right now as we speak. It changes every six months. It seemed to be changing. I think that's a code. It's fascinating. I think it's fabulous. Right. Keep changing. At one time, Jim, when it first had the mural, there were some questions. There were some questionable figures. Yes. You remember? I remember. That were a little risque, shall we say. So those are no longer. I don't think that bothered us. Hmm? It didn't bother Jim. Yeah. Keep it going. Keep it going. First of all, so you are adding restrooms, right? That's correct. Which is, I will tell you, that's always been a problem there. Especially, I held a large event there. And that's always a problem there, is finding the bathroom. So that's a good addition. I will say, listen, I love the space. You know that. But I hope this is the end of getting rid of that, like adding to that second floor. Because some of that charm of it is that open space, the noises, and I think if you completely end up closing off that second floor, you're going to lose that charm that it really has. I mean, it has, I mean, literally, we do not, if we have a visitor in town, every single visitor we bring to town, they go to the Pinball Museum. And every exchange student, the second we get an exchange student, within a week of them being here, they get to see the museum. So I'm definitely in favor. But again, just be careful as you're, I know Rob is tweaking constantly and trying to keep it going. But, you know, to keep the business going is important. But just got to be careful of that charm, because it is a special place. Do you want me to make a motion? I'll make a motion. I really don't have much to say. I agree with what you're saying about keeping the open space. I think that's important. That's important. But I also think that the pool tables are good. Yes. I think the pool tables will be a great addition. So, obviously, I support it. If we could have a... Approved to request to modify a conditional use approval for Silverwell Museum located 19 Northeast 3rd Avenue to allow the interior expansion of 874 square feet of commercial recreation use, finding that the request is consistent with the land development regulations and the policies of the Comprehensive Plan. Second. Okay. A motion by Mr. Katz, seconded by Ms. Mollica. If you could call a roll, please, Diane. Roger Cope. Yes. Mitch Katz. Yes. Peter Strong. Yes. Jim Chard. Yes. Price Patton. Yes. Judy Mollica. Yes. Gregory Snyder. Yes. That passes. Seven to nothing. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Guess what? Number eight day. Whenever you're ready, you can read it into the record. Good evening, board members. Rafiq Ibrahim, principal current planning. I would like to enter into the agenda file number 2024-228 for the link at 202 Northeast 6th Avenue. And the applicant is here to present. Thank you. Yes. Ex parte. So, no. And I also know that this is an item that has come back before you guys and I was not here the first time. Let me start the ex parte. This is a third time. Third time. Sorry. Okay. Some of you people, this is only the second time. I could give the presentation. Just kidding. And my ex parte is, yeah, basically that because I visited the site back before the first one. I'm wondering if there's some way we can reduce the length of the presentation based on the fact that we're really here only to talk about changes to the architecture. Okay. Haven't said all that. That's my ex parte and everybody else's ex parte. No, other than seeing it before. Yes. I visited the site. I talked to the architect and to the landscape. Okay. And Mr. Cassidy has no ex parte. So, Ms. Palenke, you're on again. All right. Good evening again. For the record, Christina Palenke. My address is 14 Southeast 4th Street in Boca Raton. Here for the link. Everybody, again, is very familiar with the property, the zoning, the existing conditions. So, I will breeze through that. Again, just to go back, it's 10 units being proposed, four stories. We are meeting LDR requirements in terms of the development standards. And, obviously, the focus of this presentation tonight is on the changes. So, I am going to pass it off to our architect to go over all of those details with you. Good evening. Good evening. As most of you know, on our meeting of September 16th of this year, this board requested NETA architects and our consultants to work with staff to address several items. And, the first item, oh, I apologize. My name is Peggy Fitzgerald from NETA architects. The first item was to take a look at and review and revise the front entry overhang. As you can see, we revised this overhang from the marble, making it more streamlined and of aluminum material. And, we also extended it almost the full length of the building on both street facades. It ties the ground floor together and it also defines the tripartite composition of the building. The second item that we were asked to look at was the color palette. So, we made some larger renderings with some actual color samples. And, I just want to talk about the direction we took was from the masonry modern section of the architectural guidelines. And, it reads, exterior finishes in the masonry modern language are typically stucco. In Florida, the color palette references art deco comprised primarily of whites and creams with sea greens and blues highlighting details. Darker hues may highlight the bases of buildings or emphasize deeper recesses of porches or loges. So, the main field color of the building remained the creamy white, which is the white snow at the top of the color board. The accent color was revised to a pale blue and the base color was revised to an earthy brown, which we feel sort of anchors the building and also helps reinforce the tripartite composition as well. The third item was regarding the landscaping and tree disposition. The removal of trees and what trees were remaining. So, we had our arborist revisit the site, photograph all the existing trees, and reevaluate their condition as it's been about 18 months since the first report was written. He did provide a detailed report for all the trees, which pretty much confirmed the original disposition that was provided. That, you know, the trees that needed to be removed. The trees that are along Northeast 6th Avenue are the cabbage palms that are existing, which will remain. There will be a couple more that will infill where the curb cut is being abandoned. And the remainder of the trees on the site, you know, just due to the development, most of them are in a location where either the building is going to be built, the alley is going to be expanded, or the sidewalk is going to go. Unfortunately, the condition of the trees don't really make them great candidates for relocation. But our landscape architect and our arborist are present if you have any specific questions for them. We believe these considerations and revisions have addressed the board's concerns and have elevated the project as a whole. And we request your approval. Thank you very much. Mr. Ebering. So, good evening again, board members. I will also make it brief. So, we're here to address. You have seen this item in September, exactly September 16th, three months from now. We've been working with the applicant to address the changes that the board requested. And I'm going to go briefly just to refresh your memory on the project and go through the changes as well. So, the location. North East 6th, at the corner of North East 6th Ave and North East 2nd. CBD and the commercial core land use designation. The existing structure like built 90 years ago. Single family changed into different uses across the time. And right now, it's a cigar lounge. One of the few stand-alone bars appearing on the city GIS map as a stand-alone bar. It's changing now into four stories, ten apartments, ten buildings, multi-family buildings. The city commission already approved. The planning and zoning board approved the masonry model. The city commission approved the utilization of the masonry model. Location is important in the CBD. So, Netha Architects as well has the project across North East 6th. So, both projects actually are acting like the gate to the northbound of North East 6th. And they are almost matching in size and mass. You will see this at the last slide of the presentation. Mostly surrounded by single family, sorry, one story. Just low, low, high. And then the project on the east, which is lower corner of the screen. It's the edge of pineapple, which is the other project cornering North East 6th. Before and after, you see this. So, the applicant spoke about the architectural changes. Staff analyzed this starting page 13 in the staff report. Spent two pages analyzing it piece by piece. In the analysis in the staff report, we provided an overall analysis based on the CBD architecture design guidelines. And also, we were critical at the end. So, we were just providing ideas on perhaps suggestion to the applicant if they feel for improvement. Architecture is always accepting improvement. But so far, it is actually meeting the standards and meeting all the requirements. The proposal, as you see, like it's four stories, ten residential units. So, it is within the jurisdiction of the planning and zoning board. It needs to meet the requirement, regulations of chapter three. Basically, chapter 2, 4, 2.4, 10 sets the regulations. So, it tells us that this application needs to meet the findings of chapter three, as well as two more findings. Architecture, 4.6.18 and landscape, 4.6.16, three. And then, if you go to chapter three, you find out that you need to meet four things. A, B, C and D. We'll just go through it quickly so that we cover the review of this project. So, the overall high is meeting all the LDR requirement is met. And just an overview on the floor plans. And the only access in and out, vehicular access, is through the alley, which will come to it. Because there is, and then the floor plan, there is a roof plan. Architecture, as I mentioned, like met, this is just a refresher from the CBD architecture design guidelines. And then, this is A, B, C and D. This is basically in chapter three. So, A is the land use map. It means the land use map and the concurrency, as well as consistency, meaning like the zoning district meeting the land use designation and the compliance with LDR. Except for 4610. 4610 is the loading demand. A project like that requires two spaces, two loading spaces. And in 4610, the code gives authority to the acting board to grant an approval based on the proposal. And based on the justification that the applicant present. So, this is a relief, but the findings of relief, like a waiver event, does not apply here. The only finding is the appropriateness that the board see that this is adequate. So, the justification, as the applicant mentioned, is only residential and there is a property manager. And this is happening during specific time, during like the move then. And as well as like during the justification, the applicant also spent time explaining also the trash collection process. So, this is something that you need to grant today if you choose to approve. And again, that's it. That's where the red dotted line shows exactly the alley and that's basically where will loading happen. The current proposal is meeting. All the requirement is just like there are improvement. The applicant went through it. The colors are here. The canopy over the entrance, it improved really from the marble into an elegant size and matching with the overall design. And then again, this is the before and after. And this is the massing, which is important. Like you see, if you see like the proposed project and then across the street, the two townhouses, buildings on the edge of pineapple. It's acting like a gateway to the northbound of northeast. And overall, like the CBD code, you know, encourage and overall policies encourage like more density, more compactness into the CBD. And this is like a zoom in into that. And landscape plan. It had the landscape, our senior landscape planner reviewed this and it is compliant. All code requirements are met. And that's in conclusion that it's meeting all the code requirements except for the code section that I pointed at. And downtown development authority seen this recommended approval. PZB and city commission approved the architecture style. And you've seen this and then you already decided that needs to continue in September. And here we are today with your board motion. Thank you. At this point, open the floor for public comment. Is there anyone from the public wishing to speak? Please come forward. Seeing no and public comments closed. Does the applicant or the staff have any rebuttal? No rebuttal from staff. I asked the applicant to address the landscape architect is here. Yes. And I was hoping he might make a few comments. We can certainly bring him up. Yeah. You can do that when it's your turn to talk. But it's your turn to talk. So go ahead. Go ahead. I guess Mr. Chard has started. Yeah. Board comments. Mr. Chard. I don't have anything to say. Good evening. Jose Alvarez with Cal Design Studio 80 Northeast 5th Ave. Delray Beach. We did have a chance to review the landscape plan with Mr. Chard. And we went through some of the improvements that we think could be made in terms of the native mix to the landscape. We have absolutely no problem. And the applicant has no problem in going back and taking a look at those things. We do ask that this could be done either at time of site plan certification or at time of permit submittals. But we do think it's a positive improvement with some of the suggestions and items that we discussed. No problem. Okay. That's it. Board comments. Please continue, Mr. Chard. Okay. I agree with everything Jose said. I have nothing to say about the landscape plan. I did want to address staff. There was some language in the staff report about the understated contextual function on the north elevation, the corner, and the scoring patterns. Is that left over from the prior report or is this new information from the staff? It's not left over. If you look into like page 13 exactly, and the staff report architectural, the facade compositions, and the second paragraph actually speak to the north elevation. So basically, the north elevation is the elevation that is actually required. Like in architecture, it is favorable to have more opening and more windows on the north elevation because you have less direct sun and you have light. So in this case, contextually, the north elevation is basically facing the neighbor. So staff recognized the functional design of privacy. So it's a trade-off. So we just highlighted this. So it's an environmental issue, but it's also contextual issue because like not justification, but this is based on our conversation and based on our interaction with the applicant. So we just addressed it to highlight this in general to the board and that this is something that we would like to include in our analysis into the project. The loading bay, I have no problem with. That's what alleys are for. It's only going, as you said in your report, it's basically during move-in, and that's probably not too frequent. I am in support. Okay. Thanks. Huh? I'd like to hear from Roger and Mr. Patton because they had some. I'm curious what they think of the changes. How about Mr. Patton first? Okay. Because I'm at a loss because it's my first time ever seeing it, so I'd rather have you guys speak. Mr. Patton, go over. Please. First of all, I appreciate the applicant's patience with, you know, going back and reworking it and stuff. I think the improvements are, I think the banding, getting rid of the marble and then banding running the length of the whole perimeter of the building, the nice touch. The color changes are good. It just makes me feel better. And so I'm glad we got to this point finally, and we appreciate everyone's patience. So thank you. I like all the changes. Thank you. Who's going? You go next. Well, so it's a handsome building. The three items that they apparently were tasked with improving seem to be beautifully improved. So the entry, the color palette, which try to stay out of colors anyway, and the landscaping is, you know, the testimony and the conditions are beautiful. So I've got nothing to criticize or speak negatively of. I just wonder, I'll forever wonder why it didn't match the architecture of the beautifully designed piece that the same office did across the street. Because that would have been true bookends to this gateway to the north rhetoric. But so we have two different animals. I'm in favor of supporting it on behalf of what they've already gone through. So I'm in favor of supporting also, but I have one question for you. And that is that I know that they've had a demand statement to request approval to provide no dedicated loading birth. Did we already approve that? Or is that to be approved in this language? Because I don't see it here. It's still in front of the board. You approve it if you decide to approve the site plan with this. It's in front of you today. Thank you. The loading zone. So that wasn't a waiver? I thought initially it came to us as a waiver. It didn't have. So it's not a waiver. It's not a waiver. It's just, it's within your discretion to determine whether or not this is adequate, that they are not providing a loading zone. I got you. So it's a request for relief, but it's not relief. It's just a determination of adequacy. I'll tell you, I don't know anything about architecture, but this second rendering is much more aesthetically pleasing to me. So I love what you did with it. Like you said, the banding across the front and the sides. Love it. Sure. Again, I thank you for coming back. I mean, it is night and day as far as just appearance. And who can say no to? What is it? Favorite jean color? What a name. But yeah, that's a huge improvement. You know, I'm not crazy about giving up the birth. But I think, and I get the point that it's only certain times, but it's not. Again, I'll prove it. But I just think the people that are living there are going to experience the problems later on. But you guys are building it, selling it. It doesn't really matter. It's the people that, if they decide to move there without it, then they're going to have to live with that. Okay. Yeah. I agree with what Mr. Strong said. I'm not an architect. But I really like the way this looks now. And as I said earlier, this is the third time I've seen it. Because when they came through for the original request was to approve Masonry Modern under the LDRs, just as a use, that was designed, was sent back and said, please make improvements, which came back to us in September with improvements, which we then said, well, they're not good enough. Let's make some more improvements. And these were good enough. These really looks nice. It's a very, it's a great building. And entertain a motion to approve. May I make the motion? Sure. I guess. Everybody else has had a chance to make a motion. Mr. Strong had a chance. Oh, let's skip those rounds. Yeah. He's been waiting to make a motion. Whoever wants. Somebody. When you're finished fighting, somebody at least make a motion. Approve a level three site plan with architectural elevations and landscape plan for the link and four-story multifamily residential building consisting of 10 residential condominium units at 202 North East 6th Avenue by finding that the request is consistent with a comprehensive plan that meets criteria set forth in the land development regulations. Second. Okay. A motion by Mr. Strong. Second by Mr. Chart. And Ms. Miller, would you please call the roll? Roger Cope. Yes. Mitch Katz. Yes. Taylor Strong. Yes. Jim Charles. Yes. Judy Mullica. Yes. Gregory Snyder. And I'd just like to say to Ms. Belenke for this evening and for Ms. Fitzgerald for the last six or nine months or whatever it is, thanks for your patience. Yes. And thank you very much for your comments, for staff's cooperation and working through all of the comments. I do think this did result in a better project. So we appreciate everything, all your time and comments as well. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Eberton. Thank you very much. Thank you, Seth. Thank you. Awesome. Very nice. All right. Now, we'll go to item 9A, which is legislative. And I don't know who's bringing this in. Oh, there she is. There she is. There she is. Please tell me you're not going over this whole report list tonight. 203 pages. Plus there's 90 pages of comments. It's only 28. We've got hours. I just changed my flight to tomorrow morning instead of tomorrow afternoon because we got done with that other one earlier. Good evening. Okay. So I guess we need this read in or whatever. Or what do we have to do? We don't have a file number, but we have the Delray Beach CRA's executive director, Renee Jada Singh, here to present the latest update to the West Atlantic master plan, also known as the set transformation plan. Okay. Renee, please. All right. Thank you very much. I'm Renee Jada Singh. She said executive director, Delray Beach CRA, and also our assistant director, Christine Tibbs, is here. And thank you all for having us this evening. We're very excited to be presenting this item to you. It's been a long time coming, and I wanted to start with a brief history. It won't be hours. It's not hours. It's going to be 20 minutes. But this thing isn't working, so let's see. The black one. Okay. Got it. Okay. So, currently, we have adopted the West Atlantic Master Plan. That's where we're going to start. So, this is an overview of the sub-areas that it covers. So, they're the CRA sub-areas number three, four, and eight. I think otherwise known as West Atlantic, Northwest Neighborhood, Southwest Neighborhood. There's a million different names that this is known by. Southside, Northside. I've heard it all. But in 2020, a plan was adopted that is called the West Atlantic Master Plan. It had other names before that, which again, we'll get into. But it's basically a blueprint of what the community envisions for the neighborhood. And there were other plans prior. The West Atlantic Redevelopment Plan, I believe. There was a plan for the Northside. All these different plans. But this plan was really created to encompass all of those into one. So, we'll start back in 2016 when the CRA worked with IBI Group to prepare the West Atlantic Avenue Plan and the Southwest Neighborhood Redevelopment Plans to include the Northwest Neighborhood and consolidate them all into one. Between 2016 to 2018, there was plan preparation meetings before my time. But again, just wanted to provide some background for where we came from. So, the CRA Board recommended that the City Commission adopt this plan in 2018. At the time, it was called the SET Transformation Plan. So, around 2019, 2020, the City revised the draft plan by removing references to the West Atlantic Redevelopment Coalition and the SET and changing the name to West Atlantic Master Plan. Ultimately, the City Commission decided to adopt this plan as the West Atlantic Master Plan on October of 2020. Around 2023, the CRA Board started discussing to amend the plan's name from the West Atlantic Master Plan back to the SET Transformation Plan. I think at the time, people were calling it the SET. It was discussed all around. But the plan itself that was adopted by City Commission was not referred to as the SET. And there was such a large effort that went into getting to that plan and getting to that name. There was starting to be a little bit of a discussion about changing the name back. So, our board supported doing so. Even the City Commission discussed it at a goal-setting workshop. So, there was some momentum to have the name and references to the SET brought back into that plan. So, in 2024, the CRA hired Business Flare to start updating the demographics and economic data. So, when we started this, we weren't quite sure how extensive the update would be, what would be included. So, we wanted to start step-by-step because we know at least the demographics and economic data would have been outdated because that was collected in 2017. So, we started there. And then, a few months later, later in 2024, we started discussing the next steps with the SET Transformation Plan update. And again, we were kind of deciding how extensive it needed to be. At the time, there were discussions about only updating the implementation plan, which is kind of encompassing all of the principles and things and desires in the plan in a few pages. But when we looked at it, that really encompassed the whole entire document. So, it led us on a path of updating the entire document with the community by our side the whole time. And 2025, the CRA started preparing for public outreach meetings, January, February, and how we were going to attack updating this plan. We also were meeting with community members that were really heavily involved in the first plan process to find out from them what exactly they were looking for in this plan amendment to determine how extensive of an update we needed. And we decided that we would need to hire a consultant to help us with this. It's about a 100, 200-page document. So, quite an undertaking that we weren't going to do on our own. So, we hired Inspire Placemaking Collective to assist us with that process. And then the public outreach meeting started. I know I've seen some of you there. These were extremely, extremely heavily attended meetings. We had probably close to 100 almost every single time, or if not more. The last meeting was a rain day. So, we didn't have as many people as the 100, but we still had quite a few. So, we had new people who were just finding out about the set, people who moved into the neighborhood, existing people. The takeaway really was that people just want to know what this is and how they can be involved and find out more information. So, it was really, you know, happy for me to see that there was this type of engagement. We see the same people all the time, which is wonderful, but it was also nice to see some new faces in the room, trying to learn more about what this is and how to better their community as a whole. So, in October 2025, we discussed, the CRA Board discussed scheduling a special meeting in early December to discuss the next steps of the plan. Because as we were going through these outreach meetings, we were updating, sharing pack and forth information to figure out exactly what needed to be updated. So, and our trajectory was to try to have it approved by the city in early 2026, because we know these things can sometimes carry on. So, we were trying to keep on a schedule to get us to a place where we could adopt this plan in 2026. So, at our board meeting in October, we decided that we would try to get this plan wrapped up so that our board would be recommending that City Commission approve it in December, and then on to planning and zoning. So, after October, we worked really hard, really diligently to start updating this plan, really getting into it. Many, many meetings at our office, weekends, evening times, to make sure that we had a document that encompassed what we heard from the community members throughout the meetings. And I think the big takeaway, not a lot has changed. I mean, the demographics have changed, the statistics and things like that changed, but the wants and needs are still there. So, the plan, we tried to expand on some things that weren't expanded on as much, correct a few things that needed to be corrected that I'll touch on, but largely, the plan was not changed in a, I don't believe, in any substantial way. And I'll go through some of the highlight changes with you. So, here's a brief overview of the meetings before we get into those changes. The first meeting, we just provide information about the backup, which we have all of the updated demographics and data. If you want to walk through those, we can. I have them all in slides if you would like to do that later on. The second meeting, we talked about the action strategies and principles and how they would be evaluated in, you know, big picture. I think when we looked at it, there were almost over 100 individual items that the community was looking for in that plan, which is a lot. We had an entire room full of boards that had every single principle, every single thing in the plan outlined. And we asked people to prioritize them and put stickers on them. And that's included in your backup as a summary of the outreach meetings. And again, you'll see a lot of the things are the same. It didn't really need, there wasn't really a huge desire to remove many things. There may be one or two, but a lot of it was just the same. We just need to organize it and present it in a little bit better fashion. Third meeting, we drilled down a little bit more into the guiding principles, which there's six, which you'll see shortly. Community capacity building, civic stewardship, community wealth building. That's what we covered in the third meeting. And these were in breakout tables where we could get more involved in the conversation with the community members on a smaller fashion instead of having a large room of people. And then the last meeting, we discussed healthy community, placemaking and strategic investments. So again, this just kind of encompasses what we mentioned, that we got a lot of feedback from community members, a lot of participation, very involved members. And again, the reports are in the backup to your agenda item. So getting into the plan, this is the table of contents. If you look at it before to now, it's again, largely the same, not much changed in the organization of the plan. And here are the guiding principles that I mentioned. I won't read them again, but these principles really build on each other. The community capacity building, civic stewardship, community wealth building, and healthy community really comes from a community-led initiatives. Because this plan, as a way it's designed, is for us and the communities to work together, the government and the community members to come together, and private sector and nonprofits, everyone to really come together to make this plan successful and help the community improve. So those first four really are community-led initiatives, though there's input from others and government and other nonprofits as well. Placemaking and strategic investments really kind of focus more on what we are doing into building the place, building the environment. Strategic investments also is about building out the environment. But based on our feedback from the meetings, there was not a desire to make any changes to the structure of the guiding principles. They all remain the same. So community capacity building. So this is about strengthening pride in the community members and allowing them to take ownership of their community. So a big takeaway from this section was that the community wanted to have the concept of a commercial land trust was in the original plan. And there were certain places that referred to creating a land trust, and there are other places that refer to expanding the land trust that we have currently. So from the meetings, it was pretty clear that the community wanted to start their own community land trust, not to have the current one expanded. They have their own principles and things that they're working on. This one would be a commercial land trust guided by the community members themselves. So that was a big takeaway of how we adjusted this part of the plan. There was also references to the neighborhood improvement district. I know that's something that's being spoken about right now. We just kind of cleaned it up. There were some references in there that just needed to be fixed. So we just cleaned it up to state exactly what it is and that there is no tax currently being imposed by the neighborhood improvement district at this time. If that changes later on through city processes, that's fine. But at least in the plan, it's just clear that there is no tax that's being imposed by this district. The next is civic stewardship. So this section was really expanded to let people know how to get involved. Because from the input that we received from the community members, this section is more of how can the residents get involved? What can they do? So we added a section. So if anyone's looking or new to the area, they can go to civic stewardship and see how to get involved in their neighborhood. So this is through attending city commission CRA board meetings, meetings such as this one, also attending the neighborhood association meetings. We also encourage people to volunteer on advisory boards, learn more maybe about like the Delray Citizens Academy, meet your elected officials, signing up for newsletters, download the My Delray Beach app, volunteering for cleanups, mentoring the youth. So this is really what was added to this section to expand on how to get involved in your community. And community wealth building, this is a pretty big section. So there's seven focus areas within. So we just rearranged them a bit. Again, largely the same information is being shared within these sections. So they're financial literacy, educational attainment, worker skill enhancement. This is if you're seeking a job drivers for job creation. That's more for businesses, entrepreneurial environment enhancements, housing and public policies. Next is healthy communities. So this one was expanded a bit to discuss more adding more about mental health awareness, trying to build out or find a location for community center in the community, either through the village center development or we even have a building 90 Northwest Fifth Avenue that we're seeking doctors for that center. So this really just expanded on those types of things. Also education for youth and or sorry, education and about healthier communities for youth was added and volunteer opportunities for youth. We also added the initiatives such as birth to 22 and other things like that. Just to give more examples of what goes into having a healthy community. Next is placemaking. So this is the one that I mentioned that kind of gets more into the CRA, the city side and things that we have to actually build a place. So this goes into how the sidewalks would be looking, the streetscapes. None of those changed. So there were images in the plan before that are the same. Now we did not change those images of streetscapes, sidewalks, sizes of streets and layouts. All of that remained the same. We also added in current projects and things that were completed over the time. And that's an important thing, too. We have separate PowerPoints that show things that the CRA has done, but we try to add the narrative in there of things that the projects that we've done and then things that the city's done as well. Strategic investments. So this also, again, is talking about the place and how to encourage development within the neighborhood, about affordable housing, people taking pride in their communities and ways to increase home ownership rates. Another thing that we added was also about private sector, because while this plan is for the city to adopt, we also wanted to make it clear that if developers or other people are coming in to build in the community, this is something they can look to and what the community is looking for. So it's more than just the city CRA, there's also private sector that would be coming in as well. So we also wanted to add things that speak to that. And then this was a bigger change. So as I mentioned in the beginning, there's an implementation plan. It's about five or six pages at the end of the document. And that goes over a summary of what these different action strategies and principles in the plan. So through our meetings and meetings with the community members, we thought that it would be better to have that as a standalone document. So you'll see in your backup, there's a draft standalone implementation plan. And that's something that makes it a little more movable. And you can edit that and change that. It's starting now with all of the different action strategies that are in the plan. But as those things are completed and finished, originally that implementation plan was part of the plan that's adopted by the city. So to move that or change that or do anything, you have to go through this entire process, which is where we started with this plan. So what we thought would be better is to move that to a separate working document that the community can have a whole stake in that we also have that say in it as well. But it's something that if we want to change it, we can make modifications to it without having to change the whole entire plan. But right now we just started with just the action strategies that are in the actual plan. So here's to kind of summarize the big overview. We updated the background with additional history. We updated the demographic and economic data. We updated references to community groups, gathering spaces, and community assets to reflect things that are current and actively in existence. We also updated pictures to represent the current state and also to get better quality photographs. We updated the maps to reflect completed ongoing and future projects and community assets. We updated the action strategies to reflect the feedback from the outreach meetings. And we also updated the location of the implementation plan. But the big takeaway, again, it's really largely the same. I thought we were going to have this document. It's like 80 pages of, oh, we're going through. I thought it was going to be so short. When we finished, it was 150. But it was 200 before. So we did concise and, you know, condense a lot of things in moving the implementation plan out. But I think we expanded on a lot of things that were really important that weren't fully expanded on in the original plan. And here's the, like I mentioned, we have updates to the data. I don't know if we want to go through all of it. But I just can show you a few pages as an example of how some of these changes were made. You'll see here on the left was the original plan. And on the right is the updated demographics. So we really tried to exactly match the plan so it's not this major new change thing. It was just an update to reflect updated information and also updated projects and give information about that. So you'll see. They really do mirror the original plan as much as possible. We just updated. This is just an example of the data and demographic updates that we did. And you'll see the maps. Both sides are both the same. The needs are still there. Big picture, it's all still pretty much the same. Here's an example of the census tract information that's, again, the same maps. Same chart, same layout, just updated with new information. So next steps is obviously discussion from your board today. And then we're hoping that there will be some more review by city staff and us as we go through and probably make some minor edits. There are still some cleanup things that the consultant needs to do. Consistency in text and just like kind of small things like that. But once we go through all of that, the plan and hope is that we would have this ready for city commission in early 2026. And that's all I have for you. Thank you all very much for your time. Appreciate you all. Thank you. And happy holidays. Happy holidays. All the public here wants to stop. There's a long line. So I don't necessarily have any comments. Development Services still needs to go review the recommended changes that would trigger LDR updates for us. There are some things throughout it. Two of the things we're already, well, a major thing we're actively working on is an ordinance for accessory dwelling units, which should be coming to you all either in January or February. I'm hoping for January. And then we know that we have to update the locations for food trucks. Because that was a need identified in the plan. But we will be sitting down to go through all the changes that need to be made, including a few comp plan policies to reference the current adoption date of this plan. Great. Brene. Hi. Love you. Love you. Love the CRA. Thank you. You're amazing. Your staff is amazing. You surround yourself with phenomenal people. Thank you. So this is an amazing presentation, amazing set of documents. I'm just going to touch on a few things because they're really cool. I mean, the Sunday Village project has probably been a blessing, hopefully economically and all other stimulus oriented for some of your work. I personally would love to see a historic preservation element to your beautiful work, you know, given the pieces that are already there, you know, and hopefully some new pieces that might enter into the picture. Like maybe someday Frog Alley, you know, and I personally think that the West Settlers Historic District is the most overlooked historic district in the city. And it's I would love for some time in my lifetime for it to be discovered and have a lot of the activity that the other districts used to have and have now flattened out on. So I think some concentration on the West Settlers Historic District would be phenomenal. And you've got docks over there and, you know, and all these beautiful pieces that can contribute to the big picture. But, you know, thank you for your work and your concerted effort and anything I can do, we can do to help you would be my pleasure, our pleasure. Thank you. So I also compliment you on your work, but I was along with you through this whole process and you took some heat along the way and you herded cats and you made it happen. So, I mean, it was a hero's effort. That was a miracle, actually. So, good job. Thank you very much. She got into good trouble. Oof! Yes. Right? I take it, yes, yes. All for the end goal. It's important. Important work. I mean, I did everything that they said. You know, I'm really fond of the fact that you all took your time to listen to the community. You had these outreach meetings. You heard what they said and you implemented a lot of the ideas that they had. And to me, that speaks volumes about where this city is and how far it's come to listen to the individuals that live in this community. So, you know, I'm really grateful for that. I know in the past we didn't get a lot of cooperation from city officials, but it looks like we're on the right track now. And if we can get this done in first quarter next year, that would be great. But thank you, Renee, for, you know, kind of taking up that mantle and putting that baton on to the next runner. I really appreciate it. Great job. Thank you. Great job. Hi, Renee. Hi. Yeah. It's been a long slide, really. And you didn't mention, you kind of alluded to the politics involved, but it's been really political, too. It was a time, yes. But I would like to reiterate Roger's point about including some kind of an historic element. Okay. I agree with the West settlers, you know, Frog Alley may not, there may not be enough contributing buildings to do a Frog Alley. But there are things like Main Street programs, and there still are a couple sections of the first block south of Atlantic could be considered a small district. And three blocks south of there, there's enough contributing buildings still. You know, they did a report on Frog Alley like 10 years ago, and it's been sitting there. Mm-hmm. And in the meantime, a lot of this stuff has been destroyed. And then there's the other element. The other thing I wanted to make sure you guys are aware of is the transformer changes at Carver. Yeah. Carver High. Yes, that is highlighted. Yes. It's, it was once the community, I've been researching Carver High for like five years now. It was, it was the community hub of the southwest, north and southwest neighborhood. I mean, it was, it was a social and political and cultural hub, kind of like old school square is. Mm-hmm. And there's going to be some great technical training that's going to come out of there. They're talking about the culinary aspect to it. They're talking about preserving the, um, the cafeteria. Yes. Turning that into a, a, a training place. Um, the gym, if they ever figure out how to deal with the, with the acoustics, that could be, I mean, I've, I've talked to, uh, Charlene. She, she'd, she'd love to bring the NLK breakfast back to Delray, but she can't find a place big enough. Right. Mm-hmm. The gym's big enough, but you can hear a pin drop, uh, like a hundred feet away. And so you, it's just, it's acoustically, uh, horrible. And the school district isn't really spending a lot of their time taking care of it. Um, and then is, you know, the, the, uh, the spine of the, the, uh, north and southwest is, is, in addition to fifth, it's Atlantic. Mm-hmm. And Atlantic is also part of the DDA's district, if I'm not mistaken. Mm-hmm. So how are we incorporating the DDA? How is that? Is there, is there a, is there a, is there a working plan to work with the DDA on projects and stuff, or? Can I answer? Or? Oh, okay. I wasn't sure I have to wait for it. You were asking. Oh, I wasn't sure. Sometimes there's questions that don't get answered right away. I wasn't sure. I think you can hear me from here. No, I can hear. I wasn't sure if I could answer right away. That's all. Oh. Um, so to answer your question with the DDA, yes. We do speak with Laura frequently. There are a lot of ideas and we ask definitely for input. Um, our board has been discussing our properties on West Atlantic since really April since our lawsuit was resolved monthly. Um, so we do look for feedback. Thank you. Um, from them. We have an RFPs that hopefully will be going out early next year that we would seek their input. So I've made presentations to their board, um, and, and get feedback. But I think, and Laura was at some of these meetings. But to me, it seems like the wants and needs are the same there. The, the, the grocery store, the medical services, banking, the core things are still there. Um, so we're still really pushing on to try to find out or get those services there. But, you know, we do work with them on when we can, I guess. And I make presentation to their boards and share information. But I think sometimes I look at their input as like place making and, and things that can be incorporated into an elements in. Because the core things, again, are there. Our, our big push has really been a supermarket. Right. And, and that's. Exactly. Number one. Yeah. That's, and that's still remained the same. So I work, I'm open and work with everyone. So. It remains a food deficit, unfortunately. Yes. That's been our priority. And, and you know, and their, and their charge is different. Their charge is in development, but their charge is, is marketing. Yes. And that's gonna, that's gonna, can be very important. Yes. Down, down the way. Can I add something as well? You know, I could. Oh. I could, I could talk about this for a long time. So, um, but anyway, I think it's a great, it's a great project. I'm glad to see it finally getting. Thank you. Getting going. I will add too, as you mentioned about the marketing. So we do like joint ribbon cuttings. There's actually two that we're planning right now. Um, for our building on Northwest, our 90, 98 Northwest 5th Avenue. And we did that also for the William Hatcher building to try to have those joint events and help promote the area better because they are DDA businesses so that they get into the fold with the DDA. So those things are, you know, top of mind. The development things, obviously we, you know, we work together and discuss, but active and action, we, those ribbon cuttings, we try to make sure that they're there if they're in the DDA district and there'll be some in January. So we hope to see you all there. That is an invite. Yeah. Of course. Can I add something else as well? I'm sorry. The historic, you mentioned about Carver on page 77. We actually have a whole page that expanded more on Carver because when the plan was originally done, it was still in discussion about what could possibly happen there. So it was not what it is now. So we put what it is now and the, our, the feedback was basically to really work with the community members and what they'd like to see there in services. So we got it. They're pouring 20 million bucks into it. Right. No, but we, yeah, we got, we work with the principal that's there. We got the whole couple pages of input from them and incorporated that in page 77 and 78. Good luck. Thank you. I got to page 71. They just, you almost got there. You're almost there. I want to compliment you for going through four different community meetings. I'm sure that put a couple years on your life. You know, the smile, the smile. Get you a long way. The, I have not read the whole thing. I'll have to, I have to admit. I did participate in the first meeting, but I have a couple of questions. Frog Alley has been mentioned by Price. What, and I know from my role on the historic preservation board, that was coming before our board fairly quickly. And then hopefully before the city commission for the very reason that Price says that, that the contributing buildings are disappearing in a big hurry. Um, what, what does the set transformation plan say about the, the, uh, Frog Alley district? It doesn't really go into it. It doesn't really mention the historic district or in detail. It references Frog Alley and the existence of it, but not the, um, historic aspect of it, or the plan, the historic preservation plan. I would say along the line of, of, uh, stressing preservation that since districts are very hard to get approved in this day and age, individual parcels or buildings, I think would be something that we, in a plan like this, would want to encourage and encourage the citizens to, uh, participate in, in that process. And then you mentioned, um, you mentioned a centralized community center. Is that different from Pompeii Park or is that Pompeii Park? So that community space, it was a healthy community section and it talked about like health services. So it was something that would maybe be at the Carver or 98, some kind of a health space is what the reference was. Not Pompeii. We brought, we, we included the Pompeii updates there. Right. But that community space was more, it was like a healthy, a health center. Okay. Uh, and you also talked about community land trust. Yes. Is that the same CLT we have now or is this a different one? I know there's been a lot of controversy about ownership. Yes. Uh, where, what does that say in the plan? So it's two different land trusts. It is. The original plan had references to a commercial land trust and then also references to expanding the current land trust. The current land trust. So our current community land trust was created by the city and the CRA back in 2007, um, for housing because housing prices were going up so high. And a community land trust is a tool that's used quite frequently to help bring the costs down, um, of, of homes. Right. So we created the community land trust that they're still existing and they're residential. So the references to commercial land trust are specifically commercial properties because what's happening or what can happen is that outside people or developers or interested parties will start buying land and assembling and trying to own that. So the, the idea was for the community to come together and to be able to have their own ownership in these properties, whether they're purchasing on their own or responding to RFPs that we're issuing, that they would have the ability to do that. Yeah. We, we addressed that a little bit this morning, this morning, seems like this morning, uh, that, uh, residential is winning out over commercial in terms of taking up more and more space in the city and reducing the, the commercial or light industrial. Yes. And there are actually references to the light industrial in the plan that are in, that are in the, in the set, um, about developing them. And so it does touch on that area, not to change it to residential, but it does, um, touch on that. So this, the concept of the commercial land trust is specifically strictly for the community to have something for themselves to be able to have ownership, you know, have this in the properties. Different subject. Yes. Is the CDC still going to have a role in all of this? You mentioned CLT, but not CDC. Um, well, so there were a lot of references to different entities and groups in the plan, especially in the implementation plan. So what we did is took all of those references out because some were, were outdated. We reached out to everyone who was referenced in the original plan and sent them an information, you know, request to ask them what they've done if they want to contribute or provide information for the plan. And out of the hundred, we probably got back like five or six or so. So we kind of pieced together what was happening from what we saw, what we were doing, what the city was doing and what other community groups were doing. Um, so the references are there as historical groups, like the land trust, the CDC, maybe habitat or a few in the historical context, but not in the work. We're really trying to center the plan around what needs to happen, not necessarily who the individual person to do that particular thing will be because it could change. Sure. Housing is how is handled by so many different entities, not just one or the other. So we just thought having more broader references in the plan would make it much more movable and, you know, be able to work this thing a little bit better by not having it just a particular entity. Uh, my last question or my last point is, um, West Atlantic Avenue in terms of the overall development plan, particularly as reference to the proposal for entertainment district. Is that addressed in the plan? It is not. And that's because it's not ready to be incorporated and it would be incorporated later? It just wasn't there in the original. It didn't come up in our meetings. I know it's been discussed elsewhere, but the two have not, did not collide. And maybe through this time with the city if something changes, but through our outreach meetings, it was not brought up in those meetings. That's interesting because people have talked to me about feeling that it's discriminatory. That east of Swinton, you can have entertainment. West of Swinton, you can't. And obviously, as you know, the history, that was a thriving area. Yes. 25 years ago, 30 years ago. Yes. Yes. Lots of entertainment. Yes. It just wasn't addressed or brought up in this plan. Maybe now that you're saying it, maybe it will be, but it wasn't in that, in the plan. To all you people who are out there listening. Somebody call somebody. Somebody else? Yeah. Okay. First of all, I have a long history with this plan. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person up here that was on the commission to vote to start the original plan. I know I was the only commissioner at the ribbon cutting of the set banners a million years ago. Um, so it's, it's really, I've, I've seen this evolve, change. I was off the commission when the set name got removed and came back. And now that's back, which to me, it's fighting over names is pretty stupid, but it's, it's over. Um, the one thing I know that was, um, and I know it was important to one of the commissioners, um, is up here. And, but, um, I, I think that names and, and individual people can stop progress tremendously. We should have a grocery store that's 10 years old right now there that could have been done if it wasn't just for personalities. Um, and it's sad because that could have been done. There would have been affordable housing along with that grocery store that would have been long completed. Um, be, but it's not due to personalities. I, my biggest thing about this is you did a great job in taking the personalities out and making it a plan. Um, and, and that's not easy to do, especially in this city. It is extremely hard because everybody wants their picture, their name, their personal view on everything. Um, so to make it as broad as you did, um, you should be commended because it's not, it's not easy. It is not easy. This is a tough town, uh, to do anything, especially to get things done. People in, uh, positions that Renee's in to be able to try to get things done. And, and I'm, and I just to see what you've done with the CRA in the last, you know, five or six years or maybe more, um, of, of having that ability to get things done, I think is huge. So I'm, I'm glad this is where it's at. Um, and hopefully we, um, get more to some of the implementation and they keep from, you know, like, I love the idea of that community trust. Cause it's that as we go to sleep tonight, there will be more land within this set that will be, um, bought by a developer by flipped. It's going to be, um, changed from what it is without some input and help from the CRA. So that's all I have. Yeah. I really have a lot I can add to what everybody said. There we go. I don't have a lot to add. Um, I spent 23 years as an Air Force officer and I've seen a lot of plans. My husband was in the Air Force as well. Pardon? My husband was in the Air Force also. Okay. But my point is this is a really good plan. Um, my initial reaction in May was lack of specifics. And, uh, I think with the draft implementation strategy, it's really, really good on specifics when you get down there. It's really solved that. And, uh, yeah, my other impression in May was that the people that need to have the input into this are the residents of the set. And, uh, sounds like they have had. So, yeah, like I said, it's a really good document. And I would think somebody here could move that we do whatever it is. Sorry, go ahead. I would like to move to recommend approval to the City Commission of the West Atlantic Neighborhood Plan update, finding that the proposed plan is consistent with the goal objectives and policies of the comprehensive plan. I would second that. Okay. Motion by Mr. Cope. Second by Ms. Mollica. Call the roll, please. Ms. Miller. Roger Cope. Yes. Mitch Katz. Yes. Digistron has left a meeting. Jim Chard. Yes. Price Patton. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Renee. All great. Good luck. Kudos to you. Good luck. Thank you. We'll see you soon. What have you got? We've got West Atlantic to do. We've got work to do. Thanks. Get the entertainment district in. Yeah, that's, I think, that was a comment I heard. That was a comment I heard when I was at the meeting from the people there. That's what they wanted. That's what they wanted. They wanted entertainment. Yes. Anyway, that's neither here. It's going to come up. Sure it is. Whether it's in that plan or not. Time for staff comments. Yes. Your next board meetings are January 26th and February 23rd. Both of those dates are deviations from the normal due to federal holidays. So we hope you can still make it and then no other comments. Okay. Nothing from me. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Thank you. That's right. Happy holidays. We won't see you guys. I'm going to Denmark. See you next year. Denmark. Oh. Cool. Oh my god. Do they have holidays there? Yeah. It's a really cool tradition. You hold hands and sing around the Christmas tree. Oh, nice. I don't know what they're saying, but. Yeah, that's okay. No, they do some in English for us, too. Oh. I'm sure that'll be great. Very cool. Sorry. Yeah, go ahead. Just real quick. You know, this is like my third or fourth meeting and they've averaged about five hours because we're only meeting once a month. I understand it's difficult for some people to meet twice a month, but when you get a big overlook, can you consider twice a month? I mean, if that standing ER thing had gone through to the end, we'd be here until 930 or 10. Sure. We can look at that. That's the way it used to be. We're also, we are beating the commission in hours. Sure. So we did have a stretch where they were very short two to three item meetings and then somehow you've had the lucky privilege of having these mega meetings for your tenure. For a year. Yeah. So we can look at that and make sure we have the agenda balanced right so that you guys aren't here all night. Yeah. You don't want to. Thank you. And this is two in a row. That's it. Balance the agenda. Yeah, it's two in a row. We had a nice year. We had two short ones in a row before. All right. Cut down the. It's only. Don't shoot me. There might be a two week. Yeah. Two week push. I mean, it's not like. Okay. If we do two a month instead of so. They only get push two weeks. Okay. Thanks. Did you have anything? Me? Yeah. I don't think so. No. Happy holidays. I just want to explain my no vote on. Yeah. That would be. Yeah. What was that? Well, we. We'd already invested an hour, hour and a half. I get you. Yeah. And now we're going to have to go back and do it all over again. Right. I get it. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I get you. And trust me, I'm usually very against personally pushing out meetings because of the public that showed up because they spent all the time to come speak. But I think we could have let if we if we'd said no, and it was something that she left out of there, then it gives them an appealable nonsense. So, oh, I'd rather just let it get done. Yeah. Let it get done. Right. Let's finish it there. So yeah, continue discussing the item. Yes. Yeah. My comments is just again. Happy holidays, everyone. I will say I like seeing some of the projects when we are things that we approve. I went and took my dog to the opening of the Chewy Vet Care this weekend. Oh, really? And it was, and I will tell you, it's a, I mean, I was impressed. I mean, they really, for a, for a vet care place, like, I mean, it's high tech, everything you can think of in there. And they did everything. Oh, yeah. She was impressed because they kept giving her treats. You ought to take your dog to the one we approve last, last time. Oh, for all the treats? Yeah. I'm a little broke walking in there before she'd get it before I can see it. Absolutely. That's a perfect place. Good luck. But anyway, happy holidays, happy new year to everyone. And we'll see you next year, as they say. Yep. Wow. That's it. Hey, guys. Thanks to everybody, and happy holidays. Yep. Did I hear that gavel? Yeah. Love's our bet, but I'm trying to talk her. Thank you. No? Bet you with a cup mat. � Şah. nae? My god. And hope you have. Now it's good to eat. Well, I pray every day on your YouTube weaso. And look at Imagine. Where's your selfie? Tell them what you want to eat, you? And I hope youа. Be your friends, guys? Big news here. Rain. You head down and see what you're doing.