Planning Commission: Regular Meeting - 09.14.26

Welcome to a meeting of your Planning Commission, the official local planning agency for the cities of Tampa, Temple Terrace, Plan City, and unincorporated Hillsborough County. The Planning Commission provides innovative leadership and long-range vision that contributes to the creation of a thriving, prosperous community that offers opportunity, fairness, and choice in how we live, move, learn, work, and play. For more information about the Planning Commission, please call 813-272-5940, follow us on social media, or visit our website at planhillsborough.org.

Good afternoon and welcome everyone to the September 14, 2026 regular meeting of the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission. We thank you for attending this meeting. Your comments and participation are encouraged. For those attending in person and wishing to speak on any agenda item, please sign the register at the reception desk and turn off any devices that may be a distraction. To minimize feedback in the audio, all online participants in the meeting will be muted until it is their opportunity to speak. Planning Commissioners should unmute themselves to indicate that they would like to speak. Please be sure to state your name at the beginning of your remarks for the benefit of the clerk. There will be an opportunity for members of the public to provide comments. When your name is called, you will be unmuted when it is your turn to speak. Please wait until the chair calls on you to begin speaking. State your name at the beginning of your comments and adhere to the time limits. If anyone has difficulties or is watching via HTV and would like to provide comments to be included in the record for the local government hearing, please email them to planner at plancom.org. For action items, the meeting will be conducted as follows. The agenda item will be introduced. Staff will give their presentation with a 15-minute time limit. The applicant will be given the opportunity to make a presentation with a 15-minute time limit. Following presentations, members of the public may address the Planning Commission when recognized by the chair. Public comments will be heard for three minutes per person. The applicant will be afforded a three-minute period for rebuttal or response. Planning Commissioners will ask questions. Public comments will be closed. Then upon a motion, a second in discussion of what will be taken. With that introduction, I would like to ask Commissioner Rodriguez to...

Heavenly Father, we are thankful for this day that you have given us for its blessings, its opportunities, its challenges. May we appreciate and use each day that comes to us. We ask for strength and guidance through the day's proceedings to help us make decisions that are in the best interest of the entire community. Help us recognize our differences and mobilize them for the good of the community and its common goals. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic that stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and...

Thank you, Commissioner Rodriguez. We have no past-minute meeting, so with that, I'd like to ask the clerk's representative to please go ahead and call roll.

Bowden, Cardenas, Jemison? Here. Kugler? Here. Linkus?

Here.

Lauk? Here. Seben? Sink? Here. Orton? Here. Rodriguez?

Here.

Joseph?

Here.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. All right. We did have one individual sign up to speak on items not scheduled on the agenda for action, so I will turn it over to Michelle K Kierzee. Michelle Kierzee, is she on the line virtually? Let's go in twice. Can HTB hear me? Yeah. Is there a Michelle Kierzee on the line? Okay. All right. I guess we'll come back and check on her later, or how does that work? I mean...

Yeah, I think we... Mr. Chair, who are you asking for?

Michelle Kierzee.

Okay. Stand by, please. Yeah. I do not see her on the line.

All right. All right. That's the only individual we had sign up for the public comment, so I will move on to our next agenda item. We'll move right into our action items. Item 3A, our first action item is bylaws amendment, public comment time limits, and the presenter is Shawn College.

Good afternoon, Commissioner Shawn College of your Planning Commission staff. This is a continuing item the Planning Commissioners have been discussing regarding public comment time limits. This is the second time it's on your agenda. We did receive two written comments from the public over the weekend. Those were placed at your desk. And within your packet are the current drafts of bylaws amendments as was discussed by the Planning Commissioners over the last couple of months. Again, this is the second time it's on your agenda, so you do have an opportunity to vote. For this item, if you wish to change your bylaws today and per your bylaws, it does require a two-thirds majority of members to pass. That's all I have for your presentation. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. We did not have anyone in person. Hold on. HTV, can you make sure everyone's muted? Thanks. We didn't have anyone sign up in person. Anyone sign up in person to speak on this?

I was disconnected.

Jenny, you're coming.

Oh, my God.

HTV, can you get those people muted?

Or should we take a recess so that you can get things under control at HTV?

Commissioner, those people were removed.

This is Michelle Watley. You hung up on me, and now you are not letting me speak. What are we doing here? Like you're going to cut public?

Mr. Chair, did you call on Michelle Watley?

No, I did not. Not yet. Are you okay up there? Can we continue?

We can continue for now. Yes, sir.

Okay. Thank you. All right. We didn't have anyone sign up in person to speak for the 3A, but we had a couple people sign up virtually, so I will go through the virtual people who signed up to speak on this agenda item 3A, and we will start with Beth White. Is Beth White on the line?

Stand by. We're checking. Beth White, can you hear us?

I can hear you. Okay, go ahead. I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes, ma'am. You got three minutes.

Go ahead. Okay. Good afternoon, Commissioners. My name is Beth White. I live in Keystone, Odessa. I'm addressing the bylaw amendment for the rebuttal time limit, so I don't wake up one morning and think, hey, what a fun idea to drive downtown to speak at a Planned Hillsboro hearing or call my friends and yell, road trip downtown Tampa to sit in a cramped room. When I come to speak at a Planned Hillsboro commissioner meeting, it's because an agenda item affects my- Thank you.

All right. We had two more individuals sign up to speak on this one, so I will check to see if Amanda Brown is on the line. HTV, do we have Amanda Brown? Okay. Last but not least, we have Michelle Watley. Is Michelle Watley on the line virtually?

All right.

That is all we had. Sign up for the public comment on this one. So I will turn it back over to you, Mr. College. Do you have anything you wanted to add?

No, sir. That concludes my remarks. I turn it over to the planning commissioners for discussion. And as I said, you're welcome to vote at this time, should you choose to.

All right. All right. So it's to the board for discussions, questions, comments on this item. I see a lot of excitement. Commissioner, no. Commissioner Linkus is just getting comfortable over there. All right. Go once. Commissioner Lauk. Are you trying to get back in?

Huh?

Are you trying to get back in?

They're trying to get back in. Can we mute?

Yeah, HTV, you make sure it's muted up there. Thanks. Go ahead.

We need to know who to unmute right now. We're having technical issues.

You don't need to unmute anybody. Everybody needs to be muted because it's up to the board now. We're done with the public comment on the item, so it's board discussion right now. Thanks.

Before we vote, I'm just going to reiterate what I said last time. We're a public body. We're appointed, and I think public bodies, whether appointed or elected, have an obligation to hear the public out. Whether we agree with the public sentiment or not is not of consequence. I think it's incumbent upon us to listen to the public, and I think we're going down the wrong path when we're eliminating the amount of time the public has for input. And I think it's doubly impactful when we're considering a complimentary motion to expand the rebuttal time for our applicants. So I think we're leaning towards our applicants, and I've been probably the biggest advocate for the developers on this board over the past four or five years, but I don't feel comfortable expanding the amount of time our applicants have and decreasing the amount of time that that public has. So you guys all know it's less than 1% of the time I've been on this board for five and a half years. I've seen two or three nights where it's been arduous and painful, and we've had to be here after 10. I think we're managing to the outlier on this, and I would urge you to vote no.

Right. Any other thoughts or comments on the item? I will say for myself, I was looking at some of the public comments and hearing some of the public comments tonight. You know, it's a two-sided coin. Like Commissioner Lauk mentions, it appears in one instance as if we're sort of reducing time. But in another instance, we're sort of giving some certainty to this thing. Because the way it operates right now, everybody has three minutes unless this board makes a motion, and then we can cut the time down kind of willy-nilly. Right? If we set up these standards, it kind of sets bars in place so that people kind of know what to expect when they're coming in here. You might set up for a three-minute speech to come in here and speak, and because there's 15 more people, this board could take an action right in the meeting to cut it down to two minutes per person, at which time your three-minute speech kind of gets impacted. Right? So this idea that you just have three minutes and everyone has three minutes irrespective of how many people are in here is kind of a fictitious thing. You know what I mean? So in that respect, I think it's kind of important to look at that, too. This also gives people some certainty, you know, what they're going to be facing when they come down here. If they come down here with a group of 20 people, they know that each person in that 20-person group, you know, plus or minus whoever else is here, is going to get kind of a set amount of time. So to me, I kind of see both sides of the argument. And, you know, I definitely echo what Commissioner Lauk says. I'm one person my entire time, you know, over a decade I've been on this board. The one thing I love doing is coming in here and hearing what the public has to say. I think that's a big part of why we're here, just like Commissioner Lauk says. So I wouldn't want to reduce people's time to speak their minds. I think that's an important part of the process. But again, the other side of that coin is this, you know, would also give people some certainty on both sides. You know, the applicants and the public would kind of know what to expect coming in. And wouldn't have to walk into a room and have this board go, okay, now the time's cut down to one minute per person. You know what I mean? So there are many facets to it. So I'll just throw that out there. Commissioner Cardenas.

Yeah, part of me feels like, when I hear from the public, it definitely sways me. I definitely take that into strong consideration. But at the same time, I feel like a certain amount of organization makes for a better presentation. And that's kind of where I come from on it.

All right, are there any other, Commissioner Kugler?

Yes, I certainly want to hear the diverse voices about an issue. Because that's what really sways me the most is some new piece of information that I hadn't thought about. But I do know that there's been a couple of late nighters I've been at where I felt like my ability to make good decisions at that time of night wasn't as good as it could have been. And so sometimes when I'm fresher, I can make better decisions than when I'm kind of like, let's get this moved on. Let's get this decided.

All right, all good points. Any other thoughts or comments from the commissioners on this item?

Why was I not allowed to speak? Why was I not allowed to speak?

HTV, can you get everybody muted? Why did you refuse to address me? Yeah, it seems like it. So, all right.

HTV, can you verify who was just speaking? Because it's showing up on the screen as Beth White, who did get to speak.

I can confirm that was Beth White, yes. Okay.

Just make sure everybody's muted. And I'm okay with that, just as long as everybody's muted. Are there any other questions or comments, thoughts from the commissioners on this item?

I guess my only concern is that it's showing up, there's multiple Beth Whites in the meeting. And so, I don't know if somebody else, one of the other people who signed up to speak, is somehow, because of the disturbance to the meeting, labeled the wrong way.

Okay, I'll check with them again. HTV, is Amanda Brown on the line? Standby, we're checking.

She signed up, but she's not in the session.

Okay. Now, can you check on Michelle Watley for me?

I do not see a Michelle Watley on the line.

All right. Okay. So, again, back to our discussion.

We can check with this person that's labeled Beth White to see if it's a Michelle. If you want, I can unmute her.

Well, can you check on your end? That's all.

Let me check one second.

All right.

Beth, this is Michelle. This is HTV. Yes, this is Michelle Watley. Michelle?

Okay. Yes. We can hear you, Michelle. Go ahead.

You have three minutes. Okay, great. So, considering the current amendment on the table limiting speaking, I find it hilarious and amazingly ironic that right when the meeting started, my call was disconnected from your end. And as I tried to call back in and get back in, I was constantly ignored, muted, raised my hand. I sat here. I do appreciate you addressing whichever commissioner that was. I appreciate that. I really do. I would like to say it is an absolute egregious act for you to want to cut public comment time in half for each speaker, yet more than triple the amount of time for the applicant. There is a growing frustration of people here, I'm from Peaceville, who feel like our commissioners are not listening. We know our commissioners aren't listening because at the August 14th meeting, someone got up and said, hey, I'm that circle. Please don't destroy my surroundings. And Wilson said, what's that? What's that circle we keep seeing? It looks vacant. Despite her an hour prior stating, hey, that's me. So we already know y'all don't listen. So to cut speaking time, we don't care. I don't care if I'm sitting there for six hours because I already know you guys' mind is made up. You're already paid off by developers and whatnot. But you will listen to us and let us speak. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. And that is all we had signed up in the public comment. So let's make sure everybody's muted HTV. That should be it. I hope. Are there any more comments from the commissioners at this point in time? Thoughts? Discussions? That new piece of info? Commissioner Sieben, I'll see you moving.

It's just a really tough call, I think, either way. I see the argument on both sides. I do think when it gets late, you know, it can, you know, it can be desirable just like have it be over or, you know, we might. I think you can have a hard time potentially looking at the facts of the case when you have so much opposition sometimes from a planning perspective. So it might feel overwhelming from a community perspective. And I think, you know, there are a lot of times where we just sort of make our, I think, you know, there are times when there's so much of it that we make our decision based on that. And maybe less objectively based on a weighing of factors. I mean, obviously, I can only speak for myself and not everyone, but, you know, it's a sticky, it's tough and sticky, and I see an argument both ways. And I think it is tough from an optics perspective to limit, you know, public comment and then lengthen developers, you know, speaking time. It would probably be more ideal if those things happened, you know, we took those votes on different days. But I don't know. I don't know what the right answer is.

Well, I just also wanted to make clear that they are separate. We're not, this vote, the item after this to deal with applicant time, we're not voting the final vote today. So that comes at another meeting that's going to come before us, yeah. Okay. Are there any other thoughts, questions? And I did want to say this takes a two-thirds majority vote, so that means it's going to take seven of us at least to get this thing over the finish line. So it's not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination because we're short of planning commissioner. That means if two planning commissioners decide not to go along with it, two or three, the three, then it doesn't pass. So just keep all that in mind as we have our discussions. Commissioner Cardenas?

Yeah, I guess the thing that I think about in this is that we're all, everybody that sits here on this board is a citizen of our community. And we sit on this board because we want to be a part of the things that happen in our community because we care. I know that for myself, I've been sitting here long enough where over the years of time that I've sat here, I see trends. I see things that work. I see things that work for some communities and seeing things that work that don't work for other communities. And over that time, I've just seen that communities that get organized together and present something strong together do much better than individual stories all separate. While those are great and heartfelt and important to listen to, when it comes down to presenting good facts and putting down a good presentation, that really makes a difference to us. It all comes from organization, so.

Right. Are there any other thoughts, questions, comments, discussion points from the commissioners? I am not seeing a lot of excitement, so going once, going twice, I will close the public comment on this item. Chair, I have Erica Larson that raised their hand to speak. That's staff. And that's a different item. Okay.

Erica Larson, you raised your hand. I've unmuted you.

I was just raising my hand according to the chat that was put in the WebEx regarding if I was planning commission staff. Okay.

Thank you, Erica. We got you.

Yep.

We got it, HTV? All right. Okay. So, public comment on this item has been closed. I will now open it up to entertain motions from the commissioners on this item. Don't everybody go rushing to their mics now. All right. Is there a motion anywhere out there? Anyone? Not seeing a lot of excitement here. So, Commissioner Lauk. I suspect if I make a motion, it's not going to pass.

So, I'm going to leave that there and wait and see what happens from there.

You never know what will happen around here, so. All right. We're still looking for a motion from anyone. And let me also say this is an item for us. So, if there's no motion, the item just dies. There's no necessity for us to then make a motion against or for. If there is no motion, this item just kind of dies and goes away. So, I know you all aren't used to that. We're used to forwarding things on to different bodies, in which case we generally want to make some sort of motion for or against. But since this is within our wheelhouse, it just kind of lives or dies here with us. So, just a reminder on that. But back to motions on this item from the planning commissioners. All right. I'm going to let it go once. I'm going to let it go twice. Commissioner Cardenas?

I guess I'll make the motion. All right. We make the, there's no limit? Is there no number on this? Okay. So, I guess make the motion that we pass bylaws amendment public comment time limits.

All right.

I'll second that.

All right. We got a motion to approve the bylaws amendment and public comment time limits by Commissioner Cardenas. A second to that motion to approve by Commissioner Coogler. Are there any comments, thoughts, or questions from the commissioners before we take our vote? All right. I think I'm going to go ahead and put it to a roll call vote on this one.

Cardenas? Yes. Jemison?

Yes.

Coogler? Yes.

Linkus?

No. Lauk? No. Sieben? Sink?

No.

Joseph? Yes. We have four to four. A motion failed.

All right. Does that mean it dies, Tracy, or should we take another one? I mean, it's, yeah, I'll check. Does anyone want to make an alternate motion on that, or?

So, just to be clear, Tracy, it dies on the vine with that vote, right? There's no need to take a second vote?

No requirement for that. Right. It did not pass. Right.

So, all right, going once, going twice. Is there another motion on this? I'm not seeing a lot of excitement, so that is the end of that one. This one is, I guess, dead on the vine, like you said. That's it. All right.

Does this also then kill the follow-up?

No, that's a whole separate, yeah. It's a whole separate issue that we have to now discuss and take on. So, it's another ball of fun.

All right. So, we will move on to what Commissioner Kugler alludes to. Our next agenda, Item 3B, Bylaws Amendment Rebuttal Time Limits. And the presenter, again, is Shawn College.

Once again, for the record, Shawn College of your Planning Commission staff. This item is another bylaws proposed bylaws amendment. It is titled Rebuttal Time Limits. This was discussed by the Planning Commissioners last month. And per direction for the Planning Commissioners, we drafted a bylaws amendment that would change the rebuttal time limits. This is the first time on your agenda. Per your bylaws, these items for a bylaw change, it has to be on your agenda twice. So, at this meeting, it's up for your discussion.

And on Lester's direction to the contrary, it will be on your agenda next month. Brought back for a final vote in October.

That concludes my presentation. Thank you.

And we only had one individual sign up in the public comment. And they are here in person, thankfully. Cammie Corbett.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Cammie Corbett with the law firm Gardner Brewer-Hudson. I spoke to you about this part of the change in the bylaws last time when we were talking about public comment. Public comment was for you to decide. That's not for us as the applicants to opine on. That's your decision. But time for rebuttal. What we're finding in an open public hearing, and let me be clear about some misinformation that was posted by content creators and others on the internet. Public hearings don't start at 3 p.m. The Planning Commission meeting starts at 3 p.m. The Planning Commission hearings start at 5.30 p.m. So they are after hours. I also never have any private meetings with any of you prior to as an applicant's representative prior to me coming here. So there's no private time that I'm receiving prior to getting here. So I have all of my time that I have to present an amendment to you is when I'm here before you. And so when I present to you, I'm presenting to you particularly as a lawyer or planner, you know, the planner experts that come. They're coming to talk to you about the issues that are primarily in the staff report, right? The planning issues. Well, what happens when we have excessive or significant information or public comment, we get all kinds of issues thrown at you. Environmental issues, stormwater issues, and all kinds of technical issues. We would never, we very rarely have the opportunity to understand and formulate a response to. So we may be listening to two to three hours of public comment, that's fine, that's what we're here for. But to try to respond to that and to provide you context in relationship to our application in three minutes is just something that's fundamentally unfair. In the zoning hearing master process, everybody knows the process going in. 15 minutes for the applicant, 15 minutes for people in support, 15 minutes for people in opposition. So to Commissioner Cardenas' point, everyone can plan. That's not what this process is. We get 15 minutes total and then three minutes right now, you know, and again, the Chair can extend, but I think it would be better for predictability, as you said, Chair, which I agree that that was the intention of the first motion was to have predictability in the process to extend the applicant timeline. I don't know how this change affects, now that we don't have the other tiers on the other side, what the recommendation would be. I would say it should be a minimum five minutes, and then I would let you deliberate from there. And I'm here for any questions. Thank you.

All right. Is the only individual we had sign up in the public comment? Sean, I'll just check with you to see if you wanted to add anything to that or response.

No, I don't have anything really to respond to that other than just to mention, you know, what we drafted and is in your packet was the direction of the Planning Commissioners last month. It was three minutes for items with ten or fewer public speakers. This is rebuttal time. Five minutes for items with more than ten but not exceeding 15 public speakers. And ten minutes for items with 16 or more public speakers for rebuttal time. So that's what's been drafted thus far. Planning Commissioners, welcome to discuss that. Can make changes, again, for consideration. And if you wanted to take a final vote, that would come next month. Thank you.

All right. Now over to our board members for questions, thoughts, comments, ideas, revisions. This is the time for them. Yes, Commissioner Sink.

I've got a quick question on it. Looks like we redlined out saying that they could reserve their 15 minutes from their presentation. How did we do that? Like why did we do that? So we're giving them more time but we're taking away their ability to add on what they didn't use for their original presentation. Is that right?

Yes, I think because we thought the tiered time limits was more predictable and did not. Today I don't know that it's often utilized that people reserve time from their 15 minutes for after. So I guess we thought this reflected the direction of the Planning Commission, but happy to make changes.

Yeah, I don't know that that was the intent.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. So to the point of our speaker, I mean, I do understand that I don't want meetings to be longer by any stretch of imagination. I also understand that the number of items that can get thrown at or out to be able to have time to adequately respond back to those. Like if you have ten people and they come up with five different things that you need to touch base on, I think it's only fair for the applicant who spent time, money, resources to come here and do the same thing that the other speakers have done. But I don't know if removing, I don't know if having the red line where they lose their additional presentation time is the right way to doing it.

Hang on, I'm going to go to Commissioner Steven and then come back to you.

I'd agree. I don't think we should remove that.

Commissioner Lapp. If I'm not mistaken, we removed that specifically because we were adding stuff at the end. So there's a 15 minute block for presentation. There's a rebuttal period with ten or fewer public comment, nothing changes. So they get the three minute rebuttal if it's ten to fifteen. The applicant gets an additional five minutes at the end. And if there's 16 or more, there's ten minutes at that point. So I think the thought process was you're getting dedicated time on the back end versus what you have today. I'm comfortable with where it is, open to other input.

All right, good point. I would say that it's kind of a little different though because if you're at the three minutes, you can no longer reserve your time based on the strike there. So you do get more time if there's more people. But if there's not more people, you've now lost your ability to reserve your time. So that is a little bit of a difference. All right, were there any other – oh, Commissioner Sink, sorry.

I mean, I'm comfortable with the language that we have with the exception of the taking it out, their time. Like I feel like their time is their time. If they didn't use it up front, allow them to use it on the back end. Especially to the point of if you have three minutes to be able to use that remaining time. I don't want to take that – I don't want to cut people off their knees. Especially, again, back to the time resources that they've been doing and their ability to present in front of us. I think it's only fair that we keep the original one and remove the red line. Commissioner Wout.

Yeah, fantastic clarifier. I didn't realize that was going to happen, so agreed.

All right, Commissioner Kugler.

Yes, I guess staff has 15 minutes and applicant has 15. That's 30. And if we have 10 speakers, that's 30 as well. It's sort of a parity. I'm not in favor of really extending until midnight unless we get a massage therapist at some point in there.

Second. No, I'm just kidding. Points, Commissioner Kugler. Are there any other thoughts? So we definitely want to send staff back to remove that line. Do you want us to take some sort of verbal – is everybody pretty much in agreement with that? Are there any dissents from that idea Commissioner Sink raises on removing that? And I'm not seeing a lot of dissents, so.

We're comfortable making that change.

Okay. Are there any other thoughts or direction for staff? Again, now's the time because the next time it comes before us, we're going to be asked to take some sort of action on it. Or no action as we saw in the last one is also an option, but now's the time for thoughts and opinions. I'm not seeing any though, so we will call that one closed and hopefully you all have your direction. And we will move on to our next agenda item for this regular meeting. All right. Our third Action Item 3C is Temple Terrace 4 Year 27 through 4 Year 31 Capital Improvement Program CIP Update. And the presenter is Erica Larson. Good afternoon.

Katrina Corcoran, Planning Commission staff. Erica will be presenting virtually, and I will be going through the slides for her. And if there are any further technical difficulties, I can take over for the presentation. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is Erica Larson, Planning Commission staff. This item is the Planning Commission's review of the City of Temple Terrace's Capital Improvement Program CIP. This is an action item. Chapter 97-351 requires that the Planning Commission review the updated CIPs on an annual basis. Additionally, the plans of other agencies are incorporated by reference. Usually the CIS scheduled projects is included in this report. However, due to scheduling, it will be a separate item later next month. Displayed is a summary of the CIP projects, which are placed into nine program areas. The total funding amount for fiscal year 2027 through fiscal year 2031 is 108.9 million for 132 projects. Since the CIP data was received by Planning Commission staff, we were notified that there was an additional water project that is not reflected here but does not impact staff findings. We would like to note that we sometimes get additional projects after our review. And this chart depicts the same information as the previous slide. With percentages broken down by program area, you can see the largest groups in terms of funding are water followed by transportation and sewer projects. Staff also analyzed the CIP with respect to the funding source requirements in the Comprehensive Plan. CAP Policy 1.5.5 states that general funds should not be used for those facilities with dedicated revenue sources such as potable water, wastewater, and solid waste. After review of the general fund expenditures, staff found none of these types of projects relied on general funds. CAP Policy 1.5.10 and 1.5.11 state that all projects within the first three years of the city's CIP be funded with committed revenue sources. These include ad valorem taxes, gas taxes, and user charges. Staff reviewed the funding sources and timing and found that the CIP funding was in accordance with these requirements. Planning Commission staff recommends the city's proposed fiscal year 2027 through fiscal year 2031 CIP be found consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the Temple Terrace Comprehensive Plan. This concludes my presentation. I'm available as well as Temple Chair staff are available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Did you have anything else to add, Katrina? Just double checking. Okay. All right. We didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this one, so I will turn it over to the commissioners for questions, comments, discussions of this item. Not seeing a lot of motion. I will go on ahead and then close the public comment on this one and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this item. Commissioner Kugler.

I move that we find Temple Terrace Capital Improvement Program consistent with the comprehensive plan and move it forward. All right.

We have a motion of consistency finding by Commissioner Kugler. Is there a second out there? Commissioner Linkus? A second. All right. We have a second to that motion of consistency by Commissioner Linkus. The motion was made by Commissioner Kugler. Are there any thoughts, comments, or questions from the commissioners before we take our votes? I'm not seeing any. They would all signify their agreement by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. All right. Next item of business, action item 3D, Tampa 4 Year 27 through 4 Year 31 Capital Improvement Program CIP Update. And the presenter is, again, Erica Larson.

All right. Good afternoon. This is Erica Larson, Planning Commission staff. This item is the Planning Commission's review of the City of Tampa's Capital Improvement CIP Update. This is an action item. Similar to the previous presentation, Chapter 97-351 requires that the Planning Commission review the updated CIPs prior to City Council adoption. Additionally, the plans of other agencies are incorporated by reference. Also, similarly, the CIS scheduled projects is usually included in this report. However, due to scheduling, it will be a separate item later next month. Displayed is a summary of the CIP projects, which are placed into nine program areas. You can see the largest groups in terms of funding are wastewater, transportation, and water. The total funding amount for fiscal year 2027 through fiscal year 2031 is approximately $1.09 billion for 99 projects. The following slide provides a visual representation of the five-year funding for all nine CIP project areas. Next slide, please. 30 CIP projects are located in the CHHA. This is expected given the large portions of the City of Tampa are within the CHHA area. These projects are consistent with CMS Objective 1.4. These projects renovate or replace existing facilities, enhance recreation areas, and provide protection from flood hazards. Planning Commission staff recommends the City of Tampa's proposed fiscal year 2027 through fiscal year 2031 CIP update be found consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the Tampa comprehensive plan. This concludes my presentation. I'm available as well as City staff are available for any questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this item, so I will again turn it over to the commissioners for questions, comments, thoughts, discussion. I'm not seeing a lot of movement or excitement. I will, going once, going twice, close the public comment on this item and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this item. Is there a motion anywhere out there? Commissioner Linkus.

I'd like to make a motion to make the FY27, FY31 capital improvement program for City of Tampa to be found consistent with the comp plan.

Second. All right. We got a motion of consistency finding by Commissioner Linkus. A second to that by Commissioner Laug. Are there any questions, comments, or discussions from the commissioners before we take our vote on this item? Not seeing any, then we'll all signify their agreement by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That motion carries unanimously. All right. Thank you, Katrina. And thank you, Erica. We will move on to our next agenda items, 3E, 2026 through 2027 tentative district educational facilities consistency review. And the presenters are Mariela Overdorf and Commissioner Michelle Orton.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Mariela Overdorf, planning commission staff here to present the consistency review for the 2026-2027 Hillsborough County Public Schools tentative five-year facilities work plan. Planning commission staff reviewed the tentative district educational facilities plan sent on July 30th, 2026. To provide some background on the district educational facilities plan, it includes the five-year work program outlining new constructions and additions to schools through the 2030-2031 school year. The plan is adopted by the school board to provide adequate facility capacity for protected student enrollment. The planning commission reviews the plan annually per Florida state statutes and the interlocal agreements between the school board and the four local governments for consistency with each jurisdiction's comprehensive plan. Michelle Orton's general manager of growth management and planning at Hillsborough County Public Schools will present the proposed plan and answer any questions you may have at the end. Following her presentation, staff will present the consistency finding and ask the planning commission to take action.

Michelle Orton, general manager of growth management planning and siting for Hillsborough County Public Schools. The purpose of today's review is to receive the planning commission's consistency recommendation before the plan returns to the school board for approval. Ah, too fast. Oh, there we go. Um, just wanted to make a correction. I had put final. This is the tentative plan. The final goes to the school. So we are reviewing the tentative agreement, five-year work plan. This is done every year per state statute, 10-13-45. Here's some school openings that we have. In 2026, we did not open any new school. 2027, we will be opening Tinker PK through 8. This is on the MacDill Air Force Base. This is done with the funding by the federal government of $80 million. So the school just had to provide the $20 million for the new school. The middle school VV was just named to the Kenneth Ortero Middle School at the last meeting. That will also open. That's a brand new school that will open on West Lake Drive over by brand new Morgan High School. Stewart Middle School was a rebuild. It will open in 2027. Then in 2028, we will be opening the Just Elementary School rebuild. 2029, we do not have any new openings. 2030 to 31, we have on the plan to open new elementary school F in Waimama. That will also be on that same site that Morgan High School and Otero Middle School are located. There's kind of a picture of what the middle school looks like right now. Then we have two additions, one for Alonzo High School and one for Steinbrenner. And then a proposed new high school AAA in Plant City and the property has already been purchased. This is just another list of the schools in the five-year project we have. This is our project expenditures and revenues over the next five years. Our capital expenditures for the next five years. Please note that modulars are five million, but we are taking some modulars off and hoping to sell those soon. Bus purchases, site purchases, and the furniture and equipment is also the fixtures, furniture and equipment. Again, here's another list of our five-year facilities work plan with those schools that I noted earlier. So the next step is to receive notification from stakeholders, which is the planning commission. We'll then submit it to the school board for final approval, and then we will take it to the state for approval. And that's it.

With that, we will go into the consistency review. Staff finds the proposed educational facilities plan consistent with the following objectives and policies of the unincorporated Hillsborough County comprehensive plan. Policies under capital improvement section and intergovernmental coordination section require collaborating with the school board to assess and address needs for additional facilities for the future, as well as policies under the public school facility section to evaluate the plan for consistency with the comprehensive plan. The proposed plan is also consistent with the following objectives and policies of the plant city comprehensive plan. Similarly, the plan assesses future needs with coordination from the school board. As mentioned in objectives and policies and the capital improvements and intergovernmental coordination elements. The plan has been evaluated for consistency with the comprehensive plan, as mentioned in the public school facilities element. The proposed plan is also consistent with the following objectives and policies of the city of Temple Terrace comprehensive plan. The policies in the capital improvement section, the public school facility section, and the intergovernmental coordination section, call for the evaluation of public facilities plans for consistency, as well as coordination to determine the needs for additional facilities. Lastly, the proposed plan is consistent with the following objectives and policies of the city of Tampa comprehensive plan. Including policies that call for coordination with the school board and the capital improvement section, to address future needs for consistency with the comprehensive plan in the public school facilities section, as well as supporting the school district in its efforts to locate and expand public schools in a coordinated manner also mentioned in the public school facilities section. Staff recommends the Planning Commission approve and find proposed Hillsborough County Public Schools 2026-2027 tentative educational facilities plan consistent, with the unincorporated Hillsborough County comprehensive plan, Plan City comprehensive plan, Tampa comprehensive plan, and Temple Terrace comprehensive plan, and forward this recommendation to the school board. This concludes my presentation and staff is available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. We didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this item, so I will turn it over to the commissioners for questions, comments, thoughts, discussion.

Commissioner Sank? I have a question, just in general. So when they do rebuilds, do they push the students to other schools and overload them, and then bring them back? Or how does that work? So it seems interesting that we find space for them, but then we need to build another facility. Just curious.

What we do is usually a wing that we rebuild. So the students stay where they're at, and we do the construction on the rebuild, and then, are we talking Alonzo High School and Steinbrenner? Okay. So yes, those students were moved. So Just was an empty school. Just Elementary School was an empty school. So there are no students there. The only students are at Stewart Middle School. And what we've done is we've put out kind of like a modular city is what they call it. So those students have been moved to modulars on the same site. And so as the new school opens in Stewart, then we'll move those students there to the Stewart rebuild. Just Elementary, as I said, does not have any students at this time. So they're going to complete that construction of that, and they should be done in 2028. January is the proposed, but we're going to go ahead and say August, because that's the beginning of the school year. So then students from around the area will then have an opportunity to attend the new Just Elementary School.

Okay, thank you, appreciate it. All right, Commissioner Kugler. Yes, the budget was impressive, big numbers, buses and so on. I was surprised by how small the site number was. Was that $30,000 for site purchase in the budget, or was it a typo?

It should say $30 million. Okay. Does it say $30,000?

So I was looking at it and saying, okay, $30 million makes more sense than $30,000.

Yes, it is $30 million, and that's for the whole five years. We usually have about, I don't know, $600 million or something like that. But we are not building as many schools as we used to, so we've reduced that amount. Thank you.

I have a quick question. Does this tentative plan become final when we make our decision, or does it change in between now and go into the school board?

No, it does not. Okay. You're just reviewing this for consistency, and as stakeholders and comments are taken to the, so the staff report that she created has already been submitted to the school board, and they will vote on the final.

Okay. All right. Are there any other thoughts, questions, or comments from the commissioners? Not seeing a lot of excitement. I will close the public comment on this one and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this item.

Any motion?

Commissioner Jemisin?

I'd like to make a motion to find the 26-27 tentative district educational facilities budgets consistent.

All right. Commissioner Kugler? All right. We got a motion of consistency by Commissioner Jemisin. A second to that motion by Commissioner Kugler. Are there any other questions, comments, thoughts before we take our vote? And I'll signify their agreement by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That vote carries unanimously, minus Commissioner Cardenas, who is not in the room right now. All right. Next up on our agenda, we have item 3F, amendment to professional services contract with HW Lochner, Inc. And the presenter is Jake Hollins. All right.

Good afternoon, Plain Commissioners. Jake Hollins, Plain Commission. Staff. So we are going to have an amendment to a contract. HW Lochner is who we actually went into contract with. They have been purchased by Aegis USA, Inc. So you're going to hear a little bit going back and forth with that. But again, this is an amendment to a professional contract. This is an addendum. Let's do a little background. This is for the urban expansion area. So just a little bit of where we are and what we're talking about. November of 2023, the BOCC requested Planning Commission staff to provide some areas of the county that there may be appropriate for study of expansion of the urban service boundary through an urban expansion area or other means. March of 2024, staff provided a report to the Board of County Commissioners with these four areas that you see from the north going south. You have the interstate four corridor, then the bomb area, the Waimama area, and lastly, little manatees south. At that time, the board asked staff to go ahead and expand the urban service boundary as phase one through WVR two and RP two. That being the Waimama and the bomb areas that is complete now as a land use change. Staff is actually changing through some of the text and the future land use element as well as the community plans with respect to those land use changes as well as to study for an urban expansion area for the interstate four corridor as well as little manatee south. So a little bit about that overview again is to provide recommendations to the Board of County Commissioners on whether and where to consider the future of the urban service area. So this is just for recommendations. The Board will then take any action that they choose for those recommendations. The consultant again ages formerly HW Lochner. This is an 18 month contract that this commission saw in July 2025 and authorized at that time.

That contract amount was for $350,000. What we are evaluating under the urban expansion area is policy objective 1.3 within the future land use element. The reason we put that there is again some of the addendum speaks to that future land use and we want to have a conversation with you about that again.

Where are we in the timeline? Because that does go into the idea of this addendum. We have gone through rounds one and two round three just concluded and we are in this in between round three and round four where we are having conversations, not just with the community, not just with county staff, but we are preparing ourselves to go back out, have those round fours before we actually break down and end up having a final virtual meeting. That final virtual meeting is something that we would have new if this commission were to approve the addendum before we go in and have some conversations with you as well as with the board of county commissioners later this year into next year for those final recommendations. So what is the modification? The modification is for a total of $44,820 and it is for additional outreach, engagement, analysis and coordination. It's important to note it is not any additional tasks under the five and it is not a new deliverable under the five. So we are working within the tasks that you received for the contract that you already have approved and we are working within those deliverables. What we are asking of the consultant through this addendum is to expand some of that as well as to provide clarification. One of the things that's interesting through this process is again, we are looking at two specific areas in the geography and we are working within brand new policy framework. So there's been some back and forth that we've been going through in a little bit of a learning process from the original scope to where we are now. Additional pop up meetings to accommodate community requests that pop up meeting, whether we have a agricultural economic development, the Sundance community, whether we talk to Lithia, whether we talk to Lithia, whether we talk to Lithia, whether we talk to Lithia, whether we talk to the Builders Associations. We've been going through and having some really great conversations with the public. We realize that as we actually have a final deliverable, we're going to be having more of that conversation with the public on the one on one basis in small group settings. That additional virtual meeting to review the final recommendations. Where that's coming from is again, when we have a round four, we provide that to the public. We're still needing to go back into the lab, take some of that from the public as well as have some final conversations with our technical advisory committee, other county departments. And if there are any changes from whether it is the planning commission or the board of county commissioners, it allows us to have again one more conversation with the public. It includes the additional survey for that feedback. Anytime we have those surveys or these additional public meetings, there's an expanded public engagement documentation that goes along with that. And then as I talked about with the policy, policy 1.3.4 actually holds 11 different framework that you have to have for explaining what a UEA is. So whether it's the land use in the map or the policy or in this sense, the fiscal analysis as well as the infrastructure where we're looking at some gap analysis in there, basically where we've had a little bit more of an in depth conversation with our county partners. And we're having that back and forth of what exactly it means to actually fulfill those policies. Closed additional coordination with county staff again, reviews and additional meetings that we've been going back and forth with again. These two different areas kind of need a little bit of give and take. So we may have with the consultant one step ahead in one area, but we haven't met it in the other area. So we're having to actually go back and have a conversation, whether it be with public works, with transportation, with conservation, environmental land management. Additional round of review for staff on those select deliverables again, as well as additional as needed TPC and BOCC briefings and workshops. So in the addendum, you'll actually see whether it is hours to that for those meetings or whether it's specific meetings themselves, such as with the public. And then the timeline extended for the February 26, 2027. We felt that that was needed with the idea of when we can actually get in front of the board of county commissioners with these final deliverables. Since originally this was to be completed in the middle of January, we feel those additional six weeks will allow us to have a little bit more leeway in the schedules in 2027. Next steps a little bit. We talked about that. I four survey is out right now. It ends the 25th of September community meetings for round four in both areas or this October. You'll see the dates right there for the little manatee south coming up. We'll then be back to provide updates to both this board as well as the board of county commissioners. And then that final virtual meeting that we're looking at in November or December, if this body should so choose to approve the addendum. And again, the deliverables are not changing. It's still that preferred scenario map and the policy recommendations that go along with it. And with that, staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve the modification to the contract with HW Lochner, Aegis USA Incorporated, for additional outreach, engagement, analysis, and coordination, increasing the contract budget by $44,820 and extending the end date to February 26, 2027. This concludes my presentation and I thank you for your time.

Thank you. All right. We didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this item, but we did have two individuals who are virtual who did say that they didn't want to speak, but they did want to register their opposition to this item. So with that, I will turn it over to our board members for discussions, thoughts, questions, comments on this item. Commissioner Sink.

Just for clarification, I have the opportunity to be for the CAC, for the Transportation Board. And I think I mentioned this last meeting that people from the community actually showed up to our meetings to speak and this doesn't ever happen. And I guess my question is, in the existing contract, does it speak to the interchange? Because there's a lot of confusion going on in the community on is this a land use or is this an interchange? And I feel like a lot of confusion has happened on even the CAC members didn't know what was going on and thinking that they had a opportunity to talk about land use. When it was actually an update for an interchange and it just gets really muddled. So I want to make sure that if the interchange part was included in this contract.

So the interchange was not. Jay, I welcome you answering if you want. It was not contemplated within this scope. So that is one of the things that, yes, as part of the public outreach for the Little Manatee South area has been something we've had to contend with and has necessitated some additional meetings on a continual basis with some of the community members to help them understand and navigate what some of the different things that are happening are. So we also not only have the interchange study that FDOT is doing very separate from this, but we also had the like the corridor preservation plan amendments that you all saw. And as well as the there was legislation for a rural stewardship district in that area. So there have been a lot of questions that we have had to deal with and work through in that community that we didn't necessarily anticipate when we started the project.

Thank you, because I'd be curious, and I don't know who'd have the answer for this, the amount of resources that were used to explain FDOT's lack of community outreach and explain that it's separate from this. Like, that's where I'm trying to get my arms around. If I'm in multiple meetings and people don't understand what this study is for, I can only imagine what the constituents out in that area are actually trying to figure out. Are we talking about an interchange, are we talking about land use, like what they're doing? And to have all the members from Sundance show up and do a meeting I thought was really super interesting, being that they were completely unrelated.

Mr. Benson from the consultant team is here. I don't know if he would like to respond to that since he's been a bit more boots on the ground.

Yeah, I mean as it relates I think to the items that Ms. Zornita raised that were not around when we initially scoped the contract. For instance, there were two earmarks to fund the interchange. Earmarks are not, initially in the LRTP, it was not in the cost feasible plan that the interchange would be funded. So when we present existing conditions out to the community, we tell them it's not in the cost feasible plan. But then an earmark comes down and it funds the project, it creates something that we then have to further explain so the expectations are conveyed. And so it has eaten up I think quite a bit of time at these meetings just explaining how this process has occurred outside of the contract, but that are affecting our ability to connect with and actually get the valuable information that this agency has asked us to collect. So I would say, you know, a significant amount of resources have been spent just focusing on those and getting those out of the way before we can even talk about land use, if that answers your question.

Actually, I have a question for you then. So when, at the meetings that we've already had, so you guys are already on two round, what, two or three? How many round, how many? We are going into round four. Round four, okay, got it. So at this juncture, do you feel like the community understands that this is not an interchange discussion, that it's a land use discussion, or is that still needing to be conveyed to people? Because when I was at the CAC two months ago, they were very confused.

I would say that that distinction is part of the landscape that has changed since the project began. So when it began, it was not an interchange discussion. Since the project has started, actions have been taken at the state level and by the BOCC to make it more a part of the discussion. So we're having to sort of build the plane as we're flying it as well. All right.

Are there any other questions, thoughts, or comments on this one? I will say for my part, I won't be supporting this item. Ms. Ornita knows that. I'm not very happy about the fact that staff is coming back after $350,000 to ask us for more money and more time, to basically tell the community what it doesn't want to hear. We've heard a lot of opposition from the community on this. Again, I've brought up the point for a year now, going on coming up on a year now, that there's a better process that we should have taken up to do this. I understand that the Board of County Commissioners wanted this, but to me this process is not comprehensive. This is a process to expand the urban service boundary, which takes a precondition that the urban service boundary should be expanded. It doesn't even ask the question whether or not the urban service boundary should be expanded. And I think $350,000 is enough. And the fact that you're asking for more money and more time for the same outputs to me, there's a lot of things that don't line up. When I dig down into the money and I look at the time you're asking for another month and a half, and I just do some simple division and look at the money you're asking for, there's a huge increase of the money you're asking for as compared to the original contract. So to me there's some very strange things going on here. And again, ultimately at the end of the day, it feels to me like we're giving the consultant more money to basically just come back and tell the public what it doesn't want to hear. So I'm okay with the urban service boundary expanding. I'm okay with whatever findings you come out with. What I'm not okay with is taking more public dollars to put into this and more time to put into this. You know, it needs to be done and it needs to come back and it's a recommendation. We aren't writing law. We aren't building buildings, right? It's stuff written on paper here and we're already at $350,000 for that. So as an individual, my thought is leave it as it is, get the job done, and then let's move on. So that's just me as one. Commissioner Sink.

I've got a question because you said it a couple times. You said telling the public something that they don't want. Are we going out and telling them what we're doing or are we asking questions on what is possible? Because I think there's a very big distinction on telling people what's going to happen versus going out and collecting information. And from what I've gathered from the boards that I sit on, people in the community don't know what's happening. And so you have an uneducated or an unaware public advocating for things that they don't even understand sometimes. So in my lessons in leadership, if you can give people education, they can make better decisions. And if this is coming back to educating our constituents and the people in those areas about what this does and how it's going to impact them. Because a lot of people think, well, they're studying it, it's going to happen there. Like, no, it could be a combination of I-4, Little Manatee, and something else. It doesn't say this whole area's going to go into it. And that fact is lost on a lot of people when I've spoke to them. So I don't know if it's necessarily a bad use of resources being that this is how we're planning our future and development to make sure that we're getting all the data points and that we flushed out all the confusion before we're getting our inputs. Commissioner Lau?

I was planning to vote no silently and not give a speech. I will just say I echo many, I want to echo many of your concerns when I met with staff last week as a preamble to this. I didn't voice them then, but I will just add a rider to your little speech and say I support it. All right, Commissioner Linkes.

This has been an interesting discussion. I appreciate all the points that were raised so far. I do think that from what I've seen that the public has shown that they're really concerned and interested in what's going on here and that a lot of new things are happening. And to me, I am sympathetic with this idea that I think Commissioner Sink raised really well that the community might need a little more time to really understand what's happened here, what changes are going on, and to just be able to ask their questions because a lot's happening and this is a big project. I think $40,000 is a good chunk of money, but we're spending $20,000 for something I totally don't agree with, which is even more discussion of the urban growth area. I think this one is something that's moving forward where the community, our county commissioners have directed to go forward on this and the community needs to understand what's happening here.

Commissioner Lyle. So I think it might be helpful to go back and speak to exactly what this was supposed to achieve when county commission issued it. And I would invite staff to come up and just maybe give us one and a half minutes on what the goal of this was because I hear a lot of we need more opportunity and rightly so if it's accurate. A lot of opportunity for the public to weigh in a little bit more and hear a little bit more about it, but my understanding is the end product is going to be a package that's given to the county commission, which the public will have access to to be able to read and give commentary at that time.

Yes, sir. The public are part of the conversation in building those recommendations to the BOCC, right? It's part of the stool that you have to actually take something forward. What goes forward is a recommendation of a land use scenario map as well as some policy recommendations to actually establish an urban expansion area. So think of it as you as a private property owner owning property, say, at McIntosh and I-4, if you should want to expand the urban service boundary privately, this might be the path forward because it would show on a map with some policy what is already envisioned for this area. So that would then mean those communities in that area might already have an understanding of how their community might transition over time and say the next 15, 20, 25 years, where again what we're looking at doing is providing population and employment growth in these areas out to a planning horizon of 2050.

And how many people have come forward and participated in the meetings? Hundreds. Do we have an exact number? I know we take... I can get you an exact number. I'm just curious if we have a sample size that is worthy of moving forward at this point.

Yeah, we have hundreds of people who respond to the surveys when we actually have these community meetings. We usually end up having anywhere from 100 to 150 people who show up for the three meetings that we have. So again, over the time that we've had this from spring of this year all the way through, we've easily had several hundred people in both areas individually coming. And again, that's the other thing involved in this is that we're speaking to hundreds of people down south, while at the same time having conversations with folks along Interstate 4.

So would it be fair to say you've had 500 people minimum? Minimum.

Okay.

That's a pretty good sample size for a county of this size, just speaking mathematically. If you're looking at margin of error and things like that, that's a pretty significant sample size. It'll give you, I believe what I'm reading here, like a 4.4% margin of error and 95% confidence from a directional standpoint. All right.

Any other thoughts, Commissioner Kupner?

Following on what Commissioner Lauk said, as a significant sample size, it also indicates with Commissioner Sink's comments that maybe a significant portion of the population are not understanding what this is all about yet. Commissioner Lauk? It's a great comment.

It's the last thing I'll say about this. If the public doesn't understand yet after a year of this and $350,000, and next time we go down this road we need new staff, or just be completely blunt, or we need a new partner that we give this work to.

Commissioner Sink?

I don't agree with that statement being that if the conditions change and there's new things getting introduced, that causes confusion. So if you go to a meeting and you explain something, and then they watch the news and hear that there's an interchange coming, that's like either they lied to me, or something else is inaccurate. And that's, I think, where the problem for me lies is that I'm showing up in board meetings with confused constituents that don't understand it. And it's not that, I feel like they just keep getting new pieces of information from unrelated topics that change their opinions, or they think they're interweaved into a way that they're not. Even though the Planning Commission oversees transportation through the TPO, they think that it's all tied together into one big thing when it's not. And I think that's where it's coming down the pike is that they're constantly getting new information, and that they don't know how to use it. Ms. Zornita?

I just have to speak on behalf of my team who has done a tremendous job with an extraordinarily challenging set of circumstances. It's not easy to create trust with the public these days in these community meetings. And they have spent hours of their evenings and weekends alongside the consultant team trying to do that, to educate, to build trust, to convince people to even participate in this process when they throw their hands up and say, you've already made decisions. We haven't already made decisions. We are trying to come to balance decisions that reflect the feedback from the community and all of the stakeholders in this process, but also do what we were asked to do by the board, which is accommodate additional population and employment. That's a big balancing act to have to juggle all of those competing interests. So, the staff has done a tremendous job. I just cannot underscore that enough. The last thing I just want to mention is that the only reason that we are extending the contract timeline is because of the Board of County Commissioner's calendar. They do not set their calendar until November of this year after the election. And the dates that are available for us to request a workshop and a time in front of them to present the recommendations, after you have heard them at your January meeting, fell outside of the time of the scope. So, that is why we requested the extension of the time. So, I just wanted to make that clear. Thank you.

All right. I did have a couple of questions myself also. I wanted to get in there and get answered really quick. When I made my first statement, I spoke about the fact that this one and a half month extension is going to cost us more than the first contract. Does the consultant have any answers as to why? If I divide the cost by the monthly time or by the daily time, it's increases of 164% and another hundred and something percent increase over our original contract costs. Okay, you didn't scope the thing out properly the first time. You're having all these troubles and then putting any contingency in the contract. So, because you weren't able to do these things, now we have to pay more to you on the back end and add on additional time. Why isn't it the same amount of money for the time? Why is the money increased? You mean per month? Right, per month and per day. Oh, I see. Because that's how the contract's billed, by the contract. We don't bill you per hour, it's by percentage over a certain period of time if you read the contract, right? So, what you do at your hours is your business. I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about why is it costing us more money? Why not, I could even agree with it if you kept the daily cost, the monthly cost the same, but there's a big increase in the money that you're asking for here.

Why is that? Well, most of the work that's proposed to be added to the scope is part of the current schedule without the extension. That's really the answer. It's actually things that are going to still occur before the current contract is up. So, it's on top of what we had already anticipated doing back in 2025 when this was initially scoped. So, it's not that the entire amount that you're seeing as the increase is all going to get compressed in that month and a half. You know, it's only going to be the support that's needed to address the items that Ms. Dornita mentioned related to timing. So, it's not necessarily a burn rate, I guess, if that's how you're describing it, is like a burn rate per month on effort. There's additional effort that's going into the current contract time period that is out of that 44. It's not all going into the time period that's being added.

Yeah, I apologize if I did not make that crystal clear. The $44,820 is not simply for a six-week expansion. That six-week expansion, as Ms. Dornita mentioned, is to fit the calendar, which is our issue that we didn't catch that to begin with, Chair Joseph. But the whole idea of the $44,820 are for additional meetings, additional public engagement that will occur as we go through October, November, December, and into January.

We can do it in the same period, I guess, if that's what you're asking. We're just doing more work in the same period.

Well, no, no, I'm asking why is the cost for the work higher?

The cost for the work is higher because there's additional work that's associated with what is being done that is being requested through the addendum.

Well, wouldn't that be still at the same rate? Okay, so if you're doing the work for $100 a day, why are we now doing it for $160 a day in the extra month and a half?

We don't need the month and a half. We're doing additional work in the time we were given. The month and a half is for the additional meeting time that's needed to do to the schedules. But we can get all of our, we're getting most of that $44 built into the current period. I got you.

So even in the current period, why is the work still costing us more? Why isn't it at the same rate? Why is it more?

The hourly rate is the same.

We don't bill hourly, so what they do with their hours is not our business, so don't stay hourly rate. It's billed by percentage in a time period, so three months X percent, right? What you do with your hours is your business, and that's by the contract when you read the contract, okay? So I get that. I get you can play games with the hours and show what you want for hours. It doesn't matter if our accounting system doesn't account for hours, right? So, again, by days and months, it appears that this is costing the citizens more money. You know what I mean? So, and by more money, I don't mean additional, like it was $10 and it's going to be $50. I mean, like, the per day, the per month rate is a lot higher than the original contract rate, so.

Yes, it is. And that is because there is more work added to the scope, and that's why the amount is higher.

All right, I won't press out the point anymore. I know what I'm going to vote, so I said that at the opening. Are there any other, Commissioner Krueger?

Go ahead, please. Would it be simple enough to calculate it at the 100% rather than the 160% is my question. I think that's following.

I don't want to belabor the point, so they've made their comments. Commissioner Linkus.

I just also would like to mention that I do work in the planning profession, and so I know so many of the professional planners who haven't been able to go out for dinner on a weekend or haven't been able to, you know, come to something in the evening because they're at these meetings. And I feel like there's a strange knee-jerk reaction to insulting staff on this board that I just really want to call attention to, and I find it really disturbing, bizarre, and odd. I know so many people who work really hard for this. I see nothing but professionalism from the staff here. I feel honored to be part of this group, and we're talking about one of the most complex projects that's happened in our county in a long time. We're talking about engaging the public when there's been a lot of changes and adding just, you know, a few weeks of work. So I guess I will support this. I think it's really important to involve the public as extensively as possible in this. It's really game-changing for the residents that live in these areas, and they need to understand what's going on, and a lot's happened. And I do hope that a spirit of civility and respect can reign in these conversations.

Commissioner Lau. I think we could go back and look through the transcript, and we would be dirt to find anyone who's insulted staff.

At the end of the day, there needs to be a level of accountability, and in all candor, it's disappointing to hear our executive director say we've done a great job. Input does not equal output, like the level of input that you put into something doesn't necessarily mean the product is going to be great. And we spent $350,000, and we didn't get the output that we paid for, and we're sitting here asking for

a significant increase at the very end, and to not have any accountability or hard discussion around that would be a dereliction of duty on our part as a board.

Commissioner Sink.

I mean, on that point, if we were going to go into input-output, I feel like FDOT should chip in some money and explain what they're doing, because they're wasting our money, our consulting time on it. So I don't think it's really an input-output. I think that FDOT should have thrown some money into this whole pit, because they used resources that didn't belong to them. So, but at the same point, I don't know how to not punish staff and the provider for something that happened that FDOT should be paying for.

Well, I will say FDOT is beyond our purview. So, while you're able to make your comments that what FDOT does with their money and what you would like FDOT to do with their money is not really this board's responsibility, so.

I agree, but when we clean up their messes and it comes underneath the planning commission name for the TPO, people are showing up to meetings thinking that they're going to make a change that has nothing to do with them. So that's where I'm saying the resources from some other project burned our own resources for something that has nothing to do with it. And I don't want to punish our staff or the consultants for something that was out of their control.

We are in the crosshairs a lot as an independent agency, but I did also want to echo what Commissioner Lauk said. I take acceptance to Commissioner Linkus' comments that we're disparaging staff. I don't believe that that's the aim of anyone here. I think, as Commissioner Lauk tried to say, we're given oversight of this agency to make sure that things are done in an efficient and economical way. And to simply point out the fact that there's an inefficiency or an oversight, as was agreed to by the consultant and staff, is not disparaging staff. It's stating things plainly, okay? And people make mistakes. It happens. I've seen it happen a lot. And Ms. Zornita will be the first to tell you that I don't usually make a big deal about it, right? But when it comes to the public funds and just willy-nilly throwing them around, that's where I draw the line. You know what I mean? And like Commissioner Lauk says, there has to be accountability. And I think the discussion on this has been very civil. You know what I mean? So I don't necessarily agree. You call a spade a spade and you move forward. We're all professionals and we're all adults here. Like Ms. Zornita said, staff has worked very hard. There's no denying the fact that staff has been busting their butts on this. They've been all over the county at all kinds of meetings. But it's also true what Commissioner Lauk says is that the outcomes weren't as we sort of expected, right? And we're kind of shifting the goal post now. So they can both be right without us getting all higgledy-piggledy and clutching pearls. And again, I don't think the aim is to disparage staff in any way. It's just to call a spade a spade and make sure we're looking at things in an objective way. So, all right, are there any other?

I'm not wearing any pearls, and I am not the person who said, let's get rid of the staff for the record. I really am not going to let that go unnoticed. That was said, and I think it's uncalled for. We're talking about a decision. We may disagree about it, but I don't think we should be saying, let's get rid of our staff, because we disagree about it. And I think it's rude.

It was absolutely said, and it was very direct, and I would stand by it. If this vendor comes back next year and asks for a contract from us, and they're coming back asking for more than a 10% overrun for 45 days, or the three months that's outlined based on the year plus that's already been put in, then no, we shouldn't do business with that vendor again, and we should hold staff responsible for not getting the deliverables in the time in which the contract said it was, period.

Commissioner Sink.

This is like finding a gopher turtle in the middle of a project. Like, you don't know it's there, it shows up, you have to deal with it, mitigate it, and move on, and it's going to cost more money. Like, that's the way I see it, is that we go into a site, we find something that we didn't know was there, aka interchange, land stewardship, like all kinds of random stuff got thrown in there. And you still have to clean up the mess, but you also want to have the product that actually represents what we bought. So if it's $45,000 to finish up a project to make sure that it's getting the accurate response, I think it's worth it, especially for our constituents that want to feel heard and to understand the topic.

I hear that, Commissioner Sink, but I will say in response to that, even when I spoke with staff and Ms. Zornita, anyone who's been part of the contracts in the development field knows that there's contingency. That's part of development, okay? There is an unknown any time you develop anything and you build that into your contract as best you can. I get that sometimes you overrun that and there's issues. Now, if staff would have came back and said, okay, there's a legal issue that we're going to have because something came out of left field, hey, you got my support 100%. But to come back at the end and just kind of, you know, well, we feel we need a little more of this and a little more of that, well, you're the professionals and that should have been thought of at the outset. You know what I mean? So that's where I come down on that, and I totally agree with you. You dig into the ground. You find things. It changes your cost. I understand that. I'm not, you know, I've done a lot of digging in the ground. I've done a lot of development around here. So I'm very familiar with that. But again, at the end of the day, we aren't digging in the ground. We're writing a document of recommendations. You know what I mean? So to me, it's just a little stretch too far there. Commissioner Laut, did you have your line on? No. All right. We'll check to see if there are any other thoughts or comments. Commissioner Cardenas?

You know, I don't think we're wrong by trying to keep something instead of context of what it's supposed to be and calling it, hey, we need to do better. There's nothing wrong with that. At the end of the day, it's not an endless budget. So I think they were right on that. I think the other side of it though is also, and I missed part of this because I was out, it's just sometimes you've got to make hard decisions. Are we looking for more public input to make a hard decision, or are we avoiding making a hard decision?

Commissioner Laut? Is this about more public input, or is this about meeting the time calendar that the county commission has laid out? And if it's about meeting county commission's timeline, why don't we write the report and hold it and present it at that time?

Yeah.

If you want to respond, I'm not going to force you to do anything with Sordida.

Well, I mean, I think this is about what we believe will produce the best product within that time frame. We're still on track to have this completed by the end of the year, so that recommendations can be presented to you all at your January meeting and the board of county commissioners shortly thereafter. But we believe that there are some additional public outreach steps within that time frame that would be beneficial to take place given what's going on within those areas.

All right. Any other thoughts, comments, questions from the commissioners? I'll give you all a little bit of time. I know this has been a deep one, a dense one here. All right. I'm not seeing a lot of excitement, so then going. Commissioner Cardenas?

I guess in the details of the contract and that additional time, I mean, I'm in contracts all the time, and something new pops up, and we say, okay, well, we still got to get this done, but we still got a number. Can we negotiate that number down? Can we work on that number? I mean, sure, things change, but at the same time, it seems to change. We're in it together. A pocket hurts. Well, before you were getting paid this, this additional amount wants to get done, and you want to put out a good product, and you think it makes it a better product with this additional stuff. Can we do it at a different rate?

Throughout the last couple of months, as we've identified some of these items, we have scrutinized the existing contract, identified where Planning Commission staff could take on additional pieces, looked at what from these items we could do rather than ask the consultant to do, so we have tried to get down to a number that we think is the minimum.

You know, oftentimes, I'm in projects, and I hire somebody, and we say, hey, we're going to get this done, and it's not working out the way it does. And sometimes, on the other side of the table, while they did the best that they could, maybe it wasn't what they thought it would be. And instead of firing them and going to look for somebody else, we say, hey, how can we do this better? Why is it necessarily something that staff has to take on versus a consultant that's a private entity that wants to continue to be in business? That's how you create a better relationship by not necessarily always paying more, but saying, hey, when it gets down and dirty, let's work together better on this.

All right. Any other thoughts?

Commissioner Sink? I've got a question. When you're doing, Ms. Ornita, thank you. I'm sorry. When you're looking at staff versus consultant, is there savings with the consultant versus having staff? What do the numbers look like for that? Just I'm curious now. We talked about it.

I don't know that I have numbers off the top of my head to tell you about that. But we look at, I mean, in the initial decision about whether or not to use a consultant or to have staff do it in-house, we look at the complexity of the project, what type of expertise is going to be needed, some of the facets of this project that we knew we did not have in-house, like a real estate market analysis, some of the infrastructure analysis, and the amount of, the initial amount of public outreach was going to be a lot to begin with. And so that was a lot to expect. We've got three people, no, four people on the Special Area Studies team, and they are not just working on this project alone. They're working on the Riverview Community Plan and other community plans and corridor studies and things like that. So it's also looking at what else is on our plate and how much time they would have to devote to it.

All right. Are there any other questions, comments, thoughts from the commissioners on this item? Commissioner Lauk?

Last question for staff. We feel with the scope that's been given to us, the additional scope, we'll call it, we feel like this is market value, market pricing. If we were to three bid this or four bid this, we would get something comparable with what's left to do.

Yeah, from our research of it, yes.

Okay, thank you.

All right. Any other thoughts, questions from commissioners on this item? All right. I'll let it go once. I'll let it go twice. Then I will go on ahead and close the public comment on this item and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this one. For a motion, Commissioner St. Gussi, you're moving.

I motion to approve the amendment to professional service contract with H. W. Lochner in the amount of 44,800, I believe.

44,820. All right. Motion of approval. Motion to approve the amendment by Commissioner Sink. Is there a second out there? Commissioner Linkus?

I'll second.

All right. We got a motion to approve the amendment by Commissioner Sink. A second to that motion by Commissioner Linkus. And I'm going to turn it over to the clerk for a roll call vote on this one. Oh, wait. Does anybody have any questions, comments, or statements before we take the vote? Yeah, Commissioner Cardenas.

I mean, if we vote no, what happens?

Then it's, they don't get it. They finished the contract as we started it.

I mean, do they have an option to come back and renegotiate?

Well, I mean, they can come back to us with whatever they want to. It's a free country. It's like they came up to us with this one. They can come back again with something different if they feel like it. Or Ms. Zornita and staff feel it's appropriate or a good move. But there's nothing stopping them from doing it. So, Commissioner Seaman?

I'd like to ask what happens from your perspective. Like, what would you guys think to do if it doesn't get approved?

Well, I mean, I think a number of the items would not get done. Like, the additional attendance at public outreach requested public, like when a community says, let's say it's a Sundance neighborhood, says we want you to come to a community meeting. That might not get done if my team is not able to accomplish it. Part of the idea behind having the consultant team on board for this is that that expands our capacity to do those things. That, you know, we don't have an endless supply of staff hours to do. And so, things like the additional virtual presentation at the end of this before the recommendations, we would have to weigh whether or not that's something staff wants to take on and do. Or, but I don't know that we would feel comfortable representing the consultant's recommendations in that way before they have represented those recommendations to you all. So, I mean, I'm talking off the fly, you know, I think we would have to look at each item and see what the best path forward is.

Can I ask a question? Yeah, go ahead. Can I speak with the consultant team? I'd like to ask that you guys go back to the drawing board and sharpen your pencils and try to figure out a way to make our original contract work with what you have now and accomplish our goals within that scope, please.

All right, I just want to ask Ms. Zornita and the consultant too, and I'm sure the answer is yes, but the original contract will be fulfilled as it was agreed to, correct? Nothing changes that no matter how we vote on this, right? That's a legally binding document that will be carried forward and- Yes. Okay. The existing contract will be fulfilled. Okay. Commissioner Lauk.

So, I was maybe a little inarticulate when I asked this last time. I wonder with the 500 responses, right? So, at a minimum, I think is what I heard. And if we wanted to determine public sentiment in Hillsborough County using community meeting surveys, science tells us a good sample size is 385 completed responses. That provides us a statistically sound 5% margin of error with a 95% confidence level. So, why do we feel compelled or why do we need these additional meetings? That's the gap for me, right? So, I can maybe get behind sharpening the pencil, you all coming back for more money and saying this is the expanded scope. This is what we missed or this wasn't what was in the contract. But when I just look at the samples that have been gathered to date and the primary topic at hand, do we expand the USA? And what does that mean for the public in the county if we do, right? Gathering public input. That hasn't changed. That mission hasn't changed. And we've spent the last year plus gathering more than 500 responses. Which again gives us a 95% confidence level based on any polar in the country. They'll come and tell you that's adequate. So, why do we feel compelled that we need these extra meetings? That's where I can't really get my mind wrapped around this.

That's a really good question. So, a lot of it is the timing, right? So, once we go into round four and we provide the public with something, we want to then provide them with an opportunity to see what others, whether it's staff or this board, has said about it. So, that we can go back. So, it's allowing for the feedback loop. One of the other things that's interesting is y'all are very articulating a very good point about public engagement. But there is another side of it and it is this building. We have to have meetings with county staff. So, that is part of what this additional dollars is for, is for the consultant to go in and have these additional conversations. If the consultant is not there, staff will be the consultant. There is nothing wrong with that. We can do that. But, again, when there is a conversation from public works, from conservation and environmental land management, from development services, we may not have the actual answers and then have to go back to the consultant and ask a question or not be able to get that answer for somebody in this building because we do not have the dollars for it. So, again, we might just have to cut off the reviews from other county departments and go with the best game that we have, right? It's the game plan you have. We go with that game plan if we don't have the additional dollars. So, you're right about the idea of how much public engagement do you have? How much is enough? It's a tough thing. It's a tough nut to crack about when do you have enough in that public, public polling and others. But there is still the other side of it is making sure that the voices in this building buy in. And that's something that we're still working through. Commissioner Sieben.

I'm a little confused on that, I think. So, can you explain that again? You need county staff to approve everything that's- No, they don't need to approve it.

But ultimately, county, whether it's development services, public works, conservation lands management, they are the ones who may implement many of the policies and the changes that we're proposing. So, we need to work through with them what the concept is, the wording is. Does it reflect, you know, what they actually can implement? We don't want to propose a bunch of great ideas that then they're like, well, we don't have the authority to implement that or that's really complicated. There would have been an easier way to do that. So, that's what these conversations are around, is how can we make sure that we're giving a plan for these areas. Because a lot of the feedback and a lot of the policy language in this area talks about infrastructure and growth and the timing of those things. And that's, you know, a lot of the concerns. So, it's something we really want to try to figure out innovative ways to try to address. Well, we need their help in doing that because we're not the ones who implement that. Okay, I can get that.

My question then is, so, if Planning Commission staff, we're saying we need the consultant basically to go back and forth and sort of mediate those things for us? No. From a timing perspective?

What we've found is originally in the scope was set up to have technical advisory committees, where we met with all of those departments at the same time and get that feedback kind of as a group. What we've found is that it is more effective to have one-on-one conversations with those departments. Because then you can really drill down with public utilities on, okay, exactly where are the lines? Not everybody else wants to be in that meeting because it's not about them, right? So, it's more effective to do that. But that takes more of the consultant's time. If they're coming up with plans for infrastructure and they need to talk with public utilities, they're doing that in a series of individual meetings as opposed to what was originally in the scope as one large meeting with a whole host of departments at one time. And so, that has, that, now, again, Planning Commission staff can go and have those meetings and then bring back the information to the consultant. And then the consultant can say, oh, but we had this, you know, that's great. That's all the information we need. Or if they have another question, then we go, we can be the go-between. But it just, from our view, was less efficient that way.

Okay. My only counterpoint is it probably is less efficient to have a whole group of county staff in one meeting with the consultant. But since the consultant's being paid and these are, you know, government officials, I would think that let's go ahead and, you know, might not be the best use of those, you know, county officials' time. But maybe it's the most effective from a taxpayer standpoint since those, you know, are already being.

This is, I mean, absolutely. If this is not approved, that's the direction we'll have to go. Okay. And work with what we've got.

Okay.

All right. We have a motion to the floor. All right. Did you have a question?

I just had one other comment. I just, I guess I just, I think it's, you know, very interesting and valid to see the sort of sample size information. I just think that's probably a little bit more, you know, survey data. And I do think with this kind of thing, you really are trying to meet with that neighborhood group. It's not, that kind of a measure may not apply. It's much more about who feels that they could be impacted and making sure that you've had a conversation with them. So I would just say I'm not sure that we could apply that to this.

I'm going to sneak in an agreement with you there, Commissioner Linkus, if you don't mind. I think it would take a larger sample. But I do hear where you're coming from, though. We do like to see larger samples. All right, were there any more questions? We have a motion to the floor. That was a bit of conversation, so let me clarify for everyone. We have a motion to approve the amendment that was made by Commissioner Sink, and a second to that motion was made by Commissioner Linkus. Again, this is a motion to approve the amendment to the contract. And with that, I am going to send it over to the clerk for roll call vote.

Cardenas? Jemison? Yes. Kugler?

No.

Linkus? Yes. No. Seben? Sink? Yes.

Joseph?

No. That motion failed, five to three. Commissioner Cardenas, Jemison, I'm sorry, Kugler, Lauck, Seben, and Joseph voted no.

And that one dies on the vine, correct? We don't need another. All right, that's the end of that one. All right, moving on to our next agenda item. Item 3G, proposed amendment to community redevelopment plan for East Tampa Community Redevelopment Area, and the presenter is Quinn Steele.

All right, good afternoon, Quinn Steele Planning Commission staff, and this is the proposed amendment to the community redevelopment plan for the East Tampa CRA. The request before you is publicly initiated and reviewed by the Planning Commission is required under Florida State statutes. The proposed amendment is intended to document the progress of completed projects within the CRA, including infrastructure and public realm improvements. Assess current needs, conditions, and opportunities for redevelopment within the district. And establish updated goals for the remainder of the CRA's duration through 2034. Including parks and public realm improvements, infill housing, commercial and industrial development, and connectivity. The proposed CRA plan is consistent with several objectives and policies in the comprehensive plan, such as promoting a mixture of uses and densities that helps create a walkable transit oriented environment. The plan also prioritizes the redevelopment of vacant and underutilized land. Additionally, it emphasizes public realm improvements, such as streetscape enhancements, pedestrian and bicycle facilities, and access to parks and open space. Before finalizing the recommendation, it's important to note that the staff's consistency finding is contingent upon specific edits to the CRA plan. Planning Commission staff have shared these with the CRA staff, and they have agreed to the revisions below. Including removing or revising the future land use map on page 24. Removing or revising the industrial preservation map on page 26. Revising proposed strategic action four under the neighborhood mixed use objective on page 142. And removing or revising references to density bonus provisions that are not applicable under the adopted comprehensive plan. With that, Planning Commission staff recommends the proposed amendment to the community redevelopment plan for the East Tampa CRA. We found consistent with the goals, objectives, and policies of the Tampa comprehensive plan contingent upon the revisions outlined in the previous slide. That concludes my presentation, and I'm available for any questions.

All right, we didn't have anyone sign up in the public comment for this one. So, I will turn it over to the board for questions, comments. The applicant has a presentation as well. Oh, the applicant, sorry. Yep.

Go ahead. Thank you. Bryce Ferringer, Tampa CRA staff. Good afternoon, commissioners. As Ms. Steele just mentioned, item 3G before you today is the amended and updated East Tampa Community Redevelopment Area Community Redevelopment Plan, or CRP for short. The purpose of our presentation today is to provide an overview of the updated plan, along with the types of projects, programs, and initiatives that the CRA undertakes to meet our core objectives each day. I would also like to add, this is the first comprehensive CRP update since 2004, when the East Tampa CRA was established. We have partnered with Furr, Wegman, and Banks, along with the University of South Florida, on this project. And the intent is to create a plan that really provides an up-to-date framework on what the current redevelopment needs are for the East Tampa CRA until sunset in 2034. So, with that, I will turn it over to Professor Trent Green for the presentation. After that concludes, I'm available for any questions. Director Cedric McCray is also here for questions, and then the East Tampa Development Manager, Mr. Felix Nunez, is here as well. So, thank you.

Thank you, Bryce. Good afternoon, commissioners, Madam Chair. Good to be in these chambers again, albeit on the other side of the days. The East Tampa CRA plan update, as Bryce mentioned, this was the first update since 2004. And, yes, as you can tell by the gray hair, I was around when Planning Commissioner staff, Jim Hostler, I consulted with him on the initial 2004 plan for East Tampa. Here we are, quite a while later, just updating it, only with about eight short years left before the CRA sunset.

I'm joined today by, actually, we were consultants with Ferrer Wegman and Banks, and, sorry, Francesca Ferranda is here from FWB,

as well as Issa Ugunragu, who's on our staff at USF. As Bryce mentioned, this plan took quite a while to develop. It's been a long time coming, a long time waiting to get to bring it before you. As you've reviewed it, we're just going to summarize for you a number of slides here, some of the highlights in the plan itself. It is quite extensive.

The plan was undertaken with a good deal of community engagement, both through an online survey as well as public workshops. The bulk of the plan, the first portion of the plan, as you reviewed it, you'll notice that there's a lot of existing conditions inventory and analysis that was done. We looked at over 14 different conditions in the East Tampa community to update the plan. That's far more than what was in the original plan, but we thought it was appropriate. And we undertook this effort, of course, with the understanding that there is a short amount of time left to get things done. So we tried to put as many recommendations in the document as possible. Things that the community said that they were really interested in and things that should be prioritized, which is a lot of what we put in the document. For each of these existing conditions that we do talk about, we do sort of provide a brief summary of where things have come from since 2004 and where things exist today. East Tampa does still face a lot of challenges in a number of areas. And we think we addressed most, if not all, of those in the document itself. We also formatted this document. It is a policy document, but it probably looks quite different than a lot of policy documents that you've reviewed in the past. It has a lot of images, a lot of graphics, both pictures as well as drawings otherwise. Because we wanted to make sure that the community understood what it was we were talking about, okay? Each of these sections, it has a specific redevelopment goal, okay? Again, the language of these goals was crafted with input from the community. It also has a number of strategic policies rather, recommended policy language, as well as some recommended strategic actions. I won't go into specifics here, but these are just some of the recommendations for one. I believe this particular one deals with the remaining slum and blight. And as you can see, they deal with a number of other issues as well. This slide doesn't capture all of the strategic priorities that we've identified, though. One of the main aspects of this plan is to address what was in the original plan, as well as what's been sort of brought forward when the East Tampa community completed a strategic action plan, just either during COVID or just after, and that is focusing on a number of these major corridors that course throughout the community. Here, this sort of image just sort of shows some of them, and for each of these, we reached into the comprehensive plan also and identified some goals and objectives there to address what we put in the document, relative to these priority community corridors. We also identified a number of redevelopment opportunities in the document. In the second half, after we conducted this extensive amount of inventory and analysis, we have a number of redevelopment opportunities that we've identified, again, all within the spirit of trying to get things done or get things happening in the short period of time left before the East Tampa CRA sunsets. Again, just another slide that indicates redevelopment opportunity. And with that, I'm sorry, it's a very brief summary, but it is quite an extensive document. I know you probably spent a good deal of time going through it, but with that, anything else there? No? Okay. I think, oh, I'm sorry. Trent Green, or Theodore Trent Green, I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Did we get staff's recommendation already? Okay. Applicants, you're done. Is that good?

Any closing words? One last point, though. Yes, we do acknowledge the edits that staff recommended, and we are going to be undertaking those here very shortly.

Okay. Thank you. All right. As I said, there was no one signed up in the public comment, so I will turn it over to our commissioners for questions, comments. Sure.

Commissioner Sink? It's probably going to be a good question for staff, but can you walk through the adjustments that you requested?

Sure. If we could have the Elmo, most of them are very minor. So as you can see in this future land use map, there are just some minor labeling issues. CMU 35 is labeled MU. We just asked the applicant to clean that up and make it consistent with our adopted category names. This was a industrial preservation map. Thank you. We have policy language in the comprehensive plan that relates to industrial preservation as a whole for all industrial land throughout the city in our current adopted comprehensive plan. So we just asked them to remove this to reflect the policy language. This one was action number four. We just asked that they provide additional clarification on what planning commission's role would be, if they would be providing recommendations, or if they would like us to study it. Just some further clarification on how they would like to implement the strategic action, since it specifically points to planning commission board and staff. And then we have some language here that they had regarding density bonuses that don't exist in the code. So we just asked to remove or revise those. Either remove it or to be more aspirational on that goal.

All right. You good? All right.

Commissioner Kugler. Yes. I was very impressed with this CRP. It's light years ahead of the one from 2004. And it shows you what a little drone technology and good close up photos do. But I found the detail was great, the clarity of the document. I read through quite a bit of it over the weekend. And it's very easy to access the information. I think the way the maps are put together with the photos, the closed photos and the drone photos, makes it very easily readable. You don't have to flip back and forth trying to figure out what it's talking about. So I was very impressed. And it also seems to mate very well with the SAP that was done probably about five years ago. So great work. And I live in the CRA. So I found your document really accurate. Just one mistake was 22nd Street is, you're actually right, that it is officially a non-truck route. But in practice, it's a complete truck route. It's just that we don't enforce it.

All right. Very good. Are there any other thoughts or questions, comments, praise from the commissioners? All right. Yes. Commissioner Wharton.

I also thought it was a wonderful presentation. And we have been working with the CRA and providing sidewalks and different things like that to add. And we're thankful that you guys came to us to get that information. Certainly.

Thank you. All right. Are there any other thoughts? Any more praise to be heaped on them? Good job. Not seeing any more. Then I will go on ahead and close the public comment on this one and open it up to motions from the commissioners on this item. Is there a motion out there? Commissioner Laut. Turn here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I propose we find the amendment to the community redevelopment plan for the East Tampa community redevelopment area consistent and forward to the governing body.

Second. All right. We have a motion of consistency finding by Commissioner Lauk. A second to that motion by Commissioner Kugler. I'm going to risk it here and ask if anyone has any questions or comments before we take our vote. And would all signify their agreement by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion carries unanimously. All right. Good job. All right. Next up on our agenda. Oh, man. We just made it through our action items. We have a bunch of briefings. I forgot. I totally forgot about the briefings. All right. Our first briefing is 4A HCCPA 26-21 Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment 3701 East Trapnel Road. And the presenter is Victoria Durand.

Good afternoon, Commissioner. Victoria Durand, Planning Commission staff. I'm here to present HCCPA 26-21 located at 3701 East Trapnel Road. This is a privately initiated map amendment that is small in scale and approximately 8.89 acres. The applicant is requesting to change the future land use designation from agricultural estate to rural light industrial. For some background, this is a new future land use category in response to the Board of County Commission direction given last year. In the July cycle of plan amendments, there will be three separate applications requesting this new category, two of which you will hear about later on today in these agenda items. The new rural light industrial category allows for the consideration of uses that are more intensive than neighborhood serving commercial, but not as intensive as the full range of light industrial or heavy industrial uses. This is the general location map. The subject site is in the rural area and not within a community plan, but it is within the plant city vision boundary. It is located west of South County Line Road, south of Trapnel Road east, and east of Old Mulberry Road. Lots of easts. This is an aerial view of the site. The subject property is outlined in pink. Agricultural uses are currently on the property. Surrounding the property, you will find single family residential uses. Additionally, there are some industrial and commercial uses located to the north. Currently, the subject site is designated as agricultural estate on the future land use map. The agricultural estate future land use category allows one dwelling unit per 2.5 gross acres and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.25. The typical uses in the agricultural estate category includes farms, ranches, residential, neighborhood commercial, office, and multipurpose projects. Other future land use categories shown on this map include residential one to the north and public semi-public to the northwest within the unincorporated Hillsborough County boundary. Commercial, industrial, and transitional area to the north within the plant city boundary. Rural, business park center, city, neighborhood activity center, residential low, and residential suburban within the Polk County boundary. And finally, community activity center, conservation, public and institutional, residential high, and residential low within the Lakeland boundary. The applicant is proposing to amend the future land use designation to rural light industrial. The newly created rural light industrial future land use category includes a 0.25 floor area ratio maximum and allows no residential development, but for limited accessory residential, such as an onsite security guard. This category allows for consideration of limited light industrial uses, which is defined as uses that are compatible with rural residential development patterns, and do not produce significant noise, dust, odor, smoke, or vibration, as specified in the Hillsborough County Land Development Code. Examples include small scale manufacturing, fabrication, assembly, or refined products, as well as warehousing or wholesale options, operations. Next are the impacts. As far as existing conditions, currently under agricultural state, the site could consider up to three dwelling units or 96,812 square feet of non-residential uses. Under the proposed rural light industrial designation, the site could still consider up to 96,812 square feet of non-residential uses. The proposed amendment will eliminate any potential residential density and would not change the maximum potential non-residential intensity. However, the amendment would increase the allowable range of non-residential uses due to the consideration of commercial intensive zoning districts, uses, and limited industrial uses as described in the previous slide. This concludes my presentation for HCCPA 26-21. I am happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the commissioners? I did want to say kudos. That map was really awesome, seeing the land uses in Polk County. Good job there, Ms. Lionheart, with your staff going. You too, Ms. Zornita. All you all. We don't usually get to see both sides of the county lines like that. Sometimes we just kind of focus in on Hillsboro. So it's great to see that you all took the initiative and brought that information back to give us a whole view of the area. Are there any other questions, comments from the commissioners on this one? We will thank you for the information and look forward to it coming back to us next time for some action. All right. Next up we have 4B HCCPA 26-22 Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment 10610 Davis Road and Cricket Lane. And the presenter is Willow Mickey.

Good afternoon. Willow Mickey with your Planning Commission staff. I will be briefing HCCPA 26-22 located at 10610 Davis Road in Cricket Lane. This request is privately initiated, a small scale map amendment, and it is made up of four parcels that total approximately 13.8 acres. The request is to change the lane designation of these parcels from Residential 6 and Residential 12 to Residential 16. This plan amendment is part of the July 2026 cycle located in the urban service area and is within the limits of the East Lake Orient Park Community Plan. It is partially within a service water resource protection area. Here's an aerial photo with the site outlined in pink. It is located east of Davis Road and south of McRae Road. Within the vicinity of the site there are single family residential uses to the east and north, with multi-families to the south. To the north and northeast there are public communication utilities owned by TECO. The site is in the Residential 6 and Residential 12 future land use categories. Both categories allow for the consideration of agricultural, residential, neighborhood commercial, office uses, multipurpose projects, and mixed use development. Surrounding land uses include Res 6 and Res 12 to the northeast and south. To the north and west the site borders the city of Temple Terrace which has a future land use designation of public semi-public. To the south the Temple Terrace jurisdiction includes a residential 18. The request is to change the site to Residential 16. This category allows for the consideration of uses such as agricultural, residential, neighborhood commercial, office uses, multipurpose projects, and mixed use development. Here we have the potential impacts of the requested land use change currently under Res 6 and Res 12. The site can be considered for up to 91 dwelling units and 165,745 square feet of non-residential. The change to Residential 16 would allow for the consideration of 220 dwelling units and 300,563 square feet of non-residential uses. The proposed amendment will result in a potential increase in development potential by allowing consideration of higher residential density and greater commercial intensity. That concludes this presentation. I'm here for any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the commissioners on this one? Seeing any, we'll thank you for the information. We will move on to our next agenda item. 4C HCCPA 26-23 Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment 12711 East US Highway 92 and the presenter is Mariela Overdorf.

Hello, Mariela Overdorf Planning Commission staff. I will be briefing HC CPA 26-23, which is located at 12711 East US Highway 92. This request is privately initiated a small-scale map amendment. It is made up of one parcel that totals approximately 2.8 acres. This request is to change the land use designation from this parcel from Residential 1 to Rural Light Industrial. Just as a reminder, this amendment is one of the three you will hear today requesting this new land use category. This planned amendment is part of the July 2026 cycle and is within the limits of the Sefner-Mango Community Plan. The site is located 0.8 miles outside of the urban service area. However, it is within the I-4 corridor Urban Service Area Expansion Area Study. This is an aerial photo of the site outlined here in pink. On the site, there is currently an industrial business. East of the site is mobile homes and agricultural uses. South of the site, there is vacant lots and mobile homes. West of the site, there is single family and mobile homes. And north of the site, there is a commercial here on the northwest of the site and mobile homes to the northeast. The site is designated as Residential 1 future land use category, which allows for one dwelling unit per acre or neighborhood commercial, office or multipurpose projects up to 30,000 square feet or 0.2 FAR, whichever is less intense. The request is to change the site to rural light industrial. This category allows for the consideration of limited light industrial uses, which is defined as uses that are compatible with rural residential development patterns and that do not produce significant disturbances listed in the Hillsborough County Land Development Code. This includes agricultural commercial intensive uses, office uses, limited light industrial uses, research corporate park uses, and or mixed use developments limited to the uses described. The rural light industrial future land use category includes a 0.25 floor area ratio maximum and allows for no residential development, but allows for a limited accessory residential use, such as an on site security guard. This slide outlines the potential impacts of the potential impacts of the requested land use change. This slide outlines the potential impacts of the requested land use change. Currently, under Residential 1, an allowable maximum residential density of one dwelling unit per gross acre. For non-residential development, up to 30,492 square feet. The potential for rural light industrial future land use category would not allow for consideration of residential units. Non-residential development is still 30,492 square feet, which may be considered. The proposed amendment would eliminate residential density, but allow for an increase in range of uses by allowing for the consideration of certain commercial intensive or light industrial uses. This concludes the briefing on this item and I'm here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Were there any questions from the commissioners on this one? I'm not seeing any. Well, thank you for the information. And we will move on to our next agenda item. Where are we? 4D HCCPA 26-24 Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment, 12559 North US Highway 301. And the presenter is Alexis Myers.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Alexis Myers, planning commission staff. I'm here to present HCCPA 2624 located at 12559 North US Highway 301. This is a privately initiated map amendment that is small in scale and approximately 74.34 acres. The applicant is requesting to change the future land use designation from residential one and office commercial 20 to rural light industrial. This is the third amendment requesting this new future land use category. This is the general location map. The subject site is in the rural area and within the limits of the Tonota Sassa Community Plan. It's located south of North US Highway 301 and east of County Road 579. Here is the aerial view of the site. The subject property is outlined in pink. The property is currently characterized by vacant land and public communication slash utility uses. Surrounding the property, vacant land is located to the north along North US Highway 301 as well as to the northeast, south and southwest. Immediately to the west are heavy industrial uses with open storage. The property is also owned by the applicant. Additional heavy industrial uses are located to the north across North US Highway 301 and farther south across Grovewood Avenue. Light industrial uses are also present both north and south of the subject site. Agricultural uses are located to the north, east and south. Single family residential uses are located to the south, to the east across Fort King Highway and to the northwest across North US Highway 301. Natural uses are located immediately north of the property. Finally, several light commercial uses are located to the north and farther south along Florence Avenue. Currently, the subject site is designated as residential 1 and office commercial 20 on the future land use map. The residential 1 future land use category allows one dwelling unit per gross acre and maximum floor area ratio of 0.25. The typical uses in the OZ20 category include agricultural, farms, ranches, residential, neighborhood commercial, offices and multipurpose projects. The office commercial future land use designation allows 20 dwelling units per gross acre and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.75. The typical uses in the OZ20 category include agricultural, community commercial type uses, office uses, mixed use developments and compatible residential uses. Other future land use categories on this map include light industrial and residential 2 to the west and natural preservation to the north across North US Highway 31. The applicant is proposing to amend the future land use designation to rural light industrial. This newly created rural light industrial future land use category includes a 0.25 floor area ratio maximum and allows no residential development. But for limited accessory residential such as an onsite security guard. This category allows for the consideration of limited light industrial uses, which is defined as uses that are compatible with rural residential development patterns that do not produce significant noise, dust, odor, smoke, vibration as specified in the Hillsborough County Land Development Code. Examples include small scale manufacturing, fabrication, and assembly of refined products as well as warehouses. As well as warehousing of wholesale operations. Next are the impacts. As far as existing conditions, currently under Res 1 and Office Commercial 20, the site could consider up to 234 dwelling units or 993,281 square feet of non-residential uses. Under the proposed rural light industrial designation, the site could consider up to 809,562 square feet of non-residential uses. The proposed amendment will eliminate any potential residential density, decrease the potential of commercial intensity, and introduce intensive commercial and light industrial uses. And this concludes my presentation for ACCPA 2624. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Are there any questions from the commissioners on this item? Not seeing any. Well, thank you for the information. And we will move on to our next agenda item. Oh, sorry. We have one. Sorry. Commissioner Orton.

I just have one question.

It noted that it was a small scale, but I thought maximum was 50 acres for small scale.

They're looking at you, Embassy.

You're right. That would need to be a regular scale amendment if it's 74, if they're asking for the entire site. Yeah. So we'll have to clarify that with the applicant. Yes. Make sure we've got it correct.

All right. Good catch. Are there any other questions from the commissioners on this one? Double check. Doesn't look like any. So, well, thank you for the information. Look forward to that one coming back to us. And our next agenda item is 4E, HCCPA 26-25, Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment 11017-11101, East US Highway 92. And the presenter is Lillianne Linehan.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Lillianne Linehan, Planning Commission staff. And I'm here to present HCCPA 26-25, located at 11017-11101, East US Highway 92. This is a privately initiated map amendment that is small on a scale and approximately 6.77 acres. And the applicant is requesting a change to future land use designation from Residential 9 to Suburban Mixed Use 6. This is the general location map. It is in the urban service area and within the limits of the Sefner-Mango Community Plan. And is located south of East US Highway 92, east of Williams Road, and west of East Mobley Villa Drive. Here is an area of the site. The site is outlined in pink. The site currently has a mobile home park. And there's light commercial uses to the north, east, and west of the site. With some heavy commercial to the west as well. And single family uses are located to the east, west, and south. And there are public, quasi-public, institutional uses to the north and one educational use to the east of the site. And you'll notice from this map that it is a portion of three parcels, not the full entirety of the three parcels. Currently, the future land use designation is Residential 9. The Residential 9 category allows for nine dwelling units per gross acre and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.5. This designation allows for the consideration of agricultural, residential, neighborhood commercial, office uses, multipurpose projects, and mixed use development. And the other current future land use categories near the subject site include Suburban Mixed Use 6 to the north, Residential 9 and Community Mixed Use 12 to the east and west, and Urban Mixed Use 20 to the west. The applicant is proposing to amend the future land use category to Suburban Mixed Use 6. The Suburban Mixed Use 6 category allows for six dwelling units per gross acre and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.5. And this designation allows for the consideration of agricultural, residential, neighborhood commercial,

office uses, research corporate park uses, light industrial, multipurpose, and clustered

residential and or mixed use developments. Currently, under the Residential 9 future land use designation, the site could be considered for a maximum of 60 dwelling units or 147,450 square feet of non-residential uses. And under the proposed future land use designation of Suburban Mixed Use 6, the site could be considered for a maximum of 40 dwelling units or 147,450 square feet of non-residential uses. The proposed amendment would decrease the potential residential density and leave the maximum commercial square footage unchanged, but it would increase the allowable range of uses to include the introduction of intensive commercial and light industrial uses. This concludes my presentation for HCCPA 2625 and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Are there any questions from the Planning Commissioners on this one? Not seeing any lights. Well, thank you for the information. And we will move on to our next agenda item. 4F is HCCPA 2626 Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment, 13750 Reptron Blvd. And the presenter is Tyreek Royal. Thank you, Commissioner Tyreek Royal, Planning Commission staff.

Today I'll be presenting HCCPA 2626 at 13750 Reptron Blvd. This request is privately initiated, small-scale map amendment with approximately 37 acres, with the request to change the land use designation from a neighborhood of mixed-use floor and research corporate park to a light industrial plant. This location of the site is the northwestern portion of the corporate Hillsborough County, which is a part of the July 2026 cycles within the urban savers area, within the limits of the northwest area community plan. On your screen you can see an aerial photo of the site outlined in pink. It's located north of Racetrack Road and east of McCormick Drive. The site is adjacent to Pinellas County. Nearby use is in Pinellas County or public and natural land. Currently the site is located within the research corporate park and neighborhood mixed-use for future land use categories, which allows for the consideration for agricultural activities, residential, neighborhood commercial and mixed-use development, research and development activities, research corporate park uses, related educational facilities, electronic component production, light-restriction manufacturing and warehousing, office uses, including corporate headquarters, which are not subject to location criteria, and multi-purpose or closer residential uses. Under the proposed light industrial plan, future land use category, allows for consideration for agricultural, light industrial uses, such as processing, manufacturing and recycling and storage of materials as the predominant uses, including supporting offices, warehousing and retail uses. Here you can see the impacts. The proposed amendment will eliminate any potential residential density and allow for higher commercial intensity. The commercial intensity will increase from approximately 770,000 square feet to approximately 1.2 million square feet.

And that concludes my briefing on this item. I'm here for any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions, comments from the commissioners on this one? Not seeing any. Well, thank you for the information. And we will move on to our last briefing item, 4G, HCCPA 26-27, Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment, 3030 Cockroach Bay Road. And the presenter is Alexis Myers.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Alexis Myers, Planning Commission staff. I'm here to present HCCPA 26-27, located at 3030 Cockroach Bay Road. This is a privately initiated map amendment that is small in scale and approximately 6.9 acres. The applicant is requesting to change a portion of the subject site's future land use designation from agriculture rule 1-5 to light industrial plan. This is the general location map. The subject site is in the rural area, within the limits of the Little Manatee South Community Plan, as well as the South Hills Road Plan. It is located northwest of South US Highway 41 and south of Cockroach Bay Road. Here is the aerial view of the subject site. The subject property is outlined in pink. The property is a part of a municipal solid waste, yard waste, and composting facility. Other light industrial uses are also to the west, east across South US Highway 41, and farther south. Light commercial uses are to the east across South US Highway 41. Agriculture extends to the north across Cockroach Bay Road, west and farther south. Vacant land is to the west, east, south, and farther north. Residential uses are farther east across South US Highway 41, south and to the north. And public quasi-public institutional uses are to the east and south. Currently, the subject site is designated as Agricultural Rural 1-5 on the future land use map. The Agricultural Rural 1-5 category allows one dwelling unit per five gross acres and a maximum floor area ratio of 0.25. The typical uses in this category include farms, ranches, feedlots, residential, neighborhood commercial, offices, industrial uses related to agricultural uses, and mining related activities. Other future land use categories shown in this map include residential 2 to the east, across South US Highway 41, and light industrial plan to the south. The applicant is proposing to amend the future land use designation to light industrial plan. The light industrial plan category allows a maximum floor area ratio of 0.75. However, no residential development is allowed, but limited accessory residential, such as an on-site security card. This category allows for the consideration of agricultural, light industrial uses, such as processing, manufacturing, recycling, and storage of materials, as the predominant uses, including support offices, warehousing, and retail uses. Next are the impacts. As far as existing conditions, currently under AR 1-5, the site could consider up to one dwelling unit or 75,141 square feet of non-residential uses. Under the proposed LIP designation, the site could consider up to 225,423 square feet of non-residential uses. The proposed amendment would eliminate any potential residential density, allow greater commercial intensity, and introduce the potential of intensive commercial and light industrial uses. And this concludes my presentation for ACCPA 2627. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Are there any questions from the commissioner's comments, thoughts on this one? Not seeing any. Well, thank you for the information. Look forward to it coming back before us for action at a future date. And we will move on to our next agenda item, Item 5, Executive Director's Report. The presenter is Melissa Zornita.

Good afternoon, Melissa Zornita, Executive Director. You have a copy of my report at your seat, and given the time, I'm going to focus on just a couple of things, updating on a few projects. We have been continuing to work on the Riverview Community Plan update, as requested by the Board of County Commissioners, that that be done in conjunction with the Tampa Hillsborough Expressway Authority looking at extending the Selma and Crosstown Expressway south to 674. And so that has progressed. We are giving an update. Myself and Greg Slater from Thea will be giving an update to the Board of County Commissioners on Wednesday about that. That community plan update is going to take a little bit longer than our typical one. We normally would be done by about now and wrapping it up. But in order to flesh out the strategies in conjunction with them and looking at different alternatives for how that roadway might be expanded and built, we need to extend our timeline a little bit longer to align with that. We had a meeting earlier this month on September 1st with the Department of Commerce continuing to work through the Tampa Comprehensive Plan amendments. We are very clear on what we are able to, they agreed to some, that many of them that we were, they were not restrictive or burdensome. And then there were a few that we needed to make changes to. Our proposed changes are to revert back to the language that's adopted in the plan today. Um, at that meeting on September 1st, we wanted to make sure that they had that same understanding. Um, they said they had to run that understanding up the, their management. Um, the person who was in charge of doing that then retired on September 4th. And so we've not gotten the answer that we hope to, but we are moving forward to a city council adoption hearing on October 22nd, based on the understanding of what we have, um, on the progress we made with the Department of Commerce. Um, so, um, the, uh, on September 3rd, Mr. Hay made a presentation of a report that the, um, city team, uh, along with, uh, city legal put together and, and city planning department related to a motion request from Tampa city council that we look at having a plan development plan amendment, uh, future land use category that would be tailored to each individual site. Um, when it came in and, uh, run concurrently with their PD zoning. Um, there are some examples of communities that have such categories. Most of those like Pasco County utilize it for very large areas of land. Like, uh, you know, thousand acres sectors of their community that have a master plan. Um, and, uh, so we had a number of reservations about that approach. Um, and those were articulated in the report. Um, despite our recommendation that it not be pursued, uh, Tampa city council has asked us to move forward. With working through what a process might look like and then what might the fees need to be to accommodate that type of process. Um, so, and have asked us to come back with that information in February. Um, the, uh, two other things we, uh, Mr. Collins and I had a meeting with some community members from the Lithia community. You may recall a couple of months ago, the board of county commissioners asked us to look at a Lithia community plan. Um, as one of the next work items in our list. Um, we are, uh, trying to free up our schedule. We are anticipating that we will begin the background data and analysis this fall. And be able to start work on that after the first of the year. Um, we're still assessing whether or not we need any consultant help with that based on the, uh, other workload that we have. And, um, so we explained that to the community members, um, who were asking about the timeframe and such and what the process would look like. Um, and then the last item I wanted to mention is that through the, uh, discussions that Tampa city council had on the raised stadium, there were discussions about the need for additional planning around the stadium, including some of the neighborhoods. Um, like West Tampa Heights, McFarland park, uh, West, the West shore neighborhoods. Um, in some sort of look at that broader area. Um, and councilman Carlson made a motion for us to be included in meetings on that developing that effort. Um, at, I believe at the TPO meeting, um, a similar, uh, ask by commissioner Cohen was made of, uh, executive director Wong to, uh, meet with some of the neighborhoods, meet with some of the neighborhoods. Meet with some of the county commissioners and city council members to, to see what, what needs to be done. And, um, you know, if we're the right folks to be involved with doing it, um, and then, uh, what a scope of services would even look like. Um, so there's quite a bit to go on that. Um, but I wanted to make you aware that that is an ask that has, um, just for, so far as for us to be involved in some meetings to understand what the issues are. Um, and with that, um, there were, there was a public hearing. Um, oh, yes, there was a public hearing last month on, um, unincorporated county amendments. Those outcomes are listed there. I did want to make sure you all remember that next month we will be starting at one o'clock to have our first workshop on the urban service area evaluation. I thank you all so much for making time to meet with, um, Kevin Tilbury from Kimberly Horn. Um, uh, he was thrilled to have gotten to meet with you all and talk about that. Um, if there's anyone he happened to miss, please let me know. We'll get that scheduled ASAP. Um, and, uh, so we will be having that workshop before the regular meeting at three o'clock. And then we will have a five 30 public hearing. Um, last reminder, our planning and design awards is coming up, um, at the end of October. And, uh, you all get complimentary tickets for yourselves, but we do need you to RSVP and let us know if you're coming. So, um, just let myself or Sharon know if you're going to be able to come. Uh, I wrote down the time it starts, but didn't write down the date. So, um, it's the last Thursday, I believe, of the month. Um, I'll find the date and make sure you all have it. Um, but thank you so much. That concludes my report.

All right. Any questions? Commissioner Lauk, I see you moving.

Yeah, a couple things. Uh, good report. Thank you. A while back, I think maybe three reports ago, you briefly touched on the 301 area that came up a couple years ago. So, I see the review portion of 301 in here. Have we had any progress on the north area running out?

Yes, staff is working on it and we're hoping, I'm not sure which month this fall, we will be back with a presentation about that.

Okay, awesome. And then, um, Commissioner Link has said something when we're in the big debate regarding spend. And I know we have at least one other contract out at this time. I was wondering in the next executive report if you could go through the contracts that we have out, give us an update on progress. Are we on task? Are we going to meet that so we can maybe avoid the elongated conversation that we had tonight? Sure.

Happy to do that. But there is, if you online click on the executive director's report, there is a spreadsheet that's updated monthly with where we are on all of the contracts. Um, but I would be happy to walk through that in their timelines and, yeah, in more detail.

Maybe not every single time. I think just every single time would be good. Well, yeah.

Okay. We can, yeah.

We'll do it next month for sure.

Thank you. Are there any other questions, comments? I did want to give you a pat on the back. I talked to Mr. Greg Slater, the executive director of Thea, very often. And he's always very complimentary of having you and the work that you two are going to be doing and presenting in front of the Board of County Commissioners coming up. So he is very excited to have you by his side and walking through this, what could possibly be a minefield, but to make it a little more doable. So I just wanted to share that with you and give you a pat on the back because I'm hearing good things about you from everyone. Well, thank you.

That's very nice to hear. Um, Mr. College, let me know. The awards program is 1029. So, um, at 515 at the Jewish Community Center. That part I had written down. Thank you.

All right. Are there any other comments, questions for our executive director? Not seeing any. Well, thank you for the information. And we will move on to other business. Chair's business. I have none. Old business. Is there any old business that we had going on?

And I hate to do this since it's been so long, but I'm going to. We had bylaws passed maybe three or four years ago where we talked about applicants being required to come in. And as part of that we contemplated staff also coming in during presentations, whether it was Temple Terrace or our staff or city of Tampa. And I don't recall how that transpired. And the reason I asked is I think we, um, I forgot who presented tonight. She did an awesome job. Uh, but we had technical difficulties again with, um, our A and our audio visual. And I just want to try to avoid that in the future. So I don't know if that's part of our bylaws or staff has to be here. I know we made that mandatory for applicants and I know the public is still can call in to, to give opinions and feedback. But I thought we also addressed staff in those, in those bylaws at that time.

Um, I will, it'll take me just a minute.

And again, she did a phenomenal job. It's more about the audio visual and the unreliability of what we have here. Right.

Um, we, when staff needs, uh, medical accommodations such as what's occurring with Erica, um, we always ensure that somebody on staff is here and present to make the presentation, which Katrina was. So that there, um, but, uh, let me find that section.

I will say that, yeah, I've noticed and I spoke to Ms. Zornina and I actually told her this was going to happen and I told her it was going to come from you. So she's not too shocked, but in our discussions of it, it's pretty much what she said. You know, it's a medical accommodation. There's a staff in person in the room who's there just in case something falls apart. So for me, I think it's, it's been handled pretty well, but touche to your point. We did speak. Totally not about the presentation.

The presentation is phenomenal.

I just, if we have audio visual issues and if it's one of our bylaws and we're holding our applicants to that standard, we should hold ourselves to it.

Yeah. I'm not sure why I'm not finding it at the moment. We can come back on that. Maybe Tracy for next time. Next time.

Yeah. Come back and we'll talk about it next time in the business.

I found it. It refers to agenda items publicly or privately initiated. The applicant or its designated representative shall physically attend. And then it says if they don't comply, it will result in an automatic continuance. And then it talks more about the continuance issue. And then it says the applicant's ancillary consultants or representatives may attend virtually still. So it doesn't specifically address staff. We try to hold ourselves to that same standard. You know, I've mentioned to the staff person, she doesn't have to, you know, like we're happy to all pitch in and help. But she really feels like she wants to fulfill her, that part of her responsibility, add some normalcy to her life, that sort of thing.

Is that good? You good? All right. We got the thumbs up from him, so. All right. All right. Was there any other old business that we had on deck? Not seeing any. And we'll go on to new business. Does anybody have any new business for us? Commissioner Singh?

I have some new business. I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this. I talked to Mr. Neat about it. We talked about expansion of the USA, but there's also, on the developer side, it's very difficult to redevelop in the city of Tampa. Specifically, I'm talking to a bunch of people who are running for elections, and they talk about affordability, and missing middle always comes into it. Yet, our future land use is not compatible with missing middle. So, in these neighborhoods such as Tampa Heights or even East Tampa, if you want to do, let's say, a duplex, you need to have R20, and the whole thing is R10, right? And we talked about ways to possibly change that or make it so it's possible so that we can get some missing middle product in there. And curious about maybe doing a pilot program on a smaller scale to see how it would work out, like two neighborhoods. I'm not talking about South Tampa because they go crazy when it talks about their neighborhood and having even the thought of that in their neighborhood, they freak out. Also, it's not conducive because I don't want to put density in places for coastal high hazard and stuff like that where it doesn't make sense. But in the heights, it's the heights for a reason. It doesn't flood. So, if there'd be a way to create a pilot program for specific neighborhoods that are out of the high hazard coastal area, to try something to possibly modify the density to allow developers even go in and look at it. Because from a factual standpoint, developers don't want to risk going and doing a future land use update and then possibly go into the city and get declined for, you know, you spend so much money that there's no reliability that this could ever happen. So, we have this unwillingness to even try it. So, what I'd like to propose is some way to do a pilot program to see if there's a way to make this feasible on a larger scale. Are you thinking of like a mixed use pilot program in some area? Even in specific neighborhoods, I know that Tampa Heights is open to having higher density. And if you go in there and you look at it, it's all R10 and there's no way to make that even happen. In a neighborhood that historically had duplexes, triplexes, quadplexes, just because of the way that we do our things. So, it would be interesting to see if we get a couple neighborhoods that would like to try it out and see how that would work. We had a conversation with Trent Green who presented tonight on the CRP and he said, yeah, we need to be able to have some of these zoning and flu designations changed to accommodate that sort of housing. And what I find super interesting is we have land that we banked that we're going to put in to use for affordable housing, but those are all going to be single family because of the area that they're in. So, instead of helping two families get affordable housing, we're going to do one just because our systems don't work right. So, why would we not put a duplex there, a townhouse, an area instead of building one single family home? Why wouldn't we maximize the opportunity for not only the efficient use of land, but also help more of our constituents obtain housing that's affordable?

He said he had spoke to you all on it, so obviously Tampa's difficult, but did you have any opinion that you wanted?

Well, I think we would need to think about what that pilot project looks like and what a timeline that would be reasonable and maybe what the geography within a neighborhood like Tampa Heights or East Tampa. I mean, we've talked to, I've heard from applicants in both of those areas who are interested in doing these types of things. It's just what we've found with many of the publicly initiated comp plan amendments is if we bite off, we don't want to bite off more than we can chew and then upset a whole lot of neighbors and end up having the whole thing kind of fall apart.

That's what I'm wondering if there's even any appetite for something like that. I'm with you, I love it, but we are not the ones who control Tampa. So, you know, the Tampa Planning Department, the city services down there, they know the city council intimately as can be known. So I'm wondering if there's, you know, have you talked to them and tried to see if there's even a-

Not yet, we just talked about this on Friday, so I haven't had a chance to talk with city planning and kind of get their read on it. And their suggestion. So, yes, that would be one of the first steps we would need to do is talk to Tampa staff and see what idea we might have and then bring that back to see.

And that doesn't preclude us from doing it. We could always, but just knowing going in what we're dealing with, are we just making a recommendation to be ignored? Or is this something that we really need to sink our teeth into because they're thinking about putting it into effect? I think those are important things to flesh out, if you will, when you start to deal with the city of Tampa.

Yeah, so coming up into election season, I love the timing for this to kind of toss us around and see what people really say and what they are going to do as a result of it.

Okay, let me go to Commissioner Sieben.

I'd like to push back on the South Tampa bit. I, you know, and even if South Tampa doesn't think they need it, they do need it. I mean, we've talked about this in here, but I totally agree with everything you're saying. I think, you know, I've mentioned Bay to Bay between Dale Mabry and Himes. You know, there are various areas where I think we need step downs from commercial, if not on that, you know, thoroughfare roadways, then behind it. I think that the zoning on the, you know, in the, to the rear of the commercial could be a great place for duplexes. I think if you go just a little bit east of that towards the crosstown, there are duplexes in the neighborhood and nobody's lost their mind about that, that have been there forever. I think that step down is actually appropriate. And I see in the residential arena where the single family homes behind commercial don't sell as readily as the rest of them, because maybe there does need to be more of a step down in density and not just single family backing up to commercial. So I think, you know, I brought this up when we were talking about Britain Plaza, and I think there are various areas, even in South Tampa, because we still need housing there to an increase in housing. I think there are a lot of areas where this should seriously be considered. All right.

Commissioner Lau. Stupendous commentary from both of you. Innovative and forward-thinking. When you brought up Seminole Heights specifically, every time we have something in that area that comes in, there's a neighborhood community that's pretty involved and generally will lean pro-development. And sometimes they don't, but I guess what I'm trying to say is there's a, there's the ability to see past maybe the South Tampa reaction that you're describing, and all, all development is bad development. Sometimes they come in again. Sometimes they come in for, I wonder, given the concerns that you've outlined and maybe we could do a meeting with them. I don't know public or what the laws would say. We could do some sort of exploratory committee meeting to see if that neighborhood committee is on board with the concept of, of the idea and then go from there. At least there's one stakeholder that would be aligned to it. I don't, I wouldn't know if it would have to be public meeting for something like that or if it would be, what's the word we use when we come together and don't talk about anything that's on the docket. I'm having a brain fart. It's late at six o'clock.

Well, staff can certainly go and meet with the neighborhoods and get some initial feedback.

Um, and you know, kind of test the waters to see if they're, they're receptive to this.

Um, I think the first step is us probably putting our heads together with the city staff about what areas, you know, we might want to, to, to pilot and, and test the waters in. We do have, um, in the queue, the bay to bay corridor amendment, um, that, uh, we're planning to, uh, initiate an amendment as soon as the comp plan update is adopted, um, to the neighborhood mixed use 16 land use category, which will be available for use citywide once the new plan is in place. Um, and then we also have on our list, the, um, the Euclid corridor next to Britain Plaza to look at a proactive plan amendment on, um, as well.

So we have a number of them and there are places staff has identified, um, as they've seen plan amendments come in, um, and said, oh, well, we, we probably should go back and look at that area. So there may be some places that align with, um, what you're talking about that we already have on our identified list as well.

I can, I can add to that list where, you know, on McDill, for example, there's lots and nobody wants to buy the lots that, you know, are right on McDill. And the same with Dale Mabry in certain sections, there are single family homes, you know, right there. And I, I think it's hazardous. I think it's dangerous. I don't, I saw somebody get into near fatal accident on McDill the other day because you can't see past the single family homes on McDill. So I think that there needs to be some transition there and I think it's for the health and wellbeing of everybody and if they don't think so.

Commissioner Sink. I'm just going to do a big reminder of transit ready corridors and what happened in South Tampa. And so I would say instead of clumping them all together and watching it all fail, to do them as individual, independent locations. Just because I don't want that to happen again. That was the messiest city council meeting I've ever seen in my life with the maps and like changing things. Like if they're done independently or individually just to see if we could get to go through. I just would hate to see them all clump together and die because one neighborhood's vocal about not wanting it. While the other ones who are more working class can't show up for these meetings and their wishes don't get heard. That's the only- You want my neighborhood to kill your neighborhood.

That's it. Commissioner Cardenas.

Yeah, I mean I sell in these neighborhoods and I help people look at homes in these neighborhoods and I have both buyers and sellers. Get your mic closer to you. And it's definitely tough. I don't, you know, in that South Tampa area people are very touchy. And I mean, I think your approach is better. You've got a great approach of aiming north and then, you know, anything later. But even some of those areas where you do have, like off of McDill, I know exactly what you're talking about. It is kind of interesting, but all that's commercial and it'll just continue to develop commercial hopefully. And if anything, you'll have those duplexes turning commercial that are there because from a residential standpoint, it's too tight of a corridor. And odds are you're going to have more smaller families with kids living in those duplexes and it'll just make it more difficult.

Ms. Zornita, I saw you moving. I'll come back to you after her.

I was just going to say that, you know, I do want to manage the expectations with all the other projects and work that we're working on. And that these, you know, I think we just want to be careful to, like I said, not bite off more than we can chew because sometimes these publicly initiated amendments really snowball into people being really upset with us for even suggesting that we're going to do something different with their property. Even if we're giving them entitlements and we're not taking anything away, it's an educational process there. So those plan amendments do take more time than our regular review of one that comes in the door. So I just wanted to mention that again.

Commissioner Linkes.

This is not real well developed and I don't want to take too much more time, but I wonder if there's something that could look like a floating kind of solution, like the light industrial that could be very much scrutinized by particular place and maybe not attached to a specific area because I think that can be so controversial. But I think it's a really interesting idea in general to consider looking at.

Okay. So how about I make an executive request here and ask that it be added to the old business so we can come back and talk about it and see what progress you've made. And we could kind of keep it on everybody's radars because I feel a lot of excitement around here about it. But I don't know if we need to direct you to do something just yet other than bring us back some more information on what you all are scouting out and how they feel. Is everybody you okay with that, Commissioner Sink? That way next meeting it'll be listed as something under old business to keep it fresh in all our minds. Perfect. Okay. All right. Are there any other pieces of new business out there, not seeing any? Then we will go on to committee reports. Does anybody have any committee reports? I have a committee report from the TPO and I'll make it quick. We had two meetings since the last time this board met. We had one on September 1st and one on September 9th. September 1st was a special meeting. I don't know why it's called a special meeting. We didn't get cake or ice cream or anything, but we did have that special meeting on September 1st and that was to receive a status report on the regional MPO merger. There's a lot of action going on there. Representative Mike Owen is going to be working on some legislation in the upcoming session to advance that as rapidly as possible. So we're basically getting pressure from Tallahassee to get that done. In that same meeting, TPO staff gave us draft legal documents, including the memorandum of understanding and the interlocal agreement, and also draft startup documents, including the bylaws, the cost and funding, the org chart, policy manual and all that stuff. So we can have an idea of what staff is going to staff this thing, what it's going to cost. There was a lot of discussion around costs and where that money is going to come from. Our meeting on the 9th was a roll forward tip amendment meeting, and that was approved no problem unanimously. And we also had a new appointee for chair to the Liverpool Roadways Committee since Councilwoman Hertak was stepping down. And that was all we had from the TPO. Anybody has any questions? Stand for those now. Not seeing any. All right. Are there any other committee reports? Going once, going twice. Not seeing any. Then that is it for this meeting. What time is it? The time just went off the screen. 6.06. Can we see? You always love to do that, huh? Thank you. All right. All right. We will be back then at 6.30 to start our public hearing since we're already way over our time limit. And at 6.06 p.m., this regular meeting is adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.