call our december 5th 2023 board of county commissioners meeting to order this morning we're going to start with an invocation by pastor miles hunter from the treasure coast community church followed by the pledge of allegiance by we're honored to have mr andrew montavani here and his lovely wife he is a u.s marine i don't believe when you quote unquote retire from the marines you ever really retire from the marines so he will lead us in the pledge so if you would all please stand morning pastor morning uh guys let's pray god your word says for a child is born to us a son is given to us and the government will rest on his shoulders and he will be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace his government and its peace will never end he will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor david for all eternity the passionate commitment of the lord of heaven's armies will make this happen lord jesus we come to you thanking you for these words because they were written during a season when hope had faded away when conspiracies ran rampant and when wars raged and nevertheless these words brought hope to the people of god and i pray that they will bring hope to us as well i ask that we would trust the wonderful counselor who knows our every struggle intimately and personally i ask that we would relinquish power to the mighty god who is really in control i pray that we will find a home with the everlasting father the one whom our soul truly longs for for science even tells us that with innate within us is a desire to know that someone is chasing after us pursuing us and loving us and some of us never got that from our earthly mothers and fathers and so i pray and i ask that we would know that from the beginning of time there's an everlasting father our creator who has been in hot pursuit of us i pray that we will know you father as our peace amid the chaos that we would find peace in your son for his name is jesus in jesus name amen amen i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god with liberty and justice for all sir if you could share first off good morning and thank you for being with us if you could share a little bit of your life experience i uh i'm a 92 year old marine i uh joined the marine corps 1949 of july and uh uh went to camp lejeune for a while uh the water was dirty in 1952 but unfortunately i don't qualify for the benefit uh and then of course uh we went on a mediterranean cruise and we were uh parked in cans i was on the uss late and if you saw the picture devotion it's part of my life because uh uh the late was a an aircraft carrier and uh they didn't have a navy good navy pilots so they practiced on those on on on that on that ship and that was a part of the operation we didn't know at the time they were training to go to korea and so i was a uh part of a uh of a team that was called anglico air and naval gunfire so we directed fire from ships for 20 miles inland and thereafter we switched to uh uh air support and uh uh we were in a team where uh uh we were radio operators actually and each person carried a different piece of equipment in order to put the operation together quickly because otherwise uh especially when you broke up if you didn't break up fast enough they would have a back azimuth and they would you know fire back at you so uh i was in uh uh once on hungnam uh i landed on incheon on the douglas mccarthur uh we went up to the chosen reservoir and i earned two bronze battle stars and uh uh i had one last interesting thing which which probably saved my life i was the only child uh uh the only boy child my i had two older sisters and my mother just loved me so much to death and when she knew i was in combat she had a very serious illness she had a nervous breakdown and i was lucky where the red cross read the reports the medical reports and they got me back from the chosen reservoir and probably saved my life i was up there just before the chinese came over the manchurian border so uh i have to thank the red cross i have to thank uh uh those who felt it was uh serious enough for a humanitarian transfer and so they transferred me to the brooklyn navy yard and i was the best medicine for my mother because uh she did well afterwards and uh not she wasn't normal ever but she she was uh saved i would say we were both saved but that's that's part of my my past thank you why don't you introduce your wife to us and tell us how you met my wife uh is here uh unfortunately she's not well as she used to be i met her when she was 15 years old she was my next door neighbor and uh uh we had 10 children so god was generous to us in that way in fact my birthday was in september and we had six born in june so i always got a birthday present from the lord yeah uh and uh uh they're all doing well and uh uh we also have 33 grandchildren uh four of which are uh are uh great great grandkids and we had a full life the story though that dan mckenry wants me to tell you which he was most impressed with so i have to do it i know i'm taking too much time take your time sir but uh when i got out of the marine corps i uh i went to school for 20 years at night in in between trips for enfemol because we always had a lot of children and uh so uh uh i worked very hard and uh got a number of degrees and uh also uh uh professional letters like i'm a chartered underwriter with the insurance business i i have a uh another professional certificate where i could use letters in insurance accounting in which you studied the the uh annual statements of insurance companies and had to have a a good understanding of them before they gave you the uh the the letters and so i did a lot of those things and uh and then i read along the lines that uh you can become a lawyer if you clerked and i had an opportunity with a lawyer who said he would he would do me that favor he would allow me to come in and he thought that i would be good enough for his firm anyway to get some more business and so forth so there was a little mutuality there back and forth and so i did clerk for a period of four years and uh i passed the bar exam and i'm probably now maybe the only person alive in new york that that is that way there could be one other younger man so there may be two of us left because they changed the rules you can't do it anymore now i think you need at least one year of law school you know but uh but that's the story that dan wanted me to tell the board he he was impressed with it i said you think anybody else will be he said he thought you would be so thank you sir thank you again for having me and i want to thank dan who also helped me with uh an increase in my uh compensation you know he said i deserved more and i was a little worried i said you know maybe i better not do this because i don't want to lose what i have you never know you know but he said no go forward you got you got enough in there that uh that will help you so but thanks again for having me i i uh i really appreciate it thank you well thank you very much we appreciate that okay we have a lot going on this morning i will the agenda is 905 public comment uh 130 we have a preset for presentation and request for adoption of a draft impact fee study departmental number four 505 is public comment we have one additional item on the consent number five adopt a proclamation declaring a year of celebration of the 125th anniversary of all saints episcopal church and all saints cemetery in martin county florida there is one request to withdraw departmental number three the bright line request for proposal it will return on december 12th there are no consent polls commissioner smith move approval of the agenda with the two additional items consent five um or one additional item rather consent five and the request withdraw bright lines request uh department item number three thank you very much we have a motion by commissioner smith to accept the agenda as presented seconded by commissioner hetherington all those in favor all right all those opposed that motion carries unanimously now we can do one of two things we can take public comment or do the reorg you want to do since you've got it all have it all okay i have all of the uh request to speak forms there's there's many some people wrote agenda items on them others did not so um if you would like to speak during general public comment which is now you can if you are going to speak to an agenda item that we're going to hear later in the day if you speak this morning is perfectly fine but you cannot then speak again on the item if i call your name and you would prefer to wait until the item uh just let me know and i'll put your your card aside if you have not filled out one of these cards our bailiff has these there's some in the back in the lobby you can fill them out um prior if you feel like speaking and you haven't filled one out you can just come forward at the end when i call for the last group and you can speak first and call it out fill it out afterwards the last thing i'll say about it is you'll have three minutes to address us on any topic that you like please keep the comments to the board as a whole we do not don't love individual comments to individual commissioners if you will at the two minute and 45 second point you're going to hear a tone that doesn't mean you need to stop that means you have 15 seconds to finalize your thoughts so we don't just shut you off i know some people would like to speak longer than three minutes but i would tell you i probably have 20 to 25 speaker forms and more coming in now so we try to keep it fair to three minutes so that we can hear from everyone and with that we will begin with miss diane meyer good morning commissioners um i would certainly like to go back to our original comp plan but um we have growth management that is um rubber stamping almost all building permits then it goes the lpa who says everyone has a right to build regardless of zoning and comp plan and now we have the commissioners who are supposed to be our good stewards for martin county comprehensive land use i have um several things i'd like to bring up one is i have mentioned many times before i'd like to have moratorium on building uh until we have a cost of infrastructure of all these new developments that are going on um we have issues such as water usage flooding issues drainage sewer and trash facility over usage traffic congestion it seems like miami and palm beach now um and we also have the inherent adherence to the original urban services district to the benefit of the benefit of all citizens not just the developers and their attorneys fear tactics are being used to by developers it shouldn't be considered for these critical votes um you need to listen to your consistent constituents and not your lobbyists putting money into your re-election campaigns we really hope that you don't do that i'm voting i'm asking you to vote no on the change in the comp plan and vote no for no for amending the growth management plan and vote no for future land use regulation switches thank you thank you very much ma'am our next request to speak for miss kayla shea i guess you filed one you put them in one after the other good morning morning i'm kayla shea i'm the president of trailside homeowners association and also a long-time resident of trailside you know years back when you extended the city water and sewer to south fork high school you said it was just for south fork high school yeah here comes high point the congestion out by us is incredible nine years ago i asked the commission for turning lanes and a traffic signal for trailside we were told we didn't meet the criteria the criteria is five deaths coming out of our neighborhood most mornings now between 6 30 in the morning and 8 30 in the morning it takes each vehicle approximately 18 minutes to turn to head north on pratt we have high point we have the ranch we have story lurking around at what point are we going to stop the insanity boy vote no no no no he said 20 acre parcels west i-95 we're west i-95 clustering doesn't count let's go back let's take a look at what we're actually doing vote no for all the changes let's look at the infrastructure let's look at what we really need to do this is urban sprawl it's not a rural lifestyle thank you thank you our next request to speak for him is mr walter lloyd sir good morning commissioners uh i'm here to ask you to vote no to protect our comprehensive plan and to protect our urban service boundaries many of us uh moved here for the reasons that we've enjoyed and that's the small town the comp plan was a legacy with forethought to create an environment which was desirable for many of us to come to it had protections for the environment it had considerations for the quality of life it was thoughtfully and over many many years built into a legacy that we've enjoyed and i would ask you to honor it i'd ask you guys to honor that legacy and please stop allowing the money from developers from wherever the northeast to override the concerns of the people who live here it's not about the money it's not about the development it's about your representation to us so please honor that we voted you in for that reason we expect you to live up to it thank you thank you sir our next request to speak form is miss eve samples good morning good morning you moved me to the top of the stack thank you for taking my public comment i'm eve samples executive director at friends of the everglades we were founded in 1969 by marjory stoneman douglas in miami we're now based in martin county because we see the environmental value of advocacy here last year when the rural lifestyle amendment first came to you for consideration friends of the everglades stood against it because we believe it undermines the very philosophy that martin county's comprehensive plan was founded upon and which makes it more environmentally protective than comprehensive plans to the north and south of us and that is the philosophy that development should occur within the urban services district until the urban services district reaches capacity that has not occurred a majority of you approved the rural lifestyle amendment anyway and we're here today to say that was a bad idea then and it remains a bad idea today so please with the amendments you're considering on the agenda today do not support them these amendments are even worse than what you were originally considering last year this this effect of erosion is exactly what the public was concerned about when you approved this amendment so please vote no thank you thank you ma'am uh next request to speak is lisbeth p pale peel good morning um every man woman and child and baby in the united states has glyphosate in their blood you do i do it's we ingest it in our water and in food it's the chemical in monsanto's uh roundup and it does cause cancer and it's which is um but the point is how we get it when you create a golf course uh you remove the native shrubs and the trees and you put in specialized grass and you spray herbicide on it to keep the broadleaf plants from growing up in the grass then you put in chemical fertilizers and then you water so any golf courses that are permitted to be put west of the urban boundary where our water comes from these chemicals and those golf courses are going to be seeping into our water system and i think you really should think about that when you decide whether to permit golf courses to be built west of of the urban boundary where we have 35 golf courses in martin county but that's on our side and i think it's just for the quality of water because water is so important with all the people living here thank you so much thank you ma'am our next request to speak for him is miss karen rayside good morning thank you for allowing me to speak today i'd like to speak on the calusa creek project i live in western martin county and spend quite a bit of time outdoors i'm a member of the palm city farms trail association i do mostly horseback riding camping and spending time a lot outside preserving our natural trails while i acknowledge that the county puts a lot of effort into maintaining our public lands i also want to point out the importance of private conference conservation i'm here today in support of the ranch project i admire the careful planning to conserve open space and reduce density i also admire that they will continue the cattle ranch and preserve agriculture in martin county i'm here to support the ranch and i ask the commission to please approve the project thank you thank you ma'am our next request to speak for him is miss robin cartwright good morning good morning commissioners i could stand here and share all the logical logistical reasons why you should not approve cpa 22-06 cpa 23-12 and other items but it won't matter so three items before i begin one all land purchases are speculative two donations to your campaigns impacts your public record the majority of you receive donations from the rural lifestyle applicants including today's applicant who didn't even own the land until march of 2023 weird how they know to whom to contribute and development does not produce less cars than agriculture so you have no real concerns about casting a vote because even if you're sued the applicant will intervene and when an administrative law judge rules against you the governor and florida cabinet will rule in your favor in fact that's exactly what happened when you ruled on the rural lifestyle last year the same rural lifestyle vote that you stated projects must touch the urban service district but apparently that was just a placeholder because now a vote is coming before you so that applicants who are within six thousand feet which is semantics for one point one three six miles stating that they don't even have to touch the urban service district and then you'll vote on a land use for a developer who one lpa member insisted he knows best because his family has been here longer and one who voted yes because he felt quote unquote sorry for the developer because he hasn't made any money on the project even though it wasn't purchased until this last march so what will you do you could vote no to the text amendment to the land use change to any of this if you insist on invoking the names of previous community leaders like nat reed then honor your alleged friendships and his legacy if you say that you have concerns then ask for a better text amendment and applications in line with what's allowed where residents who you say aren't experts aren't the ones pointing out the blatant deficiencies and discrepancies you say you care about this community in the martin county difference then uphold your statements that you made when you were running for election that you believed in the comprehensive plan in the meantime the only martin county difference that we feel for those of us shouldering the burden financially and emotionally for your decisions as you ignore us in favor of those who don't even live here logic and sustainability have been replaced by intentionally ambiguous wording and your justification of quote unquote it could be worse as a martin county resident and voter i'm not sure how being ignored while being billed year after year for an ever-increasing tax bill to support whatever this is could possibly be worse please do better thank you very much our next request to speak for him is miss sharon mcginnis good morning good morning and thank you and i am also talking about cp 2206 when i was reviewing the application by the developer and our your staff response to that i was discouraged to understand that the sat the saint lucie uh basin management action plan is is it being considered i mean we have uh dedicated ourselves to be stewards of the waterway and yet that area out there right next to the canal with golf courses and everything else is not going to uh have the ability to filter their wastewater if they're not connected to city utilities this growth that is allowed to daisy chain itself from one rural lifestyle to another rural lifestyle how is martin county going to say that they can protect our water supply from our aquifer and the wastewater that is going into our community if we're allowing these rural lifestyles not to be hooked up to our city water and sewer how are you going to maintain the aquifer and know how much is in there salt water intrusion how are you going to plan for 2030 2040 you know each and every time you add one of these developments out there and you allow them to be independent of our sewer and water and at some point are you going to come back to us next year and say that these rural lifestyles are now considered part of our urban service boundary i mean where are we going to stop we have to protect what we have and then final in closing the amount of money that these people the taxes that they generate they're saying they're going to generate a lot i would think that you would try to consider that when some of the tax dollars that they have these developers they need to commit to taking some of the tax dollars and not just conserving more land but coming into our rural area and revitalizing neighborhoods that could be better and attract low-income families and families to live here by fixing up these things or investing in vacant lots in areas that most people won't buy into because the neighborhood's on a decline and revitalize those neighborhoods you know we have vacant lots and we have decrepit housing in our urban service boundary why don't you ask them to fix that so that more people can live within our urban service district and not have to feel like they have to go out for that sprawl so please vote no at this point and bring more information to the community and how we're going to protect it and i would really like to see that these communities hook up to our utilities thank you thank you very much our next request to speak for mary straczynski ma'am good morning my name is mary straczynski please reject the proposed caloosa creek grant amendments to our comprehensive growth management plan we are stunned and appalled that you would even consider eliminating the requirement that land designated for the rural lifestyle be adjacent to an urban service boundary the proposed amendments will allow parcels of 3 000 plus acres to be designated for rural lifestyle use if an urban service boundary is within 6 000 feet the caloosa creek grant amendment takes rural lifestyle more than a mile i'm so upset about this a mile outside the urban service district into farmlands wetlands and cattle grazing land in wet western martin county this will change our comp plan and development patterns forever you gave us your word for all of us all that time you gave us your word that the rural lifestyle would be upheld and that projects like this would not be permitted please don't disappoint us by cutting off the head of our comp plan after its feet legs and torso have already been amputated if the demise of martin county is what you wish to be the legacy of this commission you will be successful if you vote no on cpa 22-06 and cpa 23-012 sorry just say no thank you ma'am our next request to speak for one is miss dotty lancey good morning morning commissioners i want i'm dotty lancey from hutchinson island and it's good to be here with you again um i wanted to wish you a merry christmas this morning and uh hope that you have a really nice holiday season as i'm going to have with my family so enjoy it with your um family and your friends and um that being said i have another reason for coming here today too and that is to express my opposition to the uh amendments that you are considering this morning for the comp plan um i hope you will give your constituents are you hearing me no i hope you will give your constituents constituents a memorable christmas gift today i hope you will give us the gift of voting no for these amendments that are coming forward most of us are hoping and we're actually praying that you will listen to what um the voters want in your heart of hearts you know you know what the voters want here they do not want their comp plan destroyed and um the last time i was up here and i spoke about this very issue of the real lifestyle you promised us that you would look into it we know that eventually we're going to have to decide on what to do with all this land that we have preserved all these years out there in the western part of the county we know that and we want you to see that uh do your duty and and see what what options that we have out there we don't want you to be directed by the developers and that's what's happened you voted in the this rural lifestyle amendment and now you're letting the developers decide what to do out there and they are deciding to develop it any way that they see fit so anyway i'm here to ask you to please accept your duty and your responsibility we voted you in we elected you and every one of you campaign on preservation of our uh our lifestyle here in martin county that's why we're here you live here you know it we all enjoy it and we love it and we want to keep it so just do your duty vote no today and then decide on what we want to do with the the western lands out there um and be assured that the visit the that the voters here are going to really appreciate it if you do consider our wishes and your legacy and vote in your hearts what you know is the right thing to do please do the right thing today and vote no thank you ma'am our next request to speak for him is miss virginia sherlock good morning good morning thank you uh my name is virginia sherlock i live in stewart i'm here to ask you to please do not transmit the proposed comp plan amendment submitted on behalf of calusa creek ranch the rural lifestyle land use designation was created only last year and a developer is already attempting to change it to extend suburban development farther into our agricultural lands there has been no good reason cited to expand the land use designation that has proven to be extremely unpopular as written lpa members who voted to recommend approval said a property owner should be able to make as much money as possible on land and it will likely be more profitable to build high-end homes and operate golf courses and docking facilities than to farm the land but that's not the test that you should apply commissioners the applicant in this case is not asking for a minor tweak in land use regulations that govern his property the applicant is asking you to apply new regulations to make a significant change in those resignation in those regulations that will weaken our urban services boundaries and adversely affect critical aspects of our comp plan for all citizens of martin county no changes should be made to the rural lifestyle lifestyle land use designation without adequate and credible data and analysis please don't tell us you must approve these amendments to generate more taxes you're raising our taxes not decreasing them despite approving virtually every development that comes before you please don't tell us that calusa creek ranch will decrease traffic on canter highway and bridge road we're not traffic engineers commissioners but we're not stupid and please don't tell us this is only a transmittal vote not a vote to adopt we know that virtually every amendment you vote to transmit you later vote to adopt now is the time reject these applications now thank you thank you ma'am our next our next request to speak for him is mr rick hartman good morning sir merry christmas to you thanks for allowing me to speak i had notes here um but after listening to people up i thought i was in a different place that every time i've come to one of these we talk about the environment preserving the environment less density protect wetlands i i hear that but i didn't hear that from anybody yet so you got an applicant i'm a realtor and a rancher and i have no no tie to this property except 50 years ago i worked on that ranch for about six or seven years so do i like building homes on it no i hate it i think it's horrible but going back to my where i started we got an applicant that's less density the wetlands have been identified they're going to be protected what the applicant could do is build 20 acre ranchettes and in a 20 acre ranchette wetlands are allowed to be part of that lot so you could have 200 lots out there managing the wetlands by themselves which means they could mow them they could burn them with no oversight and that's that's part of the deal so you got an you got an opportunity to say okay these wetlands are identified uh the pud is going to make the applicant maintain them and i always talk about few scapes well my understanding is there's going to be a thousand acres along highway 76 and that's going to be pasture so your view scapes is not going to change so your alternative is turn him down let him sit 10 years 15 years and you're going to have another harmony coming to be on your doors because 20 15 years ago we could have had half a harmony and conservation and no issues but we turned him down and now he's going to be back and we're not going to get the free land so this is an opportunity to do some planning we could reduce the number of units that are going to be on it and protect some environment so please vote for it thank you thank you sir our next request to speak for miss miss carol ann leonard yes ma'am that's you would you like to have a microphone and stay in your seat or are you okay coming up to the front no i better come up to give you your options good morning good morning my glasses just broke let's see if i can read it we suspected the county and developers were going to try and change the rural lifestyle amendment now they are with the calusa creek ranch project please don't pass ph2 agenda item 24-0317 cpa 22-06 i don't want expansion of the rural lifestyle we don't need to change the text of the rural lifestyle to allow 3 000 acres to be 6 000 feet from a principal urban service boundary or freestanding urban service boundary stop trying to overdevelop our agricultural and open lands people have spoken numerous times that they're opposed to this at the public speaking section at the blake library many said they are opposed to overdevelopment increased traffic and more you asked us to fill out the e ea r ear survey the owners knew the type of land they were buying they no doubt worked hard to make their farms work if they need to find new crops or do environmentally sound cattle raising which is possible then they should be able to perhaps either grants or a county program to help them change over would be beneficial in my opinion the landowners are being enticed by developers of mega mansions golf courses golf cottages and more the developers seem to think they can sell for big prices so they can pay the landowner owners large amounts of money and make a big profit for themselves in the past some county commissioners expected to get mega taxes from mega mansion owners with few county expenses the same statement was made about calusa creek ranch taxes there's no guarantee on taxes there will be county expenses road expansion the county possibly having to pay for the expansion of surefire rescue ambulances and schools i would support a percentage of taxes from current rural lifestyle projects to buy environmentally sensitive and conservation land don't add new areas to do this calusa creek ranch adds residential multi-slip docking facilities to access the st lucy canal this could lead to the leaking of gas and oil into the waterway boat owners not using the free martin county sewage pump out service please don't pass agenda ph3 agenda item 240 318 cpa 23-12 this item will allow 3902.64 acres to change from agricultural to the rural's lifestyle allowing up to 20 units per acre one county report states it's possible for 195 single-family homes to be built on these acres calusa creek ranch is outside the usd the county states that martin county utilities will have to evaluate it if evaluate if they can serve it developers may have to do well sites transmission and treatment plant components they say if the extension of the water wastewater utility service is too costly for the regional utility or the applicant does not want to to connect to sanitary sewer lines then enhance nutrient reducing sewage treatment and disposal items plants may be needed we don't need a future that 33 000 acre developments to possibly build such things they're also questionable in construction traffic is a huge issue ma'am your time is up thank you so much our next request to speak for him is mr sam hay sir good morning good morning i'm sam hay i live in port salerno since 1982 martin county has had in place a comprehensive growth management plan the comp plan was intended to protect the environment and our quality of life and it has been largely responsible for protecting us from the horrors of overdevelopment which have despoiled so much of south florida yet in recent years our county commission has steadily voted to chip away at these protections only last year did you commissioners approve the euphemistically named rural lifestyle amendment which many warned would open the floodgates to further urban sprawl and environmental degradation nor did it escape notice that the vote was shamelessly scheduled after elections to evade losing votes from an irate public it was suggested at the time you approved rural lifestyle that this would be the last attack to weaken the comp plan at least for a respectable interval but as many of us expected it didn't take long at all just over a year now you have before you two more amendments which would further weaken the comp plan and that's why this thing looks like it it reeks of a done deal when you originally approved rural lifestyle were the plans already afoot to greatly expand it for calusa ranch and other exploitative projects we haven't even heard of yet we know from chip barney's letter to the newspaper that the developers acquired the land about three years ago even though the property was an l was not eligible at that time for the kind of development they had in mind both proposed proposals before you today were clearly written specifically for calusa ranch i can't help getting the distinct impression that the public has been deliberately misled all along both amendments would inevitably lead to more traffic congestion natural habitat loss increased levels of crime and higher taxes does anyone still believe that development pays for itself for the past several years we've seen development absolutely booming but i can our taxes continue to rise year after year i urge you to reject both proposed amendments today approval would poke such a huge hole in the comp plan as to render it practically meaningless please don't allow our beautiful martin county to be further blighted by the overdevelopment which has already resulted in constant congestion on our streets and roads please don't place the profit motives of the few above the long-term interest of us all please preserve our quality of life and what remains of the martin county difference please protect our county's natural heritage for future generations as our elected commissioners you have a duty of stewardship to our county a vote to approve these amendments would be a betrayal of the public trust thank you sir our next request to speak for miss candy is miss candy new good morning good morning hi my name is candy new i am a resident of palm city for the record i wanted to read my letter i submitted on november 30th my family first moved to martin county in 1924 in fact my grandfather would sail across the saint lucie river to the farms in palm city where he worked as a sharecropper as a third generation resident i have seen my fair share of change over the course of my lifetime and i spend a good bit of my time working to preserve our natural trails i fully believe the calusa creek project promotes smart growth in martin county and should receive your support with 91 open space in more than 1200 acres of bona fide agriculture this project safeguards the natural landscape we all know and love as we face new development projects here in martin county i suggest we support projects like these that aim to preserve and promote the natural environment opposed to replacing it thank you thank you ma'am our next request to speak form is mr tom pine good morning my name is tom pine i live in jensen beach presently live in jensen beach i've been a resident of martin county for over 50 years another typical county commission meeting today where our county commissioners were used as the consent agenda to hide from the taxpayer from martin county exactly where our tax dollars are being spent today's consent agenda totaled is 16 million six hundred and eighty seven thousand five hundred and fourteen dollars and eighty two cents spent between november 7th and november 19th 2023 without identifying the payees or the purpose of the payments at the last county commission meeting there was a sweetheart deal for fpnl that was hidden in the consent agenda and pulled by the chairman of the board of county commissioners because of the controversy it created our camp our martin county government is in a race to the bottom to give fpnl a 60 percent discount on their tangible personal property tax because of the way our state government has set up the way corporations pay their tangible personal property taxes the next time this contract comes up for renewal and another county offers to charge fpnl only 35 percent instead of the 40 percent we'd charge them this time will we then drop our bid to 30 percent and claim it's a great deal for the taxes of martin county again at one point the chairman of the board proclaimed that martin county and fpnl have a real good relationship is that why the commissioner from hobe sound is having so much trouble getting fpnl to install street lights out west on bridge road where it's as dark as death at night because of fpnl today i feel we are here to watch martin the martin county chamber of commerce backed county commissioners vote once again to destroy the martin county difference by increasing the area of the rural lifestyle why you ask because they the martin county chamber of commerce views money as the only way to value quality of life while men while many martin county residents view the quality of life through a different lens such as first and foremost preserving our county growth management plan today this county commission will pick a new chairperson to leave the this commission for the next year and one county commissioner that will not be chosen is the commissioner from district four because she is the only martin county commissioner that is not endorsed by the martin county chamber of commerce this is what happens when voter turnout stays below 50 what you permit you promote what you allow you encourage what you condone you own thank you thank you sir our next request to speak for him is mr joe flanagan okay thank you sir our next request to speak is miss joan bausch good morning all right i'm joan bausch from stewart i haven't spoken to a commission meeting in quite a long time um my main concern this morning is breaking the urban boundary uh with the wannabe amendments that pretend to be rural uh enhancements we need to understand the implications of breaking that boundary please vote no on the changes that create sprawl and the problems that come with it thank you thank you ma'am our next request to speak for miss miss jenny yingling good morning good morning commissioners and staff um i live in warwick and martin county and have raised my children here when i learned about the proposed the ranch project i reached out to their team to learn more and get project details from what i learned um i feel like there are several attributes to this project that are good for martin county the ranch is going to keep more than 3500 acres in open space and 1200 of those acres will be active cattle ranch the project is reducing density to more than 175 homes as you've heard many say earlier today meanwhile the 660 acres of wetlands which we all know how important that is are going to be preserved and protected which will help improve the natural environment lastly the analysis projects and it is a projection i'm a banker i know all about projections are 336 million in positive fiscal impacts for martin county over the next 30 years this will be a win for martin county in positive fiscal impacts for us and as a taxpayer since 1980 in this county i appreciate your thoughtful consideration for this project thank you thank you ma'am our next request to speak form is mr jeff whitman mr whitman i'll hold his card our next request to speak form is jeannie longton or janine longton and please uh take your remove your hat before you come forward we don't allow props for or against okay i appreciate that please do not uh we don't allow that if you were for it or against it we don't allow that welcome learn that evil does not care if it's called out in fact it seems to relish it so i'm going to call out the good sarah hurd thank you not allowed to address us individually please speak to us as a collective group that's for everybody district four that's not what i meant thank you the only one trying to keep martin county what the people want it to be as i walk around town i talk to people no one is happy with the majority of this commission and their votes no one is happy with the traffic having to watch fire rescue trying to navigate its way through some of these intersections makes me want to cry they're dead animals on the road all the time now because of all the construction that you all are allowing when i speak with people no one is happy and i am letting them know that there is only one person on this commission that is trying to do the right thing trying to do the right thing again i think a single commissioner on this commission thank you very much appreciate that our next request to speak for him is mr david hafner mr hafner good morning morning commissioners thank you my name is david hafner um i am a passionate advocate for agriculture and um i've been before you guys many times to seek your your assistance and agricultural issues and i appreciate what you have given in the past i'm here today to talk about the ranch pud when i drive around and i love watching looking at agricultural lands i love to see cattle grazing i love green rose rising i love citrus blooming um i don't want to see more development but i also understand that to preserve our green spaces and agricultural spaces we have to sometimes be creative in the things that we do and i think that the ranch could be one of those projects i think it is one of those projects um you know i i really like about this project i really like that they will build fewer homes on it than what they currently could build if if were to be developed today and i appreciate that those homes will be put on septic i'm sorry sewer instead of septic which is better for the environment i appreciate that 1200 acres will be put into agricultural easement as a cattle ranch and that 1200 acres in in addition to the rest of the green space in this project will be used for water capture and recharge and habitat for native wildlife and i appreciate that when the project's done we'll still see green spaces and cattle grazing from the road um you know when we're if we're going to see growth let's make sure it's smart growth and i really do believe that this project is smart growth thank you sir thank you our next request to speak for him is gail ladd gail ladd good morning hi my name is gail ladd um i'm from jupiter um but i am on the committee of the ex-common conservation committee of the sierra club which represents martin county st lucie county okeechobee county and palm beach county i'm here to ask you to oppose the comp plan amendment and the rural lifestyle change to the comp plan this there are many infrastructure issues that i hope you're really looking at carefully water issues as always this rural lifestyle is a misnomer it's obvious that this amendment is if it's approved the financial benefit of a few will adversely in fact affect affect impact the quality of life of many and it will encourage more development just a little while ago last year you approved this land use designation and developers could develop tracks of a thousand acres or larger adjacent to the urban boundary but it seemed like the way to limit the number of opportunities developers would have to build housing subdivisions and what have been historically agriculture areas in the western part of the county um but that has not even been evaluated long enough and this is already being asked to be changed so i would ask that you would please oppose both of these amendments developers will continue to line up there will be no end until there is no more true rural land left thank you thank you ma'am our next request to speak form is jeff whitman mr whitman mr whitman mr whitman good morning good morning commissioners good to see you uh jeff whitman hope sound most people don't realize how many threatened and endangered species reside in martin county a black bear was spotted on 138th street manatees gopher tortoises a cinema tetramera thank you commissioner and the florida panther yes martin county still has florida panthers and i have seen three once you see one you will never forget it just because you don't see them doesn't mean they're not here my brother-in-law was a wildlife officer here for 30 years and never saw one a male florida panther's range is 50 square miles or more and they are coming into hope sound a male panther was hit by a car and killed at the north gate of the corbett area in the b line a wildlife corridor is needed to connect all the natural areas to pre corbett area allapata atlantic ridge jonathan dickinson sea branch and others the rural lifestyle amendment has already caused thousands of acres that were going to be bought for serp to be canceled because the owners can get more money from developers the text amendment and the future land use amendment if they are passed will make it even harder to preserve panther and other wildlife habitat the way the rural the way the rural lifestyle amendment is unfolding there will soon be four-story hotels and gas stations at i-95 and bridge road this is not what the people of hope sound and martin county want are you going to vote for the developers and their donors are you going to vote for the people of hope sound in martin county i hope it is the latter i fear it is the former thank you thank you sir our next request to speak for miss tom delessandro morning everyone my name is tom delessandro i am here to support the ranch project the occlusive ranch project and all projects that are west of i-95 my family's been here for four generations now and we have watched the western communities get over developed and to me not a very smart way they've never done anything about preserving our environment and keeping low density homes the occlusive creek project in particular they've the very smartly have proposed to build this property out preserving the environment very few homes golf courses and i applaud you all in martin county for doing this in all the western communities here thank you very much thank you sir our next request to speak for him is miss linda smith good morning good morning linda smith jupiter florida and you might ask so why am i speaking before you i'm the current executive committee chair for the sierra club laksahatchee group and i do represent martin county residents ph2 the caloosahatchee caloosa creek ranch text amendment sets a precedent which is immediately being followed by ph3 the ranch and who knows how many others the caloosa creek owner probably should have bought land adjacent to the urban the urban corridor what a concept play by the rules the rural lifestyles was not popular with the public in the past as you may recall but unfortunately we lost that battle i understand that but that wasn't bad enough developers want even more whereas and these are questions i've read through the information that was online where is the martin county school district capacity analysis where is the in-depth environmental analysis where is the traffic analysis where is the utilities report and portable water analysis this is just for the transmittal you say but once you get these reports it will be too late why should the commission and why should individual citizens make it easier for developers to build large developments so i guess bigger is better but who is it better for if it was profitable for the owner of this project to build these ranchettes which everyone has been mentioning they would have done it without coming through this process it's not that profitable so they're not going to do it but if you let them do this that's going to be more profitable for them and it will get developed there are numerous economic studies indicating that developments do not pay for the necessary infrastructure improvements through taxes or um the fees developers cost developments all cost existing residents and future residents more in the future in taxes more firefighters more police and do we really need more services for the rich yes this will spur development what we need is more restaurants i guess and more more bars and more nightclubs and more things for people with a lot of money to do i think there's enough and i think um the people that own the current restaurants really don't want you know all that development outside the area rural lifestyles has nothing to do with rural or quality of lifestyles these amendments are sprawl pure and simple thank you thank you ma'am our next request to speak for mr on rose on rose put his card aside mr jim moyer okay thank you mr scott fay sir good morning got a hope sound nice to see you all thank you um first and foremost i want to say as people have stood here today and accused this commission doing all kinds of bad things for martin martin county i think about all five of you probably care as much about martin county as anybody here because you've proven that with your service so i thank you i really do believe you have our best interests at heart and i think every one of us would like to think we're the center of the picture but it's the whole community and as you look at all these things i would just ask for one thing that we don't use exceptions we use amendments and the comp plan is great but it was written in 1982 nothing has stayed the same since 1982 and every one of us in this room lived someplace that was at one time ag at one time was rule at one time was used for something else hope sound was pineapple farms all up and down gomez avenue and if people had stopped growth at that point i wouldn't get to live where i live but see i'm happy because i get to live there but i don't want somebody else to have the same freedoms i have i have six kids i have a several employees that have a very difficult time finding affordable housing i've sat on housing commissions i've sat on the bdb i'm not the big deal here i'm just saying i've heard both sides of the issue and i would just ask you to continue to good do good policy but let's not make exceptions exceptions there's no end to where exceptions can go so if we need to change things to make it for a healthier community change change with amendments but keep us on a good track for the big picture thank you very much thank you sir our next request to speak for him is mr bruce montefusco at the time of the item thank you sir how about mr larry muller larry muller getting down to the end of the stack believe it or not if you are interested i'm sorry yes sir i apologize um mr greg braun thank you is that the same for mr brian schwayne brian schwayne would you like to speak thank you how about diane hilton pretty sure what you're looking to speak about is not about what we've heard thus far good morning and welcome hi everyone i'm donna donna hilton um i guess some of you might remember me from the bible reading marathon it went wonderful again this year and the lord just led me to come here today and i really did not know what all you were talking about but actually this past weekend i've been horse riding i heard somebody talking about horses i love horses and i'm sure some of you do but um i do want to thank you uh for this the proclamation you and the county in the city and the lord spoke to me several times at the bible marathon about things and i'm just going to mention a couple things but first thing i want to mention because i've been listening to this meeting and um i love martin county i lived here my husband and i who is now with the lord and i came down for the bible marathon i've been here since the beginning of uh november and i'm being blessed to be in martin county i love this place and i went to the city city commissioner meeting and um i love martin county and i know you all love martin county as well but i want to read this one thing here it says here in proverbs 4 7 it says wisdom is the principal thing therefore get wisdom and with all getting get understanding so i think that the the lord will give you wisdom on all the decisions that you make and that uh he has and at least this is probably the most wonderful county in the whole united states and i said the very same thing at the city commissioners i i love this place i my heart is still here in martin county i do live in jacksonville with my daughter and um but i i i would come back here in a flash i love the martin county but and the one thing that i want to mention too which i did mention at the city commissioner i haven't heard you mentioned here but i had a word for them that the unity of the city and the county would come together not just holding hands but connecting with arm to arm as you make agreements with the things that happen because i know it affects city the city people and also the county and the and the treasure coast this whole area is you're a representative for the nation i believe because this is a wonderful place to be and people who are here are blessed to be here but what i'm going to say has something to do with the trained because 20 in 2014 i had a vision while i was standing at the bible marathon uh facing the bandshell and i heard the train whistle come by and this and i heard the lord say to me i you may think i'm foolish but the glory train and i said wow glory train i says that sounds pretty good and you hear the train go by all the time if i lived here in steward i would come down and live downtown where i could hear the train all the time and uh i thought i thought well that's just going to be that means a wonderful thing that people you know the glory of the lord is here and people that love the lord are here and and there's a good change here and this is a blessed place i know i'm going to speak but one other thing i saw which i mentioned at the city was um i saw you all coming together and i saw actually after i i heard the word glory train i heard the lord say there'll be a station right over there and i at that time when i thank you ma'am ma'am your time is up thank you so much brandon tucker i see yours says 24-0317 do you want to speak now or do you want to wait for the item thank you sir uh ron rose our last one then if anyone else is looking to address us during general public comment meaning something i got yours um something that we're going to hear later that you can't stay for mr bausch would you like to come forward now you can fill out a form afterwards sir good morning we're going to talk about insurance okay uh you're going to get your insurance bill speak into the mic sir you should get your insurance bills within the next couple months it may be sooner anywhere from 50 to 100 percent increase we have where can we go to get relief if you go to government insurance companies are not going to you deal with speak right into the mic sir insurance companies are not going to help us uh our assemblyman state rep uh you gotta speak into the mic otherwise no one can hear okay you have to talk to the legislature to get some kind of legislation where we get more insurance companies so we have competition i mean citizens uh is the last resort and those their premiums are just escalating uh one of the things that uh growth has created at least it would seem in this area is more expensive housing so when our first move here in the late 90s cost of replacement uh per square foot was around two hundred dollars i'm sorry two thousand dollars no it's it's it's five times that and insurance is based on the replacement costs so you therefore insurance goes up uh and uh it's i think it's going to start really impact the growth of florida and another thing that was really interesting palm beach county for all the growth and all their tax revenue they don't have enough money now to run the county their their projects that were started in you know three four or five years ago which has a 10-year life cycle in terms of building they don't have enough money to finish these projects and they either stop them or delay them or cancel them and i fear that this could happen here when we can't look at you know two years or three years down the road we've got to look at 10 15 years down the road for some of these county projects and it be able to fund them so please he's here maybe you can you know talk to him later today and see if the legislature can do anything to help us with your insurance because i think it's going to kill thank you sir very much thank you appreciate it our last request to speak for miss mr terry gibson are you looking one second mr gibson will take miss scott first are you looking to come forward ladies first thank you good morning my name is ann scott i've been sitting here watching this and most of you are doing a pretty good job of looking like you're paying attention but i keep seeing these little conversation bubbles appearing above your heads that say yada yada yada but we're paying attention you're going to vote today we're going to vote in august thank you very much mr gibson welcome good morning y'all i'm i plan to test to to speak at the the hearing but i really have to go to tallahassee hopefully i can we'll get done enough to for me to come up twice but um anyway i'm again my name is terry gibson i live in jensen beach for those of you know me i'm a professional conservationist and a professional hunter and fisherman um i've worked on everything from ending and preventing overfishing to don may remember some sporty battles over uh beach management that were we were all in much better beach management reform um everglades restoration you name it i've worked on a climate change you name it i really try not to get in the middle of local stuff because i like to work on things that are big like picture federal and state level sort of things but this particular project the calusa creek ranch project caught my eye i've worked on on on private conservation which is the buzzword i guess now all over this country where there's mixed use on lands that protect wildlife habitats wetlands might be an equestrian component or a golf course component it's very common practice and it's a very effective one and so the a couple previous speakers ago mentioned wisdom and what i would suggest to you all in terms of wisdom is to think about this large contiguous parcels of open space i don't want to talk about the comp plan or the policy or any of the implementation but large contiguous areas of open space that's how we're going to stop sprawl in martin county and it's going to be a mix of conservation easements it's or it should be a mix of conservation easements the public lands we already have and private landowners that are parceling land in small areas hooking up the set to to sewer and water so that we're not inundated with more sewage and uh in in protecting wetlands and open space that's what we need to do here so i encourage you to continue on the process which i admittedly don't understand very well of um with this project but it seems like it could be a model and i've checked i've read the every last word in the of the application and the ea and i've talked to the landowners everything here seems above board to me so anyway um that's my two cents thank you thank you very much sir appreciate it anyone else looking to speak to us before we move on from a public comment seeing none we'll close public comment and with that um yeah well i was just going to do the reorg and then during the break they can reset the room we'll start with commissioner comments on this thank you we're going to do commissioner comments and then we'll do our reorg we have a 10 30 closed captioning break i was thinking that after the reorg we have a minute to change the seating around depending on how the votes go we could do that at the same time of our closed captioning break and then come come back for the items if that works for my group so i will start with commissioner hurd do you have any i'm set thank you commissioner jenkins i'm set did you have a parade this we had uh three parades uh i enjoyed uh since we're trying to kill time here for mr to get back um it was amazing the amount of people in the steward and hope sound parade were off the chart um and um seemed like our community thoroughly enjoyed it i know that i enjoyed it and i've killed about as much time as i can and i've got nothing it's a lot for you yeah uh commissioner heatherington i too enjoyed seeing so many of our local uh community members attend our steward and hope sound parades and indian town parade as well so and i yield the rest of my time fantastic um a future event um palm city we don't have a parade uh but we have been working diligently for several years on on the redesign and and revitalization of map road and a lot of major steps have taken place uh one that's coming forward to completion very quickly is uh the patio at palm city place it's it's a small community park located right on map road in between the fire station and dr rex and tell's office it will not be done for palm city's um holiday fest which will take place tomorrow up that's the call coming in that i've been waiting for uh tomorrow evening from six to eight we'll close map road for a short time there'll be uh the local elementary schools choirs will sing uh santa will be there there'll be uh local vendors if you're interested uh please come and enjoy uh that evening with us and the palm city chamber of commerce that organizes it for us i appreciate their efforts in palm city on map road tomorrow evening commissioner smith you're all set that was a lean lean comments uh as well this evening in downtown jensen um we have our taste of jensen which is probably close to its 20th year uh where our local restaurants in jensen beach participate in downtown and it's a really fun night a few years back we we added our christmas tree lighting ceremony uh to the taste of jensen so it's 6 15 right ron 6 15 tonight uh we will light the christmas tree in downtown jensen uh are we having ube latte this year again fantastic uh so if you want to come out and and get some festive cheer prior to uh palm cities yes please do come and if you did talk about hope sound uh in indiantown i didn't have a chance to get out to indiantown this year but i did get to hope sounds christmas parade commissioner jenkins uh you and hope sound always throw one heck of a party you have a phenomenal turnout of folks kudos to you and kudos to the community down there it's always a really fun place to be and um people are fantastic it just i if you've never been to the hope sound christmas parade uh mark it on your calendar next year to to see it because it's really super super exciting i want to give laney uh munich um credit um she's our executive director of the hope sound chamber and really is a superstar and did a wonderful job as usual and she was really over stressing when i got there oh yeah uh which means that she's working incredibly hard to make sure that every single little detail came off perfect and i and i'm and i'm guessing for the observers no one ever noticed the difference that things may or may not have gone perfectly uh but from those of us who got to participate um it went off perfectly selenia agreed thank you very very much and the entire team down there the interesting thing to add stress to munich uh frantic uh organization of the event is she was completely swarmed by fire ants uh on her hands and feet and legs and she still muscled through so with that we will now take our proclamation number one a reorganization of the board of county commissioners um with that i would we'll bring miss gordon forward to navigate us through the process as one of the final um strategies as chair i would recommend to my colleagues that we do the election of chair and vice chair and then potentially hold off the selection of committees and and groups that we serve in and we can do that later in the agenda so the folks that are here for specific items don't have to sit through the back and forth of us picking you're so funny one last one last grasp hold just take it out of my cold just in case with that in mind i would there might be a new chair i would assume that there will be a new chair uh with that in mind i would miss gordon you are recognized donna gordon for administration and we need a new new or re-new chair okay commissioner hetherington i would move that our vice chair uh commissioner jenkins move up to be the chair and i would second that thank you we have a motion by commissioner hetherington seconded by commissioner smith all those in favor aye all those opposed the motion carries unanimously congratulations congratulations um with that in mind do you want to do oh you better do it now because that's right because we don't know where the chairs will go um i'll entertain a motion for vice chair i'll move stacy i'll second that okay we have a motion by commissioner smith uh seconded by commissioner jenkins that commissioner hetherington become the vice chair all those in favor all those opposed that motion carries unanimously with that we can take a um 15 minute 10 minute break for closed captioning uh i would just say in closing that i very much appreciated my time as chair and who i'd like to thank is our staff that doesn't normally get the thanks one is donna gordon two is layla from the clerk's office uh martha ann and laura who read the proclamations and our gentlemen that work in mctv they smoothly make all of these details with the commission uh work out well and that is my thanks commissioner smith as well mr chair i would like to thank you for your year um you do a remarkable job leading um the meetings and i think there's been a lot of special things you've done during the course of the year especially with your veterans uh that have come forward that have been absolutely fantastic so thank you very much i appreciate it thank you second that one we'll take a break and we'll be back in 10 minutes are we on you're on yes okay if we could take our seats so we can get this party started so first of all i want to thank my fellow board members for the confidence of making me chair again which is interesting since my last tenure as chair was during 2020 and we all know what happened in 2020 so i would deeply appreciate um not doing that again yes we don't blame you for the your chairmanship for the pandemic and you know and keep keeping the controversy to a minimum would be uh would be a wonderful thing yes that we can't so anyway um we are going to postpone our our committee assignments with our reorg until um an appropriate time uh we've got a lot of people in the room that are here for a specific reason um we are and we're also going to postpone our community redevelopment agency board member appointments uh that's donna until later we are going to take up because we do have one speaker that would like to talk about um public hearing number one and i would like to introduce that item now which is public hearing to adopt notice of intent resolution required by section one nine seven dot three six three two florida statues for special assessments and david duncan which i don't know uh and sam amerson are going to do it and you're neither so welcome mr keithley thank you much for the record phil keithley chief project manager for the utilities and solid waste department this is a public hearing to adopt a nine non-binding resolution declaring the board's intent to use the uniform method of collection for non-advalorum assessments for a proposed series of special assessments that may be imposed within certain municipal service benefit units to be established for road paving ancillary drainage dredging services storm water services and facilities and water and or wastewater projects section 197.3632 florida statutes requires that the county hold a public hearing and adopt a resolution of intent to use the uniform method of collection for any assessment program in the calendar year prior to any such collection the resolution which does not obligate the county either to use the uniform method of collection or to impose any one special assessment must be adopted by january 1 2024 and sent to the tax collector the property appraiser and the department of revenue by january 10th 2024 additionally section 197.3632 requires that notice of public hearing to adopt the resolution of intent be published for four consecutive weeks immediately preceding the date of the hearing the notice of intent was properly advertised and the affidavit of publication of the notice of intent will be part of the resolution the notice of intent allows the county to meet its statutory notice requirements necessary to use the uniform collection method the resolution to be adopted today is non-binding and the board may reduce the geographic areas covered by any future assessment or decide not to impose any special assessments at a later date by adopting the resolution the board is simply preserving the right to use the uniform collection method beginning in november 2024 for projects implemented prior to such a date staff's recommendation is for the board to accept public comment and adopt the resolution of intent to use the uniform method of collection for non-advalorum assessments i conclude presentation okay any questions for staff no we have one speaker that would like to talk about this is michael circus good morning thank you for your time mike circus palm city uh coming to late last september this board voted unanimously five to zero for the for the establishment of the 2024 budget for martin county including a millage rate increase uh puts martin county squarely in the top three of the most taxed residents out of 67 counties in the state of florida worth 630 million dollars to finance the the operation of government or government operations for 160 000 residents and that does include school board taxes uh to be very clear i don't challenge one bit the need for some of these these projects that are listed in the special assessments i absolutely challenge the idea that we need a special assessment to finance basic governmental responsibilities the very first action taken by this board after the establishment of the budget was a land acquisition that after paying the financing will cost will cost nearly 900 000 an acre there's also 200 000 subsidy inside our budget for a water park that's allegedly making money and on top of that there's also zero dollars being put aside for the operation of the golf uh golf arcade as as some people have called it as well as the restaurant something that'll be brought up in january for a possible uh a possible need to get a subsidy on the second half of the budget year our priorities are just absolutely lost plain and simple we have failing infrastructure we have water issues we have a need to to repair our wastewater systems provide water we have dredging concerns i don't challenge any of this one bit i challenge the idea that we would tax martin county residents the highest out of 67 counties in the state of florida that we would create the affordability crisis that we are creating by excessive taxation over inflated home values and inability to insure our homes because of how high they are valued we have supplemental taxes added into our fpl bill we have gas taxes that are absolutely capped out across the board martin county residents are giving you every penny we possibly can and quite frankly some of us are having to decide between a steak dinner and a hamburger dinner because we have property tax bills coming in april that would absolutely decimate most people we have priorities we have needs we have issues in this county need addressing we need to stop throwing our money at legacy building empires as some people have done and instead focus on what governmental responsibilities are i know if i were in your seats i would oppose a special assessment there's no need for it there's a need for prioritization i sincerely hope you all agree there any you want to respond okay commissioner camp just to set the record straight on the vote for the millage increase i voted no so it was not unanimous commissioner heard yeah i'm going to move approval of this item but i also while mr keithley and and mr emerson are in the room i want to thank you uh there was a a major pipe break in rocky point in the neighborhood last monday and um you repaired it in a very timely manner uh it was repaired before five o'clock that day and at the same time you were struggling with a bigger pipe break on hutchinson island where you had to dig a hole it was twice as big in order to repair so i just wanted to thank you for your timely and efficient and professional response it was appreciated and you also didn't in can be you inconvenienced as few people in rocky point as you could so we are thankful and that was a motion yes okay we have a motion by commissioner heard seconded by commissioner smith all in favor actually i didn't ask for additional comments now vote that's you all right motion passes unanimously thank you thank you okay now we're going to move on to public hearing number two legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of comprehensive plan amendment cpa 22-06 calusa creek ranch text amendment by mr clyde dulin good morning members of the board my name is clyde dulin i'm the comprehensive planning administrator and uh as you said this is a transmittal public hearing uh this is uh one of three public hearings the first one was held with the local planning agency on november 16. um if this and if the third public hearing would be an adoption hearing at some point in the future probably after the first of the year at the local planning agency hearing the board the lpa voted 3-2 to recommend approval of this proposed amendment however they also put a little additional addendum on their their recommendation they said if development uses 100 plumbing fixtures or more it must connect to water and sewer it doesn't out have the option of using either septic or advanced wastewater treatment it must connect to want to water and sewer if it has more than 100 plumbing fixtures so as you said this is an adoption public hearing i'm sorry who transmittal public hearing there is a supplemental memo it has all the public comment with it uh was received as of november 29 and there is also additional public comment that should be on the dais for each of you that we received through yesterday so the changes proposed in this text amendment this is not a site-specific text amendment and uh on the screen we have a map showing uh a buffer area around freestanding urban service districts and the primary urban service district that's what this hatching that you see here is extending around this area that represents 6 000 feet of distance from the primary urban service district or a freestanding urban service district so moving into the text currently the rural lifestyle future land use designation has two options you have to have a minimum thousand acres has to be adjacent to the primary the secondary or freestanding and the two options for development are one unit per 20 acres and less in which case you don't have to do off-site preservation and the other option is one unit per 20 acres or more up to a maximum of one unit per five in which case you have to do off-site preservation one acre for every two acres of rural lifestyle the proposed text change that's here before you today for your consideration would be to also allow the rural lifestyle future land use designation on properties that are within one sorry within 3 000 feet of either the primary urban service district or a freestanding urban service district however those properties would be limited to a density of one unit per 20 acres or less which is the same density as the agricultural future land use designation throughout martin county and so that's what this text right here on the screen is talking about the um the other item here on in this bullet on this item paren 3 is that this option for rural lifestyle would also be prohibited around the primary urban service district that is indiantown and there's a reiteration here that it's a maximum of one unit per 20 acres and all other standards of the comprehensive plan must be complied with that's wetlands protection upland habitat protection everything else has to be complied with as part of any proposed text amendment here discussed here today the minimum 70 open space remains a part of the rural lifestyle and would be applicable to any property of 3 000 acres or more within 6 000 feet of the primary urban service district there's a text change here in paren 3 that's recommended by staff which clarifies that the um uh gross density uh that the dormitory housing must follow the gross density of the pud that's just a minor wording change that wasn't asked for by the applicant as you can see there are very few other changes proposed in the text move on down to another change proposed uh one change proposed here was uh recommended by staff so that um the extension of utility services would be to properties with a rural lifestyle future land use designation as opposed to the planned unit development uh we've realized that there is a potential you could have more than one rural lifestyle future land use property with a rural lifestyle future land use designation in proximity to each other so it makes more sense to simply run one utility line to serve the two of them instead of two utility defines to serve them each individually the other change here uh is another one offered by staff and there's an extensive amount of data analysis attached to this staff report a preliminary analysis of state statute in this text right here in parentheses staff is recommending that where the extension of utility service is not cost feasible for the regional utility or the applicant does not choose to connect because there is that possibility um the applicant for a rural lifestyle will be required to use enhanced nutrient reducing on-site sewage treatment and disposal systems this is completely consistent with state statute and it is a requirement of state statute for properties of one acre or less anywhere in a basin that's being monitored for water quality um an mstu and i'm not i'm sorry not an mstu but i i um the word escapes me they but it is a basin that the d the dep monitors uh for water quality and is a state statutory change that is i'm sorry i'm sorry uh is a requirement in uh for for martin county in the future so that if you have one acre or less and you're in one of the basin management areas you have to use either septic i'm sorry you have to use at least advanced wastewater treatment or you have to use water and sewer you're not allowed to use septic on on one acre and smaller parcels so it is definitely something that the state is pushing counties towards doing and so we are making this suggested change to be completely consistent with state statute and in fact in more than consistent with this within the rural lifestyle future land use moving on to cover a couple more changes that are contained in this text as you can see there's very little striker underlined in the back in the remainder here the one more item i'll cover is the applicant requested to have residential multi-slip docking facilities added to the um the permitted uses in the pud for a that would be associated with a rural lifestyle future land use designation with that commissioners i think i've covered the major pieces of text change that are are in this i'll reiterate this this is a transmittal hearing if the board votes to approve transmittal of this item it'll go off to the state land planning agency and all of the surrounding jurisdictions and everyone will have a chance to comment in a 30-day period and then it would come back to you for adoption at a later date and with that i'll end staff presentation and be happy to take any questions any questions for staff seeing none the applicant have a presentation good morning tyson waters on behalf of the applicant thank you for this opportunity to present this today in addition to the project team with us today is chip barney whose family owned the property for 20 years as well as ken and suzanne bask the current owners of the property we appreciate staff's efforts and their work on this and we agree with staff's recommendation as well as the lpa recommendation and we hope that you move to transmit this to the state before i briefly talk about some of the elements of the amendment i would like to ask chip barney to come up here to briefly go over his family's involvement with the property as well as how we ended up here today good morning chip barney i live in palm beach gardens and our family owned the close creek ranch for about 20 plus years and uh during that time we've had the property and working agriculture the whole time we had uh cattle out there the entire time we had a tree farm for i don't remember how long about 15 years or so and i have a bamboo nursery still out there that's about 17 years old um a little bit of history with our uh own ownership of the property if you believe it was back in 2010 we got a comprehensive plan amendment approved and were granted uh the right to build 600 single family homes out there in return for preserving a large swath of property that was uh going to be maintained by the state and used for rainwater retention so they were going to have to fill in all the ditches uh burn it up a little bit so that the rainwater stayed there and percolated into the ground for various reasons financial or priorities the state basically walked away from that obligation and so our family reverted back to the 20 acre ranch at zoning um we continue to farm the property for another 10 years or whatever and um eventually about three or four years ago our family decided for various reasons that it was time for us to sell the property um you know by that time we really had uh a lot of feelings for the property because we'd spent so much time there i personally spent a lot of time out there i've got a ton of memories and uh you know we really thought that it was a special piece of property and so when we went about trying to sell the property we attempted to find a buyer who matched our values and had a vision for the property that was in line with ours and we were successful in doing that and ken and suzanne they their vision absolutely uh aligned with ours and uh not to mention the fact that they had a history already doing this um so i think we met the right people at the right time and um the reason so you might be you might be saying chip you sold the property why are you here and it's true we did we sold the property i i don't own any of the property i i lease land out there for my my nursery and um the reason that i'm here is because i absolutely believe in this project i think it is a great project for this particular property um for all the reasons other people have mentioned the extremely low density um i think it's important to remind people that this we're talking about approximately six square miles of property um and you know to hear people use terms like uh unbridled growth and things like that and over development is it seems crazy to me uh considering the size of the property and the scope of the project but uh it's also going to have a tremendous amount of open space i think it was 90 plus percent open space it's going to preserve uh what i consider the heart of the property which is all the environments the the habitat and the wetlands the forests everything uh so that's going to be uh protected and uh i think that's a great thing uh additionally they're going to continue to do agriculture uh which i you know obviously i support because i'm in agriculture and uh i also think that you know the economic activity uh economic development and activity surrounding this project will be way more than we could have ever have done with cows and trees out there it's just uh it's not even close and uh also i think that uh we just feel the barneys feel like this is just a higher and better use of the property um you know other than compared to when we owned the property it was a thousand cattle and me driving around in a swamp buggy drinking beer that was that was the use of the property and so i i think that this is clearly a much better higher use for that property um one other note that i will i will mention just based on some comments i've heard when we decided to sell the property i was the person basically selling the property i met with all the potential buyers i toured them all around the property and i heard all their stories and their visions for the property and something that's worth noting is that there were no farmers trying to buy this property none they were all developers all with different plans um so you know the that's just the reality of the situation just on our property and other properties so i think it's just worth noting but um you know in short we just think it's a great project it's going to be great for that piece of property it's going to be great for the county and we'll think we think it'll be great for the state so i hope you guys agree thank you thank you chip so what does this amendment do um it's very simple amendment what we're doing is creating a new category of eligible properties a property has to be 3 000 acres so triple the size of what's currently required and must be located within 6 000 feet of either the primary or sec or freestanding service district no increase in density so right now we're allowed one unit for 20 acres that density that gross density will remain you'll see in a few weeks when we come back with our plan unit development and master site plan we're actually at one unit for 22 acres at 175 units and we're required to comply with all the other enhanced standards within the rural lifestyle um land use designation so what does this amendment do it allows for residential development to occur on a smaller segment of the property allowing more open space allowing more preservation of environmentally sensitive lands and a less intense development it allows for water and sewer to be brought to be for provided to the property it eliminates potentially 195 septic tanks that can be spread across these 3900 acres it requires 70 percent open space that's an increase of the 50 50 percent that's required under the agricultural land use again when this project comes forward with the master site plan in a few weeks you'll see we're actually around 91 open space and under this lifestyle amendment we're required to do a plan unit development agreement so no longer can we do straight zoning which is allowed in ag but we've got to come back to you and demonstrate all those public benefits we typically have to do in a plan unit development but we also have to satisfy all the requirements in this land use designation all those enhanced public benefits that we're now obligated to demonstrate one of which is we have to demonstrate an enhancement of water quality above and beyond what's required in the land development codes it also will require that all the upland preserves and all the wetlands are taken outside of residential lots which is allowed under the agricultural land use and instead we put them in separate parcels covered under a preserve area management plan so what does this amendment not do it does not increase density density remains at a gross density of one unit per 20 acres it does not expand the urban service district and it does not result in urban sprawl it does not increase traffic beyond what's already allowed under the agricultural land use and it does not allow for any uses that are not currently allowed under the agricultural land use and i think this is a very important fact that we need to acknowledge we need to understand and appreciate that development can occur under the agricultural land use designation using this property these 3900 acres as an example under the current land use we can do up to 195 residential lots we can do multiple golf courses we can do clubhouse and amenities and we can do golf cottages and we can do all that by straight zoning so as long as we meet your minimum requirements and your land development regulations the project gets approved what this new land use designation will require again that we come back to you with a plan unit development so now the county's involved in the planning in the efforts to provide more public benefits better public benefits that benefits make sure we appreciate the water quality make sure we protect the environment so all of those things will now come into play what it also does it eliminates the requirement to have up to 195 septic tanks to service those lots to service the golf courses the clubhouse and those cottages this misunderstanding or lack of understanding of what can happen under the agricultural land use is prevalent i think you heard it this morning a clear misunderstanding of what's allowed in agricultural land use i would imagine you might hear some later and i know you've recently received some earlier public comment with that same misunderstanding i think one of the things i noticed was nothing was more evident than the letter you received from thousand friends of florida that commented on this amendment and they closed their letter with the following statement plans for collusa creek development would undermine the intent of legislation enacted earlier this year at the direction of governor desantis to eliminate septic tanks connected to the indian river lagoon that comment could not be farther from the truth in reality it's the opposite of what this amendment does today again we can develop this under the agricultural land use but we're required to be on septic tanks under this amendment under this land use designation we now get rid of the septic tanks and we can connect to water and sewer or as staff mentioned in the gut in the governor's legislation there's an enhanced nutrient system that we can also do what this amendment is trying to do is in furtherance of that intent we all agree water quality protecting our environmentally sensitive lands are vital to the character of this community and i think with that in mind i'd like like to ask our environmental consultant to come up toby overdorf to talk about some of the environmental benefits of this land use designation and this amendment thank you tyson and uh thank you commissioners for having us here today i want to talk a little bit about the environmental issues associated with this project when you look at the the project as a whole and i've i think i've been over almost every inch of that place the place is amazing um but there's some major problems right now with with the parcel there is exotic vegetation from one end to the other it's choking out a lot of the wetland areas it's choking out a lot of what we're seeing out there this project um and all the wetlands that have been delineated um already by the water management district right now all those wetlands are literally being choked out by the same um the same exotic vegetation additionally there is no management plan that's currently on that parcel there will be a management plan that's under one entity right now um you could go in there and have 195 separate management plans throughout the entire parcel associated with those 20 acre ranchettes instead you're going to have one entity that the county can make a call to and say hey this doesn't look right or a state entity can make a call to and say hey this doesn't look right and they're responsible for doing all the management we had some uh some folks talk earlier about well hey let's just let's just buy the land let's take that off the tax rolls and buy the land and we'll manage it you know i've been over a lot of uh the land that has been purchased by the state or by the county or by the feds it's filled with exotic vegetation it's not functioning as as it was intended uh there are some areas that are managed very well but that's the unfortunately and an exception to that and that goes back to costing the taxpayer to manage all those areas as well this will not uh be a taxpayer managed area whatsoever additionally you look at um we talked a little bit about the septic we talked about the sewer this is taking all of those septic areas potential septic areas offline and putting them in sewer instead it's a great expense that the that the proposed owner and the proposed developer is doing with this uh as far as putting in all the piping systems putting it in that putting in that property but they're embracing it they're saying we do not want those nutrients to go into our system by doing this we've also had some talks uh from some different folks here also about how you manage and all of these uh various items are going to be going into the golf course and we're looking at um pesticides we're looking at herbicides we're looking at fertilizer that's going in the management associated with this is literally going to be top notch what we don't look at right now is what are the uses that are currently there now you you heard the the current owner talk about the landscape material that they're currently growing landscape material they're currently growing which also has fertilizers also deals with pesticides also deals with those types of things that's never been managed here but that's an allowed use that's currently on the project also when you look at this you're not going to be applying more than what is needed on that parcel as well you're looking at management plans that are very specific to grow certain things on that parcel and you're not applying that across the entire area finally when you look at the overall management of the parcel you have a large amount of open space you have areas that wildlife that cannot currently use it is going to be able to be to use in that area you have water areas that are not being managed right now but they will be in the long term and finally you have a tremendous area of buffers around these wetlands that frankly right now are not vegetated whatsoever which is currently allowed and there's nothing that's illegal about that however we're going to be restoring all those buffers and putting them into place so that we do have the county mandated buffers state mandated buffers and they're naturally vegetated so i'm happy to take questions on it but i proudly support this project and look forward to working on it and in the future thank you smaller lots better protection of the environment enhanced water quality 1200 acres of ag land 91 open space this amendment allows encourages and mandates better smarter planning i would ask that you agree with your staff and the local planning agency and you vote to transmit this to the state thank you very much any questions for the applicant seeing none we'll move on to public comment begin with mr ron rose oh and you have ph3 on your you want to good morning my name is ron rose i'm the president ceo of the jensen beach chamber of commerce uh how are you all doing today good for 73 years the jensen beach chamber of commerce has been committed to helping our business community thrive and supporting projects key projects that deliver widespread benefits across martin county um and will benefit our local business community after careful review of the ranch we feel that this would be a great addition to the quality of life of our area based on what you just heard plus it provides meaningful economic benefits the ranch also focuses on open space and the appreciation of nature we ask that you approve the ranch okay with that dana marini followed by matthew marini hi thank you for your time today um my father is actually matthew marini and he had to go home because he wasn't feeling well um so i am a property owner in martin county we've had a small business that has been doing business in real estate in martin county for the better part of 20 years um and i just think that this is an absolutely wonderful use of the land here um it is a project that is committed to conservation and protecting the environment protecting wetlands and also meeting the demand for residents in the county we live in a desirable area people want to move here they need places to live and this is a fantastic use of that um i just want to say as somebody that has had family members that have been subject to the cost of converting their septic systems to sewer systems because of protecting the environment it makes sense to have this amended pass so that you don't have to actually incur the cost there or the environmental ramifications of having septic systems on the property and i'm so sorry i'm so nervous right now so i appreciate you guys understanding this but i really do hope you approve the amendment and move forward with this property and thank you again for your time and you said matthew is no longer here well he's not in the room he's not in the room okay well you had to go there welcome to a year of that am i okay yeah we've got mr joe flanagan followed by mr jim moyer terrific tuesday to everyone joe flanagan martin county i moved here in 1988 when salerno road was dirt i've watched it grow uh and it's become the place that provides with a lot more of course back then everybody wanted to push a button and say i just moved to paradise but i don't want anybody else here i sat on the lpa for four years and i listened to so many people would come in and the public would line up and say please don't let them build here please don't let them build here but when i looked at the address i'm going like didn't 10 years ago you were the people we said don't build this and moving on this is a wonderful project it is controlled it is very much so because i applaud the varneys and having done their homework i would love to say please sell it to a farmer that effort was made the farmland the citrus things like that are not where they need to be but this is a controlled group uh the other thing is okay i would buy it and break it up into little pieces and put 10 acres of four-story town homes and then this would be a whole different kind of discussion from there uh doing mr doolan's math which i applaud is it is no density increase one unit per 20 acres the whole thing or you can put them all in a row i support very much what this is and it is it's a wonderful direction to go because if you look between here and lake okeechobee or indiantown how much of that is just wide open out there this is a controlled method to get there there are some bumps in the road and those will be worked out by our wonderful growth management staff and the decisions that you guys make moving forward but i personally support this very much all right next up mr moyer followed by greg brawn good morning mr chairman commissioners um thank you for being here my name is jim moyer i've been a resident of martin county rocky point for 32 years one year of the rural land use amendment it has demonstrated how dangerous and poorly considered it was it relies on the erroneous premise that active agriculture and recreational amenities provide natural services comparable to conservation land and it afford and will afford similar protections to our waters and our wetlands it won't this land use category has jeopardized martin county's difference like almost nothing else i've ever seen in order to evolve and accommodate the sprawling suburban development of numerous plantation communities with landscape recreational amenities this amendment has contorted language and logic of the comp plan the comp plan was what made martin county's difference important in order to expand upon the folly of the atlantic fields project we've been asked to create freestanding urban service districts flip-flop parcels of future land use designation suspend conventional definitions of what constitutes sprawl not to require pd agreements contemporary with the rural land use amendment and to pretend that the infrastructure is adequate to unbridled western development we've been asked to interpret the clean waterways act 1379 in the most favorable way for this particular development projects outside the urban service district to pretend um agricultural uh land use and residential golf ag communities don't pollute is ridiculous pushing prices of conservation land and acquisition to unaffordable costs doesn't serve our future resiliency or our community it just makes everything less affordable but to redefine the word adjacent to mean more than a mile is absurd this county has yet to sponsor a workshop or to find out if the support for dissolving the urban service boundary even exists the fund the urban service boundary is a foundational pillar of what makes martin county different today you're being asked to double down on the scheme that has lost reason this rural land use amendment has metastasized i fear the cancer will be the end of what we consider to be martin county it's magical it's a different place ending this amendment is going to be politically painful but it's necessary this is the place we love it's our home mr braun will be followed by brandon tucker morning commissioners thank you for diligently listening to everybody's perspectives thank you for your service i'm greg braun i'm a certified environmental professional and i'm here in my capacity as executive director of the guardians of martin county we believe that the guiding document that sets martin county apart from the urbanization that extends from jupiter all the way down to key west and all the way to the north of us is directly related to martin county's comprehensive growth management plan and we give credit to the voters in martin county who have over the last several decades pretty consistently voted for people who have pledged their support to the comp plan the letter that the guardians president peter conzi and i jointly submitted last week specifically describes our concerns about the calusa ranch project not completely opposed to it but they're too numerous for me to be able to get into details here in three minutes while we do like the commitment by the owners to permanently set aside 70 of the property as open space or maybe 90 as we just heard we still don't believe that the county followed the guidance of a wise man who once told me negotiate the best deal that you can get now the county followed that guidance in crafting the rural lifestyle zoning amendment and have that been successful in addressing the concerns of most of the residents we probably wouldn't be here today but unfortunately nearly all of the community's concerns about rural lifestyle were never addressed no provision to make sure that new golf courses don't worsen the pollution of our waterways no allowance that even a small component of the new tax revenue would go towards land acquisition no genuine follow-through on the need to study western lands to identify ecologically and economically sustainable elk agriculture so here we are because the county is still unable or unwilling to define a specific boundary on what properties could potentially fit into this proposed criteria the gardens the guardians still oppose this amendment amending the comp plan now to allow a rural lifestyle development for which only a portion of it is more than a mile away from the usb is not appropriate please don't move forward with this text amendment at this time thank you mr tucker will be followed by bruce monofusco good morning mr chairman fellow commissioners county staff my name is brandon tucker i'm the executive director of the florida landowners association furthermore i'm a resident of martin county since 1996 raised both of my two adult children now that both graduated from martin county high school as many of you know i've served in many capacities in this community over the years and love martin county like all of you do first of all i want to start out thinking mr donaldson's staff mr dolan their hard work all of all of your hard work that you have gone through this process for a great deal of time this is not an easy thing to deal with you come under a lot of scrutiny but at the end of the day the focus of the florida landowners owners association is the preservation of private property rights we're a statewide organization that focuses on issues that affect property rights throughout the state of florida but being a martin county resident and watching this project over a great deal of time here it's on our radar and that's why i wanted to come spend some time with you this morning to talk about it we've heard for many here this morning the positive aspects of this development of what they're doing beyond the straight line zoning that's already a vested property right if there's ever been a standard set going the extra mile and then some i think this is one of the greatest examples i've ever seen in my 27 years in my career i am in the real estate business as well and been involved in many projects in many counties but to see what is being presented by this landowner by this applicant to go the extra mile and then some to put so much land into open space to actually reduce density from the straight line zoning that exists today to prevent septic tanks from going on that piece of property to prevent what would be if this was just a straight 20 acre ag development that would be much more intensive paving from impervious area that would have to be extended to all of those lots all of those impacts that would have to happen will not occur as this uh comp plan amendment enhances what already exists today so the florida landowners owners association stands with this project i commend martin county its staff its diligence and what it's doing here to set once again not just the gold standard but the platinum standard in the state of florida as to what we see as true smart planned and thoughtful growth so congratulations to the staff i would highly recommend our association highly recommends that you approve this amendment and we look forward to seeing this be the new standard throughout the state of florida so congratulations on that thank you all for your time okay mr monofusco where are you i don't see him okay let's go with uh linda smith followed by i'll get back now followed by uh greg braun again oh you've got the threes mixed up with the two no no i don't those are yours okay you piled the pile i'm sorry all right linda smith no linda smith how about uh girl lad gail lad they're gone larry mueller morning commissioners my name is larry mueller my wife and i have lived in martin county for 35 years we raised three children who are now all living and working in martin county and having children of their own my family loves the quality of life afforded to us in martin county and we want to see martin county grow and maintain that close-knit caring community that martin county has always aspired to we all live in a very special place and it's important for all of us to contribute stay engaged and maintain the lifestyle that we all have come to enjoy i'm here to support the calusa creek project as some of you know i have experience in real estate development development has always been a point of much debate around here the commission and prior commissioner commissions have always debated what are the right projects that best benefit the martin county standards after reviewing the calusa creek site plan and getting a better understanding of what they are proposing i am thinking that they not only meet the martin county standards but they exceed them the project will maintain the rural character of the land the project emphasizes the importance of maintaining the wildlife corridor by leaving 91 percent open space on their almost 4 000 acres of land the project will have a minimal impact on martin county's infrastructure with its low housing density this project will generate significant tax revenue that will benefit all residents in martin county i urge all of you to support the calusa creek project and take advantage of a tremendous opportunity to have this project take place in our community thank you for your consideration mr brian swain followed by todd orloff thank you all for the moment to get up here and speak in favor of the calusa creek project uh i'm a lifelong member uh resident in martin county as well as an outdoorsman a fisherman by profession i've raised three children here in martin county all of whom share my my same passion for the outdoors and the environment in martin county the calusa creek project provides the appropriate steps to preserve green space protect our water quality and provide an area where future development will be limited in its density as it sits it could be four times as dense as it's currently being proposed and i think we all agree that keeping the the density out there lower is better um i believe this project is in line with the values of martin county um as far as the the slower growth as well as increasing tax revenues uh the amount of preserved area is something that will create lasting environments for the wildlife out there and i just urge that this this council doesn't um fear the slippery slope as you hear a lot of these people talking about um if we develop this this is going to happen the next thing's going to happen it's going to be this massive um boom of growth this project the way it's designed where it's taking place is not that slippery slope it's not a floodgate it's a project that i believe in that this should be in martin county thank you thank you um mr orloff followed by barbara birdsey good morning how you guys doing i've been uh i've been a member of a person who lived in florida i'm fourth generation florida and as a community i think we should we should look favorable favorably upon projects like this in martin county it's because of how it's been designed in a way to continue to conserve and protect the natural aspects of the property it's pretty impressive that this site will maintain 91 open space especially when you consider that's over six square miles on this expanse of land hundreds of cattle will still continue to continue to roam as they have for decades plus the owners have committed to hundreds of acres of wetland protections as the nearby waterways were taken into consideration since this site will still use water and sewer systems rather than well and septic systems this project shows how conservation can go hand in hand with development hopefully you'll see this natural beauty of this and project hopefully you see the natural beauty of this project like i do and vote to support it thank you thank you miss birdsey followed by michael circus good morning my name is barbara birdsey i live in hope sound and i'm here on behalf of the log salusi rivers initiative a project that has been going for several years now oh oh um at any rate we've been diligently working to acquire lands on bridge road for conservation we continue that work this body actually unanimously um approved our work a few years back and we have um concerns at this point about the large numbers of developments coming in the um the map that you see is not very professional it was merely an effort to begin a process that we plan to continue that will by presenting a larger map that would be available to uh to the county obviously with different uh fold over clear pages that show areas of critical concern areas of potential development areas that are being developed and something we can add on to the future as you will see the um the pink dots on here represent uh the the little squares represent approximate um developments that are 250 acres or more the bigger squares represent those that are a thousand acres or more and of course um discovery and um now i understand story has applied are not even on this map yet so my concern is that we have created an urban service boundary that's an endangered species and that not the amount of forethought is going into this planning we need a better plan a lot of people have talked about wildlife but they really don't have much of a voice here and they need to be able to move from place to place to place if they are to survive so i would i'm not speaking nay or yay on this just that this is an area of considerable concern for our organization thank you thank you mr circus is followed by larry muller larry muller already spoke thank you good morning once more uh i initially had no intentions of speaking about this public item but uh listening to some of the public comments this morning something struck me we talked a little bit about the history of the comprehensive plan and something i want to point out is that in the four decades the comprehensive plan the the martin county board of commissioners has gone through several phases we've had times of slow growth we've had times of hyper growth and we've had times where there's been an attempt to have simply no growth yet in that 40 year period we've still had one consistent value that's roughly two percent population growth year over year nothing has changed that people are coming and if we're going to take a look at the next 40 years 50 10 years a million years chances are we're going to keep seeing people so the question is not whether or not people are coming to our community it's how we're going to deal with it where we're going to put them now a couple things in the comprehensive plan that i want to point out that also get overlooked often is that we have a four four story height limit that puts a cap on how many people you can put in the community which is great inside the urban service boundary for visuals and it gives us that martin county style it really does but it caps where you're going to put people we also have a desire in our community to retain green spaces inside the urban service boundary which is fantastic because we don't have concrete jungles like we have in palm beach county but that in itself is a cap of where you're going to put people we know that there's one universal truth people are coming here so the question is where are we going to put them in the future and do we want to try to figure out a way to maintain the lifestyle that we all come to want and desire if we're to build out our urban service boundary before we consider putting communities outside of it that's fine but all your green space is gone your four story height limit is going to have to go we're going to have to see larger structures to accommodate people that's a fact we don't want to see urban sprawl we don't need 3 000 houses on 3 000 acres we need to figure out how we're going to do this we need to plan this forward but we have to recognize the truth is people are coming and no matter if you're slow growth no growth or pro growth people are still coming so not talking about the the project at hand taking a look at this future land use amendment in itself you need to recognize you need every tool possible to accommodate people coming to the area because they're going to do it so how are you going to make this jive with the already desired lifestyle in morn county thank you good um thank you um gg two maybe bay you beg that's a b sorry second h um about a year ago we were told the likelihood of additional rural lifestyle development would be rare now we have multiple applications last year the commission responded and they said that they would reduce the potential allowed rural lifestyle lands everybody was satisfied now we're looking at a proposed expansion to make more agricultural land available again the county doesn't know how many acres will be affected and this is our agricultural bread basket as it disappears we're going to have more consumers but we do know that this develop this amendment that you're looking at is going to allow projects of 3 000 acres outside of the urban service district and that they will be at least 4.6 square miles and that rural lifestyle development will be allowed up to 6 000 feet away from the urban service district we also know that this amendment will allow nutrient enriching septic tanks those only remove 65 percent of nitrogen it doesn't address other chemicals that will be leaching into our soil and our water it will also allow marinas and we already know that we have problems with pollutants in the south fork of the saint lucie river rural lifestyle is a carefully crafted set of regulations which has discounted facility loads on urban services that are created by golf cottages adus and other facilities such as convenience stores and marinas by not counting these capacity uses not adding their density to the land use of the applications it's avoiding the label of urban sprawl despite the facts that everybody here for the most part believes that these will create waste and use services and create urban sprawl we the residents taxpayers and people in the locks of lucie are very uncomfortable with rural lifestyle land use for these reasons as well as the county's failure to identify and prevent fragmentation of conservation areas because we are looking for connective gateways and we would like you to update the county's comp plan to address this growth and the urban service district and the continued failure by you and your administration to provide this transparency is eroding the confidence in you and the administration marty stern good afternoon thank you for allowing me to speak today my name is marty stern i'm a proud resident of martin county also a long time baseball youth baseball coach here in martin county i was fortunate enough to have my son be a member of the 2021 little league world series team and that's where i met the folks over at calusa creek they were one of the first families to step forward and supply donations to some of the families that could not afford to go to williamsport to watch their kids my family loves martin county to cherish the community and we fully support the private preservation plan known as the ranch we think our community needs this it emphasizes open spaces agricultural preservation and also a significant uh tax base of 25 million dollars a year i hope that you guys will support and approve um the ranch and calusa creek thank you okay i have three forms here that seems that they've already taken a bite of the apple mr mary or larry mueller you've already spoke on this item mr cartwright you have also already spoke on this item and terry gibson you have also spoke at this item so you've already had one bite so with that um tammy simone simino simino i want to um my name is tammy simino i'm from jensen beach and a former director of the economic council of martin county and i'm here to give you praise and support this great project i'm honored to know and to have witnessed all the wonderful things that the barneys have done with calusa creek and our community from buying baseball your football uniforms to helping out the church in indiantown whenever there's a need they step up and they fulfill it they were also one of the major vision contributors behind the treasure coast classic academy charter school and each year for their own selves they're removing a hundred thousand million gallons of dirty water before it goes into the c44 calendar into lagoon now we have a lot of residents that love martin county but i think they're demonstrating how much they love and how much they care for this i'm just really honored that they did find someone who wants to continue to take care of the property and the land as they have done and i think this would be great for martin county i'm not going to mention all of the wonderful aspects that you heard the limit of the homes the cattle operation the 90 of the property on and on and on because you've heard that many many times but what i do want to say is that many speakers have spoken up here about their concerns and high taxes and infrastructure and everything that they love about martin county but what i don't think that they realize is the things that they love are the things that the staff and the county have already done for them you know they're in the term in the dictionary there's a a word called nimby not in my backyard and every community has nimby isms and we are no exception whether you're wearing the hat the red shirt the blowhorns the rally out front every community deals with that and i am not condemning i'm not making fun of in fact i respect their passion but i have to remind you that in every major contribution to this county we've had the nimby's they have spoken but we have to look at what we've already done the indian street bridge can you imagine today if we hadn't we had said we don't want any change we're not doing that we wouldn't have the green river parkway and now look at the traffic that it takes off of us one the johnson beach mooring fields and other customs at the airport i can go on and on and on all these things were opposed by nimby's and i love their passion but i also love the fact that you represent the county and you want to make it great and keep it great so i support that and i hope that you will continue to support this record and as for the wildlife i think the cows and all the wildlife to say please pass this amendment because they want to stay on the land too okay thank you mr bob ernst can you take your hat off please that we don't allow that i'm here uh to sir can you take your i'm here to exercise my first amendment rights to petition my government can i put this hat on that's my military hat they taught me how to kill people you want me to wear that hat sir we'll address it in a different forum greetings commissioners bob ernst i have sent you written comments and i'm asking you today for a unanimous five zero vote to deny the calusa pud and the comp plan change if you tell me now you will vote five zero to deny i will not speak i'll get on with my life and you can get on with yours martin county we are different martin county we are different why is martin county different why do we keep hearing martin county is different out of 67 counties in florida martin county has a usb martin county like my hat said martin county has an urban service boundary urban here egg 20 there divided by the urban service boundary and for years commissioners that urban service boundary was sacred nobody would think about touching that urban service boundary your votes your votes have changed that kiplinger active agriculture they were happy to take the money from the farmers who lose agriculture and then they came to you and they want to build 4 200 homes and you voted to change that becker outside the usb you voted to let them do urban outside the usb your votes for rural lifestyle should never have been done and we wouldn't be here today doing what we're doing if you hadn't voted for it kiplinger becker rural lifestyle is what brought this new york developer to martin county word travels fast martin county is for sale commissioners is martin county for sale why do we live here why do you live here why do we not live in dade or broward or palm beach or pale saint lucie so what would inspire you to vote for the new york new york development he bought egg 20 that's why that's why i write you commissioners you have 15 seconds right i understand commissioners if you vote for the new york developer today you're kissing the sacred usb goodbye you're kissing the long protected egg landscape sir your time is up thank you as we know it today miss patty marchese good morning my name is patty marchese i live in martin county um i hadn't planned to speak but i did some research on this project a little bit myself and listened to the presentation and i just want to say i fully support the this this project for three reasons it's dedication to land preservation controlled growth and ensuring clean water it really should be called the rural preservation not rural development thank you okay and has mr monofusco returned he has not so uh-huh gretchen hercella hello nice to see you all straight from the list here this is about the process not about the applicant it doesn't matter how great anyone thinks they are i'm great but would you make this effort for me why is the tense text amendment stating the applicant is asking for shouldn't the development department be determining what goes there while distinctions were made between what the applicant is asking for versus staff recommended the applicant benefactor is convoluted nobody opposing this developer what we oppose is the amendment and the work around to get it approved by allowing an applicant to demonstrate why a change is needed especially without studies of now and how this just this proposal to allow the impact directly to and on the water you shouldn't create a land use like you did for this and you shouldn't bend at the will of the developer to amend that same amendment you just made thank you okay that was the last one that i had for ph2 i have four four um also that have ph3 would um linda smith like to speak now or wait till that is the next item up which deals with the future land use she's gone she's gone okay well how about uh gail ladd she's gone greg braun you've already spoke on two so okay i will save that right here and uh gg also yeah okay staff dais yes good morning commissioners elise elder deputy county attorney i just want to remind the board before you get in discussion on the um standard today it's a legislative public hearing this is a policy decision by the board so that is a fairly debatable standard as long as you make your decision based on sound policy reasons and differing minds opinion but differing differing minds can have different opinions your decision today should be held up but i also want to remind the board that this is not about a specific project this is a future land use designation amendment so we're not considering a specific project but how it affects martin county in total and not specifically one piece of property okay with that comments from the board commissioner hurd yeah i'm going to start off by reading a description the project proposes clustering of residential units within the agricultural future land use designation to serve residential units and amenities amenities listed include golf courses golf cottages pro shops administration offices club and range houses event facilities marinas restaurants and other similar food and beverage service maintenance utility facilities storage areas restrooms driving ranges spa and racket clubs general store gym and recreational facilities and they're calling this rural lifestyle for for whom does that application that that definition apply um first of all i want to uh express my uh concern that no data and analysis to support staff's recommendation was done none this is a computer a purely arbitrary uh recommendation no data and analysis was done to support this to justify this amendment which leaves reasonable people like me to conclude that if this is approved there is no exception that will not be made to urbanize western martin county in time on this map that we see every green lot will be available for rural lifestyle um mr barney stated that there were no uh farmers who uh were interested in buying his property that's because a commission majority at some point made a decision that we were no longer going to protect ag that we were instead going to urbanize western martin county which is way more profitable that's why you got zero applications for ag we used to require that the uses outside of our urban service boundary were had to be we're exclusively agriculture bonafide agriculture that's no longer the case the profitable designation is if three commissioners approve it is urbanization and also clustering is way way cheaper for a developer to do than to develop on 3900 acres no no developer would if if required if he had the chance but the opportunity to cluster on 400 acres or 3000 acres you know exactly which choice they would make um if this is approved today uh the commissioners who approve it will leave a legacy forever and that is that you will be the commissioners who voted to destroy the indian river lagoon and that's and that's not pontification either the uh indian river lagoon south plan is our portion of everglades restoration um it was first uh authorized it was first uh modeled and designed by scientists and by uh engineers uh decades uh decades ago in order to determine the amount of land necessary to store and treat water in order to restore the indian river lagoon and the saint lucie estuary ours is the only cert project that includes natural lands and it includes some 90 000 acres of natural lands this was this was it was not arbitrary it was evaluated by scientists and by uh engineers and the the the acreage that was that was uh settled upon was determined to be the amount that was necessary in order to restore the lagoon and the estuary if that natural lands component is no longer uh plausible the indian river lagoon cannot be restored there would it would be necessary to have at least two more huge reservoirs and and attended stormwater treatment areas in order to do the same amount of water storage and cleansing the reason that the natural lands component is in martin county and no place else is because this is the only place where it was possible because martin county had a strong urban service boundary and outside the urban service boundary only agriculture was allowed and therefore that didn't fragment the habitat the only place in the in the greater everglades watershed where this was possible and also that made the land in addition to not fragmenting it it also made it affordable if we if a board majority approves this plan today we will forever lose the ability to acquire the land necessary to clean up the river because we won't be able to to dream of acquiring the land necessary to purchase the natural lands three days after the rural uh lifestyle amendment was passed before we lost a sale of land that was that was negotiated it was settled upon there was a handshake agreement and we were going to acquire two thousand acres next to allapata the owner withdrew that offer because it quadrupled the value of the land so i am adamantly opposed to this amendment um the speakers who said that this is the end of the urban service boundary in martin county and the end of water quality in martin county spoke truly i am okay commissioner heatherington so i listened to to many many speakers today and then i this map that's up on the screen right now is was just referenced and that's that's accurate i think the applicant pointed this out that every green block that you see on that map can is entitled to be as agriculture and correct me if i'm wrong staff is entitled to build a golf course is entitled to have one to 20 um one unit per 20 acres from as far as you know this side the eastern portion of the county to the western portion of the county on the lake and i'd also like to point out that pink section is what martin county has is so special that over time all of that pink portion has been preserved so the threats that have been made of us being broward and dade county and as a fourth generation martin county native i'm super proud that we will never be that based on looking at this map what we know is you can build a golf course i don't necessarily agree with that if it was up to me i would not um agree with building a golf course on any ag property but that has been in play for many many many years in martin county and one unit per 20 acres while there are some very beautiful developments that have happened in martin county on one unit per 20 acres it's somewhat of an environmental travesty that if you look at ditching draining and and segmenting land like that i know of at least one section of martin county where we have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to reconfigure this an environmental section next to a planned development that was one unit per 20 acres here's an applicant that's suggesting they're going to put aside 90 percent eventually to me as a martin county lifetime native that sounds like something that i would like to see happen and i think one of the speakers just said you know i was was never been as many of you know a fan of the rural lifestyle terminology and someone just termed it rural preservation i think that is a very good accurate description for this this property could have had 600 600 units on it at one time so i i give the land owner credit for not putting that was many years ago i'm thankful i'm thankful that 600 acres did not go i always say on canter highway driving up and down what i never want to see in my lifetime is that rural character of canter highway you know you drive down you have pace in park you know every day living in indiantown i would drive that road to and from school and i think this preserves that kind of character on that road the fact that that one to 20 acres i think that what i saw on here is is there less than one to 20 acres and someone pointed out i wrote a note six square miles six square miles if you if i think of that i believe i don't remember exactly how many miles the city of steward but six six square miles is approximately give or take a few is is the size of a city of steward 175 homes so what they're asking for is we want to put those homes closer together i love the fact as a family member with ranchers and um we've raised animals and we've showed in 4-h and ffa they're going to continue to farm this property i think long-term preservation is what we should be looking at i think michael circus said how are we going to look at martin county in the future because i'm one of those people that as a lifetimer i would have been happy if no one else had come here it would have been a very very small community and indiantown in specific where i grew up you know very very small but guess what it's it's happening and we've benefited from wonderful people coming here from other parts of the country volunteering sharing their values and i appreciate them and i don't believe that we'll grow over two percent a year because i believe if you look at this map we've shown a commitment no matter who is sitting up here i won't be sitting up here in 20 25 years but i can guarantee you this when i look in the mirror in 20 and 25 years i would absolutely hate myself if i saw on that property that we had an opportunity a year ago that to approve the the discovery i didn't i don't like the real lifestyle use per se but if i saw 4 000 homes built out there i would absolutely kick myself if i see 2 000 homes built on this on canter highway in 20 years because i don't think that that's a stretch because we have an opportunity right now to do something that i believe fits in the vision and a couple people said it western land planning we've talked about it i've begged for it we need it we must do it i believe that we will have the commitment from this board to do it and it must be done but this is here right now and i think this is an opportunity to set a standard so someone said why do we live here why do you live here well i live here because general generationally i'm from here again i was really content with a happy small town community we knew every person's name so i live here because it's the most special place i think not only in the state of florida but having traveled all over this country it's one of the most special places that i've ever been the people make it even more special and i believe that we have a shared collective vision we work hard we fight passionately for it and i'm going to keep living here i'm going to be proud of the decisions i make because it is a special place we have conserved a lot of that pink section we're going to continue to do it and the legacy that i think that i will leave from sitting here is knowing that i had an opportunity because 30 years from now you don't know what's going to happen with this state you know kind of um hamstringing local decisions and when you have an opportunity to put a vision in place i think now's the time to do it so with that and i'll say to staff staff staff works really hard you work hard and i don't always agree with you i don't agree with every applicant but you work very hard so i'll give you credit i don't believe that ever your decisions are arbitrary again i don't always agree with them sometimes i do sometimes i don't but they um you work very hard and i appreciate it and thank you and with that i'm going to motion staff's recommendation want to go or so unfortunately as the conversation goes on all day long i take notes and they're all over the place so a lot of my comments may be all over the place because my notes are all over the place um i guess where i'll start um and it just a comment that was said a little bit ago and and one i think that just kind of flies in the face of a lot of what the conversation is this morning um there was this comment made about protecting ag well it's interesting when we have water quality discussions in martin county the first group that's thrown under the bus is ag right out of the box it's all ag's fault but it was just said our intent is to protect ag and so it's very conflicting as to i i guess it's whatever the sound bite is for the day that that works for whoever um maybe where i'll start is the map because i think the map for me personally uh is a is a really good launching pad into the rest of the conversation the pink area you see in the in the in the middle of the map uh and a little bit of of the southern portion most of the southern portion below palomar 25 years ago that pink didn't exist that wasn't on the map if you'd seen this map 25 years ago that wasn't there mike dieter lizzie and i uh 25 years ago sat on a committee called sustainable treasure coast 2020 and mike and my vision and we talk about vision plans for wherever uh was to do exactly what you see in pink could we as a community create a a environmental boundary that basically cut the county in half could we connect it from north to south could we connect open space that would dramatically change the ability for sprawl to go west and what you see on the map is today's where we are so i don't know what percent we have with that but i'd say you're probably 80 percent of the way there there was a comment made this morning about the fragmentation of environmental lands uh quite the contrary you have tens of thousands of acres of connected environmental land as a result of that vision plan that we did 25 years ago that i have proudly supported and participated in in a significant way to get where we are today to even have the discussion we're having today the environmental value of what that means to our community i i think is significant regardless of what it has done to property value and some people spoke well you know the more you let this happen the more expensive property value gets i would argue the more property that we purchase and put into county or state ownership has equally forced that value to increase because there's less land available for anything to happen i'm okay with that you can fault me all day long for that decision or those decisions but those acquisitions have absolutely defined us and made us different it was also mentioned earlier a little bit ago about allowing something of this magnitude or whatever to happen outside the urban service boundary 40 years ago there was some leadership on this board that thought it was perfectly okay to approve 20 unit developments in the southern part of the county with no environmental particular standards whatsoever and people and a person that people hold at very high regard in this community relative to that individual's perspective on environmental protection it was okay 40 years ago with no plan with no environmental standard to speak of no strategy relative to how big those developments were and and were there going to be open space requirements were there going to be management plans zero but because it was the individual that approved them it's okay and we will glass over that and overlook that because it was who it was i venture to guess in the state of florida and i've worked with just about every county across the state i can't think and brandon talked about this earlier i can't think of a another county a single county that has anything remotely close to this type of land use amendment remotely close last couple months i had to do a conference i spoke up in daytona on a thursday drove across to tampa on friday morning spoke in tampa came back here every square inch of i-95 north of here is being developed every square inch of i-4 going across the state is being developed if there is a blank piece of 200 acres on i-4 that doesn't have a crane on it i would be shocked do it sometime it's fascinating i don't know that there are requirements for 70 or 50 open space on any of those tracks of land i i can't i really other than maybe sarasota sarasota may have some really good protections in place but nothing like this and so there are choices there are clearly choices about how you go about getting more into preservation or not and we in martin county and most of this board take a lot of pride in the idea that and our staff and stacy just pointed out our staff should be given a tremendous amount of credit for the ideas that have helped form this kind of a strategy in the first place i venture to guess that most of the people in the room that spoke this morning have not been on barney's land reclusa creek i venture to guess it's private land if you were probably on it you were probably doing it illegally because i'm guessing they probably wouldn't have let people out on the land i have been i suspect most of the board has been out there on tour to see what it exactly looks like it is enormous when you start to think about the scale of these amendments relative to the city of stewart the acreage involved in all of them in the three that have taken advantage of it thus far is pretty much equal to the scale of city of stewart when you consider the thousands of units of apartments that were approved in the last couple years in the city of stewart on minimal amounts of square footage in the city of stewart without thousands of acres without hundreds of acres being put into preservation or massive water storm water projects none of that was required and none of that was done in the city not even close to what one parcel in these rural lifestyle parcels have done there were years ago when we were getting blue green algae and every speaker that came to the podium at the time said i don't care where you put the water get rid of it we don't want it coming out of the c44 into the st lucie river and into the talk about ruining the lagoon so there have been a lot of projects that we have approved through the years that have diverted millions and millions of gallons out of the c44 into areas that otherwise would not have taken that water and have started to clean up that water for free hasn't cost a taxpayer a dime in terms of what we've done to clean up that water and it's working in a major way every piece every drop of water we take out of the c44 and we put someplace else helps the river this is one of them you know another comment that was made about the wildlife and what has occurred what won't occur on our golf course at martin county within literally weeks of us finishing the stormwater project we did with the school board and between the airport and the golf course and tying in that stormwater project to the golf course and taking the water and reclaiming it back out on the golf course instead of sending it out in the st lucie river i went out there on tour of the golf course and there were like 15 spoonbills in one of the watershed areas that we had created was spectacular absolutely spectacular they weren't there before the opportunity for the wildlife corridors to be created with these kind and size of projects is incredible we had a presentation of the region planning council i don't know six months ago or so there was the staff member head of the wildlife corridor group in florida there's a group that's been put together to or i guess a group of folks that want to create these wildlife corridors all throughout florida and so the presentation had these bubbles on the state of florida these red circles all over the state of florida what was fascinating is what was glaringly missing martin county and i asked the guy i said are we like not are we not in the game with this are we not supposed to be on the map what happened to palmar what happened to all the land in between that pink area that you don't see connected he didn't really have a good answer other than we'll take a look at it and we can see what we can do but there is a massive effort of foot at the state level to create wildlife corridors and here we're adding potentially another 3 000 acres of a portion of that to connect those areas together that otherwise aren't even recognized by the organization that is pushing the idea of having wildlife corridors i mean i find that incredibly disjointed i don't know i don't know about you all especially the ones that came up this morning and spoke about it all i would think every single one of you that came up and spoke this morning would be on the phone to that group saying where is martin county and why are we not in the bubble where is the interest where is the concern that was expressed in the room this morning for putting us in the wildlife corridor good god the the the two pink areas between palmar and the c44 canal or the c44 project stormwater project i would argue in most counties of the other bubbles that are around the state that have yet to be acquired we way outweigh what other counties are doing in terms of acquisition and open space and so here's an opportunity with a land use standard for thousands of acres to go into open space sure there are some other things that go along with it you get them off septic tanks you get them on sewer you create tremendous spots of open space you start even further connecting the wildlife corridors that already exist in martin county that we and you the martin county voters have approved sales tax referendums to go acquire and we're one step closer i would also suggest for those that were either opposing it or talking about the idea that we haven't acquired enough and that we need to acquire more there is a real opportunity for some significant opportunity some significant development in the southern part of the county every single one of us every person that spoke this morning at the podium should be on your phone to your legislature and on the phone to the governor and say martin county demands you put up the state funds for land acquisition to acquire that land before it becomes a real issue every single one of you the time you spent here you should double that time and you should be on the phone and you shouldn't get off the phone until the governor signs that check there are hundreds of millions of dollars available to acquire land that's where the effort should be this is all private this is private money being spent that not a single taxpayer dollar has to go into to acquire more land i think i i think it's incredibly cool that there is such an opportunity for us and the barneys actually ship i don't i don't i don't know that you get uh you know enough credit for the idea and at the time i never really fully understood when when you pulled back the 600 units and said no we don't want to do that and there was a plan to take the southern portion of this property and marry it in with the the water management district to do some flow ways and some water quality and it was just too aggressive at the time it was too aggressive and so they pulled it back and said no we're not doing it we'll wait for a better project a better plan but that was 600 units that were approved and i think if i'm wrong right they were north of i i say north some people say east and west but on the map it looks north they were north of 76 all on the water and so for the the concerns for the folks this morning that spoke about a marina and water access for the limited amount of use that this project will have on the water that project would have had 600 units sitting on the water entirely different type of project i i you know i it's it's it's an interesting conversation we had this morning um it's never good enough i i forget who maybe it was brandon who said something about the platinum standard this is the platinum standard if something is to occur out west i don't i don't think you could come up with anything better or more powerful than what an amendment like this does to take that much land in private ownership put it into preservation or open space limit the amount of residential uses that can be done on it put it on water and sewer show me another place in the state of florida that does anything remotely close to this and gets the environmental value out of it that so many of the speakers spoke about this morning i defy anybody to show us that and instead again my challenge back to everyone that spoke this morning get on the state and get a couple hundred million dollars and let's go buy some land in the southern part of the county that's what we should be focused on that's what i do that's what i work on my time is spent trying to figure out how can i get language at the association of counties how can i get language at the federal level put into legislation that allows us to do bigger and better and more creative things with land otherwise something bad is going to happen to eventually i'm discouraged that there is the lack of understanding between what the city has done over the last couple years and what the county actually does there is a difference there is a huge difference of what happens in the city versus what happens in the county unincorporated and this board time and time again i think has proven that difference it's just unfortunately everybody blames the county commission for the city of stewart's decisions because they don't know the difference they don't understand there's an elected body in the city and there's an elected body in the county and everybody paints a nice broad brush that's all the county's responsibility um i think it's exciting to the barneys uh thank you for for holding out to do the right thing i you know and i've known your dad for years i i and i've known you for years too i mean the beard is actually a little bit grayer than it was when we first started years ago my mustache is too uh to the backs family um thank you for having the courage um and the and the desire to do something really special no matter how it's been presented this morning it is special it's incredibly special there are other counties that would beg borrow and steal to have this kind of investment made in their community and whether they appreciated the environmental pieces of it or not all you have to do is travel around the state go drive i4 go look from tampa to daytona what it looks like drive up i-95 my god there's just thousands and thousands of apartments being built it's insane what's happening up there i i spoke at pontevedra have you all been out to pontevedra lately my god is that something going on up there that's not martin county not us at all not even close nothing resembles what we do here last comment and i forgot about this and there was this thing and i want you all to listen or all at least from my perspective because i'm sure anybody that will watch this hearing listens to everything that said there was one comment another comment made this morning about you know what was going to happen at bridge road and i-95 this amendment and correct me clyde if i'm wrong no way no shape no form allows hotels and gas stations and four-story buildings out at i-95 in the interchange correct i'm sorry correct okay i just i just need to hear that because it was said this morning that that's where this is taking us and it couldn't be further from the truth and i don't want people to leave here going oh my god a speaker said this morning that was going to happen because it's not it doesn't happen with this there are other tools to get there perhaps but not with this one commissioner i know yeah paul showing growth management director for the record i will reaffirm that understanding that that is not the case here and with that um i will second um i know it was long-winded but there was a lot of notes to kind of get through and um i will second um mr heatherington's motion you have officially used up all your words for us mr campy trying i'm trying to live up to eds oh please and please don't do this no i'm not going to uh it's getting late i want to be as concise as possible the first thing i will say and it's been in my head since this whole issue came up is i voted no on the rural lifestyle just for the record i voted no because i was concerned that it was too open-ended at the time i talked about the three p's in my decision making process i need to know the people the project and the place and i was told well you can it's this and that so if i could not get to my three p's i was a no now a project comes forward that i know the people i know the project and i know the place i have an advantage that the general public does and all five of us do and and those that want to really delve in and i appreciate the opinions on both sides the folks that say i did the research i spoke to staff i went to the website i spoke to the applicant i know exactly what i'm talking about i didn't get an email that said please show up at the meeting and this will be the end of martin county they've done their homework and i think that reasonable minds and reasonable people can disagree i do not rubber stamp every single project yes and i'm also not always a no i'll give you an example a recent example and i caught a lot of grief on both sides of it they wanted to build 90 apartments on martin highway in palm city across the street from danforth to me i thought that was not a good idea all due respect to the applicant the architect and the developer i just thought that was a terrible idea but they were legally allowed to do it so what do we do we ended up purchasing the property which i personally obviously thought was a relatively clever approach and i appreciate a couple of my colleagues that did as well and we've stopped 90 units from being built on the sidewalk right on martin highway that to me had a and it was only six acres 90 units on six acres two of them really weren't even usable really four acres so i was a no and people said well shame on you you've taken this project off the tax rolls it was in private hands and now the county has purchased it and now it's not going to be taxable anymore and you've taken economic development and you've stopped jobs okay i caught a lot of grief when i didn't support the rural lifestyle from the people that this morning you know so i think i'm doing a relatively good job as your elected representative if people are annoyed on different days on my opinions it means i'm not all in on one side we're all in on the other because what i have the opportunity to do and i do very carefully is just review and understand what do the majority of martin county residents think now some of you heard me use my 20 60 20 rule 20 of our population don't care if this looked like new york city they're disappointed that it's only a four story height limit they don't care if everything was paved over and then on the other side of the coin there's 20 of the population that doesn't want a dog house built here i really try to focus my attention on those 60 of the people in the middle they're just you know they're just living their lives here they're raising their families they're working they're retired and they're enjoying their retirement what do they want and that's where i try to keep my mindset so in this decision making process i thought what are they currently allowed to do on these nearly 4 000 acres they're allowed to build 200 or 190 approximately 200 homes and we can go back to the valley air amendment and the clustering that had taken place 10 12 years ago and whether you liked the idea of grouping the houses together on a piece of property or you didn't the bottom line is is this all the way back to the beginning of the comprehensive plan you could build one unit on 20 acres this is nearly 4 000 acres you'd spread those units those yards all over the property driveways swimming pools landscaping fences all over the property the 4 000 3900 acres they would also then have to go on septic systems and dig wells over almost 200 septic systems well how can we with a straight face sit up here and tell you that we're going to charge residents in new monrovia golden gate port salerno old palm city thousands of dollars whether they liked it or not to convert from their septic systems some are brand new some are perfectly efficient to switch over to sewer but then we're going to because we have to approve nearly 200 septic systems on a brand new piece of property project out west so i want to be clear that we are not approving 200 100 potentially 200 units today they're allowed to do that we're not approving potentially the golf course and as commissioner heard said all of the related infrastructure that goes with that locker rooms clubhouse cart barn you know what driving ranges we understand what goes on a golf course they're allowed to do that i'm not saying yes or no to that today if you put those houses all over 3900 acres the u.s mail service has to drive all over the 3900 acres to deliver the mail waste management has to drive all over 3900 acres to pick up the trash fire rescue and police would have to respond at every corner of the property versus the grouping okay so that was the first thing now what are they asking for instead 175 homes okay and so obviously they're going to be expensive they're going to be on on larger lots they're going to be out in a desirable portion of the county but the concept of that we must build out and fill in all of the local infrastructure or the properties and the parcels within the urban service boundary before we even look out west to me is the most challenging portion of my job because that's where the residents fill this room up and say i don't want that next to my house i don't want this near me and we're not talking hundreds of feet or thousands of acres away from where you live we're talking 10 feet 20 feet 30 feet away from where you live so i think it's just as important that we try to preserve the remaining lots uh green open space that is inside east of 95 in the turnpike because that's where i get most of my my concern residents telling me stop developing every single thing city of stewart doesn't have any property west of 95 in the turnpike everyone's losing their minds because what the city of stewart over the last couple of commission groups have done and you know i see the traffic i see the building on us1 i i read all about the costco project and the apartments that are going with it the city of stewart can only operate their organization their government within their parameters within their boundaries so commissioner smith's right we have had the opportunity to do a lot different things so now so they want 175 homes instead of the 200 of the 196 approximately that they were allowed to build that's lower density in my decision making process now water and sewer i get it every time we creep out with water and sewer but when that strategy was developed decades ago that we wouldn't bring those services out i don't think there was as much um interest and concern on the real detrimental effect to our waterways that these septic systems could potentially cause i don't you know a lot has changed in our review i'm not saying that there was none river keeper not saying that there was none but i think there's a renewed real interest if there wasn't then why is the state working so hard to have us in a certain amount of a time frame remove as many people off of sewer septic systems as possible there is really obviously a statewide push so now in terms of the history of the property in the future of the property a lot of people will say well you know these are you know johnny come lately is that just showed up and they didn't care about the property and they bought it and they should understood what it is and they shouldn't have flipped it i don't know the barney family as well as some of my colleagues do i know them i don't have decades of history with them but from what i have always known they were a diligent family i remember the 600 unit approval and i remember when they phased they rolled it back i appreciate when we hear chip barney this morning talk about that he didn't just take a family legacy property and just throw it out to the highest bidder that they went through a diligent process to say who's going to take over this property for us i think it's what most of us do even when you sell your home my wife and i recently sold our home that we raised our children in i didn't need a bigger home anymore the kids are grown and gone but we were very careful to try to select a family that would take over just a house a single home so that we felt good for our neighbors and good for the neighborhood that we put another nice young family in there so that they could have the same thing that we had and i think the barneys and i give them credit and thanks for doing that because could have probably written a check anybody would have come in he could have said i don't care the bottom line is who's going to give me the most money i don't care about the rest of it and now to the basks i i know very little of them i've met them one time a year ago if not longer and he talked about a vision now he and i do share something he's a golfer you know if you know what me at all my father is a professional golfer he's been in golf he's gonna be 87 years old he's been in golf his whole entire life my grandfather was a greens keeper so when people bash golf especially modern day golf we had an agenda item while i was chair we brought in people from greens keepers from the usga and they laid out it's not the same thing so when you hear well golf course is going to flood them with fertilizer nutrients pesticides that's not really how they do that anymore one it's very expensive to do that and two these folks are not just like well we're only interested in golf we don't care about the environment if they ruin their environment they'd have no golf so i appreciate that the basks mr and mrs would invest in our community millions and millions and millions of dollars in a project that they were hopeful that a majority of the community would say hey good for you we've heard it called the platinum standard um i'm not going to get into that but i appreciate when anyone whether you're open in a pizzeria or something else that you would invest in our community that you would invest your money and your time and your efforts in our community and they know that they're going to have to run a gauntlet through days like today where people are basically saying shame on you for coming here shame on you for doing anything else i would want to tell you from my perspective i appreciate it and then the final thing that i will say is this you know a lot of people this is an educated room you wouldn't be sitting in here if you were not tuned in to what's happening in the county and in the state but most of your friends and neighbors and co-workers have no idea what live local means they have no idea what sb 102 means but they will and what i have heard time and time again even in my opposition to rural lifestyle was that if the folks in tallahassee are watching they're 67 counties but we're not exempt from the influx of residents that are coming here if they look and see that we constantly as a board and as a community say no to projects no no no they'll be making those decisions for us sb 102 now live local is allowing the state to decide and created rules and regulations and legislation that takes it out of our hands whether you love commissioner heard and everything she has stood for for decades or you love commissioner smith and everything that he has stood for for decades we're not going to get that decision anymore this meeting won't happen it'll be decided at the staff level now not to point him out but the most influential decision maker in martin county growth management politics and decision making is sitting right there he's our growth management director you're not going to you could maybe have an appointment with him you'll have 10 000 appointments but it's no longer going to be us so i'm saying that if we have a project like this that seems to do all check all the boxes and they hear about this in tallahassee and they think then you're going to get decisions where like the costco or the rural lifestyle it was decided here it went up to tallahassee and in some cases a local judge or a regional judge said i disagree i don't like it it goes to tallahassee how's it been going up in tallahassee for us so if we don't approve and look at things in a rational mindset that's what i'm trying to do this project 90 units on martin highway and it's not just because i live in palm city if it was 90 units on whatever street in hobe sound or jensen or port salerno if it's not right it's not right and that's what i can promise you i will decide these projects individually on their merit and in my mind this is the type of project that one we could do here it it checks a lot of my boxes from what i'm hearing from the 60 of the people and then it sends a message to tallahassee that we get it that we're not trying to lock the door from any new residents coming here because if we do that then the regulations and the restrictions will continue to just get tighter and tighter and we won't get to make any of our decisions i have not seen a lot of the folks that spoke today are the folks that speak every time and i give them a lot of credit they've dedicated their retirement or their working lives to come here and fight the good fight for or against but i will tell you that it is very rare in the whole morning i've been sitting here thinking how often has this group come here to say we agree with that project we think that's a good project it finally got something we can all agree on and in my mind and maybe i'll have to go back and be proved wrong i can't think of a single time that that's happened no project has ever been good enough for the people that are angry about projects and i give them all due respect for their positions that they're fighting but they have never come forward and said good idea we're behind it now some individuals might have but collectively they haven't which forces me to then take all of those emails all of those phone calls speak to those people hear what they have to say but at the end of the day i still have to make my own determination and i think in this particular project my determination would be to support staff's recommendation i think that you know commissioner smith with all due respect and over the years that we've sat up here i respect her i believe that we could even say we have a loose friendship but that being said i don't think this is going to be the end of martin county it's not going to be the end of the the indian river lagoon it's not going to be the end of dollars that are going to come from this state and federal government to support projects that we're doing here because they said that about martin downs they said that about the roosevelt bridge they said that about the treasure coast mall they said that about the veterans memorial bridge and i think these are been amenities so people that agree are reasonable can disagree and in this particular case i would disagree with my colleague commissioner hurd um and with that i yield the remainder of my time that was pretty close to them no you were an hour and a half i'm thinking he's very close to using up his his words but mine was gold it was gold i didn't mention a spoon bill because i already did it so i like uh commissioner smith have written a bunch of notes that probably are going to be very hard to um put into a legible um spiel but my family's been here and farmed in the hope sound jupiter area since the 20s most of what is now called jupiter farms at one point was my grandfather under my grandfather's control whether it be ownership or lease over 30 000 acres which is now jupiter farms out of that 30 plus thousand acres there was 5 000 acres of dry dirt you which you could actually grow on right so you know world war ii rolls around everybody leaves to go with the fight of war he didn't have anybody so that's that was the demise of the farm today all those wetlands that couldn't be farmed are now houses and filled in bad planning jupiter farms i would think is something that martin county doesn't want at all right when i grew up in hope sound in the let's say when i was conscious of what was going on in the late 60s and early 70s yeah that's true too i'm still not there anyway um you know i was up on gomez everything that was on the river side of gomez was a mangrove swamp i watched drag lines dig through the mangroves digging out and building and i i the only reason it really pops out of my mind was the you know my dad was was all about soils and everything else is they're piling that muck up wondering where they're going to build a house right bad planning right um but a lot of our residents exist today because of that i sat in last week for commissioner smith i believe on the tpo mpo tri-county thing where we approved the 2045 transportation plan part of that presentation was a model of our population growth till 2045 which by the way is just about a little over 21 years from today the moderate model of that which has historically been very accurate um is 40 000 additional people are coming to martin county over the next 21 years where are they going where are they going so that's why rural lifestyle i supported it as strongly as i did rural lifestyle tied to the urban service boundary was a buffer that development couldn't jump over dense development couldn't jump over that was the big attraction for me is actually protecting it's been demonized that we did this and it's destroyed the urban service it was done to protect the urban service boundary in my at least my motivation was right let alone all the other tax benefits and and everything else that it that it could do this proposal is amazing i would love to support it i just saw your light going does that before i started it can be before you vote please okay all right um low density preservation of natural lands is is what we say we're all about but what we're not all about is planning and good planning right so take my hand for a minute you and i are going to touch the third rail right the third rail in martin county is actually doing some planning for western martin county trying to take these properties out of play when these 40 000 people show up and guess what's going to happen is between now and then the voter in martin county is going to change dramatically commissioner campy alluded to that that the people that are coming in with the development in steward they have no roots in martin county they come from greenwich connecticut new york and all these places that you know no matter how much um martin county why am i getting too excited anyway no no matter how much development happens in martin county it's nothing compared to what they come from that they have no concept of what we grew up with right because i tell you something in 1970 martin county was pretty cool i used to ride my horse through what is now martin downs you know i could literally ride my horse through the park to quite and go across the bridge um in jupiter to get to my grandparents house on center street i suppose they didn't have cars back then no it was just a cool place to live so you know we have as much chance of and and i brought the whole digging up uh um gomez we have as much chance of of of stopping forty thousand dollar forty thousand additional residents as we have of telling everybody that lives on the on the riverside of gomez that they need to tear their houses down and we need to restore that back to its natural state right it's not going to happen we have to do some planning i really want to support what we've been talking about today but this is an exception this is an exception to rural lifestyle as it stood that's not good planning good planning is figuring out what we want to do and then attracting what we want into that development it's not what happens to the next guy that wants an exception that's just a little bit more uh lenient and then the next guy that wants that's not what i'm planning to do so reluctantly because i really like what we talked about today reluctantly i can't support it just for that but i want to see and if at least got you behind me a actual study and we've got plenty of studies that can come off the shelf that were done years ago to be updated right of what we want to see and get the majority of our constituents bought in and educated a lot of the people it's disappointing when people come up to the podium you know we obviously are in the know we know we can't even consider traffic because we've been preempted right and they're going to talk about traffic we can't do you know over the last decade we have been preempted on a lot of different things that that people don't understand i've tried to get a and i keep asking for it a actual agenda item that that lists that so we can try to educate our constituents on where we're at in preemptions and what we are not allowed to consider when we're approving things so we need to do some planning we need to figure out how to take these large pieces of environmentally this is a environmentally sensitive piece of property and put the environmental aspects of those in preservation right but it's going to be a plan we got to do it so with that um i don't know which one was first commissioner smith quick things one um is is that um i didn't start back at 1942 i started at 2000. anyway so um huh historically my history your story went way i thought i thought we were going to go for the whole like 80 years whatever but anyway um what i would what i what you know and i'm sure we're going to get into this relative to a long-range planning strategy uh what i would ask of when we do that and and you're right there are plenty of plans and studies we go back to the 2020 plan and look what it suggested and what and where we started and where we can go um but what has to accompany all of that because the reality is the only thing that's truly going to make all of this better is to go acquire and the state has plenty of money to go do that we just have to get the state on our radar screen completely on our radar screen to help us do it because the the dollars are significant um but there is plenty of money thank you commissioner heatherington i just just because you mentioned the planning um i i remember back a year ago that i was sitting in almost your identical position thinking you know what great project i really want to support it do not settle along i do not like the land use i hope the projects would come in individually we need planning and i remember sitting there on that day i couldn't decide what what would be the best for the future of martin county and i asked this board if we could do western planning and i thought it was the most important thing that we could possibly do it came back we didn't agree i say now's the time now's the time to do that and if there's something that you suggest i say get the board while they're sitting here today to commit to the western planning because i've been called all kinds of names and it was unfortunate the timing of the rural lifestyle but i put my neck on the line to support what i thought was something that was going to be long-term beneficial for martin county for all of us and that was going to protect that and i've taken a lot of heat for it i still didn't we still haven't done the planning which i required to do that so today's the day to do the planning you know it was good for hope sound that the project i supported it and i would say don't hold out on a good project if you be for planning and if you're going to you should get that accomplished today because it didn't work out so well when i suggested the planning it was crickets and i gotta admit that i was i was too uh afraid to touch the third rail but commissioner heard yeah if you want to learn about planning in martin county please read chapter four of the comprehensive plan it tells you exactly how to do western planning okay we don't need to change a thing we just need to follow our our plan you interested in doing any planning we're doing priorities with reorg yes we could yeah next next time yeah next time what let's we'll take that up next meeting if that next week oh you don't want to do that today we got plenty on our plate today because i got my three right here okay would you like to do some planning my three okay so that's a head nod let's do this vote first and then do that okay nobody's speaking into their microphone so we can't hear what you're saying miss elder yes thank you commissioner jenkins for the record i just want to remind the board it's really important that we are basing our decision on the right standard today that this is an amendment to the comp plan it amends a future land use designation it is not applicable to just one piece of property or one project it is a pro it is applicable to all of martin county so when you're making your decision please take that into consideration and make your policy decision based on that and not one project thank you okay and with that um we have you made a motion you have a second all in favor all opposed the mash motion passes um three to two uh commissioner smith or commissioner heard and commissioner jenkins opposing okay and with that how about we take lunch yeah yeah 230 230 230 thanks what we are going to continue our december 5th uh board accounting commission meeting with a 130 preset that i'm promised will be very quick so we can move on to what everybody's in the room for um and with that said mr dulin it is i'm sorry i'm supposed to read it uh department for uh presentation and request for an adoption of the draft impact fee study mr dulin thank you mr chair members of the board my name is clyde dulin with the uh growth management department uh with me is milton camp uh our consultant on the impact fee study uh this is the same uh document the same information that we presented to you previously at a first um meeting um in this case we're simply asking you to uh approve the impact fee study and so that we can move forward and uh begin work on amending the land development regulations specifically article six and we'll bring it back to you next year with changes based on the impact fee study and uh based on changes in florida statute uh so that we can uh update the impact fees next year um we have we're ready to answer questions about the impact fee study if you have some uh but that's the long and the short of it uh that's quick okay as promised any questions for staff i think it's important for residents to understand why we're undergoing this and what kind of limitations the state has put upon us um we don't have complete discretion about setting our impact fees nor do we have the ability to even though we know the cost of providing uh improvements we're not necessarily allowed to collect as much as it takes in order to implement those projects can you explain a bit ms camp since you're the expert about what kind of of uh limitations we're under yes yes negan camp with benish uh in 2021 we had the legislation pass and it put limits on how much the impact fees can be increased and over what time so if the increase is up to 25 percent it needs to be done over two years if it's uh between 25 and 50 percent it has to be down over four installments and it cannot be increased more than 50 percent unless the local government conducts a study that shows extraordinary circumstances and those are discussed at two public meetings and the two-third of the governing body votes for that increase that's above 50 percent there's also a limitation how often the fees can be increased and they put that at a minimum of four years um so so those put some limits on what the local governments can do so the the current legislation that that was passed in 2021 limits us to um revising them every four years so the ones that we adopt later on this year we will not be able to revise again for four years unless there's new legislation okay that's correct okay this this is extremely complicated and i think you've done an absolutely terrific job of evaluating our options are thank you okay anybody else need a motion i would assume oh i'm sorry anybody want to talk about it from the public seeing none second okay we have a motion by commissioner smith yeah welcome to the real war um motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner campi all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously thank you very much thank you moving on to public hearing number three legislative public hearing to consider transmittal of comprehensive plan amendment cpa 23-12 the ranch pud future land use map amendment and that will be once again by mr doing hello again members of the board uh unlike the last uh comprehensive plan amendment that you considered this is a future land use map amendment about a specific piece of ground uh comprised of 3902 acres the proposed change is from agricultural allowing one unit per 20 acres to rural lifestyle and the rural lifestyle language that would be applicable is the language that you considered at the last public hearing below is a an aerial photo showing the site in question this yellow line here where my cursor is is as southwest bridge road this yellow line is canter highway extending from uh stewart on out all the way to indiantown the property sits on both sides of canter highway and south of bridge road comprising the three thousand nine hundred acres uh for context um the lands to the south have been platted and divided into uh minimum 20 acre lots uh there's a golf course that's been approved and is under construction here to the west on the north side of canter highway between the canter and the canal called rolling sands which is under construction and on the north side of bridge and um both sides of canter highway here on this screen where i'm showing you is the three lakes golf course which is currently under construction i can you can i'm sorry mr go ahead are you okay with interrupting or are you yes sir please the the the 20 acre subdivisions to the south one where they approved um the one here where my cursor is i believe was in either 99 or 2000 right about that time to maybe 2001 was in 2001 it was before my time okay i i'm i'm i'm going from memory it was it was about 20 years ago at least um one to the to farther to the west where my cursor is was platted in the years following that so it was also would have been in the 2000s at some point prior to 2010. while we're doing if someone could look that up because i think it was more in the middle 90s but just sure we can do that great um to discuss the site a bit more um more specifically this site uh this is a a map showing the soils in the area um where you see multiple colors uh on top of each other that's uh a higher likelihood of um of hydric soils and so on and again here's another map showing soils and nwi wetlands where you see the blue and uh hydric and hydric soils and nwi wetlands are where you see the green and uh it's just hydric soils where you see the brown um staff found uh that it did not violate uh well it was consistent with 13 of the sprawl criteria uh that is that it does not and um encourage sprawl because it is the same proposed density in the land use designation uh i want to get down to i want to show you the land use designations this is the site shown on the same map that you looked at on the previous uh public hearing uh the area in orange is the property in question as you can see the large lot subdivisions are to the south the pink land here to the east is publicly owned by the south floor water management district and as you can see this the northern portions of this the proposed property are adjacent to the six six thousand foot buffer around the freestanding urban service district so it does the location of the site does comply with the text that you considered in the last public hearing and as you can see there's the large lot subdivisions also to the west of the site this is the land use color that has represents rural lifestyle and it is shown on what was the becker b14 property and is now more commonly known as the discovery property here where my cursor is and the yellow parcels are large lot subdivisions that have already been divided into a minimum 20 acre or uh minimum five acre um subdivisions staff found that it met two of the four criteria uh two for staff to make a recommendation of approval um the public services have been evaluated the traffic analysis has been done um i will note that the traffic analysis did not compare unused undeveloped land it compared the most intense use that's possible in the agricultural future land use designation with the proposed density and the proposed development type of this rural lifestyle future land use designation and uh staff recommends approval of this proposed future land use change on 3900 acres with that i'll end the presentation and be happy to answer any questions any questions for staff and the applicant good afternoon tyson waters on behalf of the applicant our notices were turned in for this meeting at the lpa hearing um we agree with staff's recommendation and the recommendation of the lpa and we'd ask that this board transmit it to this to the state for further review i do think some of those maps are beneficial to see the sensitive nature of this land and the benefit of the rural lifestyle for us to be able to craft a better development plan a little bit better for what can happen on this property and you're going to be able to do that through a pud and one of the very unique things about the rural lifestyle land use designation is that that plan unit development agreement is going to be in front of you on the same day the land use is approved so things like water quality the fact that we're going to pull millions if not hundreds of millions of gallons a year out of the c44 use it for purposes on the property and then by the time it goes back out it's going to be cleaner all of those things are going to be at that same meeting so there's a lot of benefit that you'll see come come the approval of this and with that again we'd ask for your um your approval and we're here for any questions any questions for the applicant back to the board oh public comment yeah that part forgot about that part okay frank d diembra no okay gg miss dubay um my background is i am a financial professional have been for 40 years head of compliance major wall street firms and we look at things as um part of the larger solution and larger vision takes more than just thinking it's not just about maintaining what we have today but planning for what we have tomorrow um i noticed that this development has a connector under canner i imagine that's for people um what is the connector that the county is requiring to connect the preserve areas the conservation areas that commissioner smith talked about to see that even addressed in this plan um another thing um you plan not just for development but development is comprehensive you can't just look at one development and not look at all the other developments and how they fit together and how they affect the conservation and preservation and services um a good example is my husband he's an internist he's he and his staff um are so overwhelmed with the number of people that are moving into this county now they can't keep up with it it's six months to get a visit now for a primary specialist if he's being affected like that how's everybody else being affected how are other services being affected it's that lack of planning that the comprehensive plan would be addressing um and that the urban services was designed for that is not being addressed and i don't understand you have the power you're supposed to have the vision you're supposed to be thinking about us and where we and this county will be tomorrow why aren't you directing your staff to fulfill the need for this type of planning i i don't know what else to say but the decisions and the solutions lie with you it's just not a question of approving another beautiful development thank you um mr greg braun followed by terry gibbs where's greg huh no commitment terry gibson good afternoon um this morning was was fascinating and uh and i really commend the commission for for your conversation commissioner smith and commissioner heard if i was going to make a case against term limits i'd use you two as examples even though one of us um you know you're another just important decision point here i learned a couple things about a few others of you um uh chair jenkins i um i really respect that you're thinking on this where you wound up um i didn't know you understood soil science um commissioner copy i didn't really understand that you understood bmp's and golf courses 10 years ago my dad died and i'd learn how to be a farmer and i've grown a tomato in a pot before um it the so i want to get to the to discuss the water and why it's important to go on and pass this thing go on and improve this thing because an immediate conservation and water quality improvement opportunity um it bothered me to hear a lot of the opposition to say that golf courses pollute places they pollute by design well no i mean any we're all using smart ag stuff now irrigation and fertilization techniques that that that prevent runoff absolutely you can i mean i do this on my farm i take dirty water at a lake of ochobe and put it on my farm and it's twice as clean by the time it leaves if it ever leaves oftentimes it doesn't so um that that i'm glad you all debunked that and thank you for doing that um there was also some criticism of the clean waterways act i spent four years of my life on that bill and no good deed goes unpunished i'm taking nothing but grief for about that you guys are not taking the most liberal interpretation of that role you're taking a very conservative role it's why we intended it we know that sewage is super food super food for harmful algal looms we never even talk about pathogens and you don't want to know what some of the organizations we support have found in that lagoon MRSA counts too high to count for example we can't we can't live that way anymore and that's why we're you know at the risk of encouraging sprawl we're having to to to send water and sewer out to to new to new development um anyway i just um i think this project is unique and and chair jenkins i really appreciate you volunteering to take the lead on the planning commissioner her i didn't thank you for reminding us that we have this um this wonderful bedrock of planning called the comp plan and several others of you mentioned that there are other studies so we're not having to start from scratch but you know godspeed with that we need to do that and commissioner smith i am going to take it to to tallahassee tomorrow that martin county needs help with land acquisition i'll make that a focus of our our efforts this session um anyway there's still time in this process time and space in this process for more rigor so letting it down doesn't get you anything it just does so and and i i wouldn't it's not one of my place to say it but several of you have referenced the state and its heavy-handed approaches now i'm really terrified of that so please proceed okay thank you mr brandon tucker followed by adam yingling good afternoon again chairman commissioners and staff brandon tucker executive director of florida landowners association i think in most counties i'll be standing out and i hear about a future land use amendment on 4 000 acres or probably be somewhere between six and ten thousand units being proposed but here in martin county because of the standard of excellence that has been set in this county for decades we're sitting here talking about an applicant that is asking for less density than what is vested by right that has come up with a creative plan that one like i've quite frankly never seen before and once again i applaud county staff i applaud the applicant the effort that's been made by this county commission to have that standard of excellence to continue to send that message that martin county does things with excellence we set a platinum standard in what we do here so people don't even think about doing something like that but they come and bring creative ideas they're going to bring economic development to this community that rising tide raises all ships and i believe that this is certainly a rising tide economically environmentally and all those aspects and it's going to benefit everyone in this county and regionally so the florida landowners association would highly recommend that you proceed with this project thank you mr yingling followed by tammy semino semino good afternoon commissioners adam yingling i'm a proud third generation resident in martin county i've spent lots of time on rural lands within the county and working cattle on them i was happy to hear that the ranch is protecting the large amount of these natural areas within the site including those tied to the agriculture this will ensure that the cattle will continue to roam over 1200 acres and that's the kind of agricultural preservation on a large-scale development plan that is needed additionally hundreds of acres designed hundreds of acres designated for wetland protection is an integral part of conservation and habitat assurance for wildlife for years to come i personally feel that the ranch is a great example for new developments on how to prioritize agriculture and conservation of our natural habitats thank you thank you tammy as i listened to the comments this morning it's kind of a deja vu for me as you can imagine um but i don't think enough credit goes to the staff for the wonderful job that they do and conveying the ideas of the commission to the prospects coming into our and for you guys who make the tough decisions and i think i can't remember exactly what the year but commissioner chairman jenkins when you mentioned the western land study we have done that it's on your shelf and in fact i remember i don't remember the exact year but we paid a firm to come in and facilitate that whole discussion and what i do remember of that it was lower density open space wetland protection and continuing agriculture those four pillars i am positive we're part of that study that we did so i'm totally for a study i think they're great however you can study something to death and we're right here we already know what our vision is for our county the gold standards what everybody loves and wants to protect there's not a person in this county that doesn't want what you guys want so i would ask that instead of prolonging anything and doing another study let's bring that study back let's revise it let's cut the time down and in the meantime let's look at this particular project as a model of what we want in our western lands thank you for your time thank you okay any other public comment greetings commissioner my name is bob ernst residents taxpayers voters are limited to three minutes the developer unlimited time rebuttal we don't have that privilege i would have mentioned this before when i was up here but my three minutes disappeared these two agenda items these two agenda items are so important these are indicator votes and the three of you have indicated you do not want to be stewards of martin county we are different any longer you need to be replaced and i'm going to see that that's done what you have done today today with your votes against martin county we are different it's deplorable you should be ashamed of yourselves thank you commissioner heard thank you commissioner jenkins i didn't complete my first part when i was here because as i just mentioned i ran out of my three minutes we were why do we not live in dade broward palm beach port st lucy the people that were here today the reason you're here is because it's martin county we're different so what would inspire you you to vote for the new york developer he bought egg 20 that's egg land he has a right to use it as it is it's outside the urban service boundary which has mentioned before was sacred before you started voting it away yet now he wants you to change our martin county comp plan and you do not need to vote for that you did not need to vote for that the new york developer wants to break the martin county usb the sacred usb the new york developer wants to eliminate our egg land commissioners no egg land no farmers equals no food golf balls are not that nutritious and they do not taste that good commissioners you have no choice you had no choice to vote no on both the comp plan changes and the calusa golf courses and golf mansions i just want to bring up a couple other things so we talked so much about septic and sewer i live on original 10 acres of so st lucy inlet farms which was something subdivided in 1904 in palm beach county it was still back in the bomb palm beach county at that time i'm one person on 10 acres if i'm out working my land and i have to pee ip on the smallest tree because that helps it grow sir your time is up thank you thank you okay back to the board did you hear any question commissioner hurd yeah the applicant seems to believe that he is providing additional protection for wetlands and that's not the case martin county doesn't allow any any impacts to our wetlands regardless of the use on that property so you're not providing any additional protection for wetlands um the comprehensive plan requires that that that every uh future land use amendment be evaluated for four criteria for determining whether or not the conditions are met to provide a new future land use amendment one of four has to be met none of the four are met the comprehensive plan also has 13 criteria for defining urban sprawl this development meets all 13 the comprehensive plan also discourages uh the peril proliferation of urban sprawl there are eight criteria it meets every one of those conditions for urban sprawl the comprehensive plan requires that the new proposed land use be compatible with the surrounding land uses it is incompatible with every single one of them what it is compatible with is agriculture those are all the surrounding land uses therefore it doesn't qualify for any of the criteria in the comprehensive plan for a future land use amendment and should be unanimously opposed commissioner campus there's jenkins here yeah but can you recognize it i i think i got it mr dulin you didn't review this application by yourself did you no sir how many members of the growth management department are involved in the review of this project um one other uh senior planner and the uh department director also uh reviewed the work and uh was also reviewed by legal department staff engineering yes sir 10 people from the county staff utilities uh reviewed it um we also yes school district also reviewed it 15 how many people would you say that's about right yeah 15 people professionals yes certified trained engineers in certain cases in certain cases okay the reason i ask is because look we're up here there's five of us and we're entitled to opinions we're not qualified in the categories that you mentioned legal engineering growth professional growth management review but 15 people did review it and when you saw the criteria you said the 13 points that would meet sprawl you heard my colleague respectful to my colleague you heard her say that she felt that it was none were met do you agree or disagree with that uh no sir i i don't agree and the other point about four criteria that one of the four would have to be met you said two of the four were met yes sir not zero two so if from my point of view if i have to rely on the professional experience uh and decades collaboratively decades of experience that's what i judge it on now i like commissioner hurd but that's her opinion i'm not basing my decision on commissioner hurd's opinion i'm basing my opinion on what i'm hearing from our staff now if the staff had agreed with a different opinion then you're geniuses but if staff comes forward with a recommendation that some people disagree with then then you're not so i just want to be clear when people hear that that i'm relying my decision making on the word of our professional staff thank you commissioner hurd yeah i'll read the criteria for a future land use amendment a past changes in land use designations in the general area make the proposed use logical and consistent with these uses and adequate public facilities are available staff found that that was had been met even though all of the land uses around there are ag and there's no water and sewer in the area next one growth in the area in terms of development of vacant land redevelopment and availability of public services has altered the character of the area such that the proposed request is now reasonable and consistent with area land use characteristics again every adjacent land use is ag with no public facilities available it has not been met third the proposed change would correct what would otherwise appear to be an inappropriately assigned land use designation even staff admits that that one hasn't been met and lastly the proposed change would fulfill a public service need that enhances the health safety or general welfare of martin county residents that criteria has not been met either and staff agrees with that those are the four criteria i've just read them to you it's clear that none of them have been met again with all due respect that's your personal opinion look that's everyone's entitled to an opinion if if staff had agreed with commissioner heard you guys would think that they were absolutely remarkably great that's how it works here and they are familiar with that mr chairman may i paul showing growth management director for the record so as mr dulin indicated as the commissioner pointed out that two of those four criteria were met as well as i believe four of the eight criteria thus the positive findings so it is a legislative decision it's a fairly debatable standard that's why we're here today commissioner smith there's a lot been said today about exasperating our system meaning services in martin county i said it earlier this morning and again i'll say it this afternoon the past few years in the city of stewart have exasperated the system the thousands of units that were allegedly told to us at a joint meeting that a consultant told the city that they needed 7 000 units in the city because everybody in port st lucie that commutes to the city of stewart needed a place to live so that they didn't have to commute anymore if the city would only build 7 000 affordable units all the transportation problems would be solved that's what they told us at a joint meeting i spoke up and said gee i found it ironic that all the four story stuff that was approved was adjacent to unincorporated martin county and all the two story stuff was adjacent to city voters i was debunked i always said that's completely untrue that's what the developers wanted but if you drive around the city and you look at what's four story and what it's adjacent to and you'll look at what's two story and what it's adjacent to you'll find i think in every single case the two story stuff is next to their voters and the four story stuff is next to my voters in jensen beach and others around the county commissioner hetherington had to deal with a four story major project on us1 next to springtree i think it was down on us1 and the accommodations of the city were zero so the exasperation of our health care system if i were to lay blame on whether or not two percent growth in the county as a whole over the last 20 years exasperated that system or was it the thousands of units that the city approved within the city limits i would start pointing the finger at the city of stewart it also complicated the issue when cleveland clinic took over martin health it changed the game completely and for anybody involved that's all i've heard since the takeover that had nothing to do with the historical two percent or less growth in unincorporated martin county i would argue that a lot of the exasperation of the system is due to the city of stewart promising something they didn't deliver on and now we're stuck with it the county commission had zero control over what the city did relative to this project and and i say all that because i it's easy to complicate the blame as to who's responsible for what the county has been responsible i think i mean i you know if we go to the map from this morning and we look at the pink area which you don't have to put back up because everybody saw it plenty of time this morning again i would argue that the county has done its part to the greatest extent possible to make sure that growth is limited and that it's done in a in an accommodating way we have had we have had presentations before that if you were looked at development patterns from the 60s 70s and 80s in martin county and then you look at projects that happened in the 90s and the 2000s they're entirely different the development approvals the development strategies the wetlands protections all of the things that we deal with on a regular basis are entirely different but again that gets all jumbled into a we want a no vote and that's just all jumbled up and pulled apart so you know we we spend i spent a fair amount of time this morning ed spent a fair amount of time explaining his position harold spent time stacy sarah all to i think in our own way try to clarify things that are said that are people's opinions as ed just pointed out um you know our staff doesn't get up and make stuff up they're probably some of the best staff in the state of florida relative to growth management certainly the most complex growth management system in the state of florida and they do an excellent job at giving us the information and the analysis and even the ideas of how can we get this better if there's a way to make it better and and i and i stand behind the decision we made this morning and i will stand up you know behind my vote this afternoon i do think this is is for western martin county is a is an interesting and productive and and and and and innovative way that the taxpayers of martin county don't have to put up the money to do it um now that's it it no commissioner heather to inspire me with something else i'll be brief and just echo some of your comments in in brief i think residents are exacerbated and they're they're they're looking some of the emails we received on this particular project is we're tired of the growth we see popping up on us one these are not apples to apples that's not an apple to apple comparison um and spring tree was was a real significant issue when you have incorporated abutting all these unincorporated residents and you have zero decision to support the neighbors of that on a four-story height limit and i hear from them still every day on that particular project and i wanted to say again i agree with um all all of that particularly this is preservation now i'm going to call this from now on rural preservation this is an example of rural preservation and not a taxpayer monies are not being expended to acquire i so to me it's a win for martin county and i would i would certainly lend my support again to and thank staff for doing your due diligence and move staff's recommendation commissioner hurt yes staff what kind of data did you know you use to analyze the six thousand foot distance why six thousand feet why not seven thousand feet why not five thousand feet why not five two eight oh why six thousand first off we start with the applicant's request okay that's answers that question and the three thousand acres why not five thousand acres why not four thousand acres why not seems that three thousand is once again not an arbitrary number but rather is that was the applicant's request that was the applicant's request and what analysis did you do to determine that that would be beneficial that that would be a a a recommended expansion of the rural lifestyle designation the additional acreage involves uh larger amounts of land that will be set aside for open space it's not a larger proportion seventy percent of three thousand is a larger piece it's not a larger proportion why not four thousand why not five thousand seven thousand feet so this was all done in order to accommodate one application and it's going to become a county-wide land use it is a land use designation applicable in other portions of martin county where they are within that adjacent to that six thousand foot distance as shown on this uh map where you see the hatching is where the six thousand foot is and that's the only places where they where would come in contact with that six thousand foot buffer you told us less than a year ago that it wasn't going to be it had to be adjacent to a an urban service boundary and that's as of this morning no longer the case actually the land use designation that was proposed for rural lifestyle did not was not tied to the one thousand to the primary urban service district initially that was done through the public hearing process and the back and forth and the the legislative process that it was actually tightened up and tailored down to that at at a later stage what's the limit to the expansion of this rural lifestyle designation i'm sorry i i the adjacency of this is this is this work is this the end of the amendments to rural lifestyle i i don't know what other applicant will bring in some other change if any so there are other applicants lined up not that i'm aware of okay thank you commissioner smith what's he what's equally interesting in terms of how we react to public comment to public requests um we have an individual with us today that came before us years ago and wanted to down zone down land use create a separate land use for his neighborhood um i voted to support that it's called the lags community it also allowed all the individual i suspect the individuals in that community to keep their ag exemptions on their land use and that was a good thing to do now there were people who opposed that and people that didn't think that was a good idea but we did that at the request of residents that lived in that neighborhood to protect that neighborhood from what they viewed as changes to the comprehensive plan that would be not in benefit to their neighborhood and so we are i i i i say we i at least um in my decision making as ed pointed out this morning how he makes decisions we do very much react um to ideas to things that the community as a whole get their heads wrapped around and think is a good idea um and i had forgotten you know that that story um at the last presentation but um it did just come to mind that you know inside the urban service boundary which has talked a lot about this morning we created an ag exemption area for residents to keep what they had and keep their ag exemption on their property and that's a big deal because that ag exemption prevents the taxes that would be equivalent on that property if it were urban area and that's a big deal and i suppose at the end of the day that was probably important to the neighborhood to keep their ag exemptions because that keeps their taxes very very low and so you know as our community changes as it grows as ideas come forward there are going to be changes to the comp plan that was a change to the comp plan and it had a financial impact on the county clearly because it allowed that portion of the county to stay into ag which in the creation of the comp plan and land use the future land use of that was not to stay i assume correct correct so we made a change to the comp plan to basically down zone or down land use land in the future land use idea planning strategy from the early 80s to leave it as ag so this board does move where we need to move and how we need to move to accommodate those that are asking for something if it makes sense to do that i'll second commissioner heatherington's motion okay with that we have a motion by commissioner heatherington seconded by commissioner smith all in favor say aye aye all opposed opposed motion passes three to two commissioner heard commissioner jenkins dissenting thank you members of the board all right we'll now be moving on to public hearing number four legislative public hearing to consider adoption of comprehensive plan amendment cpa 23-14 south florida gateway plan unit development pud future land use map parcel two miss lovelady will be presiding welcome and mr doolin will be putting in a long day today good afternoon commissioners samantha lovelady with the growth management department for the record and this is cpa 23-14 south florida gateway pud it's a future land use map amendment it is a site-specific future land use map amendment small scale it's on 32.26 acres located south of 96 street between southwest canner highway and st lucie canal here you see two parcels on the map this public hearing is for parcel two parcel one is in a later plan amendment this afternoon on the on the agenda in this 32.26 acres is requesting the applicant is requesting to remove that from the freestanding urban service district and to turn the land use into agriculture it's pretty much a land swap with this 32.26 acres so the the freestanding urban service district is 250 acres and if all is said and done then it will remain 250 acres just 32.26 acres will be moved to a different location this is the existing future land use um which is industrial at this moment and this is the proposed future land use with which is agriculture and it is a um as i said request to change in the land use from industrial to agriculture there's a separate text amendment which is cpa 2313 the application meets 13 out of 13 criteria that discourages urban sprawl and meets five out of eight additional criteria that discourages the proliferation of sprawl the lpa voted four to one to recommend approval and staff recommendation is for a motion to adopt cpa 2314 south florida gateway pd future land use map parcel two and i will take any questions you may have commissioner hurd why does this benefit martin county how does this benefit martin county well it they have um they have actually the freestanding urban service district um a lot of uh some applications come in and nothing ever happens on the land they are actively um under construction and which is helpful for economic development in martin county so this is in order to encourage more industrial development at this at this site it's the same amount of industrial that's there today it's a swap so why is it beneficial for martin county i can understand why it's why it's beneficial to the applicant it's beneficial in that it maintains the same amount of agricultural land it's a swap it's an even swap so tell me why it's beneficial for martin county it's no net change that's the benefit thank you oh mr crady can't hear you the record my name is morris crady it's not on that even on don can try it on try it now okay can you hear me now all right um thank you again for the record my name is morris crady i'm here on behalf of the applicant which in this case is uh um the uh south florida well actually parcel two were taken first counter 96 street investments llc and i have been uh turned in the return receipts at the lpa meeting um so they've all been submitted for both of these applications and i wanted to put this first one up here because i'm in i am the representative for both parcel one and parcel two and uh both of them are exactly 32.26 acres one is a change from industrial to agriculture which is parcel two and the other is a change from from agriculture to industrial which is which is parcel one and i'll explain why i'm doing that and the good news is i have good news and good news because the good news i have a short powerpoint presentation and the other good news only have to do it once because it's very simple um and once i once i want to help explain so this is the exhibit that we sent to the surrounding property owners and you can see we're under development on south florida gateway pud we're actually close to a co and i'll show you in a couple pictures in a moment where we are this is uh an existing lake that's been constructed and landscaped um and the county as you know purchased 30 acres uh here and the entire industrial land allocation has always been 250 acres and we're not changing that we're just making it uh we're just moving the the the the land that is not included in the pud to an area where there is existing uh water sewer and access and there's also a signal at gateway place that is under construction so so we we made it clear on the in the exhibit that they're exactly the same size uh one is being changed to industrial the others being changed to agriculture and part of the text amendments is just uh redefining the uh the freestanding urban service district and also addressing the water and sewer uh service areas so all that is is embedded in each of these applications and where we're putting the the uh in industrial again is adjacent to existing developed industrial lands you know we're i i i am actually the agent for the vacant land surrounding the property um the agent for the south uh florida gateway pud and our intent is to come back before you with a pud amendment to add this 32.26 acres to the pud um as i mentioned the whole purpose of us adding it to this site is because there's we're building existing infrastructure directly adjacent to this property this is the signal at southwest gateway place and we're putting a signal at kenner highway that will control traffic um this is actually the completed road so we were this was taken a couple weeks ago we built what we call the large triangle lake this is uh this is not a rendering this is this is industrial building uh uh that's currently getting ready to get ceo this is the north buffer that that we constructed um along the north property line of the pud and and and out of this entire 250 acres the only native trees were in this buffer and we spent a lot of time and a lot of effort with staff to save just about every tree within that buffer and uh you can see we we planted the the lake littoral zones the up and transition zones where there was no trees on this site on this entire 250 acres we have added thousands of trees including cypress trees cabbage palms pine trees oaks tejoon hollies uh this this lake has now incredible amounts of wildlife you go out there today you'll see you'll see tons of of of birds that are are utilizing the lake as i mentioned the north buffer we took extreme measures and we were thankful for the county staff um they that they were they were helpful as we cleared the property they came out a couple times to see where we could protect trees and save trees and where we would supplement this existing buffer with native plants so we've added within this buffer oak trees pine trees all these are our native landscape trees and you can see we've done this uh tree protection plan all the way through the the buffer and this this road by the way dead ends into the the the parcel that we're adding to the pud so there's no there's no need to construct additional roads there's no need to construct additional utilities everything dead ends at this 32 acre site whereas this site is obviously um it's the geometry makes it difficult to to develop and and there is no immediate plan to construct water and sewer along water sideway although it will get there eventually for martin county's project right now uh we have facilities completely built to the edge of this property this property has been farmed um just like the rest of the property for decades uh this is an agricultural road but all of this property surrounding it is uh is is um part of the existing ownership so we're having no impacts on the existing neighborhood the nearest residential lot is about a thousand acres to the north and these uh lots within this mobile home park on scorey lane are about a quarter mile from the project so we're simply moving the land use where uh the utilities are existing uh we're putting in a location that has no impact on surrounding properties and uh with that understanding we appreciate your support and again this is the same presentation for the four items so i'm just going to do it once but staff has to go through their presentations on on each account um but in the end of the day that's that's the big picture and and it's really a lot simpler than it appears on paper any questions for the applicant any public comment i have no cards on it i see no public comment back to the board there's no more staff's recommendation i'll second it okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner heatherton all in favor say aye all opposed opposed motion carries four to one commissioner heard dissenting okay public hearing number five legislative public hearing to consider adoption of comprehensive plan amendment cpa 23-13 south florida gateway planned unit development pud parcel 2 text miss lovelady good afternoon commissioner samantha lovelady for the record this is a request by canter 96 street investments and it is a request request to change figures in the comprehensive both management plan specifically figure 4-2 which shows the urban service district this amendment would remove parcel two from the freestanding urban service district also being amended would be figure 11-1 areas currently served by regional utilities and figure 11-2 potential service areas this is the existing figure 4-2 this is an excerpt thank you claude um in the full figure 4.2 would show up in the ordinance and here you have the proposed and you see parcel 2 is removed here that means that there are no longer services that would be available to those to this property existing figure 11-1 which is areas currently served by regional utilities and you see the rectangle there and you see the rectangle there and this is another excerpt and shows you the outline of what would be coming out again this means there would be no utilities no longer available there 11-2 is potential service areas um there has been an amended um proposed figure 11-2 that was provided to you by supplemental memo and i'll go to that in just a moment and we are the application is also to amend policies regarding the freestanding urban service district policy 4.13 a10 created this um freestanding urban service district through ordinance 1153 and you see the bolded text there that says less and accept property described in ordinance and that ordinance number would be filled in upon approval and um so that less and accept takes it out of the original ordinance number 1153 and for um for consistency purposes 4.7a14 is being amended to which are general prohibitions on development outside of the primary urban service district and again that bold text there takes takes takes takes the property out of the freestanding urban service district also for consistency 4.7a3 4.7a3.1 and 4.1b2 and donna if you could go to page 487 of the agenda this is slightly changed 11-2 from the original um from the original board item i think we just missed the label up here so with that staff recommendation is for a motion to adopt cpa 2313 south florida gateway pud text text parcel two and with that i'll take any questions any questions any questions for staff commissioner heard yeah um policy 4.7a14 and 4.7a3 this is the is proposed ninth exception to the requirement that these services be provided only in the primary urban service boundary what's 4.7a14 and what's 4.7a3 what are you accepting the property in that parcel two i know but what is it specifically accepting putting utilities outside the primary putting water outside the primary putting sewer outside the primary putting yes industrial outside the primary putting water and sewer water and sewer how about how about the exceptions for putting industrial outside the urban service boundary primary that's um because a freestanding urban service district is allowed on industrial land and that industrial piece was created by ordinance 1153 as a freestanding um industrial how many freestanding urban service boundaries do we have now uh believe three there's ag tech there's seven j's this one that's it thanks commissioner smith what did the waterfront used to be on this parcel uh if you go back to i think like 2010 uh there was a commercial waterfront future land use designation and industrial designations adjacent to the canal they totaled about 250 acres and if memory serves me we moved it from the waterfront east correct to where we are today correct and how long was that maybe you don't know this answer but sorry don't but it was there for a long time uh probably 10 years about 10 years yeah commercial waterfront and the industrial yes but the commercial waterfront we found um there was an army corps of engineers um easement on that waterfront commercial to where that wouldn't have been viable for that use anyway although unfortunately you wouldn't know this but i've been in a conversation with others about that that it might have been a viable application and anyway but there was that land use or there was that zoning on the waterfront that got moved and that again was an even swap so it wasn't like this was just created poof out of nowhere like somebody said oh i think that'd be a good place to put this we swapped one from the other and then to the other and this is like the third swap within that original swap yes thank you mr grady i believe you said you already did your thing so yeah i just want to agree with staff recommendation of approval and the only other thing about that swap is that we did as part of that prohibit any industrial traffic on southwest 96 street so when we made that move that's still in place and we're not increasing the intensity that's allowed under the current comprehensive plan text allowances so there's no change in any of those restrictions that were placed when we actually did that swap right morris all i was trying to point out in the conversation is that the idea that this freestanding urban service boundary just came from out of nowhere there's a history as to why it used to be part of the primary this 250 acres was part of the primary urban service district and we just moved it on canter highway to attract economic development and to prohibit uh industrial traffic on 96th street okay with that any questions for mr grady no um any public comment nope um back to the board i don't think so second okay we have a motion by commissioner smith second by commissioner heatherington everybody anybody in favor say aye aye any opposed opposed motion passes four to one commissioner heard dissenting okay now we've got one of these fancy public hearing quasi-judicial things that i hope i remember how to do um public hearing to consider adoption of an amendment to the martin county zoning atlas to change the zoning district classifications for cpa 23-14 south florida gateway plan unit development parcel 2 miss lovelady i think we got to stand and be sworn in for anybody that raise your right hands do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth is there any interveners there's no interveners you turned in your paperwork appropriate paperwork it is being turned in and my wife is calling me for some reason she knows i'm in it um ex parte communication ex parte communications yes i was getting there i was just distracted commissioner smith i do they're filed if i have them they've been filed if i have any they've been filed if i have any they've been filed is that it yes and then when mr crady comes up he can talk about the notices okay all right miss lovelady okay this is the rezoning a quasi-judicial rezoning um for the south florida gateway pud rezoning parcel two that is connected with cpa 23-23-14 it's a request by canter 96 street investments and it is a request to rezone the 32.26 acres of the south florida gateway pud parcel two from limited industrial or li to ag20a and you see the zoning change color there the lpa voted four to one to recommend approval to the proposed zoning district from li to ag20a and staff recommendation is full approval and i'll take any questions any questions for staff nope mr crady yeah for the record morris crady um here on behalf of the applicant we're agreeing with staff recommendation to down zone this property i think it's the first time i've ever been before you reduce the zoning but it comes with parcel one thank you and is there any notices required mr crady yes you did provide the notices at the lpa meeting okay thank you all right any questions for mr crady seeing that back to the board public comment oh public comment i almost had it um no seeing no public comment now we're back to the board we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner hetherington all in favor aye all opposed motion passes unanimously okay public hearing number six legislative public hearing to consider adoption of comprehensive plan amendment cpa 2212 south florida gateway plan unit development future land use map parcel one miss love lady again i've shown you this graphic now this request is by south florida gateway llc it's a proposed future land use map amendment amendment to parcel one which is 32.26 acres on the north side of the south florida gateway pud in the freestanding urban service district and this is the existing future land use which is agriculture and that is the proposed future land use which is industrial again both parcels are 32.26 acres as a swap this is a small scale amendment and it is a request to change from act industrial with the separate text amendment which is cpa 2301 this meets 13 out of 13 criteria that discourages urban sprawl and five out of eight additional criteria that discourages the proliferation of sprawl staff recommendation is a motion to oh before i go there um the lpa voted four to one to recommend approval and with that staff recommendation is a motion to put to approve cpa 2212 south florida gateway pud future land use map amendment on parcel one okay with that any questions for staff mr crady yes again uh morris crady for the record here on behalf of the applicant i did uh provide the proof of notice to surrounding property hunters at the lpa meeting and we're in agreement with staff recommendation any questions for mr crady any public comment seeing none back to the board comment i'll move staff's recommendation okay we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner heatherington all in favor aye all opposed motion passes four to one commissioner heard opposing or um yeah public hearing number seven legislative public hearing to consider adoption of comprehensive plan amendment cpa 23-1 south florida gateway plan unit development pud text parcel one and once again miss love lady samantha love lady for the record with growth management and this is a request by south florida gateway llc and it is request to change figures 4-2 11-1 and 11-1 and 11-2 and i will be showing you the same maps this is the existing 4-2 and this is an excerpt of 4-2 with parcel 1 added this is figure 11-1 existing and 11-2 showing in red there where parcel 2 came out um and again this uh had an um supplemental memo with um an updated figure 11 that provided for um provided the label on the top and this is also a request to change the text and on the comprehensive growth management plan the same policies as before and rather this is i showed you the lesson except that removed the western parcel and this and ordinance xxx would add this piece to the freestanding urban dirt service district and for consistency 4.7 a 14 has been amended 4.7 a 3 these are all for consistency 4.7 a point 3.1 which is an excerpt 4.1 b2 and the lpa recommended four to one to um for to recommend approval and with that staff's recommendation is a motion to approve cpa 23-01 south florida gateway pud text on parcel one and with that i'll take any questions okay any questions for staff mr grady okay um again morris grady for the record this makes the application complete and whole and the land you swap um uh accomplished and uh with that i'd just like to wish you all a very merry christmas thank you see you and do we have any public comment no we don't seeing none coming back to the board staff's recommendation we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner hetherington all in favor aye all opposed motion passes four to one commissioner heard dissenting and for the first time ever we don't have any office of management budget or contracts thank you commissioners chairmanship yeah no doubt not that one of the items though and so i think we've run out of things to do have we no we got to go back to back oh that's right oh man not just that first there's this one page and cpa cpa now appointments too yeah just that one and then we have the dork stuff oh okay okay miss gordon we're community redevelopment agency board member appointments and chair and vice chair designate shots donna gordon for the record this is to um asking that you appoint robert krebs to the hope sound representative on the cra and jamie roll taylor to the port salerno representative so move here we have a motion by commissioner heard seconded by commissioner smith all in favor aye all opposed motion passes unanimously and then we ask that you appoint a chair and a vice chair to the cra rex centel is currently the vice chair you want to move him up to chair i would make a motion to uh have dr rex centel become the cra chairman second because i can't make a motion um i would like to my burt krebs has served um on our nac on and off for years and years and is very knowledgeable of our nac and cra process and would make a great vice chair great let's let's do the first one and then we'll make a second motion oh okay i thought we're doing okay i'm sorry i think you have a motion yeah there's a motion and a second for rex centel for chair yeah okay we have a motion but i'm sorry i'm not just kind of faded out for a minute um welcome back commissioner campy uh made a motion um commissioner heard seconded it all in favor aye all opposed uh burt krebs as vice chair second okay um with that we have a motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner heard all in favor all right motion passes both motions pass unanimously robert krebs vice chair right yep okay making sure okay back to reward signatures we need to have the board approve the use of the prior chairman's signature plate until the next signature plate arrives so moved second motion motion by commissioner heard seconded by commissioner smith all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously and it's by chair vice chair and then i have it down by district everybody yes move everybody second motion by commissioner heard seconded by commissioner hetherington all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously and the infamous chart donna can we go back to a second sure to the to the uh holidays well we're not there yet oh i thought that was the next screen up that you had we didn't get to that yet did we be patient never mind we can go down no no no no that's fine i'll comment on that too uh mr chair i i at least from my behalf i would i would like to keep what i have and i'm happy with the appointments i have i'm fine with it too i'm okay you still want palmar sure make it so and that includes uh the staff people that are listed here michelle andrew jennifer salas for those indicated sure i would move that the appointments of the board uh remain uh as they were last year even the staff even the staff the motion by commissioner smith seconded by commissioner hetherington all in favor all opposed the loxahatchee council council of governments i'm going to take those off the list the land acquisition selection committee you might want to leave right well yeah but the one before that after today loxahatchee council and your meetings for next year oh mr smith i apologize donna for not going through this um until looking at it now this year we had one or two occasions where we had a commission meeting following a holiday um did we go through and make sure that we don't do that again this year well let's look real quick no we do not it was no meeting thanksgiving week i guess that was what i was that was going to be my next question you're only going to have one regular meeting in november and that would be the 19th the reorg and then in december you'll have two back-to-back meetings the third and the tenth is um the 12th of november what is that is be following the holidays you can't you can and that'd be following the holiday but what holiday veterans day oh okay yeah but the fifth is election day that's correct definitely no good and then it's the second regular meeting after the election when you do the reorg i'm okay with the 12th you want to do the 12th well it's not thanksgiving or christmas it's veterans day some you know i would be yeah i would prefer the 12th too the building and the 19th no i prefer the 19th is um thanksgiving no it's not weekend isn't it no it's the 28th thanksgiving yes okay all right fine i think the 12th works yeah 19th is by law that's i mean the 12th isn't the celebrate they'd be the fridays when they're celebrating veterans day no it's the monday which is right there you've got staff prep time you've got stuff you're going to cause problems one well i think having only one meeting for the entire month of november is not a good idea i don't either and you can do the 26th that's thanksgiving we have thanksgiving failed this year well the 12th is 12th well see my choice or how about a wednesday 12th it is wednesday the 12th works we need to vote okay you want us to vote on that yes please i'd make the whole thing or just the 12th i have a question still i got lights i'm sure you're having to march um i know that i will not be here on march 12th and it looks like we have a meeting scheduled so well there's a meeting scheduled march 5th that i have here and then the next meeting uh there's a commissioner already just told me they were going to be out the 12th no not the 12th 6th the 26th oh that's the last spring break of the last senior the last household so i will be definitely absent on that day i think you're entitled to have that day off any other conflicts i'm not in charge of my life so i have no idea now you have a calendar to work around okay somebody make a motion do something i'd make a motion to accept the calendar as presented however including november 12th as a regular bocc meeting second a motion by commissioner campy seconded by commissioner heard and that are you no if i had i'm sorry that was for talking about this in the first place all in favor all opposed motion carries first motion as non-chair was a unanimous one it's a good way to get started yeah and the holidays approval of the holidays and just fyi that's including a friday july 5th and only for 2024 okay do we always get i i think it's a good idea i'm just asking do we always get off the day after thanksgiving i think it's a great idea yes even where i work we do anybody have a week objections to the holidays if not i'll approve them second somebody okay we have a motion by commissioner heard second by commissioner campy all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously and your rules of procedure move approval any changes omissions no second motion by commissioner heard uh seconded by commissioner smith all in favor aye all opposed motion carries unanimously that's it commissioner jenkins do you like the order of the agenda um i thought about it unless you have some suggestions sometimes people say that you know that public public comments should come after some stuff and some people say it should go before and i just i don't really feel strongly but maybe you do i don't okay um just i really like the tradition you started with the veteran doing the thing i would like to continue that if we can relay that to our veterans in all fairness that was originally begun by commissioner hetherington oh just okay i just took it to the next level i'm gonna keep it going yes great yeah thank you absolutely okay with that said have we run out of stuff to do now end of the day end of the day 505 comment no all right well our next commissioner heard uh i'm finished mr campy just to remind folks uh commissioner commissioner smith can announce his event this evening but tomorrow evening in palm city from six to eight we'll be closing a portion of map road for holiday vendors santa and each of the elementary schools in palm city their choruses will be coming to sing christmas or holiday carols and um it'll give everyone an opportunity to come out during the week and uh start to kick it off and i would um anybody that's interested in coming it'll be a good time there'll be food trucks as well and some other things so you can bring the family out have a little dinner listen to the music have a picture taken with santa if that's your thing and um other than that we're going to meet again before the christmas uh and hanukkah holidays so i will leave it at that commissioner hetherington i'm all set commissioner smith downtown jensen 615 tonight tree lighting good and with that we will see you our next meeting is to say you get some people over here who might have something to say well i'll be quick but uh i only finishing the day i just wanted to thank the staff uh and all the um the hosts of the parades over the weekend city steward uh hope sound uh the village of indiantown were all great hosts for us um and our staff that participated and of course fire rescue did a great job and of course our antique fire engine is always a great um addition to the event so uh anyway i just wanted to say those were the community participation was just outstanding in all those areas and really makes you proud to be in the community we live in so that was it thank you nice you did a great job all right we've perfected yeah the smiles were genuine we will see you december 12th and we are adjourned