County Commission meeting. I'd like to call this meeting to order. We'll begin with an invocation by Pastor Jim Harp. Good morning. Good morning, Jim. Please join us. Thank you for this privilege this morning. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much. Thank you for this beautiful day that you've given us today, Lord, and we thank you for the privilege that we have to begin here with seeking your presence and your direction, God. We are so grateful for your many blessings in our lives, and Lord, you tell us in your word, you tell us in the book of Timothy. Lord, you say for us to pray, to bring intercessions for those who are in authority. Intercessions and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in godliness and holiness. Lord, you've told us, not suggested, you've told us to pray for those that have been elected and placed in a position of leadership, and so, God, we thank you for these folks that have been put in this position. I pray for them this morning for peace. I pray for health. I pray for protection, Lord, and just your blessings upon them. Lord, we know the Lord's prayer begins by saying basically that your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and so, Lord, that's my prayer often for the kingdom of God to be built in our community, in our county, in our city, and the Apostle Paul kind of describes that later in one of his letters in Romans. He says that for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Lord, that's what I want. I want to see righteousness and peace and joy in our community, Lord, that we would just experience that. So, pray for the decisions and the directions that are being made that, God, you will guide and direct and give wisdom as you've promised in your word, and I thank you once again for all your goodness to us in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance, which will be led by my favorite golf manager in the world, Mike Saunders. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good morning, Mr. Saunders. Would you like to tell us a bit about your service? Yes, I was in the United States Marine Corps from 2008 to 2012. I was a combat engineer, did two deployments to Afghanistan, and here I am, working for Martin County now. Thank you very much. Boy, you boiled that right down. Yes, you did. Shortest version. We did it. I went over to Afghanistan, I came back. We have three presets today. At 9.05, we'll have public comment. At 10.30, we're going to have a Florida East Coast Railroad Quiet Zone update. At 5.05, or at the end of the meeting, we'll have public comment. Is there approval of the agenda? Ms. Chair, I will move approval of the agenda. Ms. Chair, I will second it. There's a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. First up is employee recognition. We're going to be recognizing our employees of the year or something. Yes, so the employee of the year award recognizes two exceptional individuals who display outstanding performance and commitment. And the two awards, one is called the Spot-On Award, and that's a peer-to-peer nomination that provides an opportunity for employees to recognize and celebrate each other's contribution and achievements while fostering positive and supportive culture. It's often members of the team that are our future leaders in the organization. And the Safety on the Spot, similarly, is a program that recognizes and rewards employees or teams for their commitment to maintaining a safe workplace, reducing accidents, and promoting a culture of safety throughout the organization. So the first award we're going to talk to is about the Spot-On Employee of the Year is Keith Estrada. He's Chief Plant Operator for the Utilities and Solid Waste Department. Keith began his career and with Martin County as a plant maintenance mechanic for utilities and solid waste. After nearly 10 years in that role, he sought a career growth and transitioned to the treatment division as a wastewater operator trainee. In February 2024, he earned his wastewater treatment plant operators license from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Keith actively pursues career advancement through training and by working to upgrade his operator license. In December 2024, he was promoted to Chief Plant Operator at the North Jensen Wastewater Treatment Plant. Keith was recognized for stepping into that leadership role during administrative changes at the North Water Treatment Plant. He took the initiative to identify and write procedures for the plant by offering support to his team. Whenever issues arose, all with humility and healthful attitude, his performance and behavior truly embody the qualities of an Employee of the Year. And I had the privilege of Sam and I going over to one of their meetings. Of course, they were wondering why I'm there. As everyone would. As everyone would. But it was a great surprise to Keith and we had a great celebration when he first was nominated. So thank you, Keith. Keith Estrada. Come on up, Keith. We have several questions for you. I was looking for a check. One of the big ones. You gave me a check and all you got was a plaque. Any film in the camera? No. No, damn it. Congratulations. Thank you so much. First, I'd like to thank family and my wife. From military, then thankfully Martin County hired me as soon as I got out of the Army in 2012. It's been an awesome experience. Whether for them holding me down from there and then meeting all the employees here with Pete, Brittany, Jay, Derek, they've all guided me through this transition from mechanic to operator. Awesome. They never let me fail. Taking all my tests, everything I needed for studying, any assistance I needed. If it wasn't at home, I got it at work. I couldn't be any more thankful for Martin County. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Keith. So the next award is called the Safety on the Spot Employee of the Year, who is Jose Machada, Construction Project Inspector for the Public Works Department. Jose's journey with Martin County began in 2011 as an equipment operator in field operations. He's demonstrating exceptional skills and dedication. He quickly rose through the ranks, ultimately serving as a field operations supervisor for eight years. And of course, his skills on equipment is really unmatched. And I'm reticent to actually say it out loud here because I know contractors are watching. But he's always been eager to make a broader impact on county infrastructure. Jose transitioned to the Capital Projects Division. His professionalism, extensive construction knowledge, and diverse skill set have been invaluable in successful execution of the county's capital plan projects. Beyond his technical expertise, Jose's strong sense of community and genuine passion for helping others is commendable. His dedication to public service is evident both in his work ethic and character. Martin County Public Works is incredibly proud to have Jose as a valued member of our team, and we are honored to express our sincere gratitude to his unwavering commitment. This award is well-deserved recognition for his outstanding contributions to our community. Finally, Jose was recognized for his quick action ensuring the safety of a small child he found alone in the middle of the street running after a call while conducting a construction inspection. He spotted the child, immediately moved him to safety, and began searching for the parents. With the help from neighbors and the sheriff's office, the child was safely returned home. Jose remained humble, saying anyone would have done the same thing. And I know that, you know, Jose has been one of those that I've had the privilege of, I wouldn't say working alongside of them because they don't let me do equipment anymore, but uh, uh, uh, through disasters and, uh, and, uh, bathtub beach washing away. He's out there while waves are smashing over equipment, uh, rebuilding our infrastructure, uh, and his skills as, uh, not only an operator, but he also had his own construction company for a long time. So he's a really exceptional member of our team, uh, just as Keith. So again, thank you, Jose. Thank you, everybody. I'm deeply touched that you all have, uh, chosen to recognize my actions with the Employee of the Year Award. I truly feel that anyone else would have done the same if faced with the same situation. I was raised to help people whenever I can and to always do the right thing. I believe I was in the right place at the right time. I'm glad that I was able to help that little boy and to reunite him safely with his family. This award is a reminder that even the smallest acts of kindness can have a profound impact on the lives of others and that we all have the power to make a difference in our community. Thank you to all that's always believed in me. Thank you for this wonderful honor. I am truly humbled and grateful to be a part of the Martin County family of employees. And one more thing before I go, I would like to thank Pam makes you rest in peace. Um, I'm sure she had something to do with this. Yeah. Thank you. And to other counties, these gentlemen have contracts that take him through the end of their career here at Martin County. So don't try anything. Uh, our next, uh, act is to acknowledge the citizens who have participated in class 66 of the Martin cares program. Mr. Stokas. Good morning, ma'am chair. Um, yes, I am George Stokas. I'm pleased to welcome some of the representatives of our most recent cares class number 66. If you can believe that 66 classes before I read their names and invite them up for a photo, I'd like to share a quick excerpt from an email that we received from one of our fellow classmates, just to give you a little idea of what, how this class affects them. Uh, it goes as quote, I've just completed the Martin cares program, and I am writing to tell you what a wonderful experience it was. I thought I knew a decent amount about Martin County, but through this program, I learned so much more. Uh, that's from one of our students, Kara. Uh, honestly, I can't pick a favorite part of the program. Each piece was interesting in its own right. And now I have a whole new application appreciation, excuse me, non-application appreciation for not only where our tax dollars go, but also the staff who work so hard making our county a wonderful place to live. And again, that's from Kara. Um, and commissioners, we frequently receive comments like this from the, from our cares participants. And I think it's a testament to the efforts of our staff and how they work and what they do for our community. So now I'd like to ask the following folks to come up so we can thank them for their participation in Martin cares and commissioners. If you could come to the well to welcome them. And as the commissioners come on down, what I'll do is I'll list the names. And if you could come off of my left through here, through the well and the commissioners will receive you, where's the I'll get my kazoo for the next one. Stand by your name. Yes. Uh, and now I'd like to ask the following folks to come up so we can thank them for their participation. Martin cares. Uh, Ms. Lynn Castro. And I apologize if I totally butchered the name. I'm going to try my best here. Ms. Carrie Cottrell, Mr. Jim Latimer, Ms. Deborah Marco, Ms. Ellen Murphy, Mr. Richard Olson, Mr. Vincent Piazza, Mr. John Stammen, Mrs. Beverly Stammen, and Mr. James Vassi and Ms. Rita Vassi. Do you want a picture in the well? And for you graduates, we're going to ask you to stick around because we're going to want to take one picture of all of you in the well. It's the last thing you have to do for CARES. Yeah. Yeah. You want Dana in? Dana! Yes. Dana. I just said about me in the lobby. If you guys want to stay, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. Next up are proclamations. The first proclamation is a proclamation recognizing 70 years serving Martin County's libraries in Martin County. The ongoing, um, yes, we have, let's see, presenting a proclamation for 70 years. We have Sheila Leach, president of the Friends of Martin County Library System. You can come on up. The ongoing work of the Friends of the Martin County Library System highlights the fact that our library system is the cornerstone of our county, providing opportunities for all to engage in the joy of lifelong learning and connect with the ideas of others from ages past to the present. The Friends of the Martin County Library System have been serving our libraries for 70 years, setting an example for all in how volunteerism leads to positive civic engagement and the betterment of our community. The board urges everyone to join the Friends and thank them for all they do to make our libraries and our community an exceptional place to live, learn, work, and retire. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair and Commissioners and guests. I'm Sheila Leach, president of the Friends of the Martin County Library Association, and I'm here to accept this proclamation on behalf of the Friends. As you just heard, the Friends have been supporting Martin County's library since 1955, and we were originally called the Martin County Library Association. In the 1990s, the Friends successfully appealed to the community for a one percent tax to pay for the cost of building additional libraries throughout the county. Subsequently, six Friends groups emerged engaging in grassroots community support. In 2010, the Friends advocate for the library system's budget not to be severely cut when all the county budgets were being forced to tighten their belts. It was cut, but the library system survived and thrived. In 2012, the former six Friends groups merged, resulting in reducing expenses, maximizing our funding impact, and saving hours of staff time. In 2020, we survived and continued to thrive when some communities lost their Friends groups and support because of the pandemic. Although the Friends grant to the library system is a very small percentage of the library system's budget, approximately one percent, what we fund is clearly visible. We invite everyone in the community to join us on April 5th at the Blake Library between 2 and 4 p.m. to visit booths set up throughout the library system featuring what our grant funding provides. This family-friendly event will be generously arranged by Jen Solis's staff and Friends members. Once again, thank you for this gracious recognition. Thank you. Bring the whole group up. Bring the whole group. We're BFFs. The next proclamation is a proclamation declaring Surveyors and Mappers Week in Martin County, Florida. And we have Tom Walker, our County Surveyor for Public Works, here to accept the proclamation. Surveyors and Mappers are counted among the founding leaders of our country, and we're instrumental in the formation of the layout of property boundaries in the United States that provide our citizens the enjoyment of property ownership. In recognition of March 16 through the 22nd, as Surveyors and Mappers Week, the board would like to acknowledge the men and women of this profession for their diligence in meeting the continuing needs in our communities. Tom? Good morning, Commissioners. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm accepting this proclamation on behalf of the Indian River Chapter of the Florida Surveying and Mapping Society, the National Society of Professional Surveyors, and the National Association of County Surveyors. I want to take this moment to thank county surveying staff and our surveying consultants for the work that they do on county projects. They're most often the first boots on the ground collecting data and creating maps and drawings for the projects, and their work often is unrecognized, so I want to just take this opportunity to recognize them for that. And also, in the state of Florida, as far as since at the time of 2024, there were approximately 2,400 licensed surveyors in the state, and 51% of those licensed surveyors are of the age of 61 or older, so we desperately need surveyors. So if you know anybody who is interested, you know, parents with kids who want to learn more about professions and opportunities, any young adults or anybody looking for a change in their career, please look at land surveying. It's a very good opportunity. I've been blessed in my career to be a surveyor. We have a lot of neat opportunities as far as the tools and toys we get to use for our work. We have everything from planes and drones that collect LIDAR and are used for photogrammetry. We have robotic total stations that we use in the field, and we use boats for bathymetry. And so there's a lot of great opportunities in surveying, so thank you very much. Thank you. Smart idea to say that. Bring the team up. George Washington was a mapper and surveyor. I heard that recently, like half of the surveyors are over 64. So our audience is getting ready. We should have a best beard contest. We've got a lot of good beards. I was hoping not, but. Some legitimate beards. And a lot of, you can't even get it with experience. Even with experience, you have a lawyer degree, don't you? Back out into the field. We've seen those. He said there's people in the community. And the room is cleared out now. Our residents love seeing our surveyors in their neighborhoods because it means that a project is on its way. Next proclamation is a proclamation designating March 2025 as Irish American Heritage Month in Martin County, Florida. This is a fantastic one too. Right? Top of the morning. And we have Philip J. Morgan, our state treasurer, here to accept. And the Irish first came to Spanish La Florida. I think I said that in a French way. In the 1500s. First as missionaries and mercenary soldiers. And then as planters, traders, businessmen, doctors, and administrators. And three of the Spanish governors of La Florida were actually Irish military officers. Irish Americans, since America's inception, have provided leadership and service to Florida and to our nation. March is recognized as Irish American Heritage Month, and all are encouraged to celebrate their cultural heritage and many valuable contributions. Mr. Morgan. Good morning, Steem County Commissioners. On behalf of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the largest Irish American organization within our country, is with great pride to receive this proclamation. Over 70 proclamations acknowledging Irish American culture within March have been declared throughout Florida. August of 2024 was an exciting time for being a Hibernian, being that we celebrated our national convention in Orlando within the great state of Florida. Locally, the Hibernians meet on the first Sunday of every month at the Saints Pub, which is at 2601 Morningside Boulevard in Port St. Lucie at 3 p.m. We thank the board, the commissioners, along with our federal citizens of Martin County. Go Irish! And our next proclamation is a proclamation designating March 3 through 9, 2025 as Flood Awareness Week in Martin County. And we have Christine Madsen, Engineering Permit Manager with the Public Works Department here. Martin County has experienced severe weather in the past in the forms of extreme rainfall or tropical events resulting in flooding in both coastal and riverine areas. This flooding has caused damage and flood losses to homes and buildings in all areas, whether they are high-risk special flood hazard areas or low to moderate flood zones. Flood Awareness Week was recognized March 3 through the 9th, and the board encourages residents to increase their knowledge of how to protect themselves and their property in flooding. Good morning, commissioners. Good morning. Last week, Martin County Public Works participated in Flood Awareness Week, joining a statewide effort to raise awareness about the importance of flood preparedness and the value of flood insurance. Flooding is one of the most common and expensive natural disasters in the United States. Just one inch of flood water can cause up to $25,000 in damages. So we're encouraging our residents to become flood-ready by preparing and understanding the risks of flooding in our community. We ask that our residents have an emergency plan and a disaster supply kit in case of an evacuation and to obtain flood insurance to protect their homes and property. During Flood Awareness Week, we shared flood-related information through the county social media pages and website. And we've also set up flood awareness displays here in the lobby, also at the Blake Library and at the building department. So we invite everyone to stop by and check them out. And thank you for helping us spread the word about this important issue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now we will begin public comment. The first public speaker I have is Doug Farley, followed by Tom Pine. Good morning. Later this morning, we will hear a report from Public Works about the viability of quiet zones at railroad intersections. You mentioned that earlier. I urge this commission to vote for quiet zones. Horns are ineffective. They do not work. Barricades. Four quadrant gates do work. You'll learn about these four quadrant gates when the public works makes their presentation. Motorists cannot simply drive around a gate if there are four gates, fully blocking the intersection. Quiet zones would bring a better quality of life without compromising safety. Often, politicians refer to leaders in public safety to help guide their decisions and matters like this. I want to read parts of a letter to T.C. Palm newspaper written in March of 24 by then Martin County Sheriff Snyder. The title, the headline of that news report said by Sheriff Snyder, use caution in considering whether to create bright line quiet zones. He goes on to write, emergency responders often rely on the audible warning signals of trains to navigate through traffic and reach their destinations promptly. By eliminating the use of trains horns, we risk impeding the efficiency of emergency services and potentially endangering lives in critical moments. Again, you know, when this is written, well, actually, I'm sorry, I'm going to go back here. I read this because, I read this because the comments that the sheriff makes in the media has a lot of influence. People listen and assume he's correct and he's not. Those statements are false. As a 31-year veteran in the fire service, many of those years driving emergency vehicles, I can tell you that at no time did I rely on a horn to warn me of a train. Personnel and rescue vehicles wear sound impeding headsets to protect us from the siren and to allow us to communicate with each other and our dispatch. Police officers drive their squad cars with their windows up, the air conditioning on. Radio traffic between themselves, other officers and dispatch mean they can barely hear outside the vehicle and must rely on visual references like gates. Civilian motorists are in a similar situation. Their windows are up, air conditioning is on, the radio is playing when they're talking on the phone. They need visual reference like gates. Four quadrant gates, physical barriers work. Horns are ineffective. Please silence them so we can have a better quality of life. Again, quiet zones will not jeopardize public safety. And lastly, Boca Raton has had quiet zones since 2018. They've had no significant incidences at intersections. And I think you should follow suit. Thanks very much. Tom Pine is next in. Mr. Pine is the last request to speak form I have. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Tom Pine. I've been a resident of Martin County for over 50 years. If my photos could be left up while I speak this time, I would appreciate it. Today, this county commission will approve $19,970,381.72 in expenditures between February 10th and February 23rd using using the consent agenda in a questionable manner without identifying the payees or the purpose of the payments. Secrets in our government spending habits is dangerous to democracy. How much do the clubhouse at our county golf course cost the taxpayers of Martin County? It's a secret. It was hidden in the consent agenda. Even a public records request about the cost of the clubhouse that cost me $35 and got back over 30 pages had nothing related to the cost of the clubhouse because it's a secret. These two photos from Sailfish Point, these two photos, one from Sailfish Point in 2015 from the sand to the top of the seawall about 11 feet. The second is from Bathtub Beach in 2025 from the sand to the top of the dune is about nine feet. Less than a sheet, less than a year since the last time our county government dumped millions and millions of our tax dollars to save, quote, Bathtub Beach. In reality, it's all about saving Sailfish Point from being an island of its own. We can never spend too much money to save some of the wealthiest among us. Everyone wonder where all the sand goes that we dump in Bathtub Beach? It has been suggested to me it flows north and smothers the reef just north of Bathtub Beach. On the other hand, our our county, our assistant county administrator, George Stokas, has promised several times over the past years he would be, he would be providing us with a plan to assist low income families with help. Downtown Jensen Beach now has a paid parking lot with a gorilla in the room taking full advantage of the situation with $10 gift card to offset the $10 charge to park. What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Would anyone else like to address us? If not, we will move on. Commissioners, with your approval, if we can take up Department 1, which is Office of Management and Budget items, there are only two items and Ms. Murley doesn't want to wait until the end of the day to bring up her two items. And after that will be John Mayle's agenda item, which is the board and committee appointments. Oh, yeah. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. There's a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thanks. I'll take commissioner comments after these. Oh, sure. Well, let's have commissioner comments now, too. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. Um, there have been, uh, quite a few incidents at the rail crossings throughout our county. Jensen Beach being one of the unfortunate top areas where we have have the highest incidents in our county. Uh, hope sound would be second. So, uh, I have, uh, spoken with staff. We're in planning right now to implement numerous safety measures to protect our citizens as they move about the county and be able to be rest assured that we are looking out for their benefit. So I want to make a mention of that. It's been spoken about in numerous meetings and let you know that we have our finger on the pulse of the community. Mr. Caps. I'm good today. Mr. Campy. Thank you. Just a brief, uh, announcement this Saturday, March 15th from 6 PM to 9 at the patio at the Palm City place, which is on map road, just north of the Palm City fire station. We're going to have another, uh, installment of what we're calling the patio playlist. We're having Miss Carla Holbrook, who is a very well known Martin County, uh, singer and performer musician. She will be performing from seven to nine. We'll have a couple of food trucks, uh, some beverages, bring a chair, uh, or a blanket. We did it last month with a band called vintage radio. It was very well, uh, attended. Everyone loved it. We're trying to do it monthly, give an opportunity for neighbors and residents to come out and meet each other instead of just staying home, watching Netflix and, and perusing their phones, come outside, listen to live music outdoors with your friends and neighbors, uh, this Saturday, March 15th from six to nine. Thank you very much. Mr. Hetherington. I'm all set this morning. Thank you. Mr. Donaldson. I'm all set. Thank you. Ms. Woods. Thank you. Then now we will get, begin with Ms. Murley's department one, right? Yeah, we did that at first. Good morning, Commissioner Stephanie Murley here with the OMB item today. We have two items. Um, our first item is a permission to apply for the Florida Department of Transportation FDOT local road safety program grant, um, for the Southeast Dixie Highway signal improvements project. Um, so Martin County is requesting, um, to go out for permission to apply to construct safety improvements at five Florida East Coast FEC railroad grade crossings on Southeast Dixie Highway. Um, the proposed improvements will vary, but they are designed to reduce crashes and improve pedestrian and vehicular safety. Um, the requested grant award is for 3.2 million, which requires a $300,000 match. That's going to be programmed within our roads capital improvement plan funds. And the second item is a permission to accept amendment number one of the mosquito control agreement, um, from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Um, it's a budget amendment to actually reduce the grant award by $6,185.56. Um, this is due to the number of mosquito control programs that are participating in the tier two funding category. Um, this requires a match of 20% which will also be reduced based on this budget resolution, and we just ask that you accept that amendment. And that's all I have today. Questions for Ms. Murley? Um, sorry, go ahead. I will move approval of, um, the, uh, OMB items today. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we will move into B and C one environmental lands oversight committee appointments. Mr. Houston used to the suit. Yeah, I know, right? I'm going to have to buy some new ones. If I keep having to go up here, uh, Michael Houston, senior project manager, um, Martin County environmental resource division. Hope you are having a good day. Okay. 942. It's 942. So, uh, today we have just come back to you, uh, the, at the last meeting, we, uh, basically approved the formation of the environmental lands oversight committee, and we have a slate of members that will fill the different roles on the advisory board, uh, committee. And we're hopeful that we will be able to get started and get the committee meeting within the next month or so. That's some good ones. Mr. Campy. Is this an action item? Yeah. I would make a motion to accept the, uh, nominees for this committee, uh, having the opportunity to read each of their, um, applications. Some of them included resumes, even without, if you just, for a lot of us that have been involved in county, um, goings on for many years, that is a who's who list of some of the best and brightest and most, uh, involved members of our community. Um, we couldn't have had a better inaugural group than the group that was put together. That's fantastic. Mr. Vargas. Yes. Uh, question. Dan Brady. Is he a commercial broker or residential? Uh, residential. Yeah. I just want to echo what Mr. Campy said. This is a, a really impressive list of, of, uh, appointees. And there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm from all the members. They're all very thankful to be on the committee and are very excited and want to do their best to play their role in our, uh, selection process. I'm confident that they will choose wisely. And I want to thank the committees or the organizations for choosing these fine representatives. I agree. And I'll second the motion. Any further comment? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor. I opposed that motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Uh, we'll now take up public hearing number one, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of the ear report, uh, based comprehensive plan amendment number 24 dash zero to overall goals and definitions. Morning. Good morning, members of the board. Uh, my name is Clyde Doolin with me is, uh, Jenna Nabi, uh, senior planner. Uh, before we start chapter two, I would like to just give you a brief introduction. Um, this is a required amendment. Uh, this is a part of a process that is done every seven years. The evaluation and appraisal report must be done as a requirement of Florida statutes. This process began in August of 23 with a community public outreach workshop and an evaluation and appraisal report was presented to the board in March of 2024. Um, the board initiated the amendments at that point. Um, the amendments have all gone off to Tallahassee for review. Uh, they are coming back now for adoption. Uh, this set of public seven public hearings that you'll have today will begin today, what are scheduled to conclude on March the 25th. So no final action is necessary today on these items. Uh, and, uh, this, as I said, is part of a cycle that occurs every seven years. Uh, these plan amendments are not changing the urban boundary, the four story height limit, or disregarding the protection of wildlife and wetland and natural habitat. Uh, these plan amendments do make changes required by Florida statutes, address local issues, acknowledging things like the village of Indiantown being incorporated and make basic housekeeping changes to keep the plan up to date. And I thank you very much for, uh, for these taking up these seven hearings today. And with that, Ms. Nabi. Good morning. My name is Jenna Nabi, senior planner with the growth management department. And this is a request to consider adoption of CPA 24-02, a text amendment to chapter two, overall goals and definitions of the comprehensive growth management plan based upon the 2024 year. When this amendment was transmitted to the state of Florida, the state land planning agency did not come back with any comments in their objections, recommendations and comments report, also known as the work report, but a brief overview of what these proposed changes to chapter two entail. Uh, we have proposed cross references to chapters eight coastal management element and chapter nine conservation and open space element to ensure that all the information between chapters two and chapters eight and nine are consistent with each other. There is a new objective proposed for addition objective 2.2 F. And this objective is referencing resiliency planning, which is outlined in chapter eight coastal management element. Policy 2.4 C one is proposed for revision to change the planning period timeframe from 15 to 20 years consistent with Florida statute section 163.31775 a. And in the staff report as part of this agenda item proposed changes number eight through 17 all deal with the definitions contained contained in chapter two. There are some definitions proposed for revision based on changes in statute. Um, some have, uh, definitions have been proposed for addition and some have been proposed for deletion consistent with the proposed changes in chapter one preamble and chapter four future land use element. So that concludes staff's presentation on the proposed changes and staff recommends that the board continue this public hearing to March 25th, 2025 at 9am or as soon after as the matter may be heard. And we are available for any questions you may have. Questions for Ms. Nobby or Mr. Doolin. Commissioner Vargas. We've received a lot of communication about this. I'm certain you understand. I know what you said, Mr. Doolin. We are not moving the urban service boundary, correct? Correct. Four story height is not changing. Um, so are we strengthening or weakening our protection of Martin County? A lot of people have referred to Palm Beach County, St. Lucy County. We're going to look the same. I would, the answer I think is neither. We are making the necessary updates to comply with Florida statutes and address local issues and changes to acknowledge, uh, changes in the local circumstances here. But the plan is essentially remaining, uh, strong protection that it has always been. So if we were to make a change or if we were not to make a change, it would, one would not conflict with the other. Is, is that what I'm understanding? Does that make sense to you? I would say some changes that are proposed in chapter two and within other chapters of the comp plan as part of the year process are required with statute. Um, so we would need to make sure that any changes we're proposing, um, are compliant with what the state is requiring. So the state is requiring to make these changes that you're referring to is my understanding that it wasn't necessary. Is, is that correct? Ms. Elder. So we are making some changes in compliance with Florida law, but the state came back with, uh, uh, in the ORC report, they did make some suggestions to make additional changes. I don't think staff is making those changes, but we did make the necessary changes to comply with Florida law. Okay. So a suggestion is a suggestion. It's not a mandate. Correct. The ORC report did have some suggestions. Um, I think one was maybe in chapter nine that we needed to provide for more water and sewer. Um, we're doing the, what's necessary under the statute. We're not taking the extra steps further that were suggested. We're taking a conservative approach. Okay. Commissioner Capps. Uh, on March 25, we're going to be voting on all 16 amendments. That's correct. And there's a group of them that have a relationship with each other. Yes. And depending on what we do in chapter four, that would have an influence on chapter one and two, and just a little bit of influence on chapter six, I believe. That's correct. That's correct. There are definitions, uh, in this chapter that are shown stricken because the terms are removed from chapter four. So if there's any change in one, it needs to be reflected in all so that they're internally consistent. Good. Thank you. Any further questions? Is there a motion to continue this item? I will move to continue this item to March 25th at 9am or as soon as possible after. Second. There's a motion and a second. We need to call for public comment. Sorry. Is there any public comment? Seeing none. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. On to public hearing number two, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of ear amendment 24-08 coastal management element? Morning again. Uh, Clyde Doolin for the record and with me, Amy Eason, our, uh, engineer from the public works department who did a great deal of the work on chapter eight and we're very thankful for her assistance. Um, there were no objections, recommendations, or comments, uh, from the state agencies on this chapter. Uh, the, it addressed a number of issues that are required in state statutes, such as resiliency planning. And, uh, I'll let, uh, Amy make any additional comments if she, if she has some. Thank you. Amy Eason, environmental resource engineer. Um, a lot of it was just housekeeping, updating the information, um, containing our evacuation routes with hurricanes, being consistent with other studies. And for the most part, um, making sure that we clarified that the element that is in the state statute concerning the coastal element had been, uh, taken care of as well as adding goal, um, 8.3, which addresses the parallel flood, uh, Florida statute 163.3178. Um, very much like the statute in applying those vulnerability suggestions from our sea level rise report per resolution 21-3.32. And just as a note, this, as he had mentioned, this is the year process. We're bringing things up to Florida statute. Um, we are currently finalizing the vulnerability assessment right now. So there'll probably be another change to this element in the future when it comes to the suggestions in that new updated vulnerability assessment, assessment, along with our adaptation plan that we're currently working on. If there's any other questions, let me know. Questions for Dr. Eason. I have a couple. Um, I'm on page, uh, two of 34 or 620, uh, shorelines need to be restored, managed, and maintained to minimize flood damage, reduce storm surge, stabilize the shore, and maintain adaptability to future sea level rise conditions. Does that include hardening? No, it includes living shorelines, anything that we need to do to mitigate for sea level rise. So there'll be a, a, um, like a menu of items that will come up as we look at sea level rise and making sure that we're protecting infrastructure. So, so if I have an unhardened shoreline, if I have a mangrove shore, shoreline, and it's damaged by a storm, what am I allowed to replace it with? And who makes the, who evaluates what I can replace it with? And can I harden it? So they will have to do per what our code suggests is they would have to provide an analysis kind of showing whether they can, whether, whether, whether they can't bring it back into vegetation or not. They would have to provide that analysis and we would have to look at it and see if it, if it complies with our code or, or, or not. So, um, I mean, I'm very strong opinion on it should go back as a living shoreline. Um, but there may be conditions because of sea level rise, we may have to like raise some things, but that is, that will be taken care of in our LDRs later on. But right now you have the suggestion you could do it either way, but they would have to provide an engineer's analysis. Commissioner, that's the same as the code today. Um, no, it's not. It's new. I'm just saying that there are conditions where, uh, a storm damage or persistent erosion still has the same analysis for a property owner seeking to, um, protect their property, has to go through the same process after this amendment as they do today. It's all I'm suggesting, which is the natural shoreline, uh, uh, uh, is still party to it depending upon what neighborhood you live in. The analysis may allow structures if, uh, uh, uh, depending upon the situation as, as it is approved today or the restrictions are the same, I should say. It's still a very different. They're not, they're not in the comprehensive plan now. This is a proposal to add another qualifier into the comprehensive plan. You say, you say it's already in the LDRs. I'll have to take your word for it because I don't have them in front of me, but this language is not in the comprehensive plan right now until we approve this amendment. I'm uncomfortable with that. Um, Commissioner, can you point to the text that you were referring to? You've got it on the screen. Is it? Yeah. Okay. It's this, this one right here. Yep. Also on page 630, uh, it's, uh, number two where preservation areas or shoreline protection areas are identified on a plat approved for single family residential lots before April 1, 1982. Such lots may be developed in accordance with the standards for preservation or shoreline protection as described and dedicated for protection on the approved plat document. Were there any protections prior to 1982? There were. It was interesting. You, if you go back and look at some of the old plats, you'll see, uh, some interesting language and some curious requirements put on those plats. And sometimes in the old PUDs, uh, like the old Martin Downs PUD has, uh, some interesting preservation requirements and someone like that along Bessie Creek and in, uh, and in various places. And it's different in many respects than the language we see in the comp plan today. So were there any protections required pre 1982 shoreline protection zones? Did they exist? Oh, uh, only from the state's perspective. I think it was in the mid seventies when the, uh, wetlands rules went into the state of Florida in terms of dredge and fill, uh, in terms of shoreline hardening, it would have only been to the restrictions by the department of environmental tech protection. And I don't recall what codes the county had at the time, but there were a number of properties prior to 1982 that had bulkheads and canals built and things like that as part of their project. Today, those, they're able to maintain those, those in between, um, have to follow the process of whether or not they qualify for shoreline hardening. Uh, good morning. If I may, uh, Daryl DeLoo, environmental administrator, a growth management department. So, uh, this language is in here to address, uh, plats that were approved before the comp plan was established in 1982. So we had commissioners like Maggie Herchella at the time that required these subdivisions to establish preservation areas and shoreline protection areas in these plats. So they're basically vested, um, on the plat based on what the board approved at the time. So we have plats from 78, 79, 80 that have these platted shoreline protection zones. Uh, some of them have platted wetland areas. So we respect those things because they're vested per the plat. Okay. So that was post Maggie Herchella, which would have been 78. What about before then? What kind of shoreline protection zones were platted? Generally the, the older plats don't speak to any shoreline protection requirements are just platted lots, but we do have these ones from like the late seventies that started to lock in a shoreline protection zone and they can be 15 feet. They can, they vary in size and certain wetland areas that are also established on these plats from like 1980. Yeah. Yeah. There are also, I might note provisions in chapters eight and nine that do put protections on pre 82 lots of record. So even if something doesn't have a platted, uh, protection area on it, like the, as I mentioned, the Martin downs along Bessie Creek, there's still a requirement for having a shoreline protections on a 25 feet on the old pre 82 lots of record. Yeah. So if the plat doesn't speak to a shoreline requirement, they're considered to be lots of record prior to 82. So we do have code that establishes how you protect that shoreline on a lot of record. It's this, this weird, uh, these weird plats that exist where the board did approve a shoreline protection area that's vested on the plat. So that's what we hold people to is based on what the board approved in 79, 80, 81 before the comp plan. It sounds to me like there's a conflict. That's where I turn to my legal counsel. Lee Selder, deputy county attorney. So I think the goal of staff is to put some more teeth in these plots because there are some applicants who might not want to comply with them. And sometimes the requirements are stricter than what the code provides for something pre 1982. So it's really just reinforcing that these plots that have preserve, preserve areas or shoreline preservation, that we are enforcing those and that applicant, um, it's in our comp plan that you have to comply with that. So I think that's the intention of it. I think for prior to 1982, that doesn't have it in the plat. We still have to follow our regular requirements. This is just putting additional protection for those Maggie Hercella instances that she actually put it in the plat or the board put it in the plat. So that's the, that's the, that's the goal with this provision. They still have to comply with everything else. Also replacement of existing structures within the shoreline protection zone shall not be subject to a 75 foot shoreline protection zone. Do you have a page number? Yep. Same page, 630 number five. That's existing text. I know. I don't know when the last time was that we changed it. I don't think it has been. Do you remember having changed work? I'd worked on a change on this. No. Um, so what if it wasn't illegally permitted structure for crying out loud? We're still going to let them replace it and it won't be subject to the shoreline protection zone. Cause a lot of, you know, a lot of them are unpermitted. Yeah. We address those when we can document that. The problem is, is you have some of these structures that go deep back to the, you know, a seawall from the sixties. And all we can do is the best we can do with aerial evidence to show, but we're not going to find permits for some of these old structures that exist out there. That's just the reality of what we deal with with some of these older areas. I think the challenge is you have a home built in the sixties. They have a swimming pool within five feet of the seawall. And there's no way to enforce a 75 foot setback on an existing property in that condition. And that simply recognizes that. That's also a recognition that we have, that they have no shoreline protection zones whatsoever. And that we're not enforcing that either. That's the challenge. Otherwise you wouldn't allow them to replace their seawall or their pool or do any work in their backyard because the shoreline protection zone would prohibit it. So it just simply recognizes that there are a number of properties built prior to the comp plan enforcement that, um, um, for, for the reality is there, the, the shoreline protection zone, um, simply does not exist because it's fully built out prior to the plan's adoption. And we do enforce a shoreline protection zone for lots of record that were platted prior to 82. So we require a minimum 25 foot SPZ for lots that are an acre or less. And we do enforce that. Where? Throughout the county. No, no, no. In what, in what chapter? Um, it should be here in chapter eight. It's definitely in the LDR. And in nine. We even have a handout that we give to residents that walk in. What can I do with this property? And if they're in a, you know, platted lot from the fifties, they, and they're an acre or less, you have a 25 foot shoreline protection zone that is enforced. So we don't let you build your pool 10 feet away from the seawall, if you will, or expand your patio, which is often the case. Someone goes to Home Depot and gets a pallet of pavers and they have to take them out because they're within the 25 feet. Commissioner Vargas. Okay. So this is going forward is what I'm understanding this language here about the 25 feet or 75 feet. Is that correct? No, that's existing. It's existing text in the plan. No one's proposing to make any change to this, this parent five. I understand. All right. So I had a constituent that wanted to, to build a swimming pool and Martin County went out there. She does have mangrove and, um, she did not have a seawall. And so she was denied her permit. She had the adequate space. So would that be a case where we could look at this again? Um, I'm familiar with the property. You are familiar with the property. Okay. Um, so, so that's a property that had mangroves along the shoreline. And that's a case where in addition to a shoreline protection zone, we would have a wetland buffer that would be regulated, but the language is very similar on a lot of record. The wetland buffer for a lot of an acre or less would be 25 feet. So the problem with that particular resident is they, they built their house right on the 25 foot line. So they didn't leave themselves any room for a pool. So, so there was, and we do enforce the shoreline protection zone on these older platted lots. So we had to enforce the shoreline protection zone slash wetland buffer. And we can't allow any development in that wetland buffer. The house was built right on the line. Right. I think that property was built. Was it the eighties or nineties? Do you recollect? That was platted in 79, if I'm not mistaken. 79 platted. Everybody else had, had the, uh, seawall except this particular property. And that's the thing that happens in subdivisions. All the lots are different. And, and a lot of the lots that people come in to build, you know, a 79 platted lot, they come in to build it in 2020 and it was never built on where there might be a reason because it was, you know, had a lot of mangroves or other issues with the size of the lot. So, you know, I, I think, um, a chairwoman heard, uh, you're trying to maintain consistency. Is, is that your dilemma? Well, there has to be. And there's also a new language that I think is, is, uh, creates, um, less clarity. So I think we're trying to avoid interpretation at the moment of each particular instance. Somebody contacts Martin County. Well, okay, this is okay. And that's not okay. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, rather than the rule is the rule is. Well, I think you're correct. The rule is what the rule is. Uh, but the, every situation is, is not the same and different properties present different challenges. Some are pre 82, lots of record, post 82, lots of records. Some have regulations on their plat from 1978. Some don't. And, uh, and there are also unique circumstances when extreme erosion occurs. Yeah. So, uh, it, it's a, so it's dynamic problem that staff deals with. Yes. I understand about the pre and the post. And then it could be a circumstance where they do have mangroves or they have erosion of a seawall or something different. Commissioner Hetherington. I, I definitely see it as a dynamic problem. So I would like some historical edification because we talk about this, uh, lots, one acre or less and, you know, some have a 25 foot setback. If they were pre X amount of year, how did we establish the 75 foot, um, protection zone on lots of extra? How do we come up with that number? So what makes that the magic number? I, of course, wasn't here. So I would just love to hear that. I'll give you a brief history. Uh, if I can, um, the comp plan adopted in April 1st, 1982 said that there'll be a 50 foot shoreline protection zone laid down along all the estuarine rivers and water water bodies. Uh, I think soon after that, they realized they needed to make an exception for a lot of residential lots, a lot of smaller lots that have been created. And so they created and put into the comp plan an exception for lots that existed before April 1st, 1982. And they said that that it'll be a 25 foot. Okay. Um, that number has been, uh, amended, changed, adjusted, a 10 foot construction setback has been added to that at times. Uh, it's gone back and forth over the decades since 1982 and, uh, 1998, the wetlands land development regulation was adopted to implement the plan policies. And the plan was also amended in 1998, I think as a part of an year process, uh, to increase that 50 foot shoreline protection zone to 75 feet. And it retained at the same time, the, the, the reduction down to 25 foot for the residential lots of record that preexisted April 1, 1982. So what analysis was the deep, like say pre 1982, Rick, you said there was obviously a lot of problems and challenges based on the old lots of record. What analysis was used to change the 50 to the 25 or vice versa from the 50 to the 75. What it seems like a very arbitrary number. So what was used in order to say, this is the right number to make sure that we're protecting our shoreline? I don't know what data they, they referred to, uh, at that time. But clearly we must have used data and not just picked a number out of the hat, right? Right? Well, they could have picked a number. The number out of the hat. Maybe, maybe there's some data that we need to be looking at for these things. Maybe there's, there's something like, I mean, it seems very, I agree with Commissioner Hurd seems kind of inconsistent and sort of arbitrary to me. Like maybe there's a better way to look at this than just pick a number of 25 to 75 based on your size of your lot. And when it was recorded, I don't know. Mr. Campy. Thank you. Some of this, uh, I was around for in terms of when it went from 50 to 75. I think it wasn't so much a number being picked out of a hat. I think there was a change in majority. And the number was increased for the sake of increasing it. Because if it's further away from the shoreline, you would assume that it would mean that you're more protecting the water because you're, everything is further away. Uh, Rick, I do remember certain situations into commissioner Vargas's point. You will have a lot of that same for commissioner caps. You'll have a lot of residents that will reach out to you, uh, having already spoken to staff, feeling that the number is punitive, that it, it forces them to, uh, not be able to build and to utilize the property that they had always anticipated that they would. And they're going to be very frustrated and very angry at our staff. So it's, it's odd to hear that our staff seems to be trying to water this down and weaken it because the perception from a majority of our land owning residents that have the, the terrific benefit of living near the water, that, uh, somehow the rules are unfair to them and that, you know, hey, I've lived somewhere else and it wasn't like this. We bought this property assuming that we can be, I've stood with our staff in many a backyard. Uh, I have people that are furious at me to this day because I wasn't somehow able to overrule or just automatically change the, the rules and the plan and the LDRs and the comp plan. They were so frustrated that the commissioners could not just automatically, you know, and then, uh, commissioner Vargas's point that some of the neighbors will have something done already and they won't, um, in lighthouse point and in Palm point, there were several people that had basically landscape lawns right up to the river's edge and two houses of, and these are multimillion dollar homes, two of them, you know, they didn't have the same type of erosion. They allowed the, not they, the people they bought the house from allowed the mangroves to grow very tall and very thick and they wanted to come in and they can look right next door at these folks that have a beautiful unobstructed view of the wide water river and they have no view. So they said, hey, we want to trim and chop. And so they hired landscapers that did not know what the rules were or didn't want to know what the rules were. And they came in there and chopped it up. Then the DEP gets involved and they're really challenging. So be prepared, not in a mean way, but be prepared for a lot of constituent calls for people that are going to come and ask you and tell you that they think these rules are too aggressive. Um, I had a gentleman that, um, was, uh, stuck in a wheelchair. Like he, he was able to walk and then for the rest of his life, he was going to be in a wheelchair and his wife put pavers as Mr. Donaldson said in lighthouse point, there was a seawall there. Everyone else had it, a dock or something, but he never had it. They had grass that went down. Well, he could no longer get to the, to the seawall. So his wife had a landscaper come and put just two rows of 24 by 24 foot paver so that he could roll his wheelchair back and forth. Imagine us telling him and his wife, sorry, you're not allowed to be on the back half of your property, but I'm in a wheelchair. Sorry. So there are some of these. So with this, uh, I do have a tremendous amount of respect for my colleague. Commissioner Hurd has been here a long time. She's obviously been a champion for keeping these things as rigid and tight as possible or tighter. And I hear her this morning in particular, I hear her, but what tips it for me is we have probably 10, 15 different staff professionals involved from many different departments that are as passionate. I believe, doctor, I believe yours is passionate. I don't think you're less passionate than Commissioner Hurd. And you've brought forward these suggestions, not because you guys felt like, Hey, we got nothing better to do. Let's bring this forward. You had to, you're saying to me that the language is either neutral or, uh, more restrictive or not less, and that we haven't really damaged the plan. Uh, you're doing what's appropriate and the whole collection of you both sided with your decades of experience that this is the right thing. And because of that, I would make a motion to continue this until March 25th, because at this particular point, we're just giving out opinions, trying to overrule what we have hired these dozens of professionals to give us what they would recommend is the best path forward. Thank you. Commissioner Vargas. So I would never recommend somebody to use as a practice of assuming something personally or professionally, or if you purchase a property in my practice in real estate, I was advised to seek counsel of professionals, the county, uh, and it wasn't always followed. I recollect a client. Uh, she wasn't from this country, but I spoke Spanish and it wasn't lost in the translation. She saw the mangroves and she said, I would like a view. And I said, but I told you so. And of course, you know what happens. So, um, those are circumstances that are unfortunate. It can come back to professionals that are out in the field also. Um, and I think that we really need to look at this carefully and possibly get some studies from other counties. I mean, we're all in Florida here where a lot of properties are on the water and they have the same, um, access, maybe different insofar as the type of shoreline, um, and possibly be able to, you know, kind of, you know, gird this up a bit. It seems a little loose and we just want to have uniformity. It makes your job easier. It makes our job easier. And it also gives more information to the prospective constituent who wants to do something to enhance their property. So I do appreciate everybody calling me doctor. Thank you very much. Yes, she did. But, but that's fine. I'm a professional engineer. I'm a licensed engineer. Um, to your point, I know, I know. What was the second meeting? You wear it well. You wear it well. It's fine. It's fine. Uh, so Commissioner Vargas, I tend to do that. No, um, but Commissioner Vargas, you're, you're correct. There's actually University of, uh, Central Florida right now is doing a shoreline characterization between Brevard County, Indian River, St. Lucie, and Martin County. They just finished that up. They're actually doing some modeling to see where mangroves are the best place for a living shoreline. So we're kind of waiting the, that studies, um, you know, what, what will come out of that. And as part of our vulnerability assessment and looking at adaptation moving forward, we personally would like to go and go ahead and do that for the rest of the shoreline because they're concentrating more on the Indian River Lagoon area. Um, but to extend that more into the St. Lucie estuary and, and our other waterways. So you're, you're correct. And it'd be great information for us to have and back up for a lot of stuff that we already have within our comp plan and LDRs. I was with you at that conference and I did bring back some information. So I'm very well aware of that, but I, I just think that if you have others and this entity that is going to be doing the studies and they can go much more in depth than you can, why not use it? That's what we're there for. And that's what they're there for. You, all of you. Thank you. I have another question and it's on page 633, number four, shoreline hardening may be approved following extreme, uh, storm events that damage the estuarine shoreline and, um, and they can be hardened regardless of the presence of a shoreline protection zone or preservation area identified on a site plan or a recorded plat. I think, uh, commissioner Campy actually was referring to a circumstance that this is applicable to, um, in 2004, 2005, I don't remember which year it was. We had an extreme storm event that, uh, where the wide water of the St. Lucie stripped away about half of a 50 foot shoreline protection zone. Um, DEP under governor's emergency declaration issued permits for shoreline hardening, uh, and people went to work on doing just that. And, uh, they now have seawalls and or riprap in sitting right in an area that is platted as a shoreline protection zone. And we have a circumstance where we have our rules and we have obviously something that the governor's office and the DEP allowed and was done. And we don't have any clear, uh, regulation to, to deal with it or to address it. And this gives us some means of addressing that type of a extreme circumstance. But it says that you can approve shoreline hardening regardless of the presence of a shoreline protection zone or preservation area identified on a site plan or a recorded plat. Following an extreme storm event. And it's May. So again, they'd have to provide backup and they'd have their damage backup, but then how would they restore it? And of course, our preference would always be if you could restore it back with a living shoreline, that would be the preference. And I think we do have that as that's always the first case. Um, Madam Chair, may I? Yeah. Paul Schilling, growth management director. Just that particular circumstance, as I recall, the hurricane actually, uh, devastated the shoreline protection zone. There was no shoreline protection zone, although depicted on the plat, the houses were located in some cases pretty close to the actual mean high waterline. So the mechanism you see today would provide for those emergency circumstances. We would still go through all the other typical reviews we do, which are, I may add, quite stringent for hardening. And those would be done, but this would be a mechanism to simply, uh, shore up, uh, shoreline that had been devastated by a hurricane and in which the County is in a position where it is showing a platted shoreline protection zone of which we have no deviation from commissioner caps. Yes. I thought I would just touch on something very basic for anyone who might not understand the issue as well. I got a feeling most people in the room here today understand the whole concept of living shorelines and shoreline protection zones, but in case somebody who's watching channel 20 who doesn't really understand the importance of the issue, uh, a living shoreline is like vegetation and natural conditions along the river bank. And that's where all the critters live. That's where the, the, the fish, uh, feed and where all the little crabs are. And when you, when you put in sea walls everywhere, that kind of destroys the living shoreline and that's what the comp plan, uh, is for. And in this particular chapter, and that's what we're trying to achieve, uh, to restore the health and to maintain the health of the river. There's a motion to continue. Is there a second? I can public comment. Public comment. Is there a public comment on this item? Good morning. Good morning. Uh, Carol Ann Leonard. And, um, I've just been listening to what's been said, uh, this morning cause I didn't see anything on the website when I looked last night. Okay. Um, I remember seeing a 25 foot, um, shoreline protection. That sounds, I don't know. There seems to be some inconsistency. I, I would say the further back, the better. I am a proponent of living shorelines with rocks, littoral plants, and so on. And mangroves are great. They do a lot more than, uh, they protect from hurricanes. They also do a lot of other things. Um, I don't know if they could be trimmed if that would be illegal. I know they can't be removed if they could be trimmed. I don't know. Uh, maybe that would help. And then, um, I would, uh, I think any kind of sea wall might be, might be possible to be destroyed. And I like the idea that you want to keep it a living shoreline if possible. However, you mentioned something about an engineering report was going to be mandated to replace it in order to decide what could be replaced. And I really don't think that's necessary. And that's about it. Thank you. Any other public comment? There's a motion and a second to continue the item. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? That motion passes four to one with herd dissenting. We're going to take a 10 minute break and we're going to come back to our preset. Thank you. Members of the board. You're on. Thank you. Good morning. We are resuming with department three, which is a Florida East Coast Railroad quiet zone update. Mr. Hammond. Uh, good morning. Uh, Matt Hammond. I have the privilege of serving as the assistant County engineer. Uh, with me here is Mr. George Cavalla. Uh, George is a railroad safety expert. Uh, he's the president of tri-red triad railroad consulting. Um, and in his past, uh, uh, past professional career, he served a better part of a decade as a senior executive with the federal rail administration, uh, specifically on safety initiatives. And while there's, uh, a lot of information here, uh, and a lot of folks that went into preparing it, I'd be remiss if I didn't specifically mention the efforts of, uh, Ms. Jet Martell and Christine Madsen, who, uh, were integral in helping prepare this information this morning. Starting with some background, uh, trains have been running through Martin County since 1894, when Henry Flagler extended the FEC railroad down to what's now West Palm Beach. Uh, that rail traffic on this corridor has primarily been freight, uh, freight lines up until September of 23, when Brightline began commercial operations through the, through the County. At that time, Martin County leadership, uh, chose to make a strategic pause and wait a year and evaluate the, the impact of Brightline rail operations through the County. And after a year, after a year, evaluate what those quiet zones might look like, might look like through the County. Um, and that's, that's what brings us here today, following through on that commitment to look at, uh, what, uh, quiet zones, how that would impact the County and what that process looks like. There were 27 crossings on the FEC railroad, uh, rail corridor, 17 are under the jurisdiction of Martin County, five, uh, with our neighbors in, uh, the city of Stewart. Two, we share with our neighbors to the North and South, St. Lucie County and Palm Beach County. Two are under the state of Florida and one is a private crossing. The reason that, uh, the reason that train sound horns, uh, along the corridor is because of the federal train horn rule, which dictates when, where, how, how often, uh, that horns are, uh, that horns are blown through the, through the corridor as trains approach crossings. Um, Mr. Gavala here has the depth of experience going back, uh, several decades on the history of why, why that is and, and, and what the background on, on, on how that transpired. The, uh, railroad, uh, have been sounding, uh, horns at the trains for well over a hundred years. And it was the industry itself that developed this pattern that's used all over the country. Two long horn sounds, a short and a long, every crossing, but it was all, no regulations, no federal regulations. Some states had regulations, but it mostly the railroads. Uh, and, uh, in the 1980s, uh, right here on the Florida East coast, uh, there was a event that basically triggered this entire law that we have now for, for grade crossings and quiet zones because the counties here, uh, decided to implement their quiet zones on their own and there were no regulations to stop them. So at night it was nighttime quiet zones from I think 10 PM to 7 AM. And so the federal railroad administration, one of the things they do is they track safety data. They track accident data. And what we found was that over a period of time, once they instituted these nighttime quiet zones, the rate of fatal crossing accidents along that corridor tripled, went up. After several years, when we noticed the trend didn't change, the FRA stepped in and issued what they call an emergency order. This is beyond regulations. They said something is just so safe. We have to put a stop to it. And they prohibited the whistle bands. And then the rate went back down to what it was before. That also prompted FRA to look at data and say, well, how many quiet zones are out there across the country? Something we never really paid much attention to, never looked at it and started doing several studies. In some studies, it was the 60% increase in accidents. In some cases, it was between 60 and tripling what we saw here. So at that point in time, the FRA went to Congress and said, we think we need to require that trains sound their horns, you know, not just make it an industry standard, make it a law and prohibit quiet zones. And Congress agreed and showed them the data. And they said, okay, do that. And so every two years, whenever there's a new Congress, there's new safety legislation. And they said, FRA, go ahead and do this regulation. So we basically said, you have to sound the train horn everywhere. Well, there was an outcry across the country because there were a lot of communities that no one knew about that had quiet zones for years and wanted to keep them. And so the next Congress, they stepped in and passed another law said, FRA come up with a process whereby communities can silence the train horn and come up with some safety standards to do that. And that's where the present law is. This is why this whole process for establishing quiet zones came from that, that experience. Now, the FRA had, I was the head of the office of the office of safety during this period of time. So all the safety inspectors, all the safety analysts, all the data analysts, and the economists who did cost benefit studies all reported to my office, we were 70% of the entire FRA. So I was involved in the creation of these, these regulations to a large extent. And so we had a very limited data to work with because there was very, you know, few measures that were out there that were designed to compensate for the lack of a train horn. One of them is the four quadrant gates, the four gates that you see along the corridor here. And we knew that was effective, but we had to figure out how effective. How do you quantify something like that? Well, basically what we did is we looked at one crossing with four quadrant gates in North Carolina, observed it for two weeks and found it, how much does the, observed it for two weeks or several, well, actually more than two weeks before you put the four quad gates in, and then a couple weeks after and said, how much do you see people, how much does it cut down on violations of the crossing? And that's where we got the statistical analysis. And you could say, well, is that really valid? Well, it's all we had to work with at the time. So now, you know, you see four quadrant gates here. So basically, the FRA, the regulations come up with certain safety measures that if a community puts them in place, they're called supplemental safety measures. If you put them, add them to your crossings, it should make them safer. And then I can, we'll explain a little bit next about the process of how you evaluate whether your crossings are safe enough to have a quiet zone. But that's essentially how the whole regulation came about. So what you do is you measure the safety of your crossings before you have the quiet zone. And then you measure it if you put in these safety measures. So if you have four quadrant gates, we expect that the accident rate will go down. It'll be a safer crossing. If you have median barriers where you can't cross the road to drive from around the down gate, that should make it safer. There are measures. If you have a one-way street to change a two-way street to a one-way street and have the gate block the entire road, well, that's going to be a safer crossing. If you close a crossing, say you've got 10 crossings and you close two of them, well, it's going to be safer in the corridor because you have, you know, less crossings and less exposure. So basically the whole process is, is if you make the entire corridor safer and then you get the safety below a certain, you get the safety above a certain level, a certain threshold, then you'll qualify for the quiet zone. If you get the risk down, the danger down to a certain level, you'll qualify for a quiet zone. And that's how the process works in, in general. We can get into the specifics in a bit here. So, uh, moving forward as part of the federal train horn rule, uh, quiet zones were at the direction of Congress written into that rule. Uh, and they're a partnership between the public authority and the, the federal railroad administration or FRA. Um, and they consist of a section of rail line, uh, at least a half mile long with no other, no other crossings within a quarter mile of either side where train engineers do not routinely sound, uh, routinely sound their horns approaching the crossings. Uh, they can still sound their horns for the reasons of emergencies or to comply with other federal, uh, federal regulations, but the routine sounding of horns, uh, is stopped through that section. And this is the most technical of the slide, uh, as the federal government likes their, like their acronyms. Uh, but as, uh, George was, uh, alluding to for a community to qualify for a quiet zone, they have to demonstrate that their quiet zone risk index, uh, which is calculated using a calculator that the FRA provides as below the risk index with horns or below the nationwide significant risk threshold. And you can do that through one of two ways, supplemental safety measures, which would be the four quadrant gate crossings, uh, or gates with medians that extend, extend out or one way crossings. Uh, but they're very specific to specifically defined measures, safety measures at each, at each crossing. The other way would be alternative safety measures, which are typically a combination of, uh, some of those features of the SSMs. In addition to those safety measures that are put in place to reduce your risk score, every crossing within a quiet zone has to meet the basic safety requirements of complying with federal signage and, uh, pavement marking requirements, have advanced warning signs, flashers at the, at the crossings, uh, gates, pedestrian warning bells, uh, et cetera, which carries us into where are, where are the crossings within the County right now? Um, under the Brightline settlement agreement, their Brightline was under the, uh, they were required to upgrade all of the 19 crossings that the County, uh, either controls or shares with, uh, shares with St. Lucie and Palm Beach County. Um, and each of those crossings was, uh, was improved under that agreement at those, those construction of those is complete and similar, similar upgrades were completed with, uh, with the other public authorities within the County Stewart, um, and the state crossings. And also while not directly tied to, well, not directly tied to whether or not a community can qualify for a quiet zone, uh, it is a important factor of the safety of a corridor. Uh, there were fence improvements that, uh, Brightline is required to, uh, required to assist in putting in on, on the, the corridor. Um, and our public, our public works team has been coordinating with Brightline on those locations. With those improvements, the 17 Martin County crossings would likely qualify. 12 of them would likely qualify as supplemental safety measures for alternative safety measures. Uh, the two that we share both have, uh, four quadrant gates and will qualify as SSMs, uh, and city of Stewart's two of them would likely qualify as SSMs. One of the state of Florida's Monterey road as an ASM. And then the one private crossing has four quadrant gates and would qualify as SSMs. One of the other factors in putting in place a quiet zone is if the dimensions of a quiet zone include crossings that cover more than one public agency, all of those public agencies have to approve in writing or agree in writing to put that in place. Uh, and going from North to South, uh, across the County that's could include up to five public agencies with the city of Stewart, St. Lucie County, Palm Beach County, uh, FDOT and the Florida, uh, Florida department of environmental protection at Jonathan Dickinson state park for a public authority that wants to put in place a quiet zone. There's two routes that they can take. One is, uh, a self designation in order to qualify for a self designation. Uh, that agency or that public authority has to show that their risk index is below the thresholds and all of the safety measures that are used qualify for those very specific SSMs or supplemental safety measures. If that's not the case, and there are alternative safety measures used, then that public authority has to go the route of a full application to the FRA. The steps on that look like, uh, preliminary work of updating traffic counts, updating grade inventory crossings, putting together, uh, putting in place the necessary signage, um, and executing any interlocal agreements that, that may need to be in place. Uh, with that, you file a notice of intent followed by a 60 day notice period. And then the FRA and FDOT and other agencies, they come out and they do an in person diagnostic review at each crossing. Once you pass the implement their findings and pass those, uh, pass that diagnostic review, then you file a notice of intent file a notice and a quiet zone is established. The full application to the FRA is substantially similar. However, there is the interim step of submitting a very detailed package to the federal railroad administration. Um, and their review and approval can take quite a while. Uh, Palm Beach Gardens has to go this route. They submitted in May and have not received any comments back yet. Once a quiet zone is put in place, there are ongoing requirements that the public authority has to maintain, uh, maintain the required signage and pavement markings, um, adhering to any of the relevant quiet zone federal regulations. Uh, they must ultimately stay below that quiet zone risk threshold. Um, and there's a requirement to affirm in writing every two and a half to three years to the FRA that you are going to, um, that you are maintaining those and that you intend to keep your quiet zone in place. So railroad safety and quiet zones and, you know, in particular, it's, is a complex, complex topic. And there's a lot of factors that go into the decision of whether it's right or wrong for one community. Um, some of those key decision points, uh, that are presented here are what are the public safety impacts? Uh, what are the legal impacts of putting up a quiet zone in place? What are the community impacts to the train horns, uh, themselves through the community? Um, and then obviously what are the costs to, uh, to put that in place and ongoing, starting with public safety. Uh, in addition to the additional railroad traffic that the Brightline Brightline brought, uh, it also brought higher, higher train speeds. Uh, the maximum speeds through the County, a maximum allowable speeds range from 25 to 110 miles an hour through the, uh, through the corridor, the actual speeds that, uh, the trains may, uh, may have in any particular location could be less than that. And, and often is, as they have to slow down to negotiate curves, uh, et cetera, but the maximum allowable speeds that they, that they may go are shown on, um, shown on this figure here. Um, and with higher speed comes higher risk. Another factor are what's the, what are the, what's, what's the safety, what's the incident history look like? Uh, that strategic pause that, uh, that the County chose to take for a year allowed for, allowed to see what the, what the impact in as far as incidents, uh, through the corridor. And while a year and a half is not necessarily statistically significant, uh, the, the number of incidents, uh, does provide some pretty good perspective, at least, uh, in the interim, um, in the nine years before the railroad, uh, before Brightline operation began, there were four incidents through the, through the corridor. One of those was fatal, uh, three of those incidents occurred at road crossings, um, and two of them were involved the vehicle and two involved the pedestrian. In the 18 months or so since Brightline began operation, there's now been eight incidents, uh, two of them have been fatal, seven at road crossings, uh, six involved the vehicle, two pedestrian, uh, and now with another railroad rail line running through there, six of the eight have been involved the Brightline and two involved the FEC rail. Through taking a look at this, uh, the incident history, as well as the, the information from the FRA, there were, there were certainly some, some high risk crossings that, that jumped out, uh, and going through this analysis, uh, that'd be Jensen Beach Boulevard, Colorado Avenue, and downtown Stewart, Monterey, uh, Indian street and Cove road. Uh, and those jumped out for, for a number of reasons. One, their risk index, uh, score from the FRA was substantially higher than, than the majority of the other crossings in the County. Uh, and that risk index that, that what comes into play there are how many accidents have happened in the past. What's the traffic count? How much traffic is going over those crossings? What's the configuration at the crossings? And each of those are for, for, for some specific reasons. They're challenging because they have complex configurations, uh, their crossings that go through right next to, uh, a roundabout, or they're immediately adjacent to an intersection that makes, makes the, uh, putting safety measures in place just a lot more challenging, uh, moving over to community impacts. There's, there's certainly a, there's a quality of life impact to the, the train horns sounding through the, through the community. Um, and the County receives numerous noise complaints through the request for service system or RFS system, uh, phone calls to, and emails to staff and, um, elected officials, uh, and quantifying it is, is, quantifying that is, is, uh, a little bit challenging because noise, noise complaints themselves. They're, they're, uh, subjective. What's, what's, uh, there's different factors that apply in there, uh, and how they sound for environmental factors, topography, background noise, and then just what's objectionable to me right next to the, right next to a railroad might be not objectionable or objectionable to somebody who's just on the road or, or, you know, my neighbor next door. Uh, but within that corridor and where those, where the train horns are sounded, uh, there's more than 12,000 residential properties or about 25,000 residents within a half mile of where the, uh, those zones where trains or horns are sounded, uh, and 27,000 or about 60,000 residents within a mile of the, of those zones. And so certainly the, uh, an important factor in, in the decision-making is what are the legal impacts? Um, and I'm not going to weigh in on that one here, but our, uh, Ms. Elder here has, uh, uh, uh, been part of this process and Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. So there, the regulations help a little bit with losses against counties or local governments for quiet zones, but they don't guarantee you won't get sued for them. It's based on the facts and circumstances of the case. You can never stop the liability. So there is, there is additional liability with the quiet zone. So for example, if you have safety measures and there's a malfunction and someone can establish that's the local government's, uh, fault and their negligence, you would be liable. So there is additional liability, um, for the quiet zones. If you do establish them most likely. So, and what's right for one community is may not necessarily be right for another. Uh, but for perspective, uh, the status of, of where our neighbors to the north and south, uh, where, where they are and how they've chosen to move forward with quiet zones, uh, is, is up here. Starting from the North Indian River County has chosen not to pursue quiet zones. St. Lucie County has chosen to pursue a smaller quiet zone, a three crossing quiet zone immediately north of the, uh, our shared County line. Uh, city steward is exploring what that looks like for them. Uh, village of sequester is pursuing a quiet zone, uh, town of Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens have both submitted applications to, uh, put in a quiet zone in place. Uh, and, and I can mention that none of the, uh, none of the four that are currently pursuing a quiet zone have achieved that at this point yet. So that's a lot of information to, to be able to, uh, present and digest, um, and make an informed decision on, on this topic. Uh, there are three likely options, uh, of how to move forward with, with a quiet zone through Martin County. Uh, the first of which would be, would be no change, uh, maintaining the, maintaining the status quo. Uh, that certainly has the, the, the lowest risk to public safety and is the, uh, the safest route to go for the community, but it also has the highest, uh, community impact. Um, and, and for obvious reasons, the, the, the lowest cost. Um, and I did put minimal cost, uh, instead of, instead of zero cost, because there are minor improvements that our, our traffic operations team are, uh, are evaluating and pursuing, uh, regardless of the, uh, the policy direction that the board chooses to make each of the crossings as safe as they can be. Uh, second option would be to move forward with, uh, a countywide quiet zone. Um, the, the improvements that Brightline has put in place are the, the bare minimum that, uh, at least running through the, the numbers in the calculator that would be required in order to, to do this. Uh, it comes with the highest risk to public safety. Um, a full application to the FRA would be required in order to go that route, um, in coordination with all five of the other public authorities and their agreement and approval would be needed in order to, in order to do that. Uh, there are significant recommended, uh, improve improvements that would be recommended, uh, specifically zoning in on, on those high risk crossings and how to, uh, how to move forward with, make those the, the safest they can be given the challenges that they have. Uh, a third potential option is, uh, choosing a smaller, smaller areas, uh, to put in a, a quiet zone in place. One, one of those could be a Jensen Beach option. Um, what's shown here would be the northern two crossings of Northeast County Line Road and Northeast Skyline Drive. Uh, both of those have the supplemental safety measures in place, uh, that the county could go the self-designation route if that's, uh, uh, if that was the policy direction chosen. Uh, in a local agreement and approval from St. Lucie County would be needed there. The train speeds through that corridor are on the higher end, uh, coming from the north to the south. Uh, Brightline trains can exceed or go up to 100 miles an hour. Uh, and it does, uh, and, and for the, the reasons that were mentioned about Jensen Beach Boulevard, it, it, it does exclude Jensen Beach Boulevard for the, um, the, the incident history that's there and the, um, the safety considerations at that. Another potential option would be, uh, up to five crossings through the Hope Sound Corridor. Uh, and that's running from Southeast Dixie down to Southeast Gleason. Uh, again, each of those have, uh, the supplemental safety measures in place that the, should that, uh, direction be chosen, uh, that self-designation route with the FRA could be, uh, could be used. Uh, those are all county crossings. There would be no, uh, coordination with other public agencies in order to do that. Uh, and again, this is also a, a, a high speed crossing with train speeds from 90 to 110 miles an hour. So with that, uh, what's, what's being requested is policy direction from the, from the board, uh, on how, how the, how board, how the board wishes to, wishes to pursue, uh, whether it's one of the, one of the three options that were presented, a combination or, or some other direction. And with that, Mr. Can you go back one slide again? Sorry. Certainly. No, the, the other way, the one before the end, that one. Yes. Commissioner Hetherington. I have a couple of questions and we had an opportunity to meet, um, a few weeks ago, but just kind of elaborating on our, uh, conversation and your presentation for the quiet zones. Um, for my understanding, if you apply, it says countywide 24 hour versus nighttime. It's my understanding that we can apply for just 10 PM to 4 AM. If you apply for it, apply, it applies to the entire 24 hour period. Is that So there are two, there are two time periods that, uh, can be chosen for a quiet zone. One is a 24 hour. So 24 seven, uh, those, that routine sounding of horns would be prohibited or the second option was, is a nighttime specifically from 10 PM to 7 AM. But the application process is the same for either. Correct. Okay. So it makes more sense to, to apply for the 24 hour. Um, so that's countywide. And then you just referenced at the end of your presentation, two crossings in Jensen, it looks like five in Hope Sound that we could self designate versus do the full application process. Explain that a little more. Right. So the, the two routes that the two routes that a public authority can, can take to, to put a quiet zone in place. What, what I refer to as the self designation route does not require an application to the FRA, but there are very specific requirements to qualify for that route. Uh, all of the safety measures that are put in place have to fit within one of those, one of those supplemental safety measures. So gates at all four quadrants or, uh, dual gates with, with the medians of appropriate length and height. Uh, if, and in addition to, in addition to your risk showing that your risk index is lower than the thresholds that which would apply for the whole corridor, right? The risk index is based on the entire corridor or those two separate would apply to this, the corridor that you're applying for. So the entire county or the risk index is, is just for crossing by crossing for the length of the zone you're applying for. Okay. So the five, let's say the five crossings, uh, we'll take hope sound as an example that has its own risk index. It is. It's the risk index. That's, uh, for each of the crossings averaged together. So if for those, for that example of the five crossings in hope sound, it would be the risk index calculated by the, the FRA averaged, uh, averaged for each, for each of the crossings averaged over those five crossings averaging it say with confusion corner. Correct. Okay. So if we want to move forward with just say those two segments, then we could self-designate not have to go through the full application process as long as those five crossings and those two crossings to the north meet, um, the SSM or the ASM certain safety standards. Is that what I'm understanding? That's, that's correct. That the SSMs are the only safety measures that are allowed if you self-designate. Um, and then when you go through that process, there's the diagnostic review where FRA staff, FDOT staff come out and they review each of those crossings, the safety measures in place. Um, and then they either approve or provide, provide feedback on what needs to be, what in addition needs to be implemented in order for, for them to comply. Do we know kind of where we are with, um, how close? Cause some of the, a lot of those, it seems like especially down South, the five crossings have been upgraded. Are we pretty, pretty close to that meeting that SSM requirement? So we did meet, uh, uh, informally. We have, we met with, uh, the FRA and FDOT staff and, and visited those, uh, visited the crossings, um, and received preliminary feedback. It was, it was, it was informal. It was not official. Um, and the feedback that we received, uh, on, on each of those was the, the basic requirements of updating the, the signage to the current federal standards that are in place right now. Okay. So street signs, street signs and some pavement markings essentially. Okay. So may not major, um, reconfiguration of, of intersections and things like that. We're, we're pretty close to meeting that. That's correct. Okay. For those two, I'm just speaking of the five in Hope Sound and the two. And then let's go, let's move more to the middle, which is probably, um, also particularly in my district, um, of concern. And, and I think all of this is sort of a quality of life issue, um, too. So, um, if, if we talk about the ones that you haven't referenced, the five and the two, which I'm, I'm wholly in favor of supporting moving forward with the, the five crossings and Hope Sound and two to the North, I prefer to do countywide, but I see some, um, I see some obstacles. So you talked about five agencies that we would have to collaborate with for those others. Can you identify those five agencies? You may be dead on a slide somewhere, right? So those would be St. St. Lucie County, the city of Stewart, Florida department of transportation, and that's would be Monterey road, uh, Florida department of environmental protection at Jonathan Dickinson state park, and then Palm beach County for the Southeast County line road crossing. Those would be the five agencies that, um, and specifically not mentioned here. Uh, and for a reason is the one private crossing, private crossings are not considered in the, in this analysis or how the effort rate considers whether or not a quiet zone can go in place. Okay. So let, let me address specifically that I, the couple that I can think of in my district that really impact residents, which will be in the downtown area and down Dixie highway. So, uh, we have, I can think of at least four or five crossings. One would be confusion corner. And then, um, what's Haney circle, John Jefferson. And then there's one down, um, sort of at Martin Luther King and Dixie. So to include those, we would probably need to do the county wide, but we will certainly wouldn't need collaboration for St. Lucie County. Right. But we would need collaboration for, with the city of Stewart, the DOT and the DEP. So you don't include those depending on the extents of it. Uh, so Monterey road would be the FDOT, uh, would need to agree to if it included Monterey road. Uh, and then the city of, as you move North from there, you would need to include the city of Stewart's as you get from Florida and MLK, uh, through, through downtown Stewart and Fern would be the last city of Stewart's crossing. Okay. So this corridor that, um, I I'm referencing say from Monterey to Martin Luther, um, confusion and Haney, does that have the upgrades that we spoke of on the five crossings and the two crossings that the upgraded that would appeal for the SSM? And can that be self, um, you know, self, right. Designated. Yep. So, uh, looking specifically at the, at the city of, the five city of Stewart, um, the preliminary evaluation of those two would, two would have a good chance of qualifying as the safety measures in place, qualifying as the SSMs or supplemental safety measures. And that would be Florida and Martin Luther King. The balance of the city of Stewart's, uh, the current measures that are in place would not qualify for any of the, it does not appear that they would qualify for any of the, the, the credits that would be in place for SSMs or ASMs as they currently stand. And that's the city of Stewart's responsibility to having this, that those appropriate safety, um, requirements in place to meet that SSM standard. It's not the counties, right. Most likely that depending on how it was chosen, chose to be chosen to move forward, if that was the case, but those are the city stewards, uh, roadways they're under their responsibility to maintain. Do we have information as to if say that this board decided to go the whole route, if those particular crossings would qualify, do we know? They would need upgrades prior to, uh, prior to any application or, uh, uh, to, to be included in even in a county wide, as I understand it. Have we had conversations with the city of Stewart to, um, to get there, um, to, to see when they're planning on doing these safety upgrades? No, we have not. So then we would, in order to include the whole, then we would need, um, to collaborate because if all of these are necessary, we would need the city of Stewart to collaborate on upgrading, doing the safety enhancements on those in order to provide, to apply for the quiet zones in those areas. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. So in, until we are aware of when and they're going to do this, the safety upgrades and how they're going to collaborate, we couldn't apply for those particular crossings. That's correct. We would need the city of Stewart, uh, both commitment, uh, and schedule to include those crossings and an agreement between the county and the city of Stewart to actually jointly participate in the quiet zone process. Okay. So I don't see us moving forward for the whole county wide today, but could we go, could we, um, bring this to the city of Stewart and, um, ask on when they will be doing the safety upgrades and as to their willingness to collaborate on quiet zones within that area at the direction of the board? Okay. That, okay. So then I'll just summarize my feeling on your presentation that I think the five and the, certainly the five crossings in Hope Sound and the two in Jensen makes sense. Um, probably for the 24 hour period, I've ridden Brightline a handful of times down to Miami heat game. And it's amazing that they don't blow the horn one time from the Palm beach station to Miami. And it seems so they must have a lot, a lot of safety enhancements. So I would also ask particularly because these areas impact, you know, my central, um, district residents. And I'm sure some of them would eventually like a quiet zone that we, um, reach out to the city of Stewart and ask them to, um, what their timetable is for upgrading these, um, these crossings to qualify for the quiet zones and their willingness to collaborate, um, in the future for doing a, um, full counting. But I think we should move ahead with what we can do now, which is those particular areas that seem easy to, to implement. That's all. Commissioner caps. I'd like to begin by looking at page 3503, which is public safety impacts 10 year incident history. And we have already had three fatalities in Martin County, uh, with trains and we've had 12 incidents. I also Googled a little while back bright line collisions and Florida. And it said there have been 200 incidents and 100 fatalities. So that's where I would like to begin. And then I want to consider page 3506 legal impacts. Our assistant County attorney just said that there is additional liability that it could be attached to the County by having quiet zones. I think we would be crazy to, uh, engage in an action that could put us at legal risk. The third thing I want to look at is page 3507 status of neighboring public authorities. And one thing I thought was really interesting in my discussions with staff is what Indian river County decided to do. They decided not to pursue quiet zones at all. And what I heard was that there are two firefighters and one police officer on the board of County commissioners in Indian river County. And they said, having our, or having quiet zones is unsafe. And I think we ought to really pay attention to that. I would also refer to what one of our public speakers just said about Sheriff William Snyder, our former sheriff who I, uh, greatly respect. Uh, he had real concerns about quiet zones as well. And then I want to talk about my personal experience. I live in hope sound, just five houses away from the railroad tracks. We hear the trains all day and all night. There's a, there's an item on my wife's piano that rattles when the freight trains come through. And so we're very aware of train noise and are very affected by it. It's just part of life when you live in hope sound. Um, I live on the East side of the tracks and I have a business on the West side of the tracks. So I'm back and forth across those crossings all day, every day. I have three adult children who live on the West side of the tracks who drive over to the East side of the tracks to see their mom and me very frequently. My mother lives in South Stewart on the West side of the tracks and she comes to see us often and has to cross those tracks and she's 85 and she still drives. The sense that I have about the crossings and hope sound is they're not real safe. It would be very easy to get confused, uh, for drivers, particularly people who are not from our area. And it would be very easy easy to find yourself on the tracks when the train is coming. Um, just the other day I was going North on Dixie highway and I have a friend who has a tree business and I looked to the right at the petway crossing and his truck was on the, he was proceeding West and his truck was on the West side of the tracks and his big heavy steel trailer was sitting right on top of the tracks. And he was, he was sitting there at the red light, very unsafe. If a train would have been coming, uh, it would have slammed right into that heavy steel trailer. Um, so I believe the trains are, especially the bright line trains are fast and they're very quiet. Um, and I've noticed that I wouldn't want anything on my conscience. If another incident happened, it sadly, it's probably just a matter of time before we have another incident and perhaps another fatality in Martin County. They're happening all up and down the East coast of Florida. And, uh, I have a lot of friends and hope sound. And this is the area of the County that would be the most dramatically affected with five crossings down there that are being talked about for quiet zones. And, uh, I am very much opposed and I would make a motion that we not have any quiet zones in Martin County. Commissioner Vargas. These trains go way too fast and we can see that here up to 110 miles per hour. Uh, I think our present sheriff has said that they need to slow down. Um, as our County attorney has said, our assistant County attorney, there's an additional liability for quiet zones. Why would we put ourselves in that position? Um, we in Jensen beach are looking at safety measures. And I think that Mr. Gorton can speak to that. Uh, some of those that we're implementing just to protect our citizens. We should in no way consider quiet zones until we've implemented safety measures, especially at all the crossings that have the highest incidents in this County. And I made a mention of that during commissioner comments at the beginning of this board meeting. Um, the other thing I want to say is that, and I'll follow everything that commissioner caps said, I won't reiterate that, but I'm in total agreement with him. I just have one question. Uh, if, if, and it's a big, if we're ever to consider quiet zones, the costs are 40 to $140,000. Is there a grant for that? So on the, excuse me, on the federal level, there, there are grants for available for safety requirements. Uh, in general, uh, there are not grants available for quiet zone specific, uh, safety improvements in, in, in general. Yeah. I spoke with, I was just in Washington DC and I spoke with the representatives for the, uh, railroad, uh, association and they said, there's no money whatsoever, believe it or not. Now I will tell you my own experience. I was crossing, um, Joan Jefferson and I was going over the railroad tracks at that point, you know, went around about and the arms were down, train passed, started to proceed forward. The arm came down almost on my vehicle. And of course it was a little panicky because, you know, do I back up? Do I go forward? What do I do? And then they popped back up again. It was quite confusing, but you know, looked left, looked right. And if it had been a quiet zone, I'm not really certain what would have happened. I was not the driver. Somebody was more experienced, but if I were the driver, I don't know. So this, this should not be considered at all, at all in our County at this point, we need to implement the safety measures first and then do another study within Martin County before we even consider this. I don't live near the railroad tracks, but I do hear the trains and I do hear the whistle. And I will say in downtown Stewart, I heard that train whistle during my campaign right outside the elections office. You knew they were coming. It's amazing. I haven't lost my hearing, but anyway, having said that, they go too fast. They do have loud whistles. They're there for a reason. I think the gentlemen referred to that every time Congress changes, they want to put their fingerprints on something new. We're trying to save lives and we're trying to have a safe community. What I have to say. Would you like to second the motion? And what's our motion? That we not have any quiet zones in Martin County. Emphatic. Yes. Commissioner Campy. Well, the presentation has taken some interesting turns. You know, it really boils down to, and I appreciate both of you, Matt and Mr. Cavella appreciate it because everyone that's not involved professionally, it's just a personal opinion. You're bringing a lot of experience, decades of experience and professional opinions, which we as the decision makers have to rely on. From the moment that the train was even discussed, there was talk of quiet zones. I have, you know, I'm fortunate enough in districts at least to be in Palm City. We don't have any train crossings in Palm City. But that being said, I hear this quite often from constituents about when are you going to have the quiet zones? What about the quiet zones? Why do they have to blow the horns? My wife grew up with her home right next to a train tracks and a train station. And I remember the windows rattling and the whole thing was a diesel train, but same kind of, you know, concern about being next to the train. Gentleman came forward this morning, made a pretty compelling argument. And he echoes what I have heard from lots of people. So what ends up happening is it comes down to a sort of a quality of life issue. Nobody wants to hear the siren, the horns, to a safety issue. Now you would assume when we, I was here when we negotiated the settlement with Brightline. It was something that was going to necessarily happen. The fight back in the day, and you gentlemen know it, but for the folks that might be new to this area, the fight back in the day was to try to stop the train from coming at all, which for the most part, there was a very valiant push of grassroots effort here in the county, but it was never not going to happen. If you're trying to get from Miami and Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach to Orlando, you have to cross through here. I've had people say to me, well, you know, why did the county government at the time or the city government allow them to put the tracks through the downtown city of Stewart, which of course is not the case because what, when did Flagler bring the train down south in the 1800s? The cities grew up on both sides of the train. It's not that the train bisected the cities. So when people say, well, we don't want it, the train, maybe not the Brightline, but the train tracks and the system were here first. Another thing that I was very surprised by when I learned it is that the train tracks are not necessarily crossing over county roads. County roads are crossing over the train tracks, and I'm sure we can ask Mr. Donaldson or Mr. Gordon, we pay a fee to the train system for the privilege of having our roads go over their train tracks. So it's a different set of circumstances that most people, logically, you wouldn't think it like that. So during your presentation, I was surprised by the fact that the quiet zones make it more dangerous. I've been frustrated every time I read an article or see a news report about someone being on the train tracks and being either hit personally, physically, or their vehicles by the train. And I say almost sarcastically that I have a guaranteed way for you not to get hit by the train. Do not be on the tracks. Mrs. Vargas's point about sometimes you're crossing. I'm very cautious when I cross to come here in the morning on Indian Street. There's school buses that are returning to the school district depot. And I know that school buses will make a full stop, put their flashes on. The driver is responsible prior to getting into the onto the tracks to open the door and look and listen. So you're smart not to be behind the school buses, because they're going to all stack up. So when you come, but I'm also very careful when you hear these stories, that if I can't clear to the other side of the tracks, I don't mean just over the tracks, I mean past the bars coming on the other side. If I don't have tremendous amount of space, I'm not going. Cars are beeping their horn behind me. I don't care. So here's what I'd like to see. I mean, I'm very interested to hear Commissioner Capps. That's about as firm a conversation in his short term as a commissioner that I've heard him make. That's as emphatic as I've heard him be. So I take that into consideration. I want to support his very strong opinion. But I also hear what Commissioner Hetherington has said. And like I said, I hear this. I mean, I live in Palm City. And on a night when the wind is we can hear the we can hear the whistle. And I'm on the other side of the river. So I can imagine if you live close to the train tracks what it must be like. So I was hoping that we were going to do sort of a partial kind of a thing. And maybe we will. Maybe we won't. But what I would like to see based on what we're hearing today is at least a further consideration into the future. Because I wanted to see a system wide chart north to south of our county. When you go, can you go back to the statistics? That one. It's pretty compelling and damning. And like you said, we hear it on the news and read it in the paper. But what I would like to see is where you could say, okay, where did the accident take place at what crossing? Or was it at a crossing? Because some people cross in not at the crossings, they crossing out of the woods and crossing over the tracks, not near an actual crossing. When I need to know the date and the time. Because if they were all stacked to the beginning of the system beginning, people always still didn't understand don't understand what an 80 mile an hour train is. If you grew up in a town that had a diesel train, you could hear it coming. There's also something about like, if you're looking at something that's coming towards you, it's hard to judge. I forget what that's called. Spatial something. You can't tell the speed of something if you're looking at it as it's coming towards you. For the people that stand on the tracks and say, oh, I see the train down there, I can cross ahead of time. I'd also like to know the type of accident based on station. So for instance, at Indian Street, is that where the pedestrians were hit? Because there are more pedestrians there? Or were they the cars? I would also like to know where, what were the medical outcomes of where those accidents took place? Like are all the fatalities in Jensen? Are all the fatalities at Confusion Corner? Are the, you know, the serious injuries, where were they? Because then that would give us a baseline to say, okay, this is what we're looking at. And if you're looking at a timeline, you'd say, okay, all of the accidents, the eight that happened since September of 2023, they all happened within the first 10 months, and we haven't had anything happen in the last 18. Or do we see that most of them are happening at a specific crossing? We don't know that. And so then I was thinking self-designation, if we go that route, which it seems like we might not ever get there. But if we were, it would have been self-designation over the FRA application. Because when people hear that we're discussing this, they would assume that we would be having some kind of a resolution in the next couple of months, you're talking at the fastest, if everyone was on board, a year. So a year more of the sounds. I would have done nighttime from 10pm to 7am. Because obviously, that's the point where people are trying to be at home trying to be asleep. And and I would have leaned in on that in terms of safety and like, people getting hit by the train more in Florida than they do anywhere else. Florida has the sad title of being the most dangerous state for bicyclists. It's the most dangerous state state for motorcyclists. It's in the top 10 for cars. The only ones that we are not in the top 10 for is truckers and boating. But all the rest of it, Florida is notorious for having the worst drivers. Stop signs are suggestive. Red lights are suggestive. Speed limits are suggestive. Our biggest issue, at least mine, the biggest dealing as a commissioner that I have is traffic safety. And then you layer in the train. So I'm interested to hear how the vote would go. I would be a little more interested in some more information. But that being said, if the board is passionate, and these are the folks that represent the train crossing areas. I don't. I do holistically, but I don't in my district. So that's what that's my point. Commissioner Vargas. Well, we happen to have a chart that lists the crossings, the type of incidents, fatalities, none, the train that caused the incident, the date and the time that already exists. It's just a matter of requesting that information. There is, I believe, and I will double check or you can. I think with the Brightline, they have many more incidents than the previous, the East Coast Railroad. Am I correct? He says yes. He's shaking his head yes. You've got so many more trains with Brightline than you had with the Florida East Coast. That's correct. And they are higher speed. Yes. Terrifically higher speed. And we do have to consider our safety. I gave you an incident. And Commissioner Capps also gave you an incident to somebody he knew. And it's just a matter of time when there's more gravity for this. We should not even be discussing this at this moment. We haven't implemented the safety measures. And we have quite a few that we've already suggested that we've already done a traffic study on, that we're in the process of doing a study on with the department head who is here, Mr. Gorton, to make this a reality for our citizens. And then and only then can we look back, see, actually see if there's a historical that warrants any further discussion. We have two requests to speak from the public. Sharon McGinnis will be followed by Lynn Soucy. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you. So first comment I'd like to make is that everyone is aware that a train is a public nuisance. You buy near a train, you live near a train, you must accept the public nuisance. The fact that we have, when you start at Dixie Highway South, when it comes into Hope Sound, and you travel all the way to Jensen Beach Boulevard, Dixie Highway, A1A, Jimmy Buffett Boulevard, whatever you want to call it, it actually mirrors directly with the railroad track. There is no opportunity, and I will say this about Mr. Campy, there is no opportunity for you to even attempt to proceed across the railroad tracks from the east to the west without knowing that you can proceed and clear the intersection. And anything, any discussion of having quiet zones is a waste of our taxpayer dollars. There are, what we should be spending our taxpayer dollars on is to put signs on the east side of a railroad where every crossing is by Dixie Highway with a large sign that blinks and says, you must stop here at a red light. There is no turn on red. Because anybody, anybody who finds themselves parked on a railroad track when they cannot proceed or clear it, you have to wonder about their, I don't care what state they come from, and I don't care if they deal with Brightline, you have to wonder about their mental acuity, okay? To ever stop on a railroad track is to commit suicide. I don't care what a person decides or thinks they decide. And having quiet zones in the middle of the night, yes, it makes it easier. But I can tell you this, people who go to sleep, they get used to things. They get used to train noises. They get used to fog horns. They get used to boats. The repetitive noises that interrupt that are in your sleep are really not a big issue. And I will say that if I would be very disappointed in Martin County and protecting my taxpayer dollars, if they are to even consider it a quiet zone, and they need to put those signs up to keep people off the tracks, especially in Hope Sound, my gosh, you have three feet. Now your time is up. So, please, please, do not carry this discussion any further. Do not spend any money on budgets or reviews or anything. Quiet zones never happen. People understand trains are a nuisance. They make a... Ma'am, your time is up. Thank you. Yeah. Sorry. It was your bell today. Okay. Thank you. Len Susie is next. If anyone else would like to address us, please fill out a request to speak form. Len Susie, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. Thank you. Over the last 20 years, I've been here many times on environmental issues, on growth management issues, on development issues, and I've been in different sides of this issue of growth management, of economic development throughout my career. And I'm here to compliment you on the thoughtfulness with which you have proceeded on all of the issues of the last 20 years. The staff you have has been outstanding, and I just can't be more pleased. Whatever decision you come to is a good decision because it's representing what the people believe and what they think. And you should be very proud of the staff that you have. Thank you. There's a motion and a second on the floor. I am going to be supporting that vigorously. Quiet zones are dangerous. And there's... These trains are going so fast through our community. There are so many crossings. The thought that there might not be additional safety is appalling. So I will happily support your motion to deny the request for quiet zones. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. We will now... I don't think we have enough time to take up the next comp plan amendment. So we'll take a break and come back at 1.30. Does that suit y'all? Okay. We are back and we are taking up public hearing number three, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of your amendment 24-09, conservation and open space. Afternoon. Good afternoon. And thank you, members of the board. My name is Clyde Doolin. For the record, with me is Daryl DeLue, Environmental Planning Administrator. Chapter 9 had no objections, recommendations, or comments from the state agencies that reviewed it. In fact, DEP and Florida Fish and Wildlife had no comments at all on this. So we have no changes proposed from what was presented in October of 2024. And with that, I will turn it over to Mr. DeLue to hit some of the high spots. Yeah, Clyde, can you go to page 873, please? Sure. So as Clyde mentioned, there are minor changes proposed to Chapter 9, as shown in the table here. One is a map change to the use of best available data. Another is a consistency update to reference special upland habitats the same way throughout the chapter. And the third is striking a reference to a prohibited plant list due to a state preemption. And I'm going to keep it brief at that, and I'm here to answer any questions on any of the language in the chapter you may have. Thank you. Questions? I have some questions. I am on the Table 9-1. Publicly owned or managed open spaces and resource-based parks. There seem to be so many discrepancies. I mean, Clifton Perry Beach goes from 1,800ths of an acre to 18 acres. Curtis goes from 2.6 acres to 6. Jensen Beach goes from 19 to 22. Jensen Beach Causeway goes from 15 to 20. Maggie's Hammock Park is 21. I know that it's not. I know that it's 25, maybe 26. Hal Patiochi Park got another 70 acres. I mean, just all over. I'm not going to belabor it, but those parks look like every one of them needs to be examined because I don't think you're accurate. I believe this was updated by staff coordinating with the Parks and Rec Department, but we can go back over it between now and the 25th of March. Yeah. I know that a number of them are wrong. Okay. Page 937. We've deleted the county composite wetland map, and instead we are supplying an analysis of composite digital data sources can be a useful tool for environmental professionals to identify the presence or potential location of wetlands. However, Florida statutes, no number, requires the delineation of wetland boundaries in the field, according to Florida's unified wetlands delineation methodology. Blah, blah, blah. So how do we determine wetlands? So how we determine wetlands is typically done by one of two state agencies, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection or the South Florida Water Management District. So when we have an application for proposed development, one of those two agencies, if it's a larger development, it's usually South Florida. If it's a smaller single-family type development, it's usually the DEP. We'll go out there, and typically an environmental consultant will flag a line based on wetland plants, wetland soils, and hydrology, and those factors are used in an analysis that the state would confirm to confirm the location of wetlands. So for individuals we're relying upon a DEP? Yeah, applicants would. So we would have them. They go out to every lot and make a delineation? Yeah, anything that we're reviewing for proposed development, we ensure that they go to one of the state agencies, whomever may be regulating the wetlands. Like I said, larger development, that's typically South Florida, smaller stuff DEP. Okay. No negative impacts shall be allowed in wetlands unless so authorized under waivers and exceptions in this element. Can you describe that? Sure. So since the original comp plan of 82, we have authorized limited exceptions for wetland impacts for things like bridges, preclusion of reasonable use, utilities. So we just added that to clarify the language because we didn't want there to be a conflict in one section of the code that said, there are no negative impacts allowed when we have other sections of code or comp plan language that said, yes, you may, under these very narrow circumstances, impact wetlands and develop property. So it's just a consistency language there to be consistent with the waivers that we do process and authorize in limited cases for wetland impacts. And how does the South Florida Water Management District affirm wetland presence? So there's a state methodology, again, that's based on hydrophytic plants or wetland plants. And there's different tests that the state uses, A, B, C, and D. So there's a combination of factors, be they wetland plants and wetland soils or hydric soils, or wetland plants and hydrologic indicators, hydrology. And there's a test that's hardly ever used where it's a standalone prima facie test for hydric soils only, but that's rarely used. So they're basically the process typically is a consultant will go out and flag a line and do soil borings. And then depending on the project, the state might actually go in, and they have a very detailed wetland list where they would go in and do their own soil borings to confirm that, yes, indeed, there are hydric soils here. They confirm the presence of the wetland vegetation and the hydrology. And there's a combination of those factors where you meet the state definition of a wetland. And do we typically rely upon the environmental consultants' wetland delineation? So, no. So, well, that's step one. So, step one is somebody that wants to develop a property with a potential wetland will hire a consultant. They'll evaluate the site. They'll go out and flag what they believe to be the wetland line. But that doesn't get locked in until the state goes out and confirms the line, and sometimes they adjust the line. And then they'll issue some type of authorization, non-binding or binding jurisdictional determination, to establish where that line is on the property. And what have we used to replace Figure 9-1? So, Figure 9-1 is an old map that was developed based on some data that we had historically for hydric soils, national wetlands inventory data from 1985, and some satellite imagery. And we're not saying that we're getting rid of that consideration. We're just saying that we have newer data and newer features that we can look at in a composite way to predict where wetlands are going to be. So, this wetland composite map is just a map of probability, areas that have the potential to have wetlands. But our concern is by publishing a map that said this is the wetland map of Martin County, that's not true. That's just an area where there might be a higher probability of having wetlands. So, it's a little misleading to say that this is the wetland map of Martin County. So, we're trying to move away from that, but still keep some of the factors that we use when we're evaluating properties in the office or when we have enforcement cases where wetlands are impacted, we look at a multiple number of layers, not just these older ones. What are these new, newer, better resources that we use? So, one of the great resources we have are constantly updated aerial imagery. So, we can look at aerials and historic aerials to know where the wetlands were and where the wetlands may be based on an aerial analysis. We have newer NWI layers, so Clyde just turned on the NWI layer from 2022 that kind of supplants the one in the old map from 1985. We have digital elevational information that can clue you in to where the low areas might be on a piece of property. A really good one, if you scroll down a little, Clyde, is one called the 2019 Digital Elevational Model. But, again, these are just tools. These are not anything we use to say there's definitely a wetland there until it's actually gone through the process and been confirmed in the field. So, there's no mention of these new and improved NWI layers, wetland layers, digital layers, 2019 digital layers, no mention or requirement that they be used in the determination of wetlands. Can you go to the language, Clyde? What page was that on? 937 to 938. So, what we're saying here, yeah, we don't specifically lay out the specific layers that we're using, but we do look at, like I said, a composite of different features when we're trying to determine where there's a likelihood to have wetlands out in the field. These layers are not used to actually identify the boundary of the wetland. The field visit is. There's a field visit? That's what the environmental consultant does, and that's what the South Florida Water Management District does. It's a field visit. They physically walk the site. They take soil borings. They, you know, look at the plants that are there. They look at hydrologic indicators that show an area that might be inundated. Commissioner, if I might say that I think staff also visit the site. They just don't have the authority under the state statute to actually perform a jurisdictional. However, if there is a potential violation, staff will use these tools and say there appears to be a fill in a wetland. They then coordinate with the Water Management District to actually have the boundary verified, and then enforcement action continues on. But they do use all these tools in evaluating if there was a property that had been cleared for whatever activity. I don't want to put something out there, and you go out there, and it was filled. So what was the land before it was filled, and maybe it was using the aerials, everything else? Then it's the presumption is there was a wetland working with the state of Florida, then, who can make the jurisdictional determinations. They also use those tools, and then we could proceed forward with a violation. When there hasn't been a violation, the same thing can occur where staff can go out and visit a site and syndicate to a property owner. From their professional judgment, there are wetlands on site, and they must be delineated before you can seek any approval from the county. And in that circumstances, if it was a small property owner, it may be working directly with the property owner themselves and the water management district on the delineation, or it's hiring a professional to come in there as an intermediary so that the entire boundary is flagged before the professionals go out to verify it. We're just kind of doing this on the fly here. So I'm going to turn on this. These are two of the layers that are in the wetland composite map. The brown layer is the hydric soil layer, and the blue layer is that old NWI layer, and then the composite of the two layers is in green. So if you see all of these areas, these are areas that would all be shown on that wetland map as wetlands of potential. Well, yeah, on the composite wetland map. So if you compare, so keep a mental image of that. If you compare that to what was delineated, you can see areas that, and we're doing this on the fly. I wasn't prepared to. Only the green in that last was wetland. Only the green. None of the brown was wetland. It's been delineated as wetland in the field. This is a field-delineated wetland. So this is a map where we know where wetlands are because they've been verified by the state and locked in in our PAMP layer. But when you compare the two, and I apologize, I didn't have a specific site ready to show you, so it's easy to compare. But when you compare to what was delineated properly in the field in accordance with Florida statutes, as opposed to what this map is showing you, all these potential wetlands up here, you can see there's a difference in a discrepancy. See, there's nothing lighting up here that was delineated on this property as a wetland, but in the composite layer, somebody could misinterpret all of these areas as being wetlands where, when it was done properly in the field, it was not determined to be a wetland. Okay. Any other questions? Nicely explained. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Campy. I know you're going to take a request for public comment, but short of that and having had a nice discussion, I would move to continue this until March 25th with my thanks for the work. I'll second that motion as well. Second. Pending public comment, I will second it. Is there any public comment? Yes. Ms. Leonard. I'm running over my scarf. So, Carol Ann Leonard, let's see, some wetlands connect to each other underground, I've been told. I was wondering, can you determine that? And then even small ones matter. And then I'm also concerned that a developer picks the consultant, even though you have backups by the state and other things. I'm a little concerned about them picking the consultant. And then I was told that Martin County protects all the wetlands, and I hope that you will continue to do so. Thank you. Do wetlands connect underground? Yeah, there can be hydrologic connections. Yeah. And we actually have a larger buffer required for what we call connected wetlands, typically along the shorelines. It would require a 75-foot buffer. But the state only recognizes the surficial connection if all of the surface elements meet the criteria. Certainly, our groundwater is all interconnecting between the suficial aquifer from across the entire state. So, water does connect between different bodies, although there are some wetlands that have impermeable layers underneath of them where you might have a perched wetland, like in some of the dune systems we have along the coastline, where it's almost there's an organic and clay layer underneath. It acts like a swimming pool, and basically the wetland is sitting in this bowl on top. So, there are very – we have it all here, right? So, but nonetheless, it's important to note that the jurisdictional boundary for purposes of private property rights is all at the surface delineation, and how the – but how you develop around a wetland does take into account that aquifer and the connection. In fact, our code has a pretty extensive piece about requiring impermeable barriers adjacent to wetlands to prevent lakes or other drainage features from inadvertently draining them. Thank you. There's a motion on the floor and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? That motion passes four to one with herd dissenting. Thank you. Public hearing number four is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of ear amendment 2410 sanitary sewer element. To the side. Afternoon. Good afternoon, commissioners. I'm Samantha Lovelady with Martin County Growth Management, and I have Leo Rapetti here with the utilities department. City zone. Oh, I'm city residents. Okay, so we reviewed this before in – back in October and sent it off to the state, and the state had no comments that required action. And I will let Leo go over the fine points of the changes that have been made. Good afternoon. Leo Rapetti, tech services administrator for Martin County Utilities. The first general housekeeping change has to do with Indiantown no longer being an investor-owned utility. It's now a municipal utility, so we corrected that. The first substantive change is on the table in policy 10.1B5. That's where we adjusted the level of service from 100 gallons per day per capita to 195 gallons per day per ERC for residential. And then in non-residential, the 0.1 gallons per day was not adequate for evaluating things like office space, restaurants, warehouse, and industrial. So we made that also 195 gallons per day per day per equivalent residential connection. Both of those changes are also consistent with our wastewater master plan that we maintain. So the comp plan and our master plan are consistent. We eliminated a couple of items in Section 10.3. These were future missions that have been resolved through our launching and implementing our septic-to-sewer program. Since we kicked it off in earnest about six years ago, we've made sewer connections available for about 5,000 properties that were previously served by septic systems. In how many years? About six years. And finally, we added two new goals, 10.4A, to satisfy House Bill 1379, addressing the feasibility of connecting properties that are 50 or more residential lots to municipal sewer within a 10-year horizon. And then a second one looks for a 20-year wastewater plan. And we essentially have an ongoing wastewater master plan that we update on a regular basis. So that's already in place and part of what we do day to day. Okay. And with that, I'll open it up to any questions you might have. Questions for Mr. Repetier? I have a question. On page 1232, this is policy 10.188. Sanitary sewer lines may be extended from the primary to serve the following previously approved projects. And there are seven projects. Why aren't all the rural lifestyle and Newfield and Martin Commons Park and all those projects, why are they not listed? Well, I know in terms of, like, Martin, there's Martin Gale Commons that's actually in there. Martin Commons Park. Yes, that has not been, it's been approved, but it hasn't gone through Municode. And so it hasn't been codified or it's in the process of being codified. How about all those rural lifestyle approvals? They're all outside the primary urban service boundary. The Elise Elder, Deputy County Attorney. So that's a future land use designation that has within its, within the text of the future land use that it can have water. So it's not an exception that would be listed in this group. So it has its own provision for water and sewer within the text. It's a sanitary sewer line that's extended from the primary urban service district to, to prove, to serve a previously approved project. It was approved at the time that, the project was approved at the time the text amendment was done. So it wasn't included in the exceptions because it has its own, its own provision within the future land use designation for water and sewer. But it's an exception. It's not an exception because the future land use provides for it, is the way we were looking at it. Could you clarify? So these projects, these seven projects are projects that didn't qualify for extensions of sewer or water, but we created exceptions for them. And we listed them. We duly listed them. And we've also approved all these other Atlantic fields, new field, three lakes, the ranch, on and on. We've approved those, and we've also approved extending water and sewer in those cases outside the urban service boundary, and yet they're not listed here. Perhaps this would clarify those that are listed, those developments that are listed were approved and then were given exceptions. In the case of Atlantic fields or any of the rural lifestyle, the allowance of water and sewer is contained within that land use designation. It is not an exception. It was in that it didn't require an authorization or an exception. It was already made within the provision. Put a finer point on it also. New field was a result of an expansion of the primary urban service district. It's not an exception. Any further questions? It makes me wonder how much of the rest of these ear amendments are credible. Is there a motion? Yes. Prior to you taking public comment, I appreciate the fact that you brought that up. I thought that the question was valid. I think the answers are valid, in my opinion. And so I would make a motion to accept, no, to continue this item until March 25th after public comment. And I would say that, you know, like-minded folks can agree to disagree on some of the wordsmithing of this. I think that these are exceptions, and the items that you mentioned are written into the language of the original approval, so it wouldn't have been an exception. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. Is there any public, anybody from the public wish to address us? We'll see anybody. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed? Opposed. That motion passes 3-2 with Vargas and Hurd dissenting. Thank you. We'll move on to public hearing number 5, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of year amendment 24-11, potable water. Afternoon. Good afternoon again, commissioners. My name is Samantha Lovelady with Martin County Growth Management. And this is CPA 24-11, which is the potable water services element and 10-year water supply plan. I have Ann Murray with me, the county's hydrogeologist. The state reviewed the changes that were made, and no comments require action. And I do want to make a note for you that on your consent agenda this morning, there was an interlocal agreement with the town of Jupiter Island regarding the joint planning area. So, figures 11-1 and 11-2 need to be adjusted for that. And so, we're recommending that those figures 11-1 and 11-2 come back to you with the changes from the interlocal on the 25th, on March 25th. And with that, I'll hand it over to Ann. Good job negotiating that, by the way, whoever negotiated it. I wish I could take credit for it. I did. Take credit. Did you do it? Well done. I'm pretty sure that was one of the ones I did. Well done. So, thank you. I appreciate that. So, the Ann Murray County hydrogeologist, this is the potable water services element, and the key components of this are water demand projections and identification of current and future service areas and conservation and reuse. Wrapped into this chapter is a water supply facilities work plan, which is done as a requirement of the state through the South Florida Water Management District. That plan is updated every five years. It's due up again in 2026. That work plan aligns with regional water supply plans and ensures adequate water supplies for future land use and development, as well as inclusion of alternative water supply projects, reuse programs, and conservation. The proposed changes are very minor here, mostly housekeeping references. It extends the planning period of the 10-year facility plan from 10 to 20 years, so we're looking forward another 10 years. There was some minor inclusions of a nine-and-a-half-acre parcel that was a parcel adjacent to the Martin County's landfill that was included in the service area. And then there's minor revisions to the proposed modifications to the consolidated water system, and that just updates our plans for water treatment plants and balances the number of wells that we have in our system. And with that, I'll ask if you have any questions. Questions for Ms. Murray. Commissioner Capps. Do you care to comment on the differences between Florida and California when it comes to water supply? Well, that's a great question. In my early career, I was actually in California and worked on some of those programs, and so I can say that California and Florida share a number of the same challenges. A corridor of the coastal area that is quite urbanized, water supplies that are certainly shared by environment and humans. I would say that in comparison, California has many more challenges than Florida does. However, saying that, we have a growing population. We have much more urbanization, and our protective measures to not only protect the quantity of water, but the quality of water should be a priority, and I think that we do prioritize that here in Martin County. One other thing, there's this thing called deep injection wells where they, like, send stuff back down, as I understand. That's correct. Is that okay? I mean, like, for water quality purposes, are there safeguards in place that would prevent contamination and that kind of thing? Yes. So we use our injection wells for effluents, so that is irrigation quality reuse water that is sent to injection wells, only in times when we can't use it for the purposes of irrigation to distribute it. So that would be the rainy times of the year. Thank you. Of course. Ms. Lovelady, you can probably answer this question. So the sanitary sewer element did not include, as an exception to service provided outside the primary urban service boundary, the 107-acre parcel by Indiantown. Is that because they're not served by sewer? I'm not sure I understand your question. So the water element includes, as an exception, the 107-acre parcel that the county owns east of Indiantown. So it says that's an exception for water, but it wasn't an exception for sewer. Is that because we didn't extend sewer lines to that parcel? Utilities is telling us that's served by Indiantown, not by Martin County Utilities. But the water is served by Martin County. That's what it says in the... Can you tell me what page you're on, please? Yeah, I'm on page 1521. 1521. The Indiantown Fairgrounds property is in the Indiantown service area. What I'm asking is, so the water element, the potable water element, includes that parcel as an exception to the primary urban service boundary requirement. However, that same parcel, which presumably is also served by sewer, is not included. Commissioner, I think we'll probably need to review that before it comes back to the next item to see. I'm going to have your answer, please. Yeah. At the top of page 1233, there's the exception for the 107-acre parcel. I see it. Why is it not on page 1232, as listed as parcel number 8? I think these, and this is my guess, is that we add these exceptions every once in a while, and then this just came in on its own and wasn't added to that list. It's a different policy. Was it an exception? It was an exception. Commissioner, if we could just look at this further and look at it and come back with you on the 25th, I'm not sure. It may need to be in there, Commissioner. We'll just need to verify on that list, separate, as you suggested. Okay. Is there a motion? I've already forgotten. So you want a motion to continue it to March 25th, and at that time we will? To verify the requirement to add the exception, the county parcel, into the list of exceptions. Instead of its own policy. Is that on the sewer element or the water element? The sewer element. Okay. So that's amending the last motion for approval. Yes. So this is the motion for this element, right? Do we need to make a motion? Well, this is on potable water, correct? No, we're still, this is the question that's being addressed now is going back to the sewer element. And we'll have to revisit it. We'll make sure it's consistent throughout the comp plan. I think you could make a motion to approve this, but also direct staff to review the prior item to bring back the sewer element. Okay. I'll move to continue this item to March 25th and to direct staff to review the previous sewer item. And this one. Yep. Pending public comment. Second. Is there any public comment? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Opposed? That motion passes 4-1 with heard dissenting. Thank you, commissioners. Now we move on to public hearing number 6, a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of year amendment 24-12, solid and hazardous waste. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Samantha Lovelady with the Martin County Growth Management Department. I have with me Sam Amerson, the utilities director. And this has been reviewed by the state. And the state had no comments that require action. And I will let Sam take over from here. Thank you, Samantha. Good afternoon, commissioners. For the record, Sam Amerson, utilities and solid waste department. The proposed changes were minor. They were all housekeeping in nature. For example, we changed references to the village of Indiantown, a couple of references to garbage collection provided by the city of Stewart in the town of Jupiter Island. We updated some dates and terms. But there were no changes to the goals, objectives, or policies being proposed. Those are all underlying the proposed changes. There are a few strikethroughs. But, as I said, mostly housekeeping in nature. Questions? Is there any public comment? There can't be. Short and sweet presentation. When there's not changes, it's appropriate. I would make a motion that we continue this item until March 25th. Second. There's a motion and a second. Is there any public comment? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. On to public hearing number seven, which is a legislative public hearing to consider adoption of year amendment 24-13, drainage and natural groundwater aquifer recharge elements. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Samantha Lovelady with Martin County Growth Management. And I have with me Amy Eason from Public Works. And the state has reviewed this chapter, and there were no comments that require action. I do want to point something out for you, though. There is a sub-policy that the board approved during the transmittal hearing. This piece, the sub-element, was accidentally not included in the paperwork that went to Tallahassee. But we did send them the language later, and we spoke with them, and DEP, South Florida Water Management District, and Florida Commerce had no problems with this language, even though it got missed out on the actual paperwork of transmittal hearing. And other than that, I'll let Amy go over whatever changes she wants to know. Amy Eason, environmental resource engineer. There are several housekeeping items within this, removing and updating out-of-date references, along with removing any in town. There was also information concerning the Loxahatchee River that was not included in the original comp plan, so we just sort of added that in, as Ms. Lovelady just said. And there's other information that was added on updating the MPDS program. We added resiliency elements into it to be consistent with what we are doing as a county. We've also updated information concerning water supply as well, because the aquifer information is in there to the latest Upper East Coast Water Supply Plan. And I'll also include references to the C-44 Reservoir STA. We also added green infrastructure to Policy 13.3A, and I will entertain any questions you may have. Questions? Is there any public comment? Any motion? Move to continue to March 25. There's a motion. Is there a second? Yes, there is. There's a motion and a second. Is there any public comment? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Thank you, Ms. Next up is public hearing quasi-judicial number one, which is a public hearing to consider adoption of an amendment to the Martin County Zoning Atlas to change the zoning classification for Gaston Family Holdings. Commissioner, this is a quasi-judicial. Yes, indeed it is. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? None that I know of, but they've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. If I have any, they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I have filed the fact that I have none. And Commissioner Hetherington? If any, they've been filed. Excellent. Let's see. Mr. Senate, have you passed all your information to the clerk? Yes, I'm turning in the agenda item and a copy of my work history to be filed as Exhibit 1. Excellent. Would anyone like to, is anyone, if anyone is going to be supplying sworn testimony, please stand up, raise your hand, right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Proceed, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm John Sennett, Senior Planner with Growth Management. This is a request by Gunster, Yokely, and Stewart on behalf of Gaston Family Holdings for a proposed amendment to the county zoning atlas to change the zoning district classification for an approximately 2.15-acre marine sales and service facility from the current B-1 Business District and R-3A Liberal Multiple Family District to the GC General Commercial District. The site is located at 4900 Southeast Federal Highway in Stewart. Included with this application is a request for a certificate of public facilities exemption. There are no interveners for this application. The site is outlined in red. It's located approximately 120 feet south of the intersection of Southeast Carroll Street and Southeast Federal Highway. To the north of the site, you can see the Ace of Carts facility, as well as the Napa Auto Parts facility at the corner of Carroll and Federal. To the east of the site, across US-1, you can see commercial buildings, including Sky King Fireworks, O'Reilly Auto Parts, and Harley-Davidson. To the south of the site is the Sunshine Mobile Manor community. The area to the west of the site is predominantly mobile and modular homes. And then to the northwest, you can see the Natalie Estates mobile home community. The future land use designation of the property and the adjoining properties to the west and north is General Commercial. To the east, across US-1, you can also see the General Commercial future land use designation. And the areas to the south, west, and northwest in the pink here is the mobile home future land use designation. The east side of the property is zoned B-1 business district, while the west side of the property is R-3A liberal multiple family district. Both of these existing zoning districts are Category C districts. The adjoining property to the north and west is also zoned R-3A. To the east, across US-1, we see the GC, General Commercial District. To the south, we can see the TP zoning district. And the area to the west is the RT zoning district in Brown. This application is being processed as a mandatory rezoning to a Category A district, which implements the policies for the General Commercial future land use designation. There is one standard, Category A zoning district, that both implements the General Commercial future land use designation and allows the current use of the property as a marine sales and service facility, and that is the GC General Commercial District. PUD zoning is also an additional option. However, the applicant is requesting the GC General Commercial District. These are the development standards for the proposed GC district. Maximum building coverage of 60 percent. Maximum height, 40 feet. Minimum open space, 20 percent. For a one-story structure, the front setback would be 25 feet. Rear would be 20. And side would be 10 feet. These are the conditions supporting the requested GC zoning district. The existing future land use designation of General Commercial for the site. The site's location along Southeast Federal Highway, which is a major arterial roadway. The existing use of the site as a marine sales and service facility. The GC zoning district also allows uses, which are consistent with the uses permitted in the existing B1 and R3A zoning districts. This matter was heard before the LPA on March 6th. They voted 4 to 0, with one absence, to approve the rezoning. Development review staff have found the Gaston Family Holdings rezoning application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan, as detailed in the staff report. Recommended action is to move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report, as Exhibit 1. I move that the board adopt a resolution amending the Martin County Zoning Atlas to change the zoning district designation on the subject site from B1 Business District and R3A Liberal Multiple Family District to GC General Commercial District. That concludes my presentation. Questions from Mr. Sutt. Applicant. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Commissioners. For the record, my name is Bob Rains. I'm a land use attorney with the Gunster Law Firm. Here this afternoon, on behalf of the applicant, I'd like to begin the presentation just by stating for the record that we turned in the proof of notices to the surrounding property owners at the LPA meeting for this meeting also. Second of all, I'd like to just state that we, you know, have received the staff report, and we agree with the conclusions and the comments and the recommendations in that staff report. And staffs, I think, did an excellent job with this. I would like to just point out a couple of points or emphasize a couple of items. Again, this is a mandatory rezoning. The Category C is the reason for the R3A, which is inconsistent with the current land use. And the GC zoning district is the only zoning district that implements what is currently happening on the site. You know, we usually talk about rezonings, and we don't talk about what can be done there on site specific. But this is a rare case because we already have an existing business that's been there for quite some time. As a matter of fact, the commercial uses on this property date back to the early 60s. And then in the 90s, the marinas were in place, the Marine Cell Service. And my client has purchased and owned this property and operated as Marine Cell Service since 2005. So this is a long-time existing use, successful business in town. And then I think the last thing to emphasize is, you know, the zoning code came into place in 1968. It put on the R3A and the B1. And the GCs that we're requesting is consistent with those uses that were allowed under the current B1 and R3A. So this dates, these uses date back to 1968. So with that, we would respectfully request you accept staff's recommendation and approve GC. And we'll be glad to answer any questions. And my client's here to answer any questions that you may have for him. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. It's my understanding that this original code is from 1967. I believe 1968, Commissioner. Are there? Okay. And so the reason why you are here is because the Marine Cell Service Company was already operating on another adjacent parcel that wasn't zoned correctly. Is that what I'm understanding? Well, it's correct. I mean, the current zoning, the R3A, well, it would have allowed those uses, too. The property has a GC. So I think the question, Commissioner, is one of the zonings, the B1, is consistent with the general commercial land use under the Category C. The R3A today is not. Yes. But it's not to use. It's the zoning that was put on the property. Yes, I understand. And that's how we regulate by zoning also. Correct. Correct? Yes. Okay. So the reason you're in front of us is because you are trying to make this uniform, this property. Is that correct? Yes. It's only going to be used for marine sales and service or maybe another commercial use. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Is that correct? Yes, I believe that's the applicant. I was looking at the applicant over there. He's shaking his head vigorously at me. Uh-huh. I understand. Commissioner Hetherington. As we've heard from staff and the applicant, it's a mandatory rezoning, and I would move, pending public comment, a motion to accept staff's recommendation for approval. Second. Is there any public comment? Seeing none, there's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Oops, sorry. Commissioner Capps. Yes. A portion of this is zoned residential. Is that it? No, no, liberal multifamily district. Is that a residential classification? And the staff can correct me if I'm wrong. The R3A was probably, back in 1968, the best zoning you could have in place because it allowed almost everything. It allowed commercial uses, and it allowed residential uses. So, if I'm wrong on that, but it was probably the zoning you would have coveted back in 1968. So, yes. Okay. So, it was a very broad? Yes. Yes, sir. It was probably the broadest of my understanding of that. Okay. What I was getting at is, like, in the future, when we consider things going from residential to commercial, does that kick in live local thoughts and concerns, and could live local apply? Because live local allows high-density apartment buildings on commercial property. Yes, sir. That, I mean, that is true. Live local, you know, you could do a live local project on something like this. I think two things. Obviously, we have a long-time existing use, and this gentleman's got a business that's been going on for a long time. It's not going anywhere, hopefully, for a lot of reasons. And the second thing, I think, just from a practical standpoint, this is a small piece of property, so, you know, there's some, you know, economic aspects to that live local that I think a lot of people don't realize it's not going to be able to be used effectively from, and when I say effectively, from an economic standpoint, because you still can't really get enough units at that kind of price. I think the live local is going to apply more to larger general commercial tracts. Okay. Good. Thank you. Yes, sir. Any further questions? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, commissioners. Next, we go on to quasi-judicial public hearing one, which is request approval of the Third Amendment to the Discovery Planned Unit Development, including a revised master and phasing plan. This is quasi-judicial. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? If I have any, they've been disclosed. And Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and they've been filed. And Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. And Mr. Elam, have you sent all your stuff to the clerk? I have a copy of my work history, and the agenda item to turn in is Exhibit 1. Terrific. If there's anybody who's going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Please proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. For the record, Brian Elam, principal planner with the Growth Management Department. Last Friday, staff was made aware that there was a change in ownership from Discovery Hope Sound Investors, LLC, to Atlantic Fields Club, LLC. Updated documents, including the PUD agreement, disclosure of interest, and power of attorney, were submitted yesterday with these corrections. I will defer to the applicant to provide more information related to this. If I may, Chair, I have those documents, and I'm going to give them to the clerk so they're in the quasi-judicial proceedings. Okay. And I provided the commission aides with a copy of the disclosure yesterday so everybody can review it for this vote. Okay. So just for the record. All right, so this is a request by Lucido and Associates on behalf of Atlantic Fields Club, LLC, for approval of the Third Amendment to the Discovery PUD zoning agreement, including a revised master and phasing plan for the purpose of adjusting the golf clubhouse and kids' club adventure park recreation tracks, and adding a lake clubhouse within the lake adjacent to the clubhouse tract. Included is a request for a certificate of public facilities exemption. Discovery PUD is an approximately 1,530-acre property located north of Bridge Road, approximately one mile east of the I-95 interchange at 2935 Southeast Bridge Road in Hobes Sound. The existing zoning district on the property is the Discovery PUD zoning agreement with the rural lifestyle underlying future land use. This is an excerpt of Sheet 1 of the revised master site plan, which documents minor changes to the limits of the clubhouse tract and adventure park tracts. Another change is the addition of the lake clubhouse within the adjacent lake tract. The revised master site plan is Exhibit D within the Discovery PUD zoning agreement, and these minor changes to the PUD zoning agreement exhibit require this amendment to be heard in a public meeting. So the changes in the track from the previously approved master site plan in this are essentially, from what I have seen, is the shorelines for the clubhouse tract here and essentially the shoreline for the kids' club adventure park tract, if you were to look at the previous site plan. Then also the addition of the addition of the lake clubhouse here. Second exhibit, Exhibit D1, which is part of this amendment, is the phasing plan. Essentially, the changes here is they've taken and broken down some of the previous phases into smaller phases, more manageable chunks, I guess you could say. For instance, this Phase 1D pasture recreation tract used to be part of Phase 1A. And some of these other phases were in 2B, 2D, 2E, and 2C, I believe, were in Phase 2B. So they've broken up phases into smaller chunks, and so we have a revised phasing plan to represent that. Development review staff have found the discovery. Sorry. The Atlantic Fields Club LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations in the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan is detailed in the staff report. Review of this application is not required by the local planning agency, and staff recommends approval of this application. We move the board to receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1. And move the board to approve the third amendment to the Discovery PUD zoning agreement, including the revised master and phasing plans. That concludes the presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Questions for Mr. Elam? Yes, Mr. Gargis. Are there equestrian facilities here? Am I thinking correctly about this? There are equestrian facilities. Is that open to the public? I believe that they will be offered some events open to the public. Does anybody out there know? Yeah, we've got a presentation. Okay. Oh, well, let's listen to your presentation then. Good afternoon again, Commissioners, for the record. Bob Raines with the Gunster Law Firm here on behalf of the applicant. Thank you again for your time this afternoon. I'd like to begin. First of all, thanks, staff. We are on the air on the owners and working with us to get that corrected, and we apologize to you all for the late notice on that. But we do have that all in order, and we appreciate it. And we'll be glad to answer any questions if you have anything on that. So I would like to just begin by asking Mr. Elam a couple of quick questions, if I could. Madam Chair, if that's okay. Thank you. Mr. Elam, I know you turned in your resume, but could you just, for the record, for the public state, your work history, please? Just a brief description. I have about 25 years' experience in private sector and in public service as a project manager. The last three years as a planner here, and the previous seven years as a planner and project manager for Palm Beach County. And you're responsible for putting together the staff report, assembling all the experts and department heads. Is that correct? Yes. And you're also responsible for Section F and Section G in the staff report. Is that correct? Yes. And if I could, just real quick, so Section F is the determination of compliance with the comprehensive growth management plan requirements, and that's the growth management department, which is you. And your findings read, staff has reviewed this application and finds that it complies with the LDRs. As detailed within this report, staff recommends approval of this development application as consistent with the guidelines and standards of the applicable comprehensive plan, goals, objectives, and policies as implemented in the LDRs. Is that correct? Yes. And is that still your findings, sir? Yes. And then Section G also is yours, determination of compliance with land use, site design, standards, zoning, and procedural requirements? Yes. And your findings there, staff has reviewed this application and finds that it complies with the LDRs as detailed within this report and recommends approval of this development application as consistent with the guidelines and standards of the applicable comprehensive goals, objectives, and policies as implemented in the LDRs? Yes. And that still stands, sir? Yes. That recommendation? Thank you. At this time, Commissioner, I'm going to ask Morris Crady and Rick Melchiori to come up. They'll make a presentation, Mr. Crady first. But just to make it flow better, I'll just go through their resumes both at the beginning, and then they can just go if that's okay. So, Mr. Crady, can you introduce yourself, sir? Yes. I'm Morris Crady, senior partner with the CEDO and Associates. And have you been sworn in? Yes, I have. And can you give us a brief description of your education background and work history, please? Yes. I'm a professional land planner certified for the last 35 years through the American Institute of Certified Planners and also been worked for Martin County for 10 years as a development planner and been working now in Martin County for 43 years in land planning. And can you describe the paper I'm handing you, sir? That's my updated resume. Okay. Thank you. I would like for the record to reflect. I'm turning that in to the clerk. And then, Mr. Melchiori, could you step up, please, sir? Can you introduce yourself? My name is Rick Melchiori. I'm general manager at Becker Holding and senior vice president of development for Atlantic Fields and Discovery Land Company. And have you been sworn in, sir? I have. And can you give us a brief description of your work history, education and work history? I have a Bachelor of Science in Civil and Structural Engineering. I have been a licensed professional engineer in the state of Florida since 1994. And I've been working in the design, construction, and permitting of residential, commercial, and mixed-use developments for almost 35 years. And can you describe the document I'm handing you, sir? My CV. And is that an updated CV, sir? Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. And I would like for the record to reflect that I'm also turning that in to the clerk at this time. So, Mr. Crady, thank you. Thank you. I can borrow your mouse and click. Again, what I'm going to do is just briefly go over the application that we're requesting. And then Rick's going to talk about the status of the project, the public benefits, including the public access. So, what we're here today for is just the revised master and phasing plan. And as was mentioned by Brian, it's just to address the track boundary because the whole property has been platted now. So, as we go through development, you know, the lake track kind of has been modified a little bit. We haven't decreased the amount of lake, but the boundary between the lake track and the amenity tracks are very a little bit. And we want to make sure that when we submit a final site plan application for, let's say, the clubhouse track, it's consistent with the plat and also consistent with the master plan. So, we're making those phase lines consistent with the platted track lines. And we'll be in, in the future, with a replat of this track that we're talking about that will adjust those lines. So, we also add detailed description to create additional phases. And that's to be consistent also with the platted track line so that when we come with a final site plan, that site plan is tied to a specific platted track that can be legally described. And there's no confusion as to a portion of a track being, having a final site plan. And then the last thing we did was we added a clubhouse on the lake track. So, I'll show you that in a moment. But what we're doing today does not affect any of the public benefits. It doesn't change the density. It doesn't increase the intensity of development. There's no change to landscape area, drainage area, no change to open space or the habitat restoration area that's under construction. So, I think you're pretty aware where the property is located. We're surrounded on the north and east by the Atlantic Ridge State Park. And you can see this shows the roads that have been approved within the project. And on the next slide, this slide, we overlaid the plat onto the current aerial. So, this is the platted limits of the project. And what we're changing today is just the limits of this track. And that forms the boundary between the clubhouse track here. We have an adventure park track that will be a future amenity. So, we're really changing. And also, the boundary between the lake track and the golf course. But none of this affects the lots or the size of lots. So, there's no increase in intensity, no increase in density, and really has no impact on the development. So, to put it in a clearer term, the revised master phasing plan, we created, for instance, like we said, this used to be one phase. But we're coming in with a site plan for phase 3B and phase 3C. So, staff wanted us to break those out into two separate phases so it wouldn't be confusing. The track that we're revising is part of phase 1B, which is the golf course and lake track. And then, again, the boundary between this is the adventure park track that we're doing, that's changed. So, the change that we're doing by way of this PUD is very limited. But at the same time, I think it's important for the new commissioners, especially, to understand the public benefits that were originally negotiated with the county commission and also the status of completion of those public benefits and the overall project status. So, Rick Melcore is out there every day, and he's managing the project and making sure everything is done in accordance with the approved project. So, I'm going to turn it over to Rick. Thanks, Mark. Madam Chair, a member of the commission, I appreciate the time to be able to come up here and kind of update you as to where we stand. As Maura said, we're in the process of making some minor adjustments on the master site plan. If any of you have ever kind of worked in this arena, sometimes you understand that golf course architects and planners have a tendency to try to shave outside the lines a little bit. So, we want to just kind of get everything back in and get it where it belongs. As you're aware, or some of the commissioners that have been here previously, we did have several public benefits that were associated with our land use and our PUD. And I'd like to kind of just update you a little bit on where we stand with some of those. First one is the donation of the facilities that you're seeing on the screen right now to the Atlantic Ridge Preserve State Park. That transaction was actually completed on March 3rd. The closing took place, and that facility now belongs to the state. We did go ahead and provide the county attorney with the closing documents to verify that we have met the requirements. In conjunction with this, they have easements for public access. So, we'll now work with the park as far as programming and assisting them with, you know, whatever they'd like to do with the facility. So, hopefully, you know, more of the public will be able to enjoy it. And you built the road from Bridge Road to it. Correct. There is a boundary road that goes up the east side of the property that's completed. And, obviously, there's easements that were given to both South Florida and TIF. To get me aware, the park is owned by both entities. It's 50-50 ownership between South Florida Water Management District and TIF. So, we had to get agreements with both and grant easements, et cetera, to both. One of the other public benefits is the habitat restoration area. As you can see on the overall master site plan, it's in the upper left-hand corner, which is the northeast corner of the property. This gives you a little bit more of a blow-up of what it is. But, basically, we are restoring 125 acres of habitat back to its original condition. This basically mirrors what's in the Atlantic Ridge State Park and carrying that through. In conjunction with this and with our construction of our utility connections, we're going to go ahead and rebuild some of the drainage infrastructure that's in the park that, quite frankly, hasn't been maintained for several years. So, we've agreed to go ahead and redo their ditches, update their control structures. The ones that are there, quite frankly, are falling apart. So, we're going to go ahead and take care of that for them in conjunction with this. This is underway. It has not been completed yet. The construction easements to work in the park were all part of the program that closed on March 3rd. So, basically, all of the permits are in hand now to be able to do this. So, we're going to start commencing the earthwork here probably within the next couple of weeks. One of the other benefits was the donation of the Hope Sound Historic Train Station back to the Historical Society in Hope Sound. Quite a bit longer of a process than we had hoped, but, fortunately, it was delivered back on January 26th. I think there was a really great YouTube video that shows the actual move if you want to watch it. But, we are pleased to say that that has also been taken care of and addressed. So, hopefully, the Historical Society will be able to, you know, rebuild it, reconstruct it, and have a great facility for the residents of Hope Sound. The, one of the other benefits, or one of the other things that we agreed upon was to go ahead and put the Becker Tree Farm into a permanent ag easement. That's a three-party agreement, or easement, that was between the Becker family, the county, and Conservation Florida. Again, that was completed on December 6th, so that has been taken care of, and those documents, obviously, as you are a party to, have been recorded with the county. One of the last things that we've done is some enhanced stormwater management that we're working through. Where we stand right now is the majority of the lakes inside the property have been constructed. The interconnects have been placed. However, the lakes are not full. There's really no water in them. So, basically, everything that we do right now is being captured on site. Ultimately, in addition to maintaining our own stormwater management systems, we are taking in off-site flow from the Thomas Produce piece, which is a 317-acre track that's immediately to our east. We also carry through and flow through 1,600 acres from the south, which is the sea-level ranch. That was previously, basically, it drains into the right-of-way. That right-of-way connects through our system and ultimately outfalls through the Hope St. Lucie Conservancy District ditches to the north and into the South Fork. Internally, we have one discharge point, which is in our northwest corner. I'm going to show it comes out of what you see here as Basin 4. There is a control structure. Our post-development discharge is actually quite highly regulated. Under normal circumstances, when you file your permit applications, you would do a pre-development analysis and then a post-development analysis, and obviously your discharge post-development cannot exceed your pre-development. In this instance, because we're discharging into a Hope St. Lucie ditch, they actually have a more stringent requirement for their allowable discharge, so we have to meet that. That is obviously part of our South Florida Water Management District permits and to be able to show that we've maintained it. I know that about a month ago, there was a bit of a dust-up in the newspaper about some discharges in the South Fork. On, I believe it was the 31st of January, we had inspections from both FDEP and South Florida Water Management District. They were on site for the better part of the day, going through all of our systems. Upon completing that inspection, we were cleared that none of the discharge that was going to the South Fork was coming off of our property. We have gotten a clean bill of health from South Florida and from DEP, and they do conduct regular inspections, which we're obviously open to, including county staff conducts regular inspections. Just to give you a little bit of the timeline where we're at, our land use master site plan, PUD and first phase of development was approved in October of 23. Phase 2A, which is our primary development permits, was approved in March of 24. The PLAT was recorded in April of 2024. And today, we're obviously in March of 2025 looking for our revision. A little bit of where we stand with the project itself. Our short course was completed in December of 23. In January of 24, we've commenced primary infrastructure, which is obviously water, sewer, those type of things. In October of 24, we began construction of our first residences. Might be a little bit later, October, November. December, we went ahead and put the tree farm into conservation. January of 25, the championship course was completed. That has been the process of growing in and probably starting to be played, hopefully Friday, if everything goes well. We anticipate completion of all of the infrastructure by December of 25. We have two amenities that are currently under construction, our golf house and performance center. Again, both of those should be completed sometime in late 25. We, as I mentioned, completed not only the transfer of the train station, the donation to the park. So those have all been done. And then we're working currently on organic farm facilities. And you'll see equestrian, clubhouse, and various phases coming up in front of you as we start permitting those. With respect to Commissioner Vargas' question regarding the equestrian, we do have a full program that's in the process of being refined right now. There will be portions of it that will be open to the public, for example, polo matches and things like that on the various weekends. The facilities themselves will remain to be private. These are just a little bit of progress photos on where we stand. You can see these are holes 10, 11, and 12, some of the bunker construction growing. You see here where we've got a little bit of some of the lakes are getting filled. They've been kind of moving around. 13, 14, 15, and 16, which were actually some of the last holes that were completed. 16 was grassed in probably late October, early November. We do have a number of infrastructure projects that are continuing going on, including sanitary sewer, water mains. There's a bridge installation that's ongoing. Roadway construction, we've now paved about 50% of the loop roads. They've been asphalted now. Ranchers is currently being landscaped and cleaned up. It's just basically a continual process. Unfortunately, when you're on 1,500 acres, a continual process takes a long time still. I'll give you a little bit of where we stand as an entity. Right now, we have 137 employees that are direct employees of Atlantic Fields that are on payroll at this point. On any given day, we probably have close to another 150 contractors on site performing various tasks between infrastructure, building, construction, et cetera. We are still hiring, so we do have some open positions. In closing, so far, we've done slightly over half a billion dollars in clan closings. We have another $175 million that's contracted that will close here shortly or probably within the next 90 days. And based on the progressions right now, we should anticipate about $12 million in additional tax revenue to the county in calendar year 26. And that basically completes my presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Yes, commissioners, that concludes our presentation. So, as Mr. McFiori said, we'll be glad to answer any questions you might have. Commissioner Vargas. Yes, I think you mentioned rebuilding infrastructure in the park. How much infrastructure are you rebuilding? So, the park has some various drainage, you know, ditches and canals and things like that. One of them is on the north end of our property. The canal hasn't been maintained in probably 30 or 40 years, and I assume it's budgetary constraints with the park. So, we agreed in conjunction with, you know, the transfer of the facilities and what we're getting from that is the utility easements to access our utilities up in C Branch. So, we agreed that we would go ahead and reconstruct that ditch for them. That's an existing conveyance. On the west side of that conveyance, there's a control structure that's fairly dilapidated. So, we agreed that we would go ahead and rebuild that for them. So, that's primary. I mentioned that that area is also full of Brazilian peppers. So, when he says maintenance, it's just not rebuilding the ditch. It's removing tons of Brazilian pepper trees that have overgrown in that area. Commissioner Capps. I want to thank you for all you did in helping get the train station into town. And I'll mention, too, that I would thank my predecessor, Commissioner Harold Jenkins, for working with you to lay the groundwork for this. I think he was probably the person who had the original vision for bringing it into town. At least I will ascribe that to him today. I'm pretty sure that's true. And I had a question about the Atlantic Ridge connection, you know, and the road. And what is yet to be done from your standpoint? And do you know anything about what the state park system would need to do to enhance that for the public? And how long before we can start enjoying that, you know? So, the infrastructure from our standpoint is complete. There's an access road that goes up the east property line to the park facilities. At some point in time, I expect them to come in and actually gate it because they like to control the access to the park based on their, you know, when they have operating hours, et cetera. I'll be honest, because it's closed March 3rd and we're just sort of getting into the now operating end of it, I really don't know what their plans are. We, as an entity, have reached out. We agreed that we would help them if they needed, you know, construction of parking areas or things like that. We would work with them on it. You know, I think at this point now, it's really going to be the park's sort of control on, you know, how fast and the pace they want. I know some of the natural areas in Martin County. There's like an iron gate up with a lock on there and you can get like a special permit to go in and explore. Hopefully, it's not going to be like that where hopefully we can just go enjoy the place without having to call somebody and get something unlocked and that kind of thing. But I think it's going to be more of a manned operation where it's, you know, they're going to have set park hours where it would be, you know, eight to five or whatever it might be. I know they want to control access because – and I think they intend to actually have somebody living on property. But like I said, these are all things that are up in the air that the park has to work through. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Campy. Thank you. Mr. Mel Curie, thank you. The timeline, it's weird when you lay it out. First off, it's such a long timeline. You have to zigzag. It doesn't fit on one slide. But having been here since the beginning, and I know in the beginning with some of the foundational work, it was challenging. But I've always been a big proponent of the project. Having done my research when it was originally when I met with you the first time ever, and we talked about, you know, with Tom Hurley about, hey, this is an idea that's thinking about coming to Martin County to Bridge Road. I did my research on the Discovery Land Company, and I strongly recommend anyone that's listening to do the same thing. Just Google Discovery Land Company and look at the projects that they have put globally. For us to have one here in Martin is remarkable. It's a remarkable advantage for us. I wrote down some of the things. The environmental benefits that you rambled off quickly because you have to move through your presentation are remarkable because there was a lot of broken connectivity there that you all, at your expense, connected those natural historic flowways that, without you doing it, would not have been done. The equestrian, you know, you showed the one picture of that facility that was owned on this property that was donated to the state. I would render a guess to say it'll probably be one of the nicest facilities within the state park inventory of their buildings. And the road, which sounds like no big deal while you paved the road from bridge up to the thing. First off, it's very far and very expensive. And without it, your donation wouldn't have had the same kind of impact. The other advantage that some of us will realize is that that whole Atlantic Ridge Preserve, the southern portion of it, was basically off limits because you'd have to. The trailheads began off of Cove Road next to Anderson Middle School. One, most people didn't know to go there. And two, even if you did, it didn't really allow you access to the full beauty and nature of the park because you couldn't get too much onto the real heart of the property from the north. But you can now, maximizing the entire project. Economically, you just scratched the surface on what it'll mean. Yes, you know, there's a tax base for us, but the economic advantages of how many subcontractors, even first the project being constructed, all of the subs, all of the contractors and employees that get to work on it. But then once it's done, the employment opportunities, but the residual, the ripple effect in our communities, those folks that will go and shop in Homesound and elsewhere in the county, remarkable. And then one of the advantages of having Discovery Land Company is they are building a world-class facility that some people, I hope, don't lose sight of. It is, I'm not even saying nationally, I'm saying world-class golf, world-class recreation, world-class architecture, and then the philanthropic benefits that I think your project, which was the first one out of the gate, and then there's a couple others now, will change the not-for-profit and the philanthropic landscape for Martin County. We are blessed to have so many not-for-profits, which can work for and against us, because they have to compete for the same dollars. And I know that the Discovery Land Company, as an organization, is extremely generous, and that the future residents that will look like a who's who, a global who's who, they are exceptionally generous, because there's an expression I've been using, people give where they live. If you are a billionaire, if you are a billionaire, or what's the new word now, a sentinel millionaire, or something, if you have $100 million, if they've never heard of Martin County, if they've never heard of some of our organizations, they would never know to donate to them. And I know that it's already started. So, you put all this together for you all to deal with a lot of black and blues that came in the beginning of the process, and to keep at it for us, I think, is terrific, and I would say personally thank you, and very happily make the motion to accept staff's recommendation for your changes. Commissioner Hetherington. As you can tell, I like the project. You have 138-some-odd. How many employees will you have at completion of the project, do you think? At build-out, once we're, we should probably 4 to 450, somewhere in that number. It'll fluctuate in the summers, because typically a lot of our staff will go to other destinations more summer-orientated up to the north and that type of stuff, but during season, probably between 400 and 450. Great. But that's not including the people that work for the residents. No, no, no, that's just our staff. That does not include, you know, contractors coming in, people, you know, whether it's cleaning, you know, service industries, et cetera. Great. I think this project by far has some of the best and encompassing public benefits that I've seen on a project in a very long time, if not, you know, the most I've ever seen on a project. So I'm certainly happy to support it. I'm going to second Commissioner Campy's motion. And you think about things up here that you have to consider, and that whole timeline, that was a whole challenging process. And when you look at how things are coming out, I, again, there's challenging, but the deciding factor in me sometimes is that in 30, 40 years from now, what are the residents going to think? You know, what will I, you know, see as this if I look back onto it? And I think you're doing exactly what you said you were going to do. I'm proud to have supported you. And I think in 30, 40 years, I'm going to be even more appreciative of what you've done there with the 800 acres of permanent conservation and the fact of all the public benefits. So I will gladly support it with a second. I probably won't be around in 30 or 40 years. Oh, come on. I'll have my 100th birthday there. Going back to the pollution event, what other activities are happening in that area of the county that could have produced that bloom? I have no idea. Is anything else under construction in the area? Not that I'm aware of. And did the pollution, was it the result of a discharge into the Hope St. Lucie Canal? It was not. But they actually went through our site to verify that we did not have any discharge. They did an NTU test at our discharge points and found that there was nothing out of the ordinary at our discharge points. So it very well likely could have, you know, been from a rainfall event that something slipped in the park or something of that nature. But there was, they tested everything we had. And I knew it wasn't going to be us anyways because at this point we're not discharging anything. We're actually pumping into our systems. So we're taking water out of the canal, bringing it into our system to start bringing the lakes up. So I was very comfortable that it wasn't us. Thank you. You're welcome. Any further comment? Any public comment? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. It does. Quasi-judicial public hearing number two is a request for approval of the South Florida Gateway Planned Unit Development Revised Infrastructure Final Site Plan. Mr. Elam. Oh, this is a quasi-judicial. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? If I have any, they've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, they've been filed. And Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Excellent. Mr. Elam, have you filed your things with the clerk? Excellent. I'll be of my work history and the agenda item. And if anyone is going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Mr. Elam, proceed, please. Thank you, Madam Chair. Commissioners, again, for the record, Brian Elam, Principal Planner with the Growth Management Department. This is a request by Lucido and Associates on behalf of South Florida Gateway Industrial LLC for approval of a revised infrastructure final site plan for the South Florida Gateway PUD. This application includes a request for a certificate of public facilities exemption. The project is located on the west side of Southwest Canter Highway, approximately 0.6 miles south of Southwest 96th Street in Stewart. South Florida Gateway PUD is a platted industrial development with a total site area of approximately 216.37 acres. The zoning on the property is the South Florida Gateway PUD zoning agreement, and the property has an industrial underlying future land use. This application proposes revising the South Florida Gateway PUD infrastructure final site plan for the purpose of constructing the infrastructure along the private Southwest Gateway Place road so lot IND3 may be platted and conveyed. This application does not propose any development on lot IND3, which will require a separate site plan application. Development review staff have found the South Florida Gateway Industrial LLC application to comply with all applicable regulations in the Comprehensive Growth Management Plan as detailed in the staff report. A review of this application by the local planning agency is not required, and staff recommends approval of this application. We move that the board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1. We move that the board adopt the resolution approving the revised infrastructure final site plan for the South Florida Gateway PUD project. And that concludes the presentation. Questions from Mr. Elam. Applicant. Good afternoon. Again, for the record, Morris Crady, senior partner with the Cedar & Associates. And I do have a brief PowerPoint, and I'll explain the project. And again, I think for the benefit of the new commissioners, I'm going to go back in time a little bit, about 15 years ago. Okay, so we're here today for the final site plan approval of lot IND3 infrastructure, which is basically required to build the roads and water and sewer to support plat number two, which is the next item on the agenda. So it allows the construction of the road, water, and sewer to support the plat, and that's the plat number two IND3. This application is 100% consistent with the approved PUD agreement and subsequent amendments. It's consistent with the approved master site plan. It's consistent with your land development regulations. And it's consistent with the comprehensive plan requirements and also the specific requirements that apply to this property. And I'll go into that a little bit more. But this is what the property looked like in 2010. In 2010, if you were familiar, back then, I didn't work on the project, but there was a recession. And the owner at that time and the county commission was trying to trigger some economic development, changed the agricultural on the waterfront to 75 acres of commercial waterfront and 175 acres of industrial land. So all of that land was in the primary urban service district. And the thought was that there could be some type of industrial development that could play off of the St. Lucie waterfront. And so, but what we found out, and I didn't get involved until 2016 when Nancy Neal, who owned the property with her family, actually, and some other investors, had tried for several years to get development activity on the property. But what we learned is that there is a perpetual Army Corps of Engineers easement on the waterfront that prevents any permanent improvements on the property. So there was no economic ability for them to develop waterfront, and I'm talking about right here. There is a, there is, and I presented this during the 2016 change, which I'll go into in a minute. But it prevented any permanent improvements along the waterfront. So, and the other option was to just develop industrial land, right? So listen, in the industrial land, the only access was at 96th Street in this location. The easement went to this location. So we had to deal with two issues there. The Rundle Bridge, which created a terrible line of sight problem for any industrial traffic entering 96th Street. And none of these people on 96th Street wanted industrial development on 96th, you know, in front of their property. So we were constrained by the line of sight. We were constrained by 96th Street. Nobody wants industrial development. So, you know, after six or seven years of trying to create economic activity on a site that didn't work, I got involved, and Nancy Neal said, why can't we just move all that industrial development on Cantor Highway, which made sense. Because that's where the industrial users wanted to be. They wanted to have direct access on a major highway. But that was a challenge, too. Because, first of all, this is the urban service district as it existed in 2010. This is the property that I just showed you that had the industrial and the waterfront commercial land use. It was in the primary urban service district. It was 100% in the primary urban service district. All we wanted to do was to move it out here. And the only way we could do that was to access the policy and the comprehensive plan that's been there since 1990 that allowed for freestanding urban service districts for industrial land use in order to create economic opportunity. So, in order to move, you can see this line here is the old primary urban service district. Okay, the county commission did not want to expand the primary urban service district because if we moved it over here, then there would be this hiatus right here. Because the bold red line is the primary urban service district. The blue line is the freestanding urban service district. This green area in here is the industrial property that was purchased by the county for their operations facility. And that's industrial land, that zone. So, the only way we could move that industrial and waterfront activity, we changed the waterfront to industrial, obviously, was to access the freestanding urban service boundary. But we did not increase the amount of land. The 250 acres that was in the urban boundary originally is exactly the same as this 250 acres within the freestanding urban service district. We did not increase it. In fact, we ended up reducing the amount of land within the primary urban service district by virtue of creating this freestanding urban service. And then we sold 30 acres of that land to the county. The developer had to build infrastructure. They brought in water and sewer along Canter Highway. They built roads, you know, this Southwest Gateway Place, which we'll talk about in a little more detail, Southwest Neal Street in honor of the Neal family. And Southwest Waterside Place was a donated public right-of-way that provides access to the county's parcel, which I believe is in the development review process now. So, we did not expand the urban service district. It was just a rearrangement of what already existed to create economic activity. And it worked. We'll go into that in a moment. But so, this is your – this is the – on the bottom here is from the county's map. This is the industrial land use. The 250 acres is the same as what it was when it was in the urban service boundary. No residential. In fact, when we made this change, we agreed to two things as part of the comprehensive plan amendment. One, we would prohibit any residential on this property. So, there is – in the text amendment, we're prohibiting any residential use within this industrial property. Second thing we did was very important. We prohibited any industrial traffic from accessing 96th Street. So, we built these three roads so that there will never be industrial traffic on Southwest 96th Street. And third, we managed the traffic. We agreed to a maximum threshold of 950 peak-hour trips in order to control the traffic and target uses that benefited the county without creating a major traffic impact. So, all of these uses are targeted businesses that the county promotes and that we've been able to create. The developer built the signalized intersection at Cantor Highway that you see on the plan. The developer built all of the infrastructure. The county put no money towards anything towards this development. And it created the opportunity for an attractive industrial development. You can see one of the requirements was that we had to build a significant buffer along Cantor Highway. And that buffer is – this is – this aerial is over a year old. It's even more intense now. But that is part of the county's requirement with the original PUD approval. So, this is Southwest Gateway Place looking down towards IND3, and these are the existing buildings. This property had no native trees on it. When we started, it was all agricultural use. And that agricultural use – well, I'll go into that in a moment. But this is, again, the existing road that we're intending to access by way of this application and just a minor extension to get to IND3. But that shows you the existing infrastructure. This is the site plan that's before you today. So, we're talking about this lot here, IND3, a little closer view. So, this is the signalized intersection at Gateway Place and Cantor Highway. This road is built to here, and I'll show you on this aerial, that it's actually to here, and it goes around behind lot IND1 and comes out here. So, there's a loop right here. So, what we're doing today is we're extending that – the water, sewer, and the roads to access lot IND3 and IND2. And we have a user for these two lots. So, it's a critical point today to hopefully get this plat approved so we can start – submit the site plan for these two users. And what's interesting is that this whole effort was to create economic opportunity and increase county's revenue in terms of industrial development and not put the burden on residential uses. And I finally have some figures. I just looked at the county's tax rolls today. And this IND1 building is completed now, and they paid last year $802,000 in taxes. And in 2023, when it was under construction, they paid $72,860. When this site was all agriculture, it was less than $3,000 a year in taxes. This is another completed project. This is a lot B1, I think. They paid last year $312,000 in taxes. When it was under construction, they paid $25,000. This lot is under construction. It's been completed. So, you'll see this. Their taxes go to probably over $300,000 this year. It was under construction in 2024, but it's been completed now. So, you'll see a tremendous increase in that. This care is cold. This is approved. It's under construction. These are two buildings going in. I expect that tax bill to be more than $1 million, probably closer to $1.5 million when it's completed. And, again, pardon? Cold storage? That's the cold storage. Care is cold storage, right. Your FPL bill will be gigantic, and we get a piece of that as well. Well, not only that, this building here paid over $1 million in impact fees, plus $802,000 in taxes last year. So, you know, the revenue generated by this was everything that we expected it to be and more. And, really, the impacts of the county are minimal. And the thing that I like best about this is that we didn't compromise the environment in doing this. In fact, the agriculture that was on this property previously was allowed to discharge water unlimited, as much as they wanted, as dirty as they wanted. No water quality treatment, no attenuation. When this was converted to industrial, we had to meet the county's urban development standards, which means we had to retain our stormwater on-site, we had to treat it on-site, and we had to minimize that discharge 10 times less than what the agricultural. So what was previously discharged by the ag was nitrogen, phosphorus, herbicides, pesticides, all of that. None of that can go into the water now. It all has to be contained on-site. We have massive – these are swells behind the commercial buildings that you can't see from the road. But all of our stormwater is collected in these stormwater treatment systems. They go into – after that, any overflow goes into the lakes. They're treated through areas of littoral zone and native vegetation. Again, thousands of trees were planted on this property. There was no trees on here before. It was all ag, and it was – and I respect ag. I'm not saying anything bad about ag, but ag on the St. Lucie Canal is not a good thing. They're allowed to discharge water without any treatment at any rate. And I'm sorry, but converting it to industrial use actually is a 10 times lift in the environmental protections that the county requires. And so, you know, with that understanding, I wanted to give you guys some background. We didn't just create a freestanding urban service district. We were trying to do good land planning, put the industrial use where it should go on the highway, reduce impacts to the residential areas along 96th Street. And with that understanding, I hope you will support this application and the next application, which is the plat, which basically is consistent with what we're doing today. So, I'll be glad to answer any questions. Commissioner Capps. Yeah, as far as the buildings that have already been built, what is the occupancy at this point? Can you go over that a little more? I don't really know. I know that the first building has been occupied, and I don't know the status. I really don't follow that. I just follow the money. So, the whole freestanding urban services boundary is 250 acres? Yes, sir. And how many acres are available yet to be developed? We have about the IND 3 and IND 2 are about 80 acres, I think. And then we have a parcel in front, which is C1, that's about 15 acres. So, there's three more lots that are to be developed, not including the county's parcel. There's 30 acres, and that's the other piece of that, 250 acres. Okay. That's all I hope. Thanks. Commissioner Campy. Thank you for that history lesson. I happen to have been here for, I think, all of that, and it was a process. I remember switching to Waterfront, and there was great expectation that that would be a clever idea, and it was disappointing when it was found afterwards. And then I do remember hearing, as you mentioned, the folks in St. Lucie Falls and the other neighborhoods there on 96th Street, which is a narrow road, it also has Crystal Lake Elementary School on it, to have the trucks coming and going out of there would not have been the ideal situation. So, cleverly, Nancy Neald and you and others said, hey, what if we did a switch, and the county partnered with you and did that. It wasn't easy, but it was the right strategy. I think one of the important things, and I know my colleagues already know this, but it's a statistic, and I'm going to just ballpark the percentages as not to mess it up, that a healthy economic and vibrant community would have approximately 25 percent of its tax base in industrial and light industrial, commercial, whatever. And I think ours is in the low single digits. So, projects like this, and I know you were sort of almost making light of how much money has already been generated. That's every year, a lot of these numbers. And there's a tremendous amount of employment opportunity. It is west of the Turnpike, so a lot of N95, a lot of this truck traffic can easily and quickly get on or get off, get to these locations and not have to drive all through the primary urban service areas that some have to. So, I think this is a tremendous win. And for us to do anything but sort of help you continue to expand on your success would be negligent. So, it's my pleasure to approve, make a motion to approve staff's recommendation for your existing, for your changes. Thank you. Is there any public comments? You look like a hippie compared to your colleagues. Oh, jeez. I'll second the motion. Is there any further discussion? There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Next item is... Two for two. Yep. Quasi-judicial public hearing. A request for a plat approval for the South Florida Gateway Plan Unit Development. Any ex parte disclosures? Commissioner Vargas? No, I have not. It's been filed. Caps? If I have any, they have been filed. And Campy? I don't have any, and I filed that. And Commissioner Heatherington? I have any, and that's been filed. And I don't have any, and they've been filed. Mr. Aguilar, do you have your work history and all the important information to submit to the clerk? A copy of my work history is being turned in. Terrific. Next one. If anyone is going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Please swear or affirm the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Proceed, Mr. Aguilar. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, members of the board. My name is Luis Aguilar, Principal Planner for the Growth Management Department. I'm presenting a plan application for a property owned by South Florida Gateway Industrial LLC. These are requests by Florida Gateway Industrial LLC for plan approval to add the approximately 32.26-acre lat IMD-3 to the South Florida Gateway PUD plan. The plan is to be consistent with the South Florida Gateway PUD infrastructure final site plan, which includes a road and utility extensions along the private Southwest Gateway place. The subject site is a portion of the approximately 216-acre master plan. The subject site is located approximately 0.6 miles south of Southwest 96th Street and west of Southwest Canter Highway in Stewart. This is over here a larger scale area of the site. And this is the subject site in relation to the South Florida Gateway PUD. You can see here the South Florida Gateway PUD plan number two. And here is the lot IMD-3. And this is a larger scale of lot IMD-3. And the plan is consistent with the revised infrastructure site plan. And here you can see the site plan and the lot. Review of plats is not required by the local planning agency. Final action on this application is required by the Board of County Commissioners in a public meeting. We recommend development review staff have found the application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan as detailed in the attached staff report. Staff recommends approval of the South Florida Gateway PUD plan number two. And we recommend to move the Board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report as Exhibit 1. And move the Board approve the South Florida Gateway PUD plan number two, including the contract for construction of required improvements in infrastructure. This concludes my presentation. Questions for staff. Applicant. Again, for the record, Morris Crady, and we're in agreement with staff recommendation. I have no separate presentation. Any questions for Mr. Crady? I'm not familiar with the project. Can you explain it? Would anyone from the public like to address us on this matter? Seeing none, returning to the Board. I'll make a motion for staff's recommendation of approval. Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you very much. On to quasi-judicial public hearing number four, which is a request for plat approval for the South Canter car wash project. Commissioner Vargas, any ex parte disclosures? If I have any, they've been filed. Commissioner Capps? If I have any, they have been filed. I don't have any, and they've been filed. Commissioner Campy? I don't have any, and they've been filed. And Commissioner Hetherington? I don't have any, and that's been filed. Excellent. I have had my car washed recently, but I don't think it had anything to do with this. I love these car washes. You don't have to say that. Mr. Sinnott, have you turned over all of your required information to the clerk? Yes, I'm turning in a copy of my work history and the agenda item to be filed as Exhibit 1. And if anybody is going to be providing sworn testimony, please stand, raise your right hand, and be sworn in. Do you swear the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes. Proceed. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Commissioners. I'm John Sinnott, Senior Planner with Growth Management. This is a request by USA Auto Wash for approval of the South Canter Car Wash Platte. The platte is to be consistent with the South Canter Car Wash revised final site plan, which contains two commercial lots. The approximately 3.74-acre subject site is located on the west side of South Canter Highway, approximately 0.2 miles northeast of the intersection of South Canter Highway and Southwest Salerno Road in Stewart, included as a request for a Certificate of Public Facilities exemption. The South Canter Car Wash Platte creates two commercial lots with associated access, drainage, and utility easements on an approximately 3.74-acre site. Proposed Lot 1 is approximately 2.42 acres, while Proposed Lot 2 is about 1.32 acres. The South Canter Car Wash minor final site plan was approved on January 16, 2024. The final site plan included a 3,975-square-foot single-tunnel car wash with associated infrastructure on Lot 1. Minor technical changes were required to the final site plan to achieve consistency with the platte. These minor changes were approved on February 17, 2025. Contract and security for the completion of improvements in infrastructure are not required. The site is located on the west side of South Canter Highway, just over 0.2 miles north of the intersection with Salerno Road. To the southwest, you can see the Publix Plaza, and directly to the north of the site is the Fairmont Estates housing complex. This is the approved revised final site plan. On Lot 1, on the north side of the site, you can see the car wash and the parking areas. And then on the south side is Proposed Lot 2. There's currently no development applications in for the Proposed Lot 2. This is the Proposed Platte. Again, you can see Lot 1 on the right side here, Lot 2 on the left side, the south side of the site, along with the associated easements. This review of platts is not required by the local planning agency. Final action on this application is required by the Board of County Commissioners in a public meeting pursuant to Table 10.5 F9, LDR, Martin County Code. Development review staff have found the application to comply with all applicable regulations and the comprehensive growth management plan, as detailed in the attached staff report. Staff recommends approval of the South Canter car wash plat. Staff recommendation is to move the Board receive and file the agenda item and its attachments, including the staff report, as Exhibit 1, and move the Board approve the South Canter car wash plat. That concludes my presentation. Questions for staff. Applicant. How's everyone doing today? Applicant agent for USA Auto Wash, Thomas Nallis. John's prepared essentially the bulk of the presentation, but I'm here if you have any questions that I may answer to the best of my ability. Questions for the applicant. How close is the residential area to the car wash? You can pull back the map. So on the north side, there's an adjacent buffer to our site, but in between the two properties, there's actually a, I believe it's a platted county right-of-way. I can't, I do not have the width of the right-of-way in hand, but roughly 20 feet or so. Mr. Sinnott, do you know? I don't know that number off the top of my head, but yes, it's either a right-of-way or a drainage easement separating the two properties. That's right. Have those? About 30 feet. Right. Has that neighborhood been notified? Because this is a platted application, there were no, you know, public notice mailers required, but the yellow development sign has been in place throughout the course of the application. And I did not receive any, you know, comments. I don't recall any calls from that neighborhood. If it's helpful, the zoning map and the future land use maps are on pages 3419 and 3420. Yes, the property has the GC general commercial zoning as well as the general commercial future land use designation. Any public comment? Any further comment from the board? Just one. I guess the question that comes to my mind, and I hear a lot of people talking about it, and you are representing, you're with the company or are you representing the company? We're a holding company of USA Auto Wash, Summit Wash Holdings. Okay, so needless to say, we have a lot of car washes. You guys have done your business modeling and your due diligence to realize you're building another one. That's correct. We're going to have the cleanest cars in all of Florida. I mean, it's America, and it's a free market. You know, you have to make your smart decisions on what the market will bear. I think we're getting, if we haven't, my personal opinion, if we haven't reached it, we're very close to a saturation point of car washes. But welcome. How many are there in Palm City? Within walking distance. Well, I guess you don't walk to a car wash, but several, and there's a new one. I see a lot of car washes under construction. And then when I looked at this as an agenda item, have at it. You know, I just, my only concern for you all would be that some point, I know, I listened to NPR, and they said the most profitable business for anyone to enter into is car washes, followed closely behind by storage facilities. So I think that's maybe why we see what we do. I just, I'm very happy that you chose Martin County to invest in with us, but I just wanted to caution you. There's a lot of car washes. Any further questions? It didn't sound like a motion. A lot of car washes. I haven't heard a motion. I want everyone to have a fair chance. Commissioner Capps. You know, this is kind of basic and review stuff for anybody who might be watching on Channel 20, which I'm sure they're not too many. But, you know, in land use decisions, there are four or five different kinds of land use decisions. And, you know, there's the comprehensive plan amendment, which is a legislative decision, a policy decision, where we have the most discretion. And then there's the zoning decision, which is a judicial decision. We still, sometimes we have some discretion there, but a little less than the comp plan amendment. And then there's the site plan. And as you go further through the process, your level of discretion as a commissioner is smaller. And then so you have the site plan. Now, you guys have been all through these things in the past. The comp plan amendment, the zoning change, the site plan approval. And then the last one is the plat approval, which has the least amount of discretion for commissioners. So if anybody is thinking, oh, they're approving another car wash, you know, we don't want too many car washes. And I share Commissioner Campy's concern about the proliferation of certain types of things that are being built in the county. But this isn't making a decision to build a car wash. This thing has been through the processes in the past. And this is just kind of putting the icing on the cake. It's the last step in the process called the plat approval, which we have very little discretion over. So, anyway, just wanted to review those basic thoughts. That's great. Yes. Mr. King. Allow me to make a motion that you be allowed to build a business that you think is appropriate in Martin County, Florida, in the United States of America. I just want to clarify that the car wash and the site plan has already been approved. So, we are just approving dividing the property into two parcels today. I understand. But the residents and the citizens of Martin County think we're approving of car wash today. That's been approved. Is there a second? Second. There's a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. I'm opposed. That motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. This brings us to the end of our meeting, so we'll end with Commissioner comments. That's number two. That was the last. I'm going to talk about that. Commissioner Hetherington. I'm all set. Thank you. Commissioner Campy. I just wanted to remind everyone that we'll see you this Saturday night starting at 6 p.m. for food trucks and beverages. Go to a local restaurant and take out or bring food from home. For music in the park, stars under the stars, Carla Holbrook will be performing from 7 to 9. She is remarkably talented. And from Indiantown. And from Indiantown. A native. And she is a local. She's got the voice of an angel. And it'll be a beautiful night. To come to Map Road in Palm City, directly north of the Palm City fire station. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner Capps. I'm good today. Commissioner Vargas. No, I'm fine right now. Thank you. Mr. Donaldson. Yes, Commissioner. Just following up on Thursday's conflict resolution, we had a meeting with the City of Stewart to discuss the interlocal agreement between Martin County and the City of Stewart. During that meeting, we presented the concept of amending that interlocal agreement so that we could resolve our differences. And our three principal areas that we were discussing that remained within the interlocal agreement, the parking garage, the parking on Stittman, and what it means to support the project. So, Ms. Woods and I, really, following that, the City representative, Mr. Collins, ultimately said that while they were willing to discuss those items, would not consider amending it without the county revising their agreement with Brightline. And there were a few things that were discussed in that manner, and I think it's important to point out that the county's agreement originally with Brightline, which was half funding, half the station, has been subsequently amended to cap our contribution at $15 million. And some of the comments are regarding where the money comes from, whether they're grants or the county's funds. And so, the county is relying on transportation funds or gas tax, which is collected from both county residents and visitors, out-of-county residents. And we're relying on transportation funds from the federal government, which the state of Florida is a donor state to the transportation funds in the nation. So, in any event, I think that's just sort of some of the facts. Ms. Woods, if you had a few things before, and ultimately, we just will need to know our next steps. I just wanted to clarify, there have been repeated statements that I view as inaccurate at best. The county is not suing the City of Stewart. I can't say that how many times people can say it. It is not true. We are not suing the City of Stewart. In fact, the meeting last Thursday was the opposite. It was an approach provided for under Florida law to try to meet amicably, solve a conflict. It's in the statutes for a reason. Ironically, the City of Stewart's used it in the past to successfully solve an issue between the county. So, for me, I see it as a positive. It was there not to debate who's right or wrong, but to try to find areas of agreement. And I think our chair and Mr. Donaldson did their best to try to keep that as the conversation, as opposed to making all sorts of statements. I also want to make it clear that the county was not asking the city for a bajillion dollars. Not at any time have we asked for that money. We brought up the City's Comprehensive Plan in order to point out, not for funding, but to point out that under the City's Comprehensive Plan, for decades, they've pointed to the exact site where we're talking about potentially putting the station, and it encourages the city or it directs the city to support that. It doesn't say they have to spend money. I don't, and Mr. Donaldson nor Chair Heard have made that argument. We're not trying to make that statement. We were merely talking about the decades-long recognition of the need for passenger rail. The other part of this is that our settlement agreement is limited to up to $15 million, and there's a very clear direction that if the county is not able to obtain the grant funding, the county and Brightline, then by, let me get the date, June 30th of 2027, the deal's off. But again, this is an agreement between the county and Brightline, and it does not in any way put a requirement on Brightline. I also would say from a legal standpoint, federal funds that are already allocated for transportation purposes, they can't be redirected for other things without an act of Congress and without going through the federal process. The Board of County Commissioners in the state of Florida don't have the power to say, well, we'll take the grant, but we want to use it on this. That just isn't how government works, and I think it's important for folks to understand who directs what. But we did, in fact, meet, and I'll turn over to the county administrator, we were not able to reach an agreement at that preliminary stage or to define our issues during our one-hour meeting. So it's my opinion that we are at an impasse in that further discussion since there is no ability to negotiate amendment to the interlocal with the condition precedent being that the county must amend its agreement with Brightline. So our recommendation is to, if we're to proceed with the statutory requirements, is to go to impasse and ask the city to perhaps join in on an attempt to mediate the agreement with a mediator. Commissioner Gabby. Thank you. First off, I wanted to thank you to our staff for representing us well like you always do, but to our chairwoman, Commissioner Hurd, thank you. I had the opportunity to watch the event. It was broadcast on a couple of different platforms on social media, so probably right after it happened it was posted and I had the chance to watch it. I thought you represented us very well. I think that it felt, you know, in my opinion, there wasn't much to negotiate there anyway. I think the city's representative was pretty clear, even before going into the meeting, where his position was. That being said, I wonder, without the impasse thing, if the real goal here was to get the city of Stewart to write a letter of endorsement of our application process, I think it's obviously public enough that a majority of their board is not interested in any portion of this. So we received, if you can remind all of us, a letter from Jupiter Island, Sewell's Point, Indiantown, the county obviously, Congressman Mast, Ocean Breeze. How about who else? Our senator. Senator Rick Scott. I think, you know, look, I would personally take our chances on the application packet as it's been presented. There have been some new changes with the new administration on what they will and will not fund, what will be classified as governmental waste and not. I think that issue that's the temperature in Washington is pretty well out of our personal control. I would stop asking, engaging. I would not go to impasse with the city of Stewart. If going to impasse is the ultimate goal is to get a letter of support from them, the parking lot, the Stittman parking, they, everyone, I think that was the only thing you basically did agree on, that they were going to do it anyway and we were going to have it. The parking garage has been off the table for a long time because I thought the biggest benefit of a train station for Stewart when the initial version still had a parking garage is there, what I was telling my constituents was there will be people that live and work and visit Stewart that will never, ever ride the Bright Line but would have utilized a parking garage. The city of Stewart for many, many, many years has been lacking a parking garage. Plenty of people don't visit downtown businesses and restaurants because they are frustrated by the parking. Once the parking garage came off the table and it was going to go to exclusively to surface parking, basically a parking lot, that was a big issue that no longer I felt was a benefit for non-trained traveling Stewart or visitors or residents or Martin County. I would say enough with engaging Stewart. I think the back and forth could potentially be damaging our opportunities for getting grants because it looks like a lot of internal fighting and bickering and back and forth. I would leave it alone. Our staff with Commissioner Hurd's leadership, you went there with all the proper intentions to, you know, friendly negotiate, didn't work out. Let's just move on. Let's leave that alone. Let's stop engaging the city of Stewart on anything to do with the station. We know their position, at least the majority, which is how it works. And so to continue down the road makes no sense to me. And kudos for the effort. In terms of if we don't get the grants, I think I have personally said, if we get the grants, then we'll figure out the station. And if we don't, then we won't. I have no intention of going beyond the dollar amount that we had agreed to, whether it's a $30 million, $40 million, $50 million, $60 million, I have no idea. But beyond what we had agreed to, if we can't get there, that's done. And I think Brightline in their negotiations with us agreed that that would be the case. And so that would be my opinion. The only other question I would have is during that process, I hear that people are saying that somehow Boca Raton community, the city of Boca, got some money from Brightline. I would like to have clarification of that. That doesn't have to be right this minute, but at some point in the future, if Boca or if there was any other money, if it's lingering out there as a nebulous fact, let's find out if it's true or not, because that might have something to do with some negotiations. And then I would focus our attention, whether it's Chairwoman Hurd and you all going to whatever is legally appropriate to lobby the decision makers on whether or not we get the grant. Looking like we're a community at war with each other, I don't think bodes well in grant decisions. I didn't hear a resolution to parking. There was no resolution to parking. There was no head shaking. There was no nodding. There was no nothing. So we still need to figure out parking. We still need to proceed. I don't understand what you're saying. Parking, the parking lot is still on county-owned property, correct? The surface parking? The area we were speaking to, there was an agreement that the City of Stewart would produce additional parking on Stittman off-site. How many parking spaces is that? I don't recall off the top of my head right now. But it's like 15 or 20. It's interconnecting, providing additional parking. So that was a condition in the group. We agreed and mentioned it, that the parking garage, which is also in the interlocal agreement, was something the county was willing to say that's no longer necessary. And then in terms of what their commitment to support means, it was to try to get to at least an understanding of if they're not writing letters of support, is there any other way that they're willing to do or pledge not to do? So I think we were open to discuss that, but we never got to that. Commissioner Vargas. Very succinctly, I think we need to let this go. No fighting with Stewart. Take your chances. I just came back from Washington. I spoke with the railroad people. There's no money. This administration is vastly different than what it was four months ago. Commissioner Campy. I would agree with my colleague on the first portion about letting it go and not getting involved in a steward. I personally don't agree that, yes, I understand there's a new administration in town, but some rail, rail expansion, rail continuation is a bipartisan issue. I think once the dust settles, and I'm not an expert in Washington, but I believe once the dust settles in Washington a little bit, you know, they're still within the first 100 days of the administration. I don't believe there will be zero dollars for train and infrastructure. And remember, we're not talking about, you know, first off, even if everything was agreeable, it'll take years to build the station. I hear a lot of people say, when's the station going to open? Open? Long time from now. But that being said, we're contemplating a station for Martin or the Treasure Coast that, as elected officials, we need to be looking 10, 15, 20 years into the future on the decisions that we're making today. Given the opportunity to create a station here, it could benefit positively our residents 2035, 2040. When we sit on the NPO, we're talking about transportation and road infrastructure plans that are 20, 25, 30 years into the future. In my mind, we have to think about the station in that same regard. Commissioner Vargas. Yes. So I asked that question specifically. Is there any money to build? The answer was no. Do you know how many hands are grasping for those rail dollars? We're not the only ones. So, you know, we can continue living in our head about this or look at reality. Things are going to get very tough economically. And I urge all of you to consider this very, very carefully. If you're a business person successfully, then you'll understand what I'm saying. If not, possibly not. Commissioner Hetherington. Yeah, I tend to agree with you about, I don't think we need a letter of support. I think that we can proceed forward. I respectfully disagree. I believe that there is and always will be rail grants, and we should just put our best foot forward because we can highly compete. And as you said, Ms. Woods, that money is going from the federal government to some community, and I would rather it – those are my tax dollars. I would rather it come to our community than to another. So I say we put our best foot forward, and we continue to advocate for the grants. I don't think we need to belabor this letter any further. I do think the city of Stewart needs to acknowledge and build parking and provide for what they had on Stipman. And I don't – maybe this is not the mechanism, the ILA, to do it, but their residents desire and deserve parking. So if we don't go to impasse, what are the next steps that can be taken? Well, we will simply proceed as directed in terms of with our agreement with Brightline to pursue grants and can only – there will be no – the interlocal agreement is still there, but the commitment from the city on whether they build the parking or not is just simply unknown. It will just be they will build it or they won't because I believe their statement is – So I think we still need – that's a loose end that we need to tie up before we walk away from here is at the very least we need to understand if Brightline feels that there's adequate parking for a station. And we can't provide it. I don't think we have enough land to provide the required parking. We're going to have to have some. The parking for Stittman was really to serve the courthouse and the other residents. The parking within the site, Brightline, and our agreement is satisfactory. The interlocal agreement with the city to provide the additional parking was to benefit the residents of Martin County and those that are using the courthouse that have sufficient parking, should the Brightline and county parking lot be full with transportation users. Okay. And I also still strongly favor seeking federal funding to – grant funding to help build the station. Mr. Capps. Thank you for all of your efforts, Chair, Hurd, and County Attorney, County Administrator. There's nothing really. You gave it a shot. It was a necessary part of the process, and I appreciate all that you did to try to work it out. I agree with Commissioner Hurd that we need to go forward with a mediation to resolve the parking concern because the people who work at the courthouse are being cramped and somewhat displaced from their parking spots, and they'll need parking relief if we're going to turn that area into a big parking area and sort of take all their parking. So, I mean, we need to go forward with some type of mediation and a negotiation with the city about that issue. Mr. Cappie. Would that be an actual mediation just over that more limited issue? I would prefer to go to mediation if the board being solidly, but I think – but I think if we don't go to mediation, I can still work with the city manager to try to work on the parking, but it would be independent of the existing interlocal agreement. And I would say at this point in time, I would interpret the city's intent is that they do not plan to adhere to any provision in the interlocal agreement. Whether or not they will still build the parking on Stittman, I don't know that we know the answer to that. So, I think I need three of you to give us a direction. If not, then I think the direction – I hear you still. The parking is an important piece for us to work on, and that would be between the county administrator and the city manager to see if there is any ability to resolve that independent issue – that issue independently. Would this be a binding mediation or non-binding? It would be non-binding. The idea is that you have a mutual conflict resolution behind the statute. Commissioner Campy. Let me offer this as a suggestion. As I mentioned, any station, whether it is smooth sailing or not, is two, three, four years away. Let's use this as a cooling-off time to just leave the conversation alone with the interlocal and what you said you would do and what we said we would do. I think it just allows the drum to be continued to be beaten. That doesn't – I don't think bodes well for us to continue to show that we're at conflict. If – let's cross some bridges. If we happen to get some positive grant information, that would make the necessity of Stittman Road parking more important. If we start to see how the station shapes up. We don't know specifically what the footprint of the station will be. Mr. Donaldson mentioned that – and I do remember it the same way – that Brightline was okay with the amount of parking that we had there. For the folks that are going to be using the courthouse for the next two or three years, let's leave it alone. Instead of – I'm not in favor of the mediation. I think, as you just said, it's non-binding, so all we do is continue to pull at each other, tug-of-war style, for something that you're not guaranteed success. I think there's too much noise, too much conflict, too much controversy about this issue. Let the city be the city and we'll do the county thing and just move forward. And I'm not interested, if you're looking for head shakes, I get what Commissioner Hurd's saying about that's a loose end. Let it be a loose end for 24 months and have a cooling-off period, as well as the fact that there's a couple of election cycles. And we'll see what the public genuinely wants us – who they want to move forward on some of these conversations. But we also, if we would continue to try to negotiate a settlement with the city, with parking, it shows cooperation. They don't want to. Maybe. You sat right there and looked right at them. They're not interested. That's because they were trying to negotiate, renegotiate our settlement. They're not going to get off of that, and I think we're giving them a lot of extra momentum that's not necessary. And that's all I have to say. All right. Looks unresolved to me. So we'll just – We might have to go to MPAS right here. We have to. We'll have to have a discussion later about this. I guess we'll just take no action. Okay. We'll take no action. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Thank you. Anybody else? We're adjourned. See you all Saturday. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.