Good morning and welcome to the August meeting of the Local Planning Agency Board for Pinellas County, Florida. Today's public hearing by the Local Planning Agency is being held to review a rezoning request, a land use plan amendment request, and other items relative to the county's planning and growth management program. The Local Planning Agency is an independent advisory board charged with reviewing and making recommendation to the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners on cases to be heard today. The Board of County Commissioners will make the final decision on each item at a separate public hearing currently scheduled to be held on October the 21st, 2025 at 6 p.m. The Board of County Commissioners meeting will be held at 333 Chestnut Street in the Palm Room. The procedure for today will be as follows. Staff will make a brief presentation, not to exceed 20 minutes. The applicant will then present their case, again not to exceed 20 minutes. We'll then hear from proponents, we'll have three minutes each, unless representing a group of five or more, in which case they will have 10 minutes. Non-speakers must be present and waive their time to get the 10 minutes. We'll then hear from opponents, who likewise will have three minutes each, unless representing a group of five or more, in which case they will be given 10 minutes. Again, non-speakers must be present and waive their time. And then the applicant will be given the opportunity to close, answer questions, or respond to any concerns raised by opponents or proponents for a period of time not to exceed five minutes. Before your presentation, please give your name and address for the record. All testimony must be under oath, so if you have not been sworn in already and you plan to testify, please rise now and be sworn. I assume everyone in the room has been sworn, Madam Clerk. All right. Also, please fill out the slip on the table and present it to the clerk before you speak. There will be no continuing rebuttal, so please try to present all information and concerns while you're at the podium. If you plan to provide letters, written comments, studies, or other documents in response to the LPA's findings and recommendations, those must be received by the zoning section 15 days prior to the Board of County Commissioners meeting in order to be included in the record that will be transmitted to the Board of County Commissioners. With that, we'll move into our agenda. We are now at item two, the quasi-judicial statement. Mr. McAteer, or Council McAteer, would
you wish... Thank you, Madam Chair. The zoning matter on today's agenda heard by this local planning agency is quasi-judicial in nature. Please note that only competent, substantial, fact-based testimony or evidence may be considered by the Board and is citing the matters before it. Pure speculation or opinion, not based on competent facts, cannot be legally considered by the Board. Lay testimony with fact-based support, including but not limited to meeting minutes, surveys, engineering reports, etc., may be considered competent and substantial evidence.
Thank you. Thank you, Council McAteer. At this time, we'll move to item three, approval of the minutes for the June 11, 2025 LPA hearing. At this time, do we have any discussion on the proposed minutes? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion on the minutes. Motion to accept the minutes as submitted. Motion by Hamilton. Second. Second by Hendricks. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. The motion passes unanimously. Now we'll move into item 4A1, FLU 25-05.
And staff, will you be giving a combined presentation? Yes, both cases will be presented together. And in this case, the staff presentation. Staff is also the applicant as well. Understood.
And I assume you'll not be needing extra time since you're hearing two cases. You can just
use the 20 minutes, right? Correct. Yes. All right. Thank you. And I'll turn it over to Scott
Swearingen, Long Range Planning Manager. Thank you, Michael. Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, the local planning agency. I'm Scott Swearingen. I'm the Long Range Planning Manager for Pinellas County. I appreciate being here and I respect your time. So let me jump right in. We have two cases, companion cases, FLU 25. Can you all hear them? Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Thank you. You cannot? I don't know if they can on the television. Yeah, those microphones are oddly weak sometimes. Yeah, there you go. You got it. Okay. So case FLU 25-05, which is a land use, amendment to our future land use map and companion case ZON 25-03, which is a zoning atlas amendment. Whoops. The subject property is just over four acres in size and then it's in the Eastlake community. It's on the south side of Eastlake at the corner of Keystone, I'm sorry, the south side of Keystone Road at the corner of Woodfield Boulevard. The future land use amendment case is to change the land use from institutional to residential rural. And the companion zoning atlas amendment case is to change from limited institutional wellhead protection overlay to residential agriculture with a wellhead protection overlay. This is an Eastlake community and on the east side of Eastlake Road in this area is our one and only wellhead protection overlay areas in the county. So that's why you have that extension to that. There are other regulations and policies that guide development when you're in a wellhead protection overlay district. The applicants expressed desired future use for the property is either one or two single family homes. However, that is not a part of the two cases before you this morning. There's some background to this property. About 10 years ago, back when we combined zoning and land use cases, we don't do that anymore. But back when we did, there was a case ZLU 14-6-15, which included a future land use map amendment that changed the land use from residential rural to institutional and preservation. I'm going to pause right there just and say that you can see the acreage in that 4.08 acres of the residential rural was changed to institutional and the balance of the property went to preservation. Five acres is the overall size of the property itself. Five acres is the overall size of the property itself. But the subject property for the two cases before us just includes that 4.08 acres. The residual 0.92, there's no changes, there are no changes proposed on it. It's preservation, it's preservation, it stays preservation based on the case before the cases before you. So from rural residential to institutional essentially. And then a zoning change that changed the property from agricultural state residential to the residential residential. However, however, however you put that together on a 4.08 acres on the subject property and then the remainder of the property to preservation conservation. There was a parking variance as well as part of that case. And most importantly, there was a development agreement included as a part of that case. And that agreement allowed, it's a five, it was a five year agreement in 2009. 1515. And if development had not proceeded on the property, it would allow for a five year extension if you applied and were asked. And so they asked for the applicant, or not the applicant, but the property owner asked for a five year extension in 2020. And here we are in 2025. And that agreement is set to expire. And according to the development agreement, if the agreement expires, then the land use and zoning should revert back to the original categories to the original categories that existed in 2015. So that's the gist of the development agreement also, but probably most important is that development agreement allowed for an 80 bed assisted living facility. So that's all that could be built on the property, regardless of, you know, the other types of uses that the zoning would allow or the language would allow. That's what it's limited to in 80 bed assisted living facility. Okay. Subject property outlined in red, south side of Keystone, you've got East Lake Road, about third of a mile to the west. And then we're at the corner of Woodfield Boulevard. So the property between the west property line and East Lake Road, that's owned by the school board. And then on the opposite side of Woodfield Boulevard, on the east side of Woodfield Boulevard, you have a fire station there. And you can see the rural character of the neighborhood, a lot of sort of conservation, preservation type of features with suburban residential and a state residential in the neighborhood. And this is the East Lake community. Future land use map on your left shows the current future land use with the property designated as institutional. And then on the right, property designated again as residential rural. And you can see that land use character, pretty much that bright green residential rural with some with preservation in there. It's pretty clear on the map. And similar to the zoning, on the left is the current zoning with that limited institutional zoning category or designation. And then the right side of the map shows what's proposed to go back to that residential agriculture. And then you can see the character of the zoning surroundings, very much in line with zoning and land use. This is looking at the subject property along Keystone Road, looking to the south. So you're on Keystone Road, looking at the property, looking southward. Also on Keystone Road, kind of looking a little bit, I guess that would be to the southeast. And then looking east on Keystone Road, there's the trail there. It's kind of, I call it the gap trail. It's a trail. It's the gap. It connects up into the Trinity area and down to Bucanales Trail. So you can see that character along the right-of-way of Keystone there on the south side of Keystone. The current institutional future land use map category, you know, institutional uses, right? So schools, community, civic, daycare, public service uses, those types of things. Secondary uses, residential is also permitted, recreation, open space, verbatim in our comprehensive plan. This category is well-suited to those locations where educational, health, public safety, civic, religious, and like institutional uses are required to serve the community. There's a 12.5 residential density, so dwelling units per acre, 12.5, and a floor area ratio for non-residential uses of 0.65. And with the proposed residential rural land use category, residential and agricultural uses primarily, and secondarily institutional, transportation utility, some ancillary, non-residential with certain conditions, and then recreation, open space, and then verbatim an account plan. Let me get my window as I go to this. In areas where use and development characteristics are rural nature, and in areas where environmental features are linked to the protection of natural resources, such as aquifer recharge areas, groundwater resource areas, and the 100-year floodplain. That's verbatim out of our comp plan where this type of thing use would be appropriate. And the density is 0.5 residential units per acre, so basically you get one unit per two acres, essentially. That's another way of saying it. That's the way I would have said it. And a 0.3 floor area ratio for non-residential uses is also in our comp plan for this land use category. So with the zoning, as I mentioned, there's a development agreement over the property. So the property zone, limited institutional, and then the proposal to rural agricultural, residential agricultural. And with that development agreement, and this is 60 units, or 60 beds, it actually should say 80 beds. I apologize for that. So an 80-bed assisted living facility is essentially, regardless of whatever uses are allowed for the zoning. That's what could be built on the property. And again, that development agreement, per the development agreement, the property should go back to its original zoning from 2015, should nothing occur on the property. And the developer, or the property owner, is fine with that. They're fine with the reversion back. So the proposed, or the, what would go back to the original, I guess it would be the proposed zoning. It generally permits sort of like large lot residential agriculture, open space, the kind of thing you see up in that area of Eastlake. So this is Bean and Eastlake. We have an Eastlake Tarpon Community Overlay District, and that's designated on our future language map. And there are objectives and policies in our conference and plan that provide guidance to development in this area. And the category, as proposed, meets the criteria. It sort of, it follows in line with those objectives and policies. This is also, it's Keystone Road. It's a scenic non-commercial corridor with a rural open space sort of secondary designation to that. That's designated on our countywide plan map through Florida Pinellas, and it's in our countywide plan rules. So some policy guidance there, too, when you're developing along Keystone Road, trying to keep that rural open space character. And then finally, traffic impacts are actually kind of in the negative. So, you know, you're going from what essentially would be permitted as an 80-bed assisted living facility to residential rural. And on this property, I think that'd give you, you'd be able to build two units. So from 80-bed assisted living facility to two dwelling units. So, as you can imagine, the traffic impacts, you know, ratchet down. So it's in the negative impacts of traffic. This area is not in the coastal storm area nor in our coastal high hazard area, but a portion of the property lies within flood zone A. Staff finds, with regard to the proposed land use and zoning amendments, the surrounding area is a mix of rural residential and preservation on the future land use map. And single-family and agricultural zoning districts, the requests we find compatible with the surrounding development, as well as consistent with our comprehensive plan, and consistent with a countywide plan map. This change will not initiate a countywide map change, which, you know, some of our amendments do. So it would still be within line with our countywide plan map. Staff recommends approval. Board of County Commissioners will be scheduled for 6 p.m. on October 21st. And that concludes my presentation. I thank you for your time. If you have any questions, I would be happy to try and answer.
All right. Thank you, Mr. Swingham. Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions for the staff applicant?
A couple. And I think one is a non-issue. One of your slides, it says an 80-room assisted living. One of your slides said 60 rooms. And I don't know if that was just a title.
Yeah, I apologize for that. I intended, if I didn't, I intended to mention that there was, I noticed this morning, that part of the development agreement, and I just verified that with Mr. Shoderrock this morning, part of the development agreement, it does say an 80-bed. Okay. So I apologize for that.
And the other question is, and probably for you, Mr. Shabby. If the development agreement is set to expire this month anyways, and with the expiration of that, it goes back to exactly, from my understanding, exactly what we're being asked to approve, why do we even have to approve it? If it expires, it just automatically, I was under the impression, I'm under the impression it would automatically happen anyways.
We have to take it through this process to revert it back. The development agreement language in there says that the county, the county is the one who initiates. That's why it's a county amendment, not coming from the property owner. The property owner does not wish to pursue the assisted living facility anymore, so he's okay with it, and also with keeping the preservation area on there. So it's a little bit different. We're not reverting exactly back, and this is the process we have to take it through. We can't just say this expired, we changed the map.
You've got to earn your paycheck.
The agreements, the way they're written, and we're looking at this issue, trying to figure out a way, but the agreements do require an initiated staff application, and I looked at this one as well, with the landowner being on board and basically being a, not a formal co-applicant, but an agreeing applicant. It's an agreeing party, it's a supportive party. Everything's in line with this one legally, so I'm comfortable with it as well.
So, Council McIntyre, there's also an issue of state law where you have to go through this process to change the map, right? If you just change it, it's considered a nullity under Florida law, under just a couple?
Well, yes, they have to go through the state process and come back, but I don't think it's an issue in this.
No, I mean the state requires us to go through our land use process with public needs to change the map.
The LPA is a statute, this board is statutorily mandated, it exists, it's mandated by 163, so this is not something the Board of County Commissioners created. This board is created by state statute to review, among other things, comp plan amendments, and so, answer your question.
That's a good question. That's essentially dotting our I's and crossing into these.
We're one of the few counties that actually call it the Land Planning Agency, a lot of people call it the Planning Commission. You see them all around the state, but those are really the LPAs for those jurisdictions. So, this is actually the most correct title for this board, so there you go. Fun facts, no one wanted.
I'm a zoning nerd, so I enjoyed hearing it. Board members, any other questions for staff today? Seeing none, we would move to proponents. I don't see any in the room. Is there anybody online who wishes to speak in support? Thank you, Mr. Swearingen.
Good morning, Madam Chair. No, there is nobody online participating.
All right. And I see nobody in the room who wishes to speak in opposition, and I assume nobody's just popped in since I spoke to you online, correct? Correct. All right. And I assume staff doesn't want to rebut, or doesn't need a five-minute rebuttal presentation, correct?
No. No, thank you. All right.
It comes back to the board. Board, any final discussion, or are we ready to entertain a motion? We would need two motions, one on each. My apologies. I got ahead of myself. Yes. One motion to vote per case. Thanks. All right. So, is the board ready to entertain a motion on FLU 25-05?
I'll make a motion to approve. Is it the agenda item or just the FLU number? Whichever I need to identify, that's the one I'm making the proposal for.
I'll defer to Council McAteer, but I think the point is to just identify which item on the agenda we are, as long as the clerk and the public can tell what we're approving.
As described and proposed by staff, or something like that. I can't tell you. It's a little tricky, because I'll cross into the wrong lane if I tell you exactly what to say.
Based on the presented evidence, I move approval of FLU-25-05.
I second.
Second. Motion by Hamilton. Second by Brito. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. The motion passes unanimously. We'll now entertain a motion on ZON 25-03. Anyone wish to make that motion?
I make a motion. We approve ZON 25-03, as written by staff.
Motion by Hendricks.
I second.
Second by Brito. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. The motion passes unanimously. Staff, do you have any announcements for us before we adjourn?
We have one more item on the agenda for discussion, to discuss virtual participation options going forward. I'll just give just a little kind of brief background for everybody. When, during we had the COVID-19 pandemic, the county began offering options for virtual participation with public hearings via the Zoom platform to limit crowds and also allowing citizens to participate who did not want to come in person. This option is still continuing to be available to this day. We have it here. The Board of County Commissioners allows it. They did, recently the Board of County Commissioners has changed their language on it, that they're encouraging an in-person appearance, but they still allow it. Due to technical difficulties, that could arise on our end or on a speaker's end, that then they end up, you know, not getting heard. So, they leave it up to each hearing body as the option to allow to participate or not. For example, the Board of Adjustments and Appeals, after the pandemic, they voted not to have virtual participation anymore, so everyone has to show up in person. This Board voted to keep it, and along with the County Commission. So, we're looking, you know, I was asked to bring this up again for discussion to see if we wanted to continue this or discontinue it. Understood. It's for discussion. And if we want to make any changes, then it would be for a vote. Understood.
Board members, what's your thoughts on virtual presentation, virtual participation?
I feel like the more access we have to government, the better, and I think it should stay on. But, however, if it is some language on our policies, maybe we should put something there that, hey, if for some reason, for technical difficulties, we cannot hear you, whatever, we can be at fault, you know, if issues arise, so they are aware, if it's preferable that you come in person, there's an option to do it online.
I would caution against, you know, putting hypothetical, technical problems in the language. You can put the encouragement language in. Okay. I would just caution. If you're going to do that, I'd probably stop there. Yes, sir. Just because they might, you never know what somebody might use.
Yeah, that's what they, it was added into the encouragement language in the new notifications. But we can't, yeah.
I see what you're saying. Maybe we can mimic what the county commissioners have.
Which is what we're doing. We did that, yes. Yes, sir. So as of this month or starting next month, because that just happened recently.
All right.
Hendricks? Hendricks, sorry. Hamilton.
But isn't it my, it's my understanding that the county commission is making the initial movement towards removing online participation.
No, they're not removing it. It stems from a meeting a while back that there was a technical outage. And on our end, and the discussion was with, does it have virtual participation? Did they have to postpone the meeting because it was noticed with this virtual participation? So that, that's what brought this discussion back up again. They do allow it. The county commission does, to speak at a county commission meeting, you have to register ahead of time. They actually have on their website, they have a form. You fill out what item you want to speak to, and then they, they close it by 5 p.m. the evening before. After that, you, you can't sign up to register for it. So they have, they know who's going to be on there and have them queued up. But I don't see them, I haven't heard them any mention that they're going to discontinue it.
I kind of, I'm a, I understand both sides of it. I mean, for decades, even centuries, government was conducted where you were in person at the meeting to do it. But with technology and everything else, it makes it easy, in some cases a little too easy. But, you know, it's, it's a tough one. I, you know, 14 years on the Clearwater City Council, we, we never had online participation except for a very brief period during COVID. So, I mean, I'm, I see, I see both sides of it. I'm old school. I kind of feel like, I like to see who I'm speaking with or who's speaking to us. But I'm going to kind of leave it to the rest of y'all and, you know, see where we go.
All right.
And, I have a question, if, if, if there was a technical problem, that doesn't preclude the applicant from making a formal appearance at another time. I mean, if there was other, other items on the agenda and things were being resolved because people might have been in person or there were no technical difficulties for them, but one particular person there was, that doesn't prevent them from rescheduling at another meeting, does it, or appearing in person?
Are you talking about the applicant or are you talking about?
The applicant, I guess that's who we're.
I mean, the applicant would have to ask for a continuance, which would be a minimum of 30 days to a date certain, which, I mean, it's, it's, there's a, there's starts to become some due process wrinkles there, or work concerns, you know, as far as a look for the, the county. I have, it's not quite a legal concern, but this board, unlike the board of adjustment, this board is directly tied to the board of county commissioners. And so I have a little bit of concern of this board having a different policy than the board of county commissioners. Board of adjustment, their appeals are to the circuit court, writ of, sir. It doesn't go to the BOCC from the board of adjustment. If you lose a board of adjustment, you go to the court. Here, it's, this is not a final decision board. It's an important statutory mandated recommendation board, but it goes to the BOCC. So to have different procedures is somewhat of a concern when you have the same applicant going down the same train track. See what I'm saying?
I think so.
Procedures. If I had it, if, if, I don't want to get on my lane, but yeah, I think y'all know what I'm saying. There's a, these are related boards. The LPA and the BOCC are related boards. The BAA, you go to court, you go to court if you lose. It's a final decision board. This is a recommendation board.
And we have the option if an applicant is having a technical difficulty, very similar that if they were stuck in traffic, we can jump to another item and then come back to, to it. So, you know, very, very similar. You know, and again, if it's something that can't be resolved at that, yeah, Mr. McIntyre's correct. It's a, it would, we would continue it to another meeting.
But that changes the BAA, that BOCC cycle for them too, for that kicks them over. The whole thing rolls.
Board Member Hendricks.
So this all came about during COVID. Up until then, we didn't do it, as, as is true with many commissions around the area. In the short time that I've been here, I've seen one time where there were people opposing something that we were going to decide on this body. Well, if anyone is really concerned about something that comes before us, they're going to show up. What happened with COVID was that you had a lot of people that were sitting at home with nothing better to do than to scrutinize a meeting. We actually would be getting emails that had to be read into the records. And at times that may be 20, 30, 40 emails. So it's, it's a time consuming thing. If people really are concerned about something, they need to come in and voice their opinion right here with the commission. It's a time consuming thing. And it's, and it's, I think it's something that, that it's time for it to go away. We need to, to get back to business as usual, rather than staying on old COVID formalities and have people come in and make their statements to the board, either pro or con on anything that comes before us. That's just my two cents worth.
Any other board members?
Well, I would, I would say, I agree with you, but I also agree here. I'm not sure we need to be out ahead of the county commission. If the county commission changes their policy to eliminate it, then we will have the opportunity to mirror that. I, I think, and I think that's where we should be. Uh, like your point, you know, I don't want to be on a different, uh, different plane from the county commission. Um, since we, our decisions go directly to them. Uh, today was the first time in my, in the history of my total career in politics and everything else that the applicant themselves did not have a representative in front of us because this item was really a, just a clerical slam dunk in, in, for lack of a better term, but the applicant always shows up. It's the general public that you're not sure how many there are and who's going to show up and things of that nature. But, um, I would be very comfortable doing away with the, uh, um, online participation, but I don't think we're, uh, in a position, I don't think it would be a good decision to do it now until the county commission decides yay or nay on their side. And then I, I think whatever they decide almost just automatically, uh, funnels down to, to where
we are. Well, though, as I understand, they have given the individual boards the ability to, to govern this particular thing as, as each individual board sees fit. Is that correct?
Absolutely. And my comments will relate just to the fact of the difference between, difference between the different kinds of boards and how they're related to the board of county commissioners. It doesn't mean you don't have the right to vote to end online participation. It, it just means that we have cases tied, all these cases go to the BOCC and other boards don't. Mm-hmm. So it's, it should, there's just an interrelationship there. What weight you give that is your discretion. There's no absolute, there's no ordinance or, or law or statute that says that you have to do this.
Any other remarks from the board? Well, if I may, um, I, 90%, all of my practice is as applicant's counsel. Online participation is something that as an applicant I dread because, you know, it's nice to be able to walk into the room and know who, uh, who is not going to like you that day. Um, I also, you know, I think applicants don't appear before a board at their own risk. They are the masters of their application. And I think it's ill-advised for an applicant to appear remotely in most cases. But I also think about situations where, um, I had a case once where I had a property owner who was wheelchair bound. She couldn't make it to the St. Pete City Hall. She was able to get her neighbors to come out, but she couldn't. Um, and I think about stuff like the middle district of Georgia admonishing Georgia counties for having inconsistent practices. And I would hate for our middle district of Florida to try to say that to us. So I think government in the sunshine would fundamentally lead us to give people the opportunity to participate, uh, remotely. But I think more importantly, we need to be consistent with our board of county commissioners. So if they, you know, if they ultimately decide to take away the online component, then, you know, I think we follow them and have consistent, be, uh, consistent practices. Right now, their procedure is to encourage in-person, which I think is wise. And I think that we amend our practices to be consistent with the board of county commissioners. And with that, I apologize for belaboring my soapbox to you all.
So do you actually need us to make a motion and a vote on that today?
That's the cleanest way to do it. Okay.
If I may, I'd like to turn to a motion that we follow whatever the county commissioners, the board of county commissioners is doing. And if they plan on changing the future, they'll let us know, and we'll tackle when that comes.
Motion by Brito. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Hamilton. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. Opposed by Hendricks. It passes. We are a board of six today, correct? Yes. Six to one, or five to one. All right. Does staff have any other agenda items for us? Any announcements? Will we be hearing cases in September at this point?
Yes, we have items that will be coming to you in September. That's the only announcement I have. Marvelous. Looking forward to it.
All right. With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Motion by Hamilton.
Second.
Second by Brito. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed, like sign. The motion passes unanimously. Aye. Aye.
Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.