The December 10th, 2025 local planning agency meeting. Today's public hearing by the LPA is being held to review proposed amendments to the Pinellas County future land use map, zoning atlas, land development code, and other items relative to the county planning and growth management program. The LPA is an independent advisory board charged with reviewing and making recommendations to the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners. On the cases to be heard today, the Board of County Commissioners will make the final decision on each item at a separate public meeting scheduled for January 20th, 2025 at 9.30 a.m. The BCC meeting will be held at 333 Chestnut Street in the Palm Room. For each item heard today, staff will make a brief presentation of about 20 minutes, and the applicant will then present his or her case for 20 minutes. We'll then hear from the proponents, which will have three minutes each, plus representing a group of five or more, they'll have 10 minutes. Non-speakers must be present and waive their time. Then the opponents will have three minutes, unless, again, representing a group of five or more, they'll have 10 minutes. Non-speakers must be present and waive their time. And then the applicant will be given the opportunity to close, answer questions, respond to any concerns raised by the opponents or proponents, in which time they'll have five minutes. Before your presentation, please give your name and address for the record. All testimony needs to be under oath. So if you've not been sworn in already and you plan to testify, please rise now and be sworn. If you've not filled out a slip on the table, present it to the clerk before you speak. There will not be any continuing rebuttals, so please try to present all your information and concerns while you are at the podium. If you plan to provide letters, written comments, studies, or other documents in response to the LPA's findings today and recommendations, those must be reviewed by the zoning section seven days prior to the Board of County Commissioners' meeting in order to be included with the record, that would be transmitted to the Board of County Commissioners. And with that, we'll move into our agenda. Mr. Chair, I'll just give you a statement real quick. The zoning matters heard by the local planning agency are quasi-judicial in nature. Please note that only competent, substantial fact-based testimony or evidence may be considered by the Board in deciding 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, et cetera, may be considered competent and substantial evidence. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Also, if anyone has, I say this more to the Board of Adjustment, because it's more likely to have a site visit on that Board, but if anyone has gone out and looked at a site that we are considering, please disclose that to the applicant when the hearing starts. And it allows anyone who opposes the case as well, if there are any, to question, you know, what you saw or whatever. It's just a way of keeping the record clean. This is an advisory board, and while statutory mandated and very important, you're not the final decision-maker, but it does help disclose what evidence goes into the decision-making process. So, thank you. Thank you. Now let's, the approval for the minutes is next on the agenda. Do we have a motion? I move we approve the minutes of the November meeting. I second. And a second. The November meeting motions. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye, opposed. Motion passes. First public hearing item, FLU-25-11. We have staff. And we're going to be presenting these together, FLU-2511 and ZON-2509. It's a future land use case and a zoning case for the same property. So, we'll do one presentation, but the votes will be two separate votes for each one. And I will turn it over to Smita, who will present these to you. Thank you. Good morning, LPA members. Thank you for giving us time. My name is Smita Ambari. I work as a principal planner with Housing and Community Development. And today, I'll be presenting to you this request for a future land use change and zoning change, FLU-2511, ZON-2509. This is for a subject property, which is approximately 3.49 acres, located at 5200 62nd Avenue North in Lealman. The requested future land use amendment is for RL, residential low, to E, employment. The zoning atlas amendment requested is from RA, residential agriculture, E1, employment 1. The applicant intends to use the subject property for non-residential use. They haven't identified a specific use. The subject property is located within the Lealman Community Redevelopment Area. It's indicated in yellow on this map. The location and surrounding uses. The subject property is located, it fronts 62nd Avenue, so the only access to the site is from 62nd Avenue. The surrounding uses are, there's a cemetery towards the west and south of the subject property. Towards the east, there's a small vacant property, and then there's a medical office in hospital, which is the HCA Northside Hospital. North of the subject property, across from 62nd Avenue, is the Duke Energy substation and storage yard. And adjacent to that is a plumbing supply warehouse. So most of the uses surrounding the subject property are non-residential. This is the future land use on the parcel and the surrounding parcels. The subject property has a future land use of residential low RL. It also has residential low towards the west and south of the property. Towards the east, it has residential low medium and institutional. The properties which are north of 62nd Avenue, they fall within Pinler's Park. This shows the zoning on the property and the surrounding parcels. The property has RA zoning category, which is residential agriculture. It has residential agriculture towards the south and the west, and a little bit towards the east. On the east, it also has GI and GO, which is General Professional Office and General Institution. This is to give you an idea of the future land use categories on the subject property and the surrounding parcels on the county-wide map. On the county-wide map, the future land use category for the parcel is residential low medium, RLM. It also has RLM towards the west and the south of the property, and on the vacant parcel towards the east of the property. On the east, it also has office and public-semi-public. Towards the north, which is the north of 62nd Avenue, it has employment and public-semi-public. These are a few photographs of the subject property. This photograph is looking towards the subject property from 62nd Avenue, so we are facing south. This is a picture of the site, which is north of 62nd Avenue, so north of the subject property. It is occupied by the substation. And this is a property which is adjacent to the Duke Energy substation. It is a plumbing supply company. It is approximately northwest of the subject property. This photograph is looking towards the east, so this is taken from 62nd Avenue, so we are standing in front of the subject property. The subject property is towards the right, and the Duke Energy substation is towards the left. The RL future land use category, it allows residential users and institutional transportation or utility, ancillary, non-residential, and recreational open space. It is generally appropriate as a transition between more suburban and more urban residential areas. The allowed density within the RL future land use category is five dwelling units per acre, and it has an FAR of 0.4 FAR for non-residential users. The proposed future land use category of E-employment, it allows research, development, manufacturing, wholesale distribution, storage, and warehouse, and office, accessory, retail, commercial, commercial business service support, and transportation or utility. It is primarily well-suited to locations which encourage light industrial use with minimal adverse impact on adjoining users with good access to transportation and utility facilities such as major collector, arterial, and highway network. The allowed FAR within this category is 0.65. Residential development is not permitted within this category. This is a current zoning, which is RA, residential agriculture. It allows for detached single-family residential lots, two-acre minimum, and a range of agricultural activities. The purpose of the RA zoning is to provide for large residential lots of a size and character that can accommodate agricultural activities. The maximum building height allowed within the RA zoning district is 35 feet. This is a proposed zoning category, which is E1. It allows for employment users, light manufacturing, industry, industrial support facilities, and certain public service functions. The purpose of the E1 zoning is to provide for employment users and lower-intensity general industrial development, which will have limited impacts on the surrounding areas. The maximum building height allowed within the E1 zoning district is 60 feet. However, the maximum allowed within 50 feet of residentially zoned property is 45 feet. Here's some additional information. The subject property falls within the Lielman community redevelopment area, which encourages infill development and redevelopment of underutilized parses. The proposed amendment of the future land use and zoning aligns with the overall objectives and goals of the Lielman CRA plan. Potential traffic impacts. This is a very high-level analysis of the number of trips which could be generated with this future land use amendment. Based on our analysis, this future land use amendment could generate up to an additional 485 vehicular trips per day. However, along 62nd Avenue North, we currently have a vehicle-to-capacity ratio of 44%, which means we have sufficient capacity to accommodate the additional trips which could be generated from this future land use change. Flood risk. A portion of the subject property is located within the 100-year floodplain, which is a flood hazard area, AE, with 1% annual flood risk, which means any development on the subject property will have to comply with any applicable floodplain management and stormwater regulations as defined within the Land Development Code. Also, it's important to note, this future land use amendment would remove residential development from the subject property, the potential for residential development from the subject property, and therefore from the flood hazard area. And this is because residential development is not allowed within the requested future land use category of employment. The property is neither within the coastal storm area nor the coastal high hazard area. Based on the analysis, which was presented today, and also considering the site's frontage on 62nd Avenue North, and considering that the surrounding uses are mostly non-residential in nature, staff finds the proposed future land use map and zoning atlas amendments appropriate for the subject property, and consistent with the comprehensive plan and the Lealman CRA plan. Therefore, staff recommends approval. The Board of County Commissioners is scheduled to hear this item on January 20th, 2026, at 9.30 a.m. That brings me to the end of my presentation, so I'll take any questions if you might have. Thank you. Thank you. The Board, do you have any questions for the staff? Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I noticed that there's been no use identified yet for this. The limitations that you've presented obviously rule out any residential. So everything that going forward, if this is passed, needs to fit into the categories that you described, which would be light industrial and so on. Yes. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you. And I guess I'll disclose that I did a drive-by of the property in the area. And I think it's interesting in your presentation on our printout or what we were given paper-wise, it doesn't show any of the land uses to the north because this is on the very north edge of the Lealman District, but it doesn't show what across the street, which is a different district. I'm not sure if it's Pinellas Park or what, but what we were given doesn't show what's going on across, and directly across the street to the north is also zoned employment on the presentation that you gave. I'm wondering why we don't get that same – I mean, I understand the municipal lines, but that's the problem having 27 municipalities. But I thought that was interesting there. So it's City of Pinellas Park across that. So the map that was shown with the future land use on it is the countywide future land use map. So on our county future land use, we don't have a designation because it's a different jurisdiction. But in the presentation, so you wanted to show on the countywide that it is employment there. And I would also think that we should have maybe a new classification with an established cemetery. I don't think residential low is going to have an effect. Really low. So there ought to be some way to classify. Yeah, institutional would – nowadays, cemetery, we would look at like an institutional zoning and land use category. That cemetery, it's been there for a long time. All right. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? No, I would like to say I did stop by the property and did a drive-by. And as I saw across the street is the Duke Energy substation. So I think that's – from all I've seen, I tend to agree with the staff's recommendation on this. Any other questions? If not, we'll hear from the applicant. Thank you. Good morning. For the record, Kevin Reale was terms for Miller at 401 East Jackson Street in Tampa. I have been sworn. Staff's application – presentation is very comprehensive, so I'm not going to repeat those items. But I do want to point out some of the things that were mentioned, and I have some visuals because we feel the same way, that you're right on the line between two jurisdictions, and that can – I can't – oh, I can see what I'm looking at here. I'm sorry. And that really paints the picture here. So I'm sure often you have applications come before you that either have a site plan that you're considering that really talks about the compatibility and the use you're going to have, which goes to your question. And then other times you have a Euclidean that sort of fits nicely in the map that says you have, you know, maybe a commercial here, and we want to expand that commercial next door. And if you look at just the Pinellas County map in this case, it looks like this is an oddity of a request. But the area is to the north, and, of course, the plumbing supply is here, but there are other employment uses in this area, and then the Duke substation, and then, you know, this is the larger area. That's not really a big factor for compatibility. But if you just consider employment uses that carry on to the north and to the east, we were looking at that and realizing that in between the hospital and the cemetery, single-family detached uses just aren't going to work here. And so looking at the surrounding uses, trying to decide what fits. And I think that the county-wide map is what really paints the best picture. And if you see, this map has been modified to show our subject property with the change proposed. And you can see that that fits with the development pattern pretty nicely. And so, you know, we really focused on how this fits with the county-wide map, given that it's on the jurisdictional boundary. But more specifically, and this doesn't work quite as well, but what we've done on this exhibit here is we've combined the Pinellas Park zoning and the Pinellas County zoning on a single map with the hatching area being the Pinellas Park zoning. And, of course, the colors don't align because, you know, they're two different jurisdictions. But you can generally see the development pattern where you have, you know, office uses and then the employment uses in this area. And, you know, we think that this property fits in better with that development pattern where, you know, basically east of the cemetery, sorry, west of the cemetery and going that way, you know, I don't think that this type of use would make sense or this type of use group. We don't have a user yet because, you know, we really have to get past this point before we can entice them. And when it didn't really make sense to market the site with the land use that it had and with the cemetery next door until we showed some proof of concept. And the other thing, too, is that the hospital itself is the hospital's property now. I represent Bel Air Development who's looking to develop the property. The hospital already has so much in the way of available office uses, you know, mostly medical office. But in general, you're not going to see a non-medical office type use here, and that's already covered. I mean, by process of elimination, we really think this is all that works. The only thing that I would add, the staff mentioned the 100-year floodplain. In the north part of the property, there are some low wet areas there. And when a development plan or permit is requested, we'll have to do – either have to build around that or do cut-for-cut mitigation. That really will limit the maximum potential development of the site. So I know that the FAR maximum was listed at, I think, 0.6 or 0.65, but realistically, it's probably going to be something less than that if there were concerns about what intensity of use could go here. That's just not going to – in the real world, that's not going to be how it develops out. But otherwise, all of staff's comments and recommendations we agree with, and, you know, I'm happy to answer questions, but I don't want to repeat their details because they've already been so detailed. Thank you. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? I have any none. Thank you. Do we have any proponents that would like to speak on behalf? Any online? No participants online. Having none, any opponents that would like to speak? Anyone online? No changes. Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant or the staff? Entertain a motion. And, Mr. Chair, so we're just hearing the Laney's case right now, right? I'll be both. So, I mean, you have to do a separate vote. That's where I was going. We just want to make sure that we have a motion. All right. I'll have a motion on FLU 25-11. Yep. I'll make a motion to approve application of FLU-25-11. Second. Second. Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Like opposed. Motion passes. Thank you. Now, entertain a motion for ZON 25-09. I'll make the motion to approve. Thank you. KZON-25-09. Second. Second. Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Next item, proposed ordinance amending the Pinellas County Land Development Code. LDR-25-03. Good morning. Yes. This is an amendment to our land development code. This is in Chapter 138, our zoning chapter. This amendment is in response to Senate Bill 954, which was adopted during this past legislative session. So, these amendments are necessary to bring our code into compliance with Chapter 397 of Florida statutes. Specifically, this is to identify certified recovery residences, which commonly are referred to as sober homes. They're used for different addiction recovery. So, the changes, pretty straightforward. We added the definition as defined by the state statutes, added to our table of uses, where the certified recovery residence is, what's the appropriate zoning district, and what's the appropriate review type for it. And then also, per this bill, we had to add procedures for review and approval of the residences, is also a process that's for requesting reasonable accommodations from any land use regulation that may serve to prohibit it. And that's an administrative review process that, if they go in, request to a site, and there's land use regulation that may prohibit it or prohibit parts of it, that they have the ability to request through an administrative process for an accommodation. Again, this is, we're coming in to be consistent with state law. It's consistent with our comp plan, and staff recommends approval. This will go to the commission on January 20th for first reading, and then probably February for second reading. Readings at county commission level. And I'll answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Any questions from the board, for staff? Any proponents today that would like to speak on behalf? Anybody online? No participants online, Mr. Chair. Thank you. No proponents. Any opponents wishing to speak today? Having none in the room, anybody online? None yet. Nobody online. All right. Thank you. Any further questions or comments from the board? If not, I'll entertain a motion on case LDR 25-03. I move that we approve LDR-25-03. Chapter 138, Certified Recovery Residence, is written. Thank you. Second? Second. Having a first and second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Now I think we have some elections. Yes, it's the time of year for New Year for elections of new chair and vice chair for the 2026 year. Anybody wants to nominate someone or nominate yourself or volunteer? They can't self-nominate, but yeah, they can express interest, but that's all they can. But you can nominate, you can formally nominate someone else and the board can vote on it. I'd like to nominate Matanaya John to continue as chairperson of this board. Any second? I second. Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Some passes. Now vice chair. Any vice chair. Any nominations for vice chair? I would nominate Mr. Coleman to remain in the same position. Sorry, I'm not going to be here next year. Oh, you're not? My last meeting. Oh, okay. And then I guess I withdraw my nomination. I'd like to nominate Larry Johnson. Second. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Give to whoever. John seconded, right? You seconded him. John first. The nomination? I made the nomination. Stanley seconded. I seconded. You did. Stanley. That's right. Sorry. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Congratulations. Thank you. Maybe. Any other business today? I want to, Mr. Coleman, thank you for your service on the LPA, your last meeting. And we didn't schedule it this way for you to chair your last meeting, but, you know, great job. And we will miss you. And, yeah, thank you for your service on this. I appreciate all the staff's hard work as well. A lot of work putting these programs together. Thank you. I just want to, you know, wish everybody a safe and happy holidays. And we'll act in January for a new year of meetings. Okay. Well, happy holidays, everyone. Yes. Motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Get that. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Of course not. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.