City Council — Jun 25, 2025

City Council meeting is now called to order at 6 0 2 p.m. And I'll ask Ms. Beggaro to please call the roll. Councilmember Anderson. Here. Councilmember Fadgen. Here. Councilmember Horland. Here. Councilmember Reinstein. Here. Mayor Sorrell. Here. City Attorney Ezreal. Here. Thank you. Um, Ms. Beggaro, she didn't call me. Oh, did you, Councilmember Andrew? I thought I heard it in the back of my head, but if not, uh, make it official. Here. Great. So now if I can get the door closed in the back and just ask for everybody's full attention. I know the fire department's very excited, but if we could close the door back there. Thank you very much. So tonight's, uh, opening remarks and, uh, Pledge of Allegiance will be provided, uh, by me tonight. Uh, I'm gonna hold off for a quick moment on, oh, maybe I don't need to. Walking right in. Okay. Perfect timing. We don't, we have everybody we need here. So, um, tonight we're going to have from South Plantation High School, um, some representatives from the Paladins football team. So if you come right up here to the front to the microphone, we're going to make sure it's turned on. And I, I want to point out that, um, Coach Derek, wave your hand, Coach Derek. So Coach Derek is one of the South Plantation High School, um, football coaches. And I recently had an opportunity to see, um, the football team, not just on the field, because I've been to their games, but I saw them at their car wash where they were trying to raise some funds. And, um, Coach Derek reached out to me afterwards and said that these guys want to do some volunteer work. And I was so impressed by the fact that they were taking the initiative to reach out and see how they can be more involved in our city. And, um, you know, we, we often have, uh, students that come to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. And, um, oftentimes they are students that we've had members of drama clubs. We've had students that have been, uh, elocution winners. We've had students, um, from, uh, the debate team. Uh, a number of times we've had the JROTC from both Plantation High School and South Plantation High School. Um, but I thought it was a nice opportunity, especially over the summer, to bring, um, these gentlemen who, again, are not just scholars and athletes, but they're interested in community service. And so I wanted to, um, mention Coach Derek and thank you for bringing that to my attention. And I'd ask, uh, if everybody can rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and they'll lead us in the Pledge. Press the button. All right. Go ahead. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, individual, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. Everybody can be seated. Gentlemen, if you can just, uh, maybe tell us your name and, uh, tell us what grade you are and how about what position you play on the football team. Um, I'm Brian Stewart. I'm going to the 12th grade and I play wide receiver. Thank you. Um, my name is Caleb DeClaire. I'm class of 26 and I play, uh, for safety. I'm Brian Stewart. I'm going to 11th grade and I play quarterback. Thank you. Dennis Alibidi, class of 2026, wide receiver. Kamari Cooper, uh, going to the 11th grade and I play running back. Fantastic. So come on, wish them a good luck and, uh, thank you, gentlemen. Thank you for joining us tonight. All right. So next up we have, uh, my remarks and I'm going to do something a little bit out of order. I'm going to give my remarks and then before we go to the retirement proclamations and the service proclamations, I'm going to call up, uh, Ed Cilio. So if Commander Ed Cilio, if you can come forward, please. So tonight, one of the proclamations that is going to be offered is, um, is a proclamation proclaiming the city of Plantation as a Purple Heart City. And, uh, last year, uh, and, uh, about a year and a half ago, um, I told the story that, uh, my wife and I had been driving through the Carolinas. And as we were driving, we had passed through a number of cities that, uh, were Purple Heart cities and it was on the Purple Heart Trail. And at that time, um, didn't know what that was, but thought that was something that we should be. And in doing a little research on that, we found, um, a gentleman named Patrick Olivey, who is a Purple Heart recipient who lives in the city of Plantation. And so last year, we had the opportunity to, um, on behalf of the mayor and the city council, to proclaim Purple Heart Day and to give a special proclamation to Patrick Olivey as a Purple Heart recipient and making it, uh, Patrick Olivey Day in Plantation. And in doing that, we learned that there was one more step in order to, um, bring the city of Plantation onto the Purple Heart Trail, and that was to, uh, declare Plantation a Purple Heart City. And so, uh, the commander is here with us, and you can wait here, and I'm just going to read, um, I'm going to read something first, and then we'll get into the proclamation. So, what I'd like to do for some words, um, in terms of my opening and an invocation is that, you know, soon we'll also be celebrating the 4th of July. And I really thought the timing of being able to move towards becoming a Purple Heart City right before the 4th of July so that it is in place and time for Purple Heart Day in August was, was the perfect timing. And in honor of our, our veterans, our Purple Heart recipients, and our current soldiers, I want to offer a soldier's prayer for peace and justice. So, for the brave warriors who stand in harm's way, dedicated to defending what is right and just, may their cause be righteous, their leaders wise, and their courage unwavering. Grant them the strength to meet the chilling stare of death and return safely to fulfill dreams yet unrealized. Protect their loved ones who wait at home, filling their homes with peace in the waiting. May they be triumphant, earning victory while showing mercy to their enemies when deserved. Guide their actions and decisions, helping them to stand firm, knowing they are part of a greater plan. Let their efforts further the cause of peace throughout the world. May their actions be a testament to love and justice. Should they be harmed, may their wounds heal. And should they perish in the struggle, may their memories only be for a blessing to all they loved and to all they defended. Thank you. Amen. So now, Commander Cilio, please come to the podium. So, Commander Cilio, who himself was awarded the Purple Heart for injuries sustained January 21st, 2010, during deployment in Kirkuk, Iraq. He is now the commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, Chapter 717. And we thank you for being here to receive the proclamation. I'm going to come down and read the proclamation and then present it to you. Okay. Whereas the City of Plantation has always supported its military veteran population, and whereas the residents of Plantation have great admiration and the utmost gratitude for all the men and women who have selflessly served their country, and whereas the Purple Heart is the oldest military decoration in present use, and whereas the mission of the military order of the Purple Heart is to foster an environment of goodwill among combat wounded veteran members and their families, promote patriotism, support various initiatives, and most importantly, make sure we never forget our heroes. And whereas the City of Plantation has a large veteran population, including Purple Heart recipients, and whereas the City of Plantation appreciates the sacrifices of Purple Heart recipients made in defending our freedoms, and believe it is important to acknowledge them for their courage and show them the honor and support they have earned. Now, therefore, Mayor Nick Sordal and the City Council of Plantation Florida do hereby proclaim the City of Plantation as a Purple Heart City. Certainly. Well, folks, Councilmembers, Mr. Mayor, please excuse me for turning my back on you, but I'd like to just address the audience. Folks, you know, honestly, becoming a Purple Heart City just shows that you care. It's a feel-good type of thing, you know, personally, I grew up right next door. Please, no tomatoes. I grew up right next door in Sunrise and played against the colonels and the paladins a few times in Piper. But, you know, the fact that the City of Plantation is doing this, to me, just kind of perpetuates what I've always known about this city, is that you do things right here, in my personal opinion. No offense intended to my City of Sunrise, but they haven't done this. They haven't done a lot of things. I grew up there, I know. I'm sure you guys know the politics there, things. But this city has always done things very nicely. It's a beautiful city. One of the first tree cities in Broward County. I'm born and raised here, so I know. I know the history. It's fantastic. And I very much appreciate all of you folks and the fact that you even show up for your council meetings. So many do not. So thank you very much. Thank you to all our public service workers. I was one with Broward Sheriff for 30 years. I appreciate what you folks do. I really do. You always put yourself in harm's way. And I just value what you do as public servants. So thank you all very, very much. And thank you, sir. Thank you. Cheers. Well done. I will turn it over to the mayor. The floor is yours, mayor. Council President Reincean, I was going to ask, football, did you see him practice? I've seen him play. Okay, good. Because practice can't start until July 29th. So if you don't practice, we're going to have a problem. So this is good. All good. All right. Big day for us. These two, before I read the proclamation. Our city has had an excellent record when it comes to public safety. We've had no unnecessary fires. We've had everything has been clean and covered. The words aren't coming out right, but you know what I mean. And you guys know that these two had a lot to do with that. No doubt about that. No doubt about that. All right. Read the plaque, Nick. We're on Beth. Whereas Beth was born in Atlanta in 1966, moved to Fort Lauderdale in 72, educated in Broward County. Whereas Beth has been married for 38 years to her high school sweetheart, Tony Martins. You've been married the same, right? Beth is a proud parent of son Joshua, married to Belinda and daughter Nikki, engaged to Derek. Beth has three grandchildren, Dexon Ackerman, Delphine Martins, and Sterling Martins. Whereas Beth started her journey as a volunteer firefighter on September 18, 2001, seven days after 9-11, and began volunteering as a fire inspector in 2002 and was moved part-time in June 2009, and moved to full-time in March 2013, and proud to have served the visitors and residents of Plantation. Beth has represented several organizations on behalf of Plantation Fire Department, including Fire Inspectors Association of Broward County, where Beth was secretary for 15 years. In recognition of her service, the Fire and Life Safety Educator of the Year award is named after her, and whereas after 12 years of service to the city plantation, Beth announced her retirement, effective July 5th, 2025. Beth plans to enjoy her retirement, traveling the United States in her RV, using Ava, Missouri as her home base. Now, therefore, I, Nick Sortel-Mayer, and the city council plantation, hereby express our gratitude, that's true, and appreciation to Beth Martins. Clap. We're going to do things together, right? So we do this on Wednesday, so if you read the Plantation Buzz, you might read it on Thursday, right? I got you. Okay. Tony Martins, for 29 years of dedicated service, whereas Tony Martins originated from New Lisbon, Angola, which was under Portuguese colonial governance at the time. In September 75, Tony's parents decided to flee to Portugal because of the civil war that preceded Angola's independence. Tony's family arrived in the U.S. in 1976, and he became a naturalized citizen on October 24th, 1994. And whereas Tony's been married 38 years to his high school sweetheart, Beth Martins, proud parent of son Joshua, married to Belinda and daughter Nikki, and same three grandchildren. Whereas Tony commenced his service as a volunteer firefighter on November 21st, 1989, and has been a full-time inspector since June 24th, 1996. Tony was appointed as fire marshal October 1st, 2018. He takes pride in serving as a volunteer firefighter and as a fire marshal. He's a member of the Plantation Volunteer Fire Association and Fire Chiefs Association of Broward County. Whereas after 29 years of service to the city of Plantation, Tony announced his retirement effective July 5th, 2025. Tony plans to enjoy his retirement traveling to the United States and his RV using Ava, Missouri as his home base. Therefore, I, Nick Sorrell, and the City Council Plantation hereby express our gratitude and appreciation to Tony Martins. I know it's a lot easier for me to talk to contractors and builders, but it appears a little different. Minnesota, Council members, City Attorney Israel, and City Clerk Bigelow, thank you very much for this recognition. Fire Chief Don Todd and all the past and present members of the Plantation Fire Department and the Plantation Volunteer Fire Association, it's been an honor to serve with you. From my start as a volunteer firefighter, progressing through the ranks of my current position as fire marshal, being a volunteer firefighter was the most rewarding part of these 35 and a half years. I want to thank my past and present mayors, City Council, City Administration, and Fire Chiefs for providing the opportunity for me, my wife, and also my daughter to be volunteer firefighters. My profound appreciation, pride, and love for our son, Josh, with his wife, Belinda, and along with our grandchildren, Dax and Delphine Sterling, will continue to live in our home in Plantation. My profound appreciation, pride, and love to our daughter, Nikki, who was a volunteer firefighter and an employee of the building department, lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is to wed her fiancé on July 12th. Derek, I've got to mention his name, I'll get in trouble. This will not have been the same or even happened without my best friend, my partner, my wife, Beth. As this is almost over, I'm excited to start this new ride called Retirement with Beth on my side. Thank you very much. As my speech is much shorter, I yield the rest of my time to Beth. You want your plaque? Mayor, Council, guests, and fire personnel, it has been an absolute honor to be a part of the Plantation Fire Department for the past 35.5 years. I'm taking credit for Tony's years, too. My journey began not in uniform, but as a supportive spouse standing proudly beside my husband. So to all the spouses and families of our members, thank you. Your encouragement and behind-the-scenes support may go often unspoken, but it is never unnoticed. What began as a way to give back to the community quickly became something much more meaningful. Over the years, both Tony and I have been humbled and enriched by countless experiences, far more than we could ever have imagined. From the simple but powerful thank you for your service, shared by residents, to the child in the grocery stores, proudly demonstrating stop, drop, and roll, to the teacher who once said, firefighter Tony taught me in kindergarten over 20 years ago. These are the moments that define the heart of what we do. They brought joy, laughter, pride, and yes, even a few tears. We've had the privilege of serving as ambassadors, recruiting friends, neighbors, and community members who now carry the torch alongside us. As we step away from active service, we do so with confidence and hope, knowing the future of the department is in the strong, capable hands with passionate leadership. Council and administration, thank you for your continued support and belief in this department. The Plantation Fire Department is truly one-of-a-kind. A volunteer organization that leads with professionalism, heart, and unwavering commitment to excellence. It is a legacy that deserves to be recognized and celebrated. And finally, more importantly, I want to thank our family. To our children, Joshua and Nikki, their families, and to our parents. Thank you for your unwavering love and your patience and your constant support through the long nights, the missed dinners, and the many fire calls during the years. Your presence has been our greatest source of strength and inspiration. Tony, this journey would not have been possible without you. Your steady presence, your quiet strength, and boundless belief in me has been my compass and my calm. I am endlessly grateful for all that we have shared and all that lies still ahead. I can't wait to see where the road will lead us next. As we close this chapter, we do so with full hearts, unforgettable memories, and deep gratitude for the people we've served, for the friendships that we've built, and the incredible opportunity to be something, to be a part of something greater than ourselves. Thank you. You have family here. Family. Family, come up. Let's take a picture. Family, come on up. And since you didn't say anything bad about me, you get a key to the city. Actually, I just forgot. You know that, and I know that. Photo direct is how you want and everything. And you guys stand in the middle. I'll photo direct. And stand there. Council is up there. Right there. There we go. There we go. Yeah, thank you. You guys, you have all these good people here. So, fire, stick around because you've got some service awards. Volunteer firefighters, 20 years. Vincent Sision. And I knew I botched that. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to say thank you to the city and for all these firefighters that came out tonight. I'm truly blessed to work with all of you guys. This has been an amazing 20 years, and I feel like I closed my eyes, woke up, and 20 years later, but no regret. It's been a true blessing working with this city. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 20 years, Roger James. Roger. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. This way? Okay. Very good. Thank you. You're good? No. Thank you. Appreciate it. And 15 years, Carrie Blanchard. And I, again, want to comment, I love it that you all show up for each other. That team is everything. You guys know when stuff gets real, you've got to be team. And this is just one more step in building that thing. So, props to you all. I just want to say thank you. I am truly blessed, but if you would indulge me, I would like to wish my husband, Steve Blanchard, over there a happy birthday. And, yes, you all showed up for your fire brethren, but I know you really came for five years. Here's David Allen is. Great to meet you. Great to meet you. Good morning, wife. Yeah. We'll do it all. Here we go. Congratulations, everyone. Next up, we have Parks and Recreation Upcoming Events, Director Trisha O'Toole. I'll just ask that if you are not remaining, if you please just exit quietly so we can continue the meeting. They don't want to stay for me. No. I love the Parks update, but. It's okay. It's okay. Good evening, Council members and Mayor and Mr. Ezra. Hard to believe, but July 4th is next Friday. We start at 9 a.m. with our parade at the intersection of Broward Boulevard and Northwest 46th Avenue and finishing here at City Hall. We're also having a pool party, if you will, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and residents are invited to come and swim free with us and cool off for the day before our evening festivities start at 6 p.m. at Central Park with the Kids Zone, Bounce Houses, and Games for the Kids at 6. The concert begins at 7 p.m. The Brass Evolution will be performing for us, and the fireworks will start at 9 p.m. On Friday, July 11th, we have our daddy-daughter dance from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Volunteer Park. Saturday, July 19th, is our back-to-school barbecue at the Jim Ward Community Center from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. In our tennis division, July 7th through the 13th, we've got our girls' clay 14 and under championships at the Veltree Tennis Center. Aquatics, Friday, June 27th through the 28th, Plantation Swim Team Swim Meet at the Aquatics Center. In our athletics division, we're registering for PAL, fall basketball, fall baseball, and soccer. And adult athletics is registering for flag football, basketball, kickball, and softball. So thank you. If you don't mind, before you leave, just a question for you. I know that we talked about at the last council meeting whether there would be an opportunity for the JROTC from Plantation High School to read the Declaration of Independence prior to the start of the band on 4th of July. Is that something that you were interested in doing that we were going to proceed with? Joe mentioned it to me, but I don't know if it has really gotten any further from that. I'm more than happy to speak with them and see if we could work something out. So there are a couple of representatives here from the JROTC, and maybe if you can take an opportunity to speak to them outside, we'll see if we can make that happen. I think it would be a wonderful thing if we could make that happen this year. You got it. Thank you very much. Yep. Yeah, hold on one second. Councilmember Harlan. So, Toole, you mentioned the swimming on July 4th. I had a question if a resident has family members visiting them. Do you know what the charge is? I won't be turned away from the pool. No, no. I think it's a nominal maybe $5, $6, something like that. I wasn't sure. Okay, thank you for that. Yep. Very good. Thank you very much. So we will now officially recess the city council meeting, and we will call to order the CRA meeting at 6.31 p.m. And I will ask Ms. Beggarrow to please call the roll for the CRA meeting. Commissioner Anderson. Here. Commissioner Andreu. Here. Commissioner Fajan. Here. Commissioner Borland. Here. Commissioner Reinstein. Here. Commissioner Sortel. Here. The CRA consent agenda consists of items 1 through 4 and may be approved with one motion. Does any member of the commission wish to pull an item? Hearing none, and I don't have any members of the public that wish to pull an item for the consent agenda. Do we have a motion? So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Second. Seeing no discussion, I'll ask please, Ms. Beggarrow, please call the roll. Commissioner Anderson. Yes. Commissioner Andreu. Yes. Commissioner Fajan. Yes. Commissioner Horland. Yes. Commissioner Reinstein. Yes. Commissioner Sortel. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll now move to public requests of the commission regarding the CRA, and I will call up Mr. Conklin. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest Six Court. Heavenly hosts protect you and all of your families. My request was actually a compliment. We had our groundbreaking for the publics and the post office at the plantation gateway, and I would like to make one request, and that is when they demolish the former plantation general hospital where my two daughters were born, that somehow or other the commissioners will prevent the building of an eight-story tower house. Village Green there is a three-story outfit, and that's right next to the existing hospital, and it might, if you're going to go that way with residential, hopefully it could be ownership. It may not exceed the three stories, so I'll yield back my time, and congratulations to our CRA director. More has been done since he has come on board than all the other years that I've been here since the inception of 2000 of the CRA. I mean, they didn't lift a finger. Thank you. God bless. Thank you very much, Mr. Conklin. Mr. Ollett, he was talking about you. It was good. It was good. It was very good. Seeing no other public requests of the commission, public requests of the commission are now closed, and the CRA meeting is now adjourned at 6.34 p.m., and we will now reconvene the city council meeting at 6.34 p.m. We will begin with public requests of council regarding municipal affairs. Those who wish to speak, we request that you complete a speaker form. If you have not done so already, please do so. When you approach, when you are called upon, and when you approach to the podium, please state your name and address, and please address your remarks to the council president, not to the mayor, nor the individual members of the council. Please keep your remarks to the allotted three minutes. If extra time will be needed to conclude your remarks, please ask for it as your time is expiring, and not prior to beginning your remarks. And while he already went to sit down, we'll give him a second to come back. Mr. Dennis Conklin. Dennis Conklin, 4581 North West 6th Court, if I may approach. We all know that last Thursday, it was Juneteenth, 160 years. But 61 years ago, two days later than that, on the 21st of June, was the capture and murder by the KKK of the three civil rights and voting rights freedom riders. 1,930 days ago, public health emergency was declared, and lockdowns closing America's housing of worship. Mandatory masking and shots, officially called countermeasures, never called vaccines. The creation of essential and non-essential Americans, and the loss of unalienable God-given rights. 627 days ago, Israel began being attacked by terrorist organizations. It spread 428 days ago to American college campuses. And as you know, 25 days ago, there was the firebombing of Jewish people in Boulder, Colorado. Approximately 45 years and eight months ago, Iranian jihadis captured 66 Americans in the embassy in Iran. And three days ago, Sunday the 22nd, America's Air Force destroyed three Iranian nuclear processing plants. My request is that the city government look into other cities and how they are conducting their defined benefit pension plans for their general employees, understanding that the police are under contract. I've mentioned this for years. I think the critical thing is for education. I was born and raised in the foothills of the Appalachia, just off the Pennsylvania border in New York State. You couldn't put a teaspoon of what I knew about investments until I married my wife, Margaret, and she says, you've got to get down here to Florida. And that's when I began to learn about it. I believe fully that the general employees would not stand for a defined benefit plan if they had the education about investments. A defined benefit plan is basically IOUs, and the assets are held by y'all in the pension plan. May I extend 30 seconds? So, Mr. Conklin, so we've talked about this. Correct. Is that you spent most of the time not talking about the request, so you save the request to the last 10 seconds, and then you've run out of time. Oh, no, I had a minute. Well, not so much. So if you want 10 seconds to just finish that thought, you can have that, please. Very well. Thank you. The information that I gave you reinforces what I gave back in May, and it's basically that the 401K is actually ownership by your members of the assets, not IOUs. It's sort of like renting. A pension is like renting. You have IOUs to pay to your landlord, but if you own a home, you own the asset. I'll yield back. Thank you for allowing me to extend. No yielding back, but thank you very much, Mr. Conklin. Susan Salway, the floor is yours. You have three minutes. Welcome. My name is Susan Salway. I live on South Fig Tree Lane Plantation, and I've lived here for 30 years. Welcome. Thank you. A few weeks ago, I woke up, and my neighbor has erected a 60-foot-long, 15-foot-high canopy in his rear garden. Now, you have no regulation about that. How come? This is the aesthetic city. If I put in a fence, you want me to make it look nice from the street. My side view is a 60-foot-long, 15-foot-tall canopy. Where are the regulations? Miramar has them. Margate has them. Sunrise, Coral Springs, Pompano, nothing in plantation. My question is, I would like something done about this. How quickly can we do it? Go ahead, Mayor. Yes. Thank you. You called the admin earlier. I did. And sorry, I didn't get back to you. That's my fault. We will talk to planning and zoning tomorrow. I have plans. Yeah, Mayor, I get to talk to them. Sorry. Ms. Salway, just one moment. Just let them know if I'm just a thought. So we will talk to them. We will compare and contrast what we can do and what we can't do, and we will call you really soon, because I got your number, and I agree this is the same right. It's not right. So you've now heard on the record that the mayor has said that he will follow up with it. And planning and zoning is here, and you guys agree, right? We should at least look at this. I have to say, I have got together with your building department, your planning and zoning department, and your co-department. They are amazing. They are all trying to help resolve this matter. But the fact is, you have nothing in the ordinance. Yes, you're right. So this is a problem. These are becoming more and more frequent in the neighborhood. I'm starting to see them pop up everywhere. It's devaluing my house. I've spent an awful lot of money redoing my backyard, and that's now my view. So this is the first time that I've heard of this concern, but now that it's been brought to our attention, you've heard from the mayor that it is something that we're going to be looking into. The best thing we can do is write a new law ordinance, and we'll do that as quickly as we can. Absolutely. Because we don't have it now, we've got to do it. Something has to be added. And I know you've done it with golf carts, and I appreciate your time, and thank you for listening to me. Thank you very much for coming to the council meeting. Any more requests of council? I do not have any further speaker cards. Is there anybody online? Hearing none. Last call for any requests to speak from the council chambers. Sir? You can come forward. Michael Alpert. Make sure you've got her number, please. You've got it. The guy right there in front of you. The purple. Sir, you can come ahead to the desk. Did you fill out one of the forms? Great. You can give it to me after you speak. If you want to just tell us your name and your address, please. Hi. Good evening, Your Excellencies and Honorable Counsel. My name is Aaron John, and I represent 7481 Northwest 9th Street. Go ahead. Okay. I'm supporting my parents with a request. We've been residents and homeowners of the city of Plantation for nearly 25 years, residing full time. We're calling regarding vacation rental registration application VR250055, which has been pending due to the city's strict insurance requirement. I humbly request the council's review of this matter due to the unreasonable burden it places on residents and the city's administrative delay in reviewing any online completed file. As responsible homeowners preparing for retirement, we've made every good faith effort to comply with the city's vacation rental ordinance. As of April 10th, 2025, our application included all required documents, including tax certificates, affidavits, floor plan surveys, et cetera. The only thing that's pending right now on the vacation rental application is the certificate of liability insurance. We've attached proof to the application portal that everything was updated on time and properly submitted, as acknowledged in the city's portal. Despite this, we were informed that our submission was not accepted, not because it lacked cover, but the format, thecityworking.com. It has been challenging to participate on B&B. These policies are legally underwritten, globally recognized, and tailored specifically for short-term vacation rental. Additionally, when we tried to get the insurance policy, the $1 million, $2 million, $1 million, the $2 million aggregate requirement coupled with the certificate formatting demands has made the process impractical. Insurance plans that meet both standards are limited and often priced beyond reach for individuals on fixed incomes who operate small-scale rentals. So just to sum it up, the last thing is the certificate of liability insurance. You can go ahead and conclude. May the mother? All right, go ahead. Sure. The only request that we're asking briefly is if the council could take a look into the certificate of liability insurance request as the Airbnb platforms and booking.com already provides everything that you guys are looking for. Okay, that's it. Thank you. Before we let you sit down, we may have some questions, but it sounds like maybe somebody who's here with you wants to speak on the same issue. Yes? That would be me. Okay, so please. My mother, he was speaking on my business. Understood. If you want to come to the microphone and just give us your name and address. My name is Angela John, and my address is the same, 7481 Northwest 9th Street, Plantation, in Florida, 33317, I have lived in Plantation for over 21 years. I do understand, I do get it, that their residents, their platform that causes disruption. I live in the premises, I have empty nest syndrome, my kids are all gone. I have two rooms that I tried to rent out. I took it off because they said, with all that's going on, of course, the good suffers for the bad. But I am asking, because like my son said, we have done everything possible and have submitted everything. So I have tried calling several insurance companies, of which one, because they have been extremely helpful to us, but they can do but so much. The City of Plantation, Michael Alpert, extremely helpful. I can't remember the rest, but they were all helpful. But their hands are tied. So that's why I take the time off. I'm a medical provider. I took the time off to come to plea with you guys. Everything is done and set. I went to four insurance companies, even some that was provided through the City of Plantation, to assist me. All of them, you will only have $1 million. The aggregate for $2 million is if there's any incident within that year. We have never had any. So I said, okay, I will try to comply and get the insurance. $1 million, $1 million, $1 million. The $2 million aggregate, I can't find it anywhere. So I feel like I'm going on a wild goose chase. I'm trying to do everything to comply with the City. We are a law-abiding citizen. I need your help. Understood. Thank you. So before I ask you a question, there's a gentleman standing behind you. Are you with these individuals? No, but my situation is similar. So I'm just going to ask, though, if you wait, we'll let you come up right afterwards. We'll just finish talking to them first. Thank you. So my question for you, I thought I heard that the concern was out of a request for really form over substance. But are you telling us that the requirement is $2 million aggregate, and you're trying to obtain $2 million aggregate coverage, and you're unable to? Correct. Correct. I have it. They gave me the price. I could even say it out loud. It's about $575. I just can't seem to get anyone that will provide me the $2 million aggregate. So they say to me, the $2 million aggregate is if anything has happened in the year, if you had any claims. We have not had any. It's almost impossible. I've tried. I've done everything, and nobody will do it. Understood. Go ahead, sir. And if we, I think there was like one or two that did do it. If we were able to find something, it would be just extraordinarily priced for no good reason. So what me and my mom were trying to say is that we've tried to comply with the city's request by obtaining the insurance, and then we so happened to realize, wow, platforms like Airbnb and Booking, two of the major vacation rental, happened to have all of the insurance because we spoke with the director of economic zoning and planning, Dan Holmes, and we reviewed it with him and Michael Alpert, and they seem to have agreed that the majority of everything you guys have asked for is already included with Airbnb's insurance policy as well as the Booking.com. And they got back and said if there's a way we could put it in the form, like a format for Certificate of Liability Insurance, we've called everywhere. Mr. John, just for clarification, though, because I thought I just heard two different statements from you and your mother. One was that you were unable to find any insurance company that would offer a $2 million aggregate. I thought that's what Mr. John said, and then that you weren't able to. But you were able to. You just found that it was very expensive. Is that? So, yeah. So just to put it in a nutshell, we tried to abide with the city's requirements by looking at that, and then we happened to realize that the Airbnb and booking already has the liability insurance. They offer $1 million, but you were able to find those that offer the $2 million. You just found that they were expensive. I think there was one that we were trying to get. We are still waiting for a call back. There was one of them that was offering it, and we found that it was very expensive. We haven't got the call back to complete that insurance, but it was just extraordinarily priced. So what is the request of counsel tonight, then, just to be clear? The request of counsel is seeing that well-known vacation rental platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com has the insurance that you guys are looking for. We're asking the council to consider accepting that insurance instead of having the plantation residents deal with the burden of trying to get that. Since it's already there, we would rather not pay for something that's already there. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Can I just say, worse comes to worse, if that request cannot be granted, can it be granted for the insurance that I find that I'm ready to go with for the $1 million, $1 million, $1 million, instead of $1 million, $2 million, $1 million. All I could find is the $1 million, $1 million, $1 million. Could that be considered? We understand the request. Thank you very much. Thank you, counsel. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. And just make sure if you can just turn in that form where you wrote the – if you turn it to the city clerk, that would be great. Thank you. And there – gentlemen, you also – did you also fill out a form? Yes, sir. If you can turn that into the city clerk, that would be great. Thank you. If you could tell us your name and address, please. My name is Stanley Calliard. I'm representing my wife, Dorothy. We live at 1090 Northwest 75th Terrace. We own also 1080 Northwest 75th Terrace. And our situation is the same as the previous owner. And we submitted a letter to Mr. Reinstein a couple days ago, and we are hoping to get an answer. But this thing has been going on for some time, so I'm here to just let you know that we are concerned about what's happening. Thank you very much. And just so it's clear is that I've spoken to your wife multiple times, including today. And I also had explained to her that the letter that she left at City Hall for me, that I wasn't going to be able to receive it until tonight. So I have received the letter. I've also turned it into the city clerk, so it becomes part of the record as well. And I understand that the question is really the same question in terms of the difficulty with obtaining or the high cost of the $2 million aggregate coverage. Is that correct? That's correct. Thank you very much. No, no, sir. Mr. Neutermaker? Sorry. I have a question for you. And I don't know if it's for you, for Mr. Holmes, or someone else. Is that what is, in terms of the background, if you're familiar with the requirement of $2 million coverage, can you speak to that background as to why we're requiring $2 million for coverage? Well, we want to be rigorous based on our experience with some of these facilities. As you all are well aware, we've gotten a number of complaints. And I'm not saying that it's happened specifically here, but throughout the city, all of you all have received copies of complaints with some very excessive parties, different things, opportunities for things to go very wrong. I was confirming with Mr. Holmes that we do, of all the circumstances of the licensed short-term rentals, everybody else has been able to comply with the form and substance of those requirements with regard to insurance. So we know it is available. If you all want us to bring back the ordinance for consideration, we can certainly do that. We wouldn't recommend deviating from it on the fly here tonight. Thank you. Ben, I'm not going to suggest that we do deviate at the moment tonight, although I would be interested in knowing in terms of any incidents that we have seen in plantation or maybe in any other city anecdotally is that whether or not $2 million in aggregate coverage is necessary to best protect us or whether or not a million dollars would be sufficient. And maybe the related question is that I guess whether there's a difference that we're seeing in terms of those rentals that are by private individuals versus that are the businesses that are coming out, and especially those that we know that are the corporations that are buying the property, using them as these rentals, and then they're nowhere to be found. And frankly, they don't care about our city. But the people that are either living in the house, renting out a room, or maybe in a case where they live in the house next door that are long-term residents and do care about our city, I'd be interested in hearing whether there's any cities that do anything different in terms of approaching those situations. And you don't have to answer now, but maybe we can come back to it. Maybe do a comparison, hosted versus non-hosted, and also go for the ones that are all licensed. What are the variations between those? So we'd be happy to bring that back for y'all's review. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah. Very good. I don't see any other further public requests of the Council regarding municipal affairs. So public requests of the Council regarding municipal affairs are now closed. We will now move to the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of items 1 through 13 and may be approved with one motion. Does any member of the Council wish to pull an item? I'd like to pull item number 3, please. Item 3. Anybody else from the Council? I do not have any other items to be pulled from the consent agenda. I have item 12, sorry, to be pulled from the consent agenda, from the public. Seeing none others, can I get a motion for the items other than 3 and 12? Motion to approve items 1 through 13, minus 3 and 12. Second. I hear a second. Ms. Begaro, can you please call the roll? Council Member Andreu. Yes. Council Member Fajan. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Rainstein. Yes. Thank you. Council Member Andreu. So, item 3, please. Thank you, President Reinstein. So, I'm a bit concerned about this item, particularly when I saw the dollar amount, the $91,000. So, it's not even so much a question for you, Mr. Spencer. I appreciate you coming to the mic, but it's more probably a philosophical question. So, I know we've had discussions about branding and marketing, and we want some uniformity amongst the departments. We want some updated websites for our residents to be able to navigate information easily. But, in speaking with a few departments, some of them have already been doing that on their own. It seems as if some of this work could be done in-house. I know that the mayor meets with all of the directors, and just outlining the template that we want to all use and creating, again, that uniformity seems like we could do this for a lot less money and, again, do some things internally. So, the $91,000 just is what stood out to me. I find that to be a higher cost than what I feel is necessary to complete this. I don't think we're going to change, and correct me if I'm wrong, I hope we're not changing our tagline. And I think that we've changed our logo just maybe two, three years ago when we updated the tree. 14. How long? 14. 2014? 2012. Oh, 2012, since we did the new tree? Wow. You get older, time goes faster. Okay. But I don't know if we're looking, then, at changing the tree again. And I could be the only one, but I am concerned about what we would be getting in terms of services that would equate to $91,000. One moment, Laura, before we get to you, I'm going to ask Councilmember Orland in case. I'm going to wait to Laura. You want to? Okay, go ahead, please. So thank you very much for those comments, and good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. I'm Laura Kripovicuda, Assistant City Administrator for the record. One of the things I'd like to highlight that the cost that's in front of you, it's a do-not-exceed amount. So we will only be billed and paid for the hours that the consultant is actually working on the project. So that cost includes things like logo redesign, which is optional at the city's discretion, based on, you know, obviously the assessment and research that the consultant will help us do, and, you know, get feedback from all of you, from the department heads, from city staff, to see where we're at. And when I'm saying redesign, I'm not saying, you know, complete new direction, but probably what we're talking is a refresh. But, again, you know, so that's optional. Another thing we've built in there is some contingency, which is, again, at the city's request and discretion. If we uncover some additional items, like additional stakeholder engagement in the community, you know, as we go through that process that we'd like to do, it's, again, fully on our terms. So the actual amount that we pay may be less than what's there, but we definitely know it will not be more. When I initially started doing research for, and looking at, you know, firms that other cities have hired, and, you know, when we were putting our RFP together, you know, obviously I saw some recent approvals, and they were in a similar price range. So kind of, I was shocked initially, too, but I knew to expect something within the $90,000,000 range. Another thing that I wanted to talk about a little bit, you know, it's, we're not just talking about the logo, because you're right, we have talented staff in the city, and there may be some tasks that we could cover internally, but the scope of this project goes way beyond that. So, we are bringing in an expert to help us, one, you know, assess our branding, marketing, communications, and help us identify how we're connecting with our audiences, with our materials. So it's not just putting together the branding guidelines and the templates, but helping us make sure that we're reaching the audience in the way that our brand speaks, in the way that we want to be perceived. We know the quality of life that we offer for our residents, we know that we're, offer a great business environment for our businesses, a great place to work for our employees, but we want to make sure that the way we're presenting ourselves in materials, and the voice that we speak in, that it's received the way that we intended to. So, that's why we're bringing an expert in, right, so, so it's part to do the assessment, to help us connect with our stakeholders, obviously, the big part of it will be providing us with the unified voice campaign, right, because it's not just the logo, it's not just the images, it's how we speak, the voice that we use, the phrases we use, the city sounds as, as one voice. We've spent a lot of effort, especially under Mayor Sordal, in making sure that we tell our story, and we want to make sure that, like, our branding, and our materials that we use, and the language that we use, help us tell that story, right? So, one of the big things in this proposal is brand activation and humanizing the brand, so the consultant will provide us with that plan. So, those are some, some things that we'll be getting in terms of expertise that we may not necessarily have in-house. Council Member Hoorland. Thank you, Mr. President. Council Member Andre, when I saw the item, it gave me pause, but when I looked at it a little bit more in depth, because, you know, one of my concerns was that strategic planning, I thought we had a consensus that none of us wanted to touch the logo. But to look at more uniform branding, and I think Council Member Fadgen was one who's brought it up multiple times, that we need to be consistent. And I think what we've seen in the past is departments were changing their logos. You know, I brought up, I said to Matt Thompson, this is not about you, but the prior public works director had started wrapping vehicles in the flag. Not that we all don't love our country, but what did that have to do with the city of Plantation? So, I think it's that consistency in message and branding. I was pleased to see that the top bidder was Conceptual Communications. I've worked with Conceptual Communications with the Solid Waste Authority and Broward League of Cities. And what I can say is that they are building their experience, or they have been building their experience with municipal government in Broward County, which gives me a lot of comfort, because what I've seen from Lori and her team is they're professional, they're accessible, they're really terrific to work with, and I think that's something that would be a good fit for the city. I also mentioned that Florida League of Cities just awarded the city of Sanford an award for their branding book. And it was really interesting to see, and I think that was something that Councilmember Fatchett, again, had brought up, and that's what companies, listen, we are a big city now, and I think for economic development also, to attract those people to those cities, and that we're speaking with one voice, while our team is doing a great job. And I think, Mayor, you know, your social media meetings, the communication's been great, getting everybody on board. We have a lot of great posts coming out of a lot of departments. I think having a professional come in and evaluate that and really get us all, you know, moving in the same direction. So I'm prepared to vote for this tonight, but I really don't want the logo changed. So I'm going on the record with that. So I want to add, I did have some concerns as well, and, you know, I had pulled the task sheet that showed the phases, and I was really surprised with the estimated number of hours that were included for each of the phases. The first phase was 200 hours, a part of the initial planning session, and it included the optional expense. What would that happen to this? There's a few representatives going to use that line item within the agreement. And that makes sense. My only concern is that, and we've talked about this before with lots of items, is that when you give a budget number that says, well, not to exceed, most vendors would love to try and reach that item, reach that number. And so if it was not to exceed, currently it's $91,095, but could we vote on it not to exceed $81,095? I just want to make sure that we're not giving an opportunity for, and I don't know this vendor. I'm sure they're wonderful, but I still want to be careful with what budget we're approving. Sure, and the vendor is here, by the way, so if there was... I'm sure you're wonderful. Again, it is well-received and is well-noted, and we can make that concession within the agreement through a red line of the agreement initiated by both the city and the firm with your request, if that's the direction a council wanted to go in. Let me go to... There's a few other people who'd like to speak. Mayor? I had a number three on me, but I'm up. Yeah, the other people had already spoken. Okay, great. Appreciate all the comments. They match many of what I've thought through. First off, this goes way beyond a logo. And we all had just enough expertise in logos and drawing to think we can do it in-house. And we brought them in. We listened and talked. And they're thinking and operating on a level that we ain't, including my communications committee and everything else. They're thinking way up here. We need them to tell our story. And tell our story is one thing. Serve the residents better so we communicate with them so they can use our services and benefits better. That's what the goal is. This is public service to me. This is can we get the customers what they need, and how do we communicate with them better than what we have. So to me, it's another level. The logo to me, I don't care about. So you all figure that out. But the rest of it, they got the goods. Thank you, Mayor. Back to Councilmember Angelo and then Councilmember Fadgen. To your point, President Reinstein, you know, we've done quite a few surveys already of our residents and asked them and received feedback on how they would like to interact with us, if it's, you know, in which platforms, whether it's X or Facebook. So I think we already have a lot of that data. So I'm absolutely, based on the discussion we've had, I'm in favor of still going with branding and utilizing conceptual communications. But I, at the right time, I'd like to hear from everybody and give them all an opportunity to speak. But at the right time, I would like to amend this to lower the dollar amount. Thank you. I think the whole purpose of this thing is much larger than the logo. I don't think it's necessary to remove the optional portion of the logo redesign because we don't know what we don't know. Right now, I don't see any reason to change the logo. I have no reason to change our tagline, although it does remind me of a septic tank. But I think that why remove something that's optional? You know, when we get to that point where we have to decide, okay, are we going to take that option, we start to get the consensus of the Council. So I would just say, as is, it's up to not to exceed, as Laura said. And it's in their interest to come under budget because we're going to start talking them up. So don't use our full budget. So I don't think there's any reason to remove the optional portion. If there's other hours you want to remove, I can see how wide this, particularly the 200 hours at the front end, gathering that information and peeling out the conversations you're going to have with the employees, the staff, us. For it to be substantive and valuable, it does take a lot of time. So I understand that. I've kind of experienced this before in past jobs. So I would say just let's approve as is and come under budget. Thank you, Councilman Frasin. Councilman Ray Anderson. You seem like you're asking for consensus, so I'm right along all of your thinking. I like the logo. I like the tagline. But I'm open if she's playing a whole other, if she's playing chess and we're only playing checkers, I'm okay to be enlightened. I think, yes, I'd like the cost down a little. But if we have, I think it's well understood by everybody here that we're not going to exercise the optional things unless we choose to exercise those. So I think we're landing the plane where we want to be. So that's my two cents. Councilman Ray Andrade, did you want to make a motion? I would like to amend to have a not to exceed amount of $80,000. I would second that. Any further discussion on the motion? Ms. Beggarro, please call the roll. You would like further discussion on the motion? Yeah. Go ahead, Councilmember Frasin. So if we vote this down, would we be able to make another motion to keep it at the 91? Is the removal of the 10 just have to do with the logo? I was trying to find the breakout. I couldn't find it. I wasn't. Here's the break. It's $10,000. It doesn't make it $100,000. It gets it. This optional expense of $10,000 gets it to 91. I don't see any reason. I'm going to vote no because I think we should just be approving the 91, and then at the appropriate time, we'll just say no to the logo design. Councilmember Frasin, you're entitled to vote no. What's that? I said you'll be entitled to vote no on it. I mean, if you want to make another motion afterwards, if it doesn't pass, that would be accepted. Well, I'd like to finish my thought. Go ahead. We're just creating more work down the road if we decide for some reason we want to change it. Why remove something that's optional that right now we have no intent of using when we get through this process? So, to me, it's like there's no reason. I had requests to just vote on what's on the consent, not with the amendment. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. I don't like spending money. It sounds like you do on this one. Councilmember Angelo. Councilmember Frasin, I'm not recommending that we remove specifically the logo design so it will still give staff the flexibility. Maybe we don't need, you know, 240 hours and it'll just be 150. I'm just saying we can reduce it in any area that both the vendor and administration see fit, but not to exceed the 80. Can I respond to her? One moment. Councilmember Horland buzzed in. I was just going to say the points are all well taken, but I think, and we tend to have these arguments on do not exceeds. The do not exceeds are there for a reason, and I think that council has articulated where they want to see it go. I'm comfortable with staff understanding that we don't necessarily want to reach the 91,000, so I'm with Councilmember Frasin where I would approve it as is. And all I have to say is, like, if we're going to say, all right, just keep it as is, but we're going to reduce it to 80,000, take $10,000 off it, that's not the proposal they're making. That changes everything that they're planning on doing with us when they're making this proposal. So, all right, I guess we can just vote and then. So I'll finish up the comments before we call on, call the question, is that the, if we, if you look closely at the various phases, so there are four phases as well as a section on estimated reimbursable expenses. Those total $75,345, so the main proposal is $75,345. Then there's a contingency of $5,750, and then there's the optional expense of $10,000. And so, in looking at the totality of this, which includes the estimated hours for each of the section, I think that this wonderful company that is very well recommended and has done a lot of great things, in the county especially, can get done what they need to get done with $80,000, based on the fact that we have a contingency built in and an optional expense, which is even more than $80,000. So it's $15,000 right there. I'll let, may I'll let you finish before we call the question? A couple quick questions for the applicants. I've got to have a line of questioning here. How many proposals like this have you done recently, and how many have you had accepted? 5, 10, through municipalities, 15, 20? I mean, I've had my company 15 years. How many municipal, how many councils like this have you been in front of? None like this, I know this. No, you guys are the best. But we work with Delray Beach all the way down to the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority. So you've done 10, 12, 15 of these. You've mapped it out. Yes, my hair. You're okay. How many times has there been a question about the logo? Do you often have a question about the logo, and how do you resolve that when that pops up? Define question about the logo. Should it remain or should it be changed versus how much it should cost? Your council is married to the logo, and you either got to say it works or doesn't work. How do you handle that? So we changed your scope of work of what you asked for in the RFP because it wasn't right for this work. It's really what your community wants and identifies with because those are your salespeople. Those are your ambassadors, right? You want legacy people to live here for years and families just like you've had with your history of this city. So it's not for me to decide if it's a good logo. Quite frankly, it's not really for you to all decide. We have a survey in there because you haven't asked the right questions in any of your surveys because I reviewed them in terms of how people feel about this city and how they talk about their city. We have good information that they love living here and that you guys are hitting it out of the park on a lot of levels. But the questions I would ask to get them really into the space of how they describe this place to their friends, to their neighbors, to someone who would open a business here or visit here or live here, I don't have those answers. So our process is let's do that fact-finding. Let's figure it out with staff, meet with you all individually, get that input we need from your community, then come back to you, present it, and say, here's the information. Now it's your choice. You want to stick with this because I think we're in the right space based on what we've learned, or do you want to go in this direction because this is what we've learned, and we don't know that answer. And I can't pretend to know it, and logos and colors are very subjective. Right, that's why it's optional because we might get to that point and say, you know what, we're good. You don't need to spend the money for us to do a whole logo and tagline and give options and go through the millions of iterations of changing the colors and the fonts, and all the time I know it seems simple, but it's not simple work. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. And just for the record, if you can just identify yourself, please. My name is Lori Ernest-Jones. I'm the principal of conceptual communications. Thank you very much for coming forward. Of course. And I don't think anybody's saying it's simple work. I think we just have a discussion on being stewards of our budget and some different ideas of how to best accomplish some things. But thank you very much. You're welcome. Ms. Beggar, if you please call the roll. Can I clarify this? Yes. I just want to make sure I got it right. This is a motion to the agreement to not exceed the amount to be amended to $80,000. That's correct. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Council Member Andrew. Yes. Council Member Fagin. No. Council Member Horland. No. Council Member Anderson. No. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. I'd like to make a motion to approve the item as is. Second. To have any further discussion, please call the roll. Council Member Andrew. No. Council Member Fagin. Yes. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. No. Item passes. Thank you. Next up, item number 12, Mr. Conklin. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest Sixth Court. With regards to week two of the expenses, again, it's spending $1,000 for watering the CRA and Gateway 7 districts. Excuse me. Again, I would request that the council zero out the extra millage rate for the Gateway 7 district. It already pays the regular millage rate of the properties throughout the whole city. This year, excuse me, using the CAFR 2024, the tax on the district was $768,000. The TIF, which is the CRA tax increment fund, was over $4 million. So you can see that that TIF would easily cover zeroing out the millage rate, extra millage rate on the Gateway. Anyway, one of the things that I was mentioning about with the pensions and stuff like that is each year it seems that the mountain of money is getting bigger and bigger. We're over $300 million in cash and investments. All right? And it occurs when these kind of items, if you look in the CAFR and you see that year in, year out, the retained monies go up and the interest from those goes up. So especially in low interest rates, atmospheres like we've been in for years because they're artificially whacked, to be earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest in these kind of accounts, it's absurd to be holding on to that money, an amount of money, when you don't have your employee pension plan funded by $75 million. And you've got over $100 million in U.S. treasuries. And I don't have to tell you, July, BRICS is going to meet, and they're trying to take down the United States dollar as the world settlement currency. So I just, I wonder why we're spending $1,000 a week watering the district. And it shouldn't be coming out of the people that are in there with their own money at risk, stakeholders. It should go for the CRA, which is return exceeding tax dollars that would go elsewhere, but it has to stay in that district. I yield back. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Conklin. Do we have a motion on item 12? So moved. Do we have a second? Second. Seeing no further discussion, Ms. Beggaroe, please call the roll on item 12. Council Member Andreu? Yes. Council Member Fadgen? Yes. Council Member Horland? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. We now move to legislative items. We have three legislative items, followed by quasi-judicial proceedings. Item 14, a resolution of the City of Plantation relating to the provision of storm water management, utility fee. City Attorney, do we need to read the summary? No, sir. Good evening, Council, Mayor and City Attorney, Samira Shalan, City Engineer. We prepared a presentation for this item, April. Tonight's presentation, we're going to be giving you an update on the storm water organization, equipment, asset maintenance, engineering, and funding. On the organization, Council, thank you. You approved last year throughout the budget process an additional three positions. Currently, our organization includes 10 full-time personnel under the leadership of the mayor. The city engineer and the assistant city engineer are managing the storm water manager, the storm water specialist, three storm water technicians, threes, and three storm water technicians, too. I'm happy to report that currently we're fully staffed, and actually some of the staff are here today in the presentation. Equipment, another shout-out to administration and Council with your support, and with the forthcoming of the city and forththinking of the city, we were able to purchase, receive, and deploy the current equipment. Anna, thank you, and to your team, for identifying the supplemental fund. And Charles, thank you, and your team, to help us in this purchase. So throughout from last year to this year, we purchased almost $1.3.5 million worth of equipment, almost $600,000 jet bag from the GeoBond Fund, four pieces of equipment from the ARPA Fund, street sweeper, mechanical harvester, backhoe, and water pump. Now, Mr. Mulder, the storm water manager, is going to walk us through how we deploy these resources from personnel and equipment to provide asset management. Good evening, Council, Mayor, and as the city attorney walked out. My name is Bill Mulder. I'm the storm water manager for the city. I've been in the position for about two years, and I'm happy to say that I believe that we have reached our short-term and well on achieving our long-term goals for the department. As I'm sure most of you know, we divide the city into 27 different zones. It makes it easier for us to track the work and the maintenance and the assets of each of those zones by splitting them up into these 27 different locations. Now, zones 23, 24, 25, and 26 are the plantation acres zones. We are not responsible for too much in there except for the parks and the canals in those parks. But other than that, we do not do any drainage in the plantation acres improvement district. This is just a photo of some of what we come up against. We have a lot of trouble with the coconut trees that are just constantly clogging the pipes and the outfalls for us. But with the great staff that we have, we're able to keep the city well-maintained. We have 59 different water bodies that have 42 miles of shoreline. It consists of about 104 acres of water. I know there's a lot of trees in the city, but you don't realize how much water we have and how many canals. And it's important that we keep these maintained because the majority of our stormwater runoff goes into these locations. So we need to make sure that everything is constantly flowing. And of the 104 acres of water, we have inspected 100% of it over the last 12 months. And with the support of the council, one of the pieces of equipment that we were able to receive, kind of based on some of the complaints from residents, is our aquatic weed harvester. This is something that we use to quickly go in and clean up some areas rather than doing the treating using chemicals. Typically, the chemicals are a better way to treat, but it is a longer process. So sometimes the aquatic harvester has come in handy, and it's a great piece of equipment that we utilize. We have many canals here in the city, and we have cleared over 8,240 linear feet of canals. And when I say we cleared, you can see on the picture on the left, you can't see any of the homes. You cannot see any of the yards. And a lot of these residents don't even forget that they have a canal in their backyard because they just can't see it. So by opening this up and allowing for better navigation and the residents, a lot of positive comments coming back from the residents. Besides clearing the sides of the canals, we're also clearing the water itself of downed trees. Some of these trees have been there for many, many years. Residents have not been able to fish, for instance, just because of these trees. So by taking them out, we've received a lot of compliments from the staff, from the residents. We have over 3,680 catch basins. It's one of our main assets to collect the stormwater and direct it into the correct direction from where it is located. We try to inspect and maintain these at least twice a year. Right now, we are on track of being able to do a complete city sweep every six months. Of the 3,680 catch basins, over 1,400 of those had to be cleaned. And again, thanks for your support. We have a new jet vac that we're able to utilize. And so we actually have two jet vac vehicles that we can use to clean and maintain not just the catch basins, but also the pipes that they're flowing through. And this is a picture of the new almost $670,000 jet vac. It's a very effective piece of equipment, and it's deployed almost every day. We have over 4,100 feet of concrete ditches, a lot of it in the Park East part of the city where we have had in the past considerable amounts of flooding. But we do go in and have been able to clean up these ditches, and we maintain them about four times a year. We go in and remove debris. We're getting a lot better with the community engagement as far as asking the residents to stop throwing their debris into this canal, hoping that the rain is just going to wash it away. As soon as it gets to the end of the canal, then, of course, it's blocking the outfall, and we're getting calls to go and relieve the flooding. This is an example of even though we have cleaned the canal, when we have a major event, anything four to five inches or more, these canals do fill up quickly, and it's a never-ending scenario that we deal with. And that's why our staff are always on call, basically 24-7. I've received calls in the middle of the night from residents, and we go out and we take care of whatever the situation is. So in addition to the other assets, we have almost 360,000 linear feet of stormwater pipe. And a lot of these pipes are hard for us to inspect. We can inspect the beginning or the end of the pipes, but as far as inside the pipes, especially the longer ones of several hundred feet, we've had difficulty. And in order to meet the requirements of the permit that we're operating under, we have to inspect at least 36,000 linear feet per year. So in combined with what equipment we have, we're also working with a contractor that we've been able to bring in that has the camera system that we can go in and look at these pipes and catch basins. And we are well on our way of meeting the requirements of the permit, and we're finding some areas of problems with these pipes, but for the most part, I think things are looking very good. This is an example of things that are not looking very good. Some of these corrugated metal pipes are so old that they're starting to collapse, and we're getting sinkholes either in the roads or in the aprons around the catch basins, some instances in people's yards. And we are going in, and some of this work we're able to do in-house, and some of the bigger jobs we do have contractors come in and do for us. This is an example of a pipe that we had to replace out in the Park East area. You can see we repaired the catch basin and installed the new pipe, and it's obviously working great. Another project that we're able to start doing more of now because of the approval of the backhoe, we're able to start doing these swirl regrades. And there's a lot of areas in the city where this needs to be done. This is an example of one of the first swirl regrades that we did. It turned out great. The homeowner is very happy with that, and as you can see, we have over 34 miles of grass swales that need to be maintained. Most of that maintaining is done by mowing, but in some instances we do need to go in and regrade. This is another example of a swale regrade that we did just recently. Again, with the support of the council, we were able to purchase our new street sweeper, and this year we were able to do just under 3,000 miles of sweeping and somewhere around 400 tons of material that we removed from the streets and stormwater pipes that we have disposed of at the landfills. We have 224 manholes that we're responsible for. However, we have inspected all of those also two to three times a year, and many of them did need to be cleaned. Some of them are pretty deep manholes or pretty deep basins there, but yes, sir, that is me. I was smiling, actually. You just couldn't see. Okay, so that basically just wraps up my little portion of this, and I'll hand this back over to Samir. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. I want to just pause and thank Bill and his staff for the hard work they do on a daily basis to prevent flooding from the city. Thank you so much for all the work that you do. From the engineering side, we identified some priority areas that we worked on and we continue to work on. I want to give you a brief update on some of these projects tonight. Stormwater master plan, we have been working on it for the last three years. We're very close to close the loop on that. I promise by October we will have a workshop and we will come and present to you the outcome of the stormwater master plan. So, so far we did a comprehensive citywide model. We updated our existing and future condition, and we're currently finalizing the capital improvement plan. Just to get you excited, I provided a snippet of an area within the Jacaranda Country Club where the master plan modeling showed some deficiency. You can see the inundation maps in front of us shows that the roadways are not passable. So this is an example of the effort of the stormwater master plan, and this is the conclusion, some of the conclusions you're going to be seeing where the recommendation of the master plan is going to be proposing some upsides of current piping or proposing some new drainage infrastructure as deemed necessary. Another priority area is Country Club Estate. We are familiar with the area I presented to you last year. The challenges of this area with no drainage facility within the boundary of this area due to the 11 freshwater well zones within the area that restricts some of the drainage facilities and a brick wall on the eastern portion of the community. We have been working diligently on this project. One of the recommendations of phase one of the study is to negotiate and collaborate with both regulatory agency, the Turnpike, and FDUT on connection. I'm happy to report that these efforts are going in a very positive direction as they are listening to the needs of the city and they are willing to compromise and working with us on these connections. Park East community, another area that was identified as priority. We did a study that showed some recommendation of improvement. Actually, some of the ditches that Mr. Mulder had pointed out today can use some improvement, which was recommended by the study. I'm happy to report that we applied for an appropriation fund of almost $450,000. It is on the final budget. Fingers crossed. If the governor signs the budget, then this money will be available for this project. Cleary Boulevard, another priority area due to the lack of drainage facilities between Pine Island Road and 82nd on Cleary Boulevard and Narrow Swale areas. Any utility of conflicts within that roadway, there is some flooding problem. This project is in-house designed. The engineering department is currently working on the final engineering drawings, and it will come before you shortly. Now, how we pay for all of this. We have established a stormwater utility fund since 2013. Last year, Council approved the adjustment of the stormwater utility fee to the amount of $53.56 per ERU, which generated and received revenue of almost $2.4 million. Our request today to you is to adjust the current fee by the CPI of 2.2%. The provisions of Chapter 9 of our Municipal Code allows for the adjustment of the lesser amount of 3.5% or the CPI as of April 2025. The CPI is 2.2%, so we're requesting the adjustment of the rate to $54.75. What does that mean? That means that the expected revenue is almost 2.49. We proposed a budget for the operation of the stormwater function in the amount of $3 million. What does that mean? It means that we're still in the red to sustain our operation, and we will require some use of the fund balance. Currently, as of September 30th, we have almost $1.5 million available fund balance as of September 30th. Of that $1.5 million, there is $600 million was approved in FY24-25 to be utilized in the current budget. What is our budget request? Other than the operation that we went over it, which is the salaries, the contractual obligations that we have, we have three additional budget requests. First budget request, we would like to increase the consultant line item on the budget to allow for a rate study. As I said before, the rate have been established in 2013, was flat until 2022. Council acted on it on 2023. We increased the fee from $25 to $50, and we have been applying the CPI in the last two years. Our request is going to include a comprehensive rate study, which is going to align with the recommendation of the stormwater master plan. And that's why it's important for the master plan to come before you so you can understand the real needs of this division and this operation. The second request, we're requesting two capital requests. We would like to advance the country club state project into the next level by providing consultant services to conduct a survey to apply for the connection permit that I mentioned today and the design of phase one. Phase one of the project will include retention area and drainage facility at the southwest corner, which will allow relief to majority of the community at that area. And the second request is to conduct a comprehensive waterway survey. We received multiple requests from the residents about dredging. In addition, operationally, staff are challenged with some of the access to these canals. They are shallow. They have steep slopes. So we have the equipment, but sometimes we don't have proper access. So our plan will include some maintenance boat ramp and a dredging plan for the citywide to come before you. Finally, I want to conclude the presentation by just adding one slide to give an update on the Plantation Acres Improvement District. As Mr. Mulder mentioned, our obligation within the district boundary is limited to the street sweeping and maintaining of our drainage facilities within the parks and the fire station that's within the district. On February 27, paid commissioners voted four to one in favor of dissolving the district. Since then, our administration have been engaged with the district on the next steps. We are planning an engagement, resident engagement workshop by November 12th. So please save the date. And it will be a presentation by the city to entertain any questions and educate the residents to be educated voters if this moves to the next step. And now I will take any questions. Councilmember Fadgen. So our calculation of the ERU is the same, and we have the same number? Yes. How often do we assess that? Since it was established, it haven't been assessed. But how often should we be assessing it? Usually cities will not regularly assess it unless there is a major change in the community. We have been, city or plantation have been evolving with these mixed-use amendments. So I think it depends on the situation of the community and the evolvement of the community. In my opinion, I think it's the right time to reassess part of the rate study, if that answers your question. So a single-family home is one unit? Correct. No matter what? Correct. Is that something that we assess? Because there's some property that is very… Correct. Actually, I'm very active… And then an apartment, the follow-up, an apartment building, if it's 100 units, that's 100… Correct. 100 ERU. So actually, in this fiscal year, for example, we just got the CEO of one of the buildings in Pexel. They have 330 units. So when we send the resolution, when you vote on it to Broward County, I send also an adjustment to parcels, a company. So these parcels with development and redevelopment will be adjusted. I'm an active member of the Florida Stormwater Association, and I attend their conferences on a regular basis. And the city of Delaware Beach last conference had presented their rate study, and it was very interesting because they did tiers of residential, based on what you just said. They… My recollection, the way they did it, and we can have a longer discussion as the rate study… This would be part of a rate study. Yes. Do you feel like there's enough units with, you know, just your professional opinion? Do you think there… Do we have an adequate number of units at this point in time? Units of what? ERUs. The actual quantity. The actual quantity. I'm sorry. I'm misunderstanding. Well, I'm just sort of thinking, like, if, you know, if there's a… If there's a… Not all single-family homes are equal. Correct. Some are larger. Some are smaller. That's correct. So… Is it fair how we're allocating these ERUs? That's, you know… It's not fair equitable. And that's why I was… Started mentioning the city of Delray Beach rate study where they went into a tier. Their study said from zero square footage to 1,500, that's one ERU. From 1,500 to 3,000, that's a two ERU. Above 5,000. And that's based on their study of their own city. So through the rate study… It's not just financial rate study. We will do a GIS analysis of the square footage of our properties. When's this rate study coming? When you guys approve the budget. When's that coming? With the budget? Okay. We would like to wait until the conclusion of the master plan because the cost estimate of these projects is going to drive what is the recommendation of that rate. In the past… Was it last year that we said that the annual increase is either going to be 3.5% or the CPI, whatever, is less? No. It's 2.2? It was… Or is that something we just approve every year? It was part of the original ordinance. That's how our section of the code is written. So when it started going up, that had to do with the slide. So what's been the average increase each year? 3.5%. That's the average? At least those three years that we implemented the CPI… So this year is a low year? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? I just have a question. The maintenance boat ramp. Mm-hmm. Is that also for the public to use? Usually it is restricted to the maintenance. If you see other municipalities, they will have a chain and there will be signs only for maintenance. Yes. But that's also if the council desires different and administration have guidance to staff, we can look into that. Councilmember Fadja. I forgot to ask one more. So is this setting the rate that's going to go on the trim notices or is this coming back with the millage votes and all that stuff? No. That's a preliminary rate to be printed on the trim notice. So this is part of the step. So when we're setting out the max millage, this is going to be on there and then we're going to be voting on it, the two votes? Correct. There's two steps. This is a preliminary and Anna will bring this order. So this is really just approving the calculation of what we're going to include on the trim? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Councilman Landrieu. When you are looking at the enterprise fund long term, you are estimating that it will decrease, right? Because of the Basin II drainage improvements. Mm-hmm. So with that, and I know you don't have a crystal ball, but do you see it leveling off where we won't have to necessarily have another increase next year? Actually, based on my preview of the stormwater master plan and the projects that needed, because there is two folds to the stormwater. There is the operation and there is the capital. I think we will level off the operation. We will sustain ourselves with similar rate to have a level of C operationally. And we've seen the results last year with the preventive maintenance and even more with the equipment and the staffing that we deployed this year. We will level off operationally, but not capital. We will need money for capital, which that's why we're actively seeking for additional fund, whether it is appropriation or any sources of fund. Actually, we just had our grant coordination this afternoon, and I requested the grant coordinator to look into some waterway grant similar to the one that City of Margate just recently got. So we can supplement our fund by additional fund and actively seek additional fund. But as we all know, with the national government and Tallahassee what's going on, it's just difficult to answer. Again, my short answer, we will sustain operationally, but in the near future, not capital projects. Because I'm supporting. Maybe to jump in, we have the finance director that may want to help answer that question. No, we don't. Okay, then we'll wait. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Continue, Councilmember Andrea. I'm okay supporting the item today. And, you know, we can justify it, if you will, by saying, you know, it's incremental. But we are sensitive to, you know, what everyone is feeling in terms of inflation. So, and we see that trend over the last four years. So I'm looking for that to level off so we don't have to keep having that conversation with our residents. Particularly when the trim notice goes out. But I am excited. And I want to, again, congratulate you and the entire staff for the work that you've done, particularly in Park East. And I'm really excited about what's going to take place in Country Club. And that is absolutely why I will support this this evening. So thank you and to the entire team. You can see visibly the difference as you're driving around. And you can hear from the residents. And, you know, we lost a huge advocate of this, Mr. Grant, a little while ago. But I can still hear his voice about those basins. And he would be very pleased. So thank you. Thank you. And actually, I want to add, you were not there, Council Member Andreo, but Council Member Reinstein attended the last Homers Association, Park East Homers Association that we went to. And myself and Mr. Mulder attended that Homers Association, part of our engagement process with the community. And, you know, because it's important for us to be invested in the community and hear their voices and hear their concerns. It's very important. And you've been doing that regularly. Yes. You and the entire staff. So that was not the first time. I was at the one before that where you all did a great presentation and the ones that you mentioned that you do consistently in the acres. Correct. So we appreciate that level of outreach to the community as well. Thank you. Thank you. And since you're continuing to appreciate and acknowledge your staff, I know that you have some staff that's here in the back. Can you, can we acknowledge them? Can you tell us who's here? Come over. So we have Robert Lee. He's 10 years. Let me start by Danny. Danny is 34 years in City of Plantation. We have Robert Lee, 10 years. And Ernest and his family. He's our newest addition, stormwater technician three. Not all the staff were able because it's after hour and some are school and some are. Well, we saw them in the back. And especially when you have family here, we want your family to know that we appreciate all the work that all of you are doing under the leadership of Mr. Mulder and Ms. Shaylan that we're doing great things in our city. And thank you for working with them. Any other questions? Council Member Hoyland. Very quickly. I just want to concur with the kudos because as Council Member Andreas said, we are seeing the difference, especially in those hearted areas. So thank you both. I don't want to bring the dark cloud of the legislature in, but we dodged a bullet this year with Senate Bill 810, which would have required us to do a complete inspection of our stormwater system. And as Mr. Mulder said, I think we were able to do 12%, right? So the unintended financial consequences, that unfunded mandate, that bill may come back. So, you know, we need to keep that in mind as well. While we may be getting to a place that we want to be, we don't know what will come down from Tallahassee, as we always know. But I just want to remind them that that bill may come back this year. Thank you very much. And thank you, Ms. Shaylan. Thank you. Yes, Ms. Anna, Director. Good evening. Anna Otteniano, Finance Director. I just want to clarify something that you had asked, Council Member Fajan. So this is the preliminary vote for the information to be sent to Broward County Property Appraiser on August 4th. When I come back with the max, I will be talking about stormwater, but you won't be voting on it. This is the preliminary. So then September 12, it will come back for a final vote. It will be a separate hearing by itself this year because it's required to be held between the 12th and the 15th. And the 12th is a Monday. The 15th, I think, is, I don't remember what date it is. So you will have a final vote in September. Okay. All right. That was my understanding that setting it will be. Yeah, not at the max. Not when I come back with the max. That's going to be separate. It will be a separate hearing. Yeah, in another day. Okay. We're coming back July for the maximum millage and September 12th is going to be the final. Yep. So I just wanted to make that clear. Thank you very much. Seeing no further comments on 14. Do we have a motion on item 14? Motion to approve. Do we have a second? Second. Ms. Bego, please call the roll. Councilmember Andreu? Yes. Councilmember Fajan? Yes. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. Next up, item 15. Chief halter plan, 34 No. zwei, two, three, three, four, three, four, five, seven. So the first. You're on chap 23. She'll use a Democratic María of the Ten Facility Health Foundation adjusting the city's fiscal year to 25 through 2029 consolidated plan. Mr. O recognizing the city's fiscal year, between my님iyu. duane our decision變 to adding to the stateружрас Elazt. And I will add a stepping schwierig. City Clerk. My name is Edlin Griffith. I'm from the Planning and Zoning and Economic Development Department, and I work with the Housing Grants. Today, we will be talking about the Consolidated Plan. If we have technical difficulties, I can talk from notes also. Ms. Griffith, what would you prefer? Would you prefer to start with an overview before the slideshows come up? Sure thing. That'd be great. Thank you. Every five years, the city has to prepare a consolidated plan to be able to share with HUD what we plan to do with the funds they are providing for us. So I can just begin talking about it and refer back to the slide when we- Thank you very much. Okay. No problem. Okay. So for 2025 to 2029, we put together the consolidated plan for the CDBG funds that the city has received or will receive. So the Department of Housing and Urban Development has several eligible activities that we are allowed to use the funds for, and we're planning for that. Some of the activities are public improvements, public facilities, rehabilitation, economic development activities, acquisition, and public services. Okay. Looks like it's ready. Thank you. You did great. Keep going. I wasn't going to bring my notes up. Okay. Ready? Mm-hmm. Okay. Perfect. Okay. So as I was sharing, every five years, the city has to put together a consolidated plan, and we worked in partnership with Civitas. They were able to collect all of the results of our survey to be used for this and also to review our documents and ensure we were in compliance with what the Department of Housing and Urban Development requires. So the eligible activities that we can use our community development grant funds for are public improvements, public facilities, rehabilitation, economic development, acquisition, and public services. The major components of the consolidated plan included needs assessment. We'll talk a little bit more about that. Housing market analysis, five-year strategic plan, the annual action plan, and citizen participation. The fund allocation for this year is $630,000, $799,000 for CDBG, and for our home investment partnership program funds, we anticipate $186,000, $188,000, which was last year's funding because they have not yet approved that amount. We expect to receive that amount. We expect to receive the funding amount within the next few weeks. The process for putting together the consolidated plan, including a needs assessment and market analysis, surveys were sent out to the community. We did that through the mayor's newsletter, through our social media. The Chamber of Commerce sent it out for us. We put it in the community centers posted so that anyone who wanted to go to the website and do it or use a QR code were able to participate. The stakeholder survey was sent out to participating cities and also to nonprofits that we work with, the City of Plantation, and two public hearings are required. Today will be one. And July 10th, it will be presented to the affordable housing advisory committee. And there is a 30-day public comment period, which opens July 1st through August 1st. And we did publicize the information in the newspaper and on our website. So once everything is approved today, the the con plan will be submitted to HUD and they will work on approving the grant. So the priority needs for the City of Plantation are housing, affordable housing opportunities, public services, and CDBG administration of the grant. The 126,159 for grant administration for housing programs. Our focus is minor home repair, rehabilitation, and also purchase assistance for the first time home buyer program. And for public services, we award to local nonprofits who apply for the program. For the home grant, that fund is typically used for purchase assistance and we plan to do the same. And the next steps are basically to do the two public hearings and to have the 30-day comment period where anyone who wants to comment is instructed to to send an email or to write us to be able to provide their feedback. And the deadline for submission of this document is August 15th. And a draft of the document was provided. Any questions? No. Wonderful presentation. Thank you for your work. I don't see any questions for discussion. So thank you, Ms. Griffith. Do we have a motion? Item 15. Motion to approve. I'm sorry, Mr. Conklin. I didn't see you there. It's unlike you, sir. That's okay. Come on forward. I got here late. Dennis Conklin, 4581 Northwest Six Court. I wanted to mention that the only reason we're getting these CDBG funds and the creation of the CRA, which has kept so many millions and millions of dollars in the city, is because of the effort of former councilman Lee Hillier. And he had to fight like the devil. The administration at that time was not really aware of the money that was available from our income taxes up there in Washington to bring them down here. One thing I wanted to compliment is the recent administration called back the administrative fees from the CDBG because years ago the city surrendered them to the county. I mean, what the heck? It's over 100 grand, right? When was it this year? $126,000. So thank you very much and keep up the good work. Yield back. There's no yielding back, but thank you for the compliment. Seeing no further discussion, Ms. Beggarro, please call the roll. Council Member Andrew? Yes. Council Member Fradgen? Yes. Council Member Horland? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Einstein? Yes. Next up, Item 16, PP24-0028, Parking and Zoning Amendments. Mr. Ezra, do we need to read that summary? We do. Beyond the summary, we need to read the title of the ordinance. Please do. Excuse me. An ordinance of the City of Plantation, Florida, pertaining to the subject of zoning and land development, amending Chapter 27 of the City Code of Ordinances, specifically amending Article 2, Section 27-11, entitled Definitions, amending Article 6, entitled Use Regulations, encompassing various sections, amending Section 27-71, entitled Zoning Districts, Section 27-72, entitled Residential Zoning Districts, τί St. 25-74, entitled Resident, Section 27-85, entitled Commercial Zoning Districts, Section 27-86, entitled Mixed-use Zoning Districts, amending Section 27-87, entitled Industrial Zoning Districts, amending Section 27-88, entitled Office Zoning Districts, amending Section 27-89, entitled Park and Open Space Zoning Districts, Park and Open Space Zoning Districts, amending section 27-90, entitled Community Facility Zoning District, amending section 27-91, titled Utilities District, amending section 27-92, entitled Planned Community Development Zoning Districts, amending section 27-93, entitled Overlay Zoning Districts, amending sections 27-94-99, entitled Reserve, amending section 27-100, entitled Master Business List, amending section 27-101-104, entitled Reserve, amending section 27-105, entitled Specific Use Regulations, amending section 27-106-109, entitled Reserve, amending article 8, entitled Off-Street Parking and Loading, renaming the article Parking, amending article 10, entitled Landscaping Standards, encompassing various sections, amending section 27-251, entitled Landscape Definitions, amending section 27-258, entitled Minimum Requirements Mixed Use Properties, amending article 11, entitled Development Standards of General Applicability, encompassing various subsections, amending section 27-292, entitled Driveway Standards, amending section 27-296, entitled Accessory Use Standards, amending section 27-297, entitled Compliance with Comprehensive Plan, amending section 27-299, entitled General Development Requirements, amending section 27-302, entitled Principal Arterials, amending section 27-303, entitled Access to Streets of 100 Feet or More, amending section 27-304, entitled Access and Parking Restrictions, amending section 27-310, entitled Accessory Buildings and Structures in Residential Districts, amending the physical and digital versions of the land development regulations, providing for codification, severability, a savings clause, conflicts, and an effective date. Thank you, Mr. Ezra. Mr. Alpert. Good evening. Good evening, council members, mayor, city attorney, sorry, Mr. Ezra for that, city clerk, Michael Alpert, assistant director of planning, zoning, and economic development. On March 6, 2024, the city conducted a joint council and board parking workshop that included the Planning and Zoning Board, Midtown Gateway, Affordable Housing Advisory Committee, and Sustainability and Resiliency Advisory Board. From June of 2024 until March of 2025, the city council adopted a temporary moratorium on development applications in the vicinity of the Broward Mall in order to implement a nine-month zoning and progress period to give time for staff to develop revised regulations to guide the future mixed-use development of this part of Midtown. After two workshops on both of these topics, the Planning and Zoning Board voted 6-1 on May 20, 2025 to approve these amendments. Note that the exhibits include draft text with new language underlined and removed, stricken through language in red font after the workshop and before the public hearing at Planning and Zoning Board, and with new language underlined and removed language stricken through in blue font since the Planning and Zoning Board vote. So there was some additional changes that were made subsequent to the Planning and Zoning Board, mostly clarification items, and as we continue to get received comments. With a few exceptions, most of the revisions deal with corrections and reformatting of language, not major policy changes. So I will discuss the major themes of those policy changes tonight. Some of the aims of the update include ensuring that the language is alphabetical for ease of discovery and for reading, gender-neutral, positive, simplified, and streamlined. Tables and graphics were added to supplement and or replace lengthy text. Keep in mind that as new federal and state statutes are adopted, we have to continually modify our ordinances, for example, the electric vehicle charging stations. We will provide an overview of the major themes and policy changes. So I'm showing this map because this is the areas that we talked about in our October 26, 2023 Comprehensive Planning Workshop, where most of the development is happening and redevelopment, and a lot of the changes are mainly to in these particular areas, which are primarily commercial and mixed-use areas. Most of the city, as you can see from this map, which is not in the red color, are primarily single and multifamily subdivisions with some commercial centers. But these are our areas, including Midtown, Gateway, and some other areas where we're seeing a lot of redevelopment activity. So we have defined this in the code as priority redevelopment areas. I wanted to touch upon a few major themes, affordable housing incentives. So within this massive amendment are some incentives to help facilitate the construction of affordable housing development. So one of them is to reduce the minimum amount of parking by 25 percent, where a minimum is required for dwelling units that are committed to long-term affordability criteria. Another is to increase allowable heights in certain gateway districts to allow for denser, compact buildings that are able to incorporate parking. Another is to provide for minimum setback reductions of 25 percent for housing that is at least 50 up to 100 percent workforce housing. And there are incentives within the new TOD district that is proposed. Parking. So the draft parking ordinance, which is all of Article 8 and portions of other articles, does the following. Reduces the minimum amount of parking and institutes a maximum amount for certain uses within the Midtown area. Eliminates the minimum amount of parking and institutes a maximum amount for certain uses within the Gateway Overlay district, subject to a city-approved parking study. The same thing for areas that are designated transit-oriented corridor and are rezoned to the future TOD zoning district, which would be located along arterial roadways. These are all areas that have current and future transit potential and the most significant economic development and redevelopment activity. In addition, this section maintains the requirements generally for the rest of the city, outside of the defined priority redevelopment areas that I mentioned earlier, including existing single and multifamily residential subdivisions, commercial centers, office buildings, and so forth. Amends certain drive-through vehicular stacking requirements. Amends certain loading requirements. Addresses reserve parking policies. Removes the requirement for electric vehicle charging stations, which is preempted to the state of Florida in terms of regulation. Addresses bicycle parking policies. This is an example of some of the tables that are within the exhibits. This one at the top discusses the different types of residential, and the columns include what the requirement would be for the Gateway area, for the Midtown area, for any area that becomes rezoned to TOD, and then the rest of the city, which there isn't that much change. And it references other sections for certain types of uses. At the bottom is a chart specifically for multifamily residential, particularly the areas in these redevelopment areas, where we're recommending lower amounts for the minimum parking. Central Midtown Village. In addition to online notification of the proposed ordinance, 1,316 notices were sent to all property owners within the adjacent area, which is a 1,000-foot radius, to the central Midtown Village. This document, which is on our website, was approved by previous councils, and it had some recommendations on how to the future potential of the Midtown area. So this is obviously hard to read, just wanted to show you that it has the map of the Midtown area, and some of the recommendations included changing the baseline density from 25 to 50 units per acre and distinguishing three urban villages, which tonight we're focusing on the central Midtown Village. So within this overlay district, the regulations that we're proposing promote walkable pedestrian-oriented redevelopment with open space plazas, new automobile-oriented uses, such as gas stations, drive-throughs, self-storage, storage and distribution, and big-box retailers will be prohibited. New buildings shall be constructed closer to the perimeter and internal roadway network, 100-foot maximum, build-to line, while most of the parking will be hidden from view. And parking shall not be constructed closer than 125 feet from these boundaries, except for a small area of parking, which is defined as 50 spaces or less. This is an aerial view of the area that was designated as central Midtown Village, Broward Mall, and other commercial and office and developments that surround it. So the northern boundary is Broward Boulevard, the southern boundary is Southwest Sixth Court, and the western boundary is Pine Island Road. The eastern boundary is actually the canal just east of University Drive. So large areas of parking that is greater than 50 spaces shall be prohibited in one area, and integrated buildings and parking structures are encouraged. Single-use out-parcel development would be prohibited. Parking to be shared by all uses with a focus on pedestrian connectivity and open pedestrian plazas, inherent to a master plan. And wall signs shall be encouraged to maximize business identification, both outward-facing and internal to any public areas. Transit-oriented development. Why have TODs? Walkable tree-lined streets that produce shade for pedestrians. More housing options. Easier access and support for existing and future high-quality transit. Complete streets that accommodate pedestrians, bicyclists, motor vehicles, and public and private transit options. Reduce parking demand. Better streets, pathways, parks, and open spaces. Support for local businesses and jobs. Reduce carbon footprint. Stronger sense of place and community. TOD requirements. It would include more restrictive uses than the current Midtown, Plantation Midtown District, in order to encourage uses that are more pedestrian and cyclist-oriented and less automobile-oriented and conducive to a mixed-use environment where parking is shared by all users. No minimum parking requirements with a maximum amount for certain uses, provided that the applicant for rezoning to TOD provides a qualified parking study. A minimum of 10% of the units shall meet affordability criteria. Encourages a diversity of uses and housing types and income levels for future residents, employees, and patrons. Encourages sustainable design. This is a slide that we had shown when we had that comprehensive planning workshop. Development is happening near transportation hubs and major employment centers. So it describes what a transit-oriented corridor is. These are some images. And this is something that we're coordinating with other agencies in Broward County and regional planning agencies as well. Again, the focus is to maximize pedestrian connectivity and minimize vehicular activity. There are height incentives built within this section. And this includes a base height for properties that are located west of Pine Island Road and east of Hiatus Road to start at a baseline of three stories. For properties that directly abut residential property on two or more sides, it would be four stories. And a base height for properties that are separated from residential property by an arterial roadway, it would be nine stories. Ten-foot step-back shall be applied after the third and sixth stories and every third floor thereafter. And up to three additional floors may be allowed by right if it meets certain criteria and or design-related aspects related to housing affordability or to parking or rooftop gardens and other sustainable design elements or having a majority of one-bedroom and studio micro-units versus having a lot more two- and three-bedroom units. These are the major transit corridors of the city. Obviously, Sunrise Boulevard, Broward Boulevard, Peters Road, Pine Island Road, University Drive, State Road 7. And again, this map that I showed earlier, these are areas that potentially could be transit-oriented development district zones. This is the Midtown Development District. This is what we would call Area 1 of transit-oriented corridor along Sunrise Boulevard. This is what we call Area 2 along Broward Boulevard. And, of course, the gateway itself. This is hard to see, but I actually enlarged it, the portion north of Broward, and then the next slide is the portion south of Broward. Still a little hard to read, but this talks about the number of units that have been approved in multi-family residential and some mixed-use projects within the Midtown area. And here is the area to the south. I don't know if you would like to look at that a little closer, or I can move on. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Can you go back to that slide? Sure. May I, Mr. President? Go ahead, Council Member Hoyland. So I just want to clarify, Mr. Alpert, that what you're showing there is the density that is- that was actually approved for those units, because I think that there has been a misperception that the density has been lowered. So I just wanted to make sure that everybody looks at those numbers. Yes. Okay. That's the actual density that's there, because I think sometimes the perception is that those are lower density. I think when we're approving new projects, it's important to think about some of these existing, pull one out, like Amly. So driving on Peters Road and looking at that, that's actually 60. Yes. A density of 60 units for it. Okay. Thank you. Can you go back a couple of slides to- Sure. Before the buses that looked like they were going through a tunnel? Yeah. You know that one? I didn't know we had tunnels. Can you go back to the slide before that, please? Okay. That one. Thank you. So I want to understand this. The base height for properties that are separated from a residential property on an arterial roadway would be nine stories. Yes. And the incentive is of up to additional three floors, so they could go up to 12. Correct. I'm understanding that? Yes. Okay. I'll save the rest of my questions. Thank you. Maybe we'll stick with that for a moment. Is that if you could go back onto the map that have the areas marked off? I think I went the wrong way. Excuse me one second. Go forward. Sorry. There we go. Okay. Just go forward so that it identifies all the areas. Sure. Okay, so the question that Council Member Horland asked regarding the 349 incentives, what areas could there be utilization of the incentive of nine stories? Okay, so if it… I don't know if you have the pointer that maybe could help. Okay. So, for example, this property right here, Jacaranda Square, would not. That would be one that would be limited to three stories because it has residential on two, actually three sides of it. Potentially, those properties north of Sunrise Boulevard, I think quite a few of the properties within Midtown. That's probably most of them. That would be able to utilize that incentive. Right, because of the placement of residential properties, the proximity of those properties. Would anybody, any of those fit in area two? I think possibly… I think there would be. I think there would be an area two, and I would want us to look closely at that because although it's on the transit-oriented corridor, right, it's a TOC because it's on Broward Boulevard. Sure. I do think that that location is a little bit different than Gateway District, right in the middle, Midtown, and then Area 1. Right. I think that if you are… I think Area 2 encompasses right around where Plantation Diner is and encompasses… Right. I think East Acre is a little bit more to the west. I don't think… Right, but I don't think that would mean the main stories. Correct, so if you were to look at the, I think Councilmember Fadgen, that section right there, is that included in Area 2? I don't think it would meet the criteria to have the nine-story base height. Three-story. Three-story, yes. So, as I was getting at, but thank you, Councilmember Fadgen, for jumping in, is that I do think that Area 2 should be excluded from the TOD zone. I wouldn't want to see that we were, by trying to do something helpful with these incentives, that we were putting it in the wrong neighborhood, in the wrong section of town, meaning that Midtown is really devoted differently than, I think, that Area 2 portion, and same with Area 1. So, I'm going to start with that, and I think there will be other more specifics in terms of the sections, but, Councilmember Horland, I see… Are you still on? No, no. Okay. I didn't mention Gateway, Gateway's on the edge, I think, I don't think, I think it is viewed differently than that Area 2 section. I'm most concerned with those, the way that it would fit there, but I'd be open to hear thoughts on how these incentives could, may not fit for Gateway District as well. So, by all means, Councilmember Andrejo. I thought your original question was, in which areas could this apply? And then I thought, Mr. Uppert was going through the whole map to say where… And then he said no to, he said he didn't think any would fit in Gateway, that would apply to Gateway? Because, right. Is that accurate? I'm sorry, I missed that. Okay, so, two separate issues. I said earlier in the proposal that we were recommending height increases on three of the six Gateway districts, existing Gateway districts. So, if they don't re-zone the TOD, we are recommending not in Artisan Commerce, not in Professional Office, and not in… I forgot the third one, but in the other three, Four Corners, Hybrid, Commercial, and what's now known as the Healthcare Services Gateway districts, we are recommending increasing the heights from either 42 and 48 to 75 feet. Right, and so, my question was very focused on the TOD zones that… Separate from what may be also in there in regards to those particular areas of Gateway is that I don't believe that Area 2 fits well as a TOD zone when looked at for the purpose of these incentives and granting these additional stories. Okay. Would you want to exclude them completely from TOD or just on the height aspects? At this point, I think excluding Area 2 from the TOD zone fits. I'd be open to hear if there was other reasons to keep it, or if you wanted to suggest some other reasons, but I just don't think that the way that… It may be on the same corridor, but I don't think it's situated the same way as these other sections of our city are. Okay. There's a lot of sections here, so anybody want to jump in? Anywhere you want to jump in. I just do want to reiterate, although they're showing on the map, Gateway and Midtown, there are already development incentives currently before we make any amendments that foster this type of development already. So they may… property owners within these two areas may not want to rezone the TOD. It's just seeing if we want to. So if the pleasure of the commission is to exclude certain areas, then we will come back second reading with a different map. Right. So if I understand it correctly, is that we're talking about creating permitted use instead of conditional uses, so that you're giving an opportunity for the property owners to agree to the TOD, and if they do, then they are going to have more permitted uses as opposed to that would fit within TOD, right? More incentives that are automatic within TOD. I think you're speaking about the height itself primarily. Well, that was the one that I was focusing on. The actual uses, the types of uses… Would change as well. …are going to be more restrictive than some of the other districts that we currently have. Okay. Because we want to have a pedestrian-oriented environment, not one that's focused on automobile-related uses. So they'd be agreeing to more restrictions in some respect… Yes. …and be allowed other… Correct. …allowances in terms of incentives, which would go towards height. Yes. Understood. Thank you. Does anybody else want to jump in, in any other particular area? Okay. If not, then I'm going to go to section… Exhibit L is the way that I have it, but it is… Hold on one second. It's the reference to the one ground sign with the electronic message board. Okay. I have this correct. It's… L? Well, it's Exhibit L. I think it's Section 2793. It's Exhibit L. 2793. Right. It's near the end. Actually, right before the central Midtown Village overlay is the Plantation Walk Entertainment District. Correct. If you could just refer to a page number. Yeah. So, well, the book that I have, it's page 28 of 30. I have it as Exhibit L, and if you probably did a search for Section 27-93, I don't know if you have an ability to search for it and put it up on the screen either. It's 28 of 30 electronically as well. To me, this was almost a needle in a haystack, right, is that there's obviously a lot in here that we're looking at, and this one did catch my attention. This is an underlined, so it's a brand new addition. It's not an edit to something that was existing there. It's… Correct. It's allowing for approval of an electronic messaging board up to 12 feet in height in this particular Plantation Walk District. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. I don't see any need in our city for an electronic messaging board. I don't think that it fits with our city. I'd be interested to hear other people feel differently, but, you know, it's one thing to come before us and ask for a…ask for it. It's another thing for it to be in here as a right. And if any applicant wanted to come before us and ask for a particular addition, a particular use, by all means, we'd hear it. I'm just not sure about it becoming codified. I see that the mayor followed by Councilmember Horland. Thank you very much. How it was presented. I kind of agree with you. I think we come…somebody come to you and just ask it. That would be one thing. The thing I see at Plantation Walk is that plantation residents know where Plantation Walk is. But University Drive, as you all know, people from Tamarack, Sunrise, Coral Springs, come down University and they have no idea that Plantation Walk is there. So, if we could put it in a place on their property, promoting only their events and only their things, nothing extra, but saying, here's what's going on at our place and that we're under control, I think that would be something that would serve that area and I think it's appropriate. Thank you. And I have some thoughts on that, but I'm going to move to Councilmember Horland and then Councilmember Andreo before I turn it back to me. Thank you for that, Mayor. We do have electronic signs utilized by the Parks Department at two of our Parks location. I wish some of those had been executed a little bit better, but they are there. I tend to agree with you, but when we're looking at this overlay district, I don't want to see it in this policy. I would rather that the applicant come in it, and I did have a conversation with the applicant and I knew what they were, it wasn't a formal conversation, it had to do with something else, but he said, hey, this is what we're looking at. I think that to the mayor's point, we would have to consider that on a case-by-case basis, but I do want us to keep in mind with that development, it is very difficult to see what's going on there. Entertainment is definitely driving a lot of the traffic. I think things will get better once they open up the southern portion of the residential because they do need the density there to be able to sign some of these leases, and I hope that the retail will improve and the restaurants will improve there, but I think that, again, I don't want to see it in the plan, but I do think it's something that if it comes before us that we need to consider on a case-by-case basis, because to the mayor's point, I think it will help the activity there. Council Member Andrey. I would agree with some of that. I think 12 feet is absolutely too high, and I did see a proposal from that particular entity, and it was massive. So I do not think this should be included if they do want to come, because I know they do need some signage, but, you know, come separate and apart with that request. It should not be included in this. I think it also would open up to others, because this was only for Plantation Walk? Yes. Or was it for the whole Midtown District? No, the Plantation Walk Entertainment District only. Oh, just for them. Yeah. I just, I can't agree to the 12 feet in height. And then we didn't even mention the size once you go that high. So I would also agree. Is this the best way to do this, is we're going to go by exhibit by exhibit? So when I asked if anybody had anything they wanted to go through, so if, I mean, we could do it that way, but if nobody has, you know, if people wanted to jump in because there was something very specific, which is why I just moved right to this. No, I just, I have some notes too. But if you want to go exhibit by exhibit in alphabetical order, I think that's okay. Sure. I'm happy to do it that way. Let's just finish with this one, because I guess, Council Member Andreu, to your last comments, is that do you feel that it's necessary to keep this in here, or if we remove it all together and allow each applicant to come before us, that would also serve the purpose? I think that would serve a better purpose, to remove it all together. So I think that's the consensus as far as this one. And I just wanted to also comment is that I was just at Ford's Garage this afternoon and been to the shopping center a few times this past week, and I'm not sure, signage they need. There's no question. They want more people there. They want to increase their business, but they also need those tenants to move in. And so, you know, whatever, if the property managers or whoever, the owner of the property is listening, we need to do everything we can to get those tenants in there. Because, you know, even Ford's Garage wants somebody to move in next door to them, because they, you know, more traffic in there will help everybody. And so it's, I think there's a combination of things, maybe in addition to some additional signage that, and I did speak to this applicant as well. So that's maybe what also surprised me that it was in here, because I thought the applicant was going to be coming before us regarding it. But nevertheless, that's for that one. We can go back to Councilmember Andreu's suggestion, which would be fine. We'll start with Exhibit A, which is Section 2711. Does anybody have anything they want to speak to regarding Exhibit A? Can I ask a general question, too? Because now I don't know which exhibit this is in. But there are some changes that will affect owners of some of these said properties or even possibly those renting. And I saw in one section, I'm sorry, I didn't make note of it here. But in one particular exhibit, they have until March of 2026 to comply. How are we going to notify those tenants or owners of that so that we don't have a compliance issue come March? Right. So this is a request from the police department. This is relating to shopping cart corrals. A lot of times people take them off the property and they become an issue. Some other cities are looking at this. And so the compliance date that's being talked about is March. If that concept passes first reading, we will work with police department and start notifying those property owners that this is coming. If it's the pleasure of the council to give them more time or if you agree to implement this. This is a strategy the police department had asked for to see if we could have a better sense of controlling what happens to their cart corrals. So Mr. Alpert, will they be fined after that point? We would have citations and so forth and we would work with those property owners. Again, that's an item for discussion if it's the pleasure of the council to do this. And then on some of the exhibits, were we using, like on the land descriptions, were we using the actual verbiage from like the property appraiser? Or because on some of the land descriptions, I saw like reference points and it didn't seem like that. And I didn't check to see if that was from the property appraiser. But for instance, Toys R Us was mentioned, right? And we know that's no longer on Broward Boulevard. So are we using the legal description from the property? So what you're referring to is already actually in the code. And so when it was, when the Plantation Walk Entertainment District was adopted, it was adopted with that legal description. I actually tweaked it because I read it and there were some typos, things like that. But I think that's still the legal description even though Toys R Us is not operational. Okay. It will always be Toys R Us to some of us that property. I will certainly double check it, but I don't think that the legal description has changed. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so we'll continue to go through and what I'll do is I'll read the exhibit letter as well as the reference section because it's the section that may be helpful to others. So next is exhibit B, which is section 27-71 zoning districts. Maybe I have a question as to that and maybe this, I'm not sure it actually goes directly to exhibit B, but when we were just talking about the entertainment district that is for Plantation Walk. Yes. And do we have any other entertainment districts in our city? No. And would, I mean when I think of entertainment in our city in addition to Plantation Walk, I also think of the Broward Mall property. Would becoming an entertainment district be beneficial to the properties on the Broward Mall property? And I don't know if you've had any discussion with that. I know that there actually are some people here that do represent some of those properties. But any comments on that in terms of the decision for Plantation Walk to be an entertainment district and any others? I believe that was adopted in 2022 because there was a request from the owners of that property. So an overlay district is not a specific zoning district. It's a general district overlay and you don't rezone the other inherent zoning districts that are already there. So the underlying zoning for Plantation Walk is NPM Midtown. So other properties within Midtown, for example, the Broward Mall or others, they could ask to do an entertainment district. If it's the same thing, they could just take out Plantation Walk and leave the entertainment district overlay. Or if they want to create one for the Broward Mall or some other parcel, they could ask for us to amend that and designate them accordingly. And at this time, and I don't know how familiar they are with it, but the property owners have never asked for that, for the Broward Mall property? Not to my knowledge. And that's something that they would come and ask for as opposed to us making that decision first? I mean, how do you normally see that? If an applicant would like to do something like that, they would normally request that from administration, from staff, or they could come here and ask. Does anything that is before us now preclude them asking for that at a later period in time? No. Okay, so we'll move forward. Next, Exhibit C, Section 27-72, Residential Zoning Districts. I'm going to just keep going. You stop me. Anybody on council if you need. Exhibit D, 27-73 through 27 through 84 is a reserve section. Then Section 27-85, Commercial Zoning Districts, and the remainder of Exhibit D. Continue to Exhibit E, which begins with Section 27-86 for Mixed Use Zoning Districts. Continue through Exhibit F, which is Section 27 through 87, Industrial Zoning Districts. Continue through Exhibit G, which begins with Section 27-88, Office Zoning Districts. Council Member Andrea. Thank you. So for G, when we go to page one and then going over at the end of page one, it starts with the dimensional standards for the Office Park Plantation District. And then when we continue with the chart, which is very helpful. So thank you all for doing some of these as charts. But we're eliminating all of the maximum heights. Is that correct? In that district? No. We're not eliminating maximum heights. Can you explain that? Sure. So in the Office Park District, it had some heights, depending on the plot size of, you know, under 25 acres, between 25 and 50, 50 and 100, and over 100. And then it says currently 24 feet, two stories. The Office Park that's there, almost all the buildings are higher than that. So they're all either, they probably got waivers at the time. So what we decided, we looked at all the properties within that OP district. And so we're changing it to actually reflect what's there. There are, there's actually more than eight stories. I believe there's one building there that's nine, and there's also the hotel. I can't remember how many stories that is. And then we added some language that where it's closer to residential or community facility use, then that would have the lower four stories versus eight. But a lot of those buildings are already four, six, eight stories as well. But if they are 200, within 200 feet of a single or multifamily residential. Right. In this case, in that case, it would be the properties, the residential properties across the street on Pine Island. Correct. Like Turtle Run, is it, or? Turtle Run and Jacarenda Cove, I think, and yeah. But we've increased it from two stories to four. The existing buildings are taller. Are four. Right. Okay. And another aspect to that is there's actually a beautiful buffer along the eastern, the western edge, the eastern perimeter of Pine Island, the western edge of those Office Park properties. Okay. Yeah. So these changes were really aligned to what's already in place. It reflects a lot of what's already in place, yes. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Okay. Exhibit H, beginning with section 27-89. Exhibit I, beginning with section 27-90. Exhibit J, beginning with section 27-91. Exhibit K, beginning with section 27-92. Exhibit L, which is the section 27-93 overlay zoning district that we've already been speaking about. One further thing on Exhibit L. Mr. Albert, I know that we previously spoke about the section in referring to the signs. Yes. And that is under G, page 27 of 30. While this is referencing signs in this particular entertainment district, I just wanted you to confirm that there's an overall sign ordinance that is being worked on and revising. Yes. Yes. You will see a sign code probably in the fall, amended sign code. Okay. Not with respect to any changes that were within this, just generally we're updating it. Next, Exhibit M, section 27-100. Exhibit N, section 27-105. Exhibit O, article 8 on parking. I would like to ask about O. Go ahead, Councilman Madreo. Thank you. Thank you. So, page 7 of Exhibit O, where we talk about any garages built after this ordinance. Can you tell me about the, they must incorporate the smart parking system technology? Good catch. And so, I have no idea. It seems like that might be a real additional added expense. I don't know what the smart system technology, when I've seen them too, and I will tell you, I've seen several in airports that don't work efficiently or effectively. So, I'm just, I'd like to know a little bit about why we're incorporating that. Okay. Actually, initially it was captured more properties. We did change it because it was a comment that came when it went to one of the planning and zoning board hearings to now apply to new mixed use projects within Midtown. So, the smart technology in the parking garages, you've seen them in airports. You've seen them probably in some of the parking garages along Dixie Highway near the beach and so forth. In my opinion, actually, they are helpful because they'll tell you there's seven spaces left in the garage, or if the garage is full. So, if the garage is full, then you try to seek alternative parking rather than going up all the ramps and so forth. I understand there is a cost per space of somewhere between $500 and $1,000. It is something we're recommending. Again, it's a policy issue if the council would like to do it. We just think it would help with efficiency. I don't know how my colleagues feel. I mean, I think it's a great addition, but again, you know, mandating it in the policy, I'm not sure. Again, especially, I just, it seems like a great expense. I don't know if you have any insight as to if that is a very expensive feature for a garage. I'll jump in on that, Councilmember Andrea. I thank you for bringing that up. To me, it's one of those needles in the haystack here, right, is that, and I miss that. So, thank you for, it may be wonderful for some people, but it sounds, I don't want to use the word overreach in sound, but, yeah, I don't see that as a mandate. It's a wonderful thing to recommend and suggest, but the idea of requiring it, I, frankly, in the airports, they don't usually work anyway. I'm usually driving down that same lane anyway to look for the parking spots, and usually they're there. So, I don't know the technology, but at least what I've seen when those are being used, the technology is not working well enough and precise enough, and probably, it's probably costly. So, anybody else have any further thoughts on including that in here? I concur. I would take that out. I think that's something if it wants to be suggested during the development review process, but I don't see that we would have the need for it. Okay. Councilmember Andrea. Sorry, Councilmember Anderson was next. I just, I concur. I think it's excessive to request. Encourage is fine, but I don't think it should be required. Okay. Councilmember Andrea, did you want to finish on that? Thank you. And then, going on to page seven, and I think it's section 27, 123, the off street parking, and looking at item A. A. So I know when we had our discussion, I think there were kind of some mix. You probably didn't reach a consensus when we were talking about parking. And I know personally I had recommended reducing but not eliminating parking minimums. But then here I do see we're eliminating this in the gateway. So I don't know, maybe about line five, if you're following with me, within the gateway district, we're going to be eliminating the minimum parking requirements. Is this only for off-street parking? Yes. Where in the gateway do we currently have off-street parking? Well, off-street parking is parking that's on the parcel itself. Okay. Not in the right-of-way. Okay. So I personally disagree with that. I would like to strike that. Again, I'm a proponent for reducing it, but I didn't want to eliminate the minimums altogether. So I don't know if anybody else wants to chime in. Yeah, I do, but I'll let the mayor join in first. I think a piece of that is related to if we build affordable housing in that area, especially with senior housing, where there are people who there's not as many drivers around, and I think that's kind of where this emanated, right? That's part of it, yes. Yeah, that's a piece of it. You see what I mean? But again, then let that specific project come and ask for a reduction or even an elimination for that specific project. But I think including it in the ordinance opens it up to everyone. But I think the intent of that is if you know that you're not going to have to go through council and face the idea. Our council is good and logical. Four years from now, God only knows. So if you have to face council and you're a person looking at building a plan and everything, you pour a bunch of money into it, and you go, shoot, I've got to go to council over this thing that you're going to get anyway or could get anyway, that's where I think it's problematic. But you're going to vote however you all want. But that's just my opinion. So I'll just comment on that, though, is that I look at it as that by eliminating the minimums, we're not eliminating the need for a business to determine how many parking spots they need, right? So that if a business decides to reduce it to the extent that they're not able to get sufficient number of customers because they can't find parking spots, then that's on them. I mean, a lot of times we may have businesses that come before us, and I may think, I'm never going to shop at that type of business, right? But it doesn't mean they don't have a full opportunity to succeed or fail. So I look at it as that removing the minimums is providing more opportunities for the businesses. It's not taking away opportunities. If I may. So affordable housing facilitation is part of the reason. Another reason, the distinction between this and Midtown is the size of the parcels. Many of them are one acre or less, and if they're trying to, and that's why we also had some changes to height, some changes to setback, in order to help facilitate the redevelopment of this area. So just, I guess I need to reiterate, by eliminating the minimum, it doesn't mean they won't have any parking. It means it will go to DRC, it will go to Planning and Zoning Board, and it will come before council, and we will scrutinize the parking study that they're going to submit. The same types of parking studies we're already looking at when applicants are asking for a parking waiver to reduce the minimum. It's the same thing. It's just we're saying you don't have to go by a code, but you do have to provide parking. If somebody came and wanted to build 100 units and 100,000 square feet of retail on one site, and they said, oh, but we want zero parking, we would not. Staff would not recommend the approval of that. That doesn't make any sense. So we would scrutinize it. We would have our traffic consultants scrutinize it. It would be vetted all the way up to the site plan approval granted by the council. So I know the language seems like we're not requiring parking. They still need parking to make the site plan work. And I'm absolutely in favor of, I should have probably led with that, all of the positives and the hard work that went into this. And it absolutely is encouraging, you know, more walkability and for residents to bike. And so there are so many excellent positive aspects of the revisions and the changes you're recommending that just eliminating it did worry me. But altogether, but okay. Councilman Anderson. Michael, to follow up what you just said, thanks for clarifying. So we won't have a set minimum, but they still have to come and justify. Yes. And it's going to get vetted all the way up through the final council vote. Yes. But how do you, I don't know how I can, I'll just talk through it. Sure. I assume your expertise, yours and Danny's or whoever's in those seats in the future, you're not just looking at the project now. That building's going to be there for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And they could be very short-sighted and want very minimal parking. Yes. So it's not just the thing going in. Right. So is that up to you all to use that expertise that they're not going to be too limiting? Yes. That it might fit the particular thing now, but you're looking for the whole picture later? Yes. And uses can change over time. They could, another property owner in the future buying that property could say, I want to convert this commercial property to a hotel or to an apartment building. And then they find that they don't have enough parking. Yes. So that's a consideration when we're looking at their parking study. And would that be kind of standard that a parking consultant, both on their side and on our side, would also compact those in? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. Council Member Fadgen. I just want to add what Council Member Anderson said. I don't think a developer is going to be short-sighted because part of, you know, when you're developing a property is the viability of the property to make people not want to come to their property. So like you said, if there's not enough parking, you're just going to avoid it. And then the second thing is they don't want to depress the value of them when they want to sell the property. So they have to build a property that's going to work. So I think there's a lot of constraints in there that will, they'll come up with the right number and they'll bring their expertise and they'll justify the parking. And like, like Michael said, is that we'll push back and say, you're not considering this or whatever. And we don't have to approve something if we feel like it's too low. So I really don't feel like it's a huge problem because, you know, the real estate developers, we've all met, it seems like they all want to make money. So that's, I just, that's, I don't think this is an issue. Okay, let's move on if we can. I'd like to turn to page 24 of 39 in, we're still in, we're in, still in O, parking, section 27125, page 24 of 39. We're at time limited reserved parking designations. Yes. Can you walk, walk us through what, what is being added here? Okay, this, so the city currently doesn't allow reserved parking for most of the properties that actually have them. And I'm, I'm speaking specifically of commercial properties. The current code section that's in place refers to office parks. So it had some aspects to office parks, but there's a lot of shopping centers around town that have to go, well, they have different types of reserves, but a lot of it's to go. So, exactly, Uber Eats to go pick up, this is my parking for my business only, we're in a shared shopping center. So, we've seen a lot of problems, and it's understandable for the businesses, they definitely want their customers to have. So, let's be clear, we get a lot of, we get calls, a lot of complaints saying, why are there these reserved spots that are only serving a few people and not everybody at particular. Yes. Whether it's department stores, whether, whatever the business is, and we respond that if it's not permitted, we're, we're citing them, right? I mean, that's, that's a, it's currently a violation of our ordinance. Correct. So, this is an attempt to provide some businesses those designated spots, right? Exactly. Okay. So, I was hoping you would discuss this, because I would love some feedback from the council, where do you want to go with this? So, we highlighted a couple uses that, that are the normal ones that you see, but of course there's other types of businesses. For example, dry cleaning pickup, and then the takeout restaurants, and the ones that have the to-go menus, and so forth. Those are probably the predominant uses. We also gave a time frame, but we, that's certainly debatable, or if you want to change that, or, or not go with that. So, let's talk this one out for a minute. Sure. It's, that it's providing time-limited reserve parking designations, allowing for vehicles to park for 15 minutes or less, and for 30 minutes or less, and some other circumstances. What is the, what is the mode, what is the method of enforcement? How, how, we're putting something in our code that, are we, are we now saying that, you know, if you see somebody that is parking in one of those spots for longer than that period of time, that you should be calling our non-emergency line police department? I mean, what, what are you thinking about in terms of how this would be enforced? No, that's a good point, that's a good point, and I don't think it should be on the city to enforce. I think we should probably have a set of regulations, and it's the property owner's choice whether or not to do this with their tenants, and then they should be able to enforce it. So, definitely don't want to overburden. So, that's one of the concerns I have, have, and had when reading this, is that while, while, while I'm in favor of allowing businesses to treat their businesses the way that they see best, and we just talked about in terms of the number of parking spots, but the idea of putting something in our code that has no enforcement mechanism, or that, I think, frankly, would be impossible to enforce, you know, if they're there for 16 minutes, then they left, but they violated it for a minute, what's, it just doesn't make any sense to me. So, I'd be interested to hear from, from my colleagues on this. Councilmember Hoyland. So, I just want to clarify, so, do you think that there should be no reserved parking spaces, or do you feel that a business should be able to add them at their pleasure? So, good question. I appreciate it. So, I think that this could go towards our sign ordinance, is that if a property owner wants to put a sign up, and wants to restrict proper, wants to restrict parking spots in a, in a business, I, I think that may be up to them, as long as it complies with our sign ordinance. But the idea that it is a code, and where code enforcement has to play a role, um, that, to me, just doesn't, it doesn't follow. I agree with you, in part, I, I, and I had this conversation with Mr. Holmes and Mr. Upward today about the enforcement. I mean, we, we can't enforce it. I think the type of, you know, we spoke specifically about a dry cleaner. If I pull up and I see the sign that says, I'm on the owner's system, I get out of there in 15 minutes, I know that that space is just for me to run in, pick up my dry cleaner, and leave. I think where the problem has originated, my concern about is, is allowing businesses, because there have been businesses in the city, specifically one that we've gotten the complaints about, and that I've brought, I've spoken about it on this day, it's many times, and now some residents are upset that those spaces have been removed. Um, they went from four spaces to, like, 18. Um, and in a small parking like that, I, I think it's really, um, it does a disservice to the residents of this city who are shopping at that store. So, um, I'm not sure where we want to go with the code, but I don't, I don't believe that people should, um, once we have approved the parking for that development, that they should go ahead and be able to, at a later date, just reserve a lot of spaces for drive up. So, before I turn it over, um, Councilman, I agree with that completely. And I think that that could be dealt with in our sign code, um, that approval for signs on a property, um, could go towards, if a shopping center wants to have a parking spot for a Purple Heart recipient, God bless them, um, I, I think they should. Uh, if they want to have at a, at a grocery store for, um, you know, um, uh, parents with children or pregnant women, I, you know, I, I've seen those. There, there are communities that have those. Um, that should be up to them as long as it complies with our sign code. But the idea of the, um, the enforcement mechanism, um, instead it becomes, you know, that it will be the customers that will be upset. It will be the, to the detriment of a business. If they put up so many of these and it affects our ability to park in that, um, in, in that, you know, uh, in front of that business, then we're going to respond, I think, as customers to that business that we're not happy with the way you're doing it. Um, I, I just putting the, the burden on the city to enforce that doesn't fit. Um, Councilmember Andreo. Actually, I had highlighted number or letter C because that's, I did understand that. It's a maximum of two time-limited reserve spaces, um, without at least 18-foot distance. So, to that point. So, that was, in other words, in some cities I've actually have adopted, I did some research, some cities have adopted regulations that are like that. So, that would say you could reserve two spots next to each other. The two spots could be marked as reserved, but then you have to have a space that are not reserved. So, it's not basically taking a whole row, particularly for one business. So, um, I, I understand the, the things about the time restrictions and we shouldn't be enforcing it, but we would like to have some sort of policy in the sign code as well, but in, in this parking code in terms of getting approval from the city for a plan that shows it. Because we, we want to try to minimize issues. And then, but, two, right? Right. Can, it seems a bit arbitrary. So, I'm trying to figure out, I could have a very large business. Right. Like, I don't know if that was the one that Councilmember Horland was referring to, where I might have ten. It's a large business with a small parking lot. And, oh, okay. Then, no. And, but I could have a large business with a large parking lot, like somewhere else I'm thinking, off of Robert Boulevard, that has, I don't know, maybe 14 or so. Um, but they also have a lot of parking. And then, there's some smaller areas that might have four. So, I don't, the two is what threw me off. Why limited to two? They're not all together in one row, basically taking a whole row right in front of a shopping center for one particular business, or that type of thing. It's to kind of spread them out a little bit. But, so, some of these pull-up services, if you will. Right. Um, the, the people, the employees come out and wait. So, I don't think they're going to be, you know, um, staggered or have 18 feet between them and have their employees, you know, kind of running all over the parking lot. Again, these are suggestions. We'd love to get your feedback on what type of policy you would like. So, right now, most of these are illegal, because they're not permitted in the city's code. So, and we want to be customer-friendly and business-friendly. So, I'm looking further at two. So, two is broken down at A, B, C, D, and E. Um, I, I would be comfortable with A and B if that's what you felt you needed to have in here, as opposed to just waiting for the sign ordinance. Um, but, I, I don't think, I think two, C, D, and, and E, um, are, are more than what you need in order to, um, let our, our businesses know that they cannot reserve these spots without permission. Um, and, um, I would say sign code enforcement is not that easy sometimes as well. So, I would, with all due respect, I think it belongs in both, in the sign code and also here. Well, I'm not suggesting that when you get to the sign code, you can't add it. We're only talking about this one right now. Yes, yes. And, which is why to, your, in response to your request, is why I'm suggesting that we can leave in, um, A and B. Right. So, um, I just don't think that, um, the, the paragraph that begins to and sub C D and E are necessary to accomplish what we are focused on in terms of limiting these, uh, reserve spots without, um, without permission from, uh, from the city. So, let me turn it to, uh, Councilmember Hortland. I respectfully disagree on C and I think, um, if let's just call it out, it's target. Um, and the, the issue with that is if you have someone who is not necessarily doesn't have the handicap placard, perhaps they're older, um, perhaps they have a knee injury, um, and they can't find a spot close to that building. Um, it, it becomes very problematic when all the closed spaces to that building that are not handicapped, the regular spaces are taken up. So, I think the separation is necessary. I think there needs to be a diversity of, um, because I think it's doing a disservice. Let's say we, they're customers, but they're customers by and large are our residents. So, so you, you think that C include, so A, B, and C, so removing two, the, the first paragraph of two and removing D and E, but C would accomplish, um, what, what you're concerned about, even though A and B would still require them to come to the city to make these reserved requests. Okay. Yeah, I'd still would like to have them come to the city, uh, for the request. I mean, even if we wanted to go a maximum of three time-limited reserved spaces, but, um, you know, blocking out 12 to 16 spaces close to the building, I think it's, it's just overreach. And, and part of this was, there were two in tables that were inserted to, you know, depending on the size of the center to allow more for the center. And there's, there's two tables because one would be a multi-tenant center where there's more than one tenant and another would be a case of a single tenant, a single, um, establishment on the property. So it's, it's based on size, which, of the building, which generally would dictate the size of the parking field that they have. Mr. Opperson, are you suggesting that, um, that even with A, B, and C, that we would need to include E to B, to include your, the, the table that you're referencing? Please let me get to that section. Um, and can we just clarify, Mr. President, so D actually would apply to, um, a plaza that had a pizza place and a dry cleaner, correct? And a print shop. Yes. So that each of those establishments would only have one reserve spot. Right. And again, throwing out some ideas to the council, the pleasure of the council. I think two, two spots would be fair. I'm sorry, Council Member Hoyland, so are you? On D. So you, you would suggest to leave D, but change it to two? Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Okay. So, now we're back to A, B, C, and, and D, and I'm going to still leave the question to Mr. Alpert regarding whether there's a necessity to keep E in order to maintain the table. If we, because if we remove, if we remove E, then the maximum of two in C and D control, and it would not increase to, and I, I'm not really sure how you would have E work if you weren't including the maximum of twos anyway. So, D says a maximum of one reserve per distinct business, per distinct business. Okay. The, the table reference in E is for the center itself. So, for example, if they have over 500 linear feet on, on their facade, they could have nine for the entire property. Right now, one per business type of thing. Right, but if it's nine for the entire property, but you have, I mean, five businesses would mean 10, two for each would be 10. Am I missing the math here, right? Is that if we're now, if we're. Yeah, well, right now it says one. If you want to go to two. Right. We can rework the tables. Right. So, I, I, I, so I'm going to then, I'm going to go back to that we remove the paragraph that starts with two, and we remove E, and we just stay with A, B, C, and D. I think that covers these, the concerns that are being raised by council right now. Councilman Anderson, have you buzzed in? Or is it, was that previous? Sorry. I was right on this, but I'm not sure where I was going to insert my two cents, and time went by. But I, I, I do worry, like a little tiny plaza that's got, you know, eight or ten businesses, if you give them two each, that's, a lot of the parking is going to be reserved. It's, it's a lot. And then what about it, what about a large organization like Target or something like that? That's really large. Should they only get two? I know they've been excessive now, but should they only get one or two? They're huge compared to like a pizza spot. Right. The Target would fall under F, which is Table 125-2. So, uh, based on the size of the building, they could have, I'm not sure exactly what the size is, but probably either the five or the seven, as it currently shows. So that, that's a different case because they are the single business on that parcel. I didn't scroll to that next short. Unless we're removing F, right? I mean, if, if in, if in, on page 24 of 39, that begins at two, if we're removing that, the first paragraph and that we're only doing A, B, C, and D, then we're removing E and F. And so the restrictions are to the two reserve spaces per distinct business. And those two, um, have to have, have to comply with C as well regarding the adjacent space. Councilman Andrea. Am I incorrect in thinking that some of the, uh, owners charge the business for these reserve spaces? And so now if we were to implement this, I, I don't know if that's the case. I don't. Yeah. That's what I have been told, um, before. And so I don't know how that aligns with what we're doing right now, because, um, if I am a tenant and I want to reserve spaces, um, and my, you know, landlord, my owner is charging me for those two reserve spaces, but now, uh, it's in code that I would get to, are they still able to do that? Like, I'm just thinking this could have some unintended consequences that we're not really all the way, uh, um, that's, that's a good point. But remember, a lot of these are, have not been approved by the city and the policy. So we, one second, Mr. Abel, if I understood you correctly, I want to ask Mr. Israel is that if, uh, if the, if a tenant has a contract with a property owner for three reserve spots that have their company's name on it, and we now come in and say that the max, you can have two reserve spots. Well, there's a issue with potentially impairing a contract under the, uh, United States and Florida constitutions, how that would be interpreted based upon the fact that they were not permitted beforehand. So technically in violation, um, is a separate issue. So then the question that I have for you is, um, do you need more time to come back to us in terms of how to, what our limitations are on this? Or are we, if we were to vote on it as, uh, as being discussed, um, with these limitations without some type of caveat, um, you know, in terms of, uh, you know, existing, um, or, or, or just leave it as is, is, uh, are, are we putting ourselves in a position we shouldn't? I, I think you're talking about some pretty significant revisions to codes that have been in existence for a long time, uh, you're not going to be able to capture every scenario. There are going to be issues that are going to have to be addressed in the future. It's not uncommon. This is first reading of an ordinance. We don't know what it's going to look like between now and second reading. Um, my suggestion is to proceed with your policy directive. And as we have done in the past, if a resident or a business owner comes forward with an issue that council needs to address, I assume it would be addressed. Yes. Very good. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, so, uh, at this point, I, I'm going to suggest, uh, that we, um, that this one, two is, we delete the first paragraph of two and we leave A, B, C, and D and we, uh, delete E and F. Um, unless anybody wants to continue the discussion, um, we can move on and discuss it again at the second reading? Okay. Okay. Let's move forward then. There's a lot still in, uh, in O, but if there's nothing left to know, I'm going to move ahead to P, which is section 27-251 or begins with that section. Next to Q begins section 27-258. Next is R, which is a reserve section. Next is section S, section, excuse me, uh, exhibit S, section 27-296. Next is exhibit T, section 27-297. Next is exhibit U, section 27-299. Next is exhibit V, section 27-302. Next is exhibit W, section 27-303. Next is exhibit X, which is a reserve section. Next is Y, section 27-310. And that is the entirety. I wanted to, I'm sorry, you went so fast. Can we go back to R? R. R. Exhibit R is basically deleting that section because it becomes part of exhibit O, the driveway. The drive, that's what I wanted to ask, the driveway standards. Oh, so it's in O now? Yes, yes. Okay. And same with section 304, which is exhibit X. We're moving it from there, putting it into the parking article. Okay. And we'll come back and amend in the future driveways and so forth and other parking aspects in the future. This was so challenging because, you know, I don't know about my colleagues. It was a lot to try to navigate. And like I said, so many positive. I love the rooftop gardens, the bike lanes, even the A-frame signs for businesses. But it was a lot to try to comprehend. And I hope I didn't miss, I think Council President said needles in a haystack. So I hope that there aren't other elements that I was missing because I tried to go through it in its entirety, but it was challenging. Just to be clear, we're not done since we have quite a few residents that have signed up to speak on it as well. So if there's nothing further from... Oh, one more. Exhibit Y. I'm sorry. Y was my last one. And it was something with ADUs also. Let me get there. Something about it being owner-occupied. Are you looking at page 4 of 7G sub-E? Yes. The ADU section was part of, currently is part of section 27105, which is your exhibit N. We removed it from there and put it into this section because those are specific use regulations primarily for commercial properties. And this section is for residential lots. So I don't believe we really changed anything from the ADU ordinance that we adopted last year. It's underlined because it was stricken through in another section and placed here. And added in its entirety here. Yes. I don't see any changes from what was adopted. And we were keeping our eye on the state regulation, which allows us to keep what we adopted last March of last year. I think it was somewhere though where it said on page 4 that it must be owner-occupied. Yes. We had adopted that last year. That's the one that I was pointing out. Page 4 of 7. It begins with G1 and then E. Okay. Thank you. I'll let you go ahead and take public comment. Okay. Very good. Thank you. I have a number of public comments that have already, members of the public have already filled out speaker cards. I'm essentially calling them out in the order that I received them here at the desk. If there's somebody who's not already filled out a public speaker card, they're located in the back, and then you can bring them up to the city clerk. When I call you up, again, just to remind you, is that please state your name and your address and direct your comments to the council president, and please watch the timer. If you hear somebody speak that you are completely in agreement with them, you are welcome to pass your opportunity and just say that you rise in support or against or that you want to echo the words of the previous speaker. That is permitted. Okay. Mitch Rosenstein, you're first. Thank you, sir. Thank you all. Mayor, City Council, City Attorney, City Clerk. My name is Mitch Rosenstein, 3323 West Commercial Boulevard, Suite E220, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I'm here today with a perspective from someone who serves both on the AHAC and who is an affordable housing developer. Thank you for your support earlier tonight. We are planning to move forward on an acquisition of property in the CRA district, and it is a live case study of seniors' affordable housing directly impacted by zoning considerations. So I wanted to share a little bit of perspective. We are right up to 75 feet. The site is 0.8 acres, again, within the Gateway CRA corridor. We have two stories of parking, and that achieves, for 90 units, 0.75 ratio of parking spaces per unit, which came up during an earlier discussion when we first presented, which is probably more than we need. And we're doing that for long-term preservation, value preservation, and for convenience for our residents. But it is probably more than we need. So it's important because of the discussions as to whether the Gateway CRA district is part of the TOD also. We believe that it is. And two other notes. We're able to achieve 90 units, up to 75 feet with that 0.75 parking space ratio. With the proposed setback reductions for seniors for affordable housing, and with that 75-foot height, and, of course, with the parking variance, had we not had benefited or planned for the setback reductions for affordable housing and for a reasonable reduction in the parking, and for the 75 feet. We probably would have lost about 20, we counted about 20 homes, 20 units in our development. So just those modifications alone are going to allow us to one day serve an additional 20 seniors within that Gateway CRA. So we wanted to thank you for all the consideration. Thank you to staff for their hard work presenting it. And thank you for your support. That's it. Thanks. Thank you. We appreciate that. Next up is Beth Azor. And I will say that on deck is Paul Diarelli, followed by Matthew McIntosh. Thank you, Mayor, City Council, President, City Clerk, and City Attorney. My name is Beth Azor. I'm at 11173 Southwest 37th Manor in Davie, Florida. But I own 120 South Pine Island Road, which is the Starbucks Strip Center. And this ordinance is very concerning to me because the way we are reading it, if an explosion happened like we've had in plantation or a hurricane or a fire, that I would not be able to rebuild my Starbucks with the drive-through. I have a lease with them for many, many decades. So I would be sued. So we are trying to work with staff. But this is very concerning to me because it obviously would impact my property value. So I really want to get to the bottom of that. So that's my selfish comment on this new ordinance. But as a developer in plantation, I own the Aldi at Sunrise and Flamingo also. I'm concerned with some of these new requirements that you all are putting out in the world for the development community. And I would hate for you all to discourage future development, like limiting the fitness uses. I understand that we want plantation to have a certain appearance or a certain, you know, we want white tablecloth dining facilities. But we also need facilities, quick service restaurants. And since e-commerce took away retail, this is why we don't have a lot of retail, food and beverage has become the new anchor and the new draw. And most food and beverage operations since COVID are requiring drive-throughs. And again, the needle in the haystack not allowing fitness, boutique fitness would be something that I think the city would like. Pure bar, stretch zone, some of these fitness uses. So needle in the haystack. So I bought a 1970s building and I replaced it with something I think we are proud of. I'm very proud of it. So I want to encourage developers to come to plantation. And I just want to make sure that we're not putting up barriers to discourage us with some of these things that are in this big, beautiful bill. So thank you very much. And I hope I definitely need to get to the bottom of the Starbucks and the drive-through. So before we move on, can I ask you for the two main issues that I heard, you're concerned with the drive-through provisions and regarding limiting fitness. Can you, just so we're clear on the record, which section is the concern regarding the drive-through? I don't know. No more drive-throughs. Understood. I just want to make sure it's clear that we have it referenced. Mr. Alpert? Same with the limiting fitness uses. Yes. Exhibit L is what we've talked about earlier this evening, the central midtown village, but it references the table in exhibit E, the TOD. So the same permitted and conditional uses are at both tables. When we get to second reading, based on the results of the first reading, we will incorporate all that into the master business use, including the new TOD district. Having said that, we did hear concerns about the fitness. We changed that in exhibit M. Actually, not what will be exhibit M. That table I'm referencing in the TOD section to allow the boutique businesses a smaller type of fitness than, not like a 24-hour fitness, but a smaller boutique fitness business would be permitted in this area. Okay, so just to be clear is that the concern that is being raised regarding the limiting of fitness uses, that is in a yet-to-be-seen revision to exhibit M. Or you're saying it's in this? I think it's already in the table that, in exhibit E, that we made that change. It might be in red text or blue text. I think that's already. Sorry, I'm hearing L, E, M, which ones? So that is the table that's in the TOD district, which is also applicable to the central midtown village. Sorry, I want to go back again just for a moment because I want to make sure that I have it clear and that we know what we may want to go back to for second reading. Is that, let's start with the concern regarding the drive-through. That's located in our current exhibit L. Yes. Okay. And the concern regarding the limiting of the fitness uses that you're referring to as boutique fitness shops, that's in exhibit L also or exhibit M? Or you're not sure yet? It's in exhibit E where the table is located. Exhibit E. Yes. And just to be clear, you weren't sure which ones. I know you made the notes of it, but you didn't reference. Okay. That's fine. So unless the council has any questions as to those particular issues, it sounds like maybe we're going to look at it further before we get to this second reading. Right. So again, my concern is one, selfishly my concern is on my Starbucks that if something happens to that, that I can rebuild it with the drive-through as I have a contract to do so. Understood. That's selfish. Not on behalf of my peers in the development industry and for the city of Plantation, every hurdle we put up, it will discourage us to come to your town and do things like replacing a two-story ugly office building with something better. We hear you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. May I address the other concerns you had about the non-con... Yes, please. So we already have that language in Article 12, which is not up for tonight. If a structure is destroyed by fire, flood, windstorm, and similar, and it exceeds 50%, so basically if it's totally destroyed, it can't be rebuilt. I do want to reiterate... I'm sorry. It cannot... It cannot be rebuilt unless it meets code. The new code, whatever the new code is. That's already been adopted years ago. That's in our existing code. So if the situation that Ms. Azor mentioned came up, forget this amendment, it's already in there, what she fears, basically. If the total... The building is destroyed, if it's considered non-conforming, it has to be built to conforming code. Okay. I wanted to put that on the record. Secondly, it's not the intent of making, with these new regulations, making the existing development non-conforming. What it's saying is, for the Broward Mall redevelopment area in particular, we recommend not having drive-throughs in that particular property in the future. So there are existing drive-throughs within this area. There's banks, there's fast food restaurants, there's Starbucks, and so forth. It's not our intent to say they can't remain. It's our intent to say, for the redevelopment area, we don't want to see drive-throughs because it's not conducive to a pedestrian-oriented environment. There's other places in the city, you can build them. This particular area, we're hoping to have a special urban feel to it. Just to be clear though, the area that is being referenced regarding where the Starbucks is on the corner of Pine Island and Broward Boulevard, does that fall into the area that is the Broward Mall area that you're referring to? Yes. Okay, so she's speaking about the proper area. So the concern is understood. I think we need to address that with language that doesn't make these properties non-conforming because of this, if it shouldn't be adopted. Okay. But what we're saying is, we don't want to see new drive-throughs in the redevelopment of the Broward Mall. Which I think we may get to with the next speaker as well. Sure. Mr. Derelli. Good evening, Mr. Council President, members of the Council, Mayor, City Attorney. My name is Paul Derelli. I'm an attorney with Florida Zoning Law with offices at Two South University. And I do want to first thank the staff and this board for all the great work you do protecting and preserving and advancing this city. I've been a 23-year resident, raised my family here and intend to die here and have my business here on the hard corner across from Broward Mall. I have a long history with the property from the time I did entitlement work to bring the movie theater on to when I was at Seritage and we started the plan that was abandoned. And I really want to applaud some of the positive momentum and some of the things that are being done to loosen over burdensome parking standards on multifamily, for example, that don't meet current market requirements. There's really good stuff that's happening here. But there's some other things, to Beth Azor's point, that are going to chill development. I represent the owners of the, the new owners of the Sears site, Midtown Plantation, LLC. We're in the middle of a planning effort right now for an exciting, what we hope to be a very exciting mixed use destination. And as we're kind of running head on now with regulations that are going to, you know, that impede some of the design potential on the site as well as, you know, be a detriment to leasing efforts. Drive through is a perfect example. We don't know yet if we'll have any. We've been approached by some tenants. We think would be great fit in the product project tenants like when I'm not talking about the fast food. I'm talking about, you know, the elevated fast casual, but brands like, you know, Pura Vida and and others even Shake Shack that historically didn't even have a drive through associated. But post COVID, when so many restaurants realize that for future proofing their restaurants for continuity of operations, they've added them to their concept, even though it's not may not be a main driver of their business. They're part of their prototypes and they will not come. You know, if we have to take them, you know, if they're prohibited and not able to even advance through an orderly process because they're prohibited use. What I would urge really is to focus on optionality. Give this board, as I think we've heard in some of the other conversation, the ability to evaluate it on a case by case basis. If we can come through and demonstrate that we can cite a quality operator of a fast casual concept with the drive through that's in the right place in the project, that it doesn't ruin the pedestrian, you know, flow and connectivity, but adds to a complimentary mix of uses on with the project of this site size. And we are engaging with three upscale sit down restaurants right now to be very exciting to add to our community. We also need to broaden the offering to make sure we have something for the lunch customer. That's a little quicker and different price points. And so we want the optionality to bring those forward and have those considered. This is really tough because three minutes on a, you know, on a mother of a bill like this is really hard. We've engaged with staff. We provided comments. Some things were addressed and incorporated. Others were not. I would urge we slow this thing down and have more engagement with the property owner community to really think some of these things. We could have a 10 minute discussion on the pickup space, you know, in our perspective as property owners on that. And so I'll respect the three minutes, but I would respectfully request we have more really time to evaluate these engaging the development community. But before before you sit down and I appreciate you respecting the three minutes anything I know you generally referred to the amendments. Is there anything very specific that you want us to be looking back at? I know Miss Azor pointed to a couple and I asked where they were and Mr. Albert came up and tried to show him show us where they are. Do you have anything very specific that you want or you want us just generally to be looking at this issue of. Go ahead. Yes, I would, I would specifically say, you know, the, the prohibition on drive through is making them a prohibited use and not a conditional use. I think is problematic. I think you should retain optionality to consider those on a case by case basis. If you want to add in some additional criteria to consider if you're coming to bring one within the central village that add some additional considerations on how pedestrian interface, etc. But at least give yourself an opportunity to consider it. There's new and emerging concepts in retail every week, every year. And if you make it prohibited, you know, you may kick yourself in a year when somebody comes in. Understood. Let me ask you a pointed question though, is that, um, and I will say, um, one of your colleagues reached out to me, uh, the other day. So I had a little chance to think about some of, uh, this question regarding the, the, the drive throughs on that particular property location. And, you know, we have some other new restaurants that, um, have opened up recently on, um, uh, university and sunrise. And, um, couple of them are ones that I think do have drive throughs in other locations, but don't have drive throughs here. And instead, when you walk in, you see that they have the shelf that is, uh, for pickup, right? It's the Uber shelf. It's the, you know, um, um, whatever the other companies are that do, do pickup. Um, is, is that something that is workable in the way that you view your business structure that if it wasn't a drive through, but it was a, a, a quick pickup type situation. So it's a, maybe it's a pickup window or maybe it's the pickup shelf because it seems to be working in some of the other restaurants that didn't go the drive through route. Um, and instead, you know, utilize a, a different system. Is that something that you use or you would work for you? Yeah, I mean, I, that's the challenge at this stage. It's a, it's a tenant by tenant type of discussion and what they're willing to do in a particular location and circumstance and what they're not willing to do. And we really would like the optionality to explore it and bring it to you as a conditional use and say, here's why we think it makes. And that segues into the pickup, for example, if you have one and the way that the ordinance reads, you get one per business in a multi, you know, multi tenant in a shopping center, no more than two next to each other with the spacing. But I, you know, we're going to be certainly here asking for waivers. I can guarantee you that with every restaurant and I think I didn't see you buzzing. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Council member pageant. To your point, you know, what Mr. Derelli saying is, um, you know, uh, would be something to dress in a conditional use as opposed to a prohibited use. So that's my note here. Right. Is that that's exactly what I'm hearing overall is that, um, Ms. Azor as well is that, you know, instead of prohibited uses, we're talking conditional use. I understand. Right. And then if I could have just one more point, cause it ties back to the previous session on fitness, there was a change to allow fit fitness as a conditional use. Now I could understand that when there's a large gym and you want to evaluate the impact on that on parking. Well, we had suggested to staff, you know, and didn't get any traction with it is to make smaller boutique fitness, a permitted use. If the yoga place wants to come in or the cycle bar and take a 3000 square foot in line space and they have to run through a conditional use approval process, you know, they're going to choose to go somewhere else. These people have opening deadlines. You know, we're going to lose tenants that are going to go to Davey instead, or we may lose them to other projects, which frankly puts us at a competitive disadvantage, even though we may be right down the street. So there's a lot of things there that, you know, we just from a practical execution standpoint, make the easy stuff, a small format grocer or specialty grocer. Why would that need to be a conditional use? Do you guys want to see all of that? You know, leave the big stuff to come through, small boutique fitness, make it permitted. Let's make it easy to lease. You know, I know the mall shares some concerns in that regard too, is they have turnover in the food court and things. Why is jewelry a conditional use? That should be permitted. It's a jewelry store. I mean, there's a lot of stuff here and I appreciate you giving me a little bit more time, but I think there's a lot of concerns and we're moving fast and we don't have a really a great form to express that with you guys. We do hear what you are saying. So you may have wanted more time to express it, but I think we got the point and I do think there will be some more discussion before we get to the second. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Mr. McIntosh. Matthew McIntosh, 601 Northwest 82nd Avenue, apartment 531, Plantation, Florida. I just want to start first off. I work in the area too. It's all empty parking lots and commercial buildings. If there's a community there, I'm a part of that community and if that's the case, I say up zone it. It would greatly improve the area. When my coworkers do come into town, we often do Riverside Market, but would love to have more options in walking distance. And I believe rezoning to TOD would help provide those options. When I was living in downtown Fort Lauderdale on top of a Greenwise Marketplace, the Starbucks on Las Olas was my go-to place for the longest while. And there was no drive through there at that Starbucks. And since I moved to Plantation, I haven't been to a Starbucks because there isn't a Starbucks that's in walking distance. You say if you believe that allowing drive throughs adds optionality to it, it's actually exclusionary. You can have one or you can have the other. Drive throughs, they share the same plane of reality that we do. It's like if I want to walk there, then I have to walk through a drive through with all the changes associated with that. So if you need the option for the drive throughs, take it out of Midtown. If you want a place that has a drive through, don't put it in Midtown. Look at the downtown areas like in Las Olas. No drive throughs there, but Las Olas is doing pretty good business-wise. I did also want to just touch upon what we often get in the mindset of like you're thinking of yourself as an individual, where in a good way, like you want to support something that you yourself would want. You don't want to be like supporting something that you know you can't see yourself doing. But we have to remember that we're just individuals and not the entire community. For example, nearly 40% of teens delayed getting their license by one to two years, and 30% delayed by two or more years according to a 2020 study from the University of California. And the reasons that they listed is numerous. It was like economics, mental health, the ability to socialize online, so on and so forth. But that's just about one segment of the population that doesn't drive. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, one-third of Americans don't drive. So that's one-third of people that don't drive. But currently, like anywhere in a plantation, you can build a business with a drive-thru, or it's even mandated. But the same for Midtown and the walkable areas in the area too. Let that be the spot where those one-third of Americans can live their life without being restricted by cars. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Nguyen and Ms. Lutha on deck. Good evening. I don't know if you recognized me. Joe Nguyen, 944 Northwest 92nd Terrace. So, I think you basically know where I stand on the big picture of all of this. Right? I mean, this is, it is a lot of changes in small, excuse me, in small ways that all will add up to a fundamentally better city in the future. These are seeds. These are seeds. These are seeds for trees that literally all of us may not see fully grown. But some of us will see saplings, some of us will see them in a nice mid-height, 10, 12 feet, right at the amount where we can have a shade tree definition. So, that mindset is how we want to approach this whole thing, that it is for today, but it is also, I am sorry about that. This is when the group chat goes crazy. I will blame all of them. You can blame one of them who is currently out of the country now and I think you know who that is. But anyway, to come back around, you know, I heard earlier that people were concerned, rightfully so, of more traffic, more cars. But when we say more traffic and we go, hmm, we're talking about cars. But when we say more traffic and we mean feet or wheelchairs or any strollers, any other way that people get around on their own power, we think that's a great thing. We're thrilled, right? We know that the walk can only succeed when there are people walking. So, making places to facilitate more of that is going to be the path for plantation to be more profitable and more community centric for people because they will be able to interact with each other in the places they live. Just as a quick note, the character of area two right now is parking spaces. If you zoom in on the map on vector mode, you'll see that it is mostly parking space. It is a stunning amount of parking for that area. And just as a couple of very quick notes, parking garages, we're concerned about the costs incurred by any sort of smart systems. Parking garages typically can be about $30,000 per space for a developer to construct. This is a very minimal expense. And if done correctly, done in the way of like Disney Springs, it does actually make it really, really nice and wonderful. There are ones, I agree, that are terrible. Let's not use those. I do not want the Starbucks do blow up. My favorite Thai place is connected to it. So, please, let's make sure that place is protected. And finally, in streamlining a developer's process through the city, essentially reducing, or this is 15 seconds, eliminating any of these potential barriers. Right? That's the idea of streamlining some of these things that we know we want more of. That essentially reduces costs that get passed through for the businesses or the residences that end up being in those places. Because they don't have to pay for those waivers, for the lawyer time, for the legal time, for their other developers to come out. So, just keep all of that in mind. Thank you for reading through and going through all of this. Thank you to the staff. Thank you to members of the public who stuck around. I don't even know how late it is because I have a sleeve. So, thanks again. Have a wonderful evening. And, yes, I was on the road for a while. Thank you, Mr. Wayne. It's 957. You can see I've looked at the code as well. Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here this evening and allowing me to speak. My name is Jan Alota. I'm an attorney with the law firm of Holland & Knight with offices at 515 East Las Solis, Fort Lauderdale. Also, a 30-year-plus resident of Plantation living at 621 Southwest 74th Terrace in El Dorado. Tonight, I'm here on behalf of Macy's Retail Holdings LLC, the owner of the Macy's store located within the Ballard Mall, probably one of the original anchors with their acquisition of Burdines. As is typical of larger malls, Macy's owns not only the pad but also the 200,000-square-foot retail building on it and the adjacent parking, which totals almost 16 acres. As such, they are very interested in the new Central Midtown Village overlay and the resulting regulations. Yesterday, we sent a letter to the council members and the mayor and staff highlighting some of our high-level issues with the ordinance and respectfully requesting, and this is consistent with Mr. Dorelli, who was before you previously, to just take a slight pause to allow the full engagement of the various stakeholders within the Central Midtown with the draft ordinance. Our client became aware of the regulations immediately before PNZ. We do appreciate the city's efforts, staff. We know this has been something that started about a year ago with respect to parking, and as a resident, I do appreciate what you're trying to accomplish here, but I want you to take my comments in the lens in which I'm offering them, and that is as a representative of an owner of a large piece of property within the Central Midtown that has an active, ongoing business now that will be negatively impacted by virtue of the regulations on day one, and certainly negatively impacted with respect to any potential redevelopment or reuse of that property. So with that, I will echo the comments of many who came before me with respect to the uses that are going to be allowed. Unlike properties that are seeking to be rezoned voluntarily to TOD, the Central Midtown Village is having the uses permitted, conditional, and prohibited foisted on them at the get-go. Presently, a department store is a permitted use. It is a use that is allowed as of right. With the proposed changes, which will basically require the TOD uses to be applied to our property, we are now becoming a conditional use. And that has legal implications with respect to a host of issues, expansion and otherwise. There are a host of other uses that were permitted and conditional that are now being prohibited. I'll highlight one just here for the city. The city's fire station and EMS building adjacent to Pine Island Park becomes a prohibited use, which means you cannot expand that facility. If there's any issue or any casualty because of the change of the character of the nature of that use, I apologize, it's something that's going to negatively impact the city. Again, a host of other uses that were mentioned, many of which will negatively impact the mall, just in terms of releasing space within that, that now tenants are going to have to go through a conditional use. And I understand that the non-conformity regulations have been in the code for a long time. The point we're trying to make is that these uses that are permitted, many that are as of right, are now going to become prohibited or non-conforming. One of our initial significant concerns was the definition of big box retailer. I do applaud and thank staff for including in one of the exceptions, the department store. Our concern is if we were to seek to release that space, that 200,000 square foot space, for another retail use, we are effectively limited to a furniture store, a bookstore, grocery store, or department store. Those are the primary exceptions in the code for another retail use. Other items that concern us is some of the siting regulations that are imposed upon, again, the central midtown. Not something that we're voluntarily asking for where you're seeking to rezone to the Plantation Walk Entertainment District or to a TOD. But regulations that specifically cite any new building or even major expansion of our building has to be within a certain distance, within, I believe, 120 or 100 feet from the public right-of-way. There is a wholesale prohibition of large parking areas. Obviously, we have one. So that immediately becomes non-conforming with the results of this ordinance because any area over 50 spaces is essentially not permitted. Let me just ask you a question on that one point. So are you saying that if it was passed as is, that your current parking lot would be non-conforming? Yes. And what would be your understanding that that would require you to reduce the parking? It wouldn't require us to reduce it. But let's say, and again, this is a lot of things. You don't have future use. To the extent that we were to do something with the building that somehow might implicate the parking, that might somehow come back with respect to that when they're going through that site plan review. If something were to happen to the parking and we have to rebuild it. It's a little bit unusual situation because it's not a building improvement. It's a surface parking. But the fact of the matter is, is any redevelopment there, we would not be able to retain that parking lot. The other issue we had, because I know you were asking for specific provisions that we had issues with, and I believe this was also a concern of some of the other owners, is the fact that single-use out-parcel development is wholesale prohibited. But that term is not defined in the draft ordinance. Out-parcel is defined in, I believe it's exhibit A, but it's only defined for the purposes of determining the number of out-parcels in a development. So what qualifies as a single-use out-parcel development? Would a one-acre residential development be considered a single-use and it's prohibited? That's actually the intent of the whole district, right, is to try to intensify and densify the district. But it precludes us from effectively parcelizing our property for redevelopment. So let me stop you for one moment because I know you probably could go on for a long time. I know it's been a late night. So what I want to ask is that, so we did receive a letter from you, and in the letter you have five bullet points that are some of the negative impacts that you're concerned about. I know that I think it would be helpful that if, and it's the same thing I was asking before, is to actually pinpoint where in the proposed amendments that you are exactly concerned. I'm not going to ask you to do it right now while we're here, right? Because I think actually since we've already heard the concerns, and I think we've already said from this council that we'd like to look at some of these concerns further before the second reading. I would ask really all the owners is that the concerns that you're raising right now, we hear you and we're listening, but I think it would be helpful, at least to me, is to be very specific that you were looking at Exhibit L 2AC, and these are the ones that you have the most concerns with, and this is something that we could really not only go back and look at, but we could think about a little bit further without having each one of you try and search for it, even though you may have already done it, but you could maybe send it to us, and we could all review that further. Would that be acceptable? Absolutely. Okay. Is there, other than doing that, and like I said, I have it right here, and in addition to those five bullet points, you may have others that you wish to raise as well. I do. Are there any very specific ones that you want to put on the record right now? Just two, if I may, and then I'll leave it at that. One is that clearly the original intent of this ordinance was to really reevaluate the parking standards throughout the city and the various uses, and to understand that many uses don't require the parking that the current code provides. With the new parking standards, multifamily residential is not going to be required to have as much parking as it historically has. Our issue is that same code for the central midtown village requires any parking on the bottom of a building, the ground floor of a structured parking, or surface parking has to be shared among all users, residential, retail, and otherwise. Our concern is we know many multifamily-owned developers charge for parking, or if they're not providing enough parking because a single family, a single-bedroom unit could have two cars. A husband and wife each have a car. And that's foisting that parking onto the retail because it's a forced shared parking in that situation. That's something, obviously, that we object to. The last item I highlight... I'm sorry, on that one point, are you raising that concern for your client Macy's? Yes. Based on potential future for that property? And you see it, I believe one gentleman here was probably living in Novo or whatnot above the Greenwise in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Downtown Fort Lauderdale in the RAC, the downtown RAC, which is a zoning associated with downtown Fort Lauderdale, has no parking requirement. It's been that way for years. So you build what you think you need. But people charge for parking. There is a Greenwise which has supposedly dedicated parking for, it's now a Publix. And I will tell you, because I like to stop in, it's quick, it's easy on the way home. And you can never find parking because... You've got to park in the church across the street. People are parking there that live in the building. Yeah. Because they either don't want to pay for parking, they can't find parking. And that is something that as a retail owner, an operator, we want to try to avoid. I mean, we get that with mixed use developments and master plans and something we made, that's something that is a common agreed to among the developers. But to have it in a code that's a requirement is something else entirely. Understood. What's your other point? Is that one of the changes in the overall Plantation Midtown is to increase the intensity from 25 dwelling units to 50 dwelling units per acre. I mean, as a developer, we obviously love that. That gives you more intensity and more units you can build. However, as a land use professional, I am questioning whether or not it's appropriate to consider that amendment now, understanding that the commercial land use that underlies the mall, the maximum density that's allowed by your comprehensive plan, as I understand it, without flexibility in other type of units, is 25 dwelling units per acre. So I don't know if it's necessarily appropriate to consider that at this time before you have amended your comprehensive plan accordingly. And that concludes my comments, and I do appreciate your patience and time. Thank you very much for your thoroughness. We appreciate it. Thank you. Next up, John St. George, followed by Dolores St. George. You handed in your card first, so I called you first, but go ahead. No problem. Thanks. First, I want to apologize and ask your forgiveness. I have voice drummers, and that's neurological, so if I could ask your patience. So just to help you out then, I will say you're Dolores St. George at 100 El Dorado Parkway Plantation. Thank you. Go ahead. For 32 years. Actually, my comment is I'm excited about some changes, and I thank you all for working on these. A lot of this sounds very exciting to me as a resident. I'm concerned from my retail owners' perspectives because I'm a business person as well, although I'm not in retail. But my primary reason for coming here is to ask a question. The friends that live with me in El Dorado, we don't understand from the documents we could read, and I was trying to see on the map tonight, what will happen to the little strip of land that is east of University Drive and borders that El Dorado Canal? It's just south. Perhaps Mr. Alpert can help me with that. What is the maximum height new buildings can be there? Do you know? If you wait one moment, we'll have Mr. Alpert if you can approach. Thank you. You're speaking about where Marians is located? Yes. It's called the Plantation Community Center. The current zoning of that property already is Midtown, MPM, and the current allowable height in MPM is 12 stories. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Hold on one second, Matt. Just to clarify. So it's currently allowed for that, although they've never sought that, right? And currently, the highest in that strip there is what? Where the Penta? It's this, right. Right. Yeah. Four stories, I think. Well, there's the office building. It's either three or four stories. Right. There's the furniture store in the corner. There's the restaurant. There's the office. Right. I think that office building. The tallest. Yeah. Is the tallest? I think four stories. Yeah. Okay. Three stories? Okay. Do I have any? Thank you. That's working. There may be. All right. And in that case, friends and neighbors have asked some of us to come tonight and just say, please don't do that to us. Our property values will be crazy. We're a small community. We can see the sky from every single home. And nine or 12 stories would really destroy the view from any house in El Dorado. So that's what I came to ask. Thank you very much. Mr. Alpert, maybe come back one more time. Is there, just to clarify, while I know you're telling us that it's already permitted for 12 stories, is there anything that is being proposed tonight that would change that? No. No. So just to make sure that I'm hearing correctly and before Mr. St. George comes up, is that really you're letting us know that it's really nothing to do with number 16 that is before us, but you're just hoping that we don't ever approve something that's that high in there. Okay. Got it. Just making sure, because you're fine. Good. Mr. St. George. Thank you. And good evening. John St. George, 100 El Dorado Parkway, and a 25-year resident. And we have a beautiful city. Everything is magnificent here. And we love this city. We travel to Texas a lot. And Texas is very ugly compared to plantation. And sorry to say that for Texas. We are greatly concerned in El Dorado estates. And right now that's my wife and I, because this item that you sent out to us, while it's very pretty with the map, it is a little vague as to details. And I would have hoped that some of the details that were in Mr. Alfred's presentation could have been in there, would have helped us understand what's going on. But my bottom line, as you heard, my wife, we are concerned about property values. And if something goes up, and I'm calling the little shopping center the Marion's Bagel Shopping Center, if anything goes up there of a super height, 12 stories, would be disastrous to the property values. And nobody really in El Dorado estates knows about this. We had some neighbors that were here, and they were not able. They didn't have the endurance for the lengthy meeting. But we wanted to hang in. And we appreciate all the work you do. That's not the problem. But I would hope that next time, when you send something out, you'd give us a little more specificity. Mr. St. George, can I see which document you're going to do? Can you come forward, and can I see the document that you're looking at, please? Thank you. So this is a notice of a quasi-judicial public hearing. This is the one that had the date of Tuesday, June 25th. And this was referencing the overlay. Okay, thank you. My neighbor, who is an experienced fellow, had no idea what this would be about. So we had to do a little bit of due diligence on our own to get the details and then get the news. Oh, this will be with construction. We found out that a new buyer has bought the Marion Bagels item. We believe he's a developer. And so it's kind of scary from the reference of property values. So we are kind of against this idea. Mr. St. George, just so I'm sure that we're talking about the same thing here is that, so item 16 and the overlay that we're talking about is not necessarily changing anything in the Marion. It is. It is. Ms. Lota is shaking her head. So you can come forward. Come ahead. I'd like to hear it because I thought I'd just ask Mr. Alpert. And I'll come up as a resident of El Dorado. How about that? Janna Lota, 621 Southwest 74th Terrace. While the height has always been 12 stories in the Plantation Midtown, one thing that is changing is the density is being proposed to be doubled. And that makes that property a lot more attractive. And I only highlight another item to you is the TOD, one of the things that, when you ask the questions about the heights, can you build to nine stories here? Can you build to nine stories there? Because, and they were limited because of the proximity to residential. And so I just want to remind you of that because that's, I think, where the real concern is, is that when you're changing the density like that, it's inviting. That property has a different valuation now for that type of development. Just for clarity, though, is it may have a different valuation for the property, but it's, nothing that is proposed today is changing the ability to build nine to 12 stories or allowing it in a different way than it was previously allowed before for that location. Except now, instead of 25 dwelling units per acre, you can build 50 dwelling units per acre. But that doesn't change the stories. No, it does not. That doesn't change the heights. It does not, but it maybe changes the attractiveness of that parcel because you can get more dwelling units per acre. Understood. Okay. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, to the Council, based on everything that has been discussed and the direction that we've given to planning and zoning, are we prepared to make sure that we're all on the same page? I think that we're all on the same page. That if your main question, it sounded like what was first being raised was the issue of the height. And to this date, they haven't built that high. But as Mr. Alpert said, is that they could, they could have at some point. Okay. Very good. Thank you, sir. Thank you. So, to the Council, based on everything that has been discussed and the direction that we've given to planning and zoning, are we prepared to make a motion to ask them to move forward? Councilmember Fadgen. I just want to make one comment, you know, because this comment was made several times, and maybe this is for Mr. Holmes and Mr. Alpert. It seems like everyone feels like we're blasting through this and we've got to slow this down. And this has been an extremely long process. So, I think we're failing in the notification of all the public hearings that we've had. Because this has gone through Midtown, it's gone through Gateway, this has gone through PNZ. Am I wrong on that? I feel like I've been in a lot of these meetings. And it's just, it's, I feel like some of the big stakeholders, the Macy's, et cetera, they don't know about it. So, what can we do better so that we're not kind of at the finish line and now we're. Right. So, we've been talking about this for, you know, starting with that Com Plan workshop in 2023, the parking workshop in March of 2024. We've been to several board meetings. We've, we've come before the council. Um, all of these meetings, of course, are advertised. Um, the requirement for advertising code amendments typically is, used to be a newspaper ad. Now, we have the online system. So, that's, that's been done for each of these meetings. I understand that, but I'm also thinking about getting more of the impact of the, um, of the stakeholders. Right. I feel like we haven't captured the stakeholders sufficiently. Okay. Well, we did additional, because we're changing the list of permitted uses in central Midtown Village, is we sent out notices. And that's why a lot of the residents in El Dorado and other areas that are within a thousand feet of the property lines got these notices. Maybe, oh, Mr. Howard. Can I, let me add, can I ask a follow-up? So, I, I know we've had this issue before. We've talked about where do the notices go to. Do you remember we've had this discussion as to where, when they're going to property owners versus they're going to tenants. And so, um, maybe that's something that we could ask the department to have some further discussion with some of the property owners that are here right now. Is that, um, and it's not saying that, that our department is not doing an amazing job and they're doing everything they're asked to do. Yeah. But it sounds like we can do better. And, um, that's what we're in the business of, customer service. Right. And so, um, no matter how good we're doing it, we know we can do better because certain property owners, um, didn't, didn't get the notice. So we should really find out from them individually is to maybe why they didn't get it, maybe where it went to. Maybe it went to, uh, you know, the, the, the shoe department instead of, I mean, there's gotta be reasons. And so, um, maybe to that point, council member Fadgen, we can work on that, uh, to improve. There's just a lot of comments that part of the process. Right. There are some people that I don't think are here that did, um, reach out to us and to the council. Um, may not be present tonight. I personally talked to about eight residents, um, that got notices and knew about the meeting. Um, I mean, we have. I don't think there's anything. Just so you know, I, I don't think you need to respond any further. I just think we need to, we need to do better. Um, I'll add that, um, I, I think probably we all got, uh, another letter from, um, somebody from Green Mills Group, um, the development manager, Andres DeFelice. And, uh, I did indicate to that person that since they couldn't make it tonight, that I would, um, uh, put this in the record with the, uh, with the city clerk that they are in support of the agenda item. And then there was another one that was received from, um, Donna Antonello. And I'll also add that to, um, to the record. But, um, anything further Councilmember Fadgen? Thank you. Okay. Um, with all that being said, do we have, uh, a motion based on the direction that we've given council, uh, given, um, the department? Do we have a motion to move forward? President Reinstein. Yes. Would it be, or maybe this is a question for, um, Attorney Ezra. Could we possibly, uh, bifurcate some of these instead of taking it all together as one item? So that, um, and I would need to know which exhibit the, uh, overlay district where Broward Mall is. I believe most of that was an exhibit L. I think it was L and then we also referenced E. So I, I know some of them are, um, intertwined. Uh, but would we possibly be able to, um, bifurcate it so that we don't take L and E? I don't think I could answer that question at this time because, uh, again, you have an advertised ordinance. Um, it sounds like potentially making a substantive change, um, to proceed with a second reading on a revised ordinance that's been already advertised. I wouldn't feel comfortable, uh, suggesting that you do that without discussing it with staff and actually looking at the provisions of the code to see what, um, the implication of that would be. So maybe, um, I mean, the way, the way that I was hearing this is that, um, you know, all of what we have raised probably is going to take a considerable amount of looking at to see how we want to, uh, address it. It may, uh, it may require additional meetings with us individually with the department, um, and, and it may, um, it may require quite an additional conversation, um, at that second hearing. But, um, I, I, I think that based on all the direction that we've given and all that we've heard and based on our request to, um, to our residents, to our business owners, that if they really want to see the change that they are suggesting, that we need more information from them. And, um, I see some, some heads nodding that they're gonna, they're gonna send it to us. So we'll make it a lot easier for us to really nail down. Um, so I, I would suggest that we move, that we, that the motion be made and that we, um, move forward so that, uh, we don't, um, stop this in its tracks. But I'll leave it up to my, my colleagues. Motion to approve item 16. Do we have a second? I'll second it. And, um, I know that staff listened to our comments. I'd also like to take into consideration specifically what, um, Ms. Azor raised, um, and some of the other considerations. I thought that the Boutique Fitness had been addressed, um, but I agree with Mr. Dorelli on that. So we'll have, I thought it had been when we met today. So we'll have some further conversations about that. So I'll go ahead and let my second ride. And, and just to be clear, I, I think that the motion was to take into consideration all of the discussion. Yes, yes. And all of the, the, the comments that we've been focusing on, particularly the ones that we've asked for, removal of sections. Right. Um, uh, soon no further discussion, no further comments. Ms. Begaro, please call the roll. Councilmember Andrew. Yes. Councilmember Fajan. Yes. Councilmember Horland. Yes. Councilmember Anderson. Yes. Councilmember Reinstein. Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for everybody that has participated in, uh, in this discussion. And, um, we will continue this discussion. We're now going to move on to the quasi judicial proceedings and quasi judicial item number 17. Uh, I will ask that, uh, city attorney. Please proceed. Quasi judicial proceedings. The city clerk will swear on all witnesses. Before speaking, please state your name and whether you have been administered an oath. Any speaker may be cross examined. If you refuse to be cross examined, your testimony may not be considered. Cross examination shall be conducted in a courteous manner. The material in the city clerk's agenda packet will be made a part of the record. City staff will make the first presentation followed by presentations from the applicant, any affected parties, and the public. The elected officials may set reasonable time limits for speakers. The hearing will then be closed and the matter decided. City council's decision will be delineated in its motion and rendered in writing by way of a development order resolution ordinance. Evidencing its decision. The city council may also decide to continue the matter to a designated time to allow for additional research or review. Thank you. Uh, and madam city clerk. Uh, would you like to, uh, swear in anybody who wishes to testify? Please, please stand. Anyone speaking on this, please stand and raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Mr. Chair, if you'd give us a second, we're having some technical difficulties. Mr. Holmes, you can proceed without the, uh, without the PowerPoint, can't you? Well, I, well. While you're doing that, I'll give you a pause is that I'm going to make a Jennings disclosures that I did speak to the, uh, the applicant, and it won't, uh, affect my, um, my decision making. I'll make the same, same disclosure. I'll make the same disclosure. I would like to also make a Jennings disclosure. It will not affect my vote. Okay. Did I pause enough for you? Yeah, yeah. Well, I, I don't think so. It's just something with the, with the system. But at any rate, um, this, uh, it's, it's okay. This, uh, this deals with, uh, the, the waves, uh, development. Um, as you know, they currently, and, and when they were approved, it was approved with a towel roof. And, um, the, uh, the code has a prohibition on, uh, asphalt shingles. They are proposing to change the roofing, uh, on the development from the, uh, the approved towel roof when it was developed at the site plan stage years ago. And they'd like to put an asphalt shingle, uh, roofing, uh, on the, uh, development. Right. I see where. This is your draft from the agenda. Oh, okay. All right. If this works, it's, it's here. Okay. I'll have to move it for you. Okay. So, so at any rate, just, just to summarize. So they are proposing, they're, they're seeking a waiver, uh, from the requirement that would, uh, require them to, uh, re replace the, the towel roof, uh, and to, uh, replace it with the shingle, which is currently, uh, prohibited, uh, with, within the code. Um, we did do this just to give you some background. There's the Camden, I think it was the Camden development, which is off of, uh, Cleary and basically close to hiatus. That was approved back in 2019. That did, uh, change from, uh, to a shingle, uh, roof, uh, system. Um, this development, I will note, this kind of nestled in between a couple of other multifamily developments as you drive along, uh, Pine Island Road. There are, uh, uh, two of them, uh, which are adjacent, do have the, uh, the towel, uh, roofs. There's one that was developed prior to the other ones. I'm trying to remember the name of it right off the top of my head. And I think it's in here. I don't know. I can't get this to. Okay. Uh, go, go down. Uh, keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. I'm trying to get to a, uh, one. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Oh, you know what? I think it was, we kind of revised it. I, I, I know, I know what happened. I, I had staff add some additional, uh, uh, slides to it to explain, but anyway, there was a slide in there that I was going to show you that basically, uh, kind of showed, uh, some of the surrounding developments and what the, uh, what the, uh, roof was on each of those. Uh, there was only one that did have a shingle, um, that did, was approved, the shingle that was approved in the early eighties, I believe. The other two had towel roofs. Um, but we did look at this. We did have some concerns. Uh, I will say at the end of the day, what this boils down to is really aesthetics and what we think is the appropriate design aesthetic for, uh, the city of plantation. Um, as I do look at the Camden development, I don't think that, uh, you know, that turned out as we changed the roofing system there. I did have some problems with, with this and maybe the color that they proposed because I did think it really changed the aesthetics of the existing building. Uh, as we went through and we looked at the, um, the, the standards, we did not find that it fully met all of the, the standards there. And so our recommendation was denial. But as I said, at the end of the day, we're, we're basically just talking about aesthetics here and, and what, what the preference is for the community. Thank you for short circuiting that. Yes. We appreciate that. Um, I, I, I, well, unless, unless the council wants to, uh, you to further go through the presentation. I, I know that we, we had it sent to us. Um, I, I'd be fine hearing from the applicant. Um, does anybody on the council want Mr. Holmes to further go through the presentation? Um, if that's. I think just showing the, you said Mr. Holmes, you had a photo of the employee. Yeah, I can. I think that would be important. Absolutely. I know it's late. It's a pizza. Okay. Well, just, just to go back quickly while I, while I'm doing that. Yep. You had it there. Yeah, I did. Gingerwood. Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm going back to going the wrong way. So, all right. So this is basically a kind of a simulation of what the roofing system that they're proposing would, would look like on the buildings. I'm just going to go back a couple of slides. This is what it, uh, it looks like now with the, with the towel roof. So it kind of gives you a perspective on what the, what the change would be. Um, but the slide that I was going to show you was, was this one. And you can see, uh, this is, uh, the waves, uh, basically located here. Um, so the vineyard, which is kind of located, uh, to the north on Pine Island Road. Uh, if you look here, this is, uh, the, the system, the towel system that they have. This was kind of developed in 1986. We have the colonnades, which is located kind of to the west. And, uh, here, Camden is much further west. Uh, uh, I was just giving you some perspective that we have done this before, uh, when, when I spoke of Camden. But you can see that, uh, that there's a, uh, uh, you know, a towel system here. And this was the one ginger wood that I was trying to think of that was developed in 1983 that does have a shingle roof on it. And, uh, you can see that, uh, ginger place is kind of located, uh, to the, uh, just to the, uh, east and sort of to the south somewhat. Uh, so just wanted to kind of give you a perspective on what's around that, uh, what's around the waves and basically, uh, some perspective on what the council did in 2019, uh, when we had a similar proposal that came to us for, for Camden. Thank you very much. I'm gonna, uh, call on Councilmember Andreu followed by Councilmember Fadgen. Thank you. I have a few questions for the applicant. So these asphalt shingle roofs, they do absorb more heat. And I'm worried that the tenants now, their electric bills will increase. So if you can share with me a few things, do these, the, the material that you are suggesting to be used, does it have a reflective coating? Uh, I'll have to defer to our roofing expert. First of all, John Voight-Dumar-Alsworth attorney for the applicant. We have the whole team here. We have the representatives that, what this, if we can short circuit our presentation, it really comes down to, you see like the waves immediately north. That's Bayberry in that triangle. That's a single family neighborhood and they're all shingles. And the little notch into the waves is the city's, uh, fire department, which is a shingle building at our entrance. So it's not out of character and you have, see commercial below it to the south, which is flat roof. And of course you have the park. So yes, to the, to the west, there are two that have tile and then all the other three sides, they have something other than that. The, what this is, it's a building originally built in the building. Originally built in 1986, the complex. You know, we had all the hurricanes in 2005. The roof did not do well. And I think they had flying tiles and damage to residents' cars. 2006, at the height of the most expensive time you could do it, they had to put an entire new tile roof on there. It's now been 19 years. They're coming up on their 40 year inspection. So they have had an engineer going through. They're redoing. They're giving a facelift. They're modernizing. They need, they're repainting. They had to repair stucco for about $100,000 before they could repaint. And they need a new roof. And they're looking at it. It really boils down, we're going to answer your question. I've got the, it boils down to 40 year old building. The, the maintenance costs are going to continue to rise and probably the rents won't keep space. So the profit margin deteriorates, but it still has to be maintained because they can't have their asset become worthless. So they're looking, what can they do to cut the maintenance costs? One of the most expensive parts of maintenance is a tile roof. It has to be pressure cleaned. And every time you go up there to manually pressure clean, tiles break. Those have to be replaced over time. You know, they discontinue tiles to make you buy new ones. Even if you have them stored, you have to replace them and they've been bleached out. What's up there? So it doesn't match. You're doing like a checkerboard and it's very labor intensive and very inconvenient for the residents. Who now have to be told you have to move your cars and some just won't do it. Some aren't there, that type of thing. So they're looking, if you could get an acceptable shingle roof, it has a lot less maintenance. And they were not married to that one color. There was just, I know the staff had suggested another color, another style. They're willing to change that totally. That's the installation of a tile roof. It's just under a million dollars more than a shingle roof. But if that was all it was and for 20 years you're golden, that wouldn't be, we wouldn't be here. But it's that maintenance in between and the inconvenience. And really where they are is a price point among properties. They're not one of the new ones. And if they were, this is a very old fashioned design to have 30 different buildings or two and three stories. You would have the bigger ones that the roof wouldn't be talking about. Because it would be a flat roof up on the eighth floor or something. And it would be, you know, more of a probably, I think a less attractive but a much more modern looking community. You'd have big buildings that you put architectural features on so it doesn't look like a big box. But these, the actual design hurts themselves now because if you go in there they have some ledges above the first floor that are purely decorative with tile on them. But they're little pieces of roof which all has to be addressed. Even their mail kiosks have tile on top of them. So, to go get your mail, it's a nice little tile and there are like five of those. So, it's kind of like it just makes, and each one of those has to be done separately again as opposed to if one or two big buildings when you come time to clean and maintain it. So, really that's what this is about. Mr. Boyd, if I can just direct you back is that I know you said you had a roofing expert that can maybe answer Councilmember Andrea's question. That would be great. Let's start with our representative and then our roofing person. Come on. Okay. And please introduce yourself. My name is Lori Flom. I am the Senior Director of Asset Management for the Southeast Region of Nuveen Real Estate. I oversee Florida and Georgia in all of our assets and this I actually directly oversee. It is one of my seven. Welcome. Hey, good evening guys. My name is Bobby Zimmerman. I'm with a general contractor based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We're the GC that's potentially going to be performing that. While roofing expert is a very flattering term, I will definitely answer some of those questions. So, Ms. Andrea, as far as your statement is the absorption of the feed, I would definitely say that that can be mitigated with the proper building and installation that will go in at that attic level. That's really only affecting the tenants and the residents that have that transition from their unit to that attic space. So, everything up underneath is going to still be operating the same SOP. But what we have observed up there right now, everything as far as our values, which is the insulation that can be contained, whether it's heat or air. I'm sorry guys. It's way past my bed. Sorry. You're good. We've used way too many big syllable words for my introduction. Maybe just to clarify, so the insulation that you're talking about will be put, it's not, it could be, it will be included. It's in place. It's standard. Yes, sir. So, you typically have an R value between R-38 and R-44 depending on where you are and currently what we have right now in these buildings. So, we're not going to see increased air conditioning bills necessary in order to maintain comfort levels. No, sir. That would be an accurate statement. But are they reflective? They have the reflective coating? Can you specify as far as reflective coating? The tile or the shingles that you'd be using. Sorry. I'm a little confused by your verbiage as far as reflective coating. So, it's a fiberglass with the asphalt embedded inside and there's a top coat that goes over top of it. It does reflect. If you're talking about any specific more detail, I am losing you a little bit. I do apologize. That's okay. That's okay. Let me ask you one other thing in terms of the warranty. What is the warranty on these shingle roofs? So, there are several different warranties when it comes to the material. So, you have like a wind load warranty. You have an organic growth or an algae warranty. So, you do have a couple of different ones. I think the ones that we originally proposed was a 20-year warranty with the 160 mile an hour. The one that was originally proposed had the Miami-Dade certification on there with the wind loads and all that other kind of stuff. They're interlocking? Is it that type? As far as interlocking. So, they're embedded on top of each other. So, it's kind of sort of like a lap system. I don't know if I'm explaining- Like six nails and they kind of- Yes, ma'am. Yeah. They do overlap, but as far as like interlocking, they're not like a mechanical system where they have that function, if that makes sense. Yes. So, they do overlap, and the cool part about the asphalt shegles, especially down here in this climate, is that they will stiffen up very, very, very quickly, which is what you want on that roof. So, when we first get them, we're putting shegles on, they're going to be very, very pliable, but then they're going to rest very nicely on that roof, which is what we want. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. What is the occupancy of the property? You're saying one of the reasons why you need to do this is there's newer, flashier competitions per the backup. We're 93.8% occupancy today. Which is really good. And what would you say the average rent is? I have that $2,310, $2,310 per month, with a low of like $1,895 for a studio, up to $2,850 for the three, two-and-a-half townhouse. Okay. And how is that in comparison to what, you know, I guess, Shalimar, I think that's the name of it, on Pine Island Cleary? I think the last time I looked, the rent spread was $600. I'm sorry? I think the last time I looked, the rent spread was about $600 or $700. Of course, we report that to our investors. Okay. You're saying if you did the tile roof, that improvement would outlive the building? So what's your expected remaining life of your property? If I said that, I misspoke. It wouldn't outlive the building. Just saying that, we're talking about, in the ordinance, it talks about slate and metal. I was saying those are 50-year roofs. And that's what I was referring to. I don't think they're planning for the building to fall down in 20 years. No, they would certainly, but either as a 20-year. Because they've got, obviously, they've gotten 19 out of this current roof. Okay. So we talked about that on the phone. So the last time the roof was about 20 years ago. 2006. And then I guess the cost went through the roof? In 2006, it was probably as high as you could be because you just had all the hurricanes in 2005. It continues to go up. Right. It was an insurance roof, though. It what? It was an insurance roof that was covered. Okay. Yeah, hurricanes. This is the first thing we will have bought. So, Danny kind of answered this question, I believe. My question was, why are asphalt shingles not allowed? But it's aesthetics, right? It's just the aesthetics. You will see asphalt on some of the older developments in the city. But after a certain point, you're going to primarily see tile. So what is the life of the asphalt tile? I'm not the expert. About 20. About 20. Okay. You know, where my office is, my landlord was going to paint the building. They were denied a color across the street. The fire station was painted the same color. So, I mean, that's really compelling to me that our fire station has asphalt shingles, and we're telling the neighbor at the entrance that, you know, we can't let you do that. So, that's kind of a really pushing point. Although, I do think that the tile does look better. And how do you compete against newer, flashier competitors? Use the nicer material, but my opinion. So, that's all the questions I have. Thank you. Thank you very much for the presentation. Before I call on you, Councilman, I'll just make a few comments. Is that, you know, I appreciate that Mr. Holmes came up and said that the bottom line is that it's aesthetics. And I live not too far from Cleary and drive on Cleary probably every day. And sometimes bike on Cleary on the sidewalk because we don't have bike lanes. And even when I intentionally look at the apartments, I don't really see the roofs from the road when I'm passing by. And, you know, despite that I would love to know what the residents think about it. The change, you know, they came in with the tile and now we're talking about putting on asphalt. But, you know, that's the nature of doing business, I think, with apartment complexes is that, you know, you could choose to paint it. You could choose to change the tile. And, you know, the residents can choose to stay or not stay. But to me, that's not something that I want to direct to your business is that if, you know, if we were being told by the department that the tiles were safer, that they were cleaner, they were more environmentally friendly, and we were given all that information, then I think I may feel different. But aesthetically, it's just like if you were to tell me that you wanted petunias versus lilacs. You know, it doesn't, I don't see that that's something I want to direct a business in our city. So, Council Member Horland. Thank you, Mr. President. But we do often vote on aesthetics because we want the community, we want plantation to feel like plantation and people to have that sense of place. While I prefer the tile, and I struggled with this one, and I spoke to Mr. Avoy today, I also understand that this is an aging property and that you need to reinvest into it. What I'm going to ask you is, if this is approved tonight, is that you work with staff and perhaps pick out a different color and a different quality shingle. Because if you do look at Camden down the street, they went with something that's a little bit more terracotta. And from the street, it really doesn't look, you can't tell that it shingles. So, that's what I would ask of you. I think we'd be very happy to do that. Okay. So, based on that concession on the record, I'll make the motion. I'll make the motion to approve tonight. Second. Seeing no further discussion, no further comments, Ms. Beggarow, please call the roll. Mr. President, there is. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I didn't have that. You did stand up, but I didn't get any forms. So, please come forward. I apologize for that. That's okay. Good evening. Once again, it is not even evening anymore. Joe N944, Northwest 92nd Terrace. And I encourage you to catch the Northwest 92nd Terrace portion. Because if you look at that map, I am in there within that. I did actually receive one of the public comment or notification notices and whatnot. And I think it's just, so my community has gone through a lot of the similar challenges as they have, I'm assuming in that sense. Similar age, similar design, similar challenges with storms and with age of roofs. Part of the issue with age of roofs, my community, I'm not a roofer, but my perception of it is that it's a metal hybrid roof. It looks like it's something else, but it's actually metal. The perception was that it was supposed to be a 30 to 50 year roof for us. It works, but insurance companies don't like that age. So, we actually had to get a new flat roof replacement on that. Obviously, you don't tend to see that section. It's the curved arch roofs areas that you really notice. But at the same time, so hopefully we don't have to change that. But just keeping in mind, having new roofs does improve the quality of the property, the longevity and the experience for the renters, owners, whomever end up being there, whether it's property owned or investor owned. But additionally, properties get painted. And right now, the in-color schemes tend to be safe grays. And I would actually prefer if our community had that kind of roof, because we decided to go with a light, off-white and gray structure for our building. Yet we still have a bit of a reddish sand desert roof structure. To me, it doesn't go as well. I like the idea of seeing a little bit different color schemes. Excuse me. The fact that this has to come to council and be a whole thing is probably a bigger issue. But the sense is this does still fit with the community character of the area. My community, if you don't look at the roof, is probably going to look at the same color scheme as the one that you look over, two-minute bike ride or three-minute walk over. So just keeping in mind that these really are the trends right now that we're seeing, and that when we think of age of roof, unfortunately that age isn't necessarily what we get to, because insurance companies like to come in and dictate their own ideas on that. I can say our insurance went down significantly when we changed that portion of our roof. So just keeping those things in mind, I'm okay with it looking that way as somebody who passes by there. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody further that I missed that wants to speak on the matter? Seeing no further comments, Ms. Barrow, please call the roll. Council Member Andreu? Yes. Council Member Fadgen? Yes. Council Member Horland? Yes. Council Member Anderson? No. Council Member Einstein? Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Comments by the Mayor. Thank you very much. First off, as you all probably know, July 1st is the debut of Freebie. You're all invited, 9.30 at Pine Island Park. Go for a ride, and if you're so inclined, maybe download that app. So we all have that app so we know what's going on. Pride tomorrow at the fire station, 11 to 2. I got an invite from the cricket competition coming on, and did you all get it, too, for July 1st? Yes. Okay, good. I don't got to see if I got a bad room. And those of you following the Miami Heat drafted, Kaspers Jakusionis, who is from the great Lithuania. And one quick note, 1993, there were no cell phones, so I'm driving home from a basketball camp. Robin Sortel and I are just starting to hang out. I call her. She picks up the phone. She goes, the Heat drafted Harold Miner. They haven't picked yet in the second round. First words out of your mouth. A week later, she got a ring from me. So that's how I roll. Councilmember Andrea. I look forward to seeing everybody at the 4th of July parade and events. Thank you. Have a great night. Councilmember Fadden. Looking forward to the parade and lots of candy. Be careful with the fireworks and see you in a month. Councilmember Hoyland. I'm good. Thank you. Councilmember Anderson. Have a nice night, everybody. Sleep tight. 10-54. Meetings adjourned. Thank you.