City Council — Oct 25, 2023

Okay, almost. Good evening, and welcome back. The City of Plantation Council meeting for Wednesday, October 25th, 2023, is now called to order. City Clerk, please call the roll. Council Member Anderson. Here. Council Member Andrew. Here. Council Member Fajan. Here. Council Member Horland. Here. Council Member Einstein. Here. Mayor Sortel. Here. City Attorney Ezra. Here. Thank you. Thank you. Tonight's opening remarks and Pledge of Allegiance will be provided by Council Member Horland. Thank you, Madam President. I was thinking, you know, the events of the last several weeks have been horrific. They've been trying on all of us, and there were really no words that I could say tonight to make any of us feel better. We do have a resolution that the city is putting forth tonight, and I keep coming back. In talking to so many of my Jewish friends, neighbors, and colleagues, silence has been deafening, and I keep coming back to the words that I think everyone is familiar with from Martin Niemoller. He had written a 1946 post-war confessional that was turned into prose, and I'm going to read just the short version of it. And basically, it's about the silence of the German intellectuals during World War II and the clergy, including by his own admission of Niemoller himself. This was following the Nazis' rise to power. And you've all heard it, but I think it bears repeating. First, they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. And I'd like those words to resonate because a lot of our friends are feeling afraid, and they're feeling abandoned. So with that, I'd like to invite two students who are the future, and a good future, I think, from South Plantation High School. I'll introduce them to everybody, but they're first going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. So ladies, would you come up? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, ladies, you want to introduce yourself? Yes. Hi, my name is Desire Abraham. I go to South Plantation High School, and I'm a senior. Hi, I'm Gabriela Guaymari. I'm a South Plantation student, and I'm a sophomore. And tell us who your club sponsor is. I think a lot of people in this room know her, and what you guys have going on, and what club you're representing. Our club sponsor is Jennifer Collins, and we're representing Key Club and SGA, as well as ASL Club, too. And we have a couple announcements. This Friday, we have our senior night for our football, cheer, and band members. That's this Friday night at 7. We also have Benjamin's House for a Key Club. It's a fundraiser for our club. It's going on on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. And then on Sunday as well, we have Trunk or Treat from 2 to 5. We would really like some candy donations for kids that come through, and everyone will have their trunks decorated, costumes. We'll have fun games. Where's Trunk or Treat taking place? At South Plantation High School. And where can people donate candy? To Ms. Collins in her room. Drop it off to the front office, right? Yes. Of course. And then we also have our virtual honor flight at our school on December 1st. Great. Thank you, ladies, so much for coming tonight. Yes. Of course. Desire, the mayor had a question. What time, December 1st? Evening, morning? Is that a Saturday? It's a Friday. Okay, so be leaving. Okay. For those of you who haven't been around honor flight, it's the best thing in the world. Thank you, Desire and Gabriela. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Horland and South Plantation High students. Mayor Sorto, do you mind if we go a little out of order? I think it's a great idea. Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to actually do a proclamation. I believe, Mayor, you have it for? I have it upstairs on my desk. All right. Well, you'll start with service awards. Which one? That might be upstairs on my desk, too. I'm not having a good day here, am I? All right. And let's go back to fire prevention arts and literature contests, because we know we have those trophies here. So we'll start with, okay, service awards, Mayor Sorto. I only try to look really bad when the room is packed with people. Service awards, Harvey Fisher Public Works, 45 years. So I have this tradition, after 25, you get a cake, and in five years, you're going to get two cakes from me, because you'll be at 50. So I really appreciate what you do. Got some things to say? No. No? After 35 years, you want to say something. Tell people what you do and what part you work in public works anyway, at least. What facet of public works? Grass. Anything in the taste. Maintains the city. Beautiful as a city. Okay. And yes, it does. Maintains the city and does the grass. And it is true. And I think council will agree with this. There is no better feeling than being an elected official and driving around and seeing people working on this city we love while you're on your way around. And you see those trucks out there, and you see the people putting in the work, and it's the best feeling in the world. Could not be any prouder in that time. Ten years. Gene Petrovic, Finance. Former Parks and Rec. I've known Gene for more than both of us when we got elected. You used to take names for people who signed up to be Santa Claus. So if you want to register to be Christmas Eve Santa, Gene was a person. You are now in finance. Anything you want to say? Just thank you to the council and mayor and Parks and Rec. I started with them first. And now finance. So just thank you. Picture? Yeah. And five years. Brandon Carnes, PD. Appreciate you. Good to see you again. Good to see you too. Anything you want to say? Thanks, everybody, for coming to see you. Tell people what facet of police you work in. Are you road? Are you? So I do a little bit of everything. Right now I'm helping in the training department. Besides that, I help in traffic and sometimes in the fraud department. It's pretty fun. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. I'm sorry. Did you want to go? All right. All right. All right. I'm sorry. I messed up the picture. Okay. There we go. Okay. So that's it for service awards. Will I make it back? No? Okay. I'm going to track that down. The reason I got confused is we had proclamations for November 4th on my desk. And Pam said we didn't have any for this meeting. So they were in the November 4th pile. Okay. We'll come back to that. Let's do fire prevention art and literature contest awards. Chief is doing this? I've never done this before. I'm a little nervous. You know how that goes. Yeah. Those who don't know me, my name is Joel Gordon, deputy chief with the fire department. Chief Todd sends his regrets. Unfortunately, his mother experienced a medical emergency. He had to run up north into the state. So he pulled me off the bench and kind of a pinch hitter. I'm going to keep my remarks short because I think we want to get to the important part of the program. So just really briefly, as everybody knows, October is fire prevention month. And every year we get to come here before council and kind of celebrate what we do all year long. You'll notice something a little bit different this year. If you've been to these before, you know that we usually come here all dressed in our Sunday best, our regalia. We put on everything we've got and polish it all up. Today, we're wearing pink t-shirts in honor of breast cancer awareness. We as an organization are proud to be part of the fight in fighting for the cure for breast cancer. So we're marking that tonight with the shirts that we wear all month long. So just very briefly, as I said, fire prevention week is in October. And I think everybody knows the story of what it's all about, the great Chicago fire and the urban legend that Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked the lamp over, which we know is not true. One of the things that people don't know is that the same night of the Chicago, the great Chicago fire, there was a huge fire out in a forest in Washington State called Peshtigo. And that fire was twice the size of the great Chicago fire and killed twice as many people. And it was overshadowed by the fact that the Chicago fire was happening at the same time. But collectively, those brought about what we know as fire prevention week. Here in Plantation, we take that just a step further, and we actually begin our fire prevention activity. I don't say begin, but we ramp up our fire prevention activities beginning in September. We get into the schools. We get into the different clubs and organizations. And we begin our art and literature contest, where we get into the schools, and we ask the schools to have their students give their best interpretation of the annual NFPA theme, which this year is Cooking Safety Starts With You, because kitchen fires are one of the leading causes of fire. So that kind of introduces us to the program for the month. And we go on into November, and we have dozens and dozens of programs that we do. Obviously, we do it all year long, but this is where you really ramp it up. Tonight, we're going to do a couple of things. One, I'm going to introduce a new group of people to you, our fire cadets. And we'll talk about that in a minute. We're going to introduce our business of the year and talk about what they've done for us, our member of the year, and then ultimately, the grand finale, our poster and essay contest winners. So the art and literature contest, which is named after its founder, Marty Terzu, began in 1976, and it's now in its 47th continuous year. And the reason for this program is what we have learned over the years is when we want to send out a fire prevention message, if we try to talk to adults, well, it's a little like, but when we send the message with the kids, the kids go home and they go, Mom, Dad, we've got to clean out the clutter. Don't overload the circuit. And they go at it. So we found that is our best route for fire prevention throughout the city. The children are the key, and by giving them this assignment to draw these posters and write these fantastic essays really drives the point home. So as I mentioned, the theme is cooking safety starts with you, all right? And I want to thank the members of our fire administration who did the judging of the posters and the essays and ultimately determined the final winners. It's not easy. We literally get hundreds of submissions every year, and they have to sort through all of those and pick the best of the best. So it's quite the challenge for them. So moving on, as I said at the top, I want to introduce our new group of people, our fire cadets. And I'd like them all to come in now, if you would. Well, as you're going to look at them, and then we'll ask them to turn around and face the gallery. So if you would, everybody, turn around. I also want to introduce the two coordinators and instructors, the guides, if you will, for the cadets, the mentors. We have Lieutenant Frank Zagali and Mark DeWall. So purpose of the cadet program, we started it earlier this year. And as I just mentioned, the route to good fire prevention is through the kids. Well, one of the things that we always look at is how do we keep the fire department energetic? How do we keep it going? How do we keep it exciting? And how do we make sure that we always have a supply of good, interested, dedicated citizens ready to serve the community? By engaging with the younger folks, 14 to 18 years of age, and teaching them the basics of firefighting and teaching them about the careers of firefighting, we can bring them in, bring them on board, set them on a pathway to do great things. Whether they do them here or they do them elsewhere, they're going to do great things. They're going to help save lives and be part of whatever community they ultimately land in. One of the benefits to that is that we can get some new members out of it. In fact, two of our cadets just came on board with our new basic class, which we started this week. So, so far, it's been a success. So with that, one more time, ladies and gentlemen, our brand-new young cadets. Very soon, if you'd join me down here, please. I'd also like to call up Battalion Chief Carrie Blanchard, our public affairs coordinator, and our PIO Aston Bright to present the awards for the trophies. And Sparky. Just take it from the top. Good evening. My name is Aston Bright. I'm with the Plantation Fire Department. And before we get into the art and literature contest winners, we just would like to first, are we doing business of the year? We'd like to first introduce our 2023 business of the year. Wrightton International Trucks, represented by Jonathan Avendano and Abraham Canton. Congratulations, guys. Yeah, yep, we're good. Really appreciate you guys. Oh, the Fort Lauderdale location of Wrightton International always goes above and beyond what is expected of any business, and we appreciate their commitment to the Plantation Fire Department. So thank you. Thank you very much. Anytime. We appreciate them keeping our trucks rolling. Thank you. We would now like to recognize our 2023 member of the year, although unfortunately he's not here, and that is Crew Chief Kevin Kasten. Kevin has dedicated his time to not only respond to calls and his duty as a Crew Chief at Station 5, but he's also developed our website and was instrumental in creating a marketing plan for our department. Kevin is also a member of the dive team and a treasurer for the Plantation Volunteer Fire Association, so we're very grateful for his dedication and loyalty. And now the moment that most people here have been waiting for, we're finally ready to present the 47th Annual Art and Literature Contest Award winners. I would like to ask student and family members to come up and receive the award, and we'll also have a photo opportunity outside the chamber doors at the conclusion of the ceremony. So we have a step and repeat out there. And before we start, I also would like to give a helmet to each of our council members, and everyone up here, please take one and pass it down. Oh, there's one for everybody. There's one for everyone. There we go. Reporting for duty, sir. We don't want to mess up the hair council manager, so we don't want to mess it up. All right, here we go. So our first category is art for kindergarten through third grade. Our third place is Carlotta Luna Reyes from Our Savior Lutheran. She wants to be with Sparky. They get to take their, they get with them? Yes, I believe so, yes. President, you can have us go down. Good job. And second place, Luna Orduelo, American Heritage. Look at how cute. That's right here. Center. Congratulations. Thank you. And in first place is Ethan Hopkins from Central Park Elementary. Okay, the next category is going to be, next category is art for the fourth and fifth grade. In third place is Brady Wallace from Our Savior Lutheran. In second place, second place is Avery Umland from Central Park Elementary. And in first place is Mokshita Chana from Central Park Elementary. The next category is going to be literature, kindergarten through third grade. And in third place, we have Landon Reha from Central Park Elementary. Wait, mom's coming. Mom's coming. It was always between me and Dina. Okay, literature, K through three, second place is Zoe Zura, Central Park Elementary. There you go. Okay. You want a picture? Yeah. Jump in. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my goodness. All right, and first place for literature, K through three, is Spencer Glassberg from Central Park Elementary. I'm sorry, I'm pulling my ring. Spencer wins for his headline, Kentucky Fried Kitchen. That's great. That's fantastic. All right, here we go. Literature, fourth and fifth grade in third place, Arnie Singh from Central Park Elementary. And I'm sorry, I've got to say, this is about kitchen safety, and his final line is, why cook when you order food? Fantastic. Okay, we have literature, fourth and fifth grade. Second place is Julian Mehangos from Central Park Elementary. Oh, Mehangos is not here. Okay. Is he not with the football game? Yeah, Julian had a championship football game tonight, so he couldn't attend. And in first place, literature, fourth and fifth grade is Naya Brumwell from Tropical Elementary. Come on, folks. Come on up. Congratulations. Have a high five. Let's go right here. You have to jump in. Here we go. I love her shoes. Go ahead, little man. All right, ready? One, two, three. Excellent. Awesome. And then the final category tonight are the digital submissions, grades fourth and fifth grade. In third place is Alexander Solomon, Central Park Elementary. Yeah, he has won many times. This is his last time. He's aging out. Yeah, I think he's won every year for the last four years. But this is his swan song. He's aging out. He's done. And his sister went to singing. Yes, his sister is the singer. Yeah, well, he'll have to go. They're going to hang his banner at the school. Excellent. All right. It doesn't matter whether your parents have talent or not. Sometimes your parents can have no talent at all. And the show is right here. And digital, fourth and fifth grade. Second place is Haley Feldstein, Central Park Elementary. All right. Congrats. And digital submissions, fourth and fifth grade. And first place is Juliet Morrison, Central Park Elementary. Is there a way they can see digital in public? Yes, we can post them on our Facebook page. We'll post them on our Facebook page. So we'll post all the digital winners on the Facebook page as well. I'm sorry? I'm good? Yes. I believe you're good. And if I could, before we go, I would also like to invite everyone to join us at the 64th Annual Firefighter Barbecue that's coming up. It's our largest fundraiser of the year. It's going to be at Pine Island Park on November 5th from 12 to 5. And you can visit our website at plantationfire.com to purchase your tickets. We'll also, for the award winners tonight, we have the step and repeat outside. We also have a fire truck you can take pictures with, with your family. And I'd like to, on behalf of the fire department, thank the mayor, the council, for the opportunity to present these awards tonight. So thank you. Council President, Lieutenant Bright, Aston, Council President, before Lieutenant Bright leaves, can I make a mention? I just want to let everybody know in our city is that we're very fortunate to have not only an amazing fire department, but specifically Lieutenant Aston Bright here, is that he actually will soon be deployed to Israel to assist with the fires there. And he will be a team leader of the Americans, and it will be his third deployment there. So the date has not yet been set, but since he's here, and since today actually we'll be discussing a resolution regarding our thoughts and feelings regarding what's going on there. I thought it would be a good time that we say all the best and keep him in our prayers so he's safe and can return to us safely. I'll be sure to keep my head down when I'm over there. Keep it down. Thank you, Lieutenant Bright, for all that you do. My distinct honor and pleasure to actually have the last proclamation of the evening. We have the, I hope I don't butcher the Greek pronunciation, Epsilon Xi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated here with us this evening. President Ramona Relaford, I saw Ms. Linda Brown and several other members enter. If you can meet me here at the podium for the reading and presentation of the proclamation. I hope all the members are up, all the members, we want everybody. So the proclamation reads as follows. Whereas Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated was founded on January 5th, 1908 at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and is the oldest Greek letter organization established by African American college educated women. And whereas A.K.A. Sorority Incorporated is comprised of more than 355,000 women who serve in graduate and undergraduate chapters in 12 countries. And whereas the Epsilon Xi Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated of Plantation, Florida hosted a successful Cluster One conference for the South Atlantic region on October 7th, 2023, which had over 500 amazing women, by the way, whereas A.K.A. Sorority Incorporated cultivates and encourages high scholastic and ethical standards. And whereas Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated promotes unity and friendship among women. And whereas A.K.A. Sorority Incorporated studies and elevates, alleviates problems concerning girls and women in order to improve their social stature. Things like period poverty, reproductive rights, the right to clean water, and so many more issues. And whereas the women of A.K.A. Sorority Incorporated are of service to all mankind. And whereas the ladies of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated transcend this world, unite, nurture, and empower African American women to take up space, use their voice, and disrupt the status quo. Now, therefore, Nick Sorority Incorporated mayor and the city council members of the city of Plantation, Florida, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, October 25th, as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. Day in the city of Plantation. And we join all of our residents, and we ask all of our residents to join us in celebration of this importance observance. Good afternoon, good evening, mayor and council member. I am Dr. Ramona Relaford, the proud president of the Upsilon Zao Omega chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. We appreciate your continued support as we provide service to the citizens and the communities of Plantation. Thank you for allowing us to continue to be a beacon of light of service for our sorority and for our community. We thank you, and thank you again for the proclamation. Councilman Eric is a colleague of mine. I worked at Seminole when he was at Tropico. Hi, Eric. Special one. So, I will get you the official one. Because you have some of those. You can see that later. Why are these ladies not in the picture? No, ma'am. Come on. We appreciate the support. Exactly. Come on. Thank you. Thank you all for everything you do on behalf of our state. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. I was up on the podium. That's okay. Thank you, lady. You're staying? Yeah, we'll stay. Okay. Take it. You should have worn a thing. Thank you. So, now we have Mr. Goodwitch with our Central Park Master Plan presentation. Good evening, members of Council, Mayor, City Attorney Ezra. As you all know, it's been a few years of accomplishments with the Parks and Recreation Department. We went, first of all, with a master plan. We also got accredited. We've won some awards through FRPA. And so, we're very happy to now kind of present a new vision to move forward with the Parks and Recreation Department, especially Central Park. Part of the master plan process for the entire department was to start to take a look at individual park sites and to come up with master planning processes so that we can effectively design and build and plan for the future. So, we went out this past year, we chose the contractor, Wanamaker Jensen, and his, Jason Jensen, and his team are here to give you the results of that effort that involved the advisory boards, the residents, the council, staff, and everybody, and got a lot of good information to put this plan together. So, we're very happy to see that. So, with that, I'd like to introduce Jason Jensen from Wanamaker Jensen. Is there anyone from IT? I don't see Marcus, but I think we might need some IT assistance. Chief, I think we got it, but appreciate it. Is Montefusco here? I haven't seen him. Okay. How about if I do the announcements that are going to be after, I'll blow through them now? Please. All right. What's that? Prepared, too. The Boy Scout model, right? When you're raised in an Eagle Scout, you learn to be that way. All right. So, upcoming events for Parks and Recreation Thursday. This Thursday at 26, we have a Spooky Skating Party. Spooky Skating Party. Central Park Skate Rink, 6 to 8 p.m. That's free to everybody that comes out. If you need any information, you can call us at 954-452-2558. The 31st, Trunk or Treat. New location. This is, I think, our third year now of moving locations, but it keeps growing. It's such a popular event. We're moving it over to Pine Island Park, so we have plenty of parking. Thanks so much to Police and Fire for their assistance in allowing us to have the safe transition from the Broad Mall side over to our side. And thanks to the Broad Mall for always working with us on all these programs. So, we're at Pine Island Park. Again, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., rain or shine. Obviously, goodies, costumes, selfie station, music, and more over there at Pine Island Park. Friday, November 3rd is going to be our first Rock the Park of this year. So, it is, the band is Private Stock, which is an ultimate rock star tribute band. Again, new location over at Pine Island Park. Please, no dogs allowed at the park. We're going to emphasize that to folks. We'll have, obviously, the food trucks, lots of space for the kids to play, and the concert begins at 7 p.m. Saturday, November 4th. We're very excited to see a community garden coming, finally. We'll have that grand opening at Jim Lort Community Center at 10 a.m. sharp. A celebration will include light refreshments and arts and craft projects for the kids. So, we're very excited to get that over at the Jim Lort Community Center. Thanks to the Garden Club and the efforts of everybody there to get that to finally come to fruition. Sunday, November 5th, we have the 64th Annual Volunteer Fire Department BBQ over at Pine Island Park as well. Nice to have that event back. It's been three years since we've had that event, so we're excited to have that back. And, again, Pine Island Park is just such a great venue, centrally located in the city, and it's got a lot of accessibility and parking for everybody. So, come on out and enjoy the day. Tuesday, November 7th is another Kids' Day Off. So, we'll be having Kids' Day Off camp at the Community Center. That program will run 7.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. That's for kindergarten through fifth grade. $30 for residents, $55 for non-residents. Trying to get a little bit more information there if I have to. Saturday, the 11th, we have our Veterans Day Services that will be held at Veterans Park. Very happy to have all of the volunteers that come out for that program, police, fire. Heritage comes out every year for this event as well and brings all the kids out to sing, which is a really nice touch. And even though it's a day off of school, they're still coming, which we're really, really happy for. In the past, we have adjusted that schedule and done it on different days to accommodate that, but they accommodated us and said we'll do it on the day. So, it's really nice to celebrate that day on the actual day. So, we're really happy with that. That program will start at 9.30 a.m. at Veterans Park, and we look forward to everybody being out there. For athletics, we have registrations are open now. For spring sports, we have baseball, basketball, and softball. I know our recreation soccer program is starting November 6th. So, we've got a real busy week over there at Pine Island Park. It'll just be one thing right after the other, and we're really looking forward to having everybody out there. Are we ready? We've got a lot of things going on. We do. Thanks to procurement, Charles is in the house. We've got a lot of different playgrounds that are out. I didn't bring that piece of paper up with me. See, I would have been prepared if I had that. But I know we have the Texaco Trailhead with CDBG funds. We've got some stuff going in there, some exercise equipment. We also contracted with the same artist that did the multicultural gardens well, and we're going to do the back row of that area as well to provide some continuity between that whole area. Very bright, colorful, lively artwork. So, we're very happy to have that. We've got some other things that have gone out to bid. We've had some that we're going to have to rebid for just because we didn't have a lot of good bids, but that's for Seminole Park for the replacement of the playground there, and also Jack Carter Harmony Park. We're doing that. We are recently, well, this past year, we acquired the extra property over at Country Club Park. It used to be a well field for Fort Lauderdale. We went through there. We upgraded the fencing in that area, and we added some walking paths to connect that section of the park to now the original park. So, that's all going on, and I'm starting to run out of material. How was the fall festival, Mr. Goethe? That's a great question. I can tell you with certainty we had 4,700 people at that event. Thanks to the capability of that Placer AI program, we're able to tell that. I can tell you a majority of those people. I don't have the exact zip codes, but I'll condense that, and I'll get that to administration. The majority of the people were residents, obviously, which we're always happy with. We don't mind bringing in non-residents because those are always helping the community, drives businesses, and things of that nature. But we can really get down to that kind of level of data, which we're really happy to be able to do. Yes, it's very exciting. But a beautiful day, a safe day. We had multiple lost children, but we had multiple. The same number that we lost, we found. I love missing one of those lost parents. It is. And so something that came up through this, because this probably was one of the first events that we had a substantial number of misplaced or lost children. So one of the things that between us and police and fire, we got together and said, what we really need to do is have a more pronounced way to go, this is where you come. So what we're going to do is either get a helium balloon or we're going to get something that's going to give us a little bit more height and to be able to get that there. That might be a great thing to implement for the trunk or treat. It'll be for all of our events we're going to get there, but whether I'll get it that quickly, I'm not sure. And can I just also add, before I go to Mayor Soto, I believe over 120 gun locks were given out at that event as well from the Moms Demand Action Group. So they sent me a message also thanking everybody, of course, police, the city, Parks and Rec, the entire team that made that a successful event. So thank you for that. Mayor Soto? Two things. Number one, do you guys want that data from Placer? You want to test? We'll forward it to you when we get it. Yeah. Number two, we talked about lost children during our social media meeting on Tuesday about how to deploy it. And the decision was fire has a light that goes and kind of sets up a command center in most places. And so the light would serve as a command center, which would be the way to find lost children as well. Carrie Blanchard brought that up. I don't remember the exact details. Do you remember, Larry? Am I close? You remember we talked about it, though. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. One more point regarding Family Fall Festival, if I may, Council President. I just want to thank you also. We had announced at our last council meeting that Parks and Rec put out a table for the city council to greet residents there. So I want to thank you for that. It was one where Chief Todd sat there for a little while. I know the mayor was there for quite a while. I was there, and I know others were there as well. So it was a great opportunity for us to meet with residents there. So thank you for putting that out there for the entire council and the mayor. Thank you. No problem. Okay. I think we're ready. All right. Without further ado, Jason Jensen from Wanamaker Jensen. Thank you. Beautiful job, Delane. Great guy. Great job. I just think that it exemplifies the teamwork that we have seen displayed by all of the staff throughout this process. I will say that we had a great stakeholder process that included both the community and staff all along the way. We had meetings every other week going throughout the entire project, and the staff has gave a lot of strong input. And the community came out multiple times and gave a lot of strong input that has all been implemented in this plan. And when we started this plan, just to take us back, the vision of this, of, you know, how do we create a true community center that is an iconic park experience for the city? Yeah, something that I describe as a living room for the city that you go when you don't have plans, that you go to, with family, you go with grandmother, parents, children. That is a true intergenerational experience for all. And can we provide programming and activities that can accommodate every single age group within that and to really create a destination for the city? So, next slide. So, with the park, we had all of those visions that we were tasked with accomplishing in this master plan. And then, on top of that, we wanted to make sure that we accommodated some of the other things that start to define a community. Is it, does it really look inward? Does it provide you opportunities to have activities? Do the different activities, are they placed in the correct way that they create synergy between them? So, it doesn't feel like they happened at different times, that it all thought, you know, feels like a true master plan. We found that wayfinding in the current park was difficult, that people have a tough time finding exactly where they're supposed to be. And the parking is bifurcated in different ways across the park, making it seem like you have a parking problem in one area because you can't really easily get to another area. And then, some safety issues with that parking that people may be crossing or children may be crossing parking to get to different activities. So, we wanted to alleviate a lot of those things, and then provide an opportunity for you to grow your programming significantly over time, and to do that in a phased manner. Next? Okay. So, the, this, this shows the completed vision for the park. And wanted to, you know, again reiterate that we did this in a phased way that we'll, we'll walk you through the phase, but we always want to see the complete vision so that we make sure that anything that we place in the park isn't painting us into a corner for, for what you might do after that. So, this gives you the complete vision. We have a lot of new activities. We've, you know, moved a few things around where you had activities like the, the events happening within the track. We have a new event lawn that's closer to the rec center that you can energize with those activities together. And all of this, once it's completed, is also served by a larger parking count, but it won't feel like a larger parking count. It will not feel like a, you know, a Walmart or, you know, like those, those activities. It's actually consolidating a lot of the green space and get, and it will feel more like a passive park in, in many areas. But we were able to get you, uh, go from 1,133 parking spaces to 1,584 parking spaces. So a significant increase for those parking spaces. Next slide. Yes. Sure. So I want to, while they're uploading this, I want to make sure, uh, introduce the rest of the team. Go ahead. I was enjoying watching the show. My name is Kristin Caborn. I'm the director of park systems and public places at GAI Consultants. We work with Wanamaker Jensen extensively. We're planners and landscape architects. So, um, we do a lot of our parks and recreation projects with Wanamaker Jensen. So the site plans and the renderings that you see that are not vertical buildings are ours. So I'm here to talk about that and answer questions in a little bit. So a couple of the other things that we were trying to do overall on all of these phases is that, uh, trying to use as much of the existing infrastructure as possible. Maintain as many of the trees as possible. And also maintain, uh, existing burrows, uh, for, for owls and also you have wells on the site that are very expensive to move. So we took those as things that really needed to, to stay in place as much as possible. Okay. All right. Look at that. Seamless. All right. On to the, the phase one, uh, this, this phase I would, I would call the spine of the project. Uh, so we looked at the 92nd coming in and becoming one continuous road through the, the park. And then the parking lots essentially connect to their activities. So if I'm coming to aquatics in the rec center, I have a parking lot that I don't need to cross a main road to get to that. If I'm going to the, uh, tennis, I have a parking lot that's really associated with, with that. Uh, instead of moving through those upper parking lots that are adjacent to the fields, we're using that existing roadway and bringing that through to the, to the park. So you're no longer starting on a roadway, going into a parking lot, and then coming back onto a roadway. We really have a consistent. Now, if you're going to one of those fields, you get off of the road, you go into that field. So all of the parking lots are now associated with where you want to go. So your signage can all be associated with where you want to go. Uh, and you can see that the, the roadway no longer go, disconnects the rec center from the lake. So, uh, just, uh, just to imagine yourself, uh, in activities, uh, events happening on the, the new event line adjacent to the, the lake and, uh, a playground that's relocated to that location. Uh, kids coming out of the rec center, uh, maybe you're staging for a concert, maybe you have fall festival. You, all sorts of activities that you can flow between the building, the, the park, the lake, and the, and extend it into the rest of the park. So we wanted to create that type of synergy, uh, to that. And then on the south area, uh, we've moved, relocated the, um, basketball courts and covered them. So on the south, you'll, you'll see we have four cover, uh, four covered basketball courts, where right now you have, uh, six open courts. And then instead of only one indoor basketball court, we now have four indoor basketball courts. We envision that being really designed as multifunctional. Uh, and then the, the buildings that you see in that location, if we, uh, you have the existing building, uh, it can be renovated, uh, fairly minimal. We're not doing big changes in there. Uh, but then you, you, the new building would be adjacent to the aquatics at the same level that you could service, uh, all of the aquatics and your recreation activities out of the same building. So that, that's really important when you're having events in your, that those rooms really flow out onto the pool deck with the railing. Now you can even rent those rooms out differently. Teams can use those rooms. Uh, there's a lot of synergy between the building and, and that, uh, aquatics complex now. Uh, so we, we get the use out of the existing building, but we really provide a nexus, uh, on the new building. Uh, we do have a breakdown of cost on, on the left-hand side. You know, these are looking forward. We tried to project forward on a lot of this cost data. Uh, you, everyone knows that that's been difficult lately to do, but we tried to, to really anticipate moving forward with that. Uh, and as we've looked at everything, we've done this as more of a menu of items within these phases that you can activate. You can see the playground is to the upper left, and then we have the existing concession that's above that. And just north of that was, where we foresee having, uh, maybe more of your larger events, concerts in the park, would have essentially a two-soccer field size to be able to accommodate that. And just imagine having the lake directly on the side of your concert or your event while that's happening. And then if the kids really aren't into, uh, whatever the music is at that time, they have a playground directly adjacent that you can do that as well. All right? Anything else you want to add into that? Uh, all right. When we, when we step into the, the building, um, the, the building, we, we foresee having, uh, having an auditorium directly as close to the front as possible. Uh, this would be all multifunctional. Uh, so no, no sloped floors. It, we, you would be able to use it for other activities. Uh, and then the gymnasium, you're able to access all of the courts off of the main hallway. And you can see all of the circulation. You can see it all at one time. Uh, and then if you were to take a left moving down, that would enter into the aquatics. You would have a, uh, a gated area in there that wouldn't allow you to just run into the, the pool area. But that allows this center to really control all of the activity in the rec center and the aquatics with one staffed area. Uh, really important. Uh, fitness, fitness center, uh, up front. That supports, again, both aquatics and, uh, the recreation facilities. All your changing rooms. Those activities on that first level. And then you have a nice drop off at the, the front. Okay. And then next, uh, upper level. Uh, we're thinking that double height space from the first level. You have a connection to a track that walks around the court. So you could do silver sneaker. Uh, you can have people doing laps, uh, during the day. Again, this is about activating the, the center at all times. So, uh, seniors predominantly use facilities in the morning. Uh, and then you have after school care. So we want to think about how we activate that. You have a lot of your multi, uh, multipurpose rooms on this level. Uh, sort of classrooms, multipurpose rooms. Uh, you think these can be programmed with all sorts of different, uh, activities between cards, crafts, yoga. Yeah. All sorts of functions. Uh, but allows you a lot of flexibility. And also allows, uh, if you do have more senior-oriented activities, it actually makes a lot of sense to have them on the second level. Uh, to, uh, it's a little bit quieter on that level. So, two-story building allows you to do that. Go next. So, move into the second phase. So, you, you have that spine in the first phase. The second phase goes more into the, the fields. So, currently you have eight fields. This proposes seven. But they would all be uniform and, and be more in that, uh, with a unified complex with a concession in the center, activity in the center. And, again, working around the other, uh, activities and wells. But we were able to do that. Uh, there's, between the pickleball and the courts, there's some open space that, say, when you have league play, you have somewhere central for all of those, uh, leagues to, uh, to, uh, have tents, to have their teams gather in those space. So, really, everything is about providing a sense of place and a sense of center for each aspect of the park. Uh, so, we have the 2A and 2B is just to talk about, even though it is maybe one big phase that we would want to keep you active, uh, at all times. Uh, you know, same thing with why we're not getting rid of your existing building and just building on the same footprint. We, we want to keep you, in place and build a new building. We want to keep the fields in place, do some adjustments to the fields. Once we have those done, then we finish the rest of the field. So, you're never fully out of, out of play. Uh, a few other aspects, uh, the football, soccer is the same. We've just oriented them a little bit. So, where you see the label for 2B, that becomes, uh, multifunctional. So, we don't have a walkway between it. You can use it for more event, larger events. Uh, and then, you still have the pickleball courts. We've actually added one court in that area. Uh, many different ways you can operate those, uh, in the future. Uh, that's more of a programming discussion. Uh, keeping, actually added one restroom concession building. Uh, keeping the playgrounds, we've just adjusted the location of that one playground that was on the very south tip to closer to the building that's more active there. Okay, next slide. So, coming, uh, you, we have the, uh, some of the site work numbers and the budgeting, again, allocated, you know, to the left. And, yeah, again, these can be granular, you know, broken down into the phases. But, everything that we're doing is making sure that we, it's not, uh, that you don't paint yourself in the corner on any activity. Right? Like, if we build the rec center, you don't, you know, have to take down that existing building. And, we didn't want to do any activity that took away, uh, decisions for you. Okay, next slide. Uh, the final phase would be the, the tennis racquetball complex. Or, not racquetball, but racquet complex. So, tennis courts, uh, we have 28 existing. We have 27 proposed. Uh, the tennis stadium is kind of that one. So, we have one new, uh, tennis, uh, stadium. And, let's see, go ahead and zoom in. So, this gives you an idea, again, it's about creating a sense of center and place. So, in front of the stadium, you see a plaza. And this would be where you would arrive. You know, so you think of a, a rival. You, you have tents. You have vendors. You have activities that are, that's where all the energy is happening. Before you either go into the rest of the tennis complex or you go into the stadium. Uh, and even the stadium is designed to be multifunctional. That doesn't have to be just tennis. Other activities could happen there. Uh, so, I think that how you program that over time could be really interesting. And you see how the end kind of flows into that open space. So, that's on, on purpose. Uh, that you could use that for some other events that aren't necessarily center focused. Uh, but then all of the, the parking is, um, really consolidated, uh, around that area. And we have some service that comes to the north. We were even down to the level working with staff on how some of that parking can be allocated for press, uh, and be blocked off on that north parking lot. But still allow most of the area to be for, uh, patrons. Whereas right now they take over a lot of that south parking lot. And, and don't allow patrons to get closer to the door. So now we have a lot more parking that's, say, closer to the door per se. Uh, so, uh, and it's out of the way that it can be controlled from the rest of the park. So the main road is to that left hand side. If you follow that, that's that spine that goes through the, the whole complex. And the entry, the two entries into that parking lot can be controlled from that road. So, uh, great improvement and way finding for that. Next slide. Just gets in a little bit deeper with the tennis complex, making sure that we're using all the space underneath the stands, and then providing those amenities for the whole tennis complex would now be built into that building. So, we're, we're getting the most use out of that. We're not building a stadium and then building other buildings. We're essentially tucking all the building space that you already need into that same space. And this moves up to a second level. You might have a terrace that could overlook some of the other tennis courts. Uh, provide another amenity. Again, all of these are thinking of other revenue-generating opportunities, that these could be rental spaces. This could be VIP areas. Lots of opportunities that you can, uh, utilize these spaces and create other revenue streams. You see the mobile stage there. That was what I was saying that could be used for some other activities, uh, not just tennis, right? Sorry, that's louder than I expect it to be. It's like Halloween noises coming from the microphone. Thank you. Um, so it has been our absolute pleasure to spend so much time in this park. It's beautiful. Uh, Jason alluded to the tree canopy. It's part of what gives this park so much character. Uh, we really made sure that we were cognizant of it when we did the site plan. But part of the challenge with the tree canopy and all of the rooms that it creates is navigating the park. And so when you begin to talk about a program that is enhanced as much as we're looking at, we want to make sure that it still feels comfortable for your residents when they're attending. And we've been there at all hours of the day. And there are people doing fitness classes in parking lots that have beautiful shade, which we all know we need in Florida. So much better to have shade from trees than it is to have from canopies. Um, and just the feeling that they're getting in their small fitness class, the people who are walking. We want it to feel comfortable for them, but we also want to feel comfortable for people who may be coming in the future to utilize the tennis stadium. So we're going to talk about some of the revenue opportunities in that afterwards. Susie's got the good news on that. But I want to talk about the importance of wayfinding and really branding this park and understanding. So Phil and Trish and the whole Parks and Rec team worked really hard with us on this. We love their logo. It's colorful. It's playful. The icons gave us a really great foundation to work with. So we use those colors and we use the circles. And we did actually test the branding and the wayfinding through the public input process. We ran by a couple of the different themes with the participants. And this is what we ended up with. So one of the really great parts of it is if you look in the bottom left-hand side, those are digital signs. So it's not your eyes playing tricks on you with the color. Those are actual representations of digital signs. So we have a modern but very clear and understandable feel when you come into the park and want to see some of the special events like trunk or treat advertised. I know that's not Central Park, but just in case it is in the future. And then we have the other sign palette. You can see the scale of the pedestrian walking their dog. So we have different signs for different places. Again, you can see that we've made use of the colors and the icons. It makes it very easy to direct people to the different program activities. Our wayfinding and graphic designer does DOT signage. So she's like got it all nailed down. She was at all the public meetings on front size and legibility for both pedestrians and people who are driving. So all of those signs are ADA compliant and compliant with legibility requirements based on the scale of the user and how they are traversing the park. So we're really excited about this. We were really happy to come in and have the opportunity to start with a really great logo and build on that. I think the next slide, Diego. Don't let your eyes get crossed trying to look at this. This is the signage plan. So each sign type has a number and we have different signs planned throughout the park at all of the decision points both for vehicles, people walking, people skating, people who are however they're navigating the park. So there is a full signage plan in process that will make it much less confusing and also help preserve the fact that you don't have to be able to see from one side of the park to the other because you have trees in place. Okay, now Susie's got the better news. Jason and I have been spending all the money. Now Susie's going to talk about the revenue. Good evening. Suzanne Fisher-Reader. I'm with Sports Facility Advisory and I looked at the whole park and what the potential revenue could be for that park and what your potential economic impact is. And so it is in detail in the reports, but for just a couple of high-level slides, we'll go through that. So we actually look at square footage when we look at projecting revenue. We look at a low, medium, and a high, and you say what does that mean low, medium, and high? Low is typically a Parks and Recreation Department. It's typically someone who has a cost recovery that is very low. Mid is someone with more of a market rate that they charge. And then high is typically your private provider, right? So that kind of gives you that range of where could we fall within the range. So we do look at square footage. So we look at square footage for those indoor facilities. So that was everything from the indoor track to those potential use spaces on the second floor and the first floor. We also look at food and beverage revenue and what that could look like in the facility as well as sponsorship opportunities. So looking on that top line just at the indoor facility, we expect revenue for your indoor to run somewhere between $390,000 a year up to just over a million dollars. That's just for that indoor asset. For the outdoor field assets, now that's for the baseball, softball, the soccer. We look at those on a per field basis and where the benchmarks come from. So we actually manage over 100 sports tourism facilities across the country and work with thousands of various Parks and Recreation departments and then private providers. And so the benchmarks come from those best performing facilities. Facilities that we see perform great services and have a return on their investment. So on your field capabilities, just under a half a million dollars up to about 1.8. That's everything from your local Rec programming to potential tournaments that could go into those locations. Tennis and pickleball, you say, why is it a zero? Lots of places don't charge for pickleball, right? And so let's put that out there that there is, that is why that is there on across the country. Now, there are those groups that do pay. And so as we think about that with your tennis and your pickleball, that's where that mid and the high range fall. So about half a million dollars if you consider that as part of your concept. And then on the high close to 1.5. Aquatics is, again, based on spaces and your tool to pool spaces. Typically, again, those pool spaces are recreation. And then you do a lot with rentals and teams coming in and whatnot. So about 150,000 up to about 475. So total range for the park on just under a mil close to about 4.7 that you could generate annually in revenue through the park. Now, we look at what that preliminary net operating is. And so those two we look at on those benchmark, you know, poor core, what does that look like? Again, indoor facility, it does consider maintenance. It does consider usage. It includes all those items. So we're looking at a subsidy potentially for your indoor facility in your low end. And then in your high end, you would have an operating net operating outdoor fields as well. Again, numbers could be contingent upon your usage, how often you rent. We use what we would consider your normal rental time periods. So somewhere about just under 200,000 potentially in a subsidy fields, outdoor fields typically do not have a huge revenue generator, right? So your high end, we do have facilities that generate revenue on the high end. But outdoor fields, the maintenance of the outdoor fields typically outweighs what you can bring in in your net operating. Tenants and pickleball, again, the same. Now, this does not include the tennis stadium. And the reason I want to make that very clear is the tennis stadium would be very much specific for events that are not yet determined. And so to put a number on something that we cannot actually predict what that could look like, whether that is, you know, an ATP event or USTA event or any type of concerts, that's a whole different study all in itself. So just so you understand, these are just the courts themselves for those tennis and pickleball. So somewhere subsidy, a small subsidy for those maintenance and operations, you know, probably breaking even at that point. And then aquatics as well. Again, aquatics is a very much huge debt that brings in with operating expenses. We all know that. So looking somewhere for the whole park, about $600,000 in an annual subsidy, possibly on a net operating side on the positive side, generating just under $200,000. Next slide. Okay, and so just some breakdowns for you so you can see kind of what those benchmarks look we look at with economic impact. Again, indoor courts, economic impact is based on what that per court would look like, fields, and these are all spelled out in the report. But I think the important is that bottom line. What could this facility bring in and this park bring in in economic impact to your community? So we think on a very much low end, about $11.2 million. Now, that is very close to what we've seen with some of the reports that we've looked at with Phil and the team, right? So they're doing great with what they have for the facilities now. We think you can do better. So I do think that $23 up to about $38.5 million. That's annually in what this facility could bring into your community. So those are dollars infused into your community from the improvements that you could make to this park. And finally, my last one is just some ideas and thoughts about some potential funding mechanisms for you. So obviously borrowing and NGO bonds, you're familiar with those. But I want you to really consider some of those non-traditional funds as well that could come in and help you with this facility. Because it is intergenerational, because it will address health, wellness, obesity, some of those social determinants of health. There are other funds, whether they're public, private, federal grant funds, that can come in and play. And just a couple that we brought up. I mean, for that we all know, but come play in Florida. Truly dedicated to bringing sports tourism out of state money into the state. And so this would be one that you are very much eligible to apply for. And they work with not only events, but some individuals with bringing facilities from the ground up. The other are really things that address childhood obesity. And then those environmental sustainability and social determinants of health. So it would not rule out anything with OJJDP. It would not rule out any type of private. And so I did put one up there for you just so you can see. But it's one that people don't normally consider, but the American Beverage Association. We all see the sodas everywhere. Well, they have obviously decided that maybe they should fund some things to combat some of that. And so this is an application. It is due every fall, and I would tell you that even if you don't do it for this facility, I would look at it for others. Because it is a great program that really is helping infuse money into parks departments. So with that, thank you for your patience. I mean, we're very excited about the opportunity at this. I mean, we work with parks across the state. And the potential that you have for this community and this park as just the asset that you have could be a phenomenal game changer for the community as a real, true, regional, iconic destination. So with that, any questions that you might have were available. Thank you so much for a very comprehensive presentation. And I know that this is not an item that we are voting on tonight for those of you listening and watching. But we do have a couple of questions from the council. I wanted to ask, was this, and it's probably a question I'm not sure for you or for Mr. Goodrich, but was this presentation shared with the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board as well? Yes, they were part of the whole process, and they have seen there's a couple of minor adjustments that were made at the very end. But, yes, they've seen everything as we've gone through the whole process. Thank you. And then, of course, I was looking at the economic impact piece and love the design. The economic piece was a little bit startling. But if I'm, like, estimating, we possibly, though, with the revenue, even kind of in the mid-range revenue, might be able to recoup those funds in six years, and that's pending no grants. Is that about right? When you talk about economic impact, you're not talking about revenue coming to us. That's hotels, restaurants, shopping. It's all of those. I should say revenue. Yes. The revenue generated. How long would it take us to recoup the initial investment? A, I can't tell you what that cost is going to end up being to begin with, and there's no way for me to be able to tell you what the market's going to look like in five years, let alone ten years and beyond. Okay. I do want to bring up a couple quick things that Jason just kind of maybe missed over in the presentation. Two of the soccer fields were being converted to artificial turf fields. And then one of the big key components of everything in there, every walkway around the whole park is going to be expanded drastically and, as well, have much better lighting. We have a very big presence in the evenings just in the casual walkers out there, and lighting has been a challenge at that facility for many, many years. So those are two very important things that are part of that plan as well. And the basketball courts, I know that we'll have more indoor, less outdoor. Did you mention that if the outdoor was covered? Yes. I couldn't. There's four courts. They're all covered. They're all covered. Okay. I know that Councilmember Fadgen had some additional questions. Thank you. Nice work. Looks beautiful. Got any money? $319 million. I guess the first question I don't think you can answer, but I'm going to ask it. Like, what kind of time period are we talking about? Like, if we found funding, it seems like that's a three- to five-year process just to get funding for phase one. So is this a 20-year project? That's up to you folks. That's not a coincidence. No, no, no. Absolutely. It might be a bond. It might be multiple bonds throughout time. Yeah. How much of that, those other sources that you're talking about, like, how much could we kind of reasonably hope to get of that, let's just say, of the $119 million? 10% would be an extraordinary amount of money, but that would be a drop in the bucket. It would. And I would tell you that it would be, 10% would be realistic, but it would be 10% over a numerous number of funding cycles. So it would be, we would get 10% and then we would go again and then. You'd have to go through multiple, I mean, if you're looking at federal funds. From different sources. From different sources. Yes. Sounds like we'd have to hire, like, a grant writer to track this all down. Pickleball. This park can't have a non-monetized facility. We have a tennis facility, which is one of the best facilities in the county and it has, like, world-class events coming to it. I think that stadium, and I have some questions regarding the stadium, really would enhance what we could attract. Like from, like, the Orange Bowl, which I think the contract's coming up and I hope that we're on a pace to tell them we want them back. But I think we need to do an assessment from some of our other parks, like the community center, where some of these tennis courts are. That's where the non-monetized pickleball. It can't be Central Park. This is, like, the heart of the city. There's a problem there. And we need it monetized, one, to maintain why people are going there because we got something special going on with the pickleball courts. But we also need to monetize it to sort of curb the amount of people coming because I have complaints. I don't want to say complaints, but I have comments from residents that they're not playing pickleball in the city because they can't get on the court. And then the, you know, the next mechanism, you know, like, I played pickup basketball, so I had next. I know how that works. They're, like, matching up, like, inexperienced players with really experienced players. And novices don't want to play with really experienced players, and real experienced players don't want to play with novices. And I don't know. I think that just you, the first thing about the three to five years says that we have to do something with the current courts to figure out a way that we can have a check-in system, have a fee system, create a membership system similar to the Valtteri Tennis Center. I think that needs to be really, we really need to look at it while we're waiting for this to happen. And when it does happen, those courts need to be monetized so that we can create, continue this high-quality thing. Because we're not going to be able to maintain it the way we're going now. They're getting free lights. All the soccer teams, you know, the players, they pay the fees. There's a light element to that, right? Like, when you're doing it. If you rent it, yes. Yeah. If you go to the Valtteri Tennis Center, you're paying a light fee. So they're getting a free ride right now, and it's too valuable to not monetize it. So, I mean, I've talked about that before. Is there any consideration? I like the idea of the basketball courts being covered. Are there any consideration of covering the pickleball courts? Because that could increase our utilization because you get to 10 o'clock, particularly during the summer, nobody's out there because it's an oven. So was there any consideration of implementing some sort of covered system similar to the basketball? Yeah. I think that's completely an add-on, you know, feature. It can be certainly, you know, done for that. I think we did. But even if we took two covered courts, took two of the basketball courts, have them two open, two covered, and then just cover some of the, I mean, I don't know how much space a pickleball. I'm thinking it must be at least four that we could put in a basketball. Yeah, that's certainly easy to accomplish and add to the process. I'm saying taking away the basketball coverage. I'm just moving things around. I ain't raising the price. And that is, truly, that is why it's a master plan. Like, we, you know, it's like you go here, like the, you know, whether it has this bell or this whistle, you know, certainly, but we want to make sure that we give you the opportunity to make those decisions and not have to take off, bite the whole thing at this, at the same time. I'll move on from there. The artificial fields. I had comments made to me when we opened up Pine Island that they prefer not to play in the artificial fields. Is it really necessary to have two artificial fields? I understand why we need it, because if we're going to have events there, the wear and tear on the natural turf, you know, you need something if there's rain and, and whatever, so that, you know, that we still have fields to play on. Does it have to be two artificial turfs? That saves money, by the way. Well, so, so the couple aspects of that, I think, you know, we were thinking not, we're not turfing everything. Right. Well, just two fields. Right. Just two fields. And a part of that was if you're going to double it for some of those other events that, that it's able to withstand that type of activity, that number of people with that. So that's, that's one aspect of it. And being able to still have practice, you know, when you have a rain events, you know, where it, you know, you basically have to close down all those other fields, but you can't move over to that. I think those are all very practical, reasonable assumptions and thought processes when it comes to this. But then it gets down to the kids playing on there and there's a higher injury. You know, it might be fractional or whatever, but there is a higher injury playing on a artificial surface. I was just wondering if that was something considered. Um, how many seats was that tennis stadium? 1500. Okay. And then I'm assuming the court would be clay because if we're hosting a clay event, they were going to want to play in the stadium court for the championship on the, on the same surface. So that'd be clay. Um, the, the basketball covered, are they lighted as well? Yes. That the, uh, the covered ones. Okay. I read about a dog park in the backup. I don't think a dog park is really a good idea in a very active park, like central park. I think a dog park is much more, um, conducive to a passive park, like, like Seminole park. I think we definitely need a dog park in the, on the west side of the city. I don't know if that's something we can, um, try to get implemented with North Acres Park. Um, but I think, I don't think it's a good fit because, you know, there's signs out there, no pets. And there's people out there walking their dogs. And if there's a dog park, then it says, you know, it's a beautiful night. Let's go walk around the lake with our dog. And if you're running or you're rollerblading, a dog on a leash is not what you're looking for. And, and that is a problem that staff deals with on a regular basis. So the very, very, very southern point down by Roward Boulevard was the designated area there. Right. So that we could give them someplace. There's so many apartments around there. Yeah. They're seeking that, that area to be able to walk their dogs. So we wanted to make sure that we isolated it as much as possible. I understand. And that's kind of what's unique about Central Park is that there is that, uh, passive aspect of the park that's on the, uh, south side of it. I don't know. I'm not really sold on it, but I understand exactly what you're saying. Um, branding. The signage looks great. Um, the problem is we're coming piecemealed. Uh, I've been involved in, um, branding initiatives in, in my professional career. And, uh, problem with the branding is if, if we're, you know, we have your parks and rec, it, it, it's, it's nice. But how do we get utilities to match your branding? We had one, one, um, department create a brand. Now we might have another department that wants to create their own brand. And before we know it, we have 14 or 15 departments that have a separate brand. And it takes away from the vision and the, the communication that a brand is supposed to be. It, it all needs to be tied in together. Now, regarding the signage for Central Park, um, we have, it doesn't look similar to what we did with Pine Island. So I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I think we need to have a, a discussion about where we are with our branding. We should get all the departments, uh, in line with each other. So when we're doing the, uh, when we're doing the signage for the parks and stuff, that it, it's part of the unified vision for the entire city. Not just Central Park. That's going to be, you know, that signage is not, is going to be different than what Pine Island is. And in any other part that we, you know, when we do, um, North Acres, um, et cetera. So I, I think that I, I, I just want to make sure that we don't go off, off the ledge with our branding initiative. Because, um, one department did a, a branding and it looks nice and I agree it has nice colors. I'm colorblind, but, um, I, I just think that we need to, um, make sure that we're communicating one vision, one message. And it gets all tied in with all the assets of the city, um, for our parks and our departments and, and that. So I think no one has $119 million? No. We'll find it later. All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Anderson. Hi, great presentation. Thanks for all the work. I was at a few of those things. Could you back up to, um, the, the income part? Can I have a slide that had the income? That one. Um, Phil. I, I, I know I was blown away years ago when I first started really researching the city before I ran for office. How much the economic impact. And so those numbers aren't astounding only because I learned, they were astounding when I learned them years ago. And they still continue to be very high. But where, if we implemented these things, and I do agree we probably need to control pickleball and probably, he, he took a lot of the stuff I wanted to talk about. Great stuff. Yeah, it's okay. It was all, you know, it's great points. I mean, the pickleball, in order to control it, we can monetize it. Not to gouge them, but then it creates reservations through courts and all that. And, um, just a fair price to cover what they're getting for it. Um, and I know you aren't considering to charge them a lot. You just mean to, again, to create control, maintenance, all that, right. But, um, what we're getting now for the things when we, when we charge for our tournaments, which we have a ton of tournaments throughout the year at our different parks. Would we be getting, would we get more? Do you see us being up in the mid range? Are we currently in the low range? If you, I would say, yes, we're in the low range, especially, uh, we don't have any basketball courts. We can't run any basketball events or, or volleyball tournaments. We don't have those. That is very similar to what our pool situation is. We're very unique in the pool world because we have two Olympic sized pools. So that makes us very marketable and to bring those events here. As well, we have a very good working relationship with the Broward County Sports Tourism Board. And they're very cooperative with us. And they direct a lot of events to, to our city, which then impacts our hotels and restaurants and everything else like that. So, yes, I do think we could move towards the mid level without question. Um, the ball fields, the baseball diamonds, it just becomes much more attractive to host an event there. Instead of it being fraction and all the home plates be in the opposite directions. To have a centralized area where you can have a tournament desk and you can run everything out of it. We've done very well with what we've had to work with. But yes, it would make it even better. The tennis center would do even much better. Having a, having a, a stadium court is the one thing with the Orange Bowl. Uh, the Orange Bowl Junior Tennis Tournament is by the standards of USTA is the number one in the world youth sports event. The one thing that they've said we've been missing is they don't, they don't have that elevation of that, that feeling of a championship venue. We've talked to them both the Orange Bowl as well as the USTA about potential sponsorships and assist with doing this. So part of it is that we needed to show them a nice picture to be able to get that. So I could sit talk all day long if I don't have a vision that we're looking to go to and how we can incorporate all these things together. It markets us very, very well from that standpoint. So then you're talking about aquatics, basketball, volleyball, softball, soccer. It, it really generates a lot of economic impact to the city. I think it maybe is the next slide to had the red areas because we, what we are, we subsidize essentially. But if we were, so I guess now looking at the mid, cause I didn't know where we would fall in there. Still our fields would still only, even, even though we would be in the mid, we would still be at the negative. Could you, could you? Because of, because of maintenance costs. Because of, yeah, I, I know I get it, but I could. Yeah. So because. Talk me through a little more. Sure. Natural grass, national turf fields cost about four times as much to maintain as synthetic turf fields. Their replacement cost and their long-term cost is higher than synthetic fields as well. And so that ongoing cost is what's weighing into your field cost. But even are tennis and pickleballs at a loss? Well, so that is so that you can have that conversation about pickleball and tennis and what you charge for fees and market rate versus cost recovery. So I think there is room for growth in both of those, but we wanted you to see what that reality could look like. Yeah. And, and by no means am I looking to turn it and I just mean to how do we slowly pay for it and or operate closer to zero? Not here to gouge residents, but just seeing the numbers. That's all I'm discussing. Okay. That's enough for me for now. Thank you. Council member Horlow. Oh, sorry. The track. Was that, was the track elevated? Yes. So the, the track would be actually elevated above the, the courts. So you could walk around that track. Which courts? The basketball courts. The basketball courts. So those, the. The basketball courts. Right. So you could enter that track from the second level, say second level balcony, be able to walk around the track while basketball is happening below and not interfere with them. Right. But then it's not covered, right? It is covered. It's, everything's within the bill. So completely air conditioning. So you think silver sneakers, you're doing that. It's all inside. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks. Thank you. Council member Horland. Thank you, Madam President. Jason and team. Thank you. It's, it's wonderful. I love the way finding signs. Having spent so many years in those parks with my kids. I think it's terrific. This is the keystone park of our entire parks and rec department. So I think that the signage is forward looking. It's modern. I love it. Again, very briefly, what I want to ask you, because a lot of this is going to be conversation. As we go forward, we start to prioritize. Within the three phases, have you provided staff with an optimal way that we can implement some of the components within those phases? Say we happen to find a million dollars here and $500,000 here. Right. Because that, we all, I know, we all know that funding is going to be the most challenging. Right. And we may get a grant for $475,000, but we're not going to be able to create, complete all of phase B. So have you given us a little bit of a road map, how we can implement those components? And absolutely, you know, even with, we show the big picture of a large phase, but within that phase are a lot of options on how it's designed. So, like say if you wanted to implement phase one and do the spine, a lot of the site work and get all your wayfinding in, but you don't have money for the building right away. Well, nothing paints you in a corner. There's a spot for the building in that site plan, and you still have your existing building. So, you can come back and do that piece, you know, later. You know, any of the playground, these additional pieces, the program pieces, you know, can be adjusted. Even the parking on the far left side, we added a line of parking for the fields. You know, that's a piece that could be added later. It could be essentially the menu can expand, you know, for smaller items to give you more flexibility on how you implement the plan. But I would say the key, that key spine piece and getting the site piece, which wouldn't even be the full budget of that one, that's the piece that I think everything will then fall into place and rotate, and you'll start to see, well, yeah, we, you know, we have some interest to get this done over here, and here's the place for it, and here's the place for this to really bring it together. That's great. So, that would be the priority to start there. Right, yes. And as we go into our strategic planning sessions, and Mr. Goodrich comes to us and said, you know, these are the priorities, and we hopefully have the funding. So, thank you again. Absolutely. I'm excited about where we can go with this. And Mr. Goodrich may be retired by the time we get this done. I will be. None of us may be sitting here. No question. I'm excited. I'll come back and visit. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Reinstein. Yes. Thank you for the presentation. I also want to especially thank you for those community-wide meetings that you did. A lot of us attended, and we went through a lot of the setup of this. A lot of this looks familiar from what you were giving us as examples. A lot of what I'm interested in has already been covered, but there are three parts I want to ask a couple more. One is regarding the pickleball, basketball, and food sales. So first, as far as pickleball, the question about monetization that was brought up, and we've previously brought up at some workshops or strategic planning the difference between residents versus non-residents and how you would do that monetization. And I understand that may come at some further discussion. But if you could go back to one of the other pictures that shows where the pickleball courts would be. Yeah. I think that one. I thought I remembered, and maybe this is for you, Director Goodrich, is that when one of the discussions we had had regarding this issue of a reservation system for pickleball or for monetization, I thought I remembered that one of the concerns was that there isn't an office building type situation close to where the pickleball is currently, which is very different than tennis. That tennis can work differently with reservations because there's people staff there. So in terms of what we're looking at in terms of this plan, these discussions about reservations or monetization, is that possible based on this plan and the office space that you had previously been concerned about? No. Still, with this plan, no, there's no building that's allotted in there. Okay. That's what I thought I saw. But there has to be a bigger conversation that we'll have, obviously, and we're in the midst of putting together some of the data and the backup of putting together the information. Is it a sustainable venture for us to be going into? Anything that we've found that there's charging for pickleball is associated with a bar and a restaurant. So it's not just the courts that is sustainable from a revenue standpoint. Fort Lauderdale is about to build a complex with 40 courts with a restaurant and a bar attached to it, and it's a private P3 venture. It's also one of the things that we have to look at. The very reason we're here with those four courts is because roller hockey a couple decades ago was the next thing. It was going to be the most popular thing, and we were on the front side of that, and we built those courts first. When we did that, then as other municipalities started to build other facilities, all those people that used to come here now went to Pines, now went to Tamarack, now went to Springs. So we've got to be careful that we don't – Tricia and I have come up with about 50 to 60 courts that are in the plans in our county in the next year. If that comes to fruition, do we even have the problem that we currently have? Right. So we've got to be careful because once we step our toes into that water and we build that facility and we put that point of sale in place, there's a cost that comes with that. Are we going to get return on investment enough to sustain that, or are we actually going in the hole? I appreciate that. No, no, I appreciate that. And the forward thinking, I think, is something you've done so well with all of our parks and everything. And, you know, some of my fellow council members talked about the monetization. I'm actually more concerned with the preference to our residents and the reservation system than the monetization. That, to me, is something that I hear more often than anything else from residents is that we want to use these great facilities, but we can't get on them because people from outside of the city are coming. So my follow-up question then is that whether it's monetization or whether it's reservation and whether it's pickleball or something else in that same side of the park, are we going to be set up for some type of office space to make it work, right? So that even if the concern was that we didn't have office space there, so that's hard to handle it. To me, the concern is regardless of whether it's pickleball or not. So that may be, that's the follow-up question that I have to you is that if it's not pickleball and it's something else, we're still missing that on these plans, is that right? Yes, and I've actually had conversations with Mr. Polio from utilities, and we would be looking at dropping in a drop-in building potentially to have restrooms and then a concession, which would be more, not concessions, but it would be more of an office space for somebody to work out of. So we're looking at that for separate from this plan. So while it's not on their plan, it may be something that we would add before this even came to fruition. Okay. So that's part of our whole analysis to see if we can do that. Additionally, for our residents, we've already had talks with the administration about adding some more courts out at Volunteer Park, Seminole Park, and the community center to give more opportunities spread out throughout the city for our residents that they would know where those facilities are and they're also closer to their communities and give them that opportunity completely separate from Central Park. Great. But we will make the 18th court, which is just us doing some surface work, and we're going to do that regardless. So we will add one more court at Central. Good. Thank you. And I want to follow up in terms of the basketball. Can you show us where the basketball courts, the outdoor ones, are going to be? So as far as those outdoor basketball courts, the way that – and I had asked this previously in terms of being covered, and I know Councilmember Andreo and some others asked about it being covered. I just want to be clear is that when we talk about the covered outdoor basketball courts, they are open on the sides. And forgive me for not knowing this, but in terms of the direction of the sun, right, are we considering that so that it's still not heating? You know, the sun rays still aren't directed right onto the courts. Yeah. You usually do them a little bit larger and with some overhangs, you know, for that. So you're looking out for that. And even if you are placing some trees off of it a little bit, you try to – Perfect. So that's part of the consideration. Great. And the last one was regarding food sales. I know we're talking about, you know, potential income and revenue and those things. You know, I know I've asked this in the past, and I'm still not sure exactly how the food sales work at Central Park, and we haven't really had a discussion on it. But tell me how you envision in terms of your presentation maybe as to how we need to do food sales in order to bring in some of that revenue. So typically we look at food sales on a tournament basis, and then we look at food sales on a local use basis. And we actually attribute a number to each individual that we – and we use Placer AI in Buxton and some others that you're already using. And that gives you an estimate of what you should consider as your food and beverage. So whether that's concessions. The numbers is less for someone who's there daily, right? I don't remember, but I can get you off the top of my head what they are. Less for your recreational people who come to use your facilities, so your soccer players, your baseball leagues, whatnot. It's less for that than it is for a tournament. Tournament is higher. I think it's like $3.50 per person a day that what we use for those estimates for use. But those estimates, those calculations are considering food sales from REC as even a smaller number, but that's being considered. It is, and it's usually a portion, right? So it's not a one-for-one on your local because Team Moms bring the juice boxes and everything else, right? But it is being considered. And so that is something that you do have potential to grow with, but it just depends how you do food sales now. Okay, thank you. Just a little caveat on food sales. We don't run concessions, Parks and Rec. So that is contractually obligated through PAL, and they operate and they retain all those funds. So that has nothing to do with Parks and Rec. I appreciate that. And I actually was not going to direct it at you to not get into that whole discussion, which may be for another time. Coming for another time. Correct. Thank you. All right. Real quick, to Council Member Reinstein's comment regarding the reservation system. I equate reservation to monetization. So reservation, membership, and the reason why I'm talking about this monetization is, one, to compete with the 50 new places. Because if we make it a home for these players, and they want to come play there, and we're offering them these extras, I like that people want to play at our thing. I don't like that our residents feel that they can't get on there when they want to get on there. So that's really what I'm getting at. I just want to maintain. We created something that people really, really enjoy. I just want to maintain it. And I don't see how we can maintain it without creating a membership program like the Valtteri Tennis Center and charging a nominal residential fee and then a non-resident fee, whatever would be considered fair. Can I, I think those are all the questions. So can I pivot with my last question? It's more, I think, for the mayor. Going to the grants, because I really think we have to look at some other potential funding sources with this very high price tag. Yes, indeed. And so I know a couple of months ago, and I don't want to say the person's name, but there was somebody who, I believe, had a conversation with you regarding working on grants for the city. And this would be like right up their alley and to the point that it really wouldn't cost us anything if I understood the proposal. I mean, I didn't see any proposal in writing, but the verbal proposal that was mentioned to me, so they would not take a salary unless, you know, the grant came through. And then they, I don't know, they got a percentage of the grant. And so is that something that we are pursuing? Because this would be, I think, the perfect opportunity to launch that. The administration talked about it. Jason probably has the more complete answer to that. I'm not sure about that specific item. I know we currently do have a grant writer, and we have a solicitation that's gone out. So we anticipate having a library. But as aggressive as we may be, and I think it was pointed out earlier, with grants, we'll be nibbling around the edges of something as ambitious as the plan that's been pointed out here. Not that we won't do it. We've got FERDAPs in hand, and we'll continue in that, and certainly legislative appropriations we'll go after. But, yeah, grants on this scale will be 5%, 10%, I think, is even aggressive. But it's certainly something we would pursue. I would love to recontact either with me or with Jason on that, because I don't remember the person. I don't remember the exact conversation. But absolutely, any dime out there, look, we never want to leave any money on the table in any way. But there's a, did I understand you correctly, there's a RFP that's out right now? Okay. I'll refer, so I won't discuss it, because it's under the cone of silence. I see Mr. Spencer back there nodding. So, but I will share that, I will share that with some of those people in that arena. Absolutely. I mean, just, oftentimes there's a prohibition on success fees. And, you know, every funding source has their different caveats, but we just need to be careful about that as well. I think FURDEP cap is $500,000. I think it's been the most recent that the state has done. The $50,000 is a match, the $200,000 is a match, and then the $500,000 is something different. So we have that. Yeah, the funding, in my mind, funding is a huge question. And we would have several meetings and several serious meetings with council to figure out, what do you guys want to do with this? Do you think the money is there or not? There's a lot, a lot, a lot of talking to be done about that part of it. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, again, thank you, Mr. Goodrich and Jason and the whole team. We love exactly, I think it's unanimous. We all love the master plan. Now we just have to look for the dollars. But thank you. Yes, I do just want to say a special thanks again to Wanamaker Jensen for everything that they did, the amount of effort they put in to engage every element of people that are impacted by this. And yes, I'm not going to be around much longer, at least here, as I move on. But I wholeheartedly think that this is a vision for the future. Those kids that were hidden here doing those essays and stuff, this impacts them and possibly their families down the road. Central Park has lived its life expectancy very well. It's closing in on 45 years now. And for everything that we've done, I think that we've done a very good job at maintaining what we did have. And it's served a very, very good purpose and has been a very positive impact to a lot of lives. So we're looking at what the next future can be and for Trish to take over from that standpoint. And I do want to say a special thanks to Trish because she really was the spearhead in the department and did all the back work on that and made it all happen. So thank you. Again, thank you. Thank you. So I know it was a very lengthy conversation, but great information and an important conversation to have as we move forward and continue to do our planning for the future. Next, we have public requests of the council regarding municipal affairs. Those who wish to speak, you should have completed a request form already. If you have not done so, please go ahead and do that. They are located in the back of the chamber and also here next to the podium. When you come to the podium, please state your name and address and please address your remarks to the chair, not to the individual members of the council, and keep your remarks to the allotted three minutes. I have Sarah Clark. Hi there. Sarah Clark, 10451 West Broward Boulevard. I'm probably going to be the least popular person in this room because I'm going to talk about why free parking is bad. So yeah, get away. This is great. This is local government awesome. You get to listen to me talking about free parking. Okay, so first thing is it's not free. We're all paying for it. The developers have to cover their costs. Like if tomorrow the city were to mandate that restaurants provide free dessert with every meal, the cost of a meal would go up. So we are all paying for this parking, even though it's quote-unquote free. And when that becomes a problem is because it crystallizes car dependency into our city. And people who choose not to have cars are still paying for it. So those people are disproportionately lower income. So we have low income people subsidizing higher income people, which is never a great scenario. So that's not particularly fair. It's not really good for the economy. So parking minimums can really gatekeep local businesses out of the areas where they would do the best business. It kind of banishes them into strip centers. We were just actually talking before this meeting about how a lot of the gems in plantations are like, and plantation is like, they're banished into strip centers. Like they're in strip centers where people don't know about them. And like they're really easy to miss and they're hard to find. So there's like, you know, there's plenty of economic incentive for developers to build enough parking because they know. Like they know how much parking they need in order to turn a profit, right? Like they have plenty of incentives to build enough parking because if they don't, then there's going to be an issue. And if they build too much of it, then they wasted their money. So in any case, it's good to let developers do what they know is best. And then the last thing is that it, it kind of crystallizes car dependency into our city. So the more parking we build, the more it spreads out our urban fabric, the more it, the more it makes it hard to walk places. So it's kind of like opioids for cities, which is a weird thing to say, but like the more you take opioids, the more you're going to have breakthrough pain, the more you're going to need to take the opioids, right? So like we can keep building parking, but you can only take so many opioids before you ruin your life. And you can only build so much parking before you ruin your city. We see a central park at its limits. Fourth of July, people are parking on the median. So you know what happened at that point is people started walking and we can't just keep building parking. We can't just keep going like that. Every time we see parking maxed out, we're like, let's build more. And, and where does it stop? Because we're, we're digging a hole. Um, so I'm not just here to talk about problems. Like the reason I'm here to talk about this problem is because it's important to understand the problems so that you can get to the solution. So I'll talk about the solution next meeting. Thank you Dave Finland. Can I just clarify it? You signed up for two items, right? You wanted the public comment and then you also would like a consent item. So right now it's just public comment. Yeah, that's fine. I wasn't really sure what was what. So it's my first time here. Uh, it's Dave Finland, 7031 Southwest 9th street plantation. I live in Royal Palm Estates. So the topic of the dredging of the canal that runs from El Dorado into Royal Palm affects us deeply. I live across the street from the lake. I've lived there now for 30 years. I'm sorry. That's item number three. So I'll ask you to wait on that item. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want anything for just public comment, not related to the agenda for this evening? No, I'll call you back. Okay. Okay. All right. See you later on. Those are all of the public comments that I have signed up. Is there anyone else who wishes to speak to public request of the council regarding any municipal affairs? Okay. Hearing none, public comments are now closed. The consent agenda consists of 11 items and may be approved with one motion. Does any member of the council wish to pull an item? Yes. One and five, please. I'm going to pull number three for Mr. Finland. Thank you. Anything else? Make a motion. Make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the exception of items one, three and five. Second. It has been properly moved and seconded. Ms. Biggerow, please call the roll. Council member Horland. Yes. Council member Einstein. Yes. Council member Anderson. Yes. Council member Fajan. Yes. Item number one is the resolution for the City Council of Plantation approving the execution of the Florida Department of Transportation locally funded agreement. And that was pulled by Council member Reinstein. Yes. Thank you. I did get, I got my answer privately. I had spoken to Mr. Nunamaker before the start of this. It was in regards to the amount, it's $112,740 that is our part, our contribution to it. But what I wanted was clarified for the public in regards to the 20% contingency and 5.8% escalator, but without a backstop. So if maybe you can just explain that for the public, please. I'd be happy to. Jason Nunamaker, CAO. So the question that council member posed is what is our, is there a limit on our exposure? You know, when FDOT is doing improvements throughout the city, we look for ways to benefit from that, economies of scale, mobilization, disable net. In this particular instance, to save on replacement of pavers with stamped concrete, we wanted to take advantage of that opportunity. As you all have seen, the pavers are a tremendous burden from a maintenance perspective, from an ADA perspective. Even new developments like Plantation Walk, I'm sure you all have seen where they've had to do additional work there, and that's brand new. So to the point of the question, FDOT's built in a 20% contingency. On top of that, they have a 5%, a 5.8% escalator. So we feel very comfortable that's going to protect us from any potential cost averages, because that's built into the figure that we've agreed to. Should they come back and something is even beyond that? I don't think we'd be looking at something too significant, because we're just talking about this specific stamped concrete. But it's an important question, because you want to know kind of what your exposure is. So I appreciate the question. Yeah, and just to clarify is that there is, if it goes over the amount that we've contributed, that there is no cap. And so the concern was that without having a hard cap, you never know what you're going to find when you dig up something or when you do work. But I appreciate that, based on your analysis, you believe the cushion is sufficient to support really not going beyond much more than that, really. That's correct. And I think it's important to note that 5.8% escalation is something new. That's something we're looking at, procurement's looking at, because with goods and services, what we've seen is we get a bid, we secure a job, six months into the job, costs have risen, and it's put us in a real pain point. So that's something we are considering as well. So that's a discussion we'll be having in the future. Thank you for clarifying. Thank you. Are there any other questions for the discussion? Motion? Motion to approve item one. I'll second it, sure. Ms. Bidrow, please call the roll. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Councilmember Reinstein? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Fajan? Yes. Item number three is ITB number 06223, the Royal Palm Canal Dredging. Councilmember Horland? Mr. Finlan, this is when you come up. Good to see you. Welcome. So I wasn't planning on being here tonight until I got your newsletter, so appreciate that information. Can you restate your- I'm sorry, yeah. Dave Finlan, 7031 Southwest 9th Street, Plantation, 33317, Royal Palm Estates. So I've been a 30-year resident of Royal Palm Estates, seeing a lot of changes. Live across the street from the lake. We're in the lake a lot. There's a number of us, including my brother, that live on the lake. Very concerned about the dredging and what the impact might have from, really, from an effect on the lake itself and the canal system that runs all the way to Broward. This past summer, you know, we go on the lake a lot. We fish on the lake a lot. We paddleboard on it. The weeds and the problem with all the vegetation was huge. We couldn't even enjoy the canal system or the lake. Well, the lake's fine, but the canal system. My concerns with the dredging is what it'll do to the lake and, like, what's the timeframe? Is it something that's going to take six months, four months? Because I think if you put silt and mud from that dredging into that 60-foot lake, that it's going to really impact the quality of the water. And I don't know much about it because I don't know what your studies were. But I'm also concerned about even the fish that are in there. I've been fishing that lake for 30 years. And I can be honest with you, in the last three years, I've never seen the high quality of water that I've seen. It's been great. Tons of different types of fish in there. And I hate to see all that go away without just some real good due diligence on what dredging up a two-and-a-half-foot, you know, cut-through canal would be. Thank you for the question. So I see our engineer, Samir Shallan, is here to answer some of your questions. Mayor Soto? Thank you very much, Council President Andre. The day I was elected, we've started on this project. Famously, or not famously, I walked door-to-door all over the city. And this is the most egregious and most disgusting thing in our city, this canal system. Everybody says my house is the worst. Everybody says my canal is the worst. I point to that canal. Mrs. Patterson will tell you. I don't know if you or not. She'll take you by the hand. And that canal has been, for many reasons, that she can verbalize better than I can. And I tried to set you up as nice as I could. But I'm just letting you know, this is the thing that keeps me awake at night, is how are we going to clean this thing up? Because it needs it more than anything I've ever seen. Good evening, Council Mayor and City Attorney, Samir Shallan, City Engineer. I will echo what the mayor said. The mayor stated to me from early on when he got elected the priority of this canal, which was identified before in the sedimentation in the canal. I, myself, visited the residents one after another abutting the canal. There is sedimentation in the canal that prohibits the navigation. And there is buildup to the point that you can clearly see the sedimentation with your eye in the dry season, which affect the livability of the residents abutting the canal. To answer your question, number one, there's provisions in the contract that the contractor needs to protect the fish and wildlife within the canal. We're doing a very innovative kind of dredging, which is the least invasive dredging. We met with the potential contractor ahead in order to understand the means and methods and to have that level of comfort. Dredging can be done mechanically or hydraulically. The dredging that we will be doing is hydraulically, which is the least invasive dredging. At the same time, during dredging, we will be installing what we call turbidity barrier to lessen the extent on the lake where you reside. So the extent of the dredging going to be just the 800 linear feet of the canal and it will not extend to the lake. After, you know, if and when council approves the item, there will be a bid protest period. And when purchasing gives us the green light, we will award the project. We will award the contract, which is going to take a few weeks. And then the contractor stated that he needs 40 days to mobilize and then 60 days to do the work. So within three to four months, we will complete the dredging of this canal. I want to mention that the dredging we're planning is maintenance dredging. We're not restoring the canal. We're not taking every drop of sedimentation. We just want to clean it because we want it also to be feasible. The stormwater fund, we're trying to build it. So we have some fund. We're utilizing the remainder of the geo bond fund for this particular project. So we're very aware of our fund versus what we can do. So we're trying our best to balance those out. So if you can, please give me your name and number. I would like to be in touch with you during the duration of the project and address any concern you or your neighbors have. We will be sending door tags during before the commencement of the work to introduce the project and make the resident aware when we're going to mobilize, which is a standard procedure that we do. And if there is any question during the construction, please reach out. I will be personally the project manager. We have also the stormwater manager here today listening to us, and he will be there the eyes and ears in day to day operation during the construction. That's excellent. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming and asking the questions. Mayor Sobel? The other thing real quick is there was some question over what was old plantation, what they were covering and what was ours. There was a debate on the side just east of university, that piece of it, whether that was theirs to maintain or ours. So that was another reason that this whole thing became as escalated as it did. Just east of university? Just abutting university drive, that's old plantation. The canal that we're considering is city of plantation canal. Right, it's a few blocks in. Yes. You have the questions? Yes. My turn? Go ahead, please. Council President. So this is 2,000 cubic yards, if I recall, and it's 675 feet approximately of bank on both sides. I know the area, I know several residents on the thing. I did not know about, I was out of town for the weekend, so I didn't do my homework for this meeting until yesterday. So I did not get to dive in. I didn't get to talk to, I talked to Jason just before the meeting started. My parents did a legal process through the previous building department and engineer. It is a process where there's a very heavy-duty fabric that is attached along your existing bank. It is stretched around and back, and they use mechanical hydraulic dredging, I mean not scooping. They pump out the center of all the area and fill that fabric back up. It builds up the bank with like a 50-year warranty. So it basically makes a natural, and then you saw it over it. So you have a perfect slope that now will not get worn down and won't replicate that problem over again. You won't have the erosion, fill the canal back in. And then you don't have the problem with all the smell and the silt drying, the muck drying for a long time, because we're going to have to stay over at a park and everything, and then pay to put it all in a landfill. So just while I sit up here during the fire awards, I had my dad pull up his records. He paid $40 a lineal foot, but they replenish a lot of the banks. So basically all 2,000 feet would probably fit in that area. So his property, he had 190, he's on a long pie lot, 195 feet of property. It was $8,000 eight years ago. So even if it doubled, you're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars. And 14 homes would have essentially a seawall in the process for half the price. I really would move to want to table it and look into this. This was all approved through the city. It's permanent. It's done all over the place. It's not a hard concrete seawall. It's a very, very thick membrane that's put down. I'm very aware of the technology, what you're specifying and describing. However, there is, in this particular canal, we did an environmental test and there is contamination. So I cannot do that. Oh, because the doctor said there was no results of the test, maybe the time it was put in. We had a draft of the result. The final result just came yesterday. Oh, okay. So there is high level of certain contamination. So the dredged material have to go to the landfill. It has to go. So it can't stay where it is behind a memory. It cannot. It cannot. It cannot be utilized for embankment bank because of the high level of certain contamination. Okay. It's too bad. You'd have 14 happy residents and save the city half price. I understand. And I tried. And I did the test. And unfortunately, there is high level of certain contamination that will not allow us to repurpose the dredged material into the banks. It has to be removed. And then therefore it has to go to the landfill. To the landfill. Now, with this dredging mechanism, with the hydraulic dredging, there is some economic factor, which is the way the contractor, and as I said, we met with the contractor before because we wanted to understand the means and methods. And because it is a hefty price, you know, it's half a million dollar project. So we wanted to understand and have that level of comfort before bringing this item to you. In the hydraulic dredging, they're going to be pumping the material, not scooping the material. But this particular contractor is going to utilize an innovative equipment. They're going to have a filtration tank. They're going to have a press belt where the filtration tank is going to separate the cake of the contaminated material. That's the material going to go to the landfill. The rest, the water, going to go back to the canal. And the rest of the material is going to be sand. This sand is going to be tested. If it passes certain environmental tests, it can be repurposed. So there is still some economic factor in this particular project that we're presenting to you today. So just the muck, the muck layer over the top of the sand is what has to go? Yes, the muck will be hold to the landfill. The sand will be tested first because if the material is still contaminated, then it will have to go to the landfill. If it is free of the certain contamination, then it will be repurposed. And we can repurpose it throughout the city. Not necessarily on the bank, but we can use it in construction projects and some other areas within the city. Okay. No other questions. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember Anderson. Mayor Sordo. And the price has some variance in it because this is us making a very educated guess about how much of this is going to have to come out. We might get lucky and may not have to take out as much as being budgeted for. So you might get some money back. Highly unlikely, but we'll see. And actually, I want to add that the dredging project was part of the original geo bond project. But because of the price in 2018, it was pulled from the bid. So we're trying just to catch up on some improvements within these communities. Motion to approve. Thank you. Second. Any further comments, questions? Ms. Bedrow, please call the roll. Councilmember Horland. Yes. Councilmember Reinstein. Yes. Councilmember Anderson. Yes. Councilmember Fajan. Yes. Item number five is the agreement for community survey services. I, too, was going to pull this, but Councilmember Reinstein, you have first. Thank you. My question was whether or not the two consultants that are listed in there, Jason Marado and Christopher Tutam, are they present today? The, there is a representative from the firm on Zoom. It's not necessary if it's not the two. And the only reason is that I was, I really just wanted to pull it because I was so impressed with their, their contract presentation. The way that it laid out, it specified that they were the two key personnel that were going to be our consultants. And I appreciated that if there would be any need at all for any substitution of the key personnel, it would come to us. And you don't often get the assurances that the, you know, that the people that are putting their name on it are going to be the ones front and center and going to be working on it all the time. So I thought that if they were here, I wanted to make sure they had an opportunity to introduce themselves. They are virtually. I was actually texting with one of them, emailing one of them. So I do believe they are on Zoom and he can reassure your question. It's okay. They're not here in person. I just wanted to thank them in person. Otherwise, I know Councilmember Andreo has some questions. So my question is a little different. I, I had some concerns because the, their proposal, I agree with Councilmember Reinstein was excellent. Their proposal though was $10,000 more than their two competitors. And I am just concerned that some of the conversation I had with Mr. Noonamaker during our debriefing was, I feel like as a community, there is survey fatigue. So we're about to spend $35,000 to survey residents and get a 2%, 3% return rate. I just, I, I don't know if it's a good return on our investment. That was my concern. So yeah, it's not the heftiest price tag, but I just still didn't feel confident that it was $35,000 well spent. Um, I know their data will be excellent. It's not the firm itself, but it's the usefulness of, and I brought this up when we had the budget meetings. I talked about this line item in the budget. I just don't feel confident that it's, it's a good use of our public funds. Obviously from a procurement standpoint, I can't talk about the why, so I won't. I'll lend that to Laura and the administration to discuss the why's of the, that's the need for the service. It's a good pass off because I agree. It's not, it's, it was not a procurement question. Uh, and we, we discussed it a little bit during, like I said, during the, the budget hearings. But, you know, if, what's going to be so dramatically different from the anecdotal information that we already collect? That's really my question. That's a great question. Um, so the reason we're going with a consulting firm is because you mentioned the survey fatigue, right? And they're guaranteeing in their contract that we will get us certain number of responses for both resident surveys and business surveys that will give us certain confidence levels that the data we're getting is accurate, that the data we're getting is representative of what our population is. And, and that's one of the important things. We want to make sure that we get information from, um, our population from different demographics. We want to make sure that we get the geographic representation so that information we're getting, we know how to act on it and, and where we need to put our attention. Um, in addition to just a survey questionnaire and, and, you know, them testing it, making sure that we ask questions and we get the answers to the questions that we ask versus, you know, putting something untested out there that we might come up ourselves, we're getting consulting services. So, we're getting benchmarks that compare us to other communities and national and state averages. We're getting important satisfaction analysis that highlights, you know, where residents are most satisfied and what they consider most important. So we can zero in on what subjects and what services we need to focus on. Um, we're getting the GIS maps that show us satisfaction by geographic areas. So we're getting a lot of analysis and a lot of expertise for, for the amount of money. Um, which is comparative, um, all three firms, they were similar proposals in $25,000 range per survey, except for one proposal that offered, um, business surveys, complementary. However, they did not include the samples that would be on the same level for the previously completed business surveys. Sorry. What was the actual return rate that was guaranteed? So we would be getting, um, 600 resident surveys and that is, um, a sample. So they get the mailing list that they purchase, um, and they look at that mailing list to make sure that, again, we get the right distribution of responses so that we get that statistically significant analysis. But is that statistically significant? That is. We have 90,000 residents over 90,000 now. And we're, they're guaranteeing 600. Correct. And that's statistically significant? Correct. And I don't know, um, if, um, ATC could chime in because they're the subject matter experts. But yes, there are certain number, um, so we're getting the, this provides us plus minus 4% accuracy rate, margin of error at 95% confidence level. Council member Horland, you have a question or comment? Thank you, Madam President. I just want to better understand because I know you raised this during the budget. Um, I thought we had a consensus of council at the strategic planning session that we thought this was an important component of strategic planning that we would have the survey of the residents and the businesses. Are you, I know you're concerned about the return on investment. Are you concerned about the, the number of responses that we're getting? Correct. So we're concerned about how much that we're doing because we agree that we felt that it was important for strategic planning to hear from the business community and the residents. So you're more concerned about the number that we're getting back? Correct. Both. Because that, as I mentioned before, um, we could have done maybe some in, we, we've done them previously. We did it for the strategic plan, right? We did our own in-house survey for the strategic plan. For the comprehensive plan. Right. We got data back and that was absolutely free. It cost us nothing. I shouldn't say free because it was staff's time and manpower. But you know, we did not pay an additional fee for that. So I'm questioning, I guess, the usefulness of going outside of our own internal resources to pay for this service. And again, I've taken stats. I don't feel like 600 surveys for the population of our city is statistically significant. I beg to differ. And, you know, I've done that in another city too. And we increased the number of surveys because there were some kind, you know, some similar feelings. And the margin of error rate did not change that much. So we were able to, if we'd like to, we can ask for more return surveys. But then the price would be dependent on that. Well, I think two things. Many cities pay for a consultant to run their strategic planning. And this type of survey is built into that consultant's fee. I know that I've spoken to colleagues in other cities. So I would assume that based upon, so I'm thinking Coral Springs is popping into my head because I know theirs is online. They would provide us with the graphical data so we could embed that on our website. We can embed that in the report. You mentioned the GIS. I do think it would be important, Madam President, if we heard from the company so that perhaps they could better explain the number of responses. Okay. Mayor Sorrell, and then we'll go to the vendor. I'm going to pass and then maybe you come back to me or not. I'm sorry. I don't know their names. Alan? Yes, Ryan. Ryan Murray. Sorry. Thank you. He's on mute. Are you there, Mr. Murray? Yes, ma'am. So can you speak to maybe the return rate and how the 600 would be statistically significant? Yeah, so the statistical sampling exercise, which is the primary consideration here. So it's a random sampling methodology. All residential addresses within the city's limits will have an equal opportunity of being selected, but only one survey per residential household will be accepted from our firm. That will be based on a randomized list of residents that will be selected at random based on their home address to participate. So out of the 97,000 folks in the community, we'll be more focused households in the community, which is around 35,000. We'll sample approximately 10% of those in the hopes that we get a 20% response rate to the survey. But to Laura's point, the key finding or the key fact of statistical sampling is that if the results are returned in a representative way, meaning that the race-ethnicity demographics match, you know, 30% of our surveys are from Hispanic residents, 40% from, you know, those white alone, 23% from black or African American, based on the census statistics, we'll match our survey demographics to those particular demographics of your community. Now, what that suggests is that the survey is valid within a particular margin of error. Now, that can be calculated to either the 99% level of confidence or the 95% level of confidence, which is what we typically use. And so your results of 600 completed surveys with a response rate of approximately 20% would yield a margin of error of about plus or minus 4% at the 95% level of confidence. And what that means is if we go out and collect 600 surveys 100 times, 95 out of 100 times, we're going to get the same results, plus or minus that 4% margin of error. Now, this is something that, you know, Pew and some other folks determined were accurate levels of sampling in the past, and it's similar to other research projects that are done nationally. It's most probably in your mind when you talk about phone polling like CBS phone polls and things like that when it comes to political polling. It's very similar where you can estimate or suggest that the results hold true for the aggregate population within those margins of errors or levels of confidence. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Fadgen? So, if the sample is not representative of the demographics of the city, you would have to run another sample? No. The thing about these types of surveys is that folks don't respond right away. So, the follow-up attempts is where we'll go in and start monitoring geographic and demographic representation, and so we'll follow up accordingly until reaching that demographic representation. If needed, we could weight the results to ensure that they're weighted results near that demographic representation, but that is very rare for our firm for these types of surveys. Okay. I guess you're trying to think of the right question. I used to have to do this, but I don't remember any of the details of it anymore. But I understand the confidence level and all that stuff, and when I used to audit financial statements, this was the whole basis of how we would go about auditing the population by coming up that confidence level and just doing a sample of it. Is there any assessment of, like, where is the disbursement of where the responses are coming from? So, if they're not being clustered all out west or all clustered central? Yeah. It's always important to note that as population flows, so should a random sampling exercise like this. So, if you don't have any, you know, residents in your downtown district, there won't be any surveys from your downtown district. Now, in terms of geographic representation, we will ensure a good geographic representation across the city. Sometimes communities will have council districts or planning areas for which we'll set nominal goals for each one of those areas to ensure that representation. But we do a good job of monitoring the geographic representation at the same time as the demographic representation, again, to follow up more concisely with residents who have yet to respond. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any further questions or comments? All right. Hearing none. I personally, I can't support the item, but I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. Ms. Barrow, please call the roll. Councilmember Horland? Yes. Councilmember Einstein? Yes. Councilmember Anderson? Yes. Councilmember Fajan? Yes. Councilmember Andrew? No. All right. That exhausts all of our consent agenda items. We are now moving to our administrative items. Item number 12 is an update on Breeze Sweat, Phase D. Turned it on and turned it off again. Good evening. This is just to transmit to you a copy of the quarterly report that we provided in response to the funding that we've received from the legislature a year and a half ago, give or take. The project is on time, and as I reported to you at the last meeting, we have received our BEP permit, which is a major hurdle. So we are still moving ahead. We anticipate completion on time. The funding level that we're at is $800,000, so it is at least a partial contribution. Thank you. Great. Any questions regarding Breeze Sweat? All right. Item 13 is a resolution of the City of Plantation supporting Israel and condemning the unprovoked and unjustified war launched by Hamas terrorists against Israel. Mr. Noonemaker, is your mic on? No, it is not. Good evening. We had a resolution in the backup, and we received some comments from Councilmember Reinstein. The administration reviewed those, was supportive of the suggested revisions and additions, so I placed a copy both of the track change version for you all. And that's always a little bit more difficult to read, but I placed that, but also a clean version for your consideration. And, of course, you know, given the nature of it, we're receptive to any additional comments or revisions. Any questions, comments? No, I'd like to make a motion to approve, Madam President. I would like to second. Thank you. Councilmember Reinstein? Thank you. Thank you. I just wanted to thank, it was initially Councilmember Fadgen that brought up the idea for this resolution, and I was hesitant to bring it up myself. And, obviously, having no discussion with Councilmember Fadgen, and he found it was important to bring up, and so I wanted to personally thank him for bringing it up. You know, it's interesting that normally we have a member of the public that speaks at every meeting and has a running count of days for various things that interest him. Today, I thought it was relevant to say that it's day 19 since this massacre happened on October 7th, where over 222 hostages were taken, infants under one years old and as old as in their 80s. I wanted to mention that one young boy of eight spent his ninth birthday on Monday as a hostage. So, while some people may say, why do you bring a resolution like this, what's the relevance to the city of Plantation? Sorry. You'd be surprised, not only the Jewish community here that hears it, people who are human beings and believe that taking babies as hostages is unacceptable. But they hear it, too, over there, when we talk about Israel being our country's ally. Having a little city, but a strong city like Plantation, that speaks up and makes a resolution, along with many others across the world, it is important. We're also seeing a largest rate of attacks on Jews in public spaces, maybe since Kristallnacht, which will be observed on November 8th, which was really the start of the Holocaust. And the idea that our city decided to make this resolution is important and it makes our residents feel protected. And so, I say thank you. Thank you. Well said. We don't normally allow for clapping, but we're going to for this one at this stage in the agenda, but that's important. Thank you. Ms. Begaro, please call the roll. Councilmember Horland. Yes. Councilmember Einstein. Yes. Councilmember Anderson. Yes. Councilmember Fajan. Yes. Councilmember Andrew. Yes. Thank you. Councilmember Fajan is a resolution of the City Council approving an amendment to the 2022-2025 Local Housing Assistance Plan to increase the purchasing assistance funding. Welcome. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City Attorney. My name is Edlyn Griffith. I'm with the Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Department. Today, we're talking about purchase assistance and we're talking about amending the LHAP to increase the amount that we're currently offering. So, having a home and having a place to live, everyone wants a safe place to live. As we look at the landscape of having a home and we look at community and open green spaces, we think of the residents who own their properties. They care for their properties and they care for their community. The First Time Home Buyer Program. Many families are struggling to save for the down payment to purchase a property. Working families may be able to pay the monthly for living wherever they live, but they're not able to come up with the amount for closing and down payment costs. The housing market has only made it more difficult and we're looking at households of color who've been historically excluded from the housing market. The program helps making home buying more affordable to break up the wealth divide. We have a slide at the side which is talking about what the average income is, $13.79 per hour, as we're looking at low income individuals. So, the goal of a First Time Home Buyer Program is to provide assistance for very low, low income and moderate income households. The property must be used as their primary residence. We require them to file for homestead. Currently, the City of Plantation is giving $50,000 to residents for this program. And the assistance is given in the form of a deferred payment loan. We put a soft lien on the property for 15 years. The goal is to help individuals who want to live in Plantation. So, if you stay here for 15 years after that time, the lien is taken off your property and you're free to do whatever you'd like. But if you are selling within the 15 years, then you have to repay the money to help another family. One of the requirements is that you cannot have been a homeowner within the last three years. So, if you haven't owned a home in three years, you can qualify for the program if you're within the income guidelines. There's an eight-hour class that's required. It's education to put you in a better position to not lose your property. So, those classes are virtual or online. So, currently HUD allows the maximum price to purchase a property to be $568,557 based on how much homes have gone up. The individuals who apply for our program would never purchase something within that range. But it's just to be fair for what's allowed based on how high prices have gone. You can live in a single family townhome, villa, or condo. This program does not allow mobile homes to participate in the program. And again, currently we're giving $50,000 to individuals for this grant. As we look at some of the employers in the City of Plantation, we're looking at whether or not the workers can afford to live here. A lot of the employees cannot afford to live and work in Plantation. And as we see, we have the City of Plantation on there as well. So, a lot of our staff here would not be able to purchase in Plantation. So, we say it takes a village to accomplish things that we want. And we look at the chart on the side which talks about the income that's necessary to be able to purchase a property. And it shows to be about 80,000. And we see the different professions are not making it to that. We have police, firefighters, teachers, nursing assistants, medical technologists, government employees, teacher aides, school bus drivers, senior care workers. So, as we talk about enhancing the livability of the city and being able to have assistance for everyone. We look at a community being stronger. We look at a community being more diverse, more invested, and just having adequate housing for the community. And as a city, we can help that. So, when we look at reasons to increase the amount from 50,000 to 80,000, housing costs have grown faster than the income for owner and renter households. Being able to help increases the self-sufficiency of our residents. It's an active response to the market conditions around us. It enhances the economic development for our city. It supports our mission of being a community-oriented city with positive outcomes. And, of course, everyone wants a place to call home. We affect community health and development. We can reduce poverty in our city. So, this chart just talks about home ownership and all of the benefits that it brings to the resident and also to the city. The goal is to increase the amount to $80,000. We're following on the heels of some of the other cities who have already increased their grant to be able to help. And also, Broward County has increased their grant to $80,000 to be able to help residents in Broward County. So, as we talk about a city that's helping, we have a first-time home buyer workshop coming up in January. We had one in September. We had 92 individuals sign up for that. So, there's a need. There's an interest. We're going to be working in the future to get our residents in place to be credit-worthy and in position to be mortgage-ready. And we also have work we're doing for the small businesses here, which are typically, you know, mom and pop individuals who are starting a business. So, we're helping them to get their credit in place for their business so they can get to the next step. And that one is going to be virtual November 15th and 16th. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you for the presentation. So, I absolutely support the increase from 50 to 80,000. I always say, particularly to our developers, that home ownership is the pathway to generational wealth. So, I look forward to supporting this resolution. My question to you, I know that you've been doing some marketing and I'm sure you're working with our city staff because I've seen already some of the ads, per se, or the posts on social media. But how can we get this information to people who might not, you know, frequent Instagram and Facebook because I know that there's even a bigger pool than the 90 or so that you had. So, I wanted to know that. And also, do you have some additional data as to when we were at the 50,000, how many homes for families and plantation that you've already been able to offer that assistance to? Sure. So, we have put up the flyers at all of our community centers and we've also given it out at other events. So, we're handing it out and posting it. So, that's how we're doing it besides social media. And as far as numbers, if we look at October 1st of 2022 to October 1st of 2023, we've been able to help seven residents. So, for the first two quarters, we did pretty well as far as individuals applying and getting approved and being able to purchase primarily condos. And then for the last two quarters, it was very difficult because the prices went up so much and individuals were only qualifying for roughly 250,000, which didn't help them much. But with an additional 80,000, it will put them in a different bracket. And did you also increase the amount? Is that new this year too? Is that what I heard? Because it's at over 550 now, the purchase price amount. Oh, yes. HUD increased that. We, yes. Oh, HUD increased that. Yes. Because just, again, for argument's sake or conversation, the new Pulte town home project on Cleary, those are starting at around 500. Wow. For those town homes. Just to give everybody, you know, kind of a reference point, if you will. Got it. Got it. Um, Council Member Anderson, you buzzed in? Yeah, I should say some of those same questions. I'll continue with those. Um, where does the money come from? So, this. I, I did, my, my computer went dead right when I wanted to pull the back up, so. No problem. So the, the funds that we use for purchase assistance come from CDBG. Yeah. From HUD and from SHIP from the state of Florida. And then, um, so is there a, if enough people took advantage of it, don't we have a, is there a cap, do we, do we have a certain budget for the year, and we could run dry for the year, essentially expend all the funds until the following enrollment, correct? Yes. Um, so once this is approved, if it's approved, we will allocate the amount that we plan to spend for this program. Um, and we, the discussions has been for it to be roughly 300,000. So it, there is a cap, it will run out, we'll be able to help a few households. So, it's 300,000 at, divided by 80? Right. So, that's only a few. Yes, it's only a few. And did you say that you helped, I think she asked the same question. I think Council Member Andrea said, how many took advantage when it was at 50? Was it around seven? Seven for the, the last fiscal year. Yeah. Um, and then it's 15 years at 0% interest with a soft lien. And then that means that, that they have to repay it if they sell and move out within the 15 years? Yes, they do. Because if, Is it prorated at all? Or is it, if they move out in the 14th year, do they still owe all 80,000 back? If you're over 75, it's prorated. Over 75 years old? 10% is taken down per year. If you're over 75 years and you apply for the program and you're approved, then your, your lien is only 10 years and 10% is taken off each year. Mm-hmm. So, that's the proration for seniors. What if you own the house but don't live there anymore within the 15 years? It has to be your homestead. You have to keep it the homestead all 15 years. You do. Okay. That's all my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Reinstein. Hi there. Thank you. Um, two questions. One is, uh, is, is the 80,000 enough? Um, I mean, are you finding, you know, we're, we're raising it from 50 to 80, which, which hopefully will help more people. Um, based on the few people that have applied when it was 50, um, do you expect that more people will apply now that it's 80? It will make a difference, uh, a substantial difference to help people become homeowners? Uh, I believe it definitely will have a substantial difference and more people will apply. Um, is it enough? It might not be, uh, but we have to try to help as many as possible and even have conversations about increasing the amount we've, uh, allotted for the year. Because. Maybe why 80 then? Just, do you have a reason why 80 specifically? Uh, just following the standards of the county. And, uh, you know, we haven't, uh, taken a stand to go above what's been done or has been known to be done. So, uh, 80,000 is what the county has done and some of the other cities have followed the county. And we're now trying to make sure that we're helping also. And then, uh, the other question was in regards to, um, primary residency that, uh, you said they're required to maintain homestead. Um, what is in place or what is our process to verify that they are maintaining it as their primary residency? I mean, I don't want to dare mention Airbnb, right? But, um, you know, how are we verifying that over this 15 year period of time it's being used for what, um, it was, uh, intended for? Yeah. The homestead portion is difficult, uh, because, you know, we require it and in the initial stage they, they will do that. And they may change it during the 15 years. And the only way that I've ever seen a city to find out is that, uh, a neighbor tells on them. And then the city researches it and finds out or certain other violations that that resident have bring attention to them. And after researching it's found out. So that one is, is difficult to, to maintain. So no, no plan for, uh, you know, annual or every even, you know, five years to check on our, our investment. Um, I, I don't think we have the capacity to do that. Um, and you know, that's a, that's a hard one. Okay. The part with the lien, you know, if they try to sell a title search, things like that, it's triggered. Uh, but as far as the, the homestead, that one, the best we have is if something comes up with that house or that address and then we look at it further. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Anderson. Uh, that was a great question because that really piqued my interest. If we're only granting a handful, three to six to seven people a year, it's really not that hard to go to BCPA and look up homestead. I got it. We do have the resources to do it. Got it. And when we're granting that much money, we should check, check on that occasionally. Got it. I'll make it spot checked. Uh, I would, I actually would like to assign that task to do that. And hopefully we have no problems whatsoever. And then we, then we make, maybe we could do it periodically, not, not so frequently, but we do have to have some efficacy there. We're giving out funds for a good purpose and we need to hold them accountable for that good purpose. Got it. Madam President, can I follow up on that then? My concern is less that, um, it, they won't, um, indicate with the, uh, property appraiser's office homestead. My, my concern is more that, uh, it won't in fact be used as a homestead. I, I got it, but, but at least you can easily check property appraiser. If it's no longer homesteaded, they're cold busted right there. If they, if they're gonna rent it out or sublet it, it's tougher to do. I'm happy with the first step. I just. The first step is simply someone at a desk looking at BCP. It's not that hard to do. You could do that in an hour or something, check the six people. I, I, I wouldn't mind if we, if we also thought about a way to even, um, follow that up further to make sure that our, you know, the people aren't renting these places out, that people aren't using these as, I don't know, summer home, whatever it may be. Um, there's gotta be a way to do a drive by, uh, yeah. Maybe we could collaborate with code enforcement if, uh, that's something that, well, if you want accountability. Let's see how this goes. Um, let's check BCP. That might be something that we can look into. Quick follow-up. How, how long have we been granting these funds? Do you, do you know how long we've been doing this? Um, for, it's just fifty years, ten years, five years? I know. Much longer than five or ten years. Uh, we've been, uh, recipients of CDBG and SHIP for quite some time. But, and we've given these grants out through that? Yes. Okay. So we have, we have lots of, I, I, I think probably what we were getting at was that you're looking at just a single year, when you start looking over this whole twenty year period and the number of persons. Yeah. It, it can be done. Uh, but. Even if it were a hundred. Yeah. You know, that's still a couple days. But the thing I want to remind you of is that we're really looking at individuals that can barely afford to get in a home to begin with. So if they get this type of funding and if they get in a home, it's very unlikely that they're going to be able to kind of move on and start doing investment and things of that sort. So it's, you know, but it's, but it's something we can do. Yeah. Yeah. For whatever reason. That's, that's true. And let someone else move in a relative or something and. Right. Whatever. I just want to, I just want to, if we're doing a good deed with, with our, with our taxpayer dollars, we, we don't want fraud going on. Absolutely. Um, Mayor Soren. Just so you know, we did have an instance where somebody had to move because it was a case with domestic violence and the person had to go into hiding. Yes. And so we did vet it and you could explain what happened there, but I feel like we did our due diligence on that one and did the right thing because yeah. Can you, can you help me out on that Danny? Yeah. We did that. They were requesting, I forget which year they were, were in with, with regard to that. And because of the situation, uh, they had requested that, uh, you know, uh, yeah, to, to, to, to move and to have the lien forgiven. We, we had to look into it, uh, you know, based upon some of the reports that we were able to find. We did find your police reports. We did find it was very legitimate request. And you know, we were concerned. We didn't want to have something on our hands where we could have done something and, and we didn't. And so we did do that, but I will, I will. Yeah. I will tell you that, uh, there's something that if, if it's, it's something you desire. There are some cities that as, as you said, over the years, they will reduce a certain percentage, uh, every year. And the payback is, is decreased. So there, I, I've seen two models out there. And that's. Sorry. May I continue? Please. If they sell within the years, within under the 15 years, it's prorated. That's what you're saying. Right. So we, the city has not typically done that. Uh, but you know, but it's, it's something that, that is done by some other cities. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Um, is there a motion? Motion to approve. A second. Any further comments? Questions? Ms. Begara, please call the roll. Council member Horland. Yes. Council member Einstein. Yes. Council member Anderson. Yes. Council member Fajan. Yes. Council member Andre. Yes. Thank you. That takes us to our legislative items. Item 15 is the ordinance adopting the official seal of the city of plantation. Mr. Ezra. Thank you. There's an ordinance of the city of plantation Florida creating section 1-16 of the code of ordinances adopting an official municipal seal of the city of plantation providing for conflict severability, severability codification and an effective date. Any questions, comments from the council? Yes, I do. Council member Einstein. Council member Einstein. So, I remembered hearing some time ago a question about the spelling of our motto. We know that the motto is Latin and it means out of the wilderness, this city. And I remembered hearing that. I did a quick search to see if I could find anything. And back in 1996, there was an article in the paper with the heading, History Misspels Itself and Plantation Seals Latin Motto. And believe it or not, during high school I had a Latin class, a Latin teacher. And Mr. Jazwinski would be very upset with me if I didn't bring this up here that apparently our Latin motto is spelled incorrectly according to the Latin. And the article seemed to suggest that the mayor at the time, Air Frank Valtry, knew about the mistake and there were some discussions maybe back then that, well, we made that mistake back then so let's just leave it. And I thought we couldn't go and make this an official ordinance adopt without recognizing that and making a decision whether or not we wanted to correct the Latin spelling. Not that it would need to be done all at once, but if we are, you know, at some time when we are getting new stationery or what have you, it's an extra T. Just to point it out is that the word vacitate that is spelled V-A-S-I-T-A-T-E, apparently according to the correct Latin, it should be V-A-S-T-I-T-A-T-E. This is not me. This is Latin experts. So I want to bring that to the attention of the council. I heard council member Fadgen blurt out that he likes the misspelling. My father was on that council. And I like the quirkiness of us doing it our own way. So I would be not for changing it. It would be interesting to hear what the rest of the council's position on this. I don't believe we should change things retroactively, but I think we should correct it going forward. Anything new that's ordered should reflect the correct spelling. Which was my suggestion. Yes, exactly. You already spoke. So you're saying anywhere we have the motto, anywhere in print or signs, leave it. And as slowly as the sign wears out or something wears out, we change it. Yeah, I think if we're going to, if we take, this was really just to clean up our ordinances, right? We were, when we did the vote, we had to enshrine things basically. Because if we're going to enshrine it, we should enshrine it correctly. Correctly. That's not really what happened with this. So there was a resolution adopted in 1953. However, I don't know when the statute was adopted, probably sometime after Home Rule, after the 70s. Oh, then we had to have it. Which allows a municipality to adopt an official seal by ordinance. Oh, yeah. So we are complying with the statute, adopting this seal by ordinance. Mm-hmm. Which then creates a criminal offense for using the city seal without authorization. So I think we should, you just asked our opinion. I think, I think we should correct it going forward. But we don't need to take down things and erase things until the due time. But, Council Member Andrea, did you have, I thought we were just going down the line. I was going to. Go ahead. Council Member Fatchin. The question I have is, is, do we need, I don't know what the question is. This ordinance, do we have to get it dictated in this ordinance? Or we just say the seal on it, we correct the seal going forward with our stationary orders? All you're doing right now is adopting the official seal. The only question is, do you want it with the omitted T or not? I like the ordinance. The other items are administrative items that can be addressed separately. Or not addressed. I think I'm clear. I did step up for one second, but right now. You just spelled the word. Correct. Yes. But I'm fine with the ordinance correcting it. All right. Make a motion. Motion to approve. Second. But that's, that's keeping it as is. With the correction. No, that is correcting it. With the correction. The motion. With the correct spelling. Correct. Well, you didn't say that. But that's what's before us. That's what's before us. And item number 15 is with the correction. Any, any further, Mr. Minamaker, you wanted to see? No, the T is not part of the original agenda package. This was brought to our attention yesterday. So the, no ma'am. No, if you look in your back up, there is a missing T. Oh. Or not, depending on your perspective. I'm saying. I'm saying. State my motion. Well, I think it's acceptable to approve this ordinance that you are now amending. And then when it comes back for second reading, the seal will be corrected. Perfect. As an exhibit. Absolutely. I just wanted to clarify that wasn't part of this. Right. Understood. Okay. And I apologize. I thought it was. All right. So my motion stands. Any further questions or comments? Ms. Beguerell, please call the roll. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Einstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Fajan. No. Council Member Andrew. Yes. All right. Item number 16 is an ordinance creating section 2-3 of the code of ordinances pertaining to filling vacancies. Attorney Ezra. Thank you, Council President. An ordinance of the city of Plantation, Florida, creating section 2-3 of the code of ordinances titled vacancy and candidacy for members of the city council or mayor providing for codification, severability, conflicts, and an effective date. Thank you. Council Member Fajan. So to the city attorney, this is because of what we discussed when we were doing the charter review and we're codifying it. Yes, sir. That is correct. We, through the amendment of the city charter, we deleted certain sections knowing that we would have to come back as we are now. Council Member Fajan. So this gets everything in line. This is a cleanup to be consistent with section 166.0316 Florida statute. There is a requirement to address this candidacy that might occur, a vacancy that might occur during candidacy. My recollection of that discussion was we talked about votes because I think there is something here about the city council vote or something like that. That doesn't need to be defined in the ordinance because it's defined in the charter. That's correct. Okay. That's all I wanted to know. Thank you. Any additional questions or comments? Yes. Attorney Ezra, I did have one question. It goes to, I'm sorry, I want to make sure it's this item and not the next. Maybe you can assist me if it's the next one and tell me. If we're dealing with excused or unexcused absences, it would be the next one. This is the one that talks about whether there's a vacancy created for whatever reason during qualifying for office. Yes. But is it only qualifying or is it? Yes. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So it's been properly moved and seconded? Oh. Is there a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Second. Any further questions or comments? All right. Hearing none. Ms. Biggerow, please call the roll. Council Member Horland? Yes. Council Member Einstein? Yes. Council Member Anderson? Yes. Council Member Fadgen? Yes. Item number 17 is the ordinance that is pertaining to absences. Attorney Ezra? Yes, Council President. An ordinance of the City of Plantation, Florida, amending Chapter 2, Administration, Article 3, Boards, Commission and Committee, Division 1, generally by creating Section 2-30 of the Code of Ordinances of the City of Plantation pertaining to procedures for City Councilmember and Mayoral absences, creating a vacancy, providing for conflict, severability, codification and an effective date. Thank you. Council Member Reinstein? Yes. Thank you. My question is to the City Attorney. In the Line 32, where it's the first reference to the word present, who is not present and continues 33 at a meeting, do we have a definition for present? And the reason why I ask that is because when reading this, it seemed to me that after the word present, it should be added in person or by remote means. We've already had before people attend remotely and while they may not have counted towards the quorum, they were still counted as present. So is it somewhere else that I just can see it here? It is actually not. And just for purposes of, I guess, historically, the discussions that we had at the Council while we were going through the charter review process, that was a topic of discussion. At the time, the late Councilmember Hyatt was not present and there was a question about whether or not that should be codified as part of the charter. It was decided that we would not codify this as part of the charter, that we would come back and do what we're doing now and have the discussion. So the language that you see here was language that was presented in drafts that we were discussing during the Council deliberations of the charter as it specifically pertains to the definition of absence. But the question of requiring physical presence or otherwise was not addressed. And that is something that is certainly within your purview. And again, before the pandemic, we really didn't have to think about that. We didn't talk about it. We do know that that was a topic of discussion and concern. The Attorney General took the position that physical presence was required. Some of us local government lawyers disagree. There is no case law that requires, quote, physical presence. So I would be careful about including the word physical as a requirement of presence, because then if we have an issue in the future where we cannot have physical presence, we will have to amend our ordinances. And we would rather I would rather not have to do that. But ultimately, that's your decision. Madam President, can I follow up? Yes, please. If in this situation we left it as it's currently before us, who is not present at a meeting, and we've already had instances with this Council before you where at least two of us have appeared remotely in order to attend the meeting because of circumstances. So how do we then deal with indicating, for lack of a better word, our presence, right, if it's not clear as to what that means? Well, again, your suggestion of including physical or remote would resolve that issue. Correct. At the Council level, and that is ultimately your decision, the only caution I have in that instance, you have to have a quorum physically present during a meeting in order to hold a meeting. So if more than two of you members of the City Council wanted to attend by phone, that would not be permitted. We would not be able to have a meeting. But if I may, Madam President, just so but that that issue of of a quorum is located somewhere else. And so it would seem that if in advance administration was notified that two or more people could not be here in physically present, we would be aware of that in advance and could handle that as necessary in terms of making a quorum. Absolutely. Okay. So it is up. My opinion is that it's up to you. If you want to allow for physical or remote presence, that's up to you all as a Council. And we already have, I mean, by practice to date. So this would clarify what our practice has already been for this Council presently since remote means became available. And it's not contrary to any state state statute or state requirement. It's not contrary, not contrary to any state statute. Again, the Attorney General takes a more conservative approach. They have opined that members of the of a governing body should not be absent, not attend remotely, except for exigent circumstances, unforeseen circumstances. But my opinion is that you all get to decide your own rules. Okay. Thank you. So, Council Member Reinstein, did you have some suggested revision? Because I could see some concerns and I think another city had that issue where one particular Council member then was always virtual and not attending. So they had quorum because everybody else was showing up except one particular person. And then it became very difficult to do anything, for lack of a better term, disciplinary wise, because they were able to per the ordinance or their charter. If I may. So, I agree with that concern. And to me, that's a concern that if, you know, essentially it would be the voters to say that if a council member was not attending in person, but frankly, if they're attending in person and not doing anything either, that would be maybe even worse. Right? And, you know, we count on our residents to vote accordingly. You know, the reason why I read this and knowing that we've already had members that were present for a meeting, fully participatory, but it was by remote means. And so when I read this and I saw that it's not defined, it it begged the question, why are we not including what we've already done in practice? Okay. I was actually concerned about the absences and I think it was if you're not hospitalized or contagious. And I was just concerned that, I mean, you could be ill and not hospitalized and your absence wouldn't be considered excused. No, it's, no, I'm saying it only allows for hospitalization or being contagious, having a contagious illness. You, what if you just are very sick? It's not contagious. You're not hospitalized. You're just very, very ill. I don't know if that would, if that should be excused. Again. Except for subsection nine, which. Any other. Yeah. Which is the catch all. The catch all, I guess. Right. Okay. I was fine with that. I did see that. Council member Fadgen. I got confused. What's quorum? A majority. So three. Three. Okay. Four. Four. You said, what? He did say four. Because I heard like if two weren't here, we weren't able to have a meeting. He said more than two. And then I think. I'm sorry. If I said, if more than two of you could not be absent, you would have. I didn't hear you. That's okay. All right. Thank you. Can I just, I just want to make one other comment before you finish up. You have to put this provision in context, right? What we're defining is an excused absence for purposes of determining whether or not a vacancy in offices is created. During the discussion of the charter, I expressed my opinion to you that I felt it would be most likely unenforceable a provision like this for a majority of you to vote. You've been absent too many times. You are out of here. That's going to require a judge to make that ultimate decision, right? Or a governor. Correct. So that's the context that this is really being discussed. Thank you for putting it in context. That helps. Council member Fadgen, were you finished? Council member Horley. I'll make it brief because city attorney, as well stated, it was a very extended conversation. And, you know, when it happened with council member Hyatt, we were only weren't given a lot of information in the beginning for privacy reasons. And my concern also was quasi-judicial. Because if somebody's phoning in, we didn't have the benefit of Zoom at that point. But if someone's phoning in, you don't know who's on the phone, you know, is anybody sitting next to them, you know, conceivably during quasi-judicial proceedings. So, at that time when we had this discussion, I did want it to expressly state you had to be president. But because of what city attorney, Ezra, just opined, that how do we enforce it? How? And I think we had the conversation, Council member Fadgen, about, you know, a majority versus a super-majority. And what if politics, we're not talking about the people sitting here, but this is in the future. It was at play. I wasn't for a council removing. Right. And I remember that expressly. Three people deciding that they're kicking somebody off. So, I think that's why we ended up with it a little bit more vague about present physically or not. Council member Reince. Yeah, I'll just circle back. So, I'm not making the motion to add the language. I really was more concerned about because, as you've described it, it is vague. And, you know, maybe the lawyer in me as well as the council member in me said that, you know, what do you do when you don't have a word defined? And sometimes it's best to just leave it as is. So, I'm okay with that. Thank you. Motion approved. Second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, Ms. Beggro, please call the roll. Council member Warland? Yes. Council member Reinstein? Yes. Council member Anderson? Yes. Council member Fadgen? Yes. Item 18, bless you, is the consideration of a request to approve a land use amendment for the residents of Plantation Square. Attorney Ezra? Yes, Council President. Excuse me. An ordinance pertaining to the subject of comprehensive planning, changing the future land use designation of a parcel of property, specifically amending City of Plantation Ordinance Number 1626, as amended, which adopted the City's future land use plan and map to redesignate a parcel of land containing approximately 12.931 plus or minus gross acres of property from commercial to commercial and irregular 22 residential all within a dashed line in accordance with policy 1.7.6 of the future land use element of the plan said parcel of real property described as a parcel of land in the Section 33 Township 49 Range 41 East set parcel, including a portion of Track A University plat, according to the plat thereof, as recorded in plat book 82, page 19 of the public records of Broward County, Florida, together with a parcel A Plantation Square plat, according to the plat thereof, as recorded in plat book 87, page 36 of the public records of Broward County, Florida, and being more particularly described in the legal description identifies as Exhibit A, property generally located at 8190 West Sunrise Boulevard, 8050 to 8150 West Sunrise Boulevard, and 1725 to 17 North, I'm sorry, 1725 to 1797 North University Drive, providing for conflict severability and effective date. MS. Thank you. Mr. Holmes, do you have a presentation? MR. Good evening. Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the Council, for the record, Dan Holmes, Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development Director. Let me point out something before I get into the presentation. This is for Council Member Fadgen. We are working on getting you the presentations ahead of time. This one was already in progress, so we were not able to get that to you ahead of time, but you will see that coming to an agenda soon near you. All right. So this is application PD22-004, which is for land use plan amendment, and application PP22-0071, which is for a request for rezoning. The name of the proposed project that this is associated with is the Residences at Plantation Square. Excuse me, I hate to interrupt, but if we're going to combine the two, we should swear witnesses in. Yes. And probably go through the quasi-judicial spiel as well. Agreed. Just to save time. Yes. So can we swear in anyone who wants to speak to item number 21, which I do have three people signed up for that, and anybody else who may not have signed up who wishes to speak to the consideration of a request to approve rezoning for the residences at Plantation Square? Okay. Sure, we can, if you would, I don't think anybody else has signed up. But if you would like to speak to item 19, 20, those are consent agenda items. But in case you would like to speak to 19, 20, 21, or 21, please stand up and be sworn in. But right now I only have people for 21. Ms. Bagrow? Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. So just for the record, so it's clear. So we're going to be taking up item number 18, which is a legislative item, the ordinance, and also item number 21, which is a quasi-judicial item. My understanding is that there will be one presentation. That's correct. For both items. And then there will be an opportunity for the public to speak on both items. And then you will take up each of the items separately by way of a motion. Correct. Mr. Ezra, would you like to read item 21 now or wait until after the first vote of item 18? My suggestion is let's wait until we're going to wait until after we vote on the first one. Okay. All right. Thank you for that clarification. And I will turn it back over to you, Mr. Holmes. Okay. Okay, resuming the presentation. So as indicated, this is for both a land use request and a rezoning request. With regard to the land use amendment, the request is to change the land use designation of a 12.931 gross acre site from commercial to commercial and irregular residential, which would allow 22 dwelling units per acre on the site. And the associated rezoning is also for the 12.931 acre site, but it's proposed to change the underlying zoning from B2P, which is the city's central business district to the city's B7Q plan commercial district. The B7Q plan commercial district permits residential development. And that's why they're requesting the rezoning to that designation. This is a general location map for the city. So the site is located at the southwest corner of Sunrise Boulevard and North University Drive. I'll show that there are a couple of parcels that are proposed as part of this, the lupa and the rezoning. One of the parcels is located along Sunrise Boulevard at 8050 through 8190. West Sunrise and the other parcel is located with an address along North University Drive, which is 1723 through 1797 North University Drive. And I'll show you what those parcels are later in the presentation. This is an aerial photo of the site. It's highlighted there. You can see, as indicated, there's several parcels. There's a parcel here which houses an existing Bank of America building. And there is a parcel, there are three parcels here, which is the location of the shopping center that's a part of the request as well. So these are two out parcels that are located within the shopping center. You see the purple line there that just denotes the notification boundary that the city is required to notify individuals within that boundary. This is a zoning map. Again, the highlighted area, as we indicated, is Zone B2P. The properties located to the north, west, and to the east are also Zone B2P. And the property, which is the new Lena Development, located directly to the south of the parcel, is Zone B7Q. And this just sort of highlights that 12.93 gross acre parcel. Again, the Bank of America site here and the shopping center site that you see there. And this is just a regular aerial photo that gives you a little clearer picture. You can see the existing bank building here, which has drive-through facilities there that are accessible kind of from traversing to the rear of the property. And then you have the shopping center with the two out parcel buildings located here. So first, with regard to the land use plan amendment, this is a map of the city's existing land use. And land use is a portion of the land use map. You can see kind of crosshatch here. This is the parcel in question. It has an underlying land use of commercial. And so the applicant is proposing to modify this area from commercial to commercial with a dashed line area with irregular residential 22 dwelling units per acre. The blue area that's crosshatched here would be the portion of the site that would house the residential development. And that's the portion that would have the irregular residential density of 22 dwelling units per acre. And then with regard to the zoning, same parcel here. You can see the dashed line around here. The parcel is currently zoned B2P. And the applicant is proposing to change that portion to B7Q. Conceptual site plan. This is a conceptual site plan that was submitted as part of the request. I just want to reiterate that this is conceptual at this time. The applicant is just submitting this just to give the council some indication of what they plan to do if approved for the change from the change in land use and the change in rezoning. This site plan as we kind of go through the process and as it kind of makes its way through the development review process is subject to change a little. But this just gives you some indication of what the applicant is requesting to develop on the site to see if it's to give the council an opportunity to determine whether it wishes to consider the land use plan amendment and the rezoning for this purpose. So, again, primarily there was that western portion of the site which houses the Bank of America building. The Bank of America building would be demolished as part of ultimately as part of the request. And the residential building that we saw there would be constructed roughly to the rear of the property here. Again, the proposed residential portion here would be 3.5 gross acres. Just this portion here. The Bank of America building. The Bank building would be rebuilt here. They're looking to reduce the footprint. As you know, one of the things that's happening throughout the city is that a lot of the older banks that have much larger square footages they're reducing. People don't have the need to visit banks and conduct that business face to face as much anymore. So a lot of banks you see kind of significantly reducing their footprint and that's one of the things that is being proposed here as part of the request. And then you have the shopping center which would pretty much remain in place. There are some improvements that would be proposed to improve the pedestrian access into the shopping center and some of the circulation around the site as well. But you will, once the site plan comes before you, you'll have a lot more detail with regard to those modifications. Just to give you some indication of some of the other development that's surrounded by the property. Again, this is the proposed property here. Proposed residence at Plantation. There's a significant amount of multi-family residential surrounding the property. You have just located to the south of the property, the Park Village proposal. And then the Lena apartment building that you know was recently built and is being leased at the current time. And then further south of that, you have the Harbor Town and Lake Point developments. You have the Omega condominium project here. You even have up here, Apple Creek project. And you have the Villas of Plantation located here. The single, the only single family residential development that's around it is the Marcano Estates development located there. So just a little bit of background information with the change, with the proposed change. If the looper and the rezoning are approved, this would permit 284 dwelling units to be developed on the site. The applicant is requesting as part of this a density of 22 dwelling units per acre on the 12.93 acre site. Residential use is permitted as a conditional use in the proposed B7Q district. So one of the things that you would see come before the council in addition to the site plan would be a conditional use request to permit the residential use on the site. Because every B7Q district has a separate conditional use request and the uses are approved per the B7Q district. And finally, if approved, the applicant will submit a site plan conditional use review package. Citizen comments. Staff has not received as part of this application any written comments regarding the proposed application. Again, we did notify people within that notification boundary. Currently, there are no code violations issued for the subject site. The applicant actually conducted two community meetings as part of this, one on March 7, 2023, and October 19, 2023. There were, in your backup, in the staff report, you'll notice that there were some comments that were provided by residents attending those meetings. A lot of those comments centered around some traffic concerns with some of the surrounding neighborhoods and also some movement of traffic roughly in the area of Sunrise Boulevard University Drive. But that information is contained in more detail in the staff report. And then finally, board and committee recommendations. This did go before the city's development review committee. It was approved to move forward with no objection from the DRC on March 28. And it was also went before the city's planning and zoning board on September 12. And it was recommended for approval by the city's planning and zoning board. So just some general findings, some things I'd like to point out as part of the application. There are changes based upon the standards that we reviewed this under. We do note that there are some changes in the city's population and social economic factors that may be mitigated by the proposed land use and zoning requests. So we're acknowledging we've talked about as I indicated in the report with regard to housing affordability and the need for additional residential development to kind of help address this problem. The proposed land use change would have impacts on the city's public facilities, particularly sewer infrastructure and local roads. This was something that was discussed with the applicant at the development review committee. So the applicant is aware that they would have to address those infrastructure improvements to accommodate this project. The proposed land use and zoning would be compatible with some of the surrounding properties. I kind of showed you a general map there of some of the other residential development that is in the vicinity of the proposed project. And the proposed land use and zoning is generally compatible with the city's neighborhood design element, which we address in the staff report and the goals, objectives and policies of the city's comprehensive plan. The staff recommendations based upon the discussion that was held at the city's development review committee meeting. And some of the conditions that we're recommending as part of this is that the applicant adhere to their agreement as we discuss this or their proper providing 10% of the units as workforce housing. The applicant agree to address their impact on the sanitary sewer infrastructure as indicated. The applicant agrees to address drainage and intersection improvements at West Sunrise Boulevard and North University Drive. The applicant agreed to implement some of the high visibility crosswalks at North University Drive and North Marcano Boulevard. And finally, the applicant agreed to coordinate some of the signal timing at Pine Island, Sunrise, and University Drive based upon the traffic study that was submitted as part of the request. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. I know the applicant is here as well and can answer some specifics with regard to the proposal. Who wants to go first? Who wants to go first? So, okay. Council Member Ratchin, go ahead. So, B7Q, the height is acceptable under that zoning, right? Yes. What is Lena's height? Lena, I think, is six stories. So, it's probably in the neighborhood of 75, 80 feet. I don't know it off the top of my head. But it's the same kind of height? It will be very similar to the Lena development. That's correct. I don't have the detail, as I said, of the site plan yet and the building height itself. So, I can't fully answer that question. We do have just a conceptual, but yes. We think it's about the same. I guess I should make my Jennings disclosure now, right? Yes. Okay. The applicant's attorney called me this afternoon and it won't affect my decision. That parking lot with the bank, is the property going to be, like, segregated? So, like, the bank parking lot? I think you had, like, a site plan. Well, yeah. Let me go to the site. Where it showed the bank. That would be better. Yeah, this one. Is the garage, like, emptying out towards sunrise north into the bank's parking lot? I can't. I thought I saw a driveway. I guess I don't. That's what I thought was a driveway. Is that a driveway? Yes. It is? Yes. Why do you say no when he said yes? Oh, yes. This would be. Okay, that's going to. This would be ingress, ingress into the garage here. But at the. There would also be some access here as well. That's what I think you were looking at. I'm confused. Start over. Say it now. Okay. Now, this is where the parking garage is proposed. Yes. Access, if you were coming in off of sunrise, you would enter the site and you. You would drive through the bank's parking lot? Yes. Okay. And you would, you could enter into the garage here. You would also have access from, what's it, 17th Court? 17th? Yes. And you'd be able to access the development as well. What can be done with that road? I saw some of the comments from the residents that it's a drag strip. You could do. And I think it's going to get worse with another. Right. Large building like this. You could, you would have to do some traffic calming. You know, you could look at some appropriate traffic calming measures along the roadway. And, you know, the applicant, Mr. Raystrom kind of corrected me because I didn't think that I voted on anything so far that was ownership. And we did. It was, you know, the back of Hawks Landing. I was going to keep getting these apartments. And I, I think about this constantly because I cannot figure out how we get out of the affordable housing crisis with rentals. What, what is the proposed rent on this? And I know that there's going to be like, I think 10% was going to be for affordable workforce housing. What's the proposed rent on this? Let me have the applicant address that. I'm just conflicted with this. Yes, sir. Marcos Puente, Plantation Square, 1797 North University Drive. Commissioner Fajan. The rents here are, the studios are projected to be $1,800. The one bedrooms, $2,300. The two bedrooms, $2,900. And the three bedrooms, between $3,250 and $3,500. So what is the, the studio, you said it was, the first one was a studio? Correct. What's the square footage on that? Square footage, 540 square feet. So as part of my presentation, I, I have a direct comparison showing the costs of what it costs us to build one two bedroom. I'm sorry. Yes. To interrupt you. But there's a lot of conversation happening. And it's, it's, it's, it's very distracting for the presenter and for everybody at the dais. So if we can please keep all of the conversation to a minimum. Do you want to do your presentation? Um, I will, I would like to, but I'm here to answer any questions that you may have. Well, if I'm asking questions you think you're going to address in the, in your presentation, I'll wait. I don't know if anybody else wants to speak. I'll hold off. But is his presentation for item number 21? That's coming later. Okay. Well, there's. Okay. My understanding is that the one presentation for both items, just separate votes. Okay. Would, would the council be amenable to having that presentation now? Or do you want to go through your questions? Okay. If you don't mind. Okay. So council member, I'm saying if you can just hold off and we will go ahead and have the presentation. I would like to also make my Jennings disclosure. Um, I met with the applicant. I drove the property. Uh, it will not influence my vote. And if I may, then, uh, since we're, while they're setting up, I'll make my Jennings disclosure as well. I met with the, uh, the applicant as well as, uh, Mr. Laystrom and have also driven by the location as well. And it won't affect my vote. And I'd like to make the same Jennings disclosure. Well, may I begin? Well, firstly, uh, thank you for having me here, uh, councils. Um, I, I, I'd like to go into first, uh, who we are and what we do and, you know, why we chose plantation and these properties in particular to add some context to the presentation and, you know, why I'm asking you to support us and move forward. So MMG equity partners, it's a family owned company. We don't have outside investors. We, you know, family was in the pharmacy business in Miami for, you know, since the fifties, uh, since then, uh, turned into, you know, sold the pharmacy to CVS and has been strictly in the real estate business. Um, we're long-term owners of real estate. We purchased both of these properties in late 2021. Um, and, and further, we made additional investment into plantation. We purchased, uh, the, you know, just south of Broward Boulevard and university drive, the strip center where Marion's bagels is, uh, um, and, uh, what's the other one mustard seed, et cetera. Um, so we, you know, just, I, I, I think it's important to note that, you know, the, the, the shopping center itself, if, if you drive by, it's currently under construction. We, we, we, we're deliberately investing into this property and not holding up any approvals, uh, for this project. Um, because that's, that's just not how we operate. So that's under construction. We're remodeling that center for the, for, for our betterment and the betterment of the community. Um, so because we're long-term owners, uh, we'll be here to support your efforts, um, before and after these projects. And we'll be a partner to the city in the long run. Um, so what we do, we're value add investors. We, and, and the, the simplest way to put this is, you know, like the caveman that you see, you know, that buys ugly houses and does, you know, flips them or whatever, except we don't, we don't flip these properties. Right. Um, when, when I first started looking at these properties back in 2021, uh, it was an owner that had owned this, uh, for, you know, 30 some years, hadn't put a dime into the strip center. Um, and I thought it was a fabulous intersection there. You know, the, the city was courting Chewy across the street to bring their headquarters there. And there was a ton of office activity across the street, um, bringing new employment to the area and a lot of demand for retail. So we're primarily shopping center owners. We've gotten into the apartment business over the last few years because there's, there's no more land, uh, throughout South Florida. We have the Everglades on one side. We have the ocean on the other. Right. So, you know, as, as, as much as, you know, there's still some townhome projects being built, you know, everything out West and, and some homes, the, the bulk of it is redevelopments like, like we're seeing now. So throughout the shopping center portfolio, uh, we had multifamily developers start knocking on our door and asking, Hey, we see you have some vacancy. Can we tear, uh, these properties or part of the property down and purchase it from you? So, um, I'll go into, you know, an example of a project that we did. That's close by. This is the target, the former super target on university drive and commercial Boulevard and water Hill. So that picture all the way on the left, uh, that was, that, that was a super target as it was previously. That was 170,000 square foot building. Super target did not, you know, want to operate the store anymore. So they closed it in 2018, um, and put the building up for sale. So being shopping center owners, we, we, we, we put the property under contract and started reaching out to the tenants that we're in touch with. You know, I think Ross was interested in maybe Burlington, but that's 40,000 square feet. We found no more interest for 170,000 square feet. So we struck out totally. We ended up partnering with an apartment developer and, you know, we thought to ourselves, there's strip retail all around this. What else is going to happen with this, with this, you know, functionally obsolete building that there's no demand for? Um, so we went through the approvals process and we, you know, ultimately, if, if you drive by now, I mean, the, you know, the majority of it has been completed. Some of it is still under construction, but there's 514 units that are there surrounded by retail. You know, so all of the projects that we're working on are very similar. You know, they're, they're retail in nature, but there's a portion of them that are functionally obsolete either through vacancy or, you know, a building that no longer, uh, there's no longer demand for these buildings. So, uh, another, um, example here is village shops at Pine Island Plaza. Uh, this is on Pine Island and 44th where the AMC theaters is. So if you all recall, there was a Winn-Dixie there and that Winn-Dixie left, right? So this, this property, the firm has owned since about 2011, if I'm not mistaken. Um, it was a 230,000 square foot shopping center. After Winn-Dixie left, we were left, you know, and, and the, the, the other tenants around them started leaving one by one because there was zero demand for it. We were left with 137,000 square foot of vacancy, um, with zero demand. So, you know, the, the, the value of the property goes down and, and it's functionally obsolete. It becomes an eyesore. Again, we did the same. We partnered with an apartment developer and the photos on the right is what is the same. Right is what is there now. So it's a mixed use project with, you know, the garden style apartments and retail upfront. So going into why plantation and why these properties, uh, again, when, you know, being shopping center owners, we have close relationships with all of these tenants and we're deliberately opening new stores for them. I'm building a Sprouts and Coconut Creek right now, a Conviva, Cali coffee up there. Um, you know, uh, Chipotle and Miami gardens. And again, numerous tenants that we have these relationships with. And I kind of follow these tenants with where they want to go. And a lot of tenants wanted to be in plantation, but they all want to be on university drive. And if they can't be on university drive, they, they prefer not to, not to, not to, not to be here. Right. Again, some other ones are willing to go different, different places, whatnot. But the, the ones that I work with, they all wanted to be on university drive. So initially, um, if, if, if you go further, uh, to the next, uh, the next slide, you know, I quickly realized that there was a lot of demand for residential here in plantation that I started studying the area and I realized there was an opportunity to purchase this, this shopping center. Um, go down, William, if you can, to the existing conditions. So this is where it was when, when, when I, uh, you know, I, I was first looking at the property and, you know, clearly it's a building that has not been remodeled since the eighties. Uh, you know, the roofs were completely shot. Um, and there was 20% vacancy on the property, right on the, on the corner, you know? Um, so, uh, while others, you know, including the former owner thought that, you know, this property was, you know, was a disaster or not. I mean, to me, I thought this was gold because I can, I can buy this and I can make it better. Right. And, and, you know, the same thing. So when I was here in the parking lot, the first time, um, I went to the bank of America in the back and I realized, what is this? Bank doing here? It's, it's, it's a 20,000 square foot building. The building was originally built in the seventies as the headquarters for, I believe, Broward Bank or some bank that through mergers and acquisitions has now become Bank of America. We have a relationship with Bank of America. I've purchased a number of them and redeveloped these bank branches. Um, I reached out to Bank of America. And if you go down further, you'll see the existing conditions of the bank reached out to Bank of America. And they said, yeah, we want to relocate this branch. We don't need, you know, all of this space. And, you know, to give you an idea of their, you know, the, the standard operating costs to operate a bank branch. In addition to whatever rent they pay us, probably around $75,000 in operating expenses. That's your real estate taxes, your insurance, and just, you know, electricity, utilities, whatever. Um, Bank of America is paying here around close to $300,000 in operating costs because, you know, all of you, all of the systems inside of that building are falling apart. So it's a building that's close to being functional obsolete. This, this is a good branch for them. So they want to stay here. They have over a hundred million of deposits. So I negotiated a deal with Bank of America whereby it, you know, if, if I'm able to do something else with the balance of the land that, that, you know, is accretive to me, I will build them a new branch, which I take a loss on. And, and anyway, so we, I, we signed a lease and, and, and this is where we are now. So if you go up William, you'll see the shops at plantation square remodel. So this is currently under construction. This is what we're doing at, at plantation square. Um, we're, we're probably 30 to 45 days into a 12 month remodel of this, of the, of this entire building. Um, no, top, uh, top left. No, Denny's is not pictured here because Denny's is under a ground lease. Um, and yeah, so Japan in is, is on the right. But, uh, anyhow, the, you know, but this is a $3 million remodel that we're going through. I mean, this is not putting lipstick on a pig. This is just us spending real money to improve this property and attract better tenants because the demand is there. Right? Unfortunately, I can't say the same for bank of America. Initially, I wanted to see if I could do a sprouts there. You know, I'm building a sprouts and coconut Creek. Didn't work. They want to be on university. I tried putting a while while there while I didn't want to be there. You know, so I reached out to my entire Rolodex of retailers. What can I do here? I will build a branch up front because the bank wants to be on sunrise. No retailer wanted to take the second position. So there's no demand for retail, right? Medical office started, you know, we've partnered with a medical office developer down in Miami. It's not enough land. We need more parking to build medical office and we can't, we can't do it. You know, in addition, the office market in plantation, um, you have 5.7 million square feet of office building. 16% of that is vacant. That's almost a million square feet. So there's a plethora of, of, of available square footage for any office tenant that wants to be here or, you know, medical office that want that, that is willing to convert. So that's not a market. I mean, you're, you know, you're not really building new office if there's a million square feet available of available space, uh, within the community. So we struck out there, um, and the demand lied in the residential. So let me see. So anyhow, by remodeling and redeveloping both properties into one mixed youth project, uh, you know, we figured, I mean, this, the, this is how we, we make the 10 and a half acres. You know, on this important city corner, there's over 80,000 cars a day that pass by, you know, these eyesore properties. Uh, this is how we make it better and meet the demand of the market. That's there. Um, so if you want to go down, let me see. So this is the new branch that we're proposing. And, you know, bank bank of America has, you know, initially they wanted a 5,300 square foot branch, but they opted to increase the size to 7,155 square feet as they want to put a Merrill Lynch office there as well, which is their private wealth management office. Um, if you go down one more William, please. So this would be the before and after, uh, renderings of, of the area. So, and, and, and, and really now I'll, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go into why I'm imploring you to, to work with me. Um, you know, and, and, and really it's three, three reasons, right? I mean, traffic issues, uh, the, these are growing pains and, you know, they're critical to the city. They're critical to us. Housing affordability is a real issue, right? I mean, that's number, this is number two and, and probably the biggest one, uh, which I'll dive into, uh, very specifically. Um, and number three, w we've been very deliberate about working together with all the stakeholders. We've been meeting with, you know, our neighbors, uh, you are our tenants, you know, anybody we can to seek feedback and incorporate it into our plan. So going into the traffic congestion issues, um, after studying the, you know, studying the numbers and, and, and, and trying to zoom out and understand the supply and demand balance for multifamily and, and all other product types, uh, implantation and the surrounding areas. Um, I've deduced that, you know, these issues are beyond this project and they're going to continue to get worse, even if no new projects are built in plantation. So I'm going to rattle off some stats, the population in Florida, it continues to grow in 2020. The population in the state of Florida was 21 million, 600,000 people in 2023. It's estimated to be 22 million, 600,000 people. That's a million people that have come in in just three years by 2030, it's projected to be 25 million. We're seeing this in Miami. We're seeing this in Broward. We're seeing this in Palm beach. The employers are moving here. The population is following and we're it's the, the, that is the cause. The effect that we're seeing is the traffic and the rents, the affordability that has gone through the roof. That has gone, you know, excuse me, um, is, you know, the unaffordability has gone through the roof. So the population growth now zooming a little bit into this project within a five mile radius of, of this project, there's been 41,210, uh, people that have come to this area new since 2010. That's a total of 16,282 households within five miles of, of, of this project. Within those same five miles, there's been 10,000, 100, 10,017 apartment units built or constructed since 2010. This includes those that are currently under construction. So you'll see that there's, you know, about, you know, 6,000 more households that have come to, to this area, um, above and beyond the housing units that have been built. Um, out of those 10,000 units, 60%. So 6,036 of those units were outside of the city of plantation in Davie, Lauder Hill, sunrise and Tamarack. So, you know, and, and, and again, I, we have projects in some of those other cities, uh, you know, sunrise, as I mentioned, those cities, I mean, if they, as they continue building, right. So if 60% of the units are outside of plantation, as those cities continue building, you know, the majority of them, Davie is, is different because it's south of you. But the majority of these, of these cities are, are around you and to the north. All that traffic is going to come right through plantation going through 595. I mean, that's, that's not going to stop whether plantation, uh, doesn't build one more unit or, or not. Right. So it's, the traffic's going to continue to grow. And any traffic mitigation that's enacted from approving, uh, any of those projects in those other cities is only going to benefit those cities. Right. So any, we have a shot now at enacting real change, you know, working collaboratively together, you know, the public sector with the private sector. I mean, we can do great things together and actually enact some change to, you know, uh, mitigate the traffic, you know. And, and again, it's not going to solve all of the traffic issues, but I can do my part. And I'm committed to doing my part to solving the issues on university drive on 17th court, along Rotterdale West drive as much as I can. Because if that helps the community that helps me longterm, we're, we're owning these properties longterm. We're going to be here in three years. We're going to be here in five years. God willing. So, um, I guess going into, going into the other, the other aspect of it, the housing affordability, um, and William, if you can go down to the wall street journal article. And I'll get into that other stuff later. So there was an article a few days ago. This is it in the wall street journal. There's never been a worse time to buy instead of rent. It is now 52% more expensive to buy a home than to rent one because of climbing mortgage rates. And this is true. And I'm going to walk you off through the numbers, right? So the demand for rentals are going to continue to grow as, as, as purchasing is out of reach for most. To qualify for a mortgage, you need to have a, what's, what's called a, they look at your debt to income ratio. It's a 42% debt to income ratio on, on a $405,000 mortgage today with today's rates. And, you know, all expenses, uh, that you, your real estate taxes, your insurance, you know, association fees, et cetera. Um, you need to earn $124,000, $857 a year and have zero other debt just to qualify for that mortgage. If not, you're not getting a mortgage, right? So if you have a car payment, you need to make more than the $124,000. You'll need to make probably $140,000 or whatnot, because that's, that's how that figure is calculated. Um, according to HUD, the 2023 figures, the median household income for Broward County in 2023 is $88,500. So, you know, what, if that's your median, that's 50%, what, 60, 75% of people can't afford a $405,000 mortgage. Uh, council member Andrea, you mentioned that Pulte Homes is building townhomes and they're selling them for $500,000. You know, that somebody would need to have a hundred some thousand dollar down payment just to qualify for this. So if you go to the next slide, I'll walk you through the, I'll walk you through the numbers. Um, so the cost to build a two bedroom, two bathroom unit and Commissioner Fadgen, this is, uh, I, I think you had a question on this. Um, the cost to build the two bedroom, two bathroom unit at the 1,026 square feet, uh, that, you know, is, is the average across our, our, our project and those in the area. The construction costs are about $275 per square foot soft costs are about 20% of that. That's, that's, you know, your, your project on my land cost is on this one. It will be $25,000 per developable unit. Generally in the market, it's about 45, $50,000. If you sum all of those costs up, that's 363,000. So if I were to sell these off as condos, then I have sales expense. I have transfer taxes that I need to pay the county. I have to pay legal fees. Um, I have to pay for any escrow costs and I also have to pay a commission to a realtor. So sales costs of seven and a half percent. I tack that on it's $390,000, just the cost to build this two bedroom unit. Now, this is the effect of inflation on the real estate market and your constituents. And, you know, all of our tenants, you know, and who, who we're dealing with. So that $390,000 cost is before any profit to the developer. As you know, developers, you know, nobody's doing anything for, for any profit, right? So, you know, typically a profit margin on, on a project like this would be 20 or 25%. But assuming a reduced profit margin of 15%, that's $450,000. Just the cost with a, a small profit to the developer. So if somebody was to go finance that today, after 2% closing costs, they're paying $458,000. On a 90% loan with a 10% down payment, they would need to come up with $53,000, right? And that's the loan interest rate today, 7.65%, assuming real estate taxes of 7,500. That's after Homestead exemption. And a monthly HOA payment for a condominium, which is $875,000. And this was, this was actually verified. There's, there's other two bedroom condos that were built in the early 2000s, a couple of miles south of us. Um, that have, you know, two bedrooms just like this up for sale for $465,000, right? So the numbers are almost right there. Uh, the monthly mortgage payment is $4,370. I mean, nobody can afford that. You know, this is, I mean, people, I'm 35 years old, you know, the, the, the young, the young folks that I have working for me can't afford this, right? My, I mean, I'm, I'm very blessed that my parents are, you know, I have, I have, my parents are, are in the workforce. My father's a delivery driver. My mother's a word processor. They, you know, they have a gross income of $88,000 a year. Um, my wife's parents are, you know, similar workforce. Luckily, my parents purchased their home in for $150,000 in the eighties. And they're okay. My wife's parents is not the same. They're renting and they have been, they lost their home in the, in the, in the great recession. They have not had a, uh, they, they lost their jobs after that as well. And again, they've been renting since they're paying $2,700 in Kendall in Miami for a two bedroom and a two bedroom that's probably around 30 years old. So it's, it's, you know, the, the cost, while it seems astronomical, the, the, the cost to rent a two bedroom unit financially, it makes a lot more sense for somebody to do that. You know, there's the argument of how much wealth you're creating and principal you're paying down every year. In this scenario, during the first five years of your mortgage, the amount of principal you're paying down is $4,500. Whereas you're saving, I think it's $17,000 a year just by renting instead of owning. And this is why, I mean, this is why there's such a demand for rental units, right? Interest rates are way too high. Inflation is way too high. I mean, they're the, the, the reason why, the reason why houses and everything costs so much these days, it's not because developers are greedy. It's because the costs are the costs. That's the cost of your concrete, the cost of your steel, your windows, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, so anyways, this, and, and, and, you know, needless to say, you, you, you would need to come up with $54,000, right? To, to do this. So, you know, when, when, when you couple this together with, with, with everything, I mean, there's a, there's a really strong case for renting instead of buying. And, and that's why you're seeing the demand that you're seeing for the apartments. And this goes way beyond my project, right? All I can do is try and do my part. You know, the workforce housing helps alleviate some because it, you know, the rents charge on the 80 to 120% of area, area median income, which is what we're going to be targeting with at least 10% of the units. It's roughly 10 to 17% lower than market rates. And we're bound by that for, for 30 years, right? So it helps, right? You know, lastly, you know, I, I, I do want to say we've been very deliberate about working together with all the stakeholders, you know, and seeking feedback on issues and committing to, you know, solutions. So we are fully committed to addressing and enacting whatever changes are necessary if we're allowed to move forward. So I'll give some further examples on that. Um, the neighbors requested traffic calming measures and we committed to the following improvements. So if, uh, here, I was meeting with some of the neighbors probably 18 months ago. Uh, and they had, they, they had the same issues that were brought up earlier. 17th court, Lauderdale West drive people, you know, 18 months ago, they were telling me people are cutting through Lauderdale West drive, uh, constantly. And there's only two speed humps there. Uh, and, and, you know, 17th court, it's a drag, a drag strip, if you would. Um, so, so anyways, I started working with, uh, the, the former members of the board at Lauderdale West. And, and, you know, what do you want? Do you want additional speed bumps? You want me to try and get stop signs, speed humps? Let, let, let, let's, let's, let's do that. You know, city engineer, I worked with her. I worked with Tony Martins from the fire department. Um, so this is what we've committed to and what we've come up with. Uh, for the traffic calming to add additional speed cushions, you know, firstly along 17th court, uh, then along Lauderdale West drive. Uh, there's other measures that we can potentially do. You know, if I, once the project is built, maybe, you know, I can hire an off duty police officer during peak hours to monitor, uh, Lauderdale West drive and, you know, catch anybody speeding. I mean, after a year of people being caught speeding and getting a ticket, they're not going to continue to do that. Um, so signal optimization, uh, on both of these intersections, that's Pine Island and university, uh, Pine Island and sunrise and university and sunrise. That's another one on the next slide. If you can, William, this was one that it was very interesting because through our community meeting that we had last week, one of the residents expressed a concern that I had not previously thought about. But it was a very good point because this is, this is, this is true. This is university drive facing southbound, uh, and the intersection of 17th court right across from where Lena is. So if you see that vehicle, right, right there, that's making a left turn, uh, into 17th court behind our shopping center, the visibility for that vehicle is actually very poor. Right? So that's a real issue. Uh, the more people that are on these roads, um, the more that's going to become an issue. And we're going to see some accidents there at some point. So I actually discussed this with our traffic engineer and, and he said, Hey, look, you know, after looking at it a little bit, and this is subject to FDOT approval. This is what we might be able to do depending if FDOT decides to play ball with us or not. But, you know, if we reduce that median, we increase the visibility and reduce the, the, the, the chances, uh, for an accident and, you know, make it a better intersection for the people that live here in the area, which if approved will be my rent, my tenants as well. So, um, I think there's another slide, uh, if you can, William, correct. So, and then these were improvements that the city, uh, requested that, that, you know, city staff requested that we make or, or share in costs with, which are, you know, uh, the, the intersections of university drive and sunrise and Marcano Boulevard and, and university, um, which again, we're, we're, we're fully committed to, to, to doing. Um, so the, the, the, the community has also expressed a desire for workforce housing, which I am, I am totally okay with, uh, you know, I've committed to at least 10% of the units and deed restricting them for 30 years for workforce housing. Um, and, and again, that's a deed restriction. We live with that and it's our property. We're going to own it longterm and, um, we're happy to do so and, you know, at least provide our part, right? So we do intend to market these units to first responders and employees of Broward schools. Um, I mean, we think they're, you know, the, the, the employees in, in, in, in, in these industries are probably some of the most affected and some of the most needed as well. So we would like to reserve, uh, these units for them first. Also neighbors and, and, and, and, and, and others have expressed the need for enhanced pedestrian connectivity and beautification of 17th court. So I'd like to get into the, the, what we're proposing on 17th court. Yeah. So those, this is the existing conditions today of, of, of, of 17th court. Um, as you see, I mean, there's not, there's, there's not much to look at. I mean, it's not a, it's not a pretty site. Um, so if you know, there's, there's poor lighting, the mature trees on our properties are destroying the retaining wall. Um, you have the rear view of the aging shopping center. Now, at least that will fix, you know, on our own accord shortly. Um, but you know, all of these right of way improvements, uh, it, you know, this is behind the shopping center. It continues like this all throughout the rear of the, the bank of America. So William, if you move to the next slide, please, you know, this is, this is where we're proposing to make it more cohesive, right? It's where, you know, expanding the sidewalks along 17th court, adding, uh, lighting all throughout, at least our properties, uh, whatever we can do there. Lush landscaping, you know, it's 780 linear feet of new landscaping and lighting. Um, we've also, you can't see it much here, but you know, we're creating a breezeway through the shopping center to allow access from our property to the shops that currently wasn't there. And we're, uh, creating a pedestrian walkway from our property to Sunrise Boulevard. Um, that will be lighted, uh, as well. That will be open to the public. Um, you know, one of the important things about this intersection is, and this is what, what I love about we, uh, about what we do. Uh, retail properties on main and main commercial intersections or on main streets on main avenues, right? So the accessibility is great. This one just so happens to be on two very important, uh, city streets. You have employment across the street from us and you have your retail and shops all around us, right? So, you know, our residents, I mean, it's, it's our intent to provide this as an amenity for the residents, right? The location as an amenity, you're right across from your Publix. You're, you're right across from Ross and, you know, all the other shops that you have there. You're right across from, you know, all your restaurants at our property and across the street. Um, and, you know, just to rattle off some stats, uh, Lena across the street, they're in lease up right now. They're in their third month of lease up. They're leasing about 25 units, uh, a month. So they're, uh, I think they have close to 90 some, 90 some, uh, units rented. 15% of the units that they've leased to are to people that work directly across the street. The other, you know, a total of about 60%, 65%, 60 to 65% of the, of, of, of the residents that they've leased to thus far all work within the city of plantation. So, I mean, these are, these are, these are local people that are, that, that are coming that, and, and they're leasing very well. Generally, these buildings lease 15 units a month. I mean, they're, they're, they're doing a lot better than that. So the demand is there. And, you know, as you'll see, um, in, you know, the, the rest of the numbers, despite the rents being high, I mean, there is demand for more, for more residential. So, um, so again, to summarize, uh, you know, the traffic and the affordability issues are going to continue to be challenges. And we can, and we'll do our part, uh, to address both of them. You know, I hope that thus far the actions that we've taken with the community, with the residents, with our investment in these properties, uh, you know, demonstrates that we care about the community and that we want to help. We're here to help. Um, I like to think that our interests are aligned with the communities that we're investing in because we're, you know, we're, we're, we're problem solvers. We're taking problem properties and trying to find a way to, to make them better. And that's in both of our interests. Um, I mean, the alternative to working together, uh, collaboratively as we have been is to table the project and, you know, ask us to come up with something better. Um, but, you know, uh, uh, again, I, uh, you know, I don't think there's anything that one project can do to solve any of the issues that are before you. Um, the only thing that we can do, you know, is do our part, you know, for the affordability, for the traffic, you know, take whatever the residents, uh, of the area, uh, want. And incorporate that into our design while keeping market demand in, in perspective. So, um, I thank you and, and I hope that you support us. So if you have any questions, we're, uh, we're here to answer and, you know, just reserve five or 10 minutes for responses to any comments. Thank you. Thank you for the comprehensive presentation. Uh, I think council member Ryanstein, you had the first question. I want to extend that opportunity to you once again. I think when I had, I buzzed it before because I wanted to make my Jennings disclosure. So, um, I, I don't have a first question right now. Thanks. Okay. Um, I don't see anybody else who buzzed in yet. So I will, can you go back to, I'm sorry, and they're, they're not numbered, but the slide you had that had the breakdown of kind of comparing the condo to the apartment. Sure. I believe you had a two bedroom unit for 2,900. Correct? Correct. Okay. Um, so here you have security deposit as one month's rent. Yes. You're not going to be asking for first, last and security. That's typically done in condo, uh, units and, and privately owned, uh, units for these, you know, professionally managed apartment buildings. Um, it's, it's typically one month. We do check credit, you know, and, and we do, you know, check income and whatnot, but, uh, it's, it's typically just one month's rent. Totally. One month's rent. So explain to me the, what piqued my interest was the workforce housing. We've talked about that, um, at length, especially again with our strategic planning. And I'm very interested in dipping our toe in that, in the water. But I, I just recently read an article and if you're serious about this, you don't even start below 15% and you're offering 10. So that's my first kind of issue there. I think if you're really serious about doing something in terms of workforce housing, that percentage needs to increase. And I also need some clarity around the reduction. I think I heard you say 17%, but I want to verify what reduction would be offered for workforce housing. What percentage and number of units, because I believe the entire project. Oh, did I write it? I, I think Lena was, is Lena 284 or is yours 284? I wrote that too, but I wasn't sure. Yeah. Ours 284 is, uh, yeah. So what, um, percentage and number would actually be the workforce housing piece? And what percentage and number or price would the reduction for those units be? Sure. So at 15%, we're talking roughly, uh, 40, 42 units. Um, so the rents are dictated by, by income levels, right? So workforce, we're targeting between 80 and 120% of area median income. The, and all, all, all, these are, these are the numbers published by HUD. They're published annually and it's what dictates, um, the rents we're allowed to charge. And based on what incomes are, our tenants have. Um, so for studios, the lower bound is $1,345. The upper bound is 2016. Um, so when, when I mentioned the 10 to 17%, that was based on the upper bounds, right? For three bedrooms, the lower bound is, um, $1,996. The upper bounds is $2,995. Um, $1,440 on the lower end for one bedrooms, $2,160 for the higher end. And $1,728 for the two bedrooms, $2,592 for the, for the, for the upper bounds. Um, so it, it works out roughly depending on which unit to, you know, between 10 and 17% reduction on the upper bound, right? Assuming that, you know, it's, it's, it's somebody that qualifies for the 120, um, uh, 10 to 17%, uh, based on market rents. And, and, you know, quite frankly, what they're charging across the street, there's other buildings in the midtown district that are charging higher because they're high rise buildings. And, you know, they, they, they have more to offer. Um, but again, you know, our best comparison is Lena. That's right across the street. And so you said that you, you were willing to go up to 15%. I'm here to work with you all. Okay. Which would be 42 units. I heard, correct? Yes. So, and, and the, the number of units, you know, on the site plan that I have is, is 269. We're seeking approval for 284. But again, the final number will be determined at site plan approval should we get there. So I, I think it's, it's, it's better to agree to a percentage than a fixed number, uh, at this juncture, at least. Okay. Um, Council Member Horlain, you had some additional questions or comments. I did. Thank you, Madam President. Um, I've got a lot of thoughts. Um, when we first met over a year ago, you said no affordable housing component. Um, so I do appreciate the fact that you've listened to us and you've listened to the community. Um, I'm glad you put the figures up there because I have notes that I took off of a, a webinar I was on last week. And it was a housing supply accelerator webinar. And, uh, it was looking across the country. It was put on by National League of Cities. And it's interesting. And that's why those figures are so important because we've stated what we want here. And we've always said that whether it's an applicant, council, the residents, we have to compromise. None of us are going to get everything that we want. Um, and they were putting the cost per unit at about 415,000. So those numbers are not off. So we need to, we've had this discussion with other applicants also. Um, I'm happy to hear you're willing to go up to the 15%. Um, just the fact that you were willing to put that affordable, um, housing component in. Whereas a year ago that was not on the table. I think we need to look at the project holistically. I remember sitting with Mr. Holmes probably five years ago. And we talked about what areas of the city were right for redevelopment. And this was one of the areas we looked at. Uh, we mentioned banks. I was just informed yesterday my bank of 30 years is leaving my shopping center. Uh, we've talked about that. How we need to start to repurpose some of these properties and look at them differently. Um, just pull up my screen, just shut off on me. I've been concerned about 17th court and I'm happy to hear that you're willing to put some mitigation, uh, into that road. Is there any possibility? I believe the parking garage exits onto 17th. Is that correct? Correct. Well, it either way. Uh, yeah, the fire truck needs to be able to go all the way through. Is there, do we have the ability to have a no right turn on 17th court? Because my concerns always have been about the impact on Lauderdale West. Yeah. Okay. That's something, and I, we'd have to work with our traffic engineer. And I appreciate the other improvements that you're committed to. But I think that if we can lessen some of that impact of people taking that right. And using that as a cut through, I think anything we can do to mitigate that would be a positive. Again, um, when we look at the cost of these units, we also need to take a look at the other improvements that you've committed to. Such as the concerns from the utilities department with, um, uh, capacity. I don't know. I, I did not have a chance to speak to chief Harrison, but I do recall residents coming before us previously and complaining that there were vagrants, uh, sleeping behind the bank. I don't know if that's been your experience, but there were people hanging out there under undesirable for the neighborhood. So I think anything we can do to, to clean up that property. Um, I think again, if you can address that right turn onto 17th, if that would, uh, prevent some of that traffic to going to Lauderdale West, that would be a big concern of mine. But I think that, you know, I don't know if you know, we're having a planning, uh, workshop tomorrow. I almost wish the workshop had happened tonight and we reversed it because I think these are a lot of the discussions that we have to have. The council has been very, uh, firm that we do want to see home ownership in the city, but I think that we have to be realistic. I was at a legislative delegation meeting yesterday. We all know what's happening with property insurance in this, uh, state and it's becoming cost prohibitive for people to, to have ownership right now. And that's something that's going to have to be addressed at another level, but we need to make sure that we're providing housing for people. Um, and we have to meet that wherever we can. So, um, again, I appreciate the improvements you want to make on the property. Um, but I think that we need to take this holistically and look at everything that could possibly happen. It's a rundown property and I think we need to, to make the best utilization of that space that we can. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And, uh, as far as the, the no right turn on 17th, if, if, if I am permitted to do that, I am happy to implement it and I am happy to monitor it once the project is up, uh, much, much like I mentioned earlier. I'm not a traffic engineer. So if, if that makes sense, I just think that anything we would, we can attempt to mitigate. Of course. That impact on Lauderdale West. Of course. Council member Fatchin. So you said that, I don't understand what you're saying. No right turn out of the garage. Out of the garage. Okay. Well, my comment had to do a 17th court. I don't like this. You said speed cushions or speed humps, right? Yes. I don't know if there's something we can, I don't feel like that's, I don't like those things in neighborhoods. If there's other ways that we can mitigate it, that would, um, I would prefer to go down that route and that, that would be working with the city engineer, I guess. But, um, I'm not as a traffic engineer either. So, but that's kind of what I was, the speed humps, I just don't, if there's another way to do it, that's, that's what I'd be interested in. Sure. And we, we had previously looked at, um, in our deliberations with the city engineer and, and the fire department, uh, either roundabouts, um, or, and, or a, you know, the radar speeding signs. Um, so I, I, I guess, look, this is, if, if, if this item is, if these two items are approved, um, we still have a long road ahead of us. No, no, we realize that, but I think the 17th court for me is reading the comments that you had at your community meeting. So you're aware of it and it's a problem now and hopefully we can start addressing it before you get to that point. But if you could commit to help us. Oh, absolutely. Help, uh, extend that mitigation. I think that will go a long way for the community. Um. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, and my, my point in saying that was, uh, one way or another, if, if, if I am allowed to work with you all on this, uh, we, we will do something favorable for 17th court. It's just a matter of working collaboratively. Councilmember Reinstein. Yeah. Thank you. Um, the only thing I want to add is that, uh, I appreciate the, um, the backup that was provided because some of the things that you're saying, um, we also got from, um, from planning and zoning that the increasing the availability of the housing supply will help to alleviate pricing pressure and make housing more affordable across, um, across this area. So, you know, I know that's been a back and forth on a lot of different things that have come before us is that, uh, you increase density and is that going to help, um, help, help alleviate the pricing pressure. Um, one of the things that I saw in here is that, uh, a commitment regarding, um, improving the interconnectedness and walkability and, um, also in regards to connections for pedestrians and, and bicycles. Um, I think if it's approved tonight, we'll probably see that more the, the next time. But, um, I just want to make sure that that is something that you're, you're looking at. I couldn't tell from, um, the plans I'd seen previously that, um, that we've talked about and that you've shown here whether or not the entirety of the property will, um, have, uh, be interconnected and walkable. And, um, when you showed us the back of the building, um, and you had described that, uh, that there's, um, that you're going to extend the sidewalks. I'd like to also see that area that it's, uh, it's bikeable too. And when we talk about bikeable lanes, that it's not just, um, by marked, uh, as a bikeable lane, but there's some kind of separation. So people who want to bike have some safety, safe, uh, features there. Sure. Absolutely. So, uh, that, that is something that I can, I can absolutely consider. Um, you know, we haven't gone as far into the site plan. Um, given that, you know, that, that would be at a, at a later junction and that's when we would get really into all of these details. But, um, from now we have at least implemented, uh, a conceptual, um, connectivity plan from 17th Court to Sunrise and the breezeway from the shopping center. We're, I mean, we're currently doing that right now. We're working on permitting it with, you know, despite whatever happens with, with, with the bank property, we're currently permitting that, uh, with, uh, the city of plantation. And, and, and we're, we're actively working on that to, you know, uh, provide that connectivity to the shopping center. And that's for, you know, other residents of the community and whatnot. Um, so, but absolutely, we're absolutely committed to that. And, you know, I'm happy to, you know, further, uh, commit to connectivity and bicycle lanes, you know, either across 17th Court, uh, through our property. Uh, there's ways that we can do it if we, you know, shrink the envelope of the building a little bit, we can add a little bit more green area and, you know, add a bike lane. I mean, that, that's fairly easy to do. Thank you. Sure. Council, any questions or comments before I go to the public? We do have a few public speakers. Sally Zayas. Thank you for waiting so patiently. Thank you. Hello. My name is Sally Zayas. I live at 8433 Northwest 12th Street in Lauderdale West. I'm here because I'm concerned with the traffic flow, as he discussed. I was at the meeting on October the 19th. It was interesting because there was probably six people there at the meeting. And, uh, I informed the developer that the reason I moved to Plantation was because I formerly lived in Miami in the Brickell area. I lived in Bell Harbor and I lived in Aventura. So, to get away from the traffic, I decided to move somewhere nice and calm like Plantation, which I've been enjoying since. I've been here since 2012 and I can only see the development pretty much similar to what I witnessed in Aventura. With the construction of continual development of high rises, such as this with 284 units, that would impact our city streets. Most importantly, Lauderdale West, which is a senior community. I personally walk to the Veterans Park on a regular. I'm a board member at Lauderdale West and I walk to the clubhouse. So, I see the traffic. I see the impact of the development near our area. And I think one of the suggestions we made last week was exactly that turning on 17th Court. And there was an individual there that was representing Park Village right next door to Veterans Park on 17th Court. She also indicated that she does take a shortcut through Lauderdale West from Cleary to 17th Court. So, we know this is already an issue. I can't even imagine right now with the occupancy just starting to fill up in the new development, Lena, and with his property being built, I asked about access routes. And he said, well, 17th Court would be, of course, one of the entrances. And then Sunrise would be an entrance as well. However, they would have to come through the community, the commercial area to get to the parking. So, my concern is nine times out of ten, people are going to come through our community to avoid Sunrise. Sunrise in university is a busy intersection. And if you've ever been there between 4 and 6 o'clock, you're pretty much sitting there for a long time in gridlock and sirens and everything else. So, that's my concern is as a senior community living there near the development, what can we do to curb that influx of what we're going to see now with the development of Lena and now with this. Also, our safety, our security, all of that comes into play with the influx of 284 units. I mentioned the fact that with 284 units, you're talking about two vehicles per. So, we're talking about 586 vehicles coming through the area at any given time. Let's just say those people now have visitors. Right now, we're having a problem, like you say, for housing. And what I've seen is that a lot of people are coming in to live and visit with other people that's going to generate more people. So, that's my concern. Thank you very much. Sure. Joanne Hill. Hi. I'm Joanne Hill at 1530 Northwest 82nd Avenue in Lauderdale West. I happen to be the president there. And Sally pretty much said just about what I was going to say specifically about traffic. Lauderdale West Drive is a racetrack right now. Your former mayor did put in two humps, speed humps there, and one on 17th Street. And, unfortunately, people just drive through the middle of them, right in the middle of the street. So, they're doing absolutely no good. As Sally mentioned, we're a 55 and over community. People walk. People walk their dogs. People cross the street. And when you're talking about a racetrack, it's disgusting. I don't think we need another five or six-story apartment building right down the street. If they're, you know, they're going to come with Luna across the way. They're coming through Lauderdale West, as Sally said. The woman already does. So, traffic is a big problem now. I can't imagine what it's going to be once all these developments are done. Unfortunately, plantation, granted, supposedly, you know, housing costs are high. Mortgage rates are high. I think with all the apartments that have been built in the past five years, there were thousands of apartment units that are available now. I really don't think plantation needs more. It seems to be a transient community now, where it used to be a bedroom community, and it's not. And I'm really upset that it's going to get even worse. I don't believe that we need more apartments. And I don't know, honestly, the difference between workforce housing and low-income housing. If it's the same thing, I don't know. If it's not, that's good. But it just seems to me that it's just not the place to go right now in plantation. Thank you. Thank you. Carol Sword. Carol Sword, 1621 Northwest 82nd Avenue. I realize that a landowner wants to get the highest use from his land, and putting dwellings on that land would generate the most revenue. However, the landowner of this parcel in question knew when he bought the land that it was designated as commercial. Now he wants it changed so that he can build dwellings and make a bigger profit. The location of the land is along 17th Court across from the Park Village condominiums and the monstrous number of apartments in the corner at University. We don't need any more apartments in this location. 17th Court only has two lanes, and the traffic would be horrendous. Instead of more residential units, I would suggest putting a business on this side. A business would bring more employment opportunities for the residents of our city. For all of these reasons, I am requesting that the Council deny the request for a land use amendment. Thank you. Thank you. Matthew McIntosh. Matthew McIntosh, 601 Northwest 82nd Avenue, Apartment 531. A bit about my history. I was born and raised in Broward County. I grew up in Pompano Beach in Coconut Creek. I lived in Coral Springs a bit. I lived in Fort Lauderdale as well. I moved to Plantation back in March. Unlike, I think, most of the people here, I'm a renter. I'm not a scary individual. I'm just a younger person that this was not around when there was less housing. But I thank my mom and dad from coming from Trinidad and Tobago and settling down here. It's a great county, and I like what I see in Plantation with the tree canopy. I just ask people to, like, understand that, you know, it's good that you'll have housing, but the younger generation, like my generation, younger folks that don't usually come out to City Council meetings like this, they're hurting really bad right now, and it affects the dignity a lot with people when they don't have a secure place to live. I know it's not ideal to have traffic. I actually have my own issues living on Northwest 82nd Avenue, and I've kind of taken note of the cars that are speeding by. Most cars are actually pretty silent. The sports cars, like the people that are intentionally roaring their engines, they're not really going that fast. This is more of a noise nuisance to me. I'll bring that up in a separate council meeting because that's like its own issue. That, like, that really sucks. Like, when the people are, it actually takes, like, years off your life. Like, it's like, it's crazy. I can get into it later, though. But in terms of traffic, I hate driving. I hate driving. I hate driving. I hate driving. I was born and raised in Briar County, so it's just like, that's how it's been since the 90s, at least. It's always been a car-dependent society, and I just, like, figure I just hate going outside. But it's just more like I hate going out on the road because of how car-dominant it is. You don't feel safe because, I mean, cars, you know, right? Cars are artificial. They're not, they're not, like, natural. It's not natural to be, like, in a car all the time. I think that's also tied to a lot of other issues, like the mental health crisis, obesity. I think it's all interconnected to how reliant we became on cars and separating ourselves from other people. So, I know it looks monstrous living in an apartment complex, but it is nice once you live in one, and you can just walk down to a Publix in two minutes and take in your surroundings, not worry about, like, causing an accident. It is really nice to live in an apartment complex where you can walk to a Publix and a Dunkin' Donuts, get a coffee, get some groceries, head back, and work from home, which doesn't generate traffic since I'll be in my bedroom. But I see I'm running out of time, but there is a Broward Primo plan that helps with the public transit. Look into it. More housing doesn't necessarily need to be a traffic crisis. Thank you. Thank you. Sarah Clark? Hi there. Sarah Clark, 10451 West Broward Boulevard. We need to get away from the idea that housing causes traffic. I get it. It's more people, but housing is necessary for life. What causes traffic is the fact that everything is so far away from everything else, so we all have to spend more time on the road. And if everyone is spending more time on the road, then at every given point in time there is going to be more cars on the road. Yeah, I think that's all I have to say about that. Thank you. Thank you. Those are all of the public. Oh. I'm going to do the awkward thing and run up to you with this. Okay. Mack Goldstein. Mack? That's an X. Mack! Sorry, it's late. This is Mack. Don't worry. I hope I can liven it up a little bit. Mack Goldstein, 1021 Northwest 150th Avenue. So I think that the applicant actually did a pretty good job of explaining, like, why housing prices have gone up so much. It's an imbalance of supply and demand. We have a lot of demand here, and it's not just from people moving to Florida. It's people like me who grew up here in Broward County, and I want to move out of my parents' house, and there's no housing available. But we're putting pressure on the market. We're raising prices because it's just more people, more households forming. So it's not necessarily newcomers. It's also people like me. Family, children who want to leave when they graduate college or graduate high school, whatever. And it's people who want to participate in the job market that we have here. We have companies like Chewy. We have big employers. Those employers have jobs, and they attract people to come work in plantation. And what we're doing right now, if we deny these housing projects, is that we're saying, hey, you can come work for us. You can serve us. You can serve our economy. But we're not going to actually allow you to live here. So let's be honest about what's going on here. If someone says they don't want any more apartments, they don't want any more housing development, it's someone saying, I got mine. You're not allowed in. They're closing the doors on other people coming in. And those people are teachers, nurses, city staff, police officers. It's people who actually make the city function and do all the services that we need for our daily lives. And they're getting priced out of our communities. So I also want to put this in context of a discussion from earlier. Item 14 was you approving for more down payment assistance for families here in plantation. There's that whole issue of like you're subsidizing demand, which is actually going to increase prices more long term, because again, you're further imbalancing supply and demand. But let's also put it in context of like you helped seven families with that program, spending city tax money helping seven families. This property is going to provide 280 homes for people, 28 to 42 of which, whatever the percentage ends up being, of affordable units that would be for the people that you're helping with the down payment assistance. That's quadrupled to like seven times as many people you're helping as you did with the down payment assistance that you passed with very few questions earlier today. The difference is that this is supply of housing and not necessarily helping demand. And one last thought is just like the economics of how housing works, because housing is not any different from any other product. So I want to use cars as an example. So we know that used cars are generally cheaper than new cars. But that only works if you're constantly producing a new supply of cars. And we saw during COVID when the supply of cars of new cars was stopped because there was no more production. Used cars shot up at value, right? They became more expensive, much more expensive. And the same thing is happening with housing. If we stop producing new housing, existing housing goes up in price. Used housing, right? Used housing goes up in price because you're not producing new supply to keep rents low. So is this new development going to necessarily be affordable to everyone? No. It's new construction. It's expensive to build. But by producing that new housing, you're opening up used housing lower down on the market and opening up affordable units down market for people to move into. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Goldstein. Any other public questions, comments? Mr. Araba, did you fill out a form, sir? If you can, please fill one out afterwards. But if you can come to the microphone and state your name and address. John Orbeck, 6201 Almond Terrace. First of all, thank you, Council and staff. I know the hour is late and these meetings go on very long, but it's important city business. One of the other items that I don't think was discussed is the tax base that we get to build with a project like this. The current taxes, I believe, on the office building are about $70,000 a year where the city maybe nets $20,000. A 280-unit apartment complex will be $1 million. And I believe the tax revenue probably to the city is in the range of $500,000. I think when we talk about items on the agenda earlier with improvements to our parks and improvements to other city facilities, that's funded through tax dollars. And I believe one of the best ways to build our tax base here in the city is to allow good, thoughtful redevelopment of some of these areas to bring new products to our city and allow our city to continue to grow. Thank you so much. Thank you. Any further questions or comments from the council or from the public? I'll make a motion to approve item 18 for the lupa. Is there a second? I'll second the motion. Before a vote is taken, can I ask the applicant one additional question? Would you really be willing to, again, you talked a lot about collaborating with the city and really wanting to make a difference in the city of Plantation? And the Plantation Square remodel is great. I frequent that shopping center. I think the remodel there is great. But if, again, if you're really serious about trying to do something additional with workforce housing, and I know there were members of the community who want more information about that because it is a little different from affordable. So we can probably have that conversation offline. Would you be willing to go to 57 units, which would be closer to what I was personally looking for at 20% of the units? So without thinking it through fully and understanding the economics that it would have on the project, I would be inclined to say yes, but it's hard to do so without further studying it. Now, if it's a condition for my approval, I have to make it work one way or another. So, but I am willing to work with you on that. So, and I want the originator of the motion, which was Councilmember Horland, I'm not sure if you would be amenable to a friendly amendment, but if you would be willing to restate your motion that it would be approval contingent upon the recommendations made by staff because I want to make sure that all of these things are solidified. So that would be addressing the utilities department comments and concerns. that would be the, if you're amenable to it, but the 20% for affordable housing, that component, it would be the, and I don't know. That was another question. You said a commitment in terms of multimodal transportation. I'm not quite sure what that looks like in terms of your commitment there. And then also complying with the conditions that were noted in section 5b. Madam President, correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding was when the staff report goes out and the applicant agreed to the staff recommendations. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. That's always been my understanding on development projects. So, I mean, I, that's my understanding that if we're making the motion to approve, it's with the staff comments. Um, I am glad you asked about the 20%. I don't want to put that necessarily as a condition. I think that when we're looking at the cost of a unit, um, 415, $420,000, I don't want to, um, negate any of the other improvements. I'd rather you aspirationally try to work with the 20% if you can, because I think it's unfair if we're not, we don't have the numbers. Um, I don't want to further impact any of those other improvements. Um, and, and, and I, I, I, I, I, luckily I, I, I think pretty quickly. So I actually ran some numbers in my mind. Uh, so I, I, I can commit to 20% of the, of, of, of the units and, and still agree to the other. And do everything else that we've, we've asked? Yes, correct. Okay. So, um. And why I asked for the amendment was because to me it was still a bit vague, right? Thanks. So I just want, I want to be very firm and solidify the, the commitments that are being made. That's fine. And again, it's always been my understanding that when we make a motion that they've earned, the applicant has already agreed to staff comments, but I'm happy to do so that to admit, if that makes you more comfortable to amend my motion, um, that you will agree, uh, with staff comments and the 20% affordable, uh, workforce housing would be. Yes, ma'am. I agree. And I know council president early, you said you want to, we want to dip our toe. We've been talking about, uh, affordability in this city for a long time. And I know this council has been talking for a couple of years and this will be the actual first project where we could provide some affordability for, um, our residents. So I really appreciate you working with us to the degree that you have. So. Thank you. And if I may, the, um, the additional security that you mentioned as well for Lauderdale West, um, whether that's, you know, uh, an officer who is going to go through Lauderdale West, uh, on a more regular basis, a more consistent basis to not only monitor traffic, but also, um, to, and, and the speeding, but also in terms of any criminal activity as well. Yes, ma'am. All right. We have been a motion and a second. Uh, Ms. Begaro, please call the roll. Council Member Horland. Yes. I'll just make a point of order. Do I, since the motion was amended, um, I'll just for the record that I will second the amended, the amended motion based on the affordability commitments and, and the other commitments made by the, um, applicant. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Begaro. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Andrew. Yes. Thank you. Okay. That takes us to item number 19. Excuse me. We still have item number 21, which was. Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to. Okay. We'll take it now. Thank you. If I could read the title. Please. Mr. Ezra, attorney Ezra, please. A zoning ordinance of the city of Plantation, Florida rezoning approximately 12.931 gross acres from B2P central business district to B7Q planned commercial development district. In accordance with the city of plantation comprehensive zoning ordinance chapter 27-92. For property within the city of plantation Florida set parcel of real property described as a parcel of land and the section 33 township 49 range 41 east said parcel, including a portion of track A University plat according to the plat thereof as recorded in plat book 82 page 19 of public records of Broward County Florida. Together with parcel A plantation square plat according to the plat thereof as recorded in plat book 87 page 36 of the public records of Broward County Florida. And being more particularly described in the legal description identified as exhibit A property generally located at 8190 West Sunrise Boulevard. 8050 to 8150 West Sunrise Boulevard and 1725 to 1797 North University Drive providing for conflict severability and effective date. Motion to approve. Second. Any additional questions or comments? I did have additional speakers signed up. I'm not sure if you would like to speak again. Sally Zayas. Matthew McIntosh. You have signed up for both. So I just want to check. Don't want to deny anybody. Okay. Joanne Hill. Sarah Clark. Max Goldstein. Okay. See. Oh. Carol Sword. I'm sorry. Did I miss you? I didn't sign up for 21 because I didn't. Okay. Carol Sword, 1621 Northwest 82nd Avenue. I'm not against affordable housing and more apartments, but this is the wrong place. It is too dense. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional comments? Okay. Hearing none. Ms. Bedoreau, please call the roll. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Einstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. No. Council Member Fadgen. Yes. Council Member Andreu. Thank you. Thank you. That takes us to item number 19. Consider. I'm sorry? Yes. We have two items for the consent agenda. Items number 19 and items number 20. Is there anybody from the council that would like to discuss either item? I'd like to make a motion to approve items 19 and 20. Before you. I'd like to pull them both. Okay. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Item number 19. Can I? If you can just give up one minute for some of the residents who are wanting to depart. And if you have any conversations, I'm going to ask you to please take them outside the chamber so we can finish conducting business. Thank you. Council Member Reinstein. Thank you. Council Member Reinstein. My question for the city attorney. Can I raise questions regarding both of them at the same time or do I need to raise them separately? 19 and 20. I have a question that's related to both of them together. Raise your question then I'll answer it. Okay. Council President if I may. Are the applicants here for 19 and 20? Yes. If you could come forward, please. You were sworn in, correct? Yes. Okay. I was. No, the other person was. I have someone behind you. Oh. I have someone behind you. Sorry. Ms. Begaro, can you please? Swear. Do you swear or affirm that the evidence you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Yes, sir. Thank you. So, my question is, is it correct that these two pieces of property are just about next to each other except for some space in between? No, they're not. Okay. This is one down at the, it's at the old Flamingo 124th and the one across the street. My daughter and son are barely one. I own the other one. There's a lot in between. I just realized I have two items. Yes, I know. You and another person. Right, right. Oh, yeah. I'm talking about my lot. Okay. He's talking about two. I know the property. I have a history with this whole area there. The lot that I have is at the old 124th and the acres. On the other side, there's another lot that was bought by the homeowner on 5th Street. So, that one's it. So, there's an empty lot there. And then on the other lot, that's one that's up, the other one that Elizabeth is doing for Polis is also, is at the very end. Okay. And the only reason why I'm asking this question, I think maybe, did you have another, a different response? It looked like you were going to say something separate. Okay. When looking at these two and the maps that were presented, and I didn't go out to the location. So, forgive me. I didn't drive over there. But what was presented to us, it looked like they were essentially next to each other except for some space in between. There was a wooded space in between. And honestly, my question was out of surprise and curiosity as to having two lots right next to each other up at the same time. And I was curious as to whether there was some other plan regarding these homes next to each other. But you're telling me that the way that it looked that was presented on the backup that we saw, they're not near each other. Yeah. They're not near each other. This property, I used to own all the property where the road was, and then I tried to build a house there, but I couldn't because there was no road. So, I ended up working with the city, and we deeded the property, and the city assessed us for building the road. So, I'm still paying for the assessment. Thank you. Of the road. And I thought that by deeding the property that I didn't have to do site data record, that I thought that it would have been taken care of, but it wasn't. So, we've been doing this for a year and a half. The property that I have here is going to be vacant land. It's for my granddaughters because they're building a house across the street, which is already permitted and going built. So, this is really just green land. Thank you. I appreciate it. And just, Mr. Alpert, it looked like you were about to walk over, and I just want to make sure, was there something you wanted to add? Okay. That being said, no more questions. Thank you very much. Can I just verify that the address we have is correct? Because I know there was a, I thought it was a typo, and we had 4th Street, and I contacted the clerk because I thought it was a typo when I was 4th Court. But maybe... It's 4th Court. They are both 4th Court. They are both 4th Court. Both 4th Court. Okay. One is down at the very end, yeah. At the very end, there's a very weird cul-de-sac at the end. I just want to make sure. Because that was... Okay. That was... All right. Anyway, I appreciate it. Thank you. It was a long meeting. You guys earned your key. Whatever it is. Thank you. So, it's been properly moved. I don't know if it got a second. I think that you made the motion. I'll second if you didn't. I'll second. All right. So, Council Member Anderson made the second. Any further questions or comments? So, are we voting on 19, or...? We're voting on number 19. Okay. Oh, we're taking... No, I'm sorry. They were on consent. It's both. Both. Oh, but then Reinstein pulled in. He did. You're voting on number 19. So, we're doing 19. I'm sorry. We'll get there. We're doing number 19. We have to take them separately, because he pulled it. So, for item number 19, it's been properly moved in second. And Ms. Beggerel, please call the roll. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Fajan. Yes. Council Member Fajan. Yes. Council Member Andrew. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hearing none, Ms. Beggerel, please call the roll. Council Member Horland. Yes. Council Member Reinstein. Yes. Council Member Anderson. Yes. Council Member Fajan. Yes. Council Member Andrew. Yes. Thank you. We have an administrative update from Mayor Sordal. Thank you very much, Council President Andreu. First off, we had a pretty good job by our magistrate regarding vacation rentals. Again, the guy got hit pretty good, and he came and talked to us about other issues. And Council Member Holmes. I'm Council Member Holmes. No. You stood on that side. Danny did a heck of a job presenting it, and we all worked together, and we put the hammer to somebody who really needed the hammer put to them. So I'm happy that we're going in that direction, and a lot of credit goes to all up and down planning and zoning on that. We're talking apartments and numbers. What's his name? Carl Buehler ran numbers, and he says that 40% of the people in plantation do not have income levels that would qualify them for apartments in plantation. So in other words, all these apartments going up that people are saying is drawing riffraff and stuff, half the people in the city can't even move in there anyway because they don't have the income. So that shows the demand. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And related to that, I don't know if you heard the recent numbers. Marty Kier said the average home price is $711,000 in Broward now. And in plantation, it's $684,000 for a house. So there you have it. A couple other quick updates. Rosalyn Osgood is having a meeting of all the mayors in her region, having it here October 31st. The reason I'm bringing it up is she's coming here. She's going to have a mayor talk and everything. But if you have questions and everything that you think I should be proposing to her related to state government or anything else, let me know so I can be better prepared when she mentioned. Same comment. Sheila Shelfless-McCormick is scheduled November 1st here to visit with admin. If you have thoughts, ideas, anything, please let me know because I take ideas from everybody. You know, and we need it. The other thing, I don't know about anybody else, but I've just been in like a crazy mood. Like some things matter, some things don't. And I've stopped and explored it. And it's Israel. I mean, the thing with Israel is a 10 on a scale of 10 in terms of concern and worry and occupying, you know, a person's emotions. And like sometimes I wake up and go, do I, you know, I just want to sit here and watch TV. I don't. And after you watch enough of this stuff, it just seeps in you and beats on you. So, yeah, it is. And so, you know, just be kind to each other. And if somebody's flipping or pops off at you, understand that this is a time where a lot of people have a lot of stuff bouncing around in their head that is bigger than some of the stuff you're talking about. So that was just my moment of self-discovery. I thought I would share with the public. That's all I got. Thank you. Next, we have the advisory board reports. They've been transmitted. Any questions, comments? All right. Let's go to comments by council members. Council member Horland. Thank you. I know it's late. I'll keep it brief. I sent Mr. Goodrich an email the other day, and I went back through my emails and saw that in August of 2019, he and I had a meeting about the community garden at Jim Ward. And that came from a conversation with a homeowner at the Park East HOA. So when I shared with them last week, you know, that it's happening, they're thrilled. So Mr. Goodrich was willing to do it. It was approved, and it was disapproved, and it was back. And it took a really dynamic group of people to make that happen. So I'm really excited about that. Just very quickly, I mentioned that there was a legislative delegation meeting with the Broward League of Cities Executive Board yesterday. Council member Reinstein was there wearing his other hat. But what I wanted to let everybody know is we've got a great relationship with their delegation. Short-term rentals was a topic of conversation, as were the SROs, because Broward County Schools is pushing the delegation to get funding for their police office, police department, their internal police department. And it was expressed around the table what a herculean feat that will be. And that what we really need is money to fund the SROs and the cities. And we talked a lot about community policing. But we've got a lot of support there. We know short-term rentals are coming back. But again, we really talked a lot about this property insurance crisis. And the delegation is taking some steps. But I don't know that it's going to be enough to bring relief to the people that live in our city. So I just want to give you a brief update on that and read for the record tomorrow. I know that we're all going to be up early and at the elementary school. So that's all I have. Thank you. Council member Anderson. Just, I was going to say, I was hoping you would leave for the record off. I'll be at Mirror Lake tomorrow for read for the record day. Thank you. Council member Fadgen. I was really hoping to get to 11.30 so we can vote to continue the meeting. But I have one short. Don't drag it out. Don't drag it out. So, Sunday is the blue mass at St. Gregory's. So it's a mass for the police and our firefighters and first responders. Father Davis, I think he sent invitations to everyone. But it's... No, I didn't care about one. No. Well, everyone's invited. It's the 10.30 mass Sunday. Okay. And then community is welcome. So if you would like to attend, 10.30 St. Gregory's. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Weinstein. Yeah. So not wanting to be the one to drag it out. We talked about that at the family fall festival that there was a table for city council. And I thought it was very, that it was a positive for the residents to see us out there. We make an appearance in the 4th of July parade. We make an appearance in the holiday parade. We do all those things without paying a sponsorship for it. I'd like to see that at any of our citywide events that tables are offered for the mayor, for the city council to be able to sit, be present, and be there just if the residents want to come by. I want to note, I had raised this with Parks and Rec. And I shouldn't have mentioned something that I want to say is that when most of us run for office and we have campaign accounts, we often will do something for a sponsorship when it's particularly meant to be for campaigning. And I think it may have been taken the wrong way that I was suggesting that these tables that I'm talking about for council has any campaigning value whatsoever. So I just want to publicly say that that was not the intention. I'm in my email to Parks and Rec. It's simply that at such things like Trunk or Treat that's coming up, which is why I'm saying it now at such a late hour, that just like at the Family Fall Festival, I'd like to ask if the administration will support that just like a table was put out at the Family Fall Festival, that something would be out at Trunk or Treat. So that if we want to be present without just circulating, but we have a presence there, that we can do that. I'm sorry. I don't want to cut you off. Were you finished? Yep. Now is the time to raise it to see if that was a sense that the rest of the council felt that that was something important for our visibility and accessibility purposes and whether the administration would support that. I'll let them have that internal discussion between Mr. Goodrich and administration. I will say that I purchased a spot for Trunk or Treat so that I could be there, you know, with candy borrowed from Councilmember Fadgen when I run low and then give out candy. So, but whatever you all decide I'm fine with so you can just let us know via email or circle back with us. And then a few additional comments. November 1st, I will be participating in Politiken at Taco Craft. It's just a networking event from 5.30 to 8 p.m. It's a social networking time where you can meet various local representatives, ask questions, get more information, and there's an Eventbrite that you can go on to register. So we hope to see everybody out on November 1st. November 8th at 9 a.m. will be our Central Park Paychecks for Patriots will take place again this year. So local employers are partnering with CareerSource to connect veterans with great paying, high paying careers. So that was a wonderful event last year and I look forward to participating again. And then I know it's late. I just have a quick question. I saw that Helen B. Hoffman Library, thank goodness they're going back on November 5th. I'm sure everybody is very excited about that. You can address it if you don't want to right now. You can maybe send a follow-up email or possibly even we can discuss it maybe tomorrow. But I want to know the delays that we've had. Has that increased our anticipated costs? You know, I loved seeing that it was a jewel of our city last week when we celebrated Florida City Government Week. But I'm concerned that the completion date was pushed so far back. I don't know how many change orders there have been and how has the price increased for that project. So you can circle back, like I said, if you don't have that information right now. Okay. And on that note, it's 11-21, meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you.