welcome everybody i'd like to welcome you to the city plantation planning and zone board meeting for september 9th 2025 if the clerk would please call the roll mr speer president mr stall here mr stecker here mr corman here mr freeman here mr goldstein here mr de la grange thank you all right oh of course it drops out right there let me have that nope all right uh sorry first order of business is i believe the minutes for august august 19th uh 2025 are there any uh additions or clarifications to the minutes motion to approve do i have a second yeah second we have a motion a second please call the roll mr speer yes mr stall yes mr stecker yes mr korman yes mr freeman yes mr goldstein yes mr de la grange thank you all right uh public hearings uh the only item on the agenda tonight pp24-0030 and pp25-0025 consideration of a request for flex allocation site plan elevation landscape plan amendment for shallamar north the property is located 8410 to 8580 cleary boulevard and is zoned m-pm mixed use plantation midtown staff if you will good evening chairman corman members of the planning and zoning board assistant city clerk and assistant city attorney for the record sean lamay with the city of plantation planning and zoning division the staff report is numbered pp24-0030 and is dated september 9th 2025 at this time i'd like to incorporate this report as part of the record the applicant requests the following allocation of 19 flexibility units approval of 19 moderate income affordable housing units a site plan elevation and landscape plan amendment to construct a five-story 144 unit multi-family development and lastly five zony waivers and three landscape waivers from chapter 27 of the city code the property is located in the central area of the city and it is on the northern limits of the midtown district it is part of the 25 acre development known as plantation midtown square the agents are matt edge and william laystrom and they're here this evening the site is located at 8410-8580 clearly cleary boulevard it is 3.1 acres in area it is out zoned m-pm mixed used plantation midtown district it is vacant and is considered an out parcel although the parcel is vacant the current approval is for 10 000 square feet of retail space and 11 540 square feet of restaurant use the land use designation is commercial with regular residential and permits the residential use by the assignment of flexibility units the site is bound by per by mixed-use plantation to the south and to the east and to the north across cleary boulevard and to the west across pond island road we have planned residential development districts prds as shown on the aerial the surrounding area is fully developed and urbanized with commercial office and residential uses to the north across cleary we have the multi-family residential community known as lost prodos apartments to the east we have the townhomes of the m called the emery and to the south we have multi-family residential shallamara west and again to the west we have condominiums multi-family residential use known as the paragon condominiums and you can see on the aerial the note of public notification boundary in purple flex unit assignments site plans with waivers requires notification mailed to property owners within one thousand feet five hundred and thirty seven notices were mailed can i ask for one clarification you said to the east is emery townhomes yes are those the ones that are along university or the ones directly next to the vacant property my understanding was the pulty townhomes um they're not on university they're they're on cleary and 82nd so those are the emery townhomes yes they are okay thank you the applicant requests approval to amend the master site plan associated with the commercial development plan for the northeast corner of the site the applicant requests the following site plan elevation and landscape plan approval to construct a five-story 144 unit multi-family development the site plan proposes a northerly located building facing cleary boulevard the provided parking is surface parking to the south further to the west is the pool and then at the corner of cleary and north pine island is a lake for retention purposes also note the main entrance to the project would be on the south side so the main entrance is right here actually these plans have been included with the staff report for your review and the engineer for the project is here to discuss this plan if needed elevations the elevations promote a contemporary design that reflects the architectural style trends of residential buildings today the building design generally meets the required design standards with class one and class two materials the proposed architecture is designed to provide visual interest and avoid large unarticulated services the elevation the proposed building along with material types and the color palettes the we have the proposed sample and material board here with us as well if you want to take a look at it the wood veneer is the proposed class one material we have a rendering here this is the view from cleary boulevard and this is the view from the south looking um south into the part to the project also requested is the landscape plan these plans show buffer locations the lake landscape pedestrian zones trees sod and shrub locations and the landscape architect is here for the project this evening the floor plans we have 60 studios 66 one bedrooms and 18 two bedrooms 19 affordable housing units are proposed and these would be the studios in total 13 of the units will be provided as affordable next is the parking table summary with consideration of a nearby bus stop the requirements are further reduced by five percent and this results in a requirement of 269 parking spaces with 184 spaces provided a parking waiver of 31 would be required to support the use the applicant submitted a comprehensive traffic study that includes trip generation traffic circulation queueing analysis and intersection capacity analysis the study considers the replacement of 21 15543 square feet of commercial use with residential resulting in a reduction in traffic based on the study the trip generation table indicates a reduction of 1859 daily trips a reduction of 9 a.m peak hour trips and a reduction of 157 pm peak hour trips we also have the site circulation plan which shows the traffic and pedestrian walkway connections the site maintains the existing access point off cleary site circulation shows existing sidewalk locations and pedestrian walkway connectivity the applicant provided existing sidewalk network in green in the pedestrian route in blue and the browar county bus stops are shown in orange as demonstrated there's connectivity to pine island pine island cleary and 82nd this is a kind of a commercial connectivity map what's kind of walkable from the area as we transform midtown into a more walkable area we note the following distances from shalimar it's about a 15-minute walk to the plantation walk it's in the blue in the purple is a 10-minute walk to the public's the veranda shops and then further to the west in red is the walk to the shops at cleary so that does give you an indication of what's nearby i would also like to note that the site plan also provides a dedicated parking space for the ride share services so we do have the freebie ride share service within midtown that's available we have the engineer director here with us samira shalom and she will discuss the cleary boulevard drainage good evening uh samira shalom city engineer um i would like to take a few minutes to discuss cleary boulevard drainage existing condition and how it is relevant to the site plan that we're discussing tonight so cleary boulevard from uh pine island to 82nd lacks existing drainage facility so if we look at the map the red depicted existing drainage facility however however cleary boulevard segment from pine island to 82nd we do not have any drainage facilities that segment have narrow swale section as we saw part of the phases of the development of this project there was a turn lane that was developed uh throughout the development of this project which even further narrowed the swale uh section within this corridor it was narrow to begin with but then the turn lane had narrowed further and there is plenty of utilities uh fbl atnt comcast and fiber optic for traffic signals within uh in uh the corridor and the swale area why it's important to mention all this detail because cleary boulevard floods at that enter at that segment and if you're like me one of the frequent uh user of cleary boulevard especially nowadays with the frequent rain event that we're uh receiving uh cleary boulevard constantly at that segment uh encountered flooding issues and you can see in this picture storm water uh staff uh responding to the flooding on cleary boulevard again why this relevant to the site plan that we're discussing today because the city engineering department we have been diligently working on resolving the issue so we're uh planning on uh drainage improvement the orange color is a drainage pipe drainage facility and drainage structures they are small but if you bear with me so drainage pipes and drainage structure can be constructed within uh the swale areas of cleary boulevard and it will connect to the proposed lake at the corner of cleary boulevard and pine island throughout the process of the site plant engineering department have been coordinating this project with the developer and as a result of this coordination that developer agreed to deed half an acre of the property as depicted in uh red to be deeded to the city for cleary boulevard drainage improvement so that retention area the lake will be dedicated solely to capture the drainage or the runoff from cleary boulevard and then it will be connected to their drainage facility during the site plan we worked with the developer in some of the elements there will be a boat ramp for maintenance and fencing between the lake and uh the property in addition as i said the drainage from cleary boulevard will connect through their drainage system i will be available after the presentation if you uh need any further information regarding what was discussed with that said i will return it back to sean to complete the presentation max might have a question yeah uh thanks you want me to answer the questions one quick question just for clarification you said that there was enough space in the existing swale for the drainage structures like they're not going to touch the cleary uh boulevard itself i'm sorry i'm going for the majority of the project yes there will be i'm sorry sean can you help me i want to go back to uh the majority of it's almost a thousand linear feet of pipe the majority of the pipe going to be in this whale area actually hugging the property line inside their property line there is existing nine foot utility and drainage easement we're going to expand that easement and the drainage pipe going to be inside the shalimar north property up to the entrance it will continue in the swale area up to a point 40 400 feet west of 82nd and the reason being imori uh townhomes the ones uh were discussed uh prior in this uh meeting already built and they have their balconies so there is tight place to place the pipe in the swale area that 400 feet going to end up on cleary boulevard open cut the road and restore the road so the majority of the pipe going to be inside shalimar north drainage easement and in the swale area of cleary boulevard okay i hope that answers you it did it thank you the applicant asks um second request is for an allocation of 19 flexibility units staff concurs with the applicant's findings that the applicant meets criteria flexibility in section 19-67c and this has been satisfied and secondly we occur after this allocation of 19 flex units we still have remaining within the unified flex zone 1697 flex units the third request is for affordable housing density bonus staff finds the applicant applicant will be consistent with the broward county land use plan which allows for density when consistent with policies 2.16.3 and 2.16.4 and the last item are the waivers the applicant requests five zoning waivers and three landscape waivers from chapter 27 of the city code the first waiver is for parking section 27123 requires 269 parking spaces for the resident residential use after a five percent reduction is applied when you're a bus stop the applicant will provide 184 parking spaces zoning waiver number two is a setback waiver per section 27-92 a 7c which requires a setback of 40 feet from a c street cleary boulevard to allow a setback of 11.8 feet along cleary boulevard the third waiver is the minimum floor area the applicant is requesting to provide a a studio at 407 square feet where 600 feet is required they're looking to provide a one bedroom unit at 591 square feet where 750 square feet is required and lastly a two bedroom would be provided at 878 square feet where 950 square feet is required throughout the property section 27126 requires six off-street loading zones and the applicant will provide five off-street loading zones the last zoning waiver is for the building facades per section 27-300a 4a which requires building facades the front on adjacent rights of way shall be composed of at least 10 percent of class one materials as a total facade the applicant is requesting to provide four percent of class one materials on a building facade now on to the landscape waivers the first landscape waiver is for the perimeter buffer yard width requirements from 20 feet to 16.3 feet and for tree selection to allow for smaller trees and this is the diagram associated with this request the second landscape waiver is for landscape island shade tree requirements one tree per island a landscape parking divider width from 10 feet to 2.5 feet and a minimum landscape width which falls below the five foot requirement in certain locations and this is the diagram showing the requested waivers the last landscape waiver is for the landscape pedestrian zone width from 10 feet to 6 feet and the number of trees proposed within this zone 11 are required with eight provided and this is the area of the requested waiver the applicant held a community meeting on june 3rd 2025 at the central park multi-purpose building the applicant indicates that two people attended the meeting and provided formal notes furthermore the city of plantation posts signage on properties for site plan approvals and sends out notices to surrounding property owners when planning and zoning actions are requested this provides an opportunity for citizen participation in the zoning process the planning and zoning staff has not received emails nor phone calls from citizens objecting to this application additionally there are no violations on the property staff analysis staff evaluated the proposed site plan elevation and landscape plan and waivers with justification in the context of the applicant's written narrative in the letter of intent proposal and impacts on the surrounding development pattern and zoning designation staff after conducting a complete review and analysis of the proposed case now must ensure the request in fact qualifies for approval by compliance with the comprehensive plan and the regulations of the plantation zoning code staff has conducted three levels of analysis to address the request the first issue is compatibility staff believes the mass and scale of the proposed structure is compatible with existing development the development of the site will be compatible with existing residential and commercial development and zoning designations the second level of analysis addresses compliance with the comprehensive plan with regards to the plantation plan the proposed residential building has found to be consistent with the flex assignment in the commercial designation on the adopted future land use map the future land use element is met is consistent both with the future land use element and the housing element the last part of our analysis addresses consistency with the zoning code the development as condition has been found to be consistent with the following requirements of the zoning code it meets section 2750 the site development plan sufficiency requirements and meets section 27-52 g2 the practical difficulty waiver standards in conclusion based on the findings and conclusions outlined in the staff report staff recommends approval subject to staff conditions noted in section vb of the report for site plan elevation landscape plan and waivers by the various reviewing agencies all right thank you uh would the applicant like to make their presentation before we do questions please in the meantime good evening chairman members of planning and zoning board city attorney uh will laystrom here on behalf of the applicant uh we're excited to be here to discuss the shallom our north development project um okay so i know uh mr lemay covered a lot of information so i'll try to be reasonably brief and not go over everything again but here's an aerial location map of the project as you can see it's located at the southeast corner of the uh intersection there and it's part of the plantation midtown square development which includes the shallom our east and west apartments as well as the for sale emory townhomes um so in addition it's also located within the plantation midtown district the northern boundary is actually cleary boulevard there um so this fits right within plantation midtown um here's the illustrated site plan i know mr lemay showed this as well what we're proposing is a five-story multi-family residential building um as well as surface parking and then a retention lake which will be transferred over to the city so they can improve the drainage conditions along cleary boulevard between pine island and 82nd um in addition we think that this will create a nice entranceway feature for the districts as i was saying before this is kind of the northern boundary of the entrance and the lake can kind of create a nice entrance as you're coming into the district as for the residential building the project includes 60 studios 66 one-bedroom units and 18 two-bedroom units and 13 of those units will be offered as affordable housing units at the moderate income level which is 120 percent of ami and they'll be deed restricted for 30 years as far as the parking goes there are 153 surface parking spaces you can see there and then there's an additional 31 common area spaces um that will be usable as well so here we have our pedestrian circulation slide um one of the things that we felt was important with this project being within the midtown district was to make sure that pedestrian uh accessibility and convenience works um but you know so that those that want to you want to walk or want to bike can take advantage of that and have an efficient way to do so so i know sean showed the green is the existing sidewalks and then you can see in the blue uh our internal pedestrian network which is quite expansive and can help you connect to various other parts of the midtown district uh for example if you were at the shallomer north development over here you could follow this path along here a little shortcut to the public if you wanted to walk there it's roughly like 0.3 miles so it's pretty doable and it gives you a kind of a nicer walk walking alongside the lake rather than walking against pine island road um so like i said one of our main goals is just to make sure the pedestrian circulation makes sense um so it in addition it connects to a lot of the other uh parcels with within the midtown district um you have plantation walk nearby which i believe is like 0.75 miles so walkable but very very bikeable if you wanted to do that um and then here we have a rendering um this is the north side of the building if you're on cleary boulevard facing it one thing i did want to note with this is we are currently showing these stoops here um fema regulations have recently changed i believe in regard to the flood elevations um so we need to take a look at how that's going to impact um the ability to have those stoops but at least for now this is our rendering um you know the the we think the building materials are great um the aesthetic is really nice um let's see and we have here the last rendering which is from the south view this would be if you were at like the roundabout inside the development facing the uh facing the building um so with that that's that's our presentation um if you have any questions our team is here and available to answer all right thank you uh does anybody have any questions we'll go left to right um so the original the 2017 approval was for retail and restaurant space can you talk a little bit about you know some of those market conditions that prevented you from moving forward with those plans and did you look at all retail options so yes we have been trying to uh make that that retail portion work for the last couple years um i can have uh renee gutierrez come up and kind of talk about that if you want him to go in depth but essentially there were difficulties with doing that and then when the city approached us about the lake we thought this was a project that would work for everyone you know the city gets a lake it helps um you know the drainage conditions not only for for us but other properties around there um and you get a great project so okay um and then so 13 percent of of the proposed units are are affordable what um how many affordable units in chalimar east and uh west and the other my recollection is that those are market rate units okay got it and all the affordable units are under 500 square feet that is correct okay um could we have sorry could we have the applicant the gentleman you reckon you just said come up and explain that um because i had a similar question so um if you just name and address for the renee gutierrez applicant uh 2601 south bay shore drive coconut grove florida um so we tried many times from the moment we broke ground we brought many retailers restaurants um but it was at a point in time where there was no commitment for retailers to want to come into a small pod like that everybody wanted a bigger box we had a sprouts sprouts wanted the whole three acres but sprouts has a um a box that we just the geometry of the site we just could not make it work so we went from restaurants to groceries and it was just not possible so when samara came to us and said hey i have a problem can we sit down can we solve it we said let's let's let's do it let's let's make it happen you know so that's how basically really we tried with the retail as hard as we could with for four years we brought everybody from a to z the coffee shops the restaurants it's just there was everybody wanted to be over on university and people didn't want to be on on clary it just it was just a it was or they wanted a drive-through or they wanted another cut you know and every time we went to bar county bar county would say no you can't have another cut you know you've got to go where you're at right now through the middle so um it just wasn't it didn't it didn't fit the profile of the national chains of what they wanted to come in what they wanted to have so yeah was was there any outreach like small businesses that would be okay with that amount of square footage so you know it's hard when you go to a mom and pop and you tell them it's 45 50 dollars triple net and you can see the situation that's happening on plantation walk right some of those big boys are are literally saying you know we we're going to throw the keys at you because it's just really really hard you have to you have to be down at the 30 dollars 25 dollars triple net and and you can't build a retail today in south florida getting somebody 50 bucks of ti's or 10 improvements it's just it's not financially feasible you know to that point is the fault then with the model that the city has for plantation midtown or is the fault with the projections that you came to almost 10 years ago and not living up to changing in market forces a little bit of everything right um you know when we bought this property that american express was still there and we came to the city um it was it had to be mixed use and it had to be mixed use with a phone that truly what people see mixed use in it that it has to be part of the building of residential and um as a 60 year old guy who's been building all his life i can tell you um in the suburbs it's it's hard to make that work to put that retail under the building in the apartment and the apartments above so we said let's try it let's let's break out a little portion of the retail and put it separated you know and um we we broke ground with shallomer west you know the i call it the the covet world everything came back and um we had we had an offshoot of alec j alexander who wanted to come in uh but then when they did their studies they were like no we're we're not going to get the the foot the the drive traffic from clary you know it it has to be some it has to be over by university main in maine or broward and uh when we tried with the grocery the same thing it was it was just it did it didn't it didn't work out you know it's not that it's wrong um you know if if if we were to say hey just throw it all out and let's bring a starbucks drive-through yeah but you you can't take three acres and just drop a starbucks drive-through and survive on that you know it doesn't financially work so um i think it's just i think it's it's something of of a of a study that i would say that um it it probably doesn't lend itself to retail you know that clearly pine island tremendous traffic flow don't get me wrong accounts is is unbelievable for the retailers but but they just but it just doesn't fit where they want to be they don't they want to be over by broward or university okay thanks other questions yeah let's go so um i'd like for you to talk a little bit about the reduction in square footage per unit and also the reduction in the class one materials what why are those both necessary so um if you were to stand with me in front of chalimar west and chalimar east it has a um material called modera and if you know modera it comes from europe it's fabricated in europe it comes to america um an allocation of dollars to build a project like chalimar east and chalimar west that wine item alone is about six hundred thousand dollars you can absorb that on a 240 unit job but not on 144 units so that's the reason why and the reason for smaller units the reason for smaller units is that we're trying to create a different product type to chalimar east chalimar west and everything has been built in the midtown district this wave everything is an average all these buildings are our average 988 square feet so this is a smaller smaller space to allow the the so-called the work that everybody uses workforce housing that's the reason because that's the only way we we do the same thing in miami in greenwood and design district there's smaller boxes and and they're serving a purpose for young single people that they don't need to have a thousand square foot apartment it's it's okay to live in 580 square feet so that's the reason why i like to know it's probably a question that's more the aim to just city than the developer when the original project came in why wasn't the flooding addressed on cleary at the time of the house i have to excuse my voice i mean this is the neighborhood that i live in and i see the flooding right um well to tell you the truth the project did go through the normal drc uh process um and uh you know i i just don't think we looked at that it was a private you know parcel there and we just looked at it as something that was available for us to to address it um we did start thinking about it later on uh samira had uh an idea that we approached the developer since this piece had not been developed yet and things just kind of went from there but i just you know it was just something that we didn't consider at that time an oversight yeah well i won't call it an oversight because we generally look for our public you know property or rights or ways and the and the drainage that we have available to accommodate that so this was something where we had to sit down with the developer and we had to get them to agree to provide us you know the parcel to deal with cleary a few points thank you danny uh a few a few points to be added to that the last five years the density and intensity of rainfall received within our region and specifically in broward county led itself to these uh flooding and these events that we're seeing whether it is that 2020 where the broward county and plantation received 17 inches of rain uh 2023 the historical rain event that occurred in broward county and moving forward the intensity and density which like in the last five years like previously um the problem may occurred but intensified in the last five years as we all witnessing what's uh what's happening number two the utilities department had a water main replacement so i wasn't with the city at the time so i can't attest to why we didn't look at the drainage at the the time i can only speak to my tenure in plantation my understanding also the utilities did there was uh major asks of the developer when it comes to utility improvements they did a water main replacement and they did a lift station improvement so when we task the developer for infrastructure improvement also we need to be fair in the asks and what we ask and where and how and that's my understanding what happened in the past the city moved on um i was hired as the city engineer we increased our oversight on drainage we're doing the stormwater master plan we're looking diligently on all our chronic area and that's one was one uh that rose to the priority and again you can't hide flooding you live in lauderdale west and you see it every rain event so we couldn't overlook an opportunity to work with the developer in these improvements throughout this site plan the point i'm trying to make is before this development went in it was never a problem on cleary problem the development went in and suddenly we had a flooding problem it should have been addressed at that time what's the developers doing to alleviate this drainage problem and that's you know as far as what you just said about lord of dale west um there's going to be a lot of people upset about what's coming uh we have i i come down lord of their west to cleary almost every day and i have waited up to five and six minutes to make a left turn on cleavering this is all going to add to it it's going to add to it a lot and especially people that want to go up to sunrise they're going to go up lord of their west drive you know we're getting hammered we're getting hammered lord of their west um and as far as the uh the community meeting goes it was held in june nobody in lord of dale west got a notification on that meeting and this is something i brought up in the past why don't they expand it to include these major developments these major major uh you know what i'm trying to say is the notification boundaries are expanded for certain things but not yeah this one is this one just mrs lord of dale west just try to consider it later on we will take a look at that that's it first is a quick question for staff um because this is an amendment to an already approved project does this go on to city council after us or are we the where the buck stops it will go on to city council okay uh my next couple questions are for the applicant um my my first and main one is because you're using county policy 216 4 to get this bonus density i i my understanding is that the county made it very clear you don't need to apply for flex units to be able to utilize 216 for that it's it's not a buy right process but you don't need to apply for extra density or a lupa or rezoning or anything it just works that way and i believe that plantation just adopted 216 for by reference so why why are you applying for flex units so part of that is a question and we actually have for staff as to the number of units so the parcel itself is uh it's basically uh one of those dashed line but specifically the portion where we are building is commercial so in theory you need to use flex units there um because it's not a residential district now we originally had thought that maybe because it's a dashed area you wouldn't have to do that at all um but as far as the actual number of units that are being used i i'm not entirely sure where the 19 comes from but 216.4 only applies to commercial properties yeah we we're going to take a look at that if we can get the the uh the flex units back as we talk to the planning council we will take those back so we've looked at that i think the application for flex is not right for this project and and as we know in the city flex is a it's a bad four-letter word that starts with that um that was my main question for the applicant uh to get the lake we need because the lake was not included in the primary project to get these drainage improvements we would need to approve this this amendment to the site plan right i'm sorry repeat the question to get the we only get the lake and the drainage if we approve this amendment to the site plan well that's yeah that's part of the condition um i guess i just have some some general comments and and maybe it's something for the city to look into maybe maybe do some sort of study on this because i'm really concerned by the idea that you know commercial retail projects don't really work in most of midtown when we want it to be walkable you know we this is a corner where we've wanted commercial to make the not just this project site more walkable too but for the other apartment projects that are there the remy the i think it's the mansion is the other building that's right there like they also need that walkable commercial nearby them and it's not just this project where retail is apparently struggling to to get a hold i mean plantation walk has been struggling for a very long time to fill in their spaces uh midtown 24 i think is the building in the fountains where has a lot of those smaller commercial spaces which i thought would have been perfect for these you know local mom-and-pop shops because they're very small should be cheaper rent and they're just vacant i mean i i'm i'm concerned i don't know if we need more density in plantation midtown for retail to work or there there's a lot of things that's going on yet in general yes you need density to support the retail that's one of the reasons that when we did go back and look at this project you know i didn't think it was so bad that we didn't get the retail component in there because you know we've got retail surrounding it that still needs to be supported so you know and and again it was a sort of isolated corner at the very edge of uh you know the midtown district and so i i do understand some of the issues that the uh that the developer would have in terms of really getting the the retail uh to work there i still think when you look at uh plantation walk for example we still have that southern piece that needs to be developed with some additional residential uh so you know when we look at midtown in general it's still somewhat in its infancy when you look at the midtown plan it does call for a lot more uh you know density to to to make this work and so we're it's it's growing we're getting there uh so you know it's it's not uncommon that there are some struggles right now but i think things are progressing uh within midtown um also for well this is i guess for both staff and the applicant just communication with bct because uh like like has been pointed out there's two or three bus stops on i think route 88 that are along this project and route 88 is number one very infrequent i think it's a once every 45 minute or once every 50 minute route uh but bct is doing their comprehensive operational analysis right now i mean it was supposed to be done in december but they're still doing it right uh i i want to know if the city number one if the city's been working with bct to try to get more frequency on these bus lines to make this transit this reduction in parking due to transit make sense to try to encourage more transit ridership and number two if the applicant has spoken with bct about that route so we we haven't sat down with with bct uh you know in that regard we have uh taken their primo plan we do use it now as part of our overall planning so we're we are taking documents in terms of our intergovernmental coordination you know requirements and we're trying to look at where bct is going and we're trying to make sure that as we move forward this is something that you'll see in the comp plan uh as well that you know we're trying to make sure that we're building those nodes and that density uh where it would be needed to help support transit because there's that that relationship that you know people don't understand that you got to have the density and transit to to make it work so you know i think every city has got to do its do its part and i think you know as uh we indicate within the comp plan as we grow we're trying to grow in a smart manner and we're trying to put this density uh where the transit is so because as you said there are going to be some folks that are going in there that are a little more transit dependent they're going to need uh the increased headway and everything so you know so we're working in conjunction you know with them and the plans that that they have yeah just as a as a side note um i i did read before this meeting the bct's uh most recent tdp transit development plan and it includes like these maps of like where they project new density to come in and plantation midtown is like barren they don't expect any new density to come in plantation midtown so they're not making any investments in bus service here so so i just think it's an opportunity for city staff to reach out to them be like hey we're gonna we're gonna have more density here we would like more buses yeah and we can share once we get our the comp plan updated we can share that information with them so they can see you know where we you know plan to have additional density so and and for the applicant just if you've spoken with bct at all regarding the bus stops there just for the record um we had a broward county bus stop at the front of the property but when we were started to demolish the office building uh we received a notice to demolish the bus stop so we went ahead and we literally pulled the permit to demolish the broward county bus stop but there was a bus stop there on cleary at a point at one point in time and on so but on pine island there's still like three bus stops there yes a little bit farther as you're walking towards um pine towards the publics i believe there's one there okay yeah so so not that close to your property it's like a five five ish minute walk walking you know okay walking distance you know i was just thinking because they're they're not sheltered they're they're just yes and most of them just have don't even have benches actually you're correct you're very uncomfortable for the residents to use those bus stops so could have been an opportunity to work with bct to try to get shelters or get benches get something at those bus stop yes um so when we came here for the first time um i want you to know that we took out a one thousand lineal foot water main for the city and we put we reinstalled it brand new we did two lift stations for the city so we when we came here for the first time we we all we came as a team player as a partner we when we do some a project in a city or a county we we stayed long term we're long term we're we we own these properties for as long as we can live um so when we come in it's not like somebody that comes up here and wants to build a project and sells it tomorrow we we stay here and we we we want to improve we want to work that's why that's why we're working with them you know when you drive through clary and you see what the sidewalk underwater you're like something needs to be done you know um and here's half an anchor let's let's work together you know so absolutely well thank you for that uh my last thing is not a question for staff um it's just a comment for the board which is uh the i get the concerns about traffic but the existing approved plan you know if market conditions improve and that and the applicant is able to fill those retail and restaurant spaces that's a lot more traffic than the residential property and their traffic study does bear that out but it's just in general the residential projects are not really what's causing the traffic in midtown and in these surrounding roads it's the commercial developments just produce a lot more traffic they have a lot more daily trips associated with them so getting mixed use getting denser residential it is a traffic reduction strategy especially compared to the plan that was already approved yeah and if i'm correct uh samir i know that you're looking at lauradale west drive there we have been looking at that i mean it doesn't warrant um you know additional light so we're you know yeah part of the traffic study there was a warrant analysis of a traffic light at lauderdale west and cleary boulevard and as we speak today it does not warrant a traffic signal there however uh you guys recall there is a multimodal transportation plan that the city had and the long range plan for cleary and lauderdale west is around about so we're waiting for all these development to uh come in and uh through the commitment of the city to the multimodal transportation plan one day we will see this roundabout you know thank you i actually have one more question for the applicant just if you happen to have this data on hand do you know the the parking utilization rate of the existing garage on the property great question um so we agreed when the first master site plan was approved that night to a 1.8 parking ratio as of today both mid-rises are operational um one is 90 plus one is in lease up so one's a little bit over 70 percent and our parking ratio is 1.3 that's for all you all spaces all spaces okay so we have a 147 parking spot garage and literally you can meet me there tomorrow and you call the time and you'll drive up to the third floor and we can play football right so so how many spaces were you going to reuse from that garage i remember seeing it in the back yeah so um originally the the ratio was 1.8 so we allocated 1.8 to the east 1.8 to the west so approximately a little bit over almost like a hundred spots we were going to say we're going to be allocated to the retail because we would tell the retailers i would come you want to have people that park right here on the surface and walk that's what that's what the consumer wants so the staff can park in the garage and it's perfect you know staff walks in the park and walked over to the space so uh but as we're today we're operational we're both towers the parking ratio is nowhere close to 1.8 so just yeah so i mean the reason that i'm asking is because i i don't like seeing surface parking in midtown it's supposed to be an urban walkable area and surface parking kind of number one defeats the walkability purpose and number two it's it's a drainage issue it's a heat issue all that stuff so i was just wondering if you could maximize like if the parking wasn't being utilized to optimum efficiency in the existing garage could more of the surface parking have become something else so let's think for a minute that we're we're in a planning class in college um i i truly believe you know uh put code put planning aside that and i tried really hard i would always tell them i'd like to i'd like to be able to if we build 144 units that at least every at least each apartment has one parking spot here on the ground you walk out your lobby door the car's there um there were times in the first master site plan that they would tell me oh no that's a long walk that's a long walk to the garage so i always tell myself i let's give them the parking the surface parking spot so that's why i i tried really hard to do that to to create at least 154 parking spots so that the tenants could have that spot and not walk from that building to the garage okay with imagine you're walking with groceries you know over 200 lineal feet not not exciting you know sure you're not gonna renew your lease all right thank you um i don't have any questions but uh i mean max sort of reiterated a lot of the comments i had um so i i don't love the idea of of you know i feel like switching out from the original commercial and and just the idea that it doesn't work in midtown does concern me um so yeah and again i i don't know how staff would like to address that moving forward but the idea that you know this walkable neighborhood is maybe can't attract tenants is problematic but i think this is a you know a smaller site that maybe wasn't set up for long-term success of commercial um yeah uh also i i agree with max i don't i the flex units i that seems strange to me i don't think the county policy requires flex units there um and additionally the one waiver that does concern me is the reduction of the class a material the class one materials um just because as you pointed out this is sort of the gateway to midtown so i like it to look nice but other than that um i do i was hesitant upon the idea of this project but obviously the uh retention and giving the half acre goes a long way in my book to getting you know my my vote so that's kind of where i am in regard to the uh building materials real quick so while we're requesting a waiver for that north side my understanding is that um through discussions with staff what we decided to do was have the building materials on the south side which would not be required um which part of the internal development um and even with that it's the side facing cleary it's not it's still going to look very nice it's still going to look very similar to you know the shallamar east and west buildings and other developments um overall and also i did want to echo max sentiments about the reduction in the traffic so you know i think that sometimes people forget that as a right people have to build things and they just take what the existing of nothing there as as what they think traffic should be but it's really when they have a right to build a certain amount of commercial that's going to create a lot of trips so i you know i just think that needs to be taken into account when we consider these projects there comments from today's i'm going to reserve my comments until after i offer the room a chance so do i have any comments from the audience matt come on up i would also like to request a minute or two to respond to public comments absolutely thank you all right uh matthew mcintosh 601 northwest 82nd avenue disappointed i'm not up there in the days of y'all today but that's fine for concerning the the lake i know the proposal was for having fencing around it as someone that lives in the manor and plantation i do see people that sometimes fish like in the lake by plantation walk and also just as a nature lover lover i do like how the lake is on the uh shallmare uh east side that lake doesn't have any fencing on it so i'm just curious if it was possible to have the lake so there's pedestrian access to it and without the fencing so you know if someone wants to fish nearby that's something that they can do and something where they don't need to drive anywhere to do it um that's more to the uh both to the city staff and uh the applicants uh in regards to the bus stops i guess this is probably like more for both too uh with the bus stop that's north of clary boulevard maybe it would make sense to relocate that bus stop to further south so the people don't have to cross clary boulevard to get to the bus stop if there's going to be more density there i think that's where it would make sense to have the bus stop and you don't want to have too many bus stops or else the bus is always stopping and not getting to where you need so when it makes sense to add another bus stop and yeah concerns with uh traffic on laurerdale west i've been living in the manor for i think about like two or three years now i've never driven up laurerdale west it honestly just looks like an entrance to a neighborhood so i was like why bother especially when sunrise like going north has no traffic that's how i would always get to plant fitness when i went more consistently was just going clary sunrise uh wait yeah clearly pine island sunrise and then plant fitness and then just back around again through university um the biggest increase of traffic but the reason why i'm driving more often is because the new chick-fil-a with the drive-through they made it very easy to drive there and pick up the food so i'm driving more that's all my comments any other comments from the audience all right i'm going to close down audience comments in did you want to respond to any of matt's i did have a response to an earlier question um regarding the affordable and the uh unit sizes so if you take a look at the data there is a pretty significant shortage of housing of all types i mean rents right now are incredibly expensive like if you look through midtown um you'll see rents ranging from you know for one one you know twenty two hundred dollars twenty three hundred twenty four twenty five hundred dollars um and look this project's adding thirteen percent affordable we we believe that's really good but part of it is just adding more housing stock to the midtown which is an area of plantation where the city is determined that density is appropriate and this housing stock is important to help reduce the pressure it's not that those units will be cheaper although i do believe that our product will be on the it'll be cheaper than what you would typically see but by having those units come onto the market it reduces the rent of some of the older apartments which makes those more affordable for people so part of it is just adding more housing stock um in addition with the smaller unit sizes kind of in the same vein uh especially speaking for young professionals that there's a lot of people that would be willing to trade you know a little bit of square footage if it meant that they could have affordable rent um you know if you worked in midtown so you could live near where you work instead of having to live at who knows where else so part of it is the smaller units allow the units to be cheaper which makes them you know easier for people to manage being able to live there um and that combined with just adding more units to the market uh it won't resolve the housing crisis but it will alleviate pressure little by little um which is important do you have a price per square foot or a unit price for those small units we do have an estimate here um obviously it's subject to it's the marking conditions now but yeah at least uh as of right now the studios would be at 1815 as an estimate um the affordable studios so 1815 for 400 square feet correct all right um but i'm gonna yeah go ahead if i may but that is in comparison to the other units on the market you know if i'm someone who's looking for a unit in midtown the 1800 is still it's a pretty big discount from something you'd see it some of these other market rate units yeah no doubt i mean it's also 144 units total within the structure um waiver number two requests a 40 foot setback well requires a 40 foot setback on clearing reducible to 11.8 or 11 feet 8 inches um staff comments on page 33 of that particular section says it's in line with emory townhome setback what is the height of the emory townhomes two stories right so we're talking a comparison between a two-story building and a five-story building scale relationships would indicate that at 11 feet eight inches a five-story building is going to be much more imposing than a two-story building so when you look at that entire area if you go up um 82nd yep where you see uh the other uh you know multi-family those are much closer to the street we're trying to maintain that character within that neighborhood that calls for pushing the buildings a little closer to the street as we had the townhomes we put the stoops in or what have you so that's that's what we're that that that was uh the intent behind that right having it closer to the street five story building and your comparison was to a two-story building so to say it's in line with the setback is a true statement if i were to walk it it's going to be 11 feet 8 inches but i'm going to be walking up to a five-story building and not a two-story building which means the scale of that property on that particular corner is going to be much more imposing than another one would be and relative to the plot of land that it's going to be on there were other ways which is going to come up to the engineering questions that i have that might have had placement on that particular piece of property orient the building slightly differently and so i just i i don't act i just want to make it clear that my opinion only that particular waiver makes a false comparison when you're saying it's like the emory building because it's not 82nd is not cleary as was said this is the gateway to the midtown and what you're doing is putting a pretty darn imposing structure right there in that gateway to the midtown area i get we want more density but to my other question is there a fault in the premise of midtown in particular with regards to mixed use i've always said there has been ever since the fountains got cut in half and a big building goes up and it stays vacant on the bottom floor that particular type of structure has never worked in a suburban environment where driving is the primary means of moving around and that's been borne out in many cities so i just want to make sure that even though this one is not mixed use we still have this scale issue that we have to think about and whether or not that's appropriate purely my opinion i get where you're coming from danny but i don't equate 82nd i i i understand that i i sort of disagree with it but i i understand your point yeah we're going to be on different sides of that one and i understand it but i needed to point that one out um second question i have is actually related to engineering so yeah i'm actually pretty happy that there is a water retention focus there but i'm looking at this pond um props to somebody not putting it up as a blue pond on some diagram you know what i'm talking about but um volume wise my assumption is it's going to be dug out to 10 feet so like every other body of water it's going to have about three feet below grade is where the the water level is going to sit so are your projections especially looking forward to larger rainfalls and everything else and pulling that thousand linear feet off of cleary and dumping all that water in there is this pond going to be enough to absorb all of that yes the answer is yes we did the pre engineering for the project we have drainage calculation we have met with south florida water management we have met with old plantation water control district so we checked all the boxes the pond as you see it on the site plan is sized to um account for what we call call the standard storms the 10-year 25-year and 100-year storm so it was sized appropriately to handle the uh the runoff from cleary boulevard as i discussed in the drainage slides the drainage system of cleary boulevard gonna be run off to the lake and then connecting to the overall drainage system of the campus to outfall and discharge into i forgot the canal the lake behind uh plantation walk which ultimately discharge into the old plantation canal so this particular drain so it is connected to the system so it's not just because as i'm looking at the picture alone system it's not i'm seeing the drainage from the parking lot but i didn't see the connection i know there was something in there but i wanted to verify that it so it won't overflow onto clearing no it will be connecting and actually through the process with this site plan there will be access easements there will be flows and drainage easements requested from the applicant throughout their site to connect that overall discharge because i we're gonna invest in this infrastructure we don't want we want to solve the problem ultimately is this particular lake or the drainage system for the the property tied into the other two water retention ponds on the plat yes okay so okay cool there is a control structure that controls at what elevation it's going to discharge into the other lakes per to meet the regulatory agency's requirement but the entire system acts as one system perfect um in the comment response letter which was on a page 108 of the packet of the 406 pages um there was a comment that said originally uh 20 percent affordable but um changed at the drc to go down to 13 percent affordable which number what was there originally an option for 20 percent we had originally started discussing 20 percent um and that's what the applicant is proposing 13 percent because let them speak to to that change and i'm asking this question because you're going to get it at council because they're going to want to know why it's 19 instead of 27. so you have these meetings you have all these conversations um i think staff always understood as 20 percent but we always were it was 13 units and that's really it well i mean except instead of what was originally supposed to be there now you're looking to put up housing and you're using bonus density to get to that bonus destiny based upon your affordable housing component or giving you the multiplier there so um it just seems to me like why not go that extra little bit 13 from us that's what we're sticking to um landscape islands within this parking lot uh i agree that the parking lot i think is going to be too big frankly um you got a couple landscape islands that are 12 foot wide but then you've got that one two and a half foot separator that you're looking at uh my particular question has to do with are you planning to put root vaults in so that you can get the largest possible shade trees so you can minimize that heat island effect scott pivler craven thompson uh 3563 northwest 53rd street um yes we'll provide the root vaults to allow from larger shade streets where feasible that's done conflict with any utilities because i think that's where some of the smaller trees within those islands were all right sorry i'm going through my list here was there any consideration since the the original plat the entirety of the plat was 602 units um which was only leaving you 35 left uh to attack the problem was there any thought to and this goes towards a desire for mixed use housing or mixed quality housing within plantation midtown was there any thought to creating what amounted to a little village on this three and a half acres that had 35 townhomes that would have also allowed for a larger possibly more pedestrian and visually friendly water retention area just to clarify when you say a village you mean a larger building in that area uh no what i actually mean is call it kind of like what you have over at emery but it's a little more densely packed and they're just rectangular blocks was there ever a thought to putting seven five unit elements on this property that were spread out that allowed for kind of their own little residential niche think of it almost like a like a miniature college quad uh in a perfect world yes but in a business world i i can't right and and and that's getting to the same reason why you didn't go to the 20 percent affordable um seems to me like in a business world there's there's a place to say these 35 units would be the thing that grabs somebody's eye instead of having a building that looks like every other building that's been going up recently even though we have certain decorative and and and architectural requirements in the code um i just think we could have done something different with this plot that's there that that would have met everybody's needs that's all any other questions from the dais i'll just i'll just make a comment you know given what you've said um i think just to clarify i wasn't on the board when we approved shallamar east and west um but i think this is sort of a lesson to look out for when we talk about future commercial uh plots next to residential um again the idea of it i don't love it just because we talk so much about mixed use and walkable um given the fact that i i am for more density i just wish we could also incorporate commercial in these areas um but again you know i see that for what it is um and then i just want to just say that i applaud staff for coming up with a with a creative idea of how to solve a problem so i just want to say that i appreciate that thinking any other questions comments all right uh discussions are closed do i have a motion motion to approve subject to staff comments from section 5b of the backup do i have a second on this one we have a motion and a second from mr stecker please call the roll mr speer no mr stall no mr stecker mr corman no mr freeman yes mr goldstein yes mr de la grange no thank you all right um that is it for that one was there any other business from and if you could could you also verify the october meeting date the date of the october yeah is that the eighth okay thank you oh 14th 14th okay 14th in our i can't i okay so 14th okay rob rob sorry can you just say for the record the the outcome of the vote oh sorry my apologies it failed uh failed for four to three on the failure sorry so yeah so you will um as i as i indicated the last meeting i try to get keep you guys updated on the comprehensive plan it is going to come to you for that october meeting i am wrapping up some meetings with uh staff so probably in about two weeks you will get a pdf copy well in advance of that 14th meeting so you can start uh reviewing it and looking over and if you have any questions or if you want to give us feedback before it actually comes to you you'll have an opportunity uh to to do so perfect thank you all right anybody else meeting