Board of County Commissioners on 2025-01-21 9:00 AM

Let's get settled down so we can get the January 21st, 2025 Board of County Commissioners meeting started. First, we'll start with our invocation, and please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Good morning, and please pray with me. Heavenly Father, this is the day that you have made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. As we gather today to do the work and the will of the citizens and visitors of Polk County, help us to focus also on your will. Help us to accomplish all that is before us in a way that brings you honor and glory. And I ask this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Good morning, Commissioners, staff, and visitors. I'm Lauren McCall, Digital and Media Services Manager. Today, we are recognizing four employees for their service to Polk County. I'd like to invite the employees to come to the front as their names are called. And if the honorees will remain standing at the front while commissioners return to the dais behind them, we will take a group photo at the end. Tanya Tucker started her career with the county in 2000. In her 25 years, she has served as a demolition technician, community development specialist to housing rehabilitation, and demolition manager. Tanya currently serves as code enforcement support and demolition manager. Tanya holds a bachelor's degree in business administration with a minor in organizational management from Warner University. She is a certified public manager, licensed esthetician, and certified code investigator levels one through four. If it is not evident by her tenure with the county, her role as vice mayor and Bartow City Commissioner demonstrates her commitment to public service. She is also an ambassador handler at Dogs, Inc. She enjoys crocheting, shopping, and volunteering at animal shelters and rescues. She also enjoys spending time with her family, father Danny Tucker, who works at the Fort Meade Roadway Maintenance Unit, her daughter and her grandbaby, Ileana. Tanya plans to continue volunteering at animal shelters and rescues and looking forward to her retirement plans. Eric Anderson, Jr., or Jr., as he's known, has worked for Polk County Roads and Drainage for 30 years. Eric was born in Portland, Jamaica, immigrating to the U.S. with his parents, Vioris and Eric Anderson, Sr. in 1989. He began working with the Polk County Survey Department in January 1995 as head chain man, working his way up to a crew chief and eventually into the drafting section, where he has been for the past 17 years. He currently serves as a survey and mapping specialist, too. Eric holds a certificate in electronics fundamentals and repair from Travis Tech. In addition to being a member of the Adventist Church, Eric has a wide array of hobbies, including traveling, fishing, swimming, flying, cycling, and ATV riding. He has enjoyed working for Roads and Drainage in the Survey and Mapping section, noting we have a really awesome team here. He has enjoyed working. In the future, Eric plans to continue working for Polk County and get licensed as a drone pilot. Shonda Bennett began working for Polk County in 1995. In her 30 years of service to the county, she has held such positions as Planner 2, Community Development, Planner 2, Planner 3, Senior Planner, Principal Planner with the Planning Division, Long Range Planning and Land Development. She currently serves in the Land Development Division as the Comprehensive Planning Administrator. Shonda has a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary social science and a master's degree in urban and regional planning, both from Florida State University. She has earned the distinction of the American Institute of Certified Planning, and she is a certified public manager. Shonda has been a member of Leadership Lake Wales and Leadership Polk Groups, as well as an affiliate of the Lake Wales Heritage and Olmstead Conservancy, whose mission is to plant trees from Olmstead's original landscape plan for Lake Wales. In 2003, the Polk County Sierra Club honored her with the Richard Coleman Conservation Award. Shonda's hobbies include supporting her son Aaron's cross-country activities and vacationing in Asheville, North Carolina. Her husband of 24 years, Ryan Kordak, also works for Polk County, and their son attends Lake Wales High School. Shonda enjoys working for Polk County, and she truly appreciates all the opportunities that she has been offered during her tenure. She looks forward to more enjoyable years with the county. Sharon Mathis. Sharon has worked for Polk County for 40 years. She has held positions as Employment Interviewer, Wage and Classification Analyst, Minority Recruiter, Staffing and Retention Specialist, and Procurement Analyst. She currently serves as the Equal Opportunity Diversity Representative, overseeing the Proactive Diversity Recruitment and Training Program. Sharon has a bachelor's degree in human resources and is a certified public manager. She is a member of the St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, First South Florida Missionary Baptist District Association, Bradley Community Project, Inc., where she serves as president, International Association of Black Professional Firefighters, where she serves as Training and Upward Mobility Chairperson, Mosaic Advisory Council, Polk County Industry Community Advisory Council, and National Congress of Black Women. Some of her accolades include the She Knows Where She's Going Award from Girls, Inc., Economic Empowerment Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, Inc., Polk County Chapter, Drum Major for Justice Award from the Haines City NAACP. Sharon enjoys reading, baking, decorating, event planning, traveling, shopping, and most of all, community service. In retirement, she says she and her fur babies are going on a road trip from Key West, Florida, to travel all 50 states. Sharon lives by the motto, I don't know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future. So do all you can while you can, because tomorrow is not promised. Mr. Chair, members of the board, if I could, as a subsequent follow-up and recognition, could I ask a Ms. Brenda Brooks to come to this podium on this side of the room, please? And could I ask Ms. Sharon to stay at the, just let Ms. Sharon to stay at the front? Mr. Chair, let me just say a few quick words about Ms. Brenda Brooks. I've known Ms. Brenda for quite some time now. It's been a while since I've seen you, but Ms. Brenda Brooks is a representative of the Southeast Region International Association of Black Professional Firefighters. This is an organization, a regional organization, actually a Southeast region organization that recognizes nine states as well as the District of Columbia. And I believe Ms. Sharon is going to receive some recognition for 25 years of service and participation with that organization. So, Ms. Brooks, take it away, please. Good morning, and I want to thank you, Mr. Beasley, for allowing me to be here. Sharon, I want to award you, and in front of the wonderful people in Polk County, the 25-year service award as our training chair, but prior to that, for all the other jobs that no matter what I asked you to do, you would do it, no matter what it was. And the pen is a 25-year pen. It's a gold pen. I will present that to you. And the mom's pen is a pen that all the other accolades that you receive, including your community, your church, the mom pen recognizes that effort that you do, especially in your community. And I want to thank you again for allowing me to come here and present this. Mr. Chair, while you're doing this, I also want to make mention of Ms. Sharon's one and only son, Jamie, is here all the way from Chicago to recognize us with his mother this morning. If we could have all the other employees up to the front for a picture. Did you get that already? Yes. You got the whole group. She's got another godson here from Houston that came in from Houston, Texas today just for this. Thank you again. I think we got the pictures that we needed, didn't we? We got everything? Yes, sir. All right. All right, let's move along. All right, right now it's time for, well, let's give everybody a second here. It's a way to clear a room. Is there a Ms., and I hope I pronounced this right, a Gabubo here that was supposed to schedule to speak? I don't think so because Mr. Braswell said you had talked to her, right? Yeah, I talked to her. I have two requests for people to come up and speak. I have a Linda Fyfe. Would you please come up, ma'am, and give us your name and address, and you'll have three minutes. Excuse me. Could everybody please go outside, please, so we can continue with our meeting? All right, Ms. Fyfe. Good morning. My name is Linda Fyfe. I live in Traditions at Winter Haven. I am the vice president of the HOA board. I also sit on the 16-member regional community council that belongs to the corridor of the Thompson Nursery Road widening project. I spoke to you a couple of weeks ago about some options, and today I bring to you once again, I cc'd you on an email to Mr. Jarvis last week regarding traffic signal for the intersection of Thompson Nursery Road and Traditions Boulevard. I've been in contact with Brad Crenshaw at Publix in the development of the real estate project at the corner of Westlake Ruby Road and Thompson Nursery Road. And I've also been in touch with Sean Byers, the City of Winter Haven Planning Department, as we move to make some safety measures that will benefit all of those people that will be servicing this area. I've added to the packet that I've sent out to the commissioners on the second page, there is a map of the request. I've superimposed the plan from the City of Winter Haven of the new Publix at the corner. What is of note is the Publix itself is on the northeast corner. On the south side of that intersection, they have an exit that butts up right against the PVC fencing, making a left-hand turn out onto Thompson Nursery Road, heading eastbound towards 27. That turn across the median, and keeping in mind that this is now two-lane, presently or, you know, in the near future going to four-lane. Less than a quarter of a mile as you go eastbound, you hit the intersection of Thompson Nursery Road and Traditions Boulevard. Our community is a 55-plus. We have 595 homes. We have about 200 of those that are on the south side. All of our facilities are on the north side. We're not talking about just vehicular traffic. We're talking about pedestrians, golf carts, bicycles, and cars. The Publix itself has over 200 parking spaces that are in the middle. And if you look at the northern side of Thompson Nursery Road, there's two out partials with the public sitting back on the north side of the property. Those out partials, we assume, are going to be restaurants and other things. So it's just not the people crossing Thompson Nursery Road to get to the north side of Traditions. It's those people that will be moving back and forth into that major, you know, Publix location. Also on the southwest corner, you'll see a 7-Eleven that the city of Winter Haven has also approved. And there will be a storage unit right behind there. Where that road is, Coon Lake Road, going back behind the verandas, which is just west of Traditions. There is a Latigo group of Winter Haven is also planning a major development. We ask that you take a second look, do the warrant analysis during the winter months, not in May, not in November. But please make it safe for all the residents. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Kelly Quinn. Good morning. My name is Kelly Quinn, and I am a resident here of Polk County for 30 years at 22 Lakeview Drive South, Haynes City, Florida, 33844. So today I am here to implore our county commissioners to take seriously the concerns and priorities of Polk County residents who participated and paid for the Polk Comprehensive Plan that I'm excited to see presented today to all of you. The number one thing that your constituents are concerned about is the need to preserve and conserve our natural environment and wildlife habitat. That's number one across the board. Number two, protect rural and agricultural lands and ways of life by directing growth to areas already served by infrastructure. And three, to ensure an adequate water supply for existing and future populations. You know, there's another two after that, one about updating roads, and then the fifth being concerned with having affordable housing. But I think it's pretty obvious that the top three are all environmental, lands, and agricultural rural ways of life concerning. So this can be done by using a limited growth strategy for which over 51% of your constituents also agreed with. So I really implore my commissioners here today to really act on that knowledge and to consider that when making decisions for new developments and for future infrastructure. This also leads into my concerns as a citizen and requests for further action by this new county commission. My number one request that I really hope you guys consider doing is a new hydrology study. We haven't had one since 2006. It was conducted by the Polk County Commission, paid for by taxpayer money with a U.S. geological survey. And they conducted multi-year, in-depth research into our aquifer, our wetland basins, our lake basins, and understanding pollution runoff, and also whether or not aquifer rates were properly cited in certain areas, such as the ridge versus here. And bless you. And so I really think that this is a time where we need to revisit that and have a new study because it's been 20 years, and I think we can all agree a lot has changed in 20 years. So infrastructure in the amount of, lack of a better word, weight on our water system has doubled, and we know that it's going to continue to grow as one of the fastest-growing counties in the state of Florida. So I encourage us to explore that option, especially around sinkhole risks in particular, because we know that this area is highly prone to that. And then my last thought that I would really like you all to consider and act on is expanding the old Scenic Highway 17 to a four-lane highway versus considering all these alternate toll routes that have been brought up over the last week, two weeks, and the meetings. That would be a fast way to, you know, improve traffic on 27. It's directly parallel with 27, and that would alleviate some of those concerns. Thank you for your time. I appreciate you guys listening. Thank you very much. All right. That's all the requests we had. Does anybody else like to come forward? Tom? Tom Palmer, 1805, 26th Street, Northwest Winter Haven. Just briefly, I was watching the video of the work session Friday about the Northeast Polk wastewater overuse, and I was wondering whether either the review of the comp plan or some other way is a way to get a better handle on that, because it wasn't clear just what mechanism the county has to crack down on. I don't know if there's an opening to do something. I mean, I'm not sure. I haven't studied it long enough. But it seems like something. Well, we're working on it, Tom. Obviously, there's a problem, and the utilities are trying to work with it. Correct. We are. But I was wondering whether something could be strengthened in writing to make it clearer. I believe a lot of it's covered in the utility code and our office. A lot of it is covered under utility code, and I believe my office is working with utilities to make sure that that's enforced. I mean, I looked at utilities ordinances, and there's some slap on the wrist for $50 fines and stuff. I didn't see anything substantive. So I don't know. We'll look at it closer. Let's have to think about it. Yeah, we'll look at it closer. Okay. Thank you, Tom. Anyone else like to come forward? Good morning. Suzanne Lindsay, 181 Lake Otis Road, Winter Haven. And I noticed that there is a sub-consultant that's been hired for the transportation portion under the comprehensive plan process. I'm wondering if I'm accurate in thinking that's a new addition, new hire for the comprehensive plan updates. Could it be possible to hire a sub-consultant for the environmental and conservation of natural resources also, since that was our number one priority for our county? So if you would possibly consider that, that would be wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Good morning. My name is Ron Newingham. I'm with Walking Water Estates. I don't know if this is the proper time to address R-9 because the hearing that was today is scheduled to be redone on February the 4th and February the 18th. But in the process of the time, from now and then, all the board members consider that the development that's proposed for Boy Scout Road and Highway 60, I strongly feel that's not conducive to the county's growth development manner. It's not contiguous with walking water, and I believe that it's not good for the environment, the people, and the whole county area down there. So between now and the time that it's actually brought up for discussion and vote, I would like the board members to consider it as a bad process and that it should not be allowed to take place. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. We're going to move on. Consent agenda. Move approval. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Yes, sir. I just wanted to bring up as far as our implementation of the increased impact fees for warehousing and industrial that we are moving that forward so we can have some more discussion with stakeholders. But I just want to see that come to a date that we do implement it sometime in the near future versus just to keep pushing that down months and months at the time. Do we have a date? Do we have a date when we're going to? Yeah. Well, a couple of quick things. The consent agenda has that public hearing set now for March the 18th, I think it is, Randy. So the consent agenda fixes the date for the public hearing. As a run-up to that, county staff is looking to coordinate with a number of the EDCs to have a single presentation to them as far as the studies that were done as part of the transportation impact fees, the blockage factors, the unique study that was unique to Polk County. So we're planning to do that between now and that public hearing. Perfect. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Does anybody else have anything to say? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. All right. Ms. Butterfield, good morning. Today we have for you to approve and ratify payroll checks number 03674 through 03689 in the amount of $26,020.26. We have 2,745 direct deposits in the amount of $4,430,271.22. Those are dated January the 10th of 2025. We have wired and electronic fund transfers of $14,605,439.85. Those are dated January 7th through January 20th of 2025. And we have invoice checks numbered 475542 through 476330, totaling $23,528,698.04, dated January 5th through January 20th of 2025, for you to approve and ratify, please. Do I have a motion? Move for approval. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We also request the approval of your minutes of your regular board meeting that you held on January 7th, 2025. Move to approve. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. All right. Anything else? Yes, sir. I have two things. As January is quickly coming to a close in 2025, we're moving into February. And in February, my office is hosting two events that I'd like to invite the public as well as all of you to. The first one is on Saturday, February the 1st, which, yeah, Saturday, February 1st, we will hold a passport event at both of our branch offices, the one in Lakeland and their Northeast Government Center in Lake Alfred. And we will be open from nine to one to process passport applications for those. It's difficult sometimes to get there during the week, so we will be happy to post that and host that for those that need that service. I'm also looking forward to shortly after that to the sweetest day of the year, Valentine's Day. And on Valentine's Day, my office will host their annual group wedding, and the group wedding will be at high noon on Friday, February the 14th. This year, it will be held at the Fort Blunt Park because right in between the historic courthouse and the courthouse for a number of reasons. I'm thrilled that Chairman Wilson is going to join us to welcome the guests and the couples to the ceremony. We certainly invite all of you to attend and the public. There will be plenty of room to observe the festivities and celebrate with the newlyweds. So thank you. Oh, and all of the information is on our website, my website, at polkcountyclerk.net. Thank you. Thank you. Randy, do you have anything? Okay. Mr. Bill? Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, members of our viewing audience. The manager's office will have five items for board consideration this morning. Item number H1 is to request the board approve an infrastructure agreement in connection with the Phase 2, Segment 5 portion of the Thompson Nursery Road planned improvements. This action reflects a $5,916,393.91 total capital investment, whereby the Community Development District will contribute $1,187,326.75, and Polk County will provide construction reimbursement not to exceed $4,729,067.16. Today's action is a request to enter into an infrastructure agreement between the Peace Crossing Community Development District and Polk County for the design, permitting, and construction of non-site-related infrastructure improvements along Thompson Nursery Road. This specific section of Thompson Nursery Road is located within what we call the Phase 2, Segment 5 of the Identified Roads and Drainage Board-approved and Funded Community Investment Project. The developer is the owner or contract purchaser of certain real property located south of the intersection of Thompson Nursery Road and Conservation Way. The developer intends to construct a combination of both residential and commercial uses on their property and has received access approval from the county's land development division to connect to Thompson Nursery Road. The developer has agreed to design, permit, and construct certain non-site-related transportation improvements along Thompson Nursery Road consistent with the identified community investment project identified within the board's funded community investment program. Funding for the county's contribution of the project is available within the Roads and Drainage five-year community investment program. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think consistent with the board's commitment to improve transportation infrastructure across all of Polk County, I would request the board approve the proposed infrastructure agreement between the Peace Creek Crossing Community Development District and Polk County for specific roadway improvements along Thompson Nursery Road in an amount not to exceed $5,916,393.91 with the respective contributions as I've previously noted. Commissioner Browse. Bill. Yes, sir. We know this guy or this developer is building on the south side. Yes, sir. Do you have any idea how many homes they have intended there? I don't know. Maybe John or somebody from the land development division may know a little bit. This is that area that I believe was annexed into the city of Lake Wales. Is it Winter Haven on the other side? Winter Haven is on the north side. Yes, sir. And then that's, I mean, it's being built for a development there. Is there already a planned development there or a known development? I think we've got some people to come up and answer that question. Good morning. For the record, Shelton Rice, I'm an attorney with the law firm of Peterson and Myers, address 225 East Lemon Street, Lakeland, Florida. Today, I'm here on behalf of the owner of the project to Mr. Braswell's first question regarding the development and the entitlements. It was annexed into the city around 2019. It was entitled through a master development plan, which is a large-scale kind of master planned community. It's got a mix of uses from commercial, residential, retail, office. All of these different things are contemplated. There's two primary access points to this project, one off of 27 and one off of Thompson Nursery Road. The entitlements through the master development plan process for this 1,900 acres contemplate up to, I think, around 6,000 residential units. It's likely going to come in something less than that. It's still going through the engineering process, so we don't have exact numbers on all of those different phases, but likely somewhere half of that, maybe two-thirds of that is likely. So this goes all the way out to 27, you said? Yes, sir. Under the power lines or whatever that, yeah, okay. It connects to 27 south of Thompson Nursery Road. Thompson Nursery Road is the northern boundary. And then when the north side's developed, how does that play in as far as, I mean, we're paying part of this, they're paying part of this. Does the next developer, are they assessed anything for the improvements that are going to be there already? I can speak to that. My name is Thedo Hayes for the record. I'm a concurrency entitlements manager. The property to the north that's in the city limits of Winter Haven, they're in the process of also doing what we call a proportion and share agreement to see what proportion that their payment is for the actual improvements to Thompson Nursery Road as well. So we use the numbers to? Yes, sir. Okay. All right. That was a long way of asking that question, but anyway, thanks. Any other questions? That's all I got, yeah. All right. We need a motion. Move to approve. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H2 is to request the board approve piggyback agreements with Rep Services Incorporated and Bliss Products and Services Incorporated to provide various park and playground equipment. Annual expenses for these provided services and park playground equipment over the next three to four years is estimated between $3 and $4.5 million annually. The Parks and Natural Resources Division has historically used a Clay County, Florida bid that was awarded to both Rep Services and Bliss Products through Polk's piggyback procurement method intended to purchase and install park and playground equipment at various county parks. These procurement activities have since then, however, these procurement activities have since expired in the summer of 2024. However, Clay County recently solicited a new bid for the same services, which resulted in subsequent awards to Rep Services and Bliss Products. Since the Parks and Natural Resources Division has had had extremely good and satisfying services with both vendors, those services have been provided through the Parks and Rec program. They've been working since that time with the Procurement Division to develop two new agreements, which would, again, allow for piggyback use of the recent Clay County bids. And there are no local vendors that can provide these types of specific and unique services within Polk County. The Parks and Natural Resources Division intends to use these agreements this fiscal year to install all-inclusive playground equipment at four existing county parks, which enable children of all abilities to develop physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally. All-inclusive equipment goes beyond wheelchair accessibility and ensures children and adults of all abilities have play options and can choose their level of engagement in each activity. In addition, the agreements will provide for replacement playground equipment at five parks where the equipment has now reached the end of its useful service life. Future purchases will then be planned and budgeted as part of the Parks and Natural Resources annual budgeting process, as well as in their capital improvements investments. The term of this agreement with all available renewals will carry us through July of 2029, which is about a four-and-a-half-year term. Funding for these planned park improvements is budgeted within the Parks and Natural Resources Division's Leisure Services MSTU Fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think in keeping with the board's commitment to quality, active playground environments within all of Polk County's parks, I would request the board approve the piggyback agreements with Bliss Products and Services Incorporated and Rep Services Incorporated to provide various park and playground equipment and amenities at Polk County Park locations currently being evaluated. Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? I just wanted to bring up, I think it's great that the county continues to invest in our parks and when we look at the adaptation of equipment to be applicable to all types of users. That's really a great investment for the county. All right. And this board has been good with the one-time capital funding that we usually go through as part of our budgeting exercise and target some of those one-time funds for these types of investment. Yes, sir. It's a good investment. All right. We had a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H3 is to request the board approve a construction contract with Ajax Paving Industries of Florida for the U.S. 27 at Tierra del Sol Intersection Improvements Project. This will be a one-time capital expense not to exceed $2,286,826.36 with today's board action to include the requisite community investment program amendment and budget transfer. Polk County has completed the public solicitation process seeking bids from qualified contractors who were interested in constructing intersection improvements at U.S. Highway 27 at Tierra del Sol Boulevard within the northeast sector of Polk County. The work primarily consists of installing a new traffic signal at the U.S. 27 intersection and constructing a right-turn lane from Central Grove Road on to southbound U.S. 27. Bid number 24-697 was issued and one contractor submitted a bid, that bid being submitted by Ajax Paving Industries in the total amount of $2,199,930.36. A recommendation of award was issued and no protests were received. County staff has since negotiated a $22,000 cost reduction associated with electrical junction boxes and signal cabling. Also in connection with resolution number 13066, $108,896 is included in the total contract award to address allowance and contingency work conditions. The total contract time for this project has been set at 270 calendar days. Upon approval of the community investment program amendment and budget transfer, sufficient funds will be available within the project account for project execution. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think in keeping with the board's commitment to roadway infrastructure, especially within the northeast sector of Polk County, I would request the board approve a construction contract with Ajax Paving Industries of Florida in connection with the U.S. 27 at Tierra del Sol intersection improvements in an amount not to exceed $2,286,826.36 to include the requisite community investment program amendment and budget transfer in the amount of $1,286,827 from the Transportation Trust Fund Reserve for Budget Stabilization's account. Move for approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H-4 is to request the board approve a construction manager at risk guaranteed maximum price addendum with Simcoe Construction Incorporated in connection with the Polk County Utilities AMI Radio Towers Project. Today's action will reflect a one-time capital expense not to exceed $1,479,127.28. In December of 2020, Polk County entered into a master service agreement with Simcoe to provide construction manager at risk services for utility capital investments where construction costs were estimated to be less than $7.5 million. In May of this past year, May of 2024, the county authorized Simcoe to provide pre-construction services for the utility division's advanced metering infrastructure system project in an amount of $18,356. Pre-construction services are now complete, and Simcoe has provided a guaranteed maximum price addendum to construct the project towers. In accordance with Resolution No. 13066, $63,243 is included in the guaranteed maximum price to address contingency and allowance work conditions. This project will consist of constructing 16 communication towers in the Southwest Utility Service Area that will facilitate remote meter reading capabilities for approximately 15,000 customers, current customers, and all new planned customers in that area. This technology will replace the current process of driving by customer locations to obtain meter data for billing purposes with a real-time data transmission system that will be used by both the county and the customers as well. Total construction contract time for these towers has been set at 300 calendar days. Funding for this technology and operational efficiencies initiative is available within the utility's operating fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think, and consistent with the board's commitment to technology investments, especially where it produces operational efficiencies, I would request the board approve construction manager at risk number 2020-055-03 guaranteed maximum price addendum with the Simcoe Construction Company in an amount not to exceed $1,479,127.28, all of which is in connection with the Polk County Utilities AMI Radio Towers Project. So moved. Second. Got a motion to second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Final item from the manager's office this morning, item number H-5, is to request the board to approve a behavioral health contract with the Peace River Center for Personal Development for the provision of forensic specialists and navigation support in providing behavioral and community health care services to eligible Polk County residents. These services are to be provided for the term of this proposed contract and an annual expense not to exceed $700,000. To ensure support of timely competency case management and appropriate health care navigation services, the Peace River Center will provide the following client coordination and related logistics support services effective retroactively from October 1 of 2024 through September of 2027, a three-year term. The Peace River Center forensic specialists will, one, develop, coordinate, and implement tasks related to the success of individuals adjudicated as incompetent, including but not limited to competency restoration training, two, travel to appropriate locations to monitor clients' progress and legal status in jail and within the various communities, three, assist with discharge planning from state hospitals with travel to and from, four, provide triage counseling and crisis intervention where needed, and five, collection of all required data for reporting purposes. The Peace River Center's navigators will, one, participate and facilitate community outreach events to identify community members who need connection to local behavioral health programs and related services, two, utilize a needs-based assessment to identify and provide linkage to noted behavioral health services and to community benefits and resources, including but not limited to food, housing, and transportation assistance, three, channel individual referrals to and provide registration for community behavioral health services, and, four, screen all potential clients for current health coverage, assist those uninsured individuals with benefit applications. For those residents potentially eligible to the Polk Health Health Care Plan, assist with the application process, including submission of supporting documentations. These comprehensive services and program funding were recently presented and approved by the Citizens' Health Care Oversight Committee. Funding for these types of behavioral health care and community health care initiatives is available and budgeted within the Indigent Health Care Fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think in keeping with the board's strong commitment to community behavioral health and community health care services across Polk County, I would request the board approve the proposed contract with the Peace River Center in providing forensic specialist and navigation services as recommended by the Citizens' Health Care Oversight Committee at an annual expense not to exceed $700,000. Move for rule. Got a motion and not a second. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? That's it, Mr. Joe. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. That's it, Mr. Chair. Okay. Commissioner Troutman, you got anything? Got a couple things. First, point Bruce Lyon as a member of the Polk County Industrial Development Authority for a three-year term, February 20th of 2025 through February 19th of 2028. Second. We got a motion and a second. Any further discussion on it? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Also an appointment for Ms. Kimberly Knish as a member of the Housing Finance Authority for a four-year term, January 22nd, 2025 through January 21st, 2029. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. And then just a general announcement, if I may, Chair. On February 1st, which is a Saturday, as the Clerk pointed out, Polk County Parks and Rec will be doing a run out at Bone Valley ATV Park, the hunt for Sasquatch. So I encourage everyone to come out for that. And then also, R27 on the consent agenda was an approval for the renovation of the Willow Oaks Fire Department. I received communication today from a firefighter that just wanted to express their sincere thanks and gratitude for this long-overdue project, and they wanted the commissioners to know they appreciate the input for their station. Commissioner Bradshaw. First, I don't know about you guys, but I could not wait for noon yesterday to get here. It was a long time coming, and I'm glad it happened. Yeah, yeah. A question for the clerk. Your passport comment made me think of it. This real ID thing, I know that's not your department, but I figure you probably know about it. That means you have, what, a star on your driver's license? That's all that means is, I mean. We have to go through the process with the tag agent, which is the tax collector's office, and then you get that. I do believe it's a star. I haven't looked at mine. Do you know if the driver's license were set to renew in a way that everybody would have that opportunity, or is this going to surprise some people? It shouldn't surprise because it's been advertised for a long time, both from DHSMV and others. So when they go to renew, I'm sure the tax collector, I haven't actually seen one because mine was already done, that I'm sure they put that information because I've seen numerous communications. Yeah, you see it. I see it. You know how it goes. But the other thing is, so this means if you don't have that star, it's a star, right, on your driver's license? You can't get on an airplane? That's what I've been told. Okay. Absolutely. All right. Just very similar, I think, to if your driver's license is expired and you go to get on the airplane, they will not let you on the airplane. I think it was effective January? No, no. He's talking about the expired, right? Oh. No, that starts May. The star. Oh, okay. I wasn't. Yeah, yeah. But I'm telling you, the expired one is now. I've seen that happen. I don't think they really look at them, to be honest. Yeah. What we discussed regarding the Juanita drainage ditch, how, Mr. Beza, how are we going to, or Randy, how are we going to set this up? Do you guys need to do some research before we sit down and figure out a solution to this? Well, my understanding was that we were going to have a meeting with Juanita Farms and get some further discussion and then come back to the board to get, I guess. Juanita Farms. You're talking about O'Kellie's? Yeah, O'Kellie's. Okay. So you're going to meet with O'Kellie's or somebody's going to meet? No, we'll meet with the district, the water management district, and get their input and find out, one of the things, find out when can they tell us what they're doing to the north property so we can figure out how that affects us downstream and stuff. So we need to find out the full plan for what the lakes management's doing, and then we need to deal with swift mud on? Then I think we would have to do studies to find out exactly what we need to take in what they're bringing down and get further, if we need to, get further direction from the board. But we need to have that meeting first, and we haven't set that meeting, but I plan on doing that pretty quickly, I'm assuming. Okay, well, obviously I want to be there. Like I said, I'll be the mediator because I think you're going to need one, just the way that's going. But as long as it's moving forward, that's – I mean, that's the plan. Okay, all right. That's all I got. Stuff, and then I guess get further – I mean, if you're going to be there at that meeting, then we'll still have to bring something back to the board and make sure we're going towards direction on exactly what you all want us to do. Okay. All right, thanks. That's it. Commissioner Scott? Yeah, a couple things. One, on the hurricane debris pickup. I definitely appreciate the county's efforts on making the haulers work as hard and fast as we can. We are seeing a little bit of a reprieve on the number of communications from concerned residents, and then the county has been quick to respond to those. I know one resident had filled up his front yard with debris within the right-of-way and was out of space, and we were able to dispatch, I think, within 48 hours. So hats off to the whole team of the county for monitoring that. The second thing I had was – and we'll bring this up, I guess, later on – I did get a couple of emails regarding Bach Tower Gardens. DOT has got a road kind of in the planning works of four different routes. Two of them come pretty close to Bach Tower, so I know it's a DOT project, but as far as the county goes, I'd like for us to weigh in on that as much as possible. I don't want to see Bach Towers get negatively impacted by expansion of a roadway if we can hopefully mitigate that through another path. And then the last thing I had was with respect to the Juanita Farms, the O'Kellys, and the Lakes Management, despite my absence at the agenda briefing, I watched that. I just wanted to make it clear for me, you know, I wouldn't be – I don't want to support flooding downstream. So water coming off of a northern property coming through that ditch needs to be maintained to whatever that flow is currently. We don't want to exacerbate it or have an adverse impact that 10 years from now we're having to look at buying other property because it's flooded from someone else's land. So I just want to make sure we – there's several options we have on it to look at. My, you know, my thoughts would be at least let's make sure we stay true to what we should be doing, which is, you know, they manage their water. It comes off. We'll route it. But we're not looking to take on more water for that. Thank you. And I think just to follow up, my understanding of the direction board was go ahead and get all these studies done and then ultimately bring back the board. Those options tell us which way to move forward. Don't go ahead and get that all done. Don't just bring me pieces of it. Right. And then we'll make a final decision whether to condemn property, whether to just do the bypass option, what you ultimately want us to do. But we want to go ahead and keep that moving forward. Fully vet the option. Right. That's my understanding of our direction. And I think, to your point, yeah, I don't think we're, there's no talk of increasing water. It's just giving another avenue. I know from personal experience on that side of, I can't think of the road, every time we get a heavy rain, it floods over there. We got involved in trying to fix that at one point in time and because where we were trying to fix it, we couldn't. But there is flooding over there right now that I'm aware of. And I think what we're just looking to do is pull, you know, water in places it shouldn't be back to where it should be. But I don't know of any increase in water flow. Yeah. And we can obviously have further discussion later on. But the option three that had the condemning factored into it, that was more so a feature to be able to store more water because the increase in flow. That's why I don't like option three is that option one and two maintain the characteristics. And certainly there is, I think, a portion of the property for the lakes region that has a wetland or something that should have been constructed or maybe was on deck to be constructed. So, again, looking, I think, at all the options is important. But just from, you know, respecting our constituents, I don't want to see us take land unnecessarily that we're looking at for the betterment of someone else. So, thank you. Okay. I don't have anything. I think everybody pretty much covered everything I was even thinking about. So, let's see. Ben, you're up. Yes, sir. Before we go into the public hearings, I will go ahead and go over the general public hearing procedures. We ask that you please turn off your cell phones or other devices that may distract from the public hearings. Please adjust the microphone and state your full name and address for the record before you begin speaking on a topic. Individuals speaking during the public comment section of a matter will be strictly limited at three minutes. The board is experiencing these matters and was able to discern what is legally relevant to an issue and what is not. Information that is relevant or repetitive only serves to frustrate and necessarily prolong today's business. The commission expects civility at all times during all public hearings. Speaking out of terms, shouting out from the audience. Disruptible sounds or utterances while another is speaking are unacceptable and you will be asked to leave the chambers for the remainder of the day. If any person decides to appeal any decision made by the board with respect to any matter considered today, you will need a record of the proceedings and that for such purpose you may need to ensure a verbatim record of the proceedings that is made. Its record includes a testimony and evidence upon which the appeal is to be based, which you must gather at your own expense. Anyone in the audience who wishes to speak and present testimony today must be sworn in. All testimony given during public hearings shall be deemed to be sworn. At this time, if you're going to address the commission or speak on any case today, please stand, raise your right hand, and answer out loud to the following questions. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony or evidence that you provide to the commission today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? All right, thank you. Mr. Chair, the next items are the expedited hearings. I will go over those procedures. Expedited hearings are held pursuant to resolution number 2022-089. Expedited hearings are used when no opposition was present at the planning commission hearing. The applicant agrees to the expedited hearing, and recommendation of the development review committee is for approval. Expedited procedures are the following. After staff briefly introduces the case, the hearing will be open for public comment. If anyone speaks during public comment, the applicant will be given the opportunity to respond. After public comment, the board will consider the land use case. At any time, full presentation from staff can be requested from a commissioner, the applicant, or a member of the public. All documents attached to the agenda item are deemed part of the record of the land use case. Unless removed from the list of experts, by motion of the board, all individuals on the list of experts attached to the agenda item are deemed experts for the purpose of the land use case. At this time, I'll turn over to Mr. Ziskell for the expedited hearings. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Mink. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the commission. My name is Ben Ziskell, land development director. There are two items on the expedited portion of today's public hearing agenda. Item number 01 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2024-26 record drawings and appendix A revisions to adopt changes to numerous portions of the land development code to accomplish really two main objectives. One, to change references from as-built drawings to record drawings, and this is to provide consistency with what we do through the utility code. One, to also update the land development code to remove outdated construction materials and testing methods. This ordinance was drafted in consultation with an engineers and contractors roundtable that land development staff has been meeting with biannually to go through appendix A. So this is a first step at updating that document, and you can expect to see more revisions in the future. This item did appear before the planning commission and received unanimous recommendation for approval, and following any questions or comments today, staff recommends adoption. Any questions for Ben? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. Hold on just one second. I just wanted to clarify. Sorry, I didn't speak fast enough. Ben, you said you have a biannual meeting with the contractors that you're doing this? Yes, ma'am. We have two different groups that we meet with twice a year. One is our local engineers, and that focuses on the design components of our projects, and then we have another group that focuses on construction, and that includes our testing labs and our site contractors. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to come forward and speak on this matter, please come forward and state your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. Seeing none, I'm going to bring it back to the board for a motion. Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Opposed? Motion carries. Item number 02 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2024-18, Section 220, Warehouse Separation. This is a proposed amendment to the Land Development Code to provide additional buffering where warehousing is abutting residential and our ARR, Agricultural Residential Districts. This has really sparked from the recent development that we've seen of warehouse development, mostly along County Line Road, where existing neighborhoods, existing residential communities exist, and warehouse development is abutting that. And without proper protection, we're seeing light obtrusion and noise obtrusion into the residential districts. So this ordinance will require additional buffering, including opaque fencing and landscaping on the property line between warehousing and those residential neighborhoods. This item did appear before the planning commission and received unanimous recommendation for approval. This is the first reading of this ordinance, so no action is required today, and we'll be back before you in two weeks for adoption. So there are a couple different components to this, and if you look at the graphic here, this will show the difference depending on the size and the scale, that an opaque fence and the buffering will be required in all cases where abutting a residential development. But what we have drafted here is that a facility that has four or more loading and unloading areas will be required to have an additional spacing of 50 feet where no development can occur near that residential property. Again, the buffering is a minimum, so certainly when going through the development process, if someone wishes to add more landscaping or a taller fence, that could be provided. But we've differentiated here between facilities that have three or less loading areas, which is your typical Publix, Walmart, Target, versus those that have four or more, which are your larger warehousing and distribution facilities. Thank you. Yes, sir. Anyone else? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to come up and speak on this matter, please come up and state your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to the board, but we don't have any motion, right? Okay. Move on to a public hearing. Non-expedalty public hearings. Good morning, Board of County Commissioners. Eric Peterson for the Land Development Division. I bring before you today LDCU 2024-36. This is a request for development rights restoration. It's part of our legal non-conforming use section under Chapter 120 of the Land Development Code, Item H. This public hearing was advertised on December 7th, 2024. 16 mailers were sent to area property owners. One board was posted on the property on December 20th, 2024. And a legal ad was published in the Polk Sun on December 25th, 2024. Prior to the hearing, we had no response. There was one person who spoke out at the public hearing. The Planning Commission recommends approval 7-0. The site is located south of 60, south of Alturas, in a very remote area of the middle of the county. This was historically an enclave of various farm worker housing structures. The property is currently agricultural residential rural, which is a standard of one unit per five acres. The sites here, the neighboring residents, have three units. There's a duplex and one single-family home. And there's three dwellings on the neighboring property. This site in question once had three units on it. They wish to restore those rights with mobile homes. One mobile home was replaced in 2012 successfully. However, the single-family home was demolished in 2013. And another mobile home was demolished in 2021. And the owner was not able to afford replacement at the time they were demolished. They now have the ability financially to replace one of the mobile homes and wish to one day replace the home that was destroyed. The homes go back, actually, to prior to the zoning ordinance. They were seen on the 68 and 71 aerial photos. The original mapping of the zoning ordinance recognized these properties, them and the neighboring properties with an R3 designation in a long field of rural conservation. This is looking at the property on May 2011. And you see the three homes in place. This is today. The site is served by a well that is capable of serving three homes. Each site still maintains its septic tank. This is the roadway. There's not a lot of traffic. There's not a lot of impact on any other services. These homes have existed there for long since before the zoning ordinance and should be sufficient to exist today without any infrastructure improvements. Those are the neighboring homes to the north. Under Section 120H, there is criteria in which the board uses to evaluate whether to restore the development rights after they've expired. This property, Staff Fields, has qualified for every one of the criteria that's listed. There was photo documentation that were there. There's still infrastructure available. Both properties abutting the site have multiple dwellings. This would, it would be compatible. And it was zoned properly prior to the adoption of the comprehensive plan in 1991. With that, I'll stand for, for questions. Questions? Another question. With respect to the septic systems that serve each one of the homes, I'm assuming that would still go through the normal process when they move a new home in, they'll confirm that those are still operational, correct? Yes, sir. Then they will have to re-permit them through the health department. The physical septic tank is still there, but it probably needs some type of restoration and improvement since it hasn't been, they haven't been operated in 10 years. All right. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to come up and speak on this matter, state your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the board. Any further discussion? Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was the last of the public hearings, I think. I believe that's it. And so we adjourn the. Well, we just move into the work session. We'll move into the work session. Yes, sir. I think we talked about that. All right. We're moving. Again, for the record, Mr. Chair, Ben Zisco, Land Development Director. I'm happy to be able to have our consultant on the comp plan with us today for this work session to go over this large effort to update the county's comprehensive plan. And just to give a little bit of a background on what this item is and where we've come from and where we're going, back a little over a year ago, a year and a half ago, the county issued an RFP to select a consultant to work with us to update the comprehensive plan. And that effort is to recognize the growth that the county has faced, mostly over the last three to five years, but certainly over the last 30 years. Interesting today, we recognize Shonda Bennett for 30 years of service. Shonda started in 1995, and our comp plan was just four years old at the time. The comp plan was adopted in 1991. And as we heard Shonda's resume, she was a planner two, a planner three, a senior planner. She's continued to grow and get promoted. But we've been working off of a 34-year-old plan for this past year. And now's the time to create a new course for the next 25 years. And that's what this item is, to plan for the growth and accommodate the growth, but also to protect the environmentally sensitive areas of our county over the next 25-year horizon. So back in last January to February, the county signed a contract with Inspire Placemaking. And over the course of the last year, we have conducted stakeholder input from all corners of the county. We first met with each of the five county commissioners. Shonda and I have gone and met with, I believe we're at 13 of the 17 city managers and planning directors. And we also held seven public workshops to gather input from the residents. We held those in the Kathleen area all the way down to Frostproof from the northeast to the southwest, as well as here in Bartow. And as a member during public comment mentioned today, we received a lot of feedback. Polk Vision worked with us and gathered 2,000 survey results. And the project website that we created received another 500 pieces of input. So what we're going to do today is our project manager, Shonda Bennett, and the Inspire Placemaking project manager, Eric Roche, is going to walk you through what we heard and what the community has said is important to the growth over the next 25 years. And then we're going to be asking you for some direction on how we move into drafting this document. And that's really where we're at now is over the next three to four months, we will be drafting updated policies and then preparing to bring back this new comprehensive plan for you in the June to July time frame. So without further ado, I'll turn it over to Shonda and Eric to walk through what we heard this summer and this fall as we talk to the community. Good morning. We're going to get straight away with Mr. Roche to make the presentation. Good morning, Chair, Commissioners. Eric Roche with Inspire Placemaking Collective. It's really great to be with you here this morning to provide an update at this work session, discuss the process and progress on the comprehensive plan update. So I'll go through a quick overview of the project. I'll speak a little bit about the data analysis, which was really the first step in kicking off the project, learning a lot about the community and what the data is telling us, talk about the results of the public engagement, which Ben really spoke to a little bit there in his intro, and then finally just looking today to get some policy direction and feedback from the board as we begin to draft policies to update the plan. So just a quick overview of the project team. I'm acting as the project manager on the consultant side, and, of course, Shonda is the project manager on the county side. We have been working with Polk Vision, as Ben mentioned, through a lot of the public engagement that really assisted us in securing a lot of those venues and getting the word out for our workshops. Ben's been overseeing the process as the Land Development Division director, and then we have a number of staff members on the INSPIRE side as well. I believe it was mentioned this morning we do have a sub-consultant who's addressing transportation. That's Patel Green and Associates, and they're really doing a lot of the transportation modeling as it relates to the level of service standards through 2050. So just backing up a bit, what is the comprehensive plan? It's the long-term vision for the community. That's a state-required document. All 67 counties have them. And it really, it's not intended to be as granular, as detailed as the Land Development Code, which is really the implementation mechanism through the development process. But it's the big-picture vision for the county. It's where do we want to be in 25 years. So it helps to coordinate local decision-making. And then, of course, there are some very important maps and policies in the plan that really form the basis of your decision-making as you consider amendments to the policies and zonings and rezonings that are consistent with the plan. And I'll just, real quick, you've got some infographics up here. It is made up of a series of elements. So, you know, you've got a conservation element, a transportation element. It touches every bit of the process for development and funding development within the community. So why are we updating it? And I think Ben kind of led into this a little bit. There's been a tremendous amount of growth here in this community over the last five years. And we really wanted to take a holistic look at what's been built, the capacity, and what the plan is for the future. It's easy enough to just go through the state statutes and say, there have been all these minor changes in statute. We need to incorporate them all into the policy and check those boxes. But the county chose to do something a little bit more, which was go back out, ask the community for feedback, and take a bigger look at the plan in the county. So it empowers the jurisdiction to plan and, you know, proactively plan rather than just react to new development as it's proposed. And it really forms the basis of the decision-making process. I'll just note here it's also required by Florida statutes. We're required to update the plan every seven years. So we are in that window right now, which is really driving some of the timeline for this project. So we kicked off back in March. We worked through the data and analysis and, you know, we've done some individual commissioner briefings. We did have the opportunity to brief the two new commissioners. Welcome to the board. And we were originally scoped to do the public engagement over the summer. And, you know, we thought through that and we thought, you know, we do have a sizable seasonal population. So let's go ahead and move that to the fall where we'll get better turnout and we'll be able to engage more people. So we did a series of public workshops, as Ben mentioned. Through August through November. We also went to some community events and things of that nature. So we've pretty much wrapped up that public engagement piece of the effort. And now we're getting into the goals, objectives, and policies, which is the reason we're here today to give you this update. Our goal is to transmit this plan in July of this year. And then it has to go to the state for a 60-day review period. It would come back and we'd look for an adoption closer to the end of the year. So everyone's seen the headlines. Polk County, fastest-growing county in the country. It's a really good headline. You can see it in just any Google search. It pops into your feed. But what does that really mean? You know, I think a lot of these articles are really addressing the county as a whole. Not just the unincorporated area, but the cities as well. So they're looking at census data, and it's inclusive of all of those cities. And it's true. It's a fast-growing place. This is a graph showing the population county-wide. So this is inclusive of the cities from 1970 to 2020. This is census data. And as you can see, back in 1970, much smaller community, 228,000 people. And what's interesting is the blue line represents the unincorporated area. The yellow line is incorporated. So back in 1970, it was about 50-50. Half the people lived in cities. Half the people lived in unincorporated. But now, as you move towards 2020, the unincorporated area has grown faster. So it's about 60-40 now with folks living unincorporated versus incorporated. So the 2020 census number was 725,000. And since then, I believe the county has added about another 100,000 people. But what we're really focused on is the unincorporated area. Each of the individual cities have their own comprehensive plans. They have their own population projections. And they have to accommodate their own growth. So we're really focused on what the unincorporated area is going to be. And teasing out that number, the basis of any planning effort over a 25-year period is to start with population projections. What are we planning for? Statutes require us to use what's called the Bureau of Economic and Business Research Medium Projection. So that's the University of Florida numbers at a minimum. Plus, we have to consider seasonal population. We reviewed that with staff. And it didn't seem to quite fit the growth that we've seen over the last five years. So we worked with staff. And we're using kind of a medium high, which is a hybrid projection, a little bit higher than the medium. So we're projecting a total of 596,000 people, 597,000 people in 2025. And then, you know, almost 859,000 folks out to 2050. So that would be an additional 261,000 residents by 2050 in the unincorporated area only. Yes, ma'am. Turn my mic on. Sorry. Can you go back one slide? Okay. So the two numbers on the far right-hand side, if you add those together, we should get the total at the top, right? We should. Okay. So that would be the total number. It's off a little bit, by the way. That would be the total number of people in 2020 that were in Polk County. Correct. Everywhere, right? Inclusive of the cities. Yes, ma'am. Go to the next slide. And now we're looking at projected numbers for 2025, the top number being what the total should be. So this is unincorporated only. Unincorporated only. So it doesn't include the cities with this one because we're really just focused on the unincorporated through this effort. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So taking a step back, big picture, we really need to think about how we plan for environment, recreation, parks, utilities, housing, transportation, schools, and jobs. So I'll just talk through a little bit of the data analysis that we've prepared for this effort. First, looking at all the demographics in the community, it's a little bit lower median household income in the county and unincorporated area than the state as a whole, as you can see on this slide. Additionally, you've got a higher percentage of owner-occupied units, which indicates this is a less transient community than the state overall. And a little bit lower level of folks who have attained a bachelor's or master's degree than the state overall. But overall, the unincorporated county seems to be doing a little bit better than the county as a whole. Also, just another way to view those stats in more of a graphical form, you've got about 24% of folks who have achieved a bachelor's degree or higher. Median net worth really tracks the national average, about $186,000. Looked at the top employers in employment by industry, shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The top employment, health care and social assistance, about 23% of folks employed in that industry. Retail trade, about 13% educational services. That's really consistent with the top three employers, being Publix, the school board, and Lakeland Regional Health. I'll note just off the page here, under the employers four and five, I believe, are Amazon and Walmart, consistent with that retail trade. Average annual wages, the county's lagging a bit behind where you would see the wages for the state of Florida as a whole. We also looked at all the environmental features. You've got significant wetlands associated with both the Kissimmee River on the east side of the county, as well as the Green Swamp on the north, as you can see, and the Peace River running through the middle of the county. Significant floodplain, Green Swamp, again, and some of the phosphate land in the southwest, in the floodplain, as well as the southeast portion of the county. Looked at aquifer recharge. The highest levels of recharge are, no surprise, in the center of the county on the ridge. And then kind of reducing down from there. And we really got into the existing land use. And this is something that's really interesting. We look at all the Department of Revenue codes for every piece of property within unincorporated county. So that's going to determine what the use of the property is for tax purposes, which is how we determine existing land use. So just taking a big picture look at it, about 25% of the unincorporated counties in passive agriculture right now, and then active agriculture is about 10%. So 35% of the counties in agriculture, we have another 10%, roughly, that's considered to be vacant for tax purposes. So that's going to be some of your single-family lots that have yet to develop that don't have units on them. You've got rural residential, which is another 13%. And then conservation areas, which is about 20%. So what's interesting here is it's a big piece of this pie, you know, over 75% is either in agricultural, undeveloped, vacant, or in conservation, which is, you know, a significant portion of the county is undeveloped at this point. Just 8.3% in low-density residential and 6% in mining. We also look at the overall future land use map. So this is the law of the land as it stands today. So this is the map that is in the existing comp plan. This is what's used to determine consistency with the plan when you see rezoning applications and such. Similar story, you've got agricultural, rural residential areas in the north and south of the county, and the phosphate mining area, as you see, to the southwest. Everything in gray is going to be a city. So those are under separate jurisdictions, separate comprehensive plans. And you can see the development pattern consistent with the framework of the existing policy plan. It really promotes growth as extensions of existing cities. So you'll see the lighter yellow, you know, coming out of the cities into the unincorporated area to really support those cities. And just looking at the pie chart for that, again, no surprise, 36% is in that agricultural, rural, residential. We did include the cities on this map because they do have a future land use designation of city in the county's data set. So it's about 15%. The phosphate mining, the largest area outside of the rural area, that's going to be about 11%, and so on and so forth. So there are, you know, it's a large county, the fourth largest in the state, and you do have a lot of vacant land, undeveloped land. We looked at the housing needs just based on those population projections, backing into those numbers. We determined that you're going to need 109,000 new housing units by 2050. Those are going to be in the unincorporated area only. And that includes the seasonal population that we've projected as well as the permanent population. So the question is, do we have enough land within the existing future land use map that's undeveloped to accommodate the future growth? So we do a full analysis. We call this a carrying capacity analysis where we take all of the future land use map designations that allow residential, and we truth them to make sure that we're not just multiplying acreages by numbers. We look at the environmental features and look at what's actually developed for the property, try to net out any wetlands, and we also work with staff on some assumptions on how much a percentage of property is developed. We understand that there's smaller properties. There's properties with odd configurations. There's properties that aren't aggregated that can't really accommodate the maximum allowed under the comp plan. So we put together a series of assumptions, and we're still working with staff to finalize this analysis. But it looks like it's going to be about balance, where the existing future land use map can accommodate the growth through 2050. Maybe a little bit one direction, a little bit in the other, depending on how we tinker with those assumptions. But it looks like there is capacity to accommodate a lot of this growth that we're talking about today. Yes, sir. And you, I'm looking at it on my computer screen. I still can't read it. Just an overall view, the gray is cities already incorporated areas, right? That's correct. Yes, sir. And then the light gray, what's the difference between the yellow cream color and the light gray? So we've got the residential suburban is the yellow, and the residential low is kind of the darker yellow. And you've got the ag, rural residential is the really light stuff that you'll see in the south and the north. So the purpose of this map is to identify those, what are determined to be vacant properties by future land use. So it's kind of a hybrid of the vacant land map and the future land use map that you saw previously. Those are the ones that we use as part of the analysis to show what could be developed in the future through 2050. We have another map that I'm going to show you in just a second, which dials that in just a little bit more. We also looked at everything that's determined to be active or passive agriculture. So these are the properties that you're going to experience a ton of development pressure on moving forward. I'm sure you already see it every other Tuesday. But this is the location of all those. The active agricultural properties are in the darker blue, and the green is going to be the passive. We've also included some vacant properties that aren't technically determined to be ag. So we feel like this is where the development pressure is generally going to be moving forward, based on some of the past scenarios that we've seen. Eric, if I may, a question with respect to the capacity looking at future growth needs. When you say we'll have the capacity, is that presuming that no additional density would be allowed? It's basically looking at what the entitlements are today, correct? That is correct, yes. We'd be looking, I mean, because you've got some old developments of regional impact that still have capacity. It's a pretty technical analysis because you have to layer on a bunch of variable densities as well. But the idea would be that the existing map would be able to accommodate the population projection through 2050. Yeah, I mean, it's just important for the public to understand that when you look at what that means, you know, we as a county can't step back, meaning take away development rights of a property. If it has X number of homes per whatever area, that's, you know, we can't decrease that legally. And I think it's just an important feature to know that, you know, we can't reverse course. We have to work with what we have. And if we're going to kind of direct this, this is our time to do it through a number of different avenues. I appreciate that. Absolutely, Commissioner. And this is one final map. This isn't our data. This was from Geo Plan Center at the University of Florida in conjunction with 1,000 Friends of Florida. So this is their projection on what the county would look like in 2070 if no additional steps were taken through the planning process. So the red would be the developed land and the greens, the protected land that's likely in public ownership. And you can see that, you know, there would be a tremendous amount of, you know, sprawl outward throughout the county if you don't really address some of these issues through the comprehensive planning process. Some of the big takeaways, we're anticipating 261,000 new residents through 2050. And to accommodate those folks, we're going to need approximately 109 new housing units. We feel there is likely to be capacity for growth available on the existing land use map. We've identified significant environmental resources. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. I know some public comment was taken this morning about preservation of the environment. One of the priorities that we heard in a lot of the workshops that we were at, probably the number one thing we heard through our survey. And we're really going to have to consider public facility capacity through this effort, schools, utilities, transportation, parks, those types of things, to make sure that we can maintain the quality of life as we grow. So just jumping into that public engagement, we did eight stakeholder group interviews with either staff members or community members. We did three community pop-up events, which were really interesting. We went to the Hispanic Festival in Juanita. We went out to an event at the Lakeland Airport. We were at International Market World at a booth talking to anybody who would give us feedback on this process. Folks who typically wouldn't come to public workshops, kind of trying to meet them where they are and get their take on growth and matters related to the comp plan. We did the seven county-wide visiting workshops. And as Ben mentioned, we really spread those around the county. So we were in Frostproof one night and Lakeland the next night. We had over 5,000 visits to our website. We had over almost 600 surveys taken, 944 website contributions. And then our final workshop was really the culmination of all the prior workshops where we got to tell the public what we heard and have them prioritize strategies for getting there. And we received over 4,500 vision preferences tallied at that workshop. Really good public engagement. We have a project website. Certainly invite everyone to go. We have closed the survey because the kind of time for public engagement on that portion is done. We're finalizing a document that memorializes all of that. But the website is still live. You should be able to go there and track the progress. The results from the survey, we had, as I mentioned, pretty good feedback. But there were two real, what I would say, big takeaways. One is infrastructure. One is the environment. So you're going to see that woven through all of these responses. The first question we asked, the top concerns you have related to growth in the county. Number one was infrastructure, traffic, which kind of folds into infrastructure, and then impact on natural environment and land preservation. Also concerns with housing affordability and crime. We asked, what should we prioritize in the update? Number one, preserving and preserving the environment and wildlife. Improving and expanding roadway infrastructure was number two. Number three was water supply. Number four was protection of rural lands. Number five was affordable housing. So some themes that you can see consistent with some of that discussion. How should we prioritize development? So we gave four different scenarios. The one is no growth, which 15% of people voted for that. It's an unrealistic scenario. We included it just to see if that's what folks wanted. We have to plan for the Bieber medium growth scenario. So there will be growth. There are entitlements out there, so those are going to continue to be utilized. So that's not really a realistic scenario. About 10% of folks, 11% of folks want primarily low-density, single-family, car-dependent, housing. And then 23% really want to see a mix of multifamily, maybe some additional modes of transportation, not just relying on the automobile. A little bit higher densities, medium to high-density. Folks voted for a little bit more urban. But the largest piece of the pie here was limited. And I think this really echoes a lot of the feedback that we received through this process. It's just been a lot really fast. And folks wanted to slow down, have some sorts of limits or caps on development to allow the county to catch up from an infrastructure perspective. So that was the number one voted option. We also did this map, and we did this at every workshop and the community events, where we framed the question and said, we know this growth is coming. We have these projections. We have to accommodate it. So where do we put it if it's you? And, of course, we had a few folks who would take the dots and put them, you know, in Osceola County or, you know, some other area that's not within the jurisdiction of this board. But for the most part, I think this tells a pretty interesting story. If you look at the residential, which is in blue here, most people wanted to concentrate that growth into the cities or as an extension of the cities consistent with the existing planning efforts. There is a little bit of growth that's, you know, folks put dots a little bit further to the south along the Peace River. But for the most part, you can see those are really concentrated within the cities. And another interesting thing was we had more dots on the map for commercial than we did for residential. And I think, you know, folks, you know, perhaps living in single-use subdivisions that are looking for goods and services are looking for a few more options. And anecdotally, I ran this board at a lot of the public workshops, and that's what they told me. You know, it would be nice if I had a place to go where I can, you know, grab a carton of milk or whatever they need on their daily basis. So it seems like folks are more amenable to commercial growth than they are to having additional neighbors. So the final public engagement, we went through all of the big things that we heard, and we talked about strategies. And these were the strategies that were prioritized the highest for each of the categories. So the environment, of course, was number one, as we discussed. Folks wanted to bring back recycling. You know, people wanted the use of dark sky criteria, so minimizing light pollution for outdoor lighting. We heard a lot about that. We heard about the creation of nature preserves throughout the county. Folks really liked the Circle B. Increased protection of environmental sensitive lands, Green Swamp, Lake Wales Ridge, and surface waters. That was another priority of the residents. Maintain and improve existing infrastructure, consistent with the survey. Expand sidewalk and bike facilities. Expand transit routes to accommodate bright line and sunrail expansion. Folks wanted an alternative corridor to Interstate 4. And as somebody commuted in on Interstate 4 this morning, I certainly agree with that. Increased funding for identifying and repairing dilapidated roadways. So I think we heard a lot about maintenance of infrastructure, fixing the stuff we have before we commit to new infrastructure. Ensuring future water supply. You know, supporting the efforts of the Regional Water Cooperative. Incorporating green infrastructure into development standards. That's more of a land development code requirement. There can be some enabling language that's added to the comprehensive plan to allow for those types of practices to occur when you get into the site planning process. Incentivize Florida-friendly landscaping. And increase protections for the Green Swamp and high-recharge areas. We heard a lot about affordable housing. And as we dug into the data analysis, you know, the housing in Polk County still is affordable compared to the statewide average and compared to the surrounding regions. But I understand that it's still a real concern for folks who have lived in the community for quite some time. So folks want to require a mix of housing types for large developments. Perhaps reduce the minimum lot size and increase height maximums in certain residential land use categories. I'll tell you, this wasn't a consensus by any means when you're talking to folks who are living in the rural areas. You know, perhaps not the direction they wanted to go. But if there are areas that are already served by existing infrastructure where it does make sense, that's where they wanted to put the folks. Explore opportunities for additional housing types. So these are those accessory dwelling units and duplexes, the so-called missing middle types of products. And then encouraging multifamily housing and transit corridors. We heard about concentrating growth to the existing urban areas. So, again, increasing that density in the appropriate areas. We heard a lot about farmland conservation. There was a proposal by some of the folks we talked to to do a transfer development rights program where you would take the development rights from one area, ensure that it's preserved in perpetuity, and take those development rights to increase density in some other area of the county. Increased height maximums, we talked about that, to preserve green and open spaces. That's really the idea of building up and not out to accommodate future growth. Folks wanted consistent policies regarding wetlands and floodplains. And there was some desire to protect the Florida Wildlife Corridor. Of course, that's outlined in statute. And it's just getting traction now with a lot of local governments and conference of planning. And then, again, garnishing those accessory dwelling units and infill development. So, the key takeaways, big picture items, preserve the environment, maintain existing infrastructure and improve it, ensure future water supply, provide affordable housing, and concentrate future growth to existing urban areas. And that was consistent across, you know, all means of engagement. The surveys, the workshops, the specific events that we, you know, attended, those were the big picture things. So, today, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions, so I'm going to step through this relatively quickly, and then we can go back to the individual points here. But we're really looking to get some policy direction before we start drafting, before we start coming back with drafts, just for efficiency of the process on what you want to see in the new comprehensive plan. So, priorities for conservation. I'll just get into it. Priorities for conservation. We've got the Polk Green designation, and it's got a number of different things, and it looks to preserve. But we've noted that it really lacks specific policies on how to do it. So, just want to, you know, have some discussion on what those priorities are and what tools we should look to incorporate to perhaps preserve some of this area. Shauna and I both have some ideas on this. We'll certainly talk through some of that when we get to this slide. We had some discussion about limiting urban expansion into the rural development area. This was something that came out of a lot of those workshops. Folks would say, well, sure, you show the rural development area on this map, but you can always change that. And someone can submit an application and change that. And we explained the policy that, you know, everyone has the ability to submit a privately initiated future landings map amendment to amend those policies. Should we look to have stricter standards to expanding growth into the rural development areas? And as part of that conversation, I really want to talk about private utilities. We have met with utilities folks on some of the challenges in maintenance on private utility systems. Locations for future growth and redevelopment. Of course, we have the map where folks have told us where they think the growth should go. And we know that you likely have the capacity to accommodate the population through 2050 on your existing map. But there still may be some areas that we want to focus on for land use changes, particularly those areas that we're seeking redevelopment. Perhaps the Skyview area and other areas that we've heard have some challenges. As well as areas that we know are going to be impacted by future transportation improvements, such as the Polk Parkway. So those are all going to be part of our analysis. Really wanted to get some feedback on that today. This one's kind of a cleanup. The specific area plans that are in the plan today. We're thinking of combining the three northeastern ones, which are the North US 27, North Ridge, and Ronald Reagan Parkway SAPs. Those are all under development right now. Just a little bit easier for staff and applicants to understand if we combine those and simplify it. And then removing the I-4 and SR 559 SAPs is no longer really being needed. Again, more of a cleanup item, but wanted to get feedback. We had a really interesting conversation with health and human services folks through our interviews. And they brought up a pretty interesting point that with the growth of the county being as fast as it's been, and everyone's looking at the same market study, everyone wants single-family residential or some sort of residential product, there's very limited areas for them to come in after the fact and provide really necessary services, such as freestanding ERs or other types of things that folks need for the health of the community. So the idea of a potential health care level of service came up, potentially requiring the larger projects to think about that and incorporate some standards into their planning efforts to ensure that that opportunity is not foreclosed in the future when things build out in a certain way. So that was something we were looking to get feedback on, potentially integrating that in some of the policy discussion. And then finally, really looking to focus on the Avon Park Range compatibility. This is really kind of the same as some of the conservation stuff that we talked about earlier. There has been some work by the Central Florida Regional Planning Council in terms of compatibility in airspace and the environment. So looking for direction and whether we should seek to incorporate some of that into our planning effort. With that, we're here for any questions, and then we can get into each of the individual slides if you'd like. But thank you again for your time, and thanks for the opportunity to present the update. Thank you. Well, that's a lot of information. So I know everybody's got questions. And who's up? I'll let Ms. My question for you, we have some members in the public that are obviously here for this. Are we going to allow additional public input at this time since they've made the chance to be here? I mean, let's get down this road a little bit, you know, where I look at it. And what's your thought on that, Randy? It's up to me. Is that the board's discretion? Okay. Well, let's get some questions answered. Okay. We'll go from there. I got a question. You want my question? Sure. Go ahead. I'm going to start with you. I don't know who needs to come up. Probably some staff. And, again, Mr. Scott and I had the ability and opportunity to get kind of briefed ahead of time since we were in different roles as this plan started. I know one of the questions I asked was regarding conservation. Currently, were you able to get the numbers? And do we have accurate numbers of what's in public conservation, what's in private conservation within the county already? And to the concept of carrying capacity, obviously, there is a formula and a way to look at that in the residential terms. But have we addressed and is there a way to address industrial and commercial? Do we have carrying capacity for jobs and locations for people? And then some further detail regarding the concept of the density transfers, the development right transfers, and would you see that more as a comp plan or an LDC? So those are my main ones that I have right now. I'm sure more will come as we further discuss this topic. Thank you, Commissioner. And I appreciate the ability to speak with you in advance of this meeting. It's really helpful. You had three points there. I'll touch on the first one in terms of carrying capacity for non-residential. We're not required by statute to accommodate a specific amount of commercial growth. So that's why the carrying capacity really focuses on that residential because we have that statutory requirement. There are some general rules of thumb that you need a certain amount of square footage of retail and job creating uses and things like that to, you know, essentially dovetail back into that residential calculation. So that's going to be part of our analysis as we look at the economic element and, you know, the types of uses that we're going to need to focus on, whether we need to map more, you know, non-residential uses. It's not just the health care stuff that we're looking at, but it's going to be all of it. So that was a really good point. I can get you the number. I'm going to look it up on my computer right now in terms of what's in public versus private conservation, whether it be easement or otherwise. I believe we do have that number. And your third point, remind me again. Just exploring the concept of the density or development, right? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times you will see those, since it is a density mechanism, a lot of times that's dealt with in the comp plan because you're going to need to have those caps in the comp plan. But then the implementation of how it works, a lot of times that's, you know, moved down to the land development code. So all of the logistics of, you know, how it's implemented, that's not really part of this. But the density caps, for sure, and some of the policy direction can be integrated into the comp plan, particularly the future land use element. With that, would it be something that, in essence, foreseeable that you may have an S transfer overlay? So if we can transfer from maybe this area to somewhere, that they would have greater density transfers if it's further out or more of an urban or more pristine for some of our natural resources. So, again, I'm just not familiar how the concept fully plays out. I understand how conservation easements are bought. But how you transfer, that is just something that's foreign to me. So I would like some more information on that. Sure. And it really starts with identifying what you want to preserve, what the highest priorities are. And you designate those as sending areas. And then you designate where you really want to see growth. And you designate those as receiving areas. So the idea is it's not applicable countywide. You've got specific sending areas that you're taking the density off of. You've got specific receiving areas where you're increasing density above what's already permitted today. So it solves two things. Of course, you need to create – it ultimately creates kind of a private market for those transactions because the folks in the sending areas are going to need to be compensated by the folks in the receiving areas. Typically, the county doesn't get involved with those private transactions. So it's not as clean as just saying, okay, we've designated the sending and receiving. All of a sudden, the stuff's going to start happening. There still has to be some back and forth with the folks who own the land within those areas. Do you have anything? Shonda Bennett, for the record. When we did an update to the comp plan in 2010, that's when we brought in the TSDA, the Transit Supportive Development Area, and the Transit Corridors and Centers Overlay, we designated the TSDA ascending area, a receiving area, and the RDA, the Rural Development Area, ascending area. There is a limitation in the comp plan. And so some of this has to be implemented in the Land Development Code. The Land Development Code has a TDR program, but it's really within a mile, and it doesn't allow this receiving designation to get more than what's already allowed. So we'd have to change that to make that more readily available. I think one thing that it's important to note is the majority of our residential land use categories aren't maxing out. Correct. So you can have the program, but we don't restrict a cap. There's a set number of cap of residential units, and then we have to take that and maneuver that around the county. There are counties in the state that do that. They have a very sophisticated TDR program. That's not something we have here at this point. So it depends on how the board wants to manage a TDR program. But I think one thing you just said, so there are counties where I guess one could say this is already being implemented and possibly successful, and we can look at some of those as possible models of what works and what's not working? We can, and they do have staff to have to address that. So that would be a staffing issue, too, to manage that. Okay. Chair, that's all that I have right now. I got a whole bunch. So you're here looking for direction. I've said this numerous times, and I think if you went back 10 or 12 slides, you had the priorities and all that. I think this would resolve almost all of them, and that is develop this comprehensive plan where it forces development to radiate out of the cities. We need, people don't like to hear the word density, but I think it's appropriate for us to educate the people and implement a process where we allow much higher densities coming out of the cities, again, to, you know, they don't get in the environmental areas if they stay close to the city. They don't require more infrastructure because it's already there. All those things happen if you force growth to just radiate out of the cities. And how do you do that? I mean, I have a lot of ideas, you know, which we won't go through all those right now. But I think that as an overriding idea behind this whole thing is the way we ought to be looking at it. I mean, you said, I think it was 75% of the counties not developed, so we're still rural. And we're a rural development agency, for lack of a better way of putting it, because we are all that that's not developed. The cities are urban development. Five-foot setbacks, that's fine. That doesn't make sense in a rural area. Those sort of things, I think, are what we need to implement in the new comp plan to essentially force development to come out of the cities. The other thing, on the environmental easements and that sort of thing, Randy, tell me if I'm wrong here, but the land we've been bringing in through our, what's that thing called, classic, well, which hasn't been much, but what we're looking at, we're looking at actually purchases. Is that correct? Have we boughten, have we boughten, that's a new word that I just created. Have we acquired land just with taking the development rights? Easement, have it in context? Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure if we brought a conservation easement before us yet, but it is one of the tools that we can. But, yeah, and my two cents to that is that should be the direction we aim for, because, first of all, we'll get more bang for our buck. And as a farmer, you know, we always get into these talk, oh, well, preserve farmland. Well, that's great. Pay me, you know. If you want to preserve my farmland, I'm not making any money farming, and I'm certainly still paying property taxes. How are you going to fix that? And people who don't own my land have lots of ideas about that. But, you know, I see it in a different way. And my point is, you know, we can talk about preserving farmland. Well, that's not going to happen if we don't have some mechanism in there to make it worthwhile, because, like I said, every citrus grower in this county knows you ain't making any money growing citrus. And there's not much you can farm that makes money anymore. So those of us who want to look at something else, you know, I want to be able to look at something else. But I think the environmental easement concept is certainly the way to go to get more bang for your buck. There was one thing you pointed out on one of those slides that was still 12% or some number of future land for phosphate mining. Was that just some carryover from the old map is what that is? Because there's no more phosphate to mine, so that's not going to happen. Yes, Commissioner. That's the future land use map designation. Even though there's not really active mining in those locations, it's still got the old designation for mining. And one thing that wasn't, I didn't hear anything about it, but as we go forward, you know, we know we have a, or statewide we have a huge problem with septic tanks and proximity to water bodies. I think somehow we need to factor that in to the growth. We should never approve a development, you know, that's a bunch of septic tanks near a body of water. I mean, that's just, that's totally defeating the purpose. And I go back to radiate the cities outward, and you don't run into those problems. So that's just my starting two cents. If I may, Commissioner, mention the setbacks, we don't list setbacks in this comp plan. Those are straight. Oh, yeah, you're right. In the land development code. Thanks. I wanted to clear that up. And then. And I intertwine those all the time because it's, but I, you know, I realize what you're saying. Okay. I just wanted to make sure on that. And then I think on the, so this map is our development areas map. So the pink is the transit supportive development area. That's where we plan for water and sewer and transit. The, that cobalt blue, the dark blue color, that's the urban growth area. That's really the next step. So the idea is that sewer is more likely to be present today in the pink and maybe five to 10 years out in the blue. The orange is the suburban development area, which we only anticipate being public water, no sewer. And then the, this, we have these little utility enclave areas, now Crescent Fed Haven, which is that lighter blue, out by Point Sienna, which are more isolated systems that go back decades, long time ago. And then everything in green is the rural development area. So you can see our development areas are centered around the cities today. But what some of the pressures that we're facing are the rich cities that are growing. And you can see peppered in the middle of some of these, Haines City, Dundee, like Hamilton, where they want to grow, it's our rural area. So there are choices that we have, we make or discuss with applicants that want to submit land use changes. Do we recommend denial and let the cities annex them, which they annex them in sometimes hodgepodge patterns and not a nice circle? Or do we do land use changes here so that it makes it easier for the cities to provide their water and sewer services? But then they may or may not annex them. And what's happening is you'll find a property that's next to, say, Lake Hamilton, but can get the water and sewer from Dundee. So it's somewhat of a challenge in terms of growth, but it is near the cities. And then we have, and you see right here in the middle between Lakeland and Winter Haven, there's a suburban development area, which there's not an expansive amount of sewer, but it's growing and it's happening. Skyview is one of those communities that is now being, some areas it's getting sewer, but there are some areas where even if it's on septic, some of the parcels could be divided even further. But it's at a land use classification that doesn't really allow that. So there are some redevelopment techniques with some land use changes we can do that don't really address the carrying capacitor for the population growth. And on the, like up there on the northeast side of Haines City, the RDA, I mean, that was designated back when there was orange trees on that property and it was rural. And I think that's what we got to take a look at is that ship sailed. You know, it's not going to be rural. You know, and if it, to me, it makes more sense, again, to pack them in at those locations rather than, you know, and probably a lot of it's wet, not really developable anyway. So, again, I keep singing the same song here, but whatever we can do to drive the growth to radiate out of a city, I think, I think just solves so many problems. And you're also, at some point, will be faced with the expansion of the East Utility Service Area just south of Point Siena and with the new school or the wherever the decision is for the wastewater treatment facility out there. And remember, we can carry the population of 2025 without any land use changes, without any density increases anywhere in the county. So, I guess part of the direction is how strategic do you want to be with changes to the comp plan and policies to either guide and, I'm looking at Mr. Meek, restrict future land use changes. That's part of the tool that you have in the toolbox. I've only got three pages, so I'll keep it quick. A question, you mentioned about the cities as far as annexing in these areas, and we've seen it, obviously, historically with the county. With respect to the comp plan, is there any consideration when we look at historical trends, city annexes a part in, is our comp plan totally disregarded? I know the city has their own. But, like, if we look at kind of guiding this and we hold these, you know, high regards to how we want to have everything developed, but then the city is just going to go annex it, I guess, is there anything that we can do from a, you know, this plan perspective that would give us some more influence on that or give us, or at least the residents that are around it that are affected by it, is there any more, you know, power to be given or is it, is what it is and that's all they can do? The comprehensive plan can't have an influence on how jurisdictions annex, but there are different kinds of agreements that can be entered in with cities, inter-service boundary agreements that get to how cities annex. And I think you all are aware of how Auburndale annexes. Auburndale's been on the books for decades. This is their box, and they're not going outside of it. But the other cities, not all of them have that kind of progression or viewpoint of how they want to annex, and nor do we have, I'm getting into your lane, the policy direction with those cities of how that grows. And I think that's probably more of a positive reinforcing approach to help try to manage how the cities grow. But we'd have to establish those relationships over time. Okay. And then on the projections that were used for the city's growth, when you look at future annexation, what did you guys use for that calculation? Meaning was it from the past five years? Because obviously it seems like annexing has become more and more frequent and, you know, larger land grabs, so to speak. So when we look at that projection of, I think, the 15% or 16% growth, what was that using? So in terms of the split between what's in the city and what's in the county? I think you had a slide that showed a pie chart of, like, future anticipated growth on cities. I'm assuming that's land area or was that population only? Was it in this? No, it was a pie chart. I thought you had had it where it was city growth based on area. Maybe not. It wasn't a future growth scenario. This was where we have the city reference and the future land use. So the county's existing data set has a future land use that just is called city. So we respected that and included that as part of the analysis. And, of course, that number can only go up unless there's some sort of de-annexations or something like that. But, again, with having 17 municipalities, each with their own annexation strategy and comprehensive plans, it's hard to determine how those annexations are going to take place absent some separate agreement between the county and each individual cities, whether that's an ISBA, which was referenced earlier, or some sort of joint planning agreement where you have a joint land use map that everyone's agreed on, and it doesn't matter if you're in the city or you're in the county, you're going to do this use on that property. It's really difficult to control that. And we heard a lot about that. We were down in Frostproof because, you know, it's very rural on the county side down there. And folks really wanted to talk about projects that were occurring in the city. And I try to explain to them, you know, we really don't have control over what the city is going to do. You really need to voice those concerns specifically to your individual council if you have objections with that type of growth. So the bottom line is there are tools, and it just requires coordination between the different jurisdictions. Okay. And then as far as the analysis that was used when we talked about water supply issues, certainly there's different programs and things that are being implemented, to provide more water, but water is still a finite resource. So when we look at the growth projections in these different areas, was there consideration meaning that we can meet these, you know, growth requirements, 109,000 homes? Did we look at any kind of water distribution requirements to make that happen, or is that all to be determined? It's all in the data analysis, which is in draft form right now, and we have tables that, based on the existing level of service standards, project out what that water capacity would need to be. Keep in mind it's in 25 years, so there's progress that can be made towards that goal in the interim. But, yeah, that's absolutely part of the conversation is how we're going to provide water and wastewater to accommodate the population projection into 2050. And I can tell you there's some work that needs to be done there. Okay. And a question I had, or maybe just a statement, and we had talked about it before, and I appreciate the update you guys gave us, but the future land use map, you know, we had the conversation of essentially a future land use map that's kind of current land use based on how they currently function. And the county, Polk County specifically, doesn't have a zoning map per se. So when we look at whatever we need to do in the comp plan to implement and make a future land use map, an actual map of the future, I think that's certainly a viable tool moving forward. So I just make that as a comment. As far as question-wise, what would we need to do to have a land use change or an amendment be made more of a public process or notice? For the fact that I'll bring neighboring county, Manatee County, to the forefront. And this is a two-part statement. You know, one, I would be supportive of an urban boundary that's being set to give some limitations to where urban sprawl can occur. Because here's what happens when that doesn't happen, is that you get a text amendment that comes through, very low-key, under the radar, not really much on the public involvement. And then there's a change of, oh, we're going to add, you know, 8, 10, 12, 15,000 homes, and we're blowing past the urban boundary because now sewer is connected, the roads are connected, all these things. The criteria is met. Nothing's out of the rule set. But it's one that was certainly allowing, to me, it disregarded the property rights of people that bought 20 or 30 acres 10, 15 years ago and now can no longer have the benefit of that rural deal. So I would just say we can put that in there. And the last thing, and I know we've got more meetings. We'll talk about more stuff. But on the map that we have currently up where it shows the urban growth area, specifically on 98 up in that northwest part of the county, you know, most of those property owners I interacted with over the last 18 months extensively, and it's the urban expansion into RDA, that figure. So we're talking about, you know, that's the cobalt blue is that future area for water and sewer. You know, the residents there are not wanting, there's not a ton of farmers out there that are 1,000-plus acre deal. This is getting close to the green swamp. You know, they don't want development to come out there and have 5-foot or 10-foot setback homes platted in the area. So I think it's as a county, when we talk about, to Commissioner Brazel's point, on starting in the cities and working your way out, look at packing in the density, certainly support that, but not to have it to where we can keep daisy-chaining this stuff together and getting what I consider urban sprawl. And to me, it's really important. And my last point I'll make in this map as well, we talk about the orange areas. You know, I'm looking at the, we mentioned, I think, the Crystal Lake area or somewhere along 92. You know, there's a lot of water bodies there, and we're talking about those would be water only, not sanitary sewer, but those areas are potentially subject to a higher density development. And just to the concerns of the other commissioners, you know, I don't want to see us generating more waste, domestic wastewater in areas that we don't have plans for services. That makes no sense to me. And all those, I mean, a lot of that orange area, 92, from Lake Parker going towards Winter Haven, you have several small lakes from, you know, north and south of it. So I think we should keep that in mind as well. Thank you. Yeah, and I just got one more on infrastructure was, like, one of the priorities. That one, I don't know if I quite get. Do you guys, I mean, when they say infrastructure, are they just talking about more roads, wider roads? I mean, do you dial it in like that? Because everybody's always coming, well, we need more infrastructure. Well, I see it a little different. I mean, I'm not at all for putting in roads where there's nobody, you know. All that does is just bring in tons of people. We've got, like, a billion-dollar backlog on roads and drainage projects that we're not taking care of right now. So I would like some better understanding of what they're talking about when you say infrastructure. I think overall what that means is going to even back to what Polk Vision heard and what they found is the drive to work is taking longer than it is. It's just traffic jams, is it? Okay. I think that's part of it. I do think they feel that the level of service that's in our comprehensive plan is certainly a below-average student in school. is what the level is in the comp plan for our roadway system. And I think, in my experience with the county, a lot of citizens, and I get it, would want more of an A or B student type of roadway system. But our level of service is very low. So it allows a lot of traffic. And, of course, the flip side is that if you raise the level of service to an A or B, then you're going to, it's going to encourage growth to go even out. So it's a tradeoff that you've got to decide, which the urban areas are the pink and the blue, and that's where lots of our investment in infrastructure is going. Okay. Well, I mean, that's where it should go. Right. You know. Right. And it should stay there. And, you know, but, you know, I think you understand and you understand and most of us understand we're never going to stay up with infrastructure. We're always behind. We need to accept that as a reality. And in some cases I think it's a real bad idea to try to get ahead of it because Ernie Caldwell right now is, in my opinion, a perfect example. It was identified as, well, we need this here. And how many houses have been built on Ernie Caldwell since it's open, you know. Now, it's just going to feed more development, not that we're here to discourage development, but it's just got to go in the right place. And, again, I keep coming back to radiate out of the cities, but that's the Bill Braswell theme of the comp plan. If I may go back to Commissioner Scott's comment about the northwest, that area has a land use designation of mostly residential low, which is a permission of up to five dwelling units to the acre. So I just wanted to – there have been issues with ensuring the sewer expansion in that part of the county's utility service area. So that certainly helps to restrict some of the growth because it's not going to be able to be on sewer. But to the point that was made earlier, it's hard for us to take that away from those properties. No, I get that. And I think it's just more so the point of when you look at, you know, going to a little deeper dive, soil conditions out in that area of the county are relatively, you know, poorly drained soils. There's seasonal high water tables that are close to land surface. So there's a lot of environmental impacts that don't lend itself to developing, you know, high-density development where you're putting five homes on an acre. And I get that, you know, that that is there. But like we talked about before, if utilities aren't there, it doesn't support the growth when you look at it. So I would do that. And while I'm back at it, I just said two things because you guys brought it up. One was on, you talk about the school grade, you know, one thing, I don't know if we can address it in the comp plan, but as far as, you know, addressing school capacity, there's, you know, concurrency that goes through and it checks the box of, yeah, the school's got capacity. I don't know of a school that I spoke to with respect to the principal or AP that actually said, yeah, we're ready for, you know, 10% more students here. All of them cited, you know, either being over capacity or understaffed, which, again, we don't control that directly. I get that. But I think if there's anything we can do to kind of make that more of a process versus just checking the box, that's probably good for the schools. And then the last thing I didn't get to earlier was just when we look at this overall development plan of the county, we talk about different patches that we can develop. And certainly, again, cities centric, great, and then radiate out from that. But connectivity within the wetlands and wildlife corridors, I think, is important. So if you look at, you know, we're going to, this 500 acres is going to be developed and the next parcel is not, and then there's another one that's going to be developed. What does that do holistically when we look at the impact? And we look at that right now, we're not allowed to go and interrupt, you know, the Peace River or, you know, build in the middle of a lake. I get that. But I think expand that thought process to, you know, what are the tributaries to the Peace River? What are the tributaries to this wetland area? And so that way we're not cutting something off. And in a local sense, a very narrow focus, it looked okay. But when we take a step back, it's very, it makes an adverse impact, I think, to that ecosystem. And so that's an important part of this growth plan as well. One more question. What can we do in this comp plan to resolve problems like Lake Seward or Lake Bonnie or whatever that is to restrict development in these areas that are prone to flooding? And prone once in a lifetime is still prone enough. You know what I'm saying? What tools do we have there outside of banning development? I think the tools or rules that have been implemented for stormwater management have been changed over the years, and we've gotten better at it. Certainly the unfortunate outcome of Hurricane Milton on our county highlighted issues that aren't based unnecessarily on our current practices. So if the area around Lake Seward was vacant and is now starting to be developed or all of the area in the further northwest part of Lakeland was vacant and now being developed, it'd be a different scenario in 20 years under our current standards. And you've directed staff to implement some of those higher standards. So I think that's the direction to take in that sense with better analysis and the better stormwater management rules to be implemented. I look at the coastal cities, and they're basically saying you've got to be 12 feet above X or 15 feet above. I'm just throwing that out there. There's got to be something we can do where we know areas are either prone to flooding or may be prone to flooding to set a development standard out there. It's like you've got to do this or you can't build. One of the things that we have discussed is that the direction that you've given staff on revising our stormwater management policies in the Land Development Code aren't needed to be addressed in the comp plan because it's more restrictive. However, it doesn't mean that the stress basins shouldn't be referenced and mentioned in the infrastructure element, and we do have a level of service for stormwater management. And that's something that we as staff have discussed that what should we do with that section of the comp plan to further enhance it, especially in regards to the stress basins. And I think what you're saying supports looking into that. Well, I mean, I guess that's really my question is outside of stormwater management, is there another criteria that could be applied here that other counties or cities use? I don't know, I mean, I don't know what I don't know, but it seems like, you know, just using the term stormwater management seems like a misnomer in this case. It's just flooding, you know. But anyway. And I think that's getting to floodplains and wetland impacts, and we have a floodplain manager, but the county's comprehensive plan defers wetland impacts to the jurisdictions that have the authority to designate those systems. There are jurisdictions that have staff that integrate into the land development requests that they get to help negotiate how the site is designed and how that's impacted. We don't have that because our comprehensive plan, again, defers the wetland impacts to the jurisdictions with authority to designate the wetlands. Can we change that? I'm sorry? Are we able to change, are we able to adopt that in our comp plan where we would have staff to be able to opine on those areas when we look at? That wouldn't have to be a comprehensive plan policy necessarily for staffing. However, there could be, and it would probably be more of a step in the land development code to have more requirements of analysis up front when we get applications for conference plan amendments, plan developments, site plan, which is level two reviews. For example, for example, with a plan development that we do have conditions of approval that require that biological site overview before they clear and grub. That's not there for other kinds of property. Again, that's deferred to the Water Management District or DEP if there's a scrub habitat and if they're going to impact a gopher tortoise or if they're going to impact another kind of endangered species. So we don't get involved into that analysis up front. And I think that's certainly some of the comments that you hear from the public. And then the other, and that's kind of getting into this kind of policy direction here under conservation. We've heard, we've heard obviously about the wildlife corridor. There's some other data sets that we're hearing from the public about other data sets. And we can certainly get them on our maps and make them part of our discussion. But implementing them, our comp plan is just an encouraging or a supportive guiding document for the environment. It's not, has a policy that you have to preserve it because that's kind of teetering on a taking or, but could there be more? Could there be more discussion, more managing in terms of up front and having that discussion? I, my personal experience with the county, I think that's possible. Well, after, you know, I went down that road a little bit after Milton with Ben, talking about some of these areas, Seward, Bonnie, which were, you know, those were brought to our attention very quickly. There's a lot of ground out here in Polk County that, you know, is in the same situation, but there wasn't a bunch of houses sitting on it that, you know, we had problems with. And, and they haven't been, I mean, I've seen pastures after Milton that got wet, beautiful pastures, big oak trees that I've never seen wet there before in my life. But I've never seen 18 inches of rain in a certain spot either. So, okay, we need to remember this. But this certain spot was not on the front page of the ledger because, I mean, and it's a beautiful spot. So guess what? People are going to be wanting to develop on that. I've had people call me in an own land and, you know, just want to let me tell me that before the hurricane come, the 50 acres he had across the street that he owns, every day somebody was wanting to buy it and build on it. And now it's got two foot of water on top of it. And so I know that was a big deal to me. I know I talked with Ben done about this, and we're looking at a lot of things to take care of that. But being said that, getting off track, you know, I've listened to a lot of questions here, you know, on this subject, which is pretty near and dear to my heart. And I've got a lot of them were asked that I was going to ask. But, you know, there's a lot of good ideas here. You know, I'm kind of leaning toward, you know, let's build them around the cities. Because I already see annexation from cities that I would never thought would be touching this ground because the city where my mind was so far away, it was unbelievable. And the cities have annexed it in, which is agricultural land. Now, being said that, you know, citrus industry was a very big deal here. Everybody knows this, citrus industry, no matter how hard we work, they work, whoever, it's pretty much dead. You know, a lot of people are on a lot of ground in this county, in the rural sections, that this was their livelihood. And things are changing. It's no different than up in Haines City area. You know, everybody wants to know why the growth is so much up there. I can tell them it's because of greening. Kill the groves. People need to do something. It's property rights also, you know, within these. But it was in the area, which I mentioned, Haines City, in that area. Everybody knows how it's grown up there. It was beautiful groves everywhere. Small owners had it to large corporations. They sold it because this $10,000, $12,000, $15,000 an acre ground that had a grove on it, now it's $150,000, $200,000 an acre. Things change in people's eyes. Still got to make a living. But it's our job to, I've said it since I've been here, it's our job to not stop it but control it to the best of our way to do that. And I think working out from the cities, you know, we were talking about working with the cities. That ain't going to happen. Everybody knows that. Very doubtful, you know, but most of the cities, they got their own ideas. Because every time I talk to them, you know, I say, oh, well, that's not what we're thinking. Because they want rooftops and as many as they can get. But, and I can't blame them for that. Cannot blame them for that. Because they need to grow and need money also. But I think we're gaining, you know, I'm just very proud that we're getting this role in. We do have to make some change. I like listening more than I do talking here today because there's a lot going on. We need to do a lot more talking because we don't do this every six months. You know, we got to make this, we got to get this right. And I don't have a crystal ball, but I know this dang place is blowing up. It's going to take something big to change it. So, we got to figure on it being blowed up, just like you're saying, in the future here. And we got to be able to address this the best way we can. So, I know we got some people here in the audience. Anybody else got any questions? Well, I just want, are we going to meet like one-on-one with you guys? Was that in the plan? You want to. We can make it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm just seeing if it's planned already or if I'm just making a plan right now. It wasn't in the plan to meet with you individually because, honestly, we need three people to help guide us because we don't want to go off on a direction of writing something, and then the board's not going to support it. I'll put it to you this way. You know, I just want to talk to you. And we can do that. Absolutely. Let me ask this question. I mean, you've heard what we've said up here. I mean, you're needing some direction so you don't get down this road here and we'll say, no, we want you to go down this road. Is that what I'm hearing from? Yes, sir. Okay. Do you have that or are you confused now? I'm not confused. I, honestly, I think it's very hard for you all to sit up there and come up with, I want a policy that says ABC. It's hard. I get that. I get that. And you're trying to certainly be responsive to all constituents, everybody that you hear. And we have three big constituents that we talk to, development community, the environmental community. Those two don't want to meet necessarily in the middle. And that's where I think a hard decision comes forward. How specific and shifting do you want to be in the conference plan policies? And there's a range of that. We're also talking to the agricultural stakeholders, and we've been talking to them for centuries, I mean decades. Even back before I started with the county, Mark Bennett, another planner, was here then when the comp plan, before the comp plan was adopted. And then I've, we've been here, Eric and I've, not this Eric, the other Eric, have heard, got the privilege to talk to lots of other planners that were here during that time. And the difficulty with the agricultural community, because Commissioner Wilson, like you said, ag is an income for them. And if they can't make income off the ag, they've got to make income off something else. And we've got a process, we've got procedures for that, we've got options for them to get development approvals. And we're talking to them about, well, how can we enhance that? So that's there as well. So perhaps when we meet with you one-on-one, we'll get to formula a little bit more specifics on what that is. I think if you let the audience talk, you're going to hear some folks say that, you know, they want policies that says you have to, you know, density increases in certain parts of the county under any circumstances. They'd want that kind of a policy in the comp plan. That's pretty specific and it's pretty bold. So that's, those are kind of the items that you'd have to decide on. All right. Chair, can I have a few more? For policy, I think, I can't speak for my friends here. Conservation is loud and clear. I mean, we've heard that. This is nothing new. So for me, I would like to see some policy really addressing the density transfer and looking at that as creative, innovative, and forward thinking and work that in conjunction with the funding mechanism that Polk is fortunate to have in place with our environmental lands and with the environmental lands piece in the planning department. I don't know if there's a way that we can do some type of an overlay that these are areas that we know where we want to target. And if an application comes in on that, that we ensure we're going to have a policy in place that our environmental lands is talking with our planning department. So if there are some areas that we've identified as pristine, that we ensure that that conversation has happened prior to it being developed. Because the landowner doesn't necessarily have to have any of those conversations, but we can at least say, we've done our part. We've developed a policy that says we're going to value this piece of land. We're going to encourage it to be considered. Not that we can make it happen, but we can say we've done that route. We can answer to our constituents to say we have a policy that somewhat guides that relationship more than it is now. Does that make sense? It does make sense. I don't know if it's legal. I see Randy kind of getting a little nervous over here. I think the issue is the potential conflict with our environmental lands division and the classic and the fact that they buy land and then to get in conversations with us that could lead to a restriction. I think that's somewhat of an issue. I'm not saying lead to a restriction, but to ensure that we're allowing that avenue to be explored and we're doing it with the mindset of it's not free. That, you know, we're not going to encourage and say, no, you can't do this. Here's an X, but that it's, it's encouraged that it all avenues of conservation are considered. Well, what happens there is, you know, an environmental end of it, but the classic board, we go off appraisals and help me here, Randy. I don't want to get out of step here. You know, we go off appraisals and fair market value, and there's a lot of people out there that's going to pay a heck of a lot more than that. And I think... And you, I know a lot of people in this county, I'm one of them, that's, you know, turn land into conservation land on our own. And, you know, I think, you know, you try to go to trying to blend that with what we're trying to do is going to be a tough one. Well, and I mean, honestly, I've had this discussion at the state level that, you know, sadly, when we're trying to do this conservation, we've all seen it play out. Piece of land comes forward. They're getting it entitled for nothing more than to increase their market value. That's business. I understand that. So again, can we be forward thinking and realize that some of the land, even though not necessarily entitled, has the high potential to be entitled as part of that conversation as well? And I think the other piece that we have to, again, dealing with reality is we have to continue to have the discussion. As much as we don't like it, concurrency is not defined as the public wants it to be. Just because we have to have water and sewer. Roads, schools, all of that cannot stop a development. And that is direction from the state. We cannot make those rules and policies, no matter how much people want us to do them, that is not doable. And I think the realization of having that conversation and keeping that in the forefront is an important piece of how do we develop a plan that is realistic when it comes to implementation into the land development code. And school concurrency and roads are not part of that equation, sadly. All right. All right. Can you go back to that slide that showed if we did, obviously we did nothing, with the one that showed it mostly right in the county, where we just kind of went on the current growth pattern and didn't plan. So I think I'll speak for, I'm going to say, most of the constituents in the county. You know, we don't want Polk County to look like this in 2070. But I'll phrase it as this, I think, as kind of a guiding principle for this comp plan. If we were to reach this point, whether that's 2070, 2050, 2045, even 2040, 2030 for that matter, right? So we've exhausted and we've built out everything. We've got infrastructure everywhere, roads and sewers and schools or everything's there, right? But we've now used up all of the developable land in the county. Then what? So we're talking about now that cities want to annex so they can get rooftops so they can generate revenue and be financially successful and that the county, you know, has the revenue, obviously from property taxes, but the land is a finite resource. So if we utilize all of it, the question is then what? So I would ask that question now in 2025. Let's pretend that what we have right now in front of us is almost to the point of we have no more to chew up, if you will, for a profitable income, say profitable, for income revenue source. How do we, as a county, direct and move forward so we are successful? No different than a business that was successful selling, you know, Motorola flip phones in the late 90s. They had to come up with a different business plan to be successful 10 years later. It wasn't doing the same thing. And I'm not suggesting that this comp plan is going to do the same thing, but I would say as a guiding principle, this figure and image is not what we want, ever. Polk County is a rural community, for the most part. We don't want to become a Los Angeles, a New York City to where the whole entire county that's bigger than the state of Rhode Island has one giant metropolis. That's what we're looking for. And I get it there's property rights. I get it that there's entitlements. I understand there are limitations of what we can do as a county, just like there's limitations to what the landowners and property owners can do with their property. But this is not what we're going for. So I would certainly say if we can take that view as we look at the policies that we generate and create is that we want to have it to where we are protecting the county from being extinct. And if it gets to the point where it's built out, we're exactly that. We're now extinct. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. We're going to, if anybody wants to talk, come up and talk, you know, we're getting close to lunchtime. There's quite a few people. I don't know how much you got, but we're going to, same thing as we do on one of our, on our public meetings. Give me your name and address, and we're going to give you three minutes. You can touch on it, and then we're going to go from there. Hello. How do I, how do I turn this on? You're on. Name and address. Kelly Quinn and 22 Lakeview Drive South, Hancey, Florida, 33844. Thank you guys all for being here today to hear out the comprehensive plan. This is kind of more of me just throwing out some thoughts and ideas based off of questions and very good questions all of you were asking. When we're talking about planning and the concept of planning, we need, what are, have we any kind of policy, any kind of power as a county to dictate a requirement of a certain amount of agricultural serving lands for all of this growth within the city? Because that makes sense to be, remain agriculturally local because that will keep prices down and also serve agricultural communities who want to remain rural, but also serving this influx of growth that we want to have in our cities, which is like in the condensed and dense areas. So I don't, this is not me telling y'all to do something. This is me just throwing this idea out here to think about that. How could that be applied and that be a good template for running forward into past 2070 to have a maintained and a well-established community countywide? Because we preserved agricultural and natural lands for water mitigation on the natural side and then rural agricultural lands for supporting the actual food, groceries, markets, local markets, things like that. That's something that I think could improve greatly, especially in more of the rural areas is having markets that are just local from local owners, local people, and that can be improved or encouraged, I should say, by bringing in certain kinds of grants that maybe somebody in a farming setting can apply for at the county level. That could come from taxes from all of the exorbitant amount of development happening, because we know that they're having to do offset taxes on top of all of that. That could help support rural areas also. And then besides that, also, I was thinking about the land use change from rural residential, how they'll get changed and turn into a different land use. I feel like that area, that could actually be controlled using that same kind of direction. It's both a business, it's thinking about local, small business, local people, rural communities, but still supporting growth inside by keeping those hard rural boundaries. So, that's just my thoughts. Take it and leave it, or, you know. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Come on up. Ron Newingham, 2618 Cedarwood, Lake Wills, Florida. And, as Mr. Scott pointed out, this map of 2027 is very heartening. What happens if it goes to that map in 2050? What happens to agriculture, livestock, and Polk County? Don't we need that anymore? My whole concern about that coming from Nebraska, an agricultural state, that all the agricultural we can get from every state is important to this country. So, deteriorating lands, wetlands, and agricultural livestock, all that sort of thing, is, I think, a big detriment to Polk County. And, I know orange groves are going down because they can't make money anymore, but something has to come in in its place to bring it back up for agricultural purposes. Just keep that in mind, Commissioner. When you make decisions of this, what will it be? And, I think that maybe that map might even work its way down to 2050, if we're the fastest growing county in the country. Thank you for your time. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Blair Quinn, 5592 Timberlane Road, Lake Wales. I just want to say I think that we should pay attention to the connective pieces of land, like cattle land or old ranch land. And I get how the citrus industry or grove land is a tough, it's a tough how to, what direction. But, if there's cattle land and it's still beautiful open land and there are connective pieces of land that will connect, like the Asana Ranch to the Hatchna Hall unit to, instead of developing an old cattle ranch in between, that is a really important piece of land to conserve and be a part of the whole path. And, I think there's a lot of different places in the county where that's going to come up a lot more as we move forward because the citrus industry is, I get it. I mean, but some of these lands, pieces are really important to keep the connectivity for the flow of water, for the path of the panther, for other animals. The ridge is really a special place, so just those weird pieces of land that maybe we wouldn't buy in conservation normally, like from an agriculture, is really important now. It's been there for forever. That's what the land and the animals use, and I think just paying attention to that is important. Thank you. Tom. Tom Palmer, 1805, 46th Street, Northwest Winter Haven. I'm the chair of Ancient House here. Yeah, I like the idea of taking a deeper dive when they're doing the development review. That's something that probably is overdue. But as far as conservation, I mean, all the programs, I'm on the Classic Committee, these are willing sellers, so you've got to keep that in mind. There's no mechanism for taking anyone's land, and I don't think you'd support that anyway. You've got to have a willing seller. But, yeah, it's just – and I think I'd like to kind of hold off any of the comments so I see something in black and white, what you're actually proposing. Thank you. Thank you. Sam. Mr. Bass. Adam Bass, 1007 Holly Court, Payne City, Florida. So, hey, Sean. I just wanted to say I think what – this is a vision document. This last one's guided us since 1991, so it's an important document that we put real effort and thought into. And I think we need to take a balanced approach, but not just a balanced approach. I think we need to be bold. We need to plan the county we want for 2070, and that's a blend of growth, jobs. I mean, I want to go out to eat at a nice restaurant at night, and I want to have things to do. But I also want to be able to go out and live a rural lifestyle and enjoy the Everglades headwaters, enjoy the Lake Wales Ridge. So I just want to challenge the commission, which I know you all are already on it, but be bold and plan the county that we want for our grandkids and our grandkids' grandkids. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. We're done. What do we do now? Stay tuned. Stay tuned. More to follow. Appreciate everybody that did give us some comments, but stay tuned, and we're working on it. Thank you. Have a great day. And we're done. Thank you.