Board of County Commissioners on 2025-05-06 9:00 AM

Good morning, everyone. Let's get started. Would everybody please stand for the implication and then remain standing for the pledge? Good morning. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father, it's easy for us to worry about our circumstances. Each day, help us to remember that you are always in control. Today, we are trusting in your provision, protection, and plans for us. Because we know you care about every need and desire that we have, we know we can rest in you. Give us peace as we give you control of our lives. And I ask this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Y'all have a seat. Mr. Chair, I believe the first item of business is a proclamation proclaiming May 2025 National Water Safety Month. Before we begin, I'll read the proclamation and ask for a motion from the board to approve it. Whereas the month of May of 2025 is National Water Safety Month, and the goal is to educate the public, policy makers, and public health professionals about safer water practices. Whereas drowning incidents occur due to a number of reasons, including lack of swimming skills, lack of first aid skills, lack of barriers to prevent unsupervised water access, lack of close supervision, failure to maintain pool equipment leading to entrapment, failure to wear life jackets, failure to drink alcohol responsibility, and failure to recognize potential hazards such as rain-filled buckets, toilets, bathtubs, water coolers, retention ponds, canals, and neighboring pools. And whereas drowning is the second leading cause of death in children under 5 in Polk County, fatal and non-fatal drownings are silent events occurring in it. And as little as two inches of water, the loss of a child is heartbreaking and rippling, long-lasting effects on the lives touched by it. And whereas water safety education plays a vital role in the prevention of drowning and recreational water-related injuries. And whereas it is of vital importance to communicate water safety rules and programs to families and individuals of all ages, including owners of private pools, users of public swimming facilities, or visitors of water parks. And whereas local and national agencies such as Coalition of Injury Prevention of Polk County, Safe Kids Suncoast Coalition, and their partnering agencies educate Polk County residents on pool and open water safety. And whereas Polk County recognizes the important role that swimming and aquatic-related activities play in supporting good physical and mental health and enhancing the quality of life for all residents and recognizing the ongoing efforts of the public and private sector to support water safety initiatives. Therefore, May 2025 is hereby could proclaim National Water Safety Month. Thank you, Randy. We have Dorothy Smith here to receive this National Water Safety Month proclamation. Is it you, Amanda? Yes. Oh, and now we have Amanda Wilson. That's even better. Okay. There you go. Thank you. We definitely appreciate this. As you heard, the number two leading cause of death for children under the age of five and drowning deaths are 100% preventable. So thank you so much. We appreciate this. If we would, to make it official, do we have a motion? Motion. Second. All those in favor, by stating aye. Aye. Opposed? Same. Like sign. Motion back. All right. At this time, we have a request from our general public, and I have some right here, quite a few. So when I call your name out, please come forward and state your name and address. Uh, a Daniel Bents, is it? Please, okay. Come forward and come on down and state your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. My name is Daniel Bents. I live at 1630 Beth Lane, and I have a, my sons live next door at 1710, and I'm here about property that's south of me being rezoned and built on. Um, and I would like to know, too, what happened to the, uh, sand mine that's supposed to go in right there on the end of the property. Are you here for a land development, the land development case that we're fixing? We'll hear later on. Is that what you're, you all are here for? Yeah. And I should, I should have said this. I mean, if you're here for a development, I mean, what we're going to be coming up here in a little bit on a public hearing, that would probably be the time to speak on that. Sorry. I should have said that. And that's, I'm assuming most of it is here for Alderman Road case, the Alderman Road case. So. I mean, he's here. How do we want to do that and put them off? Just ask him to one of his hands. All right. Uh, how do you pronounce that? Uh, Andrea Tuberville, are you here for a land use change or for something else? Okay. A lot of, okay. I have a James Abercumby. Yep. I know who that is for a park. Come on down, James. James Abercumby, 2737, Gibsonia, Galloway Road, Lakeland, Florida. Uh, folks, I was at the last meeting. The paperwork I just handed to the young ladies is, um, due to the parks. The only public records I could find that have been afforded to me. It's been well over three weeks that I requested it. I did it at the last meeting. I requested it as well. I also went upstairs and requested it up there. That is all the information I've got. That starts in 2006 when the park was bought, when the property was bought for the park. It's supposed to be a park. And it stops at 2009. There's nothing more. Um, there's no research, nothing done for that park in 18 years. Now, all of a sudden, it's back in front of the board. There was a meeting. It was a public meeting, but still a closed door meeting, March the 8th, March the 11th, when this park was brought up to you. The first time in 18 years, the park's been brought up in public. And once again, it was an agenda review committee meeting, not a public meeting. Um, so the public was not involved in any kind of conversations about that park. We got this whole thing backwards, folks. This is supposed to be the public meeting. This is supposed to be where you, you should be able to talk. You should be able to discuss the problems that we're having with this park. But I'm being ignored by everybody. It's been three weeks, and nobody's contacted me in any form or fashion. I can't get the public records that I need. Mr. Parks and Recreation was at the development review committee meeting, and he didn't have his paperwork for you to make your decision on. So on the 17th, you made your decision based upon their recommendation, period. You did no research, and nobody brought anything to you to even look at. During that meeting, also, it was stated that the board of county commissioners at that time had voted on this park. I can't find anything to do with that. No public records about it whatsoever. The problem being public records is everything's supposed to be upstairs. I should be able to go up there and get the public records. Folks, I got to go to every department to get the public records that they have for this park. How does that work? I don't understand it. Especially after 20 years of the records. It's got a file. It's got a file. Why isn't everything in that file upstairs? And not in everybody else's files. That's why I have to go up there. Because they have to go out and check everybody and find out exactly where their files are, what they are. It doesn't work for me. I have to go to them. I went to Parks and Recreation as well. And they denied me as well. All right. Thank you, sir. Ms. Richards. Good morning to everyone. Cassandra Richards, 2357 Freeland Road, Lake Wales. I'm a little disappointed because I heard this morning that my project is pushed by to possibly in the fall. So that means I have to put up with fast traffic in a residential neighborhood for a lot longer than I expected. But hopefully we will get in there and get that taken care of. I see them every day. They fly through there. They fly through there. You can yell at them, holler at them. I've even stood in the road and tried to block them and talk to them. It really doesn't do any good. They're going to do what they want to do anyway until there's something there to bend the trough. So another thing is Highway 27 is, I know that's State Road, but it's in the county. We have all this infrastructure going up, these houses. But on the other hand, we don't have nowhere to really eat. Everything they're putting up to eat is children's stuff, fast food, chicken and chicken and chicken, and it's everything chicken and chicken. But, I mean, 27, all that open vast land, it would be good to get a Fred's Market. You know, older people want to just go get their food and sit down and eat. We don't want to eat chicken, chicken, chicken all day long. We've been flying ever since we was born. Now it's time to kind of sit down and relax a little bit. So please see if you can make that work. Mr. Braswell, I know you can take care of that. You know, get a Fred's Market. It's a whole lot of brain bite, Ryan's or Shoney's or Quincy's or somewhere where people can actually just go get a decent meal and sit down and eat. I appreciate if you can make that happen, Mr. Wilson. Will do. Thank you, ma'am. You have a great day. Does anyone else have anything they want to talk about other than our upcoming public meeting or on some of our other stuff? All right. Then we'll move on. Consent agenda. Need a motion. Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Ms. Butterfield. Good morning. Today we have for you to approve and ratify payroll checks number 03821 through 0380 in the amount of $71,396.12. We have $5,689 direct deposits in the amount of $8,699,581.06. Those are dated April 18th through May 2nd, 2025. We have wire and electronic fund transfers of $42,357,346.13 dated April 15th through May 5th, 2025. And invoice checks number 481-471 through 482-758 totaling $28,898,878.46 dated April 15th through May 5th, 2025. For you to approve and ratify, please. Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. And we request the approval of your minutes of your regular board meeting that was held on April 15th of 2025. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Anything else, ma'am? Thank you. Yes, just a brief announcement. My office, the clerk's office, will be launching a new criminal record system to maintain the criminal court's records in the coming weeks. And what that means for all of the users is we will have a new portal to access those criminal records. So currently there is a portal that exists, but it will be changing in anyone that wants to access that other than just as a public user. If you want to register, you have to re-register to use that portal. New sign-ons, new agreements. That's a requirement of the Supreme Court. So I'm just going ahead and spreading the word. And when it launches, you will then have two separate systems, one to go into for criminal records and one for civil, until which time I get the new civil system live sometime next year. So that's just a heads up for anyone that already has a registration. You do have to re-register. It's a quick process. You can go to my website and obtain the information and get the agreements to us. So look forward to that. It's going to provide a lot of internal efficiencies and effectiveness. And the access to the records, of course, will be very similar to the prior access with the same information. It's just a new look and feel. So learning to navigate that might take a little bit of practice, let's put it that way. So I just want to make you aware of that. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Randy, you got anything? Okay. Mr. Beasley. Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, members of the viewing audience. The manager's office will have four items for board consideration this morning. Item number H1 is to request the board to approve an agreement with Carollo Engineers Incorporated to provide part one professional engineering services for site-wide improvements at the Northwest Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility. This agreement will reflect a one-time expense for identified professional design and engineering services not to exceed $3,249,568. Polk County has completed the public solicitation process seeking proposals from engineering firms interested in providing design, engineering, permitting, bidding, and construction administration services for site improvements at both the Northwest and the Southwest Regional Wastewater Treatment Facilities. Both projects include improvements to the filtration equipment, the dewatering equipment, the clarifier tanks, and the site electrical systems. These systems are reaching the end of their useful life and are in need of replacement. Request for proposal number 25, 24, 552 was issued and five proposals were received. In October of this past year, the board approved the selection committee's recommendation to enter into contract negotiations with the Black and Veatch Corporation for those Southwest Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrades and Carollo Engineers for those Northwest Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrades. Carollo Engineers has proposed to complete the Northwest Plant Professional Service. In phases, Part 1 services will include preliminary and final design, permitting, and construction management at risk coordination services. Part 2 will include construction administration services. Utility staff has completed proposed Part 1 negotiations and the project is now ready to move forward. It is anticipated that Part 1 services will be completed within 19 months and the agreement will remain in place until Part 2 services have been completed. An amendment to the agreement for Part 2 services will be brought back to the board for approval once Part 1 services are completed. Funding for these planned professional engineering and design services is available in the utility's five-year community investment program budget. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think consistent with the board's commitment to utility infrastructure upgrades to support operational reliability, performance, and regulatory compliance, I would request the board to approve the agreement with Carollo Engineers to provide Part 1 engineering and design services in connection with planned improvements at the Northwest Regional Wastewater Treatment Facility at a total expense not to exceed $3,249,568. Move for approval. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? I just want to say, having visited the facility, it's a testament to the care that the county really has for the assets, the cleanliness and the upkeep, I mean, it literally looks like a park out there, so really have to, yeah, hats off to the staff because they did great. So, us investing in it, my point being is it's very well invested because they truly do care about the facility, so thank you for being good stewards of the county's money. First impressions are meaningful. You're right. Anyone else? All right. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H2 is to request the board to approve a utility infrastructure agreement with the Clayton Properties Group in connection with the Touchstone Development Wastewater Force Main Expansion Project. This agreement will reflect a one-time Polk County utility expense for the Force Main extension and related system improvements in an amount not to exceed $3,064,574. The Polk County utility's Southwest Service Area Master Plan identified the area of Cruise Lake Drive for needed improvements to the wastewater collection system. The existing system is near the maximum design capacity and upgrades are required to provide wastewater services to several undeveloped and infill properties. The system currently serves about 1,000 customers. The proposed upgrades will provide service for an additional 2,000-plus customers, 562 of which are in the Touchstone development. This needed capacity expansion has been anticipated and planned for over the past several years. The developer was requested to extend sewer lines more than two miles with approximately three-quarters of the route being under the existing roadway pavement along County Road 540A, greatly increasing the cost of construction. To facilitate construction of force mains that are projected to serve the ultimate build-out of this portion of the County's service area, an agreement to split the cost based on the percentage of total connections expected to be served in this portion of the service area was mutually agreed upon. The proposed final agreement bases the cost share allocation on the number of units served by the developer and the County's current and anticipated future customer base. While the cost of the utility work to be completed by Clayton Properties is not to exceed $3,902,426, the Polk County utility reimbursement share will not exceed $3,064,574. Funding to accommodate this force main extension and related system improvements is included and available in the utilities capital expansion fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think consistent with the board's commitment to provide reliable and environmentally responsible wastewater utility services across all Polk County utility service areas, I would request the board approve the utility infrastructure agreement with the Clayton Properties Group in connection with the Touchstone Development Force main extension and related system improvements with a Polk County utility reimbursement not to exceed $3,064,574. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H3 is to request the board to approve a state-funded supplemental agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation to accept $2,500,000 of construction funding in connection with the North Ridge Trail project. Board action today will include the requisite resolutions, a community investment program amendment, and budget resolution to account for these unanticipated state revenues. Polk County's proposed North Ridge Trail project is a new 4.1-mile two-lane roadway to be constructed on the west side of US-27 connecting Dean Steel Road to Sand Mine Road. In May of 2022, the board approved a state-funded grant agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation to accept $9.5 million in construction funding in connection with the North Ridge Trail project. In November of 2022, the board approved another agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation to accept $5 million in construction funding for the North Ridge Trail project. The Florida Department of Transportation is again proposing additional North Ridge Trail construction funding not to exceed $2,500,000. Upon board approval of this proposed supplemental agreement, state funding assigned to the North Ridge Trail project will total $17 million. Upon approval of the Florida Department of Transportation supplemental agreement, the required community investment program amendment, and the requisite budget resolution funding in the amount of $2,500,000 will be established in the special revenue grant fund that will be linked to the existing roads and drainage North Ridge Trail community investment program project. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think, given the board's commitment to transportation infrastructure and the growing importance of the North Ridge Trail project, I would request the board approve a state-funded supplemental agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation to accept $2,500,000 in construction funding specifically for the North Ridge Trail project to include associated resolutions, a community investment program amendment, and a budget resolution in accounting for these unanticipated state revenues. Second. Got a motion and second. Any further discussion? All right. You're all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Final item from the manager's office this morning, Mr. Chair, members of the board, item number H-4 is to request the board approve a land purchase agreement between Polk County and Ruby K. Branson, trustee of the Ruby K. Branson Trust, in connection with a proposed new Polk County EMS fire rescue station. The board action today will approve the property purchase and closing costs not to exceed $1,420,000, and the requisite budget transfer and community investment program amendment. The Polk County Fire Rescue Division has identified the need for a new emergency medical services station in the South Lakeland area. The new station, which would primarily accommodate EMS services, but would also contain a small fire rescue contingent, would serve that surrounding community and alleviate the increased strain on existing stations located to the west and north caused by increased growth, and it also would enhance response times in that area. While most of the properties in the area are developed or slated for development, county staff has identified a site along the north side of County Road 540A, which would accommodate the proposed construction. The site identified is a vacant parcel containing approximately 4 1⁄2 acres to the east of Carter Road, Scott Lake Road, with access to an existing traffic signal along County Road 554 out of Malcolm Drive. Negotiations with the property owner have resulted in the proposed purchase price of $1,400,000, and the owner has executed a land purchase agreement. The county attorney's office and the real estate services director have reviewed the land purchase agreement and recommend approval. Approving the land purchase agreement, authorizing the issuance of funds for the purchase and hiring American Government Services Corporation to close that transaction will allow the county to take ownership of the parcel in order to move forward with the development and construction of the proposed new station. Upon approval of the Community Investment Program amendment and budget transfer, a budget will be established in the EMS Impact Fee Fund and within the facilities CIP Christina Fire Station Project Fund. So, Mr. Chair, members of the board, I think consistent with the board's priority commitment to public safety, I would request the board approve the proposed land purchase agreement and authorize the issuance of funds in the amount of $1,200,000 for the property purchase. I'd also request the board approve the hiring of American Government Services Corporation to close that transaction and approve paying estimated closing costs in the amount of $20,000 for a total acquisition cost not to exceed $1,420,000. Finally, today, today's recommendation will include a Community Investment Program amendment, a budget transfer in order to create the project accounting to execute this property purchase agreement in this fiscal year's 24-25 budget. Motion for approval. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. That's it, Mr. Chair. All right. Commissioner Troutman. Sorry, I just wanted to say a thank you to the Veterans Service Council and our retired Colonel Gary Clark. Last Tuesday, Polk did their 10th flight for the Flight to Honor. It is a wonderful opportunity for our veterans in the community to thank our veterans. The flight was primarily Vietnam War veterans and a few Korean War veterans, and their return home was a welcome home that was long overdue. So thank you to the Veterans Service Council and Colonel Clark. Commissioner Braswell? Yeah. Since we've been sitting here, Cassandra, I've been in touch with the Outback Steakhouse, and they've agreed to build an Outback at the intersection of Friedlander and Lewis Griffin. Okay. Thank you. But what about the chicken? They serve chicken. All right, that's all. Okay. Commissioner Santiago? Nothing right now. Thank you. Commissioner Scott? Nothing at the time. And I don't have anything either, so we'll move on. Expedited hearings are up. Mr. Ziskel? Mr. Chair, before we go to expedited hearings, I will go over the public hearing general procedures. We ask that you please turn off your cell phones and 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 topic, individuals speaking during the public comment section of a matter will be limited strictly to three minutes. The Board is experiencing these matters and is able to discern what is legally relevant to an issue and what is not. Information is irrelevant or repetitive. It only serves to frustrate and necessarily prolong today's business. The Commission expects civility at all times during all public hearings. Speaking out of turns, shouting out from the audience, disrespectful 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 in the decision made by the Board with respect to any matter considered here today, you will need a record of the proceedings and that for such purpose you may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made, which record includes the testimony 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 question. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony or evidence you provide to the Commission today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Thank you. At this time, I'll go to expedited hearing procedures. Expedited hearings are held pursuant to Resolution No. 2022-089. Expedited hearings are used when no opposition was present at the Planning Commission hearing. The applicant agrees to 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, a 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. Now, at this time, I'll turn it over to Ms. Ziscoll for the expedited hearings. Thank you, Mr. Mink. Good morning, members of the Board and the public. My name is Ben Ziscoll, Land Development Director for Polk County. Today, there are five items on the expedited public hearing portion of the agenda. Item number 01 is an expedited public hearing for case LDC-PAL 2024-14, Poinciana Subdivision CPA Amendment to consider a future land use designation change from agricultural residential rural to residential low on approximately 160 acres. As you can see on the screen, the subject site is directly adjacent to properties that are within the Poinciana Development of Regional Impact. Although this property was never within the Poinciana DRI, it has evidence that it might have been contemplated at one time. And that evidence is shown by a gap of Chinook Road and Halibut Road, which you can see on the screen here. Chinook stops at the northern portion and Halibut stops at the southern portion. So the request is to change the designation of this L-shaped portion of the property to residential low to facilitate residential development directly adjacent to the existing Poinciana DRI. The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval when it was presented to that, and staff is recommending approval. Following any questions or comments by the board or the public, this is a transmittal hearing, and staff is requesting approval to transmit this to the Florida Department of Commerce. Any questions? Just, yeah, the only concern I had had was on the road side of things. I know these are two dead-end roads currently, and we've talked about it. But, again, I think from my, when you look moving forward, this is developed out, and you have this road that's now connected. That's only 10-foot-wide lanes and not really improved, that just from an expected level of service, I think there's some kind of setup for disappointment, if you will, by those that would use that roadway. That's all. Anyone else? 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 will close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for any further discussion or a motion. Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Mr. Chairman, the next four items on the expedited agenda are all text amendments to the Land Development Code. And before I begin covering each of those four individual amendments, I want to talk briefly about a piece of legislation that was recently passed by both the Senate and the House, and we'll move to the governor's desk anticipating a signature in the next couple of weeks. And that is Senate Bill 180. Senate Bill 180 is basically a version two of Senate Bill 250 that we dealt with in the 2023 legislative session. And that was a hurricane or natural disaster relief bill that provided limitations on local government's land use authority. And you may recall that what Senate Bill 250 did is it placed a restriction on local governments from adopting any changes to their comprehensive plan or their land development code with any provisions that were deemed to be more burdensome or restrictive. And Senate Bill 250 was directly related to hurricanes Ian and Nicole. Well, Senate Bill 180 is really a bill that provides similar language in perpetuity for any future storms. And what the bill does is it states that a local government that is entirely or partially within 100 miles of any storm that crosses the state and ends up on the listed storms as a federal disaster, that the local government would be, again, prohibited from adopting any comprehensive plan or land development code text amendment that could be deemed to be more burdensome or restrictive. The way the bill is written, Senate Bill 180, is that the clock starts when a storm goes across Florida and we would be restricted from making those amendments for one year period following a storm. The clock would restart for any new storm. It is not tied to specific named storms like Senate Bill 250 was. There is a provision that retroactively applies to the 2024 storm season, dating back to August 1 of 2024. So that puts into question some of the bills that we have adopted over the last year or almost a year and a half as it relates to more restrictive and more burdensome regulations. The other part of this that is of concern is that it does also have a provision that if the local government is challenged and loses, that we would be responsible for legal fees. So this passed both the House and the Senate on Friday. It has not been presented to the governor's office as of this morning, but we anticipate that it will. So I wanted to put that out there as we as we discuss the next four items, two of the four, three of the four potentially could be deemed to be restrictive or more burdensome. So as we move through these items, I think Randy is going to going to maybe weigh in here on what action we might recommend the board take on these text amendments. So the question to the board is, do we proceed with these three items or do we continue them to allow, see if the governor will approve it, which is expected, or do we go ahead and adopt them and then we have to come back and repeal them afterwards? So that's the question for the board. Do we go ahead and possibly continue these until the second meeting of June? By that time it should be presented to the governor and we would know if his signature, if he's going to sign the bill or not. I think, I mean, I'm for continuing it. I mean, we'll do all this and then we know what's going to happen. We've been down this road before. I'd like to see it. I mean, I like the idea of a date versus a time and date certain. Let me go ahead and that June meeting, I think, is a good time. Why is it, what's October 1, 2027? Well, that's relating to Hurricane Milton, Debbie, Helene specifically. So the bill had two sections, one going forward and one for those backwards or those that have. That's three years. It is. But that's what, so we actually will be prohibited from adopting more restrictive births and currently how the bill is written until October 1, 2027. For Polk County. For Polk County. And pretty much, I think almost the whole state was affected by those three hurricanes. So arguably, pretty much the whole state. And this is what we ran into. If you recall, Commissioner Braswell was Senate Bill 250 back in 2023. At least they cut their mileage down on 250, if I'm correct. Yeah. I push for that hard. Yeah. We need to let them, we need to just let all these cases go to Tallahassee. Yeah. So if we continue this, then on that date certain, and he has signed it, will we then just. We'll probably draw it at that point, unless the floor tells us differently. But at that point, you've got until October 1st of 2027, which we can actually adopt more restrictive and birthism type of. And I think most of these would fall in that. Now we've got to go back and see everything that we passed since August 1st of 2024 and determine whether or not we've got to repeal those. And I think. One motion to cover all this? I think we could do one motion to, no? All three of them? Yeah. Okay. We'll just raise each one when they come real quick. Can I ask a question? Where does this put us in our overall comp plan position that we're in? So we're done until October of 27? If this gets his signature? Yep. It seems that we probably will be moving that way. I think we need to have that discussion with the board to find out exactly if it's more restrictive or birthism. Is there a need for us to. And I think that would be in some of the proposals. Is there a need to even go through this process if we can't present it until October 1st of 2027 currently how the bill is written? Well, when they did this last time, they turned around and realized the error of their ways and undid it, correct? They fixed it a little bit. I can't remember how they did it. They've shortened it up. I will tell you, we were active on this, trying not to lobby some language. And we were successful at the very beginning of the session. Then it came back in. And so I would argue they knew what they were doing this time. Senate Bill 250, I think there was. I would argue against that, but that's a whole other thing. The Senate Bill 250, with the two hurricanes that hit the state that year, it basically covered the whole center of the state. And just like us not getting on one, you know, maybe both of those hurricanes, yeah, we got hit, but it wasn't really bad. The coast got hit. They got really tore up, but they were putting us under the same regulations as if we were on the coast. And that's what I thought, you know, to get changed. And a lot of other people did. And they did. They cut that down where it didn't cover everything that was not hit. So but now, I mean, all the work that we've done, everything that we've done, try to, you know, even with, you know, with the flooding that we had, trying to look at that down the road to prevent that from people doing things, building in areas that shouldn't be built in. And it's all out the window, basically. And I think for the public, as far as for the House and the Senators, you know, there's power and voices. So reach out to them because, you know, when you look at this, to me, it's really indicative of probably more of a development push to have less restrictions. But what we're looking for is human health and safety. So we want to save, you know, a family's livelihood from their home flooding if they have a house built in the future. And this takes that away. We're not looking at making it harder to build just to make it harder. We really want to improve the safety and the service that the county provides to our residents. And so for the Senate and the House, I mean, look at the votes here, 34 to 1 and 106 to 0. So I know there's other stuff in this Senate bill. It's not just about this. And that's how this program works, right? You get a couple of lines added to the tail end of something that's got really good meaning. And unfortunately, this is the bad caboose at the end of the train. And it really is, like I said, I'm the lobbyist of developers that are pushing for it. And it's unfortunate that, you know, there's a lot of good that could come out of some of the stuff that we've worked on for the last six-plus months. So, yeah, I appreciate us being active on the county side to understand it and not to put ourselves in a precarious situation unnecessarily. But I really am hopeful that, you know, the House and the Senate can regroup their minds and figure out how to make this wrong or right. Yeah, you know, yes. I move to continue item 02 to the second meeting in June. Second. Second. That's June 17, 2025. Yeah. Second meeting in June. Yes, sir. We've got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. I move to continue item 03 to June 17th. Yes, sir. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. That's 2025. Mr. Chair, item number 04 would not fall into that category. This is not more burdensome and restrictive. This is actually the exact opposite. So, item number 04 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2025-6, mobile homes in Platt's prior to 1971. This amendment would make the placement and permitting of a mobile home in Platt's recorded prior to May 20th of 1971 an administrative approval rather than a Level 3 Planning Commission approval. This is the second hearing. Your Planning Commission recommended approval 6 to 1, and staff is recommending approval and adoption of this ordinance. Move for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Oh, excuse me. Got a public hearing on this. 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, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Motion for approval. And do we have a motion and a second? Motion for approval. All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item number 05 is an expedited public hearing for case LDCT 2025-5, Coops and Roosters, LDC text amendment. This is a text amendment to the placement of structures for sheltering and feeding fowl. There is a component of this ordinance that is less burdensome and restrictive, but also a component that is more burdensome and restrictive. So the setback reduction from 50 feet to 10 feet for structures would certainly be less restrictive. However, currently, roosters are not prohibited on pieces of land less than a half an acre. This ordinance would prohibit roosters on properties less than half an acre. This item is first reading, so no board action is required today, but I might suggest that we move the second hearing and adoption hearing to June 17th to be consistent with the motions that were just taken for items 02 and 03. I've got a question as regarding to the bill specifically that we're talking about. This obviously is not development related. Do we still think that this applies is your land development code. Now, the other option is removing the restriction of roosters. And, um, so we, so we have a motion to continue. Do I do a public hearing? Well, no, no, if you want to continue, we usually just go ahead and have a motion. But if this is a first reading, we want to go ahead and have the first reading go through today. Correct. The first reading, I would suggest that we have the second reading or the adoption hearing on June 17th. So do you need a motion for that approval just for? Yes, because I believe we have advertised, we've set the hearing for the adoption hearing. So we'll have to bring back another set hearing item and re-advertise that, um, that case because it was set. We need a public hearing on it too? Okay. All right. We just need to do like we normally do, right? All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to come up and speak on this matter, please come forward, state your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. Seeing none, we're going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Motion to approval. Well, no, to be continued. A motion to have the second hearing for June 17th, 2025. That's the motion. Yes. Okay, got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. That concludes the expedited portion of public hearings today. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, sir. Good morning. Eric Peterson for the Land Development Division. We have a slight modification to North Powerline Road Community Development District. This is their fourth expansion. Public notice was provided on April 8th, April 15th, April 22nd, and April 29th. This request will remove 43.35 acres from the CDD, or sorry, 26.526 acres from the CDD, and it'll add 43.35. It'll be an increase in the total number of units from 1868 to 1913. It's, the expansion is within the city of Haines City. The parts being removed are in the city of Davenport. We've received notification from the city of Davenport that it is consistent with their plan and code, and they recommend approval. And we've received notice from the city of Haines City that they've voted also to amend the CDD. This is the one portion that's being added. It's just south of Snell Creek Road and west of Powerline Road. It meets all the criteria. It's as outlined in your staff report for amendments to the community development districts. We have affidavits and pre-filed testimony from Heather Wirtz, Jillian Burns, and Bob Henley, who is the chairperson for the CDD. With that, I'll stand for questions. Any questions? Does the applicant have anything to say here? Doesn't seem so. 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, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for any further questions or a motion. For approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Good morning. Sandy Howard with the county attorney's office. Item P2 is a public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance granting an economic development ad valorem tax exemption for a new Polk County business, Supply Properties 2, LLC, and to approve a performance agreement with the company. Since late 2020, our local economic development councils have worked closely with the applicant, previously referred to as Project Ray, to facilitate the company's investment in Polk County. This includes the city of Winter Haven's efforts to secure a state grant enabling rail service from the CSX rail terminal to the project site for inbound inventory, significantly reducing Project Ray's impact on Polk County roadways. The company plans to have constructed a new approximate 225,000 square foot rail served cold storage warehousing and distribution facility in the intermodal logistics center in Winter Haven. The company plans to invest over $150,000,000 and create more than 180 new full-time jobs at the facility, which is located within a federally designated Opportunity Zone. Of the new jobs created, at least 105 will offer annual salaries above $83,000, which is more than 150% of Polk County's 2025 average annual wage. Based on these plans and the board's currently approved guidelines, the project qualifies for a 100% reduction in applicable ad valorem taxes for a 10-year period, which would run from 2028 through 2037. The property appraiser's report estimates that if the exemption is granted, approximately $620,753 in ad valorem taxes would be lost each year of the 10-year exemption period. However, MSTUs, the school board, and SWIFMUD would each recognize new annual tax revenues of approximately $77,000, $495,000, and $18,000, respectively. Thank you. I'll stand for any questions. Any questions? I looked at your spreadsheet. It's about $9 million a year is what we're giving up in property taxes. It is $620,753 in ad valorem taxes. Collectively. Collectively. Yes. And I will say, just to clarify, it's the property appraiser's spreadsheet. I cannot take credit for that. Yeah. I think all of these add up to that. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. The larger spreadsheet. Yes. I'm sorry. So it's about $90 million over 10 years. Yeah. Okay. Anyone else? 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 will close the public. Oh, oh. Mr. Abercrombie, come right over here. James Abercrombie, for the record. Folks, I know I've been around for a long time, obviously. I've seen this done a lot. We're talking $9 million over 10 years. I've never seen any statistics after the fact. Public has done it quite a few times in Lakeland. As a matter of fact, they just did another one for the same principle. We're making up that $9 million as a citizen. Somewhere along the line, we're making that up. I've never seen anywhere that the future salaries are going to make that up and how long it would take to actually make that up, what it did take, what it would take, what it did take. I don't think there's enough research here to start giving our tax dollars away and forcing us to pay the extras that they're not paying. And I understand big business, that's great, but they can pay a billion dollars cash for a piece of property or a new business or whatever the case may be. I don't understand why we have to help them to do that. I understand business is critical to the area, to the county, obviously. But still, there should be a different way for them to make their business successful without us having to make up the difference. It's not right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? All right. We're going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for a motion or any further discussion. Go ahead, Mr. Yeah, I've got a couple of comments. I'm not going to support it. In the past, I have with the concept or the thought process that I had that we're creating jobs and we needed jobs and blah, blah, blah, whatever. On Indeed.com right now, Polk County has 17,000 unfilled jobs. And it all clicked for me when Michael said two months ago or last month, we don't need jobs. And quite frankly, I don't think we do. If we've got 17,000 unfilled, the last thing we need are more. On top of the fact that we're giving away, like Mr. Abercrombie just said, $9 million a year. It's going to add up to $90 million over 10 years. This county could do a lot with $90 million that needs to be done. And building warehouses is not something that we need to be looking at. So I'm not going to support it. Mr. Chair? Yeah, I am for the, during the attacks, except for economic development purposes. We have been very blessed that we have, in fact, I think I see two people here that are in the EDC. I see Bruce Lyons and I thought I saw Sean. Is Sean here? There you are. They too can attest to the fact of how important it is to bring different industries to Polk County. You say there's 17,000 positions or jobs that are open. What are they? We're looking at more high-tech technology, bringing in workforce, young people in here so that they can work in these jobs. I don't see how else we can continue to progress as a county if we don't continue to be open and amenable to providing the ad valorem tax to these industries. Anyone else? Yes, sir. Going to the point about, you know, how do we know that this happens and how does it benefit us? This program is audited. There's reviews done to ensure that the jobs were created, that the pay rates were what they were. And I support exactly what Martha is saying. We may look at the jobs, and again, I don't doubt the number that's out there, but I would doubt that they are paying $83,000 a year or higher. We have, you know, needed to diversify our economy here in Polk County. I think this is a wonderful opportunity to do that. And the truth of the matter is they're going to go somewhere. And I think allowing our residents an opportunity to have high-paying jobs is critical to continue to develop Polk County. So I will be in support of this. And I would say, you know, our residents do not make this up. And when you look at this company coming in, they may be sacrificing the ad valorem taxes, but if you look at their tangible taxes and then the taxes that will be paid by the people that come to this area possibly to get these jobs, again, it is a net win for our county. And, again, I see three of our EDC organizations, Lakeland, Winter Haven, and Central Florida, all represented here today because they know the importance of economic development. Commissioner Scott. Yeah, I just want to – I understand the concerns of the program. It certainly does do a good job of, I think, attracting some of the businesses here. We do face as a county, I mean, coming from the business arena, we have positions open that are high-skill, high-wage, that are over $70,000 a year and cannot fill them with Polk County people. There's not enough applicants. So Commissioner Braswell's point on the lack of people that, I guess, qualify and want to work in Polk County. I'd like to see where they are, and, you know, for the EDC, certainly it's great that you attract the businesses to the county. I would like you, you know, to some way for us to engage the residents that live here already, whether that's through more technical training or career track programs to help get them involved because just getting businesses here, giving them ad valorem tax breaks, and then not being able to fill positions is a risk that we run. So while we're saying we're bringing a company here that will bring jobs, we have to have the people. I'm not saying that to move more people into the county. I'm simply saying engage. We have population. We have enough people here to fill the jobs. We just have to engage them to be wanting and willing to either learn the skill set necessary to get that. But there's a lot of great opportunity in Polk County, and I, myself, and several business friends, between the monks of us, we have hundreds of jobs that would collectively pay millions of dollars a year and cannot fill them. So I don't really have an issue with the program, but I just think overall it's only one piece of the overall puzzle, and so to stay focused on that and, you know, hopefully we're more successful long term. Thank you, sir. You know, we have some great companies that are, you know, our people have brought here on this program. New Corps, I mean, they're just, they go on and on. I see both sides of it. There's people that's been here for years upon years, born and raised here, working here. I had their businesses, families come up, and you bring businesses in, and you're competing with them. But I think this is a very good program. I mean, most of these companies, there's other states that are fighting for these companies to come to their state and their county. And, I mean, it's just not where, okay, they come to us and say, I might want to come here, but I need you to give me all these breaks. I mean, there's other counties across this country that are fighting for these great companies to come here. And I see both sides of it, but it is a good program, and I'm for it. So, anybody else? All right. Do we have a motion? A motion? I have a motion for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Nay. Motion carries. Thank you. Sandy Howard, the county attorney's office. The next two items are a result of our annual audit. So, P3 is a public hearing to consider adoption of an ordinance revoking, Ordinance 22-054, which is the Economic Development Ad Valorem Tax Exemption for Lineage Logistics Services, LLC. The board granted the tax exemption to the company on July 19, 2022, for the logistics and cold storage and distribution facility to be located in Lake Alfred. On March 6, 2025, the county was notified by the company that due to the current market conditions and customer demand, Lineage Logistics will not be moving forward with building the facility in Polk County as planned. As a result, the company has failed to comply with the requirements of both the exemption ordinance and its performance agreement with the county. Staff's recommendation is therefore to adopt the proposed ordinance repealing Ordinance 22-054, which will revoke the exemption previously granted to the company and automatically terminate the related performance agreement. Thank you. I'll stand for any questions. Any questions? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. Yes. You coming up, Sean? Okay. You all know the role. Good morning, Commissioner. Sean Mallott, Central Florida Development Council. Again, appreciate the opportunity. This is a great example of, you know, we do go through an audit on an annual basis, and this particular company is not going to use their exemption, so therefore, you know, wanted to pull out of the program. That is, it is a program that, again, was approved by the voters at over 70 percent, you know, in 2020, you know, through a county referendum to be able to create quality jobs. And there may be jobs available in our market, but there's still kind of a demand for quality jobs in our market. And I know that, Commissioner Scott, we've had some discussions, and I think, you know, kind of, you know, providing more marketing on the opportunities that are here are key, but the reality is, is that 50 percent of our population leaves this market on a daily basis, going to other communities in our surrounding area. You know, it's gotten a little better over time, but the reality is that they're still there. So I just want to share some, some items from this recent year's audit that I think are helpful of the 20 active ad valorem tax exemption projects in 2024, that they are required, you know, collectively required to hire 1,857 employees, and those companies actually hired 8,852 employees. And those are people that are there on the job, not just job openings, but those are people that are working within those companies. Of those same, of those same companies, they invested 200, they were required by our contract to, to invest $276 million, and they actually invested $621 million. So that additional revenue is tax revenue that, that is coming to the county. It's a very competitive market when you look at Florida as a whole, and, and having this program is, is vital to be able to get quality jobs in this market. Again, the previous project that we just talked about, you know, again, is located at the ILC in Winter Haven, and it's a, it's set up to be able to be, you know, supportive of that, that type of development and from an infrastructure standpoint. And then the other piece of this is of those, of those companies that were audited, you know, they were required to pay, you know, right around, like just right around the $50,000 mark, but they actually paid on average over $90,000. So again, higher wage jobs in this market. So, you know, it is important to be able to, to make sure that we communicate that message, the importance of this program, that, you know, our market continues to be more competitive, and we are having people move here regardless, and having quality jobs for those people is important. And I, I definitely appreciate your, your feedback on this program and your support of this program, and we'll, you know, continue to, to provide quality information. And, and thank you for your time today. Thank you, Sean. Anyone else like to speak, speak on this matter? All right. I'm going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the board for a move for approval. Second. Got a motion in a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Good morning, commissioners. Christia Johnson, budget and management services director for the record. Item P4 is a public hearing to adopt an ordinance that amends ordinance 22-018, which was approved by the board on March 15th, 2022, granting an economic development ad valorem tax exemption for public supermarkets incorporated for the IT headquarters project. Under the current ordinance, the exemption period is set to commence in tax year 2025 and run 10 years through tax year 2034. In order to align with another IT expansion project that's currently taking place in the downtown Lakeland area, the company has requested that the ordinance and performance agreement be amended to delay the start date of the exemption period by one year to commence in tax year 2026 and run through tax year 2035. The AVTE program administrator has reviewed the request and is in agreement with the proposed amendments. Staff therefore recommends that the board adopt the ordinance that amends ordinance 22-018 and approve the first amendment to the performance agreement with Public Supermarkets, Inc. regarding its IT headquarters expansion. I'll stand for any questions. Any questions? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to speak on this matter, please come forward, state your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and bring it back to the board. Motion for approval. Second. Got a motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. All right. Key five. You're with me just a minute while I get set up here. Good morning, commissioners. For the record, Mark Bennett with land development presenting agenda item P5, LDC-PAL 2024-17, known as the Stewart Property, Thornhill Road, comprehensive plan amendment. Regarding notice, you can see on the screen, 92 mailers were sent out on April 7th. Two boards were posted on the site with a legal ad published on April 16th. Regarding public response, yesterday we did get one email in opposition. I have copies of the email here for your consideration. The planning commission did recommend approval on a five to two vote. Staff does recommend approval, and this is the transmittal hearing. If it moves forward, it will be sent to the Department of Commerce in Tallahassee with a proposed adoption hearing of July 1st. The request is to change 326 plus minus acres from ARR to residential rural, a portion of the site from residential rural to residential medium, and then a portion of the site from the rural development area to the urban growth area. The two maps there show the general location of the site, east of Lake Hancock, north of the City of Bartow, south of Thornhill Road, and west of Spirit Lake Road. This is an aerial photo of the site. You can see Thornhill Road here. The property is cut in two by the Central Polk Parkway, which is currently under construction, and I'll show you photos of that. This is what the land use map, development area map looks like today. Most of the property is designated as urban growth area. That's a designation that's been in place since the original adoption of the Comprehensive Plan back in 1991. In my research, I even found a utilities ordinance from 89 that had this entire area designated as part of the central regional utility service area. And then the remainder of the property is currently designated as rural development area, shown here in green. The gray area here, I didn't label it, but that's the city of Bartow. And then this area here in brown, excuse me, is the transit supportive development area. This is the proposed change to the development area map, basically making the entire site urban growth area. Currently, the land use, which corresponds with the development area, a good portion of the site is already residential low, shown in yellow, with the remainder of the site here and here as agriculture residential rural. Let me spend just a minute talking about this map. This was the original request we received. In addition to showing the remainder of the property is residential low, the original request showed and it was for 53 acres of property that would be designated as residential high. Residential high allows up to 15 units an acre. And this staff had concerns about this due to the large amount of potential units. If my math is right, 53 times 15 is 795 potential units there. Not accounting for, you know, environmental factors. So I raised compatibility concerns and concerns about provision of public services. So in discussions with the applicant, an agreement was reached where instead 17 acres would be proposed to be designated as residential medium, much lesser area. And this is also residential medium is only 10 units an acre and also allows, doesn't allow multi-story, multi-family types of buildings like residential high would. We thought that would be more compatible with the area. So on the screen here is what the recommended change is for. This site does have some environmental constraints. I'll just show you the maps briefly, floodplains and wetlands. The next few slides are aerial photos of the site. This is looking east on Thornhill and this shows where the parkway is coming through. Again, looking east at the primarily the east half of the site, looking more southeast. This is a west half of the site. And this is a view looking sort of north-northwest at both the western portion, eastern portion with Thornhill being about here. This is looking southwest. You can see Lake Hancock in the background. And the last couple pictures here are obviously ground pictures of the site. And this is Fussell Lane. Fussell Lane is adjacent to the western part of the site. And the last picture here I took a couple weeks ago. You can see the pilings that are starting to go in for the flyover bridge over Thornhill Road that's related to the parkway. This is the slide that shows impacts, potential impacts on public services and facilities. There are potential concerns about schools, traffic and sewer, if it were to be built at the maximum. But I will also say that's why we do concurrency reviews when we have a binding site plan. Justification for approval. I will say this is a challenging case in that on one hand it's been planned for future urban development. I mentioned earlier that part of the site is already in the urban growth area. But there are also environmental factors to consider. The area is low-density residential, somewhat rural in nature. On the other hand, the area is urbanizing, in particular the area to the east near Spirit Lake Road. The applicant and their paperwork application raises the fact that, well, with the parkway going through and the flyover bridge, that will change the character of the area. Staff does acknowledge that that statement does have merit. The request is for residential. The surrounding area is residential, with the exception of a nursery and a church nearby. We've determined that it is consistent with the comp plan and the land development code. And that's for our recommendation of approval. And I'll stand for questions. Thank you. Questions? I do. Could you go back to the information regarding what is residential high now in the number of acres? And then with the residential medium recommendation, what are the units per acre for residential medium? And, again, the number of acres that you're moving to the residential medium? Sure. The original request was for residential high. Residential high allows a maximum of 15 units an acre. And how many acres? The 53. Okay. The revised request that the applicant and staff have agreed to would be for 17 acres of residential medium. Residential medium has a maximum density of 10 units per acre. Thank you. Can you go on the, you had had several photos there of around the site? Not, I mean, they were somewhat aerial, but not necessarily aerial by nature. Can you just step through those photos one more time? I'll just go through and if you have any questions, just let me know. So on that one, if you can, so that one we're looking, yes, we're going to. Down in the east, but it's looking east at Thornhill as it goes towards Spear Lake Road here. Right, so we don't have, I mean, relative to the site, there's not any single family home subdivisions or apartment complexes, anything like that that's directly adjacent to any part of the site, correct, that I'm seeing? It's all kind of more rural nature, correct? Correct. Okay. There is a, right here you can see, I believe it's called Thornhill States, basically one acre lot subdivision here. And there is some single family residential on the west side of Fussell Lane, Fussell Lane being located here. But yes, to answer your question, right next to it, no. Right, more like a house per acre or two is kind of the general characteristic of what we're seeing around it. Okay, gotcha. So just go through. Yeah, go ahead. You can go through a few more. I just want to make sure I wasn't missing anything when we're looking at adjacent compatibility. Basically, right there. Okay. Anyone else? Do we know the service level of Thornhill? I believe it's C. Let me double check the staff report here. Have you driven that one lately? Yeah. If it's anything but it failing, I'm surprised. Yes. Current level of service is C, minimum LOS standard D, five-year projected C. When was that established as far as its current level of service? When did we evaluate that? That came out of the, I believe, the January 2025 Transportation Network Database. Okay. Anyone else? I was just going to say all the calculations that I just did. So that's 625 less with the change just in that one area from residential high, the acreage that they currently have, to the residential medium in the reduced acres to consider that. But it's residential low currently. It's not residential high currently. There's no reduction. It's RL1 now. Correct? The part that was going to be residential high is currently RL1. Yeah. It's just not going to go as high. Right. Correct. Okay. Yeah. We're not reducing anything. And I stand corrected on the LOS and transportation information. That came out of the October 2023 database. We just got the new network database. Okay. Dated in January. So. All right. Anyone else? All right. Bart, are you up? Good morning, commissioners. For the record, Bart Allen, I'm a land use attorney with the Peterson and Myers Law Firm. My address is 225 East Lemon Street, Lakeland, Florida. Let's see if I can. 225 East Lemon Street, Lakeland, Florida. Happy to be here this morning on behalf of the Stewart family. I have with me this morning Ms. Crosland-Stewart, who's one of the Stewart sisters, who is the owner of this particular piece. The entire parcel is about 326 acres, but what we're talking about is substantially less than that this morning as to what we're changing. Mr. Bennett's given you an overview of what our request is, and I want to touch on a couple things. A lot of our slides, as they commonly are, tend to overlap because we talk about similar things. But what we're talking about here is an area that has been significantly changed by the construction and creation of the turnpike, which is, as we all know, a limited access toll road. This will have a flyover that will be crossing over Thornhill Road at upwards of 30 to 40 feet in the middle of this piece of property. So, this property, with the Stewart family owning it for, I think I commonly joked since the beginning of time, I've had the pleasure of representing both sides of the Stewart family on many matters with land use, and they are not developers. They've owned these parcels for long, long periods of times, going back to Ms. Stewart's grandfather's ownership, and they were always agricultural in nature. However, things have changed around them, and I think it is impossible to ignore that things have changed around them. You can see on the map here that already over half the site is residential low. And yes, we did have some prior applications that were at a higher intensity. Those have been changed. They've been withdrawn. We've had discussions with staff. That's not uncommon. That happens on 95% of the cases. I don't normally get quite as much of an analysis of my prior changes as I did this morning. However, we do change things a lot through the process. And what happens over those conversations? Projects get better. Projects get more appropriate. We hear concerns, and we address them. And that's the nature of this land use process. And I commend Ms. Stewart, and I also, I forgot to mention, I have Jason Alleygood with me, a professional engineer with Kimley Horn, who's been working with us on this project. So at the end of the day, what are we really asking for here? We're asking for 17 acres of residential median on the front edge of Thornhill Road, which is a very active road today. I mean, I think we all recognize that this area has grown. There's been a lot of development going on the property as it relates to roads and infrastructure, and immediately adjacent. Just on this screen right here, you can see cladded lots right across the street. And just off to the east there, right on the edge of just this exhibit, is an area that we just got approved as a planned development for single-family homes with 50-foot lots. So, yes, there is single-family development in the area. It is growing, and it is coming. Backing up just a little bit, again, looking at a bigger picture, this is the existing future land use map. Everything around this particular piece of property is residential low or higher, with the exception of this pocket. These areas here are owned by the state or other water management district, some other agency for as part of the Lake Hancock restoration project and the creation of additional flows in the Peace Creek River downstream. But every other piece of land around here is residential low, residential low 3, or residential medium. And I'm going to kind of zoom in a little bit more. And you can see the PD, PD05, that's approved right there. Here is the PD that was just recently modified to allow single-family subdivisions. So, again, residential development immediately in the area. And this is just our request. What are we doing here? The stewards, as I mentioned earlier, they're landholders. I mean, Ms. Stewart is not a developer. She's never been a developer. But we are doing some long-range land use planning. We're trying to evaluate what's the right use for this particular piece of property. I would suggest to you that with all the infrastructure that's in place, it's more appropriate to have it in an urban growth boundary than it is to have it in the rural development area, given that we have utilities available, infrastructure available, roads available, all immediately to this point. It would actually meet more of your criteria for urban growth than it does for rural development. And this is the proposed future land use, so I won't belabor that point anymore. Looking just immediately to the east, this is Sparrow Lake Road in Thornhill. I've highlighted all of the residential medium that is in existing future land use, that is in existence today. Residential low 3, in existence today. This is a PD with residential low 2, I believe, and with approximately four dwelling units an acre with 50-foot lots. That's a PD that I did just back earlier this year. So recognizing the growth, recognizing that there is a commercial corner here less than a mile away, two miles up the road at Thornhill and Winterlake Road, there is also a commercial corner which is proceeding into development at this point. This area is urbanizing. This request is appropriate. I don't find this request nearly as challenging as Mr. Bennett found it, but I do suggest that this is an appropriate request and an appropriate use for this particular piece of property. Of the 326 acres, 168 of them are already residential low. 158 of them are ARR. We are unifying the land uses. We are providing for a little bit of an intense, more intense use on Thornhill Road. Seven dwelling units an acre is the minimum. To get to 10, I would have to do a PD anyway. So seven dwelling units an acre on the 17 acres of residential medium. This request is appropriate. We do have a staff recommendation of approval. I know we are very early on in the process, and as I mentioned, Ms. Stewart is not a developer. If and when this ever develops, there will be all the flood drainage, all the analysis, all the environmental species, the wetland delineations, all that stuff, that's design. That's an engineering side of this process. We are at a future land use size. What is it appropriate for this particular piece of property to be used for? We will deal with all those issues. We are well aware that there are wetlands on the site. We know we have to work with those issues. We also have a limited access road that's currently being built through the middle of a significant amount of our wetlands that are on this site, which is going to change the entire dynamic of how this particular piece of property functions in the future. So with all of that, I do believe this request is appropriate. I assume and would anticipate that there are some folks here to speak in opposition to this case and would request a few minutes. We're happy to answer any questions. I have Ms. Stewart, I have my engineer, Mr. Alley, good here, but appreciate your time. And we would request. Oh, and one last thing. When it comes to compatibility, this is just another example right here. This is a prime example. The Polk Parkway, this is the existing Polk Parkway going right through adjacent to single family. This here, this pros, that's a multifamily site. That was kind of what we thought, you know, kind of as the pie in the sky. What we're proposing here would not be a true multifamily site. It would be a mix of single family and probably a little bit of a lesser townhome type project. With that, we'll stand for any questions. And we do find this compatible. You have a recommendation of approval. And we would request a favorable vote on transmittal to the Department of Commerce. All right. Any questions? Mr. Allen? All right. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to come and speak on this matter, please come forward and state your name and address, and you will be given three minutes. Yes. My name is Dewey Craver. I live at 1755 Beth Lane, Wonderhaven, Florida. Been dwelling there since 1986. And as he mentions, we got some slides up here. If you see those yellow stars on that first slide, those are my pieces of property there adjacent to the Stewart property. And if you go to the next slide here, there's a better look at it. And if you see the rectangle piece off to the side, see at the bottom of it, that is a bayhead. There's a lot of cypress trees, a lot of wildlife and all interprotected species. You go on down to the next block, which is the square piece, it's 10 acres. There is also bayheads and all around that. We feed Lake Hancock out of that with the water, and we've had to build up in that area. When I built my home, they did the PERC test. We had to go 40 inches above grade. If you put these residential low, they're going to have to go up that or more in that low-lying area. It's going to change the things, possibly flood my property where I don't have use of it, and I don't like to go after anybody if it happens to do that. And also, what we get there feeds over into Lake Hancock, which feeds the Peace River Basin. And they're trying to build the Peace River Basin up, trying to get Kensington Springs to come back up. The only way to do that is get the Peace River up, bring those springs and all back. And as far as he's talking about doing analysis of species and all, if I remember right back when I was a kid, the Army Corps of Engineers built canals right straight through the middle of the state, took the Kissimmee River and all that flowed down into the Everglades and redid it. Now we have Everglades that are drying up each year, and we're losing more and more of it. And this is what we're doing. I am a longtime resident of Florida, very proud to be a Floridian, very proud to be from Polk County, lived here my whole life. And I want to see some of our states saved, some of our wildlife saved. We've got a lot of wildlife. Y'all, this road has moved a lot of our gopher turtles out, changed the land. We have wild turkeys out there, sandhill cranes that are endangered. We have owls, hawks, eagles. I mean, we're loaded with it. And this is a prime hunting area for them. If we do this, that's going to take it out. And nobody's selling it. They can't sell the property and somebody can build a house. But we do not need the amount of homes that they plan to build on it. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? I know we do. If you want two or three to get in line or you can be seated, we'll just try to move along here. My name is Daniel Bents. I live at 1630 Beth Lane. And evidently the people that's wanting to put all these homes there have not driven up and down Thornhill Road lately. Because traffic right now is insane. And you're talking about adding all these homes and people that's going to dump on top of the people that's already there now? And that parkway is not going to take the traffic off the Beth Lane. And it's not going to take it off Thornhill Road. You'll have some that don't go down Winter Lake getting across some of the trucks. But we're still going to have the same traffic. And then they're wanting to add more. And I've lived there nearly 30 years. I know what the place is like. There's times of the year when that place is flooded. Where's all that water going if they build houses everywhere? There's times when it's dry. You can only supply water to so many homes around here. And you can only have so many people. When you start piling more and more and more people on top of each other, you have more crime. You have more people that don't get along. You have more school shootings. You have all this. And that's exactly what this all adds up to. And you're right. If they do this, they're taking my way of life. I've lived in Florida, like Mr. Craver, my entire life. And 30 years there. And I have two sons that live there. And I have a daughter and another son that live around. But they're all in Polk County. And the way y'all keep just passing things to get developed. And I don't think you do the studies to make sure that this is going to work out for us in the long run. Because it's not. You're destroying us true Floridians' way of life. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, sir. He can ask. He's got his three minutes. My name is Mike Harrison. I live at 1871 Beth Lane. I live about 10 acres just west of the Stars. And I've went through six hurricanes. In six hurricanes, luckily, 22 years ago, I built my home. There's nothing but water. My home was protected. But it looks like a sea out there when these hurricanes come. And luckily, I've had minimum damage. But the storm, the waterfall out from this subdivision, proposed subdivision, would be astronomical on us. I'm telling you, it would probably completely ruin my home. We have, if you allow me, I think this is about the sand mine. There was a sand mine that was proposed directly in the area where it comes down to the Parkway and it jogs over to the Stars. There was a sand mine proposal there to create field for the Parkway. I guess what we're wanting to know is what happened to that sand mine that was supposed to be dug out. There was actually a hearing on it and said they were going to dig the sand mine, and we never heard anything else from that. So I guess that's what Mr. Dan is asking. Also, I have a, real quick, I have endangered species in Florida. On the property, on my property and the property around me, there's bald eagle, there's the osprey, there's the gopher tortoises, there's the striped turtle, there's the little blue heron, and the American alligator. That is all surrounding my property. And we are, I'm for nature. I love nature. I moved there for that. But we're asking for this to be rejected. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Just touching base on the sand mine, undoubtedly it must not have went through because all the field dirt's been put on that section there. So, I mean, I can't answer the question on your sand mine. But it might not have, it might not have, they didn't use it, undoubtedly. So they ain't moving no dirt out of it, so it's not working right at the moment. Well, that's all I can tell you. It has nothing to do with today's hearing. That's right. It has nothing to do with today's hearing. All right, next. Gary Purcell, live at 4703 Thornhill Road. I've lived there about almost 30 years now. And I moved out of Lakeland downtown to get out in the country a little bit, raised my family there. And it's just a shame what's happened to Polk County everywhere, but especially now. I know the stewards sit and plan on having a road go through the middle of their property. But we moved there to raise our kids, have animals, enjoy nature. But it's just, what's happened to Polk County everywhere is just a shame what's happening. I mean, I'm probably not going to stay there because I don't want to be in a congested area. Thornhill Road is dangerous. I mean, it was dangerous before, but it's very dangerous now. You put in more subdivisions, it's going to make it worse. And the floodplain behind my house already floods. I'm adjacent to the property that they want to put, the 17 acres, put houses there. It floods behind my house already, so I can't imagine what's going to happen. But like I said, people that have lived in Florida a long time, it's just a shame what's happened to Polk County. And I'm dead set against this. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? My name is Ezekiel Cuevas. I'm from 1765 Beth Lane. I'm pretty new to the area. Thank God I got some great neighbors. It was a blessing to be able to be there. I'm sitting on eight acres right now, and I'm right up against the stewards, and they don't know me. But it's all just nature, man. I just moved out there just to be in peace. It's the only little bit of country we got left so close to, you know, my mother, my family, which they're all up in Janfield area. And so it's a big difference. I wake up every morning, I give thanks to God, and I get to listen to just the peace and hear all the birds and all the nature. We got all kinds of nature out there. And if y'all ain't been out there in a long time, y'all may want to go out there before y'all allow anything like that to happen and then ruin the little bit we do have left. And I appreciate y'all listening. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Morning, everyone. My name is Francisco Hernandez. I live at 1540 Beth Lane. I've been there about a year. You know, nice area, country, like everybody's saying. My thing is I'd like to maybe get a little more versed in some of these studies that they're talking about. Last year's hurricanes, we did get flooded quite a bit. I'd like to see what the proposals are, how it's going to affect us. There's a lot of traffic, currently there's a lot of traffic. Are there future plans to making that a four-lane road, you know, infrastructure-wise, power grade-wise? What changes are going to be made to accommodate this growth? That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? All right. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and bring Bart back for any comments. I'll be relatively brief, Mr. Chair. Oh, that is not the right window. All right. A couple things. I'll address the sand mine. One, it's not really germane to this matter. It is an approved use for the site. It's not moving forward, as you pointed out, Mr. Wilson, that the proprietor of that at the time was looking to use the filter for the road. That contract didn't come together. That approval still has life. It'll expire at some point. Where's that at, Bart? It's on the east side, Commissioner Braswell. So there's discount over in this area. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was on the west. I remember sitting through that hearing. I was not the representative of it. So it was on the west side. All right, sir. Let's move on. We appreciate it. That's not what we're after on the sand mine today. So the sand mine is really irrelevant for all intents and purposes. Outside of that, traffic, flooding, environmental species, those items, those analysis come when proposed development is addressed. Changing the land use has no impact on any of that. It changes the color on the map. But what I'd like to point out, the folks that live on Beth Lane, all of their property is already residential low one. The property around it that is Stewart property is already residential low one. The change for residential low one is further to the south. So they're already adjacent to residential low one. It's not changing anything for the folks on Beth Lane. On the east side, we have reduced that intensity down on the residential medium to about 17 acres of residential medium, which, again, as I showed earlier, is consistent with what you have along the corridor of Thornhill Road. So intermixed with residential low all along the corridor adjacent to a variety of different land uses, including business park center and neighborhood activity center and institutional uses down as you get closer to the intersection. So, again, kind of showing that node with the development radiating out of it, which is exactly what the comprehensive plan contemplates. So I think with that, I just would like to reiterate, this is not a proposed development. We have not proposed a specific number of homes. We are changing the land use as a long-range land use and land planning effort. If and when development occurs, there will be additional approvals, there will be additional reviews. All of that stuff comes later in the phase. What we are trying to do here is unify land use on this 326 acres and address the change to the neighborhood, the change to this area, by virtue of many factors. So with that, we do have a recommendation of approval. We believe this request is consistent with your comprehensive plan. We will stand for any questions that you may have of this commission. I appreciate your time this morning. And I have my team here. Mr. Chair? Okay. Go ahead, Bill. Can you explain residential low in the urban growth area versus the, did I say urban, versus rural? What's the purpose of that? What's the purpose of the? The changing from rural to urban. So under the comp plan with your development areas, so thinking about the different layers of the maps that we have, the development area defines what land use categories can go in particular land uses or in particular areas. I cannot put residential low in a rural development area. I am only allowed ARR, and residential suburban has to go into the suburban development area. So in order to have residential low, I have to change the urban growth boundary is the short answer. All right. And does that impact the residential medium? No, sir. Go ahead. Yeah, if you would go back to the map before, I just, right there, why did you do, why is the top quadrant a residential medium and everything else a residential low? Why didn't you do all of it residential low? Because we were looking at the intensity that is going along the Thornhill Road and looking at that as an area that makes more sense to have higher intensity, in particular because we're going to be adjacent to the turnpike or the toll road, I keep using, and that overpass, that bridge is going to be going right through that area. And to have, you know, large lot, single family homes right up against a retaining wall of the toll road didn't seem nearly as appropriate. We have more flexibility with residential medium. So I know that you said we're not looking at any number of houses or anything like that, but looking at the whole two areas, what is your estimate of homes that would be in there? That's a, I can't make an estimate on what could fit. There's so many things that go into account, Commissioner Santiago, because once you get to engineering as it relates to the environmental, how we handle stormwater, how we handle the drainage, things like that, it would be, it would be pure speculation on my part at this point. I can't. So you said earlier that Mrs. Stewart is not a developer, right? So that means she'll sell this property to developers? Potentially, yes. And then that's when it will come back to us? That's correct. Okay. So, but going back to Beth Lane, Beth Lane is future land use, RL1? Yes. Yes, Commissioner Trauman. And so the piece down on the left-hand side, that would be adjacent, exact land use? Correct. That would be residential low adjacent to residential low. Okay. Sir. Sir. Sir. Do not. Do not. They didn't interrupt. No, sir. That is correct. We're trying to get to the bottom of this, so we remain quiet, please. Okay. Go ahead. To be clear, residential low allows one unit per five, one unit per one acre. It does not require you develop at one unit per one acre. You can develop at a lower density. You can have bigger lots, but that is what it allows. Okay. And that would be the same. And those two uses are, those are the same adjacent to each other. And so doing it, in essence, under the road on the opposite side, again, just makes it adjacent. But when it comes to compatibility, it does not require adjacent. It just is within proximity. Correct. You do not have to be adjacent. Okay. And then the total acreage for the residential medium, again, is 17 acres in total that you're looking at? Correct. Okay. Questions I had. Okay. I have a comment, but it did not have a question. We're good. All right. Thank you. So we're, does anyone else have anything? Go ahead. Then you have a comment. So I guess a couple things. You know, oftentimes I think we look at zoning as commonly thought of as rooftops per acre. But when you look at planning from a county and what I refer to as a roadmap for the county, zoning really is a feature that allows us to have the right roadmap moving forward. So when we look at Lake Hancock, when we look at the state lands that are adjacent to the lake and the continuous water quality improvement projects that we put millions of dollars into every single year, not only from a county perspective, but statewide perspective, land use has a lot to do with that. If you put any high density or any, you know, really anything rather than what Mother Nature put adjacent to a waterway, you have potential for pollution. And you have potential for a detriment to water quality for a very long time. And it's one of those things that I think we lose sight of that. And, you know, you kind of focus on a map of saying, well, north, south, east, or west, there's this. So if there's this that's, you know, the crow flies half mile away, then you don't really have a reason to say we can't do it over here. And then that becomes a domino effect. You just keep adding on, adding on, adding on. And then years later, you realize that there's probably an error in that assumption. And I go back to the wetlands that we had back in the 50s and 60s. And I was up in Tallahassee earlier this year, and I forgot the exact year. But essentially from the late 1800s up to around 1970, the state lost 50% of its wetland inventory. And it's because we didn't realize the importance of what that serves to the quality of our life relative to its habitat for the wildlife. But it's also our drinking water, our surface water, our water that our kids can or cannot swim in. And, you know, when I was a kid, I used to be able to swim in lakes around the county. And now I won't even let my kids swim in them because there's water quality issues. We're actively cleaning it up, but it's not what we should have. And so when I look at this in particular, yeah, there's engineering studies that will come. And there's, I mean, I come from 20 years of engineering consulting. So, yes, there's stormwater models you run. There's wildlife surveys that you'll do. You can get permits to take gopher tortoises. You can demolish wetlands and buy mitigation bank credits for it elsewhere. And I get all that happens down the line from today's hearing on the land use. But this is where it starts. This is the first puzzle piece. And if you get this wrong, it really sets it up wrong for the rest of it. So when I look at this as a compatibility issue, to me it is that. When you look at the surrounding area, there is residents that it's not single-family subdivisions abutting to this or near this. And if you continue this movement from where we are now out towards the lake, I mean, you're going to have floating houses on the lake and still say it's okay. And that, to me, is not how you want to have the roadmap of the county. And I'm passionate about this stuff. I really do want to give the best guidance because I don't want anyone wasting their time putting forth effort to make something happen that's not going to happen. You know, the square peg doesn't fit in the round hole. So for me, I've seen this playbook a lot, and we have to guide it better to get better results. If we keep doing the same thing, that's the definition of insanity. If we want different results, it's not going to happen. And so for me, the agricultural that's there now, I get it. The RL1 that's there now can be developed as it is, and that's totally okay. But the agricultural does serve, that AR serves as a buffer, not only to those other residents, but it really serves a buffer to the lake and to our wildlife habitat. And the bay heads and the cypress swamps, when you tear those down, it's not really a way to replenish it. And so I would just say, you know, compatibility, I don't see it meeting or being compatible with that that's around it. Yeah, I get that the landowner is not a developer, but I think it's fair to assume whoever they sell it to is going to try to put everything they can on this piece of property, as dense as they can, as many as they can. So right off the bat, it flies in the face of what I've heard our planners say in the past about transition areas. So what we'll have here is houses, houses, houses, right up to the edge of a swamp, which does not seem like a good transition to me. That's the first problem I have with it. The second is the residential medium. That's just, for that area, it seems very inappropriate. And I'm sure the traffic study will say, oh, it's good to go, but I drive that road every day, and it's not good to go right now. So I'm not going to support this. Chair, may I? Could we go back to the map that had stuff on there? Well, the one that was a little, that one, yes, thank you. So to me, when I look at this and trying to get, whether we want to call it a buffer or the content, you know, as we go along with intensities, I look at this is that if we would go RL1 on all of it and take that residential medium piece out of there, that we would have the consistency better within the neighborhood. Now, I don't know if the applicant would be open to having that RL1 on the entire piece. And then, again, we have even the people on Beth Lane, they have RL1, and we make that entire area an RL1 and take that out of there. And I see Bart back there discussing it. Well, if I may interject, basically, Becky, that's why I asked the question, why wasn't that all RL1 and we have an RM in the top? And if we could make it all consistent, that would be better for me. Also, I think it is compatible if we go that route, or at least more compatible if we go that route. I just don't approve of the RM at the top there. Well, you're on the spot. Yeah, I'm on the spot. There's a lot to be said, and, you know, I understand Commissioner Scott's concerns about conservation. I can understand his concerns about drainage. And Commissioner Braswell, I understand your concerns about pushing a home right up to, as you referred to, a swamp. Well, we hear you on those, and I think that those are all part of the considerations for how you develop, how you lay a site out, how you get into those issues at a development stage. Certainly, being respectful of the existing conservation that's all around this lake, you know, Lake Hancock has basically a ring around it as you think about what's conserved around Lake Hancock. All of this gray right here was previously approved as part of the old Florida plantation. That DRI is now gone. It's in conservation. It is going to be used supposedly for some recreation activities, allegedly, as well as these areas. And I also had the opportunity to work, you know, early when I was a baby attorney on the imminent domain cases where the water management district was flooding around Lake Hancock, taking those conservation easements to do exactly what Commissioner Scott said. So those measures are being taken into account. They're being taken into effect. And so we, I agree, those are really important issues to address, and I believe they've been adequately addressed on this lake. As it relates to the specific request to get rid of the residential medium, I did speak with Ms. You saw me speaking with Ms. Stewart. We understand the concerns. We will agree to voluntarily take out the 17 acres of residential medium that would bring the entire site. So we wouldn't even be changing anything along Thornhill Road at this point, which I think is important. And we would be bringing the east side of the site out of the mix of ARR and to RL and then applying the residential low adjacent to residential low, which I believe is compatible with each other, seeing as they're the same land use classification. So we would agree to that request, recognize the concerns of this board, and take that very seriously. And we would agree to that. Yes. All right. Any other questions? Yeah, if I may. I mean, I appreciate that bit of reprieve on density, but I talk about conservation, you know, adjacent to the lake. For me, if I'm looking at what's RL1 now, and you kind of look at the map up there, the city of Arto, that's the gray, and you kind of draw a radius over to Lake Ancock, it encapsulates what is currently ARR. And if there was a desire just to change RL1 on the east side of the parkway, then fair enough. I don't see that being much of an impact for what I'm looking at from a compatibility standpoint. But, again, the ARR that's to the west of the proposed or the forward-moving expressway extension, that, to me, to make that RL1 is not compatible with what we are looking at around it. Billy? Yeah, I mean, I'm going to say it again. I mean, that goes to a transition from high density to lower density. So, yeah, I agree it's not in the best interest to take the ARR out of ARR. I was going to make a motion. All right. I have a motion. Go ahead. You have something to say, Mark? Yeah, I said what I was going to say. Go. All right. Everybody done? Any more questions? All right. Let's make a motion. I make a motion that we change all of the designation in this application, Randy. I don't know how specific you need to have this, to RL1. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Aye. Motion carries. I understand that. All right. Okay. All right. I just wanted to clarify. The one part doesn't go to the state. The one is per the Land Development Code. It's just RL that will go to the state. All right. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's move on. On to P6 now. Yes, sir. And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, but P6 and P7 will be presented together, and it requires two motions, or actually P7 is the first reading. Is that correct, Shonda? Yes. The conference plan amendment is for transmittal. You'll be presenting both P6? Yes, sir. The first reading won't require a motion. No. No, ma'am. Which is the first reading? Six or seven? P7 is the first. Oh, there it is. It's transmittal. I got something I need to ask you. When we were having our public comments here, I wanted to make sure everybody understood, and I had a couple here that when I asked if they had anything other than the public hearings come forward, I don't know if they understood me or not. And I don't know if I should wait until after this, or I don't know if there might be somebody here that had something else other than what we've been talking about. No, I've got a... He spoke. No, no, right here. Road hazards. Rocco Pilar. That's what I was getting at. Does anybody here have anything other, I mean, different other than our public meetings? Is anyone here to speak on anything other than a land... Land use, yes. Land use matter or the public campaign ordinance? Okay, I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss somebody. Okay, sorry about that. Just carry on. That's fine. That's fine. Good morning. For the record, my name is Shonda Bennett with the Land Development Division. This is a request for the board to consider the transmittal of a large-scale comprehensive plan amendment, LDC-PIL 2024-13, which is to change the future land use designation on approximately 75 acres from agriculture residential rule in the rural development area and residential low, but the sub-district for the LDC is one in the transit supportive development area, and the first reading of the LDC text amendment, 2024-20, a development code text amendment on approximately 166 acres, which includes the BPC districts and the remainder ARR and RL districts. On July 1st, 2025-2025, which is the scheduled adoption hearing for these cases, the board will also consider a district change to BPC-2 on 51 acres. In terms of the advertisement for the Land Development Code Conference of Plan Amendment, I'm sorry, the Conference of Plan Amendment, 75 mailers were sent to area property owners on April 7th. We received 30 emails in opposition. We did get some emails today for that case. One email with 17 petition signatures in opposition. That's for a previous case. 38 emails in support. Three phone calls in opposition. Six boards posted on March 14th. And a legal ed published in the Lakeland Sun on April 16th. For the Land Development Code text amendment, 30 emails in opposition. Again, an additional one today. They're separated by case, Mr. Mink, I'm sorry. One's for the Comp Plan Amendment and one's for the text amendment, but they're the same email. 38 emails in support and three phone calls in opposition and a legal ed published in the Lakeland Sun on April 16th. The site is located on the north side of Interstate 4 on the north side of Swindell Road and the east side of Alderman, approximately half a mile east of County Line Road, north of the city limits of Lakeland. This is a 2023 aerial context map with 166 acres outlined in red, of which 75 acres of that is requested to go to BPC. To the west of the subject site is an area of lower density residential development with the Eagles Landing Warehouse Distribution Buildings adjacent to County Line and fronting Swindell Road. Northward of the site are the country class subdivisions, the Ichipaka-Sassa Creek development farther to the north. East and south of the site is an area of developed acreage residential lots, primarily on the west side of the stair-step portion of Swindell Road, outlined in yellow. On the southern side of Swindell Road is the city of Lakeland, an older warehouse development along south Alderman Road. The primary warehouse district in this area is located south of Interstate 4. This is a closer view of the subject site. West of the subject site is the residential area mentioned previously, with Eagles Landing just west. Accessing Alderman Road, going north, is Giant Oak Road, one of the country class developments. As can be seen on this aerial, there are no similar BPC-type uses that abut the subject property north of Swindell Road. The parcel on the south of Swindell Road in the city of Lakeland has been approved for a warehouse distribution building with the northern and east two-thirds of the property deeded conservation for drainage and stormwater, with the development fronting south Alderman Road here and facing I-4. You will find SAF's presentation focuses on the micro-compatibility rather than the macro. Your last case was similar. This is a macro and micro-compatibility. The applicant will provide for information on more of the macro-compatibility of this request, I think, which gives you two different viewpoints of compatibility. This is the existing land-use districts within the immediate area. The blue line represents the area subject to the Business Park Center request, and both the red and blue outlines represent the total area that is subject to the Land Development Code text amendment, which provides additional development conditions. The map displays the requested land use and sub-district. The BPC-2 that you see on the map is part of the district change that you'll hear on July 1st. The requested BPC bifurcates the R01 district that extends between the Polk Hillsboro Line and Eagle's Landing to the BPC uses along Frontage Road, seemingly to sandwich these residential areas with the proposed request. The request also extends the BPC district farther north than the city's industrial area or the BPC area farther to the east. The comparison of the requested BPC and the BPC to the east is not equal as that to Eagle's Landing, since the BPC to the east fronts Frontage Road and not Swindell and has a face to I-4. The buildings within this request will be lined along Alderman Road and not Swindell. The requested land use change extends approximately 2,910 feet or more than a half mile north of Swindell Road. The Eagle's Landing development within Lakeland includes their stormwater and floodplain compensation within the industrial classification. The sub-district change to BPC allows for outside storage. The western BPC district was left to ensure that no outside storage would be adjacent to the residential low 1 district on the western side. The same accommodation has not been made for the RL1 district on the east, as there are homes close to the subject site as indicated by the Gray Star. This is the applicant's map or site plan that has been overlaid on a 2023 aerial. The map is representative of several stipulations that are within the LDC text amendment. The lower box hatch is for the commercial support development allowed under the BPC-1 uses. The center crosshatch, constrained by wetlands and future design needs for stormwater retention and floodplain compensation, will concentrate the warehouse development to the western side adjacent to Alderman, with one building being on the eastern side. However, the LDC text does require a berm and landscaping along Alderman and dark sky lighting to help block the warehouse buildings. The commercial area is located to the southern 850 feet of the site. For context, the depth represents approximately two-thirds of the developed depth of Eagle's Landing. Access to the site will be prohibited from Alderman and will solely be accessed from the approximate 313 feet of frontage along Swindell Road. The pond or lake area that can be seen east of this commercial is owned by the Florida Department of Transportation and is considered a retention pond, which is needed for all types of land uses. This is an aerial photo looking southwest. The greater text amendment site is outlined in red with the proposed BPC district shaded in purple. The non-shaded area in red in the red box is comprised of wetlands and areas for the BPC stormwater and floodplain compensation, as limited by the text amendment. West of the site is Eagle's Landing, a small warehouse area within the city of Lakeland. South of Swindell Road includes more distribution warehouse uses located south of Interstate 4. This area is looking northwest with the entire site bordered by the acreage residential. The land development text amendment, this is a summary, the full ordinance is included in your packet, includes limitations and enhancements to the development site. These include a limitation to the total development size of the buildings, both in square footage and in height, enhanced buffering, limiting access only from Swindell Road's 313 feet of road frontage, 165-foot setback for the warehouse buildings from Alderman, a 70-foot enhanced buffer area for the western side of the BPC, and a 30-foot enhanced buffer for the western side of the BPC districts adjacent to the residential uses, limitations in loading and unloading, limitations to operation of refrigerated trucks overnight, and limitations to the uses per the use table in table 2.1 of the land development code. At the planning commission, the applicant did request that the size of any one building to not be larger than 250,000 square feet and no taller than 45 feet. The text amendment requires no more than a gross acreage square footage, I'm sorry, of 685,000 square feet, again, with no building being larger than 250,000 square feet, and 45,000 square feet for the commercial area. Staff review the square footages of buildings in the larger macro area, and this exhibit provides that, and it's listed in your staff report as Exhibit 11A. On the north side of I-4 are the two Eagles Landing building warehouses at just over 152,000 square feet and just under 156,000 square feet for a total of 308,000 square feet. The next largest warehouse is the National Power Sports Auction property at just under 142,000 square feet. South of I-4 and going along South County Line Road, both in Polk and Hillsborough counties, is the location of the distribution warehouses in the area. The typical size of distribution warehouses has significantly increased over the past 20 years, as can be seen in the area south of I-4, and the size is there. You will notice how these clusters of warehouses line the roads that they front. The text amendment also limits the building height to 45 feet, which was reduced from the applicant's original request of 50 feet. The maximum structure height within the ARR and RL is also 50 feet. As with the warehouse sizes on the previous slide, this information came from the Polk County Property Appraisers' Parcel Records for Structure Characteristics. Within this area, the typical height is between 32 and 38 feet in height. Three buildings, or portions of buildings, exceed this height range. The Publix Warehouse Edition at 50 feet, and the Southern Wine and Spirits Warehouse Edition is also 50 feet. The third is the new Amazon facility located at the Lakeland International Airport at 60 feet, representing the second tallest set of warehouse light industrial buildings in Polk County. The tallest are the Cotralli Cold Storage in Auburndale at 85 feet. This is the Southern Wine and Spirits Warehouse on Old Tampa Highway at the Polk Parkway. The left side of the warehouse is 32 feet in height, and the right is 50 feet. The row of bushes is approximately 400 feet from the warehouse. This is an aerial view of the Southern Wine and Spirits with the 32 and 50-foot height buildings. This is the row of bushes as shown in red that you saw on the previous slide, and the distance between the yellow, which is behind the end of the tractor cabs, and that red is about 165 feet. Shonda, just to be clear on that, there's no berming in that Southern Wine. Is that correct? Correct. Within this staff report are the tables with strikeouts of the uses not going to be included within this business park center from the table 2.1 in the land development code. There are allowable uses for ARR and RL1, the strike-through versions, again, are available in your packet. This map displays the proposed buffering provided by the applicant, which wouldn't be required without the text amendment. The commercial area will have a 20-foot Type-C buffer north of the commercial, 850 feet north of Swindell, extending 2,060 feet, and it will include a 70-foot wide buffer area with a 6-foot earthen berm with a typical 20-foot Type-C landscape buffer with an additional 6-foot PVC fence. The remainder of the property will have the standard 20-foot Type-C landscape buffer per the land development code, and that's on all the remaining sides. Part of the land use designation change request is looking at what may be built with an administrative review and through a plan development with the current land use designations. The subject is currently agriculture residential rule and residential low. The sub-district per the land development code is 1. The property is in the transit supportive development area. That's different than the case you previously heard. And it's also in the transit corridors and centers overlay. So both of those categories do offer higher intensity and density of development. These designations were adopted in 2010 and were based on documents and visioning from transportation planning organization. However, they weren't necessarily analyzed for the developability based on wetlands or floodplains in those designations. The TCCO allows for a residential density of 12 dwelling units per acre within the RL district. If the development needs relief from the land development code, whether for a lot width of less than 50 feet, reduction in setback, or multifamily structures, a conditional use or a planned development will be required. To reach a density of 12 dwelling units per acre, multifamily will most likely be required. That is not allowed within the ARR, and a Level 3 review planning commission approval in the RL district would be necessary. About a year ago, the Board of County Commissioners adopted a planned development location eligibility score matrix, and that's what you see on the screen. It scored 14 points, placing it in the 3.5 maximum dwelling units per acre category. While this matrix is not required for development at these densities allowed in the TCCO and the TSDA, it is a good indicator of the maximum development load that the subject site might support, given the proximity to the various infrastructure items that are needed for the successful residential development. Based on the RL3 at 3.5 dwelling units per acre and ARR at 5-acre lots and the wetland density transfers, the subject site may generate about 286 units. Again, to be an administrative review, the lots must be 50 feet wide or larger and be single-family detached for that administrative review. It should be noted that no lot can solely be created in a wetland or a floodplain, i.e. the home site needs to be on the uplands. This is a ground photo looking west along Alderman with the site to the right and the parcel with the conservation limitation for stormwater adjacent to Swindell Road is to the left. Looking north from Swindell Road near where the entrance would be. Looking south along Alderman towards Swindell Road, the site is on the left. Looking north along Alderman with the site on the right. Looking northeast from the northern end of Alderman Road with the site on the right. Looking southeast from northern end of Alderman Road at the site. The site is serviced by public services and will not impact schools. The applicant has a water and sewer commitment from the city of Lakeland for 5,750 gallons per day of water and wastewater, respectively. Much has been discussed about the flooding issues in this portion of the county. This area has a significant history with attempting to moderate these issues. On the left is a 1941 aerial of the site from the Polk County data viewer showing the historical wetlands and the drainage canals that were started prior to the aerial. On the right is the same area with the most recent 2023 aerial with the floodplain and wetland layers turned on. No matter what is developed on the site, warehousing, or residential, the development will be required to meet the same policies for stormwater management, wetland protection, and floodplain compensation. With the wetlands, floodplains, and general groundwater levels in the area, it is anticipated that significant portions of the site will need to be dedicated to floodplain compensation. The justification for denial, the compatibility can be viewed, as I mentioned, in a macro and a micro level. You will see more macro level approach by the applicant's presentation that considers development in Hillsborough County. Staff's analysis focused the area within Polk County as the micro level impacts were significant. It is expected that any residential development will have access to Alderman Road and perhaps Wendell and will generate more traffic on Alderman. However, the considerations for staff's recommendation was given to the bifurcation of the R01 district and the sandwiching of the existing residential development. The intrusion into this residential area would be just over half of a mile. The requested BPC district is not contiguous to another similar district and will add more truck traffic to Swindell and impact the residential traffic from Alderman Road that uses Swindell more than any truck traffic from warehouse development in Hillsborough County. The requested text amendment is the first reading and no action is requested, but the board is requested to take action on the conference plan amendment, and I'll stand for any questions. Questions? Yes. So going back, what is now allowed with the table with the yellow marks on it, so currently, by administrative review, 286 residential lots could go on there, and of course they have to not build in the wetlands and all that, but is that correct? Around that, it could be higher or lower. That was just a general estimation of using three and a half units per acre, which is what you can achieve with 50-foot wide lots, maybe up to four dwelling units per acre perhaps. That's all I have for now. Do we have an idea of how many acres of upland are actually on this site just from a ballpark perspective? I know you've got a significant part of it that's in the floodway. RL, let me give you a map. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, speaking only to RL and then uplands within RL. The uplands and RL is 73 and a half acres, and the wetlands is 15. And the staff recommended denial? Yes, sir. And the planning commission? Denial, 5-2. And here we are. Okay, thanks. Anyone else? Ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to, oh, sorry, Bart. I'm about to jump over, you're on a bar. It's still a part of it, though, so. Imagine you know where yours is. Three. You're somewhere. I'm not here. While you're getting that, Shonda, one more question. Following up with Mike's question, so 73 acres upland, that would be the 3.5, so that still gets us to 255 in the upland, just in the RL one? Yes. Okay. I've got a couple things going on this morning. I'm trying to make sure I'm organizing out the right stuff. Good morning, commissioners. Again, for purposes of the record, my name is Bart Allen. I'm a land use attorney with the Peterson & Myers Law Firm. My address is 225 East Lemon Street, Lakeland, Florida. I'm here this morning on behalf of SEI Plan City, Stalwart Business Park, with me this morning on behalf of the applicant, I'm going to find you a mean, who's in the room. And this is in reference to LDC-PAL 2024-13, as well as the sub-district and the associated Lena Bowman Code-Tex Amendment. Before I kind of get into my comments on cases like this, as we like to do, I have a number of folks with me this morning that I'd like to introduce as experts. I'll give you a real brief introduction. They should appear familiar to you. Most of them have appeared and been experts in front of this board on a prior occasion. But with me this morning, I have Ms. Diane Chadwick from Stantec. Diane is an AICP planner, has 47 years of experience with land planning, doing all types of different projects, whether it is non-residential, residential, business, park, industrial, commercial, and master plan communities. You have seen her on the Majestic projects here in Polk County, as well as she worked with me on Nucor. So tremendous amount of experience with Polk County and this community and our rules and regulations. She'll be talking to you about some of the planning aspects of this project. Also this morning, I have Mr. Mark Wilson, who is a 35-year professional engineer with the Kimley-Horn Engineering Firm. He has been involved in the civil design, site design, stormwater design, floodplain analysis, and considerations for this project. He is here this morning, and we'll talk to you about a few of those items. Also, Justin Hamm. Justin Hamm is almost a decade doing professional engineering, similar civil site design type stuff. He worked with us extensively on floodplain analysis and helped prepare some of the memorandums and expert opinions and reports that we will provide to you this morning. I have, for purposes of your record, a couple copies of each of their resumes for this board, and if anybody in the audience would like one, there may be an extra copy in that packet. So with that, I would request, unless there's any question, request a motion to have these three individuals admitted as experts. So moved. In a second, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. All right. Thank you very much. Kind of getting into the case in chief. I'm going to start at a high level and then kind of we'll, you know, the macro level, if you will, and then we will kind of work through the project and talk about a few things. But I want to kind of talk about what is going on in this area along the I-4 corridor and, in particular, along the interchange here between the toll road, again, talking about the toll road again, and I-4. So what you have here is 165 and almost 165 and a half acres just north of I-4 along Alderman Road. With us this morning is the property owner, the Knights. Yes, they're in the audience, and they'll probably speak a couple minutes in the public comment, but just really want to commend the Knights. They've owned this property, and you'll hear this from them, for a long, long time. Maybe not quite as long as Stewart Property has owned Stewart Property, but getting pretty close to it. They've been out there for quite a long period of time and have been stewards of this land for many, many years and many generations, and I really appreciate their participation. They've been extremely involved in all of our conversations and land planning activities and provided a tremendous amount of input and insight into how they would like to see this property developed and appreciate all of their comments. This is the request, Ms. Bennett went over that with you. Again, we're asking for about 75 acres of Business Park Center with a 16-acre, or I'm sorry, I've got my numbers wrong, about 57 acres going to BPC-2 on the east side with the remainder remaining in the residential low and the ARR. You can see this request here. Staff indicated that it is not contiguous to another similar designation. It is immediately adjacent to existing future land use of Business Park on the south side to the city. You also have a DOT stormwater pond immediately adjacent to the site. So it is contiguous. It is contiguous. And you can kind of see from this context just off the first slide that you can see that there's existing future land use of Business Park kind of in this general vicinity. What have we done in July 2024 was the original Planning Commission hearing that we had on this project. We went through that process, had a different case at that time. What have we changed? We've agreed to reduce the building height to 45 feet. We have put additional limitations on square footage of buildings, not just the overall intensity of the site but how each building can develop. We are committing to provide 800 feet of queuing on-site of trucks that allows the vehicles to get off of Swindoll Road into the site before you ever reach a security gate, plenty of room to get trucks in and out of there. We are committing to enhance stormwater design. Even in light of the Senate Bill 180 that we heard about earlier this morning, we are voluntarily, and I'm saying that very specifically for Mr. Mink, we are volunteering to commit to doing the enhanced standards that this board was previously committing. We are committing to additional floodplain compensation on top of what we may impact on a site. And what this all does is this brings, starts bringing the intended use into compatibility on a micro level with the surrounding area, especially when you start talking about some of the other commitments that we've made relative to landscaping and buffering and limitations of uses. As I indicated, we have changed significantly. This was the original request on the left side. We have reduced that original request to go 1,200 feet less. We've reduced the northern boundary of the Business Park Center by approximately 1,200 feet. So that's a significant reduction. This line right here essentially is the boundary between the urban boundary and the TSDA boundary. It really has no impact. It affected the prior case where it was urban or not urban or rural, those categories. It does not affect the business park in this instance. This change reduces the request of Business Park Center by 25 acres. So by almost 25%, we reduced the area that we were asking for the business park and reduced the area of the BPC-2 by a 16-acre reduction. So those, as you can see, we have consolidated the site and bringing it into what we believe is a proposal that is consistent and compatible with the surrounding neighbors. Mr. Chair, may I have a minute? Yes. But this modification came after your denial with the Planning Commission? That's correct. Okay. That's correct. And candidly, from time to time, I'll say, we get tunnel vision on a particular approach, right? And as projects evolve and develop over time, sometimes you miss the forest for the trees. And I believe this is one of those instances. Had we really, like, considered how some things could be worked out, we just got hung up in the forest for the trees. And making these changes really probably should have been done the first time around. It just, again, we were laser-focused on a particular project and didn't modify it appropriately. And just to be clear, it was the first time it went to Planning Commission? That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, not between this last Planning Commission and today. That's correct. So the denial was on what we're seeing today or was on a previous one? Both. There was two Planning Commission hearings. They went to Planning Commission, correct me if I'm wrong, there was a denial. They went back and made changes. We withdrew the application. Before it came to the board, then they went back to the Planning Commission. Now you're hearing that current version. When Commissioner Santiago was asking the question, it was the first, the changes that have been made is between the first Planning Commission hearing and this hearing. Yeah, so just to be clear, because I don't like playing with words, what we see today was denied by Planning Commission and by staff, correct? Recommendation. Recommendation for now. Right. Okay, just want to make sure. Okay, be very clear on that. Thank you. No, that's very good clarification, Mr. Mink. You're exactly, you're on point as usual. So, what are we asking for, and I'm going to bring Ms. Chadwick up in just one second to talk about the planning aspects of these requests. We're asking for the BPC1. We're asking for BPC2 on a portion of the property, and what we're asking for with the limitations, we are well within, significantly lower from a floor area ratio perspective of what is typically allowed, and it is a significantly less intense use than, say, some of the residential components that you heard discussed earlier, and we may talk a little bit more about that later. But why here? Again, kind of coming back out to why here. This is the area. This is the area of the county when you look at all of these overlays with the majority of the property in the transit supportive development area. Inside the transit core, the center, you don't see all these overlays on a particular piece of property in many instances, and this is one of those. This is where you have all of your transit. This is where you have all of your infrastructure. This is where you have the access to the arterial roads, and that's why here. This makes this area extremely desirable for all types of uses. Again, we talked about some of that stuff, and we can talk about, I've already touched on the transit corridor stuff, but we do believe that this is kind of getting into the compatibility. We'll talk about consistency with the comp plan. We'll talk about compatibility with the comp plan. And Ms. Bennett, I'm sorry. I looked right at Ms. Chadwick and said, Ms. Bennett, I'm sorry. Ms. Chadwick, I think this is where you take her. I'll take the next one. Good morning. For the record, my name is Diane Chadwick. I'm a planner with Stantec. Our address is 777 South Harbor Island Boulevard in Tampa. And just in the interest of time, I will skip over a couple of slides because it's getting late and towards lunchtime. So this map gives you a real clear picture of the more immediate surrounding area, and it shows you its close proximity to the interchange. I-4 has become a very popular industrial transit corridor from Tampa to Orlando. Plant City has approved multiple industrial uses along I-4 and their eastern edge. FDOT, I'm going to point out this particular site. FDOT has approved the funding for the construction of a truck stop at the southwest quadrant of the interchange, and they're doing that because they recognize the volume of truck trips on I-4 and the need for additional truck parking so that the truckers don't have to drive great long distances. And I believe that facility is going to have restroom facilities and rest areas that would only be open to truckers. This area is in an industrial hub now, even more so on the Polk County side. The city of Lakeland and the county have approved a variety of business park and industrial designations in this area. Plant City recently approved the Blue Steel Project, which sits right here. It was approved for 1.8 million square feet. Just last week, the city approved another industrial park sitting right here, which I'm not positive of the number, but I believe it was upwards of a million square feet. The purple line here you see that shows that the clustering of our use is going to be below that purple line, which is basically consistent with the other industrial uses in that area. This shows more of just the I-4 corridor itself. As we know, there's a tremendous amount of industrial development along the I-4 corridor in both Hillsborough and Polk County. The dark blocks on here are the actual industrial buildings, either proposed or built or in the varying stages of approval. The subject property is aligned with other industrial development relative to its north-south location. Again, our buildings show here, and you can see that we're in line with the other industrial buildings being proposed in this area. We looked at a variety of comprehensive plan policies. The comprehensive plan discourages urban sprawl and the creation of low-density development. This industrial hub exists today and continues to grow. The comp plan calls for the protection of neighborhoods. We did provide a land development code text amendments that provides language that establishes restrictions. As we've talked about, the building height of a 45 feet, limiting the site to three industrial buildings, no greater than 250,000 square feet each. It also, that language also directs the enhancement of landscape buffering and greater, I'm sorry, greater building setbacks and restrictions on hours and types of operation and allowable uses. The comprehensive plan talks about location criteria. The site meets the comprehensive plan criteria for being within two miles of an intersecting arterial. This site is within one-half mile of the county line road and the interchange with I-4. The project proposes activities that are consistent with the adjacent and surrounding industrial uses. We propose 45,000 square feet of commercial to serve employees and surrounding residents. In addition, we propose preserving wetlands, creating stormwater facilities and floodplain compensation areas, and a great expanse of open space, most of which, of course, is on the north side. These features allow for characteristics that make the development consistent with the comprehensive plan and the surrounding area. Skip that slide. Comprehensive plan directs that land be allocated for future industrial uses to allow for a viable and diverse economy. Policies encourage the clustering of major industrial uses. This does cluster in close proximity to arterials, as the comp plan asked for, again, a half mile from the interchange. And we are adjacent to many other industrial uses and either directly adjacent or in close proximity. This slide, Shonda spoke about a little bit. So this comes from our text amendment. We worked extensively with your staff on the creation of restrictions. Robert and I spent many hours on the phone talking through ideas, and we really batted around a lot of ideas on ways to make this compatible. So those restrictions include the limit to the 640,000 square feet of industrial, those three buildings no greater than 250,000 square feet, maximum building height of what was 50, now we're saying 45, the 45,000 square foot of commercial. And these commercial services can provide services for not only the industrial uses, but also to the surrounding community. We certainly agree to the restriction of our access being on Swindell Road only, and the access to Alderman Road will be strictly prohibited. Additional restrictions we talked about was creating a western boundary that includes an enhanced buffer that's 70-foot wide, a 6-foot berm, and a 6-foot fence on top of the 6-foot berm with additional landscape materials. And then on the east side, when it's adjacent to the actual development area, a 30-foot wide buffer with a 6-foot fence and landscape materials. And, of course, our north and eastern boundaries that aren't adjacent to development will consist of a large, expansive open space, which will include wetlands, stormwater ponds, floodplain compensation. We've agreed to increase setbacks for buildings and loading areas, restrictions on hours and types of operation, restrictions on refrigeration trucks, and restrictions on outdoor storage. The ARR and RL1 areas that will remain will be restricted to nothing more than stormwater, wetlands, floodplain compensation, and open space. And this is a graphic that just shows you that cross-section of that buffer on the western side. Again, it depicts a 165-foot setback from the property line to the first building. It includes a 70-foot buffer with the berm and the fence. And keep in mind that there is still beyond that, and this shows the 30-foot right-of-way of Alderman Road and then additional setbacks from Alderman Road to residential uses. And at this point, I'm going to turn it over to Mark. Any questions of Ms. Chadwick before she? Just one. She'll still be in there. It said that there was one house remaining. Is that, I'm assuming, what appears to be the homesteaded property on the north side of this? Okay. Good morning. For the record, Mark Wilson with Kimmy Hornet Associates, professional engineer at 109 South Kentucky Avenue in Lakeland. And a little bit unlike the previous case you had before you, we've done a lot of work on this site. So the client is the developer, and they've also asked us to do a lot of calculations and a lot of work to get to this point. And as Bart and Diane have talked about, there's been a lot of back and forth and some changes and adjustments to the site. I feel like we've kind of gotten better every time we've done it. And what you see before you is some engineering speak, if you will, some colors and basins and what we've done for drainage calculations, just to let you know that we have run the calculations and make sure we can do, you know, meet the standards, 25-year standards and also 100-year standards. This is an open basin, Ichipaka-Sassa Creek is, but we still are going to be adhering to the standards of a 25-year and 100-year. We're going to be providing flood compensation, just like all the rules require, and we're actually going above and beyond and providing additional flood compensation, trying to do our part for the small piece that we are. And we're going to meet the rules that you guys just decided to pass on and extend a little further. So we've gone to great lengths here to run numbers and calculations and try to get this, and not come up here and talk about what could be, but we know what it will be when we come to the development process if we were to move forward and go through a construction-level process, and that's a little bit of what you see here today. We, you know, we know this area floods, right? At Ichipaka-Sassa Creek, anyone who's grown up in Polk County around here knows this area's flood. It's flooded forever, and it's going to always flood, right? A lot of the pictures, a lot of comments you're going to see from people, and a lot of the evidence that you've seen submitted to you through e-mails show people's homes back in here in the country class subdivision and other places that they have standing water. And it's mapped as flood prone, so it's not really a surprise. Hurricane Milton came through. It was over 12 inches of rain. The Water Management District has this area at about almost 11 inches of rain for a 100-year event, 10.9, if you want to be technical. And the hurricane was above that, Milton itself. The rainfall event was 12-plus. So it's not surprising it flooded. It was expected to flood. And, you know, when the next large storm comes to hear hurricanes, it's going to flood again. It's a 21,000-acre basin in Ichipaka-Sassa Creek. That's a really large drainage area. We're 166 acres. We're a very small piece of that. So all we can do is do our part to make sure we're going to meet the standards and hold back what we need to or provide compensation for what we need to to meet rules. And in this case, we're going a little bit above and beyond. And just a little bit about the site plan. You've heard some of it here today. We are staying out of the wetlands. I mean, you can impact wetlands with proper justification. We've had the Water Management District on site. We've done a formal wetland determination. They've walked the site. We've surveyed the wetlands. They've been tied down. So we're staying out of the wetlands. They provide compensation, flood storage. So we're going to take advantage of that. We have a wetland here. We have a wetland here. We're avoiding both of those. We have a drainage flow, creek, ditch, whatever you want to call it, that flows through our property. We are leaving that untouched except for a road crossing in two places. We're trying to leave that flow path through there. We're not trying to change Mother Nature. We've got to let it flow through our site. We have some other surface water impacts from agricultural activities, but they are not deemed wetlands. So we feel like we've done a pretty good job with our site to try and cluster. I think you've heard that word a little bit here today, cluster it to the south or portions of the property and leave significant portions of the remainder of the site upland. So no wetland impacts, very minor wetland impacts. Flood compensation area. These areas here are going to be digging out, excavating out, and provide more compensation following the rules that are well-established in the engineering field. And then the darker blue areas you see are actual stormwater ponds. We're going to be collecting, treating, and attenuating and holding back a little bit of extra water. And any questions you have before I turn it back over to Bart? I think that was. Just to clarify, what were the light blue on that north end? Yeah, so these light blue areas are just going to be areas we're going to excavate out. So whatever natural grade is, we have gone out there and done geotech work to define where the seasonal high water table is. So we're going to excavate these areas out deeper so they'll be able to hold some additional stormwater, you know, to compensate for the areas that we're going to be having construction in for floodplains. So we're holding back more water and providing extra compensation. But just to clarify, that's your cup-for-cup compensation that you're implementing on the site, correct? Yeah, it's a good point. So we're not doing, you know, modeling, trying to say that, you know, through modeling we're kind of making things match. We're actually going to do cup-for-cup. And with that cup-for-cup, we've got about five extra acre feet of compensation that we're providing for what we're impacting. So we're going above it. So we're not just matching, you know, one-to-one. We're going to go a little bit further above that and have an additional five acre feet. So just clarity, we weren't grading it to match existing. That really is the floodplain comp area opportunity on the site, correct? That's correct. Okay, thank you. All right. So kind of just to kind of start wrapping this up. I appreciate your time. Again, just kind of wanted to bring it back to, you know, the appropriateness of the site, the appropriateness of this area for this particular use and the desirability of this area for development generally. Again, Ms. Chadwick, I almost said Ms. Bennett again. Ms. Chadwick, you know, talked to you about kind of what's going on in the area. Again, looking at existing mapping, existing designations, business park, business park here with the Pilot Center, Blue Steel and their industrial development that was approved in Planned City recently for 1.8 million square feet, the proposed DOT truck stop. What is that looking for? That's looking for more industrial, more business park type development, more of this type use. There's agreements to extend, partially extend County Line Road to the north in order to facilitate some of that development. So what you're seeing is a continued investment. Looking at Frontage Road, Frontage Road effectively turns into Swindoll Road. There was some conversation about, well, maybe the BPC is appropriate because it's adjacent to Frontage Road. Well, Frontage Road effectively becomes Swindoll Road as you continue to move to the west. So we are continuing those trends that exist today. Zooming in a little bit further, again, now we're just kind of showing, again, this is the subject property with the stormwater ponds, the existing development here. McCourt Equipment is relocating its facility from the airport. That is a manufacturing aggregate type company where they manufacture screening and aggregate processing materials. That is currently under development moving into this area as well. And, as again, you can kind of see the depth kind of matching all along this, what is becoming a node. So, again, looking at what's happening, intersection improvements with the new traffic signal here at County Line Road and Swindoll, new traffic signal on the access here, existing traffic signals. So, again, all designated and driven around these uses. So it's beginning to make sense the closer and closer you get to the particular piece of property. This is a concept plan that was kind of mocked up, again, to kind of give you a demonstration of what the site might look like when it's fully developed and matured. And you can kind of see the buffering. You know, Ms. Chadwick talked about the 70-foot-wide berm, or the 70-foot-wide buffer with the 6-foot berm, the fencing, the landscaping, all along Alderman Road, reducing and mitigating for those impacts in this area, and then enhancing the landscaping and buffering on our borders. Again, all to begin reducing that intensity from the residential uses and to start bringing in that micro-compatibility with the adjacent properties. This is also an exhibit that Ms. Chadwick showed you earlier. This sightline exhibit is two-scale. This is a 45-foot-high building. These are all two-scale renderings. And the reason why I'm showing you this exhibit again is it's easy to think about these kinds of things in theory, right, looking at this cross-section. But let's look at it in what becomes closer to reality. This is an existing business park center development within Polk County. It's within a municipality, but it is within the county boundaries. What you see here is a berm along the right-of-way, and you see what we have designated as car parking, which is what we are showing in restricting our site to using within certain boundaries on the other side of the berm. And what you see here is the ability. Now, our berm may not match these berms' specs to the T. I'm not suggesting that they do. I don't have every detail of those specs. But what it gives you is a real-world example of how the landscaping and the berming works, how it creates the visual screening that allows these. It also provides noise reduction. It provides the ability for these two different uses, residential and a non-residential use, to coexist in close proximity to each other over time, which is kind of a recitation of your definition of compatibility in a different order. And that is the purpose of what we have done here. We have looked at all of those considerations. We have evaluated what this particular use, what it brings to the table. We've evaluated other uses. You've heard a lot of discussion. I'm not doing a bunch of math with plan developments and residential calculations and things like that. But they have been considered. We're looking at those. We've evaluated what those intensities and densities potentially could look like by right with administrative approval only. And we've looked at what would be accomplished if we pushed the boundary to a PD. And there is a range that goes from as shy as a couple, if you wanted to have 50-acre lots, to hundreds and hundreds of homes if we wanted to push the intensity of a plan development to the highest degree that we theoretically could. And the reality is it will fall somewhere in between, and that will all be driven by the market. That will be driven by design. That will be driven by development issues. So, yes, we have looked at all of that. At the end of the day, what we believe is that given the development of this area as a hub for business park and business park-type uses, given the investment in the infrastructure, whether it's roads, traffic signals, things like that, the restrictions that have been put on this site as it relates to building heights, sizes, those restrictions drive the form of the buildings. And the form of the building is going to ultimately result in what the function of the buildings are. These are not 1.3 million square foot buildings that will be cross-stocked with, you know, an e-commerce large retailer-type use. Because of the size, because of the way it's been designed, these will be smaller buildings, multi-tenant buildings, and these conditions are driven to drive that function. And that function is what begins implementing the micro-compatibility in conjunction with the landscaping and the buffering and all of the other restrictions that this developer is proposing. And with that, we believe, even in light of a recommendation of denial by staff, which I hate, I do, and they know it, I don't like being in front of you with a recommendation of denial. And I certainly don't like being in front of you with a recommendation of denial by the Planning Commission. But we believe there's a number of ways you can look at this site. And we believe that what we're proposing is the most appropriate and the most sensitive to the residents. And we would respectfully request a recommendation to transmit this today. And one last thing. Again, I talked about the Knights earlier, and you're going to hear some folks in opposition. But you're also going to hear some folks that are in support of this project today. And I think that's extremely important. Before I sit down, a lot of the information that we've provided, particularly on the floodplain and the stormwater, were not just, again, theoretical conversations. They were based on memorandums and analysis. I have copies of those for purposes of your record. I have some additional copies of the resumes. But I also have the signature pages that I sent around yesterday afternoon in Commissioner Santiago. I truly apologize. I forgot to include you on my email. Miss Anna pointed it out to me. But we have approximately 40 property owners who have different property owner interests that are adjacent or near this particular site that are in support of this project. And those are the original signature pages for those. So we'll stand for any questions. Yeah, I've got two questions for you. Can you go back to the slide that's got that site elevation line of sight? So on this one, and I was actually doing inverse tan on my sheets here to figure out line of sight where I was working. This, though, is assuming that your finished floor elevation is the same as the adjacent residential, correct? I mean, based on this one, as far as kind of looking at what the presence here. Right. It could be lower. Right. Your sight could be lower. It'd be lower. I mean, I don't... I mean, just, again, calling the apple an apple, I think the site itself is going to have to be probably elevated. But I guess looking at this, when I was doing it from just rough calculations, I assume around 160 feet, but it's looking at, you know, if the sun rises for the person standing out their front door, they've got to wait two hours to kind of see the sunrise over the crest of the building. So I just think it's in perspective of that. I mean, the buffering, I appreciate, but I just want to make sure elevation-wise, I was kind of thinking the same thing. The second, I guess... And just, and on that point, let's say we build this as residential. I have a 50-foot building height in residential low. So I think the point you're trying to make there is that we will be blocking their sunlight. I think that's kind of a moot point because if we develop residential, I can put 50-foot buildings on... Yeah, I mean, you're here to, you know, to promote the project. I get it. I wouldn't expect you to say, yes, I agree. And, you know, I'm not going to push the issue. I get that. From the petitions that were assigned, can you just... I would like to know what information was presented to those petitioners for them to sign on that letter because I've had a couple of calls from residents and I just, I wanted to at least understand the petition. I get it. It's signed saying that they're promoter for the project in lieu of residential. I guess what was presented to them when you talk about in lieu of residential? I didn't meet with any of the... I didn't meet with any of the residents, Commissioner Scott, I wouldn't know. Okay. So do you... How are those petitions? Not in those, not in those. We did hold a community meeting and we presented a number of different residential options in that community meeting. Okay. We're all within the bounds of what is theoretical and potential on this particular site. There was nothing that was misrepresented if that's what you're trying to get at. Just want to see... I want to understand it from a comparison standpoint, right? If somebody signs off on something out of kind of a forced decision, if you will. And then the last point I'll make is I noticed on some of those petitions that there's some from like Crystal Lake area. They're not nearby. They're over 10 miles away from the project. So just then again, on petitions that are in support of a project, if you live in the area, and I appreciate the maps, those make it, those are certainly supportive of a project and have a real interest in it. But when you're over 10 miles away from a project, I don't really think that bodes a lot of support for that. So that's a good point. So here is a signature, here is an exhibit with all of our residents who signed petitions that are included in that package with property, either that they live in or that they own that's immediately adjacent to this particular piece of property. The green are signatures that are original signatures that are in the package that I just handed to you. All of those green parcels have agreed, have signed on and recognized that those are, that they would prefer and support this project. The blue are people that are not adjacent to the site that are in the area. So that's, that's a map. Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And that helps. Like I said, there's just more that are beyond what you're showing on the map here. I just wanted to, again, we'll talk about 40 supportive letters. It's really not truly 40 supportive letters in the rectifier. I appreciate the clarification. All right. And I got one more, because I failed to mention this one in my earlier point that Commissioner Scott's touching on there. Let me see if I can find my, we evaluated the emails in opposition as well for similar purposes. And we, when we reviewed the emails in opposition, there was out of the 30, well, there was 30, I have not seen that last one. And I saw 29 of the 29, there were 18 people within those 29, nine of them were duplicates or multiple emails regarding the same thing. So I think that's also important to note for purposes of the record that while there were 29 as of yesterday, I haven't read the 30th, you know, almost a third of them were something that was a repeat. So again, I agree. That's an extremely, let's move on. All right. Anybody got any other questions? Becky? I do. One, thank you for that. I was trying to do that on your map here, so I could have saved myself some time. Is there a way, and maybe this is a question for one of the engineers, to compare the floor area ratio to residential rooftops, if that makes sense? I'll defer to my engineer on that question. Because if we're looking at the very minimum in RL1, the 73 acres upland, that would be roughly 255 rooftops possibly. Is there a way to calculate that or am I just way off base? I probably need more than just two minutes to stand up here, but there is a way to calculate it. I mean, we could run, make the sausage together, if you will. It's 255 homes, and do we assume with the driveway and the house and the lanai and the porch that maybe it's 4,500 square feet per home out there, maybe 4,000, pick the number. That would be including driveways. Yeah, including driveway, right? So 255 times 4,000, that's, you know, 23 acres right there, right? So 255 times 4,000 square feet is a million square feet of impervious, and that doesn't count the roads of the subdivision, right? So, you know, by the time you look at the proposed business park center with our warehouses and the paving, it's probably not going to be that far off, right? And, you know, you're asking a good question. I didn't touch on it too much, but, you know, if we develop 255 homes in here, it's going to be similarly developed, right? We're going to have flood compensation. We may or may not impact some wetlands. We're going to have the same type of impacts, and we just have to be one-to-one. You know, we can go and do a subdivision plan tomorrow and just follow the rules is all we have to do. So, it's going to be similar, similar impervious. It's a good question you ask. It's not that far off. I thought it'd be a little bit further off, but I think it's going to be pretty close. By right, do you have, by right, you got 255 homes on that property now? I, close. I think it's actually, if I did it earlier, what Shonda was saying, it was about 286, but I was just going off of just the uplands and the RL1 and what they have in RL1 now. And it's, I can't really say what's exactly by right. I can't do the engineering on any day of the week because I'm not an engineer, but I'm just, we did an analysis that if you did the locational score for the PD, it gets you three and a half units per acre. But on typical, to get 50 foot wide lots, you're talking three and a half to five, three and a half to four units per acre, give or take, to get 50 foot wide lots. Something smaller gets you higher density. So that's why we picked three and a half units per acre. So that'd give you 286. And with maybe 80 acres of developable, that's kind of where you're coming up at a route that number, right? Yeah, I was just going off the strictly 73, which would put it at 255 units. The way Shonda's looking at, you'd be 286 possibly. So somewhere between 250 and 290 units with an administrator review is possible. All right, Martha. To the modification that you did on your planning, and as I'm not understanding it was between the one before, after the planning commission was denied and then you modified and you went back to the planning commission. Am I not? That's correct. That's correct. Did you work with staff when you did the modification? We discussed our changes with staff. We continued the dialogue with staff. Yes. And what? Well, I'm not going to speak for staff. That's not my place. But I mean, I feel like the changes that we made were significant. I mean, just looking at this map alone, reducing the business park to the north brought that issue down. It brought, it consolidated the site. It made it, in my opinion, it made it more compatible as well as agreeing to reduce the building height. But they still, they still turned it down and did not recommend it. I think that's what she was getting. Yeah, that's great. They didn't change their recommendation. I'll let staff speak to that. Commissioner Santiago, are you asking why staff still recommending denial? We didn't give them any recommendations on how to modify. They came to us with their different ideas, different approaches, and then we reacted. But I think in the end, the issue is still whether whatever you do, you're still, this residential community here to the west is still sandwiched on three sides by the development, and then you have, as well on the west, on the east. So that didn't change. Just for a clear, like the BPC isn't compatible with the residential that's there is what we're saying. No matter what they did on the site plan, if it's still a business park center, that's what we're saying staff has issue with with respect to a recommendation for approval or denial. Right. And obviously, from obviously a more closed in micro approach, but it's also considering they're doing dark skies, but there's a 24-7 nature to warehouse that you don't have with residential. The more, the truck traffic's intermingling with the residential traffic, that's there no matter what the modifications were. All right. All right, everybody done asking questions? We're going to open this public hearing up. All right, ladies and gentlemen, this is a public hearing. If you wish to come forward and speak on this matter, please come and give your name and address, and you'll be given three minutes. Now, I have two here that a Lene Latrelle signed up, and then I have an Andrea Tuberville, I believe. But if y'all don't mind coming up, or just line up. I just want to make sure I did get your request, and there they are. Okay. My name is Edward Leonard. I am president of the Country Class Farms Homeowners Association. Thank you for letting me talk. Listen, first of all, it doesn't fit. That's the first thing we have to look at. You commissioners are smart enough to understand what they're saying and evaluate it on your own. What the planning staff is saying, this doesn't fit. We're here as homeowners saying we don't want it. We were flooded last time. We lost property. But that's not the legal part of it. The legal part of it is that it doesn't fit. So here we are hoping that you, as smart individuals, I'm not a realtor, or I don't know how this is done. I'm just an old Air Force veteran. But I'm smart enough to know when somebody's blowing smoke. I know that. So they want to just sell their property. And I understand that. They can sell what they want. But you've got to understand there is a legality to everything you've got to do. The legality is it does not fit. I don't care how much you want to sell this property for. It don't fit. People will come up and say, well, you know, we've been here 30 years. We're doing this. That's true. That's a hard thing. Because I've been, I've lived there 28 years. That's a hard thing. The problem is staff says it's not compatible. Yes, does that help us? Yes. It's legal that this is not going to work. We flooded last time. We had three feet of water on top of Giant Oak Road. We were, we were in for five days. We couldn't get out of our property. No, it's not their fault. It's the fact that it's, it's, it's your back of Sasset Creek, the developed the area. So let's look at it for what it is. Look at the reality of what it is. It don't fit. Don't, don't try to put a square peg in a round hole because you want to sell property. It don't fit. I appreciate staff looking at this thing in a realistic type environment. I don't care what you want to, what you want to sell. It don't fit. Appreciate you guys listening to me. And when I go back to the residents and I are in Giant Oak, on Giant Oak, they would have known that we tried. Thank you. Thank you, sir. My name is Beverly Fitchett and I live at 4651 Swindell Road. I'm not very far from where this property is. There is a creek that runs behind my house, the same one that you're talking about that goes through the middle of this building area. And that's another issue. There's a lot of flooding out there, a lot. We have more water than we've ever had. But also, I want to speak on that there's homes surrounding this property. Okay? All the way around, except for right there on Swindell Road, right across the street is a storm thing. They're talking about that it's compatible. Well, I don't see how it's really that compatible because most of those buildings that business parks, they're clustered down towards the end where the county line is. Okay? And then on the west end, they're down there on what we call now Swindell and Frontage Road. It's clustered down there. This is right in the middle of people that live here. And we don't want that there. We want to keep it rural and it's nothing against the people that want to sell this property, but there's a flooding problem and there's a compatibility problem. And I just don't think it's a good idea. We've, in the past, I've come up here to talk about this. And then about a year and a half ago, we also had on the east side another area that they wanted to put a business park in and that was denied because, and there was two sides, just two sides, people living on two sides of it. But we didn't want it there. We wanted to stay rural. And that's all I'm asking is that you consider the people that are living out there. And remember that we are getting flooded. I don't know what else is going to happen, you know, so take that in consideration too. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, I actually live at 202 Alderman Road, West Alderman, which is right across from where their proposed business park is going to be. I'm for the business park. Ma'am, I'm sorry. I need your name and address. Linda Swindle. And I just gave you the address, 202 Alderman Road. Okay. And I live right across the road from where you're going to put the business park. I want the business park. I don't want houses out there because they're going to put three entrances in on Alderman. If they do, all my neighbors that left to walk up and down our road, leading their dogs and different things, the traffic is going to be horrible on Alderman. It's not a very big road anyway. And not only that, they were talking about Eagles Nest Warehouse. Right across the road is Primo Warehouse. Then right at the intersection where the stop sign is where Wes Alderman comes out to Swindell, on that corner, there's recycling equipment being taken. So I am for the warehouses. Okay. Please consider that because it's already, we're getting house places built everywhere. We need more jobs. I heard you say you wanted to bring more warehouses in to furnish jobs. Well, warehouse jobs pay pretty good. So I am for the warehouse. And the berm, I think is excellent. It's not going to affect me. I have a half acre right across in the little narrow section coming down to Swindell where the corner of Alderman and Swindell Road is. And I'm right there. Okay. So I appreciate it and I appreciate y'all considering, and I understand everybody's point of view, but I think them putting the retaining things in and getting ready for more water is going to help everyone. Thank you for listening. Thank you, ma'am. Anyone else? All right. What are we doing? Good morning. I've been advised that I have a slide presentation and I need to make sure that that's okay. You got three minutes. Okay. So I'm going to go back over there where I can control it. Good morning. Thank you so much for letting me be here. My name is Lene Latrell. I live at 4708 Charlie Taylor Road. This project was denied by your staff and the planning commission just nine months ago. And even with the changes they have made, it was denied again on April 2nd. Yet they're steamrolling forward hoping they can sucker you into getting this to Transmittal. There are many reasons why you should deny this project, but I only have time to hit on a few. It is not compatible with a surrounding rural neighborhood, your land use map, or your development codes. Residents chose to live in this area specifically because it afforded us the space and protection of agricultural zoning. My husband and I built an 18-acre horse boarding business that we depend on for our livelihood. Other neighbors have invested lives, our businesses, our financial security, and our homesteads based on your codes. It is irresponsible to change them in favor of a developer over your existing population's property rights. In 19, I'm sorry, in 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers studied this area and deemed it a wildlife corridor that should be protected. All of these endangered species have been observed by myself and neighbors of the area. It increases the risk of flooding for residents downstream. When you see my property location noted in green, it seems outrageous that I would even be here today, but what you must understand is that water respects no boundary. If you look at this, now you know why. Most of their land is in the 100-year floodplain. Residents downstream are trapped by four roads, and we sit much lower topographically. When it rains, water surges into the Itchipac-Azassa Creek swimming pool and hits a choke point at the bridge under Knights-Griffin Road. No matter how their engineers spin the data or try to prepare, water will flow to the lowest point, and that will not be their elevated warehouses. In 1975, my home was not in a flood zone, but thanks to overdevelopment and an unimproved creek, it is now. This is why, in 1999, the Army Corps of Engineers study and in 2005, the Keith and Schnarr study both determined that this area must remain low-density development because of the stressed river basin. In addition, there's an ongoing swift mud study of the Itchipac-Azassa Creek watershed that is not yet finished. Until engineers have current and accurate data, greenlighting this project puts homeowners at greater risk and it puts Polk County at much greater liability. I understand it's not the developer's job to fix these flooding issues in this area. However, you also cannot allow them to base their plans on old information and allow gasoline to be thrown onto the fire. The property owners want to sell their land for top dollar. I understand and respect that, but it is your responsibility to ensure that the buyer develops it in a manner that is compatible with the existing neighborhood and development codes. There are many more compatible options besides warehouses and cookie-cutter homes. Many other options, but they don't bring in as much money. That is what is at the heart of the issue. Again, that doesn't justify or obligate you to approve this. Please support your staff's findings and deny this project. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. Chair, may I? Yes. Do you live in Polk County? I am in Hillsborough County, but water knows no boundary. If you see the red line right in the middle, that's the divine line. Is that a yes or a no, ma'am? You live in Hillsborough County? I live in Hillsborough County. I think you answered her question. Thank you. Yes, sir. Appreciate it very much. Morning. My name is Alisa Kelly. I live at 5021 Swindell Road. My driveway... Oh, my God. Oh, sorry. Time's up. Okay. I'll go. It was a time warp. Sorry. The sides of my property, one side is on Swindell, the other side's on Alderman, so I'll be directly facing the proposed property. To make sure I understand, this meeting here today is about whether or not it's residential or commercial, essentially, right? Okay. So it's getting sold regardless of what happens here today. I am in favor of the warehouse. I don't want 1,200 cars. I don't want cars up and down Alderman every single day. I think the planning committee of this developer has done a phenomenal job, more so than I've ever heard. They've put so much time and effort to care for the neighbors that I don't think is happening anywhere else in Polk County. I think they're going to develop and do their thing, but I'm appreciative that they've done a lot to make sure that, even though it's unfortunate, that it is taken care of to some point. So absolutely, I prefer a warehouse. I do not want a million homes, 286, 300. It's just too much. I'd rather the trucks come off. They're already coming off Swindell. I'm used to that. I can walk Alderman now without an issue. We put 300 homes in there, but it's two cars to maybe every home, three, maybe one. That's another at least 900 cars coming in and out of Alderman. I just, I know half these neighbors, a lot of them walk. I see them all the time. I walk, me and my son up and down that road, a thousand cars is not what I'm interested in. And unfortunately, I know everyone wants to say that this area, it doesn't fit. It doesn't fit maybe the second, but it's going to fit. They're going to widen the eye for it. Development's happening in Polk County, whether any of us like it or not, it's happening. And so I'd rather go ahead and be warehouses. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you very much. Thank you, ma'am. All right. Ma'am. I am, you had a letter there from Andrea Turberville. I am reading a letter in her stead. Sit back down and let this gentleman go and then I'll consider it in just a minute. I had one up here from Turberville. Yes, sir. I am her proxy today. She could not be here. Sit back down. Good afternoon. My name's Anthony Campbell. I live at 346 Alderman Road. My mother lives on Alderman Road. My daughter, son-in-law live on Alderman Road. We don't want residential. The vehicles come down Alderman Road. Alderman Road is a dead-end road. There's minimal traffic down Alderman Road as is. If you put, say, three, four hundred, five, I've heard up to six hundred units over there, apartments, houses, that's like 4,000 vehicles going down Alderman Road every day. The commercial property is not that far. I said my address is 346 Alderman Road between me, my mother, and my daughter. We've got a 15-acre block there. Our property goes from Alderman Road back to the Well Dine Warehouse, which is Eagle's Landing, the Well Dine Warehouse. Our property butts both of them. The commercial is not that far away. We just don't want to see the traffic. I know the Knights, I've been there for roughly 56 years. I've lived there basically my whole life. I've known the Knights forever. I have no problem with them selling that. I just don't want to see the residential. Thank you. All right. Anyone else? My name's Jeff Fitchett. I live at 4651 Swindell Road. And the staff has denied this twice already. I've went to all those meetings that we could go to to the board meeting. And if you look at the map right now, you know, it does have to do with compatibility. If you look at the map on three sides, the west, north, east is all either cow pasture or rural land or residence. And on the south side towards Interstate 4, somebody mentioned that that piece of property in the blue on the south end of that is supposed to be a City of Lakeland development or property for development. That property is a borrow pit from when they built Interstate 4. I've been in that area my whole life. That does not fit in and if this is passed or rezoned, it's just a domino effect of what's going to happen in that area. Then the warehouses or industrial buildings will be compatible because, okay, we got one in the area now. So it's just going to be a domino effect. Most people that live out there, it's just a rural area. They've got acreage with their houses and that's what, I understand people don't like development. We'd like to keep it as it is, but I understand there's going to be some development that just a warehouse doesn't fit in that area. And the people that live along Alderman Road there, the people especially that affront that piece of property, they're going to open their front door. True, they're putting a berm up there and a fence, but they're probably still going to be able to see the top of that building. And it's like, what are they doing that for? Because it doesn't fit the area. They're trying to cover it up like putting lipstick on a pig. I mean, that's what it boils down to. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Ma'am, are you coming? Good afternoon. My name is Janet Benton and I live at 5139 Alderman Road. I'm at the Dead End. And as the crow flies, you go across where our property is not far from the county line. We're dreading the fact that pilot or racetrack or whatever it is is coming. The lady from Plant City, Charlie Taylor Road, she's not that far down the road from us. And Charlie Taylor Road from 92 to Knott's Griffin Road is nothing but a bunch of homes on top of each other in swamp land and warehouses. Right at the end of Charlie Taylor Road and Swindell, just on Hillsborough County's side. They just had a commissioner meeting in Plant City the other day and it's being zoned for industrial. Now how is that going to benefit us? I know it's Hillsborough County, but as the lady said, the land doesn't know any boundaries. We are in an influx of residential and industrial business park crap. So that's what it is. And we too have the wildlife and everything. I don't know how you can build on a piece of land. This little area here is wetlands, but oh, we're going to build around it and it's not going to affect that. We're going to build up. Where's the water going to go? It's already been proved. I've been at my home for 32 years. We've never, yes, we knew we were in a flood zone AZ or whatever when we moved out there, but until 2017, all we had was standing water about ankle deep. After Well Done come in, which was the old auto auction for people that have been around for a while, the water came up about this far from the bottom of our home. We kept marking, I live in a double line and we kept marking the skirting as how far it went. But then, that was after Well Done and then Milton came and water got in our home. We too flooded and I think even with the residential and everything, I don't want to see a bunch of homes out there either and I don't have anything against Mr. and Ms. Snot. I loved her father, his father and mother. I remember having happy memories of them coming up down the road and just checking things out and all and we don't have anything against them. Lord knows, Ms. Christine, worked hard with those cattle. But I honestly don't know if they sought maybe some agricultural people to buy them instead of residential warehouses, what it's zoned for. And it's not fair for people behind us on country class, when they built, they had to have two and a half or five acres of land. And now they're saying if it doesn't get the warehouse, the residential areas, you're going to put seven houses on the acre. We thank you, ma'am. We understand. Thank you. You got your three minutes. All right, sir. Come on forward. Who else is wanting to speak today? I want everybody to get in line right behind him so we know who we got. And ma'am, I'm not going to allow you to do the other ladies. She's already, you already had your turn. So everybody wants to speak, get in line so we'll know who, what we got. Jim Rainey, 440 Alderman Road. I bought my property in 18 and the back of my property is low anyway. But the neighbor behind me, I went to school with him, his place has flooded twice. So, yeah, they have a right to sell a property, of course. I don't have a problem, a major problem with the warehouses. I just done 2,000 cars trying to get out of there. You can't get out of there now. Interstates blocked every day. It's backed up. Now, Swindell is backing up on County Interstate being backed up. No one is addressing the infrastructure. All they want to do is build, build, build. Don't build nothing until you do something about the roads. Thank you. Thank you, sir. My name is Dalton. I live on 4905 Oleno Avenue. What's your last name, Dalton? Wilson. That's a good one. That's right. I am for the development of the commercial property. I work for Florida's largest heavy equipment dealer. I'm in field service. I get to see development from commercial as well as residential from start to finish. I go and service the equipment. The reason I say that is you definitely don't want your residential houses being built on this property just for the fact that I see these cookie cutter homes and they're going to be in rough shape in 10 years and somebody buys them. I see the development of the commercial property. It's very well thought out. They have retention ponds. They plan for growth when they develop a piece of property. They know what they're going to do with it in 30 years, 10 years, so forth. For all the people that don't want them to sell it, just buy it. Just buy it and don't develop on it. Thank you for your time. Thank you. My name is Justin Adams. I live at 8676 Pebble Brook Way. I currently don't live right next to the property, but I have family and friends that live on Swindell and on Alderman Road. I'm here to speak for them. The housing development that possibly could go if this does not get passed would be, I think, detrimental to all the surrounding people that live there due to the traffic. I think that all these people are complaining about all their property flooding. I don't feel that it's the night's problem. It's not their fault. It's just the location where they're at. Whether they're houses or whether there's going to be warehouses, they're going to have that same problem. So I'm for the warehouses and that's a lot to say. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, sir. All right. Who's up? My name is Dennis Craig. I live at 5129 Alderman Road. Well Dine at Eagles Landing is the only large warehouse facility north of Interstate 4 except for those that are on the frontage road. It is on the Hillsborough County line. It is at the end of County Line Road where their trucks have immediate and easy access to Interstate 4 and it's not in a residential neighborhood. It's got 1,320 feet of frontage on Swindell Road. I know that from Google Earth. It's got two entries and exits that are 30 feet wide and they're 600 feet apart. Swindell Road in front of that facility is 50 feet wide with paved shoulders. The Swindell Road right there very importantly has a center turn lane that extends from that facility all the way back to the Plant City north side frontage road. Now if you go a half a mile east on Swindell Road that's where the subject property is. In between the two there are six homes on Swindell Road on the north side of it. When you turn onto Alderman Road there are 15 homes that are directly across the street from it. The property itself is a flag lot and the flag pole is on Alderman Road. That property has just over 300 feet of frontage on Swindell Road and it is at a four-way stop sign area. Trucks from the south side of Interstate 4 cross over on Clark Road just to the east and use Swindell Road for access to Interstate 4 so they can avoid the traffic lights that are on County Line Road. That four-way stop sign at Alderman and Swindell Road backs up from trucks stacking up there and also when Interstate 4 is backed up with traffic which is very often navigation systems in the cars direct people onto the surface roads and onto the north side frontage road and right down to that stop sign at that area which backs it up even further. In addition to that there's a big housing development going in on Walker Road and that's going to contribute to that traffic problem right there too. Now All right sir we sure do thank you. Who's up next? Joshua Briggs 945 Country Oaks Lane So I'm in opposition because I want to point out a couple things that are historically relevant. The flood studies that was done in 95, 96, 99, 2005 was all done in partnership with Polk County, Hillsborough County and Swift Mud and main purpose of that was to have this discussion what we're having now is can this area sustain development? What's it going to take to fix it? And what they found in all those studies in the Army Army Corps of Engineers specifically requested that this area is already undeveloped back then and it was like so development in the future should be extremely limited because the cost between Hillsborough County Polk County everybody else is in there is going to be too expensive. Whose jurisdiction does what? Who's responsible for this? Who's responsible for that? Trying to get information is a nightmare. I got to go through everybody to get that. So what the developer also says is they've mentioned Hillsborough County warehouses. Let's talk about the history of that. They were denied all those properties were denied by Hillsborough County planning and what they did is they moved it to annexation and annexed all that property into plant city standards and I'm guessing they're probably going to do the same thing with this property once you guys not if you vote you know against it they're going to transition their little projects to city of Lakeland but the problem is is no matter the jurisdiction it's still involved in this watershed the watershed that's been on record for being problematic too expensive to fix and nobody's been able to do anything in the future so adding to it regardless if it's a traffic zone or anything else it's kind of like the equivalent of putting houses right next to 275 going across the bay it's like yeah it's a traffic corridor but it doesn't mean it can sustain growth same thing with this area I-4 is a buffer zone everything south of that has been developed everything north of that impacts the H-Pack-Assassin Creek Watershed cutting down on each individual property is going to limit that regardless if it's residential or if it's industrial the fear tactic of being told it's either going to be 700 houses or it's going to be one warehouse is bull crap because you guys still have to go through the process to approve it so for them to be the community being told well it's going to be high traffic it's misleading at best it's irresponsible and lawyers know that's why they didn't want to participate in that because had they said that yeah we sent out these flyers saying that it would push the wrong message so please take that into consideration the history of the area why it's zoned the way it is and the limitations it's going to take to require all that thank you thank you sir all right who's up all right we better come because I'm fixing to shut her down good afternoon commissioners my name is Erica Sumner 924 East Jefferson Street Brooksville Florida I am the broker and owner of Florida Cracker Properties which is the listing agent that was hired by the Knight family to sell their land I come before you today not only as their representative but as someone who has been deeply involved in every step of this process with care clarity and consideration this transaction was never taken lightly not by myself nor the Knight family from the very first conversation it was clear they had a thoughtful and deliberate excuse me vision for the future of their land their goals were not only financial they were generational they were focused on the neighborhood they've long been a part of and the legacy their family has cultivated for nearly a century a hundred years ago this landscape looked very different there was no I-4 no subdivisions no highway hum no glow from distant development through all of that change the Knight family's property remained the same an unaltered symbol of what Polk County once was but the reality is the world around them has changed and continues to change the one thing that has not changed is the Knight's family commitment to being thoughtful stewards of their land even as they move forward with the sale when the property first hit the market within the first seven days I received seven letters of a tent two written offers and strong interest from several national local and regional developers including Taylor Morrison D.R. Horton Clayton Holmes and a mass development which is an aggressive and large land developer out of Miami to this day both I and the buyer's agent continue to receive weekly increase from industrial residential and mixed use developers but despite easier paths available the Knight family remained committed to a buyer that had a plan that reflected their values they allowed me to personally vet each potential buyer ensuring the vision aligned with their long term community impact just not the short term gain the buyer we are working with has demonstrated the same level of care investing significant time and resources into adjusting their plans exceeding baseline expectations and addressing concerns voiced by the neighbors this decision is emotional it is deliberate and it is rooted deep in respect for the land the community and the future of Polk County thank you thank you ma'am good afternoon my name is Christina Knight my address address is 575 Alderman Road sorry I got it thank you I have lived and worked on this property for 50 years and I'm ready to retire I'm sorry I'm emotional but I can't help it when you work cows it isn't 9 to 5 it's 24 7 work and worry the property is my retirement and I would like to retire I'm 75 I've had two joint knees replaced hip replaced I can't do it anymore although I do have my son to help but it's time for a change I would like to retire thank you very much and have a great day thank you anyone else my name is Robert Hanson I live at 5220 Alderman Road we own six portals on Alderman if you're going to build something on it whether it be warehouses our homes I prefer warehouses there's enough traffic down that road 4,000 2,000 we don't need no more cars it's peaceful where it is I know we're right in the middle of a sandwich well done circles me they completely butt up around me and I have no issues with a warehouse at all you put a residential neighborhood in there you're going to kill what we built that's it let's go on thank you anyone else going to speak you ma'am I'm going to use my three minutes but I'm going to ask him to pull a map up that map up real quickly my name is Kara Knight I live at 575 Alderman Road and it may sound like there's some opposition to the project but my family spent some time in our neighbors homes and many of them see the immense value of this project for our community and while some people are unhappy with this proposal the truth is many of those in opposition simply believe that all development should have ended as soon as their property was developed they fight it because they believe they can stop all development and they fight irregardless of the alternative and the alternative is real what many may not know is that there is a level of residential development that can occur on this property without any public involvement or approval from the county and this kind of development comes with no berm no landscaping no extra million gallons of water retainage it comes with less regulatory restrictions more traffic more noise more need for county resources such as schools more questions and the alternative is not as beneficial to this area as the proposed project a vote against the project is a vote for an option that's much less desirable even to the people in opposition and I mentioned that we spoke to many neighbors the map that's up I'm going to speak directly to the ones around that were not able to be here today some of them are elderly some of them had to work but they did sign and I'm only going to speak to the ones that are directly around some of those letters I think you have were also just friends and family that wanted to show support Mr. Scott Commissioner Scott excuse me so Jason Kelly at 5041 Swindoll Road Kendall Kelly at 5021 Swindoll Road William Kelly at 4807 Swindoll Road Candace Grillo at 5101 Alderman Road Phillip Peters at 625 Giant Oak Road Stephen Marissa Kuzmiersik 725 Giant Oak Road Michelle Smart 820 Giant Oak Road Rebecca Houston 940 Giant Oak Road Thomas Houston 940 Giant Oak Road Sue Kelly 4807 Swindoll Road William Kelly Jr 4901 Swindoll Road Janice Alderman 4775 Swindoll Road Levi McKinney 202 Alderman Road Allison Kelly 4901 Swindoll Road James Bibby and Becky Bibby at 4755 Swindoll Road Zachary Bibby 4779 Swindoll Road Glenda Pierce 4535 Swindoll Road Josh and Tennille McCain 1120 Country Oaks Lane Robert Reeser 4404 Musket Drive Kim Kelly 4520 Log Cabin Drive John and Shirley Smith 2125 Sutton Road these are all people that live on that map in the green or the blue and support the project I take that back the Sutton Road's not on that map so I apologize for that but other than that one property all of those people firmly believe in this project over residential and that's one of the reasons why we chose this developer specifically for this property thank you ma'am anyone else all right Bart you're up thank you commission there's been a lot said I've said a lot we talked a lot early on we've given a lot of our analysis regarding the project regarding the request that's the various requests that are before you today there's been a lot of resident testimony as well and I think that it's all extremely important whether you're for this project or not because this is an important part of the process that said I could bring Mr. Wilson up and we could talk about drainage again we could go through all those analysis again but I think at the end of the day what you're kind of left with is a piece of property a significantly a significant piece of property as it relates to size and proximity and where it's located that is that is ready to develop and what you've got in front of you is a project that is going to bring something that is a little bit less intense than what a residential project could potentially bring and you've heard a lot of residents who prefer the non-residential component we've heard some people that are against the warehouse candidly most of their comments would have been negative on a residential development too when I take them at what they're worth and we talk also talk a lot and one of the problems or one of the things that we discuss at length is trying to put development in the right spot and we talk about that from a residential perspective and from a non-residential perspective we you know if I took it out of context and we were talking about a big piece of property doing a big high intensity residential development out on the outskirt or something we probably say that's not appropriate but that's not where we are we're right on I-4 we're right in the corridors we're right in the area where we have direct access to the roads that access to I-4 and the parkway this project is in the appropriate spot we've done the work to show you that we can meet the standards and you know at this point where we are is we would request that we transmit this to the Department of Commerce let's get that opportunity to have those comments and move this project forward to the next step and given all of that we believe that this project is compatible we believe it's consistent with your comprehensive plan we very much appreciate all of your time I appreciate staff's time I appreciate all the residents' time on either side of the issue we have our team here if you do have any specific questions technical or otherwise but we would request favorable vote today thank you all right thank you Bart all right we got some questions let me first of all close this public hearing and bring it back to the board for any questions and then we'll take a vote you got any questions I got a comment and a comment okay denied by the staff denied by the planning commission the applicant spends 30 minutes explaining drainage which should be a huge huge red flag the best scare tactic for we're going to put a whole bunch of houses in there which is going to be worse it's the best one I've seen since I've been sitting up here for 11 years so I'm a no on this yeah I was just going to comment as well gaslighting on from what I've heard to me it's freedom of speech you can do whatever you want to in the great United States of America but the gaslight and say you're going to have from information I was told directly up to 4,000 cars a day down Alderman is unfortunate you know this hearing is about whether Business Park Center fits or doesn't fit compatibility wise it's not about one choice versus the other it's RL1 that has vested rights where it can be developed and there's also limitations on where those homes can be placed if it's RL1 and it's used for a commercial developer they're not going to go build in the middle of the floodplain so I just think it's unfortunate that that was used and when we're ready for a motion I have a motion that I like Rose that's fine I just wanted to say that if someone said no development that's what they wish that we had here whether it's the warehouses or it's the rooftops it's going to be development and I think both things are going to affect the floodplains in that area I don't see how we can get away from that because it's like someone said it's just in the area that we're in so I just don't want to see the commercial part in this area okay Becky you know I think Martha and some other people have said it the true wish is that there is no development and I take great I just do not like that as it comes down to property rights and I know everybody has property rights but when I look at what is already vested for this property anywhere from 250 to 300 homes and I think of the impact that that will have in the area I'm really struggling to see that that would be less intense of an impact to roads to the drainage obviously to schools that's much more intense and the choice of no development is not a choice that is not on the test question so I think we've got to look at what what really fits out there and the intensity and although it may seem different I believe a commercial intensity or commercial use is less intensive to the area and is a fit I mean again we're not talking about Polk a hundred years ago we're talking about Polk County as it exists now in that area you know all right I've heard I've heard a lot today on this subject you know there's one one thing about it you have property rights here people lived out there for a long time the Knights have lived there a long time doing what they do the people down the road lived there a long time doing what they do and but as we're looking at we're looking at this we are looking at LDCPAL 24 2024-13 not a development that's what we're looking at if I'm wrong somebody tell me so people that live there communities anybody in this room that lives out there if it was left up to them they don't want any change they want it left just like it's been for years upon years I don't blame the Knight family for wanting to move on generations change things happen but still the other people are still there too I get that also but anyway I'm not I won't be for this so let's get a motion and let's go motion of denial second got any further discussion all in favor aye opposed nay motion carries to deny that's P6 P7 at this point I think we need a motion not to move forward to the second need a motion to not move forward so on P7 P7 go move second got a motion and a second all in favor opposed motion carries motion carries all right let's move on to P8 Mr. Chair P8 is a public hearing for the board to consider adoption of the ordinance of the Polk County Board of County Commission prohibiting public camping on certain properties unless specifically authorized this is adopted to ensure compliance with House Bill 1365 adopted by the late state legislators in 2024 it prohibits or which prohibits local governments from authorizing public camping going sleep sleeping on public property unless authorized by the board this ordinance does that prohibits camping on public property unless authorized for recreational purposes it also prohibits camping on residential property unless it's consented by the owner and it does not include recreational relaxation activities in a public park during daylight hours if there's no tent to remain overnight the proposed ordinance is recommended to the board for approval and I stand for any questions any questions ladies and gentlemen this is a public hearing if you wish to comment on this on this matter please come forward state your name and address you'll be given three minutes don't see no one closing the public hearing bringing it back to the board any further discussions nope do we have a motion motion to approve motion and a second all in favor aye opposed motion carries and we are done