Planning Commission on 2023-12-06 9:00 AM

Do the Doc Lindsay farm worker housing conditional use. It's been continued in February 7th. LDPD 2023-23, the North US 98 PD is being continued to February 7th. LDCT 2023-15, the mine and mill text amendment is being continued to January 3rd. And LDCPS 2023-20, the Graceway Thornhill Road institutional case is being continued to January 3rd. That should do it. Okay, no other further changes to the agenda than what's been mentioned? No, sir. The only other note would be numbers 2 and 3 will be presented together. It's a comprehensive plan amendment and a sub-district change. Okay, thank you, sir. Ms. Voss, do we take a vote on that or do we just do that during the... Yes, we'll need to take a vote once we open the meeting. Okay, thank you. Nothing else to discuss during the workshop. We'll go ask for a motion to close the public workshop. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, meeting closed. So welcome to the Planning Commission meeting. Today's December 6th, 2023. I'd like to call the meeting to order. With that, we'll turn and start with our Pledge of Allegiance. All right, I believe everybody has seen the minutes. Any confirmation for revisions to the agenda? Mr. Nance? Yes, sir. There are four cases that have been advertised but are being continued to a later date. That's LDCU 2023-42. The Doc Lindsay Farmworker Housing Conditional Use is being continued to February 7th. LDPD 2023-23. The NorthUS 98 PD is being continued to February 7th. LDCT 2023-15, the Mine and Mill Text Amendment, is being continued to January 3rd. And LDCPS 2023-20 is being continued to January 3rd. And there's one more thing here that I didn't mention in the workshop. At the conclusion of our agenda, Land Development Director Ziscoll would like to address changes of Senate Bill 250, and it's how it's going to affect our direction in the coming year. Okay, thank you, Mr. Nance. Before we take a vote on that, I'm sorry, I jumped the gun a little bit. Mr. Dalton, can you please do roll call on the termination of quorum? Yes, sir. Robert Beltran? Present. David Dalton, I am present. Mike Hickman? Present. Brooke Adnini? Here. Tommy Addison? And Mike Schmidt? Here. Mr. Chair, we have a quorum. All right, so just for clarification purposes, there's been a number of cases that are being continued to the January meeting. If you're here in the public, to hear those cases that are outlined in yellow on the screen up above, those are being continued to January, so I'd hate to have somebody sit around and wait for those cases. They are not being heard today. And with that, can I have a motion to make an amendment to the agenda? So moved. All in favor? Aye. All right, so moved. All right, so we've got the agenda worked out here, and with that, we'll move on to the explanation of general procedures by Mrs. Voss. General procedures. The Office of Planning and Development will introduce the case and disclose any responses to the notification which were not already provided to the Planning Commission in their packets. The Office of Planning and Development will present their staff report and recommendation. Anyone in the audience who wishes to speak and present testimony on a case will be sworn in. The applicant and others in support or opposition of the case will be given the opportunity to speak. The applicant will be given the opportunity to respond to any opposition testimony. The commission will discuss the case and vote on the matter. Expedited hearing procedures. Expedited hearing procedures may be used by the Planning Commission under the following circumstances. There is no opposition to the case present at the hearing, and the recommendation of the Office of Planning and Development is for approval, and all of the commission members present wish to use this procedure. Level 3 reviews. Pursuant to Section 906 of the Polk County Land Development Code, on Level 3 reviews, the Planning Commission may approve the applicant's request, deny the applicant's request, or approve the request with additional conditions. Pursuant to Section 921 of the Land Development Code, the applicant or any substantially affected interest may appeal the final decision of the Planning Commission to the Board of County Commissioners by filing a formal application with the Land Development Division and paying the application fee. The appeal must be filed with the Land Development Division within seven calendar days of the Planning Commission hearing. The Board of County Commissioners shall set a date and time for a de novo hearing. If a party decides to appeal a decision made by the Planning Commission with respect to any Level 3 review, he or she will need a record and may need to ensure that a verbatim record of the proceedings is made. The record includes all testimony and evidence given at the hearing. Each person or party that qualifies to file such an appeal must independently exercise the right of appeal in order to preserve that right. A party cannot and should not rely on their right to appeal being preserved by someone else filing an appeal on the same matter. Please be advised that a party may withdraw their appeal to the Board of County Commissioners prior to that de novo hearing. If one party withdraws their appeal and another party fail to file an appeal, there will be no appeal or hearing on the matter before the Board of County Commissioners. The application fee will not necessarily be refunded for such a withdrawal. Please also be advised that if a de novo application is filed with the Board of County Commissioners to be recognized during the de novo hearing as organized opposition, you must either file the application for the de novo hearing or receive written authorization from at least five entities or individuals to speak on their behalf against the application and they have agreed to waive the ability to speak during the public comment portion of the de novo hearing. Level 4 reviews. Pursuant to section 907 of the Land Development Code, the Planning Commission's decision on a Level 4 review is a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners and the Board of County Commissioners will ultimately decide the matter. Mr. Chair, would you like for me to swear in the witnesses for the cases today? Please. Thank you. So, if you're going to address the Planning Commission on any case today, please stand up, raise your right hand, and answer out loud to the following question. Do you swear or affirm the testimony and evidence you provide today is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Okay. And just our last housekeeping item, we have the county land planners. We need to have them admitted as expert witnesses. You've got their resumes in your packets, and they've all been admitted in previous meetings, but if you would like to board I or any of them as to their background or expertise, you can do so at this time. Not seeing anyone, if we could just have a motion to accept county staff as experts in the field of land planning. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And then if there are any land planning experts or engineers of the applicants, you can tender them at this time, or you can wait until your case is called. And then one other item just to explain the quasi-judicial procedures, then I'll be finished. Sure. Okay. Today's agenda includes quasi-judicial land use hearings, which means the action entail is applying land development policies to a specific land development application in a fair and impartial manner. The commission's review today is limited to two areas, consistency and compatibility. Regarding consistency, the commission must determine whether the application is consistent with both the comprehensive plan and land development code. And the staff report and presentation provides you with expert analysis and opinion regarding the applicable criteria and a recommendation as to whether the application is consistent with those criteria. Regarding compatibility, the commission must determine whether the application is compatible with the surrounding area. The commission will be presented with testimony and evidence at the hearing, both written and oral. By law, the only evidence the commission can consider is competent substantial evidence, which means evidence that is sufficiently relevant and material that a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support a conclusion. The following items are competent substantial evidence, evidence that is fact-based and relevant to the applicable criteria, staff reports and staff presentations, citizen testimony can be competent substantial evidence so long as it is fact-based and can include testimony regarding subjective matters that do not require expertise, such as aesthetic incompatibilities of a project with the surrounding neighborhood. However, popularity polls, petitions, testimony that is hypothetical, speculative, based on fear, or consist of generalized statements that do not address the land development code criteria are not competent substantial evidence. For example, fear that the project will cause increased traffic and crime is not considered competent substantial evidence. Lastly, when expertise is required for technical issues like traffic, engineering, drainage, wetland impacts, school and utility capacity, light and noise pollution, or the application's impact on property values, citizen testimony is not competent substantial evidence unless the witness is qualified as an expert in that area. That concludes my comments. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I think we need a motion to approve the minutes. Yep. I was heading back that way. Thank you, sir. Appreciate that. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Motion passes. All right. So on to there is no old business. So moving forward with new business, we're ready to begin with. Our first case, LDC-PAS 2023-22. Staff, would you like to introduce the case? Thank you. Good morning. Shonda Bennett with the Land Development Division for the record. As stated, the case is LDC-PAS 2023-22 called ABC Road Conference Plan Amendment for Employment Center. It's a change from Agricultural Residential Rural X to Employment Center X, and it's in the Gateway Selected Area Plan. The property is on the north side of Alturas-Babson Park Cutoff Road, three miles west of U.S. 27, and ABC Cutoff Road Intersection, half a mile east of Cruz Road and ABC Cutoff Road Intersection, southwest of the City of Lake Wales, in Section 29, Township 30, Range 27. The property owners are Brooke Johnson and Sandra Jackson. The parcel is about an acre and a half. It's in the rural development area. The nearest city is Lake Wales. DRC recommendation is approval. And for the newspaper ad and other advertising, 19 mailers were sent to area property owners on November 15th. One sign was posted on the property on November 20th. A legal advertisement was published in the Lakeland Ledger on November 13th. And no responses in opposition were received. And Mark Bennett is the case planner. Good morning. For the record, Mark Bennett, Land Development Division. This is a request, as mentioned, for 1.46 acres. This slide shows the general location of the property along Alturas-Babson Park Cutoff Road, southwest of the City of Lake Wales, three miles east of U.S. 27. This is a more detailed slide. And then this shows, again, a more detailed slide showing the relation of the site with roads to the west, Cruise Road and Lake Buffum Road. This is an aerial photo showing the characteristics of the area. As you can see, it's rural, mostly undeveloped. This is a more detailed 2023 aerial of the site. It has a building just over 5,000 square feet in size with associated concrete parking areas, as you can see. Land use is currently ARRX, X meaning that it's part of a selected area plan, in this case the Gateway Selected Area Plan. The requested land use designation is Employment Center, and Employment Center is a land use designation found in the Gateway SAP, generally intended for light assembly, manufacturing, distribution, office, research, parks, low-impact commercial, and other business uses to help create employment opportunities, hence the name. A couple aerials here in a ground photo I'll show next. This is a view of the site looking west along ABC Road. This is looking southwest. You can see Lake Buffum way off in the background there as a reference point. This is more of a detailed view of the site. And then this is looking east along ABC Road and Crooked Lake there as another reference point. This is a view, ground view of the site. As you can see, it's already existing. It's, again, a 5,000 square foot building. It was built in 1988 according to property appraiser records. And here's the impact assessment on it. To summarize this slide, it does meet our criteria, specifically our location criteria for employment centers in the SAP. This is definitely not urban sprawl. On the contrary, we consider this to be a good example of adapted reuse, that being an existing building that's been there. And staff thinks it's better that business and activity go in. The employment center designation will facilitate this as opposed to the alternative to just have a building sitting there and eventually become a code enforcement problem. So with that, I'll be happy to stand for any questions. Any questions from staff? That will ask the applicant to come forward to state your name and address. I'm Robert F. Clayton. My address is 381 Oasis Park Road, Fort Myers, Florida, 33905. And you'd like to say or a little comment about the case at all, or are you in agreement with what staffs? Yes, we've worked for many years trying to find property that would work with hemp. We have grown hemp for four years under license in Florida. I actually wrote the law and got it passed so that we could farm in Florida. So I'm very well-versed in hemp. And hemp is a crop that needs a processor in order to have value for it as a farm use. We had hoped originally to be able to rehab orange grows. And it does work, but it's going to take time and a lot of money before we can get there. But we have to have this processor to move forward. We've done as much as we can do in research. And you've required that we have this facility on a road that the fire department can reach and do all these services. So after much searching, this is the only site we've found in the county that can do it in two years of trying. Okay. Thank you, sir. All right. With that, we'll open the public meeting or public comment. Is there anyone here to speak for or against this case? If you are, please line up or come forward. All right. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. With that, we'll turn back to the board. Any questions or comments from the board? I have one question for staff. There was a tax change made where AGRA-related was removed from Policy 2.108-A3. And the staff report still shows AGRA-related in that. Did that text amendment not apply to SAPs? No, it does apply. It just, the document we pulled it from just wasn't probably updated. So, no, that did pass. But that's related to, of course, Business Park Center, not Employment Center. On reading the proposal, it seems to me that this is more of an industrial process, machinery, not specifically agriculture. I understand hemp is agriculture-related. But the work that's actually going on in this employment center, I would consider it process engineering. It is, as I understand, it's even a patentable process. And I'm wondering how we move from agriculture to industrial or commercial or whatever. How did that transpire? Am I correct? This is a production facility, right, where hemp is being turned into a product? That's our understanding. Let me try and answer the question this way. The Employment Center designation is intended for, you know, light assembly, and I would consider fabrication processing to fall under the category of light assembly. The building, I wasn't able to find much during the research, but the applicant indicated to me that it used to be a diesel manufacturing facility there. Our understanding also is that at one time there was ag support uses there. So the property has had a history of non-residential and non-agricultural uses. That's why we thought it was appropriate. Hopefully I'm answering your question. Yes, sir. Okay. I'm more concerned that this is turning industrial and the waste streams and everything else that's coming out of this, how is that going to be handled in this specific area? Yeah. Two points on that. One, that's an operational question. I'd need to defer the applicant. Secondly, I would make the point that the request here is to consider changing it from ARR to Employment Center. We're not necessarily approving a specific use here. So I would ask you all to consider that. Again, our analysis was that, quite frankly, it's an existing building. It's been there 30-plus years. There's a new business that wants to come in and get started. This is a prime example of the term we use called adaptive reuse, putting an old building to a new use. We haven't really addressed the industrial nature of this in an area that's pretty much surrounded by agriculture. And I understand the proximity that it needs to be in proximity to agriculture for the process to work. Can we get a clarification? I was going to say if the applicant would like to come up and help clarify. The product is industrial hemp, so I can't hide from that statement at all. I think the point is that the waste streams are very benign. They can be sprayed back on the hemp crops, and hemp actually removes toxins from the soil. You go into a defunct citrus grove we have planted on them, and you get yellow hemp, green hemp, yellow hemp, green hemp, because wherever they have sprayed the plants for 50 years, they've accumulated toxins, they've killed the biome, and so forth. So you don't get healthy hemp, but you get it on the green between the trees where they had the grass and so forth, and they weren't spraying. So we can clean that up. So it actually does improve the soil. So in that regard, I think we do plan to recycle that work onto the fields. Your issue on industrial, for thousands of years it has been industrial. Yeah, I mean, somebody did a lot of work on it to make it work on the fields. They used to be able to just do it on the farm, but we can't do that now. The zoning department said industrial hemp is too industrial for farms, so we can't be on farms. So we've got to be somewhere else. But it is pretty light work. I don't think it's going to be a great problem for people. I noticed in your proposal there were numerous other buildings proposed. We do hope to have other buildings. We will be processing into pulp, and we hope to make paper. We could have a paper machine. We could have post-processing on paper. You know, after you make the paper, you've got to cut it up into pieces. And so there could be a print shop or something like that. There will be a barn for the farm equipment. You know, right now we're splitting the building in half. We're putting farm equipment in one half, and we'll have a welding shop and make up our processor in the other half, and then we'll have to move it out somewhere and so on. So, yeah, there's going to be work, but I think it's going to be pretty quiet work. You go on a dairy farm, for example, and they're in there milking cows. My gosh, that's a factory, and then they go on and they do all the pasteurizing and bottling and everything. Yeah, can't argue with that. It's pretty industrial when you get there. So it goes hand in hand. You really can't have a farm without industry anymore. Okay. Thanks, sir. Satisfied. Any further questions from the board, the staff, or the applicant? All right. With that, I'll move. Mr. Chair, move approval of LDCPA-S 2023-22. Second. We have a motion and a second. Can you all roll call, please? Robert Beltran. For the motion. David Dalton, I'm for the motion. Mike Hickman. For the motion. Brooke Ignini. Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, it passes 6-0. All right. Moving on to the next case. Staff? The next two cases will be read in together. The land development code, the conference plan amendment, and then the land development district change. So I'll read them in together. LDCPA-S 2023-25. It's the Bella Vista Leisure Recreation to Business Park Center. And then the companion case, LDC-2023-9. That is with the assumption it would be BPC-1, taking it to Business Park Center 2 as the district change. So these items will be presented together, but we'll take two separate votes. Yes, sir. The subject site is located on the west side of Kathleen Road and a CSX rail line north of Bella Vista Street West, east of George Wheeler Road, and south of Knight Station Road, west of the Lakeland City limits in Section 3, Township 28, and Range 23. The property owner is Mary Lynn Maddox. The parcel is about 42.47 acres in size. It's also in the transit supportive development area and, as well, the transit centers and corridors overlay. The nearest municipality is the city of Lakeland. And the advertisement for both cases is the same in the sense of 15 mailers were sent to area property owners on November 15th. Two signs were posted on the property on November 21st. A legal advertisement was published in the Lakeland Ledger on November 13th, and no responses were received for either case. The case planner is Robert Bolton. Good morning. Robert Bolton with Land Development, presenting LDCPAS 2023-25 Bella Vista, pardon me, a comprehensive plan amendment for request land use change from Leisure Recreation to Business Park Center and LDCD 2023-9 Bella Vista, the accompanying sub-district change request from BPC-1 to BPC-2 on approximately 42.47 acre parcel, and staff is recommending approval. The site is located on the north side of I-4 and Bella Vista, west of Kathleen and west of the CSX Rail Line, south of Night Station Road and east of George Wheeler Road, west of the city limits of Lakeland. This is a sort of context aerial view of the site. You can see it has, the site has great influence from the city of Lakeland, from both north, east and south. It's stated above, previously, it is abutting the rail line right here that goes to the north to south. There are users to the north up here, three separate parcels that utilize this rail line, each one of them having rail spurs for their uses on their industrial zoned land uses within the city. West of the site here is Maddox Ranch, which is in the Leisure Recreation land use, and it is an approved event facility, and the subject site is part of that Maddox Ranch. This is a closer view of the subject. I spoke earlier about the CSX rail line that is between the parcel line here and the city of Lakeland. The access to the site will be here on Bella Vista toward the western side, right near the bridge that goes over Interstate 4. Bella Vista keeps coming down this way. The city of Lakeland changes the name of it to Fairbanks. It intersects with Kathleen for easy access to I-4. The site was, you can see a lot of disturbed area here. It is a result of a 2017 code enforcement action for construction aggregate when it was in Leisure Recreation. That case has since been cleared out. But it does show the site has a good desire, people desire, for this higher intensity type use. And that's part of the reason why the application to go back to BPC. This is the existing land use districts within the immediate area. As I spoke before, these are Leisure Recreation with lower residential low further west. The city of Lakeland to the east here has a lot of industrial type uses surrounding it. One of the things I want to say at this point in time is, might not be familiar with all of our land uses for sure, but Leisure Recreation can sound like a rather benign use. However, it has multiple uses that are considered rather intense where only a level two technical staff review is required. And some of those uses include multifamily, high-intensity recreation, RV-oriented uses, which include RV camping and RV parks. Maddox Ranch is also another use, which is event facility. For some historical context, this was the land use map prior to a comprehensive plan request that changed all of that Leisure Recreation, this residential suburban and the BPC to Leisure Recreation. That was in 2007, and that was done by CPA 07B-1. The current request of CPAS 2023-25 is to change the subject back to the land use of BPC 1 that it was prior to the 2007 CPA. One of the considerations we look at with BPC is it will typically have truck traffic, is what is the routing for that? And I spoke earlier, Bella Vista comes down to Fairbanks, Kathleen. Bella Vista, Fairbanks is an urban collector. Kathleen Road is a minor arterial with I-4, a principal arterial road. The uses along Bella Vista and Fairbanks are quite a few rather heavy users, including Owens Corning, Max Pack here, Angelo's Recycled Materials, Benzi USA, which is a heavy equipment sales, which is here on Fairbanks, Penske Trucks, along with several others that utilize this urban collector road. So it's an established truck traffic thoroughfare. One of the things I also want to point out is the CSX rail line has also changed color to BPC. Section from our land development code, Section 107H boundaries, the land use goes to typically the center of a roadway. In this case, we're looking at the railway as a roadway. And since the city is there, it would take the whole parcel. Compatibility, one of the things with BPC is, one of the things that is very nice with BPC is to be adjacent to a rail line. This is the sub-district change from going from BPC to BPC2. And one of the things with BPC2 is to be able to utilize, fully utilize that rail line connection. Earlier I say the influence from the city of Lakeland. We have industrial uses, industrial zoning up here, industrial zoning down, all down here, Fairbanks, Interstate Drive. This section here is a heavier commercial. This right here is the site where Lakeland Regional is currently nearing completion of their I-4 campus. This is the site looking sort of from the western side, northeast. This is sort of the center, looking north on the site. And this is right near where the bridge is, going over I-4, looking northerly. The railroad line would be sort of to the right there. Looking south, the left-hand picture is Max Pack. This is Owens Corning. It's just a short view over that southerly leisure recreation. The impact assessment for schools, there's no impact going from non-residential to non-residential. Share of fire, EMS has good access response times. Water and sewer will be coming from the city of Lakeland. Bella Vista has plenty of capacity with really no impact to the road. The site was previously BPC and went through a land use change request in 2007. The requested use is compatible with surrounding uses. Bella Vista is a well-utilized road with numerous warehouse manufacturing uses. Users, the subject property abuts a CSX rail line on its eastern boundary. The land use and sub-district change would not significantly impact public services. It is also compatible with the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code, and staff recommends approval of both LDC-PAS 2023-25 and LDC-2023-19. And with that, I'll stand for questions. Any questions for staff? Robert, isn't this the, with the I-4 improvements, isn't this the railroad overpass that they're getting ready to completely redo and they're going to do a restructuring of the traffic flow? They're currently in process of that. On the southern side of I-4, they've already moved it back about 100 feet. They'll be doing the same thing on the northern side. I talked with CSX. They're looking at about three more years on this project. Any other questions for staff? With that, I ask the applicant to come forward and state your name and address for the record, along with your case. Good morning, Commissioners. I'll pull up my presentation. For the record, my name is Bart Allen. I'm a land use attorney with the Peterson & Meyers Law Firm. My address is 225 East Lemon Street, Lakeland, Florida. Opened it up, but it's hiding from me. I'm here this morning on behalf of the applicant, Anchuka Holdings, LLC. With me this morning, I have Mr. Brandon Clark and Alex Daylenoy from the Ruthven. Brandon is the president of the Ruthven's and really honored to be here on behalf of this company that's been a part of our community for such a long, long time and done a lot of really good development within our community. Also, part of our team is Kimley Horn. Kimley Horn has been providing support services for this land use change, and what we do in the engineering is, assuming and optimistically, we get through this process, they will be working on the engineering aspects of this. Mr. Jason Alleygood, a professional engineer with Kimley Horn, has been intimately involved in this project. Fortunately, he couldn't be here this morning. He is recovering from a minor knee surgery, so wish him the best. Hope he's healing up well. So this is a project for the Ruthven's. This is just a little bit of an overview of kind of who the Ruthven's are. I think we're all familiar with their products and different things, but it's really incredible to see how impactful they are in our economic community and how impactful they are in our community at large with the number of square feet and different types of uses, ranging from bigger type industrial development to more smaller tenant, multi-tenant type buildings. And to see that their business and their footprint continues to grow, even outside of the city of Lakeland and to other areas, is extremely exciting. So I really just wanted to highlight that for a few moments. Mr. Bolton has given you a very good analysis of the technical aspects of the request. This is a small-scale conference, a planned amendment. This is the site. I'm not going to belabor all of these points that Mr. Bolton has gone through, but this is an area of the county and the city, really, between those two jurisdictions. That is of some of the fastest-growing development, particularly for these types of uses. It's a very active corridor for industrial to provide employment opportunities for small businesses to large businesses and our residents. It is in the TSDA. It's also in the transit corridor and center overlay, which, again, is where you want to focus more intense development. This is a location map. Again, Mr. Bolton kind of went over a lot of this, but I'm going to highlight a couple things just to make sure, you know, we're all on the same page here. Industrial, already immediately to the north in the city of Lakeland, the CSX rail line, which, optimistically, we can get a spur there maybe. That's, you know, always a conversation with CSX, and we know CSX drives that train, pun intended. And, you know, so we will continue those conversations. We have already reached out to CSX about things like that, or the Ruthvens have. You've got industrial on the south end here, just immediately across I-4, Kathleen Road, and I'm going to talk a little bit more about the Bella Vista, Fairbanks Road in just one second, but you've got an industrial corridor along this area as well as an industrial area just there on the southeast corner of I-4, Kathleen. This is the future land use map. Mr. Bolton, that's the existing county future land use map. Mr. Bolton went through that very well. Just to put a little bit of a finer point on the influence of the city that Mr. Bolton referenced a couple times, immediately to the south is I-3 in the city. That's, you know, one of the heaviest industrial classifications that you can have in the city of Lakeland. Immediately to our north is I-3 as well. The C-2 is a highway commercial. That's actually a PUD and a conditional use in the city of Lakeland that Lakeland Regional is on today. I had the opportunity to work on that conditional use, so I'm familiar with the allowances there. And then, again, you can kind of see that industrial corridor as you move south along Bella Vista into Fairbanks with the I-2 and an industrial PUD in this area already. So that industrial corridor is well set here. And this is our proposed future land use map going to BPC-1. And then also the companion sub-district change should go to BPC-2. We have capacity. Transportation will go down Bella Vista to Fairbanks, and the reason behind that is is when you look at that road and the way it's built, that is where trucks will want to go. But also there's a signalized intersection here at I-4, I mean, not at I-4, at Fairbanks and Kathleen. That signalized intersection there in that industrial corridor is where the trucks are going to want to go. So that's where traffic will continue. So we'll not be introducing new truck traffic into an existing corridor. The compatibility is always a conversation, right? How can we have two uses when we start looking at surrounding uses? Looking at the surrounding uses, one, just kind of want to point out a couple things. The closest residence is over 500 feet from the property line of this proposed change. That is also our seller. That's the Maddox's. They own that. They are selling under contract on this. So we've got about a 500-foot separation there. Outside of those homes, you've got over 1,000 feet between us and any other residence. And this piece here, as you can see, the closest one on this north end, you may not be able to see from that far away, but that green dot is a wetland overlay through the county. That's the county's wetland map, as well as I've overlaid the NWI lines here. So you've got a substantial wetland buffer on the north end, in addition to 1,200 feet of separation from those homes. So impact, separation, compatibility, keeping the two uses separate is well set here on this request. The Maddox's also own this piece of property as well. So, again, substantial separation from adjacent property owners. So with that, I will sit down. We agree with the conclusions and analysis of staff that this request is consistent with your comprehensive plan. It's compatible with the area. It's going back to what it was back in 2007, which makes a lot of sense. It's a good use of this site and a good developer that will be using the site moving forward. So we would request a favorable recommendation on both the small-scale comprehensive plan amendment and the sub-district change this morning. We'll stand for any questions, and if there's any public here to speak, we would request just a moment to answer any of their concerns. Absolutely. Any questions for the applicant this time? All right. With that, we'll open the public forum part. Anybody wish to speak for or against this case, please move forward. All right. Seeing none, we'll close the public workshop part of the case. Go back to the applicant. Applicant, anything else you'd like to add at this point? Thank you, sir. Any questions from the board on this application? All right. Mr. Chair, move approval of LDCPA-S 2023-25. Second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton, please call the roll. Robert Beltran. For the motion. David Dalton, I am for the motion. Mike Hickman. For the motion. Brooke Ignini. For the motion. Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, it passes 6-0. Thank you. All right. With that, we'll move on to our next case. Oh. More vote. All right. That's one motion. This is a double motion, right? Yep. Can I hear a second motion? Chair, move approval of LDCPA-2023-9. Second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton. Robert Beltran. For the motion. David Dalton, I am for the motion. Mike Hickman. For the motion. Brooke Ignini. For the motion. Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, it passes 6-0. All right. Now, with that, we'll move to the next case. Mr. Hickman. All right. Excuse me. Number four on the agenda. LDCT-2023-18. This is a county-initiated request to amend Section 222 of the Land Development Code to clarify the county's code on non-commercial farm buildings and structures and allow variances to set back distances. On November 13th, the legal ad was published in the ledger. Board dates are set for January 9th and January 23rd, 2024. And Aaliyah Englema is your planner. Welcome. Good morning. Aaliyah Englema with Land Development presenting LDCT-2023-18, the Livestock and Fowl and Residential Neighborhoods Text Amendment. This is a county-initiated request to amend Section 222 of the Land Development Code to clarify the county's code on non-commercial farm buildings and structures and allow variances to set back distances. Staff recommends approval of this text amendment. Currently, there is conflicting information in Section 222 that affects code enforcement. The variance hearing process is established in Polk County to allow property owners to request reduced setbacks for structures when there is no other form of relief. Section 222A states that sheltering or feeding of animals shall be permitted to be built within 50 feet of the property boundary except within the ARR, ARRX, PM, and core feature land use map districts. Section 222E states the following provision applies to only residential properties less than half an acre in size and do not apply to any property within the ARR, ARRX, PM, and core feature land use map districts. This has caused many code enforcement cases with no relief of allowing a variance. Non-commercial farm buildings can now request a variance to non-commercial farm building setbacks and this would resolve code enforcement conflicts in Section 222. And I'll stand for questions. Any questions from staff? Seeing none. I guess you guys are the applicant on this one? Yes. All right. So with that, we'll open up for a public comment. Anyone who wish to speak for or against this text amendment? Seeing none, we'll close public comment. We'll go back to staff and no further comments, I assume? No, sir. Perfect. Any questions or comments from the board? With that, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move to approve LDCT 2023-18. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor? Can we do that? No. We can do a roll call. Okay, individual roll call. Robert Beltran. For the motion. David Dalt. I am for the motion. Mike Hickman. It's currently not present. Brooke Agnini. Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, it passes 5-0. Thank you, sir. All right. Moving on to the next case, Steph. All right. Number five on the agenda is LDWA 2023-55. This is a request for approval of a waiver to LDC Section 705B necessary to allow the issuance of building permits for a subdivision that gains access solely via easement and provides access to more than four lots. Subject property is located at 4200 East Highway 630, east of Walkenwater Road, north of Lake Arbuckle, east of Frostproof in Section 20, Township 31, Range 29. On November 15th, 44 mailers were sent to area property owners. Five signs were posted on November 9th. An illegal ad was published in a ledger on November 13th. Staff has logged two responses in opposition, and Aaliyah Pereira is your planner. I'm sorry. Aaliyah Anglima. Apologies. Welcome back. Thanks. Good morning. Aaliyah Anglima with Land Development presenting LDWA 2023-55, the Venture Subdivision Waiver. The applicant is requesting a waiver to LDC Section 705B necessary to allow the issuance of building permits for a subdivision that gains access solely via easement and provides access to more than four lots. And staff is recommending approval. The subject site is located at 4200 East Highway 630, east of Walkenwater Road, north of Lake Arbuckle, east of Frostproof in Section 20, Township 31, Range 29. The property is 62.08 acres located within an agriculture residential rule of future land use and in the rural development area. The subject property will be subdivided into eight five-acre lots, and these lots cannot be further subdivided by Table 2.2. The easement will be a 52-foot aggregate easement with a 22-foot aggregate road, which includes a 10-foot swale with stormwater control and a proposed T-turnaround. The road comes close to meeting county standards without paving and will have a stabilized asphalt surface. Section 822 of the LDC requires 210 feet of frontage on County Road 630, a rural major collector road. There is approximately 1,600 feet of frontage along the site. The applicant could reduce lot widths, but then there would be more driveways accessing County Road 630. Per LDC Section 705B1, an easement providing access to a residential lot from a paved road meeting county standards shall meet the following requirements. Provide access for no more than four lots subject to other density, minimum lot size requirements, and any other applicable requirements of this code. Have a minimum width of 20 feet. Not exceed 0.258 or 2.5 miles in length. Provide for sufficient ingress and egress for fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and emergency vehicles, and be supported by the joiner and consent of all fee owners under easements to the use of the easement by the subject parcels. This is the best route. It is not recommended to rearrange the lots as the development would need road frontage and driveway waivers. This comes as close to county standards as possible without paving. And the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan and LDC, and I'll stand for questions. Any questions for staff? Yes. So, is the fact that it's AARR and five-acre parcels make it permissible then to take this approach to having just a private easement driveway as opposed to doing county-approved road as you would typically? Correct. Correct. Okay. And is that five-acre threshold then typically what is, or could you do it with, you know, could he have come in and done one-acre sites or two-acre sites? No. So, the five-acre is the threshold? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions for staff? If not, I'll ask the applicant to come forward. State your name and address for the record, please. You're welcome to speak at either side. Good morning. Good morning. My name is Wesley Mills with Mills Shorten Associates. Our address is 722nd Place, Bureau Beach, Florida. I'm the engineer of record for the project. I'm happy to answer any questions that you guys may have about the project today. Thank you. All right. With that, we'll open the floor for public comment. Anybody here to speak for or against this case, please come forward. As you come forward, I'll remind you to please state your name and address for the record, and you'll have three minutes. My name is Frank Garcia. The address is 4300 Highway 630 East, Frost Proof, 33843. I've been a resident to the property of the east of what we're talking about of this property. I've been there 30 years. I run Universal Shooting Academy out of that property. Universal Shooting Academy is a business that's been there for over 30 years. It has a land use permit. We are partners with Polk County Sports Marketing. It's a worldwide known facility for world championship events. I consider myself an expert subject matter in all aspects of this project because I've been there 30 years. I served in the military. I was in Iraq six years. So when it comes to firearms, I know a little bit about that. I was a mass director of the 2014 World Shoot, which brought 10,000 competitors to Polk County with an economic impact to our small community of $20 million plus. Universal Shooting Academy is known worldwide as the Harvard of high-performance shooting in the world. I'm a three-time world champion pistol shooter. I'm an instructor. I'm a businessman. And I'm a father. I believe that this project, the concerns of this project is far beyond the paving and the waving of the subdivision requirements. It is going to cause problems with flooding, which I know because I own the property next to it. That property is elevated on the ridge. And all the water, been through three hurricanes since I've been there, water flows towards the east. So I deal with the first flow of water coming from that ridge, from that property. That property is going to grow for 30, 40 years plus. So there hasn't been really much done to it as far as infrastructure. When they start elevating those properties to build houses or whatever they're going to do, it's going to cause even more flooding issues. So there is a serious flooding concern as far as that property. The other big concern for me is traffic. As the mass director of the world shoot in 2014, I dealt with the sheriff's office. I was in charge of the traffic control for that event, and it's a high-speed traffic area that requires, it might require a traffic light. I was the one that set up all the officers to control traffic in that area because of the high-speed of that area. Wrap it up. Okay. So basically these are the concerns that I have, and we can discuss that later in the next meeting. Thank you. I have a quick question for you. You mentioned that you were an expert, so I just wanted to get some clarification. Obviously it sounds like you're an expert in pistols and shooting, but you also mentioned traffic and flooding. You have degrees or engineering? I don't have degrees, but I have the experience to sit down with the sheriff's office because I've been there 30 years, and I know that highway. I was in charge of the world shoot in 2014. It took three years to set up that event, which we brought in over 10,000 people to that area. So I sat down and had studies of the traffic, the speed, the average speed of that highway, and the possibilities of problems with the location of that particular property. That particular property has a blind curve that when you're coming from the east to the west, coming around that corner, right where they want to do their driveway, it's a blind spot at about 70 miles an hour. So my concern more than anything is the traffic control there in that area. Just from a procedural standpoint, I'm going to ask Mrs. Voss, do we have to have a resume or qualifications? For the world shoot and that expertise, it doesn't sound like it. It sounds like its testimony is pretty, I'm persuaded by that. But I think getting into the traffic, like my comments at the beginning of the meeting, you have to have some expertise in that subject matter. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to offend you, but it's just my understanding of the land use law. But that's up to you all if you want to take a vote on considering him an expert for purposes of... Yeah, I just want to, I'm open to listening to different board members' opinions on this, but I want to be very careful we don't set a precedent that, you know, people with certain qualifications I think should pass. Certainly, I would not consider him an expert in the traffic or water runoff field. You said you would or would not? Would not. Okay, any other thoughts from the board? I just have a question. Can you indicate on the aerial where your location's at? Is it Better Accuracy Technologies Corporation? That is correct. Okay. It's Better Accuracy Technologies Corporation, DBA, Universal Shooting Academy. Okay. Where is it on the aerial? Directly adjacent? That's what I'm looking to the right. Southeast corner. Directly to the right where you see all those structures. Southeast corner, okay. It'll be directly east of the property. That entire property line? It's a 64-acre property. It's a big shooting range complex, military training, that's what we do there. I'm familiar with it. Any other questions for this, on this comment? If not, we heard it from one board member. Was that a motion, Mr. Dalton, or was that a motion? For the record? Yes, sir. Don't know whether I even ought to share this. I'm a certified firearms instructor myself. Yes, sir. But I don't know this gentleman. I know his facility, been there, shot there, competed there. But I don't think that would preclude me from voting or anything like that. But I appreciate you. I have a question, but maybe for staff. Let's finish getting through the public comment, if we could, and then we'll get back to that. Okay. All right. Okay. But as far as the question of the gentleman's expertise in flooding and traffic, I think the consensus is he's not an expert at this point. Just want to clarify that. Thank you. Appreciate your time, sir. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. How is everybody doing today? Fantastic. Man, Florida sure has changed. Please state your name and address for the record. My name is Dolly Clements, and I'm originally from Frostproof, Florida. My parents live on 1192 North Lake Reedy. I live there sometimes. I also live at 4300 with Mr. Frank Garcia as well. The reason why I'm here today, I just want to let you know about my profession. I'm an insurance agent. I have been for 27 years. I write property and casualty insurance. I write life insurance, and I also write flood insurance. If anybody wants to sign up afterwards, we can do that. Joking. Anyway, I'm originally from Frostproof. I watched a lot of banks come in, and I've seen a lot of subdivisions come in and go. And what they've done is they've left us with some problems in Frostproof. Okay? We've got some empty buildings. We've got some subdivisions that did not set up an infrastructure for us, and we've had to clean up the mess. All right? So I think that developers need to be accountable for what they do in our town. All right? And in doing that, they need to set up the infrastructure. So I don't think we should waive anything in regards to pavement at all. And this is the reason why. When you elevate those homes, you're going to have flood problems. I actually did a flood search for everybody. There's a lot of ponds. There's a lot of lakes in that area. So because I'm in the insurance business and because we do flood insurance, we look at a lot of stuff like that. Do you want to submit that officially? Absolutely. Staff, please. Or thank you. So I do believe that it is going to cause flooding issues. I do believe that, as we know, with the last few storms that we've had, that there needs to be a lot of rezoning of flood territory, wouldn't we say? I'm sure we could all agree on that. And I do also agree that this is going to cause traffic problems. And really, the reason why this board has been established is to protect the people. Protect the people to make sure people are secure. Make sure that people are taken care of. We prevent people from getting hurt is basically what it's all about. Waving different, putting all these waivers in is not going to help some people in certain situations. And I believe, in this situation, as a professional who writes flood insurance, that this is going to cause issues. The other thing I wanted to point out is that, Mr. Garcia, what you don't see on this map up here is you don't see a high-powered shooting facility, okay? There's going to be people. There's going to be children. There's going to be mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers in this subdivision next door. He's training our military, our United States military. And I think we would all agree today that our military needs to be trained, okay? So please know, if you approve this, that you're putting people at risk. Appreciate it. Thank you for your comments. Anybody else like to speak for or against? Thank you. All right. Hearing none, we'll close the public workshop. We'll ask the applicant to come back up, and you're welcome to address anything you'd like or what you've heard. Sure. Thank you. I know that this may not be, you know, some of the concerns are really not applicable to the waivers that we're requesting, but just to touch on a few items. I don't know that I can address the fact that, you know, a shooting range is an adjacent property and how that, you know, whatever comes off that property may impact ours. I don't think that that's applicable to today's hearing. The second thing is the proposed eight lots that we're proposing on the site are not within a flood zone, so they will not have any impacts on impacting the floodplain. Our site to the west does have, is in flood zone A, but that's not where we're proposing the developments and therefore would have no impacts on flooding and like a hurricane-type event. As far as traffic, not only has Polk County's engineering department, traffic department, have reviewed this application. They've determined that it meets not only Polk County's land development requirements, but also the state highway department's requirements. Our firm as well has designed the drainage to ensure that there's no adverse impacts from drainage or traffic. So I just thought I'd add that, and I'm happy to answer any other questions that you may have. Any questions for the applicant? Yes, sir. Noise abatement for the gentleman with the shooting range. Is there any future problems? I'm not sure who I should address this to. Is there any future problems with noise abatement or protection or safety that will come in the future? I think those concerns go to the placement of the homes in general. But for the access via easement application, is this a permitted use, placing the homes on this piece of property? Yes. Okay. So I think we've got to keep that in mind when you're assessing this application. All you're doing is looking at the waiver criteria that's outlined in the staff report. The use itself of putting the eight or however many houses it is, that's a permitted use. So the noise abatement, things like that, that goes more towards a use that's going to go through level two review. Okay. He's already there is my point. And the property owner, I'm sure, knows that he's already there and what the conditions are. And I just, is this going to generate all manner of problems for him down the road? Is that? Yeah, I couldn't speak to that part of it. But I would be concerned about adding a condition for the subdivision or the waiver for this application about, you know, that's really more relevant to, I think, the level two review. And if staff feels like noise abatement's appropriate, then that's something they can add. We have built-in landscape buffers, a 20-foot wide landscape buffer that will be heavily planted as part of this project on the east side. Yeah, my only question, and I don't know if there's any other comments from the board. I'll let me defer for a second. No. My only real question for you is, you mentioned you did the engineering for the stormwater. Obviously, we're looking at doing a non-paved area or road. We have no problems with the stormwater elements of this. You're putting swales in, proper engineering, all your permitting from swift mud, and all that will happen. Yes, sir. Yes. And it's all been modeled like we would any large-scale development. It's under the same criteria as far as attenuation and treatment. So it's still being treated as impervious is the real question. Yes, sir. Okay, perfect. All right, I have no further questions. Any other questions for the applicant or staff? I have a quick question for staff. Mr. Chair, did you hear anything in the public testimony that changes your view on the case? No. Okay, thank you. With that, I'll take the case back to the board. Any further discussion or motion, please? Mr. Chair, I move to approve LDWA 2023-55. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton. Robert Beltran. For the motion. David Dalton, I am for the motion. Mike Hickman. For the motion. Brooke Ignini. For the motion. Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, I pass it 6-0. Thank you. All right, next case, please. All right, number six on the agenda is LDCU 2023-40. The applicant is requesting a conditional use approval of a car wash and self-storage facility within a professional institutional X land use district on 10.32 acres. The subject site is located at 40-990 Highway 27, south of Holly Hill Ramp Road 1, north of Sand Hill Road, west of Ridgewood Lakes Boulevard, east of the city of Davenport in Section 30, Township 26, Range 27. On November 15th, 14 mailers were sent to area property owners. One sign was posted on November 21st. An illegal ad was published in the Ledger on November 13th. Staff has received no responses. And Amy Little is your planner. Good morning. Amy Little with land development. Good morning. LDCU 2023-40 is a request for a conditional use approval for a full-service car wash and self-storage facility within a professional institutional X land use district in the North Ridge Selected Area Plan. The board adopted a land development code text amendment yesterday that added car wash full service as a C3 conditional use and allowed self-storage facilities within the PICS land use district with Level 3 approval. This gives staff the opportunity to review the use and its compatibility with surrounding uses and ensure that the use is appropriate as a support service for nearby residents, tourists, and surrounding professional institutional uses. Staff is recommending approval. Here you can see the surrounding land uses. There is PICS to the north, west, and south, and Neighborhood Activity Center to the east. To the east is also the entrance to Ridgewood Lakes, which is a very large subdivision that goes further to the east. The professional institutional land use district within the North Ridge SAP is intended to promote professional office uses, medical centers, things like that. Car washes and self-storage facilities have become increasingly popular in this area to support the surrounding residential and the residents and tourists in the area. There are a large number of high-density developments further to the north, and similar uses are found to the north and west of the site. There is self-storage directly to the north, and then behind it, there is also commercial vehicle parking back there that has been conditionally approved for years. Here is the site plan for the project. As I said yesterday, the board approved an amendment to the Land Development Code to make full-service car washes a C3 use within this land use district in the North Ridge SAP. The site will have access on US-27, and the applicant will be required to coordinate with FDOT for that connection. All development standards in Chapter 7 in the North Ridge SAP and the Green Swamp Area of Critical State Concern will be met. The site does have wetlands and flood, but the applicant will meet all the guidelines outlined in the Land Development Code and with SWIFT MUD. Staff is recommending approval. The use is compatible with the surrounding uses. It's a good support service for the adjacent residents, tourists to this area. It's consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Code. And with that, I will stand for questions. Any questions for staff? All right, seeing none, I'd like to call the applicant forward. Mr. Allen, good morning. Good morning again. For the record, Bart Allen, land use attorney with the Peterson and Myers Law Firm. My address is 225 East Lemon Street, Lakeland, Florida. Here on behalf of the property owner and applicant, Elevation Ridgewood, LLC. I was looking for Mr. Mike Rich. I don't see him. He may be running just a few minutes late. But anyway, Mr. Rich is my client. With that, Ms. Little has given you a very good overview of this case. I really substantively don't have a whole lot additional to add. The site has been laid out to put uses away from existing residential to the largest extent possible and protect the wetlands that are on the site and move uses adjacent to the other storage uses. So it makes a lot of sense. I'd really like to thank Ms. Little. The timing of this really seemed to marry up, right? We got the text amendments approved yesterday before the BOCC, and here we are on the conditional use. So I really appreciate her effort in helping us get through the process quickly and timely. And we'll stand for any questions, and if there's any opportunity or any public, I would request an opportunity for a moment or a bottle. Questions for the applicant? Seeing none, Mr. Allen, just real quick, the driveway does line up with the intersection across the street, right? That is it. Yes, correct. Thank you. All right. So with that, we'll open the floor for public comment. Anyone here to speak for or against this case, please come forward. Seeing none, we'll close public comment at this point in time and bring the item back to the applicant. No additional comment, I'm assuming, Mr. Allen. Well, excellent. With that, we'll bring it back to the board. Any discussion or motion? I'd be absolutely amazed to see if all these car washes make it. Yeah. And the reason I say that, my landlord owns three, and he tells me with what these car washes are costing today, you have to do 600 cars a day to break even. 800, you make a profit. But it takes 600 car washes a day to break even. We might be seeing some discounts if there's a lot of stuff. With that, I'll make a motion to approve LDCU 2023-40. With that, we have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton. Robert Beltran. For the motion. David Dalton, I am for the motion. Mike Hickman. For the motion. Brooke Agnini. For the motion. Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, it passes 6-0. Thank you, Mr. Chair. All right, next case, please. All right, number 7, LDCU 2023-47. The applicant is requesting conditional use approval for a flying community consisting of three lots within an agricultural residential rural land use district. Subject site is located at 292 Waterhole Road, south of TS Wilson Road, east of Old Avon Park Road, south of the City of Frostproof in Section 14, Township 32, Range 28. On November 15th, 13 mailers were sent to area property owners. Three signs were posted on the property on November 21st, and a legal ad was published in a ledger on November 13th. Staff has received no responses, and Melissa Celestine is your planner. Good morning. For the record, Melissa Celestine presenting LDCU 2023-47. Staff is recommending approval of the applicant's request to allow a flying community associated with hangars on approximately 66 acres. There are over 600 flying communities that exist in the United States, 80 of which are in Florida. Many of these communities are established with well over 90 lots, ranging from one acre to four acres. In comparison to the 80 flying communities that exist in Florida, this proposed flying community is intended to serve only three families with lot sizes ranging from 10 acres to 22 acres. The applicant's request is well below the threshold of what can be achieved in the ARR district as it permits one dwelling unit per five acres by right. The site is located north of Highlands County and east of Old Avon Park Road. It is within an agriculture residential rural X land use district, the southeast selected area plan, and the rural development area. Lake Wales Ridge State Forest borders the property to the east and to the south, as shown here. Few homes are located to the west of the site. You can also get an idea for how rural or feel for how rural the area is. Although the site is near the Avon Park Air Force bombing range, it remains outside the military compatibility zone. To the left of the photo is a reference of what the site will look like once it's subdivided. To the right is an overview of the proposed development. The development will be limited to three aircrafts per home as conditioned within the staff report. The associated hangars may be constructed up to 150% of the primary residents or 4,500 square feet, whichever is greater. The site is also required to show compliance with access and road frontage requirements during the level two review process. Here is another close-up of the site with the proposed site planned overlay to show what the development will look like if approved. Here is the site plan showing the location of the airstrip to the south, the proposed lots, and the immediate land use districts. The point of access will be along Waterhole Road and unpaved county-maintained roadway. There are several pathways for the development to achieve residential structures on this site. However, the way the applicant intends to access the property is not being evaluated in this level three review. Instead, staff is focusing on the proposed primary use and the compatibility with the surrounding area. Staff recommends approval. The applicant's request is well below the threshold of what can be achieved in the ARR district. The area is rural, which is the preferred location for this type of use. The runway will be located to the south of the parcel boundaries, away from residential structures, and adjacent to the Lake Wales Ridge State Forest. The request meets all standards in Section 303, Conditional Use Approval, and the request is consistent with a comprehensive plan in LDC. With that, I thank you, and I'll stand for questions. Thank you for your presentation. Any questions for staff? Hearing none, I'll ask the applicant to come forward. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and board members. For purposes of your record, my name is Tim Campbell with law firm McClark-Campbell-Lancaster workmen in ARR, 500 South Florida Avenue in Lakeland, Florida. I'm here representing the applicants, Mr. and Mrs. Lodi, and on our team, Todd Dantzler has been our real estate consultant. Mark Wilson and Joe Baina from Kimley Horn have helped us with the engineering design, and my new land use associate, Megan Charity, has been helpful on our team also. This is a husband and wife who currently live in Osceola County in a fly-in community. Not surprising with the growth in Central Florida, there's a road being constructed through their fly-in community, so they're having to relocate. They are aviation enthusiasts. They found this piece of property. You see the sign that's a little bemoaning there. Heifer Hill is our seller. So they approve of this use, and they're cooperative, and they've signed the consents, and so they support this proposal. But what they've sought to do is go to a more rural area to develop very low density of the three residential lots, to do the airstrip, and to just have a fly-in community where they can live. They're going to build their home here, and to have the ability to have two other homeowners also build homes on the two other lots. So it's a very straightforward request. We will answer any questions that you have, and we, of course, request your favorable recommendation of our application for the conditional use to allow this fly-in community on this property. Any questions for the applicant? Hearing none, we'll allow you to come back. Mr. Campbell is needed. But anybody in the audience here to speak for or against this case, please come forward. Seeing none, we'll continue back to the applicant. I think you're good. Thank you, sir. With that, we'll bring the case back to the board. Any comments or questions or discussion? If not, I'll entertain them. There actually is controlled airspace over this from 7,000 feet to 17,999. But one of the questions I had, which I looked it up last night, but from the east end of the runway, it's actually the fully restricted airspace is right on the west edge of Lake Arbuckle, so it's actually four miles from the end of the runway. So you have adequate space to make a normal pattern for the strip, was my concern, particularly, which is the level three, so it doesn't have to go to the county commission. But everybody knows that our commission is very, very protective over mission creep on the bombing range. Any other further discussion or a motion? I'll make a motion to approve LDCU 2023-47. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton? Robert Beltran? For the motion. David Dalton, I'm for the motion. Mike Hickman? Brooke Ignini? For the motion. Tommy Addison? For the motion. And Mike Schmidt? For the motion. Mr. Chair, I pass it 6-0. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chairman, our board members. Thank you. All right. Case, please. All right. Number 8. LDPD 2023-19. The applicant is requesting a planned development for 44 townhome units in a residential low 1 and community activity center land use district. The property is located on the east side of U.S. Highway 98, south of Sands Point Drive, and north of Princeton Street, north and east of the city of Lakeland, in Section 24, Township 27, Range 23. On November 15th, 71 mailers were sent to area property owners. Two signs were posted on November 21st, and a legal ad was published in a ledger on November 13th with no responses. And Robert Bolton is your planner. Good morning. Robert Bolton with land development, presenting LDPD 2023-19, requesting a planned development for 44 townhomes on approximately 6.37 acres within a residential low 1 and community activity center land use districts. The requested PD is for multifamily development within the RL1 land use district. Within RL1, multifamily requires a conditional use 3 or planning commission approval. The site is located within the Transit Supportive Development Area, which provides the requested density with a level 2 review. The site is located east of U.S. Highway 98, south of Daultery Road east, west of Sand Point Drive, north of Princeton Street, generally north of the city of Lakeland. The subject site is set back from U.S. Highway 98 between the Bay Breeze Car Wash and the O'Reilly Auto Parts store here. There's a recorded access that meets our requirements that goes between these two units right here. Our access will be coming in from this point. This area has grown substantially over the past 20-plus years. As you can see, we've got Walmart Supercenter with gas stations, quick-serve restaurants, dental. Going further north, you've got pharmacy, various retail here going on up, racetracks, publicses, uses. It well supports the residential infrastructure around this area. The area to the north and the east was developed from the 60s on through the 80s with single-family residential. The site, Olander Drive, does dead end to the site here and has potential access over the years from that site. However, with the PD that's being presented, the access from Olander will not be allowed. It will go away. There will be no traffic going through this residential area, and I'll get to the site plan a little bit later. All of the traffic will be coming out to U.S. Highway 98. This is the current land use map of the area. The frontages on U.S. Highway 98 are our CAC, RL-4. This is LCC down here. City of Lakeland has commercial four. So this area of U.S. 98 is very commercialized. One of the interesting things is our subject site on the western side has an area of CAC, but it's predominantly RL-1, which is the lowest density in this area. Northeast of the subject is RL-3 land use district with the vacant parcel to the south being RL-4. This is the site plan for the development. Like I stated earlier, access will be coming out here to U.S. Highway 98. This is Olander Drive, and you can see there is no access. One of the townhome buildings is right there. So that access is not available anymore. The site consists of eight townhouse buildings, six of which will be six units. Two will be four-unit buildings. The plan development meets all the open space, recreation requirements within our code, within our conditions of approval. The front setbacks of 25 feet, two parking spaces per unit. Side setbacks will be seven feet. Rear setbacks, ten feet. There will be a little bit different from this drawing here. There will be a full walking path around this pond for recreation purposes. So with the conditions of approval and the site plan, it's considered a binding site plan. The subject site is located within the TSDA and the TCCO, both of which encourage higher density development and provide for the density for this subject, for this project. Again, the PD is for multifamily within the RL-1 land use district, which comes to the other point is why we're here. The plan development is consistent. The development is compatible with the neighborhood. It's consistent with the comprehensive plan and the land development code. The impact of the requested plan development would not significantly impact any of the public services. And with that, staff does recommend approval, and I will stand for any questions. Any questions for staff? There was a note in the staff report saying that one of the wetlands is being converted to active recreation. Could you just point it out in the site plan in regards to which one it is? This right. Oh, that's the one? And it's considered active recreation because of the sidewalk? Right. The way that it has been designed makes it, we consider it an act of recreation. Okay. Okay, thank you. All right. Any further questions for staff? Hearing none, I'd ask the applicant to come forward. Please make sure it's name and address for the record. Good morning. Danny Kovacs, Tracked Engineering, 5137 South Lakeland Drive, Lakeland, Florida. I'm here today to present the Olander Town Home Development, LDPD 2023-19. So as stated by Robert, we are requesting a planned development unit for 44 townhome units in a residential low district and a community activity center with neighborhood amenities in approximately 6.37 acres with a total density of 6.91 dwelling units per acre. As Robert mentioned, the site is directly off of U.S. 98. We have a shared access agreement in place with the existing car wash to service our project. We have to service our project. The project is also located west of the city limits of Lakeland on the east side of U.S. Highway 98 and south of Daughtery Road West. As Robert had mentioned, we've got existing land uses in place that surround our property for compatibility. To the west, we have CAC and a small portion at the west of our site as well. To the south, we have RL4, and to the north, we have RL3. So here's a little more detailed view of our concept plan. So as we kind of ran through the engineering and the design of this, we looked at a way to incorporate our retention. We looked at a way to incorporate our EMS and fire turnaround and also to really buffer and screen the surrounding properties, such as the existing residential community to the north and to the south when that develops out. We didn't propose a buffer on the east side because we have a natural wetland preserve there that we're leaving intact, and we actually do have quite a bit of open space on that as well that we're going to leave intact and it's going to stay open space. We do also have a dog park and a playground we're proposing near the entrance with five off-street parking spaces. A little bit more on the buffers and screening. As mentioned by Robert, we do have type B buffers along the northwest and south side of the project. And again, we have a natural wetland buffer to the west, excuse me, to the east. We'll have amenities. We'll include a dog park and a playground. So with that being said, we look forward to your favorable vote and stand for any questions. Any questions of the applicant? Parking? Parking. Parking. I saw no, maybe I just can't read it from the... So if, let me blow this up again, look at that slide. Okay, so at the front of the site, you'll see we have five parking spaces for the dog park and the community center. I mean for the townhouses. The townhouses. The garage is separate or... Correct, yes. We have the driveways and the garage, correct. Yes. Per unit. Per unit. Correct. Any further questions for the applicant? All right. Hearing none, we'll open up the public comment period of this. Anybody here to speak for or against this, please come forward, cue yourself up, please. And please remember you have three minutes and state your name and address for the record. Good morning. My name is Andrew Olander. I live at 838 Patricia Place. I also own 5825 Olander Drive. And I'm speaking on behalf of my mother who also lives at 5815 Olander Drive. Lived in this neighborhood all my life. I grew up at 5815 Olander Drive and then moved around the corner when my parents kicked me out. My grandfather, Edward Olander Sr., developed Olander Drive and Patricia Place. So I understand that development must happen, but I believe that it needs to be done in a responsible manner. You have answered several questions that I have. I appreciate it. I'm glad Olander Drive is off the table because it could not handle the traffic going to Daughtry Road. So that was my main concern coming here today. I do have one other concern, and it's a personal concern that you would take Olander off the name of the townhomes. We don't want anything to do with it. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. My name is Breeze Kennedy. I live at 5718 Sands Point Drive. I had a couple questions. Who would I address? You can ask the questions and the applicant have the opportunity to respond. Some may be just protocol. So my mother asked me to speak on her behalf. If I'm longer than three, may I have her three minutes to speak on her behalf? We'll give you some leeway. Okay. Thank you. I'll try to make it shorter than six. Thanks. I should probably know some of these things, but how many stories are the townhomes? Two stories? Is that subject to change or is that okay? And I agree. You can ask us the questions and he'll respond. And he'll respond. Oh, perfect. Thank you so much. Um, so I'm not an expert, so you can, on wetlands and that sort of thing. I live right on the canal. So these would be, I'd be looking at these and it's been woods so far. Um, I have done building projects, um, and have dealt with swift mud and that sort of thing. Um, I do have concerns that the canal would start to flow and there already is some erosion, minor, very minor issues. So I was just wondering, is there plans for a seawall or anything of that nature? Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Keep going. Yep. Um, on, is there a plan for a seawall or anything of that nature on the townhome side or on both sides? Okay. Next one. Um, just a second. The buffer, is that all, um, trees and that sort of thing or is there any kind of fencing? Okay. I believe those are my questions. Um, I, I agree. Developing, we understand because our area was developed, but we just want to be sure. I've seen homes because I've been in real estate where they'll put in, the, the canal will start to flow. And I kid you not, they can't give the houses away when they start cracking from the flowing water, which causes erosion. So those are my questions and concerns. This is my mom, Karen Kennedy, too. Welcome. We've, we've owned property for 45 years on that road. She owns the lot next to my house. Excellent. Thank you for coming. That's all I have for questions. I appreciate it. Thank you for your time and he'll rebuttal and tell you. Thank you. Yes. Next, please. Um, my name is Ted Stoner. Um, I'm just representing the property to the south. I need your address for the right. Uh, 127 West Fairbanks, Winter Park, Florida. Thank you. Um, and, um, I'm, I'm, I think regarding a transit corridor, I think it's a great product. So, um, the only concern we have is that, uh, one thing that's not being, um, illuminated is, uh, the elevation change from the northwest to the southeast is 30 feet. Um, and, uh, right now it's well wet, you know, in, in practical terms, wetlands with, with just dense, dense trees, um, and absorption. Um, and so if we cut all the trees down and put all pavement along the entire border of the property to the south, which is eight acres, um, there's going to be runoff. Um, especially if you, uh, combine the commercial to the, uh, west, which is the car wash, if that's integrated. Um, and in addition, I guess I just wrote it out here. The number one concern we have is drainage. A lot has 30 feet of elevation change from northwest to southwest. What is the, what is the coverage ratio right now? Um, and, uh, how will they drain north to eastern, um, to the eastern retention pond? And how will they stop the further drainage at the western, the first retention pond from going further south? Um, and how will they manage further car wash drainage if it's, if it's combined? Um, because it all runs, again, 98 down to the lake. Um, what is the setback code for the retention ponds? Um, and, you know, I just concerned on, after the last hurricane we had, I'm not so sure any retention pond is going to, you know, have the integrity that we need to have to push that water down to the lake, um, to the, to the east. Um, and, uh, currently, you know, we, we, we share the, I'm all for this product, but, you know, how can we work together, you know, um, because if we take all the trees out and all the absorption of their six acres, it's going to come down, no doubt, uh, onto the eight acres to the south. Um, so how can we work together to, to push it where it needs to go? So how, uh, will these pond drains away from the neighbor to the south versus east? How can we push it east? And then what is the drainage elevation plan? Um, is there going to be filled dirt or how are they going to do it? Because they've got two different ponds. They've got to stop it from going further south in the first pond. On the, on the end pond, which is the majority of it, they've got to push, push the water back up north. So, it looks good on paper, but I don't know how they're going to do it. I mean, I have to really do some serious elevation changes to make that actually work the way they're, the way it looks like on paper. So, I'm sure there may be a way, and I'm happy to work with anybody to help, help them do that. But, it's just not going to work the way it is. And the last thing is just what's the setback for the, for the townhomes? You know, right now it says seven, I think 15 is code. So, um, at least 10, 10 or 15. So, but that's a secondary issue, and I'm happy to work with them on that, too. Um, that's not a drainage issue. That's just a setback issue. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Angela, thank you very much. I sent this to you. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak? If there's anybody else behind this gentleman, please come on up and cue yourself in the center. My name's Larry Anderson. Ned, I live at 5805 Olender Drive. And my question is, and that is, is there going to be a line of trees lined up on the left side there? And I'm the only one that's going to be facing this project. In other words, you go down Orlando Drive, and then my road comes down like this, and I'm the only house there. So, I'm going to be facing right towards that. Are you going to leave a strip of trees there, or are we going to be looking right at these high rises or whatever you're putting in there? And then how tall are these buildings going to be? So, just address your questions to us, and he'll respond during his part. You're fine. First time I've ever been to anything like that. No problem. And then also, Ned, are they going to build that property up? Because, you know, I'm the only one there, and that water, if it's built up, is going to come over to my house and stuff like that. I'm the only house that's down that road. In other words, it's considered Olender Drive. But it's my roadway down through there. There used to be a, well, right away there, Ned, it was a dirt road that went down there. And my brother-in-law black topped that and paved it down through there to our place. And then the other question is, are they going to be running on my driveway and they're working there? Are they not going to block my house or parking cars and things like that and so forth? So, I know the detention pond is going to be cleared out at the end and one up in the left corner. But I know that's always been considered wetland, and I wondered why they, according to the plans I had, practically that whole thing is wetland. I wondered how they got it to where it isn't wetland. And when I wanted to build a garage, they asked me, when I came down for a building permit, they wanted to know, Ned, where I was going to build the garage. And I said, well, I'm going to put it to the back of the house. And I said, well, that's good, because you can't put it out to the front, because you can't have any underground electric cables or anything else. So, I'm just curious on all that. Okay. Appreciate it. Anything else? I guess that's it. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you for coming. Good morning. My name is Dave Carlson. I live at 5744 Crafton Drive, like two blocks from where the construction is taking place, within 500 feet, because that's where they sent out their flyers. I have a couple of questions. Are they going to be rentals or sales? Okay. Whoever I'm supposed to look at. And if they're going to be sales, are they going to be able to be subleased and so on? Most likely, yes. But I just want to know for the future. That's a lot of people to pack into a small area. I'm a little concerned about the sewage that's going to be generated from it and where it's going to go. I do live on one of the canals right now, and the canals are, it seems like they're always under threat of something. And that would be the last thing I'd want to see, because there's a stream that comes from behind Walmart, goes past, comes into our lake and our canal system as well. And that would be bordering, I believe, the south end of the car wash area. So that does concern me. And that's about it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak for or against this case, please come forward. My name's Tammy Bartley, 5703 Crafton Drive, Lakeland. My concern, no one commented on the traffic. It's going to increase. And right now, going down 98, you're lucky if you get to go hit one green light, let alone stop at every red light. Another issue we have, sorry, I've got to calm down, he showed an aerial map from 2020. They just put in a huge apartment complex across from Walmart, and they're still filling that up. We just have too much in that area. It's very dense. We have traffic coming in from Socorro to 98, and it's hard for me to get out of the neighborhood. That's all I have to say. Thank you. Anybody else like to speak for or against from the public? Ma'am, I think you dropped something. All right, hearing no other, we're going to close the public workshop part and go back to the applicant to address any or all those concerns. Thank you very much, and thank you for your feedback. I did make a list of the concerns and also the questions that we've already kind of answered as of this morning. So the townhomes will be two stories. They'll be a standard two-story product. They will be fee simple. Our client is not proposing to rent the townhomes. As far as the buffers along Olander Drive, we are proposing a 10-foot type B buffer, which is going to have understory and overstory trees with evergreen shrubs, so we will have a solid buffer. That was one of the intents we wanted to look at was to, of course, allow for buffering and screening for any of the existing residents that were surrounding the site. As I said before, the east side has a natural buffer with several trees. Our client wants to leave that in place and leave that natural preserve, partly to feature our site and also to help with, you know, any drainage concerns or topography concerns on that side. I think there was a comment about the actual drainage. I know this is a land use hearing, but I'll touch on that briefly. We will meet the state and federal codes for all retention. Our site does naturally flow from the west to the east, so we'll make sure that all of our water is collected in our retention system, and it will meet all the water management district and Polk County requirements. Furthermore, there was a question about sewer. The site will have a public lift station on the project. That sewer will then be pumped to the Polk County's wastewater collection facility. The last thing I heard was a traffic concern. As you can see, we actually have quite a bit of stacking room between the car wash and the cross-access easement. We're proposing 44 units. Based on the thresholds in our traffic report, there's no additional level of service that's needed according to our traffic engineer. Let me just review. I believe that was everything. One last comment was about a seawall. Our proposed, as we said, we're proposing to leave the east portion of the site intact, partly because when we do our drainage, we want to have a nice area for all of our runoff that's permittable to flow, to have quite a bit of room to flow and slow the water down, and just really eliminate a lot of that erosion that could potentially happen. So that's all been considered when we did our layout. So I believe I've answered most of the questions, unless there's any other questions from the board. I think you got all the ones I noted. Thank you. Any questions for the board from the applicant? What is your impermeable area? What is the acreage order? I don't have that handy, but I would say just looking at our plan, we're less than 50%, probably closer to 40%. With the road, the townhomes that we're proposing, I'd say we're less than 40%. Where is this canal that's of concern? I can't read your text. So this area here is where there is, it's more like a, let's call it a vegetated swale, if you will. It's further to the east of the site. We're well outside of any 100-year. Okay. And you're outfall? Let me say that a different way. We're not completely outside of it. Our development is well outside of it. Your what? Our development, our actual, what we're building. Right. This is our, let's call this our end of construction line. So the canal and everything is over here. Okay. Your outfall for the collection is to where? So we will, as we get further into engineering, we're looking at two options. We're obviously going to retain the 25-year storm event. We will look at, you know, sending the water further to the east so it will eventually make its way to the canal. Sheet flow or? Correct. Yes, sir. We have one question. What direction will emergency services come from, south or north? I believe they're going to come in from the north, yes, sir. I'd have to double-check that. I don't have that. Is there a median cut on 98th that would allow them direct access into? Let's see if we can get a previous slide. Let's see if we can blow this one up just a touch. There's a directional. I'm kind of surprised there's not at least a Knox box entrance off of Oleander. Yeah, there is a directional existing today, as you can see from the slide. Any other questions for the applicant? All right, so with that, I appreciate your time. Thank you, sir. With that, we'll take the motion back to the board, add them back to the board for discussion or motion. Mr. Chair, I move to approve LDPD 2023-19. We have a motion. Do we have a second? We have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton? Robert Beltran? For the motion. David Dalton, I am for the motion. Mike Hickman? Brooke Agnini? Tommy Addison? And Mike Schmidt? For the motion. Mr. Chair, I pass it 6-0. Thank you. Coming around to our last item for tonight. It's agenda item. Go ahead, sir. All right. Good morning. Thank you. And a legal ad was published in the Ledger on November 13th. Staff has logged one email in opposition. Here is the site, Village 6, Neighborhood 3, West North in Point Siena. It has frontage on the east side of Marigold Avenue and was plotted in 1973 for 967 single-family units with minimum lot sizes of 7,000 square feet, in addition to commercial and institutional acreage. The property is further vested for concurrency through state action in 1983. However, this property is hampered by environmental issues. Of the nearly 405 acres within this plat, approximately 136 are wetlands. The graphic on the right shows the plat overlaid on the wetlands mapped with the county's data viewer. GIS analysis has shown that approximately one-third of the lots and tracks within this plat impact wetlands. Given its location on the northwest side of Lake Hachnaha and the surrounding wetlands, this site is also within the mapped wildlife corridor and borders preservation properties to north, east, and south. This modification is a complete redesign of the site, immensely reducing wetland impacts by moving all lots, the points of ingress, egress, and the bulk of internal circulation out of the wetlands. To accomplish this and still approach their vested number of units, the applicant has proposed reducing the lot count by 58, reducing lot widths to 40 and 50 feet, adjusting side setbacks to 5 feet, and rear setbacks to 10. In addition to preserving the wetlands, the site now comes into compliance with LDC standards for PDs, including those recently adopted by the board, including 25-foot garage setbacks, internal sidewalks, and 33.4% open space from upland areas, which include contoured and landscaped ponds, four recreation areas, and wetland buffers. They also propose additional parking areas at one space per seven units. In short, this meets or exceeds LDC criteria for planned development. The potential for any residential development next to this site is limited, so compatibility concerns are minimal. The staff does find the preserved wetlands on-site provide buffering between the proposed residential units and off-site preservation properties. In a larger sense, the staff finds its development compatible with surrounding uses. The property is in an island of uplands. There are urban-level services to this site. Emergency services are nearby, as is a county park and schools. 40-foot-wide lots are found throughout the area in Lake Deer to the south and Solavita to the north. Commercial development is lagging, but is expected as the market will respond to the rapid growth in this area. Here's a brief impact assessment. It is also important to remember that a site has been vested for concurrency for school capacity, and the school board is actively seeking new sites for schools in the area. Utility providers, Toho, and water, sewer, and reclaimed services are available to this site, and connection will be required. Given the traffic generated by this project, a major traffic study will be required, and county improvements to Marigold Avenue are anticipated within the next couple years. Here's our list of Level 2 tasks. This project is approved. In addition to the school board and utility reviews, the species site walkover will be required to check for endangered or threatened species. And, of course, there will be necessary engineering and floodplain review of the site. In terms of addressing the environmental issues and the efficient development of this property, this layout is superior to the current plated design. The wetland impacts are significantly reduced while new LDC standards have been implemented that increase open space and add recreation opportunity. The tradeoff is smaller lots and lot sizes and setbacks that were previously approved, but being that this site has no impact on abutting residential developments, there are few compatibility concerns. Urban level services, again, are available to the site with capacity. The request is consistent with the land development code and comprehensive plan, and staff recommends approval. Thank you. I'll stand for questions. Any questions for staff? All right, hearing no questions, can we have the applicant come forward, please? Please make sure to state your name and address for the record. Good morning. Tara Tedrow, Lounslaw, 215 North Yola Drive, Orlando, Florida, here on behalf of the applicant. I'll try not to repeat too much that you just heard in staff's presentation. Appreciate the information that they provided you and the depth of information that came in their staff report that ultimately concluded with the recommendation for approval. As Ian noted, the subject property is 404 acres, roughly, and less than half of that is even developable, given a lot of the site constraints that we have and the preservation of the wetland system that we have, and those are jurisdictional wetlands that are remaining preserved on site. We are in a DRI future land use category, so as you heard, the site is within the Point Siena Development of Regional Impact. There was an approved PUD 7110. It's been modified over the years with either new PDs being created or binding site plans being approved to go with what the binding letter of vested rights were that was issued by the Department of Community Affairs some decades ago, vesting this property for development. So the modification to the existing PUD is requested to account for modernization of development standards, as you heard. In that original PUD, over 300 of the lots were in those wetlands, and that was platted in 1973 to have those lots over those wetlands, and that plat was actually vested by the state. So when we came back to staff, we said, we want to take those lots out of the wetlands. We need to modernize the development standards for some of those internal circulation networks. We've increased the open space that's provided in the overall property. So you have a much different plan that meets your current land development code standards. It does not have that type of significant environmental impact that was vested from that 1973 plat, but instead stays out of those protected areas and ensures that we're not going to be having any type of impacts to those 130-plus acres of wetlands. So in terms of the vested rights that you heard Ian talk about, again, that plat from the 70s was for 967 single-family lots, and it was vested for development also through a 1981 Point Siena Master Plan and a binding letter of vested rights that was issued by the state. There are some statutory provisions under Section 380 that talk about if you had recorded timely a plat under a development of regional impact at the time, that it then vested your property for development according to whatever you had vested. Of course, we're not going to develop it under a 967-lot project that has 300 of those lots in wetlands. So we came back to modify some of those entitlements to try to come up with a modernization of standards. So our current PUD requests a reduction of that overall density to 909 units total. Interestingly enough, part of the original DRI vested for over 1,000 units on this area of the DRI Master Plan because it had entitlements for single-family, multi-family, as well as commercial entitlements, and it said you could build up to that number of units. The plat came in later for 967, and since then, we've continued to reduce that down. The PUD does preserve the Master Plan designation of having a commercial parcel, 4.78 acres, as well as an educational parcel, 14.63 acres, for future development. We talked to staff about this. We did not propose a comprehensive plan map modification to remove the commercial portion of the property or to remove the institutional portion of the property, and that was something that staff had recommended and requested. If we had done that, we would have come in for more lots to be able to be developable on those acres, but instead we said we will reserve those per the Master Plan that's shown and reflected under your comprehensive plan and had agreement with staff as to that plan of action. In terms of the PUD plan, I won't go line by line on this summary, but this takes you through what the summary of the gross total area is, and then when you start to reduce out those wetlands, the right-of-way dedication, and you heard that there's going to be some improvements on Marigold, those are to the tune of $28.6 million of road widening on Marigold that are planned to accommodate the current and projected growth in the future here in this area. In terms of the PUD plan, the lots were arranged to maximize scenic views of preserved wetlands, so we designed them out very thoughtfully and intentionally to make sure that those properties are going to have a great view of what will be permanently preserved jurisdictional wetlands. No lots, as I've noted, are planned within those wetland areas, so there will be no impacts. We've also added 130 additional parking spaces throughout the project to have visitor parking accounted for, so we have exceeded your code requirements in that regard and also provided internal sidewalks along both sides of interior roadways and some other types of code modernization that weren't reflected in the vested plat that we had. This shows you the aerial of the plan overall. You see that there's the recreational ponds. You have wetlands surrounding us. In terms of where we are on any nearby properties, to put this into context, we are either one-half mile or over one mile from any other built-out lot anywhere around us, so we are truly in this island of preservation and this island of wetlands around us, and our project is only being built on the uplands of our property. This shows you the 33.4% open space on the property, 87.96 acres total. This is exclusive of those wetlands, which is, again, why we have less than half of the property as even developable, given the 136 acres of the wetlands plus the 87.96 acres that we have for open space plus the nearly six acres of right-of-way dedication along Marigold. Here are some residential product types that we have from the home builders that we are going to have build the product ultimately, so they sent us the renderings for the product types that they would have, and those can accommodate anything from two up to four-bedroom, three-bathroom homes. We request approval consistent with the DRC recommendation that found that the request is compatible with surrounding uses at large, that the development is similar in use and intensity to others in the area, that we avoid wetlands to the maximum extent possible while providing a thoughtful layout to future residents. So that DRC recommendation was that we were compatible, that we were consistent with your comp plan and your code. Their recommendation for approval we certainly appreciate. Happy to answer any questions that you may have. We have our team here of our civil engineers. Any questions that you might have, happy to answer as well as if there's any comments from the public. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions for the applicant? Hearing none, we'll open the floor up to the public. Any questions or anyone would like to speak for or against this case, please come forward. Please make sure to name an address for the record. Cheryl Webber, and it's 328 Medina Court in Poinciana. I'm sad that it was during the day that no one really can come to those meetings because there's tons of traffic in that area. People, the nearest Walmart or store is about a good, with all the traffic, probably 30 minutes. I would wish that area would just build more commercial use, not more houses. There's houses everywhere around there. If you look, I wish you guys could see a whole showing of it on the GPS. There's nothing in that area. And every time they keep building, I'm like, oh, they're going to put some more shops for people, more places so people don't have to commute 30, 40 minutes to Kissimmee. And there's nothing, more houses, more houses, more traffic. That area has one lane in and out of there. Like, they said, oh, yeah, they're going to fix the roads, but when? They just keep building more houses. I would love to have more shops. Can't you just change yourself? You said it was commercial that you got rid of that, right? Is that what that is? They got rid of it? They were just putting more houses? Are they going to put any shops in that area? I'm very nervous. I'll say I've never done this before. But I'm just, it's kind of frustrating to keep seeing more houses. And not anything to stop the problem for people to have to commute everywhere. Like, the roads, yeah, if you widen them, it might help. But I don't know when that's going to happen. But in that area, if you looked on there, there's nothing there but houses. So everyone has to go further north to the same area where I'm at. And the traffic is crazy. I don't even leave the house at certain times. I'm like, all right, well, I'm not leaving. Or if I go out, I have to wait a certain time to come back. Because it takes, my husband works at the airport. It takes an hour to get there. And then to come back, it takes two hours. And then when I go home south to my parents, that's the way I commute out. It's always traffic. So I always have to worry my day around when can I leave. I know you guys said I'm not an expert in traffic. But I don't understand why people can't, I guess it was an area for commercialized area, or it could be. Why don't people just build more commercialized areas so people don't have to commute? And people could have a store right next to them. There's tons of houses in Poinciana in that area. They have village seven and eight in that area. They would commute there. They would make more money. I don't understand why that's not an issue. Why don't people think about that? That's all they want is the money, fucking build, sorry, sorry, build more commercialized buildings. Sorry. You're doing good. All right, thank you. Thank you. Any other comments for or against this case? Hearing none, we're going to close the public workshop portion. Applicant, please. Sure. You're welcome to. Just to give a little bit more information on those roadway plans, the widening of Marigold, that project is supposed to be completed in the fall of 2024. And that's with the Cypress Parkway widening as well. Between the two of those, I mean, it's nearly $50 million of roadway widening projects that are approved. There's a lot of houses in this area, frankly, because it's been vested by the state for decades for a lot of residential, but that there is commercial. We have 1,200 acres in the staff report, something that we submitted, I don't think a copy is in the staff report, but we had done a 1,200 acre environmental review of this property specifically. And part of that is because there are commercial portions of this plan. And one, we are not taking away the commercial on our property. And I think part of that was staff's recommendation, keep that commercial. That's going to be important in the future to have built out. So we agreed and we kept that for that opportunity for neighborhoods serving commercial. But in addition, if you go to where the intersection of Marigold and Hemlock is, there is a significant amount of commercial on your future land use map that has already been reserved for development. And it's just a matter of time for the market to bring that there. Part of that commercial development, my client has under contract. That's exactly what we're looking at. So we have done a 1,200 acre total review of some of these entitled pieces of property, which include opportunities for commercial development. So I understand that's not part of this application. I can certainly appreciate that comment from the public. But there is commercial that's reserved in this area. And a lot of what we've been told from some of the commercial folks that we've talked to, and my client develops shopping centers and commercial opportunities, they're not the home builder, right? We sell to great home builders and we have some of the best that we'll be developing in the area. But what those commercial folks are telling us is we're getting there on the precipice of having enough residential out there to justify building. That 7-Eleven is one of the top performing in the area. And there's a reason, because there's a need for that, but there's a need for commercial. And thankfully, we do have reserved opportunities. Again, it's already in your comprehensive plan on your future land use map. That's something that we're looking for. Hopefully, at some point in the future, you'll see us soon talking about those future phases of commercial. But again, we are not taking away the commercial entitlements on our portion of our village. We're going to keep those for the future. Happy to answer any other questions that you may have. Any further questions for the applicant? Just to kind of summarize what I heard you say, is essentially we're actually reducing the number of units that you already have vested, and you're keeping all the commercial entitlements in your proposal. Correct. And the institutional. And the institutional. Thank you. All right. With that. That's true. This piece of property basically sits inside of a bathtub. I know it all too well. And I'll be, it is a reduction. Poinciana is a monster that you have to deal with because it's, it is entitled. I'll be highly surprised if they are successful in even achieving the density that they propose, other than Bob Whitten has done substantial amount of development in Poinciana. The only thing I'll say is this piece of property does not have the benefit of the greenway ditches that all the rest of Poinciana has. But, I mean, that being said, you still have to, still have to deal with it. And it is a reduction. But. I applaud your engineering staff for their engineering gymnastics to pull this off, at least the way it's presented. But I would have to echo his comments. But I, I just, it's going to be interesting to see how you pull that off. And the other thing I'll say is to the commercial side, had I been sitting on this board back when Lake Deer was approved at Hashten Hall and Marigold, I would not have supported it. I'm actually quite surprised to have this discussion with staff. Really kind of surprised that staff supported it based upon it was industrial. And I'm just surprised that staff went along with taking all that property away that was long perceived that it was going to be the commercial aspect on the Polk County side of Poinciana. But, I mean, quite truthfully, this property would probably do better if it was all commercial, in my estimation. But based upon the population that's already in Poinciana. Any other board comments? If not, I just want to summarize what we're here to look at today is the actual request. Obviously, engineering and drainage will be something they'll be facing going forward. Engineers will have a good problem, so good luck and have fun. I know it's a lot of exciting stuff to do. With that, I'll entertain a motion. Mr. Chair, I move to approve LDPD 2023-29. Second. We have a motion and a second. Mr. Dalton? Robert Beltran? For the motion. David Dalton, I'm for the motion. Mike Hickman, Brooke Agnini, Tommy Addison. For the motion. And Mike Schmidt. For the motion. Mr. Chair, it passes 5-1. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I know we have an item to discuss. Go ahead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the record, Ben Zisco, Land Development Director. I just wanted to give the commission an update from our friends in Tallahassee regarding Senate Bill 250. So, as most of you are aware, and for the audience, last legislative session, Senate Bill 250 was passed as a hurricane relief bill. And one of the provisions that the bill had in it was that any municipality or county that was within 100 miles of where either Hurricane Ian or Hurricane Nicole made landfall were prohibited from adopting any changes to its comprehensive plan or its land development code, which could be deemed to be more burdensome or restrictive. This county has been working for the better part of almost two years now, certainly a year and a half, on looking at our standards for planned developments. And in order to get a product that was what we deemed to be a more quality product that dealt with some of the issues we see related to open space and wetland reservations, more bicycle and pedestrian connectivity, and several other items, we were, in fact, adopting or proposing amendments that fell under the category of more burdensome and restrictive. So, when Senate Bill 250 was adopted, we essentially pushed pause on all of those efforts. So, last month and leading into October, the legislation had a special session and heard the concerns of some of the counties like us that were in that 100-mile radius, but certainly did not have the impacts that counties like Lee or the city of Fort Myers had. So, there was a bill that was adopted and signed by the governor, which really was a corrective bill to clarify the jurisdictions that fell under that prohibition of more burdensome and restrictive. So, what they did is they took that 100-mile radius language out and specifically named counties, mostly in southwest Florida, Lee, Collier, down in the heavily impacted areas. So, what that means is we are no longer under that prohibition of amending our code. Prior to the adoption of Senate Bill 250, we did bring some amendments to you for your recommendation and to the board and adopted some ordinances that helped us get to where we want to get with our end product. Those ordinances were paused or were put in abeyance while we were under the guise of Senate Bill 250, but those are now back active and effective. And some of those that you may recall were we changed our design standards for garages, requiring that garage openings would be set back 25 feet as opposed to 20. We required enhanced sidewalk networks within plan developments. We required additional open space and changed the calculation of open space within communities. And we required a tree for each lot within a plan development. So, those ordinances that you did pass or that you recommended to pass and the board passed are now back in effect. The other thing that I wanted to update the commission on is while we were in that paused period, we presented to you a temporary pilot program that we called Prescriptive Plan Developments. And that was an opportunity for plan developments to go through the Level 2 administrative approval process if they met a very prescriptive set of criteria while we were under the pause or while we were under the Senate Bill 250, guys. With the passage of this new bill, the Board of County Commissioners directed us to withdraw that prescriptive plan development process. So, that was formally withdrawn from yesterday's agenda, and we will not be pursuing that Level 2 process. We will be picking up where we were prior to August of this year when Senate Bill 250 took place, and that is to bring you an ordinance that changes the plan development criteria but remaining at a Level 3 review. So, you will see that reinvigorator, that paused ordinance back before you in January, and then we will move forward with the Board of County Commissioners' approval or hearing following your recommendation. So, it's a lot, but I think it's good for us. You know, certainly there was a lot in Senate Bill 250. Most of it was tied to funding, but we were caught in that broad 100-mile radius, and the legislature did remove us from that. I'd be happy to answer any questions. If you get too legal, Elizabeth can certainly answer instead. Yeah, when is Senate Bill 250 set to sunset? That's what's interesting. We were removed from it, but at the same time we were removed, those counties that were still in, it was supposed to sunset October of 24, and they added two years to it, so now it's October of 26. So, we got removed, and Lee and Collier and some of those got two years added to the applicability. Can I ask a quick procedural question? So, you had these rules that you had put on pause, but you have applications and projects working through the process, and now these rules are now back into effect. How are you handling the changing environment in the middle of a process? So, really, the more complicated one was when we had projects that were designed for the bills that we passed, and then we no longer could enforce those rules. So, we met with those applicants and made it clear to them, because Senate Bill 250 was passed as a retroactive bill. So, we had to either asterisk or discuss with them that, yes, you designed it for this standard, but you understand that we cannot enforce that. It's voluntary. If you wish to revise it and go back to the old standards, you can. Most of them, I think, had spent the time and energy in designing the product and moved forward anyways. I don't think we had that many, but now that it is back in effect, it's just a matter of communicating with them and letting them know where they're at. Certainly, with any bill, if something is applied for prior to the bill taking effect, it's vested in grandfather. So, in that interim, if something came in under the old code, then it's just going to move forward. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. Real question. Ben, quick question. Is there anything that's left besides the new PD process that we're going to see in January? Was there anything left that was in limbo that could possibly be coming before the board in regards to open space or any other standards? So, the PD, there's several components to the PD amendment that are going to come before you, dealing with some more internal design criteria, in particular, looking at the type of amenities and how many amenities are required within a community. And what we're really trying to do, I mean, we'll get into this next month, but what we're really trying to do is say, if you're a 25-lot community, maybe a dog park, like the one with 44 townhouses, maybe a small dog park and a swing set works. If you're 600 homes, you need more than just a dog park and a swing set. So, we're trying to tie the amenities and the level of amenities to the number of units and the size of the community. And then we are also revising language regarding compatibility and really trying to make sure that we've got some more criteria or some more consideration for both the Planning Commission and the board as it relates to the compatibility discussion. Usually, that's one of the big topics is compatibility. Okay. Great. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? With that, thank you very much for that update. Thank you. With that, we'll move to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you.