good morning welcome to the march 6th planning commission uh we're going to open the workshop portion of this meeting and we'll pass it over to staff for any changes to our agenda all right there have been multiple changes to the agenda i think you have the most current copy but just in case we'll go through these ldcu 2023 19 mine and mill road aggregate cu has been withdrawn ldpd 2023 23 the north us-98 pd has been continued april 3rd ldcpas 2023-24 the us-98 commercial cpa has been continued in may 1st number seven on the published agenda originally was ldwa 2023-74 the hatched hall road access waiver that was continued yesterday evening late to april 3rd and numbers 11 and 12 on the agenda these are the septic to sewer cases are going to be moved to number two and three on the agenda and one last reminder too number one ldcd 2023-10 this was opened and presented at the last hearing um staff kind of want some guidance of whether you guys want to hear the case in full again or just the briefs of nazis and cut to the chase we're up all right thanks very much uh we'll probably cover those again one more time at nine o'clock when we reopen the meeting thank you good morning everyone i'd like to call them for the uh march 6th planning commission meeting to order uh can have a roll call for per to make sure we have enough people here running heath for the motion here david dalton i am present brooke ignini here tommy addison mike schmidt and linda schultz here mr chair we have a quorum okay thank you at this time we'll stand for the pledge of allegiance at this time i entertain a motion to accept the february minutes second motion second all in favor aye aye opposed motion carries thank you and we had in our workshop uh we had some reordering and changes can we go over those again please yes sir um a handful of changes here the first three are cases that have been advertised and but did not make the agenda these are ldcu 2023-19 this is the minor mill road aggregate cu has been withdrawn ldpd 2023-23 the north us 98 pd has been continued to april 3rd ldcpas 2023-24 the us 98 commercial cpa has been continued to may 1st number seven on the agenda ldwa 2023-74 the hatch and hall road access waiver has been continued to april 3rd numbers 11 and 12 these are the septic to sewer text amendments these have been moved up to number two second and third slots on the agenda and finally number one ldcd 2023-10 this case was open and heard at the last hearing but the applicant wasn't present so we need to finish that one up first and is the applicant here today yes sir okay great thank you is that it any questions and would you like to explain the general procedures please i'm going to take a motion to continue this case i'm sorry we have a motion to uh accept the changes in the agenda second all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries thank you 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 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 three reviews pursuant to section 906 of the polk county land development code on level three 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 three 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 files to call that qualifies to file such an appeal must independently exercise their 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 failed 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 their ability to speak during the public comment portion of the de novo hearing level four reviews pursuant to section 907 of the land development code the planning commission's decision on a level four review is a recommendation to the board of county commissioners 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 yes please so if you're going to address the planning commission on any case today please stand up raise your right hand and i'll answer out loud to the following question do you swear or affirm the testimony you provide today is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth um we just need to admit the county land planners as expert witnesses as we do in every other meeting but um in your packets or their resumes of staff will be presenting cases today if you'd like to foredire them as their background or expertise you can do so at this time not seeing anyone so we could just have a motion to accept staff as experts in the field of land planning go ahead i'm going to motion have a second second all in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries thank you great if we have any experts of applicants you can tender them at this time or wait until your case is called and then um lastly since we have some quasi-judicial cases on the agenda if you'll just indulge me for one more minute let me read through the procedures for that uh today's agenda includes quasi-judicial land use hearings which means the action entails applying the land development policies to a specific land development application in a fair and impartial manner the commission's review 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 the 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 confident 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 confident 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 it is so long as it is fact-based and can include testimony regarding subjective matters that do not require expertise such as aesthetic incompatibility of a project with a surrounding neighborhood however popularity polls petitions testimony that is hypothetical speculative based on fear or consists 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 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 mr chair thank you everybody get that any questions okay at this time we'll start we'll take the first case which is under old business but before you get started i want to remind everybody two things one please turn your phones to off or vibrate so you don't disturb during the meeting number one number two when you come up here to speak for or against the case keep in mind there's there a three minute time limit and we're strictly held to that okay thank you number one on the agenda is the continuation of ldcd 2023 10 the afghan is requesting a sub-district change from residential low one to residential low three on approximately 2.71 acres located east of sweet bay drive south of pipkin road west south of the city of lakeland in section 10 township 29 range 23 amy little will be your planner good morning amy little with the office of planning and development ldcd-2023-10 is a request for a sub-district change from residential low one to residential low three to allow for the development of a nine lot subdivision the request is compatible with the surrounding area with rl3 to the north and the east and to the west is rl1 but the developed lots are similar in size to what we would expect in rl3 there are available urban services to the site and staff is recommending approval staff is recommending or requesting a recommendation from the planning commission the request will be heard at the march 19th board hearing here's the current land use with the surrounding uses you can see that rl3 to the north and east and then a bit further south on lund road if approved the future land use map would look like this here's the context area you can see a large subdivisions there's multiple in the area that have similar density to what could be developed in rl3 and here's a closer look at the site the neighborhood to the immediate west features lot sizes averaging around 10 000 square feet which is the minimum lot size in rl3 the request is to facilitate the creation of a nine lot subdivision for single family residences the main difference between rl1 and rl3 is the density and the lot size within rl1 land use districts the minimum lot size is 40 000 square feet and density is one dwelling per acre rl3 allows 10 000 square foot lots with three dwelling units per acre this parcel is however within the transit supported development area and the comprehensive plan grants up to seven dwelling units per acre in rl3 in the tsda if approved they would be able to develop the subdivision that's proposed the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan in the land development code rl3 is compatible with the surrounding uses provides a gradual decrease in intensity with the rl1 to the west and staff is recommending approval and with that i will thank you and i stand for questions any questions of staff see none okay is the applicant available like to come up present their case and address for the record property speak closer to the microphone please my name is william tower i'm the owner of the property um i'm looking to um i own the property adjacent that's um with the property they're beside it and it's rl3 already i had it rezoned and um it's consistent of what is in the area okay but you agree with everything in the staff report i did yes sir okay any questions of the applicant okay thank you how many units are you anticipating you're asking for nine lots but the rl3 allows duplexes as well or it's going to be single family housing single family yes sir nine single family yes sir any other questions okay thank you i'm not real good at speaking so that's okay you did fine at this time i'm going to open it up to the public is there anyone in the audience that i'd like to speak for or against this case seeing none i'm going to close the public portion bring it back to the board for any questions and or the motion mr i move to approve ldcd 2023-10 got a motion second roll call please running heath for the motion david doll nine for the motion brook ignini tommy addison mike schmidt and linda schultz mr chair passes 6-0 okay thank you next case please good morning shonda bennett with the land development division this particular item and item number 12 staff will present present that together and then ask for your vote the first case is ldcpal 2023-11 it's a comprehensive plan text amendment and then ldct 2023-13 is a text amendment to land development code and alia will present that and then after alia's presentation we do have a presentation by the consultant dewberry for utilities this is an amendment based on a response to house bill 1379 that was adopted by the photo legislature last year and what that did is it required us to amend the capital improvements element to add a list of projects that achieve pollutant load reductions second it requires us to amend the infrastructure element to add a feasibility analysis for septic to sewer conversions and it relates to prohibit prohibitions to septic tanks in certain areas of the county unless they're provide an enhanced septic system and we'll go into all that in a little bit and then the other item that this amendment does is create a new overlay like our floodplain overlay or our wetland overlay called a nutrient restoration plan overlay so a little bit of context in terms of watersheds etc there there's a long history of clean water acts federal state updates to those acts in 1999 florida springs aquifer protection act 2016 it involves springs water quality and the requirements to do basin management action plans which are adopted by the federal department i'm sorry the florida department of environmental protection and that relates to the nutrient loads in our water systems like nitrogen and phosphorus basin management action plans are plans to restore the water quality of impaired water bodies in florida they contain a set of strategies and projects to reduce the pollutant loadings from various sources such as wastewater facilities stormwater runoff septic tanks and agricultural practices and what you'll hear today is more of the focus on the septic tank pollutions that occur in our systems and the map in the center is just from the florida department environmental protection's website and their data viewer in terms of the different watersheds in the in the state i just thought that would give you an interesting view of how the diversity is in different shades of gray indicate the different nutrient loads that are found in these water systems and to give you a context this on the left the city of lakeland there's lake hancock here in the middle bartow and then the city of winter haven so the basin management action plans are required in areas where there are certain nutrient load issues and those occur in three of our basins in in polk county one is the alafia river basin which is on the west side of the county and you can see that covers part of the southwest regional utility service area the other is the upper oklahoma basin which covers the west side of us 27 in the green swamp area and then what covers the eastern third of the county from north to south is the lake okeechobee basin and you can see how those cover a variety of different regional utility service areas that we have in unincorporated polk county the other areas that you see that are the polka dot speckled areas those also have nutrient issues but not to the significance as the others and those have reasonable assurance plans and pollution reduction plans again not as intense as the basin management action plans but all relating to lowering those nutrient load reductions so as part of the comprehensive plan text amendments that we have presented for you for your consideration today include bringing in that nutrient restoration plan overlay and you see that color here on the map on the left and that includes an area that you'll hear from the consultant today uh the uh the three that i mentioned previously where we're having to do the feasibility analysis of the septic to sewer conversion and then those other areas because all of that has the added requirement by the state which has been implemented by the health department for some time now that in those areas if you're on an acre or less you can't have the standard septic tank that we're aware of you have to have an enhanced septic system which reduces the nitrogen coming out of that septic system so that's much mentioned in our future land use element we mentioned the septic tank prohibition and the overlay in our critical area resource management plan section of our comprehensive plan that's the green swamp the conservation element same thing we reference both of those items the infrastructure element we specifically have to amend that by july of this year to bring in that feasibility analysis and that's that septic to sewer conversion and that's really all that data is utilities the capital improvements element there's a list of projects you'll see about six of them that come straight out of our natural resources and drainage division with different projects that are in our current budget for helping reduce that nutrient load and i think the best way to describe that those kind of projects are like the circle bar b projects where it's pretty large projects and then we had to amend the glossary to bring in that new type of septic treatment it's called an enhanced nitrogen reducing septic system we're modifying the definition for on-site disposal system to refer to that and septic tank and also adding a septic tank definition which says refer to the other definitions just to give you a little bit of background about some of the data that has generated our request for you today the map on the left are all of the septic tanks in unincorporated polk county and the different dot colors indicate either we know that there's a septic tank at that location or it's highly likely we have new septic tanks that we have good data on older septic tanks aren't necessarily we don't have a specific point but you'll notice the county's utility service area outlined in blue and we don't necessarily have not necessarily we don't have a utility service area over even half of that or a third of those septic tanks and then on the right you'll notice the overlay of that the new nutrient reduction plan overlay as well as the county's utility service areas in blue and the city utility service areas so if you notice that leaves septic tanks outside of any utility provider for septic to sewer conversion really south of mulberry in the middle all tourists down to the south and then on the very extreme east side of the county so that's just to give you a little bit of setup for the consultant's presentation so with that i'll turn it over to alia for the land development code text amendment good morning alia and gleema with land development presenting ldct 2023-24 the septic to sewer this is the land development code text amendment in connection to ldc pal dash 2023-13 this is a county initiated request amending chapter 5 chapter 6 chapter 7 chapter 8 and chapter 10 adding the nutrient restoration plan overlay adding restrictions on septic tanks and adding definitions per house bill 1379 polk county is adding the nutrient restoration plan overlay requirements to section 504 505 506 507 610 and 702 of the land development code we're adding basic management action plans reasonable assurance plan pollution reduction plan which are referred to the nutrient restoration plan overlay in section 602 we are making changes in section 806 which requires new plots located in the nutrient restoration plan overlays to have a note stating enhanced nitrogen septic systems are required on parcels one acre or less if sewer is not available we are updating chapter 10 definitions for on-site sewage disposal systems adding enhanced nitrogen reducing septic systems septic tank and private on-site disposal systems this map shows the polk county wastewater service areas in blue and the non-county service areas in green the yellow dots represent unincorporated county septic systems and the black dots represent county service area septic systems polk county bocc does not currently it will not control septic tank permitting through the implementation of house bill 1379 the florida department of environmental protection and health department will assume permitting in the future here is an example of a plat this is a real plat that the county has approved if this plat were to come in today it would be required to have a note stating enhanced nitrogen septic septic systems will be acquired if there is no sewer available the department of environmental protection has sorted florida's water resources into 29 major watersheds and organized those watersheds into five basin groups this amendment applies to existing lots and new lots that are less than one acre in a nutrient restoration plan overlay if sewer is not available and the parcel is located in the nutrient restoration plan overlay they will be required to have an enhanced nitrogen reducing septic system if the parcel is one acre or less these properties when developed will be required to have a more expensive septic system or connect to centralized sanitary sewer an enhanced nutrient reducing system that achieves at least 50 reduction in total nitrogen before discharge to the drain field or at least 65 nitrogen reduction combined when leaving the drain field this cost will be significantly more than a standard septic system and will require a power source to operate and more frequent maintenance and now lisa from dewberry will speak on the remediation plan good morning morning so this is um this is this is a lot of information and i'm sure you're very familiar um with much of the content but i've tried to put my presentation together so that folks in the audience might also understand what we're talking about today and i'm going to figure out how to advance next slide here we are okay so as was discussed the um the florida legislature in 2020 passed a senate bill known as the clean waterway act this legislation passed uh unanimously and bipartisan support and has a wide range of water quality protection provisions that were aimed at strengthening the ability to minimize nutrient pollution and to strengthen the regulatory requirements such as those in a basin management action plan for ease you know there's a lot of acronyms in our world and for ease this is called a b map so basin management action plan um as a reminder and this is you know for the folks who may be listening here the basin management action plan is related to the total maximum daily load for a water body we call that a tmdl and a tmdl can be explained as the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive while still meeting the water quality standards established by the state when in place a b map gives the state the authority to do several things first of all it establishes various management strategies that can work to achieve the tmdl for a basin and you know a management strategy could be something like a regional wastewater plan or other infrastructure improvements to serve the area the b map also establishes schedules for those management strategies and the basis for a determining if that plan is effective and it may also identify some different funding strategies because as you can imagine projects like this can be very costly in addition to this florida statutes also specifies that governments that are located within a b map must develop develop additional remediation plans for wastewater treatment and on-site sewage treatment and disposal systems here's another acronym for those who who may not know it's a ostds but we're just going to say septic tanks because it's a little easier and those plans would be created if florida's department of environmental protection identifies that they contribute at least 20 percent of the nutrient pollution within a specified area and if that remediation may be necessary to meet a tmdl those loading limits so the local governments are tasked with this if and only if dep issues a final order with the b map areas of concerns that are identified and as was was discussed earlier the b map areas of interest to you are the alifaya the upper oklahoma and the lake okachobe watershed so it happened on june the 2nd of last year 2023 dep did issue that final order and it included a list of the b map the best list of b map areas where there are concerns that the contributors would be that 20 percent nutrient loading or higher and remediation would be needed so the remediation plan again is often called the on-site sewage and disposal remediation plan we're going to again call it the septic system remediation plan and as was shown on this map previously these are the area areas that were needed to be included in the plan submitted to the state the draft plan was quickly due was due on february the 1st and the draft plan has been submitted the department now has an opportunity to ask questions and provide comments with a final plan being resubmitted um august the 1st so those plans the uh the subject tank remediation plan includes a lot of items that need to be um included in the comprehensive plan today we're really going to focus here on the septic tank inventory and again some of those projected costs that come with that so let's start off by like looking at the septic tanks the septic tank inventory for the alafia river b map the southwest regional utility service area is within this b map and contains about 3600 septic tanks next we're going to talk about the lake okeechobee b map and it includes several service areas and we'll start with the northeast regional utility service area that has you know nearly 2400 septic tanks currently so also within the lake okeechobee b map we have the eastern regional utility service area with over 1900 septic tanks as shown on this map and then lastly for the southeast regional utility service area there are over 1700 septic tanks again as shown on this map so talking about the report some more the draft report was submitted and one of the elements was to um to discuss the geographic candidates that would be an option to look at futures subject to sewer conversions so the draft report did not make any commitment to connect i think that's important to emphasize but it does emphasize areas that should be looked at in the future because they may be a good candidate for conversion and basically no commitments were made because there's high cost associated with sewer line expansions and the potential impacts it could have on the capacity availability of the wastewater treatment plants and most importantly any work like this would be contingent on receiving state and federal funds to fund the efforts so the report also considered that there are areas with septic tanks where sewer is not available and then the if central sewer as you heard if central sewer did become available under certain conditions a homeowner would be required to connect and i'm going to discuss this a little bit more in some future slides so as tasked by the state in this report we looked at different candidate areas the ones i've already kind of highlighted some but the elements that you wanted to look at was the proximity of the the candidate areas to a outstanding florida water body what's the homes per acre density how old are the septic tanks in the areas how what's the soil characteristics and the depth to water for the septic tanks that are in place and certainly the proximity to existing infrastructure what you haven't heard me talk about yet was the opera oklahoma watershed and that's because there are portions of the northeast regional service area that are within this watershed but there are no it's no sewer line candidates what is interesting is the state's bmat also acknowledges that the septic tanks in this area are very small percentage of the pollutant loading it's the area is not heavily developed and mainly because you're in the green swamp area of critical state concern so any future development that would become a candidate in the future would be looked at for connecting to a central sewer but the state realizes that there's not candidates for conversion of this area at this time because of these specific conditions so here's an example though of when we do look at watershed candidates the alifier watershed candidates here i've got a map showing deer brook deer brook south and pine pine view estates let's talk about cost so the cost of the county would be somewhere in the range of 40 million the cost of the homeowners you're looking at over two and a half million dollars and what you get out of this is converting about 587 septic tanks and getting those connected to sewer this means the cost per tank is somewhere around seventy thousand dollars that would be expected in a different way i want to share this slide which also has some candidate areas but one of the elements remember is not just connecting but it's the connecting for the purpose of removing nutrients so to remove nutrients um for the uh these candidates here the in the lake okeechobee area again the cost is somewhere in the range of 17 million you get a reduction of nutrients by about 2800 pounds of nitrogen per year and your cost estimate for that is over six thousand dollars a pound of nitrogen removed it's a very expensive way of removing nitrogen very effective but also very expensive so we have to make sure that that is um understood when it comes time to to consider the conversions so here's the other uh septic tank uh regulation that's really important so yes the rules prohibit new septic tanks within these these critical areas the b maps the areas where we have pollution reduction plans where sewer is already available so this was a rule that did become effective july of last year um and i also wanted to emphasize that in areas where sewer is not available new septic tanks on lots less than one acre must be those enhanced systems that you've already heard reference uh references to and those systems must be able to achieve a 50 nutrient reduction from what a standard septic tank would be there's a variety of different types of systems so it's kind of put under this umbrella whichever system works to give that nutrient reduction when compared to a traditional septic tank so new septic tank estimates um so here are some there's four different or so i say four it's only three still only three um in the uh eastern regional utility service area we looked at an example here where you have about 160 new tanks that are expected to be installed at some point so the cost to upgrade those tanks to these enhanced systems ranges depending on the type of unit that the homeowner property owner or developer may choose it ranges so you're looking at somewhere close to fifteen thousand to nearly forty thousand dollars and the total cost would be you know over two million up to six million dollars to use these new types of enhanced systems other septic tank regulations the estimated cost for homeowner to connect um to a septic tank is somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve thousand dollars um and then what's an another important aspect here is that the requirement is that owners of a properly functioning septic tank would be required or are required i'm sorry to connect to the available system within one year of that system becoming available if you have a failing system you must connect to that system the essential sewer within 90 days after notification from the department of course they do have some exceptions if there's hardships you know people don't expect to have to um if something's failing you're not expecting that you would have to uh pay that twelve thousand dollars to get connected right away so there are some extensions that can become available but you have to go through a process to with the department to justify that so in summary here i i wanted to share that you know uh this is being brought to you today because the state is taking the action that they are able to do to restrict those nutrients from entering into the natural systems they're specifically looking at the b map areas that we've discussed and that subject tank planning today may be able to help home homeowners in the future avoid added expenses of having to convert or connect at a later time and that concludes my presentation so certainly that's your science lesson for the day so but what was i think the most difficult part of this amendment was all that you heard miss kelly reference we had to add a policy in the cop plan to deal with that remediation plan so what we did is the policy just reference is the dep order which requires us to write have to have done the plan so we might have some changes to that policy depending on what dep's reaction is but that will come at the adoption of the amendment with the with the board of county commissioners so with that you have any questions certainly of staff or miss kelly we're available but that concludes our presentation what i'm hearing is we have there's no choice it's to comply with house bill 1379 is that right was your question you said choices i'm sorry repeat your question i'm sorry i said basically what i'm seeing is we don't have a choice it's all to come in compliance with house bill 1379 so we really don't have a choice it's just a matter of getting it into our cop plan yes this is a mandate yes sir from fdep from the florida legislature the questions the city of lakeland can you speak into the microphone excuse me yes sorry is city of lakeland participating in this i'm in the alify district and i know we're having extreme growth uh in the city limits out this direction our direction and uh are they participating in this as well or is this is the is polk county alone bearing the the brunt of this cost wise no every jurisdiction in the state of florida that has an area in the in where the b map has been done i know a new acronym for us to have created but uh we what's difficult about the law it says we have to do this feasibility analysis that you heard miss kelly talk about in our jurisdiction it didn't say our utility service area it just said our jurisdiction but we can't provide sewer in a city's utility service area if it's in unincorporated polk county so we didn't get pre-approval we just said we have to focus on utility service areas and i've spoken to dep about that and their response to trying to manage the way that the legislature wrote that law was that if as long as we're trying to communicate with the municipalities utilities has done that we have a representative here from you two representatives from utilities here chris azarella and jim tully who work on many different facets for our utilities they've reached out to utility service providers i've reached out to the city planners they're aware of it but it's not that easy to just do this remediation plan very quickly so at least we can communicate with the department of environmental protection that we're trying to coordinate with them and hopefully that'll be enough in terms of getting the florida commerce's acceptance of these amendments will these be included in impact fees will the county impact fees go up by what i hear about one figure was seventy thousand and the other for a tap fee was twelve thousand i don't think so um the the connection fees are separate from impact fees uh the bill the bill was quite extensive and there was only a couple of parts that related to the comp plan that you're seeing today there's other aspects of the bill that talk about providing grant funding and our natural resources and drainage division is working on trying to apply for grant funding to extend the sewer but that i don't anticipate this septic to sewer conversion relating to increased impact fees for any jurisdiction but i can't promise that what does the health department are they reviewing and enhancing their specifications for septic tanks that it that is still an option correct an enhanced system they've been implementing that for a a year now it's already required for septic tanks in these b map areas to be the enhanced system so they've already been implementing that and dep will take that over next year i'm sorry but i i understand we have a great number of older systems yes and uh i i would suspect suspect that uh they are the greatest contributors to this to the problem uh because the specifications and the uh uh efficiency of those systems are not what we are seeing and using and requiring today will there be provision for upgrading existing septic tanks i i i just know there's a whole bunch of people in these areas that are not big on depending on services from municipalities um specifically septic tank and that type of thing they have water wells they're they're they're they're living in the county because they prefer to be independent somewhat and uh this mandatory requirement that they tap to a to a um sewer to a sewer system is going to go over like a lead balloon well that law has been there for i think as long as i worked for polk county that the health department when a septic system fails and someone needs to upgrade it or change it if a septic sewer is running in front of that person's property the health department forces them to connect so that's really not different here so but we're saying that if there was available you're going to have to connect no matter what but in these in these areas if sewer is not available you can't just change out your septic system to the same traditional system it's got to be more enhanced so it will be it will be more costly so the county will have to provide i'm trying to get responsibility the county will have to provide sewer taps to sewer availability for these entire regions no the law doesn't say that we have to provide it the law just said we have to do a feasibility analysis and that's what we've done legislature may change their mind and pass a law that makes us do that but at this point it's just a feasibility analysis it's an unfunded man it would be an unfunded mandate if they did that but also if your sites if your home your property is greater than one acre you're not affected correct that's a good point um mr addison correct so that if you're larger than an acre and you're in these areas you your septic system is the traditional type of system you do have a choice to have an enhanced system if you wish but it wouldn't affect um two acres three acres four acre etc those kind of lots so all the high density subdivisions that i know is coming or that i'm told is coming in the west lakeland area out there is going to have to be provided a service and quite a few of those are in polk county they're not in the city so we you're saying that we are going to have to provide enhanced we're going to enhance our septic system or our excuse me our sewer system to provide these services am i missing something here i i if they have to connect we have to provide or they don't develop or they don't develop correct if we can't provide if they're not willing to bring the sewer to them which is just like any of the development anywhere in polk county they may not get the density they wish to achieve so it's their choice they either bring the sewer to them so they don't have to have the enhanced septic system or they develop at three to four units per acre and have an enhanced septic system that's the way it is today correct been that way for yes ever 30 years long longer yes your lifetime i'm older than 30 trying to help you out thanks just 31 really yeah any other questions okay thank you and you are the applicant so at this time i'm going to open the public portion of the meeting is there anyone in the audience that would like to come up and speak for or against this case name and address for the record and remember there's a three minute time limit chad brooker 2008 varner circle winter haven florida um please speak into the microphone a little bit closer please thank you can you hear me yeah i'm not in one of these areas so it doesn't necessarily apply to me i am someone that's on septic um however if i don't speak now i'm assuming this may affect me later down the road i don't have an issue in concept with what is being proposed here i mean ultimately we all want cleaner water cleaner environment um i think what i have issue with and what a lot of people who are in these areas that aren't here today might have issue with is probably the fact that they have to pay upwards of twelve thousand dollars to be required to connect to a system that might come down the road and if they have a failing system i understand failing systems happen you got to upgrade or you got to maintain it but me i have a system that's high and dry we're in a high and dry area it's not failing it works fine if someone were to put sanitary sewer in front of my house i'm being told i have to pay the money to connect we'll get an answer for you that's a problem in twelve thousand dollars it's not some people it's not a lot of money it's a lot of money right and i think you know i understand there's millions that have to go into upgrading the system as a whole for the county but there should be some funding involved for the private owner who has to also be required to upgrade his system that only seems fair to me the other question i would have we talked a little bit about utility impact fees you know typically if you're in one of these places where you don't have sewer available then you don't have that impact but if you now are being required to connect will there be a new impact fee for an existing homeowner that they have to pay to offset their impact to that new system that's more money so that's twelve thousand plus some good question we'll get we'll get you some answers for those the twelve thousand include demo in the old system or is that more money on top of that it's just there's a lot of impact potential for the private homeowner who doesn't really have a say in all this that you know might have been living in their house for 50 years with a septic system that's working fine they've maintained it and ultimately they got to pay a lot of money to upgrade it and they don't have a choice that's it thank you okay thank you is there anybody else in the audience that would like to speak for against this case see none i'm going to bring it back i'm going to close the public portion of the meeting bring it back to the applicant shauna if you'd like to or someone would like to address this gentleman's concerns lisa kelly again i have uh the breakdown i have the breakdown uh so the uh the estimate of course these are estimated costs today the estimated cost for infrastructure and tank abandonment is approximately seven thousand five hundred dollars plus the connection fee which is four thousand one hundred ninety five dollars brings the total to approximately twelve thousand dollars so i hope that answers so to answer his question if he was required to hook into sanitary sewer he would have to come up with that twelve thousand dollars to tie in correct and is there ways that these these residents can get relief somehow that's administered through the health department so the specific relief is not something that we administer um and again as we stated earlier that's been on the books for decades that requirement has been there this complex amendment doesn't change that impact um i don't know i don't i'm not familiar enough to know what kind of relief the health department can offer or what other kinds of opportunities there are for reducing that cost also he asked not to reiterate but he also asked if he has to tie into the sanitary sewer system does he have to pay also pay the impact fee the utilities isn't based on impact fees necessarily for that it's a connection fee that was described by miss kelly there's no impact fees for utilities but connection fees i would think i'm not well versed in the utilities side we've got staff here that may be able to answer that there is water and sewer impact fees yes that happens at the time of a new construction not correct or septic that's a different different path okay will this be paid to the health department then or will it be paid to the because you pay your you pay your fee for a septic tank permit to the health department not polk county right but the fees that she's talking about would be for the utility provider that's extending the sewer system okay and those those fees could be different those were polk county fees those fees could be different depending on the jurisdiction and those we have city utility providers and unincorporated polk county and we can't control that do we know the cost differential of an enhanced septic system but is that even is that a mute point if we don't have if we have to connect it's not necessarily a point can't find the exact slide she had um it's it's not a a point if you have to connect yeah because you won't need the enhanced system but miss kelly went over the range of different systems from 34 000 to 14 000 so it's it's a choice the homeowner could have a higher treatment system than the base system but again the the requirement to connect to sewer has always been there when it's available in front of the property and the health department doesn't send out a letter and go oh sewer's there close out your perfectly um performing system and connect usually it happens when it fails or there's a problem and and then they have to um deal with that situation with the health department health department implements that particular situation not the staff or building division and there are modified systems you can take a traditional septic tank and modify it to work to me yeah can you don't know the answer to that question that's that's not what i'm hearing as long as it complies right it's hard for me to talk about the engineering of a septic tank it's not yeah that's that's a little bit beyond just installed a new one at the ranch two years ago and i and i'm pretty familiar with the with the requirements of the new systems and i'm not even sure mine would be qualified as an enhanced system so i'm i'm i'm just kind of trying to get a line on what this is going to be doing to the to the citizens um both the existing citizens i mean we're we're talking everybody is what i'm hearing in these areas once we hook up the once we install the the sewer and it's available um they have to they have to connect if we install the sewer and it's available it's not a common event this is not new this is something that's been on the books for years i mean voting on yeah yeah maybe i'm missing the point then well it's it's also critical that it's it matters whether or not you fall within these b map areas correct i mean if you're in one of these areas of of concern that's where it really applies to you but if you live outside of those regions and it's really not too uh applicable correct right and you're voting on two text amendments one of the comprehensive plan which isn't it's implementing changes to the future land use element critical area resource management plan conservation element infrastructure element capital improvements element and the glossary it's to deal with the new overlay it's to deal with the septic system prohibitions that are already in state law and it's also adding a list of projects that the county has for nutrient load reduction and then the other amendments to the land development code regarding the various chapters in relationship to the septic tank and adding a note to the plat that if you're in these areas you'll have to have an enhanced septic system and that's to help that's to help make sure that the citizens are aware of this before they start getting into the development that's all we can try to do is give them more upfront information then oh go with the health department then that's what's on the plat yes any other questions yeah i'm the guy fixing to vote on this okay and i and i and i live in the alify area and i'm trying to figure out what i i'm still not clear on what this is what we're passing here what are we i'm sorry i'm i've been trying to track every word that's been presented but i well miss kelly talked about requiring people to attach to a system if it's available and the text amendment is to provide those systems as i as i see it what we're voting on is changes to our comprehensive plan to come into compliance with the house bill yes and by this we really have no choice is what i'm correct and that the state law already requires the enhanced systems and it all requires the connection to sewer when it's available we're just adding those to different parts of our comprehensive plan and land development code or the enhanced septic system yes that's the other option right any other questions at this time i'm going to bring it back to the board for any further discussion and or a motion mr chair move approval ldcpal 2023-13 second we got a motion second roll call please running heath for the motion david adult nine for the motion brooke ignini tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt against the motion and linda schultz mr chair i move approval of ldc t 2023-24 second the motion second roll call please running heath for the motion david adult nine for the motion brooke ignini tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt against the motion and linda schultz mr chair passes five one okay thank you all right next up is ldcd 2023-14 the applicant is requesting a sub-district change from business park center one to business park center two on 29 acres located on the southwest corner drain field road and hamilton road east of county line road west of the city of lakeland in section six township 29 range 23 on february 15th 15 mailers were sent to area property owners six signs were posted on february 16th and a legal address published in the ledger on february 20th staff has received no responses and eric peterson is your planner good morning commissioners this is a request uh for the district change as ian mentioned the big difference between bpc1 and bpc2 is in bpc1 you can ask for multi-family can't do that in bpc2 but in bpc2 you can have outdoor storage does have to be screened but you can have outdoor storage and you can do mechanical work on vehicles you know automobiles and big trucks and things of that nature even heavy equipment but that has to be within an enclosed facility so it's it's not a big stretch to go from one to two but it is a deciding factor because it does have to do with the uh dynamics of the area uh this is this is our our area here as you can see how well it's built out uh the majority of the land uses in this area are bpc most of them are bpc1 but we do have a bpc2 that was approved here uh it's doing a number of things truck parking it's one of them uh gas station and and things of that nature this is a big big difference here 1994 30 years ago this is what this area looked like now look at it today in the course of 30 years this area has changed astronomically in its land use types so this amendment today fits in i i would have said in 1994 that's probably not appropriate here but today this type of change is fitting to the area and its dynamic uh this is the site uh looking up close as you can see what's around it this is the site plan overlaid there will be a maintenance facility here uh this is under construction for some warehouse uh this is where the vehicle parking or the vehicle storage will be on the site this is a active uh farm uh this is under construction uh most of these as you'll see in the aerial photos are in early stages of construction for warehouse facilities this is looking uh towards the northeast north and east this is looking into plant city slash hillsborough county at the amount of warehousing distribution that's formed along county line road county line road forms a significant catalyst for this area when that that 1994 photo i showed you county line road didn't go to state road 60 you had to do a jog and go go through cornet to get to state route 60 kind of through a neighborhood today it's a four-lane divided highway and is a vital corridor for truck traffic and that's why all these warehouses have formed as you can see the air freight that's gone on not only amazon but fedex and dhl has had a big impact on this area as well it's prompted the need for infrastructure improvements to the electrical systems that's going on across the street is an enhancement to the electrical supplies in the area and distribution systems this is looking to the south as you can see after the site it seems to kind of drop off aside from the solar farm at the end of the runway however this area is all bpc2 so in essence this bpc this this bpc2 area here is probably going to be masked by the surrounding warehouse and distribution facilities yet to come on these other properties it's kind of what it looks like from the ground just to show that i've been there and uh just to close the big difference is the outdoor storage and the the vehicle maintenance the outdoor storage has to be screened from view that's a requirement of bpc regardless the maintenance has to be done within an enclosed facility that's that's a requirement regardless but other than that it'll be it's a it's a big difference between bpc one and two in its intensity and its activity so with that i'll stand for questions any questions to staff see none okay got one okay on the properties to the southwest of this that one and the one that's on the other side of spring creek we either left 50 foot of arr or we of course the one of the south went bpc2 uh and but we didn't allow the bpc2 to go all the way to the property line so this as i mentioned it has the intervening bpc1 between this outdoor storage and then the south properties to the south so it's kind of a break anything else okay thank you eric it is the applicant available like to come up and present their case name and address for the record good morning kate bader kimley horn and associates 109 south kentucky avenue in lakeland i think eric did a great job we have no further comments but are here to stand for any questions any questions of the applicant okay thank you at this time i'm going to open up the public anybody in the audience like to speak for or against this case seeing none close the public portion bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion mr chair i move to approve ldcd 2023-14 the motion do i have a second second roll call please running he for the motion david all nine for the motion brooke ignini tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt or the motion and linda schultz um i'm going to refrain from voting in this due to an ongoing professional relationship with the applicant mr chair passes five over with one abstained okay thank you next case please all right number three on the agenda is ldcu 2023-59 the applicant is requesting conditional use approval for a mobile home to be located in the subdivision where fewer than 50% of the developed lots have mobile homes the subject site is located east of darlin loop road west of muncie road north of scenic highway and south of lake wales in section 19 township 30 range 28. february 15 26 mailers are sent to area property owners two signs are posted on february 16th in a legal ad was published in the ledger on february 20th three responses in opposition have been received and alia and gleam is the planner good morning alia and gleam with land development presenting ldcu 2023-59 the darling loop road mobile home cu the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval for a mobile home to be located in the subdivision where fewer than 50 percent of developed lots have mobile homes the subject site is located east of darlin loop road west of muncie road north of scenic highway south of lake wales in section 19 township 30 and range 28. the current future land use is agriculture residential rural and within a rural development area this is a large lot by the arr standards the surrounding properties are ag land there is ample space to buffer and screen the home off-site this parcel is within the crooked lake plat this plat was recorded in 1928 and it has not developed as platted crooked lake has been replatted multiple times the nearest mobile home is located southeast approximately 550 feet from the subject site the nearest residential home is east approximately 650 feet to the property line and approximately half of the homes are found around north of the lake are on slots smaller than the subject property here is the site plan the applicant is placing one mobile home on the property and the proposed mobile home will meet the required setbacks for the land use district the adjacent lots are also within an arr land use district and are on agricultural land or pasture this lot was used as citrus land prior to 2017 and is now a vacant residential property staff has reviewed the request and finds it is consistent with the comprehensive plan and land development code and i'll stand for questions i have a question when you say there's less than 50 percent of mobile homes in the in the area explain to me again what why does that matter it's based on how many um lots are um mobile homes or site built in the property appraiser um and it's just based on section 303 of the mobile for mobile homes to administratively be approved you have to have over 50 percent mobile homes within a plat in this instance in a plat within a plat and subdivision oh within a plat and subdivision yes sir so uh in this instance the crooked lake plat does not have has not developed with over 50 percent mobile homes so if it's over 50 percent it's administrative approval this is not compatible no that we have seven standards i think it's seven now in the land development code for placing mobile homes administratively one of those is if you're within a planet subdivision and over 50 percent of the developed lots have mobile homes it goes straight to the building department if it failing that or any of the other six standards the planet commission has the option to determine its compatibility with the surrounding uses catch-all there's a provision in chapter 303 that brings it to this board to review compatibility okay that's what i was wondering okay thank you and and so if this property was not within the plat the a the size of the property itself is large enough to where this would just be like level one level two if it wasn't within the plat correct if this wasn't in a plot this could be approved administratively thank you makes sense now okay thank you any other questions of staff okay thank you is the applicant available like to come up present their case the applicant's not here okay was there you want to see if there's opposition here and accept their testimony um i would recommend though yeah we'd have to continue it if they're not here and we've got opposition but we can hear the yeah go ahead and receive yep okay since the applicant's not available i'm going to open the public portion of the meeting and have anybody in the audience who'd like to speak for or against this case please come forward name an address for the record good morning my name is luke claremont my address i i speak on behalf of parcels that i own directly near these on darlin loop road i own parcels 002010 which is 205 darlin loop road as well as 018 011 and 017 010 the second two being citrus groves currently i just want to touch base this has been sent in his opposition you have this i just want to kind of touch base on this according to that 303 that was mentioned i i it's my understanding that under one it's not proposed within a mobile home park so it does not meet the following criteria i'm sorry 303 does not meet the following criteria for these numbers one not in a mobile home park two it's not proposed within a mobile home subdivision three it's not proposed within a development where 50 percent or more of the homes are mobile homes number six abutting a property to the rear which should be to the east which is not vacant number seven abutting property to the sides that have a mobile home the mobile home referenced and the findings is one parcel parcel to the south it is divided by an orange grove and that orange grove is also an eight acre parcel that i believe is over 600 feet in length in height so that 500 foot variant number that was given i think is skewed slightly in my understanding um i'll just give you my summary uh application proposed is a structure that is both non-conforming and not not representing on either darlin loop or monsea road thus requiring a conditional use further further by the ongoing negligence and violations subject property i respectfully request further consideration on behalf of the planning would restrict this aforementioned conditional use to recap it appears to me that the portions of this report are inaccurate or potentially misleading the report states with respect to a buffer this is in the report summary analysis that the home will be buffered and screened by existing vegetation if a buffer is not required for mobile homes why is this included included in the summary the decision was based on because in an email it's also back and forth you've seen it up from the department it says a buffer is not required in polk county land development code for mobile homes this request is only for a mobile home a mobile home and will not satisfy other violations on the property the property will continue to remain in violation if the rep there's a recreational vehicle on this property that is in current violation so my question is why would why would a conditional use be granted to a property owner that is in a known violation in polk county for a camper trailer and then the mentioned surrounding property property listed as vacant when directly to the east a separate parcel there is a completely compliant brick and mortar home being built with um you finish your sentence um with the proper means it is what was built um excuse me it was built to code with with tax um with permits okay thank you thank you is there anybody in here okay i know this guy good morning my name is dave crumbly i live at 23 skidmore road in winter haven but my wife and i last year purchased uh 3898 muncie road uh property 3.7 uh 6.37 acres and i've sent in a couple of emails and that's been shared with you i'm sure and there were some pictures in there so when we were looking for a place to build on acreage we we looked a lot we find this place on muncie road and if you start where scenic highway is going north and south before the big curve towards badson park from there the next road over to the east is darlin loop then muncie and then lake easy road and you can see the red uh markers here where the homes are and consistently it's homes brick and mortar on acreage there's the two mobile homes of the 37 homes that were cited are directly on a scenic highway facing to the south and they are buffered there not can they're not consistent with the property with what the the development is happening but they're not in that development but right now and in all due respect to the planner a site visit would have shown that there are three homes that are very far along mine being one of them our home uh when the the facts say that you're 650 foot to this property the nearest home it's probably less than 200 foot where i'm building i'll have us the co by the end of may maybe june sometime but if you plotted there's three new homes going and and i make this point because it's it's how this development's going uh brick and mortar and if they were plotted in there one is on darlin loop road two are on muncie on the west side where they abut land that's on darlin loop so it would you plot those three in there again they all have rooftops they're very far along and it would show this this development is going from east to west when it reaches scenic highway then that will that area will be pretty well built out but all those properties are for sale and many of them been bought in four to eight acre uh uh i guess um you know acreage size so by as mr clover might mention i met missing very nice woman happy to have her for a neighbor but she's uh part-time there she's got an rv that's out of compliance in more than one way and the report will tell you by pulling a mobile home on the property it will get her in compliance and so it's almost a knee-jerk to me to to disrupt the development that's happening here and uh there's a provision that says once mobile homes on there if you're next to that if you abut that area you can put a mobile home in so you know i i would hate to see it quickly turn from all that really uh positive brick and mortar development coming across fill that area out to all of a sudden it's encouraging mobile homes which again as you know aren't regulated it can be uh of any condition thank you thank you is there anybody else in the audience okay i'm going to close the public portion of the meeting and bring it back to the staff or well i guess we we need to continue this don't we yeah so we can table it to the end of the meeting lily i don't know if you want to reach out to the um applicant and see if they can make it before the meeting today is up do you want to do that first or do you want to just go ahead and continue it to the next i think i think for the sake of everybody here if we can get the applicant here before this meeting is over with that would be good if not we will have to continue it to next month okay next case please sorry let's just take a motion one second for everybody in the audience what we're doing is because the applicant is not here we're going to have to try to get in touch with the applicant to see if they can make it in today since you're here already so we can hear their side of it and then we can vote on this case otherwise if the applicant can't not make it here today we will continue this case to next month mr chair i move that we table this case until the end of today's hearing second we got a motion second roll call please running heath for the motion a adult nine for the motion brooke ignini tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt or the motion and linda schultz for the motion mr chair passes 6-0 okay thank you all right next up is ldcu 2023-65 the applicant is requesting conditional use approval for a 195-foot tall monopole communication tower the subject site is located at 6429 us highway 1792 south of the osceola polk line road north of ronald redding parkway west of the osceola county line north of davenport in section 12 township 26 range 27 on february 15 15 mailers were sent to area property owners one sign was posted on the property on february 20th and a legal ad was published in the ledger on february 20th staff has received no responses and melissa celestine is your planner mr chair moved to expedite we got a motion for expedite do i have a second second emotion a second uh roll call well all in favor say aye aye aye opposed motion carries expedite good morning for the record melissa celestine presenting ldcu 2020. excuse me second i missed one portion not on top of my game right this second is there anybody in the audience that is opposed to this case okay thank you carry on good morning for the record melissa celestine presenting ldcu 2023-65 staff recommends approval of a 195-foot tall peak net monopole communication tower to be constructed on a property developed with an existing substation owned and operated by duke energy since at least 2017. the proposed tower will be constructed on the southern end of the property adding to the existing utility structures that serve the surrounding developments the site is approximately 7.5 acres within the residential medium x land use district the ron oregon selected area plan and a transit supportive development area this area has seen significant growth within the past decade and continues to grow additionally communication towers provide critical cell cellular coverage to surrounding residents workers commuters and first responders the request meets all standards in section 303 for conditional use approval and the request is consistent with the ldc and comprehensive plan specifically policy 2.125-d1 which states that communication facilities shall be permitted throughout the county in all land use classifications subject to county approval to support existing and proposed development with that i thank you and i'll stand for questions any questions of staff okay seeing none is the applicant available like to come up present their case good morning mary solik 121 south orange avenue suite 1500 orlando florida i'm legal counsel for peak net services we are in agreement with all of the conditions of approval in the staff report i'm available to answer any questions any questions of the applicant seeing none okay thank you at this time i'm going to open the public portion anybody in the audience would like to speak for or against this case seeing none we'll close the public portion bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion mr chair move approval of ldcu 2023-65 second motion is second roll call please bernie heath for the motion david dalt nine for the motion brooke ignini tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt or the motion and linda schultz mr chair passes 6-0 okay great thank you next case please all right this is ldpd 2022-15-m1 the applicant is requesting modification to ldpd 2022-15 to revise the development from two triplexes and two single family units to eight duplexes subject site is located west of cedar crest boulevard north of man road south of duff road east of green road in section 14 township 27 range 23 on february 15 57 mailers were sent to area property owners two signs were posted to the property on february 16 and legal ad was published in the ledger on february 20th staff has received no responses and alia and gleam is your planner good morning alia and gleam with land development presenting ldpd 2022-15-m1 the gemma estates pd mod the applicant is requesting a modification to ldpd 2022-15 to revise the development from two triplexes and two single family units to eight duplexes the subject site is located west of cedar crest boulevard north of man road south of duff road and east of green road and section 14 township 27 range 23 the current future lane use is residential medium and it is within the urban growth area this site is one of the last vacant properties along duff road local residential uses include generational site built homes on large properties and newer high density subdivisions built to today's standards individual mobile homes and mobile homes are located nearby duplexes are located to the northeast and these eight proposed duplexes will add to the diversity of the local housing area residential medium allows seven units per acre by right and this request increases the units by right from 11 to 16 in short the number of units requested are small enough that there are no compatibility issues as defined in chapter 10 of the ldc and in policy 2.102-a2 of the comprehensive plan the site will be on the southeast corner of the intersection of duff road and green road with a large open space area separating the structures from existing development to the east the request is consistent with the polk county comprehensive plan and section 303 of the ldc as it pertains to pds and multifamily developments and staff recommends approval and i'll stand for questions any questions of staff seeing none okay thank you is the applicant available like to present come up present their case chad broker traditions engineering 35 dom polson drive eagle lake florida um i don't really have anything else to add i think everything was pretty much covered there are multiple uses in the area this just adds to that and the impacts of relatively minor being that these are multi-family instead of the single family that was previously proposed so uh if you have any questions i'll stand for questioning otherwise we're good any questions the applicant speak into the microphone sorry i see mostly single family adjacent how far till the uh is it to the nearest duplexes thank you there you go yeah i i do not have that information off top of my head i know they're to the north and to the west a bit and then we have some mobile homes there um i think they're all within a half a mile though any other questions okay thank you thank you at this time i'm going to open the public portion to anybody in the audience like to speak for or against this case seeing none bring it back to close the public portion bring it back to the board for discussion and or motion mr chair i move to approve ldpd 2022-15 have a second a second got a motion second roll call please running heath for the motion david dalton i am for the motion brook ignini tommy addison or the motion mike schmidt or the motion linda schultz mr chair it passes 6-0 okay thank you next case before we get started with this case we did receive word that the applicant for the previous mobile home case will not be showing today so if we want to continue that to the following hearing what tommy was your motion to continue it my motion was to table it let's do it now yeah let's do it let's let's do i have a motion to continue this case till the next till next planning commission meeting in april so moved second a motion second roll call please bernie heath for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion brook ignini for the motion tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt or the motion and linda schultz chair passes 6-0 okay thank you okay all right good morning ian nance land development this is agenda item number 6 ldpd 2018 46-m1 staff recommends approval of this application to modify a previous condition of approval that limited commercial development of this site to 50 000 square feet for the record the site is located in the four corners area on the east side of us highway 27 south of us highway 192 north of polo park east boulevard west of osceola county line in section one township 25 and range 26. on february 15 57 mailers were sent to area property owners two signs were posted on february 9th and a legal ad was published in the ledger on february 20th staff did receive one email in opposition late last night or this morning which i believe has been distributed to you five years ago today ldpd 2018-46 was approved unanimously for four 400 multi-family dwelling units and structures up to five stories tall which are currently under construction this request also included reduced setbacks from us 27. on that site plan several non-residential uses were shown on the out parcels for up to a collective of 50 000 square feet none of these non-residential uses did required pc approval however over the last five years a couple of the proposed commercial uses have been changed notably self-storage which demands a higher square footage than what was originally included in the condition of approval rather than incrementally increasing the square footage staff recommends removing the commercial square footage restrictions in the conditions this area of the county allows a buy right of floor area ratio up to 2.0 though it's incredibly unlikely that any of these out parcels will develop to that level and kind of me a couple here the commercial square footage should not have been included in the original conditions of approval since the pc approval was not necessary for any of these uses this modification prevents having returned from another hearing if plans change in the future for uses that would otherwise be granted administratively this is an area of the county plan for higher intensity development and staff finds the request compatible with surrounding uses thank you i'll stand for questions any questions to staff seeing none okay is the applicant available like to come up present their case good morning for the record logan ops all 215 north eola drive uh good to be with the commission this morning uh thank you to ian a lot of this as you've heard in the staff report was cleaning up this pd providing for the appropriate intensities really flexibility and and opportunities to put in what was always conceived for this site so we worked a lot with staff and coming up with something that can be cleaned up and provide for that again in this area that's contemplated for some intense use but also allows us to clean up this pd and uh and provide what was intended um one quick thing and i did speak about this yesterday briefly i just want to make sure all parties are clear and you know we if there's any questions we can handle those um he mentioned the the standard uh the conditions of approval that's cleaned up that condition one um so that's acknowledged from all parties um and then there's a third condition the binding site plan which ian and i discussed yesterday which depicts what's to be built there i just want to clarify for everyone's purposes that to the extent we move certain uses or the hotel use that's depicted on that on that phase two i believe is a level two review that can also be done administratively that's correct pd approval does not divest uh uses that would otherwise be approved administratively spelled out that condition thanks ian i'll stand for any questions any questions okay thank you at this time i'm going to open up the public portion anybody in the audience would like to come up and speak for or against this case seeing none close the public portion bring back to the board for discussion and or motion mr chair move approval of ldpd 2018-46-m1 second motion second roll call please runny heath or the motion david dalton i'm for the motion brooke ignini for the motion tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt for the motion linda schultz mr chair passes 6-0 okay thank you next case please next case is ldcpal 2023-11 it's a comprehensive plan map and text amendment the map change is from professional institutional to employment center on approximately 29 acres the policy amendment is to the development criteria for employment center in terms of the advertisement 56 57 mailers were sent to area property owners on february 15th six signs were posted on the property on february 14th and a legal advertisement was published in lincoln ledger on february 20th and no responses were received so the property is located on the west side of us 27 in the green swamp area of critical state concern the northridge selected area plan and the transit support of development area the bluish color there is the city of haynes city you can see kind of wraps around the property in a general sense there's a context aerial that you can see the site outlined in yellow it's northern boundary is holly hill grove road number one and what you see outlined in red the property owner or applicant actually has the larger area as they'll have a project that you might see later this year with a conditional use but today the request is what you see here on the south side of holly hill grove road one there's residents to the west north and south there's a self-storage facility that's been there for quite some time religious institution to the east of the site and other residential communities further to the east and the entrance into ridgewood lakes is to the southeast this is the current future land use map the current designation again is professional institutional that's that turquoise color it also blends in with our institutional color which that's what the religious institution is to the east the professional institutional that you see here north of the self-storage facility in all of itself none of it is really what the professional institutional was meant to be which was more of a medical focus to it versus employment center is more retail commercial office etc you don't see much of that in the existing employment center either the depth of both of the employment center and professional institutional was really extended to fdc grove road in 2006 with the implementation of the economic development action plan for the northridge community redevelopment agency but ever since the housing boom that depth has really been starting to shrink and not only that most of the uses that you see developed in the employment center and the professional institutional is residential on the ground so that's not trending in terms of that non-residential use can i interrupt you just a second yes you're showing the site plan is is the is in yellow what what's the red line the property owner or the applicant actually is going to have all of what you see out outlined in red as part of a larger project so they're just bringing the employment center here this parcel to employment center to have a more unified land use for their and so the eventual project so the portion to the north is going to do what it's not not here today no no i'm just giving you the full story in terms of what the applicant owns that's all yeah thank you in terms of the impact assessment um employment center and professional institutional allow the same type of density so the impact to schools any kind of development on there if it's residential would have an impact to the concurrency but it's really a wash because professional institutional employment center allow the same density but the schools impacted it could be bellicita elementary such as ridge and ridge community senior high school the closest regional park is the northeast park the closest any kind of trails or passive recreation is the hillachee reserve which is off of old polk city road sheriff response times fire and ems times are very reasonable in terms of this urban area there's available capacity in the water and sewer system for the northeast regional utility service area and staff does not consider this sprawl i will pause for a moment to mention that the link that the parcel fronts on us 27 is currently failing but state law prohibits us from requiring the improvement of that all on this applicant as it got there without the applicant's development so by state law we have to um allow we can't um deny any requests based on traffic current say that again shonda um back in 2012 2011 the state law was uh amended that whenever there is a failing link and a vacant property comes along you can't give all that responsibility of correcting that link to that property owner so they would have to either pay a proportionate share or work with the local government to make the improvement and they have provided a traffic study as part of the backup but certainly we have to work out what those turn lanes etc might be uh and improvements when we get to that final development drop share to get concurrency right this is a ground photo looking north the site is not on this photo because it would be behind me to the left but you can see this is a divided meeting opening which will remain per meetings that i've been involved in with the applicant and department of transportation just turning left looking at the site there on the left you can see holly hill grove road number one this is looking south on us 27 the site would be on the right here's an aerial photograph looking toward the north northwest you can see the self-storage facility and other residential developments in the background the applicant is expected to ask the county commission to close holly hill grove road number one from their western property line to us 27 however that's not a consideration for this request it's part of their larger development and not really impacted by this land use change this is looking north again you can see the different residential developments ftc grove road off to the left this is looking south this is looking due east with the religious facility that's on the other side of us 27 and ridgewood lake soften the distance on the upper right upper right the other aspect of the request is to remove a sentence out of the development criteria in the comprehensive plan for employment center this made sense at the time we worked on the northridge selected area plan which was in 19 i'm sorry 2001 which was quite some time ago there was a prohibition for new individual driveways from employment center on us 27 and there's been different changes to the policies and today the applicant did a very good analysis and pointed out that employment center is really only land use category that has this prohibition and you'll notice there's regional activity center leisure recreation tourist commercial center professional institutional and neighborhood activity center all do not have that prohibition so it's time to remove that prohibition and allow that to be equal to everybody else and allow the department of transportation to have the final say-so and access management so certainly staff does recommend approval of that policy change as well as the land use amendment to employment center and i'll stand for any questions any questions of staff saying none okay thank you is the applicant available like present your case yes good morning my name is robert volpe on behalf of half of the applicant 119 south monroe street i also have here with me today mr josh lockhart who is the engineer and javier oman omana who is our land planning expert if you had any questions for them we certainly support the staff's report on this project to answer one of your questions it is actually a single parcel id that's why there was that red line it's a single parcel idea that's split by hollyhill grove road and split land uses so this would this amendment would align the land uses for the entire parcel to ecx and allow for future commercial retail development which will come through a pd your staff has been great to work with we support the the change of the land use obviously and the the change in the land development code or the comprehensive plan text we're here to answer any questions if you have them and we'll stand for questions any questions to the applicant say not okay thank you at this time i'm going to open up the public anybody in the audience like to speak for or against this case see none close the public portion bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion mr chair move approval ldc pal 2023-11 second motion second roll call please running heath for the motion david dalt nine for the motion brooke ignini for the motion tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt or the motion and linda schultz mr chair passes 6-0 okay thank you next case the next case is ld dri 2023-3 it's the river ranch dri map h amendment amendment it's to amend the development of regional impact to add a mixed use category to map h as well as some changes to the resolution for the development order the property is located south of state road 60 west of kissimi river east of river ranch boulevard and east of the cities of lake wales and frost proof in section 23 township 31 range 31 the property owners west gates resorts the overall dri size is about 187 acres however the area for the mixed use category covers about 4.4 acres within the dri the development area is rural development area the nearest jurisdictions osceola county and lake wales and frost proof and in terms of the advertisement the legal advertisement was published in the lakeland ledger on february 20th and no response was received and mark bennett is the case planner good morning record mark bennett land development division sean has provided a good overview of what we're here today to talk about if you're not familiar developments of regional impact have a separate land use map known as map h hence the reference to the term map h the first slide here shows the 4.4 acres in question and uh purple surrounded by the red circle for location purposes oops um if you're not familiar with river ranch it's located on the eastern portion of the county literally right next to the kissimi river this map is a more detailed map you see state road 60 river ranch road that leads to the river ranch resort and of course kissimi river in osceola county a more detailed map here this map shows the subject parcel that's under consideration and then also the area in orange is the 4.4 acres that's um under consideration also this is a aerial photo from the applicant support documentation showing the current uses on the site there's a marina there and a building approximately 7 500 square feet which has an office a little store in there and i believe a restaurant this is what map h is uh currently shows it shows this area in particular as office and retail and a couple other accessory uses and again the proposal is to change that 4.4 acres from office and retail to a mixed use which would be office retail and um also residential uses they propose to have let me pull it up here yeah this is their proposal for how they wish to redevelop the property first floor being non-residential and then the second third and fourth floors would be what they're calling resort residential basically a type of short-term rental related to the activities at the resort proposed site plan and this picture is a i call it looking east but it's almost looking down as much as looking east but this is what's currently out there now this is a view to the north and again the subject area is located here this is a view looking west and then lastly we've got a great picture that someone named ian got for us um yeah no it's a nice picture but uh it did in all seriousness it it's a picture that accurately shows what's out there now so to uh summarize the request is to change uh map h to allow a mixed use category the intent is that they will build two four-story structures primarily resort residential with um associated uses on the first floor and uh with that i'll stand for any questions any questions of staff see none okay thank you thank you the applicant available like come up and present their case an address for the record good morning i'm andrew mccown with ga i consultants our offices are 618 east south street orlando florida i'm here representing the owner westgate resorts who is the owner of river ranch so i if it pleases the commission i can make a presentation but otherwise i think mark did a great job a lot of the images i would just repeat for you again but i can stand for questions if you have any have any questions of the applicant seeing none okay thank you um i'm going to open the public portion anybody in the audience here to speak for or against this case seeing none close public portion bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion mr chair i moved to approve lddri 2023-3 23 23 hold on what's that i have dash three on the voting record and dash two three on the presentation yeah the the the nomenclature for this case is ld dri dash two zero two three dash three dash three okay just just to be clear i'd like to make a motion to approve lddri 2023-3 second motion and second roll call please running heath for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion brooke ignini tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt for the motion and linda schultz mr chair passes 60 okay thank you next case please next case is ld cpa l 2023-12 green swamp density measurement comprehensive plan text amendment it's a county initiated comprehensive plan text amendment to change section 2.132 d rule special protection area by specifying the measurement of density in the agricultural residential rule x and the conservation core x future land use map designations in the green swamp area of critical state concern through modification of policy 2.132-d4 and policy 2.32-d5 and it will impact properties in the agriculture residential rule future language designation and the conservation core future land use designation development area of that area is rural development area in terms of advertisement a legal advertisement was published in lakeland ledger on february 20th and one response was received and the case planner is eric peterson good morning eric peterson for land development division uh this is very busy slide i just realized that as i was staring at it i'll cut this to the chase a section oh boy look at the the formatting turns off uh we don't have the same fonts on this computer as we do in the rest of the building for some reason they haven't updated it so uh just to explain this is for rural areas big lots 10 acres 20 acres if they're off by a little bit it's really doesn't undermine the growth management of the area and this is an amendment that kind of gives us a little leeway so it doesn't have to absolutely be 20 acres there's other ways in which we're measuring it for for one relative to the size of the section when you're subdividing properties that big you don't get out there and measure everything you describe it as it relates to the section it's the north half or the the south half or the east half of the quarter of the quarter of the quarter that's how you describe it and say that's 20 acres but if it's assuming that every section is 640 acres not every section here as you can see this is just an example there's many examples in the green swamp especially that the section is actually a little bit less than 640 acres well if many years ago you what you gave somebody 20 acres you subdivided 20 acres or you subdivided 10 or you subdivided 40 you told them you're getting you're getting 40 acres because i described it based on the section assuming that it's 640 but it's not and so when we get down to the nitty-gritty details and they go into building and they look at the property appraiser which measures the the the the size of the lot out to the the six deciline point it's not 20 acres and say they can't issue a permit it's it's not 20 acres they it's too small but in reality it's really 20 acres so this is one of the ways in which we're just adjusting how we measure the lot size or measure the density in the green swamp because the the minimum acreages are 10 and 20 acres a or r and core the other issue is uh that how we grant density transfer out of wetlands we don't let you touch a wetland in the green swamp matter of fact you gotta stay at least 75 feet away from it with everything however uh we because we won't let you develop there we'll let you transfer the development rights to the uplands well in most cases oops that's in the wrong place in most cases uh the density transfer is equal to the base density in rl it's one to one in rs it's one to five and arr it's one to five so if i've got five acres of wetlands i can move that unit to an upland portion i get one unit but when it comes to the arr even though the base density is one per 10 i only get one per 20 from the wetlands transferred out it's not the same as the other districts now in the core it really doesn't matter 20 and 20 but in the arr it does matter significantly in that you get half the density transfer of the base density uh when you're moving out of the wetlands going back to this slide that should have been before it so the maximum impact that this does to to properties in the green swamp is not astronomical worst case scenario assuming that every property that could be subdivided into smaller ones into 10 10 acre lots or or 20 acre lots in the core if every one of them was subdivided to their maximum this would amount to 1142 additional properties in all of the big green swamp area all of the sacred now um so that's really like a 13 increase now that is more than would ever be possible because a lot of these properties are not they don't front on roads they don't have that accessibility heck half of them aren't government owned half of them are in in sand mine that are actively sand mining until you know our grandchildren are ready to retire so the the length of time in which that would happen is is very remote in the in the core area it's just a six percent increase it would the maximum would be 153 new lots for the huge amount that the core uh of acreage is so it's really in an insignificant change to the actual development of the green swamp area of critical state concern but it does mean to something to somebody out there it's not going to have this world effect but to some of the landowners out there that are thinking about subdividing one day and just splitting off a 10 acre piece in the arr or 20 acre piece in the core it makes the difference in that one extra unit and financially to a landowner that has very that has very limited rights one unit per 10 acres and one unit per 20 it gives them some it's very meaningful to them so that's why we're bringing it forward um the green swamp just doesn't affect polk county it affects some of our cities and and other counties it goes into other areas we looked at all their regulations and the only ones that even come close to our more stringent standards are those those of lake county everybody else even in the cities only adhere to our standards until they change the land use so when they annex into the green swamp they go with the county standards for a brief period of time well not all of them some of them actually go with less than the county standards as as they annex but uh they change later uh the other counties like pasco and hernando do not have anywhere close to what's required of lake in um polk county and polk county is the most stringent so with that i just want to say it it promotes some fairness and equity especially in the arr it accounts for the size of the section it also allows you to count the to the center line of the road most of the roads in the green swamp the right-of-ways vary and usually when there is a subdivision especially when it's platting uh we require the applicant to dedicate a certain amount of right of way from the center line so that we have a complete road for them that can be maintained um this this takes out that penalty as well so they're not losing density or losing a lot because they have to dedicate land to the county it does it makes it a non-factor so um with that it's really in in line with the goals and objectives of the green swamp it's not going to lead to any huge astronomical amount of development and it it is a matter of equity to the landowners that exist out there that are non-government entities so with that i'll stand for questions questions to staff yeah i got one question here in the staff report under policy 2.132 dash d8 development criteria bullet point or number two wetlands one dwelling unit per 20 acres is struck and 10 is put in its place does that does that apply to the corex no no that the corex is d4 the i mean the corex is d8 the um sorry my bifocals corex is d4 the arr portion there is is d8 so that's where it's it's being struck it's not being struck from the core core there there is you know it it doesn't matter it's it's 20 uh uh the density transfer is is one unit per 20 anyway because uplands is one unit per 20. any other questions i was going to say and you are the staff so there's nobody in the audience so i'll i still need it okay good i just want to make sure bring it back to the board for discussion and or motion mr i move to approve ldc pal 2023-12 second motion in a second roll call please running heath for the motion david adult nine for the motion brooke agnini the motion tommy addison mike schmidt or the motion and linda schultz mr. chair passes 60. okay thank you i guess that's got to go to deo doesn't it all right last one this is ldct 2024-2 and for the record enns for land development it's a county initiated land development code amendment to modify standards for townhomes and provide clarity conflicting standards february 20th a legal ad was published in a ledger with no response this is a level four review with the first reading scheduled for the second of april and the adoption hearing on april 16th this is another amendment and have an ongoing effort to provide better direction and clarity when applying the code to development applications in this one we're dealing with townhomes which are often caught in a gray area within the ldc in building code language they're referred to as single family attached units in planning and within definitions of the ldc they're called multi-family uses and single family attached are duplexes where trouble usually arrives with lot sizes single family attached has been on the lot size requirements whereas multi-family does not so over the years the townhomes have come in they've referred one referred to as one thing or the other depending on planner administrator things of that nature the developer coming in what to point at for different standards where this really matters too with the process is with platting if a townhome development comes in unplatted it is reviewed as multi-family if an applicant comes in with one that they're going to plat fee simple we've often required a pd to reduce lot sizes this has been true even in land use districts where multi-family can be administratively approved such as a residential higher residential medium we really really run into trouble is if someone comes in with the townhome development that they originally don't want to plat and then the owners decide they want to plat fee simple we don't have a clear direction do we go and make them do a public hearing after it's already been approved administratively this amendment essentially picks a path and is going to park all townhomes as multi-family uses clearly stated no lot size standards apply at the end of the day and for planning purposes it matters very little whether these are platted or not they are assessed the same with traffic utilities school usage and standards as far as parking are concerned come other minor changes with this amendment currently a pd is required to deviate from multi-family conditional use standards and residential low land use districts multi-family generally requires pc approval but bumping it up to the pd criteria that was recently approved for design and architectural features is unnecessary this amendment will conform language in the code for parking and garage setback standards for townhomes consistent with amendments that were approved last year just to be clear that's not changing the levels of a review already required for townhome developments where public require public hearings are already required they're remaining required again this is just providing clarity and pointing everyone in the same direction on how to process townhome developments when they come in thank you i'll stand for questions any questions of staff okay thank you and you are the applicant and there's no one here so i'm gonna bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion chair i move to approve ldct 2024-2 second motion second roll call please running heath motion david dalt nine for the motion brooke ignini for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt or the motion and lendersholtz mr chair it passes 6-0 okay thank you motion to adjourn all moved not one adjourned second all in favor say aye aye