Planning Commission on 2024-06-05 9:00 AM

nine showed up on the screen and on the printed agenda ldcpal 2024 three the county road 640 industrial park cpa has requested to move to the head of the line be heard first aside from that there are four cases on the screen that have been advertised but have been continued to the date shown and need action on that and that'll be all great any other discussion items relative to the agenda with that we'll make that formal change at the meeting appreciate it with that we'll close the workshop workshop is closed we'll get started here at nine o'clock and appreciate everyone's patience they've adult nine president mike hickman tommy addison mike schmidt angel sims and adam bass mr. chair we have a quorum thank you let's stand for the pledge of leasance next on the agenda is the adoption of the minutes as the minutes have been distributed to all the planning commission members are there any changes or alterations is your mic on on the monopole case we heard last week all the references to faa are ffa now read i love ffa as much as anybody but okay that was it all right easy enough and so with that edit can i have a motion to approve the minutes so moved second all in favor aye all right okay we have some modifications to the agenda staff yes sir there have been four cases that have been advertised and will be continued and they're shown on the screen but i'll read them into the record these are ldct 2024 11 this is the changes to chapter 9 ldc text ldc pal 2024 10 ldcd 2023 13 and ldct 2023 23 these are the alderman road cases these are being continued to july 10th after that we have a request to move number nine on the published agenda and on our screen here ldc pal 2024-3 the county road 640 industrial park cpa to the head of the law so we heard first okay any other changes or requests from the commission on the agenda can have a motion to adopt the revised agenda so moved all in favor aye all right so moved okay so we'll move proceed with that new agenda as we are moving forward just to be sure if anyone in the audience is here for any of the cases in yellow on the bottom of the agenda those will not be heard today and will be moved to july so i don't want anyone to be sitting here waiting for a case that has been postponed or moved to july with that said i'm also going to ask everyone in the audience and to make sure your cell phones are silenced and as we go through our cases and our procedures here today i ask you each to come up in single file line on the center aisle and give your comments appropriately as needed during the public workshop forum part of it so i appreciate everyone's uh attention to those details and as we move forward i'm going to turn the floor over to miss voss for our procedures good morning general procedures the office of planning and development will introduce the case and disclose any responses to the notification which were not already provided the planning commission in their packets the office of planning and development will present their staff report and recommendation anyone in the audience who wishes to speak and present testimony on a case will be sworn in the applicant and others in support or opposition of the case will be given the opportunity to speak the applicant will be given the opportunity to respond to any opposition testimony the commission will discuss the case and vote on the matter expedited hearing procedures expedited hearing procedures may be used by the planning commission under the following circumstances there is no opposition to the case present at the hearing and the recommendation of the office of planning and development is for approval and all of the commission members present wish to use this procedure level 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 their 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 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 fails to file an appeal there will be no appeal or hearing on the matter before the port of county commissioners the application fee will not necessarily be refunded for such a withdrawal please also be advised that if the de novo application is filed with the port of county commissioners to be recognized during that de novo hearing is 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 all agreed to waive their 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 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 please so if you're going to address the planning commission on any case today please stand up raise your right hand and answer out loud to the following question this is for all the cases we would need to all get sworn in at one time so if you have any inclinations to speak please stand up yeah if anybody wishes to speak today please be sure to stand up and sworn in okay do you swear or affirm the testimony and evidence you provide today is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth great um and then just another housekeeping item we need to admit the county's land planners as expert witnesses uh we've done so in all of our prior meetings but if in your packets if you'd like to uh review their resumes and voir dire any of them as to their background and expertise you can do so at this time thank you second that's just for clarification motion to accept staff as experts in the field of land planning all in favor aye great and if any of the applicants have their own experts you can tender them at this time or wait until your case is called and then last um really quickly we have a few quasi-judicial cases on the agenda today so i'm going to go through the procedures real quick today's agenda includes quasi-judicial land use hearings which means the action entails applying applying 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 land development code and the staff report and presentation provide you with expert analysis and opinion regarding the applicable criteria area regarding compatibility the commission must determine whether the application is compatible with the surrounding area the commission will be presented with testimony and evidence at the hearing both written and oral by law the only evidence the commission can consider is competent substantial evidence which means evidence that is sufficiently relevant and material that a reasonable mind would accept is adequate to support a conclusion the following items are competent substantial evidence evidence that is fact based and relevant to the applicable criteria staff reports and staff presentations citizen testimony can be competent substantial evidence so long as it is fact-based and can include testimony regarding subjective matters that do not require expertise such as aesthetic 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 a project will cause increased traffic and crime is not competent substantial evidence for example fear that a 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 impact school and utility capacity light and noise pollution or the application's impact on property values citizen testimony is not competent substantial evidence unless the witness is qualified as an expert in that area that concludes my comments thank you Mr. Chairman thank you with that I don't think we have any old business discussed today so we'll get started with our first case that'll be the case number nine on the agenda for LDCPAL 2024-3 county road 640 industrial park CPA staff present the case please good morning Shonda as you said stated LDCPAL 2023 sorry 2024-3 it's a comprehensive plan amendment it's a level four review the large-scale conference plan amendment from phosphate mining to industrial the location of the property is north of county road 640 west of state road 37 south of state road 60 east of new wales road and it is south of the city of mulberry in section 21 township 30 range 23 mims properties agrafoss mining and nickels ranch are all property owners the amendment size is approximately 380 acres it's in the rural development area nearest municipality is the city of mulberry the drc recommendation is approval and the board of county commissioners transmittal hearing date is august 6th and the board of county commissioners adoption hearing is october 1st and jp sims is the case planner all right good morning uh with ldc pal dash 2024-3 the county road 640 industrial park what we're doing is we're taking a parent parcel of 586 acres out on county road 640 and we're converting it uh 380 acres of that into industrial uh for industrial park usage so the it is out in the rural development area and there is currently an active um facility from mosaic that is to the south of the the subject site so we are down here in the southwest part of the county as you can see mosaic fertilizer is to the north the mosaic new wales facility is to the south state road 37 is over to the east and county road 640 is i mean primarily industrial in nature at this point right now with the different mining operations going on there is industrial usage down here at the uh end of county road 640 and converting this land is uh one of the most logical uses for prior phosphate mining land once it's done the reclamation process this is part of the old agrafoss phosphate mining area so reclamation has been completed so now we're looking at the converting it from phosphate mining to industrial so looking east on county road 640. like i said this is an active mining area when i was out there putting up the signs for the hearing we did see active trucks and tractors and stuff working on the facility so it is currently active it is a very large site so as i was driving down the road i was trying to get different perspectives of what it looks like across the entirety of the site so some parts are heavily vegetated some parts are more open and those are the parts that if you looked at old aerials you'd be able to see that these were the parts that were previously mined you can see the big wide open areas where they've done a lot of the reclamation process and then looking west down county road 640 again you can see that there's the giant hill right there and on the back side of that is where they still have active work going on so with as far as impact to the area because it is such a large piece of land that we're looking at converting as a part of a parent parcel it can't be developed residentially so we're not worried about any kind of impact to the schools uh there is parks over there to the east on the east side of 37 closest one that i could find was the rolling hills park uh it does have sheriff and fire coverage for the area as you can see the fires a little bit closer than the sheriff but considering there's nothing currently on the site that's something that we can talk about when it's developed as far as water and sewer issues with the site i mean that's maximum possible usage that's not potentially what the realistic development would look like but because like i said we're taking 380 acres the pure math of that is just saying if you built it at the absolute max build out that would be what your usage is and that facility down there is not anywhere near capacity in the southwest area so our justification for the approval of this it would be compatible with the area since it does still have active mining going on and active phosphate industries that are currently being used on county road 640 um the mosaic new wells facility is just to the south which i said is still active so putting industrial adjacent to that would be the most logical use after the phosphate mining conversion and um all the um stipulations that they've presented with the subject site are consistent with our comprehensive plan and land development code so i do recommend approval uh with that i will stand for questions any questions for staff with that can you have the applicant come forward please good morning mr chairman planning commission members my name is dave carter professional engineer 137 5th street northwest winter haven here today with me is tom and patrick mems who are the owners of the property um as staff indicated the site uh has been used and and there's still activity on the site in terms of phosphate mining and processing there's a an old phosphate plant on the site uh we believe this is a uh proper uh change in use for the site converting from uh the old phosphate operation to industrial uh we've done some soil exploration on the site and there are some uh that the majority of site will support you know structural uh buildings and so forth there are some soft areas but we're mapping those out but uh we believe given the surrounding area this is an appropriate land use change i've got a full presentation we've not uh heard of any opposition and so i'm just going to stop there if there's any uh concerns i'll be happy to come back up but i don't want to take up your time this morning unnecessarily so i'll be happy to answer any questions you have any questions for the applicant from the board with that we'll open up the public workshop portion or the public hearings anyone here to speak for or against this case if so please come forward all right seeing none we'll go ahead and close the public workshop case uh any day before you send anything else you'd like to add okay with that we'll take the item to the board move approval of ldcpal 2024-3 second mr dalton please call the roll robert veltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass mr chair passes unanimously thank you next up is ldpd 2024-1 the applicant is requesting a planned development to increase the retail and commercial use in excess of the 30 limitation in the employment center land use district in a northbridge selected area plan part of this request includes a gas station and a cumulative amount of retail over 65 000 square feet the subject site is located west of us highway 27 north of minute maid ramp road 2 south of heller heller brothers boulevard east of city of hayne city in section 19 township 26 range 27 on may 7th 119 mailers were sent to area property owners four signs were published on may 17th with a legal ad published in ledger on may 22nd staff has received a petition with 113 signatures in opposition jp sims is your planner good morning jp sims land so with ldpd dash 2024-1 we are focusing on the out parcel subject site that is shown in the first exhibit so we are on the north us 27 area near i-4 and this is the the plan development is pertaining to the site as a whole so the reason why we're doing this is as ian mentioned before the public's is actually going to be using the 30 percent of commercial development that's allowable within the employment center on this part of us 27 so what we're doing is the plan development would allow them to exceed the 30 percent development restriction on the total parcel site so as you'll see in one of my future exhibits there is the out parcel section that we're focusing on as far as expanding the commercial usage and the uses that will be allowed because they are conditional level three uses so as i mentioned before we are in the north us 27 area near i-4 and we're on the west side of us 27 so this is technically green swamp area so the overall site is this red box right here and that includes the the public's but that would be the total pd but what we're focusing on is the conditions of what is going to be used here in the yellow box as you can see there's a jeep dealership to the south electricity substation to the north and all residential over here to the west and there is commercial usage over here to the east as you've seen us 27 has developed primational area so up and down 27 especially in this area near i-4 there is commercial development so the public's and the out parcels would not be out of context with the surrounding usage so as i mentioned before this is a close-up of the site so the red box is the overall parent parcel of the site the yellow box is what we're focusing on with the pd which would allow for the expansion beyond the 30 percent commercial development and the conditional level three uses that would be above what would normally be allowed there so i tried to do a site plan overlay now keep in mind that this is not a binding site plan this was a request by the county during this period of time to show like what would be the maximum possible build out if they were to allow a gas station on here which would be like the most egregious use on the site we wanted to kind of see what that would look like on the site plan but just keep in mind this is not binding at this point that would be during the level two review section where we're actually hammering out all the details but one of the things i did want to point out is you do have the public's over here on the west side of the property and then down here you do have a lot of road expansion that will be occurring during the development site so i did speak with a couple of the residents that were part of the petition that was submitted and i wanted to let them know like the public's is actually you can build that by right because that's allowed in the employment center land use the public's has already been approved we're working on the level two review right now and these are the details that we're hammering out as far as what else do you need to add to the site to make it compatible with the area and not as damaging infrastructure wise so the road down here like i said will be expanded with sidewalks on the north end of it they will have the additional turn lanes that will allow people to move freely onto us 27 and there is access up here on the north end of the site for us 27 as well that will include turn lanes off of 27 to get into the site that way people don't have to directly go on to minute made ramp road too okay so when i was out there doing my site visit looking south on us 27 this is the site over here to the right it is a little bit of up on a hill so that would be something to be addressed during like the grading process and whatnot and then this is us 27 looking north and you're probably thinking what time of day is he looking at this where there's not traffic everywhere i got lucky i got lucky uh and then looking at the site like i said there is currently a lot of uh trees there um and that is something like as far as vegetation buffers will be addressed during level two as well so like any uh buffering issues landscaping issues those will be addressed during level two and then looking down minute made ramp road two i wanted to actually go down the road and kind of see what the current road looked like to make sure that the road improvements were going to be hopefully sufficient for what they're trying to develop uh for what they provided on the site plan i do see that as um it should be good for the site the size of the site that they're trying to develop and as far as impact goes much like with my last case this is a commercial development so it doesn't really have any impact on the residential i'm sorry the uh the residential development so it doesn't really impact the schools the biggest concern is going to be um the actual development of the site itself is expanding the commercial development that is currently already approved with the public's that will allow for the different uh level three uses and the level three uses that we're looking at are the gas station which is why i requested them to put that on a mock site plan to kind of show us what that would look like and the expansion of retail going over the total 65 000 square feet that would be allowable in the ecx so the public's itself will take up a good portion of that and then the out parcels that they've developed with commercial usage would then be allowed to go above what the public's is already using um yes real quick question so based on what you're showing us the impacts you're showing us are just for the out parcel area of that yellow box area that you were showing us okay thank you yeah the public's has already approved that's yeah all that's that's all right right okay thank you yeah so we're just focusing on the out parcel section of it to allow for those expanded uses gotcha thank you is that the configuration of the public's what is shown there yes sir okay yeah um and like i said what they provided with the gas station on there that's a mock layup because we just want to see what the most egregious build out would be okay uh but it does access like i said directly onto us 27 at the north end of the site and accesses on the minute made ramp road two um and this would allow except for the expanded commercial development it is consistent with our comprehensive plan and land development code and with that i'll stand for question any further questions for staff go ahead mike so currently there's nothing on the property right and uh and the space then between the public's and the pr and the proposed change area what is uh what is being planned for that on your on your if you go back to oh you mean the actual site itself yeah oh we don't have anything like actually slated to be developed right now this is just allowing for uses in case they do develop with that yeah but i mean you're you had public's on one side and then your potential gas stationer on the other what's the how does that i believe that was all parking lot in between that's all parking lot okay i've got a question what is the yellow partial what is the current allowed uses on that site it's employment center uh so as far as square footage like if we're exceeding the 30 percent what would they be able to do currently so if you're looking at what is currently allowed in employment center um i have the use table here if you want me to put it on overhead for you so you can see not necessarily the use just what's allowed i see 65 000 square feet what what what what is the public's going to use and what would be the ask so what is permitted uh by right what they could build there is like light assembly a community center cultural facilities financial institutions like banks an office park personal services printer and publishing services research and development restaurants uh sit down and take out restaurants and studio production i guess my question is how much size are we asking for in that additional parcel oh yeah how much additional square footage do you want you want to well yeah let's let's that's probably something the applicant could probably go ahead and stop for a second we'll let the applicant come forward and answer your question no problem any other questions for staff all right seeing none we'll move on if the applicant come forward please and present your case please make sure to state your name and your address for the record morning board dave holden uh with quig engineering 600 north broadway part of florida i'm here representing the applicant um so uh mr bass to answer your question the the um the out parcels roughly i'm just going to say three and a quarter acres of that we can develop 60 percent so that's roughly two acres however for that is subject to the public's what actually develops on the public's portion which has gone through level two process um and what i mean by that is you have the if you're familiar with public's you know why they have all these shops on the sides it depends what goes in there if you if you get a liquor store that's allowed in ecx so it doesn't go against the retail so this just gives us some more options um so as again dave holden quick engineering so as staff has stated um that this is we're strictly looking at the out parcel and we and i apologize did you go through your conditions okay so in the platinum okay i think staff needs to finish their conditions let's go back to staff sorry i thought you were done i apologize jump the gun i got caught mid-thought yeah no problem so one of the uh one of the conditions of approval that we did put in the staff report that you might have read was that if you're going to move uh the isr the impervious surface ratio around because the current public's is slated to be like a 0.69 so in the green swamp 0.6 is the limitation of what these developments can achieve so if you're going to go over that you need to be able to transfer it from like other parts of the development site and that's what the plan development is doing is allowing us to kind of move this isr around so that we still stay as an aggregate under 60 percent total for the development site yeah perfect are you staff are you done with your presentation so if uh for some reason they do not exceed the 60 percent then the the plotting part won't really be necessary but if they do want to achieve that amount then the plot would be necessary are you condemned yep okay any other questions for staff all right now we'll hear from the applicant to present their case again dave holden quick engineering um so the reason i brought that up is because we have met with staff and we agree with the conditions we're we're accepting of the conditions um i just got forgot what i did with all my paperwork i just had here a minute ago sure there it is we see the site plan you're fine again as staff stated you know that this again is is we're talking about the out parcel strictly the public's is allowed outright in the c uh ecx the uh proposed pud that staff you know we we met with staff um and most everyone here knows what public's typically has on their out parcels so meeting with staff uh one of the things they suggested is we go through this pd option so we have we won't have to come in front of this board every time someone comes in and wants to do something on the out parcel that may exceed the retail or may you know like a gas station some public's have gas stations some don't what we're proposing is consistent with the area there's you know if you look out in that area you have the car dealership you have gas stations you have a lot of apartments you have retail you have restaurants so we're consistent with the area we are you know outright as we were stating earlier sit down restaurants allowed outright you can do a drive-through restaurant through a staff level review only so these are options so in in essence the only thing we're asking for is the the additional retail and the gas station everything else is allowed outright on that property um and i do have a list i was going to go through but i don't think i need to go through now um the other issue is if we came in for a land use change instead of this pd we would allow to develop we would be allowed to develop at 70 percent impervious surface ratio but by going through the pud we're only allowed to do 60 so we're actually giving up some space to go this process um that's per the green swamp special protection area so um i think it's chapter five yeah section five chapter five of the of the code so i'm here to answer any questions and if you have any questions any questions for staff i mean for the applicant you're in i have one quick question on the sixty percent thing so the sixty percent thing is over the whole site yes sir and you would work then currently with publics to make sure that it's balanced between the two yes sir okay thank you appreciate that clarification we're on sync all right with that we'll uh open the floor for a public hearing portion of this if anyone's here to speak for against this please step forward uh you'll have approximately three minutes uh please be sure you were sworn in at the beginning and please make sure come on up yep and state your name and address for the record really quickly any ex-party communications or site visits to disclose none thank you my name is james ream that's 429 fox loop which is two subdivisions back from this proposed mistrocity uh ever since i've lived in florida i've been told that the gopher tortoise is a very protected species there are all kinds of gopher tortoise dens all through that site has anybody done a study on relocating them so any questions can be answered by the applicant after you're done speaking go ahead okay continue would you like to answer no he'll answer when yeah you go ahead and give us your your questions and your thoughts and then we have an opportunity to respond and there's a public's two miles down the road why do we need a public's on every other intersection you know they say that they're servicing an unserviced area two miles we don't really need the traffic on that little two lane road it's busy enough as it is you've got the gopher tortoises you've got the gas station that we don't need there's a gas station that they've been building across the street for two years that's never going to get finished um i don't know what else i could say i mean besides this is just a blatant use of land that doesn't really need to be it was supposed to be like educational and employment opportunities not a big grocery store and now you're asking to change the restrictions from the county to add more stuff to the area that's all i have thank you for your testimony my name is john graham i live at 540 fox loop in the same community um the earlier comments that uh we just made about this site uh don't really address the bigger issue of the traffic that is a rural collector road mint me too there are four communities that have one way in and one way out on that road we live in one of those i've had in the last six weeks two times coming up 27 i could not get to my house an accident 127 was one event i couldn't go left i couldn't go right i couldn't go to any of the accesses that minute made two because they were blocked traffic was stopped for 45 minutes to an hour that's one the other was when the chrysler dealership opposite where the site is had delivery of vehicles and minute made two which is the road that i have one access to out of our community was blocked for 20 minutes unloading and loading vehicles and to the light i couldn't even get within quarter mile of it and to go the opposite direction to fc fdc grove another rural collector road now expanded that traffic was backed up as well it was rush hour in the morning and people were going to work and the only thing there to distribute traffic is a stops a four-way stop sign so to that end i expressed a real uh passionate plea and i was the one involved in getting those 108 uh residents to sign a petition to stop this build uh we need something other than an improvement at the light of 27 and a minute made two for uh transport out of our communities that's what i have thank you sir anybody else here to speak for or or against this case sure according to the paperwork that i saw and according to their own documents that there are 20 publics within five mile or 12 miles about 12 mile radius sorry speaking in the microphone one more time for me i'm sorry um there are at least 20 of those within i say a 10 mile radius of this area i don't really of really understand why the big push to put the 21st one in if like i said there's two miles this way four miles that way five miles on champion's gate this area is well covered with grocery stores okay so you're oh you're saying there's 20 grocery stores yeah 12 mile okay i got you thank you all publics i mean appreciate that okay so what happens if and when publics goes under or they have to close down where are all these buildings going to go they're just going to end up being a blight on the community and we don't want to blight by us i mean okay it doesn't make sense i mean gas stations don't even go every two miles or mcdonald's every two miles yeah so just for the record we're not here to talk about the public's itself that right's already there to be built but we'll let the applicant address any other comments thank you sir for the record though i would still like to say that the gopher tortoises that are living in there probably would he'll he'll try to answer your questions now you can go ahead and have a seat thank you thank you good morning again board uh dave holden so during the level two and our swift mud process we have to do a full environmental study which we have done uh gopher tortoise you cannot pull a permit till i think it's 60 or 90 days before construction to get them moved so when we get to that point we will go through that process because we've already shown where they're at we've already done our study there are no sand skinks on the property based on our studies so we have went through that process to kind of address some of their other concerns with the site plan is it the down arrow or oh i went too fast um so we are putting a turn lane on the southbound coming into minute made ramp road so cars can get off the road quicker we are adding another turn lane to the northbound 27 so you're going to have a double left turn lane on to minute made ramp road we have created a right turn into the public's and a left turn into the dealership and we have relocated we well we're in the process of relocating one of the dealerships driveways for their trucks to line up with our driveway for our trucks so we have created an area where the truck will get off the road and they'll have a through lane so we have created better traffic flow for the area so it's not just at the red light we are doing through all those issues through level two yes sir and those are already being the level two process is basically approved and that's all through that thank you anything else i'm good unless you have any other questions any questions from the board you have traffic light here at the south minute made two at that intersection of 27 yes there is traffic light there right here what is that north ingress egress no that is not a traffic that's strictly a right in only right from the southbound there is no crossing the median through the median no something no sir but this is a the south driveway minute made intersection that is a full lighted uh intersection a way to alleviate everything coming in minute made road i suppose the way we're trying to mitigate that is we're creating a so once you turn left the north road is the driveway in then there's a through lane that just keeps going back to the back so we p we're pulling our people off as soon as they get on the road they pull off off any other questions for the applicant with that i'll bring the item to the board for any discussions or a motion move approval of ldpd 2024-1 second roll call over velatron for the motion david dalton i am for the motion mike kickman for the motion tomie addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion adam bass for the motion mr chair it passes unanimously thank you very much all right next item on the agenda all right next up is ldcu 2023-68 the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval for a self-storage facility within a professional institutional land use district subject site is located south of sand hill road west of highway 27 north of hollywood hill tank road north of hayne city and section 30 township 26 range 27 on april 8th 47 mailers were sent to area property owners three signs were posted on april 8th an illegal ad was published in the ledger on april 16th with no responses and leah and gleema is your planner good morning leah and gleema with land development presenting ldcu 2023-68 the sand hill road self-storage the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval of a self-storage facility within a professional institutional land use district the subject site is located south of sand hill road west of highway 27 east of sand hill point circle north of holly hill tank road and north of the city of hayne city in section 30 township 26 range 27 the site is located within the professional institutional x north ridge selected area plan and in the green swamp and in the transit supported development area approximately 34 out of the 140 acres in the picks district is self-storage the subject site is located 1300 feet of two self-storage facilities one to the north and one to the south ldcu 2023-40 was also approved recently to the north for a car wash in a self-storage facility self-storage facilities do not generate the level of traffic that other commercial uses would in a pitch district the subject site will have primary access on sand hill road which is a local road here is the site plan loading and unloading for the proposed well self-storage will be on the east away from the residential side the west side of the self-storage is just fire access only the proposed development is providing a 15-foot type c landscape buffer on the residential side along with an eight foot fence and conditions have been added at the residential side will have faux windows windows with the recommended conditions of approval the request is consistent with the land development code and the comprehensive plan and i'll stand for questions any questions for staff on board hearing none we'll open up the public portion of this hearing can anyone here to speak for or against this case if so please step forward oh yeah thanks sorry about that seeing no none we'll go ahead and move over to the applicant we'll let you go first uh good morning mr chair members of the board i'm tom sullivan with the gray robinson law firm 301 east pine street in orlando on behalf of the applicant team appreciate everyone's time this morning appreciate staff's presentation and recommendation we agree with all the conditions there's one um that i wanted to clarify and apologize i didn't have a chance to talk with staff before on this but the first condition regarding the 36 foot height and everything's it's still three stories everything's consistent with the graphics that you saw but we just in talking with uh with our folks we just want to make sure that the 36 feet would be to the top of the plate so that essentially it would include that uh the parapet architectural features elevation elevator equipment etc we just don't want to run into an issue down the line with permitting so i don't know if that neat would i'll defer to you all and staff if that we should insert some language there just clarify that or or if that's consistent with how it would be interpreted so i appreciate the consideration on that item allow staff to respond yeah it is consistent um with the request so um we don't need to modify that condition are you comfortable thank you yes yeah we're good with that under that circumstance appreciate it appreciate it all right i apologize for the reordering there anybody here from the public to speak for against this case please step forward seeing none we'll close the public portion of the hearing now at this point uh we are ready unless there's other words from the applicant to move forward back to the board mr chair move approval of ldcu 2023-68 second roll call please robert beltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass for the motion mr chair passes unanimously thank you sir next case please all right next up is ldcu 2024-3 the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval to construct a 10 640 square foot retail store on the south side of the us 98 and brook road intersection two miles east of the city of fort mead in section 32 township 31 range 26 on may 7 20 mailers were sent to area property owners one sign was posted on may 20th an illegal ad was published in the ledger on may 22nd staff has logged no responses and mark bennett is your planner good morning commissioners um this is a request as ian stated for a conditional use approval for retail greater than 10 000 square feet as you see the slides this property will look familiar because it was presented before the board last month it is consistent with the comprehensive plan land development code and staff is recommending approval let me clarify that in the rcc rural cluster center land use district retail that is greater than 10 000 square feet in size is a c3 which of course means it has to be approved by playing commission the general intent is that to make sure that retail uses activities that are that are more than 10 000 square feet have their impacts addressed in this case they're only asking for an additional 640 square feet to provide some perspective in this room the where the tiles are i'm guesstimating that's about 750 to 800 square feet so just to provide some perspective on what they're asking for um sites east fort mead um it's at the brook road and us 98 intersection the site is here it's 1.69 acres and land uses a rural cluster center that was recently approved by a county commission this is the site plan the request is for a dollar store of again for 10 640 square feet the primary concern of staff was project access which does line up to brook road and that's an appropriate location for the access point and this is uh the next few slides will just show you give you an area aerial views of the area church is located here followers grocery is located here this is looking east on 98 looking north to the west and then some ground oh one more to the south and then some ground photos looking east at the religious institution you can see there looking north along down brook road and to the west as far as impacts on public services and facilities the only potential issue is peak hour trips a day and the current los of us 98 is b we expect it to remain b after this so we don't foresee any impacts we are recommending approval it is a marginal increase in square footage the applicant additionally demonstrated that there's a good adequate population support it's a good distance away from similar uses so we are recommending approval and we've added conditions of approval also so with that i'll stand for any questions any questions for staff seeing none we'll open the floor for the applicant to come forward good morning members of the commission sam medina with sloan engineering group 150 south woodlawn avenue here in bartow appreciate working with staff we are in agreement on the conditions just to speak about the conditions real quick there are architectural improvements included and we are in agreement with those those um i know throughout the county you probably see you know most dollar generals are just metal buildings um there there's an existing church and the fowler's grocery are existing just metal buildings we are proposing to do a split faced border around the bottom of the frontage of that store with an e-fist stucco that's one of the conditions that we agreed to so we are making some improvements um aesthetically uh to the store um with that i'll stand for any other questions you may have any questions for the applicant seeing none we'll go ahead and open this hearing up for the public portion is there anyone here to speak for or against this case please step forward seeing none we'll close the public portion of the hearing and we're back to the applicant for any other final comments no great with that i'll take the item to the board for discussion and or motion mr chair mood to approve ldcu 2024-3 4-3 second roll call robert beltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike kickman for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass motion mr chair passes unanimously thank you mr dalton all right next case please all right ldcu 2024-6 the applicant is requesting conditional use approval for a mobile home to be located in a subdivision where fewer than 50 percent of developed lots have mobile homes the subject site is located south of hillcrest drive east of minor avenue west of highway 17 south of fort meade in section 33 township 32 range 25. on may 7th 52 mailers are sent area property owners two signs were posted on may 17th and a legal ad was published in a ledger on may 22nd staff has logged no responses and alia and gleam is your planner mr chair i'd like to make a motion to expedite second all in favor aye all right with that please expedite good morning alia and gleam with land development presenting ldcu 2024-6 the dixie boulevard mobile home ceu the applicant is requesting a conditional use approval for a mobile home to be located in a subdivision where fewer than 50 percent of the developed lots have mobile homes the site is compatible with surrounding uses meets setback it setbacks and is consistent with the comprehensive plan and land development code and i'll stand for questions all right z is anyone here to speak for or against this case just to be clear because we are under expiry procedures okay seeing none then with that we'll have the applicant come forward and mr chair um the applicant will need a translator and there's a staff member here too if they're ready to come up excellent please let him know he has three minutes needs to state his name and address for the record let me let me swear in the translator oh we'll need to swear you in as well go ahead just need to swear in the translator do you swear or affirm that you will truly and correctly translate english into spanish and spanish and english thanks senor my my name is dennis quintana my address donde vive five i don't know one second 585 aviation avenue northeast palm bay florida 32907 i see you have anything does he have anything to add to the case or any questions so he's saying that he has recently separated from his wife and he's hoping that this will be approved because he has nowhere else to stay okay thank you good asking all right hearing that with no public testimony i'll pick the motion to the board for the item to the board for a motion or discussion move approval of ldcu 2024-6 second roll call please over beltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman where the motion tommy addison mike schmidt or the motion angel sims or the motion and adam bass or the motion mr chad passes unanimously thank you thank you good asking all right next item all right good morning in advance land development the staff recommends approval of ldcu 2024-7 a request to allow the sale of beer and wine within a video game and racing simulation lounge subject site is located within the center point plaza north of brandon road south of fist jail road in section 13 township 29 range 23 in south lakeland for the record 28 mailers were sent to area property owners on may 13th one sign was posted may 12th an illegal ad was published on may 22nd and staff has received no responses there's currently a video game and racing simulation lounge in operation within a suite in the center point plaza in the linear commercial corridor land use district they want to serve beer and wine which raises them into the bars lounges and taverns category and land land development code there are in fact two restaurants and cigar lounge within the same plaza that serve alcohol including liquor the reason this requires public scrutiny is that the lcc land use district is tailored to infill uses and is often found close to residential uses bars lounges and taverns is a pretty broad use category can mean a lot of things so extra evaluation is required to gauge its impact on surrounding uses here's the site plan the lounge is occupying a 1600 square foot suite in this larger building the hours operation are 10 to 10 on fridays and saturdays and one to ten on tuesdays through thursdays and on sundays as mentioned before the lcc is intended for infill uses of similar or lesser intensities than others in the district and the bars use category is pretty broad in comparison to surrounding uses though this request is relatively minor as it is a smaller venue than surrounding restaurants or serve alcohol and no additional development is taking place staff finds this request is consistent with the land development code and comprehensive plan and compatible with other uses and recommends approval any questions for staff i got a quick question when if this business were to leave and a new occupant comes into that building does that right stay with the building or does it with the actual business for it's proof of the bars described in the staff report and site plan so i think it sticks with this applicant yes ian i have a question though there's two religious institutions in the strip mall how does it meet setback requirements there are no setback requirements with the religious institutions because they're in a commercial land use district had this um let's say the cigar lounge here on the end they had to come through for the similar conditional use but also had to get a variance because they serve liquor from medulla elementary which is in 2500 feet but when you have a religious institution or even a school within a commercial land use category and a bar wants to cite there there are no separation requirements it's actually this plaza that changed that rule in 2018 or so the former louis max wanted to become a bar but they couldn't because this church came in somewhere in between the cigar lounge and that time and the ldc was changed to make that exception okay thank you with that we'll welcome the application to come forward yeah anything you'd like to add to the record based on what you've heard from staff nope everything sounds great need your name and address my name is ron quick uh 40 72 uh festival point boulevard mulberry florida 33860 and you're the applicant correct uh yep me and uh my friend back there perfect all right so with that hang on uh anybody here in the public speak for against this case please come forward seeing none we'll close the public hearing you're good bring the item back to the board for a motion or discussion mr chair i move to approve ldcu 2024-7 second roll call please robert beltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass for the motion chair it passes unanimously thank you mr dalton next item please all right for the record enhanced land development staff recommends approval of ldcu 2024-11 a request for a mobile home to be placed on a lot within a subdivision in which fewer than 50 percent of the residentially developed parcels have mobile homes subject site is located in the eloise area at 126 second street north of third street east and south us 17 north eagle lake in section 5 township 29 range 26. for the record 84 mailers were sent to area property owners on may 7th one sign was posted on may 14th and a legal ad was published in the ledger on may 22nd staff has logged no responses mr chair i'd like to make a motion to expedite second all in favor aye all right please expedite all right uh the subject site here is shown on the the right relative to other mobile homes noted with the blue dots this house once had a site built home built in 1930s that was damaged by fire and eventually demolished the proposed mobile home is similar to the sizes of other homes in the area and of the 12 mobile homes found in this subdivision seven are found along the same street staff finds this request consistent with land development code and comprehensive plan and compatible surrounding uses and recommends approval thank you with that i just want to make sure nobody here is to speak for against this case is present today because we are under expedited procedures all right thank you with that we'll have the applicant come forward state your name and address the records the applicant here given that there's no opposition if you want to go ahead and take action on it okay so with that we'll bring the motion back to the board the item back to the board for a motion or discussion uh even with no applicant i move to approve ldcu 2024-11 second all right roll call please over beltron for the motion david dalt nine for the motion mike hickman for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass for the motion mr chair passes unanimously thank you mr dalton next case please all right ldpd 2024-2 the applicant is requesting a planned development to construct 200 multi-family units in a residential high land use district subjects subject property is located south of shepherd road north of imperial lakes boulevard west of imperial lakes imperial parkway west of state road 37 north of the city mulberry south of lakeland and section 27 township 29 range 23 on may 17th 77 mailers were sent to area property owners three signs were posted on may 17th and a legal ad was posted in ledger on may 22nd staff has received three letters with four people in opposition and another email in opposition and melissa celestine is your planner good morning for the record melissa celestine with land development presenting ldpd 2024-2 the subject site came before you last october for a land use change to residential high the applicant wishes to construct a 200 multi-family unit development but the urban growth development area limits the density to 10 dwelling units per acre staff recommends approval of the applicant's request to increase the density to 13.72 dwelling and it took 13.72 dwelling units per acre for the proposed development the site is located south of shepherd road in north of imperial lakes boulevard the project area is approximately 14.58 acres within the residential high land use district and the urban growth area the applicant is proposing a four-story multi-family development that will consist of 200 units a walking trail a top lot and a community facility the request requires planning commission approval because it does because the designated development area had the site plan been within the tsda the proposed development could be achieved with an approved level two which is a site plan review the submitted site plan indicates a proposed lift station near the southeast corner of the site but there are multiple points of connection to water and wastewater available at this location and the uga requires connection to utilities when available furthermore access along imperial lakes boulevard is solely for emergency responders and the lift station maintenance the proposed development is compatible with the surrounding area as the residential high designation permits multi-family development the site is boarded by three multi-family developments a large shopping plaza a four-lane divided roadway and more non-residential uses approval of the proposed request will allow for the transition from potentially high levels of commercial activity to lower medium density multi-family uses this access is going to be shared with the commercial out parcel to the east here is the natural drainage flow and then again the access along imperial lakes is only going to be for maintenance and emergency here is a close-up of this site i wanted to include this um side to show the actual floodplain that is shown on the gis data viewer and this slide was included to show the site plan overlay to also include how the applicant plans on keeping that natural drainage flow on the site here is the site plan it is binding and the proposed amenities landscaping and emergency action is conditioned within the staff report accordingly here are some areas that you may remember i wanted to include them to provide additional context of the area and these are my site visit photos so staff does recommend approval the timing is right for the proposed development the locational score was 40 on the site only required 32 points to hit the max 15 dwelling units per acre again if the site was in the tsda they would be able to achieve the proposed development just via a level 2 site plan review and the proposed site plan does maintain the natural drainage flow with that i thank you and i will stand for questions any questions for staff yeah i have one you stated this was a binding site plan yes and on the site plan parking summary says total space is required 400 with 377 being provided yes so basically what happened when we spoke with the applicant in designing the site plan we also stated that we would be okay with the parking because of the commercial out part so they're essentially going to share the parking spaces for that overflow and that was previously discussed with staff and the applicant that's interesting so how does that work for the sharing that commercial space because the commercial property will have to have so much parking for their own use right so depending on what type of commercial development comes in there we would just have to ensure that hey it is going to be enough to support both entities how do you do that i don't understand that because normally you'll max out your your building space and your parking to utilize the property to its full extent i mean unless you're talking about a daytime operation and they park there at night is that what what the thinking correct and then there is also on public transit so even if they were to do um a parking waiver for an alternative parking strategy there is um transit bus stops located right across the street from the site also so even if they had to do a waiver to that requirement we would still look at all of those things and um with the assumption that people don't have cars they're using public transit is that we would include that yes sir any other questions for staff i'm assuming that's that's two spaces per unit i'm sorry if 400 is required that means that there's two spaces per unit it would be two spaces per unit yes sir so it sounds like the unit count needs to drop to me real quick so ultimately you're expecting people to park over in that commercial space and then walk through the development to get to their houses so these are just there's a lot of one bedrooms in here and a lot of studios so it's the type of units that we were looking at um when we said okay we would allow you to also park in that commercial area because if you have a studio apartment or when one bedroom apartment the chances of you having multiple vehicles is going to be slimmer versus a two bedroom a three bedroom or a four bedroom so we took all of those things into consideration when we came up to that recommendation now if you guys feel hey they need to meet that parking um then we can go ahead and revise it accordingly but that's just what we discussed with staff and the applicant so what is the ratio of studios to i mean what is the makeup of the of the actual development yes yeah why don't if i may real quick too our standard is two spots per unit for all residential development generally with apartment complexes there is wiggle room because of there being one bedroom apartments up to three bedroom apartments um generally not with townhomes or single family or things of that nature but apartments there's usually some leeway especially when you have public transportation if he's going to modify off this there's an alternative parking strategy that has to be submitted that will basically provide a comparison of other apartments in similar situations where else they could potentially park like you're talking about the commercial so it's not uncommon they might come to the final plans here and switch up their number of one bedroom to three bedroom apartments too so there's and part of our requirements for these level three is a generalized parking layout it's not generally binding i know it's on the site plan it could be read that way but this wouldn't be uncommon so it doesn't matter um whether it's a one bedroom a studio or a four bedroom it's still a two vehicle threshold correct and then just to clarify when i said the site plan is binding of course that's um in addition to 90906 that can those little things that can be modified so when i said binding i'm talking about the amenity plans that's on there and the landscaping that's on there those things that we really wanted to see stay on this site plan that's what i ensure that the staff report was conditioned to assist but of course as ian just stated you do have some wiggle room on the actual site itself as long as it doesn't cross a threshold what would more parking spaces do to the impervious ratio well they would just have to calculate to ensure that it stays within the required amount i didn't go that far to analyze that i think it's typical to have a one bedroom apartment with two people living in it married whatever and have more than one vehicle i don't think that's so uncommon why don't yeah why don't we have the applicant come up and speak a little bit about the parking as well in their presentation i mean i'm not sure staff can answer all these kinds of questions so uh is the applicant here could they please come forward i mean just given the questions i would table this until we get an applicant here to respond yeah there's there's obviously a lot of questions from the board at this point in time so could i have a motion table later today or is the applicant coming today at all or we should we table for a later meeting do we know i think for now if you want to just table it to the last case of the day and then give staff time to reach out to mr mcveigh if he doesn't show up then yes we'll have to continue it to next month as other people here to speak there are people here to speak as well okay we can go ahead and take their public testimony and um yes we can do that okay so go ahead and we don't want to delay you or so just so you know please come forward please state your name and address for the record you'll have approximately three minutes i appreciate that uh patricia robertson i'm at 1803 village court mulberry and i our community immediately adjoins the southern border of this property and we have a lift station that we maintain privately that is in the utilities easement connected to this property we also have um underground groundwater drainage with piping that goes into that reservoir there that area of water you see there and this emergency entrance that they want to put in off shepherd road goes right over that infrastructure we're concerned about our lift station being damaged or you know the impact on us as a community we've been there for 40 something years and we've maintained this lift station all these years privately so where where does that leave us now if they're going to put in a lift station on that southeast corner um and how are they going to tie it in how do they tie in the drainage groundwater drainage from our property into polk county drainage so obviously in imperial lakes flooding is always a concern um that access for that emergency entrance when they say emergency i don't believe um lift station um servicing is an emergency it should actually be restricted to fire ambulance police otherwise it creates a dangerous situation there i believe and then um i think that i think that covers our concerns our concerns appreciate your time thank you good morning my name is judy swam i live at 180 um at 100 country club lane in mulberry i'm in the country club estates area which is the um area the homeowners association that is next to the old golf course we have i have a bunch of petitions that we've got a lot of objection and i don't know who to give them to him and he'll pass it out thank you our subdivision drainage runs through that same area it runs through the golf course into that plot that they're talking about building on in addition to that i've talked to swift mud swift mud tells me that that property was permitted for six acres for construction back in 2021. it's been being tested every quarter since then with no construction and up until actually april 24th was their last inspection for that they have no indication that there's anything more developed there or to be developed there than six acres out of the 16 acres this proposal is 14 acres out of the 16 acres this is an issue for us in addition uh usgs tells us that that is the flood plain for imperial lakes runs through that area so we're already having flooding every area in there is having flooding now you take out where our flood waters we have emergency issues we have one way in past that we can't get in emergency vehicles can't get in we can't get out it's ridiculous to put in an additional 200 units concrete over for 200 what did you say 400 parking spaces over this area this was never what that was designed for my subdivision's been there for 49 years will be there 50 years next year this is ridiculous that we have paid to maintain that area and we're being sucked in to this drainage nightmare that affects our quality of life and our very existence with emergency care i hope you please turn this down at this point thank you thank you for your comments anybody else here to speak on this case either for or against with that i believe what we're going to do is entertain a motion to table this item to the end of this meeting to see if the applicant is going to come uh do i have a motion from any of the board members you want to make that motion to to table this item until the end of the meeting second all right roll call yep robert beltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman tommy addison mike schmidt or the motion to angel sims or the motion and adam bass for the motion mr chair passes unanimously to table this item until the end just for the public's record we are tabling this item to the end of this meeting and then we'll either decide what we're going to do with it at that point you're welcome to stay we do have your testimony and record and we will ask the applicant to address those kinds of questions and other questions you've heard from the board today with that we'll move on to the next item the next the next item is ldcpas 2024-2 it's a small-scale comprehensive plan amendment from residential suburban to commercial enclave on the northeastern two acres of a parcel that's almost about four acres in size the subject property is located south of state road 60 east of county line road west of bailey road north of turner road west of the city limits of mulberry in section 32 township 29 range 34 property owner is alberto negron it's in the suburban development area and in terms of the advertisement 31 mailers were sent to area property owners on may 7th no response to the by the public was received one sign posted on may 17th and illegal i was published in lakeland ledger on may 22nd and the board hearing on this case is july 16th and jp sims is the case planner good morning jp sims of land development ldcpas-2024-2 what we're essentially doing is we are converting as mishanda mentioned the northeastern two acres of this almost four acre parcel into commercial enclave as you can see from the exhibits on the front page we are back in the southwest corner of the county near mulberry near the county line road and then we are down here off of state road 60. so again much with my prior case we're not looking at the full site as far as converting the usage we're looking at a portion of the site so the red box is the overall parent parcel and the yellow box represents more of what we are actually changing to commercial enclave so the reason why we're only doing it up until this point is as what was included in the staff report packet there was a prior letter from the old board of county commissioners stating that this site could be used for commercial purposes at a depth of up to 300 feet so the 300 feet going from the property line back gives us the ability to make this mapping error correction where we're going from residential suburban to a commercial enclave so that they can use the site for commercial purposes the aerial doesn't actually do it justice i was out there recently and there is a substantially less amount of stuff on the site so the applicant i'm sorry the landowner is working diligently to clean the site up to get it you know there's not as many cars and such on the site so as i mentioned before the total uh reds is the actual parcel but the black is representing the site that we're actually converting to the commercial enclave and there is commercial as you've seen down state road 60 in this area with the linear commercial corridor and office centers nearby there's a gas station to the northeast of the site there is a lot of commercial usage down on this portion of state road 60 so commercial usage is within context of the surrounding area so looking southeast down state road 60 you can see the entrance to the site on the right and then looking northwest down 60 you can see there's the dollar general over there to the right and then next to that is the gas station i believe it was the sunoco and then this is the entrance to the site so on the front portion of the site they do currently have shed sales which is an allowable usage within the commercial enclave as a level three use i believe it is and then this is the entrance going back so even looking at the pictures i've taken from on site you can see there is considerably less stuff currently on the site than what the aerials showed because this is a recent recent work that they have been doing to clean up the site and since this is going to be a commercial development there wouldn't be any kind of residential impact so the schools wouldn't have any kind of impact there are sufficient services nearby for utility and emergency service personnel and there is adequate road on adequate space on the accessing roads as i mentioned before changing the site from residential suburban commercial enclave would be compatible with the development since it directly accesses on to state road 60 and a lot of the development right there on state road 60 is also commercial in nature there is the gas station a dollar general and a contractor's office near nearby to the northwest and the site was previously approved for commercial usage before our land development code and stuff was adopted so we're basically just converting it back to a commercial usage of what it was before and with that i will stand for questions any questions for staff mr chair one question for staff um why the change to commercial enclave and not linear commercial corridor is it just a matter of the permitted uses in commercial enclave and the existing use that's on the site uh so with the linear commercial corridor it's and shonda might be able to speak to this a little bit more uh but as far as i remember the linear commercial corridor cannot be expanded necessarily along the roads anymore so like you can't just go all the way down with it especially because there's also a parcel in between so it's not like a straight conversion okay so no you agree okay we're good thank you any other questions for staff with that we'll have the applicant come forward please state your name and address for the record hey how we doing good name's uh matt collins with moody engineering it's uh 4000 fl 60 uh mulberry florida 33860 i just want to say thank you for everyone's time today and the staff for putting this together and uh stand by for any questions thank you any questions for the applicant seeing none open the floor up to the public for any comment anybody here to speak for against this case please come forward seeing none we'll close the public portion of the case we're back to the applicant which i'm assuming is good oh yeah i agree with everything like we said uh what they stated just this was approved previously we're just kind of getting it back and as he said that i've been on the site recently that quite a bit cleaned up and they're working towards getting that as we work to the bocc next month in the level three after that great thank you thank you with that we'll bring the item back to the board for discussion and or motion mr chair i move to approve ldcpas 2024-2 second all right roll call please over veltron for the motion david all nine for the motion mike hickman for the motion tommy addison mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass mr chair passes unanimously thank you with that we're skipping we're gone we've already listened to number item number nine we're going to the next item maybe i'm getting there the next case is ldcpal 2024-8 a large-scale conference plan amendment i'm sorry conference plan text amendment it's to amend policy 2.130 e1.1a in section 2.130 e1 of the conference of plan to add historic area of the and replace uea with dri in the last sentence of the policy and this text amendment does relate to an area of what's called the green leaf project or development it's the bottom portion called smoky groves it's been referred to recently and there's a star denoting that area and in terms of its general location itself the green leaf is south of highway 544 west of lake marion road on both sides of kokomo road which runs kind of in the middle of the project north of lake hatchena hall road and southeast of the budding city of haynes city in sections 5 6 7 8 and 18 township 28 range 28 and in terms of the advertisement illegal ed was published in the lakeland ledger on may 22nd one email in opposition was received one letter in opposition was received and there are certainly members of the public here in opposition as well so on the screen before you see the full sentence or the full paragraph that the sentence is related in its context in the section of the comprehensive plan that's 2.130 relates to breathing too fast relates to all developments of regional impact that existed in the county in 1991 imperial lakes is one of them you heard one of those earlier today so the utility enclave area is our uea it's what it stands for it's the base for where we locate our land uses in the county and it denotes where public services are located water sewer like for example the rural development area there's no water or there's no sewer the transit supportive development area has got all forms of urban services the utility enclave area is basically an enclave where there is water and sewer and the green leaf development does have its own private wastewater and water system green leaf actually started as the arrowhead development original impact in 1973 and then in 2008 the county entered into agreement with the state department of community affairs at that time now it's called florida commerce to declare it essentially built out and a few other slides you'll see a little bit more information than what the arrowhead dr actually was at that time and then in 2008 conference of plan amendment was approved by the board to establish the land uses that you see on the lower right hand side residential low residential medium tourist commercial center preservation the golf course remained dri and the purpose for that is because in that at that time there wasn't an expectation of what that was going to turn into and golf course conversions as i'm sure you know are one of the very most difficult things to deal with in terms of of growth manner growth management issues and then in 2009 a text amendment to land development code was also adopted by the board that established development criteria for green leaf and in those both the comprehensive plan and the land development code it called the portion north of smoky groves as the green leaf dri it called smoky groves the additional property but all together it called it the green leaf uea and those didn't the separate denominations or separate denotations are relevant in terms of the specific language between the comprehensive plan and the land development code and there is conflict between those two documents a little bit of explanation about what a development original impact is as there are certainly members in the audience that may not necessarily know the history of that developments of regional impact as a concept were adopted in the florida statutes in 1973 which was actually the first year that the arrowhead dri was adopted it was one of the first ones in the state and there are several different types of developments of regional impact and you see a map here that shows those florida statutes defines a dri as any development that because of its character magnitude or location would have a substantial effect upon the health safety or welfare of citizens of more than one county and certainly that's subjective however florida statutes defined what the total development amount is that equals a dri and on this map you'll see the red areas as mixed-use dri's you'll see imperial lakes on the left river ranch on the bottom right green leaf is a smaller red area in the middle with point sienna in yellow to its east you'll see ridgewood lakes providence a little victor posner city center four corners south brook stony brook south dri and the west side dri and those last two are both in polk and in osceola county and the mustard color are the phosphate mining and phosphate gypsum stack dris that we have in the county so the arrowhead dri was first approved in 1973 and the development totals included 1 935 dwelling units two clubhouses conference center three 18-hole golf courses and a racket club with tennis court stables and a marina and that equaled about 1847 acres and you can see the map on the right the what became the green leaf dri is pretty much where my mouse is out outlining kind of in the middle and then at the very bottom is stony brook and so you see here the outline of the arrowhead deer arrowhead dri and you can see smoky groves this is on an aerial photograph so basically the area that was developed uh within greenleaf in 2008 was what uh got incorporated into the comprehensive plan and in the essentially built out agreement was reflected of what was currently built on that property which equaled about 971 acres 1359 units my math i got i calculated my math i got my acres and my units incorrect there but the difference between the approved arrowhead dri acreage of 1847 minus the 971 leaves about 876 acres that incorporates smoky groves the area to the east and then the area north of 544. however the only part of greenleaf that's left in the what we call the greenleaf uea in the comprehensive plan is smoky groves that's undeveloped a couple of items that i wanted to point out in terms of how difficult this is is greenleaf is in the middle of a macro development trend i call the macro and micro compatibility issues so the macro is it's between the rich cities that are growing east haynes city lake hamilton dundee and then you've got poinciana that has really exploded in growth and it's coming south and moving west and greenleaf's in the middle but you also have a lot of residents that have large lots have acre lots five acre lots 10 acre lots larger and have lived there for decades it's it's unfortunately a struggle of growth management that the whole state of florida has had to deal with and polk county has had to struggle with it certainly for the last four years in addition to the other housing boom that we had to deal with these two slides were presented to the board at their board retreat in february and you can see here the different road projects some of them are funded some of them are not funded for example paralyne road it's not funded but there'll be some agreements between some developers in the county to get that constructed um marigold avenue and cypress parkway in the north that's really what's being funded so far also the department of transportation with the polk parkway extension it's hard to see on the map here on the very left but these are different alignments of the polk parkway and then greenleaf is here where my mouse is circling so it's it's really in the middle of a lot of development potential and a lot of infrastructure that can support the development even though the the how the residents feel the infrastructure they might not feel that it's supportive right now a couple of um or four different amendments to the land development code that have been adopted since 2008 that i think are significant in terms of this amendment and this amendment has the effect of allowing smoky groves to be developed without a plan development and those are one the amendment to the code where we now allow require 25 foot setbacks from the garage which they will be subjected to and one tree in every lot then the open space requirements that are required uh 20 of a development and then if they incorporate their retention ponds into that they have to make it curvilinear and and make it pleasant rather than a rectangle with a fence around it internal sidewalks are required on both sides of the internal roads if they come off a collector road and like marion is the collector and then the other which is more probably it's an optional item is the on-street parking it's to allow on-street parking for private roads if they choose to do that so that's an option but i think those are significant changes to the land development code can from the length that i've been here at the county and i thought those were worth mentioning um the other item in the comprehensive plan for greenleaf residential low is stated as allowing single-family detached and attached residential units that may be included in the rental pool and certainly at that time uh greenleaf had a lot of resort type units that were used seasonally and it goes on to state that any resort residential shall be requested as a conditional use level three doesn't talk about any other type of residential unit so i think that's part of the conflict with the different sentences in the comprehensive plan and the other is it limits the units per acre to five dwelling units per acre which is what rl is limited to in other parts of the county outside the transit supportive development area in the land development code there's a statement that says development in the greenleaf uea will be reviewed as a pd unless indicated in table 4.25 and table 4.25 in chapter 4 the land development code says single family detached is a level one review but duplex is a multi-family or a level three the um and then going back again to the comprehensive plan i think it's important that the comprehensive plan limits any additional development other than that 971 acres and the 1300 units i referenced earlier anything additional to that amount of development it's limited to what's in this table 1 753 units multi-family etc to be spread out along throughout the whole greenleaf utility enclave area not just smoky groves and i do have um an extra sentence that i'd like to present to you today um and i've spoken with the applicant uh coordinated with the um with miss voss on this and i'm not sure if the applicants uh solely in support of it but due to certainly a lot of the growth issues and trying to balance everything out um staff would like to offer the this additional sentence as part of your recommendation today any development of the additional property that is either one in excess of four dwelling units per acre or two has lot widths less than 50 feet wide that cannot meet the requirements of section 822b of the land development code shall require a plan development approval what that does is it makes smoky groves equivalent to any other rl in the urban growth area in terms of its rights to develop so with that uh staff does recommend approval and i'll stand for any questions i have a question go ahead john page 10 of the staff report there's a paragraph in there and i'll read it to you it's all green leaf the development area including the golf course and smoky groves most share the housing limitations in section 2.130-e1 which is 1753 total units moreover smoky groves is limited by the rlx future land use station nation which limits the gross density on smoky groves to no more than five dwelling units per upland acre and one unit per wetland acre which is an approximate total number of 709 units which you just talked a little bit about but then the last two sentences of that paragraph says the one caveat is that this site is eligible to use the light widths and depths and table 4.37 of the ldc which is less than the 50 foot requirement and the very last sentence this may be of concern so explain your concern please let me get to that hold on and i included the regulations from chapter 4 relating to green leaf as a separate pdf in your packet and in there it has different types of lot widths with that can be developed for example some are 35 feet wide 35 by 85 35 by 105 the minimum lot sizes range from 2900 to 2400 so and with all the amendments to the land development code a lot of that was direct all of that was directed by the county commission for staff to implement or process and bring before you and the board of county commissioners due to lots being less than 50 feet wide so that and certainly i'm sure the residents in the area that live outside of green leaf would think that even 50 foot wide lots are too too dense and too small but the approach that staff was taking that based on the way the conference plan is written the in the implication that in the code smoky groves would have been allowed to develop without a pd trying to balance all of that the idea was to make smoky groves rights equivalent to what other rl is in the urban growth area and other utility enclave areas but but limit their intensity in terms of with the four dwelling units the acre and no less than 50 foot wide lots and i referenced the section in land development code in chapter eight because in some cases some of the lots do need to be a little bit less than 50 feet when you have a curve or different issues in terms of engineering and there's some flexibility in that section for that so that's why staffed offered that and that's why we're trying to recognize the difficulty of this and the concern that the residents in the area have with compatibility and i'm long-winded any other questions for staff mr chair one question for shonda you kind of already stated this already but this essentially just bringing smoky groves under the umbrella of all the previous ordinances that we passed within the past two years to improve the land development code and comp plan and just enables it to develop just like any other piece of rl1 property would today is that correct yes thank you okay any other questions for staff with that we'll open it to the applicant uh good morning commission for the record um bart allen land use attorney with the peterson and myers law firm my address is 225 east lemon street lakeland florida i'm here this morning on behalf of the property owner and the applicant smoky groves development llc with me this morning i have a number of people even though i plan to be brief and really compliment was bennett on her presentation because if you saw my presentation she literally covered almost every slide that i prepared as well so i'm not going to bore everybody with going back through and being really redundant on this but with me this morning i have mr scott house who is the manager of ronan assets and ronan assets is the manager of smoky groves llc or development llc i also have mr jonathan hall with ronan assets and in the room with me i also have uh sitting next to them mr danny kovacs who's the engineer on this project i have mr don skelton jr who has been our transportation engineer on this project and done the transportation analysis for the project uh that's currently in level two and then i also have mr keith burge from bentech llc mr mr burge is our utility operator and has been in the utility business since the mid 80s is the owner of the gold coast private utility just outside lake wales and um but also has a consulting firm and provides oversight for our utility plant here i don't intend to get into all of those weeds on my case in chief because this is a this is really as mr commissioner dalton pointed out this is a text amendment to remove a conflict that exists between the comprehensive plane and the land development code and the history of greenleaf um generally going all the way back to 1973 in this dri this piece of property smoky groves as we call it now additional property in the comp plan has always been slated for development has been since 1973 there's been a lot of development in this area there's existing development within the greenleaf proper what i'll call greenleaf proper which is the northern side but this this piece of property this 280 acres has always been identified for development since greenleaf was really conceived going all the way back that to that original arrowhead dri the growth of this particular area northeast polk county generally is pretty evident and i think we're all really aware of how haynes city is now immediately adjacent to this site on two sides you have dundee that is creeping closer and closer to it lake hamilton is growing davenport has grown although not immediately adjacent to this um pointsiana has has effectively become a developed out dri at this point and that's and that in 2008 is what the critical piece of this whole puzzle is in 2008 the dri was in place the property owner at the time the department of community affairs and polk county entered into the built-out agreement and the built-out agreement recognized that the greenleaf dri had met all of its obligations for building out infrastructure roads utilities things of that nature to support the development in the in that built-out agreement which i have a copy of if somebody would like there were the parties to that agreement recognized that there were 500 additional units just within a greenleaf dri that that they were just letting go in exchange the developer came in at that time and added additional resort development all within these tccx rm and the additional property and those policies were put in place as part of the creation of the uea as part of entering into that built-out agreement that's where these these unit counts come into play right here 1753 residential units 120 multi-family the convention center the hotel with 300 room hotel those were recognized in the conference of the plan an agreement amongst the parties as well as the land development code in the time it took to get all of those processes through you had some changeover you had change over in owners you had change over in applicants because people were under contract they fell out of contract you had a you had a host of different things and it took a year for the land development code provisions that are in place today to come in to effect and now with that time span you end up with a conflict and this conflict has resulted in um where we are today asking for a clarification because under the rules of interpretation when there's a conflict between the comprehensive plan and the land development code you don't ever get to the land development code right the comprehensive plan trumps changing this language would allow just smoky groves just the piece on the south to develop under the standards that we presented this morning the additional language that miss bennett and miss voss and i have reviewed is acceptable to my client we are willing to to take that verbiage rather than what we initially proposed and and to this because the intent has always been to develop in that nature it is not to use any of the other provisions related to the 35 foot lots and the rear loads and townhomes that were really contemplated out here at the time in 2008 so we're fine with that language we're happy to incorporate that if the board were to this board were to see fit but this area is in the growth area you see all the roads that are being built in this area that are planned for this area it has utilities it has the services we can directly connect to the sewer line to the sewer plant we don't have to connect into any other existing we're immediately adjacent to the sewer plant so we don't have to impact anybody else's lines this is what this site and this piece of property was designed to do going all the way back to 1973 and we would respectfully request that we continue to recognize those rights and to allow this amendment to move forward to allow this piece of property to move forward with the development we have my entire team here we're happy to answer any questions that you may have we've been working together on this project for the better part of two years now quite honestly so we appreciate staff uh as always you have some of the best staff and that we have the opportunity to work with so um we respectfully request a favorable vote we know there's some folks here in opposition we know there's some folks here in support of this so we would request some comment at the end commissioner any questions for the applicant at this time seeing no other questions for the applicant we'll go ahead and open this up for to the public for comment if you're here to speak for against this case please come forward if you want to go ahead and just line up in the middle aisle so we can have you guys all speak please make sure to state your name and address for the record i appreciate that thank you sir good morning my name is robert lewis i live at sixth greenwood lane haynes city florida within the greenleaf community i also serve as head of the greenleaf planning board which is a large group of greenleaf residents who support the redevelopment and are currently help helping assist the development team in the planning and designs of greenleaf's future any concerns or questions we had about the redevelopment were answered in our recent four community meetings by mr house and his team the supporters here today in the green shirts and the countless others on our board who couldn't make it today represent what we believe to be the majority of greenleaf residents who are more than ready to move forward with this project greenleaf was left for dead by westgate and david siegel and we are excited and thankful to be a part of the rebirth of greenleaf and appreciate the financial investment scott house is putting into our community his plan will lift us out of the sad reality of what greenleaf hat was and lead us to what we believe greenleaf will become we are grateful he's asked for our input and has listened to our concerns and ideas we want what is best for greenleaf and we are dedicated to spending our energy helping the development team design new parks for our children and grandchildren walking trails pickleball courts pools our new golf course and all the other wonderful amenities this new growth will bring we ask for your support on this project and a yes vote on this amendment thank you for your time thank you sir my name is ed there i live at 511 maple leaf court in greenleaf i've been there for over 20 years and all i have seen in the last 20 years is a decline of greenleaf we talk about greenleaf how great it was before the golf courses the tennis courts all that stuff it has just deteriorated in the last 20 years i feel that mr house can do something good for greenleaf and for the people of greenleaf it's never going to be like greenleaf used to be that's a dream nobody's going to have again but it's time for us to go forward instead of backwards i've been in business for over 40 years and in my business i look at going forward not backwards i don't get better by going backwards and that's what i look at and i think this is a good program and i back it 100 percent thank you sir name is alice rodriguez i'm at 4192 abbey court um i'm just here to let you know i've been out there for years uh i support scott house's initiative i've looked at it i'm a huge natural person so for me greenleaf's heyday is it's not what it was um buildings are run down uh golf courses are run down there are no amenities and and with him coming in and using what we have and redeveloping it and becoming something that's what's growing in that area would be beneficial for everyone there and being a part of the planning board makes it so our voices are heard to make sure that there's parks out there things for new families coming in things that need to be seen out there because it's an area that's never had that before because it was a golfing community so to see these changes and the excitement of what that'll bring and the businesses that'll come out in that area which is growing at this time this development i would hope that you would um vote yes on it please thank you thank you uh good morning my name is katherine tidwell my husband charlie and i live at 21 aspen drive in greenleaf um i appreciate and share my neighbors concerns that they've expressed in some of the past meetings with everything from the traffic to the habitat uh greenleaf is the most beautiful development in polk county and since i've lived there i've seen everything from armadillos raccoon fox bobcat and even a panther but the deal is done and greenleaf is deteriorating we need the improvements that mr house is proposing so instead of working against mr house we need to work together with mr house to keep and create new compatible habitat with the new building and development and keeping greenleaf beautiful and the surrounding properties as well um so i am asking the board to vote yes on the text amendment uh thank you thank you good morning saira rodriguez torres 15 robin lane i came here in april to oppose the development suggested by mr house as well as the cdd i did not want 1900 new neighbors i can understand the opposition there are many things to consider and should not be taken lightly today i'm here to suppose the proposed development after researching and several meeting with the developer where he explained in details his plan we had more rumors and gossip that information today i'm here to express my change of heart it would increase the value of our homes and the community that has been an icon in our area and neglected for years we have abandoned buildings abandoned tennis courts abandoned golf courses and those are our eyesores i researched how the cdd would impact my community and i found very little information this led me to believe that my concerns regarding my property taxes were unfounded by the lack of knowledge we do need the improvements on the roads and taxes are the way to sort it out truth is development or no development taxes will go up 1900 new neighbors will not move immediately giving us the time needed to make the necessary improvements to the existing infrastructures little by little with the help of our county yourselves i will ask mr house to please be gentle with the water bill of course um as our previous developer was traffic is another area of concern so we ask the county to be mindful of a future approving future projects in the area and to keep up with our county roads many personal reasons bring us here today we all have a reason for wanting or not wanting the development we ask that you make a thoughtful decision that would benefit everyone not just a few that can take their time off from work or other responsibilities to make it to this building to these meetings so today i do ask that you do yes approve this plan thank you thank you jonathan padgett 9001 south bay drive pain city florida i've heard of a lot of the uh the good things about this development um i'm going to speak a little bit i'm i'm a little bit on the outside looking in i live in the community on the south side of smoky groves groves on south bay landing and um i just have a few questions that that i'm not sure about i realize that greenleaf has been deteriorating over time and it does need some help in that aspect i i just didn't think that adding 1900 homes to that area would be the the what what would bring it back and make it better um i'm concerned about the infrastructure as we've been to other meetings before and have been before um the environmental land study and how things were cleared i'm not sure i'm from the outside looking in i wasn't in some of the other meetings so i'm not totally sure about all that um i kind of just want to know what the what the advantages are to the rest of the community that this will be affected by i've heard the advantages for the greenleaf residents but but 1900 people coming into a a two-lane road area one way in one way out is is a little bit tough for the rest of us so um kind of just have those questions and don't don't really know where to go to to find them so thank you pablo lavona with uh 131 arrowhead lane and arrowhead lakes right across from greenleaf um i'm one of the i don't this new committee i guess my biggest question for this is by changing the designation or whatever that they're doing with this how does that affect directly the golf courses that are associated with this community does that change the way they can plan that how they can develop those areas because i bought a property on the golf course when it was still a golf course my dad did too a lot of us did and if they're putting what four or five houses per acre we have a house that's on an acre or three quarters of an acre so now we're going to have four people behind us like i'm not against development but if we're going to develop let's develop light so let's put the same you know same things around let's not put four houses behind one house um i understand we need to grow and we need to get forward with the times i'm all for that i just would like to see it jointly right like we can't have your cake and eat it too thank you appreciate it thank you please please refrain from any clapping or emotions we'd be respectful to everybody in their opinions go ahead don fosick 116 arrowhead lane i would like to talk about this uh as we met with the commissioners after the uh april 2nd uh thing when we met with them the 2009 vote at that point that they that we spoke that was spoke about was shady at least it was two votes in one day there's a lot of bad things that happened and then i spoke to a georgia state assemblyman uh and he said one of the things was he says that was 2009 you do realize it was 15 years ago i said yes i can't add and subtract he said there should be a statue of limitations on any type of fund he said normally the great state of georgia which is not as good as florida in my opinion but uh let me cover that up right quick but uh one of my one of my things about this there's always a statue of limitations why are we talking about something from 2009 and trying to change verbiage if if if you made amendments uh as as mr dalton had specified two years ago well those amendments would all be thrown out because of what would be thrown out in 2009 that is a serious problem the next problem i have with all of this is is the water plant that is a 50 year old water plant if you look at it was built in 1973 that thing is 48 years 48 years of existence she's 50 years old right now if you look at it it's in disrepair at this moment i think if uh if the if the developer had to go back in and had to apply for permits they would shut that sucker down immediately uh i think there's huge problems with this whole thing and it stems from one to the other i think we need to we need to really think about this we need to really tie this thing in and i think that we have really overstepped our bounds in 2009 not saying this body did it's time for us to make a change to do something right for our community and let's let's do it well thank you good morning my name is excuse me ken frittle i live at 9013 south bay drive uh hayne city which is a good 100 yards from the entrance to to this development and my point is is uh is actually from the also from i believe it was the april meeting and it was presented by the applicant uh on the sewage uh that there was uh apparently 340 000 gallons per day that was available and that they were only using 150 000 of that but it was presented in that they had the capacity to do 340 000 gallons per day uh my business works under three dep permits my permit capacity limits does not necessarily the same thing as my capacity i don't have the infrastructure in my business to meet those limits and i believe that's the same thing here just because they're producing now or treating 150 000 gallons uh a day doesn't mean they have the infrastructure to do the 340 000 and in fact the engineer on his uh letter that was sent to uh the county states uh this is mr hall talking and he states that at the bottom of the letter it says please note this letter shall not be construed as a hydraulic treatment capacity they're not saying they have the capacity to do 340 000 a day that's just what the permit would allow if they had the capacity and i heard nothing about anything increasing the infrastructure to be able to meet that capacity that they were depending on what was there now and that's all i have thank you thank you sir good morning my name is uh jose jovona i live on a coventry drive and green leaf states uh i'm not against uh we're moving forward with a green leaf the only problem that i have is with mr scott houses he makes a lot of empty promises when he first moved into the into this place he first bought the place he sent a email or a memo saying that he was going to fix the golf course and he was going to invest a million dollars they started the work and a week later he stopped everything of everything the other thing that i can see is that 1900 people moving into this area is not going to fix anything if he wants to fix something start fixing the infrastructure of the green leaf area and for the people here on the green that says that they speak for the most people in the area no they don't they speak for the most people dressed in green the majority of the people living in green leaf they do not want 19 more houses 1900 more houses in this area thank you thank you sir hi my name is deborah spaulding i live at one robin lane haynes city in country homes that is a private community connected to green leaf what i'd like to state is where we live out there we moved out there because it was in the country it's a rural area that's in the country it's there's not a whole lot of country left in florida because as you heard before to the north of us to the south of us to the east of us to the west of us they're they're they're almost developed out we live in like just this little central park area that just keeps getting built around keeps getting built around and it affects everybody that lives there and i'm not sure what the land use code change would do the passing of this would do to them having to get approval for developing that area that i don't know what it would do but i do i would like you guys to consider the fact the impact that it does have on the few thousand people that live around that area that move there and that have been there for decades that would like to still live in the country that's all thank you for your comments hello my name is ralph pashadag 50 nottingham way haynes city part of the country homes and uh behind our houses fema has wetland areas the the pond back there has overflowed on real rainy day maybe two three days of rain or something and goes downhill to the low spot where people's backyards get flooded and if they're going to put concrete and black top there it's going to be a lot more water because there's no ground to soak it up or trees they're going to clear cut trees and there's nothing there to soak it up and uh we have a lot of uh wild animals there including a panther and uh woods they were talking about and uh rumors have it is they're pouring concrete and uh gopher tortoises hole to kill them off and uh people that's called uh white life out to take care of that but i was also told that uh parts of green leaf are a part of uh lake marion watershed so i don't know what the rules are there to build or what they do but i'm worried about the drainage and the traffic because we we go on a 544 and if you've got 1800 times two probably cars we'll never be able to turn left to get out of there that's all i have for now thank you thank you for your comments anybody else for the record glenn law horn 11 000 jim edwards road haynes city florida 33844 um just to start this text amendment does not have to be approved by y'all this is a not a judicial moment this is a legislative moment so you don't have to approve this at all without any repercussions from county staff or anybody coming up and saying they're going to sue us so let me get into the meat of this if you approve this the ability of the pd to come before the boards goes away because it'll all get just done at county staff level and there'll be no other way that you have any kind of oversight over this process on all that stuff up there at smoky groves because because it all becomes one so back in 2009 2008 2009 there was a group of us that came in and de novoed uh the green leaf dri um i don't remember what i can't remember the name of it anyway we de novoed that case we kind of lost the case but we won the battle um back then this wasn't approved to be 438 home sites in there on that smoky groves property it was not approved to do that so um i guess what i'm getting at is you're going to change this area permanently and forever you're going to change it from a ultra rural area which is where all of us live i live on seven and a half acres tommy addison lives on five all my neighbors are 5 10 15 some 70 acres you're going to take this property and shove it down our throats and change everything out there for us and that's not fair to the people that live there it's not fair to the people that live in greenleaf let me get to a couple more things i know i'm going to skip ahead the roads can't handle what we got now and you're going to put 1900 more homes in greenleaf that's 5.4 car trips twice a day that's call it 11 car trips a day those roads will not handle that and there's no roads slated for improvement there's no road slated to be four lane six lane whatever you want to do it's not in there it's not in the budget i went to the fdep or the fdot they have no plans to change anything with the roads county has no money to do it the population that you're going to put in there just in people just on those homes is a plus 10 000 in 1900 homes call it 10 call it 2 000 houses times five people that's 10 000 people you're going to shove in this little enclave area this case back then was 16 years ago like mr fousek said 16 years ago well that's already run its course all that needs to be out we went and we spoke to mr cumby about this and he had a problem with it a lot of people had a problem if you'll give me just a little leeway 30 seconds um county staff has done a good job explaining this but there's also a lot of reservations that the county staff has by going in and changing this urban or urbanizing our ruralized areas now that just can't happen there's no step down there's no softening the blow at all that's just all of a sudden boom you got this wall of people and that's not fair to us it's not fair to anybody in here so i wish you would uh deny this today thank you thank you anybody else here in the public here to speak for or against seeing nobody else come forward we'll close the public hearing portion of this case and turn back to the applicant give you a second go ahead request for the school board to speak yeah i'd like to hear what they have to say about this load that's being imposed okay we'll let the applicant speak in for questions we'll let him definitely address when to do that okay mr i want you to go ahead and sure us what you can and then we'll see if the questions get answered if not we'll have other questions come forward so i appreciate the comments of everybody on on either side of of the issue um but what i what i think i just want to really bring us back to is this smoky groves piece this 280 280 acre parcel there at the south end has been designated for residential development within this area since 1973. it was part of the original pd it was scheduled for several hundred homes in this area at that time going all the way back to the beginning and that's what was shown on map h in the original dri that was what was shown on the original pd that was approved for this under the under the arrowhead pd it's also what is reflected in the agreement the built out agreement between the department of community affairs polk county and the property owner slash developer at the time these unit counts right here 1753 residential units multi-family were to agreed upon amongst those parties and approved through the conference of plan the land development code and that agreement to occur within the green leaf uea that that is all i don't think in any sort of dispute the fact that that there are no statute of limitations on any of those sorts of things this is part of the conference of plan it is a document that is in effect and enforced in perpetuity as long as we're under that regulatory scheme right so i want to be clear on that that this isn't just all of a sudden opening the door to anything two the text amendment would is limited to smoky groves it is limited to the additional property it does not affect the golf course it does not affect any development to the north that all of those provisions remain in place today based on this vote so there's no change in there a couple other things most of the other concerns that i that i really heard were more about the impacts of development generally you know impacts on roads impacts on utilities impacts on those kinds of things that's not really relevant to the text amendment today what we're asking is to change it so that it doesn't have to go through a pd process we still have to go through concurrency we still have to go through and get all of those items we still have to satisfy the school board that they have capacity for these students this has been a level two review project to date it's been in the process for some time we have done a traffic analysis although not again i don't believe it's relevant to this what's before you today we have done a transportation analysis we have evaluated the ability for this project to connect and i have mr skelton here who will stand up and say we meet all of the concurrency standards and that the roads have capacity we will have gone through school board capacity and i'll and at the appropriate time mr macklemore can comment on that and i also have my utility operator who will stand up and say that the utility plant is fully permitted operating within compliance and has the ability to serve these projects again those are all level two issues those aren't really germane to what we're talking about today but for purposes of showing you that we have done our homework and that we're aware of what we have to do in our obligations as responsible developers we have all of that information we have that ability to to state on the record today so um with that you know the those comments on general development concerns i don't believe are relevant to this action in front of you today um we are asking for this amendment we are uh agreeable with staffs um and i mean we worked on it we we we are agreeable to that you have a staff recommendation of approval of this you have um a lot of history here that justifies recognizing that and allowing this development to move forward on this additional property or smoky groves um this is um absolutely appropriate we we look this green area on the slide here that floodplain area i don't believe i didn't catch the the gentleman's name we can't develop in that that's a lot of that's wetland we obviously cannot do anything in there so the development will be outside of that we will not be impacting those wetlands um uh other than that make sure those were the biggest bullet points that i had on my on my list so mr mclemore if you want to comment i'm going to ask mr burgeon and while you're talking i'm going to have mr burgeon mr skeleton just come up go ahead so in terms of impacts to schools at this stage uh final determination is not made at this stage with the cpa or even at level three at a pd consideration uh final determination for the impacts on schools and how it would actually impact uh our part of the public infrastructure is not made until level two that's when uh because at that stage that's when the applicant and developers have refined their engineered drawings they have a better understanding of unit counts uh and unit types and that stage that's when we go through our process of conducting an analysis uh working with the staff based off of the adopted interlocal agreement to try to forecast based off of our impact fee study what that impact will look like in terms of student generation uh it's pretty much a pass or fail if there's inadequate capacity there are other other avenues that we will then continue to work with the county and the applicant to further pursue but they still have that requirement to attain uh sufficient concurrency at the school level appreciate the clarification and just to just to pile on what mr macklemore said uh we have been we do have a binding school capacity letter from the polk county school board related to smoky gross project again we've been in level two for some time now and there is um this letter was dated april 1st 2024 um from the school board and it said and i won't read you the whole thing but it says there this letter is finding of adequate capacity to serve the proposed development so we do have capacity to serve this project and that was april 2024. so yeah so with that let's let the board ask questions i'm sure i think it sounds like there's a couple of questions we would like to get and now just real quick clarifications yes and uh mr burge you can talk just real quickly on utilities and then i'll have mr scotland okay thank you good morning my name is keith burge i'm with bentec llc 2517 elm circle lake wales florida 33898 just wanted to quickly say that um as of this morning um the permanent capacity for the wastewater treatment facility is 340 000 gallons the average daily flow going into that plant as of today is 121 000 gallons per day on the water side we are meeting all regulatory um rules and regulations and limits in regards to uh testing and so forth and so i don't see any problem whatsoever with um having this development um connected into uh the current facilities at greenleaf so thank you good morning my name is don skelton i'm with way engineering pllc we're located in tampa florida so i've been working closely with the polk county transportation planning organization for this traffic study they've been with us every step of the way we've made sure we agree on the process what intersections and segments we're going to look at and after doing the analysis with the proposed development everything is running satisfactory at an adequate level not just each approach overall but every segment going into the approach there should not be any traffic issues thank you mr allen anything else before that's that's it mr chair appreciate your time uh again appreciate staff's time appreciate the public's time but we would request a favorable recommendation on this uh comp plan text amendment i'm gonna turn it to the board for questions i got some comments well okay you would you well you are you good deferring for your question for a second is that okay go ahead tommy well start with when the utility enclave area was approved in 2008 david siegel allowed garrett kenny with feltram go in and get the entitlements garrett needed an extension on his contract david siegel wouldn't give it to him so mark waltrip david siegel's son-in-law stood right where shonda standing i'll never forget it bob english asked and this of course this was in the downturn in 2008 bob english said if we approve these changes today will y'all start to build mark waltrip said yeah obviously nothing ever happened and i've just i've seen too much of what's going has gone on in this and respectfully i would disagree with your utilities um consultant the dep permit said it's it's for up to 3.8 mgd they've got it cut in half yeah no bart that's what was in the packet the cdd application also nothing has improved under mr house's ownership that i've seen in fact if anything has gotten worse um is what actually happened some of the residents that were members of the golf course mr house refused to honor their membership on the golf course and basically if he didn't if they didn't pay a membership fee that he was going to shut the golf course count which he did he went in and herbicided all of the golf course and aside from that back when garrett kenny was going to redevelop this the reason you see the tccx on there was because garrett was going to maintain at least 18 holes of the golf course he was going to rebuild the convention center he was going to build a hotel and everything i've seen proposed by mr house's group is to build housing on every available piece of land aside from that you have an essentially build out agreement on the dri now let me say this the dri used to be almost 496 acres larger than it is today back where my glenn by the way i have eight acres not five but there's two major portions of the old dri that are no longer part of greenleaf there's almost 400 acres to the north of 544 that ended up being diamondback golf course and some other private residences and then if you look on the at the southeast end all that runs over to lake marion well my house and a bunch of houses are on that so what i've seen is just nobody does what they say they're going to do with this piece of property uh and i don't agree with going back to the drl language because it's it doesn't exist anymore and aside from that um shonda's concern in the staff report as to the table that they could use on the development so for those reasons i won't be voting i won't be supporting this tccx any other questions from the board for the applicant i have a question go ahead sir go ahead i just i just feel like it's really really important for clarification of the record i am reading from and just to completely contradict what commissioner addison just said and respectfully do so the letter from the florida department of education uh education environmental protection dated with a new permit issuance date of november 16 2022 states an existing 0.68 million gallon per day three-month rolling average type one extended aeration domestic wastewater treatment plant limited to 0.34 mgd that is straight out of the permit issuance letter to he said that second figure again limited point limited to 0.34 340 000 gallons per day so it is a 0.68 million gallon permit that is currently limited operationally similar to what the one member of the public public testified to to point three four three hundred and forty thousand gallons a day which is exactly what my expert testified to and the test and i can was that it's currently flowing about 150 000 gallons is that correct 100 121 121 000 and i'm going to just for purposes and making sure that the record's clear going to present and ask that this permit this is a full copy of the dep permit be introduced into the record i think that was issued on the 20s uh november 16 2022 so mr schmidt i apologize for delaying follow up on that since we're talking about the wastewater plant at this moment i'm going to take a second just to ask a quick follow-up question it's it was limited from 0.68 to 0.34 for what effluent disposal so okay limited on disposal okay so the treatment capacity is there you just don't have a way to get rid of the water once it's been treated thank you question effluent questions go ahead go ahead you have the floor has been the the question here but um i'm more concerned about water what district what area is servicing you um it is a private utility i've got a private utility owned by mr house okay mr burge can answer okay um the current water plant is in the district of the southwest water management south florida southwest water management district and it does i currently have the capacity to meet the uh demand of the development of smoky groves well you can't unread something once you've read it okay and i do a lot of reading before i come to these meetings and um i'd like to read you just real quick um the summary and the analysis just two paragraphs from ldct 2024-7 that's coming up for review or consideration here i guess at the end of this meeting the first paragraph says the upper florida floridian aquifer has been an inexpensive water source for polk county residents since populations first arrived however like all resources it too has its physical limits growth in the county has reached a point where further drawdown of the ufa will jeopardize the safety of many residents of both polk county and others meaning other counties the county is coming to the end of its ability to draw more water from the upper floridan aquifer and must seek alternatives but the cost of alternative water supplies is much higher which will inevitably increase the cost of water to consumers the cost of conservation and that was that is what this is about is far less than these alternatives if the public uses less water it will hold down the average cost of water then it goes on to the analysis central florida is the is on the precipice of a new era in water use permitting polk county has traditionally relied on fresh groundwater from the upper floridan aquifer as the primary source for public agricultural and industrial uses however it is also a limited resource high rates of consumption of the ufa have been linked to the rise in sinkhole activity in our region and saltwater intrusion southwest florida water management district 2015 regional water supply plan identified a 22 percent increase in water supply would be needed to meet future demand of polk county now i'm assuming your water source is coming from the aquifer the upper floridan aquifer sir yes and you're you're 17 well how many was it 1753 home units and 300 hotel units and plus commercial and other things we'll be drawing from that am i correct i believe we're only talking about smoky roves here this morning 435 homes and under the current water use permit that the utility has with south water southwest water water management we do have the capacity to serve those 435 homes i can't speak to the 1900 or the 1500 additional homes but i'm sure that if we didn't have the capacity you know the consultants would be applying for capacity and if there wasn't capacity then the management district probably would refuse the the permit but for what we're talking about this morning smoky groves we do have under the current water use permit the capacity to serve the 435 homes and that would be and that would be whether or not this went through a pd we'd still be having that same conversation we still have the permitted capacity to serve those those units so while i understand the issue that you're talking about and water conservation is extremely important issue and and it's something that's on the forefront of everybody in the state of florida it is not an issue really relevant to the item that's being discussed here today which is a text amendment to the conference of plan to allow smoky grove to move forward without a plan development it still has to have capacity it still has to have concurrency for every other thing through the through the level two process and none of that changes so i i understand your issue but i i really feel like we are kind of again veering off this focus of what this is which is a text amendment to the comprehensive plan just to follow up a little bit of clarification on what was read and the conservation is very important i agree 100 but what i'm hearing you testify to us is that you guys currently have unused capacity in your current authorized allocation from the water management district the water management district only authorizes those kinds of allocations with all of the environmental considerations that you've spoke to for conservation so that is all kind of covered under that permit application just for further clarification i don't really have any questions just want to make sure you don't i'm not saying anything that you don't agree with now and i thank you thank you all right with that i think we've got a couple questions on this side i know go ahead we'll work our way this way i would just like some clarification on on the text amendment change you're asking for 400 homes ish on the smoky groves site i'm asking to specifically to allow approval of the smoky groves development with a level two process in lieu of a pd and i realize that this is not necessarily a context to the request but what is the intended purpose of those homes is it a rental neighborhood is it a permanent residence neighborhood i'm just curious with the staff report here the existing resort to be redeveloped as a premier tourist convention destination what what would family detach okay uh quick quick question for staff uh shonda did you hear anything in the public testimony that changes your view on the case no sir no okay and bart uh or for staff as well either one but i mean the question in regards to capacity today really almost doesn't even matter because at some point it's going to be solved at the level two review correct so i mean that's correct well actually it does matter and part of the reason it does matter is because part of what they're being limited on is disposal of the affluent that sewer plant has a rapid infiltration basin very small one and then the rest of the treated affluent gets sprayed on what was golf course now they're talking about developing the golf course so where are you going to spray the affluent i don't think we have any golf course development before y'all today so that's not relevant i wouldn't get into any of that and if i may make a comment to mr bass's question about the in in the table in the land development code for greenleaf in chapter four duplexes of multi-family and short-term rental have to be a public hearing planned development so single-family full-time residents seasonal it could be even seasonal if they own it full-time is the only thing they can do with if this is approved today with a level two and the issue of the water um mr smith that you're talking about and the the bigger concept certainly 1973 greenleaf was sprawl again in 1973 greenleaf was sprawl certainly and the board heard these maps saw these maps in february um retreat to deal with the idea of do they want to establish another waste water treatment plant in the east pole county that's larger than this case it's larger than greenleaf it's a very difficult situation um and what you don't know is you don't know the conversations we've had with other property owners in this area we've told them we will not recommend approval of a land use change i wouldn't be here with this recommendation if this parcel didn't get rl in night in 2008 and i understand the gentleman that talked about statute limitations the law for comprehensive plan amendments once it's approved it's approved from perpetuity until change that's the way the law works for that the pd that was approved in 2009 expired because they never implemented the pd so that was there's a lot of subtleties to what happened in 2008 and 2009 in terms of of greenleaf but i just wanted to make a few more of those points um in relation to what mr bass said and and what mr schmidt said thank you thank you i just mr bass yes sir one one more follow up with that so if this text amendment is approved it would essentially move to for all of smoky groves would be a level two review so staff would have final say on all that as opposed to currently it would require plan development plan development yeah and staff includes planners our county engineer our roads and drainage staff it includes people that have a lot of technical knowledge understood but a site plan would not have to come back before anybody for approval correct and if you approve the additional language that i presented today limits it to four units of the acre and no less than 50 foot wide lots mr hickman just a clarification there so this development that you're asking for it does not impact any of the acreage of the golf course or the amenities that are currently there is that correct this has no impact on greenleaf proper okay none of the golf course none of the none of that stuff and and i mean i get the sense that we're like biting this off in little chunks is that uh the goal here and then they're going to come back for some other things i would say based on we will be coming back for additional approvals um that's been openly discussed with staff that's been openly discussed with the planning board and folks in the community yes so i mean those that are in favor of this seem to think uh that it's going to improve the overall situation of greenleaf and uh and i will say having played that course in its heyday it was wonderful then and it's not so great now i wish i had had the chance to play it it was not open by the time i moved to pool county um but um so i kind of lost track of my point here but the um so we're really just looking at developing homes there and that necessarily will not enhance the situation with regards either take away or enhance the situation that you have with the golf courses and the amenities it's not going to affect anything and this this particular approval that's before you today does not affect anything related to greenleaf or the amenities does additional development bring additional investment into the area absolutely will there be incremental improvements certainly that's my but the owner has all control over all of that yes this is just a way to move forward with first this is the first profit making to further enhance okay thank you all right with that are there any other questions from the board or comments or discussion we'd like to have before we take motions yeah if it comes through if it comes through for approval i won't be voting for it because of shonda's comments about case for concerns on the tables and two the coming to just a level two hearing as opposed to a level three thank you mr asson any other comments or one last comment and i'm just going to piggyback off what you said i have a problem i think with the taking a bite one bite at a time process here when this was looked at originally as the green leaf community and i think chopping it up into pieces without considering as a whole is a little troubling i think from a planning standpoint so just want to make that comment any other questions or comments from staff to for staff or anything else before we go to emotions yeah for staff just before i make my vote and just to be clear here i mean staff makes the conclusion that this is uh compatible and compliant with the current land development code and comprehensive plan correct yes sir okay thank you mr allen any other closing remarks and and i think it's i just want to comment that you know while we are looking at one particular piece of property at this time with this particular text amendment mr house and his team we are evaluating the entire green leaf area and what's being proposed as a whole it's just that this is from a timing perspective and from a development perspective and how our development process works this is the first step and and that's why we're here only on this text amendment but it is being considered comprehensively i can assure you of that just before we go to any motions any other comments from the board staff applicant we're good all right with that i'll entertain any motions mr chair i'm going to approve ldc pal 2024-8 i'll second that do we have a motion and a second mr dalton please call the role robert beltran for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman for the motion tommy addison against the motion mike schmidt against the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass against the motion mr chair passes four to three thank you all right go ahead next case uh mr chair if i may uh the last three cases are staff initiated and i believe the applicant for ldpd 2024 2 has showed up i don't know if you want to go ahead and do that while we got members of the public still here yeah if you guys could all exit quietly please so we can continue moving forward so and i think the public is still here that spoke on that case earlier is that correct so we'll go ahead and and switch things around if that's okay is that okay with the rest of the board members yep okay we'll go ahead and take that that privy and go ahead and listen to that case now are we ready i do see mr mcveigh back there yeah one second okay why doesn't staff just give us a quick quick summary so we can refresh our memories and then good idea quick i used the word quick a couple times all right let me put this back on here real quick let's do the site plan okay melissa celestine again with ldpd 2024-2 so the applicant is essentially here to discuss increasing the density in order to achieve the 200 unit multifamily development because the site is located in the urban growth area the maximum density by right is 10 dwelling units per acre in order to increase that they need the planning commission approval to increase that density had the site been in the transit supportive development area it would have been able to increase 15 dwelling units by right and they wouldn't be able to they wouldn't need to come here for approval they would just go through the level two approval which is the site plan and they would have to meet all of the conditions and requirements outlined in chapter three section 303 for multifamily and the developmental standards outlined in chapter seven so realistically i understand that the parking is deficient to the two um the two parking spaces that's required by the code they are currently deficient by 23 parking spaces um but that is something that's not relevant at this moment it is something that would be further discussed and evaluated during the actual level two site plan review so all that we're actually looking at here in this moment is one is it compatible with the area and two is the density in itself compatible with the area and based on all of staff's research it is so with that i thank you and i'll stand for questions any questions i know we had some questions but we probably had some more questions for the applicant and just to have the applicant come on up if you can please sir and just to kind of summarize some of the comments we heard earlier there was questions in reference to the lift station and how it might work with the adjacent adjacent lift station there was some water drainage in the floodplain questions that were asked there was a question relative to the emergency access out of the back and what that would be limited to um and then obviously there is a question from the board members relative to the number of spaces that are shown on the plan and the requirement for 400 spaces i think i summarize those adequately at this point we'll let you say your piece and your application and we may have follow-up questions thank you john mcveigh 6700 south florida avenue lakeland florida i apologize for the delay i got tied up in a meeting and couldn't get out of it so i really appreciate you all working with me on that area this was approved as a pd six months ago eight months ago 168 units i think is what it was approved for uh in in looking at the the cost to develop and the surrounding areas and imperial lakes and the commercial adjacent adjacent adjacent to it to the east uh and we met with staff a couple times and they were very helpful in helping us formulate a site plan that was more user friendly to the neighborhood and to the residents if you notice on the site plan all the buildings back up to either a common area or water there's no rear of the units that are facing any uh property to the east the west or the south we have we have made it a point to create a enclave within that development there's also a existing creek stream whatever running through the property that's wetlands the only thing we intend on doing there is getting a permit to put a crossing so we can get from the north side to the south side our primary and 99.9 percent entrance will be off of shepherd road the fire department and staff and the utilities with the lift station we have an emergency exit only that's gated to allow fire trucks emergency vehicles or whatever there was a question about the lift station excuse me excuse me there's an existing lift station on site that belongs to the association on the south which is on the wrong property we met with i think the attorney for the association a year or so ago they've been trying to figure out how to do it the developer here has agreed to do a combination lift station uh put in a new lift station when it's developed that will in turn fix theirs allow them to dump into it and they're working they will then be working out a right a share of the cost and the monthly operation based on actual flow for 200 units versus i don't know 67 units or whatever they have uh so that's being that will be worked out and it's one of the conditions or one of the talking points within the plan uh met with drainage and roads and they're doing some major storm water changes within the imperial lake system up near the clubhouse we are downstream from that and what we're going to do in our design and robert you may understand more we're going to hold more water back to let the downstream recuperate some before we dump into it so we're we're working with you with uh roads and drainage and you know those people on that the commercial up front is its own commercial now it's part of the well it's not part of but it would be adjacent to the public shopping center we're planning on putting uh buffers on all four sides with a 50 foot buffer along shepherd there's a natural wooded area there we're just we're planning on using that enhancing it same way on the east and west and south side putting a buffer leaving the existing trees and enhancing everything so i'll be happy to stand for any questions you may have a question i'll let one of the commissioners ask if they so choose had to do with the number of spaces that are required two two two spaces per unit at 400 spaces i believe you're showing 370 and there was a discussion 377 377 thank you sir and there was a discussion about co-using spaces with the commercial which led to a lot of questions it was to uh do kind of a joint uh easement where they could use i mean we could use it at night in the weekends when the commercial wasn't this thing and we discussed that with staff and they're going to probably have 60 or 70 parking spaces in their area once it's developed any questions for the applicant at this point i'm going to open the floor to the commissioners go ahead mr hickman um and this might be for staff so um and i'm familiar with the site um i live off shepherd road the um your density that you have there what other projects what other neighborhoods have that same density i'll let marissa answer that so hold on so right here you can see that the apartment complex it has 18 dwelling units to the acre um to the rear it has a little under seven between seven and eight i would say um so it is a gradual transition as you can as you can see here so we find that hey 18 dwelling units per acre on the western side versus the 13.72 proposed at this location is still compatible with it additionally this apartment complex over here we want to say it's two and three stories um this one is going to be four stories so again still compatible with the area because it's going to be that natural transition and on the other sides that's all imperial lakes there and this one is all commercial over here yeah but so but imperial lakes what do you have in imperial lakes for density 6.67 dwelling units per acre at the condominiums and then 7.8 dwelling units for the town homes and then it's all single family residential from beyond that i want to say over here yes i did not do the density for that for you though i think they're four per acre john you know what imperial lakes is generally imperial lakes is probably between three and four per acre but that doesn't include the golf course the old golf course you know the uh the norm there is going probably going to be i think it's all rl so the max would be five in that area but the townhomes are almost eight the condominiums are almost seven uh the apartments to the west are 18 so we're kind of transitioning between the 18 13 commercial and then from the south we're going from seven and eight up to 13 two commercial so it's kind of a transition in opposite directions and there's no height restrictions 50 feet which is standard you're recognized you mentioned there was nothing to the south there are there's village court right there right across your south property no i didn't i was talking about to the south it'd be the south east where the old golf course is that's vacant right now southeast which is this area you said south right here i'm sorry my mistake yeah this is the condominiums they are i don't know i think those are only they may be two story i don't remember if they're two or three but i think they're two story any and your buffer between them we have a 15 foot buffer plus the parking lot plus the uh front setback for the uh apartments so it's about 100 feet from the property line on the front of the building seems go ahead seems like you have the flood plain it seems to me like that's still your problem um as much as you might not like it to be but that's that comes well up into your property and it's defined that way um flood plain is normally handled under level two because the maps that are shown are what they call representational maps once they do the topo and the flood study and i think the county's already furnished one or finished one then if we design within that we have to do compensated storage holdbacks those kind of things so we can't impact the wetlands other than crossing we can't impact the flood plain unless we compensate for it and hold it on site well there's other flooding issues in the area that are directly adjacent to you and then obviously would be spilling over into your area and uh there are much greater volumes acreage that is shown on what you're showing us and pardon me if i you know i look at what's here and what's given we you've given us numbers and things like that if there's another review level coming it seems like we pretty defined what this is and um i'm just not sure i can i i again i wasn't quite ready for this to maybe go on to another level i thought we were being presented what you intended to do here we did that last time but we've increased from 168 to 100 or 200 an increase of 32 units you said you said we approved 168 unit pd is that correct land use change i'm sorry i may have miss spoke okay land use change land use change now it's time to do a pd okay okay because of the pd and the in the tsda and the bonus points and all we're allowed to go up to 16 i think it was 16.5 units per acre we can't put that many on there because we have to leave room for storm water and storm storage and all and you're talking of stuff yeah upstream at the present time before the county gets involved that all went to the west and south towards the alify river now they're going i think reroute part of that and come through the golf course to the north into polly creek to relieve some of the property within the alify basin that's going out that's creating the flooding but all this is under level two and drainage permitting and that kind of you know all that even though this is an approved site plan or could be an approved site plan once you get to level two and final permitting it may change because of regulatory conditions or regulatory statutes that we can't change so that it'll be modified and if it's modified it'll be modified down we can't modify up we modify down but we won't get to see it again no but it'll be less if it's modified if it increases you got to come back hopefully that answers your question just to your knowledge there's a either 12 or 13 million dollar phase one drainage improvement project that's on the cip before come down the cip that we approved months ago was 12 or 13 million okay but it's over the next two years okay thank you no i was not aware of that that's before my time just to be clear tommy you've got your questions answered about parking and everything you're good no okay i don't know how the commercial can share the parking now john i just did a count there's 56 parking spots on your flat in front of the building there at the commercial 52 excuse me it's 26 and 26. on which one the commercial well in between the commercial and the one building to the south of it or to yeah to the south of it you're talking about here yes sir this parking space you know that's only for the residential the commercial parking will be inside the commercial area itself it'd be a separate parking lot with what they call overflow parking are there any limitations on the commercial application then because i mean you're assuming that you'd have a nine-to-five business there or you know and and you'd have availability of parking in the evenings and weekends or i mean what it could be anything that goes in there is that correct well it would determine on what the code states the cac can have so it all depends on what that owner um wants to go in there either it's going to go through the site plan review because it's permitted or it's going to have to come back to you guys for you all to approve the use but i mean but i mean availability of the parking would be a function of what kind of business goes in there well i mean even at this point if the only reason we're here just bring it all back the only reason we're here is because of the development area it's in the urban growth area right that's the only reason that we're here if the site was in a transit supportive development area this exact site plan would go through solely a level two review which at that point we would say okay if you're deficient on your parking do a parking study which is the alternative parking strategy in that we would take into consider into consideration the commercial out parcel we would take into consideration the public transit and we would also take into consideration the type of units he has so all of that if we weren't here we would still have to make sure that that's covered during the level two the only reason that you guys are seeing this right now is because of the development area so essentially you're comfortable with the parking being just a tad short than what would be required by the code i am okay thank you all right because of the unorthodox way this has happened i'm going to take a second and open the floor to the public again is there anybody else who'd like to speak for or against this case if you even spoke earlier you're welcome to come back up we do have your testimony from previous but this way the um developer can hear it directly good idea hi i'm judy swim i'm still here and i'm still in mulberry um one the flow of drainage is on here if you want to see it from the my complex runs through the old golf course right in to where this property is okay if you're talking about turning it around to go to alfea trail you're going to have to turn this whole area and all everything south of my subdivision to go the other direction i don't know that y'all have enough money to redirect the drainage that way right now they're doing the water replacement pipes in our subdivision and they're having a nightmare of a time this is the flood plain it runs all the way up in the middle of that subdivision right there if you can see that i'm more than happy to give you all these hand it to the officer he'll pass it over to us it's also on the screen oh thank you ma'am you have any other comments the drainage extends beyond where this property is across the street is where the golf course begins we are laying locked in the middle of the old golf course the the drainage for the rest of imperial lakes all the way down to enclave which is four more subdivisions comes up through the same area and goes to the same spot so it's not just my subdivision it is the entire breadth and length of of imperial lakes that runs through that drainage area and flood zone again when they got permitted for this property through uh swift mud back in 2020 they applied in october of 2020 and got it approved january 29th of 2021 for six acre development on that piece and that was it that's all they were approved for and now you're taking 14 acres there's just no way you're going to put 200 units in there plus the apartments and condos there are only two stories in imperial lakes the other division uh sundance is not part of our subdivision it is completely separate and it is three two and three stories so this transition has nothing to do with our subdivision it only has to do with oh they're kind of next door they're not in imperial lakes thank you very much and thank you for sticking around appreciate your flexibility it's important i'm patricia robertson 1803 village court and once again mr mcveigh made a statement about our lift station that i believe is incorrect we do not have any agreement he has not proposed anything to help us with our lift station and this will impact us directly it's our infrastructure that sits on his south on the south edge of his property and my understanding is it's in a public utility easement that is shared by our community and his it's not just sitting on his property how would that have ever been approved you know it makes no sense we've been there for 40 years and um so i just like to object to what he said he also said that that emergency entrance would include staff emergency and um access to their lift station to service their lift station that's not an emergency entrance which i understand was approved by a waiver that is not a requirement and if you look if you actually look at that site it's a very narrow access that should be limited to emergency only because otherwise it becomes dangerous it affects our property and our infrastructure that is buried underground there for groundwater drainage thank you thank you anybody else like to speak for the bill gisa 4458 fairway oaks drive mulberry i'm about a mile south of there i appreciate the patience of the others because it actually gave me an opportunity to finish my duties as a veteran mentor get done in court and then reinforce my written comments that i've sent in two concerns both have to do with imperial lakes boulevard being our one way in one way out we appreciate that the county is working on reducing the flooding across our entrance exit to the south of this area but any construction here to the north impacting that overflow pond just south of public's and the potential to create flooding right where we need to get in and out on imperial lakes boulevard is a concern in the same way we do not need any additional traffic especially construction craft traffic that might attempt to use imperial lakes boulevard to get into this site when they do the construction all of that and all of the residents and usage needs to only be via shepherd road thank you for your time thank you sir and thank you for your service anybody else reference to this case with that we'll turn the floor back to the applicant thank you again and i appreciate everybody's concern and questions and all two things i want to clarify in case it was a misunderstanding the emergency exit is only for fire emergency police there's a gate that will be up beyond that emergency entrance the access to the lift station if you pull the site plan back i think it's before the gate so the staff i was referring to was utility staff the lift station is here so the only thing that the the the gates are here so they'll they'll be able to come in the emergency vehicles will have either a blaster or a code depending on what it is they'll come in they'll be able to do it all other times it's locked other than when utilities comes in to service let me rephrase that it's a private lift station when somebody comes in to service the lift station whatever company that is would come in maybe once a month once every two or three weeks to service a lift station that's the only traffic's there it's there in case there's an accident on shepherd road those gates can be open and the people can come in and out it won't create any additional traffic on imperial lakes boulevard the drainage they were talking about from the south and the golf course that comes through the golf course underneath imperial lakes drives and goes into a retention pond behind public's shopping center that then overflows and goes out the drainage ditch or drainage whatever that is going through their creek underneath shepherd road to to polly creek that will not be affected at all by our development that's kind of like hands-off okay now utilities no utilities drainage is putting in the new ponds and all up by the clubhouse that's going to take a majority of this what i understand majority of the surge water coming from the storms storing that so they can release it at a slower rate to help the downstream in any direction recuperate as the water's coming in we will be doing the same thing we're downstream of all that but we'll be doing the same thing in our development holding the water back down to a point that we can discharge once the storms pass and the water starts going down uh the question on the lift station according to the title policy and the boundary survey there is no easement for the lift station but it's been there for 40 years the owners will say you know we've been i have been talking to some lady attorney i don't remember her name that i thought she lived there uh does anybody know okay and all and we told her once we know what we're going to do we will cooperate and help everybody they can't afford to fix it it's too small of a development it's got to have more people and more money to fix that it's a whole new station so that's part of the negotiations we've been working on and that's probably been at least two years that's been going on so and also just to make things a little clearer the commercial parcel on the site plan this piece right here that is in the tsda the public shopping center is in the tsda we are in the uga adjacent to that they have bus stops they have transit they have all that within 700 feet of our property that's one of the reasons in talking with staff we're able to look at maybe reducing the site plan as far as parking goes in order to do kind of a layup crossover into the commercial uh i don't think the tsda can be expanded if that was in if that was expanded to include all the property other than just that commercial we wouldn't be here so it's kind of a kind of a cleanup i guess you would say on it but there again drainage will be handled sewer will be handled traffic will be routed strictly to shepherd road and uh and that also includes construction activities no construction activity there other than building the road okay all the construction will be brought in through shepherd road there won't be a construction entrance there and all so anyway i'll answer any questions anybody has from the board i've got a question go ahead mr hickman john uh so help me understand this lift station there is a lift station adjacent to your property that serves the imperial lakes no there's a lift station on our property that serves imperial lakes condos about 60 or 70 units and it's in bad repair it's going to cost several hundred thousand to fix it okay so what are uh so in your process what are you proposing you're going to do are you putting in a new lift station or put a new lift station in that replaces that one that's there and then take the old one out plumb them in and then right now we haven't agreed upon a shared cost because i mean i don't know what it's going to cost yet that's so there was no easement to that uh to that lift station no well how did it ever get there probably because they didn't know where the property are whoever installed it i don't know that was 40 years ago i can't answer that question okay yeah okay you know so so you're we're really going to fix that parcel part of the imperial lakes at one time it was part of so that part of the overall imperial lakes pd okay so that's probably where it that's probably where it came from and so what you're proposing would be an improvement upon what they have fix put in a new lift station fix their problems and try and save everybody some money from that standpoint okay i got you you said before that the excuse me go ahead yep are you done yes thank you go ahead thank you your new lift station their old lift station is going to dump into that no we're going to put in the new lift station get it operational then they will take the discharge into the old station reroute it and dump it into the new station and remove the old station because it's no good so you you'd be required to we have no but we have no agreement for that yet and no i'm i'm getting a lot of i'm gonna the public portion's closed with your statement is well and i think the disagreement is they want even though theirs needs to be replaced they're wanting the new developer to pay for everything you know and i don't know if that i can't control that that's you know that's something they got to negotiate but but you you couldn't just cut them off you'd no no that's the half to provide well no they can still use their old station and you know we can't make them move it because it's been there it's it's a public health safety and welfare issue we can't make them move it we're trying to say okay instead of replacing it put this one in dump into ours it'd be a heck of a lot cheaper to have one station instead of two and you ain't got to replace your station without getting the law i'm sure that's where the negotiation comes in to try and that's that's not a zoning that's not a zoning issue that's an economics based upon the development okay i'm sure there's some kind of maintained right away or some kind of claim where does the outfall flow where to the county where does it where on here across the property also your property yes there's a drainage easement across it for the pipe but there's not a sewer easement okay okay do you have accommodation for that on your yeah because we'll run a new line because it'll be a bigger line we'll go from the lift station which is right here it goes over there's a there's another lift station the county owns right there in that area so we'll there's a pipe coming across down and across to that and this existing lift station is only probably six feet to the edge of it on the property because it's not like a 50 foot encroachment it's the edge of the lift station but the total lift station is on the property is that where it discharges now yeah yeah we've got to get we've got to get the new and operational then we can pipe or plumb to the old station to the new station take the lift station out take the old force main out and then it'll all be new going to the to the major lift station it's a somatics it's more of an engineering uh question you made a couple statements that again i'm just not tracking with i guess maybe mike's not either but your discharge of the of the wetlands that comes through the property over here and you said goes under shepherd road yeah there's two big box coffers there we're not touching we can't touch any of that the most we could do maybe is and clean it out so it'll flow better and that's with a maintenance permit we can't do anything without a maintenance permit so good anybody else have any questions for the applicant at this point in time all right i'm gonna take the item bring it back to the board for discussion and or a motion thank you all one of the one of the things i just want to add is we're asking to improve approve this from i think approximately 168 units to 200 unit density with this plan development and the bonus points as associated uh there is seems to me some questions about the parking the two units for parking are we providing that approval if we approve this pd i think we are correct we're not approving that we're simply saying that we're okay with it but they're going to still have to submit a waiver to the parking standards via the alternative parking strategy and he analyzes what you're doing the level two correct okay um i'm just gonna say that to me this feels like the epitome of ram jam and cram as many as we can get in and you know we'll deal with things later um and the arguments from staff that if this were in a different place it could be 15 means nothing to me it's not in a different place it is where it is and i don't see the need to just push push it for more that's just kind of my two cents right so i mean we are approving or looking to approve a higher density and so that is a consideration with that there are no other comments i'll make a motion to approve ldpd 2024-2 second robert velgeron i'm against the motion david dalton i am for the motion mike kickman tommy addison mike schmidt against the motion angel sims against the motion and adam bass against the motion mr chair it fails to pass five to two okay we're not done we need to take another motion to deny it you haven't done taken any action yet thank you do we have any motion another motion so motion we have a second second and this is a motion to deny just to be clear robert velgeron for the motion david dalton i'm against the motion mike kickman tommy addison for the motion mike schmidt for the motion angel sims for the motion and adam bass for the motion mr chair it passes five to two thank you sir all right next case and this last two items are staff items i believe that what you said i believe or last sorry sorry last three the third to last case is ldcpal 2024-1 it's a future land use map amendment from residential low x and office center x to preservation x on 6.88 acres it's in the polk city special protection area of the green swamp resource protection district the property is north of silk room loop road east of silk room loop road north west of grady mock road north of the city of lakeland in section 18 township 27 range 24 property is owned by polk county and land development is the applicant the case will go to the planning i'm sorry the board of county commissioners for transmittal on august 6th and adoption on december 17th in terms of the advertisement 18 mailers were sent to area property owners on may 7th one sign posted on may 17th a legal ad published in lakeland ledger on may 22nd and no response was received and aliyah englema is the case planner the floor is yours good afternoon aliyah englema with land development presenting ldc pal 2024-1 the socram loop road preservation case this is a county initiated large-scale comprehensive plan map amendment to change the future lane use designation from residential low and office center to preservation on 6.88 acres the subject site is located north of socrime root loop road east of socrime loop road northwest of grady mock road north of the city of lakeland in section 18 township 27 range 24. so this property is a retention pond that is owned by the county this site is part of the hidden lake outfall project and this is kind of what we're proposing the site will go from residential low and office center x to preservation x here is a photo of the site and the proposed request is consistent with the comprehensive plan in the land development code and i'll stand for questions any questions for staff no being none i'll take the item anybody here in the public to speak for against this item seeing none we'll close the public portion and we'll bring it back to the board for a motion or discussion mr chair i move to approve ldc pal 2024-1 second roll call robert beltron for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike kickman or the motion tommy addison mike schmidt motion angel sims with the motion and adam bass or the motion mr chair passes unanimously thank you sir all right next up is ldct 2024-13 this is an ldc text amendment to amend chapter five for the green swamp area of critical state concern to increase the density transferred out of the wetlands in the arrx district from one unit per 20 acres to one unit per 10 acres and to specify the measurement of density in the agricultural residential rural and conservation core future land use designations address wetland density transfer and correct the vesting date in the green swamp area of critical state concern on may 22nd a legal ad was published in the ledger of no response and eric peterson it will explain you have seen this before but you saw the comprehensive plan amendment uh we separated the two originally normally we would bring both together because they're almost verbatim uh we were looking to do a few more uh corrections and changes in the green swamp portion of the ldc that were outside the the purview of the the comprehensive plan but we've scaled back and we're going to go ahead uh some of those uh need to be vetted before the board and we'll take that through as a separate amendment so this amendment has been scaled back to exactly what was approved with the comprehensive plan amendment that's going before the board on june 18th so this kind of partners with it uh just to reiterate it has to do with how we measure the 10 acre minimum lot size and the 20 acre minimum lot size that you have in the arrx portion of the green swamp and the core portion of the green swamp not all sections are the same size and a lot of uh subdivisions are based on a portion of that section not necessarily on measuring the exact line especially when you're dealing with a 10 acre site or a 20 acre site that goes through wetlands and all kinds of swamp and things of that nature so a lot of subdivisions in the past and present have been done just virtue of legal description and if you base it on a section that's not completely the standard 640 acres is if it's slightly less well in reality once surveyed that 10 acre lot you thought might be 9.96 might be 9.92 and then the letter of law says nope that's an illegal lot so this is kind of to give such large lots and such large acreage a little leeway when we measure it so it allows for the section size to be taken into account uh it also allows for us to consider the center line of the road which is the way we do it in the rest of the county with these larger lots we allow them to account to the center line of the collector roads and the and the local roads not the arterials you don't get to count to the center line of 27 or state road 33 but or i4 but you do get to count to the middle middle of say dean still road or or tom cow road or something like that to give you some background polk county is not the only one who has the green swamp however the most stringent regulations on development in the green swamp are in polk county and as you can see probably why is that almost uh half of the the green swamp area is in polk the next largest share is in lake sumter hernando and pasco barely have uh much to speak of so they don't have a lot of regulations with regards to that so you know when we pulled what the other counties were doing uh you know they they didn't have much it was lake county and us have the pretty much the most stringent the state looks differently at the cities when the cities annex into the green swamp the standards change they don't have to abide by the same standards uh and their standards are much less so those things uh often change so in comparison one of the areas in which this uh amendment uh addressed was how we credit we don't allow development in the green swamp in a wetland that's wetlands are off limits for any development however you get credit for that acreage to apply to the upland in the residential suburban it's one per five four wetlands it's one per five for uplands uh in in the arr anywhere else in the county it's one per five in the wetlands one per five in the uplands in the core of course it's one per 20 in the wetlands one per 20 in the in the uh uplands but in the arr x portion of the green swamp even though your uplands are one per 10 your wetlands are one per 20. so you kind of this district gets penalized for having wetlands and you would think well does that really matter well yes it does if you look at this blue area this is the wetlands in the green swamp i mean it is named the green swamp so most of it's wet and when you're you know creating a 10 acre parcel out of a larger piece it's it's almost a calculus equation to figure out in your distribution of wetlands to uplands what the minimum lot size is going to be because if you got a little bit of wetlands on it that's one per 20 the uplands are one per 10 so really the minimum lot size doesn't become 10 acres it might become 15 it might become 12 you know you don't know a lot of our wetlands we're looking at generalized information like you're seeing here they have to be delineated at some point on the ground somebody has to come down and ground truth the actual wetlands and and that estimation can can vary from what we have on the on the screen so there's a lot of ambiguity with that and so you know not only is it a penalty it's very difficult to implement so we are you know in this amendment we are proposing that it's one per ten one per ten uh for both wetlands and and uplands we analyzed every piece of property in accumulation if we if you just kicked everybody out of their their land and and put it all into one big parcel uh in the arrx this could amount to a 13 percent increase in development that that that assumes a lot that assumes that there's roads going everywhere and that every piece could be subdivided in reality it's probably going to affect just a handful of people uh it's it's not going to amount to a wide scale uh development in the green swamp it's it's going to help out a few people who've got 60 acres and want to make six lots you know so it keeps them from having 60 acres and that's really only worth five five lots so it really just might add a lot here it might add a lot there one more dwelling unit it's not an overall uh large amount of of uh effect but it does mean something to somebody out there and that's why we're we're doing this amendment we're making it consistent with the rest of the plan and the code for the non-green swamp areas we're following up with a comp plan amendment that we've already requested of you and you've granted approval and we recommend an approval of this ldc text change it doesn't include anything more than a mirror image of what's going on with ldc pal 2023-12 which was approved back in march for hearing before the board with that i'll stand for questions any questions for eric seeing none uh anyone here in the public to speak for or against tom palmer 1805 26th street northwest winter haven uh chair of ancient island sierra i have not been sworn you raise your hand you swear or affirm that testimony and evidence you provide today is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth i do yeah i had a i had a couple of observations number one the idea of using sumter pasco and hernando county the reason they don't have regulations is because they aren't in the area of critical state concern i mean it's an important difference that's the reason the regulations are tougher in polka lake county because that was part of the settlement of the state during the comp plan wars back in the late 80s early 90s um contrary to what it says there this is a problem with cutting and pasting uh the alify river does not begin the green swamp it begins in north problem begins in mulberry and the south problem begins in hookers prairie down by bradley but that was in the legislation it was just an error so just for the record make sure that correct you know i don't know whether this will have a lot of effect or not there's no maps depicting where these lots are these you know thousand you know thousand acre thousand lots in the ag and the 153 in the uh core i i just don't know so it's hard to hard to we just had to kind of take a staff's word for it so i hope it works out well but that is kind of a weakness in the analysis thank you thank you sir any other comments or questions on this item from the public with that i'll close the public portion and we'll go back to eric we uh you know stand with our recommendation we don't think it'll have a substantial impact on on development of the green swamp but it will help some individual uh property owners you know get a little bit more land for or get a little bit more use out of their land so go ahead mr so with that 10 and 20 that it currently is and they would have to uh do a wetlands delineation and define how much is is exactly so this would avoid having to go through that process uh you could just tell them when they call it's like okay here you got 10 per acre total of your acreage and and to and tom to your comments there your concern is that you don't want to see more density in those in the green swamp area is that yeah go ahead since he's asked you a question directly uh tom pommer the record mr hickman i we just don't know because no there's no map that shows us where all these lots are it may be as they said there's a lot of it's just a nothing burger i mean a lot of it's in all these analysis could be part of hello to you wildlife management area or something else and i don't see this dearth of people coming forward and all of a sudden asking for more sites in those areas there well i mean anywhere we can simplify the process the bureaucratic process it to me just makes life better for people i understand just since there's no map we don't know what we're talking about right that was that was my point i got no i think you're you know even though there's not this has a long history as you know of the county keep pointing to lower the standards this goes back to the 80s right it goes back a long time okay if you could stay there for a second oh yeah go ahead i just have a statement to make and since this is uh um you know i have a extensive background in working in polk county environmental lands and um you know i i i hear what you're saying i think it makes it it would make it easier to get six out of 60 instead of five out of 60. i don't see how we're impacting anybody's rights today as as it stands they bought into the green swamp protection area they know what they have so this would impact people moving forward there is a reason why those that state designation is there the green swamp is a critical piece to the health of this state and that's why there are those restrictions in place and as you mentioned already it is a swamp that's the reason why we're trying to protect the wetlands there as a state and this has impacts outside of polk county that's really i think one of the big reasons for the state putting such an emphasis on protecting this area i'll further that with we already have a lot of problems in the green swamp as a county as it is with um i'm sorry blanking on the name of the uh the river ranch style thing up there but i don't think in my personal opinion um that this benefits the county i think this would this would make it easier to develop and i don't think that's in the best interest of the county at this point in time so that's where i stand with it appreciate your comments yes sir eric i got a quick question for you i'm all for simplifying things and making things easier why why are we switching from one in ten to one and from one in twenty to one in ten let me ask you that question what what i mean i know that you're saying the math is more difficult but is it really that that difficult having two different ratios for upland versus that that's the only district in which there are two ratios was that one district everywhere every other district we have in in the county the the wetland to upland right the credit for transferring out of the uh the wetlands is the same as the district you're in until you get to the urban areas you're when you get to rl rm rh you're not getting 15 units to the acre it caps out at one one to one but in the with these large uh acreages um one per five one per ten it that just that district is is the one that has to meet the one per 20 instead of just being one per 10 like it would normally yeah that you had mentioned that lake county also has some restrictive yes yeah they do one pretend or one per 20 for wetland credits yeah they uh they theirs is still at one per 20 uh in this this is this analysis they're there they would be at one per 20 um haven't discussed this with with the neighboring county but we were the ones most restrictive when uh say lake alfred annexed a huge chunk of the green swamp a year ago there that went out the door uh all those controls i don't know what developments plan for there but it's in lake alfred is going by lake alfred's code and and with regards and uh they're they're they don't really have as stringent of of a green swamp critical area management plan that we do so uh mr i make more i mean so that impact just the annexation of either lakeland polk city auburndale that changes the rules a lot more substantially than than this uh if we're looking to simplify why not protect and simplify and instead of dropping the 20 to 10 bring the 10 to 20. oh that that would be a uh quite a a difficult thing to uh do politically a lot of these folks over here have been told one pretend and and they consider that about the value of their property and if we were to yeah down zone i mean that would border on a takings property so you it that would simplify it sure but but you'd have a lot of upset people i can assure you eric we're not changing anything in the core no we're not changing anything other than other than how we measurement to the strict measurement where the where the lot line begins and ends and and understand with most of this development the the original lots went to the center line of the roads they can't the lots were created before the road existed the lot owners dedicated the right of way to the county to have a road through there so bass yeah i've got one last comment and then i'll i'll shut up um no i just uh a couple other things that came to mind there i don't want to take anybody's property rights right that firm believer in personal property rights but again i just don't think there's a need to make this um to your point it impacts so few people whereas the protection of this area impacts the entire state um and one last thing you know at a state level you know we have declared the florida wildlife corridor as critical to the success of the state you know our state's leadership has made that and has designated this geographic area and the green swamp is one of the core pieces of that footprint and so in my opinion we're developing like crazy all over the place that's good we're growing our economy's growing i think we can carve this piece off and maybe not make it uh easier that's just my opinion can can we not simplify the math without changing to 20 i mean without changing that it is i don't see why we're just dead set on on changing that i in the big scheme of things that it won't amount to a you know any significant amount of development of the green swamp it you know it's more you know you'll see this happen maybe once or twice a section throughout there in some some landowner divvying up some property or selling off their their property for for a very low intensity level of development um so you know the way the county saw it it it it's very hard to say to the public oh your density is one pretend and then they come in to subdivide and they say oh oops you have wetlands it's not one pretend you know you you did it wrong a lot of this land subdivision that occurs here are our single lot splits right we don't do plaiting yeah it's it's a guy with 20 acres splitting it in half yeah i mean you know most of these where the burden falls is on the on the on the little guy you know he has a few acres and he wants to break some off for his son you know a family member and he's got to go through a process you know of an expensive process of defining the wetlands to determine if he even can do that now i think it behooves the county to say here it is you know this is pretty simple you can or can't do it you know based on uh some formula that doesn't take you know a lot of money and a lot of time to go through a process and and we see it all the time we see people come to us you know that have 20 acres or something and they want to you know they want to be able to build on it so you're a smart guy you can do the math i can vouch for the rest of my complicated math any other questions some of them were english majors i'm assuming i'm assuming that eric's not going to argue with himself yeah all right he is an fsu graduate so he might that brings the math back i know ouch all right any uh other discussions entertain a motion i move to approve second we have a motion in a second get a roll call over beltron i'm for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman tommy addison mike schmidt against the motion angel sims against the motion and ambassador against the motion mr chair passes four three thank you all right all right last item last but not least ldct 2024 7 has an ldc text amendment adding chapter 2 section 212 plumbing fixtures and appliances to introduce water sense and energy star requirements amending chapter 2 section 226 irrigation systems to implement uniform procedures to promote water conservation through more efficient landscapes and irrigation systems amending 720 e water efficient landscaping amending chapter 10 definitions to add modify and delete definitions for consisting with the this amendment and the florida water star program on may 22nd an ad was published in the ledger staff has received no responses and eric is up again well mr schmidt kind of gave away my thunder here uh earlier uh earlier and i i when when he read it out it says wow i kind of did i write that that harshly but you know that this is a serious situation but it's a little more long term uh in the short term it it's not immediate that we got to leave here and and turn up make sure all our faucets aren't aren't running and start you know did it out or how many times we flush the toilet to our family um but it is going to be a different world in upcoming years so this this ordinance is kind of preparing setting the stage for what's to come in the future and and for future homeowners uh that they get a home that is more water efficient uh because you know their cost will will likely go up significantly in the future uh a lot uh most of the builders today i i brought this before the polk county builders association most of them are implementing it now it's more of a marketing tool uh it's a big seller for homes that that it's water uh and energy star efficient uh we're adding a new section uh dealing with just appliances and fixtures we're um we're expanding our uh lot by lot irrigation uh plan requirements our non-residential development and multi-family development and and common area development section in chapter seven is only being tweaked a little bit uh about 10 years ago maybe 15 we we adopted what was called water wise which was a program by the the water management district and we put that into that section of the code so this is really bringing in the uh individual home the individual lot into that equation of course you know of the polk uh regional water cooperative and what all is happening in the future in order for us to uh expand grow as a community add more homes we're going to need more water it's evident we have to create some alternative supplies the floridan aquifer is uh you know reaching its its capacity uh so if we go to the lower floridan aquifer which is this program which is what we're going to be doing in the county it's going to be more costly we also have an agreement with toho and and the osceola county to get some water from cypress lake uh in osceola county into our system uh the polk water cooperative is is multi uh jurisdictional it's most of our cities uh in in in the county as a whole so the third option is conservation just using less water and that's what this is promoting and and that costs a lot less than these new water supplies are going to cost so uh that's that's the sole purpose uh the water star program has been going on for quite a while they have a implement a way in which we can implement this this ordinance doesn't put a burden on existing homeowners this ordinance doesn't put um you know any more challenges to the building community other than their own certification the each uh contractor will once this ordinance goes into effect in december will be responsible for certifying that they have met the water star requirements uh you know so it's a self-certification process the same with the fixtures those contractors will only be responsible for the fixtures they install a lot of homes don't come with a refrigerator might not come with a washer stuff like that that's on the homeowner and and that's not covered by this ordinance but the appliances and things are the ones that come with the house uh the the standards are are very similar to what's in chapter seven for individual for for larger projects on individual uh lot development no more than a half acre uh no more than 60 percent can be high high volume irrigation the biggest thing is the automatic control all irrigation permits from the point of this implementation on are going to be required to have an automated system uh that that has been proven to use less water uh than you know the turning on the pipe and turning off anything under an eighth of an acre is exempt that's the the beauty of some of our more compact development now i understand not everybody agrees with the the smaller lot sizes and stuff like that but it leaves less to irrigate less water usage so there's a plus side to smaller more compact development uh you know simple uh solutions like no more no more of these watering these narrow strips of of grass to design the um either the development or the the uh irrigation system so that you use some other method or you have some other type of planning when that grass strip gets under four feet uh spacing uh the uh how you design the irrigation system comes into play uh so as you're not watering sidewalk and and concrete so much because that's not going to grow sizing the emitters to the size of the grass there's a big difference between types of grass and how high they grow and you don't want emitters that don't pop up high enough to irrigate and you don't want them the other way either spacing from the buildings uh but more there are a lot of details in it but there's the biggest thing is we're giving the all the builders a good six months to to implement these changes before it goes into effect so we're you know we're not just launching it on them right now uh there will be a good amount of campaign and uh media campaign and notifications we've surveyed other counties uh many of the more mature counties are implementing the water star already um we would be kind of in the forefront of where we should be uh i will mention that uh 14 of our 17 municipalities are either adopt have adopted or are considering adoption of a water star uh compliant ordinance as well um to go along with with uh other uh an actual private system is implementing them so this is an amendment that will cost money you know it'll cost the homeowner on the front end a little bit more these appliances these fixtures do cost a's uh somewhat more however in the long term on their water bills on their power bills they get it paid back quickly uh so that that's the the essence of our analysis and uh but we had to do that for the new chapter one 25.66 uh amendments uh that were approved by the legislature this year so in in summary saves water saves energy uh it'll help maintain our water supplies be be able enable us to stretch that cheap water a lot further and um it'll prepare homeowners for what they face in the future with that i'll stand for questions any questions for staff just uh i'm glad my irrigation system's already in here i have 56 turf heads i have a five horsepower submersible pump and 85 foot screen well puts out about 150 gallons a minute well if you if you started after the first year you wouldn't be able to do any of that already in too late now just uh just a couple comments um uh you paint a rosy picture of it i'm not sure the builders are all that ecstatic about that you know uh they didn't throw anything at me well that's true we didn't like unlike the past they didn't throw anything at me at the meeting so you know this has been around since i know going back to 2010 we you know implemented the water star program on on some showcase homes that we were doing and i can tell you it's a nightmare to to put this i mean everything related to the appliances and inside the home is they're all great ideas and i fully support that the irrigation is a nightmare one uh to put it in place i mean you're adding probably 1500 cost to uh you know to the homes that we build to implement it uh and you know to maintain them it they just the homeowners are not sophisticated or not don't care enough to maintain them properly so they really don't work all that well uh but we're you know the builders are doing it in the cities the cities have required it already in the county you know we do what we have to do to build but i mean if the county ever really wanted to get serious they would just eliminate irrigation altogether and people would find alternatives to you know to plant and water by hand or whatever they want to do but but uh it's really just adding this huge layer bureaucracy and and uh you know the results i mean it may improve but but there's better ways to do it and ultimately if we really have a water shortage we're going to start looking at you know i mean just get rid of irrigation or just require the hay aside instead of saint augustine where you don't have to water it when it's dry out like it is you know but but those would you know probably be a big political uphill climb actually might get some misnomer about saint augustine saint augustine actually takes less water than bahia does if you install it correctly most people don't i know you come over my yard and you tell me how i can stop watering it because the reason the reason i say that is because most people don't prepare the ground before they lay their sod no it should saturate the ground so that and basically they train the grass not to develop a good root system right i can take you down to little gasperel island to saint augustine yards that never had any water put on them some of the worst soil you can imagine and got some of the prettiest saint augustine that you could have any questions for staff with that we'll open the floor we have some expertise to the public yeah from the district i see we have some patient that public servants there tell you some more benefits to the the water wise cindy always a pleasure to have you very pleasant thank you cindy rodriguez government affairs manager for southwest florida water management district and clearly i drew the short straw because my colleague is sitting uh in the audience watching me i do want to thank you for taking this under consideration 14 municipalities in polk have already implemented it we are already seeing significant reductions in withdrawals and realizing annual savings that are very beneficial and very encouraging the history of conservation is that we've had to try to change behaviors with people modifying behaviors we have learned unless it somehow affects their wallet is difficult to do you know we can teach kids and young grades and they can teach their parents but it still is a problem and what we've tried to do at the water management district and this is certainly a priority for our governing board and our administration is to find a way to construct new homes and implement landscape and irrigation designs that do much of the work for the people that will live in the house and that behavior modification isn't necessarily the only recourse this is working polk county has implemented it widely because of the situation we find ourselves in there's no question that there are limitations on the upper florida aquifer there is no question that alternative water supplies are going to be more costly there is no question that those days are coming all we can do is with conservation is to try to elongate that period of time ease the cost on rate payers uh in the process and protect the resource and i'm here to tell you that without water we don't have future development or future growth so everything we can do and it takes all the tools it doesn't take just one component it takes everything in small measure to get to where we need to be ultimately and to continue have the quality of life that i as a native floridian sixth generation here folks um enjoy and and believe that we all ought to have in polk county not just those that are newcomers but those of us that have been around for just a minute um so i i would encourage your favorable support of this it goes to the commission next we've been in discussion about this for a couple years it's been a while and i'm just grateful to see it finally come to fruition here in the county so we can wrap this thing up with a big bow and not have enclaves of cities doing what we should be doing across the board thank you so much thank you cindy go ahead mr palmer uh tom palmer 1805 26th street northwest winter haven uh chair of ain't john yeah i'm kind of with mike on some of this stuff the the idea is you're going to make someone do something but you're going to certify yourself and nobody inspects it i mean that makes a joke out of it but i mean but the trend is like and mike said 40 foot lots you're probably not having much lawn to irrigate anyway and i think the education there's other alternatives like i have a rain barrel of course it hasn't rained in a while but uh but yeah there's ways to do it and i i don't irrigate my lawn i don't hear i establish new plants and that's it they're on i pick plants that'll survive and they're on their own that's what it's just it's educational but this but the appliance thing is probably a good thing i miss is it's better than what we were so thank you all right any other comments or questions go ahead i don't want to be misquoted and i don't want to be misunderstood um i'm totally in favor of water conservation okay i want to say that out loud for the record but i don't want us to pass this and then pat ourselves on the back that we've solved the problem because this is a drop in the bucket if you'll excuse my pun this isn't even close to what we really need to be doing and addressing um ask swift mud yourself i have okay um i think we need to get way more aggressive and if anybody in the government of polk county should be moving to address this i think it is the planning commission like i said that's my only problem with passing this is that we'll just think we've accomplished what we need to do and we're not even close to that and these problems are real swift bud will tell you that this he did not overstate it as i was reading what what was there and we need to get really serious i don't want us turning into california okay because that's where we're headed if we don't jump on it we are the large fastest growing county in the united states and we're using our resources up way faster than they're being replenished now what's the radical solution to it do we go across the hall over there and put a moratorium on building permits mike for a couple of years until we replenish the resources of the aquifer i mean the the point is we got to get more down there than we're pulling out and tampa's not cooperating orlando's not cooperating and they're sucking the water out from under our feet and i'm going on the record to say all this okay um we need to do some drastic things and that will be up to ultimately i believe the county commission will i vote for this yes i'm going to vote for it but this isn't all we've got to address okay let's just resign ourselves to that not not deceive ourselves that this is all we need to do for this we need to go way beyond this okay thank you sir any other comments from the board i have a couple words i'd like to add but anything else before one uh piggybacking off of mike i agree uh i think we do need to be doing more and i think it's i find it kind of um ironic that we just went from the green swamp to talking about this so i think conservation is a key component to our water quality and keeping that in mind as a board or as a commission when opportunities arrives to protect the resource that that should be a focus so just leave it at that well i obviously have a lot of history with all these issues and items i was so had the honor of serving the executive director of swift mud for five five plus years or so um and so i will tell you this is a fantastic program overall uh 50 of all our water use is outdoor irrigation so no does it solve the issue no but it's another tool in the toolbox that cindy regarded eric i'm going to disagree with your presentation where you said this is option three this is really option one this is the cheapest way of trying to save water but we do have to do the other options as well um and so this really is an important item i think we're moving in the right direction it's been long coming i know it's been worked on for many many years um and it is all what all the other municipalities are doing in cities in our in our county so i do support this 100 i don't think our work is done and and there is a lot more coordination happening between the water management districts for the orlando area and the tampa area and the regional authorities and where the county's gone with the cooperative has been a huge step in the right direction so we can monitor water on a regional basis and plan for water on a regional basis whether it's the tampa bay water area or the peace peace river system or the with the coochie system or the stopper system over in the east of the osceola county stuff or in polk county itself looking at water in a regional perspective is extremely important doing this individually helps conservation and move the needle a little bit but there's always more to do when it comes to water so i appreciate all the comments i just have a question just for my own a lot of really smart people here about this i've started growing my own food a lot on my residential lot and um i'm seeing maybe i'm seeing it because i'm looking for it but it seems to be a trend is there any conversation or where does that play into you know how much water i can put on this kind of food that i'm growing or that kind of food that i'm growing on my residential bot does that have anything to do with anything would you like to talk a little bit about that that is definitely a trend you know it's definitely a trend cindy rodriguez once again um i don't believe that's part of this ordinance i don't think it's addressed in this ordinance but i will tell you that from the water management district's perspective we have year-round watering restrictions that allow you to water your lawn twice a week on a regular basis unless you're in a municipality where they've restricted it further and we do have two in polk that have restricted it to one day a week however those year-round watering restrictions do not limit how much you can hand water anything that you have in your lawn so if you want to stay out there in the 95 degree heat and hand water the veggies i applaud you and i encourage you to do that so you can have nice fresh cucumbers and tomatoes to eat but it would require that if it's not on your two days a week and it's part of your irrigation system that you turn to the hand watering manual method and i have a rain barrel at home and they work great yeah specifically 226d exempts vegetable gardens and uh fruits and not trees that's that's uh that discussion's closed and it's one o'clock if we have a motion it amazes me mr beltran yes if if some of you may some of you i know weren't here mr bass wasn't here for sure last 8 january eric to haven of the polk water cooperative made a presentation to the planning commission and i don't know who was i don't remember who was here and who was was not but i still have that presentation and i can forward it to all the members here today we'll give you some some information that might confuse you some information that might be helpful because you're seeing it out of context of the presentation perhaps but so the water cooperative is trying to deal with the long-term needs of the water for the state or for the pope county still amazes me that people complain about the cost of water and then they'll be out there washing their vehicle and not even have a spray nozzle on the end of it all right so with that i think we're looking for a motion move to approve ldct 2024-7 we have a motion in a second robert beltran for the motion david dalton i'm for the motion mike hickman tommy addison mike schmidt or the motion angel sims with the motion and adam bass mr chair passes unanimously thank you i'd like to make a motion to adjourn second second all right perfect we have a motion in a second all in agreement all right meeting adjourned