City Council - Jun 06, 2024

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1 and Council Vice Chair, Copley Gerdes, District 2, Brandi Gabbard, District 3, Ed Montenari, District 4, Lissette Kanowitz, District 5 and Council Chair, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, John Muhammad, and District 8, Richie Floyd. We will call to order for the June 6, 2024 City Council Meeting, beginning with the roll call. Driscoll, Muhammad, here, Floyd, here, Curtis, here, Gabbard, here, Montenari, here, Kanowitz, here, Vic Sanders, here. Thank you. We will this morning be blessed with our invocation by Pastor Paul Gibson from the Trinity Lutheran Church, and that will be followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Will everyone please join me in standing? God of justice, of love, and of joy, you have created a universe that teems with delight. Stars, nebulae, singularities, an unfathomable emptiness to cross and to explore, and in the midst of it, a fragile planet for us to call home, on which there are flowers of every shape and color imaginable, creatures great and small, and those as delightful as the platypus and the aardvark, a diverse human community, in which gender and sexual orientation exist on a spectrum far more nuanced than we once imagined. At a time when our society is fractured into walled camps that allow for no conversation or compromise, no seeking or working for a common good help us to cultivate a sense of personal pride in how we were created by you and shaped by our family, our culture, and our life experiences. A pride that grants honor and respect to those who do not think as we do, who do not look like us, act like us, or love as we love. A pride that allows differences of opinion but rejects the degradation of persons. Remind us of our common bonds and the common ground on which we live and move. Set us free from the power of shame and fear. Help us to make a safe haven for the misunderstood, a home for everyone in our community, and a place of opportunity for all. Bless this city during our celebrations of pride. Keep our citizens and our visitors safe from physical and verbal violence. Inspire law enforcement to be vigilant and to know how to diffuse a situation of potential danger. Give us all opportunities to draw closer together and to seek deeper understanding. Bless the deliberations of today's meeting. Bless us in our listening and in our speaking of the truth. Bless the work of our city government and its efforts to create safe and affordable places to live, a place of prosperity, of peace, of possibilities, and of pride. We ask this in the name of all that is holy and just and true. Amen. A pledge of dedication for God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Pastor Gibson, for that inspiration. Thank you so much. Council members, we have an agenda before us with the additions of items D7 and F6. I'll entertain a motion for approval with those additions. Move approval. Second. Now that we have a motion and it's been seconded, Mr. Clerk, can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, please cast your vote. Now that all present council members have voted, can you please tally and announce their votes? Madam Chair, a motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Council members, we have a consent agenda before us today. Do we have any cards or public comment? Do not? We do not. Do not. Okay, not having any requests to speak, can you please open... Move approval. I need an approval. Second. Okay, now there's been motion and seconded. Can you please open the machine for voting? Council members, cast your votes. Everyone is voting. Can you please tally and announce their votes? Madam Chair, a motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you. Now we will have open form. Mr. Clerk, can you please read the rules? If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasi-judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with a clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open form sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed under open form must be limited to issues related to the City of St. Petersburg government. If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once, during the open form or when the item comes up on the agenda. In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted. If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the hand-raised feature button on the Zoom app or enter star 9 on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed. When it is your turn to speak, you will be unmuted and asked to state your name and address. At the conclusion of your comments, or when you have reached the three-minute time limit, you will be muted. All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item. Regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including the three-minute time limit on comments. The requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rules of decorum. If live public comments is disrupted by the violations of the rules of decorum, the Chair is authorized to accept public comments by alternate means, including by e-mail only. And, Madam Chair, we do have several speakers. The first two speakers is Madeline Anderson and Will Conroy. Please step up to either podium, state your name and address. You'll have three minutes to address council. Good morning. My name is Madeline Anderson, and my address is 411 First Avenue North, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701. Today, I'm here to speak to you on my support of the gas plant redevelopment. I speak from a variety of lenses today. I come as a mother of almost three. I come as a business owner in St. Petersburg. I come as a chamber member. I come as a second-generation St. Peter's burger. And I want you to hear my voice in that I'm in support of this. I feel like it would be a huge mistake for our city to take a step backwards after all of the progress and hard work that you all and the rest of the community has put forward to making this project possible. From a business standpoint, the economic development opportunities presented in the proposed plan are life-changing for this city. The opportunities that we have to draw people in from all over the world, get recognition for who we are in this wonderful city, I think we would be remiss to start that process over again. As a mother, I was a young girl when the Rays first came here, and I'm the real first generation of people to grow up and now have offspring that are a second generation of Rays fans. So we're on our way to that Yankees-Red Sox longevity, but it's going to take a minute. So I don't want to lose them, and I want my children to be able to grow up in the environment that I did and having a major league baseball team in our city. Despite my outward appearance that may indicate a lack of indigenous culture, the aspects of the inclusivity of the plan that have been proposed to me are incredibly important. The affordable housing piece is huge. The relocation of the African-American Museum is absolutely incredible. I want that in our city. It should be in the middle of our city. It should be forecasted. It should be broadcasted. And I think that we would be silly not to be able to use that platform to help advertise some of those aspects of the city that need significant growth. Other than that, I just think it's an awesome plan. So I don't really have a whole lot more else to say besides that. So I just wanted to voice my support for the Rays and the Heinz development. And my company, my family, as a citizen, we're here to stay. So thank you. Thank you, counsel, for agreeing to hear all of our comments today. But I'm here also. Please, we can use it. Oh, I'm sorry. Yep, sorry. Will Conroy, 158 Ramon Way Northeast. You'd think after all these times I'd have that done. But I'm here to ask for your unequivocal support for the redevelopment of the historic gas plant through the Rays-Hines partnership. My family has also been here for a long time. My children are fifth-generation St. Petersburg residents. And this has been a long time coming. When I moved here in 2007 after leaving Wharton, where I actually studied sports business finance, there were conversations about the waterfront. And it's taken that 17 years to get us to a point where you all will have documents to vote on and the county will have documents to vote on. And in particular here today, I'd like to address the feelings of the business community, many of whom believe so strongly that this should pass. They're surprised it's not an unequivocal 8-0. And so sometimes those voices don't get heard in Facebook groups. They don't get heard in community meetings. And I want to make sure that you guys do understand and appreciate that there are many in the business community who believe that this is the right thing for us to do at this moment. These are huge decisions, and, you know, many of you I've had one-on-one conversations with about, and I don't for a second underestimate the impact, the gravity of these generational decisions that you all have before you. But I also believe and know that this is a generational moment for our city, and these kind of opportunities, as evidenced by the fact that this conversation has been almost a decade in the making, don't come around very often. So I urge you to support the Heinz-Rainz partnership for the redevelopment of the gas plant, and I appreciate all your service. And I also just want to say congratulations and thanks for all the proclamations and the people that are being celebrated today. This is a great day for a city, so thank you. Madam Chair, the next two speakers is Eric Eisenberg and Dave Morgenthau. Please step up to either podium, state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address Council. Good morning, honorable members of the St. Pete Council. My name is Eric Eisenberg. My address is 147th Avenue South, University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. I serve as Senior Vice President of University Community Partnerships at the University of South Florida, and I am here representing USF President Rhea Law and USF St. Petersburg Regional Chancellor Christian Hardigree. I also am here to offer the university support for the Raise-Hindz Partnership proposal for the redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District. We are very aware of the extended public discussions over the proposal, and we believe that this extensive review of such a transformative project is warranted and beneficial for the St. Pete community and the larger Tampa Bay region. The fact that this is such an important project requires us all to maximize the benefits for all community members, not just a subset. I'm here to say that the University of South Florida can play a crucial role in the success of this project. Our core strengths, of course, lie in education, workforce development, and research. The proximity of the Historic Gas Plant District to USF St. Pete Campus, less than a mile, presents innumerable opportunities for synergy between our faculty, our staff, and our students. We are imagining internships, service learning projects, professional development opportunities, academic programs, artistic performances, health care, clinical applications, research collaborations, and our presence on the site, less than a mile from the campus, could include high-fidelity nursing laboratories, urban ecology centers, workforce development initiatives, and we're just getting started in thinking about what could be possible. There are a few things, like the prior speaker has said, that we like in particular about the Raise-Hinds proposal. We recognize that attainable and workforce housing is absolutely critical, possibly the most critical thing facing the future of our city and our region, and we are very pleased to see it included and emphasized. We appreciate the project's focus on retaining young talent during construction, and lastly, we fully support the elements that honor the historic nature of the area. Creating a home for the African American Museum is a testament to this commitment. In closing, just want to say that USF is supportive and a highly motivated partner, and we will, if passed, we will make the Raise-Hinds Development Project something to celebrate for all residents of St. Petersburg. Thank you. Good morning, members of the council. My name is Dave Morgenthall. I live at 10636 Gandy Boulevard North, next to the Dog Track. I am in support of the Raise-Hinds deal, and as a local father and small business owner, I believe that this provides us an opportunity for success, and I lean on the skilled trades hard because that's where I came from. I grew up in the shadows of Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. I watched Camden Yards come from trucks and rails into what it is today, and I have seen the community that can be built around a new stadium development project. I believe that that would be beneficial here in St. Pete as well. In my years, I spent dozens of adventures at the yard, as we called it, and many of my memories were made in my younger years, but as I got older and entered the business community, it showed me that the blue collar and white collar could come together under a common color of Orioles orange, and here, Tampa Bay blue. I believe that that opportunity does exist. Nearly 30 years ago, I elected to become a carpenter and enter the skilled trades, and then was told, you have to go to college. I do believe that an education is required, but I also believe that a solid blue collar workforce is absolutely essential to the success of the community as a whole, and I am in favor of the items that outline a $7.5 million restorative community outreach program and a $16.75 million educational advancement for the trades. I believe that those are big numbers, but to some they may be small numbers, and I believe that we can build upon that and make it even more in the long run. An agreement to utilize a 15% staffing of disadvantaged workers is in place in this. That I support. Another 10% is being set aside for city-certified minority businesses and also leaning on apprenticeship-level programs to participate in the construction of this project. These minimum goals allow the greater community to develop that and in the future move towards a more equitable distribution of the skilled trades and bring more money into our community while retaining a workforce that we have not only built, we have honed them, and we have made a lasting imprint on our community by using our people in our town. I concede the rest of my time and wish you all a great day. The next two speakers is Ryan Aldeberg and Domery Shelley. Please state your name and address for the record. You all have three minutes to address counsel. Morning, counsel. My name is Ryan Aldeberg. I reside at 3750 30th Avenue South St. Pete, Florida 33711. I've been here before and spoke to you guys in the past about my personal support for this project. I'm glad to say that I'm here today on behalf of St. Pete Young Professionals supporting this project. You guys know the deal better than probably anyone in this room. I'm sure you've read through the papers as much as possible and looked at everything. So I want to talk to you a little bit about the importance of baseball for communities. I apologize because my history isn't so great, so I'm going to read through my notes I wrote down. Baseball is more than just a game. It's a powerful force in building communities, building and uplifting communities. For example, during the Great Depression, legends like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig provided an escape and inspiration for struggling Americans. During World War II, baseball games offered continuity and morale for soldiers and civilians alike, with players like Joe DiMaggio exemplifying perseverance and national pride. In 1947, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier and was a monumental step towards racial equality and reflecting societal progress. After 9-11, the Yankees and the Mets brought solace and unity to a grieving nation, with memorable moments like President Bush throwing up the first pitch. The return of the New Orleans Zipers after Hurricane Katrina showcased the sport's role in community recovery. Most recently, the resumption of baseball season during the COVID-19 pandemic provided a sense of hope and normalcy. Baseball fosters a lot of things, but most importantly, I don't want to miss out on the opportunity for St. Pete to be a beacon of hope for Americans. Thank you. Hi, my name is Damarish Lid. Sorry. English is my second language. Okay. I'm owner from Eleven Cheeks and I run the business. Can we get this? Sorry, my address. 199, Dr. M.L.K. Jr., Street North, 33701. I own and run Eleven Cheeks, German Creation. I want to support the race because they give me a lot of opportunity in this city. We have already five years served food for the teams. It's not only for race. We already have ten teams for the MLB. We serve. It's not only for the players. It's all the people who enjoy the game. And they come to the restaurant. I know it's not the only restaurant who enjoy this for the baseball team. I don't have more than to say because I just want to say thank you for the opportunity the race gave me when I came to this country just eight years ago. I already have five years working with them. I don't have any contract every time they order the food. I feel like a pro of living in St. Petersburg and they are in the tropical field for us. Just thank you and thank you for the opportunity to display my experience in this. Thank you so much. Madam Chair, the next two speakers is Peter Kent and Phyllis Young. Please state your name and address for the record. You'll have three minutes to address counsel. Peter Kent, Retired Commissioner of Public Works, 8 Academy Way, St. Petersburg. Good morning. This morning I would like to give the five reasons why I think the city must obtain a new appraisal before voting on the Ray-Saintz deal. First, the appraisal does not include the $142 million of city-provided infrastructure or the $70 million of brownfield restoration. Second, the current appraisal says it's based on the city's intention to dispose of the property in a single transaction, not the proposed sales of parcels when and if needed by the developer at today's fixed price. Like all property sales, a new appraisal will be required just prior to each parcel sale. Third, the current appraisal is for 78 acres, while the survey in the May 9th cow meeting indicates the site contains 95 acres, a 21% more acreage than it's in the appraisal. Fourth, comparable property sales indicate the price per acre is now four times the old appraisal price. Example, the old police station at 1300 First Avenue North is just a few blocks from the center of Tropicana Field. The December 2018 city appraisal for this site of two acres of land valued at $3.7 million a raw acre. The newer 2023 appraisal done by the city based on recent sales of five comparable properties along the north edge of Tropicana Field valued at $14.2 million an acre. The Tropicana Field appraisal is based on the eight sales that are, none of them are in St. Petersburg, and all of them are old. Using this $14.2 million an acre for the 50 buildable acres, the city should get $710 million today, not the $105 million that Ray's Heinz is offering over 30 years. The city voters will not forgive this massive $600 million giveaway. Fifth, the appraisal is based on 2022 zoning, not on the proposed zoning. The proposed high-rise, high-density zoning greatly increases its value and should be used in the new appraisal. Before voting, the city must obtain a new appraisal fixing these five major defects. Incidentally, at 11 o'clock this morning on the city steps, we'll be releasing a professional survey indicating that three out of four residents oppose this Ray's Heinz deal. Thank you. Questions? My name is Phyllis Young. I live at 2446 Lynn Lake Circle South, Apartment B. I am a member of Bethel Community Baptist Church. My congregation is a member of FAST, a group of 50-plus diverse congregations across Pinellas County, working together to solve community problems. In St. Petersburg, we have an affordable housing crisis. For families making less than 80% AMI, families, a family of four making less than $69,000 a year cannot afford to live in this city anymore. Personally, I have a niece who is 42 years old. When it was time for her to renew her lease at her one-bedroom apartment in January, she couldn't afford to continue living where she had lived for five years. So she had to move in with her daughter. This is something that affects many people. When it comes time to renew the lease, the lease amount has gone up astronomically, and people just cannot afford it. I have several nephews who have moved away because of the affordability of living in Pinellas County. And we just urge you as a council to do your best to make sure we have affordable housing in St. Petersburg, because we don't want to lose the next generation because they cannot afford to live here. Thank you. The next two speakers is Kathy Filippelli and Eli Gonzalez. State your name and address for the record, please. Sure. Good morning. I'm Kathy Filippelli. My address is 5836 30th Avenue North, St. Petersburg. My congregation is St. Matthews, which is in Largo, because part of the FASA organization is throughout Pinellas County. But you've been seeing some of us from different congregations and some of us who are able to speak because we are residents of St. Petersburg. I'm sorry that I missed the council meeting last Thursday. I know we weren't allowed to speak, but I think you saw 30 people come from FAST with a schedule change from 8 o'clock that morning to 1 o'clock that afternoon to mobilize. A number of us are away on vacation or other issues that needed to be attended to. And you have quite a crowd here of other things. So just two of us are speaking this morning. It was nice that the mayor said, hey, why don't we use some church properties to do that? Catholic Church has been doing that, and we'd like to talk more about that. But what other ways could affordable housing be done? Well, there is state money called ship funds. There's live local tax credits. There's HUD funds that could be used to create housing for families below 80%. Local money, hey, we championed that Penny for Pinellas money, $15 million, would go towards affordable housing. There's things like CRAs, general operating funds that could be focused to create housing for families below 80% AMI. You, as the council, could require that any time developers get a density bonus, zoning change, or infrastructure, support housing must be affordable for families making 80% AMI. I know that you're working, Councilperson Floyd, on the legal team to get such a policy in place. So we thank you for your efforts, and we hope that we will be here to celebrate when that happens. You could require that any time public land is provided, housing must be affordable for families. So like what the gentleman was saying before, all those statistics of what we could be selling instead of sell piece by piece instead of all at once, that could be money in the bank and property in the bank, or if all of those resources don't work out to make 5,000 new units by 2027, you could up the amount of affordable housing that you are planning to use at the gas plant restoration, okay? It's like you had so many hotels available. Maybe knock that down a little bit and make a little more affordable housing. So, thank you for listening. Good to see you again. We count on you doing the right thing. Peace. Hello, Eli Gonzalez. My organization is at 136 4th Street North, St. Pete 33711. Buen dia. En primer lugar, permíteme decirle que es un placer estar aquí, y es un honor estar frente a ustedes, y comenzar a hablar el idioma del cielo. What I said was good morning. First of all, let me say it's a pleasure to be here, and it's an honor to stand before you and start off by speaking the language of heaven. For far too long, the collective voice of Latinos has not been expressed in Pinellas County. In fact, Hispanic Heritage Month has not been recognized by the city of St. Pete for 20 years until Mayor Walsh did that two years ago. My name is Eli Gonzalez. I'm the founder and president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Pinellas County, and we have made St. Pete our home and absolutely love it here as we have our office there in the Thrive Building. And I stand here today as the voice of Latino-owned businesses in the area when it comes to the plans for the historic oil district. When the highest rates team won the right to work in the city, I sent an email to Matthew and Brian, the president, to congratulate them, and asked how we could be involved in talks and plans to ensure the inclusion of Hispanic business owners. Brian wrote me back that same day telling him, hey, give me a couple of days to catch our breath. If you haven't heard from us next week, please reach back out. We absolutely want to be sure we get aligned. It wasn't a week. It was the next day when he emailed me back and introduced me to Andrick Frazier, their leader with all things DEI-related to the project. And since then, Andrick and I have met several times. I've had some great conversations regarding how things were going and his reassurance and the Ray's reassurance that this time around the Hispanic business community would get a seat at the table. So I've talked to many Hispanics involved in all things construction, plumbers, electricians, et cetera. Man, we are chomping at the bit and working on such an illustrious project, something they thought they would never get a chance to do. And so our chamber, we're doing weekends to educate these business owners on what they need to do to qualify for the bids. Being Hispanic isn't enough. We want to earn it so that we can then be proud of the work that we do. And so I'm backed by many conversations in saying that the Hispanic community at large is hopeful to partake in this project. But in the future, we see Latino kids say, hey, my dad's company built that, or my mom's company did that. That's something that probably hasn't been uttered here in a long, long time, if ever. And to quote the famous poet, but to add on to her poem, we too are St. Pete. And we're excited and hopeful about everyone working together on this project. Thank you. Madam Chair, the next two speakers are Esther Matthews and Jason Spears. And as they come to the podium, just a reminder that Open Forum is for 30 minutes, and we are close to being there. We have five minutes? Five minutes left. We have five minutes for Open Forum, so I can take up the full five. You got three. You got three. Okay. Esther Matthews, NAACP president, standing here in support of two projects, both the Gas Plant Redevelopment Project and the Tangerine Plaza Redevelopment. I want to speak first on the gas plant. It was a lively area of 262 structures, 27 small businesses, 45 owner-occupied homes, and 281 tenant households. The city council at that time, when they looked at that project and redevelopment, they said that they could boost the area with $11 million, create 620 to 688 new jobs, and inject over $5.6 million annually into the community. This project says it can generate $1.46 billion in taxes and create 43,900 full-time jobs. To me, that highlights the transformative potential for this project. It highlights the transformative economy boosts and also the job market that we so dearly need. I want to touch on some key highlights. This project will ensure that economic inclusivity and also that it provides opportunities for historically marginalized groups, fostering economic sustainability for everyone. I also want to highlight the fact that it will provide safe and affordable housing, directly impacting the health and well-being of our community and providing needed stability. But something that no one really talks about is something that Chief Holloway has been focused on, and that's ensuring safe neighborhoods, safe community, ensuring that the police and residents trust each other. The fact that this will provide community spaces will ensure that we can reduce crime and enhance public safety. We know that it's going to create jobs, so I'm not going to focus on that. I want to simply say that when we look at all of this, let's look at it as an inclusive project. But I want to talk also briefly in my next 50 seconds about the Tangerine Plaza redevelopment. This is another project that we really need to give a focus on. It will redevelop the deuces. It will ensure that we attack what is a problem, which is a food desert. It will also pour back into additional housing units. We have another hundred coming online with it. When we look at this council, my hope is that we don't listen to all of the naysayers. We look at it as a global, what will it do for generations to come? Because when we are gone, our children and our children's children will remain here. And if we don't leave a proper legacy for them to be successful, we will have failed them. My hope is that this project will be supported, both of them. I needed five minutes. Thank you. I'll be quick. You can have my two. Good morning. My name is Jason Spears. I live at 445 34th Avenue Northeast. I am also a certified SBE business owner for the city of St. Petersburg and am the current Board of Governors Chair for the St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce. I come before city council today to speak on behalf of the Gas Plant District and in support of the Rays-Hinds proposal. As a resident, small business owner, and representative of the local business community, my support comes in three forms. First, as a resident, the historic gas plant district will transform what is now an obsolete stadium that's essentially an island and an asphalt sea into a modern dynamic cultural center that will be an epicenter not just for St. Petersburg but the Tampa Bay region. Secondly, as a small business owner, we're commercial HVAC contractors, so we're in the construction industry. A lot's already been said about workforce development, but I kind of want to touch on that. We are naturally very excited about the prospect of working on a project of this magnitude. The historic gas plant district will create thousands of jobs and will create, because the project is so robust, it will create an opportunity to train and develop workforce for generations to come. And that's not just a casual statement, that is something that will occur. I mean, this thing's going to take 20 years to play out, and in that time, you'll have business owners that haven't even been born yet participating in some of the aspects of this project. Third, as a representative of the St. Petersburg business community, the Chamber Board and our members support this development. Support comes from the understanding that in order for St. Petersburg to thrive, we need to back existing local businesses while attracting new companies and jobs to our community. Unique mix of office, housing, public parks, arts and culture, and of course, Major League Baseball will be a natural draw for new businesses and create a ripple effect for those already in our community. And it's also worth noting that we're part of a region, and our neighbors across the Bay are hard at work working on some major developments themselves. Phase 2 of Water Street is about to break ground. They're going to redevelop West Shore Mall, Gas Works and Ybor is in current redevelopment, as is the constant renaissance of Seminole Heights. If we miss this opportunity to develop the gas plant district in St. Petersburg, the city is really going to miss an opportunity of relevancy for years to come. Lastly, I want to thank City Council for all the hard work and dedication you've put into this process. You've been very detail-oriented. You've been very fair in your questioning. A lot of answers need to be made, and you guys have certainly brought together good questions. And I just want to thank you for your sincerity in the debate of this process. I encourage you to vote yes for this. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. So we, no one else joined us on Zoom? No. No, no. Okay. So we were supposed to start public hearing at 930, but we're going to go ahead and move forward with our awards and presentations. Clerk, can you please set the timer for 10 minutes? Yes, Madam Chair. Thank you. So now we were going to ask Council Member Montaneri and Mr. Tom Moore if they can come and present the proclamation in regards to Project Hero Honor Ride. Thank you, Madam Chair and City Council. Good morning. Well, today is a historic day for our country, and I just want to briefly remind everybody that 80 years ago today, American and Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, and started the liberation of Europe. On that day, in the battle that followed, over 2,000 Americans died, liberating Europe from Nazi occupation. Today, we're going to honor an organization that honors veterans. Project Hero Honor Ride has been working in the city of St. Petersburg to support veterans and our first responders, and they do this with a bike ride that they hold usually in February, and they raise money to support veterans. And we're joined today by Mr. Tom Moore and his wife, Lisa, Mr. Mitch Lee, and Mr. Alan Jackson, and I'll turn it over to them. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair, City Council. It's a pleasure to be here this morning and a real privilege and honor on the 80th anniversary. Project Hero, again, supports veterans through rehabilitation, through bicycling. The origin of the organization was a VA administrator in Los Angeles dealing with all of the injuries, and they were both obvious and PTSD in that, and they met a professional cyclist and decided to originate the program of cycling. And what happens is the bond between these veterans, and when you're riding 50 miles together, you've got time to talk. And it is unbelievable in terms of the hope and resiliency that has happened. We are so privileged here in St. Petersburg. I had an image. I don't know. Do I get to that on the slide deck? There you go. Thank you very much. So, you've got some representation of the event that happened last February 3rd. Again, thank you to the city and the fire and rescue that create the unbelievable with the flag. We had over 500 riders. We had over 100 veterans. And first responders in the jersey we'll present today is signed by those 100 veterans that participated. We've raised over a million dollars to support this program in the last 10 years. In the lower left picture, you've got the arch, and you've got Gibbs High School and Mr. Thomas and the drum line that gets all these riders fired up in the morning to go out and complete their rides. We have a school board member, Lisa Kane, who sang the Star Spangled Banner. We have Councilman Montanari, who was in his dashing Air Force jacket joining us on a morning. And it's just a great collaboration. The Pinellas County Sheriff's provides the color guard. And it is a wonderful event. We have routes of 62, 40, and 20 miles. And we've now added a cruiser ride, which is a shorter ride, because we want to really grow the membership and the participation. I'm joined with some of our sponsors. My wife, Lisa, our business. Alan Jackson is with WellMed Optum, oversees the clinic on Central. And Margaret Toffoli from UnitedHealthcare, long-term sponsors of the Project Hero. And, again, we just want to grow this event, help celebrate and honor our veterans. And I'll have Mitch speak, too, next year. And speaking of veterans, I am, although I'm a veteran, I missed D-Day by nine years, thankfully. Very happy to announce that February 8th is going to be our 2025 honor ride. And we look forward to the partnership continuing with the Tampa Bay Rays. I talked to Stu Sternberg, he's agreed that they would support us, even though there might be a lot of things going on at that time in the parking lot. We have sponsors in the area, and we're always looking for more. But I want to recognize Collins Aerospace, the Rays and the Rays Foundation, Raymond James, Bristol Myers Squibb, and WellMed, Optum WellMed, UnitedHealthcare. The community has come out 11 years in a row. This will be our 12th. We are the largest honor ride in America. America, we've beaten Las Vegas out for the last few years, so that was a very positive thing. And we're very looking forward to as many of you in the city to come out and either ride, form a team, or volunteer, or just show up and show support. Thank you. All right. And with that, we'll present the jersey to the city. Thank you very much. Maybe we can get a picture. Mayor is coming. Mayor. Oh, there's Mayor. Come on up, Mayor. Perfect timing. I want to thank everybody with the Project Hero on behalf of a grateful city. Thank you for remembering our veterans and our first responders. It's very important to acknowledge the service and the sacrifice of veterans that have been protecting our country and our first responders that protect our city and our communities every day. Thank you. Next, we have another special proclamation for Mr. Bob Devin Jones, and that will be presented by our mayor, Mayor Kenneth Welch. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Council. To our St. Pete team, all the members of the public, thank you all for being here. It is my honor to present a proclamation to a person who's elevated how the arts are experienced in our city, and Mr. Bob Devin Jones. Now, we all know that he is a community treasure, and we are grateful to have the opportunity to celebrate him as he retires from his role at the studio at 620. Now, while he is retiring, I'm sure that we can expect him to continue to make an impact on arts and culture in St. Pete. And as I share with Councilmember Gabbert downstairs, it's my aspiration to have a Bob Devin Jones level of cool at some point in my life. So, Bob and your guests, please join me at the podium, if you would. Yeah, I'll show Bob some love. And it reads, And whereas Bob Devin Jones has been a driving force behind the overall growth, development, and expansion of arts and culture in the city of St. Petersburg for three decades. And whereas Bob Devin Jones' unwavering passion, creativity, and commitment to the arts have had a profound and lasting impact, enriching the lives of countless individuals and organizations throughout our city, county, and region. And whereas in 2004, Bob Devin Jones established the studio at 620 in partnership with the late David Ellis. That friendship and collaboration ignited a spirit of unity, compassion, and empowerment within the arts community, inspiring others to call, to answer the call, to join their efforts in elevating the way arts are experienced in St. Petersburg. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg extends its heartfelt appreciation and congratulations to playwright, actor, creative, and philanthropist Bob Devin Jones on this remarkable milestone, recognizing his invaluable contributions woven into the social and cultural fabric of our city. Now, therefore, I, Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim Sunday, June 30th, 2024, as Bob Devin Jones Day in St. Petersburg. And I call upon all citizens to join me in celebrating Bob Devin Jones and his contributions to our city. Thank you, sir. I would just like to say thank you very much, and thank you for recognizing Dave Ellis as a part of what this day is. Because there is also, well, I'll just say this. The community said yes to us with this idea, and we said yes to them, and we now have this beloved community with arts and opportunity, and I just thank you very much. Mr. Jones, hold on a minute. Mr. Jones, hold on a minute. Come back up. Come back up. You have council members that still want to shower you. Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. And thank you, Mayor Welch, for giving that wonderful proclamation to someone who is so deserving of this honor and so much more. We met several years ago and got to know each other, and I have just always looked up to you so much when it comes to those simple yet so impactful ways that we can work together to bring art to everyone in the community. That's been a way that you've provided a guiding light for all of us so many times over the years that I lived downtown, walking the dogs or just walking by the studio at 620 to see what was in the windows. And so many performances and so many performances and events that I've attended there, and it really was a different experience every single time. For such a small space, you did some pretty big things. Everyone knows, everyone knows, everyone who knows you knows your famous saying is the answer is always yes. It's about saying yes. And so today I ask, have you been one of the biggest people in the history of our city to promote the arts in our community? The answer is always yes. Have you left an incredible legacy for our city, a way for everyone to move forward, remembering what you have done, and remembering that it's up to all of us to grab the baton and keep running in that same direction to make sure that the arts continue to be accessible, affordable, and relevant and impactful for everyone? The answer is always yes. Will I miss seeing you at Studio 8 620? No, because I know you're going to still show up. But will I always be so proud of you, so grateful for you, and so glad to call you my friend? The answer is always yes. Thank you. Council Member Floyd. Thank you. I'll be very brief. I just want to say we met on the Public Arts Commission, and I haven't known you for that long. But in the short time, I've been really grateful to be able to call you my friend and learn from you not just about how the arts interacts in our community or how to support the arts, but more just about how to be a decent person and support the community in a really, how I would describe, laid back and relaxed way. And you've really shown me, and you've really shown me a style that I think is really worthwhile. So I'm really grateful for the time we've been able to spend together. I don't know how long you have on public arts left, but I hope that it's a while longer. I hope that it's not the end of your time there this year, but we'll see. I can't remember. So I'm really grateful for the work we've been able to do together and the example you've been able to set for me going forward, and I'll carry that, and hopefully what will be a long career supporting the arts for myself as well, and I'll always look back to the time we spent together. So thank you. Well, Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Congratulations. On behalf of probably eight or ten friends who might as well be family members that have performed at Studio 620 over the last 20 years, performed, written, directed, the drama geek in me is very thankful for Studio 620. When I got home from college, I was able to go see one of the closest people in my life, write and direct a show, multiple shows at 620, and it was amazing. I got to see him shine, and that happened because of you, and the countless shows I've seen there create a stack of memories in my head, and I am so thankful for that opportunity, and I am thankful for you for giving me that opportunity, and congratulations, and you know you always have a home. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I am going to conclude because I want to thank you again. You know, Council Member Floyd spoke about the power of art and its calming nature, and I totally agree with Mayor Welch. You are so cool. I don't think I've seen you above where you always remain. I mean, you just stay really level, and I've learned with working with children, art calms. I've learned with working with myself, art calms, and you have perfected that ability to just remain calm while you're promoting art, something that brings so many different cultures together. You know, it's kind of like music, and music is a form of art, and so for this to be the Bob Devins Jones Day and your proclamation and declaration means so much, and I don't want you to stop. You know, I know you have a wonderful successor, Ms. Erica Sutherland, who is back there, who is going to continue to ensure that your legacy lives on, and we just want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart, and we congratulate you. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Thank you for this opportunity and for this day. It's been very special. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we will move on to D4, our Juneteenth proclamation, and we are joined by our chair, Deborah Fig Sanders. Hello, everybody. So I have the honor of presenting the Juneteenth proclamation, and there's a lot that goes on with Juneteenth, and the mayor has heard my spiel about Juneteenth and the relevance it has and where we stand today. You know, we found out two years after the Emancipation proclamation that we're free, and I still, in 2024, always ask the question, but are we really? Are we really? And as I get ready to read this proclamation, I am going to ask Terry Lipsy Scott from the Woodson Museum to please join me, Esther Matthews from NAACP and the representatives from NAACP to please join me, Ms. Crystal Vasquez from the Urban League had to leave, Renee Edwards from Saturday Shops, Dr. Kentaya Beeler from Tables of Purpose, and Ms. Maria Scruggs-Weston from Phyllis Wheatley. If you will please join me as I read this proclamation in honor of Juneteenth. Whereas nearly two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19, 1865, nearly 90 years after our nation's founding, enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally received word of their newfound freedom. And whereas those who were formerly enslaved were recognized for the first time as citizens, African Americans began commemorating Juneteenth with celebrations nationwide honoring a tradition that lives on today. And whereas Juneteenth presents or represents our ongoing commitment to honoring history, remembering our troubled past, and celebrating our hopeful future. And whereas Juneteenth is an opportunity to remember the evils of slavery and the lasting toil it has taken on our country and our people, including a dreadful legacy of systemic racism, inequality, and inhumanity. And whereas we know that as a nation and as a city of inclusivity, inclusivity we possess the ability to heal and emerge with purpose and resolve. And whereas we are committed to further establishing and improving equity and justice through pathways forged by abolitionists, educators, civil rights advocates, and everyday Americans. And whereas we continue to work for progress as African Americans and people of color continue to face disproportionate burdens and negative outcomes despite their numerous contributions to society. And whereas Juneteenth in its second year being recognized as a federal holiday is a call to action. Now, therefore, I, Deborah Fick Sanders, Chair of City Council, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim Wednesday, June 19, 2024, as Juneteenth Day in the City of St. Petersburg and acknowledge the emancipation of African Americans acknowledging the wrongs of the past and committing to our collective work for an equitable future free of the vestiges of systemic racism. And so thank you. Thank you, Chair Fick Sanders, and thank you, Mayor Welch and City Council. What struck me out of all of that is Juneteenth has only been a national holiday for two years. And so in 2024, as an African American woman, as an immigrant who's also an African American woman, it is sad that we still have to have these acknowledgments for rights that so many people take for granted. And so I just wanted simply to put that, because it needs to be public, it also needs to be clear that our counterparts, our friends, those that do not look like us must stand with us and be our allies. We cannot stand divisive, we cannot stand separated, because the fight continues. Mr. Mayor, Madam Chair, members of City Council, I'm Terry Lipsy Scott, Executive Director of the Woodson African American Museum of Florida, where we preserve, present, interpret, celebrate, and educate others regarding African American history and its culture. We take pride today in accepting this proclamation in our great city, where we take delight in knowing that inclusivity is at the top and at the forefront of the agenda here in our city. We are St. Pete. We are St. Pete. And we are grateful to be that beacon of hope, that beacon of light that sheds what's good and what's great in our community. And for that, we say thank you. And we look forward to seeing you on June 16th as we celebrate our jazzy Juneteenth Jubilee. Thank you so much. Good morning, Mayor and City Council. My name is Maria Scruggs. I'm the founder and CEO of the Phyllis Wheatley Rise to Read campaign. And on behalf of us and as well as our literacy partners, Board of Directors, we are so proud to be here today because to have an African-American mayor lead a city that talks about inclusion, that's not afraid to talk about inclusion and be able to put inclusion on display, I'm proud to be in the house today. Thank you for this proclamation and we look forward to seeing all of you all in the five-day celebration that the Phyllis Wheatley Rise to Read campaign will be hosting from June 13th through the 16th and dancing on the street in June 22nd. Thank you. Councilmember Muhammad. Thank you, Vice Chair. Thank you, Mayor, Madam Chair, and members of the community and just looking at all of this excellence and the work that you've done to really bring us to this point as a city. Just wanted to say really quickly as we acknowledge the announcement of the end of slavery, we want to continue to lift up the fact that it did not end our oppression. So as we acknowledge, recognize, and celebrate, I want to continue to have us focus on this call to action that was highlighted in the structural racism study that was done on the city of St. Petersburg nearly three years ago. Particularly those recommendations and call to action include the implementation of an accountability strategy to monitor the progress of ensuring equitable outcomes, creating an African-American quality of life sunshine committee, and the evaluation of reparative approaches that address the disparities that were highlighted in that study. And so as we do the symbolic celebrations, I'd like to encourage us to continue our fight for substantive change in addressing these things, and I want to thank you for bringing that forward. Thank you, Chair. And seeing no one else to speak, I do want to just close by saying again, we celebrate, and I want us to continue to celebrate because it continues to remind us how far we've come, but yet how far we still have yet to go. And to those of you all that received a proclamation today, continue to share your excellence because from your excellence you're reaching people. Hopefully we're reaching young people so that they can remember. Some of us are still old enough to remember, and our young ones might not understand the value of what it is that we're trying to share in regards to African-American history and the legacy that we most so preciously, but we must adamantly be strategic in preserving. So congratulations, everybody. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. We will move now on to D5, our Pride Month proclamation, and we are joined again by our Mayor, Kenneth T. Welch. Mayor Welch. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. As you all know, we raised the Pride flag last Friday. It's much cooler in here, thank God, than it was out there. But we are proud to celebrate the diversity of our community. Our city is inclusive of all of our residents, regardless of their neighborhood, economic status, race, religion, or orientation, for we are St. Pete. And so I'd like to invite our new LGBTQ liaison, Eric Vaughn, Attorney Nathan Bremer, and our friends and allies from the LGBTQ plus community to join me at the podium as I read this proclamation. And it reads, whereas the city of St. Petersburg has a diverse, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning community, and is committed to supporting intentional equity for all people throughout our city. And whereas many of the residents, students, city employees, and business owners within the city of St. Petersburg who contribute to the enrichment of our city are a part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning community. And whereas it is our vision that St. Petersburg will be a diverse, vibrant city guided by principled progress and intentional inclusivity where innovation, partnerships, and ingenuity create opportunities for everyone. And whereas this year we celebrate the 22nd anniversary of St. Pete Pride, Florida's largest pride parade and festival, and recognize the substantial economic impact that that event of this size has on St. Petersburg and the surrounding areas. And whereas we partner with our neighboring cities and cities across the United States to recognize and celebrate June as LGBTQ Pride Month. Now there, for I, Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim the month of June, 2024, as LGBTQ Pride Month in St. Petersburg, and invite everyone to reflect on ways we can all live and work together with a commitment to mutual respect and understanding and further recognize Pride Month by flying the rainbow flag at City Hall during the month of June. We are St. Pete, all of us. Good morning. Mayor, Madam Chair, Council Member, it's wonderful to be here. Happy Pride. What a unique celebration all the way around, all of the proclamations and honors. It's what makes, I think, Pride Month so special because it really is a beautiful community celebration from the honor ride to, I think I'm still feeling the feels and honoring Bob Devin Jones and celebrating Juneteenth and the things yet to come. On behalf of our vibrant LGBTQ community, whether we are residents here or we are visiting this beautiful city or will over the next many weeks, thank you. As Americans, we all have a right to be healthy, prosperous, and safe and I am proud that our city does this so actively and when we come together as we have today for all of these honors, we celebrate as a community, we honor our heroes, we fill our buckets in order to continue that fight that we all continue together for freedom, for liberation, for fulfilling the promises made yet unfulfilled, for those opportunities but I heard a line consistently through a lot of the presentations and comments today. It's about having our home here in St. Pete. This is our home and we do this together. We do have work together but I know we are well on our way and certainly as we all go to conferences nationally, we are a model for this state and for this country in the way we celebrate and honor LGBTQ Pride Month. We live what we say. This is not just a phrase, Mayor. We are St. Pete and when we say happy pride and we look each other in the eye, we really mean it and so I can't wait for the joy and the smiles and the celebrations all month. Bring water but we'll enjoy it. Happy Pride to all. I just quickly wanted to say thank you all for the support. The board at St. Pete Pride were here earlier. They had to leave. They have a ton of events. This is, I think they're on number four out of 36 tonight so they're getting prepped for that and I hope to see you all out there celebrating, celebrating the community, celebrating St. Pete, celebrating me in this new role and I just want to thank you all for all the work that you continuously do to make St. Pete the inclusive city that we've come to love. This is my second time living in St. Pete and I've moved away and then came right back because of this is home for me. I didn't grow up here but St. Pete has always been my home. It's always made me feel like home and it's because of the work that you all do every day to make this inclusive city so I just want to say thank you for that. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. Since I see no further requests to speak, I will speak. Hold on. I will speak. I, you know, I grew up in St. Pete, been here all my life and with age comes maturity. With maturity comes objectivity. With objectivity comes acceptance and I have really grown to love the city of St. Petersburg. We need to be able to live here. That's a whole another conversation but I love the fact that we are a city where everyone feels welcome, where everyone feels we are St. Pete and Eric, you're going to do a great job. We're going to celebrate you in this role because we know that you are going to keep us on point when it comes to ensuring that we continue to have this as a city that is welcoming for everyone that wants to live here because it starts here with us right here in City Hall and we appreciate you. Thank you, Nathan. Y'all, thank you for what you do and we hope that we're growing together. We want to make sure that when everyone comes they can afford to live here and that the welcoming feeling that they have when they come to the city of St. Petersburg that you will continue to share and shed light on what we do to accept all of our constituents. Thank you so much. So our next proclamation will be by Council Member Gabbard. It is the National Home Ownership Month proclamation. Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you, Mayor, for the opportunity to present this proclamation today. I think he knew when he asked I would jump at the chance. This is a proclamation that means a lot to me personally. Growing up with a single mom who worked several jobs there was little security until we had the opportunity to move in with my grandfather who owned his own home. And I can remember as a little girl the day he paid off the mortgage. and what that meant to my family and the opportunity that that gave for generational security. And so Home Ownership Month means so much to me personally but it also means so much to our community. We know that when residents own their own homes the statistics show that neighborhoods are stronger. There's more pride in neighborhoods. Personal wealth is greater. Poverty levels are lower. Divorce rates are lower and graduation rates are higher. Home ownership gives people opportunity where they did not think it may exist otherwise. And it gives a pride and a connection to their neighborhoods that is undeniable. And I am so proud today to be joined by advocates for home ownership. We are joined today both from the public and the private sector. We have from our city staff our team who works very very hard to provide our down payment assistance programs Dr. Avery Slyker who is our assistant director of housing and community development and our purchase team DeAndre Alston LaShonda Battle and Monet Coles. And I am also joined by my friend Tom Steck who is the president of the Pinellas Realtor Organization. So I'm going to give both of them a copy of the proclamation and then I will read it and let them speak a few words. So whereas the city of St. Petersburg's Housing Opportunity for All plan was established with the foundation that opportunity starts at home. Better housing opportunities for all raises the level of daily living and pride among residents creates strong neighborhoods intentional equity and creates a community. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg is committed to purposefully impacting the community through affordable housing programs that provide greater incentives for qualified buyers to achieve first-time home ownership and to participate in various programs that support initiatives such as homeownership counseling, purchasing assistance, new home construction, and rehabilitation of existing housing stock. And whereas the city of St. Petersburg also commends the efforts of its community's private sector, its developers, lenders, realtors, and non-profit organizations that are committed to keeping families in their home and promoting home ownership throughout the city of St. Petersburg. And whereas the housing and community development department along with economic development departments of the city of St. Petersburg and its community partners are participating in the 33rd annual Home Ownership for People Everywhere or HOPE if you missed that Expo on the 8th of June 2024 to engage citizens to meet and to speak on housing to housing counselors, lenders, real estate agents, and community resource representatives regarding homeownership. Now therefore, I, Councilmember Brandy Gabbard, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, mayor of the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, do hereby proclaim the month of June 2024 to be National Homeownership Month in St. Petersburg and urge each citizen, visitor, and business to help promote the importance of homeownership and its value for all families in our city. Thank you, Councilmember Gabbard. Thank you, Chair, Council. This month, we raise awareness about the benefits of owning a home and the importance of making homeownership in the city of St. Petersburg attainable. We're delighted to be sponsors of this year's 33rd Annual Hope Expo. This Saturday, our team, along with teams around the county, will be joining potential homebuyers to provide hands-on experience to help them attain that dream. I want to take today to recognize the team. This team, along with our community partners, Pinellas County Real Estate Organization and our lenders, are helping to create generational wealth while building memories to come. Since January 2020, the city has provided over $8.5 million in assistance to 199 new homeowners. Just this year alone, we have provided $2.3 million in purchase assistance and over 50 new homeowners. Application volume has tripled since increasing the CRA cap to $75,000. Therefore, I'm excited to use this opportunity today to announce as of July 1. That cap will be raised citywide. So thank you again for your continued support and dedication in providing housing opportunities for all of that. Tom? Good morning. Good morning. I'm Tom Steck from Pinellas Real Estate Organization. I don't know if you've had a chance to visit a town out in Arizona called Sedona. It is a lovely town to visit. Its background is a series of mountains that have been layered in different colors, browns and oranges. It's just striking. The people who support that city, police, fire, teachers, can't afford to live there. They live in Phoenix, which is an hour drive one way from Sedona. That's starting to happen here in Pinellas County and in St. Petersburg. As realtors, we know we have folks looking for properties in Parrish and in Tarpon Springs and up in Pasco. So it is important that we make efforts, every effort, to see that there are opportunities for the folks who work here and make this city what it is have a chance to live here. Lastly, I will say one thing. It's very kind to be introduced as the president of Pinellas Realtor Organization. A couple weeks ago that organization no longer exists. We have Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Bucks, we now have Tampa Bay Realtors because Pinellas has merged with Hillsborough County and we are one large Realtor Association running from here all the way over to the Polk County line. So things change for the better and I'm very happy to have announced that. Anyway, thank you for your time. So as everyone get ready to take their seat. Thank you so much. I want to say thank you for all that the city of St. Petersburg is doing for housing. We do know that we have needs for housing but I wish we got as much applause for what we are doing in providing home ownership as we get for not providing homes because it is a need and to be able to say that we have new home owners. We are so happy and we congratulate you on this new this is truly going to be an adventure and we're just so grateful that the city of St. Petersburg has taken a very strong intent to assist homeowners as they say live the American dream. So again congratulations on your new homes. Next we will have I Love the Berg Month proclamation by our Vice Chair Gerdes. Thank you Madam Chair fellow council members it is my honor to present a proclamation for I Love the Berg Month and if I could I'd invite Dex Fabian Brian Bailey Andrew Harlan Yusani Taylor Alexa Heal Monica Kyle and John Kyle to please join me. If you are on social media chances are you have seen I Love the Berg it's an amazing platform that showcases our amazing city and I have to be honest they've even showed me a couple of nooks and crannies that I didn't know about in my 41 years in this city and they do an amazing job highlighting across north, south, east, west this city the amazing businesses hangouts historical attributes of our city and it really is pretty incredible to watch I am not one that watches full Instagram videos but I watch yours and so I I am waiting for my invite to be a guest host for the weekend although you might get some selfies of a 5 and 6 year old making duck faces if you were to have me do that but anyway it's my honor to present this proclamation for I Love the Berg month whereas I Love the Berg was founded in 2009 by Dexter Fabian and Brian Bailey with one goal as its biggest cheerleader to make St. Petersburg Florida one of the most desirable places to live work and play in the nation and whereas these former New York transplants recognized the untapped potential of quote unquote the Berg and dedicated in an inexhaustible 15 year effort to elevate its profile on a global scale building an international social media readership of hundreds of thousands in the process and whereas I Love the Berg has become an iconic brand synonymous with the city of St. Petersburg and has served as a significant catalyst in the national and international recognition the city enjoys today and whereas I Love the Berg champions diversity equity and inclusion integrating these critical values into its mission to enhance community engagement and promote all voices and cultures represented and celebrated in St. Petersburg and whereas I Love the Berg has collaborated all facets of our community to promote the arts events new and iconic establishments small businesses and all aspects of the Sunshine City effectively enhancing the quality of life for locals and attracting visitors and new residents drawn by the city's unique charm and potential and whereas I Love the Berg is powered by a nimble but mighty motley crew of dedicated individuals who work tirelessly to produce curated and engaging daily content championing the city and ensuring that St. Petersburg's unique stories and happenings are celebrated far and wide now therefore I counsel Vice Chair Copley Gerdes on behalf of Mayor Kenneth T. Welch of the City of St. Petersburg do hereby proclaim June 2024 as I Love the Berg Month in St. Petersburg and urge all residents to embrace the spirit of I Love the Berg to observe the month with appropriate activities programs and ceremonies that reflect our collective pride respect and love for this beloved city thank you and I'll invite Dex Fabian up to say a few words I guess it's really surprising like 15 years you probably thought I started at 12 so don't do the math but for something that started out of a small bungalow out of Roser Park when we moved down here in 2006 Islandberg started in 2009 but and not knowing anybody outside of our realtor and our accountant we've come a long way like we've seen how the city has grown in just the last you know 15 years for us and we're proud to see how far we've come especially for somebody who didn't move to the US until I was in my mid 20s so this is and coming to St. Pete where I was kind of worried I was like where the hell is St. Pete but here we are like proud and happy and trying to be the biggest cheerleader of such a wonderful diverse and welcoming city I really do want to give a lot of kudos to my team I mean some of them have been with me for over 10 years now so it is a testament to the love that we have for what we do and for this city it's nice to actually have seen some familiar faces like that we've worked with in the city through all these years I saw Elizabeth Herring Dean like that's previous mayors so Bob Devin Jones like they've all become good friends and so it is I hope that we have another 15 years ahead of us that we can celebrate and you know enjoy in this wonderful city so thank you so much for the city for all the support that you have given us in building this town that we are very proud to be part of and yeah that's it thank you Madam Chair seeing no other requests to speak we'll now move to a distinguished citizen award of Mr. Deontay Thompson by Councilmember Muhammad tagged in distinguished citizen recognition for Deontay Thompson Deontay going up Madam Chair Mayor City staff everybody happy to be here and thank you for the clock Madam Madam Chair you can see you on TV you know I can get long today we come here to together to celebrate the exceptional contributions of one of our own a true son of St. Petersburg who has made an indelible impact on our community through his dedication passion and innovative spirit it is my honor to present the distinguished citizen aka Sunshine Ambassador Award to Deontay Thompson Deontay's journey began right here in South St. Petersburg where as a young boy he found inspiration in one of the most unexpected places one day while he was on his way to practice at the Childs Park Rec Center he discovered an abandoned television by a garbage can his curiosity led him to dismantle it and that simple act sparked a lifelong fascination with technology this moment was a seed that would grow into a remarkable career and a profound commitment to giving back to his community Deontay pursued his passion with determination earning a degree in electrical engineering today he serves as an executive for a computer company in Texas yet despite his professional success and the miles that separated him from his hometown Deontay has never forgotten his roots his heart remains firmly planted in St. Petersburg and his efforts to uplift our community are nothing short of inspirational through his dream faith foundation Deontay has been a catalyst for change he established the computer lab at the Charles Park Rec Center providing students with resources they need to excel in their studies and adults with tools for job searches and skill development his belief that technology is an essential component of every field drives his mission to ensure student success but his initiative don't stop there you've probably seen it if you've seen me anywhere you've seen me in a St. Pete Strong shirt and that's the banner that he created where he organizes conferences both locally and nationally equipping young people with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the modern world his dedication to fostering education and opportunity is further exemplified by his involvement with the robotics club at Gibbs High School the club recently earned a judges choice award in Tallahassee which is a testament to Deontay's mentorship and the students and their hard work and creativity Deontay embodies the spirit of community service and resilience and his story is one of discovering potential in unexpected places right a TV by garbage can in Charles Park by the way and he has turned that early curiosity into a powerful force for good transforming lives and building a stronger more connected St. Petersburg therefore on behalf of the St. Petersburg City Council the residents of District 7 and our entire community it is my privilege to present the Distinguished Citizen Award to Deontay Thompson thank you for your thank you so much it is an honor to to be here so I've been in corporate and you know traveled a lot of places for the last couple of decades and one of the most important lessons in leadership that I've learned is that well responsibilities in leadership that I've learned is that although you may be the only one in the room you're not the only one in the moment and we all represent something that is bigger than ourselves whether it be the Juneteenth acknowledgement from earlier today whether it be each one of you who represent your districts whether it be each one of you who is sitting down here today who represents your families your schools we all represent something that is bigger than ourselves we all call it to be fruit we are all called to bear fruit fruit does not exist for the benefit of itself it exists for the benefit of others and I've always felt that you run this race it's a continual race that's happening and there's multiple transactions that's happening in this race you have your baton you run your race as fast as you can there's a baton that's being passed to you it could be through a sponsor it could be through a mentor it could be a friend but with that baton comes their experiences comes their lessons comes whatever guidance to give you it's our responsibility to take that baton that's being passed down couple it with our own experiences and then pass that on to the next generation don't hold a baton and keep running because you gonna lose you have to allow it to flow through you so you look backwards and that's always been something I have aspired to do so whether it be in tech in a tech space where I've been in the last couple of years and I go somewhere and I'm a sponsor for a robotics club and I always think how could this benefit St. Pete if I'm in a board room I always think what am I learning here that could benefit St. Pete how do we help the youth get further faster the key to the city is not a thing it's a who and my who my keys to the city are the youth of St. Petersburg Florida so when I was a kid it's story time with Deontay I love telling stories but this one will be quick when I was a kid I went to Gulfport Elementary School I was in second grade I just moved I grew up in the Jordan Park area we moved over to Child's Park when I was in second grade and then I couldn't read at all I could put my finger on letters and I couldn't pronounce it was pretty bad so I was the new kid at Gulfport Elementary School it was time to read out loud and they asked for volunteers who wants to read of course I shrunk everyone else hands grew I thought surely they're not going to call on me because I'm in the back I don't have my hand raised but guess who they called on Deontay and so I was like alright well here goes everything ready or not I put my finger on the word and I could not it took me maybe for me it seemed like an hour to get through one sentence and then kids do what kids do the youth do everybody laughed I was embarrassed I cried I went home and I told my dad I can't read I'm stupid I'm dumb I'm not it's just everybody's laughing at me and he's like alright come outside let me show you something I said show what do you want to show me I'm telling you that people are laughing at me what is there to be shown can we go talk to somebody can we go talk to the principal or something he said nope come outside I want to show you something that same alley lessons of my life so he told me alright he took me to the alley I want you to pick up this handful of dirt walk it to the other side of the alley drop it off come back and I'm like why would I do I want you to take a handful of dirt take it to one side of the alley drop it off come back I'm thinking maybe there's some magic reading code in the dirt so alright let's figure it out dad might know something so I took a handful of dirt walked it from one he looked at me in my eyes and said you have just changed the world the world will never be the same and at the time I didn't understand the lesson but now I understand and never underestimate the power of baby steps never underestimate the power of doing one small thing whether you're hitting a home run in an empty ballpark or whether you're hitting a home run in a room full of people your effort matters your contributions matter you matter over time that dirt will become a pile the pile will get bigger the pile will turn into something beautiful that you've created but we must always build it brick by brick and so we're all called to be dirt movers and that's what I've tried to do in St. Petersburg is just be a dirt mover so I thank you for the recognition I thank you for everything because I stand here but this is not a me this is not a Deontay Award we have a whole board of directors 80% of them although they don't live in St. Pete they are from St. Pete and there's a whole group of folk that want to figure out how do they plug in and how do they give back and they've been able to do it through the foundation so thank you for everything and I appreciate the time and I appreciate the recognition so Mr. Thompson before you take your seat and I see no other further requests to speak but I am not and cannot will I allow you to sit down without saying thank you without saying you just preached a sermon just then whether you know it or not you just did your first trial sermon right here at City Hall on June 6 2024 and I thank you for that I am always intrigued but more importantly honored when I see our young men you say that a lot they're not living in St. Pete but they're from St. Pete well St. Pete was a mighty foundation and they want to give back so you said so much in regards of paying it forward you said so much in being academically behind but because of your own efforts and you having that father figure to understand what it was that you were going through but not allowing you to settle because he wouldn't and you remaining in that place thank you for that message thank you for all that you've done thank you for all that I know you will continue to do especially in our world I appreciate that St. Pete we appreciate all that you've done continue thank you Councilmember Mohamed because I've met you before Mr. Thompson and I was impressed then and so this is an acknowledgement well deserved thank you young man thank you in the 37 seconds we have left the thing that he didn't say was that he ended up graduating at 16 going to school year round before getting that electrical degree so it's just so much more but I only got 28 seconds thank you so much so now we are going to take up our public hearing starting with item E1 clerk can you please read the title and it is in regards to naming the aviary at Boyd Hill Nature's Reserve Dr. Gabe Vargo Birds of Prey Aviary and joining us is our parks operation manager Ms. Taylor Thornton ordinance number 580-H and ordinance amending section 21-86 of the city code to add a new subsection 16 naming the aviary at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve within Lake McGorry Park that Dr. Gabe Vargo Birds of Prey Aviary and providing for an effective date and madam chair we do not have any cards on this one move approval second do we have a presentation yes you do yes I'm excited me too go ahead with your presentation Ms. Stump good morning on behalf of Parks and Rec we would like to recommend that the aviary at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve be named the Dr. Gabe Vargo Birds of Prey Aviary in commemoration of Dr. Vargo's legacy and years of service to the Birds of Prey program Dr. Gabe Vargo was a long time professor at USF College of Marine Science and he along with his wife Sandy were charter members of the Friends of Boyd Hill in the early 1980s Dr. Vargo helped found the Birds of Prey program at Boyd Hill in 1986 and served as its leader until his passing on October 11th 2023 Gabe volunteered for tens of thousands of hours over the course of decades he led and mentored students and staff and volunteers over the years and led over a thousand programs as a volunteer renaming the aviary is supported by the Friends of Boyd Hill the Parks and Rec Department and the volunteers of the Bird of Prey program thank you so much we have a motion and it's been second clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members can you please cast your votes seeing that all present council members have voted can you please announce tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item E1 passes unanimously with council number Floyd and Hanowitz being absent thank you so much thank you Ms. Thornton now we will move to E2 an ordinance amending city code section 21 to 79 related to substantial change of the use of criteria for charter parks and joining us is our community enrichment administrator Mr. Mike Jeffries hi good morning read the title oh read the title so sorry ordinance number 582-H an ordinance amending St. Petersburg City Code section 21 dash 79 related to substantial change of use criteria for a charter park clarifying when active uses and passive parks triggers the requirements of the city charter related to substantial change of use in parks and providing for an effective date and madam chair we do not have any cards move approval second do we need a presentation we've had exhaustive discussions sounds like they don't want to hear I'm not offended at all thank you so much now that we have a motion and it's been seconded clerk can you please open the machine for voting councilmembers please cast your votes seeing that all present councilmembers have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item e2 passes unanimously with councilmembers floyd and hannowitz being absent thank you so next we will have a first reading and a first public hearing but e3 comprehensive plan text amendment to implement the sunrunner rising development study creation of the target employment center local overlay increasing the allowed density intensity along commercial corridors can you please read the title ordinance number 577 dash h in ordinance of the city of st. petersburg florida amending its comprehensive plan amending chapter one general introduction data and analysis amending chapter three future land use element pertaining to commercial corridors and sunrunner corridor slash station areas providing for severability and providing for an effective date there's a second reading a second public hearing is scheduled for september the 5th and we do have some cards madam chair okay thank you joining us is our urban design and historic preservation manager mr. derrick kilbourne good morning and thank you for that introduction i'm going to give you a brief introduction of my own and then we are going to kind of present this package in multiple parts so just quickly again derek kilbourne manager for the city's urban planning and historic preservation division i do want to begin by thanking the many community stakeholders who have contributed to this process over several years as we've kind of built up to this point in the process i also want to thank many people on the city team who have contributed along the way information and feedback from their different departments within the city structure i especially want to thank mike hernandez who is our gis person who oftentimes helps us with maps and data and analysis but you don't ever get to see him here so it's important for me to acknowledge him here also in the information that you're going to see today we've received a lot of backup assistance and contributions from nicole glasso and her team including jared schneider and chad davis at kimley horn and finally i want to thank the commissions who have contributed the development review commission and the community planning and preservation commission who not only worked through formal public hearings but prior to that had substantive and meaningful discussions with us in workshop sessions what we're going to do today is we're going to present this in three parts we're going to start with a presentation by britain wilson who works in our division she's going to present to you the comprehensive plan text amendment which comes first this is an essential first step in the process that then allows us to consider a text amendment to the city's land development regulations which i will present second and then finally once the two text amendments are in place we can move on to the third piece which is a land use and zoning map amendment to actually apply the overlay that we have been talking about this is a first reading first public hearing following the presentations today this information does get transmitted to the state of florida and it also advances through the ford pinellis and countywide planning authority structure and other external agencies and then it will come back to the city council for a second reading and final public hearing which is tentatively scheduled for september so with that i'm going to turn it over to britain wilson who will present the first piece on the comprehensive plan text amendment good morning again britain wilson city planner for the record presenting this first item which is the comprehensive plan text amendments so to start out with it contains updated historic population growth data this graph shows that population growth over the past 50 years has grown by about 42 000 residents which represents a 19 percent population increase since 1970 and these past trends reflect an annualized population growth rate range of 0.6 to 1 percent of new residents per year therefore by 2050 the city's population could be between 327 and 367 thousand residents which equates to approximately 2200 to 3600 new residents per year who will require housing so in order to accommodate this projected population growth in areas of the city that are supported by transit the following amendments are being proposed to the comprehensive plan so the first proposed edit is to combine and replace both the central avenue corridor and the central plaza activity centers with the sunrunner bus rapid transit activity center so here we have the central plaza activity center overlay shown in red and here we have the central avenue activity center overlay both being combined to create the new sunrunner activity center overlay next we're proposing to amend the text of the future land use element to increase densities and intensities in the land use categories of planned redevelopment mixed use planned redevelopment commercial and the community redevelopment district so here's a map showing the corridor land use categories where only parcels that are located outside of the coastal high hazard area are proposed for increases in density where the proposed density increases to the PRM land use vary depending on the corridor classification they front on such as a premium primary secondary and supporting corridor which is defined by the countywide rules so the larger the roadway the higher the proposed density increases so here's the same map with the table showing the proposed increases in intensity necessary to accommodate the proposed density again also only when outside of the CHHA next the outdated section of the comp plan that speaks to transit oriented development is removed and replaced with the sunrunner rising development study where it's adopted by reference and objective LU19 and the full strikethrough can be found in the attached ordinance and finally we are proposing to create a sunrunner target employment center or TEC local subcategory overlay which is to be applied to the industrial land use categories located south of 22nd street south bus station between 24th street south and the interstate shown here in gray where the land development regulations will specify the standards related to density intensity height and urban form and in order to create the sunrunner TEC local overlay the countywide rules requires that a special area plan be adopted first so in your agenda packet is the sunrunner rising special area plan that was created from a subset of information contained in the sunrunner rising development study the special area plan provides a mixed use build out analysis of potential densities and intensities that are to be approved through the LDRs and the city is able to process this new overlay because the countywide rules recently updated what was a strict protection of all industrial and employment lands by adopting the target employment and industrial lands study or TEALS update which recognizes that the character of industrial lands varies throughout Pinellas County by offering unique employment opportunities such as the area around the warehouse arts district and recognizing that more mixed uses may be appropriate in these industrial areas in addition to the current employment capacity but not in place of it in response to the TEALS update the countywide rules were amended to allow for the creation of the target employment center local subcategories provided that all incentives associated with this new TEC subcategory be dependent upon target employment uses being developed concurrently with or before all other non-target employment uses which is why the proposed comp plan language before you creating this new sub Sunrunner TEC local subcategory also contains language requiring target employment uses to be developed concurrently with or before all other non-target employment uses and with that that concludes my presentation and staff is available to answer questions or we can move on to the next text limit to the land development regulations we're going to go ahead and stay with E3 for now because we have cards on that okay the first two speakers is John Tyler and Rob Kapushka I believe that is please go to either podium state your name and address for the record we'll have three minutes to address council yes I'm John Tyler I live at 3701 13th Avenue North in St. Pete and I'm just rising today to speak up in support of this upzoning I like all the features of it including the reduction in parking mandates in it I think it's you know when you go around the country you see that there's always a correlation between the size of the amount of surface parking and whether it's dominated by big corporate chains or the small independent local businesses that we all love you know Grand Central right now is you know an area that we all love because it's so many small local businesses that will be jeopardized by large parking mandates so I like that aspect of it you know if I you know where I live you know I would love to see a similar upzoning in 40th and 49th right now you know when I ride my bike or walk over there there aren't the amenities that there are in Grand Central so I would hope at some point we see a similar upzoning in that area of town so anyways I encourage council to go forward with this and thank you for your time thank you thank you my name is Robert Capusta I live at 1410 45th Avenue North St. Petersburg I'm here on behalf of myself individually and also on behalf of the St. Petersburg Warehouse Arts District which is owns land and in this zoning redistricting area I'd like to say that the Warehouse Arts District heartily endorses this zoning change St. Petersburg is the city of the arts the Warehouse Arts District is where art is made this zoning allows art to be continually made there allows artists to remain there and create their own art we're a very creative city this zoning supports that and also provides I think it will become I believe in the next several years a strong magnet for people to visit see St. Pete and see where art is made so again the Warehouse Arts District heartily endorses this zoning revision thank you next two cars please Mike Hardy Madam Chair the next speaker comes up we do have a person in Zoom that has their hand raised but since this is a public hearing item there are no Zoom speakers thank you for that clarity and Duncan McKellen please step to either podium state your name and address for the record you'll have three minutes to address council Mike Harding 5123 Queen Palm Terrace the I would like to I'm here in support both personally and our business Three Daughters Brewing which owns property and has a business in this footprint thank you to Joe First and his team for visioning this and carrying the football on this thank you to the business owners and property owners in this community for their overwhelming support of this project thank you to city staff and county staff for all the work that they have done this is the old this is the old industrial district it's a part of our city that wasn't used or hasn't been used in a couple of decades it's had some revitalization over the past decade this is the project that will further enhance and really develop this area I am in full support and I appreciate the council taking this up thank you thank you good morning Mayor, City Council thanks for having me here my name is Duncan McClellan 2342 Emerson Avenue South and I am in full support of the overlay the Sunrunner overlay this will allow growth allow us to continue what we're doing and to allow the growth to take it to the next level and so I hope you accept this I hope it comes to fruition all of I want to thank everyone that has worked so hard on this both people that live here the people that work in the city and the city council and the mayor so thank you very much I really appreciate this consideration and know that we're in full support thank you thank you next card Madam Chair the last two speakers are Joseph First and Maureen Stafford please go to either podium state your name and address for the record we have three minutes to address council thank you my name is Joseph First I'd actually like to reserve my comments until the end of the E5 section if that's okay any issues okay thank you Maureen Stafford 116 9th Avenue Northeast I want to say I'm totally in favor of this and I want to thank Joe First for pushing this forward and enlightening everybody including me to the great benefits of this proposed change to the warehouse district I do want to have share one concern that I have we're increasing the FAR and I have concerns about what infrastructure might be on the books to prepare for this in terms of retention and storm sewer drainage because as you increase the FAR you also reduce the ability to conduct that water so if anybody can enlighten me on that and I want to thank Derek Kilbourne amazing guy great smart guy Corey Milushka whom I've known for a long time and he is one of the gems in the city and Elizabeth so thank you for all your hard work Madam Chair no more speakers no more speakers did we have a motion okay well move approval second we have Councilmember Gabbard thank you chair so on behalf of the last speaker Derek do you want to come up and answer questions around retention and infrastructure and how that works with redevelopment opportunities sure thank you you're welcome so to address that last comment question first thank you for the kind words but to the question itself there is data and analysis level of service that is performed both as part of the special area plan that is under consideration with this package and with the third application FLUM 67 that actually puts the overlay onto the map itself so you have that type of analysis being performed in both applications perfect thank you so much I appreciate it well the only other thing that I will say then madam chair and I will save us time and not push my button again I'm going to say it now and then it can stand for all three votes but I am so happy we are here today I know this isn't the final but we're almost there like we are seeing the finish line this has been years in the making I first want to start by saying thank you to the pioneers who invested in this area of our city long before this was ever even a conversation or an opportunity and I am so happy that we have got to a place where we have the support of those property owners and those business owners and the arts community you know marrying that support and that collaboration with the business opportunities that will continue to exist and the growth that will happen I think is just what good community input is all about I also want to thank Joe first for everything he has done how hard he has worked to stick in there to get that community support I think the first time I met Joe was in 2019 when council was at the Sunshine Center and at the old PD and he came and he sat in my office and I thought like who is this guy right like what what is he looking at doing in our community and then I really started to understand the lens that he was looking at and the way that he wanted to bring opportunity but also to do it in collaboration with the community that was already there and so it was very very easy for me to get on board very quickly I had the opportunity to go down to Miami and see what he did down there and to be so impressed with that and then to see how that could happen up here in our community the vision for this place is incredible you marry that with the sunrunner and the opportunities that come from bus rapid transit and transit oriented development to me this checks all the boxes so I am excited to push my button as many times as possible because it has been a long road and we are ready to get this going so thank you to everyone who got us to this point today and I am a resounding yes so thank you madam chair thank you so much seeing no further requests to speak and it's been motioned and properly seconded clerk can you please open the machine for voting councilmembers please cast your votes seeing that all present councilmembers have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item e3 passes unanimously thank you now we will move on to e5 ldr text amendments to establish regulations for the sunrunner tc local can you please read the title for me ordinance number 583-h an ordinance amending the city code creating a new section 16.30.050 sunrunner target employment center local overlay providing for definitions including local overlay specific uses providing standards for development and design in the overlay district providing for severability and providing for an effective date there's a second public the second reading second public hearing is scheduled for september the 5th and we do have one card madam chair go ahead joseph first e5 do you wanna yeah okay we'll do the presentation first okay once again derek hilborn manager urban planning historic preservation to just kind of continue some of the comments from city council member gabbard in that last discussion we're really here today because of the pioneers that moved into that area I attended that first meeting of the warehouse arts district when they were trying to organize and figure out how they fit into the industrial zoning and from that very early step they've been able to blossom into the success that we've seen and so our approach to this entire discussion has been to try to move forward in a way that continues to protect their interests and their historic investment in that area and so we think that we have developed something here that does that it continues to protect the opportunities for creative arts it continues to protect opportunities for the industrial and manufacturing that is allowed in the zoning today but also unlocks other important land uses that will continue to build on the established success and bring new opportunities to the warehouse arts district area on that point I did want to clarify we've been receiving a lot of emails about parking it is unclear to staff whether those comments were speaking to the entire Sunrunner corridor or just the target employment center local overlay which is a little more restricted in geography here so I did want to point out right here at the top that this is now a narrow discussion to the target employment center local overlay only which is the 22nd street south section and the industrial zoning around that 22nd street corridor it is not the entire Sunrunner running out to 66th street nor is it the density and floor area discussion that we've been having about other commercial mixed use corridors in the city obviously there's a lot going on and we got to a point where we felt it was important to kind of break this piece off bring it forward now and then follow up in the next couple months with the separate Sunrunner corridor heading out to 66th and then next use corridor so this is just the target employment center local overlay only okay so for this part having addressed the comprehensive plan text amendment now we can move into the land development regulation text amendments and the creation of this target employment center local overlay and so what we want to do through this presentation is just kind of walk you through the development of this so that you understand it and answer questions you might have as Britton Wilson mentioned in the initial presentation this really goes back to the target employment and industrial land study which was first completed in 2008 that study emphasized the protection of industrial lands not only in the city of St. Petersburg but as you know we're in a countywide structure throughout Pinellas County so both the city's comprehensive plan and the countywide rules had additional criteria protecting industrial land which made it that much more difficult to rezone away from industrial and manufacturing uses a lot of these industries have changed over time so based in part on the conversations we've been having here at the city forward Pinellas took up a new review of that 2008 study and they then updated that target employment and industrial land study in 2022 and this really was a very important step for us to continue this conversation and consider new ways to approach our industrial zoning here in the city of St. Petersburg coming out of this update the countywide rules were amended to allow more flexibility at the local level under certain conditions and because of that change we were now given an opportunity to revisit our industrial zoning the language in our comprehensive plan and consider how we might be able to make changes that we've been considering and talking about so you can see here this is a snip of the countywide rules and the language now says target employment uses are required to be developed concurrently with or before all other non-target employment uses at different points in this conversation there have been questions well can we just do 100% multifamily residential or can we just do 100% restaurant the answer is no because we have to work through this condition here that says you have to have companion target employment uses so with that change in the countywide rules as miss wilson presented we are recommending this change in our comprehensive plan it basically adopts the same language so that the two documents are consistent and can be approved and that sets us up for our land development regulation text so what we have to do is we have to demonstrate to the county our consistency with the countywide rules and the first step to do that is to walk through the land uses that are going to be allowed in this overlay district so the first thing we wanted to do was we wanted to include some additional definitions that are not clearly defined in the code today some of these definitions are up on the screen now honestly if you came in and you said hey I want to do a creative incubator space or a craft food and beverage production facility today we generally have a way to interpret that as light manufacturing but because this is definitely an area that's driven towards the creative arts or artisan type of manufacturing we wanted to be very explicit and this was an opportunity to do that so the first thing we're adding are some new land use definitions to be clear you'll also see on the screen it says artist retreat artist retreat is a definition that we've added in response to feedback we've received from one of the stakeholders who presented in the first session who's trying to develop a creative on-site immersive experience and stay for art and learning of art craft so the definitions are clarifying but they're also enhancing based on stakeholder feedback okay so with those new definitions we can clearly describe and show the county and the community that we define those as target employment uses you can see the list here on the screen qualified target employment uses and we have those listed there now in some of the earlier drafts that you may have seen there was a reference to all principal uses in the IT zoning district so I wanted to highlight that in the since the development review commission hearing and this presentation today we have refined that statement a bit and specifically the principal uses allowed in IT zoning include such things as structured parking so we wanted to make sure that we're not crediting structured parking as a target employment use and the way to do that was to explicitly list the existing industrial uses that would qualify as a target employment use and so that's what we've done in the ordinance language we've explicitly listed existing uses the next thing that we needed to do was show that we are protecting the target employment use opportunities by having reserved area on site so you'll see some language here that requires 30% of the land area of a subject property or 40% of the first floor of the cumulative total of all buildings on site are required to be reserved for target employment uses and this is how we can demonstrate that the target employment use area is being provided concurrently with other non-target employment uses now once you do that and you provide that target employment use you essentially unlock the ability to now go beyond what is currently allowed in the zoning and start to incorporate these other what we would call transit oriented development supportive uses your multifamily your hotel your restaurant and bar retail some commercial recreation and performance arts venue opportunities so you work through target employment center you unlock these other uses that are listed on the screen and that's how we're dealing with the land uses and that's why we feel comfortable that the existing target employment uses that are out there will continue to be protected moving forward because it is a requirement not only in the LDRs but that is reinforced in the comp plan and the countywide rules the next thing that we had to delineate is maximum development potential in the Pinellas sunrunner rising study you can see this is a clip from that study it was recommending a range of density and intensity based on our experience with the downtown center and based on stakeholder feedback staff is recommending that we not measure by density in this area but only by floor area ratio and so you'll see in the proposal what we are recommending is a base floor area ratio of up to 1.5 but that you would be allowed to add FAR bonuses up to a maximum of 5.0 and as you kind of move through that bonus system there are certain tiers and requirements and we have an illustration to show you that in just a minute and then the FAR bonuses are listed here in a table that's included in the ordinance you'll see there are several workforce housing options and then there are land use options and we can come back to this table and talk about those if you have questions when we come to this illustration you can see on the left the left demonstrates how the ordinance is written so you have a 1.5 floor area ratio base if you are proposing multifamily units in your project at the 1.5 base you then have to work through 1.0 FAR bonus for workforce housing and then you can see as you move up through the progression to a 5.0 max the different uses and bonuses that can be applied now the alternatives that we're demonstrating for you on the right are two alternatives that have been presented throughout the recent public hearings and discussions on this with the DRC and the CPPC the first is bumping up that 1.5 FAR to a 2.0 FAR some of the early drafts did start at 2.0 however after some additional modeling and comments from the commissions we did decide to bump that 2.0 down to 1.5 and then in the last discussion we had with the development review commission we described it in the cover memo for this report there was some discussion from the DRC a DRC commission member about simplifying the tiering and allowing a base up to 2.5 FAR I've highlighted and shaded the top of those two columns to show the impact that that would have on workforce housing compared to the bonus system that staff is recommending in the text that you've received and again we can come back to this illustration okay next thing was building height you'll recall we've had a number of discussions on this in different workshops the Pinellas Sunrunner Rising Study shows this map recommendation here for building heights 8 stories 5 stories 3 stories as we move through the conversations this document and ordinance is now recommending the application of 8 stories all the way to 5th Avenue South and then starting to transition down to 56 feet and then in the upper left side where you have some lower scale residential properties just to the west outside the district boundary 35 feet and that is designed to match the existing regulation in IT we put this chart in here just to show you building setbacks we also wanted to emphasize that design standards in this zoning district were really constructed in a way to recognize that this is becoming more of a pedestrian oriented area that provides connection not only to the Sunrunner station area at 22nd street but also connecting through to the deuces emphasizing the Pinellas Trail so as you kind of move through the design standards you'll see that they are written in a way to do that and prioritize those particular corridors finally there have been some recommendations on temporary uses so we have included some minor changes to vending roadside market which allows the sale of additional products that are not just food related and also amended some of the mobile food truck regulations to permit longer stays of mobile food trucks on site during a calendar week now I mentioned those parking emails in the beginning we wanted to go through this slide and show you all the different parking reductions that are considered as part of this package the first thing is we are applying the downtown center parking requirements to this overlay district so what that means for example is if you have a multifamily unit that is 750 square feet or less there's a zero parking requirement for providing that unit so the downtown center does have some of our lowest parking requirements in the city today those are being applied here next we are eliminating the parking requirement for any target employment center use so when you go back to that list of target employment center uses we are not applying a parking requirement to those because we are trying to incentivize the inclusion of those in the development projects the next thing you'll see is transit oriented development supportive uses so these are the things that are being provided beyond the target employment center use there are multiple reductions here first proximity to the station area the code today says 10 percent we are bumping that up to a 25 percent reduction within one quarter mile of the station location the next thing is we're carrying over some of the parking reductions from the city's storefront conservation corridor overlay and you see that in the second bullet point and then in the third bullet point we have additional reductions or waivers of up to five parking spaces where existing buildings are being adaptively reused or expanded with additions and of course you've been receiving the public comments that have requested no parking at all throughout the overlay district we think that we found a nice balance that incentivizes the target employment uses reduces parking for residential but does not admittedly go as far as completely removing any parking minimums completely this last slide just shows you some of the key public engagement points obviously we've been having our workshop sessions over several years but in addition to that there were several urban station design charrettes and we've had multiple meetings and workshops with the development review commission regarding this piece of the package and also the community planning and preservation commission for the other pieces in the pack finally in the package anybody who's watching there is a link in the attachment B to the city staff report that is a short URL and QR code that takes you to all the different documents and research that we have received not only from city and county resources but also from individual stakeholders in the community who have been driving some of this discussion we've uploaded all those there so you can see that completes our portion of the presentation related to the land development regulation text amendments and at this point now like I said we can go back to any slides so before we go with the comments Mr. Kilbourne it was mentioned by one of the speakers and you've referred to it quite often in your presentation for those that don't understand what FAR is can you explain that please yes we kind of just get into this and assume everybody knows right okay so FAR stands for floor area ratio and it is a calculation that determines how many how much building square footage can you put on a piece of property as a ratio to the square footage of land area that you have so if you have 10,000 square feet of land area and your FAR is 1.0 you can do 10,000 square feet of building square footage and the reason FAR is preferred in many cases is it allows flexibility for the builder developer to creatively design how they're going to fit that in our scenario the 10,000 square feet on the property so do they do one single story building 10,000 square feet line to line do they cut the building in half and stack you know 5,000 and 5,000 and have a two-story building to create some open space so that FAR gives flexibility that you don't always get when you have just a straight density standard thank you for that so we'll go ahead and move into public comment and we have one card one card excuse me no we don't do that thank you public can you please call public comment thank you this is for e5 yes item e5 joseph first good morning joseph first address of 423rd street south um i will be brief first and foremost i really want to thank city staff derrick liz britain in particular the amount of work and really deep focus and thought that went into this code is extraordinary candidly i think it's award-winning i think it is the most perfect and delicate balance of preservation of existing uses as well as allowing for new residential uses and really the utilization of the tod so thank you so much for all of the work and time as it relates to the overly kind comments from councilmember gabbard i want everybody to understand i came into this well after this mission had started the joint action plan was started well before i arrived between the deuces and the warehouse are such association and my only role here was to act as a leader and a spokesperson on behalf of a whole host of people i'm sure you saw all the support letters that wanted all of these same changes but maybe weren't as fluid and how to actually get those to occur and as it relates to the city process we've been through vision 2050 we've been through the teal study we've been through the sunrunner rising study we've been through many studies and all along the way we've been acting as a just as a as an assistant to all of the community members to help them understand what all that just all of these things meant and why they were being done so my role here has just been as an organizer but all the credit goes to the people who were here well before me in terms of support i hope you read all the papers but i think most notably every single neighborhood association that abuts this area is in full support that includes palmetto park that includes the deuces live neighborhood association that includes the warehouse our sister association to date i don't believe that there's a single letter of opposition that's been sent for this which shows i think the amount of outreach and engagement that's been done so there are a couple of items one this is really particular for derek but i have to do this in the public forum in the drc there was a comment about ensuring that the 40 percent was clarified as the habitable ground floor space not the first floor so i did not see that change in the current code and i do think that's an important note for the council members in short the 30 percent of the gross land area or the 40 of the first floor the definition the code just says first floor that leaves ambiguity and conversations that drc i believe the change is going to be made to suggest 40 of the habitable ground floor which would of course exclude parking ramps other back of house space etc so derek i just want to make sure that note gets made as it relates to the far which is the single point of that i think i would like to see adjustment in so as derek mentioned when this process started the city had proffered a base far of 2.0 as you can see now i only have seven seconds left i think but the draft was changed to 1.5 under the idea of ensuring that tec bonuses are achieved thank you so much you appreciate that councilmember floyd thank you actually i did want to talk about far to start off um i there was a slide up and i don't know if we can pull that back up where it had like some alternatives i just want to make sure i'm understanding what exactly is being proposed or if we you're looking for us to make a determination us yeah this one so uh to the left is yeah it's everybody's left um is what's being proposed uh which is 1.5 far base and then a workforce housing bonus the first bonus to uh grow your far is workforce housing um then we have some words in the middle if projects include residential um then you can use the workforce housing bonus is half of the units at 80 and below and half at 120 and below is that all applicable to that proposed on the left-hand side is that what's applicable to it yes that's correct which um i put the bracket on there to try to draw that connection so if you are proposing multi-family units in your development project then once you get to that 1.5 you have to work through the workforce housing bonus as you kind of move up that far progression if you are not proposing multi-family units in your project then you are not uh required to provide the workforce housing piece uh because you are uh contributing then to the existing zoning which is the industrial manufacturing option the target employment center uses that we're trying to um prioritize here so that workforce housing bonus tier only kicks in if you are including multi-family units in your proposal okay so if you're not including multi-family units in your proposal uh that chart on the left or the bar on the left would go 1.5 base far and then the next block would be what 2.0 far bonus any correct okay um okay on the right we have uh what just looks like different size bases um but i'd you know that doesn't include any talk of what the bonuses look like um so i'm and you know y'all have what you've proposed but you did present alternatives like you could change it based off of what our feedback is um if we were to go to like a 2.0 far base um you know what do you envision the bonuses looking like then well uh so first i'll start by saying that we we believe that the proposal demonstrated on the left and included in the package is the optimum proposal for this um out of respect to the stakeholder contributions that we've received um there has been consistent focus on that 2.0 far and in the last drc discussion there was a commission member that was talking about 2.5 so we wanted to demonstrate that here because you do have the ability to discuss this base and make changes if so inclined to do that um what we were trying to show on the right is if you do start to make changes to the far base um you are going to cut into uh the workforce housing that could potentially be proposed through the bonus um there hasn't been much discussion on the finer detail of how do you tier it if you do change to a 2.0 or 2.5 how would you adjust the tiers going up um i think that if you were going to move in that direction that was something that we could discuss and and refine for you the illustration on the left you'll see when you get up to 3.5 there's just a little 0.5 far bonus for um industrial creative uses affordable commercial space programs um that was feedback from the development review commission they wanted to see just one more bonus requirement towards that upper end that forces a little bit more of the target employment center uses out of the tiering and so that was added in response to the drc feedback so i think the principle would be the same you know we would still want to see a workforce housing bonus in there we would still want to see that upper tier bonus in there but how you might adjust the base is going to be up to uh this council okay thank you i just wanted to make sure i was wrapping my head around what was going on in this chart um and you know i'd love to hear from my colleagues i i think what you proposed is good and i understand why um just to get on record if we were to change the base i would definitely want to take to if we had to take away any of the bonuses it would be from just the any bonus area um so we can still leave the two uh specific bonuses in there but um thank you i was just asking so i could make sure i had my head wrapped around that adequately um yeah go ahead good morning elizabeth abernathy your director of planning and development services i just want to add a couple of points to that um and we have some additional backup data we can show you too as to why we thought it was important to move it from the 2.0 to the 1.5 first the workforce housing they will have the option of a payment in lieu of on-site so that is something that is uh we haven't done outside downtown so i just wanted to make sure you understand that they do have the option of of the payment i think we would still have the first available bonus be 1.0 it's just it's less likely to be utilized so the the more higher the base you set we set we set the less likely we are to get these bonuses and what we looked at and and and the far today is 0.75 so moving it to 1.5 is doubling what they can do now so they're already getting to do much more than what they have today without any opting any bonuses so we will have projects that have no bonuses um it's just the larger multi-story projects that are going to have to elect to the bonuses so what we did is we looked at what do other typical five eight twelve story buildings what is their far you know are we going to get these bonuses that we've set out or are they going to be is anybody ever going to get beyond a three or four or even get to a five um and if we i think they're at the end of the presentation i think we'll just bring that up quickly because i think it's important to understand why we think the 1.5 is the most appropriate so this there's a lot here and i don't even know if you can read it but what it's showing is we looked at a number of projects at in in the edge district in downtown that's a little easier to read um just to say you know what what far are most of these projects um many of them uh range from a one to uh a three-point five and these are projects that are five story so a five-story project is 2.76 there's a six story at three just under three uh five to seven story is at 3.5 and and what what this analysis really told us was if we go with the 2.0 far we're not likely to get money bonuses and it was and it was important the bonuses are important because they give us the workforce housing and the bonuses are specific to assisting the tec uses so for example you get a bonus if you finish out your commercial space um to allow a tenant to step in and immediately use it so most tenant spaces you know they call it a cold dark shell they let the tenant finish it they have to come in with the money to be able to put in the flooring and the lighting and so we're going to give a bonus for the developer to do that so that we can get somebody a tenant that maybe doesn't have those resources the opportunity to move into those spaces and get credit for that so that's one of the bonuses that incentivize the tec uses so we really were building that in here and we wanted to make sure that they they would get used so that's that's the rationale uh really of of dropping the 2.0 to the 1.5 so thank you for the opportunity to provide a little more of our data and analysis that went into that uh determination of 1.5 thank you great thank you so much for that um that's really enlightening and this these samples have yeah they they make your point very well so i appreciate it um so i want to change gears to another um piece of information that we've been provided we got a lot of feedback about parking requirements so i figured i'd just ask some questions about it so first we're doing the uh target employment and industrial land uh overlay stuff today um does just talk a little bit about how this compares to the sun runner overall uh and uh if the sun runner uh you know parking requirements are going to be related to this or if they're going to supersede this or be below this just if you could explain great questions and in fact we had a workshop yesterday with drc on the next package we're moving forward and we had some of those conversations about what should we be proposing for parking for the rest of the sun runner station and and we were uh getting feedback on moving that reduction from the 10 to the 25 percent and then utilizing uh commissioner clemens said how about also utilizing the traditional standards because some of the corridor has suburban zoning when you go west of 34th street and that has a higher parking requirement so same idea where we're going to say well let's use the traditional standards which are a little bit lower and give that 25 percent reduction and that should be i think we're feeling where we're and again we're getting stakeholder feedback we had a virtual meeting with the bay area apartment association last week and we're so we're gathering feedback from the different groups and we are getting feedback from the neighborhoods about what's what's the appropriate standard once you get west of 34th street for the rest of the corridor so that's the next package that we're also going to be bringing to you um and that's what we're looking at right now is the 25 percent the traditional standards um but that conversation about should it be what what's the appropriate amount where where you're into some of the more established neighborhoods as you go further west okay but whatever we do on that won't affect what we've done here today correct that'll be what we bring to you next and we're we will be available for one-on-ones and we'll share the stakeholder feedback we get over that we're working through this summer um the hope is to or the goal is to bring that back to you uh either concurrent with this package in september or maybe shortly thereafter depending on how much stakeholder stakeholder uh feedback we get and we need uh to get that feedback to get it to you to get it to that point where it's ready for your consideration but we'll be available for one-on-ones to have further conversation okay thanks let me ask another quick question about that um it looked like when there was target employment uses you there wasn't a parking requirement what was the logic there again to incentivize those uses um you have a lot of existing industrial and warehouse space there now that was built before there were any parking requirements and they don't have parking so not requiring parking for those uses is really kind of consistent with what's already there now and uh again wanting to incentivize those uses so and keeping those including those you're not going to have to uh bring the site up to code you know one of the things that the waiver for the first five parking spaces for converting uh an existing building for the reuse so an example might be someone has a 10 000 square foot warehouse they want to convert half of it to a restaurant uh 5 000 square feet is a pretty typical size for a restaurant downtown parking standards would be five parking spaces so those five parking spaces would be waived they would not have to do any on-site parking it would allow that adaptive reuse and they would not have to retrofit to parking and a lot of those sites don't have any room on their property for parking so there's uh some circumstances where it's going to be no parking required for a project or you know are very low okay that's helpful to understand yeah that that that's helpful um one thing that jumped out at me right there is you said okay there's a 5 000 square foot restaurant space downtown that requires five parking spaces it feels to me like the difference between five and zero there is going to be negligible as you know there's going to be more than five people in the restaurant or five cars anyway um that's totally just a side note it's something that jumped out at me but um okay uh i'm uh sympathetic to the uh public comments about uh reducing parking requirements uh specifically because this is a transit oriented development thing um and i would uh love for us to put more emphasis on uh transit and and people using the transit to live there and giving people opportunities to live there without a car um so i'd love to hear from my colleagues how they feel about that um you know we've been in this process for a while and i know we've been working towards this but i do think that there's still meat on the bone i guess and so um i'd love to hear from everyone else if uh what they're feeling especially after we receive so much community outreach so i'll leave it there for now thank you thank you councilmember driscoll thank you i'm going to stay on parking for now um i i agree this is transit oriented development it's not car oriented development and i really appreciate the reduction in the parking requirements that have been put into this having it matched downtown it just makes sense but i think i think the residents and the people who have spoken up about um eliminating parking minimums all together in this area um they've got a point i mean not only do we have transit to the north of this this overlay area but it's also got the trail right there so you have that additional mode of transportation that's accessible and i love how you've got things laid out so that um when something new is built adjacent adjacent to the trail and adjacent to 22nd street that you've you've got the regulations set that so that the construction the development will respect those street those those elements you've got regulations that really make for a great the next great neighborhood of saint pete i really appreciate all the work that you've done with this i'm wondering how maybe we could give a little bit more flexibility with parking have you ever seen um a scenario i'm sorry sorry i didn't know if you have used your sentence have you seen a scenario where we have these reductions in place but where there is required parking have you seen um or could you imagine us having a payment in lieu option where rather than building parking as required a certain amount would be put into the fund a fund that would go towards pedestrian and bicyclist improvements and and other non-auto related um multimodal improvements that's certainly something we can explore i know 20 years ago when i worked for the city of tampa i don't know if they still have it they did have a parking in lieu in downtown or you could pay out and i think at that time it was based on the typical cost of construction of a garage parking space so it was about twenty thousand dollars uh per space was the payout um i and i will you know mention a couple of um different scenarios i mean we we could just go to zero parking that is certain that is certainly an option i don't i don't think that there's any way to lower what we've already set because it's pretty low so for example somebody builds um an eight-story multi-family uh with non-residential on the first floor if all of the units are under 750 square feet it's zero spaces for all of those units if they include the 5 000 square foot restaurant on the first floor where they get the 25 percent of reduction so the five parking spaces goes to four the rest of the floor or tec uses zero parking for that now it's four parking spaces for for the new building so it's pretty minimal it's not zero but it does give an opportunity for ada space on site right which with no parking there's no ada and we had some concerns when we had some of the downtown projects that were zero parking like well where to you know where is their ada space is going to be and how is that going to work so it helps with that it helps too with employees quite frankly um someone closing a restaurant at two o'clock in the morning it's nice to have that parking space right there for safety when you're uh dealing with uh we probably don't have the cash issues we had once had with with security but that was always a uh an issue when i worked in the restaurant business and so having a little bit of on-site parking um can be helpful and that could be you know people that work in the building for leasing for uh temporary visitors right there are many yeah yeah so we didn't go to zero but that's honestly that's the next step so this is something that could be we could move forward with this as it is today but this is something that we could continue the conversation about like you said you're going to be looking at some various things that could be brought back or brought to us concurrently when this comes back is this something that we could discuss either doing a payment in lieu or doing or just um providing the opportunity to request a variance something like that where it could be something we haven't thought of yet i just want to have that flexibility it's a great suggestion we do have always have the option for a variance and we do allow um reduction and parking for additional bicycle parking i didn't bring that up so that's another way to reduce those are the kinds of things i want us to continue talking about but not today because we do have because when this is first read i'm trying to make sure we get this right you know i've been advocating for this i'm working on this for and talking with everyone about this for five years and i know i haven't always been patient and i'm still not now it's excitement i don't want the i don't want to put this off any longer than it has to but what i hear you telling me is this is something separate that you're working on and these are ideas that you could incorporate into that work to be brought to us separately so that this parking discussion is not over today if we move it forward as is that's correct and i think if we did a parking in lieu we would also be doing that in downtown because those are the most urban stations yes that would be something we would look at for probably all of the urban stations not just for this one so i think that's something that we can we can put on our work program and come back maybe uh to a committee and have a have a little more conversation i love it i love it thank you then in that in that case i'm not going to suggest any changes to um the parking elements of this today i would like to go back to the far um slide and the comparisons because i'm not really i mean we're we're trying to we're trying to make things happen here the 1.5 settling on that the lowest of what was discussed where there were some who said 2.0 and others who said 2.5 i want us to i want us to give people the opportunity to have a great impact i need the columns please with the bonuses i got it thank you we need an far that's going to reflect our commitment to really making a difference in this neighborhood and i think we've come too far to only go this far with it no pun intended with the far thing but seriously though the 2.5 if we made it 2.5 and then did that workforce housing bonus on that next level up to get up to 3.5 and then left the um the little 0.5 the same like what what what are the what's the danger in that how is that you know if the workforce housing bonus came if you wanted to go above 2.5 and all of those same things applied we would allow people more room to make the numbers work so that workforce housing could happen i think we've got a better chance of getting it if we allow for more um in in this particular case so i'm glad that there are others before us who have made a good argument for um setting it at 2.5 i mean 2.0 i guess is okay but if we really want to create strong policy and truly truly modernize this zoning to reflect what st petersburg's needs are today we need to go medium i'm not even asking us to go big but let's go medium 2.5 and with the with the top of it being 5.0 we still have the workforce housing bonus in and we give people a chance to get some flexibility get some jobs here get some market rate units that can help offset the cost of doing the workforce housing units you know this stuff isn't getting any cheaper so i think there's a really strong case to be made to let it start at 2.5 and let's let some real progress happen in this district that's where i am on that i want the 2.5 the last thing i'm going to ask about is the temporary uses and we can turn the lights back on at this point when someone does um i we don't need this slide the the temporary uses for the the food truck the pop-up markets things like that when you get that temporary use permit how long is it good for uh six months and they can ask for one extension okay we know just looking at different um entrepreneurial projects six months is just barely getting off the ground this is an area this is a creative um district right it's the warehouse arts district it's it's where we're making things but it's that modern version of it we're making beer we're making art big sculptures um all kinds of things but it's also a very experimental area which is why you have things like the foodie labs going on it often takes it's you it usually takes six months more than six months to see if something is really working and to give an opportunity for real measurement we have that come before us all the time asking for we need at least this long for due diligence or whatever in this case we i think we need to take a look at extending that to a year because there you can allow for innovation experimentation creative solutions and for for people to really get their feet wet in a business and see if it's working a restaurant concept for instance that maybe is very different something none of us has thought of yet might need to sit for a year in a spot to figure out if they're even in the right spot or what kinds of tweaks they need to make i don't want to hinder that creativity and that innovation especially here where so much of it is already brewing so i would like some consideration to be given and i don't know if that's something that we would have to change citywide or if it could be specific to this um overlay so the current code allow is six months and you're you can request a six month extension which gets you to the year um having been the zoning official and our zoning official is here too we might want to weigh in what that check-in at six months allows is us to say you know are there any negative externalities or the conditions of approval do they need to be changed are they creating any you know issues for their neighbors because they're not bringing the site up to full compliance with all of our codes so we could change six months to a year at the at the offset but i don't think it's the six months with the extension has been hindering anything but i don't if cory malishka is with us too our zoning official and uh yeah then looking at temporary uses uh over the years as well so a lot most of the temporary uses we see are usually special events that might be a three-day event or a week event um but cory if you wanna if you have some thoughts dad cory malishka is only official with city st pete um so we do have some temporary events such as um a lot of the affairs that you see on the street yeah um a different thing so typically you know we do a six month approval um it's usually once a week maybe once a month um and then we do extensions and then there's many of them we do just do a new approval for um because they're doing really well and we haven't had any issues with um you know because they have different um the indie market for instance um you know that's been around for a long time and we've constantly done extensions or new temporary uses for them so it's not unheard of even though um that we said usually we can only extend the one temporary use for six months doesn't mean we can't give them another temporary use okay so it could go beyond 12 months and a lot of things too we got to be careful with is building code and fire code as well so if there's structures on the property um they don't need wind loads um or if you need bathrooms so we got to be careful as well on that okay so this is something that if we did make a change it would be a city-wide change this isn't something that is specific to the overlay i think you have that purview if you wanted a change just to be for this part of the city because we have this special overlay we have those geographic boundaries that are in the zoning which is the next ordinance you'll hear um we could make something that's specific to this area or we could talk about it city-wide so it's whatever is the preference of this body you know when you think about when someone's investing in something i mean this is why sometimes people ask for more than a five-year lease on waterfront property because the investment that they're going to make they need to make sure that again the numbers work and so i think for this particular area because it is um you know a a district of creativity and innovation that in this overlay um i would like to see us do temporary use permits for one year maybe do with a check-in at six i mean we could flip it what i'm thinking is that this i'm i'm glad that it can be extended and it sounds like there are very few times when you have a justification to not allow for an extension it feels like it's flexible enough but i think we should take a deeper look into this at some point and see if what we allow is truly giving people that flexibility and that opportunity for you know trying out new ideas really creating a better path for our entrepreneurs in our city so to be continued on that um for now i'll be okay with keeping it like this if when by the time it comes back to us we've got an idea on a different approach just like with the parking then i would welcome that discussion that is all i have right now thank you councilmember hanowitz thank you well it's noon and i'm sure people are getting hangry right now so i'm going to try to like just focus on a couple of things that were uh mentioned look this has been a fantastic amount of work that y'all have been doing i i mean seriously the quality and level of work that you see in these presentations has taken a lot of time by staff i know that so thank you number one and thank you to the stakeholders um who have really been kind of at the forefront of this i think it's one of the most exciting things that's happening this is going to be a really cool area so i'm super excited with that being said the issues with parking and bringing up parking minimums i i will say my concern about that there have had been a lot of public engagement on this and i'm always very just nervous at the end when people are like at the end let's just change this just this thing at the end once you've had all these community members all these neighborhood associations and all these people and and this is what they think that they're getting so i know it's coming back but that's something on my mind and it's always going to be on my mind when we're coming up with changes the same thing with the far the far look i think 2.0 was what was the the number right for the majority of the time is that correct yes so but the first workshop we did at drc we thought 2.0 was the right number right and we did that additional analysis yeah i right um the only time 2.5 came up was at the last drc meeting one of the commissioners brought that up that's exactly so so again going back to public engagement and where we've at probably the look if we're going to go somewhere i think it would be the two just because that's where the public engagement has been at and um whether or not you can get the workforce housing after that um i would like to see that um i think that you know because i i understand there was one commissioner that came up with the 2.5 but if if the community had been at 2.0 throughout the time i'd be happy to look at that and and uh and that's it for me so that way others can talk and we can go to lunch at some point thank you thank you vice chair gurus uh i am on a uh i am real similar to council member hanowitz um i've i've got a couple of concerns about the parking i agree that the conversation has been for frankly a couple of years about reduced parking and minimizing the effect of parking but um you know and then we get these emails and um i i think some of them this isn't because i disagree or anything like that agree or disagree but some of them are just from people who don't want parking period um and so uh you know i i think we need to take that into account and then the ada component really concerns me uh not being able to not having uh disabled parking on uh pieces of property or at least close around i mean could you imagine if there was just no parking throughout the entire project the entire area i mean um that that that part concerns me i really appreciate the minimization of it and where we're at and so i would i would keep the parking there from an far standpoint again uh very much agree with council member hanowitz the conversation has been two i could go to two i could stay at 1.5 i'm i'm more uncomfortable at 2.5 it was kind of a last whim thought and i really want to see the the affordable and the workforce housing built and i'm just not sure that that happens at 2.5 so anyway that's where i'm at on those two but obviously very thankful for all the work and excited to start moving this thank you madam chair thank you so much and just to let everyone know we have one more item in public hearing and then we also have reports and we had a lot of constituents take off work i've gotten the looks and the text so i do know that we need to also go through those before we break for lunch so i just want to put that out there for my colleagues councilmember montaneri thank you i uh i want to uh start off by thanking everybody uh for the presentation and and all the work that's been done so far uh i just wanted to go back to the numbers that were uh part of agenda item e3 which come out those the the population figures come out of the vision 2050 plan and there was a chart there that had four different growth scenarios that's in the 20 fish 2050 plan a low growth medium high growth medium low growth in a high growth plan and the hike growth plan is the plan that by 2050 we're forecasting about 366 000 people in the city of saint petersburg uh recently we've been tracking on that high growth plan and on the next page of the uh 2050 plan they have different uh uh development requirements that that are needed and they've got a 30-year chart and a annualized chart and on the annualized chart they project every year we need to build 135 000 square feet of office space uh 1550 uh 1550 residential units 63 500 square feet of retail in 185 hotel rooms so this kind of leads me into the far uh question uh because i want to have a discussion on what is the best where where should we be aiming here and liz you made it sound like the uh the reason you wanted to stay at 1.5 with the 1.0 bonus was that we would uh have more workforce housing did i hear you correctly no i didn't i didn't state that i i think well i think there's there's two parts to that i i stated we'd have more bonuses that there there would have to elect for bonuses um i don't think we would change the requirement that the first 1.0 of bonus be workforce heart housing if there's multi-family it's just it wouldn't kick in until you got above the base of two or the base of 2.5 if we go to that the concern is how many projects are really going to be above a 2.0 or 2.5 when we look at comparative other properties so it may mean we're just less likely to have the bonus structure utilized which if it's multi-family it would be the first 1.0 would be the workforce housing and and maybe we we get that but then we don't get any of the other bonuses so once they're you know get to a a three or above a three there just weren't a lot of projects that were at a maximum of 5.0 so there there shouldn't be an expectation that everybody's going to come in with a 5.0 and we're going to get all those bonuses but we wanted to make those bonuses meaningful so that was again part of the reason um and we didn't don't take lightly making a change like that as we're already having the conversation it's just that analysis of all of those projects made us really come to that conclusion that you know if we're going to get any bonuses some of those bonuses used that the that 1.5 was was kind of the right the right number to start with okay well what what we're seeing in the in the city of saint petersburg and throughout the state in our nation but we we as a city council and and administration have been working uh hard on the affordable housing issue and from my point of view increasing the far should have a that the more density you can put in the cheaper the prices of of things so this is just uh a tool that a developer can use if we if we have a higher uh far and that's why i'm leaning towards the 2.5 far i still think the 5.0 uh far should be the max but um to me i don't see why we would limit ourselves is my logic am i being logical here i mean i don't i don't i guess the question is is it you know how limiting is it that they have to use the bonus system and how expensive are these different bonuses and i can't answer that you know we've been working with the stakeholders um to get some feedback about on you know what is still marketable what's an roi does a 2.0 still pencil for you is a 1.5 pencil for you and there definitely was some feedback that a 2.0 was appropriate and when we had the discussion about 1.5 and why you know that we had that conversation as well so okay council member if i could just good afternoon city council if i if i could just add to that and certainly it's city council's decision how you want to uh deal with the far but just to give some context we've talked before um at city council meetings about the changes that city council led um to change the far bonus structure downtown and how that impacted the payment in lieu and how we went from taking in forty thousand dollars over a seven or eight year period whatever it was to now taking in over four million dollars in the payment in lieu uh over the past two years and i think what liz is talking about is what triggered that is we dropped the trigger from 5.0 far to 3.0 far and we picked up more buildings and that's one of the main reasons why that amount increased so what liz is saying is if it's at 1.5 you're going to get more payment in lieu that's a policy decision it's up to you what you want the far to be but i think that's the point that liz is trying to make okay okay thank you for that that explanation i didn't didn't consider that um i'm still i'm still trying to work through the situation that we're in with the growth that we're seeing with our affordable housing issues that we have and trying to get more more density to to build what uh we need to build as outlined in the 2050 plan that's a lot of development and quite frankly the next package we're going to bring to you on the commercial corridors is going to be proposing some pretty significant changes for the ccs1 for example we're at a 15 base now we're going to propose 60 and that's going to you know encompass the 34 street corridor tyrone so you know this is this is one area and uh we've got some pretty significant changes that we want to bring back to you um for the cct the ccs and that would all hopefully come back at the same time that this comes back through the county process that won't have to go through the county process that's going to just be a text amendment that goes before you it won't need to go to the ford pinellas board and the board of county commissioners it has a faster path so we're getting that stakeholder feedback and that's why we're looking at all areas of our city outside the coastal high hazard uh to try to increase density so we can respond to that 2050. okay all right good so um well this is a good discussion 2.2 2.0 is i where i would like to go and i want us to consider going to to 2.5 but it's a good discussion let me just touch briefly on the parking uh i i get concerned uh about development and i know we're we're talking about a transit court the transit quarter uh in this discussion the sun runner though is is is east west quarter and there's a lot of people that aren't along that quarter that are coming from north or south and so i still think we need to have adequate parking and what's proposed in the plan is like the lowest i want to go at this point i think we some of these changes need to be thought through uh before we make uh real dramatic uh changes but i want to make sure that uh especially the businesses have places for for people to to park so that the businesses can be successful so uh i'll leave it right there thank you council member muhammad thank you vice chair i just wanted to weigh in also running the risk of being hangry um as it relates to the parking um i think significant improvements have to be made to transit before we do this more broadly citywide because the the feedback that i'm getting i do support the the um reductions in parking for this area but there are constituents who want parking there's some developments and there's some concerns and complaints that you know we need somewhere to park for the businesses so y'all write this down i actually agree with council member montaneri on that one um because there are businesses that um and stakeholders who are not on the the corridor um and they have not embraced or bought in or fully understood this car free model and carson you know uh yeah the car free model and idea and they still use cars they still drive i still drive working on getting better i've taken my bike a little bit more but a lot a lot of people in my district still drive and they want to be able to park when they go to certain places um so clarifying that this change is for this area i appreciated that as well um and would love to see how we can phase this in and not just do this magic wand and blanketly do car free in st pete because there are some considerations as we look at certain areas of the city and my district is one of those as it relates to far i do appreciate the data-driven approach um the justification for how you got to the 1.5 um really addressed a lot of the questions that i had and i would be supportive of that recommendation um but also willing to go up to a 2.0 but again phased approach and not doing the 2.5 because of the feedback that i'm getting or anything beyond that so thank you for that and uh that's all i have thank you thank you councilmember gabbard thank you um so i'll be brief i just want to express for the parking um certainly i am very supportive of reducing parking where it makes sense but i do appreciate your comments around employees ada specifically sensitive to both of those topics so um for me right now i hear a lot of other people in the same place i'm willing to stay where we are but on this far bonus i obviously favorable to move forward today but i do want to see what it looks like at the 2.0 um if there can be a way that we go with the 2.0 and then we work in these um the workforce housing bonuses within like the next tier and then whatever there's a half tier whatever that looks like um i would like to see that come back i don't know that i'm at the 2.5 but i'm definitely interested in looking at the 2.0 and i'll leave it there thank you thank you councilmember floyd thank you um i want to clarify just two things so first uh i kicked off the far discussion well the whole discussion and i started with far and then i listened to uh you know your points about why it was at 1.5 and i agree completely with you i think the payment in lieu has been successful when we made those recent changes and i think that this we're already giving people significantly more by moving it to 1.5 from what it is right now um i think that the bonuses specifically workforce housing starting at 1.5 is the right thing to do and i just wanted to like definitively express that um uh i will um you know be frustrated if it gets to 2 and i'll be livid if it gets to 2.5 truthfully um because i think that you've all have done this on purpose and it was thoughtful and especially when you showed us that chart about uh um about what we've seen go on around town and so i think i i wanted to make sure that was totally clear for everybody else the second thing is on the parking um i think there's just a couple of misconceptions in my opinion and let me see if i can clarify i don't think anyone's talking about eliminating public parking at all like in parking for people to get to the businesses what i would like to see personally is an opportunity for people who clearly there's a lot of them people who want to live without a car near transit uh to be able to have that opportunity and right now uh you know it's kind of there in very small units 750 square feet um but i'd love to see that opportunity for more people so that a developer can say there is a market for people who don't want to live with a car as long as they're near transit or maybe even not if they like to ride their bike but uh especially when near transit there's a market for that and like us acknowledging that by saying that hey in these residential complexes there doesn't have to be a parking requirement although i will say there should still be ada and uh you know employee stuff but i mean i don't think anybody's when they're saying absolutely not they don't i don't think they mean oh we don't want ada either but i just want a clarification like maybe there is i don't know i'm not talking to them because i don't agree with them but um but uh it could be another option where we just say zero parking for residential yeah yeah i mean yeah zero for tec uses we could go zero for residential yeah some sort of opportunity for people who want to live without a car again we've there's a lot of them based off of the community feedback to have that potential um but i mean you know when there's talk as talks of people visiting that area i don't think anybody's like public parking is a separate discussion we're talking about the private developments right now um so i just wanted to make sure that that was clear and that was where i was coming from and everybody knew so thank you council member driscoll thank you as you i know you gave some examples we don't need to see the slide again of um the far of various developments um look like many of them were downtown but if you think about this as part of the sunrunner corridor and we're thinking we're talking about the zoning for transit oriented development along the corridor don't we find that we have more buildings that have that higher far already if you gave examples of the ones that are you know in the area it seems like we have more more buildings that are that have that that density already uh just in downtown and we have a few new ones in skyway but i don't think the far's approach these same levels so these are what would be comparable and the only other project that has any you know height and density elevation is um the name of the project at closer to 34th street and the uh one of the burlington's but they have a lot of surface parking too so their far really is not very high right well i mean so what i'm thinking about is like around that area you've also got a lot of smaller parcels so i i want to make sure that i mean 1.5 just seems too low to me and i want it to be at 2.0 number one does this have to be decided today or can we move this forward as it is or do you need us to make a motion based on like 1.5 or 2.0 and let us vote on that i don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water here we do need a motion on that that's in the ordinance yeah change so you know i just want to make sure again i i want to make sure that we're not hindering good development by um you know not not giving some flexibility on the front end with the base far and you know i'm counting it just it sounds like there are you know we have the votes to go to 2.0 and i don't see i don't think that that is um the end of the world for those who want to keep it lower but i think that's just enough more that we're going to help more people make the numbers work and not just you know huge uh big time developers we want to make sure that the smaller parcel owners that the smaller developers um have that opportunity as well so so i do have some of the numbers of the outside of downtown the 3100 central avenue gallery 3100 is at a 1.51 far okay highway marina district marina walk is a 1.85 uh yeah but that's on a huge property so i mean it's it's at outside downtown so sir club is 1.25 um skyway these are like sprawling though i mean they do have structured parking yeah skyway loft is at 1.56 um the exchange 555 mlk junior street south is at a 1.43 so um those are kind of the level that wouldn't provide any any bonus of the 430 third avenue south beacon 430 is at a 2.0 far so just these numbers were again compelling enough for us to say maybe we need to move the base from 2.0 to 1.5 so that we can get some of these bonuses and yeah those bonuses are important enough we're already kind of giving a lot of opportunity from the uh 0.75 to the going doubling it to the 1.5 that this yeah but it's but it comes down to like doubling it from what and it has it started very small so the whole idea of transit oriented development is to increase density and intensity along these transit corridors 2.0 helps us accomplish that i think it's i think it's really a middle ground that everyone should be able to agree on i'll leave it there all right vice chair godis thank you madam chair uh this is a question for legal so janine let's say there was a motion made to move this forward as is we could have one-on-ones look at moving it to a 2.0 and our one-on-ones and then could we change it at second we could change it at second reading to 2.0 if that information guided us that way right yes councilmember driscoll uh i'd be interested to know how you feel about moving it forward as is but i would be very interested in having one-on-one or a round of one-on-ones with planning about moving it to 2.0 i just would i'd like to grab some extra information i'm not i'm not against the 2.0 but i i like you want to move it forward and if we can do it at the next meeting i'm certainly open to that would just like to have a little bit longer of a conversation with planning i thank you um i can go along with it i mean i'm actually a 2.5 er so 2.0 is 2.0 i'm like team 2.5 sorry i represent downtown it's just in our blood but 2.0 just was my compromise on that so um but i am willing to give everyone an opportunity to learn about what it means and what it doesn't mean for this particular project or this um this district and this overlay as long as it doesn't hold up anything because again we've waited a long time and this still has to go to for pinellas down the county but not this particular part right this part is ours doesn't have to go back if we change it i think we're allowed to make minor modifications to what's presented to the county also when they give the package they can also say in the notes it would reflect the conversations that are ongoing that's why i mean other things could change at the county level too that's why there's that flexibility in the requirement for the second public hearing in september i'm interested in just having a larger conversation about the payment in lieu and how that would affect it and i just want to make sure i have that when i make this decision so i'll move approval e5 second council member gabbert oh thank you um so my question was for legal as well so you were reading my mind i wanted to know what um flexibility we had if it moved together move forward today as is but this right here i would not be favorable to voting for 2.0 without seeing this change so that i understand how that is going to look and what that's going to do um so i just also wanted to thank you for all the samples i think the samples tell the story um and they tell what's possible what could be possible and so i very much look forward to seeing that information coming forward thank you thank you um as chair speaking last everyone else has pretty much addressed some of my issues especially those in regarding the parking and those that i've spoken to are mainly not saying eliminating the parking but reducing the parking and i do agree with the not having a lot of concrete um that's not being used especially if we're trying to become emission uh free with that we want to provide those opportunities um as far as the far is concerned i was okay with the 1.5 and wanted to have that same question could we move forward as is to have additional um conversation so i'm glad that is where we landed so i will leave it at that for those that don't know the the chairs we have to speak last so generally by the time we speak everything has already been said so we have a motion and the second for e5 can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing that all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item e5 passes unanimously thank you so much next we'll move on now to e4 the city initiated amendments to the future land use map and official zoning maps can you please read the title for e4 please yeah this is a quasi this is quasi-judicial yes um ordinance number 759-l in ordinance amending the future land use map of the comprehensive plan for the city of st petersburg florida by changing the future land map use map designation for a 58 acre site generally located at the 22nd street south sun runner bus station south of first avenue south east of 24th street south and north and west of interstate 275 to establish the sun runner target employment center local overlay providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing for an effective date the second reading the second public hearing is scheduled for september this go ahead would you like me to read uh the second one we only have yes there's two yeah go ahead yes ma'am yes we have yeah go ahead okay ordinance number 791-z an ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of st petersburg florida by changing the zoning of for a 58 acre site generally located at 22nd street south sun runner bus station south of first avenue south east 4th street south and north and west of interstate 275 to establish the sun runner target employment center local overlay providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing for an effective date the second reading and second public hearing is scheduled for september the 5th thank you joining us again is miss britain wilson we have a presentation or are we interested in the presentation move approval second having it properly motioned and seconded we're seeing do we have cards madame said we have a swearing in on this one yeah this is quasi we do not have cards on this one not okay all right with that being said no cars there's being motioned this being second do we need to are we doing it we do the quasi well we didn't think she was going to do a presentation so this is this is a quasi judicial so there is a presentation and we have to confirm that there is not i mean the applicant is the city so there's not a separate applicant in my knowledge there's not a registered opponent and then we'll have to call for cards and any final comments by the city then we can close that to executive session and i would ask that there'd be two separate votes first on the future land use map amendment and secondly on the zoning okay go ahead we were trying to move a little too fast okay anyone do you swear affirm that the evidence you're about to give is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth thank you okay so they colleagues did need the presentation cards executive is there any cards no she said there were no cards no cards mr chair and so city waves closing city waves there's no applicants uh executive does that any council members have anything to say move approval e4a second wait i had made a motion so shouldn't i be amending mine yes if you made a previous motion for e4 already thank you i'll move up i'll um amend my motion for approval of item e4a second can we not do that no okay so we have a motion that's been probably second for e4a mr clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members tally cast your votes now that our present council members have cast their votes can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item e4a passes unanimously okay e4b move approval e4b second do you have to amend second we're done okay so now that we have a motion and it's been properly seconded for e4b can you please open the machine for voting council members cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item e4b passes unanimously thank you so much we will quickly move on to reports because i know some of you have told me you need to go to work and i do appreciate your time because this is our job so we're going to be here um so now we're going to move on to f1 and we're asking all of our reports to be no longer than 10 minutes clerk can you please set the clock for those reports and we now have f1 2024 primary election resolutions chance janitor fosla good morning madam chair members of city council you have before you two resolutions for approval one calling for the primary election which is scheduled for august 20th 2024 and the other approving agreement with these uh supervisor of elections often do they have to be separate or can they be together they can be together move approval both resolutions of f1 second okay we do have um council member floyd that would like to ask a question council member floyd yeah i'll keep this brief thank you chair um we have some duties when it comes to holding our elections uh one in particular i'm thinking of is uh council or is uh candidate forums is there even just any discussion about that or not with us um i believe it's in the city code that it's an outside agency that typically holds those forums and i'm not sure if the league of women voters has reached out to any council member to bring that forward typically that's how that's done it doesn't run through our office okay cool um legal you want to mention anything about that uh there's a duty to hold the forum it does not specify who is responsible for organizing it okay an outside group can can host the forum on the city's behalf but in terms of who within city government is responsible for organizing the forum the charter does not specify okay so uh how does how does it work whenever like an outside organization who usually there's plenty of them that hold forums how does it work that we um satisfy our requirement with that organization like we have to go say something to them whose responsibility is it to say this is also meeting our obligation i wasn't involved with setting it up the last time around i defer to uh mr clerk about the actual interplay between the city and the organization the last time around i'm councilman floyd a city council member brought the item forward okay so it was again we we have nothing as far as the clerk's office we were neutral we have nothing to do with the forum okay cool yeah i just want to make sure i saw that that was there and i know it hasn't always happened i just want to make sure we're doing our duty so i'll keep that in mind and i'll uh go talk to the outside organizations and see if uh that's maybe something i need to bring forward so thank you chair and before you all vote i want to um publicly um correct something that i said at your april 18th uh committee of the whole regarding the dates for our submitting information i misspoke we had not received our election contract at that time so we did receive the dates for when backup when ballot language is due i just want to correct that for the record correct it for the record we have a motion it is properly second mr clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing that our president council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item f1 a and b passes unanimously with council member driscoll being absent thank you now we will move to item f2 our hidden voices report and we have our interim chief equity officer mr carl lavender and i thought we were gonna have miss esther eugene but we also have mr michael gelazo from perk that's also here with us afternoon chair members of city council honorable mayor kenneth t welch carl lavender interim chief equity officer to introduce to you two projects funded by taxpayers both of which are extremely important for the benefit of our citizens and before i begin madam chair i want to thank again the citizens that did come out today and have sat for a while to be a part of this moment we believe in you and we thank you for the time and effort you've made to be here first things first let me bring up to the podium hidden voices project led by esther matthews and michael gelazo and they'll speak very clearly about the value of this kind of program esther matthews thank you thank you thank you um michael i don't know if you want to say something before i dive in okay fantastic i am hangry y'all so i'm gonna move fast fast fast so um this report is a reflective of um the work that's taking place from june 1st through april 30th um with the knowledge it was created prior to the end of may we have some additional information that i can probably verbally say but will but have provided um the actual report to um miss lisa willow bowman so you're aware the program was launched in may of 2021 um under the guidance and the directive of our current chair michael gelazo and um lisa wilmer both lisa willow bowman of which it was a byproduct of the enough is enough initiative as well um currently it's under the guidance and lead of the lead case manager dashawn mems who's doing a fantastic job dashawn is here with us and i should have before um starting i also want to acknowledge two of our contractors who are also here i'm not going to call y'all out but if i'll just wave it at the dais so that they know that you're here um this report is really going to talk about um the intentional engagement that has taken place how the program has involved how we've touched and reached over 400 families how not only have we reached families but there are actual engaged individuals that are showing the intention of what's taken place in the evolving of well how it began and how it has now um really morphed when talking about um event staff and then the um client tracker serve summary you'll see here that it talks a little bit about um the approach that we have how we are not just um looking for individuals to come to the office but we're actually going out into the community we're meeting the needs by listening and then approaching those needs by going out and reaching them and we don't just do it during business hours we're out um mornings evenings nights i myself went out and sat in my truck as they did to work uh because i was scared to get out my comm line um but this is the numbers right the numbers are clear between june 23rd and december 23rd we touched and reached by events 25 events um i'm sorry 25 individuals with our men in power luncheon 500 individuals with our healing with black um collaborative um initiative 300 um individuals with the out of darkness event uh the community uh feeding 100 uh dashawn goes to polk ci um you'll know in our deliverables that we were very clear that we wanted to tap those individuals that were re-entering the community and so she had reached um and contacted and provided some level of support to 75 individuals and then our canvassing our canvassing as we track those numbers um from june to december was 65 and then you'll see the numbers in january um with those events we reached uh 126 individuals um in february respectively um one event was 150 the next event was 100 25 and 10 20 50 and 8. i want to touch on the fact that these events some of them we are putting on ourselves some we have with very clear intention partnered with other organizations um to provide our support at their events um what we notice is that there is a lot taking place in the community and it to our um feelings it makes no sense to um duplicate and so we're being very intentional with where we can partner we partner where we see gaps we provide the resources you'll see the picture at the bottom this is an event that dashawn was dashawn's brainchild and dashawn said that there was a need for there to be an empowerment for young women and for our older women and for women coming out of prison and for women who've lost their jobs and for women with children and so what began last year first one i believe you had about 30 people there at the first one um this year you'll see the crowd i believe that there was over or almost 100 people at this event and many of the people many of the young ladies that were talking about um brookwood we're talking about um individuals that are that have heard about the work and they're coming and then we engage not only with those um women and young girls but we also engage with community partners to come and tell their story and to provide resources we were able to with the support of donated dollars provide scholarships we had a young lady who graduated this year we were able to give her four hundred dollars to go off and um purchase books for um college we had another young lady who has launched her own business we were able to she has a um photography business we were able to give her four hundred dollars to um buy equipment for her business and so much more it's really the intention behind ensuring that there's support in place you'll see in march we touched 75 individuals i'm sorry it was 85 85 at the she can brunch and then in april respectively 30 40 60 and 45 the work is taking place we are in the community we're engaging we're making sure that the connections are clear and intentional when we look at our clients that we're touching you'll see uh respectively total in total in totality um in the subsections of which i can't read up there because i wear glasses um but it's 102 for clients enrolled i think it says it's um 20 uh 35 for um 95 i cannot read that i'm sorry y'all 35 for actively engaged and i'm hoping that you guys have the flight the um powerpoint in front of you that you can see it but the numbers are clear the numbers are clear and it shows that um with with true um boots to the ground ears in the community we hear what is needed and we're meeting the needs i think what we're most excited about are the individuals that have come out of prison and have received resources we had a gentleman and i'll highlight him in particular um today he came out of prison he had he had a charge that hindered his ability to live pretty much anywhere and um because of the intentional work that dashawn did in engagement with him she was not only able to get him housed but he is not just housed but he's now working he was living one in the woods he went from in the woods to sleeping on someone's porch and then from sleeping on someone's porch to having his own place and working this is someone that would come up to the office and sit for hours in dashawn's office and she called numerous landlords and it was no no no no and finally she got a yes and so when we talk about um again the intention behind the work it's really hearing listening and and and almost guiding those individuals that have the resources in the community to understand that it takes all of us to to really arm and support um the individuals that need this it's not um for lack of anything else other than sometimes people walk in the door because they've lost their jobs and because you lose your job you can't pay your bills and you can't pay your bills you've lost your housing and you've lost your housing and your car gets repoed and now you're trying to find a place to stay and there's no homeless shelters right now we're at capacity with family um shelters and now cps involved and there's one person sometimes that you just need to vent all of those things pour all of those things and they can then assist you with navigating what that looks like and this is what hidden voices has really involved into it's evolved into a navigation resource um foundation for those that sometimes get lost in the numbers with the larger organizations okay that's a fast 10 minutes yes it is gone already but i just so i'm gonna jump please let me because i think all of this is important and i'm sure you've seen it but this is the piece is it is it gonna play i think you have to enable content i don't think it's working you gotta enable content and then it'll play no so while we're waiting um on that i'm gonna go ahead and allow those that need to speak so we can stay within our time limits for these reports to keep it moving is there anyone else that would like to speak in regards to hitting voices yes sir when this was i'm michael gelazo i'm the ceo of of perk the original intent of enough is enough the original intent that you had in presenting this as an idea to work with returning citizens to work with the families who are affected by gun violence to work to make sure that they had resources that they knew resources it's evolved into that and i think it's important to really understand that the vision that yourself and lisa wheeler bowman had that we collectively put together dashawn and her team esther they've really carried this to fruition and continue to grow it and i just think that this has been one of those great times where we've been able to bring all those components together and i want to thank you for that and we can't forget um nikki gaskin k part who was at that time the director of urban affairs who also financed and helped fund this were we able to get it running yes all right go ahead did you mute it um i heard about a woman's empowerment brunch and thought that it would be a great opportunity to meet some influential women working in the community giving me an opportunity to become part of the community while also providing me with employment and a chance to further my education hidden voices has taught me valuable skills and communication i've learned how to properly address conflict of interest my patience has improved and i have a better understanding of how to speak and address people in a professional setting passion for helping others and giving me the determination i need not to give up and to continue moving forward on my path to success learned about it during my incarceration and since i was already helping guys out do the same thing and participate in helping some of the men that's coming out of person once they get out hidden voices have assisted me in getting employed and and as soon as i was released in person i was able to secure a job and it has significantly helped me pay my probation fees and court fees the training in active listening helped me improve on my communication skills conflict resolutions as a training has taught me how how to handle disputes more calmly and constructively which has been invaluable in both my personal and professional settings it also boosted my confidence and able to secure job and helping me set and achieve my goals with their support i was able to find a stable job which opens up career opportunities in the future overall the project has given me the tools and confidence to build a better life and stay in a positive path i was made aware by the hub i voiced my need for employment and was connected to dashawn mims whom i was hired to participate in community outreach and community support i received an employment opportunity and i have been supported through employment with hidden voices i have been provided tools to support and meet the needs of our community hidden voices has bridged a gap in my finance struggle connected me to our community in need to community leaders and motivated myself and my child to continue to support our community i first learned about the hidden voices as a participant through the pinella sex offender re-entry coalition and i was absolutely enamored by their purpose to advocate for individuals affected by gun violence i love the outreach events held by hidden voices that allowed people to engage with one another and battle this issue played in our community i have received a tremendous amount of support from him voices i was given insight into the severity behind gut violence in our community the individuals dramatic dramatically impacted and the opportunity to become part of this wonderful mission hidden voices has also blessed me with the opportunity to be noticed for my empathetic nature towards our community i was given the opportunity of a lifetime and was placed with a position in perk so that i would have the ability to compassionately help others with the direct needs in our community jordan thank you so much go ahead and stop i have come thank you much um so with that being said we overwent our time but i definitely want to um comment on miss dashawn mims stand up dashawn so people can see who you are are we want to celebrate because she has taken this program originally it was designed to address gun violence and provide holistic um support and resources to our our homecomers um and those that generally get overlooked those that don't have have very limited resources because i do think perk is the only organization in st pete south st pete that provides those those uh services so we want to thank you for that and thank you for wanting to bring us this presentation um it was about time for us to see what um your tax payers dollars are doing and you know you're not funded a whole lot but you make it work um with what you do and the number that you're actually served in the community so i want to thank you mr michael delazo thank you miss esther eugene thank you miss dashawn mims and the other contract service contractors that you have wave that have been here to work with one of the most difficult populations that we have because not too many people want to work with the homeless not too many people want to work with felons not too many people want to be up close and personal with the type of services and resources that you give and it's important you know if we say that we we want to capture and be all everything to all then hidden voices is one of those organizations so i thank you for that thank you so much thank you so much thank you so our next report will be the famous report and joining us again is carl lavender yes phyllis wheatley has a place in american history as one of the great civil rights leaders and one of her advocate positions is literacy the ability to read and articulate and share it is a benefit that every citizen should have in our nation and certainly we were progressive here in giving resources to make sure that our city is also an advocate in that regard to share with you the report is maria and her team ladies and gentlemen the phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign report thank you good good morning afternoon i would assume i'm going to um take a second just to ask our team and that that's able to remain uh here because one of the things i want to impress upon in this process uh the mission of the phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign is to ensure african children can read it's just that simple and we had a um council member um driscoll shared this with me and it spoke to what our work is about once you learn to read you will be forever free you've seen the work that we probably have um done with support of juneteenth um and certainly with the city's uh support we have really been able to make a big big presence on the tampa bay area with the juneteenth celebration and a part of that remembrance and celebration is also about changing a mindset and that's one of the things that we have spent a lot of time on recognizing in this work that um the goal of the mission of ensuring african children can read is a collaborative and a very strategic process that requires focus we had two members that we were hoping we're going to be able to come but once the time changed for the presentation um the principal of the current principal uh kathleen young parker uh and her colleague kim norvash were to be here because they were going to be switching uh changing up mrs um young parker will be going into dr lewis brinson's role and miss norvash will be going into uh uh kathleen young parker's role and the reason that it was important for them to be here because this work is not about a maria scruggs this work is about a collaborative work that has to occur with the members of the phyllis weekly rise to read team its board as well as the folks that are in that grind in that classroom in that politics of education on a daily basis and i think we have done a remarkable job by building on that partnership within this work i'm going to ask um malia if she'll use the clicker because i can't walk and chew gum at the same time um the phyllis weekly rise to read campaign um design is focused on uh conducting parent orientations enrolling scholars into the campaign coordinating literacy assessments vision and hearing screenings and mental health screenings coaching parents on reading techniques with their children marketing campaign linking phyllis weekly scholars with literacy instruction activities within the community supporting parents in their involvement with their children's school activities planning literacy events into traditional african celebrations we have bodies of research that we've shared that i won't take the time because of the limited time to go through that you will find in your powerpoint the only piece of body of research that i want to focus on is when i talk about a strategic approach we had to find a strategy that had some evidence of working behind it to ensure that we could have a structure that supported the phyllis weekly rise to read campaign and that was collective impact uh and typically what that has resulted in is work that has started from the top down and the hopes that the affected targeted community would have the results it just has not worked what phyllis weekly represents is a bottom up meaning that the work is being led by the african community saying that we have the resources we have the education and we have the commitment to ensure that our children can read and i wanted to place an emphasis on that um for the fiscal year 23 24 if we can um flip to that the phyllis weekly rise to read campaign was awarded 250 000 to support our mission to ensure that african children from birth to 18 years old excuse me who lived in saint pete could read and a breed on and above great level uh to date we've received two payments of 62 500 and we'll follow with a summary of some of the outcomes that we said to the city that we would do uh we would conduct parent engagement and community events and we have several bullets to indicate that has occurred that we would hire three family navigators they're here um sitting in the audience uh literacy festival hopefully the uh again you all have seen the robust marketing effort that we put on hosting a juneteenth literacy festival by which um the honorable john muhammad will be hosting our music festival at albert widd and also to conduct mental wellness assessments we are deliverables to date that we've hosted four parent engagement events we've hired two family navigators during this time we've held community events uh and deposits for the literacy for the juneteenth literacy festival that we have been uh talking about thus far and we have conducted 18 mental wellness assessments our next chart we want to split flip to is our fast learning results fast is the new state assessment for uh assessing children's reading ability and the pie chart on the right is a pie chart representing the percentage of um children of scholars enrolled in phyllis weekly attending camera park and as you can see uh 44.6 percent of the scholars that are enrolled in the phyllis weekly rise to read campaign are currently reading on grade level within this uh time this school year and then when we look at the chart on the right representing the pie chart representing uh john hopkins you can see that while we don't have scholars that are necessarily on grade level the scholars that are enrolled in john hopkins have 100 of them have shown an increase in learning gains some of our campaign highlights to date we have achieved several significant accomplishments and established important systems to support our mission we are excited about the work that has gone into the juneteenth literacy festival uh one of our aspirational goals uh in the beginning with the phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign was to demonstrate that the community was supporting the work of phyllis wheatley and today we are proud to report that we have raised over 133 000 representing community uh support of phyllis wheatley uh the campaign highlights uh we can go on with the festival sponsors educators and vendors that are listed we also want to talk about the work that is involved and this also includes challenges there is a lack of literacy programs within a limited number of spaces offering tutoring within the community we have also encountered challenges in collaborating with other partners at schools to provide a cohesive cohesive experience for our scholars and families and additionally we have experienced difficulties in obtaining follow-through for mental wellness assessments and vision screenings by the um by some of our scholars um parents and caretakers last but not least we also want to talk speak to and represent some of the thoughts and feelings about what our families have said about phyllis wheatley we have uh comments from several but we've only chosen to highlight a couple uh the first one uh from miss ali it's been a great experience for alasia so far she has started to display more of an interest in her vocabulary and math honestly she seems to learn more from this program than in the classroom i look forward to how both alasia and isabella do during the summer phyllis wheatley cares about me and my child i have felt so supported during my time with you all my child is starting to finally enjoy reading there are other testimonials but because of the interest of time what i'd like to do is flip to a video of one of our young scholars that will be transitioning from from transitioning from campbell park to um john hopkins as a sixth grader mr kamarion green and i think he speaks to what the work is about with phyllis wheatley good morning mayor and saint petersburg city council my name is maria scruggs and i'm the founder and ceo of the phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign and i'd like to introduce you all to one of my new best friends mr kamarion green my name is kamarion green i'm a fifth grader at campbell park elementary i'm also a phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign scholar this year i received the certificate for having the second highest improved school school at campbell park i still have a lot of work to do with the help of my teachers my mama and phyllis wheatley rise to read campaign i will be somebody mr kamarion we are looking forward to going to john hopkins this year right yes ma'am awesome awesome have you gotten a chance to visit the school yet no ma'am but i will be going monday you go monday yes ma'am what's gonna happen on monday um it's basically like summer bridge and i'm gonna i don't know what i'm gonna be doing but i know that it's gonna be pretty fun it's gonna be fun and it's to help with those reading skills and get them back up so you'll be ready yes ma'am the beginning of school here yes ma'am okay awesome kamarion you're getting ready to start the summer yes ma'am you've had a great school year yes tell me what you think is gonna happen on monday morning at summer bridge uh i don't know i think i'm gonna be a little nervous but i feel like i'm gonna have a good experience i feel like i'm gonna have a good experience you know what the beginning of having a new experience is thinking that you're gonna have a new experience so if you go with the attitude that it's gonna be good it will be and i know that it's gonna be a whole new environment for me because it's a whole new grade level and yeah getting those awards this year i think you're ready yes ma'am okay awesome awesome thank you madam chair for inviting us to give this update this is truly a working uh a process of labor and love and would entertain any questions or comments any council members would have at this time we have cards right now so can we call the two speakers first speaker is carol mcnamey and melia baker please go to either podium state your name and address for the record you'll have three minutes to this council i'm carol mcnamey i'm a board member of phyllis wheatley and um i just decided okay i'll go ahead and say what i was going to say but maria already covered it but but a detail about that um partnership i'm sorry can you hear me i'm sorry oh i'm sorry 222 12th avenue south safety harbor um so the partnerships are the most important part of delivering what we're trying to do to get this done and so the partnership with the pinellas county schools is critical because without that partnership we would not have any way of knowing how progress is being made because they cannot share student records with anybody outside of the system so we have uh maria has worked really hard with dr uh lewis brinson from pinellas county schools and he shepherded it through and got it approved so we have that memorial event understanding with the school district and uh the principal from campbell park is now going to be stepping into the role that dr brinson was in and so it's it that will be a continuity piece there that that we're really happy about and i really want to thank you because you have supported us without the the uh support that you've given us this far it would have been very difficult so because you've supported us we've got a professional reading reading specialist we've got the navigators and we just look forward to continuing to do our work thank you very much thank you who else yes uh hello and good afternoon um my name is malia baker i'm not a current resident of st petersburg but previous resident currently working as the executive assistant for the phyllis wheatley rastery campaign um i wanted to thank you all for inviting us to report on and to present our campaign updates to you today beyond those updates i really wanted to say some words on behalf of this campaign and it starts with the fact that i am sure that all of you have heard the saying that it takes a village the important takeaway from that quote is that we are undoubtedly greater as a community and i am someone who was raised by a village my community ensured that i had a roof over my head i had food in my belly and i had books in hand my education was taken very seriously and my future was a priority for that community for that village now today i stand before you as the assistant of a campaign that takes the success and the future of its community very seriously just as seriously as mine was taken as you know the mission of the phyllis wheatley rastery campaign is to ensure that african children from birth to 18 can read on and above grade level in this generation and beyond and so to that end i'm very proud of the service of my colleagues and my peers i'm proud of our scholars i'm proud of the progress that they've made and i'm proud of everything that we just reported to you i'm also very much proud of the city of saint pete who was dedicated to closing the literacy gap for our children i'm proud of this this city for standing with us to uplift and to further these children and this community a community that plays such an important role in keeping the city strong keeping it beautiful keeping it diverse and above all empowered i really wanted to more importantly and above all else just say thank you for standing with me to raise a view a village of future leaders and world changers thank you thank you so much council member muhammad thank you madam chair uh just really quickly want to say thank you um the the effort is is really taking shape and i appreciate that and one of the highlights for me was the question early on that we were asking as we were addressing this literacy was what are we going to do about it and so seeing in this slide that the community has and you have led this effort to raise uh over a hundred thousand dollars really shows that the community is serious about investing time talent and treasure in addressing the literacy crisis and i appreciate your leadership in this regard so thank you thank you thank you madam chair thank you councilmember driscoll thank you and thank you so much for that update it was i'm thinking back to last year when we brought this forward and found some funding to help help get this organization um stood up and ready to lay the groundwork for success and now seeing what you've done since then is so admirable and i i just can't believe how far you've come in such a short time but then again i shouldn't be surprised because with your leadership and with so many people you know with the village within the village that's making this happen um you know you all it's it's just absolutely incredible i'm so grateful for everything that you all are doing i'm very sorry that some folks had to leave before uh this came up but i know you had there was a good size group here earlier and it's everyone working together that's going to help to make sure that children in our city know how to read because we know that that's the foundation that will open any door that they need to go through down down the road in life so um if there is something i'm also very appreciative of the administration city staff who have been supportive of this since we really started pushing to get it going last year the challenges that you have particularly the ones with helping parents to follow through with the mental health screenings and the vision screenings i wonder if there are going to be some conversations um with others in the community on how you can partner with them to to address those challenges and it's not anything you have to answer today but i'm looking at that part because there's a reason why you do those screenings that is related to reading and that's got to be addressed as well so if there are resources within the city or even you know conversations that can be had that can lead you to the right people to help out with that part i think that there is some some success that we can find in that space as well so um thank you again for all you do um you're my reading hero and i am i am just grateful for you and and proud to call you my friend thank you councilmember montenieri thank you maria thank you thank you for coming in and uh and and uh i'm i'm so happy that uh we have an organization uh to focus on this uh that that third grade uh reading level uh those numbers are just uh a vision into the future and we need to get those numbers up i i know statewide i think uh the state of florida is around 50 percent i know pinales county is about 10 percent higher than that but we need to get those numbers up to like 95 percent uh state statewide on on and i know this chart that you showed me uh it was just one school within pinales county two two schools we're in our pilot schools are campbell park elementary and john hopkins middle okay well uh i i'm very supportive uh and our children are our future and uh the the quote that councilmember driscoll wrote was very very powerful yep thank you thank you so i asked for you all to come um because you know when we talk about literacy and we talk about our children and you've talked about this for a very long time so i commend everything that phyllis sweetly is doing all the different organizations are doing but then when i'm asked i don't have the answers so you know i'm going to ask some of the answers and when it comes to our children you know there is no negative to that when it comes to improving what our children have there is no negative to that so i'm glad to hear we do have our mou with pinellas county schools when do we get that when when oh probably before the beginning of the school year or it had to be long before the beginning of the school okay because we've gotten data so okay good good good because i know that we saw you in may of 2023 when we first awarded the ninety five thousand dollars and then the mayor's budget acknowledged and announced and gave you another two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and i think the question that i've been asked we have the youth development grants where we fund 13 organizations um in the highest deliverable amount of their grants has been twenty five thousand dollars so i keep having people say well what can i do to get three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a campaign well these are legitimately programs so i just wanted to to publicly let them know i heard them and for them to hear the opportunity for you to explain the campaign um and what you're doing a couple of questions that i do have though the mental health piece who do you use for that who are your partners we have just um within the last month finalized a new mou with children home society and helped me grow we're also in the process also in the process of working with the whale to do the mental health piece the mental wellness piece for our adults and our older siblings of our older um scholars okay so any other tests that you give how do you show progression are there any test results any pre post assessment well first let me be clear on what phyllis wheatley is and what it is not phyllis wheatley is not a program and one of the reasons that it is important for us to show our deliverables and so important for the partnership within the the real um progress in our students which is why the the um partnership with the pineapples county school system was so important we did not want to create another data set when we have children that are being tested through our pineapples county public school system so what we're saying is the the reading design of the phyllis wheatley rons to read campaign will result in improved reading scores that will ultimately result in our scholars reading on and above grade level and those assessments are done in congruent with the pineapples county school system and these are our latest results so they do the testing and absolutely the increase okay i have a lot of questions but we don't have a lot of time i have colleagues looking at me because it's going on 130 but i want to really um express my my gratitude for you and everyone out there that choose our children as your focus that choose our children to want to have better lives to choose our children to be the ones to know that our future relies on them and for everyone that has something to do with um improving the lives of our children overall i i commend you for that and i do have additional financial questions but i'll just ask those offline so having no one else willing to speak thank you so much for you oh mr lavendar thank you maria thank you very much madam chair city council just wanted to reiterate and for the record that going forward two members of my team are responsible for these projects first sharon brown phd who is both a former educator but an expert in outcomes evaluation will be overseeing the phyllis wheelie rise to read campaign lisa willow bowman who you know very very well as a former city council person and has all of the right ingredients to ensure excellence in hidden voices will oversee hidden voices and the management of the budgets for those projects madam chair for your benefit is deborah is deborah bushman mpa on my team so wanted to put that out there for the record thank you all very much thank you next we will quickly move on to item sf4 the american rescue plan act funding reallocation and joining us for that is mr mark van lew good afternoon chair vice chair and council members mark van lew housing development manager of the city of st petersburg staff is proposing a reallocation of a portion of the american rescue plan act funds that were originally apportioned through resolution in october of 2022 this is the original allocation which includes 5.938 million dollars to the ed white senior apartments which is a saint pete housing authority project we're proposing to reallocate that portion of the funding to be split between two other projects primarily due to schedule delays uh in acquiring other key funding sources for the ed white project which uh has pushed back the timeline from their original schedule and and we have concerns about the ability to get those funds expended in time prior to the expenditure deadline for the arpa funds so the ed white senior apartments project is 71 units and again the allocation was 5.94 million dollars to that we're proposing that it be split between two more shovel ready projects archways flats on fourth which is 80 units and of the 5.9 million 4.39 million would go to that project and the palm lake urban sanctuary project which is 86 units would receive 1.54 million of that reallocated funding this does not signal a lack of support or continued support for the st pete housing authority ed white project we still have 3 million dollars of penny for pinellas funds committed to that project we're also supporting the st pete housing authority and seeking other funding sources that are better aligned with their schedule currently they are requesting 5.34 million dollars in federal funds through representative casters appropriations in the federal budget and we're hoping and supporting them and getting that funding which would nearly replace the arpa funds that we would be reallocating today and we'll continue to work with them to as they continue to seek the new market tax credits which is a key piece of their funding plan as well as other funding sources and ultimately if the the sum total of the other funding sources they're able to secure don't total and there's a gap we may be back before you to approve uh some gap funding to make sure that that project moves forward in the meantime we have flats on fourth and palm lake which are shovel ready and affordable projects so both are scheduled to begin construction this year in 2024 we do expect both projects to fully expend the arpa funding commitments prior to the december 2026 arpa funding expenditure deadline um palm lake has 86 units all of which are affordable at 80 percent ami or below and flats on fourth has 80 units all of which are 60 percent ami or below and the breakdown shows in this chart so flats on fourth has eight units at 50 percent ami or below and 72 units at 60 percent or below and if interested the bedroom counts are shown there 52 one bedroom units and 28 two bedroom units the palm lake project has 13 units at 30 percent or below 14 units at 50 percent or below 42 units at 60 percent and 80 17 units at 80 percent or below and again 80 of those units are one bedroom and six of the units are two bedroom this reallocation helps ensure that we meet the arpa expenditure deadline which is critically important that we do because missing that deadline could result in having to return funding to the federal government and could impact our ability to get funding in the future through similar sources we do continue to support the ed white project as i mentioned based on their current schedule and we'll continue to help them achieve the funding that they need to complete that project and through this reallocation we'll achieve 166 deeply affordable units in the two new projects with that i'll take any questions approval second that we have no council members requesting to speak it's been motioned and properly seconded i'm going to ask the clerk if you could please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item f4 passes unanimously unanimously thank you thank you so much thank you we're going to now move on to f6 which is a resolution approving the time change in the start time of the june 13 2024 city council meeting from 1 30 to 4 o'clock pm and providing an effective date i'll entertain a motion second now that it's been motioned and properly seconded clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members now that all council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item f6 passes unanimously thank you so much and ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for your patience but we're going to break until two o'clock the television we're officially calling back to order our june 6 2024 council meeting and we are going to recess as city council and convene as cra and we're going to start with cra3 a resolution finding the five-story building um located at 357 third street south consistent with the in-town redevelopment and i have joining us is corey maliska who's going to do the presentation how are you and he's our zoning official uh manager and there is the presentation yes thank you good afternoon corey maliska zoning official of the city of st petersburg before you today is a project located at 357 third street south the subject property is currently vacant the applicant is proposing to construct a five-story building with 24 space ground floor parking garage and the project um is estimated to cost 12 million dollars proposed building will occupy a majority of the lot the ground floor again will consist of a lobby amenity space bicycle parking utility rooms and enclosed parking the second through fifth floor will consist solely of residential units vehicular access to the garage will be from fourth avenue south pedestrian access to the building will be from the public sidewalk along third street south this is just some of the elevations as you can see on the screen the top is will be facing third street the bottom elevation will be facing the existing alley the pros architectural style the building is contemporary the exterior building will be finished with stucco including projecting balconies and ample amount of glazing the first floor parking garage except for the garage entrance will be shielded from view from the budding right of ways by a liner building these are just the side elevations the top elevation will be facing uh force avenue south and the top elevation will be facing the interior property line and this is just a rendering if you're standing hovering over third street kind of looking at the west northwest the redevelopment plan does include design and development guidelines to ensure compatibility between the types of development within the district and what's desired for downtown proposed project was reviewed by staff and found to be consistent with the criteria and these include compliance with the land development code submitting an application to the cra for approval development should provide design elements including trees canopy street furniture entryways to the building that are scale with the pedestrian development shall be appropriate with the architectural variety to the area parking garages shall be provide a decorative facade in this case it's being screened with a liner building open space shall be directly linked to the pedestrian system open space relates to the activities and buildings in the block infill development should create a sense of place and identity new development shall relate to buildings in scale and mass to others development shall be consistent with the other permitted uses in the district and intensity and uses shall be also consistent and governed by the underlying land use and the zoning district with respect to the ldrs the subject property zone dc2 a multi-family development with a max far of 7.0 is permitted proposed development has a proposed far of 3.69 staff determined that the proposal is consistent with the irp as it is consistent with ldrs the proposed building will also fit in with older and newer developments the building is urban and scale with pedestrian oriented features including ground level amenity space lobby entrance floor to ceiling storefront windows and covered open spaces the proposed building height placement and massing are consistent with other projects within the area said improvements also do include 10-foot wide sidewalks street trees and landscaping large uncovered open space bicycle parking and a new drainage system the pedestrian improvements will contribute to a pleasurable walking experience the existing downtown development pattern does consist of a variety of building types styles heights masses setbacks and orientations the building form and the relationship of this building is consistent with other buildings within the redevelopment area other developments include the madison which is a two five-story buildings that are located at 100 and 200 4th avenue south urban landings which is directly across the street to the south is a five-story building at 300 4th avenue south also it's the to the west is a three-story townhome building the building design took into consideration the relationship with the new developments in the immediate area by creating continuous street edge integration of green open space landscaping and concealing the parking garage with this staff does find that the proposed project is consistent with the irp and does recommend approval for the five-story building with 36 dwelling units and a 24 space parking garage located at 357 3rd street south thank you well i see no request to speak second okay with there being a motion and properly seconded and no request to speak can you please open the machine for voting council members can you please cast your vote cra3 seeing all present council members have voted can you please tally in and madam chair motion to approve agenda item cra3 passes unanimously with council member driscoll being absent thank you for that thank you mr molusko next we're going to have cra2 and joining us this city development administrator james corbett and real estate and property management director aaron fish do we have any cards on this not not on this one madam chair okay chair i believe staff is on the way right now yeah we're waiting on a staff member um is there another item we could go to nope because we're in cra now we're in completely different session good afternoon madam chair members of council good afternoon aaron fish real estate and property management glad to be here today pleasure to present to you the uh the agreements associated with the redevelopment of tangerine plaza with the sugar hill group to give you some background on this project in june of 2022 city did receive a unsolicited proposal from sugar hill group to develop redevelop tangerine plaza their proposal included 115 rental affordable housing units with 10 000 square feet of retail to support a grocery store in response to the proposal the city did issue a statutory 30-day notice for inviting alternative proposals from other interested parties and to notify the public of the city's interest in disposing of the property the city did receive one alternative proposal from positive impact worldwide and subsequently the mayor did select the proposal from sugar hill group for the development of the property sugar hill group and the city negotiated terms and conditions of two agreements one is the option agreement and the second agreement is a lease and development agreement in march of 2024 the city did present to the economic and workforce development committee both the option agreement and the lease and development agreement and based on feedback from the committee and council members the city did go back and revise certain terms and conditions as well as in april of 2024 the city did present the agreements to the cac and the cac also suggested some changes to the agreements uh one of which was the um more flexibility for the grocery store component and the cac also um recommended approval of the agreements with their support the current situation we have negotiated the option agreement and the lease and development agreement uh with incorporating those changes that were recommended by council and recommended by the cac uh the option agreement includes a term of 18 months uh in that 18 months the sugar hill group is required to secure all the funding necessary for the development of the property they need to identify all of the contractors necessary to complete the construction and they need to provide a commitment letter for a grocery store for a term of not less than five years sugar hill will have 90 days of due diligence to perform inspections and studies on the property and upon completing all of the conditions of the option they're required to provide the city with 90 days notice so that the city can thereby terminate the current lease agreements at the property and then enter into the lease and development agreement the lease and development agreement includes a term of 75 years the rental rate is a hundred thousand dollars annually it is abated for the first 24 months which the purpose of that is to help jump start the development by not um imposing any additional uh financial stress on on the development the construction timeline includes three months from the submittal or three months from the commencement of the agreement to submit site plans for approval uh within six months from the commencement of the agreement uh the commencement of the demolition is to occur within six months from the commencement date a comprehensive building permit package needs to be submitted within 18 months the commencement of construction is to occur within 30 months 50 of the development shall be completed and with 36 within 36 months the development should be completed in full the preliminary mix for the 115 affordable housing units includes uh 30 percent one bedroom one bath units 50 percent of two bedroom two bath units and 30 percent or excuse me 20 percent of three bedroom and two bath units the housing units shall be restricted with an average annual income of 80 percent of ami or below the development shall include 10 000 square feet of retail space of which 3 000 square feet uh or greater can be occupied by a grocery store the city shall record a restrictive covenant on the property and it shall the the unit shall remain affordable for a period of 40 years the restrictive covenant will also require not less than 3 000 square feet of the retail space to be occupied by a grocery store sugar hill group will have an option to purchase the property upon the completion of the development at a price of 1.5 million the city did obtain an appraisal on the property earlier this year resulting in an appraised value of 1.6 million the way that this deal is is structured it provides multiple benefits to the city and to the community first of which is the use of an option agreement provides the sugar hill group with the needed site control so that they can go out and apply for for funding without that the project can't get kicked off but it also provides the city with the actual physical site control of the property so that the city can maintain the property as it is today with the tenants in place collecting rent and performing maintenance on the property the time frame that's provided in the option agreement does give sugar hill group the needed time for applying for the tax credit funding which is sometimes a moving target with regards to the application cycles the development will provide a minimum of 115 much needed affordable rental units in the area and there are to remain affordable for 40 years at an average of 80 percent ami or below the option to purchase the property at 1.5 million is very close to the appraised value of 1.6 million and finally the development will help to revitalize this corridor by providing a grocery store for not only the tenants in the new to develop sugar hill project but for the project across the street which is being developed by habitat for humanity with 36 affordable town homes in addition to that there's habitats providing 11 town homes down the street at 18th avenue and 18th street so with that many benefits to this agreement we're finally here finally pleased to to be able to present this to you all and their members of sugar hill group are here with us today and city staff available for questions thank you thank you so much council member gabbard thank you madam chair and uh thank you so much aaron for the presentation i want to thank administration for bringing this forward today um and want to thank everyone who is involved in this project i'm glad that we're here today to finally discuss this so um i'll just get right to a couple of questions that i have um first of all the grocery store so um i don't know if anyone from sugar hill wants to come up and answer questions i think these are probably more for the developers so they're here yep oh hi pastor murphy how are you good afternoon good afternoon good afternoon council my name is lewis murphy 2551 tropical shores drive southeast st pete 33705 thank all of you so very much for having us today and we know that we had quite a few people here earlier but uh it's been a long day so again we're just grateful for the opportunity to present super excited about uh redeveloping the deuces the the overall vision of that is uh the tangerine plaza site is a book in the south end of that corridor and sankofa project is on the north end of the corridor we we really want to be able to support the businesses that already exist there and use it as an incubator to bring on other businesses in regards to the grocery store uh been in very much prayer about that and we have been in negotiations with debt wilders supermarket uh don't want to say a whole lot about it because again we don't have site control so we really can't negotiate anything we've just been in discussion it is a great uh supermarket fresh food uh fresh meats at affordable prices and it would be a very it would be a great plus to our community there are people that travel from as far as clearwater uh uh newport richie to go to the store that is in palmetto bradington area so again just super excited about that we need to have to stimulate the economy we need to revitalize we know that we have folk that that uh that does a fantastic job pastor brew baker and positive impact with uh giving out food we do that as well as in at our church on our site but we need to stimulate the economy we need to create foot traffic we need to bring people that have a means to be able to support what we're trying to do in overall revitalization of the deuces thank you thank you so much appreciate you coming up and sharing all of that information um very much of what you just said are things that you shared with me in our one-on-one conversation and and that was some of the stuff that i was going to ask anyway um so i just wanted to say you know i'm very supportive of course of the grocery store component appreciate that that is being built into the agreement um later on today we do have a new business item that i have filed around a conversation that i've had with administration about the potential for a city-run grocery store opportunity um if there is a private entity that you're already negotiating with i think that's great too we cannot have enough options to solve the reoccurring food desert issue in our community so very excited and i thank you for sharing that information with everyone publicly to the affordable units this was another conversation that we had and um you know i know that as part of this the agreement says you know that you will build at least 115 affordable units but that is not to say that if the stack it's necessary for you to be able to make the deal work that you would not add on some additional market rate units right i mean that's how development works but for me i've been very clear fundamentally i always have an issue when developers come before us we approve something specifically when it has affordable and workforce in it then things change plans change money changes and then developers come back and they ask for us to amend that and so i just wanted to have a conversation here publicly just for me to put my position out there that for me there is no going back on these units i would support and be understanding of market needing to be added or more units to be added i would not want to see there ever be an opportunity to come back and have less so i just wanted to put that out there so that everybody's clear it's on the record and that that's a conversation we had privately that everyone knows that that that is something you agreed to to me so i just wanted to give you the opportunity to say that in the community well thank you so very much council uh and let me stay in my lane and bring up the experts that knows that can answer your question directly so i defer to uh brother oliver gross hello mr gross nice to see you good afternoon councilwoman and to the chair and to all of the council members oliver gross with new urban development llc 8500 northwest 25th avenue um miami florida um pastor i've been called a lot of things can't remember the last time that i was called an expert on anything so my wife would probably beg to differ vociferously but uh councilwoman i i again i appreciate the context in which you have um again kind of laid out what your feelings are about it um let me first and and foremost say the one i applaud um pastor murphy and mr binger and those who have worked with them um as relates to kind of being very very thoughtful about the revitalization of the deuces and not just the tangerine plaza site um in in some people's eyes they see what we do as real estate development but organizationally and i think we've had a chance to share that with some of you there on on the in the diocese we don't see ourselves as real estate developers we see ourselves as community builders and most of the work um that we have done probably 99 and 9 tenths of the work that we have done have been in communities that mirror the deuces that are in those throngs of what i call evolution uh or at a place where they are beginning to involve evolve and the communities are evolving and changing i think this is happening not only here in st pete but probably throughout the state and throughout the country at the end of the day and there always needs to be what we call that cornerstone that beachhead to help fuel that revitalization i think tangerine plaza is a poster child for that that was one of the things that when we were able and and made to trek to st peter and got introduced to to to pastor and to mr binger from the late watson by the late watson haynes about what was happening he had some experience in terms of what we had been doing in this space and it was sort of for us just a very very eye-opening and motivating experience to be able to be a part of this and so for us um councilwoman gabbard um we're never going back in terms of what i think the initial proposal was because it is again has consistently been our effort to be able to create a platform or a paradigm to allow folk that are indigenous to the communities that we're working in to be able to reach their fullest potential and to build upon that and i think that again tangerine plaza and some of the other things that have been one discussed relative to the deuces and part of the conversation that we heard throughout the commission meeting i think begins to speak to that so we give you our assurance that that will not be the case uh at the end of the day obviously there's some things going on as it relates to live local and some some legislation that's come out of um tallahassee here recently that may again afford an opportunity to be able to to do something even more robust but the deal that's on the table today that we're working on is again doing 115 units with a component and a very very robust effort that we're making around that grocery store component because it is not just a food desert the deuces is a desert and a whole bunch of other instances at the end of the day that we're trying to take a holistic approach at addressing so again thank you so much for your consideration um and um whatever questions that um you may have i'm here to ask thank you for saying that commitment out loud i think that's important that that's on the record and that those things aren't just discussed behind the scenes um so that the community understands the intention behind the project so um i thank you for that um another question that i had and we didn't talk about this in our one-on-ones but um it's come to me and it's something we've discussed you know here and there in the past um kind of looking forward i mean 115 units are going to go quick right um i mean we know that we see waiting lists all the time for buildings and so i was just curious if you guys are kind of starting to think when you get there and you get to the place of where you want to start to move people in have you thought about any incentive type packages that could exist around people who already live in the area in the cra and i'm thinking like move in help uh first you know months or deposit or whatever help things like that so that you're encouraging the ability for people who already are in the community to live in this new development councilwoman i think in terms of how we approach that and could possibly approach that is as we begin to put together our total operating budget and um i i guess samad we'd call that sort of our pre-development budget to begin to look at as part of that marketing campaign um and it's usually where you put those kinds of things that that's something that i think that we can be very very um diligent and intentional about doing at the end of the day perfect thank you um i think that's all the questions i have for you i have one more for administration um and rob i don't know if this is you or james um but you know we have positive impact there at the site now i'm very happy that they'll continue to be able to do their operations through the next you know several months uh almost a year and a half and um so i'd like to kind of know and revisit the conversation that we had at the committee where myself and other colleagues concerned about how we are going to work with that organization to be able to ensure that that operation somehow can still exist somewhere close by to the community we can't move it over to where they are now completely because i mean people don't have cars and things like that it's localized to the community so have we had any further conversation with positive impact about that i was able to meet with pastor rubaker i believe uh and we talked briefly about um the possibility of looking at an alternative site in the area she made it clear to me that their mission uh needs to be in that area that's where the need is and we're committed to trying to find other alternatives obviously they can continue to operate on the site um under that 18 month uh process that aaron described but we are committed to look at other uh properties that we own or potentially uh connecting them with someone else if it's not something that we own that is in the area while i haven't identified in a site i'm committed to that thank you i appreciate it all right well thank you very much chair thank you council member hannah thank you chair okay so right now we're um voting on whether it's consistent with the south saint pete cra right that's what we're here for and what i'm trying to understand is i'm looking at the documentation and typically when we have something like this we have the consistency within town you know whatever the plan is and all the information and that's not in here so i'm i'm trying to understand why because i know we're the stuff we're talking about we can talk about afterwards but this is a cra you know this is a cra portion i feel like i'm missing something this is what we normally do we we have to find it's consistent with the cra that's the conversation that we're supposed to be having and then we can talk about whatever the you know the agreement itself and everything else well i would say uh council member hanowitz while we we don't have a presentation to specifically address whether it's consistent with the cra um we're we're looking to do multi-family units in the grocery store which is consistent with what is in the area and and to replace what what has been lost in that area no i understand that i just i mean legal this plan has certain requirements right correct and for us to find consistency we have to deliberate on all that stuff don't we i mean it doesn't have to be specifically discussed i mean does it does it i mean it's in the resolution so that that's what you're voting is that your resolution has the uh top resolution is what we would that as a city council we would find after we presented information and have been advised about it and then that's what the resolution contains based on all the information that we would gather at a public meeting absolutely i mean that's just hard for me the attorney and me has a really hard time with this stuff as you can imagine when we have certain requirements and procedural requirements and it's not there so i i'm just this is just me personally i can't i can't even find consistency because to me every plan that we have every time that we do this we do it a certain way and it's not that way and i'm sorry but that's thank you chair if i could if i could just comment on that i certainly appreciate your comments uh council member and we'll we'll duly note that and uh and try and make sure that we document that better in the future but i i think this is fairly consistent um with what we've done in the past regarding cra lot disposition processes so there's different programs within the south st petersburg cra affordable housing is clearly one of those programs um as is economic development so um we probably should have stated that more clearly um but we do feel that it's consistent with the plan understand thank you and council member if i may um maybe for clarification there was a separate cra item and resolution that was submitted with the documentation and it explains the the cra and the benefits of the cra and the resolution you're saying the presentation i get you you know where i'm at so i i i'm not going to belabor thank you thank you thank you council member floyd thank you um i was off on something else but i see where council member hanowitz is coming from and so that actually keyed me in um to that yeah it seems like this is a disposition uh being framed as a disposition here which it would make more sense for us to have this level of information as opposed to like a bigger uh like layout of what the development's like if it is a disposition but it's like there's also lease possibilities in there so it's just an interesting situation um why is it uh being presented as a disposition ultimately any any lease or sale of a property is considered a disposition but ultimately this would be a disposition by virtue of the option that the developer has to exercise an option to purchase the property upon the completion of the development okay okay all right um thank you for that uh let me see if i can get my thoughts back on track um i have a question for the administration about the agreement uh specifically surrounding the grocery in the agreement it says uh that uh sugar hill group is to provide a commitment letter to the city from a grocer to operate a fresh food market for a term of not less than five years in our past discussions about this i feel like we've shied away from language that was like requisite um you know we had a whole discussion about coquina key plaza that was surrounded that was focused on commercial commercially reasonable efforts this seems to take it to the next level and i'm wondering if y'all can speak to that why that is why we didn't do it in the past if we do feel like we can make these kind of requirements on people council member floored i would agree that this does take it to the next level and the reason why we have have gone this way is because it was made very clear to us from council that a grocery component was absolutely um a must um so we've written the agreement to essentially require and and to maintain that requirement for a grocer um throughout the term based on the feedback that we heard loud and clear from council okay um thank you for that um i mean i agree with what you've done here i just uh like think back to our previous conversations and i'm like you probably could have got a consensus out of council to make it more restrictive in the past as well um okay uh i'll say one more thing it just seemed to me like when i look at the development agreement um compared to other things that i've seen there's a lot of requirements and um you know strict like time points at which things need to be met i agree with them um i would just love to see all of our development agreements look a little bit stronger like that as well so um based off of what i've seen here um i'm comfortable i just want to make sure it gets across the finish line and that's where my concern is going to be oh one last thing uh council member gabbert i put in a new business item a few months ago about having a discussion around a city-owned grocery store um and i've been working with administration on it recently i brought it up it's uh on the hers referral list right now so um yeah it's on the referral list for hers i've been talking with well i'll tell you talk to doyle about it recently yeah and we're gonna we're looking for talking to rob oh maybe rob and doyle need to talk yeah yeah i think so yeah so uh we just had a quick discussion about it last week actually and so we were looking about how to like get the conversation started what guidelines it needed what um what uh you know just what it would look like the first time we talked about it openly so it's it's in hers right now and i'm hoping i'm the chair of hers i'm hoping to get to it um relatively soon but you know we only meet every so often so yeah we're doing the best we can very good thanks thank you oh yeah thank you chair yeah thank you can i uh ask aaron can you or james can you uh just refresh my memory on the current lease and the revenue that the city uh receives from walnut walmart yes sir the uh current lease is uh 215 000 from walmart annually the lease does expire at the end of 2026 okay so if this were to move forward what happens with with that so the the benefit of using an option agreement in this case is it's giving the sugar hill group the site control needed to apply for their funding however the city still remains in control of the property as far as running the property maintaining those lease agreements and the revenue from them and providing the maintenance on the property so the city would still collect that revenue over the next 18 month period okay and what what happens if this with this option agreement if the funding is not obtained as a condition of the option the funding has to be obtained if it doesn't then certainly it would be a discussion on on what to do with the property thereafter when you say there'd be a discussion like well i think the in the option agreement it's clear what conditions they have to meet in order to exercise the option to enter into a lease and development agreement we would never enter into the lease and development agreement without those conditions being met if the conditions weren't met this it would terminate i mean we wouldn't proceed to the next stage of the agreement okay and um what what happens if uh sugar hill doesn't perform after demolition there there is default provisions in the agreement in which the city under certain circumstances could um take the property back okay all right and then on on the grocery store component where did the 3 000 square feet figure come from we look at a few um grocers there's one grocer in particular that's off of the 30 30th avenue north and 34th street that had all the components that were important to council and that one was a little less than 3 000 square feet so i looked at other grocers that were able to provide produce meat and the other um grocery grocery items and and what i felt comfortable with as a minimum size to be able to accomplish that okay um i don't know who can answer my my questions i i've had two meetings with with sugar hill i had one one on wednesday and then a zoom meeting uh on monday of this week and uh we i had some questions on the sources and uses document that you all provided uh to the city and on my zoom meeting on monday you all had some updated uh figures and i requested a copy of that and i didn't receive it uh is there a reason why you all didn't send that um councilman um i think the figures that we were sharing with you um at that zoom meeting was internal information that we were looking at in terms of again what i think what we do on a consistent basis in terms of various scenarios and iterations and i think again that document as we kind of tossed it around and we just figured out we'd answer whatever questions you had here today with it was the reason behind that um and i hope that that got communicated back to why that document didn't go out um to you at that point no i i didn't hear anything um uh you you all told me on monday you'd send it to to me and i requested that it that be it be sent to city council and we never heard that should have again as i said that should have gone out later that day or early the next morning in terms of that that that document wouldn't come forth so i'm not sure where the confusion was with that i didn't push that button at the end of the day but again the document was simply again in terms of what we what we had provided to the city was again based on the 115 units and the terms and conditions for the lease the document that you saw and that we were talking about was a document that would allow us to be able to um at some point in the future pay the full price for the land as opposed to having to pay i think um the lease on an annual basis is the difference it was the only material difference in what the city has and what you saw um over that zoom and so um again i think that's the difference and because it was an internal document because we were was not sure in terms of how to make sure that all of the council folk got it we didn't want to muddy the waters didn't want to create any madness um needlessly at the end of the day okay well you uh apparently this document was shared with administration who shared it with city council i had some questions last week uh we had a meeting on monday the document had changed i requested a hard copy of it and i never received it and you know i i just these these these things are important i want to know how how this this is going to be funded and where the money's coming from and uh what's going to happen if you all don't get the funding uh it it's i still have a lot of a lot of questions um councilman the the project in terms of our financing stacker as as it was shared in the document that i think that everybody has in our package is the proposed source of financing for the project which i think um speaks to private activity bonds um four percent low-income housing tax credits and some other what we call gap financing ideally from either some local subsidies or um i think the state's process be it sale from florida housing finance authority and as a matter of i think just practical application there is not a deal um that is a primarily affordable a workforce housing deal that's funded in any other fashion than this and so it is a traditional kind of funding model that is used it is what we do on a on a daily basis in terms of financing all of the projects that we're done using primarily those sources of funds at the end of the day in relation to what happens if um we don't um execute i think staff is advised that there is some language in the agreement that allows the property to be reverted back to the city at the end of the day i'm pleased to say that as i stand here before you today that we've never executed and and and and started on a project indeed we did not finish um there is a grand opening announcement that's kind of going around where we're having a grand opening for our most recent project um that was about a 40 million dollar project that i think that we're doing 76 units that we'll have a grand opening ceremony on june the 20th at 11 o'clock invite all of you to come down and join us we are in about 60 50 60 complete on our latest project that is a 63 million dollar deal that we've used those same financing sources that we alluded to in this package um that um by hopefully by december of this year um we should have a tcoo on it and so this is what we do every day we're not practicing at this um by any means um i think all of my colleagues who work with us in this space and in all of the venues that we work with will attest that we do this at the end of the day we just again are excited about the opportunity for being able to do this and to work with um a stellar group of prodigious citizens uh and the city um to be able to be part of the transformation of the deuces i think at the end of the day again with with at the risk of being um too verbose i think that this will be a poster child for what it means in terms of a public private partnership in terms of how do you revitalize the community at the end of the day and so and again i forget forgive us for not getting that document back and and since i sit in that seat i take full responsibility for that so i think mr binger has well i just councilman montaner i just wanted to um clear up on january june 3rd at 809 i sent an email directly to you and copied to pastor murphy and at the end of it and i apologize if you didn't receive it in your email box i said with the comments in mind we review the current pro form and address any queries at thursday city council meeting so i sent that email to you just mentioning that we'll be talking about it today i think the biggest difference in the pro formers was a 1.5 million dollar land acquisition in those numbers say that again so i sent you an email yeah yeah no there's just the last part when we're on the zoom call uh one of the the items that we were discussing was we were we added the 1.5 million dollar purchase option in the contract which is where some of the differences were in the numbers right it's major difference yeah i i i'm the one that pointed that that out okay uh thank thank you i'll leave it there thank you council member driscoll thank you um i know this is about the the cra but you you know we can't help but bring elements of the option agreement into this it does all kind of flow together um in in the resolution for the for this cra item it indicates and in the presentation it indicates that the grocer would operate for no less than five years but in other areas of the backup it states no less than 10 years um aaron i know we had a conversation about this before but i'm still i mean you you had answered but i reviewed the the documents they they all refer to five years uh yeah i haven't page three on the document that's signed by um looks like it might be signed by mr corbett um there's a paragraph that says shg shall ensure the operation of a grocer on the property for not less than 10 years with not less than 10 percent of the floor area within the grocery store for the display and sale of fresh produce and meats but like the page just prior to that says five years i'm looking at this the page that that i'm looking at it's it's it's five years if you go back to if you if you look on item f5 the serie item but in item f5 the very first section of that backup material has page one page two the third bullet the third sub bullet on page two says not less than five years but then if you go over to page three the second paragraph from the top it says 10. i would say that that's an error it's five years i'd bring my binder over to you but it's really heavy no i'm saying it if it's five years is what it should be i just want you to see that it yeah so we might need to just make that correction yeah and when i say it's an error i mean it's an error in the document and so it should be five years okay an error on your part but there's an error okay um i didn't see it anywhere else in here but maybe i missed it but if we could make sure that we have one number to work from the number is five okay the the actual option in the in the in the reference in the lease and development agreement are correct was it 10 at one memo um was it 10 at one point and it was re it was negotiated to five that's correct we there was um based on feedback from the economic and workforce development committee the council members wanted some more flexibility um that was one of the ways we felt like provided more flexibility for the grocery store in addition to that also what that grocery store would look like do you recall um how long we had the sweet bay supermarket there how many years approximately off the top of my head it was either seven or eight at the most before it became walmart how about the walmart walmart vacated in 2017 yeah but when was it when did it open i believe it was uh after the renovations after sweet bay left i believe walmart was there for probably roughly six years but we can't ask for more than five now yeah we could certainly ask more for more than five again based on the feedback that we received we were trying to put the developer in a position where they could secure a grocer so we opened up the definition of a grocer and we opened up the uh we reduced the amount of time that the lease had to be signed for again this is um i was pointed out by council member floyd to basically require something as a um a part to go into an agreement is is not typical so we felt like providing a a shorter time on the lease and a greater uh or a more flexible definition of a grocer would help the developer secure a grocer right so you said that it helps to put the developer in a position in a better position but our job really is to make sure that the city is in a position where we don't have an empty grocery store space after five years i would agree but um the the leases that were signed previously and eventually vacated were for longer than five years but they it didn't stop the grocery store from leaving the walmart lease expires in 2026 so it's about two years away this agreement would um have a lease of a hundred thousand a year and that one was 215 215 000 a year that we're receiving right now right and we have if nothing was if nothing was happening we'd have 215 000 a year where does that money go the 215 000 from the walmart and the rents from the other tenants in this and at the plaza support the operation of the plaza and um if if this particular agreement goes through the first two years there's there's no rent due it's free for the first two years that's upon the execution of the lease and development agreement yes and and this is consistent with what other lease and development agreements that the city has done it's to help induce the development of the project without having a bigger financial burden on the developer the goal is to get the project built so this is consistent with what we've done before with with rental abatement so the math isn't so great when you figure the next two years will be going without the 215 that we've been getting um not receiving anything at all um and then after two years starting to get a hundred thousand so we would still be receiving the walmart rent so it wouldn't the first 18 months so it'll just be the last six months so the the walmart rent would go away either upon the expiration of the walmart lease or at the time when sugar hill group completes all the requirements in the option agreement and at that time the city would terminate the walmart lease if it's not terminated earlier by virtue of it expiring okay so we would still be collecting the for the next 18 months we would still collect the walmart lease rent okay and do we have anything documented from them um stating that they they are willing to have the lease terminated referring to walmart yes we don't uh have something documented from them but we believe that walmart would be happy to terminate if they could i'll hold for now thank you thank you council member muhammad thank you madam chair james aaron and i mean we've had extensive one-on-one perhaps conversations and so i just wanted to say that um the 115 affordable units i think it's definitely going to provide the much needed housing that we need in the area under 80 percent is definitely in line with our vision values and advocacy that we've been doing for years the 10 000 square feet of retail space dedicating parts of that to grocery we've had those conversations also about the the footprint for grocery um and really understanding what the demand is i think with the addition of you know 115 plus the 30 units across 36 units across the street from what we heard from other developers about the need for grocery is it safe to say that that increased population would make the area more attractive for longer term business for from a grocer is that safe to say that certainly the need will be there right more housing units because some of the feedback was that we couldn't they wouldn't sustain a grocery because they didn't have the population but bringing 115 families 150 families would kind of solve for that i would say increasing the demographics for potential customers of the grocery store uh makes it more attractive that's that i mean that's no doubt about that and then the uh economic development benefits because we talked about it through the lens of housing grocery and an economic development the construction side of this um how are we thinking about that are there any like i know in other projects we would mandate certain percentages of mbes and businesses or have we had those conversations about utilization and who's actually going to do the work on the building well the construction itself since it wouldn't be a city funded project and essentially they if they were to buy it they would be buying it for close to market value so there wouldn't be any mandates but we can certainly have additional conversations with mbe wbe the developer themselves are our minority owned business which which leads me to the last point that i had um we've been promoting and talking about ownership and property ownership particularly among african americans in the south st pcra and so seeing that it is an african american developer um i think that kind of endorses and empowers our community uplifts the community to be able to see that we're actually developing and have a potential to own some of these things because a lot of the feedback and conversation that i i get from those in the community is you know like not to go into this rabbit hole but around like the um gas plant who's going to own it at the end of the day and knowing that it'll be african-american ownership um is definitely a plus i too even though it's not what we're voting on i would like to acknowledge the work that's being done by positive impact um happy to hear that there are considerations for that operation knowing that they'll be able to to stay um during this this process is also helpful and so um as it stands right now i'm supportive of the project um just my thoughts on the consistency with the um cra i see it in the resolution um it's not in the presentation definitely would have been helpful um but i've also seen presentations that didn't have things in the document so i would rather i would rather them be in the document than in the presentation than see them in a presentation and not in the document and so seeing that consistency in the resolution even though we don't have a presentation it kind of satisfies that for me so i'm okay with that piece i also just wanted to acknowledge the comments that were made by councilmember floyd about the the tighter restrictions that we're seeing um and i hear the rationale for that but i'm also concerned a little bit that and this is a community concern that i hear a lot of the times when they're black led just to be explicit about it we have to go through more and we deal with more scrutiny and more you know we're less forgiving of scrivener's errors you know and things like that um when it comes to our deals and our projects and so i just wanted to go on record and say i understand the rationale for it but i am sensitive to how we approach these deals because being here i have seen some of the differences in the way we approach deals that are being proposed by black-led community-led developers as opposed to other developers um and so i just wanted to acknowledge that um and then with the walmart lease i think you made a great point that the even though it was a longer term lease it didn't stop them from leaving right um i think that's valid um and then the timing of that lease it actually works out in our favor so we just so that i'm clear so we're still we'll still will be collecting revenue from that so we're not losing revenue during this phase and it's going to time out very close to the time that it would have expired anyway is that yes sir that was one of the comments that mr fish made the benefit of this structure is it allows us to give uh sugar hill the necessary site control that they can go after the the funding mechanisms necessary while still maintaining the walmart lease and the walmart payments and it works out to the fact although the walmart lease goes for another two years what we're saying is that for at least the 18 months that sugar hill has to meet all the of the necessary milestones to enter into the next portion of the lease we will still be able to um collect that rent if for whatever reason they didn't and i'm extremely hopeful and confident that they will then we would this lease or this agreement would terminate and we would still collect the last a few months of the walmart lease so in the end we're we're not made any worse for it um but our hope is that in 18 months or even sooner they're ready to proceed and um because of the progress that would be made with the units and the potential for the grocer i personally would gladly cancel the walmart lease to allow for this to proceed thank you and then just lastly i'd like to thank the developers new urban development roy banger and pastor murphy for your willingness to endure this process and i've we've had conversations about your portfolio and the work that you've done in other areas and so for me your ability to deliver on this project and actually get it done is i'm comfortable with your your ability and your competence moving forward so i'll be voting in support of this thank you vice chair girders thank you madam chair okay uh and either one on at this for this question obviously i think everybody wants to move as quickly as possible and i think part of the reason and correct me if i'm wrong for the 18 month time time horizon not only to try to maximize on the walmart income but also adoption of two rounds of state funding right that's the primary reason is that we understand that they may not be successful at the first round so it gives them multiple opportunities to go for state funding um and to successfully be able to proceed with state funding but i'm assuming if you were to successfully secure state funding in round one this wouldn't be an 18-month timeline absolutely um or the biggest the biggest risk is everybody well knows in development is time so and time is money so these are going to cost you some money or it's going to save you some money at the end of the day so um and then i only really have one more question because my two big concerns of this have been time and uh the potential purchase slash lease of this property going forward i just i just kind of want to hear you say it out loud your intention is to purchase the property and not to lease it for 75 years that is our intention okay i don't want i don't want the city to be the property manager on this for 75 years that that is our intention okay all right i just wanted to i just wanted to hear it out loud i appreciate it thank you madam chair thank you um so i will close this out by first of all saying how grateful i am for all of the intent um to make our community better we've had a challenge and i know i've heard mr fish you say june 2022 i think sugar hill will say it's been a whole lot longer than that because i remember the initial conversations with that um project so it's been a lot longer than 2022 that they've been trying to get this done um at no fault of theirs um you know you put it out there and it's based on what administration says and what is priority so i want to give mr corbett um many thank yous for seeing that it has been out there lingering and that we needed something um that we must have there and share there and and i do agree with the the stringency of their contract um you know because we've had bigger deals with less scrutiny than that but i understand why we want to ensure to others that we are not showing favoritism if that's do for better of a you know lack of a better word because they've sugar hill has waited a long time for this and the opportunity that we're i'm hoping that we're going to give them today will not only send a strong message that we incur because you know i've been talking for years about black construction companies not being able to do business in st petersburg and i think chorus construction was the first one with the sankofa project and they were born and raised right here in st petersburg born and raised and could not do business in st petersburg couldn't understand that couldn't understand that so i'm in favor of this um i'm also glad because you know we had a conversation about the grocery stores i was concerned about that but i'm glad that the option of co-ops and all of those other opportunities are there hopefully we can get some youth farm vegetables and some of our tilapia into the store and that we are willing to be um collaborative about the grocery piece of it but also the housing also the other retail also you know like we said we talked about habitat but more importantly i think my heart is with the fact that sugar hills waited so long waited so long and you finally given them the opportunity to work with them um to make this happen for their community and in their community um you know like everyone else has has stressed i didn't meet my wonderful brew baker family until a couple of years ago and the fact that you feed 700 of our community every week every week hands down hands down should be applauded that is a blessing and we don't want you to go anywhere past the bueberger we don't we do not want you to go anywhere so i'm hoping a conversation could be had i'm hoping a collaboration can be had um but i am so supportive i am so happy um that we are having this conversation to to provide not only just economic workforce and development but black economic workforce and development giving you the opportunity to give back to your community as well in a grand scheme of things because i've heard it just like councilman floyd said we see a whole lot of bigger projects that come before us with less scrutiny and so with that being said you're accepting the responsibility you're accepting the timeline you're accepting the requirements that we are asking of you and i'm like council member gabbard you can't come back you know we we're here but i have faith in you i don't i have faith in you now i don't have faith in the economy i don't know what that's gonna look like you can't blame us for that yeah because kobe showed us a whole different thing but i'm grateful and i'm thankful for everyone that's here in their intent um and what you know we're trying to do for our community so i'm chair i can't move approval so approval thank you so we have a motion and a second to for approval and we have no other further requests to speak mr clerk can you open machine for voting public uh public comment on what there's that it's the CRA this is the CRA i think you want to speak on the other item oh okay thank you so council members cast your vote seeing it all present council members have voted mr turk can you please tell and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item CRA2 passes five to three with council members driscoll hanowitz and montaneri voting no council members fick sanders floyd gabbert girders and muhammad voting yes thank you so much thank you so now we will reconvene we will we will adjourn CRA and reconvene as city council and we will continue our reports the f5 resolution authorizing the mayor second all right well we do have public comment can you can you go ahead and call the cards uh the first two speakers is karen ray and uh corey gibbons please step go to other podium state your name and address for the record they'll have three minutes to address council i don't think corey is here anymore okay corey uh is against karen you up no karen please state your name and address for the record you'll have three minutes to address council okay thank you i'm karen ray at 5175 42nd street south in st petersburg i'm the executive director of positive impact and it looks like a vote has already uh been made on the no you have two votes okay um brandy thank you for asking uh mr corbett if he had uh reached out to us which we do not recall that he has had a conversation with any one of us um i would love to have a conversation with um mr corbett i do recall on march 28th i had approached you face to face uh saying that i had reached out to you and had not received a response back and at that time you said you didn't have any interest at all in speaking with us about tangerine plaza so we would love to speak with you um as soon as possible thank you um we are fully in support of building affordable housing in our city however we do have some concerns regarding uh the location as you know we have been proactively addressing food insecurity and inequality in the root causes of hunger in our city since 2003 and specifically at tangerine plaza since 2020 which is located in a known food desert our neighbors at tangerine plaza have been living in a food desert since 2017 when the walmart neighborhood market closed which is hard to believe that that's been seven years ago now they don't have another four to five years to wait for a grocery store to open in their neighborhood and this is my biggest concern the agreement with sugar hill does not provide a definitive date uh for opening and operating a grocery store based upon my understanding and reading of the agreement at the soonest it appears that it would be uh another four and a half to five years before a grocery store would open in the area gina thank you for um pointing out the contradiction in the lease agreement and clarifying that it's uh five years still a little confused about that if uh someone signs an agreement to to be a grocer there for five years after that five years can the development group decide we no longer need need or have to have a grocery store there that's a thought that came to my mind um in the agreement i don't see any uh liquidated damages uh stated for violating the restrictive uh covenant requiring a grocery store to occupy at least 3 000 square feet of retail space that is of concern to me it is imperative that we provide immediate relief for nutritious food in this known uh food desert the next two speakers is pastor uh pastor uh murphy and oliver gross pastor murphy okay please state your name and address for the record you'll have three minutes to address council lewis and murphy seniors 2551 tropical shores drive southeast i just want to thank uh council for those all of you uh who have diligently done your homework work to uh to try to uh help uh move this project forward one way or or not and again those that did vote we appreciate your confidence in us and our ability to do what we do i'm not new to this community i've been in the trenches for 30 years uh our church is in the community our vision is to bring about an effective change within a two-mile radius of the church and beyond so however it goes my heart is clear i'm good we're gonna make it happen and this is just the beginning this is just the beginning so those of you who who didn't vote for it just know that we're gonna show you that we are more than capable of turning our community around we committed to it a hundred percent thank you oliver gross oliver okay he's worse okay uh um corey gibbons is in june so corey once you enter to the meeting space please let your name and address for the record and you'll have three minutes to address city council corey you there yes i am thank you very much the bible says in matthew 35.5 it says that i was hungry and you fed me i was thirsty and you gave me something to drink i was a stranger and you took me in this past saturday morning as i do every morning i witnessed positive impact ministries ministering in tangerine plaza they were serving they were feeding they were meeting the needs of the community the line hundreds of cars lined up from 22nd street south all the way down to 16th street south and around the block all the way down to 13th avenue it was incredible seeing the smiles on these people's faces as their trunks and their cars got filled up with food just imagine what we can do if we put the right tenants in that state wheat bay failed walmart failed you said it for seven years we we witnessed failure after failure and still the people who live in that community most of whom none of you even live around there those people still don't have a grocery store so most of us have two and three different options that we can go to these people have none they have nothing but corner stores and gas stations if you want to be empathetic think about the little boys who ride their bicycles up there and they struggle to buy strip they struggle to balance that bicycle because they have groceries on both sides trying to feed their families we're talking 11 and 12 year old kids think about the senior citizens who pick the motor scooters up there just to get enough groceries to last week after week we can't ignore them we can't ignore the issues that cause those grocery store chains to fail time poverty i mean there's three grocery stores in in ohio where this works we can we can create that same concept right here in saint pete we have the supply we have with a man now let's meet those needs our most vulnerable populations are counting in us we have an opportunity to offer vocational training through a partnership with t-tech pastor grubaker she and her team have been doing an awesome job i think pastor murphy said earlier that people travel from palmetto and bradenton to go to this grocery store that he talked about where people travel from palmetto and bradenton to get free groceries in pandering plaza every saturday so i'm asking council to do the right thing and think about those folks who can't show up at city hall and advocate for themselves god bless you i'm sure the last two speakers is roy bingo and sarah harold no more speakers madam chair no more speakers okay well we are in f5 and we also had had a motion in a second correct correct okay um councilmember hanowitz thank you um and you know given the fact that we were on the cra item before i did not go through the contract which is what i want to go through some of the provisions in the contract i do want to say i think this is an important piece of the property and honestly pastor murphy to your point i want you to succeed i think everybody wants this property to succeed so when we make decisions based on whatever is before us it's not just on what people tell us but it's what's in the contracts and lots of other factors so i i no matter how i end up voting on this to me if it succeeds i'm going to be happy and i would be happy to be proved wrong in one of my votes any time when something succeeds and i'm wrong so i want to make that clear on the offset but i do have some questions on the contract um and what i need to understand in terms we have an option contract here okay now what it's 18 months what are we getting in terms what is the legal consideration in the option contract sorry council members are it's like a contract you have to have consideration for it to be valid so i could you could someone explain to me all the legal consideration that we're receiving yeah so the legal consideration is that we want the property to be developed and in order for that to happen we need to give the developer site control and that's what the option does so so giving them the ability to have site control your opinion is that's enough legally right well when you're talking for consideration for consideration perfect if a court was going to find it was legally enforceable you're telling me that that's sufficient then that's fine right the consideration is and it it would be sufficient it would be that the city wants the property to be developed okay now subsection six says retention of consideration so explain to me what are all the sums paid in services rendered in that retention of consideration that is being considered in the option contract because obviously there's there's something i mean i think that i don't know what all that might include so that might be a question for administration i mean it's there you wrote it so it says all sums paid in services rendered so you're obviously expecting some money to be paid no we're definitely not because okay in this agreement saying that money money is going to be paid okay so no money is going to be paid right but to the extent that sugar hill is identifying contractors i guess if we wanted to take over any of that we would have that option the retention of consideration just curious as to what that means we would certainly decline the option to take on any any monetary obligations that sugar hill takes on i mean this is on the option contract so i'm not talking you know the lease this is the options it's two separate so well no there's no monetary compensation i understand it just it says there all sums paid in services rendered so obviously there's a retention of consideration in the event the lease is not fully executed right so i guess the answer is no money there's no money that exists what else and then services rendered what what else are you what do you think that you're going to retain for as consideration i'm just curious i mean we certainly uh through their due diligence obtained documents from them that they would have to expense money on so there might be something of value that the city gets out of this as far as due diligence items okay um i'll leave that there assignment provision number 10 why are we not using the regular assignment provision for the city there we have it in the lease why don't we have it in the option contract that was negotiated so i'll defer to administration on why we decided it maybe if sugar hill had an answer and you wanted to hear that because an assignment could be obviously the the option could be assigned right to someone else it's it's not assignable uh no it says here it's not assignable but then there is a paragraph that says notwithstanding the foregoing which says forget about that the mayor in his reasonable discretion may approve the partial complete assignment of this option agreement or the lease to a wholly controlled and majority owned subsidiary of s-h-e or an entity created to facilitate the use of tax credits for funding the so it can be assigned so in this case yeah this this was done in this way because as they apply for financing they might have to create a separate entity for the tax credit funding right so if they have to create a separate entity we have to assign some of these interests to that entity but it would be a related entity then that might occur yeah but we have an assignment provision that we normally use which requires city council approval correct right i i i'm not sure about that um we have the standard language that we normally use there may be but there's also negotiated legal language it's always not every agreement's not always city council no you could certainly modify it you could vote to change it right but i that's why i want to find out why aren't we using specifically the standard that we normally start with why wouldn't that suffice because you could still do what you're saying with city council i think in this case it was to be more flexible for the tax credit funding so that if they had to create an entity but if there were some circumstance where we didn't have the time to come back to council that we could make an assignment to a related entity for the purpose of them making making their funding deadlines that has happened in the past especially with affordable housing you know this has always been a discussion around affordable housing and assignment because of mr fish saying the timing can be an issue and then also sale of the property can be an issue that they get concerned about related to the tax credits so assignment related to affordable housing has not always been with city council approval but certainly understand your point right and this is an option that's the thing it's not because sometimes you're doing it and there is a complete purchase agreement right this is just an option which is what which is different for me yes um so the other question i have also is we talked the purchase price um there's an option to purchase so there is the option 18 months and then let's say they don't get financing if they do then you know they take over they could get an extension for another right 24 months or something so they in the option agreement there is a provision that they can ask for up to an additional one year one year that is subject to council approval right that would subject to council approval so and then um if there is financing then you get into the other agreement which also has an option in it to purchase um for the price of 1.5 million the land but there is no time limit on this option to purchase is that correct it's upon the completion of the development i want to make sure says that the entire development has been completed and verified and the tenant pays the purchase price but it doesn't require them to do it at that time does it uh legal there's no there's no requirement this could be a year 50. correct right so there's no end point to the option to i just those are just there are provisions in here and i look i've brought this up on certain other agreements that are that we're dealing with that are very large that i have issues with and so based on some of those provisions i just i can't support this even though that i i want to see this site developed and i will tell you this there is a risk of having an option contract of it not being developed for those 18 months if the financing goes through so that is the risk for the city there is risk here that you will because you can't do anything when you have an option contract right because that's the option and if they don't get their financing or risk is it's another 18 months that nothing happens on that so there are there are risks there so i with those things said um yeah i cannot support it thank you council member driscoll thank you and um thanks to those who spoke i'm going to tackle something else first the city council has the discretion to extend the option for another for one year right that is correct but then um when you get into the assignment the the assignment as council member hanowitz had pointed out there is um an exception you can't assign it unless you want to assign it and the mayor agrees to it there is nothing in there about city council approval this is something that city council should have should be it should be subject to city council approval the mayor can choose whether or not to accept the request and send it to city council but the final approval should be on city council there are other areas in the lease and development agreement such as in the construction timeline and regarding the no cure period there is a provision for the modification of those timelines and dates that um the mayor or the mayor's designee in their sole and absolute discretion may extend any date in section 12 the construction timeline by no more than 90 days there is nothing in here i mean city council doesn't even have to be notified i think this should be subject to city council's approval also member driscoll i will say that it is common in agreement for administration to have the ability to extend dates i'll give you an example with the central which is or what was formerly orange station there is an opportunity for administration to extend by 90 days and it does not require city council approval this is very similar um right i wasn't happy about that one either okay but and also just to talk about the assignment the assignment is very limited to who they can assign to as mr fish mentioned this is really around the um the financing and if they need to create an entity but if you notice the parties that they can assign it to it's a very short it's not like they can assign it to anyone they want it would be a wholly controlled or majority-owned subsidiary or an entity created to facilitate the use of the tax credits for funding so it's a very very defined small room where the assignment would happen and it would be clearly so that they can move forward with the tax credit financing it still should be something that city council takes up and considers basically you know since 2017 basically there is one person on the dais who's been dealing with this property since 2017 when the walmart closed and nobody knew what to do city council has talked about this in committee so many times um you know i mean i i can count the scars on my hand from beating my fist on the table saying we need to have something done here so i feel that it is the responsibility of city council to have strong stewardship of this property and what happens to it going forward if this passes it's really disappointing to hear i mean we heard from one speaker from positive impact who said that they haven't had a chance to talk about this and i think that's really a shame you've heard some of my colleagues compliment the great work that they've done they're really they're the ones that are providing things now and this deal that we have we may not see something for what five years i think you said it might be before a grocery store actually opens on this property and positive impact it's great that they can stay there for now but we don't have another spot identified for them they put in their own proposal if we're committed to taking care of them we should have been talking to them and if we're committed to if we do appreciate what they're doing you can at least talk to them when they ask return a phone call or an email whatever it is that happened i don't think that people who are doing this much good in our community more than we're doing on that property should be treated that way also remember driscoll if i may respond to the comment about not yes communication there were two conversations i distinctly remember them both at the economic and workforce committee i spoke and i believe right after that we had a flag raising and my comments were i did not want to talk about the use of this site until we saw this through i said ultimately it's up to council if council decides not to proceed with the development of this through sugar hill then we could absolutely have a conversation about this site i said i am absolutely open to looking at other sites while i haven't identified any um we're absolutely open that's when a pastor made it clear to me that they wanted to be in this area and i said we can look at 22nd street maybe she doesn't recall that but i absolutely had the conversation and there's another time that i remember speaking to her because she thought i was council member foy and i assured her again that we would have the conversation and we would look at sites so i would say um unequivocally i've had conversations my comment was related to this particular site i didn't think it was appropriate to talk about utilizing this site until council made their decision but we're absolutely committed i think they do great work and i am absolutely committed to finding a site that they can operate in thank you i'm glad that you took the opportunity to give your side of this because it's really important that no matter what happens today that we recognize those who are already doing the work and have have proven themselves over and over again positive impact isn't the only group that has reached out with an idea with an offer with a solution and we've seen that some of that is coming from organizations that don't need a year and a half to figure out how to find the money organizations that have heard what we need that understand what was in the rfp that understands what the city is looking for in that neighborhood i mean the two big things have been you know we we want housing we want good retail that includes a grocery store that's a very basic need that we have there and as much as i have been hoping that this selected group could pull something together that is strong that i could have great confidence in i've studied this this stuff forever and i just don't see how it's going to add up to something successful it is hard to say that but after going through a couple of other losses that we've had especially along um 22nd street it is it is it has made me a bit risk adverse and i see that we have others in the community who have got the um the ability to get going right now to continue good things that they're doing to put forward plans plans that they can actually fund and make it happen much faster than this i've waited a long time for something to finally come to city council for us to vote on for tangerine plaza it closed the year i was running for office the first time over seven years ago and so as much as i appreciate the work that's been done to try to find a solution here and to find a group to work with i don't think that this particular plan is the one that we should be investing in and we see that there are other opportunities that are other there are others who are offering to roll up their sleeves and i think we've got some better options out there that we should be pursuing it's because i want this property to succeed and i want it to serve the neighborhood and the community the way that we all meant for it to in the first place sometimes you can just hope that things will come together and i i really did but i'm not seeing this i'm not seeing a path here from everything that i've studied that's all i have thank you thank you councilmember montanieri thank you um well councilmember hanowitz uh brought up uh the paragraph uh the retention of consideration and i want to circle back to the sources and uses document that i received and mr binger uh you did send me an email on it and i did read it and in your email you did say uh that we will review the current pro forma and address any queries at thursday city council meeting uh i i still you know go go back to wanting the updated information just to know what what we're getting ourselves into but there's there's just a lot of questions that i have on on this document which my understanding is this document was provided to the city from sugar hill and when when i had my updated meeting on monday some of these numbers had changed but getting back to this one paragraph here when it comes to retention and consideration uh councilmember hanowitz talked about the the sentence that talked about all sums paid and services rendered well on the sources of funding one of the items is three million dollars from the city of st petersburg and i asked where where that was coming from and i understand that's coming from the south st petersburg cra and i just want to ask administration about that good afternoon george smith economic development manager for the south st petersburg cra we have not received a request a formal request for funding therefore there was no need to include in the package any documents that would reflect at the cac supporting it the cac it came before the cac only because it has been an item that has been up for consideration and discussion for many years but the cac was not required to make any formal support or recommendation we do not have a request for funding at this time okay thank thank you for that another item that they had on on this this document that that i received last wednesday it it says homes for pinellas and in the updated document that i saw on monday in my zoom meeting they had corrected it to say penny for pinellas and there was a four million dollar request from that and uh we talked about that a little bit is the penny funding i just want to clarify with staff is that a county the county's uh funding from from the penny or is that going to be a city council member montanieri i haven't seen the document that you're speaking of we have not received a formal request um for funding however um pro formas shift all the time right it really depends on what the current um funding recommendation is open so you may know that we recently had a request for proposals for a nine percent tax credit deal that we'll be bringing to you right after your break we had one applicant for that they could not apply for that until you agree to provide them with site control um the four percent is coming in hopefully july as well so whenever we get to the stage where there is a state opportunity open with tax credits then they would provide us with a pro forma they would make a formal application in our neighborly platform we would negotiate those deals and then bring them forward for you to consider and vote on so i can't answer what's in that particular document because i have not seen it sounds like it was provided to you through a zoom meeting but those are standard things that we talk through again based on the funding source that's available at the time i would anticipate that if this passes today we would start to enter into those conversations based on the state rfas that we know will open this summer okay well i was i was informed that this document went to mr fish's office and then shared with city council uh this this this one that's the old version that i saw on wednesday and then i saw a new version on thursday and i mean on monday of this week uh so uh i i just have a lot of you know these these sorts sorts of things are important to me to try to nail down where the funding's coming from and uh so that's why i raise raise those questions thank you thank you council member floyd thank you some of my questions have already been answered um i'll just go out and say um actually no i'll just leave it there my questions did get answered so thank you okay well we have no further requests to speak we've had a motion and a second on f5 mr clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing that all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item f5 passes five to three with council members driscoll henowitz and montaneri voting no council members fix sanders floyd gabbard girdus and muhammad voting yes thank you we're going to now move to new ordinances and this is quasi-judicial and councilmember gabbard is going to recruit herself from this item and we are looking at g1 a and b are we voting legal are we voting on them together uh we are voting on them separately separately okay so joining us is the urban okay nobody wants to hear us they didn't want to stay for this they wouldn't hear us saying happy birthday lawsuit judicial proceedings are my favorite i got you i love i should have known i didn't have to ask the clerk can read both of the ordinances and then the motion can be separate okay so because this is a quasi-judicial issue there is no presentation on this item a presentation will occur at the public hearing and council only needs to hear the reading of the ordinance titles and then we will vote to set the date and the public hearing so we'll do a and b separately so we're supposed to have with us our historic preservation planner to mr andrew jurich just read the ordinance right yeah if he could just read yes she's just reading the titles of the ordinances okay madam chair i'll read it yes i just wanted to make sure we had who was supposed to be at the podium at the podium i got this yes go ahead thank you ordinance number 760-l in orange amending the future land use map of the comprehensive plan for the city of st petersburg florida by changing the future land use map designation for a 0.58 acre site consisting of four parcels generally located at 920 20 avenue south from plan redevelopment residential pr-r to plan redevelopment mixed use pr-mu providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing for an effective date the public hearing for this item is july the 18th thank you so we now have g1a i see no request to speak there is approval of g1a we're only voting on g1a so we have a motion and it's been properly seconded since we have the motion can you please open the machine for voting now that all present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item g1a passes unanimously with council member gabbert being absent thank you now i entertain a motion for g1b ordinance number 792-z and ordinance amending the official zoning map of the city of st petersburg florida by changing the zoning of a 0.58 acre site consisting of four parcels locate generally located at 920 20 avenue south from neighborhood traditional dash one nt dash one to corridor residential traditional dash one crt dash one providing for repeal of conflicting ordinances and provisions thereof and providing for an effective date the public hearing for this item is july the 18th i'm sorry patty legal said you could read both of them at the same time i thought you read both of them at the same time i'm sorry that's okay we have a motion and a second for g1b clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item g1b passes unanimously with council member garrett being absent all right thank you so much come on in council member gabbard because you're next is it out here so sorry well now we're going to take up item h1 council member gabbard referral to hlut yes and actually um it was brought to my attention that by legal that there is a slight issue um with the verbiage as it pertains to how a hack has this on their um incentives list if you look at the item it is directly related to the incentives list that is passed every year by city council recommended by a hack and unfortunately the verbiage does have some legal concerns so what legal has asked is that we actually pull this item for today we're going to take it back to a hack have a conversation about the legalities of what they are requesting to be done with the funding and then potentially what could happen is that it may reappear in the ldr package that administration's working on so for now madam chair i'll just go ahead and pull this and then we will try to bring it back one way or the other that's good thank you moving on to h2 council member hannemann with hannowitz with a referral to psni thank you respectfully requesting a referral to psni or other relevant committee for a presentation on the city of st petersburg's 2024 community survey this referral is a staff request and i am formally submitting this new business item as a method of informing city council and so i move second having properly motion and second with no request to speak can you please open the machine for voting for h2 council members cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item h2 passes unanimously thank you moving on to item h3 approval of a resolution to initiate a local historic landmark application vice chair girders thank you madam chair and just to give a little background uh i am normally not one to jump at a uh to city initiate an application uh for a historic landmark rather see it come from the community but the neighborhood and the and the parcel owners for this historic landmark asked me to do it and so um we decided to give them some help so you did see some backup material um but this was an item that i thought we could help them out on and uh it's a it's a pretty cool item too so respectfully requesting city council's consideration of a resolution to initiate a local historic landmark application for the bear creek gateway located at the corner of emerson avenue south and 64th street south and i'll move approval okay okay you council member driscoll thank you um this question is for janine do we once oh or heather um if this passes we it automatically goes into quasi-judicial category right so this is gonna this is sorry we're gonna this leads the staff to staff initiate an application once that application is complete then it isn't quasi-judicial since it is staff there is no doubt that we are going to complete this unlike if it was citizen request where they have the option to not actually finish and submit the application derek and his team will complete that so yes going forward we would treat this as a quasi-judicial okay just another point i don't know if we've got extra information from derek but in the event that we cannot secure there's two gateways if one of the property owners is opposed then to approval will require a super majority vote thank you all right thank you for that so if you would uh see no further request to speak we have a motion that's been properly second can you open the machine for voting council members we have a public comment oh they just jumped in sorry okay jeffrey williams once you enter into the meeting space please unmute yourself state your name and address you'll have three minutes to address city council great good afternoon uh jeff jeff williams 6227 6th avenue south st pete hope everybody can hear me okay i appreciate the the three minutes of fame here and um to councilman girdus for helping us with the heavy lifting um navigating through the city process um the comment was made about both um homeowners or residents uh being um well if one if one was to to be against uh that it would go to a super majority i have um you know as part of your backup you see uh miss miss eileen is um uh all in favor of just uh as the i'm the interim president by the way for pasadena bear creek and i've been trying to make contact with the neighbor across the street and a little bit elusive but um i definitely want to at least bring him to the table i don't think he's opposed he's verbally said he's all for it likes the idea but obviously we would need a little bit more than that from him for y'all to you know solidify this um in some manner so i am uh planning on trying to continue that uh attempt for contact and uh you know again i just appreciate everybody's support and help um with this as does the homeowner and uh we're we're really excited about this because it is a little um you know pretty neat little part of our history out here in west saint pete and the early days of uh you know people brave and west i guess so oh thank you very much thank you so much thank you so having no other further requests to speak can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve agenda item h3 passes unanimously thank you moving on to h4 is a referral to hers council member gabbard so on this particular item as council member floyd mentioned earlier um i just wanted to i guess have a conversation with you council member floyd because um we i keep a book of all the referral lists in my office that's constantly updated and this item is not on the referral list and therefore um i had my aide go back and look and it was september of 2023 that you filed this for whatever reason it never got on the referral list and we've done a little bit of business since then so it's hard to remember all of the things that our fellow colleagues have put forward i appreciate the fact that you put that forward i obviously support the fact that you put that forward had um you know i realized it i would have just been anxiously awaiting it to come um had been working and talking just in the preliminary scope and have done a lot of research on this item um so certainly we'll look forward to you bringing that it sounds like you're going to bring it sooner rather than later and so certainly we'll look forward to that look forward to collaborating with you through the committee process on what that looks like look to bring that in for a landing hopefully and have a really great um model that our city can put forward so madam chair at this time i will withdraw the item and look forward to the hearse committee in the future all right good look thank you so much now we'll move into our chair oh i'm sorry i have a comment i'm sorry council member floyd yeah i was gonna say i apologize this is i'm learning you uh have to keep an eye on your things you know when you refer them here this is the second time this has happened to me um but yeah it was september 28th uh of last year that i put this forward um and i have been starting conversations busy with other things as well on the issue i know um when i put it forward i use the baldwin market as an example um the baldwin market has since closed so uh i i saw that okay i saw that they started a um like a committee to look into it but i didn't see what the latest status of it was okay that's good to know um yeah and so i had actually been waiting on scheduling a visit to the baldwin market with the mayor of baldwin and that's part of the thing that's gotten it that got it held up to uh now and then we realized oh they haven't gotten back to us and it's been a while and then i saw a news article about it closing so um it didn't close because it wasn't successful it closed because uh it's a very small city and uh they were having to provide a subsidy and they decided that the subsidy wasn't worth um or the subsidy was too impactful for them but i can tell you right it wasn't that big of a subsidy it's just they're a very small city so anyway um yeah so i'm gonna go back i have a spreadsheet of all my new business items i'm gonna go back and make sure they're all on the referral list going forward yeah i'm sorry i let it get to this point um we probably could have sorted this out before we got here today but um i mean not technically we can't talk right i know i know yeah no other place to do it we have to be messy on the dais so yeah well i guess when i saw it i should have been like oh i need to make sure what's going on on the referral list yeah but uh okay anyway um i appreciate it you've used almost the same language i did in the new business item i take no credit for that my name wrote it um and then uh and i remember when i put it forward like seeing your eyes light up so i do look forward to the conversation yes i am hoping we've got a lot of things on hers agenda uh right now and we don't meet as often as i like to but um i am hoping to get to it um in the coming months i would say i mean to be realistic it'd probably have to be fall um at the earliest so um but i i have uh and now that i know you that you've talked to administration i will talk to uh other people in the administration as well and i look forward to those conversations i look forward to having this discussion publicly yeah all right thank you all right thank you for that so now we will move forward to our council committee reports beginning with i1 it is a bf and t action item resolution authorizing the bf and t committee to proceed with presentations and evaluations of offers for external audit and assurance services vice chair girders thank you madam chair uh the bf and t committee has whittled the uh rfp for our external auditors down to two we'd like to invite them in-house to do two quick presentations so this is respectfully requesting city council approval of the short list of offers and authorizing the bf and t committee to proceed with presentations and evaluations of offers for an agreement for external auditor and assurance services and i move approval seeing no request to speak clerk can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes seeing all present council members have well there is sorry okay there we go all present council members have voted can you please tell and announce the votes madam chair motion to approve it i1 passes unanimously thank you and i'm also going to leave it with vice chair girders for i2 thank you madam chair this is respectfully requesting city council approval approval of the budget finance and taxation committee's recommendation to add the northwest park lighting project to the wiki wachi project list and the proposed resolution is attached and i move approval second seeing no request to speak can you please open the machine for voting council members please cast your votes now that our present council members have voted can you please tally and announce the vote madam chair motion to approve the agenda item i2 passes unanimously all right next we'll move to open forum do we have any cards open forum we have three people in the room not physically here so on zoom no zoom oh they left already okay well that works we will now close open forum and move to announcements and adjournment any announcements any announcements oh okay well i'm looking at the thing i'm sorry council member gabbard well we have two birthdays to celebrate um the first one is today cindy shepherd our city council administrator it's her birthday she's not in office today but we want to wish her a happy birthday and then second of all we have our vice chair hopefully girdus who will be celebrating his birthday on monday so it's also saint petersburg's birthday today it you know what i was thinking of the the people not all the people so happy birthday to saint petersburg as well how's that 80 uh 84 years something all right so let's sing even louder 24 124 let's sing even louder then let's go for it happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear city city in the city all of the above happy birthday to you thank you very much thank you very much thank you brandy i was looking at this way waiting on isn't he gonna make the announcement is he gonna make the announcement any other announcements my colleague today was an eventful day enjoy some of the sunshine be safe everybody we're june june six thank you everyone