City Council - May 14, 2026

Welcome to the City of St. Petersburg City Council Meeting. Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch, District 1, Hopely Gerdes, District 2, Brandy Gabbard, District 3, Mike Harding, District 4, and Council Chair, Lisette Hanowitz, District 5, Deborah Fig Sanders, District 6, Gina Driscoll, District 7, Corey Givens Jr., and District 8 and Council Vice Chair, Richie Floyd. The meeting to order. Will the clerk please call roll? Dick Sanders? Here. Driscoll? Here. Givens? Here. Lloyd? Here. Gerdes? Here. Gabbard? Harding? Here. Anowitz? I now realize it's the afternoon, so good afternoon. We have our invocation today from Captain Jonathan Sanchez, St. Petersburg Fire Rescue Chaplain. Please stand for the invocation, followed by a moment of silence, and then please remain standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. First, let me say what an honor it is to be asked to be given the invocation for today here in these chambers and with these leaders. Thank you for having me. Let's begin. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you with gratitude for this day for the privilege of serving the City of St. Petersburg. Together, we lift up the members of the St. Petersburg City Council and ask that you grant them wisdom, discernment, and clarity as they make an impact for this community. Lord Jesus, guide their conversations with respect, their actions with integrity, and their leadership with a heart to serve. Help them to seek what is right, just, and beneficial for everyone. Father, we ask for your protection over the men and women who serve on the front lines to protect our city, the firefighters, police, and emergency medical responders. Strengthen them, give them courage in difficult moments, and bring them safely home after every call. Lord, make this time together marked by unity, purpose, and a shared commitment to the well-being of the city. Let your sun shine brightly on the city of St. Petersburg and drive out darkness. In closing, let everything done here today contribute to the peace, safety, and flourishing of our community. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Please remain standing for a moment of silence honoring fallen first responders. Detective Wayne M. Barry, end of watch, May 23, 1929. Officer Frank A. Pike, end of watch, May 19, 1933. And Firefighter Robert F. Parker, last alarm, May 10, 1969. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please be seated. Thank you so much for the invocation, Captain. Great to see you. Before we approve the agenda, I have a couple of notes here I want to share that other council members have asked me to share. Chair Hanowitz isn't here today or right now because her daughter is receiving an award at school, so she's attending that, but she will be back as soon as she is able. And council member Gabbard has an obligation with the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council as the chair of the Resiliency Coalition, but she will be back as soon as she can as well. So, council members, we have an agenda before us. Do I have a motion for approval? Second. All right. Seeing no request to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce a vote? Mr. Vice Chair, a motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously with council members Gabbert and Hanowitz being absent. Thank you. We also have a consent agenda before us. Clerk, do we have any cards on the consent agenda? Yes, Mr. Vice Chair, we have three cards. I'm going to call two speakers at a time. When I call your name, please go to an open podium, state your name, address, and or cross street. For the record, you'll have three minutes to address city council. First two speakers are Michelle Knight and Sakia Donaldson. Good afternoon, council. My name is Michelle L. Knight. I'm a participant in the Sunrise St. Pete Disaster Relief Program. I'm speaking today regarding item CB20, the proposed amendment extending BDO's government services contract. I am asking this council. My current address is 601 Rosary Road in Largo. I am a hurricane victim, so we had to move, but it was here in St. Pete. I am asking this council to condition any extension or additional funding on the full audit of BDO's award calculation accuracy in compliance with HUD, the CDBD-DR requirements. In my case, and in others, the gap funding this amendment seeks to address is being created by BDO's own administrative errors. My award was under-obligated by more than $1,200 due to the use of incorrect FEMA data, the exclusion of federally eligible expenses, and inconsistent application of program's own written guidelines. These are not minor clerical errors. These are compliance issues. And when a contractor misapplies, federal rules that doesn't harm residents, it exposes the city to HUD monitoring findings and potential clawbacks of the city's $159 million allocation. While the administration is asking to expand BDO's role, the current oversight structure is not catching these errors. I have escalated documentation inconsistencies for months, including identity errors, incorrect data sets, and the exclusion of eligible expenses. Despite clear evidence in the canopy system, the determinations were labeled, quote-unquote, as final, leaving residents with no meaningful administrative remedy. When residents are forced to seek help from HUD and federal oversight bodies because the contractor's internal review processes are not functioning, that is a sign of systematic oversight gap, not an isolated mistake. If the city is paying a premium for disaster recovery management, then accuracy, compliance, and accountability must be non-negotiable. Before approving this amendment, I respectfully ask the council to request, one, how many appeals or escalations are currently pending regarding BDO's award calculations? What corrective action has been taken to ensure BDO is following the HUD rules? Three, whether an independent audit of award accuracy has been conducted, and if not, why not? Residents deserve transparency. The city deserves compliance. And federal funds deserve stewardship, not assumptions. Thank you for your time. I'm actually here to discuss consent agenda number seven, so I don't know if I filled out the wrong card. You're good. I can go ahead. Go ahead. Please state your name and address your cross-street for the word. My name is Sakia Donaldson. I'm sorry, can I come up? No, you can't. We're together. I'm sorry. Yeah, you can stand there, but you can't speak while she's. Okay. Okay. Agenda seven, the proposal for the Genius Lab with STEM exposure. So, what is it? Okay. Well, you can't speak. You can't speak together. I mean, you can stand there, but you can't speak while she's speaking. Okay, so move away so I can speak, right? No. Because we're here together. I don't know if you have a card. Yes. Each one of us filled out a card. Okay, then after she has her three minutes, then I'll call your name, and then you'll have three minutes to speak. Okay. I'm sorry. Sorry for the confusion. So, the Genius Lab is an after-school program powered by STEM exposure. I run a STEM program as well called the Science of Beauty that's going to be part of the curriculum for the Genius Lab, so I just wanted to speak to that. So, the Science of Beauty is a STEM program that introduces culturally relevant STEM careers in the beauty and cosmetic chemistry space. We've been in existence for roughly four years, and we have actually been implemented into six middle magnet schools in Hillsborough County, so we look forward to bringing the program to Pinellas County. We also offer a historically black college and university tour that we go on every summer called the Summer of Science Tour, and we are currently at Spelman College in Atlanta. We're at Xavier University in New Orleans. We're at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, and we'll be at Tuskegee this summer. So, again, we look forward to bringing our STEM curriculum and program to Pinellas County. The last speaker for the consent agenda is Robin Donaldson. Please go to an open podium. State your name, address, or cross street for the record. You'll have three minutes to address city council. Thank you. My name is Robin Donaldson. My address is 2235 22nd Street, St. Pete, Florida, 33712, and I am the proud founder of STEM Exposure, and, again, I'm speaking in regards to the Genius Lab. STEM Exposure is eight years old, and we have amazing accomplishments. In fact, we are, we had the opportunity to go global in the middle of the pandemic out of my garage, and we're currently in ten countries and in four time zones. We have 14 students at the University of Nairobi who are pursuing architecture, and then also at FAMU we have eight students, and we have one international student who just graduated this year from FIU, and we have two additional females that are graduating. Well, they already have graduated, and I'm telling you all of that to tell you this because it speaks to the leadership skills that we have and how we're able to make an impact in various countries, and we want to bring that same success to the city of St. Pete. So the Genius Lab, we are, is an amazing after-school program where we're going to expose kids in South St. Pete to STEM careers. We have over ten STEM careers that we're going to offer, everything from A to Z. So we have AI, we have architecture, we have cybersecurity, we have the data sciences, we have the science of sports, we have the science of beauty, and then also we have what I absolutely love because I'm an instructor, is the construction class, the workforce piece. So I train at least five to seven trades, and then also they're able to get certification. I also own a construction company, so the students that do graduate, they know that they have a job lined up upon completion. This particular grant opportunity is one that is going to really stretch STEM exposure in many ways, and that would be because of what we have to provide. So we have to provide transportation to and from. We have to provide a nutritious meal for after-school. And of course, because I've mastered the art of collaboration, we are soliciting to different restaurants, food trucks in the local community, asking that they be part of the student's food experience, so they would be offering different cuisines, because of course, St. Pete is known for that, right? So each week, we're going to give those students an amazing food experience. And then also with our transportation, we're utilizing our community, because of course, you know the price of gas and insurance. We are using a couple of church vans, because they only use it on Sunday. And so I said, well, how about if we can utilize it Monday through Thursday to get these students to the Enoch Davis Center? And again, I just wanted to speak because, again, this is a transformational opportunity for St. Pete. Thank you. Council members, we have a consent agenda before us. Council member Driscoll. Thank you. Regarding the first speaker on CB20, did the administration have any information that could be helpful in light of those comments? Yeah. I'll kind of give an overview about how appeals, complaints, and exceptions get handled, and then Ms. Phillips can share a little bit more about this specific issue. So just so you're aware, in our action plan, there is a written process for how complaints, exceptions, and appeals get handled. Aubrey Phillips' team reviews those and then escalates them to me, and then I decide whether they are, you know, concurred with or if something else needs to happen. Out of more than 2,500 applications, I can tell you that we've had about seven of those three categories. All three of those categories are usually things like I didn't get to apply, I accidentally applied to the county instead of the city. This is the only one that has been about the award amount. And this one also has been elevated to HUD, and I believe HUD has concurred with our analysis as well. But I'm going to let Ms. Phillips speak to that. Good afternoon, council members. So yes, as Administrator Foster indicated, when we received these complaints, we did review each award recommendation from BDO. My staff does the QC of that award and recalculates, makes sure that the awards are calculated properly, that duplication of benefits is calculated properly. When we received the complaint, our complaint team re-reviewed that determination to make sure that that math was correct, because HUD was also involved, we also met with our HUD representatives out of Jacksonville to review our methodology and how we went about doing that calculation, and they concurred with our determination. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I'll add that I am supportive of item CA7. I'm excited to have the city partnering with STEM Exposure, which was ranked considerably higher in the scoring than the other proposers. And given the history and experience that they have, along with what you see as clear passion for what they do, I think our children are going to be in great hands. So thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair. All right. Seeing no other requests for comments. Moved approval. Second. Thank you. I'll say, just real quick, for, I think it was CB20, I read over what the amendment does, and it seems to just add more responsibilities to the people that we have the contract with. And so I don't see the need to hold it up today, but I am interested in getting more information on some of the stuff that's come up, because I think it can be handled regardless of this specific amendment. So I'd encourage anyone to reach out to my office, and I'd talk to administration as well about it. All right. We have a motion and a second. Will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please sign in and announce the votes? Mr. Vice Chair, I motion to approve the consent agenda. Passes unanimously. The council member Gabbert and Hanowitz being absent. Thank you very much. All right. Uh, open forum clerk, if there are any speakers for open forum, 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 the clerk. Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum sheet. Only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak. All issues discussed in our open forum 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 forum or when the item comes up on the agenda. The clause is not permitted except in connection with awards and presentations. 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 the City Council through the Zoom meeting, you must use the raise hand feature button in 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 reach 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 a 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 comment is disrupted by violation of the rules of decorum, the chair is authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only. And we do have some speakers listed here. Dr. Perry G. Washington. Dr. Perry G. Washington. 175 Fifth Street North. St. Petersburg, Florida. The Burg. Thank you, Dr. Washington. Could you give us cross streets, please? Fifth Street North? What's this? Over here. What is that over here? This is Fifth Street. What is this over here? What now? I'm sorry, I don't... You're asking for a cross street. I gave you Fifth Street North. What is this over here? The Second Avenue, is that what you're asking? You don't even know. No, I'll say it. Whitey's on the moon. Again, Whitey is on the moon. The streets in South St. Petersburg are flooding what Whitey is on the moon. I like to think, Gil Scott-Heron, Laquita Dix, and the Nissan Corporation. The mayor, the city council, allowed me to be thrown in jail for defending my own land. They put a fence in my yard. And you all think like nothing, Shane. You don't even have to tell me when I'm forgiven. You can't tell you. You're going to be good because Whitey is back on the moon. What did they tell you when you sat in that seat and they were spitting on you over there and told you to do something about it? It's still on the moon. And her! Four speakers. The next two speakers are Robert Donaldson and Zakiya Donaldson. I believe they no longer hear them. Is that all? That is all, sir. All right. Thank you. We'll close open forum and move on to awards and presentations. Our first award, D1, is National Nurses Week proclamation given by Councilmember Gerdes. Sorry, Chair. That's okay. Good afternoon, Vice Chair, colleagues. I get to have some fun this afternoon. And so I want to invite up some friends of mine from St. Anthony's, from HCA, both Pasadena and St. Petersburg, Johns Hopkins, and Orlando Health Bayfront as we celebrate Nurses Week. I think you have heard me talk. That was an invitation. Guys are going to just let me go solo. Jeez. I need the moral support. I know you have heard me speak before about nurses in our community, and they are truly miracle workers. And I know I use that often when talking about health care, but when we're talking about our nurses here in St. Petersburg and across the country and across the world, they are the ones doing the daily work that support our parents, our patients, our families, all of the above. And so I just want to tell you two quick stories. Anyways, first of all, I've shared with you before, my son was born a couple weeks early. He's actually here right now. He's probably making an absolute disaster of my office right now. But he was born a few weeks early, and right after he was born, they could tell he wasn't breathing all that well, and they swooped him off, and they took him right to the NICU. And immediately when I got up to the NICU, my son was surrounded by about eight nurses, and I immediately felt better. And then a couple hours later, after checking on my wife and coming back, there were two more in his room, constantly looking over him. And immediately I knew we were in the right place with the right people, and those were the nurses that kept my son healthy over the next seven days while he was in the NICU, the ones that kept me sane and my wife informed as we were at the hospital for the next seven days. And so my story in NICU is one of joy. We came out, all good. Kate is all good. But that's not always the case. And so not only do they have the good ones, they have the bad ones too. And they go to work day after day with a smile on their face. And the reason I know that is the second story. It is four years ago, about six months into my first year on city council, I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I thought I was having a stroke. And so I went to the hospital, and I spent the night there. Thankfully, I was not having a stroke. I'm about to have one. But see, I told you I needed the support. And so I was in a room for, I don't know, about 36 hours. And for 12 of those hours, the neighbor across the way in my room was yelling at the top of his lungs, not very nice things that I couldn't repeat here today and wouldn't repeat at my dinner table. And every time I watched the nurse walk in and out of that room, that nurse walked out with a smile on her face into mine. And I can tell you, I'm relatively patient with people. I would have lost my head 11 hours earlier. And so, you know, we talk about the care, and we talk about the education and what they bring. But I needed to talk about just the humanity that they bring every single day to their jobs, to their passionate careers. And I wanted a big thank you from me to all of you and to all of your colleagues. Just know that you are appreciated, and we are here supporting you, especially during this week. And I know my colleagues, and I'm sure they'll share, feel the same, and I know the mayor does too. And so it's my absolute honor, seriously, my absolute honor to present this proclamation to all of you today. Whereas each year, National Nurses Week offers an opportunity to recognize the compassion, dedication, and unwavering commitment of nurses who serve on the front lines of health care. And whereas nurses represent the largest segment of health care workforce in the United States, and with more than 4 million registered nurses and thousands serving here in St. Petersburg across hospitals, clinics, schools, and community settings. And whereas behind these numbers are stories that unfold every day in quiet hospital rooms, sometimes not that quiet, busy emergency departments, and neighborhood clinics, where a nurse is often the first to greet a patient and the last to ensure they are not alone. And whereas it may look like a routine shift on paper, but for a nurse it can mean comforting a frightened patient in the early hours of the morning, explaining a complex medical, explaining complex medical information in a way a family can understand, and returning repeatedly with patience, skill, and compassion. And whereas in the city of St. Petersburg, nurses are present in life's most meaningful moments, welcoming new life into the world, supporting patients through recovery, and offering comfort and dignity at the end of life. Serving not only as caregivers, but as trusted companions to individuals and families during times that will never be forgotten. And whereas, through these everyday acts of care and connection, nurses help carry individuals and families through some of life's most challenging and meaningful moments, leaving a lasting impact that extends far beyond the walls of any single interaction. Now, therefore, I, Council Member Copley-Gerdes, on behalf of Kenneth T. Welch, Mayor of the City of St. Petersburg, do hereby proclaim the week of May 6th through May 12th, 2026, as National Nurses Week in the City of St. Petersburg, and recognize the importance of nurses providing high-quality care everywhere. Thank you. We've got Scott Smith from St. Anthony's Hospital, CEO. He's going to say a couple words, and then maybe some of the leadership from the other institutions here as well. Thank you, Mr. Gerdes. And it's, on behalf of St. Anthony's Hospital and Bay Care, just an honor and a privilege, and we really appreciate the recognition. It's an honor and privilege to work with these individuals every day, to see what they do on a daily basis. And I think you articulated it better than anyone possibly could. I see it every day. And, in fact, I was just recently at a board meeting, and we were just having a couple of sidebar conversations, and somebody said, really, you see that stuff all the time? I'm like, yeah, really. They deal with that all the time. They deal with it with a smile on their face. They deal with it with professionalism. They deal with people who are at the highest highs and at the lowest lows. I will tell you it is an honor and a privilege to be able to interact with people when they are at their most vulnerable, when families are at their most vulnerable. That is a time when lives get changed, families get changed, spirituality gets changed, and it is a great privilege. It also comes with a great responsibility, and these nurses do it every single day, so it's a privilege to work alongside of them. Thank you very much for this recognition. Council Member, thank you. Ben Kirby from HCA. Appreciate it. Thank you for the recognition. Well said, sir. I think it's a privilege to be with you again. It is a particular privilege to be with our nurses and thank them again for the work that they do on behalf of patients every day, your constituents. Thanks for having us. We appreciate it. Thank you again. I also extend the gratitude on behalf of all of our nurses across the city of St. Pete, and I think this is just a beautiful recognition of the impact they have across our community, so thank you for the recognition. Council Member Figgs-Sanders. Thank you. First of all, I have to join my colleague, Council Member Gerdes, because in our everyday, you know, life is always life, and, you know, we have so much experience of hospital stays, the good, the bad, the wonderful news, the not-so-wonderful news, but I will tell you firsthand that the nurses make the stay. You know, the doctors, they come in, you know, they have that stoic, you know, look on their faces, but the nurses, the ones that provide that everyday care, that how are you this morning, that welcome. I hate to wake you up. Y'all know y'all can be real bothersome sometimes, but, you know, we hate to wake you up. But you always do it with a smile, and you're absolutely correct. You are the face of our health care today, and I want to thank you all for what you did, because even deciding to do this profession, you're already making a sacrifice. When you have your bad days, you still have to give someone else a good day. And so I want to thank you for that, because I have the nurses I've experienced, again, beginning of life. My baby was a two-pounder, as well as the end of life when we had to pull the plug on my dad. The nurses were there every step of the way. And so I just needed to thank you all and ask you to continue to do what you do and to continue to breed the bread of kindness that you all have in your everyday profession, because we may take it for granted, but we do know that it takes an extra effort for you to come in every day and to see what you see and still be able to be that consistent act of kindness when we get there from the moment we leave until the moment we leave. So, again, thank you so much. Thank you, Vice Chair. Council Member Givens. Well said. Both my colleagues. And, again, thank you to each of you for your service. I come from a family of nurses. My grandmother was a nurse at Mercy Hospital, and my mom put in a number of years at Suncoast and Bay Care before moving away. And it was Suncoast and Bay Care that put food on our table and put the three of us through college, and so I'm grateful for that. But I'm also grateful for the support that you all offer to our constituents and to tourists and all of those people who utilize our hospital facilities here in the St. Petersburg area. You know, growing up, I used to wonder why my mom was absent so much, and I actually used to get angry because she was always working. But now I realize she was busy saving lives. And the sacrifice that she made for our family is evident in people who are still here and alive today. And so I'm grateful for each of you and the sacrifices that you make on a daily basis. You are heroes, unsung heroes, and you are the crucial and critical lifeline of support to all of our hospitals and medical institutions. So thank you so much. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Councilmember Harding. Thank you, Chair. It is relevant and poignant that my wife texted me about 10 minutes before we started today a video. She is at Moffitt with one of her best friends, and today is the day she's ringing the bell. So her best friend. And she scheduled it very particularly today because this is the day that she went every week or whatever her schedule was. And in the video, you can clearly see that she did it for a reason, and I knew this ahead of time. It's the two nurses who took care of her. She invited them. That's the part, right? The skill, the amount of school you went through, the medical knowledge and ability you have, that all is top line and most important. The amount of empathy that you bring, that's the part, and I thank you for that. So that's one small example of things that are happening right now at our three main hospitals and all the clinics around here literally all the time. And I think that this one stands out. I appreciate you being a part of this, and congratulations. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you all so much for being here today. It's nice when we get to start our meeting with something so optimistic and so good about our community, so I really appreciate it. Chair, can we give our first responders one more round of applause, please? All right. Moving on from awards and proclamations into new ordinances, we have item E1, where we're setting a public hearing date. I believe you have to read the title. If you want to take it away, Clerk. Proposed Ordinance 637-H, an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg amending the city code related to animals, adding a new section, 4-10, designating the city of St. Petersburg as a bird sanctuary, providing for severability, and providing an effective date. The public hearing date for this ordinance is scheduled for May 28, 2026, and we have no speakers. We have Heather Judd with us if anyone has any questions. So we'll go to Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. Heather, did you want to share information first? So just a quick update, when we had this at committee, and in the review packet, you can see that the request is generally made under the administrative code for a January or a July hearing. My colleague, Sarah Lucker, confirmed today that this year they're not having a meeting in July. They're having a meeting in August. So that's when we hope to have this heard in front of the commission. Thank you. I was excited to have support for this initiative. that I proposed in committee. It may seem like a small thing to designate our city as a bird sanctuary, but as our city grows and we want to make sure that we protect what's special about our city, these things add up. And so I'm thrilled that we've gotten it this far, and I will move approval. Second. Seeing no further requests to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your vote. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, motion to approve agenda item E1 passes unanimously. The council member Gabbert and Hannah was being absent. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to our reports item. First up, item F1, a presentation on the Tampa International Airport update. Yes. All right. We're joined by Michael Stevens, Tampa International Airport's chief executive officer. Nice to see you this afternoon. It's great to see you as well, Mr. Vice Chairman. To the distinguished members of the council staff and to everyone gathered here, good afternoon. I'm Michael Stevens. I have the honor and privilege of serving as chief executive officer of your airport, America's favorite airport, Tampa International. And I'm here today to give you an update on what is happening at your airport because it's very important for us to keep our community partners, to keep our local officials up to date about what's going on there at the airport. And it's particularly gratifying and special for me to be here. I've been in this role for about a year now and have been making sure that we continue to engage our community to figure out and find out what you want to see in your airport, what your issues are, things that we can do to make the experience for your citizens as well as this entire region better. When you keep in mind that we have a huge component of our traveling public that comes from the city of St. Petersburg as well as Pinellas County, approximately 27% of our travelers who come to the airport, and when you think about the importance of the city of St. Petersburg, it's really essential that you all are at the forefront of understanding what's going on there and influencing and informing the things that you want to see. So I am going to talk about some of the big programs that we have, but just by the numbers, this has been an incredible busy season for us. We just closed out our spring break season that went from March 5th to about April 13th with about 100,000 travelers projected to increase from what we were last year. What does that mean for the airport? Over that period of time, that's about 3.2 million people passing through that airport roughly during that March 5th to April 13th period. They're coming over here. They're coming to see all of the vibe, all of the things happening in the city of St. Petersburg. They're coming over the bridge to Pinellas County to enjoy the beaches and all that's going on over here. So we have been really focused on how to make that process, and those folks have a seamless, stress-reduced process coming through. As we know, travel has been incredibly stressful, particularly since we just experienced one of the historically longest government shutdowns. Our TSA agents, though, have made it almost seamless. When you think about what we've experienced, what we've seen in other parts of the country, wait times up to six hours, your airport, your community, this community didn't have to experience that. And anecdotally, for those of you who follow our social media, and I hope that's everybody, and if you don't, I encourage you all to follow our social media. We get reports on there where you get that anecdotal but kind of funny thing like, darn it, I showed up here three hours early, and I'm so upset that I've got to wait for two hours and 45 minutes because I got through TSA so quickly. That is a testament to how we try to make sure that we're able to deliver a superlative level of service, and so they continue to help us make sure that we deliver what this community and what this region is looking for. So without further delay, I want to kind of give you a basic update on some of the big things that we have going on, and then I want to take an opportunity to take any questions that you all may have. So where we are today in our almost 55-year history, we just celebrated 55 years of operations this last April, we are experiencing dramatic growth within this region. The city of St. Petersburg is clearly indicative of some of that growth, and to prepare for that growth in the future, we are underway with probably one of the largest capital programs that we have had in the 55-year history of Tampa International, and that is Airside D. And by way of just giving you a quick overview, you can see up here it's our newest airside in almost 20 years. It is going to be enormous. It is going to tell a story about Tampa Bay, about this region that we all can continue to be proud of. It's going to have two brand-new club lounges, one being a Delta Lounge and one being an International Common Use Lounge, a brand-new customs facility with state-of-the-art biometric processing technology to reduce the friction point and speed up the flow through. It's going to have new shopping and dining throughout there. It is going to absolutely be extraordinary. And the Y is that bottom bullet point. We are preparing for almost 10 million additional passengers coming through this airport by 2037. And when you see that type of volume, you don't wait until it's at your doorstep to be able to accommodate it. So we've gotten out in front of it. By way of scope and scale, many of you have been through Airside Sea. That's where Southwest primarily flies out of. It's our newest airside in terms of all the airsides that we have out there. And as large as that is, about 320,000 square feet, this is going to be double the size. And it is going to be absolutely spectacular to be able to welcome folks to this region. So I want to show this video. And sometimes they say, you know, a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, a video is worth a million. And so I'm going to go ahead and play this video to give you an idea of what it's going to look like. But we wanted to capture the beauty of this region. The waterways, the natural beauty, the aquatic life, all of those things, all of those things that draw people in. We've been talking about what this is going to mean for this entire region of the community. Because Tampa International is truly a regional and has always been a regional asset. So this is the footprint as you know it today. And in that dirt spot there is where Airside D is already coming to life. So it is an exciting project. A lot of the vertical work is happening now. We'll start dropping steel in a few months. And you can see the volume that we've been out there. Just look out there and you can see it from the food court area. It is going to be a beautiful experience. Some of the things that I want to point out as we go through here, you see glass jet bridges taking in the sunlight. All the things that people come from floor to floor. Floor to ceiling glass. That's capturing all the beauty as you arrive into that terminal. This is a view coming up our red express curbs that many of you have utilized that will get you out the airside D with the split. And here's where the magic starts to happen in my opinion. You see the wood tones to reduce the stress of the environment that you're going to go through. And what you will see and experience our travelers is massive volumes. Digital screens that are in the ceilings. Forty plus foot vertical heights. There's digital pools that you see down there. We'll have some of our wildlife that are swimming in there and then they're breached and they're jumping up in the ceiling. But it's not just for the wow factor. It's to be able to tell our story. If there's a grand free event over here or something that we need to activate, we can tell that story. We'll have sensory areas, child play areas, a number of different things that will really serve the public in the way that it's changed over the years. This is going to our customs facility. If you come through customs now, it's kind of like a basement. This is going to be beautiful, light, airy, dramatic, and biometric processing to get you in and out very quickly. You grab your bags and then you're on your way to take it back. So we are incredibly excited on what this community, what this region is going to be able to experience with this new airside. We are expecting for it to go live in Q1 of 2029 and we'll be talking about it in any place that you need us all to be. There are a couple of things that are going to be happening and are happening right now. Our concessions redevelopment program is occurring right now. We're making sure that we give everyone a sense of Tampa Bay so you're not coming through there and you just have some cookie cutter Acme hamburger type of meal. We want you to feel what Tampa Bay is like. We want you to experience what folks are going to be able to enjoy within this community. So some of the milestones that are happening also concurrently, we're going through a public art program right now so we can get artist representation. We have artists coming from St. Petersburg and Pinellas County and all over the region in the world to display their art at Tampa International in the new airside. Structural steel is going up. Our concessions are going to be going out. So we want to make sure that you all are aware of that so you can talk to your citizens and your constituencies about how they can participate at a very basic bottom level. This is also going to increase the economic activity that we have in the form of jobs, in the form of visitors, and in the form of being able to draw more businesses to the city of St. Pete, to all of the surrounding counties in the region in general. And so we are super excited about it. Here's a little bit of information on our concessions program. It's going to be a multi-year program from 2026 to 2032. And that is going to be everything from restaurants to common-use lounges to our retail stores to duty-free, you name it. The way that you experience the airport is going to be elevated, just like how we're seeing the city of St. Petersburg elevate in what it offers to its citizens. So we are excited. Here's some additional information. If anyone wants to scan that QR code, and it will take you to our concessions development site so you can get information. If you are a vendor or you want to participate in the program, it will put you in contact with whomever you need to speak to. And I'll give you all a second to take a look at that. And that is my presentation, Mr. Vice Chairman and members of the council. And I am delighted to answer any questions that you may have. Wonderful. Councilmember Gerdes. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chair. Mr. Stevens, I've figured out why they selected you as CEO, because you tell that story pretty damn well. I appreciate it. Thank you. And so thank you for sharing it with us. And I was, I think not too long ago, you shared that same story at Visit St. Pete Clearwater, TDC, and I was unable to be there. And now I'm real upset that I wasn't. I didn't get the preview to this. But just very thankful for your passion, you can tell. And frankly, your commitment to the region. When, you know, there's a lot of talk, obviously, all the time about Tampa and St. Pete and Clearwater and can we get together or should we not, all of those things. And it's just very refreshing to hear somebody talk very passionately about the regionalism and the importance and, frankly, St. Pete's role in that, not only from a feeling standpoint, but from a data. And so very, very appreciative of that. I also want to say just a couple of thank yous. And you brought them up. I had the unfortunate, fortunate, unfortunate of traveling during the shutdown. And the experience of going through TPA compared to every other airport I traveled to was a very stark difference. And so I hope all of the employees over there know how much we appreciate that experience that they gave us during what was a very contentious time. And people had smiles on their faces and they were doing their jobs and they got us through. And I don't think I waited more than 10 or 15 minutes to get into airside C. And so very thankful for that. Also, you set the bar for social media. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. My wife and I send TPA memes back and forth to each other. And so if I didn't bring that up, she would yell at me because almost certainly she's listening. And so just the way you guys create content but also disseminate information at the same time is pretty incredible. And you guys really have a magic sauce going there right now and just very, very thankful for that. And then last but not least, just this is personally very excited for Airside D for a lot of different reasons. It's great to see the airport growing. And that in turn is going to help St. Pete, just like you were talking about, St. Pete and the beaches and all of this regional community grow as well. But I think Airside D really is us getting to the next level. And I think that's, again, I'll speak for me personally. I think that's where I would like to see St. Pete is to continue to get to the next level. And I think Airside D helps with that just from a look, a feel standpoint of what you walk into in that airside. And I'm very excited to hear some of the improvements coming to the rest of the airport, although our airport's awesome. I'm not complaining. But I think you're going to set a level with D that I think the rest of the airport, I think, is going to have to catch up with. So I don't have any questions. Again, just wanted to share some of my experience and feedback and just say thank you. And I hope you know, and I probably speak for all of us, that we're here. We want to be partners. Please come back every year and give us this update because this is exciting. This is all part of the Tampa Bay family. So thank you so much for your leadership. Well, thank you, Councilman Gerdes. And that means an awful lot to us. We never get tired of hearing what you all are experiencing and enjoying. And even when you're not enjoying it, that's when I need to know that as well. So you all have my commitment, whether or not I get the information to your staffs, I'll give you my personal numbers so you can reach out to me. If there's anything that you're seeing or your citizens are seeing that we need to know about, and we'll get that taken care of. Last but not least, on the social media plug, I've got to point out my man over here. This is Josh. Josh, raise your hand. He is responsible and leads our social media team. And they do an extraordinary job. We have a lot of fun with it, but it also serves a strategic purpose because we have about 700-plus thousand folks on our social media platforms, which when things happen and we need to get the message out, we have an enormous platform to be able to activate. So we appreciate all the incredible comments. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Yes. Thank you. Councilmember Gibbons. Thank you, Chair. And thank you so much, Michael. Good to see you again, as always. And thank you for telling our story. I don't think anyone could have told it better. And I'm excited that Airside D is really going to help to tell the story of the Tampa Bay region. I already went on the website and looked at the concessions link, so thank you for that. That answered one of my questions. Is there something similar for public art? Because I'm thinking about our muralists and other people like that here in the St. Petersburg area who have a lot to offer, great talent, great opportunity. How are they able to take part in some of these new opportunities that are going to be on the horizon? So, Councilmember Gibbons, thank you so much. It's good to see you as well. We have been out broad and wide, so we have great representation from the City of St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, the entire region, for this art program. I believe we had almost 1,000-plus submissions, right, because it's an exciting space to be. We want to show off all of the amazing things that are happening over here in the City of St. Petersburg, throughout the region. So, we did a far, broad, and deep call for artists, and they answered the call probably beyond what we expected. So, the short answer is St. Petersburg is represented in the mix very well. Great news. Awesome. I have a question for you. We saw recently we lost Spirit Airlines. Yes. But how did that impact the Tampa Bay region? Obviously, there's a number of employees here at the Tampa International Airport who are now without jobs. Can you talk a little bit about that? You know, that's a great question. So, let's start from your question about jobs. So, we have had team members from Spirit displaced. And when we think about the folks that work at Tampa International, there's about 750 airport employees. But we have about 10,000-plus people on our campus, including those Spirit employees. And so, it has been a tremendous effort to try to find placement for them. A lot of them will get picked up by either other airlines where there are opportunities there, or they will get redeployed to where, you know, other capacity is required. So, we are helping with those efforts where we can, making sure that our team is facilitating everything from job fair. As many of you all know, we put out a massive job fair. We're going to continue to do that and try to pipeline those employees that are displaced with Spirit to help them find gainful employment. As it relates to traffic and as it relates to connectivity, there's not going to be a drag on connectivity for Tampa International or for this region. And the reason why is because every route that Spirit flew, we had other carriers flying into those areas. So, there was always part of our DNA and our strategic planning is to have good competition in the vast majority of markets so you don't suffer a circumstance where if one carrier goes away, then there is a drag on connectivity. The final point that I make is that to juxtapose how that shows up, in Orlando, Spirit is a huge part of their traffic. So, when Spirit goes away in Orlando, for example, they are hurting because connectivity is significantly impaired. The second point with your airport versus, say, in Orlando, most of our traffic that we have is what we call origination and departing traffic, meaning that they start here or they are coming here. It's not a hub. It's not changing. So, the mix of carriers that we have, we have a really balanced mix. No carrier really carries much more than 26% of our traffic. What that means is, unlike Orlando, where Spirit is a large share of their traffic, it's Spirit goes away. Or if you have international pressures like we've been seeing in the global economy and tourism goes down, Orlando is on pneumonia mode compared to us, where we still adjust to it. And I say all that to say that we have much more resilience and flexibility in this Tampa Bay market to help us spirit and continue to connect people to where they want to go. Awesome news. And my last question, I'm looking at my friend Walt Driggers there with Albert Wittit. I'm thinking about our local airport. Is there a need on the horizon for more air traffic controllers? How can we here at the local level support you with meeting needs like that, filling those gaps when it comes to technical trade aviation? Is there a need, and how can we help you meet it here? Councilman, you must be reading my script, man, because you're getting out in front of and answering some of the very things that I want to talk about. We are already doing a lot of that work. I'll give you a primary example. One of the initiatives that we started when I became CEO is to activate relationships with St. Pete College, to activate relationships with Hillsborough College. So St. Pete College hosted us there to really look at how we can fill aviation jobs, right? How do we create a workforce pipeline starting all the way from our high schoolers to our trade schools to our community colleges or state colleges to pipeline those folks into the airport? That work is well underway. There has been a lot of collaboration on that and a lot of effort on that. The other thing, when we talk about the airports over here, many of you have been hearing me really lean into this notion of regional connectivity. I know, Councilwoman Driscoll, you and I have had some brief conversations on it. My view is that when we talk about it from a regional standpoint, we're going to have to create that connectivity, not only on our surface roadways and how we connect, but also in our airways. So starting with the surface, and I'll work back to Albert Whitted, starting with the surface, part of the thing that I've been leaning on is trying to create connectivity from a multimodal center across the Howard Franklin over here to Carolina, eventually down here. I believe that we can do that. There's no question in my mind. More immediately, though, we are now planning for connectivity and reimagining the very first commercial aviation flight that happened right here in St. Petersburg, right, over to Tampa Bay with a guy named Tony Janis. Now we're going to use new technology that we're rolling out now called electric vertical takeoff and landing. We already have done the routes, so our plan is to repeat that but with new technology. So coming from Albert Whitted and landing at Peter O'Knight over on Davis Island. So we already have been talking to FDOT about that. We're talking about building and activating vertiports and a number of things. So we are well underway, sir. Great information. Well underway. The details get me excited. I'm just excited that we are moving in the right direction on this. You know, the field of aviation is vast. And I was over there at the airport this week with Barrington Irving, and he gave a striking presentation. And one of the things that really inspires me with him is he represents, I think, something that we need, which is diversity in the field of aviation. So I'm excited that you're working with St. Pete College because this is going to show young people that whether you're on the ground or in the sky, there's a job for you somewhere in aviation. And it's not just a minimum wage-paying job. We're talking living wage-paying jobs and not just jobs but careers. So thank you for what you're doing. I really appreciate it, Michael, and I'm excited to see this go first. My pleasure. And you all have my absolute commitment. I will tell you it's talking to these young people and telling them the possibilities. I wouldn't be standing here before you if somebody hadn't shown me what was possible. I started my career as an air traffic controller in the U.S. Air Force and had no idea. I used to think air traffic controllers, the dudes with the orange cones, you know, doing that stuff on the ground until someone told me what was possible. And as a result of that, even though I went to law school and all these other things, that's why I'm standing in front of you as the leader of your airport because somebody reached out. And that's what we're trying to do. You're making history yourself, so thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Council Member Fick Sanders. Thank you, and welcome again, Mr. Stevens. We met when you came to present at PSTA. We held a meeting there, and I'm the current chair of PSTA, and I was impressed with you then. And I have to agree with Council Member Gerdes. Now I see why you were definitely selected for that position because you have made the transition and the mission of TPA very, very visible for us to see where you're going with your mission. So I want to thank you on that. Now, I don't have a whole lot of questions, but I do have a statement. Again, I am very appreciative of your regional objective outlook with providing regional services. I also wanted to remind you of the ADA. Now, I use the airport a lot, and generally when I look at airport usage, I look at our ADA amenities and how easy it is for our ADA passengers to navigate through the airport. And I just never want to miss the opportunity to advocate on behalf of our citizens. We have, you know, the airport is large, you know, and sometimes trying to get from point A to point B, if you don't have a porter there to help transport them, that leaves them in a bind. So I always want to speak on behalf of ADA, our riders, for that. And my last one, since all of my other questions and everything were already asked and you already explained them so well, glad that you're having the communication with SPC and trying to get that program going. I am so honored to have been in that communication. But I have to tell you, when I saw it and we talked about shopping, I just came from a flight. And hopefully my husband isn't listening, but when you have those shops, it's like, okay, how am I supposed to get this home? You have all of this there. And I just had to laugh when I saw all the shopping that you're going to have because you all limit us at what we can take on the plane. And so are you all going to watch all of those things? For me, I'm being facetious, but I do spend money every time I go into the airport. So I just kind of wanted to put you on notice that those of us that are shopaholics, when we get in there, we need to have somewhere to be able to put it on the plane and leave it when we get back. So I just thought that I would just give you that little anecdotal because of my last experience on the airport. We, you know, they limit your bags. I purchased. We had to check all that stuff in, which added an additional cost. So I saw your shopping and I was like, okay, I'm just going to have to say something out loud and speak that so I stay away from the shopping. But I just wanted you to know, don't be too dangerous with the shopping opportunities with those of us that shop. But again, I am just so honored that you are here and you made such a wonderful presentation on behalf. If I had an extra few million, I would want to invest and participate on that as well. But thank you so much and welcome. And I look forward to seeing you again. Thank you, Councilwoman. It's a delight to be here. And I'll see what I can do to feed your shopping habit while you're at the airport. Councilmember Horting. Thank you, Vice Chair. Mr. Stevens, thank you very much for the update. We appreciate it. The core competency of what you do is pretty simple to state, hard to do. It's just to move people around. And you do it in the millions, and you guys do it very, very well. I wanted the chance to commend you and your board and your leadership team on the decision to keep the airport right-sized. That is, at your scale, that's a $100 million decision. Or $100 million risk. And not easy to do. But that is the reason. I don't know how much you share, but a vast part of the reason that we're able to garner all these tourism dollars and how these people visit it comes through one, in the grand scheme of things, one very small piece of our geography. And that is your airport. Although I appreciate you referring to it as ours. It is currently yours. And beyond that, that is what you do for a living. You move people around. You don't have to be hospitable. You just don't. I've been to plenty of airports that aren't. I'm efficient at moving people around, but that's it. Your team to a fault is hospitable. There's clearly a culture of it at that airport. And I want to commend you on that as well. And last is that you don't have to talk about the community. You don't have to let people know where they're coming. The decision to invest time, energy, effort, and money into making the airport not only the gateway to our community, but the embodiment of our community is much appreciated. That airport is well beyond just a place to come in. You really get a sense of what you're entering and what you're leaving, quite frankly, when you use your airport. And so the core competency, you guys nailed it. The other two big pieces, you don't have to and you did, but you did it at a big level. And last on my list, Josh, in my other job, I work with a company that we brand stuff. So marketing, advertising, social media is a big part of what we do. And as Councilmember Gerdes was talking, I texted our marketing team and said, you guys might need to look into this. There might be something to learn. And the response I got was, we're aware. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilman. I appreciate all those kind of words. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'll just say a couple of things real quick. First, thank you for coming and presenting. I guess the number one thing I want to impart upon everyone at the airport is keep up the good work. I don't think anyone that's been through the airport to visit me or anyone that I know that's left from here to go somewhere else has had, could have gotten a better impression is what I would say. It's very efficient, very smooth, and honestly, like kind of a pleasant place to be. And I don't like flying at all. So that's saying a lot. So keep up the good work to the social media team. I'm sorry, I spam you occasionally, begging for flights to Manchester, England. So I'll probably continue that. That's on my wife's behalf. And it's really been incredible to see the engagement that the airport gets with the community. And then the last thing is, I feel like you touched on it, but I want to uplift it again, continuing to better transportation and transit, specifically connections to the airport. I really look forward to working with you all on that going forward. And I feel like if we're really going to make our region what it is, that's a key, a very key part of it is how well we can connect each other, and the airport's a big part of that. So I've heard you advocate for that in other meetings and here today as well. So I want to let you know that I think most of us, if not all of us up here, agree and want to make that happen. Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you so much. Just in conclusion, you all have my commitment. What Councilman Harding is saying about how we are intentional in making sure that when people come to this region that they feel welcome, that they feel special. It's not performative. It's in our DNA. It moves the needle. When we're going out and you all are going out seeking business for businesses to relocate here, they want to know two things. Primarily, can I connect to other places? And then they want to feel, are they going to feel seen and heard and responded to? And so that's my job. That's job number one. And you have my commitment to continue that as well as the commitment of our entire team. But, again, thank you for allowing me to be here with you this afternoon. I'm greatly appreciative, and if you all need anything, do not hesitate to reach out to me and let me know. We have one more comment. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. Sorry I had to stop there for a moment. But I just wanted to thank you for being here and for giving us this great update and for all that you are doing to really advance a regional state of mind among our counties, not just Pinellas and Hillsborough, but Pasco as well. And as we move forward with our conversations and votes regarding the regional, the MPO merger and creating a regional MPO, the things that you're doing are going to help advance that idea. It will help us get stronger as we move towards, hopefully, implementation of that. And you've got great examples here, the stories that you're telling about regionalism, not just as being a regional asset, but bringing in artists, bringing in vendors from around the Tampa Bay area, really should give everyone confidence that you having a seat at the table in that regional MPO is not only earned, but necessary. And everything that you're doing is playing to that, and I really appreciate it. Well, thank you for those kind words, Councilwoman. And as I said, you know, we've talked about it in other fora. It's important because if we continue in this parochial way, Tampa International suffers. We can't grow. The region can't grow. And then people vote with their pocketbooks and with their feet, and then they stop coming here. So we all have a vested interest in doing what we can. But thank you for that. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you, Members of the Council. Delighted to be with you all today. Enjoy the rest of the day. Thank you. All right. We're going to move on to item F2. And we're joined by Beth Herendine. This was a consent agenda item pulled by Councilmember Driscoll. If you want to say anything about it, then go ahead. Yes, thank you. Just in light of the conversations we were starting to have last week during our budget workshop regarding the Mahaffey, and how the city is going to fill this gap while we continue to find the right partner for the Mahaffey. There's a lot to consider. And I support the allocation of funding. I mean, we can't just take over and expect to not spend any additional funding. So I'm supportive of that. But as I read through this resolution, I can't help but think about how we have – we don't have anything in there specifically about the Florida Orchestra. And the reason that I bring this up, a couple of reasons. Number one, you know, the agreement that we have still for a few more days with Big Three Entertainment, you know, expressly states that the Florida Orchestra is to be prioritized, right? Their contract is with Big Three Entertainment, but they don't even have one at this time. And so that is a gap that I think really needs to be addressed now through this resolution. You know, they've always been, you know, kind of the prime tenant of the Mahaffey, and I think it's important that that be in this resolution. They don't have a signed agreement for the Mahaffey for the 2026-2027 season. And if you know about the planning of something like this, it goes far out. And so that creates a high degree of uncertainty. And I don't have a good comfort level with that not being in place. I had mentioned last week that I believe that the city should contract directly with the Florida Orchestra. And now I think it's more important than ever because they don't have a contract with anyone. And so there's no security in that. We really should stand by what we said with our contract with Big Three, that this is, you know, a priority for the Mahaffey. And as they start to work on planning for the 2027-2028 season, it's kind of like when we're working on the budget, right? You finish the budget, and then you start on the next one right away. There's really not a break in between. And that's how this type of work works. So I had been thinking about this. I don't expect everything to be solved today, but I would like to know what my colleagues think about doing an amendment to this resolution, something simple that simply folds in and recognizes the Florida Orchestra and has the administration work towards contracting directly with them. And otherwise, I mean, it's not an exaggeration to say that we could lose the Florida Orchestra over this because they don't have any guarantees that they have a home here at all. If I may? Yes. Okay, thank you. So I've met with the orchestra multiple times. Part of today's resolution is to allowing administration to assign or take over the existing. Now, that's correct. That's just for the few dates that we have left this season. We do have dates with the Florida Orchestra on the calendar for next season. We've met several times. They're working with the general manager who is staying on. And I was actually speaking with McCall Dyer earlier. What we do need to do is bring back to council a resolution allowing us to enter into new agreements, and that was the next step. So I see McCall stepping up. I'll let her address that. Let me just chime in, council. I appreciate the opportunity to speak. So before you, as, you know, obviously an appropriation of funds needed, but it's also just there's certain contracts that Big Three has related to the operations that the city may want to assume in the short term. But in regards to any type of lease, license, or use agreement, similar to what happened when we took, started, when we went from management, private management of the peer to self-management, we brought a resolution to council which authorized the mayor or his designee to be able to execute leases and licenses under one year. A delegation of authority will be needed here, and we intend to bring that, I think, probably in one of the June meetings. It will allow for the execution of leases and licenses under one year. And then any lease or license over a year would just be individually brought to council for consideration if it related to use of the theater facility. And does that mean that if the city contracts directly with the Florida Orchestra, that that would be negotiated, created, and executed without any input or approval of city council? If it was under a year and you authorized the blanket authority, yes. If it was a longer-term use agreement or license agreement, say two, three years, that agreement would be individually brought, or you could designate if there were certain things that you wanted to see returned, we could obviously add anything that council was requesting in their resolution as part of the approval. So that's— Right. So, council member, that's completely up to city council. So when that comes to you, when the broader resolution that McCall is talking about comes to you, if there are certain things you always wanted to see, that can be in that resolution, that's going to be up to council just to decide what you do and don't want to see moving forward. And that's more of just the general resolution that would cover a variety of agreements for the Mahaffey. Not specifically—it's not specific to the orchestra. Right, right. This is just one that I believe is unique because they are the prime tenant of the orchestra. It's not like they're the beverage distributor or something like that, you know? And I really—I appreciate that we are having this conversation today because I really would like to have, and I believe the Florida Orchestra would like to have some certainty going forward with this. I know we have Ignacio from—the CEO of TFO is here today, and I'm sure if anyone had any questions for him, I don't mean to put him on the spot, but he would probably be willing to answer any questions. But I did have some draft verbiage for an amendment that I have shared with the city attorney's office in case I have enough agreement here that we really should say something in this resolution to protect and give some confidence to the Florida Orchestra moving forward. We're in strange times. We're not used to just taking out, you know, taking back the Mahaffey and taking over and knowing that this is temporary. We don't know how long temporary is going to be. So I would like to get some of this stuff taken care of up front. I'm happy to share the language if there's an interest in any of this. And at this time, I'd love to hear from my colleagues because I finally get to talk to you all about it. Thank you. Councilmember Fig Sanders. Thank you, and thank you for bringing this up, Councilmember Driscoll. So in the conversations that I've had, and thank you, McCall, and thank you, Beth, for being here. In the conversations that I've had originally with the Florida Orchestra taking over the management of the Mahaffey, I was supportive, but I had a pause in regards to how we would prioritize the different entertainment that took place in the Mahaffey. So then when it was recognized that the city was going to take over the management of it, it did come to mind as to, so then the Florida Orchestra, now what? It's kind of like you're in an apartment building and the management changes, and you have a lease that ties you into a certain time frame, but then after that, what do you do? So, again, I have to agree with Councilmember Driscoll that they have been a long-term tenant, and with the amount of money that they not only spend, they bring in a good amount of revenue as well. And I think it would be beneficial for the city of St. Petersburg to engage in some type of conversation that gives them a surety that they'll be here. So I heard what you said, McCall, about bringing up a larger resolution in June, but this ends May 18th. And so although they have programming planned, I don't see where there's anything that is, and nothing is in cement. We know nothing is in stone. But me as a tenant and a long-term tenant where I have a lot of people whose lives are dependent on having that income, because they do pay bills for their employees, I would imagine, especially for our musicians that are part of the orchestra, that they would want to have some type of certainty as to what their future looks like. So when I hear we'll bring it back, if I were to leave here today and I know I didn't have certainty of having a paycheck next month, that still would not give me comfort in knowing what the partnership is. And again, no, we did not anticipate Big Three Entertainment terminating their agreement early. We did not. But the wonderful thing about the city of St. Petersburg is that we are definitely resilient, and we would love to uphold our commitments to those that have brought us success, especially as far as the Mahaffey is concerned. So I, too, would love to see some type of certainty for the Florida Orchestra, who has been a major, major part of the Mahaffey. That's their home, pretty much. So imagine someone coming to you, notice, saying you have X amount of time to leave when you have built such a foundation and such a reputation favorable for the entertainment in the city of St. Petersburg. So I'm interested to hear that also came to mind. So thank you, Councilor. And if I could clarify for just one moment, because we've had this delay in the, and we'll be reissuing the RFP for the next season, we will have, the city as the manager will have to enter into a contract. But just quite honestly, because we will be the manager, so the same way Big Three has the contract now, the city would have to enter into that contract. Just truthfully, we're focused right now on getting everything in place for the, for the, you know, assigning everything that we have now. And then once that happens next week, we would be working on contracts for the next season. But I understand. But I just want to let you know it is on our radar. We, we, and we have, we have met. Yes. I appreciate that. Yes. But if it is such a certainty today, then it should, you know, if it's going to be a certainty for next week, it should be a certainty for today. So that's, I just put that out again, whenever you have those gray areas with something as valuable as this, there's no comfort level for that. But thank you for that response. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Gerdes. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. So, McCall, it sounds like you're, you would rather there be two resolutions rather than make this amendment or. Let me. I'll feel that one. So I think there's, there's, we have no preference on which way it's addressed. I think the language that was just distributed, suggested by Council Member Driscoll, addresses the, this issue, the Florida Orchestra, in the resolution before you today. That's not a difficult thing for us to do. I will highlight that it's a request. It has to be in the form of a request to administration to negotiate the agreement. So this is, from a legal standpoint, perfectly fine with us. What McCall was talking about is the broader resolution. There's more than one way to skin this guy. So it can be in this resolution or it could be in the resolution that McCall mentioned. From a legal standpoint, it matters not to us. I, so, Council Member Driscoll, to give you my feedback real quickly, just having read it. Like, I don't, I don't have a problem with what you're asking. I support what you're asking. I'm just, my, my concern is that I don't know that I have seen us do an appropriation of funds and a transfer, and a transfer along with a request. And it just seems wonky to me. Again, if you're telling me it's okay, and, and that's the will of the body, then, then I'm willing to move forward. But it just, I, I don't remember doing it this way. From a legal standpoint, Council Member, it's just two different actions. They can, they. On the same resolution. They can coexist. Okay. Sure. From a legal standpoint. That was my biggest concern, Council Member. It's just, it was, it was a little out of the box for me. I, I totally appreciate what you're trying to accomplish here, and, and I've had conversations with, with the Florida Orchestra. I, I, I support the Florida Orchestra and want them to, I don't think anybody wants them to go anywhere. I think Beth is probably at the top of that list along with you, Council Member. And so, I, I think everybody is lockstep. They want the Florida Orchestra here. I was just making sure procedurally that it was, it was something we could accomplish all together, and we weren't making it more wonky than we need to. Rather than just doing a singular resolution, because all I see is Beth over here, nodding her head to everything that you're saying. And so, that gives me comfort that they're going to do it. So, but if, if that's the will of the body, then I'm happy to go along. Thank you, Madam Chair. Or, excuse me, Mr. Vice Chair. Thank you. Go ahead. You can go ahead, Council Member Driscoll. Thank you. I was on autopilot. I, I appreciate the feedback from, from everyone. And, you know, I did think about coming up with a separate resolution, but it's really more about time. I mean, if you can imagine what it must feel like to be the Florida Orchestra right now with not only this season continuing, next season being planned, and then the season after that underway, any time that the ground is not firm under your feet, it is not a good thing. And we know we want the Florida Orchestra to call them a happy home. Even, I was at one of the concerts one time, maybe it was last year, when Mayor Welch gave the opening remarks and, you know, proclaimed that we want this to be the home of the Florida Orchestra. And that just made my day to hear him say that. And so, given that we, the time it would have taken for me to draft a resolution, put in a new business item, all of, all of the things with the deadlines that we have, I wouldn't have been able to do it today. This is a way to just express our priorities along with this. You'll see in the draft that I distributed that the language isn't harsh, it doesn't tie anyone's hands, it's a request, but it does have a value statement in it, and that is that we value and want to keep the Florida Orchestra. So, that's where my sense of urgency is about. It's really just to give them the respect I feel they've earned. Thank you. Chair, if I could, just briefly, to give Council some information, just to let you know that we're fine with this language. We're comfortable. We're working with the orchestra now. So, if this is language that the Council wants in the resolution, we don't have any issue with it. Thank you for that. And I would just like to, if I may, apologize to the orchestra. We've been talking, and I didn't really, this was underway, and we absolutely intend for them to be here next season and many, many, many seasons, and we just couldn't get it all done right away. So, but we are absolutely intending to make that happen. Thank you. All right. I waited to hear everybody, and it sounds like we're coalescing around things that I feel good about. I guess, first, yeah, the resolution that I see is different from what we've done in the past, but I don't have an issue with that. I guess, just thinking out loud, I may have just made a motion in general in this, had this not been brought forward, to ask the same thing without any sort of resolution. But this is fine with me. And I think mostly what I want to say, I have two things. They're very brief. Let me pull my notes up. First is, like to Council Member Gerdes' point, everybody likes the orchestra. No one wants to see them go. And I know that that's the case, but I do feel like over the last few years, they have not been given adequate attention. And they have big plans, like to really solidify St. Petersburg as their home. They're working to help invest in the facility that they play at, the Mahaffey, that, you know, they applied for the TDC funds. They want to be able to give their funders assurances as to their future. And I mentioned this in the budget hearings, or the budget workshop sort of in passing. But when we're considering our relationship with them, I think we need to consider that they want to solidify their future as well. And so I agree that everybody, I think, supports the orchestra. It's just, I think we could act with a little more urgency on it. And I think that's why you're seeing this here today. And then to your point about, Council Member Driscoll, to your point about wanting to have a direct agreement with them. Yeah, I mean, I'm on board. Like, I have talked with them and Big Three about what that relationship looked like in the past and what the language in the contract led to. And I don't think it was acceptable. I think that they should have had more assurances than that. And I think that Council Member Driscoll continues to bring up a way that we can do that for them, even if it is outside of the box a little bit for us. Then a side note, completely tangentially related, is we're having a lot of discussions about the theater. I guess this actually is more related to the actual resolution that was initially brought. And us having to take over operations of the theater and talking about another RFP. Well, I'm open to another RFP, but we're about to have to do a lot of work to be able to do the operations. And, you know, depending on how it goes, I'm going to want to see what the actual positives are of doing another RFP, especially if there's financial implications. But if things are going well for us and it makes financial sense, you know, I could see us continuing with the path that we have, I would say, slipped onto now most recently. So keep that in mind, that I would be supportive and advocate for us to continue to do what makes sense for us. But I'm open to another RFP for sure. But there's a lot of things with the theater that are just unclear right now. And so I see how we got in this situation. Until we clear all of them up, you know, our operation of it makes sense. And whenever we decide to go in another direction, I think it needs to be, you know, thought through. And administration has heard me say this about many things before, and y'all have been receptive to it a lot lately. So especially just the fact, like, asking for us to totally analyze the full picture. And so I assume that you plan on doing that. And I saw you nodding, both of you nodding your heads in agreement. And so I'll leave it there, and I see no other requests to speak, so I'll entertain a motion. I'll move approval of item F2 as amended. All right. I heard a second as well. So no one has anything to say? Yeah, you look like you might want to say a little something. Thank you, Chair. No, I just wanted to say, although this gap is unexpected, I do think it opens an opportunity for us to really look at things, and that's our intention. Okay, excellent. That's exactly what I want to hear. And I think we could learn a lot from it as well as to what the most efficient way to do things would be. And I would like to thank all of the departments who have been helping us with the actual transition. Yes, yeah, absolutely. HR, dots, finance, everyone. Effective for the whole community as well, because it's more than just about efficiency for a resource like this. Okay, we have a motion and a second for F2 as amended. Clerk, will you please open the machine for voting? Councilmembers, please enter your votes. Seeing that all present councilmembers have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce a vote? Mr. Vice Chair, motion to approve agenda F2 as amended. Passes unanimously. With Councilmembers Gabbert and Hannah Wiss being absent. Thank you very much, and thank you, Councilmember Driscoll, for a healthy conversation. We are going to move on to item F3, which was also pulled from consent, but it was pulled by Chair Hanowitz. And so, if Rich Lesniak is here, we can go ahead and take this up. It's a resolution adopting rules and regulations and minimum standards for the Albert Whitted Airport. I don't know exactly why it was pulled, but I think you can speak to it a little bit. Sure, I can give you a basic overview, and I believe there was some comments, specific comments emailed to City Council as a whole yesterday, so I can address those. Okay. Yeah, so item CB10 is a resolution requesting to adopt specific primary management compliance documents for the airport. I should note that these documents are tied to item J2, which is up later tonight under the public hearings. So, as you know, Albert Whitted is a general aviation airport whose operation falls under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Administration, certainly with further obligations tied to the fact that we accept the federal grants. Now, the FAA mandates that public-use airports must be available for use by the general public without unjust discrimination, meaning the airport owner must operate the facility in a safe, efficient manner, providing fair, reasonable terms, and adhering to standards regarding maintenance operation, land-use compatibility, among other FAA regulations and requirements. And to that end, the FAA recommends that airports should establish primary management compliance documents, which provide uniform guidance and set minimum parameters for airport use and operation. Now, there are different types of these documents, but probably the two most common you will see in the airport world are rules and regulations and minimum standards. Now, rules and regulations, I think it's fairly self-explanatory. Certainly, multiple facilities in multiple industries use rules and regulations in airports are no different. But minimum standards, on the other hand, are baseline requirements that is set by an airport operator for an individual entity desiring to provide specific aeronautical services or operations on the airport. So, for example, they want to sell fuel, they want to establish maintenance or air charter or a whole host of aeronautical services. In addition, they also provide requirements if there are entities that wish to build or develop facilities on an airport to also provide these services. Now, currently, Chapter 6 of the City Code is the de facto rules and regulations for the airport. And there was a standalone minimum standards document that was adopted by the city in the early 2000s. Certainly, given the age, passage of time, industry changes, et cetera, both documents have been due for an update. Now, we hired a company called Aviation Management Consulting Group. They are an aviation airport consulting company that has clients all over the United States, including many airports. And one of their specialties is development of primary management consulting documents. So, we worked with the consultant in conjunction with City Legal, and we did come up with significantly completed drafts of these documents. Now, I should note that there was three draft documents. First, Chapter 6, which I said was the de facto rules and regulations, was amended and rewritten. We developed a separate standalone rules and regulations document and a separate minimum standards document, which are the two documents requested for under CB10. Once we had the drafts completed, we did put these out for a public comment period, which did result in some comments questions. I think we had at least 10, maybe 15 comments received. In fact, I think in the backup packet, there's a listing of the comments in addition to the initial responses. And so, really, the main changes that were achieved, as I said, we've created brand-new standalone rules and regs and brand-new standalone minimum standards documents. Now, these documents will be subordinate to and referenced under the new Chapter 6 rewrite, which has been rewritten to a more broad and high-level standard. And, as I said, there's a public hearing item, J2. That is for Chapter 6, because it's a code that has to go through an ordinance process, whereas the two rules and regs and minimum standards only require a resolution. So, that's why they're two separate. So, really, most of the changes within these documents, basically from the old or existing, are clarifications and updates based on changes within industry, proven models and frameworks used by other airports, federal and state regulatory requirements, established processes, and revised best practices. Certainly, the hope is that these documents will provide us a solid base of guidance for the airport for many years to come. But, like any of these documents, they are living, breathing documents. So, they can be amended and they can be changed as situations warrant. Now, as I said, I was aware there was a comment that was submitted to the City Council. It was from an entity, Coastal Flight, who was interested in establishing a flight school on the airport. In a nutshell, my understanding is their primary concern was related to the new minimum standards in that they establish minimum size requirements that they deem to be excessive and interpreted to apply to all operators in all facilities, including existing operators in facilities. So, to clarify that, the specific large sizes that are referenced in the minimum standards, for example, half-acre, quarter-acre sizes, those are specifically related to land where somebody wants to come in and build a new facility to provide a service. It's not for somebody that's already there and is already operating. Those operations in those facilities are grandfathered in. Also, we did get like questions similar when we did the public comment portion. And so, these exact concerns were addressed in the final version that are included for approval today. Basically, what we did is we went back into the minimum standards. We added additional language to just make sure to clarify the requirements and differences between new land development versus existing operators within existing facilities. And I should note that if a new operator comes on the airport and they're using existing facilities, they also aren't expected to meet the land requirement. Again, that's a land development thing. So, in fact, the entity that put the comment in, they had also submitted a new proposal on Monday. And based on the info contained within their proposal, it appears that they would meet the minimum standards under the new minimum standards. So, certainly, if those are adopted today, they should be able to operate on the airport. Okay. All right. Thank you. Oh, yeah, public comment. Yes, go ahead. Mr. Vice Chair, we have two speakers for this item. When I call your name, please go to an open podium. State your name, address, or cross street. For the record, you'll have three minutes to address City Council. Sean Dillon and Walt Driggers. Good afternoon, Council Members. My name is Sean Dillon. I'm a co-owner, and I'm the chief legal officer of Coastal Flight, Inc., who is a small flight school and aircraft rental company based at Albert Whitted. The address for the business physically is 540 1st Street Southeast, St. Petersburg. Tuesday evening, yes, I submitted an email to the council's administrative officer raising concerns that we had with the draft we thought was current of the minimum standards. I understand that that email was circulated to the full council, so I thank the administrative officer for doing that. My comments here today provide a short update, and as Mr. Lesniak mentioned, there are some things that we learned of yesterday and that further developed yesterday that affect our views on it in a positive way. So I'm here to clarify and address all of that. First, we learned yesterday that after the public comment period, the city updated, further updated, I should say, the draft minimum standards being considered today. That was done in March of this year. We could not find that updated draft online, which is what led to some of the disconnect here. We were able to get it yesterday and saw that, as the airport manager described, the three public comments that were made by us were, in fact, addressed in ways that helped significantly reduce our concerns about it. So we thank airport staff. We thank the city council for the responsiveness in the public comment process. So those changes meaningfully reduce our concerns. Does it eliminate all of our concerns? No, but we understand the practicalities of going forward. The concerns we have that remain, we do believe, and it's not just for us as a hopeful flight school, but others on the field have similar concerns about the space requirements for new business. They're a little too robust for what is needed for operations in the context of the limited space available, where Witted is the smallest airport in the region with an FAA control tank. So my comments today are not withdrawing those concerns or waiving those concerns, but we believe there's a practical matter to go forward. Second item, we learned yesterday that our revised application submitted on Monday, city staff believes that our intended premises there at the field would be compliant with the new standards, whereas under the old standards they view it would not be compliant. We respectfully and strenuously disagree with the interpretation about the old standards, but let's move forward in a practical way. We recognize that adopting the currently revised proposed standards today is the best path for coastal flight to be a recognized operator on the airport, which is something we've been seeking for over a year with applications. So thank you for your time, attention, and continued leadership. Walt Driggers, representing Friends of Albert Witted Airport today. Address is 1 Beach Drive, Southeast, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33701. And this came to my attention, as you would expect, with we watch everything that happens at Friends at Albert Witted Airport. When this came up in the confusion of how this was working, I reached out to Mr. Lesniak and find out what was going on there because I trust him immensely when he deals with the FAA and all the paperwork that's required for the FDOT and the FAA. Got the story, got the story, and he assured me that Coastal would be able to have no problem with the recent changes in the plan, which feels good. And then I reached out to the Dillons to make sure they were happy as well and everything's good with that situation. But what that does is it brings to my attention and what I'd like you to think about as we move forward is the 20-year master plan for the airport is like all other documents, as Mr. Lesniak was saying, is it's a living, breathing document. And given that that one was started, our 20-year master plan was started in 2019 and delayed because of COVID, and now we're a lot of years from that, would like to have you think about instigating, updating the 20-year master plan. Because now we need more sustainability, we need advanced air mobility to be addressed, and there's the sewage treatment plant that can be developed to meet these standards that you're talking about and allow that to move forward. And as Mr. Dillon said, Albert Wood, it is the smallest airport with a control tower. In a lot of places, we need every square inch, and we need to use it thoughtfully and correctly to keep Albert Wood being what it is. And also that St. Petersburg is a better place because of St. Albert Wood Airport. That's all I have. Thank you. Council Member Driscoll? Thank you. I'm glad this was pulled. Well, it is unfortunate that Cherianowicz pulled it and isn't here to ask the questions, but it seems we have an opportunity now to hear from the public on this item. And since Fritch is in the building, I'd love to know, is this compatible with the work that you and the members of the Advanced Air Mobility Task Force did, the recommendations that they made? And I'm hoping that the airport operations and the way that you are running that asset and the recommendations and what we're learning all the time about AEM are moving forward in a way that's complementary. Sure. So I can address it. In fact, I was at a symposium over in Daytona Monday and Tuesday specifically on advanced air mobility. Mr. Montaneri, your former colleague, was there as well, and I can tell you the FDOT is pushing the gas on us. They're really trying to get this moving. The minimum standards really have to do with specific types of aeronautical services, whether those services are provided with a piston aircraft, a jet-powered aircraft, or an electric-powered aircraft. Yes, they would apply in services. For example, one of the most popular uses of advanced air mobility is air taxi-type services, so like an air charter, air taxi. So, yes, that is contemplated. Furthermore, I'll say that there is flexibility that if there are new types of operations that haven't been contemplated, there are ways to amend the document to add new things, or there are ways to accommodate new-type services that maybe weren't in the original document. Now, the other part of this is there was doing an ALT analysis of the airport. Mr. Driggers had talked about further planning exercises, and that was a recommendation that did come out of the task force. So, right now, to do that next step will require identification of funding. Right now, we do not have funding identified for that. But to do that next planning step, the ALT analysis, as an alternatives analysis, that's what would be kind of the next step here locally. Okay, great. Thank you. And my other question is, you know, earlier we had the CEO of Tampa International Airport here. They, too, are interested in how they can accommodate advanced air mobility. Do you know if he has received the presentation that was given to us? I don't know if he was with any of the groups. I know you guys have been, and former Council Member Montaneri, have been on kind of a tour. You've been on tour with this presentation to a lot of organizations, most of whom are not this far along and are quite impressed. Is he one of them? Because I'm really hoping that as we're moving along and finding what this space looks like for us, that it is something that complements and can work collaboratively with Tampa International Airport. Yeah, so actually, yeah, members from TIA were at the symposium, and Mr. Brett Fay, who's their vice president of GA, he's also kind of their point man on the AAM. He actually spoke, he came and spoke to the task force. I don't know if I can say too much yet, but I can just say that there's definitely been some cross discussions with them about some things, especially under the umbrella of this EIPP federal program, the state of Florida being selected, and now they're going to activate the SunTracks facility in Auburndale. So, you know, hopefully the stars are lining up, I guess. And, yes, TIA, I can tell you they are very, very engaged in this. Yeah, well, it's exciting that we are in the conversations now. It means a lot. All right, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Move approval. Second. All right, seeing no requests to speak, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please send to your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, motion to approve a John F-3 passes unanimously with Council Member Gabbard and Hannah West being absent. Thank you. We're going to move on to new business now, item G-1, Council Member Driscoll. I know we jumped to it real quick. Please hold while I get it. Yeah, that's okay. We're here. I know that exact feeling. Go this far from consent. Okay. My new business item is respectfully requesting a referral to the Public Services and Infrastructure Committee or other relevant committee for a discussion on one-day permitting for certain small residential projects and 365-day annual facility permits for certain routine projects in commercial properties. This is something that's been implemented in the city of Miami, and it seems to be going quite well, and although I give big kudos to our permitting department for the improvements that have been made so far. This is something that I saw, and I thought we should check it out and see if something like this can be implemented in St. Petersburg. Because even though we've made strides, I'm still getting calls, and I would love for us to explore this. And so if anyone has any questions, I have been doing some research if you need to know something right off the bat. But otherwise, we can save it for the committee meeting, and I'll move approval. Second. Great. Thank you very much for this new business item. I very much look forward to the conversation. Seeing no request for comment, we have a motion and a second. Will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your vote. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, motion to approve. I move with you, item G1 passes unanimously. The council member Gabbard in hand is being absent. Thank you. And we'll move on to item G2. Council member Gerdes. Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Respectfully requesting referral to the Youth and Family Services Committee for a presentation from Ever Forward regarding their youth programming and community impact, and I move approval. Second. All right. Seeing no request for comment, will the clerk please open the machine for voting? Council members, please enter your votes. Seeing all present council members have voted, will the clerk please tally and announce the vote? Mr. Vice Chair, motion to approve. I move with you, item H2, G2, passes unanimously with council member Gabbard in hand. Thank you. We are going to take a 15-minute recess before we start the next portion of our meeting, so I will say city council's in recess. This is J4. It is the quasi-judicial and appeal of the Development Review Commission approval of a site plan to construct a Phase 619-unit multi-family development located at 3200 34th Street South. Anyone wishing to speak on this item must fill out a yellow card and provide it to the city clerk, and all speakers must be sworn in before presenting testimony. The procedures for quasi-judicial proceedings can be found on the yellow card sheet attached to the printed agendas, or if viewing digitally, pages 14 and 15 of the council agenda. Clerk, at this time, please swear in all parties and speakers, including city staff. We will now move on to presentations. Each party will have 10 minutes for their presentation, and we will begin with the city staff presentation. Thank you. Good afternoon. Cory Malishka with the City of St. Petersburg Zoning Division. The property before you today is located 34th Street South and 32nd Avenue South in the Skyway Marina District. In 1960, the subject property was developed with an office building, and in 1969, a 61,600-square-foot, more or less, addition was proposed and built. In 1988, the subject property was gifted to St. Petersburg Junior College Board of Trustees. There is a large paved driving area located along the southern portion of the property. The college utilizes this property and the property to the east of 32nd Street South for public safety training programs. Subject property will be sold to the applicant, and the property to the east will continue to be owned by the college. The applicant proposes demolishing all improvements on the subject property. These are the existing conditions of the property. So the top photo is taken from 34th Street South, looking to the north, as well as you have the existing parking lot of the office building in the second photo, and you can also tell where the pictures are taken from the key that is located in the right lower-hand corner, and then you have another picture of the parking lot. This is the proposed site plan before you today. The applicant proposes to construct a phased development. A one-acre track of land at the southwest corner of the subject property is reserved for commercial development and is not part of this application, located in the light gray. Phase one will include 342 dwelling units and four buildings along the southern half of the property. Phase two will include 277 dwelling units and four buildings along the northern half. This is just a rendered site plan. You'll see a large water feature will be located in the center of the subject property, which does separate the two phases. The proposed site layout is a conventional suburban site layout with large-surface parking areas that are punctuated by apartment buildings. There are multiple bicycle parking and buildings scattered throughout the site, which helps shield the parking areas from the abiding right-of-ways. Vehicle access will be from 32nd Avenue South, 36th Avenue South, and 32nd Street South. Multiple pedestrian connections are proposed to the public sidewalks, to the abiding right-of-way. Interior sidewalks are also proposed that will connect all buildings on site. This is one of the image elevations of Building A. As described by the applicant's architect, the proposed buildings are of a contemporary design that borrows from the surrounding built environment. The design includes articulated roof lines with varied gables, shed roofs, and emphasized corner elements to break down the mass and provide visual interest. The facades have varied depths, balcony projections, and rheumatic-scale fenestration to further minimize the building mass and create a more human scale. Elevation of Building B, C, D, E, and this is the bus buildings. The Development Review Commission heard the case at its March 4th, 2026 hearing. After hearing testimony from staff, the agent, and the registered opponent, and one member of the public, the DRC, did make a motion. The motion was to approve the site plan by a vote of 5-1. An appeal was filed in a timely manner by the appellant today, Frank Greer of Atlas Cardinal, Skytown LLC. The site plan, submitted by the applicant, together with the supporting materials, do not meet the applicable criteria, as the appellant argues, of the Skyway Marina District. The Activity Center for the Skyway Marina District, or the RC1 Zoning District Regulations. The site plan, submitted, and project thereon is not consistent with other market-rate apartment projects approved by the DRC in the district. Procedures for an appeal, pursuant to City Code Chapter 16, Section 16.70.010.6. Appeals require a supermajority vote of the City Council. The City Council can hear new testimony and evidence, and the process is de novo. Staff's response to the appeal before you today includes, on May 15, 2014, City Council did approve the Skyway Marina District plan. The Skyway Marina District was established in October 2013, when the area was named. The district is located along 34th Street South, between 30th and 54th Avenue South. One of the Skyway Marina District plans' recommendation is to create a mixed-use district, and a vision of creating a mixed-use vertical development within ground-floor retail integrated parking is encouraged. An important object of the plan is to increase market-rate housing. The Skyway Marina District encompasses 227 acres. The district plan notes that the existing land development regulations allow intense mixed-use, however, an activity-centered designation would enable an increase in density and intensity. The City initiated and improved changes to the comprehensive plan, establishing an activity center for the district. The plan did not recommend making changes to the existing zoning district regulations that are within the Skyway Marina District. There's two zoning districts now, the RC1 and the CCS2. Components of the Skyway Marina District plan do include, first one, improve the retail experience. Plan objectives also increase employment, increase the population, and buying power by constructing market-rate housing, economic development, additional retail restaurants and office are desired in the district. Land use and site design vision element, mixed-use vertical development with ground-floor retail and integrated parking should be encouraged. Recommendations for the land use and the site design within the plan. Promoted a mixed-use district with quality design, construction and site design. Goal one, construction of high-quality new development. Create an activity-centered destination for 34th Street corridor that will increase density and intensity. Encourage new development to sustainable building techniques. Encourage the private sector to use art in public areas. Explore providing a public drainage system for the district. Goal two, enhancement of existing development. Encourage restaurants to have outdoor dining areas. Promote crime prevention. Create a district team to meet regularly. Inflammation of the Skyway Marina District plan. On August 6, 2015, City Council did approve Ordinance 712-L, amending the future land use to activity center. And approved it on Ordinance 174-H, creating a new map. The Skyway Marina District Activity Center. Amending Map 20 of the future major streets in the comprehensive plan. Further requirements related to the neighborhood plans contained in the City's comprehensive plan, such as land use element 12.5, states the city shall consider the neighborhood plans accepted by the City Council, and the recommendations contained therein, as guidelines to maintain and enhance the vitality of the neighborhoods. Neighborhood plans cannot be binding upon the city because they are accepted by resolution and not ordinance. An activity center overlay. The activity center overlay is a future land use designation. It does not regulate the mixture of uses for a single property or development project. These are the approved projects throughout the district. You probably have this on your desk in front of you that you can see it a little better. But for the approved plans, since the inception of the Skyway Marina District, 15 projects, including the subject property, have submitted plans for redevelopment to the city. Of the 15 projects, 13 have been built, excluding the subject property, and the property at 4401 34th Street South. This one has been approved by the DRC, and plans have been submitted in for permitting. Of the 15 projects, only five are mixed use, and that includes mixed use per site, mixed use vertical development. The subject property is zoned retail center one, multifamily is permitted use in the district. RC1 district does not require a minimum or maximum percentage of non-residential or residential uses on a property. The RC1 zoning district permits a residential density within an activity center of 45 units per acre, and a non-residential intensity within the activity center, FAR, excuse me, of 1.12. The maximum building height is 72 feet. Maximum impervious surface is 75%. The applicant's property is 16.25 acres in size. They're proposing 619 dwelling units, or 38 dwelling units per acre. They're proposing a 72-foot building height, and a max impervious surface is 70%. The project does comply with all the district regulations. Again, to the comprehensive plan, there are multiple objectives and policies that demonstrate that the proposed multifamily use is consistent with the comp plan. The subject property is located within the Skyway Marina District Activity Center. The activity center was established by the city to encourage urban development with significantly higher intensities and densities in other parts of the city. Redevelopment of existing properties to higher intensities and densities is an exception and goal of the comprehensive plan. Prior to the DRC meeting, staff did receive six correspondence opposing the development, and we did have one registered opponent for him, who is the appellant today. Between now and from this middle of the appeal to today, staff did receive a letter from the Skyway Marina District with objecting to the proposal, and that was provided to council members. Staff does recommend that city council deny the appeal, thereby upholding the DRC's decision to approve the site plan, subject to the conditions in the staff report. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we will have the appellant's presentation. Appellant? Good afternoon, sir. Good afternoon. For the time, prior to beginning, I wanted to submit for the record all of the items that we want put into the record for this hearing in a thumb drive. Were those submitted ahead of time? How could I do that? Were those previously submitted to staff? The presentation was submitted to staff, but I can... All documents to be considered and the quasi-judicial materials are required to be submitted 24 hours in advance of the hearing to the clerk's office to be considered by city council for the record. My understanding was that only the presentation that we were going to, and I confirmed this in writing, actually, with Corey, if you could clarify, that there were items that I could submit into the record the day of the hearing. I did respond later saying that all items would have to be given to us 24 hours. I did set it. Well, that's unfortunate because we only submitted the PowerPoint and not the rest of the supporting materials that are supposed to be part of the record. But that's interesting. But that's interesting. And, okay, then by reference, I will submit into the record the transcript of the DRC hearing that took place to approve the Skyway, the Skytown project on October 4th, 2023, and the transcript of the DRC hearing approving the applicant's project today. I believe those are public records that are in the possession of the city anyway. And you all have my PowerPoint presentation that I'm going to be going through today. Is that something that you all will be pulling up, or do I need to give you a thumb drive to be able to reference that in today's hearing? We have it up. They have it up. I believe that's it. Great. Okay. Well, my name is Frank Guerra. I have been sworn, I represent Altus Cardinal Skytown project across the street from the applicant at 3201 34th Street South. We are appealing to the DRC for two principal reasons. I want to remind this body that this is a de novo review, and you are not bound by the findings of the DRC that has moved this project along. We are opposing it for two reasons. One, it violates the requirements of the RC1 zoning code, in particular respect, with respect to the impervious surface ratio requirement. The, if you can go to my presentation toward the end, and if you want, I can put it. Put a clicker. Got a clicker ready to drive it, Frank. But how do I? Okay. So, this is the requirement of RC1. You'll notice that it's a 75% maximum impervious ratio. This is the table submitted by the applicant. You'll notice that in the middle, in the red rectangle, there's a storm water surface area that's designated as 11% of the site that's being counted as pervious area. We established in testimony at the DRC that this is not a surface area on the site that allows water to infiltrate into the earth, which is the definition for, in the city code, for impervious surface. It specifically says that it's a surface that has been compacted or covered with a layer of material so that it is resistant to or prevents infiltration by stormwater. We've established in the DRC hearing that the body of water in question does not allow infiltration of water into the earth. So, I do not see the authority on which the 11%, which comprises the stormwater pond, can be counted as pervious. If that is the case, then the 11% that is impervious would have to be impervious, making the ratio submitted by the applicant 81%, which would exceed the required 75% by 6%. It is, by definition, a retention pond. It's been called three things. It's been called a retention pond, a detention pond, and a wet pond. In all cases, it is designed to hold water and not allow water to infiltrate into the earth, which is the exact definition in the code of what constitutes an impervious surface. There is a second definition of impervious surface in the code under the utilities section, which echoes the exact same thing. Prevents or severely restricts infiltration of stormwater into the earth. So, on that basis alone, it would not meet the criteria set forth in the RC1 zoning code. The applicant project would exceed it by 6% and, therefore, not meet that requirement. Regarding the second basis on which we're appealing is that the applicant's project provides only market-rate apartments and no retail. The applicant claims that the Skyrim plan does not apply and that it is merely a guideline or a vision plan and that since it was adopted by this body, the City Council, in 2015 as a plan, that it was not adopted as an ordinance and resolution instead, that it cannot be imposed upon an applicant, any applicant. But I submit to you that there have been five market-rate projects that have come before this project, only five market-rate multifamily projects, and all five comply with the Skyrim Marina plan in that they provide retail. And this is a table indicating. Obviously, the first one is the applicant, which is not providing any retail at all. All five others that are market-rate apartments, I'm sorry, complied with the Skyrim Marina plan and did provide for retail. The projects that were named as not being mixed-use in the prior presentation, which I believe is on this slide, you'll notice the ones that have a zero on the fourth column. Those are distinguishable. Three of them are Skyway lofts, which those are the ones in yellow. That was an affordable project, and it did not meet the threshold to even go before the DRC, so it was never even considered under the same criteria. And the fourth project at the bottom, second from the bottom, is Convivial. That is an assisted living project, which also falls into a different category, is distinguishable from this one. The Skyrim Marina plan was specifically created to promote the development of mixed-use projects along 34th Street so that there was interaction with the community, specifically with an emphasis on retail. You'll notice that the six criteria which are laid out in both the applicant's staff report for DRC and in the Skytown staff report for DRC list the six criteria that are most critical to the Skyrim Marina plan, and five out of six relate directly to retail. So the fact that it is in the staff report is not consistent with the fact that it is inapplicable and cannot be applied to projects that come before the DRC or this body. It does not stand to reason that the standard was imposed upon and followed by five other projects. Every single market rate project that has come before either the DRC or the City Council after the City Council adopted the Skyrim Marina plan has actually complied with it with no exception. Every single one has retail fronting 34th Street. This project would be the only one that does not comply. If this was an episode of Sesame Street, it would be an example of which one of these things doesn't belong. It is a clear outlier. I would say that an important item to look at is how do we get here? How is this imposed? This is actually language from the hearing in which the Skytown project was approved before the DRC. You'll notice that the language stresses retail, and it stresses it to the point that it says that even with the retail that we did apply for, that it wasn't enough, and that it quote-unquote falls short of the intended goal of both the Skyrim Marina plan and even shorter of the RC zoning, which the R in RC zoning stands for retail. This would be an RC1 project. The applicant is falling under the RC1 zoning code, just like Skytown, and it is providing no retail. And what ended up happening as a result of the hearing that we had is that three conditions of approval were imposed on the Skytown project, all of which relate to retail. Number one is that it should be designed to incorporate components of the Skyrim Marina District guidelines, design guidelines. Now, this is an interesting one because it exists in all six conditions of approval for all market rate projects that we're talking about. The five that did provide retail and the applicant project also has, as a condition of approval, meeting the design guidelines of the Skyrim Marina District. I failed to see how it could be a voluntary or opt-in framework when it is literally the first item in the conditions of approval that is on the applicant's site plan approval from the DRC. More importantly, the second and third one, numbered 4 and 26 respectively from the conditions of approval for Skytown, they relate directly to requirements of retail that were imposed on Skytown. And what's important here that you'll notice it says minimum of 59,320 square feet of interior commercial shell prior to being able to get site A or site C, both of which are multifamily off the ground. And this means we cannot get a building permit unless we provide retail space. That is a requirement. That is not a voluntary element. In the last one, that one came up during the discussion, and it was as a result of the language that I highlighted before, where an additional 8,000 square feet, 4,000 each, and two buildings was imposed on the project as a retail requirement. This was imposed as a condition of going to a vote where we could get approved. And this happened in the middle of the back and forth in a four-and-a-half-hour hearing where it was clearly not voluntary. It was required. So the framework set forth by the Skyway Marina Plan has been followed by five projects, has been imposed on several projects. Most recently, the Skytown projects, which happens to be ours. And just by way of visual representation, just want to run you through the district. This is the Marina Club project with its significant retail along 34th Street. Sir Club with retail that was part of its site plan approval. Although it's vacant and continuing to be marketed, it is provided for and it is required to be delivered along 34th Street. And that is the property immediately next to the subject property of the applicant. It is the same zoning designation, RC1. This is Marina Walk, also with the retail along 34th Street. This is the Addison, also with retail along 34th Street. And you will notice, if you look at a picture, because a picture is worth a thousand words, this is the RC1 that applies to both SPC, Skytown, and Sir Club. And if you notice, look at the picture down. And we have from the south and we have from the north. You'll see that every single property complies with the region on 34th Street. This property is being treated differently and it's not allowed. Next, we will have the applicant's presentation and take additional comments. Corey? Do I just, I always forget where to point? I think it's my way. Center, okay. Can you just do the errors? Yep, got it. Let's make sure. Okay. Good afternoon. Elise Batzel with Stearnsweaver Miller for the record. The first couple of slides I'm going to go through very quickly because Corey covered those. They're just highlights of generally where the property is located, the number of units, etc. Just to give you a little bit of flavor for this project, this project is the redevelopment of a vacant institutional campus into a thriving multifamily development, offering a much-needed diverse housing option. The project is thoughtfully designed to meet or exceed all of your land development regulations and to comply with the comprehensive plan. If you notice along the top of the screen, the 34th Street corridor and building along the street were specifically redesigned a number of times to prioritize activation, walkability, and streetscape. Colter carved out the most invisible corner as a one-acre parcel for future commercial redevelopment. This slide simply talks about the integration of uses, pedestrian connectivity, and automotive and pedestrian safety. In your record is our expert planner report. She found that it was consistent with a comprehensive plan, meets the city's land development regulations, and compatible with the surrounding built environment. Similarly, the next four slides show that your staff, your professional staff, as well as our professional staff, found that each and every one of the 16 criteria that are before you today for consideration were met by this project. The project has no variances, no waivers, and no special exceptions. All competent substantial evidence in your record supports you upholding the DRC approval. So this appeal was filed by Altice Cardinal, a direct competitor across the street, and I think that the appellant might disagree with me, but let's call it what it is. This is really just a competitor trying to slow down the units that might be built across the street, period. Colter's site is completely different than Skytown. The site is sandwiched between a six-lane arterial highway to the west, I-275 to the east. The only neighbors are multifamily to the north, a police academy, and a vacant ALF to the south. Skytown is right in the middle, as you can see, of tons of neighborhoods, and there were hundreds of people that came out against Skytown. This is nothing like the Skytown project, and it's only a quarter of the size. Let's talk a little bit about his appeal. The appeal references generally the Skytown district plan, the entire RC1 code that we don't comply with, and the activity center overlay with zero specificity. Your code actually requires that there's specificity when you file the appeal. It requires that we know which provisions we're not consistent with, and I think that the reason nothing was filed is because there are no specific land development regulations or comp plan provisions that we do not meet with the site plan. I know that you all already know this, but it just bears repeating. It is well established that in a quasi-judicial setting like this, the local governments are limited to the land development code criteria. That includes your comprehensive plan and your land development regulations. Your city attorney at DRC recognized this. She specifically said your decisions should be based on the code, and your code is paramount. Let's go with the Skyway Marina district plan. The Skyway Marina district plan is not regulatory. It was adopted, but it was never codified or never implemented. Like the BRT study that you're doing now, there's an opportunity to take those regulations and codify them in your land development regulations so that they can be regulatory. That hasn't been the case, so that can't yet be the basis for your decision today. However, even though the Skyway Marina district plan is not regulatory, we took great aims to comply with that plan. Specifically, there are three goals that were omitted by the appellant. It's to increase the population and buying power in the district, construct additional market rate residential units, and target significantly underutilized parcels for redevelopment. That is exactly what this proposal does. And the district is just that. It is a large district, a mixed-use district, that is intended to permit a mixture of uses across the entire district. That's why you have goals and objectives that talk about retail, and you have goals and objectives that talk about residential. It's not a mandate that every single project have mixed-use elements. With respect to the activity center, Corey already covered this, but this is simply an overlay that expressly permits additional entitlements. If you fall within that overlay, you have the appropriate zoning, you get the extra density. You want to promote infill development where adequate infrastructure exists. And finally, your staff acknowledge that the activity center overlay does not regulate the mixture of uses for a single property or a single development. Again, it's a district-wide. Quickly, I just want to talk about RC1. We meet each and every RC1 standard. Use, density, intensity, height, and yes, ISR. Our professionals, our engineers are here. They can walk you through the exact calculations if you would like, but there is no question. Your staff found that we meet that requirement, and our professional engineers also found that. Even though Frank says otherwise, there is no mixed-use requirement in RC1. Here's what's important, though. There is a mixed-use requirement in RC3. So, specifically, when you pick and say RC3 requires mixed-use development, and you say RC1 doesn't, the implication, it's silent, that there is no mixed requirement. Your staff agrees with this. Our professional planners agree. Competent substantial evidence, all of the competent substantial evidence that is in the record, including what you've heard from Mr. Guerrera today, points to the fact that the RC1 district standards are met, clearly, each and every one. And I want to go back a little bit to all of these other projects, because I think this is probably one of the more important things that we're going to talk about. This project isn't like any other project, right? We already talked about the fact of its physical geographical location and the constraint between the highway and the six-lane divided highway. But this project intentionally expands housing. It intentionally tries to provide a different type of multifamily product. All of these podium-wrapped projects that you know about, that Frank talked about, they all have significantly higher rents. He went through each of them to show you. But this was a very thoughtful and deliberate design in order to create a different kind of housing in the district. Coulter didn't ignore the district's vision. The district needs more residents. They need more buying power. And they need housing options at different rental levels. This project broadens that housing offering and creates more demand for the commercial uses that are within the district. In the multifamily world, surface parking like we have means you can offer $300 to $500 less rent per month. That's significant, and that's substantial. It's a different product with a broader housing choice. Now, despite what Mr. Greer said, in 2018, the Addison was approved as a single-use multifamily development within the district. It wasn't until later that they went out and they added retail. We have our future commercial parcel. Similarly, the Addison added the commercial out parcel to create mixed-use at a later date. Corey's already spoken about the number of projects that are mixed-use. Only five of the 15 that have come since the Skyway Marina District plan are mixed-use. So just talking a little bit about the appeal, the scope of appeal that's before you is, do we comply with a comprehensive plan? Do we comply with the land development regulations that are before you, including the 16 criteria that we briefly went through? Other previous projects that have been approved, Mr. Greer's project where there were hundreds of neighbors and whatever he had to do to get that approved, that isn't before you today. That plan isn't before you today. Only the plan that we have submitted, the culture plan. We respectfully request that you deny this appeal and affirm the DRC. This is a multifamily project that is permitted by right in the RC1 district. No variances, waivers, or special exceptions have been asked for. We have demonstrated compliance with all of the criteria and all of the competent substantial evidence that you've heard and that is in your voluminous record. Thank you. We will now take public comment. Clerk, do you have any cards? Yes, Madam Chair. I have four cards. When I call your name, please go to an open podium, state your name, address, or cross street for the record. You'll have three minutes to address City Council. The first two speakers are Aaliyah Shryfmer and Jasmine Dominguez. Good afternoon, Council. Aaliyah Shryfmer at 2132 Lakewood Club Drive South, St. Petersburg, Florida, 33712. I want to speak today to you, Council members, as to why you should uphold this approval and deny the appeal. I just recently finished my second year of law school at Stetson, and as a Tampa native born and raised here, I know intimately and have firsthand experience with the troubles and difficulties that come with finding housing in the area. My friends and I have joked that finding adequate housing, good housing, is sometimes more difficult than our law school courses. Stetson has limited off-campus housing and apartment opportunities, which forces students to look to the surrounding areas for places to live. And when we look in the surrounding area across St. Pete, we can't seem to find available, adequate housing without months of searching and lowering our expectations greatly. Stetson students, but more importantly, the community at large needs more housing options that will serve the students and the full range of our community. Before redevelopment on 34th Street began, the only options seemed to be minuscule apartments that may have been a good price, but were run down, falling apart, had countless issues, and some were just unsafe to live in. The other option on the other end of the spectrum was to fish out $5,000, $6,000 a month for a luxury high-rise apartment in downtown St. Pete. Neither of those are great options for our community. Our community is lacking a third option, the middle ground between both ends of the spectrum. This project and the revitalization of 34th Street as a whole provides the solution. Stetson students are being drawn down to 34th as the apartment buildings go up due to its close proximity to both campus and downtown, along with having the stores we need located nearby and generally lower rental rates. And it's not just Stetson students. Eckerd and USF students also now have additional options of housing at a more affordable and attainable rate. Our community needs additional housing options, and this project accomplishes just that. With that, I urge you, council members, to uphold the approval of this project and deny the appeal. Thank you for your time. Good afternoon, council. My name is Jasmine Dominguez, and I reside at 6415 23rd Street South. Now, my intention is not to be overly repetitive on the points that were already brought forward, but I am also a Stetson law student going into my third year. And first, I would like to speak on my experience trying to find housing as a student. I'm a first-generation student, and I work as well as take out loans on top of scholarship to be able to live here in St. Pete. My first year when looking for housing, I was forced to look for small micro-studio apartments and ended up in a place that was 150 square feet with mold and an in-unit air conditioning unit that would leak into the walls. Afterwards, I have been looking since for suitable rent that is within driving distance. I have peers and classmates that commute upwards of 45 minutes to school and know that there are similar situations for those attending USF St. Pete, as well as Eckerd. Now, I'm a current resident of the area in which this project is going to be built, and I know that there is no better use for this land. This would create economic growth that's exactly in line with what is going on in this area. And although this area is generally more affordable, the current housing projects are expensive and priced at a premium. The ones that are more affordable are outdated and have a number of issues, including the one where I reside currently. So the diversity of housing is exactly what this area needs and is in line with what the area is intending to have. So because of this need for housing diversity on the lower half of 34th Street, this approval should be allowed and this appeal should be denied. Thank you for your time. Thank you. The next two speakers are Frank Marsalis and Lauren Hubbard. Please go to an open podium. State your name, address, or cross street. For the record, you'll have three minutes to address City Council. Thank you. My name is Frank Marsalis. I'm the president of the Skyrim Marina District. Come before you as a product of South St. Pete, born and raised. I grew up in St. Pete, South St. Pete, lived there currently, created my law firm there and invested in my future there. But I'm not coming before you today to speak about my personal beliefs about this project. As the president of the district, I have to speak on behalf of our constituents. And overwhelmingly, I don't believe that there has been any type of public support for this. We have pushed Coulter to, before I went to the DRC, to have a public hearing multiple times. They just chose not to do that. And our position, and I want to be clear about this, we're not opposing or resisting growth or redevelopment. Skyrim Marina District has been consistent about supporting smart growth and responsible investment into the corridor. The discussion today shouldn't just be about semantics or technicalities. It should be about what's best for the residents and long-term future of Skyrim Marina District, and more importantly, South St. Pete. You know, this proposal, it's not the type of growth that our community and the city has envisioned when the Skyrim Marina District plan was adopted. In fact, up until the DRC meeting, I didn't know that the Skyrim Marina District plan was a bad word, that we couldn't be saying that. That's my whole position with being in the present of the district is to make sure that developments that come in adhere to those things that were adopted by this council. You know, the adopted Envision plan, it's a vibrant activity center, right? Retail, emphasis, RC1, retail. It's a walkable, mixed-use development with meaningful commercial activation and pedestrian-oriented design. Instead, what's being proposed is overwhelmingly residential, with commercial components being deferred for a future phase without any type of binding commitments or enforceable timelines. Without the enforceable commitment, we're going to end up with the exact same thing that we have right now in front of a circle of apartments, disconnected, vacant, barren land. And once the project's built, guess what? The city has lost its leverage to go ahead and ensure any type of meaningful mixed-use activation even occurs. And what remains, it's a precedent, a bad precedent, a precedent that tells future developers that they can satisfy technical requirements while disregarding the broader vision and intent of an adopted district plan. That's a dangerous precedent, not only for the Skyward Marine District, but also for every other thoughtful planned redevelopment district in our city. And this is an anti-development. It's about honoring the framework of the city and all those who put all their blood, sweat, and tears, and equity into it, and it's just being ignored. So South St. Pete deserves development that honors the adopted vision for this district and creates lasting community value, not projects that prioritize short-term property Hi, Council. My name is Lauren Hubbard. I'm the current interim executive director for the Skyway Marina District. My home address is 1110 3rd Street South. I'm here before you as a mother, as a community advocate. We're not anti-development. In fact, we very much appreciate the development and growth in the area. We are pro-community. As somebody who's grown up here and lived in over 46 residences, being raised by a single parent myself, I know what identity or the lack of can do to the young. And so I'm here on behalf of our future leaders that don't have a voice in this fight just yet. We love the idea of having more housing in our district. What we also want is to integrate art, community, retail, opportunities to create identity in our district. You know, being a part of this ecosystem, that means that we get to thrive off of our businesses and the retail spaces that come that give us opportunities to go outside of our doors, play in green spaces, not retention ponds, go for walks around to the nearest studio or restaurant or support a local designer that is right near our home because it's right there and accessible in ways that we usually don't have access to on the south side. So this is bigger than just being a beacon or a representative of more development. What this is, is it's a statement to our future leaders. SPC is a symbol of education, of youth, of the future. And so if we replace it, let's do it meaningfully and intentionally while we bring in retail space and bring in community opportunities for others to integrate into the community that they're able to afford to live in. And so we want to do this in partnership and ask you to join us by considering what we're in front of you asking, which is not a lot, just opportunity to expand because we only get one shot to do this and we want to do it right and with your support. Thank you so much. Thank you. The final two speakers are David Dickey and Ron Weiser. Please go to an open podium, state your name, address, or cross street. For the record, you'll have three minutes to address city council. My name is Ron Weiser, Phillips Development Realty, 142 West Plast Street, Tampa, 33606. We are the developer and owner of the CIRC Club project that is a mixed-use project immediately to the north of the St. Pete College site. We're also the developer and owner of the retail project, which is directly across the street, which is the Woody's Wash Shack in the parking lot of Walmart. We are very, very familiar with the Colter Corporation. They have an outstanding reputation. They've developed a number of projects in this area, all of which we perceive, and I believe everybody that's familiar with them perceives, are quality projects. They have a name and reputation for integrity and doing what they say they're going to do. They have been very active with us to explain to us what they plan to do. They are our most immediate neighbors, so we are keenly interested in it. We were the earliest developer of the Skyway Marina District almost 10 years ago when we first saw an opportunity. We worked very closely with the city. All of the things that are in the Skyway Marina District regulations now were part of what our dialogue with the city was, was how do we improve the Skyway Marina District? How do we make it somewhere special? There was a need for residential housing. We fulfilled that need with our CIRC club project. We also built self-storage and we do have a retail area on the highway. Up to date, the self-storage has been highly successful. The CIRC club has been highly successful. We've been unable to attack retail, but we do perceive we will have retail as there's more and more residential properties added. So we have looked carefully at their plan. We would recommend that it be approved. We are very familiar with the rules and regulations and we think it's going to be a nice addition to that area. And so our suggestion is you approve it as applied for. Yes, sir. Good afternoon, council members. My name is David Dickey. I reside at 1591 Pinellas Bayway, St. Petersburg, Florida. And I'm not an attorney. I just came here because I follow a lot of interesting things. I'm just here today in support of the project and I regularly receive the St. Pete Rising emails and I found it fascinating. I'm a 20-year resident here and a proud husband of a fourth-generation Floridian and we now have fifth-generation Floridians that we raise here in this community. So I think the 34th Street corridor has evolved in a lot of meaningful ways and I think it's great because I'm traversing that all the time. I'm traversing I-75 all the time because our kids go to school in different places. When I heard that the project was being appealed, I honestly didn't fully understand it and I know there's a lot of technical components that go into approving things and it sounds like there were many hours by council and staff and the planning commission. So I just understand the project that would be adding market rate but lower rent. I guess I'm in line with the gals that go to Stetson and as a dad who's going to ultimately have kids in college, they'll probably locally stay here and I would like to have them live in a place like the Coulter product so they don't have to live in my house and that's not only a joke but it's sincere so they can get out on their own. We probably can't send them to four-year schools away for the whole four years. So I just want to again voice my support for this meaningful housing development project and I thank you very much for your time. Now we'll move into cross-examination. Each party will have five minutes for cross-examination. Staff, would you like to cross-examine? Staff waves. Would the appellant like to cross-examine? Indeed. Can we pull up our presentation again please before we begin? I guess my first questions are for the engineer that council offered as available to explain the formula related to the ISR calculation? I don't think I've begun my time. You're starting. Okay. He's right there. All right. I'd like to know how you calculated the pond which is a retention pond designed to accumulate water and not allow it to infiltrate into the earth as pervious. Sure. Dawn Dodge with Kim Lee Horn 200 Central Lab professional engineer. So the calculations for the ISR were done in accordance with the city code. The city code specifies what we include in those calculations. The question as far as pervious and impervious, the stormwater pond as shown is actually part of the stormwater system. The purpose of it is to collect and infiltrate into the ground and allow the groundwater to penetrate as well. If it is designed to infiltrate, how does it stay wet? It is by definition a retention pond which retains water. That is the groundwater. So it allows the groundwater to come in and out. But it doesn't go anywhere if it stays wet. So the testimony at the DRC given by Mr. Scott which was the engineer at the time said that it was quote designed to accumulate water. In a second part of the discussion at the DRC it said it is being designed to retain water like any wet pond that is designed it will retain water quote unquote. The permanent pool which is the water below the water table is used for treatment. So I don't see how the water is infiltrating into the earth and the pond would stay wet. On what authority in the code do you see any place where it treats a pond like a grass that allows water to infiltrate into the earth? The purpose of the impervious surface ratio is not necessarily the terminology that you're requesting. The city code what they're asking for with the ISR is specified in the code which includes building pavement and building pavement but hard surfaces. The stormwater system is not included in that. If it was a lined pond or a pool then that would be a different case but this is for the stormwater. So is a pool of water that is designed to accumulate water as it falls more like a pool or more like grass? It's a stormwater system. It's part of the stormwater system. Right. That's not an answer and if you look at the definition there is no provision made for stormwater system being accepted from the definition of impervious surface and you'll notice that the impervious ratio says the same thing and in the stormwater section since you referenced that of the city code it actually refers to the exact same thing. It says infiltration of stormwater into the earth. If it's prevented or severely restricted it counts as impervious so I don't see how it could be counted in the pervious column for purposes of an impervious surface ratio calculation. So a stormwater pond is just digging a hole in the earth and is not restricting. We're not compacting. We're not lining it. We're not restricting any flow. So what keeps it wet and from going away into the earth? The groundwater. So by definition it's not impervious. Okay, moving on. So the applicant has admitted that they're not meeting the Skybury Marina plan that renders so they're saying that the adoption by the city council of the Skybury Marina plan is completely ineffective. Is that correct? I know that's not a question for you. Who are you asking a question to? Whoever the applicant wants to put up? No, excuse me. Whoever wants to You're sitting in the audience. You're not part of this. Who? Stop the time. Hold on. This is not for anyone in the audience to be commenting. Okay? Can you put back five seconds on the clock? Ask your question and let us know who you're asking because you have the engineer up here. Whoever the applicant would like to put forth to answer the question as to the effect of the Skybury Marina plan after being adopted by the city council. Does that have someone that can answer that? While the Skybury Marina district plan and this is all in your record and your staff can confirm this was adopted as a visionary plan. It was not implemented or codified into your land development regulations or your comprehensive plan. Therefore, it is just that. It's a visionary plan. Your staff in their staff report actually told you various objectives of the Skyway Marina district plan that our site plan satisfies. So, Corey looked at it. We looked at it. We certainly didn't say... Thank you. Your five minutes are up. I think you still have closing. Would the applicant like to cross-examine? I have a couple of questions for Corey, please. Corey, the appellant seemed to indicate that there were other projects similarly situated where the city imposed requirements on them. Is it true that multifamily residential development as a standalone use is expressly permitted within the RC1 zoning district? That is correct. And are there any current requirements, any minimum amounts of non-residential or mixed-use development required within the RC1 for these multifamily residential projects for a single project? There is not. Corey, once we go to the next phase and we start permitting and the engineering plans are submitted into the record, will the city engineer look at all of the engineering plans including the stormwater ponds and to determine if the impervious surface ratio is met? They will. And if for some reason that impervious surface is not met, will the plans have to be revised to make sure that that is met prior to moving forward? They will have to, correct. Corey, you stated one thing in your site plan that I wanted to ask you about a little bit more. You said that the Skyway Marina District plan in 2013 didn't recommend any changes to the zoning designations that existed at the time. Does that mean that RC3, for example, was mixed use and RC1 did not have a mixed use requirement at the time that plan was implemented? That's correct. Thank you. Only one question for the appellant, please. Frank, thank you. Just with regards to your questions about ISR, only question is are you a civil engineer or have any engineering background? No, but I can read a code. Thank you. Now we move on to closing arguments or rebuttal. Each party will have five minutes to provide a closing argument or rebuttal. Staff, any closing? I guess I have some clarification that I just wanted to go through. Some clarification statements as part of my closing. Can I have my PowerPoint, please? So I just want to go through some of the discussions about what has been approved in the district and not. So number 14 on the map is the ALF-ILF, which has not been constructed yet, is located north of Marina Walk behind the McDonald's there on 34th Street. ALF-ILF is considered residential. This project was approved by a variance. Public notice was sent out to everyone within the district, including the Skyway Marina District, and no one appealed it to DRC. So that's 100%. Marina Walk, Marina Walk actually did not require approval. They were under the threshold. They were under 250,000 square feet. When they came in, they were only proposing residential. Their plans for permitting showed that where the Starbucks is now as a future development. We didn't know what that was. It could have been residential. It could have been commercial. It turned out to be commercial. We also have different projects. The three Skyway loft projects that you see, they're affordable housing projects that were built in the district. All of those did require variances and public notice was sent out for all those, including to the district. No one objected. Addison. Addison was, again, we already heard that from the applicant. They were originally approved with no commercial at all. They later bought the building to the south, which was the State Farm Insurance building, and prior to that was a bank. They demoed it. They came in for a site plan mod to add self-storage because self-storage is only limited as an accessory use in the district, so that's why they needed additional land to do that. And where the Chipotle is, that was not part of this development. So again, that was 100% residential. So that's just a clarification on the approval of those projects. Thank you. Does the applicant have any closing argument or rebuttal? Yes. I'm sorry, it's the applicant. You actually... Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said appellate. So you all had the last word. So it's the applicant and then the appellate. Elise Batzel, for the record. The decision before you today relates to the Coulter site plan, whether it satisfies all of the requirements of the land development regulations and the comp plan. Coulter played by all the rules. They met with staff in 2024 to understand all of the regulations that govern this particular project. They specifically designed the project to meet all of the RC1 standards, the 16 criteria set forth in your land development regulations and the activity center framework set forth in your comprehensive plan and the land development regulations. These regulations are the rule book that the city gave to the developer and they said this is what you need to do to get site plan approval for this project. But Coulter didn't stop with the rules. Coulter went beyond that. Even though the Skyway Marina district plan is not codified and isn't a regulatory document, they embraced the spirit of that plan and made changes to their plan. They did meet with multiple stakeholders and it's difficult when the Skyway Marina district representatives want you to build a big box and you want to build multifamily. Sometimes you cannot bridge that gap and that's what happened in this particular situation. They did embrace that plan and they carved out a one acre future commercial parcel which, by the way, they have an LOI now for a food and beverage drive-through. Hopefully that comes to fruition very soon. But at the time there wasn't an end user when they submitted their site plan. They also changed their plan multiple times specifically with respect to all of the owners up and down 34th Street for better walkability and this really beautiful streetscape that they're going to put in. Preserving the mature trees, thoughtful design. Coulter intentionally chose a different kind of multifamily product. This was not by chance. It was intentional. This allows for that lower rent, slightly lower rent, $300 to $500 per month. That's important. The choice was deliberate and it was thoughtful and it was not taken for granted and neither was the Skyway Marina District plan. But this site is different than Skytown. It's different than some of the others. The location is different. The project is different. It's one piece in a larger district where every single little piece creates a vibrant district. Coulter followed your rules and then some. Mr. Greer talked a lot about different sites and ISR and everything else but what you have to look at for your decision is what is true and factual. That includes the city's professional planning and technical staff finding through reports, documentation, and testimony that we meet all the requirements for this approval. The developer's professional planning and technical experts finding through all of those documentations and testimony that we meet each and every requirement for site plan approval. DRC reviewed the evidence and after much discussion and thoughtful deliberation, they voted to approve the site plan and they did that and talked about what regulations might be in effect for the future, looking at projects that weren't before them. They really spent a lot of time looking at that and it was a significant conversation. What they found was that Coulter's site plan met all the requirements of the code, was a good addition to the Skyway Marina District plan. You heard a lot of other voices tonight other than the Skyway Marina District, not tonight, today. For those other people, the issues are important. There are more housing options, lower rents, and more residents to support the local business. Coulter is a best-in-class developer. You've seen their projects. They produce high-quality residential developments that enhance the community. Coulter not only followed your rules that were given, but they really went further and they tried to create a project that will be a really important addition to this district. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Thank you. Okay, the quiet slide. Judicial proceeding is now closed. Nope, nope. Oh, I'm sorry. You know what? I got confused from when you came up the last time, so we're not closed. Let me start that again. Thank you. The appellant has closing argument rebuttal? I do. Okay. Thank you again for the time. In summary, it is clear from the testimony of the engineer that the applicant has provided that there is no authority in the code to treat a wet pond, a detention pond, a retention pond. They've called it different things. They've even called it a water feature that is designed to hold water as pervious. You can paint it however you want. You could have whatever engineer tell you whatever they want that their conclusion is, but it is more like a pool than it is like grass. It is literally designed to hold water. I do not see how it could possibly be consistent with the language that we put up is the definitions in the code for impervious. There is no authority to treat it as pervious. Therefore, what is mischaracterized as 11% of the site as pervious, meaning the storm retention pond, would move from that category to impervious, which would take the impervious ratio from 70% to 81%, thus exceeding the allowed 75% by 6%. It fails on its face, just as a matter of math. I want to raise an interesting issue here that hasn't come up in prior hearings, including the DRC, but up until today, and that is this affordability angle of this project that it's satisfying some sort of public need. The applicant was free to do what Skytown did in its project, which is to commit with a registered document an income restriction of 30% of the units for 30 years. That is not the case here. What we have is a promise that sounds good today and is nowhere to be seen tomorrow. There's absolutely no requirement to offer lower cost rent options at this property. You can tell me that you're designing a less expensive product that by no means indicates that it will result in a lower rental cost to the end user tomorrow. As we all know, a rent is going to be determined by whatever is being offered in the community at the time, a willing renter, willing landlord. In our case, it was actually registered and it is required for 30 years. So the applicant was free to do that. They did not do that, but it's a curious argument to come in at the 11th hour as a justification for a simple lower cost development option with no retail and no interaction with the community as was envisioned by the Skyward Remainment Plan. We literally, is the, oh, okay. Well, the city found that the activity center, the activity center overlay for the Skyward Remainment District was implemented or was created to implement the Skyward Remainment Plan. That is in the package that you received. You will see it in right here. That was straight from the staff's memo to the council. So I failed to see how the Skyward Remainment Plan is being ignored. It was imposed on Skytown. It was imposed by creating a sequencing requirement that creates a precondition to being able to obtain building permits. So I failed to see how it can be characterized as merely a suggestion, a vision plan, or something that is voluntary when it was imposed on us as a requirement to go from one phase within our master plan to another. in addition, 8,000 additional feet, square feet were required in order to get approval at the DRC in 2023 for the Skytown project. The retail has been painted as a very problematic thing to deliver. We are 100% leased on the retail, on all of the retail buildings that have been constructed in the first phase of our project. We are 50% leased or under LOI on the retail included in the building that is under construction and won't be delivered until next year. Retail is viable in the area. Retail is desired in the area. It was one of the primary things that the public reacted to and was the foundation for the criteria in the Skyward Arena plan. We indicated that five out of six of the principal criteria of the Skyward Arena plan relate to retail. And regarding the 16 criteria that Council mentioned that they allegedly meet, I would indicate to you that on criteria number nine, which is compatibility with the neighborhood and the surrounding buildings is not met because as we indicated, every project has a retail component abutting 34th Street in conjunction with the market rate apartments that were delivered. When they indicate that there were 10 of 15 that were not mixed use, you will notice that none of those 10, including a car wash, including a donut shop, including other things none of those 10 that they point to as not having mixed use include market rate apartment, include any apartment. But the five that do include market rate apartment all have retail abutting 34th Street, which is the vision of the Skyward Arena plan, which is what was adopted by this city council, should not be ignored. Okay, now the quasi-judicial proceeding is closed and we will move into executive session. And before I go to any council member comments, because the issue was raised in terms of what impervious area means and how this applies, I want someone from staff or legal to explain to me and council, first of all, I think the definition from our code was brought to section 27-371, which is impervious area means a surface area in a parcel of real property which presents or severely restricts infiltration of stormwater into the earth. If that, how that play into the calculation or when it pertains to a retention pond since this issue has been brought up and it's part of this whole thing, I know we've had conversations before on impervious area and, I mean, we've had things like fake grass and gravel that are considered impervious. So, if you can kind of go into that, please. Sure. So, impervious by definition in the city code in section 16.90.020 says the surface that has been compacted or covered with a layer of material so that it is resistant to or prevents infiltration by stormwater. It includes what is not limited to roofed areas, pools, and surfaces such as compacted sand, lime rock, or clay, as well as conventional surface streets, sidewalks, parking lots, pavers, and other similar surfaces. For the purpose of calculating the ISR, 50% of the surface area of a deck shall be included as impervious surface. It goes further in other sections of the code where, such as gravel, when we talk about gravel and we talk about shell, when shell and gravel are part of a landscape bed, that's impervious. When shell is not part of a landscape bed or gravel, where you can do a gravel driveway, well now it becomes compacted. So now it's impervious. The thing with the artificial turf, the reason why we lean on our stormwater management division as well is because there's a maintenance issue with that and they become impervious over time because they get clogged. We have a lot of wet ponds throughout the city where water does drain and perk into them and yes, there's water levels that will remain but it doesn't mean water cannot perk down into the groundwater. Now I will, I'm not an expert, that's our engineering department, so our engineering department will review this and they do calculate what they consider to be pervious and not impervious. So that is something that we would work with them to make sure is that 100% of that pond by engineering standards pervious to allow water to perk into the ground. I mean, given that we're at the hearing now and I would like to have an idea of what, how they calculate it, I mean typically are stormwater ponds, are they part of the calculation or not? I mean this comes up in everything. Yes, so if you have a stormwater pond that's pervious unless they had a, like we have vaults sometimes like there, it's a concrete box, those are impervious unless they're designed with gravel where the water can perk into the ground. And is this one, but we don't know, you don't have information as to whether or not this is impervious or pervious? Based on what the engineer here today is telling us, it is just dirt, then they'll have water in it because of a spring or the groundwater but the water will perk through the dirt or the ground so it doesn't have any impervious liner, it won't even have gravel. So all the water just goes down? It'll perk into the ground but it will maintain a certain level of water just because it's a wet pond. If you look at many of the wet ponds throughout the city, Mirror Lake for instance right across the street here, that's really a large retention pond. Right. So water will perk into the ground from that pond. Okay, I just want clarification on that. Okay, we'll go to council member questions and comments. Council member Fig Sanders. Thank you, thank you and thank you for everyone that's here for your thoughtful presentations and I just wanted to actually have something to say in regards to both the appellate and the applicants and some of the comments that were provided. As one of the council members for the Skyway Marina District, please know I haven't heard from anybody. So when they say public record and outreach, I haven't heard from anybody. So I'll just go ahead and put that out there first and foremost. So when I hear comments that we thoughtfully thought of, well I wasn't thought about, when I hear market rate several times, market rate in my book means my child is still at home because he can't afford market rate. So I need to know what some of the steps and students are getting paid because market rate is not of a student's income. Then when I hear a definition of it's just an empty space, well there's nothing wrong with having an empty space. I don't want to live in a concrete city. There's nothing wrong with having some type of green space which we did not get in the Skytown development. so please know that we know what empty promises look like when it comes down to development in the Skyway Marina District. Then when I hear comments saying, well let's just look at what's true and what's factual. Well truth is everybody can't afford market rate. What's factual is a lot of people cannot be in some of these developments that we're touting as a necessary need for the city of St. Petersburg. So we've been here before when people have come and said what you should do, no what I should do is die and pay taxes. But when it comes to making a decision for my constituents, what I am going to do is in their best interest. So I don't appreciate being told what I need to do. And although I have explicit respect for DRC, I look at our constituents and their needs. I look at the outreach and I don't remember there being any. I wasn't invited to one. Then when I hear the rent is three to five hundred dollars cheaper, well if I missed it in the presentation, it's three to five hundred dollars to pay for parking. And if you know anything about where Sir Club is, if you all have gone down 34th Street, I always wonder how the residents park on the street. They have taken up so much space from SPC because they don't have adequate parking at Sir Club. Do not have adequate parking at all. And if it was as simple to get retail as we're making it, we would not still have that blank spot, that land, that they could not produce retail to this day. And that was something that was going on when I was elected back in 2019 and we're in 2026. So again, I love the fact when people come to us and say what's true and what's factual. What's true is factual is we haven't been able to fill that spot. That's true and that's factual. So then when we talk about housing for all, housing for who? It was correct that even with Skytown, they did put a provision in there for affordable housing and that was something imposed on the city of St. Petersburg. I did not support Skytown until Mark Van Loo and Amy brought to us that for every phase we would have a certain number of affordable housing units. That was imposed and that I do appreciate because I was not in support of that moving forward without continuing to add market rate apartments. Let me check my notes. And then I did not hear, unless I left the room and I don't think I left my seat, when someone said that the Skyway Marina districts want us to build a box. I didn't hear that. I did not hear the Skyway Marina representatives say they want us to build a box. I did not hear that. They want us to build something that is complementary to the Skyway Marina district and the families. And they are absolutely right. We are not short on retail in the Skyway Marina district. We are not. There is not an empty building for retail. So we're not short on that. So when you use statements about being true and being factual, let's be true and let's be factual. So they did not say that they want to build a box. I did not hear that from Ms. Hubbard and I didn't hear that. Forgive me, I forgot your name, but I did not hear that. So in making certain decisions, again, I know we're here to base it on what the DRC approved, but I also know that we've been in a position before where it still does not add up for the best interest for the area. And again, I'm wondering the council members for the Skyway Marina district. Nobody reached out to me at all. And I'll leave that there because I want to hear what my constituents have to say. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just make some general comments and then colleagues. But I have a little bit of a different lens than Councilmember Fig Sanders. I look at this trying to fit, you know, obviously I think it's very clear about RC1. I think I heard you say that twice. And so inside of the code, inside of the comp plan, this is obviously and based on DRC comments and notes, it's very clear that what they want to build is allowed. I appreciate the comparison to Skytown and building affordable units, but we participated in the cap stack of Skytown, correct? So that was a requirement in order to do that. They're not we don't get to hold them to the same standard there because we're not giving them anything in return. They have a piece, they've bought a piece of land, they're building something on it that's allowed to be built on it, and because of the scale of it, this is why it was in front of a DRC and then here. And so to me it's very clear. I very much appreciate Marina District coming out and giving feedback. It's frankly become one of my favorite districts in the city. You guys have done an amazing job. Personally from District 1, I have always thought that increased density because I'm the least dense district in the city is going to help bring restaurants and businesses to the area. I will be very frank, I would love some different restaurants and retail places in Tyrone Mall, but I need the density in order to make that happen and I think this accomplishes that. So when I read the master plan for the district, I still think this checks those boxes because although it sounds like eventually it will have some commercial space on it, by bringing density to that corridor, making it walkable because of what that plan has helped envision, I think it automatically helps bring those things to the district and that's how I have thought about it since we have discussed Raytheon over the last four years and frankly now we're discussing the St. P. College property and so I think all of those things help create those things. Chair, I appreciate you bringing up impervious ratio at the beginning. I think it's a very creative argument, Frank, and Frank, I spoke it, you're groundbreaking, it's an amazing project, but I just don't know, I can't connect with a stormwater retention pond which is part of the stormwater system to help move water away and then into the earth or into our water bay is not considered pervious. That just doesn't connect in my brain and so anyway and again I think again I'm going to go back to what I started with which is RC1 explicitly allows the standalone housing and I just don't, I haven't heard an argument that can get me to another place other than that so that's where I'm at. Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you. Council Member Harding. Thank you Chair. I think that both parties deserve to hear from all of us. I think that for me before we vote it hinged in this case well let me back up a step to override DRC is a high bar for me those are the experts in this organization and for me this came down to the argument and it was well presented impervious versus impervious I have first hand knowledge we built on our property and we shrunk the size of the building we wanted to build so that we could build the pond bigger and it was pervious versus impervious that it came down to and so that was the crux of this debate for me I do understand on a separate note I understand and appreciate Councilmember Fig Sanders tremendously beyond this but her I sit on the opposite side affordable housing is attained only through public involvement let's be clear that the developers are for-profit companies and they're made whole from the city and that's how we end up with affordable housing but to the point of for the sake of argument for the point of market rate market rate is not set by the developer it's set by the market hence the name the only way to make units more affordable for those two young ladies in the back who are going to be up here presenting as full attorneys in the next year and three years I believe is one of two ways either the demand goes down or folks come in and add to our inventory so by virtue of the logic this should drive market rate down to an extent but I appreciate the time I appreciate both the appellant and the applicant coming and presenting and chair I thank you for your time Thank you Councilmember Gibbons Thank you very much you know land use laws exist for a reason and I'm glad they do because they help make decisions like this a little bit easier for people like us this other council member who shares this district with her and so when you think about market rate housing and what's available for you know folks like myself who are living on one single income and we don't have extra money lying around to pay exorbitantly high rents we depend on having that missing middle infill housing is needed in St. Pete and I'm excited to see blight being eliminated I'm excited to see underdeveloped land being put to good use when you look at the 16 criteria that's before us today for consideration this development checks all those boxes everything from use to density to parking it's all there height setback even retail there is no minimum requirement but I think there's some good comparisons that we can look at for example Altus Cardinal you have some other opportunities there where we can put some retail on that corridor at a later date so this isn't an end all be all but I definitely think this is a good foot in the right direction when you look at the RC1 standards again this meets the DRC minimum requirements so to councilmember Harding's point they're the experts and they're the ones who we trust to make decisions like this a little bit easier I would like to get a line can we talk a little bit about the public notice required for this particular development was there any required public notice period there was and did we put that out there and share that information yes so the code requires a couple different things so 10 days prior to an application being submitted to the city they provide any notice of intent to file to any neighborhood or business association so the Skyway marina did you so like then there is the public notice that the city prepares and then provides to the applicant and they mail it out to you property owners within 300 feet of that subject property and we also send it to Kona council neighborhood associations and again any business or neighborhood associations of the meeting date and the time and who to contact at the city or even putting the applicant information on there they can contact the applicant many times people do call can I reach out to the applicant you sure can here's their phone number here's their email it's public record they have not reached out to this is what democracy is all about we're not always going to get what we want we don't always win every battle but it's important that we show up and that we speak our minds and that we let us as elected officials know how we feel about things like this when I look at this district the Skyway Marina district it's come a long way from where it was 15 20 years ago and when I look at the cost of living in St. Petersburg it just keeps getting higher and higher and so we have to think about how do we strike a balance well it's going to come with putting more units on the market that are affordable and when I see lower rents that are $300 to $500 less than what we're seeing in that area I get happy so I'm excited to move forward with this I will be denying the appeal and affirming the DRC's decision so thank you very much thank you councilmember Fig Sanders thank you okay so thank you I'm glad I heard what everyone had to say and I want to you want okay oh okay and so let me be clear and I think I stated it as eloquently as I can I'm still in the same position of being the voice of some of the constituents in my district and I'm not going to ever back down for that I'm still in the same position of wanting the outreach to be clear and accessible and when you say that you sent the notice out within 300 feet of the development let's look at 300 feet from the development and all neighborhood associations are not members of Kona and everyone doesn't go and check the city St. Petersburg website on a regular basis so although the attempt seemed good the outcome I think could have been better so when I said before I hold DRC to the highest guard and it's not a request to deny or satisfy the appeal because like I said it met all the criteria but at some point there has to be a voice for our developers to hear that there are certain steps you still need to take whether you checked all the boxes or not logistically humanistically when it comes down to the people that live in the city of St. Petersburg we and they need to be taken and their voices need to be heard just a little bit louder because we talk about putting the quantity out there to lower the rates but in the meantime while the quantity is being put out there so many of our residents are being put out literally out of the city of St. Petersburg literally so what are they supposed to do wait until we have all of these developments and then come back they've already gone they've already left the city so again my voice is going to be the voice that's going to always be heard when it comes down to our constituents and how I'm hoping we can move forward with some of the other developments rather check the list there are a lot of things that used to check the list and I thank God they no longer check the list there were things that we used to have to live by and I thank God that there are so things that we no longer have to live by so again my point is we still need to be mindful of not just checking the list I'm not there of always just checking the list did DRC approve it did it meet all the requirements absolutely should it be a comparison to Skytown because of the affordable housing maybe maybe not but even with Marina Walk and we talk about those retailers I got calls from those retailers that location was not ready for those retailers they're having issues as well but I'm sure nobody talked to those retailers so when I hear different things about checking the box I don't ask for forgiveness I'm going to continue to want to advocate for those although it did check the box so now I can check mine thank you chair thank you vice chair floyd thank you I'll be brief I'll just say council member girdus you said exactly what I was thinking the use appears allowed in the location I understand the concerns actually from the appellant and the Skyway Marina district in that especially when you talk about the Skyway Marina plan but those plans are guiding documents for us and not holistically adopted into our code and our land development regulations so while I do believe it would be ideal if there was things like more activating uses like retail and whatnot I do think that the addition of more residents to the area will help benefit the places that have created retail spaces and then having said all of that when I look at it and I look at what's built in other places around the area and what's required of us through the comp plan and whatnot I just don't see a reason why I guess now I'm struggling over the language I don't see a reason why the appeal should be upheld I see a reason for the appeal to be denied is what I would say and so I just wanted to put that out there for everybody so they know where I was coming from it's just it appears that it's very possible for them to build that there and for us to say no at this phase seems ill advised okay some of what I've been said but I want to start off first of all council member Fick Sanders I feel you because it's your district and the idea this is a large development so the idea that you know a large part of the community may not have been heard of you know that's a problem you know and that's important to take into consideration I mean and I think for all developers out there it's just something to keep in mind especially with a big development the DRC did approve this right it wasn't unanimous so it's not a home run okay to be clear there were comments in there that one of them specifically struck me it was from commissioner Clemens and I'm going to quote what part of what he said he said I just feel you've made an internally organized scheme and not a community oriented scheme you've made a very nice internal 619 unit community that focuses to the middle of its own self and not to the community that it connects to that's my opinion that's what he said and then he continues and he says I think you could have done better and maybe you can consider some ways to make it better perhaps it sounds like maybe some of that is going to happen and I think that's some of the consternation that we hear from the other side and it got a little heated earlier but I think people need to understand this is part of a community and people feel very strongly about their community and we get this in every type of quasi judicial hearing you know we talked about the plan and the Skyway Marina plan and this issue has come up in various ways and I want to just touch upon this because it is something that I want the community to understand it is frustrating for me sometimes and for others because they do really care about whether it's the Marina plan the Skyway Marina plan the Skyway the neighborhood plans Grand Central all these districts all these neighborhoods have plans sometimes those plans have portions of it that are implemented like it's been said in the meeting in the code but the rest of it is not binding it is a visionary type of document and it's guidelines and so it's hard for people to understand that because they look at that and they put it to the level of our code or our comprehensive plan and it's not even though a lot of those ideals are things that we hold very dear to our heart but the only thing that really has traction is the code now when you talk about special conditions of approval and you look at those and it was brought up that the first number one says the site and buildings should be designed to incorporate components of the Skyway Marina District design guidelines every attorney will tell you the operative word there is should and everything else is shall anytime you see should it's not mandatory but it's still something that I think that the applicants and other need to consider and I will say that there are times that we've had these type of matters come before us and people go so far one way that it does change ordinances and cause so much consternation then there is a pushback and so it's something to really think about because whenever we get things and I start looking at something it's like well are we doing this there is an opportunity to change the code or whatever and some things can be resolved much easier than that but it's something I think that everyone should keep in mind sometimes it's not easy to change the code as the attorney suggested because sometimes we have the legislature that preempts us and so even though it's very easy to say well you can change the code a lot of times we can't because right now we can't if it's too burdensome or restrictive and I think you know that so it's when the opportunity presents itself so with that being said obviously I feel I land where obviously council member Gerdes and council member Floyd mentioned and Harding I did read by the way Skyway Marina's letter and I do appreciate the advocacy in your letter a lot of the things that you said resonate with me but then some of that is not mandatory and you do mention about we are the final policy authority we are the final policy authority but within our code within our guidelines you know in terms of the code and the comprehensive plan and the binding nature of those things those are policies too they just come to life in a format of law so I just wanted to make sure that everyone here understood I why the appeal came before us but I will have to deny it myself so with that being said legal if you can we do this every time because it's always very awkward how this motion has to be worded and it's very important for legal to instruct us on how to word the motion and how the vote has to be if you're for or against so legal again motion should be in the affirmative so an affirmative motion for this would be a motion to grant the appeal the effect of granting the appeal or a yes vote means that you grant the appeal and that's overturning the DRC district and is a no to the project so a yes vote to a motion to grant the appeal is a no to the project move approval of the appeal second we have a members please enter your votes seeing that all present council members have voted clerk please tally announce the vote madam chair the motion to approve agenda j4 to grant the appeal fails 1 to 6 with council members Vic Sanders voting yes council members Driscoll Floyd Gerdes Givens Hanowitz and Harding voting no okay thank you and thank you everyone that was here for the hearing thank you okay so we're going forward on public hearings I'll wait for everybody to kind of leave the room so we can start with the public hearings and if someone could let people know if they can move it so we don't have to hear them outside someone from staff please okay the first up we have is J1 it's an ordinance in accordance with City Sharper section 1.02 C5B authorizing the public transportation grant agreement and the assurances attached to the PTGA to be executed by the city as a requirement for receipt of the FDOT grant for the design phase of the taxiway rehabilitation project and we have Mr. Lesniak here can we do J1 and J2 together yes we can do J1 and J2 I think can we oh we can okay I guess we approval J1 I still have to read oh I apologize that's my fault that's okay gotta go to the bathroom me too I waiting J1 proposed ordinance number 634 dash H an ordinance in accordance with section 1.02 C5B St. Petersburg City Charter authorizing the public transportation grant agreement and the assurances grant and the assurances which are attached to the PTGA to be executed by the city as a requirement for receipt of the Florida Department of Transportation grant for the design phase of the Taxiway A Rehabilitation Project at the Albert Whitted Airport authorizing such encumbrances or restrictions not to exceed 20 years from the effective date of the PTGA authorizing the mayor or his designee to accept the grant in the amount of $9,600 authorizing the mayor or his designee to execute all documents necessary to effectuate this ordinance providing an effective date and providing for expiration Move approval J-1 Second We have a motion and a second Clerk if you can open the machine for voting Council members please enter your votes Seeing that all present council members have voted Clerk please tally announce the vote Madam Chair Motion to approve Vagina J-1 passes unanimously with Council Member Vic Sanders being absent Thank you Next up we have J-2 Clerk J-2 proposed ordinance number 635-H an ordinance of the City of St. Petersburg amending City Code Chapter 6 Aviation updating terminology and regulations to comply with federal and state law creating consistency with primary management and compliance documents and the Albert Witted master plan providing for severability and providing an effective date and we have no cards Move approval J-2 Second We have a motion and a second Clerk if you can open the machine for voting Council members please enter your votes Seeing that all present council members have voted Clerk please tally announce vote Madam Chair I want you to approve Vagina J-2 passes unanimously with Council Member Vic Sanders being absent Thank you Thank you Mr. Lesniak for joining us Next up we have J-3 an ordinance amending the city code creating a new section 16.30.060 transit oriented development overlay providing for transit oriented development districts including establishing establishment of the Sunrunner BRT overlay Clerk Proposed ordinance number 633-H an ordinance amending the St. Petersburg city code creating a new section 16.30.060 transit oriented development overlay providing for transit oriented development districts including establishment of the Sunrunner BRT parentheses bus rapid transit overlay providing for station area types and descriptions providing standards for development design and parking providing for severability and providing an effective date and we have a number of speakers for this item last time last time I know we had a presentation by Mr. Kilbourne I don't know if anybody needs another presentation no I understand he wants to speak but I'm sorry what I just wanted to note to Madam Chair for the record that there were requested revisions that were made to the ordinance so we have a revised version based on the first reading public hearing motions okay that's what I wanted to make sure do we want to put that do we have to we don't have to go through the whole thing though you don't have to I just wanted to state for the record and both both a strike through an underline and a clean copy were provided for your packet yeah okay great thank you so we have public comment and councilmember Harding okay I'm going to call two speakers at a time when I call your name please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you will have three minutes to address city council first two speakers are Tara Hubbard and Sherry Riley at public comment councilmember Harding yes thank you chair I intend to recuse myself from this item to avoid any appearance of conflict due to my business interest in the potentially affected property thank you very much with your permission I'll leave the dais absolutely thank you thank you now we can have public comment hello my name is Tara Hubbard I live at 47th street and 6th Ave South right near the 49th street sunrunner stop about half a mile and here again tonight to speak in favor of this TOD overlay thank you for your support during first reading really eager to see the support here in our city and giving some precedence to future transit oriented development overlays that we'd love to see here in St. Pete to promote walkability and livability here so wanted to come back I know last time I just softly mentioned the vision of being able to implement some tree preservation standards in this overlay as we know this is going to create more density which is great along a bus rapid transit BRT corridor but I think it would be really incredible to be able to smartly as we're going through this overlay to be able to give developers incentives to preserve old growth trees in the overlay I think that could be an interesting innovative technique I know the city has toyed with this before giving these incentives also talking about stormwater runoff I know earlier tonight there was the discussion around pervious and impervious as well with increased density obviously there's going to be more impervious area so being able to again include incentives here to promote pervious area in the development corridor would be really interesting Sherry Riley over here I know sent an email out talking about a technique of first inch preservation so just an idea of something that we could add tonight first inch any redevelopment using the Sunrunner BRT overlay shall manage the first inch of rainfall from new impervious surfaces on site before discharge to the public stormwater system approved methods include bioswales rain gardens permeable pavement green roofs cisterns and tree trenches the performance standard governs the method remains flexible so something like that would be really cool if we can toy with that as well as canopy preservation preserving qualifying mature canopy trees which is I think designated by the city as minimum 12 inch DBH which is diameter documented in a site plan canopy assessment this could apply corridor wide including neighborhood station areas where it becomes the sole available bonus so being able to heighten the bonuses around first inch preservation as well as the old growth tree preservation is something that we're looking forward to hopefully integrating tonight I wanted to highlight I read recently in a St. Pete Rising post that there's a development of a 21 story condo tower on 3rd Avenue North on the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue North and the developers were granted a sidewalk variance reducing the walkway and that preserved old growth tree so great inspiration hi I'm Sherry Riley I live in Burlington and Burlington Avenue and 63rd in District 1 in Lake Pasadena States I think you all got a letter from me maybe I'm not sure but again what Tara was saying it just struck me I'm for the density I think it's great it's going to help us in terms of our you know just kind of keeps everything concentrated I think it's a wonderful wonderful idea but I'm very concerned that as we are just about to make this amazing offer to developers in terms of density we have all of a sudden made these properties much more valuable to renovate and use we are not asking anything from them in terms of infrastructure which I think is really really important so I would say I like the first inch you know it says according to the EPA the Florida Department of Environmental Protection the first inch carries 90% of the pollution 90% of the pollution if we could and again like Tara mentioned many many ways to get there our tree ordinances for the most part the state of Florida after the hurricanes have been gutted and you can take a tree down for any reason so if we want to encourage the developers to keep the old growth trees those things they provide more than canopy and shade they also help sequester water so that formula and there are databases that you can utilize that show you know this caliper tree saves you this much water start that at the beginning of the process when we've got up to potentially 95% impervious coverage that we're going for on this eight mile essentially slip and slide we've got sending water to the bay and water to the intercoastal which is that entire stretch nine lanes of traffic and now we're saying up to 95% impervious coverage that 5% we've got to make work hard to hold water so I'm saying that should be the first consideration that should be very defined so we don't wind up with what we're wound up with in the last item that you were discussing where there's it's kind of like we don't know what what's pervious what's not pervious button that up that would just be my suggestion and again it's just simply just to either continue the item briefly to add companion language or adopt it with a clear direction that the staff return within a defined time frame addressing a first inch or canopy first standards take in consideration the trees that are already there you can drive up and down central right now and look at the little ribbon of sod and palm trees that could be rain gardens that could be there's all kinds of things that can be done that are not expensive while we're just about to give these developers a whole lot more density it's a tiny ask with a big big payoff for everybody so that's what I would say and I would say and it's something to think about for the whole city thank you next two speakers are John Tyler and Kamal Asimbele please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council go ahead sir me first yeah you can go ahead hi good evening my name is Shamal Asimbele I am the developer and owner of 2801 central avenue I'm here tonight to discuss the current FAR and the 2.5 FAR or three with the bonuses and we're here to ask for our corner our block to be included in the current proposed 5 FAR for that includes most of the sun runner the problem the issue that we're seeing in our area especially our corner is left out of the current development and we feel it's a little unfair and unintentional and unfair because economics don't allow us to do any potential or meaningful development in the corner there I was sitting here and listening to the other arguments as well you know I'm sort of a victim of that if I may say so of the potential that these properties show on theory to develop but financial feasibility with such lower FARs do not make it viable projects you know last year we had development in this corner for 60 affordable units 8 story building which became suddenly became unviable due to the restrictions the required bonuses and the affordability component that was required by the city to introduce this project eventually we had to abandon it for something a lot more smaller in turn we lost about $400,000 in pre-development cost real money the city lost a potential development and 60 units which if we had that 5.0 FAR from the get-go this would have been perfectly we probably would have been halfway through with the project by now so that's 60 units or affordable housing that would have been coming into the market fairly soon and also another issue that I wanted to bring up is the quarter mile radius from the bus stop the transit bus stop that leaves us just shy a couple hundred feet I want to say from our property urban development and urban realities don't change within a block or a few hundred feet we have many many other districts within Central Avenue that are utilizing the same framework and we want that to we're asking that to be applied to our 28th and 29th block which currently is grossly underdeveloped with 14 properties left empty stagnant so our problem is not overdevelopment yeah I'm John Tyler I live at 3701 13th Avenue North I'm here today just to speak again I spoke at the first hearing about this about my support for this rezoning one of the reasons as I just kind of mentioned before is currently like my wife and I we want to go do something evenings we have to cross 34th Street on our bikes or on foot and it's apparently a dangerous unpleasant crossing we would just love to see our side of Central Avenue redeveloped right now there's just nothing really for us to do there there's just giant parking lots and single story buildings with four lease signs and it's like okay can we have some stuff going on and another reason I support this is I do the Sunrunner ride along with the chamber and we were at the Tradewinds resort and the manager there she was telling us about workers of hers that arrive using the Sunrunner but right now a lot of them there's really just no housing on that corridor that they can afford they sometimes are doing two or three bus switches sometimes from outside of St. Pete north of us and so they haven't had to spend you know an hour or so commuting to their job at the Tradewinds which is time that they're not with their spouses they're not with their children it's bad for their quality of life so to get some more housing along this route so that you know along a bus route with 15 minute lead times for stops means that these people have more time with their kids more time with their spouses just a better quality of life whether they're working in the beachside resorts or they're working in the downtown hospitality or medical type of jobs this just would really improve their quality of life but anyways I want to thank the staff and the council for all the work that they've done on this it's very much appreciated and I look forward to other projects going forward whether it be with the Pinellas Trail other corridors just making it so that people can live and run businesses at locations more accessible to these bike service bike trails or to these public transit services thank you thank you next two speakers are Jason Mathis and Max McCann please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council good evening my name is Jason Mathis and I'm the CEO of the St. Petersburg downtown partnership it is a pleasure as always to see you and thank you as always for your service sitting through the portion of the meeting that I did sit through tonight reminded me how selfless you are in looking out for the interests of our community so thank you for that I know there might be some question about whether downtown oh I'm sorry I didn't say my location it's really bad 244 2nd Ave North I apologize downtown partnership I'm used to this I should get that down it's like when you don't push the mute button on your zoom after all these years I just want to say there was some question about whether downtown would be included in the new parking strategy with no parking minimums and it's something that I think is important if possible to include in downtown any objective measure would say downtown is over parked there may be a few times a year when downtown seems particularly crowded during the height of the season when all the snowbirds are in town we have a lot of tourists in town it might be difficult to find a place to park and beach drive right in front of your favorite restaurant but most of the time 95% of the time we have actually far too much parking downtown and if there's any concern that a large development might no building will get built downtown in a significant way without adequate parking because the banks wouldn't loan them the money to do that so to the extent that you can include downtown in this I think it would make a lot of sense and we would be very grateful thank you again and thank you for your service hi good evening everyone Max McCann and Sloan McCann we're at 3rd Avenue South and 27th Street here to speak in support of these reforms and to ask that the downtown stations be included first I want to say thanks for all the support we got at the first hearing that was very humbling and encouraging and it filled me with hope to know that we're taking this important step towards creating a more livable St. Pete and I'm personally excited about having more shopping and restaurant opportunities within walking distance I'm excited my daughter will have more housing options in about 10 years when she wants to move out if she wants to move out is that right another thing I love about this reform is it doesn't cost us anything we spend a lot of money subsidizing housing but this is something we can do that doesn't add a single dollar to our budget I've handed up an updated letter so that you can see the current coalition the current members of people over pavement coalition because we have some recent additions like the affordable housing developer blue sky communities and the PSTA transit riders advisory committee so also in our letter you can see we've been advocating to include all sunrunner stations in the exemption the reason this didn't come up very much at first read is I thought it was already included my read of that language is if your use is within a quarter mile of the station and your use is included in the overlay like it's residential commercial mixed etc then your property is exempt that that's the way I read this city staff has since updated the GIS map to show that they are interpreting this as not including the downtown stations so I I submitted language that would clarify that the downtown stations are included and frankly we should because all of the many many reasons for doing this apply even more so to downtown so I hope you'll adopt that language tonight with that being said let's get this done let's make housing more affordable and let's start building some more great people oriented places that make St. Pete what it is thank you all so much next two speakers are Jean Roney and Jeff Danner please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council good evening everyone I'm for a more walkable city the only thing I'm opposed to is the parking we can't remove or allow more places to come in without parking that west end of St. Pete is already extremely low with parking a lot of the businesses along central avenue are struggling because there's people that want to go they just don't have anywhere to park we see it in our neighborhoods now where there's extra parking coming in all the especially since COVID but adding more density without parking it's just not feasible not for that area not right now that's all I've got thanks my name is Jeff Dan I live at 2351 Dartmouth Avenue North I sent you all a letter it was rather lengthy but I think there's a lot of issues here that need to be addressed the goal of every community that decides to build or rebuild the mixed use community eventually wants to reduce the amount of real estate dedicated to automobile traffic Grand Central provided the opportunity for more dancing housing options and uses which bring more people more business and more transit opportunities people seem to have forgotten or never knew that Central Avenue corridor was 12 lanes at one time all cars higher speeds there was no walkability there was no bike lanes transit lanes and over time we supported of the reducing of that lanes from 12 to 6 very few cities have eliminated half of their main corridor parking lanes two lanes added bike or two transit lanes added bike lanes added and we would like to ride a ship to be high and it will eventually we've reduced the minimum parking requirements on site in Grand Central already with the goal of at the appropriate time to dedicate less space to to ride a transit system it didn't force anyone to eat or entertain in the thing the districts offer it gave them options and was successful in attracting people to take advantage of those options this proposal is not going to force people to get rid of their cars by eliminating parking requirements it will do is force them to go elsewhere if it's too inconvenient and there is competition 4th Street is to go more than the quarter mile walking 5 6 7 blocks they'll just go somewhere else what will happen is the users of the required parking are the ones that occupy will be the ones to occupy on street parking and they're the ones who take the space as longest these are employees and residents that need parking for 8 or 10 hours or 24 hours the local businesses need turnover they need anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour for lunch a little longer maybe longer in the evenings what they need is turnover this proposal for no parking requirements is going to harm the turnover in that district they require constant flow and they need that turnover the real question is why are we doing this now the problem is being solved there is no excess of parking and the reality is there five miles use and things that happened on central avenue east of 34th street we can't seem to leave grand central alone and start working on that five miles when that all that is changed there are thousands of housing of opportunities business opportunities on the section of grand central that want it and you should be concerned because now while I hear from developers and neighbors in that area they want those changes they want the gas stations to be converted to restaurants and things we have but when you go there they might change that idea next two speakers are Bill Hillman and Ryan Hess please go to an open podium state your name address or cross streets for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council Bill Hillman 2828 central avenue I'm here to urge city council to evenly increase the floor area ratio across the entire grand central district to 8.6 and bring it into alignment with the height of 86 far building height and parking requirements have been out of alignment for 26 years effectively creating a zoning bottleneck and preventing meaningful growth in the grand central district thankfully four weeks ago city council boldly voted to remove parking requirements for the residential development within the corridor and around the sunrunner stops a portion of the bottleneck can be attributed to inconsistency in the overlay blocks 25 26 27 and 28 shemal was speaking to this have been assigned a far far of 2.5 which is curious considering the 28th street has four through lanes and two left turn lanes which normally this type of road would dictate higher zoning and not less another curiosity is the Mary Jean was built in 1926 and has the equivalent of a FAR 3 and these adjacent blocks are assigned a value of 2.5 the higher FAR combined with the removal of parking requirements will enable the development of smaller car free car friendly light residential units in low and mid rise buildings there's a growing demand for these type of housing units both from younger and older residents seeking to reduce their financial burden of car ownership allowing more people to live within the district the city can create a built-in daily customer base that supports local businesses without additional parking something that has not been achieved from the transit ridership of the Sunrunner the Grand Central Essex proximity to downtown makes it ideal location for both urban zoning and provides an opportunity to move beyond outdated planning approaches that prioritize cars over people I respectfully ask you adopt a consistent FAR of 8.6 across the Grand Central District and for the first time in 26 years align the FAR with the proposed height of 86 this will increase housing inventory strengthen local businesses increase BRT ridership and help create a truly walkable people oriented urban neighborhood thank you good evening thanks for this forum guys my name is Ryan Hess 2900 1st Avenue North corner 1st and 29th I'm the owner of Cappy's Pizza one of the partners so we came to the neighborhood of Grand Central District and historic Kenwood district in 2007 we started looking at St. Pete in 2005 because we really wanted to be kind of a part of the tapestry of I'm a lifelong Tampa St. Pete resident so this is where we wanted to be so we were we opened in a got the rent started to rent our lease our building in 07 and opened in 08 into the crash which came with its you know fair share of challenges but we scrapped and clawed in 2013 we were able to purchase the restaurant from our the previous owner who was a lifelong St. Pete resident so then we have been here for a long time have no plans of going anywhere we've been you know love St. Pete have enjoyed watching the growth and being a part of the growth that the city that the city has enjoyed so time check here it's my first time doing this so I'm basically in short here to lend my voice to this FAR question because basically you know we've worked through COVID with everybody have those challenges and in 2022 as a sunrunner kind of began to take hold obviously parking was forfeited first south um and first north um which we felt uh by the grace of god and um narrowly we were able to secure the building next door for purchase in 2023 solely for parking actually had to have a face-to-face conversation with the urban or sorry first a phone conversation with the previous owner to ensure we weren't developers um that we were just needed our business to survive and uh needed to have uh because with the density and all the density improvements we still um are not realizing enough density to support just from the neighborhood so we have people that come in by car from other neighborhoods so we have 25 26 spaces which we needed and uh it was really a survivability question for us so um right now as i've been made aware that uh there's these 3.6 uh blocks of the 15 blocks of our neighborhood uh that are earmarked for a 2.5 to 3 uh far um i'm here you know i don't don't want unbridled growth or irresponsible growth um i'm excited with the vibrancy of the city uh but what i'm really here for is just to ask for a fair and equitable and meaningful uh far for all 15 blocks of the grand central district wherever that lands i just think that if there's winners and losers uh just seems a little bit not equitable thank you thank you next two speakers are jamika williams and matt armstrong please go to an open podium state your name address or cross streets for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council go ahead hi um good evening my name is jamika williams and i reside at 1010 crescent lake drive the cross streets of ninth and crescent lake here in st petersburg i was not planning on leaving my house today but i wanted to make it a point to support activate st pete and the ptsa in their efforts to amend zoning codes to help activate the current brt that will improve the lives of so many residents in our city we've heard a lot about affordable housing but if people don't have access to meaningful employment they can't pay their rent or continue to contribute to our community and so with that i ask you to approve this measure so that people like me who can't even consider certain jobs because transportation is such a barrier can have increased access to gain full employment and to also to take much more needed stress off our roads and our environment thank you thank you matt armstrong 831st street south of st petersburg distillery uh the pleasure of working here in st pete for the last seven years um been in florida since 2003 colorado native but florida has been home longer than i lived in colorado it's a beautiful city uh we're trying to relocate our family down here but it has been challenging because of the the rapid cost of housing there's a big increase i've got four kids the oldest of which is 20 the youngest of which is soon to be 10. the older kids want a city that doesn't require them to have to have a car they'd rather not drive my 17 year old daughter is not interested in driving either is my 20 year old son so for them they're they've been watching this very closely we talked about it uh my background is as an urban planner and architect uh sometimes bores them because they get tired of me pointing out things oh we should have done this or we could have done that wouldn't it be great the dad stopped complaining do something about it so i'm here just to put in my two cents thank you for for the hearing last time it was probably one of the best public hearings including the happy birthday song afterwards that was awesome um loved it yes so um i would like to just echo what tara said about the trees i think it's it's it's incredibly important um with the increased density there's a lot of pressure uh to to use the available land and squeeze as much value out of it as possible sometimes the things that don't have voices like trees get squeezed out so i think it's important you drive around the city all of you who live here know how how important uh that is um i think there's a lot to be said about bioswales and natural ways of stormwater retention we're advocating for that i think it can be easily integrated without a significant amount of cost into this something worth considering uh as a trade-off um i i do echo some of the concerns about parking i think again getting rid of the the mandate doesn't say you can't do it you still can i think the market will be smart about putting those things in where where it's needed um i do uh echo as well the uh the application to downtown stations um i think that uh there more than anywhere else we don't need to put in a minimum uh smart development is going to put that in where it's needed anyway so um i echo that sentiment as well and thank you again very much appreciate it next two speakers are garrett mark and john potts please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council hello everybody um i just wanted to well garrett marple 40 21 30th avenue north almost forgot sorry about that um just wanted to thank you guys for all the support in the first hearing and to thank derek as well for all the hard work that's been put into this um this has been a long time coming and it's finally here and i'm just i'm really really excited about this opportunity to change our city to make it more walkable and less car oriented um but i really really strongly encourage that we include all of the downtown stations in this i mean it makes no sense not to um why how are we going to create these parking reforms in the more suburban areas of the city but not bring them to the area of the city with the highest potential for housing development and also the most walkability already i mean it just makes sense and so um i think it's a no-brainer and um i really really strongly encourage you guys to include this um let's not like wait and then do this three years down the road after like studying it again like we're all really tired of studies like we don't want to wait we want it to happen now like while we have the opportunity um also just want to say for future uh stuff like this like i really hope this is just the beginning of zoning reform in the city like there are so many corridors that are screaming for redevelopment um so i hope this is just the start and i hope to see you guys again here six months or a year from now to do this again with another corridor because there are a half a dozen or a dozen i could think of that could really use it to encourage more people to walk so thank you guys it's john potts 2836 7th avenue north i live in kenwood i'm not near this area that we're talking about however i do feel for the people who i am neighbors with and the reality is the people that move here bring a car you know we all talk about what what we wish could happen we can make it walkable we are putting a round peg through a square hole here and the people that bring their car are going to move put that car somewhere outside of where they live if they don't have a place to park if they put it in kenwood it already doesn't have enough parking for the people that are there so the people that are there get impacted by somebody who isn't even here yet and that's the part that i i don't hear anybody addressing and all we ever talk about it seems like is we've checked the boxes we've checked the boxes we have guidelines we have suggestions we have all this stuff which seems to just fall by the wayside as it has with other projects sometimes we get our way but a lot of times it seems like the voice of the public i'm all for giving more housing to people that need it we talk about affordable housing and all that the reality is the developer comes in here and says how much money can i make can i not put parking garages in and he oh i can add this many more apartments or this many more condos and make that much more that's what's going to happen what happens to the area around it doesn't matter he's from miami he's from wherever and he's gone and then the people that are already living here say it used to be really nice now i come home from work i can't get a parking spot within two blocks of my own house so that goes over to the next couple streets and it just keeps happening over and over and over and you can see it in old northeast parking down there it stinks and those are really nice houses what would you do if you put more into there which is what you're doing here and that's the part that bothers me it's not there's a lot of other things that we could all argue about but it's mostly the parking but that's why i'm against it and i realize i'm probably swimming upstream killing this one but that's just my opinion thank you thank you next two speakers are karen potts and tom williams please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council hi i'm karen potts i live at 2836 7th avenue north and i didn't know i was speaking i don't know how i did that but just real quickly i kind of agree with the whole thing i like the overlay i like the connection between the downtown areas and the more walkable areas and um the biggest thing i'm worried about is what my husband just said and we've already seen it happening um we have high schoolers in our neighborhood now we live by the high school which is cool we love the kids but then the neighbors can't park and then they go out and then it goes out and it goes out it reverberates it either reverberates into these neighborhoods or it reverberates it fills us up and goes to the next neighborhood so however it ends up it's a good thing but it has a lot a lot of things that still need to be addressed i'm not against it but i'm not really for it so i'm not really sure why i'm speaking but thank you for all you do tom williams i own a property at 2820 first avenue north i also own four properties downtown on first avenue north st p brewing company and the four other buildings next to it uh i haven't been in here since 2012 and you guys approved the uh microbrewery approvals and mr harding and i were in here so i appreciate that um i support thoughtful redevelopment investment in the sunrunner corridor but i'm very concerned that the current map creates arbitrary distinctions between neighboring properties the quarter functions as one of the continuing urban centers downtown the same transit lines same infrastructure same streets same neighborhood conditions exist through the area yet some property owners will receive expanded development opportunities while adjacent parcels are excluded simply because of where the planning boundaries or station radius lines are currently drawn that's difficult to justify from a fairness and planning standpoint two parcels that are effectively part of the same corridor should not be treated completely different because one happens to fall inside of a geometric overlay and the other falls short of a distance outside it if the city believes additional in intensity and redevelopment are appropriate around this corridor then the policy should be applied consistently across the entire corridor and not selecting certain areas that create artificial winners or losers good planning should follow coherent and urban and neighborhood logic not arbitrary circles around uh trend transit stops and some some of the circles are arbitrary they're not circles they actually carve out a few properties i would ask the council to reconsider the boundary distinctions and evaluate whether the entire quarter should be treated consistently and equitably thank you thank you next two speakers are andrew wells bean and christine mccann please go to an open podium state your name address or cross reach for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council hi my name is angie wells bean i live at 8175 36 avenue north up in jungle terrace but i work here downtown and i married a saint pete native and when we were looking for a place for our family it was challenging we wanted to be car optional we wanted trips to be car optional as much as possible and finding an affordable home that met our needs within close proximity of the sun runner or the pinellas trail was really tough we had to look for a while and we probably paid more than we would wanted to um and it made us think what is saint pete built for is it built for car storage or is it built for people and now my family and i we bus and bike as much as we possibly can i biked here today um but i it it makes me reflect that the best time to remove those parking mandates would have been before i was in the housing market the second best time would be now in summary i think this this is a really valuable reform um i think it's really important i think it's good for uh the saint pete in the next couple years and for the saint pete that my my two sons will hopefully return to in the years to come and i would like to see it expanded to include downtown and i'm looking forward to trail oriented development reforms as well thank you very much thank you hi my name is christine mccann i'm at third avenue south and 28th street uh first i want to say thanks for the bike racks out front those are awesome i don't know if they're uh permanent but um i also just want to say thank you this is great reform i'm really really really really excited um and uh it'd be awesome if you included downtown too and the all the far thing was really great expanding that i think that would be awesome uh we're doing great things for saint pete and i appreciate your work thank you the final public speaker is jake woman please go to an open podium state your name address or cross street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council hello jacob wallman 7100 sunshine skyway i first want to thank city council for the innovative approach that you continue to take to implement really positive change for our city i see that i've been a commercial real estate agent for over 13 years now in saint pete and i've worked with a number of property owners developers but my heart is really in working with small business and i see the growth and the opportunity in our city and really you all have led to that so i sincerely say that one of the things that i've noticed from when people call me and they say how much is my property worth right the property is worth how much someone wants to sell it for and so i just wanted to do a little math to talk about why the two and a half far maybe needs to be extended higher and i think it should be at least five throughout the grand central district so for example if a property is worth two million dollars that means that a restaurant needs to do about two million dollars of income to pay two million dollars so let's just give a real example there's a property on central i'm working on that's about a quarter of an acre so 10 000 square feet for two million dollars someone can put a restaurant or if we give them the height and we want to actually affect this this positive change we're doing right to bring more people to spend more money at the business is to grow st pete how many units can they build right so a developer at two million dollars can pay about twenty thousand uh twenty to thirty thousand dollars per unit that's how much it costs for construction so let's say they can build 60 units and each unit is less than a thousand square feet right how many square feet is that you have to accommodate for a little bit of the common area so that could be as much as 60 or 70 thousand square feet but to pay two million dollars to put that many units which you can you have to build up so we're giving them the height but we're saying you can only build 25 000 square feet so i think we should be able to on a quarter acre build 50 000 square feet right and so that's about 40 to 50 units and that can be done and that's what some of the owners here are asking for and so for the entire grand central district i think it's a pretty easy distinction i think that you should be able to build at least five far and what that does is that allows property owners to sell their property for the right price and build more units so the next person comes in and they say i want to build more units because i'm actually able to afford the construction cost to do 40 or 50 units versus if we don't do that we'll have luxury townhomes so that's fine right but it's like what kind of grand central district do we want do we want to see one thousand dollar per square foot row homes beautiful luxury townhomes that math works right but we'll get four or five on the same property versus 40 to 50 on a quarter acre property if we just increase the far across the grand central district thank you sir speakers okay before we go to council member comments there were a couple of things that the audiences um mentioned in the comments in terms of making certain changes or wishes or sometimes things that they button up um and sometimes you have our legal council and other thinking it's not as simple as you think it is so i want to first of all just give staff uh an opportunity uh to talk about some of those things because a lot of work does go into where we are right now and sometimes things do seem like you can just well just add this and this and this and so uh we've talked about stormwater management through tree overlays we've talked about applying floor area ratio throughout we've talked about including downtown so that's a lot of stuff so i just want to start with allowing derek uh to kind of address how this kind of process works and notice and all that and then if legal needs to chime in in terms of you know how complex some of that may be so derek okay thank you chair um i know we're trying to keep the discussion a little more brief today but um you know this does go back to the start of a special area plan that special area plan defines what are the outer limits of what we can do as we move through an adoption process and the special area plan requirements also are required to comply with the city's comprehensive plan language which then also dictates the city's land development regulations in chapter 16. so all that is a interconnected way of saying that there are limits to how far we can go at this time with floor area ratio discussion density and some of the other details those limitations are also in place because we have an ordinance title that is identifying the contents of the package under consideration now we did anticipate that there was going to be some discussion about parking we had that at a time in the process where we could construct the ordinance title in a way that we could consider that as you did at the last meeting and keep that part of the package discussions about stormwater drainage uh tree and canopy protection these are the kind of things that i've noted that i think we will continue to discuss particularly as this conversation continues regarding the outsides of the first avenues those are things that we could include in any future amendment to the existing special area plan that would seek to incorporate those additional uh areas okay okay that's very helpful and i didn't think that was very long thank you legal i think derek said it really well covered a couple of the things that we would have said two things i would add and then heather can jump in we also have to consider if there's a change in this ordinance what other sections in the code would need to be changed so that they're conforming so that's one thing and then big picture as you know it's one thing i think what derek was alluding to if there's proposed changes in discussion at a first public hearing so that we can thoroughly review them obviously compare them to the title and make sure there's no are we drafting them correctly are there any unintended consequences that we're not thinking about and you have to unlike a resolution where in the past i've mentioned you give us some direction we can crank that out feel pretty pretty good about that we've covered it we can't do that with an ordinance you need to see every word it the types of changes that were mentioned are very difficult to accomplish on the dais yes okay thank you i just want to start off with that first so everybody kind of is understands that from staff and uh legal council member gurdis madam chair uh derek i have a question real quick and you stole my thunder chair oh i'm sorry uh that's okay that's your prerogative this year so i've been there done that um so derek if we wanted to move because if we wanted to move this conversation forward around uh what i'll call consistency across grand central it would need to look like an amendment to the special plan and then a second ordinance to make the change after that we would just prepare a new package and bring that package through the process okay all all together kind of like what we're doing here today okay all right so um i was first of all thanks for everybody for coming out i think everybody knows kind of where i stand on this but i did spend some time with bill hillman down in grand central um the past couple weeks and frankly i think the argument is a very rational one and so um i had contemplated i talked to legal about it i'd contemplated trying to make a change obviously that's pretty much impossible because of the way it's set up which is what chair brought up and then um so there are a couple of other different areas that i'm i'm happy to go down one is an mbi or two legal said we could if we have consensus we could have a motion after what i assume is passing this to request administration to create another package and initiate that process so it happens quickly an mbi would obviously add a couple of steps to that from committee to then to council and i think if there's consensus here i'm okay i'm happy to make that motion but i'll listen to my colleagues i think here's here's kind of where i'm at bare bones and i'm interested to hear where everybody else thinks certainly contiguous 5.0 far across the grand central is something i think makes makes a ton of sense i'm interested to hear what everybody thinks about going to the essentially what is 8.5 to maximize the height that essentially they have already but can't utilize and so uh because again i think the contiguous the contiguousness of that i think is important it doesn't make when i look at this map on on the uh powerpoint like it just doesn't make sense that three and a half blocks are missing from this and uh and i appreciate bill and the conversations and all the feedback because i i just would not have thought about that um i'm all in on the parking in downtown i think uh i jason said it best if he's still here um like no cap stack on the face of the plan is going to get approved if they're trying to do a large development without parking there it's just not going to happen um last but not least i just wanted um first of all kenwood residents thank you for coming out and sharing that i have i just want to share a little bit of a different lens being um being on the west side of saint pete and wanting some of what central avenue has is that when i look at this i feel like we're getting people closer there so more cars aren't going and also we're spreading it out so cars go to other places and not just two places which is grand central and downtown although i'm being very broad there um and so as you spread this and i'm i'm sure councilmember gabbard feels the same way when we talk about corridors and getting those things to you know what are the furthest distance from downtown is that that that's just kind of my lens where i feel i just feel a little bit different about it but i totally appreciate it and i in my head i go well i hope this works because otherwise you were right and i was wrong and so um and and i want us all to feel good about it and so um anyway i think i'll be quiet after that and and listen but i but i would love to move this forward quicker rather than later especially on at least getting it to 5.0 but i'll i'll sit back and listen thank you very much thank you councilmember driscoll thank you um thanks to everyone who came out to speak on this and for um those who sent emails and worked really hard to rally everyone it's um this is the kind of public engagement that i wish we had on um a lot of other things but um i really appreciate what what you all have have done and um if however this turns out tonight is considered a win i want you to know that it was um very much because of the work that you put in as well i love the ideas that have been thrown out about um adding things in to this and you know i'll be the first one to say i you know want to see our tree canopy expand um i never met a bioswale i didn't like um first didn't serve rain it's such a great concept but don't you think think we should be doing that stuff citywide and and these are items so you got to remember this is about transit oriented development so the t could stand for trees but maybe in another round another time so i i really want us to stay focused on um what the original point was for doing all of this um i want us to take a citywide view to these some of these other ideas that have been brought up and look at where we might be able to make changes in land development regulations and or create incentives there's there's a lot that can be done i just don't think it um belongs here for what we're trying to accomplish today and i certainly don't want this to get bogged down because it's taken a long time to get to this point i appreciate that we have um changed the you know parking requirements i don't know how much it would change to have it downtown because this is about increasing density around places that are close to transit we're already pretty dense downtown so any um anything like this transit oriented development downtown is pretty much already in place if we're talking about increasing density downtown i mean i don't know it's just it's just a different it's a different neighborhood and the things that we're talking about here access to transit um increased density downtown already has that so i'd love to hear more after today about what folks are thinking about for downtown um we have eliminated parking minimums for developments that have under a certain amount of square footage i think um council member girdus is right and i think we had a speaker who uh said it too that um especially downtown i think the developer is going to include the parking um if as they see fit and for that matter that's the case everywhere that's how it's going to happen in grand central too we haven't it's been a few years since we eliminated minimum parking standards for those smaller units we only have a couple that have been done so i'm i'm not as worried about that part as as some might be um so there could be a time when we do a you know one of us i or somebody else says a new business item to talk about these uh these additional things but i want to take care of this business that we started um celebrate and then say and ask ask ourselves all right what's next because i can't wait to see what you all do next thank you chair thank you councilmember gibbons thank you chair um i will not echo all the sentiments that have expressed because my colleagues have already said a lot of what i want to say uh but i do support the um 5.0 far uh bonus in grand central i think that just makes a lot of sense so thank you for going on record and saying that um would like to have more conversations about what it looks like for us to max that out in other areas across the city um i will say and thank you for reminding us of this councilmember driscoll uh we cannot lose sight of the true goal of this which is to increase ridership on our sunrunner um i think the whole goal of transit orient development is to have less vehicles on the road and more people on board our mass transit systems and so i i really am excited to see this move forward and i just want to commend derrick um and all of staff working with the derrick to make this finally come to fruition i know there was lots of pushback uh lots of back and forth and tug of war but i think we finally got to a good middle ground uh so thank you max and his whole team everyone who supported him with this this is what good organizing looks like um you get what you ask for and i really think you all finally got some of what you asked for but i'm happy to know that this isn't the end all be all um once again this just kind of puts us on track to get what we want uh sherry thank you you know you and i we serve on cbc together so we're always looking for opportunities to go green um but you know it was mentioned earlier we're preempted left and right on what we can do with a lot of these developments but it's exciting to know that there is some opportunity on the horizon to work with developers to see how we can include certain things our wishes um and i'm just happy mr hillman that you've been vigilant uh thank you for those conversations uh that we had and i told you everything will work out and i'm happy to see that it is working out um but again i just i'm just hopeful that we have finally started moving in the right direction as a city with embracing transit oriented development um i'm happy that we're starting here with the sun runner and i look forward to seeing what's going to happen with spark so thank you so much jerry thank you council by share floyd thank you um let's have a couple of things uh so first it seems like the conversation's been specifically around grand central and i think when it comes to consistencies for um uh far's but the whole thing has just inconsistencies in it so i would hope that any conversation going forward addresses that as well um although i think uh they're minimal to non-existence further on but you can see in the map that it's a blue area and i just want to make sure that whole thing's part of the conversation uh in that same vein uh when it comes to uh being consistent um i think the downtown parking stuff uh goes right there with it let me take a step back and say i'm sorry i wasn't at the last meeting when we had this discussion i really wanted to participate in it but i was under the weather and i was a little surprised at how it went um and i also would have hoped that the conversation around the parking would have included every sunrunner stop but i think that that wasn't clear last time and so i recognize that like some of the other things that were talked about today like storm water and uh density are large um diversions away from what was originally intended but i guess my questions for legal like the parking is we've already made this kind of adjustment in the past uh and it was contemplated that this kind of adjustment might happen so is there a barrier today so we contemplated as much as we could based on feedback that we had going into the meetings to try to craft the title we knew that there would be requests to maybe adjust parking minimums within the overlay district because this is creating a new section for the overlay district and then providing criteria for the overlay district and so when that was what the request was to expand those bubbles in relation that's the language that you see in news 1640 090.32 c12 and that section going that's actually point 40 090 that's in our parking section that's already existing that wasn't in the title but the when you look at the language that derrick crafted it's tied to the transit the transit oriented development overlay section so it's calling back to that that i think going outside of the overlay and amending other sections in the parking code to do what the downtown would be outside of the scope of the title for this so i would recommend that it be in that packet too that i think commissioner or council member girdus might be suggesting thank you for that clarity um i mean look if it was agreed upon last time that the tod should be like that i don't see how we exempt the most dense neighborhood from it so um i think i think i'll leave that there uh and then you know in between the the last meeting and this one i went and spoke to the kenwood neighborhood association uh heard a lot about their concerns um and you know we've got i've got a list of things right here that are for mitigation purposes uh including how we're advancing an ordinance on residential parking permits but also i'm hoping this can spark a conversation on parking in grand central in general uh the turnover aspects of things um since i've been here there's been like a low hum of like should we have parking meters there should we have parking or maybe should we have two hour parking over the weekends and nights as well when we really are looking for to know turnover and i hope that we can have that conversation going forward uh because i think uh it plays into not just the neighborhood but the uh the business district as well um i think what you know having heard both sides of this issue what really brings me comfort with the changes changes uh particularly around parking is that this is kind of a reversion to what existed when a lot of grand central was developed in the first place and some of the really more popular things uh that are there would not meet our parking requirements as it is and so between that and the way that i've seen other development happen uh so gradually i i don't see a reason why we wouldn't uh make the expansions that we've that were already voted through once uh and i would look for us to have a conversation in the future about some of the other things people have brought up um that are really quite reasonable requests so having said that i guess you know with after getting advised by legal that we should let a sleeping dog lie i'll stop talking okay thank you councilmember cabard thank you madam chair and thank you again everyone for coming out this evening and for your advocacy thank you max for uh sharing the people over pavement coalition letter um just continuing to see that list grow uh gives such hope for the future as we build these coalitions and it's just such a diverse coalition which i think is what really speaks to the voice of what people want to see in our city so thank you for your leadership on that um earlier today i was at the tampa bay regional planning council's resiliency summit down in manatee county with leaders from all over our region uh really working on you know resiliency affordability and how we all move forward as a community together and it struck me that at least two speakers and we're talking about academic speakers we're talking about subject matter experts people in all spaces of land development at least two of them specifically talked about the need for less car centric development as we strive to build more resilient communities at least two of them and everybody knows how i feel about resiliency policy and how important that is for a coastal city and so it just struck me that i was coming back here today just for this vote and that we had two speakers reaffirm for me what i know is right and what we should be doing here today and so you know i get it like every time we do any sort of zoning reform there's always a fear of change from some um you know i i like to refer to it as like the boogeyman like what's going to happen we're making some change what's going to happen and we do understand there can be unintended consequences sometimes but i think that what we have seen is that as we have made some of these really innovative changes the boogeyman hasn't come what instead has happened is we have continued to become a more vibrant city for people and we have increased our housing supply and we have increased our small business opportunities and at basically every turn and even with all of those changes that is still not happening fast enough for some of us the development community has not quite kept up as we have been doing that so um you know i i agree councilmember floyd you know with this being you know the kenwood neighborhood being in your district i completely support you on finding ways to address those parking concerns because whether we do this or not those parking concerns still exist right and so that is the right thing for us to do we should be looking at that as next steps but i don't think it's the right thing for us to do to stop progress and so um i definitely support you know those next conversations along you know the other sides of first avenue north and south those have to be considered uh you know i want to thank uh tara for bringing forward the storm water and the tree canopy both issues that are very dear to me i'd like to see that get wrapped up into whatever next steps happen but um with the downtown and the far question i'll kind of hold those comments because it sounds like council member you are probably going to make a motion to something afterwards so maybe i'll ask those questions then but i do support moving this along and having the consistency and as far as the grand central district goes you know i apologize for not recognizing that we have lost a couple of blocks on there um you know i actually went to grand central's website and pulled up to make sure to see exactly what does grand central include so very much in favor of trying to find some consistency there and so i'm very happy to vote to support this this evening and just continue to keep the momentum moving forward so thank you thank you well you heard a lot of great feedback from every council member um from today and from last time around um the things that were brought up here um in terms of new new things that we can't do today i think they're great ideas too but we have to go through a process um mr hillman obviously he reached out to me i looked at the map and it also doesn't make some of it doesn't make sense but it's also something that has to be thoughtful right and and i think that is the conversation we're going to have so council member gertes obviously you wanted feedback and i agree we need to have that conversation because some of that you we do have to a lot of times do incremental change and and that's just a fact of life and sometimes people want things faster but i think it's the right time to have a conversation um in terms of some of the concerns concerns with parking look historical northeast is in my district and i will tell you a lot of the issues that a lot of neighborhoods don't have i have a lot of benefits and a lot of the headaches with it so to be clear i have complete neighborhoods i have a lot of the things that sometimes in other neighborhoods they're looking for the housing for instance old northeast it's not just single family homes there's apartments in single family in in old northeast there's duplices there are triplexes there's a variety of housing right you don't find that on west side along with that i do have some of the issues with parking right and we had the downtown coming and parking in old northeast this is why you have residential parking permits this is why we're having the conversation because i talked to parking a year ago about it because our residential parking permits are only in certain areas of the city not other areas and i wanted to make sure that we had the tools in our code to deal with these issues when they came because guess what those issues are coming and by the way residential parking permits are found throughout the united states of america in every large city in every place you go that has some growth because you are going to have residential areas and i i understand the residents come say they can't find parking because guess what i had those same issues in crescent lake from the businesses when they have their employees parking on the street and you have a house that had a garage that had a buggy in it and you don't have a garage because it's a 1920 something house and you have to park in the street and then you have to park two or three and not everybody can ride a bike i mean that's just the fact and so these are considerations we all have to take in a in a city with people that have different needs and different situations and so you have those tensions that happen in the very active quarters with businesses with neighborhoods it's a good thing to have because the reality is and i think it's been mentioned by by other council members people tend their their behavior changes meaning when you start having more activity in your area and you have restaurants that are in your area guess what happens you end up going less to other places you end up going less to downtown because you have something closer to you and so there is a difference in migration in terms of how people go let me tell you i hear a lot of people in my district they used to go to downtown they just don't want to go because of whatever traffic it's too busy whatever that just happens and some still do but then you have people living in downtown so there's always that change so i just you know we got the bike lanes on mlk and there were people that that were like completely against it thought it was going to kill every business in mlk the mlk business district was against it well since then we have golden isles brewery violet stone st st pete running company wildfire ice cream we have all these new businesses you know trips has found out that it's nicer for the people who are eating outside not to have a car going right by you know at 50 miles an hour and the bike lane is a nice buffer so there are all these benefits that you do get from these different changes and what i'm trying to explain is i think like i understand the residential neighborhoods and their issues just like i understand what you all want in terms of what you're looking for with the parking reducing the parking minimums and i think some of those concerns that people have will will not pan out the way they think they will and we do have tools to deal with it if it is a residential parking permit issue because we are talking about that so i just want to kind of put that out there um i i'm not going to repeat what i said last time i i thought there was robust conversation the first time around and um i think at this point uh we're ready for if there is a motion second there's a motion and a second for the ordinance as amended yes for the ordinance as amended clerk you open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing that all present council members have voted it's my fault now clerk please tally announce the vote madam chair motion to approve a j3 as amended passes unanimously with council member harden recuse thank you okay and um mr kilborn chair thank you would it be possible to express some thanks to some of the staff that couldn't be here tonight absolutely you can my plan was definitely to do that as part of the presentation and we skipped it oh no you you could always you can all you want to do a presentation now i'm joking i'm joking no um i i i did want to you know i'm always the the the face that comes and presents these uh applications but there is a whole team of people that is always working behind me at these hearings and two two people that i really wanted to start off with tonight was mike hernandez who is our gis person he's traveling in montreal this week um go sabers but i'm sure he's having a great time up there mike handles all of our mapping so any of the maps that you see the different buffers uh and things that we're trying to show you are all generated uh through mike hernandez the other person who's been really integral to this particular application and process is darius taylor in our marketing department the website that we use to maintain the sharing of information darius taylor is our contact and he turns that information around really fast as you've noticed if you're following the sunrunner um tod website our legal team is amazing they're always helping us answer legal questions um heather and christina have been helping us through whether it's long-range comp plan or short-range ldr text and also michael dima had deep roots in this process you know we've been at this for a number of years and so um he's also been an important part of what you were working on here today our planning team uh you know corey malishka runs our zoning office and our planning team whether you're working directly on these packages or you're just supporting everybody in the office is really important to us helping move these things along uh briton wilson is our liaison to ford pinellis obviously a package like this has a lot of engagement with ford pinellis the countywide rules the special area planning it can get confusing for us and we do this every day and that's an important link liz abernethi who's retired um also had an integral part of this and the ford pinellis team themselves up at the county so i don't always get to thank these people they um work really hard at what we do and they don't always get to be here in the office and i also don't want to forget but our housing team came to back us up tonight as well so mark vanloo and and avery's in the back room they were here to answer any questions you might have asked about housing and affordability as well so it was really important to me to just thank that team and i appreciate you giving me the floor to do that thank you well i appreciate thank you and i appreciate you actually did that because i will tell you it shows everyone what a huge team of professionals has been working to get us to the finish line and it doesn't go unnoticed by the way thank you because i have to tell you derek you're so detailed thorough and logical in terms of how you manage all these pieces and i've you not just do it here but i've seen you at at neighborhood meetings and how you explain things in a way something that's extremely complicated and explain it in such an easy way it's so appreciated because it you can get lost between the comprehensive plan and amending this map and the hearing and you have to go to public you know to public and all this stuff that has to literally happen it's not like we just show up and we can go ahead and make changes you know and do things there is a huge process and then you keep track of all the changes that happen at the state level that we have to deal with more so recently and legal has to do that more so recently right and kind of implement that so um it's very much appreciated um and also appreciating the people that are not here in the room with us today we acknowledge their work in this too yes and all the stakeholder feedback is critically critically important to um how these things come to you uh we don't have all the answers and it's really important that that feedback loop exists and i'll close by saying i do have an answer to a question that came up today in the discussion of course you do there was a really funny comment at the public hearing last month about bicycle racks being added to the front of city hall uh evan mori and the transportation team did coordinate to have an extra bike rack installed for the meeting today and i know evan was watching the meeting because i i was asking him you know did you coordinate this and he said he was watching and that their team did do that so uh thank you to that team as well evan mori to the rescue thank you thank you okay um council member girdus thank you madam chair um okay it sounds like maybe it should go to committee because it sounds like there's a couple of things that want to be added and conversations want to be had um i'm seeing nods like i yeah i mean i don't want to hash it all out today no i don't want to hash it out either today but it's not as simple as just far across across the board okay all right so uh uh how's the hlut schedule don't want to meet oh yeah sorry i'm busy yeah starts with an h uh uh busy like i mean i couldn't tell you off the top of my head i know we were booked out at least next month and then probably the month after yeah which means june and july august yeah well staff needs time also too yeah no i understand uh i'll i'll wait for council member gabbard's comments well i am the chair of hers and so we were actually trying to figure out what we were going to take up for our july meeting and we don't have anything that is pressing right now so i know that's not technically you just said it was i mean it's a relevant it is there you go see so i would be glad to put that in hers if that's okay works for me is that enough time derek would july be okay for a conversation yeah we'll figure it out okay of course all right so uh i'd motion to move a discussion on uh initiating a new package relevant to the sun runner tod overlay to hers second are you you want to comment on this are you yeah okay council member if it was related to this on both committee i want to make sure council member driscoll because if it's going to hers then i want to talk about bioswales and yeah canopies yeah stormwater all the things yeah you you want to amend your motion and just no no no that's okay because it's a general it's a general initiation package of all tod but are you are you are you wanting to have that city-wide conversation or are you are you okay with just having it based on the tod for now let's call the tod an example with what could happen um like sort of a test case that would then be expanded our city is very different as you go throughout so not everything is a perfect fit everywhere yeah but we start you got to start somewhere so we can start with this but with a my an eye toward um city-wide application where it's appropriate i'm all in favor of having sorry chair i'm all in favor of having that conversation just transparently i know that is a much deeper conversation and so as long as the expectation is we move something out of hers during that conversation whether we keep that on the referral list or not i want to move something out i think that i i just want to i want to communicate clearly because i don't have a vote in that committee let's start it all together and then it can yeah that's that and it can go perfect in the directions that those things need to go perfect i'm all about that all right cool thank you madam chair okay okay we have a motion a second clerk if you can open the machine for voting council members please enter your votes seeing that all present council members have voted clerk please tally announce the vote madam chair i want you to approve the referral to hers passes unanimously with council member harding being absent great thank you well thank you everyone for being here and for all your work on this and thank you derek and team thank you okay next up we have open forum do we have any speakers yes madam chair we do have some speakers here yeah i'll let them walk out and then we'll take the speakers maybe we don't have any speakers no yeah you got at least one i do have to call the names um sherry riley and alexis balash i think they're gone uh kathy harrelson please go to either podium state your name and address across street for the record you'll have three minutes to address city council i thought open forum was the first thing let me just say one word about these chairs cushions anyway uh good to see you all yeah this was really eye-opening i knew that tara and sherry were working on this and uh you know it was not give your name oh sorry kathy harrelson uh 32nd ave and 26th street north sure and by the way um just to say the next quarter 28th street just saying um but i'm not here to talk about that but the green i'm going to call it green infrastructure that you all have been bringing up is the reason i'm here i went to the i've been to a couple of the uh geobond discussions and i firmly agree we need gray infrastructure upgrades certainly however it was disappointing to note that nowhere in that was green infrastructure included and you know there are 700 cities in the u.s that are doing a combination of green and gray infrastructure there are many in florida uh miami-dade uh brazilian broward sarasota i mean there tampa we our very own county actually has some green infrastructure um on the books currently and so and by that i'm talking about we we've talked about we never met a bios whale we didn't like there's that there certainly is protecting uh our i wouldn't even necessarily say it has to be old growth unless we define what old means but let's not do that right now um but i think what we need to do is recognize that we need those things not now but what was the expression somebody brought up actually it has to do with the tree best time to plant a tree 20 years ago second best time today well you know the ship's about to sail and i do mean sail because water is rising so it's time to do this now and to do this geobond without having had any public input any you know we disbanded urban forestry why we need a green infrastructure group that literally uh brings that in to the infrastructure projects that we have going on and i'd like to start since we talked about overlay with an overlay for the entire area of the city that is not in the coastal high hazard area that gives a it's a defined area and it actually keeping water there longer the one inch for example um actually alleviates the pressure on the coastal areas not to mention the fact that we've talked about mangroves being actual trees um put those in the bay as as a protection against surge so i know it's late but this thing's coming to us and we're supposed to just vote on it but this was why wasn't this in there i thank you thanks any other speakers okay now we go to announcements council member gabbard thank you rob can i just ask about kathy's comment that we disbanded urban forestry i'm not i'm not sure what she's referring to exactly so okay yeah if you could look into that for us that would be great like to know so oh she's talking about the public uh input committee yeah the advisory committee so yeah if you could uh let city council know that'd be great thank you okay council member driscoll thank you um i have teamed up with the innovation district to host a fundraiser to help out the usf college of marine science and the florida institute of oceanography recover from the devastating fire um just decided we we can get together and and try to raise some money to help them out it doesn't fix every it doesn't fix everything but everything helps um if you can come out and join us it's four to seven at the maritime and defense technology hub we have um food and beverages pachugo gelato said they're bringing their cart out to hand out gelato to everybody um the ocean road band is playing uh we've got sponsors for two artists um alissa marie and zulu painter who will be out there doing live painting of marine themed pieces that we'll be auctioning off people have been coming out of the woodwork asking how they can help and i'll tell you um the fundraising has been really successful leading up to tomorrow and we plan to bring in a lot more and we also plan to just raise a glass to our marine science friends so i hope everyone can join us great thank you that's wonderful thank you council member girdus thank you madam chair uh we have some birthdays this weekend uh kim amos's birthday is may 16th so is tom green's and then claude tankersley is the 17th it's a busy weekend in city hall so uh we'll sing happy birthday happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday kim todd claude happy birthday to you thank you very much madam chair thank you council member gabbard thank you madam chair and as i mentioned earlier i was at the tampa bay regional planning council's resiliency summit earlier today i'll be back there tomorrow for day two and i just wanted to give a couple of shout outs we had some great presentations um i had a moderated panel that i led and our very own alison barlow who is now getting a second mention um she was on that panel and it was all about uh workforce and uh economic development around the resiliency space and future technologies and she did a phenomenal job and then claude tankersley was also on a panel called um beyond the grants how to fund resiliency uh projects and so both of them did a fantastic job saint pete was well represented and tomorrow is another great day so um we had the sierra club there there were a couple of neighborhood representatives from st petersburg so you all would have been very very proud thank you madam chair well thank you for your work okay i think that's everything well i think we made pretty decent time considering the agenda i want to thank by sheer floyd for covering for me earlier i enjoyed it it and with well you you i hope so because you know your future uh with that said meeting adjourned